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Presented  to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 
LIBRARY 

by  the 

ONTARIO  LEGISLATIVE 
LIBRARY 

1980 


BLACKWOOD'S 


MAGAZINE. 


VOL.   LXXVIII. 


JULY— DECEMBER,  1855. 


WILLIAM  BLACKWOOD  &  SONS,  EDINBURGH; 


37  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON. 


1855. 


AP 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH     MAGAZINE 


No.  CCCCLXXVII. 


JULY,  1855. 


VOL.  LXXVIII, 


THE   IMPERIAL  POLICY   OF   RUSSIA. 


PART  I. 


WE  read  a  short  time  ago  among 
the  town  and  country  talk  of  a 
weekly  paper,  "  An  eminent  house- 
breaker, having  completed  the  term 
of  his  imprisonment,  applied  to  the 
Grimsby  magistrates  to  have  his 
skeleton  keys  and  other  professional 
tools  given  up  to  him."  After  laugh- 
ing at  the  title  of  eminence  as  applied 
to  a  burglar,  being  a  character  not 
famed  for  the  possession  of  the  car- 
dinal virtues,  the  thought  struck  us 
that,  comparing  great  things  with 
small,  the  demand  of  Kussia  to  keep 
up  an  undiminished  force  in  the  Black 
Sea  after  the  conclusion  of  peace, 
which  occasioned  the  breaking  up  of 
the  Vienna  conferences,  was  very 
much  of  the  same  description.  Sup- 
posing a  peace  to  have  been  patched 
up,  Kussia  might  have  been  said  to 
have  completed  the  term  of  her  im- 
prisonment, her  ships  of  war  and 
offensive  stores  at  Sebastopol  being 
considered  as  her  professional  tools, 
her  cannon  and  mortars  as  the  skele- 
ton keys  which  she  would  use  to  pick 
the  lock  of  the  Ottoman  Porte ;  and 
which,  honest  in  a  sense  at  last  when 
brought  to  bay,  she  naively  declares 


her  determination  to  use  with  greater 
precaution  and  better  luck  next  time. 
The  difference  in  the  cases  is,  and 
that  not  altogether  an  unimportant 
one,  that  the  Grimsby  magistrates 
had  got  possession  of  the  tools  of  their 
eminent  practitioner ;  while  we  have 
shut  up  ours,  tools  and  all,  and  are  even 
now  employing  efforts  the  most  forci- 
ble, with  some  doubtfulness  of  issue, 
to  get  his  tools  from  him;  for  he 
clings  to  them  like  grim  Death,  and 
will  cling  to  them  to  all  appearance 
until  he  is  fairly  caught  by  the  throat 
and  choked  off. 

Now,  supposing  that  our  Grimsby 
friend  wanted  to  prove  himself,  in 
Jack  Sheppard  phrase,  as  innocent 
as  the  babe  unborn  after  his  false 
imprisonment,  what  do  we  suppose 
that  he  would  say  ?  He  would  pro- 
bably say  that  he  had  been  drinking 
with  some  friend,  name  unknown ;  had 
slightly  exceeded,  and  in  consequence 
lost  his  way  ;  strayed  upon  a  gentle- 
man's lawn,  and  tumbled  up  against 
his  library  shutters,  when  he  was 
caught  by  Lion  and  the  butler ;  and 
he  would  account  for  the  possession 
of  the  queer  things  found  in  his 


SCHLOSSER'S  Geschiclite  des  Iftten  und  des  I9ten  Jahrhunderts. 
KARAMSIN.     Histoire  de  Russie. 
Histoire  de  Russie.    Bibliotheque  de  Lille. 
TOURGUENEFF.     La  Russie  et  les  Russes. 
VOLTAIRE.    Pierre  le  Grand. 
VOL.  LXXVIII. — KO.  CCCCLXXVII. 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


[July, 


pocket,  by  supposing  that  the  anony- 
mous friend  had  put  them  there 
without  his  knowledge,  finding  their 
possession  tended  to  compromise  his 
own  character.  He  would  surely  not 
claim  them  as  his  property,  far  less 
to  have  them  restored,  thus  owning 
himself  not  only  guilty  in  reference 
to  the  past,  but  impenitent  in  refer- 
ence to  the  future. 

And  suppose  that  Russia  had  wish- 
ed to  prove  herself  innocent,  through 
her  mouthpiece  Prince  Gortchakoff, 
of  burglarious  intentions  with  respect 
to  Turkey,  what  would  she  have  said 
to  the  wiseacres  of  Vienna?  She 
would  have  said  something  of  this  kind 
—Gentlemen,  you  do  me  cruel  wrong 
by  suspecting  that  I  am  actuated  by 
any  selfish  motives  of  aggrandisement 
against  Turkey,  by  imputing  any 
other  motive  to  me  in  recent  transac- 
tions than  a  laudable  desire  to  rescue 
oppressed  Christianity  from  the  deli- 
rious grip  of  the  sick  man — sick  even 
unto  death — who,  notwithstanding  his 
weakness,  seems  to  possess  some  un- 
accountable and  probably  superna- 
tural power  of  wrong-doing;  but 
notwithstanding  that  you  do  me  cruel 
wrong  in  suspecting  my  motives,  I 
am  willing  to  prove  the  purity  of  my 
intentions,  if  not  by  quite  allowing 
you  to  draw  my  teeth  and  cut  off  my 
claws,  at  all  events  by  promising  to 
keep  the  former  to  myself  and  not 
allowing  the  latter  to  grow  any  longer, 
abstaining  at  the  same  time  from 
sharpening  them  as  heretofore  against 
the  nearest  tree.  In  plain  terms,  I 
will  not  build  any  more  ships  of  war 
than  are  just  enough  to  patrol  the 
Black  Sea  as  a  protection  against 
pirates,  to  keep  up  military  communi- 
cations with  Caucasus  and  Georgia, 
and  to  defend  Odessa  against  any 
sudden  freak  of  the  said  sick  man, 
who  appears,  notwithstanding  his 
weakness,  to  be  in  a  normal  state  of 
dangerous  delirium.  By  refusing  all 
concession  to  this  just  demand  of  the 
Allies  to  give  up  the  tools  of  her  bur- 
glarious trade,  or  even  to  abstain 
from  increasing  their  number,  she  at 
once  proclaims  definitely  and  distinctly 
that  her  object  is  to  have  Constan- 
tinople by  fair  means  or  foul ;  and  in 
pursuance  of  this  object,  with  the 
spirit  of  Hamlet,  to  "  make  a  ghost 
of  him  that  lets"  her.  For  what  else 


should  Russia  want  with  a  great  fleet 
in  the  Black  Sea,  or  with  the  fortifi- 
cations of  Sebastopol?  It  is  plain 
that,  if  she  had  not  looked  to  enlarg- 
ing her  territory  to  the  south,  even 
when  the  first  stone  of  Sebastopol 
was  laid,  she  would  have  made  of  it 
not  a  military  so  much  as  a  commer- 
cial port. 

There  would  have  been  some  sense 
in  building  an  impregnable  Gibraltar 
near  the  heart  of  her  territory,  or  as, 
in  the  case  of  our  own  Mediterranean 
fortresses,  on  the  high-road  to  out- 
lying possessions ;  but  there  is  only 
one  evident  purpose  for  which  Sebas- 
topol was  built — namely,  the  shelter 
of  an  aggressive  fleet.  Its  place  on 
the  map  is  enough  to  condemn  it. 
It  is  just  placed  so  that  from  it  a  blow 
could  be  struck  most  quickly  and 
effectively  on  the  vital  parts  of  Turkey, 
and  the  fleet  that  had  struck  the  blow 
most  quickly  and  readily  withdraw 
into  shelter  before  the  avenger  came. 
Such  a  blow  was  struck  at  Sinope — 
might  have  been  struck  at  Stamboul 
instead,  if  the  allied  fleet  had  lingered 
a  little  longer  outside  the  Bosphorus. 
It  was  the  recognition,  on  a  large 
scale,  of  a  principle  applied  on  a  small 
one  in  the  art  of  self-defence,  to  spring 
quickly  to  the  guard  after  having 
struck  the  punishing  blow,  and  not  to 
overbalance  the  body  by  the  effort,  so 
as  Jo  open  it  to  the  blow  of  the  adver- 
sary in  return.  It  is  a  wonder  that 
there  ever  was  any  mistake  about  the 
meaning  of  Sebastopol.  Russia  might 
have  found  a  better  excuse  for  Bomar- 
sund.  She  might  have  said  that 
Bomarsund  was  an  outwork  of  Cron- 
stadt,  and  that  she  was  strengthen- 
ing it  against  some  contingent  coali- 
tion of  the  three  nations  of  maritime 
Scandinavia  ;  a  coalition  not  alto- 
gether improbable  at  any  time,  and 
which  we  should  think  at  present 
highly  desirable. 

But  how  could  she  be  menaced 
through  the  Crimea  ?  Any  force  in- 
vading her,  and  making  for  St  Peters- 
burg, would  surely  not  begin  there, 
nor  would  any  nation  build  a  first- 
class  fortification  to  protect  a  pretty 
little  district  of  summer  residence  and 
sea-bathing.  We  should  not  think  it 
worth  while  to  build  a  Sebastopol  at 
the  Needles,  even  though  Majesty 
herself  honours  the  Isle  of  Wight  by 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


3 


making  it  a  temporary  residence.  It 
was  always  plain  enough  that  Sebas- 
topol  was  built  against  Constantin- 
ople, just  as  much  as  Decelea  was 
built  against  Athens  in  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  War.  It  is  singular  how  little, 
for  a  long  time — how  little,  in  fact, 
till  this  war  broke  out — Europe  seemed 
aware  of  this  fact.  That  word,  now 
in  everybody's  mouth,  full  of  hope  and 
fear  and  anxiety  to  all,  to  some  of 
triumph  or  of  life-long  sorrow,  was  a 
word  hardly  ever  heard  before,  even 
among  educated  people.  How  many 
of  us  knew  of  the  existence  of  Sebasto- 
pol  at  all?  Probably  some  of  us  just 
knew  so  much  about  it,  that,  had 
they  been  asked  where  it  was,  they 
would  have  said  it  was  a  place  some- 
where in  Southern  Russia. 

The  Black  Sea  being  sealed  to  our 
fleets  in  time  of  peace,  it  fell  under 
the  cognisance  of  none  but  chance 
travellers.  Our  fighting  sailors — a 
thinking  and  reading  set  of  men,  who 
commit  their  observations  on  both 
hemispheres  to  paper  in  so  interesting  a 
manner — never  went  near  it ;  and  our 
commercial  sailors  went  no  nearer 
than  Odessa;  and  when  they  went 
there,  their  time  was  probably  too 
much  .taken  up  with  business  to  allow 
of  their  feeling  much  curiosity  about 
Sebastopol.  So  this  place,  being  well 
out  of  the  way,  was  generally  forgot- 
ten, until,  by  the  attack  on  Sinope,  it 
reminded  the  world  of  its  presence  in 
a  manner  so  peculiarly  disagreeable. 

The  case  Of  Corfu,  or  Corcyra,  on 
the  outskirts  of  Greece,  growing  in 
darkness  into  a  power  dangerous  to 
its  neighbours,  and  overlooked  till  its 
misdoings  precipitated  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  War,  was  precisely  similar  in 
ancient  times.  It  was  of  this  nest  of 
pirates  that  the  Corinthian  envoy 
said  in  his  speech  before  the  Athenian 
assembly:  "The  independent  posi- 
tion of  their  city,  in  case  of  their 
wronging  any  one,  enables  them  to  be 
the  judges  of  their  own  case,  and  pre- 
cludes fair  arbitration,  since  they, 
least  of  any,  sail  out  to  visit  their 
neighbours,  and  more  than  all  others 
are  made  the  unsought  hosts  of 
strangers,  who  are  driven  to  them  by 
stress  of  some  kind.  And  this  being 
their  habit,  they  make  a  specious  pre- 
tence of  objecting  to  alliances,  on  the 
ground  that  they  do  not  wish  to  join 


others  in  wrong,  but  really  object  that 
they  may  have  the  wrong-doing  all  to 
themselves, — that  they  may  carry  mat- 
ters with  a  high  hand  where  they  are 
strong  enough  •,  and  where  they  are 
not,  but  can  escape  notice,  take  ad- 
vantage of  others  in  other  ways ;  and 
also  that  they  may  the  more  easily 
brazen  out  the  matter,  when  they  have 
been  successful  in  any  annexation. 
And  yet,  if  they  had  really  been  honest 
people,  as  they  say  they  are,  just  in 
proportion  as  they  were  less  subject 
to  the  attacks  of  their  neighbours,  had 
they  an  opportunity  of  displaying  a 
more  conspicuous  example  of  virtue, 
by  giving  and  taking  what  was  just 
and  right."  The  sense  of  these  words, 
if  not  the  words  themselves,  would 
exactly  apply  in  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries  to  the  undermin- 
ing and  encroaching  policy  of  Russia, 
and  especially  those  encroachments 
carried  on  in  that  corner  of  the  Black 
Sea  which  was  always  reputed  by 
the  ancients  as  one  of  the  most  out-of- 
the-way  places  in  the  world.  Now, 
although  this  encroaching  policy  of 
Russia  has  been  evident  all  along  to 
far-sighted  men,  she  has  endeavoured 
until  now,  by  various  means,  to  keep 
it  out  of  sight.  If,  at  the  Vienna 
conferences,  she  had  consented  to  the 
limitation  of  the  number  of  her  ships 
of  war,  this  would  have  been  scarcely 
a  guarantee  for  her  good  behaviour, 
for  she  might  have  augmented  them 
in  secret  at  the  first  opportunity,  and 
taken  the  chance  of  Europe  finding  it 
out  or  not.  However,  whether  en- 
couraged by  the  defence  of  Sebastopol, 
by  the  self-disparagement  of  the  Eng- 
lish press,  or  by  the  chance  of  the 
alliance  being  broken  by  the  assassi- 
nation of  Louis  Napoleon,  the  attempt 
at  which  certainly  took  place  under 
circumstances  of  great  mystery,  she 
has  chosen  to  throw  off  the  mask,  and, 
by  refusing  to  keep  her  means  of  de- 
fence within  bounds,  she  has  declared, 
in  a  manner  intelligible  to  the  most 
obtuse,  the  nature  of  her  intentions. 

We  propose  in  these  papers  to  select 
certain  points  in  Russian  history  which 
illustrate  this  now  unconcealed  policy 
of  encroachment  and  aggression,  at 
the  same  time  endeavouring  to  fix  the 
blame  on  the  right  party,  by  showing 
in  what  element  of  the  constitution 
the  spirit  of  aggrandisement  may  be 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


[July, 


supposed  chiefly  to  reside,  which  will 
naturally  lead  to  our  attempting, 
though  we  confess  the  task  a  bold  one, 
to  show  what  limits  must  be  fixed, 
and  what  guarantees  taken,  to  make 
any  treaty  sincere,  and  any  peace  du- 
rable. We  have  spoken  of  the  Rus- 
sian constitution,  not  unadvisedly.  A 
constitution  may  exist  in  fact  though 
not  in  theory.  Though  the  theory  of 
the  Russian  government  is  a  pure  au- 
tocracy, yet  a  French  writer  has  said 
that  it' is  limited  by  assassination ;  and 
if  so,  there  must  be  a  person  or  per- 
sons to  assassinate,  and  he  or  they 
must  be  considered  a  fact  in  the  con- 
stitution ;  and  if  a  monarch  be  never 
so  absolute,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  he  is  relative  to  those  he  rules, 
and  that  he  rules  because  they  choose 
quietly  to  submit  themselves  ;  and  in 
doing  so,  they  exercise  an  act  of  pri- 
vate judgment,  as  those  Protestants 
who  bow  their  necks  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  of  the  most  emphatic  descrip- 
tion. Where  the  physical  force  of 
society  is  stronger  than  the  individual 
slave,  as  in  America,  the  slave  cannot 
be  taken  as  an  element  in  the  consti- 
tution ;  but  where  slaves  possess  the 
full  power  to  be  slaves  or  not  as  they 
please,  as  must  be  the  case  where  they 
are  sixty  millions,  and  the  master 
is  only  one,  it  would  be  treating  them 
with  great  disrespect  not  to  consider 
them  as  exercising  one  at  least  most 
powerful  act  of  free  will,  and  as  being 
in  fact,  if  not  in  theory,  a  most  im- 
portant element  in  the  constitution  of 
a  country.  We  may  thus  then,  in 
fact,  consider  the  present  constitution 
of  Russia,  quite  as  much  as  that  of  this 
country,  as  three- fold.  We  have  the 
monarch  who  rules,  the  courtiers  who 
assassinate,  and  the  serfs  who  obey. 
But  the  constitution  of  Russia  has  been 
what  it  is  for  little  more  than  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half,  since  the  time  that 
Peter  the  Great  effected  his  So-called 
reforms.  Before  that  time,  the  nobles 
and  landed  proprietors  were  a  strong 
body  in  the  state,  and  the  military 
organisation  was  in  a  great  measure 
feudal.  In  many  cases,  certainly,  the 
monarch  was  practically  absolute,  arid 
occasionally  able  to  exercise  a  tyranny 
of  the  worst  description ;  but  this  state 
of  things  depended  on  the  character 
of  the  individual  monarch  :  there"  was 
not,  as  now,  a  fixed  state-machinery 


which  perpetuated  a  pure  despotism, 
and  forced  a  rod  of  iron  into  the  hands 
of  every  ruler,  whatever  his  inclination, 
to  wield  it.  It  is  right,  however,  to 
state,  that  the  establishment  of  the 
autocracy  in  Russia  is  originally  as- 
cribed by  Karamsin,  a  native  historian, 
to  the  temporary  subjugation  of  that 
country  by  the  hordes  of  Genghis 
Khan  and  theTartar  princes — a  visita- 
tion which  was  attended  with  every 
kind  of  calamity,  the  effects  of  which 
were  permanently  felt,  and  from  which 
Russia  rose  again,  indeed,  but  no 
longer  with  the  same  face  or  features 
as  before.  Her  old  civilisation  was 
gone,  her  freedom  and  self-respect  had 
passed  away  with  it ;  her  spirit  was 
broken;  her  religion,  indeed,  adopted 
from  Greek  Constantinople,  remained, 
but  debased  into  bigotry,  and  ready 
for  use  as  a  corrupt  instrument  of 
dynastic  corruption.  She  had  ceased 
to  be  European,  and  had  become 
Asiatic,  which  she  has  remained,  in 
great  part,  in  spite  of  Peter,  ever 
since.  If  it  was  not  yet  true  that 
autocracy  was  established  as  a  prin- 
ciple, the  people  were  at  all  events 
ready  to  receive  it,  and  a  nation  of 
slaves  called  out  with  impatience  for 
a  tyrant  to  put  his  foot  on  their  necks. 
Their  prayer  was  granted  to  the  full 
in  that  incarnation  of  superhuman  evil, 
Ivan  IV.,  or  the  Terrible.  From  him 
and  his  successors  they  were  handed 
over  into  the  abler  hands  of  Peter,  the 
son  of  Alexis,  who,  not  satisfied,  like 
Ivan,  with  reposing  in  simple  wicked- 
ness, thought  that  he  saw  in  the  ultra- 
submissive  dispositions  of  his 'subjects 
the  instruments  of  achieving  world- 
wide dominion.  On  the  other  side  of 
this  dark  cloud  of  Tartar  dominion, 
we  look  back,  according  to  the  native 
historians,  on  a  sunny  distance  of 
peace,  and  wealth,  and  light,  and 
happiness — a  Sclavonian  golden  age — 
such  as  we  read  of  in  story  and  fable 
as  existing  when  King  Arthur  ruled 
England,  and  Ireland  was  still  the  Isle 
of  Saints.  "  There  was  a  time,"  say 
they,  "  when  Russia,  formed  and  ele- 
vated by  the  singleness  of  the  sovereign 
authority,  yielded  not  in  strength  or 
civilisation  to  any  of  the  first-rate 
powers  formed  by  the  Germanic  tribes 
on  the  ruins  of  the  Western  Empire. 
Having  the  same  character,  the  same 
laws,  the  same  customs,  the  same 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


political  institutions  as  those  which 
had  their  origin  with  the  early  Vare- 
gues  or  Normans,  she  naturally  took 
up  her  position  in  the  new-born  Euro- 
pean system  with  real  titles  to  a  high 
consideration,  and  with  the  rare  advan- 
tage of  having  undergone  the  influ- 
ence of  Greece,  the  only  power  which, 
though  occasionally  shaken,  was  never 
overturned  by  the  waves  of  barbarism 
which  swept  over  Europe  in  those 
days.  The  happiest  part  of  this  period 
was  the  reign  of  Jaroslav  the  Great. 
Russia  then,  never  in  the  possession 
of  pure  religion  and  public  order,  had 
schools,  laws,  an  important  commerce, 
a  numerous  army,  a  fleet,  singleness 
of  administration,  yet  civil  liberty. 
And  this  was  at  the  beginning  of 
the  eleventh  century,  when  Europe 
was  the  scene  of  feudal  tyranny,  of 
the  weakness  of  sovereigns,  the  inso- 
lence of  barons,  the  slavery  of  the 
many,  and,  with  these,  of  utter  super- 
stition and  ignorance.  In  that  dark- 
ness the  genius  of  an  Alfred  and  a 
Charlemagne  shone  out,  but  soon  dis- 
appeared. They  passed  away  with 
their  beneficent  institutions  and  bene- 
volent intentions,  leaving  their  names 
alone.  Alas  for  us  1  The  dark  shadow 
of  barbarism,  as  it  drew  a  veil  over 
the  horizon  of  Russia,  took  from  us 
the  light  of  Europe,  just  at  the  time 
when  intelligence  began  to  spread 
itself  abroad,  when  the  peoples  began 
to  emancipate  themselves  from  slavery, 
when  the  towns  began  to  contract  mu- 
tual alliances  as  a  guarantee  against 
oppression,  when  the  discovery  of  the 
compass  extended  commerce  and  na- 
vigation, when  universities  began  to 
be  founded,  and  men's  manners  to 
soften  and  to  sweeten.  What  was 
our  fate  then  ?  Russia,  oppressed  and 
torn  to  pieces  by  the  Mongols,  was 
obliged  to  strain  every  nerve  to  pre- 
vent her  life  from  becoming  extinct. 
It  was  not  for  Russia  a  question  of 
civilisation,  or  barbarism,  but  of  ex- 
istence or  annihilation."  *  Such  is  the 
melancholy  and  somewhat  apologetic 
tone  in  which  native  historians  speak 
of  the  Tartarisation  of  Russia.  We 
may  easily  believe  them  as  to  the  dis- 
mal fact  and  its  effects,  of  which  we 
see  abundant  evidence  even  now ;  we 
may  be  more  sceptical  as  to  the  sunny 


golden  age  said  to  have  preceded  the 
irruptions  of  the  barbarians.  Such  a 
national  calamity,  like  the  great  fire 
at  Wolf's  Crag,  may  be  a  convenient 
way  of  accounting  for  the  disappear- 
ance of  a  splendour  that  never  exist- 
ed at  all.  However,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  these  Tartar 
invasions  had  a  very  great  influence 
in  altering  for  the  worse  the  character 
of  the  Russians.  We  may  judge  of 
this  by  reference  to  old  notices  of  the 
wild  races  from  whom  the  mass  ot 
them  descended.  It  is  with  nations 
as  with  streams  ;  when  the  river  has 
flowed  for  some  distance,  its  identity 
is  easy  enough  to  prove,  at  every  step ; 
its  character  and  course  is  determin- 
ed ;  but  when  you  go  up  to  the  spring- 
heads, it  is  hard  to  say  which  little 
source,  out  of  so  many,  has  a  right  to 
bear  the  high-sounding  name  of  the 
great  Rhone,  or  Rhine,  or  Danube,  to 
which  it  contributes.  Some  of  the 
little  tributaries  have  no  visible  origin 
but  damp  moss  and  grass,  from  which 
the  collected  moisture  trickles  when 
it  reaches  a  slope;  some  of  them  come 
out  mysteriously  from  under  the  ca- 
verns of  glaciers,  and  thus  will  not 
allow  the  nakedness  of  their  birth  to 
be  beheld.  So  it  is  with  nearly  all  ot 
those  mighty  nations  which  now  hold 
in  their  hands  the  destinies  of  Europe 
and  of  the  world.  When  the  foun- 
tains have  been  ascertained  from 
which  we  spring,  it  is  hard  to  say 
which  best  deserves  to  bear  the  na- 
tional name ;  but  in  most  cases  the 
fountains  are  hard  of  access  as  those 
of  the  Nile  and  Niger,  and  the  won- 
drous perseverance  of  the  antiquarian 
is  tasked  in  the  one  case  as  much  as 
the  heroic  fortitude  of  the  discoverer 
in  the  other.  To  judge  from  the  ac- 
counts of  historians,  the  European 
world  was  visited  at  the  decline  of  the 
Roman  Empire  by  troops  of  spectres, 
each  more  horrible  than  the  last,  who 
crowded  one  upon  another,  innumer- 
able as  the  shadows  which  passed  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  the  mortal  adventurer 
in  the  Hades  of  Homer  or  the  Inferno 
of  Dante,  coming  and  going  in  such 
guise  as  to  leave  doubts  as  to  their 
reality,  though  none  as  to  their  hide- 
ousuess — doubts  which  may  have  re- 
mained as  of  the  reality  of  the  figures 


TOUKGUENEFF,  La  Russle  et  les  Russes. 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


[July, 


of  nightmare,  but  for  the  unmistak- 
able signs  they  left  of  their  unhallow- 
ed presence  5  for,  like  the  locusts  of 
Scripture  in  their  passage,  the  laud 
may  have  been  as  the  garden  of  Eden 
before  them,  while  behind  them  was 
nothing  left  but  expiring  embers,  ex- 
piring Jives,  a  howling  wilderness  of 
misery  and  desolation.  These  spec- 
tres were  called  Goths,  Huns,  Alans, 
Avars,  Bulgarians,  Slavonians,  and 
by  many  other  names.  On  nearer 
insight,  some  of  the  horror  attached  to 
them  passed  off.  They  were  men, 
after  all,  some  of  them  of  ancient  no- 
bility and  rude  virtues,  some  not  en- 
tirely destitute  of  gentleness,  but  all 
fiercely  hungry.  When  their  hunger 
was  sated — when  they  became  men  of 
property,  as  would  happen  to  many  of 
our  own  outcasts,  if  they  had  the 
same  opportunity — they  became  not 
nnfrequently  what  we  should  call  re- 
spectable members  of  society.  They 
married  and  were  given  in  marriage 
with  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  these 
degenerate  peoples  ended  with  con- 
sidering the  barbarians  their  betters, 
and  themselves  rather  honoured  than 
otherwise  by  such  alliances.  For  one 
thing  only  was  wanted  to  show  which 
were  the  nobler  races,  and  this  was 
soon  acquired  from  the  conquered — 
Christianity.  A  mawkish  and  effete 
civilisation  the  conquerors  would  not 
take  from  them,  and  they  preferred 
becoming  civil  by  degrees  much  in 
their  own  way.  Now,  although  many 
races  must  have  contributed  to  the 
population  of  Muscovy,  or  Russia 
Proper,  by  the  concurrent  testimony 
of  her  principal  writers,  the  base  of  the 
Russian  nation  is  Sclavonic.  This 
name,  said  to  be  derived  from  "  Sclava," 
"  Glory,"  would  indicate  the  self- 
chosen  appellation  of  a  conquering 
tribe,to  distinguish  themselves  from  the 
conquered;  just  as  the  German  tribes, 
which  overran  Gaul,  called  themselves 
theFranks — noble  or  free  men — in  op- 
position to  the  subjected,  who  bore  a 
less  ostentatious  name.  These  ancient 
Sclaves  had,  it  appears,  a  chivalry  of 
their  own,  as  almost  all  conquering 
races  have,  but,  as  we  may  gatherfrom 
the  records,  not  the  exquisite  sense  of 
honour  or  knightly  instincts  which 
distinguished  the  old  Goths  and  Ger- 
mans. They  were  chiefly  deficient  in 
gallantry  towards  women,  whom,  ex- 
cept in  the  matter  of  polygamy,  they 


seem  to  have  esteemed  much  as  the 
Turks,  a  nation  in  many  other  re- 
spects eminently  chivalrous.  This 
deficiency  would  in  itself  point  to 
Tartar  affinities,  were  it  not  that  the 
Greeks  altogether,  and  Romans  in 
part,  with  all  their  refinement,  were 
as  great  barbarians  in  this  matter  as 
the  Tartars  themselves.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  say  whence  the  Sclaves  origi- 
nally came,  but  at  one  time  their  sway 
extended  from  the  Baltic  and  the 
Elbe  to  theTheiss  and  the  Black  Sea. 
Their  descendants  still  remain  in  Rus- 
sia, Poland,  Bohemia,  Moravia,  Croa- 
tia, Sclavonia  Proper,  Turkey,  and 
Greece.  We  should  suppose,  on  the 
whole,  that  the  Pole  or  the  Croat, 
rather  than  the  Russian,  is  to  be 
taken  as  the  type  of  the  Sclavonic  cha- 
racter. Contemporary  historians  say 
of  the  ancient  Sclaves,  says  Karam- 
sin,  that,  strangers  to  falsehood,  they 
preserved  in  their  manners  the  inno- 
cence of  the  first  age  of  man,  a  thing 
unknown  to  the  Greeks.  Their 
hospitality  was  such  that  every 
traveller  was  a  sacred  being  to  them. 
Every  Sclave,  when  he  left  home, 
left  his  door  open,  to  invite  in 
the  wayfarer  or  the  casual  poor,  and 
he  was  by  law  or  custom  bound  to 
leave  a  supper  out  for  them.  There 
was  no  nation  to  which,  on  account  of 
their  honesty,  travelling  merchants 
resorted  with  greater  pleasure  than  to 
the  Sclaves.  If  they  ever  were  dis- 
honest, it  was  from  excess  of  hospi- 
tality, for  a  poor  man,  who  had  not 
the  wherewithal  to  entertain  a  friend 
on  the  road,  was  allowed  to  steal  what 
he  wanted  for  that  exceptional  pur- 
pose. Nor  are  the  Sclaves  praised 
only  as  honest  men,  but  as  the  hus- 
bands of  honest  women  in  every  sense 
of  the  word.  Indeed,  so  completely 
are  the  wives  devoted  to  their  hus- 
bands, that,  like  the  Indian  widows, 
they  were  accustomed  to  burn  them- 
selves on  their  funeral  piles.  The 
Russian  historian  uncharitably  sup- 
posed this  custom  to  have  had  its 
origin  in  the  wish  to  provide-  a  check 
on  wives  getting  rid  of  their  husbands 
by  unfair  means.  But  the  women,  in 
spite  of  their  devotion,  were  regarded 
as  slaves,  which  circumstance  is  sup- 
posed to  have  arisen  from  the  custom 
of  buying  them  practised  in  those 
barbarous  tribes,  a  custom  still  ob- 
served among  the  Illyrians.  And  we 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Prussia. 


may  further  suspect  that  this  custom 
arose  from  the  scarcity  and  dearness 
of  women,  infanticide  being  a  domes- 
tic institution  of  the  Sclavoniaus  as 
regarded  the  girls,  as  it  is  now  in 
China,  in  the  case  of  families  becom- 
ing too  numerous.  A  still  stranger 
and  more  unnatural  custom  is  hinted 
at — that  of  legal  parricide,  when  the 
parents  became  burdensome — a  cus- 
tom which  derives  some  corroboration 
from  certain  later  passages  of  Kussian 
history.  And  here,  again,  we  are  re- 
minded of  the  customs  of  the  Hin- 
doos. Thus  we  see  that  the  Sclaves 
were  in  many  points  inferior  to  the 
old  Germans ;  but  in  no  point  is  the 
contrast  stronger  than  in  the  matter 
of  cleanliness.  The  Germans,  says 
Tacitus,  were  always  bathing,  while 
the  Sclaves  performed  ablutions,  or 
had  ablutions  performed  on  them,  but 
thrice  in  their  lives  ;  viz.  at  birth,  at 
marriage,  and  after  death.  But  this 
last  statement  may  have  been  a  libel 
of  the  Byzantine  historians,  who  bore 
them  no  good-will.  If  true,  it  must 
have  gone  far  to  nullify  their  vaunted 
hospitality.  There  is  a  strange  story 
quoted  to  show  how  far  advanced  in 
the  arts  of  peace  the  Sclaves  of  the 
Baltic  provinces  had  become,  that  at 
some  early  period  the  Khan  of  the 
Avars,  who  then  happened  to  have  a 
claim  of  conquest  over  them,  having 
sent  for  a  military  contingent,  three 
ambassadors  came  from  that  distant 
region,  bearing  lutes  and  other  instru- 
ments, excusing  their  countrymen  on 
the  plea  that  they  knew  nothing  of 
war,  having  never  seen  or  heard  of 
an  enemy,  and  that  they  were  accus- 
tomed to  pass  their  lives  even  so  far 
north  in  the  style  of  the  gods  of  Epi- 
curus, living  in  every  sense  in  perfect 
harmony.  Whether  the  Khan  of  the 
Avars  admitted  the  excuse,  or  insisted 
in  impressing  those  primeval  members 
of  the  Peace  Society,  we  are  not  in- 
formed. 

From  these  early  notices  may  be 
inferred,  with  probability,  that  the 
Sclaves  were  another  swarm  from 
that  hive  of  nations  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  Caucasus,  which  sent  out 
the  Celts  and  Teutons ;  their  suttees, 
and  legalised  infanticide  and  parricide, 
connect  them  with  the  present  inha- 
bitants of  the  Indian  peninsula ;  their 
dirt  connects  them  with  many  branches 
of  the  human  family.  We  should 


think,  from  all  accounts,  that  the 
Russians  had  most  religiously  ob- 
served this  tradition.  We  heard, 
many  years  ago,  of  a  gentleman  who 
went  on  board  a  Russian  man-of-war, 
driven  into  our  narrow  seas  by  stress  of 
weather,  who  saw  the  crew  breakfast- 
ing by  dipping  lumps  of  sea-biscuit 
into  a  pot  of  rancid  train-oil,  which 
served  for  all  at  once.  Ethnologically, 
however,  little  stress  can  be  laid  on 
such  a  generalisation,  as  cleanliness  is 
certainly  an  artificial  and  not  a  natu- 
ral virtue,  and  as  such  perhaps  the 
rarest  result  of  over-civilised  civilisa- 
tion. That  the  Russians  have  no 
right  to  identify  themselves  with  the 
Sclaves  so  much  as  the  Poles  or  Cro- 
atians  seems  very  evident,  as  their 
features  have  a  strong  Mongolian 
cast  in  general,  and  their  manners 
and  customs,  till  the  time  of  Peter  the 
Great,  were  entirely  Asiatic,  and  have 
remained  so  to  a  great  degree  till  this 
day.  Doubtless  the  gaps  in  the  popu- 
lation which  were  made  by  the  Mon- 
golian inroads  were  filled  in  by  the 
Tartar  element, — not  necessarily  from 
the  conquering  tribes,  but  more  pro- 
bably from  those  who  followed  in 
their  wake,  and  squatted  wherever 
they  found  a  village  without  inhabit- 
ants. This  would  account  for  our 
finding  the  European  power  in  the 
hands  of  a  native  and  not  a  foreign 
dynasty,  when  the  Tartar  storm  had 
blown  over.  We  may  here  observe, 
that  although  the  policy  of  the  Roman- 
offs, which  is  much  the  same  as  that  of 
Imperial  Russia,  has  little  to  do  with 
her  early  history,  yet  it  is  necessary 
to  touch  on  the  events  of  those  an- 
cient times,  in  order  to  show  how  the 
country  became  ripe  to  receive  the 
grafted  system  of  Peter  the  Great. 
Those  Tartar  invasions,  which  must 
be  compared  to  the  periodical  visita- 
tions of  the  Danes  before  their  final 
establishment  in  our  country,  must 
have  produced  a  very  appreciable 
change  in  the  population  of  Russia. 
From  the  time  of  Vassili  Jaroslavitch 
to  that  of  Ivan  Kalita,  says  the  his- 
torian, our  country  was  more  like  a 
bleak  forest  than  a  state.  There  was 
murder  and  robbery  everywhere,  and 
society  was  completely  out  of  joint. 
When  that  terrible  anarchy  began  to 
disappear,  when  the  benumbing  in- 
fluence of  terror  had  ceased  and  the 
law  was  re-established,  it  was  neces- 


8 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


[July, 


sary  for  the  government  to  have 
recourse  to  a  severity  unknown  to 
the  ancient  Russians. 

After  this  period  of  Tartar  devas- 
tation, the  Russian  princes  seem  for 
a  long  time  to  have  reigned  by  the 
sufferance  of  the  Mongol  tribe  which 
happened  to  have  the  upper  hand  in 
their  neighbourhood  :  they  were  tri- 
butaries and  vassals  of  the  Tartar 
leaders,  though  still  powerful  with 
their  own  people.  This  period  was 
not  without  its  importance  politically ; 
the  different  appanages  were  ab- 
sorbed into  one  great  principality, 
and  Moscow  was  fixed  as  the  resi- 
dence of  the  prince,  who  not  yet, 
however,  seems  to  have  been  usually 
called  by  the  title  of  Tsar — a  name, 
it  must  be  observed,  of  Asiatic  origin, 
and  quite  distinct  from  that  of  Caesar 
or  Emperor,  assumed  by  Peter  and 
his  successors  to  assimilate  them  to 
the  monarchs  of  the  Germanic  empire. 
About  the  year  1326  the  metropolitan 
of  Vladimir  transferred  his  see  to 
Moscow,  which  town  being  thus  made 
the  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  the  civil 
capital,  began  from  that  time  forth 
to  grow  in  importance,  and  to  be 
considered  more  and  more  as  the 
centre  of  power.  The  first  stone  of 
the  Kremlin,  that  gigantic  bastille  of 
a  despotism  as  colossal  as  itself,  was 
laid  by  Dmitri  IV.  in  1367— curiously 
enough,  after  a  fire  which  burned  Mos- 
cow down  to  the  ground,  the  whole  of 
its  houses,  and  even  fortifications,  being 
then  of  wood.  Its  especial,  or  at  least 
its  avowed  object,  was  to  serve  as  a 
citadel  against  the  Tartars ;  it  may 
also  have  had  a  view  to  internal  ar- 
rangements, like  the  fortresses  built 
to  bridle  Paris  by  Louis  Philippe. 
The  close  of  the  reign  of  Vassili  III. 
was  marked  by  the  taking  of  Con- 
stantinople by  the  Turks.  This  event 
made  a  great  sensation  in  Russia. 
"  Greece,"  says  Karamsin,  "  was  a 
second  mother -country  to  us;  the 
Russians  always  recollected  with 
gratitude  that  they  owed  her  Christi- 
anity, the  rudiments  of  the  arts,  and 
many  amenities  of  social  life.  In  the 
town  of  Moscow,  people  spoke  of  Con- 
stantinople as  in  modern  Europe 
they  spoke  of  Paris  under  Louis  XIV." 
It  is  amongst  the  annalists  of  that 
epoch  that  a  remarkable  prophecy 
was  found,  on  the  strength  of  which 


modern  aggression  on  Turkey  appears 
justifiable  both  to  the  church  and 
state  of  Russia.  The  annalist,  after 
mourning  over  the  misfortunes  of  Con- 
stantinople, adds  :  u  There  remains 
now  no  orthodox  empire  but  that  of 
the  Russians ;  we  see  how  the  pre- 
dictions of  Saint  Methodius  and  Saint 
Leon  the  sage  are  accomplished,  who 
long  ago  announced  that  the  sons  of 
Ishmael  should  conquer  Byzantium. 
Perhaps  we  are  destined  also  to  see 
the  accomplishment  of  that  prophecy, 
which  promises  the  Russians  that 
they  shall  triumph  over  the  children 
of  Ishmael,  and  reign  over  the  seven 
hills  of  Constantinople."  It  is  worth 
while  for  us  to  consider,  now  that 
this  prophecy,  since  the  taking  of  By- 
zantium by  the  Turks,  has  become  a 
fixed  and  ruling  idea  with  the  Russian 
people,  quite  as  much  as  that  of  resto- 
ration to  Judea  is  to  the  Jews.  The 
priests  and  popes  have  taken  good 
care  to  keep  it  up  for  their  own  pur- 
poses, as  well  as  those  of  their  masters 
the  Tsars;  and  when  we  take  the  super- 
stition of  this  people  into  consideration, 
it  is  easily  seen  what  a  powerful  lever 
the  real  or  feigned  existence  of  such  a 
prophecy  must  put  into  the  hands  of 
those  whose  object  it  is  to  move  the 
Muscovite  masses.  It  will  be  well 
to  keep  this  in  mind  when  we  come 
to  speak  more  especially  of  the  sources 
of  aggressive  movement  to  be  found 
in  the  Russian  state.  As  Russian 
history  advances,  we  come  to  a  man 
of  mark  in  Ivan  III.,  the  son  of 
Vassili,  named  the  Superb:  he  en- 
forced respect  to  his  prerogative  on 
the  turbulent  boyards,  was  strict  as 
to  etiquette,  and  demanded  of  the 
German  emperor  that  he  should  be 
treated  as  an  equal.  He  seems  to  have 
been  the  first  of  the  monarchs  who  gave 
a  foreign  importance  to  Russia,  and 
attracted  to  his  court  the  ambassadors 
of  different  nations,  thus  paving  the 
way,  in  his  long  and  glorious  reign  of 
forty-three  years,  which  ended  1505, 
for  the  still  more  ambitious  designs  of 
his  successors.  After  him  in  course 
of  time  appeared  the  first  genuine 
Tsar  and  autocrat  of  all  the  Russias, 
Ivan  IV.,  surnamed  the  Terrible. 
It  is  an  appalling  fact,  that  the  reign 
of  this  monster  lasted  from  1533  to 
1584,  or  fifty-one  years.  However, 
like  Nero  and  many  others  of  that 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


9 


kind,  he  began  well— perhaps  sin- 
cerely. Probably  his  head  was  turned 
by  the  possession  of  power.  Men  are 
not  born  demons,  though  they  may 
become  really  worse  than  any  demons 
imagined  by  good  men  like  Milton,  by 
giving  way  to  their  evil  passions. 
The  deeds  of  Ivan  are  so  spoken  of 
by  historians,  that  those  of  Tiberius, 
Nero,  and  Christian  of  Denmark 
seem  the  freaks  of  fro  ward  children  in 
comparison.  Having  been  ill-used 
when  a  child  by  the  council  of  nobles 
into  whose  power  he  had  fallen  in 
the  first  years  of  his  reign,  he  seemed 
determined  in  after  years  to  have  his 
full  swing  of  vengeance  on  mankind. 
Nor  was  the  retribution  entirely"  un- 
deserved by  some  of  those  who  felt 
it,  for  they  had  encouraged  the  evil 
propensities  of  the  young  prince  with 
a  view  of  keeping  him  longer  in  a 
state  of  tutelage.  Notwithstanding 
this,  when  he  first  vindicated  his  own 
power,  he  achieved  from  the  strength 
of  his  will,  not  yet  perverted,  much 
that  was  great  and  useful.  It  was  at 
the  age  of  sixteen  that  he  assumed, 
with  the  Asiatic  title  of  Tsar,  which 
may  have  sometimes  been  borne  by 
his  predecessors,  but  not  by  authority, 
a  crown  which  had  once  been  sent  to 
Vladimir  Monomachus  by  the  Em- 
peror of  Constantinople.  He  was 
crowned  by  the  metropolitan,  and 
saluted  by  the  Byzantine  title  ot 
Autocrat.  Thus  it  seems  that  he 
wished  to  be  recognised  as  the  heir 
of  the  defunct  Greek  sovereignty,  and 
the  master  de  jure,  if  not  de  facto, 
of  Byzantium.  These  are  import- 
ant facts,  because  they  show  that 
the  idea  of  the  acquisition  of 
Turkey  does  not  merely  date  from 
the  time  of  Peter,  but  has  been  a 
fixed  principle  of  -action  with  Rus- 
sian sovereigns  ever  since  the  fall 
of  the  Lower  Empire.  We  cannot 
help  considering  the  other  encroach- 
ments of  Russia  on  the  map  of  Europe 
as  in  a  measure  incidental,  brought 
about  often  by  an  unforeseen  concur- 
rence of  circumstances,  at  the  same 
time  eagerly  caught  at  by  the  nation 
as  a  means  to  this  one  great  end,  the 
possession  of  Constantinople,  and  the 
centralisation  of  all  the  Russias  and 
their  dependencies  in  the  great  capi- 
tal on  the  Bosphorus.  This  has  been 
and  is  the  one  definite  and  distinct 


object  of  the  ambition  of  the  Tsars, 
the  avarice  of  the  courtiers,  and  the 
fanaticism  of  the  people.  That  Rus- 
sia or  her  sovereigns  ever  had  any 
distinct  design  of  conquering  and  ab- 
sorbing the  West  of  Europe  we  can 
hardly  believe,  although  such  would 
doubtless  be  to  her  a  consummation 
devoutly  to  be  wished.  For  instance, 
Germany  was  divided,  bribed,  and 
overawed,  not  with  a  view  to  imme- 
diate conquest,  but  with  a  view  to 
silencing  her  protest  against  Russian 
aggression;  and  here  Russia  has  fully 
gained  her  point.  Only  one  thing  was 
wanted,  the  revival  of  the  old  antago- 
nism between  England  and  France — 
a  thing  which  seemed  the  easiest  of 
all,  but  turned  out,  contrary  to  all 
expectation,  the  most  difficult — that 
Constantinople  should  be  once  again 
the  capital  of  the  Eastern  world. 

"  Ibi  omnis 
Effusus  labor." 

The  last  link  in  the  chain  was  want- 
ing. As  for  Russia's  views  upon  Asia, 
of  course  aggrandisement  to  any  ex- 
tent or  in  any  direction  would  have 
suited  her,  but  her  actual  conquests 
seemed  always  to  bear  a  primary  re- 
ference to  the  absorption  of  Turkey. 
Turkey  absorbed,  all  the  rest  would 
follow,  and  we  must  soon  have  been 
obliged  to  keep  a  sharp  look-out  for 
British  India.  As  it  was,  Russia  was 
getting  all  round  Constantinople  in 
the  Danubian  principalities,  by  pro- 
tection and  occupation ;  in  Greece, 
by  intrigue;  in  Asia,  by  conquest. 
Could  England  and  France  but  have 
been  kept  quiet,  or  bribed  into  dis- 
union, the  city  of  the  Golden  Horn 
would  have  dropt  into  Russia's  open 
mouth,  as  the  bird  is  said  to  drop 
from  the  bough  into  the  mouth  of  the 
serpent  who  watches  and  fascinates  it. 
We  should  be  going  wide  of  the  mark 
here,  were  we  to  dwell  at  any  length 
on  the  misdeeds  of  Ivan  the  Terrible. 
His  character  seems  to  have  changed 
for  the  worse  on  the  death  of  his  first 
wife  Anastasia,  who,  while  she  lived, 
had  the  singular  merit  of  keeping 
quiet^  by  an  enchantment  which  had 
the  contrary  effect  to  those  of  Circe, 
who  changed  men  into  brutes,  the 
evil  propensities  of  this  human  tiger. 
When  she  died,  his  madness — or  bad- 
ness, for  the  two  words  differ  by  a 
letter  only,  and  are  often  convertible — 


10 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


[July, 


broke  loose.  He  is  said  to  have  mar- 
ried seven  wives.  An  English  lady, 
nearly  allied  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  the 
Lady  Mary  Hastings,  had  a  narrow 
escape  from  being  the  eighth;  for 
Elizabeth,  in  her  admiration  of  power 
in  a  sovereign,  had  formed  a  friend- 
ship with  Ivan,  and  actually  proposed 
to  send  her  friend  to  the  den  of  this 
Bluebeard.  His  death  saved  her.  But 
Ivan,  not  contented  with  putting  his 
wives  to  death,  used  to  pretend  that 
they  were  murdered,  and  made  every 
new  bereavement  of  his  own  an  ex- 
cuse for  numberless  executions.  One 
thing  that  strikes  us  most  among  the 
horrors  of  his  reign,  is  the  extreme 
ingenuity  with  which  he  devised  the 
machinery  of  his  wickedness.  To  do 
evil  as  well  as  he  did,  one  of  those  Old 
Bailey  physiognomies,  with  low  fore- 
head, wide  mouth,  and  bull-neck,  the 
type  of  Caracalla,  would  never  have 
sufficed.  Ivan  was  a  genius.  His  words 
and  letters  are  as  clever,  as  cutting, 
and  insulting,  as  if  the  tongue  and  the 
pen  had  been  his  only  weapons.  No- 
thing delighted  him  more  than  making 
butts  of  those  who  suffered  impale- 
ment, or  some  other  horrible  torture, 
before  his  eyes.  He  was  not  born  a 
demon,  but  became  more  emphatically 
one  by  education  than  if  he  had  been. 
Nor  was  he  without  his  fits  of  fero- 
cious tenderness.  He  loved  his  wife 
Anastasia,  and  because  her  Maker 
called  her  away,  he  revenged  himself 
on  the  human  race,  more  especially 
on  those  of  the  same  sex  as  his  first 
wife.  He  loved  the  son  that  she  bore 
him  as  he  did  her,  and  he  slew  him  in 
a  fit  of  fury.  For  this  alone  of  his 
deeds  he  was  inconsolable,  and  re- 
morse for  it  hunted  him  to  the  grave. 
Strange  to  say,  he  died  in  his  bed. 
The  reign  of  Ivan  the  Terrible  is  his- 
torically most  valuable  as  illustrating 
that  quality  in  the  character  of  the 
Russians  which  makes  them  so  for- 
midable as  enemies.  Nero  and  Domi- 
tian  became  the  more  unpopular  the 
more  they  slew  their  subjects;  and 
the  latter,  although  he  was  enabled  to 
butcher  the  nobles  with  impunity  (not 
that  that  proved  their  love  for  him, 
but  only  their  pusillanimity),  "ce- 
cidit,  postquam  cerdonibus  esse  ti- 
mendus  incipit  "  —  "  fell  when  the 
cobblers  began  to  fear  him."  The 
Romans  were  ever  and  anon  revolt- 


ing against  their  chains.  Their  ser- 
vility was  always  hypocritical;  not  so 
that  of. the  Russians.  We  cannot 
sympathise  with  them  in  their  mal- 
treatment, for  they  love  it.  They 
love  Ivan  the  Terrible  because  he 
decapitates,  impales,  and  breaks  them 
on  the  wheel.  One  poor  wretch  that 
he  fixed  on  a  stake  in  the  presence  of 
his  wife  and  children,  is  said  to  have 
exclaimed  nothing  but  u  God  bless 
the  Tsar"  through  his  twenty-four 
hours'  agony;  and  that  very  son  Ivan, 
whom  he  slew,  died  with  prayers  and 
blessings  in  his  mouth  for  his  father — 
a  conduct  we  should  think  heroic  and 
Christian  did  we  not  suspect  that  its 
source  was  an  innate  and  fanatical 
servility.  But  the  Russians  were  not 
content  with  showing  their  servility 
to  the  sacred  Tsar  himself.  For  this 
Ivan  was  not  satisfied  with  tyran- 
nising in  his  own  person,  but  he  must 
organise  a  body  of  guards,  called  the 
Opritchini  (the  Elect  or  Covenanted), 
selected  sometimes  from  the  lowest  of 
the  people,  and  on  account  of  their 
vices,  which  made  them  the  readier 
instruments  of  despotism.  These  swore 
implicit  obedience  to  the  Tsar,  and 
in  return  were  not  only  chartered 
libertines,  but  chartered  robbers  and 
assassins.  Each  of  them  exercised  a 
despotism  (and  they  were  a  thousand 
at  first,  and  became  several  thousands 
afterwards)  as  odious  as  that  of  the 
Tsar,  though  not  in  all  cases  so  inge- 
nious ;  and  so  effectually,  that  things 
accounted  generally  the  good  things 
of  this  life  —  rank,  virtue,  riches, 
beauty — became  a  terror  to  the  pos- 
sessors of  them.  These  Elect  were 
the  nucleus  of  a  new  kind  of  nobility, 
the  nobility  of  function  and  govern- 
ment employ,  which  has  now  nearly, 
if  not  quite,  superseded  the  hereditary 
nobility  of  Russia  for  all  practical 
purposes,  and  thus  extinguished  the 
last  remnant  of  her  at  first  imper- 
fect chivalry.  That  their  requisitions 
were  submitted  to  almost  without  a 
murmur,  and  that  the  monarch  who 
let  loose  such  a  pack  of  wolves  and 
such  a  Pandora's  box  of  misfortunes 
on  his  subjects  should  have  been 
worshipped  as  a  god  in  his  life,  and 
revered  like  a  saint  after  his  death, 
would  tend  to  shake  our  belief  in  the 
cessation  of  the  age  of  miracles.  It 
appears  the  more  wonderful  when  we 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


consider  that  there  was  scarcely  any 
set-off  of  national  glory  to  the  tyranny 
of  Ivan.  The  military  successes  of 
the  early  part  of  his  life  were  clouded 
by  the  reverses  and  disgraces  of  his 
latter  years,  brought  on  in  a  measure 
by  the  misconduct  and  cowardice  of 
the  Tsar  himself,  who  on  one  occasion 
fled  from  Moscow  before  an  army  of 
Tartars,  and  left  it  to  perish  in  the 
flames  without  attempting  a  blow  to 
save  the  scene  of  his  pride  and  his 
enormities.  It  is  this  monomania  for 
submission  in  the  Russian  character 
that  makes  them  so  formidable  in 
war.  If  a  dog,  the  most  submissive 
of  animals  to  legitimate  power,  is 
cruelly  and  unjustly  beaten,  he  will 
turn  sometimes  on  his  master;  not  so 
a  Russian— he  will  kiss  the  knout  that 
flays  him.  If  acting  in  obedience  to 
orders,  he  is  much  more  dangerous 
than  a  wild  beast. 

The  Spanish  bull  in  the  arena  may 
be  diverted  from  his  mark,  by  his  at- 
tention being  turned  away  to  some 
other  source  of  persecution  ;  an  Arctic 
voyager  or  sportsman,  when  he  sees  a 
wounded  bear  bearing  down  on  him, 
may  throw  down  his  weapon  or  his 
glove  to  save  himself  from  hugging ; 
but  woe  be  to  him  against  whom  a 
mass  of  Russians  is  impelled.  They 
are  as  passive  and  as  merciless  as  a 
locomotive.  On  they  go,  one  over 
another,  like  the  buffaloes  in  the  West- 
ern prairies.  If  the  foremost  perish, 
the  hindmost  will  not  turn  back,  but 
make  a  bridge  of  their  bodies,  and  thus 
the  buffaloes  get  over  the  rivers  and 
the  chasms,  and  the  Russians  over  the 
obstacles  in  their  campaigns.  It  is, 
certainly,  a  serious  thing  to  fight  with  a 
nation  with  whom  men  are  of  no  more 
account  than  gabions  and  fascines; 
and  it  is  well  for  us  that  it  is  not  so 
much  by  loss  of  men  as  by  loss  of 
money  that  the  fortunes  of  the  war 
will  be  decided. 

As  for  expecting  that  such  a  people 
would  listen  to  reason,  or  give  up  an 
inch  of  ground  from  which  they  were 
not  driven  by  positive  pounding,  such 
an  idea  could  only  have  entered  into 
the  heads  of  those  who  sent  Lord  John 
Russell  to  waste  his  own  and  the  na- 
tion's time  and  money  at  the  Vienna 
conferences.  The  Russian  nation  we 
should  not  suppose  very  much  changed 
siuce  the  time  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  if 


11 

it  is  true  that  the  Grand-duke  Con- 
stantino could,  to  show  off  the  sub- 
missiveness  of  the  Russian  soldier  to 
a  stranger,  while  standing  at  a  review, 
pass  his  sword  through  the  foot  of  an 
officer  and  withdraw  it,  without  ex- 
citing remonstrance  or  cry  of  pain,  or 
even,  as  is  said,  without  his  victim 
flinching.  This  is  reported  to  have 
happened  at  Warsaw  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  in  the  reign  of  the  mild 
Alexander.  The  reign  of  Ivan,  how- 
ever, in  most  respects  humiliating  to 
Russia,  was  still  the  beginning  of  her 
greatness  as  a  nation.  In-  this  reign 
she  ceased  to  act  on  the  defensive, 
and  assumed  the  offensive ;  from 
this  time  forth  she  begins  a  course 
of  advantages  over  her  old  enemies 
and  oppressors,  the  Tartars,  which 
ends  at  a  later  date  in  the  submission 
of  their  most  powerful  tribes.  It  was 
in  this  reign,  too,  that  Siberia,  that 
vast  and  dreary  state- prison,  was 
annexed  to  Russia  by  accident.  A 
Cossack  chief,  of  the  name  of  Jermak, 
having  committed  robberies  about  the 
Volga,  was  hunted  out  of  Russia  by 
the  troops  of  Ivan  into  Siberia.  Here, 
with  a  handful  of  his  followers,  he 
succeeded  in  doing  what  Pizarro  did 
in  South  America :  he  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  the  subjugation  of  the 
country,  and  then  solicited  pardon  of 
the  Czar  on  the  strength  of  what  he 
had  done,  laying  at  his  feet  the  new 
acquisition.  Of  course  his  offer  was  not 
refused,  and  Siberia  became  Russian. 
It  was  by  Ivan  that  the  Strelitz,  a 
kind  of  militia  or  national  guard  who 
existed  from  old  times,  were  organised 
into  bands  of  a  more  pratorian  char- 
acter, so  as  to  be  available  for  the  per- 
sonal service  of  the  sovereign.  They 
were  used,  no  doubt,  originally  against 
the  nobles,  but  in  after  time  became, 
probably  from  their  local  sympathies, 
unmanageable,  and  Peter  the  Great 
was  obliged  to  disband  them,  and  sub- 
stitute an  army  even  less  of  a  feudal 
character.  However,  no  standing 
army  of  any  kind  seems  to  have  ex- 
isted before  the  time  of  Ivan,  and 
without  this  it  would  be  difficult  in 
most  nations,  whatever  may  have  been 
the  case  in  Russia,  to  perpetuate  a 
pure  absolutism  in  the  person  of  the 
sovereign.  Although  as  yet  the  Tsars 
of  Russia  for  some  time  to  come  do 
not  seem  to  have  pursued  the  definite 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


[July, 


and  distinct  policy  which  we  call  the 
imperial  policy  of  Russia,  yet  about 
this  time  the  one  condition  which 
made  the  steady  pursuit  of  that  policy 
possible — namely,  the  centralisation  of 
power  in  the  person  of  the  monarch — 
appears  to  have  been  substantially 
obtained.  Unless  this  had  been  the 
case,  the  sceptre  which  was  held  with 
so  firm  a  grasp  by  Ivan  would  have 
slipped  out  of  the  weak  hands  of  his 
son,  Fedor  I.,  the  last  sovereign 
of  the  old  kingly  race  of  Rurik. 
As  he  could  not  hold  the  sceptre  him- 
self, it  was  held  for  him  by  Boris 
Godounof,  the  brother  of  his  wife 
Irene.  This  man  secured  the  crown 
for  himself,  which  he  did  not  think 
worth  taking  during  the  life  of  Fedor, 
as  he  already  held  the  sceptre,  by 
having  the  young  brother  of  Fedor, 
Dmitri  Ivanovitch,  assassinated.  In 
this  weak  reign  of  Fedor  an  important 
change  took  place.  The  Bishop  of 
Rostof,  by  name  Job,  was  made  me- 
tropolitan. He  was  a  far-sighted  and 
aspiring  man,  and  saw  what  favour 
he  might  curry  with  the  ambitious  re- 
gent by  uniting  the  Russian  church  to 
the  state,  and  separating  it  from  its 
Greek  head.  Jeremiah,  patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  having  some  object  to 
gain  with  the  Russian  government, 
bribed  it  to  his  purposes  in  the  follow- 
ing manner.  He  represented  that 
the  church  had  once  five  chiefs — the 
Bishop  of  Rome,  and  the  Patriarchs  of 
Alexandria,  Antioch,  Constantinople, 
and  Jerusalem— but  that  the  Pope  of 
Rome,  having  forfeited  his  claim  to  the 
dignity  by  his  heresies,  deserved  to  be 
superseded.  No  country  more  than 
Russia  merited  to  possess  a  fifth  head 
of  the  church.  Jeremiah  would  have 
liked  to  combine  that  dignity  with  that 
he  already  possessed,  but  Boris  Godou- 
nof caught  at  his  notion,  and  without 
much  persuasion  procured  the  conse- 
cration of  Job.  Henceforward  Russia 
had  her  own  patriarch,  independent  of 
him  of  Constantinople,  and  therefore 
entirely  dependent  on  his  own  Tsar, 
a  position  which  Peter  the  Great 
chose  to  turn  to  his  own  purposes,  as 
we  shall  see  hereafter. 

Boris  Godounof,  a  Tartar  by  extrac- 
tion, having  thus  violently  broken  the 
line  of  succession,  proved  the  strength 
of  the  sovereignty  which  could  exist 
in  spite  of  that  interruption.  He  was 


succeeded  by  an  impostor  who  as- 
sumed the  name  of  the  assassinated 
Dmitri,  and  whose  fate  forms  one  of 
the  most  romantic  passages  in  Russian 
history.  Then  the  monarchy  becomes 
elective.  The  Poles  are  mixed  up 
with  the  elections.  Some  of  the  pre- 
tenders to  the  crown  fight  with  others. 
There  is  an  interregnum.  At  last  the 
Russians  are  determined  to  allow 
foreign  intervention  no  longer.  They 
choose  by  a  large  majority  of  voices 
as  their  Tsar,  Mikhail  Fedorovitch 
Romanoff,  son  of  Fedor  Nikita  Ro- 
manoff, who  had  been  forced  into  the 
church  by  Boris,  and  nephew  of  the 
Tsarina  Anastasia,  both  members  of 
the  family  of  Roman  Jourevitch,  the 
ancestor  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  of 
the  great  house  of  Romanoff. 

The  reign  of  the  first  of  the  Roman- 
offs was  ushered  in  by  disaster.  To 
pacify  Sweden,  he  was  obliged  to  give 
up  to  her  Carelia,  Ingria,  Livonia, 
and  Esthonia ;  to  pacify  Poland,  he 
lost  Smolensk,  Tchernigoff,  and  a 
large  tract  of  country.  Notwithstand- 
ing this,  we  find  his  son  Alexis,  while 
Tsar  of  Russia,  a  candidate  for  the 
throne  of  Poland,  for  which  Jean 
Casimir  was  the  successful  competi- 
tor. In  the  son  of  Alexis,  Fedor  II., 
we  recognise  a  prince  of  great  spirit 
and  wisdom,  though  bodily  weak. 
He  managed  to  achieve  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  Cossacks — at  least,  if  tak- 
ing the  Ukraine  from  the  Grand  Sei- 
gnior, and  placing  it  under  the  protec- 
tion of  Russia,  could  be  so  called.  But 
this  was  unimportart  in  comparison 
with  a  step  which  he  took  to  render 
the  power  of  the  Tsar,  even  more 
widely  than  before,  the  basis  of  the 
Russian  constitution.  Coup-d 'etats 
were  known  even  in  those  days,  and 
this  Tsar  seems  to  have  accomplished 
at  once,  by  one  of  these,  what  was 
done  in  a  more  tedious  and  tragical 
manner  by  the  wars  of  the  Roses  in 
England — viz.,  the  diminution  of  the 
power  of  the  nobles.  His  ostensible 
object  was  to  put  a  stop  to  the  inter- 
minable quarrels  of  the  great  lords 
about  precedency  at  his  court  and  in 
the  army.  He  called  a  general  meet- 
ing, ordering  them  to  bring  their 
charters  and  certificates  of  privi- 
lege with  them  ;  having  laid  hands  on 
these,  and  taken  advice,  to  divide  the 
responsibility,  of  the  patriarch,  the 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


13 


bishops,  and  the  boyards,  he  caused 
all  these  documents  to  be  burnt  the 
12th  January  1682,  just  about  the  era 
of  a  political  change  in  England  of  an 
opposite  kind  ;  declaring,  at  the  same 
time,  that  in  future  all  privilege  should 
be  founded,  not  on  hereditary  title, 
but  personal  merit — by  which  he  no 
doubt  understood  attachment  to  the 
person  of  the  Tsar.  Thus  effectually 
did  his  eldest  brother  lay  the  finishing 
touch  to  that  basis  of  despotism,  on 
which  Peter  the  Great  was  able  at 
once  to  begin  to  build  up  his  ambi- 
tious schemes.  The  next  in  succession 
to  Fedor,  if  the  hereditary  principle 
had  been  strictly  observed,  was  Ivan, 
his  younger  brother ;  but  Ivan  was  of 
weak  health,  weak  nerves,  and  weak 
mind.  Peter,  their  half-brother,  was 
judged  by  the  majority  of  the  grandees 
and  clergy  assembled  in  the  month  of 
June  1682,  the  fitter  to  fill  the  throne. 
This  arrangement  did  not  please 
Sophia,  a  sister  of  the  former  family, 
and  accordingly  she  endeavoured  to 
move  the  Strelitz,  by  telling  them  that 
the  prince  Ivan  had  been  strangled  by 
the  Narischkin,  or  family  of  the 
Tsarina  Natalie,  the  mother  of  Peter. 
These  worthies,  who  seemed  to  have 
combined  the  unreasoning  fury  of  a 
mob  with  the  unity  of  action  of  an 
army,  marched  to  the  Kremlin  twenty 
thousand  strong,  ordering  the  mur- 
derers of  Ivan  to  be  put  into  their 
hands.  Peter,  his  mother,  his  brother, 
and  the  ministers,  showed  themselves 
at  the  vestibule,  and  Ivan  himself 
came  to  speak  to  them;  but  they  did 
not  choose  to  be  turned  from  their 
purpose  of  vengeance,  even  by  the 
appearance  in  the  flesh  of  him  whose 
death  they  came  to  avenge. 

They  storm  the  palace,  immolate 
the  Tsarina's  brother,  then  go  out 
into  the  town  and  massacre  the  pro- 
scribed till  nightfall.  Next  day  they 
begin  again,  and  nothing  less  will 
satisfy  them  but  that  Cyril  Narisch- 
kin  the  father,  and  John  the  brother 
of  the  Tsarina,  should  be  handed  over 
to  them.  Young  Narischkin  is  cut  to 
pieces  before  his  father's  eyes,  and 
Cyril  is  buried  in  a  convent.  Stained 
with  the  blood  of  these  assassinations, 
they  become  masters  of  the  state,  and 
proclaim  as  joint  sovereigns  Ivan  and 
Peter,  making  Sophia  regent,  but 
leaving  in  the  hands  of  that  princess 


all  real  power.  She  favoured  Ivan, 
as  was  to  have  been  expected,  and 
made  him  marry  reputably  ;  whilst, 
though  she  did  not  dare  to  depose 
Peter,  she  handed  him  over  to  the 
company  and  evil  habits  of  a  loose 
set  of  foreigners  who  hung  about  the 
court.  These  associates,  though  they 
corrupted  Peter's  morals,  did  not,  as 
his  half-sister  intended,  unfit  him  for 
governing,  but  they  put  notions  into 
his  head  as  to  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  other  countries,  which  fur- 
nished the  first  stimulus  to  the  won- 
derful career  of  his  after  life.  Whilst 
appearing  to  be  simply  wasting  his 
time  without  thought  or  object,  he. 
was  secretly  maturing  plans,  whose 
execution  astonished  the  world.  He 
had  a  reckoning  to  settle  with  the 
Strelitz,  but  he  was  able  to  bide  his 
time.  He  must  have  seen  early  in 
life  that  their  destruction  was  a  neces- 
sity of  state.  One  dangerous  revolt 
of  this  turbulent  militia  was  quelled 
by  a  speech  of  the  patriarch,  when, 
strange  to  say,  a  superstitious  fear 
overcame  them,  so  that  they  presented 
themselves  at  the  convent  of  the 
Trinity,  with  cords  round  their  necks, 
carrying  blocks  and  axes,  and  crying 
with  one  accord,  "  The  Tsars  are  our 
masters ;  we  offer  our  heads  to  them ! " 
The  patriarch  obtained  pardon  for  all 
but  the  ringleaders. 

It  seems  that  Sophia  had  not  been 
uninfluenced  by  the  popular  dream  of 
the  recovery  of  Byzantium.  She  had 
engaged  to  join  in  a  crusade  against 
the  Turks,  in  common  with  other 
Christian  powers ;  Russia,  of  course, 
in  such  engagement  having  an  eye  to 
her  own  interests.  But  now  the  Tar- 
tars in  the  Crimea  were  too  strong  for 
her  this  time,  and  Prince  Galitzin, 
the  minister  who  commanded  the  ex- 
pedition, was  rewarded  as  for  success 
when  he  returned  defeated;  probably 
having,  in  the  present  Russian  fash- 
ion, cooked  his  bulletins.  Peter 
would  not  stand  this,  but  expressed 
his  surprise  and  indignation  unmis- 
takably. Sophia  found  that  her 
young  half-brother  had  broken  his 
leading-strings,  and  took  measures  to 
play  off  the  Strelitz  against  him.  But 
Peter  had  been  quietly  organising  a 
body  of  troops,  armed  and  drilled  in 
the  German  style,  and  commanded 
by  foreign  officers.  Relying  on  these, 


14 

he  gave  out  that,  being  now  seven- 
teen, he  was  of  age  to  govern.  He 
was  generally  obeyed.  Galitzin  was 
banished  for  life,  and  Sophia  im- 
mured in  a  convent,  where  she  passed 
the  rest  of  her  days,  —  some  histo- 
rians say  in  an  honourable  imprison- 
ment ;  if  so,  it  was  only  honourable 
until  the  last  revolt  of  the  Strelitz, 
when  she  was  condemned  to  live  in 
sight  of  their  impaled  heads  till  she 
died. 

Having  disposed  of  the  strong- 
minded  Sophia,  he  had  little  trouble 
with  his  weak-minded  brother  Ivan. 
We  must  here  remark  that  those 
princes  called  weak  in  history,  such 
as  our  own  Richard  II.,  are  often 
no  more  than  very  amiable  men, 
who  would  have  filled  well  enough 
most  other  positions,  but  were  un- 
fitted for  one  requiring  extraordi- 
nary nerve  and  energy,  such  as  royalty 
must,  in  an  unsettled  state  of  society. 
Ivan  died  in  peace  January  26,  1696, 
leaving  three  daughters,  the  first  of 
whom,Catharine,  married  Charles  Leo- 
pold, Duke  of  Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 
and  from  them  descended  Ivan  the 
Tsar,  of  the  House  of  Wolfenbuttel. 
From  the  marriage  of  Peter's  daugh- 
ter, Anna,  springs  that  half-German 
line  of  Holstein-Gottorp,  now  reign- 
ing in  Russia.  The  present  Tsars 
are  thus  by  the  mother's  side  Ro- 
manoffs, by  the  father's  Holstein- 
Gottorps. 

By  the  death  of  Ivan,  Peter  was 
left  the  one  unquestioned  master  of 
Russia.  No  body  in  the  State  had 
power  to  offer  any  serious  resistance 
to  his  plans.  The  nobles  were  cowed, 
the  priests  were  his,  and  the  people 
were  the  priests'.  The  great  idea 
with  which  Peter  started  in  life  seems 
to  have  been  the  aggrandisement  of 
Russia  and  of  her  Tsars  in  every 
direction,  and  by  every  possible 
means ;  this  included  the  popular 
dream  of  a  restoration  of  the  Greek 
empire,  which,  according  to  circum- 
stances, might  become  a  means  or  an 
end.  The  first  thing  that  struck  him 
was,  that  Russia,  though  an  ambitious 
and  conquering  power,  was  not  quite 
a  military  power  in  the  European 
sense  of  the  word.  He  overturned 
all  her  military  institutions,  to  organ- 
ise her  armies  on  the  European 
model ;  and  so  earnest  was  he  in  this 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


[July, 


work,  that  he  would  not  let  his  re- 
views or  sham-fights  pass  off  without 
real  killed  and  wounded.  This  of 
course  he  could  have  managed  with  no 
other  nation  than  the  Russians.  The 
second  thing  that  struck  him  was,  that 
Russia,  though  she  thought  of  possess- 
ing Constantinople,  was  not  a  naval 
power  at  all.  He  at  once  determined 
to  make  her  so.  But  here  his  barbar- 
ian genius  was  at  fault.  Sailors,  like 
poets,  are  born,  not  made.  He  went 
to  Holland  and  England,  and  worked 
as  a  common  ship-carpenter.  He  learn- 
ed how  to  build  ships  undoubtedly, 
but  he  appointed  as*  his'  first  admiral 
Le  Fort,  a  pure  soldier.  His  fleet  is  a 
failure  to  this  day.  The  sailors  are 
artillerymen  afloat,  and  they  seem 
most  at  home  when  they  have  sunk 
their  ships  and  are  manning  guns 
ashore.  Their  ships  are  encumbrances 
to  them.  Whether  Peter  acted  on  a 
preconceived  plan  or  not  in  declaring 
war  against  Charles  XII.,  despising 
his  youth,  is  uncertain ;  but  he  most 
probably  longed  for  Finland  as  a  nur- 
sery for  his  sailors  ;  and  when  he  ob- 
tained the  Baltic  provinces  of  Sweden 
as  the  result  of  the  war  with  that 
power,  he  seems  to  have  considered 
the  building  of  St  Petersburg,  in  a 
situation  otherwise  most  untempting 
for  a  capital,  a  measure  of  vital  im- 
portance to  secure  the  maritime  pre- 
ponderance of  Russia.  It  is  hard  to 
say  whether  he  looked  forward  to  St 
Petersburg  as  a  permanent  or  only  as 
a  provisional  capital,  until  such  time 
as  Constantinople  should  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  power  that  coveted  it. 
It  appears  that  he  thought  it  worth 
wasting  the  lives  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand men  upon — as  many,  probably,  as 
forgotten  kings  of  Egypt  wasted  on 
the  imperishable  monuments  of  their 
empty  names. 

Peter  seems  to  have  postponed  the 
conquest  of  Constantinople  to  a  more 
convenient  season,  for  it  was  the 
Turks  who  declared  war  against  him, 
and  at  the  instigation  of  Charles  XII. 
The  war  with  Turkey  was  one  which 
crossed  his  projects,  and  interfered 
with  the  consolidation  of  his  power ; 
and  as  he  entered  upon  it  with  reluct- 
ance, he  came  out  of  it  with  disaster, 
having  been  saved  from  the  humilia- 
tion of  having  to  surrender  at  discre- 
tion on  the  banks  of  the  Pruth  solely 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


by  the  address  of  his  wife  Catharine. 
When  he  made  peace,  he  was  obliged 
to  give  up  Azof,  and  some  of  his 
conquests  on  the  shores  of  the  Black 
Sea.  But  he  indemnified  himself  by 
getting  Livonia,  Esthonia,  and  part 
of  Finland  and  Carelia,  by  a  treaty  of 
peace,  from  Sweden,  and  by  his  bril- 
liant successes  in  the  campaign  with 
Persia.  When  he  died,  on  the  28th 
January  1725,  of  an  inflammatory 
attack  brought  on  by  exposure  to  the 
cold  at  the  ceremony  of  blessing  the 
waters  of  the  Neva,  he  left  Russia 
entirely  a  new  country.  For  this  he 
has  been  immoderately  praised  by 
Voltaire  and  his  school,  and  their 
praises  have  become  stereotyped  in 
history.  Doubts  may  arise  at  this 
day  whether  what  he  did  for  Russia 
was  even  for  her  good.  It  was  cer- 
tainly not  for  the  good  of  mankind. 
Civilisation,  like  religion,  to  be  good 
for  anything,  must  be  part  of  the  con- 
stitution of  a  nation  or  an  individual ; 
it  must  grow  up  in  the  common  natu- 
ral atmosphere,  not  be  forced  in  a 
hothouse.  What  is  the  consequence 
of  Peter's  so-called  reforms  to  Russia? 
Russia  is  like  a  sturdy  boor  who  has 
become  a  millionaire  by  gold-digging, 
who  bedizens  his  outward  man  with 
pins,  and  chains,  and  rings,  and  is  all 
barbarism  and  brutality  within.  Yet 
he  expects  to  be  treated  like  a  gentle- 
man, and  is  in  consequence  a  great 
nuisance  to  society.  There  was  some- 
thing grand  in  old  Russia  —  her 
enormous  cities  and  palaces,  especially 
her  town-like  Kremlin  ;  the  colossal 
men  who  stalked  within  them,  the 
barbaric  state  and  luxury  that  reigned 
in  them ;  the  flowing  robes  and  Asiatic 
costumes,  so  rich  and  picturesque ;  the 
gorgeous  religion,  an  offshoot  from  that 
of  Greece,  notyet  secularised  orschism- 
atised,  but  commanding  in  its  own 
right,  venerable  and  magnificent.  All 
this  was  to  count  for  nothing  in  the 
reforms  of  Peter.  Beards  and  gowns 
were  changed  for  perukes  and  coatees, 
Asiatic  state  for  Parisian  etiquette. 
A  Moscow  of  hoar  antiquity,  golden 
and  rainbow  coloured,  splendid  with  a 
thousand  minarets  and  cupolas  of 
gigantic  grotesqueness,  was  to  yield 
the  palm  to  the  gimcrack  would-be 
Grecian  city  on  the  Neva,  sadly  out 
of  place  among  the  ice  and  darkness 
about  the  Polar  circle.  Peter  only  acted 


15 

in  the  spirit  of  his  age  in  seeing  no 
difference  between  an  old  and  a  new 
country.  The  intense  bad  taste  of 
that  age  penetrated  all  Europe,  and 
even  in  our  own  country  overlaid  the 
carved  oak,  which  had  lasted  from  the 
Crusades,  with  the  same  coat  of  level- 
ling paint  with  which  it  daubed  the 
vulgar  deal. 

Peter  seems  to  have  destroyed  the 
last  remnants  of  national  morality  in 
Russia  in  destroying  her  antiquity. 
We  are  not  accustomed  to  look  upon 
Russia  now  as  one  of  the  old  countries 
of  the  world ;  she  seems  as  much  of 
yesterday  as  the  United  States.  Like 
her  nobles,  who  gave  up  their  papers 
to  be  burnt  by  Fedor  II.,  she  has 
burnt  her  Past,  or  rather  Peter  has 
done  it  for  her,  more  recklessly  than 
France  did  for  herself  at  the  first  Re- 
volution. And,  indeed,  the  first  Re- 
volution in  France  and  the  reforms 
of  Peter  are  exactly  of  the  same  moral 
character ;  they  spring  from  a  com- 
mon source.  For  the  sake  of  conve- 
nience, we  may  take  the  date  of  the 
battle  of  Narva,  the  year  1700,  as  the 
era  of  the  beginning  of  Peter's  sys- 
tem. Now,  we  know  that,  at  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth,  a  system 
began  in  France,  which  spread  through 
Europe,  of  ignoring  the  interests  of 
the  governed,  and  sacrificing  all  na- 
tional good  to  the  maintenance  of 
showy  and  trivial  courts.  Ceremo- 
nial and  stiffness,  frivolity  and  extra- 
vagance, ruled  in  these  courts ;  while 
principles  were  followed  and  avowed, 
in  confidential  circles,  which  would 
necessarily  be  fatal  to  the  privileges 
of  castes  and  classes,  as  soon  as  they 
had  passed  out  and  spread  themselves 
among  the  people.  It  was  not  likely 
that  the  people  would  respect  those 
who  had  ceased  to  respect  themselves. 
Louis  XIV.  ruled  as  a  military  mon- 
arch ;  he  suppressed  the  remains  of 
chivalry,  because  it  did  not  suit  the 
modern  system  of  war.  He  made 
religion  an  instrument  of  despotism. 
Under  the  Regency  and  Louis  XV., 
all  knightly  principles — in  fact,  all 
principles  whatever — were  scoffed  at 
in  the  court,  and  nothing  was  believed 
but  the  gospel  according  to  Voltaire. 
The  Reign  of  Terror  was  a  fit  retri- 
bution for  all  this.  The  grandees  of 
that  time  would,  no  doubt,  have  wish- 


16 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia 


ed  to  keep  Voltaire  from  the  people 
as  religiously  as  the  priests  kept  the 
Bible;  but  his  religion  suited  their 
inclinations,  and  they  would  have  him. 
One  of  Voltaire's  chiefest  apostles  was 
Frederick  II.  of  Prussia,  one  of  his 
chief  heroes  and  prophets  was  Peter 
the  Great, 

But  Peter  was  far  from  avowing 
a  contempt  for  religion,  as  Frederick 
did  ;  he  was  much  too  politic  for  that. 
He  knew  that  attachment  to  the 
source  of  their  church  was  strongly 
connected  with  the  desire  of  the 
Russians  to  obtain  Constantinople, 
and  he  knew  that  the  possession  of 
Constantinople  was  the  keystone  of 
the  arch  of  Russian  dominion,  which, 
once  secured,  it  would  become  im- 
pregnable, and  as  permanent  as  any- 
thing earthly  could  be.  Yet  he  man- 
aged in  the  most  skilful  manner, 
without  scandal  and  almost  without 
offence,  to  get  the  religion  of  the 
country  into  his  hands  in  the  persons 
of  her  priesthood.  The  way  had  been 
before  partially  cleared  for  him  by 
the  establishment  of  the  separate  in- 
dependence of  the  Russian  patriarch. 
When  the  patriarch  died  in  his  reign, 
he  declined  to  elect  a  successor,  and 
ended  with  making  the  Tsar  the  head 
of  the  church  in  a  much  more  full 
and  complete  sense  than  Henry  VIII. 
did  in  making  the  King  of  England. 
In  fact,  so  far  has  this  been  carried 
out  since,  that  we  may  doubt  whether 
the  Virgin  Mary  holds  a  higher  rank 
in  the  worship  of  the  most  bigoted 
Romanist  than  the  Czar  does  in  that  of 
the  ordinary  Muscovite,  or  other  Rus- 
sian subject.  Only  the  other  day  we 
heard  of  a  body  of  Bashkirs  breaking 
out  in  mutiny,  because  on  a  march  by 
St  Petersburg  they  were  not  allowed 
to  see  the  Tsar ;  and  when  he  showed 
himself  to  them,  they  evinced  frantic 
joy,  kissed  his  stirrups,  and  hung  round 
his  horse's  legs  with  a  sort  of  animal 
devotion.  That  Peter,  however,  was 
an  egotist  like  Frederick,  does  not 
appear :  his  religion  was  the  aggrand- 
isement of  Russia ;  it  was  a  religion 
which  he  bequeathed,  whether  form- 
ally or  not  is  not  quite  certain,  as  a 
solemn  legacy  to  his  successors  ;  and 
to  show  his  sincerity,  inaugurated  by 
the  judicial  murder  of  his  son  Alexis, 
the  heir  to  the  throne,  merely  on  the 
grounds  that  he  was  not  able  to  re- 


[July, 

ceive  its  impressions.  Peter  enlisted 
in  this  service  alike  the  craft  of  the 
Jesuit  and  the  boldness  of  the  Cru- 
sader; personally  he  seems  to  have 
preferred  intrigue  to  force,  and  his 
most  effective  strokes  were  dealt 
bloodlessly.  One  of  these,  among 
many,  was  his  prompt  recognition  of 
the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  as  King 
of  Prussia,  which  a  short  -  sighted 
statesman  might  have  thought  rather 
inimical  than  otherwise  to  the  ex- 
tension of  Russia  westward.  Peter 
well  knew  of  what  advantage  it  would 
be  hereafter  to  Russia  to  make  Ger- 
many a  house  divided  against  itself, 
by  raising  a  new  power  antagonistic 
to  the  original  German  empire.  Of 
course,  Prussia  herself  had  no  objec- 
tion to  this.  Saxony,  Poland,  and 
Denmark  had  sold  their  souls  to 
Peter,  and  England  and  Holland  said 
nothing  against  it,  as  they  wanted  to 
hire  Prussian  troops  at  the  time,  the 
former  power  having  as  usual  neglect- 
ed the  maintenance  of  her  native 
army.  In  his  latter  days  so  little 
awe  did  the  German  emperor  inspire 
in  Peter,  that  he  had  the  audacity  to 
assume  the  august  title  of  Emperor  or 
Kaiser  himself  officially,  having  been 
before  called  so  sometimes  as  a  com- 
pliment, especially  by  England.  This 
was  a  kind  of  claim  of  admission  in- 
to the  temple  of  European  civilisa- 
tion, like  that  of  Philip  of  Macedon  to 
be  admitted  into  the  Amphictyonic 
Council  of  Greece.  Another  most 
sagacious  move  of  Peter's  was  the 
marriage  of  his  niece  to  the  reigning 
Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  thus  affording 
a  German  family  an  opportunity  of 
one  day  filling  his  own  throne,  and 
forming  the  first  of  many  such  links 
that  bind  Russia  with  Germany,  or  at 
least  her  princes,  so  closely,  that  it 
seems  if  one  is  pushed  over  a  preci- 
pice the  other  must  go  with  it.  The 
effect  of  these  two  strokes  of  policy, 
which  were  the  beginning  of  many 
others,  is  seen  now  in  the  neutralisa- 
tion of  a  nation  of  thinkers,  whose 
opinion  is  on  our  side,  and  the  para- 
lysation  as  against  Russia  of  more 
than  half  a  million  of  the  finest  sol- 
diers in  Christendom. 

Although  we  have  seen,  in  the  early 
history  of  Russia,  strong  indications 
of  the  aggrandising  spirit,  and  found 
the  design  on  Constantinople  existing 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. 


17 


as  a  religious  principle  in  her  people 
since  the  taking  of  that  city  by  the 
Turks,  yet  Peter  was  the  first  to  re- 
duce these  tendencies  and  aspirations 
to  a  system ;  and  as  Ivan  the  Terrible 
was  the  first  Tsar,  marking  the  esta- 
blishment of  absolute  power  and  na- 
tional independence,  so  was  Peter 
Alexievitch  the  first  Emperor,  mark- 
ing the  beginning  of  the  militant  and 
aggressive  era  for  Russia,  in  which  she 
seems  to  have  thrown  away  the  scab- 
bard in  her  fight  with  the  world,  de- 
termined to  conquer  all,  or  to  die  as  a 
great  nation.  Thus  we  have  seen  that 
the  aggressive  movement  of  Russia 
is  twofold,  depending,  in  part,  on  the 
superstition  of  the  people,  and  their 
traditional  notion  of  a  crusade  against 
Byzantium,  and  in  part  on  the  policy 
of  her  monarchs,  brought  into  shape 
by  Peter,  and  left  to  his  successors. 
The  courtiers- are  of  course  with  the 
autocrat  when  they  have  nothing  to 
get  by  assassinating  him,  and  they 
have  been  found  to  keep  up  to  the 
mark  and  standard  of  ambition  the 
less  aspiring  monarchs.  Being  the 
creatures  of  government  employment, 
they  look  upon  conquest  as  good  for 
creating  new  offices,  and  rendering 
existing  ones  more  lucrative.  Thus 
we  have  to  contend  against,  in  Russia, 
the  Crown,  the  Court,  and  the  People 
in  this  movement,  united  as  one  man, 
though  on  separate  grounds — a  view 
which,  if  true,  will  make  all  hopes  of 
the  war  coming  to  an  end  through 
internal  disaffection  illusory.  This 
matters  not  much,  as  England  and 
France  may  be  esteemed  together 
quite  equal  to  the  three  elements  of 
the  Russian  constitution.  But  a  na- 
tion so  very  large  on  the  map,  acting 
as  a  great  animal  with  a  single  will, 
is  a  matter  to  make  us  serious;  and  it 
\g  to  be  hoped  we  are  so.  The  great 
struggle  lies  upon  us,  and  if  we  come 
out  victorious,  and  know  how  to  use 
the  victory,  there  will  be  joy  and 
peace  for  the  world  for  many  an  age 
to  come.  Ever  since  the  time  of  Peter, 
the  imperial  policy  of  Russia  has  come 
upon  Western  Europe  like  the  un- 
healthy breath  of  an  east  wind ;  even 
like  the  very  east  wind  which  has 
cheated  us  out  of  our  spring  this  year, 
as  adverse  circumstances  cheat  a  man 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVII. 


out  of  his  youth.  Whether  that  wind 
blew  hot  or  cold,  its  effect  was  the 
same;  it  blighted,  it  nipped,  it  wither- 
ed, it  blasted.  The  seed-leaves  came 
out,  and  then  were  curled  up  and 
dried  away ;  the  young  shoots  were 
burnt  at  the  edges.  By-and-by  clouds 
gathered  in  the  horizon  of  the  far 
West.  They  grew  up  and  up,  and 
combined  with  some  difficulty.  They 
were  very  deliberate  in  coming  on, 
but  they  did  come  on  slowly  but  sure- 
ly, and  now  from  many  quarters  they 
came  on,  against  the  wind.  Some- 
times their  meaning  was  revealed  in 
bright  flashes  and  distant  thunder- 
growls.  At  last  they  broke  in  tor- 
rents of  life-giving,  health-giving  rain. 
The  imprisoned  powers  of  nature  at 
once  broke  loose,  the  flowers  sprung 
into  seed-leaf,  leaf  and  blossom,  and 
all,  as  it  were,  at  once;  every  perfume 
of  the  garden  came  out  more  delicious 
for  having  been  so  long  sealed  up, 
and  the  songs  of  love-making  birds 
were  heard  far  and  wide  among  the 
dropping  trees.  Nature  seemed  to 
make  a  great  holiday  because  the  east 
wind  had  been  discomfited.  Thus 
may  it  be  now  in  the  political  world. 
Europe  is  thoroughly  aroused  to  the 
pestilent  nature  of  the  breath  of  Rus- 
sia. The  thunder- clouds  are  gathering 
in  the  West;  they  are  travelling  to  the 
North  and  South ;  they  are  even  now 
bursting  in  the  South.  When  the 
salutary  storm  has  blown  over,  we 
may  hope  for  a  season  of  gladness — a 
season  when  the  voices  of  despotism 
and  democracy,  those  twin  tyrants  of 
the  earth,  will  be  hushed,  and  rational 
Liberty  will  find  its  way  into  courts, 
castles,  and  cottages ;  and  Improve- 
ment, which  is  the  will  of  the  Eternal, 
will  no  more  be  considered  to  imply 
political  change,  but  rather  the  per- 
fecting of  the  "  powers  that  be"  in 
every  land,  investing  the  monarchies 
with  justice,  the  aristocracies  with 
philanthropy,  and  the  democracies 
with  reverence ;  arranging  all  time- 
honoured  institutions  in  the  spirit  of 
method  and  order,  and  yet  more  spi- 
ritualising that  method  and  order,  as 
far  as  man's  wisdom  is  capable,  into 
some  similitude  of  the  everlasting 
beauty  which  underlies  and  permeates 
the  structure  of  God's  own  universe. 


13 


Zaldee:  a  Romance.— Part  VIII. 


[July, 


ZAIDEE:  A  ROMANCE. 


PART  VIII. — BOOK    II. 


CHAPTER   XXVII. — MRS  WILLIAMS'S   ROOM. 


Mrs  Burtonshaw  was  still  more  re- 
joiced and  exultant  next  morning  to 
find  that  she  had  wrought  a  complete 
cure,  and  that,  emerged  from  the  pur- 
gatory of  gruel,  bathed  feet,  and  double 
coverings,  her  young  patient  took  espe- 
cial care  not  to  look  pale  in  her  pre- 
sence again.  "  You  must  take  care, 
my  dear,  and  wear  this  shawl  to-day. 
What  a  pleasure  to  think  you  are  so 
much  better  1 "  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw. 
When  she  was  gone,  Zaidee,  conscien- 
tiously carrying  the  shawl  with  her, 
hurried  to  seek  admittance  at  the  little 
door,  three  or  four  steps  up  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  wall,  which  belonged  to  the 
private  apartment  of  Jane  Williams. 
In  this  great  house,  where  there  were 
so  many  rooms,  this  little  one  was 
merely  intended  for  a  linen  closet ;  but 
pragmatical  Jane  was  very  Welsh 
and  very  positive.  She  liked  this  small 
corner,  which  put  her  in  mind  of  her 
limited  accommodation  at  home,  and 
had  it  crowded  with  her  belongings, 
with  true  rural  pride.  A  few  things 
in  a  great  room  looked  "  poor,"  as 
Jane  thought.  The  true  sign  of  wealth 
was  to  pack  your  apartment  till  you 
had  barely  room  to  move  in  it.  Ac- 
cordingly, a  very  narrow  winding 
pathway  over  Jane's  central  carpet, 
and  a  clear  space  by  the  side  of  her 
little  green  porcelain  stove,  large 
enough  to  hold  herself,  her  elbow- 
chair,  and  small  round  table,  was  all 
the  available  space  in  the  private  room 
of  Mrs  Williams.  One  window,  close 
into  the  corner  of  the  wall,  gave  a  one- 
sided aspect  to  the  little  apartment ; 
and  this  window  looked  into  a  great 
elm  tree,  which,  in  summer,  with  its 
multitudinous  leaves,  and  at  present 
with  a  forest  of  bare  branches,  was 
the  whole  visible  world  to  the  inmate 
here.  A  spider-legged  table,  with 
numerous  drawers,  stood  in  the  win- 
dow, and  upon  it  were  ranged  various 
ornamental  matters  —  a  stuffed  par- 
rot in  a  case,  a  grotto  of  shells, 
an  elaborate  workbox,  with  its  lid 
open,  disclosing  all  its  treasures.  By 


dint  of  pertinacity,  Jane  had  managed 
to  have  these  favourite  articles  of  hers 
carried  among  the  family  baggage 
wherever  they  wandered ;  and  the  old 
woman  took  pleasure  in  the  neat  cover 
of  her  table,  and  in  the  careful  arrange- 
ment of  these  treasured  ornaments. 
Her  little  mantel-shelf,  too,  was  rich 
with  china  shepherds  and  shepherd- 
esses, and  supported  her  library  of 
three  books — an  aged  Welsh  Bible,  a 
collection  of  hymns,  and  one  of  bal- 
lads, in  the  same  antique  language — 
for  the  newspapers  were  the  only 
things  which  Jane  would  submit  to 
read  in  English.  She  was  a  worldly- 
minded  old  woman,  but  she  had  a 
national  regard  for  "  religion,"  and 
was  reverent  of  the  name,  and  of  its 
symbols,  as  Mary  Cumberland  was. 
Jane's  religion  consisted  in  conning  a 
few  verses  in  her  Welsh  bible  on  the 
afternoon  of  Sunday,  which  she  ob- 
served with  great  decorum  by  means 
of  a  long  sleep  and  a  grave  face.  Mr 
Cumberland  and  his  wife  were  liberal, 
to  the  broadest  extent  of  liberalism, 
and  never  interfered  with  the  "  opin- 
ions "  of  their  servants.  The  "  opin- 
ions" of  various  of  these  respectable 
domestics  were  in  favour  of  coffee 
and  music  at  the  Rosenau,  and  were 
not  against  a  concluding  dance.  Save 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  and  Zaidee,  whose 
ignorance  was  aghast  at  this,  the 
family  were  extremely  indifferent. 
Only  Mrs  Williams  took  the  place  of 
censor  upon  her — she  who  herself  was 
virtuously  conscious  of  spending  the 
day  as  her  father  spent  it  in  the  re- 
cesses of  religious  Wales.  This  town 
of  Ulm,  though  it  was  Lutheran,  was 
no  less  addicted  to  its  Rosenau  and  its 
Sunday  holiday  than  if  mass  had  still 
been  said  in  its  Domkirch ;  and  though 
Sylvo  Burtonshaw  concluded  it  "  very 
poor  fun"  to  sit  by  the  long  tables,  on 
the  damp  soil  of  these  gardens,  sipping 
coffee,  neither  Sylvo  nor  his  kindred 
knew  very  well  how  to  spend  the  day 
better.  They  yawned  through  it,  for 
propriety's  sake.  Sabbath  was  a 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


19 


dead  letter,  and  Sabbath-keeping  un- 
known to  them.  They  were  the  best 
examples  in  the  world  to  a  foreign 
apprehension  of  the  dulness  of  the 
English  Sunday.  It  was  neither  the 
day  of  God  nor  the  day  of  home ; 
4k  the  fruit  of  this,  the  next  world's 
bud,"  to  those  hapless  rich  people  who 
had  only  "opinions,"  and  no  faith. 

But  while  we  digress,  Zaidee  stands 
waiting  at  the  door  of  Mrs  Williams's 
room,  and  is  very  glad  to  see  Mrs 
Williams  herself  sitting  by  the  stove 
in  her  little  sanctum,  mending  her 
laces,  when  she  is  invited  to  enter, 
A  great  many  pieces  of  furniture, 
wardrobes,  and  boxes,  fill  up  the 
small  space  within  these  four  white 
walls,  and  Zaidee  winds  her  way  care- 
fully towards  the  little  throne  of  the 
Welshwoman.  Looking  into  the  eltn 
tree  is  like  looking  into  a  forest.  Only 
those  bare  branches  and  a  morsel  of 
sky  are  visible,  of  the  world  without; 
but  all  the  world  of  its  inmate  is 
within  this  small  enclosure.  Out  of 
it  she  is  foreign  and  unintelligible, 
even  to  her  fellow-servants.  Here  she 
hears  the  '*  sweet  Welsh,"  from  her 
own  lips  at  least,  and  in  her  own  fancy 
lives  her  life  over  again.  The  hills  of 
Wales  and  the  grand  house  of  Powis- 
land  rise  once  more  before  her,  as  she 
goes  on  with  her  silent  occupations. 
Poor  old  Jane  Williams  !  she  is  soli- 
tary, and  a  stranger  down-stairs,  with 
all  her  self-importance  ;  but  here  she 
is  at  home. 

44  Well  then,  child,  shut  the  door. 
I  will  not  have  them  foreigners  look- 
ing iu.  on  me,"  said  the  old  woman. 
"u  Did  you  come  for  the  collars  ?  Yes, 
sure,  them  ladies  that  never  took  up 
a  needle,  they  think  poor  folk's  fingers 
is  made  of  iron.  I  do  be  busy  with 
them  ;  they'll  be  done  in  time." 

44  I  did  not  come  for  the  collars, 
Jane,"  said  Zaidee,  with  a  slight  return 
of  her  former  trembling.  "  But  you 
said  you  would  let  me  see  some  papers. 
Will  you  ?  and  I  will  try  to  help  you 
if  I  can." 

"  And  what  do  you  want  with  my 
papers,  child?"  said  Jane,  fixing  upon 
Zaidee  her  little  twinkling  scrutinis- 
ing eyes. 

44 1  like  to  see  about  the  people  you 
tell  us  of.  I  like  to  hear  your  stories, 
Jane,"  said  Zaidee,  with  unconscious 
flattery ;  "  and  the  old  gentleman — 


the  old  Squire.    You  said  you  would 
let  me  see  his  name." 

44  Well,  I  know  a  deal  of  stories. 
Yes,  indeed — that  is  the  truth,"  said 
Jane.  u  Miss  Mary  has  her  own 
things  to  mind ;  for  certain  sure  she 
never  would  listen  to  me.  I  like  an 
open-hearted  child.  I  do,  then  ;  and  I 
am  good  to  learn  any  one  experience 
of  the  world.  Yes,  sure,  I've  seen  a 
deal  myself — and  my  father,  and  my 
sister,  and  my  brother — and  all  among 
great  families  too,  and  nothing  com- 
mon ;  and  I've  a  deal  of  papers. 
There's  all  about  Rhys  Llewellyn  that 
married  the  pretty  lady ;  and  Miss 
Evelyn  that  runned  away,  and  more 
than  I  can  tell.  They'd  get  me 
money,  you  take  my  word,  if  a  scho- 
lard  was  to  see  them  ;  but  I'm  no 
scholard  myself.  Sit  you  down,  child. 
I'll  get  my* keys  when  I'm  done." 

Zaidee  sat  down  patiently  on  the 
stool  by  Jane's  feet.  The  old  woman 
was  very  busy,  holding  the  lace  be- 
tween her  small  brown  shrivelled 
hands,  and  working  with  great  speed. 
The  sounds  of  the  household  life  below 
were  lost  in  the  distance ;  the  long 
wide  passages  and  staircase  consumed 
them  before  they  came  so  far,  and  in 
a  strange  isolation  the  little  Welsh- 
woman pursued  her  labours.  The 
wind  rustled  in  the  branches  of  the 
elm,  and  the  rushing  of  the  Danube 
interposed  faintly  ;  these  natural 
voices  were  all  the  sounds  that  came 
here.  Zaidee  was  struck  with  the 
loneliness — she  wondered  what  mov- 
ing cause  there  could  be  to  bring  this 
old  woman  here. 

"  Jane,  could  you  not  stay  at  home? 
Why  did  you  come  here?"  asked 
Zaidee  in  a  half  whisper. 

44  Could  I  not  stay  at  home  ?  You 
don't  know  what  you  are  saying, 
child,"  cried  the  old  woman,  indig- 
nantly. 4'  They'd  be  glad  to  see 
me  home  —  ay,  and  rejoice  this 
day.  I  came  for  my  own  will ;  yes, 
I  did,  then.  I  had  a  mind  to  see 
foreign  parts.  And  to  see  the  great 
house  at  Powisland  stripped  and  bare, 
and  every  one  dead  and  gone  —  it 
broke  my  heart.  I'm  far  off  now, 
child,  over  lands  and  seas  ;  but  I  can 
see  sweet  Powisland,  and  my  beauti- 
ful Wales  between  me  and  that  tree — 
for  certain  I  can.  And  I  think  upon 
all  my  old  tales  ;  and  an  old  woman 


20 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


[July, 


wants  no  more.  I'm  like  none  of  you 
young  creatures,  striving  for  change 
and  new  faces.  I'm  doing  my  duty. 
The  Williamses  always  was  known 
for  it,  and  I'm  content.  Once  I  was 
young,  and  tripped  upon  the  hills; 
now  I'm  old,  and  the  fire  is  my  gar- 
den. Will  you  husht,  you  child  !  The 
like  of  you  is  no  judge.  I  please  my- 
self." 

"  And  did  nothing  ever  happen  to 
you  ?"  asked  Zaidee.  "  You  always 
speak  of  other  people.  When  you  were 
young,  did  nothing  ever  come  to  you?  " 

"  Husht,  I  say,"  cried  the  old  wo- 
man, pushing  Zaidee  aside,  as  she 
rose  in  great  haste,  and  threw  down 
her  work.  u  You  will  be  talking— you 
will  be  talking.  Come  and  see  those 
papers  now." 

With  her  curiosity  so  much  roused 
by  this,  that  she  had  almost  forgotten 
the  prior  interest  that  brought  her 
here,  Zaidee  watched  the  old  woman 
open  one  of  the  drawers  in  her  table. 
There  were  a  great  many  bundles  of 
letters  and  papers  in  it,  tied  up  in  a 
very  primitive  way,  and  at  the  back 
one  or  two  books,  rich  with  tarnished 
gilding.  Jane  lifted  a  few  of  these 
yellow  parcels  out,  and  cleared  a 
space  for  them  upon  the  ornament- 
encumbered  table. 

"Was  it  the  old  Squire's  name? 
You  child,  you  keep  your  fingers  off 
my  shells  and  my  birds.  If  you  don't 
do  no  harm,  you  shall  come  back 
again,  and  see  them  again.  I'm  not 
good  at  reading — my  eyesight  fails ; 
but  I  don't  mind  you  looking  at  them, 
if  you  are  a  good  child.  Hark,  now, 
there  is  Miss  Mary.  You're  not  to 
meddle  nothing  but  the  letters,  and 
stay  till  I  come  back,  and  don't  let 
nobody  in  but  me.  Hark,  now,  how 


she  calls  me !  It's  nothing  but  Jane, 
Jane,  from  one  day  to  another.  Now 
I'm  going — mind  the  fire,  and  don't 
meddle  with, nothing,  and  you  can 
look  at  my  papers  till  I  come  back." 

So  saying,  Jane  disappeared,  shut- 
ting the  door  carefully  behind  her, 
and  Zaidee  was  left  in  full  possession 
of  this  sacred  apartment,  and  all  its 
treasures.  A  bird  stirred  in  the  elm 
before  her,  and  the  burning  wood 
sank  down  with  a  little  stir  within 
the  stove.  These  sounds,  as  they 
broke  the  stillness,  oppressed  Zaidee 
with  returning  awe.  She  drew  the 
first  pile  towards  her  with  a  thrill  of 
fear,  expecting  to  see  Grandfather 
Vivian's  well-known  handwriting  at 
her  first  glance.  But  this  faded  hand- 
writing is  a  woman's,  and  all  these 
letters  are  about  Rhys  Llewellyn,  and 
Evelyn  Powis,  and  others  of  the 
house  of  Powisland.  In  other  cir- 
cumstances, these  papers,  full  of  fa- 
mily story,  would  have  been  very  in- 
teresting to  Zaidee,  who  had  an  un- 
limited appetite  for  story-telling ;  but 
her  eagerness  after  the  sole  object 
of  her  search  was  quickened  into 
excitement  by  terror  and  a  supersti- 
tious awe.  That  bird  in  the  elm-tree 
branches  fascinated  poor  Zaidee,  as 
her  trembling  fingers  undid  these  fast- 
enings ;  and  the  crackle  of  the  wood, 
and  the  strange  hushed  sounds  she 
seemed  to  hear  about  her,  wound  her 
up  to  nervous  resolution,  and  oppress- 
ed her  with  imaginative  fear.  "  God 
will  not  let  you  harm  them  any  more," 
said  Zaidee  aloud.  She  thought 
Grandfather  Vivian  was  watching 
while  she  examined  this  pile  to 
which  he  had  conducted  her,  to  find 
the  instrument  of  evil  which  he  had 
hidden  there. 


CHAPTER   XXVHI.— GRANDFATHER  VIVIAN. 


But  pile  after  pile  brought  nothing 
to  the  nervous  search  of  Zaidee. 
Household  bills  and  memoranda  of 
housekeeping,  scribbled  receipts  of 
Welsh  tradesmen,  and  rural  recipes 
for  cooking  and  for  physic,  were  min- 
gled with  the  letters  of  the  house  of 
Powis  in  an  indiscriminate  heap. 
The  worthless  and  the  valuable,  fa- 
mily secrets  and  housekeeping  in- 
structions, preserved  with  equal  fide- 


lity, would  have  formed  a  strange 
medley  to  an  eye  less  interested. 
Zaidee,  who  went  over  them  at  light- 
ning speed,  found  no  time  for  amuse- 
ment. She  threw  down,  one  by  one, 
these  old  correspondences  —  threw 
down  some  uncouth  letters,  signed 
Evan  and  Mary  Williams,  which 
were  among  the  heap,  and  with  eager 
curiosity  searched  further  ;  but,  amid 
all,  there  was  nothing  for  her. 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  Vlll. 


Her  anxiety  gave  way  to  disappoint- 
ment. Grandfather  Vivian,  after  all, 
had  not  been  the  old  Squire  of  Evan 
Williams.  Grandfather  Vivian  had 
not  guided  her  to  this  strange  hiding- 
place — there  was  no  spiritual  influ- 
ence mysteriously  using  her  for  its 
agent ;  but,  in  her  high  strain  of  ex- 
citement, Zaidee  shed  tears  over  her 
failure — she  was  disappointed — her 
expectations  had  been  so  sure. 

While  these  tears  fell,  against  her 
will,  on  the  papers  where  other 
tears  had  fallen  before,  Zaidee  drew 
out  the  old  book  within  the  drawer. 
It  was  a  quarto  volume,  in  binding 
which  had  once  been  handsome ;  and 
though  the  gilding  was  blackened  and 
the  boards  defaced,  it  still  had  the  air 
of  a  book  worn  with  use  and  not  with 
neglect.  She  opened  it  and  found  it 
Greek,  an  occult  language  which  al- 
ways inspired  Zaidee  with  the  deepest 
respectfulness.  Somewhat  languidly 
she  turned  to  the  first  page.  Some 
large  characters,  written  in  an  uneven 
oblique  line  across  it,  stumbling  over 
the  title  and  over  a  name,  roused 
Zaidee  once  more.  She  read  them 
with  a  double  thrill  of  awe  and  mys- 
terious excitement.  She  was  not  mis- 
taken— her  sense  of  invisible  guidance 
seemed  in  a  moment  realised.  The 
name,  written  long  before  this  start- 
ling irregular  line,  was  "  Richard 
Vivian,"  and  bore  a  far  distant  date. 
The  additional  writing — large  and 
black,  and  unsteady,  like  the  writing 
of  a  man  whose  eyes  failed  him,  and 
who  wrote  thus  in  desperation,  that 
he  might  be  sure  he  had  accomplished 
his  purpose — came  to  the  young  in- 
vestigator like  words  from  heaven. 
"  Frank  Vivian,  do  justice  to  my  son 
Percy," — thus  spoke  this  voice  from 
the  dead.  The  dreadful  helpless  peni- 
tence of  this  last  outcry  of  compunc- 
tion was  visible  in  every  line.  Stum- 
bling across  his  own  signature,  and 
across  the  title  of  his  favourite  vo- 
lume, the  dying  man,  with  eyes  which 
could  only  dimly  discern  those  black 
exaggerated  letters,  had  left  one  re- 
cord behind  him,  that  he  repented — 
and  that  was  all.  The  son  he  ad- 
dressed, no  longer  remained  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  other  ;  the  other  was  gone 
from  his  heirship  and  his  lands.  Into 
the  mysterious  gloom  of  the  world  in- 
visible this  fierce  spirit  itself  had 


passed  long  years  ago.  Not  remorse 
for  one  wrong,  perhaps,  but  repent- 
ance of  all  had  visited  his  forlorn 
dying;  but  no  one  knew  the  secrets 
of  it— nothing  remained  to  bid  the 
judgment  of  this  world  reverse  its  deci- 
sion but  this  last  cry  of  despairing  atone- 
ment. The  child  whom  his  evil  caprice 
had  endowed  so  sadly,  read  his  latest 
words  with  eyes  that  shone  through 
a  mist  of  tears.  Holding  the  volume 
fast,  Zaidee  looked  round  her  into  the 
still  and  solemn  daylight  of  this  lonely 
room.  "  Grandfather  Vivian,"  said 
the  girl,  firmly,  u  if  you  are  here,  I 
did  you  wrong  ;  and  if  you  guided  me 
here,  I  am  glad;  and  it  was  God  that 
suffered  you  to  do  it,  for  I  will  never 
do  them  harm ;  and  I  am  my  father's 
heir,  and  this  is  what  he  has  left  to 
me." 

She  took  the  volume  to  her  again, 
and  put  her  innocent  lips  to  that  dark 
memorial  of  wrong  and  of  repentance. 
The  tears  were  choking  at  her  heart, 
but  something  restrained  them,  and 
drove  them  back  from  her  dry  eyes. 
With  a  great  effort  she  restored  the 
papers  to  their  place,  put  the  precious 
book  under  her  shawl,  and  went  to 
her  own  room,  gliding  with  steps  as 
noiseless  and  rapid  as  a  spirit ;  then 
she  laid  it  under  her  pillow,  and  threw 
herself  down  upon  her  little  bed.  She 
was  worn  out  with  intense  excitement, 
with  terror  and  awe,  and  a  supersti- 
tious sense  of  some  invisible  presence. 
When  some  one  came  to  seek  her, 
late  in  the  day,  after  the  early  twi- 
light had  begun  to  fall,  Zaidee's  brown 
cheeks  were  bright  with  the  flush  of 
fever.  She  was  lying  very  quiet, 
awake,  looking  into  the  shadows  with 
eyes  only  too  lustrous.  They  could 
not  tell  what  had  happened  to  thecfiild, 
who  scarcely  could  speak  to  them 
when  they  questioned  her.  Her  tu- 
mult of  thought  was  dying  into  un- 
consciousness— her  excess  of  emotion 
fading  into  a  long  trance  of  waking 
sleep.  They  watched  by  her  in  great 
terror  while  those  open  eyes  of  hers 
gazed  into  the  darkness  and  into  the 
candle-light.  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  with 
eager  kindness  and  a  little  liking  for 
the  office,  changed  her  dress  immedi- 
ately, and,  with  a  thick  cap  and  a 
shawl,  took  her  seat  by  Zaidee's  bed- 
side. Mary  hung  about  the  foot  of 
the  little  bed  in  silent  agony.  All  the 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


[July, 


while  these  bright  eyes  searched  about 
through  the  little  apartment.  Even 
Sylvo  Burtonshavv  sat  up  down-stairs, 
and  Mr  Cumberland  fidgeted,  half- 
dressed,  about  the  door  of  his  sleeping- 
room  ;  and  watchers  were  never  more 
rejoiced  at  the  saving  calm  of  sleep  in 
the  crisis  of  disease,  than  were  these 
when  the  fitful  slumber  of  fever  closed 
the  eyes  of  Zaidee.  The  news  was 
carried  down  stairs,  and  Mary  was 
sent  to  bed.  "  She  will  be  better  to- 
morrow," said  Aunt  Burtonshavv,  as 
she  dismissed  the  unwilling  girl.  But 
Aunt  Burtonshaw  shook  her  head, 
and  knew  better,  when  she  was  left 
by  the  bedside  of  Zaidee,  to  watch 
through  that  long  spring  night. 

And  Zaidee  had  a  fever,  and  for 
weeks  lay  on  that  restless  couch  of 
hers,  struggling  for  her  young  life. 
Mary,  who  would  not  be  restrained 
from  watching  by  her,  and  Aunt  Bur* 
tonshaw,  the  kindest  nurse  in  the 
world,  gave  sedulous  attendance  to  the 
unconscious  girl,  who  did  not  rave  or 
exhaust  herself  in  ordinary  delirium, 
but  only  searched  the  vacant  air  with 
her  brilliant  eyes,  and  seemed  per- 
petually looking  for  some  one,  though 
she  recognised  neither  of  her  nurses. 
They  had  found  the  book  under  her 
pillow,  and  put  it  away  without  fur- 
ther thought.  No  one  associated  this 
old  volume  with  Zaidee's  illness  ;  and 
even  old  Jane's  inquiries  for  her  lost 
treasure  were  fruitless  in  the  excite- 
ment of  the  time.  This  whole  whim- 
sical house  was  concerned  for  Zaidee, 
Mr  Cumberland  forgot  to  read  his  last 
importation  of  theories,  and  took  to 
investigations  of  homceopathy  and  hy- 
dropathy— of  electricity  and  mesmer- 
ism. Mrs  Cumberland  kept  her 
room,  and  was  ill  by  way  of  meeting 
the  emergency.  Sylvo,  infinitely 
bored,  set  out  for  his  college,  to  the 
relief  of  everybody.  The  house  be- 
came very  quiet,  above  stairs  and  be- 
low, and  full  of  sick-nurses,  of  whom 
Mrs  Cumberland  appropriated  the 
lion's  share.  "  If  she  should  be 
worse— if  anything  should  happen," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  with  tears  in 
her  eyes,  as  she  bent  over  the  bed  of 
her  young  patient.  "  Poor  dear,  we 
are  all  strangers  to  her— she  is  far 
from  her  own  friends." 

"Nothing  will  happen,  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw," cried  Mary  vehemently; 


"  and  she  loves  us — I  know  she  does. 
She  has  no  friends." 

Aunt  Burtoushaw  shook  her  head, 
and  raised  her  hand  to  silence  her  in- 
discreet assistant.  "  You  must  never 
get  excited  in  a  sick-room.  Go  and  lie 
down,  my  darling,"  said  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw. Mary,  who  would  have  been 
shocked  at  the  idea  of  lying  down,  had 
she  known  that  the  crisis  of  this  strange 
illness  was  approaching,  was  reluc- 
tantly persuaded,  and  went.  Her  good 
aunt  sat  down  once  more  at  the  bed- 
side of  the  young  exile.  "  Poor  dear ! " 
said  Aunt  Burtonshaw.  She  thought 
this  solitary  child,  far  from  all  who 
loved  her,  was  about  to  die. 

But  Zaidee  did  not  die.  Her  young 
elastic  life,  almost  worn  out  by  the 
struggle,  was  not  yet  conquered.  The 
morning  brought  sleep  to  these  bright 
open  eyes,  and  when  she  woke  again, 
it  was  to  look  with  recognition  and 
intelligence  upon  her  watchers,  and  to 
bear  the  twilight  and  the  lighted 
candles  without  any  of  those  wistful 
investigations  which  her  eyes  had 
made  in  her  fever.  The  German  doc- 
tor pronounced  her  out  of  danger — it 
was  the  signal  for  a  great  increase  of 
Mrs  Cumberland's  malady;  and  Mr 
Cumberland,  down  stairs,  was  very 
busy  getting  a  hydropathic  apparatus 
in  readiness  for  Zaidee,  and  waiting 
for  the  English  mail  which  should 
bring  him  a  multum  inparvo — a  dwarf 
medicine-chest,  rich  in  globules,  and 
warranted  to  cure  all  Ulm  of  all  the 
diseases  under  heaven.  A  larger  con- 
signment in  shape  of  a  .galvanic  ma- 
chine was  also  on  its  way,  to  aid  in  the 
recovery  of  the  patient.  It  was  the 
especial  character  of  Mr  Cumberland's 
genius,  that  he  combined  into  one  half- 
a-dozen  nostrums,  and  piled  one  in- 
fallibility on  the  top  of  another,  mak- 
ing, out  of  other  people's  systems,  a 
system  of  his  own.  With  all  these 
murderous  preparations  in  progress,  it 
was  well  for  Zaidee  that  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw barricaded  her  folding-doors, 
and  held  the  amateur  physician  at 
bay  ;  and  that  health,  once  returning, 
came  at  a  rapid  pace,  and  needed 
little  assistance.  "  A  touch  of  elec- 
tricity will  set  her  up  again.  Wait  till 
I  get  her  down  stairs,"  said  Mr  Cum- 
berland, as  he  carried  off  his  wet 
blankets  from  the  inexorable  defender 
of  Zaidee's  room.  But  even  Mr  Cum- 


1855.] 

berland,  though  foiled  in  his  endea- 
vours for  her  recovery,  had  a  warm 
heart  to  the  invalid,  whose  illness  had 
cost  him  some  anxiety.  Mrs  Cumber- 
land kissed  her  pale  cheek  when  she 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


23 


was  able  to  leave  her  room,  and  Mary 
rejoiced  over  her  like  a  recovered 
treasure.  Poor  little  Zaidee,  in  her 
orphan  solitude,  had  fallen  among 
friends. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. — RECOVERY. 


As  Zaidee  came  to  health — one 
might  almost  say,  came  to  life  again 
— the  events  which  preceded  her  ill- 
ness came  slowly  to  her  recollection, 
one  by  one.  Making  a  timid  and 
eager  search  through  her  room,  she 
found  the  book,  in  which  that  solemn 
message  was,  laid  carefully  aside  in  a 
drawer;  and  Zaidee  remembered  how 
it  was  the  tumult  of  desires  and  ima- 
ginations, occasioned  by  her  discovery 
of  it — the  question  whether,  armed 
with  this  she  might  go  home  again — 
whether  Philip  and  Aunt  Vivian  would 
hold  it  of  enough  authority  to  annul 
that  other  unhappy  document,  which, 
combined  with  her  visionary  dread 
and  awe,  had  been  too  much  for  the 
young  mind,  overtasked  and  solitary. 
As  she  considered  this  momentous 
subject  now,  in  the  calm  of  her  weak- 
ness, Zaidee  decided  that  this  was 
not  sufficient  warrant;  and  though 
she  longed  exceedingly  that  they 
should  see  these  last  words  of  the  old 
Squire,  she  could  think  of  no  possible 
way  of  sending  the  book  to  them 
without  a  betrayal  of  her  secret.  She 
was  here  beyond  reach  of  their  search, 
and  their  search,  hitherto  had  been 
unsuccessful,  and  she  shrank  within 
herself,  even  in  her  safe  solitude,  at 
the  idea  of  being  found  and  carried 
home  the  heiress  of  the  Grange.  She 
never  would  supplant  Philip,  and 
here  she  was  as  safe  as  if  she  had 
died.  But  now  a  great  compunction 
for  Grandfather  Vivian  took  posses- 
sion of  the  child.  She  had  done  him 
wrong — they  had  all  done  him  wrong. 
He  was  no  longer  u  that  wicked  old 
man,"  though  Sophy  still  would  call 
him  so ;  and  Zaidee  was  humbly  re- 
pentant of  her  own  error.  All  the 
solitary  time  of  her  convalescence — 
every  half-hour  in  which  her  watchful 
attendants  could  be  persuaded  to  leave 
her  alone  —  her  meditations  were 
busy  upon  her  own  uncharitable  judg- 
ment ;  and  many  letters,  written  and 
destroyed  in  a  returning  panic — im- 


possible letters,  which  should  convey 
this  intelligence  without  giving  a  clue 
to  her  hiding-place,  were  written  in 
secret.  If  those  longing  thoughts 
could  travel  to  them  ! — if  those  half- 
articulate  words,  which  broke  from 
her  lips  in  secret,  could  but  reach  the 
ears  they  were  addressed  to !  But 
Zaidee  recollected  herself,  and  took 
her  resolution  again  to  her  heart. 
Better  that  they  should  never  hear 
from  her,  best  that  they  thought  her 
gone  out  of  the  world  for  ever ;  and 
Zaidee's  simple  mind  supposed  no 
changes  in  the  home  circle.  She 
thought  of  the  young  Squire  ruling 
his  paternal  acres,  and  all  the  house- 
hold prosperous  and  happy  as  of  old. 
The  image  in  her  mind  had  suf- 
fered no  clouding  out  of  the  dim 
horizon  of  her  own  fate.  She  looked 
back  upon  them,  and  the  sky  was 
ever  smiling.  It  was  the  comfort  of 
her  life. 

When  Zaidee  was  well  again,  Jane 
Williams  came  one  morning  with  a 
startling  knock  to  her  chamber  door. 
Jane  came  armed  with  law  and  justice 
— a  self-appointed  magistrate,  legis- 
lating in  her  own  behalf — and  de- 
manded her  book  back  again.  Zai- 
dee was  fortunately  alone. 

"  Yes,  child,  you  deceived  me," 
said  Jane.  "  I  did  trust  you— yes,  I 
did — and  left  my  room  and  all  I  have 
to  you.  In  my  country,  for  sure,  you 
might  leave  an  open  door  and  gold 
untold ;  but  here  I'd  not  have  any- 
body turn  over  my  belongings.  Look 
you  here,  child,  I  put  you  in  charge 
of  it,  and  I  went  to  Miss  Mary. 
Well,  then,  I  come  back  —  and  my 
door  is  open,  and  my  lire  be  burning, 
and  them  papers,  that's  worth  money, 
swept  in  like  dust ;  and  when  I  do 
look  close,  my  book  is  gone.  My 
father's  book  it  was.  It  belonged  to 
the  old  Squire.  You  tell  me  just  why 
you  runned  away." 

"I  was  ill,  Jane,"  said  Zaidee 
humbly.  Zaidee  had  turned  the  key 


Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  VIII. 


[July, 


already  in  the  drawer  which  held  the 
stolen  book. 

"Was  it  'cause  of  being  ill  you 
took  the  book,  you  child?"  cried  Jane. 
"  Yes,  sure,  I  heard  you  was  ill ;  and 
this  and  another  said,  she'll  die.  If 
you'd  have  died,  what  would  you 
have  done  then  with  a  book  was  not 
your  own  ?  " 

"Did  they  think  I  would  die?" 
asked  Zaidee.  It  gave  her  a  strange 
solemnity  of  feeling.  She  had  been 
near  this  great  event,  and  knew  it  not. 

"  It's  waste  time  talking,"  said  the 
peremptory  Jane.  "  Will  you  let 
me  have  my  book?  Husht,  then, 
I'm  not  hard  on  you,  child  ;  it  isn't 
no  pleasure  to  you  now — it's  in  a 
heathen  tongue — it  may  be  not  a  good 
book,  for  aught  I  know.  You  listen 
to  me.  I  have  got  a  pretty  book  all 
stories  and  tales.  I'll  teach  you  to 
read  it — I  will,  if  you  are  good — and 
give  me  back  that  old  thing  that's  no 
pleasure  to  you." 

"  Will  you  let  me  keep  it,  Jane?  " 
pleaded  Zaidee.  "  I  like  to  look  at 
it,  and  I  have  pleasure  in  it.  May  I 
have  it  a  little  ?  When  you  ask  it 
again  I  will  give  it  you." 

The  little  old  woman  looked  at  Zai- 
dee's  pale  face  with  compassion.  "You 
poor  child,  you  want  to  be  at  home 
and  the  wind  on  your  cheeks,"  said 
Mrs  Williams ;  "  but  if  you  do  have 
a  fancy  in  your  head,  as  they  be  all 
fancies  in  this  house,  will  I  baulk  you, 
you  little  one?  No,  sure,  the  Wil- 
liamses  was  always  known  for  tender 
hearts.  You  take  good  care  of  it, 
then,  and  when  you're  well  you  may 
come  back  again,  and  I'll  tell  you  of 
Rhys  Llewellyn  and  his  pretty  lady, 
and  how  it  was  Miss  Evelyn  run- 
ned  away." 

"How  did  she  run  away?"  said 
Zaidee  eagerly.  She  was  suddenly 
struck  with  the  expression,  and  in 
her  innocence  immediately  leaped  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  running  away 
was  like  her  own. 

"There  was  a  rich  gentleman,  and 
there  was  a  poor  gentleman,"  said 
the  ready  narrator.  "  Sir  Watkin 
and  my  lady,  they  would  have  the 
one,  and  Miss  Evelyn,  poor  soul,  she 
would  have  the  other — you  don't 
know  nothing  about  such  things,  you 
child— and  they  fell  upon  a  plan.  I 
don't  inind  telliog  it,  you  be  cer- 


tain, unless  some  one  does  want  to 
hear." 

Jane  was  clear-sighted,  and  saw 
that  her  young  listener,  finding  the 
story  not  like  her  own,  had  flagged 
in  her  attention.  But  it  was  only 
for  a  moment,  and  Zaidee  listened 
with  great  edification  to  the  story  of 
an  elopement,  in  which  Jane  Williams 
herself  had  been  art  and  part.  But 
the  current  of  her  own  thoughts, 
more  interesting  than  any  story,  ran 
through  the  whole.  "  Frank  Vivian, 
do  justice  to  my  son  Percy"— these 
words  rang  into  her  heart  like  a 
trumpet;  and  Zaidee's  mind  made 
visionary  addresses  to  Grandfather 
Vivian,  telling  him  that  she  was  her 
father's  heir,  and  that  she  would 
never  do  them  harm.  Philip's  chiv- 
alrous pride  in  his  right  as  head  of 
the  house  to  protect  her  title  to 
his  own  inheritance  was  repeated 
in  the  girlish  flush  of  resolution 
with  which  she  protested  to  herself 
that  she  was  her  father's  heir,  and 
that  this  was  the  inheritance  Grand- 
father Vivian  had  left  her.  Now  that 
she  had  time  to  think  of  it,  in  spite  of 
the  disappointment  in  her  first  hope 
of  going  home,  this  last  discovery 
was  a  great  support  to  Zaidee.  She 
was  no  longer  totally  alone  in  her 
exile  and  self-banishment.  It  seemed 
to  her  that  now  a  little  company  had 
interest  in  her  flight;  that  the  old 
Squire's  will  had  guided  her  unawares ; 
that  her  father's  honour  would  have 
been  compromised  had  she  done 
otherwise.  She  never  could  have 
found  this  had  she  remained  at  home. 
She  must  have  done  them  wrong 
without  remedy,  and  never  known 
that  Grandfather  Vivian  wished,  at 
last,  to  restore  them  to  their  right. 
Her  young  imagination,  calmed  as  it 
was  by  her  long  illness,  was  so  strong 
still  that  it  elevated  her  into  the 
position  of  representing  both  Frank 
Vivian  and  his  father.  She  had  done 
what  they  would  have  done,  but 
were  not  permitted.  She  was  the 
heir  of  this  injunction,  and  she  had 
obeyed  it ;  and  high  within  her,  for- 
lorn and  generous,  rose  Zaidee's 
heart. 

When  she  was  alone  she  took  this 
book  and  laid  it  with  her  father's 
bible.  She  read  the  family  name 
in  both  of  them  with  a  strange  pride 


1855.] 

and  tenderness.  She  was  no  longer 
Zaidee  Vivian — she  had  given  up  all 
right  and  title  to  be'  called  so ;  yet 
father  and  grandfather  seemed  to 
give  to  her  a  hold  upon  her  native 
name  once  more.  "  I  have  not  died 
now,"  said  Zaidee  softly,  as  she  held 
these  treasured  volumes  together; 
"  but  some  time  God  will  send  for  me, 
and  then  I  will  send  my  books  home 
and  say  I  am  Zaidee,  and  write  down 
how  I  have  always  thought  upon 
every  one  of  them  at  home.  I  wonder 
why  I  did  not  die  when  I  was  so  near 
it ;  but  next  time  God  will  take  me 
away." 


Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  VIII.  25 

With  this  conclusion  Zaidee  so- 
lemnly put  away  these  her  posses- 
sions— wiped  from  her  eyes  the  dew 
which  was  not  positive  tears — and, 
closing  her  secret  world,  with  all  that 
belonged  to  it,  went  away  to  be  Mary 
Cumberland's  companion  in  the  other 
world  below  stairs,  where  Mr  Cum- 
berland was  experimenting  on  his 
galvanic  battery,  and  Mrs  Cumber- 
land making  observations  on  a  new 
poem — where  Mary  "practised,"  and 
Aunt  Burtonshaw  did  Berlin  work — 
and  where  no  one  had  ever  heard  of 
Grandfather  Vivian,  or  was  aware  of 
such  a  place  as  the  Grange. 


CHAPTER  XXX.— A   PAIR   OF   FRIENDS. 


After  this  a  gradual  change  came 
upon  Zaidee's  life.  Her  mind  began 
to  grow,  and  her  frame  to  develop. 
Mr  Cumberland's  philosophy  and  his 
wife's  aesthetics  both  came  in  to  lend 
something  to  the  unconscious  and  in- 
voluntary culture  of  the  stranger 
within  their  gates.  These  pranks  of 
science  and  mad  theories  gave  what 
was  in  them  of  truth,  exaggerated  or 
overlaid,  to  the  simple  eye  which 
looked  upon  them  trustfully  through 
the  pure  daylight  of  nature  ;  and  those 
romances  which  made  Mrs  Cumber- 
land highflown,  were  sweet  and  harm- 
less to  the  fancy  of  Zaidee,  who  needed 
no  extravagance  to  display  her  appre- 
ciation of  the  loftiest  art.  Mary  Cum- 
berland's firm  standard  of  good  sense 
did  not  answer  this  visionary  girl,  who 
never  transgressed  its  laws,  yet  went 
a  world  beyond  them ;  and  Mary 
learned  to  understand  how  fudge  was 
by  no  means  an  unfailing  synonym 
for  sentiment,  and  how  sentimentalism 
was  something  quite  distinct  and  se- 
parate from  the  tender  human  pathos 
which  belongs  to  all  things  striking 
deep  to  the  heart.  Mrs  Cumberland 
still  made  many  efforts  to  teach  them 
to  think,  and  filled  her  stores  with 
"  subjects,"  between  which  lay  gulfs 
wide  enough  to  discourage  the  most 
daring  leaper,  and  the  young  ladies 
had  no  extraordinary  success  in  think- 
ing after  this  fashion;  but  once  re- 
leased from  the  necessity  of  bringing 
up  their  thoughts  to  drill,  a  very  re- 
spectable amount  of  meditation  came 
to  be  done  between  them.  Quite  se- 


cure from  interruption — with  closed 
doors,  with  the  womanly  excuse  of 
sewing,  which  Mary  condescended  to 
for  sake  of  Zaidee's  example,  and  with 
even  Aunt  Burtonshaw  out  of  hear- 
ing— many  grave  and  weighty  subjects 
were  discussed  by  these  two  girls. 
In  Mary  Cumberland's  large  sleeping 
room,  with  its  little  bed  by  the  wall, 
its  great  closed  folding-doors,  and  its 
three  windows,  they  sat  together  in 
their  private  convention  as  the  spring 
warmed  into  summer.  The  furniture, 
though  not  very  small,  looked  dwarfed 
in  the  distance  of  those  great  recesses, 
and  so  large  an  amount  of  lofty  white 
wall  gave  a  vacancy  and  extent  to 
this  apartment,  which  was  not  quite 
consistent  with  our  English  idea  of  a 
young  lady's  chamber ;  but  the  trees 
shake  out  their  opening  leaves  upon 
the  windows,  the  sunshine  comes  in, 
and  throws  a  long  radiant  line  over 
the  white  and  empty  floor.  Yonder 
is  the  tower  of  the  Dom  rising  high 
towards  those  fleecy  showery  clouds 
which  speck  the  serene  blue  overhead 
— the  chiming  of  the  cathedral  bells 
strikes  now  and  then  through  the  air, 
which  always  tingles  with  the  way- 
faring of  this  swift-footed  Danube 
passing  by.  And  here  the  two  girls 
are  content  to  sit  for  hours,  working 
at  their  needle,  talking  of  every  sub- 
ject under  heaven.  The  one  of  them, 
who  has  perceptions  of  a  more  every- 
day character  than  those  of  the  other, 
piques  herself  a  little  on  her  expe- 
rience and  knowledge  of  the  world ; 
but  the  world,  an  undiscovered  wil- 


26 


Zaidee:  a  Romance.— Part  VIII. 


derness,  lies  far  away  from  these 
budded  flowers— these  children  who 
are  women,  yet  children  still.  In  the 
boldness  of  their  innocence  they  stray 
into  wonderful  speculations,  and  plan 
such  futures  as  never  yet  existed — 
then  sink  their  young  sweet  voices,"to 
talk  with  a  hushed  and  reverential 
earnestness  of  matters  which  no  one 
directs  them  to — the  holy  mysteries 
of  heaven.  In  their  fearless  and  un- 
shackled communion  there  is  nothing 
too  deep  or  too  great  for  these  com- 
panions to  touch  upon ;  and  the  Saxon 
beauty  of  Mary  Cumberland — her 
thick  curls  of  fair  hair,  and  well- 
developed  womanly  figure,  and  coun- 
tenance, where  everything  is  fair,  and 
clear,  and  full  of  sunshine — does  not 
differ  more  from  that  brown  expres- 
sive face,  which  is  already  changing 
into  what  it'shall  be — from  that  pliant 
jshadowy  figure,  with  movements  as 
quick  as  those  of  a  savage — than  the 
mind  of  Mary  differs  from  Zaidee's 
mind.  But  the  same  sunshine  falls 
over  them — the  same  sweet  influence, 
the  common  dew  of  youth,  is  on  the 
friends.  There  is  no  path  so  high  but 
they  will  glance  across  it,  as  they  sit 
with  their  woman's  work  between 
them — none  too  dangerous  for  their 
innocence  to  venture  upon.  When 
they  know  little  of  the  way,  they  go 
wondering,  and  telling  each  other  what 
their  wonder  is ;  and  now  and  then 
they  stop  to  count  the  chimes,  and 
Zaidee's  eye  follows  that  noble  line  of 
building  up  into  the  sunny  heavens  ; 
and  they  sigh  when  necessity,  in  the 
shape  of  old  Jane  Williams,  summons 
them  to  other  occupations  than  the 
sewing  about  which  they  have  been 
so  busy.  Commendable  as  this  in- 
dustry is,  it  comes  sadly  in  the  way 
of  accomplishments,  and  Mary's 
"practising"  grows  rather  tiresome 
to  Mary.  Independent  of  all  other 
inducements,  this  young  lady  has  a 
liking  for  talk,  and  bears  her  part  in 
it  always  with  spirit ;  and  there  are 
no  hours  so  pleasant  to  these  com- 
panions as  the  hours  they  spend  in 
Mary's  room. 

To  Mrs  Burtonshaw  there  is  some- 
thing extremely  puzzling  in  this  sud- 
den industry.  She  thinks  sewing  a 
most  laudable  occupation,  and  was 
delighted  for  the  first  few  days,  but 
so  long  a  persistence  puts  her  out  of 


[July, 

her  reckoning.  "  Not  tired  yet, 
Mary  ?  "  says  Mrs  Burtonshaw. 
"  When  I  was  like  you — though  I 
am  very  fond  of  it  now — I  hated  the 
sight  of  needle  and  thread.  I  think 
it  is  time  for  your  practising,  my  love. 
See  what  the  dear  child  has  done, 
Maria  Anna.  All  this — and  this — 
since  the  beginning  of  the  week! — 
and  Elizabeth  Francis  the  same. 
When  we  were  young,  we  had  a  pre- 
sent to  encourage  us  when  we  did 
well.  They  thought  it  a  great  thing 
to  make  us  industrious  when  we  were 
young." 

f  I  would  a  great  deal  rather  they 
spent  their  time  in  improving  their 
mind,"  said  Mrs  Cumberland.  '*  A  ser- 
vant could  do  all  that  for  me ;  but  no 
one  can  make  Mary  a  refined  woman 
unless  she  chooses  to  apply  herself — 
nor  you  either,  Elizabeth,  my  dear  : 
come  here,  and  I  will  give  you  a  book 
to  read,  and  put  that  stupid  sewing 
away." 

"  You  are  only  discouraging  the 
children,  Maria  Anna,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw,  with  displeasure.  "  It  is 
not  stupid  sewing — it  is  very  nicely 
done,  I  assure  you  ;  and  I  am  sure  I 
think  it  a  great  deal  more  sensible 
employment  than  what  you  call  im- 
proving their  mind." 

"  These  girls  only  puzzle  you,  sis- 
ter Burtonshaw,"  says  Mr  .Cumber- 
land, who  sits  at  the  lower  end  of 
this  universal  apartment,  among  the 
gilded  chairs  and  marble  side-tables, 
arranging  his  battery :  u  they  only 
get  together  to  gossip ;  they  care  no 
more  for  your  sewing  than  I  do.  They 
are  like  all  you  women — they  love  to 
lay  their  heads  together  and  discuss 
their  neighbours.  By  the  way,  I 
wonder  what  effect  the  phrenological 
cap  would  have  on  this  propensity. 
Young  heads — fine  development  —  a 
slight  pressure  on  ideality  to  reduce  it; 
another  on  language ;  and  a  corre- 
sponding elevation  for  benevolence. 
Not  the  least  pain  or  confinement, 
sister  Burtonshaw — not  the  slightest; 
the  gentlest  administration  of  moral 
discipline  that  ever  was  invented. 
I'll  see  about  these  caps  presently. 
If  we  return  to  England,  their  minds 
will  require  to  be  fortified.  A  good 
idea — I  am  glad  it  occurred  to  me — 
a  beautiful  experiment !  I'll  have  it 
in  universal  use  before  a  year  is  out." 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


27 


"  Put  iron  caps  on  their  heads,  Mr 
Cumberland!"  cried  Mrs  Burtonshaw 
with  a  scream  of  horror.  u  We  had 
steel  collars  in  my  day,  and  they  say 
that  was  barbarous,  though  it  was  only 
for  the  shoulders.  My  dears,  I  will 
never  let  it  be  !" 

"  Pooh  !  nonsense.  Your  steel 
collars  were  only  physical ;  this  is  to 
insure  a  good  conformation  to  the 
mind"  said  the  philosopher,  who  was 
already  making  models  with  paper 
and  scissors.  u  Suspend  your  judg- 
ment, sister  Burtonshaw.  Wait  and 
see." 

This  new  project  was  disturbed  by 
the  arrival  of  letters  from  England. 
Every  one,  then,  had  some  news  to 
tell.  Mrs  Burtonshaw's  intelligence 
was  that  her  friend,  and  Zaidee's 
friend,  Mrs  Lancaster,  was  dead ; 
and  the  kind-hearted  good  woman  re- 
tired to  her  own  apartment  to  devote 
an  hour's  lamentation  and  a  few 
honest  tears  to  her  old  companion's 
memory.  Mr  Cumberland  returned 
to  his  machinery.  Great  havoc,  and 
an  infinite  quantity  of  fright  and 
hysterics,  this  startling  machine  had 


brought  into  the  household.  Almost 
every  individual  in  Ulm  who  could  be 
brought  to  consent  to  it,  had  received 
a  "  shock"  from  the  domestic  demon  ; 
and  if  many  cures  were  not  wrought 
by  galvanism  in  the  Danubian  city, 
it  was  no  fault  of  the  English  resident, 
who  presided  over  it  with  ardent  phi- 
lanthropy, and  dispensed  its  beneficial 
influences  with  a  willing  hand. 

And  Mr  Cumberland,  who  talked 
now  of  returning  to  England,  had  quite 
given  up  his  prospective  paradise  in 
the  South  Seas.  The  phrenological 
cap  was  nothing  to  a  Polynesian, 
banishment,  and  Mary  was  gracious, 
and  only  laughed  at  the  threatened 
infliction. 

And  thus  ran  on  the  altered  life  of 
Zaidee.  She  was  already  one  of  this 
household — a  child  of  the  family,  re- 
ceived warmly  into  its  heart.  The 
world  was  not  a  cruel  world  to  this 
poor  little  exile  of  love  ;  and  as  the 
child  silently  gave  place  to  the  woman, 
the  years  and  the  hours  brought  grace, 
and  tenderness,  and  unexpected  gifts 
of  fortune,  enriching  Zaidee  Vivian's 
youthful  life. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. — THE  CURATE  S  WIFE. 


Time,  which  went  on  slowly  with 
the  household  on  the  banks  of  the 
Danube,  did  not  move  more  rapidly 
under  the  shelter  of  the  hill  of  Briar- 
ford.  All  the  little  eddies  of  excite- 
ment had  long  since  passed  away 
from  the  quiet  waters  there.  Except  in 
the  Grange,  people  had  ceased  to  re- 
member Zaidee  Vivian,  or  to  talk  of 
her  strange  disappearance.  Instead 
of  that,  everybody  was  concerned  and 
sympathetic  for  the  failing  health  and 
woe-begone  looks  of  poor  Mrs  Green, 
the  Curate's  wife.  Was  her  husband 
good  to  her,  strangers  wondered,  who 
did  not  know  the  clumsy  but  genuine 
kindness  of  the  perplexed  Curate ; 
and  neighbours  nearer  at  hand  con- 
cluded her  to  be  in  a  hopeless  con- 
sumption— a  "decline,"  which  nothing 
could  arrest.  Good  Mrs  Wyburgh 
went  a  toilsome  journey  to  her  own 
cosy  kitchen,  to  superintend  the  mak- 
ing of  good  things  for  this  poor  help- 
less invalid,  to  whom  and  to  whose 
unregulated  servant  the  noble  art  of 
cookery  was  almost  unknown;  and 


compassionate  young  ladies  knitted 
warm  cuifs  and  jackets  for  the  fading 
Angelina,  to  whose  pale  cheeks  the 
Cheshire  wind  brought  no  roses.  The 
cottage  matrons  shook  their  heads 
and  said,  "  She'll  not  be  long  here, 
poor  soul,"  as  Mrs  Green  took  her 
languid  walk  with  her  book  of  poetry 
past  their  doors.  The  good  Curate, 
who  loved  the  helpless  creature  de- 
pendent on  him,  and  who  was  by  no 
means  exacting  in  his  personal  re- 
quirements, was  struck  to  the  heart 
with  fear  and  anxiety  for  his  droop- 
ing wife.  His  uncouth  cares  and  at- 
tentions were  pathetic  in  their  clum- 
siness. She  was  no  great  type  of  a 
woman,  this  poor  Angelina;  but  she 
was  his,  and  he  cherished  her.  She 
cried  weakly  over  his  tenderness  many 
a  day  when  she  was  alone,  but  had 
never  courage  to  unbosom  herself; 
and  Angelina  was  rather  glad  to  re- 
sign herself  a  pensive  martyr  to  her 
illness  and  her  danger,  and  to  feel 
what  a  sublime  sacrifice  she  was  mak- 
ing to  her  absent  friend.  But  these 


28 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


[July, 


lofty  thoughts  were  only  occasional. 
For  the  most  part  she  bemoaned  her- 
self helplessly,  and  cried  over  those 
pages '  in  her  poetry-book — and  they 
were  many  —  which  discoursed  of 
blighted  lives  and  broken  hearts. 
That  she  always  cried  at  the  name  of 
Zaidee,  was  nothing,  because  she 
cried  so  much.  "  A  Niobe  all  tears" 
awaited  good  John  Green  when  he 
came  home  from  his  labours,  and  a 
suppressed  sob  woke  him  in  the 
morning.  Many  futile  endeavours 
which  he  made  to  get  at  the  cause  of 
this  mysterious  melancholy,  only  clos- 
ed with  more  pertinacious  terror  the 
burdened  heart  of  his  wife.  Every 
day  made  her  disclosure  more  impos- 
sible. UI  might  have  told  him  at 
the  time — I  dare  not  tell  him  now," 
sobbed  the  frightened  Angelina ;  and 
the  Curate  was  driven  into  desperate 
theories  touching  the  weakness  of 
womankind,  to  account  for  the  in- 
comprehensible weakness  of  this  one 
who  had  fallen  to  his  especial  lot. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  after 
Zaidee's  disappearance,  when  Zaidee 
was  safely  disposed  of  in  Ulm,  and 
far  from  that  dreaded  pool  which  An- 
gelina shuddered  to  pass,  and  which 
haunted  her  dreams,  the  good  Curate 
came  home  in  great  glee  one  morning 
to  tell  his  wife  how  an  application  he 
had  made  without  her  knowledge  for 
a  curacy  in  the  south  had  been  so 
much  more  than  successful,  that  he 
was  now  vicar-elect  of  a  small  parish 
in  Devonshire,  with  an  income  more 
than  doubled,  and  the  most  beautiful 
house  in  the  world.  "  We  must 
have  no  more  pale  faces,  Lina,"  said 
the  Rev.  John,  patting  the  poor 
cheek,  washed  by  so  many  tears,  with 
his  great  kind  finger.  "  We  can 
afford  a  little  chaise  of  our  own  now, 
to  drive  you  about  in,  and  the  sweet 
air  of  Devon  will  soon  set  you  up,  my 
dear."  Poor  Angelina's  secret  had 
almost  burst  from  her  at  that  moment. 
She  was  ready  to  throw  herself  on  her 
knees  and  confess  her  sins  to  him ; 
but  she  drew  back  again,  poor  fool, 
and  was  miserable  a  little  longer; 
while  he,  good  man,  went  about  all 
his  arrangements  for  removal — those 
arrangements  which  she  could  only 
cry  over  her  uselessness  in  —  and 
worked  like  a  porter,  when  the  time 
came  for  packing,  with  the  most  inno- 


cent glee  imaginable,  and  no  thought 
of  infringed  dignity.  They  left  Briar- 
ford  in  the  early  summer  weather, 
when  the  rugged  little  hill  was  burst- 
ing into  its  glory  of  furze  blossoms, 
and  all  the  hedgerows  were  white 
with  May.  This  season  was  full  of 
the  sweetest  showery  freshness,  the 
gayest  gales,  and  most  exulting  sun- 
shine in  boisterous  Cheshire  ;  and 
good  John  Green  directed  the  tearful 
eyes  of  Angelina  to  the  brightness 
here,  and  jo}7fully  wondered  what  it 
would  be  in  Devon,  when  even  in  this 
place  of  winds  the  radiance  was  so 
warm  and  sweet. 

But  not  the  vicarage,  which  was 
the  most  beautiful  of  vicarages — not 
the  soft  climate  of  Devonshire,  the 
novel  country  —  nor  scarcely  even 
another  prospect  she  had,  could  suf- 
fice to  lighten  the  burden  of  this  de- 
voted victim  of  friendship.  The  Rev. 
John  was  disappointed,  but  persever- 
ed with  inexhaustible  patience.  Then 
came  a  time  when  Angelina  had  ra- 
tional occasion  to  be  ill  without  any 
intervention  of  sentimental  blight  or 
heartbreak.  She  was  very  ill,  this 
poor  young  wife — so  ill  that  she  was 
not  conscious  when  she  became  a 
mother,  and  did  not  hear  that  sweet- 
est of  all  discords,  the  baby-cry  of  a 
new  life.  When  she  woke,  exhausted 
and  feeble,  and  opened  her  dim  eyes 
to  the  light,  it  was  to  see  her  loving 
clumsy  husband  holding  her  baby  to 
her — the  tenderest  and  most  awkward 
of  nurses.  Poor  Angelina  !  her  guil- 
tiness rushed  back  upon  her  as  the 
little  one  was  laid  into  her  arms.  It 
was  a  woman's  heart  still,  though  a 
weak  one,  which  fluttered  against  her 
breast,  where  the  sweet  baby  breath 
rose  and  fell  with  such  a  helpless  se- 
curity. It  was  no  longer  "  Mr  Green" 
who  knelt  before  her,  with  his  face 
all  joy  and  triumph:  it  was  "baby's 
papa  " — her  child's  father ;  and  An- 
gelina's terrors  and  precautions  yield- 
ed to  the  flood  of  her  full  heart.  Pro- 
tected by  her  infant,  she  told  him  her 
guiltiness,  and  cried  a  little,  but  was 
bold,  and  bore  out  this  dreadful  or- 
deal. The  Rev,  John  was  much  too 
happy  to  be  very  severe.  He  pitied 
his  weak  wife  for  all  her  sufferings, 
and,  though  shocked  and  distressed, 
had  no  condemnation  for  her.  Baby, 
with  its  small  slumbering  face,  and 


1855.] 


Zaldee:  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


tiny  hand  thrown  out  already  upon  its 
mother's  breast,  covered  with  a  shield 
of  mighty  defence  the  feeble  Angelina. 
Good  Mr  Green,  he  was  so  reverent 
of  the  little  one  in  its  helplessness, 
and  felt  its  baby  state  and  serenity  so 
far  superior  to  all  the  nurse's  expe- 
dients to  amuse  the  unamusable  in- 
fant, that  Angelina  herself  took  dig- 
nity from  this  little  existence  one  day 
old.  He  wept  himself  when  he  went 
down  stairs  into  his  study  —  wept  a 
few  great  tears  of  joy  and  wondering 
thankfulness.  His  wife  was  restored 
to  him,  and  he  had  a  child.  This 
good  heart  could  not  keep  itself  arti- 
culate for  joy  and  wonder.  No — An- 
gelina was  by  no  means  a  distinguish- 
ed representative  of  womanhood,  and 
the  baby,  perhaps,  was  not  so  pretty 
as  your  baby  or  mine — but  they  were 
his,  and  they  were  everything  to  him. 

After  that  it  was  astonishing  to 
see  how  rapidly  Angelina  recovered. 
Having  cast  off  her  burden  upon  her 
husband,  she  and  her  baby  throve 
together  with  an  equal  progress.  His 
wife  in  her  pretty,  fresh,  invalid  cap, 
with  her  baby  in  her  arms,  and  no 
more  tears,  was  something  as  new  as 
it  was  delightful  to  good  John  Green. 
He  said  nothing  about  the  confession 
for  many  days.  He  never  either 
looked  or  spoke  one  allusion  to  it,  in- 
deed, till  Angelina  was  once  more 
established  in  the  little  drawing-room, 
which  had  never  been  so  bright  as 
now.  Then,  when  he  had  placed  her 
in  the  easiest  chair,  and  drawn  her 
seat  towards  the  window  that  she 
might  look  out  upon  the  autumn  fo- 
liage, bright  in  its  many- coloured 
vestments,  Mr  Green  spoke. 

"  When  yon  are  so  well  now,  Lina, 
and  baby  all  right,  the  little  rogue,  I 
think  perhaps  I  had  better  start  to- 
morrow." 

"  Start  to-morrow! — where?"  cried 
Angelina,  with  a  momentary  pause. 
Gentle  as  was  the  tone  of  the  Rev. 
John,  his  wife  had  an  incipient  dread 
that  he  was  about  to  betray  her. 

"  My  dear,  for  Briarford,"  said  the 


good  man,  firmly.  "  I  do  not  blame 
you  for  being  so  long  of  telling  me. 
I  am  sure,  my  poor  Lina,  you  your- 
self see  how  wrong  it  was,-  but  now, 
of  course,  I  cannot  lose  any  time  in 
letting  the  Vivians  know.  A  whole 
year  is  lost  already  ;  and,  with  the  clue 
I  have,  I  cannot  be  easy  till  I  have 
found  some  trace  of  this  poor  child." 

"  Oh,  Mr  Green ! "  cried  Angelina, 
with  tears,  u  she  will  destroy  herself 
if  you  try  to  take  her  home." 

u  My  dear,  I  am  not  Mr  Green," 
said  the  Rev.  John,  attempting  to  be 
playful.  "  If  I  find  her,  I  will  take 
care  she  does  not  destroy  herself." 

"  But  John,  John !  papa !  " 

"  Hush,  Lina,"  said  the  Vicar, 
gravely  interrupting  her  entreaty,  in 
spite  of  the  powerful  argument  of  this 
name — "  I  must  do  my  duty.  Take 
care  of  yourself,  and  be  cautious  till  I 
come  back.  You  must  mind  your 
health  now,  for  baby's  sake  as  well  as 
for  mine,  and  leave  all  this  business 
in  my  hands.  Hush,  Lina,  there  is 
nothing  more  to  say." 

And  the  next  morning  Mr  Green 
left  his  wife,  once  more  weeping,  and 
drove  away  in  the  pony  chaise.  But 
when  the  chaise  came  back,  Angelina 
was  able  to  take  a  drive  with  baby 
and  nurse ;  and  though  she  blushed, 
and  was  inclined  to  cry  again  for 
shame  when  her  friendly  visitors 
asked  where  Mr  Green  had  gone,  yet 
by-and-by  she  came  to  be  quite  com- 
posed ;  and,  thankful  that  she  had  no 
chance  of  encountering  the  Vivians, 
committed  the  responsibility  content- 
edly into  her  husband's  hands.  She 
had  no  longer  any  leisure  to  read 
books  of  poetry.  She  began  to  cut 
down  her  white  muslin  gowns  and 
make  frocks  for  baby — to  glance  at 
the  pages  of  her  old  new  cookery 
books— to  set  her  house  in  order,  as 
well  as  she  knew  how,  to  the  much 
amazement  of  her  spoilt  housemaid. 
Angelina  had  found  herself  quite  mis- 
taken in  one  vocation.  She  had  to  be- 
gin to  be  the  Vicar's  wife  and  baby's 


mother  now. 


CHAPTER  XXXTL— THE  GRANGE. 


The  Rev.  John  Green  drove  along 
the  road  to  Briarford  in  his  hired  gig, 
with  feelings  strangely  mingled.  Re- 


gard for  his  old  residence,  pleasure 
at  the  kindly  recognition  which  some 
of  his  old  parishioners  gave  him,  and 


30 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  VII f. 


[July, 


the  certain  hope  of  steady  happiness 
with  which  he  remembered  the  change 
which  had  befallen  him  at  home,  were 
scarcely  enough  to  neutralise  the  dis- 
agreeable feelings  with  which  he 
looked  forward  to  this  visit.  He  did 
not  like  to  say — he  did  not  like  to 
think — how  silly  and  how  weak  his 
wife  had  been.  He  neither  wished 
to  accuse  her,  nor  to  make  it  appear 
that  he  himself  had  been  an  accessary 
to  her  foolishness  ;  and  he  feared  the 
natural  indignation  of  those  anxious 
friends  from  whom  this  intelligence 
had  been  kept  so  long— long  enough, 
perhaps,  to  make  it  useless — for  he 
had  himself  made  some  inquiries  as  he 
passed  through  London.  Eager  to 
have  it  over,  yet  reluctant,  he  trotted 
along  in  the  indifferent  vehicle,  which 
was  much  less  agreeable  to  the  vicar 
of  Newton  Magna,  who  had  a  pony 
chaise  of  his  own,  than  it  was  to  the 
curate  of  Briarford,  who  knew  of  no 
such  luxury.  The  turnpike  gate 
swung  open  before  the  well-known 
face  of  "  our  old  curate ;  "  and  Mr 
Green  alighted,  and  climbed  the  hilly 
pathway,  following  close  upon  a  slim 
young  gentleman  in  black,  who  pushed 
on  against  the  wind  at  a  pace  which 
proved  him  to  have  no  disagreeable 
anticipations  in  his  visit  to  the  Grange. 
It  was  not  Mr  Powis,  who  now  car- 
ried his  fascinations  to  market  in  quite 
a  different  quarter.  Mr  Green  strode 
on  with  his  swinging  pace,  admiring 
the  gloss  of  the  clerical  coat  before  him, 
which  had  no  heavy  divinity  in  its 
pockets  to  drag  it  out  of  proportion. 
u  The  new  curate,"  he  said  to  himself, 
raising  his  eyebrows — for  Mr  Green 
had  been  a  vicar  for  six  months,  and 
already,  though  quite  unconscious  of 
his  weakness,  looked  down  a  little 
upon  the  lower  grade  of  reverend 
brethren. 

The  young  man  went  upon  his  way 
with  such  evident  use  and  good  plea- 
sure, that  the  vicar  of  Newton 
Magna,  following  after,  shook  his 
head,  and  wondered  that  Mrs  Vivian 
did  not  think  it  dangerous,  with  her 
unmarried  daughters,  to  have  "a 
poor  curate  "  familiar  in  her  house. 
But  the  Rev.  John  had  soon  enough 
to  do,  realising  how  Mrs  Vivian  would 
look  upon  himself  and  his  errand, 
and  thinking  of  the  agitation,  and 
perhaps  fruitless  hope,  which  he 


should  bring  to  the  family.  Involun- 
tarily his  steps  slackened  as  he  drew 
near  the  door.  When  he  had  reached 
it,  he  lingered,  looking  upon  that 
familiar  landscape.  Yonder  lie  all 
those  changeless  Cheshire  fields. 
Yonder  is  the  tawny  line  of  sea,  the 
yellow  sandbanks,  the  horizon,  with 
its  blue  mountains  of  cloud.  There 
the  tower  of  Briarford  Church,  the 
roof  of  the  vicarage,  the  smoke  as- 
cending from  the  village  fires,  the  long 
lines  of  road  leading  seaward — lead- 
ing far  into  the  sky.  Here  is  the  old 
family  dwelling-place,  with  the  last 
water-lily  floating  in  the  moat — the 
lawn  like  velvet — the  old  thorn- trees 
heavy  with  their  scarlet  berries. 
Where  is  Zaidee  ?  where  is  Philip  ? — 
the  poor  supplanting  heiress — the 
natural  heir  and  head  of  the  house. 
Angelina!  Angelina!  be  thankful 
that  you  are  safe  in  Newton  Magna, 
with  baby  and  nurse,  and  the  new 
frocks,  which  it  is  so  hard  to  cut. 
The  Rev.  John  has  a  storm  in  his 
face,  and  groans  aloud.  You  might 
weep  torrents  and  not  melt  him,  if  he 
had  you  here. 

The  drawing-room  of  the  Grange 
is  perhaps  in  better  order  than  it  used 
to  be.  There  are  not  half  so  many 
young-lady  materials.  The  writing- 
table  in  the  corner  bears  no  longer 
any  trace  of  the  litter  which  Percy, 
his  mother  said,  always  left  behind 
him  ;  and  Philip's  newspaper  has  not 
been  thrown  down  this  morning  on 
the  table.  Mr  Green  thinks  it  looks 
colder  than  it  used  to  do — more  pre- 
cise— less  a  populated  place.  In  the 
great  window,  looking  to  the  front, 
sits  Margaret,  and  the  light  falls 
down  full  and  clear,  but  with  a  chilly 
tone,  upon  the  pale  face  which  you 
can  only  see  in  profile,  and  on  the 
white  hands  which  hold  her  booki 
Mrs  Vivian  is  in  her  high  easy- chair, 
with  her  snowy  shawl  of  Shetland 
lace  hanging  over  it,  and  a  book  of 
accounts  upon  her  little  table.  The 
young  clergyman  has  arrived  before 
his  suspicious  brother,  and  quite  real- 
ises Mr  Green's  suspicion  as  he  ap- 
pears now,  seated  by  Sophy's  side, 
talking  in  an  under-tone.  Sophy's 
pretty  face  varies  with  the  conver- 
sation from  gravity  to  laughter,  and 
there  is  a  running  accompaniment  of 
smiles  and  blushes,  quite  enough  to 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


31 


justify  Aunt  Blundell  in  particular  in- 
quiries into  the  prospects,  means, 
and  connections  of  Mr  Wy burgh's 
curate.  The  library  door  is  closed, 
the  young  ladies'  -room  no  longer 
throws  its  glimmer  of  warm  light 
into  the  larger  apartment,  and  there 
seems  a  great  deal  of  space  to  spare 
in  this  great  drawing-room,  from 
which  half  of  its  inmates  have  been 
scattered.  Mrs  Vivian,  closing  her 
account-book,  rises  with  hospitable 
alertness,  and  holds  out  her  hand,  as 
she  welcomes  warmly  the  old  friend 
of  the  house. 

41  Let  me  speak  to  you  alone,"  says 
good  Mr  Green,  clearing  his  throat. 
He  is  very  anxious  not  to  be  abrupt, 
to  tell  his  tale  gently,  but  is  far  from 
confident  that  he  will  be  able.  "  I 
have  something  of  importance  to  say 
to  you — news.  Pray  let  me  speak  to 
you  alone." 

Mrs  Vivian's  face  clouded  over. 
"What  is  it?— Philip?— Percy  ?  — 
some  disaster,"  cried  the  mother  of 
these  absent  sons.  She  grasped  his 
great  hand,  and  held  it  fast  with  her 
small  nervous  ones.  "  Tell  me  all  at 
once.  I  had  rather  hear  it  all." 

"  It  is  no  disaster,"  said  the  Rev. 
John  with  a  subdued  groan.  u  It  is 
neither  Philip  nor  Percy — but  good 
news — good  news.  Let  me  speak  to 
you  alone." 

With  such  a  darting  rapid  motion, 
that  the  Vicar  of  Newton  Magna  be- 
came more  confused  than  ever,  poor 
Zaidee's  fairy  godmother  introduced 
him  into  the  vacant  library.  While 
he  lumbered  along  in  search  of  a  seat, 
she  drew  a  heavy  chair  to  the  table 
for  him,  and  seated  herself  in  another. 
"  Now,  Mr  Green,"  said  Mrs  Vivian. 
She  was  only  half  satisfied  that  he  did 
not  come  to  intimate  some  great  mis- 
fortune to  her. 

Poor  Mr  Green  !  guiltless  sufferer  as 
he  had  been  so  long,  he  was  the  cul- 
prit now.  He  cleared  his  throat — grew 
red  and  confused — and  at  last  burst 
into  the  subject  over  head  and  ears. 

"  My  wife  knows  where  your  niece 
Zaidee  fled  to — my  wife  was  in  her 
confidence — there!  Angelina  has  been 
very  foolish,  very  wrong,  but  I  cannot 
bear  to  hear  her  blamed.  I  have  only 
waited  long  enough  to  see  her  health 
re-established  before  I  came  to  tell 
you.  I  am  grieved  beyond  measure. 


Had  she  spoken  in  time,  she  might 
have  saved  you  all  your  anxiety,  and 
rescued  this  poor  child." 

Mrs  Vivian,  interrupting  him,  rising 
from  her  seat  with  an  outcry  of  joy — 
"  Zaidee  !  can  you  tell  us  of  Zaidee  ? 
where  she  is  ?  where  we  can  find  her  ? 
I  will  not  blame  your  wife — I  will 
thank  you  for  ever.  Where  is  my 
poor  Zaidee?  Tell  me  where  she  is." 

But  the  Vicar  shook  his  head  des- 
pondingly.  "  She  went  to  a  Mrs 
Disbrowe,  whose  daughters  had  been 
at  school  with  Lina.  She  went  as 
nursery-governess.  They  had  her  for 
two  or  three  months,  and  then  she 
went  away.'1 

"  She  went  away,"  said  Mrs  Vivian, 
unconsciously  repeating  what  he  said, 
— "  where  is  she  now  ?  " 

But  Mr  Green  shook  his  head  once 
more.  "  I  made  no  further  inquiries 
till  I  had  your  authority ;  but  Mrs 
Disbrowe  knew  nothing  of  her.  She 
went  abroad.  Now  that  I  have  seen 
you,  I  will  return  to  London.  I  will 
try  every  means.  My  poor  wife  !  I 
feel  how  much  she  has  been  to  blame." 

"  Went  abroad  ?"  cried  Mrs  Vivian. 
"  Why  did  she  go  abroad  ?  When  ? 
— with  whom  ?  And  why  did  a  woman 
who  had  children,  suffer  my  orphan  to 
stray  further  away?" 

"  Mrs  Disbrowe  tells  me  she  went 
with  a  lady  to  be  a  companion.  I 
cannot  tell  where — she  does  not  know," 
said  the  Rev.  John,  who  was  very 
humble.  "  The  lady  is  dead  who  was 
the  means  of  Zaidee's  going  away.  No 
one  even  knows  the  name  of  the  per- 
son she  is  with  :  they  had  no  right  to 
interfere.  But  I  will  return  at  once. 
I  feel  it  is  all  Angelina's  blame." 

"  And  Philip  is  in  India,  and  Ber- 
nard is  abroad,  and  Percy  is  with  his 
brother-in-law.  Do  not  speak  to  me 
of  Angelina!"  exclaimed  Mrs  Vivian, 
with  a  gesture  of  impatience,  "  there 
will  be  time  enough  to  speak  of  the 
past ;  it  is  the  present  moment  that  is 
of  importance.  I  will  go  with  you  my- 
self to-night." 

"  The  fatigue  is  too  much  for  you," 
began  the  Rev.  John. 

Mrs  Vivian  only  answered  with 
another  impatient  motion  of  her  hand, 
and  beckoned  him  to  follow  her  into 
the  drawing-room.  In  half-a-dozen 
words  she  told  Margaret,  and  left  her 
to  inform  the  amazed  Sophy,  who  by 


32 


Zaldee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


this  time  had  been  roused  from  her 
more  agreeable  occupation.  Then  the 
rapid  old  lady  left  the  room.  Uncer- 
tain and  undecided,  Mr  Green  lingered, 
repeating  his  story  to  the  younger 
ladies,  who  pressed  upon  him  to  hear 
it.  As  he  spoke,  they  brought  re- 
freshments to  him  with  their  own 
hands,  and  pressed  him  to  eat.  The 
good  Vicar  was  nothing  loth,  but  he 
had  only  half  begun  when  the  door 
opened,  and  Mrs  Vivian  made  her  ap- 


[July, 

pearance  in  a  travelling -dress,  and 
with  a  face  so  full  of  speed  and  energy 
that  Mr  Green  paused  in  his  im- 
promptu meal,  at  the  first  glimpse  of 
the  fairy  godmother,  who  seemed 
about  to  fly  off  at  once  in  her  aerial 
carriage.  But  Mrs  Vivian  was  con- 
tent to  substitute  the  hired  gig  for  her 
pumpkin  coach,  and  in  less  than  an 
hour  she  had  given  her  farewell  direc- 
tions, and  was  hastening  fast  upon 
the  London  road. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII.— MRS   VIVIAN'S  JOURNEY. 


More  speedy  than  it  could  have 
been  without  her  prompt  and  rapid 
guidance,  was  the  express  journey  by 
night  which  carried  Mrs  Vivian  and 
her  reverend  companion  to  London. 
The  good  Vicar  looked  on  in  wonder 
from  within  the  high  collars  of  his 
overcoat  upon  that  small  delicate 
figure,  enveloped  in  a  great  mantle, 
which  filled  the  opposite  corner  of 
the  carriage  in  which  they  dashed 
along  through  the  gloom  of  midnight. 
Mr  Green  had  known  Mrs  Vivian 
only  as  the  Lady  of  the  Manor,  some- 
thing fastidious  and  rather  dignified  ; 
and  by  way  of  making  the  best  of 
Angelina,  it  is  certain  that  the  Rev. 
John  had  been  betrayed  into  a  little 
kindly  contempt  for  the  whole  feminine 
community.  But  the  Rev.  John,  with 
all  his  anxiety  to  recover  the  lost 
Zaidee,  and  so,  as  far  as  possible, 
exonerate  his  wife,  was  not  prepared 
for  this  breathless  race  of  inquiry. 
The  good  man  felt  himself  seized 
upon  by  something  stronger  than  he 
was — an  anxiety  which,  very  different 
from  his  own,  took  this  matter  as  an 
affair  of  life  and  death.  With  curious 
interest  he  watched  his  companion 
in  the  unsteady  light  of  the  railway 
carriage.  She  never  spoke  and 
scarcely  moved,  but  sat  still  in  her 
corner— her  entire  figure  mufHe'd  in 
her  cloak,  listening  to  the  clanging, 
deafening  strides  with  which  their 
rapid  journey  proceeded,  and  travel- 
ling faster  in  her  thoughts  than  even 
the  headlong  pace  at  which  this  great 
conveyance  travelled.  He  could  see 
her  steady  face  as  the  faint  light 
swung  above  them,  and  their  carriage 
vibrated  with  the  gigantic  impulse 
which  bore  it  on.  She  was  looking 


out  always  into  the  darkness.  He 
could  see  her  mind  was  impatient  and 
chafing  at  the  tedious  journey,  rapid 
though  the  journey  was.  The  Rev. 
John  relapsed  into  his  overcoat,  and 
made  a  vain  effort  to  go  to  sleep ; 
but  it  was  quite  impossible  to  sleep 
within  sight  of  this  little  lady's  wake- 
ful eyes. 

They  arrived  in  London  at  an  hour 
much  too  early  to  disturb  the  slum- 
bers of  Bedford  Place,  and  Mr  Green 
was  thankful  to  be  permitted  an 
hour's  rest  and  a  hasty  breakfast. 
The  Rev.  John  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  sighed  for  Angelina.  The  fairy 
godmother  hurried  the  good  Vicar  off 
his  equilibrium  ;  he  could  scarcely 
have  been  more  discomposed  had  she 
invited  him  to  an  aerial  drive  in  the 
pumpkin  coach.  When  at  last  it  was 
possible  to  proceed  to  their  destina- 
tion, they  found  Mrs  Disbrowe  in 
her  fresh  pink  ribbons  and  thrifty 
black  satin  gown,  not  expecting 
visitors,  but  quite  prepared  for  them. 
Mrs  Vivian  did  not  estimate  very 
highly  the  fashion  of  Bedford  Place. 
Its  well-preserved.1  carpets  and  expe- 
dients of  thrift  were  new  to  the 
country  lady.  u  My  poor  Zaidee  ! " 
she  said  to  herself,  as  she  entered  the 
drab  drawing-room,  where  Minnie 
Disbrowe,  exceedingly  curious,  kept 
mamma  company.  Mrs  Vivian  did 
not  know  that  this  drab  drawing- 
room,  with  its  dark  green  trimmings, 
was  quite  another  sphere  from  the 
nursery  and  the  spare  bedroom  in 
which  Miss  Francis  spent  her  medi- 
tative days. 

Mr  Green  was  already  slightly 
known  to  Mrs  Disbrowe  by  his  former 
visit.  Mrs  Vivian,  however,  had  no 


1855.] 

recollection  of  Mr  Green,  and  prompt- 
ly took  the  matter  into  her  own 
hands. 

"  Only  yesterday  I  heard  that  my 
dear  little  niece  had  been  here,"  said 
Mrs  Vivian.  "  You  had  not  ob- 
served our  advertisements.  We  tried 
every  means  to  find  her.  Tell  me,  I 
beseech  you,  where  my  poor  Zaidee 
has  gone." 

"  Zaidee !  I  said  there  was  a  Z 
on  her  handkerchiefs  !  "  cried  Minnie 
in  an  under-tone  of  triumph. 

"  The  lady  means  Miss  Francis, 
I  have  no  doubt,"  said  Mrs  Disbrowe, 
looking  to  the  Vicar,  who  towered 
over  little  Mrs  Vivian.  "  I  sympa- 
thise very  much  with  your  anxiety. 
I  cannot  tell  where  to  find  her,  but  I 
will  tell  you  all  I  can.  The  lady 
is" —  and  Mrs  Disbrowe  again  looked 
for  explanation  to  Mr  Green. 

u  Mrs  Vivian  of  the  Grange,"  said 
the  good  man,  who  felt  himself  en- 
tirely thrown  into  the  background. 
Then  he  sat  down  with  resignation 
behind  his  "principal,"  content  to 
listen,  since  nothing  else  was  left  for 
him  to  do. 

"  Miss  Francis  came  to  me  about  a 
year  ago — just  a  year  ago — before  my 
(laughter  was  married,"  said  Mrs 
Disbrowe.  "  I  was  surprised  to  find 
her  so  young,  but  felt  interested  in 
her,  and  did  all  I  could  to  give  her 
authority  in  my  nursery.  The  chil- 
dren are  well- grown,"  said  Mrs  Dis- 
browe, apologetically, — u  and  they 
were  so  much  accustomed  to  their 
sister.  To  my  great  regret  they 
would  not  pay  attention  to  Miss 
Francis." 

"  Miss  Francis  1  Will  you  do  me 
the  favour  to  say  Miss  Vivian  ?  "  said 
Zaidee's  fairy  godmother,  with  a  little 
impatience.  "  Zaidee  must  have 
taken  this  from  her  father's  Christian 
name.  Frank  Vivian's  daughter  !  I 
beg  your  pardon.  The  idea  is  so 
painful  to  me." 

u  I  did  what  I  could  to  prevent  her 
life  being  painful  to  her  while  she  was 
with  us,"  said  Mrs  Disbrowe,  point- 
edly. u  Miss  Francis — pardon  me,  / 
knew  her  by  no  other  name — was 
assured  of  my  kind  feeling  and  interest 
in  her,  I  know.  Indeed,  the  young 
lady  remained  with  us,  after  it  was 
quite  apparent  that  she  could  not  be 
my  nursery  governess.  Then,  while 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXVII. 


Zaidee:  a  Romance.— Part  VIII. 


S3 


visiting  my  daughter,  she  saw  a  lady 
connected  with  us  by  marriage — Mrs 
Lancaster,  who  was  stepmother  to 
Mr  Edward  Lancaster,  my  son-in- 
law.  Mrs  Lancaster  had"  a  friend 
staying  in  her  house,  who  was  anxious 
to  carry  abroad  with  her  a  companion 
for  a  young  lady.  They  thought  Miss 
Francis  a  suitable  person,  and  Mrs 
Lancaster  came  to  me  to  make  in- 
quiries. Of  course  what  I  said  was 
satisfactory  to  her,  and  her  character 
was  satisfactory  to  me.  It  did  not 
occur  to  me  to  make  any  inquiries 
about  her  friend.  I  was  glad  to  see 
Miss  Francis  provided  for.  I  am 
quite  certain  they  went  abroad ;  but 
where,  or  who  the  lady  was,  I  am  ex- 
tremely sorry  I  cannot  tell." 

u  But  surely  some  one  knows," 
said  Mrs  Vivian,  hastily.  "  Some  one 
had  more  curiosity  —  felt  more  in- 
terest? You  do  not  mean  that  there 
is  no  clue  to  trace  my  poor  Zaidee  by? 
— absolutely  none  ?  It  is  impossible. 
I  cannot  tell  you  how  important  it  is 
to  us.  My  poor  child's  character  and 
happiness  may  be  involved.  Our  hon- 
our as  a  family  is  pledged  to  find  her. 
I  beg  of  you  to  give  me  some  guidance 
— some  clue.  I  cannot  go  home  with- 
out accomplishing  something.  Can 
no  one  else  tell  me  where  she  is  ?  " 

Mrs  Disbrowe  drew  herself  up  a 
little.  Mrs  Vivian  could  not  quite 
help  looking  the  great  lady,  nor  being 
dismayed  to  hear  of  Frank  Vivian's 
daughter  as  a  companion  and  nursery 
governess ;  and  though  she  would  have 
been  glad  only  yesterday  of  so  much 
intelligence,  Mrs  Vivian  could  not 
keep  herself  from  being  almost  angry 
with  her  informant  now.  "  To  let 
her  go  without  an  inquiry  !  with  no- 
thing to  trace  her  by  ! "  Mrs  Vivian 
exclaimed  indignantly  within  herself; 
while  Mrs  Disbrowe,  wrho  was  con- 
scious of  having  done  a  great  deal  for 
Zaidee,  was  naturally  still  more  in- 
dignant with  this  questioning. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  give  you  in- 
formation which  I  do  not  possess," 
said  Mrs  Disbrowe,  coldly.  "My 
son-in-law  might  have  been  of  some 
assistance  perhaps,  but  he  has  gone 
to  Jamaica,  to  look  after  some  valu- 
able property  left  to  him  there  under 
his  father's  will,  in  which  his  father's 
widow  had  a  life  interest.  It  is  quite 
uncertain  when  Edward  may  return, 
c 


34 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


[July, 


and  he  might  not  be  able  to  help  you 
if  he  were  here  ;  but  I  am  much  occu- 
pied with  my  own  large  family.  I 
was  not  very  intimate  with  Mrs 
Lancaster,  and  I  really  know  nothing 
of  her  friends.  Neither  did  I  think, 
if  Miss  Francis  was  satisfied,  that  I 
had  any  right  to  interfere,"  continued 
Mrs  Disbrowe,  still  more  on  her  de- 
fence. u  I  had  no  title  to  take  upon 
me  the  duties  which  her  relations  did 
not  concern  themselves  about." 

"  Her  relations  tried  every  means 
to  find  her,"  cried  Mrs  Vivian.  "She 
went  away  from  us  out  of  the  purest 
generosity — folly — the  most  perfect 
affection  for  us  all.  To  lose  this  un- 
expected hope  will  be  like  losing 
Zaidee  once  again.  Can  you  do  no- 
thing for  me  ?  Pardon  me  if  I  do  not 
thank  you  for  the  kindness  I  am  sure 
you  have  shown  her.  I  can  think  of 
nothing  but  Zaidee.  My  poor  child ! 
My  poor  child  !  " 

Mrs  Disbrowe's  offended  dignity 
was  appeased.  She  promised  to  write 
to  her  son-in-law  forthwith,  and  fur- 
nished her  impatient  visitor,  who 
could  not  be  satisfied  with  this  deputy 
inquiry,  with  his  address,  that  she 
might  herself  write  to  him.  She  pro- 
mised to  set  out  immediately  to  find, 


if  possible,  one  of  Mrs  Lancaster's 
servants.  She  expressed  her  deep 
regret  that  she  had  not  known  sooner 
— that  Mrs  Green  had  given  her  no 
hint  of  the  young  stranger's  identity. 
Mr  Green,  sitting  behind  Mrs  Vivian, 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  made  a 
wry  face,  but  said  nothing.  Angelina 
was  spared  on  all  hands ;  no  one 
awarded  her  her  due  of  condemnation ; 
but  the  Rev.  John  profited  little  by 
this  forbearance,  as  he  was  perpetually 
on  the  watch  for  the  reproach  which 
never  came,  and  perpetually  suggesting 
to  himself  a  different  turn  to  this  and 
that  sentence.  Then  he  was  anxious 
ajbout  this  poor  wife  of  his,  whom  he 
himself  clung  to  the  more,  because 
she  was  condemned  by  others.  He 
asked  what  further  use  he  could  be 
to  Mrs  Vivian  ;  and  she,  glad  to  be 
left  at  liberty,  made  no  claim  upon 
his  services.  So  the  Vicar  of  Newton 
Magna  washed  his  hands  of  Zaidee 
Vivian,  hoping  never  to  hear  more  of 
her  than  that  she  was  brought  home 
in  safety,  and,  with  pleasant  thoughts 
of  baby,  and  much  tenderness  for  his 
culprit  wife,  set  off  on  his  road  home- 
ward, where  we  leave  him  now  and 
finally ;  and  Mrs  Vivian  pursued  her 
search  alone. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. — FAILURE. 


But  Mrs  Disbrowe  cannot  find  Mrs 
Lancaster's  servant.  Mrs  Vivian,  tan- 
talised with  vain  hope,  can  only  make 
fruitless  expeditions  to  Bedford  Place, 
to  Percy's  closed-up  chambers,  and, 
in  this  sudden  change  of  habits  and 
lack  of  comforts,  grows  feverish  with 
the  vain  endeavours  which  she  never 
personally  took  part  in  before.  There 
is  nothing  for  it  now  but  to  wait  till 
Mr  Edward  Lancaster  is  heard  of,  to 
see  if  he  can  throw  any  light  upon 
this  darkness.  Mrs  Vivian  must  go 
home  ;  but  Margaret  and  Sophy  write 
so  anxiously,  yet  so  confidently,  of 
poor  Zaidee — sending  messages  to  her 
even,  and  telling  of  a  great  parcel 
they  have  made  up  of  wrappers  and 
cloaks  for  the  journey,  that  their  mo- 
ther almost  fears  to  return  to  them 
with  her  disappointment.  Another 
idea  strikes  the  retired  but  not  world- 
forgetting  mistress  of  the  Grange. 
Captain  Bernard,  Elizabeth,  and  Percy 


are  surprised  at  their  breakfast-table 
in  Brussels,  not  many  mornings  after, 
by  the  unexpected  appearance  of  Mrs 
Vivian.  A  very  few  words  are  enough 
to  make  them  partakers  of  her  anxi- 
ety. Zaidee  is  on  the  Continent ! — 
Zaidee  may  be  near  them  !  All-for- 
getful of  how  vast  that  Continent  is, 
Percy  dashes  out,  like  an  impetuous 
youth — bursts  from  the  great  gates 
of  the  Hotel  de  Suede,  and  loses  him- 
self in  these  interminable  streets,  look- 
ing into  every  face  and  every  window. 
"How  absurd!"  he  says,  as  with 
difficulty  he  finds  his  way  back  again. 
But  it  is  strange  how  often  this  ab- 
surdity is  repeated  before  the  day  is 
done.  The  most  strange  and  feverish 
excitement  rises  among  them.  They 
are  loth  to  leave  Belgium,  where 
there  are  so  many  towns  in  the  beaten 
track  of  the  wandering  English  ;  and 
Captain  Bernard  speaks  of  the  Rhine, 
and  Elizabeth  of  the  sunny  south  of 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


35 


France.  They  cannot  tell  where  to 
move — to  their  right  hand  or  to  their 
left.  Zaidee  may  be  almost  within 
hearing  of  them,  or  she  may  be  a 
thousand  miles  away.  They  reverse 
all  their  plans  on  the  instant,  and  be- 
gin to  travel  once  more — with  an 
object,  and  with  many  inquiries — till 
winter  has  come  only  too  sensibly — 
till  Margaret  and  Sophy  call  earnestly 
for  their  mother — and  till  Colonel  Mor- 
ton has  more  than  once  written  per- 
emptory letters,  summoning  home  his 
son.  Percy,  too,  loses  time  in  those 
grave  and  valuable  studies  of  his. 
They  are  obliged  to  submit, with  heavy 
hearts ;  and  in  November,  in  boisterous 
weather,  they  at  last  set  out  for  home. 
In  all  their  journeys  they  cannot  pass 
a  figure  like  hers;  but  they  are  struck 
with  the  hope  that  it  may  be  Zaidee ; 
and  many  times,  flying  along  at  rail- 
way speed,  Percy,  who  is  fanciful  and 
quick- sighted,  catches  a  momentary 
glimpse  of  some  dark  face  by  the  way- 
side, and,  when  they  reach  a  halting- 
place,  would  fain  turn  back  to  see. 
It  is  therefore  with  much  dissatisfac- 
tion of  mind,  and  with  many  doubts 
that  they  may  have  passed  close  by 
her  present  shelter,  that  they  consent 
to  return,  with  no  further  news  of 
Zaidee.  Their  anxiety,  which  had 
been  in  a  measure  calmed  by  time 
and  by  the  fruitlessness  of  all  their 
exertions,  has  returned  in  tenfold 
strength.  Renewed  advertisements, 
renewed  endeavours,  keep  the  flame 
alive.  Angelina's  secret,  in  departing 
from  herself,  has  come  to  overshadow 
them  with  a  double  cloud.  Again  they 
think  of  nothing  but  Zaidee — and 
Zaidee  is  nowhere  to  be  found. 

After  a  long  delay,  Mr  Edward 
Lancaster  answers  the  letter  of  Mrs 
Vivian.  Mrs  Lancaster  had  a  multi- 
tude of  friends,  writes  Mr  Edward — 
half  the  old  ladies  in  the  kingdom,  he 
believes,  were  acquainted  with  his 
stepmother — but  he  cannot  tell,  upon 
his  honour,  what  particular  old  lady 
this  may  be.  He  had  seen  little  of 
Mrs  Lancaster  during  the  last  year  of 
her  life  ;  in  fact,  his  wife  and  she  did 
not  pull  well  together,  and  they  had 
little  or  no  intercourse.  He  is  ex- 
tremely sorry  ;  but  the  fact  is,  he  has 
not  the  remotest  idea  who  the  old  lady 
can  be  whom  they  are  looking  for.  In 
his  postscript,  however,  Mr  Edward 


kindly  adds  a  list  of  old  ladies — a 
few  names  with  addresses,  but  most 
without  —  which  he  heads,  "  Some 
of  Mrs  Lancaster's  friends."  It  is 
just  possible  —  it  may  be  one  of 
these. 

As  these  old  ladies — all  who  have 
addresses  —  live  in  London,  Percy 
must  leave  the  Temple,  and  his  most 
important  and  weighty  studies,  to 
seek  them  out, — a  task  which  Percy 
sets  about  with  exemplary  earnest- 
ness. Some  of  the  old  ladies  are  in- 
terested— some  a  little  affronted — 
many  astonished :  they  cannot  tell 
why  they  should  be  applied  to,  of  all 
the  people  in  the  world.  One  of  them 
thinks  she  has  heard  Mrs  Lancaster 
speak  of  Miss  Francis.  Is  not  Miss 
Francis  that  interesting  creature  who 
was  so  sadly  deformed  ?  Some  acci- 
dent in  her  youth,  the  old  lady  be- 
lieves— she  who  wore  spectacles,  and 
worked  cross-stitch  like  an  angel? 
No  ? — then  the  old  lady  knows  no 
other  Miss  Francis,  and  is  quite  con- 
vinced that  Mrs  Lancaster  knew  no 
one  whom  she  herself  did  not  also 
know.  Another  is  persuaded  that  the 
lady  who  went  abroad  must  be  Mrs 
Cleaver,  who  settled  in  Florence.  A 
young  lady  went  with  her,  a  pretty 
fair  young  creature — she  married  An- 
tony Cleaver  six  months  ago,  and 
came  home,  and  was  very  well  settled 
indeed.  Can  that  be  the  young  lady  ? 
Percy  Vivian,  his  face  flushing  with 
the  pride  of  descent,  says  No,  abrupt- 
ly— it  could  not  be  Zaidee, — Zaidee 
was  dark,  and  only  fourteen  years 
old,  and  would  never  marry  an  Antony 
Cleaver;  whereupon  the  old  lady 
makes  him  a  curtsey,  and  says  she 
cannot  pretend  to  know. 

Altogether  it  is  a  most  unsuccessful 
business  from  first  to  last ;  and  the  little 
party  who  have  been  abroad  are,  each 
of  them,  persuaded  that  they  have 
been  in  personal  contact  with  the  ob- 
ject of  their  search,  and  yet  passed 
her  by.  Mrs  Vivian  is  certain  that 
some  one  brushed  past  her  in  the  very 
courtyard  of  the  Hotel  de  Suede,  with 
the  flying  step  of  Zaidee.  Elizabeth 
is  haunted  with  a  vision  of  one  slight 
figure  standing  apart  at  that  midnight 
examination  of  baggage  and  passports 
on  the  French  frontier.  Percy  is  con- 
fident she  was  one  of  that  English 
party  with  those  ugly  blue  shades  on, 


36 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


[July, 


who  .looked  up  at  them  from  a  very 
little  obscure  roadside  station  as  they 
dashed  by  on  the  road  to  Calais ;  and 
Captain  Bernard  knows  he  saw  her 
with  some  children  and  a  bonne  in  the 
gardens  of  the  Tuileries.  When  he 
followed  them,  the  girl  disappeared. 
"  It  was  impossible  to  find  her  again," 
says  Captain  Bernard.  And  as  they 
sit  in  the  drawing-room  of  the  Grange, 
Sophy,  who  is  something  matter-of- 
fact,  wipes  the  tears  from  her  cheeks, 
and  asks,  "  Could  they  all  be  Zaidee? 
Could  she  be  in  so  many  different 
places  ?  Are  you  sure  it  was  our  Za^, 
mamma?"  At  which  name  Sophy  is 
once  more  overpowered,  and  weeps 
again.  Angelina  might  have  kept 
her  secret  to  herself,  for  all  the  good  it 
has  done  ;  and  now  that  there  is  lei- 
sure to  think  of  her,  all  these  ladies 
fall  upon  Angelina  with  the  bitterest 
contempt.  "  And  she  has  a  baby!" 
says  Mrs  Vivian.  You  would  fancy 
Mrs  Vivian  thought  it  some  grand 
mistake  in  Providence,  by  the  tone  in 
which  she  speaks  ;  and  they  are  all 
extremely  compassionate  of  poor  Mr 
Green.  The  sympathy  into  which 
Angelina  deluded  them  for  her  imagf- 
uary  "  decline,"  comes  in  now  to  swell 
their  wrath ;  and  the  young  Curate 
of  Briarford,  who  is  one  of  the  fireside 
party,  cannot  but  conclude  this  Vicar- 
ess  of  Newton  Magna  to  be  by  no 
means  a  creditable  representative  of 
the  Church  Establishment,  for  the 
honour  of  which  this  very  young  gentle- 
man is  jealous  above  measure.  And 
it  is  very  well  for  Mrs  Green  that  she 
is  no  longer  solicitous  about  the  favour 
of  the  Grange.  The  lady  of  the 
Manor  could  have  inflicted  a  due  and 
satisfactory  punishment  upon  the 
curate's  wife  of  her  own  parish,  but  it 
is  not  easy  to  reach  the  snug  retire- 
ment of  Newton  Magna,  where  Angeli- 
na dresses  her  baby  in  extraordinary 
frocks  of  her  own  making,  and  the 
reverend  John  smiles  upon  her  with 


unfailing  indulgence,  and  thinks  the 
said  frocks  astonishing  works  of  art. 
It  is  a  small  consolation  to  be  indig- 
nant— a  very  small  consolation  to  ex- 
press one's  opinion  of  Mrs  Green, 
however  terse  and  pithy  the  terms  of 
this  opinion  may  be  ;  and  the  family 
heart,  awakened  from  its  resignation, 
longs  for  Zaidee,  and  will  not  be  com- 
forted concerning  its  lost  child.  In 
those  winter  nights  they  seem  to  hear 
footsteps  climbing  the  hilly  pathway 
through  the  storm  and  wind  ; — they 
seem  to  hear  some  wandering  irreso- 
lute stranger  coming  and  going  about 
the  doors  and  windows,  as  if  afraid, 
and  yet  anxious  to  seek  admittance  ; 
but  when  they  hurry  out  on  a  hundred 
messages  of  search,  there  is  no  Zaidee 
— there  is  nothing  but  the  falling 
leaves  swept  up  in  gusts,  and  rustling 
as  they  fly  past  like  a  flight  of  winter 
birds.  Her  life  in  Mrs  Disbrowe's  is 
the  constant  theme  of  conversation 
among  them,  and  they  are  all  familiar 
with  the  drab- coloured  drawing-room 
— with  Mrs  Disbrowe's  pink  ribbons 
and  comely  face.  Zaidee  has  met  with 
friends  at  least — that  is  a  consolation. 
She  has  not  been  harshly  treated  by 
the  world,  nor  cast  abroad  altogether 
out  of  its  homes.  Safe  and  honour- 
able shelter  is  a  great  thing  to  be  cer- 
tain of,  and  this  she  has  had  from  the 
very  day  of  her  departure.  If  they 
had  but  known  then ! — if  they  could 
but  have  found  her  ! — and  Mrs  Vivian, 
and  Margaret,  and  Sophy,end  their  fire- 
side conversation  with  again  a  notice  of 
Angelina,  very  true  if  not  very  flat- 
tering. For  "  fools  are  never  harm- 
less," says  Mrs  Vivian  bitterly.  And 
when  they  go  to  rest,  it  is  still  with 
many  thoughts  of  Zaidee,  doubts  and 
fears,  and  speculations  of  restless  un- 
certainty; for  all  their  inquiries  have 
come  to  no  result :  the  lost  is  more 
entirely  lost  than  ever,  and  the  hearts 
of  her  friends  are  sick  with  this  second 
failing  of  all  their  hopes. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. — THE  FAMILY  FORTUNES. 


The  family  circle  of  the  Grange  is 
grievously  broken  now.  Instead  of 
the  young  Squire  and  his  projected 
improvements,  those  works  which  were 
to  quicken  the  blood  in  the  rural 
veins  of  Briarford,  to  stimulate  the 
whole  county,  and  double  the  rental 


of  the  estate,  Mrs  Vivian  governs 
these  small  domains,  as  Squire  Percy's 
wife  might  be  expected  to  govern  them 
—  though  not  without  a  trace  that 
Squire  Philip's  mother  is  also  here, 
not  disposed  to  reject  with  utter  pre- 
judice the  innovations  sanctioned  by 


1855.] 

her  absent  boy.  The  estate  goes  on 
very  well  under  her  careful  superin- 
tendence; and  now  and  then,  with 
a  flash  of  feminine  daring,  from 
which  she  retreats  hastily  in  feminine 
cowardice,  Mrs  Vivian  dashes  at  a 
morsel  of  improvement  too,  and  has 
it  done  before  she  has  time  to  repent. 
There  is  no  large  young  family  now, 
uncontrolled,  and  without  any  neces- 
sity for  controlling  themselves,  to 
make  the  Grange  an  expensive  house- 
hold ;  there  are  more  rooms  shut  up 
in  the  family  dwelling-place  than  it 
is  pleasant  to  reckon,  and  a  great 
many  expenses  curtailed ;  for  the 
family  of  the  Grange  consists  only  of 
Margaret  and  Sophy,  who  find  it  very 
hard  not  to  be  dreary  in  that  great 
drawing-room,  once  so  well  tenanted. 
The  young  ladies'  room,  once  the 
brightest  corner  of  the  house,  is  dull 
now,  with  its  fireless  hearth,  and  with 
its  sweet  presiding  genius  gone ;  the 
library,  cold  and  vacant,  cries  aloud 
for  Philip  ;  the  house  echoes  only  to 
those  dull  sounds  which  are  lightened 
no  longer  by  Percy's  voice  of  frolic 
and  youthful  impetuous  footstep ;  and 
Zaidee,  whom  Sermo  seeks  continually 
as  he  stalks  about  through  the  hall, 
and  up  and  down  the  great  staircase, 
accosting  every  one  with  his  wistful 
eyes — Zaidee,  whose  voice  was  heard 
but  seldom  in  the  household,  is  the 
most  sadly  missed  of  all.  The  ser- 
vants even  pine  for  the  old  life,  and 
tell  each  other  how  dull  it  is  now  in 
the  Grange. 

And  Margaret  Vivian  watches  at 
those  far-seeiug  windows,  no  longer 
looking  for  the  approach  of  any  one, 
but,  with  a  sad  indefinite  wistfulness, 
tracing  those  solitary  roads  as  they 
disappear  far  away  into  the  stormy 
heaven — watching  those  great  masses 
of  cloud  swept  hither  and  thither 
before  the  wind,  the  light  leaves  that 
rustle  through  the  air  in  swarms,  and 
that  stouter  foliage  which  stiffens 
on  the  dwarf  oaks  in  every  hedgerow. 
No,  it  is  not  the  Rector  of  Woodchurch 
with  whom  Margaret's  thoughts  are 
busy.  They  are  not  busy  with  any- 
thing ;  they  are  drooping  with  the 
meditative  sadness  which  marks,  like 
a  mental  dress  of  mourning,  where  the 
heartbreak  has  been,  and  how  it 
wears  away.  She  is  much  too  young, 
too  fresh  and  human-hearted,  to  flatter 
Mr  Powis's  vanity  by  inconsolable 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII. 


37 


disappointment.  She  is  consoled,  but 
she  is  sad.  An  imaginative  and 
thoughtful  melancholy  wraps  heaven 
and  earth  for  Margaret  Vivian.  She 
has  found  out  the  discord  in  our 
mortal  music — the  jar  among  all  its 
harmonies ;  and  though  she  does  not 
favour  poetry  which  treats  of  blights 
and  desolations,  and  is  rather  less 
than  more  sentimental,  Margaret, 
whose  young  life  has  come  to  its  first 
pause,  does  make  a  pause  at  it,  and 
stays  to  consider.  It  is  already  well 
for  her  fanciful  mind  that  this  curb 
has  come,  and  by-and-by  it  will  be 
better ;  so  she  stands  at  the  window 
in  the  twilight,  and  no  one  reproves 
her ;  the  discipline  of  Providence  is 
working  its  own  way. 

And  Margaret  works  very  hard  at 
her  landscapes,  and  makes  portraits 
of  Briarford  ;  also,  having  note  of  a 
new  school  of  painting,  begins  to  study 
a  bit  of  greensward  so  closely  that 
you  can  count  its  blades,  and  puts  in 
every  leaf  upon  her  dwarfed  and 
knotted  oaks.  There  is  a  morsel  of 
ground  ivy  in  one  of  her  sketches, 
which  you  would  say  must  have  been 
studied  with  a  microscope,  or  painted 
by  some  fairy  whose  eyes  were  nearer 
to  it  than  the  eyes  of  common  mortals 
are  wont  to  be.  But  in  spite  of  this, 
Margaret  cannot  get  over  Zaidee's 
criticism.  It  is  quite  impossible  to 
tell  what  sort  of  a  day  it  is  from  that 
placid  canvass.  It  is  Briarford,  but  it 
is  not  nature  ;  and  Margaret  is  as  far 
as  ever  from  knowing  how  people 
contrive  to  paint  those  invisible  re- 
alities— the  air  and  wind. 

Sophy,  in  the  meanwhile,  is  busy 
with  her  own  avocations.  Sophy  is 
greater  than  ever  in  Briarford  school 
— a  contriver  of  holidays  and  manager 
of  feasts.  Mrs  Wy burgh,  who  is 
always  glad  to  share  her  afternoon 
cup  of  coffee  Avith  her  young  visitor, 
admires  the  activity  which  she  is  not 
able  to  emulate,  and,  with  her  rich 
Irish  voice,  calls  Sophy  "  honey,"  and 
declares  she  must  be  a  clergyman's 
wife.  The  young  Curate  of  Briarford, 
who  is  a  Rev.  Reginald  Burlington, 
as  old  of  blood  and  pure  of  race  as 
Mr  Powis  himself,  was  somewhat 
inclined  to  extreme  High  Churchism 
when  he  came  to  succeed  Mr  Green, 
and  had  conscientious  doubts  on  the 
subject  of  clergymen's  wives.  But 
the  young  gentleman  has  seen  cause 


38 


to  alter  his  sentiments  singularly 
within  the  last  few  months.  Nobody 
is  known  to  have  argued  the  question 
with  him,  yet  his  views  are  much 
ameliorated,  and  he  too  strongly  coin- 
cides with  Mrs  Wyburgh  as  to  the 
special  vocation  of  Sophy  Vivian. 
But  the  Rev.  Reginald  has  no  pro- 
spects to  speak  of,  and  Miss  Sophy 
is  not  known  to  admire  love  in  a 
cottage ;  so  the  young  curate  makes 
the  best  of  his  time  by  perpetual 
visits,  and  establishes  himself,  as  a 
necessity,  at  the  fireside  of  the  Grange, 
where  Sophy,  in  spite  of  herself, 
begins  to  look  for  him,  and  to  wonde'r 
if  any  chance  keeps  him  away ;  and 
thus  the  youthful  churchman  bides 
his  time. 

And  Percy  is  in  the  Temple,  a  law 
student,  burning  his  midnight  oil  not 
un  frequently,  but  seldom  over  the 
mystic  authorities  of  his  profession. 
Percy  knows  an  editor,  and  writes 
verses.  Percy,  once  extremely  econo- 
mical, begins  to  unbend  a  little  in  his 
severity,  and  intends  to  make  a  bril- 
liant debut  as  an  author.  The  youngest 
son  is  full  of  life,  of  spirit,  of  frolic,  and 
affectionateness  when  he  goes  home. 
It  is  as  if  some  one  from  another 
sphere  had  lighted  among  them,  when 
Percy  makes  a  flying  visit  to  the 
Grange.  Mrs  Vivian  says  it  is 
a  certain  thing  that  he  cannot  be  an 
idle  student,  for  he  is  never  happy 
without  occupation ;  for  this  good 
mother  does  not  know  what  a  restless, 
brilliant,  busy  mode  of  idleness  her  son 
is  proficient  in.  They  wonder  at  his 
hosts  of  friends  ;  they  wonder  at  his 
bright  and  happy  animation,  and  the 
fulness  of  his  undaunted  hope.  Yes, 
though  Percy  Vivian  is  a  whole  year 
older — though  he  has  actually  begun 
life — though  he  has  known  a  great 
family  reverse,  and  will  have  but  a 
small  portion  of  worldly  goods  falling 
to  his  share— Percy,  still  undismayed, 
spurns  at  the  subject  world  in  his 
proud,  young,  triumphant  vigour,  and 
knows  no  difficulty  which  was  not 
made  to  be  conquered. 

And  Philip  is  in  India.  The  young 
Squire  is  no  ascetic  either;  he  has  his 
pleasures,  as  they  find,  by  these  manly 
open-hearted  letters  of  his.  He  tells 
them  of  his  Indian  Prince  with  a  merry 
humour,  and  laughs  at  the  habits  of 
luxury  he  is  acquiring,  and  threatens 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  VIII.  [July, 

to  come  home   a  nabob ;    and  even 


whiles  he  prays  them  to  send  out  a 
Cheshire  gale,  or  one  fresh  day  of  the 
climate  of  Briarford,  the  young  man 
in  his  honourable  labours  enjoys  his 
life.  He  is  working  to  make  an  in- 
dependence for  himself.  Philip,  the 
head  of  the  house,  will  not  consent  to 
have  the  Grange.  If  Zaidee  is  lost,  his 
mother  and  sisters  may  remain  in  it, 
and  its  revenues  accumulate,  says  the 
brave  young  man  ;  but  Percy  and  he 
have  their  own  way  to  make,  and 
must  establish  themselves.  When  he 
says  this,  Philip  sends  part  of  his 
first  year's  allowance  to  Percy,  to  en- 
able him  to  prosecute  his  studies;  and 
Percy  sends  out  to  him  a  batch  of 
magazines,  with  poems  in  them,  in 
return. 

Elizabeth  is  in  Morton  Hall,  a 
beautiful  young  matron,  doing  all 
her  duties  with  the  simplicity  which 
gives  an  almost  royal  dignity  to  her 
beauty,  and  Captain  Bernard's  dark 
face  glows  with  the  sober  certainty  of 
his  great  happiness.  The  Grange 
looks  thankfully,  but  sadly,  on  its  dis- 
tant sons  and  its  transplanted  daugh- 
ter. Life  is  brighter  for  those  who 
have  gone  away  than  for  those  who 
remain.  Nobody  thinks  of  Zaidee,  nor 
of  the  other  losses  of  the  family,  as 
they  do  who  are  left  at  home ;  and 
those  women,  who  are  sometimes  cast 
down  in  their  wrestle,  look  abroad  with 
wistfulness,  and  would  almost  envy, 
if  they  were  not  grateful  for  the  lighter 
burden  of  the  others.  Their  affection 
knows  where  to  find  Philip  and  Percy 
and  Elizabeth  —  to  rejoice  and  give 
thanks  for  their  young  abundant 
lives — but  where  is  Zaidee,  the  lost 
child  ? 

Zaidee  is  in  her  new  home,  grow- 
ing as  few  have  ever  expected  to  see 
her  grow — a  pleasant  life  rising  be- 
fore her,  a  loving  companion,  friends 
who  care  for  her.  Zaidee's  mind  is 
alive  and  awake :  she  has  thrown  off 
her  burden.  If  she  longs  for  home, 
she  is  no  longer  desolate,  and  life 
rises  before  this  voluntary  exile  fresh 
and  fair  as  life  should  ever  rise ;  for 
Hope  has  taken  her  hand  again  ;  she 
has  far  outgrown  the  pool  of  Briar - 
ford,  and  Zaidee's  thoughts  travel 
forth  undaunted.  There  is  no  possi- 
bility so  glad  or  so  lofty  but  she  is 
ready  to  accept  it  now. 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


39 


NOTES   ON   CANADA  AND   THE   NORTH-WEST   STATES   OF   AMERICA. 


PART   IV. 


WISCONSIN. 


WHEN  that  inestimable  character, 
Mr  Mark  Tapley,  arrived  at  the  city 
of  "  Eden,"  the  first  conviction  which 
forced  itself  upon  his  mind  was,  that 
he  had  never  in  the  course  of  his  pre- 
vious experience  felt  called  upon  to 
be  " jolly"  under  more  "creditable 
circumstances "  than  when  locating 
himself  in  that  dismal  swamp. 

Without  being  quite  so  discouraging 
as  Eden,  there  was  nothing  inviting  in 
the  first  aspect  of  the  extreme  western 
point  of  Lake  Superior,  as  a  spot  upon 
which  to  take  up  one's  permanent 
abode.  It  was  a  raw,  bleak  morning ; 
black  clouds  gathered  behind  the 
range  to  the  north,  and  swept  east- 
ward across  the  broad  lake,  as  if  they 
meant  mischief.  The  wind  whistled 
over  the  narrow  sandy  spit  of  land 
on  which  we  stood,  curling  up  the 
corners  of  the  bark  upon  the  Indian 
wigwams,  ominously  flapping  the  cur- 
tain at  the  doorway,  and  sending  the 
smoke  eddying  back  into  the  eyes  of 
the  occupants,  with  a  force  which 
rendered  them  any  thing  but  agreeable 
habitations.  A  little  schooner  came 
dancing  over  the  white  waves  of  the 
lake,  close  hauled,  and  gunwale  under ; 
but  there  was  a  sea  on  the  bar  which 
frightened  her  away;  and,  standing 
off  again  on  the  other  tack,  she  short- 
ened sail,  and  prepared  herself  for  the 
coming  storm.  There  was  another 
craft  riding  uneasily  at  her  anchors  in 
the  Lagoon,  and  we  heard  afterwards 
that  in  the  course  of  the  night  she 
had  a  narrow  escape,  and  dragged 
almost  ashore.  Even  the  Sam  seemed 
anxious  to  get  away,  and  avoid  the 
possibility  of  leaving  her  old  timbers 
upon  the  shores  of  the  St  Louis,  as 
materials  for  the  first  Chouses  of 
the  city  of  Superior.  Meantime,  we 
were  becoming  not  a  little  desirous 
to  reach  the  said  city ;  and  I  could 
not  help  feeling  grateful  that  fate  had 
not  destined  me  to  be  one  of  the  ori- 
ginal settlers.  Indeed,  I  had  no  cause 
for  complaint,  as  one  of  a  party  of 
four,  determined  to  make  the  best  of 


everything,  and  before  many  months 
were  over,  to  wind  up  our  travels  with 
a  white  -  bait  dinner  at  Greenwich 
(this  is  an  event  still  to  come  off,  by 
the  way) ;  so  that  good-fellowship 
and  the  prospects  of  home  enabled  us 
to  regard  discomforts  and  inconveni- 
ences in  the  light  of  adventures.  It 
is  when  they  become  matters  of  every - 
day^routine  that  they  lose  their  charac- 
ter of  romance ;  and  it  would  require 
a  good  deal  of  faith  in  the  future  pros- 
perity of  an  embryo  town  in  the  Far 
West,  to  induce  one  to  live  in  it 
through  the  first  stages  of  its  exist- 
ence. I  therefore  felt  some  commis- 
seration  for  our  fellow-passengers  in 
the  little  boat  which  at  last  came  to 
ferry  us  across  to  the  "  City."  One 
was  a  German,  with  the  usual  roll  of 
bedding,  on  the  outside  of  which  were 
strapped  an  axe,  a  gridiron,  and  a 
kettle ;  his  companion  was  an  Irish- 
man, with  nothing  but  never-flagging 
spirits  and  gigantic  muscle  to  trust  to 
in  the  western  world  before  him ;  and 
the  third  was  a  Yankee,  in  a  swallow- 
tailed  coat,  with  a  revolver,  a  bundle 
in  a  yellow  silk  pocket-handkerchief, 
and  unfathomable  u  'cuteness  "  as  his 
stock-in-trade.  Our  boatman  was  a 
well-educated  and  intelligent  young 
Englishman,  who  had  forced  his  way 
to  this  distant  region  early  in  the  day, 
and  had  been  the  first  to  ply  regularly 
upon  the  river  ;  he  charged  high  fares 
accordingly,  but  we  did  not  grudge 
him  the  due  reward  of  his  enterprise. 
He  told  us  that  he  was  already  worth 
more  than  his  most  sanguine  expec- 
tations led  him  to  anticipate,  con- 
sidering the  short  period  of  his  stay  ; 
and,  as  a  small  clearing  in  the  woods 
opened  up  to  view,  he  showed  us  the 
timber  walls  of  a  bowling-saloon  in 
the  process  of  erection,  the  first  of 
which  Superior  could  boast.  Indeed, 
that  celebrated  city  now  burst  upon 
us  in  all  its  magnificence,  and  one 
lofty  barn-like  shed,  surrounded  by  an. 
acre  of  stumps,  represented  the  future 
emporium  of  the  resources  of  the  fer- 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.  [July, 


40 

tile  and  prolific  country  of  which  it  is 
destined  to  be  fhe  metropolis.  The 
arrival  of  the  steamer  had  evidently 
created  a  sensation.  There  was  a  large 
group  collected  at  the  door  of  the 
barn  which  was  called  the  Hotel, 
and  little  heaps  of  luggage  were  piled 
up  in  the  mud ;  and  here  and  there  the 
more  energetic  among  the  late  arri- 
vals were  cutting  down  branches  and 
constructing  sheds,  or  pitching  tents 
among  the  bushes,  or  hurrying  to  and 
fro  in  all  the  excitement  of  preparing 
for  a  sojourn  in  the  woods  until  per- 
manent shelter  could  be  erected.  A 
tall,  raw-boned  American,  with  very 
short,  wide  trousers,  and  moccasins, 
was  standing  on  a  rough  pier,  con- 
structed with  a  few  logs,  as  we  ap- 
proached, and  watched  the  process  of 
our  debarkation  with  languid  interest. 
His  aspect  was  as  little  encouraging 
to  a  stranger  as  the  place  of  his  abode. 
He  had  only  one  eye ;  and  a  deep  scar 
at  the  left  corner  of  the  empty  socket 
suggested  the  idea  of  a  " difficulty" 
which  had  resulted  in  the  violent 
abstraction  of  the  other.  A  short 
stubbly  mustache  was  united  to  a 
beard  of  a  like  character  by  a  dried- 
rip  rivulet  of  tobacco  juice;  and  one  of 
his  yellow,  parchment-like  cheeks  was 
largely  distended  by  a  plug  of  the 
fragrant  herb.  "  Gwine  to  locate  in 
our  city,  gentlemen?"  he  drawled  out 
as  we  collected  round  the  tarpaulin 
package  that  contained  our  united  ef- 
fects, as  if  he  thought  we  had  come 
unusually  well  provided  for  such  an 
experiment.  We  shook  our  heads. 
"  Wai,  pro-spect'mg  for  copper,  may- 
be?" We  assured  him  we  had  no 
such  intention.  He  looked  a  little 
puzzled,  and  favoured  us  with  a  length- 
ened stare  of  more  than  ordinary  curi- 
osity. "  Ah,"  he  said  with  a  sort  of 
doubtful  grunt,  "  Injun  traders  ;"  but 
our  appearance  belied  that,  and  he 
evidently  expected  the  answer  he  re- 
ceived in  the  negative.  He  could 
gain  no  information  from  our  cos- 
tumes ;  they  consisted  simply  of  flan- 
nel shirts,  and  trousers  of  the  same 
material,  with  the  usual  belts  and 
knives.  At  last  a  bright  thought 
struck  him.  "  You're  government 
surveyors,"  he  said  in  a  decided  tone; 
but  we  scorned  the  idea :  so  he  gave 
an  incredulous  spirt  of  tobacco  juice, 
and  turned  his  back  upon  us — evi- 


dently in  doubt  whether,  as  Mr 
Chuckster  would  say,  we  were  "  pre- 
cious deep,"  and  would  not  reveal  our 
intentions — or  "precious flat," and  had 
not  got  any.  We  then  dragged  our 
luggage  some  fifty  yards  up  a  steep 
muddy  bank  to  the  door  of  the  hotel, 
and,  not  being  taken  the  slightest  no- 
tice of  by  any  one,  sat  upon  it  in  a 
helpless  way.  Just  then  I  saw  the 
Sam  steam  slowly  out  of  the  river : 
the  last  link  which  connected  us  with 
civilisation  seemed  broken,  and  I 
thought  that  to  have  been  a  friend- 
less emigrant  upon  that  distant  shore 
— without  a  roof  to  cover  one,  or  a  bed 
to  lie  upon,  surrounded  by  a  gang  of 
selfish,  unfeeling  adventurers — would 
have  been  perhaps  the  most  unenvi- 
able experience  in  one's  life.  It  was 
impossible  to  get  an  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion, or  to  attract  any  interest  what- 
ever. Each  person  manifested  the 
most  profound  indifference  to  every- 
body's concerns  but  his  own ;  so  we 
determined  to  watch  the  luggage  and 
explore  the  city  by  turns.  Striking 
along  a  swamp,  and  balancing  myself 
upon  the  pine  logs  that  served  as  a 
pathway,  I  observed  a  white  sheet 
fluttering  among  the  bushes,  and,  upon 
approaching,  found  that  it  was  a  tent 
formed  of  some  sheets  fastened  inge- 
niously together  with  bark,  and  to 
which  there  was  no  visible  entry.  At 
last  I  discovered  a  part  where  it  was 
not  pegged  down,  and  poking  my  head 
under,  perceived  lying  in  the  centre, 
upon  the  hard  damp  ground,  like  a 
chrysalis  in  its  cocoon,  a  huge  mum- 
mied figure,  wrapped  in  a  blanket, 
above  which  gleamed  a  pair  of  spec- 
tacles ;  the  only  other  article  in  the 
tent  was  a  carpet-bag,  which  served 
as  a  pillow  to  the  prostrate  occupant ; 
the  keen  wind  was  whistling  under 
and  through  the  thin  cotton  sheeting  ; 
the  moisture  oozed  up  through  the 
damp  soil ;  and  as  it  was  the  middle 
of  the  day,  I  thought  some  serious 
malady  was  the  occasion  of  so  uncom- 
fortable a  proceeding.  A  pair  of  round 
eyes  goggling  at  me  through  the  spec- 
tacles relieved  me  from  any  apprehen- 
sion of  waking  the  sufferer,  so  I  asked 
him  if  he  was  ill. 

"No,  stranger;  guess  I'm  only  lazy." 
u  But  it  will  be  very  cold  to-night." 
"  Wai,  don't  reckon  on  its   being 
colder  than  it  was  last  night." 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


"  Then,  do  you  mean  always  to  live 
here?" 

"  Ah,  shouldn't  wonder.  I  have 
got  a  house  building  on  hill  'ull  be 
the  finest  in  the  city  for  a  spell. 
I'll  make  it  a  saloon,  and  there  will 
be  a  room  18  by  25.  The  rent  is  only 
two  hundred  dollars  a-year ;  if  you've 
a  mind  to  it,  go  up  by  swamp  half  a 
mile  and  see  it,  and  come  back  and 
tell  me  what  you  think  of  it.  I  ain't 
one  of  your  darned  picayunish  coons, 
and  '11  hold  on  to  this  hyar  fixing  to 
oblige  a  stranger;  but  if  you're  nosing 
about  to  no  good,  wal,  put !"  This 
latter  hint  was  given  with  such  em- 
phasis, and  the  eyes  looked  so  threat- 
ening, that,  as  I  had  no  design  upon 
the  saloon,  I  "  put  "  forthwith,  or,  in 
less  concise  terms,  took  myself  off,  care- 
fully avoiding  my  friend's  fixing  during 
the  remainder  of  my  stay  at  Superior. 
On  my  return  to  the  hotel,  I  doubted 
whether  the  solitary  and  cheerless 
habitation  I  had  just  visited  was  not 
a  preferable  abode  to  the  public 
lodging-house.  As  yet  it  was  quite 
unfinished.  The  greater  part  of  the 
interior  was  devoted  to  the  purposes 
of  a  carpenter's  shop.  Sawing,  plan- 
ing, and  hammering  went  on  without 
intermission.  There  were  piles  of 
planks  and  bales  of  cotton,  baskets  of 
tools  and  casks  of  pork,  all  mingled 
indiscriminately;  rough  logs  with 
rough  people  sitting  on  them,  and 
shavings  a  foot  deep  everywhere. 
There  was  a  lath  partition  which  had 
not  yet  been  plastered,  and  by  looking 
through  the  interstices  of  which  it  was 
easy  to  discover  that  it  was  the  bed- 
room of  mine  host,  his  wife,  and 
family.  A  similar  partition,  in  which 
a  door  had  not  yet  been  put,  separated 
the  eating-room  from  the  dirt  and 
shavings.  A  ladder  led  up  through  a 
trap-door  to  a  spacious  loft,  which  at 
first  sight  presented  a  most  singular 
aspect.  All  round  the  sides  were 
arranged  beds  of  shavings  upon  the 
floor;  and  above  each,  suspended  from 
the  roof,  were  musquito-nets  of  all 
colours,  so  that  they  looked  like  a 
collection  of  variegated  meat-safes 
imbedded  in  shavings.  Above  them, 
again,  were  a  series  of  stages,  sup- 
ported by  rickety  wooden  posts. 
Each  stage  was  capable  of  containing 
two  or  three  occupants,  and  the  only 
means  of  access  these  latter  possessed 


41 

was  by  u  swarming  "  up  the  posts,  to  use 
a  schoolboy's  term.  In  one  corner  of 
the  loft  there  was  a  small  room 
screened  off:  this  was  the  land-office; 
and  as  we  have  hitherto  devoted  our- 
selves to  describing  first  impressions 
of  Superior  in  its  external  aspect,  a 
visit  to  the  land-office  will  afford  us  a 
good  opportunity  of  learning  some- 
thing more  of  its  present  condition 
and  future  prospects.  It  can  rarely 
happen  that  a  settlement  in  its  inci- 
pient state,  however  brilliant  its  future 
prospects  may  be,  is  inviting  ;  and  if 
I  have  painted  Superior  in  somewhat 
dingy  colours,  and  taken  a  gloomy 
view  of  the  emigrant's  first  experience, 
it  is  not  to  discourage  him  from  ad- 
venturing in  the  wilds  of  America, 
but  simply  to  warn  him,  that  in  order 
to  realise  those  large  sums  which  are 
gambled  with  there  as  if  they  were 
lottery  tickets,  he  must  expect 
hardships  and  trials  of  no  ordinary 
nature.  If  he  have  a  bold  spirit, 
common  prudence,  and  some  fertility 
of  resource,  there  is  no  part  of  the 
world  in  which  those  qualities  can  be 
turned  to  more  profit  and  advantage 
than  in  Canada  and  the  north-west 
states  of  America.  Investments  made 
with  ordinary  prudence  are  attended 
with  scarcely  any  risk ;  for  as  civili- 
sation advances,  property  everywhere 
increases  in  value,  and  in  the  course 
of  time  the  most  injudicious  selection 
of  land  will  realise  a  handsome  profit. 
The  value  of  land  is  frequently  doubled 
in  these  regions  in  one  year,  or  even 
in  a  few  months;  the  difficulty  is  not 
to  make  money,  but  to  keep  it.  The 
same  incentives  to  the  permanent 
accumulation  of  wealth  do  not  exist 
in  America  which  operate  in  England. 
No  man  cares  to  be  the  founder  of  a 
family  in  a  country  where  all  differ- 
ence of  birth  is  ignored,  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  entail  his  wealth  upon  a 
single  representative  of  his  family. 
The  amusements  of  Americans  are 
not  so  expensive  as  ours,  and  there 
are  fewer  of  them  ;  nor  is  there  any 
rank  or  society  which  necessarily  in- 
volves a  heavy  expenditure  to  the 
man  whose  home  is  in  the  Far  West. 
Money  is  still  less  valuable  for  its  own 
sake,  or  as  an  ingredient  in  his  happi- 
ness. The  amenities  of  civilisation 
have  no  charms  for  him.  He  longs 
to  exchange  his  insipid  existence  in 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.          [July, 


42 

an  eastern  city  for  the  freedom  of  the 
woods,  where  his  occupation  has  ever 
been  reckless  speculation,  the  excite- 
ment of  which  still  forms  his  chief 
source  of  pleasure ;  so  he  plays 
away  his  fortune  as  soon  as  he 
has  made  it.  His  habits  of  life  re- 
main unchanged,  whatever  be  his 
pecuniary  circumstances ;  and  whether 
the  last  card  was  a  trump,  matters 
very  little  to  him,  for  he  means  to 
gamble  all  his  life.  To  an  English- 
man intending  to  return  to  his  native 
land  with  a  comfortable  independence, 
the  country  in  which  the  Yankee  specu- 
lates is  the  one  for  him  to  invest  in;  and 
if  he  is  contented  with  a  tithe  of  the 
winnings,  without  the  risk,  of  the  more 
dashing  game,  he  will  not  repent  the 
day  when  he  crossed  the  Atlantic  to 
seek  his  fortune  on  the  shores  of  the 
American  lakes.  In  looking  out  for 
eligible  land-investments  in  an  un- 
settled country,  the  attention  of  the 
explorer  should  ever  be  directed 
to  the  discovery  of  those  localities 
which  seem  to  combine  the  neces- 
sary requisites  for  a  future  town.  If 
he  wish  to  buy  upon  the  shores  of  a 
lake,  the  two  great  considerations  are, 
the  excellence  of  the  harbour,  and  the 
character  of  the  back  country,  with 
the  facilities  which  exist  for  transport 
into  the  interior  ;  and  to  compare  its 
merits  with  those  of  other  spots  upon 
the  coast,  so  as  to  avoid  the  risk  of 
competition.  If  he  be  desirous  of  set- 
tling in  the  interior,  he  should  do  so 
upon  the  banks  of  a  river.  The  head 
of  the  navigation  is  a  certain  site  for 
a  town.  Good  water-power  is  almost 
indispensable,  and  a  fertile  back  coun- 
try, the  nature  of  which  may  be  judged 
of  by  the  size  and  character  of  the 
timber :  hardwood,  including  maple, 
birch,  oak,  &c.,  is  an  indication  of  the 
best  land  ;  softwood  betokens  a 
poorer  soil ;  but  upon  the  banks  of  a 
river  the  most  valuable  locations  for 
lumber  purposes  are  amid  pine  for- 
ests. If  the  land-speculator  be  for- 
tunate enough  to  establish  a  pre-emp- 
tive claim  upon  a  tract  of  land  com- 
bining such  qualifications  upon  the 
confines  of  civilisation,  he  may  within 
a  few  years,  or  even  before  the  last 
instalment  of  his  purchase-money  has 
been  paid  down,  charge  more  for  his 
land  by  the  foot  than  he  is  at  the  same 
moment  paying  to  government  for  it 


by  the  acre,  and,  before  ten  years  are 
past,  may  see  a  large  bustling  town 
covering  the  land  which  was  clothed, 
when  he  bought  it,  with  virgin  forests ; 
and  find  himself  a  millionaire,  with 
just  enough  (if  he  be  a  Yankee)  to 
meet  the  liabilities  he  has  incurred  in 
taking  out  a  patent  for  diving-bells  at 
New  York,  in  laying  down  a  gutta- 
percha  pavement  at  New  Orleans,  and 
contracting  to  rebuild  San  Francisco 
after  a  fire ;  together  with  a  few  other 
experiments  in  various  parts  of  his 
almighty  continent,  too  trifling  to 
mention. 

But  this  mode  of  land-speculating 
is  not  alone  confined  to  individuals. 
Companies  are  formed,  who  purchase 
large  tracts  of  land  in  eligible  locali- 
ties ;  and  the  position  of  Fond  du  Lac 
appeared  such  apromisingsite,  that  two 
separate  companies  obtained  grants  of 
land  at  the  mouth  of  the  St  Louis. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  the  ad- 
vantages which  the  western  extremity 
of  Lake  Superior  holds  out  as  a  point 
for  such  speculation.  It  is  situated  at 
the  head  of  the  lake  navigation  of 
North  America.  Since  the  passing  of 
the  reciprocity  treaty,  by  which  the 
internal  navigation  of  America  is  made 
available  to  the  vessels  both  of  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States,  there  is 
uninterrupted  fresh-water  communica- 
tion for  large  steamers,  from  thence 
to  the  sea  by  way  of  the  St  Lawrence, 
a  distance  of  2000  miles.  There  is  no 
harbour  nearer  than  La  Pointe,  ninety 
miles  distant  upon  the  southern  shore 
of  the  lake ;  and  upon  the  northern 
the  country  is  sterile  and  uninhabited, 
and  affords  no  good  harbour  between 
Fond  du  Lac  and  the  frontier  of  the 
British  possessions  and  the  United 
States.  When  the  bar  at  the  mouth 
of  the  St  Louis,  on  which  there  is 
now  nine  feet  of  water,  is  dredged, 
the  lagoon,  which  is  about  six  miles 
long  and  two  broad,  will  be  easy 
of  access,  as  well  as  safe  and  com- 
modious. Not  only  are  the  hills  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Fond  du  Lac 
prolific  in  mineral  resources,  but  the 
whole  country  lying  to  the  west  and 
south,  and  extending  to  the  Mississip- 
pi, is  rich,  well  watered,  and  susceptible 
in  a  high  degree  of  cultivation.  When 
it  is  settled,  the  whole  cereal  and 
mineral  produce  of  Minnesota,  and  a 
great  part  of  that  of  Wisconsin,  must 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


find  an  outlet  at  this  point,  which  will 
also  be  the  port  for  the  import  trade 
of  the  east.  A  railway  has  already 
been  projected  from  Superior  to  St 
Paul's,  the  head  of  the  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi,  130  miles  distant, 
when  a  large  share  of  the  traffic  which 
has  contributed  to  the  rapid  growth 
of  Chicago  will  find  its  way  by  this 
route.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  ad- 
vancing tide  of  civilisation  made  it 
apparent  that  the  time  had  arrived  to 
turn  these  capabilities  to  account, 
rival  companies  bought  land,  and  hung 
up  the  plans  of  their  prospective  cities 
in  all  the  hotels  of  the  northern  towns. 
These  plans  are  magnificent  in  appear- 
ance. Handsome  squares,  avenues  and 
streets,  with  pictures  of  the  noble  edi- 
fices with  which,  in  the  imagination  of 
the  artist,  they  are  ornamented,  dazzle 
with  their  splendour  our  unsuspecting 
emigrant,  who  labels  his  luggage  for 
the  perfect  specimen  of  architecture 
which  he  sees  marked  in  the  corner  as 
the  National  Hotel,  situated  upon  the 
principal  square ;  and  on  his  arrival 
finds  to  his  dismay  a  wooden  shed  in 
the  midst  of  stumps,  with  an  unfeeling 
landlord  and  beds  of  shavings.  It  is, 
however,  fair  to  say  that  the  chances 
are  strongly  in  favour  of  the  bright 
visions  in  the  plans  being  realised  in 
an  incredibly  short  space  of  time. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  glance  at 
the  progress  of  Wisconsin,  at  the 
north-eastern  corner  of  which  Superior 
is  situated,  and  at  the  character  and 
capabilities  of  the  State  generally,  to 
justify  the  prediction  that  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years  Superior  will  be  as 
large  and  thriving  as  its  other  cities. 

Wisconsin  was  only  admitted  into 
the  Union  as  a  State  in  May  1848. 
The  rapid  increase  of  its  population 
has  been  unprecedented  even  in  the 
annals  of  American  progression.  In 
1838  the  population,  according  to  the 
State  enumerations,  was  only  18,130; 
in  1850,  the  census  returned  the  popu- 
lation as  305,391.  I  saw  the  Gover- 
nor of  the  State  in  Washington  in 
1854,  and  he  assured  me  that  there 
were  upwards  of  500,000  inhabitants 
in  Wisconsin,  who  had  all  emigrated 
there  within  the  last  fifteen  years. 
It  is  needless  to  observe  that  the 
value  of  property  must  have  risen 
commensurately  with  the  increase  of 
population,  in  order  to  support  my  as- 


sertion as  to  the  eligibility  of  Wiscon- 
sin as  a  field  for  investment ;  but  it 
possesses  many  other  attractions  to 
the  emigrant  beyond  that  of  mere 
progression.  "The  salubrity  of  the 
climate,"  saysMr Latham,  "thepurity 
of  the  atmosphere,  and  of  the  water, 
which  is  usually  obtained  from  copious 
living  springs,  the  coolness  and  short 
duration  of  summer,  and  the  dryness 
of  the  air  during  winter,  all  conspire 
to  render  Wisconsin  one  of  the  most 
healthy  portions  of  the  United  States." 
It  is  one  of  the  most  fertile  as  well  as 
healthy.  The  general  surface  of  the 
State  is  gently  undulating ;  the  higher 
elevations  are  upon  the  shores  of 
Lake  Superior,  where  the  hills  are 
covered  with  dense  forests  of  ever- 
green ;  and  the  streams  are  rapid,  af- 
fording good  water-power.  It  is  there- 
fore a  good  timber  district,  and  ex- 
ports about  200,000,000  feet  per  year, 
while  many  of  the  ranges  are  rich  in 
iron  and  copper  ore.  The  soil  is  even 
here  very  rich  ;  and,  unlike  mineral 
regions  generally,  this  promises  a  rich 
reward  to  the  farmer  as  well  as  the 
miner.  But  it  is  to  the  south-eastern 
part  of  the  State  that  the  attention  of 
the  farmer  should  be  more  particularly 
directed.  I  afterwards  travelled, along 
the  southern  boundary  of  Wisconsin 
— over  its  rolling  prairies,  where  the 
long  luxuriant  grass  was  interspersed 
with  flowers — past  oak  openings  where 
belts  and  clumps  of  oaks  vary  the 
monotony  of  the  prairie;  for  these 
forest  giants  alone  can  stand  the  ac- 
tion of  the  vast  annual  conflagrations 
which  sweep  over  the  western  prairies, 
and  which,  while  they  enrich  the  grass, 
add  doubtless  to  the  productive  power 
of  the  soil,  and  prepare  it  for  the 
ploughshare.  The  soil  is  described 
as  a  dark  brown  vegetable  mould, 
from  one  to  two  feet  deep,  very 
mellow,  without  stone  or  gravel, 
and  very  fertile.  This  charming 
country  is  intersected  by  five  or  six 
navigable  rivers,  and  dotted  with 
numerous  extensive  and  beautiful 
Lakes.  It  possesses  the  greatest 
facilities  for  exporting  its  produce. 
Bounded  on  the  north  by  Lake  Supe- 
rior, on  the  east  by  Lake  Michigan, 
and  on  the  west  for  275  miles  by  the 
Mississippi,  it  has  outlets  in  every  di- 
rection, while  railroads  already  con- 
nect its  principal  towns  with  New 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.        [July, 


44 

York.  The  lake  commerce  of  Wis- 
consin iii  1851  exceeded  27,000,000  of 
dollars.  Amongst  the  most  important 
and  valuable  of  the  exports  of  Wis- 
consin, however,  is  lead,  which  is 
found  in  great  abundance  and  rich- 
ness upon  the  upper  Mississippi.  Such 
is  a  brief  description  of  the  attrac- 
tions which  this  State  offers  to  intend- 
ing emigrants,  which  are  more  fully 
set  forth  in  some  thousands  of  pamph- 
lets issued  by  the  State  immigration 
agent  at  New  York,  and  which,  hav- 
ing been  printed  in  German,  Dutch, 
and  Norwegian,  have  been  in  a  great 
degree  the  means  of  populating  the 
State  with  settlers  of  different  nation- 
alities from  the  continent  of  Europe. 

I  was  glad  to  have  the  opportunity 
of  witnessing  the  process  by  which  a 
vast  and  heretofore  almost  uninha- 
bited country  was  becoming  thickly 
and  rapidly  populated,  as  a  process 
which  involved  so  much  that  was  in- 
teresting and  anomalous. 

The  blind  confidence  which  in- 
duces crowds  of  utterly  destitute 
people  to  emigrate  to  comparatively 
unknown  and  altogether  uncivilised 
regions,  with  the  intention  of  living 
there  permanently  —  the  cool  pre- 
sumption with  which  crowded  steam- 
ers start  for  cities  which  do  not  exist, 
and  disgorge  their  living  freights 
upon  lonesome  and  desolate  shores, 
to  shift  for  themselves,  and  the  very 
remarkable  manner  in  which  they  do 
shift  for  themselves — first,  by  build- 
ing a  hotel,  then  a  newspaper  office, 
then  probably  a  masonic  lodge,  or 
something  equally  unnecessary,  then 
saloons  and  places  of  public  enter- 
tainment— and,  finally,  shops  and  or- 
dinary dwelling-houses — are  amongst 
the  most  novel  and  characteristic 
experiences  of  a  traveller  in  the  Far 
West. 

Having  inspected  the  plan  of  the 
city  in  the  land-office  before  described, 
we  sallied  forth  to  choose  some  lots 
for  our  own  benefit ;  and  having  been 
particularly  fascinated  by  the  eligible 
position  of  some,  situated  within  two 
doors  of  the  bank,  just  round  the 
corner  of  the  grand  hotel,  opposite 
the  wharf,  fronting  the  principal 
square,  and  running  back  to  Thomp- 
son Street — in  fact,  in  the  very  thick 
of  the  business  part  of  the  town — and 
preceded  by  a  very  communicative 


and  civilised  young  man,  evidently 
imported  from  New  York  or  Boston 
for  puffing  purposes,  we  commenced 
cutting  our  way  with  bill-hooks  through 
the  dense  forest,  which  he  called 
Third  Avenue,  or  the  fashionable 
quarter,  until  we  got  to  the  bed  of  a 
rivulet,  down  which  we  turned  through 
tangled  underwood  (by  name  West 
Street),  until  it  lost  itself  in  a  bog, 
which  was  the  principal  square,  upon 
the  other  side  of  which,  covered  with  al- 
most impenetrable  bush,  was  the  site 
of  our  lots.  We  did  not  think  it  worth 
our  while  cutting  our  way  through  them 
to  the  business  quarter,  and  therefore 
returned  somewhat  sceptical,  despite 
the  glowing  eulogy  which  our  cicerone 
passed  upon  our  selection,  of  its  wis- 
dom ;  and  almost  disposed  to  quarrel 
with  one  of  our  quondam  fellow-pas- 
sengers whom  we  met,  and  who  asked 
us  if  "  we  had  got  to  housekeeping 
yet." 

The  table  d'hote  was  quite  in  keep- 
ing with  the  hotel  in  which  it  was 
given.  Twenty  or  thirty  rough  fel- 
lows, in  red  flannel  shirts,  and  knives 
and  pistols  stuck  into  their  girdles, 
sat  round  the  massive  table  to  wash 
down  a  great  quantity  of  hard  salt 
pork  with  brandy,  and  garnish  their 
conversation,  of  which  they  were 
very  chary,  with  a  singular  variety 
and  quantity  of  oaths.  Indeed,  so 
frequently  and  inappropriately  are 
they  lugged  into  the  common  parlance 
of  backwoodsmen,  that  it  is  at  first 
very  difficult  to  understand  anything 
that  is  said ;  and  as,  even  when  used 
as  an  embellishment  in  civilised  con- 
versation, they  do  not  give  one  a 
very  high  estimate  of  the  sense  of  the 
speaker,  when  they  also  interfere 
with  the  sense  of  the  sentence,  fami- 
liar intercourse  with  the  denizens  of 
the  West  is  neither  profitable  nor 
attractive.  There  was  a  judge  at 
dinner,  who  was  a  singular  instance 
of  this;  and  if  his  decisions  were 
framed  in  such  blasphemous  terms 
as  his  talk,  it  would  have  been  mor- 
ally impossible  for  his  suitors  to  un- 
derstand him  unless  they  had  under- 
gone a  special  education  for  the 
purpose.  He  was  seeking  rest  from 
his  judicial  labours  by  a  little  "pro- 
specting ; "  and  had  determined  to 
employ  his  holidays  by  doing  a  stroke 
of  business  in  the  copper  line.  To 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


45 


judge  by  his  appearance,  he  had  been 
a  good  deal  in  the  bowels  of  the 
earth,  and  had  not  washed  himself 
since  he  had  started  on  his  explora- 
tions. However,  it  was  difficult  to 
account  for  the  filth  and  shabbiness 
of  his  attire,  for  he  had  with  him  an 
unusually  large  portmanteau  —  in 
which  he  was  always  burrowing — 
competent  to  contain  a  sufficient  sup- 
ply of  clothes  for  the  most  fastidious. 
Upon  one  occasion,  however,  when  a 
group  was  collected  near  this  myste- 
rious receptacle,  he  suddenly  opened 
it  and  displayed  an  enormous  bundle, 
on  the  top  of  Which  were  sprinkled  a 
few  dirty  socks  and  collars,  and 
which,  on  being  untied,  was  found  to 
contain  huge  specimens  of  copper, 
with  which  he  was  returning  to  his 
native  State  to  induce  his  friends  to 
advance  the  funds  necessary  for  his 
purposes. 

In  olden  time  people  used  to  say 
that  poverty  made  one  acquainted 
with  strange  bed-fellows.  This  is  an 
experience  which  nowadays  the  tra- 
veller shares  with  the  pauper,  and 
it  is  involved  by  a  tour  in  the  Far 
West  to  an  unusual  extent.  When 
the  shades  of  evening  closed  upon 
Superior,  and  we  had  smoked  a  pipe 
or  two  in  the  twilight,  we  asked  our 
host  whether  he  could  give  us  sleep- 
ing accommodation,  to  which  he  con- 
siderately replied  :  "  Wai,  I  guess,  if 
you  can  find  a  corner  that's  not  pre- 
empted, you  may  spread  your  shav- 
ings there."  And  having  received  this 
permission  to  litter  ourselves  down 
amongst  the  prostrate  figures  in  the 
loft,  and  luckily  hit  upon  a  corner 
that  was  not  pre-empted,  we  formed 
our  blankets  into  sacks,  which  we 
filled  with  shavings  from  the  shed 
below,  and  pulled  up  the  ladder  after 
us.  Fortunately  there  were  very  few 
musquitoes,  as  we  were  unprovided 
•with  nets ;  but  we  had  no  sooner 
stretched  ourselves  upon  our  beds  than 
we  discovered  the  reason  of  our  sup- 
posed good  fortune  in  finding  a  vacant 
corner  to  consist  in  its  being  exposed 
to  the  full  force  of  the  wind,  which 
whistled  through  the  interstices  of 
the  logs  of  which  the  walls  were  com- 
posed, and  one  of  which,  just  at  my 
ear,  was  big  enough  for  me  to  fill  up 
with  my  coat.  I  could  scarcely  re- 
gret any  cause,  however  disagreeable, 


which  kept  me  awake  to  contemplate 
for  a  short  time  the  novelty  of  our 
night's  quarters.  We  were  surround- 
ed by  thirty  or  forty  snoring  men  in 
every  variety  of  costume ;  for  the 
process  of  turning -in  in  the  West 
consists  simply  of  kicking  off  shoes  or 
moccasins ;  while  here  and  there  pre- 
vious "  claims"  were  being  somewhat 
querulously  discussed ;  and  at  the 
further  end  of  the  loft  an  eager 
party  were  leaning  over  a  table,  on 
which  stood  a  bottle,  with  a  tallow 
candle  placed  in  it,  playing  "  faro,"  a 
game  they  had  imported  with  them 
from  California  ;  for  some  of  our  bed- 
fellows had  taken  a  turn  at  the  dig- 
gings, and,  with  their  lank  hair,  un- 
kempt beards,  and  rugged  features, 
lit  up  with  an  unusual  excitement 
by  the  interest  of  the  game,  they  form- 
ed a  group  whose  aspect  was  by 
no  means  reassuring  to  four  quiet 
Cockneys.  Moreover,  men  were  con- 
tinually "  swarming  up "  posts  to 
roost  upon  fragile  platforms  over  our 
heads,  and  slipping  rapidly  and  un- 
expectedly down  them  again.  The 
creaking  of  these  became  ominous,  as 
stout  "  parties "  rolled  uneasily  in 
their  sleep  upon  very  thin  planks, 
placed  so  far  apart  that,  by  looking 
up,  we  could  see  their  forms  between 
them,  and  lay  in  no  small  terror  of 
being  deluged  with  a  cataract  of 
tobacco  juice  ;  and  there  was  a  wrang- 
ling kept  up  in  the  land-office,  for  a 
long  time.  .  At  least  I  listened  to  it 
until  snores,  and  oaths,  and  creaking 
became  all  blended  into  a  soft  mur- 
mur, and  gradually  worked  them- 
selves into  a  series  of  pleasant  dreams 
of  home. 

Before  sunrise,  however,  we  were 
roused  to  the  stern  realities  of  back- 
wood  life.  And  as  we  had  no  inten- 
tion of  u  getting  to  housekeeping  " 
in  Superior,  it  became  us  to  think  of 
proceeding  on  our  journey  westward. 
This,  however,  was  no  easy  matter ; 
and  the  various  descriptions  we  re- 
ceived of  the  relative  merits  of  the 
diiferent  routes  to  St  Paul's,  whither 
we  were  bound,  were  by  no  means 
encouraging.  These  were  three  in 
number ;  but  no  two  accounts  agreed, 
either  with  regard  to  the  time  the 
journey  would  occupy,  or  the  diffi- 
culties to  be  encountered.  There  was 
one  route  which  involved  walking 


46 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-tvcst  States  of  America.         [July, 


sixty  miles  through  swamps,  with 
the  chance  of  finding  a  canoe  at  the 
St  Croix  River;  and  in  default  of  that, 
walking  sixty  more,  carrying  our 
provisions  with  us  for  the  whole  dis- 
tance, and  sleeping  out  every  night 
And  there  was  another  by  the  Brule 
River,  which  would  probably  occupy 
three  weeks  in  a  bark  canoe,  but 
might  take  much  more  if  the  water 
was  low,  and  we  could  get  no  infor- 
mation upon  that  point;  so  we  decid- 
ed upon  the  first,  and  had  engaged 
some  voyageurs  to  accompany  us ; 
but,  as  we  were  on  the  point  of 
starting,  their  courage  failed  them, 
and  they  refused  point-blank  to  move 
a  foot;  at  which  crisis  a  man  who 
had  just  arrived  from  St  Paul's — in- 
deed the  only  person  who  had  made 
the  journey  during  the  season — pro- 
posed a  third  route,  by  the  St  Louis 
and  Mississippi,  which,  after  much 
discussion,  was  finally  adopted,  and 
which  involved  a  great  many  pre- 
parations. We  began  by  buying  a 
bark  canoe  for  twenty  dollars;  then 
we  tried  to  engage  two  Indians,  as 
well  as  two  voyageurs.  The  former 
were  painted  warriors  of  the  Chippe- 
way  tribe,  who  had  just  returned  from 
the  war-path,  and  had  scarcely  ever 
seen  "  pale-faces "  in  their  lives  be- 
fore. They  seemed  willing  enough  to 
come  at  first,  but  when  they  found 
that  our  proposed  route  lay  through 
the  country  of  the  Sioux,  with  whom 
they  are  at  war,  they  backed  out,  and 
we  were  reduced  at  starting  to  our 
two  half-breeds,  Batiste  Cadot  and 
Jean  Le  Feve,  whose  services  we  had 
so  much  trouble  in  securing.  At  their 
instigation  we  laid  in,  at  the  only 
store  in  the  place,  a  hundred  pounds 
of  flour,  three  hams,  some  bacon,  tea, 
sugar,  biscuits,  and  brandy.  The  pur- 
chase of  these  articles  involved  an 
immense  amount  of  liquoring  up,  for 
our  trip  had  now  become  matter  of 
notoriety,  and  ourselves  of  no  little 
curiosity.  Conflicting  advice  was  ten- 
dered in  every  direction  by  people 
who  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the 
matter,  but  who  all  expected  a  drink 
for  their  trouble.  As  the  brandy  was 
villanous  and  expensive,  it  was  no 
less  a  tax  upon  one's  stomach  than 
one's  pocket.  However,  it  is  one  of  the 
most  ancient  and  sacred  institutions  of 
the  country,  whenever  you  are  intro- 


duced to  a  man  at  the  bar  of  a  hotel, 
to  *'  liquor  him  right  away  ; "  a  com- 
pliment which,  according  to  the  strict 
rules  of  American  etiquette,  he  ought 
to  return  before  parting  with  you. 
In  the  fulness  of  their  affection  for 
us,  some  of  these  gentry,  who  wanted 
to  make  the  journey  at  any  rate,  but 
lacked  the  necessary  funds,  offered  to 
accompany  us  to  St  Paul's ;  and  it  was 
not  without  running  some  risk  of 
giving  offence  that  we  declined  their 
proposal.  At  last  we  bade  adieu  to 
our  Superior  friends,  and  with  a 
voyageur  at  each  end  of  the  canoe, 
stowed  away  our  four  selves  at  the 
bottom  of  it,  having  made  a  con- 
venient disposition  of  the  luggage  and 
stores  for  that  purpose.  It  was  upon 
a  lovely  morning,  near  the  middle  of 
August  last,  that  we  started  on  our 
voyage  up  the  St  Louis,  here  about 
two  miles  wide,  and  dividing  the  State 
of  Wisconsin  from  the  Minnesota 
territory.  Soon  after  leaving  Supe- 
rior, we  paddled  past  a  few  log-huts, 
the  residences  of  our  own  voyageurs 
and  others  of  the  same  fraternity, 
who  originally  settled  here  many 
years  ago  as  British  subjects,  and 
servants  of  the  North- West  Company. 
They  pointed  out  to  us  the  remains 
of  the  Old  Fort,  and  a  little  beyond 
it  we  saw  the  debris  of  the  rival 
establishment  which  belonged  to  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Voyageurs 
and  Yankee  speculators  have  all  the 
Indian  trade  to  the  south  of  the 
boundary-line  to  themselves  now.  At 
the  head  of  the  bay,  where  the  river 
takes  a  sharp  turn  to  the  south-west, 
it  is  full  of  fields  and  islands  of  wild 
rice,  intersected  with  so  many  chan- 
nels that  an  inexperienced  voyageur 
might  easily  lose  himself. 

Although  we  were  so  far  north,  as 
the  banks  of  the  river  approached  one 
another  we  might  have  imagined  our- 
selves in  the  tropics.  The  massive 
foliage  on  either  side  dipped  into  the 
water;  the  stream  was  dark  and  slug- 
gish ;  and  a  burning  mid-day  sun  ren- 
dered the  labour  of  paddling  a  heavily 
laden  canoe  somewhat  irksome.  We 
were,  therefore,  seven  hours  in  reach- 
ing the  Indian  village  of  Fond  du  Lac, 
twenty-one  miles  from  Superior.  Here 
we  determined  to  lighten  our  work, 
by  taking  two  Indians,  and  another 
canoe  for  some  of  the  baggage.  This 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


consisted  principally  of  provisions,  as 
we  carried  no  tent,  and  our  spare 
wardrobe  was  limited  to  a  flannel 
shirt  a-piece.  There  will  no  doubt  be 
a  town  built  shortly  at  Fond  du  Lac, 
as  it  is  navigable  for  steamers  drawing 
six  feet  of  water,  and  there  are  good 
mill-sites  at  the  falls  of  the  St  Louis, 
the  head  of  the  navigation.  The 
Manhattan  is  the  only  steamer  which 
navigated  the  river  to  this  point  in 
1850.  The  trading -house  of  the 
American  Fur  Company  is  situated  on 
the  north  shore  of  the  river,  and  im- 
mediately opposite  is  the  corner  of 
the  State  of  Wisconsin ;  it  is  also  the 
corner  of  the  boundary  lines  running 
south  and  east  between  the  ceded 
lands  of  the  Chippeway,  and  those 
still  held  by  that  tribe  east  of  the 
Mississippi.  Professor  Owen  says, 
that  the  waters  of  the  Lake  Basin  had 
their  western  terminus  formerly  above 
this  place. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  excite- 
ment in  the  village,  in  consequence  of 
a  murder  which  had  been  committed 
a  day  or  two  before  our  arrival.  The 
father-in-law  of  the  chief  had  been 
tomahawked  in  his  hut,  and  a  serious 
division  in  the  tribe  was  likely  to  be 
the  result.  The  village  contains  about 
400  inhabitants.  We  lunched  in  a 
neat  cottage  belonging  to  a  half-breed, 
while  the  "  sauvages,"  as  the  voya- 
geurs  call  the  Indians,  were  preparing 
their  canoe;  and  afterwards  made  the 
unpleasant  discovery  that  the  Mes- 
sieurs Batiste  Cadot  and  Jean  Le 
F6ve  were  somewhat  savage  in  tem- 
per themselves. 

The  art  of  managing  strange  ser- 
vants in  a  strange  country  is  one  of 
the  traveller's  most  valuable  accom- 
plishments, and  his  personal  comfort, 
if  not  the  actual  success  of  his  expe- 
dition, very  often  depends  upon  his 
tact  and  patience.  Both  these  qua- 
lities were  destined  to  be  severely 
tried  by  our  two  voyageurs  at  Fond 
du  Lac,  and  from  their  dogged  inso- 
lence and  refusal  to  obey  orders,  we 
augured  badly  for  the  future,  though 
we  could  not  discover  the  cause  for 
such  a  manifestation  of  discontent, 
unless  it  arose  from  our  having  inti- 
mated at  starting  that  we  intended 
to  lose  no  time  on  the  way,  a  deter- 
mination which  did  not  accord  with 
their  interests,  since  they  had  stipu- 


47 

lated,  as  an  indispensable  condition, 
that  they  were  to  be  paid  by  the  day, 
doubtless  with  the  view  of  taking  ad- 
vantage of  our  ignorance  of  the  route, 
as  we  were  evidently  such  "griffins" 
at  bark-canoe  voyaging.  However, 
we  mustered  a  good  deal  of  general 
travelling  experience  among  us.  B. 
had  spent  two  years  of  his  life  among 
the  Arabs  of  Barbary  and  the  Kurds 
of  Upper  Mesopotamia;  A.  had  under- 
gone a  settler's  experience  in  New 
Zealand,  and  made  the  tour  of  the 
world,  besides  a  little  desultory  travel- 
ling to  Mexico  and  South  America ; 
my  own  wanderings  extended  to  the 
frontiers  of  Thibet  and  Kalmuck  Tar- 
tary ;  and  C.  had  gone  through  the 
ordinary  course  of  European  travel ; 
so  that  this  display  on  the  part  of  our 
voyageurs  did  not  give  us  much  un- 
easiness. 

The  view  from  our  resting-place 
was  striking.  Below  us  the  river 
wound  between  islands,  and  on  the 
opposite  shore  the  Indian  village 
dotted  the  cleared  country ;  behind  it 
a  high  range  clothed  with  forest  rose 
abruptly,  one  peak  attaining  an  eleva- 
tion of  about  seven  hundred  feet,  of 
so  precipitous  a  character  that  it  can 
only  be  ascended  from  one  side.  The 
summit  is  a  level  bare  rock,  exposing 
to  the  south  a  perpendicular  face, 
several  hundred  feet  high.  Sending 
our  canoes  round  by  the  river,  we  took 
a  short  cut  over  some  low  land  cover- 
ed with  cedar,  basswood,  and  other 
swampy  bush,  and  then  crossing  a 
ridge,  descended  a  steep  bank  to  the 
river-side,  where  we  found  it  a  tumul- 
tuous torrent^  compressed  between 
banks  about  a  hundred  feet  high,  so 
boiling  and  bubbling  that  it  did  not 
seem  to  have  recovered  the  excite- 
ment of  going  over  the  falls.  These 
commenced  here,  and  to  avoid  them 
we  were  compelled  to  make  a  long 
portage  of  eight  miles.  We  thus  lost 
some  magnificent  scenery.  The  lower 
falls  are  described  as  a  series  of  cas- 
cades, ten  or  eleven  in  number,  and 
from  six  to  seven  feet  in  height, 
running  obliquely  across  the  stream, 
and  extending  for  half  a  mile.  The 
water  falls  in  this  distance  a  hundred 
and  three  feet,  gliding  rather  than 
falling  over  inclined  layers  of  slate. 
The  second  falls  are  more  imposing  : 
enormous  walls  of  rock,  thirty  to 


48 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


forty  feet  in  height,  project  from 
cither  bank,  and  run  nearly  across  the 
river  like  huge  dams.  At  one  point 
the  river  forces  itself  through  a  pas- 
sage forty  feet  wide,  the  width  of  the 
river  above  and  below  being  from  a 
hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred 
yards.  The  third  and  fourth  falls 
are  made  up  of  a  series  of  cascades. 
The  entire  fall  of  the  river  in  these 
few  miles  is  three  hundred  and  eighty- 
nine  feet,  and  the  scenery  throughout 
grand  in  the  extreme. 

We  only  carried  one  canoe  across 
the  portage,  as  the  Indians  said 
they  had  another  in  cache  on  the 
other  side.  The  burdens  which 
these  men  carry  are  scarcely  credi- 
ble. One  of  our  stout  fellows  clam- 
bered up  the  almost  perpendicular 
bank  with  60  Ib.  of  flour  on  his 
head,  with  no  more  apparent  incon- 
venience than  if  it  was  his  ordinary 
head-dress,  and  with  a  good  load  on 
his  back  besides';  another  packed  up 
the  cooking  utensils  and  remaining 
provisions,  and  trudged  merrily  away ; 
the  two  voyageurs  shouldered  the 
canoe ;  we  did  the  same  with  our 
guns,  having  first  killed  a  kingfisher, 
the  only  living  creature  we  had  as 
yet  seen, — and  tramped  through  the 
woods  along  the  narrow  trail,  until 
the  growing  darkness  and  the  mur- 
murs of  the  voyageurs  compelled  a 
halt.  We  dined  on  damper  and  bacon, 
washed  down  with  the  concentrated 
essence  of  green  tea,  strong  enough, 
in  woodsman's  parlance,  "  to  float  an 
axe;"  and  then,  with  our  feet  to  the 
fire,  and  wrapped  up  in  our  blankets, 
we  lay  watching  the  stars  twinkling 
through  the  dense  foliage  overhead, 
until  the  soothing  influence  of  coarse 
Cavendish  exerted  its  soporific  effects, 
and  we  followed  the  example  of  our 
servants,  who  had  long  since  been 
snoring  roundly  on  the  opposite  skle 
of  the  fire.  We  were  preparing 
breakfast  before  daylight  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning.  P.'s  culinary  ac- 
quirements were  most  valuable,  and 
lie  produced  quite  a  variety  of  dishes, 
with  flour  and  bacon  as  the  only  in- 
gredients. Neither  the  Australian 
damper  nor  the  Indian  jupatty  are, 
however,  to  be  compared  with  the 
bread  which  our  voyageurs  made,  and 
which  was  leavened  with  yeast,  car- 
ried in  convenient  portable  packages. 


We  had  camped  half-way  across  the 
portage,  so  we  had  four  miles  to  walk 
to  the  river,  where  we  found  a  canoe 
in  cache,  and  paddled  against  a  cur- 
rent so  impetuous  that  the  waves 
often  dashed  into  the  canoe;  and  we 
were  half-an-hour  accomplishing  fifty 
yards.  At  last,  after  having  forced 
our  canoe,  by  dint  of  immense  yelling 
and  punting,  up  rapids  that  would 
have  given  a  salmon  pleasant  ex- 
ercise, we  reached  a  rocky  island 
about  eighty  feet  high,  dividing  the 
stream  into  torrents  that  were  quite 
impracticable.  We  therefore  were 
compelled  to  make  a  portage  of  three 
miles,  called  the  "  knife  portage," 
because  the  surface  of  the  ground  is 
covered  with  masses  of  slate,  which 
cut  through  moccasins.  At  the  other 
side  of  the  portage  the  scenery  is 
very  fine :  the  river  makes  a  perpen- 
dicular fall  of  fourteen  feet ;  and 
though  the  altitude  is  inconsiderable, 
the  body  of  water  which  rushes  over 
the  ledge  of  rock  has  a  most  im- 
posing effect.  The  men  were  obliged 
to  make  two  trips  across  the  portage, 
as,  with  the  second  canoe,  it  was 
impossible  to  convey  over  every- 
thing in  a  single  journey.  Delays  of 
this  sort  are  unavoidable  upon  these 
rivers,  but  their  duration  depends  very 
much  upon  the  good-will  and  activity 
of  the  voyageurs  and  Indians.  We 
were  still  playing  at  cross  purposes, 
and  being  annoyed  by  our  men  in  every 
possible  way.  Our  occupations  upon 
these  occasions  usually  were  fishing, 
without  catching  anything — shooting, 
almost  without  shooting  anything — 
cooking,  sketching,  and  bathing.  After 
dining  on  a  jay,  a  woodpecker,  and  a 
kingfisher,  we  started  again.  The 
current  was  so  rapid  that  we  were 
frequently  obliged  to  have  the  men  to 
pull  the  canoes  up  the  river,  and  to 
follow  them  along  the  banks.  This 
was  a  trying  process  to  feet  covered 
only  with  moccasins,  and  I  soon  found 
that,  however  comfortable  they  are 
upon  swampy  trails,  a  good  shooting- 
boot  would  have  been  infinitely  pre- 
ferable upon  the  sharp  rocks. 

We  found  a  good  cam  ping- ground 
in  the  evening  upon  the  right  bank  of 
the  river,  and  were  completely  ex- 
hausted with  our  day's  work  when  we 
arrived.  We  received  not  the  slightest 
assistance  from  our  men  in  making  a 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


49 


fire  or  preparing  the  camp;  and  when 
they  found  that  we  made  our  arrange- 
ments independently  of  them,  they 
informed  us  that  they  intended  to 
leave  us  and  return.  This  we  assured 
them  they  were  at  perfect  liberty  to 
do,  but  that  as  we  meant  to  keep  both 
the  canoes,  all  the  provisions,  and 
should  certainly  not  give  them  any  of 
their  pay,  they  would  find  the  return 
journey  very  laborious  and  somewhat 
unprofitable.  As  they  were  not  in 
a  position  forcibly  to  dispute  this 
arrangement,  they  stated,  in  a  more 
humble  tone,  that  they  considered 
themselves  overworked,  and  we  ef- 
fected an  amicable  compromise  at  last, 
by  which  it  was  agreed  that  they 
were  to  work  twelve  hours  a-day,  and 
be  their  own  masters  in  all  other  re- 
spects, choosing  the  camping-grounds, 
hours  for  starting,  having  meals,  &c. 
After  this  we  got  friendly  and  confi- 
dential, and  discussed  the  merits  of  a 
voyageur's  life,  and  the  prospects  of 
Indian  trade,  in  bad  French,  with 
much  profit.  Le  Fe've  informed  us 
that  he  had  once  made  a  bark-canoe 
voyage  with  a  French  philosopher, 
who  took  observations  everywhere, 
and  who  determined  the  spot  at  which 
we  were  then  camped  as  having  an 
altitude  of  nine  hundred  feet  above 
the  sea.  Our  palaver  was  most  dis- 
agreeably terminated  by  a  heavy 
shower  of  rain,  in  the  midst  of  which 
we  turned  in  for  the  night.  Tilting 
the  canoe  on  its  side,  we  put  our 
heads  under  it,  and  made  a  sort  of 
screen  of  tarpaulin,  which  prevented 
the  rain  from  beating  upon  our  faces ; 
but  when  we  woke  next  morning,  we 
found  that  it  was  still  raining  hard, 
and  that  we  were  lying  in  a  puddle 
wet  through.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, tobacco  is  the  invariable  re- 
source of  the  voyageur.  We  were  now 
in  Minnesota  territory,  far  beyond 
the  utmost  limits  of  White  settlement, 
and  in  this  part  very  little  traversed 
by  Indians.  In  the  whole  course  of 
our  voyage  up  the  St  Louis,  we  only 
saw  one  wigwam  after  leaving  Fond 
du  Lac.  There  was  not  much  variety 
in  our  life.  Sometimes  it  rained  hard 
all  day,  but  we  pressed  pertinaciously 
on,  forcing  our  canoes  against  the 
swollen  current.  Our  aspect  upon 
these  occasions  would  have  astonished 
a  quiet  party  of  Indians  not  a  little, 

VOL.  LXXVIIl. — NO.  CCCCLXXVII. 


as,  with  pipes  in  our  mouths  and  pad- 
dles in  our  hands,  we  struggled  furi- 
ously with  the  stream,  sometimes 
carried  back  against  the  rocks,  at 
others  hanging  for  a  moment  or  two 
in  the  middle  of  the  rapid,  unable  to 
advance  a  yard,  and  then,  with  a 
vigorous  spurt,  shoving  our  light  bark 
into  the  smooth  water  beyond  ;  then, 
paddling  with  measured  stroke  to  the 
melodious  chants  of  thevoyageurs,  and 
joining  lustily  in  the  chorus  of  them 
all,  but  more  especially  of  the  one 
which  begins — 

Deux  canards  blancs 

S'en  va  baignants, 

En  roulant  ma  boule ; 

Le  fils  du  roi  s'en  va  chassant, 

Roulez,  roulons,  ma  boule  roulons. 

Chorus. 

En  roulant  ma  bou!6,  roulons, 
En  roulant  ma  boule. 

And  which  goes  on,  throughout  an 
interminable  number  of  verses,  to  re- 
count the  history  and  adventures  of 
the  ducks  and  the  prince,  with  its 
cheery  chorus  ever  recurring.  Then 
we  would  wake  up  the  slumbering 
echoes  of  these  old  woods  with  Eng- 
lish college  songs  they  had  never 
heard  before,  and  which  the  Indians, 
who  have  excellent  ears,  always  pick- 
ed up  and  sang  in  perfect  time,  with 
a  very  good  imitation  of  the  words, 
amid  shouts  and  laughter.  A  good 
understanding  having  been  once  esta- 
blished, we  became  the  best  friends 
imaginable,  and  a  more  noisy,  merry 
party  never  stemmed  the  waters  of 
the  St  Louis.  As  we  passed  the  soli- 
tary wigwam  before  mentioned,  our 
shouts  brought  an  old  woman,  its  only 
occupant,  tottering  to  the  bank.  She 
informed  us  that  her  husband  was  out 
upon  the  war-path  against  the  Sioux  ; 
that  he  was  a  great  warrior  from  Rainy 
Lake,  and  had  a  splendid  collection 
of  scalps  in  his  hut ;  that  he  had 
killed  a  bear  a  few  days  before  he  left, 
and  she  proposed  to  "  trade  "  a  hind 
quarter  with  us  for  some  biscuits. 
We  were  delighted  to  make  the  ex- 
change, as  we  had  not  tasted  fresh 
meat  for  some  days,  and  were  getting 
excessively  tired  of  nothing  but  rusty 
ham  and  flour;  indeed  we  had  scarcely 
any  of  the  former  left.  So  we  regaled 
ourselves  that  night  with  a  royal  feast 
on  u  tender  bear,"  the  cooking  of 
which  caused  the  greatest  possible 


50 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.          [July, 


excitement,  and  the  effect  of  which 
was  to  make  us  all  sleep  so  soundly 
that  we  missed  some  sport  in  the 
night.  A  large  animal  crossed  our 
camp  and  woke  two  of  us,  who  seized 
their  rifles,  and  jumped  up  just  in  time 
to  hear  the  plunge  in  the  water,  and 
see  indistinctly  an  object  swimming 
across  the  river,  but  they  could  not 
tell  whether  it  was  a  bear  or  a  carri- 
boo.  At  all  events,  it  was  the  only 
animal  except  a  skunk  that  we  saw 
upon  the  St  Louis.  The  principal 
drawback  to  travelling  in  this  part  of 
America  is  the  almost  utter  absence 
of  all  game  ;  so  that  not  only  is  sport 
out  of  the  question,  but  there  is  an 
actual  difficulty  in  procuring  means  of 
subsistence  with  the  rifle  in  case  of 
the  supply  of  flour  running  out.  We 
tried  the  St  Louis  with  fly,  bait,  and 
troll  lines,  but  without  the  slightest 
success  ;  indeed,  the  appearance  of 
the  water  is  anything  but  promising; 
it  was  the  colour  of  coffee — so  dark 
as  to  make  navigation  very  dangerous. 
The  utmost  vigilance  often  failed  to 
discover  a  jagged  rock  not  three  inches 
below  the  surface,  upon  which  a  severe 
blow  might  possibly  have  sunk  us  on 
the  spot.  As  it  was,  we  were  often  . 
obliged  to  jump  out  into  the  water, 
and  every  evening  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  patching  up,  with  gum,  of 
wounds  received  on  the  bottoms  and 
sides  of  the  canoes.  The  dexterity  of 
the  voyageurs  in  everything  connected 
with  the  incidents  of  our  mode  of 
travel  was  marvellous.  Whether  it 
was  displayed  in  punting  the  canoe  up 
a  foaming  torrent  with  long  poles,  or 
discovering  with  quick  glance  hidden 
rocks,  quite  imperceptible  to  the  inex- 
perienced eye,  and  avoiding  them 
with  inimitable  presence  of  mind,  or 
in  carrying  heavy  loads  over  rocky 
portages,  or  cooking  excellent  dishes 
with  inadequate  materials,  or  making 
a  cosy  camp  with  a  bit  of  tarpaulin 
and  a  few  branches,  or  mending  the 
canoe  with  strips  of  bark  and  gum, 
they  were  never  without  resources ; 
and  if  not  interfered  with,  were  good, 
active  servants ;  but  they  resented  in 
the  highest  degree  any  dictation  upon 
matters  in  which  they  were  proficient, 
and  we  had  no  inclination  to  disturb 
arrangements  which  were  the  result 
of  long  experience,  and  always  proved 
advantageous.  The  voyageurs  are 


half-breeds,  but  pique  themselves  very 
much  on  their  French  origin;  look 
upon  the  "  sauvages"  with  immense 
contempt,  and  talk  an  old  Norman 
patois,  which  is  very  intelligible.  They 
are  most  valuable  servants  to  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company;  possessed  of 
great  powers  of  endurance  and  know- 
ledge of  the  country,  their  Indian 
blood  renders  them  convenient  chan- 
nels for  intercourse  with  the  different 
tribes  for  trading  purposes.  They 
are  hardy  and  independent,  not  more 
dishonest  than  their  neighbours,  and 
easily  managed  by  those  who  under- 
stand their  peculiar  temperament. 
Those  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Supe- 
rior have  profited  from  the  rise  in  the 
value  of  property,  and  have  not  been 
improved  by  their  intercourse  with 
the  Yankees,  and  increase  of  wealth. 
Our  voyage  up  the  St  Louis  was 
somewhat  tedious,  notwithstanding 
the  occasional  beauty  of  the  scenery, 
where  broad  reaches  were  dotted  with 
green  islands,  or  high  rocks  com- 
pressed the  river  within  a  narrow 
channel;  and  we  were  glad,  after  hav- 
ing ascended  it  for  about  eighty  miles, 
to  turn  off  into  a  small  tributary,  called 
the  Savannah  Eiver,  which  was  not 
more  than  ten  yards  wide.  Although 
there  was  comparatively  little  cur- 
rent, our  progress  here  was  even 
slower  than  in  the  St  Louis.  In  places 
the  channel  was  almost  choked  up 
with  fallen  trees,  drift-wood,  weeds, 
and  debris  of  all  sorts — a  prominent 
feature  in  which  was  frequently  the 
wreck  of  a  canoe.  The  banks  being 
composed  of  soft  clay,  slides  often 
occurred,  carrying  with  them  their 
growth  of  trees,  and  which,  collecting 
in  the  beds  and  narrow  parts,  form 
what  are  called  "rafts."  Sometimes, 
where  a  tree  had  fallen  right  across  the 
river,  we  wereobligedto  lift  the  canoes 
over  it,  and,  more  often  still,  to  press 
them  under  the  logs,  and  jump  over 
them  ourselves.  Some  of  these  trees, 
we  observed,  from  their  pointed  ends, 
had  been  cut  down  by  the  industrious 
beaver ;  and  the  voyageurs  showed  us 
the  remains  of  a  former  dam.  The 
danger  of  sharp  rocks  was  here  ex- 
changed for  that  of  snags;  and  it  set 
our  teeth  on  edge  to  hear  the  grating 
of  a  pointed  stick  along  the  bottom  of 
the  thin  bark  canoe.  The  effects  of 
this  were  soon  apparent,  and  we  found 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


our  canoes  leaking  heavily  before  the 
close  of  the  first  day  in  the  Savannah. 
The  stream  wound  sluggishly  between 
low  banks  covered  with  long  grass, 
from  which  shot  lofty  trees,  aspen, 
maple,  ash,  elm,  birch,  hemlock, 
pine,  and  fir,  that  met  overhead,  and 
formed  an  agreeable  shade  from  the 
noonday  sun.  It  was  just  such  a 
jungle  as  would  have  been  considered 
good  tiger-cover  in  India;  and  yet 
here  not  even  the  chirp  of  a  bird 
broke  the  perfect  stillness,  which  is 
one  of  the  most  striking  peculiarities 
of  American  forests,  and  which  often 
exercises  a  painfully  depressing  in- 
fluence upon  the  spirits.  Nevertheless, 
as  the  sun  glanced  through  the  thick 
foliage,  the  effects  were  certainly 
pretty,  and  there  was  a  novelty  in  the 
style  of  navigation  which  rendered  it 
full  of  interest.  We  passed  the  smoul- 
dering embers  of  a  camp-fire  of  a 
party  of  Indians,  and  shortly  after- 
wards the  voyageurs  pointed  out  to  us 
a  rock  which  is  worshipped  by  them, 
and  on  which  every  person  that  passes 
puts  an  offering  of  tobacco  for  the  be- 
nefit of  Manito. 

After  we  had  followed  the  tortuous 
river  for  some  miles,  we  suddenly 
found  ourselves  in  a  labyrinth  of  chan- 
nels winding  among  long  rushes,  and 
we  were  informed  that  we  had  entered 
the  great  Savannah  itself.  As,  how- 
ever, the  rushes  almost  met  overhead, 
it  was  impossible  to  form  any  impres- 
sion of  it,  so  we  contented  ourselves 
with  poking  on,  trusting  to  the  instinct 
of  our  voyageurs  not  to  lose  them- 
selves in  the  singular  and  intricate 
navigation  in  which  we  were  now  en- 
gaged. At  last  we  saw  a  clump  of 
tall  birch- trees,  for  which  we  steered, 
and  found  ourselves  upon  a  small  cir- 
cular island,  which  afforded  a  com- 
fortable resting-place,  and  from  which 
we  could  take  an  inspection  of  the 
Savannah,  which  was  nothing  more 
than  a  boundless  swamp,  covered  with 
wild  rice  (the  stalks  of  which  were 
sometimes  ten  or  twelve  feet  high), 
and  dotted  over  with  islands  similar 
to  the  one  upon  which  we  stood,  and 
from  which  sprung  tall  birch- trees, 
their  white  stems  forming  an  agree- 
able variety  in  the  endless  expanse  of 
pale  green  rushes.  The  exertion  of 
forcing  our  canoes  along  the  devious 
channels  which  intersected  this  swamp 


51 

in  every  direction,  was  very  great. 
The  voyageurs  said  they  had  never 
seen  the  wild  rice  so  rank  and  abun- 
dant. The  seed  was  quite  ripe,  and 
very  sweet,  so  we  amused  ourselves 
plucking  the  ears  and  eating  their 
contents  as  we  pushed  slowly  along. 
Sometimes  we  grounded  on  floating 
islands  of  vegetable  matter,  at  others 
were  deluded  into  the  idea  that  it  was 
practicable  to  punt,  and  were  only 
undeceived  by  sticking  the  pole  so 
deeply  into  the  mud  that  it  required 
all  hands  to  pull  it  out.  Very  often 
the  channel  was  altogether  choked, 
and  the  rice  was  so  thick  that  pad- 
dling was  impossible ;  and  we  only 
extricated  ourselves  by  the  most  vio- 
lent and  united  efforts.  It  was  upon 
one  occasion  while  thus  engaged,  and 
unable  to  see  three  yards  in  any  direc- 
tion, that  we  suddenly  found  our- 
selves face  to  face  with  a  naked  sav- 
age, alone  in  abark  canoe,  who,  glower- 
ing at  us  through  the  rushes,  looked 
as  if  he  was  some  amphibious  animal 
indigenous  to  the  swamp,  and  whose 
matted  hair,  hanging  over  his  shoul- 
ders, was  no  improvement  to  a  hideous 
face  daubed  over  with  ashes,  and 
which  displayed  some  terror  at  so  un- 
expected a  rencontre.  His  first  im- 
pulse evidently  was  to  escape,  but 
that  was  impossible,  and  as  we  looked 
amiable,  and  addressed  him  through 
one  of  our  Indians,  he  seemed  reas- 
sured, and  told  us  he  had  returned 
from  an  expedition  against  the  Sioux ; 
that  he  was  the  husband  of  the  woman 
from  whom  we  had  got  the  bear,  and 
was  now  on  his  way  to  Fond  du  Lac, 
to  revenge  the  death  of  his  relative, 
who  had  been  murdered  there,  and  for 
whom,  he  said,  pointing  to  the  ashes 
upon  his  face  and  head,  he  was  then 
mourning.  As  our  dough  diet  was 
beginning  to  tell  upon  some  of  the 
party,  we  were  glad  to  exchange  some 
powder  with  him  for  a  partridge  and 
a  pigeon  ;  and  so  we  parted  with  mu- 
tual good  wishes,  and  left  this  wild 
man  of  the  lakes  and  forests  to  pro- 
ceed on  his  solitary  mission  of  blood 
and  vengeance.  The  only  other  in- 
cident, in  the  course  of  our  passage 
through  the  great  Savannah,  was  the 
appearance  of  a  flock  of  wild  ducks, 
one  of  which  C.  shot;  but  as  it  dropped 
among  dense  rushes,  we  were  obliged, 
after  a  long  search,  to  give  up  all  hope 


52 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.         [JulyT 


of  finding  it.  Our  night-quarters,  in 
this  delectable  region,  were  the  most 
disagreeable  we  had  as  yet  experi- 
enced. We  had  reached  a  shallower 
part  of  the  swamp,  and  were  obliged 
to  get  out  of  the  canoes,  and  walk  for 
about  a  mile  up  to  our  waists  in  mud 
and  water.  At  last  we  found  a  dry 
spot,  on  which  we  made  our  fire,  and 
strewed  long  grass,  as  usual,  for  our 
beds,  and  looked  over  the  cheerless 
marsh  in  a  somewhat  desponding 
frame  of  mind.  We  had  already  been 
nearly  a  week  en  route,  and  had  not 
succeeded  in  procuring  an  ounce  of 
fresh  meat  by  our  guns ;  our  salt  meat 
was  exhausted,  which  we  scarcely  re- 
gretted, as  it  had  been  rancid  from 
the  first ;  and  a  considerable  quantity 
of  our  flour  had  got  wet  at  the  bottom 
of  the  canoe,  and  was  spoiled  in  con- 
sequence. We  had  a  portage  of  six- 
teen miles  before  us  for  the  following 
day,  and,  according  to  the  account  of 
the  Indian  from  whom  we  had  just 
parted,  there  was  scarcely  any  water 
in  the  Little  Savannah,  where  we  hoped 
again  to  launch  our  canoe.  The  In- 
dians, moreover,  determined  to  re- 
turn, as  they  were  approaching  so 
near  the  country  of  the  Sioux,  that 
they  began  to  feel  a  little  nervous 
about  the  safety  of  their  "  hair;"  and 
had  therefore  come  to  the  conclusion 
that,  after  seeing  us  safely  across  the 
portage,  they  would  not  be  justified 
in  exposing  their  scalps  to  further  risk. 
The  voyageurs  took  a  rather  gloomy 
view  of  matters  generally,  and  would 
venture  upon  no  opinion  as  to  the 
probable  date  of  our  arrival  at  St 
Paul's.  We  had  already  occupied 
twice  the  number  of  days  in  reaching 
our  present  point  that  they  had  spe- 
cified at  starting ;  and  so  they  sulkily 
said,  as  they  had  been  wrong  before, 
they  would  give  us  no  information 
upon  the  subject,  beyond  that  of  as- 
suring us  that  the  distance  to  St  Paul's 
was  considerably  over  500  miles ; 
and  as  I  had  but  a  very  limited  time 
at  my  disposal,  this  was  by  no  means 
comforting.  To  add  to  our  miseries, 
a  dense  mist  settled  heavily  down 
upon  the  swamp,  and  we  could  feel 
the  chill  damp  air  eating  into  our  very 
bones ;  myriads  of  musquitoes,  against 
which  we  had  no  protection,  literally 
hived  upon  us,  and  B.  complained  of 
feeling  ill.  Indeed,  we  were  all  more 


or  less  affected  from  contact  with  the 
poisonous  ivy,  from  which  he  seemed 
to  suffer  most  severely.  His  face  and 
head  were  so  much  swollen  that  his 
eyes  were  scarcely  visible,  and  his 
hands  and  arms  were  double  their 
natural  size.  This,  we  were  assured 
by  the  voyageurs,  resulted  from  our 
having  slept  on  a  description  of  plant 
which  they  called  poisonous  ivy ;  and 
certainly,  although  neither  A.  nor  my- 
self were  so  much  disfigured,  our  fin- 
gers looked  very  much  like  .Bologna 
sausages.  Altogether,  I  did  not  fall 
asleep  in  a  happy  state  of  mind,  more 
especially  as,  when  in  the  act  of  doing 
so,  I  made  the  discovery  that  my  blan- 
ket was  already  completely  saturated 
with  moisture.  We  generally  lay 
pretty  close  together,  but  that  night 
an  ordinary  blanket  would  have  cover- 
ed us  all  four  very  easily.  It  was  our 
usual  habit  for  the  first  who  should 
awake  to  give  such  a  yell  as  not  only 
to  rouse  the  rest  of  the  party,  but  to 
startle  them  so  effectually  as  to  ren- 
der it  impossible  that  they  should 
again  relapse  into  a  state  of  somno- 
lency. Sometimes  it  was  the  leve,  leve 
of  the  voyageur  that  first  fell  upon  the 
unwilling  ear ;  but  we  were  more  often 
frightened  into  our  senses  by  an  un- 
earthly screech  from  A.,  who  used  to 
think  he  had  done  his  duty,  and  not 
being  in  the  least  startled  himself, 
drop  contentedly  off  to  sleep  again, 
with  the  pipe  hanging  gracefully  from 
his  lips,  which  he  had  inserted  the 
last  thing  the  night  before. 

When  day  dawned  upon  the  Savan- 
nah, however,  it  found  us  all  wonder- 
fully lively,  for  everybody  had  been 
lying  awake  on  the  look-out  for  it 
for  some  time.  At  last  the  morning 
sun  dispelled  the  mist.  We  pulled 
on  our  moccasins,  wrung  the  water 
out  of  our  blankets,  swallowed  a  jo- 
rum of  pure  green  tea,  eat  a  pound 
of  dough,  and  were  only  too  glad  to 
make  a  start.  Having  cached  the 
small  canoe  for  the  Indians  to  return 
with,  we  commenced  dragging  the 
other  after  us,  and  wading  for  two 
miles  through  a  tamarack  swamp, 
often  so  deep  that  we  were  obliged  to 
balance  ourselves  upon  poles,  where 
a  false  step  would  have  buried  us  in 
mire.  Altogether  it  is  considered  the 
worst  "  carrying  place  "  in  the  north- 
west— a  character  which  the  wrecks 


1855.] 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.         53 


of  canoes,  smashed  in  the  attempt  to 
carry  them  over,  fully  justifies.  At 
last  we  reached  the  edge  of  the  Sa- 
vannah, where  we  made  a  distribu- 
tion of  effects,  and  with  our  sepa- 
rate loads  started  off  on  our  walk 
across  the  water-shed,  having  finally 
left  the  streams  which  run  into  the 
Gulf  of  St  Lawrence,  with  the  in- 
tention of  launching  our  canoe  upon 
the  head  waters  of  those  which  flow 
into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  Indi- 
ans, who  carried  the  canoe,  took  a 
different  route  from  that  which  we 
followed  under  Le  Feve's  guidance, 
upon  which  alone  we  were  dependent, 
for  there  was  not  a  vestige  of  a  path 
to  an  ordinary  eye.  Le  Feve,  how- 
ever, assured  us  that  we  were  on  the 
north-west  trail,  and  that  if  we  went 
on  long  enough,  should  reach  the  Red 
River  settlement,  and  ultimately  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific,  by  the  most  ap- 
proved route.  We  were,  in  fact,  fol- 
lowing the  line  of  the  projected  rail- 
road to  the  Pacific  by  the  northern 
route,  an  enterprise  the  importance 
and  magnitude  of  which  may  render 
it  an  interesting  subject  for  considera- 
tion on  a  future  occasion.  The  divid- 
ing range  is  composed  of  ridges  of 
drift  hills,  covered  principally  with 
young  birch,  maple,  and  pine,  on  the 
tops  of  which  are  many  enormous 
boulders,  derived  principally  from 
granitic,  gneissoid,  and  schistose 
rocks.  The  aspect  of  the  country 
generally  was  tempting  to  the  settler, 
and  the  view  we  obtained  from  the 
highest  point  of  our  route,  and  which 
had  an  altitude  of  about  fifteen  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  sea-level,  was 
charming  in  the  extreme.  Well- 
wooded  hills,  and  valleys,  and  mea- 
dows with  long  rich  grass,  bore  tes- 
timony to  the  fertility  of  the  soil, 
while  numerous  lakes  sparkled  in 
the  sunshine,  and  formed  a  most  at- 
tracting picture  ;  and  I  could  not  but 
believe  that  this  country,  which  look- 
ed so  bright  and  smiling  even  in  a 
state  of  savage  nature,  was  only  watt- 
ing for  the  hand  of  man  still  more  to 
gladden  and  to  beautify  it. 

At  our  feet  lay  a  small  lake,  with 
grassy  plains  extending  to  the  water's 
edge,  dotted  with  clumps  of  wood,  and 
watered  by  tiny  meandering  streams, 
the  course  of  which  was  marked  by 
fringes  of  long  rank  grass.  We  could 


just  discern  in  the  distance  our  Indi- 
ans towing  the  canoe  down  one  of 
these,  until  they  reached  the  lake, 
which  they  crossed,  and  found  their 
way  out  oif  it  by  another  equally  in- 
significant rivulet,  called  the  Little 
Savannah  River.  Meantime  we  dived 
into  the  woods  again,  sometimes  to 
come  out  upon  grass  country,  some- 
times to  push  our  way  through  scrub 
and  bush,  and  sometimes  to  wander 
through  a  forest  of  red  pine,  where  no 
underwood  impedes  one's  progress,  or 
spoils  the  effect  of  those  straight  lofty 
columns  which  shoot  upwards  to  a 
height  of  forty  or  fifty  feet,  and  then, 
spreading  out  their  evergreen  capitals, 
completely  roof  in  one  of  nature's 
grandest  temples.  At  last  we  reach- 
ed a  small  stream,  where  we  waited 
for  the  canoe.  This  portage  is  always 
necessary;  but  at  other  times  of  the 
year,  when  there  is  more  water,  the 
distance  is  considerably  reduced.  The 
method  of  floating  a  heavily-laden 
canoe  down  a  shallow  stream  is  very 
simple,  though  somewhat  tedious.  The 
voyageurs  hurriedly  construct  a  series 
of  little  dams,  and  when  enough 
water  is  collected  to  float  the  canoe 
over  the  shallows,  they  open  them  suc- 
cessively. It  is,  however,  less  trouble 
to  lift  an  unloaded  canoe  out  of  the 
water  altogether.  Our  voyageurs 
used  to  trade  chiefly  with  the  Indian 
tribes  on  Vermilion  Lake,  taking  up 
cotton  goods,  blankets,  tobacco,  rum, 
&c.,  and  receiving  in  return  peltry, 
horns,  &c.  They  go  in  the  autumn, 
live  with  the  Indians  all  the  winter, 
and  return  in  the  spring,  very  much 
dissatisfied  if  they  do  not  clear  100 
per  cent  profit  upon  their  outlay. 
The  stream  they  were  now  engaged 
in  damming  up  in  the  manner  describ- 
ed, was  the  first  we  had  reached  flow- 
ing into  the  Mississippi ;  and  although 
it  was  so  small  that  a  lady  could  have 
stepped  across  it  without  inconveni- 
ence, still  its  direction  alone  exercis- 
ed a  most  cheering  influence  upon  our 
spirits.  A  few  miles  lower  down  it 
fell  into  the  Prairie  River,  a  stream 
twenty  yards  broad,  and  deep  enough 
to  admit  of  the  embarkation  of  the 
whole  party. 

The  reason  that  travelling  in  wild 
countries  is  congenial  to  certain  tem- 
peraments, does  not  consist,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  in  the  variety  of  scene  or 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


[July, 


adventure  which  it  involves,  so  much 
as  in  the  vividness  and  diversity  of  the 
emotions  which  are  experienced.  For, 
as  all  pleasure  derives  its  intensity  in 
a  great  degree  from  the  existence  of 
pain,  so  the  many  drawbacks  and 
discomforts  of  a  rough  life  only  serve 
to  render  its  amenities  more  thorough- 
ly enjoyable  to  those  keenly  susceptible 
of  external  influences.  Thus  our  voy- 
age down  the  Little  Savannah  River 
would  have  been  robbed  of  half  its 
attractions  had  we  not  undergone  a 
miserable  experience  upon  the  great 
Savannah  swamp.  As  it  was,  a  few 
hours  changed  entirely  the  aspect  of 
affairs.  Instead  of  punting  labori- 
ously against  an  overpowering  cur- 
rent, or  forcing  our  gloomy  way  amid 
sedge  and  rush,  or  tramping  wearily, 
with  loaded  backs,  through  mud  and 


water,  we  were  now  gliding  easily 
and  rapidly  down  the  stream.  We 
had  shot  some  wood-pigeons  in  the 
course  of  our  walk  through  the  wood, 
so  we  looked  forward  to  a  good  din- 
ner and  a  hospitable  reception  at  the 
Indian  village  on  the  shores  of  Sandy 
Lake,  which  we  hoped  to  reach  before 
nightfall ;  and  in  the  cheering  antici- 
pation thereof,  we  bent  our  backs  to 
our  work  with  a  will — our  eight  pad- 
dles dashed  merrily  into  the  water, 
sending  showers  of  sparkling  spray 
far  and  wide,  and  frightening  the 
musk-rats  out  of  their  senses.  The 
wooded  banks  echoed  back  our  lusty 
French  choruses,  which  we  wound  up 
with  a  British  cheer,  and  shot  out 
upon  the  broad  bosom  of  the  lake  as 
it  glittered  in  the  rays  of  the  declining 
sun. 


LETTER   TO   EUSEBIUS. 


ONCE   UPON   A   TIME. 


PART  II. 


WE  are  advancing,  my  dear  Euse- 
bius,  down  the  stream  of  time,  and 
leaving  real  Antiquitie  behind.  That 
mystery  should  have  a  verse  at  part- 
ing. I  ended  my  last  with  a  sonnet, 
and  commence  this  with  another. 
Let  Antiquitie  hear — 

"  Hail !  sacredness  of  hoar  Antiquitie, 
That  takest  of  the  day  no  hue,  but  keepest 
The  grey  of  silence,  in   the  which  thou 


Or  in  repose  like  sleep— the  mystery 
Of  death's  no  dying — thine  eternitie, 

Dim  shades  of  years  in  aisles  sepulchral 

heapest ; 
And  in  lone  nights  in  the  moon's  paleness 

steepest 

The  love- writ  records  of  mortalitie. 
While  thy  compeer,  Oblivion,  from  within 
Old  shattered  tombs,  and  dry  decay,  and 

dust, 
Comes  forth  in  gloom  of  twilight,  and  with 

thin 

Cold  finger  droppeth  soft  corroding  rust 
On  sculptured  scrolls  and  monumental  pride; 
And  the  grieved  ghosts  through  the   chill 
cloisters  glide." 

Pass  we  on,  then,  to  ever-living 
Shakespeare.  You  may  travel  with 
him,  if  you  please,  in  our  little  volume, 
from  London  to  Stratford,  and  so  to  and 
fro,  and  take  your  supper  with  him  at 


the  hostelry,  the  Crown,  in  the  Corn- 
market  in  Oxford.  But  before  you  see 
Shakespeare  in  the  presence  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  indulge  yourself  with  a  little 
intervening  episode  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth herself  visiting  the  sports  of  May- 
day, when  May-day  was  kept ;  before 
the  "Puritans  waged  war  with  the 
Maypoles,  and,  indeed,  with  alf  those 
indications  of  a  full-hearted  simplicity, 
which  were  the  echo  of  the  universal 
harmony  of  nature,"  as  Mr  Charles 
Knight  well  remarks ;  and  as  truly 
adding,  "  The  Maypoles  never  held 
up  their  heads  after  the  Civil  Wars. 
The  'strait-laced'  exulted  in  their 
fall ;  but  we  believe  the  people  were 
neither  wiser  nor  happier  for  their 
removal."  But  to  Queen  Elizabeth 
a-Maying — how  pleasantly  graphic  is 
the  description  !  "  The  scene,  Wind- 
sor. Her  most  gracious  majesty  is 
busily  employed  in  brushing  up  her 
Latin  and  her  Castle  at  the  same  time, 
doing  Horace's  Art  of  Poetry  into  exe- 
crable rhymes,  and  building  private 
staircases  for  the  Earl  of  Leicester. 
Her  employment  and  the  season  make 
her  aspire  to  be  poetical.  She  resolves 
to  see  the  May- day  sports ;  and,  sal- 


1855.] 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


55 


lying  forth  from  the  castle,  takes 
a  short  cut,  with  few  attendants, 
through  the  lawn  which  lay  before 
the  south  gate  to  the  fields  near  the 
entrance  of  Windsor  town.  The  may- 
pole stands  close  by  the  spot  where 
now  commences  the  Long  Walk.  The 
crowd  make  obsequious  way  for  their 
glorious  queen,  and  the  sports,  at  her 
command,  go  uninterruptedly  forward. 
The  group  is  indeed  a  most  motley 
one.  The  luxuries  of  a  white  cotton 
gown  were  then  unknown  ;  and  even 
her  majesty's  experience  of  knitted 
hose  was  very  limited.  The  girls 
frisk  away,  therefore,  in  their  grey 
kirtles  of  linsey-woolsey,  and  their  yel- 
low stockings  of  coarse  broad -cloth  ; 
the  lads  are  somewhat  fuddled,  and 
rather  greasy ;  and  a  whole  garment 
is  a  considerable  distinction.  The 
Queen  of  May  is  commanded  to  ap- 
proach. She  has  a  tolerable  garland 
of  violets  and  primroses,  but  a  most 
unprepossessing  visage,  pimpled  with 
exercise  or  ale.  '  And  so,  my  dainty 
maiden,'  says  her  majesty,  'you  are 
in  love  with  Zephyr,  and  hawthorn 
bushes,  and  morning  dew,  and  wend- 
est  to  the  fields  ere  Phoebus  gilds  the 
drifted  clouds.' — '  Please  your  majes- 
ty,' says  the  innocent,  4  I'm  in  love 
with  Tom  Larkins,  the  handsome  flesh- 
monger,  and  a  pretty  dressing  my 
mother  will  give  me  for  ganging  a- 
Maying  in  the  grey  of  the  morning. 
There's  queer  work  for  lasses  among 
these  rakehellies,  please  your  majes- 
ty.' Elizabeth  suddenly  turns  with  a 
frown  to  her  lord-in-waiting,  and  hur- 
ries back  as  if  she  had  pricked  her 
finger  with  a  May-bush."  If  you  have 
not  a  specimen  of  the  "  poetry,"  you 
have  the  "  prose"  of  a  May-day  in 
the  olden  time. 

And  now  to  Shakespeare — and  who 
with  him  ?  You  shall  give  him  a  not- 
able companion ;  a  grave,  a  wise  one — 
not  too  grave  nor  too  wise  for  Shake- 
speare, however,  though  it  be  Francis 
Bacon  himself.  Yet  perhaps  you 
will  have  some  disappointment,  for 


there  is  no  actual  dialogue  between 
them  on  record.    Yet  they  met,  and 
for  what  purpose  ?    The  gentlemen  of 
Gray's  Inn  had  to  enact  devices  and 
shows  and  certain  dramatic  perform- 
ances before  the  queen  at  Greenwich, 
at  the  close  of  the  year  1 587.     There 
is  a  curious  record  extant  in  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  among  the  Garrick  papers, 
showing  of  what    kind    were  these 
"  certain   devices  and  shows."    The 
subject,    the  Misfortunes  of  Arthur, 
Uther  Pendragon's  son.     "  It  was 
reduced  into  tragical  notes  by  Thomas 
Hughes,  one  of  the  Society  of  Gray's 
Inn."      "  Precious  is    this  record," 
says  Mr  Charles  Knight;  "  the  salt 
that  preserves  it  is  the  one  name, 
Francis  Bacon.*    Bacon,  in  1588,  was 
reader  of  Gray's  Inn.     To  the  devices 
and  shows  of  Hughes'  tragedy — ac- 
companiments that  might  lessen  the 
tediousness  of    its    harangues,   and 
scatter  a  little  beauty  and    repose 
amongst    the  scenes    of    crime  and 
murder— Bacon  would  bring    some- 
'thing  of  that  high  poetical  spirit  which 
gleams  out  at  every  page  of  his  phil- 
osophy."   The  gentlemen  of  Gray's 
Inn,  and  Burbage  with  the  queen's 
players,  on  this  occasion,  were  assem- 
bled at  Greenwich.    Shakespeare  and 
Bacon,  the  greatest  spirits  of  the  age, 
or  of  any  age,  met,  probably  uncon- 
scious of  each  other's  power.  And  yet,if 
Bacon  had  to  suggest   additions,  al- 
terations, improvements,  they  must 
have  caught  the  observation  of  Shake- 
speare ;  for  wisdom,  like  the  air,  car- 
ries the    scent  of  many  flowers  to 
those  who  have  the  faculty  ever  open 
to  receive  it.    But  the  queen,  after  a 
few  days,  wishes  to  renew  the  pastime. 
Shakespeare  has  witnessed  the  dul- 
ness  of  Hughes'  efforts,  and  thinks  he 
can  please  her  majesty  as  well.   "  The 
cautious  sagacity"  of  old  Burbage  is 
well  told — he  weighs  (how  could  he 
weigh?)  Shakespeare  in  his  dramatic 
scales.    After  many  mental  pros  and 
cons,  he  will  trust  the  production  of 
this  William  Shakespeare  to  the  judg- 


*  I  know  not  if  Mr  Knight  meant  to  perpetrate  a  pun  when  he  wrote  the  "  salt 
that  preserved;"  but  as  the  salt  was  "Bacon,"  the  hint  seems  to  have  been  taken,  and 
the  salt  applied  where  it  should  be,  and  Bacon  made  the  recipient.  A  Miss  Bacon, 
an  American  authoress,  desirous  of  appropriating  to  the  family  name,  and  through  it 
to  herself,  all  genius,  has  written  to  prove  that  Shakespeare, did  not  write  "  Shake-- 
Bpeare,"  but  that  Bacon  did.  This  is,  in  the  American  phrase,  "  going  the  whole 
hog." 


56 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


[July, 


ment  of  the  queen.  It  is  Love's 
Labour  Lost.  The  queen  does  judge 
well.  She  has  heard  something,  in- 
deed, very  different  from  the  old  my- 
thological formalities.  Raleigh,  who 
is  present,  acknowledges  that  "  a  real 
poet  has  arisen,  where  poetry  was 
scarcely  looked  for."  Every  work  of 
true  genius  is  a  "  labour  of  love,"  and 
the  world,  from  that  day  to  this,  has 
given  approval,  and  declared,  as  it 
ever  will  declare,  that  Shakespeare's 
Love's  Labour,  in  spite  of  its  title, 
was  not  lost. 

Now  pass  we  on,Eusebius,  or  rather 
loiter  about  the  same  period,  to  hear 
a  little  of  Shakespeare's  rival — enemy, 
as  people  unknowing  of  the  truth 
unwisely  called  him  —  Ben  Jonson. 
He  was  probably  a  hasty  man, 
but  there  is  evidence  enough  of  his 
generous  spirit.  This  miniature  bio- 
graphy, by  Mr  Charles  Knight,  is  ad- 
mirably told.  It  is  a  beautiful  history 
of  a  mother  with  trust  in  her  heart, 
which  nothing  can  put  aside,  that  her 
son  will  one  day  make  a  figure  in  the 
world.  The  aspect  of  fortune  is 
frowning  enough  to  all  but  her.  She 
will  have  him  to  be  a  scholar,  and  ful- 
fil his  destiny.  She,  a  widow,  had 
married  Thomas  Fowler,  a  master 
bricklayer,  the  child  being  then  about 
a  year  and  a  half  old.  The  characters 
are  well  made  out.  The  master- 
bricklayer  husband  is  a  common- 
place, honest  man,  of  fair  common- 
sense,  but  no  dreamer  of  the  destinies 
of  genius.  Benjamin's  mother  is  of 
quite  another  stamp — a  woman  of 
resolution,  patience,  of  unalterable 
affection,  and  the  keenest  discernment 
and  persuasion  of  the  genius  of  her 
son.  Benjamin  is  the  inevitable 
genius — working  out  fame  in  his  own 
strange  way,  as  genius  ever  does,  in- 
comprehensible to  the  common-sense 
master  bricklayer ;  and  in  that  same 
ever -condemned  untoward  way  did 
his  contemporary  Shakespeare  work 
his  way  to  fame  that  shall  never  die. 
Such  was  the  child,  the  boy,  the  man 
Benjamin,  till,  true  to  his  mother's 
prophetic  instinct,  he  became  the  "  Oh 
rare  Ben  Jonson."  First  the  child, 
picking  up  somewhat  wild  knowledge 
in  the  parish  school  and  in  the  alleys 
of  St  Martin's  Lane — then  the  boy, 
who  must  "  earn  his  living,"  mixing 
even  then  fine  poetic  thought  into  the 


coarse  mortar  he  is  working  with  his 
hands ;  the  grown  youth,  the  friend 
of  "  Master  Camden,  good  man,  and 
learned,"  who  will  pay  for  his  school- 
ing ;  the  half-starved  scholar  of  Cam- 
bridge returning,  destitute  again,  to 
take  up  the  hod ;  the  man,  passion- 
ate, and  of  quarrel,  receiving  his 
grandfather's  sword,  and  off  to  the 
Low  Countries.  Returns  again,  and 
finds  his  mother  a  second  time  a 
widow — works  again  a  bricklayer,  like 
an  affectionate  son,  but  has  his  old 
chamber  and  his  learned  books.  Then 
comes  the  touching  scene.  The  com- 
panion of  wits  and  dramatists  at  the 
Mermaid,  he  writes  and  quarrels.  A 
man  is  killed.  Oh  "  rare"  Ben,  thou 
art  in  danger  of  thy  life.  He  escapes 
that,  and  there  is  a  memorial  banquet 
given  on  the  occasion.  I  must  quote 
the  finale,  in  which  the  heroic  mother 
is  true  to  herself  and  her  gifted  son. 
"  There  is  a  joyous  company  of  im- 
mortals at  the  feast.  There,  too,  is 
that  loving  and  faithful  mother.  The 
wine-cups  are  flowing.  There  are 
song  and  jest  and  passionate  earnest- 
ness, with  which  such  friends  speak 
when  the  heart  is  opened.  But  there 
is  one  whose  shadow  we  now  see 
more  passionate  and  more  earnest 
than  any  of  that  company."  She 
rises,  with  a  full  goblet  in  her  hand  : 
"  Son,  I  drink  to  thee.  Benjamin,  my 
beloved  son,  thrice  I  drink  to  thee. 
See  ye  this  paper ;  one  grain  of  the 
subtle  drug  which  it  holds  is  death. 
Even  as  we  now  pledge  each  other 
in  rich  canary,  would  I  have  pledged 
thee  in  lusty  strong  poison,  had  thy 
sentence  taken  execution.  Thy  shame 
would  have  been  my  shame,  and 
neither  of  us  should  have  lived  after 
it."  "  She  was  no  churl,"  says  Ben- 
jamin. And  had  he  not  a  right  to  say 
so,  Eusebius  ? 

A  little  more  yet  of  Ben  Jonson.  In 
1618  he  undertook  a  pedestrian  travel 
toEdinburgh,  of  which  feat  be  appear- 
ed to  be  proud.  Of  which  travel 
Bacon  wittily  said,  that  "  he  loved 
not  to  see  poesy  go  on  other  foot  than 
poetical  dactylus  and  sponda3us." 
Bacon,  it  seems,  had  a  leaning  to  the 
drama,  and  kept  up  the  intercourse 
with  the  dramatists,  which  had  be- 
gun when  he  tried  his  emendations 
of  the  "  devices  and  shows"  for  the 
queen's  entertainment  at  Greenwich. 


1855.] 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


57 


Doubtless,  dramatists  still  think  this 
one  mark  of  his  wisdom.  At  the 
same  time  "honest  John  Taylor,"  as  a 
part  of  his  "  Penniless  Pilgrimage," 
visited  Scotland  also,  where  he  fell  in 
with  Jonson.  The  object  of  Mr 
Knight,  in  this  essay  of  the  English 
Poets  in  Scotland,  is  to  show  that 
Shakespeare  also  was  there.  I  will 
not  compliment  him  upon  his  success, 
his  best  argument  being  a  few  lines 
descriptive  of  "  cloud  land,"  begin- 
ning, "  Sometimes  we  see  a  cloud  that's 
dragonish."  Admitting  the  poetry 
of  John  Taylor,  the  dubiety  of  Shake- 
speare having  been  amongst  them  on 
this  occasion  will  not  allow  the  Scots 
to  say,  "  Laetamur  nos  poetis  tribus." 
There  is,  however,  evidence  that 
Shakespeare's  company  was  at'  Aber- 
deen in  October  1601.  Mr  Knight 
thinks  "  his  tragedy  of  Macbeth  ex- 
hibits traces  of  local  knowledge,  which 
might  have  been  readily  collected  by 
him  in  the  exact  path  of  such  a  jour- 
ney." I  doubt  if  you  will  relish,  as 
the  author  will  think  you  ought,  this 
little  piece  of  antiquarian  gossip.  It 
is  easy  enough  for  one  who  rides  his 
hobby,  as  does  our  author,  pretty  fast, 
to  overtake  the  water  poet,  and,  pass- 
ing him  at  full  speed,  hope  to  over- 
take the  poet  of  all  others  he  would 
wish  to  see,  Shakespeare. 

I  am  glad  to  see  a  record  of  play- 
loving  and  play-going  in  Scotland. 
Aberdeen  is  complimented.  "  It  is 
to  the  honour  of  Aberdeen  that,  in  an 
age  of  strong  prejudices,  they  welcom- 
ed the  English  players  in  a  way  which 
vindicated  their  own  character  for 
wisdom,  learning,  gallantry,  breeding, 
and  civil  conversation."  It  is  not  to 
those  who  so  welcomed  them  that  we 
must  chiefly  lay  the  charge  of  the 
witch -persecutions  of  that  time.  In 
almost  every  case  these  atrocities 
were  committed  under  the  sanction  of 
the  kirk -session.  It  is  noticed,  that 
at  the  second  Christmas  after  James 
had  ascended  the  English  throne, 
Shakespeare's  early  plays  were  the 
favourites  at  the  court.  It  is  infer- 
red that  James  had  acquired  this 
taste  from  seeing  them  acted  in  Scot- 
land. Mr  Knight  makes  no  mention 
of  the  plays  acted  before  James  at 
Cambridge.  As  the  Gray's  Inn 
gentlemen  were  the  performers  and 
dramatic  caterers  at  Greenwich,  so 


were  the  students  and  fellows  at  Cam- 
bridge both  purveyors  and  actors.  On 
this  occasion  the  Latin  play  of  Ignor- 
amus, somewhat  malevolent  upon  law- 
yers, was  acted.  It  was  commanded 
by,  and  quite  to  the  taste  of  the 
pedant  king,  who  on  this  visit  was  ac- 
companied by  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
afterwards  Charles  T.  The  queen 
was  not  present,  the  Cambridge 
authorities  having  been  remiss  in  gal- 
lantry, and  neglected  to  give  an  invi- 
tation. The  names  of  the  actors  are 
recorded,  among  whom  may  be  seen 
a  future  bishop,  Mr  Towers,  Queen's 
College,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Peter- 
borough. 

"  The  only  book  that  took  Samuel 
Johnson  out  of  his  bed  two  hours  be- 
fore he  wished  to  rise,  will  scarcely 
do  for  a  busy  man  to  touch  before 
breakfast.  There  is  no  leaving  it, 
except  by  an  effort."  Such  is  the 
commendation  bestowed  on  Robert 
Burton,  author  of  The  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy.  There  have  been  and  are 
very  many  ready  to  subscribe  to  this 
sentence  of  praise.  I  know  your  ad- 
miration of  tha  book,  Eusebius;  I 
have  lately  taken  it  up,  but  confess  that 
I  found  the  unvaried  style,  accumula- 
tive of  epithets,  similitudes,  and  dis- 
similitudes, and  exaggerations,  some- 
what wearisome.  I  could  not  read  it 
continuously;  very  entertaining  to  dip 
into.  But  perhaps  I  referred  to  it 
when  not  in  the  best  mood  for  a  work 
of  that  peculiar  character.  In  Once 
upon  a  Time,  the  forethought  and 
civic  wisdom  of  Burton  is  manifested 
by  the  evidence  of  time  present.  '*  I 
will,  to  satisfy  and  please  myself, 
make  a  Utopia  of  my  own — a  new 
Atlantis,  a  poetical  commonwealth  of 
my  own,  in  which  I  will  freely  domi- 
neer, build  cities,  make  laws,  statutes, 
as  I  list  myself."  Utopias  on  paper 
are  amusing  enough,  but  from  Plato 
to  Rousseau  there  never  yet  was  one 
fit  for  man  to  inhabit — for  the  very 
reason  that  they  are  fashioned  for  all 
by  the  whim  of  one.  Commonwealths 
and  civic  politics  grow;  they  start  up 
not  ready  made.  If  on  any  occa- 
sion they  do  appear,  it  is  by  some 
such  severe  blow  upon  the  principal 
head  as  that  from  which  Minerva 
sprang,  who,  of  a  quarrelsome  nature, 
made  her  father's  and  all  the  gods' 
heads  ache  ever  after.  There  is  a 


58 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


great  deal  of  practicable  wisdom  in 
Burton,  and  applicable  to  states  and 
cities  after  they  are  grown.  He  can 
very  well  inform  the  people  of  Salis- 
bury how  beneficial  to  them  would 
be  their  river  rendered  navigable  to 
Christchurch  —  "  that  it  might  be 
made  as  passable  as  the  Thames  from 
Brentford  to  Windsor;  and  that,  by 
means  of  such  navigation,  the  loiterers 
might  be  turned  into  labourers,  and 
penury  into  plenty."  "  Amongst  our 
towns  there  is  only  one  (London)  that 
bears  the  face  of  a  city  Epitome  Bri- 
tannise — a  famous  emporium,  second 
to  none  beyond  seas — a  noble  mart, 
and  yet  in  my  judgment  defective  in 
many  things.  The  rest,  some  few 
excepted  (York,  Bristow,  Norwich, 
Worcester),  are  in  mean  estate,  ruin- 
ous most  part,  poor,  and  full  of  beg- 
gars, by  reason  of  their  decayed  trades, 
neglected  and  bad  policy,  idleness  of 
their  inhabitants,  riot,  which  had 
rather  beg  or  loiter,  and  be  ready  to 
starve,  than  work."  You  will  not  re- 
cognise the  industry  and  enterprise 
of  the  English  nation,  Eusebius,  in 
this  description  of  their  towns,  com- 
paring it  with  the  old  cities,  enlarged 
and  renovated,  and  new  ones  sprung 
up,  since  the  days  of  "  Democritus, 
junior."  But  as  this  is  peculiarly  the 
age  of  improvements,  or  so-called,  so- 
cial, political,  and  family,  or  in  all  that 
relates  to  the  art  of  living,  it  is  not 
surprising  if  modern  sense  has  taken 
hints  from  an  Oxford  scholar  of 
1621.  One  is  very  notable.  "  I  will 
have  convenient  churches,  and  sepa- 
rate places  to  bury  the  dead  in."  Onr 
Burial  Act  dates  1853.  The  fact  is, 
Eusebius,  that  it  is  the  trading  spirit 
which  is  both  the  inventor  and  worker- 
out  of  improvements.  Legislature 
often  impedes,  and  seldom  does  more 
than  give  a  sanction.  All  great  works 
of  permanent  utility  are  done  by  com- 
panies. Industry  creates  capital.  Ca- 
pital suggests,  and  combination  be- 
comes the  means.  It  has  been  re- 
cently in  every  one's  mouth,  that  if  the 
Government  had  contracted  with  com- 
panies for  the  transport,  armament, 
victualling,  and  medical  establishment 
for  our  troops  in  the  Crimea,  the  work 
would  have  been  done  without  fault. 
To  be  sure  it  would,  as  the  work  of 
companies  is  done;  but  then,  what  are 
these  companies  —  these  mercantile 


[July, 

firms  ?  They  are  not  shifting,  but 
permanent  bodies,  practical  men,  with 
a  certain  object,  and  means  provided 
for  continuance.  But  what  is  a  go- 
vernment undertaking  these  things? 
A  shifting  body,  not  one  of  whom  is 
brought  up  to  the  business;  not  chosen 
even  from  fitness  to  it;  every  one  has 
to  fight  for  his  place  as  long  as  he  is 
in  it :  his  mind  distracted,  so  that  the 
hundred  hands  with  which,  as  a  Bria- 
reus,  he  is  supposed  to  be  supplied, 
are  all  sawing  the  air,  and  acting  in- 
dependently of  the  head;  which  head 
all  the  while  hardly  knows  whose 
shoulders  it  is  on.  I  retain,  Eusebius, 
the  principles  still  of  an  old  Tory  (I 
dislike  the  Conservative  term,  as  I 
would  to  appear  at  the  Old  Bailey 
under  an  alias),  and  think  it  a  misfor- 
tune that  the  executive  Government 
has  lost  its  legitimate  preponderance. 
The  Reform  Bill  has  brought  it  to  a 
sickly  state.  For  such  a  country  as 
this  it  ought  to  be  strong.  There 
should  be  just  such  preponderance  as, 
unless  under  extraordinary  cases, 
when  other  parties  would  combine 
against  it,  would  give  it  a  fair  chance 
of  durability.  A  government  now 
lasts  three  years,  is  considered  long- 
lived  at  six;  sometimes,  as  recentty, 
we  have  one  for  a  week,  and  some- 
times are  without  one.  If  one  lasts 
the  longest,  a  man  has  no  sooner 
acquired  some  knowledge  of  his  busi- 
ness than  he  yields  up  his  office  to  a 
successor,  who  has  everything  to  learn. 
Burke  spoke  of  the  folly  of  treating 
our  legislators  like  chimney-sweepers, 
who,  as  soon  as  they  have  learnt  their 
business,  are  too  old  to  practise  it. 
But  why  impertinently  thrust  before 
your  eyes  my  opinions,  when  you 
should  be  reading  Burton's  sugges- 
tions ?  He  is  rabid  about  lawyers — 
"  gowned  vultures,"  as  he  calls  them. 
But  how  truly  he  describes  some  evils 
that  still  exist  amongst  us,  and  which 
we  still  bear  patiently  !  "  Our  fore- 
fathers," as  a  worthy  chorographer  of 
ours  observes,  "  had  wont,  with  a 
few  golden  crosses  and  lines  in  verse, 
make  all  conveyances  assurances. 
And  such  was  the  candour  and  inte- 
grity of  succeeding  ages,  that  a  deed, 
as  I  have  oft  seen,  to  convey  a  whole 
manor,  was  implicite  contained  in 
some  twenty  lines  or  thereabouts. 
But  now  many  skins  of  parchment 


1855.] 


must  scarce  serve  turn.  He  that  buys 
and  sells  a  house  must  have  a  house 
fall  of  writings."  And  then  come 
"  contention  and  confusion,"  and  men 
go  to  law,  and  "  I  know  not  how 
many  years  before  the  cause  is  heard; 
and  when  'tis  judged  and  determined, 
by  reason  of  some  tricks  and  errors 
it  is  as  fresh  to  begin,  after  twice  seven 
years  sometimes,  as  it  was  at  first." 
Who  shall  say  that  this  is  obsolete  ? 
The  patience  with  which  the  atrocities 
of  law  are  endured  has  ever  appeared 
to  me,  Eusebius,  the  most  wonderful 
phenomenon  of  the  age.  There  was 
the  case  of  poor  old  Mrs  Cummings, 
who  had  a  fancy  for  cats.  She  was 
possessed  of  some  few  thousand 
pounds.  Was  she  sane  or  insane? 
That  could  have  been,  if  ascertainable, 
ascertainable  in  a  day ;  but  it  took 
just  so  long  time  as  sufficed  to  swal- 
low up  every  shilling,  and  she  died 
beggared,  and,  if  not  insane  before, 
driven  out  of  her  mind,  and  into  her 
grave.* 

It  is  only  a  few  posts  ago  I  received 
a  letter  requesting  subscriptions  to  de- 
fray the  Braintree  case  expenses.  The 
simple  question  being  whether  church- 
rates  were  or  were  not  to  be  legally 
enforced,  why  should  not  an  hour  have 
settled  the  matter?  It  has  lasted 
I  know  not  how  many  years,  and 
cost  £2500.  It  costs  a  bishop  thou- 
sands of  pounds  to  try  whether  a 
clericus  has  misbehaved  ;  and  after 
all,  what  is  still  worse,  an  offend- 
ing clericus  may  escape  and  an  inno- 
cent bishop  suffer.  This  will  put 
you,  Eusebius,  into  one  of  your  vitu- 
perative humours — indulge  in,  then, 
other  satire  than  your  own,  and  turn 
to  your  old  Burton,  and  see  into  what 
glorious  frenzy  of  his  malignity  he 
heaps  up  his  accumulated  vitupera- 
tions. When  you  have  read  your 
Times,  and  see  the  shiftings  of  places, 
the  treacheries,  the  mismanagements, 
the  harlequinades  of  governments  and 
no  governments,  places  given  up,  em- 
bassies undertaken,  you  will  think  for 


Once  upon  a  Time.  59 

the  moment  ^emocritus  junior  a 
living  man,  and  expressing  himself 
with  an  application  to  the  news  of  the 
Times.  u  Now  come  tidings  of  wed- 
dings, maskings,  mummeries,  enter- 
tainments, jubilees,  embassies,  tilts 
and  tournaments,  trophies,  revels, 
sports,  plays.  Then,  again,  as  in  & 
new-shifted  scene,  treasons,  cheating 
tricks,  robberies,  enormous  villanies 
in  all  kinds,  funerals,  burials,  death  of 
princes,  new  discoveries,  expeditions; 
now  comical,  then  tragical  matters. 
To-day  we  hear  of  new  lords,  and 
offices  created ;  to-morrow,  of  some 
great  men  deposed  ;  and  then,  again, 
of  fresh  honours  conferred.  One  is 
let  loose,  another  imprisoned  ;  one 
purchased),  another  breaketh  ;  he 
thrives,  his  neighbour  turns  bank- 
rupt; now  plenty,  then  again  death 
and  famine  ;  one  runs,  another  rides, 
wrangles,  laughs,  weeps,  &c.  Thus 
I  daily  hear,  and  suchlike,  both  pub- 
lic and  private  news,  amidst  the  gal- 
lantry and  misery  of  the  world ;  jol- 
lity, pride,  perplexities,  and  cares, 
simplicity  and  villany,  subtlety,  knav- 
ery, candour,  and  integrity,  mutually 
mixed,  and  offering  themselves." 

As  in  the  catalogue  of  colours 
there  are  but  few  names,  and  indeed 
scarcely  more  than  what  are  called 
the  primitive,  yet  the  mingling  and 
the  varieties  of  hues  make  them, 
almost  infinite, — so  is  it  in  opinions — 
nay,  in  moralities  themselves ;  they 
have  their  shades  and  mixtures,  and 
colouring  of  circumstance,  and  motive, 
and  natural  temperament,  yet  are 
all  these  almost  infinities,  in  our 
converse  and  treatment  of  them,  at- 
tachable to  but  a  limited  nomencla- 
ture. I  say  this,  Eusebius,  thinking 
of  Milton,  a  Milton  the  Londoner " 
of  Mr  Knight's  essay  in  Once  upon  a 
Time.  In  our  common  parlance  we 
admit  impossibilities  rather  than  en- 
dure the  fatigue  of  philosophical  un- 
ravelling the  entangled  skein  of  char- 
acter. We  speak  of  Milton  the  Puri- 
tan. Could  Milton  have  been  a  Puri- 


*  If  there  be  such  a  blessed  thing  as  hope  at  the  bottom  of  that  Pandora's  box, 
Law — which  is  crammed  so  full  of  accumulated  abominations  that  the  lid  will  not 
close,  but  is  ever  gaping  to  receive  more— the  world  will  have  to  thank  the  author  of 
"  Jarndyce  and  Jarndyce"  for  the  daring  and  dexterity  with  which  he  has  thrust  in 
his  hand,  and  turned  over  to  the  exposure  of  the  keen  and  purifying  atmosphere  of 
general  indignation  the  poisonous  rags  of  legality;  that,  if  it  be  yet  possible,  Hope 
may  rise  through  the  lightened  encumbrance. 


60  Once  upon  a  Time. 

tan? — impossible,  if  we  know  what  a 


Puritan  is,  or  rather  was.  See  the 
impossibility  of  real  Puritanism  clutch- 
ing the  heart  of  John  Milton— it  would 
have  strangled  its  great  nobility.  But 
that  remained  unimpaired.  You  and 
I,  Eusebius,  are  not  of  that  great 
man's  politics,  nor  of  many  of  his 
opinions ;  but  we  dare  not  approach 
the  shade  of  such  a  man  with  levity, 
much  less  with  contumely.  What  he 
was  can  only  be  in  the  grasp  of  one 
of  his  genius  to  handle.  In  Once  upon 
a  Time,  two  lines  from  Wordsworth 
are  quoted  to  portray  him ;  and  they 
are  in  thoughts  borrowed  from  the 
sublime  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth : 

''Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart;" 

And— 

"  Thou  hadst  a  voice  whose  sound  was  like 
the  sea." 

Milton  a  Puritan  !  The  Puritans 
hated  poetry — John  Milton  was,  is, 
the  world's  everlasting  poet.  The 
Puritans  hated,  maligned,  persecuted, 
the  drama  and  dramatists — Milton 
loved  them,  and  wrote  plays.  They 
proscribed  sports  and  common  mirth — 
Milton,  we  are  told,  was  ever  mirth- 
ful, and  wrote  well  of  sports.  Wit- 
ness that  fine  irony  in  which  he  runs 
through  the  difficulties  of  putting 
them  down,  which  that  age  wished  to 
do.  "  It  will  ask  more  than  the  work 
of  twenty  licensers  to  examine  all  the 
lutes,  the  violins,  and  the  guitars  in 
every  house.  They  must  not  be  suf- 
fered to  prattle  as  they  do,  but  must 
be  licensed  what  to  say.  And  who 
shall  silence  all  the  airs  and  madrigals 
that  whisper  softness  in  chambers? 
The  windows,  also,  and  balconies, 
must  be  thought  on."  .  .  .  "The  vil- 
lages, also,  must  have  their  visitors, 
to  inquire  what  lectures  the  bagpipe 
and  the  rebeck  reads,  even  to  the 
ballatry  and  the  gammut  of  every 
municipal  fiddler;  for  these  are  the 
countryman's  Arcadias  and  his  Monet 
Mayors."  The  Puritan  writes  thus  ! 
Rather  would  you  not  think  you 
were  following  the  gifted  and  gayest 
of  the  Puritan-scorning,  the  wittiest 
of  the  Cavaliers?  I  have  said  before, 
Eusebius,  that  the  sensitive  man  hath 
wit ;  see  it  in  this  passage.  How  ex- 
quisite it  is  in  the  imaginary  string 
fastening  the  long  Puritan's  lecture 


[July, 

upon  the  uncontrollable  breath  of  the 
bagpipe.  The  Puritans  hated  the 
organ,  as  Satan's  instrument;  it  creat- 
ed Milton's  ecstasy,  and  moulded  his 
verse.  They  hated  the  show  and  cir- 
cumstance of  greatness,  as  guilt  in 
gorgeousness ;  he  spoke  of  it  as  un- 
der its  inspirations — with  its  chivalry 
in  his  heart,  and  his  voice,  and  pen, 
when  the  morose  fit  of  his  party  was 
off  him  ;  for  he  had  this  imperfection. 
No,  John  Milton,  whatever  name  you 
give  him,  was  a  perfect,  a  consum- 
mate man,  of  unmutilated  sympathies, 
and,  whatever  else,  was  not  a  Puri- 
tan. Milton's  life  is  too  well  known 
to  be  treated  of  here.  The  story  of 
his  separation  from  his  wife  and  their 
reconciliation  is  most  touchingly  and 
dramatically  told,  in  some  very  good 
modestly  introduced  poetry,  by  the 
author  of  Once  upon  a  Time.  We 
are  descending  in  the  course  of  time, 
when  we  read  of  an  interview  be- 
tween John  Dryden  and  John  Milton ; 
the  former  called  "  Glorious  John," 
but  here  a  greater  glory  met  him — for 
was  not  also  Milton  a  "  Glorious 
John?"  It  is  narrated  by  Aubrey, 
"  John  Dryden,  Esq.,  Poet-Laureat, 
who  very  much  admired  him,  and 
went  to  have  leave  to  put  his  Para- 
dise Lost  into  a  drama,  in  rhyme.  Mr 
Milton  received  him  civilly,  and  told 
him  he  would  give  him  leave  to  tag 
his  verses."  This  anecdote  does  not 
savour  much  of  John  Dryden's  un- 
doubted good  sense — if  true,  it  sa- 
vours of  Milton's  wit.  Milton  and 
Dryden  !  Verily  "  Once  npon  a 
time"  has  been  stealthily  advancing, 
and  closing  in  upon  u  the  memory-of- 
man  time,"  like  that  iron  shroud  I 
have  read  of,  which,  large  at  first,  im- 
perceptibly shrinking  and  drawing 
itself  in  upon  the  body,  was  at  last  to 
crush  it ;  so  shall  we  be  sent  back  into 
the  "  Once  upon  a  time."  In  those 
days  of  Milton,  Time  was  indeed  as 
the  iron  shroud ;  for  it  looked  dark, 
with  pike,  and  cuirass,  and  artillery. 
Let  us  hope  the  black  days  of  civil 
strife  are  gone.  u  The  memory-of-man 
time,"  approaching,  wears  a  sunnier 
aspect.  It  is  almost  within  the  me- 
mory of  man  that  the  Stuart  race  have 
passed  away.  How  near  it  appears  ! 
I  remember,  Eusebius,  hearing  my 
grandfather  say  (he  died  about  ninety- 
four  years  of  age)  that  he  well  re- 


1855.] 

membered  his  grandmother,  who  was 
twenty  years  of  age,  and  in  London, 
when  Charles  I.  was  beheaded.  So 
that  you  see,  were  I  to  live  to  his 
age,  how  striking  would  be  the  fact  of 
this  touching  of  generations;  it  would 
be  possible  for  me  to  say  that  I  had 
heard  some  incident  which  might  have 
taken  place  on  that  wretched  occasion, 
not,  indeed  from  an  eyewitness,  but 
from  one  who  had  received  it  from  an 
eyewitness.  We  are  approaching  the 
time  of  biographies  and  true  records. 

There  follows  the  well-known  tale  of 
"  Lucy  Hutchinson,"  and  it  is  sweetly 
told.  A  little  child  interests  John 
Hutchinson,  by  talk  of  her  sister  Lucy. 
Everything  is  Lucy  —  all  love,  all 
speak  of  this  Lucy.  John  Hutchinson 
is  almost  in  love  by  report — no  won- 
der that  the  presence  of  the  real  Lucy 
captivates  him.  She  is  one  of  those 
persons  who  are  so  near  perfection, 
that  in  contemplating  their  characters, 
people  in  their  enthusiasm  have  doubt- 
ed, through  their  excellence,  the 
taint  of  original  sin ;  so  perfect  have 
they  ever  seemed.  But  for  the  truth 
and  safety,  nay,  profound  warranty  of 
the  Scripture  creed,  those  very  per- 
fect persons  confess  to  the  great 
truth — whence  we  draw  the  inference 
that  virtue,  the  higher  it  is,  is  con- 
scious of  its  imperfection,  and  ever 
aspires  to  a  goodness  which  it  acknow- 
ledges to  be  far  above  itself.  The 
betrothed  Lucy  is  nigh  unto  death  ; 
she  is  seized  with  the  small-pox,  when 
John  Hutchinson  is  permitted  to  see 
her.  "She  is  the  most  deformed 
person  that  could  be  seen."  "  But 
God  recompensed  his  justice  and  con- 
stancy by  restoring  her,  though  she 
was  longer  than  ordinary  before  she 
recovered  to  be  as  well  as  before." 
They  married ;  their  after  happiness, 
troubles,  and  trials,  are  shortly  and 
well  told.  I  could  not  help  thinking, 
as  I  read  the  little  tale,  that  the  Esther 
Summerson,  the  Dame  Durden  of 
Bleak  House,  was  imagined  from  the 
real  Lucy  Hutchinson.  How  beauti- 
fully do  such  personages  come  upon 
the  stage  of  life ! — good  enough  to  make 
the  misanthrope  in  love  with  humanity. 
Never  is  virtue  more  lovely,  never  of 
a  more  heavenly  dignity,  than  when  it 
comes  in  the  sunshine  of  feminine  ex- 
cellence. 

"Burden  not  the  back  of  Aries, 


Once  upon  a  Time.  61 

Leo,  or  Taurus  with  thy  faults ;  nor 
make  Saturn,  Mars,  or  Venus  guilty 
of  thy  follies.  Think  not  to  fasten 
thy  imperfections  on  the  stars,  and  so 
despairingly  conceive  thyself  under  a 
fatality  of  being  evil."  So  said  Sir 
Thomas  Brown,  Knight,  M.D.,  in  his 
Christian  Morals.  Mr  Knight  has 
a  chapter  on  "Astrological  Almanacs." 
We  begin  to  think  ourselves  above 
superstition,  because  we  have  pretty 
well,  as  we  dare  say,  laughed  astrology 
out  of  the  heads  of  people.  We  burnt 
old  women  for  witches,  but  we  did 
not  burn  superstition  out  of  the  land. 
Witchcraft  itself  is  not  quite  gone.  I 
remember  an  old  woman,  in  a  parish 
in  which  I  lived  some  years,  whom  a 
young  man,  a  farmer's  son,  shot  at 
with  a  crooked  sixpence.  Superstition 
is  ubiquitous  ;  like  the  demon  driven 
out  of  one  body,  it  escapes  into  another. 
Eusebius,  people  are  as  ready  to  be- 
lieve anything,  provided  it  be  some- 
thing rather  new,  as  ever  they  were — 
even  more  silly,  more  impossible  than 
the  old  impostures.  I  will  not  waste 
your  time  with  proofs — you  have  them 
everywhere.  I  could  almost  forgive 
astrology  for  its  connection  with  the 
occult  philosophy,  which  ultimately 
brought  about  the  study  of  chemistry  ; 
but  more  still  for  the  amusement 
which  the  grave  wit  of  Swift  has 
afforded  in  his  account  of  the  death  of 
Partridge,  the  almanac- maker.  If  it 
did  not  kill  the  astrologer,  it  put  an 
end  to  his  almanac.  Nothing  can  be 
liner  drawn,  after  the  unpretending 
pattern  of  commonplace  truth,  than 
poor  Partridge's  dying  confession  of 
his  ignorance  and  blasphemy.  The 
witty  Dean,  who  could  persuade  the 
gaping  people  that  he  had  put  off  the 
eclipse,  was  more  formidable  than 
Aries  and  Leo  to  poor  Partridge  ;  he 
might  have  ridden  upon  their  backs 
for  life,  but  when  he  put  the  Dean's 
back  up,  he  was  thrown  upon  his  own, 
never  to  rise  again.  He  might  better 
have  wrestled  with  Saturn  and  Mars 
than  against  the  Dean.  His  wit  was 
the  keenest  of  weapons ;  like  "Durlen- 
dana"  of  Orlando,  it  cut  through  so 
clean  that  the  combatant  did  not 
know  he  was  dead  till  he  shook  his 
shoulders,  and  his  head  rolled  at  his 
feet.  Somewhat  similar  was  the 
Dean's  treatment  of  Curll.  But  what 
induced  Swift  to  annihilate  Partridge? 


62 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


Is  there  a  secret  history  to  that  affair? 
The  clever  French  novelist  De  Wailly, 
who  has  worked  into  a  tale  the  lives  of 
Swift,  Stella,  and  Vanessa,  I  know  not 
upon  what  authority,  has  given  the 
origin  of  this  spite  upon  Partridge,  in 
some  vexation  Swift  felt  at  a  very  in- 
opportune credulity  on  the  part  of 
Mrs  Dingley,  which  touched  the  Dean 
himself,  with  regard  to  Partridge's 
prophesying.  It  is  quite  amusing  to 
read,  as  we  do,  every  now  and  then, 
a  paragraph  in  newspapers,  exempli- 
fying ignorance  and  superstition  by 
anecdote  of  some  poor  dupe,  in  a  far 
country  village,  victimised  by  fortune- 
teller ; — the  writer  forgetting  that  in 
the  metropolis  in  which  he  writes, 
"  ignorance  and  superstition,"  even  of 
the  same  kind,  may  be  found,  or  may 
have  been  lately,  among  those  who 
are  classed  among  the  wise,  the  pru- 
dent, the  educated,  the  wealthy.  The 
poor  almanac*  makers  were  innocent, 
if  compared  with  spirit-rappers  and 
mesmeric  fortune-tellers.  Cagliostro 
grew  rich  at  court,  and  among  the 
great.  Cagliostros  still  exist  under 
other  names.  Whoever  will  have  the 
impudence  to  assert  boldly,  and  trick 
it  cleverly,  that  he  has  direct  inter- 
course with  the  world  of  spirits,  will 
not  lack  believers,  followers,  nor  almost 
worshippers. 

You  may,  in  your  fancy,  once 
more,  and  for  the  last  time,  Eusebius, 
dance  round  the  Maypole  in  an  ac- 
count of  "  May  Fair."  May  Fair  was 
once  distant  enough  from  City  habita- 
tion. "  Where  Apsley  House  now 
stands  was  a  low  inn,  called  the 
Hercules  Pillars."  Heroic  and  classic 
reminiscences  still  attach  to  the  spot. 
You  have  there  the  statue  of  Achilles, 
and  near  to  the  old  watering-place, 
"the  Triumphant  Chariot,"  stands  the 
great  conqueror's,  Apsley  House.  May 
Fair  was  the  site  of  a  fair  ;  and  there, 
surviving  the  animosity  and  potency 
of  the  Puritans,  was  the  Maypole 
again  erected  in  1661.  Not  only  the 
Maypole,  but  fairs  became  a  nui- 
sance. There  was  a  magnificent  May- 
pole of  enormous  height ;  the  Duke  of 
York  ordered  the  sailors  to  officiate  in 
erecting  it,  to  the  sound  of  drums  and 
trumpets.  "In  1717  it  was  carted 
away  to  Wanstead  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Newton,  and  there  set  up  to 
support  the  largest  telescope  in  the 


world,  which  had  been  presented  to 
the  Royal  Society  by  a  French  mem- 
ber, M.  Huyon."  This  was  its  apo- 
theosis, if  I  may  so  call  its  celestial 
inclination.  It  was  highly  honoured 
at  last,  for  philosophy,  Urania  herself, 
leaned  upon  it,  and  learned  from  it  to 
turn  an  upward  ken  to  the  vast  hea- 
vens. With  the  fair,  the  old  puppet- 
shows  are  gone.  Are  there  any  in 
existence  yet,  Eusebius  ?  How  they 
delighted  us  when  boys  !  It  is  some- 
thing to  speak  of,  that  one  lived  in 
the  days  of  puppet-shows.  Had  such 
puppet-shows  as  we  have  seen,  been 
in  the  palmy  days  of  Rome,  they  had 
become  better  dates  than  the  "  Con- 
sule  Planco."  Perhaps  they  were  as 
rational  as  the  Olympic  Games.  I 
wish  the  people  had  a  few  of  these  old 
amusements.  Amusement  can  swal- 
low and  innocently  digest  many  follies. 
If  you  will  not  allow  a  few  of  the 
minor  kind,  the  disposition  to  have 
them  may  be  apt  to  break  out  into 
great  madness.  In  1701,  Brookfield 
revelry  was  not  abolished.  How  al- 
most incredible  is  it,  that  "  eleven 
million  pounds  of  tobacco  were  then 
annually  consumed  by  a  population  of 
five  millions."  But  May  Fair  had 
another  celebrity,  more  disgraceful 
than  poor  mummers  and  puppet-show- 
men. "  When  fashion,"  observes  Mr 
Knight,  "  obtained  possession  of  the 
site,  the  form  of  profligacy  was  changed. 
The  thimble- riggers  were  gone ;  but  Dr 
Keith  married  all  comers  to  his  chapel, 
'  with  no  questions  asked,'  for  a  guinea, 
any  time  after  midnight  till  four  in  the 
afternoon."  There  is  no  Dr  Keith  now, 
and  May  Fair  is  more  respectable. 

u  There  are  few  books,"  says  the 
author  of  Once  upon  a  Time,  "  that  I 
take  up  more  willingly  in  a  vacant 
half-hour,  than  the  scraps  of  biogra- 
phy which  Aubrey,  the  antiquary, 
addressed  to  Anthony  a  Wood  ;  and 
which  were  published  from  the  origi- 
nal manuscripts  in  the  Ashmolean 
Museum,  in  1813."  John  Aubrey  was 
the  Boswell  of  Anthony  a  Wood.  He 
appears  to  have  been  one  of  those 
wanderers  whom  I  have  elsewhere 
described,  as  driven  out  of  the  com- 
mon walk,  cares,  and  prudences  of 
life,  by  some  troubles  of  a  domestic 
kind,  and  reverses  of  fortune,  which, 
unsettling  slightly  the  balance  of  the 
mind,  sets  the  brain  upon  a  little,  and 


1855.]  Once  upon 

the  foot  upon  much,  wandering.  Such 
are  ever  restless  and  busy,  so  was 
John  Aubrey.  "  He  lived  about  in 
country  houses  with  kind  squires,  with 
whom  he  took  his  diet  and  sweet 
otiums."  His  love  was  to  make  notes 
of  people  and  things.  A  pleasant  ac- 
quaintance now  is  John  Aubrey,  per- 
haps pleasanter  than  when  he  gossiped 
with  Mr  Evelyn  and  Mr  Isaac  Wal- 
ton. Born  in  1626,  "  he  lived  seventy- 
two  years  in  the  greatest  period  of 
transition  in  our  English  history." 
Something  of  that  period  he  tells  in 
this  anecdote  of  Hollar,  the  celebrated 
engraver,  who  went  into  the  Low 
Countries,  and  remained  till  1649. 
"  I  remember  he  told  me  that  when 
he  first  came  into  England,  which 
was  a  serene  time  of  peace,  the  people, 
both  poor  and  rich,  did  look  cheer- 
fully ;  but  at  his  return  he  found  the 
countenances  of  the  people  all  changed 
— melancholy,  spiteful  as  if  bewitch- 
ed." That  "  spiteful  as  if  bewitched" 
is  an  admirable  expression.  It  epi- 
tomises the  history  of  the  times. 
Alas !  that  fame,  too,  should  be  spite- 
ful, and  keep  back  in  her  hiding- 
places  names  that  ought  to  live.  We 
only  know  this  malevolence  by  a  few 
accidental  discoveries,  when  fame  or 
her  spite  was  asleep,  and  such  anti- 
quarians as  John  Aubrey  took  the 
keys,  and  rummaged  the  odd  places 
where  they  had  been  put  away.  Here 
we  have  some  lines  of  Sir  Robert 
Acton,  or  Ay  ton,  that  ought  ever  to 
carry  with  them  the  spirit  or  image 
of  him  that  thought  them  and  made 
them.  They  have  been  closely  copied 
by  Burns. 

"  I  do  confess  thouVt  smooth  and  fair, 

And  I  might  have  gone  near  to  love  thee, 
Had  I  not  found  the  slightest  prayer 

That  lips  could  move,  had  power  to  move 

thee ; 

But  I  can  let  thee  now  alone, 
As  worthy  to  be  loved  by  none. 
I  do  confess  thou'rt  sweet,  yet  find 

Thee  such  an  unthrift  of  thy  sweets, 
Thy  favours  are  but  like  the  wind, 
Which  kisseth  everything  it  meets; 
And  since  thou  canst  love  more  than  one, 
Thou'rt  worthy  to  be  kissed  by  none." 

There  is  another  song,  which  is 
everywhere  heard  to  this  day,  which 
every  heart  responds  to  in  tenderness. 
Burns  said  he  took  it  down  from  an 
old  man's  singing ;  but  it  was  consi- 
dered to  have  been  his  own.  The 


a  Time. 


63 


"  Bannatyne  Club"  discovered  it  to 
be  by  Sir  Robert  Ay  ton.  The  Doric 
of  Burns  has  but  slightly  altered  it. 

"  Should  old  acquaintance  be  forgot, 

And  never  thought  upon, 
The  flames  of  love  extinguished, 

And  freely  past  and  gone  ? 
Is  thy  kind  heart  now  grown  so  cold, 

In  that  loving  breast  of  thine, 
That  thou  couldst  never  once  reflect 

On  old  langsyne  ?  " 

Here  is  another  scrap,  precious  and 
vital,  rescued  from  the  mummy  hand 
of  buried  Time.  It  was  a  true  child 
of  poetry  that  would  not  yield  a  jot 
of  his  spirit  to  misery,  and  could  in  a 
cellar  write  such  lines  as  these. 
u  Poor  Lovelace,  as  he  is  called,  wrote 
them  ;  "  but  not  so  poor  after  all,  nor 
so  miserable,  for  he  could  at  will 
count  his  riches  by  his  rhymes. 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 

Nor  iron  bars  a  cage  ; 
Minds  innocent  and  quiet  take 

That  for  an  hermitage. 
If  I  have  freedom  in  my  love, 

And  in  my  soul  am  free, 
Angels  alone  that  soar  above 

Enjoy  such  liberty." 

Every  man  is  apt  to  calculate  an- 
other's miseries  by  the  arithmetic 
table  of  his  own  idiosyncrasy.  I  ve- 
rily believe,  Eusebius,  it  not  unfre- 
quently  happens  that  the  nominally 
miserable  would  not  change  lots  with 
the  nominally  happy. 

Andrew  Marvel  would  not  drink  in 
company,  not  even  of  the  friends  of 
his  own  party — not  that  he  disliked  a 
glass,  but  he  feared  what  he  might 
say  when  the  liquor  was  in  and  the 
caution  out.  There  is  a  sad  history 
of  those  times  in  that  prudence  of 
Andrew  Marvel.  But  the  succeeding 
times,  after  the  Restoration,  made  up 
for  all  former  abstinence.  The  poets 
whom  John  Aubrey  was  acquainted 
with  were  given  to  jollity,  and  there 
was  a  "  chiel  amang  'em  taking 
notes,"  and  the  antiquarians  now 
"  prent  'em."  It  is  extraordinary  that 
gravity  of  character  was  not  entirely 
upset  and  thrown  in  the  dirt  by  in- 
ebriety. "These  poets  have  left  a 
Bacchanalian  odour  behind  them. 
But  there  is  a  smack  of  tipsy  jollity 
in  every  grade  of  society,  as  if  in  de- 
fiance of  the  Puritans." 

If  Denham,  who,  according  to  Au- 
brey, "  was  generally  temperate  in 
drinking,"  was  betrayed  on  one  occa- 


64 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


[July, 


sion,  after  being  "  merry  at  the  ta- 
vern," into  the  fancy  "  to  get  a  plas- 
terer's brush  and  a  pot  of  ink,  and 
blot  out  all  the  signs  between  Temple 
Bar  and  Charing  Cross,"  what  shall 
we  say  of  Dr  Butler,  a  famous  physi- 
cian, who,  our  veritable  record  tells, 
"  would  many  times  go  to  the  tavern, 
but  drink  by  himself;  about  nine  or 
ten  at  night  old  Nell  comes  for  him, 
with  a  candle  and  lanthorn,  and  says, 
4  Come  home,  you  drunken  beast !'" 
Sir  John  Denham,  however,  had  a 
noble  heart,  and  has  one  anecdote  re- 
corded of  him,  which  is  large  in  cha- 
rity enough  to  cover  a  multitude  of 
follies.  "  George  Withers  got  Den- 
ham's  estate  from  the  Parliament. 
After  the  Restoration,  Withers  is  in 
danger,  for  he  had  written  bitter 
things  against  the  Royalists.  Sir 
John  Denham  went  to  the  king,  and 
desired  his  Majesty  not  to  hang  him, 
for  that  whilst  George  Withers  lived, 
he,  Sir  John,  should  not  be  the  worst 
poet  in  England."  The  kind  heart  is 
as  admirable  as  the  ready  wit.  Anec- 
dotes are  told  of  similar  kindnesses 
during  and  after  the  Civil  Wars. 
Oliver,  the  Protector,  himself  even 
loved  the  company  of  Sir  James  Long, 
a  colonel  of  the  horse  in  a  Royalist 
brigade,  and  went  hawking  with  him. 
The  Cavaliers  had  in  them  a  spirit  of 
the  old  chivalry,  well  described  by 
Ariosto — 

"  O  gran  bonta  de'  Cavalieri  antiqui ! 
Eran  rivali,  eran  de  fe"1  diversi, 
E  si  sentian  degli  aspri  colpi  iniqui 
Per  tutta  la  persona  anco  dolersi ; 
Eppur  per  selve  oscure  e  calli  obliqui 
Insieme  van,  senza  sospetto  aversi." 

— Canto  i.,  st.  xxii. 

I  venture  a  translation. 

O  generous  hearts  of  Cavaliers  of  old, 

Who,  hostile  in  their  arms  and  in  their 
creed, 

In  battered  limbs  and  bruises  manifold, 
Feeling  the  prowess  of  each  other's  deed, 

Did  in  dark  woods  and  wilds  together  hold 
In  trustful  guise  their  unsuspecting  speed. 

It  may  fairly  be  supposed  that  such 
a  brain  as  Aubrey's  would  gather  a  few 
improbabilities  from  Hearsay,  that 
notable  liar.  Such  is  the  tale  of 
Chief-Justice  Popham.  "  He  for 
several  years  addicted  himself  but 
little  to  the  study  of  the  laws,  but  to 
profligate  company,  and  was  wont  to 
take  a  purse  with  them ! "  It  is  told, 
also,  that  being  over-persuaded  by 


his  wife  to  give  over  these  wild 
courses,  being  then  about  thirty  years 
old,  he  did  so,  and  desired  her  "  to 
provide  a  very  good  entertainment 
for  his  camerades,  to  take  leave  of 
them."  Mr  Knight,  by  recommenda- 
tion, delivers  over  the  Lord  Chief- 
Justice  to  the  mercy  of  the  painters 
for  two  pictures,  "  The  Barrister 
at  the  Rogues'  Feast,"  and  "The 
Judge  charging  the  Jury  for  the 
Murderer,"  for  defending  whom,  it 
is  said,  he  received  a  park  and  a 
manor.  Two  great  judges  of  our 
land,  Eusebius,  appear  in  leave-tak- 
ings from  societies  of  a  very  opposite 
character:  Lord  Chief- Justice  Pop- 
ham  of  rogues,  Judge  Blackstone  of 
the  Muses.  The  farewell  of  the  latter 
was  suitable  to  the  company,  for  it 
was  in  verse.  It  is  to  be  hoped  the 
former  took  leave  not  according  to 
the  profession  of  his  society,  in  the 
division  of  spoils. 

The  second  volume  commences  with 
a  dialogue  between  Addison  and  Steele 
at  the  printing-office  of  Mr  Buckley, 
who  bears  a  part  in  it.  It  is  upon 
the  subject  of  the  imposition  of  the 
newspaper  stamp.  This  was  in  1712. 
Now,  in  1855,  there  is  an  alarm  at 
the  taking  off  the  stamp.  Mr  Buck- 
ley boasts—"  Look  at  my  printing- 
office,  and  see  if  we  are  not  improved. 
Why,  Sir  Roger  L'Estrange,  when  he 
set  up  the  Intelligencer  fifty  years 
ago,  gave  notice  that  he  would  publish 
his  one  book  a-week,  '  to  be  published 
every  Thursday,  and  finished  upon  the 
Tuesday  night,  leaving  Wednesday 
entire  for  the  printing  it  off;'  and 
now  I,  gentlemen — Heaven  forbid  I 
should  boast — can  print  your  Spectator 
off  every  day,  and  not  even  want  the 
copy  more  than -three  days  before  the 
publication.  Think  of  that,  gentle- 
men, a  half  sheet  every  day.  A 
hundred  years  hence  nobody  will 
believe  it."  The  incredulity  of  the 
"hundred  years  hence" — that  is,  in 
1812 — on  the  fact,  would  have  aston- 
ished the  ghost  of  Mr  Buckley,  could 
he  have  been  called  up  from  the 
shades,  and  placed  in  one  of  the  print- 
ing-offices of  that  day.  Miracu- 
lous, indeed,  would  appear  the  work 
of  Printing-house  Square  in  1855. 
Yet  the  marvel  of  readers  must  pre- 
cede, or  be  simultaneous  with,  the 
mechanical  improvements  in  printing. 


1855.] 


"  Ye're  a  wonderful  man,  Mr  Buck- 
ley, and  we  are  all  very  grateful  to 
you,"  says  the  laughing  essayist ; 
"  but  talking  of  a  hundred  years 
hence,  who  can  say  that  our  moral 
and  mechanical  improvements  are  to 
stop  here?  I  can  imagine  a  time 
when  every  handicraft  in  the  country 
shall  read  ;  when  the  Irish  chairman 
shall  read ;  and  when  your  Intelli- 
gencer shall  hear  of  a  great  battle  on 
the  Wednesday  morning,  and  have  a 
full  account  of  it  published  on  the 
Thursday." 

I  doubt,  Eusebius,  if  our  friend,  the 
author  of  Once  upon  a  Time,  has  made 
enough  here  of  his  comparison  of  old 
with  present  days,  either  as  to  print- 
ing or  reading.  For  instance,  in  this 
case  of  hearing  of  a  battle  on  Wednes- 
day, and  having  an  account  published 
of  it  on  Thursday,  we  not  only  hear 
of  a  battle,  but  have  a'printed  account 
of  one  that  took  place,  only  a  few 
hours  before,  three  thousand  miles  off. 
Nay,  more  ! — in  a  day  or  two  we 
have  an  exact,  or  rather  many  exact, 
pictures  of  the  scenes  of  action,  taken 
accurately  on  the  spot,  transferred  to 
the  pages  of  a  newspaper,  and  circu- 
lated by  thousands  upon  thousands 
over  England  in  a  few  hours  among 
multitudes  of  readers  never  dreamed 
of.  Would  you  not  like,  Eusebius,  to 
call  up  the  shade  of  Mr  Buckley,  and 
put  into  his  hands  an  Illustrated  News, 
and  inform  him  when  and  where  the 
scenes  were  acted  which  he  sees  re- 
presented to  the  truth  with  such  ex- 
quisite skill?  Nor  would  the  poor 
Buckley  shade  have  cause  to  boast 
much  of  his  material.  I  had  in  my 
possession,  and  gave  it  away  to  a 
collector,  one  of  the  numbers  of  the 
/Spectator.  It  would  be  now,  so  bad 
was  the  paper,  quite  unfit  to  lay  upon 
a  breakfast-table.  The  wit  of  those 
days  was  "  finer  wove "  than  the 
material  on  which  it  appeared.  (Exit 
the  ghost  of  Mr  Buckley.) 

Trivia  —  the  name  of  the  pure 
Diana — witnessing  to  all  impure  ways. 
We  learn  that  the  last  of  the  ancient 
shoeblacks  was  seen  about  the  year 
1820.  I  suspect  the  blacking  before 
that  period  was  not  of  that  superior 
quality,  the  advertisement  of  whose 
excellence  was  painted  on  the  great 
44  Pyramid,"  as  travellers  record.  "  In 
1754,"  says  our  author,  "  the  polite 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXVII. 


Once  upon  a  Time.  55 

Chesterfield  and  the  witty  Walpole 
felt  it  no  degradation   to  the  work 
over  which   they  presided,   that    it 
should  be  jocose  about  his  (the  shoe- 
black's) fraternity,  and  hold  that  his 
profession  was  more  dignified  than 
that  of  the  author."    "  Gay  makes 
4  the  black  youth '  his  mythological 
descent  from  the  goddess  of  mud,  and 
his  importance  in  a  muddy  city  the 
subject  of  the  longest  episode  in  his 
amusing  Trivia:'1    The  fraternity  did 
certainly,  Eusebius,  maintain  a  kind 
of  dignity,  for  I  remember  hearing  a 
gentleman  "in   a  muddy  city"  re- 
monstrate with  one  of  the  "profes- 
sion," that  he  had  either  cleaned  the 
wrong  shoes  or  cleaned  ill,  and  was 
much  amused  by  the   reply,   made 
with  an  air  of  great  indifference,  "  Oh, 
it  must  have  been  a  mistake  of  my 
clerk's."      The    shoeblack   of   those 
days  went  in  despair  to  the  poor- 
house  when  streets  were  paved ;  "  and 
his  boys,  having  a  keener  eye  than 
their  father  to  the  wants  of  the  com- 
munity, took  up  the  trade  which  he 
most  hated,  and  applied  themselves 
to  the  diligent  removal  of  the  mud  in 
an  earlier  stage  of  its  accumulation — 
they  swept  crossings  instead  of  sweep- 
ing shoes."    The  trade  is  happily  re- 
vived, however,  and,  to  give  it  its 
dignity,  if  he  has  not  always  '4  fine 
linen,"  the~'  shoeblack  is  clothed  in 
scarlet.    Before  1750  the  road  (the 
only  road,  we  are  told)  to  the  Houses 
of  Parliament  was  so  bad  that,  when 
the  King  went  to  Parliament,  fagots 
were  thrown  in  to  fill  up  the  ruts. 
This  was  nearly  a  century  before  the 
wooden  blocks,  which  gave  occasion 
to    the    witty  proposal    of   Sydney 
Smith  to  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of 
St  Paul's,  that  they  should  "lay  their 
heads  together  to  improve  the  ways." 
Among  the  street  obstructions   are 
noticed  the  gallows,  and  the  pillory, 
and  the  foot- ball  players.    It  is  in- 
conceivable to  us,  who  witness  the 
serious  stir  of  business  now  in  those 
places,   how    the    foot -ball    players 
should  have  been  a  nuisance  little 
more  than  a  century  ago  in  Cheap- 
side,  Covent  Garden,  and  the  Strand. 
But  how  few  of  the  living  generation 
have  seen   a  pillory!    You  and  I, 
Eusebius,   have  seen  pillories  more 
than  once  or  twice.    We  read  of  it 
now  as  a  barbarity,  and  youngsters 


66 

ask  what  it  was.  The  foot-ball  must 
have  been  a  savage  game,  .which 
spared  neither^ clothes  nor  limbs  of  any 
passers-by.  D'Avenant's  Frenchman 
thus  complains  of  the  streets  of  Lon- 
don :  "  I  would  make  a  safe  retreat, 
but  that  methinks  I  am  stopped  by 
one  of  your  heroic  games  called  foot- 
ball, which  I  conceive  (under  your 
favour)  not  very  conveniently  civil  in 
the  streets,  especially  in  such  irregu- 
lar and  narrow  roads  as  Crooked 
Lane."  In  the  days  of  Elizabeth  the 
sturdy  'prentices  played  this  game  in 
the  streets,  and  were  not  very  par- 
ticular whom  they  deposited  in  a  ditch. 
But  street- walking  was  not  then  much 
the  fashion.  u  The  red-heeled  shoes" 
of  the  time  of  Anne  were  as  little 
suited  for  walking  as  the  "pantoffles" 
of  Elizabeth,  "  whereof  some  be  of 
white  leather,  some  of  black,  and 
some  of  red,  some  of  green,  rayed, 
carved,  cut,  stitched  all  over  with 
silk,  and  laid  on  with  gold,  silver,  and 
suchlike."  Perhaps  the  necessity  of 
walking  was  considered  a  vulgarity. 
To  wear,  or  rather  invent  such  shoes 
as  were  unfit  to  walk  in,  was  better 
than  the  Chinese  method  of  mutilat- 
ing the  feet,  and  ingeniously  persuad- 
ing both  man  and  woman-kind  that  it 
was  the  beauty  of  gentility. 

44  These  fine  shoes  belonged  to  the 
transition  state  between  the  horse  and 
the  coach."  We  have  often  thought 
contemptuously  of  our  forefathers  for 
their  want  of  taste,  shown  in  their  nar- 
row streets.  The  fact  is,  everywhere  in 
Paris,  that  empire  of  fashion,  as  well 
as  in  London,  streets  were  narrow 
till  the  era  of  coaches  came ;  and 
coaches  were  at  first  poor  affairs, 
44  uneasily  hung,  and  so  narrow  that 
I  took  them,"  says  D'Avenant,  u  for 
sedans  on  wheels."  We  owe  com- 
fortable carriages  and  wide  streets  to 
the  Fire  of  London.  Macaulay,  in  his 
History,  speaks  disparagingly  of  the 
refinement  of  our  ancestors,  describing 
the  narrowness  of  the  streets  in  which 
they  lived.  He  instances  Bristol ;  but 
if  he  had  viewed  the  present  remains 
of  almost  costly  grandeur  of  the  inte- 
rior of  their  houses,  he  might  have 
drawn  another  inference.  It  is  curious 
to  see  how  we  gild  over  our  barest  ne- 
cessities ;  in  more  homely  phrase,  put 
44  a  good  face  upon  a  bad  matter" — out- 
ward show  to  inward  beggary.  The 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


[July, 


coachman's  box  and  hammer  -  cloth, 
which  we  all  so  well  remember  to  have 
seen  so  fine — what  was  their  origin  ? 
44  In  the  times  of  William  III.  and 
Anne,  we  invariably  find  him  (the 
coachman)  sitting  on  a  box  ;  this 
thing  was  for  use,  and  not  for  finery. 
Here,  or  in  a  leather  pouch  appended 
to  it,  the  careful  man  carried  a  ham- 
mer, pincers,  nails,  ropes,  and  other 
appliances,  in  case  of  need  ;  and  the 
hammer-cloth  was  devised  to  conceal 
these  necessary  but  unsightly  remedies 
for  broken  wheels  and  shivered  panels." 
Such  was  the  state  of  the  streets. 
But  sturdy  chairmen,  in  arid  out  of 
livery,  carmen,  and  other  unrestrained 
44  bullying  and  fighting  ministers  of 
transit,"  made  dangerous  mobs,  ren- 
dering the  passage  of  carriages  no 
easy  luxury.  These  Fielding  termed 
44  the  Fourth  Estate."  These  were  the 
bludgeon -men  who  influenced  elec- 
tions. How  much  do  we  learn  from 
Hogarth !  There  was  a  strange  jumble 
in  those  days  of  liberty  and  tyranny. 
There  was  a  liberty  which  was  a 
license  to  do  evil,  and  a  tyranny  which 
touched  the  middle  class — that  exer- 
cised by  those  above  them,  and  by 
those  below  them.  The  44  brutish- 
ness  "  of  the  44  fourth  estate  "  is  de- 
scribed by  Fielding.  44  He  is  speak- 
ing most  seriously  when  he  complains 
that  4  the  mob '  attack  well-dressed 
river  passengers  4  with  all  kinds  of 
scurrilous,  abusive,  and  indecent 
terms;'  that  they  insult  foot  pas- 
sengers by  day,  and  knock  them  down 
by  night ;  that  no  coach  can  pass 
along  the  streets  without  the  utmost 
difficulty  and  danger,  because  the  car- 
men draw  their  waggons  across  the 
road,  while  they  laugh  at  the  sufferers 
from  the  alehouse  window ;  and 
finally,  that  they  insult  ladies  of 
fashion,  and  drive  them  from  the  park 
of  a  Sunday  evening."  Fielding  fur- 
ther tells  us  that  4t  in  1753,  in  the 
month  of  August,"  he  44  was  almost 
fatigued  to  death  with  several  long 
examinations,  relating  to  five  different 
murders,  all  committed  within  the 
space  of  a  week,  by  different  gangs 
of  street  robbers." 

Civilisation,  whether  it  be  art  or 
science,  is  of  slow  growth  ;  nor  is  ex- 
tinction of  crime  sudden.  There  has 
been  at  length  a  recognition  of  the 
existence  of  that  unseen  personage, 


1855.]  Once  upon 

The  Public,  whose  life  and  property  is 
to  be  cared  for.  The  art  of  governing 
has  at  length,  after  much  endurance  of 
evil,  invented  the  police  system.  There 
are  street  brutalities  enough  now. 
Brutality  generates  brutality ;  there 
is  a  large  quantity  to  be  got  rid  of. 
The  police  are  accumulating  know- 
ledge both  of  the  causes  and  the 
whereabouts.  Comparing  our  days 
with  those  described,  we  think  our- 
selves fortunate.  Yet,  perhaps,  half 
a  century  hence,  these  our  days  may 
be  recorded  as  days  of  brutality. 
Without  question,  the  banditti  of 
Italy,  Spain,  and  other  countries, 
were  and  are  the  legitimate  descend- 
*  ants  of  the  u  Condottieri"  of  former 
days.  Our  street  villanies  may  make 
their  boast  of  ancestral  notorieties. 
With  our  new  engine,  the  police,  they 
ought  to  be  in  progress  towards  ex- 
tinction. It  is  the  fault  of  the  Gov- 
ernment if  they  are  allowed  to  get 
ahead  of  civilisation.  But  it  is  much 
to  be  feared  that  the  abominable 
ticket- of- leave  system  is  daily,  hourly, 
generating  crime  to  a  great  extent. 
I  rejoice,  Eusebius,  to  see  this  noticed 
in  the  House  of  Lords  by  Lord 
Lyndhurst,  who  quotes  the  strong 
language  of  that  able  police  magis- 
trate, Mr  Jardine.  It  should  seem 
that  the  noises  of  the  streets  were 
perhaps  a  greater  nuisance  two  cen- 
turies ago  than  now.  Mr  Charles 
Knight,  in  proof,  quotes  a  dialogue 
from  Jonson's  /Silent  Woman ;  and 
cites  Hogarth  to  speak  of  its  continu- 
ance by  the  wondrous  eloquence  of 
his  pencil.  The  noise-hater  was  the 
ridiculous  of  many  times.  His  sen- 
sitive and  feeble  cries  have  at  length 
been  heard,  and  tender  ears  have  had 
the  benefit  of  modern  legislation. 
You  and  I,  Eusebius,  are  of  this 
"irritable  genus,"  the  noise-haters — 
you  out  of  pity  for  others,  I  out  of 
my  own  individual  suffering.  I  re- 
member when  some,  as  I  then 
thought,  abominable  composer  set 
the  London  cries  to  music,  thereby 
tending  to  perpetuate  them.  Silly 
was  the  sing-song  affectation :  full- 
grown  men  and  women,  muslined  and 
silk-stocking'd,  drawled  out  with 
pathetic  voices,  u  Come,  buy  my 
white  sand,"  or  other  such  nonsense. 
Our  author  thinks  we  were  at  one 
time  a  nation  famous  for  music,  be- 


a  Time. 


67 


; 


cause  it  waa  the  practice  of  barbers' 
'prentices  to  delight  their  customers 
either  with  the  fiddle  or  guitar.  A 
pamphleteer,  in  1597,  says,  "  Turning 
themselves  to  periwig- making,  they 
have  forgot  their  cittern  and  their 
music."  "  Haifa  century  later  even, 
barbers,  coblers,  and  plowmen  were 
enumerated  as  *  the  heirs  of  music.'"  I 
should  doubt,  however,  if  the  people 
were,  as  they  are  here  called,  "  the  heirs 
of  poetry  as  well  as  music."  Nor  can 
the  authority  of  Isaac  Walton  estab- 
lish as  a  fact  that  the  milkmaids  sung 
the  madrigals  and  sweet  songs  which 
he  gives  them.  Morley,  as  Mi- 
Knight  observes,  writing  in  1597, 
speaks  of  the  astonishment  of  all  pre- 
sent that  he  could  not  sing  at  a 
supper-party.  "  Yea,  some  whisper- 
ed to  others,  demanding  how  I  was 
brought  up."  "In  a  condition  of 
society  like  this,  the  sweet  music  must 
have  been  worth  listening  to."  A 
**  noise  of  musicians,"  as  a  little  band 
was  called,  was  to  be  found  every- 
where. If  their  descendants  are  our 
organ-grinders,  it  is  a  very  appro- 
priate naming,  UA  noise  of  musi- 
cians." The  terra  reminds  me  of  a 
very  quaint  observation  once  made 
by  a  humorous  friend,  in  company 
where  the  relative  merits  of  painting 
and  music  were  discussed.  He  very 
drily  dropt  in  these  few  very  meaning 
words,  "  Music  would  be  very  well  if 
it  were  not  for  the  noise" 

Perhaps  it  is  to  be  lamented  that 
ballad-singing  is  extinct — and  why  is 
it  extinct  ?  Have  poor-laws,  vagrant 
acts,  beadles,  and  constables,  put 
down  the  unoffending  race,  that,  if 
not  always  dealing  in  the  best  poetry, 
seldom  failed  in  good  honest  senti- 
ment? I  remember  in  my  younger 
days  hearing  Dibdin's  excellent  songs 
sung  unceasingly  in  our  streets,  and 
have  even  believed  they  did  their  part 
in  keeping  up  a  true  spirit  in  our 
navy.  Poor  Dibdin !  he  had  a  poor 
small  pension  in  his  latter  days  ;  but 
when  the  Whigs  came  in  they  took  it 
from  him,  and  he  did  not  long  sur- 
vive the  loss.  There  was  the  very 
marrow  of  good  sense  in  that  saying 
of  the  wise  statesman,  "  Let  who  will 
make  the  laws,  only  let  me  make  the 
ballads."  What  historian  can  solve 
this  difficulty  —  were  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  sung  about  the  streets — were 


G8 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


[July, 


Chevy  Chase,  and  other  such  ballads, 
in  the  people's  voices  ?  We  know,  at 
any  rate,  that  the  Jacobite  songs  had 
a  wondrous  effect.  Popular  ballads 
are  gone,  and  many  other  popular 
good  things  with  them,  and  people 
seem  more  care-worn  than  books  de- 
scribe them  in  days  past.  It  would 
be  a  good  thing  to  see  a  little  more 
merry-making,  and  the  good  old  bal- 
lad-singing fashion  brought  back. 

It  is  noticed  that  "a  noise  of  musi- 
cians" were  sagacioushunters  of  feasts. 
But  this  was  in  the  days  before  feasts 
were  occasions  of  drunkenness  and 
gluttony.  As  drunkenness  increased, 
music  went  out.  Mendicancy  had, 
however,  at  all  times  its  e'xecrable 
sounds.  Was  it  upon  a  known 
principle  that  acts  of  charity  are  not 
performed  with  cheerfulness?  Nor 
was  the  value  of  peace  and  quiet- 
ness misunderstood.  "  The  principle 
of  extorting  money  by  hideous  sounds 
was  carried  as  far  as  it  could  go  by  a 
fellow  of  the  name  of  Keeling,  called 
Blind  Jack,  who  performed  on  the 
flageolet  with  his  nose."  I  suspect, 
Eusebius,  that  this  Blind  Jack  was  a 
leader  of  a  fashion,  and  that  if  he 
received  a  few  kicks,  as  a  nuisance,  in 
return  he  took  his  betters  by  the  nose; 
for  these  nose-flageolets  were  not  the 
sole  property  of  Blind  Jack.  When 
I  was  a  boy,  my  father  gave  me  one 
which  he  found  in  an  old  house  in  the 
country,  which  came  into  his  posses- 
sion, and  which  had  belonged  to  the 
gay  "  man  about  town"  who  received 
the  post-office  order  in  1745  for 
horses  and  guide  from  London  to 
Bath  and  back,  as  I  mentioned  in  the 
last  letter.  It  was  of  ebony  (a  walk- 
ing-stick), with  ivory  top,  with  two 
holes  for  the  nostrils.  According  to 
old  Norman  law,  which  would  be  best 
off, — Blind  Jack,  who  took  Fashion 
by  the  nose,  or  Fashion  that  kicked 
Blind  Jack?  The  Normans,  like  peo- 
ple of  honour,  provided  a  penalty  of 
five  sous  for  a  lug  by  the  nose,  and  ten 
for  un  coup  au  derriere.  But  Fashion, 
imperative  Fashion,  Eusebius,  is  desi- 
rous of  introducing  to  your  notice  quite 
another  sort  of  personage.  Here  is  be- 
fore me  Walpole1  s  World  of  Fashion. 
Horace  Walpole  !  Fashion's  Epitome, 
and  unwittingly,  or  rather  carelessly,  its 
true  historian.  His  letters,  always 
witty  and  most  amusing,  picture  him- 


self, and  in  himself,  as  the  facile  prin- 
ceps,  the  world  of  Fashion  of  the  day. 
His  wit  sometimes  touched  upon  wis- 
dom, but  glanced  off  as  if  ashamed  of 
such  a  grave  respectability.  A  speci- 
men: "In  a  regutar  monarchy  the 
folly  of  the  prince  gives  the  tone ;  in 
a  downright  tyranny,  folly  dares  give 
itself  no  airs :  it  is  in  a  wanton  over- 
grown commonwealth  that  whim  and 
debauchery  intrigue  together."  The 
age  made  Walpole  rather  than  he  the 
age  of  Fashion.  Too  frivolous  for  any 
serious  aim,  what  would  have  been 
other  men's  idleness  was  his  industry. 
His  was  the  u  otiosa  sedulitas."  He 
was  born  to  a  position  which  made 
poor  qualifications  more  serviceable 
to  him  than  great  ones.  There  was 
little  really  good  in  him  ;  but  his  wit, 
the  indifference  of  his  virtues,  such  as 
they  were,  even  gave  his  wit  a  light- 
ness that  made  it  delightfully  current. 
Had  it  possessed  any  weight  of  re- 
spectable seriousness,  it  would  never 
have  floated  upon  the  surface  of  the 
society  into  which  he  was  born,  and 
for  which  he  held  himself  to  be  gifted. 
His  deficiencies  nevertheless  were 
great,  because  they  were  in  all,  or 
nearly  all,  his  qualifications.  That 
which  he  most  prided  himself  in,  his 
taste,  and  which,  at  first  view,  might 
appear  most  needful  to  a  leader  of 
fashion,  never  could  have  been  re- 
spectable, for  taste  is  the  result  of 
good  sense  and  feeling  united.  A 
spurious  taste  gains  credit  by  assump- 
tion of  fastidiousness.  Brought  to  any 
decent  test,  Walpole's  never  amounted 
to  more  than  a  plausible  whim.  The 
world  believed  in  him ;  and  this  court- 
ship of  the  world  ever  fed  his  vanity, 
and  encouraged  him,  through  that  his 
vanity,  to  make  displays  of  bad  taste, 
which  the  indulgence  or  ignorance  of 
the  world  he  lived  in  applauded,  and 
which  a  soberer  age  for  the  most  part 
pronounced  ridiculous  or  contemptible. 
Perhaps  his  secret  unhappiness  in  the 
midst  of  his  success  was  a  suspicion  his 
cleverness  could  scarcely  help  enter- 
taining,that  there  was  error  and  a  falsity 
in  all  he  did.  Did  he  doubt  the  vitality 
of  the  atmosphere  of  admiration  which 
he  daily  inhaled  ?  Whatever  were 
his  own  secret  suspicions,  he  had  the 
cunning  to  establish  in  his  generation 
the  credit  of  his  taste  by  a  graceful 
denial  of  it,  and  a  light  and  glittering 


1855.] 

playfulness  which  made  that  denial 
a  modest  assumption.  He  wished 
the  world  to  know  that  he  did  esti- 
mate himself,  and  intimated  the  posi- 
tion from  which  his  admirers  might 
see  him  to  most  advantage.  He  was 
as  clever  as  he  could  be,  and,  I  fear, 
notwithstanding  Mr  Charles  Knight's 
defence  in  this  respect,  as  heartless  as 
he  affected  to  be.  "lam  writing,  lam 
building — both  works  that  will  outlast 
the  memory  of  battles  and  heroes !"  So 
said  Vanity.  "Truly  I  believe  the  one 
will  as  much  as  the  t'other.  My 
buildings  are  paper,  like  my  writings, 
and  both  will  be  blown  away  ten 
years  after  I  am  dead."  In  this 
speaks  Suspicion.  "  If  they  had  not 
the  substantial  use  of  amusing  me 
while  I  live,  they  would  be  worth 
little  indeed."  Here  is  a  cunning 
assumption  in  a  repudiative  form. 
Can  that  be  worthless,  would  his  ad- 
mirers say,  which  can  amuse  Horace 
Walpole?  That  he  wished  something 
more  than  amusement  while  he  lived, 
is  evident  from  the  fact  that,  though 
he  outlived  three  sets  of  his  own 
battlements,  he  "  nevertheless  con- 
trived, by  tying  up  his  toy- warehouse 
and  its  movables,  with  entails  and 
jointures,  through  several  generations, 
to  keep  the  things  tolerably  entire  for 
nearly  half  a  century  after  he  had  left 
that  state  of  being  "  where  moth  and 
rust  do  corrupt."  His  "  Strawberry 
Hill,"  which  was  Horace  Walpole  in 
lath  and  plaster,  is  gone— so  much  the 
better  for  its  own  glory.  The  eyesore 
removed,  generations  to  come  may 
imagine  it  to  have  been  something 
better  than  it  was.  He  built  Straw- 
berry Hill,  and  embellished  it  with 
bijouterie  for  his  own  glorification.  He 
was  like  a  man  who  built  a  temple  for 
a  deity — such  an  one  as  he  conceived — 
and  daily  walked  into  it  to  worship 
himself,  both  as  builder  and  idol. 
And  both  were  unsubstantial,  trump- 
ery affairs  enough.  But  I  must  not 
forget,  Eusebius,  his  "  World  of 
Fashion."  The  world  of  fashion,  and 
nothing  else  ;  for  he  knew  no  other 
world — that  of  the  middle  classes  he 
ignored.  "  Society  with  him  is  di- 
vided into  two  great  sections  —  the 
aristocracy  and  the  mob."  He  hated 
authors  that  were  out  of  the  pale  of 
fashion.  "Fielding,  Johnson,  Sterne, 
Goldsmith— the  greatest  names  of  his 


Once  upon  a  Time.  69 

day — are  with  him  ridiculous  and  con- 
temptible." "His  feeble  constitution 
compelled  him  to  seek  amusement  in- 
stead of  dissipation ;  and  his  great 
amusement  was  to  look  upon  the 
follies  of  his  associates,  and  to  laugh 
at  them.  He  was  not  at  the  bottom 
an  ill-natured  man,  or  one  without 
feeling.  He  affected  that  insensibility 
which  is  the  exclusive  privilege  of 
high  life — and  long  may  it  continue 
so."  "  When  he  heard  of  Gray's 
death,  in  writing  to  Chute  he  apolo- 
gises for  the  concern  he  feels,  and 
adds,  '  I  thought  that  what  I  had  seen 
of  the  world  had  hardened  my  heart ; 
but  I  find  that  it  had  formed  my  lan- 
guage, not  extinguished  my  tender- 
ness." More  graceful  than  touching — 
more  of  himself  than  of  Gray.  True 
sorrow  needs  no  apology. 

"  Nil  pietas  de  se  dicere  vera  solet." 

Ask  me  not,  Eusebius,  where  I  got 
that  line.  I  know  not.  I  need  not 
tell  you  that  here  pietas  is  affection. 
In  1741,  the  people,  Horace  Wai  pole's 
mob,  and  Fashion,  were  at  issue ;  dire 
was  the  conflict — bludgeon-men  hired 
to  subject  Taste  to  club  law ;  and 
about  what  was  this  war  ?  "  Whether 
the  Italian  school  of  music  should  pre- 
vail, or  the  Anglo- German."  Horace 
Walpole,  according  to  his  nature,  was 
of  the  party  of  "  his  order."  "  Handel 
had  produced  his  great  work,  'The 
Messiah,'  in  1741  at  Co  vent  Garden. 
Fashion  was  against  him,  though  he 
was  supported  by  the  court,  the  mob, 
and  the  poet  of  common  sense.  He 
went  to  Ireland,  and  the  triumph  of 
the  Italian  faction  was  immortalised 
by  Pope."  The  forcible  lines  in  the 
Dunciad  are  a  true  acknowledgment 
of  Handel's  genius  and  supremacy, 
and  warn  the  Empress  Dulness  of  his 
reign. 

"  But  now,  ah  soon,  Rebellion  will  commence, 
If  Music  meanly  borrows  aid  from  sense ; 
Strong  in  new  arms,  so  Giant  Handel  stands, 
Like  bold  Briareus,  with  a  hundred  hands  : 
To  stir,  to  rouse,  to  shake  the  soul  he  comes, 
And  Jove's  own  thunders  follow  Mars's  drums. 
Arrest  him,  Empress,  or  you  sleep  no  more — 
She  heard,  and  drove  him  to  th'  Hibernian 
shore." 

The  love  for  the  theatre  was  not 
confined  to  the  nobility  in  the  days  of 
Walpole.  But  even  good  acting  had 
fashionable  opponents.  The  theatre 


70 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


[July, 


had  its  warfare.    In  nearly  all  mat- 
ters of  real  taste  Walpole  was  wrong. 
That  he  did  not  feel  the  merit  of  Gar- 
rick,  few  will  wonder,  who  know  that 
Garrick's  excellence  was  founded  on 
nature  and  feeling  ;  but  it  vexes  one 
that  Gray  should  have  been,  as  he 
said  himself,  "stiff  in  the  opposition." 
Pope,  as  in  the  case  of  Handel,  was 
right  in  his  judgment  of  Garrick — 
"That  young  man  never  had  his  equal 
as  an  actor,  and  will  never  have  a 
rival."    The  following  is  a  specimen 
of  the  manners  of  play-critics  in  those 
days  :  —  "  There  has  been   a  new 
comedy,    called    the  Foundling,   far 
from  good  ;  but  it  took.   Lord  Hobart 
and  some  more  young  men  made  a 
party  to  damn  it,  merely  for  the  love 
of  damnation.  The  Templars  espoused 
the  play,  and  went  armed  with  sy- 
ringes charged  with  stinking  oil,  and 
with  sticking-plasters ;  but  it  did  not 
come  to  action.     Garrick  was  imper- 
tinent, and  the  pretty  men  gave  over 
their  plot  the  moment  they  grew  to 
be  in  the  right."    There  is  a  regular 
row  at    the    theatre;    bear-garden 
bruisers  are  introduced  to  knock  down 
every  one  that  hissed.     On  this  occa- 
sion, Horace  Walpole  is  delighted  with 
his  own  heroism ;  while  he  affects  to 
shrink  from  its  notoriety,   he   takes 
care  it  shall  be  known.    The  heroism 
consisted  in  his  calling  the  manager, 
Fleetwood,   "  an  impudent  rascal ;" 
upon  which  "  the  whole  pit  huzzaed, 
and  repeated  the  words.    Only  think 
of  my  being  a  popular  orator !  "    But 
the  ringleaders  further  look  to  him 
for  directions.     "  Mr  Walpole,  what 
would  you  please  to  have  us  do  next  ?  " 
How  characteristic  the  finale !    "  I 
sank  down  into  the  box,  and  have 
never  since  ventured  to  set  my  foot 
into  the  playhouse.    The  next  night 
the  uproar  was  repeated  with  greater 
violence,  and  nothing  was  heard  but 
voices  calling  out,  '  Where  is  Mr  W.  ? 
where  is  Mr  W.? '  In  short,  the  whole 
town  has  been  entertained  with  my 
prowess ;  and  Mr  Conway  has  given 
me  the  name  of  Wat  Tyler."    These 
theatrical  hurricanes,    and  the  bear- 
garden bruisers,  bring  to  mind  a  well- 
nigh    forgotten    similar    event — the 
O.  P.   riots  of  our  day,  Eusebius. 
Younger  folk  may  ask  what  they  were. 
Old  Prices  versus  new.     Was  it  not 
the  case  upon  that  occasion  that  the 


flooring  gave  way,  and  the  O.  P.'s 
had  to  be  extricated  with  difficulty, 
and  promiscuously  ?  It  surely  was  so. 
I  cannot  have  fabricated  it  for  the 
sake  of  a  quotation — "  Effodiuntur 
opes,  irritamenta  malorum." 

In  those  times  ladies  frequented 
taverns — gamed;  and  a  Mrs  Mackenzie 
horsewhipped  Jemmy  Lumley,who  re- 
fused to  pay  because  he  was  cheated. 
"  There  was  a  deep  philosophy,"  says 
Mr  Knight,  "  in  a  saying  of  George 
Selwyn's,  when  a  waiter  at  Arthur's 
Club-house  was  taken  up  for  robbery, 
1  What  a  horrid  idea  he  will  give  of 
us  to  the  people  in  Newgate  !'  1750, 
and  again  1756,  there  was  a  great 
fright  about  an  earthquake,  and,  of 
course,  prophecy  took  courage  and 
cash,  and  foretold  the  world's  coming 
to  an  end.  People  ran  away  from 
London  previous  to  the  predicted 
catastrophe.  "  Several  women  have 
made  earthquake  gowns  —  that  is, 
warm  gowns  to  sit  out  of  doors  all  to- 
night. These  are  of  the  more  coura- 
geous. One  woman,  still  more  he- 
roic, is  to  come  to  town  on  purpose ; 
she  says  all  her  friends  are  in  London, 
and  she  will  not  survive  them.  But 
what  will  you  think  of  Lady  Catherine 
Pelham,  Lady  Frances  Arundel,  and 
Lord  and  Lady  Galway,  who  go  this 
evening  to  an  inn  ten  miles  out  of 
town,  where  they  are  to  play  at  brag 
till  five  in  the  morning,  and  then  come 
back  ?  I  suppose  to  look  for  the  bones 
of  their  husbands  and  families  under 
the  rubbish." 

These  kind  of  prophecies  have  ever 
been  very  taking — perhaps  from  the 
natural  credulity  of  evil  consciences, 
or  a  little  spiteful  expectation  of  the 
destruction  of  the  sinful.  We  have  had 
of  late  years,  Eusebius,  very  numerous 
announcements  of  this  awful  kind. 
One  is  perfectly  in  my  recollection, 
which  alarmed  the  citizens  of  Bristol, 
and  at  that  very  time  the  Pitching 
and  Paving  Commissioners  made  a 
singular  mistake.  They  literally  ad- 
vertised to  receive  tenders  from  con- 
tractors "  To  sweep  up  the  ashes  of 
the  inhabitants."  People  loved  the 
marvellous ;  noble  and  great  ones 
flocked  to  see  the  Cock  Lane  ghost — 
highwaymen,  not  fabulous,  but  real, 
were  heroes  in  those  days,  and  had 
their  sympathisers,  as  the  worst  cul- 
prits have  now  occasionally.  Fashion- 


1855.] 


Once  upon  a  Time. 


71 


ably  then  as  Lady  Caroline  Petersham 
and  Miss  Ashe  wept  over  M'Lean 
the  highwayman,  nowadays  it  is 
feminine  hypocrisy  or  bigotry.  "  The 
real  robbers  were  as  fashionable  in 
1750  as  their  trumpery  histories  were 
in  1840." 

Here  we  are,  Eusebius,  running 
somewhat  too  fast  from  old  to  modern 
times,  only  a  hundred  years  from  this 
our  year.  Let  me  go  back  but  a  very 
few — for  I  think  I  can  amuse  you  by 
parts  of  two  letters,  which  I  have 
picked  out  of  some  family  papers, 
addressed  to  my  great- grandmother. 
Some  one  said  of  a  sauce  that  it  was 
so  piquant  that  one  might  eat  one's 
grandmother  with  it.  Devour,  if  you 
please,  the  anecdotes  told  in  the  let- 
ters, and  relish  them,  but  not  a  word 
of  disrespect  to  my  great-grand- 
mother, for  she  lives  in  her  portrait,  a 
goodly  one,  and  in  family  feminine 
remembrances  that  will  compel  me  to 
put  lance  in  rest  in  defence  and  in 
honour  of  her  worth  and  beauty. 
Yes,  Eusebius,  there  was  beauty  in 
the  family  one  hundred  and  twenty 
years  ago,  whatever  you  may  be 
pleased  to  think  of  us  now. 

The  first  letter  I  bring  to  your  no- 
tice is  dated  London,  November  25, 
1735.  The  gossip  is  amusing,  show- 
ing that  minor  interests  then  are 
minor  interests  now,  and  that  there 
never  was  a  time  when  public  inter- 
ests were  not  the  greatest  that  ever 
were  or  will  be  : — 

"  Dear  Madam, — Last  night  the  Mem- 
bury  cheese  came  safe  to  me,  which 
by  its  good  appearance  I  should  have 
judged  to  be  a  very  good  one  ;  but  can 
never  doubt  of  its  being  so,  as  it  is  re- 
commended by  a  lady  of  yr  good  taste.  I 

am  truly  concerned  for  Mr  B 's  cough, 

but  hope  he  will  get  rid  of  it  time  enough 
agst  the  sitting  of  Parliament,  when,  as 
you  rightly  judge,  matters  of  such  conse- 
quence are  likely  to  be  the  subject  of 
debate,  that  hardly  any  that  are  absent 
must  expect  to  escape  the  publick  cen- 
sure, upon  wch  occasion,  as  the  times  are, 
every  tongue  will  be  let  loose  wth  the 
utmost  bitterness.  In  the  mean  time  I 
shall  take  care  to  provide  a  warm  lodg- 
ing for  his  reception.  Master  C.  is  much 
in  the  right  in  preferring  Oxford  to 
Somersetshire.  I  don't  know  why  he  was 
sent  thither,  if  he  could  have  spent  his 
time  anywhere  else  to  more  advantage. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  have  heard 


of  a  late  discovery  agst  the  life  of  your 
kinsman,  the  Lord  Brook,  who  is  now  in 
France.  By  his  father's  will,  at  least 
£2000  per  annum  was  given  for  ever  to  a 
bastard  son  of  his,  if  the  present  young 
Lord  sh<i  happen  to  dye  before  he 
came  to  age.  But  this  bastard  having 
squander'd  away  the  little  fortune  was 
left  him,  and  despairing  of  the  young 
Lord's  comeing  to  an  untimely  end  by  the 
course  of  nature,  he  being  now  in  the  20th 
year  of  his  age,  had  made  a  proposal  to 
one  that  taught  him  to  play  on  the  French 
horn,  to  give  him  £2000  if  he  would  go 
over  to  France  and  murder  Lord  Brook. 
So  considerable  a  reward  tempted  the 
assassin  to  undertake  the  villanous  office; 
but  his  conscience  at  last  check'd  him 
and  press'd  him  to  send  to  Mr  J.  Howe 
(guardian  to  the  young  Lord),  and  ac- 
quaint him  with  his  crime.  Mr  Howe 
writes  immediately  to  Ld  Hertford,  and 
Ld  Hertford  loses  no  time  in  sending  to 
the  Ld  Chief  Justice  for  his  warrant 
to  seize  the  bastard,  whose  name  is 
Silvestre,  who  cannot  yet  be  found. 
You  may  depend  upon  the  truth  of  this 
story.  I  am  glad  to  hear  my  niece  is  out 
of  danger;  but  what  a  sad  thing  will  it  be 
if  she  loses  her  complexion  !  I  hope  you 
don't  think  that  irrecoverable. — I  am, 
dear  Madam, 

Your  most  affectionate  humble  servant, 
GEO.  H N. 

"  My  best  compliments  to  Mr  B.  and 
all  the  good  ladies  and  gentlemen." 

The  next  letter  is  from  the  same  to 
the  same,  the  year  following,  dated 
London,  21st  December,  1736.  I 
omit  the  gossip  of  ladies  in  confine- 
ment, whose  children  and  grandchil- 
dren have  since  died  of  old  age ;  of  a 
receipt  to  make  brawn ;  of  books  com- 
ing by  carrier,  &c. ;  of  this  town  being 
discomforted  at  the  long  absence  of 
their  monarch,  &c.  &c.,  in  order  to 
come  to  an  anecdote,  the  like  of  which 
you  never  heard  or  read  of  perhaps, 
incredible  in  these  money-loving 
days : — 

"  I  cannot  close  this  letter  (as  long  as 
it  is),  without  telling  you  a  remarkable 
story  of  two  sisters,  now  in  the  Fleet 
Prison,  who  have  suffer'd  already  a  great 
deal,  and  are  like  to  endure  much  more, 
onely  for  their  obstinate  refusal  of  six 
thousand  pounds  which  is  now  tendered 
to  them  in  Chancery  as  their  just  right. 
But  neither  entreaties  nor  menaces  can 
yet  prevail  with  them  to  accept  this 
money,  and  discharge  the  executors,  who 
earnestly  desire  to  pay  it.  They  are 
nieces  of  the  late  Dr  Stradford,  canon  of 


72 

Christ  Church,  who  left  them  in  his  will 
residuary  legatees;  and  to  them,  as  such, 
Dr  Friend,  of  Westminster,  and  the  other 
executor,  having  several  times  given  no- 
tice that  they  had  now  in  their  hands  the 
forementioned  summe,  for  the  payment  of 
which  they  onely  desire  their  order  and 
discharge :  but  all  their  solicitations  have 
hitherto  proved  ineffectual.  They  will 
not  believe  that  their  uncle  Stradford  dyed 
worth  a  groat.  They  say  he  was  a  vain 
extravagant  man,  and  could  not  possibly 
save  any  money,  and  consequently  that 
Dr  Friend  uses  them  very  ill  in  endea- 
vouring to  persuade  them  to  the  contrary. 
In  short,  Dr  Friend,  having  no  other  way 
to  get  rid  of  this  money,  and  the  trust  of 
being  executor,  being  forced  to  apply  to 
Chancery,  they  were  served  with  orders 
from  that  court  to  appear  before  it;  but 
as  they  complyed  wth  none  of  these 
orders,  they  were  committed  to  Chester 
Goale  (where  they  lived)  for  contempt. 
There  they  lived  a  full  year  in  prison, 
and  being  lately  brought  to  ye  town,  and 
into  the  Court  of  Chancery,  all  the  exhor- 
tations of  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the 
court  were  to  no  purpose.  They  still 
adhere  incorrigibly  to  their  opinion  that 
their  uncle  had  no  money  to  leave  them, 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


[July, 


and  in  this  obstinate  resolution  they  seem 
determined  to  rot  in  the  Fleet  Prison. 
The  charges  they  have  been  already  put 
to, which  must  be  pay'd,  amount  to  at  least 
a  thousand  pounds,"  &c.,  &c. 

I  presume  this  Dr  Friend  was  the 
celebrated  physician,  who,  skilful  in 
physic,  and  perhaps  in  the  quickness 
of  his  cures,  was  lengthy  in  epitaphs, 
the  writing  of  which  particularly 
amused  him.  One  would  not,  Euse- 
bius,  like  to  know  that  the  physician 
who  is  feeling  your  pulse  has  a  par- 
ticular fancy  to  write  your  epitaph. 

I  must  now,  my  dear  Eusebius,  bring 
my  letter  to  a  close.  I  shall  probably 
have  something  to  say  of  Chatterton 
that  may  be  new,  and  from  a  MS.  fill 
up  a  gap  in  the  poetry,  whether  of 
Rowley  or  Chatterton.  In  the  mean- 
while, digest  this  marrow  of  Once 
upon  a  Time  offered  you,  and  accom- 
plish in  your  own  person  the  wish  of 
Thales,  to  grow  old  with  good  sense 
and  a  good  friend — the  latter  being 
yours  ever, 

AQ s.  VIVE  VALEQUE. 


MODERN   LIGHT   LITERATURE — THEOLOGY. 


THE   BROAD   CHURCH. 


WERE  we  not  tired  of  the  perpetual 
babble  which  rings  in  our  ears  from 
every  quarter,  declaring  the  unparal- 
led  wonders  and  excellences  of  these 
times  of  ours,  we  scarcely  could  begin 
our  comment  upon  the  strangest  fea- 
ture of  all  its  many  anomalies,  without 
once  more  echoing  the  common  senti- 
ment that  this  is  a  wonderful  age. 
But  it  is  strange  enough  to  know  that 
the  experience  of  ever  so  many  cen- 
turies has  thrown  so  little  light  upon 
the  perennial  inconsistencies  of  human 
nature,  that  every  age  is  extraordi- 
nary, and  that  we  are  perpetually 
wondering  and  gaping  at  the  vagaries 
of  our  fellows  as  if  we  were  the 
first  to  find  them  out.  Still  to-day  is 
to-day,  and  has  an  interest  for  us 
which  yesterday  cannot  have  :  we  are 
more  immediately  influenced  by  the 
lamps  in  our  own  streets  than  by  the 
stars  which  dwell  apart  in  the  far-off 
ages ;  and  it  seems  to  be  a  necessity 
of  human  progress  that  we  should 


always  be  engaged  about  some  crisis 
or  other,  and  feel  that  the  real  battle- 
ground of  time  and  existence  is  this 
footbreadth  of  soil  which  we  are  con- 
testing to-day. 

But  if  we  are  to  believe  the  newest 
light  of  philosophy  which  has  arisen 
among  us,  it  is  a  super-eminently  seri- 
ous crisis  at  which  we  are  now  ar- 
rested. The  foundations  of  the  world 
are  breaking  up — we  want  new  ground 
laid  down  for  us — the  former  prin- 
ciples of  the  universe  are  antiquated 
and  unreasonable — the  old  revelation 
has  served  its  time,  and  wants  re- 
newal— the  old  religion  is  a  worn-out 
garment,  and  the  work  which  lies 
before  is  no  less  a  work  than  to 
make  a  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth 
"  for  our  own  hand." 

So  we  have  placed  ourselves  in  the 
noble  position  of  "  inquiring  after 
truth."  Our  philosophers  are  the  most 
impartial,  the  most  candid  investiga- 
tors in  the  world :  no  old-fashioned 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


73 


faith  stands  in  their  way;  they  are 
above  the  prejudices  of  education, 
above  the  weakness  of  personal  inte- 
terest  or  anxiety.  They  are  mar- 
tyrs to  the  noble  thirst  which  possesses 
them ;  they  must  follow  Truth,  sub- 
lime conductress  !  wherever  she  leads 
them  ;  and  though  now  and  then  it  is 
a  will-o'-the-wisp  dance  enough, 
their  lofty  purpose  sustains  them 
through  all.  And  whether  it  be  the 
sublime  eclecticism  which  selects  a  bit 
out  of  Paganism  and  a  bit  out  of 
Christianity,  and  complacently  pro- 
nounces its  verdict  on  all  the  creeds, 
as  the  Creator  did  upon  the  world  He 
made  —  or  that  sad,  conscientious, 
much -suffering  infidelity,  which  weeps 
over  its  own  vain  efforts  to  believe, 
and  deplores  its  undeceivableness — or 
the  improved  divinity,  clad  in  new 
graces,  which  makes  something  hand- 
some out  of  that  Bible  and  that  Gos- 
pel which  hitherto  have  only  given  a 
rude  idea  to  the  world, — we  surely  can- 
not refuse  to  be  struck  with  the  beauti- 
ful aspect  of  this  open  unbiassed  judg- 
ment, this  mind  which  begins  its  in- 
vestigations with  no  prior  tendency — 
this  candid  impartial  intellect,  which 
sits  apart,  overlooking  "  creeds  and 
systems,"  and  judging  of  them  like  a 
god. 

But,  after  all,  it  is  a  remarkable 
thing  to  find  this  nineteenth  century, 
with  all  its  boasts  of  itself  and  its  own 
progress,  so  completely  at  sea  about 
the  most  important  matters  of  human 
thought.  Have  we  drifted  so  far 
away  from  the  everlasting  standards 
that  it  is  a  Eestoration  of  Belief,  and 
nothing  less,  for  which  the  world  of 
to-day  is  waiting? — have  we  lost  hold 
of  the  old  clue  so  entirely  that  we  can 
do  nothing  but  grope  about  the  dark- 
ling labyrinth,  and  feel  our  way  by 
touch  and  sense  ?  Is  the  ancient 
system  of  faith,  which,  pressing  on 
through  crowds  of  foes,  has  kept  itself 
intact  for  eighteen  hundred  years, 
proved  so  imperfect  at  last  that  our 
skilled  artificers  have  to  take  it  to 
pieces,  and  cobble  it  to  suit  "the  re- 
quirements of  the  times?  "  A  strange 
result  of  all  our  learnings  and  philo- 
sophies !  yet  not  so  strange  a  conse- 
quence of  our  universal  smattering, 
our  universal  self-applause,  our  wide- 
spread persuasion,  that  of  all  the  ages 
of  the  world  none  has  ever  been  so 


well  qualified  to  sit  in  judgment  on 
everything  human  and  divine  as  this 
age  of  steam  and  electricity,  this  nine- 
teenth century,  this  culminating  point 
of  human  wisdom,  from  the  eminence 
of  which  we  can  supervise  and  conde- 
scend to  the  beggarly  elements  of  the 
past. 

Of  old  times,  when  scepticism  was 
an  unfamiliar  monster  in  our  respect- 
able nation,  and  when  the  popular 
judgment  unhesitatingly  connected  it 
with  all  manner  of  license  and  immo- 
rality, the  beast  was  much  less  harm- 
ful ;  but  even  now,  when  innocent 
people  are  staggered  by  finding  what 
they  call  good  men  among  the  fashion- 
able sceptics  of  the  time,  we  have  not 
the  slightest  fear  for  the  faith  of  the 
people.  Those  very  common  people  who 
go  to  church  for  form's  sake,  as  their 
charitable  critics  conclude — who  have 
not  very  much  to  say  about  their  own 
doctrines — who  answer  the  arguments 
of  the  gainsayer,  for  the  most  part, 
with  a  mere  dumb  impenetrability — 
who  have  sin,  trouble,  inconsistency, 
all  the  natural  incumbrances  of  hu- 
mankind, about  them  on  every  side — 
are  the  square,  solid,  silent  phalanx  on 
which  the  polished  lancets  of  the  foe 
can  make  no  impression.  We  re- 
member, through  the  lapse  of  a  great 
many  years,  some  strangely  signifi- 
cant words  which  we  once  heard  from 
the  lips  of  a  benevolent  Unitarian 
lady  in  one  of  the  greatest  towns  in 
England.  It  was  very  strange,  she 
said,  but  they  had  actually  no  poor 
people  in  their  congregations — almost 
all  their  members  were  wealthy.  While 
churches  and  chapels  around,  of  every 
other  name,  were  burdened  with  pen- 
sioners, they  had  none — though  the 
leaders  of  their  sect  were  publicly  ac- 
knowledged as  the  kindest  and  most 
liberal  almsgivers  in  the  place.  The 
speaker  was  quite  unconscious  of  all 
that  lay  in  this  admission ;  but  we  think 
we  have  a  right  to  conclude  that  infi- 
delity, and  especially  the  amiable 
and  refined  infidelity  of  the  day,  is 
caviare  to  the  multitude — a  sin  which 
does  not  tempt  them.  The  common 
people  in  general,  of  all  ranks  and 
classes — they  who  fulfil  the  ordinary 
duties  of  humanity  —  who  are  not 
clever,  nor  distinguished,  nor  in  any 
way  raised  above  their  fellows — those 
same  common  people  who  "  heard " 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


74 

the  gospel  "  gladly,"  when  ritualists 
and  illuminati  alike  stood  aloof  from 
the  Divine  preacher — are  safe  above 
all  others  from  a  prevailing  epidemic 
of  this  nature ;  and  that  being  the 
case,  let  the  clever  people,  the  talent- 
ed, the  gifted,  the  philosophical,  look 
to  themselves. 

But  infidelity,  however  fashionable, 
and  sceptics,  however  amiable,  are  not 
our  immediate  subject.  They  are 
what  they  are,  distinct  and  acknow- 
ledged ;  but  we  find  a  more  curious 
field  for  inquiry  among  those  members 
and  leaders  of  the  Church  who,  not 
content  to  relinquish  their  faith,  and 
confident  in  the  wonderful  elasticity 
of  that  wide  and  all-  embracing  cordon 
which  surrounds  the  English  Estab- 
lishment, have  entered  upon  the  dan- 
gerous experiment  of  accommodating 
and  reconciling  the  gospel  to  the 
theories  of  their  neighbours  who  have 
passed  therubicon.  These  divines  are 
no  longer  contented  with  justifying 
the  ways  of  God  to  man  :  they  bring 
Himself,  a  most  august  defendant,  to 
the  bar.  They  say,  with  more  or  less 
plainness,  "We  will  believe  in  you,  if 
we  find  you  come  up  to  our  standard, 
and  realise  our  idea  of  what  God 
should  be ; "  and  with  a  real  and  true 
desire  that  the  glorious  Examinant 
before  them  should  vindicate  His  own 
character  according  to  their  view  of 
it,  they  set  about,  with  His  own  ma- 
terials, to  build  a  system  of — we  can- 
not say  salvation,  but  of  Divine  help 
and  benevolence.  Let  us  give  all 
just  credit  to  these  teachers ;  they 
strive  at  their  work  anxiously ;  they 
do  it,  we  believe,  devoutly ;  they  only 
begin  with  a  different  idea  in  their 
minds  from  that  which  revelation  de- 
clares to  have  been  in  the  mind  of 
God. 

Were  we  to  treat  of  the  opinions  of 
the  Rev.  Frederick  Denison  Maurice, 
or  of  the  Broad  Church  which  he  re- 
presents, as  a  divine  might  treat  of 
them,  our  profane  laymanship  would 
break  down,  of  course,  and  Maga 
would  incontinently  reject  the  coun- 
terfeit ;  but,  fortunately  for  us  and  for 
our  purpose,  these  smooth  orations 
are  not  divinity,  but  light  literature. 
We  confess,  for  our  own  part,  that  we 
approached  Mr  Maurice's  books,  on 
our  first  introduction  to  them,  with  a 
profound  awe  and  reverence.  Among 


[July, 


the  many  good  people  who  believe  in 
him  without  believing  in  his  doctrines, 
the  idea  was  current  that  this  re- 
spectable divine  possessed  the  gift  of 
an  unintelligible  and  bewildering  elo- 


quence. 


We  could  not  make  him 


out,"  said  many  kind  critics,  insinu- 
ating a  charitable  hope  that,  lost  in 
his  own  bright  maze  of  words,  the 
reverend  gentleman  could  not  always 
make  himself  out,  and  so  was  a  great 
deal  less  heretical  than  harsher  judges 
concluded.  But  when  we  made  actual 
experiment  of  these  well-written  vol- 
umes, we  were  no  longer  able  to  ac- 
quiesce in  the  popular  judgment ;  for 
modesty  forbids  the  supposition  that 
it  was  the  pure  force  of  our  own  supe- 
rior understanding  which  made  Mr 
Maurice's  style  perfectly  legible  and 
clear  to  us.  We  who  have  been  stranded 
a  score  of  times  on  the  shelving  beach 
of  In  Memoriam,  have  consequently 
no  extraordinary  penetration  to  boast 
of;  yet — we  say  it  with  humility — it  is 
our  modest  and  respectful  persuasion 
that  we  can  understand  Mr  Maurice. 
And  let  not  any  of  the  uninstructed 
suppose  that  this  is  a  partial  inno- 
vator, a  dealer  of  stray  blows,  a  re- 
former of  unconsidered  trifles.  Mr 
Maurice  discloses  himself  boldly  <as 
the  author  of  an  elaborate  and  labori- 
ous plan,  which,  though  we  grant  to 
him,  as  he  rejoices  that  more  compe- 
tent authorities  have  granted,  to  be 
by  no  means  novel  in  its  parts,  strikes 
us  as  sufficiently  novel  in  its  combi- 
nation ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  if 
the  world  is  to  believe  as  Mr  Maurice 
believes,  it  is  indispensable  that  his 
work  on  the  Doctrine  of  Sacrifice  be 
instantly  prepared  for  universal  circu- 
lation, as  a  companion  and  auxiliary 
to  the  Bible,  which  is  by  no  means  to 
be  understood  without  it.  The  freaks 
of  humanity  are  strange;  there  are  no 
men  in  the  world  who  do  protest  so 
much  against  bigotry,  intolerance,  and 
narrow-mindedness  as  these  liberal 
and  enlightened  teachers  of  this  age  ; 
yet  Mr  Kingsley  finds  rare  sport  in 
exterminating  the  Spanish  Papists, 
and  Mr  Maurice's  trumpet  gives  forth 
no  uncertain  sound  as  to  the  unfortu- 
nate people  called  Evangelical,  who 
have,  as  it  seems,  for  ages,  and  after, 
in  the  main,  a  singularly  unanimous 
fashion,  been  steadily  contradicting 
and  perverting  the  gospel,  which  now 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


at  last  has  found  one  true  expositor. 
To  make  his  argument  all  the  easier, 
Mr  Maurice  is  pleased  to  set  up  a  man 
of  straw — a  sham  representative  of  the 
theology  he  condemns.  Let  us  pause 
for  a  moment  to  recommend  this  sys- 
tem to  all  popular  controversialists  ; 
no  chain  of  reasoning,  however  cogent, 
can  equal  the  force  of  a  bold  and  con- 
sistent assumption.  Let  your  first 
step,  oh  man  of  arguments!  be,  not  to 
disclose  your  own  sentiments,  but  to 
determine  your  opponent's.  When  you 
begin  your  speech,  however  visible  may 
be  the  denial,  or  energetic  the  protest- 
ing gestures  of  your  hapless  adversary, 
who  must  wait  till  you  are  done,  fix 
his  creed  for  him,  in  the  first  place, 
without  hesitation  or  timidity,  and 
then — you  are  but  a  very  poor  novice 
in  the  art  if  you  cannot  destroy  what 
you  yourself  have  constructed.  With 
this  grand  principle  for  his  guide,  Mr 
Maurice  takes  the  field  against  uni- 
versal Christendom,  and  kindly  ex- 
plains to  us  what  is  our  own  idea, 
and  what  the  old-fashioned  opinion 
of  our  pious  forefathers,  respecting  the 
scheme  of  salvation.  We  have  been 
holding  the  heathen  principle  of  sacri- 
fice, says  Mr  Maurice.  On  one  side 
is  an  offended  God — a  somewhat 
grander  Jupiter,  with  all  his  thunder- 
bolts suspended  over  us,  and  his  arm 
raised  to  exterminate  the  world.  On 
the  other  side,  sullen,  gloomy,  half 
terrified,  half  defiant,  trying  hard  to 
buy  Him  off,  are  we,  His  revolted  sub- 
jects ;  and  midway  between  stands  a 
grand  inexplainable  Personage,  whom 
we,  by  some  inexplainable  means, 
have  persuaded  to  conspire  with  us  to 
buy  a  reluctant  pardon  from  the  an- 
gry Jove  above.  This  is  heathen 
enough,  certainly ;  but  so  far  as  we  can 
perceive,  it  would  not  be  much  of  a 
gospel  even  to  the  worshippers  of 
Vishnu ;  and  we  are  puzzled  to  un- 
derstand how  Mr  Maurice,  being  a 
good  man,  as  universal  consent  allows, 
can  either  be  so  blind  or  so  uncan- 
did  as  to  set  up  this  poor  distortion 
as  the  belief  of  any  mind  which  has 
ever  thought  twice,  or  even  once, 
upon  the  subject.  If  there  did  hap- 
pen to  be,  at  this  present  speaking, 
any  intelligent  creature  in  the  civilis- 
ed world  who  had  not  heard  a  better 
account  of  it,  Mr  Maurice's  latest 
work  would  exhibit  to  such  a  one 


75 

nothing  of  any  recognised  or  believed 
gospel,  except  this  monstrous  Frank- 
enstein and  his  own,  elegant  produc- 
tion— the  one  very  ugly,  the  other  very 
pretty  to  look  at,  admirable  foils  for 
each  other — the  latter  believed  in,  at 
least,  by  Mr  Maurice,  the  former  by 
no  sane  creature,  even  in  this  perverse 
and  distorted  world. 

It  is  not  our  vocation  to  preach  the 
gospel  which  lies  between  these  anti- 
podes ;  how  our  most  wonderful  and 
glorious  Lord  verily  bought,  ran- 
somed, purchased  us ;  yet  how  this 
infinite  and  extraordinary  price  could 
be  suggested  only  by  the  everlasting 
love  of  the  Father,  who  alone  knew 
what  could  be  substituted  for  the 
forfeited  life  of  His  sinful  creatures,  is 
a  twofold  truth,  in  the  strength  of 
which,  generations  of  the  saints  of 
God,  the  truest,  stoutest,  noblest 
hearts  among  men,  have  been  content 
to  live  and  die.  "  The  theory  of  a 
propitiation  not  set  forth  by  God,  but 
devised  to  influence  His  mind,"  says 
Mr  Maurice,  "  changes  all  the  rela- 
tions of  the  Creator  and  creature." 
We  ask  seriously — sadly — who,  save 
Mr  Maurice,  ever  knew  of  such  a 
theory  ?  From  what  dangerous  pul- 
pit has  Christian  man  in  Christian 
country  ever  heard  such  a  doctrine  ? 
Is  there  a  written  creed  in  the  world 
which  contains  it;  or  whence  came 
the  monstrous  idea?  That  such  a 
hope  might  lurk,  with  other  unspeak- 
able spectres,  in  guilty  hearts  and  con- 
sciences, no  man  who  knows  himself 
will  refuse  to  believe ;  but  when  we 
try  to  buy  off  the  Judge  before  whose 
face  we  tremble,  which  of  us  goes  to 
Christ  to  help  us  in  such  an  endea- 
vour? Have  we  not,  every  soul  of 
us,  an  instinctive  certainty,  that  of 
all  helpers  He  is  the  last  to  apply  to 
for  this  kind  of  assistance  ?  Do  pen- 
ances, go  pilgrimages,  endow  hospi- 
tals, build  churches,  take  self-torture, 
voluntary  poverty,  mortification,  and 
pain,  for  your  saviours — but  so  long  as 
your  plan  is  to  influence  and  change 
the  mind  of  God,  we  promise  yon, 
you  will  have  no  desire  to  ask  His 
Son  to  help  you  in  your  purpose.  We 
will  not  pause  to  inquire  where  Mr 
Maurice  may  have  found  this  ex- 
traordinary doctrine,  which  he  pre- 
sents with  so  much  confidence  as  the 
ordinary  creed  of  Christianity  in  these 


76 

days  ;  we  only  give  it  our  unhesitat- 
ing and  unqualified  denial.  What 
individual  Pharisees  may  believe  in 
the  bottom  of  their  hearts  is  no  rule 
to  us  ;  but  we  are  persuaded  that  no 
written  creed  in  existence,  and  no 
uttered  preaching,  knows  anything  of 
"  a  propitiation  not  set  forth  by  God, 
but  devised  to  influence  His  mind." 
Calvinism,  that  bete  noir  of  the  popu- 
lar English  understanding,  wots  of  no 
such  invention.  We  frankly  avow 
that  we  never  saw  the  monster  till  we 
saw  it  in  the  pages  of  Mr  Maurice ; 
and  we  would  fain  put  some  questions 
to  him  on  the  subject  before  leaving  it. 
Who  "devised"  this  "propitiation 
to  influence  the  mind  of  God?  "  Who 
persuaded  God's  Son  to  lend  Himself 
to  it  ?  If  the  belief  is  popular,  there 
must  be  some  popular  explanation  of 
these  difficulties.  We  dare  not  say  that 
Mr  Maurice  states  anything  which  he 
does  not  believe  to  be  true,  for  Mr 
Maurice  is  a  good  man;  but  we  would 
fain  know  something  of  the  preachers, 
and  of  the  interpretation  of  this  other 
gospel,  which  it  is  his  vocation  to 
overthrow,  and  which  we  promise 
him,  for  our  own  part,  we  should  not 
believe,  were  it,  as  St  Paul  says, 
preached  by  an  angel  from  heaven. 

So  much  for  the  man  of  straw.  Mr 
Maurice's  own  pretty  and  graceful 
gospel  stands  in  elegant  opposition 
to  this  mercantile  bargain  between 
God  and  man.  There  is  but  one  fact 
in  the  history  of  mankind  which  our 
author  forgets  or  passes  over,  and  that 
is  a  tolerably  momentous  one,  as  we 
suppose — a  very  clamorous  fact,  which 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  rites  and 
ordinances — no  less  an  event  than  the 
Fall.  Eden  and  its  strange  sweet  morn- 
ing of  innocence — its  inexperienced 
blessed  creatures,  so  wise,  so  ignorant, 
so  human — its  sudden  tempest,  and 
tragical  re  volution — the  sudden  change 
of  that  first  bride  and  bridegroom  into 
the  sorrow-stricken,  awed,  and  trem- 
bling people  who  went  forth  from  the 
beautiful  gate  of  Paradise  to  the 
dreary  world  and  its  probation, — these 
have  no  place  in  the  concise  volume 
wherein  Mr  Maurice  traces  the  after 
history  of  their  descendants.  In  this 
book  the  curtain  rises  abruptly  upon 
the  sons  of  this  first  pair.  That  their 
position  is  at  all  peculiar,  solemn,  or 
important,  we  are  not  led  to  suppose ; 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


[July, 


no  grand  event  close  at  hand  throws 
its  shadow  over  them  ;  they  are  ordi- 
nary human  men,  whose  father  and 
mother  have  been  culpably  negligent 
of  their  education.  Adam  has  never 
told  these  boys  of  that  grand  and 
loving  Visitant  who  walked  with  him 
in  the  cool  of  the  garden,  and  taught 
the  humble  holy  creature,  made  in  His 
own  image,  such  lore  of  heaven  as  he 
was  fit  to  know.  Eve  has  never  held 
these  brethren's  hands,  and  bade  them 
hush  to  hear  of  the  Seed  of  the  woman 
who  was  to  bruise  the  serpent's  head. 
In  that  first  primitive  tent,  or  bower, 
or  cave,  there  has  been  no  talk  be- 
tween the  father  and  mother  of  what 
befell  before  these  children  came  to 
comfort  the  great  sorrow  of  the  parent 
hearts.  No :  the  father  has  never 
taught  the  wondering  boys  how  their 
inheritance  was  lost ;  the  mother  has 
never  thrilled  their  swelling  hearts 
with  that  mysterious  promise  of  re- 
gaining it,  which  her  own  eager  hope 
had  snatched  at,  when  she  said,  "  I 
have  gotten  a  man  from  the  Lord." 
Cain  and  Abel  might  almost  as  well 
have  been  without  parents  for  any 
instruction  they  have  had ;  and  as  a 
natural  consequence,  it  follows  that 
the  lads  are  as  little  impressed  by  the 
great  events  which  so  closely  preceded 
their  entrance  into  the  world,  as  any 
two  rustics  in  Kent  or  Devon  who 
live  at  a  distance  of  six  thousand  years 
from  the  Creation  and  the  Fall. 

But  yet  there  have  been  some  faint 
elements  of  education.  Mr  Maurice 
thinks  there  have.  "  No  doubt  their 
parents  have  told  them  that  they  have 
a  Lord,  and  that  He  sees  them,  and  is 
ordering  their  ways.  Surely  it  is  He 
who  is  making  them  feel  His  pre- 
sence, urging  them  to  confess  Him. 
How  shall  they  confess  Him  ?  What 
is  the  simplest  of  all  possible  methods 
in  which  they  can  manifest  their 
subjection  ?  Ask  yourselves.  Is  it 
speech  ?  Is  it  some  vehement  phrase 
of  thanksgiving,  some  passionate  peti- 
tion ?  These  may  come  in  time,  but 
they  cannot  come  first ;  they  are  not 
the  most  childlike  way  of  testifying 
homage — not  the  one  which  ordinary 
human  experience  would  lead  us  to 
look  for,  when  One  has  revealed  Him- 
self to  us,  whom  we  perceive  but  dimly, 
yet  with  whom  we  feel  we  have  to  do. 
Acts  go  before  words.  The  shepherd 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


77 


takes  the  sheep  ;  he  desires  to  present 
it  to  this  Ruler,  who  must  be  near 
him,  whom  he  must  find  some  way  of 
acknowledging.  The  tiller  of  the 
ground  takes  the  fruits  of  the  earth  ; 
he  would  present  these."  Thus  we 
have  the  first  suggestion  of  the  doc- 
trine of  sacrifice — a  suggestion,  as  it 
appears,  entirely  natural,  human,  and 
proceeding  from  man,  and  in  which 
Mr  Maurice  begins  his  first  grand 
practical  contradiction  of  his  own 
assertion,  stated  in  his  preface,  that 
his  system,  like  the  system  of  the 
Bible,  is  "  to  ground  everything  upon 
the  name  of  God,"  and  to  show  every- 
thing as  proceeding  from  God.  He 
goes  on  to  say,  however,  "  Whatever 
he  (man)  discovers  on  that  subject,  or 
on  any  other,  he  receives.  It  is  wis- 
dom which  is  imparted  to  him — light 
which  comes  to  him  from  the  Source 
of  light.  I  do  not  see  what  one  can 
say  different,  or  more  in  the  other 
case."  (The  other  case  is,  "  Why  one 
mode  of  tillage,  or  one  mode  of  fold- 
ing sheep,  occurs  to  him  rather  than 
another.")  "  There,  too,  the  suggestion 
of  the  mode  in  which  the  service  is 
performed  is  welcomed  as  divine ;  yet 
it  is  felt  to  be  natural  and  reasonable." 
So  that  is  all  God  has  to  do  with  the 
matter.  The  principle  of  sacrifice, 
and  the  mode  of  it,  He  suggests  only 
as  He  suggests  a  better  mode  of  till- 
age. This  is  quite  a  new  and  pecu- 
liar method  of  proving  that  everything 
proceeds  from  God. 

But,  acknowledging  that  God  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it  save  in  this  far- 
away mode,  it  is  very  true  that  a 
child's  impulse  of  gratitude  or  affection 
is  to  offer  some  of  its  little  cherished 
possessions  to  its  benefactors — per- 
fectly true — so  that  one  can  under- 
stand the  "  childlike  "  sentiment  of 
Cain  in  his  offering.  But  what  would 
Mr  Maurice  think  of  the  Nero  in  pet- 
ticoats, who  slaughtered  a  butterfly  in 
his  honour?  Would  that  be  childlike? 
Would  it  be  anything  but  monstrous, 
horrid,  cruel — the  promise  of  a  butcher 
and  not  of  a  saint?  Yet  we  are 
obliged  to  admit  that  by  all  scriptural 
analogy  this  is  but  a  type  of  what 
Abel  must  have  done.  He  brought  the 
firstlings  of  his  flock — the  very  flower 
and  sweetest  blossom  of  animal  life — 
and  offered  it  as  his  sacrifice.  Was 
it  Abel's  gentle  nature  that  prompted 


the  slaying  of  his  lamb?  True,  we 
are  not  told  in  so  many  words  that  he 
did  slay  the  lamb ;  but  neither  is 
Abel's  sacrifice  in  any  way  separated 
from  the  other  Old  Testament  sacri- 
fices, in  every  one  of  which  a  victim 
dies.  If,  then,  we  acceptMr  Maurice's 
hypothesis,  that  the  origin  of  sacrifice 
is  only  in  the  desire  of  man  to  confess 
his  dependence  on  God,  and  is  nothing 
more  than  the  "simplest  of  all  possible 
methods  in  which  he  can  manifest  his 
subjection,"  we  must  give  a  decision 
in  the  matter  of  these  two  brothers 
entirely  contrary  to  the  decision 
given  by  God.  We  must  approve 
of  the  natural  grace  and  fitness 
of  Cain's  beautiful  offering.  We 
must  lift  up  our  voice  against  the 
cruel,  revolting,  and  inhuman  sacri- 
fice of  Abel.  Mr  Maurice  does  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  u  the  Bible  would 
not  be  a  true  book  if  it  did  not  exhibit 
to  us  the  difference  "  between  these 
two  types  of  offerers — how  "  some  have 
been  the  better  for  their  prayers,  and 
some  very  much  the  worse."  Avail- 
ing ourselves  of  the  same  license,  we 
add  that  the  Bible  would  not  be  a 
true  book  if  it  did  not  assign  some 
distinct,  clear,  and  sufficient  reason 
for  these  sacrifices,  of  which  Abel's  is 
the  first  example  in  the  sacred  record. 
We  will  not  linger  upon  our  author's 
explanation  of  the  disappointment  of 
Cain,  because  he  leaves  the  individual 
subject  to  explain  by  our  own  ex- 
perience what  this  disappointment 
was  :  "the  Cain-spirit  in  us  all,"  he 
says,  "is  that  we  supposed  God  to  be 
an  arbitrary  being,  whom  we,  by  our 
sacrifices  and  prayers,  were  to  conci- 
liate. Was  not  this  the  false  notion 
that  lay  at  the  root  of  all  our  discontent, 
of  all  the  evil  thoughts  and  acts  that 
sprung  out  of  it  ?  We  did  not  begin 
with  trust,  but  with  distrust ;  we 
did  not  worship  God  because  we  be- 
lieved in  Him,  but  because  we  dreaded 
Him ;  because  we  desired  His  presence, 
but  because  we  wished  to  persuade 
Him  not  to  come  near  us.  And  does 
not  this  experience,  brethren,  enable 
us  to  understand  the  nature  of  that 
true  and  better  sacrifice  which  Abel 
offered  ?  Must  not  all  its  worth  have 
arisen  from  this,  that  he  was  weak, 
and  that  he  cast  himself  upon  One 
whom  he  knew  to  be  strong ;  that  he 
was  ignorant,  and  that  he  trusted  in 


78 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


[July, 


One  who  he  was  sure  must  be  wise  ; 
that  he  had  the  sense  of  death,  and 
that  he  turned  to  One  whence  life 
must  have  come ;  that  he  had  the 
sense  of  wrong,  and  that  he  fled  to 
One  who  must  be  right  ?  Was  not 
his  sacrifice  the  mute  expression  of 
this  helplessness,  dependence,  con- 
fidence ?  And  was  not  the  acceptance 
of  it  the  pledge  that  the  Creator  is 
goodness  and  truth,  and  that  all 
creatures  have  goodness  and  truth  so 
far  as  they  disclaim  them  in  them- 
selves and  seek  them  in  Him  ?  " 

All  very  well  said,  true  and  good  ; 
but  we  are  still  standing  by  the  slain 
lamb — the  innocent,  spotless,  harm- 
less creature  :  can  nothing  but  its 
brief  agony  express  these  lofty  senti- 
ments ?  What  has  all  this  filial  and 
reverent  devotion  to  do  with  the  shed 
blood— the  sight  most  abhorrent  to 
humanity  ?  Could  Abel's  "  helpless- 
ness, dependence,  confidence  "  be  ex- 
pressed in  no  other  way  ?  Or  was 
this  a  merely  arbitrary  sign  of  these 
inward  and  spiritual  emotions  ?  We 
are  left,  in  our  ignorance,  to  marvel  at 
our  leisure.  Mr  Maurice  thinks  he 
has  explained  it  all  so  clearly  that  he 
is  justified  in  saying,  "  If  this  be  the 
case,  we  have  had  a  glimpse  into  the 
nature  of  sacrifice,  and  into  its  con- 
nection with  the  nature  of  every  hu- 
man creature,  which  we  may  hope 
will  expand  into  brighter  and  clearer 
vision."  Amen  for  Mr  Maurice  ;  but 
for  ourselves  we  have  not  had  the 
slightest  glimpse  into  the  nature  of 
sacrifice.  We  have  had  descriptions, 
true  and  faithful,  of  two  different 
moods  of  mind — of  a  man  approach- 
ing God  with  humility  and  tender 
confidence,  and  of  another  man,  who 
comes  sullenly  because  he  dares  not  stfiy 
away  ;  but  we  have  not  the  slightest 
comprehension  what  was  the  use  of 
Abel's  lamb.  It  remains  an  utter  en- 
igma to  us,  bewildering  andinexplain- 
able.  We  cannot  understand  how 
any  human  creature  could  express 
his  emotions  of  gratitudeor  confidence 
by  destroying  one  of  the  gentlest 
lives  which  confided  in  his  care.  If 
there  is  no  better  explanation  than 
this,  we  can  only  turn  with  disgust 
from  the  altars  of  the  old  world;  there 
is  no  meaning  in  them. 

And  now  there  marches  another 
figure  upon  the  record.    Noah,  a  pa- 


triarch, the  second  father  of  the  world, 
a  man  whose  years  extended  to  within 
fifty  of  a  millennium.  Mr  Maurice  is 
very  kind  to  Noah ;  he  who  is  of 
Lincoln's  Inn  and  the  nineteenth 
century,  patronises  him  of  the  Flood. 
If  you  had  asked  this  simple-hearted 
old  giant  to  explain  to  you  what  his 
sacrifice  meant  —  "to  tell  you  what 
these  visible  things  signified  to  him, 
he  could  have  given  you  no  answer," 
says  Mr  Maurice.  And  again — "  The 
man  who  came  out  of  the  ark,  andbuild- 
ed  an  altar  to  the  Lord,  must  have  felt 
that  he  was  representing  all  human 
beings — that  he  wasnotspeakingwhat 
was  in  himself,  so  much  as  offering 
the  homage  of  the  restored  universe. 
The  simple  mind  of  a  patriarch  could 
not  take  in  so  vast  a  thought  as  this ; 
what  need  that  he  should  take  it  in  ?" 
What  need  indeed,  when  there  was 
a  coming  man — a  critic  and  expositor, 
like  Mr  Maurice — fated  to  appear  ever 
so  many  ages  after,  to  explain  to  us 
the  inexplainable  thoughts  for  which 
poor  old  savage  Noah  could  find  no  ex- 
pression? We  are  irresistibly  reminded, 
as  we  read,  of  a  famous  critic  in  another 
department.  "  Ah,  sir,"  said  this  re- 
doubtable gentleman,  as  he  looked 
upon  a  sketch  of  a  deceased  painter, 
an  unhappy  disinherited  son  of  Fame, 

— u  Ah,  sir, was  a  great 

colourist,  and  he  never  knew  it ! " 
The  patriarch,  like  the  painter,  was 
unconscious  of  what  was  in  him — a 
dumb  inglorious  Milton,  full  of  inarti- 
culate greatness.  Yet  one  could  sup- 
pose that  that  same  mountain-head  of 
Ararat,  with  the  great  world  appear- 
ing around,  in  the  water  and  out  of 
the  water,  and  the  rainbow  arch  over- 
head, was  about  as  fit  a  scene,  not  only 
to  inspire  grand  ideas,  but  even  the 
grand  simple  language  of  nature  in 
which  to  express  them,  as  the  shady 
groves  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  or  even  the 
classic  cloisters  of  Somerset  House ; 
and  that  the  man  whom  the  Apostle 
describes  as  emphatically  a  preacher 
of  righteousness — a  man  in  whose 
youth  the  first  of  men  was  still  living 
to  tell  his  wonderful  experiences — one 
who  for  many  a  troublous  year  con- 
tended with  a  world  of  giants,  the  sole 
representative  of  God's  church  and 
truth  among  them,  might  possibly  have 
been  quite  as  competent  to  understand 
his  own  deeds,  and  interpret  his  own 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature— Theology. 


thoughts,  as  the  Rev.  Frederick  Deni- 
son  Maurice,  a  Cambridge  scholar, 
and  chaplain  of  Lincoln's  Inn.  We 
believe  they  may  be  an  "  unchancy" 
audience,  these  same  learned  benchers, 
but  not  quite  so  hard  to  manage 
either  as  the  sons  of  Cain  and  La- 
mech,  the  primeval  Titans  of  the 
world  ;  and  we  confess  it  seems  to  us 
somewhat  ludicrous  to  see  how  this 
reverend  gentleman  patronises  Noah, 
who,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  is  Mr  Mau- 
rice's grandfather  as  well  as  our  own, 
and 'deserves  some  little  filial  reve- 
rence at  his  descendant's  hands. 

But,  "what  need  that  he  should 
take  it  in  ? "  continues  Mr  Maurice. 
44  It  was  true;  if  he  could  not  compre- 
hend it,  he  yet  could  speak  out  the 
marvel  and  the  awe  of  his  heart  to 
Him  who  knew  all.  What  was  Noah's 
sacrifice  but  this  ? — as  childlike  as  that 
of  the  man  who  first  gazed  on  the 
strange  world  and  could  not  interpret 
it ;  who  first  saw  death,  and  wanted 
to  be  told  what  it  signified  ;  who  first 
felt  sin,  and  would  fly  from  it.  As 
childlike  as  his  ;  perhaps  more  child- 
like, because  the  oppression  of  ages, 
and  of  the  sin  which  had  been  done  in 
them,  of  the  deaths  which  had  been 
died  in  them,  was  greater  than  that 
which  the  other  could  experience — 
and,  therefore,  the  need  of  casting  it 
on  some  one  who  could  bear  it  was 
greater ;  and  because  the  sense  of  de- 
liverance and  redemption  and  resto- 
ration— the  assurance  that  the  righte- 
ous God  was  a  deliverer,  redeemer, 
restorer — must  have  been  such  as 
none  could  have  had  who  had  not  seen 
how  all  the  powers  of  the  world  were 
used  for  the  punishment  of  those  who 
had  braved  Him  instead  of  believing 
in  Him ;  and  how,  nevertheless,  the 
order  stood  fast,  and  came  forth  fresher 
and  fairer  out  of  the  ruin.  In  what 
words  was  it  possible  to  express  a 
sense  of  man's  greatness — the  king 
over  the  mightiest  animals — and  of 
man's  littleness  in  the  presence  of  the 
elements  which  had  been  let  loose  upon 
him ;  of  the  intimate  inseparable  union 
between  man  and  man ;  of  the  bitter 
strifes  which  tore  them  asunder;  of 
the  awful  nearness  of  men  to  their 
Maker ;  of  their  estrangement  from 
Him?  How  could  he  and  his  sons 
say,  4We  confess  that  Thou  hast 
made  us  rulers ;  help  us  to  govern :  we 


79 

know  that  the  world  can  crush  us ; 
help  us  not  to  fear  it,  but  Thee.  We 
are  sure  that  we  have  rebelled  against 
Thee  ;  we  bless  Thee  that  Thou  up- 
boldest  us,  and  unitest  us  to  Thee?' 
The  altar,  the  clean  beasts,  the  fire, 
and  the  man  presenting  the  animals 
to  Him  whom  he  cannot  see,  in  the 
fire  as  one  of  the  mightiest  ministers 
of  His  will — these  were  the  signs  which 
supplied  the  want  of  language,  or 
translated  the  language  of  earth  into 
that  of  heaven." 

Now  it  appears  to  us  that  this  is 
one  of  the  most  marvellous  instances 
on  record  of  an  appearance  of  reason- 
ing in  which  there  is  neither  argument 
nor  consequence.  It  is  very  probable 
that  all  these  thoughts  were  in  Noah's 
mind  when  he  stood  at  the  opened 
door  of  the  ark,  and  saw  before  him  a 
recovered  world  ;  but  states  of  mind 
are  not  the  whole  and  sole  materials 
of  which  philosophy  and  history  are 
made,  and  we  come  back  in  hopeless 
darkness  to  Noah's  altar  and  its  heap 
of  victims.  This  libation  of  blood, 
these  slain  beasts,  whose  lives  have 
been  miraculously  preserved  only  to 
perish  here,  how  do  they  express  man's 
greatness  and  man's  littleness,  the 
union  between  man  and  man,  the 
strifes  between  man  and  man,  their 
nearness  and  yet  estrangement  from 
their  Maker  ? — how  ?  In  what  man- 
ner do  these  slain  creatures  express 
the  prayer  of  Noah  and  his  sons? 
How  are  these  the  signs  which  supply 
the  want  of  language  ?  Mr  Maurice 
is  a  great  deal  more  arbitrary  than 
those  he  condemns  so  easily  :  it  is  so, 
he  says  ;  but  he  gives  us  no  light  to 
show  us  why  or  how :  instead,  he  gives 
us  a  great  many  admirable  descrip- 
tions of  the  various  phases  of  indivi- 
dual human  experience,  a  great  many 
inculcations  of  the  necessity  of  yield- 
ing our  will  to  God,  of  coming  to  Him 
with  trust  and  confidence,  in  every 
word  of  which  we  are  only  too  glad  to 
concur;  but  still  we  come  back  to  our 
premises.  This  altar  and  its  shed 
blood — this  offering,  made,  not  mildly, 
after  the  gentlest  sweetest  fashion,  but 
violently  by  fire  and  knife,  and  the 
agonies  of  death — what  is  the  meaning 
of  it  ?  This  is  no  expression  of  your 
states  of  mind ;  at  least  you  have  only 
said  it  is  so :  you  have  not  advanced  a 
single  argument  which  convinces  us : 


80 


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[July, 


of  what,  then,  is  it  an  expression?  for 
we  are  more  in  the  dark  than  ever. 

If  it  should  happen  to  dawn  upon 
the  mind  of  the  inquirer  here,  that 
there  was  in  existence  an  ancient  pro- 
mise, instantly  applied  to  the  sufferers 
from  the  Fall,  like  balsam  to  a  wound — 
something  which  spoke  of  a  certain 
Seed,  who  should  undo  the  evil  of  that 
first  tremendous  overthrow — and  that 
the  altar  and  the  blood,  mysteriously, 
darkly,  but  so  as  faith  could  build 
upon,  pointed  to  Him  who  was  to 
come,  God's  own  eternal  glorious  re- 
medy for  the  destroyed  and  ruined 
world, — we  say,  if  this  should  happen 
to  dawn  upon  an  inquirer's  mind, 
bringing  the  daylight  of  the  gospel  to 
interpret  the  morning  of  the  ancient 
world,  it  seems  to  us  that  the  most 
wonderful  illumination  would  imme- 
diately stream  upon  those  ancient 
rites.  "  In  the  name  of  One  to  come," 
— when  the  old  world  echoes  with  these 
words,  as  we  verily  believe  every  sin- 
cere ear  that  listens  for  them  will 
hear  it  echoing,  there  is  no  longer 
either  difficulty  or  incoherence  in  the 
ordinances  of  the  ancient  dispensa- 
tions. This  simple  and  palpable  sign 
of  sacrifice  is  no  longer  an  arbitrary 
token  of  the  human  thoughts  to  which 
it  has  no  real  affinity,  but  is  the  lively 
representation  of  one  distinct  event,  as 
simple,  real,  and  palpable  as  itself. 
But  if  we  attempt  to  show  how  Noah's 
awe,  gratitude,  and  reverence,  or  the 
filial  trust  of  Abel,  found  their  natural 
expression  in  that  hecatomb  of  slain 
animals,  we  are  lost  in  utter  bewilder- 
ment: on  the  one  side  nothing  but 
filial  adoration,  humble  confidence, 
hope,  and  prayer ;  on  the  other,  agony, 
destruction,  cruel  suffering,  and  pain. 
How  or  by  what  means  does  the  one 
interpret  the  other?  We  can  make 
nothing  of  the  mystery ;  it  has  no 
analogy  to  anything  else  known  to  us, 
human  or  divine. 

The  history  passes  on.  Another 
grand  antique  personage  appears  upon 
the  stage,  and  we  have  now  to  consider 
the  sacrifice  of  Abraham.  We  avow 
at  our  beginning  that  it  is  not  much 
our  habit  to  read  books  of  divinity,  and 
frankly  we  do  not  know  whether  the 
merit  of  this  slander  upon  the  Father 
of  the  Faithful  belongs  solely  to  the 
inventive  genius  of  Mr  Maurice,  or  if 
somebody  else,  equally  clever  and  fer- 


tile of  brain,  has  a  hand  in  it.  But, 
according  to  our  primitive  comprehen- 
sion, and  that  plain  Scripture  narra- 
tive, which  does  not  say  God  sug- 
gested, but  God  spoke,  we  had  formed 
a  certain  idea  of  Abraham.  We  con- 
ceived of  him  as,  in  the  first  place,  a 
man  extraordinarily  tried,  whom  God 
commanded,  in  so  many  distinct  un- 
mistakable words,  to  take  his  only 
son— the  son  of  hope,  of  promise,  long 
waited  and  longed  for — and  offer  him 
a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar.  We  under- 
stood from  the  story  that  Abraham 
arose,  dumb,  saying  not  a  word, 
scarcely  thinking  a  thought  in  his 
silent  anguish,  only  hastening  to  do 
it — to  do  it — to  obey  what  God  com- 
manded, though  it  was  worse  than  a 
hundred  deaths.  A  wonderful  tale — 
no  words  to  dilute  the  intense  force  of 
it — nothing  to  explain  how  that  agony 
of  faith  went  upon  its  silent  journey, 
day  by  day,  single-minded,  broken- 
hearted, knowing  only  what  God  had 
said,  and  seeking  no  evasion  of  that 
dread  commandment.  But  it  is  a  very 
different  story  which  meets  us  on  the 
pages  of  Mr  Maurice.  Abraham ! 
You  thought  he  was  a  grand  simple 
soul,  a  natural  princely  man,  one  who 
entertained  travellers,  who  delivered 
the  treasures  of  his  heathen  neigh- 
bours, but,  with  a  noble  magnanimous 
generosity,  would  have  none  of  the 
spoil  he  recovered — who  took  the  gifts 
of  God's  full  hand  with  a  full  heart, 
and  no  thought  of  paying  for  them. 
Was  this  your  idea  ?  Oh  simplicity ! 
what  a  mistake  you  have  made ! 
There  is  no  magnanimous  and  princely 
hero  visible  in  the  sermon  of  Mr  Mau- 
rice—but there  is  a  man  who  "  thinks 
upon  his  thoughts,"  who  makes  subtle 
investigations  into  his  own  spirit,  an 
accomplished  casuist,  an  egotist  of  the 
first  water.  This  poor,  vain,  ungene- 
rous creature  is  too  mean  and  small  of 
soul  to  accept  a  gift  of  surpassing  and 
unequalled  magnitude  without  offer- 
ing God  something  to  make  up  for  it ; 
his  first  thought,  on  receiving  the  prize, 
is  what  he  shall  give  in  return ;  and 
after  various  processes  of  thought,  the 
barren  result  of  all  is,  that  the  man 
makes  up  his  mind  to  offer  back  again 
to  his  heavenly  Benefactor  the  gift 
which  He  gave.  "  I  knew  thee  that 
thou  wert  an  austere  man ;  here  is  thy 
talent;  behold,  now  thou  hast  that 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


81 


which  is  thine."  And  Mr  Maurice's 
Abraham  binds  the  wood  upon  his 
back,  and  in  ineffable  self- estimation, 
and  resolved  to  be  even  with  God, 
sets  off  to  Mount  Moriah  to  deliver 
back  again  the  greatly  appreciated 
boon. 

We  are  not  misrepresenting  Mi- 
Maurice  ;  it  is  true  that  when  his 
Abraham  arrives  at  this  conclusion, 


he  determines  that  it  has  been  sug- 
gested by  God ;  but  that  is  all  that  the 
Divine  will  has  to  do  with  the  mat- 
ter. We  subjoin  the  narrative  of  Mr 
Maurice  and  that  of  Moses.  There 
is  some  difference  between  them— not 
a  little  in  fact,  as  we  suppose ;  and 
the  most  wonderful  distance  in  at- 
mosphere. But  we  will  let  these  two 
historians  speak  for  themselves. 


MOSES. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass  after  these  thing?, 
that  God  did  tempt  Abraham,  and  said 
unto  him,  Abraham:  and  he  said, Behold, 
here  I  am.  And  he  said,  Take  now  thy 
son,  thine  only  son  Isaac,  whom  thou 
lovest,  and  get  thee  into  the  land  of 
Moriah;  and  offer  him  there  for  a  burnt- 
offering  upon  one  of  the  mountains  which 
I  will  tell  thee  of.  And  Abraham  rose  up 
early  in  the  morning,  and  saddled  his  ass, 
and  took  two  of  his  young  men  with  him, 
and  Isaac  his  son,  and  clave  the  wood  for 
the  burnt-offering,  and  rose  up,  and  went 
unto  the  place  of  which  God  had  told 
him.  Then  on  the  third  day  Abraham 
lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  saw  the  place  afar 
off.  And  Abraham  said  unto  his  young 
men,  Abide  ye  here  with  the  ass;  and  I 
and  the  lad  will  go  yonder  and  worship, 
and  come  again  to  you.  And  Abraham 
took  the  wood  of  the  burnt-offering,  and 
laid  it  upon  Isaac  his  son;  and  he  took 
the  fire  in  his  hand,  and  a  knife;  and  they 
went  both  of  them  together.  And  Isaac 
spake  unto  Abraham  his  father,  and  said, 
My  father:  and  he  said,  Here  am  I,  my 
son.  And  he  said,  Behold  the  fire  and 
the  wood:  but  where  is  the  lamb  for  a 
burnt-offering  1  And  Abraham  said,  My 
son,  God  will  provide  himself  a  lamb  for  a 
burnt-offering:  so  they  went  both  of  them 
together." 


MR  MAURICE. 

"  A  man  who  has  waited  long  for  some 
I,  which  has  seemed  to  him  more 
bland  each  day  that  has  not  brought  it  to 
him,  and  yet  has  also  seemed  each  day 
more  improbable;  who  has  been  sure  from 
the  first  that  if  it  ever  came,  it  must  be  a 
gift  from  One  who  watched  over  him  and 
cared  for  him,  and  who,  for  that  very 
reason,  has  gone  on  trusting  that  he  shall 
receive  it — yes,  growing  in  trust,  as  the 
natural  difficulties  looked  more  insur- 
mountable; such  a  man,  when  the  dream 
of  his  heart  becomes  a  substantial  reality, 
has  a  sense  of  grateful  joy  which  turns  to 
pain,which  is  actually  oppressive  till  it  can 
find  some  outlet.  Yet  what  outlet  can  it 
find  1  What  can  he  do  for  the  Giver  more 
than  rejoice  and  wonder  at  the  gift  1 — 
more  than  say,  It  is  thine1?  Nothing  per- 
haps. But  how  can  he  say  that  ? — how  can 
he  utter  what  he  means  to  One  who,  he 
knows,  is  the  source  of  all  he  has,  and 
can  need  nothing  from  him?  What  can 
he  offer  1 — a  mere  sign  or  symbol? — a  sheep 
which  he  would  slay  for  his  own  food,  and 
which  he  would  not  miss  out  of  his  flock  1 — 
a  miserable  sample  of  the  fruits  which  the 
earth  is  pouring  out  to  him1?  It  must 
surely  be  something  better,  more  precious, 
than  any  of  these.  His  own  heart  seems 
to  scorn  such  presents  —  must  not  the 
heart  of  Him  to  whom  he  brings  them  1 
Out  of  such  feelings  comes  the  craving 
for  the  power  to  make  some  sacrifice — to 
find  a  sacrifice  which  shall  be  real,  and 
not  nominal.  The  Book  of  Genesis  says, 
i  God  did  tempt  Abraham.'  It  leads  us 
back  to  the  source  from  which  the 
thoughts  that  were  working  in  him  were 
derived.  It  says,  broadly  and  distinctly, 
This  seed  did  not  drop  by  accident  into 
the  patriarch's  mind  ;  it  was  not  self- 
sown;  it  was  not  put  into  him  by  the 
suggestion  of  some  of  his  fellows.  It  was 
part  of  the  discipline  to  which  he  was 
subjected  that  these  questions  should  be 
excited  in  him.  It  was  his  divine  Teacher 
who  led  him  on  to  the  terrible  conclusion, 
'  The  sacrifice  which  I  must  offer  is  that 


VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVII. 


82 


Modern  Light  Literature— Theology.  [July, 

very  gift  which  has  caused  me  all  my 
joy.  That  belongs  to  God.  I  can  only 
express  my  dependence  upon  God,  my 
thankfulness  to  Him,  by  laying  my  son 
upon  the  altar.'  If  it  was  true  that  he 
had  been  called  out  by  the  living  and  true 
God  to  serve  Him,  and  trust  Him,  and  be 
a  witness  for  Him — if  it  was  true  that  he 
had  received  his  child  from  God — it  was 
true  also,  he  could  not  doubt  it,  that  this 
was  a  command — that  it  was  a  command 
directly  addressed  to  him ;  that  he  was 
to  obey  it." 


Did  it  never  occur  to  Mr  Maurice 
that,  if  Abraham's  sacrifice  did  indeed 
proceed,  in  the  first  place,  from  this 
paroxysm  of  insane  thankfulness,  it  is 
the  most  singular  thing  in  the  world 
that  he  should  have  waited  so  many 
years  before  accomplishing  it  ?  Isaac 
was  no  newly  received  gift,  no  baby 
blessing,  at  this  period,  but  a  reason- 
ing lad,  capable  of  bearing  the  wood 
upon  his  shoulders,  and  asking  shrewd 
questions  ;  "  the  sense  of  grateful  joy, 
which  turns  to  pain,"  must  have  had 
years  to  sober  down  into  reasonable 
and  pious  gratitude  by  this  time ;  why 
such  a  frantic  outburst  now  ?  Oh  this 
power  of  "  spiritual  anatomy  "  !  these 
states  of  mind !  We  are  afraid  that 
this  faculty  of  description  is  a  danger- 
ous one.  At  all  events,  Moses  treats 
the  subject  very  differently.  We  see 
nothing  whatever  of  Abraham's  pro- 
cesses of  thought  in  his  history ;  and 
if  we  were  to  enter  our  own  fancy  in 
opposition  to  Mr  Maurice's,  our  indi- 
vidual apprehension  of  him  would 
paint  Abraham,  hastening  on  his  way, 
thinking  nothing,  saying  "  God  said," 
hurrying  onward,  taking  no  time  to 
consider  what  he  was  doing  ;  feeling 
that  his  only  safety  was  to  do  it,  to 
obey,  and  leave  the  rest  to  God. 
Heaven  and  bereaved  hearts  only 
know  the  unspeakable  agony  of  sub- 
mitting, when  a  child  is  only  taken ; 
but  to  give — to  offer — fancy  has  no- 
thing to  do  with  such  an  unimaginable 
anguish  ;  and  there  is  not  a  word  in 
the  Scripture  story  which  authorises 
us  to  believe  that  Abraham's  thoughts 
and  wishes  had  the  slightest  share  in 
the  dread  command  of  God. 

But  we  must  hasten  from  the  Old 
Testament  and  its  dimmer  ordinances, 
only  pausing  to  note  one  important 
enunciation  which  our  author  makes 
in  this  same  sermon  about  Abraham. 


Abraham's  reward,  says  Mr  Maurice, 
was  this — 

"  He  had  found  sacrifice  to  be  no  one 
solitary  act,  no  sudden  expression  of  joy, 
no  violent  effort  to  make  a  return  for 
blessings  which  we  can  only  return  by 
accepting;  but  that  it  lies  at  the  very  root 
of  our  being  ;  that  our  lives  stand  upon 
it  ;  that  society  is  held  together  by  it ; 
that  all  power  to  be  right  and  to  do  right 
begins  with  the  offering  up  of  ourselves, 
because  it  is  thus  that  the  righteous  Lord 
makes  us  like  Himself." 

In  this  we  find  the  first  statement 
of  what  is  in  reality  Mr  Maurice's 
leading  principle :  he  returns  to  it 
again  and  again ;  he  tell  us  that  he 
can  conceive  of  no  state,  or  rather,  to 
use  his  own  words,  "  that  the  most 
pure  and  perfect  state  of  which  we  can 
conceive  is  the  state  of  which  sacrifice 
is  the  law ;"  and  "  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  imagine  a  blessed  world  in 
which  it  does  not  exist."  He  "  main- 
tains that  sacrifice  is  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  sin  ;"  that,  in  fact,  instead 
of  being  a  means,  it  is  an  end,  and,  as 
it  would  appear,  in  reality,  the  chief 
end  for  which  this  world  was  created. 
Let  us  endeavour  to  realise  this  con- 
dition of  existence ;  the  intense  amia- 
bility of  it  is  scarcely  to  be  conceived 
by  our  gross  mortal  understanding. 
We  can  all  of  us  understand  a  sacri- 
fice which  has  a  motive.  The  man 
who  puts  his  own  life,  or  his  own  good 
fame,  upon  deadly  hazard  to  save  his 
brother's  ;  the  woman  who  resigns  all 
the  joys  of  life  to  recall  one  soul  astray 
and  erring  to  a  better  way, — these, 
we  say  with  reverence,  are  humble 
shadows,  far  off  and  faint,  of  one  In- 
finite Sacrifice,  and  we  commend  them 
for  their  motive,  but  not  for  them- 
selves :  their  design  is  to  save — with- 
out this  design  they  are  meaningless ; 
and  though  they  may  fail  a  hundred 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


83 


times,  the  purpose  that  is  in  them, 
and  which  gives  all  force  and  nobility 
to  them,  remains.  That  is  the  old 
doctrine  ;  but  Mr  Maurice  requires  no 
design,  no  purpose,  no  motive.  The 
supreme  excellence  of  the  thing  is 
enough  for  him  ;  and  we  cannot  re- 
member any  example  which  so  per- 
fectly exhibits  his  doctrine,  as  it  ap- 
plies to  the  social  intercourse  of  mortal 
men,  as  that  of  the  far-famed  old  man 
of  the  fable  with  his  ass.  Pure,  mo- 
tiveless, unselfish  sacrifice  was  that ; 
and  the  conscientious  and  sorely  tried 
hero  of  the  tale,  panting  as  he  carries 
his  faithful  beast  along  the  road,  where 
that  same  faithful  beast,  but  for  pub- 
lic opinion,  ought  to  have  carried  him, 
must  be,  we  should  fancy,  the  very 
beau  ideal  of  Mr  Maurice.  When  all 
the  world  is  equally  complaisant,  what 
a  world  it  will  be !  how  mild,  how 
tender,  how  gentle  should  be  all  the 
symbols  and  images  which  point  to- 
wards this  consummation  !  Are  they 
so?  Of  what  do  these  slain  beasts, 
these  holocausts,  these  heaps  of  slaugh- 
tered victims, testify  to  the  world?— of 
violent  agony,  frightful,  unspeakable, 
only  to  be  expressed  by  the  last  pang 
of  mortal  suffering.  What  has  this  to 
do  with  man's  sweet  submission  to  his 
brother,  with  his  filial  reverence  to 
God,  his  childlike  dependence  upon 
Him  ?  If  that  were  all,  these  murder- 
ed creatures  should  have  been  brought 
hither  garlanded  and  crowned,  and 
lived  guarded  lives  as  dedicated  offer- 
ings, instead  of  dying  violent  deaths. 
Why  did  they  die  ? 

It  is  a  hard  question  ;  and  when  we 
turn  to  our  author's  exposition  of  the 
New  Testament,  we  cannot  but  feel 
that  the  death  of  the  Lord  is  a  source 
of  continual  embarrassment  and  per- 
plexity to  his  mind.  But  for  that 
death,  all  would  go  well  with  him  ;  if 
the  Son  of  God  had  only  lived  His 
perfect  and  wonderful  life,  spoken  His 
marvellous  words,  done  His  works  of 
mercy,  and  ascended  to  the  heaven 
from  whence  He  came,  all  would  have 
been  harmonious  and  consistent ;  but, 
unfortunately,  the  central  and  culmi- 
nating point  of  the  gospel  is  not  even 
so  much  that  Jesus  lived  as  that  Jesus 
died.  It  is  not  the  manger,  but  the 
cross,  that  is  the  type  of  Christianity; 
and  all  the  world,  past  and  present, 
centres  towards  this  mysterious  Death. 


In  this  death  Mr  Maurice  believes 
fervently :  he  preaches  that  it  has 
saved  all  the  world  ;  but  how  ?  That 
is  a  different  question.  He  begins  by 
presuming  that  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  this  supreme  perfection  of  men, 
if  He  ever  did  come,  should  sacrifice 
Himself.  "  If  there  could  be  one  who 
never  did  lift  himself  up  above  his 
brethren,  who  never  claimed  to  be 
anything  but  a  member  of  a  kind, 
must  he  not  be  the  perfectly  righteous 
man,  and  yet  must  he  not  be  in  sym- 
pathy and  fellowship  with  all  sinful 
men  as  no  other  ever  was  ?  Must  he 
not  have  a  feeling  and  experience  of 
their  sins  which  they  have  not  them- 
selves ?  Is  it  not  involved  in  the  very 
idea  of  such  a  being  that  he  sacrifices 
himself?  " 

We  confess  that  this  "  must"  only 
confounds  and  bewilders  our  poor  ap- 
prehension. We  can  see  no  necessity 
in  it.  It  seems  to  us  as  if  somebody 
going  to  America,  and  finding  an 
English-speaking  people  there  go- 
verning themselves,  should  begin  to 
predict  that  the  original  colony  must 
separate  itself  from  the  parent  state ; — 
very  safe  prophesying  now,  but  not 
quite  so  patent  a  truth  in  the  days  of 
the  "  Mayflower."  It  is  the  time  of 
David  of  which  Mr  Maurice  is  treat- 
ing; and  he  goes  on  to  tell  us,  speak- 
ing of  the  whole  race  (of  Jews,  of 
course — at  least  we  presume  so),  "  I 
say  for  a#,  because  this  was  the  very 
discovery  which  gave  them  comfort, 
and  the  only  one  which  could.  They 
were  not  only  taught,  *  If  there  is 
such  a  righteous  man,  then  he  must 
and  will  offer  such  a  sacrifice  as  this, 
and  that  sacrifice  must  be  a  sacrifice 
of  God,'  but  their  hearts  said  also, — 
*  Such  an  One  there  is,  and  such  an 
One  will  be  manifested.  His  exist- 
ent is  implied  in  all  that  we  are 
thinking,  feeling,  doing.  Some  day 
He  will  make  it  clear  by  a  transcen- 
dent act — an  act  pregnant  with  the 
mightiest  consequences  to  the  world-" 
that  He  is." 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  universal  en- 
lightenment in  the  time  of  David,  the 
very  chosen  companions  of  the  divine 
Redeemer  were  dismayed  and  bewil- 
dered at  any  mention  of  sacrifice  on 
His  part.  What  does  this  inconsist- 
ency mean?  But  whatever  it  means, 
Mr  Maurice  has  at  last  come  to  the 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


[July, 


conclusion  that  it  is  expected  of  all 
mankind  that  a  Saviour  is  to  come, 
and  is  to  die.  And  now  it  is  time  to 
enter  on  the  question,  Why  was  He  to 
die?  Not  for  sin,  because  sacrifice  is 
independent  of  sin.  For  what,  then, 
was  it  necessary  that  this  divinest 
•essence  of  manhood  was  to  give  forth 
His  life  upon  the  cross? 

Returning  to  Mr  Maurice's  book  to 
search  for  this  reason  in  his  own 
words,  we  find  it  the  most  difficult 
thing  in  the  world  to  light  upon  it. 
So  far  as  God  Himself  was  concerned, 
its  main  reason  seems  to  have  been  to 
testify  "  the  eternal  and  original  union 
of  the  Father  with  the  Son  — that 
union  which  was  never  fully  manifest- 
ed till  the  Only  Begotten  by  the 
Eternal  Spirit  offered  Himself  to  God ;" 
.and  again,  "  that  union  and  co-opera- 
tion of  the  will  of  the  Father  with  the 
will  of  the  Son,  which  was,  as  St  Peter 
taught  us,  before  all  worlds,  which 
lay  at  the  very  ground  of  creation, 
but  which  was  never  manifested  in  its 
fulness  till  the  Son  yielded  Himself  up 
to  the  death  of  the  cross." 

But  the  real  motive  of  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  was  this — God  had  already 
forgiven  His  sinful  creatures  their 
iniquities;  and,  as  we  read,  we  almost 
fancy  we  can  see  some  benignant 
father  smiling  at  the  follies  of  his 
-children,  which  are  in  reality  so  harm- 
less and  trifling  that  it  is  no  effort  on 
his  part  to  forgive  them — that  they 
scarcely  need  forgiveness.  But  God 
lias  forgiven  these  transgressions ;  it  is 
only  necessary  to  make  man  believe 
in  it.  How  is  this  to  be  done?  By  a 
secret  inward  revelation,  as  Abel  and 
Noah  were  moved  ?  by  an  oath  and 
covenant,  as  sufficed  for  Abraham? 
No !  Astonishing  prodigality  of  Hea- 
ven !  to  convince  this  obstinate,  pre- 
judiced, unpersuadable  man,  the  Son 
comes  to  this  world,  and  this  divine 
and  glorious  life  is  thrown  away  upon 
the  cross  to  coax  the  sullen  villain  to 
believe  (what  was  nevertheless  true 
whether  he  believed  it  or  no),  that 
God  had  saved  him !  And  that  death, 
so  often  typified,  so  often  predicted, 
for  which  such  solemn  preparations, 
such  widespreading  providences  clear- 
ed the  way— that  death,  after  all,  was 
not  a  ransom,  but  only  an  argument; 
not  a  propitiation,  but  simply  a  proof 
—  a  most  astounding  disproportion, 


surely,  of  means  to  the  end !  If  Abel, 
Noah,  Abraham,  David,  had  believed 
on  God's  word  and  assurance,  how 
did  these  lesser  men  of  later  times 
require  so  extraordinary  an  additional 
security?  We  are  lost  in  amazement 
when  we  come  to  think  of  it.  If  this 
is  so,  it  seems  to  us  the  only  instance 
on  record  of  waste  of  means  and  un- 
necessary expenditure  on  the  part  of 
God. 

But  if  our  Lord's  death  was  after 
this  wise,  a  proof  to  man  of  God's  ac- 
complished deed,  and  a  full  pledge, 
such  as  never  had  been  given  before, 
of  the  entire  union  of  the  Father  and 
the  Son,  how  majestic,  how  calm,  how 
full  of  the  grandest  solemn  delight  and 
satisfaction  must  have  been  that  so- 
called  sacrifice?  How  we  can  fancy 
the  sun,  His  shadow  in  the  heavens, 
shedding  its  mildest  effulgence  on 
His  glorious  head  as  He  hangs  upon 
His  cross  as  on  a  throne.  Neither 
agony  nor  passion  can  be  there.  There 
is  nothing  to  agonise  for.  He  is  a 
witness  of  his  Father's  accomplished 
pleasure— a  benign  advocate  of  God 
to  man,  and  not  of  man  to  God. 

So  has  died  many  a  holy  martyr  to 
His  word  and  truth.  So  fell  Stephen, 
with  the  glory  of  heaven  on  his  young 
brow.  But  so  did  not  die  the  Lord  of 
All.  The  convulsed  and  trembling 
earth,  shaken  to  her  foundations ;  the 
rended  hills;  the  darkened  sun;  the 
pale  atmosphere  of  gloom,  and  terror, 
and  agony;  the  face  of  solemn  an- 
guish ;  the  cry  of  desertion  and  soli- 
tude; and  that  last  voice  of  triumph, 
of  agony,  of  conquest,  what  do  they 
mean?  "It  is  finished!"  What?  The 
witness-bearing,  the  persuasion,  the 
proof,  the  sympathy?  But  these  are 
never  to  be  finished  while  Time  and 
Hope  endure. 

41  It  is  finished!"  What?  This 
interpreter  does  not  tell  us — on  his 
principles  we  find  it  impossible  to  tell. 
All  the  common  words  are  here,  yet 
we  are  robbed  of  our  Lord,  and  can- 
not tell  where  He  is  gone.  He  died 
to  convince  us ;  He  did  not  die  for  us. 
He  is  our  brother;  but  not  our  head, 
our  substitute,  our  Redeemer,  who 
stood  in  our  stead,  and  bore  our  pun- 
ishment. He  is  the  Father's  secu- 
rity to  us;  the  hostage  of  God's 
treaty ;  and  not  our  security  with  the 
Father,  our  Royal  purchaser  and 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Theology. 


owner,  who  undertakes  all  things  for 
us.  Out  of  chaos  we  came,  and  into 
chaos  we  return.  We  see  no  signi- 
ficance in  the  arbitrary  sign  of  Abel's 
primitive  offering;  no  natural  lan- 
guage of  gratitude  or  confidence  in  the 
slain  lamb.  Nor  can  we  understand, 
in  any  sense,  how  the  Son,  whose 
death  declares  His  union  with  His  Fa- 
ther, and  who  is  only  the  pledge  and 
guarantee  of  His  Father's  sincerity, 
can  be  called  the  Lamb  of  God,  which 
taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world. 

We  have  been  obliged  to  hasten 
over  this  book,  a  book  which  tempts 
contradiction  on  every  page,  and  on 
which  we  could  have  lingered  very- 
much  longer  had  space  or  time  permit- 
ted. But  though,  even  in  the  quota- 
tions we  have  made  here,  we  have 
passed  over  many  statements  which 
we  would  wish  to  record  our  energetic 
protest  against,  we  do  not  think  we 
have  omitted  any  important  link  of  Mr 
Maurice's  argument,  or  misrepresented 
the  drift  of  it.  It  is,  indeed,  a  con- 
sistent and  carefully  constructed 
scheme,  with  its  leading  idea  clear 
and  well  sustained,  and  an  immense 
amount  of  skill  and  pains  expended 
in  its  arrangement.  The  plausibility 
of  the  whole  depends  on  the  plausibi- 
lity of  each  part,  and  this  Mr  Maurice 
admits  as  well  as  ourselves,  when  he 
makes  the  singularly  candid  avowal, 
that  unless  he  can  succeed  in  explain- 
ing how  we  are  "  redeemed"  by  Christ 
from  "  the  curse  of  the  law"  in  some 
other  sense  than  that  which  declares 
"  that  He  offered  His  blood,  which  was 
an  adequate  purchase- money  or  ran- 
som for  it,"  he  u  must  abandon  all 
the  conclusions  respecting  sacrifice 
which  we  have  deduced  hitherto  from 
an  examination  of  Scripture."  How 
he  manages  to  make  this  explanation 
we  leave  to  better  judges — our  voca- 
tion is  not  to  expound  or  interpret. 
We  have  floated  along  the  easy  stream 
of  Mr  Maurice's  special  pleading — we 
have  looked  on  with  wrath  and  pug- 
nacity, at  which  we  could  not  help 
being  amused  when  we  thought  of  it, 
while  our  old  faith  was  disposed  of — 
we  have  paid-all  attention  to  his  state- 
ments—and our  conclusion  is,  that 
cleverer  appearances  of  giving  a  rea- 
son scarcely  could  be  ;  but  for  the 
reason  itself,  we  could  not  catch  sight 
of  it.  In  our  private  retirement  we 


85 

have  been  carrying  on  a  smart  dialogue 
with  Mr  Maurice.  "This  is,"  says 
the  teacher— "  Why?"  say  we.  But 
our  instructor  never  condescends  upon 
the  why  :  we  are  continually  pursuing 
him  in  wonder  and  bewilderment,  con- 
tinually calling  upon  him  to  stop  and 
explain  himself;  but  unfortunately 
the  points  on  which  Mr  Maurice  is 
disposed  to  be  explanatory  are  pre- 
cisely those  which  we  ask  no  ques- 
tions about.  Mr  Maurice  is  a  good 
man,  and  no  doubt  was  entirely  satis- 
fied himself  with  the  truth  of  his  pre- 
lections ;  and  we  trust  his  learned 
audience  at  Lincoln's  Inn  found  some- 
thing more  than  assertions  in  them. 
But  we — well,  we  are  only  one  of  the 
public ;  we  are  neither  learned  in  divi- 
nity nor  in  law — we  find,  as  we  have 
before  acknowledged,  several  graphic 
sketches  of  u  states  of  mind  "  in  this 
clever  volume,  but  as  for  connection 
between  these  "  states  of  mind"  and 
the  tokens  which,  according  to  Mr 
Maurice,  are  their  natural  interpreta- 
tion, we  confess  candidly  that  we  can 
see  none.  If  we  are  to  believe  Mr 
Maurice,  this  singular  institution  of 
sacrifice  means  nothing  at  all,  and 
has,  in  fact,  had  a  certain  propriety 
and  significance  only  among  the. 
heathen.  The  merest  and  most  ar- 
bitrary of  forms, — a  pure  motiveless 
bloodshedding  it  must  have  been  with 
the  patriarchs,  who,  doubtless,  if  they 
had  not  so  much  talk  in  them  as  this 
modern  generation,  were  able  enough, 
even  Noah,  to  say  in  so  many  words 
their  prayers  and  their  thanksgiving, 
without  the  melancholy  and  tragical 
intervention  of  these  "  poor  dumb 
mouths,"  the  wounds  of  the  victims 
on  their  altar. 

Mr  Maurice  tells  us  that  in  his 
philosophy  everything  proceeds  from 
God  ;  but  this  is  rather  a  delusive1  doc- 
trine, for  in  reality  everything  in  his 
philosophy  proceeds  from  the  pro- 
cesses of  human  thought,  influenced  in 
an  inward  far-away  mode,  unacknow- 
ledged by  the  divine  Whisperer,  by 
some  suggestion  of  the  Supreme.  We, 
for  our  part,  feel  very  confident 
that  the  idea  of  sacrifice  could  never 
have  occurred  to  the  human  mind 
at  all  if  God  had  not  given  it  forth 
so  plainly,  that  it  was  possible  to 
pervert,  but  not  to  deny  it.  How- 
ever, teaching  is  not  in  our  way, 


86 


Vernier. 


[July, 


and  we  have  only  one  thing  more  to 
Bay  before  leaving  Mr  Maurice.  We 
were  never  more  struck  with  a 
change  of  atmosphere  than  we  were 
when  we  laid  down  his  book,  and 
took  up  that  Book  from  which  he 
takes  his  texts.  The  words  were 
often  the  same,  but  the  air,  the 
spirit,  the  essence  was  changed. 
We  add  another  "Why?"  to  our 
long  list  of  interrogations.  This 
amiable  and  good  man  has  been  led 
away  by  his  anxiety  to  find  a  libe- 
ral and  enlightened  gospel,  fit  for 
the  nineteenth  century,  and  its  in- 
tellectual dabblers  in  scepticism  ;  and 
he  has  been  too  much  occupied  by 
the  course  of  views  necessary  to 
establish  his  theory,  to  observe  that 
subtle  inexpressible  breath  of  life 
which  he  has  left  behind. 

Fathers  and  mothers  !  ye  who  are 
proud  in  your  secret  hearts  when 
your  boys  are  born  to  you,  and 
snub  the  poor  little  sisters,  the  de- 
trimentals of  the  nursery,  —  do  you 
know  that  a  great  many  philoso- 
phers (and  Mr  Maurice  and  the 
Broad  Church  are  undoubtedly  sup- 
porters of  the  same  opinion)  main- 


tain that  no  man  can  have  a  real, 
stout,  individual  faith  of  his  own 
till  he  has  passed  through  certain 
regions  of  Disbelief,  Scepticism,  In- 
fidelity, of  which  it  is  the  fashion  to 
speak  with  great  reverence  and  re- 
spectfulness ?  And  do  you  know  that 
it  is  the  persuasion  of  Mr  Thackeray, 
that  the  same  young  man  must  take 
a  certain  course  of  vice,  before  he 
can  hope  to  become  such  a  man  as 
Lord  Kew?  Deluded  and  insane 
Heads  of  Houses  !  do  you  hear  these 
oracles,  and  will  you  still  persist 
in  bringing  up  the  miserable  little 
urchins,  doomed  to  undergo  this 
fate?  Be  persuaded,  we  beseech  you, 
good  people :  let  us  have  a  genera- 
tion of  the  little  sisters — those  pro- 
per little  beings,  whom  nature  her- 
self keeps  in  order,  and  who  have  no 
necessity  laid  upon  them  to  be  either 
dissipated  or  sceptical.  As  for  the 
other  unfortunate  moiety  of  the  crea- 
tion, dispose  of  it  somehow — we  will 
not  inquire  too  closely  into  the  par- 
ticulars— but  surely  anything  is  better 
than  taking  care  of  and  preserving  the 
imp  till  it  is  old  enough  to  meet  this 
predicted  fate. 


VERNIER. 

IP  ever  thou  shalt  follow  silver  Seine 

Through  his  French  vineyards  and  French  villages, 

Oh  !  for  the  love  of  pity  turn  aside 

At  Vernier,  and  bear  to  linger  there — 

The  gentle  river  doth  so— lingering  long 

Round  the  dark  moorland,  and  the  pool  Grand'mer, 

And  then  with  slower  ripples  steals  away 

Down  from  his  merry  Paris.     Do  thou  this ; 

'Tis  kind  and  piteous  to  bewail  the  dead, 

The  joyless,  sunless  dead;  and  these  lie  there, 

Buried  a  hundred  fathoms  in  the  pool, 

Whose  rough  dark  wave  is  closed  above  their  grave, 

Like  the  black  cover  of  an  ancient  book 

Over  a  tearful  story. 

Very  lovely 

Was  Julie  de  Montargis  :  even  now, 
Now  that  five  hundred  years  are  dead  with  her, 
Her  village  name — the  name  a  stranger  hears — 
Is,  "  La  plus  belle  des  belles  ;"— they  tell  him  yet, 
The  glossy  golden  lilies  of  the  land 
Lost  lustre  in  her  hair  ;  and  that  she  owned 
The  noble  Norman  eye — the  violet  eye 
Almost — so  far  and  fine  its  lashes  drooped, 
Darkened  to  purple  :  all  the  country-folk 
Went  lightly  to  their  work  at  sight  of  her, 


1855.]  Vernier.  87 

And  all  their  children  learned  a  grace  by  heart, 
And  said  it  with  small  lips,  when  she  went  by, 
The  Lady  of  the  Castle.    Very  dear 
Was  all  this  beauty  and  this  gentleness 
Unto  her  first  love  and  her  playfellow, 
Roland  le  Vavasour. 

Too  dear  to  lose, 

Save  that  his  knightly  vow  to  pluck  a  palm, 
And  bear  the  cross  broidered  above  his  heart, 
To  where  upon  the  cross  Chrlft  died  for  him, 
Led  him  away  from  loving.     But  a  year, 
And  they  shall  meet— alas  !  to  those  that  joy, 
It  is  a  pleasant  season,  all  too  short, 
Made  of  white  winter  and  of  scarlet  spring, 
With  fireside  kisses  and  sweet  summer-nights: 
But  parted  lovers  count  its  minutes  up, 
And  see  no  sunshine.    Julie  heeded  none, 
When  she  had  belted  on  her  Roland's  sword, 
Buckled  his  breastplate,  and  upon  her  lip 
Taken  his  last  long  kisses. 

Listen  now ! 

She  was  no  light-o'-love,  to  change  and  change, 
And  very  deeply  in  her  heart  she  kept 
The  night  and  hour  St  Ouen's  shrine  should  see 
A  true-love  meeting.     Walking  by  the  pool, 
Many  a  time  she  longed  to  wear  a  wing, 
As  fleet  and  white  as  wore  the  white- winged  gull, 
That  she  might  hover  over  Roland's  sails, 
Follow  him  to  the  field,  and  in  the  battle 
Keep  the  hot  Syrian  sun  from  dazing  him : 
High  on  the  turret  many  an  autumn-eve, 
When  the  light,  merry  swallow  tried  his  plumes 
For  foreign  flight,  she  gave  him  messages — 
Fond  messages  of  love,  for  Palestine,  , 

Unto  her  knight.     What  wonder,  loving  so, 
She  greeted  well  the  brother  that  he  sent 
From  Ascalou  with  spoils — Claude  Vavasour  ? 
Could  she  do  less  ?— he  had  so  deft  a  hand 
Upon  the  mandolin,  and  sang  so  well 
What  Roland  did  so  bravely  ;  nay,  in  sooth, 
She  had  not  heart  to  frown  upon  his  songs, 
Though  they  sang  other  love  and  other  deeds 
Than  Roland's,  being  brother  to  her  lord. 
Yet  sometimes  was  she  grave  and  sad  of  eye, 
For  pity  of  the  spell  that  eye  could  work 
Upon  its  watcher.    Oh  !  he  came  to  serve, 
And  stayed  to  love  her ;  and  she  knew  it  now, 
Past  all  concealment.     Oftentimes  his  eyes 
Fastened  upon  her  face,  fell  suddenly, 
For  brother-love  and  shame  ;  but  oftener 
Julie  could  see  them,  through  her  tender  tears, 
Fixed  on  some  messenger  from  Holy  Laud 
With  wild  significance,  the  thin  white  lips 
Working  for  grief,  because  she  smiled  again. 

He  spake  no  love — he  breathed  no  passionate  tale, 
Till  there  came  one  who  told  how  Roland's  sword, 
From  heel  to  point,  dripped  with  the  Paynim  blood ; 
How  Ascalon  had  seen,  and  Joppa's  list, 
And  Gaza,  and  Nica3a's  noble  fight, 
His  chivalry  ;  and  how,  with  palm- branch  won, 


88  Vernier. 

Bringing  his  honours  and  his  wounds  a-front, 
His  prow  was  cleaving  Genoa's  sapphire  sea, 
Bound  homewards.    Then,  the  last  day  of  the  year, 
He  brought  the  unused  charger  to  the  gate, 
Sprang  to  the  broad  strong  back,  and  reined  its  rage 
Into  a  marble  stillness.    Ah  !  more  still, 
Young  Claude  le  Vavasour,  thy  visage  was, 
More  marble-white.    She  stood  to  see  him  pass, 
And  their  eyes  met  ;  and,  ah  !  but  hers  were  wet 
To  see  his  suffering  ;  aira  she  called  his  name, 
And  came  below  the  gate  ;  but  he  bowed  low, 
And  thrust  the  vizor  down  over  his  face, 
And  so  rode  on. 

Before  St  Ouen's  shrine 
That  night  the  lady  watched  —  a  sombre  night, 
With  no  sweet  stars  to  say  God  heard  or  saw 
Her  prayers  and  tears  :  the  grey  stone  statues  gleamed 
Through  the  gloom  ghost-  like  ;  the  still  effigies 
Of  knight  and  abbess  had  a  slrow  of  life, 
Lit  by  the  crimsons  and  the  amethysts 
That  fell  along  them  from  the  oriels  ; 
,  And  if  she  broke  the  silence  with  a  step, 

It  seemed  the  echo  lent  them  speech  again 
To  speak  in  ghostly  whispers  ;  and  o'er  all, 
With  a  weird  paleness  midnight  might  not  hide, 
Straight  from  the  wall  St  Ouen  looked  upon  her, 
With  his  grim  granite  frown,  bidding  her  hope 
No  lover's  kiss  that  night  —  no  loving  kiss  — 
None  —  though  there  came  the  whisper  of  her  name, 
And  a  chill  sleety  blast  of  midnight  wind 
Moaning  about  the  tombs,  and  striking  her 
For  fear  down  to  her  knees. 

That  opened  porch 

Brought  more  than  wind  and  whisper  ;  there  were  steps, 
And  the  dim  wave  of  a  white  gaberdine  — 
Horribly  dim  ;  and  then  the  voice  again, 
As  though  the  dead  called  Julie.    Was  it  dead, 
The  form  which,  at  the  holy  altar  foot, 
Stood  spectral  in  the  spectral  window-lights  ? 
Ah,  Holy  Mother  !  dead  —  and  in  its  hand 
The  pennon  of  Sir  Roland—  and  the  palm, 
Both  laid  so  stilly  on  the  altar  front  ; 
A  presence  like  a  knight,  clad  in  close  mail 
From  spur  to  crest,  yet  from  its  armed  heel 
No  footfall  ;  a  white  face,  pale  as  the  stones, 
Turned  upon  Julie,  long  enough  to  know 
How  truly  tryst  was  kept  ;  and  all  was  gone, 
Leaving  the  lady  on  the  flags  ice-cold. 


PART  II. 

Oh,  gentle  River  !  thou  that  knowest  all, 
Tell  them  how  loyally  she  mourned  her  love  ; 
How  her  grief  withered  all  the  rose-bloom  off, 
And  wrote  its  record  on  her  patient  cheek  ; 
And  say,  sweet  River  !  lest  they  do  her  wrong, 
All  the  sad  story  of  those  twenty  moons, 
The  true-love  dead  —  the  true  love  that  lived  on 
Her  faithful  memories,  and  Claude's  generous  praise, 
Claude's  silent  service,  and  her  tearful  thanks  ; 


1855.]  Vernier.  89 

And  ask  them,  River,  for  Saint  Chanty, 
To  think  no  wrong,  that  at  the  end  she  gave, 
Her  heart  being  given  and  gone,  her  hand  to  him, 
Slight  thanks  for  strong  deservings. — 

Banish  care, 

Soothe  it  with  flutings,  startle  it  with  drums, 
Trick  it  with  gold  and  velvets,  till  it  glow 
Into  a  seeming  pleasure.     Ah,  vain !  vain ! 
When  the  bride  weeps,  what,  wedding-gear  is  gay  ? 
And  since  the  dawn  she  weeps — at  orisons 
She  wept — and  while  her  women  clasped  the  zone, 
Among  its  brilliants  fell  her  brighter  tears. 
Now  at  the  altar  all  her  answers  sigh, 
Wilt  thou  ? — Ah  !  fearful  altar-memories — 
Ah  !  spirit-lover — if  he  saw  me  now  ! 
Wilt  thou  ? — Oh  me !  if  that  he  saw  me  now  ; 
He  doth,  he  doth,  beneath  St  Ouen  there, 
As  white  and  still — yon  monk  whose  cowl  is  back. 
Wilt  thou  ? — Ah,  dear  love,  listen  and  look  up. 
He  doth — ah  God  !  with  hollow  eyes  a-fir&. 
Wilt  thou  ? — pale  quivering  lips,  pale  bloodless  lips — 
I  will  not — never — never — Roland — never  ! 

So  went  the  bride  a-swoon  to  Vernier, 

So  doffed  each  guest  his  silken  braveries, 

So  followed  Claude,  heart-stricken  and  amazed, 

And  left  the  Chapel.    But  the  monk  left  last, 

And  down  the  hill-side,,  swift  and  straight  and  lone — 

Sandals  and  brown  serge  brushed  the  yellow  broom — 

Till  to  the  lake  he  came  and  loosed  the  skiff, 

And  paddled  to  the  lonely  island-cell 

Midway  over  the  waters.    Long  ago 

He  came  at  night  to  dwell  there — 'twas  the  night 

Of  Lady  Julie's  vigil ;  ever  since 

The  simple  fishers  left  their  silver  tithe 

Of  lake-fish  for  him  on  the  wave-worn  flags, 

Wherefrom  he  wandered  not,  save  when  that  day 

He  went  unasked,  and  marred  a  bridal-show, — 

Wherefore  none  knew,  nor  how, — save  two  alone, 

A  lady  swooning — and  a  monk  at  prayers. 

And  now  not  Castle-gates,  nor  cell,  nor  swoon, 
Nor  splashing  waters,  nor  the  flooded  marsh, 
Can  keep  these  two  apart — the  Chapel-bells 
Ring  Angelas  and  even-song,  and  then 
Sleep  like  her  waiting  maidens — only  one, 
Her  foster-sister,  lying  at  the  gate 
Dreaming  of  roving  spirits — starts  at  one, 
And  marvels  at  the  night-gear,  poorly  hid, 
And  overdone  with  pity  at  her  plaint, 
Letteth  her  Lady  forth,  and  watches  her 
Gleaming  from  crag  to  crag — and  lost  at  last, 
A  white  speck  on  the  night. 

More  watchful  eyes 

Follow  her  flying — down  the  water-path, 
Mad  at  the  broken  bridals,  sore  amazed 
With  fear  and  pain,  Claude  tracks  the  wanderer — 
Waits  while  the  wild  white  fingers  loose  the  cord  ; 
But  when  she  drove  the  shallop  through  the  lake 
Straight  for  the  island-cell,  he  brooked  no  stay, 
But  doffed  his  steel-coat  on  the  reedy  rim, 


90  Vernier. 

And  gave  himself  to  the  quick-plashing  pool, 
And  swimming  in  the  foam  her  fleetness  made, 
Strove  after — sometimes  losing  his  white  guide, 
Down-sinking  in  the  wild  wash  of  the  waves. 

Together  to  the  dreary  cell  they  come, 

The  shallop  and  the  swimmer — she  alone 

Thrusts  at  the  wicket, — enters  wet  and  wild. 

What  sees  he  there  under  the  crucifix  ? 

What  holds  his  eyesight  to  the  ivied  loop  ? 

Oh,  Claude ! — oh  loving  heart !  be  still,  and  break. 

The  Monk  and  Julie  kneeling,  not  at  prayer. 

She  kisses  him  with  warm,  wild,  eager  lips — 

Weeps  on  his  heart — that  woman,  nearly  wived, 

And,  "Sweetest  love,"  she  saith,  " I  thought  thee  dead." 

And  he — what  is  he  that  he  takes  and  clasps 

In  his  her  shaking  hands,  and  bends  adown, 

Crying,  "  Ah,  my  sweet  love  !  it  was  no  ghost 

That  lefc  the  palm-branch  ;  but  I  saw  thee  not, 

And  heard  their  talk  of  Claude,  and  held  thee  false, 

These  many  erring  days."    Oh,  gaze  no  more, 

Claude,  Claude,  for  thy  soul's  peace !    She  binds  the  brand 

About  his  gaberdine,  with  wild  caress  ; 

She  fondles  the  thin  neck,  and  clasps  thereon 

The  gorget ;  then  the  breast-piece  and  the  helm 

Her  quick  hands  fasten.     "  Come  away,"  she  cries, 

*'Thou  Knight,  and  take  me  from  them  all  for  thine. 

Come,  true-love,  come."    The  pebbles,  water-washed, 

Grate  with  the  gliding  of  the  shallop's  keel, 

Scarce  bearing  up  those  twain. 

Frail  boat,  be  strong ! 

Three  lives  are  thine  to  keep — ah,  Lady  pale, 
Choose  of  two  lovers — for  the  other  comes 
With  a  wild  bound  that  shakes  the  rotten  plank. 
Moon  !  shine  out  fair  for  one  avenging  blow  ! 
She  glitters  on  a  quiet  face  and  form 
That  shuns  it  not,  but  stays  the  lifted  death. 
"  My  brother  Roland  !    Claude,  dear  brother  mine, 
I  thought  thee  dead — I  would  that  I  had  died 
Ere  this  had  come. — Nay,  God !  but  she  is  thine ! — 
He  wills  her  not  for  either  :  look,  we  fill — 
The  current  drifts  us,  and  the  oars  are  gone — 
I  will  leap  forth."    "  Now  by  the  breast  we  sucked 
So  shalt  thou  not :  let  the  black  waters  break 
Over  a  broken  heart.     Nay — tell  him  no ; 
Bid  him  to  save  thee,  Julie — I  will  leap  !  " 
So  strove  they  sinking,  sinking— Julie  bending 
Between  them  ;  and  those  brothers  over  her 
With  knees  and  arms  close  locked  for  leave  to  die 
Each  for  the  other; — and  the  Moon  shone  down, 
Silvering  their  far-off  home,  and  the  great  wave 
That  struck,  and  rose,  and  floated  over  them, 
Hushing  their  death-cries,  hiding  their  kind  strife, 
Ending  the  earnest  love  of  three  great  hearts 
With  silence,  and  the  splash  of  even  waves. 

So  they  who  died  for  love,  live  in  love  now, 
And  God  in  heaven  doth  keep  the  gentle  souls 
Whom  Earth  hath  lost,  and  one  poor  Poet  mourns. 

EDWIN  ARNOLD. 

May  7, 1855. 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  VIII. 


91 


THE    STORY    OF   THE    CAMPAIGN. 

CHAP,  xxii.— (Continued.} 


ON  the  3d  May,  an  expedition, 
which  had  been  for  some  days  in 
course  of  preparation,  consisting  of 
about  7000  French  with  12  guns,  and 
3000  English  with  6  guns,  sailed  for 
Kertsch,  but  just  after  arriving  in  sight 
of  its  destination,  was  recalled  by  a 
message  from  the  French  commander. 
He  had  received  telegraphic  instruc- 
tions from  the  Emperor  to  despatch  all 
the  transports  he  could  command  to 
the  Bosphorus,  to  convey  the  French 
reserves  there  to  the  seat  of  war,  and 
considered  the  instructions  as  suffi- 
ciently imperative  to  necessitate  the 
recall  of  the  expedition,  which  accord- 
ingly returned,  amid  much  dissatisfac- 
tion. A  few  days  afterwards,  General 
Canrobert  resigned  the  control  of  the 
army  to  General  Pelissier,  and  took 
the  command  of  the  first  division,  the 
same  he  had  held  under  St  Arnaud. 

Several  events  marked  the  change 
of  commanders.  On  the  night  of  the 
22d,  the  French  made  a  determined 
attack  on  the  rifle-pits  between  the 
Quarantine  and  Central  Bastions, 
which  form  part  of  the  earth-works 
covering  the  town.  At  nine  o'clock  a 
cannonade,  accompanied  by  volleys  far 
warmer  and  more  sustained  than  in 
any  previous  night-attack  or  operation 
of  the  siege,  marked  the  commence- 
ment of  the  enterprise,  and  continued 
without  intermission  till  three  in  the 
morning.  The  moon  rather  glimmered 
than  shone  upon  the  scene,  and  against 
the  cloudy  horizon  the  flashes  of  the 
guns,  like  summer  lightning,  marked 
the  lines  of  defence  and  attack;  the 
rattle  of  small-arms  was  almost  inces- 
sant, and  occasional  cheers,  rising 
from  the  gloom,  showed  some  advan- 
tage won  or  charge  attempted. 

On  the  following  day  I  visited  the 
scene  of  combat.  Entering  the  French 
lines  at  the  Maison  de  Clocheton,  a 
long  walk  through  the  zigzag  ap- 
proaches led  to  the  advanced  trench, 
where  glimpses  over  the  parapet  and 
through  loopholes,  rendered  precarious 
by  the  proximity  of  the  Russian  rifle- 
men, who  fired  incessantly,  revealed 
the  features  of  the  ground. 

In  a  green  hollow  or  basin,  at  the 
head  of  the  inlet  known  as  Quarantine 


Bay,  is  a  Russian  cemetery,  having  in 
the  midst  a  small  church,  surrounded 
by  crosses  and  headstones.  No  Eng- 
lish country  churchyard,  where  the 
forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep,  can,  in 
its  trim  sanctity,  be  more  suggestive 
of  repose  than  this  peaceful  spot,  above 
the  occupants  of  which  rude  requiems 
of  musketry  and  cannon  had  for 
months  broken  the  silence.  Instead 
of  mourning  friends,  marksmen  had 
crouched  in  the  grass  of  the  graves,  or 
lain  in  the  shadow  of  the  tombstones. 
On  the  previous  night  there  had  been 
hard  fighting  above  the  dead,  on  the 
thresholds  of  whose  green  abodes  lay 
others  ready  to  join  them.  The  ceme- 
tery is  surrounded  by  a  wall,  and  is 
about  seventy  yards  square  ;  the 
further  wall  was  less  than  a  hundred 
yards  from  the  wall  of  the  town,  which 
was  of  masonry,  upright  (those  of 
fortified  places  are  in  general  strength- 
ened with  sloping  buttresses,  termed 
revetments),  and  having  no  ditch. 
It  was  breached  in  three  or  four 
places,  though  not  extensively  enough 
for  the  assault ;  but  it  was  evident 
that,  in  a  few  hours,  the  French  bat- 
teries could,  whenever  they  pleased, 
destroy  the  whole  extent  of  wall, 
which  it  would  have  been  impolitic  to 
do  until  the  moment  for  storming  had 
arrived.  Between  the  wall  of  the 
cemetery  and  that  of  the  town  was  a 
line  of  rifle- screens,  strongly  con- 
structed of  earth  and  gabions,  and 
capable  of  holding  each  at  least  a 
dozen  marksmen.  Only  two  of  these 
had  been  taken  by  the  French,  and 
the  number  of  dead  stretched  on  the 
grass  showed  at  what  cost.  The 
cemetery  was  cleared  of  Russians,  who 
had  retired  to  their  remaining  rifle- 
pits,  and  its  right  wall  now  formed 
part  of  the  French  parapet.  The 
Russian  batteries  before  the  town 
were  silent,  and  the  garrison  had 
hoisted  a  flag  of  truce,  which  the 
French  refused  to  respond  to,  as  it 
was  known  the  attack  was  to  be 
resumed  in  greater  force  the  same 
night  (23d)  ;  and,  on  returning  in  the 
evening,  I  met  bodies  of  troops  enter- 
ing the  lines.  In  all,  it  was  said  that 
30,000  men  were  to  be  assembled  in 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  VIII. 


92 

the  trenches  for  this  new  attack. 
That  night  at  nine  o'clock,  the  can- 
nonade and  musketry  opened  as  be- 
fore, but  soon  became  fainter,  and  by 
midnight  died  away.  The  Russians, 
cowed  by  the  slaughter  of  the  previous 
night,  and  overpowered  by  the  num- 
bers of  the  assailants,  withdrew  within 
their  works,  after  a  short  struggle, 
and  left  the  whole  of  the  rifle-pits  to 
our  allies,  who  connected  them  by 
trenches,  opened  a  communication 
with  their  nearest  approach,  and  occu- 
pied them  as  a  new  advanced  line. 
On  the  24th  there  was  a  truce  for  six 
hours  to  collect  the  dead.  The 
French  lost  1600  killed  and  wounded, 
of  whom  about  a  fourth  were  killed. 
They  delivered  to  the  Russians  1150 
bodies ;  800  more  were  collected  by 
the  burial  parties  on  the  ground, 
most  of  whom  had  been  killed  by  the 
lire  of  four  French  field-pieces,  which 
ploughed  through  the  enemy's  dense 
columns  drawn  up  in  support ;  and 
the  loss  of  the  garrison  in  the  two 
attacks  could  scarcely  have  been  less 
than  6000  men. 

On  the  23d  the  expedition  again 
sailed  for  Kertsch,  and  this  time 
accomplished  the  object  of  its  mission. 
On  the  afternoon  of  the  24th,  the 
allied  force  disembarked  at  Kainish,  a 
village  south-west  of  Kertsch.  About 
2COO  Russian  cavalry  showed  them- 
selves there,  but  did  not  offer  to 
attack  ;  and  the  garrison,  after  blow- 
ing up  their  magazines  and  spiking 
most  of  their  guns,  were  seen  moving 


[July, 


off.  Next  morning  the  allies  advanced 
on  Kertsch,  and  halted  for  an  hour  in 
the  town,  where  they  destroyed  a  large 
foundry  and  bullet- factory,  and  then, 
advancing  on  Yenikale,  and  finding 
the  place  deserted,  they  proceeded  to 
intrench  themselves.  In  all,  108 
guns  were  taken,  many  of  them  of 
large  calibre  (68 -pounders),  which  in 
another  week  would  have  been  mount- 
ed in  the  batteries,  ottering  a  formid- 
able defence.  Some  of  our  war-steamers 
of  light  draught,  and  gun- boats,  im- 
mediately entered  the  Sea  of  Azoff, 
capturing  260  boats  laden  with  grain, 
and  proceeding  to  Arabat,  a  strong 
fort  at  the  southern  extremity  of  the 
long  narrow  isthmus,  by  which  the 
land  communication  with  the  neigh- 
bouring provinces  of  Russia  is  main- 
tained, blew  up,  with  the  first  shell 
fired,  an  immense  magazine  there.  A 
few  days  afterwards,  Genitsch,  at  the 
other  extremity  of  the  isthmus  of 
Arabat,  was  set  on  fire,  and  eighty- 
six  boats  destroyed  in  its  harbour. 
The  whole  of  the  Sea  of  Azoff  was 
scoured  by  this  light  armament.  The 
town  of  Berdiansk  on  the  north  shore 
was  abandoned  by  the  enemy,  as  was 
Soujouk-kale,  near  Anapa;  and  be- 
sides the  towns,  guns,  ammunition, 
and  vessels  (including  four  war- 
steamers  sunk  by  themselves),  the 
Russians  either  destroyed  or  lost  grain 
sufficient  for  100,000  men  for  four 
months ;  moreover,  the  road  by  which 
supplies  had  chiefly  been  sent  to 
Sebastopol  was  rendered  unavailable. 


CHAP.   XXIII. — THE  POSITION  EXTENDED. 


During  the  month  of  May  the  Sar- 
dinian contingent  had  joined  us.  The 
appearance  of  these  troops  was  much 
admired  ;  they  were  very  neatly  and 
serviceably  clothed,  those  of  the  line 
in  grey  coats,  fitting  loosely,  and 
leaving  the  neck  free,  with  a  light 
jacket  and  trousers  underneath ;  their 
arms,  equipments,  waggon-train,  and 
horses,  were  all  in  excellent  order; 
the  troops  looked  healthy  and  cheerful, 
and  the  few  cavalry  that  accompanied 
them  were  extremely  soldier-like  and 
well-appointed. 

Besides  this  addition  to  our  forces, 
the  French  had  received  such  strong 
reinforcements  that  it  was  necessary, 
if  only  for  the  ventilation  of  the  army, 


to  extend  our  position.  On  the  25tb? 
twenty  thousand  Frenchmen  thousand 
Sardinians,  and  twenty  thousand 
Turks,  quitting  the'plateau  some  hours 
before  daybreak,  marched  towards  the 
Tchernaya,  from  which  the  Russians, 
who  were  in  inconsiderable  numbers 
there,  fell  back  without  opposition  : 
the  area  of  our  position  was  thus 
nearly  doubled — the  passage  of  the 
river  secured,  with  a  plentiful  supply 
of  water — and  a  large  portion  of  the 
army  encamped  on  spots  far  more 
eligible  than  could  be  found  on  the 
bare  and  trodden  surface  of  the  heights. 
The  Russian  supplies  from  the  Sea 
of  Azoff  being  cut  off,  and  our  force 
thus  largely  augmented,  the  campaign 


1-855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. —Part  VIII. 


93 


assumed  a  new  aspect.  The  enemy 
must  now  draw  their  supplies  from 
their  depot  at  Simferopol,  and  an 
allied  army  advancing  from  Eupatoria 
to  threaten  that  place,  would  draw 
their  force  thither,  as  Sir  John  Moore's 
advance  in  the  north  of  Spain  drew 
Napoleon's  army  from  Madrid.  A 
second  force  of  the  Allies  might  fol- 
low them  from  the  Tchernaya,  still 
leaving  sufficient  troops  to  watch  Se- 
bastopol,  and  eifect  a  junction  with 
the  army  from  Eupatoria,  presenting 
a  force  which  it  is  unlikely  the  Rus- 
sians could  attempt  to  cope  with,  and 
the  conquest  of  the  whole  province 
might  ensue.  On  such  grounds  the 
time  for  actively  continuing  the  siege 
would  seem  past,  as,  with  our  present 
means,  the  town  might  be  obtained 
on  easier  terms  than  at  the  expense 
of  a  bloody  assault.  Situated  as  the 
Crimea  is,  at  the  extremity  of  the  em- 
pire, and  all  the  northern  portion  being 
extremely  barren,  it  appears  impos- 
sible that  Russia  should  be  able  to 
maintain  there  an  army  at  all  equal 
to  ours,  and  the  form  and  position  of 
the  province  render  it  very  vulnerable 
to  an  enemy  who  commands  the  sea. 
On  such  considerations  the  time  would 
seem  to  have  arrived  when  the  oper- 
ations of  the  siege  might  give  place  to 
new,  more  extensive,  and  more  de- 
cisive enterprises. 

On  the  25th  I  rode  to  our  outposts 
on  the  Tchernaya,  and  afterwards 
completed  the  circuit  of  the  position. 
Descending  from  the  plateau  by  the 
Woronzoff  road  with  a  companion, 
we  crossed  the  ground  where  the  light 
brigade  made  their  memorable  charge, 
to  the  low  heights  between  the  plateau 
and  the  Tchernaya,  leaving  behind 
us  the  hills  from  which  the  Turkish 
outposts  were  driven  in  the  affair  of 
Balaklava,  and  which  were  now  again 
occupied  by  our  Ottoman  allies.  The 
plains  were  in  every  part  covered  with 
luxuriant  herbage  and  flowers,  vary- 
ing in  character  with  the  ground,  the 
lower  portions  being  sometimes  moist 
and  filled  with  marsh  plants,  while  a 
shorter  growth  clothed  the  upland 
slopes.  At  the  base  of  the  low  heights, 
which  were  now  occupied  by  a  French 
division  under  Canrobert,  six  field- 
batteries  were  posted,  the  heights 
themselves  were  covered  with  the 
French  tents,  and  bowers  made  of 
branches;  and  the  guns  in  the  Russian 


works  above  the  ruins  of  Inkermann 
tried  vainly  to  reach  them  with  shells, 
which,  for  the  most  part,  burst  high 
in  air  midway.  A  dell  in  the 
midst  of  these  heights  led  to  the  road 
along  which  we  had  marched  from 
Mackenzie's  Farm.  The  bridge  by 
which  we  had  crossed  the  Tchernaya 
was  uninjured,  and  on  the  further 
side  the  French  were  constructing  a 
Ule-du-pont  or  earthen  work,  the  faces 
flanked  by  parapets  for  musketry  on 
the  hither  side  of  the  river.  We  rode 
along  the  bank,  which  was  lined  with 
Frenchmen  and  Sardinians  fishing, 
and  who  appeared  to  have  good  sport, 
pulling  out  fish  something  like  trout ; 
one  soldier  caught  a  carp  of  a  pound 
and  a  half.  The  meadows  here, 
though  they  must  in  winter  have  been 
deep  swamps,  contained  the  remains 
of  many  burrows  where  the  Russians 
had  bivouacked,  the  branched  roofs 
of  which  had  fallen  in.  At  a  neigh- 
bouring ford  several  hundred  French 
cavalry  were  watering  their  horses, 
the  men  in  their  stable  dresses,  with 
carbines  at  their  backs,  while  a 
strong  picket,  fully  accoutred,  was 
drawn  up  beyond  the  river  to  protect 
them  from  any  sudden  descent  the 
enemy  might  make  from  the  opposite 
heights,  where  a  few  Cossacks  were 
occasionally  visible.  Close  by,  on  the 
opposite  bank,  is  a  tall  conical  hill 
held  by  the  Piedmontese,  who  have 
here  their  advanced  post  of  light 
troops,  dressed  in  green  tunics,  and 
hats  with  bunches  of  green  feathers, 
like  theatrical  bandits,  and  armed 
with  short  rifles.  The  back  of  this 
hill  forms,  with  a  steep  slope  opposite, 
a  narrow  gorge,  where  a  pretty  stone 
bridge  spans  the  Tchernaya,  and  from 
this  point  branches  the  aqueduct  which 
used  to  supply  Sebastopol.  Beyond, 
the  valley  widens  again  into  meadows 
sprinkled  with  trees,  and  tinted  glow- 
ingly with  flowers;  in  some  places 
knolls  are  so  covered  with  purple,  red, 
or  yellow,  as  to  look  like  great  nose- 
gays. In  the  midst  of  a  grove  stands 
the  village  of  Tchergoum,  with  its 
large  octagonal  tower,  and  up  the 
road  behind  it  a  Cossack  may  be  seen 
sauntering  towards  some  of  his  com- 
rades who  appear  on  the  heights,  and 
occasionally  fire  at  those  who  advance 
furthest  from  the  outposts.  There 
are  plenty  of  Russian  burrows  here 
on  both  sides  of  the  river,  and  the 


94 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  VIII. 


[July, 


Allies  in  their  advance  made  spoil  of 
abundance  of  arms  and  furniture, 
which  they'disposed  of  to  visitors,  one 
of  whom  was  offered  a  piano  a  great 
bargain,  of  which  he  was  unable  to 
avail  himself,  as  it  was  rather  too 
large  to  put  in  his  saddle-bags ;  while 
in  another  quarter  a  post-chaise  was 
for  sale.  Had  the  same  purchaser  got 
both,  he  might  have  taken  home  the 
piano  in  the  post-chaise. 

Riding  back  over  the  steep  hills, 
which  in  the  eastern  corner  of  the 
position  are  held  by  Sardinians,  you 
reach  their  right  outpost  nearKamara, 
where  a  road  sweeps  round  the  back 
of  the  mountain.  Here  the  aspect  of 
the  country  suddenly  changes — for 
whereas  the  hills  towards  Bakshi 
Sarai  are  bare  and  chalky,  here  they 
are  clothed  with  a  thick  verdure  of 
tall  coppice,  with  some  trees  of  large 
growth,  spotting  with  the  darkness  of 
their  shadowed  sides  the  even  sunlit 
green  of  the  bushes,  which  is  further 
broken  by  park- like  glades.  All  is 
silent  here ;  there  are  no  soldiers  vis- 
ible, and  no  sound  is  heard  except 
the  thrushes  in  the  leaves,  and  the 
murmur  of  a  small  stream  caught  in 
a  stone  fountain  beside  the  road. 
The  next  turn  discloses  a  camp  occu- 
pied by  a  detachment  of  our  marines, 
supplying  the  pickets  and  sentries 
who  complete  the  circuit  of  outposts 
from  Kamara  to  the  sea-shore  far 
south  of  Balaklava.  Their  tents  are 
pitched  in  a  sunny  meadow,  before 
which  rises  a  wooded  mountain,  with 
craggy  peaks  breaking  through  the 
verdure,  on  each  of  which  stands 
a  sentry  with  his  red- coat  and  cross- 
belts  discernible  a  mile  off  against 
the  sky.  From  this  camp  a  wood- 
path,  shaded  with  fine  trees,  ascends 
to  the  next  mountain  ridge,  where 
a  turn  of  the  road  discloses  a  really 
magnificent  prospect.  Doubtless  the 
long  residence  on  the  dreary  heights 
of  Sebastopol  enhanced  for  us  the 
effect  of  the  view,  but  anywhere  in 
the  world  it  would  have  been  emi- 
nently attractive.  Below  us  lay  the 
valley  of  Baidar,  stretching  from  the 
edge  of  the  sea-cliffs  on  our  right  to 
the  distant  mountain  range,  where  it 
wound  round  out  of  sight.  Like  the 
fabled  vale  of  Avilion,  it  was  "  deep- 
bower'd,  happy,  fair  with  orchard- 
lawns;"  flowery  meadows,  sprinkled 

CAMP  BEFORE  SEBASTOPOL,  June  4. 


with  trees  and  groves,  reminded  me, 
in  their  fertility  and  expanse,  of  the 
vega  of  Granada,  as  seen  from  the 
mountains  behind  the  city.  Two  red- 
roofed  villages,  embowered  in  trees, 
stood,  at  some  distance  apart,  in  the 
midst  of  the  valley,  but  no  inhabitants, 
nor  cattle,  nor  any  kind  of  moving 
thing,  gave  life  to  the  scene — it  was 
beautiful  as  a  dream,  but  silent  as  a 
chart.  No  corn  had  been  sown  for 
this  year's  harvest;  the  only  tokens 
of  agriculture  were  some  farm-wag- 
gons discernible  through  the  glass  at 
a  distant  point  of  the  valley.  The 
villages  were  not  only  deserted,  but, 
as  some  visitors  had  ascertained  a 
day  or  two  before,  quite  denuded  of 
all  tokens  of  domestic  life.  Beyond 
this  outpost  it  was  now  contrary  to 
orders  to  pass ;  a  marine  officer  was 
in  charge  of  the  party,  and  lay  in  a 
kind  of  nest,  under  the  shade  of  his 
blanket  and  cloak,  which  hung  on 
bushes. 

Turning  with  regret  from  this  view, 
we  rode  back  along  the  sea-cliffs  to- 
wards Balaklava.  The  tint  of  the 
Euxine  was  so  light  in  the  bright 
sunshine  that  it  was  not  easy  to  dis- 
tinguish where  the  sky  joined  it ;  and 
the  steamers  that  crossed  to  and  from 
Kertsch  (one  of  them  tugging  a  sailing 
vessel,  perhaps  a  prize)  seemed  to 
traverse  the  air.  The  cliffs,  as  I  have 
mentioned  elsewhere,  are  of  remark- 
able beauty,  with  delicate  rosy  tints 
and  purple  shadows.  At  length  we 
arrived  at  the  stockaded  barrier  drawn 
across  the  road  in  the  winter,  passing 
which  we  came  to  the  fortified  ridge 
from  whence  you  look  down  on  the 
harbour  of  Balaklava,  lying  like  a 
small  lake  in  its  rocky,  tower-skirted 
basin.  Here  work- a- day  life  began 
again— troops  lighting  their  cooking 
fires  and  fetching  their  water— guards 
lolling  in  the  sunshine — mules  and 
buffaloes  toiling  with  their  loads ;  and 
up  the  hills  beyond  Kadukoithe  beard- 
ed pashas,  sitting  in  open  green  tents 
like  canopies,  gazing,  as  they  smoked 
their  tall  silver  nargillys,  towards  the 
distant  mountains  which  surround 
Bakshi  Sarai ;  while  the  more  devout 
among  the  Mussulman  soldiers,  drawn 
up  in  a  body,  with  their  faces  turned 
(I  suppose)  towards  Mecca,  repeated, 
with  many  bendings  and  prostrations, 
their  evening  prayers. 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  VIII. 


95 


CHAPTER  XXIV. — ASSAULT   OF   THE   MAMMELON  AND   QUARRIES. 


Notwithstanding  the  extent  of  our 
force,  great  part  of  which  was  neces- 
sarily idle,  our  strategical  operations 
seemed  to  be  limited  to  the  expedi- 
tion to  Kertsch,  as  the  preparations 
for  a  renewal  of  the  cannonade  on 
Sebastopol,  to  be  followed  by  an  as- 
sault, were  actively  continued.  We 
erected  new  batteries,  accumulated 
great  stores  of  ammunition,  and  aug- 
mented the  number  of  mortars  in  the 
trenches.  On  the  6th  June,  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  batteries 
opened,  and  after  a  short  space  the 
Russians  replied  with  a  fire  heavier 
than  in  former  attacks,  but  by  no 
means  so  well  directed,  owing,  per- 
haps, to  the  want  of  reinforcements 
of  good  artillerymen.  All  that  after- 
noon and  all  night  our  fire  continued, 
and  the  next  morning  that  of  the 
Russians,  which  had  begun  so  spirit- 
edly, was  much  subdued.  TheMamme- 
lon,  which  on  the  previous  afternoon 
had  fired  salvos,  was  reduced  to  two 
or  three  guns,  and  its  parapets,  as 
well  as  those  of  the  Redan,  and  the 
face  of  the  Malakoff  looking  towards 
our  batteries,  were  little  more  than  a 
shapeless  heap  of  earth,  testifying  to 
the  excellence  of  our  artillery  fire, 
which  was  probably  unequalled  for 
precision  and  effect.  The  practice  of 
our  mortars  was  admirable — scarcely 
the  smallest  interval  elapsed  without 
a  huge  shell  bursting  in  the  midst  of 
the  Mammelon,  and  the  loss  of  its  gar- 
rison must  have  been  very  severe — of 
which,  indeed,  we  shortly  had  proof. 

It  had  been  arranged,  before  open- 
ing the  fire,  that  on  the  second  day  an 
assault  should  be  made ;  by  the 
French  on  the  Mammelon  and  the 
smaller  works  towards  Careening 
Bay — by  us  on  a  work  known  as  the 
Quarries,  in  front  of  the  Redan.  Up 
to  our  last  cannonade  the  ground 
there  had  been  occupied  merely  by 
heaps  of  loose  stones  and  rubbish, 
where  marksmen  were  posted;  but 
since  then  the  enemy  had  thrown  up 
an  intrenchment  surrounding  the 
Redan  at  about  four  hundred  yards 
in  front  of  it,  and  had  filled  it  with 
riflemen  —  and  it  was  this  work 
which,  though  quite  regular  in  form, 


retained  the  old  name  of  the  Quarries, 
As  soon  as  the  French  had  secured 
the  Mammelon  we  were  to  attack  this 
point,  and  establish  ourselves ;  but 
our  attack  was  for  the  present  to 
terminate  with  the  success  of  this 
operation,  because  the  Redan,  if  car- 
ried, would  be  untenable  so  long  as 
the  Russians  retained  possession  of 
the  Malakoff.  The  time  chosen  was 
half-past  six  in  the  evening,  and  for 
this  reason,  that  as  men  advance 
with  much  more  spirit  and  confidence 
when  they  see  what  is  before  them 
than  in  night-attacks,  the  assailants 
would  have  daylight  enough  to  secure 
possession  of  the  work,  while  dark- 
ness would  descend  in  time  to  enable 
them  to  throw  up  the  necessary  cover 
against  the  fire  which  the  Malakoff 
(looking  on  the  rear  of  the  Mammelon) 
would  otherwise  pour  in  so  hotly  as, 
perhaps,  to  render  the  occupation  of 
it  difficult  and  attended  with  heavy 
loss. 

At  half-past  five  the  French  columns 
of  attack  were  formed  at  the  mouth  of 
the  ravine  which  divides  the  English 
right  from  the  left  of  the  French  at 
Inkermann, — and  to  each  battalion 
General  Bosquet  addressed  a  few 
words  of  encouragement,  to  which 
they  responded  with  cheers,  and 
straightway  plunged,  in  rather  more 
tumultuous  array  than  English  dis- 
cipline permits,  into  the  ravine.  A 
most  conspicuous  personage  was  a 
vivandiere,  who,  well  mounted,  and 
wearing  a  white  hat  and  feather,  rode 
at  the  head  of  the  column  with  a 
little  keg  slung  at  her  saddle.  First 
went  the  Algerine  Zouaves,  tall, 
lithe,  swarthy,  and  with  African 
features;  next  the  French  Zouaves, 
who,  having  obtained  precedence  over 
the  Green  Chasseurs,  greeted  these 
latter  braves  as  they  passed  them 
with  screams,  howls,  and  derisive 
expressions,  which  were  received  in 
silence  by  the  Chasseurs,  who  fol- 
lowed next,  attended  by  their  vivan- 
diere,  a  very  pretty  and  smartly - 
dressed  girl,  who  seemed  to  possess 
great  control  over  her  feelings ;  for, 
whereas  a  woman  can  scarcely  be  ex- 
pected to  see  with  indifference  even 


96 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  VIII. 


[July, 


a  single  lover  going  to  battle,  this 
young  lady  beheld  with  equanimity  a 
whole  regiment  of  admirers  advancing 
to  deadly  conflict.  Several  regiments 
of  the  line  followed,  and  the  whole 
array  swept  down  the  ravine  to  the 
trenches. 

The  English  light  and  second 
divisions  were  destined  to  attack  the 
Quarries.  Two  bodies,  each  of  two 
hundred  men,  issuing  from  the  fore- 
most trench  of  our  right  attack,  were 
to  turn  the  extremities  of  the  work, 
drive  out  the  occupants,  and,  advanc- 
ing towards  the  Redan,  and  lying 
down  there,  keep  up  a  fire  to  cover 
the  operations  of  eight  hundred  work- 
men, who,  with  pickaxe  and  shovel, 
were  to  throw  up  a  parapet  towards 
the  enemy.  Besides  the  guards  of 
the  trenches,  other  detachments  were 
to  remain  at  convenient  points,  ready 
to  support  them  against  all  attempts 
of  the  enemy. 

By  some  means  the  news  had  got 
abroad  that  an  assault  was  to  be  made, 
and  crowds  assembled  at  different 
commanding  points  before  the  camps. 
As  the  hour  approached,  and  the  num- 
ber of  the  spectators  augmented,  the 
greatest  excitement  prevailed.  We 
could  see  the  French  lining  their 
trenches,  and  the  English  filing  into 
theirs.  The  fire  from  our  batteries 
was  hotter  than  ever,  and  shells  were 
showered  more  thickly  into  the  devoted 
Mammelon.  At  length  three  rockets 
were  fired  from  the  Victoria  redoubt, 
which  General  Pelissier  had  just 
entered,  and  every  glass  was  turned 
towards  the  French  trenches,  from 
which  the  assailants  were  seen  to 
issue  and  swarm  up  the  slope.  Led 
by  one  man,  who  kept  considerably  in 
advance  of  the  rest,  they  passed  the 
line  of  intrenchment  which  the  enemy 
had  drawn  round  the  front  of  the 
work,  and  in  a  few  minutes  were  seen 
at  the  edge  of  the  ditch,  firing  into 
the  embrasures.  Presently  some 
climbed  the  parapet — large  columns 
pressed  in  at  the  left — and,  almost 
without  a  struggle,  the  Russians  hur- 
ried off  towards  the  Malakoff,  while 
the  tricolor  was  hoisted  in  the  captured 
work.  The  smaller  works  towards 
Careening  Bay  had  been  simulta- 
neously assaulted,  though  the  conflict 
there  was  disregarded  in  the  absorbing 
interest  of  the  attack  on  the  Mammelon, 


and  they  also  were  carried  after  a 
short  struggle ;  but  the  one  nearest 
the  sea,  being  exposed  to  the  fire  of 
batteries  on  the  north  side  of  the  har- 
bour, was  found  too  hot  to  remain  in, 
and  the  French  quitted  it. 

Possession  of  the  Mammelon  being 
obtained,  it  was  necessary  to  cover 
the  operations  of  the  workmen  by  a 
further  advance,  and  the  foremost  as- 
sailants dashed  out  in  pursuit  of  the 
Russians  who  made  for  the  Malakoff. 
Flushed  with  their  easy  success,  the 
French  did  not  content  themselves 
with  a  demonstration  against  this 
formidable  work,  but  actually  assailed 
it.  It  immediately  became  a  hornet's 
nest— every  gun  opened — its  parapets 
sparkled  with  musketry  —  and  the 
garrison  of  the  Redan,  not  yet  assailed 
by  the  English,  were  seen  leaving 
their  post,  probably  to  succour  the 
Malakoff. 

The  French  pressed  on  gallantly  till 
stopped  by  a  -belt  of  abattis  —  an  ob- 
stacle composed  of  trees  with  the 
branches  pointed  and  sharp  stakes. 
A  few  men  penetrated  through  this, 
and,  advancing  to  the  edge  of  the 
ditch,  fired  on  the  defenders.  At  this 
time  the  Malakoff  became  wrapt  in. 
smoke,  which,  drifting  across  the 
scene,  dimmed  the  view  of  the  struggle. 
The  guns  fired  wildly ; v  shells  exploded 
in  all  parts  of  the  ground,  and  shot 
came  bounding  up  among  the  spec- 
tators, one  of  which,  later  in  the 
evening,  killed  an  unfortunate  civilian 
who  was  looking  on.  After  the  lapse 
of  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  during 
which  the  French,  unable  to  penetrate 
into  the  Malakoff,  gallantly  held  their 
ground  on  the  slope  before  it,  the 
Russians,  reinforced  by  several  batta- 
lions, drove  them  back  amidst  a  tre- 
mendous uproar  of  musketry  and  can- 
non, and  they  retired  into  the  Mamme- 
lon, behind  which  a  considerable  body 
of  their  comrades  were  drawn  up. 
Here  they  made  a  stand  against  the 
enemy,  and  commenced  a  struggle 
which  wore  an  unpromising  aspect — 
for  while  some  of  the  French  sup- 
porting force  held  their  ground,  others 
retired  to  the  intrenchment  midway 
down  the  slope,  and  began  to  fire 
from  thence.  At  length  the  French 
gave  way,  and  ran  down  the  face  of 
the  hill  to  their  own  trenches,  where 
their  reserves  were  drawn  up.  Upon 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  VIII. 


these  they  rallied,  and,  after  a  breath- 
ing space,  were  again  led  to  the  assault, 
and  successfully.  Again  they  rushed 
into  the  Mammelon,  drove  out  its 
defenders,  and  pursued  them  to  the 
Malakoff,  around  which  their  musketry 
continued  to  crackle  long  after  dark- 
ness set  in,  while  their  comrades  in- 
trenched themselves  in  the  Mammelon, 
which  was  found  strewn  with  dead 
from  the  effect  of  our  shells. 

Meantime  our  men,  issuing  from 
their  trenches,  had  entered  the  Quar- 
ries, which  they  found  unoccupied, 
and  advanced  towards  the  Redan  to 
cover  the  operations  of  the  working 
party.  Their  movements  were  not  so 
plainly  visible  from  the  rear  as  those 
of  the  French,  owing  partly  to  the 
nature  of  the  ground,  partly  to  the 
dense  smoke  which  overhung  the 
scene;  but  Lord  Raglan,  who  remained 
at  a  point  about  half-way  between  the 
ridge  before  our  camps  and  the  bat- 
teries of  our  left  attack,  received  occa- 
sional notices  of  the  state  of  affairs. 
Some  of  our  men  had  entered  the 
Redan  and  found  it  empty,  the  garri- 
son having,  as  before  said,  probably 
gone  to  reinforce  the  Malakoff;  but 
they  speedily  returned  in  force,  and 
our  reserves  advanced  to  support  the 
assailants.  When  darkness  set  in, 
the  line  of  musketry  marked  the  dis- 
puted points,  but  the  artillery  fire  had 
almost  ceased,  except  from  our  mor- 
tars, which  threwshells  into  the  Redan 
and  Malakoff.  The  latter  work  seemed 
to  be  still  assailed  by  the  French;  the 
former  was  silent.  All  was  darkness, 
except  where  the  sparks  of  musketry 
were  scattered  as  from  a  forge — then, 
with  a  flash  and  roar,  a  shell  would 
climb  the  sky,  passing  the  ridge  of 
clouds  lying  on  the  horizon,  mingling 
confusedly  amid  the  stars,  and  then 
rotating  downwards,  when,  as  it  dis- 
appeared behind  the  parapet  aimed 
at,  for  a  moment  all  was  dark,  till  the 
explosion  lit  up  the  work,  making  it 
stand  out  in  transient  red  relief  from 
the  surrounding  blackness  ;  or  a  shell 
from  a  gun  would  traverse  the  ground 
at  a  low  angle,  the  burning  fuse  rising 
and  falling  in  graceful  curves  as  it 
bounded  on,  till  its  course  ended  in  a 
burst  of  flame.  Sometimes  a  bugle 
sounded  shrilly  in  the  still  night — once 
CAMP  BEFORE  SEBASTOPOL,  June 


97 

or  twice  there  was  a  cheer — and  these 
sounds  and  the  rattle  of  the  small 
arms  showed  the  chief  part  of  the 
combat,  in  which  so  many  of  our  com- 
rades and  friends  were  darkly  engaged, 
to  be  in  the  ravine  of  the  Woronzoff 
road.  Sometimes  the  sound  of  strife 
died  almost  away,  and  then  was  re- 
newed with  great  warmth.  These 
sudden  outbursts  marked  the  onsets 
of  the  Russians,  who  made  vigorous 
efforts  to  retake  the  work,  and  even 
drove  our  men  out  of  it,  but  were 
again  repulsed.  Towards  morning 
they  advanced  on  our  trenches,  and 
penetrated  into  some  of  the  ap- 
proaches, but  were  driven  back  with 
loss. 

The  next  morning  the  Russian 
works,  beaten  into  uneven  heaps,  were 
almost  silent,  firing  only  an  occasional 
shot.  The  French  had  intrenched 
themselves  in  the  Mammelon,  and  had 
placed  some  small  mortars  there, 
while  we  had  made  good  our  footing 
in  the  Quarries.  Both  the  English 
divisions  had  suffered  severely;  in 
the  second,  the  report  up  to  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning  snowed  50 
killed  and  270  wounded  ;  while,  in  the 
light,  the  7th  and  88th  had  suffered 
severely.  In  the  afternoon  several 
Russian  mortars  were  directed  on  the 
Mammelon,  and  must  have  caused  loss 
to  the  French  in  it. 

Before  and  during  the  assault  no 
feint  or  demonstration  was  made  at 
any  other  point  of  the  line  to  mislead 
or  distract  the  enemy,  who  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  directness  of  the  attack 
to  collect  their  troops  in  the  Malakoff 
in  sufficient  numbers  to  drive  back  the 
French,  as  before  described,  from  that 
work,  and  even  temporarily  to  retake 
the  Mammelon.  Our  allies  attacked 
with  great  gallantry,  and  the  Rus- 
sians, taken  as  they  were  by  surprise, 
and  having  already  suffered  much 
from  our  heavy  fire,  showed  more 
stubbornness  in  the  defence  than  was 
generally  anticipated.  Next  day  the 
expectation  was  very  strong,  in  the 
English  camp,  that  the  attack  was  to 
be  renewed  in  the  course  of  the  day, 
and  that  this  time  the  whole  south 
side  would  be  ours,  but  the  sun  went 
down  without  any  preparations  for  a 
second  assault. 


VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVII. 


98 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet, 


[July, 


TWO    YEARS    OF   THE    CONDEMNED    CABINET. 


THE  House  of  Commons  has  grown 
accustomed  of  late  to  strange  sights. 
The  Parliamentary  history  of  the 
last  two  years  is  without  a  parallel 
in  our  annals.  As  a  consequence  of 
the  recent  revelations  of  Ministerial 
duplicity,  faith  in  our  public  men  is 
vanishing ;  and  the  National  Represen- 
tatives, foiled  and  duped  by  the  Exe- 
cutive, have  become  sceptical  and 
apathetic,  and  view  each  new  turn  in 
the  Parliamentary  drama  pith  sar- 
casm or  levity.  The  fall  of  a  Minis- 
try, the  vapid  effrontery  of  a  Premier, 
or  the  inane  termination  of  a  six 
nights'  debate,  is  alike  received  with 
laughter;  and  the  majority  of  the 
House  now  seem  to  regard  their 
lengthy  debates  as  mere  fencing- 
matches,  wherein  they  who  make  the 
cleverest  feints  are  to  be  the  most 
applauded.  Earnestness  is  disap- 
pearing, and  an  idle  mocking  spirit  is 
taking  its  place.  Athens  of  old  once 
witnessed  a  similar  scene.  Themis - 
tocles,  Pisistratus,  Pericles — the  mas- 
ter-spirits of  their  nation — the  Crom- 
wells,  Chathams,  and  Pitts  of  the 
Athenian  state,  had  passed  away;  and 
in  their  room  had  arisen  a  race  of 
clever  talkers,  —  men  who  prided 
themselves  on  their  ability  to  prove 
right  wrong  and  wrong  right  by 
turns,  as  best  suited  their  interests, — 
who  sneered  at  honesty  when  it  gave 
an  advantage  to  an  adversary,  and 
worshipped  falsehood  as  a  means  to 
outwit, — and  whose  sole  study  it  was 
to  find  how  they  could  best  blindfold 
and  lead  the  public  into  their  plans. 
These  things  were  not  done  in  a 
corner,  but  in  the  forum  and  the  mar- 
ket-place. It  was  the  affairs  of  the 
state  that  the  Sophists  made  the  sub- 
ject of  their  game ;  and  all  Athens, 
looking  on,  grew  faithless,  callous, 
mocking.  Athens  in  those  days 
laughed  at  its  leaders,  laughed  at  it- 
self, laughed  at  its  gods.  The  people, 
a  mere  handful,  laughed  with  their  bet- 
ters, and  the  disease  deepened  into 
death.  The  British  nation,  thank 
God,  are  neither  fickle  nor  few, — they 
can  neither  be  corrupted  nor  coerced 
by  example  ;  and  unlike  the  spark- 
ling boasters  of  the  city  of  Pallas,  the 


sight  of  Ministerial  shamelessness  and 
duplicity  only  arouses  them  to  ear- 
nestness and  indignation.  The  coun- 
try is  at  war,  and  has  no  need  of  ene- 
mies at  home  ;  and  the  political  lead- 
ers who  have  at  length  unmasked 
themselves  as  renegades  to  patriotism 
and  to  their  pledges,  must  henceforth 
be  notably  branded  as  if  on  their  fore- 
heads, and  banished  from  the  offended 
presence  of  the  nation. 

"  Our  constitutional  government," 
said  the  Prince-Consort  lately,  "is 
now  undergoing  a  heavy  trial."  The 
words  were  true ;  but  whence  has 
arisen  the  main  source  of  that  dis- 
credit which  is  now  attaching  itself 
to  institutions  around  which  the  heart 
of  the  nation  has  so  often  rallied, — 
— institutions  not  more  venerable 
for  their  antiquity  than  they  are 
cherished  for  their  consonance  with 
the  national  feelings?  We  have  al- 
ready indicated  the  cause.  The 
Constitution  is  weakened,  because 
the  statesmen  who  of  late  have  held 
the  chief  places  have  shown  how  well 
falsehood  to  the  country  can  lurk  with- 
iri  its  precincts,  and  under  the  very 
shadow  of  the  Throne.  It  is  not 
that  there  has  been  official  misman- 
agement :  it  is  not  that  millions  of 
money  have  been  wasted,  or — what 
touches  the  heart  of  the  nation  far 
more — that  thousands  of  our  gallant 
soldiers,  men  whom  twice  their  num- 
ber would  hardly  face  in  the  field, 
have  been  doomed  by  Ministerial 
neglect  to  inglorious  deaths.  It  is 
because  that  neglect  itself  was  but  a 
symptom  of  still  deeper  guilt.  Minis- 
ters did  not  prepare  to  assail  Russia, 
because  they  did  not  wish  to  assail 
her,  —  did  not  support  our  gallant 
army  in  the  East,  because  they  were 
ever  striving  secretly  to  patch  up  an 
unsafe  and  discreditable  peace  at 
Vienna.  It  is  because  the  suspicions 
of  the  nation,  ebbing  and  flowing  for 
the  last  two  years,  have  now  culmin- 
ated in  a  dread  certainty ;  and  be- 
cause, by  an  edaircissement  forced  upon 
the  ex-Ministers,  it  is  now  known  that 
these  men — calling  themselves  "  Peel- 
ites," — have  from  first  to  last  been 
playing  us  false.  They  have  been  false 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


99 


to  the  country,  and  false  to  their  own 
words.  Their  policy  has  been  Russian, 
and  their  speeches  prevarications. 
Hence  the  distrust  and  apathy  of  Par- 
liament. It  has  felt  itself  befooled  and 
blinded  every  time  it  attempted  to  ob- 
tain explanations.  It  struggled  in  vain 
with  a  Jesuitry  that  was  too  strong  for 
it,  because  the  Legislature,  split  up, 
debauched,  and  emasculated  by  Coali- 
tion tactics,  had  no  longer  any  faith 
in  itself,  and  no  courage  to  call  its 
suspected  leaders  to  account.  And, 
thus  at  its  wits'  end,  it  has  of  late 
taken  to  mere  talking  smdfarniente  : 
it  makes  long  speeches  in  its  sleep. 
And  yet  it  will  rise  up  again,  we  feel 
assured,  even  as  it  awoke  suddenly 
from  its  torpor  five  months  ago  ;  and 
the  old  British  spirit  will  flash  out 
steadily  in  opposition  to  all  Peelite 
cant  and  Russianism,  and  in  support 
of  any  Ministry  that  will  heart  and 
soul  support  the  honour  and  interests 
of  our  country.  We  have  no  desire 
that  the  Legislature  should  usurp  the 
powers  of  the  Executive;  but  the 
truth  cannot  be  too  vividly  impressed 
on  the  public  mind  that  the  remedy 
for  our  present  embarrassments  is  not 
more  confidence  on  the  part  of  Par- 
liament, but  more  straightforwardness 
in  our  Ministers. 

The  House  of  Commons  will  not 
soon  forget  the  week  in  which  the 
long-latent  Russianism  of  the  ex- 
Ministers  was  openly  divulged.  There 
had  been  rumours  of  another  Austrian 
proposition,  which  a  majority  in  the 
Cabinet  was  disposed  to  accept;  and  on 
a  day  immediately  previous  the  Peelite 
chiefs,  invited  by  the  Premier,  had 
dined  with  their  quondam  colleagues 
at  the  Royal  table.  On  Monday  came 
on  Mr  Milner  Gibson's  "peace"  mo- 
tion. It  was  disagreeable  to  the  Minis- 
try, as  exciting  discussion  and  sug- 
gesting explanations  ; — it  was  not  less 
so  to  the  Peelites,  who  were  unwilling 
to  publish  their  Russian  leanings  when 
every  thing  seemed  so  near  a  final  settle- 
ment, and  when  peace,  they  thought, 
would  have  to  be  accepted  by  Par- 
liament and  the  country  as  a  fait 
accompli.  Therefore  a  mock  scene 
of  question  and  answer  was  got  up 
between  Messrs  Herbert  and  Glad- 
stone and  the  Premier,  conducted 
with  that  sanctimonious  Jesuitry 
in  which  the  former  gentlemen  are 


proficients  ;  and  on  Lord  Palmerston, 
thus  invoked,  stating  (what  his  ques- 
tioners knew  full  well)  that  the  Vienna 
Conferences  were  not  concluded, 
Mr  Gibson  was  prevailed  upon  to 
withdraw  his  motion.  The  collusion 
was  transparent,  and  the  House  by 
murmurs  testified  its  indignation. 
The  Conservative  leader  did  more. 
Apprised  of  the  secret  treachery  at 
work,  and  the  contemplated  accept- 
ance of  the  Austrian  proposals  by  the 
Government,  Mr  Disraeli  resolved  to 
bring  matters  to  a  crisis  by  moving  a 
vote  of  want  of  confidence  in  the 
Ministry.  The  Premier  instantly 
took  the  alarm.  No  subterfuge  or 
jocularity,  he  knew,  could  rid  him  of 
this  motion.  A  meeting  of  the  Minis- 
terialists was  accordingly  summoned, 
at  which  the  Premier  found  that  no- 
thing would  do  but  either  to  resign  or 
adopt  a  more  resolute  policy.  Here 
the  split  with  the  Peelites  began.  The 
tremendous  castigation  bestowed  by 
Mr  Disraeli  upon  Lord  John  Russell 
for  his  blunders  and  inadequate  pro- 
posals at  Vienna,  and  the  cheers  with 
which  it  was  received  by  the  House, 
gave  fresh  proof  to  the  "peace"  party 
in  the  Cabinet  that  their  game  was 
up.  Their  speeches  grew  more  war- 
like, and  the  breach  with  their  late 
colleagues  was  completed.  Then  at 
length  up  rose  Mr  Gladstone,  Mr 
Sidney  Herbert,  Sir  James  Graham, 
and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  in  the 
Lords,  to  unbosom  themselves  of  that 
tenderness  for  Russia  which  they  had 
so  long  and  too  well  concealed  when 
in  office.  The  House  sat  silent  as  the 
ex-Ministers  gave  damning  proofs  of 
their  former  duplicity.  The  country, 
less  used  to  such  scenes,  less  in  the 
secret,  and  unwilling  to  the  last  to 
believe  so  much  evil  of  statesmen 
whom  they  had  trusted,  broke  into 
vehement  and  indignant  denuncia- 
tion when  the  hateful  truth  was 
forced  upon  them ;  and  the  Press, 
unanimous  for  once,  opened  its  many 
voices  to  upbraid.  The  worst  charges 
against  the  Aberdeen  Cabinet  were 
now  justified, — suspicions,  apparently 
the  most  improbable,  were  now  seen 
to  have  been  truth.  A  mist  rolled 
away  from  before  the  eyes  of  the 
nation,  and  a  horrid  light  broke  over 
the  events  of  the  last  two  years.  We 
had,  then,  been  duped  after  all  I 


100 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


[July, 


Aberdeen  and  his  colleagues  were 
indeed  confederates  of  Russia,  and  the 
Czar  was  right  in  calling  the  ex- 
Premier  his  "  old  friend !"  It  was  now 
clear  why  Mr  Gladstone  starved  the 
war, — why  Mr  Sidney  Herbert  and  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle  made  the  expedition 
to  the  East  a  mere  parade, — why  Lord 
Aberdeen  kept  protocoling  instead 
of  acting, — why  Sir  James  Graham 
sent  no  gun-boats  to  the  Baltic, 
spared  Odessa,*  and  forbade  the  fleet 
to  attack  Kertsch  or  harm  the  Rus- 
sians in  the  Sea  of  Azoff!  A  much 
lighter  shade  of  criminality  than  this 
would  in  former  times  have  sent  a 
Ministry  to  the  Tower.  Why,  the 
mere  sparing  of  Odessa  and  Kertsch 
was  a  graver  fault  than  that  which 
Admiral  Byng  expiated  with  his  life  ; 
—the  one  endangered  Gibraltar,  the 
other  has  cost  us  an  army  by  saving 
Sebastopol.  Under  any  other  Go- 
vernment, Sebastopol  would  have  been 
ours  last  year ;  yet  the  flag  of  Russia 
(though,  we  trust,  soon  to  fall)  still 
floats  over  its  bristling  earth-works, 
and  England  now  pays  with  the  lives 
of  her  soldiers  for  the  policy  of  her 
Government.  The  British  nation  has 
grown  tolerant  of  misconduct  in  high 
places.  The  public,  for  its  blind  acqui- 
escence, now  charitably  takes  to  itself 
a  portion  of  the  blame  of  those  who 
dupe  it.  But  in  a  case  like  this, 
where  the  honour  and  interests  of 
Great  Britain  are  alike  concerned, 
and  where  the  national  feelings  have 
been  outraged  in  their  most  sensitive 
point, — where  a  Ministry  has  at  once 
involved  us  in  a  gigantic  war,  and 
betrayed  us  in  the  conduct  of  it, — 
forgive  is  an  impossible  word,  and 
the  long  tale  of  treachery  will  be 
requited  by  generations  of  censure 
and  abhorrence. 

The  tale  is  a  longer  one  than  the 
less  watchful  portion  of  the  public 
may  imagine.  The  fountain  lies  deep, 
and,  we  confess,  it  contains  abysses 
into  which  we  do  not  care  to  search. 
Future  historians  will  lay  it  all  bare, 


after  the  lapse  of  years  has  stripped 
some  points  of  the  delicacy  which 
now  envelopes  them.  A  French  OP 
Russian  alliance,  —  that  was  the 
fundamental  question  from  whence 
has  arisen  the  conflict  of  opinion 
among  our  statesmen.  Louis  Napo- 
leon, enthroned  in  France,  held  out 
his  hand  to  England.  Far-seeing  as 
his  uncle,  and  prescient  of  coming 
storms  from  the  North,  he  sought  to 
establish  himself  and  fortify  Western 
civilisation  by  an  alliance  between 
the  two  freest  and  most  liberty-loving 
nations  of  Europe.  Lord  Palm erston 
on  the  spot  accepted  it.  For  the  last 
thirty  years  it  has  been  the  practice 
of  our  country  to  recognise  every 
de  facto  Government  in  other  coun- 
tries, whether  it  be  popular  or  abso- 
lutist, whether  it  be  a  Republic,  a 
Monarchy,  a  Presidency,  or  an  Em- 
pire. In  December  1851,  Lord  Pal- 
merston,  nothing  loth,  followed  the 
prescriptive  practice,  and  hastened  to 
recognise  the  Presidency  of  Louis 
Napoleon.  We  shall  not  pry  into  the 
cloud  which  envelopes  the  Cabinet 
crisis  which  ensued.  Suffice  it  to  say, 
the  pressure  must  have  been  great 
which  rent  asunder  the  Whig  party, 
and  drove  from  office  so  veteran  and 
accommodating  a  statesman  as  Pal- 
merston.  But  this  first  coup  of  the 
anti  -  Gallican  party  failed  notably. 
The  Russell  Cabinet,  already  totteringr 
was  prostrated  by  the  dismember- 
ment. And  the  Conservatives  succeed- 
ing to  the  reins  of  government,  gave  a 
diametrically  opposite  bias  to  our  for- 
eign policy,  and,  rapidly  undoing  what 
the  anti-Gallicans  had  commenced, 
at  once  drew  closer  the  alliance  with 
our  neighbour  France.  Stratford 
Canning,  the  man  in  all  the  world 
whom  the  Czar  hated  most,  was 
created  Lord  de  Redcliffe,  and,  com- 
ing home  from  his  post  at  Constanti- 
nople, doubtless  gave  his  Conservative 
friends  the  benefit  of  his  long  experi- 
ence of  Russian  policy.  Lord  Mai  raes- 
bury,  the  Foreign  Minister,  had  been 


*  Sir  James  now  takes  credit  for  having  proposed  to  Admiral  Dundas  to  bombard 
Odessa.  But  when  was  this  proposal  made  ?  Not  till  the  middle  of  December  last, 
after  the  mischief  was  done,  and  the  Government  had  been  challenged  in  Parliament 
for  not  having  bombarded  the  place  at  the  opening  of  the  campaign.  If  Sir  James 
had  wished  Odessa  destroyed— and  the  enterprise  would  then  have  been  of  great  use 
— why  did  he  not  give  orders  for  its  bombardment  in  May,  when  the  Allied  fleets 
were  before  the  town,  and  had  actually  opened  fire  upon  it  ? 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


101 


a  personal  friend  of  Louis  Napoleon, 
and  was  acquainted  with  his  philo- 
English  and  anti- Russian  predilec- 
tions. So,  at  the  head -quarters  of  the 
Conservative  Ministry,  there  was  both 
a  friend  of  the  French  ruler  and  an 
Inveterate  antagonist  of  the  Czar. 
The  adherents  of  German  principles 
and  the  Russian  alliance  were  in 
despair.  Nothing  but  a  quick  over- 
throw of  the  Derby  Administration 
could  prevent  England  from  frater- 
nising with  France  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  Russia ; — and  they  resolved  to 
attempt  it.  Party  rivalry  and  lust 
of  office  had  their  part  in  what  fol- 
lowed ;  but  the  grand  feature  of  oppo- 
sition between  the  Derby  Cabinet 
and  its  successor  was  in  their  Foreign 
policy, — the  one  leaning  to  France, 
the  other  to  Russia. 

Woburn  Abbey,  of  old  the  seat  of 
many  a  wily  conclave,  was  the  scene 
of  these  first  "conferences."  Russell, 
Lansdowne,  and  Aberdeen  were  the 
plenipotentiaries ;  and  they  made 
quicker  progress  in  their  work  than 
their  own  plenipotentiaries  did  after- 
wards. A  Coalition  was  effected. 
The  Peelites  were  to  become  Liberals 
at  home, — the  Liberals  were  to  be- 
come Absolutists  abroad.  Popular 
principles  were  to  be  tabooed  on  the 
Continent,  and  Palmerston,  to  be  out 
of  the  way,  was  put  into  the  Home 
Office.  Peelism,  from  some  other 
cause  than  its  numerical  strength, 
was  in  the  ascendant,  and  even  Lord 
John  Russell  was  for  a  time  almost 
without  office.  Pceans  were  sung  in 
the  Winter  Palace  of  St  Petersburg. 
Nicholas,  hitherto  cold  and  distant, 
now  caught  hold  of  Sir  George  Sey- 
mour by  the  button-hole.  At  a  pri- 
vate meeting  at  the  Palace  of  the 
Grand- duchess  Helen,  on  the  9th 
January — that  is  to  say,  as  soon  as 
despatches  from  or  concerning  the 
new  Ministry  could  be  received  from 
London — "  the  Emperor  came  up  to 


me,"  says  our  Ambassador,  "  in  the 
most  gracious  manner,  to  say  that  he 
had  heard  of  her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment being  definitively  formed,  adding 
that  he  trusted  the  Ministry  would  be 
of  long  duration.  He  desired  me 
particularly  to  convey  this  assurance 
to  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen — with  whom, 
he  said,  he  had  been  acquainted  for 
nearly  forty  years,  and  for  whom  he 
entertained  equal  regard  and  esteem." 
But  the  Czar,  while  remembering  his 
"  old  friend,"  did  not  forget  the  anti- 
Gallicanisra  of  Lord  John  Russell  in 
December  1851 ;  and  from  the  conjunc- 
tion of  two  such  stars  in  the  same 
Cabinet,  he  knew  that  Russia's  hour 
for  triumph  was  come.  "I  repeat," 
he  went  on  to  say  in  that  memorable 
interview,  "it  is  very  essential  that 
the  English  Government  and  I  should 
be  upon  the  best  terms  ;  and  the  ne- 
cessity was  never  greater  than  at 
present.  I  beg  you  to  convey  these 
words  to  Lord  John  Russell.  When 
we  are  agreed,  I  am  quite  without 
anxiety  as  to  the  west  of  Europe." 
True.  "  If  ever  France  and  England 
form  a  sincere  alliance,"  said  Napo- 
leon on  the  rock  of  St  Helena,  "it 
will  be  to  resist  Russia."  And  Nicholas 
now  believed  he  could  render  that 
alliance  impossible.* 

The  Czar  knew  his  men,  and  spoke 
out.  "  I  am  willing  to  promise,"  he 
said,  "  not  to  establish  myself  at  Con- 
stantinople —  as  proprietor  I  mean, 
for  as  its  holder  in  deposit  I  do  not 
say."  He  afterwards  made  his  de- 
sire to  become  Lord-Paramount  of 
Constantinople  still  clearer,  by  show- 
ing that  every  other  possible  alter- 
native would  be  resisted  by  him  to 
the  last.  "Constantinople,"  he  said, 
"  never  shall  be  held  by  the  English, 
or  French,  or  any  other  great  nation. 
Again,  I  never  will  permit  an  attempt 
at  the  reconstruction  of  a  Byzantine 
empire,  or  such  an  extension  of  Greece 
as  would  render  her  a  powerful  state ; 


*  It  is  but  justice  to  Sir  George  Seymour,  and  at  the  same  time  a  grave  charge 
against  the  Ministry,  to  say  that,  in  one  of  his  admirable  despatches,  he  expressly 
warned  them  (Jan.  11)  that  the  Czar's  overtures  "  tended  to  establish  a  dilemma  by 
which  it  was  very  desirable  that  her  Majesty's  Government  should  not  allow  them- 
selves to  be  fettered."  Again,  on  21st  Feb.,  he  wrote  to  Downing  Street :  "  The 
Emperor's  object  is  to  engage  her  Majesty's  Government,  in  conjunction  with  his  own 
Cabinet  and  that  of  Vienna,  in  some  scheme  for  the  ultimate  partition  of  Turkey,  and 
for  the  exclusion  of  France  from  the  arrangement"  Verba  inissa  ad  auras!  The 
Cabinet  disregarded  the  warning,  because  they  acquiesced  in  the  general  proposal. 


102 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


[July, 


still  less  will  I  permit  the  breaking  up 
of  Turkey  into  little  republics.  Rather 
than  submit  to  any  of  these  arrange- 
ments, 1  would  go  to  war,  and  as  long 
as  I  have  a  man  and  a  musket  left, 
would  carry  it  on ! "  The  Czar's  over- 
tures were  no  idle  talk.  At  the  same 
time  that  the  British  Cabinet  thus 
received  intimation  of  the  Czar's  de- 
signs, they  were  informed  by  our 
ambassador  that  two  Russian  corps- 
(Tarmee  (the  3d  and  4th)  had  got  the 
route  for  the  Turkish  frontiers !  But 
nothing  disquieted  them  in  their  reso- 
lution to  lean  upon  the  Russian  alli- 
ance. Only,  lest  the  affair  should  get 
wind,  or  be  deemed  obnoxious  by 
some  of  their  colleagues,  it  was  un- 
constitutionally resolved  that  this  cor- 
respondence should  be  secretly  con- 
ducted by  a  small  conclave.  Lord 
John  Russell  was  deputed  to  make 
the  first  reply.  He  commenced  with 
an  acknowledgment  of  "  the  mode- 
ration, frankness,  and  friendly  dis- 
position of  his  Imperial  Majesty ; " 
— then,  for  sole  answer  to  the  Czar's 
verbal  and  military  menaces  against 
Turkey,  meekly  observed  that  as  yet 
"  no  actual  crisis  has  occurred  which 
renders  necessary  a  solution  of  this 
vast  European  problem : "  but  re- 
marked that  "her Majesty's  Govern- 
ment are  persuaded  that  no  course  of 
policy  can  be  adopted  more  wise,  more 
disinterested,  and  more  beneficial  to 
Europe,  than  that  which  his  Imperial 
Majesty  has  so  long  followed,  and 
which  will  render  his  name  more  illus- 
trious than  that  of  the  most  famous 
sovereigns  who  have  sought  immor- 
tality by  unprovoked  conquest  and 
ephemeral  glory!"  To  these  Coalition 
compliments  and  sugar-plums,  Lord 
John  added  a  special  and  uncalled-for 


reference  to  one  point  in  the  ""disinte- 
rested and  beneficial"  policy  which 
was  to  raise  the  Czar  to  such  a  pitch 
of  glory.  And  what  was  this  point, 
but  that  very  Protectorate  over  the 
Greek  Christians  which  afterwards 
occasioned  the  fatal  imbroglio', — and 
what  did  Lord  John  but  actually  com- 
mend the  Emperor  for  performing 
this  protectorate— not  only  as  a  right, 
but  as  a  "  burdensome  and  inconve- 
nient "  duty  !  *  By  a  preceding  mail, 
also,  the  gratifying  news  had  reached 
St  Petersburg  that  two  members  of 
the  British  Cabinet  (Sir  C.  Wood 
and  Sir  J.  Graham)  had  vilified  and 
denounced  the  French  Emperor  from 
the  public  hustings,  and  that  their  col- 
leagues and  his  "ancient  friend  "  had 
by  silence  acquiesced  in  the  sentiment! 
Thus  complimented  and  encouraged, 
the  Czar  proceeded  in  his  plans. 
Prince  Menschikoff  was  despatched 
post-haste  to  Constantinople  to  pick 
a  quarrel  with  France  about  the  Holy 
Places,  and  to  concuss  Turkey  into  a 
recognition  of  the  Protectorate  which 
the  British  Cabinet  thought  the  Czar 
was  entitled  to,  and  so  well  dis- 
charged. But  the  French  Emperor 
was  too  knowing  to  be  thus  entrapped. 
He  felt  that  England  under  the  new 
Ministry  was  breaking  away  from 
him,  and  he  had  no  desire  to  fight  the 
Continent  single-handed.  The  im- 
petuous Lavalette  had  been  recalled ; 
and  when  the  Russian  envoy  arrived 
at  Constantinople  with  his  demands 
about  the  Holy  Places,  France  at  once 
released  the  Porte  from  its  difficulties, 
by  resigning  the  privileges  lately  con- 
ceded to  her.  The  first  ultimatum, 
though  agreed  to,  thus  failed  in  its 
object.  The  next  news  was,  an 
alarming  despatch  from  Colonel  Rose, 


*  The  words  of  this  commendatory  sentence  addressed  to  the  Czar  are  : — "  The 
more  the  Turkish  government  adopts  the  rules  of  impartial  law  and  equal  admini- 
stration, the  less  will  the  Emperor  of  Russia  find  it  necessary  to  apply  that  excep- 
tional protection  which  his  Imperial  Majesty  has  found  so  burdensome  and  inconvenient, 
though,  no  doubt,  prescribed  by  DUTY  and  sanctioned  by  TREATY."  Yet,  in  the  July 
following,  Lord  Palmerston  declared  that  "  no  country  had  ever  achieved  so  many 
reforms,  in  the  same  time,  as  Turkey  had  done  within  the  last  fifteen  years."  And 
exactly  a  year  after  Lord  John  Russell's  testimony  to  the  Czar's  right  and  duty  to 
exercise  the  Protectorate,  Lord  Clarendon  said  (Jan.  31,  1854) :— «  No  injury  to  the 
Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte  afforded  even  a  pretext  for  such  acts  of  aggression. 
On  the  contrary,  from  the  introduction  of  new  laws  for  their  protection,  and  their 
own  gradual  progress  in  wealth  and  intelligence,  the  condition  of  the  Christians  was 
manifestly  improving."  And  before  fifteen  months  had  expired  the  Aberdeen  Cabi- 
net declared  war  against  the  Czar,  to  resist  this  Protectorate,  of  which  at  first  they 
expressly  approved  ! 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet . 


103 


our  charge -d'affaires,  stating  that 
Menschikoff  had  been  secretly  offering 
to  conclude  an  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance  with  Turkey,  to  which  Eng- 
land was  not  to  be  a  party,  and  from 
which  she  was  to  be  sedulously  ex- 
cluded ;  and  that  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment offered  to  support  Turkey 
against  any  Power,  with  an  army  of 
400,000  men.  The  British  Cabinet 
disbelieved  or  disregarded  the  report, 
although  it  was  immediately  after- 
wards (April  6)  confirmed  by  Lord 
Redcliffe  in  person ;  and  the  de- 
mand for  the  fleet  to  be  sent  to 
the  Bosphorus,  though  desired  by 
France,  was  negatived  at  once. 
Yet  so  obvious  had  grown  the  danger, 
and  so  exorbitant  in  the  eyes  of  our 
ambassador  the  demands  of  Russia, 
that  Lord  Redcliffe  wrote  home,  that 
"  it  was  not  the  amputation  of  a 
limb,  but  the  infusion  of  poison  into 
the  whole  system,  that  sthe  Turkish 
Government  were  summoned  to  ac- 
cept." At  length  came  the  ultimatissi- 
mum,  in  which  Menschikoff  demanded 
for  his  imperial  master  a  protectorate 
over  the  Christian  subjects  of  the 
Sultan, — a  demand  as  extraordinary 
and  unjustifiable,  whatever  Lord  John 
and  his  colleagues  might  think  of  it, 
as  if  the  French  Emperor  had  claimed 
a  similar  right  over  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic subjects  of  the  British  Crown.  On 
the  demand  being  rejected  by  the 
Porte,  Menschikoff  withdrew,  breath- 
ing vengeance,  and  Luclers  with  his 
corps- d'armee  soon  afterwards  crossed 
the  Pruth, — an  event  destined  to  be 
more  memorable  in  the  history  of 
modern  Europe  than  was  Caesar's 
crossing  the  Rubicon  in  the  annals 
of  Rome. 

War  was  begun, — our  ally  was  at- 
tacked,— all  treaties  were  thrown  to 
the  winds, — Russia  was  bearing  down 
towards  Constantinople,  and  the  bal- 
ance of  power  in  Europe  was  men- 
aced. But  the  British  Cabinet  re- 
mained quiescent !  Secretly  in  the 
confidence  of  the  Czar  for  the  previous 
six  months,  and  fully  informed  of  his 
designs  upon  Turkey,  they  yet  took 
no  steps  to  deter  him  from  his  ambi- 
tious projects.  And  why  ?  Because, 
rather  than  break  with  him,  and  be 
forced  back  upon  the  French  alliance, 
they  were  willing  to  acquiesce  in  his 
plans,  and  trust  in  his  "  well-known 


moderation."  u  We  must  come  to 
some  understanding,"  said  the  Czar 
to  Sir  G.  Seymour,  in  the  end  of  Feb- 
ruary, when  our  ambassador  (although 
unsupported  by  any  intelligible  in- 
structions from  his  Government) 
showed  obvious  reluctance  to  enter 
into  the  imperial  plans ;  u  and  this 
we  should  do,  I  am  convinced,  if  I 
could  hold  but  ten  minutes'  con- 
versation with  your  ministers, — 
with  Lord  Aberdeen,  for  instance, 
who  knows  me  so  well,  who  has 
full  confidence  in  me,  as  I  have 
in  him.  And,  remember,  I  do  not 
ask  for  a  treaty  or  a  protocol ;  a  gene- 
ral understanding  is  all  I  require, — 
that  between  gentlemen  is  sufficient ; 
and  in  this  case  I  am  certain  that  the 
confidence  would  be  as  great  on  the 
side  of  the  Queen's  Ministers  as  on 
mine."  Nicholas  was  not  disappointed 
in  his  estimate  of  the  Aberdeen 
Cabinet ;  and  Lord  Clarendon  (23d 
March)  replied  like  a  sycophant : — 
"The  generous  confidence  exhibited 
by  the  Emperor  entitles  his  Imperial 
Majesty  to  the  most  cordial  declara- 
tion of  opinion  on  the  part  of  her 
Majesty's  Government,  who  are  fully 
aware  that,  in  the  event  of  any  under- 
standing with  reference  to  future  con- 
tingencies being  expedient  or  indeed 
possible,  the  word  of  his  Imperial 
Majesty  would  be  preferable  to  any 
convention  that  could  be  framed."  This 
understanding  was  come  to.  The  Czar 
desired  no  tell-tale  "  treaty  or  proto- 
col." The  litera  scripta,  he  knew, 
would  terrify  his  friends  in  the  Coali- 
tion Cabinet.  No  British  Ministry 
could  dare  to  sign  away  the  indepen- 
dence of  Turkey,  but  they  could  con- 
nive at  it, — which  Nicholas,  as  a 
practical  man,  knew  was  quite  as 
good. 

And  the  Aberdeen  Ministry  did  con- 
nive at  it.  They  laid  their  whole  plans 
with  the  view  to  concussing  Turkey, 
or  letting  Turkey  be  concussed,  into 
acceptance  of  the  Czar's  demands. 
They  resolved  to  make  no  opposition, 
and  without  their  co-operation,  they 
knew,  France  could  offer  none.  No 
extra  supplies  were  asked  in  the  Bud- 
get ;  and  when  the  Pruth  was  crossed, 
not  a  sabre  or  bayonet  was  added  to 
the  army,  nor  a  single  step  taken  to 
embody  the  militia.  At  one  time  Par- 
liament was  assured  that  the  occupa- 


104 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


[July, 


tion  of  the  Principalities  was  merely 
a  temporary  measure,  and  at  another 
that  they  were  "  waiting  for  Austria." 
Now,  six  months  before  (22d  Feb.), 
the  Czar  had  told  them—"  When  I 
speak  of  Russia,  I  speak  of  Austria 
as  well;  our  interests  as  regards 

Turkey  are  perfectly  identical 

I  can  reckon  upon  Austria,  who  is 
bound  by  her  promise  to  support  me." 
The  truth  is,  the  Aberdeen  Cabinet 
were  waiting,  not  for  the  military  co- 
operation of  Austria  to  commence 
the  war,  but  for  the  compulsory 
yielding  of  Turkey,  which,  by  satis- 
fying Russia,  would  have  restored 
peace.  The  secret  conclave  of  the 
Cabinet  had,  partly  by  silence  and 
partly  by  their  profuse  eulogy  and 
commendations,  led  the  Czar  to  believe 
that  they  acquiesced  in  his  views  in 
regard  to  Turkey  ;  and  in  the  above- 
quoted  despatch  of  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell's, they  had  expressly  told  the  Czar 
that  they  regarded  his  Protectorate  of 
the  Greek  Christians  as  at  once  a  right 
and  a  duty.  They  adhered  to  these 
opinions  all  the  more  after  the  work  of 
invasion  had  commenced ;  because  they 
saw  that  the  Czar  (whom  they  had 
thus  tempted  into  the  path  of  con- 
-quest)  would  not  recede,  or  quit  hold 
of  the  Principalities,  unless  his  de- 
mands were  conceded.  Lord  Aber- 
deen and  his  colleagues  had  assented 
to  Russia  occupying  the  Principalities 
without  consideringMt  a  casus  belli,  be- 
cause they  thought"  that  this  would 
bring  the  Porte  to  terms.  To  browbeat 
Turkey,  content  Russia,  and  so 
(though  with  immense  damage  to 
England  and  Europe  in  the  end)  pre- 
serve peace  and  the  Russian  alliance 


at  any  price,  was  the  policy  of  the 
Cabinet, — and  for  their  Russian  lean- 
ings, Europe  and  their  country  will 
yet  have  to  weep  tears  of  blood. 
The  gallantry  of  the  Ottomans,  how- 
ever, baffled  the  anticipations  of  the 
senile  Premier; — and  although  he 
fought  on  to  attain  his  object  by 
means  of  "  mediating"  (!)  Notes, 
the  Turks  would  not  listen  to  such 
degrading  conditions,  and  resolved 
rather  to  die  sword  in  hand  than  to  sign 
away  their  independence.  So  strong, 
too,  grew  the  feeling  of  sympathy  for 
the  Turks,  and  of  hatred  to  Russia, 
among  the  British  people,  that  the 
Coalition  Cabinet  became  divided 
against  itself.  Then  came  the  dreadful 
massacre  of  Sinope  —  a  disaster  for 
which  the  British  Cabinet  were  di- 
rectly responsible,*  by  having  forbid- 
den the  main  body  of  the  Turkish 
fleet  to  enter  the  Euxine  to  escort 
their  convoys  ;  and  a  general  burst  of 
indignation  took  place  throughout  the 
kingdom.  Palmerston  threatened  to 
resign ;  and  seeing  the  country  against 
him,  and  the  Cabinet  going  to  pieces, 
the  Premier  at  length  began  to  give 
way. 

But  began  only, — and  that,  too, 
rather  in  semblance  than  in  reality. 
If  ever  there  were  philo-Russiaus  in 
this  country,  and  cunning  knaves  to 
boot,  they  were  Aberdeen  and  his 
Peelite  colleagues.  In  sending  the 
British  fleet  to  the  Bosphorus,  they  did 
so  only  because  (owing  to  the  winter 
storms)  it  could  no  longer  lie  exposed 
in  Beycos  Bay  ;  and  when  it  reached 
Constantinople,  the  only  thing  it  did 
was  by  its  presence  to  help  to  compel 
the  Turkish  fleet  not  to  put  to  sea. 


*  It  is  rarely  that  a  Ministry  can  be  convicted  by  the  testimony  of  its  own  repre- 
sentatives, and  by  documents  printed  under  its  own  superintendence,  but  the  follow- 
ing extract  from  a  despatch  of  Lord  de  Redcliffe,  dated  17th  December  1853,  shows 
the  opinion  of  our  ambassador  as  to  the  share  which  the  Ministry  had  in  produc- 
ing the  catastrophe  of  Sinope  : — "  From  all  that  precedes,  it  appears  that  a  severe 
loss,  ivhich  a  timely  interposition  of  the  Allied  squadrons  might  have  prevented,  has  been. 

sustained  by  the  Porte Forgive  me,  my  Lord,  if,  in  this  combination  of 

circumstances,  all  tending  to  the  same  conclusion,  I  cannot  lose  sight  O/"PUBLIC  OPINION, 
or  of  that  maturer  judgment  which  LATER  TIMES  will  pronounce  upon  our  conduct  at  this 
unprecedented  juncture ;— and  if,  while  stating  my  reasons  for  purposing  to  send  the 
squadrons  into  the  Black  Sea  now,  I  feel  that  an  explanation  of  the  causes  which  re- 
strained them  from  going  SOONER  might  be  reasonably  expected"  This  was  plain 
language.  It  indicates  that  the  ambassador  neither  acquiesced  in  the  policy, nor  was 
informed  of  the  secret  motives,  of  his  Government  ;  and  explains  the  rumours,  frequent 
at  that  time,  of  Lord  de  Redcliffe  having  tendered  his  resignation.  But  Lord  Claren- 
don's only  answer  was  to  write  to  St  Petersburg  on  the  27th,  that  the  combined  fleets 
"had  no  hostile  designs  against  Russia  !" 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


That  fleet  was  commanded  by  Captain 
Slade  (Mushoover  Pasha) ;  and  the 
reason  assigned  by  the  British  author- 
ities for  not  allowing  the  fleet  to  enter 
the  Black  Sea,  was,  that  as  he,  the 
Turkish  Admiral,  was  an  English  sub- 
ject, it  might  tend  to  embroil  us  with 
Russia!  Captain  Slade,  chafing  with 
fury  at  his  compulsory  inactivity, 
demanded  that  he  should  be  al- 
lowed to  sail  with  his  whole  fleet. 
The  Divan  likewise  energetically  pro- 
tested, but  was  overawed  by  the  threat 
that,  if  the  Turks  entered  the  Euxine, 
the  British  fleet  would  return  to  Malta. 
Only  a  detachment  of  war-ships,  ac- 
cordingly, was  allowed  to  escort  the 
convoys, — and  the  disaster  of  Sinope, 
as  we  have  said,  was  the  result. 
But  did  all  these  things  really  pro- 
duce a  reaction  in  the  Cabinet  against 
Russia?  By  no  means.  ;On  Dec.  27 
Lord  Clarendon  expressly  informed 
Baron  Brunow,  that  whatever  ap- 
pearances might  indicate,  the  British 
fleet  "had  no  hostile  designs  against 
Russia."  Not  only  this,  but  even  the 
fleet  of  the  deeply- injured  Ottomans 
was  to  be  prevented  making  reprisals. 
A  fortnight  after  the  news  of  Sinope 
reached  this  country,  a  despatch  was 
sent  to  the  Cabinet  of  St  Petersburg,  in 
which  it  was  secretly  stated — "As  her 
Majesty's  Government  are  not  less  in- 
tent than  they  were  before  upon 
effecting  a  peaceful  settlement  of  dif- 
ficulties, measures  will  be  taken  for 
preventing  Turkish  ships  of  war  from 
making  descents  upon  the  coast  of 
Russia!"  They  tied  Turkey's  hands 
in  order  that  Russia  might  beat  her 
and  force  her  into  submission !  And 
what  is  worse,  remark  the  way  in 
which  this  was  done.  It  was  done  so 
as  to  be  an  act  of  treachery  against 
France  as  well  as  against  Turkey. 
The  preceding  sentence  formed  part, 
and  was  written  at  the  end,  of  a  joint 
despatch  which  had  been  concerted 
between  the  British  and  French  Gov- 
ernments ;  but  no  sooner  did  the  re- 
spective ambassadors  proceed  to  com- 
municate their  duplicate  (!)  despatches 
to  Count  Nesselrode  than  they  were 
found  to  differ  on  this  vital  point, — 
the  English  addendum  having  been 
written  unknown  to  the  French  Gov- 
ernment, and  in  most  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  the  concert  between  the  two 
courts. 


105 

"  Russia  speculated  upon  the  differ- 
ences between  England  and  France, 
which  she  thought  irreconcilable," 
was  the  explanation  of  the  origin  of 
the  war  given  by  Lord  Palmerston  on 
31st  March  1854,— not  three  months 
after  the  perpetration  of  this  shame- 
ful act  of  double-dealing  against  our 
ally.  He  might  have  added  that  Rus- 
sia was  justified  in  so  calculating. 
"  Before  the  questions  which  led  to 
the  mission  of  Prince  Menschikoff  to 
Constantinople  had  assumed  so  seri- 
ous an  aspect  of  difference,"  said  the 
Czar,  in  the  memorable  article  in  the 
Journal  de  St  Peter sbourg  (March  3, 
1854),  which  necessitated  the  produc- 
tion of  theCoufidentialCorrespondence, 
"and  before  Great  Britain  had  adopted 
the  same  line  of  policy  as  France,  the 
Emperor  had  explained  himself  with 
the  most  perfect  candour  to  the  Queen 
and  her  Ministers.  And  the  result 
showed  itself  in  acorrespondence  of  the 
most  friendly  character  between  the 
English  Ministers  and  thelmperial  Go- 
vernment." There  is  a  great  deal  under 
the  words  which  we  have  italicised.  It 
calls  to  mind  not  only  the  anti-Galli- 
canism  of  Lord  John  Russell  in  De- 
cember 1851,  and  of  Wood  and  Graham 
in  January  1853,  and  the  life-long 
Russianism  of  Aberdeen,  but  also  the 
secret  memorandum  of  agreement  mado 
in  1844  between  the  Czar  and  the 
Scotch  Earl  (then  Foreign  Secretary) 
during  the  Russian  Emperor's  visit  to 
this  country.  "  Russia,"  said  Lord 
Derby  (March  31,  1854),  alluding 
to  the  primal  cause  of  the  war, 
"  thought  if  she  could  succeed  in. 
bringing  the  Prime  Minister  of  1853 
to  the  obligations  he  entered  into  in 
1844,  France  would  be  isolated,  and 
England,  Russia,  and  Austria  would 
make  arrangements  among  themselves 
for  the  settlement  of  the  Turkish  ques- 
tion." That  is  the  simple  truth.  The 
object  of  the  Conferences  and  Memor- 
andum of  1844  was  strictly  anti-Gal  - 
lican  ; — its  purport  being,  that  in  the 
event  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Turk- 
ish empire,  England  and  Russia  should 
act  in  a  combination  which  would 
compel  France  to  accept  any  terms 
they  might  dictate.  And  in  the  open- 
ing debate  of  1854,  Lord  Aberdeen, 
with  all  the  events  of  the  previous 
year  before  his  eyes,  did  not  hesitate 
still  to  say  that  "he  saw  nothing  to  find 


106 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


[July, 


fault  with  in  the  Memorandum,"  and 
that  he  even  "  looked  upon  it  with 
great  satisfaction"  In  fact,  it  was  no 
doing  of  his  that  England  ever  broke 
with  Russia  and  sided  with  France 
and  Turkey.  We  have  already  quoted 
the  words  of  the  elder  Napoleon,  as 
to  the  necessity  of  an  alliance  between 
England  and  France  to  resist  Russia. 
Sir  John  M'Neill,  another  excellent 
authority,  says, — "If  England  and 
France  are  united,  there  will  be  no 
struggle."  But  it  was  the  policy  of 
Lord  Aberdeen  to  sacrifice  both  France 
and  Turkey  for  the  sake  of  the  Russian 
alliance.  And  hence  the  hopes  and 
projects  of  the  Czar. 

The  whole  negotiations  of  the  Brit- 
ish Cabinet  throughout  1853  were  cha- 
racterised by  double-dealing  towards 
the  ally  with  whom  we  professed  to 
act  in  concert,  and  by  whose  aid 
alone  we  could  hope  to  resist  the 
Russian  aggressions.  At  the  very 
outset  of  the  dispute,  the  French  Gov- 
ernment— to  whom  overtures  were 
made  by  the  Czar  similar  to  those 
opened  with  the  British  Cabinet! — 
solicited  (January  28)  "  a  cordial 
understanding"  with  the  British 
Government,  "  not  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  settling  the  question  of  the 
Holy  Places,  but  to  oppose  a  steady 
opposition  to  that  threat  of  war  on 
the  part  of  Russia  which  was  indicat- 
ed by  the  assembling  of  her  troops  on 
the  Turkish  frontiers."  It  was  after 
this  that  Lord  John  Russell  wrote  his 
fulsome  letter  of  commendation  to  the 
Czar;  and  the  subsequent  conduct 
of  the  Coaljjtion  Ministry  was  in  a 
similar  strain  of  adulation  to  Russia  and 
of  coldness  or  actual  double-dealing 
towards  France.  For  instance,  after 
the  French  fleet  had  put  to  sea  in 
compliance  with  the  demand  made  by 
their  ambassador  at  Constantinople — 
in  concert  with  Colonel  Rose,  who 
had  despatched  a  similar  request  to 
the  British  Government — Lord  Clar- 
endon, in  a  despatch  to  St  Petersburg 
(23d  March),  not  only  stated  that  his 
Cabinet  "  do  not  think  Colonel  Rose 
was  justified  in  requesting  that  the 
British  fleet  should  be  brought  to 
Vourla,"  but  added:  "Her  Majesty's 
Government  have  felt  no  alarm.  They 
regret  that  the  alarm  and  irritation 
which  prevail  at  Paris  should  have 
induced  the  French  Government  to 


order  their  fleet  to  sail  for  the  waters 
of  Greece.  But  the  position  in  which 
the  French  Government  stands,  in 
many  respects,  is  different  from  that  of 
the  British  Government.'1'1  As  soon  as 
he  learned  of  this  divergence  of  policy 
between  the  two  Governments,  Nes- 
selrode  testified  his  rejoicing  by  writ- 
ing as  follows  (26th  March)  to  Baron 
Brunow : — 

"  I  hasten  to  acquaint  your  Excellency 
with  the  sincere  satisfaction  with  which 
the  Emperor  has  read  our  last  despatches. 
They  inform  us  that  the  British  Govern- 
ment has  not  only  approved  of  the  re- 
fusal of  Admiral  Dundas,  .  .  .  but  has 
come  to  the  determination  of  leaving  his 
fleet  at  Malta,  and  of  awaiting  with  con- 
fidence the  negotiations  commenced  by 
Prince  Menschikoff  with  the  OttomanPorte, 
and  not  complicating  them  by  joining  in 
the  hasty  demonstration  which  the  French 
Government  has  thought  fit  to  prescribe 
to  its  squadron." 

From  these  sentences,  as  well  as 
from  the  whole  tenor  of  the  despatches, 
garbled  as  they  are  in  the  Blue  Books, 
it  is  clear  that  the  Coalition  Govern- 
ment were  assenting  parties  to  the 
mission  of  Menschikoff,  and  desired 
that  the  Porte  might  feel  compelled 
to  accede  to  the  Russian  proposals. 
This  is  brought  out  still  more  clearly 
as  the  despatch  proceeds.  Nesselrode 
goes  on  to  say : — 

"  Nothing  would  have  been  more  to  be 
regretted  than  to  see  the  two  great  mari- 
time powers  combining  together,  were  it 
but  for  the  moment,  and  in  appearance 
rather  than  in  fact,  upon  the  Eastern 
Question  as  it  now  stands, — [i.  e.,  in  re- 
gard to  Menschikoff 's  terms,  then  under 
discussion.]  Although  their  views  in  this 
respect  differ  IN  REALITY  toto  codo,  never- 
theless, as  the  European  public  is  by  no 
means  competent  to  draw  the  distinction, 
their  ostensible  identity  would  not  have 
failed  to  represent  them  under  the  aspect 
of  an  intimate  alliance. 

"  France  acting  alone,  the  measure  is 
attended  with  less  inconvenience.  The 
Emperor  accordingly  attaches  but  little 
importance  to  it,  and  his  Majesty  sees  in 
it  no  reason  for  changing  Ms  previous  views 
and  intentions."  [Observe  well  the  reason 
assigned  by  the  Czar  for  adhering  to  his 
ambitious  projects.]  "  The  attitude  of Eng- 
land  will  suffice  to  neutralise  what,  on  the 
part  of  the  French  or  the  Turks — if  the 
latter  should  feel  encouraged  by  the  pre- 
sence of  the  French  fleet — might  embarrass 
or  retard  loo  long  the  favourable  solution  of 
the  question  in  dispute!  " 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


107 


This  needs  no  comment.  Could  the 
charge  against  the  late  Ministry  of 
conniving  with  the  Czar,  and  hence 
occasioning  the  war,  be  more  conclu- 
sively established  ?  Well  might  Nes- 
selrode  add :  "  In  this  point  of  view 
Lord  Aberdeen  appears  to  have  fully 
understood  the  beau  role  which  Eng- 
land had  to  play  ;  and  we  are  happy 
to  congratulate  him  on  it, — persuaded 
beforehand  of  the  impartiality  he  will 
displays  carrying  it  out"  The  Czar 
was  not  deceived, — only  the  British 
people  ! 

Once  more.  Our  readers  can 
hardly  have  forgotten  the  haughty  and 
insulting  reply  which  the  Russian 
Government  made  to  the  French  cir- 
cular of  25th  June  1853.  In  that  re- 
ply the  conduct  of  both  Britain  and 
France  was  alluded  to ;  but  Count 
Nesselrode  at  the  same  time  wrote  to 
Baron  Brunow  (Aug.  13)),  to  "  re- 
quest Lord  Clarendon,  in  perusing  our 
despatches,  to  have  the  goodness  to 
make  a  distinction,  and  not  to  apply 
to  his  Cabinet  what  only  refers  to 
France.  We  attach  importance  to 
this,"  adds  Nesselrode,  "  since  the  LATE 
confidential  overtures  which  Sir  H. 
Seymour  has  been  instructed  to  make  to 
us."  So,  here  were  the  Aberdeen  Mi- 
nistry making  confidential  overtures 
favourable  to  Russia,  and  adverse  to 
France,  of  which  not  a  whisper  was 
allowed  to  transpire  !  But  when  we 
turn  to  the  published  despatches  to 
Sir  H.  Seymour,  to  see  what  those 
overtures  were  for  which  the  Russian 
Minister  was  so  grateful,  we  find  not 
a  single  word  of  them  !  Only  an 
extract  of  the  important  despatch  is 
printed,  from  which  all  allusion  to 
these  overtures  has  been  expunged. 
By  what  light  can  we  view  the  count- 
less omissions  and  excisions  in  these 
Blue  Books  now?  And  this  system 
of  double-dealing  towards  France,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  continued  in  a  most 
striking  manner,  even  in  January 
1854. 

A  Russian  or  a  French  alliance,  and 
the  sacrifice  of  Turkey  to  attain  the 
former,— that,  we  repeat,  has  been 
the  question  upon  which  the  Aberdeen 
Cabinet  took  one  side,  and  Parliament 
and  the  nation  the  other.  To  truckle 
to  Russia  at  all  costs,  was  the  policy 
of  the  Peelites,— and  to  do  it  unknown 
to  the  nation,  was  a  shameful  necessity 


of  their  position  which  they  readily 
accepted.      They  have  done  so  to  the 
lasting  injury  of  Europe  and  their 
country,  and  by  their  conduct  have 
shaken  to  its  base  the  credit  of  the 
British  Constitution.    Let  us  pause 
for  a  moment  in  this  tale  of  folly 
and  duplicity  to  point  out  the  "  an- 
tiquated imbecility"  of  this  Peelite 
policy.    Even  throw  out  of  account 
our  knowledge  of  the  hereditary  po- 
licy and  far-reaching  ambition  of  the 
Russian  monarchs,— and  yet  who  but 
the  judicially- blinded  could  fail  to  give 
weight  to  this?  Suppose  them  unambi- 
tious and  destitute  of  any  fixed  policy, 
— what  then?  Even  then  the  Russian 
alliance  is  not  the  one  we  onght^to 
cultivate.  In  formertimes  each  nation 
looked  upon  its  neighbour  as  its  "  na- 
tural enemy,"  and  Powers  further  off 
as  its  natural  allies.     This  was  the 
artificial  policy  by  which  Courts  sought 
to  maintain  themselves  against  one 
another's  encroachments.  Each  Court 
was  an  isolated  unit,  looking  after  its 
own  interests.  Whenever  a  Court  was 
seized  with  a  fit  of  ambition,  it  was 
its  next  neighbour  that  it  fell  foul  of; 
and  this  neighbour  forthwith  invoked 
the  aid  of  some  third  Power,  whom  it 
was  wont  to  assist  against  its  natural 
foe.     Thus  Scotland  and  France  of 
old  were  allies  against  England,  and 
England  and  the  Netherlands  against 
France.    Thus  also,  in  more  recent 
times,  France  was  the  "natural  ene- 
my" of  Great  Britain,  and  Austria  our 
"  natural  ally,"— the  latter  helping  us 
against  France,  and  we  ready  to  help 
her  against  Russia.   But  the  growth  of 
democracy  and  the  intercommunion  of 
nations,  which  commenced  during  the 
last  war,  began  to  change  these  disposi- 
tions, and  to  make  foreign  politics  de- 
pend more  upon  the  sympathies  of  na- 
tions than  the  intrigues  of  Courts.    Of 
late  it  has  become  evident  that  the  poli- 
tical system  of  Europe  will  henceforth 
rest  mainly  upon  the  alliance  of  kin- 
dred peoples  and  principles,  and  less 
upon  courtly  artifice  and  matrimonial 
alliances.    Eace  and  Principles — kin- 
ship of  blood,  and  sympathy  of  opinion 
— these,  in  nations  as  in  individuals, 
are  the  natural  and  only  lasting  bonds 
of  union  ;  and  precisely  as  time  rolls 
on,   and  the    nations    become  more 
developed,    will   these    ties    become 
more  and  more  paramount,  until  all 


108 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


[July, 


Europe  arrange  itself  in  its  great 
natural  divisions.  How  absurd,  then, 
for  a  British  Cabinet  to  cling  to  an 
antiquated  past,  and  endeavour  to 
galvanise  an  effete  system  into  effi- 
cacious existence!  The  conflict  be- 
tween the  East  and  the  West  of 
Europe,  and  between  the  principles  of 
Absolutism  and  Liberty  which  they  re- 
spectively represent,  has  commenced ; 
— Courts  and  Peoples  will  array  them- 
selves in  accordance  with  their  feel- 
ings upon  these  fundamental  points  ; 
and  the  cordial  union  between  Eng- 
land and  France  must  be  the  sheet- 
anchor  of  the  West  in  the  strife. 

War  is  a  judgment  upon  the  na- 
tions; but  if  ever  a  war  was  clearly 
traceable  to  individual  agency,  it  is 
the  present  one.  When  Europe  and 
our  children,  looking  back  upon  a  ge- 
neration of  agonies,  shall  ask,  *'  Who 
were  the  immediate  authors  of  our 
troubles  and  sufferings?"  they  will 
find  no  difficulty  in  at  once  bringing 
home  the  charge  to  the  true  delin- 
quents. The  ambition  of  the  Czars, 
and  the  connivance  of  the  British 
Cabinet — that  is  the  answer.  But  the 
ambition  of  Russia  is  permanent  and 
of  long  standing.  It  is  an  heir-loom 
in  the  house  of  Peter  the  Great.  It 
has  been  as  living  and  watchful  from 
the  commencement  of  the  century  as 
it  was  in  1853.  All  it  waited  and 
watched  for  was  opportunity.  Napo- 
leon momentarily  checked  it  by  a 
home-thrust  in  1812;  Aberdeen  called 
it  forth  anew  in  1828 — kept  it  alive  by 
promises  in  1844— and  finally  evoked 
the  demon  again  in  1853.  Wary  and 
self-possessed  to  a  degree,  the  late 
Czar  would  never  have  ventured  on 
his  scheme  of  ambition  had  he  not  had 
reason  to  reckon  upon  the  friendship 
of  the  British  Cabinet.  He  never  meant 
to  involve  his  empire  in  war.  Secure 
in  the  friendship  or  connivance  of  Eng- 
land and  Austria,  and  consequently 
checkmating  France  into  quiescence, 
he  reckoned  upon  extorting  from  Tur- 
key a  right  of  Protectorate  (that  right 
of  which  the  Aberdeen  Government  at 
first  expressly  approved),  and  then 
lying  quietly  by  until  by  his  intrigues 
he  could  rend  that  empire  asunder,  and 
convert  his  protectorate  into  a  suze- 
rainty. When  the  lightning-storm  is 
brooding  in  the  skies,  he  is  a  madman 
who  invites  it  down.  But  even  so 


acted  the  Aberdeen  Cabinet.  Russia's 
ambition  was  abiding,  but  it  was  they 
who,  by  evoking  it,  called  forth  this 
dread  assault  upon  civilisation,  and 
drew  down  the  calamity  of  war  upon 
Europe.  They  will  be  remembered  in 
the  history  of  Europe  as  the  apostate 
Count  Julian  is  in  the  annals  of  Spain, 
or  the  weak  and  traitorous  Baliol 
in  those  of  Scotland.  They  have 
drawn  forth  the  storm  of  Slavonic 
invasion,  and  the  withering  curse  of 
Slavonic  absolutism,  ere  Liberty  was 
fully  armed  for  the  contest.  As  yet, 
freedom  and  popular  rights  have  esta- 
blished themselves  only  on  the  western 
outskirts  of  Europe.  They  are  words 
almost  unknown  beyond  the  sound  of 
the  Atlantic's  waves.  Germany,  Cen- 
tral Europe,  is  still  a  region  where  the 
people  have  no  voice  in  their  govern- 
ment ;  and  their  Courts  lean  to  Russia 
as  their  upholder  and  grand  patron  of 
absolutism.  Yet  another  generation, 
and  those  slumbering  populations  of 
Germans  would  have  been  awake  and 
erect  to  defend  themselves ;  and  be- 
hind a  bulwark  of  three-score  millions 
of  Teutons,  Western  Europe  would 
have  been  for  ever  safe  against  the 
wildest  efforts  of  Slavonic  fanaticism. 
But,  thanks  to  thePeelites  ofEngland, 
no  such  time  for  growth  and  prepara- 
tion was  given,  and  liberty  and  civili- 
sation are  now  involved  in  a  struggle 
which  menaces  them  with  tempo- 
rary eclipse.  Even  to  view  the  con- 
duct of  the  Aberdeen  Ministry  in  the 
light  which  they  choose,  and  to  accept 
their  own  version  of  the  matter,  in 
what  a  miserable  aspect  does  their 
conduct  appear!  They  allege  that 
they  resolved  from  the  first  to  reject 
and  oppose  the  designs  announced  by 
Russia  in  January  1853.  Well,  then, 
they  must  have  known  the  perilous  na- 
ture of  the  struggle  that  loomed  in  the 
distance;  but  did  they  make  the  least 
preparation  to  check,  encounter,  or 
repel  it?  Did  they  augment  the  mili- 
tary and  naval  forces  of  the  empire  at 
home,  or  strengthen  our  position  by 
new  alliances  abroad?  Did  they  take 
France  into  their  confidence,  or  form 
an  indissoluble  alliance  for  mutual 
support  with  the  Baltic  Powers,  which 
are  destined  to  be  Russia's  next  vic- 
tims? Did  they  enter  into  immediate 
negotiations  with  Austria  and  Prussia, 
and  the  German  Courts,  in  order  to 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


109 


nullify  the  notorious  intrigues  and  in- 
fluence of  Russia,  and  win  them,  by  a 
display  of  energetic  action,  to  the  side 
of  justice  and  liberty?  Not  at  all: 
they  did  none  of  those  things.  Not  a 
gunboat  was  added  to  our  fleet,  not  a 
soldier  to  our  army,  not  a  militiaman 
to  our  home-service.  They  said  to  the 
Czar,  "  Come  and  walk  over  us  ! " 
They  never  even  hoisted  an  opposition 
flag.  And  if  the  German  powers  are 
now  favourable  to  Russia,  is  it  not 
very  much  owing  to  the  fact  that  we 
allowed  Russia  to  bully  and  cajole 
them  uncounteracted  ? — nay,  that  at 
first  our  Government  even  set  them 
the  example  which  they  are  now  fol- 
lowing ? 

We  have  little  heart  to  go  through 
the  sickening  details  of  last  year's  pro- 
fitless warfare,  delusive  professions, 
and  imbecile  diplomacy.  But  the  story 
of  mingled  duplicity  and  mismanage- 
ment is  now  in  little  danger  of  being 
forgotten.  The  brazen-faced  confes- 
sions of  the  Peelite  chiefs  have  caused 
an  indignant  people  to  re-scan  every 
point  in  the  twelvemonth's  progress. 
Lord  Aberdeen  repeatedly  stated,  that 
now  that  war  was  declared,  he  would 
prosecute  it  with  the  utmost  ener- 
gy ;  and  so,  in  echo,  said  Gladstone, 
Graham,  Newcastle,  and  Herbert.  Yet 
now  we  know,  from  their  own  profes- 
sions, as  well  as  from  the  actual  facts, 
that  such  was  not  their  purpose ;  that, 
like  that  prince  of  courtly  knaves, 
Talleyrand,  they  made  use  of  language 
but  to  conceal  their  thoughts, — and 
that  all  their  lengthy  and  fluent 
harangues  were  designed  mainly  to 
fling  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  suspecting 
nation  and  its  representatives.  The 
nation  now  knows  from  their  own  lips 
that  they  never  meant  to  "  humble  " 
Russia;  and  again  and  again  they  dis- 
couraged every  Continental  power 
from  joining  us,  by  pledging  them- 
selves to  "  preserve  the  integrity  "  of 
their  enemy's  dominions.  A  strange 
way  this  of  making  war !  We  warned 
off  Sweden  from  our  alliance,  by  re- 
fusing beforehand  to  let  her  have  back 
Finland,  or  a  single  inch  of  the  terri- 
tory of  which  Russia  had  robbed  her. 
By  a  similar  pledge  we  kept  down  the 
Poles,  and  let  the  Czar  convert  their 
country  at  his  ease  into  a  salient  bas- 
tion, from  which  he  can  overawe  the 
deliberations  of  the  German  Powers. 


In  like  manner,  also,  we  discouraged 
the  brave  mountaineers  of  the  Cauca- 
sus from  energetic  action ; — for  what 
had  they  to  fight  for  if  the  integrity 
of  Russia  was  to  be  preserved,  and 
not  an  inch  of  her  plunder  allowed  to 
find  its  way  back  to  its  rightful  own- 
ers ?  It  was  impossible  to  conceive  a 
more  ingenious  plan  for  keeping  down 
all  hostility  to  Russia  than  that  adopt- 
ed by  the  Aberdeen  Ministry.  They 
smoothly  called  it  "  circumscribing 
the  war : "  in  point  of  fact,  it  was  per- 
petuating the  war  by  circumscribing 
our  Alliances.  But  it  was  no  er- 
ror, no  mistake ;  —  it  was  precisely 
what  they  desired.  Even  after  war 
was  declared,  their  single  thought 
was, — "  Keep  things  quiet,  and  all 
will  yet  go  well.  If  we  cannot 
now  give  Russia  her  coveted  Pro- 
tectorate, we  can  at  least  contrive  to 
let  her  have  terms  that  will  content 
her.  But,  above  all  things,  do  not 
irritate,  do  not  humble  her ;  and  do 
not  swell  the  war  by  inviting  other 
nations  to  join  us  against  her." 

Such  was  the  fatal  policy  of  the 
statesmen  to  whom  Great  Britain  had 
in  evil  hour  confided  the.conduct  of  the 
war.  Their  whole  proceedings  tallied 
with  their  secret  designs.  The  Expe- 
dition to  the  East  was  meant  as  an 
idle  parade,— to  gull  the  people,  and  go 
no  further  than  Malta.  When  put  on 
their  defence  at  the  opening  of  Parlia- 
ment in  January  last  year,  Lord  Aber- 
deen declared  that  the  reason  why  he 
did  not  hold  the  invasion  of  the  Prin- 
cipalities a  casus  belli  was,  that  the  Rus- 
sians in  that  case  being  in  such  force, 
would  have  marched  straight  upon 
Constantinople  before  the  Turks  or 
we  were  ready  to  oppose  them ;  while 
Lord  Clarendon,  on  the  other  hand, 
alleged  that  the  reason  was,  that 
the  Russian  forces  were  so  few  that 
they  furnished  no  cause  for  appre- 
hending that  the  peace  of  Europe 
would  be  disturbed  !  To  such  pitiful 
contradictions  and  transparent  sub- 
terfuges does  duplicity  reduce  its 
votaries.  Both  statements  were  un- 
true. The  Government  did  not  de- 
sign at  first  to  oppose  ^Russia  or  be- 
friend Turkey.  We  know  this  from 
the  Blue  Books; — from  the  fact 
that  no  preparations  for  war  were* 
made  after  the  Pruth  was  crossed,  al- 
though Lord  Aberdeen  alleged  the 


110 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


[July, 


want  of  preparation  as  his  excuse  for 
not  interposing  at  the  outset ; — from 
the  fact  that  the  fleet  was  forbidden 
to  give  the  slightest  countenance  or 
support  to  the  Ottomans  ; — and  final- 
ly, that,  even  after  war  was  declared, 
war  was  still  not  purposed  by  the  Ca- 
binet. They  never  took  a  hostile  step 
until  it  was  forced  upon  them  by  public 
opinion;  and,  consequently,  every 
step  was  taken  unprepared.  Even 
when  the  Expedition  reached  Varna, 
it  had  neither  cavalry  nor  artillery 
wherewith  to  take  the  field ;  and  so 
total  was  the  want  of  the  means  of 
transport,  that  when  the  fall  of  Silis- 
tria  was  imminent,  the  British  army 
could  not  have  made  a  single  day's 
march  to  its  relief.  And  when  Silis- 
tria  (thanks  to  the  gallantry  of  the 
Ottomans,  assisted  by  Butler  and 
Nasmyth)  foiled  its  besiegers,  what 
happened?  Up  rose  Lord  John 
Eussell  in  the  House  of  Commons  in 
July,  and  gave  ample  warning  to  the 
Czar  that  Sebastopol  was  to  be  attack- 
ed, and  must  be  destroyed!  Manifestly 
{and  as  we  now  know  was  the  fact) 
the  undertaking  of  so  hostile  a  move- 
ment against  the  Czar  was  then  still 
in  dubio;  for  Mr  Gladstone  thereupon 
was  seen  earnestly  gesticulating  with 
Lord  John  ; — and  it  is  no  want  of  cha- 
rity towards  the  subtle  Peelite  to  infer 
that  it  was  not  so  much  the  warning 
given  to  the  Czar  that  he  regretted,  as 
the  commitment  of  the  Ministry  to  so 
bold  and  anti- Russian  a  line  of  action. 
However,  the  country  and  the  French 
Emperor  insisted  upon  the  enterprise 
being  undertaken, — and  undertaken  it 
was.  But  how  ?  According  to  Lord 
John  Russell's  subsequent  confession, 
it  was  undertaken  merely  "  in  order  to 
satisfy  public  sentiment."  It  was 
forced  upon  a  Cabinet  that  was  think- 
ing only  of  peace ;  and,  like  every 
other  step  in  the  war,  was  made  with- 
out preparation, — to  use  Mr  S.  Her- 
bert's phrase,  "  by  discounting  the 
future  !  "  The  responsibility  of  the 


enterprise,  as  appears  from  the  Re- 
port of  the  Sebastopol  Committee, 
rests  wholly  with  the  Ministry, — the 
generals  being  disinclined  to  attempt 
it  with  the  inadequate  means  at  their 
disposal,  and  not  less  inadequate  in- 
formation to  guide  them.*  The  army 
had  to  winter  in  the  Crimea,  and  again 
the  preparations  for  this  easily-fore- 
seen contingency  were  made  too  late. 
They  have  since  confessed  that  it  was 
not  till  after  the  bloody  battle  of  Inker- 
mann  that  the  idea  occurred  to  them; 
and  we  know  with  what  disasters  to 
our  army,  and  detriment  to  the  for- 
tunes alike  of  the  campaign  and  of 
our  diplomacy,  this  criminal  neglect 
of  the  war  by  the  Russianised  Cabinet 
was  attended.  One  victory  in  the 
Crimea  was  worth  a  hundred  protocols. 
Napoleon  ever  made  his  diplomacy 
wait  upon  his  arms  ;  the  late  Cabinet, 
reversing  the  process,  kept  our  gene- 
rals waiting  on  our  diplomatists.  "  Too 
late  "as  has  been  well  said,  is  the  motto 
which  characterises  their  whole  pro- 
ceedings. And  we  now  know  "  the  rea- 
son why."  They  had  secretly  resolved 
not  to  prosecute  the  war  against  Rus- 
sia,— not  to  "  humble"  her,  not  to  hurt 
her;  and  as  the  voice  of  an  aroused  and 
indignant  nation  compelled  them,  bit 
by  bit,  to  go  forward,  they  found  them- 
selves forced  to  add  mismanagement 
to  duplicity,  and  embark  the  empire  in 
enterprises  for  which  they  had  made 
no  preparation. 

Not  even  with  the  Aberdeen  Cabi- 
net did  treachery  expire.  The  Czar's 
"  old  friend,"  indeed,  and  the  incom- 
petent Duke  of  Newcastle  were  cash- 
iered; but  three  other  Peelites  rein- 
stalled themselves  in  office.  And  what 
terms  did  they  exact  as  the  price  of 
their  adhesion?  LordPalmerston,  after 
forty  years  of  official  life,  at  length 
saw  the  tempting  prize  of  the  Premier- 
ship within  his  reach.  The  object  of 
every  statesman's  proudest  ambition 
glittered  before  him.  But  he  was 
without  a  party,  without  a  following  : 


*  Lord  Raglan,  in  his  despatch  of  the  19th  of  July,  said  :— "  The  descent  on  the 
Crimea  is  decided  upon  more  in  deference  to  the  views  of  the  British  Government 
than  to  any  information  in  the  possession  of  the  naval  and  military  authorities,  either 
as  to  the  extent  of  the  enemy's  forces  or  to  their  state  of  preparation."  And  the 
Sebastopol  Inquiry  Committee  explicitly  state,  that  "  the  responsibility  of  the  ex- 
pedition rests  upon  the  Home  Government."  As  to  the  want  of  preparation  and 
litter  mismanagement  which  characterised  the  expedition,  as  well  as  the  fearful 
results  of  these  Ministerial  blunders,  we  need  say  nothing,  as  they  are  fully  set  forth 
in  the  Committee's  Report. 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


he  was  in  absolute  need  of  co-opera- 
tion,— with  what  pledges  did  he  pur- 
chase it?  When  Mr  Otway,  a  fort- 
night ago,  rose  to  ask  this  question, 
the  Speaker,  on  the  intercession  of  Mi- 
Gladstone,  had  to  interpose,  as  the 
very  nature  of  the  question  involved 
a  charge  of  treason.  Why  the  Speaker 
should  have  thus  decided,  when  the 
facts,  whether  treason  or  not,  were 
known  to  be  true,  passes  ordinary 
comprehension.  Did  the  Peelites, 
asked  Mr  Otway,  stipulate  with  Lord 
Palmerston,  as  the  price  of  their  ad- 
hesion, that  he  would  conclude  peace 
on  terms  "  favourable  to  Russia  ?  "  It 
there  be  meaning  in  words,  they  cer- 
tainly did  so.  Doubtless  they  them- 
selves think  the  terms  no  more  than 
Eussia  is  entitled  to,— but  Parliament 
and  the  nation  think  differently,  hold- 
ing them  neither  honourable  nor  safe. 
Sir  J.  Graham,  in  accounting  for  his 
hasty  secession  from  the  present  Mi- 
nistry said,  (23d  February)  :— 

"  It  may  be  said  to  me, — How  came 
you  to  accept  office  under  the  noble  lord, 
the  member  for  Tiverton,  if  these  were 
your  impressions  with  respect  to  this 
Committee  ?  ( '  Hear,  hear,'  from  the 
Opposition).  I  wish  to  state  the  case 
with  perfect  frankness  and  fairness.  I 
was  confined  to  my  bed,  and  certainly 
not  in  a  condition  to  carry  on  a  protracted 
correspondence  or  to  make  many  inquiries. 
But  there  was  one  difficulty  which  with 
me  was  cardinal,  and  required  explana- 
tion. I  wished  to  know  from  my  noble 
friend  whether  there  was  to  be  any  change 
in  the  foreign  policy  of  Lord  Aberdeen's 
Government  ;  and  whether,  with  reference 
to  the  negotiations  now  pending  at  Vienna, 
there  was  to  be  any  alteration  with  regard 
to  the  terms  which  would  be  consistent, 
in  our  opinion,  with  a  safe  and  honourable 
peace.  I  made  no  further  difficulty,  in- 
stituted no  inquiry  whatever  on  any  Other 
points,  but  frankly  said—'  Being  satisfied 
on  this  point,  I  will  do  my  very  best  to 
support  and  sustain  your  Government.'  " 

Mr  Gladstone  states  that  he  did  not 
put  any  questions  u  with  reference  to 
the  anticipated  conditions  of  treaty 
with  Russia,"  because  "he  was  not 
aware  that  any  difference  of  opinion 
existed  between  us  as  to  those  con- 
ditions, or  that  any  such  difficulty 
would  arise."  And  on  the  occasion 
in  question,  he  showed  his  real  lean- 
ings by  eulogising  the  "  ancient  friend" 
of  the  Czar  as  "  one  who,  not  so  much 


111 

on  account  of  the  high  office  he  has 
filled,  as  of  his  elevated  and  admirable 
character,  will  leave  a  name  that  will 
be  enshrined  in  the  grateful  recollec- 
tion of  his  country."  Mutual  eulogy 
is  one  of  the  strong  points  of  the 
Peelites.  When  Mr  S.  Herbert  is  on 
his  defence,  he  sets  himself  to  adulate 
Sir  James  Graham  ;  when  Mr  Glad- 
stone is  "  explaining  "  himself,  he  pro- 
nounces encomiums  on  Lord  Aberdeen. 
In  the  present  fallen  condition  of  these 
gentlemen,  it  must  be  allowed  that 
this  mutual  puffing  is  by  no  means 
unnecessary.  Mr  S.  Herbert,  on  the 
occasion,  said  nothing  about  the  Pre- 
mier's pledges,  contenting  himself  with 
denouncing,  and  predicting  all  man- 
ner of  mischief  from  the  .Committee 
of  Inquiry  into  past  misdoings,  which 
the  House  had  almost  unanimously 
voted.  Now,  if  the  Peelites  had  been 
so  completely  satisfied  as  to  the  Pre- 
mier's plans  of  war-policy, — the  point 
which  they  alone  thought  worthy  of 
inquiry  into, — it  of  course  followed 
that  they  would  still  give  their  hearty 
support  to  the  Government;  but  all 
of  them  ended  their  speeches  by  omin- 
ously "  hoping"  and  u trusting"  that 
it  would  still  be  in  their  power  to 
continue  their  support.  Lord  Pal- 
merston's  speech  still  more  clearly 
shows,  that  the  Peelite  secession  was 
occasioned  by  something  more  than 
his  natural  and  inevitable  assent  to 
the  vote  for  inquiry;  for  the  latter 
and  most  important  half  of  his  speech 
was  a  spirited  allusion  to  his  purposed 
war-policy,  and  to  a  repudiation  of 
the  Peelite  principle  of  "  peace  at  any 
price."  The  gist  of  his  remarks  may 
be  gathered  from  the  following  sen- 
tences : — 

"  We  are  as  anxious  as  any  man  can 
be  to  be  able,  upon  terms  consistent  with 
the  future  safety  of  Europe,  consistent 
with  the  attainment  of  those  objects  for 
which  the  war  was  begun,  to  put  an  end 
to  the  war  by  an  honourable  treaty  of 
peace  ;  but  if,  through  an  over-desire  for 
peace,  we  were  to  conclude  what  would 
be  more  properly  described  as  a  hollow 
and  insincere  truce — if  we  were  to  con- 
sent to  terms  which  would  lead  to  the 
same  kind  of  danger  by  which  we  have 
been  driven  into  the  arduous  struggle  in 
which  we  are  now  engaged — if  we  were 
to  agree  to  terms  which  would  leave  that 
danger  in  all  its  former  amplitude,  instead 
of  deserving  the  confidence  of  the  coun- 


112 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


[July, 


try,  we  should,  I  think,  deserve  its  cen- 
sure— (hear,  hear) — we  should  have  be- 
trayed the  trust  reposed  in  us,  and,  for 
the  sake  of  achieving  a  temporary  peace, 
we  should  have  laid  the  foundation  of 
great  future  calamities." 

Lord  Palraerston,  it  is  plain,  had 
begun  to  waver  in  his  views.  The 
nation,  by  a  hearty  and  confiding 
call,  had  summoned  him  to  the  helm 
of  affairs.  The  long- coveted  Premier- 
ship was  now  his ;  and  he  was  natur- 
ally reluctant  to  forfeit  the  flattering 
confidence  of  the  nation,  or  dishonour 
the  noble  post  to  which  late  in  life 
he  had  succeeded.  Hitherto— it  was 
charitably  thought,  —  shelved  in  the 
Home  Office,  and  conscious  of  his 
individual  weakness,  love  of  office 
had  induced  him  to  acquiesce  in  a 
policy  which  was  opposed  to  his  con- 
viction. Now  he  was  his  own  mas- 
ter,— he  was  the  leader  of  the  nation, 
— was  it  not  natural  that  he  should 
wish  to  lead  that  nation  as  a  free  and 
stout-hearted  people  should  be  led? 
But  the  shackles  of  a  past  policy 
and  past  pledges  hung  round  him. 
For  two  years  he  had  dallied  with 
perfidy  and  acquiesced  in  pusillani- 
mity,— how  could  he  rise  up  pure  and 
bold-hearted  in  a  moment  ?  A  man  of 
activity,  he  was  never  a  man  of  nerve. 
Unlike  Canning,  his  foreign  Liberalism 
was  a  sentiment  rather  than  a  policy — 
a  leaning  rather  than  a  line  of  action. 
And  hence,  in  1831,  he  threw  away 
the  fairest  opportunity  Europe  ever 
had  of  paralysing  the  Colossus  of  the 
North.  Owing  his  long  tenure  of 
office  to  tact  and  flexibility,  rather 
than  to  might  of  mind,  he  had  no  fixed 
principles,  and  hence  no  party.  He 
preferred  the  securing  of  office  to  the 
formation  of  a  following — "  the  end 
to  the  means!" — and  hence,  in  circum- 
stances when  other  statesmen  would 
have  indignantly  fled  from  a  Cabinet, 
and  rallied  a  party  by  the  magic 
breath  of  principles,  Palmerston  was 
helpless.  Tact  had  made  him  influen- 
tial in  the  company  of  others,  but  it 
had  rendered  him  fearful  of  standing 
alone.  But  stand  alone  he  at  last  did. 
The  Peelites,  sniffing  his  new  views, 
and  probably  reckoning  on  nipping  in 
the  bud  his  nascent  anti-Russianism, 
seceded  on  the  plea  of  the  Sebastopol 
Inquiry.  Their  game  was  within  an 
ace  of  succeeding.  On  his  circuitous 


road  to  Vienna,  as  envoy  for  the  Peel- 
ite-Palmerston  Cabinet,  Lord  John 
Russell  had  telegraphed,  a  la  Aberdeen, 
"Lemotdordrec'estlapaix;"  and  even 
after  the  secession  of  the  Russian  party 
from  the  Cabinet,  the  tottering  Pre- 
mier, unwilling  to  lose  his  proud  and 
late  won  position,  still  trafficked  with 
them, — until  Mr  Disraeli  did  him  and 
the  country  an  inestimable  service  by 
bringing  the  connection  abruptly,  but 
not  an  instant  too  soon,  to  a  close. 
The  noble  reply  which  the  Conserva- 
tive leader  made  to  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell, when  the  blundering  plenipoten- 
tiary alleged  that  the  charge  brought 
against  him  by  Mr  Disraeli  had  "  de- 
graded the  debate,"  was  in  truth  at 
that  moment  applicable  to  the  whole 
Ministry,—"  At  least  I  have  taken 
care  that  the  noble  lord  shall  not  de- 
grade England ! " 

Palmerston  acquiesced  in,  but  cer- 
tainly was  not  an  originator  of,  the 
philo-Russianism  of  the  Coalition  Go- 
vernment. His  whole  antecedents 
forbid  the  idea.  Aberdeen,  the  Czar's 
"  old  friend,"  the  enemy  of  the 
Turks  in  1828,  and  a  concoctor  of 
the  Memorandum  of  1844,  was  evi- 
dently facile  princeps  in  the  bad  busi- 
ness. Lord  John  Russell,  the  anti- 
Gallican  of  December  1851,  and  the 
fulsome  eulogist  of  the  Czar  and 
commender  of  his  policy  in  February 
1853,  was  another  author  of  England's 
shame  and  Europe's  dilemma.  Sir 
James  Graham  and  Sir  C.  Wood, 
whose  antipathy  to  the  French  Em- 
peror was  so  great  that  they  could  not 
resist  vilifying  him  with  Ministerial 
lips  on  the  public  hustings,  were  noto- 
riously two  others  of  this  coterie. 
Sidney  Herbert,  nephew  of  Count 
Woronzoff,  and  Mr  Gladstone,  may 
not  have  been  originators  of  the  philo- 
Russian  plot,  but  their  conduct  as 
Ministers,  and  their  recent  confes- 
sions, show  how  heartily,  and  how 
nearly  fatally  for  their  country,  they 
joined  in  it  when  once  set  on  foot. 
The  whole  two  years'  conduct  of  these 
Ministers  is  a  frightful  comment  upon 
the  accuracy  of  Lord  Ponsonby's 
saying  in  1834,  "  I  have  no  fear 
of  Russian  arms,  but  I  have  a  dread 
of  British  diplomacy  I  " — as  well  as 
of  Sir  John  M'Neill's  words,  utter- 
ed a  year  afterwards,  "  Russia  has 
found  in  the  statesmen  and  cabinets 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


of  Europe  the  tools  with  which  to 
work." 

The  country  must  be  done  with 
these  men.  Better  to  have  the 
merest  tyros  for  Ministers  than  states- 
men who  make  use  of  their  influence 
and  long  official  experience  only  the 
more  effectually  to  blind  and  mis- 
lead us.  To  lose  them  will  be  a 
great  gain.  Permanently  and  for 
ever  to  banish  them  from  the  councils 
of  the  nation,  will  only  be  to  vindi- 
cate the  honour  of  our  country,  re- 
move false  guides  from  power,  and 
eliminateapoisonfromtheConstitution 
which  has  already  shaken  its  strength. 
Read  the  Sebastopol  Report,  meek- 
toned  as  it  is,  and  learn  what  gigantic 
blunderers  these  vaunted  Red-tapists 
are.  Conniving  at  first  with  our  power- 
ful enemy  abroad,  they  have  subse- 
quently paralysed,by  their  mismanage- 
ment and  neglect,  the  best  efforts  of  the 
nation  at  home.  Every  branch  of  the 
administrative  service  was  a  congeries 
of  blunders.  Army,  Militia,  Ordnance, 
Commissariat,  Forage,  Land  -  trans- 
port, Sea- transport,  Medical  Depart- 
ment, Stores,  Ambulance  Corps,  and 
Hospital  Service — in  each  of  them  ne- 
glect and  incapacity  ran  riot.  And 
what  is  said  of  one,  the  Ordnance  Of- 
fice, may  be  said  of  all— namely,  that 
"it  strikingly  exemplifies  the  disor- 
dered state  into  which  a  department 
may  fall  when  there  is  no  able  hand  to 
guide  it."  Add  all  this  terrible  mis- 
management to  the  duplicity  and 
ruinous  policy  of  the  late  Cabinet, 
and  there  accumulates  upon  them  a 
weight  of  censure  such  as  never  yet 
overtook  a  British  Ministry.  Reputa- 
tions ten  times  greater  than  theirs 
would  be  extinguished  by  it.  The 
only  shelter  they  need  look  for  from  a 


113 

nation's  scorn  is — oblivion.  Ejected 
by  an  indignant  country,  Lord  Aber- 
deen may  now  meditate  in  old  age  and 
retirement  upon  the  consequences  of 
the  policy  which  he  pursued  when  in 
office.  The  Duke  of  Newcastle  has 
fallen  with  him, — a  victim  of  his  posi- 
tion as  much  as  of  his  incapacity. 
Graham,  Gladstone,  Herbert,  are  now 
likewise  driven  from  a  leadership  of 
which  they  have  proved  themselves 
unworthy.  The  first-named  of  these, 
and  the  only  really  able  administra- 
tor of  the  party,  has  damaged  him- 
self morally  as  well  as  politically.  A 
man  of  frequent  changes  and  virulent 
inconsistencies,  his  influence  as  a 
guide  is  weak,  because  his  views  are 
ever  fluctuating.  He  is  a  special 
pleader,  rather  than  an  independent 
thinker,  —  a  clever  administrator 
rather  than  a  statesman.  Unscrupu- 
lous as  a  politician,  he  will  adopt  any 
course  or  hazard  any  statement  that 
promises  to  give  him  a  momentary 
advantage.  He  sticks  at  nothing. 
With  perfect  sang-froid  he  opens  Mr 
Duncombe's  private  letters  at  the  Post 
Office.  With  unscrupulous  adroit- 
ness he  perverts  Admiral  Napier's 
official  despatches,  and  turns  his  pri- 
vate letters  into  public  ones,  while 
preventing  the  Admiral  doing  the 
same,  on  the  plea  of  the  public  good.* 
With  wicked  effrontery  he  endea- 
voured to  throw  the  blame  of  Captain 
Christie's  delirium  and  death  upon 
Mr  Layard, — boldly  averring  that 
though  he  himself  had  ordered  the 
court-martial  to  be  held  on  that 
officer,  he  had  done  so  in  consequence 
of  Mr  Layard's  charges  against  the 
Captain  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
And  yet  Sir  James  had  afterwards  to 
confess  that  he  had  ordered  the  court- 


*  In  a  recent  letter  to  a  London  journal,  the  Admiral,  while  repeating  his  charge 
against  Sir  James  for  perverting  his  letters,  accuses  him  also  of  delaying  the  requi- 
site preparations  for  this  year's  campaign  in  the  Baltic.  He  says  : — "  You  ask 
why  our  squadron  in  the  Baltic,  which  did  nothing  to  signify  last  year,  is  likely  to  do 
nothing  this  ?  The  question  is  easily  answered, — viz.,  because  Sir  James  Graham  did 
not  attend  to  the  plans  I  sent  him  last  June,  and  which  he  pretended  to  know  nothing 
about  ;  and  because  the  Admiralty  did  not  attend  to  the  plans  I  sent  them  last  Sep- 
tember. Had  Admiral  Dundas  been  furnished  with  the  appliances  I  pointed  out, 
Sweaborg  might  have  been  bombarded,  and  probably  destroyed.  .  .  .  My  time 
will  come,  and  before  long,  when  I  shall  be  able  to  expose  all  Sir  James  Graham's  con- 
duct to  me.  ...  I  have  accused  him  of  perverting  my  letters,  which  I  am  prevented 
from  proving,  by  the  pretence  that  the  publication  would  afford  information  to  the 
enemy.  That  pretence  will  soon  cease,  and  the  country  shall  know  what  means  the 
right  hon.  Baronet  used  to  induce  Admiral  Berkeley  and  Admiral  Richards  to  sign 
instructions  which,  if  carried  out,  would  have  lost  the  Queen's  fleet." 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXVII.  H 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


114 

martial  before  Mr  Layard  had  uttered 
a  single  word  of  accusation  !  Now,  a 
man  may  forget  a  fact,  but  he  cannot 
make  a  mistake  as  to  the  motive 
which  induced  him  to  give  an  import- 
ant order  only  a  few  weeks  before. 
Anything  more  wicked  and  shameless 
in  a  public  man,  we  do  not  remember. 
Sir  James  is  notorious  for  being  a 
matchless  advocate  of  a  bad  case ; 
but  his  recent  conduct  suggests  the 
thought;  whether  he  is  not  more  suit- 
ably qualified  for  the  management  of 
44  bad  cases  "  at  the  Old  Bailey  than  for 
the  conduct  of  public  business  in  the 
House  of  Commons. 

Amiable  in  private  life,  but  viciously 
given  to  casuistry,  and  often  the 
sport  of  a  crotchety  sentimentalism 
which  is  no  more  religion  than  an 
ignis  fatuus  is  the  sun,  Mr  Glad- 
stone, and  in  a  lesser  degree  Mr  S. 
Herbert,  might  disarm  censure  were 
public  duty  no  weightier  matter  than 
private  deportment.  But  when  the 
former  of  these  gentlemen  seeks  to 
cover  official  duplicity  and  want  of 
patriotism  by  an  appeal  to  religion, 
and  to  defend  his  Russianism  on  the 
ground  of  humanity,  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  proceeding  as  revolting 
to  moral  as  it  is  insulting  to  common 
sense.  Who  were  the  authors  of 
this  war  but  himself  and  the  Cabinet 
to  which  he  belonged  ?  Who  invited 
its  approach, — who  did  not  check  its 
outset, — who  aggravated  its  horrors, 
but  he  and  his  late  colleagues  ?  Mr 
Gladstone  was  shocked  at  the  240,000 
soldiers  lost  to  the  Czar, — has  he  no 
sympathy  but  for  the  Russians  ?  Are 
the  butchers  of  Inkermann  and  the 
murderers  of  Hango  such  choice  ob- 
jects of  compassion  for  an  English- 
man? Mr  Gladstone  gave  us  not 
tears,  but  denials,  when  the  tales  of 
our  own  army's  sufferings  came  thick 
and  fast  from  the  East.  Good  in- 
tentions ! — it  is  well ;  but  that  does 
not  suffice  for  men  who  have  to  act 
for  an  empire.  We  do  not  imagine 
that  the  Aberdeen  Cabinet  preferred 
the  interests  of  the  Czar  to  those  of 
their  country, — we  do  not  conceive 
that  they  wilfully  compromised  the 
safety,  though  they  knowingly  com- 
promised the  honour,  of  England. 
Yet  they  actually  did  all  these  things. 
They  invited  the  Cossacks  into  Eu- 
rope. They  have  involved  civilisa- 


[July, 


tion  in  a  dilemma,  and  liberty  in  a 
death-struggle.  At  the  same  time, 
they  have  kept  England  unarmed,  un- 
warned, and  with  no  allies  save  such 
as  forced  themselves  upon  us  in  our 
Government's  despite.  And  to  all 
this  they  have  added  a  career  of  dupli- 
city towards  the  nation  which  deepens 
their  folly  and  mismanagement  into 
a  criminality  which  we  care  not  to 
define.  44  Conscience,"  said  John 
Knox  to  Queen  Mary,  44  requires 
knowledge  ; "  and  before  it  be  sought 
to  palliate  the  misconduct  of  the 
late  Cabinet  by  the  plea  of  good 
intentions,  it  will  be  well  first  to  tell 
us  what  offenders  against  the  com- 
monwealth have  ever  been  otherwise 
actuated.  Did  Harley  and  Boling- 
broke  think  the  country  would  be 
injured  by  a  return  of  the  old  dynasty 
for  whose  cause  they  intrigued  ?  Did 
the  leaders  of  the  Rebellion  of  1745 
design  their  country's  injury?  Did 
Bloody  Mary  and  her  coadjutors  think 
they  were  committing  foul  tyranny 
when  they  took  to  burning  her  Pro- 
testant subjects?  Certainly  not. 
Each  and  all,  and  a  hundred-fold 
more  instances  might  be  given  to 
show  that  men  quite  as  able  and 
well-intentioned  as  the  late  Ministers 
have  yet,  for  injury  done  to  the  com- 
monwealth, been  punished  by  their 
generation  or  branded  by  posterity. 
A  Minister  now  need  have  no  fear 
of  Tower  Hill  or  Tower  prison.  Even 
traitors  caught  in  arms  we  send  to 
pleasant  quarters  in  Bermuda,  until 
we  release  them.  But  we  must  have 
no  more  dishonesty  and  Russianism 
at  head-quarters.  The  country,  in 
raising  these  men  to  the  Government, 
placed  them  as  it  were  on  a  high 
tower,  to  descry  danger  from  afar, 
and  to  warn  us  and  arm  us  betimes 
to  repel  it.  Yet  they  have  notably 
abused  their  post.  Unknown  to  us 
mortals  in  the  lower  world,  they 
showed  friendly  colours  to  the  foe  ; — 
with  the  enemy's  battalions  full  in 
view,  they  yet  called  down,  4'  Peace, 
Peace  !" — they  hindered  preparation, 
— they  sent  forth  our  army  too  weak 
and  untended  to  the  battle;  —  and 
even  now  that  the  fight  is  raging 
all  around  us,  they  counsel  us  to  lay 
down  our  arms,  break  from  our  allies, 
and  open  the  gates  to  the  foe ! 
And  why  is  it  that  the  Peelite  chiefs 


1855.] 


Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet. 


115 


now  make  their  u  confessions  ?  "  Why 
do  they  now,  casting  off  their  disguises, 
denounce  a  contest  which  they  evoked, 
and  a  war  which  they  themselves  de- 
clared? We  need  hardly  say  it  is  from 
no  excess  of  honesty.  These  men  are 
wily  calculators,though  they  sometimes 
outwit  themselves.  It  is  because  they 
now  begin  to  feel  the  dilemma  in  which 
their  frustrated  policy  has  placed  us. 
They  have  steered  the  ship  aground, 
and  now  run  off  at  the  sight  of  the 
breakers.  They  staked  all  upon  pre- 
serving peace  wilh  Russia.  It  was 
their  very  sycophancy  to  that  Power 
that  tempted  it  to  commence  its  ag- 
gressions. It  was  their  tenderness 
towards  Russia  that  made  them  spoil 
a  campaign,  and  that  kept  off  from  us 
allies.  It  was  the  favourable  terms 
they  offered  her  that  at  length  occa- 
sioned their  ejection  from  office.  And 
now — their  policy  notably  a  failure — 
peace  impossible,  but  the  wasted  past 
unredeemable, — they  see  the  perils  in 
which  their  two  years  of  folly  and  du- 
plicity have  involved  the  empire,  and 
lift  up  their  deceitful  voices  to  protest 
against  the  continuance  of  a  war  for 
which  they  are  responsible,  and 
which  threatens  to  be  calamitous. 
The  rumour  of  dissensions  in  the 
Cabinet  as  to  whether  or  not  the  Na- 
tionalities should  be  appealed  to, 
shows  the  increasing  embarrassment 
of  our  rulers — the  now-felt  dilemma 
which  the  Premier  has  inherited  from 
his  two  years'  acquiescence  in  the 
policy  of  the  Peelites.  When  the 
danger  culminates,  then  let  the  nation 
remember  with  whom  it  originated. 
When  we  reap  the  whirlwind,  let 
them  remember  who  raised  the  storm. 
Let  them  remember  who  sowed  the 


seeds,  who  tended  and  watered  them, 
until  the  grain  of  strife  grew  up  into 
a  tree  that  may  yet  cover  the  face  of 
Europe  as  with  the  deadly  shade  of 
the  Upas.  The  present  cry  of  the 
Peelites  is  but  a  sham, — their  confes- 
sions are  but  a  cloak  to  fresh  dishonesty. 
They  recoil  from  the  demon  which 
they  have  raised — from  the  danger 
which  they  have  created.  That  is  all. 
They  know  that  the  nation  cannot  go 
back, — that  the  war  in  its  present  stage ' 
must  proceed.  Their  whole  proceed- 
ings are  just  a  cunning  precaution 
against  the  eventualities  of  the  future. 
They  fear  lest  a  time  will  come  when 
the  country,  roused  by  fresh  instances 
of  the  fatal  character  of  their  policy, 
will  break  out  against  them  as  the 
authors  of  the  war,  and  the  spoilers  of 
its  success ;  and  they  now  wish  to  ob- 
tain ground  for  say  ing  hereafter, — "Ah, 
but  then  we  warned  you  against  the 
war  afterwards,  and  would  have 
stopped  it  had  you  let  us."  Yes ;  but 
stopped  it  how?  By  humbling  Eng- 
land's honour,  as  they  have  already 
lowered  her  reputation.  By  alienat- 
ing and  mortally  offending  France, 
without  whose  alliance  we  are  now 
helpless  on  the  Continent.  By  alienat- 
ing and  sacrificing  Turkey  ;  and  in 
fine,  by  handing  over  Europe  to  the 
spear  of  the  Cossack,  and  the  thral- 
dom of  Russian  absolutism.  These 
are  now  the  professed  objects  of  the 
Peelites.  Away  with  them  !  Never 
more  let  them  touch  helm  or  sail  of 
the  State.  They  have  brought  Eng- 
land to  the  edge  of  the  reefs,  and  they 
have  shaken  the  good  ship  to  its  keel. 
Let  us  have  no  more  such  pilots.  A 
good  name  is  now  degraded, — and 
Peelism  is  Russianism. 


116 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


[July, 


ADMINISTRATIVE    REFORM — THE    CIVIL   SERVICE. 


THOUGH  war  is  in  itself  a  great  and 
grievous  calamity,  it  by  no  means  fol- 
lows as  a  necessary  consequence  that 
its  effects  may  not  be,  in  various  ways, 
beneficial  to  the  nation  which  has  been 
compelled  in  a  just  cause  to  draw 
the  sword.  Forty  years  of  unbroken 
peace,  and  of  general  commercial 
prosperity,  had  led  many  amongst  us 
to  entertain  the  delusive  idea  that 
warfare  had  become  a  mere  phantom 
of  the  past,  and  that  its  recurrence 
could  not  take  place  in  the  face  of 
advancing  civilisation,  and  the  rapidly 
increasing  intercommunion  of  the  na- 
tions, which  the  appliances  of  art  and 
science  have  so  prodigiously  accelerat- 
ed. '  It  was  proclaimed  as  a  doctrine, 
at  home  and  abroad,  that  mankind 
were  created  for  no  higher  functions 
than  to  buy  and  sell — to  produce  and 
to  barter — and  it  was  gravely  and 
seriously  asserted  that  war,  upon  a 
great  scale,  was  impossible  in  Europe, 
because  no  nation  would  submit  to 
the  necessary  interruption  of  its  mar- 
kets. Even  now  there  are  in  the 
House  of  Commons  and  elsewhere, 
men  who  do  not  hesitate  to  avow  their 
adherence  to  the  principle  of  that  doc- 
trine— men  who  are  not  ashamed  to 
admit  that  they  set  less  value  upon  the 
honour  and  character  of  their  country, 
than  upon  the  results  of  the  annual 
commercial  balance-sheet.  By  such 
men  the  caponisms  of  Mr  Gladstone 
and  his  confederates  are  received  with 
exceeding  joy  ;  and  they  confidently 
expect,  and  do  not  hesitate  to  avow 
their  belief,  that  the  British  people 
will  very  soon  be  clamorous  for  peace 
— not  because  the  objects  of  the  war 
have  been  attained,  but  because  they 
will  be  disgusted  with  the  pecuniary 
cost,  and  restive  under  the  interrup- 
tion of  their  commerce. 

A  very  short  period  has  gone  by 
since  the  Peace  Society  began  a 
formidable  crusade  against  arma- 
ments; and  had  the  members  of  it 
been  allowed  to  take  their  own  way, 
we  should  have  been  found,  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Russian  war,  with- 
out an  army,  a  navy,  or  anything 
approaching  to  the  adequate  means 
even  for  national  defence.  Nor  was 


the  long  continuance  of  peace  favour- 
able, in  so  far  as  the  internal  arrange- 
ments of  government  were  concerned. 
We  find,  almost  invariably,  that  it  is 
in  time  of  war,  trouble,  or  danger, 
that  intellect,  ability,  and  public  vir- 
tue are  exhibited  in  their  most  re- 
markable phase.  With  us  in  Britain, 
especially  of  late  years,  statesman- 
ship has  almost  ceased  to  exist.  Un- 
der the  rule  of  the  Whigs  it  has  come 
to  this,  that  party  supremacy,  not  the 
public  good,  is  the  main  object  of 
ambition ;  and,  in  order  to  secure 
that  supremacy,  there  has  been  such 
an  abuse  of  patronage,  and  such  a  de- 
parture from  rectitude,  honour,  and 
duty,  as  may  well  give  colour, to  the 
assertion  that  the  public  affairs  of 
Great  Britain  are  worse  administered 
than  those  of  any  other  country  in  the 
world. 

Let  us  ask  our  Liberal  friends  who 
are  old  enough  to  recollect  the  period 
when  the  Reform  Bill  was  passed, 
whether  that  measure  was  not  hailed 
by  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
as  a  guarantee  for  wise,  efficient, 
and  economical  government  for  the 
.future  —  and  let  us  ask  them  also 
whether  their  anticipations  have  been 
fulfilled?  We  put  these  questions, 
not  by  way  of  taunt  at  what  really 
was  a  reasonable  expectation,  but 
simply  for  the  purpose  of  urging  upon 
the  clear-sighted  and  intelligent  peo- 
ple of  this  country  the  necessity  of 
weighing  and  considering  the  subject 
well  before  committing  themselves  to 
the  views  of  rash  or  designing  agita- 
tors. 

We  have  heard  a  great  deal  lately 
about  the  evil  effects  of  class-govern- 
ment ;  and  the  undoubted  and  noto- 
rious tendency  of  the  Whigs  to  mono- 
polise, for  one  or  two  favoured 
families,  the  whole  of  the  leading 
offices  of  the  State,  has  been  expanded 
into  a  general  charge  against  the  whole 
aristocracy  of  Britain.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  right  men  are  not  select- 
ed for  the  right  places— that  talent 
which  might  have  been  most  valuable 
to  the  country  in  a  crisis  like  the  pre- 
sent, has  been  overlooked,  while  me- 
diocrity and  dulness  have  been  promot- 


1855.]  Administrative  Reform 

ed — that  the  interests  of  the  public,  in 
the  great  majority  of  cases,  have  been 
sacrificed  to  nepotism  and  connection 
— and  that  there  is  an  utter  lack  of  that 
energy,  alacrity,  and  power  which  the 
heads  of  every  government  ought  to 
communicate  to  theirsubordinates.  All 
this,  if  granted — though  it  will  be  stout- 
ly denied  by  some — is  not  a  charge 
against  the  aristocracy,  using  that 
word  either  in  its  most  extended  or 
in  its  most  restricted  sense,  nor  does 
it  convey  any  reflection  upon  the  con- 
stitutional doctrine  and  practice  that 
the  Crown  is  entitled  to  the  selection 
of  its  own  advisers.  It  is  simply  the 
repetition  of  a  cry  which  has  been 
raised  from  time  to  time  during  the 
last  twenty-five  years,  and  always 
directed  against  the  Whigs,  whose 
consistency,  if  not  unimpeachable  in 
other  respects,  has  been  at  least  amply 
shown  in  their  adherence  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  a  strict  ruling  oligarchy.  The 
Whig  Cabinet  of  which  Lord  Grey  was 
the  head,  and  which  was  formed  on 
21st  Nov.  1830,  consisted  of  fifteen 
members,  thirteen  of  whom  were  peers 
or  sons  of  peers,  one  a  baronet,  and 
only  one  a  commoner.  The  like  ex- 
clusiveness  has  been  exhibited  by  that 
party  ever  since,  and  is  not  at  the 
present  moment  more  glaringly  or 
offensively  marked  than  it  has  been 
before ;  and  the  means  of  checking 
such  an  abuse  of  power,  if  the  inva- 
riable Whig  arrangements  can  be 
branded  as  such,  have  been  all  that 
while  within  the  reach  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  It  will  hardly,  we 
think,  be  maintained  that  the  majority 
of  that  Rouse  represents  the  aristo- 
cratic classes,  and  yet  it  is  by  the 
votes  of  that  majority,  claiming  to  be 
liberal,  that  the  Whigs  have  been 
maintained  in  office.  If,  therefore, 
Lord  John  Russell  or  Lord  Palmerston 
have  been  or  are  to  blame  for  too  ex- 
clusive arrangements  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  their  Cabinets,  let  the  charge 
be  preferred  against  them,  not  against 
the. aristocracy.  And  let  those  who 
make  such  a  charge,  whether  they  are 
members  of  Parliament,  or  merely 
liberal  electors,  recollect  that  it  is  in 
consequence  of  their  support  that  the 
Whigs  have  been  enabled,  for  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  to  rule  this 
country  by  means  of  an  oligarchy, 
never  conspicuous  either  for  personal 


— The  Civil  Service. 


117 


attainments  or  for  administrative 
ability. 

So  much  for  the  outcry  regarding 
the  constitution  of  the  Ministry.  We 
certainly  do  not  think  that  at  present 
we  have  a  good  or  efficient  Ministry, 
and  we  have  stated  fully  our  grounds 
for  entertaining  that  opinion  in  the 
last  number  of  the  Magazine.  We 
throw  aside  all  ordinary  political 
considerations,  even  those  relating  to 
finance  and  home  legislation ;  and 
we  now  again  warn  the  people  of  this 
country,  who  are  so  hot  upon  the 
scent  of  administrative  reform,  that 
they  are  neglecting  their  own  duty  as 
much  as  the  Ministry  are  neglecting 
theirs,  by  not  insisting,  as  the  first 
and  indispensable  requisite  at  the 
present  most  serious  time,  that  the 
militia  throughout  the  United  King- 
dom shall  be  thoroughly  raised,  or- 
ganised, and  rendered  effective  as  an 
immediate  means  of  reinforcement  to 
the  small  but  most  gallant  army 
which  we  have  sent  to  the  Crimea, 
and  which  at  present  constitutes  near- 
ly the  whole  of  the  disciplined  force 
of  Britain.  God  forbid  that  we 
should  predict  disaster  ;  but,  after  all 
that  we  have  seen,  and  all  the  expe- 
rience we  have  had  of  this  contest,  it 
appears  to  us  that  we  must,  in  com- 
mon prudence,  prepare  ourselves  to 
meet  losses  of  a  very  severe  nature ; 
and  we  maintain  that  no  adequate 
steps  have  yet  been  taken  on  the  part 
of  Government  for  enabling  us  to  sup- 
ply such  losses,  or  to  maintain  posses- 
sion of  the  field  on  which  we  have 
gained  a  footing  at  so  great  yet  glori- 
ous a  cost.  We  say,  that  as  regards 
the  development  of  the  military  spirit 
of  the  country,  and  the  raising  of  men 
among  ourselves  to  fight  our  battles 
and  to  maintain  our  national  renown, 
the  present  Ministry,  with  Lord  Pal- 
merston at  their  head,  have  shown 
themselves  sluggards  and  imbeciles ; 
and  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes,  though 
many  well-meaning  politicians  seem 
to  have  drawn  a  shade  over  theirs,  to 
the  immediate  danger  which  threatens 
us  from  the  want  of  adequate  exer- 
tion, and  from  the  necessary  conse- 
quences of  ministerial  apathy  and 
confusion. 

We  ought  perhaps  to  apologise  for 
this  last  discursive  paragraph,  which 
is  rather  away  from  the  matter  under 


118 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


discussion;  but  we  feel  so  strongly 
the  exigencies  of  the  times — and  are 
so  entirely  convinced  that  the  present 
Ministry  have  been  neglecting,  under 
the  pretence  of  reforming  the  Ordnance 
departments,  and  suchlike  secondary 
matters,  the  grand  point  of  raising  an 
effective  reserve  and  reinforcement 
for  the  regular  army — that  we  not 
only  think  ourselves  justified  in  re- 
peating our  views,  but  would  feel  en- 
titled to  introduce  them  in  an  article 
bearing  less  directly  than  the  present 
does  upon  the  question  of  the  public 
service.  Let  us  now  return  to  the 
point  more  immediately  claiming  our 
attention. 

Our  main  objections  to  the  Palmer- 
stou  Ministry,  whether  well  founded  or 
not,  which  is,  after  all,  but  matter  of 
opinion,  have  not  reference  to  its  ex- 
clusiveness.  The  dominant  majority 
of  the  electoral  body  of  Great  Britain 
has  been  contented  to  put  up  with 
that,  and  to  sanction  it,  for  the  best 
part  of  five- and- twenty  years;  and 
for  what  they  have  done  and  acquiesced 
in,  the  aristocracy  surely  are  not  re- 
sponsible. Of  all  men  living,  Lord 
John  Russell  is  most  obnoxious  to  the 
charge  of  having  narrowed  the  sphere 
of  government  into  the  small  circle  of 
Whig  families ;  and  yet  that  same 
Lord  John  Russell  has  been  for  a  long 
time  the  chosen  member  of  the  city  of 
London,  and  the  representative  in  Par- 
liament of  the  very  men  who  are  now 
exclaiming  against  exclusive  govern- 
ment 1  If  these  gentlemen  will  pet  up 
and  support  the  Whigs  upon  every 
important  occasion— if  they  think  it 
right  to  select  as  their  representative 
the  individual  who  is  the  very  incar- 
nation of  Whig  oligarchy  and  ex-^ 
clusiveness — is  it  not  an  extraordi- 
nary instance  of  assurance  to  find 
them  coming  forward  at  public  meet- 
ings to  denounce  the  system  of  which 
their  member  has  been,  beyond  all 
question,  the  leading  advocate  and  in- 
stigator? We  entirely  agree  with  them 
in  opinion  that  the  invariable  Whigme- 
thod  of  constructing  ministries  is  bad 
in  practice,  and  injurious  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  country ;  but  we  do  not 
agree  with  them,  that  the  means  of 
remedying  that  evil  are  to  be  found 
in  popular  agitation.  Dissect  the 
House  of  Commons  as  you  will,  and 
poll  man  by  man  of  it,  it  is  not  an 


aristocratic  assemblage.  It  represents, 
in  its  great  preponderance,  the  mid- 
dle classes — precisely  those  which  the 
administrative  reformers  also  claim 
to  represent — and  by  the  votes  of  that 
House  every  ministry  must  stand  or 
fall.  Well,  then,  the  Whigs  may  say, 
if  your  Liberal  House  supports  an 
oligarchical  Ministry,  where  is  your 
ground  of  complaint  ?  You  first  de- 
mand a  representation  on  a  basis 
broad  enough  to  insure  the  supremacy 
of  the  middle  classes,  and  you  get  it. 
You  take  part  with  the  Whigs — make 
them  by  your  votes  and  support  the 
actual  rulers  of  the  country — and 
then,  not  suddenly,  but  after  five-and- 
twenty  years'  experience,  you  choose 
to  raise  a  clamour  that  they  are  too 
exclusive  in  their  ministerial  arrange- 
ments, and  that,  in  fact,  they  have 
jobbed  the  whole  of  the  public  service. 
Now  we  are  bound  to  say  that  in 
this  the  Whigs  have  the  best  of  the 
argument  as  against  the  admini- 
strative reformers,  who,  if  they  mean 
anything,  are  aiming  at  some  organic 
change, in  the  principle  which  regu- 
lates the  formation  of  all  ministries. 
We  heartily  agree  in  the  view  ex- 
pressed by  Sir  E.  B.  Lytton :  "To 
judge  by  the  language  out  of  doors, 
it  is  not  meant  to  clear  away  the 
obstacles  that  beset  the  career  of  a 
clerk  in  a  public  office.  No,  it  is 
meant  to  make  the  Queen's  Govern- 
ment, make  the  Ministers  of  the  na- 
tion, independent  of  the  influences  of 
party, — in  other  words,  of  the  opinions 
of  Parliament.  Why,  sir,  if  it  is  meant 
that  the  Crown  is  to  appoint  to  the 
higher  offices,  free  from  the  influences 
of  party,  from  the  opinions  of  Parlia- 
ment, the  Crown  would  become  as 
absolute  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  the 
Tudors;  and  if  these  agitators  against 
Parliament  say,  4  Oh  no,  we  do  not 
mean  that ;  we  mean  that  the  people 
are  to  dictate  to  the  Crown,  accord- 
ing to  their  ideas  of  merit,  who  are 
to  be  the  Ministers  of  State,  through 
other  channels  than  parliamentary 
parties — through  patriotic  associations, 
and  audiences  accustomed  plausu 
gaudere  theatri, — I  tell  them  that 
they  root  out  the  durable  institutions 
of  liberty  for  the  deadly  and  worth- 
less ephemeral  offspring  of  Jacobin 
clubs.  But  if  they  say,  *  Oh  no — we 
mean  neither  one  nor  the  other,' 


1855.] 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


what  do  they  mean— they  who  are 
attacking  Parliament — except  to  bring 
Parliament  into  contempt,  and  to  trust 
the  choice  of  a  substitute  to  the  lottery 
of  revolutions  ?  "  Undoubtedly  the 
arrangements  of  a  ministry  may  be 
most  objectionable,  and  the  conduct 
of  the  affairs  of  the  State  may  be 
placed  in  incompetent  hands.  But 
for  that  exigency  there  is  a  constitu- 
tional remedy  provided.  The  same 
power  which,  in  the  earlier  part  of 
this  very  year,  expelled  Lord  Aber- 
deen from  office,  may  be  exerted  to 
expel  Lord  Palmerston ;  and  if  from 
the  language  held  by  the  administra- 
tive reformers  we  could  form  the  con- 
clusion that  their  efforts  were  simply 
directed  towards  the  displacement  of 
a  ministry  in  which  they  reposed  no 
confidence,  no  one,  even  though  he 
disapproved  of  their  object,  could  on 
principle  challenge  their  proceedings 
as  dangerous  to  the  constitution  of  the 
country. 

We  have  thought  it  necessary  to 
make  these  preliminary  observations, 
because  there  is  at  present  a  great 
deal  of  confusion  in  the  public  mind 
with  regard  to  the  various  topics 
which  have  been  dwelt  upon  by  the 
administrative  reformers.  We  must 
say  that  we  cannot  give  these  gentle- 
men, or  at  least  all  of  them,  credit 
for  entire  honesty  of  purpose  in  their 
very  sweeping  and  wholesale  attacks. 
They  denounce  not  only  patronage, 
but  also  by  implication  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  Crown.  Let  it  be  granted 
that  Lord  Palmerston,  who  accepted 
from  her  Majesty  the  task  of  forming 
an  Administration,  has  not  performed 
it  with  discretion,  or  constructed  it  on 
a  sufficiently  wide  basis — that  may  be 
an  excellent  justification  of  a  Parlia- 
mentary vote  of  censure  or  want  of 
confidence  against  Lord  Palmerston 
and  his  colleagues ;  but  it  affords  no 
reason  for  altering  the  whole  frame- 
work of  the  Government.  It  is  un- 
questionably the  right  of  the  Crown 
to  nominate  the  whole  number  of  its 
Ministers,  of  which  the  Cabinet  is  only 
a  section.  It  is  from  and  after  this 
point  that  patronage  properly  com- 
mences. To  deny  a  Prime  Minister 
who  has  undertaken  the  duty  of  con- 
structing not  a  Cabinet  but  a  Minis- 
try, the  right  of  selecting  his  colleagues, 
is  about  the  most  insane  proposition 


119 

that  was  ever  hazarded.  Possibly 
Mr  Lindsay  may  be  more  fit  than  Sir 
Charles  Wood  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  and 
Mr  Layard  may  know  more  about 
foreign  affairs  than  Lord  Clarendon ; 
but  are  we,  because  Messrs  Lindsay 
and  Layard  think  that  their  merits 
have  been  overlooked — which,  again, 
is  simply  matter  of  opinion— to  break 
up  the  Constitution,  and,  by  putting 
what  is  called  "  the  fit  man  in  the  fit 
place,"  to  vamp  up  the  most  mon- 
strous, heterogeneous,  and  discordant 
spectre  of  a  Government  that  ever  was 
conceived  by  the  diseased  brain  of  a 
disappointed  politician'?  No  Ministry 
constructed  on  such  a  principle  as  that 
could  last  for  four-and- twenty  hours. 
What  Ministry  can  possibly  be  effi- 
cient if  it  has  not  unity  of  purpose  ? 
And  yet  that  is  precisely  the  very 
thing  which  the  adoption  of  the 
schemes  of  these  administrative  re- 
formers would  necessarily  prevent.  A 
Ministry  may  be  weak  in  talent,  but 
at  the  same  time  strong  in  purpose ; 
and  we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that  such  a  Ministry  is  more  likely  to 
give  satisfaction  to  the  country  than 
one  which  is  strong  in  talent,  but 
weak  and  disunited  in  purpose. 

Then  as  to  the  lesser  appointments, 
without  descending  as  yet  to  the  great 
bulk  of  the  civil  service.  There  are, 
besides  Ministers,  various  officers  who 
are  attached  to  the  Ministry,  and  who 
relinquish  office  along  with  them. 
Such  are  the  Junior  Lords,  and  Joint- 
Secretaries  of  the  Treasury;  the 
First  Under-Secretaries  in  the  Home, 
Foreign,  and  Colonial  Offices;  the 
Clerk  of  the  Ordnance ;  the  President 
and  First  Secretary  of  the  Poor-law 
Board  ;  and  a  very  few  other  such 
offices,  which  in  fact  constitute  the 
whole  amount  of  the  shifting  political 
prizes.  The  whole  removable  num- 
ber, including  Ministers,  does  not 
amount  to  fifty  ;  and  we  must  confess 
that  we  see  no  reason  for  insisting 
that  any  change  whatever  should  be 
made  in  the  method  of  conferring 
these  appointments.  It  is  not  only 
right,  but  highly  advisable  and  useful, 
that  each  Minister  of  State  should 
have  a  political  subordinate  on  whom 
he  can  depend,  to  act  along  with  him 
in  his  department.  Were  it  other- 
wise, Government  could  not  go  on  ; 


120 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


[July, 


for  it  is  obvious  that  Ministers  would 
in  that  case  be  induced  to  depend  too 
much  for  information  and  guidance 
upon  the  permanent  heads  of  depart- 
ments, which  would  in  no  way  tend 
to  the  improvement  of  the  public  ser- 
vice. 

In  short,  it  is  impossible  to  get  rid 
of  this  class  of  political  subordinates, 
unless  the  whole  machinery  of  our 
Government  is  to  be  broken  in  pieces. 
And  we  really  must  protest  against 
the  blind  zeal  which  denies  that  there 
can  be  any  advantage  from  the  con- 
tinuance of  such  offices  on  their  pre- 
sent footing.  It  is  not  disputed  that 
they  must  exist  in  one  shape  or  an- 
other; but  the  dispute  now  is,  whether 
they  should  be  permanent  or  movable. 
Let  it  be  considered  that  they  are 
political  offices,  the  holders  of  which 
must  be  in  the  entire  confidence  of 
their  chief,  and  that  they  are  in  fact 
the  only  offices  in  which  the  younger 
class  of  aspiring  politicians  can  be 
trained  to  the  proper  official  discharge 
of  duty.  We  protest  that  we  have 
no  love  for  red  tape ;  at  the  same 
time  it  does  appear  to  us  highly  de- 
sirable that  the  men  whom  the  coun- 
try must  look  to  for  its  future  supply 
of  Ministers  should  have  some  little 
experience.  On  the  appointment  of 
Lord  Derby's  Ministry,  the  Whig  and 
Radical  journals  indulged  in  prophe- 
cies that  the  Administration  must 
necessarily  break  down,  because  the 
majority  of  the  members  were  desti- 
tute of  official  experience.  If,  during 
the  short  period  of  their  probation, 
they  made  up  for  the  lack  of  experi- 
ence by  remarkable  energy  and  assi- 
duity, that  circumstance  cannot  afford 
any  rational  argument  against  the 
propriety  of  retaining  such  offices  on 
their  present  footing,  because,  as  we 
have  shown,  these  offices  are  abso- 
lutely indispensable  adjuncts  to  the 
very  highest  in  the  State. 

What  we  have  said  above  is  appli- 
cable not  to  one  Ministry  only,  but  to 
all.  We  are  not  defending  abuses 
— we  are  simply  vindicating  a  princi- 
ple, the  disregard  or  infringement  of 
which  would  render  constitutional 
government  impossible.  The  griev- 
ance-mongers tell  us  that  Britain  is 
hag-ridden  by  incompetency  in  high 
places ;  to  that  we  reply  that  the 
remedy  is  in  the  hands  of  the  House 


of  Commons.  Let  not  those  gentle- 
men, who  appear  to  have  a  some- 
what more  than  modest  estimate  of 
their  own  abilities,  flatter  themselves 
that  they  will  be  made  Ministers  in 
consequence  of  the  clamour  which  they 
have  raised.  They  may  rely  upon  it, 
that  the  country  will  not  support 
them  in  any  such  extravagant  pre- 
tensions ;  and  that  by  persisting  in 
abuse,  not  only  of  this  or  that  Minis- 
try and  Ministries,  but  of  the  princi- 
ple upon  which  Ministers  are  selected, 
they  are  throwing  serious  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  effecting  a  real  improve- 
ment in  the  public  offices  and  admi- 
nistrative departments  —  an  object 
which  we  are  quite  as  anxious  as  they 
can  be  to  attain. 

The  mode  of  appointment  to  per- 
manent situations  of  a  high  class  is 
quite  a  different  matter,  and  is  open 
to  discussion.  Here  the  question  of 
patronage  legitimately  begins ;  and 
we  can  take  no  exception  to  the  rais- 
ing of  arguments  tending  to  show  that 
the  public  service  may  be  improved 
by  some  limitation  of  the  Ministerial 
power.  This  is  the  highest  ground 
which  the  administrative  reformers 
can  occupy,  and  we  must  needs  ac- 
knowledge that  the  Whigs  have  done 
everything  they  could  to  render  that 
position  tenable.  That  infatuated 
party  might,  we  think,  have  learned 
a  wholesome  lesson  from  the  general 
expression  of  disgust  which  was  elicit- 
ed throughout  the  country  in  conse- 
quence of  the  shameless  favouritism 
exhibited  towards  the  scions  of  the 
houses  of  Grey  and  Elliot  (the  Scots 
Greys,  as  the  latter  have  appropriate- 
ly been  denominated),  and  we  might 
have  been  spared  such  recent  instan- 
ces of  nepotism  as  Lord  Panmure  has 
not  hesitated  to  afford.  But  in  order 
to  arrive  at  a  right  understanding  of 
the  system  which  prevails  regarding 
appointments  to  the  public  service,  it 
is  necessary  to  go  to  the  foundation, 
and  to  ascertain  how,  and  by  what 
influence,  admission  is  gained  to  the 
different  offices.  Here  again  we  are 
met  with  the  assertion  that  aristo- 
cratic influence  is  paramount.  Let 
us  see  whether  or  not  that  hazarded 
assertion  is  true. 

One  undoubted  consequence  of  the 
Reform  Bill  has  been  this,— that  by 
rendering  the  Government  of  the  day 


1855.] 


Administrative  Reform. — The  Civil  Service. 


dependent  for  its  continuance  upon 
the  support  which  it  may  receive  from 
the  representatives  of  popular  consti- 
tuencies, it  has  engendered  a  system 
— not  of  direct  bribery,  as  in  the  days 
of  Sir  Robert  Walpole— but  of  indi- 
rect accommodation  and  distribu- 
tion of  patronage,  which  has  proved 
most  deleterious  to,  and  subversive 
of,  the  public  service.  Honourable 
members  do  not  indeed  receive 
money  for  their  votes ;  but  they  get 
money's  worth  in  the  shape  of  accord- 
ed Government  appointments  ;  and 
many  a  contested  election  has  been 
decided,  not  upon  the  merits  of  the 
candidates,  but  upon  their  compara- 
tive power  of  influencing  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.  These  are  not  cases 
confined  to  small  boroughs  ;  they  ex- 
tend to  large  towns  and  cities,  in 
which  those  who  are  called  the  "  lead- 
ing men," — town-councillors,  alder- 
men, bailies,  and  others  who  can  com- 
mand a  certain  number  of  votes — 
come  to  a  tacit  understanding  with 
the  Ministerial  candidate,  and  in  due 
time  reap  the  reward  of  their  exer- 
tions or  example,  in  the  shape  of  a 
job  or  contract  for  themselves,  or  in 
the  form  of  Government  appointments 
for  their  absolutely  incapable  relatives. 
These  practices  have  become  so  noto- 
rious, that  they  have  almost  ceased  to 
be  a  matter  of  reproach  ;  and  the 
honours  of  the  municipalities  are  now 
principally  sought  for,  because  they 
afford  the  readiest  and  easiest  oppor- 
tunity of  jobbing  whenever  an  occa- 
sion may  occur.  We  hesitate  not  to 
say,  that  in  the  great  majority  of 
boroughs,  towns,  and  cities  in  England 
and  Scotland,  these  influences  are 
brought  to  bear  on  every  election. 
Ireland  goes  more  openly  to  work. 
The  priests,  with  the  aid  of  bludgeon 
and  brick-bat,  return  patriotic  mem- 
bers who  breathe  defiance  on  the 
hustings  against  the  Whigs,  but  who, 
on  the  eve  of  any  important  division, 
in  which  the  stability  of  the  Ministry 
is  concerned,  are  seen  in  mysterious 
communication  with  Mr  Hayter,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  whose 
powers  of  persuasion  are  so  strong 
that  they  invariably  vote  with  the 
Government. 

Do  not  let  it  be  supposed  that  we 
are  exaggerating  anything.  We  write 
after  having  minutely  observed  what 


121 

has  been  going  on  for  many  years ;  and 
we  declare  that  nothing  has  moved  us 
to  such  indignant  laughter  as  the  peru- 
sal of  the  act  passed  last  session  of  Par- 
liament, which  we  are  desired  to  call 
the  "  Corrupt  Practices  Prevention 
Act."  It  is  a  rare  specimen  of  Whig 
humour.  It  prohibits,  under  penalties, 
any  candidate  from  promising  any 
office  to  an  elector  in  exchange  for  his 
vote  (which  is  very  reasonable,  inas- 
much as  candidates  can  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  anticipate  vacancies),  but  it 
by  no  means  precludes  the  warm  as- 
surance of  interest,  accompanied  with 
a  confidential  wink,  tantamount  to  a 
pledge  which  must  be  redeemed,  if 
the  respected  senator  expects  to  sit 
twice  for  the  same  place,  and  of  course 
he  expects  that  at  the  very  least.  He 
has  his  own  terms  to  make  with  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  and,  be- 
yond that,  he  must  do  something  for 
his  constituents,  so  that  they  may  be 
disposed,  in  case  of  dissolution,  to  re- 
turn him  again.  And  so  jobbing  goes 
on  —  daily,  weekly,  monthly,  and 
yearly,  within  the  British  empire. 
Young  men  who  are  unfit  for  encoun- 
tering the  labour  of  a  regular  profes- 
sion, are  foisted  into  the  public  ser- 
vice, because  their  fathers  or  their 
uncles  are  influential  borough  voters  ; 
and  the  dunce  of  the  family  is  entered 
on  the  ladder  of  promotion,  and  made 
an  administrative  official,  certain  to 
rise  by  the  rule  of  seniority,  because 
his  municipal  relative  can  bring  a  con- 
siderable number  of  crotchety  or  cre- 
dulous voters  to  the  poll. 

For  the  existence  of  this  state  of 
things  the  aristocracy  of  the  country 
has  been  blamed.  Now,  we  do  not 
mean  to  assert  that  members  of  the 
peerage  have  exhibited  any  peculiar 
reluctance  in  the  solicitation  of  places 
for  persons  in  whom  they  take  an  in- 
terest. We  believe  that  many  young 
men,  now  in  Government  offices,  owe 
their  appointments  to  this  source — their 
sole  claims  being  either  that  they  are 
distantly  related  to  their  noble  patron, 
or  that  they  are  sons  to  some  factor, 
bailiff,  land -steward,  or  butler,  who 
has  won  the  regard  of  his  employer 
through  a  course  of  long  and  faithful 
service.  But  such  instances  constitute 
the  exception,  not  the  rule.  In  the 
recently  printed  Parliamentary  papers 
relating  to  the  reorganisation  of  the 


Administrative  fieform — The  Civil  Service. 


122 

Civil  Service,  to  which  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  make  frequent  reference, 
we  find  the  following  statement  by 
Mr  Edwin  Chadwick,  late  a  Commis- 
sioner of  the  General  Board  of  Health : 
— "  It  will  be  found  that  only  two  of 
the  public  offices  are  chiefly  composed 
of  members  of  aristocratic  families  ; 
the  actual  majority  of  the  other  offices 
being  otherwise  constituted.  The  fact 
is,  that  at  present  only  a  small  portion 
of  the  whole  mass  of  patronage  has 
been  obtained  by  the  representatives 
of  the  county  constituencies,  or  by 
persons  of  high  position,  and  that  a 
larger  and  increasing  proportion  has 
been  obtained  for  the  constituencies  of 
the  smaller  boroughs,  by  persons  of  the 
lower  condition."  And  there  is  abun- 
dant evidence  to  show  that,  in  some 
departments  at  least,  the  bulk  of  the 
persons  so  appointed  are  utterly  unfit, 
from  want  of  education  and  ability,  to 
discharge  the  not  very  laborious  duties 
of  a  public  office.  In  the  Report  by 
Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  and  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  it  is  stated,  that  while  ad- 
mission to  the  civil  service  is  eagerly 
sought  after,  "it  is  for  the  unambitious 
and  the  indolent,  and  incapable,  that 
it  is  chiefly  desired."  They  say,  that 
"  the  result  naturally  is,  that  the  pub- 
lic service  suffers,  both  in  internal 
efficiency  and  in  public  estimation. 
The  character  of  the  individual  influ- 
ences the  mass  ;  and  it  is  thus  that  we 
often  hear  complaints  of  official  de- 
lays, official  evasions  of  difficulty,  and 
official  indisposition  to  improvements." 
We  shall  hereafter  have  something 
more  to  say  regarding  this  Report, 
which  was  ordered  for  the  double  pur- 
pose of  exhibiting  the  actual  existing 
state  of  the  public  offices,  and  of  sug- 
gesting regulations  for  the  future. 
After  a  careful  perusal  of  the  papers 
given  in  by  gentlemen  of  official  ex- 
perience who  were  requested  to  ex- 
press their  opinions  upon  the  Report, 
we  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  framers  of  it  were  by  no  means  jus- 
tified in  using  such  terms  of  universal 
condemnation.  There  is,  indeed,  evi- 
dence enough  to  show  that  some  de- 
partments are  in  a  state  of  deplorable 
inefficiency,  but  there  is  also  evidence 
quite  as  strong,  to  the  effect  that 
other  departments  are  well  managed 
and  regulated.  A  well-regulated  de- 
partment should  not  be  visited  with 


the  reproach  attachable  to  another, 
in  which,  from  the  carelessness,  timi- 
dity, or  want  of  method  of  the  leading 
officials,  disorder  and  incompetency 
reign ;  and  therefore,  in  referring  to 
this  Report,  we  wish  it  to  be  under- 
stood that  we  do  not  adopt  its  terms 
as  applicable  to  the  whole  of  the  civil 
service,  for  it  would  be  as  preposter- 
ous to  condemn  one  department  on 
account  of  the  conduct  of  another,  as 
it  would  be  to  denounce  the  navy  be- 
cause malpractices  had  been  detected 
in  the  army. 

Sir  James  Stephen,  for  many  years 
Under  Secretary  for  the  Colonies,  is 
much  more  specific.  He  says,  that 
during  the  period  of  his  connection 
with  that  department,  he  had  no 
difficulty  in  separating  the  officials 
into  three  classes.  The  first  class, 
"  a  very  small  minority,"  were  men 
who  had  been  sought  out  and  ap- 
pointed on  account  of  their  well- as- 
certained fitness  for  the  public  service, 
and  who  "  joined  us,  not  as  school- 
boys, but  in  their  early  manhood, 
with  their  intellectual  habits  formed, 
and  with  a  fund,  more  or  less  con- 
siderable, of  literary  or  scientific 
knowledge."  Of  these  he  thus 
speaks  ;  and  the  passage  is  really  well 
worth  attention  :  "  In  the  narrow 
circle  of  \hvfirst  of  these  classes  were 
to  be  found,  not  indeed  combined  in 
any  one  of  the  members  of  it,  but 
variously  distributed  through  them 
all,  qualities  of  which  I  can  still  never 
think  without  the  highest  admiration 
and  respect ;  such  as  large  capacity 
of  mind,  literary  powers  of  rare  ex- 
cellence, sound  scholarship,  indomi- 
table energy,  mature  experience  in 
public  affairs,  and  an  absolute  self- 
devotion  to  the  public  service.  It 
comprised  some  men  who  must  have 
risen  to^emineace  in  any  field  of  open 
competition,  and  who,  if  born  to  more 
ample  fortunes,  might  reasonably 
have  aspired  to  hold  the  seals  of 
the  offices  in  which  they  were  serving 
as  subordinates."  The  second  class, 
numerically  greater  than  the  first, 
consisted  of  men  who  owed  their  ap- 
pointments to  interest,  but  who,  in 
some  instances,  did  not  enter  the 
office  as  mere  boys.  This  class,  says 
Sir  James.  "  was  composed  of  men  who 
performed  faithfully,  diligently,  and 
judiciously,  the  duties  to  which  they 


1855.] 


Administrative  Eeform — The  Civil  Service. 


were  called."  In  short,  they  were 
good  average  clerks.  As  to  the  others, 
he  writes  as  follows :  "  The  mem- 
bers of  the  third  class — that  is,  the 
majority  of  the  members  of  the  Co- 
lonial Department,  in  my  time,  pos- 
sessed only  in  a  low  degree,  and  some 
of  them  in  a  degree  incredibly  low, 
either  the  talents  or  the  habits  of 
men  of  business,  or  the  industry,  the 
zeal,  or  the  knowledge  required  for 
the  effective  performance  of  their  ap- 
propriate functions.  These  were, 
without  exception,  men  who  had 
been  appointed  to  gratify  the  political, 
the  domestic,  or  the  personal  feelings 
of  their  patrons — that  is,  of  the  suc- 
cessive Secretaries  of  State."  Mr  Chad- 
wick  is  quite  as  merciless  in  his  de- 
scription of  the  red-tapists  in  other 
departments.  "  It  is  a  fact,  really  of 
most  serious  consequence,  that  this 
larger  proportion  of  appointments  has 
been  given,  not  only  to  persons  of 
lower  condition,  but  to  persons  of 
education  and  qualifications  greatly 
below  the  average  of  their  own  class. 
A  Secretary,  complaining  of  the  dis- 
advantages of  his  own  service,  re- 
lated in  illustration,  that  out  of  three 
clerks  sent  to  him  from  the  usual 
services,  there  was  only  one  of  whom 
any  use  whatever  could  be  made,  and 
that,  of  the  other  two,  one  came  to 
take  his  place  at  the  office  leading  a 
bull-dog  by  a  string.  I  have  been 
assured  that,  under  another  commis- 
sion, out  of  eighty  clerks  supplied  by 
the  patronage  secretary,  there  were 
not  more  than  twelve  who  were  worth 
their  salt  for  the  performance  of 
service  requiring  only  a  sound  com- 
mon education." 

These  are  undoubtedly  the  extreme 
instances  ;  but  they  tend  to  show  that 
in  some  of  the  departments  there  has 
been  great  laxity  and  remissness.  In- 
deed, it  is  easy  to  see  that  in  all  cases 
where  nomination  has  been  held  equiva- 
lent to  admission,  and  where  no  tests 
of  qualification  have  been  applied,  the 
public  service  must  be  exposed  to 
injury ;  and  from  the  testimony  of 
officials  who  have  had  the  best  op- 
portunity of  remarking  the  practice, 
and  effect  of  that  practice,  in  their 
own  sphere,  it  appears  that  such  cases 
have  been  too  common.  What  won- 
der, then,  if  the  structure  broke  down 
when  exposed  to  an  unusual  strain  or 


123 

tension?  A  Minister  of  State,  in 
order  to  do  his  duty  effectively,  must 
have  many  subordinates  for  the  per- 
formance of  the  mere  mechanical 
work  ;  and  from  other  officials  in  each 
department  the  exercise  of  a  certain 
amount  of  discretion  and  judgment 
is  expected.  But  how  is  it  possible 
that  any  man,  whatever  may  be  his 
capacity,  watchfulness,  or  industry, 
can  guard  against  the  occurrence  of 
serious  blunders — or,  what  is  even 
worse,  of  culpable  omissions,  when 
the  great  majority  of  his  underlings 
cannot  be  relied  upon  to  perform  the 
simplest  duty  with  accuracy  ?  Let  us 
again  quote  from  the  evidence  of  Sir 
James  Stephen :  "  It  would  be  su- 
perfluous to  point  out  in  detail  the  in- 
jurious results  of  such  a  composition 
of  one  of  the  highest  departments  of 
the  State.  Among  the  less  obvious 
consequences  of  it  were,  the  necessity 
it  imposed  on  the  heads  of  the  office, 
of  undertaking,  in  their  own  persons, 
an  amount  of  labour  to  which  neither 
their  mental  nor  their  bodily  persons 
were  really  adequate ;  the  needless 
and  very  inconvenient  increase  of 
the  numbers  borne  on  the  clerical  list ; 
the  frequent  transference  of  many  of 
their  appropriate  duties  to  the  ill- 
educated  and  ill-paid  supernumeraries ; 
and  the  not  unfrequent  occurrence  of 
mistakes  and  oversights  so  serious,  as 
occasionally  to  imperil  interests  of 
high  national  importance." 

To  those  who  have  not  a  distinct 
understanding  of  the  rules  which  are 
in  force  in  the  different  departments 
of  the  civil  service  of  Great  Britain, 
it  will  naturally  occur  that  the  blame 
arising  from  the  existence  of  an  ineffi- 
cient staff  must  lie  at  the  door  of  the 
permanent  heads  of  each  department ; 
that  is,  of  the  secretaries  who  do  not 
relinquish  office  in  consequence  of  a 
change  in  the  Government.  The  an- 
swer which  has  been  made,  but  which 
we  do  not  accept  as  sufficient,  is,  that 
the  permanent  secretaries  have  no- 
thing to  do  with  the  appointments, 
and  are  generally  unwilling,  from  per- 
sonal motives,  to  exercise  the  reject- 
ing authority  which  they  undoubtedly 
possess.  Upon  this  point  we  have 
the  evidence  of  Mr  Anderson,  princi- 
pal clerk  of  financial  business  at  the 
Treasury.  "  The  practice  hitherto 
adopted  has  been,  to  throw  upon  the 


Administrative  Reform —  The  Civil  Service. 


executive  officer  at  the  head  of  each 
office  the  odium  of  rejecting  the  nomi- 
nee of  the  Treasury,  or  of  his  imme- 
diate superior  in  office,  and  of  justify- 
ing such  rejection  by  the  results  of 
an  examination,  the  extent  of  which 
is  in  a  great  measure  left  to  his  own 
discretion.  The  consequences  of  this 
practice  are  precisely  those  which 
might  be  expected.  A  disinclination 
to  injure  the  prospects  of  a  young  man 
on  the  threshold  of  his  career,  and  the 
desire  to  avoid  the  chance  of  a  colli- 
sion with  his  patrons,  generally  secure 
to  every  candidate  of  doubtful  acquire- 
ments the  most  indulgent  considera- 
tion of  his  deficiencies ;  and  although 
he  may  be  wanting  in  those  qualifica- 
tions which  would  give  an  assurance 
of  his  becoming  in  time  fit  for  the 
higher  duties  of  the  department,  his 
competency  to  perform  the  lowest 
quality  of  duty  in  the  office  to  which 
he  has  been  nominated  will,  in  most 
cases,  secure  him  against  rejection." 
We  are  sorry  to  be  told  that  the  per- 
manent heads  of  departments  are  not 
inspired  by  higher  and  more  conscien- 
tious motives.  It  seems  to  us  that 
they  ought,  in  such  matters,  to  be 
guided  solely  by  a  sense  of  duty,  and 
never  to  admit  a  nominee  of  whose 
qualifications  they  are  not  satisfied. 
But  such  is  the  evidence — applicable 
at  least  to  some  departments — and  it 
establishes  the  fact,  that  hitherto  ex- 
amination has  either  been  dispensed 
with  altogether,  or  made  a  mere  mat- 
ter of  form. 

It  is  true  that  an  Order  in  Council, 
to  which  we  shall  presently  refer,  has 
been  recently  issued,  directing  that, 
for  the  future,  all  parties  nominated 
to  public  offices  shall  undergo  an  ex- 
amination. But  the  fact  remains, 
that  hitherto,  in  many  departments, 
admission  to  the  public  civil  offices 
has  been  a  tacit  acknowledgment  of 
electoral  service  received,  and  has  not 
had  reference  to  qualification. 

We  think  it  highly  advisable,  in 
treating  of  this  subject,  to  avoid  con- 
founding or  mixing  together  the  dif- 
ferent classes  of  offices  and  appoint- 
ments. As  we  have  already  observed, 
the  great  error  of  the  administrative 
reformers  has  been  their  attempt  to 
agitate  on  grounds  which  are  really 
untenable  ;  and  so  long  as  they  per- 
sist in  dealing  merely  with  generali- 


ties, and  in  the  use  of  invective,  we 
apprehend  that  they  will  not  succeed 
in  accomplishing  a  useful  reform.  It 
is  quite  absurd  to  mix  up  such  ques- 
tions as  the  formation  of  the  diploma- 
tic corps,  or  the  system  of  promotion 
in  the  army  by  purchase,  in  the  same 
breath  with  that  of  practical  and  effi- 
cient reform  in  the  constitution  of  the 
public  departments  of  the  civil  service. 
The  former  questions  may  be  deserving 
of  deep  and  serious  consideration  ;  but 
they  should  not  be  confounded  with 
the  latter,  which  is  of  sufficient  im- 
portance and  magnitude  to  require 
undivided  attention  until  the  proper 
remedy  has  been  devised  and  applied. 
Those  who  are  in  earnest  in  this  move- 
ment, and  who  have  not  joined  it 
merely  for  the  sake  of  temporary  po- 
pularity, should  remember  that  they 
have  a  very  large  amount  of  opposi- 
tion to  encounter  and  overcome  before 
they  can  hope  to  clear  the  way  for 
merit  even  across  the  threshold  of  the 
public  offices.  It  cannot  be  expected 
that  a  Whig  Government  will  at  once 
and  readily  surrender  that  immense 
amount  of  direct  patronage  which  has 
been  so  useful  in  retaining  the  politi- 
cal allegiance  of  the  towns  and  bor- 
oughs, and  without  which  it  could 
hardly  have  reckoned,  in  cases  of 
emergency,  upon  the  support  of  a  con- 
siderable section  of  the  Irish  mem- 
bers. It  cannot  be  expected  that 
liberal  borough  members,  who  have 
been  enabled  to  retain  their  seats  prin- 
cipally through  the  favours  which,  by 
the  grace  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  they  have  dispensed  among 
their  leading  supporters,  will  be  fa- 
vourable to  any  reform  which  shall 
put  an  end  to  jobbery.  Nor  can  it 
be  expected  that  the  leading  members 
of  the  different  cliques  and  councils, 
who,  according  to  the  evidence  of 
Mr  Chadwick,  have  received  for  their 
incompetent  and  uneducated  children 
the  lion's  share  of  the  minor  public 
appointments,  will  enter  cordially 
into  a  movement,  the  object  of  which 
is  to  exclude  incompetency,  and 
to  clear  the  path  for  merit,  though 
unbacked  by  interest  or  influence. 
It  is  therefore  indispensably  neces- 
sary, and  of  paramount  import- 
ance, that  in  the  first  instance  there 
should  be  a  clear  understanding  as  to 
the  principle  which  for  the  future 


1855.]  Administrative  Reform 

ought  to  regulate  admission  to  the 
public  service. 

It  thus  appears  from  the  evidence 
of  gentlemen  who,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, have  had  excellent  opportu- 
nities of  forming  a  competent  opinion, 
that  hitherto  in  many  cases,  and  in 
various  public  departments,  appoint- 
ments have  been  made  without  the 
slightest  regard  to  the  qualifications 
of  the  parties  preferred — that  they 
have  been  made  chiefly  through  the 
solicitation  of  borough  members,  as 
au  acknowledgment  of  or  reward  for 
political  and  election  services  —  that 
the  permanent  heads  of  departments 
have  regarded   the  system  with  no 
favour,  and  have  been  long. cognisant 
of  its  wretched  effects,  but  that  some 
of  them  have  made  no  attempt  to 
interpose    a    check,   much    less    a 
remedy — that  the  persons  so  appoint- 
ed have  been  generally  ill  educated, 
indolent,     and    inefficient,  —  usually 
entering  the  offices,   as    Sir  James 
Stephen    tells  us,   "  at  the  age  of 
eighteen  or  nineteen,  coming  directly 
from  school,  and  bringing  with  them 
no  greater  store  of  information  or 
maturity  than  usually  belongs  to  a 
boy  in  the   fifth  form,"    and  never 
afterwards    increasing    that    limited 
amount  of  information  by  any  private 
study.     These  things,  we  say,   are 
incontestibly  proved  ;  and  the  neces- 
sary effects  of  such  a  system  have 
been  deplorably  apparent.     We  can- 
not take  upon  ourselves  to  say  how 
much  of  recent  disaster  and    scan- 
dalous neglect   has   been   owing   to 
the  complicated   machinery    of   the 
different    departments,   which    seem 
purposely  to  be  so    arranged    that 
they  cannot  act    in   harmony  with 
each  other ;  but  this  we  do  say,  that 
if  each  department  had  been  properly 
organised  within  itself,  and  supplied 
with    able,    active,     and    intelligent 
officers  who  were  really  actuated  by 
a  desire  to  do  their  duty,  it  is  morally 
impossible   that   the    public    service 
should  have  been  exposed  to  such 
serious  detriment.     The  relative  ar- 
rangement of  the  departments  may 
be  cumbrous  and  bad,  while  at  the 
same  time  each  separate  department 
may  be  in  a  state  of  efficiency ;  but 
if  all,  or  even  a  considerable  number, 
of  the  departments  are  inefficient  and 
radically  defective,  it  is  beyond  the 


— The  Civil  Service. 


125 


power  of  man  to  make  any  arrange- 
ment which  shall  enable  them  to 
work  well  together.  Not  so,  how- 
ever, thinks  Lord  Panmure.  His 
idea  is,  that  by  merely  altering  the 
disposition  of  the  machinery  he  can 
put  everything  to  rights,  without 
bestowing  the  least  attention  upon 
the  state  of  the  integral  parts,  or  the 
capacity  of  the  motive  power. 

We  are  bound,  however,  to  state — 
and  we  do  it  with  real  pleasure — that 
from  the  printed  evidence  it  appears 
that  some  of  the  public  departments 
are  in  a  state  of  high  efficiency.  The 
evidence  of  J.  F.  Fremantle,  chair- 
man of  the  Board  of  Customs,  and  of 
Mr  Wood,  chairman  of  the  Board  of 
Inland  Revenue,  shows  how  much 
may  be  accomplished  through  a  wise 
system  of  superintendence,  and  ex- 
amination instituted  by  the  heads  of 
departments.  The  regulations  of  the 
Customs  and  Excise — some  of  which 
are  given  in  the  Blue  Book  now 
lying  before  us,  seem  to  be  nearly 
perfect  in  their  kind,  and  to  have 
secured  in  these  important  depart- 
ments the  maximum  of  utility.  Evi- 
dence of  this  kind  is  really  most 
important,  for  it  shows  what  can  be 
done  by  heads  of  departments  to- 
wards making  their  offices  efficient 
without  resorting  to  the  pedantic 
scheme  recommended  by  Sir  Charles 
Trevelyan  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote. 
It  is  also  proper  to  observe  that  there 
are  dissentients  from  the  sweeping 
assertions  of  general  incompetency 
which  have  been  made  by  other  wit- 
nesses. Sir  A.  Y.  Spearman,  a 
public  officer  of  great  experience, 
roundly  denies  that  the  state  and 
condition  of  the  civil  service  is  such 
as  represented  in  the  Report.  He 
says  :  "  I  believe,  in  fact,  that  what 
is  the  exception  has  been  taken  as 
the  rule,  while  that  which  is  the  rule 
has  been  adverted  to  as  the  excep- 
tion. I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
there  are  not  to  be  found  offices 
badly  organised,  into  which  unquali- 
fied persons  may  have  been  received, 
and  in  which  undeserved  promotions 
may  have  been  made,  and  where  the 
efficiency  of  the  service  has  con- 
sequently been  injured  ;  but  wherever 
that  has  been  the  case,  I  think  the 
evil  more  attributable  to  those  at  the 
head  of  the  department  than  to  the 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


126 

system  on  which  the  civil  service  is 
really  constituted  as  I  understand  it ; 
because  it  appears  to  me 'that  public 
duty  requires,  first,  that  no  person 
nominated  to  a  vacancy  should  be 
accepted  unless  he  be  found  fit ; 
and,  secondly,  that  no  person  should 
be  advanced  to  a  higher  seat  if  unfit 
to  discharge  properly  the  duties  of 
it."  Mr  Arbuthnot,  Auditor  of  the 
Civil  List,  was  so  indignant  at  the 
imputations  conveyed  by  the  Report, 
which  he  states  to  be  unjust  and  un- 
founded, that  he  addressed  a  letter 
to  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury  {Blue 
.Zfoo/e,  p.  403)  of  "  most  earnest  remon- 
strance against  the  publication  of  such 
aspersions  in  the  authentic  form  of  a 
State  Paper."  Sir  J.  F.  Fremantle 
denies,  on  the  part  of  the  Civil  Service 
generally,  the  assertions  of  the  Re- 
port. He  says  :  "  I  believe  that  the 
clerks  and  officers  of  the  Civil  Depart- 
ments generally,  are  faithful,  diligent, 
and  competent ;  that  the  public  busi- 
ness of  those  departments  is  well 
conducted  ;  and  that  their  efficiency 
would  not  suffer  by  comparison  with 
that  of  the  army,  the  navy,  or  any 
other  service  in  the  State ;  or  ,with 
public  companies  or  large  establish- 
ments under  the  management  of  pri- 
vate individuals."  Mr  Waddington, 
Under-Secretary  of  State  for  the  Home 
Department,  considers  that  in  the  Re- 
port "  the  inefficiency  of  the  public 
service,  as  at  present  organised,  is  most 
enormously  exaggerated.  This  exag- 
geration is  injurious  to  the  whole  Re- 
port, giving  it  the  appearance  of  a 
case  dressed  up  by  an  advocate  for 
the  purposes  of  prejudice,  rather  than 
of  a  fair  and  impartial  statement  pre- 
pared for  the  guidance  and  informa- 
tion of  Parliament  and  the  public." 

There  is,  therefore,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  no  inconsiderable  amount  of  dis- 
agreement among  the  doctors.  After  a 
careful  study  of  the  various  documents 
in  the  Blue  Book,  we  have  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  the  Report  is  ex- 
aggerated, and  calculated  to  carry  a 
false  impression.  We  believe  that 
every  one  of  the  gentlemen  whose 
evidence  we  have  alluded  to,  has  given 
his  testimony  in  the  most  candid  man- 
ner ;  but,  then,  no  two  of  them  are 
testifying  to  the  same  thing.  All 
through  this  Blue  Book  the  Civil 
Service  is  spoken  of  as  a  "  profes- 


[July, 


sion,"  which  is  simply  an  abuse  of 
terms.  No  doubt  the  exciseman  and 
the  tide-waiter  are  as  much  Govern- 
ment officials  as  the  permanent  Under- 
secretaries of  State ;  but  can  it  for  a 
moment  be  pretended  that  they  be- 
long to  the  same  profession  ?  A  copy- 
ing clerk  is  not  a  lawyer — a  shop-boy 
is  not  a  merchant.  Not  only  are  the 
gradations  of  rank  in  the  public  ser- 
vice infinite,  but  the  qualifications 
for  efficient  discharge  of  duty  in  one 
office  are  absolutely  useless  in  an- 
other. Into  this  error  not  only  Sir 
Charles  Trevelyan  and  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  but  almost  all  the  gen- 
tlemen who  have  commented  upon 
the  Report,  have  fallen.  Each  of 
them  is  acquainted  with  the  real  state 
of  one  department  of  the  service — 
some  of  them  possibly  may  have  a 
knowledge  of  the  state  of  two ;  but 
they  all  write  as  if  the  results  of  their 
observation  were  applicable  to  the 
entire  body  of  the  public  civil  service, 
and  they  emphatically  condemn  or 
absolve  the  whole  mass,  according  to 
their  experience  of  the  few. 

Promotion  in  the  civil  service,  we 
are  told,  is  chiefly  regulated  by  seni- 
ority. The  Report  contains  the  fol- 
lowing account  of  a  career  of  a  clerk 
who  has  been  entered  as  a  junior : 
"  The  young  man  thus  admitted  is 
commonly  employed  upon  duties  of 
the  merest  routine.  Many  of  the 
first  years  of  his  service  are  spent  in 
copying  papers,  and  other  work  of  an 
almost  mechanical  character.  In  two 
or  three  years  he  is  as  good  as  he  can 
be  at  such  an  employment.  The  re- 
mainder of  his  official  life  can  only 
exercise  a  depressing  influence  upon 
him,  and  render  the  work  of  the 
office  distasteful  to  him.  Unlike  the 
pupil  in  a  conveyancer's  or  special 
pleader's  office,  he  not  only  begins 
with  mechanical  labour  as  an  intro- 
duction to  labour  of  a  higher  kind, 
but  often  also  ends  with  it.  In  the 
mean  time  his  salary  is  gradually  ad- 
vancing, till  he  reaches  by  seniority 
the  top  of  his  class,  and  on  the  occur- 
rence of  a  vacancy  in  the  class  above 
him,  he  is  promoted  to  fill  it  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  without  any 
regard  to  his  previous  services  or  his 
qualifications."  We  must  say  that 
we  can  see  nothing  in  the  circum- 
stances here  stated  to  justify  the  ex- 


1855.] 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


ceeding  dolorousness  of  the  tone  em- 
ployed ;  and  we  may  add  that  the 
Reporters  seem  to  us  to  entertain 
most  extraordinary  and  peculiar  no- 
tions of  the  depressing  influences  of  a 
life  spent  in  the  discharge  of  routine, 
with  the  constant  prospect  of  promo- 
tion through  mere  seniority.  It  is 
fortunate  that  all  men  are  not  of  their 
opinion,  else  we  should  have  but  a 
sad  account  of  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  clerks,  book-keepers,  and 
ledger-men,  who  are  at  this  moment 
performing  their  duty  to  their  em- 
ployers in  banks,  counting-houses, 
and  chambers  throughout  the  United 
Kingdom.  But  we  should  like  to 
know  where  the  evidence  is  that 
merit  and  superior  intelligence,  when 
exhibited  in  a  public  office,  do  not 
meet  with  recognition  ?  We  at  least 
have  not  been  able  to  find  any  such 
testimony,  and  we  doubt  whether  it 
exists.  At  the  same  time,  we  admit 
that  there  are  great  objections  to  pro- 
motion from  one  official  class  to  an- 
other on  the  ground  of  seniority 
alone.  Some  men  are  capital  clerks, 
but  are  fit  for  no  other  kind  of  duty. 
Others,  who  would  make  indifferent 
clerks,  may  be  capable  of  labour  re- 
quiring a  high  degree  of  mental  exer- 
tion and  intelligence.  Every  banker, 
every  merchant,  every  solicitor,  knows 
this  from  his  own  experience.  They 
would  scout  the  notion  of  promotion 
by  seniority,  for  they  are  aware  that 
they  could  not  afford  it.  All  men 
have  their  gifts,  and  these  may  be  put 
to  a  practical  use,  but  the  measure  of 
attainment  is  limited.  Still  even 
the  most  talented  must  submit  to 
drudgery  at  the  outset ;  for  such  sub- 
mission is  not  a  law  framed  solely 
for  the  observance  of  public  officials ; 
it  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  dis- 
tinction in  every  walk  and  pursuit  of 
life.  The  painter,  the  author,  the 
musical  composer,  the  lawyer,  the 
physician — all  must  drudge  at  the 
commencement  of  their  career  if  they 
hope  for  future  success ;  and  very 
valuable,  indeed,  are.  the  methodical 
habits  insensibly  acquired  from  what 
appears  at  the  time  to  be  weary  and 
retarding  labour.  But  we  do  not 
think  it  necessary  to  pursue  this 
branch  of  the  subject  any  further. 
We  shall  merely  remark,  that  in  the 
departments  which  are  best  fenced  by 


127 

a  system  of  rational  examination 
against  the  intrusion  of  incompetent 
nominees,  the  most  regard  is  paid  to 
merit  in  promotion. 

We  agree  with -Mr  Arbuthnot  in 
thinking  that  the" Report  would  have 
been  much  better  had  it  been  more 
temperately  expressed.  We  consider 
also  that  it  is  by  no  means  such  a 
document  as  we  were  entitled  to  ex- 
pect from  men  who  had  undertaken  to 
report  upon  a  subject  of  that  magni- 
tude. Indeed,  we  never  read  a  paper 
which  had  less  reference  to  special- 
ties. That  unfortunate  idea  of  the 
Civil  Service,  in  all  its  ramifications 
and  gradations,  being  a  "  profession," 
seems  to  have  taken  entire  possession 
of  the  minds  of  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan 
and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote ;  and  in- 
stead of  entering  into  a  deliberate 
examination  of  the  state  of  each  de- 
partment, and  the  method  pursued 
therein,  they  have  adopted  the  easier 
but  much  less  satisfactory  device  of 
slumping  them  all  together,  and  re- 
commending that  the  whole  Civil 
Service  should  be  reorganised,  be- 
cause some  divisions  of  it  required 
reform.  They  ought  to  have  told  us 
which  offices  in  their  opinion  were  in 
a  sound  state,  and  which  were  un- 
sound ;  and  they  also  ought  to  have 
stated  their  grounds  for  such  opinion. 
Had  they  done  so,  not  only  would  the 
public  have  been  furnished  with  a 
mass  of  valuable  information  from 
which  clear  deductions  could  be 
drawn,  but  officers  who  have  exerted 
themselves  with  success  in  the  regu- 
lation of  their  departments  would 
have  received  that  acknowledgment 
which  is  their  due,  instead  of  being 
brought,  as  they  now  are,  within  the 
scope  of  the  general  censure. 

However,  we  must  take  the  Report 
as  it  stands,  having  nothing  better  to 
go  by.  That  Report  is  dated  23d 
November  1853,  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Russian  war.  The  subject  of 
administrative  reform  had  occupied  at 
a  considerably  earlier  period  the  at- 
tention of  the  Derby  Ministry,  and 
had  that  Government  been  allowed  to 
continue  in  office,  we  are  thoroughly 
persuaded  that  a  full  and  satisfactory 
reform  would  ere  now  have  been 
made.  But  the  Whigs,  Peelites,  and 
Radicals  found  it  their  interest  to 
combine  against  the  only  Government 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


128 

which  for  years  had  adopted  a  truly 
patriotic  course  of  action ;  and  the 
people  of  this  country,  who  are  un- 
questionably indebted  to  the  Conser- 
vatives during  their  short  tenure  of 
power  for  the  establishment  of  the 
militia,  the  efficiency  of  the  navy,  the 
increase  of  the  ordnance,  and  the 
cordial  alliance  with  France,  may 
thank  their  Liberal  representatives 
for  having  put  the  extinguisher  for 
the  time  upon  a  resolute  and  vigorous 
effort  for  the  reorganisation  of  the 
public  offices.  In  the  course  of  the 
recent  debate  upon  Mr  Layard's  mo- 
tion, which  terminated  by  the  adop- 
tion of  Sir  E.  B.  Lytton's  amendment, 
Mr  Disraeli  thus  expressed  the  views 
of  the  Government  in  which  he  held 
the  office  of  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer : — 

"  After  due  consideration  the  Govern- 
ment of  Lord  Derby  had  resolved  to  bring 
under  the  consideration  of  the  House,  as 
soon  as  it  was  in  their  power  to  do  so, 
the  whole  question  of  administrative 
reform.  Of  course,  on  the  present  occa- 
sion I  shall  be  most  careful  not  to  speak 
of  the  mere  intentions  of  that  Govern- 
ment, which  some  may  regard  as  after- 
thoughts ;  and  therefore  I  am  not  now 
pretending  to  express  all  that  was  in- 
tended, but  shall  scrupulously  confine 
myself  to  those  measures  of  which  I,  as 
the  organ  of  the  Government,  had  given 
notice  in  this  House.  It  was  our  inten- 
tion, the  moment  certain  actual  measures 
which  we  had  brought  forward  had  been 
disposed  of — if  they  had  been  disposed  of 
in  our  favour — to  bring  under  the  con- 
sideration of  the  House  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  administrative  reform,  with  the 
view  of  rendering  the  public  administra- 
tion of  the  country  more  efficient,  and  the 
service  of  every  department  more  consis- 
tent with  the  requirements  of  the  age.  I 
then  stated  what  we  intended  to  do.  I, 
as  the  organ  of  the  Government,  should 
have  expressed  our  general  views  as  to 
the  principal  alterations  which  we 
thought  ought  to  be  made  in  the  civil 
service,  and  I  should  have  informed  the 
House  that  we  had  recommended  her 
Majesty  to  issue  a  royal  commission  to 
inquire  into  the  conduct  of  all  the  de- 
partments of  the  State,  with  the  view  of 
drawing  from  that  report  the  regulations 
necessary  to  effect  the  reforms  we  had  in 
view,  which  would  then  have  been  sanc- 
tioned by  an  act  of  Parliament.  And  it 
certainly  appears  to  me,  after  listening  to 
all  the  improvements  and  alterations 
which  have  been  counselled  and  sug- 


[July, 


gested  on  all  sides,  that  that  course  ought 
to  have  preceded  all  the  recommendations 
that  have  been  made ;  because  what  we 
want  at  present  is,  to  learn  from  autho- 
rity how  the  public  service  can  be  carried 
on  in  the  most  efficient  manner,  without 
reference  to  anything,  or  any  existing 
circumstances,  and  to  have  placed  before 
us,  from  the  labours  of  a  royal  commis- 
sion, composed  of  the  highest  practical 
authorities,  results  which  may  guide  us 
in  coming  to  a  conclusion  upon  that 
question." 

It  is  deeply  to  be  regretted  that  the 
Aberdeen  Government  did  not  view 
the  subject  in  the  same  light ;  for  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  clear  and  accu- 
rate information  is  the  proper  prelimi- 
nary of  legislation.  Instead  of  advis- 
ing the  Crown  to  issue  a  Royal 
Commission  for  inquiry  into  the 
state  and  working  of  the  different 
departments,  they  remitted  the  consi- 
deration of  the  matter  to  the  gentle- 
men who  have  compiled  this  Report, 
and  they  left  them  not  only  to  detect 
the  evils,  but  to  suggest  the  proper 
remedy.  A  more  unsatisfactory  mode 
of  dealing  with  such  a  question  as  this 
can  hardly  be  conceived ;  and  we 
think  it  was  not  fair  to  expose  Sir 
Charles  Trevelyan  and  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  to  the  odium  which  an  un- 
favourable report  of  the  state  of  the 
Civil  Service  was  sure  to  elicit.  We 
have  already  shown  that  their  conclu- 
sions have  been  challenged  by  several 
eminent  authorities  ;  and  "  the  men 
of  skill,"  whose  opinions  as  to  the 
best  method  of  securing  an  efficient 
system  of  examination  for  candidates 
in  future  were  requested,  appear  to 
have  thought  this  a  proper  occasion 
for  delivering  themselves  of  all  kinds 
of  academical  crotchets.  The  re- 
marks, suggestions,  and  contradictions 
which  occupy  403  pages  of  criticism 
prefixed  to  this  Report,  remind  us 
irresistibly  of  the  old  story  of  the 
painter,*who  hung  up  his  picture  in 
the  market-place  in  order  to  have  the 
benefit  of  the  commentaries  of  the 
passers-by.  In  less  than  an  hour  his 
presumption  was  sufficiently  punished, 
for  not  a  single  inch  of  the  canvass 
had  escaped  from  contemptuous  con- 
demnation. 

Whether  our  suspicions  of  the 
value  which  Lord  Aberdeen's  Govern- 
ment set  upon  this  Report  are  well 


1855.]  Administrative  Reform 

founded  or  not,  this  at  least  is  plain, 
that  they  took  no  steps  during  the 
bygone  year  for  carrying  into  effect 
any  measures  of  administrative  re- 
form. We  do  not  altogether  blame 
them.  This  Report  must  have  been 
like  a  millstone  round  their  necks; 
for  even  granting  that  the  recommen- 
dations of  the  Reporters  as  to  future 
arrangements  were  true  in  themselves 
and  in  accordance  with  the  views  of 
the  Government,  it  would  have  been 
rather  perilous  to  have  based  a  great 
measure  of  reform  upon  a  Report 
which  had  not  been  preceded  by  a 
real  searching  examination,  which 
was  challenged  as  inaccurate,  and 
which  recommended  for  adoption  a 
new  system,  seriously  objected  to  by 
many  whose  opinion  had  been  speci- 
ally desired.  We  are  the  more  in- 
clined to  think  that  such  was  the  case, 
because  Mr  Gladstone  is  quite  specific 
in  his  assertion  that  the  Aberdeen 
Government,  without  pledging  itself 
to  all  the  details  in  the  Report  of  Sir 
Charles  Trevelyan  and  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  had  intended  to  propose 
great  changes  in  the  system.  The 
right  honourable  gentleman  said  in 
the  course  of  the  debate  of  15th  June, 
that,  "  in  consequence  of  the  state  of 
public  business,  and  the  pressure  of 
other  measures,  he  had  never  had  an 
opportunity  of  laying  before  the  House 
the  particulars  of  the  plan  which  that 
Government  proposed  to  carry  into 
effect,  but  it  was  well  known  that  it  in- 
volved an  absolute  surrender  of  what 
was  commonly  called  patronage  in  the 
first  appointment  of  civil  servants." 

However  that  may  be,  the  Aberdeen 
Ministry  died  without  doing  any- 
thing ;  and  the  Palmerston  Ministry, 
being  pure  Whig,  resolved,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  to  make  no  such  absolute 
surrender,  that  being  entirely  opposed 
to  the  hereditary  traditions  .^of  the 
party.  But  the  cry  for  administrative 
reform  which  arose  shortly  after  the 
formation  of  the  present  Government, 
and  which  may  be  traced  to  the  dis- 
appointment of  the  country  when 
they  found  that  a  change  of  Ministry 
was  not  followed  by  a  more  energetic 
course  of  conduct,  sounded  an  alarm 
in  the  ears  of  the  Whigs,  and  com- 
pelled them  to  take  some  step  in  the 
direction  of  administrative  improve- 
ment. Hence  the  recent  Order  in 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXVU. 


— The  Civil  Service. 


129 


Council  appointing  a  Commission  to 
examine  and  report  on  the  qualifica- 
tions of  all  young  men  who  in  future 
may  be  nominated  to  appointments  in 
any  department  of  the  Civil  Service. 

This  is  not  by  any  means  the  plan 
which  was  recommended  by  the 
Report,  and  we  shall  point  out  the 
leading  features  of  difference  between 
them. 

Sir  C.  Trevelyan  and  Sir  S.  North- 
cote  contemplated  but  one  kind  of 
examination  as  applicable  to  all  the 
departments,  the  examinations,  how- 
ever, differing  in  degree  according  to 
the  grade  to  which  the  candidates* 
might  aspire.  A  Central  Board  of  Ex- 
aminers was  to  be  constituted,  before 
which  all  candidates  for  admission  to 
the  Civil  Service  were  to  appear,  and 
have  their  literary  attainments  test- 
ed. It  was  to  be  the  duty  of  the 
Examiners  to  rank  the  candidates 
according  to  the  merit  displayed  in 
the  examination,  and  the  highest  in 
respect  of  marks  were  to  be  drafted 
into  the  respective  offices  as  vacancies 
might  occur.  Every  person  of  a 
certain  age  who  could  produce  satis- 
factory certificates  of  character  and 
health  was  to  be  entitled  to  give  in 
his  name  for  examination,  and,  if 
preferred,  his  appointment  to  one 
office  or  another  was  secure. 

The  Government  method  is  to 
make  the  examinations  special  to 
each  department,  but  not  to  dispense 
with  nomination,  or  alter  the  channel 
of  patronage. 

Here,  then,  are  two  marked  points 
of  difference — viz.,  as  to  the  mode  of 
examination,  and  as  to  its  prelimi- 
naries. Although  it  may  appear  an 
inversion  of  order,  we  shall  say  a  few 
words  upon  each  point  as  we  have 
noted  them. 

First,  as  to  the  mode  of  examina- 
tion. It  does  seem  to  us  that  the 
method  adopted  by  Government  is 
by  far  the  better  of  the  two.  The 
Reporters  (by  which  title,  in  order  to 
avoid  repetition,  we  shall  designate 
Sir  C.  Trevelyan  and  Sir  S.  North- 
cote)  were  no  doubt  instigated  to 
their  recommendation  by  the  prepos- 
terous notion  which  has  possessed 
them,  that  the  Civil  Service  in  every 
department  is  to  be  considered  as  one 
"  profession."  It  is  nothing  of  the 
kind.  The  object  and  tendency  of 


130 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


[July, 


each  department  is  different ;  and 
young  men  who  feel  an  impulse 
towards  one  branch  of  the  service 
would  recoil  from  another,  just  as 
those  who  have  set  their  hearts  upon 
entering  the  Church  might  do  if 
they  were  desired  to  study  for  the 
Law.  Every  man  worth  having  will 
own  to  such  impulses  and  preferences. 
A  lad  who  may  have  set  his  heart 
upon  entering  the  Foreign  Office  would 
feel  sorely  dismayed  if  you  told  him 
that  he  was  to  be  drafted  into  the 
Excise — a  candidate  for  the  Trea- 
sury would  hardly  thank  you  were 
he  offered  a  clerkship  in  the  office  of 
the  Registrar  -  General  of  Births. 
Neither  is  the  measure  of  attainment 
which  ought  to  qualify  for  each  de- 
partment the  same.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  Foreign  Office.  In  order 
to  qualify  for  that,  great  encourage- 
ment should  be  given  to  the  acquire- 
ment of  foreign  languages;  but  why 
should  a  clerk  in  the  Poor- Law  Board 
be  required  to  read  Italian  or  Ger- 
man ?  We  anticipate  the  answer  of 
the  Reporters,  that,  by  their  scheme, 
there  are  so  many  subjects  for  exami- 
nation set  down,  that  a  candidate 
who  acquits  himself  well  on  a  few 
will  not  be  rejected  for  deficiency  in 
others.  Granted — but  if  their  method 
were  to  be  adopted,  the  successful 
candidate  'might  be  drafted  into  an 
office  where  what  he  did  know  was 
of  no  use,  and  what  he  did  not  know 
was  of  the  utmost  importance.  It  is 
worth  while  noting  the  extent  of  the 
absurdity  which  men  will  commit 
when  mounted  upon  their  peculiar 
hobbies.  We  find  the  Reporters  indi- 
cating that,  among  other  things, 
candidates  should  be  examined  upon 
jurisprudence  and  political  economy. 
As  to  jurisprudence,  we  might  well 
ask  if  the  honourable  Reporters  are 
not  aware  that  the  law  in  one  part 
of  the  kingdom  differs  essentially 
from  that  established  in  another,  and 
suggest  to  them  that  the  English 
candidates  must  in  equity  be  conver- 
sant with  the  Institutes  of  Stair  and 
Erskine,  if  the  Scottish  aspirants  are 
required  to  show  their  proficiency  in 
Blackstone.  As  to  political  economy, 
we  are  yet  unaware  that  it  has  settled 
down  to  the  dignity  of  a  science. 
Why,  every  nation  on  earth  is  fight- 
ing domestically  about  some  of  its 


problems;  and  they  will  so  fight 
until  the  world  is  at  an  end.  Just 
fancy  a  Board  examining  candidates 
upon  the  question  of  direct  or  indirect 
taxation  !  Half  of  the  lads  must 
belie  their  real  conviction  in  favour 
of  the  ascertained  sentiments  of  the  ex- 
aminators,  else  they  would  infallibly 
be  plucked.  Then  as  to  mathematics, 
which  are  also  insisted  on,  many  of 
the  most  accomplished  men  in  the 
country  could  not,  if  it  were  neces- 
sary to  save  their  lives,  demon- 
strate a  single  problem  of  Euclid  ; 
and  we  deny  altogether  that  high  clas- 
sical attainments  can  be  regarded  as 
any  proof  of  sound  business  capacity. 
Experience  of  the  open  professions 
leads  us  to  a  totally  opposite  conclu- 
sion. The  men  who  achieve  the  highest 
distinction  in  the  practical  walks  of 
life,  are  neither  profound  mathemati- 
cians nor  deep  classical  scholars.  We 
admit  that  mathematical  and  classical 
training  exercises  a  most  wholesome 
and  useful  influence  over  the  mind  ; 
but  there  is  a  point  after  which  the 
prosecution  of  these  studies  detracts 
from  the  energy,  activity,  and  saga- 
city which  are  required  to  insure  suc- 
cess in  the  practical  professions.  It 
has  been  said,  and  we  think  shrewdly 
and  truly,  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  employing  too  fine  an  instrument, 
and  that  good  workmanship  can  only 
be  secured  by  suiting  the  instrument 
to  the  work.  The  word  "  merit "  is 
a  vast  favourite  with  the  Reporters, 
but  they  use  it  in  a  peculiar  sense. 
By  u  merit "  they  mean  a  high  degree 
of  educational  attainments,  such  as  is 
possessed  by  gentlemen  who  have 
taken  high  honours  at  the  universities. 
All  respect  is  due  to  merit  of  this 
kind,  but  we  deny  that  the  country 
has  suffered  by  not  giving  that  the 
preference.  What  the  country  re- 
quires is  u  fitness  "  for  their  duty  on 
the  part  of  its  public  servants ;  and 
a  high  literary  test,  as  applied  to  many 
of  the  departments,  is  chimerical.  This 
may  be  called  a  plea  for  ignorance, 
but  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  is 
simply  another  form  of  the  demand 
that  the  proper  men  shall  be  put  into 
the  proper  places,  and  that  they  shall 
have  assigned  to  them  precisely  the 
kind  of  work  which  they  are  best  fitted 
to  perform.  Looking  to  the  number 
of  the  public  offices,  and  the  variety 


1855.] 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


of  their  functions,  it  appears  to  us 
that  a  general  examination  as  recom- 
mended by  the  Reporters,  followed  by 
an  indiscriminate  drafting  of  the  suc- 
cessful candidates  into  the  depart- 
ments as  vacancies  might  occur,  would 
be  anything  but  an  improvement  on 
the  constitution  of  the  Civil  Service  ; 
and  that,  by  placing  successful  candi- 
dates in  situations  where  the  labour 
required  of  them  must  often  be  dis- 
tasteful and  foreign  to  their  powers,  a 
great  deal  of  hardship  would  be  in- 
flicted, and  considerable  disgust  en- 
gendered. 

On  the  other  hand,  departmental 
examination,  if  properly  conducted, 
has  many  advantages.  The  heads  of 
offices  know  exactly,  or  at  least  ought 
to  know,  what  stamp  of  men  they  re- 
quire, and  what  are  the  branches  of 
knowledge  likely  to  render  entrants 
most  useful.  This  movement,  it  can- 
not be  too  often  repeated,  has  nothing 
to  do  with  raising  the  educational 
standard  either  at  the  universities  or 
elsewhere.  The  object  of  it  is  to  se- 
cure good  and  efficient  public  servants ; 
and  therefore  we  apprehend  that  lite- 
rary tests,  which  cannot  be  shown  to 
have  any  kind  of  connection  with  the 
nature  of  the  service  which  the  candi- 
date seeks  to  enter,  should  be  dispensed 
with  as  unnecessary  and  unfair.  Would 
any  banker,  or  engineer,  or  solicitor, 
exact  from  a  young  man,  as  a  condi- 
tion of  his  entering  their  offices,  that 
he  should  be  able  to  construe  a  play 
of  Euripides  ?  Would  they  not  rather 
inquire  into  his  moral  habits,  his 
steadiness,  his  power  of  application, 
his  knowledge  of  arithmetic  and  me- 
chanics, and  his  handwriting?  De- 
pend upon  it,  the  same  system  of  tests 
which  the  majority  of  mankind  agree 
in  applying  to  applicants  for  private 
service,  will  be  found  the  best  for  pro- 
moting the  efficiency  of  the  public 
offices.  There  is  also,  we  think,  a 
great  deal  of  truth  in  the  following 
remarks  by  Mr  Romilly  :  "It  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that  moral  qualities 
and  social  position  are  often  as  impor- 
tant elements  in  the  character  of  a 
public  servant  as  great  facility  and 
intellectual  power.  Good  sense  and 
judgment,  good  manners  and  moral 
courage,  energy  and  perseverance,  a 
high  sense  of  honour  and  integrity,  a 
wholesome  fear  of  public  opinion,  and 


131 

the  desire  of  being  well  thought  of  by 
a  circle  of  friends,  are  more  important 
motives  and  qualities  in  public  officers, 
for  the  practical  business  of  official 
life,  than  familiarity  with  classical  and 
modern  literature,  science,  and  his- 
tory. The  latter  may  be  tested  by 
examination,  the  former  cannot."  We 
are  convinced  that  few  who  have  con- 
sidered the  subject  calmly  and  dispas- 
sionately will  deny  the  truth  of  that 
observation.  Of  course,  we  must  only 
be  understood  as  expressing  ojir  pre- 
ference of  the  principle  of  thia  part  of 
the  Government  scheme,  for  we  have 
no  experience  of  the  way  in  which  it 
has  been  applied.  Mr  Layard  stated 
in  the  House,  referring  to  a  return 
which  we  have  not  seen,  that  no  exa- 
minations were  required  for  entrants 
to  the  India  Board,  Home  Office, 
Foreign  Office,  Colonial  Office,  Office 
of  Works,  Office  of  Woods,  Poor-law- 
Board,  or  Board  of  Trade.  If  such 
be  the  case,  it  seems  to  its  but  too 
evident  that  the  Government  is  not 
in  earnest,  and  that  the  recent  Order 
in  Council  is  simply  one  of  these  in- 
excusable shams  which  are  calculated 
to  bring  all  government  into  discredit. 
What  we  advocate,  as  the  best  in- 
terim arrangement  that  can  be  devised, 
until  the  whole  system  of  the  public 
service  has  undergone  the  scrutiny  of 
a  Royal  Commission,  is  a  strict  de- 
partmental examination  before  en- 
trance, under  the  exclusive  superin- 
tendence of  the  permanent  heads  of 
departments,  who  should,  moreover, 
be  vested  with  the  power  of  dismissal 
in  cases  of  incompetency  and  neglect. 
There  is,  however,  a  great  deal  in 
the  observations  made  by  Mr  Ander- 
son and  Mr  Romilly,  that  any  kind  of 
examination  must  be  futile  so  long  as 
the  system  of  nomination  is  continued. 
"A  board,"  says  Mr  Romilly,  "is 
always  good-natured.  The  public 
opinion  which  establishes  itself  among 
its  members,  keeps  them  from  jobbing, 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word. 
They  will  not,  when  they  are  making 
a  selection,  choose  the  worst  of  the 
candidates  because  he  is  a  friend  ;  but, 
unconsciously  no  doubt,  they  do  not 
hesitate  to  sacrifice  the  public,  whose 
servants  they  are,  but  with  whom 
they  are  not  acquainted,  and  of  whom 
they  too  seldom  think,  when  a  fellow- 
creature  has  had  the  luck  to  get  a  Trea- 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


132 

sury  nomination,  and  comes  before 
them  for  admission  into  the  ranks  of 
their  office."  This  brings  us  to  the 
consideration  of  the  preliminaries  of 
examination,  by  which  we  mean  the 
right  of  introduction  to  the  examiners. 
Here  we  differ  from  the  Govern- 
ment, and  agree  most  cordially  with 
the  Reporters.  We  are  for  the  entire 
abolition  of  patronage  or  nomination 
as  a  preliminary  to  entering  the  public 
offices.  The  present  system  undoubt- 
edly fosters  political  corruption  to  a 
degree  which  would  scarcely  be  cre- 
dited by  those  who  have  not  watched 
the  influences  that  are  brought  to  bear 
at  elections;  and  we  are  thoroughly 
convinced  that  direct  bribery  is  the 
lesser  evil  of  the  two.  The  corrupt 
distribution  of  patronage  is  usually  in 
this  form.  There  are  in  every  borough 
or  town  certain  "  leading  men,"  of 
whom  we  have  already  given  a  sketch, 
who  can  turn  the  elections  one  way  or 
another  as  they  please.  We  cannot 
tarry  to  detail  at  length  the  means  by 
which  they  have  acquired  this  ascend- 
ancy— it  is  enough  to  say  that  they 
manage  to  persuade  the  electors  that 
a  word  from  them  to  the  sitting  mem- 
bers is  equivalent  to  a  mandate.  Nor 
do  they  altogether  overrate  their 
power.  The  sitting  member  knows 
that  he  must  propitiate  those  leaders, 
and  prove  to  them  that  he  actually 
does  possess  some  influence  at  the 
Treasury.  Accordingly  he  exerts 
himself,  in  the  first  instance,  for  their 
especial  requirements,  but,  after  the 
civic  maw  is  glutted, — which  usually 
is  not  an  easy  process, — he  finds  that 
still  more  is  demanded  of  him.  "  I 
am  bound  to  say," — so  writes,  or 
would, could,  or  should  write,  a  "lead- 
ing man,"  and  tribune  of  the  people — 
"  that  you  have  behaved  very  hand- 
somely as  regards  me.  Your  name- 
sake Neddybear  Jobsou  has  got  that 
little  place  in  the  Customs,  and  Sandy 
is  in  the  Board  of  Trade ;  and, 
all  things  considered,  the  bit  contract 
that  you  were  so  good  as  throw  in  my 
way  has  not  turned  out  amiss.  But, 
my  dear  sir,  you  must  do  something 
for  the  borough.  James  Yellowlees 
told  me,  no  later  than  yesterday,  *  that 
he  doobted  whether  ye  ever  had  a 
keek  ahint  the  Treasury  door,'  and 
James  is  not  a  man  to  offend.  He 
brought  you,  as  nearly  as  I  can 
reckon,  six  votes  last  time ;  and  he  is 


[July, 


an  excellent  creature  if  you  keep  him 
from  the  drink.  Now,  James  has  a 
son,  John,  that  he  can  make  nothing 
of  in  any  other  way,  so  I  must  beg  of 
you,  for  your  own  sake  as  well  as 
mine,  to  bespeak  him  a  place  in  the 
Excise.  If  that  cannot  be  done,  I 
wash  my  hands  of  the  consequences, 
for  James  seems  rather  camsteery." 
And,  as  a  matter  of  course,  John,  the 
son  of  James  Yellowlees,  is  inconti- 
nently shoved  into  the  Excise. 

Some  members  have  much  more 
influence  at  the  Treasury  than  others. 
A  doubtful  or  hybrid  member  may 
usually  get  what  he  chooses  to  ask  for, 
because  an  application  from  such  a  one 
is  considered  as  a  pledge  of  support. 
Ajudicious  government  partisan,  who 
is  known  to  demand  no  more  than  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  his  seat,  will  also  be  attended 
to.  But  the  blundering  good-natured 
blockhead  who  asks  for  everything, 
and  continues  to  vote  with  the  Go- 
vernment irrespective  of  denial,  is 
considered  a  nuisance,  receives  the 
cold  shoulder,  and  usually  disappears 
from  the  political  arena,  after  a  few 
ludicrous  attempts  at  legislation. 
His  party  are  anxious  to  be  relieved 
from  the  discredit  which  he  casts  upon 
them,  and  his  constituents  are  dis* 
gusted  to  find  that  he  has  no  private 
Treasury  key ;  so  between  the  two, 
he  relapses  into  the  obscurity  from 
which,  in  an  evil  hour  for  himself,  he 
emerged.  But  your  good,  steady, 
judicious  jobber  holds  his  ground,  and 
steers  his  way  through  many  Parlia- 
ments, simply  because  he  knows  the 
value  of  patronage,  and  is  cautious 
not  to  ask  more  than  the  share  which 
he  absolutely  requires  in  order  to 
retain  his  seat. 

It  is  full  time  that  these  most 
14  Corrupt  Practices"  should  be  put  an 
end  to,  and  we  cannot  conceive  any 
better  method  than  that  of  throwing 
open  the  admission  to  the  public  offices. 
It  appears  to  us,  moreover,  that  the 
public,  who  are  taxed  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  these  officers,  have  a  right 
to  demand  this.  It  is  a  very  mon- 
strous thing  that  a  young  man  of 
really  good  ability  and  character 
should  be  debarred  from  appearing  as 
a  candidate  for  the  public  service, 
because  he  has  no  immediate  political 
patron,  and  is  not  a  near  relative  of  a 
"  leading  man."  Our  view  is,  that 


1855.] 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service. 


any  young  man  who  can  produce  un- 
exceptionable testimonials  of  charac- 
ter, ability,  and  health,  or  anything 
else  which  the  examiners  may  think 
indispensable,  ought  to  have  it  in  his 
power  to  send  in  his  name  as  a  candi- 
date for  admission  to  any  department 
of  the  Civil  Service  which  he  wishes 
to  enter,  and  to  be  examined  and  pre- 
ferred according  to  the  rules  which 
may  be  established  in  such  office.  By 
the  present  system,  a  very  great  deal 
of  ability  is  lost  to  the  country, 
simply  because  the  aspirants  have  no 
political  influence,  and  cannot  com- 
mand a  nomination.  We  appeal 
again  to  all  the  honest  men  of  the 
Liberal  party,  whether  they  contem- 
plated such  a  state  of  things  when 
they  made  their  great  effort  to  get  rid 
of  what  was  called  Tory  corruption  ? 
We  ask  them  whether  the  body  politic 
is  not  now  ten  times  more  corrupt 
than  it  was  under  the  older  system  ? 
And  if  what  we  have  said  conveys 
to  their  minds  no  unfaithful  picture 
of  what  they  have  seen  and  known, 
may  we  not  ask  them  to  give  effect 
by  their  voices  to  a  scheme  which 
shall  at  least  allow  able  but  unfriend- 
ed men  who  have  struggled  through 
many  difficulties,  to  present  them- 
selves at  the  doors  of  the  different 
departments  of  the  Civil  Service,  and 
to  claim  the  privilege  of  an  examina- 
tion on  the  ground  of  "fitness,"  which 
hitherto  has  been  practically  disre- 
garded under  the  withering  system  of 
patronage  ? 

Connected  with  this  subject  there 
are  many  other  points  which  challenge 
observation,  but  for  which  we  have 
not  present  space.  One,  however, 
we  must  notice,  and  that  is  the  alleged 
injury  inflicted  upon  regular  civil 
servants,  by  appointing  men,  who 
have  not  gone  through  the  official 
gradations,  to  what  are  called  "  staff 
appointments." 

After  having  considered  this  ques- 
tion most  carefully,  with  the  aid  of 
such  evidence  as  we  could  procure, 
we  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  would  be  unwise  to  lay  down  any 
fixed  rule.  To  exclude  great  talent 
and  administrative  genius,  simply  be- 
cause its  possessor  had  not  entered 
the  Civil  Service  as  a  clerk,  and  worked 
his  way  through  an  office,  would  be  a 
manifest  detriment  to  the  public  in- 
terest, and  an  insult  to  the  existing 


133 

Ministry.  If  such  a  rule  had  been 
made  imperative,  Mr  Rowland  Hill 
would  not  have  been  where  he  is;  and 
the  best  men  would  be  excluded  be- 
cause they  had  not  entered  at  the 
official  gate.  There  is  much  practical 
sense  in  the  observations  of  Mr  Dis- 
raeli as  applied  to  these  higher  ap- 
pointments : — 

"  When  I  hear  of  appointments  being 
made  independent  of  a  Minister,  I  ask 
why  a  man  is  a  Minister  if  it  is  not  to  ap- 
point the  most  fitting  men  to  public  ap- 
pointments ?  .  .  .  .  Why,  sir,  what  is  the 
first  quality  of  a  Prime  Minister  ?  It  is 
not  administrative  talent,  for  he  must  look 
for  that  to  others.  It  is  perception  of 
character  and  knowledge  of  man  ;  and  it 
is  the  .duty,  and  the  highest  duty,  of  a 
Prime  Minister  to  take  care  to  appoint 
pious  bishops  and  wise  judges,  and  to  ap- 
point to  the  discharge  of  the  highest  func- 
tions the  most  eminent  and  best  qualified 
persons.  These  are  the  most  important 
offices  that  a  Prime  Minister  can  exercise, 
and  they  form  one  of  the  principal  rea- 
sons why  a  Prime  Minister  exists.  Al- 
though you  may  make  the  entrance  to  the 
civil  service  of  this  country  a  step  only 
practicable  to  those  who  are  competent 
to  take  it,  although  you  may  have  a  com- 
plete and  efficient  test  of  fitness  if  you 
have  a  proper  'board  of  examiners— al- 
though you  may  make  the  civil  service  a 
complete  profession,  and  offer  assurances 
that  you  will  allow  those  rewards,  not 
only  of  fortune,  but  of  another  character, 
that  may  induce  your  civil  servants  to 
exert  themselves,  and  that  may  reward 
exertion  —  and,  although  you  may  and 
ought  to  take  care  that  the  great  prizes 
are  secured  to  those  who  are  trained  to 
tbe  civil  service,  yet  I  say  that  with  all 
these  conditions  you  must  leave  the  exer- 
cise of  patronage — that  is,  the  choice  of 
fitting  instruments,  and  the  selection  of 
the  right  men — to  those  men  in  eminent 
positions,  who  only  occupy  that  eminent 
position  to  select  for  the  public  service 
the  most  fitting  agents,  and  to  take  care 
that  the  qualities  most  fitting  and  neces- 
sary should  be  secured  to  the  service  of 
the  State." 

That  is  not  only  a  wise,  but  a  highly 
constitutional  view;  because,  if  ap- 
pointments of  the  kind  to  which  we 
refer  were  made  available  only  to  the 
men  who  had  passed  through  the  dif- 
ferent grades  of  public  offices,  not  only 
would  the  powers  of  the  Prime  Mini- 
ster be  unduly  and  intolerably  limited,* 
but  his  responsibility  would  be  done 
away  with.  That  old  civil  servants, 
who  have  an  excellent  opinion  of 


134 


Administrative  Reform — The  Civil  Service.          [July,  1855. 


their  own  abilities,  may  feel  indig- 
nant when  one,  whom  they  consider 
an  interloper,  is  placed  above  their 
heads,  is  natural  enough.  The  same 
thing,  we  presume,  occurs  in  every 
profession ;  but  it  is  impossible,  and 
would  be  absurd,  to  rate  men  at 
their  own  estimate  of  themselves. 
Towards  high  appointments  the  at- 
tention of  the  public  is  drawn;  and 
every  instance  of  nepotism  exhibited 
by  a  Minister  of  State,  is  visited  by  a 
loss  of  confidence  and  character,  such 
as  few  men  of  honourable  feelings 
would  care  to  incur. 

We  have  thought  it  our  duty  to 
make  these  remarks,  because  the  sub- 
ject of  administrative  reform  is  not  yet 
thoroughly  understood,  and  we  have 
limited  ourselves  to  the  only  branch 
of  the  public  service  which  has  been 
made,  as  yet,  the  subject  of  any  kind  of 
Parliamentary  inquiry.  A  vast  deal, 
we  doubt  not,  lies  beyond ;  but  we  wish 
to  impress  upon  our  readers  that  ran- 
dom statements,  such  as  of  late  have 
been  too  common,  should  not  be  taken 
im  plicitly  in  lieu  of  deliberate  evidence. 
But  this  is  not  the  time  for  such  in- 
quiries. When,  at  the  commencement 
of  this  article,  we  wrote  the  words, 
still  unchanged,  deprecating  the  fore- 
boding of  disaster,  Lord  Palmerston 
had  not  spoken  the  following  words 
to  the  House  of  Commons  : — 

"  We  have  got  in  the  Crimea  an  army 
which,  having  encountered  the  sufferings 
of  a  long  and  severe  winter,  is  now  in  as 
fine  a  condition  as  ever  a  British  army 
was  that  ever  entered  the  field,  and 
which,  in  point  of  numbers,  health,  equip- 
ment, spirit,  and  in  point  of  confidence 
in  their  officers,  is  equal  to  the  army  of 
any  country — an  army  fighting,  too,  side 
by  side  with  an  ally  on  whom  this  coun- 
try may  confidently  depend,  and,  com- 
bined with  whom,  are  an  equal  match  to 
the  troops  of  the  whole  world,  and  with 
whom,  were  they  to  give  battle,  I  may 
safely  prophesy  a  victorious  result.  So 
far  from  any  discredit  to  the  country,  or 
from  anticipating  any  disaster,  I  am  sure 
there  are  not  ten  persons  in  this  House 
who  will  vote  with  the  hon.  gentleman 
who  entertain  a  sentiment  so  little  in  con- 
sonance with  the  feelings  of  the  country 
and  with  the  prospects  before  us." 


Is  that  true  ?  We  found  not  upon 
the  reverses,  which  unfortunately  have 
since  occurred,  but  we  ask  if  it  is  true, 
that,  in  point  of  numbers,  our  army  is 
equal  to  that  ot  the  army  of  any  coun- 
try ?  We  have  again  and  again  en- 
treated the  attention  of  the  public  to 
the  scandalous  fact  that  we  have  not 
yet  made  the  proper  preparation  for  war 
by  levying  men  from  our  own  popula- 
tion, or  by  training  them  when  levied  ; 
and  we  warn  them  now,  that  all  the  dis- 
asters of  the  last  year  are  likely  to  sink 
into  insignificance,  if  this  Palmerston 
Government  does  not  exert  itself  in  the 
proper  direction,  or  if  it  is  not  com- 
pelled to  make  way  for  another  more 
adequate  to  such  a  crisis.  The  fact  is, 
and  the  sooner  it  is  made  known  the 
better,  that  we  have  no  adequate  army 
of  reserve — that  the  militia,  which 
might  now  have  been  a  most  effective 
force,  has  been  neglected,  not  properly 
armed  or  disciplined,  and  so  tampered 
with  that  its  numbers  have  decreased. 
The  losses  in  the  Crimea,  if  we  may 
depend  upon  the  sorrowful  accounts 
received,  have,  during  the  past  month 
of  June  only,  exceeded  the  whole 
number  of  the  militia  which  has  been 
enrolled  in  Scotland  since  that  force 
has  been  called  out!  There  is  but 
one  point  now  upon  which  the  whole 
attention  of  the  country  should  be 
concentrated,  and  that  is  the  recruit- 
ing of  the  army.  Let  the  House  of 
Commons  look  to  it ;  for  if  Parlia- 
ment shall  adjourn  without  taking  the 
means  in  its  power  for  augmenting 
our  military  force,  or  displacing  the 
Ministry  which  may  possibly  throw 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  an  energetic 
measure  to  that  effect,  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible, that  before  the  expiry  of  the 
coming  autumn,  the  regular  British 
army  may  be  reduced  to  a  mere 
skeleton.  We  doubt  not  of  the  "vic- 
torious result " ;  but  we  doubt  greatly 
whether  Loid  Palmerston  or  his  col- 
league Lord  Panmnre  have  ever  cal- 
culated the  cost.  Let  us  not  be  found 
wrangling  merely  about  responsible 
ity  or  official  arrangements,  when  the 
cry  u  to  arms"  should  be  sounded.  The 
nation,  if  not  its  representatives,  is  in 
earnest — let  the  latter  be  wise  in  time. 


Printed  by  William  Blackwood  #  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH     MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCLXXVIII.  AUGUST,  1855. 


VOL.  LXXVIII. 


THE   BALTIC   IN   1855. 

[WE  have  very  great  pleasure  in  publishing  the  following  graphic  descrip- 
tion of  the  Baltic  in  1855.  Another  admirable  paper  from  the  same  pen, 
"  Aland  and  the  Baltic  in  1854,"  will  be  in  the  recollection  of  our  readers. 
The  writer  seems  to  us  a  worthy  brother-in-arms  of  our  gallant  friend  who 
has,  month  after  month — with  a  regularity  which  no  hardship,  no  difficulty, 
no  labour  could  interrupt — sent  to  us  a  continuous,  lucid,  and  often  eloquent 
narrative  of  all  that  has  taken  place  in  the  Crimea  since  the  landing  at 
Eupatoria.] 


WHEN  our  fathers  narrated  the 
exploits  and  the  venturous  naviga- 
tion— in  peril  and  energy  itself  an 
exploit — which  they  had  achieved 
during  the  last  war  in  the  North  and 
Baltic  seas,  and  told,  by  winter  fire- 
sides, stones  of  the  fierce  storms, 
dangerous  coasts,  hairbreadth  escapes 
off  lee  -  shores,  and  fatal  shipwrecks 
experienced  therein,  we  of  the  rising 
generation  had  little  right  to  suppose 
that  we  should,  in  our  own  lives,  fol- 
low in  their  tracks,  thread  the  same 
intricate  channels,  and  become  fami- 
liar with  the  scenes  and  places  which 
were  traditions  of  our  boyhood. 

The  English  Channel,  the  Mediter- 
ranean, the  Atlantic,  were  all  likely, 
and  at  times  anticipated,  scenes  of 
action.  They  were  well  known,  had 
been  thoroughly  navigated,  well  sur- 
veyed, and  mapped.  The  Baltic,  how- 
ever, had  entered  little  into  our  specu- 
lations as  a  seat  of  war,  and  was  to 
ships  of  the  navy  almost  a  mare  igno- 
tum.  Merchant-vessels  had  traversed 
it  backwards  and  forwards,  and  visit- 
ed all  its  different  ports  with  their 
cargoes,"  but  the  professional  know- 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVIII. 


ledge  of  its  waters  and  shores  was 
very  small,  and  derived  chiefly  from 
foreign  charts.  The  men  of  the  last 
war,  depending  chiefly  on  their  sea- 
manship and  enterprise,  had  added 
little  to  our  scientific  information  on 
the  subject,  and  left,  as  the  result  of 
their  experience,  only  the  warnings 
of  disaster  and  a  few  oral  records. 
The  high  hopes,  therefore,  which  fol- 
lowed the  departure  of  the  first  Bal- 
tic fleet,  must  have  been  dashed  by  a 
fear  that  some  of  those  magnificent 
ships  might  return  no  more.  Few 
could  have  anticipated  that  it  would 
come  back  intact  without  accident  or 
casualty.  Yet  so  it  was ;  and  the 
nation,  disappointed  in  other  respects, 
must  have  hailed  this  fortunate  result 
as  a  proof  of  the  care  and  skill  of  its 
navigators,  and  the  immunity  given 
by  steam-power  from  common  dan- 
gers and  difficulties. 

This  year  there  are  no  dark  places. 
The  gulfs,  coasts,  harbours,  and  head- 
lands have  been  explored,  and,  as  far 
as  possible,  surveyed.  Notes  had  been 
made  of  the  currents,  the  weather, 
and  the  "  signs  in  the  sky,"  so  that 


186 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


[Aug. 


the  experience  of  the  first  campaign 
will  contribute  largely  to  the  facility 
and  safety  of  the  second. 

If  there  was  exaggeration  in  the 
dangers,  there  was  no  exaggeration 
in  the  unpicturesque  and  unromantic 
character  of  the  Baltic  cruises.  As 
we  looked,  on  our  outward  route,  at 
the  bold  rocks  of  the  Norwegian 
shore,  rising  dark  and  beetling,  savage 
and  sublime,  the  waves  dashing  wildly 
against  them,  and  breaking  into  in- 
lets between  steep  walls  and  heaped 
masses  of  rugged  stone,  we  could  well 
imagine  how  the  fierce,  stern  north- 
man-nature  had  been  nurtured  and 
fed  amid  such  elements,  and  under- 
stand, if  man's  nature  be  affected  by 
his  habitation,  how  the  love  of  adven- 
ture and  spirit  of  enterprise  which 
emanated  thence,  had  not  spread 
along  the  Baltic  and  Finnish  shores. 

It  is  certainly  an  uninspiring  scene 
of  action  and  endeavour  that  Baltic 
sea,  with  its  branching  gulfs  of  Fin- 
land and  Bothnia.  Dark  fogs,  chill- 
ing winds,  and  dull  skies,  make  its 
spring  and  autumn  aspects.  The 
fine,  bracing  cold,  which  nerves 
whilst  it  chills,  and  strengthens  where 
it  pierces,  is  little  felt  there.  The 
air,  cold  enough  indeed,  but  impreg- 
nated ever  with  damp  and  mists, 
bears  down  with  depressing  influence 
on  mind  and  body.  The  summers, 
warm  and  sultry,  are  not  long  enough, 
or  brilliant  enough,  to  revivify  or 
brighten  man  or  nature.  But  the 
nights — there  is  a  compensation  in 
them  ;  the  nights  so  long,  so  soft,  so 
calm,  bright,  and  beautiful  —  the 
nights  which  are  no  nights,  but  a 
calm,  starry  twilight.  Yes !  these 
are  compensations — these  are  hours 
to  balance  days  of  fogs  and  sultry 
heats.  The  winter,  however,  with 
its  ice  and  snows,  bracing  breezes 
and  clear  skies,  is  perhaps,  after  all, 
the  best  and  most  stirring  season  in 
these  climes. 

The  seas  are  calm  and  smooth, 
seldom  disturbed  by  storms,  save  in 
the  commencement  of  the  winter. 
There  are  no  regular  tides,  but  the 
currents  are  strong  with  certain 
winds.  In  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  dur- 
ing the  summer,  the  waters  are  so 
dull  and  sluggish,  that  they  become 
green  and  slimy,  like  a  stagnant 
pool.  The  coasts,  at  least  those  of 


the  hostile  country,  have  no  feature 
of  beauty  or  sublimity ;  the  nume- 
rous islets  scattered  and  grouped 
along  the  shores,  with  fine  wood  on 
their  tops  and  waters  sparkling 
around  them,  when  warmed  by  a 
bright  sunshine,  afford  glimpses  of 
prettiness,  just  enough  to  refresh 
the  eye  and  relieve  the  heart  for  a 
while  from  the  dreary  pressure  of 
monotony.  Unromantic  as  unpic- 
turesque, the  land  has  no  inspiration 
from  glorious  or  heroic  memories — no 
charm  from  fable  or  legend. 

Such  was  the  scene  in  which  the 
Baltic  fleet  began  its  second  cruise  in 
1855.  This  campaign  opened,  per- 
haps, with  less  of  hope  than  the  first. 
Men  knew  better  what  to  expectr 
and  few  were  so  sanguine  as  to 
believe  that  the  foe  would  relax 
his  system  of  defence  —  a  system 
which  he  had  adopted  so  resolutely,, 
and  maintained  with  such  determi- 
nation. This  was  a  novelty  in  his- 
toric warfare.  France  at  a  crisis  re- 
lied on  her  elasticity  for  attack,  and 
poured  forth  legions  into  the  field. 
Rome  trusted  to  the  endurance  of 
her  citizens,  and  the  vitality  of  the 
Roman  spirit.  Russia,  baulked  in 
her  schemes  of  ambition,  fell  back 
at  once  on  the  defences  she  had 
carefully  premeditated  and  prepared 
for  such  an  emergency.  Conscious 
of  being  inferior  to  her  foes  at  sea,  she 
withdrew  entirely  from  the  unequal 
encounter,  made  every  effort  to  cut 
off  from  them  any  opportunity  of  suc- 
cess or  triumph,  and  retiring  within 
her  strongholds,  calmly  and  confident- 
ly waited  an  attack  on  her  own  van- 
tage ground.  Such  a  system  could 
only  have  been  introduced  under  such 
a  government  as  hers, — could  only 
have  been  carried  out  by  a  people 
who  held  obedience  to  the  Czar  as  a 
first  principle,  and  felt  it  no  trial  to 
remain  behind  stone  walls  if  he  will- 
ed it,  though  the  enemy  challenged 
them  without.  Power  over  resources 
— power  over  the  wills  of  men,  was 
necessary  to  such  a  design,  and  these 
the  ruler  of  Russia  possessed  most 
absolutely. 

On  the  3d  May  the  British  fleet 
left  Kiel,  a  place  of  pleasant  memo- 
ries. It  is  the  alpha  and  omega  of 
civilisation  in  a  Baltic  cruise.  There 
we  shake  hands  with  civilised  life  for 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


137 


many  long  months — there  it  first  greets 
us  again  on  our  return.  Consequent- 
ly, many  a  grateful  thought  belongs 
to  the  little  German  town,  with  its 
woods  and  walks,  its  cafes,  knick- 
knacks,  and  its  cheerful  people 

After  a  short  stay  at  Faro,  to  es- 
tablish hospital  and  coal  depots,  the 
fleet  pushed  on  at  once  to  Revel — the 
first  of  the  naval  stations — the  first  of 
the  great  strongholds.  Revel  lies  on 
the  south  shore,  just  within  the  Gulf 
of  Finland,  which  may  truly  be  called 
a  Russian  lake,  as  she  occupies  both 
its  shores  and  holds  all  its  ports.  Our 
ships  anchored  at  the  opening  of  the 
fine  bay  behind  the  island  of  Nargen, 
which  shelters  the  west,  whilst  a  long 
low  promontory  juts  out  on  the  east 
side,  forming  a  snug,  safe  anchorage. 
Circling  round  the  end  of  the  bight, 
is  the  town.  Our  first  look  was  at 
the  fortifications.  The  picturesque 
yields  to  the  professional  in  war  times. 
They  did  not  present  an  appearance 
of  great  strength  :  a  large  casemated 
fort  and  a  battery  on  the  mole  seemed 
to  comprise  its  defences.  Presently 
a  gun  was  seen  peeping  here  and 
there  from  embrasures,  and  earthen 
batteries  revealed  themselves  in  every 
direction.  The  first  work,  as  we  ad- 
vance from  Nargen,  is  a  small  mar- 
tello  tower  standing  on  a  small  island. 
In  the  round  of  the  bight,  the  large 
fort  opens  upon  us  from  its  three  tiers 
of  150  guns,  and  is  enfiladed  by  an- 
other battery  of  24  guns ;  to  the  right 
and  left  are  smaller  ones,  covering  and 
flanking  these,  all  commanding  the 
approaches  to  the  town.  This  would 
doubtless  be  a  formidable  fire  to  en- 
counter, but  the  water  is  deep  within 
range  of  the  shore.  There  is  ample 
room  to  manoeuvre,  and  here,  if  any- 
where, ships  might  assail  the  granite 
walls  with  a  fair  prospect  of  success. 
Darkly  and  grandly  the  Domberg  or 
Old  Town  rises  in  the  background. 
Towering  on  a  basement  of  rugged 
rock,  and  surrounded  by  a  buttressed 
wall,  it  has  quite  an  old  burgh  look — 
a  shade  of  old-world  picturesqueness, 
rare  enough  here,  where  most  things 
bear  a  new-born  stamp.  The  citadel, 
and  the  exclusive  residence  of  the 
governor  and  nobility,  it  looks  proudly 
down  on  the  houses  scattered  along 
the  plain,  interspersed  here  and  there 
with  patches  of  green  and  clumps  of 


trees,  the  masses  of  barracks,  the 
mole,  and  quays,  which  constitute 
the  New  Town. 

The  winter  station  for  a  division  of 
the  fleet,  and  the  commercial  outlet 
for  the  produce  of  Esthonia,  Revel  is 
a  place  of  great  importance,  and  its 
destruction,  if  possible,  would  be  a 
great  blow  to  Russian  power  and  Rus- 
sian pride. 

On  the  25th  of  May  the  fleet  again 
started  onward  up  the  gulf,  and  on 
the  31st  took  up  its  former  station  of 
observation  off  Cronstadt,  the  redoubt- 
able stronghold  which,  next  to  Sebas- 
topol,  has  excited  most  interest  and 
expectation  in  men's  minds,  which 
has  been  the  subject  of  so  much  spe- 
culation and  theory.  Let  us  see  what 
the  place  really  is,  which  so  many 
men  have  projects  for  taking,  and 
what  may  be  the  chances  of  its  fall 
by  an  attack  from  the  ordinary  en- 
gines and  appliances  of  war. 

At  the  extremity  of  the  Gulf  of  Fin- 
land, where  it  narrows  and  rounds  off 
to  a  termination,  and  not  far  from  the 
spot  where  it  receives  the  waters  of 
the  Neva,  is  an  island,  lying  north- 
west and  south-east,  low,  flat,  nar- 
row, and  pointed — shaped  somewhat 
like  the  tongue  of  an  ox.  At  the 
south-east  end  it  approaches  more 
nearly  to  the  mainland,  forming  a 
harbour,  and  thus,  though  poor  and 
insignificant  in  itself,  it  became  im- 
portant from  the  fact  of  its  offering 
to  ambition  a  position  adapted  for  the 
preparation  of  a  great  scheme,  the  at- 
tainment of  a  great  purpose. 

When  Peter  the  Great  resolved  to 
create  a  capital  amid  the  marshes  of 
the  Neva,  and  thereby  declare  himself 
a  northern  state,  his  genius  fixed  on 
this  island  as  a  fitting  site  for  the 
nursery  of  a  young,  and  the  strong- 
hold of  a  matured,  naval  power. 
There  was  room  enough  on  it  for  his 
garrisons,  dockyards,  and  arsenals ; 
the  harbour  was  spacious  enough  for 
his  ships ;  the  place  was  difficult  of 
access,  and  capable  of  defence — was 
near  his  new  city,  under  his  very  eye. 
'Twas  all  he  wanted  ;  and  here,  forth- 
with, was  planted  the  germ  of  a  navy, 
which  grew  with  the  growth,  and 
strengthened  with  the  strength,  of  the 
nation  itself.  What  he  began,  his* 
successors  continued;  and,  as  the  de- 
velopment of  aggression  increased  the 


138 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


[Aug. 


necessity  for  self- protection,  czar  after 
czar  added  tower  to  tower,  and  fort 
to  fort,  until  Cronstadt  became  what 
it  now  stands  before  us — a  mighty  il- 
lustration of  the  power  and  policy  of 
defence. 

Seen  from  the  sea  at  the  distance  of 
a  few  miles,  Cronstadt  looks  like  the 
picture  of  a  flood,  wherein  trees,  ships, 
steeples,  and  towers  are  seen  half- 
submerged  in  the  waves ;  and  the 
whole  scene,  viewed  through  the  haze 
of  a  sunny  day,  seems  a  confused 
maze  of  gilded  cupolas,  tall  masts, 
and  solid  forts,  all  floating  in  the 
waters.  As  the  sky  clears,  and  the 
eye  gains  its  true  focus,  the  maze  re- 
solves itself  into  the  plan  of  a  well- 
defined  and  formidable  stronghold. 
The  forts  stand  forth  clear  and  dis- 
tinct, the  ships  mark  the  bay  of  the 
harbour,  and  the  masses  of  houses 
even  assume  a  form.  Now  less  than 
ever  does  the  view  present  any  fea- 
ture of  picturesqueness  and  beauty. 
Strength  is  its  only  characteristic.  It 
is  a  plan,  not  a  picture — a  plan  marked 
by  hard,  firm  lines,  denoting  security 
and  defiance.  This  stronghold  of 
Cronstadt,  and  its  fellow  at  Sebasto- 
pol,  standing  as  they  do  at  either 
extremity  of  the  empire,  are  true 
indices  to  the  spirit  which  rules,  and 
the  policy  which  directs,  the  destinies 
of  Russia,  and,  as  such,  are  especial 
subjects  for  study.  North  and  south 
they  represent  a  system  of  progres- 
sive aggression,  which  fixes  its  basis 
in  defence,  and  makes  each  successive 
foothold  which  it  gains,  not  only  a 
stand-point  of  preparation  for  future 
advances,  but  a  barrier  against  attack, 
a  refuge  from  repulse. 

Let  us  study  the  one  before  us. 
And  first  let  us  take  a  more  accurate 
survey  of  its  natural  position,  ere  we 
see  how  art  and  foresight  have  devised 
its  impregnability. 

The  island  of  Cronstadt  lies  in  a 
bight  betwixt  the  two  shores  of  the 
gulf,  and  is  nowhere  distant  more 
than  about  six  miles  from  the  main- 
land on  either  side ;  and  even  this, 
as  a  navigable  distance,  is  so  much 
straitened  by  spits,  shallows,  and 
mud- banks,  that  the  actual  passages 
are  reduced  to  very  confined  limits. 
This  is  the  case  especially  with  the 
main  channel,  which  runs  betwixt  the 
island  and  the  south  shore,  and  is  so 


narrow  and  shallow  that  its  naviga- 
tion alone,  except  under  experienced 
and  skilful  guidance,  is  a  difficulty. 
It  widens  and  deepens  a  little,  how- 
ever, towards  the  south-east  end,  into 
a  tolerably  convenient  and  spacious 
anchorage,  and,  turning  thence  to- 
wards the  south,  ends  in  an  inner 
harbour,  well  locked,  and  sheltered  by 
a  bend  in  the  land,  and  partly  pro- 
tected by  the  Oranienbaum  spit, 
which  juts  out  towards  it  from  the 
south  shore,  and  which,  being  covered 
by  only  a  few  feet  of  water,  offers  an 
effectual  barrier  to  the  approach  of 
ships,  and  is  impracticable  for  the 
advance  of  troops.  Two  passages 
lead  from  this  round  the  south-east 
side;  but  these  are  so  intricate,  so 
environed  by  shallows  and  patches, 
that  they  are  navigable  only  by  ves- 
sels of  a  small  class,  and  afford  no 
regular  communication  with  the  north 
channel,  which  is  broader  and  deeper 
in  the  centre  than  the  other,  though, 
it  also  becomes  very  shallow  at  some 
distance  from  the  shore.  The  island 
itself  is-  about  six  miles  long,  and  a 
mile  and  a  half  wide  at  the  south-east, 
its  broadest  part.  This  part  repre- 
sents the  root,  and  hangs  on,  like  a 
square  piece,  to  the  Tongue,  which 
shoots  out,  narrow  and  narrower,  to- 
wards the  tip,  until  it  ends  in  a  few 
broken  rocks,  over  which  the  waves 
ripple.  Slightly  raised  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  a  little  barren  track 
of  rock  and  sand,  it  would  scarcely 
afford  sustenance  for  a  family,  or  feed 
a  flock  of  sheep ;  yet  now,  cut  into 
docks,  covered  with  barracks  and 
storehouses,  and  surrounded  by  forts, 
it  is  a  prize  which  mighty  nations 
strive  to  win  and  to  keep. 

Let  us  next  see  how  art  has  so 
much  enhanced  the  value  of  the  spot 
we  have  been  surveying.  A  first 
object  in  the  design,  which  sought  to 
convert  it  into  a  naval  arsenal,  was 
of  course  to  find  a  suitable  site  for  the 
docks,  magazines,  and  defences,  which 
must  grow  around  the  harbour  and 
anchorage.  The  square  end  of  the 
island  was  naturally  adapted  for  this 
purpose.  It  had  a  sufficient  and  com- 
pact space  for  the  buildings ;  it  was 
surrounded  by  the  sea  on  all  sides, 
save  where  it  was  joined  by  a  narrow 
neck  of  land  to  the  promontory  be- 
yond, and  would  thus  be  protected 


1855.' 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


139 


by  a  complete  line  of  circumvallation ; 
and  it  offered,  besides,  a  facility  for 
the  digging  of  immense  basins  on  its 
south  side,  which  might  compensate 
for  the  smallness  of  the  inner  harbour, 
or  Little  Road,  as  it  is  called.  There 
are  three  of  these — the  man-of-war, 
the  middle,  and  the  merchant  har- 
bour— all  entered  by  regular  locks 
from  the  Little  Eoad.  In  the  two 
former  a  great  part  of  the  Russian 
ships  lie  during  the  winter  months, 
whilst  their  crews  are  transferred  to 
barracks  on  shore. 

The  next  step  was  to  defend  these 
harbours,  and,  as  a  consequence,  the 
old-fashioned  straggling  fortress  of 
Cronstadt  arose.  Then  came  Fort 
Peter;  but,  as  time  went  on,  it  was 
deemed  necessary  that  the  Great 
Road,  and  even  the  entrance,  should 
have  their  defences.  But  the  passage 
into  the  harbours  was  about  mid- 
channel,  and  could  not  therefore  be 
effectually  commanded  by  forts  on 
either  shore.  This  was,  however,  no 
obstacle,  no  difficulty  to  a  system 
which  had  raised  a  city  on  a  marsh  ; 
and  straightway  there  sprang  up  a  suc- 
cession of  gigantic  island  fortresses, 
commanding  every  approach,  and 
threatening  at  many  points  a  con- 
centration of  fire  which  must  inevit- 
ably annihilate  any  attacking  force. 

We  must  review  these  forts  in  the 
reverse  order  from  their  construction, 
and  begin  from  the  outside,  as  though 
we  were  advancing  to  the  attack. 
Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  we  are 
making  for  the  entrance.  The  first 
object  which  presents  itself  is  the 
Tulbuken,  a  tall,  solid,  beacon-tower, 
standing  on  a  rock,  connected  pro- 
bably by  a  reef  with  the  island  shore. 
We  steam  onwards,  and  on  the  right 
hand,  or  south  side,  Fort  Risbank 
rises  before  us,  the  latest  in  construc- 
tion, but  not  the  least  formidable  of 
these  extraordinary  erections.  Like 
all  the  others,  it  is  built  on  a  founda- 
tion formed  by  piles  driven  into  the 
mud.  It  has  two  tiers  of  casemates, 
and  on  its  top  are  guns  mounted  en 
barbette.  The  front,  facing  the  en- 
trance obliquely,  presents  a  curve 
springing  from  the  centre,  with  a 
short  curtain  on  either  side,  which  at 
the  angles  rounds  off  into  towers. 
The  number  of  guns  in  this  fort  is 
variously  stated,  but  we  could  count 


fifty-six  embrasures  in  this  front,  be- 
sides the  guns  en  barbette,  and  those 
which  may  be  mounted  on  the  rear- 
face.  In  describing  these  fortifica- 
tions, it  is  difficult  to  use  the  proper 
terms  of  art,  as  their  peculiar  construc- 
tion and  peculiar  purpose  required 
many  and  wide  deviations  from  gene- 
ral principles.  We  must  therefore  try 
to  be  intelligible  rather  than  scientific. 
A  little  farther  on,  on  the  left  hand, 
or  north  side,  Fort  Alexander  greets 
us,  a  huge  round  work,  showing  a 
semicircular  front,  bristling  with  four 
rows  of  guns,  one  row  being  en  bar- 
bette. This  fort  is  said  to  contain  one- 
hundred  and  thirty-two  guns  ;  they 
are  of  very  large  calibre,  and  their 
fire  would  effectually  sweep  the  en- 
trance of  the  channel,  flanking  and 
crossing  that  of  Risbank.  Passing 
Alexander,  we  are  fairly  in  the  Great 
Road,  and  come  within  range  of  Fort 
Peter,  a  low  fortification,  on  the  same- 
side  as  Alexander,  but  nearer  to  the 
island.  Two  low  curtains,  a  large 
tower  in  the  centre,  and  smaller 
towers  at  either  end,  comprise  the 
front  of  this  work.  It  is  not  equal  to 
the  two  others  either  in  dimensions 
or  number  of  guns,  but  is  still  very 
formidable  from  its  enfilading  position- 
On  the  opposite  side,  just  in  front  of 
the  point  of  the  Oranienbaum  spit, 
and  flanking  the  mouth  of  the  inner 
harbour,  Cronslott,  or  Cron  Castle, 
threatens  us.  This,  the  eldest  of  the 
series,  the  first  demonstration  of  the- 
scheme  of  defence,  which  has  since 
been  extended  and  multiplied  so 
vastly,  is  inferior  to  its  successors  in 
design  and  elaborate  workmanship. 
Though  rather  a  crude  effort,  it  an- 
swered its  first  purpose,  as  a  single 
fortress,  well  enough,  and  even  now 
would  play  no  mean  part  in  the  flank- 
ing and  concentrating  combination, 
which  forms  the  main  principle  in  the- 
defencc.  Last,  but  not  least,  either 
in  size  or  importance,  Fort  Menschi- 
koff  rises,  vast  and  glaring,  towering 
above  all  the  others,  with  its  four  tiers 
and  its  massive  walls.  This  was  evi- 
dently meant  to  be  the  crowning  stroke 
of  the  inner,  as  Risbank  was  of  the 
outer  defences.  Unlike  its  brethren, 
it  stands  on  terra  fama^  and  is  built 
near  the  mole-head,  at  the  south  angle 
of  the  square  end  of  the  island.  It  is 
apparently  a  square,  solid  mass  of 


uo 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


[Aug. 


masonry,  constructed  without  any 
very  elaborate  or  scientific  plan,  but 
presenting  a  front  of  casemated  bat- 
teries, which  would  flank  Cronslott, 
and  rake  the  approaches  to  the  inner 
harbour  with  a  tremendous  fire.  We 
might  think  that  the  acme  of  defence 
had  been  attained  by  such  an  aggre- 
gation of  fortresses ;  so  thought  not 
the  Russians,  for  they  have  moored 
some  of  the  line-of-battle  ships  of 
their  fleet  betwixt  Menschikoff  and 
Cronslott,  thus  effectually  barring  the 
entrance  to  the  inner  harbours,  and 
forming  an  overwhelming  increase  to 
the  force  already  concentrated  for 
their  protection.  Beyond  this  barrier 
line,  and  behind  Menschikoff,  are  the 
basins  before  spoken  of;  and  behind 
them  again  are  the  great  magazine, 
the  dockyard,  and  canal.  More  to 
the  north  are  laid  out  the  barracks 
and  other  public  buildings.  Such 
and  so  defended  is  the  southern  chan- 
nel of  Cronstadt.  Such  is  the  place 
which  hair-brained  theorists  expected 
our  fleet  to  attack  and  take.  English 
hearts  are  stout — English  ships  are 
strong — English  seamen  are  skilful; 
but  the  man  who  would  lead  them 
against  such  fearful  odds,  would  lead 
them  to  certain  destruction,  and  leave 
the  country  to  mourn  over  a  catas- 
trophe greater  and  sadder  than  has 
yet  clouded  her  annals. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  north  side,  and 
see  what  are  there  the  characteristics 
of  defence  and  the  opportunities  of 
attack.  Passing  round  the  Tulbukeu, 
we  trace  a  low  glittering  line  of  rocks, 
just  rising  above  the  waters  ;  then  a 
broader  belt  of  red  sand,  slightly 
sprinkled  with  trees ;  then  come 
houses,  trees,  and  some  glimpses  of 
vegetation,  until  the  eye  rests  at  last 
on  a  large,  well- designed  earthwork, 
not  yet  finished,  around  and  about 
the  mounds  of  which  workmen  are 
still  busy  with  pickaxe,  spade,  and 
barrow.  Tracking  onwards,  we  fol- 
low the  long  low  beach,  along  which 
are  rows  of  houses,  masses  of  build- 
ings, churches  with  their  gilded  cupo- 
las and  spires,  and  all  the  varied 
objects  which  constitute  the  features 
of  a  town  panorama ;  whilst  behind 
and  above  all  appear  the  tops  of 
forts  and  masts  of  ships.  Looking 
very  closely  and  attentively,  we  can 
detect  at  intervals  small  batteries 


mounting  a  few  guns,  and  carrying  on 
a  weak  and  broken  line  of  defence, 
which  terminates  at  the  north-east 
extremity  in  a  larger  and  more  pre- 
tentious work. 

Nothing  very  formidable  here  as  yet 
— nothing  very  obstructive,  save  the 
fact  that  large  ships  cannot  approach 
within  a  less  distance  than  three  miles ; 
but  gun-boats  and  small  vessels  might 
easily  advance  within  fair  range  of 
toAvn  and  arsenals.  Yes,  this  had  been 
foreseen  and  provided  against  by  a 
novel  and  ingenious  expedient.  From 
the  earthwork  in  the  centre  of  the 
island  a  barrier  had  been  run  out 
obliquely  to  a  distance  of  three  thou- 
sand yards,  and  then  carried  in  a 
slightly  deflecting  line  to  the  shore  of 
the  mainland,  extending  to  a  length 
of  six  or  seven  miles,  and  enclosing 
the  passages  opening  from  the  north 
to  the  east  and  south  sides  of  the 
island.  The  barrier  consists  of  col- 
umns of  piles  placed  at  distances  of 
eighteen  feet,  and  rising  within  two 
feet  of  the  surface  of  the  water.  These 
columns  are  formed  of  several  piles 
driven  into  the  mud  in  a  circle,  the 
centre  being  filled  with  rubble.  This 
would  sufficiently  secure  the  shore 
from  sudden  assault,  or  the  town  from 
the  danger  and  annoyance  of  a  dis- 
tant fire ;  but  the  passages— the  weak 
and  vital  points  of  the  northern  de- 
fence— could  not  be  trusted  to  an 
obstacle  so  partial  in  its  obstruction, 
and  which  a  daring  effort  might  de- 
stroy. Accordingly,  hulks,  lightened 
for  the  purpose,  were  moored  behind 
the  barrier — in  some  parts  within 
point-blank  range — effectually  cover- 
ing it  through  its  whole  extent,  from 
the  angle  of  the  town  to  the  mainland. 
In  rear  of  this,  again,  a  fleet  of  gun- 
boats, under  steam  and  sail,  moved 
about,  ready  to  dash  through  the 
intervals,  and  meet  any  assailant. 
Thus  was  a  triple  barrier  raised — the 
first  part  merely  obstructive,  the  se- 
cond defensive,  the  third  motive  and 
capable  of  being  made  aggressive ;  a 
fourth  was  designed,  but  it  proved  an 
illusion  and  a  failure.  Adopting  the 
fallacy  of  the  efficacy  of  sub-marine 
mines  for  the  destruction  of  ships,  the 
enemy  had  strewn  the  waters  of  the 
north  shore  withanumber  of  explosive 
machines,  some  being  found  even  in 
eight  and  nine  fathoms.  Their  exist- 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


141 


ence  was  first  discovered  by  two 
steamers,  which  went  in  on  a  recon- 
noissance,  and  exploded  them  under 
their  bows.  Little  injury  was  effect- 
ed by  the  explosion ;  but  the  shock 
was  so  great  as  to  create  a  more  for- 
midable impression  of  these  machines 
than  an  after  acquaintance  with  them 
justified.  When  the  fleet  anchored 
off  the  north  shore,  the  men-of-war 
boats  dragged  for  them  and  brought 
up  a  great  number,  so  that  every  one 
had  an  opportunity  of  satisfying  his 
curiosity  as  to  their  nature  and  con- 
struction. The  first  discovery  of  the 
secret  was  made  rather  unhappily. 
One  of  the  machines  had  been  taken 
on  board  the  Exmouth.  A  group  of 
officers  had  gathered  round  to  examine 
it,  and  Admiral  Seymour,  unsuspi- 
cious of  any  danger,  as  it  had  already 
been  dragged  about  in  boats,  and  car- 
ried from  one  ship  to  another,  struck 
the  trigger,  when,  lo !  it  exploded  in 
the  midst,  and  knocked  down  the 
nearest  spectators,  scorching  and  burn- 
ing some,  and  severely  wounding 
others.  Among  the  latter  was  Admi- 
ral Seymour  himself.  Afterwards 
we  learnt  to  handle  them  with  per- 
fect impunity,  by  instantly  and  care- 
fully removing  the  fuze,  after  which 
the  thing  became  perfectly  harmless. 
These  machines,  christened  by  us 
41  infernal,"  are  curious  enough  to  de- 
serve description.  The  shell  is  made 
of  metal,  shaped  like  a  cone,  and  di- 
vided into  two  compartments,  the 
upper  one  filled  with  air,  and  the  lower 
with  powder.  The  generality  of  those 
we  found  measured  fifteen  inches 
across  the  top,  and  twenty  in  length. 
In  the  centre  of  the  top  of  the  shell 
is  a  round  hole  leading  into  a  hollow 
cup,  and  ending  in  a  narrow  socket, 
which  reaches  to  the  division  of  the 
powder  compartment.  This  was  the 
place  of  the  fuze.  The  fuze  is  a  metal 
cylinder,  about  the  size  of  the  wooden 
ones  used  for  thirteen  -  inch  mortars, 
and  contains  first  a  hollow  oscillating 
tube,  in  the  lower  end  of  which  is 
inserted  another  and  smaller  tube, 
filled  with  sulphuric  acid  and  chlorate 
of  potash,  supposed  to  be  separated 
from  each  other  by  a  thin  tiny  piece 
of  glass.  This,  again,  communicates 
with  the  lower  end  of  the  fuze,  which 
is  made  of  thick  lead,  and  holds  a 
small  charge  of  powder,  confined 


therein  by  a  thin  metal  wafer  at  the 
bottom.  When  this  fuze  is  fixed  in 
the  socket,  a  part,  in  which  are  two 
small  apertures,  protrudes  above  the 
surface  of  the  machine.  Along  the 
top,  opposite  to  each  other,  are  laid 
two  thin  pieces  of  metal,  which  pass 
through  holes  in  the  rim,  and  extend 
some  inches  beyond,  being  held  in 
their  position  by  slight  brass  springs. 
These  are  the  hammers.  On  being 
struck,  or  on  coming  into  contact  with 
any  object,  they  are  forced  through 
the  apertures  in  the  sides  of  the  fuze, 
and  strike  the  oscillating  tube  a 
smart  blow.  This  being  set  in  motion, 
breaks  the  smaller  tube,  and  by  the 
mingling  of  the  chemical  ingredients,  a 
flame  is  produced,  which,  through  the 
medium  of  a  small  piece  of  cotton, 
ignites  the  charge  in  the  fuze,  and 
thus,  of  course,  explodes  the  whole. 
The  machine  is  filled  with  powder, 
through  a  hole  in  the  lower  or  conical 
end.  A  screw  fitting  into  this  has  a 
ring,  to  which  is  attached  a  wooden 
block,  and  through  this  is  rove  a  rope 
with  a  large  stone  at  the  end  of  it. 
These  are  the  moorings.  The  rope  is 
shortened  or  lengthened  according  to 
the  depth  of  water  in  which  the 
machine  is  sunk,  so  as  to  leave  it 
floating  at  a  distance  below  the  water, 
where  it  could  come  into  collision  with 
a  ship's  keel  or  bows.  The  machine 
is  said  to  be  an  invention  of  Jacobi, 
an  Italian ;  but  those  used  by  the 
Russians  were  devised  by  a  French- 
man. The  thing  is  ingenious  enough  ; 
but,  like  all  other  devices  for  produc- 
ing a  sub-marine  explosion  by  colli- 
sion, it  is  subject  to  many  mischances 
and  accidents,  and  is  dependent  for 
success  on  so  many  adventitious  cir- 
cumstances, that  failure  must  be  a  com- 
mon, if  not  a  certain,  result.  Those 
we  found  held  only  eight  and  a  half 
pounds  of  powder,  and  it  is  difficult 
to  imagine  that  any  great  effect  could 
have  been  calculated  upon,  from  the 
bursting  of  so  small  a  charge  against 
the  side  of  a  ship  of  any  size. 

The  Russians  had  evidently  exag- 
gerated the  importance  of  this  inven- 
tion, and  it  is  rather  a  pleasant  triumph 
to  fancy  how  the  eager  expectation, 
and  perhaps  savage  exultation,  with 
which  they  awaited  the  coming  disas- 
ter, must  have  changed  into  mortifica- 
tion and  chagrin,  as  they  saw  our 


142 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


ships  sail  proudly  onwards,  and  anchor, 
without  hurt  or  hindrance,  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  destruction  which  had 
been  spread  for  them,  and  how  bitter- 
ly they  must  have  felt  that  so  much 
money,  ingenuity,  and  labour  had 
been  expended  in  vain — that  so  much 
preparation  had  ended  only  in  disap- 
pointment and  failure. 

So  much  for  infernal  machines. 
They  have  proved,  what  every  other 
experiment  of  the  kind  has  proved  be- 
fore, that  no  engine  which  is  not  aprojec- 
tile  can  be  of  much  use  against  ships. 

On  the  mainland,  near  the  line  of 
piles  and  block- ships,  is  a  promon- 
tory, called  Lisi  Nos.  On  this  stands 
a  small  earthwork,  and  from  it  juts 
out  a  long  low  causeway,  connected 
in  part  by  a  bridge,  at  the  extreme 
end  of  which  is  another  battery  of 
eight  guns.  The  northern  defences 
consist,  then,  of  the  earthwork  which 
guards  the  centre  of  the  island,  and 
the  starting-point  of  the  piles  ;  of  the 
succession  of  batteries  which  line  the 
shore,  with  a  fire  of  seventy-five  guns ; 
of  the  fifteen  ships  moored  across  from 
shore  to  shore,  with  the  causeway  of 
Lisi  Nos  as  a  connecting  link  ;  of  the 
advanced  barrier,  and  of  the  flying 
squadron  lying  in  reserve  behind  the 
whole — no  mean  summary. 

Our  survey  is  ended.  From  Ris- 
bank  to  Lisi  Nos,  we  have  traced  the 
details  of  a  plan,  vast,  complete,  and 
perfect — a  plan  which  comprehends 
every  species  of  defence,  which  masters 
every  kind  of  difficulty,  and  anticipates 
every  mode  of  attack — a  plan  admir- 
able in  its  details,  but  more  admirable 
in  its  whole  strength  and  unity. 

Against  such  a  plan,  what  would 
be  the  possibilities  of  attack  ?  An  ad- 
vance by  the  south  channel  was  the 
pet  project  of  the  Brown  and  Jones 
clique,  who  took  Cronstadt  after  din- 
ner. )T  '' 

Is  such  an  attack  among  the  possi- 
bilities ?  Scarcely.  The  chances  and 
probabilities  are  at  least  so  much 
against  it,  that  any  man  who  under- 
took it  would  incur  an  awful  respon- 
sibility. The  difficulties  are  no  ordi- 
nary ones.  We  are  not  among  those 
who  believe  that  ships  are  nought 
against  stone  walls.  We  believe  that, 
under  certain  conditions,  they  can  en- 
gage batteries  on  equal  terms,  and 
even  with  advantage;  but  these  con- 


[Aug. 

ditions  are,  that  the  ships  should  have 
room  enough  to  manoeuvre,  and  depth 
of  water  enough  to  enable  them  to 
anchor  within  at  least  point-blank 
range.  Such  exist  not  at  Cronstadt. 
A  fleet  going  in  to  assail  it  would  be 
compelled,  by  the  narrowness  of  the 
channel,  to  advance  in  line-of-battle 
order;  that  is,  the  ships  following  one 
another  in  single  file,  so  that  each 
would,  in  succession,  run  the  gauntlet 
betwixt  the  forts,  returning  only  its 
own  broadsides,  and  being  thus  ex- 
posed to  great  odds.  In  this  order, 
too,  a  single  disaster — the  sinking,  dis- 
abling, or  stranding  of  one  ship — would 
effectually  obstruct  or  throw  into  con- 
fusion the  whole  force. 

But  supposing  that  certain  ships 
were  first  sent  in  as  an  advanced 
guard  to  engage  Risbank  and  Alex- 
ander, and  that  they  succeeded  in 
silencing  these  forts,  it  is  probable 
that  they  would  be  too  much  crippled 
by  such  an  exploit  to  do  much  more. 
A  reserve  might,  however,  then  dash 
in ;  but  it  would  encounter  such  a  con- 
centration of  fire  in  front  and  flank, 
that  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for 
ships  to  form  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
return  or  resist  it  with  any  effect,  or 
with  any  hope  of  victory.  Defeat, 
annihilation,  or  disaster,  would  inevi- 
tably result  from  such  an  attempt.  It 
is  plain,  then,  that  into  the  only  chan- 
nel which  has  water  enough  for  large 
ships,  large  ships  cannot  go.  Let 
us  see  what  might  be  done  by  vessels 
smaller  and  lighter.  There  are  two 
points  open  to  such  a  force.  First, 
there  is  the  shallow  water  betwixt 
Risbank  and  the  south  shore.  Gun- 
boats and  mortar-vessels  might  pass 
through  this,  and  get  near  enough  to 
shell  ships  and  town,  did  not  the  rear- 
face  of  Risbank,  a  little  fort  we  descry 
behind  it,  and  the  flank  of  Cronslott, 
promise  such  a  reception  as  would 
render  the  enterprise  a  forlorn  hope. 
There  is  a  battery  too  on  the  south 
shore,  and  it  is  said  that  guns  have 
been  mounted  on  the  Oranienbaum 
spit;  but  this  is  not  certain.  Return 
we  to  the  north  side.  This,  last  year, 
was  a  weak  point.  The  enemy  be- 
tray the  fact  by  the  attention  they 
bestow  on  it,  and  the  jealousy  with 
which  they  watch  it.  Since  the  ar- 
rival of  the  allied  fleets,  additions  have 
been  made  to  its  strength.  The  hulks 


1855.] 

have  increased  from  eight  to  fifteen  ; 
batteries  start  up  on  every  little  rock 
or  point,  and  the  gun -boats  seem  to 
rise  in  swarms  from  the  mud.  Last 
year  this  part  was  scarcely  noticed 
or  reconnoitred  !  An  attack,  to  be 
practicable,  even  here,  must  be  un- 
dertaken by  gun- boats  and  mortars. 
Last  year  we  had  none,  or  none  fit- 
ted fur  the  purpose;  this  year  the 
enemy  actually  outnumber  us  in 
that  arm.  How  can  this  be?  Is 
there  a  suspension  of  work  in  our 
yards  ?  Are  our  builders  paralysed 
or  rebellious  ?  Is  there  no  English 
oak?— or  how  comes  it  that  we,  the 
ship-builders  of  the  world,  should  be 
beaten  by  the  enemy  at  our  own 
work  ?  Were  the  question  asked  in 
the  House,  the  voice  of  Red-tapism 
would  repeat  some  plausible  contra- 
diction, or  recount  the  list  of  a  paper 
flotilla,  long  and  vague  as  the  cata- 
logue of  Homer's  ships.  But  the  facts 
are  these, — all,  men,  who  saw  the 
place  last  year,  agreed,  that  the  only 
hope  of  destroying  Cronstadt,  its 
dockyards,  fleet,  or  magazines,  parti- 
ally or  wholly,  was  by  an  attempt  in 
this  quarter  5  that  the  only  force  avail- 
able for  it  was  gun- boats,  and  that 
they  must  be  sent  in  such  numbers  as 
to  overwhelm  and  nullify  any  arma- 
ment of  the  same  description  possessed 
by  the  enemy.  It  would  be  thought 
that  this  was  no  great  demand  on 
England's  energies  or  England's  re- 
sources, and  that  they  would  have 
come  forth  by  hundreds.  Altogether, 
there  are  seventeen  of  these  vessels 
attached  to  the  Baltic  fleet ! !  The 
enemy  shows  twenty -nine  steam,- 
fifty  sailing  and  row  boats,  mak- 
ing a  total  of  seventy-nine.  With 
such  disparity,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  assault  barrier  or  blocks,  in  pre- 
sence of  a  force  possessing  the  same 
advantages,  and  strong  enough  to  be- 
come the  assailant.  How  could  such 
things  be  ?  Where  rests  the  blame  ? 
It  cannot  be  with  our  Government, 
for  they  nightly  proclaim  their  im- 
peccability. Whose  fault  is  it,  then, 
that  England's  best  arm  is  crippled 
from  lack  of  means  ?  Eheu  !  Eheu  ! 
It  is  the  old  story,  repeated  over  and 
over  again,  of  the  wrong  thing  in  the 
wrong  place.  Has  the  curse  of  per- 
verted judgment  and  fatuity  really 
fallen  upon  us  ? 


The  Bailie  in  1855. 


143 


Another  project  was  to  land  troops 
upon  the  island,  and  try  the  chance  of 
a  coup  de  main  on  the  land  side  of  the 
town.  This,  though  risky,  had  a 
feasible  look ;  but  the  debarkation  of 
soldiers  on  such  a  shore,  and  the 
moving  them  in  such  a  space;  the 
strength  of  the  garrison,  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  retreat — all  presented  dif- 
ficulties, which  perhaps  prevented  it 
from  having  serious  military  conside- 
ration. The  enemy  have  anticipated 
such  a  coup  now,  by  drawing  a  chain 
of  redoubts  from  the  earthwork  di- 
rectly across  the  island. 

Is  Cronstadt,  then,  impregnable? 
We  dare  not  call  any  place  so,  with 
the  experience  of  the  past  before  us, 
showing  how  the  strongest  fortresses 
and  most  inaccessible  fastnesses  have 
fallen  before  stratagem,  accident,  or 
daring.  Yet  it  possesses  so  many  of 
the  elements,  and  presents  so  much  the 
appearance  of  impregnability,  as  to 
daunt  any  man  who  wished  not  to 
imperil  the  lives  of  his  countrymen 
and  the  honour  of  his  country  by  a  rash 
and  more  than  doubtful  enterprise, 

We  have  surveyed  Cronstadt,  not 
sketched  it.  There  is  naught  to 
sketch  ;  its  every  feature  is  military; 
its  every  association  and  suggestion 
military  or  political.  In  time  of  peace 
it  might  have  a  dull  and  unattractive 
aspect;  the  eye  might  then  require 
more  prettiness — more  variety;  but 
now,  when  heart  and  mind  are  attuned 
to  the  subject  of  war  and  its  politics, 
it  stands  before  us  a  grand  and  inte- 
resting study.  As  a  military  system 
of  defence,  it  must  command  our  un- 
bounded admiration.  As  we  trace 
the  wonderful  and  skilful  appliances 
of  science  therein ;  as  we  see  how 
every  means  has  been  enlisted,  every 
resource  employed,  every  sacrifice 
made,  every  power  and  invention 
brought  into  action  in  its  construc- 
tion,— we  are  compelled  to  recognise 
and  appreciate  the  skill,  the  foresight 
and  the  forethought,  the  patience, 
the  resolution,  the  perseverance  and 
labour,  which  have  effected  such  re- 
sults. Baffled  as  we  must  feel  our- 
selves to  be,  when  to  our  longing  and 
searching  scrutiny  it  presents  no 
opening,  no  weakness,  no  opportunity 
— when  everywhere  we  detect  the  pre- 
vailing principle,  that  no  point  should 
be  left  to  a  single  defence,  but  that 


144 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


[Aug. 


each  should  be  covered,  backed,  or 
flanked  by  some  other — still  we  must 
feel  also,  mingled  with  our  bitterness, 
a  sort  of  triumph  in  such  perfection 
of  professional  art.  As  a  military  de- 
fence, it  is  indeed  a  grand  effort. 

But  it  has  another  reading  than  the 
military,  and  one  with  a  darker  and 
deeper  meaning.  Heavily  it  looms, 
as  we  think  of  its  object  and  signifi- 
cance— darkly  it  there  stands  out,  as 
a  glyph  of  the  policy  of  dominion  and 
extension,  which  has  moved  onwards 
through  long,  long  years,  sometimes 
stealthily,  sometimes  openly,  some- 
times groping  like  a  mole  under- 
ground, sometimes  leaping  like  a 
tiger,  but  always  progressing,  never 
retrograding  or  standing  still,  save  to 
gain  ground  for  another  leap, — a  policy 
which  ever  based  its  aggression  on 
defence,  which  devised  security  at 
home  ere  it  struck  abroad,  and  made 
home-strength  the  starting-point  of 
foreign  conquest.  In  the  different 
stages  towards  the  completion  of  this 
stronghold  might  be  traced  the  de- 
velopment of  this  system.  Its  first 
erection  aimed  only  at  standing- 
ground  or  equality  among  the  north- 
ern nations ;  then  arose  forts  on  forts 
as  preliminaries  of  conflict  and  supre- 
macy ;  then  came  an  interval ;  and 
then  again,  in  later  days,  the  archi- 
tect, the  engineer,  and  workman  were 
more  busy  than  ever.  In  1847  the 
barrier  of  piles  was  laid  down ;  about 
the  same  time  Risbank  and  Menschi- 
koff  sprang  up.  What  meant  this  ? 
These  were  surely  not  intended  as 
a  safeguard  against  the  northern 
powers,  which  the  policy  had  crushed 
'neath  its  heel  and  trodden  under 
foot.  The  preparations  were  too  great 
to  indicate  a  fear  of  beaten  and  sub- 
dued nationalities ;  it  revealed  an  ap- 
prehension of  attack  from  some  people 
redoubtable  for  their  naval  power  and 
naval  daring.  In  fact,  when  the  po- 
licy of  aggression  resolved  to  stretch 
forth  its  grasp  towards  Turkey,  it  felt 
the  necessity  of  providing  against  the 
contingencies  of  European  movement; 
it  foresaw  that  the  wrath  of  nations 
would  gather  round,  and  anticipated 
the  storm.  Cronstadt  in  its  de- 
fences reveals  more  clearly  than  blue 
book  or  diplomatic  correspondence, 
how  long  the  design,  which  is  now 
shaking  the  destinies  of  Europe,  had 


been  contemplated — how  resolutely 
its  consequences  had  been  calculated, 
and  the  probable  hostility  of  naval 
nations  foreseen.  It  was  a  common 
thing  to  say  that  the  Czar  had  been 
taken  by  surprise  in  this  war.  Where 
are  the  proofs  ?  Have  our  comrades 
discovered  any  symptoms  at  Sebas- 
topol  ?  Are  there  any  here  ?  Every- 
thing speaks  of  preparedness,  readi- 
ness, and  provision.  There  might,  at 
first,  have  been  some  deficiency  in 
details,  but  the  whole  plan  was  well 
matured,  the  material  provided,  and 
it  only  remained  to  proportion  the 
forces  to  the  exigencies  of  the  danger 
or  the  nature  of  the  attack.  This 
war  had  been  long  designed,  long 
prepared  for.  Cronstadt  is  the  best 
commentary — better  than  parliament- 
ary debate  or  political  history — on 
past  and  present  events, — the  best 
exposition  of  the  vital  and  enduring 
principle  of  Russian  policy :  it  shows 
us  what  preparations  for  self-defence 
mean  with  it,  and  warns  us,  for  the 
future,  to  see  in  them  the  sign  of  a 
coming  struggle. 

On  the  31st  of  May,  the  British 
fleet,  consisting  of  twelve  liners,  with 
a  light  squadron  of  screw  frigates  and 
steamers,  anchored  off  the  Tulbuken 
lighthouse,  and  the  next  day  the 
French  admiral,  Penaud,  arrived  with 
three  screw  line-of-battle  ships  and 
one  frigate.  The  enemy  was  known 
to  have  twenty-six  or  twenty- seven 
sail  of  the  line  within  the  harbour ; 
but  this  disparity  in  numbers  was  sup- 
posed to  be  almost,  if  not  quite,  coun- 
terbalanced by  the  advantage  of  the 
screw :  at  any  rate,  it  was  not  enough 
to  tempt  the  Russians  to  accept  our 
challenge.  The  prize  was  too  great 
to  be  lightly  risked  for  the  sake  of 
naval  fame.  They  had  staked  their 
honour  on  successful  defence,  and  were 
content  to  abide  the  issue. 

After  the  usual  reconnoissances,  the 
combined  fleet  retired  for  a  few  days 
to  Leskar,  an  island  distant  about 
thirty  miles  to  the  south-west.  From 
hence  Admiral  Seymour  was  despatch- 
ed to  Narva,  with  two  line-of-battle 
ships  and  two  gun-boats.  Narva,  the 
old  battle-ground  of  Swede  and  Russ, 
lies  in  a  bay  on  the  south  shore.  The 
town  itself  is  built,  at  some  little  dis- 
tance inland,  on  the  banks  of  a  small 
river,  which  runs  into  the  gulf,  and  is 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855. 


145 


too  narrow  at  its  mouth  to  admit  any 
save  small  trading  ships.  The  object 
of  the  expedition  was  to  capture  some 
merchant  vessels  which  had  taken  re- 
fuge within  the  bar  of  the  river.  When 
the  ships  of  war  arrived,  they  found 
that  two  mud  batteries  had  been  erect- 
ed on  either  side  of  its  mouth.  These 
were  bombarded  by  the  Blenheim  and 
two  gun- boats  for  several  hours.  The 
batteries  were  silenced,  and  one  gun 
was  knocked  over  by  a  shot  from  the 
Snap  gun-boat.  No  other  result  fol- 
lowed, and  in  the  evening  the  ships 
returned  to  Leskar. 

Once  more,  on  the  18th  of  June, 
the  allied  fleet  took  up  its  position 
before  Cronstadt,  though  in  a  different 
order — a  squadron  of  five  liners,  under 
Captain  Codrington,  remaining  off  the 
Tulbuken,  whilst  the  main  body  an- 
chored along  the  north  shore,  at  a  dis- 
tance from  it  of  about  three  miles  and 
a  half.  No  movement  has  since  taken 
place,  no  important  alteration  been 
made  in  the  relative  position  of  the 
nssailers  and  the  assailed.  Still  do 
they  exhibit  the  curious  spectacle  of 
two  great  powers  arrayed  face  to  face, 
each  confident  in  its  own  strength, 
yet  each  unable  to  reach  its  foe,  each 
unwilling  to  risk  its  vantage-ground 
by  a  forward  move.  The  war,  there- 
fore, becomes  one  of  watchfulness  and 
demonstration.  The  game  is  high, 
and  must  be  played  cautiously ;  a  false 
move  on  either  side  would  be  fatal. 
We  fear,  however,  that  the  odds  are 
rather  in  favour  of  defence  than  of 
assault;  yet,  whilst  the  allied  flags 
wave  before  Cronstadt,  we  cannot  re- 
sign the  hope  that  some  bold  stroke — 
some  great  opportunity — may  yet  en- 
able us  to  aim  at  a  success  or  a  vic- 


tory. It  would  be  a  proud  lot  to 
chronicle  such  an  exploit. 

Meanwhile,  few  incidents  vary  the 
monotony  of  blockade.  The  destruc- 
tion of  telegraphs  along  the  shore,  the 
appearance  of  a  gun-boat  beyond  the 
barrier,  cause,  now  and  then,  a  slight 
stir.  During  the  last  week,  flags  of 
truce  have  been  passing  to  and  fro, 
bearing  diplomatic  explanations  of  the 
bloody  episode  at  Hango.  Vainly, 
however,  does  the  Russian  govern- 
ment strive,  by  subterfuge  and  eva- 
sion, to  palliate  or  justify  it.  It  was 
a  savage  deed,  unworthy  of  civilised 
warfare,  and,  as  such,  must  for  ever 
stand  on  record  against  them. 

The  arrival  of  Admiral  Baynes's 
squadron  has  now  increased  the  Brit- 
ish fleet  to  nineteen  liners,  seventeen 
gun-boats,  and  sixteen  mortar-vessels, 
exclusive  of  the  light  squadron — truly 
a  magnificent  armament,  worthy  of 
the  power  and  the  pride  of  England  ; 
but,  unfortunately,  it  is  strong  where 
it  might  be  weak,  weak  where  it 
should  be  strong; — strong  in  large 
ships,  which  are  of  little  use,  weak  in 
the  light  force,  which,  well  handled  and 
applied  in  sufficient  strength  to  a  joint 
attack  by  the  north  side  and  the  shal- 
low channel  betwixt  Risbank  and  the 
south  shore,  might  yet  hail  destruc- 
tion on  the  ships  and  dockyards  which 
lie  ensconced  in  such  apparent  security. 
Our  survey  has  brought  us  now  to  the 
end  of  the  Gulf :  another  time  we  may 
make  a  circuit  and  track  the  Finnish 
coast,  taking  a  peep  at  Helsingfors 
and  Abo.  Ere  then  we  trust  some 
deed  of  fame  may  shine  on  our  narra- 
tive—  some  event  occur  which  an 
Englishman  may  be  proud  to  record, 
and  Englishmen  be  proud  to  read. 


BALTIC  FLEET,  OFF  CRONSTA.DT,  IQth  July  1855. 


146 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


ZAlbEEl    A   ROMANCE. 


PART  IX. — BOOK    III. 


CHAPTER  I. — A   NEW   HOME. 


THE  mysterious  ocean -tide  has 
sent  its  impulse  into  the  full-flooded 
Thames  far  above  the  sea ;  the  low 
branches  dip  into  the  stream,  and  the 
willows  stand  up  to  their  knees  in  it, 
waving  their  long  tresses  upon  the 
dark  water  which  mocks  at  the  sun- 
shine. From  one  side  to  another  the 
river  swells  full  with  a  great  throb  of 
life  and  vigour  in  its  expanded  heart. 
So  deep  these  depths  look  under  the 
rounded  curve  of  this  overflowing  sur- 
face, which  the  sunshine  vainly  tries 
to  penetrate — so  cool  with  the  green 
shadow  of  those  waving  willows  on 
them,  and  the  tender  quiver  of  those 
slanting  rays  which  shine  from  the 
west.  The  sky  has  but  a  speck  or 
two  of  white  upon  it,  to  break  the  pale 
and  luminous  blue  of  the  great  arch  ; 
but  over  the  other  bank  you  can  see 
a  glimpse  of  how  the  clouds  have 
gathered  to  that  grand  ceremonial  of 
sunset  which  is  about  to  be  accom- 
plished yonder.  In  the  mean  time, 
however,  a  lingering  tender  smile  of 
light  is  on  the  river  and  its  trees. 
Though  he  will  see  them  all  to- 
morrow, the  sun  is  loth  to  part  with 
these  companions  whom  he  loves  so 
well  to  embellish  and  caress ;  and  the 
glory  with  which  he  touches  this 
broad  water  ere  he  leaves  it,  is  like 
the  smile  of  a  full  heart.  It  is  even- 
ing on  the  Thames ;  there  is  scarcely 
a  breath  astir  to  flutter  the  willow- 
leaves,  but  there  is  a  musical  hum  of 
home-coming  and  rest,  in  the  sweet 
fragrant  air,  which  is  full  of  this  pen- 
sive and  tender  smiling  of  the  sun. 
From  these  beautiful  English  lawns 
and  gardens  which  stretch  to  the 
water's  edge,  you  can  hear  the  voices 
of  home  enjoyment,  young  tones  and 
sweet ;  and  the  wide  country  beyond, 
which  is  not  visible  from  this  charmed 
river,  throws  in  a  far-away  cadence — 
a  tribute  of  sound  to  the  stream  that 
blesses  it,  since  of  beauty  he  has 
no  need.  Wherries  now  and  then, 
slim  and  swift  like  greyhounds,  shoot 
up  or  down  along  the  olive-com- 


plexioned  current ;  and  by-and-by 
there  will  come  a  river  steamer  full 
of  pleasure- seekers,  which  will  do  no 
harm  to  the  landscape.  If  it  is  your 
hap  to  be  in  this  common  convey- 
ance, take  heed  that  you  dp  not  envy 
these  pretty  houses  coyly  withdrawing 
among  their  trees — those  fortunate 
people  who  dwell  beside  the  quiet 
waters,  and  see  the  willows  dipping 
in  the  river  with  every  tide  that  rises 
— or  you  may  chance  to  break  the 
peace  of  the  subject  of  our  story,  at 
present  looking  out,  and  unconscious 
of  envy,  upon  this  noble  stream. 

The  lawn  reaches  down  to  a  shel- 
tered nook,  a  little  bay,  beyond  which 
the  bank  projects,  protecting  this 
sunny  corner.  Two  great  willow- 
trees,  throwing  their  branches  to- 
gether in  an  arch,  stand  a  little  way 
into  the  water,  making,  with  their 
twisted  trunks  and  forest  of  pale 
leaves  overhead,  and  with  great 
branches  sweeping  on  the  river,  sup- 
plementary arches  on  either  side — as 
noble  a  Watergate  as  nature  ever 
made  with  trees.  The  water  ripples 
past  these  living  pillars,  and  with  a 
playful  hand  salutes  the  smooth  green 
turf  which  creeps  to  its  very  edge. 
This  turf  is  broken  with  nothing  but 
daisies;  there  are  no  intrusive  geo- 
metrical figures  cut  into  its  velvet 
sward,  and  you  pass  nothing  but  one 
beautiful  youthful  acacia  till  you 
come  to  the  house.  The  house  does 
not  pretend  much  in  its  own  person ; 
it  is  nothing  but  a  spectator  of  the 
scene,  looking  out  night  and  day  with 
its  many  eyes  on  the  sunlight  and  the 
moonlight  and  all  the  changes  of  the 
river,  and  is  sober-suited  and  modest 
as  a  spectator  should  be,  doing  no- 
thing to  break  the  harmony  of  nature, 
though  not  much  increasing  its  beauty. 
At  one  side  is  a  great  bow-window, 
from  which,  by  a  single  marble  step, 
you  can  descend  to  the  grassy  terrace 
which  forms  the  upper  lawn,  and 
within  this  bow -window  you  can 
catch  glimpses  of  white  muslin  gowns 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


147 


and  ribbons.  There  are  other  spec- 
tators than  the  house  itself,  looking 
out  upon  the  river ;  and  the  great 
window  is  open,  and  the  sweet  air 
flows  in  without  let  or  hindrance, 
where  we  too  follow,  invisible  as  the 
air. 

The  room  is  large,  and  full  of  soft- 
ened light.  We  are  looking  at  the 
sunset  smile  upon  the  river,  but  we 
ourselves  have  lost  it  here — and  the 
sky  looking  in  at  the  windows  behind 
grows  paler  and  paler  toward  the 
rising  of  the  moon.  There  is  a  large 
mirror  on  the  wall  reflecting  every- 
thing; and  its  background  of  white 
curtains  and  waving  branches,  the 
pretty  furniture  standing  about  in  its 
shadowy  world,  and  the  figures  that 
come  and  go  upon  it,  make  the  great 
shining  surface  more  interesting  than 
any  picture.  Looking  into  it,  you 
can  see  the  river  with  its  bending 
willows,  its  boats  and  its  sunbeams  ; 
you  can  see  the  white  petals  of  the 
acacia-blossom  flutter  down  upon  the 
grass.  The  world  without  and  the 
world  within  live  in  its  calm  reflec- 
tion ;  and  you  think  of  the  lady  of 
the  ballad  and  her  charmed  existence, 
the  mystic  towers  of  Camelot  burning 
in  the  sunshine,  and  the  little  boat 
swaying  on  the  stream,  when  you 
look  into  the  mirror  on  the  wall. 

It  is  so  large,  and  hangs  so  low 
upon  the  wall,  that  this  mirror  is  the 
great  feature  of  the  apartment,  which 
for  the  rest  is  only  a  handsome  draw- 
ing-room, furnished  as  it  is  a  necessity 
for  handsome  drawing-rooms  to  be. 
Wealth  and  profusion,  a  taste  slightly 
foreign,  and  a  good  deal  of  fanciful 
embellishment,  are  visible  every  where. 
The  room  is  almost  as  full  as  Mrs  Jane 
Williams'  little  room  was  at  Ulm, 
and  evidences  of  modern  dilettantism 
are  crowded  within  its  walls.  There 
is  a  cabinet  of  antiquities  at  one 
corner,  a  case  of  brilliant  insects  in 
another.  One  table  is  laden  to  over- 
flowing with  photographs  and  daguer- 
reotypes, all  more  or  less  defective, 
and  all  taken  by  the  active  master  of 
this  houso  in  his  own  person ;  while 
another  table,  solemnly  standing  apart, 
and  encumbered  with  no  ornaments, 
is  a  table  by  which  the  same  inquiring 
mind  anxiously  endeavours  to  estab- 
lish a  correspondence  with  the  in- 
visible world.  It  performs  a  little 


waltz  now  and  then  at  the  behest  of  its 
master,  this  gifted  piece  of  rosewood, 
but  cannot  be  persuaded  to  make  any 
coherent  communications,  earnestly 
though  it  is  solicited.  There  are 
phrenological  heads,  too,  adorning 
little  brackets  and  pedestals ;  there 
a^-e  casts  of  notorious  villains  and 
philosophers,  murderers  and  kings ; 
there  are  models  of  aerial  machines 
and  diabolical  projectiles — all,  you 
will  say,  very  unsuitable  for  a  draw- 
ing-room. It  is  very  true;  but  Mr 
Cumberland  is  a  family  man,  and  does 
not  love  the  seclusion  of  his  library, 
which  in  consequence  is  sacred  only 
to  wrecked  and  discarded  relics  of 
fancies  past.  He  has  been  a  bota- 
nist and  a  geologist,  has  set  up  a 
mammoth  on  his  grounds,  and  built 
a  palace  for  a  Victoria  Regia  since  he 
came  to  England;  but  these  were 
rational  diversions,  and  did  not  satisfy 
Mr  Cumberland.  An  infinite  quantity 
of  bubbles  have  risen  and  burst  to  the 
eyes  of  our  philosopher  since  we  left 
him.  At  this  present  period  he  is 
deeply  engaged  with  the  extremely 
mystical  subject  of  "  spiritual  mani- 
festations," which  promises  to  out- 
live its  predecessors,  since  success 
does  not  seem  disposed  to  come,  to 
weary  the  experimenter  with  his  new 
toy. 

A  windowed  recess  at  the  other 
end  of  the  room,  where  the  morning 
sun  comes  in,  is  filled  with  an  em- 
broidery frame,  with  a  pretty  footstool, 
and  the  easiest  of  easy-chairs.  It  is 
here  Aunt  Burtonshaw  loves  to  sit, 
commanding  all  the  room,  and  bright- 
ening it  with  the  face  which  is  older, 
but  no  less  cheerful  than  when  we 
saw  it  last.  But  the  embroidery  is 
covered  up  at  this  moment,  and  the 
corner  is  vacant.  There  are  only  two 
youthful  personages  in  possession  of 
the  apartment,  and  both  of  them  are 
close  by  the  great  bow -window, 
watching  the  sunshine  gliding  off  the 
full  river,  and  disappearing  ray  by  ray 
into  the  glowing  west. 

The  soft  white  muslin  draperies 
press  together,  and  the  hand  of  one 
rests  upon  the  other's  shoulder ;  but 
this  one  is  standing  with  a  book  in 
her  hand,  and  smiling  as  she  reads. 
It  is  not  a  very  weighty  volume  which 
weighs  down  the  hand  of  Mary  Cum- 
berland ;  it  is  a  slim  brochure,  whether 


148 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


in  a  green  or  yellow  cover  deponent 
saith  not,  but  you  may  be  sure  it  is 
one  or  other,  our  wicked  wit  or  our 
gentler  genius,  whose  pages  beguile  one 
of  those  friends  out  of  the  twilight 
talk  which  is  so  pleasant  to  both. 
Mary  has  not  grown  very  tall  in  these 
seven  years ;  they  have  made  her  'a 
woman,  two-and-twenty  years  old — 
a  pretty  woman — a  Hebe  of  young 
bloom  and  healthful  spirit ;  but  they 
have  made  no  great  change  in  Mary, 
further  than  in  gathering  up  her  thick 
curls  behind  after  a  more  womanly 
fashion,  and  making  her  natural  self- 
dependence  more  seemly  and  more 
natural.  Her  well-formed  features, 
her  beautiful  English  complexion,  her 
well-opened  blue  eyes,  which  have 
still  some  derision  in  them,  and  a  great 
deal  of  good  sense  and  shrewd  intelli- 
gence, are  as  they  were — and  the  hand 
that  rests  on  her  companion's  shoulder 
is  white  and  dimpled  and  delicate, 
and  Mary's  red  lips  open  in  their 
sweet  laughter  on  the  whitest  pearly 
little  teeth  in  the  world.  In  the  ful- 
ness of  her  womanhood,  yet  still  with 
the  freedom  of  a  girl,  Mary  Cumber- 
land stands  before  the  open  window 
reading,  with  her  head  slightly  bent, 
her  hand  leaning  on  her  friend,  and 
you  can  see  her  pretty  figure  in  its 
white  robes,  and  its  unconscious  ease 
and  grace  of  attitude,  reflected  full  in 
the  mirror  on  the  wall. 

It  is  easy  to  identify  Mary,  but  it 
is  not  so  easy  to  make  out  who  this  is 
who  sits  within  the  open  window — the 
companion  on  whom  she  leans  ;  also  a 
woman,  yet  a  little  younger  in  actual 
life,  with  a  heart  at  once  younger  and 


older,  full  of  knowledge  which  Mary 
knows  not  of,  yet  of  a  simplicity  and 
universal  faith,  which  Mary  was  never 
child  enough  to  know,  looking  through 
those  wonderful  dark  eyes.  This  is 
not  Zaidee  Vivian,  brown  and  angu- 
lar; this  is  not  Elizabeth  Francis, 
forlorn  and  dependent,  but  a  magni- 
ficent beauty  of  the  loftiest  order — a 
natural-born  princess  and  lady,  born 
to  a  dominion  greater  than  the  Grange, 
Her  white  robes  mingle  in  their  soft 
folds  with  her  friend's;  her  beautiful 
hair,  half  fallen  out  of  its  braid,  droops 
upon  Mary's  hand ;  her  own  hands  are 
clasped  together,  and  she  leans  upon 
them  this  soft  fair  cheek,  with  its  faint 
blush  of  colour,  and  watches  with  eyes 
full  of  sweet  thoughts  how  the  tender 
light  recedes  upon  the  stream.  You 
will  say  she  is  thinking  perhaps,  but 
she  is  not  thinking  ;  it  is  the  idlest  of 
reveries  which  wraps  its  mist  about 
the  mind  of  Zaidee.  She  is  only  trac- 
ing the*  parting  light  from  point  to 
point— how  it  glides  from  the  edge  of 
a  bough,  and  steals  away  from  those 
wooing  ripples  in  the  river;  how,  find- 
ing a  crevice  in  the  foliage,  it  throws 
down  a  stealthy  smile  of  kindness 
within  the  gateway  of  those  willows ; 
and  how  the  pliant  branches  stretch 
along  the  stream  to  catch  the  latest 
farewell  of  this  lingering  light.  Zaidee 
follows  the  ray  with  her  eyes,  as  it 
mounts  from  the  surface  of  the  water 
in  a  longer  and  longer  slant  of  depart- 
ing glory.  She  is  not  thinking;  neither 
words  nor  call  would  be  an  interrup- 
tion to  her;  her  mind  is  only  winding 
its  fancies  playfully  about  the  waning 
light. 


CHAPTER  II. — THE  WAT  BEFOEE  US. 


"Now,  away  with  you,  you  ro- 
mancer," said  Mary  Cumberland,  toss- 
ing the  book  upon  the  table.  "What 
are  you  thinking  of,  Elizabeth?  I 
feel  as  if  I  could  not  be  glad  enough 
that  we  have  got  a  home  at  last." 

"And  by  the  river,  Mary,"  said 
her  companion. 

"And  by  the  river ;  but  perhaps  I 
do  not  care  so  much  for  the  river  as 
you  do.  I  do  care  for  home — and  since 
we  left  Ulm — I  shall  always  have  a 
kind  heart  to  Ulm,  Lizzy,  it  was  there 
we  met  each  other  first— we  have 


wandered  so  long.  I  like  to  take  a 
firm  hold  of  what  is  mine.  I  do  not 
care  to  go  into  raptures  over  other 
people's  pleasures ;  and  papa  has 
really  bought  this  house,  and  it  is  ours 
— really  ours  ;  but  I  should  rather  it 
was  to  be  your  house,  Elizabeth, 
than  mine." 

"It  can  never  be  my  house,  though,'7 
said  Zaidee,  looking  up  with  a  smile. 

"  Why  not?  I  am  sure  they  like 
you  quite  as  well  as  they  like  me ; 
indeed,  to  tell  the  truth,  you  have 
been  a  better  daughter  to  them,"  said 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


149 


Mary  Cumberland,  with  a  blush. 
"  Papa  must  leave  it  to  you ;  I  will 
tell  him  so.  I  should  not  care  for  it 
so  much  as  you  would."  . 

"  Why  should  he  leave  it  to  any 
one  ?  "  said  Zaidee.  "  We  all  have 
it  together ;  we  live  in  it,  and  it  belongs 
to  us  all.  You  are  not  to  think  of  any 
change," 

"No,"  said  Mary,  dubiously.  "No," 
she  repeated,  after  a  pause ;  "  but  you 
know  it  would  be  foolish  not  to  con- 
fess that  there  may  be  changes,"  con- 
tinued Mary,  with  a  slight  and  mo- 
mentary embarrassment.  "  I  suppose 
we  are  not  to  be  at  home  all  our  lives. 
I  suppose  people  are  obliged  to  get 
houses  of  their  own,  you  know,  some- 
times, and  cannot  always  be  living 
with  a  papa  and  a  mamma." 

Zaidee  turned  unmoved  towards 
her  companion,  and  it  was  evident 
she  was  not  the  person  referred  to. 
She  looked  up  to  Mary  with  a  little 
anxiety.  "  I  want  you  to  tell  me," 
said  Zaidee.  "  They  speak  of  Sylvo 
so  often.  Will  you — will  you  marry 
Sylvo,  Mary?" 

Mary  turned  on  her  heel  abruptly, 
but  after  a  moment  came  back  again. 
14  Will  it  be  something  very  dreadful 
if  I  do? "  said  Mary,  shaking  her  curls 
about  her  ears  to  hide  a  burning  colour, 
which  was  not  the  blush  of  happy 
maidenly  shame. 

"  No,"  said  Zaidee,  and  it  was  now 
her  turn  to  hesitate — "  no,  indeed  ;  I 
like  him  very  well,"  was  the  final 
conclusion  she  made,  after  a  long 
pause. 

"  But—"  said  Mary  Cumberland. 
u  Oh,  I  know  very  well  what  but  you 
would  say,  Lizzy,"  cried  her  friend, 
suddenly  kneeling  down  beside  her; 
"  he  is  not  like  me,  and  I  do  not  care 
for  him,  and  a  hundred  other  things. 
How  can  I  help  it,  then  ?  I  suppose 
he  is  just  as  good  as  other  men.  They 
are  all  like  the  trees  in  a  wood.  You 
know  an  oak  from  a  birch,  for  you 
were  brought  up  among  them,  but  I 
can  never  tell  any  difference.  I  do 
not  care  for  any  one  out  of  this  house. 
I  am  afraid  I  do  not  love  any  one  very 
much,  but  Aunt  Burtonshaw  and  you. 
If  it  must  be,  why  should  it  not  be 
Sylvo  ?  I  cannot  help  myself." 

There  was  a  little  silence  after  that, 
jiml  they  sat  looking  out,  the  two 
heads  close  together,  on  the  full  stream, 


which  began  to  glimmer  darkly  in  the 
waning  evening  light.  After  a  long 
pause  Mary  spoke  again. 

"It  used  to  be  an  old  Utopia  of 
mine,  when  I  was  quite  a  girl,"  said 
Mary,  drawing  close  to  her  friend,  and 
speaking  very  low —  "  after  all  the 
trials  I  have  had,  Elizabeth,  with  my 
own  mind,  and  with  other  people,  I 
used  to  think,  if  ever  I  was  married,  it 
would  only  be  to  a  wise  man — a  wise 
man,  a  true  man,  Lizzy — some  one 
that  might  be  respected  to  the  very 
heart.  I  don't  know  all  your  rubbish 
about  love ;  I  don't  understand  it,  you 
know ;  but  I  should  like  to  honour 
him — that  is  what  I  want  to  do.  Am 
I  not  very  foolish?  I  say  what  I 
want  to  do,  yet  I  know  I  shall  never 
do  it  all  my  life." 

"I  would  if  I  were  you,"  said 
Zaidee,  quickly. 

"Would  you?"  cried  Mary,  and 
Mary  clapped  her  hands,  springing 
up  with  sudden  mirth  and  delight. 
"  Marry  Sylvo,  then,  Lizzy  !  do !  I 
will  thank  you  all  my  life.  He  is  a 
very  good  fellow,  and  he  will  be  very 
glad,  I  am  sure ;  and  if  you  would 
honour  him,  why,  you  might  be  very 
happy,  and  set  everything  right." 

But  Zaidee  only  smiled  as  she  raised 
her  stooping  head  in  its  unconscious 
grace.  "He  is  very  good  and  very 
kind,  poor  Sylvo,"  cried  Zaidee ;  "he 
ought  to  have  some  one  who  cares  for 
him,  Mary— not  you  nor  me." 

"He  ought !  "  cried  Sylvo's  elected 
bride.  "I  think  he  would  be  very 
well  off,  begging  your  pardon,  prin- 
cess. I  confess  I  was  only  thinking  of 
myself,"  said  Mary,  ruefully,  after 
another  little  pause.  "I  wish  you 
would  let  me  be  content,  Elizabeth ;  I 
am  quite  content.  He  is  as  good  as 
any  one  else :  everybody  wishes  it ; 
and  .then  I  am  growing  too  old  for 
Utopias.  I  might  be  thinking  of  obe- 
dience, perhaps,  who  knows,  if  I  came 
so  far  as  honour,  and  that  would  not 
answer  me;  and  after  I  have  accom- 
plished my  sacrifice,  Lizzy,  then  it 
will  be  your  turn." 

"My  turn?"  Zaidee's  smile  ran 
into  a  little  quiet  laugh.  "  It  will  be 
time  enough  when  somebody  asks  me. 
Mary." 

So  it  would— that  was  undeniable, 
and  both  the  girls  marvelled  over  this 
a  little  silently  within  themselves. 


150 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


Zaidee  was  no  longer  Miss  Francis, 
Mary's  companion,  but  Miss  Eliza- 
beth Cumberland,  the  adopted  daugh- 
ter of  the  house.  This  honour  had 
been  procured  for  her  by  the  inadvert- 
ent compliment  of  a  stranger,  who, 
ignorant  that  one  of  the  two  young 
ladies  he  saw  was  not  the  child  of  the 
family,  had  complimented  Mrs  Cum- 
berland on  her  beautiful  daughter's 
resemblance  to  herself.  Mrs  Cum- 
berland was  greatly  complimented  by 
this,  for  Zaidee's  growing  beauty  was 
already  the  pride  of  the  household,  and 
it  was  but  a  small  trial  to  the  young  exile 
to  part  a  second  time  with  her  name. 
Thus  her  position  was  greatly  changed 
in  every  way,  and  indeed  it  was  only 
the  friends  of  the  family  who  were 
aware  that  she  was  not  in  reality 
the  daughter  of  those  kind  and  whim- 
sical people.  But  in  spite  of  this, 
and  in  spite  of  her  unusual  beauty,  it 
was  certain  that  Zaidee  had  not  yet 
met,  in  her  own  person,  with  the 
usual  romance  of  youth.  Mrs  Cum- 
berland's experience  in  woman's  heart 
had  deceived  her,  as  it  happened. 
Zaidee  had  neither  loved  nor  grieved 
after  the  fashion  which  her  patroness 
predicted  for  her:  her  "  fate"  had 
not  appeared  yet  out  of  the  heavens  ; 
and  while  Mary's  suitors  had  been 
many,  Zaidee,  one-and-twenty  years 
old,  had  none.  She  was  slightly 
surprised  at  this  herself,  it  must  be 
confessed :  she  had  no  thought  of  her 
own  beauty,  but  still  wondered  a  little 
at  her  exemption  from  the  universal 
lot.  She  was  fancy-free,  in  the  widest 
sense  of  the  word  ;  she  had  only  her 
own  sweet  pure  thoughts  for  her  com- 
panions, as  she  went  and  came  in  her 
daily  course,  and  never  yet  had  ap- 
proached in  the  most  distant  way  the 
great  question  of  young  life. 

"  We  are  to  meet  some  very  dis- 
tinguished people,  Lizzy,"  cried  Mary 
Cumberland,  "  where  we  are  going 
to-morrow— not  people  of  rank,  you 
know,  but  people  who  are  very  fatigu- 
ing, notwithstanding,  —  authors  and 
artists  arid  people  of  science,  and  I 
am  not  sure  that  there  is  not  a  patriot. 
You  ought  to  go  rather  than  me  :  it 
pleases  you,  and  I  am  so  weary  of 
papa's  nonsense;  I  mean  of  papa's 
philosophy — I  don't  mean  anything 
undutiful— it  is  quite  the  same." 

"  But  it  does  not  please  me  very 


much,"  said  Zaidee,  with  a  reserva- 
tion. "  I  do  not  think  I  care  for 
philosophy  either;  but  you  will  like 
it  when  you  go." 

"  Well,  now,  when  Sylvo  talks,  he 
talks  of  things,"  said  Mary  Cumber- 
land, musingly  ;  "  it  is  not  of  this 
one's  poem  or  that  one's  sonnet.  I 
like  gossip  better.  I  like  to  hear  of 
who  is  born,  and  who  is  married, 
rather  than  of  verses  which  are  '  nice,' 
and  stories  which  are  not  appreciated. 
Nobody  sends  Sylvo  a  poem  to  criti- 
cise, nobody  thinks  of  asking  his  opi- 
nion on  a  work  of  art.  When  Sylvo 
is  excited,  it  must  be  about  something 
that  has  happened — it  is  sure  not  to 
be  about  a  new  book ;  and  that  is  far 
best  for  me,  Elizabeth.  It  is,  indeed, 
I  can  tell  you.  I  like  everything  to 
be  true." 

"  Do  you  see  the  moon  ?  "  said 
Zaidee. 

"  Do  I  see  the  moon  ?  But  that  is 
not  answering  me.  The  moon  is  be- 
hind the  house  yonder,  shining  upon 
papa's  table  that  he  keeps  for  the 
spirits.  Suppose  it  should  dance  along 
to  us  now,  it  would  convert  me,  I 
think ;  but  I  am  speaking  of  Syl- 
vo, Elizabeth,  and  you  speak  of  the 
moon." 

"  Because  I  see  her  yonder  glim- 
mering on  the  river,"  said  Zaidee. 
"  I  think  there  is  many  a  thing  true 
besides  being  born  and  being  married. 
Dying,  too,  that  is  truest  of  all ;  but 
stories  are  made  of  these  things, 
Mary,  as  well  as  life." 

"  I  cannot  help  it.  I  am  hopeless, 
I  suppose,"  said  Mary,  shrugging  her 
shoulders.  "  You  can  listen  yet,  by 
the  hour,  to  Jane  and  her  tales.  I  can 
bear  Jane.  I  like  gossip  very  much — 
it  is  a  great  refreshment  to  me — and 
so  do  you  ;  but  I  cannot  bear  to  hear 
a  parcel  of  stupid  verses  gravely  dis- 
cussed, as  if  they  were  things  far  more 
important  than  common  life.  Aunt 
Burtonshaw  is  worth  all  the  authors 
in  the  world ;  they  think  their  inven- 
tion is  quite  an  improvement  on  Pro- 
vidence. I  can  tolerate  Sylvo,  Eliza- 
beth. I  can  put  up  with  him;  he  is 
just  as  good  as  any  other;  but  if  mam- 
ma, by  chance,  had  lighted  on  some 
famous  author  for  me — some  distin- 
guished person,  some  genius !  I  ought 
to  be  very  thankful.  I  could  never 
have  tolerated  that ! " 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


151 


And  Mary,  shrugging  her  shoulders 
once  more,  complained  of  the  cold, 
and  left  the  window,  to  ring  the  bell 
for  lights.  A  low  night -wind  had 
crept  upon  the  river,  crisping  its 
flooded  surface  into  rippling  waves, 
and  the  moonlight  shone  and  glisten- 
ed upon  it,  clearing  a  little  circle  of 
silvery  light  and  motion  from  the 
dark  surface  of  the  stream.  The 
breeze  sighed  through  the  gateway  of 
those  willow  trees,  the  hush  of  night 
came  down  upon  land  and  water. 
Specks  of  light  came  glittering  into 
the  windows  of  the  scattered  houses 
on  the  banks.  Zaidee  was  content  to 


sit  there  at  her  post,  while  Mary 
wandered  about  the  room,  singing  as 
she  went,  waiting  for  light  to  take  her 
book  again.  Zaidee  was  idle  in  her 
calm  of  heart.  Sun  and  moon  went 
over  her  as  they  went  over  the  river  ; 
she  lost  her  time,  as  a  mind  at  ease  is 
glad  to  lose  it,  watching  all  those  slow 
gradations,  those  changes  so  softly 
blended  into  each  other  which  passed 
upon  the  sky :  it  was  but  a  confined 
bit  of  sky,  with  all  those  branches 
throwing  across  it  their  pleasant  in- 
terruption ;  but  it  was  doubled  on  the 
river,  and  it  was  quite  enough  for  the 
tranquillity  of  Zaidee's  dream. 


CHAPTER   III. — MAIDEN   MEDITATIONS. 


The  sun  has  risen  again  upon  a 
cloudless  summer -day,  and  has  shone 
unweariedly  all  the  morning  and 
through  the  noon  upon  the  glowing 
Thames.  Boats  have  been  passing 
upon  the  river,  and  a  continual  flush 
and  glory  of  sunbeams  has  given  ani- 
mation to  all  the  scene.  The  willows 
throw  their  shadows  upon  the  water ; 
the  water,  which  since  last  night  has 
somewhat  retreated,  makes  playful 
rushes  at  their  uncovered  feet ;  under 
the  acacia  the  wind  blows  cool  and 
fresh,  dropping  the  blossoms  upon 
Zaidee's  hair.  Mary  has  just  gone 
with  her  father  and  mother  to  the 
party  of  "  distinguished  people,"  for 
it  is  a  summer  daylight  party,  a  de- 
jeuner, which  last  night  she  anticipat- 
ed so  ruefully,  and  Zaidee  has  been  left 
at  home  to  receive  Aunt  Burtoushaw, 
who  is  to  return  with  her  son  from  Syl- 
vo's  "  place"  to-day. 

All  by  herself  under  the  acacia, 
with  the  white  blossoms  dropping  on 
her  hair,  Zaidee  sits  in  her  idle  mood, 
her  calm  of  heart  and  thought ;  behind 
her  the  great  bow-window  is  open, 
and  Mary's  pretty  bouquet  lies  on  the 
marble  step,  where  Mary  dropped  it 
in  her  haste.  The  room  is  vacant 
within,  and  the  great  silent  mirror 
takes  cognisance  of  every  movement 
of  that  beautiful  figure  on  the  lawn, 
of  every  waving  bend  of  the  foliage 
above  her,  and  every  petal  it  sheds 
upon  her  head.  Zaidee's  mind  is  like 
the  mirror,  silent,  open,  calm,  reflect- 
ing everything  about  her  with  a  pass- 
ive observation.  The  river  flows 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVIII. 


through  her  dream,  the  sun  shines  in 
it,  the  willows  rustle  on  the  silver 
wave.  Through  the  arch  of  those 
long  drooping  boughs  glimpses  of  the 
opposite  bank  and  of  the  sky  come 
in,  to  connect  the  populated  earth  and 
the  great  heaven  with  this  fairy 
scene.  She  is  not  doing  anything. 
She  wants  her  eyes,  but  she  does  not 
want  her  mind,  in  this  sweet  quiet  of 
hers.  There  is  a  book  upon  the  grass, 
but  Mary,  and  notZaidee,  has  brought 
it  there.  The  running  of  the  great 
river  is  music  and  story  together  to 
this  girl.  She  wants  no  further  oc- 
cupation ;  if  any  far-sighted  neigh- 
bour ventures  to  criticise,  she  wots  not 
of  it  in  her  pleasant  self-forgetting. 
Zaidee  is  quite  alone — so  much  alone, 
that  neither  the  past  nor  the  future 
are  with  her.  She  is  pausing  on  the 
present  moment,  idle,  acquiescent, 
solitary,  in  a  sweet  reverie  of  musing, 
without  thought. 

For  Zaidee's  young  life  has  out- 
worn the  past.  Fresh  in  her  recollec- 
tion^ succession  of  strange  scenes,  in 
which  she  can  hardly  believe  herself 
the  principal  actor,  are  those  days 
and  months  of  struggle  and  suffering 
with  which  the  poor  child  accomplish- 
ed her  innocent  sacrifice.  Now  it  is 
so  long  accomplished,  that  all  that 
flush  of  girlish  heroism  which  carried 
her  through  the  trouble  of  the  time, 
has  fallen  back  to  a  shadow  in  her 
memory.  Only  one  thing  is  warm  in 
her  heart— an  unknown  and  pent-up 
force,  which  will  never  get  issue,  as 
she  believes— her  love  for  her  old 


152 


Zaidee :  a,  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


home,  and  all  who  are  in  it.  Zaidee% 
heart  beats  high  when  she  hears  the 
name  of  Vivian;  her  cheek  flushes 
when  she  reads  her  father's  and  his 
father's  name — silent  witnesses  to  her 
relinquished  right  to  bear  her  own ; 
and  her  busy  imagination  will  some- 
times still  exhaust  itself  with  wonders 
and  schemes  to  make  herself  Zaidee 
Vivian  once  more.  Sometimes,  too, 
she  dreams  of  meeting  with  her  own 
friends  in  her  disguised  name  and 
strange  position,  and  wonders  if  any 
shadow  of  recognition  would  come  to 
them  when  they  saw  her.  But  she 
has  heard  nothing  of  them  since  she 
left  the  Grange;  they  have  been  dead 
to  her,  as  she  has  been  dead  to  them, 
for  all  these  years.  She  knows  none 
of  the  great  changes  which  have  come 
upon  the  household,  nor  could  believe 
how  they  take  account  of  her  in  all 
their  family  doings,  nor  what  a  mar- 
vellous revolution  that  will  of  Grand- 
father Vivian's,  which  in  her  simple 
heart  she  believes  to  have  rendered 
harmless,  has  wrought  in  the  ancient 
family  home.  The  secresy  with  which 
she  has  been  obliged  to  surround  her 
private  history  has  given  a  strong  and 
vivid  force  to  the  leading  features  of 
her  life.  As  dearly  as  ever,  and  with  a 
pensive  visionary  tenderness  as  we 
love  the  dead,  does  Zaidee  love  her 
lost  friends  ;  and  with  a  proud  thrill, 
every  time  she  uncovers  her  Bible,  she 
feels  the  inheritance  which  father  and 
grandfather  have  left  to  her.  But  Zai- 
dee's  memory  has  retained  only  these 
leading  principles ;  it  has  not  retained 
its  first  dread  of  discovery,  its  first 
agony  of  sorrow  :  her  young  fair  life 
is  freed  of  its  bondage— she  has  not  re- 
linquished all  human  possibilities  and 
hopes,  as  she  thought  she  had  done, 
and  intended  to  do.  It  is  an  inalien- 
able possession  this  fresh  spring  of  ex- 
istence; it  will  not  yield  to  any  resolu- 
tion of  youthful  despair:  but  one 
thing  she  has  certainly  succeeded  in 
doing ;  her  journey  abroad,  and  her 
adoption  by  this  kind  family,  have 
certainly  been  as  good  for  her  purpose 
as  if  she  had  died. 

And  thus  sits  Zaidee,  conscious 
of  the  past,  unaware  and  uninvesti- 
gating  what  the  future  may  bring  to 
her,  though  the  touch  of  this  very 
next  to-morrow,  which  she  antici- 
pates without  fear,  may  give  the 


electric  thrill  of  life  once  more  to  alU 
her  difficulties  and  dangers— though 
she  may  discover  an  hour  hence  how 
bootless  all  her  sacrifice  has  been, 
and  may  be  thrown  again  -into  utter 
perplexity  how  to  do  justice,  how  to 
hinder  wrong.  Zaidee  wots  nothing 
of  this — she  never  thinks  of  her  own 
complicated  position,  nor  how  it  would 
hap  with  her  if  tardy  love  came  woo- 
ing to  her  bower.  The  acacia  bloom 
lies  motionless  where  it  falls  upon  the 
-beautiful  heacLwhich  is  so  still  in  this 
daylight  dream — the  softest  calm  and 
fragrance  are  about  Zaidee — there  is 
not  a  breath  of  evil  to  mar  her  perfect 
repose. 

But  this  maiden  meditation  is  broken 
by  a  noisy  arrival ;  by  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw in  her  bright  ribbons,  and  Sylvo 
bronzed  and  bearded  still.  Sylvo  has 
made  no  great  progress  beyond  his 
student  period  —  he  is  some  years 
older,  but  not  a  great  deal  wiser,  nor 
much  changed.  But  now  he  has 
a  place  in  Essex— is  a  country  gen- 
tleman ;  and  it  is  hoped,  when  "  he 
settles  in  life,"  as  all  his  friends  are 
so  anxious  he  should  do,  that  Sylvo 
will  make  a  very  respectable  squire, 
a  good  representative  'of  the  order. 
Aunt  Burtonshaw  has  been  on  an 
errand  of  investigation  to  see  that  the 
place  is  in  good  order — she  has  come 
home  in  great  spirits,  delighted  with 
it  and  with  her  son,  but  somewhat 
anxious  withal.  "  My  dear,"  says 
Aunt  Burtonshaw,  "  Mary  is  a  dear, 
good  child— she  only  needs  to  know 
Sylvo  a  little  better  to  be  quite  happy 
with  him.  You  don't  suppose  I  would 
desire  anything  that  was  not  to  make 
Mary  happy?  and  I  hope  we  shall 
have  it  all  over  soon,  my  love.  The 
very  next  estate  to  Sylvo's  there  is  a 
young  man  who  has  been  travelling 
among  the  savages — the  real  savages, 
my  dear,  who  eat  beefsteaks  without 
cooking,  and  dress— I  cannot  mention 
how  they  dress.  You  will  not  believe 
it,  but  Sylvo  has  got  quite  intimate 
with  this  neighbour  of  his,  and  unless 
we  can  persuade  Mary  to  let  it  be 
soon,  I  am  very  much  afraid  of  Sylvo 
setting  out  to  Africa  with  his  new 
friend.  Shooting,  you  know,  and  go- 
ing where  nobody  has  ever  been  be- 
fore, and  all  sorts  of  adventure — and 
think  of  Sylvo  turning  savage,  going 
barefooted,  and  dressing  one  can't 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


153 


•*  say  how,  as  that  Mr  Mansfield  says 
he  used  to  eft  !  Polite  travel  is  quite 
a  different  thing.  In  my  day,  Eliza- 
beth, the  young  men  of  education 
went  abroad  to  finish.  But  to  live 
in  a  mud  hut,  and  put  butter  on 
one's  hair  !  —  and  Sylvo  might  be 
tempted  to  do  it  —  Sylvo  was  quite 
charmed  with  Mr  Mansfield  !  I 
assure  you  I  am  quite  anxious  to 
have  it  all  over,  and  see  Sylvo 
settled  down."  * 

As  Mrs  Burtonsha^speaks,  a  little 
puff  of  blue  smoke,  visible  among  the 
trees,  gives  note  where  Sylvo  smokes 
his  cigar.  His  mother's  eyes  travel 
forth  anxiously  towards  this  point. 
"  My  Sylvo  will  make  a  good  hus- 
band, Elizabeth — he  has  always  been 
a  good  son,"  says  Mrs  Burtonshaw ; 
"  and  I  thank  Providence  there  is  no- 
thing here  to  put  savage  adventures 
into  his  head.  Mr  Mansfield  has 
written  a  book,  you  know,  and  has 
really  the  most  beautiful  collection  of 
birds,  and  no  nonsense  about  him, 
Sylvo  says.  Ah,  Elizabeth  !  Maria 
Anna  does  not  know  how  much  harm 
she  has  done.  Sylvo  would  never 
have  taken  this  into  his  head  if  it  had 
not  been  for  all  those  people  who 
talk  about  books  and  poems.  But 
then  what  a  comfort  that  Mary  is  of 
the  same  mind,  my  dear ! " 
And  as  Mary  tried  to  persuade  her- 

tself  into  content  with  Sylvester,  Aunt 
Burtonshaw  talked  down  her  misgiv- 
ings about  the  wandering  inclinations 
of  her  boy.  She  brightened  immedi- 
ately, describing  Sylvo's  "  place,"  how 
comfortable  and  commodious  it  was, 
how  elegant  Mary  might  make  it  if 
she  pleased.  Then  so  near  town,  and 
so  easily  reached — every  circumstance 
of  good  fortune  combined  to  make 
Sylvo's  place  the  most  desirable  place 
in  the  world.  Good  society,  too,  and 
even  that  Mr  Mansfield,  a  very  good 
neighbour  if  he  would  not  lead  Sylvo 
away.  If  Sylvo  was  settled,  of  course 


heading  away  would  be  quite  out  of 
the  question ;  with  a  wife,  and  such  a 
wife  as  Mary!  the  wilds  of  Africa 
would  no  longer  have  any  attraction 
as  compared  with  home.  "  For  you 
see  the  poor  boy  has  positively  no 
home  just  now,  when  I  am  so  much 
here,"  continued  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  in 
her  perplexity :  "my  love,  you  must 
help  me  to  persuade  Mary  to  have  it 
over  soon." 

The  drawing-room  was  full  of  the 
gay  summer  light,  and  the  breeze  came 
in  at  the  open  window  full  of  sweet 
sounds  and  fragrance— but  the  great 
mirror  that  reflected  the  little  stream 
of  smoke  among  the  trees  which  mark- 
ed the  luxurious  retirement  of  Sylvo, 
reflected  also  the  anxious  face  of  his 
mother  as  she  walked  up  and  down 
before  it  disclosing  her  fears  and  per- 
plexities, and  Zaidee  sitting  by  in 
silent  sympathy. 

"I  think  Mary  will  make  up  her 
mind,"  said  Zaidee.  "  We  were  speak- 
ing only  last  night  of  Sylvo.  Sylvo  is 
very  good  and  very  kind,  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw— he  will  never  harm  any  one 
wherever  he  goes." 

"  Harm,  my  dear  !  no,  indeed,  Eli- 
zabeth ;  no  fear  of  that,"  said  his  con- 
cerned mother;  "  but  some  one  may 
harm  him,  my  love.  To  think  now  that 
we  should  choose  that  place  in  Essex, 
just  close  upon  that  Mr  Mansfield.  I 
do  wish  he  had  stayed  away  a  year  or 
two  longer  among  his  savages ;  and  I 
do  think  it  is  a  great  shame  to  let 
such  people  write  books,  and  lead 
away  simple  young  men.  All  young 
men  are  fond  of  adventure,  you 
know — it  is  quite  natural ;  but  there 
ought  to  be  some  law  to  suppress 
those '  travels  that  only  put  evil  in 
people's  heads.  You  may  be  sure  my 
Sylvo  did  not  admire  the  savages  at 
all,  till  he  came  to  know  Mr  Mans- 
field. It  is  just  Sylvo's  fancy,  I  sup- 
pose— every  one  has  some  fancy  of 
his  own." 


CHAPTER  IV.— SYLVO. 


Aunt  Burtonshaw  is  busy  with 
some  housekeeping  business,  investi- 
gating what  everybody  has  been  do- 
ing during  her  absence,  holding  up 
her  hands  in  amazement  at  the  extra- 
ordinary new  cooking  apparatus  put 


up  for  certain  economical  experiments 
which  Mr  Cumberland  has  in  his 
mind  to  try,  condoling  with  the  indig- 
nant ruler  of  the  kitchen,  visiting  her 
feathered  family  in  a  little  poultry- 
yard  fitted  up  with  the  most  luxuri- 


154 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


ous  appliances,  and,  last  of  all,  making 
a  pilgrimage  to  Mary's  room,  to  leave 
upon  Mary's  table  a  pretty  trifle  she 
has  brought  for  her.  These  pleasant 
surprises  are  quite  in  Aunt  Burton  - 
shaw's  way — she  is  always  bringing 
presents  to  her  favourites ;  and  even 
Zaidee's  store  of  ornaments,  supplied 
by  the  same  kind  hand,  is  far  from 
contemptible.  While  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw goes  about  the  house  thus  in 
her  pleasant  kindly  bustle,  Sylvo  has 
joined  Zaidee  in  the  drawing-room. 
Sylvo  sits  in  a  great  chair,  stretching 
his  long  limbs  across  the  breadth  of 
the  open  window.  The  only  thing 
that  could  enhance  Sylvo's  comfort  at 
this  moment  is  a  cigar — an  impossible 
indulgence  here ;  so  he  is  content  to 
watch  his  companion  instead.  Zaidee 
is  seated  on  a  low  chair,  her  soft  muslin 
dress  falling  upon  the  carpet  in  a  maze 
of  folds,  and  her  beautiful  head  stoop- 
ing over  the  work  she  has  in  her 
hands.  The  young  gentleman  has  an 
indolent  satisfaction  in  looking  at 
her — she  is  as  good  as  a  cigar. 

44  So  Mary  could  not  stay  to  wel- 
come us,  but  you  could:  what's  the 
reason,  now?"  said  Sylvo.  Sylvo 
looked  somewhat  complacent,  and 
extremely  satisfied  with  his  beautiful 
companion. 

"  Mary  is  Miss  Cumberland,  and  I 
am  only  Miss  Elizabeth,"  said  Zaidee, 
smiling  at  Sylvo's  reflection  in  the 
mirror.  The  mirror  was  malicious, 
and  gave  a  shade  of  ridicule  to  its  re- 
presentation of  this  indolent  hero, 
omitting  no  detail  of  him  from  his 
clump  of  mustache  and  look  of 
satisfaction  to  the  boots  which  occu- 
pied the  foreground  in  the  faithful 
picture. 

44  When  are  you  girls  coming  to 
see  my  place  ?  "  said  Sylvo.  "  There's 
Mansfield,  now,  a  famous  fellow — 
he'd  like  to  see  you,  I  know." 

44  Aunt  Burtonshaw  does  not  like 
him,  Sylvo,"  said  Zaidee. 

"  My  mother  has  told  you  all  that 
already,  has  she?"  said  Sylvo,  with  a 
ha-ha  from  behind  his  mustache, 
which  sounded  as1  if  from  a  long  way 
off.  "  What  would  she  give,  now, 
do  you  think,  to  any  one  who  could 
keep  me  at  home  ?  " 

"It  would  make  her  very  glad," 
said  Zaidee.  "  I  know  that,  too ; 
but  people  may  be  savages  at  home 


as  well  as  in  Africa,  I  think,  espe- 
cially when  your  friend  knows  the 
way." 

44 1  say,  none  of  that,  now!  "  said 
Sylvo,  u  or  I  shall  think  you  as  bad 
as  Mary.  So  you  know,  do  you? 
They  are  perpetually  conspiring  to 
marry  Mary  and  me,  who  don't  care 
a  straw  for  each  other.  I'd  rather 
marry  you  a  long  way — will  you  have 
me?" 

"  I !— what  should  I  do  with  you, 
Sylvo  ?  "  said  Zaidee,  looking  up  in 
genuine  astonishment. 

44 Do  with  me?— more  than  any- 
body else  could,  I  can  tell  you.  Why, 
you  could  keep  me  at  home,  and  make 
a  man  of  me.  Mary's  a  very  good 
girl,  I  don't  deny  it ;  but  you're  a 
regular  beauty,  Elizabeth!— now,  you 
know  you  are." 

44  Am  I  ?  "  Zaidee  took  the  com- 
pliment with  perfect  equanimity,  and 
laughed  a  little  low  laugh  to  her- 
self as  she  glanced  at  Sylvo  in  the 
mirror.  Sylvo  began  to  be  very  red, 
and  not  quite  comfortable.  He  drew 
in  his  long  limbs,  and  became  more 
upright  in  his  chair.  44 1  suppose 
you  don't  mind  what  I  say  to  you — I 
am  not  fine  enough  for  you,"  said 
Sylvo;  The  great  fellow  was  decidedly 
sulky,  and  no  longer  thought  Zaidee- 
as  good  as  a  cigar. 

44 1  do  mind  what  you.  say,"  said 
Zaidee,  raising  her  head  with  uncon- 
scious dignity;  4t  but  I  am  not  a  child 
now,  you  know,  and  there  are  some 
things  which  must  not  be  said  to  me. 
Do  not  go  away  with  Mr  Mansfield, 
Sylvo — Aunt  Burtonshaw  will  be  so 
much  disappointed  if  you  leave  her 
again ;  and  I  am  sure  there  is  nowhere 
so  good  as  home." 

u  Much  you  care  whether  I  go  or 
stay,"  said  the  mortified  Sylvo,  with 
a  growl,  as  he  lifted  himself  out  of 
his  chair,  and  stood  direct  between 
Zaidee  and  the  light.  He  had  no 
idea  that  his  great  shadow  made  an 
end  of  her  fine  needlework.  He  shook 
himself  a  little  like  a  great  dog, 
growled  under  his  breath,  and  looked 
out  upon  the  river  for  a  new  idea, 
The  new  idea  at  last  dawned  upon 
him,  but  it  was  not  an  original  one. 
44  I'll  go  and  have  a  cigar,"  said  Sylvo, 
as  he  strode  forth  upon  the  lawn,  and 
went  away  to  his  haunt  among  the 
trees.  The  complacency  and  the  sa- 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


155 


tisfaction  had  equally  vanished  from 
Sylvo's  face.  He  swore  a  small  oath 
— what  the  deuce  did  she  stay  in  for, 
then?— lighted  one  cigar  and  tossed 
it  into  the  river — amused  himself  with 
the  hiss  of  indignation  with  which  it 
disappeared  —  lighted  another,  and 
gradually  composed  himself  into  re- 
turning good-humour  with  its  conso- 
latory influences.  The  river,  bland 
and  impartial,  gave  all  the  music  to 
Sylvo's  soul  which  it  had  given  this 
morning  to  the  soul  of  Zaidee.  If 
these  two  made  different  uses  of  it, 
the  result  was  an  indifferent  matter 
to  the  Thames,  which  wandered  at  its 
own  sweet  will,  and  heeded  none  of 
the  evanescent  human  moods  chiming 
in  with  its  perennial  tide.  Sylvo  Bur- 
tonshaw,  stretching  out  his  lazy  length 
upon  the  greensward,  made  his  own 
use  of  this  great  melody  ;  it  soothed 
him  out  of  his  annoyance,  and  it 
soothed  him  into  a  cordial  half-hour's 
repose. 

Zaidee  did  not  fare  quite  so  well 
when  she  was  left  alone.  Then  the 
consciousness  which  had  not  come 
soon  enough  to  embarrass  this  inter- 
view came  very  strongly  in  shame, 
and  annoyance,  and  a  feeling  of  friend- 
ship betrayed.  She  had  done  nothing, 
certainly,  to  divert  from  Mary,  who 
was  very  indifferent  to  them,  the 
thoughts  of  Sylvester;  but  it  was  at 
once  disagreeable,  and  ludicrous,  and 
embarrassing,  the  position  in  which 
she  found  herself.  Sylvo  was  Mary's 
property— a  lawful  chattel— yet  had 
thought  proper  to  put  himself  at  the 
disposal  of  another.  Sylvo  had  been 
virtually  engaged  for  three  long  years 
to  his  cousin,  and  his  cousin  was 
making  up  her  mind  reluctantly  to 
put  up  with  him,  when,  lo !  Sylvo 
took  the  matter  in  his  own  hands,  and 
made  a  choice  independent  of  Mary. 
Zaidee  glanced  into  the  mirror  which 
reflected  in  its  silent  panorama  the 
waving  boughs  upon  the  water- side 
and  the  smoke  of  Sylvo's  cigar.  In 
its  pictured  breadth  herself  was  the 
principal  object,  sitting  in  her  low 
chair,  with  her  soft  dress  sweeping 
round  her.  Zaidee  met  the  glance  of 
her  own  eyes  as  she  looked  into  the 
mirror,  and  shrank  from  them  with  a 
momentary  shyness  and  a  rising  blush. 
She  did  not  know  what  to  think 
of  Sylvo's  compliment  now  when  it 


returned  upon  her.  She  was  quite 
familiar  with  her  own  face,  and  knew 
when  she  looked  ill  and  when  she 
looked  well  as  well  as  another ;  but 
she  faltered  somewhat  at  this  moment, 
and  had  an  uneasy  consciousness  as 
she  looked  at  herself.  She  felt  that 
she  would  rather  not  take  this  ques- 
tion into  consideration,  or  decide  what 
a  "  regular  beauty"  meant. 

But  there,  in  this  reflected  land- 
scape, is  good  aunt  Burtonshaw  cross- 
ing the  lawn.  Aunt  Burtonshaw 
comes  towards  the  house  from  the 
direction  of  that  little  pennon  of  smoke, 
which,  however,  is  no  longer  to  be 
seen  among  the  trees.  Very  guilty 
feels  Zaidee,  bending  with  doubled 
assiduity  over  her  delicate  work,  hop- 
ing Aunt  Burtonshaw  will  not  look  at 
her,  and  eager  not  to  betray  herself. 
But  the  good  lady  pauses  now  and 
then  in  her  way  across  that  beautiful 
slope  of  greensward,  and,  picking  up 
the  book  from  the  grass  where  Mary 
had  left  it  this  morning,  and  where 
Zaidee  has  permitted  it  to  lie,  shakes 
her  head  in  disapproval,  as  she  turns 
round  for  a  moment  to  the  window. 
Then  she  stands  still,  book  in  hand, 
below  the  acacia,  where  the  evening 
sun  comes  sweetly  on  her,  and  the 
breeze  ruffles  her  bright  ribbons,  look- 
ing down  the  river  for  her  favourite's 
return.  Zaidee  shrinks  within  the 
window,  and  more  than  ever  labours 
at  her  needle,  not  anxious  either  for 
AuntBurtonshaw's  entrance  or  Mary's 
return.  What  can  Sylvo  be  about 
that  there  is  no  smoke  among  the 
trees  ?  Sylvo  is  not  much  like  a  love- 
sick suitor  given  to  meditation  and 
melancholy.  Is  he  so  much  cast 
down  that  he  finds  no  comfort  in 
his  cigar?  While  Mrs  Burtonshaw 
watches  under  the  acacia,  Zaidee 
grows  distressed  and  nervous  over 
her  needlework.  Poor  Sylvo  !  he 
ought  not  to  be  always  laughed  at — 
he  ought  not  to  be  rejected  cavalierly, 
or  put  up  with  as  a  necessity — it  is  not 
fair — he  is  good  enough  to  have  some 
one  care  for  him.  Zaidee  has  great 
compunctions  as  she  looks  to  these 
trees,  longing  vainly  to  see  the  ascend- 
ing smoke.  Now  comes  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw leisurely  towards  the  terrace, 
with  the  book  in  one  hand,  and  in  the 
other  a  sprig  of  sweet-brier.  Zaidee 
is  sure  Mrs  Burtonshaw  will  call  to 


156 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


her,  "  What  is  the  matter  with  Sylvo? 
the  poor  boy  is  moping  by  himself 
among  the  trees,"  when  she  comes 
near  enough — and  the  young  culprit 
feels  quite  guilty  and  afraid. 

But  Mrs  Burtonshaw  is  within 
reach  of  the  window,  and  has  not 
called  to  her,  and  at  last  comes  in 
quite  leisurely,  as  if  nothing  was  the 
matter.  "  I  thought  Sylvo  was  sit- 
ting here  with  you,  my  dear,"  says 
Mrs  Burtonshaw ;  "  and  where  do 
you  think  I  found  the  lazy  great 
fellow?  not  even  smoking  —  lying 
all  his  length  on  the  grass,  fast 
asleep." 

Mrs  Burtonshaw  did  not  quite  un- 
derstand the  tremulous  laughter  — 
which  was  quite  as  much  at  herself 
and  her  own  vain  apprehensions  as  at 
Sylvo  —  with  which  Zaidee  greeted 
this  announcement ;  but  the  good  lady 
went  into  the  room  to  replace  the 
book  she  carried,  without  the  least 
note  of  Zaidee's  unsuspected  embar- 
rassment. "  I  daresay  he  finds  it 
dull  waiting,  poor  fellow,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw ;  "  he  wants  to  see  Mary 
—it  is  quite  natural.  It  is  six  months 


now  since  they  met,  my  dear.  I  think 
my  Sylvo  is  improved,  and  I  hope 
Mary  will  think  so.  Oh,  Elizabeth,  my 
love !  if  I  only  saw  those  two  stand 
together  hand  in  hand,  I  think  I  should 
care  for  nothing  more  in  this  world." 

Poor  Zaidee,  who  could  have 
laughed  and  cried  in  the  same  breath, 
as  she  varied  between  regret  at  Aunt 
Burtonshaw's  disappointment  and  a 
sense  of  the  ludicrous,  could  make  no 
answer.  Mrs  Burtonshaw  had  the 
whole  of  the  conversation  to  keep  up 
by  herself. 

"  Everything  is  so  suitable,  you 
know,"  continued  this  kind  schemer; 
"  and,  my  dear  child,  I  only  wish  I 
saw  as  good  a  settlement  for  you  as  I 
do  for  Mary.  There  are,  no  doubt,  a 
great  many  people  who  admire  you, 
Elizabeth,  but  you  must  not  be  led 
away  by  that,  my  dear.  I  would 
almost  as  soon  be  married  for  my 
money  as  married  for  my  beauty,  if  I 
were  you.  People  may  admire  you, 
and  be  proud  of  you,  without  any  real 
regard  for  you.  You  must  take  great 
care,  and  we  must  take  care  for  you, 
my  dear  child." 


CHAPTER   V. — DISAPPOINTMENT. 


44  What  do  they  mean,  I  wonder?  " 
They  were  only  Sylvo  and  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw, but  they  were  enough  to  fill 
Zaidee's  mind  with  novel  thoughts. 
She  sat  again  in  this  second  twilight 
by  the  window,  looking  out  upon  the 
darkening  river,  and  into  the  dim  and 
glimmering  world,  which  the  night 
wind  kept  in  perpetual  motion  in  the 
mirror  on  the  wall.  Was  she  then  in 
danger  of  being  sought  for  her  beauty? 
Had  this  strange  and  much-prized 
gift  come  all  unawares  to  her  ?  With 
a  natural  humility  which  would  not 
receive  this  strange  doctrine,  Zaidee 
shyly  threw  it  off,  and  her  cheek 
burned  with  a  blush  of  shame  for  the 
dawning  vanity.  Her  mind  was 
stirred  and  disquieted ;  she  had  lost 
the  calmness  of  her  morning  reverie. 
Years  had  passed  over  her  since  dis- 
turbing events  were  in  Zaidee's  life. 
Since  then  she  had  seen  half  of  the 
countries  of  the  Continent,  had  learned 
a  gradual  youthful  experience,  and 
had  come  to  many  conclusions  of  her 
own.  But  since  she  recovered  from 


her  illness,  and  put  away  Grandfather 
Vivian's  sacred  legacy,  her  days 
had  known  no  occurrence  to  startle 
them  into  maturity.  As  she  sat  by 
the  window  alone  in  this  English 
home  by  the  Thames,  she  looked 
around  and  behind  her  with  an  inde- 
finite awe.  It  seemed  the  eve  of 
some  discovery  —  the  beginning  of 
some  new  estate.  She  could  not  an- 
swer the  vague  presentiment  which 
ran  through  her  mind  echoing  and 
questioning.  Something  surely  was 
about  to  happen  to  her — her  placid 
life  was  to  be  disturbed  once  more. 

But  now  there  is  a  sound  of  arrival 
without,  and  some  one  hurries  in  to 
light  the  drawing-room.  Zaidee  rises 
slowly,  not  very  eager  for  this  one 
night  to  meet  with  Mary  Cumberland ; 
but  before  she  has  reached  the  door 
she  is  arrested  by  a  loud  exclamation 
of  disappointment.  "Not  come  home 
— left  behind  !  Why  did  you  leave 
Mary  behind,  Maria  Anna  ?  I  know 
the  dear  child  would  never  stay  of 
herself  when  she  knew  her  old  aunt 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


157 


Elizabeth  was  waiting  for  her — and  at 
so  important  a  time  !  Why  did  you 
leave  Mary  behind  ?  " 

"  My  dear  Elizabeth,  I  am  rejoiced 
to  see  you,"  said  Mrs  Cumberland, 
"  and  you  too,  Sylvo.  You  forget 
how  delicate  I  am,  my  dear  boy, 
when  you  shake  hands  so  fiercely. 
Yes,  it  was  foolish  of  Mary  to  stay 
behind,  but  the  society  is  delightful ; 
there  is  a  large  party  staying  there, 
and  it  is,  I  assure  you,  only  for  her 
good.  There  is  a  note  somewhere 
that  she  wrote  for  you,  and  one  for 
Elizabeth ;  my  love,  you  will  find 
them  in  the  great  bag  with  my  things. 
Was  it  not  a  sweet  disinterested 
thing  of  this  child  to  stay  at  home 
for  you,  Elizabeth  ? — and  she  would 
have  been  so  delighted  had  she  been 
there." 

As  Mrs  Cumberland  spoke,  Sylvo's 
sidelong  glance  sought  Zaidee  once 
more  ;  he  could  not  persuade  himself 
that  his  manifold  attractions  had  not 
something  to  do  with  this  staying  at 
home. 

"  Extraordinary  thing,  now,  sister 
Burtonshaw,  that  /  can't  succeed  as 
I  hear  other  people  do,"  said  Mr 
Cumberland,  who  had  hastened  to 
his  favourite  table,  and  was  delicately 
manipulating  this  stubborn  piece  of 
furniture  which  would  not  speak. 
"Mrs  What  -  do  -you-  call -her — that 
professor's  wife,  Maria  Anna? — carries 
on  a  conversation — positive  conversa- 
tion, I  tell  you — by  means  of  just 
such  another  table  ;  and  that  other 
lanky  poet,  who  looks  so  like  a 
weaver,  spins  the  thing  about  like  a 
living  creature.  Very  odd  that  it 
will  do  nothing  for  me! — extremely 
odd  that  there  is  no  recognition  of  my 
conscientious  endeavours  !  Hush  ! 
did  you  hear  a  rap,  sister  Burton- 
shaw ?  Silence  !  are  there  any  spirits 
here?" 

u  Are  you  mad,  Mr  Cumberland?" 
cried  poor  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  gazing 
aghast  upon  the  great  fathomless 
blank  of  the  mirror.  "  For  mercy's 
sake,  do  not  frighten  us  out  of  the 
house  with  your  spirits  and  your  raps ! 
Are  you  not  afraid  to  tempt  Provi- 
dence ?  It  is  a  sin — I  am  sure  it  is  ; 
but  Maria  Anna  always  will  give  in 
to  you." 

"  A  sin,  sister  Elizabeth  ?"  said  the 
philosopher  briskly  ;  "  we  have  just 


had  a  discussion  on  that  subject. 
The  poet  says  it's  sorcery,  and  that 
the  old  gentleman  down  below  has  a 
hand  in  it.  Somebody  else  says  there's 
no  such  person :  his  satanic  majesty 
is  the  grand  Mrs  Harris.  The  devil's 
exploded,  Sylvo  !  By  the  way,  now, 
there's  a  curious  question  in  meta- 
physics. Hallo!  where  are  you 
going,  sister  Burtonshaw?" 

"I  am  going  to  read  my  dear 
child's  note — a  great  deal  better  than 
listening  to  you  talking  wickedness, 
Mr  Cumberland,"  said  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw with  unusual  severity.  "  I  say 
it  is  all  a  great  sin,  your  rapping  and 
your  manifestations.  Do  you  mean 
to  say  it  is  right  to  bring  up  an  evil 
spirit  into  a  rosewood  table,  and  set 
it  dancing  all  over  a  Christian  draw- 
ing-room ?  I  will  not  have  my  Sylvo 
taught  such  lessons.  Do  you  call 
that  nature  ? — if  it  is,  she  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  herself;  and  when  I 
want  to  hear  where  you  have  left  my 
sweet  Mary,  and  how  the  dear  child 
was  persuaded  to  stay,  and  a  hundred 
other  things — to  talk  of  a  spirit,  and 
sorcery,  and  the  evil  one  himself! — 
at  night  too!  I  daresay  that  child 
will  not  sleep  all  night  thinking  of  it. 
My  love,  come  here  out  of  the  dark, 
and  sit  by  me." 

Zaidee  rose  from  her  corner  very 
quietly,  and  obeyed.  Mrs  Cumber- 
land was  reclining  on  a  sofa.  Mr 
Cumberland,  seated  before  his  sacred 
table,  was  playing  daintily  upon  it 
with  the  tips  of  his  fingers.  Sylvo 
stood  by,  his  great  figure  oversha- 
dowing his  uncle,  and  with  a  set  of 
the  finest  teeth  in  the  world  appear- 
ing under  his  clump  of  mustache. 
"You  should  see  Mansfield,"  said 
Sylvo;  "Mansfield  knows  a  lot  of 
fetish  tricks.  He's  a  capital  fellow, 
uncle  ;  shall  I  bring  him  here  ?" 

"  Why  should  you  bring  Mr  Mans- 
field here,  Sylvo  ?"  said  his  mother, 
interposing,  struck  by  the  dreaded 
name,  though  she  held  Mary's  letter 
open  in  her  hand.  "  Mr  Mansfield  is 
Sylvo's  next  neighbour,  Maria  Anna. 
He  has  been  travelling  ever  since  he 
was  a  boy.  He  is  a  young  man, 
with  no  ties,  you  know — nothing  to 
keep  him  at  home  ;  and  all  that  he 
cares  for  is  savage  life,  where  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  cookery  or  costume 
either,  Mr  Cumberland — where  all 


158 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


the  great  people  do  for  a  grand  toilet        "  My  princess,  I  am  to  stay  for  a 

day,"  said  Mary's  note.  "  You  will 
be  surprised,  no  doubt,  though  I  don't 
see  anything  wonderful  in  it.  The 
people  are  very  pleasant  people,  and 
are  kind,  and  want  me  to  stay.  I 
am  not  often  away  from  home,  and 
though  very  likely  it  will  not  turn  out 
a  pleasure,  I  may  as  well  try.  I  have 
no  time  now,  as  mamma  is  just  start- 
ing. I  intended  to  have  written  an 
hour  ago,  but  have  been  obliged  to 
listen  to  an  author  talking.  Such 
quantities  of  talk  they  do  here;  Lizzy, 
and  roar  you  like  any  nightingale ; 
for  I  give  you  to  wit  I  am  in  the 
midst  of  a  menagerie — one  genuine 
lion  and  a  great  many  make-believes. 
No  more  time.  I  am  to  be  home  the 
day  after  to-morrow.  In  the  greatest 
haste,  mamma  waiting  and  papa  call- 
ing, good  night.  M.  C." 

"  Mary  is  sure  to  have  told  you  who 
we  met,  my  love,  so  I  need  not  enlarge 
upon  him,"  said  Mrs  Cumberland. 
"  It  was  quite  unexpected ;  but  since 
he  has  come,  they  will  not  let  him 
away.  He  said  positively  he  would 
not  stay  at  first,  but  afterwards 
yielded.  He  was  very  polite,  and 
took  Mary  in  to  dinner.  Well,  of 
course,  it  was  not  called  dinner,  you 
know,  but  quite  the  same  thing,  my 
dear.  Their  rooms  are  very  small ; 
they  had  a  great  tent  on  the  lawn, 
and  Mary  enjoyed  the  party,  I  am 
sure.  I  am  glad  to  see  Mary's  taste 
improving,  Elizabeth.  I  believe  it 
is  your  influence,  my  dear  child.  She 
seemed  quite  pleased  with  this  very 
refined  and  intellectual  company  to- 
day, and  kept  up  quite  an  animated 
conversation.  With  such  a  com- 
panion, you  will  say,  it  is  no  great 


is  to  put  a  pot  of  butter  on  their 
heads,  and  where  you  lie  on  a  mud 
couch,  and  walk  barefooted,  and  for- 
get there  is  a  civilised  country  in  the 
world.  It  is  all  freedom  and  liberty, 
he  says.  I  don't  understand  what 
freedom  means,  I  suppose.  Sylvo, 
I  tell  you  you  are  not  to  bring  any 
savages  here." 

The  perspective  view  of  Sylvo's  ad- 
mirable teeth  enlarges  a  little,  while 
Mr  Cumberland  glances  up  from  his 
inaudible  piano-playing  on  the  table. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sister  Burton- 
shaw ;  Sylvo's  friend  shall  be  very 
welcome — a  genuine  savage  is  a  rare 
creature,"  said  Mr  Cumberland. 
"What  do  you  call  fetish  tricks, 
Sylvo?  —  ignorance  is  always  con- 
temptuous, my  boy — observances  of 
an  ancient  religion,  perhaps.  Let 
us  have  this  Mr  Mansfield,  by  all 
means.  I  am  a  candid  man,  sister 
Elizabeth.  I  believe  there  are  a 
thousand  truths  of  Nature  which  a 
savage  could  teach  me." 

"  Did  you  say  a  savage,  Elizabeth?" 
said  Mrs  Cumberland,  brightening  a 
little  out  of  the  doze  which  it  pleased 
her  to  call  languor.  "  Would  he  wear 
his  costume,  do  you  think? — foreigners 
are  so  plentiful  in  society  now,  and 
we  are  all  so  conventional — there  is 
no  freshness  in  the  civilised  world. 
A  true  child  of  the  woods  !  Yes, 
Sylvo,  my  dear  boy,  you  must  bring 
him  here." 

"  Elizabeth,  come  to  my  room," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  in  indignant 
haste.  "I  can  bear  a  good  deal, 
Maria  Anna,  but  a  saint  could  not 
bear  all  this,  you  know.  I  am  going 
to  my  own  room  to  read  my  dear 


child's  letter.  When  Mary  is  here  wonder ;  but  she  has  always  avoided 
there  is  always  some  discretion  in  the  our  distinguished  visitors  heretofore, 
house.  She  ca_n  give  things  their  My  dear  child,  I  know  you  were  never 

insensible  to  the  claims  of  genius,  but 
Mary  has  always  followed  her  Aunt 
Burtonshaw  so  closely.  I  never  saw 
her  so  interested  as  she  was  by  this 
most  charming  young  man  to-day." 

"By  whom,  Maria  Anna?"  cried 
Mrs  Burtonshaw,  in  a  voice  of  terror. 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  had  read  her  letter, 
and  could  not  be  sulky ;  so,  as  it 
chanced,  she  re-entered  the  room  in 
time  to  hear  the  conclusion  of  this 
speech.  "  Who  was  Mary  interested 
in,  did  you  say  ?  I  don't  understand 


proper  value.    Elizabeth,  when  you 
are  ready  you  can  come  to  me." 

And  Mrs  Burtonshaw  hurried  to 
her  own  apartment  to  read  Mary's 
letter  without  interruption.  Zaidee, 
whose  attention  was  not  so  easily 
disturbed,  had  already  read  hers,  and 
was  puzzled  by  it.  It  was  not 
quite  like  Mary ;  Zaidee  did  not 
know  how  to  understand  either  the 
unexpected  staying  behind,  or  the 
little  epistle  which  professed  to  ex- 
plain it. 


1855.] 

what  you  all 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


159 


mean,  for  my  part. 
You  go  on  sacrificing  everything  for 
the  whim  of  the  moment.  There  is 
my  Sylvo,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw, 
lowering  her  voice ;  "  you  tell  him  he 
is  to  bring  his  friend  here,  that  Mr 
Mansfield  who  is  tempting  the  poor 


boy  away ;  and  you  come  home  quite 
calmly,  and  leave  my  sweet  Mary, 
and  talk  of  her  being  interested,  and 
of  charming  young  men.  I  cannot 
help  being  quite  shocked,  Maria 
Anna !  I  cannot  understand  what  you 
all  mean." 


CHAP.   VI. — A  CHANGE   OF  OPINION. 


During  the  following  day  the  mir- 
ror on  the  wall  of  Mr  Cumberland's 
drawing-room  reflected  a  most  dis- 
turbed and  solicitous  face,  surrounded 
with  the  pretty  lace  and  bright  ribbons 
of  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  The  good  lady 
could  not  veil  her  anxiety.  She  was 
constantly  looking  out  from  her  win- 
dow, or  making  pilgrimages  to  the 
lawn  for  a  little  view  of  the  road  by 
which  Mary,  tired  of  her  visit,  possibly 
might  return.  But  Mary,  as  it  seemed, 
was  not  tired  of  her  visit,  for  that 
evening  there  came  a  note  desiring 
that  she  might  be  sent  for  on  the  fol- 
lowing night — not  sooner.  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw was  much  perplexed  and 
troubled  ;  she  stood  at  the  open  win- 
dow watching  the  little  blue  pennon 
of  smoke  from  Sylvo's  retreat  among 
the  trees,  and  grieving  herself  at 
thought  of  the  visions  of  savagery  and 
wild  adventure  with  which  the  deserted 
lover  might  be  solacing  his  solitude. 
The  most  alarming  visions  of  charming 
young  men  assailed  Mrs  Burtonshaw's 
fancy  ;  she  beheld  her  dearest  Mary  in 
imagination  beset  by  as  many  suitors 
as  the  heroine  of  the  song,  "  Wooing  at 
her,  pu'ing  at  her."  The  Scotch  lan- 
guage was  an  unintelligible  language 
to  this  anxious  mother;  she  did  not 
quote  the  classic  lyric,  but  she  appro- 
priated the  idea,  and  it  filled  her  with 
inexpressible  terror. 

"  You  see,  my  love,  one  never  can 
answer  for  such  things,"  says  the  dis- 
tressed Mrs  Burtonshaw.  "  Three 
days  !  I  have  known  a  great  deal  of 
mischief  done  in  three  days,  Elizabeth. 
People  get  to  feel  quite  like  old 
friends  when  they  spend  a  day  or  two 
together  in  the  country.  Why  was 
Maria  Anna  so  foolish? — of  course, 
the  dear  child  could  not  know  her 
own  danger.  Why,  my  dear,  I  have 
known  men  quite  clever  enough  to 
have  everything  over,  and  a  poor  girl 
engaged  to  be  married,  in  three  days!" 


"  But  you  always  say  Mary  is  so 
sensible — and  so  she  is,  aunt  Burton- 
shaw," said  Zaidee. 

"  Yes,  my  love,"  said  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw, shaking  her  head,  "  but  I  am 
sorry  to  say  good  sense  is  not  always 
a  protection.  In  these  matters,  Eliza- 
beth— it  is  quite  extraordinary — the 
wisest  people  do  the  most  foolish 
things.  If  I  only  had  come  a  day 
sooner !  I  never  ought  to  go  away 
from  home — Maria  Anna  is  so  thought- 
less— there  is  no  one  to  take  care  of 
my  sweet  Mary  when  I  am  away." 

The  time  of  Mrs  Burtonshaw's 
anxiety,  however,  came  to  an  end;  the 
second  day  rose  and  shone,  and  dark- 
ened into  twilight,  and  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw herself  gave  orders  for  the  car- 
riage which  was  to  bring  Mary  home. 
When  it  was  quite  ready,  this  anxious 
guardian  threw  a  great  shawl  over 
Zaidee,  tied  a  boa  round  her  neck, 
kissed  her,  and  pleaded  in  a  whisper 
that  she  should  go  for  the  truant. 
"  And  tell  me  if  you  see  any  one  tak- 
ing leave  of  her,  my  love,"  said  the 
suspicious  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  It  was  a 
beautiful  summer  night,  just  after  sun- 
set, and  Zaidee  was  not  unwilling. 
This  quiet  drive  through  these  plea- 
sant dewy  lanes  and  along  the  high- 
road, which  at  every  turn  caught  sil- 
very glimpses  of  the  river,  would  at  any 
time  have  rewarded  Zaidee,  to  whom 
this  silent  motion  and  solitude  had  a 
singular  charm,  for  a  more  disagree- 
able errand  than  bringing  Mary  home. 
Her  embarrassments  on  the  subject  of 
Sylvo  had  worn  off  by  this  time,  since 
Sylvo  himself,  though  somewhat 
piqued,  and  still  a  little  rude  to  her, 
showed  his  remembrance  of  it  in  no 
other  way.  When  she  had  released 
herself  from  the  boa,  and  loosened  the 
shawl,  Zaidee  leaned  back  in  her 
luxurious  corner,  and  watched  the 
soft  darkness  gathering  on  the  dewy 
hedgerows,  and  the  soft  stars,  one  by 


160 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


one,  appearing  in  that  pale,  warm, 
luminous  sky.  Her  quietness  was 
only  broken  by  a  little  thrill  of  antici- 
pation, a  pleasurable  excitement  for 
her  thoughts.  What  was  it  that 
could  charm  the  sensible  Mary  into 
remaining  among  these  people,  whom 
she  professed  to  dislike  and  be  im- 
patient of? — what  effect  on  the  pros- 
pects of  Sylvo  Burtonshaw  might  this 
inopportune  visit  have? — and  who  was 
the  dangerous  antagonist  whom  Mary's 
long  affianced  but  happily  indifferent 
bridegroom  had  to  fear?  The  drive 
was  a  long  one,  and  she  amused 
herself  with  many  speculations.  She 
had  no  such  interest  in  the  matter  as 
Aunt  Burtonshaw  had — she  was  in 
no  degree  inclined  to  advocate  the 
claims  of  Sylvo  ;  so  Zaidee's  interest 
and  curiosity  and  expectation  had  no 
drawback — they  gave  her  full  occupa- 
tion as  she  sped  along  the  darkening 
way. 

The  carriage  stopt  at  last  before  a 
large  low  house,  surrounded  by  a  still 
lower  wall,  and  the  trimmest  of  holly 
hedges ;  some  one  rich  enough  to 
build  a  mansion  in  the  form  of  a  cot- 
tage was  Mary  Cumberland's  hospit- 
able host.  Zaidee,  looking  out  with 
great  curiosity,  saw  a  number  of 
figures  on  the  lawn ;  the  moon  had 
risen  by  this  time,  and  the  night  was 
one  of  those  balmy  nights  which  it  is 
hard  to  leave  for  artificial  light  and 
closed-up  rooms.  Then  some  one 
called  Miss  Cumberland,  and  Mary's 
voice,  not  with  an  accent  of  delight, 
said,  "  Ah,  they  have  come  for  me!" 
Then  Zaidee  saw  her  friend  approach- 
ing the  carriage,  already  dressed,  as  it 
appeared,  as  if  she  had  been  waiting 
for  them  :  a  lamp  from  the  house  shed 
an  indistinct  light  upon  the  scene — on 
the  trellised  walls  of  the  house  itself, 
covered  with  green  leaves  and  budding 
roses — on  the  vacant  hall,  where  some 
white  sculptured  figures  stood  solitary 
under  the  light — and  upon  the  group 
which  slowly  advanced  to  the  carriage- 
door  from  the  lawn.  "  Farewell,  my 
love"  —  "  Good  -by,  Miss  Cumber- 
land"— "  Love  to  mamma,"  cried  one 
voice  and  another ;  but  Zaidee's  ear 
only  caught  the  under-tone  of  one  still 
closer  to  the  window,  which  said  no- 
thing but  "  Good-night."  Neither  good- 
by,  nor  farewell — nothing  that  sound- 
ed like  parting— only  "Good-night;" 


and  Mary,  glancing  back  with  a  timid 
glance  under  her  eyelids,  sank  into  the 
nearest  corner  of  the  carriage,  and 
did  not  perceive  that  Zaidee  was  there 
till  they  had  driven  from  the  door  and 
were  out  of  sight. 

u  Who  was  that,  Mary?"  asked 
Zaidee  with  great  interest,  after  Mary, 
with  a  momentary  fright  and  some 
embarrassment,  had  discovered  that 
she  was  not  alone. 

"  That  ? — you  must  be  more  precise 
in  your  questions,  for  indeed  I  cannot 
tell  who  that  was,"  said  Mary,  laugh- 
ing, but  with  no  small  degree  of  con- 
fusion. "  Who  could  have  supposed 
you  would  come,  Elizabeth  ? — though 
I  am  sure  it  is  very  good  of  you." 

Now  Mary's  tone  did  not  quite 
confirm  her  words,  and  Zaidee  saw 
that  the  thanks  were  very  equivocal. 
She  was  otherwise  occupied,  how- 
ever, than  with  this  question  of  thanks. 
"  I  wonder  where  I  have  seen  him 
before,"  said  Zaidee,  hurriedly.  "Not 
very  tall  or  big,  like  Sylvo,  with  all 
that  wavy  hair,  and  the  cloud  upon 
his  face,  that  comes  and  goes — and 
eyes  so  brilliant  and  fitful — Mary,  tell 
me  who  he  was.  I  wonder  where  I 
have  seen  him,  Mary — he  who  said, 
Good-night?" 

"  You  have  never  seen  him— it  is 
impossible,"  said  Mary.  "  He  who 
said  Good-night  ? — why,  they  all  said 
Good-night." 

"  'No,  indeed,' '  Good-by,'  and  'Fare- 
well,' and  'Miss  Cumberland,'"  said 
Zaidee,  whose  old  habits  of  close 
observation  had  never  deserted  her  ; 
"  he  only  said,  'Good-night.'  Mary, 
tell  me  who  he  was." 

"  He  is  a  very  famous  man,"  said 
Mary.  There  was  no  satire  in  Mary's 
voice ;  on  the  contrary,  she  elevated 
herself  with  involuntary  pride,  and  her 
companion  could  see  a  dewy  gleam, 
altogether  new  to  them,  in  her  blue 
eyes.  Zaidee  waited  for  something 
farther,  but  nothing  came,  and  Mary 
had  dwelt  upon  the  words  with  a  secret 
exultation  and  joy,  which  the  quick 
perceptions  of  her  friend  discovered 
in  a  moment.  Zaidee  looked  into 
Mary's  corner,  but  now  could  see  no- 
thing save  the  white  and  jewelled 
hand  which  held  the  shawl  round  her. 
It  was  very  strange— it  certainly  was 
not  Mary's  way. 

"  I  thought  there  were  a  great  many 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


161 


famous  men  there.  Is  this  your  real 
lion?"  said  Zaidee  ;— "  but  even  lions 
have  names.  Tell  me  what  he  is 
called." 

"  There  are  a  great  many  shadows 
and  imitations,"  said  Mary,  with  a 
little  scorn,—"  that  is  why  one  learns 
to  mistrust  everything  which  people 
call  great ;  but  there  cannot  be  many 
famous  men  in  the  world,  not  to  speak 
of  Hollylee,  Elizabeth— one  is  distinc- 
tion enough." 

With  a  marvelling  gaze,  Zaidee 
turned  once  more  to  the  corner — was 
it  Mary  Cumberland  that  spoke? 
Yes,  there  is  the  jewelled  clasp  that 
poor  Aunt  Burtonshaw  gave  her 
sparkling  at  Mary's  neck  ;  and  there 
are  Mary's  curls,  warm  and  fair, 
that  cluster  over  it,  hiding  the  glitter 
of  its  precious  stones.  Zaidee  is  wise 
enough  not  to  make  comments  on  this 
wonderful  conversion  and  change  of 
sentiment;  she  can  only  repeat  the 
question — "  Tell  me  his  name." 

"  There  is  no  chance  that  you  have 
ever  seen  him  before,"  said  Mary, 
u  not  the  slightest  chance,  for  I  am 
certain  I  never  did  ;  but  we  have  read 
his  books  many  a  time.  They  say  he 
is  half-a-dozen  men,  Lizzy ;  that  he 
makes  one  reputation  after  another  in 
play,  and  is  a  poet,  a  dramatist,  a 
novelist,  a  philosopher ;  they  say  he 
could  be  the  greatest  of  his  time,  if  he 
would  but  devote  himself  to  one  thing ; 
but  instead  of  that,  he  scatters  his 
riches  round  him  like  the  princess  that 
had  pearls  and  roses  dropping  from 
her  lips  in  the  fairy  tale.  I  do  think  Mr 
Vivian  is  a  spendthrift,  Elizabeth — he 
dazzles  you  with  everything,  his  mind 
is  so  full." 

" Mr  Vivian!"  A  change  came  upon 
Zaidee  still  more  sudden  than  Mary's 
quick  conversion ;  she  made  no  at- 
tempt to  ask  another  question,  but 
sat  leaning  forward,  breathless,  eager, 
and  silent,  while  Mary,  whose  mouth 
was  opened,  went  on. 

"  It  is  quite  strange  to  hear  how 
they  speak  of  him ;  whenever  he  is 
successful  in  what  he  is  trying,  there 
he  stops — and,  of  course,  such  a  man 
is  successful  in  everything.  He  pub- 
lishes one  book,  and  everybody  is 
eager  for  the  next;  but  instead  of 
taking  advantage  of  that,  one  gentle- 
man told  me,  he  is  off  as  far  as  pos- 
sible in  another  direction,  and  appears 


where  nobody  expects  him,  and  has 
just  such  another  success  again.  Some 
people  say  he  is  volatile,  and  some 
that  he  is  superficial.  Oh,  of  course 
all  sorts  of  ill-natured  things  are  said 
of  him  ;  he  does  not  mind ;  he  knows 
what  he  can  do  himself,  and  it  is 
nothing  to  him." 

Mary  was  too  much  interested 
with  the  subject  to  observe  that 
Zaidee  asked  no  more  questions,  and 
in  the  darkness  she  could  not  see  how 
the  colour  went  and  came  upon  the 
beautiful  face  beside  her;  how  Zaidee's 
eyes  were  lighted  up  and  expanding 
with  a  glad  surprise,  and  how  a  quiver 
of  emotion  was  on  her  lip.  Mary  took 
no  notice  of  her  companion ;  she  went 
on  almost  without  a  pause. 

"  Yes,  his  name  is  Percy  Vivian," 
said  Mary,  slowly,  and  dwelling  some- 
what on  the  sound  :  "  he  is  a  gentle- 
man, the  son  of  a  good  family ;  but 
they  say  he  has  not  any  fortune.  It 
would  have  been  too  much  to  give  him 
fortune — all  the  gifts  of  Providence ; 
no,  such  a  man  ought  to  be  poor." 

Zaidee  made  no  answer,  she  could 
not  have  spoken  for  her  life ;  a  host 
of  overpowering  recollections  poured 
upon  her.  Was  it  Percy  ? — he  who 
bade  his  mother  take  courage  because 
she  had  "two  sons?"  —  he  whose 
frolicsome  boyhood  was  the  life  of  the 
house  ? — Percy,  who  was  to  be  a  stu- 
dent in  the  Temple,  a  counsel  learned 
in  the  law?  She  fancied  she  heard 
his  playful  call  to  her — the  host  of 
nicknames  by  which  the  youngest 
child  was  known.  An  indescribable 
flush  of  pride  came  to  poor  solitary 
Zaidee,  whom  Percy  Vivian  would 
meet  as  a  stranger.  Notwithstanding, 
he  was  "  our  Percy; "  she  had  a  secret 
right  to  exult  over  him — to  recall  what 
he  was,  with  family  triumph.  Mary, 
with  no  more  questions  to  answer, 
sank  back  into  her  corner,  in  to  a  silence 
charmed  and  full  of  visions ;  but 
Zaidee  had  forgotten  to  think  of  Mary 
— forgotten  to  smile,  or  wonder,  or 
ask  what  strange  new  influence  was 
upon  her  friend.  The  wavy  hair  toss- 
ing in  the  fresh  Cheshire  gale — the 
eyes  that  were  like  Elizabeth's — how 
well  she  remembered  the  privileged 
wit  and  household  scapegrace.  Yes, 
at  Mary's  certainty  that  she  could 
never  have  seen  Mr  Vivian,  Zaidee 
did  smile  again. 


162 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


But  the  river  again  became  audible 
through  the  coming  darkness,  as  they 
approached  those  shadowy  banks  of 
Twickenham —they  were  close  upon 
home. 

"  Mary,"  said  Zaidee,  starting  sud- 
denly from  her  reverie,  '*  I  have  some- 


[Aug. 

thing  to  say  to  you  of  Sylvo  Burton- 
shaw." 

With  a  still  more  violent  start, 
Mary  turned  away  from  her,  holding 
up  her  hands  in  vehement  deprecation. 
"For  pity's  sake,  Elizabeth !— forpity ! 
let  me  never  hear  Sy  Ivo's  name  again  I" 


CHAPTER  VII. — THE  TROUBLING  OF  THE  WATERS. 


But  while  Zaidee,  thus  suddenly 
checked,  endeavours  with  great  sur- 
prise to  put  this  and  that  together, 
they  have  suddenly  entered  the 
grounds,  and  are  at  home.  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw  is  at  the  door,  and  you 
can  see  by  an  intense  red  spark  in 
the  distance,  which  suddenly  darts 
through  the  bushes  like  a  falling 
star,  that  Sylvo  also  is  in  attendance, 
and  that  Mary's  entreaty  never  to 
hear  his  name  again  is  quite  an 
impossible  prayer.  But  Mary  goes 
through  these  salutations  with  very 
proper  composure,  shakes  hands  with 
Sylvo,  and  meets  the  warm  embrace 
of  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  "  My  dear,  you 
look  quite  beautiful,"  cries  this  kind 
voice,  with  its  tones  of  affectionate 
gladness  ;  "  such  a  colour,  and  your 
eyes  so  bright :  but  I  was  very  much 
disappointed  not  to  find  you  at  home, 
Mary ;  we  were  so  anxious  to  see 
you,  both  Sylvo  and  I.  Speak  to 
Sylvo,  my  love ;  he  has  been  by  him- 
self all  day  wishing  for  you.  Though 
Elizabeth  is  a  very  dear,  good  girl, 
my  love,  the  house  is  always  dark  to 
me  without  you,  Mary.  I  do  not 
know  what  I  should  do,  if  there  was 
any  chance  of  you  marrying  out  of 
the  family,  and  going  away." 

To  this  Mary  makes  no  answer, 
but,  after  having  been  quite  an  un- 
necessary time  away  in  her  own 
room  taking  off  her  bonnet,  comes 
down  with  her  eyes  somewhat 
dazzled  by  the  light,  yet  with  an 
unusual  illumination  in  them.  Mrs 
Cumberland  takes  greatly  to  her  sofa 
now  in  the  evening,  and  is  much 
afflicted  with  "languor;"  she  is 
reclining  with  a  shawl  round  her, 
and  her  eyes  shaded  from  the  light. 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  sits  by  the  table 
not  doing  anything,  but  disposed  for 
conversation.  Sylvo  is  yawning  over 
the  photographs.  Mr  Cumberland, 
with  spectacles  upon  his  curious  eyes, 


holds  up  a  book  before  him  so  as  to 
catch  the  light,  and  reads.  Zaidee 
is  reading,  too,  if  trifling  with  a  book 
and  looking  for  Mary  can  be  called 
reading.  When  Mary  enters  at 
last,  she  does  not  bring  the  degree 
of  animation  to  this  little  company 
which  all  of  them  expected.  Instead 
of  giving  that  account  of  her  visit 
which  Aunt  Burtonshaw  looked  for, 
Mary  hastily  takes  a  piece  of  work 
from  her  work-table,  and,  sitting 
down  close  by  the  light,  begins  work- 
ing very  assiduously.  There  is  a 
variable  glow,  too,  on  her  cheeks,  and 
her  eyes  are  unusually  bright.  Kind 
Aunt  Burtonshaw  is  disappointed ; 
this  is  not  very  kind  of  her  favourite  ; 
and  Mrs  Burtonshaw's  good  heart 
excuses  Mary  by  an  immediate  fear 
that  she  is  ill. 

"  Did  you  wrap  yourself  well  up, 
my  love  ? "  asks  the  solicitous  guar- 
dian ;  "  are  you  sure  you  were  not  in 
any  draught  ?  You  look  a  little  fever- 
ish, Mary  ;  why  don't  you  say  any- 
thing ?  I  have  had  so  much  to  talk 
to  you  about  since  ever  I  came 
home." 

"  Then  do  talk  to  me,  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw," said  Mary,  pursuing  her 
work,  and  scarcely*  raising  her  head. 
"  You  know  I  always  like  to  listen 
to  you." 

"  Did  you  see  many  people  at  Holly- 
lee,  Mary?"  asked  Mrs  Cumberland, 
waking  up.  "  That  delightful  young 
man,  did  he  remain  all  the  time? 
and  did  you  say  anything  to  him 
about  coming  here  ?" 

"  I  told  him  where  we  lived,"  said 
Mary.  Mary  was  unusually  low- 
toned  and  gentle  to-night,  and  had 
not  the  ghost  of  a  mock  for  her 
mother's  delightful  young  man. 

"  Who  is  he,  pray  ?  "  said  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw with,  a  little  asperity.  "I 
think  that  is  a  very  improper  way  to 
speak,  Maria  Anna.  I  thought  there 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Rojnance. — Part  IX. 


163 


were  a  great  many  people  at  Hollylee, 
Mary.  I  never  expected  to  have 
heard  of  one  person ;  and  I  don't 
think  a  young  lady  is  the  proper  per- 
son to  ask  gentlemen  here." 

Mary  had  not  a  word  to  say  in 
her  own  defence  ;  she  grew  very  red, 
and  bent  clown  over  her  sewing.  All 
her  saucy  mirth  was  hushed  for  to- 
night. With  wonderful  meekness 
she  bore  the  lecture  of  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw. 

"  He  is  a  great  author,"  said 
Zaidee,  interposing  on  her  friend's 
behalf;  "he  is  a  very  famous  man, 
Aunt  Burtonshaw." 

And  Zaidee's  beautiful  head  was 
elevated  unconsciously,  and  her  face 
glowed  with  a  generous  pride ;  she 
had  scarcely  recovered  the  startling 
effect  of  this  great  author's  name ; 
but  so  great  was  her  feminine  liking 
for  applause,  that  she  could  not  lose 
the  first  opportunity  of  exulting  over 
Percy,  and  proclaiming  his  fame. 

"  You  all  seem  to  think  it  a  very 
great  thing  to  be  an  author,"  said 
Mrs  Burtonshaw.  "  I  suppose  we 
all  might  be  authors,  if  we  only 
would  put  down  on  paper  everything 
that  came  into  our  heads,  as  some 
people  do.  It  is  all  very  well  for  you 
to  seek  famous  men,  Maria  Anna, 
but  Mary  cares  nothing  for  them,  I 
know,  and  Mary  is  a  well-educated 
girl,  and  knows  what  is  due  to  her. 
It  is  quite  out  of  the  question  for  her 
to  ask  such  people  here." 

u  But  I  did  not  ask  him  to  come 
here,  Aunt  Burtonshaw,"  said  Mary, 
with  guilt  in  her  voice. 

There  was  a  considerable  silence 
after  that.  Mrs  Burtonshaw  looked 
round  the  room,  and  round  it  again, 
pausing  a  little  on  every  individual. 
Then  the  good  lady  rose  with  a  little 
demonstration,  and  went  for  the 
paper  which  lay  neglected  on  aside- 
table.  "  If  nobody  has  anything 
to  say,  I  cannot  help  myself,"  said 
Aunt  Burtonshaw,  and  she  applied 
herself  with  great  devotion  to  the 
Times. 

The  light  flickers  a  little  by  reason 
of  a  breath  of  air  coming  in  through 
a  half -opened  window,  and  gives  a 
wavy  unsteadiness  to  that  reflection 
in  the  mirror.  The  room  looks  some- 
what dim,  as  fireless  rooms  will  look 
after  long  days  of  sunshine,  and  again 


the  malicious  mirror  exaggerates 
Sylvo,  who  lies  back  on  his  chair 
with  his  long  limbs  extended,  hold- 
ing up  a  photograph  to  hide  that 
yawning  gulf  and  those  magnificent 
teeth  widely  revealed  under  his 
mustache.  Mrs  Cumberland  has  just 
dropped  off  into  her  "languor"  once 
more, — Mr  Cumberland  is  reading 
very  rapidly,  so  great  is  his  interest 
in  his  book, — while  Mary's  needle  flies 
through  her  fingers  as  if  she  worked 
for  a  wager ;  and  though  Mary  is  so 
silent,  and  no  one  addresses  her,  the 
colour  wavers  on  her  cheek  as  the 
light  wavers  on  the  mirror,  and  she 
is  still  unable  to  raise  frankly  to  the 
light  her  dazzled  eyes. 

Zaidee  is  not  so  industrious  as 
Mary ;  she  has  her  pretence  of  read- 
ing still,  and  now  and  then  idly  turns 
over  the  pages  of  the  book  before  her, 
but  without  the  least  idea  what  it 
treats  of.  Aunt  Burtonshaw,  now 
that  she  has  fairly  got  into  the  news- 
paper, cannot  keep  the  intelligence 
she  finds  there  to  herself.  She  is 
breaking  upon  the  silence  constantly, 
to  read  "just  this  half-dozen  lines," 
"  only  this  paragraph,"  and,  even 
when  hushed  into  silence  by  Mr 
Cumberland's  complaint,  breaks  forth 
in  little  exclamations :  "  Why,  there 
is  something  about  Mr  Mansfield  ; 
Sylvo,  why  did  you  not  tell  me? 
Come  here  and  read  this,  Mary, 
my  love ;  I  would  read  it  to  you,  if  it 
were  not  for  disturbing  Mr  Cumber- 
land," —  a  succession  of  irritating 
small  attacks  upon  the  patience  of 
the  head  of  the  house.  When  Mr 
Cumberland  can  'go  on  no  longer,  he 
glances  over  his  spectacles  at  the 
offender,  and  closes  his  book  upon  his 
hand.  "  I  am  sure  I  do  not  care  for 
the  paper,"  says  Mrs  Burtonshaw, 
taking  the  first  word ;  "  but  I  really 
cannot  be  so  hard-hearted  as  to  read 
all  to  myself,  and  that  dear  child 
labouring  there  without  any  amuse- 
ment. Sylvo,  you  great  fellow,  why 
do  you  not  talk,  and  help  to  wake  us  ? 
I  think  we  are  all  going  to  sleep 
to-night." 

So  far  is  this  from  being  the  case, 
however,  that  when  the  household 
has  actually  retired  to  rest,  three  dif- 
ferent watchers  in  three  adjoining 
chambers  find  it  quite  impossible  to 
sleep.  Sylvo,  it  is  true,  faintly  dream- 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


ing  of  the  African  wilds,  and  a  hun- 
dred indefinite  delights,  sleeps  like  a 
tired  hunter,  much  too  soundly  to 
have  any  disquiet  in  his  slumbers ; 
but  his  mother  lies  awake  planning 
how  she  shall  execute  her  final  attack, 
and  "settle"  the  unconscious  Sylvo. 
At  another  chamber  window  a  white 
figure  looks  out  upon  the  moonlight 
— it  is  Mary  Cumberland,  quite  un- 
used to  watching,  who  has  too  many 
thoughts  pressing  upon  her  mind  to  go 
to  sleep.  These  thoughts,  if  they 
could  but  be  disclosed  to  the  astonish- 
ed vision  of  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  would 
banish  sleep  from  that  good  mother's 
apartment  once  for  all  to-night.  But 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  wots  not  of  the 
charmed  maze  in  which  her  dearest 
Mary  wanders,  and  could  not  under- 
stand this  thronging  detail  of  recol- 
lection, this  indefinite  mist  of  antici- 
pation, which  Mary  does  not  know 
how  to  strive  against.  It  is  all  new 
to  Mary  Cumberland's  surprised  and 
fluttered  heart  —  life  looks  so  tame 
and  commonplace  on  the  other  side  of 
these  three  magical  days,  and  on  this 
side  expands  into  such  a  marvellous 
world  of  possibility  and  hope.  Who 
has  done  it  all,  or  what  has  done  it 
all,  Mary  is  not  sufficiently  enlight- 
ened to  whisper  to  herself;  but  some- 
how there  shines  before  her  an  ethe- 
real existence — a  way  that  is  glorified 
and  changed  out  of  the  common  way 
— a  life  that  lies  upon  a  higher  level 
than  any  she  has  known.  With  a 
strange  and  agitated  pleasure  her 
heart  returns  to  this  enchanted  circle, 
this  world  of  three  days'  duration. 
What  has  made  these  different  from  all 
the  other  days  of  Mary's  experience  ? 
Hush  !  Mary  is  looking  at  the  moon- 
light on  the  river,  looking  at  the  stars 
shining  down  upon  the  willow- trees, 
listening  to  the  rustling  of  the  boughs, 
and  the  sighing  of  the  stream.  She 
has  no  answer  to  give  to  this  uncalled- 
for  question,  which  no  one  has  any 
light  to  ask  of  her.  "  Rational  an- 
swers "  are  not  quite  in  Mary's  way 
at  this  present  moment,  although 
they  have  been  a  daily  necessity  with 
her  for  two-and-twenty  years.  She 
efades  the  question  in  her  new-born 
love  for  this  sweet,  bright  glimmer  on 


the  stream,  and,  leaning  out  of  her 
open  window  with  her  fair  hair  blow- 
ing over  her  cheek,  and  the  soft  night 
air  cooling  her  brow,  is  looking  forth 
upon  this  glorious  quiet,  this  wakeful 
sky  and  slumbering  country,  when 
Aunt  Burtonshaw,  perplexed  and 
anxious,  is  just  about  to  yield  to 


And  in  the  next  room  Zaidee,  with 
the  candle  before  her  on  her  little 
table,  reads  her  chapter  in  her  father's 
bible,  bends  down  her  beautiful  head 
upon  its  sacred  pages,  and  with  tears 
in  her  eyes,  not  bitter  enough  to  fall, 
prays  the  prayer  of  her  childhood  for 
those  at  home.  God  bless  Percy 
whom  God  has  gifted  ;  God  bless  all 
of  them,  every  one.  Name  by  name 
comes  to  the  mind  of  Zaidee.  Name 
by  name  dwells  in  her  heart.  Grand- 
father Vivian's  book  is  on  the  table 
beside  her — she  has  been  looking  once 
more  at  the  name  which  is  hers  too, 
as  well  as  Percy's,  and  thinking  of  this 
sacred  and  precious  legacy,  a  legacy 
nobler  than  lands  or  gold,  which  is  her 
share  of  the  family  inheritance.  Zaidee 
does  not  need  to  close  her  bible  when 
her  prayers  are  over,  and  when  she 
enters  her  enchanted  land  of  thought. 
She  thinks  how  at  home  they  will  re- 
joice over  Percy — how  his  young  fame 
will  gladden  their  hearts.  Her  own 
heart  warms  with  the  family  joy,  the 
pride  of  love  and  kindred ;  under  her 
breath,  when  no  one  can  hear  her,  she 
dares  to  say  "  our  Percv !"  she  dares 
to  express  the  fulness  of  her  wonder 
and  her  pride.  Even  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw now,  disquieted  and  anxious, 
has  fallen  asleep  against  her  will  before 
her  plans  are  half  completed,  and 
Mary  closes  her  window,  and  steals 
in  softly  out  of  the  moonlight  to  be- 
take herself  to  rest ;  but  Zaidee  still 
bends  over  her  open  bible,  and  is  still 
busy  with  thoughts  of  her  long-for- 
saken home.  Percy  Vivian  has  no 
suspicion  of  how  he  has  roused  this 
beautiful  stranger,  nor  of  those  prayers 
of  simple  faith  that  rise  for  him  to 
heaven.  It  may  be  that  his  own 
thoughts  reward  the  unwilling  fascina- 
tion of  Mary  Cumberland,  but  he  has 
no  thought  of  Zaidee,  the  long-lost 
and  unknown. 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


165 


NOTES    ON   CANADA    AND   THE   NOllTH-WEST    STATES   OF  AMERICA. 


PART  V. 


THE   UPPER   MISSISSIPPI. 


As  nearly  as  possible  in  the  centre 
of  the  continent  of  North  America, 
and  at  an  elevation  of  about  eighteen 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
sea,  extends  a  tract  of  pine-covered 
table -land  about  a  hundred  miles 
square,  and  which  probably  contains 
a  greater  number  of  small  lakes  than 
any  other  district  of  the  same  size  in 
the  world.  It  is  called  Les  Hauteurs 
des  Terres,  and  is,  in  fact,  the  trans- 
verse watershed  between  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  and  the  St  Lawrence  waters, 
and  those  which  run  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  In  one  of  its  tiny  lakes 
(Itasca)  the  Mississippi  takes  its  rise, 
and  flows  due  south.  In  another  close 
to  it  the  Red  River  finds  its  source, 
and  runs  north  to  Lake  Winnipeg; 
while  there  are  others,  not  many  miles 
distant  in  a  southerly  direction,  whose 
waters  have  an  eastern  outlet,  and, 
after  a  short  but  rapid  course,  lose 
themselves  in  Lake  Superior.  It  was 
upon  a  glorious  day  in  this  very  month 
last  summer  that  we  transferred  our- 
selves and  our  bark  canoe,  by  a  long 
portage  through  the  woods,  from  one 
of  these  streams  to  Sandy  Lake, 
which  furnishes  a  tributary  to  the 
head  waters  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
paddled  along  its  silent  margin. 
Sometimes  hidden  by  the  tall  dark 
shadows  which  rows  of  lofty  pines 
fringing  the  shore  threw  upon  the 
water — sometimes  emerging  from  them 
into  the  full  blaze  of  the  setting  sun, 
and  rounding  long  grassy  peninsulas 
which  stretched  far  across  the  lake — 
or  wending  our  way  through  archi- 
pelagoes of  little  wooded  islets — now 
and  then  overcome  by  the  fatigues  of 
the  day,  and  the  soothing  influences 
of  the  scene — we  lay  back  upon  our 
blankets,  and  looked  dreamily  over 
the  side  of  the  canoe  at  the  gentle 
ripple,  and  the  evening  fly  that 
played  upon  it,  until  startled  by  the 
sudden  plunge  of  the  Black  Bass  or 
the  Maskelonge ;  or  watched  the 
bright  vermilion  tinge  upon  the  fan- 
tastic outline  of  the  lower  clouds  fade 


into  a  border  of  pale  yellow,  and  gra- 
dually vanish,  until  roused  to  fresh 
energy  by  these  indications  of  a  failing 
day,   and  the  recollection  that   the 
Indian  village  which  was  our  destina- 
tion was  still  some  miles  distant ;  and 
then  with  vigorous  strokes  we  plied 
the   paddle   to    the  chaunt    of  the 
voyageurs,   and  shot    rapidly  along 
towards   the  wreath  of  blue  smoke 
that  betokened  the  wigwam  of  the 
Indian:   doubly  cheering  to  us,  for 
we  had  not  seen  a  human  habitation 
of  any  sort  now  for  many  days.    It 
was  a  solitary  hut,   with  a    single 
upturned  canoe  before  it,  and  a  single 
mangy  cur  standing  sentinel  at  the 
door.      Our    shouts,   however,   soon 
brought  to  the  edge  of  the  lake  a  wild, 
half-naked  figure,  whose  long  matted 
hair  hung  nearly  to  his  waist,  and 
whose  naturally  dark  complexion  was 
increased  by  a  coating  of  soot.    A 
ragged  filthy  blanket  was  his   only 
covering ;  and  he  seemed  so  transfixed 
with  astonishment  that  he  did  not  for 
some  time  recover  his  faculties  suffi- 
ciently to  enable  him  to  answer  our 
demand  for  some  fresh  meat  or  fish. 
When  we  held  up  a  dollar,  however, 
a  flood  of  light  poured  in  upon  his 
bewildered  intellects,   and  he  dived 
into  his  bark  wigwam,  and  immedi- 
ately reappeared  with   a  squaw,  a 
papoose,  and  an  armful  of  fish.    The 
squaw  was  a  degree  more  dirty  and 
hideous  and  badly  clad  than  her  hus- 
band.   The  infant  watched  our  pro- 
ceedings with  a  sort  of  fixed,  uncon- 
scious stare,  arising  probably  from 
an  inability  to  shut  its  eyes  on  account 
of  being  firmly  lashed  to  a  board,  after 
the  manner  of  papooses   generally. 
Having  been  fortunate  in  thus  pro- 
curing a  good  supply  of  fresh  Bass, 
we  pushed  contentedly  on,  and  reached 
the  village  just  before  dark.     The 
scene  that  here  met  our  eyes  was 
somewhat  singular.    A  collection  of 
wigwams,  some    conical    and    some 
oval  in  shape  like  gypsies'  tents,  were 
grouped  confusedly  upon  the  sandy 


166  Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.  [Aug. 


beach,  between  which  were  suspended 
either  fishing-nets,  or  lines  from  which 
hung  rows  of  fish  being  cured.  Two 
or  three  ruined  log-houses  indicated 
the  former  residence  of-white  traders ; 
but  they  had  evidently  not  been  ten- 
anted for  many  years,  and  were  quite 
dilapidated.  A  few  canoes  were  fish- 
ing off  the  village;  a  number  more 
lay  upturned  upon  the  edge  of  the 
lake,  where  a  knot  of  persons  were 
collected,  evidently  watching  with 
some  interest  so  unusual  an  arrival  as 
a  large  canoe  from  the  eastern  shore 
with  eight  paddles.  Their  curiosity 
was  still  further  excited  when,  as  we 
approached  nearer,  they  perceived 
that,  of  these,  four  were  whites.  More- 
over, there  was  something  novel  in 
our  style  of  paddling,  on  which,  to  say 
the  truth,  we  rather  piqued  ourselves. 
The  Indians  themselves  never  attempt 
to  keep  time,  but  we  commenced  at 
starting  to  put  both  voyageurs  and 
Indians  into  training;  and  now,  at  the 
end  of  a  week's  voyage,  with  twelve 
hours  a-day  of  practice,  we  found  our- 
selves in  first-rate  condition,  and, 
with  a  "  give  way  all,"  dashed  past 
the  village  in  a  style  that  would 
rather  have  astonished  the  Leander, 
much  less  the  unsophisticated  Chippe- 
ways  of  Sandy  Lake ;  and  then,  com- 
ing gracefully  round  opposite  an 
amazed  missionary,  who  was  standing 
close  to  the  water  surrounded  by  the 
youth  of  his  congregation,  we  "  in 
bow,"  and  beached  our  light  bark  with 
a  violence  that  seriously  imperilled 
the  worthy  man's  toes.  Paddling 
certainly  has  this  advantage  over 
rowing,  that  every  one  sits  with  his 
face  to  the  bows  to  criticise  the  steer- 
ing, and  take  an  equal  interest  with 
the  cockswain  in  the  accidents  and  in- 
cidents of  the  voyage. 

This  same  missionary  was  the  only 
white  man  in  the  place,  and  we  were 
delighted  to  find  anybody  who  could 
give  us  information  about  our  route, 
and  help  us  with  his  advice.  He 
told  us  that  the  village  contained 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  inhabit- 
ants— that  most  of  the  warriors  and 
young  men  were  on  the  war  path, 
and  that  very  possibly  we  might  fall 
in  either  with  them  or  their  enemies, 
the  Sioux,  in  the  course  of  our 
voyage — a  piece  of  information  which 
accounted  for  the  determination  of 


our  Fond-du-Lac  Indians  not  to  ac- 
company us  farther.  He  said,  how- 
ever, that  the  theatre  of  war  was 
generally  on  the  Minnesota,  or  Sfe 
Peter's  River,  which  falls  into  the 
Mississippi  a  few  miles  below  the 
Falls  of  St  Anthony.  We  regretted 
that  our  visit  had  not  occurred  a  little 
later  in  the  year,  when  he  anticipated 
the  assemblage  of  about  six  thousand 
of  the  tribe  at  this  spot  to  receive 
their  annual  payment  from  the  United 
States  Government,  andwe  should  have 
been  entertained  with  scalp-dances  and 
other  savage  ceremonies.  The  origin 
of  the  war  in  which  the  Chippeways 
and  Sioux — or,  in  other  words,  the 
Algonquin  and  Dakotah  races — are 
now  engaged,  has  long  been  for- 
gotten. It  is  an  hereditary  quarrel, 
which  was  raging  two  hundred  years 
ago,  when  Father  Hennepin  was  the 
first  white  man  to  explore  these 
waters,  and  live  with  the  Dakotahs 
at  Mille  Lacs.  The  date  of  its  com- 
mencement could  notthenbe  assigned, 
and  it  will  doubtless  continue  until 
the  ploughshare  and  the  pruning 
hook  of  the  white  man  will  exercise 
their  magic  influence  to  exterminate, 
in  a  few  years,  both  those  tribes  whose 
scalping  knives  and  tomahawks  have 
been  so  energetically  wielded  against 
one  another  for  centuries,  and  with 
so  little  effect.  The  Sioux  village  at 
Mille  Lacs,  distant  about  seventy  miles 
from  Sandy  Lake,  is  now  inhabited 
by  Chippeways,  who  are  under  the 
spiritual  charge  of  the  missionary 
with  whom  we  were  conversing. 
The  Sioux  have  moved  their  hunting 
grounds  to  the  banks  of  the  Minnesota, 
and,  except  when  they  make  a  pre- 
datory expedition  into  the  country 
of  the  Chippeways,  never  visit  the 
eastern  shores  of  the  Mississippi.  I 
afterwards  saw  some,  however,  upon 
the  western  bank,  a  few  miles  below 
St  Paul's,  in  the  course  of  my  voyage 
down  the  river;  but  by  the  treaty 
concluded  at  Traverse  des  Sioux,  in 
July  1851,  they  abandoned  their  vil- 
lages in  that  quarter,  and  "  cede,  sell, 
and  relinquish,"  to  the  United  States 
Government,  all  their  lands  in  the 
State  of  Iowa,  and  also  all  their  lands 
in  the  territory  of  Minnesota  lying 
east  of  the  Red  River  of  the  north, 
and  the  Sioux  River  which  flows 
into  the  Missouri;  in  consideration- 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


for  which  they  are  allowed  a  long 
narrow  reserve  upon  the  head  wa- 
ters of  the  Minnesota  Kiver ;  the 
Upper  and  Lower  Sioux  together 
receive  a  pecuniary  compensation 
of  about  two  million  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars.  In  1853 
eleven  counties  had  been  already  or- 
ganised in  the  territory  thus  pur- 
chased. Still  the  Dakotahs  number 
more  than  twenty-five  thousand  souls, 
and  their  territory  to  the  east  of  the 
ceded  districts,  over  uninterrupted 
buffalo  prairies,  extends  to  the  roots 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  They  are 
still  amongst  the  most  savage  and 
warlike,  as  they  are  the  most  numer- 
ous, of  the  North  American  Indian 
tribes.  Retaining  all  their  barbarous 
customs,  they  only. hasten,  by  their 
aversion  to  civilisation,  the  period  of 
their  extinction.  The  Chippeways 
who  inhabit  both  shores  of  Lake 
Superior,  and  a  great  portion  of  the 
north- west  country  which  intervenes 
between  the  Sioux  and  civilisation, 
number  about  eight  thousand  souls, 
of  which  about  half  reside  in  Minne- 
sota. The  Chippeways  of  the  Upper 
Mississippi  are,  according  to  School- 
craft,  the  advanced  band  of  the  wide- 
spread Algonquin  family,  who,  after 
spreading  along  the  Atlantic  from  Vir- 
ginia, as  far  as  the  Gulf  of  St  Law- 
rence, have  followed  up  the  great 
chains  of  lakes  to  this  region,  leaving 
tribes  of  more  or  less  variation  on  the 
way.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how 
many  years  may  have  been  expended 
in  this  ethnological  track.  Though 
insignificant  and  gentle  in  appearance, 
the  Chippeways  are  brave  and  hardy, 
and  have  sustained  with  infinite  credit 
their  long  contests  with  the  Dakotahs. 
The  villages  of  comparatively  well 
civilised  Chippeways  in  Upper  Canada 
are  not  included  in  this  enumeration, 
as  their  savage  character  has  become 
so  far  modified  by  intercourse  with 
whites,  that  they  are  almost  qualified 
to  be  incorporated  with  the  great  mass 
of  society.  At  present  —  even  in 
Canada — they  are  divided  into  fami- 
lies, upon  the  totemic  principle, 
which  are  in  their  turn  subdivided. 
Large  annuities  are  paid  both  by  the 
British  and  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment to  the  Chippeway  Indians. 
The  sub-agency  had  been  transferred 
from  La  Pointe  to  Sandy  Lake,  where 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVIH. 


167 

it  was  subsequently  abandoned ;  but 
the  missionary  told  us  that  there 
was  a  probability  of  its  being  again 
permanently  re- established  here.  The 
soil  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sandy 
Lake  is  good,  and  produces  corn  and 
garden  vegetables.  In  return  for 
all  which  information,  we  gave  him  a 
history  of  our  travels  and  future  in- 
tentions, while  the  voyageurs  were 
enlightening  an  attentive  group  of 
natives  upon  the  same  subject ;  not, 
however,  with  any  result  beyond  that 
of  mystifying  them  more  than  ever, 
as  they  could  not  conceive  what  other 
object  but  trade  could  induce  four 
palefaces  to  go  through  the  hardships 
and  fatigue  of  a  bark-canoe  voyage 
to  a  village  so  far  removed  from  the 
usual  haunts  of  Americans.  Very 
often  during  a  whole  year  the  only 
white  man  they  saw  was  their  mis- 
sionary. The  voyageurs  did  not 
lose  so  good  an  opportunity  of 
magnifying  their  own  importance 
by  marvellous  accounts  of  our  proceed- 
ings ; — how,  instead  of  allowing  our- 
selves to  be  conveyed  along  by  ourmen 
like  gentlemen,  we  never  ceased  pad- 
dling ourselves; — how  we  did  nothing 
but  sing,  and  laugh,  and  bathe,  and 
make  huge  bonfires  of  fallen  trees,  and 
insist  upon  shooting  impossible  rapids, 
and  upon  always  having  our  own  way 
in  everything,  and  otherwise  comport- 
ing ourselves  in  a  manner  totally  op- 
posed to  the  habits  of  sober-minded 
Yankee  traders  under  similar  circum- 
stances ; — a  description  which  served  to 
elicit  from  them  a  continued  series  of 
ejaculations  of  "  waughs"  and  "  ughs," 
and  which  was  regularly  repeated  to* 
every  individual,  either  red  or  white, 
whom  we  afterwards  met.  Indeed, 
the  voyageurs  used  to  treat  us  with  a 
kind  of  condescending  indulgence,  as  if 
we  were  wilful  children  who  were  not 
to  be  thwarted.  A  question  now  arose 
in  which  the  extent  of  our  authority 
was  to  be  proved.  It  seems  that  Ame- 
rican traders  do  not  dispute  daily  ar- 
rangements with  their  voyageurs, 
whom  they  engage  to  take  them  a  cer- 
tain distance,  and  never  interrupt  or 
interfere  with  their  proceedings.  How- 
ever disposed  we  might  be  to  follow 
their  example  under  some  circum- 
stances, now  and  then  points  of  differ- 
ence arose  between  us ;  and  when  our 
voyageurs  informed  us  that  it  was 
M 


168 


Notes  on  Canada  and  tie  North-west  States  of  America.  [Aug. 


their  intention  to  camp  at  the  village, 
we  assured  them  that  our  camping 
place  for  the  night  was  to  be  a  small 
island  opposite.  This  did  not  agree 
with  their  views,  as  they  would  thus  be 
cut  off  from  intercourse  with  the  vil- 
lage ;  indeed,  they  had  looked  forward 
to  a  short  stay  here  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  had  often  spoken  in  glowing 
terms  of  the  pleasures  of  Sandy  Lake, 
of  the  abundance  of  provisions,  and 
les  belles  sauvagesses,  who,  they  said, 
were  celebrated  for  their  beauty 
above  the  women  of  any  other  Chip- 
peway  village.  It  was  not,  therefore, 
to  be  wondered  at  if  they  made  objec- 
tions to  our  propositions.  However,  as 
we  were  strongly  recommended  by  the 
missionary  to  put  a  few  hundred  yards 
of  fresh  water  between  our  camp  and 
the  village,  and  as  we  anticipated  some 
annoyance  from  human  as  well  as  ca- 
nine intrusion  by  remaining  on  the 
main-land,  we  contented  ourselves 
with  looking  round  the  smoky  wig- 
wams, and,  being  satisfied  that  neither 
they  nor  their  tenants  were  less  filthy 
than  usual,  pushed  off— to  the  disgust 
no  less  of  the  villagers  than  the  voya- 
geurs — to  a  wooded  islet,  whither  we 
were  speedily  followed  by  canoes  full 
of  inquisitive  natives.  Here  they  col- 
lected round  our  camp-fire  in  such 
picturesque  groups,  that,  as  its  ruddy 
glow  fell  upon  their  swarthy  half- 
naked  figures,  we  could  not  regret 
their  presence,  since  it  served  to  com- 
plete a  most  characteristic  scene.  We 
had  pulled  up  the  canoe,  and  tilted  it 
against  the  trunks  of  overhanging 
trees.  A  grassy  sward,  reaching  to 
the  water's  edge,  and  smooth  as  a 
lawn,  promised  to  afford  an  agreeable 
couch;  and, seated  here,  we  discussed, 
by  the  flickering  light  of  a  tallow 
candle  in  a  horn  lantern,  broiled  fish, 
and  green  tea  served  up  in  capacious 
tin  pannikins.  A  few  yards  from  us 
the  voyageurs  were  bending  over  the 
fire,  engaged  in  stirring  the  contents 
of  a  pot,  from  which  ascended  a  savoury 
odour,  and  which  was  suspended  over 
the.  crackling  blaze  from  a  wooden 
tripod;— savages  passed  to  and  fro, 
bringing  firewood,  or  stood  watching 
the  culinary  operations ; — canoes  were 
seen  in  the  dim  moonlight,  like  sha- 
dows crossing  the  lake ; — the  village 
lights  twinkled  in  the  distance,  and 
beyond  them  an  irregular,  indistinct 


outline  marked  the  heavy  forest, 
and  formed  the  background  of  the 
picture  ; — and  as  we  leant  back  upon 
the  canoe,  and  listened  to  the  jabber- 
ing of  the  natives  and  the  splashing  ot 
their  paddles  in  the  water,  we  thought 
of  a  very  different  party  at  home,  col- 
lected under  very  different  circum- 
stances,—for  this  was  the  night  before 
the  eventful  twelfth  of  August,  when 
shooting-boxes  on  the  moors  are  in- 
habited by  excited  parties,  and  the 
gentlemen  are  speculating  over  whisky- 
toddy  on  the  prospects  of  the  morrow, 
and  gamekeepers  are  sent  for  before 
the  masters  go  to  bed,  and  given  last 
directions,  and  a  potent  glass  to  im- 
press them  on  their  memory,  as  with 
a  graceful  scrape  they  drink  the  health 
of  the  company  ; — and  dogs  are  yelp- 
ing in  the  kennel,  and  bare-legged  gil- 
lies dancing  reels  in  the  kitchen,  and 
ultimately  turn  into  cribs  curiously 
constructed  in  the  walls  thereof,  where 
they  are  considerably  better  off  than 
we  were  on  our  grassy  island  in  Sandy 
Lake, — for  we  had  scarcely  rolled  our- 
selves in  our  blankets,  with  our  feet 
to  the  fire,  than  the  sky  became  over- 
cast, and  thunder-showers  and  mus- 
quitoes  came  together ;  so  that,  drench- 
ed and  bitten  as  we  were,  we  courted 
sleep  under  considerable  difficulties. 
The  ground  seemed  unusually  hard, 
and  there  was  either  a  stone  under  my 
hip,  or  a  lump  under  my  shoulder,  or 
a  stream  trickling  into  my  ear,  or  a 
discomfort  of  some  sort,  that  kept  me 
awake  for  hours,  until,  overcome  by 
excessive  fatigue,  I  was  gradually 
lapsing  into  a  state  of  unconsciousness, 
when  the  report  of  a  gun  at  my  ear 
roused  us  all  with  a  start,  and  we 
gazed  into  the  black  darkness  with 
bewildered  senses,  not  knowing  what 
had  happened,  or  what  to  expect.  We 
were  soon  relieved  to  some  extent, 
for  B.  appeared,  rifle  in  hand,  and  told 
us  he  had  been  the  cause  of  our  alarm, 
and  had  fired  at  some  large  animal 
which  had  disturbed  his  uneasy  rest 
by  snuffing  in  his  face.  Whereupon 
we  loaded  our  guns,  and  watched 
with  some  curiosity, — rather  glad, 
since  sleep  was  not  tempting,  of  an 
excuse  to  lie  awake.  Presently  a  heavy 
tread,  accompanied  by  a  no  less  heavy 
breathing,  slowly  approached,  and,  in 
a  state  of  intense  excitement,  we  peer- 
ed into  the  obscurity,  until  we  could 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


indistinctly  discern  the  form  of  a 
large  animal,  to  which  we  were  on  the 
point  of  giving  a  warm  reception,  when 
a  shout  of  laughter  from  A.  cooled  our 
valour,  and  revealed  to  us  the  morti- 
fying fact  that  we  were  about  to  dis- 
play it  by  bagging  a  horse,  whose 
curiosity,  excited  by  such  unusual  in- 
truders upon  his  solitary  domain,  led 
him  to  pay  us  a  midnight  visit,  and 
to  rub  his  rough  nose  upon  B.'s  physi- 
ognomy,— a  liberty  which  very  nearly 
cost  him  his  valuable  existence. 

Sandy  Lake  has  always  been  an 
important  point  in  Mississippi  ex- 
ploration, and  Schoolcraft  and  others 
mention  the  island  of  which  we  had 
taken  temporary  possession,  as  having 
formed  their  camping  ground.  It  is 
singular  that  the  source  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi should  have  remained  unde- 
termined until  Schoolcraft  fixed  it  at 
Lake  Itasca  only  twenty-four  years 
ago.  It  is  clear,  however,  from  his 
account,  that  British  traders  were 
well  acquainted  with  the  ramification 
of  lakes  on  Les  Hauteurs  des  Terres 
long  before  his  visit.  Its  discovery 
had  been  attempted  by  United  States 
expeditions  many  years  previously. 
Lieutenant  Pike,  United  States  army, 
started  on  snow  shoes  from  Sandy 
Lake  in  1805,  but  only  succeeded  in 
reaching  Leech  Lake  ;  and  Governor 
Cass,  now  a  veteran  of  the  United 
States  Senate,  was  appointed  to 
command  an  exploring  expedition 
to  the  head  waters  of  the  Mississippi, 
with  the  additional  objects  of  enforc- 
ing, by  a  military  display,  the  allegi- 
ance of  the  Indians  to  the  United 
States — of  prohibiting  the  introduction 
of  spirituous  liquors — and  of  inducing 
the  tribes  to  transfer  those  commer- 
cial relations  which  they  had  been 
accustomed  to  maintain  with  the 
English  traders,  to  those  of  the  Ame- 
rican Company;— a  step  they  had 
hitherto  shown  themselves  very  un- 
willing to  take.  At  Sandy  Lake  this 
demonstration  was  made,  and  Gov- 
ernor Cass  hoisted  here  the  stars  and 
stripes— made  a  depot  of  his  heavy 
supplies — left  with  them  his  military 
escort  and  part  of  his  French  canoemen 
^and  proceeded  with  light  canoes  and 
a  select  party  to  ascend  the  river. 
The  trading  fort  at  that  time  consisted 
of  a  stockade  of  squared  pine  timber 
thirteen  feet  high,  and  forming  an  area 


of  a  hundred  feet  square,  with  bas- 
tions pierced  for  musketry  at  the 
south-east  and  north-west  angles.  It 
enclosed  two  ranges  of  buildings. 
Cass  and  his  party  only  succeeded  in 
discovering  a  few  more  little  lakes. 
Schoolcraft  calculates  the  number  of 
lakes  between  Sandy  Lake  and  the 
northern  frontier  at  about  ten  thou- 
sand. They  fall  principally  under  two 
classes  —  those  with  clean  sandy 
shores  and  a  considerable  depth,  and 
those  with  marshy  margin  and  abound- 
ing in  wild  rice.  The  former  yield 
various  species  offish ;  the  latter  serve 
not  only  as  a  storehouse  of  grain 
for  the  natives,  who  gather  it  in 
August  and  September,  but  they  in- 
vite myriads  of  waterfowl  into  the 
region,  and  thus  prove  a  double  re- 
source to  them.  . 

Before  daylight  on  the  following 
morning  the  missionary  came  off  to 
us  with  letters.  As  means  of  commu- 
nication with  civilisation  was  some- 
what rare,  he  was  glad  to  avail  him- 
self of  the  opportunity  which  we  af- 
forded. We  did  not  get  away  so 
early  as  usual,  as  the  voyageurs  had 
slipped  across  to  the  mainland  dur- 
ing the  night,  and  did  not  make  their 
appearance  until  the  sun  was  far  up 
in  the  heavens.  A  sluggish  winding 
river  connects  Sandy  Lake  with  the 
Mississippi ;  and  we  were  delighted 
to  see  some  wild  ducks,  although  we 
did  not  succeed  in  bagging  any.  We 
passed  a  deserted  trading  post  and 
village,  where  Le  Feve  told  us  he  had 
formerly  lived.  Its  present  condi- 
tion was  significant  of  the  change 
which  the  country  was  gradually  un- 
dergoing ;  and  as  our  voyageur  look- 
ed with  a  melancholy  interest  at  the 
scene  of  some  of  his  former  trading 
exploits,  it  recalled  to  mind  those 
associations  which  connect  the  early 
history  of  the  North-west  with  the 
remarkable  men  of  whom  Le  F§ve 
and  Cadot  were  the  descendants. 
The  first  men  who  attempted  to  en- 
gage in  trade  with  the  Dakotahs 
were  those  who  accompanied  Father 
Hennepin  upon  his  voyage  of  dis- 
covery to  the  Upper  Mississippi.  In 
looking  through  the  annals  of  the 
Minnesota  Historical  Society,  I  find 
their  names  given,  and  they  are 
worthy  of  being  recorded  as  Michael 
Ako  and  Picard  du  Gay.  In  1680 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.          [Aug, 


170 

these  men  visited  Mille  Lacs,  the 
Spirit  Lake  of  the  Dakotahs,  with 
an  outfit  of  a  hundred  and  eighty 
dollars,  furnished  by  the  enterprising 
La  Salle,  and  remained  in  captivity 
there  for  two  months.  On  their  return 
they  met  the  Sieur  de  Luth,  who 
afterwards  performed  the  journey  in 
which  we  were  now  engaged,  and 
who  was  the  first  white  man  to  come 
by  way  of  Lake  Superior  to  the  Up- 
per Mississippi.  As  yet,  however, 
no  trading  posts  had  been  established 
among  the  Sioux,  and  it  was  re- 
served for  Nicholas  Perrot  to  erect 
a  fort  for  trading  purposes  upon 
the  shores  of  Lake  Pepin,  a  short 
distance  below  St  Paul's.  He  and 
his  comrades  are  those  who,  Dako- 
tah  tradition  asserts,  gave  seed  and 
corn  to  the  nation;  through  their 
influence  the  Dakotahs  began  to 
be  led  away  from  the  rice-grounds 
of  the  Mille  Lacs  region.  His  first  in- 
terview with  them  is  thus  described : — 
"  The  Dakotahs  first  met  with  white 
men  while  on  the  war  path  far  in  the 
South.  The  war  party  was  a  large 
one,  and  the  white  men  with  whom 
they  met  were  few.  The  Dakotahs 
were  penetrated  with  fear,  and  felt 
reverence  for  the  white  men,  similar 
to  that  which  they  feel  for  the  gods. 
The  white  men  were  also  agitated 
with  fear;  they  extended  the  hand 
trembling  to  each  other,  and  freely 
exchanged  presents.  When  a  gun 
was  exhibited,  discharged,  and  pre- 
sented to  the  natives,  they  drew  back 
in  utter  amazement;  they  separated 
in  peace,  and  the  Dakotahs  returned 
to  astonish  their  families  with  the  re- 
lation of  what  had  happened."  Le 
Sueur,  however,  was  the  most  active 
and  extensive  explorer  of  the  Min- 
nesota territory,  and  the  first  to 
ascend  the  river  of  that  name;  in 
honour  of  which  the  principal  city  on 
its  banks,  consisting  of  half-a-dozen 
log-huts,  is  now  called  the  city  of  Le 
Sueur;  and  there  is  a  magnificent 
plan  of  it  hanging  up  in  the  hotel  at  St 
Paul's,  with  the  squares,  streets,  and 
public  buildings  duly  described  and 
portrayed.  After  the  cession  of  Ca- 
nada to  the  English,  the  French  still 
retained  their  control  over  the  Indian 
tribes  of  Minnesota,  and  Englishmen 
for  some  years  risked  their  lives  in 
passing  through  the  country.  In 


1774,  however,  the  North-west  Com- 
pany of  Montreal  was  established. 
As  they  employed  old  Canadian  voy- 
ageurs exclusively,  they  succeeded  in 
establishing  posts  to  the  west  of  Lake- 
Superior.  In  1796  they  built  the 
fort  we  were  now  passing,  and  a  few 
years  afterwards  established  posts  at 
Leech  Lake  and  other  points  of  the- 
Objibeway  country.  They  were  thus 
enabled  entirely  to  monopolise  the  fur 
trade  of  Minnesota,  of  which  Sandy 
Lake  became  the  chief  emporium. 
The  principal  traders  at  this  time 
were  invariably  Scotchmen,  whose 
shrewdness  and  sagacity  enabled  them 
to  turn  to  good  account  the  hardy 
endurance,  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
country  and  its  inhabitants,  possessed 
by  the  half-breed  voyageurs, — or,  as 
they  were  more  commonly  called, 
"  Coureurs  des  Bois."  This  class  had 
now  become  very  numerous,  on  ac- 
count of  the  intimate  relations  which 
the  French  had  maintained  with  the 
Indians  for  upwards  of  a  century,  and 
their  habit  of  marrying  Indian  wives. 
Their  mode  of  life  was  wild  and  ad- 
venturous, and  the  deeds  of  daring  of 
many  a  "  Bois  bruMe* "  are  celebrated 
in  the  song  of  the  voyageur,  and  their 
names  handed  down  with  veneration 
and  respect.  There  is  scarcely  a 
river  or  a  lake  in  the  North-west  to 
which  some  interesting  association  is 
not  attached ;  and  the  tragedy  of 
Sandy  Lake,  in  which  the  principal 
trader,  a  Scotchman,  called  Kay,  was 
murdered  by  an  Indian,  is  among  the 
most  celebrated  of  these. 

For  many  years  the  North-west 
Company  continued  successfully  to 
carry  on  their  trade  in  spite  of  the 
rival  American  factory  established  at 
Prairie  du  Chien,  below  the  Falls  of 
St  Anthony,  which  was  not  conducted 
upon  such  principles  as  to  induce  the 
Indians  to  desert  the  English  traders. 
In  1816,  however,  the  American  Fur 
Company,  organised  by  Jacob  Astor, 
purchased  the  Sandy  Lake  station,  to- 
gether with  all  the  posts  in  that  region ; 
and  the  fur-trade  of  this  district,  which 
is  still  valuable,  will  continue  to  be  car- 
ried on  each  year  with  less  spirit  and 
success,  and  bark  canoes  to  ply  upon, 
the  lonesome  streams,  and  loaded 
voyageurs  to  tramp  through  these 
solitudes,  until  the  hardy  settler 
comes  at  last  to  wake  the  slumbering 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


171 


echoes  of  the  silent  forest  with  the 
ringing  blow  of  the  axe,  or  to  turn 
with  the  ploughshare  the  virgin  soil 
of  the  rolling  prairie.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  predict  that  in  a  very  few 
years  the  agricultural  produce  of  the 
white  man,  from  the  fertile  banks  of 
the  St  Peter's  and  the  thriving 
farms  upon  the  Red  River — lumber 
from  the  head  waters  of  the  Father  of 
Rivers — and  minerals  from  the  shores 
of  the  mightiest  of  fresh-water  seas — 
will  be  hurried  through  the  woods  and 
forests  of  Minnesota — and  the  shriek 
of  the  engine  scare  away  the  startled 
waterfowl  on  distant  lakes — or  the 
plashing  of  paddles  in  streams,  or 
savannahs  deepened  and  connected 
by  canals,  considerably  astonish  the 
beavers.  If  the  navigation  of  the 
Upper  Mississippi  were  improved, 
and  its  rapids  avoided  by  locks,  it 
would  only  require  a  canal  thirty- 
five  miles  long  to  connect  the  St 
Louis  below  the  falls  with  a  stream 
running  into  Sandy  Lake,  and  thus 
enable  a  steamer  entering  the  mouth 
of  the  St  Lawrence  to  make  its  exit 
at  New  Orleans,  and  complete  four 
thousand  miles  of  internal  fresh-water 
navigation  through  the  finest  country 
in  "  creation." 

Turning  sharply  round  a  green 
bank  about  sixty  feet  in  height,  and 
covered  with  granite  boulders,  we 
now  entered  a  deep  and  rapid  stream, 
which,  from  its  size  and  volume,  we 
at  once  recognised  as  the  Mississippi 
itself.  It  would  be  difficult  to  de- 
scribe our  feelings  of  satisfaction  as 
we  felt  ourselves  being  swept  along 
by  its  eddying  waters,  or  our  surprise 
at  finding  that  even  here,  at  a  dis- 
tance of  two  thousand  five  hundred 
miles  from  its  mouth,  this  magnificent 
river  had  an  average  breadth  of  a 
hundred  yards,  and  a  current  so  im- 
petuous that  we  looked  forward  with 
no  little  pleasure  to  being  carried  by 
it  in  our  light  canoe  a  distance  of 
more  than  four  hundred  miles.  The 
banks  of  the  river  differed  entirely 
from  those  of  the  St  Louis.  The  rocky 
banks,  and  tall  pine-trees  or  scrubby 
underwood,  were  here  exchanged  for 
flat  alluvial  shores,  covered  with  a 
luxuriant  growth  of  elm,  maple,  ash, 


and  cedar,  and  betokening  great  fer- 
tility of  soil.  The  water  of  the  St 
Louis  was  of  a  dark  chocolate  colour, 
tinged  by  its  passage  through  the 
northern  pine  and  tamarack  swamps ; 
that  of  the  Mississippi  was  light- 
coloured,  and  clear  like  the  Min- 
nesota river  itself,  which  gives  its 
name  to  the  territory, — the  literal 
meaning  of  the  Indian  word  Min- 
nesota being  "The  territory  of  the 
sky- coloured  water." 

We  glided  easily  and  swiftly  along 
for  fifty  miles,  before  the  growing  dark- 
ness compelled  us  to  think  of  camping. 
Our  only  delays  had  been  caused  by 
our  attempts  to  stalk  wild  ducks,  of 
which  we  were  fortunate  enough  to 
bag  three,  and  found  them  a  most 
seasonable  addition  to  our  usual  unin- 
teresting diet.  While  they  were  being 
cooked,  we  amused  ourselves  by  swim- 
ming across  the  Mississippi,  a  feat 
which  is  simple  enough  so  near  its 
source,  but  which,  from  its  great  bread  th 
and  rapid  current,  very  soon  becomes 
a  somewhat  formidable  undertaking. 
Our  camping  place  was  a  low,  damp 
spot,  overhung  by  magnificent  trees, 
but  infested  by  musquitoes ;  so  we  were 
glad  to  be  en  route  again  at  daylight, 
and  put  off  breakfast  until  a  fashion- 
able hour.  As  we  landed,  we  saw 
upon  the  soft  clay  the  footprints  of  a 
bear  which  had  paid  a  visit  to  the 
river  during  the  night,  and  we  re- 
gretted we  had  not  chosen  it  as  our 
camping  ground.*  The  character  of 
the  banks  remained  the  same;  the 
stream  less  rapid  and  more  wind- 
ing,— sometimes  making  such  deep 
bends,  that  ascending  canoes  make 
portages  across  the  narrow  necks; 
and  thus  perform  in  five  minutes  a 
distance  which  it  would  take  an  hour 
to  accomplish  by  following  the  course 
of  the  stream.  We  preferred,  how- 
ever, slipping  down  with  the  current. 
We  observed  a  tree  which  had  been 
barked  for  a  space  of  about  a  foot 
square,  and  on  the  white  stem  the 
Indians  had  drawn,  with  charcoal, 
three  canoes,  one  below  the  other. 
The  voyageurs  assured  us  that  by 
means  of  these  pictpgraphs  they  were 
in  the  habit  of  making  most  elaborate 
communications  with  their  friends. 


*  The  Indians,  when  bear-hunting,  never  kill  the  female  with  young,  in  order  to 
perpetuate  the  existence  of  an  animal  so  profitable  to  them. 


172 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  Slates  of  America.          [Aug. 


Wild  ducks  were  numerous,  and  we 
had  very  fair  sport  in  the  course  of 
our  day's  voyage.  Upon  one  occasion, 
as  we  were  drifting  silently  towards 
a  flock,  hugging  the  shore  as  much  as 
possible,  for  the  sake  of  concealment, 
we  suddenly  came  upon  a  canoe  con- 
taining four  squaws.  They  did  not  see 
us  approach,  and  when  we  were  within 
a  few  yards,  Le  Feve  maliciously  gave 
the  Indian  war-whoop,  which  is  made 
by  a  shrill  yell,  rising  in  key,  and 
rendered  more  unearthly  by  clapping 
the  hand  rapidly  upon  the  open  mouth ; 
which  terrified  the  unfortunate  women 
to  such  an  extent  that  we  were  dis- 
posed to  be  angry  with  him  for  his 
piece  of  mischief.  We  had  ourselves, 
tinder  his  tuition,  become  great  adepts 
in  the  art,  and  this  exercise  of  our 
lungs  derived  additional  piquancy 
from  the  fact  that  the  possibility  of 
our  being  answered  by  a  bond  fide, 
savage  in  sober  earnest  was  by  no 
means  remote.  The  women  whom 
we  so  unexpectedly  startled  were 
evidently  out  upon  a  sort  of  general 
catering  expedition,  poking  along  the 
banks  for  musk-rats  or  mice,  or  visiting 
the  mouths  of  the  little  streams  which 
enter  the  river,  and  which  are  barred 
near  the  outlets  with  cruives  some- 
what similar  to  those  used  on  salmon 
rivers  in  Scotland — so  that  sturgeon 
and  large  fish  are  able  to  ascend  ;  but, 
on  descending,  they  are  arrested  by 
the  poles  of  the  dam  forced  against 
them.  The  Indian,  walking  across  the 
dam  with  a  pole,  to  which  is  attached 
a  hook,  sees  the  pressure  of  the 
descending  fish,  and  jerks  him  out. 
Most  of  these  tributaries  were  small, 
sluggish  streams,  covered  with  wild 
rice,  through  which  the  women  force 
their  canoe,  and,  pressing  the  stalks 
over  the  side,  beat  out  the  grain  with 
their  paddles.  They  are,  in  fact,  the 
commissariat  corps  of  the  villages,  and 
have  all  sorts  of  ways  of  obtaining 
supplies,  which  more  civilised  nations 
would  often  be  glad  to  know.  The 
maple  sugar  which  they  manufacture 
is  not  only  for  home-consumption,  but 
is  largely  exported.  Thirty  or  forty 
boxes,  of  from  twenty  to  seventy 
pounds'  weight,  are  often  sold  by  an 
industrious  and  strong- handed  family 
in  the  course  of  one  season,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  quantity  they  have  used 
themselves.  Nicollet  remarks,  how- 


ever, that  there  are  probably  no  In- 
dians anywhere  more  highly  favoured 
than  those  inhabiting  the  country 
about  the  sources  of  the  Mississippi. 
Besides  their  natural  resources  of  fish, 
wild  rice,  and  maple  sugar,  with  the 
addition  of  abundance  of  game,  the 
climate  is  found  to  be  well  adapt- 
ed to  the  cultivation  of  corn,  wheat, 
barley,  oats  and  pulse.  The  potato 
is  of  superior  quality  to  that  of  the 
middle  States  of  the  Union.  In  a 
trading  point  of  view,  the  hunt  is  still 
very  profitable.  The  bear,  the  deer 
and  elk,  the  wolf,  the  fox,  the  wolve- 
rine, the  fisher  racoon,  musk-rat, 
mink,  otter,  marten,  weasel,  and  a 
few  remaining  beavers,  are  the  prin- 
cipal articles  of  traffic.  The  Ameri- 
can moose  is  said  still  occasionally  to 
make  its  appearance,  so  that  this  region 
may  be  considered  as  the  only  one  in 
the  United  States  now  capable  of  sup- 
plying the  finer  sort  of  peltries.  The 
Mississippi  continues  to  wind  through 
wide  alluvial  bottoms,  covered  with 
forest,  until  the  character  of  the  banks 
and  of  the  wood  changes  together,  and 
towards  evening  we  found  ourselves 
between  high  banks  covered  with  pine. 
On  one  of  these  we  camped;  and  as  the 
sun  set,  the  view  from  the  promontory 
on  which  we  had  established  ourselves, 
at  an  elevation  of  about  eighty  feet 
above  the  river,  was  very  beautiful, 
and  amply  repaid  us  for  the  trouble  of 
dragging  our  camp  equipage  up  the 
steep  cliff.  There  was  a  portage  300 
yards  long  from  this  point  to  Rabbit 
River,  where  some  Indians  were  en- 
camped, but  we  did  not  visit  them. 
Rabbit  River  is  a  small  tributary  to 
the  Mississippi,  and  runs  parallel  to 
it  for  some  miles.  As  it  has  a  very 
straight  course,  it  is  often  ascended  in 
preference  to  the  main  stream,  a  port- 
age to  which  is  made  at  the  head,  and 
sixteen  miles  are  thus  saved.  We 
were  awoke  next  morning  by  a  pour- 
ing rain,  in  the  midst  of  which  we 
started,  and  passed  the  mouth  of  Pine 
River,  up  which  a  belt  of  magnificent 
pine  timber  extends  for  many  miles : 
it  is  navigable  for  three  days  for 
canoes ;  then  we  shot  the  Rabbit 
rapids,  and  landed  at  mid-day  to  dry 
ourselves  round  a  huge  blaze  of  pine 
logs.  A  few  hours  after,  we  were 
cheered  by  the  sight  of  a  log-hut  and 
a  ferry-boat,  with  a  Yankee  leaning 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


173 


over  the  rail,  chewing  a  straw,  and 
found  we  had  reached  Crow  Wing,  the 
highest  white  settlement  upon  the 
Mississippi,  and  about  150  miles 
from  Sandy  Lake. 

The  indications  of  civilisation  which 
met  our  eyes  here  were  quite  refreshing. 
The  town  contained  two  log-houses 
and  a  pigsty.  There  were  a  few  chil- 
dren, some  cocks  and  hens,  an  acre  of 
potatoes,  and  another  of  Indian  corn  ; 
a  waggon  standing  near  the  door  of 
one  of  the  houses,  and  the  ferry-boat 
aforesaid,  which  enabled  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Crow  Wing  to  cross  over  to  a 
large  house,  the  gable  of  which  peeped 
out  from  among  the  trees,  and  which, 
we  were  told,  was  the  residence  of  the 
principal  chief  of  the  Chippeway  In- 
dians— a  great  warrior,  and  a  person 
of  much  celebrity,  with  an  unpro- 
nounceable name,  which  I  did  not 
think  of  recording  at  the  time. 

We  immediately  invaded  the  most 
substantial-looking  house,  and  found 
ourselves  in  a  neat  room,  which  con- 
tained nothing  but  a  few  plain  tables 
and  chairs  ;  so  we  continued  our  ex- 
plorations, and  were  delighted  to  dis- 
cover two  women  baking  in  the 
kitchen,  who,  seeing  four  famished 
ruffians  thus  unceremoniously  intrud- 
ing, were  in  no  way  disconcerted,  but 
forthwith  placed  before  us  some  ex- 
cellent loaves  of  corn-bread,  some  de- 
licious butter,  and  a  can  of  fresh  milk, 
which  luxurious  fare  we  attacked  with 
a  violence  that  explained  more  than 
words  the  nature  of  our  necessities  ; 
and  whilst  we  were  burying  our  heads 
by  turns  in  the  milk-can,  and  making 
loaves  disappear  magically,  other 
dainties  were  set  before  us  in  the 
shape  of  cold  meat,  cheese,  and  pota- 
toes ;  with  which  at  length  we  ap- 
peased our  appetites,  and  then  con- 
descended to  inform  our  hospitable 
entertainers,  and  the  man  who  had 
lounged  npfrom  the  ferry-boat,  whence 
we  had  come  and  whither  we  were 
going,  and  suggested  the  propriety  of 
trading  for  victuals  on  the  spot.  As 
the  voyageurs,  who  knew  him,  guar- 
anteed our  being  "safe  pay,"  he 
forthwith  sold  us  sundry  delicacies, 
which  we  transported  in  triumph  to 
the  canoe,  getting,  meanwhile,  as 
much  information  out  of  our  friend  as 
his  taciturn  disposition  allowed  him  to 
afford  us.  There  is  some  practice  re- 


quired in  fencing  with  Far- Westers  : 
they  are  very  dexterous  in  "  pump- 
ing," and  exceedingly  difficult  to 
"  pump."  The  only  way  is  never  to 
answer  a  question  without  putting  a 
portion  of  the  reply  into  an  interroga- 
tory form.  We  gathered  from  the 
male  inhabitant  of  Crow  Wing,  that 
his  occupations  were  farming  and 
trading  with  the  Indians;  that  the 
soil  was  good,  and  the  country  fertile, 
but  chiefly  adapted  for  grazing  pur- 
poses ;  that  the  forest  began  here  to 
be  broken  in  upon  by  patches  of  prairie ; 
and,  indeed,  we  could  see  for  ourselves 
the  undulating  grass- land  stretching 
away,  just  sufficiently  diversified  with 
wood  and  supplied  with  water  to 
afford  a  most  pleasing  prospect,  as 
well  as  great  natural  advantages.  Our 
white  friend,  however,  very  soon  be- 
came more  communicative  in  dis- 
cussing the  prospects  of  Indian  trade 
for  the  ensuing  winter,  with  Cadot. 
The  two  came  to  an  arrangement 
for  embarking  in  a  joint  specula- 
tion to  Vermilion  Lake  ;  the  white 
trader  engaging  to  select  the  goods 
and  have  them  conveyed  in  canoes 
from  St  Paul's  to  Sandy  Lake,  where 
Cadot  was  to  meet  them,  and  accom- 
pany them  to  Vermilion  Lake,  thir- 
teen days'  voyage  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Savannah,  the  route  being  princi- 
pally up  the  St  Louis  River.  Cadot 
possesses  a  log -hut  of  his  own  on 
Vermilion  Lake,  where  he  intends  to 
pass  the  winter.  He  told  me  that  he 
could  get  six  marten  skins  for  a  blan- 
ket worth  2|  dollars,  and  sell  the  mar- 
ten skins  at  St  Paul's  at  6  dollars  a- 
piece,  which  is  a  very  fair  profit.  Le 
Feve  was  hesitating  between  taking  a 
share  in  the  venture,  and  going  to  La 
Pointe  for  the  autumn,  to  sell  mer- 
chandise to  the  Indians  assembled 
there  for  the  annual  payments,  for 
which  he  was  to  be  paid  five  dollars  a- 
day  from  a  private  firm.  As  nearly  as 
I  could  calculate,  from  their  own  ac- 
count, our  voyageurs  made  an  annual 
income  of  about  £300  a-year.  We 
paid  them  £1  a-day  each.  Although 
we  had  so  abundantly  regaled  our- 
selves, B.,  whose  health  and  appetite 
had  both  returned,  was  unable  to  re- 
sist the  bread  and  butter  he  was  en- 
gaged .in  carrying  to  the  canoe,  and 
deliberately  sat  down  upon  the  bank 
and  recommenced  operations,  which 


174 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.          [Aug. 


was  such  an  unfair  proceeding  on  his 
part,  that  we  were  obliged,  in  self-de- 
fence, to  follow  his  example,  and  were 
thus  engaged  when  we  became  sud- 
denly aware  of  the  presence  of  a  tall 
Indian,  who  stood  watching  us  with 
mute  astonishment.  He  was  the  most 
perfect  specimen  of  a  Chippeway 
*'  brave "  that  I  had  yet  seen :  a 
magnificent  fellow,  standing  proudly 
erect  under  his  plume  of  hawks'  fea- 
thers, that  betokened  a  warrior  who 
had  taken  in  his  day  many  a  Sioux 
scalp.  His  red  blanket,  worked  with 
many  devices,  was  thrown  gracefully 
over  his  shoulder ;  his  belt  was  gar- 
nished with  tomahawk  and  scalping- 
knife,  and  in  his  hand  he  held  a  hand- 
somely mounted  rifle.  His  feet  were 
-encased  in  richly  embroidered  mocca- 
sins, with  fringed  leggings  reaching  to 
the  thigh.  Altogether,  his  costume 
exhibited  a  combination  of  ribbons, 
feathers,  beads,  and  paint,  which 
was  wonderfully  becoming.  Near  him, 
in  a  respectful  attitude,  stood  his 
attendant,  likewise  armed  to  the 
teeth,  and  carrying  a  formidable 
and  curiousty-shaped  war-club,  such 
as  I  had  never  seen  before,  and  a  red- 
earth  pipe,  with  a  long  flat  stem, 
ornamented  with  coloured  hair.  We 
were  not  surprised  to  hear  that  this 
was  the  celebrated  chief  himself,  of 
whom  we  had  heard  so  much,  and  who 
smiled  with  complacent  self-satisfac- 
tion when  we  expressed  our  admira- 
tion of  his  person  and  accoutrements, 
and  asked  permission  to  examine  his 
weapons.  He  told  us,  and  his  account 
was  corroborated  by  the  white  settler, 
that  only  two  months  before,  a  war 
party  of  Sioux  had  visited  Crow 
Wing  and  killed  twenty-five  men, 
women,  and  children,  and  it  was  to 
revenge  them  that  the  expedition,  of 
which  we  had  heard  ever  since  leaving 
Lake  Superior,  had  been  organised. 
Of  the  success  of  that  expedition  he 
could  give  us  no  details,  nor  did  he 
offer  any  explanation  upon  his  own 
absence  from  it ;  and  he  was  such  an 
evident  grandee,  that  we  did  not  push 
our  inquiries  beyond  the  limits  of  polite- 
ness. The  scene  was  one  which  might 
well  be  impressed  upon  the  memory 
of  a  stranger.  The  steep  bank  strewn 
with  provisions  and  camp  equipments 
of  all  sorts,  the  voyageurs  mending 
the  upturned  canoe,  ourselves  grouped 


round  loaves  of  bread  and  pyramids 
of  butter,  discoursing  with  a  painted 
chief;  the  Indian  behind  wrapped  in 
his  capacious  blanket,  in  attitude  or 
countenance  unmoved  ;  civilised  wo- 
men carrying  provisions  to  the  boat; 
the  brawny  backwoodsman  looking 
carelessly  on  the  broad  prairie,  stretch- 
ing endlessly  behind ;  the  rapid  Mis- 
sissippi sweeping  past  us;  and  the 
wigwams  of  the  Indians  on  an  island 
opposite,  where  the  Crow  Wing  River 
falls  into  the  Mississippi,— all  combin- 
ed to  form  a  most  interesting  scene. 
The  Crow  Wing  is  about  200  miles 
long,  navigable  for  canoes  to  its  source, 
and,  passing  though  a  neutral  terri- 
tory between  the  Sioux  and  the  Chip- 
peway, it  is  consequently  uninhabited 
by  any  Indians;  but  its  banks  are 
frequently  the  scene  of  bloodshed. 
Here,  too,  are  some  valuable  pineries ; 
and  the  theatre  of  war  will  doubtless 
before  long  be  converted  into  one  of 
extensive  lumber  operations.  As  there 
was  still  an  hour  of  daylight,  we  pushed 
on  for  Fort  Ripley,  about  ten  miles 
lower  down  the  river,  in  hopes  of 
arriving  in  time  to  pay  the  officers 
stationed  there  a  visit.  It  is  the  ex- 
treme post  of  the  United  States  army 
in  this  direction.  The  evening  was 
lovely,  the  air  soft  and  balmy,  the 
stream  rapid,  and  we  soon  saw  the 
stars  and  stripes  fluttering  above  a 
neat  white  stockade  upon  the  right 
bank  of  the  river. 

While  A.  and  C.  were  choosing  a 
camping  ground,  B.  and  I  sallied 
forth  to  the  fort,  and,  passing  a  sentry 
and  gateway,  found  ourselves  in  a 
small  square,  in  the  centre  of  which 
stood  two  pieces  of  ordnance,  and 
round  which  were  ranged  the  men  and 
officers'  quarters. 

We  only  found  the  doctor  at  home, 
the  captain  and  his  subaltern  being 
out  shooting;  so  we  returned  to  a 
sumptuous  repast,  upon  which  the  com- 
bined energies  of  the  party  had  been 
expended ;  and  had  it  not  been  for  the 
musquitoes,  we  should  not  have  had  a 
care  in  the  world.  Just  as  we  had 
completed  it,  and  were  collecting  round 
our  battered  old  lantern  to  light  our 
pipes,  the  three  officers  came  down 
from  the  fort  and  paid  us  a  visit. 
They  were  gentlemanlike,  agreeable 
-men,  as  I  have  invariably  found  the 
officers  of  the  United  States  army  to 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


175 


be,  and  we  discussed  the  war  and 
European  politics,  lying  upon  plaids 
and  blankets,  and  smoking  near  the 
blazing  fire,  which  threw  a  lurid  glare 
across  the  dark  silent  river.  Then  we 
talked  of  life  and  sport  in  the  Far  West, 
and  were  sorry  to  hear  that  we  were 
only  two  days  from  buffalo,  since  we 
had  not  even  a  week  to  spare,  and  we 
were  therefore  obliged,  with  regret,  to 
decline  their  hospitable  invitation  to 
make  the  fort  our  starting-point,  and 
organise  an  expedition  therefrom. 
The  nearest  and  best  hunting-grounds 
to  Fort  Ripley  are  at  Otter-tail  Lake 
and  the  head  waters  of  the  Red  River, 
about  sixty  miles  distant.  At  a  late 
hour  we  adjourned  to  the  fort,  and 
were  supplied  with  some  spirits,  a  most 
precious  commodity  in  the  Far  West. 
We  had  taken  a  very  limited  supply 
from  Superior,  which  we  had  only  just 
finished.  The  experience  of  every 
traveller  will  bear  me  out  in  saying, 
that  there  is  no  greater  mistake 
than  to  suppose  that  ardent  spirits 
fortify  the  constitution  during  a  pro- 
tracted period  of  exposure.  I  have 
always  observed  that  those  who  ab- 
stained altogether  from  their  use,  ex- 
cept medicinally,  have  been  enabled 
in  the  long-run  to  endure  more  hard- 
ship and  fatigue  than  those  who 
trusted  to  other  stimulants  than  that 
which  the  inherent  vigour  of  their 
constitutions  supplied.  B.  and  I  were 
tempted  by  the  novelty  of  a  roof  to 
accept  the  offer  of  the  ferryman  to 
sleep  in  his  room  by  the  river-side. 
We  accordingly  left  our  companions, 
as  usual,  coiled  round  the  fire,  and 
stretched  ourselves  upon  his  wooden 
floor,  while  he  ensconced  himself  in  a 
comfortable  bed  under  musquito  cur- 
tains. It  is  fair  to  say  that  he  offered 
to  share  it  with  one  of  us,  but  we 
declined  his  invitation,  which  was 
given  in  such  broad  Irish  that  I  asked 
his  history.  It  was  a  very  common  one. 
He  had  deserted  from  our  own  army, 
and,  unable  to  get  his  livelihood  by 
his  own  independent  exertions,  had 
entered  that  of  the  United  States. 
Here  his  knowledge  of  military  duty 
soon  enabled  him  to  attain  the  rank 
of  sergeant ;  but,  as  he  assured  us  in 
a  melancholy  tone,  he  suffered  from 
an  infirmity  which  he  was  unable  to 
overcome,  and  which  had  speedily 
caused  his  degradation  to  the  ranks. 


His  propensity  to  drink  was  not  likely 
to  be  gratified  in  his  present  remote 
quarters ;  and  he  expressed  himself 
highly  contented  with  his  employment, 
and  the  income  he  derived  from  it. 

The  garrison  of  Fort  Ripley  con- 
sists only  of  34  men.  The  principal 
object  of  a  station  at  this  distant  point, 
is  to  watch  the  Indian  war  perpetually 
being  carried  on  in  the  neighbourhood. 
After  a  plunge  from  the  end  of  the 
ferry-boat,  and  a  hearty  breakfast,  we 
were  again  en  route.  The  banks  had 
now  become  steep  and  precipitous ; 
and  at  one  place  the  voyageurs  di- 
rected our  attention  to  an  Indian 
trail,  which  we  landed  to  examine. 
They  at  once  pronounced  it  to  be  the 
fresh  war- trail  of  a  party  of  Sioux ; 
so  we  ascended  the  steep  bank  to  see 
if  there  were  any  signs  of  them.  We 
stood  in  the  centre  of  a  boundless 
prairie,  dotted  here  and  there  with 
stunted  oak,  but  extending  without 
interruption  to  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
Many- coloured  flowers  were  waving 
in  the  long  grass — the  air  was  fragrant 
with  wild  thyme  —  and  the  whole 
aspect  of  the  country  forcibly  re- 
minded me  of  the  steppes  of  Southern 
Russia.  In  former  days  the  buffalo 
used  to  cross  the  river  at  this  point ; 
but  it  is  said  that  none  have  ranged 
the  prairies  to  the  east  of  the  Missis- 
sippi since  1820.  We  saw  signs  of 
nothing  larger  than  a  badger,  which 
was  promptly  bagged,  and  made  over 
as  a  perquisite  to  the  voyageurs.  We 
descended  the  steep  bank  to  our  canoe, 
glad  to  have  been  induced  to  climb  it 
when  rewarded  by  such  a  view,  though 
we  were  disappointed  of  seeing  In- 
dians. Shortly  after  we  passed  an 
isolated  mass  of  rock,  which  is  covered 
with  their  devices,  and  is  hence  called 
the  painted  rock,  and  then  found  our- 
selves being  hurried  down  the  stream 
with  a  velocity  which  somewhat  re- 
sembled our  former  experience  at  the 
Sault  Ste.  Marie.  When  the  Missis- 
sippi is  high,  the  rapidity  with  which 
canoes  descend  from  Crow  Wing  to 
St  Paul's,  a  distance  of  more  than  200 
miles,  is  incredible.  A  hundred  miles 
in  eight  hours  has  been  recorded  as  a 
feat  accomplished  in  these  waters ; 
and  even  in  the  course  of  our  own 
voyage,  when  the  water  was  unusually 
low,  our  day's  performance,  after 
leaving  Fort  Ripley,  was  eighty  miles. 


176 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.         [Aug; 


The  first  serious  rapids  are  called  the 
Little  Falls  of  the  Mississippi.  The 
river  is  here  compressed  in  a  very 
narrow  channel.  The  left  bank  is  a 
bluff  precipitous  wall  of  rock  project- 
ing into  the  stream,  and  forming  an 
angle,  round  which  it  sweeps  with 
great  impetuosity. 

The  excitement  of  this  part  of  the 
voyage  was  somewhat  increased  by 
the  confession  of  our  voyageurs,  that 
it  was  so  long  since  either  of  them 
had  made  it,  that  they  had  nothing 
but  their  instinct  and  good  luck  to 
trust  to.  They  therefore  told  us  that 
they  would  not  risk  shooting  the  Little 
Falls,  but  make  a  portage  ;  so  we 
drew  to  land  and  jumped  ashore, 
shouldering  our  usual  packs,  and  left 
them  to  follow  with  the  canoe.  In- 
stead of  doing  so,  however,  to  our  sur- 
prise and  disgust  we  found  that  they 
had  no  sooner  got  rid  of  us  than  they 
shoved  off.  It  was  an  exciting  mo- 
ment to  watch  them,  as  they  neared 
the  head  of  the  foaming  torrent,  tight- 
en their  waistbands,  make  good  their 
footing,  and,  standing  one  at  the  bows 
and  the  other  at  the  stern,  dash  head- 
long with  their  fragile  bark  into  the 
breakers.  We  ran  along  the  rocky 
bank  watching  the  canoe  tossing  like 
a  cork  upon  the  waves,  and  escaping 
destruction  against  some  pointed  rock 
by  virtue  of  the  vigilance  and  dex- 
terity of  the  men  ;  and  in  three  or 
four  minutes  it  was  safely  moored  in 
the  back- water,  and  we  arrived  breath- 
less, to  scold  our  voyageurs  for  their 
rashness  in  risking  our  boat,  and  their 
perfidy  in  not  risking  us  along  with 
it.  We  determined,  however,  to  pro- 
fit by  experience,  and  amused  our- 
selves, while  the  tea  was  being  made 
for  luncheon,  by  jumping  in  about 
half-way  up  the  rapid,  and  swimming 
down,  or  rather  being  hurled  down  it, 
and  seeing  who  arrived  at  the  bottom 
first — which  created  much  the  same 
interest  to  those  on  the  bank  as  boys 
experience  when  racing  straws  in  a 
gutter.  After  this  we  found  it  of  very 
little  use  to  dress  at  all ;  and  B.  and 
I,  having  naturally  amphibious  ha- 
bits, used  to  spend  the  greater  part  of 
the  day  with  scarcely  anything  on 
but  a  pipe;  and  rapids  or  shallows 
followed  one  another  so  fast  and  furi- 
ously that  we  were  almost  as  often 
out  of  the  boat  as  in  it.  Le  Feve  was 


in  his  glory  on  these  occasions  ;  and 
whenever  we  miraculously  escaped 
going  to  pieces  on  a  rock,  his  face  ex- 
panded into  a  broad  grin  of  satisfac- 
tion; indeed,  our  approach  to  a  ra- 
pid was  a  season  of  excitement  to  us 
all,  which  was  worth  the  whole  of  our 
former  experiences  put  together.  It 
is  often  difiicult  to  judge  from  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  water  whether  the 
rocks  are  sufficiently  covered  to  admit 
of  the  passage  of  the  canoe ;  and  I 
often  thought  we  were  going  stem  on 
to  destruction  when  I  saw  a  huge  glo- 
bular swelling  ahead,  betokening  a 
sunken  rock  over  which  we  passed 
harmlessly  ;  when  at  other  times  we 
were  startled  by  a  sharp  blow,  and 
felt  the  ominous  upward  pressure 
upon  the  thin  bark,  when  there  was 
no  indication  of  this  sort,  or  even  the 
usual  breaker.  The  great  art  in 
shooting  a  rapid  is  to  take  advantage 
of  every  rock  by  scraping  as  close 
past  it  as  possible,  and  getting  into 
the  eddy  below.  The  man  in  the  stern 
directs  operations  ;  and  as  we  danced 
along,  Cadot  would  give  the  quick  or- 
ders, "Tire  toi,"  "  Change  la  main," 
"  Au  large  ;"  which  we  all  learnt  very 
soon  to  understand  and  obey,  and  thus, 
by  different  modes  of  paddling,  to  co- 
operate with  him  in  steering.  The 
shallows  were  less  interesting,  but  nofe 
less  dangerous,  to  our  boat  than  the 
rapids.  They  generally  occur  where 
the  river  is  very  broad,  and  only  seven 
or  eight  inches  deep  all  the  way 
across.  Then  we  are  obliged  to  adopt 
a  zigzag  course,  and  poke  about  look- 
ing for  water  enough  for  our  canoe — 
a  difiicult  operation,  on  account  of 
the  rapidity  of  the  current.  There  is 
nothing  more  disgusting  than,  after 
having  discovered  what  the  voyageurs 
called  the  **  Chenei" — a  corruption  of 
u  Chenal"— to  find  that  the  water  is 
gradually  shoaling,  until  the  canoe 
grates  rapidly  over  the  pebbles  for 
some  yards,  and  is  only  saved  from 
getting  hard  and  fast,  and  having  her 
bark  bottom  cut  through,  by  two  or 
three  of  us  jumping  out.  Then  we 
have  to  paddle  or  punt  up  stream 
again  for  fifty  or  a  hundred  yards,  and 
attempt  another  chenei. 

Upon  one  occasion,  while  thus  en- 
gaged, we  observed  four  wild- looking 
Indians,  mounted  on  two  horses,  trot- 
ting along  the  bank.  They  were 


1855.] 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.        177 


armed  to  the  teeth,  and  carried  long 
rifles.  In  their  savage  attire  and 
uncouth  aspect,  they  resembled  Be- 
douin Arabs  so  much  more  nearly 
than  our  old  friends  the  Chippeways, 
that  I  asked  Le  Feve  to  what  tribe 
they  belonged.  He  said  they  were 
Winnebagoes  going  to  their  village, 
which  was  not  far  off  upon  the  right 
bank  ;  and  that  as  they  were  the  most 
notorious  rascals  in  the  country  side, 
the  further  we  camped  from  them  the 
better.  We  therefore  pitched  upon  a 
lofty  bank  on  the  left  side,  and  set  off 
in  search  of  firewood,  an  unusual  pro- 
ceeding with  us,  for  we  had  heretofore 
camped  in  forest.  We  had,  however, 
preferred  the  prairie  to  the  wooded 
island  which  divided  the  stream,  here 
very  broad,  and  had  no  reason  to 
regret  our  choice,  for  the  view  was 
lovely.  The  river  was  smooth  and 
quiet,  brilliantly  reflecting  the  red 
evening  sky.  The  dark  green  wood 
on  the  island  contrasted  well  with 
its  burnished  surface,  where  fish  were 
rising  so  freely  that  B.  went  pic- 
turesquely wading  about  with  his  fly- 
rod,  indulging  false  hopes,  for  he  ac- 
complished nothing  beyond  making  a 
charming  figure  in  the  foreground.  A 
little  lower  down,  the  Winnebagoes 
were  fording  or  swimming  the  stream. 
The  only  signs  of  life  were  upon  the 
river ;  the  prairie  on  both  sides  of  it 
extended  in  endless  solitude.  Our 
couch  was  softer  than  usual  on  the 
long  prairie  grass,  and  we  dropped  off 
to  sleep,  inhaling  the  agreeable  per- 
fume which  was  emitted  by  the  red 
cedar  logs,  of  which  our  fire  was 
composed. 

Shortly  after  starting,  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  we  passed  the  Win- 
nebagoe  village  of  W^atab,  extending 
for  nearly  a  mile  along  the  right  bank 
of  the.  river.  It  was  very  early,  and 
the  inhabitants  were  just  getting  up, 
and  grouping  picturesquely  round 
their  lodge  fires.  Blanketed  figures 
were  lighting  their  early  pipes — squaws 
were  washing  themselves  and  their 
papooses  in  the  river,  —  curs  were 
prowling  about  everywhere— a  num- 
ber of  men,  about  to  start  on  an  ex- 
pedition, were  mounting  their  horses, 
and  riding  them  down  the  steep  bank, 
with  their  rifles  swung  across  the 
saddle-bow  ; — others  were  embark- 
ed in  canoes,  towing  their  steeds 


after  them.  These  canoes  are  called 
"  periaguas,"  and  are  hollowed  from 
a  single  log,  there  being  no  birch 
bark  procurable.  From  the  same  cause 
their  lodges  were  not  made  of  bark,  but 
of  twisted  reeds  or  canvass.  As  they 
are  a  wealthy  tribe,  they  can  afford 
civilised  tents,  which  I  was  surprised 
to  see  scattered  among  their  wigwams* 
Scarcely  two  of  these  were  of  the  same 
shape,  and  this  variety  gave  a  novel 
and  picturesque  character  to  the  whole 
village,  which  was  much  increased  by 
singular  stages  made  of  grass,  and 
supported  by  four  posts,  which  had 
been  erected  before  many  of  their  ha- 
bitations. In  the  centre  of  the  village 
stood  the  medicine  pole,  decorated  as 
usual  with  skins  and  streamers ;  and 
near  it  a  long  oval  bower,  which,  from 
its  position,  was  probably  the  medicine 
tent,  in  which  are  performed  those 
singular  rites  that  Free  Masons  af- 
firm connect  the  Winnebagoes  with 
their  fraternity.  It  is  certain  that 
there  is  a  society  in  the  tribe,  the  se- 
cret of  which  is  kept  most  sacred,  and 
one  object  of  which  is  to  relieve  the 
poor.  The  members  of  this  society,  or 
medicine- men,  are  held  in  very  high 
estimation  by  the  tribe.  They  enjoy 
this  distinction  by  virtue  of  possessing 
the  medicine  stone,  which  they  are 
supposed  to  carry  in  their  stomachs. 
When  new  members  are  to  be  initiated, 
this  stone  is  vomited  up,  and  placed 
in  the  medicine  bag,  and  the  candi- 
dates for  admission  are  struck  with  it 
upon  the  breast,  and,  from  all  ac- 
counts, are  thus  thrown  into  a  sort  of 
mesmeric  sleep,  during  which  ^they 
are  supposed  to  learn  the  mysteries  of 
the  society,  and  on  awakingfrom  which 
they  become  medicine-men,  with  the 
stone  in  its  proper  locality.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  curious  ceremonies,  they 
also  religiously  keep  up  the  scalp  and 
war-dances  of  their  forefathers,  and 
retain  their  barbarous  habits  in  spite 
of  the  attempts  of  missionaries  and 
others  to  civilise  and  educate  them. 
LeFeve  had  the  worst  possible  opinion 
of  them,  which,  he  said,  was  shared 
by  all  their  red  brethren.  They  en- 
joy the  reputation  of  being  rich, 
drunken,  brave,  cruel,  dishonest^  and 
independent.  The  peaceful  relations, 
however,  which  they  manage  to  main- 
tain with  the  Sacs,  Foxes,  Sioux? 
and  other  warlike  neighbours,  prove 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.  [Aug. 


178 

that  with  these  qualities  they  must 
combine  considerable  sagacity  and  tact. 
Le  Feve  said  they  could  not  get  on 
without  fighting,  and  succeeded  in 
keeping  on  good  terms  with  both 
Sioux  and  Chippeways,  by  taking 
either  side  indiscriminately. 

They  were  found  by  the  first  French 
missionaries  and  explorers  settled  on 
Green  Bay  in  Wisconsin,  of  which 
country  they  may  be  said  to  be  the 
aboriginal  inhabitants.  From  their 
language,  however,  it  is  evident  that 
they  are  of  the  same  stock  as  the  Da- 
kotahs.  The  name  Winnebagoe,  or 
Winnepeg,  signifies  turbid  water ; 
hence  the  many  lakes  of  the  same 
name.  The  tribe  calls  itself  Hochun- 
garas,  or  the  trout  nation.  They 
were  of  great  assistance  to  the  British 
army  in  the  war  of  1812,  having  uni- 
formly espoused  the  cause  of  the 
Crown  against  the  Americans.  They 
did  not  finally  cede  their  lands  in 
Wisconsin  until  1833,  for  a  tract  in 
Iowa  on  the  west  of  the  Mississippi, 
but  were  very  loth  to  migrate  to 
their  new  territory,  which  was  ulti- 
mately, in  1846,  changed  for  that 
which  they  now  occupy.  They  oc- 
casionally commit  outrages  upon 
peaceable  white  travellers,  and  think 
less  of  assassination  than  their  neigh- 
bours. As  is  the  case  with  all  the 
Indian  tribes,  their  numbers  have 
been  gradually  diminishing ;  and  their 
population,  according  to  the  last  U.  S. 
government  census  of  the  Indian 
tribes,  amounts  only  to  about  2500. 
The  Winnebagoe  agency,  which  was 
situated  on  Long  Prairie  River,  about 
fifty  miles  west  of  this  village,  is  now 
deserted,  and  in  the  year  previous  to 
our  visit,  a  council  had  been  held,  at 
which  the  Winnebagoes  agreed  to  re- 
linquish the  lands  they  held  here  for  a 
tract  on  Crow  River.  I  do  not  know 
whether  this  arrangement  has  received 
the  sanction  of  the  general  govern- 
ment, but  it  was  considered  at  St 
Paul's  that  the  interests  of  the  Whites 
would  be  injured  rather  than  advanced 
by  the  exchange.  Passing  the  Osakis 
or  Sac  River,  which  opens  a  line  of 
communication  by  means  of  bark 
canoes  with  the  Red  River  of  the 
North,  we  reached  in  a  few  hours  a 
substantially  built  house,  the  first  we 
had  seen  since  leaving  La  Pointe,  in  a 
•distance  of  about  600  miles.  It  was 


situated  at  the  head  of  the  most  dan- 
gerous and  celebrated  rapids  on  the 
river.  We  found  a  comfortable  tavern 
at  this  settlement,  with  a  piece  of  re- 
finement in  one  of  the  rooms  which 
created  quite  a  sensation.  The  tavern- 
keeper  must  have  been  somewhat  as- 
tonished on  entering  it,  to  find  four 
rough-looking  characters  crowding  in 
an  earnest  and  excited  manner  round 
a  piece  of  looking-glass  six  inches 
square  ;  but  as  we  had  been  taking 
the  most  intense  interest  in  the  pro- 
gress of  our  respective  beards,  the  op- 
portunity thus  afforded  of  inspecting, 
for  the  first  time,  countenances  which 
had  undergone  some  change  from  ex- 
posure and  neglect,  naturally  gave  rise 
to  some  excitement  and  very  invidi- 
ous comparisons.  The  owner  of  the 
hotel  was  a  farmer  on  quite  a  large 
scale,  having  under  cultivation  about 
150  acres.  His  wheat  averaged  twenty- 
two  bushels  the  acre,  and  his  oats 
thirty- five.  The  other  crops,  with 
the  exception  of  winter  wheat,  are 
satisfactorily  raised  here,  and  also  to 
the  north  of  this  point ;  and  a  state- 
ment of  the  amount  of  the  cereal  pro- 
duce per  acre  of  the  farms  between 
this  and  St  Paul's,  is  the  best  answer 
that  can  be  given  to  "  suckers"  from 
the  South,  who,  when  they  pay  these 
"  diggins  "  a  visit,  turn  up  their  noses 
and  say,  "  You  can't  make  cawn  crap 
hyar  nohow  you  can  fix  it,  stranger." 
A  stage  runs  down  the  left  bank  of 
the  river  twice  a-week  to  St  Anthony, 
and  log-houses  are  springing  rapidly 
up  upon  the  roadside  at  every  ten  or 
fifteen  miles.  Three  years  ago  there 
was  scarcely  a  habitation  of  any  sort 
above  the  Falls  of  St  Anthony.  The 
village  of  Sauk  is  doubtless  destined 
to  be  a  town  of  some  importance,  for 
a  steamer  of  light  draught,  launched 
above  the  Falls  of  St  Anthony,  has 
navigated  the  stream  from  that  point 
to  the  foot  of  the  Sauk  rapids,  a  distance 
of  eighty  miles.  The  man  at  the  tavern 
said  that  there  was  too  little  water 
upon  the  Sauk  for  us  to  shoot  them 
with  any  safety ;  but  Le  F£ve  had  been 
looking  forward  to  this  process  with 
such  glee,  and  professed  such  confi- 
dence in  his  own  powers,  despite  his 
total  ignorance  of  the  channel,  that 
we  determined  to  risk  our  canoe, 
which  had  become  less  indispensable 
to  our  progress,  since,  in  the  event  of 


1855,]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


179 


her  being  wrecked,  we  could  now  pur- 
sue our  journey  by  land.    When  we 
got  to  the  head  of  the  rapids,  and  saw 
about  a  thousand  yards  of  foam  before 
us,  it  was  evident  that, notwithstand- 
ing the  speed  with  which  we  hoped  to 
traverse  them,  the  excitement  would 
be  somewhat  sustained.    The  danger 
of  these  rapids,  however,  did  not  arise 
from  the  velocity  of  the  current,  so 
much  as  from  the  quantity  of  frag- 
ments of  pointed  granite  with  which 
the  bed  of  the  river,  here  about  two 
hundred  yards  across,  is  thickly  strew- 
ed, and  many  of  which  are  only  two 
or  three  inches  below  the  surface  of 
the  water.     Stripping  ourselves  so  as 
to  be  prepared  for  an  emergency,  we 
plunged  our  canoe  into  the  breakers, 
and  dashed  merrily  over    the  first 
quarter  of  a  mile,  making  some  nar- 
row escapes,  but  keeping  the  canoe 
well  in  hand.    Here,  however,   the 
current  became  furious,  and  in  spite 
of  our  efforts,  the  canoe  swung  round, 
and  the  stream  took  her  broadside  on, 
and  dashed  her  with  some  force  against 
a  rock,  upon  which  she  became  firmly 
fixed.      Le  Fe>e,  B.,  and  I,  were 
overboard  in  a  second.    At  first  B. 
disappeared     altogether.      He     had 
jumped  out  upon  the  deep  side,  and 
finding  no  standing-ground,   he  had 
gone  under.    Luckily  he  managed  to 
get  hold  of  the  edge  of  the  canoe  with 
one  hand,  as  the  current  was  sweeping 
him  past  it,  and  gradually  drew  up  to 
its  level  his  dripping  face  and  extin- 
guished pipe,  which  he  still  held  firm- 
ly clutched  between  his  teeth.    Le 
Feve,  more  experienced,  was  standing 
on  the  top  of  the  rock,  not  ankle  deep 
in  water,  while  I  was  vainly  endea- 
vouring to  obtain  a  footing  near  him 
on  another  rock,  against  the  edges  of 
which  I  received  sundry  bruises  be- 
fore I  succeeded  in  making  good  my 
stand  against  the  current,  which  I  was 
only  enabled  at  all  to  resist  by  keep- 
ing firm  hold  of  the  canoe.  Meantime 
we  expected  her  to  go  to  pieces  every 
moment,  and  A.,  C.,  and  Cadot,  who 
were  inside,  looked  any  thing  but  hap- 
py.   However,  by  a  united  shove  to- 
wards B.,  whose  whole  weight  was 
hanging  upon  her,  she  dropped  into 
the  deep   water.      Le  Feve  and  I 
jumped  in  at  the  same  moment;  B. 
trailed   after  a  short  way,  and  was 
hauled  in,  and  so  we  let  her  drive,  the 


water  meantime  flowing  freely  in 
through  a  rent  in  the  bark.  We  struck 
severely  once  again,  but  did  not  stick, 
and  in  a  few  moments  we  were  in 
smooth  water,  and  the  faithful  old 
craft  was  tenderly  beached,  and  turned 
up  for  inspection  and  repair.  The 
bottom  was  already  so  covered  with 
scars  and  rents  which  had  been  skil- 
fully darned  and  gummed,  that  it  was 
like  a  piece  of  patch- work.  However, 
by  dint  of  a  fire-stick,  and  some  more 
bark  and  gum,  she  was  soon  pronounc- 
ed fit  to  convey  us  the  remainder  of 
our  journey  in  safety ;  and  before  even- 
ing we  had  varied  the  excitement  of 
the  day  by  a  literal  wild-goose  chase, 
which  was  crowned  with  success.  We 
stalked  them  carefully,  and  fired  at 
them  swimming,  in  defiance  of  the  pre- 
judice of  Cockney  sportsmen  who  have 
not  to  depend  upon  their  guns  only  for 
dinner.  It  was  a  fine  sight  to  see  a 
flock  of  these  huge  birds  rise  noisily 
from  the  water,  and  soar  away  over 
our  heads,  and  highly  satisfactory  to 
observe  that  one  had  preferred  diving 
to  following  the  example  of  his  com- 
panions. He  had  only  had  his  wing 
broken,  and  so  continued  to  keep  out 
of  shot,  and  dive  actively  for  some 
time,  coming  up  in  the  most  unex- 
pected directions.  As  the  river  was 
here  very  wide,  and  divided  into  nu- 
merous channels  by  lovely  wooded 
islets,  the  chase  was  a  long  and 
amusing  one,  and  ended  by  the  goose 
taking  refuge  on  shore  and  being  run 
down. 

On  account  of  these  various  delays 
it  was  late  before  we  arrived  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Elk  River,  which  we  had 
determined  to  reach,  because  the  voy- 
ageurs  held  out  the  prospect  of  an  inn 
at  that  spot.  We  found  here  a  good 
house,  occupied  by  twenty  or  thirty  of 
the  roughest  characters  I  had  ever 
seen.  Our  arrival  created  a  good 
deal  of  curiosity  and  astonishment, 
and  we  went  through  the  usual  course 
of  sharp  cross-examination,  which 
ended  in  not  satisfying  our  questioners, 
who  were  principally  regular  Yankees, 
and  discussed  the  merits  of  each 
other's  claims  and  the  advantages  of 
Minnesota  generally.  Some  had  al- 
ready profited  from  these,  others  had 
just  arrived,  and  were  acquiring  in- 
formation. We  made  a  supper  off 
mush,  squash,  hominy,  and  other  Far 


180 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.  [Aug. 


West  delicacies,  and  then  turned  into 
two  beds  as  a  novelty.  Our  voya- 
geurs  slept  on  the  river-bank  near 
the  canoe.  We  were  struck,  in  the 
course  of  our  next  day's  voyage, 
by  the  numerous  farm-houses  which 
began  to  enliven  the  banks  of  the 
river,  and  the  signs  of  civilisation 
followed  in  rapid  succession,  to  cheer 
us  on  our  way,  and  encourage  us  with 
the  prospect  of  a  speedy  termination 
to  our  journey.  Not  that  we  were 
desirous  of  relinquishing  our  bark- 
canoe  life ;  but  the  apprehension  of  an 
accident,  and  consequent  delay,  had 
somewhat  marred  its  enjoyment.  We 
passed  Bum  River,  which  connects 
Mille  Lacs,  the  former  hunting-ground 
of  the  Sioux,  with  the  Mississippi,  and 
were  delighted  with  the  smiling  aspect 
of  the  country  through  which  we 
paddled.  Great  numbers  of  the  set- 
tlers are  Germans,  who  come  penniless 
to  Minnesota,  settle  upon  a  piece  of 
land,  which  they  improve  to  the  value 
of  fifty  dollars  a- year,  at  the  same 
time  earning  a  livelihood  for  them- 
selves by  obtaining  employment  in 
the  neighbourhood.  When  at  the 
end  of  five  years  they  have  thus  ex- 
pended two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
on  their  land,  the  Government  pre- 
sents them  with  sixty  acres,  and  they 
thenceforward  set  up  as  small  farmers 
on  their  own  account. 

The  territory  is  thus  becoming 
rapidly  populated  by  an  industrious 
and  enterprising  class,  who  appre- 


ciate the  good  policy  which  has  de- 
vised such  liberal  and  advantageous 
terms  to  the  emigrant.  At  last  we 
came  in  sight  of  the  well-built  and 
picturesquely-situated  town  of  St  An- 
thony. The  white  houses  rising  upon 
the  left  bank  of  the  river  were  half 
concealed  by  the  trees  amid  which 
they  were  embowered,  and  looked 
substantial  and  comfortable.  Saw- 
logs,  booms,  and  other  signs  of  lum- 
ber operations,  crowded  the  river. 
Threading  our  way  between  these,  we 
entered  a  narrow  channel  behind  a 
green  island,  and,  mooring  our  canoe 
under  the  spreading  shade  of  some 
magnificent  trees,  congratulated  our- 
selves upon  having  reached  our  last 
portage.  We  determined,  in  making 
it,  to  create  a  sensation  in  St  An- 
thony, and  to  convey  our  trusty  bark 
through  the  town  to  the  bottom  of  the 
falls  in  a  cart.  This  was,  indeed, 
only  a  proper  mark  of  attention  to  the 
craft  which  had  outlived  so  many 
perils,  and  served  us  as  a  home  for  so 
long.  So  we  despatched  our  voy- 
ageurs  upon  an  exploring  expedition 
into  the  town,  and,  sheltering  our- 
selves from  the  mid- day  sun,  we  lay 
dreamily  upon  the  bank,  watching 
the  eddying  stream,  and  wondering 
whether  the  voyage  of  three  hundred 
miles  with  it,  which  we  had  still  in 
prospect  under  very  different  circum- 
stances, would  afford  us  as  much  en- 
joyment as  that  which  we  had  so 
nearly  completed. 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  II . 


181 


THE   IMPERIAL   POLICY   OF   RUSSIA. 


PART  II. 


So  deeply  interesting  is  the  time  that 
is  now  passing,  that  an  attempt  to  re- 
call the  past,  even  when  the  present 
cannot  well  be  understood  without 
it,  appears  almost  an  impertinence. 
Events  are  jostling  and  thrusting 
aside  each  other  in  such  a  manner, 
that  the  student  of  history  might  well 
be  excused,  if  for  the  time  being  he 
were  to  leave  the  octavo  on  the  shelf, 
and  confine  his  attention  to  the  broad 
sheet  of  the  Times  newspaper,  for  he 
would  not  ill  employ  all  the  intervals 
between  its  numbers  in  pondering  on 
the  matter  contained  in  them.  The- 
modest  historian  of  Athens,  centuries 
before  the  Christian  era,  when  he 
took  in  hand  to  write  the  account  of 
the  Peloponnesian  War,  divining  at 
its  beginning  that  it  would  be  one  of 
the  most  important  of  all  time,  per- 
haps secretly  feeling  that  he  could 
help  to  make  it  so,  and  setting  to 
work  honestly  and  impartially  in  col- 
lecting evidence,  and  making  himself 
master  of  contemporary  events,  might 
furnish  an  example  to  those  in  our 
day  who  possess  similar  gifts,  warn- 
ing them  not  to  let  slip  so  fair  an 
opportunity  of  recording  this  gigantic 
duel  of  the  East  with  the  West,  which 
threatens  to  fill  the  habitable  globe 
with  the  echoes  of  its  war-cries.  The 
reason  why  Greece  and  its  little  wars 
possess  such  undying  interest,  and 
why  the  record  of  one  war  of  twenty- 
seven  years  makes  Thucydides  immor- 
tal to  us,  is,  that  Greece  was  a  minia- 
ture world,  and  that  the  man  whose 
pages  give  a  microscopic  view  of  its 
sayings  and  doings,  is  presenting, 
while  he  does  so,  an  accurate  picture 
of  modern  times,  with  their  subtle 
contests  of  state-craft  and  wars  of 
peoples  rather  than  of  kings.  There 
is  especially  just  now  an  abundance 
of  exact  parallelism.  We  have  seen 
fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  the  Delphic 


oracle  at  the  beginning  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian War — 

"H£ei  Aoopiafcos  TroXejuos1,  KCU  Xoi/uos  ap, 
avTco. 

— "A  Doric  war  shall  come,  and  a 
plague  with  it."  Latterly,  another 
striking  similarity  has  been  observed. 
The  principal  actors  with  whom  the 
drama  began  are  not  destined  to  bring 
it  to  an  end ;  but  even  while  it  is  Pre- 
sent, they  belong  to  the  Past.  As 
Pericles,  Demosthenes,  Eurymedon, 
Brasidas,  passed  away  to  make  room 
for  Lysander  and  Alcibiades,  so  we 
have  been  destined  to  see,  only  in 
the  second  year  of  the  war,  removed 
from  their  earthly  responsibilities,  the 
Emperor  Nicholas,  and  the  two  Gene- 
rals-in-Chief  of  the  British  and  French 
armies  in  the  East.  It  is  useful  to 
reflect  that  the  furies  of  war  are  less 
mortal  than  the  men  who  set  them  to 
work,  or  are  set  to  work  by  them. 
Again,  there  is  found  in  that  wisest 
of  histories  a  salutary  lesson  for  our 
impatience.  When  the  account  of  a 
war  is  written  popularly  and  care- 
lessly, the  consummations  seem  to 
wait  on  the  beginning,  and  the  changes 
of  fortune  seem  to  follow  each  other 
with  romantic  rapidity.  Thucydides, 
after  recording  one  or  two  unimpor- 
tant expeditions  in  the  course  of  a 
year,  which  scarcely  showed  which 
side  was  the  stronger,  simply  adds, 
and  "  so  the  summer  came  to  an  end, 
and  the  second  or  sixteenth  year 
ended  for  this  war,  which  Thucydides 
described."  The  impatience  of  his 
countrymen,  who  fined  Pericles  be- 
cause events  did  not  march  fast 
enough  in  their  favour,  is  aptly  repre- 
sented by  the  sinking  spirits  of  those 
of  our  statesmen  who  would  prefer  a 
dishonourable  peace  to  carrying  out 
to  the  end  the  struggle  to  which  they 
deliberately  committed, 'not  only  their 


SCHLOSSER'S  Geschiclite  des  \8ten  und  desl9ten  Jahrhunderts. 
Histoire  de  fiussie.     Bibliotheque  de  Lille. 

The  Life  of  Catharine  II.,  Empress  of  Russia.    3  vols.    London,  1799. 
VOLTAIRE.    Life  of  Peter  the  Great. 


182 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  II. 


[Aug. 


own  reputation,  but  the  honour  of 
their  country;  forgetting  that  nations, 
like  individuals,  must  be  made  "  per- 
fect through  suffering." 

But  our  excuse  for  reverting  to  the 
history  of  the  Past  must  be  found  in 
the  truth  of  the  fact  to  which  we  just 
now  adverted,  that  the  Present  cannot 
well  be  understood  without  it,  and 
that  on  no  historic  ground  does  the 
Present  appear  in  its  prominent  cir- 
cumstances a  mere  repetition  of  the 
Past,  more  strikingly  than  on  that 
which  forms  the  subject  of  the  present 
papers.  This  will  especially  appear 
when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  Era- 
press  Catharine  II.  and  her  times. 
But  we  must  not  anticipate  ;  and  the 
history  of  Russian  policy  between 
Peter  I.  and  his  female  rival  is  well 
worth  a  cursory  view. 

In  endeavouring  to  give  a  kind  of 
architectural  finish  to  the  edifice  of 
Russian  despotism,  the  genius  of  Peter 
the  Great  overreached  itself.  Not 
content  with  the  absolutism  of  the 
living  Tsar,  he  wished  to  lay  down 
as  a  principle,  that  the  dead  Tsar 
should  rule  from  the  grave,  and,  in 
defiance  of  all  legitimacy  and  com- 
monly recognised  rules  of  succession, 
appoint  his  successor  by  will.  Never 
was  the  truth  of  the  proverb  "L'homme 
propose,  Dieu  dispose,"  more  fitly 
illustrated.  From  the  time  of  Peter 
to  the  present,  the  Russian  succession 
has  been  the  most  anomalous  in  the 
world,  independent  alike  of  the  legi- 
timate or  the  elective  principle  ;  and 
the  most  autocratic  of  monarchs  has 
generally  owed  his  throne  to  the  acci- 
dental success  of  some  low  intrigue  of 
the  camarilla,  as  has  frequently  hap- 
pened among  the  despotisms  of  India. 
Yet,  strangely  enough,  this  uncertainty 
in  the  personality  of  the  Tsar  has  had 
little  or  no  effect  on  the  imperial 
policy  of  Russia.  We  cannot  give 
much  credit  to  the  account  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  formal  will  of  Peter,  in 
which  the  policy  to  be  pursued  by  his 
successors  was  laid  down  in  detail, 
including  a  plan  for  undermining  and 
gradually  getting  possession  of  Europe 
and  the  world.  Voltaire  expressly 
says,  that  in  his  last  moments  he  had 
begun  to  make  a  will,  but  was  only 
able  to  write  the  words  which  signify 
"  Give  up  all,"  without  saying  to. 
Thorn ;  at  the  same  time,  he  argues 


to  the  improbability  of  a  man  so 
systematic  in  all  his  doings,  having 
died  without  providing  for  the  future. 
We  cannot  help  thinking  that  Vol- 
taire's evident  wish  to  believe  that 
Peter  did  make  a  will,  joined  with  his 
inability  to  produce  facts  to  prove  it, 
is  a  strong  evidence  of  the  omission  ; 
and  with  every  deference  to  the  opi- 
nion of  a  man  who  was  emphatically 
the  man  of  the  world  in  his  time,  we 
cannot  lay  much  stress  on  the  impro- 
bability he  speaks  of.  Those  who  are 
full  of  life,  of  youthful  nature — veavinoi 
rr)i>  (fivo-iv — like  the  young  themselves, 
have  at  best  but  a  faint  belief  in  death, 
and  "  think  all  men  mortal  but  them- 
selves ; "  and  Peter  was  one  of  these. 
Nor,  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  is 
such  faintness  of  belief  in  death  incon- 
sistent with  the  highest  intellect,  but 
rather  its  contrary.  For  intellectual, 
like  physical  activity,  is  naturally 
sceptical  of  inaction ;  nor  need  we  go 
out  of  our  way  to  blame  human  weak- 
ness for  this  result,  which  rather  pro- 
ceeds from  a  most  beneficent  law  of 
nature.  For  were  men  perpetually 
taken  up  with  that  practice  of  death 
in  life  which  Plato  and  certain  mon- 
astic orders  enjoin,  life  would  find  no 
energy  to  provide  for  it,  and  every- 
thing great  here  below  would  be  left 
unachieved. 

There  is,  however,  little  doubt  that 
Peter  did  intend  to  make  a  will,  and 
that  he  wished  to  establish  as  a  fun- 
damental law  of  the  Russian  consti- 
tution that  every  Tsar  should  name  his 
successor  before  his  death.  Whether 
he  did  so  in  his  own  case  or  not,  is 
more  difficult  to  establish.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  it  was  the  interest  of  the 
courtiers  to  say  that  he  did,  as  it  was 
their  interest  in  after  times  to  keep  up 
the  policy  of  which  he  was  the  father, 
and  to  which,  as  we  shall  find  here- 
after, every  monarch  who  did  not  for- 
ward it,  after  the  example  that  Peter 
had  set  with  his  eldest  son,  was  un- 
scrupulously sacrificed. 

It  was  argued  by  the  courtiers  that 
Peter,  whether  he  made  a  will  or  not, 
by  the  solemn  coronation  of  his  wife 
Catharine— a  thing  unprecedented  in 
the  history  of  Russia— intended  her 
not  only  to  be  considered  as  in  every 
respect  his  partner  on  the  throne  in 
life,  but  his  successor,  to  the  prejudice 
of  the  natural  living  heirs.  But  the 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  II. 


188 


circumstances  of  the  case  sufficiently 
explain  themselves.  Peter  had  put 
away  his  first  wife  Eudoxia,  by  whom 
he  was  the  father  of  the  unfortunate 
Alexis,  who  was  as  much  the  victim 
of  his  conservatism  as  any  of  the  mar- 
tyrs of  the  French  Revolution,  to 
marry  the  low-born  Catharine,  whose 
beauty  and  shrewdness  were  her  sole 
recommendations.  During  the  cam- 
paign of  the  Pruth,  when  his  life  and 
the  safety  of  his  army  were  in  danger, 
he  owed  both  to  the  astuteness  of  this 
woman ;  and  thus  it  does  not  appear 
singular  that,  during  her  good  be- 
haviour, he  was  willing  to  heap  ex- 
traordinary honours  upon  her,  whether 
or  not  he  meant  to  enact  a  law  the 
reverse  of  the  Salic  law  in  her  favour. 
But  he  was  not  a  man  to  be  crossed 
with  impunity,  and  Catharine's  lat- 
ter conduct  appears  to  have  deeply 
offended  him — in  fact,  to  such  a  degree 
that  her  disgrace  or  death  would  have 
been  the  consequence  of  the  prolonga- 
tion of  her  husband's  life.  The  cour- 
tier Menschikoff — a  man  of  an  origin 
as  low  as  that  of  the  Tsarina — was 
the  partner  in  her  offence ;  and  during 
the  last  moments  of  the  Emperor,  this 
man,  having  gained  over  a  great  part 
of  the  clergy  and  officials,  had  the 
audacity  to  seize  the  imperial  strong- 
hold and  the  treasury,  maintaining, 
when  the  emperor  had  breathed  his 
last,  that  interpretation  of  his  incom- 
plete will,  by  which  "  all  was  to  be 
given  up"  to  Catharine.  Thus,  im- 
mediately after  the  most  despotic 
throne  in  the  world  had  reached  its 
maximum  of  consolidation,  it  became 
the  prey  of  a  pair  of  obscure  and  im- 
pudent adventurers. 

Voltaire  adduces  as  a  proof  of  the 
extreme  solidity  of  the  constitution  of 
Russia  as  established  by  Peter,  the 
fact  that  four  women  were  able  to 
hold  with  success  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment after  him,  and  that  in  each  of 
their  reigns  the  imperial  policy  of 
Russia  was  more  or  less  forwarded. 
He  might  have  added  that  the  fact  of 
four  such  women  having  been  able  to 
reign  at  all  was  a  proof  of  the  utterly 
unscrupulous  character  of  the  courtiers, 
the  symbol  of  whose  power  was  but  the 
dagger  of  assassination,  and  the  degrad- 
ing submissiveness  of  the  governed. 

It  is  worthy  of  particular  notice 
that  those  nations  who  enacted  a  Salic 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXVIII. 


law  in  the  middle  ages,  were  especi- 
ally those  who  held  female  character 
in  the  highest  honour,  and  on  that 
very  account  thought  a  woman  unfit 
to  fill  an  arbitrary  throne,  or  one  of 
undefined  prerogative,  because  such  a 
position  would  expose  her  to  peculiar 
temptations — such  temptations  as,  if 
yielded  to,  would  forfeit  for  her  the 
respect  and  obedience  of  the  governed. 
This  feeling  was,  no  doubt,  apart 
from  that  necessity  of  the  middle  ages, 
that  a  sovereign  should  head  the 
armies  of  the  state.  Obedience  and 
devotion  to  a  woman  without  charac- 
ter would  have  seemed  to  the  knights 
of  old  as  difficult  as  allegiance  to  a 
king  who  habitually  broke  his  word, 
or  otherwise  forgot  his  manly  honour. 
This  alienation  of  the  affections  of  a 
chivalrous  nation  is  instanced  now 
in  the  case  of  a  southern  sovereign, 
whose  deficiencies  in  self  -  respect 
have  lost  her  the  respect  of  her 
subjects,  and  bid  fair  to  hand  them 
over  to  a  state  of  anarchy.  We 
must  not  be  suspected  of  advocating 
a  Salic  law  in  the  case  of  a  consti- 
tutional queen,  for  loyalty  would  be 
enhanced  by  chivalrous  sympathies 
if  the  lamp  of  purity  and  domestic 
virtue  shone  for  ever  in  the  highest 
place,  as  it  could,  indeed,  best  if  the 
throne  were  filled  by  a  woman,  and 
such  a  woman  as  a  Victoria  or  a 
Eugenie.  But  as  for  Russia,  the  case 
is  far  different ;  and  the  fact  that  wo- 
men, stained  not  only  with  feminine 
frailty,  but  even  with  that  most  un- 
feminine  vice  of  habitual  drunkenness, 
were  able  to  rule  her  undisturbed, 
and  even  preferred  to  other  rulers  of 
better  right,  furnishes  alone  conclusive 
evidence  of  the  innate  and  irretriev- 
able barbarism  of  that  nation. 

That  the  Great  Emperor  himself,  in 
spite  of  his  predilections  for  exotic 
civilisation,  lived  and  died  a  savage, 
in  taste  and  feeling  no  better  than  the 
lowest  of  his  subjects,  may  be  seen  by 
referring  to  the  text  of  his  admirer 
Voltaire. 

"  When  he  had  created  his  nation, 
he  thought  that  he  might  well  be 
allowed  to  consult  his  inclinations  in 
marrying  his  favourite — a  favourite 
who  well  deserved  to  become  his  wife. 
He  celebrated  this  marriage  publicly 
in  1712.  This  famous  Catharine  was 
an  orphan,  born  in  the  village  of 
N 


184 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.—  Part  II. 


[Aug. 


Ringen  in  Esthonia,  brought  up,  as  a 
charity,  in  the  house  of  a  Lutheran 
minister  named  Gliick,  and  married 
to  a  Livonian  soldier !  Two  days  after 
this  marriage  she  was  taken  captive 
in  war,  and  passed  from  the  service 
of  the  Generals  Bauer  and  Sheremetof 
into  that  of  Menschikoff,  a  journey- 
man pastrycook,  who  became  a  prince 
and  the  first  man  of  the  empire.  At 
length  she  became  the  wife  of  Peter 
the  Great,  and  afterwards  sovereign 
empress  after  the  death  of  the  Tsar, 
a  position  of  which  she  was  worthy. 
She  had  much  influence  in  softening 
the  manners  of  her  husband,  and 
saved  many  more  backs  from  the 
knout  and  heads  from  the  axe  than 
General  Le  Fort  had  done.  She  was 
loved  and  respected.  A  German 
baron,  an  equerry  of  an  abbot  of 
Fulda,  would  not  have  married  Catha- 
rine, but  Peter  the  Great  thought  that 
by  his  side  merit  could  dispense  with 
thirty -two  quarterings.  Sovereigns 
love  to  think  that  there  is  no  great- 
ness but  that  which  they  bestow,  and 
that  all  is  equal  in  their  presence." 

That  Peter  dared  to  marry  Catha- 
rine, and  appoint  her  his  successor, 
showed  that  he  could  dare  everything 
with  his  people. 

Setting  aside  the  consideration  that 
Peter's  wife  was  not  a  gentlewoman, 
and  the  even  more  important  one  of 
irreproachable  character,  Catharine  I. 
seems  to  have  been  fitted  by  other 
qualities  to  succeed  her  husband,  her 
mental  endowments  marking  her  out 
as  one  to  whom  his  policy  might 
be  intrusted,  and  her  kindness  of  dis- 
position as  a  monarch  likely  to  secure 
affection.  There  is  one  anecdote  which 
tells  well  for  her  feeling  and  temper. 
One  of  her  maids  of  honour  was  sen- 
tenced to  receive  eleven  blows  of  the 
knout.  The  empress  endeavoured 
Jo  beg  her  off ;  the  emperor  refused, 
smashing  in  his  rage  a  vase  of  Vene- 
tian glass,  and  exclaiming,  "  You  see 
that  nothing  but  a  blow  from  my  hand 
is  wanted  to  reduce  this  glass  to  the 
dust  from  which  it  came."  Catharine 
gave  him  a  look  full  of  grief  and  ten- 
derness, and  said,  "  Very  well,  you 
have  broken  that  which  was  the  orna- 
ment of  your  palace ;  do  you  think 
that  it  will  be  embellished  by  such  a 
proceeding?"  The  story  adds,  "These 
words  appeased  the  emperor,  but  all 


the  indulgence  that  his  wife  could 
obtain  at  his  hands  was  that  the  maid 
of  honour  should  only  receive  five 
blows  of  the  knout  instead  of  eleven.'r 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  after  this 
that  the  brutality  of  the  husband  led  to- 
the  infidelity  of  the  wife,  as  is  too  often 
the  case.  That  Catharine  should  have 
been  vaguely  accused  of  poisoning  him 
to  save  herself,  is,  though  not  probable, 
scarcely  unnatural,  though  the  sur- 
mise may  have  been  entirely  founded 
on  subsequent  occurrences  in  the  Rus- 
sian court. 

But  however  Catharine  may  have 
behaved  to  Peter  personally,  she  re- 
spected his  wishes,  and  carried  out 
his  policy.  Voltaire  says  emphatically, 
"  Le  palais  a  eu  des  revolutions  apres 
sa  mort ;  I'&at  n'en  a  e"prouv6  aucune. 
La  splendour  de  cet  empire  s'est  aug- 
mente'e  sous  Catharine  I. :  il  a  tri- 
omphd  des  Turcs  et  des  Suddois  sous 
Anne  Petrona ;  il  a  conquis,  sous 
Elizabeth,  la  Prusse  et  une  partie  de 
la  PomeVanie ;  il  a  joui  d'abord  de  la 
paix,  et  il  a  vu  fleurir  les  arts  sous 
Catharine  II."  It  is  well  worthy  of 
observation,  that  from  the  time  of 
Peter  the  Great  to  that  of  Alexander 
I.,  it  is  the  empresses,  much  more 
than  the  emperors,  who  seem  to  have 
kept  steadily  in  view  the  imperial 
policy  of  Russia,  as  bequeathed  to 
them  by  Peter  the  Great.  This  fact 
of  itself  shows  that  its  maintenance 
depended,  in  all  cases,  as  much  on  the 
traditions  of  an  interested  court  as 
on  the  personal  inclinations  of  the 
sovereign. 

In  the  very  coronation  of  Catharine 
during  the  life  of  Peter,  the  Russian 
longing  for  Constantinople,  the  key  of 
the  imperial  policy,  appeared  to  be 
symbolised.  It  was  from  the  history  of 
imperialByzantiumthatRussia  assum- 
ed her  double-headed  eagle,  and  that 
the  Czar,  in  his  proclamation,  quoted 
the  precedents  for  this  ceremony.. 
Thus  did  a  woman,  raised  to  thethrone, 
seem  bound,  by  injunctions  particu- 
larly solemn,  to  carry  out  a  policy  by 
the  maintenance  of  which  alone  she 
had  a  right  to  reign.  And  by  the  pe- 
culiar customs  of  the  Russian  court,  a 
female  sovereign  was  the  most  pliant 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  that 
knot  of  courtiers  to  whom  the  policy 
of  Peter  was  daily  bread. 

Catharine  I.  did  not  long  survive 


1855.]  The  Imperial  Policy 

her  husband ;  she  reigned  but  two 
years,  and  during  that  time,  although 
the  external  limits  of  the  empire  do 
not  appear  to  have  been  much  ad- 
vanced, we  may  presume  that  its 
power  suffered  no  diminution,  and  its 
internal  organisation  became  more 
complete.  Unless  she  is  maligned,  it 
appears  that  her  constitution  was  un- 
dermined by  the  too  free  use  of  the 
delicious  wine  of  Tokay.  This  was  "a 
taste  naturally  imbibed  in  the  court  of 
her  husband,  where  drunkenness,  after 
a  certain  hour,  was  the  rule  both  for 
men  and  women,  and  sobriety  the  ex- 
ception. If  Peter  did  not  make  a  will, 
it  appears  that  Catharine  did ;  and 
here  it  appears  that  she  simply  con- 
sulted the  common  usage  in  appoint- 
ing Peter,  the  son  of  the  outcast 
Alexis,  to  fill  the  throne  of  his  grand- 
father. This  may,  if  sincerely  done, 
have  been  the  effect  of  remorse,  a 
natural  love  of  justice,  or  the  influence 
of  her  confessor.  In  case  of  Peter 
Alexievitch  dying  without  issue,  the 
succession  was  to  pass  to  Catharine's 
elder  daughter  Anne ;  in  case  of 
Anne's  dying,  in  the  same  way  to 
Catharine's  younger  daughter  Eliza- 
beth, and  to  her  legitimate  heirs  after 
her,  it  being  provided  that  the  pos- 
session of  a  foreign  crown,  or  the  pro- 
fession of  any  other  religion  than  the 
Greek,  should  invalidate  all  preten- 
sions to  the  throne  of  the  Tsars.  But 
she  added  a  clause  to  this  will,  which, 
whether  intentionally  or  not,  was  cal- 
culated to  nullify  the  rest.  A  regency 
being  necessary,  in  consequence  of  the 
tender  years  of  the  heir-apparent,  it 
was  to  be  administered  by  nine  per- 
sons, namely,  Anne,  Elizabeth,  the 
Duke  of  Holstein,  Prince  Menschikoff, 
and  five  other  senators— just  the  per- 
sons, of  all  others,  most  interested  in 
setting  the  heir- apparent  aside,  not- 
withstanding that  another  clausein  the 
will  forbade  them  to  do  so — being 
added,  we  may  suppose,  if  not  in 
innocent  misguidedness,  for  decency's 
sake.  The  Tsar  was  to  come  of  age 
at  sixteen,  and  until  that  time  intrigue 
had  its  fling.  Peter  II.  was  proclaimed 
the  day  after  the  empress's  death,  for 
form's  sake.  But  it  soon  became  plain 
that  Menschikoff  was  to  be  the  only 
real  regent.  He  disgusted  the  Duke 
of  Holstein  and  his  wife  Anne  into 
quitting  St  Petersburg,  and  then  he 


of  Russia. — Part  II. 


185 


had  it  all  his  own  way.  His  object 
was  to  marry  the  young  emperor  to 
his  daughter,  and  then  get  him  fully 
into  his  possession.  But  by  his  tem- 
porary exercise  of  power  in  the  state 
and  army,  he  became  so  unpopular 
that  his  ambition  was  soon  frustrated. 
Peter  II.  was  set  against  Menschikoff 
by  one  Prince  Ivan  Dolgorouki,  a 
Russian  noble  of  the  reactionary 
party ;  and  now  taking  the  law  into 
his  own  hands,  he  succeeded  in  de- 
grading Menschikoff,  and  sending  him 
to  Siberia. 

The  young  Prince  Dolgorouki  suc- 
ceeded to  the  court  favour  which 
Menschikoff  had  enjoyed  ;  and  the 
young  Tsar  was  on  the  point  of  mar- 
rying his  friend's  sister,  when  the 
small-pox — that  scourge  of  the  time — 
carried  him  off  the  31st  January  ]  730. 
When  he  came  to  the  throne,  he  had 
recalled  to  court  from  her  convent 
his  grandmother  Eudoxia,  Peter  the 
Great's  first  wife,  although  she  had 
lived  too  long  out  of  the  world  to  feel 
herself  at  home  in  it,  and  soon  went 
back  to  her  retirement.  This,  with 
other  circumstances,  tends  to  show 
that,  if  this  Tsar  had  lived,  he  would, 
if  he  had  been  able,  have  reversed  his 
grandfather's  system  ;  and  even  thus 
early,  the  imperial  policy  of  Russia 
might  have  been  nipped  in  the  bud. 
Providence  had  otherwise  ordained. 

By  the  death  of  Peter  II.  without 
issue,  the  male  line  of  Romanoff  became 
extinct.  If  Anna  Petrovna  had  been 
alive,  she  would  have  been  the  next 
heir,  according  to  Catharine's  will; 
but  she  had  died  in  1728,  leaving  an 
only  son,  who  afterwards  reigned  as 
Peter  III.,  and  would  have  reigned 
now,  had  the  will  of  the  deceased 
Tsarina  been  otherwise  than  waste 
paper  in  the  hands  of  the  omnipotent 
camarilla.  Little  did  it  avail  Catha- 
rine that  she  named  her  last  wish  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  state.  The 
supreme  council  assembled,  and  called 
Anne,  daughter  of  Ivan,  Peter  the 
Great's  elder  brother,  to  the  throne. 
In  doing  so,  the  council  seems  merely 
to  have  kept  in  view  the  perpetuation 
of  its  own  power,  for  it  endeavoured 
to  bind  its  creature,  the  new  empress, 
by  guarantees  of  limitation,  by  which, 
if  they  had  been  permanently  carried 
out,  the  imperial  theory  of  irresponsible 
power  would  have  been  completely 


186 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  II. 


[Aug. 


ignored.  But  it  was  easier  to  set 
aside  the  wishes  of  the  dead  than  to 
bind  the  living ;  and  the  aristocratic 
principle  was  too  far  gone  in  Russia 
to  be  resuscitated  by  any  artificial 
galvanism.  A  deputation,  headed 
by  Prince  Dolgorouki,  the  father  of 
that  Ivan  who  was  the  friend  of  Peter 
II.,  set  out  for  the  residence  of  the 
Duchess  of  Courland,  to  call  her  to 
the  sovereignty — but  under  the  con- 
dition that  she  should  bring  no  stran- 
gers in  her  suite,  and  especially  one 
Biren,  who  exercised  a  strong  influ- 
ence over  her.  A  little  common  sense 
would  have  taught  the  deputation  the 
futility  of  this  mission,  in  all  except- 
ing the  acceptance  of  the  throne  by 
the  future  empress.  Anne  swallowed 
all  her  pledges,  signed  her  name  to 
everything,  and,  as  soon  as  she  came 
to  Moscow,  began  to  set  about  break- 
ing her  faith  with  these  foolish  friends. 
She  soon  surrounded  herself  with  a 
camarilla  of  her  own  choosing,  at  the 
head  of  which  was  the  forbidden  Biren. 
Then  she  called  an  assembly  of  the 
nobles,  and,  sure  of  success,  threw 
upon  them  the  responsibility  of  her 
usurpation.  She  excused  the  viola- 
tion of  her  pledges  on  the  ground 
that  she  acted  under  compulsion, 
having  a  right  to  the  succession,  and 
•that  those  who  endeavoured  to  violate 
the  constitution  by  limiting  the  power 
-of  the  sovereign  were  guilty  of  high 
treason  in  doing  so.  The  assembly 
having  justified  her  by  acclamation, 
she  publicly  tore  the  agreement  she 
had  made,  and  proclaimed  herself 
autocratrix  of  all  the  Russias.  Biren 
had  then  his  full  swing  of  vengeance 
on  his  enemies,  especially  the  family 
Dolgorouki.  Ivan  and  Vassili  were 
broken  on  the  wheel,  others  beheaded, 
-and  others  sent  to  Siberia. 

This  Biren,  who  filled  the  same 
position  in  the  court  of  Anne  that 
Potemkin  and  many  others  occupied 
in  that  of  Catharine  II.,  ruled  Russia 
with  a  grinding  tyranny,  but  extended 
her  empire  abroad.  He  succeeded 
in  deposing  the  patriotic  king  of 
Poland,  Stanislaus  Leckzinski,  and 
substituting  Augustus  III.,  Elector  of 
Saxony,  a  mere  creature  of  Russia. 
The  armies  of  Russia,  commanded  by 
Munich,  gave  effectual  assistance  to 
the  German  Emperor  Charles  VI., 
conquered  the  Turks,  and  routed  the 


Tartars  of  the  Crimea.  At  Biren's 
instigation,  the  empress  took  measures 
to  plant  offsets  of  Russian  imperialism 
in  Germany,  by  marrying  her  niece, 
the  daughter  of  Charles,  duke  of 
Mecklenburg,  and  of  her  sister,  Cathe- 
rine Ivanovna,  to  the  Prince  Antony 
Ulric  of  Brans  wick -Luneburg,  the 
nephew  of  the  Austrian  empress.  At 
the  same  time,  she  nominated  this 
niece  as  her  successor  to  the  throne 
of  the  Tsars.  Biren,  however,  sub- 
sequently, thinking  that  a  child  would 
be  more  manageable  than  a  woman, 
and  foreseeing  his  own  permanent 
preferment  in  a  regency,  managed  to 
get  the  child  of  the  Tsarina-elect — 
whose  name  had  been  changed  from 
Catharine  to  Anne,  with  the  same 
ease  that  her  religion  had  been  changed 
from  Lutheran  to  Greek  for  the  sake 
of  the  throne — nominated  heir-appa- 
rent, to  the  prejudice  of  his  mother, 
as  well  as  of  his  aunt,  Elizabeth 
Petrovna.  It  was  scarcely  possible, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  that  a  marriage 
undertaken  under  such  auspices  as 
that  of  Catharine,  alias  Anne  of 
Mecklenburg,  could  come  to  much 
good  in  itself  or  in  its  issue.  Never 
was  there,  in  the  whole  history  of  the 
pampered  levity  of  courts,  so  flagrant 
a  defiance  of  Nemesis  or  Divine  jus- 
tice. That  barbarous  court  could  be 
satisfied  with  no  exuberance  of  festi- 
vity in  which  cruelty  did  not  find  a 
place.  One  anecdote  is  quite  enough. 
A  certain  Prince  Galitzin  had  during 
his  travels  embraced  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion.  When  he  returned 
to  Russia,  Anne  condemned  him  to 
expiate  his  apostacy  —  not  on  the 
scaffold,  but  by  acting  the  part  of 
court-jester ;  a  refinement  of  brutality 
similar  to  that  by  which  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  sent  heretics  to  the  stake 
in  ridiculous  dresses ;  and  though  he 
was  a  man  of  forty,  she  made  him 
associate  with  her  boy-pages,  and  no 
doubt  submit  to  all  their  imperti- 
nences. His  wife  died.  Instead  of 
respecting  his  bereavement,  nothing 
would  satisfy  this — as  the  Germans 
might  call  her — raven-empress,  but 
that  the  poor  widower  should  marry 
again  immediately,  and,  because  he 
was  of  high  rank,  some  rough  country 
wench.  This  wedding  was  to  follow 
and  travesty  that  of  her  imperial 
niece. 


1855.]  The  Imperial  Policy 

It  was  the  winter  of  1740,  one  of 
the  hardest  of  its  century.  A  palace 
of  ice  was  raised  on  the  occasion, 
completely  furnished  in  all  its  details 
with  the  same  material,  from  which 
were  also  made  four  cannons  and  two 
mortars,  which,  placed  in  front  of  the 
palace,  were  fired  several  times  with- 
out bursting — not  that  the  authorities 
much  cared  whether  they  did  or  not. 
The  governors  of  all  the  different 
provinces  were  obliged  to  send  their 
specimens  of  all  the  subject  races  in 
their  national  costumes,  to  form  a 
processional  pageant  which,  under 
other  circumstances,  might  have  been 
interesting.  The  procession  was 
formed  of  more  than  three  hundred 
persons,  and  passed  before  the  win- 
dows of  the  empress  and  through  the 
principal  streets  of  the  town.  The 
newly -married  pair  came  first,  shut 
up  in  a  great  cage,  and  carried  on  an 
elephant.  Some  of  the  guests  were 
borne  on  camels,  the  others  were  dis- 
tributed in  pairs  in  drays  drawn  by 
rein-deer,  oxen,  dogs,  goats,  and  even 
swine.  The  dinner  was  prepared  in 
Biren's  own  establishment,  and  the 
representatives  of  each  country  were 
regaled  with  their  peculiar  dishes.  It 
was  followed  by  a  ball,  composed  of 
a  medley  of  all  the  national  dances, 
and  the  whole  ceremonial  ended  with 
the  instalment  of  the  bridal  pair  in 
their  palace  of  ice.  M.  Chopin,  who 
relates  these  doings,  justly  remarks, 
that  those  who  set  on  foot  this  festi- 
val, not  so  much  burlesque  as  cruel, 
were  more  degraded  by  it  than  its 
victims.  We  should  not  have  cited 
this  anecdote  did  it  not  tend  to  show 
one  of  the  directions  taken  by  the  im- 
perial policy  of  Russia.  This  was  the 
systematic  humiliation  of  the  profes- 
sion of  the  Roman  religion. 

This  vile  proceeding  was  of  a  piece 
with  the  vulgar  jest  of  Peter  the 
Great,  when  he  created  his  fool  Sotoff 
pope  of  Rome,  and  married  him, 
when  he  was  more  than  eighty,  to  a 
poor  creature  of  his  own  age — the  at- 
tendant ceremonies  being  such  as  to 
outrage  all  religion  and  decency ;  a 
piece  of  brutality  which  Voltaire  re- 
lates with  anything  but  disapproba- 
tion —  probably  condoning  the  of- 
fence against  good  taste  for  the  sake 
of  the  insult  to  the  Church  of  his 
country.  These  two  instances  of 


of  Russia.— Part  II.  187 

practical  joking,  far  excelling  in  inge- 
nuity as  well  as  cruelty  anything 
done  by  the  stupid  idleness  of  youth 
under  that  name,  taken  together  with 
a  course  of  oppression  against  the 
Roman  Catholic  Poles,  and  coming 
to  a  climax  in  the  cruelties  practised 
on  the  nuns  of  Minsk  in  the  reign  o-f 
Nicholas,  seem  to  prove  that  insult  to 
the  Latin  religion  was  part  of  the 
system  of  the  Tsars.  Why  it  was  so 
is  more  difficult  to  say.  The  Tsars, 
having  done  much  to  limit  the  inde- 
pendence of  their  own  clergy,  might 
have  wished  to  throw  a  sop  to  their 
bigotry  by  persecuting  a  religion  his- 
torically antagonistic  to  the  Greek. 
And  there  is  room  to  suspect  political 
vindictiveness.  It  is  mentioned  as  a 
fact  by  one  of  our  authorities,  that 
among  the  German  princesses  who 
were  sought  for  Russian  alliances,  the 
Protestants  were  easily  induced  to 
abjure  their  religion,  and  to  berebap- 
tised  into  the  Greek  Church,  while 
the  Catholics  invariably  shrank  from 
such  a  compromise  of  principle.  If 
this  be  true,  it  only  tallies  with  recent 
observation  of  the  vagueness  and  lax- 
ity of  the  Protestant  faith  of  Ger- 
many, philosophised  into  Pantheism 
with  the  learned,  and  slumbering  into 
immorality  of  conduct  and  political 
perfidiousness  with  the  reigning  houses 
and  the  courts. 

The  position  which  Biren  occupied 
in  the  state  during  the  reign  of  this 
empress,  similar  to  that  which  Men- 
schikoff  occupied  under  Catharine  L, 
seems  to  have  become  henceforth,, 
during  the  times  of  the  female  sove- 
reigns up  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of 
Catharine  II.,  a  part  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  Russia.  The  position  of  the 
husband  of  a  queen  or  empress  is  a 
difficulty  in  every  country,  because, 
his  inferiority  to  her  as  a  subject  has 
to  be  reconciled  with  his  regal  supe- 
riority as  a  husband.  We  get  out  of 
the  difficulty  by  enacting  that  the 
queen  shall  never  marry  a  subject, 
binding  the  'prince-consort  to  remain 
for  ever  in  the  position  of  a  resident 
foreigner,  visiting  the  crowned  head 
on  terms  of  equality.  The  Russians 
of  those  days  preferred  another  expe- 
dient, by  which  the  private  character 
of  the  empress  was  sacrificed  to  her 
prerogative.  They  dispensed  alto- 
gether with  the  marriage  ceremony 


188 


The  Imperial  Policy 


in  the  case  of  her  partner ;  and  thus, 
just  as  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  is  con- 
sidered too  high  for  any  woman  to 
share  his  elevation,  and  therefore 
never  married,  the  Sultana  being  no- 
thing more  than  the  chief  of  his 
slaves,  so  the  favourite  of  the  Em- 
press of  Russia  for  the  time  being 
was  nothing  more  than  the  chief  of 
her  slaves ;  but,  notwithstanding  that, 
if  sufficiently  able,  frequently  manag- 
ing to  rule  the  country  in  her  name 
with  despotic  power.  At  the  same 
time  he  remained  attached  to  her 
court  only  during  her  will  and  plea- 
sure, and,  especially  in  the  case  of 
Catharine  II.,  was  kept  under  strict 
surveillance,  never  being  allowed  to 
leave  the  palace  without  special  per- 
mission from  his  sovereign. 

This  custom  is  a  subject  which  it  is 
not  very  desirable  to  dwell  on,  being, 
in  its  circumstances,  unholy  ground — 
a  kind  of  half-congealed  stream  of 
lava  which  lies  in  our  way,  and  which 
we  must  trip  over,  but  as  swiftly  and 
lightly  as  possible,  for  fear  of  burn- 
ing the  soles  of  our  shoes.  A  cursory 
notice  is  necessary  to  enable  us  to  un- 
derstand this  period  of  Russian  his- 
tory. 

The  imperial  policy  of  Russia,  as 
beginning  with  Peter  and  carried  out 
by  the  empresses  and  their  favourites 
his  successors,  was  as  immoral  as  the 
practices  of  their  courts.  Its  most 
obvious  characteristic  is  its  utter  want 
of  heroism.  Rome  advanced  to  her 
conquests  in  a  very  different  manner. 
She  let  the  nations  know  beforehand 
that  she  meant  to  conquer  them. 
After  giving  them  this  information, 
she  was  indulgent  to  the  submissive, 
investing  them  at  once  with  all  her 
privileges  of  citizenship — merciless  to 
the  resisting,  but  knowing  one  only 
way  worthy  of  herself  to  bear  them 
down — fair  and  open  fighting,  as  Vir- 
gil well  describes  her  imperial  policy. 
But  that  of  Russia  was,  if  imperial, 
not  externally  imperious.  A  great 
respect  and  deference  to  foreign 
powers,  foreign  usages,  foreign  per- 
sons, was  assumed  throughout.  The 
Tsar  was  the  humble  scholar,  cap  in 
hand,  waiting  his  time  to  distance  his 
masters.  Force  was  always  ready  in 
the  background,  waiting  outside  till 
wanted,  like  the  myrmidons  of  a  com- 
missary of  police  making  a  domiciliary 


of  Russia.— Part  H.  [Aug. 

visit  on  some  state  offender.  It  was 
Peter's  especial  care  to  make  all  safe. 
His  navy  was  not  generally  to  fight 
unless  far  outnumbering  the  enemy — a 
principle  on  which  it  acts  in  the  present 
war.  He  would  never  have  authorised 
running  the  gauntlet  against  a  Euro- 
pean league ;  and  even  now  this  war 
of  ours  would  not  be  on  our  hands  un- 
less Russia  had  been  deceived  by  our 
Ministers,  and,  from  their  pacific 
professions  and  extra  civility,  taught 
to  think  that  it  was  not  probable  we 
should  draw  the  sword  against  her  as 
well  as  France.  The  action  of  Rus- 
sian aggression  on  all  surrounding 
countries  may  be  compared  to  that 
element  of  frost  which  is  literally  one 
of  her  most  powerful  arms.  Secret, 
cold,  and  insinuating,  it  proceeds  by 
sapping  and  undermining;  and  just 
as  the  mischief  of  frost  is  latent  till 
the  great  rock,  or  bridge,  or  wall,  or 
railway  embankment,  comes  down  a 
heap  of  rubbish,  so  is  her  policy  la- 
tent till  a  nation  collapses,  and  there 
is  nothing  left  for  her  to  do  but  to 
plant  her  flag  upon  its  ruins.  The 
most  difficult  kingdom  to  maintain 
against  her  is  ever  one  divided  against 
itself— one  in  which  there  is  a  split  or 
schism,  no  matter  how  small  at  first ; 
just  as  it  is  necessary  that  there  should 
be  some  cranny  or  chink  in  the  solid 
mass  to  admit  the  sap  of  frost.  Now, 
of  kingdoms  divided  against  them- 
selves, and  therefore  not  likely  to 
stand,  there  never  was  a  more  glar- 
ing instance  in  -history  than  that  of 
Poland.  Patriotism  may  have  lin- 
gered amongst  her  nobles,  but  with 
an  elective  monarchy,  and  one  to 
which  foreigners  were  eligible,  sowing 
a  rich  harvest  of  pretensions  and  pre- 
tenders, it  must  soon  have  become 
practically  a  dead  letter.  Not  so 
many  years  after  the  heroism  of  John 
Sobieski  at  the  battle  of  Vienna 
achieved  the  salvation  of  Germany, 
perhaps  of  Europe,  and  made  the 
Crescent  turn  to  its  wane  when  it 
seemed  on  the  point  of  becoming 
full,  had  Poland  fallen  so  far  in  the 
respect  of  Europe  that  the  question 
of  its  division  in  1710  is  said  to 
have  been  secretly  mooted  in  diplo- 
matic conversations  at  the  Russian 
court.  It  must  have  struck  Peter  at 
once  that  partition,  though  not  so 
glorious,  would  be  better  than  whole- 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  II. 


180 


sale  deglutition,  because  the  latter 
operation,  if  successful,  would  have 
raised  a  compact  phalanx  of  oppon- 
ents in  Germany ;  whereas,  by  allow- 
ing the  complicity  of  the  leading 
powers — and  better  of  two  than  of 
one  of  them — their  souls  would  be  as 
it  were  sold  to  him,  and  they  would 
either  be  disposed  to  wink  at  further 
aggressions  not  immediately  concern- 
ing themselves,  or  else,  when  the 
light  dawned  upon  them,  they  would 
not  have  the  courage  to  resist  his 
encroachments — being  placed  in  the 
dilemma  of  becoming  satrapies  of 
Russia,  or  submitting  to  political  dis- 
solution. Is  not  this  precisely  the 
position  of  Prussia  and  Austria  now  ? 
Though  asleep  morally,  their  senses 
are  enough  awake  to  see  the  monster 
of  the  nightmare  growing  larger  and 
bearing  down  upon  them,  but  they 
cannot  fly  or  strike.  Poland  keeps 
them  motionless,  and  with  their  hair 
standing  on  end,  just  as  the  coverings 
of  his  bed  obstruct  the  hands  and  the 
feet  of  the  dreamer.  Why  did  we  also 
finally  acquiesce  in  the  partition  of  Po- 
land ?  Surely  it  was  not  for  the  sake 
of  our  trade.  We  may  almost  tremble 
at  this  insinuation,  but,  if  it  be  true, 
we  may  have  sold  our  souls  likewise. 
We  hope  that  it  was  only  blindness. 
If  so,  it  was  not  so  much  a  crime  as 
an  error,  but  an  error  which  nothing 
will  atone  for  now  but  some  of  the 
best  blood  of  our  men,  and  some  of 
the  holiest  tears  of  our  women,  shed 
because  of  its  shedding.  Other  coun- 
tries, though  in  a  less  degree  than 
Poland,  had  presented  the  same  oppor- 
tunities of  interference  to  Peter  the 
Great.  He  had  found  a  king  in  Prus- 
sia, Frederick- William,  a  rough-and- 
ready  man,  well-meaning  but  injudi- 
cious, inclined  himself  to  Puritanical 
strictness, — driving  people  out  of  the 
taverns  at  nine  P.  M.  on  Sundays,  and 
disgusting  them,  and  then  giving  way, 
partly,  it  must  be  confessed,  because 
it  hurt  his  revenues ;  much  in  the  same 
way  as  our  Whig  legislators,  who 
have  enforced  the  same  law  an  hour 


later,  have  given  way  on  other  points 
to  mob-demonstrations,  but  left  the 
original  offence,  and  made  the  whole 
aristocracy  unpopular.  This  Frede- 
rick-William was  a  mere  child  in  his 
hands,  as  was  the  opposite  character, 
the  profligate  Augustus  of  Saxony 
and  Poland — the  puppet  whose  strings 
he  pulled.  The  Grand-duke  of  Meck- 
lenburg was  a  tyrant,  and  at  feud 
with  his  subjects ;  therefore  did  Peter 
court  his  alliance  as  a  pretext  for  in- 
terference. Denmark  was  internally 
uncomfortable.  He  had  managed  to 
terrorise  Copenhagen  by  the  presence 
of  a  Russian  fleet.  China  was  a  long 
way  off,  but  he  wished  to  colonise 
Kamtschatka  and  Siberia,  and  establish 
himself  on  the  Pacific,  and  so  he  made 
a  commercial  treaty  with  China.* 
Persia  was  in  a  state  of  civil  war. 
He  had  supported  the  most  unworthy 
of  the  pretenders,  and,  after  three 
successful  campaigns,  got  possession 
of  the  provinces  of  Astrakan  and  Ghi- 
lan,  and  the  important  towns  of  Der- 
bend  and  Baku.  But  it  was  in  Po- 
land that  he  had  made  most  way, 
and  established  the  firmest  basis  for 
future  conquest. 

When  Augustus,  the  free-and-easy 
friend  of  Peter  the  Great,  died, 
the  Poles  declined  to  have  his  son 
to  rule  over  them,  and  the  majority 
of  them  decided  in  favour  of  one 
Piast,  a  born  Pole ;  but  the  primate 
and  nobles  were  sold  to  Russia,  and 
sought  a  closer  alliance  with  that 
power. 

Hence  arose  a  state  of  anarchy. 
After  much  intriguing,  Stanislaus  was 
chosen  king;  but  the  Russians  and  the 
Russianisers  chose  Augustus  III.,  and 
under  pretext  of  defending  the  old 
constitution,  and  the  laws  and  liber- 
ties  of  Poland,  and  proceeding  legally 
against]  Stanislaus,  Marshal  Munich 
came  and  besieged  Dantzic  with 
fifty  thousand  men.  Stanislaus  fledfor 
shelter  to  Frederick- William,  who  re- 
fused to  give  him  up.  Russian  legions 
swarmed  over  Poland,  and  appeared 
even  in  Germany  and  on  the  Rhine,  so 


*  It  was  mentioned  a  short  time  since,  in  the  correspondence  of  the  Times,  that 
Russia  had  taken  advantage  of  the  embroilment  of  the  Chinese  empire  to  appropriate 
a  slice  of  Chinese  Tartary;  and  in  the  Times  of  July  10  we  find,  among  the  Califor- 
nian  news,  an  account  of  a  new  fortress  at  the  mouth  of  the  Amoor,  said  to  be  nearly 
as  strong  as  Sebastopol.  These  statements  were  fully  anticipated  in  our  article  oil 
China  in  January  1854,  p.  73. 


190 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Prussia. — Part  II. 


[Aug. 


as  to  occasion  considerable  uneasiness 
not  only  in  Prussia,  but  at  the  court 
of  Vienna.  Biren  was  chosen  Duke 
of  Courland  in  1737 :  when  the  Polish 
war  had  been  ended  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  Russia,  he  moved  the  Tsarina 
to  act  against  Turkey.  Some  preda- 
tory grievances  on  the  part  of  the 
Khan  of  the  Crimea  had  before  this 
furnished  Russia  with  a  pretext  for 
attacking  him ;  but  General  Leontiew, 
who  directed  the  first  expedition, 
brought  but  few  troops  back,  the  rest 
having  been  destroyed  by  cold  and 
hunger.  The  Sultan  was  awakened 
to  the  danger  which  he  incurred 
through  his  vassal  the  Khan  by  the 
Russians  going  to  Azoff  in  1736,  but 
he  was  kept  quiet  by  the  menacing 
attitude  of  Austria.  In  1737,  how- 
ever, Russia  and  Austria  agreed  on 
acting  against  Turkey  in  concert,  and 
alarmed  the  maritime  powers  by  set- 
ting on  foot  rumours  of  an  intended 
partition  of  Turkey.  Austria  was 
beaten  in  the  first  year's  campaign, 
and  lost  at  the  final  peace  all  the  con- 
quests of  Prince  Eugene.  Russia 
fared  better  under  the  generalship  of 
Munich,  who  attacked  Moldavia  and 
Wallachia,  gained  a  signal  victory 
over  the  Turks  and  Tartars  in  August 
1739,  took  Jassy,  and  was  on  his  way 
to  Bender,  when  he  was  stopt  by  the 
peace  of  Belgrade,  to  his  infinite  cha- 
grin, as  he  saw  that  nothing  but  un- 
profitable glory,  purchased  in  the  usual 
Russian  manner  by  a  holocaust  of 
men,  would  result  from  the  war.  Thus 
we  may  see,  that  although  no  very 
solid  results  were  obtained  by  the 
Turkish  wars  of  the  Empress  Anne, 
yet  the  imperial  policy  of  Russia  bore 
its  fruits  in  Poland  and  Germany,  and 
mines  were  laid  in  many  directions, 
which  might  be  sprung  at  some  future 
opportunity. 

The  termination  of  the  career  of 
Anne  Ivanovna  was  not  far  distant. 
Biren  preserved  his  influence  over  her 
till  her  last  moments.  On  the  23d  of 
August  1740,  Anne,  the  adopted 
daughter  and  real  niece  of  the  em- 
press, having  given  birth  to  a  son, 
and  Biren  having  persuaded  the  em- 
press, as  we  have  shown,  to  adopt  this 
son  as  heir  to  the  throne,  in  prefer- 
ence to  his  mother,  she  died  of  an 
attack  of  gout,  probably  brought  on. 
by  her  too  free  living,  in  the  forty- 


ninth  year  of  her  age,  and  the  eleventh 
of  her  reign.  Biren's  instrument  in 
carrying  out  his  designs,  Marshal 
Munich,  proved  intractable.  He  had 
tke  army  in  his  hands,  and  as  soon  as 
the  empress  was  gone,  resolved  to 
overturn  Biren.  In  the  night  of  the 
20th  of  November,  Munich  surprised 
the  palace  of  the  regent  with  a  party 
of  soldiers,  and  carried  him  oif  to 
Schlusselburg.  The  Princess  of  Bruns- 
wick, who  had  been  sent  into  Germany 
by  Biren,  was  recalled,  and  made 
regent  to  her  son  under  the  title  of 
the  Grand -duchess.  Biren  was  tried 
for  his  life  by  the  senate,  and  con- 
demned to  death,  but  this  sentence 
was  changed  for  one  of  exile  to  Siberia. 
His  fall  was  a  special  triumph  to  his 
own  creatures.  Munich,  untaught  by 
Biren's  fate,  at  once  began  to  imitate 
him.  The  regent,  an  indolent  and 
luxurious  princess,  became  a  cipher 
in  the  state.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  there  yet  survived  a  daughter  ot 
Peter  the  Great  and  of  Catharine  I., 
who,  according  to  the  will  of  the  lat- 
ter, was  to  be  called  to  the  throne 
after  her  sister  Anne,  in  case  of  her 
posterity  becoming  extinct.  This  was 
Elizabeth,  born  in  1709,  in  the  midst 
of  her  father's  glory,  a  lazy  and  plea- 
sure-loving woman,  who  would  never 
have  taken  active  measures  for  her 
succession,  but  was  quite  willing 
to  be  passively  invested  with  the 
sovereign  dignity.  Her  natural  un- 
fitness  was  anything  but  a  disquali- 
fication in  the  eyes  of  the  ambitious 
courtiers. 

La  Chetardie,  the  French  ambas- 
sador, who  wished  to  embroil  Russia 
in  order  to  weaken  the  foreign  alli- 
ances of  Maria  Theresa,  and  who  suc- 
ceeded in  goading  Sweden  into  an  in- 
effectual war  against  her,  and  Lestocqt 
a  surgeon  of  French  origin,  were  the 
chief  agents  in  the  revolution  which 
ensued.  The  indolence  of  Elizabeth 
was  the  only  obstacle.  It  was  over- 
come by  a  bold  stroke  of  Lestocq.  He 
went  to  Elizabeth,  and  finding  a  card 
on  the  table,  drew  on  it  a  figure  of  a 
wheel,  and  a  crown,  and  said,  "  There 
is  no  middle  course,  madame ;  one  of 
these  is  for  me,  or  the  other  for  you." 
After  this  the  hour  of  action  was  fixed. 
This  revolution  was  managed  by  an 
appeal  to  the  Praetorians  of  the  day, 
the  Preobazinsky  grenadiers,  a  party 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  11. 


of  whom  seized  the  regent  and  her 
husband  in  the  night  of  the  6th  De- 
cember 1741,  with  the  imperial  infant 
Ivan,  and  carried  them  all  to  Eliza- 
beth's palace.  Munich  and  others 
were  also  made  safe. 

The  dynasty  was  changed,  and 
without  bloodshed,  at  least  for  the 
present.  Thus  Ivan  Antonovitch  was 
deposed  before  he  had  really  reigned 
at  all,  and  Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
Peter  the  Great,  was  installed  as  em- 
press on  the  7th  of  December  1741. 

The,  first  thing  she  did  was  to  dis- 
pose of  her  fallen  rivals.  Anne  of 
Mecklenburg,  and  Antony  Ulric,  her 
husband,  were  sent  about  from  place 
to  place  for  safe  keeping,  until  at  last 
they  were  consigned  to  imprisonment 
in  an  island  near  the  White  Sea,  not 
far  from  the  arctic  circle.  The  boy 
was  separated  from  his  parents,  and 
shut  up  in  the  fortress  of  Schliis- 
selburg,  where  he  remained  captive 
till  he  was  murdered  in  the  reign  of 
Catharine  II. 

Thus  having  disposed  of  her  rivals, 
Elizabeth  was  crowned  at  Moscow, 
according  to  custom,  by  the  Bishop  of 
Novgorod,  the  7th  of  May  1742.  She 
took  the  opportunity  of  recalling  at 
this  time  several  exiles  of  the  time  of 
the  regency,  amongst  others  the  noto- 
rious Biren.  An  agreeable  surprise 
awaited  him.  On  his  way  back  he 
met  his  particular  enemies  going  into 
exile,  Munich  amongst  them,  who 
was  to  take  his  place,  and  occupy  the 
very  house  which  he  had  planned  for 
Biren.  The  same  year  Elizabeth 
named  as  her  heir  Charles  Peter  Ulric, 
of  Holstein-Gottorp,  her  nephew,  son 
of  her  sister  Anna  Petrovna.  Some 
years  afterwards,  the  Swedes  offered 
their  throne  to  the  same  prince — an 
extraordinary  infatuation,  only  to  be 
accounted  for  by  strangely  divided 
councils.  Instead  of  seizing  the  op- 
portunity of  uniting  Sweden  and 
Kussia  under  the  same  crown,  this 
prince  did  not  think  he  could  hold 
both,  and  to  his  cost  refused  the 
Swedish  certainty  for  the  Russian 
prospect.  Russia  and  Sweden  were, 
notwithstanding  this  amicable  offer, 
at  war,  and  the  war  ended  with  the 
peace  of  Abo,  greatly  to  the  advantage 
of  Russia,  as  the  chief  stipulations  of 
the  peace  of  Nystadt  were  confirmed 
thereby,  and  Finland  was  placed  at 


191 

the  mercy  of  Russia,  ripe  for  final 
absorption.  But  Elizabeth  had  to 
fight  it  out  with  a  more  formidable 
antagonist  than  Sweden.  A  conspi- 
racy against  her  having  been  disco- 
vered, and  she  suspecting  that  Fre- 
derick the  Great  of  Prussia  was  at  the 
bottom  of  it,  embraced  the  alliance  of 
Austria,  which  was  at  war  with  him. 
Marshal  Apraxin  penetrated  into 
Prussia  in  the  year  1757,  took  Me- 
mel,  and  beat  the  Prussians  in  a 
pitched  battle.  But  instead  of  follow- 
ing up  his  advantages,  he  unaccount- 
ably retreated  to  take  up  winter  quar- 
ters in  Poland.  The  empress  punished 
him  for  this  by  imprisoning  him  at 
Narva,  and  tried  him  for  his  life,  but 
apoplexy  anticipated  her  vengeance. 
Apraxin's  successor,  Fermer,  beat 
the  Prussians  again,  took  Konigs- 
berg,  and  was  pushing  on  his  advan- 
tages when  he  perceived  that  the 
Grand-duke  of  Russia,  a  German  still 
in  heart,  did  not  like  it ;  so  he  retired 
from  the  command,  the  reason  for  his 
retirement  being  probably  the  same 
as  that  of  the  retreat  of  Apraxin. 
SoltikofF  succeeded  him,  beat  the  Prus- 
sians on  the  Oder,  took  Frankfort, 
and  pushed  detachments  as  far  as  the 
gates  of  Berlin.  At  last  he  had  the 
good  fortune  to  triumph,  in  concert 
with  the  Austrians,  over  the  Great 
Frederick  himself,  in  a  battle  which 
lasted  eight  hours,  and  in  which  the 
Prussians  left  8000  men  on  the  field. 
The  news  of  this  victory  was  received 
with  the  greatest  satisfaction  at  St 
Petersburg,  and  every  soldier  who 
could  prove  that  he  had  been  engaged 
in  it,  was  exempted  for  life  from  all 
statute  labour.  The  two  campaigns 
which  followed  were  decidedly  advan- 
tageous to  Russia,  but  Elizabeth  was 
not  allowed  to  finish  the  war.  She 
died  January  the  5th,  1762,  at  the  age 
of  fifty- one.  In  this  reign  the  weight 
and  terror  of  Russian  arms  and  in- 
fluence, which  had  before  pressed  most 
heavily  on  the  East,  began  to  make 
itself  more  or  less  felt  through  West- 
ern Europe,  especially  in  Germany. 
But  it  was  easy  to  see,  from  the 
part  which  the  representative  of  the 
Holstein-Gottorps,  the  Grand- duke 
Charles,  who  was  rebaptised  in  to  Peter 
III.  of  Russia,  played  in  this  Prussian 
war,  that  he  was  not  fit  to  be  an  instru- 
ment of  the  imperial  policy  of  Russia,. 


192 


The  Imperial  Policy 


and  that,  as  eventually  happened,  his 
tenure  of  power  was  very  likely  to  be 
cut  short  by  some  court  intrigue. 

Elizabeth,  on  her  deathbed,  had 
enjoined  on  her  successor  the  fulfil- 
ment of  her  engagements  with  her 
allies.  Peter,  as  soon  as  she  was 
gone,  did  exactly  the  contrary.  He 
was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Fre- 
derick II.,  nor,  with  his  religion,  had 
he  abjured  his  nationality.  He  aban- 
doned the  party  of  Maria  Theresa, 
made  peace  with  the  King  of  Prussia, 
and  sent  back  the  prisoners  taken 
from  him  loaded  with  presents.  Thus 
Prussia  was  saved,  not  by  her  own 
merit,  as  Sweden  had  been  saved  be- 
fore, contrary  to  her  deserts ;  and  the 
indifference  of  the  Tsar  himself  to  the 
imperial  policy  of  Russia,  postponed 
for  the  present  her  further  aggrandise- 
ment. It  is  impossible  to  estimate 
the  consequences,  had  Peter  III.  in- 
herited the  astuteness  or  the  ambition 
of  Peter  I.,  or  possessed  that  of  his 
own  wife  Sophia  Augusta  Frederica, 
princess  of  Anhalt-Zerbst.  His  anti- 
national  predilections,  far  more  than 
any  positive  incapacity,  were  the  seal 
of  his  doom. 

As  to  Elizabeth  herself,  it  does  not 
appear  that  she  ever  acted  indepen- 
dently, but,  governed  by  a  succession 
of  favourites,  whose  interests  were  all 
bound  up  with  the  material  progress 
of  Russia,  she  was  made,  unconsci- 
ously to  herself,  one  of  its  most  effec- 
tual promoters.  Peter  III.,  during 
the  lifetime  of  Elizabeth,  had  been 
the  victim  of  court  intrigues  and  mis- 
representation, and  somehow  or  other 
had  contrived  to  make  himself  many 
and  powerful  enemies,  whilst  his  wife 
Sophia,  christened  Catharine,  pursued 
a  diametrically  opposite  course.  Di- 
rected by  a  vigilant  mother,  she  was 
solely  engaged  in  gaining  partisans. 
Her  strong  disposition  to  pleasure  was 
mute  at  the  call  of  ambition,  and  if 
she  had  not  captivated  the  heart  of 
the  reigning  empress,  she  had  at  least 
extorted  her  favourable  opinion,  so 
that  her  position  at  court  was  more 
strongly  intrenched  every  day.  If  we 
were  here  to  attempt  to  give  a  sketch 
of  the  intrigues  by  which  revolutions 
came  to  pass  at  the  Russian  court  at 
this  time,  we  should  be  led  into  a 
maze  of  plots  and  underplots  con- 
nected with  trickery  and  jugglery  of 


of  Russia . — Part  II.  [Aug. 

the  vilest  kind,  generally  originating 
in  some  domestic  entanglement,  by 
which  all  laws  divine  and  human  were 
set  at  defiance.  It  is  a  period  which 
the  back-stairs  historians  of  immoral 
courts  might  revel  in  to  their  hearts7 
content.  It  displayed  all  the  laxity 
of  the  court  of  Versailles  under  Louis 
XIV.  and  the  Regency,  without  its 
elegance  ;  all  the  effrontery  of  that  of 
Charles  II.,  without  its  facetious- 
ness.  When  Peter  III.  came  to  the 
throne,  the  pitfall  had  already  been 
laid  into  which  a  few  steps  made  in 
the  dark  were  certain  to  precipitate 
him.  It  was  easy  for  him  to  efface 
his  predecessor's  memory,  yet  it  was 
easy  to  observe  an  absence  of  that 
heartiness  which  generally  greets  a 
young  prince  on  his  accession.  All 
tempers  seemed  out  of  tune ;  the  em- 
peror found  no  more  real  affection  in 
the  larger  circle  of  the  court  than  in 
the  smaller  one  of  his  family.  One 
cause  of  this  was,  that  a  reaction, 
which  Elizabeth  had  flattered,  had 
been  gaining  ground  against  the  fo- 
reigners about  court,  and  had  gone 
so  far  that  many  of  them  had  been 
forced  to  resign  their  positions.  Peter, 
however,  so  far  from  respecting  this 
old  Russian  feeling,  continued  to 
Germanise,  and  seemed  to  centre  all 
his  affections  on  Holstein,  while  he 
showed  coldness,  or  even  repugnance, 
to  the  concerns  of  his  empire.  He 
even  omitted  to  make  preparations 
for  his  coronation  at  Moscow,  and 
consumed  the  time  instead  in  prepa- 
rations to  meet  Frederick,  his  great 
model,  in  Germany.  Apart  from  his 
policy,  the  beginnings  of  his  govern- 
ment at  home  were  mild  and  popular. 
One  of  his  first  measures  was  to  set 
free  the  nobility  and  gentry,  and  put 
them  on  a  European  footing;  another 
was,  to  recall  all  the  state  prisoners 
from  Siberia,  amongst  them  the  rivals 
Biren  and  Munich, — the  former  of 
whom  was  afterwards  reinstated  by 
Catharinell.  in  his  duchy  of  Courland. 
If  Peter  had  known  the  hearts  of 
the  Russians  better,  he  would  have 
seen  that  mildness  and  justice  were 
only  thrown  away  upon  them.  While 
his  private  excesses  continued  to  al- 
ienate his  intimate  friends,  his  public 
acts  failed  to  conciliate  his  enemies. 
Not  the  least  powerful  among  these 
were  the  popes,  or  Russian  priests, 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  II. 


193 


who  continually  instilled  into  the 
people  that  the  prince  was  in  heart  a 
German,  and  in  soul  a  Lutheran  ;  so 
that  the  lower  classes  were  set  against 
him,  as  well  as  many  of  the  higher. 
Instead  of  doing  anything  to  heal  this 
breach,  the  Tsar  did  everything  to 
make  it  larger.  He  secularised  the 
possessions  of  the  Church,  and  put  the 
clergy  on  yearly  salaries;  he  took 
from  the  churches  the  pictures  of  the 
saints,  and  banished  the  Archbishop 
of  Novgorod  for  objecting  to  it ;  and 
then,  by  recalling  him,  gained  a  char- 
acter for  weakness  of  purpose,  while 
he  did  not  in  the  least  diminish  the 
odiurn  that  step  had  occasioned. 

But  the  most  sacrilegious  thing  that 
he  did,  in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  was 
in  naming  two  ships  of  war,  one  Prince 
George,  and  the  other  Frederick,  in- 
stead of  after  Russian  saints,  as  was 
the  general  custom.  Catharine  knew 
her  subjects  better,  and  rebaptised 
them  by  the  names  of  the  St  Nicholas 
and  the  St  Alexander — a  consecration 
which,  though  it  pleased  the  Russians, 
did  not  prevent  them  from  being  taken 
by  the  Turks  in  the  war  of  1768.  But 
all  these  offences  might  have  been 
swallowed,  had  Peter  left  the  army 
alone.  He  was  not  contented  with- 
out offending  it  as  well,  by  introducing 
German  tactics  and  German  uniforms. 
All  this  was  contrary  to  the  advice  of 
his  friend  Frederick,  who  advised  him 
to  be  crowned  at  Moscow,  more  majo- 
rum,  and  to  give  up  meddling  with 
the  tailoring  of  monks  or  soldiers, 
and  with  other  little  particulars  of  the 
same  kind,  which,  in  the  eyes  of  a 
semi-barbarous  people,  are  of  the  first 
importance.  Above  all  things,  Fre- 
derick advised  him  to  keep  on  good 
terms  with  his  wife,  whose  power  was 
daily  on  the  increase,  as  his  own  was 
on  the  wane.  To  sum  up  the  causes 
of  Peter's  fall,  he  was  untrue  to  the 
imperial  policy  of  Russia,  probably 
because  he  had  not  the  genius  to  un- 
derstand it.  It  is  well  observed  by 
the  historian  of  the  life  of  Catharine 
II.,  that  the  power  of  the  Tsars, 
though  uncontrollable  in  its  exercise, 
is  weak  in  its  foundation.  No  posi- 
tion in  Europe  requires  greater  vigi- 
lance, or  a  steadier  hand  on  the  reins. 
Just  as  a  joint  becomes  weaker  after 
dislocation,  and  increasingly  liable  to 
be  dislocated  again,  the  constant 


changes  of  the  succession  in  Russia 
made  the  throne  singularly  insecure, 
though  its  prerogatives  remained  the 
same,  and  its  external  power  even, 
increased  till  it  reached  its  maximum. 
Peter,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  the 
man  to  be  aware  of  these  peculiar 
difficulties.  His  unpopularity  at  last 
grew  to  its  head,  and  a  conspiracy 
was  formed  against  him,  whose  action 
was  accelerated  by  the  emperor's  own 
imprudence.  He  happened,  over  his 
wine,  to  allow  his  intention  to  trans- 
pire of  depriving  the  empress  of  the 
throne,  and  divorcing  her,  disinherit- 
ing his  son  at  the  same  time.  Catha- 
rine at  once  determined  to  be  before- 
hand with  him,  and  resolved  on  a 
coup  d'etat  of  her  own.  The  thing 
was  done  in  a  few  hours.  The  nobles, 
the  people,  the  priests,  and  the  troops, 
had  already  been  gained,  and  Catha- 
rine found  no  obstacle  to  her  usurpa- 
tion of  a  throne  to  which,  in  her  own 
right,  she  had  not  the  faintest  shadow 
of  a  claim.  None  were  more  aston- 
ished at  the  ease  of  their  victory  than 
the  conspirators  themselves.  As  for 
the  unfortunate  Peter,  he  heard  the 
news  at  Oranienbaum,  tried  to  escape 
from  Cronstadt,  but  was  ignominious- 
ly  driven  back,  and  conducted  as  a 
prisoner  to  Peterhof,  where  he  signed 
a  most  abject  abdication.  This  did 
not  save  his  life.  His  enemies  led 
him  at  last  to  the  castle  of  Ropcha, 
where  they  strangled  him,  as  is  gene- 
rally believed  not  without  the  privity 
of  Catharine  ;  at  all  events,  by  not 
taking  subsequent  cognisance  of  the 
murder,  she  made  herself  an  accessary 
after  the  fact;  and  history  commits 
no  great  injustice  in  branding  her 
memory  with  the  complicated  crime 
of  Clytemnestra. 

In  the  reign  of  Peter  III,  which 
lasted  but  six  months,  little  or  nothing 
was  done  to  forward  the  imperial  pol- 
icy of  Russia.  He  does  not,  however, 
seem  to  have  lost  sight  of  her  aggran- 
disement altogether,  as  he  published 
a  decree,  setting  forth  her  commercial 
advantages — perhaps  being  advised 
that  conquest  was  not  the  best  way 
to  civilise  a  nation,  or  the  only  way 
to  raise  it  to  greatness.  Catharine, 
though  differently  minded  in  most 
points,  thought  it  worth  while  to  take 
up  this  idea,  and  improve  on  it,  pro- 
bably because  she  saw  that  commerce 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  11. 


194 

is  a  feeder  of  war,  and  especially  ne- 
cessary for  the  maintenance  of  the 
navy  in  an  efficient  state.  It  was 
obvious  to  her  that  the  position  of 
Bussia  was  replete  with  advantages. 
She  improved  upon  them,  so  that, 
during  the  course  of  her  reign,  Cour- 
land,  on  the  Baltic,  fell  absolutely 
under  her  sceptre ;  while  the  posses- 
sion of  the  sea  of  Azoff,  and  the  ad- 
jacent ports,  paved  her  way  to  Egypt, 
Africa,  and  Greece.  The  inhabitants 
of  the  extreme  north-eastern  part  of 
Asia  were  at  length  obliged  to  submit 
to  Muscovite  power ;  and  the  Straits 
of  Behring  being  easily  overstepped, 
it  was  enabled  to  gain  a  footing  in  the 
northern  parts  of  the  American  con- 
tinent. Intercourse  was  opened  with 
China  through  the  frontier  towns  of 
Kiachta  and  Maimatshin  ;  and  Oren- 
burg, in  Asiatic  Russia,  was  well 
placed  for  trade  with  India ;  so  that 
at  Balk,  a  town  in  Bactriana,  or  Kho- 
rasan,  the  Russian  and  East  Indian 
caravans,  which  required  but  three 
months  for  their  whole  journey,  met 
together.  But  all  this  was  the  work 
of  time.  The  beginnings  of  Catharine's 
reign  were  not  undisturbed  by  sedi- 
tions. The  first  of  these  was  founded 
on  the  pretensions  of  the  old  nobility, 
which,  had  been  revived  during  the 
late  reign.  Ivan,  the  deposed  Tsar, 
who  had  only  reigned  in  infancy,  fur- 
nished, in  his  prison  at  Schlusselburg, 
a  rallying -point.  This  insurrection 
was  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the  murder 
of  Ivan  by  the  Orloffs,  and  some 
others  of  the  zealous  partisans  of  the 
empress.  Another  insurrection,  which, 
later  in  her  reign,  assumed  formidable 
dimensions,  was  that  of  a  Cossack  of 
the  Don,  named  Pugatscheff,  who 
acted  on  the  superstition  of  the  serfs, 
thinking  to  play  the  same  part  which 
had  been  played  by  the  impostors  of 
former  times.  He  pretended  to  be 
the  deceased  Tsar  Peter  III.,  and 
succeeded  in  kindling  a  servile  war 
in  the  southern  provinces  of  Russia 
and  about  the  .frontier  of  Asia,  which 
was  attended  with  the  horrors  of  the 
Jacquerie  in  France,  and  gave  in- 
finite trouble  to  the  Russian  generals, 
resembling  a  fire  running  along  the 
ground  in  dry  herbage,  which,  as  soon 
as  it  is  trampled  out  in  one  part,  re- 
appears at  another.  This  rebellion 
was  at  length  stifled  by  the  capture 


[Jag. 


and  execution  of  the  ringleader. 
The  troubles  which  at  the  accession 
of  the  empress  were  fast  thickening 
in  the  unhappy  kingdom  of  Poland, 
did  not  render  it  necessary  for  her  to 
look  far  for  a  fair  field  for  her  ambi- 
tion. In  the  last  decade  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  the  class  of  nobles 
played  a  part  so  distinct  from  that  of 
former  days,  that  the  notion  that  it 
was  a  support  to  monarchy  lost  ground 
considerably.  In  Austria,  Joseph  II. 
was  baffled  in  his  plans  of  reform  by 
the  nobles,  those  plans  appearing  to 
them  only  a  pretext  for  establishing 
a  pure  absolutism.  In  Sweden,  the 
nobles  were  at  feud  with  Gustavus 
III.,  and  took  the  anti-national  side, 
selling  themselves  to  the  enemy. 
But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  they 
did  this  consciously ;  probably  they 
only  wished  to  oppose  the  revolu- 
tionary tendency,  whose  general  re- 
sults were  democracy  and  despotism. 
The  state  of  Poland  was  the  worst  of 
all.  From  the  nature  of  the  consti- 
tution, it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that  nationality  had  disappeared.  It 
became  at  length  a  matter  of  course 
to  sell  the  kingdom  and  the  king  to 
the  highest  bidder.  Catharine  saw 
this  state  of  things  both  in  Sweden 
and  Poland,  and  was  not  slow  to 
profit  by  it.  Gustavus  III.,  a 
romantic  and  foolish  prince,  was  in- 
duced to  visit  the  Tsarina  at  St  Peters- 
burg. She  completely  duped  him, 
playing  off  upon  him,  amongst  other 
things,  a  practical  joke  of  deep  signi- 
fication, inducing  him  to  take  home 
a  uniform  for  the  Swedish  army, 
which,  while  he  was  told  and  gave 
out  that  it  was  national,  was  nothing 
more  than  a  Russian  livery.  She 
befooled  him  again,  by  inducing  him 
to  enter  into  an  armed  neutrality 
with  her  which  seemed  to  be  hostile 
to  England,  then  hampered  with  the 
American  War — a  power  which  she 
found  far  too  useful  to  her  purposes 
to  wish  to  be  on  other  than  the  best 
possible  terms  with.  But  it  was  a 
great  point  with  Catharine  to  pro- 
mote personal  conferences  with  kings 
and  emperors,  by  which  she  had  an 
opportunity  of  fascinating  them  into 
her  plans.  In  this  manner  Joseph  II. 
of  Austria,  who  nevertheless  saw 
through  her,  as  did  indeed  Gustavus, 
was  induced,  before  the  death  of  his- 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.'— Part  II. 


mother  Maria  Theresa,  to  form  a 
treaty,  by  which  the  Turks  and 
Tartars  were  delivered  over  to  their 
fate.  The  Semiramis  of  the  North 
knew  how  to  play  as  well  the  part 
of  Cleopatra,  whose  boast  it  was  that 
she  led  captive  with  their  eyes  open 
the  conquerors  of  the  earth.  As  for 
Gustavus  of  Sweden,  he  had  the 
meanness  to  accept  a  present  of 
money  from  the  empress,  to  pay  his 
travelling  expenses  on  a  journey  to 
the  north.  In  concert  with  the 
Princess  Daschkoff,  a  most  efficient 
ally,  she  kept  the  King  of  Sweden 
amnsed'with  fetes  at  Friedrichshausen, 
while  she  was  steadily  pursuing  her 
ambitious  policy  in  the  east  of 
Europe. 

As  for  Poland,  Catharine  took  the 
earliest  opportunity  of  extending  the 
power  of  Russia  in  that  country, 
which  once  acted  a  conspicuous  part 
in  the  politics  of  Europe,  and  from 
the  extent  of  its  territory,  fertility  of 
its  soil,  and  the  high  spirit  of  its  people, 
seemed  formed  to  become  of  still  more 
consequence,  but  nevertheless  was 
doomed  to  loss  all  those  national  ad- 
vantages by  the  radical  defects  of  its 
government.  This  kingdom  had  long 
been  influenced  by  Russia,  even  be- 
fore the  time  of  Peter  the  Great, 
but  under  Catharine  that  influence 
was  incalculably  increased.  Augus- 
tus III.,  worn  out  by  dissipation  and 
vexation,  was  now  fast  verging  to 
the  grave.  All  pretenders  at  once 
began  to  examine  their  strength,  and 
the  court  of  St  Petersburg  was  the 
centre  of  numberless  intrigues.  Catha- 
rine flattered  all  the  rivals,  fomented 
their  divisions,  and  encouraged  their 
hopes,  while  at  the  same  time  her  own 
mind  was  made  up.  She  had  fixed 
on  her  own  favourite  Poniatowsky. 
If  we  would  inquire  here  why  Poland 
was  so  weak  in  spite  of  her  apparent 
blessings,  we  must  reach  back  far 
into  history.  Poland  was  first  gov- 
erned by  nearly  absolute  native  kings. 
To  this  race  succeeded  the  Piasts, 
with  regard  to  whom  it  is  hardly 
known  whether  they  were  absolute 
or  elective,  who  preserved  at  any 
rate  the  crown  in  their  family  for 
many  generations.  The  power  of 
the  magnates,  modified  at  last  by 
Casimir  III.,  was  during  this  period 
a  mine  of  disturbance  to  the  mon- 


195 

archy,  as  it  was  to  our  early  Norman 
kings.  The  nobles  after  this  got  the 
upper  hand  by  making  the  supplies 
conditional  on  the  sacrifices  of  the 
sovereign,  until  Sigismund  Augustus 
was  obliged  to  consent  to  the  crown 
being  absolutely  elective.  Being 
without  a  son,  he  was  not  so  indis- 
posed as  he  would  otherwise  have 
been  to  purchase  personal  repose  in 
this  manner. 

The  four  principal  articles  of  the 
charter  signed  by  this  king  were  the 
following : — 

1.  That  the  crown  should  be  elec- 
tive, the  king  being  disqualified  from 
appointing  a  successor. 

2.  That  general  diets  should  be 
assembled  once  in  two  years. 

3.  That    every    Polish    nobleman 
might  vote  at  the  election  of  a  king. 

4.  That  in  case  of  the  king  in- 
fringing the  constitution,  the  subjects 
should  be  absolved  from  their  alle- 
giance. 

All  the  successors  of  Sigismund 
down  to  Stanislaus  Poniatowsky 
swore  to  this  charter,  at  which  we 
are  not  surprised,  knowing  that  they 
got  the  crown  by  favour  of  the 
nobles.  The  latter  abused  their 
power  the  more  they  increased  it. 
Not  contented  with  freely  giving 
their  votes,  these  fine  grandees  sold 
them  just  like  the  incorruptible  and 
independent  electors  of  our  reformed 
constituencies.  Henry  de  Valois  was 
the  first  who  bought  the  throne  of 
the  Jagellons  ;  thenceforth  gold  was 
all-powerful,  only  to  yield  at  length  to 
the  terror  of  foreign  arms.  On  every 
accession  to  the  throne  the  nobility 
usurped  some  new  privilege.  During 
the  reign  of  John  Casimir  the  so- 
called  liberumveto  was  created.  This 
was  a  right  given  to  each  individual 
nobleman  to  stop  the  deliberations  of 
the  whole  diet,  just  as  a  thunder- 
storm used  to  stop  the  comitia  among 
the  ancient  Romans.  Of  course,  it 
was  only  the  legalisation  of  anarchy. 
Hence  it  was  that  for  three  hundred 
years  and  more  the  irrational  ambi- 
tion of  the  nobles  was  consummating 
their  country's  ruin,  and  a  nation 
constitutionally  brave,  which  had 
often  defied  the  Porte  in  the  plenitude 
of  its  power,  and  given  law  to  Prussia 
and  Russia,  was  subsequently  unable 
to  resist  an  attacking  armv.  The 


196 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  II. 


[Aug. 


forces  of  Charles  Gustavus  and 
Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  found  it  an 
easy  prey  ;  and  from  the  moment  that 
Russia  was  able  to  oppose  disciplined 
troops  to  its  brilliant  and  licentious 
pospolite  (a  mere  feudal  levy),  she 
found  herself  able  to  dictate  laws  at 
will.  Still  the  Poles  called  them- 
selves free,  though  Sarnisky,  one  of 
the  men  who  best  understood  them, 
defied  them  to  show  more  than  two 
instances  of  a  free  election — of  one, 
that  is,  which  was  not  influenced  more 
or  less  by  the  other  powers  of  Europe. 
Such  was  the  state  of  Poland  at  the 
death  of  Augustus  III.,  displaying  an 
ample  arena  for  the  political  talents 
of  Catharine  II. 

That  sovereign,  whom  the  courts  of 
Vienna  and  Versailles  hoped  to  detach 
from  Prussia,  began  by  artfully  ob- 
taining from  them  the  pledge  that 
they  would  not  interfere  in  the  affairs 
of  Poland.  In  1764,  the  ambassa- 
dor of  France  at  Warsaw  declared 
at  the  diet  that  Louis  XV.  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  elec- 
tion of  a  new  king,  and  soon  after- 
wards the  Count  de  Merci  held  the 
same  language  on  the  part  of  Maria 
Theresa.  This  was  not  enough  for 
Catharine;  she  wanted  to  make  sure 
also  of  the  court  of  Berlin.  Frederick 
had  long  been  soliciting  her  to  sign  a 
treaty  of  defensive  alliance :  she  con- 
sented on  condition  of  his  binding  him- 
self by  an  engagement,  which  she  her- 
self also  undertook,  not  to  attempt  to 
influence  the  freedom  of  election  in 
Poland.  Catharine,  now  having  the 
game  in  her  hands,  dismissed  one 
after  another  all  the  other  candidates ; 
and,  to  the  great  astonishment  and 
discontent  of  the  Polish  magnates, 
declared  that  she  had  destined  Ponia- 
towsky  for  the  vacant  throne.  Ponia- 
towsky  was  a  man  of  agreeable  per- 
son, a  good  linguist,  and  generally  ac- 
complished, but  one  who,  without  the 
favour  of  the  Tsarina,  could  never 
have  aspired  to  the  dignity.  He  was 
the  fittest  instrument  in  her  hands, 
and  crown  him  she  would.  So  with- 
out delay  she  wrote  to  Count  Kaiser- 
ling,  her  ambassador  at  Warsaw: 
*'  Mon  cher  Comte,  souvenez  vous  de 
mon  candidat.  Je  vous  ecris  ceci  deux 
heures  apres  minuit :  jugez  si  la  chose 
m'est  indifferente."  Count  Kaiserling 
and  the  generals  under  his  orders 


knew  her  too  well  to  disobey.  The 
election  was  at  first  doubtful ;  the 
diet  of  Warsaw,  cowed,  elected  Ponia- 
towsky  unanimously — not  so  some  of 
the  others.  So  the  Russian  troops 
entered  Warsaw,  under  pretence  of 
preserving  liberty  and  order.  They 
were  seconded  by  a  corps  of  12,000 
men  from  Lithuania,  and  fresh  rein- 
forcements were  advancing  towards 
Kief.  So  the  Russian  ambassador  was 
all-powerful  at  Warsaw,  and  the  re- 
public was,  as  it  were,  compressed  be- 
tween these  different  army  corps.  The 
election  was  opened  in  the  plain  of 
Volo,  three  miles  from  Warsaw.  All 
was  tumult  and  confusion.  Count 
Branichky  and  Prince  Radzivil  took 
up  arms,  and  were  beaten  by  the  Rus- 
sians after  a  fruitless  display  of  bravery, 
and  obliged  to  fly  for  shelter  to  Turkey. 
In  the  interim,  the  ambassadors  of 
France,  Spain,  and  the  German  empire 
had  retired  from  the  diet  in  disgust, 
and  Poniatowsky  was  unanimously 
elected  King  of  Poland  and  Grand-duke 
of  Lithuania,  under  the  name  of  Stanis- 
laus Augustus.  All  this  happened 
about  the  time  that  Catharine's  own 
throne  was  endangered  by  the  con- 
spiracy which  ended  in  the  murder  of 
the  ex-emperor  Ivan  in  prison.  And 
now  Catharine's  power  began  to  as- 
sume such  dimensions,  that  thought- 
ful politicians  began  to  grow  alarmed. 
The  following  remarks  come  from  M. 
Spittler,  a  contemporary  historian,  in 
his  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  govern- 
ment of  Europe  :  "  The  volumes  of 
modern  history  can  produce  no  reign 
like  this ;  for  no  monarch  has  ever 
succeeded  in  the  attainment  of  such  a 
dictature  in  the  grand  republic  of 
Europe  as  Catharine  II.  now  holds  j 
and  none  of  all  the  kings  who  have 
heretofore  given  cause  to  dread  the 
erection  of  a  universal  monarchy,  seem 
to  have  had  any  knowledge  of  her  art 
— to  present  herself  with  the  pride  of  a 
conqueror  in  the  most  perilous  situa- 
tion, and  with  an  unusual  and  totally 
new  dignity  in  the  most  common 
transactions.  And  it  is  manifestly 
not  alone  the  supreme  authority  which 
here  gives  law,  but  the  judgment 
which  knows  when  to  show  that 
authority,  and  when  to  employ  it." 
The  same  historian  remarks  of  the 
interference  of  Russia  in  Poland  :  "It 
was  an  ingenious  contrivance,  formed 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  11. 


197 


in  a  truly  Roman  style,  and  completed 
accordingly.  Not  only  a  numerous 
and  free  nation  was  to  be  deprived 
of  its  liberty  and  national  subsistence, 
but  all  Europe  was  to  be  lulled  asleep. 
The  annexations  of  Louis  XIV.  were 
a  trifling  business  compared  with  what 
Catharine  II.  performed  in  Poland  and 
against  that  country.  But  what  loud 
and  violent  cries  were  raised  against 
the  former,  and  in  what  soft  mur- 
murs did  the  voice  of  truth  repeat  the 
ancient  law  of  nations,  when  there 
seemed  to  be  no  longer  any  law  be- 
tween Russia  and  Poland." 

The  secret  designs  formed  by  Catha- 
rine in  crowning  Poniatowsky  were 
not  long  in  unfolding  themselves. 
Knowing  herself  sure  of  his  submis- 
sion, she  traced  out  on  the  map  the 
lines  of  demarcation  by  which  Russia 
purloined  a  great  part  of  the  Polish 
territory,  and  impudently  insisted  on 
the  recognition  of  the  validity  of  these 
lines,  and  that  the  limits  of  the  two 
countries  should  thus  be  fixed.  She 
exacted,  moreover,  that  the  king  and 
the  republic  should  form  with  her  an 
alliance  both  offensive  and  defensive, 
and  that  they  should  allow  the  dis- 
sidents to  enjoy  all  the  same  rights 
with  the  Catholics,  not  excepting  that 
of  a  capacity  for  being  members  of  the 
senate.  How  strangely  similar  in  this 
respect  is  the  policy  of  Catharine  to 
that  lately  pursued  by  Nicholas  in 
Turkey.  These  dissidents  were  com- 
posed partly  of  Greek  Christians, 
partly  of  Protestants.  Though  the 
sympathy  with  the  latter  must  have 
been  hypocritical,  Catharine  claimed 
the  protectorate  over  them  all,  just 
as  Nicholas  claimed  the  protecto- 
rate over  all  the  Christians  in 
Turkey.  Religion  was  in  both  cases 
the  mere  pretext  for  political  aggres- 
sion. By  subjecting  the  dissidents 
to  certain  disabilities,  the  Polish 
government  had  furnished  an  excuse 
for  the  interference  of  Catharine,  as 
the  Ottoman  had  for  the  interference 
of  Nicholas  by  continuing  the  inferior 
status  of  the  Christian  subjects  of  the 
Porte.  The  term  dissidents,  it  must  be 
observed,  had  not  the  same  force  that 
that  of  dissenters  has  with  us,  at  least 
originally.  At  first  it  included  all  reli- 
gions, even  the  Roman  Catholic. 
When  exclusiveness  replaced  tolera- 
tion, it  signified  those  who  were  not 


of  the  state  religion.  When  Russia 
was  establishing  herself  in  Poland, 
the  Catholic  prelates,  with  singular 
imprudence,  took  upon  themselves  to 
abridge  the  privileges  of  these  dissi- 
dents, and  the  consequence  was  that 
they  brought  a  Russian  army,  under 
Prince  Repnin,  to  the  gates  of  War- 
saw ;  and  thus  religions  freedom  was 
purchased  for  the  present,  at  the  price 
of  political  slavery.  This  support  of 
the  dissidents  by  Russia  was  the  sig- 
nal for  the  outbreak  of  a  civil  war 
between  the  different  Polish  parties, 
in  the  midst  of  which  Russian  troops 
were  every  day  entering  the  republic 
in  greater  numbers.  In  this  extremity 
the  puppet  king  assembled  an  extra- 
ordinary diet  in  1767.  In  spite  of 
the  Russian  army,  the  Bishop  of  Cra- 
cow and  the  High- Church  party  dared 
to  make  speeches  against  the  dissi- 
dents, dwelling  on  rights  which  had 
no  might  to  support  them.  They 
found  out  their  mistake  too  late, 
when  the  bishop  and  several  others  of 
his  party  were  arrested  by  parties  of 
Russian  soldiers,  in  violation  of  all 
Polish  privileges,  and  carried  off  to 
Siberia.  Repnin  justified  this  outrage 
by  saying  that  he  had  indeed  violated 
the  liberty  of  the  Poles,  but  for  the 
benefit  of  Poland.  The  king  thought 
it  best  to  demand  the  prisoners  at  the 
request  of  the  diet,  but  of  course  his 
request  went  for  nothing,  and  they 
only.returned  from  exile  at  the  end  of 
six  years. 

What  made  these  proceedings  more 
fatal  to  Poland  than  they  would  other- 
wise have  been  was,  that,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  oppression  of  the  dissi- 
dents, Catharine  was  furnished  with 
a  plausible  pretext  for  espousing  their 
cause.  King  Stanislaus  at  this  time 
had  the  consummate  folly  to  think  he 
could  make  himself  popular,  and  serve 
both  the  empress  who  created  him, 
and  the  country  which  he  affected  to 
govern.  In  consequence,  the  Empress 
was  mortally  offended  with  him,  and 
he  fell  into  general  contempt.  Prince 
Repnin  acted  as  a  despot  in  War- 
saw, and  let  pass  no  opportunity  of 
insulting  the  unfortunate  king.  For 
instance,  one  evening  that  the  king 
was  at  the  theatre,  the  ambassador, 
who  was  expected,  was  late.  The 
piece  began  without  him.  The  per- 
formers were  in  the  second  act,  when, 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  II. 


198 

a  sort  of  bustle  being  heard  in  Rep- 
nin's  box,  the  king  sent  to  see  what 
was  the  matter.  Answer  came  that 
the  prince  was  come,  and  was  only 
expressing  his  surprise  that  they  had 
not  waited  for  him.  The  poor  king 
ordered  the  curtain  to  be  dropped, 
and  the  piece  to  begin  again. 

All  Europe  was  now  astonished  that 
Catharine  treated  as  an  enemy  her 
creature  and  old  friend.  But  he  had 
offended  her,  and  she  was  only  glad 
of  the  pretext  to  carry  out  the  project 
that  lay  nearest  her  heart — namely, 
the  absorption  of  Poland  in  Russia, 
or  its  partition  in  such  a  manner  that 
Russia  should  get  the  lion's  share. 
She  was  sure  of  the  King  of  Prussia. 
She  managed  both  Sweden  and  Den- 
mark ;  one  by  her  intrigues,  the  other 
by  the  hope  she  held  out  to  it  of  the 
cession  of  Holstein.  She  flattered 
England  by  her  alliance,  and,  alas, 
it  must  be  confessed,  by  that  powerful 
instrument  with  our  money-loving 
nation,  a  commercial  treaty.  The 
first  man  who  saw  through  her  was  the 
Due  de  Choiseul,  who  perceived  that 
the  preponderance  of  Russia  would  be 
dangerous  to  France.  He  resolved  to 
attack  the  growing  evil  at  its  source  ; 
and,  in  order  to  divert  Russia  from 
her  projects  westward,  he  conceived 
the  design  of  embroiling  her  with  the 
Ottoman  Porte.  In  doing  so,  he  was 
not  ignorant  that  the  Turkish  empire 
was  already  on  the  decline ;  but  he 
still  thought  it  might  give  Russia  em- 
ployment for  some  time  to  come, 
whatever  might  be  the  success  of  the 
war.  At  all  events,  time  would  be 
gained,  and  in  the  interim  the  eyes  of 
Europe  would  gradually  open  to  the 
designs  of  Russia.  In  furtherance  of 
this  plan,  he  communicated  with  the 
Comte  de  Vergennes,  French  ambas- 
sador at  Constantinople,  who  imme- 
diately seconded  his  views.  Ver- 
gennes convinced  the  Porte  that  the 
Russian  interference  in  Poland  would 
be  fatal  to  the  security  of  the  Euxine, 
and  he  advised  a  resolute  opposition  to 
the  uttermost  of  the  boundaries  which 
Catharine  proposed.  The  Porte  had 
been  already  applied  to  by  the  Polish 
confederates,  and  accordingly  pre- 
sented a  note  to  Stanislaus,  begging 


[Aug. 


that  the  settlement  of  boundaries 
question  should  be  postponed.  But 
Stanislaus,  always  vacillating,  and 
wishing  to  conciliate  Catharine,  ig- 
nored the  existence  of  the  proposal  to 
alter  the  limits  of  Poland ;  and,  having 
received  this  assurance,  the  Divan  re- 
lapsed for  some  time  into  its  wonted 
apathy.  But  the  storm  was  gather- 
ing which  should  burst  over  the  East. 
Russia  and  Turkey  stood  face  to  face 
with  each  other.  Poland  all  the  while 
was  the  theatre  of  a  contention  not 
more  destructive  in  its  consequences 
than  singular  in  its  causes  and  pre- 
texts. The  despotism  of  Russia  had 
become  in  name  the  guardian  of  Polish 
freedom,  and  Catholicism  had  flown 
for  shelter  under  the  wing  of  Islam. 
Catharine  saw  what  was  coming,  and 
was  above  all  things  anxious  to  secure 
the  alliance  and  co-operation  of  Eng- 
land ;  she  saw  that  the  war  must  be 
a  naval  war,  and  she  wanted  British 
officers  to  command  her  ships  ;  so  she 
concluded  a  most  liberal  treaty  with 
the  court  of  London,  lowering  the  im- 
port duties  on  British  merchandise, 
and  conferring  other  signal  advan- 
tages. It  is  somewhat  sad  to  think 
now  that  England,  however  unwit- 
tingly, should  ever  have  made  herself 
the  cat's-paw  of  Russia ;  but  it  must 
be  recollected  that  this  was  at  a  time 
when  none  but  very  far-sighted  states- 
men could  see  the  ultimate  tendencies 
of  that  power,  and  distinguish  the 
bearings  of  her  imperial  policy.  Hav- 
ing now  come  to  the  point  when  the 
policy  of  Peter  the  Great  and  his  suc- 
cessors first  began  to  be  found  out  in 
its  intentions,  not  of  mere  partial  and 
local  aggrandisement,  but  of  sapping 
the  foundations  of  the  civilised  world, 
we  will  reserve  for  another  paper  its 
development  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
reign  of  Catharine  the  Great,  when 
the  star  of  Russia  seemed  to  reach  its 
point  of  culmination,  to  be  obscured 
a  while  by  the  tempest  of  the  French 
Revolution,  and  for  a  while  forgotten; 
but  after  the  storm  had  blown  over, 
to  be  found  in  the  same  pride  of  place, 
burning  with  an  ensanguined  light, 
like  the  face  of  the  planet  Mars,  and 
ominous  of  disaster  to  the  present  and 
the  future  generations  of  the  world. 


1855.] 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


199 


MR  WARREN'S  BLACKSTONE. 


WE  open  Mr  Warren's  book  at  the 
following  passage.  The  parts  within 
brackets  are  Mr  Warren's,  the  rest  is 
the  text  of  Blackstone. 

rt  A  mistake  in  point  of  law,  which  every 
person  of  discretion  not  only  may,  but  is 
bound  and  presumed  to  know,  is  in  crim- 
inal cases  no  sort  of  defence.  Ignorantia 
juris,  quod  quisque  tenetur  scire,  neminem 
excusat,  is  as  well  the  maxim  of  our  own 
law  as  it  was  of  the  Koman." 

"  [There  is  no  presumption  in  this 
country,  said  Mr  Justice  Maule,  in  a  late 
case,  that  every  person  knows  the  law  :  it 
would  be  contrary  to  common  sense  and 
reason  if  it  were  so.  A  person  may  be 
ignorant  of  the  law  ;  but  the  rule  is  that 
such  ignorance  shall  not  excuse  him,  or 
relieve  him  from  the  consequences  of  a 
crime,  or  from  liability  on  a  contract. 
There  may  be  such  a  thing  as  a  doubtful 
point  of  law;  for  if  not,  there  would  be 
no  need  of  courts  of  appeal,  the  existence 
of  which  shows  that  even  judges  may  be 
ignorant  of  the  law  :  and  if  so,  it  would  be 
too  much  to  hold  that  ordinary  people  are 
bound,  to  know  it.  The  rule  in  the  text 
of  Blackstone,  subject  to  the  above  judi- 
cial qualification,  may  be  received  as  a 
fundamental  one  ;  for  otherwise  there  is 
no  knowing  to  what  extent  the  excuse  of 
ignorance  might  be  carried.  It  would  be 
urged  in  every  case,  and  paralyse  the  arm 
of  the  law  in  its  attempt  to  deal  with  those 
who  violate  it.  It  is  no  defence  on  behalf 
of  a  foreigner,  charged  in  England  with 
having  committed  an  offence  against  our 
law,  that  he  did  not  know  that  he  was 
doing  wrong,  the  act  not  being  an  offence 
in  his  own  country.  In  a  case  tried  before 
Lord  Eldon,  he  told  the  jury  that  the  pri- 
soner was,  in  strict  law,  guilty  within  a 
certain  statute,  making  penal  the  act  with 
which  he  was  charged,  if  the  facts  were 
proved,  though  he  could  not  then  know 
that  the  statute  was  passed  ;  it  having  re- 
ceived the  royal  assent  on  the  10th  May. 
1799,  and  the  act  having  been  done  off  the 
coast  of  Africa  on  the  27th  of  the  ensuing 
June.  That  great  lawyer  said,  under 
these  circumstances,  the  prisoner's  igno- 
rance of  the  passing  of  the  act  could  in 
no  otherwise  affect  the  case  than  that  it 
might  be  the  means  of  recommending  him 
to  a  merciful  consideration  elsewhere, 


should  he  be  found  guilty.  He  was  con- 
victed, but  pardoned.]" 

Whether  we  employ  the  older  expres- 
sion of  Blackstone,  that  every  man  is 
presumed  to  know  the  law,  or  admit, 
with  Mr  Justice  Maule,  that  such  a 
presumption  would  be  somewhat  vio- 
lent, and  that  the  law  merely  says 
that  it  will  excuse  no  man  on  account 
of  his  ignorance,  the  rule  is  substan- 
tially the  same.  The  expression  that 
every  man  is  presumed  to  know  the  law, 
was  but  an  amiable  disguise  for  the 
necessary  harshness  of  punishing  in 
all  cases,  whether  there  was  or  was 
not  a  previous  knowledge  of  the  law. 
As  to  the  curious  decision  that  is  cited 
here  of  Lord  Eldon's,  we  should  say, 
judging  by  this  brief  account  of  it, 
that  this  must  surely  be  one  of  those 
"  doubtful  points  of  law  "  which,  it  is 
presumed,  will  occasionally  arise. 
Where  the  reason  of  the  law  ceases, 
the  law  itself  ceases,  is  a  maxim  we 
have  often  heard  quoted  with  approval. 
The  plea  of  ignorance  cannot  be  re- 
ceived, 1st,  Because  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  one  to  instruct  himself  of  the  law, 
and  to  instruct  his  children ;  and,  2d, 
Because  there  is  the  utmost  difficulty  in 
proving  the  truth  of  such  a  plea,  or 
disproving  it,  and  therefore  to  admit 
it  at  all  would  be  a  cause  of  extreme 
confusion.  But  in  the  case  here  cited 
these  reasons  entirely  fail ;  the  igno- 
rance is  indisputably  proved,  for  we 
are  told  that  it  was  impossible  for  the 
law,  promulgated  in  England  on  the 
10th  of  May,  to  be  known  off  the 
coast  of  Africa  on  the  27th  of  the  fol- 
lowing June.  And,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, there  could,  of  course,  be 
no  duty  of  self-instruction  neglected. 
Here  it  seems  that  all  the  reasons  of 
the  rule  ceased :  the  law  would  not 
act  upon  one  gentleman  off  the  coast 
of  Africa  with  all  the  injustice  of  an 
ex  post  facto  law. 

However  that  may  be,  and  whether 
it  was  necessary  to  carry  the  rule 
against  reception  of  the  plea  of  igno- 


Blackstone's  Commentaries,  systematically  abridged,  and  adapted  to  the  existing 
state  of  the  Law  and  Constitution;  with  great  additions.  By  SAMUEL  WARREN,  of  the 
Inner  Temple,  Esq.,  D.C.L.,  F.R.S.,  Eecorder  of  Hull,  and  one  of  Her  Majesty's 
Counsel. 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVIII.  O 


200 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 


ranee  to  the  extent  here  described,  it 
is  plain  that  no  more,  palpable  duty 
exists  than  that  each  man  should  in- 
form himself  and  instruct  his  children, 
to  some  extent  at  least,  in  the  laws 
of  the  country  in  which  he  lives.  Not 
only  may  the  personal  safety  of  each 
individual  be  endangered  by  his  igno- 
rance, but  we  are  disposed  to  think 
that,  by  omission  of  the  general  study 
of  the  law,  a  great  instrument  for  the 
education  of  the  people  at  large  is 
neglected,  and  suffered  to  remain  un- 
employed. If  we  are  told  that  the 
system  of  English  jurisprudence  is 
perplexed  and  intricate,  and  that  the 
sound  maxims  of  ethics  which  it  at 
one  time  inculcates,  it  neutralises  at 
another  by  the  intervention  of  tech- 
nical rules  and  distinctions,  which,  so 
far  from  cultivating,  offend  a  nice 
sense  of  honour,  we  should  make  an- 
swer, that  in  proportion  as  the  study 
of  the  law  became  general,  would  the 
law  itself  be  liberated  from  whatever 
runs  counter  to  our  sense  of  justice. 
Nothing  would  operate  more  advan- 
tageously upon  our  jurisprudence  than 
the  general  cultivation  of  it  in  all 
schools  and  colleges.  The  very  study 
of  it  would  tend  to  make  it  both  a 
more  perfect  instrument  of  education 
and  a  more  perfect  system  of  laws. 
Neither  is  it  irrational  to  say,  that  it 
is  an  additional  reason  for  desiring  to 
produce  a  simple  and  perfect  system 
of  jurisprudence  that  jurisprudence 
itself  may  be  taught  (up  to  a  certain 
point,  at  least)  in  every  school-room 
in  the  country,  and  become  a  fit  in- 
strument for  an  ethical  and  political 
training. 

That  a  study  of  the  laws  of  the 
land  ought  to  be  far  more  general 
than  it  is,  appears  to  us  so  palpable 
a  truth,  and  a  truth  supported  by 
such  weighty  and  abundant  reasons, 
that  we  should  be  only  weakening  a 
good  cause  if  we  laid  any  stress  on 
the  occasional  plea  of  a  prisoner  at 
the  bar  that  he  was  ignorant  of  the 
rule  against  which  he  had  trans- 
gressed. The  cases  must  be  very 
rare,  indeed,  in  which  the  offender  is 
not  fully  aware  that  he  is  committing 
some  crime,  although  its  precise  legal 
definition,  or  the  exact  penalties  at- 
tached to  it,  may  be  unknown  to  him. 
Every  urchin  who  picks  a  pocket  is 
quite  cognisant  of  the  fact  that  he  Is 


transgressing  the  law,  and  that  he 
will  be  taken  to  prison  if  he  is  caught ; 
nor  would  it  make  the  least  difference 
in  his  conduct,  to  be  able  to  determine 
whether  his  crime  were  felony  or  mis- 
demeanour. Nor  is  the  offender  of  a 
higher  class  who  forges,  or  embezzles, 
or  cheats  his  fellow-citizen  in  any  of 
the  thousand  species  of  fraud  which 
may  be  committed,  ever  led  into  guilt 
by  a  simple  ignorance  of  the  law.  No 
man  plots  an  injury  to  another  with- 
out both  knowing  that  it  is  an  injury, 
and  that  he  runs  the  risk  of  being 
punished  for  it:  he  has  a  lively  ap- 
prehension that  there  is  somewhere  a 
rod  hanging  up  for  his  own  shoulders, 
though  he  may  not  be  very  solicitous 
to  inquire  into  the  exact  nature  of  it. 
It  is  the  innocent  man,  and  not  the 
rogue,  who  really  pays  down  a  per- 
sonal penalty  for  his  ignorance  of  the 
law.  The  honest  citizen  who  in  his 
civil  transactions  with  his  neighbours 
finds  that  he  has  lost  the  protection 
of  the  law,  or  has  become  its  positive 
victim,  is  mulcted  of  his  property  or 
entangled  in  lawsuits  by  reason  of 
the  neglect  of  some  rule  or  some 
formality,  which  was,  indeed,  devised 
for  the  very  protection  of  the  innocent 
man.  But  even  the  hardship  of  the 
honest  and  ill-informed  citizen  is  not 
the  topic  on  which  we  should  most 
confidently  insist  when  advocating 
the  more  general  study  of  the  law ; 
for  we  should  probably  be  told  that 
every  man  of  ordinary  caution  con- 
sults a  professional  lawyer  in  all  cases 
of  difficulty,  and  that  his  perplexities 
and  losses  (as  they  occur  even  when 
he  walks  by  the  light  and  guidance  of 
his  attorney)  may  more  fairly  be  at- 
tributed to  the  imperfection  of  the 
laws  themselves,  than  to  his  negli- 
gence in  the  study  of  them. 

We  should  strenuously  advocate 
the  introduction  of  jurisprudence  as  a 
branch  of  general  education,  because 
it  is  the  very  instrument  for  educating 
men  into  good  citizens, — because  obe- 
dience to  the  law  is  the  great  and 
comprehensive  duty  of  every  member 
of  a  human  society, — because  law  is 
no  other  than  the  system  of  practical 
ethics  by  which  men  are  to  comport 
themselves  during  life.  And  if  it  is 
objected  that  our  system  of  juris- 
prudence still  retains  much  that  is 
either  hostile  or  quite  foreign  to  a 


1855.] 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


201 


rational  system  of  ethics,  our  an- 
swer, we  repeat,  is,  that  there  is  no 
more  certain  way  of  improving  the 
law,  and  finally  purging  it  of  all  such 
extraneous  matter,  than  by  letting  in 
upon  it  the  light  of  an  intelligent 
public  opinion.  We  should  propose 
to  introduce  the  study  of  the  law  into 
every  school  in  the  kingdom ;  first  and 
chiefly  for  the  effect  on  the  student 
himself,  for  the  moral  training  and 
intellectual  discipline  involved  in  the 
study,  and  also  for  the  reflex  influence 
which  such  general  cultivation  would 
exert  upon  the  laws  themselves.  Thus 
our  jurisprudence  would  advance  to- 
wards a  perfect  code  of  laws,  and 
become  itself  more  and  more  effica- 
cious as  a  means  of  educating  the  in- 
dividual. 

We  would,  in  our  schools — espe- 
cially in  those  which  Government  un- 
dertakes to  model — we  would  make 
jurisprudence  the  central  subject  of 
their  secular  education.  It  is  always 
well  to  arrange  the  various  topics  of 
study  so  as  to  show  their  relation  to 
each  other,  and,  if  possible,  to  some 
one  central  subject.  None  can  be 
more  indisputably  important  than  this 
of  jurisprudence;  and  the  cognate  sub- 
jects of  ethics,  politics,  political  eco- 
nomy, arrange  themselves  naturally 
around  it,  or  else  are  integral  parts  of 
it.  Society  and  Law  are  almost  equi- 
valent terms.  Two  mortal  men  can- 
not live  together  without  wishing  for 
the  same  thing,  and  they  must  fight 
for  it,  or  separate,  unless  they  can 
make  a  rule  to  determine  which  of 
the  two  shall  peaceably  possess  it. 
Men  soon  found  out,  we  presume, 
that  they  could  not  expect  others  to 
respect  their  possessions — the  fruit  of 
their  ingenuity  or  labour — unless  they 
also  had  respect  to  the  like  posses- 
sions of  another.  The  great  funda- 
mental rule  of  ethics,  "  Do  to  others 
as  you  would  that  others  should  do 
to  you,"  thus  lies  at  the  very  root  of 
society.  Not  that  it  would  be,  in  the 
first  instance,  enunciated  as  an  ab- 
stract rule :  it  makes  its  first  appear- 
ance in  the  very  simple  form  of  the 
only  means  by  which  an  end  desirable 
to  all  can  be  attained.  If  I  want  to 
keep  my  hatchet  to  myself,  I  must 
refrain  from  taking  my  neighbour's. 
Whether  we  look  at  the  most  barbar- 
ous, or  at  the  most  refined  epoch  of 


human  society,  jurisprudence  repre- 
sents the  terms  and  conditions  on  which 
the  society  becomes  possible.  And 
now,  take  your  stand  on  the  great 
fundamental  subject  of  jurisprudence, 
and  note  how  it  radiates  into  the 
other  great  divisions  of  study.  From 
what  point  could  you  better  enter 
upon  ethics  or  moral  philosophy  ? — for 
what  is  law  but  that  portion  of  mor- 
ality which  is  enforced  by  the  com- 
munity, and  by  specific  penalties? 
And  what  is  morality,  but  that  wider 
law  which  also  embraces  many  dic- 
tates which  the  community  leaves  to 
be  enforced  by  the  voice  of  friends, 
and  parents,  and  of  public  opinion  ? 
There  is  no  better  treatise  upon 
ethics  than  a  good  text- book  upon 
the  law  of  contracts.  Incorporate 
it  with  Paley's  chapter  on  Promises  ; 
you  will  improve  them  both.  All 
that  is  valuable  in  works  of  casuistry 
is  best  approached  from  the  side  of 
law.  Since  a  code  of  laws  must  regu- 
late commerce,  and  speak  of  taxes, 
we  are  at  once  inducted  into  political 
economy ;  poor-laws,  the  laws  which  re- 
gulate benefit-clubs  and  trade-unions, 
plunge  us  into  the  very  heart  of  the 
subject.  By  what  avenue  can  we 
so  safely  approach  the  study  of  poli- 
tics? To  know  what  really  are  the 
constitutional  laws  of  your  own  coun- 
try, and  on  what  rational  grounds  they 
rest,  is  a  most  indisputable  condition 
to  the  formation  of  any  opinion  on  the 
changes  proposed  in  those  laws.  Be- 
sides which,  the  merely  speculative 
student  should  never  lose  sight  of  the 
simple  truth,  that  Politics  form,  in  fact, 
only  a  branch  of  Jurisprudence — that 
branch  which  regulates  the  manner  in 
which  laws  are  to  be  made,  preserved, 
and  administered.  Half  the  wild 
ideas  that  ferment  in  the  brains  of 
our  ardent  youth,  when  they  discourse 
with  vehement  oratory  upon  Free- 
dom and  Tyranny,  are  traceable  to  the 
custom  of  plunging  into  politics  with- 
out any  previous  training  in  juris- 
prudence. They  have  never  learnt 
the  full  significance  of  the  simple  ex- 
pression, obedience  to  a  law;  and  what 
great  virtues  are  contained  in  it !  As 
to  the  subject  of  History,  our  law  is 
more  closely  allied  to  it  than  is  ad- 
visable ;  but  the  great  department  of 
constitutional  law,  if  no  other,  must 
at  all  times  conduct  the  student  into 


202 


Mr  Warrerfs  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 


a  knowledge  of  the  history  of  his  own 
country. 

In  that  educational  controversy 
with  which  England  rings  from  side 
to  side,  this  teaching  of  the  law  has 
not  received  the  prominence  it  de- 
serves. While  jurisprudence  presents 
problems  for  the  highest  intellects  to 
solve,  there  is  yet  no  school- room  in 
the  country  so  humble  in  which  the 
first  elements  of  English  law  might 
not  be  taught.  Whilst  the  sanction 
of  religion  will  never  be  overlooked 
either  by  us  or  by  any  man  living  in 
a  Christian  land,  still  the  simplest 
intellect  can  perceive  that  human  law, 
like  human  industry  or  human  science, 
has  its  own  great  ends  to  answer,  and 
can  be  studied  alike  by  a  school-room 
of  Presbyterian  or  Episcopalian  or 
Arian  children.  Something,  we  say, 
might  be  taught  to  the  poorest  and 
simplest  scholars,  if  it  were  only  a 
list  of  offences,  with  the  punishment 
assigned  to  them,  giving  the  reason 
why  they  are  offences,  and  teaching 
every  child  to  associate  disgrace  with 
the  infringement  of  a  law.  Here,  at 
all  events,  is  a  ground  on  which  all 
religious  parties  might  unite.  Here 
there  can  be  no  disagreement.  To 
obey  the  law  is  pronounced  by  all  to 
be  the  great  comprehensive  duty  of 
every  man ;  to  learn  what  that  duty 
comprehends,  must  surely  be  necessary 
and  wise.  Even  those  who  desire 
change  in  the  law,  admit  that  obedi- 
ence to  the  existing  statute  is  the 
duty  of  the  citizen.  Not  to  admit 
this,  would  be  to  declare  themselves 
incapable  of  living  in  human  society ; 
for  unless  we  can  submit  our  opinion 
to  the  opinion  of  the  majority  (so  far, 
we  mean,  as  to  obey  that  opinion 
whilst  it  is  the  constituted  law,  though 
we  should  still  in  speculation  retain 
our  own),  we  may  as  well  throw  a 
knapsack  on  our  back,  and  march 
forthwith  out  of  all  human  communi- 
ties. Let  us  teach  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  the  country  what  and 
how  great  a  thing  law  is ;  let  us  con- 
fess that  it  stands  rooted  in  the  soil 
of  human  reason — stands  by  no  per- 
mission of  this  or  that  sectarian,  but 
this  or  that  sectarian  stands  here,  and 
can  preach  and  teach,  by  virtue  of  the 
protection  it  extends  to  all. 

And  then,  as  we  have  hinted,  the 
wide  diffusion  of  the  study  of  the  law 


would  react  upon  our  jurisprudence 
itself,  making  it  a  better  system  of 
law,  and  a  better  instrument  of  cul- 
ture. An  intelligent  public  would  be 
formed,  beyond  the  limit  of  the  pro- 
fessional circle,  to  which  the  scientific 
jurist  could  appeal.  There  is  still 
much  learned  quibble  to  be  got  rid  of, 
and  traditional  definitions  that  define 
nothing.  A  mass  of  erudition  quite 
alien  to  the  science  itself  of  jurispru- 
dence still  takes  its  place  in  our 
clearest  text-books.  It  is  not  enough 
that  the  complicate  transactions  of  a 
commercial  people,  who  must  have  a 
rule  for  all  cases,  yet  retain  withal  the 
most  unfettered  liberty  of  action — it  is 
not  enough  that  this  state  of  things 
inevitably  gives  rise  to  an  intricate 
system  of  jurisprudence,  but  we  per- 
sist in  encumbering  the  law  with 
definitions  and  distinctions  which 
have  no  rational  relation  to  existing 
circumstances  or  the  real  nature  of 
the  subject,  and  which  no  man  can 
explain  without  entering  into  a  long 
history  of  their  origin.  He  explains 
their  origin ;  he  is  compelled  to  be 
quite  silent  on  their  present  advan- 
tages; he  can  show  that  they  once 
were  reasonable  (it  is  all  the  satis- 
faction he  can  give  us);  and  that  the 
wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  by  being 
too  long  retained,  has  become  the 
folly  of  their  posterity. 

It  is  the  want  (till  very  lately)  of 
an  intelligent  audience,  out  of  the  pale 
of  the  profession,  that  has  made  the 
work  of  legal  reformation  so  slow. 
Those  who  have  not  only  to  study,  but 
to  practise  the  law,  are  apt  to  become 
blind  to  lucrative  anomalies ;  or  if  a 
generous  disposition  raises  them  above 
this  bias,  they  become  attached  to  a 
species  of  knowledge  which  has  been 
obtained  with  difficulty,  and  which  has 
to  be  constantly  made  use  of.  But 
those  students  whose  sole  interest  in 
the  law  is  to  be  well  governed  by  it, 
who  investigate  it  as  a  system,  having 
for  its  professed  object  the  well-being 
of  the  existing  human  society,  will  be 
very  little  disposed  to  tolerate  the 
intrusion  of  mere  antiquarian  tenets 
and  traditional  definitions  into  the 
living  rules  of  jurisprudence.  They 
will  not  long  endure  to  be  presented 
with  an  historical  account  of  its  origin 
as  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  actual 
existence  of  any  portion  of  our  law. 


1855.] 

They  will  not  be  persuaded  that  what 
is  now  senseless  should  still  be  pre- 
served because  it  once  had  a  meaning 
and  a  purpose.  "  Our  fines  and  our 
recoveries  "  we  have  got  rid  of  some 
years  ago,  but  our  feudal  tenures  still 
remain  amongst  us  for  our  mere  per- 
plexity ;  and  we  have  our  "  fee  sim- 
ple "  and  all  its  occult  properties,  and 
how  it  must  comport  itself  as  "  re- 
mainder or  reversion."  Such  subtle 
learning  our  professional  lawyers  cling 
to  with  marvellous  tenacity.  We 
have  no  respect  ourselves  for  any 
learning  here  which  does  not  strictly 
belong  to  the  science  of  jurisprudence. 
Those  who  are  peculiarly  interested  in 
historical  traditions  can  satisfy  their 
taste  to  the  utmost  in  the  proper  fields 
of  history  ;  but  let  us  no  longer  meet 
in  the  real  business  of  life  with  mere 
traditions  of  the  past.  Law  is  assur- 
edly the  most  ancient  matter  in  this 
world— the  oldest,  as  well  as  the  new- 
est :  it  has  a  species  of  eternity,  and 
cannot  need  to  be  set  off  with  this 
antique  and  Gothic  tracery.  It  can- 
not be  indebted  to  any  source  of  in- 
terest which  an  antiquarian  society 
might  supply.  It  stands  pre-eminent, 
and  has  ends  of  its  own,  which  ask  no 
foreign  aid,  and  which  ought  to  be 
tampered  with  under  no  pretence 
whatever.  If  you  are  fond  of  old  ar- 
mour, let  it  hang  up  in  your  museums, 
or  in  your  old  halls,  if  you  will,  but 
do  not  bruise  our  living  limbs  by 
forcing  them  into  it.  Let  it  hang 
dead  and  empty  against  the  wall,  and 
see  that  it  be  quite  dead :  it  would  be 
an  odd  story  to  tell  if  it  should  move 
arm  or  leg  to  eject  the  living  proprie- 
tor from  his  domain ;  or,  like  the  giant 
helmet  in  Walpole's  romance,  should 
nod  some  terrific  sentence  against  the 
present  owner  of  the  castle. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  law  of  freehold 
and  copyhold  lands  that  we  meet  with 
tradition  where  we  have  a  right  to 
expect  science ;  even  in  criminal  juris- 
prudence, and  amongst  those  terms 
which  express,  or  ought  to  express, 
degrees  of  guilt  and  of  punishment, 
we  are  compelled  to  content  ourselves 
with  an  historical  dissertation  instead 
of  a  legal  definition.  Felony  and  mis- 
demeanour seem  to  point  to  a  classi- 
fication of  offences,  according  to  their 
comparative  magnitude ;  but  ask  a 
lawyer  for  his  definition  of  felony,  and 


Mr  Warren's  Blachstone. 


203 


all  he  can  do  for  you  is  to  explain 
what  in  olden  times  wrought  a  forfeit- 
ure of  lands  and  goods,  one  or  both. 
Seeing  that  the  class  of  men  which 
people  our  jails  have  not  an  acre  of 
land  amongst  them,  it  does  not  appear 
very  rational  to  describe  their  criminal 
status  by  an  element  in  their  punish- 
ment which  can  never  affect  them. 
Such  terms  as  felony,  misdemeanour, 
treason,  sedition,  or  the  barbarous 
but  sometimes  necessary  term  of  a 
prcemunire,  instead  of  giving  us  intel- 
ligible and  useful  classifications,  will 
be  found,  each  one  of  them,  to  com- 
prise a  heterogeneous  compound — a 
mere  chance-medley  of  crimes  and 
offences. 

Towards  this  desirable  end  of  popu- 
larising the  study  of  the  law  of  Eng- 
land, no  living  man  has  done  half  so 
much  as  the  writer  of  the  volume  we 
have  now  to  notice,  Mr  Samuel  War- 
ren. His  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
the  Law  we  have  heard  pronounced 
by  younger  students  to  be  no  less  en- 
tertaining than  instructive.  His  Ex- 
tracts from  Blackstone  has  been  received 
into  many  private  schools,  as  well  as 
those  under  the  supervision  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. And  no  w  we  have  a  far  more 
elaborate  work  than  either,  founded  on 
the  same  favourite  commentator,Black- 
stone,  and  yet  still  bearing  the  impress 
of  a  popular  and  elementary  treatise. 
In  the  compass  of  one  moderate  volume 
we  have  an  abridgment  of  the  Com- 
mentaries, or  a  considerable  portion 
of  them  (an  abridgment  of  the  whole 
in  so  limited  a  space  would  have  be- 
come a  dry  analysis,  or  mere  synop- 
sis of  the  work),  with  such  revisions 
and  additions  as  adapt  it  to  the  exist- 
ing state  of  the  law.  It  would  be 
hardly  possible,  we  think,  to  have 
projected  a  more  valuable  work  for 
the  purposes  of  tuition.  It  seems 
peculiarly  fitted  for  the  higher  classes 
in  all  academies,  and  for  the  student 
at  college,  whether  he  intends  or  not 
to  pursue  the  profession  of  the  law. 
As  an  epitome  of  Constitutional  Law, 
it  may  perhaps  be  useful  for  occa- 
sional reference  to  the  barrister  on 
circuit,  who  must  have  his  law  packed 
in  portable  volumes.  The  kind  of 
book  which  is  here  offered  to  the  pub- 
lic, may  be  best  understood  by  the 
following  extract  from  the  Preface: — 

"  It  is  not  unknown  to  many  in  the  legal 


204 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 


profession  that  for  nearly  twenty  years  I 
have  been  laboriously  engaged,  at  every 
interval  of  leisure,  in  preparing  an  edition 
of  the  entire  Commentaries  : — but  so  vast 
have  been  the  changes  effected,  increasing 
latterly  in  rapidity,  number,  and  magni- 
tude, that  I  have  been  reluctantly  com- 
pelled to  give  up  the  hopeless  task  ; 
having  '  toiled  after '  the  legislature  '  in 
vain.'  The  labour  of  a  whole  long  vaca- 
tion has  several  times  been  rendered  use- 
less by  the  alterations  effected  in  the 
ensuing  session  of  Parliament.  It  is  my 
intention,  however,  if  life  and  leisure  last, 
to  write  an  original  work,  in  a  compre- 
hensive, practical,  and  systematic  plan, 
illustrating  our  laws  in  their  newest  phase 
by  those  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the 
Continent,  and  by  the  civil  law. 

"  When  I  came  to  consider  how  best  to 
prepare  the  little  work  of  1836  for  a  new 
edition,  and  had  scanned  every  one  of  the 
'  extracts '  from  Blackstone,  so  great 
proved  to  have  been  the  ravages  in  the 
text,  by  changes  in  the  law  during  the 
last  twenty  years,  that  I  was  nearly  aban- 
doning even  that  task  in  despair.  At 
length,  however,  and  at  the  earnest  re- 
commendation of  those  for  whom  I  enter- 
tain the  greatest  respect,  I  resolved  to 
avail  myself  of  some  of  my  laborious  col- 
lections for  the  former  work;  and  that 
now  offered  to  the  public  is  the  result. 
Two-thirds  of  it  consist  of  new  matter, 
which  it  is  hoped  will  be  found  a  safe  and 
useful  incorporation  with  the  text  of  Black- 
stone.  Those  portions  of  the  latter  which 
I  was  able  to  retain  unaltered,  are  few, 
and,  like  the  others,  required  incessant 
vigilance,  to  avoid  the  retention  of  ex- 
pressions and  allusions  inconsistent  with 
the  existing  law.  Many  portions  of  the 
text,  after  having  repeatedly  altered,  I 
have  been  forced  at  length  altogether  to 
discard,  substituting  a  new  paragraph, 
and  even  chapter." 

We  can  hardly  regret  that  Mr 
Warren  has  thought  fit  to  relinquish 
the  greater  task  of  re-editing  the 
whole  of  Blackstone.  It  is  only  on 
the  subject  of  Constitutional  Law  that 
this  favourite  writer  could  be  now  re- 
edited  to  any  advantage ;  in  every 
other  department,  the  changes  which 
have  taken  place  render  the  text 
almost  useless  —  useless,  except  for 
tracing  the  history  and  progress  of 
the  law.  The  present  work,  though 
far  less  ambitious  than  the  one  origin- 
ally designed,  may  be  more  applicable 
to  the  real  wants  of  the  age  ;  and  we 
earnestly  hope  that  Mr  Warren  may 
accomplish  that  other  project  at  which 


he  hints — a  book,  as  we  understand 
it,  which  shall  bring  together  in  a 
lucid  form  the  principal  laws  of  ancient 
Kome,  France,  America,  and  England. 
Were  the  legislation  of  these  four 
countries  on  certain  great  topics,  as 
Inheritance,  Marriage,  Debt,  and  the 
Punishment  for  Crime,  brought  to- 
gether and  compared,  it  would  form, 
in  the  hands  of  so  popular  a  writer 
as  Mr  Warren,  a  most  interesting 
volume,  and  do  much  to  advance  the 
general  study  of  the  law.  We  sincerely 
hope  that  nothing  will  occur  to  pre- 
vent the  completion  of  this  design. 

There  is  something  almost  touching 
in  the  picture  we  have  here  of  the 
legal  author  "  toiling  in  vain"  after 
a  reforming  legislature.  But  we  can- 
not promise  to  bestow  much  compas- 
sion on  those  perplexities  of  legal 
authorship  which  originate  in  a  suc- 
cession of  legal  improvements.  We 
must  congratulate  the  country  on  the 
many  excellent  reforms  which  have 
signalised  the  history  of  our  law  dur- 
ing the  last  twenty  years.  Nor  can 
we  yet  give  undisturbed  rest  to  any 
of  our  text-books,  or  promise  that  the 
lawyer  will  not  have  to  unlearn  every 
year  some  portion  of  his  laborious 
erudition.  This  incessant  change  is 
painful,  but  unavoidable.  We  re- 
member the  time  when  the  question 
of  codification  was  repeatedly  discuss- 
ed, and  when  many  affected  to  de- 
spise a  bit-by-bit  reform.  We  said 
then,  what  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
repeat  now,  that  the  bit- by-bit  reform 
was  the  only  practicable  course.  We 
have  to  live  in  our  house  while  we 
are  repairing  it ;  common  caution  de- 
mands that  changes  should  be  intro- 
duced gradually,  and  with  such  pauses 
between  each  as  will  enable  us  to 
test  the  propriety  of  one  step  before 
we  proceed  to  another :  if  a  code  is  to 
be  constructed,  it  must  be  after  the 
requisite  changes  have  been  effected 
in  the  substantial  provisions  of  the 
law.  What  we  wrote  then  we  re- 
peat now,  that  our  law  must  grow — 
must  put  forth  Act  after  Act  of  Par- 
liament, that  happily  many  separate 
Acts  will  coalesce  and  combine  into 
one  succinct  and  comprehensive  statute 
— and  then,  behold!  a  code  is  veritably 
formed  by  that  same  despised  process 
of  gradual  reform.  Such  a  work  as 
this  which  Mr  Warren  has  now  pre- 


1855.] 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


205 


sented  to  the  public,  enables  us  to  take 
note  of  the  progress  we  have  been 
making  ;  nor  can  we  look  back  upon 
our  course  without  feeling  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  those  who,  by  dint  of 
severe  toil  and  unremitting  persever- 
ance, have  carried  us  on  thus  far. 
Amongst  those  strenuous  and  bene- 
ficent labourers,  there  is  one  whose 
name  stands  so  pre-eminent  that  it  is 
doing  no  injustice  to  the  claims  of 
others  to  mention  it,  and  mention  it 
alone.  When  the  asperities  of  po- 
litical conflict  shall  have  ceased,  men 
of  all  parties,  the  present  age,  and  a 
remote  posterity,  shall  honourably  and 
gratefully  unite  the  name  of  Henry 
Lord  Brougham  with  the  cause  of 
law  reform,  and  the  incalculable  ad- 
vantages of  cheap  and  speedy  justice. 
It  seems  an  ungracious  task,  when 
so  much  has  been  done,  to  be  calling 
still  for  more ;  but  we  must  repeat, 
what  we  found  ourselves  uttering 
fifteen  years  ago,  that  our  very  task 
is  one  of  time,  of  successive  labours, 
and  that  of  many  generations  of  men ; 
and  that  it  is  the  very  nature  of  such 
improvements  as  we  are  speaking  of, 
to  kindle  hope  and  animate  to  renew- 
ed exertion.  Every  step  in  the  right 
direction  makes  the  next  step  more 
easy  towards  the  accomplishment  of 
a  perfect  system  of  jurisprudence — 
perfect  so  far  as  the  works  of  man  can 
hope  to  be  perfect.  When  the  law 
lay  encumbered  on  every  side  with 
antiquated  formularies  and  traditional 
lore  which  (to  use  a  phrase  of  its  own) 
seemed  fated  to  descend  for  ever  with 
the  land,  men  felt  that,  as  it  was  be- 
yond human  power  to  remove  the  whole 
mass,  it  was  useless  to  touch  any  one 
fragment  of  it.  They  sat  themselves 
down  before  it  in  despair.  To  talk  then 
of  jurisprudence  as  a  practical  system 
of^ethics,  finding  on  its  own  proper 
soil — in  the  good  of  a  loving  commu- 
nity of  men — the  sole  substantial  rea- 
son for  all  its  enactments,  was  to  speak 
of  a  dream  or  of  an  impossibility.  But 
in  proportion  as  anomalies  are  banish- 
ed, as  arbitrary  and  fantastic  max- 
ims are  displaced,  as  mere  traditionary 
logic  gives  way  to  sound  juridical 
reasoning,  a  hope  arises  that  juris- 
prudence may  at  length  wear  a  syste- 
matic or  scientific  form.  Men's 
thoughts  take  a  happier  direction. 
All  these  burdens  of  a  feudal  age  will 


not  descend  with  the  land :  the  land 
will  remain  and  they  will  disappear. 
Men  here,  as  elsewhere,  by  exerting, 
recognise  their  strength,  and,  gaining 
courage  as  they  gain  experience,  they 
will  at  length  boldly  demand  that  the 
rule  of  law  shall  be  in  fact  what  it 
professes  to  be,  simply  the  rule  of 
reason. 

About  one-half  of  Mr  Warren's 
book  is  occupied  by  an  epitome  of 
Constitutional  Law.  It  is  that  portion 
which  is  the  most  complete,  and  which 
probably  will  be  read  with  the  great-  ' 
est  pleasure.  Nevertheless,  it  is  to  the 
latter  part  that  we  shall  at  present 
turn,  and,  following  up  the  train  of 
thought  into  which  we  have  been 
thrown,  we  shall  select  a  few  extracts 
which  may  have  more  or  less  bearing 
upon  legal  reform,  showing  what  has 
been  done,  or  perhaps  suggesting 
where  there  is  still  room  for  improve- 
ment. 

We  have  made  some  allusion  to 
the  distinction  between  felony  and 
misdemeanour.  Perhaps  the  reader 
would  like  to  refresh  his  memory 
with  this  legal  curiosity.  It  is  cer- 
tainly neither  new  nor  interesting. 
The  only  strange  thing  about  it  is, 
that  it  should  be  found  in  a  text-book 
of  our  criminal  law  dated  A.  D.  1855. 

"  Felony,  in  the  general  acceptation, 
of  our  English  law,  comprises  every 
species  of  crime  which  occasioned,  at 
common  law,  the  forfeiture  of  lands  and 
goods.  This  most  frequently  happens  in 
those  crimes  for  which  a  capital  punish- 
ment either  is,  or  was,  liable  to  be  in- 
flicted. Treason  itself,  says  Sir  Edward 
Coke,  was  anciently  comprised  under 
the  name  of  felony.  All  treasons,  strictly 
speaking,  are  felonies ;  though  all  felonies 
are  not  treasons.  And  to  this  also  we 
may  add,  that  not  only  all  offences  now 
capital  are,  in  some  degree  or  other, 
felony  ;  but  that  this  is  likewise  the 
case  with  some  other  offences  which  are 
not  punished  with  death  —  as  suicide, 
when  the  party  is  already  dead — man- 
slaughter, and  larceny  :  all  which  are, 
strictly  speaking,  felonies,  as  they  sub- 
ject the  committers  of  them  to  forfeitures. 
So  that,  upon  the  whole,  the  only  adequate 
definition  of  felony  seems  to  be  that 
which  is  before  laid  down,  viz.,  an 
offence  which  occasions  a  total  forfeiture 
of  either  lands,  or  goods,  or  both,  at  the 
common  law  ;  and  to  which  capital  or 
other  punishment  may  be  superadded, 
according  to  the  degree  of  guilt. 


206 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 


"To  explain  this  matter  a  little  further  : 
the  word  felony  or  felonla  is  of  undoubt- 
ed feudal  origin,  being  frequently  to  be 
met  with  in  the  books  of  feuds,  &c." 

In  short,  Sir  William  Blackstone 
decides  that  the  word  Felon  is  de- 
rived "from  two  northern  words— fee, 
which  signifies,  as  we  well  know,  the 
fief,  feud,  or  beneficiary  estate — and 
Ion,  which  signifies  price  or  value." 

Thus  far  Blackstone.  What  next 
follows  is  within  brackets,  and  is  Mr 
Warren's. 

"  [The  true  criterion  of  felony  is  for- 
feiture ;  and,  accordingly,  to  this  day  all 
felonies  punishable  with  death  occasion 
a  forfeiture,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
of  the  lands  of  the  offender,  and  the  total 
forfeiture  of  his  goods  and  chattels  ;  and 
even  such  felonies  as  are  not  capitally 
punished,  occasion  the  total  forfeiture  of 
the  convicted  person's  goods  and  chattels. 
In  misdemeanours  there  is,  no  forfeiture, 
nor  are  there  any  accessaries  ;  all  being 
principals. 

"  [Felonies  and  misdemeanours  are 
the  creatures  of  both  common  and  sta- 
tute law  ;  the  latter,  in  modern  times, 
having  been  very  active  in  declaring, 
and  that  often  somewhat  arbitrarily, 
what  acts  shall  or  shall  not  be  referred 
to  the  one  or  other  category.  To  obtain, 
for  instance,  ten  thousand  pounds'  worth 
of  goods  or  money,  by  the  grossest  false 
pretence,  is  declared  a  misdemeanour 
only  ;  to  steal  a  farthing,  a  felony. 
Similar  punishment,  moreover,  may  be 
inflicted  in  both  classes  of  offence  : 
except  that  a  fine  can  be  imposed  in 
misdemeanour  only  :  since  on  a  convic- 
tion for  felony  there  is,  through  the 
forfeiture,  nothing  left  to  satisfy  the 
fine.  The  legislature  seems  latterly  to 
have  become  sensible  of  the  frequently 
shadowy  nature  of  the  distinction,  in 
at  least  a  technical  point  of  view,  be- 
tween a  felony  and  a  misdemeanour ; 
and  has  endeavoured  to  avert  a  failure  of 
justice  on  that  account  in  the  way  point- 
ed out  in  a  former  chapter ;  namely, 
that  if  it  appear,  on  the  trial  of  a  person 
for  a  misdemeanour  that  the  facts  amount 
in  law  to  a  felony,  he  shall  not  by  reason 
thereof  be  entitled  to  be  acquitted  of  such 
misdemeanour ;  and  he  shall  not  be  liable 
to  be  prosecuted  afterwards  for  felony, 
on  the  same  facts,  unless  the  judge  think 
fit,  in  his  discretion,  to  discharge  the  jury 
from  giving  a  verdict,  and  direct  the  pri- 
soner to  be  tried  for  the  felony  ;  an  enact- 
ment aimed  at  the  removal  of  difficulties 
arising  out  of  the  doctrine  that  a,  mis- 
demeanour  was  merged  in  the  felony."] 


We  have  here  a  very  significant 
intimation  of  some  of  the  trammels 
we  have  escaped,  and  may  congratu- 
late ourselves  if  these  terms  of  art  be 
simply  nugatory,  and  are  deprived  of 
all  mischievous  power. 

There  seems  to  have  been  a  time 
when  the  judges  of  the  land — the 
learned  Twelve — brought  up  in  the 
logic  of  the  schools,  worked  out  their 
judicial  problems  more  as  logical  than 
social  questions.  Some  maxim,  ap- 
plicable to  a  few  cases,  wars  hastily 
adopted  as  a  fundamental  principle,  and 
reasoned  for  accordingly,  till,  threat- 
ened by  some  altogether  too  flagrant 
absurdity  as  the  result  of  their  princi- 
ple, they  abruptly  left  it  for  some  rival 
maxim,  or  other  fundamental  rule. 
Traces  of  such  a  mode  of  judicial 
reasoning  may  still  be  observed.  We 
turn  to  the  chapter  in  Mr  Warren's 
book,  headed  "  Husband  and  Wife." 

"  By  marriage  the  husband  and  wife 
are  one  person  in  law ;  that  is,  the  very 
being  or  legal  existence  of  the  woman  is 
suspended  during  the  marriage,  or  at 
least  is  incorporated  or  consolidated  into 
that  of  the  husband,  under  whose  wing 
and  protection  she  performs  everything. 
Upon  this  principle,  of  a  union  of  person 
as  husband  and  wife,  depend  almost  all 
the  legal  rights,  duties,  and  disabilities, 
that  either  of  them  acquires  by  the  mar- 
riage. I  speak  not  at  present  of  the 
rights  of  property,  but  such  as  are  merely 
personal.  For  this  reason  a  man  cannot 
grant  anything  to  his  wife,  or  enter  into 
covenant  with  her  ;  for  the  grant  would 
be  to  suppose  her  separate  existence, and  to 
covenant  with  her  would  be  to  covenant 
with  himself;  and,  therefore,it  is  also  gene- 
rally true,  that  all  compacts  made  between 
husband  and  wife  when  single,  are  voided 
by  the  intermarriage.  A  woman,  indeed, 
may  be  attorney  for  her  husband  ;  for 
that  implies  no  separation  from,  but  is 
rather  a  representation  of  her  lord.  And 
a  husband  may  also  bequeath  anything 
to  his  wife  by  will ;  for  that  cannot  take 
effect  till  the  married  state  shall  have 
been  determined  by  his  death. 

"  In  the  civil  law,  husband  and  wife 
are  considered  as  two  distinct  persons  ; 
and  may  have  separate  estates,  contracts, 
debts,  and  injuries  ;  and,  therefore,  in  our 
ecclesiastical  courts  a  woman  may  sue 
and  be  sued  without  her  husband. 

"  But  though  our  law  in  general  con- 
siders man  and  wife  as  one  person,  yet 
there  are  cases  in  which  she  is  separately 
considered  as  inferior  to  him,  and  acting 
by  his  compulsion  j  and,  therefore,  all 


1855.] 


Mr  Warren's  Blachstone. 


207 


deeds  executed  and  acts  done  by  her 
during  her  coverture  are  void.  She  can- 
not by  will  devise  lands  to  her  husband, 
unless  under  special  circumstances  ;  for 
at  the  time  of  making  it  she  is  supposed 
to  be  under  his  coercion." 

Does  not  all  this  look  more  like  an 
ingenious  exercise  of  logic,  kept  in 
check  by  some  consideration  for  flesh 
and  blood,  and  the  welfare  of  human 
beings,  than  a  series  of  rules  laid 
down  for  the  direct  attainment  of  the 
well-being  of  society?  Indeed,  we 
cannot  commend  the  reasoning,  even 
viewed  as  a  mere  logical  display. 

The  following  inconsistency  seems 
still  to  be  good  law  amongst  us,  what- 
ever may  be  thought  of  it  as  a  speci- 
men of  ratiocination : — 

"  If  the  wife  be  indebted  before  mar- 
riage, the  husband  is  bound  afterwards 
to  pay  the  debt  [however  improvidently 
contracted,  and  though  he  may  have 
received  no  portion  with  her],  for  he  has 
adopted  her  and  her  circumstances  toge- 
ther. 

"[On  her  death,  the  husband's  personal 
liability  would  cease  altogether,  although 
lie  might  have  received  a  large  fortune 
with  her,  unless  he  were  sued  as  an 
administrator  to  his  wife,  in  respect  of 
certain  rights  not  reduced  by  him  into 
possession  during  her  lifetime.]  " 

In  the  one  case,  a  man  is  compelled 
to  pay  a  debt  he  knew  nothing  of, 
and  where  he  had  received  no  funds 
that  might  justly  be  held  to  come  to 
him  burdened  with  the  debt.  In  the 
other  case,  he  has  received  such 
funds,  and  is  yet  exonerated.  In 
the  first  case  he  had  "  adopted  her 
and  her  circumstances  together ; "  he 
had  married  the  debt.  In  the  second 
case,  the  death  of  the  wife  has  dis- 
solved the  relationship,  and  he  is  no 
longer  married  to  the  debt,  though  he 
continues  married  to  her  property. 
Not  much  better  logic,  it  strikes  us, 
than  it  is  justice. 

Speaking  of  some  of  the  difficulties 
which  surround  this  great  topic  of 
the  law  of  marriage,  Mr  Warren 
makes  the  following  judicious  obser- 
vations : — 

"  The  difficult  subject  of  divorce  has 
for  some  years  occupied  the  attention  of 
the  Legislature,  which  contemplates 
important  changes  in  the  existing  law. 
In  any  which  may  be  projected,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  that  whether  the  occasion  for 
actions  for  '  criminal  conversation,'  as  it 


is  called,  be  or  be  not  made  again  an 
offence  punishable  in  our  temporal  courts, 
such  actions  by  which  a  pecuniary  com- 
pensation is  sought  by  the  husband  may 
be  abolished;  if  for  no  other  reason, 
because  they  entail  public  disclosures  of 
a  disgusting,  degrading,  and  demoralising 
character,  attracting  to  this  section  of 
our  jurisprudence  the  contempt  of  foreign 
jurists,  and  the  indignation  of  all  the 
virtue  and  intelligence  of  our  own 
country." 

This  very  valid  objection  against 
actions  for  criminal  connection  which 
Mr  Warren  states  with  so  much 
force,  would  equally  apply  to  the  law 
which  would  treat  adultery  as  a 
crime,  and  punish  it  accordingly  by 
fine  or  imprisonment.  The  Puritans, 
during  the  brief  period  they  legislated 
for  the  country,  denounced  it  as  a 
capital  offence,  and  punished  it  by 
death.  No  one,  we  presume,  intends 
to  revive  this  law,  which  during  its 
short  existence  was  never  once  acted 
upon.  And  indeed  the  very  project 
of  punishing  a  breach  of  matrimonial 
fidelity  as  we  punish  a  theft  or  an 
assault,  runs  counter  to  the  spirit  of 
our  times.  We  can  only  call  to 
mind  one  living  authority,  one  noble 
lord  (who,  from  his  judicial  position, 
must  certainly  demand  our  respect 
to  his  opinion),  who  has  publicly 
expressed  his  willingness  to  include 
adultery  in  that  catalogue  of  crimes 
which  are  punishable  at  the  Old  Bailey. 

We  were  not  aware  that  the  subject 
of  divorce  had  so  far  occupied  the 
attention  of  the  Legislature  as  to 
warrant  us  in  supposing  that  it 
"  contemplates  important  changes 
in  the  existing  law."  A  measure  was 
lately  introduced  into  the  Upper 
House,  which  merely  proposed  that 
such  divorces  as  are  constantly 
granted  by  separate  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, should  be  decreed  in  a  regular 
judicial  manner,  by  a  court  of  law. 
But  it  met  with  no  countenance ; 
there  seemed  to  be  an  extreme  un- 
willingness to  legislate  at  all  upon 
the  subject,  even  to  the  extent  of 
declaring  that  to  be  part  of  the  law 
of  the  land  which  has  long  ago 
virtually  become  such. 

So  far  as  the  wealthier  classes  of 
English  society  are  concerned,  we  are 
not  aware  that  there  is  any  practical 
grievance  which  calls  for  a  revision 


208 

of  the  law  of  marriage.  By  the 
operation  of  marriage  settlements, 
the  wife  enjoys  as  absolute  a  control 
over  her  own  property  as  the  fullest 
acknowledgment  of  an  equality  of 
civil  rights  could  possibly  bestow. 
When  a  divorce  unhappily  becomes 
desirable,  an  amount  of  expense  is 
indeed  occasioned  which  is  onerous 
even  to  the  wealthy;  but  to  this  it 
may  be  answered,  that  it  never  was 
the  policy  of  the  law  to  facilitate 
divorce,  and  that  if  what  is  now 
done  through  an  act  of  Parliament 
were  to  be  accomplished  by  a  suit  at 
law,  and  at  a  moderate  expense,  it 
would  become  a  question  whether 
divorce  should  be  granted  at  all  on 
the  mere  ground  of  the  infidelity  of 
one  of  the  parties.  It  might  be  the 
wiser  plan  to  leave  parties  to  such 
relief  as  they  can  obtain  through  a 
deed  of  separation.  With  regard, 
therefore,  to  the  higher  classes  of 
society,  we  do  not  see  any  practical 
evil  there  is  to  remove,  or  any 
ground  there  is  for  a  modification  of 
those  laws  which  determine  the  rela- 
tionship between  husband  and  wife. 
Even  if  certain  gross  and  barbarous 
rights  are  still  reserved  to  the  hus- 
band by  the  letter  of  the  law,  the  law 
is  here  a  completely  dead-letter,  and 
has  as  little  influence  upon  our 
manners  as  that  imaginary  right 
which  French  novelists  persist  in 
investing  an  English  husband  with — 
that  of  selling  his  wife  in  Smithfield. 

It  is  otherwise,  perhaps,  with  the 
poor.  It  is  here,  if  anywhere,  that 
some  change  is  demanded  in  our 
marital  laws — either  some  modifica- 
tion of  the  civil  rights  of  the  husband, 
or  the  institution  of  a  fitting  court 
for  decreeing  divorces  on  the  special 
ground  of  cruelty.  It  is  the  opera- 
tion of  a  late  act  of  Parliament,  pass- 
ed for  the  protection  of  the  wife,  that 
has  revealed  to  the  public  at  large 
an  apparent  necessity  for  some  legis- 
lation in  this  direction.  That  act 
punishes  the  brutal  husband  with  six 
months'  imprisonment,  accompanied 
by  hard  labour.  It  was  imperatively 
called  for  by  the  general  indignation 
of  the  public,  roused  by  numerous 
cases  of  extreme  cruelty  on  the  part 
of  the  husband ;  nor  does  the 
magistrate  ever  enforce  the  act  with- 
out carrying  with  him  the  sympa- 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 

thy  of  all  bystanders.  The  general 
feeling  is,  that  the  sentence  is  not 
half  severe  enough.  And  yet  if 
nothing  else  is  done  for  the  suffering 
wife,  this  measure  of  retributive 
justice  has  rather  increased  than 
diminished  that  domestic  misery 
which  she  has  to  endure.  For  what 
must  be  the  condition  of  the  woman 
who  has  to  live  again  with  the 
husband  she  has  committed  to  prison  1 
Conceive  the  meeting  after  such  a 
separation.  What  a  home!  What 
a  domestic  union  !  And  how  has  the 
wife  supported  herself  and  her  chil- 
dren in  the  interim  ?  If  at  the  end  of 
six  months  she  has  found  herself  in 
some  profitable  course  of  industry, 
the  husband  returns,  and  claims  all 
that  she  has  earned,  or  may  continue 
to  earn ;  she  is  little  better  than  his 
slave.  Here  there  is  no  marriage 
settlement,  no  deed  of  separation  to 
mitigate  the  extreme  rights  of  the 
husband  ;  and  though  cruelty  enough 
has  been  exercised  to  justify  fifty 
divorces  in  the  ecclesiastical  courts, 
or  in  the  House  of  Parliament,  we 
need  not  say  that  divorce  is  here 
utterly  unattainable.  We  do  not 
require  to  be  reminded  that  a  blow  is 
not  the  same  offence  in  every  class  of 
life ;  but  we  think  we  may  venture 
to  say  that  such  a  course  of  cruelty 
as  justifies  a  magistrate  in  committing 
the  husband  as  a  criminal  to  jail, 
might  justify  a  court  in  decreeing  a 
divorce  if  the  wife  should  petition  for 
one.  Nor  would  it  be  according  to 
truth  or  policy  to  legislate  for  any 
class  of  the  community  as  if  they 
were  entirely  destitute  of  those  higher 
sensibilities  on  which  friendship  or 
domestic  affections  are  founded.  We 
have  said  enough,  however,  upon  the 
subject;  we  know  the  extremely 
difficult  nature  of  the  task  which 
would  here  devolve  upon  the  Legisla- 
ture ;  we  share  the  reluctance  felt  by 
all  discreet  people  to  move  the  ques- 
tion at  all.  But  a  case  does  seem  to 
be  made  out  worthy  at  least  of  the 
consideration  of  Parliament.  We  may 
add,  that  if  a  sense  of  equity,  and  a 
wish  to  promote  domestic  happiness, 
should  induce  us  to  extend  the  privi- 
lege of  divorce  to  the  poor,  this  must 
be  done  by  a  court  where  justice  is 
not  only  cheap,  but  where  it  is  abso- 
lutely free ;  experiment  must  be  made 


1855.] 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


209 


of  a  plan,  often  advocated  by  specu- 
lative reformers,  of  a  court  in  which 
fees  are  altogether  abolished,  every 
official  or  practitioner  being  paid  by 
a  fixed  salary  charged  on  the  national 
revenue. 

Following  the  relationship  of  Hus- 
band and  Wife,  are  those  of  Parent 
and  Child,  Master  and  Servant,  Prin- 
cipal and  Agent ;  but  we  miss  (as  the 
title  of  a  distinct  chapter)  that  melan- 
choly relation — so  unsatisfactory,  so 
full  of  unmingled  bitterness  to  both 
parties — of  Debtor  and  Creditor. 
Some  account,  however,  of  the  ame- 
lioration of  our  law  in  its  dealings 
with  this  relation,  will  be  found  in 
the  general  summary  at  the  close  of 
the  volume,  "  On  the  Rise,  Progress, 
and  Gradual  Improvements  of  the 
Laws  of  England."  In  this  depart- 
ment of  our  jurisprudence  we  have 
made  signal  advances.  Not  very 
long  ago  we  treated  debt  as  a  crime. 
No  distinction  of  cases  was  made; 
the  professed  swindler,  and  the  honest 
debtor,  who  even  in  jail  regretted  the 
loss  of  his  honour  more  than  the  loss 
of  his  liberty,  were  alike  sentenced  as 
criminals  to  imprisonment.  Whilst 
the  law  was  thus  severe  on  the  per- 
son of  the  poor  debtor,  property  in 
land  was  liable  to  no  debts  of  simple 
contract,  as  they  are  called.  We  have 
changed  all  this.  We  remember  that 
some  alarm  was  expressed  by  mer- 
cantile people  that  the  partial  aboli- 
tion of  imprisonment  for  debt  would 
shake  that  credit  on  which  so  much 
depends.  No  such  result  has  ensued, 
and  we  are  persuaded  that  the  habit 
of  looking  to  a  vindictive  punishment 
of  the  defaulter  as  some  security  for 
the  debt,  had  as  little  to  do  with  the 
cause  of  commercial  credit,  as  it  had 
with  promoting  the  sentiment  of  hu- 
manity. 

How  much  is  contained  in  the  two 
following  brief  paragraphs  which  we 
now  extract  from  the  valuable  sum- 
mary to  which  we  have  alluded  : — 

"  Among  changes  respecting  the  gene- 
ral administration  of  the  laws,  may  be 
enumerated  the  alteration  of  the  amount 
for  which  a  debtor  may  be  legally  ar- 
rested, from  the  sum  of  ten  to  that  of 
twenty  pounds  ;  the  act  which  sweeps 
away  the  old  intricate  system  of  process, 
and  substitutes  an  easy  and  intelligible 
method  of  commencing  actions  in  the 


courts  of  common  law  ;  the  Law  Amend- 
ment, which  destroys  several  antiquated 
forms,  expedites  and  cheapens  the  trial 
of  causes  of  slight  importance,  enables 
the  judges  to  amend  and  obviate  techni- 
cal errors,  arms  them  with  a  power  which 
they  have  not  been  slow  to  exercise,  of 
introducing  regulations  calculated  to  ren- 
der our  system  of  pleading  more  effec- 
tually subservient  to  the  ends  of  justice, 
and  renders  more  efficient  the  tribunal 
of  the  arbitrator ;  the  consolidation  of 
the  Welsh  and  English  judicatures ;  the 
appointment  of  an  additional  judge  to 
each  of  the  superior  courts  ;  the  act  dis- 
pensing with  a  number  of  useless  oaths, 
the  multitude  of  which  tended  to  undue 
disregard  of  those  most  solemn  invoca- 
tions of  the  Deity,  by  rendering  their 
use  too  frequent  in  matters  of  trivial  im- 
portance ;  the  destruction  of  the  nume- 
rous and  antiquated  tribe  of  Real  actions, 
and  the  remodelling  of  the  court  of  Privy 
Council  for  judicial  purposes. 

"Among  enactments  concerning  the 
regulation  of  private  property  may  be 
enumerated  the  act  which  renders  a 
man's  real  property  liable  after  his  death 
to  the  claims  of  all  his  creditors ;  the 
acts  which  ascertain  the  period  at  which 
rights  and  titles  shall  be  rendered  secure 
by  lapse  of  time,  and  uninterrupted  con- 
tinuance of  possession  ;  which  define  the 
right  of  the.  wife  to  dower  out  of  her 
husband's,  and  that  of  the  husband  to 
curtesy,  as  it  is  called,  out  of  the  wife's 
real  property  ;  which  alter  the  law  of 
descents,  by  allowing  the  parent  to  in- 
herit to  the  child,  and  letting  in  the  half- 
blood,  fcWho  were  formerly  excluded  by 
an  arbitrary  rule  of  feudal  policy  ;  and 
that  which  substitutes  easy  and  simple 
forms  for  the  complicated  and  abstruse 
ones  of  fine  and  recovery." 

These  are  only  some  of  the  altera- 
tions which  took  place  between  the 
year  1825  and  the  year  1836.  Since 
that  latter  period,  the  Legislature,  we 
need  not  say,  has  not  been  idle.  But 
it  would  be  a  vain  attempt  on  our 
part,  and  with  the  limited  space  at 
our  command,  to  follow  out  the  course 
of  its  proceedings. 

There  is  one  other  topic— the  re- 
forms made  in  our  Law  of  Evidence 
— which  Mr  Warren,  by  his  just  and 
powerful  observations,  induces  us  to 
touch  upon.  With  some  remarks  on 
this  very  important  branch  of  the  law 
we  will  close,  and  leave  our  readers 
to  the  perusal,  if  they  are  so  disposed, 
of  this  useful  and  agreeable  epitome 
of  the  laws  of  England. 


210 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 


It  is  well  known  to  every  one,  pro- 
fessional or  not,  that  our  law  of  evi- 
dence dealt  largely  in  rules  of  exclu- 
sion— sometimes  referring  to  the  evi- 
dence itself,  excluding  whole  classes 
of  documents  or  statements;  some- 
times to  the  witness,  excluding  him 
at  once  from  all  hearing  in  a  court  of 
justice.  Objections,  which  it  is  now 
universally  admitted  ought  to  go 
against  the  credibility  of  a  witness, 
were  declared  to  render  him  alto- 
gether incompetent  to  give  any  testi- 
mony whatever.  He  was  not  allowed 
to  make  his  statement,  under  such 
disadvantages  as  the  infamy  of  his 
character,  or  his  interest  in  the  suit, 
manifestly  laid  him  under;  but  his 
infamy  as  a  convicted  felon,  or  his 
pecuniary  interest  in  the  suit,  were 
pronounced  to  be  reasons  for  not 
hearing  him  at  all.  In  the  technical 
language  of  the  law,  these  objections 
went  not  against  his  credibility,  but 
his  competency,  as  a  witness. 

These  rules  of  exclusion  would 
have  been  intolerable,  but  for  the  in- 
troduction of  a  multitude  of  excep- 
tions, and  numerous  devices  for  their 
evasion  ;  which,  though  they  relieved 
from  the  pressure  of  the  rule,  added 
nothing  to  the  simplicity  or  consis- 
tency of  our  laws.  The  attempt  to 
separate,  beforehand,  the  true  from 
the  false  testimony  by  certain  gene- 
ral presumptions — the  attempt  to  do 
that  without  hearing  the  witness, 
which  it  is  the  province  of  a  jury  to 
do,  after  having  listened  to  him,  and 
observed  him,  and  compared  his  tes- 
timony with  other  evidence  in  the 
cause — the  attempt,  in  short,  to  pro- 
tect the  ears  of  the  court  from  hear- 
ing whatever  is  not  worthy  of  credit 
— is  now  generally  felt  to  be  quite 
preposterous.  It  could  not  succeed, 
and  was  sure  to  be  more  or  less  per- 
nicious in  exact  proportion  as  the 
scheme  of  protection  was  intended 
to  be  more  or  less  complete.  The 
value  of  evidence,  the  credibility 
of  a  witness,  depends  on  so  many 
collateral  and  varying  circumstances, 
that  rules  of  peremptory  exclusion 
must  invariably  terminate  in  the  re- 
jection of  good  as  well  as  bad  testi- 
mony. Under  certain  cicumstances, 
the  evidence  of  the  greatest  rascal  the 
parish  ever  bred,  may  be  quite  as 
trustworthy  as  that  of  the  respectable 


parish  clerk  himself.  The  rejection 
of  good  evidence  may  be  fatal  to  the 
ends  of  justice,  whilst  the  alternative 
evil,  the  admission  of  the  false  or  the 
weak,  would  but,  in  general,  prolong 
the  judicial  inquiry,  and  impose  some 
additionallabour  on  the  judge  and  jury. 
Labour,  indeed,  upon  the  judge!  Our 
rules  of  exclusion,  by  favouring  in- 
cessant appeals  to  the  judge  on  the 
admissibility  of  this  or  that  evidence, 
seemed  to  have  been  framed  for  the 
very  torture  of  the  bench. 

At  the  commencement  of  every 
text-book  on  the  Law  of  Evidence, 
there  used  to  figure  a  list  of  those 
disqualifications  which  rendered  a 
witness  incompetent.  These  disquali- 
fications were  not  all  of  them,  strictly 
speaking,  rules  of  evidence  :  that  is, 
they  were  founded  on  other  reasons 
than  the  suspicion  which  would  be  at- 
tached to  the  evidence  of  the  person 
excluded.  They  were,  some  of  them, 
intended  to  protect  the  confidence 
which  should  subsist  between  certain 
relations  of  life — as  between  husband 
and  wife,  attorney  and  client.  To 
allow,  for  instance,  counsel  or  an 
attorney  to  disclose  communications 
received  in  their  professional  capacity, 
would  be  utterly  incongruous  with  the 
existence  and  purpose  of  such  profes- 
sional advisers.  The  grounds  of  in- 
capacity, not  forced  upon  the  court 
by  the  nature  of  the  case,  but  de- 
vised by  its  own  judicial  wisdom, 
were  these  three  :  1.  A  pecuniary  in- 
terest in  the  suit ;  2.  Infamy  of  char- 
acter; and,  3.  Such  dissent  in  religious 
belief  as  is  incompatible  with  the 
taking  of  an  oath.  It  is  the  first  of 
these  which  was  the  great  embarrass- 
ment in  the  administration  of  justice; 
for,  not  only  the  parties  to  the  suit, 
but  all  who  had  a  pecuniary  interest 
in  it,  however  small,  were  prevented 
from  giving  evidence. 

"Such  fundamental  changes,"  writes 
Mr  Warren,  "have  been  effected  in  the 
law  of  evidence  within  the  last  ten  years, 
or  even  a  much  shorter  period,  that  it 
may  be  said  to  stand  upon  quite  a  new 
basis,  and  to  be  thoroughly  illuminated 
by  the  light  of  good  sense.  In  no  depart- 
ment of  our  jurisprudence  has  the  hand 
of  innovation  been  bolder  or  more  success- 
ful. The  Legislature  has  liberated  the 
law  of  evidence  from  shackles  which  had 
for  centuries  impeded  the  search  after 


1855.] 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


211 


truth ;  and  whoever  can  contrast  the  pre- 
sent with  the  very  recent  state  of  that 
law,  will  feel  astonishment  that  such  im- 
pediments should  have  been  tolerated  so 
long.  English  law-books  swarm  with 
complex  rules,  and  decisions  of  courts 
carrying  out  those  rules  with  a  sort  of 
relentless  and  excruciating  ingenuity,  the 
effect  of  which  is  now  seen  by  all  to  have 
been  only  to  shut,  carefully,  as  many 
apertures  as  possible  through  which  that 
truth  might  be  seen  which  courts  of  jus- 
tice were  instituted  to  discover.  This 
arose  from  a  marvellous  distrust  of  the 
conscientiousness  of  witnesses,  and  the 
intelligence  of  juries,  together  with  an 
inversely  strong  confidence  in  the  means 
resorted  to  by  law  for  obviating  such 
evils.  To  see  whether  these  remarks  are 
well  or  ill  founded,  it  may  be  observed 
that  down  to  the  year  1843  the  law  ex- 
cluded from  the  witness-box  a  person  of 
spotless  integrity,  of  the  greatest  intel- 
lect, and  beyond  all  suspicion  of  undue 
bias  or  motive,  if  it  could  only  be  made 
out,  by  a  train  of  subtle  reasoning,  that  he 
might  have  a  farthing's  interest  in  the 
ultimate  issue ;  while  the  same  law  ad- 
mitted into  the  witness-box  those  influ- 
enced and  tempted,  by  the  strongest  ties 
of  natural  affection,  to  deceive. 

"At  length,  in  the  year  1851,  after  a 
series  of  steps  in  this  direction,  the  Legis- 
lature, by  a  single  section  of  statute  1 4 
and  15  Viet.,  c.  99,  let  in  a  flood  of  light 
on  every  question  thenceforth  made  the 
subject  of  legal  investigation,  by  remov- 
ing the  incapacity  of  the  parties  themselves 
to  any  legal  proceeding.  This  effected  a 
complete  revolution  in  this  extensive  de- 
partment of  the  law.  Those  who  had  for 
ages  stood  with  sealed  lips  in  courts  of 
civil  justice,  while  their  characters,  pro- 
perties, rights,  and  liberties  were  assailed 
by  falsehood  and  fraud  with  perfect  im- 
punity— those  who  alone  knew  the  true 
facts  in  dispute,  and  yet  were  compelled 
to  look  on  with  silent  indignation,  while 
futile  and  illusory  efforts  were  being  made 
to  prove  those  facts — were,  by  the  fiat  of 
the  Legislature,  suddenly  given  the  power 
of  speech,  and  enabled  in  their  own  per- 
sons, viva  wee,  or  by  affidavit,  to  state 
those  facts  before  competent  authorities. 
From  that  moment  fraud  and  chicane  re- 
ceived a  desperate  check,  and  claims  were 
justly  enforced  and  resisted  which  would 
otherwise  have  continued  to  be  withheld, 
or  submitted  to  unjustly." 

We  hope  that  the  attempt  to  sift 
evidence  before  it  is  heard,  by  certain 
wide  and  general  rules  of  exclusion, 
has  been,  or  will  be,  entirely  relin- 
quished. However  well-intentioned 


it  may  originally  have  been,  it  has 
led  to  incalculable  mischief.  First,  a 
rule  has  been  made  which  has  been 
felt  to  be  too  wide ;  then  the  court 
has  caught  at  some  reason  for  grant- 
ing an  exception;  this  reason,  per- 
haps, has  been  a  mere  subterfuge,  for 
the  sake  of  obtaining  substantial  jus- 
tice in  the  individual  case  before  the 
court;  but  of  course  this  exception, 
with  the  make-belief  reason  on  which  it 
was  founded,  becomes  a  guide,  such 
as  it  is,  for  future  cases.  Thus  an 
endless  controversy,  unprofitable  and 
mischievous,  arose  upon  the  admis- 
sion of  evidence,  and  the  cause  was  as 
frequently  decided  according  to  the 
success  of  the  adverse  counsel  in  this 
preliminary  contest,  as  by  the  weight 
of  evidence  really  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  point  in  dispute. 

Mr  Warren  has  alluded,  in  the  quo- 
tation we  have  made,  to  the  egregious 
inconsistency  of  refusing  to  hear  the 
testimony  of  any  man  of  whom  it 
could  be  said  that  he  had  the  least 
pecuniary  interest  in  the  suit,  although 
it  was  a  clear  moral  impossibility  that 
such  an  interest  (often  of  so  remote  a 
kind  that  the  witness  himself  was  un- 
conscious of  possessing  it)  could  have 
any  influence  upon  his  mind,  while  the 
strong  bias  of  natural  affection  or  in- 
timate friendship  was  not  (by  good 
fortune)  seized  upon  as  a  ground  of 
incompetency.  The  length  to  which 
this  rule  of  exclusion  was  carried  will 
scarcely  be  believed  in  future  times ; 
yet  the  Acts  of  Parliament  passed 
during  its  ascendancy  will  illustrate 
the  nature  of  the  rule  by  the  precau- 
tions taken  against  its  operation.  In 
certain  Acts  it  was  thought  necessary 
to  introduce  a  clause  rendering  the 
inhabitants  of  the  parish  or  the  county 
competent  witnesses  in  the  several 
cases  of  settlement  or  boundaries,  or 
in  prosecution  for  the  repair  of  bridges, 
notwithstanding  the  pecuniary  interest 
such  persons  must  have  in  the  parish  or 
county  rates.  So,  too,  when  an  Act 
was  passed  for  punishing  assaults  in  a 
summary  manner,  after  declaring  that 
the  fine  of  £5  should  be  paid  over, 
under  certain  circumstances,  to  the 
rates  of  the  county  or  riding  in  which 
the  assault  took  place,  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  enact  that  an  inhabitant 
of  the  county  or  riding  might  be  a  wit- 
ness to  the  assault,  notwithstanding 


212 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 


his  interest  as  such  inhabitant  in  the 
said  penalty  of  £5. 

A  rule  so  irrational  and  so  exten- 
sive in  its  application,  was  of  course 
combated  in  every  possible  manner. 
Specific  Acts  of  Parliament  were 
passed  to  restrict  its  operation.  The 
court  allowed  a  witness  to  "release 
his  interest,"  and  thus  establish  his 
competency,  leaving  him,  however, 
to  qualify  himself  or  to  remain  dis- 
qualified at  his  pleasure.  In  defiance 
of  all  consistency,  it  made  a  still 
bolder  exception :  it  pronounced  that 
the  interest  which  renders  incompe- 
tent must  be  present  and  vested,  not 
uncertain  or  contingent.  Therefore, 
while  an  existing  claim  of  five  shil- 
lings could  drive  a  witness  out  of 
court,  the  heir-apparent  might  sup- 
port, by  his  testimony,  the  title  of  his 
father  to  estates  of  any  magnitude. 

It  may,  perhaps,  amuse  some  of 
our  readers,  if  it  will  not  greatly  edify 
them,  to  take  notice  of  another  and 
opposite  use  which  the  court  made  of 
this  ground  of  pecuniary  interest.  If 
so  grave  a  suspicion  must  always  fall 
upon  the  man  who  gives  evidence  in 
favour  of  a  pecuniary  interest,  how 
very  trustworthy  must  that  testimony 
be  which  runs  counter  to  such  an 
interest !  Now,  therefore,  if  there 
should  be  a  case  where,  owing  to 
some  other  rule  of  law,  the  evidence 
is  excluded,  might  not  this  circum- 
stance of  its  being  against  the  interest 
of  the  witness,  attach  to  it  so  extraor- 
dinary a  credibility  as  to  justify  the 
court  in  making  an  exception  in  its 
favour  ? 

There  is  a  broad  rule  against  ad- 
mitting hear-say  evidence ;  and  what 
is  called  hear-say,  technically  includes 
written  as  well  as  verbal  statements. 
The  chief  reason  for  excluding  hear- 
say evidence — namely,  that  the  wit- 
ness may  not  repeat  with  accuracy 
what  was  really  said — does  not  apply 
to  a  written  document.  Nevertheless, 
the  technical  rule  of  law  includes,  or 
did  include,  both  of  these  in  the  same 
category.  The  letters  of  an  absent 
or  deceased  person  were  as  inadmis- 
sible as  a  report  of  what  he  had  said : 
his  journal  or  memoranda  would  not 
be  received ;  the  Diaries  of  Evelyn 
and  Pepys  would  have  been,  in  law, 
no  evidence. 

We  believe  that  all  that  is  valuable 


in  the  rule  which  excludes  hear- say 
evidence,  would  be  found  to  be  re- 
tained under  the  very  safe  and  intel- 
ligible rule — that  the  best  evidence 
which  the  case  admits  of  should  al- 
ways be  brought  forward.  Thus  the 
court  would  never  listen  to  the  report 
of  what  another  man  had  said,  or 
even  to  what  he  had  written,  without 
having  the  man  himself  there  in  per- 
son before  it,  if  this  were  possible. 
In  all  cases,  demand  and  admit  the 
best  evidence  that  is  attainable.  If 
the  best  is  so  weak  that  no  reliance 
can  be  placed  upon  it,  the  same  result 
is  arrived  at  as  if  it  had  been  excluded 
by  some  rule  of  law;  but  make  no 
attempt  to  exclude  a  whole  class  or 
description  of  evidence  on  any  a  priori 
ground  that  it  cannot  be  credible. 

But  we  were  about  to  show  how 
the  law  had  dealt  with  one  branch  of 
this  rule  of  exclusion.  When  it  had 
been  decided  that  the  memoranda  or 
entries  of  a  deceased  person  could 
not  be  admitted,  as  falling  under  the 
technical  description  of  hear- say  evi- 
dence, it  was  felt  that  the  rule  had 
been  carried  too  far.  Ingenuity  was 
taxed  to  find  a  ground  of  exception. 
What  if  these  entries  acknowledged 
a  debt,  or  pecuniary  obligation  (as  to 
pay  rent),  they  would  then  be  so 
highly  credible,  as  being  made  against 
the  interest  of  the  writer,  that  they 
might  safely  be  admitted.  Thus  a 
tax-gatherer's  book  was  ruled  to  be 
admissible,  because  it  charged  the 
writer  with  having  received  taxes, 
and  it  was  against  his  interest  to 
make  such  an  acknowledgment.  We 
have  now  a  sub-rule  or  ground  for 
exception,  the  application  of  which 
gives,  in  its  turn,  jts  due  share  of 
embarrassment,  as  the  following  two 
cases  will  testify  :— 

CASE  1.  Entry  of  a  deceased  tenant 
adduced  to  prove  the  payment  of 
rent :  admissible,  because,  as  it  went 
to  show  that  he  was  responsible  for 
payment  of  rent,  and  was  not  absolute 
owner  of  the  estate,  the  entry  was 
made  against  interest. 

CASE  2.  Entry  of  a  deceased  land- 
lord of  the  reception  of  rent,  adduced 
to  prove  the  title  of  his  representative 
to  the  property :  inadmissible,  because, 
though  the  landlord  acknowledged  the 
reception  of  rent — and  in  this  respect 
the  entry  was  against  his  interest — 


1855.] 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


213 


yet,  so  far  as  the  title  was  concerned, 
(and  the  title  was  here  in  question), 
it  was  not  an  entry  "against  inte- 
rest." 

Thus  the  entry  was  admissible  or 
not,  according  to  the  use  which  was  to 
be  made  of  it,  without  any  attempt 
to  prove  that  the  writer  of  it  foresaw 
what  use  it  would  be  applied  to.  It 
is  the  supposition  that  the  writer  was 
manufacturing  evidence  that  throws 
suspicion  on  such  entries;  and  the 
probability  of  this  supposition  must 
depend,  in  each  case,  upon  the  review 
of  the  whole  circumstances.  This 
sub- rule  of  its  being  "  against  his  in- 
terest "  was  only  one,  and  a  most  de- 
ficient test  (as  the  law  applied  it)  of 
rebutting  this  supposition.  But  we 
must  not  proceed  farther  amongst  the 
briers  and  brambles  of  a  past  condi- 
tion of  the  law.  We  hope  that  all 
this  "  learning"  is  entirely  defunct. 

Infamy  of  character  is  also  no  longer 
a  ground  of  incompetency.  It  was 
made  part  of  the  punishment  of  crime, 
that  the  convicted  criminal  should  be 
incapacitated  to  give  evidence  in  a 
court  of  justice.  It  was  overlooked 
that  the  punishment  might  really  fall 
on  an  innocent  party  who  needed  his 
testimony ;  or  that  such  an  incapacity 
might  gravely  interfere  with  the  ends 
of  public  justice.  The  rule,  of  course, 
yielded  to  emergencies:  it  was  held 
that  the  incompetency  of  a  felon  could 
be  cured  by  the  royal  pardon.  Whether 
it  was  to  be  regarded  as  a  punishment 
of  the  criminal,  or  as  a  rule  of  evi- 
dence, this  ground  of  exclusion  was 
long  seen  to  be  a  mere  hindrance  to 
the  course  of  justice.  Mr  Warren 
will  tell  us  that  now  "  a  person  con- 
victed of  any  crime  whatever — even 
of  perjury — is  competent  to  give  evi- 
dence, even  against  those  with  whom 
he  is  jointly  indicted,  as  well  as  in 
other  cases.  His  conviction  affects 
merely  his  credit  as  a  truthful  witness 
in  the  estimation  of  the  jury." 

The  only  remaining  ground  of  impera- 
tive seclusion  is,  that  defect  of  religious 
belief  which  incapacitates  from  being 
sworn.  This  affects  infidels,  and  also 
very  young  children,  or  such  ignorant 
or  simple-minded  youths  as  might 
possibly  give  distinct  enough  evidence 
on  what  they  had  seen,  and  yet  be 
unable  to  respond  even  to  the  few 
theological  questions  which  should  or 


may  be  asked  previous  to  administer- 
ing the  oath.  The  widest  provisions 
are  now  made  for  the  relief,  not  only 
of  peculiar  sects  of  Christians,  but  of 
all  who  have  a  conscientious  scruple 
against  taking  the  oath.  "  An  oath 
may  be  suspended,"  Mr  Warren  in- 
forms us,  "  and  a  solemn  affirmation 
or  declaration  substituted  in  the  case 
of  any  person  solemnly,  sincerely,  and 
truly  affirming  and  declaring  that  the 
taking  of  an  oath  is,  according  to  his 
religious  belief,  unlawful." 

The  question  occurs,  whether  it 
would  not  be  advisable  to  substitute 
the  solemn  affirmation  universally  for 
the  oath  ?  We  understand  that  the 
majority  of  those  who,  as  judges, 
counsel,  or  attornies,  are  engaged  in 
the  administration  of  criminal  justice, 
would  regard  this,  at  present,  as  a 
dangerous  experiment.  We  roust  bow 
to  their  judgment,  if  this  indeed  ia 
the  opinion  they  would  generally  give, 
and  content  ourselves  with  expressing 
a  hope  that  the  time  may  not  be  far 
distant  when,  owing  to  the  better  in- 
struction of  the  people,  the  experi- 
ment may  be  safely  made. 

We  would  observe  that,  whilst  many 
Christians  think  that  the  oath  is  ex- 
pressly forbidden,  no  single  Christian 
thinks  that  it  is  a  religious  rite  any- 
where enjoined.  The  abolition  of  the 
oath  would  offend,  therefore,  no  one 
section  of  the  Christian  community. 
This  is  happily  not  one  of  those  cases 
where  we  cannot  legislate  without 
wounding  the  religious  feelings  of  some 
class  of  society.  There  is  nowhere  a 
single  Christian  who  would  feel  hurt 
or  distressed  at  not  being  required  to 
swear. 

How  low  must  we  descend  in  the 
scale  of  intellect  or  education  before 
we  encounter  the  man  so  ignorant  as 
to  believe  that  it  is  the  oath  which 
makes  the  giving  false  evidence  a  sin? 
or  that  it  would  not  be  equally  sinful 
if  unaccompanied  by  an  oath?  or  who 
seriously  believes  that  the  judgments 
of  Heaven  would  not  be  put  in  force 
against  him,  unless  he  made  direct 
appeal  to  them,  and  called  them  down 
upon  his  own  head  ?  We  hope  that 
it  is  necessary  to  descend  very  low 
before  we  come  to  this  stratum  of  pub- 
lic opinion.  The  oath,  let  us  remark, 
may  be  explained  and  interpreted  so 
as  to  render  it  consistent  with  the 


214 


Mr  Warren's  Blackstone. 


[Aug. 


most  enlightened  views  of  God's  moral 
government ;  but  when  so  explained 
and  interpreted,  it  ceases  to  express 
any  more  than  a  solemn  affirmation, 
which  reminds  the  Christian  that  he 
is  acting  and  speaking  under  the  eye 
of  God. 

When,  out  of  a  court  of  justice,  we 
hear  a  man  support  his  assertions  by 
appeals  to  Heaven,  and  dire  impreca- 
tions on  his  own  head,  we  never  be- 
lieve him  any  the  more  readily  on  this 
account.  On  the  contrary,  if  our 
suspicion  of  his  veracity  had  not  been 
excited  before,  it  is  called  forth  the 
moment  he  begins  to  swear.  It  is 
notoriously  the  greatest  liars  who 
make  these  appeals  to  the  judgments 
of  God.  When  a  man  swears  in  a 
court  of  justice,  we  know,  and  he 
knows,  that  he  is  liable  to  punishment 
if  he  swears  to  a  false  statement.  If 
the  penalty  of  perjury  were  removed, 
what  would  be  the  value  of  the  oath? 
If  the  penalty  were  attached  to  the 
solemn  affirmation,  should  we  not  in- 
stantly recognise  that  this  had  become 
invested  with  all  the  binding  force  of 
the  oath? 

We  argue  the  case  as  between 
Christian  and  Christian,  and  on  the 
broad  admitted  principle  that  this  is 
a  Christian  country ;  but  we  must 
add,  from  a  strictly  judicial  point  of 
view,  that  it  is  not  a  satisfactory  state 
of  the  law  which  permits  any  indivi- 
dual who  chooses  to  brave  the  stigma 
of  infidelity,  to  withdraw  himself  from 
a  court  of  justice,  and  probably,  by 
withholding  his  evidence,  defeat  a 
criminal  prosecution  of  great  impor- 
tance. When  a  witness  is  once 
sworn,  if  he  then  refuses  to  answer 
such  questions  as  the  judge  authorises 
to  be  put,  he  can  be  committed  to 
prison  for  contempt  of  court.  But 
there  is  no  way  whatever  of  reaching 
the  man  whom  the  court  itself  declares 
to  be  incompetent  to  take  the  oath. 
It  has  laid  down  the  principle  that  an 
oath  is  necessary,  and  finds  this  man 
has  such  a  state  of  religious  belief, 
that  it  would  be  a  mockery  to  swear 
him.  The  court  has  bound  its  own 
hands.  It  cannot  punish  him  for  re- 
fusing to  take  the  oath,  for  it  pro- 
nounces that  the  oath  cannot  be  ten- 
dered to  him.  Our  law  has  lately 
added  to  the  necessary  provisions  for 
securing  the  presence  of  a  witness,  and 


it  is  not  without  means  for  compelling 
him  to  speak,  or,  if  a  Christian,  to  be 
sworn  ;  but  all  these  provisions  and 
powers  may  be  rendered  nugatory, 
and  set  at  defiance,  by  a  simple  non 
credo.  The  man  slinks  out  of  court, 
having  excited,  it  may  be,  the  odium 
of  all  present,  but  no  hand  can  touch 
him.  He  returns,  perhaps,  to  rejoice 
amongst  his  companions  over  the  suc- 
cess of  his  stratagem. 

This  cannot  be  a  satisfactory  con- 
dition of  the  law.  We  must  pass 
some  measure  for  taking  the  testimony 
of  such  a  man  on  his  declaration  or 
assertion,  attaching  to  it,  of  course, 
all  the  penalties  of  perjury.  And 
then,  when  we  have  relieved  from  the 
oath  every  Christian  who  conscien- 
tiously objects  to  it,  and  every  man 
who  is  not  a  Christian  at  all,  and  can- 
not take  it,  we  shall  probably  find 
that  the  ground  is  so  narrowed  where 
it  would  be  really  applicable,  that  it 
will  be  the  wiser  plan  to  abolish  the 
oath  altogether. 

We  have  thus  ventured  to  touch 
upon  some  of  the  topics  of  legal  reform, 
chiefly  felicitating  ourselves  on  the 
alterations  that  have  been  lately 
made.  As  the  work  before  us  re- 
marks, "  experience  will  probably 
show  that,  like  other  human  institu- 
tions, they  contain  evil  mixed  with 
good.  But  the  very  experience  which 
detects  the  former  will  help  to  point 
out  the  true  method  of  correcting  it ; 
while  the  continuance  of  the  latter 
may,  and  let  us  trust  will,  be  insured, 
by  that  willing  obedience  to  existing 
laws — that  steady  attachment  to  the 
constitution — that  charity  to  fellow 
subjects,  and  loyalty  to  the  crown, 
which  have  ever  remarkably  distin- 
guished the  English  people." 

Jurisprudence  must  unavoidably 
begin  with  rude  essays,  and  must 
reach  perfection  by  slow  degrees;  or 
rather,  it  will  be  always  approximat- 
ing, in  this  changeful  and  perturbed 
scene,  towards  an  unattainable  per- 
fection. It  is  shaped  at  first  to  the 
present  emergency,  and  by  the  mo- 
mentary passion ;  it  is  violent  because 
it  is  weak  ;  it  strikes  uncertain  blows, 
and  seeks  a  rude  compensation  in  the 
severity  of  that  blow  which  does  reach 
the  destined  criminal ;  it  has  often  to 
crave  aid  from  superstition,  or  from 
tyranny,  and  becomes  the  slave  when 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


215 


it  should  exercise  dominion.  Like  the 
noble  river  which  gives  life  to  a  great 
city,  it  is  in  its  early  course  both 
ductile  and  violent,  running  with  tor- 
rent speed,  vehement  and  capricious, 
along  a  channel  from  which,  never- 
theless, it  may  be  diverted  by  slightest 
impediments ;  till,  widening  by  de- 
grees, and  growing  ever  more  tempe- 


rate as  it  grows  more  powerful,  it 
takes  its  broad  and  peaceful  way,  and 
pours  its  uninterrupted  waters  through 
the  heart  of  populous  towns,  its  banks 
everywhere  covered  with  signs  of  that 
civilisation  to  which  it  has  so  mainly 
contributed.  May  such,  with  us,  be 
its  potent,  tranquil,  beneficent  ma- 
turity ! 


MODERN  LIGHT  LITERATURE — SCIENCE. 


A  LITTLE  knowledge  went  a  long 
way  in  the  old  times.  From  those 
professors  of  occult  sciences,  whose 
small  amount  of  real  information 
made  a  world  of  guesses  possible  to 
the  unlearned,  we  have  come  by  a 
wonderfully  rapid  progress  to  an  age 
of  universal  acquirement,  where  every 
man  is  bent  with  the  kindest  libe- 
rality in  making  his  neighbours  as 
wise  as  himself.  No  longer  a  hoard- 
ed commodity,  carefully  reserved  for 
one's  own  benefit,  or  transmitted  to 
one's  own  disciples  with  all  the  awe 
and  mystery  of  forbidden  wisdom,  a 
piece  of  uncommunicated  knowledge 
seems  to  burn  the  fingers  of  its  pos- 
sessor in  those  days,  till  he  is  able  to 
fling  it  abroad  into  the  world.  "It 
is  scarcely  more  than  a  century," 
says  one  writer,  "  since  the  several 
sciences  to  which  we  apply  the  gene- 
ral name  of  natural  history  began  to 
rouse  themselves  from  a  sleep  into 
which  they  had  fallen  nearly  two 
thousand  years  before."  Scarcely  a 
century  !  and  now  we  study  it  in  our 
drawing-rooms,  and  learn  it  from  the 
prelections  of  our  children.  Alas  for 
the  magician's  cap  and  gown — the 
solemn  retirement — the  mystic  acces- 
sories—  the  awful  solitude  and  se- 
clusion of  him  whom  princes  took 
into  their  counsels !  There  is  scarcely 
a  young  lady,  who  has  had  the  most 
"ordinary  advantages,"  who  could 
not  enlighten  the  philosopher  now. 

To  us  who  have  to  confess  and  la- 
ment, with  a  distinguished  statesman, 
that  we  were  born  in  the  pre-scientific 
age— to  us  who  do  not  know  a  pistil 
from  a  stamen,  an  ichthyosaurus 
from  a  megatherium,  or  an  actinia 
from  a  mollusc,  there  is  something 
rather  mortifying  in  this  universal 
information.  That  little  curly-pated 

VOL.  LXXVIIL— NO.  CCCCLXXVIII. 


rogue,  whom  we  were  buying  cakes 
for  half  an  hour  ago — the  urchin  is 
delivering  a  small  lecture  to  us,  before 
we  are  aware,  upon  the  aquarium,  or 
the  collection  of  ferns,  or  the  case  of 
fossils,  to  which  we  in  our  innocence 
have  led  the  juvenile  philosopher, 
after  the  same  fashion  by  which  our- 
selves were  taken  to  see  the  dwarf 
and  the  giant  in  our  holidays  ever 
so  many  years  ago.  Youth !  youth  1 
thou  never-dying  Jacob,  that  will  al- 
ways be  supplanting  what  came 
before  thee !  But  our  self-opinion  is 
by  no  means  flattered  by  this  popular 
philosophy,  which  mounts  the  imp  on 
stilts,  and  sends  him  off  amphibious, 
through  all  the  elements,  with  his 
traps  and  tools  and  incomprehensible 
machinery  in  his  learned  hands. 

Putting  this  little  private  pique 
aside,  there  is  no  denying  that  there 
is  very  much  that  is  fascinating  and 
attractive  in  these  most  popular  de- 
partments of  science.  No  man  shall 
outdo  us  in  reverence  for  the  works 
of  God ;  they  are  all  wonderful,  from 
the  smallest  to  the  greatest  of  them ; 
and  though  we  dread  the  name  of 
Museum,  and  tremble  at  the  sight  of 
a  collection  of  specimens,  we  can  per- 
fectly appreciate  the  delight  of  stum- 
bling over  the  slippery  rocks  at  low 
tide,  or  hunting  timid  wild-flowers 
into  the  crevices  of  the  hills,  or  the 
nests  of  sunny  turf  on  bank  and  brae. 
We  do  not  object  to  the  thing;  but 
woefully,  and  from  our  hearts,  we  ob- 
ject to  the  talk,  the  explanations,  the 
universal  instruction.  Teaching  in 
itself,  after  all,  is  not  a  great  good  ; 
it  is  rather,  to  tell  the  truth  of  it,  a 
necessary  evil,  a  thing  to  be  endured, 
but  not  to  be  chosen.  No  fear  that 
we  will  seek  too  many  of  the  hard 
lessons  of  experience,  the  lore  of  ad- 
p 


216 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


versity,  and  suffering,  and  pain.  Yet 
these  are  lessons  of  a  loftier  kind,  in 
general,  than  words  can  convey  to 
us.  We  can  see  nothing  beatific  in 
the  prospect  of  living  among  a  race  of 
lecturers,  even  should  we  ourselves 
by  some  extraordinary  revolution 
become  able  to  lecture  in  our  turn. 
'Not  long  since  we  heard  an  eminent 
scientific  teacher  speaking  of  some 
favourite  pupils  of  his,  who  would 
not  be  content  with  the  experiments 
he  showed  them,  without  due  ex- 
planation of  the  same  — and  con- 
trasting these  with  another  class 
of  schoolboys,  whose  delight  in  those 
same  experiments  was  only  damp- 
ed by  the  dreadful  consciousness 
that  they  must  be  explained.  Com- 
mend us  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
schoolboys.  We  like  the  experiments. 
We  are  very  glad  to  see  the  things,  oh 
most  learned,  ingenious,  and  patient 
philosophers  ;  but  if  you  love  us,  let 
us  have  no  explanations.  To  speak 
seriously,  this  is  the  greatest  danger 
in  the  present  universal  diffusion  of 
knowledge.  The  works  of  nature  are 
always  great  and  wonderful,  but  we 
are  very  poor  creatures,  we  mortal 
men.  We  make  pedagogues  of  our- 
selves over  every  little  morsel  of  that 
grand  world  of  half-discovered  beau- 
ty which  lies  around  us,  and  are  but 
too  apt  to  make  our  fellows  pray  that 
we  bad  never  begun  to  "  improve  our 
minds."  Also,  it  would  appear  that 
to  improve  a  mind  is  quite  a  different 
process  from  improving  a  man — and 
there  is  no  such  bore  as  your  clever 
dabbler  in  sciences,  who  may  very  well 
cram  his  memory,  and  even  elicit  now 
and  then  some  dull  spark  fromhisima- 
gination,  without  at  all  increasing  the 
abstract  agreeability  of  himself  or  his 
companionship.  Let  us  premise,  how- 
ever, that  science,  as  a  pursuit,  an  oc- 
cupation, rises  far  above  the  field  of 
our  comments.  We  do  not  presume  to 
interfere  with  the  more  elevated  and 
stately  efforts  of  human  understand- 
ing— it  is  only  science  as  an  amuse- 
ment— science  for  the  million,  the  pret- 
ty books  and  plans,  the  pretty  machi- 
nery and  implements  by  which  it  is 
made  familiar  to  the  mass  of  the  un- 
studying  public,  with  which  we  have 
*.  anything  to  do. 


Let  us  take  an  example.  We  are 
going  to  the  sea-side.  Everybody  is 
bound  for  the  sea.  The  trees  are 
burnt  brown  in  our  London  squares  ; 
the  grass  in  Hyde  Park,  scorched  and 
trodden,  is  much  more  like  the  grass 
of  tapestry  than  that  of  the  fields  ;  and 
the  whole  world  is  setting  forth  to 
plunge  into  the  blue  water  somewhere, 
and  forget  the  dust  and  the  turmoil, 
the  noise  and  the  excitement  of  the 
modern  Babel.  That  is  all  very  well, 
our  good  friends;  but  what  are  you 
going  to  do  when  you  get  there  ?  Mr 
Kingsley  asks  the  question  very  seri- 
ously.* Happy  little  children  who  can 
dig  into  the  pebbles,  and  build  their 
houses  —  innocent,  unconscious  pro- 
phets—on the  sand  and  on  the  rock,  as 
fancy  guides.  Thrice  happy  boys  who 
can  wade  and  swim,  who  can  tumble 
into  the  sea  and  out  of  it  with  a  glorious 
impunity,  and  nothing  to  fear  but  the 
reproof  of  mamma,  who  is  not  more 
afraid  of  their  freaks  than  proud  of 
them !  But  all  the  rest  of  us,  what 
are  we  to  do  ? 

Nobody  will  deny  that  the  question 
is  a  hard  one.  Yonder  is  the  sea,  cur- 
ling in  upon  the  beach  under  the 
sunshine,  turning  over  in  a  long  wreath 
of  whitest  foam — a  glorious,  blessed 
creature,  laughing  a  low  laugh  among 
the  rocks — good-humoured  scorn  of  us, 
our  admiration,  our  timidity,  our  dar- 
ing. Dancing  shells  of  boats  afloat  upon 
the  rising  tide— grey  heads  of  rocks 
and  boulders  gradually  disappearing 
under  the  water.  In  our  first  ecstasy, 
we  are  quite  content  to  do  nothing  but 
look  out  upon  the  scene,  and  con- 
gratulate each  other.  Everything 
cries  holiday  to  our  delighted  ears. 
The  waves  croon  upon  the  beach, 
growing  wilder,  sadder  as  the  evening 
falls,  and  our  restless  human  eyes 
wander  out  upon  the  undulating  line, 
and  beset  the  grey  horizon  yonder, 
piercing  further,  further,  if  we  might 
but  see.  We  have  a  soul  above  the 
parade,  the  promenading  visitors,  the 
reading-room  and  the  curiosity  shops. 
We  are  occupied  with  the  lights  and 
shadows,  the  headland  in  the  twilight 
yonder,  the  retreating  coast  still  red- 
dened with  the  last  look  of  the  sun. 
What  are  we  to  do  ?  We  throw  back 
the  words  with  scorn— To  do  !  With 


*  Glaucus ;  or,  The  Wonders  of  the  Shore.    By  the  Rev.  C.  KINGSLEY. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


217 


such  a  scene  before  us,  it  is  an  insult 
to  ask  the  question. 

But  Mr  Kingsley  makes  no  account 
of  the  rapture  of  arrival.  He  sets  us 
down  at  once  as  extremely  common- 
place people,  really  not  much  worth 
his  trouble.  He  says,  "You  foreknow 
your  doom  by  sad  experience.  A 
great  deal  of  dressing — a  lounge  in  the 
club-room — a  stare  out  of  the  window 
with  the  telescope— an  attempt  to  take 
a  bad  sketch — a  walk  up  one  parade 
and  down  another — interminable  read- 
ing of  the  silliest  of  novels,  over 
which  you  fall  asleep  on  a  bench  in 
the  sun,  and  probably  have  your  um- 
brella stolen."  Now  we  distinctly 
object  to  have  our  instructor  write  us 
down  an  ass  after  this  summary 
fashion.  It  is  bad  policy;  our  vanity 
is  aroused.  We  carry  an  umbrella ! 
We  sleep  upon  a  bench  in  the  sun ! 
We  beg  Mr  Kingsley's  pardon.  In- 
stead of  the  silliest  of  novels,  it  is  an 
old  volume  of  Fraser's  Magazine, 
where  there  is  Hypatia,  or  Yeast,  or 
Mr'Broderip's  notes,  to  make  us  wise, 
which  we  are  lugging  under  our  arm. 
And  to  tell  the  very  truth,  if  these 
little  heroes  on  the  beach,  with  their 
wooden  spades  and  straw  baskets, 
their  brown  holland  overalls,  their 
straw  hats— and  those  pretty  poky 
sun-bonnets,  with  the  pretty  face 
hidden  in  the  depths  of  them,  looking 
out  of  their  cool  recess  of  grateful 
shade — beguile  our  eyes  and  thoughts 
awhile  from  the  philosophic  page,  we 
humbly  conceive  that  the  amusement 
is  quite  as  elevated  as  if  we  were 
picking  up  stranded  starfishes,  or 
seizing  upon  common  bits  of  sea-weed 
with  the  undiscriminating  enthusiasm 
of  a  beginner.  If  we,  as  a  matter  of 
individual  taste,  prefer  a  game  of 
romps  with  our  bairns  upon  the  shore, 
or  even  march  in  true  Cockney  felicity 
at  the  head  of  a  procession  of  donkeys 
baby-ridden,  what  right  has  Mr 
Kingsley  to  conclude  that  we  are  less 
worthily  occupied  than  he  ?  We  hold 
it  a  fundamental  point  of  our  creed, 
that  no  man  has  any  right  to  think 
less  worthily  of  another  than  of  him- 
self. Ye  who  affirm  so  stoutly  con- 
cerning the  multitude— the  hapless 
multitude  which  does  not  write  books, 
and  is  not  "  gifted," — who  conclude 
with  so  much  ease  that  all  of  us,  voice- 
less people,  do  our  religion  as  a  mat- 


ter of  form,  and  spend  our  time  of 
rest  and  pleasure,  "  wandering  up 
and  down,  still  wrapt  up  each  in  their 
little  world  of  vanity  and  self-interest, 
unconscious  of  what  and  where  they 
really  are,  as  they  gaze  lazily  around 
on  earth  and  sea  and  sky,  and  have 

No  speculation  in  those  eyes, 
Which  they  do  glare  withal  !" 

— who  gave  you  a  warrant  to  set  down 
your  fellow- creatures  so  summarily  ? 
To  be  disdainful  of  one's  neighbour  is 
the  poorest  sign  in  the  world  of  one's 
own  superiority.  We  remember  us 
affectionately  of  Chaucer's  touch  of 
delicate  art  in  his  description  of  the 
early  summer.  It  is  the  time,  he  says, 
"  when  folk  are  longen  to  gon  on  pil- 
grimages." The  old  poet  knew  better 
than  the  new  philosopher  what  a 
genuine  natural  thrill  it  was,  and  how 
it  was  by  no  means  confined  to  clever 
folk,  or  people  who  could  tell  all  about 
it  in  a  book.  Does  Mr  Kingsley  sup- 
pose that  such  a  man  as  he  describes 
afterwards  as  the  proper  and  fully 
qualified  naturalist,  could  ever  drone 
out  his  sea-side  holiday,  or  his  holiday 
anywhere,  as  does  the  humdrum  and 
stupid  individual  whom  Mr  Kingsley 
has  the  presumption  to  identify  with 
us,  his  reader  ? — or,  is  his  beginning 
address  and  exhortation  only  a  new 
way  of  expressing  his  gratitude  that 
he  is  not  as  other  men  are  ?  However 
it  may  be,  we  are  not  at  all  disposed 
to  assent  to  this  summary  settlement 
of  our  own  character.  There  may  be 
but  one  Rector  of  Eversley  in  the 
world,  and  only  a  few  Mr  Gosses, 
but  we  are  not  all  blockheads  either, 
all  the  hapless  rest  of  us.  We  have 
sundry  speculations  in  our  brains,  if 
our  eyes  are  not  so  eloquent  as  those 
of  the  Rev.  Charles  Kingsley.  The 
sea  that  booms  upon  the  coast  brings 
voices  in  it  even  to  our  ears,  though 
they  are  not  the  voices  of  the  Actiniae. 
Perhaps  we  have  troubles  in  our  lot 
that  our  philosopher  wots  not  of: 
perhaps,  when  we  turn  to  the  sunset 
yonder,  which  he  counts  us  gazing  at 
in  mere  fatuity,  we  are  bracing  our 
faint  hearts  with  thought  of  certain 
glorious  creatures  yonder,  who  were 
once  ours,  and  will  be  ours  again, 
when  our  Lord  withdraws  the  feeble 
planet  of  our  life  into  the  other 
heavens  ;  perhaps  we  are  comforting 


218 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


ourselves  with  unwitting  similitudes, 
seeing  our  cares  in  those  bold  waves 
which  God  has  bound  and  limited  that 
they  shall  not  overwhelm  us.  Yes, 
we  are  no  great  things  the  best  of  us — 
but  some  certain  spectres  have  met 
with  us  all  in  our  wayfaring,  as  elo- 
quent as  the  weedy  Muse  of  Natural 
History — and  we  really  do  not  find 
ourselves  primarily  awakened  by  shells 
and  zoophytes  to  our  first  faint  obser- 
vation of  the  wonderful  works  of  God. 
Again  we  repeat,  we  have  no  quarrel 
with  science,  nor  even  with  scientific 
amusements,  and  those  popular  ex- 
positions which  bring  it  down  to  "the 
meanest  capacity."  Our  quarrel  is 
purely  with  the  assumption  that  there 
is  something,  wholesomer,  more  elevat- 
ing, improving,  and  noble  in  this  branch 
of  knowledge  than  in  other  branches 
— in  this  amusement  or  accomplish- 
ment, than  in  others  of  the  same. 
We  were  actually  at  the  sea- side  the 
other  day,  as  it  chanced,  in  bodily 
presence,  and  not  merely  in  imagina- 
tion. The  breeze,  though  it  was  of 
the  chillest — the  rush  of  the  foaming 
water,  and  the  full  triumphant  sun- 
shine, which  never  seems  to  enjoy  its 
own  glory  so  thoroughly  anywhere  as 
on  the  sea,  charmed  us  out  of  our- 
self  for  the  time.  Public  opinion, 
seated  on  the  Parade  within  sight,  for- 
bade us  emulating  the  happy  urchins 
— the  doubly  happy  shrimper,  who 
trudged  with  heavy  step  through  the 
water  up  to  his  knees.  No,  we  had 
to  keep  out  of  it ;  we  had  to  content 
ourself  upon  the  wet  and  glistening 
margin,  watching  how,  as  the  sun  went 
down,  the  wreathed  crest  of  the  in- 
coming waves  was  lighted  up  behind 
with  a  magical  touch  not  to  be  de- 
scribed in  words  ;  for  the  sun  by  this 
time  was  lower  than  we,  and  the  white 
illuminated  foam  came  between  us 
and  that  last  ray  which  gleamed  be- 
hind the  water,  so  that  we  might  have 
called  it  a  very  sea-nymph's  lamp,  had 
it  not  been  unspeakably  more  glorious. 
But  by-and-by  we  came  upon  sundry 
low  rocks,  with  tiny  pools  about  them, 
as  clear  as  light  itself,  and  sundry 
curious  creatures  dwelling  in  the  same 
— zoophytes  of  the  meanest  order,  we 
suppose — for  they  were  far  from  being 
gorgeous  or  beautiful — with  those  long 
ends  of  green  ribbon  clinging  to  the 
stones  about,  and  merry  little  crabs 


busy  in  the  water.  We  are  no  natu- 
ralist, but  our  curiosity  is  not  less 
than  another's,  so  we  straightway  for- 
got the  sunshine — forgot  the  illumi- 
nated wreath  of  foam — the  silvery 
ringing  of  the  waters — the  wonderful 
shading  of  the  sky.  Were  we  the 
better  for  it  ?  Did  we  rise  in  the  scale 
of  intellectual  enjoyment,  because  we 
were  poking  into  the  pool,  instead  of 
maintaining  our  common  altitude,  and 
looking  at  what  lay  before  us  ?  Were 
we  a  more  elevated  being,  or  doing 
more  service  to  ourself  or  our  fellows? 
We  cannot  believe  it.  We  came 
away,  alas !  pricked  in  pur  conscience, 
because  of  a  hapless  living  thing  which 
we  had  unwittingly  detached  from  its 
rock — and  we  really  did  not  feel  that 
curiosity  about  those  unknown  atoms 
of  existence  was  in  any  way  a  nobler 
sensation  or  a  more  profitable,  than 
the  charmed  gaze  on  sea  and  sky 
from  which  we  had  been  beguiled. 

But  this  has  nothing  to  do  with 
science  !  True,  it  has  not  very  much  to 
do  with  it ;  it  only  has  to  do  with  the 
inordinate  estimation  which  amateur 
investigators  give  to  their  own  studies, 
and  to  the  assumed  superiority  of  these 
pursuits  over  other  pursuits.  Mr 
Kingsley's  respectable  head  clerk,  who 
sallies  out  at  midnight  to  sugar  the 
trees  for  moths,  has  a  perfect  right  to 
his  fancy  ;  and  we  may  be  charitably 
permitted  to  hope  that  the  honest  man 
was  a  "single  gentleman,"  and  had 
no  family  at  home  to  be  disturbed  by 
his  nocturnal  studies  ;  but  how  he  is 
a  better  man  on  this  account  than  his 
brother  clerk,  who  has  no  drawers  of 
insects,  but  who  contents  himself  with 
overlooking  Johnny's  copybook,  and 
hearing  Matilda  play  her  last  tune, 
and  reading  the  newspaper  in  his 
lawful  leisure  by  the  fireside,  that  is 
all  the  brighter  and  all  the  better 
ordered  for  his  presence — we  cannot 
at  all  make  out.  Neither,  though  Mr 
Gosse's  Aquarium — the  case  of  glass 
full  of  sea -water,  sea -plants,  and 
living  creatures,  by  which  he  makes 
us  acquainted  with  modes  and  cus- 
toms at  the  bottom  of  the  sea — is  the 
prettiest  toy  in  the  world,  and  one  of 
the  most  interesting,  does  it  particu- 
larly strike  us,  why  a  young  lady  who 
has  managed  to  become  the  happy 
possessor  of  one  of  those  mimic  oceans, 
has  an  immediate  call  to  look  down 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


219 


upon  all  the  other  young  ladies  who 
only  have  embroidery  -  frames.  Let 
us  see  how  Mr  Kingsley  treats  this 
feminine  view  of  the  question  : — 

"  Your  daughters  perhaps  have  been 
seized  with  the  prevailing  'Pteridomania,' 
and  are  collecting  and  buying  ferns,  with 
Ward's  cases  wherein  to  keep  them  (for 
which  you  have  to  pay),  and  wrangling 
over  unpronounceable  names  of  species 
(which  seem  to  be  different  in  each  new 
fern-book  that  they  buy),  till  the  Pteri- 
domania seems  to  you  somewhat  of  a 
bore  ;  and  yet  you  cannot  deny  that  they 
find  an  enjoyment  in  it,  and  are  more 
active,  cheerful,  and  self-forgetful  over  it, 
than  they  would  have  been  over  novels 
and  gossip,  crochet  and  Berlin  wool.  At 
least  you  will  confess  that  the  abomina- 
tion of  'Fancy  Work,'  that  standing 
cloak  for  dreamy  idleness  (not  to  mention 
the  injury  which  it  does  to  poor  starving 
needlewomen),  has  all  but  vanished  from 
your  drawing-room  since  the  Lady  ferns 
and  Venus's  hair  appeared,  and  that  you 
could  not  help  yourself  looking  now  and 
then  at  the  said  '  Venus's  hair,'  and  agree- 
ing that  Nature's  real  beauties  were  some- 
what superior  to  the  ghastly  woollen 
caricatures  which  they  had  superseded." 

Now,  a  case  of  ferns  is  pretty  enough 
in  its  way,  but  a  pretty  figure  stoop- 
ing over  an  embroidery- frame  is  about 
as  much  prettier,  in  our  old-fashioned 
opinion,  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive  ; 
and  it  seems  to  us  that  there  is  a  far 
higher  and  nobler  human  sentiment  in 
the  labours  of  the  young  mother  who 
clothes  her  infant  in  the  "  clean  linen, 
pure  and  white,"  put  together,  every 
dainty  morsel  of  it,  by  her  own  tender 
fingers,  and  wept,  and  smiled,  and 
prayed  over  through  her  sweet  days  of 
hope,  than  in  the  rarest  collection  of 
ferns  which  she  could  possibly  have 
accumulated,  while  all  those  pretty 
things  were  being  made  for  her  by 
hired  and  careless  hands.  We  have 
no  objection  to  the  Lady  ferns  and  the 
Venus's  hair,  but  we  have  a  tenderer 
liking  for  the  girl's  pretty  love-tokens, 
the  woman's  work,  the  primitive  oc- 
cupation of  feminine  wit  and  feminine 
fingers.  The  little  frocks  and  pina- 
fores, that  are  mamma's  making,  are 
agreeable  to  our  prejudiced  eyes,  we 
confess ;  and  we  humbly  opine  mamma 
would  not  have  made  them,  had  she 
been  utterly  scornful  of  u  fancy-work" 
in  the  days  of  her  young  ladyhood. 
We  are  extremely  sceptical,  more- 


over, of  the  superior  moral  influence 
of  the  ferns.  Wrangling  over  unpro- 
nounceable names  is  not  a  priori  evi- 
dence of  self-forgetfulness;  neither  is  it 
at  all  good  moral  discipline  to  consider 
our  study  or  our  amusement  so  much 
loftier  and  better  than  other  people's, 
that  we  are  able  to  look  down  from 
our  platform  upon  the  frivolities 
around  us.  Cakes  and  ale  may  be 
extremely  refreshing  to  our  neigh- 
bour— though  we  are  virtuous,  and 
prefer  u  strawberry  ice  and  a  wafer ;" 
and  if  their  researches  into  natural 
history  make  our  young  people  as 
arrogant  as  Mr  Kingsley  would  have 
them,  we  had  almost  rather  see  natu- 
ral history  return  into  the  gloom  of 
the  unknown,  than  spoil  a  parcel  of 
fresh  minds  with  undue  self-estima- 
tion, or  rob  our  sons  and  our  daugh- 
ters of  a  morsel  of  the  sweet  natural 
humility  of  youth. 

We  will  leave  Glaucus  immediately 
— only  a  moment's  patience  more,  and 
we  are  done  with  him.  We  can  get 
all  the  science  Mr  Kingsley  is  pleased 
to  give  us  in  other  books,  especially 
in  Mr  Gosse's  Aquarium,  from  which, 
besides  smaller  contributions,  Glaucus 
is  pleased  to  quote  as  many  as  eight 
or  ten  pages  at  a  stretch;  but  we 
could  find  few  more  perfect  specimens 
of  the  assumption  and  self-importance 
which  is  so  unpleasant  an  adjunct  of 
the  pretensions  of  science,  and  which, 
we  fear,  threatens  to  become  an  un- 
failing attribute  of  the  "  superior " 
people — the  "  enlightened  class,"  who 
do  us  the  favour  to  direct  our  opinions 
in  these  days.  This  is  not  only  wrong 
and  bad,  but  extremely  foolish  and 
short-sighted,  and  leads  our  talented 
friends  into  sad  mistakes  sometimes. 
This  poor  world  requires  a  vast  deal 
of  ballast  to  keep  it  steady.  We  are 
not  all  intellect — naked  spirits  soaring 
into  the  impalpable  skies ;  and  there 
are  other  kinds  of  power  recognised 
among  us  than  even  the  power  of 
genius,  or  the  inferior  gifts  of  clever- 
ness and  talent.  Mr  Kingsley  says : 
"  A  Cromarty  stone-mason  is  now, 
perhaps,  the  most  important  man  in 
the  city  of  Edinburgh,  by  dint  of 
a  work  on  fossil  fishes."  We  are 
amazed,  and  rub  our  eyes,  and  read 
again.  The  most  important  man  ! 
We  have  read  the  books  and  the 
articles  of  Mr  Hugh  Miller  with  great 


220 


Modern  Ligltt  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


admiration.  He  has  a  fluent  and 
graceful  style — a  good  command  of 
language  —  a  genuine  acquaintance 
with  external  nature.  We,  who  skip- 
ped the  geology  in  them,  had,  never- 
theless, great  pleasure  in  his  books; 
and  when  a  scientific  work  interests 
an  unscientific  reader,  the  fact  is  a 
considerable  testimonial  to  its  powers. 
But  an  important  man  !  A  literary 
man,  to  our  thinking,  is  only  a  man  in 
his  own  circle,  like  any  other  private 
individual.  Outside  his  circle,  he  is  a 
Voice  and  no  person — an  influence  it 
may  be,  and  in  his  way  a  power,  but 
not  a  man.  Literature  is  not  standing- 
ground  enough  for  such  pretensions. 
He  who  is  tobeaman  in  his  age  must  be 
something  more  than  a  writer;  and  the 
writer  who  is  not  content  to  be  a  Voice 
ought  to  make  at  once  another  and 
clearly  separated  platform,  if  his  am- 
bition is  to  present  himself  before  the 
world.  When  we  mount  upon  our  pile 
of  books,  and  call  upon  the  world  to 
hear  us,  because  talk  is  our  vocation, 
and  we  are  its  true  guides,  the  world  will 
certainly  laugh  and  turn  to  the  pro- 
saic hustings  opposite,  where,  perhaps, 
the  speakers  have  not  our  genius,  yet, 
somehow  or  other,  are  more  tangible 
personages  than  we.  No,  sir;  you 
are  a  very  clever  writer — we  acknow- 
ledge your  influence — we  read  your 
books — we  accept  your  ideal  charac- 
ters into  our  acquaintance,  and  quote 
their  speeches  as  we  quote  the  speeches 
of  our  friends.  We  have  the  highest  ad- 
miration of  your  genius,  your  powers, 
and  your  accomplishments,  but  we  do 
not  acknowledge  you  as  an  indivi- 
dual,— and  if  you  are  wise,  you  will 
never  build  your  importance  as  a  man 
upon  your  claims  as  a  writer  :  it  is  a 
bitter  and  sad  blunder  in  the  experi- 
ence of  many  a  shipwrecked  life.  The 
poor  writer  who  has  once  been  a  lion, 
and  who  imagines  people  are  seeking 
him  when  they  are  only  seeking  "  the 
author  of"  some  popular  volume,  is 
but  a  gentle  type  of  the  mortifications 
which  must  await  the  man  who  hopes 
for  an  important  place  in  the  crowded 
stage  of  life  because  he  has  written 
books.  No ;  every  one  of  us  is  man 
enough  in  his  own  home  and  sanc- 
tuary. Let  us  be  sufficiently  gener- 
ous to  rejoice  that  our  work  is  no 


drudgery,  but  the  work  of  all  others 
most  enjoyable,  and,  if  we  choose 
it,  most  noble — that  our  day's  work 
brings  us  those  day's  wages  which  are 
not  ignoble  pieces  of  money,  but  com- 
fort, and  peace,  and  happiness  to  our 
own  home,  help  and  succour  to  the 
homes  of  others ;  and  the  man  among 
us  who  is  not  content,  besides  all  this, 
with  touching  hearts,  and  lightening 
cares,  and  winning  bits  of  light  and 
beauty  out  of  the  dusty  world  to  cheer 
the  wayfarer,  but  fumes  to  have  his 
class  regarded  as  important  men,  is  no 
true  brother  of  our  craft  and  guild  ! 

Alas  and  alas,  there  is  no  science 
in  us  /  Whither  did  we  stray  from — 
but,  indeed,  to  step  from  Glaucus  to 
the  Aquarium  *  is  no  toilsome  journey. 
If  we  want  bits  of  Mr  Gosse,  we  have 
only  to  turn  the  page,  so  largely  in- 
debted is  Mr  Kingsley  to  his  brother 
naturalist ;  but  we  prefer  taking  up 
the  pretty,  modest,  simple-hearted 
volume,  which,  if  it  has  none  of  Mr 
Kingsley's  gorgeous  descriptions,  has 
nothing  either  of  the  pretension  or 
importance  of  this  reverend  philo- 
sopher. Mr  Gosse  does  not  make 
much  attempt  at  fine  writing  ;  he  does 
not  at  all  condescend  to  his  audience — 
indeed,  he  is  happily  unconscious  of 
us,  doing  his  own  natural  business, 
thinking  of  what  he  is  about,  and  not 
of  the  train  of  wondering  disciples  at 
his  side.  He  is  not  a  great  writer ; 
but,  though  now  and  then  we  find 
him  employing  his  Actinia  and  Ulva 
to  point  a  spiritual  reflection,  or  sym- 
bolise a  Christian  sentiment,  after  a 
fashion  which  we  are  rather  doubtful 
of,  he  is  beyond  question  a  good  and 
pious  man.  He  is  no  amateur  either; 
— one  feels  that  it  is  his  business, 
which  he  goes  about  so  unpretend- 
ingly ;  and  his  book  is,  without  doubt, 
not  only  what  people  call  "  a  very  in- 
structive," but  also  a  very  handsome 
and  indisputably  agreeable  volume. 
Notwithstanding,  it  is  one  which  we 
warn  all  prudent  papas  who,  in  this 
year  of  war  and  income-tax,  have  no 
great  margin  of  superfluous  sovereigns 
to  meet  the  whims  of  the  young  people, 
carefully  to  keep  out  of  their  houses  ; 
for  if  it  once  gets  a  lodgment  in  draw- 
ing-room or  school -room,  we  may 
safely  trust  to  every  boy  and  girl  of 


The  Aquarium,    By  PHILIP  HENKY  GOSSE. 


1865.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


221 


spirit  that  there  will  be  very  little 
peace  in  that  devoted  household  till  it 
has  made  an  attempt  at  an  Aquarium. 
Yes,  there  it  is,  an  oblong  glass  box 
of  greenish  water— a  mimic  world. 
The  forest  trees  are  thin,  but  they  are 
growing ;  the  bits  of  rock  throw  sha- 
dows great  enough  to  be  gigantic  to 
the  busy  multitudes  who  shelter  under 
them.  Little  creatures  are  gleaming 
about  hither  and  thither,  in  that  state 
of  perfect  passive  happiness,  of  which, 
lucky  fellow,  your  little  fish  on  a  hot 
summer  day,  and  in  his  native  ele- 
ment, is  the  true  exemplar.  Curious 
unknown  "things" — bundles  of  the 
most  delicate  little  thongs  of  soft 
brown  leather  tipped  with  pink — and 
blunter  petals  of  diverse  colours,  which 
you  might  suppose,  if  your  imagina- 
tion was  unfurnished  with  any  better 
simile,  to  be  specimens  of  the  flowers 
which  cooks  cut  from  turnips,  exe- 
cuted by  an  artiste  of  first-rate  abili- 
ties— are  dwelling  upon  bits  of  stone 
everywhere ;  and  here  are  pretty  little 
red  flowers  growing  out  of  complicated 
tubes  of  stone  or  shell — very  pretty 
tiny  blossoms,  rare  ornaments  for  those 
serpentine  cylinders  out  of  which  they 
grow.  Hush  N  here  comes  a  merry 
fellow,  a  half-  transparent  shrimp, 
prancing  like  a  little  marine  centaur 
on  his  front  paws.  He  touches  the  red 
blossom  accidentally  as  he  passes, 
when,  lo  !  it  sinks  into  its  tube,  swift 
as  a  breath ;  and  those  long  coils  of 
soft  brown,  swaying  about  upon  the 
water,  and  finding  one  of  his  aforesaid 
legs  in  their  way,  do  presently,  as  it 
seems,  bestow  a  noiseless  pinch  upon 
the  unwary  passenger,  whereat  Sir 
Shrimp  draws  in  his  limb,  rubs  it  dole- 
fully across  his  mustache,  and  medi- 
tates reprisals.  But  here  comes  a 
more  formidable  antagonist,  a  heavy 
dragoon  among  these  flying  horse — a 
creature  of  the  lobster  kind,  carrying 
his  house  upon  his  back,  and  stum- 
bling along  with  great  noise  and  clat- 
ter, ringing  his  shell  against  the 
stones.  On  he  comes,  the  blind  or 
careless  monster,  striding  his  long 
legs  over  the  very  crest  of  this  brown 
Briareus  with  the  hundred  arms.  One 
can  see  that  he  is  pinched  too  in  some 
noiseless  imperceptible  fashion,  and 
winces  for  a  moment ;  but  his  coat  is 
stouter  than  the  transparent  mail  of 
his  little  cousin ;  and  as  the  big  fellow 


sprawls  and  stumbles  on  undismayed, 
the  arms  of  the  Anemone  close  and 
shrink,  and  recede  before  him,  till  there 
is  nothing  but  a  brown  soft  leathery 
tuft  upon  the  rock.  Wait  a  moment — 
the  mailed  giant  has  plunged  over  to 
the  abyss  of  sand  below,  and  he  has 
scarcely  descended,  when  the  hundred 
arms  are  waving  forth  again,  coiling 
and  uncoiling,  gathering  in  invisible 
prey  to  an  invisible  mouth,  as  undis- 
turbed and  serene  as  if  there  were  no 
monsters  in  the  world.  A  hundred 
other  little  contests,  where  small  harm 
is  done,  are  going  on  within  these  four 
walls  of  glass.  It  is  a  wonderful  little 
world,  but  it  is  not  exactly  an  Eden  ; 
they  have  their  misunderstandings  and 
"  difficulties  "  these  small  active  peo- 
ple. Enterprise,  activity,  unfailing 
spirit,  are  among  them.  They  never 
know  when  they  are  beaten,  like  our 
obstinate  old  troops  in  the  Peninsula, 
but  persevere  in  their  dogged  way 
till  they  have  overcome,  or  else  wisely 
bend  before  the  storm,  and  vanquish 
it  by  yielding.  As  you  gaze,  you  can- 
not help  investing  with  human  qua- 
lities and  passions  these  far-off  crea- 
tures, a  long  way  down  the  scale  of 
existence,  yet  not  a  whit  less  wonder- 
fully made  than  we — nay  more  perfect 
in  their  limited  range,  more  fully 
equipped  and  provided  for  all  the 
chances  of  their  life,  and  far  more 
completely  acquainted  with  the  little 
world  in  which  they  have  their  being. 
Strange  it  is  when  one  considers  it — 
how  doubtful  our  reasonings  are,  and 
after  what  a  confused  and  blundering 
fashion,  and  ages  of  experiment,  we 
reach  to  our  conclusions — conclusions 
to  which  instinct  comes  unerringly, 
without  a  moment's  pause  or  thought. 
What  poor  mistakes  we  would  be,  with 
all  our  pride  and  mightiness,  in  God's 
wonderful  creation,  if  we  did  not  re- 
cognise that  grand  and  marvellous 
incompleteness  which  takes  us  out  of 
the  grasp  of  our  present  sphere  and  cir- 
cumstance, to  be  perfected  by  nothing 
less  than  God  and  heaven. 

Such  as  we  have  tried  to  describe — 
only  containing  a  hundred  marvels 
more  than  can  be  noted  at  a  glance, 
or  studied  in  a  year — is  the  Aquarium, 
the  most  wonderful  little  microcosm 
ever  presented  to  the  bigger  world — 
and  which  her  Majesty's  lieges  may 
not  only  examine  in  the  Regent  Park 


222 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


Gardens,  at  their  leisure,  but  form 
for  themselves  in  their  own  parlours, 
halls,  or  conservatories,  for  very  small 
cost — sea-water  being  procurable  not 
only  from  the  briny  depths  of  ocean, 
but  from  a  certain  chemist  in  Holborn, 
to  whom  Neptune,  through  Mr'Gosse, 
has  communicated  the  secret  of  pre- 
paring it.  Speak  of  your  jardiniere, 
your  clusters  of  forced  exotics,  which 
are  scarcely  at  all  out  of  place  in  the 
perfumed  and  luxurious  air  of  draw- 
ing-room or  boudoir  —  these  living 
flowers  are  living  at  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  although  you,  most  worshipful 
naturalist,  at  present  examining  the 
same,  are  standing  in  patent  leather 
boots  upon  a  Turkey  carpet,  instead 
of  having  wet  sand  and  delusive  fuel 
under  your  feet,  and  a  spring-tide 
flowing  in  upon  your  uncertain  stand- 
ing-ground. Among  those  plants,  and 
buds,  and  blossoms  far  inland,  where 
the  horizon  is  broken  only  by  rural 
trees  and  church  steeples,  or  by 
roofs  of  houses,  spires,  and  chimneys, 
the  outline  of  the  town — where  there 
is  no  breath  of  ocean  in  the  breeze, 
and  not  a  single  gleam  within  sight, 
far  or  near,  of  the  dazzling  wavy  sur- 
face, the  broad  mirror  of  the  heavens 
— it  is,  notwithstanding,  a  true  sea  in- 
to which  the  curious  gazer  looks — a 
morsel  of  genuine  life — of  nature  that 
cannot  be  sophisticated — a  corner  of 
that  wonderful  world,  where  the  old 
Tritons  play  and  mermaids  sing  — 
where  Fancy  once  had  undisturbed 
possession  —  where  hoary  Neptune 
knew  no  prying  intruder  in  those  cool 
green  halls  of  his,  where  the  sea- 
nymphs  lighted  him  with  silvery 
lamps,  and  the  Nereids  played  about 
his  pearly  car.  These  are  the  very 
blossoms  of  his  flower-garden,  far  un- 
der the  shining  wave — the  very  gems 
of  his  marble  columns — the  rubies  and 
the  sapphires  of  his  crown ;  and  Nep- 
tune himself  is  probably  not  so  well 
acquainted  with  them  by  this  time  as 
is  Mr  Gosse,  who  has  not  been  wearing 
them  about  his  wrists  and  ankles  these 
few  thousand  years,  and  consequently 
has  not  yet  come  to  regard  them  with 
that  familiarity  which  breeds  con- 
tempt. 

The  principle  of  the  Aquarium,  how- 
ever, discloses  to  us  other  truths  of 
nature,  and  other  discoveries  of  science, 
than  merely  the  habits  and  history  of 


those  strange  and  beautiful  creatures, 
and  this  world  under  the  water.  We 
have  always  had  a  great  dislike  to 
the  custom,  so  common  among  our 
poorer  neighbours,  of  blocking  up  their 
own  small  window,  in  their  full  room, 
with  dusty  geraniums  and  sickly 
fuchsias,  things  which  in  our  igno- 
rance we  denounced,  as  shutting  out 
no  small  amount  of  air  and  light  from 
the  apartment,  which  had  need  of 
all  it  could  get  from  the  breeze  and 
the  sky.  In  our  ignorance  we  said  it ; 
and  there  in  brightest  confutation 
stands  the  mimic  sea.  God's  benefi- 
cent self-compensating  laws  have  so 
ordered  it,  says  the  voice  of  Science, 
that  as  His  living  creatures  exhaust 
the  atmosphere  He  has  made  for  them, 
the  trees  of  His  planting,  the  flowers 
of  His  painting,  the  humblest  mem- 
bers of  the  vegetable  kingdom  are 
daily,  hourly,  noiselessly,  renewing 
it,  breathing  from  every  leaf,  and 
twig,  and  blossom,  fresh  life  into  the 
fainting  air.  Your  shabby  poplars  in 
your  suburban  garden,  your  tiny 
laburnums,  your  quick-growing  aspen, 
your  elder  and  hawthorn,  in  your  little 
squares,  they  are  all  silent,  unobtrud- 
ing  benefactors,  doing  their  almsdeeds 
with  never  a  thought  of  gratitude; 
and  all  those  odours  of  the  flowers, 
which  poets  sometimes  show  to  us  as 
incense  rising  up  to  heaven,  are  of 
the  nature  of  that  truest  incense  which 
disperses  itself  in  blessing  and  tender- 
ness to  earth  and  man.  It  is  one  of 
those  wonderful  and  exquisite  balanc- 
ings in  which  the  economy  of  God 
abounds.  The  vine  and  the  fig-tree, 
under  which  the  peaceful  man  reposes, 
the  humbler  elm  and  ash  that  shelter 
ourselves,  are  busied  in  their  invisible 
vocation,  replenishing  the  atmosphere 
which  we  exhaust, — while,  perhaps,  a 
vague  admiration  of  their  foliage,  and 
the  light  and  shadow  playing  among 
their  leaves,  is  all  the  thought  of  them 
that  comes  into  our  minds  as  we  lie 
under  the  grateful  shade,  and  are  re- 
vived unwittingly  by  the  breathing 
of  the  leaves.  It  is  this  principle  of 
life  which  makes  such  a  beautiful  toy 
as  an  Aquarium  a  possibility.  Their 
sea  and  their  air  would  be  exhausted 
in  a  day  or  two,  if  these  beautiful 
creatures  of  the  waters  were  placed 
alone  in  their  placid  ocean ;  but 
when  you  introduce  there,  first  of  all, 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


223 


the  plants  familiar  to  these  waters — 
the  delicate  and  wonderful  leaflets, 
finer  than  the  finest  web  that  ever 
silkworm  spun,  the  graceful  branch- 
ing stems  and  mimic  forests,  in  which 
every  eye  must  see  beauty,  but  few 
could  see  use,  you  secure  perpetual 
freshness,  perpetual  life,  and  health, 
and  animation  to  your  miniature  sea. 
The  animate  creature  and  the  plant, 
which  it  seems  a  cruel  injustice  to 
call  inanimate,  so  beautiful  are  its 
delicate  leaves  as  it  sways  upon  the 
water,  are  mutually  communicating 
strength  and  existence  to  each  other, — 
and  life  goes  on  in  this  calm  ocean 
here,  as  it  does  in  the  great  tempestuous 
ocean  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  miles 
away,  and  in  the  wilder  sea  of  civil- 
ised and  human  habitation,  by  a 
subtle  and  scarcely  recognised  inter- 
communication of  the  great  principles 
of  existence.  Science  has  never  taught 
us  anything  stranger  or  more  beautiful 
than  this  universal  power  of  nature, 
nor  anything  which  more  emphatically 
proclaims  to  us  the  exquisite  harmony 
of  God's  ways  and  works ;  and  a  great 
discovery  of  natural  laws  had  never 
a  more  beautiful  or  fitting  develop- 
ment than  this  has  in  its  translated 
sea. 

To  return  to  Mr  Gosse.  He  takes  to 
himself  no  merit  as  the  inventor  of 
the  Aquarium ;  indeed,  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  the  first  person 
to  whom  the  idea  occurred,  nor  even 
the  first  to  put  it  in  practice  ;  never- 
theless it  is,  and  will  be,  Gosse's 
Aquarium,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  this  gentleman  has  brought  the 
suggestion  to  perfection,  by  whomso- 
ever it  was  first  given.  His  book  de- 
tails, first  of  all,  his  own  experience 
in  collecting  and  preserving  the  in- 
mates of  his  salt-water  museum — the 
se&-weed,  as  we  call  it — the  wonderful 
zoophytes,  Crustacea,  and  molluscs  of 
the  collection.  The  weeds  most  suit- 
able he  describes  as  those  wonderful, 
wrinkled,  puckered  leaves  of  delicate 
green  tissue,  with  which  we  are  all  ac- 
quainted, which  fisher-folk  call  sea-let- 
tuce, and  which  Mr  Gosse  calls ulva;  and 
some  others  rarer,  and  still  more  beau- 
tiful, of  brilliant  tints  and  fairy  tex- 
ture. But  we  will  let  our  author  de- 
scribe them  himself,— the  scene  being 
a  rocky  beach,  far  under  high-water 
mark,  where  the  tide  has  ebbed  to  its 


lowest  point,  "  laying  bare  large  tracts 
of  surface  that  are  ordinarily  covered 
by  the  sea,"  and  where  Mr  Gosse  has 
pursued  the  tide,  and,  armed  with 
sundry  jars  and  hammers,  pursues  his 
avocation  close  upon  its  margin,  on 
the  ledges  of  black  rock  that  project 
into  the  sea.  He  says — 

"  An  unpractised  foot  would  find  the 
walking  precarious  and  dangerous,  for  the 
rocks  are  rough  and  sharp,  and  the  dense 
matting  of  black  bladder  -  weed  with 
which  they  are  covered,  conceals  many 
abrupt  and  deep  clefts  beneath  its  slimy 
drapery.  These  fissures,  however,  are 
valuable  to  us.  We  lift  up  the  hanging 
mass  of  olive  weed  (Fucus}  from  the  edge, 
and  find  the  sides  of  the  clefts  often 
fringed  with  the  most  delicate  and  lovely 
forms  of  sea-weed  ;  such,  for  example,  as 
the  winged  Delesseria  (Z).  alata)  which 
grows  in  thin  much -cut  leaves  of  the 
richest  crimson  hue,  and  the  feathery 
Ptilota  (P.  plumosa)  of  a  duller  red. 
Beneath  the  shadow  of  the  coarser  weeds 
delights  also  to  grow  the  Ckondrus,  in  the 
form  of  little  leafy  bushes,  each  leaf 
widening  to  a  flattened  tip.  When 
viewed  growing  in  its  native  element, 
this  plant  is  particularly  beautiful  ; 
for  its  numerous  leaves  glow  with  reful- 
gent reflections  of  azure,  resembling  the 
colour  of  tempered  steel.  .  .  .  Turn- 
ing from  the  hidden  clefts,  we  explore  the 
deep  pools  that  lie  between  the  ledges. 
High  wading-boots  are  necessary  for 
this  purpose,  as  we  have  to  work  in  the 
water.  The  great  oar- weeds  and  tangles 
(Laminaria)  are  growing  here,  large  olive 
weeds  that  wave  to  and  fro  with  the  un- 
dulations of  the  sea.  .  .  .  Among 
these  grow  clusters  of  an  elegantly  frilled 
species,  of  delicate  thintexture,and  yellow 
brown  hue,  bearing  no  slight  resemblance 
to  the  tresses  of  some  fair  lady  ;  this  also 
is  a  Laminaria.  ...  In  these  pools 
grow  also  those  bunches  of  broad  dark 
red  leaves  which  are  probably  the  most 
conspicuous  of  all  the  marine  plants  in  the 
collection.  My  readers  will  recognise 
them  when  I  say  that  they  are  generally 
about  as  large  as  one's  hand,  smooth  and 
glossy,  of  a  dark  crimson  hue,  but  apt  to 
run  off  into  a  pale  greenish  tint  towards 
the  tips.  This  x  plant  is  the  Dulse,  or 
Dillis  (Rhodym'mia  palmata),  which  is 
eaten  by  the  poor  of  our  northern 
shores  as  a  luxury.  This  is  a  showy 
plant,  very  beautiful  when  its  tufts  of 
large  deep  red  fronds  are  seen  in  the  sea, 
where  the  perpetual  wash  of  the  waves 
keeps  their  surface  clean  and  glossy,  but 
not  very  suitable  for  an  aquarium." 
Higher  up  upon  the  shore  "  a  weed  is 


224 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


found  growing  in  dense  patches  on  the 
perpendicular  and  overshadowed  edges 
of  the  rock,  which,  when  examined,  looks 
like  a  multitude  of  tiny  oval  bladders  of 
red  wine,  set  end  to  end  in  chains.  This 
pretty  sea -weed  is  called  Chylocladia 
articulata.  Here  also  grows  the  stony 
coralline,  a  plant  of  a  dull  purple  hue, 
bearing  some  resemblance  to  that  just 
named  in  the  peculiar  jointed  form  of  its 
growth." 

So  our  readers  will  perceive  that 
there  is  abundant  colour  in  the  flower- 
gardens  of  Father  Neptune,  while,  for 
texture  and  delicacy,  no  production  of 
our  duller  soil  can  rival  those  fairy 
leaflets,  so  exquisite  in  their  forms  and 
hues ;  and  this  is  the  vegetation  of 
the  Aquarium,  the  oxygen- giving  and 
life-preserving  leafage  which  keeps  the 
airs  and  currents  sweet  in  the  little 
sea. 

Now  for  the  creatures.  Mr  Gosse's 
affections  are  large  and  expansive.  He 
does  not  refuse  to  the  merry  crab,  the 
industrious  little  winkle,  the  silver- 
finned  and  darting  fishie,  a  place  in 
his  heart;  but  Mr  Gosse  has  his 
weakness,  and  confesses  it.  The  Ac- 
tinia are  the  darling  children  of  our 
kind  philosopher.  Not  the  little 
prancing  prawn,  the  cavalier  of  the 
sea,  nor  the  ferocious  little  goby,  its 
Turk  and  cruel  Saracen,  can  at  all 
rival  the  love  he  bears  to  those  serene 
existences  rooted  on  the  rock,  which 
are  flowers  and  yet  creatures — wonder- 
ful links  between  the  animate  and  in- 
animate— things  that  eat  and  breathe, 
that  move  and  fight,  and  yet  are 
scarcely  to  be  called  organised  exist- 
ences. Formed  and  coloured  like  the 
loveliest  blossoms,  the  sea  anemone 
has  yet  the  powers  of  self-preserva- 
tion and  of  self-sustenance,  as  neither 
trees  nor  blossoms  have.  When 
dangers  approach,  it  shrinks  and  hides 
itself  till  the  peril  is  over,  and  night 
and  day  it  caters  for  its  healthy  and 
vigorous  appetite  ;  and,  fixed  upon  its 
morsel  of  rook,  is  as  truly  predatory 
as  any  Border  rider  that  ever  harried 
Northumberland.  The  zoophyte  is 
the  standing  marvel  of  the  Aquarium  ; 
every  movement  of  its  waving  fingers 
looks  miraculous,  and  we  gaze  with 
wonder,  which  can  find  no  words,  upon 
its  rapid  retreat  from  danger,  its  noise- 


less effusion  of  malice,  its  self-defence, 
its  instantaneous  recovery  when  the 
attack  is  over.  The  pride  of  Mr 
Gosse's  heart  are  these  wonderful 
living  flowers.  Their  beauty,  their  ha- 
bits, their  instinctive  characteristic 
action,  though  it  is  strange  to  use  such 
words  concerning  these  watery  blos- 
soms of  existence,  it  is  his  particular 
pleasure  to  dwell  upon,  and  we  do  not 
wonder  at  his  partiality  for  things 
so  wonderful  imagination  never  made. 

We  cannot  pause  to  tell  how  Mr 
Gosse  collects  the  animals  for  this 
little  world  of  his,  though  we  had  in- 
tended doing  so ;  nor  how  he  has  his 
own  board  of  health  and  incorruptible 
sanitary  officers  in  the  small  universe 
of  sea-water  ;  but  it  is  no  Eden,  this 
primitive  phase  of  existence  —  ag- 
gressors and  resistants,  tyrants  and 
victims,  are  among  the  inhabitants ; 
frightful  little  cannibals,  furious  duel- 
lists, improper  people ;  yet,  in  spite  of 
crushed  individuals  and  oppressed 
races,  law  and  order  keep  always  the 
upper  hand  in  the  little  world  as  in  the 
big — and  the  grand  economy  goes  on, 
employing  and  improving  everything. 
When  we  say  again  it  is  a  beautiful 
toy,  we  mean  no  depreciation  of  the 
higher  pretensions  of  the  Aquarium — 
all  of  us  may  learn  our  lesson  from  it, 
and  few,  we  think,  could  learn  the 
principle  clearly  demonstrated  by  its 
construction,  without  interest  or  with- 
out gratitude. 

But  to  confine  our  admiration  to  the 
Aquarium  is  to  do  injustice  to  the 
manifold  efforts  of  popular  science  for 
our  amusement  and  occupation.  Talk 
of  a  sea,  as  if  we  needed  tliat,  even  in 
miniature,  to  amaze  us  with  undis- 
covered wonders  ! — why,  a  drop  of 
water  is  space  and  verge  enough  for 
mysteries  of  nature  as  marvellous  as 
behemoth  or  leviathan  ;  and  there  is 
not  a  pool  by  the  wayside  in  which  we 
might  not  find,  among  the  floating 
water-lilies,  nations  more  numerous 
than  all  the  clamorous  tongues  and 
peoples  which  spread  our  human  fol- 
lies through  the  world.  In  a  little 
book,  pretty  and  unpretending,  which 
calls  itself  simply  Drops  of  Water*  and 
is  written  by  a  lady,  leisurely  people 
may  learn  a  mode  of  amusing  them- 
selves not  much  inferior  to  that  of  the 


Drops  of  Water.    By  AGNES  CATLOW.     London  :  J.  Reeve. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


225 


Aquarium,  and  involving  less  cost  and 
trouble.  Here  you  want  nothing  but 
a  microscope  and  a  drop  from  a  pool ; 
the  little  greenish  globule  of  stagnant 
water  demands  no  case  of  glass  to  en- 
close, no  careful  search  to  populate  its 
tiny  universe.  We  bend  our  unin- 
structed  eye  to  the  lens  with  a  smile, 
wondering,  in  the  presumption  of  our 
ignorance,  what  there  may  be  here  to 
call  for  our  notice,  when,  lo !  a  score 
of  merry  creatures  are  revealed  before 
us,  little  dancing  atoms  of  bright 
colour,  things  which  have  eyes  and 
stomachs,  and  may  doubtless  be  short- 
sighted or  bilious  as  well  as  we. 
Without  these  magic  circles  of  glass, 
we  could  never  have  discovered  the 
tiny  monads  ;  and  when  these  hapless 
creatures,  in  some  gigantic  devasta- 
tion, are  swallowed  up,  a  nation  at  a 
time,  by  a  gloomy  Tartarus,  immense 
and  desperate,  we  have  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  they  will  ever  guess  at 
the  name  of  the  abyss,  or  know  it  is 
a  human  throat  which  annihilates 
their  race.  It  is  curious  to  note,  in 
the  illustrations  of  this  book,  some 
score  of  small  extraordinary  shapes  in 
every  little  globe,  each  endowed  with 
a  learned  euphonious  name  rather 
longer  than  its  own  tiny  person.  And 
these  invisible  morsels  of  life  have 
their  habits  too — their  ways  of  work- 
ing, of  devouring,  of  multiplying— their 
raids  and  wars,  their  idiosyncrasies, 
their  characteristic  peculiarities.  The 
infinite  Creator  of  all  has  not  made 
two  of  them  entirely  alike— they  are 
as  diverse  as  we  are  in  our  powers  and 
capabilities,  and  they  are  very  much 
more  diverse  than  we  in  shapes  and 
forms  of  beauty.  To  this  curious 
world  one  can  penetrate  with  very 
little  exertion.  A  goblet  of  stagnant 
water  will  give  forth  a  universe  to 
every  possessor  of  a  microscope;  a 
leaf  from  his  garden  will  disclose  a 
kingdom  ;  and,  indeed,  there  seems 
scarcely  any  limit  to  the  wonders 
which  we  may  discover  in  every  inch 
of  this  material  globe,  if  we  will  but 
take  the  pains  to  look  at  it  aright. 

And  here  is  Botany  building  its  pal- 
aces, laying  out  its  acres,  whispering 
in  weird  consultation  with  the  occult 
sciences,  and  making  climates  for  it- 
self. We  have  the  tenderest  affection 
for  flowers  of  every  class  and  name, 
and  the  superb  results  of  scientific 


gardening  can  have  no  more  admiring 
spectator  than  we,  who,  however,  can 
boast  more  personal  acquaintance  with 
the  speedwells  and  the  primroses, 
the  wild-brier  and  hawthorn  in  the 
hedges,  than  with  anything  of  loftier 
birth  or  longer  name.  But  of  all  the 
popular  sciences,  we  are  tantalised 
and  provoked  more  perpetually  by 
this  science  of  botany  than  by  all  its 
brethren  put  together.  Sir  Joseph 
Paxton  may  build  a  Crystal  Palace, 
but  he  cannot  invent  such  names  as 
rose  or  violet;  and  what  mortal  man, 
we  crave  to  know,  could  take  an 
Escholtzia  Californica  into  his  heart  ? 
Do  you  know  the  Oxalis  acetosella, 
most  courteous  reader?  What  do 
you  think  it  is?  The  wood  sorrel, 
the  fairy  blossom,  the  flower  of  the 
poets  !  After  this,  we  humbly  opine 
any  enormity  is  possible.  We  have 
a  standing  quarrel  with  a  dear  friend 
of  our  own,  who,  to  our  intense  irrita- 
tion, insists  upon  informing  us,  when 
we  look  up  to  the  graceful  shade  of 
the  acacia  over  our  heads,  that  the 
correct  and  proper  name  is  Robinta, 
and  that  we  are  entirely  mistaken  in 
our  nomenclature.  KRobinia!  doubt- 
less called  after  some  respectable  Mr 
Robins,  who  supposed  himself  the 
finder  of  it.  Of  course,  our  only  plan 
is  to  retire  in  dudgeon  from  the  de- 
graded tree,  and  breathe  a  secret  ana- 
thema against  the  offending  science. 
No.  A  Victoria  Regia  may  be  a  beau- 
tiful stranger,  but  never  can  be  the 
flower  of  our  hearts  like  a  water- 
lily  ;  and  our  botanists  have  a  won- 
derful deal  to  learn  in  the  science  of 
names  —  a  sadly  neglected  cognate 
branch  of  their  especial  lore.  Some- 
thing might  be  done,  perhaps,  if  Par- 
liament, at  its  leisure,  would  consider 
the  wisdom  of  making  it  penal  for  any 
botanist  to  learn  the  Latin  tongue ; 
but  our  governors  have  so  many  pri- 
vate squabbles  to  get  through,  in  the 
first  place,  that  we  fear  public  ques- 
tions of  importance  like  this  must 
bide  their  time. 

While  we  are  thus  reminded  of  the 
Crystal  Palace  and  its  crowds  of 
beautiful  floral  inhabitants,  we  can- 
not help  glancing  aside  to  intimate 
our  dread  that  Professor  Owen's  "  re- 
storations," however  true  they  may 
be,  are  rather  a  damp  upon  the  fer- 
vour of  geological  visions.  When  we 


226 

read  one  of  Mr  Hugh  Miller's  retro- 
spective glances — one  of  those  pano- 
ramic views  of  his — of  the  old,  old 
world,  before  human  creatures  were, 
and  of  the  grand  animals  who  were 
monarchs  there,  among  the  tropical 
plants,  and  under  the  glorious  sun- 
shine of  the  first  primeval  earth,  we 
are  fascinated  with  the  gleam  of  the 
strange  bright  picture.  The  fervent 
style  and  glowing  language  of  the 
dreamer  touch  our  imagination  into 
a  kindred  enthusiasm.  All  dazzling 
with  sunbright  seas,  with  banks  of 
reedy,  palmy  verdure,  with  gorgeous 
unknown  flowers,  is  this  magnificent 
original  world ;  and  its  inhabitants 
are  only  vast  vague  ideas  of  power, 
and  size,  and  wonderful  instinct  to 
our  unscientific  soul.  But,  heaven 
help  us,  what  are  these  ?  —  these 
frightful  scaly  monsters — these  giant 
reptiles — these  gaping  jaws,  and  eyes 
in  which  no  speculation  dwells  ?  Are 
these  the  heroes  of  your  earliest  ro- 
mances? Are  these  the  primitive 
possessors  of  the  virgin  universe  ?  It 
may  be  so ;  and  they  may  be  brave 
monsters — wonderful  developments  of 
Titanic  bone  and  sinew ;  but  it  is 
rather  hard  upon  an  author  to  take 
the  poetry  out  of  him  after  this  re- 
morseless fashion.  When  we  read 
Mr  Hugh  Miller's  vision  now,  some 
wicked  imp  presents  another  vision 
to  us,  of  the  grave  and  sober  individual 
whom  we  see  from  the  railway  as  we 
approach  Sydenham,  ponderously  em- 
bracing the  trunk  of  a  hapless  little 
"genteel"  modern  home-born  birch- 
tree,  which  the  vast  brute  could  eat 
up  at  a  mouthful.  Tropical  flowers 
and  verdure,  and  the  glorious  bright- 
ness of  the  new  sea,  seem  to  have 
very  little  in  common  with  the  heroes 
presented  to  us  in  the  grounds  of  the 
Crystal  Palace.  Pure  mud,  and  no- 
thing brighter,  speaks  those  scaly 
leathery  hippopotami.  We  suppose 
Professor  Owen  is  infallible,  and  that 
the  creatures  are,  as  creatures  were,  in 
that  first  rescue  from  chaos  and  the 
unknown.  But  now  that  we  have 
seen,  we  humbly  submit  that  it  were 
safest  to  make  no  more  romances 
about  them.  Let  science  have  her 
will  of  her  own  gigantic  offspring; 
but  poetry,  we  are  afraid,  cannot  look 
a  second  time  into  these  fishy  eyes. 
Inexorable  fact  and  Professor  Owen 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


have  made  an  end  of  all  our  pretty 
pictures ;  and  we  beg  of  every  young 
geologist,  who  has  a  lover's  enthusiasm 
for  his  science,  to  close  his  eyes  very 
hard  as  he  comes  towards  the  fairy 
palace,  and  never,  for  any  induce- 
ment,, to  be  tempted  to  stray  far  into 
the  grounds. 

It  was  fashionable,  when  we  began 
to  be  popularly  scientific,  to  say  that 
Science  was  inconsistent  with  Poetry ; 
and  it  has  been  fashionable,  in  later 
times,  to  congratulate  Poetry  upon 
the  widened  field  opened  up  to  her  by 
the  researches  of  Science.  Neither 
proposition  seems  to  us  worth  very 
much.  Poetry,  of  all  things  in  the 
world,  must  be  least  influenced  by 
steam-engines  and  electric  telegraphs. 
The  external  world  is  but  scenery  for 
your  true  poet,  though  it  is  true  of 
him,  notwithstanding,  that  one  of  his 
highest  faculties  is  the  power  he  has 
of  throwing  heart  and  personality  into 
the  vast  abstract  of  Nature,  and  mak- 
ing the  great  mother  weep  with  us, 
and  smile  with  us,  in  all  the  change- 
ful moods  of  our  humanity.  But  po- 
etry is  human.  In  the  vast  bright 
blank  of  an  uninhabited  world,  she 
has  nothing  to  do;  one  glance  at  its 
flowers  and  its  sunshine — one  sigh 
over  its  solitude — is  all  the  sympathe- 
tic angel  can  waste  upon  the  scene. 
Not  even  heaven  itself  is  patent  ground 
to  this  delicate  spirit.  Everlasting 
summers,  and  bowers  of  blessedness, 
are  pretty  things  to  play  with  in 
rhyme ;  but  the  true  and  only  sphere 
of  poetry  is  human  life,  with  its  woes, 
its  changes,  and  its  triumphs.  Let  us 
not  be  afraid  of  progress  ;  neither  let 
us  entertain  any  expectation  that  our 
next  Shakespeare  will  be  much  supe- 
rior to  him  of  Stratford  and  the  Globe 
Theatre,  who  was  sadly  ignorant  of 
electricity.  The  rhymster  who  makes 
verses  is  neither  worse  off  nor  better 
off  than  he  used  to  be  ;  and  the  poet 
who  makes  men  can  neither  be  ele- 
vated on  scientific  stilts,  nor  straiten- 
ed by  universal  discoveries.  The  heart 
and  the  soul,  love,  grief,  and  peril, 
are  primitive  and  permanent,  and 
from  the  gates  of  Eden  to  the  eve  of 
judgment,  we  are  one  race,  and  one 
wide  bond  of  sympathy  unites  us, 
with  which  the  world  without  has 
small  concern.  Our  argument  is  not 
touched  by  Mr  Gosse's  quotations 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


227 


from  the  weird  story  of  Kehama ;  for, 
good  man  as  he  was,  and  gentle  spirit, 
Southey  had  not  much  pretension  to 
the  highest  class  among  poets ;  and 
his  "  coral  bowers,  and  grots  of  ma- 
drepores ;"  his  "  arborets  of  jointed 
stone,  and  plants  of  fibres  fine  as  silk- 
worm's hair,"  prove  more  completely 
than  any  words  of  ours  could  do,  what 
mere  adjuncts  and  bits  of  drapery  these 
are,  and  how  little  poetry  is  likely 
to  be  influenced  by  the  flying  progress 
of  the  external  world,  or  the  new 
lights  of  scientific  development.  Her 
science  is  at  once  the  oldest  and  the 
least  superannuated  of  all  the  sciences 
of  earth ;  and  it  is  wonderful  to  note 
how  little  real  difference  there  is  in 
the  man,  the  grand  centre  of  all  im- 
provements and  discoveries,  from  the 
time  he  first  set  about  acquainting 
himself  with  the  niggard  earth,  which 
differed  so  sorely  from  the  fruitful 
slopes  of  Eden,  until  now,  when  that 
soil  of  thorns  and  thistles  is  his  na- 
tural and  lawful  subject,  and  he  has 
exhausted  his  ingenuity  in  laying  bare 
its  secrets.  We  look  back  upon  the 
philosophers  of  all  the  intervening 
ages,  arid  have  many  a  smile  to  spend 
upon  their  erring  guesses  at  the  truths 
of  nature ;  but  we  smile  our  smile  of 
superior  information  no  longer  when 
they  come  to  discuss  the  heart  of  man ; 
that  was  patent  to  them  as  to  us ;  and 
we  and  they  had  alike  as  much  to  ex- 
perience, as  much  to  learn,  as  many 
depths  to  fathom,  and  difficulties  to 
fight  through.  We  are  not  all  capable 
of  appreciating  an  accurate  and  bril- 
liant description  of  the  "  grots  of  ma- 
drepores ;"  but  we  all  have  some  na- 
tural insight  into  the  more  universal 
science  of  the  poet,  and  know,  by  an 
intuitive  perception,  when  he  reveals 
to  us  a  real  heart. 

The  science  of  poetry,  however,  is 
not  exactly  one  of  the  popular  sciences. 
We  give  no  rank  to  the  diviner  faculty 
in  comparison  with  that  which  we 
bestow  upon  its  plodding  brethren. 
Your  man  who  discovers  zoophytes  is 
a  man  of  science ;  your  poor  trifler, 
who  only  meddles  with  the  passions, 
the  affections,  and  such  other  human 
rubbish,  is  greatly  honoured  if  his 
craft  is  admitted  to  the  name  of  art. 


All  the  dignity  of  research  goes  to  the 
"  Natural  Philosopher ;"  he  makes 
sacrifices  for  his  truths ;  whereas  the 
poet  does  it  all  for  pleasure,  and  we 
are  privileged  to  despise  him  accord- 
ingly. 

However,  we  have  strayed  a  long 
way  from  our  proper  subject,  in  con- 
sidering the  dangers  and  immuni- 
ties of  this  lighter  individual ;  and  as 
there  are  other  branches  of  popular 
science  abounding  in  light  literature, 
besides  the  wonders  of  the  microscope 
or  of  the  sea,  we  betake  ourselves  once 
more  to  those  ranges  of  pretty  books, 
which  look  as  if  they  were  made  for 
drawing-room  tables  and  the  pretty 
hands  of  young  ladies.  Here  are  a 
whole  series,  with  a  pleasant,  chirrup- 
ing, merry  name  upon  them.  What  has 
Acheta*  to  tell  the  young  people  who 
will  rejoice  over  those  pretty  volumes 
of  hers— prizes,  or  presents,  or  gifts  of 
love  ?  Acheta  has  a  great  deal  to  tell ; 
and  the  science  of  this  kindly  com- 
panion is  of  a  very  human  sort  of 
science,  more  delightful  to  boys  and 
girls,  and  at  the  same  time  more 
natural  to  them,  than  the  teachings  of 
her  graver  brethren.  Open  air  and 
sunshine,  birds,  flowers,  and  insects, 
— those  sweet  bits  of  nature  which 
rural  people  unconsciously  gain  some 
certain  knowledge  of  almost  whether 
they  will  or  no — a  knowledge  which 
gives  them  a  constant  superiority  over 
townsfolk,  though  it  might  possibly 
happen  that  the  unfamiliar  citizen 
surpassed  the  peasant  in  admiration 
for  the  beauty  which  was  known  to 
him  only  by  books, — these  are  the  sub- 
jects of  Acheta.  That  pleasant  lore 
which  names  every  tree  in  leafy  by- 
ways, distinguishes  every  flutter  and 
twitter  among  the  branches,  tells  you 
what  these  specks  are  winging  across 
the  sky — mere  moving  motes  in  the 
sunshine  —  and  what  the  dancing 
crowds  of  inquisitive  midges  that 
throng  about  the  passenger — could 
scarcely  be  called  science  if  that  were 
all,  for  one  only  needs  to  be  country- 
born,  to  breathe  in  such  "delightful 
learning  with  one's  earliest  breath. 
But  our  graceful  author  goes  a  great 
deal  farther.  We  can  all  manage  to 
appreciate  to  some  extent  the  pretty 


*  Episodes  of  Insect  Life, 
ACHETA. 


March  Winds  and  April  Shoicers — May  Flowers.    By 


228 

things  about  us;  the  most  worldly 
soul  in  the  world  does  not  grudge  to 
admire  the  flower  by  the  way,  or  the 
butterfly  fluttering  across  the  blos- 
soms. But  Nature,  which  is  always 
wonderful,  has  other  developments 
than  butterflies  and  flowers,  and  cer- 
tainly our  gratitude  ought  to  be  more 
full  towards  those  observers  who  find 
out  beauty  for  us,  where  we  had  only 
seen  decay  and  blight,  than  to  those 
who  but  discover  the  superficial  flush 
which  every  man  discovers  for  him- 
self. We  confess  that  when  we  find 
upon  the  scanty  dusty  rose-bush  in 
our  town-garden  the  marks  of  "in- 
sect appropriation," — when  we  find 
"  a  group  of  leaflets  spun  together,"  or 
u  a  single  leaf  rolled  lengthwise,  edge 
to  edge,"  we  have  no  admiration 
whatever,  at  the  first  glance,  for  the 
wonderful  ingenuity  of  the  little  opera- 
tors. Instead  of  consoling  ourselves 
for  our  lost  hopes — our  forlorn  expec- 
tation of  triumph — our  one  poor  rose 
grown  "  in  our  own  garden, "  by 
study  of  the  little  monsters  who  have 
eaten  the  life  out  of  our  tiny  tree,  we 
are  a  great  deal  more  disposed  to  tear 
off  the  devastated  leaves  with  wrath 
and  disgust,  and  pronounce  the  clever 
aphides  the  pests  and  ringleaders  of 
sedition  in  the  little  commonwealth. 
Well,  they  are  not  agreeable  at  the 
first  look — but  there  is  a  soul  of  good- 
ness in  things  evil ;  your  rose  would 
have  been  smoky  and  short-lived — a 
languishing,  pale  exotic  among  all 
those  overshadowing  walls  and  chim- 
neys. These  merry  little  wretches  are 
everywhere  at  home.  Look  at  them  ; 
they  are  God's  making  as  much  as 
you  are ;  they  are  neither  disgusting 
nor  uncomely.  Far  better  shields 
and  houses  than  your  ingenuity  can 
devise  are  given  them  of  their  Maker ; 
and  when  Acheta  places  one  of  her 
appropriated  leaves  in  your  hand,  and 
shows  you  the  little  nest  of  life — the 
small  creatures  all  busy  about  their 
common  business,  unconscious  of  you, 
your  hopes  and  your  disappointments, 
and  as  honestly  pursuing  the  chief 
end  of  their  existence  as  you  yourself 
do — it  may  chance  to  steal  upon  your 
mind  that  this  very  self  in  its  day  has 
unwittingly  blighted  somebody's  roses, 
and  you  will  no  longer  regard  with 
mere  wrath  and  indignation  those, 
feeders  on  the  leaves.  Here  is  a 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


"miner,"  who  has  ensconced  himself 
within  the  slender  branching  tissue  of 
one  of  your  leaflets— actually  within 
it  —  with  a  green  silk  coverlet  on 
either  side  of  him,  and  the  sunshine,  no 
doubt,  coming  in  deliciously  through 
those  cool  shades,  where,  happy  fel- 
low, he  lies  and  munches,  the  most 
exquisite  of  epicures,  a  tenth  of  an 
inch  in  circumference  round  and  round ! 
Or  perhaps  he  is  a  tent-maker,  and 
rolls  the  leaf  into  a  secure  well- 
enclosed  dwelling-place,  puckering 
the  edges  closely  together,  and  join- 
ing them  as  he  knows  how ;  and 
there  he  dwells,  and  grows,  and 
dines,  till  either  death  or  that  beauti- 
ful mockery  of  resurrection,  which 
changes  the  worm  into  the  painted 
moth  or  butterfly,  delivers  the  little 
inmate  from  his  temporary  house. 
The  leaf  certainly  is  none  the  better 
for  him — neither  is  the  tree  ;  yet  one 
learns  to  be  less  intolerant  of  these 
small  poachers  on  one's  own  demesne, 
when  one  sees  how  the  universal  pro- 
vidence takes  care  for  them,  and  how 
wonderfully  fitted  for  all  the  small 
requirements  of  their  lives  these  little 
creatures  are. 

But,  alas !  amid  all  its  beauties,  there 
is  not  a  morsel  of  Eden  left  in  the 
wide  range  of  nature.  They  all  prey 
upon  their  brethren,  these  denizens 
of  air  and  water,  these  tiny  inhabitants 
of  this  terrestrial  world.  The  micro- 
scopic creatures  have  some  invisible 
race  of  victims,  too  small  for  the  powers 
of  the  microscope,  and  they  are  food 
for  larger  monsters  in  their  turn,  till 
our  turn  comes,  the  biggest  monster 
of  all — man,  who,  if  he  does  not  cater 
more  carefully  for  his  beloved  appetite, 
does  it  after  a  much  more  cumbrous 
fashion.  It  is  not,  however,  the 
highest  view  of  created  things  to 
trace  them  all  to  their  natural  con- 
clusion, in  one  great  abstract  stomach 
of  humanity ;  but  it  is  very  well,  and 
seemly,  to  see  how  all  our  naturalists 
of  these  days  unite  in  giving  God 
thanks  for  the  plenitude  and  magnifi- 
cence of  all  His  works, — how  it  is 
His  overflowing  superabundance — the 
wonderful  wealth  which  He  dispenses 
in  every  corner  of  His  vast  dominions 
— that  is  the  burden  of  almost  every 
voice.  While  this  spirit  continues, 
there  can  be  no  pursuit  more  suitable 
to  human  minds  than  that  of  natural 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


229 


history ;  and  to  see  the  pains  which 
God  has  taken  with  the  minutest 
morsels  of  life,  is  enough,  if  we  con- 
sider it,  to  make  us  a  great  deal  more 
wary  of  our  own  performances,  and 
careful  of  putting  nothing  bad  or  un- 
lovely out  of  our  hands.  Like  those 
honest  old  craftsmen  of  the  elder  times, 
who  elaborated  even  unseen  corners, 
and  giddy,  unbeholdable  pinnacles, 
we  had  need  to  do  everything  well 
and  honestly — this  whole  money-  mak- 
ing, hasty  race  of  ours — if  we  would 
imitate  in  the  faintest  fashion  the 
works  of  God. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  Natural 
History  very  often  is  something  of  a 
bore.  One  cannot  take  up  a  cheap 
publication — a  magazine  or  journal 
for  "the  people,"  but  there  is  a  coarse 
woodcut  of  some  uncouth  brute  or 
other,  and  a  biography  of  the  same  ; 
and  our  learned  brethren  are  but  too 
apt  to  suppose  that  we,  who  are 
not  very  much  enamoured  of  beasts 
either  in  real  life  or  in  fossils,  are  very 
poor  ignoramuses  indeed,  and  scarce- 
ly worth  being  cultivated.  We  object 
to  this — we  decidedly  object,  when 
we  buy  a  picture  paper  at  the  rail- 
way station,  to  have  a  walrus  or  a 
crocodile  inevitably  thrust  upon  us. 
Science  is  good,  but  science  has  its 
drawbacks.  That  dreadful  society  for 
the  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge, 
which  once  filled  every  cheap  publica- 
tion with  elaborate  descriptions  of 
every  manufacturing  process,  has 
happily  intermitted  its  well-intention- 
ed labours ;  and  of  the  two,  perhaps, 
we  will  conclude  to  prefer  the  in- 
genuity of  insects  to  the  ingenuity  of 
cotton-factories.  But  life  has  things 
more  beautiful  than  either,  and  quite 
as  important.  We  do  not  want  to 
know  how  everything  is  made,  and  we 
do  not  care  for  a  very  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  the  great  ant-eater 
or  the  hippopotamus,  important  as 
their  pretensions  are. 

Then  there  are  books  of false  science, 
a  multitude  innumerable,  which  come 
in  for  a  very  fair  share  of  public  pa- 
tronage. There  is  one  remarkable 
volume  we  wot  of,  called  the  Marvels 
of  Science.  This  distinguished  work 
has  gone  through  eight  or  nine  edi- 
tions, and,  doubtless,  is  selling  still 


to  that  large  and  deluded  class  of 
individuals  who  are  perpetually  on 
the  look  -  out  for  "  proper  books" 
to  "  put  into  the  hands  of  youth." 
Put  the  Aquarium  into  the  hands  of 
youth,  good  friends  ;  put  the  March 
Winds  and  April  Showers  or  the 
Episodes  of  Acheta,  if  you  want 
science;  but,  for  pity's  sake,  do  not 
deluge  the  hapless  young  folk  with 
the  Marvels.  Holloway's  pills  are  a 
joke  to  the  pretensions  of  this  author, 
for  it  is  his  boast  to  dispose  of  all 
the  various  branches  of  philosophy, 
all  the  discoveries  of  modern  times,  in 
one  small  volume  of  some  three  or  four 
hundred  pages.  This  great  work,  how- 
ever, is  unfortunately  out  of  our  sphere. 
If  we  ever  should  have  occasion  to 
turn  our  affrighted  attention  towards 
the  heavy  literature  of  modern  times, 
we  will  then  be  able  to  find  time  for 
a  glance  at  Mr  Fullora's  book. 

We  do  not  doubt  or  deny  the  good 
services  which  Dr  Hassall*  has  ren- 
dered to  the  public ;  but  we  tremble 
either  to  eat  or  to  drink  after  his  book 
has  come  into  our  hands.  We  look 
askance  at  the  innocent  grocer,  the 
virtuous  and  respectable  milkman. 
The  wretches — have  they  not  been 
poisoning  us  secretly  in  their  back 
parlours — mixing  one  knows  not  what 
abominations  in  our  milk  and  in  our 
tea  ?  Yet  the  tea  and  the  milk,  where 
can  we  get  substitutes  for  them — we, 
who  can  neither  freight  Chinamen  nor 
keep  a  dairy  ? 

We  are  doing  shameful  injustice  to 
Professor  Johnston,  to  bring  him  in 
in  a  concluding  paragraph;  yet  we 
cannot  be  content  to  pass  altogether 
a  book  which  is  the  most  pleasant 
reading  in  the  world,  though  it  is 
still  as  serious  as  its  theme  demands. 
The  Chemistry  of  Common  Life  is  a 
very  different  production  from  the 
other  volumes  which  have  come  under 
our  notice ;  more  interesting,  in  so 
much  that  our  own  life  and  its  ordi- 
nary accessories  is  the  subject  matter 
— yet  more  serious,  because  it  is  not 
connected  with  any  scheme  of  amuse- 
ment, and  is  very  well  worthy  to  be 
received  as  an  authoritative  exposi- 
tion, no  less  than  as  a  most  agreeable 
disclosure  of  the  subject  it  expounds. 
But  let  nobody  fear  Professor  John- 


*  Food)  and  its  Adulterations. 


230 


Modern  Light  Literature — Science. 


[Aug. 


ston ;  he  has  not  hunted  up  all  the 
London  shopkeepers  to  discover  their 
iniquities.  What  he  does  is  to  tell 
us  a  great  many  curious  things 
which  he  knows  and  we  do  not 
know ;  facts  of  strange,  universal  in- 
terest, bearing  on  those  wonderful 
universal  habits  of  the  creature,  Man, 
which  mark  him  as  the  same  creature 
wherever  he  flourishes,  and  make  a 
vast  distinction  between  him  and  all 
his  neighbours  who  inhabit  the  same 
world.  Not  to  speak  of  the  most 
popular  papers  in  the  collection  — 
those  which  everybody  quotes,  and 
which  have  already  insensibly  become 
part  of  the  general  intelligence  and  in- 
formation of  the  age,  though  we  do  not 
recollect  hearing  anything  about  them 
before— the  papers,  we  mean,  upon 
the  Beverages  we  infuse,  and  the 
Narcotics  we  indulge  in — how  very 
curious  a  chapter  is  that  upon  odours, 
or,  as  the  author  wisely  distinguishes 
them,  Odours  and  Smells — the  plea- 
sant and  the  unpleasant.  How  con- 
stantly we  are  moved  by  this  strange, 
invisible  influence.  How  the  comfort 
of  a  house  or  a  community  gets  ship- 
wrecked by  some  unknown  pest,  and 
how  the  most  exquisite  soul  of  pleasure 
in  a  balmy  summer  night  is  the  breath 
of  flowers  in  the  air,  we  all  know,  or 
at  least  acknowledge  in  a  moment; 
but  we  never  knew  the  magician's 
caskets — the  repertoire  of  potent  spells 
— which  the  chemist  holds  in  his  hands. 
We  had  to  learn  that  it  was  possible 
to  make  every  imaginable  variety  of 
balms  or  of  horrors  —  nay,  of  the 
latter  something  unimaginable,  a  pes- 
tiferous and  deadly  breath,  which  no 
man  could  endure.  A  wonderful 
power — and  it  might  be  a  most  fright- 
ful one,  if  Providence  had  not  wisely 
ordered  that  the  finders- out  of  these 
strange  scents  should  be  the  kindest 
helpers  of  their  race — is  the  power  of 
chemical  knowledge.  The  vulgar 
poisoners  of  tragedy,  with  their  cup 
and  phial,  are  entirely  put  out  of  court 
in  the  presence  of  the  new  magician ; 
and  we  presume  Mr  Johnston  and 
his  apparatus  could  put  to  flight  an 
army  of  Cossacks  without  blow  or 
bloodshed,  and  march  triumphant 
with  a  sniff  of  alkarsin  or  kakodyle 
over  all  the  fortifications  in  the  world. 
But  sober  science  is  always  chary 
of  developing  itself,  save  for  the  goo'd 


of  man, — and  we  may  well  be  thank- 
ful that  there  are  no  Firmilians,  capable, 
as  it  would  seem,  of  penetrating  into 
the  mysteries  of  the  laboratory,  or  pa- 
tient enough  to  work  out  its  secrets 
for  our  undoing.  We  have  no  space 
to  look  at  Professor  Johnston's  book 
as  it  ought  to  be  looked  at;  but  it 
is  one  of  the  best  conjunctions  of  plea- 
sant and  valuable  reading  of  which 
our  modern  literature  has  to  boast. 

Men  of  science  must,  of  course,  re- 
main always  a  limited  class,  as  men 
of  great  knowledge,  pains  and  thought, 
must  be  in  all  pursuits ;  and  we  have 
a  great  dread  of  the  smattering — the 
top-dressing  of  imperfect  information 
which  is  the  plague  of  our  time  ;  but 
for  that  extent  of  knowledge  which, 
makes  an  audience  interested  in  the 
greater  discoveries,  which  opens  our 
eyes,  if  not  even  to  a  perception,  at 
least  to  a  consciousness,  of  some  of 
the  wonders  about  us,  and  which  im- 
presses us  with  the  wonderful  divine 
harmony  and  perfectness  of  all  cre- 
ation, we  can  scarcely  have  too  much : 
only  let  us  not  be  overwhelmed  by 
the  assumptions  of  one  branch  or  an- 
other of  our  modern  philosophers. 
Knowledge,  even  if  it  were  power, 
is  very  far  from  being  superiority ; 
and  he  who  knows  most  is  seldom 
the  one  of  our  acquaintance  most 
cherished  in  our  hearts.  Though  you 
have  eaten  of  the  charmed  weed  with 
Glaucus,  yet  glory  not  over  us,  philo- 
sopher ;  though  our  thoughts  are  not 
your  thoughts,  we  have  our  cogita- 
tions— and  many  a  simple  soul  mar- 
velled with  love  and  thankfulness 
over  the  works  of  God,  before  there 
ever  was  a  work  on  popular  science. 
We  are  learning  every  one  of  us ; 
and  certain  grand  lessons  lie  before 
us  all  to  learn,  before  we  reach  the 
ending  of  our  way.  We  are  the  most 
imperfect  creatures  in  the  universe : 
there  is  not  an  aphis  nor  a  sea  ane- 
mone that  has  not  more  reason  to  glory 
in  the  perfections  of  its  structure  and 
its  tools  than  we  have ;  therefore  let 
us  learn  our  lessons  humbly,  and  never 
take  the  trouble  to  conclude  upon  our 
neighbour's.  If  he  should  have  some- 
thing tugging  at  his  heart  while  we 
are  dislodging  sea- weed  from  the  rock 
and  despising  him,  it  is  within  human 
possibility  that  he  is  learning  a  better 
lore  than  we. 


1855.] 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


231 


THE    WAR,    THE   CABINET,    AND   THE   CONFERENCES. 


THE  war  still  languishes,  and 
Russia  hftlds  us  at  bay.  The  colossal 
tyrant  of  the  North — the  Power 
whose  encroachments  upon  European 
liberty  render  it  the  Evil  Genius  of 
the  nineteenth  century — still  makes 
head  against  us ;  and,  through  its 
hundred  spies  and  envoys,  mocks  at 
us  in  every  Court  of  Europe.  With 
the  two  strongest  fighting  Powers 
of  the  world  leagued  against  her,  the 
Colossus  keeps  them  at  arm's-length, 
— combats  them  on  nearly  equal 
terms  in  a  distant  corner  and  ex- 
tremity of  her  empire,  and  finds  her- 
self unassailable  at  every  other  point 
of  her  far- stretching  frontiers.  Po- 
land is  secure, — Finland  is  secure, — 
Georgia  is  unthreatened, — Cronstadt 
and  the  Baltic  fortresses  frown  de- 
fiance upon  the  mighty  fleets  which 
watch  them, — in  irresponsible  brutal- 
ity she  massacres  a  truce-party  at 
Hango,  and  dictatorially  assumes  to 
virtually  abrogate  the  privileges  of 
the  white  flag  on  her  Baltic  coasts. 
With  savage  energy  and  civilised 
skill  she  pushes  on  the  war.  "  Rien 
rfest  change ! "  was  the  prophetic  re- 
mark of  the  French  Emperor  when  he 
heard  of  the  death  of  Nicholas.  The 
new  Czar  has  accepted  his  father's  po- 
licy as  a  sacred  legacy.  "  To  the  last 
man  and  the  last  musket,"  is  still  the 
imperial  motto.  Like  a  god  the  Czar 
disposes  of  the  lives  and  fortunes  of 
his  seventy  millions  of  fanatical  sub- 
jects, and  is  now  hurling  them  as  from 
a  sling  against  the  front  of  Europe. 
It  is  a  crusade  of  the  East  against 
the  West,  of  the  North  against  the 
South.  The  essays  of  France  at 
universal  empire  under  Charlemagne, 
Louis  XIV.,  and  Napoleon,  were  but 
sudden  and  ephemeral  leaps,  the  re- 
sult of  the  genius  of  isolated  chiefs; — 
the  i -arch  of  Russia  is  like  the 
growtii  of  Rome,  steadily  absorbing 
one  province  after  another,  and 
threatening  to  reach  a  position  of 
power  in  which  she  will  dominate 
over  the  whole  Continent.  It  is  a 
glacier  from  the  North, — and  we  must 
either  be  crushed  before  it,  or  dis- 
locate the  mighty  mass.  It  behoves 
us  to  take  care  lest  the  former  alter- 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXVIII. 


native  overtake  us  before  we  can 
accomplish  the  latter.  Already  Russia 
is  so  powerful  that  Austria  crouches 
before  her, — half  from  fear  and  half 
from  love,  Prussia  cleaves  to  her, — 
and  the  German  Courts,  menaced  on 
the  one  side  by  the  salient  bastion  of 
Poland,  and  still  more  on  the  other 
by  the  smouldering  fires  of  demo- 
cracy, lean,  as  the  lesser  evil,  to  the 
Czar,  the  great  champion  of  "order" 
and  absolutism. 

A  crisis  has  come  in  the  history  of 
Europe,  and  what  are  we  doing  to  meet 
it?  In  this  the  seventeenth  month 
of  the  war,  and  two  years  and  a  half 
since  the  crisis  declared  itself,  what 
is  the  attitude  of  England  ?  It  is  still 
the  old  story:  the  Militia  neglected, 
and  at  only  one-third  of  its  numbers, 
— even  the  army  not  at  the  comple- 
ment ordered  by  Parliament, — hardly 
a  gunboat  in  the  Baltic,  —  no  land- 
transport  corps  to  enable  the  army 
to  take  the  field  in  the  Crimea,  in- 
stead of  knocking  its  head  against 
the  mud  walls  of  Sebastopol,  and  no 
reserves  ready  to  fill  up  its  inevitable 
losses.  Not  a  battalion  of  the  foreign 
legion  or  of  the  Turkish  contingent  is 
yet  in  the  field ;  while  our  Ottoman 
allies  are  in  danger  of  being  over- 
whelmed by  a  greatly  superior  Rus- 
sian force  at  Kars  and  Erzeroum.  It 
is  strange  that  matters  should  be  so. 
Never  was  a  war  so  popular.  The 
last  war,  although  nobly,  and  to 
the  discomfiture  of  Napoleon's  cal- 
culations, supported  by  the  nation, 
was  primarily  the  work  of  the  aristo- 
cracy; the  present  one  is  peculiarly 
the  work  of  the  people.  The  whole 
heart  of  the  nation  is  in  it.  Wiser 
than  their  chiefs,  they  felt  at  once,  as 
if  by  an  inspiration,  the  real  charac- 
ter of  the  contest.  The  future  of 
Europe  was  at  stake,  and  they  would 
not  be  held  back.  Spurning  at  de- 
gradation, and  casting  to  the  winds 
the  meshes  of  an  antiquated  policy 
and  the  devices  of  a  double-dealing 
Cabinet,  they  forced  their  way  into  the 
lists,  and  took  up  the  gauntlet  which 
the  Russian  giant  had  flung  in  the 
face  of  Europe.  And  yet,  what  has 
been  done  ?  Marching  with  a  nation 


232 


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[Aug. 


at  their  backs,  what  manful  and  de- 
cided course  have  our  Ministers  adopt- 
ed? The  facts  of  the  case  admit  of  but 
one  reply.  By  timidity  and  vacillation 
they  have  scared  away  friends  and 
disheartened  sympathisers  ;  and  by  a 
never-ceasing  cringing  and  whimper- 
ing after  peace,  they  have  inspired 
our  enemies  with  confidence  and  other 
nations  with  contempt.  At  Munich, 
Hamburg,  Dresden,  Berlin,  and  Vi- 
enna—  where  the  name  of  England 
was  once  a  spell  of  power— even  at 
Brussels,  the  pitiful  cam'taP'of  a  State 
which  we  created  and  a  Kirig  'whom 
we  pension — men  now  sneer  at  the 
proud  Islanders,  ridicule  our  efforts, 
and  magnify  our  disasters.  Any  one 
acquainted  with- Germany  knows  that 
the  public  feeling  there,  which  was  at 
first  decidedly  in  our  favour,  has  now 
veered  round  and  set  in  as  strongly 
in  favour  of  our  adversary.  A  la- 
mentable truth, — but  how  could  it  be 
otherwise  ?  With  the  eyes  of  Europe 
upon  us,  we  have  stood  like  a  timid 
bather,  one  foot  only  in  the  water ! 
After  themselves  opening  the  sluices 
of  war,  the  British  Government  have 
stood  shivering  and  shrinking  on 
the  edge  of  the  flood,  as  higher  and 
higher  rose  the  red  tide,  until  it  now 
threatens  to  submerge  us  if  we  stand 
another  moment  hesitating.  In  truth, 
it  is  "now  or  never."  Bold  efforts 
are  needed,  or  the  cause  is  lost ;  and 
Kussian  influence,  "already  half-en- 
throned in  Germany,  will  spread  su- 
preme to  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic. 
This  warning  is  needed  in  these  slum- 
brous times.  We  trust  it  will  not 
become  a  prophecy,  but,  if  neglected, 
it  will  be  found  a  true  one. 

With  these  interests  at  stake  and 
those  prospects  before  us,  it  will  seem 
a  madness  incredible  to  future  histo-' 
rians  that  the  Ministers  of  Great  Bri- 
tain should  have  so  long  slumbered  at 
their  post,  and,  instead  of  availing 
themselves  of  the  warlike  temper  ot 
the  nation,  have  sought  only  to  daunt 
and  repress  it.  While  the  despotic 
Czar  was  proclaiming  to  his  subjects 
his  ambitious  aims  in  the  contest, 
vaunting  the  success  of  the  ancestral 
policy  of  his  line,  pledging  himself  to 
recede  not  a  hair's-breadth  in  his  de- 
mands, and  invoking  alike  Heaven 
and  his  people  to  aid  him  in  the  war, 
— the  free  Government  of  England  ig- 


nored the  nation,  refused  all  volunteer 
offers,  and  instead  of  being  the  guid- 
ing-star of  the  country,  have  kept  us 
groping  helplessly  in  a  cloud  of  dark- 
ness produced  by  official  lies  and  an 
imbecile  diplomacy.  Rather  than 
face  the  inevitable  war  without,  they 
sought  to  extinguish  the  war-spirit 
at  home.  Instead  of  rallying  to 
themselves,  as  a  Chatham  or  a  Can- 
ning would,  have  done,  the  manly 
spirit  of  the  British  nation,— instead 
of  making  it  a  confidant  of  their 
views,  ajid  engaging  it  heart  and  soul 
in  the  contest,  our  Ministers  have 
done  everything  to  shut  out  the  people 
from  the  question,  and,  with  fatal  self- 
sufficiency,  have  attempted  to  master 
thecrisis  themselves.  They  have  failed, 
—  failed  utterly  and  ignominiously  ; 
and  now  the  country  is  grieved  be- 
cause unsuccessful,  and  angry  because 
deceived.  Like  its  predecessor,  the 
career  of  the  Palmerston  Cabinet  has 
hitherto  been  one  of  continued  disap- 
pointment to  the  nation.  In  February 
we  remember  to  have  seen,  in  our 
English  Charivari,  Palmerston  and  Ni- 
cholas represented  as  a  couple  of  prize- 
fighters, each  sitting,  stripped  to  the 
buff  and  with  tucked-up  shirt-sleeves, 
on  his  second's  knee,  ready  to  engage. 
British  pluck  shone  in  the  good  Eng- 
lish face  of  "Pam"  as  he  eyed  with 
glee  his  formidable  antagonist, — and 
below  were  the  words,  "Now  FOR 
IT  ! "  That  print  expressed  to  the 
letter  the  hopes  and  wishes  of  the 
British  nation.  They  then  trusted  in, 
and  were  ready  to  have  followed  Pal- 
merston to  almost  any  extent,  and  to 
have  thrown  themselves  hopefully 
heart  and  soul  into  the  contest.  Now, 
if  it  be  incorrect  to  say,  with  Mr  Dis- 
raeli, that  the  spirit  of  the  nation  has 
been  "daunted"  by  the  mism  anagement 
and  defection  of  its  leaders,  the  truth 
is  too  nearly  so ;  while,  moreover,  our 
indefatigable  adversary  has  employed 
the  interval  in  exertions  to  which  our 
Government  has  made  no  adequate 
reply.  For  the  last  three  months, 
from  the  frontiers  of  Poland  to  the 
lines  at  Perekop,  the  roads  have 
been  covered  by  marching  corps, 
and  cut  up  by  the  ceaseless  transit 
of  waggons  with  stores  of  food 
and  warlike  materiel;  and  while  we 
write,  the  arrival  of  the  advanced- 
guard  of  these  picked  corps  is 


1855.] 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


233 


announced  by  Prince  Gortschakoff 
from  Sebastopol.  It  is  clear  that  the 
results  of  a  year's  fighting  have  now 
been  lost — that  another  campaign  has 
been  thrown  away,  and  with  it  an 
amount  of-  prestige  which  was  in  itself 
a  tower -of  strength,  and  which  it  will 
take  us  years  of  a  bold  policy  and 
successful  fighting  to  regain.  It  is 
even  announced  now  that  the  siege  of 
Sebastopol  may  last  for  a  year  or  years, 
with  all  the  attendant  expense  and 
horrors  of  winter-campaigns.*  Unless 
the  full  strength  of  the  country  be 
instantly  put  forth,  the  Present  will 
be  lost  to  us,  and  the  war  will  be 
continued  only  for  the  sake  of  the 
Future.  Let  the  gallant  spirit  of  the 
nation,  then,  have  way.  "Strip  and  go 
at  it,"  while  there  is  yet  time  ;  or,  for 
every  month  of  sunny  opportunity 
now  lost,  we  shall  have  a  year  to 
spend  in  the  chilling  shade  of  reverse. 
Remember  the  three-  and-  twenty  years 
of  the  last  war,  during  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  which  we  had  to  wage 
a  losing  fight,  and  struggle  on  not 
for  success,  but  for  self-existence.  Do 
not  let  us,  by  initiatory  sluggishness, 
entail  upon  the  empire  a  similar  con- 
test now — or  prepare  for  our  own  lips, 
a  short  time  hence,  when  daunted  by 
the  far-reaching  spread  of  Russian 
power,  the  mournful  words  of  the 
dying  Pitt,  uttered  after  a  long  silent 
contemplation  of  the  map  spread  out 
on  his  bed — "  Take  it  away :  the  map 
of  Europe  may  be  rolled  up  for  the 
next  fifty  years  ! " 

If  the  war  languishes,  the  country  is 
not  to  blame.  Again,  as  ever,  the 
Ministerial  carriage  stops  the  way. 
And  the  nation,  wroth  at  its  leaders, 


gives  way  to  utterances  akin  to  the 
fierce  cry  heard  from  our  soldiers  in 
the  trenches  before  Sebastopol,  after 
the  blundered  assault  of  the  18th 
June, — •"  If  our  leaders  would  but  let 
us  alone,  we  would  take  the  place  our- 
selves 1"  In  last  Number  f  we  traced 
the  career  of  Ministerial  treachery  and 
mismanagement  down  to  the  Parlia- 
mentary debates  in  the  last  week  of 
May.  The  six  weeks  that  followed 
deserve  a  chapter  for  themselves. 
More  revelations,  and  more  shame ! 
As  if  the  Russianism  and  double-deal- 
ing of  the  late  Cabinet  were  not 
enough, — as  if  the  avowed  apostasy 
of  the  Peelites  had  not  brought  suffi- 
cient stain  upon  the  character  of  our 
public  men,  we  now  find  that  a  new 
Peace-plot  has  been  attempted,  and 
still  more  palpable  and  unblushing 
deceit  practised,  in  which  Lord  John 
Russell  has  played  the  chief  part,  and 
his  colleagues  have  aided  and  abetted 
to  the  best  of  their  ability.  Let  us 
briefly  recall  the  facts  of  this  astound- 
ing and  disheartening  discovery. 

About  the  middle  of  May,  as  may 
be  recollected,  startling  rumours  be- 
came rife  in  the  political  circles  of 
London  that  Lord  John  Russell  had 
returned  from  the  Vienna  Conferen- 
ces, a  convert  to  the  Russo- Austrian 
views  of  the  Peace  party,  —  that  a 
number  of  his  colleagues,  especially 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
Sir  Charles  Wood,  Sir  George  Grey, 
and  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  shared  in 
his  opinions,  —  and  that  the  whole 
Cabinet  had  it  in  contemplation  to 
accept  some  new  and  dishonourable 
propositions  concocted  by  Austria. 
The  Peelites,  elated  at  the  prospective 


*  The  Premier's  organ,  the  Morning  Post,  jiow  says  (21st  July)  : — "The  siege 
may,  and  probably  will,  run  on  until  this  time  next  year,  or  even  the  year  after  that. 
The  sooner  we  make  up  our  minds  to  this  the  better.  It  is  quite  time  that  we  gave 
up  expecting  tidings  of  anything  particularly  dashing  as  against  Sebastopol.-  That 
everything  our  troops  are  called  to  do  will  give  proof  of  their  Worth  as  British 
soldiers,  is  not  to  be  doubted  ;  and  should  they  but  have  the  chance  of  engaging  the 
enemy  in  the  field,  the  ancient  glory  of  England  will  be  adequately  sustained  by 
them;  but  the  probabilities  seem  to  be  against  their  having  that  opportunity  at  pre- 
sent, so  it  is  better  not  to  look  for  it.  If  this  be  true,  it  follows  that  the  British 
army  will  pass  another  winter  upon  the  heights  above  Sebastopol ;  will  have  to  do 
over  again  the  work  of  last  year — passing  whole  nights  in  the  trenches  and  on  picket, 
when  the  thermometer  is  twenty  degrees  of  frost,  and  the  wind  from  the  cruel  north 
is  biting  almost  to  death.  Hideous  experience  has  taught  us  what  the  disasters  of  an 
army  may  be  under  such  circumstances  ;  and,  therefore,  no  one  ought  to  feel  surprise 
if  a  general  thrill  of  horror  passes  through  the  country  at  the  thought  of  our  brave 
friends  passing  another  winter  there." 

t  "  Two  Years  of  the  Condemned  Cabinet." 


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[Aug. 


whitewashing  of  themselves  by  others 
proving  as  black  as  they,  went  about 
proclaiming  that  though  they  had 
sacrificed  themselves,  their  cause  was 
triumphant.  Mr  Disraeli,  however, 
who  generally  comes  into  inconvenient 
possession  of  such  State  secrets,  at 
once  with  patriotic  energy  moved  a 
vote  of  want  of  confidence  in  the 
Ministry,  in  order  to  stop  their  treach- 
ery in  mid-  career.  The  debate  came 
on  on  the  24th,  and  there  was  a  gene- 
ral expectation  in  the  House,  as  well 
as  out  of  doors,  that  Lord  John  Rus- 
sel  would  make  a  speech  bridging  over 
the  chasm  which  separated  him  from 
the  Peace  party.  The  very  opposite 
occurred.  The  Peelites,  indeed,  em- 
boldened by  knowing  how  the  Minis- 
try had  committed  themselves,  no 
longer  thought  it  necessary  to  conceal 
their  long-latent  Russianism.  Pro- 
bably, calculating  that  the  Peace 
party  in  the  Cabinet  would  declare 
themselves,  they  expected  to  reap  a 
great  advantage  from  being  the  first 
to  announce  their  views.  Never  were 
men  more  mistaken.  No  sooner  had 
Mr  Gladstone  finished  his  elaborate 
arithmetical  statement  as  to  how  many 
integers  and  fractions  of  the  Four 
Points  had  been  in  his  view  acceded 
to,  and  his  protest  against  humbling 
Russia  or  continuing  the  war,  than 
up  rose  Lord  John  Russell,  and  set 
about  refuting  the  opinions  of  his  ex- 
colleagues,  denouncing  the  ambition 
of  Russia,  and  vehemently  counsel- 
ling an  energetic  prosecution  of  the 
war  !  The  Premier  abetted  the 
scheme  of  deception,  by  praising  Lord 
John's  conduct  at  the  Conferences, 
and  stoutly  asseverating  that  no 
Cabinet  could  be  more  united  in  its 
views  as  to  the  prosecution  of  the  con- 
test. The  deceit  succeeded.  Mr  Roe- 
buck, as  he  has  since  told  us,  and 
many  other  members  of  the  House, 
who  had  come  to  vote  against  the 
Ministry,  in  consequence  of  the  cur- 
rent reports,  put  faith  (as  well  they 
might)  in  Lord  John  Russell's  state- 
ments and  professions,  and  by  vote 
and  speech  helped  to  keep  the  shame- 
less Cabinet  in  power. 

But  falsehood  is  short-lived.  Na- 
turally irritated  at  the  ex- envoy  turn- 
ing round  and  vituperating  the  very 
proposals  which  he  had  expressly 
approved  at  Vienna,  Count  Buol 


forthwith  published  a  circular,  in 
which  he  disclosed  the  actual  concur- 
rence of  Lord  John  Russell  in  the 
Austrian  proposals.  In  the  face  of 
Europe,  the  British  Minister,  and  in- 
directly the  British  Cabinet,  now 
stood  branded  with  the  charge  of 
falsehood.  In  these  circumstances, 
Sir  John  Walsh  (June  20)  rose  ia 
his  place  to  ask  if  Count  Buol's 
statement  was  correct;  whereupon 
Lord  John  Russell  replied  shortly, 
that  "  everything  contained  in  thfr 
despatch  was  accurate  and  cor- 
rect." The  announcement  made  con- 
siderable sensation ;  and  a  few  days 
afterwards  (July  3),  Mr  Milner  Gib- 
son rose  to  ask  the  Premier  "what  was 
the  present  policy  of  the  Government 
with  respect  to  the  war  ?  "  and,  referring 
to  Count  Buol's  statement  that  Lord 
John  Russell  had  approved  of  the  last 
solution  of  the  Third  Point  prepared 
by  Austria,  and  had  agreed  to  recom- 
mend it  to  his  Government,  wished  to 
know  uhow  it  was  that  the  noble 
lord  was  a  member  of  the  Peace 
party  at  Vienna,  and  a  member  of 
the  War  party  in  Parliament  ?  " 
Smitten  with  confusion,  and  probably 
relying  that  the  supposed  despatches 
would  not  be  brought  to  light,  Lord 
John  now  reversed  his  former  state- 
ment, and  affirmed  that  his  questioner 
had  "  altogether  misrepresented  the 
facts  of  the  case."  Whereupon  the 
Ministerialists  cheered  him,  and  Mr 
Gibson  was  snubbed  by  the  Speaker 
in  his  attempts  to  point  out  Lord 
John's  unblushing  self-  contradic- 
tion. The  Manchester  slot-hound, 
however,  was  not  to  be  driven  from 
the  scent.  A  British  Minister's  word 
nowadays  no  longer  passes  current  as 
invariably  sterling,  and  Mr  Milner 
Gibson  intimated  that  he  would  re- 
peat his  question  in  a  more  formal 
manner.  The  night  came  (July  6), 
and  the  thinness  of  the  House  showed 
alike  how  callous  the  Members  had 
grown  to  Ministerial  duplicity,  and 
that  on  this  occasion  they  expected 
nothing  very  extraordinary.  The 
Premier  was  almost  the  only  man, 
besides  Lord  John,  on  the  Treasury 
bench,  when  the  latter  rose  to  answer 
his  persecutor.  The  Head  of  the 
Ministry  did  not  reckon  upon  what 
followed.  Lord  John,  he  knew,  had 
never  asked  permission  from  his  Sove- 


1355.1 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


reign  to  reveal  the  arcana  of  the 
Cabinet,  and  he  did  not  anticipate 
that  his  subordinate  would  treat  State- 
oaths  as  cavalierly  as  he  treated  truth. 
The  speech  that  followed  exploded 
like  a  bomb-shell.  As  usual,  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  misstatement 
was  mingled  with  the  confession,  to 
make  it  less  unpalatable — and,  in  par- 
ticular, Sir  George  Grey  had  to  con- 
tradict his  colleague's  averment  that 
Austria  had  engaged  to  make  the 
rejection  of  its  proposals  by  Russia  a 
casus  belli;  but  enough  was  evident, 
from  Lord  John's  own  statement,  to 
show  that  he,  in  concert  with  the 
Cabinet,  had  hitherto,  and  especially 
during  the  discussions  from  the  24th 
May  to  the  8th  June,  been  practising 
the  grossest  deceit  upon  Parliament 
and  the  country. 

The  indignation  of  the  country, 
great  as  it  had  been  at  the  disclosure 
of  the  Peelite  apostasy,  was  still  more 
unanimous  and  overpowering  at  this 
fresh  exhibition  of  disgrace.  On  the 
part  of  the  Opposition,  Sir  E.  Bulwer 
Lytton  gave  notice  of  a  motion  con- 
demnatory of  Lord  John  Russell  and 
the  Cabinet,  on  the  ground  of  their 
proceedings  in  regard  to  the  Vienna 
Conferences.  This  was  on  Tuesday 
the  10th  July.  The  Premier,  declaring 
he  would  "stand  or  fall"  with  his 
colleague,  on  the  1 1th  set  about  buy- 
ing up  the  votes  of  the  Irish  Brigade, 
by  promising  the  active  support  of  the 
Government  to  the  re-insertion  of  a 
pernicious  clause  in  the  Irish  Tenants 
Bill,  which  had  been  previously 
struck  out  by  a  large  majority.  By 
altering  the  order  of  business  for 
Friday,  also,  he  succeeded  in  com- 
pelling the  postponement  of  Sir  E.  B. 
Lytton's  motion  until  Monday  the 
16th,  in  the  hope  that  a  success  at 
Sebastopol  or  some  lucky  accident 
might  come  to  his  aid.  In  truth,  he 
was  unwilling  to  part  with  the  old 
leader  of  the  Whigs,  if  he  could  pos- 
sibly help  it,  because  he  was  afraid 
lest,  if  thus  further  weakened,  his  Cabi- 
net would  not  be  able  to  stand.  Never 
before  did  his  acquiescent  optimism 
shine  forth  more  marvellously.  But 
the  crisis  was  too  grave  to  be  thus 
tided  over.  On  Thursday  the  subor- 
dinate Members  of  the  Administration 
rebelled,  and,  represented  by  Lord 
John's  prote'ge  Mr  Bouverie  (who 


235 

afterwards  set  the  House  in  a  roar  by 
stating  that  he  thought  he  was  acting 
as  Lord  John's  "  true  friend  "  by  thus 
becoming  the  fugleman  of  the  muti- 
neers !)  —  intimated  to  the  Premier 
that,  unless  the  ex-Envoy  withdrew 
from  the  Cabinet,  it  was  hopeless  to 
attempt  to  face  the  adverse  motion, 
and  that  they  would  not  do  it.  This 
was  a  severe  cut.  It  was  retorting 
upon  Lord  John  Russell  the  very 
game  by  which  he  had  ousted  Lord 
Aberdeen  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
six  months  before  !  The  arch-plotter 
was  "hoist  with  his  own  petard!" 
And  so,  with  the  dread  motion  pend- 
ing, he  was  compelled  to  take  what 
there  can  be  no  doubt  will  prove  to 
be  his  last  farewell  of  office. 

But  the  fall  of  Lord  John  Russell 
was  accompanied  by  circumstances 
still  more  worthy  of  notice,  because 
more  deeply  affecting  the  credit  of 
constitutional  government.  Sir  E.  B. 
Lytton's  motion  had  perilled  the  ex- 
istence of  the  entire  Cabinet ;  and 
under  pressure  of  the  emergency,  cer- 
tain documents  connected  with  the 
Conferences  were  produced,  which 
hitherto  had  been  studiously  con- 
cealed. There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
this  correspondence  was  submitted  to 
the  House  by  the  Premier  from  no 
higher  motive  than  to  set  off  the 
firmness  of  Lord  Clarendon  against 
the  weakness  of  Lord  John  Russell, 
and  to  appropriate  to  the  Cabinet  the 
credit  of  the  former  at  the  expense  of 
the  latter.  Certainly  nothing  could 
have  done  more  damage  to  Lord  John 
Russell's  character  as  a  statesman,  and 
as  an  honest  man,  than  the  despatches 
thus  remorselessly  produced  by  his 
friend  ( ! )  and  colleague. 

The  whole  correspondence  con- 
nected with  the  Conferences,  we  feel 
persuaded,  has  not  yet  been  given  to 
the  public.  No  despatches  are  given 
up  to  the  date  of  the  3d  April,  al- 
though the  Conferences  commenced 
more  than  two  weeks  before  ;  and  it 
may  also  be  conjectured,  from  some 
expressions  in  one  of  Lord  John 
Russell's  "  explanations,"  that  he  had 
other  correspondence  with  the  Cabi- 
net than  is  represented  by  Lord 
Clarendon's  despatches.  We  shall 
revert  to  this  subject  in  the  sequel. 
Meanwhile  let  us  say  that  we  enter- 
tain a  deeply- felt  conjecture — founded, 


236 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


[Aug. 


among  other  things,  upon  the  views 
contemporaneously  promulgated  in 
the  Premier's  organ,  the  Morning  Post; 
upon  the  early  defection  of  the  peace- 
ful Peelites  from  the  Cabinet ;  upon 
the  sudden  interruption  of  the  Con- 
ferences when  the  Third  Point  was 
reached ;  and  upon  the  fact  that  the 
first  instructions  of  the  Government 
to  our  Envoy  have  hitherto  been  un- 
accountably withheld  from  publicity, 
— we  conjecture,  we  say,  that  these 
instructions  contained  a  demand  for 
the  dismantling  of  Sebastopol, — that 
"standing  menace"  to  Turkey  upon 
which  Lord  John  Russell  so  eloquently 
descanted  a  year  ago.  We  likewise 
remember  to  have  seen  it  stated  at 
the  time,  in  a  Continental  journal, 
that  on  the  Western  Envoys  making 
this  demand,  Prince  Gortschakofftook 
up  his  hat,  and  was  about  abruptly  to 
withdraw.  If,  as  we  conjecture,  this 
first  proposal  of  the  Allies  was  re- 
jected, we  can  better  understand  their 
strange  proceeding  in  thereafter  re- 
questing the  Russian  diplomatists  to 
"•  take  the  initiative,"  and  make  a 
proposal  themselves, — as  well  as  the 
fact  of  fresh  deliberations  taking  place 
in  London  (March  29),  and  fresh  in- 
structions being  sent  out  to  our  pleni- 
potentiary. In  these  remarks  we  do 
ample  justice  to  the  Premier,  and  if 
we  are  forced  to  question  the  accu- 
racy of  the  above  conjecture,  it  is 
owing  to  the  pusillanimous  and  highly 
Aberdonian  observation  of  Lord  John 
Russell  at  the  Conference  on  March 
20th,  that  "  in  the  eyes  of  England 
and  her  Allies  the  best  and  only 
admissible  conditions  of  peace  would 
be  those  which,  being  the  most  in  har- 
mony with  the  honour  of  Russia, 
should  at  the  same  time  be  sufficient 
for  the  security  of  Europe." 

But  to  come  to  certainties.  The 
first  two  Points  were  settled  with- 
out much  difficulty,— the  British  and 
French  envoys  taking  almost  no 
part  in  the  discussion,  and  the  sole 
contest  being  one  as  to  whether  Russia 
or  Austria  was  to  have  most  influence 
in  the  Danubian  provinces.  That 
these  two  Points  were  ultimately  can- 
celled by  the  rupture  of  the  negotia- 
tions, ought  to  be  a  subject  of  con- 
gratulation rather  than  of  regret ;  for 
they  would  have  inevitably  produced . 
greater  entanglement,  and  been  more 


detrimental  to  Turkey  than  the  trea- 
ties in  existence  prior  to  the  war. 
Then  came  the  consideration  of  the 
Third  Point,  and  with  it  the  tug  of 
war.  We  cannot  but  regard  it  as  a 
piece  of  gross  obtuseness,  that  the 
Western  envoys  should  have  re- 
quested the  Russian  diplomatists  to 
"  take  the  initiative  "  on  this  Point ; 
for,  on  the  plea  that  they  had  no 
instructions  to  do  so,  they  thereby 
obtained  permission  to  refer  the  mat- 
ter to  their  Government;  and  so 
eighteen  days  were  lost!  And  how 
was  this  interval  employed  by  the 
astute  Ministers  of  Russia?  The 
First  and  Second  Points  provided  for 
everything  affecting  the  interests  of 
Germany  and  Austria  ;  and,  these 
being  settled,  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment issued  a  circular  to  the  German 
courts,  stating  that  she  had  frankly 
and  fully  acquiesced  in  the  wants  and 
desires  of  Germany,  and  calling  upon 
them  in  return  not  to  go  to  war  in 
support  of  the  ambitious  projects  of 
the  Western  Powers  in  regard  to  the 
other  Points.  An  appeal  which  cer- 
tainly was  not  without  its  effect  on 
the  wavering  councils  of  Germany. 

On  a  deliberate  review  of  these  Con- 
ferences, it  seems  obvious,  not  only 
that  the  representatives  of  the  West- 
ern Powers  were  no  match  in  finesse 
and  manoeuvre  for  the  trained  diplo- 
matists of  Russia  and  Austria,  but 
that  the  Four  Points  themselves 
were  unsuited  to  meet  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  case,  and  indeed  that 
the  whole  project  of  the  Conferences 
was  based  on  an  erroneous  and 
perilous  policy.  We  have  already  ex- 
pressed our  belief  that,  if  the  Vienna 
settlement  of  the  first  two  Points  had 
become  part  of  the  international  law 
of  Europe,  the  position  of  the  Sultan, 
and  of  the  Moldo-Wallachian  and  Ser- 
vian populations,  would  have  been 
more  exposed  than  ever  to  the  perfidi- 
ous action  of  Russia  and  Austria.  To 
the  Third  Point,  if  rightly  interpreted, 
we  have  little  to  object.  But  the 
Fourth  Point  was  in  many  respects 
badly  conceived.  The  Allies  went  to 
war  to  resist  an  assumed  right  of  pro- 
tectorate over  the  Sultan's  subjects  by 
Russia,  yet  they  proposed  to  give  this 
same  right  to  the  Five  Powers.  It 
may  be  said  that  the  common  law  of 
nations,  by  which  one  state  is  forbid- 


1855.] 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


den  to  interfere  in  the  domestic  affairs 
of  another,  is  in  principle  a  bad  one, 
and  in  point  of  fact  has  been  broken 
by  every  European  Power  in  turns, 
when  occasion  has  offered  for  doing  so 
with  success.  Be  it  so, — but  then  let 
the  principle  be  fairly  enforced.  Do 
not  let  Russia  howl,  should  the  Catho- 
lic states  of  Central  and  Western 
Europe  make  a  crusade  against  her, 
on  the  ground  of  the  gross  oppression 
she  exercises  towards  the  members  of 
the  Latin  Church ;  nor  let  England 
complain  of  injustice  if  these  same 
Catholic  states  should  interfere  on  be- 
half of  their  fellow-religionists  in  Ire- 
land, who  certainly  are  not  behind  in 
considering  themselves  aggrieved.  Ac- 
cept the  principle  of  intervention  if 
you  will,  but  accept  also  its  conse- 
quences. In  practice,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, it  ever  resolves  itself  into  a 
question  of  Might.  "  Is  it  my  inte- 
rest, and  have  I  the  power  to  inter- 
fere ? "  is  the  sole  thing  thought  of 
by  intervening  States.  Whether  it  be 
Russia  interfering  in  the  affairs  of 
Poland,  Hungary,  and  Turkey, — Aus- 
tria in  those  of  Italy  and  Switzerland, 
— France  in  all  its  neighbour  states, — 
and  Great  Britain  in  Spain,  Portugal, 
and  Greece, — the  question  with  the 
intervener  is  merely  one  of  self-inte- 
rest and  of  power.  States,  in  fact, 
never  will  be  guided  by  other  consider- 
ations than  these  ;  and  as  States,  like 
individuals,  ever  think  their  own  cause 
right  and  that  of  their  adversaries 
wrong,  it  is  hopeless  to  appeal  to 
abstract  principles  of  justice.  The 
European  Powers,  then,  should  act 
warily  when  legitimating  the  very 
principle  sought  to  be  established  by 
their  powerful  adversary,  and  which 
ever,  in  practice,  resolves  itself  into 

"  The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan, 
That  he  should  take  who  has  the  power, 
And  he  should  keep  who  can." 

The  really  grave  objection,  how- 
ever, to  the  European  protectorate 
proposed  by  the  Western  Powers  in 
the  Fourth  Point,  was,  that  it  tended 
to  sow  dissension  among  the  Allies 
themselves.  The  Ottomans,  who 
cherish  the  feelings  of  national  honour 
and  strict  justice  as  keenly  as  any 
European  nation,  would,  it  is  known, 
have  strenuously  opposed  the  project 
contemplated  in  the  Fourth  Point. 
The  consequence  would  have  been, 


237 

that  dissension  would  have  sprung  up 
in  the  camp  of  the  Allies ;  and  the 
discouraged  Turks  would  have  asked 
themselves,  What  better  are  we  than 
if  we  had  acceded  to  Menschikoff's 
ultimatum?  For,  be  it  observed,  if 
the  Porte  has  more  to  fear  from  a 
Russian  interference  than  from  that  of 
the  European  Powers  collectively,  still 
there  was  a  better  plea  for  the  former 
than  for  the  latter;  and,  moreover, 
the  protectorate  of  Russia  would  have 
given  more  satisfaction  to  the  Greek 
subjects  of  the  Porte  than  one  exer- 
cised by  Powers  chiefly  belonging  to 
the  heterodox  Churches  of  the  West. 
If  the  terms  of  the  Four  Points  were 
thus  open  to  grave  objection,  this,  we 
believe,  was  occasioned  not  by  any 
want  of  discernment  on  the  part  of 
the  Western  Powers  as  to  what  was 
really  desirable,  but  from  their  over- 
anxiety  to  propitiate  Austria.  The 
Four  Points  were  originally  framed  in 
concert  with  that  Power  :  hence  their 
weakness.  Had  the  Allies  assured 
themselves  that  Austria  interpreted 
these  Four  Points  precisely  as  they 
did,  and  that  she  would  take  an  active 
part  in  the  war  if  these  Points  so  in- 
terpreted were  rejected  by  Russia, 
then  they  would  have  acted  as  it  be- 
came statesmen  to  do.  But  to'  agree 
to  renew  negotiations  on  these  Points, 
with  no  security  that  Austria  and  they 
were  at  one  in  opinion,  and  with  no 
actual  pledge  that  she  would  co-ope- 
rate with  them  in  arms  in  the  event 
of  these  terms  being  rejected  by  Rus- 
sia, was  a  great  mistake.  In  truth, 
we  repeat,  the  consent  of  the  Allies 
to  the  late  Conferences  was  a  grave 
error.  Governments  are  guided  solely 
by  self-interest.  Had  it  been  in  the 
powrer  of  the  Allies  to  have  presented 
to  Austria  the  prospect  of  an  imme- 
diate and  tangible  gain, — could  they 
have  offered  to  put  her  in  posses- 
sion of  the  Principalities  and  Bes- 
sarabia, or  had  they  put  forth  such 
an  amount  of  military  strength  as 
would  have  convinced  her  that  theirs 
was  much  the  stronger  side,  and  that 
she  had  nothing  to  fear  from  Russia 
if  she  sided  with  them, — then  her  alli- 
ance might  have  been  reckoned  upon 
with  the  certainty  of  an  arithmetical 
problem.  As  it  was,  they  brought  no 
argument  to  bear  upon  Austria  but 
the  argument  of  the  tongue.  They  did 


238 


The  TFar,  the  Cabinet^  and  the  Conferences. 


[Aug. 


not  make  it  her  interest  (we  mean  the 
interest  of  the  dynasty,  not  of  the  em- 
pire) to  incur  the  expenses  of  war,  and 
they  left  her  with  more  to  fear  from  the 
arms  and  in  trigues  of  her  colossal  neigh- 
bour than  from  theirs.  Such  was  the  re- 
lative position  of  the  Allies,  Austria, 
and  Russia  a  year  ago,  and  such  it 
has  continued  ever  since,  —  with  this 
difference  for  the  worse,  that  Austria, 
having  manoeuvred  herself  into  posses- 
sion of  the  Principalities,  has  now  still 
less  inducement  to  go  to  war,  except 
to  defend  her  ill-gotten  gain  against 
its  rightful  owner !  Was  it  a  sane 
proceeding,  then,  for  the  Allies  to 
plunge  once  more  into  the  perplexities 
of  negotiation  and  expose  themselves 
to  the  hazard  of  fatal  divisions,  for 
the  sake  of  obtaining  the  mediation 
of,  and  acknowledging  as  arbiter,  a 
Power  whose  interests  were  not  syn- 
onymous with  their  own  ?  Certainly 
not ;  and  yet,  as  Lord  Clarendon 
himself  tells  us,  "  It  was  solely  out 
of  deference  to  Austria  that  England 
and  France  agreed  to  the  Four  Bases, 
and  consented  to  enter  upon  nego- 
tiations for  peace."  Such  a  course 
never  would  have  been  taken,  we  feel 
convinced,  had  the  Aberdeen  Ministry 
been  intent  to  uphold  the  honour  of  the 
country  and  the  interests  of  Europe. 
But — as  we  sufficiently  showed  last 
month — they  had  no  such  intention. 
Peace  with  Russia — peace  at  any  price 
— was  their  sole  desire.  It  was  this 
that  induced  the  war, — it  was  this  that 
mismanaged  it, — and  it  was  this  that 
gave  rise  to  the  renewal  of  the  Vienna 
Conferences.  In  these  Conferences 
the  Aberdeen  Cabinet  saw  a  means 
of  closing  the  breach  between  them 
and  Russia,  under  cover  of  a  show  of 
verbal  concessions  from  the  latter 
Power.  For  the  interests  of  Turkey 
they  cared  nothing, — as  to  the  future 
of  Europe,  we  are  willing  to  believe, 
they  misunderstood  it.  The  Russian 
alliance  was  what  they  cherished, — 
peace  at  any  price,  as  the  means  of 
renewing  that  alliance,  was  what  they 
negotiated  and  intrigued  for.  Hence 
the  Conferences, — hence  our  humilia- 
tion,— and  hence,  as  will  be  seen  in 
the  future,  our  danger. 

To  negotiate  with  a  Power  in  the 
position  of  Austria  was  to  invite  de- 
ceit,—to  meet  its  protestations  with, 
unquestioning  belief,  was  the  wildest 


folly.  So  we  now  know  to  our  cost. 
The  very  origin  of  these  Conferences 
displayed  the  astute  duplicity  of  Aus- 
tria, and  our  own  readiness  to  be 
deceived.  We  unhesitatingly  walked 
into  the  trap.  What  are  now  known 
to  be  the  facts  ?  For  more  than  four 
months  before  the  2d  December,  the 
British  and  French  ambassadors  at 
Vienna  had  been  assiduously  pressing 
Austria  to  sign  a  treaty  of  co-opera- 
tion with  them,  but  with  no  success, — 
Austria  ever  breaking  away  when 
things  seemed  coming  to  a  point.  In 
the  end  of  September,  when  the  myth- 
ic Tartar's  report  of  the  capture  of 
Sebastopol  set  all  Europe  a-ringing, 
the  Austrian  Emperor  sent  a  letter 
congratulating  Napoleon  III.  on  the 
auspicious  event,  —  a  circumstance 
corroborating  our  opinion  that  the 
Austrian  alliance  might  have  been 
secured  had  the  Western  Powers 
entered  early  and  vigorously  on  the 
war.  But  when  that  famous  hoax 
evaporated,  Austria,  ashamed  at 
being  so  easily  caught,  and  not  with- 
out apprehensions  of  the  wrath  of  her 
colossal  neighbour,  relapsed  into  her 
former  lukewarmness  and  temporis- 
ing. By-and-by,  however,  came  the 
battle  of  Inkermann,  in  which  the  last 
reserves  Russia  could  throw  into  the 
Crimea  until  spring  sustained  a  ter- 
rible repulse,  and  the  Allies  appeared 
to  have  drawn  a  girdle  of  iron  around 
Sebastopol.  This  event  inclined  Rus- 
sia to  temporise  and  Austria  to  treat. 
Accordingly,  on  the  1st  of  December, 
Lord  Westmoreland  and  Baron  Bour- 
queney  were  surprised  by  an  intima- 
tion from  their  coy  friend  Count 
Buol,  that  he  was  ready  to  acquiesce 
in  their  wishes,  and  even  to  fix  one 
month  as  the  entire  time  to  be  allow- 
ed to  Russia  for  arranging  the  terms 
of  peace.  The  representatives  of  the 
Western  Powers  were  delighted,  and 
so  next  day  the  famous  treaty  of  the 
2d  December  was  signed.  But  what 
was  the  cause  of  this  unbending  of 
Austria?  Unknown  to  the  Western 
Powers,  four  days  before  (28th  No- 
vember) Prince  Gortschakoif  had  ex- 
pressed to  Count  Buol  the  willing- 
ness of  the  Emperor  to  negotiate  on 
the  basis  of  the  Four  Points !  Fear- 
ful lest  the  late  successes  of  the  Allies 
might  tempt  Austria  to  join  them, 
the  Czar  made  a  show  of  desiring 


1855.] 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


peace,— knowing  that  at  any  time  he 
could  break  off  the  discussions  if  it 
suited  his  purposes  to  do  so,  and  mean- 
while anxious  to  tie  up  the  hands  of 
Austria,  and  to  take  from  himself  the 
odium  of  being  the  cause  of  hostilities. 
It  was  not  till  after  the  treaty  of  the 
2d  December  had  been  signed  that 
the  Western  Powers  became  aware 
of  this  fact.  Russia  sought  to  propi- 
tiate Austria,  and  Austria  humbugged 
us.  Independently,  however,  of  this 
suspicious  antecedent  of  the  treaty, 
the  Western  Powers  had  little  reason 
to  plume  themselves  on  the  piece  of 
parchment  they  had  thus  obtained 
from  Austria.  Austria  then  began  the 
game  she  has  continued  to  play  ever 
since.  The  treaty  was  a  net  with  a 
hole  in  it.  It  pledged  the  Allies  to  as- 
sist Austria  if  she  were  attacked  by 
Russia,  but  it  contained  no  pledge  that 
Austria  would  assist  them.  Very 
menacing  were  the  allusions  to  the 
danger  of  Europe  from  Russia,  and 
very  business-like  was  the  stipulation 
that  only  one  month  was  to  be  allow- 
ed to  the  Russian  government;  to 
make  peace;  the  preamble  was  excel- 
lent, but  the  treaty  had  no  conclu- 
sion. •  If  Russia  refused  to  accept 
the  Four  Points,  then  Austria  was— 
to  fight?  —  by  no  means:  only  to 
*' deliberate"  with  the  Allies  as  to 
what  should  be  done !  The  treaty 
was  an  elaborate  mystification,  but 
such  was  its  only  import.  In  brief, 
it  said, — If  Russia  refuse  to  accept 
the  Four  Points  in  the  sense  which 
Austria  may  put  upon  them,  in  a 
month's  time,  then  Austria  will  have 
a  talk  with  the  Allies  as  to  what  is 
to  be  done,  but  reserves  the  right 
of  afterwards  acting  as  she  thinks 
best  for  herself.  A  very  inconclusive 
treaty  certainly ! 

As  Russia  attached  no  importance 
to  the  project  for  negotiations,  save 
as  something  to  fall  back  upon  in  the 
case  of  grievous  reverses,  she  was  in 
no  hurry  to  begin  the  Conferences, 
and  Austria  was  equally  willing  to 
procrastinate.  Meanwhile  the  Aber- 
deen Cabinet,  probably  the  only  party 
who  expected  any  definite  result 
from  these  Conferences,  and  who  had 
resolved  to  purchase  peace  there  at 
any  price,  were  suddenly  and  sum- 
marily ejected  from  office,  and  another 
Ministry  reigned  in  their  stead.  Not 


239 

a  new  Ministry,  certainly, — rather,  as 
Disraeli  said,  "  the  old  firm,  with  new 
partners," — but  with  another  Min- 
ister at  their  head,  and  very  plainly 
warned  by  the  House  of  Commons,  that 
if  they  did  not  prosecute  the  war  with 
more  vigour,  and  the  negotiations 
with  more  regard  for  their  country's 
honour,  the  fate  of  their  predecessors 
would  soon  be  their  own.  Thus  im- 
pressed, Lord  Palmerston,  we  incline 
to  believe,  was  desirous  to  adopt  a  more 
decided  line  of  policy  than  the  "  an- 
tiquated imbecility"  of  Lord  Aberdeen. 
And  the  Peelites,  devoted  to  the  late 
Premier  and  the  Russian  alliance, 
found  a  plea  for  resignation  in  Palm- 
erston's  tardy  acquiescence  in  the  vote 
of  the  Commons,  for  an  inquiry  into 
the  state  of  the  Crimean  army.  Lord 
John  Russell's  amazing  versatility 
and  love  of  prestige  probably  ren- 
dered him  as  willing  to  adopt  a  change 
of  measures  as  the  Premier ;  and  his 
vigorous  and  somewhat  rodomontad- 
ing denouncement  of  Sebastopol  seven 
months  before,  pointed  him  out  as  the 
very  man  to  go  beard  the  lion  in  his 
den  at  Vienna,  and  to  straighten  the 
crooked  policy  of  the  Austrian  Court 
by  the  whisper  of  disagreeable  alter- 
natives. Having  thoroughly  lost 
caste  by  his  insidious  and  ungenerous 
conduct  towards  his  colleagues  in  the 
fallen  Administration,  Lord  John,  on 
his  part,  was  not  unwilling  to  go  for  a 
time  into  honoured  exile,  and  to 
exchange  his  humble  seat  on  the  back 
benches  for  the  pomp  and  consequence 
of  a  Plenipotentiary.  What  his  in- 
structions were,  we  can  only  conjec- 
ture ;  but  evidently  a  hitch  very  soon 
occurred  in  the  proceedings,  and  new 
deliberations  were  necessary  at  home. 
No  sooner  did  the  Conferences  come  to 
a  stand-still,  on  account  of  the  Third 
Point,  than  the  French  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs  came  post-haste  to 
London.  On  the  29th  March,  a 
council  was  held  between  him,  Count 
Walewski,  and  the  British  Ministers, 
at  which  certain  proposals — we  believe 
fresh  proposals — were  concerted  ;  and 
on  its  termination,  M.  Drouyn  de 
Lhuys  instantly  set  out  to  co-operate 
with  Lord  John  Russell  (now  appoint- 
ed Colonial  Secretary !)  at  Vienna.  The 
instructions  agreed  upon  at  this  inter- 
view were,  that  the  Third  Point  should 
be  carried  out  either  by  enforcing  the 


240 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


[Aug. 


principle  of  "  neutralisation," — that  is 
to  say,  by  excluding  from  the  Black 
Sea  all  ships  of  war ;  or  by  the  sj^s- 
tera  of  "  limitation," — i.  e.  Russia  and 
Turkey  to  have  no  more  than  four 
sail-of- the- line  and  four  frigates  each 
in  the  Black  Sea,  and  England, France, 
and  Austria,  each  to  be  permitted  to 
have  half  that  number  of  ships  there. 
Almost  at  the  same  time  that  these 
conditions  were  agreed  upon  at  Lon- 
don, Count  Buol  wrote  to  say  that,  in 
his  opinion,  "recourse  must  be  had  to 
the  system  of  counterpoise" — that  is 
to  say,  Russia  to  have  as  many  ships 
as  she  pleased  in  the  Black  Sea, 
but  the  other  Powers  to  be  allowed 
to  maintain  a  proportionate  number, 
to  watch  her  and  keep  her  in  check. 
Such  a  proposal,  it  is  now  agreed, 
was  a  mere  elusion,  not  a  solution, 
of  the  Third  Point.  It  was  so,  be- 
cause, instead  of  imposing  terms  upon 
Russia,  it  imposed  them  only  on 
the  Allies ; — because  the  secret  treaty 
wrung  from  Turkey  by  Russia  in 
1841,  being  annulled  by  the  fact  of 
the  war,  no  new  treaty  was  needed  to 
allow  the  Sultan  to  permit  the  passage 
of  as  many  foreign  ships  as  he  pleased 
into  the  Black  Sea ; — because  the  exist- 
ence of  a  large  Russian  fleet  in  the  Black 
Sea  would  have  compelled  Turkey  to 
be  always  looking  to  her  defences, 
and  to  maintain  at  great  expense  a 
corresponding  armament ; — because  it 
entailed  a  similar  hardship  upon  the 
Allies,  who  could  not  afford  to  keep  a 
fleet  constantly  in  the  Black  Sea  for 
the  mere  purpose  of  watching  this 
menacing  fleet  of  Russia's ; — because 
the  Western  Powers  had  no  ports  in 
the  Black  Sea  to  shelter  their  ships, 
and  even  the  Sultan  had  no  good  ones, 
the  best  being  all  in  the  possession  of 
Russia ; — because  the  fleets  of  the 
other  Powers,  being  each  far  inferior 
to  that  of  Russia,  might  be  pounced 
upon  separately,  as  happened  to  the 
Turks  at  Sinope ; — because  the  Russian 
fleet  was  always  close  to  the  object  of 
its  attack,  being  within  twenty -four 
hours'  sail  of  Constantinople,  whereas 
the  arsenals  and  ordinary  cruising 
stations  of  the  British  and  French 
fleets  were  far  distant,  so  that  a  blow 
might  be  struck  at  the  heart  of  Turkey 
before  their  squadrons  could  arrive  to 
prevent  it ; — and,  lastly,  because  there 
was  no  good  reason  why  this  menacing 


fleet  of  Russia  should  be  kept  up  at 
all,  seeing  that  she  had  no  commerce 
to  protect  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  that 
the  only  possible  use  of  that  fleet  was 
for  purposes  of  aggression  against 
Turkey. 

Lord  Clarendon  immediately  recog- 
nised the  hollo  wness  of  this  proposal  on 
the  part  of  Austria,  and  in  answer 
wrote  to  Lord  John  Russell  (April  3) 
that  "  Count  Buol  must  be  aware 
that  his  proposed  system  of  counter- 
poise was  both  inadequate  and  im- 
practicable''' The  Foreign  Secretary 
likewise  apprised  Lord  John  that  the 
British  and  French  governments  had 
agreed  that  the  projects  of  neutralisa- 
tion and  of  limitation  were  the  sole 
alternatives  to  be  acceded  to  by  their 
envoys  ;  and  that  "  if  Austria  should 
refuse  to  bind  herself  to  co-operate  in 
war  with  France  and  England  in  the 
event  of  Russia  rejecting  that  one  of 
the  two  proposals  which  Austria  might 
concur  with  France  and  England  in 
proposing,  then  France  and  England 
should  propose  the  plan  of  neutralisa- 
tion [the  strictest,  and  by  far  the  best], 
and  if  it  be  rejected  by  Russia,  the 
negotiation  must  be  broken  off"  Lord 
John  Russell  understood  his  instruc- 
tions, and  at  first  acted  up  to  them. 
In  reporting  what  occurred  at  a 
meeting  (April  9)  of  the  British  and 
French  plenipotentiaries  at  Count 
Buol's,  he  says — "  I  showed  that  the 
project  of  counterpoise  was  ineffectual, 
as  we  could  not  always  have  a  large 
fleet  at  hand ;  humiliating  to  Turkey, 
if  she  were  always  to  lean  on  France 
an  d  En  gl  an  d ;  an  d  unsafe  for  Europe, 
which  would  be  kept  in  a  perpetual 
ferment  of  preparation  for  war."  And 
he  added  the  very  true  comment — 
"  This  has  been,  in  my  opinion,  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  Austria  to  in- 
duce the  Western  Powers  to  relinquish 
their  proposals  on  the  Third  Point. 
As  such  it  has  entirely  failed."  We 
regret  to  say  the  failure  was  only 
temporary.  Count  Buol's  only  de- 
finite statement  at  this  meeting  seems 
to  have  been,  that  he  "  would  not  en- 
gage in  hostilities  for  two  ships  or 
more;"  and  at  another  meeting,  two 
days  after wards(the  1 1th),  he  preserved 
the  same  attitude  of  non-acquiescence 
in  the  proposals  of  the  Western  En- 
voys. "  We  both,"  says  Lord  John 
Russell,  "  appealed  to  Austria  to 


1855.] 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


make  the  plan  of  neutralisation,  or 
that  of  limitation,  a  casus  belli,  and 
expressed  our  belief  that  if  this  were 
done,  Russia  would  at  once  give  way  ; 
but  Count  Buol  declined  to  accede  to 
this  proposal,  and  maintained  his  for- 
mer reserve."  On  receipt  of  those 
communications,  Lord  Clarendon 
wrote  approving  of  Lord  John's  pro- 
ceedings, and  stating  that  "  the  opin- 
ions of  her  Majesty's  Government 
could  not  have  been  more  faithfully 
represented,  or  more  ably  expressed." 
But  a  marked  change  now  occurred 
in  the  views  and  language  of  the  West- 
ern Plenipotentiaries.  On  the  15th 
April — two  days  before  the  Confer- 
ences with  Russia  were  to  be  resumed 
— another  meeting  took  place  between 
the  British  and  French  envoys  and 
the  Austrian  minister ;  on  which  oc- 
casion Count  Buol  (doubtless  ap- 
prised of  the  tenor  of  the  Imperial 
instructions  then  on  their  way  from 
St  Petersburg)  showed  himself  more 
than  ever  averse  to  imposing  restric- 
tions upon  Russia.  "Austria,"  he 
said,  "  would  not  make  war  for  ten 
ships  more  or  less.  He  did  not  con- 
sider that  a  fleet  of  fifteen  sail  of  the 
line  was  excessive,  or  could  be  dan- 
gerous to  Turkey."  A  modest  pro- 
posal, truly, — seeing  that  Nelson  had 
not  fifteen  sail  of  the  line  when  he 
fought  the  battles  of  the  Nile  and 
the  Baltic.  In  short,  Count  Buol, 
playing  into  the  hands  of  Russia, 
proposed  to  resort  to  the  status  quo, 
and  to  fix  the  limitation  of  her  fleet 
"at  the  number  of  ships  she  had 
before  the  war."  Lord  John  Russell 
justly  observed,  that  "  the  British 
Government  had  always  pointed  to 
the  Russian  fleet  in  Sebastopol  (he 
no  longer  said  Sofcastopol  itself!)  as 
a  standing  menace  to  Turkey,  and  to 
provide  by  treaty  that  this  very  force 
might  again  be  constructed  and  assem- 
bled, would  be  a  course  they  could  not 
justify  to  Parliament  ior  the  nation." 
And  both  he  and  Drouyn  de  Lhuys 
concurred  in  representing  that  "  the 


241 

state  of  the  Russian  naval  force  be- 
fore the  war  was  the  very  state  of 
danger  against  which  we  were  anxious 
to  guard."  The  Ottoman  minister, 
who  very  unjustly  had  not  been  invited 
to  attend  this  meeting,  strongly  pro- 
tested against  the  Austrian  proposi- 
tion ;  and  maintained  that  "it  would 
be  injurious  to  the  Porte  to  require 
that  she  should  devote  her  revenues 
to  the  fortifications  on  the  Bosphorus, 
when  internal  arrangements  so  ur- 
gently required  her  attention ;  and 
(in  common  with  the  best  military 
authorities)  he  doubted  whether  any 
forts  in  the  Bosphorus  could  save 
Constantinople  from  attack."  *  The 
British  and  French  envoys,  however, 
now  met  the  Austrian  proposals  half- 
way. M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  observed 
that  he  was  ready  to  consent  to  the 
Russian  fleet  being  maintained  at  the 
number  of  ships  which  she  had  now 
above  water.  "  I  added,"  says  Lord 
John  Russell,  with  characteristic  self- 
sufficiency,  "  that,  although  I  had  no 
authority  to  do  so,  I  would  undertake 
the  same  engagement."  And  on  the 
day  after  this  interview  (the  16th), 
his  lordship,  in  the  teeth  of  his  reiter- 
ated instructions,  wrote  home — "  If 
other  hope  is  lost,  /  wish  to  propose 
to  the  Conference  the  following  plan :" 
this  plan  being,  permission  for  Russia 
to  increase  her  Black  Sea  fleet  inde- 
finitely, on  condition  that  the  allies  of 
the  Sultan  should  be  allowed  to  make 
a  corresponding  increase  in  their  fleets 
in  that  sea  !  In  other  words,  he 
proposed  the  very  plan  which  Lord 
Clarendon  had  so  expressly  declared 
"  inadequate  and  impracticable, " 
which  he  himself  had  explained  to 
Count  Buol  to  be  "  ineffectual,  humi- 
liating, and  unsafe,"  and  against 
which,  we  believe,  we  have  already 
advanced  an  ample  sufficiency  of  good 
arguments.  The  Government  at  home 
lost  not  a  moment  in  warning', back  its 
reckless  and  conceited  envoy  from  his 
proposed  course, — Lord  Clarendon  re- 
plying by  telegraph  on  the  18th:  "We 


*  The  Moniteur  de  laFlotte  states  that,  when  the  Allies  appeared  before  Sebastopol 
last  autumn,  the  harbour  contained  seventeen  line-of-battle  ships,  and  that  the  entire 
naval  force  of  Russia  in  the  Black  Sea  numbered  108  sail  of  all  sizes,  carrying  2200 
guns.  This  was  the  peace  establishment  which  the  far-seeing  policy  of  the  Czars 
kept  ever  ready  to  second  the  efforts  of  its  astute  diplomacy,  and  which  Austria, 
as  the  friend  of  Turkey  and  the  Western  Powers,  thought  there  would  be  no  harm 
in  restoring ! 


242 


The  War,  the,  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


[An* 


think  the  limitation  of  theRussian  fleet 
should  be  absolute,  and  that  it  would 
be  made  too  conditional  by  the  plan 
you  wish  to  propose.  We  must  avoid 
as  much  as  possible  the  system  of 
counterpoise,  the  objections  to  which 
you  have  fully  explained  to  the  Aus- 
trian Government." 

Lord  John,  however,  would  have 
his  own  way.  On  the  17th,  when 
his  letter  was  still  on  its  way  to  Eng- 
land, he  attended  the  first  meeting  of 
the  resumed  Conferences;  and  on  that 
terminating  unsuccessfully — that  is  to 
say,  with  Russia  obstinate,  and  Aus- 
tria refusing  to  interfere — a  meeting 
of  the  Allied  representatives  took  place 
at  Count  Buol's.  His  lordship  com- 
mences the  despatch  in  which  he  gives 
a  report  of  this  latter  interview  (No. 
9),  by  remarking  that  "  the  waste 
of  life  and  money  in  the  war  would 
be  enormous," — and  then  proceeds  to 
set  forth  the  Austrian  plan  of  com- 
promise ;  namely,  "a  system  of  coun- 
terpoise in  the  Black  Sea,  and  the 
limitation  [?]  of  the  Russian  force  to 
the  number  of  ships  maintained  be- 
fore the  war."  His  lordship  allows 
that  this  would  be  "  an  imperfect 
security  for  Turkey  and  for  Europe," 
but  that,  in  his  opinion,  it  was  better 
than  a  continuance  of  the  war.  He 
added,  that  "  it  ought  to  be  accepted 
by  the  Western  Powers,"  and  that  if 
her  Majesty's  Government,  in  concert 
with  that  of  France,  did  not  think  such 
a  peace  could  be  accepted,  "  he  hoped 
to  be  allowed  to  be  heard  personally 
before  a  final  decision  was  made." 
Within  three  days  of  this  date,  and 
while  this  shameful  despatch  was  still 
on  the  road  to  London,  Lord  Claren- 
don, in  very  different  language,  told 
Count  Colloredo  (who  had  communi- 
cated to  him  Count  Buol's  proposal), 
that  "England  and  France  were  not 
prepared  to  sacrifice  to  the  alliance  of 
Austria  their  honour  and  the  future 
security]  of  Europe,  and  that  peace 
upon  the  terms  proposed  by  Count 
Buol  would  be  as  dishonourable  as  it 
would  be  hollow  and  unsafe.  There 
is  much  reason  to  fear,"  bluntly 
added  the  Foreign  Secretary,  in  words 
that  deserve  to  be  noted,  "  that  Aus- 
tria will  propose  nothing  that  Russia 
would  be  unwilling  to  accept ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  seems  probable 
that  Russia  will  agree  to  nothing 


that  will  interfere  with  the  determi- 
nation that  the  Emperor  Alexander 
has  announced  of  carrying  out  the 
policy  of  Peter  and  of  Catharine." 
In  other  words,  the  Foreign  Secre- 
tary expressed  his  belief  that  Aus- 
tria would  make  no  opposition  to 
the  hereditary  policy  of  Russia,  by 
which  the  conquest  of  Turkey  is  aimed 
at  as  an  initial  step  to  the  subjugation 
of  Europe !  It  is  a  pity  our  states- 
men should  have  been  so  long  of 
making  this  all-important  discovery. 

Lord  John  Russell — who  himself 
(April  16),  before  the  Russian  ague 
had  smitten  him,  was  of  opinion  that 
the  only  result  of  consenting  to  the 
Austrian  proposals  would  be  "  a  peace 
which  would  give  Russia  leisure  and 
means  to  prepare  a  new  attack  on 
the  Ottoman  empire," — now  pledged 
himself  to  the  Austrian  Govern- 
ment to  support  these  proposals  to 
the  uttermost.  "  I  said  to  Count 
Buol,"  says  his  lordship  very  self- 
complacently,  "  that  I  could  assure 
him,  and  that  he  could  convey  that 
assurance  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria, 
that  I  would  lay  the  case  before  the 
Cabinet  of  this  country,  and  that  I 
would  use  my  best  endeavours  to  put 
these  propositions  in  such  a  light  that 
they  might  hope  for  their  adoption." 
Inspired  with  such  sentiments,  and 
fettered  by  such  pledges,  Lord  John 
Russell  returned  to  England  on  the 
29th  of  April,  and  next  day  a  Cabinet 
Council  was  held,  at  which  he  unfolded 
his  peace  views  to  his  expectant  col- 
leagues. For  the  next  five  days,  we  are 
told,  the  subj.ect  was  anxiously  debated 
in  the  Cabinet, — a  circumstance  which 
implies  there  was  much  division  of 
opinion  among  the  members, — and,  if 
we  may  judge  from*  the  tenor  of  the 
Ministerial  speeches  and  confessions, 
the  Austrian  proposals  were  either 
agreed  to,  or  within  an  ace  of  being  so, 
when  an  unexpected  event  occurred. 
The  French  Emperor,  after  consider- 
ing the  matter,  resolved  to  reject  the 
Austrian  proposals  ;  and  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  4th  May,  he  ordered  his  reso- 
lution to  be  communicated  by  telegraph, 
through  Count  Walewski,  to  the  British 
Cabinet.  "  Circumstances  occurred — 
or  rather  came  to  our  knowledge,"  says 
Lord  Palmerston,  which  convinced 
Lord  John  and  his  party  that  the 
Austrian  scheme  was  impracticable  ; 


1855.]  The  War,  the  Cabinet, 

and  we  believe  that  the  French  Em- 
peror, along  with  his  veto  upon  the 
Austrian  project,  communicated  some 
private  information  to  the  British 
Cabinet  which  satisfied  them  of  the 
justness  of  his  decision. 

This  chapter  of  our  foreign  polic}r, 
which  we  have  endeavoured  briefly  to 
chronicle,  is  one  of  the  strangest  and 
least  creditable  to  be  found  in  our 
annals.  Taken  in  connection  with,  and 
viewed  as  a  sequel  to  the  policy  of  the 
Aberdeen  Cabinet,  which  we  reviewed 
in  last  Number,  it  constitutes  a  portion 
of  history  as  dreary  as  it  is  destined 
to  be  memorable.  Though  England 
may  strive  to  forget  it,  injured  Europe 
will  keep  its  memory  alive.  Our 
previous  article  discussed  Ministerial 
proceedings  much  more  injurious  to 
the  interests  of  the  empire  and  of 
Europe  than  those  which  we  are  now 
recounting — for  it  was  then  that  the 
war  was  made  and  spoiled  ;  but  they 
do  not  present  phenomena  more 
strange,  or  personal  errors  so  pro- 
minently displayed.  The  former  re- 
gime was  a  blacker  one,  but  it  was 
better  concealed,  and  the  revela- 
tions of  duplicity  and  Russianism 
occurred  long  after  the  events,  and 
when  the  injury  had  been  fully  com- 
pleted. This  time  the  veil  has  been 
torn  aside  somewhat  prematurely, 
and  the  indignation  of  the  country  is 
more  lively  because  the  Ministerial 
criminality  is  more  recent.  The 
spectacle  of  Conferences  entered  upon 
only  to  be  blundered, — of  an  "  ally" 
trusted  in,  only  that  we  might  be 
elaborately  deceived, — of  Ministerial 
errors  not  more  glaringly  committed 
than  they  have  been  studiously  con- 
cealed and  unblushingly  denied, — of 
a  Cabinet  without  union  and  without 
a  policy,  living  upon  false  pretences, 
and  continuing  to  exist  only  that  it 
may  multiply  errors  and  accumulate 
disgrace,— is  an  exhibition  of  which 
the  country  has  grown  impatient  and 
posterity  will  be  ashamed. 

A  little  reflection  will  suffice  to  ex- 
plain the  true  cause  of  Lord  John 
Russell's  extraordinary  proceedings 
at  Vienna.  His  subsequent  speeches 
and  dying  confessions  are  so  contra- 
dictory and  confused,  that  they  throw 
little  light  upon  anything  save  his 
own  inordinate  self-sufficiency ;  and, 
moreover,  the  true  source  of  his  ter- 


and  the  Conferences. 


243 


giversations  was  of  a  nature  so  little 
complimentary  to  himself  and  his  col- 
leagues, that  he  might  well  be  excused 
for  not  publishing  it.  When  his  lord- 
ship returned  from  his  mission,  and 
the  news  of  his  conversion  to  peace- 
principles  was  first  bruited  abroad,  it 
was  averred,  as  the  cause  of  his  con- 
version, that  he  "  had  seen  a  wolf  at 
Vienna."  And  so  he  had.  In  the 
course  of  those  confidential  interviews, 
of  which  a  few  only  are  reported  in 
the  Correspondence,  Austria  so  far 
unrobed  herself  as  to  let  the  British 
envoy  see  she  was  not  the  lamb  he 
and  his  colleagues  had  taken  her  for. 
We  have  already  shown  how  absurd 
it  was  for  the  Allies  to  rely  upon  the 
friendship  of  a  power  like  Austria, 
whose  interest  it  was  to  be  neutral,  and 
which  they  neither  sought  to  win  by 
a  prospect  of  gain,  or  to  concuss  by 
an  overpowering  display  of  strength. 
Having  once  entrammelled  themselves, 
and  entered  upon  the  Conferences,  the 
mischief  was  done,  and  there  was  no 
escaping,  the  evil  consequences.  A 
most  plausible  and  singularly  astute 
man,  Count  Buol  for  long  impressed 
the  ministers  and  envoys  of  the  West- 
ern Powers  with  the  belief  that  he 
wished  to  limit  the  exorbitant  power 
of  Russia,  and  would  certainly  declare 
war  against  her  if  she  would  not  come 
to  terms.  Grown  impatient,  however, 
and  compelled  at  last  to  bear  hard 
upon  Austria,  in  order  to  induce  her 
to  take  a  positive  course,  our  envoy, 
greatly  to  his  surprise  and  bewilder- 
ment, became  aware  that  not  only 
would  she  not  fulfil  the  expectations 
she  had  held  out  to  the  Western 
Powers,  but  that,  if  pushed  into  a 
corner,  she  would  actually  aid  the  de- 
signs and  subserve  the  policy  of  Rus- 
sia !  Perhaps  Lord  John  hinted  that 
Austria  must  march  out  of  the  Princi- 
palities if  she  remained  neutral,  or, 
suggesting  coming  troubles  in  Italy,  re- 
minded Austria  that  she  need  no  longer 
look  to  us  to  guarantee  her  posses- 
sions . — in  -which  case,  Count  Buol's 
rejoinder  would  probably  be,  that 
Austria  would  take  good  care  to  keep 
what  she  had  got,  and  that,  if  the 
Allies  would  not  help  her  against  her 
disaffected  provinces,  she  knew  by 
former  experience  where  to  look  for 
effective  aid!  Perhaps,  too,  Lord 
John's  elaborate  exposition  of  the 


244 


The  War,  the  Cabinet, 


evil  to  Austria  should  Russia  get 
possession  of  Constantinople,  was 
mildly  replied  to  by  the  hint  that  the 
acquisition  of  Servia  and  Bosnia 
might  compensate  for  such  eventu- 
alities! Anyhow,  the  denouement 
came,  and  Lord  John  Russell  was 
thunderstruck.  Like  fools,  he  and 
his  Cabinet  had  never  looked  for 
this;  and  now,  like  a  poltroon,  he 
sought  to  back  out  of  a  war  of  which 
he  and  his  late  colleagues  had  been 
the  originators.  They  had  induced  it 
by  their  sycophancy  to  Russia; — they 
had  declared  it  "just  and  inevitable," 
and  embarked  the  empire  in  it ; — by 
their  procrastination  and  mismanage- 
ment they  had  doubled  its  dangers, — 
and  now  they  sought  to  flee  from 
it,  leaving  Europe  in  danger,  and 
England  disgraced ! 

Thanks,  apparently,  to  the  inter- 
position of  the  French  Emperor, 
the  design  of  accepting  the  Russo- 
Austrian  terms  of  peace  was  set  aside 
by  the  British  Cabinet,— although  it 
is  clear  that  it  was  against  the  wish 
of  Lord  John  Russell  and  his  party 
that  such  a  conclusion  was  come  to. 
"There  were  circumstances,"  said 
Lord  John,  in  the  last  of  his  manifold 
explanations,  "  which  arose  in  the 
course  of  these  discussions,  which  made 
it  appear  to  my  mind  impossible  to 
urge  the  acceptance  of  these  proposi- 
tions,— circumstances  quite  indepen- 
dent of  the  merits  of  the  case,  and 
which  did  not  alter  my  opinion  of  those 
propositions."  These  words  are  in 
strict  accordance  with  those  in  his 
first  explanation,  wherein,  speaking 
of  his  opinion  at  Vienna  that  the  Aus- 
trian proposal  "  might  be,  and  ought 
to  be,  accepted,"  he  added,  "  I  thought 
so  then,  and  think  so  still!"  And 
yet,  in  Parliament,  his  lordship's  voice 
was  still  for  war !— and  before  the 
very  first  week  in  May  was  out  (May 
6),  he  made  a  speech  in  the  House  so 
opposite  to  his  peace-views,  that  even 
his  colleague,  Sir  George  Grey,  heard 
it  "with  surprise  and  regret."  At  the 
end  of  the  week,  the  Cabinet,  we  are 
told,  was  unanimous  that  the  Austrian 
terms  should  be  rejected  as  inconsis- 
tent with  the  "  interests  and  dignity 
of  the  country,"  and  on  the  8th  Lord 
Clarendon  wrote  to  this  effect  to  the 
Austrian  government.  But  how  long 
did  this  Ministerial  unanimity  last  ? — 
and  what  was  it  that  so  soon  made 


and  the  Conferences.  [Aug. 

the  Cabinet  reconsider  its  opinion? 
Although  forced  to  reject  the  Austrian, 
project  brought  home  by  Lord  John 
Russell,  the  Cabinet,  shrinking  from 
the  crisis  which  their  own  imbecility 
and  the  Russianism  of  their  predeces- 
sors had  induced,  still  dunned  Aus- 
tria for  new  proposals,  —  a  request 
with  which  that  most  accommodating 
person  Count  Buol  most  willingly 
complied.  His  faculty  of  concocting 
elusive  notes  was  perfectly  inexhaust- 
ible ;  and  so  great  has  been  his  suc- 
cess in  the  art,  that  he  well  deserves 
the  title  of  "Netmaker  to  the  British 
Government."  It  is  to  be  noticed 
that  in  Lord  John's  last  (published) 
despatch  before  quitting  Vienna,  and 
after  the  first  snubbing  he  received 
from  Lord  Clarendon,  he  says  : — "  I 
asked  Count  Buol,  as  the  third  system 
was  not  in  accordance  with  our  in- 
structions, what,  supposing  we  sup- 
ported it,  and  Russia  rejected  all  the 
three  systems  [proposed  by  Count 
Buol,]  what  would  be  the  conduct  of 
Austria?  Count  Buol  declined  to 
give  an  answer  to  this  question,  but 
hinted  at  some  fourth  system  [O  rare 
invention  !  ]  which  might  arise  out  of 
the  ashes  of  the  three  systems  now 
floating  in  the  air." 

This  fourth  system  —  so  great 
were  the  net -making  capabilities 
of  Count  Buol  —  when  it  took  de- 
finite shape,  was  found  to  have 
branched  into  two.  The  first  of 
these  propositions  stipulated,  in  brief, 
that  the  Russian  fleet  in  the  Black 
Sea  should  remain  at  its  present  re- 
duced amount, — the  Turkish  to  be 
henceforth  of  equal  force, — and  that 
each  of  the  other  contracting  powers 
should  be  authorised  to  maintain  two 
frigates  in  that  sea.  Limitation  to 
this  extent  might  have  been  accepted 
as  sufficient  by  the  Allies,  but  the  pro- 
posal was  not  a  bond  fide  one.  Like 
all  Austria's  proposals  which  threat- 
ened to  impose  satisfactory  terms  upon 
Russia,  it  "  had  a  hole  in  it."  There 
were  no  stipulations  binding  Austria 
to  go  to  war  in  the  event  of  its  present 
rejection  or  future  violation  by  Rus- 
sia. The  second  of  the  new  Austrian 
propositions  was  of  a  different  cha- 
racter. It  proposed  to  allow  Russia 
to  restore  her  fleet  in  the  Black  Sea  to 
its  amount  at  the  commencement  of 
the  war, — each  of  the  other  Powers, 
as  a  "  counterpoise,"  being  allowed 


1855.] 


The  Wai'j  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


245 


to  keep  a  fleet  of  half  that  force,  for 
the  purpose  of  holding  Russia  iu 
check !  and  any  increase  of  the  Rus- 
sian fleet  above  the  stipulated  amount 
was  to  be  regarded  as  a  cause  of  war. 
Thus  the  former  of  those  alternative 
propositions  suggested  satisfactory 
conditions,  but  bound  Austria  to  no- 
thing ;  the  latter  contained  terms 
which  could  be  acceptable  only  to 
Russia,  and  bound  Austria  to  enforce 
their  observance.  Hence  the  former 
proposition  was  useless  to  the  Allies, 
and  the  latter  was  clearly  inadmis- 
sible. So  Austria  played  her  game; 
ever  willing  to  protract  the  negotiations, 
and  preserve  the  eminently  influential 
position  of  an  arbiter  and  courted 
neutral,  which  our  easily  duped 
Ministers  had  assigned  to  her,  and 
putting  forth  cleverly-worded  project 
after  project,  which  either  bound  her 
to  nothing,  or  stipulated  in  effect  for 
the  counter-propositions  of  Russia. 
In  point  of  fact,  even  the  latter  of 
Count  Buol's  final  propositions  could 
not  be  relied  upon  as  securing  the 
armed  co-operation  of  time-serving 
Austria;  and  had  they  been  accepted, 
and  Russia  subsequently  raised  her 
naval  force  in  the  Black  Sea  beyond 
the  enormous  amount  at  which  it 
stood  at  the  commencement  of  the 
war,  there  was  a  difficulty  in  saying 
how  that  original  force  was  to  be 
estimated,  and,  moreover,  there  was 
every  reasonable  ground  to  believe 
that  if  Austria  shrank  from  a  contest 
with  her  colossal  neighbour  now,  she 
would  still  more  do  so  at  a  future 
period.  As  Lord  John  Russell  re- 
marked, after  his  discoveries  at  Vienna 
(despatch  No.  8)  :— 

<e  In  the  case  of  such  an  attack  re- 
newed five  years  hence,  could  we  rely 
on  the  Austrian  guarantee  of  the  in- 
tegrity of  Turkey  ?  I  apprehend  that  the 
same  financial  embarrassment,  the  same 
doubt  of  Prussia  and  the  German  States, 
and  an  army  reduced  to  the  establish- 
ment of  1852,  would  paralyse  her  then,  as 
they  did  in  1853.  The  occupation  of  the 
Principalities  by  Russia  she  felt  to  be 
dangerous  to  her  existence  as  a  great 
Power,  and  she  risked  war  to  put  an  end 
to  it.  But,  that  point  accomplished,  I 
fear  we  must  not  count  upon  her  aid  to 
save  Constantinople  from  the  encroaching 
ambition  of  Russia." 

These  last  Austrian  overtures  were 
transmitted  from  Vienna  on  the  16th 
May,  and  they  were  not  rejected  by 


the  British  Government  until  the 
29th ;— what  occurred  in  the  inter- 
val ?  If  the  Cabinet  were  so  united  as 
we  are  expected  to  believe,  and  if  no 
idea  of  accepting  the  Austrian  pro- 
posals were  entertained  after  the  first 
week  of  May,  how  came  it  that  Count 
Buol  so  grievously  misinterpreted  the 
language  of  the  Cabinet  as  to  send 
two  new  and  elaborate  propositions 
on  the  16th,  and  that  the  Ministry 
should  have  been  so  singularly  tardy 
as  not  to  have  rejected  these  over- 
tures till  the  end  of  the  month  ?  We 
must  leave  it  to  the  future  to  fully 
expose  the  deceit  of  the  Cabinet  on 
this  point ;  but  it  needs  something 
more  than  the  word  of  the  present 
Premier,  or  of  the  ex-Secretary  of  the 
Colonies,  to  convince  us  that  Count 
Buol  and  the  English  public  were  alike 
wrong  in  imagining  that  the  Ministry 
gave  ear  to  the  Austrian  proposals,  and 
that  the  well-informed  leader  of  the 
Opposition  was  mistaken  when  he 
brought  forward  his  famous  motion 
charging  the  Ministry  with  "ambi- 
guity of  language  and  uncertainty  of 
conduct"  in  regard  to  the  Conferences. 
In  fact,  we  know  that  Count  Buol's 
final  proposals  must  have  been  re- 
ceived at  the  Foreign  Office  on  the 
19th  of  May ;  in  the  morning  of  the 
21st  a  Cabinet  Council  was  held ; 
and  in  the  evening  the  statement  made 
by  Lord  Palmerston,  which  induced 
the  withdrawal  of  Mr  M.  Gibson's 
motion,  was  the  express  assurance 
that  the  Government  "  did  not  con- 
sider all  the  modes  of  solving  the  ques- 
tions at  issue  as  exhausted,  and  that 
Austria  was  still  charged  by  her  own 
voluntary  assumption  with  the  task 
of  discovering  a  means  of  bringing 
about  an  accommodation  between  the 
contending  parties."  "  There  were  no 
questions  with  regard  to  any  fresh 
negotiations  which  created  any  long 
deliberations  in  the  Cabinet,"  is  the 
ambiguous  phrase  of  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell in  his  farewell  speech  (July  16) ; 
and  Sir  George  Grey,  on  the  same 
evening,  while  declining  to  make  any 
direct  statement  in  answer  to  the 
charges  of  the  Opposition  chiefs  on 
this  subject,  expressed  his  defence  of 
the  Ministry  in  a'form  eminently  sug- 
gestive of  suspicion.  "  7,  at  the  close  of 
that  week"  he  said  —  referring  to  the 
first  week  of  May — u  should  have  been 
prepared  to  assert,  that  it  was  the  una- 


246 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


[Aug. 


nimous  decision  of  the  Cabinet  that 
the  Austrian  proposals  should  be  re- 
jected." It  is  abundantly  evident  that 
every  word  of  the  speech  from  which 
this  sentence  is  extracted  was  care- 
fully weighed  before  it  was  uttered ; 
and  yet,  what  is  the  actual  import  of 
it,  when  stripped  of  its  circumlocutory 
vagueness,  but  that  Sir  George  Grey 
speaks  only  for  the  punctum  temporis 
at  the  end  of  the  first  week  of  May, 
and  refused  to  vouch  for  the  una- 
nimity of  the  Cabinet  in  the  three 
weeks  that  followed?  That  there 
was  a  division  of  opinion,  and  a  de- 
sire to  accept  the  Austrian  proposals,  in 
the  Cabinet,  during  the  latter  half  of 
May,  we  firmly  believe  ;  and  in  cor- 
roboration  it  is  to  be  observed  that, 
contrary  to  his  custom  of  answering 
despatches  the  day  after  receipt, 
Lord  Clarendon's  reply  rejecting 
Count  Buol's  proposals  was  not 
written  till  the  29th,— the  interven- 
ing period  having  been  spent  in  feel- 
ing the  pulse  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, after  a  vain  attempt  to  evade 
its  vigilance.  The  country  is  not  yet 
sufficiently  aware  of  the  debt  of  grati- 
tude which  it  owes  to  Mr  Disraeli  for 
his  prompt  interference  on  this  occa- 
sion, and  to  the  Opposition  generally 
for  the  energetic  following  up  of  a  de- 
bate which  compelled  the  Ministry  to 
abandon  their  deceitful  efforts  after 
an  ignominious  peace.  When  thus 
found  out,  they  were  actually  carry- 
ing their  mines  under  the  very  citadel 
of  British  honour  and  the  Empire's 
safety;  and  if,  instead  of  being 
simply  unearthed,  the  whole  per- 
fidious Cabinet  had  been  blown  into 
the  air,  it  would  have  been  a  relief 
to  the  country,  and  a  "  material 
guarantee  "  for  the  better  conduct  of 
our  statesmen  in  the  future. 

They  escaped  this  richly  -  merited 
fate  solely  by  turning  their  backs 
upon  themselves,  and  by  denouncing 
the  very  terms  of  peace  which  they 
would  have  accepted,  but  for  "  cir- 
cumstances" over  which,  fortunately, 
they  had  no  control.  The  deceit 
practised  by  the  Ministry  in  the  de- 
bates from  the  24th  May  to  the  7th 
June  is  without  a  parallel.  It  was 
so  pettifogging,  and  so  mean  !  Most 
justly  did  we  complain  a  month  ago 
that  the  want  of  confidence  of  the 
country  in  the  Government,  and  the 
apathy  of  the  Commons,  were  due  to 


the  frauds  which  the  Government  of 
late  years  has  stooped  to  practise. 
But  the  evil  is  only  growing  greater. 
Ministerial  life  seems  to  be  becoming 
every  month  more  rotten.  Individual 
now  takes  the  place  of  collective  dupli- 
city. It  is  no  longer  a  Cabinet 
concealing  documents,  but  indivi- 
dual Ministers  boldly  uttering  the 
most  disingenuous  misrepresentations. 
Such  was  the  conduct  of  Lord  John 
Russell  during  the  memorable  debates 
to  which  we  have  alluded.  Twice  he 
spoke,  and  both  times  it  was  to  gloss, 
to  misrepresent,  and  deceive.  To 
hear  him,  he  was  a  very  Hector  for 
the  fight — a  very  Scipio  in  his  de- 
nunciations of  peace,  until  the  dread 
"  delenda  est"  had  been  accomplished 
against  our  gigantic  foe.  And  yet 
he  was  the  reverse  of  a  hero  at  bot- 
tom,—bullied  by  Gortschakoff,  duped 
by  Titoff,  and  timidly  seeking  to  make 
things  straight  at  home  by  denying 
his  frailties.  With  all  his  vaunting1 
self-sufficiency,  he  was  "taken  in" 
even  by  Palrnerston.  The  Premier, 
playing  upon  his  love  of  office,  and  his 
dread  of  being  known  to  have  done 
anything  unpopular,  induced  him  to 
continue  in  office  when  he  should  have 
resigned  ;  but  no  sooner  did  Sir  E.  B. 
Lytton's  motion  threaten  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Premier 
found  that  Lord  John  had  become  a 
Jonah  instead  of  a  pillar  of  strength, 
than,  amidst  a  thousand  protestations 
of  friendship,  it  was  resolved  to  let  him 
go,  and  the  Ministerial  subordinates 
were  incited  to  mutiny  against  the 
too  adhesive  tenant  of  the  Cabinet. 
All  that  an  individual  could  do  to 
bring  disgrace  upon  the  character  ot 
public  men,  Lord  John  has  done, — 
and  he  is  meeting  his  reward. 

Monday  the  16th  was  a  famous 
night  in  the  House.  Sir  E.  B.  Lyt- 
ton's motion  was  to  come  off,  and  so 
was  Lord  John's  valedictory  address. 
The  public  flocked  to  witness  the  of- 
ficial execution  of  the  ex-Envoy,  and 
even  the  green  benches  of  the  mem- 
bers were  well  filled,  considering  the 
season.  The  little  man  whose  dying 
speech  they  had  met  to  hear,  man- 
aged to  enter  the  House  quite  unob- 
served; and  when  the  Speaker,  by 
calling  the  orders  of  the  day,  brought 
him  to  his  legs,  he  appeared  suddenly 
like  a  Jack-in-the-box  in  the  third 
seat  behind  Ministers.  On  occasion 


1855.]  The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


247 


of  his  former  fit  of  recalcitrancy  in 
February,  he  betook  himself  one  bench 
more  to  the  rear.  But  this  time  he 
was  resolutely  opposed  to  playing  the 
part  of  penitent.  Hardly  had  he  got 
on  his  legs,  than  he  was  off  on  an- 
other tack  ;  and  after  sheltering  him- 
self for  some  time  from  the  impending 
speech  of  Bulwer  under  a  cloud  of 
mystification,  he  somewhat  astound- 
ingly  broke  cover  in  the  righteously- 
indignant  style,  and  fired  off  a  poetic 
quotation  against  those  who  had  de- 
serted him  in  his  hour  of  need.  Long 
habituation  to  the  chicaneries  of  office 
seemed  to  have  rendered  the  once 
great  Whig  chief  incapable  of  under- 
standing the  humiliation  of  his  posi- 
tion ;  and  the  men  who  had  signed 
the  "  round  robin"  to  compel  his  re- 
signation, doubtless  were  greatly  taken 
aback  by  the  low  estimate  in  which 
he,  the  dishonest  dupe,  declared  to 
the  House  he  held  them  !  To  be  con- 
demned by  their  old  leader  was  a  sore 
trial  for  the  young  Whiglings ;  and 
commonplace  Mr  Bouverie  was  so 
completely  put  out,  that,  in  attempt- 
ing an  explanation,  he  floundered 
deep  and  deeper  into  absurdity  and 
contradictions,  while  louder  and  more 
hearty  grew  the  roars  of  laughter 
around  him ;  and  at  last  when,  in  a 
state  of  visibly  excruciating  per- 
plexity, he  made  an  ad-misericordiam 
appeal  to  Lord  John,  to  say  whether 
he  were  not,  in  actual  fact,  his  "  true 
friend,"  neither  the  House  nor  the 
Speaker  could  stand  it  any  longer, 
and  the  peroration  expired  amid 
bursts  of  uproarious  laughter. 

The  leaders  of  the  Opposition  that 
night  never  spoke  better,  nor  acted 
with  sounder  discretion.  Sir  E.  B. 
Lytton's  motion  was  so  well-worded, 
well-timed,  and  so  obviously  called 
for  by  the  best  interests  of  the  State, 
that  he  completely  carried  the  country 
and  the  press  along  with  him.  As 
had  fared  with  his  motion  on  Admi- 
nistrative Reform,  a  month  before, 
the  Ministry  found  it  impossible  to 
resist  his  attack — a  singular  honour, 
to  have  twice  triumphed  over  the 
Government  by  the  sheer  excellence 
of  his  cause,  and  skilled  accuracy  of 
his  terms !  We  do  not  think  we  over- 
rate Sir  Edward's  speech  on  this  occa- 
sion, if  we  rank  it  as  the  finest  of  the 
session.  His  orations  in  the  Lower 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVIII. 


House  somewhat  resemble  those  of 
Lord  Lyndhurst  in  the  Upper. 
With  an  equally  remarkable  spirit  of 
fairness,  with  nearly  equal  judicial 
calm  in  his  verdicts,  and  greater  point 
and  brilliancy  of  style,  than  the  ve- 
teran orator  of  the  House  of  Peers, 
Sir  E.  B.  Lytton  is  not  only  highly 
eloquent,  but  never  fails  deeply  to 
influence  the  judgment  of  the  House. 
On  this  occasion,  although  he  with- 
drew his  motion,  his  masterly  resume. 
of  the  case  against  the  Government 
seems  to  have  stung  the  Premier 
deeply— especially  his  home-thrust  at 
the  "  Austrians  "  who  still  remained 
quietly  on  the  Treasury  benches. 

"  I  should  like  to  hear  (said  the  lion. 
Baronet)  the  expression  of  opinion  on  the 
part  of  other  members  of  the  Cabinet  be- 
sides the  noble  Viscount.  There  are  gentle- 
men in  the  Government  who  have  not  as 
yet  expressed  their  opinion  upon  the  nature 
of  the  war  or  the  propositions  for  peace. 
What  are  the  opinions  of  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  \  What  are  the  opin- 
ions of  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  1 
Are  all  the  members  of  the  Government 
united  for  this  subject  ?  Again  I  ask,  is 
Lord  Clarendon  the  spokesman  of  a  unit- 
ed Cabinet  I  If  so,  I  am  glad  of  it ;  but 
you  told  us  the  same  in  May,  when  you 
now  own  that  the  noble  lord  (Russell) 
was  dividing  your  councils,  when  Lord 
Clarendon  did  not  represent  the  entire 
Cabinet, — and  you  will  pardon  me  if  for 
the  present  I  suspend  my  belief." 

The  ebullition  which  followed  from 
the  Premier  was  in  all  respects  a 
melancholy  exhibition.  He  raved 
and  accused  Sir  E.  B.  Lytton  of  "  the 
grossest  possible  ignorance"  or  "  de- 
liberate insincerity  "  in  presuming  to 
suggest  whether  there  were  not  still 
divisions  of  opinion  in  the  Cabinet, — 
as  if  such  a  suggestion  were  not  most 
natural  in  the  circumstances,  an 
obvious  inference  from  the  events  of 
the  last  two  months,  and  deserving 
to  be  keenly  pressed  against  the 
Ministry,  lest  the  reign  of  chaos  in 
the  Cabinet  should  continue  to  afflict 
the  country  with  disaster.  The 
Premier  forgot  himself,  and  the 
assembly  whom  he  addressed;  and 
his  intemperate  harangue  showed  in 
painful  contrast  with  the  classical 
and  courteous  periods  of  the  gentle- 
man whom  he  so  coarsely  assailed. 
It  was  auger  in  its  dotage,— noisy 
p. 


The  War,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Conferences. 


248 

but  pointless.  But  it  did  not  escape 
unpunished.  Mr  Disraeli  replied; 
and  never  was  the  brilliant  leader  of 
the  Opposition  more  happy  in  his 
hits,  or  more  cruelly  cool  in  the 
delivering  of  them.  The  passages  in 
which  he  chastised  the  "  patrician 
bullying"  of  the  Treasury  Bench 
have  rarely  been  surpassed  for  polish- 
ed and  effective  sarcasm.  But  soon, 
sweeping  away  the  Premier  out  of 
sight,  his  oration,  widening  in  pur- 
pose and  deepening  in  tone,  broke 
like  a  thunder-storm  over  the  heads 
of  the  Ministerial  delinquents.  The 
following  sentences  contain  a  charge, 
startling  and  extraordinary  certainly, 
but  which  we  believe  will  prove 
thoroughly  well-founded:— 

"  The  point  is,"  said  Mr  Disraeli, 
"  whether  or  not  the  noble  lord,  the 
member  for  London,  communicated  with 
other  Ministers  than  those  who  appear 
on  the  papers  presented  to  Parlia- 
ment, giving  them  the  outline  and 
spirit  of  the  policy  which  was  developing 
under  his  auspices  at  Vienna  —  (loud 
opposition  ...  cheers)  —  and  whether  he 
received  any  discouraging  reply?  (Re- 
newed cheers.)  I  have  reason  to  think 
that  communications  were  made,  and  that 
the  noble  lord  did  not  receive  any  dis- 
couraging reply.  If  that  was  so,  we 
ought  to  receive  extracts  from  these  let- 
ters. Is  it  or  not  the  fact  that,  for  at 
least  a  day — I  believe  for  a  much  longer 
time — these  terms  were  accepted  by  the 
Government  of  England,  and  that  they 
were  sanctioned  by  the  noble  lord  the 
First  Minister  ?  I  know  not  whether  the 
present  Session  of  Parliament  will  last 
six  weeks  more  ;  but  if  it  do,  I  believe  I 
shall  find  these  remarks  which  I  am  now 
making — which  are  being  received  now 
by  some  so  suspiciously  —  received  at 
length  by  the  great  majority  of  this  House. 
I  make  the  statement  on  the  greatest 
authority,  and  I  now  express  my  profound 
conviction  of  its  truth." 

The  "  black  fate,"  as  Orientals  say, 
is  certainly  upon  our  Cabinets.  But 
it  is  a  fate  of  their  own  creating, — en- 
gendered by  want  of  principle,  and  cul- 
minating in  the  most  flagrant  deceit. 
Neither  the  safety  nor  the  honour  of 
the  country  is  safe  in  their  hands ; 
they  imperil  the  one  by  their  waver- 
ing imbecility,  and  barter  the  other  from 
their  love  of  power.  Their  amplest 
professions  are  coupled  with  the  mini- 
mum of  performance  ;— -Russellite  de- 
nunciations of  Russia  go  hand-in-hand 
with  Aberdonian  apathy  in  the  con- 


[Aug. 


duct  of  the  war ; — all  is  union  and 
energy  on  the  surface,  all  is  dissen- 
sion and  paralysis  within.  The  faith 
of  the  nation  has  departed  from  the 
Palmerston  Cabinet,  and  the  minds 
of  the  people,  again  deprived  of  a 
rallying-point,  waver  to  and  fro  like 
aimless  billows.  Do  not  call  the  nation 
fickle,  impatient,  impossible  to  please. 
Surely  the  continuance  in  power  of  a 
Cabinet  like  the  present  is  proof  enough 
that  they  are  not  over-fastidious.  Give 
them  but  a  Ministry  on  which  they 
may  rely — not  one  made  up  of  men 
discredited  by  former  misdemeanours, 
and  ever  rushing  into  new  shapes  of 
error  and  duplicity,— and  they  will 
follow  it,  we  believe,  with  earnestness 
and  energy.  Perhaps  a  new  House 
of  Commons  is  needed  ere  we  shall 
have  a  right  Ministry.  Elected  to  de- 
cide a  question  of  commercial  policy, 
the  present  one  is  not  pre-eminently 
fitted  for  the  conduct  of  a  mighty  wan 
It  clings  with  desperate  tenacity  to 
Free-trade  names,  and  to  points  long 
since  submerged  by  the  rush  of  mightier 
principles.  One  by  one,  however, 
the  advocates  of  Russia  and  deceivers 
of  England  are  dropping  into  ob- 
scurity ;  they  are  rotting  out  of  the 
Government.  The  men  who  have 
sought  to  barter  the  honour  and 
mortgage  the  glory  of,  their  country,, 
are  becoming  known  and  ostracised. 
Self-  ostracised,  because  self -con- 
demned. Aberdeen  and  Newcastle- 
are  extinguished  —  Graham,  Glad- 
stone, and  Herbert  are  likewise 
exiled  from  office — and  now  Lord 
John  Russell,  the  great  Whig  chief, 
has  sunk  beneath  a  burden  of  shame 
which  would  have  driven  any  less 
self-sufficient  man  into  permanent 
retirement.  The  atmosphere  is  clear- 
ing. Palmerston  "  alone  is  left." 
One  charge  of  the  Stanley  chivalry 
would  sweep  the  thinned  and  broken 
array  of  the  Ministerialists  from  the 
field ;  but  that  charge  comes  not  yet. 
In  a  crisis  like  this,  when  party  and 
place- seeking  have  so  discredited  our 
cherishedConstitution,thenobleleader 
of  the  Conservatives  has  no  desire  to 
increase  the  State -embarrassment.  It 
may  be  that  he  is  over- cautious— it 
may  be  that,  in  his  anxiety  to  avoid 
the  charge  of  factiousness,  he  is  risk- 
ing overmuch  the  welfare  of  the  State. 
But  the  denouement  cannot  be  long 
delayed. 


1855.] 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


249 


INTERNAL   SUFFERINGS   OF   RUSSIA   FROM   THE   WAR. 

BY  AN   EYEWITNESS. 

[THE  writer  of  the  following  statement  left  Russia,  where  he  had  resided 
for  many  years,  in  the  course  of  the  present  summer. 

It  will  be  observed  that  he  apologises  for  any  defects  of  style  which  appear 
in  the  narrative,  on  the  ground  of  the  length  of  time  during  which  he  had  been 
unaccustomed  to  write  his  own  language.  No  such  defects  will,  we  feel  satis- 
lied,  be  found ;  as  the  facts,  so  deeply  interesting  in  themselves,  and  so  im- 
portant in  their  bearing,  are  told  in  plain  sensible  terms,  leaving  no  doubt  of 
the  writer's  sincerity,  and  his  desire  to  tell  nothing  but  the  truth.] 


HAVING  recently  left  the  interior 
of  Russia,  I  think  it  my  duty  to  lay 
before  the  public  a  plain  statement  of 
the  results  already  produced  by  the 
events  that  are  now  passing.  About 
the  court  and  capitals  I  can  give  no 
information,  as  I  was  only  in  them 
for  a  few  days  on  my  way  home ;  but 
all  that  I  advance  here  relative  to  the 
particular  part  of  the  country  I  have 
lived  in  so  long,  is  the  truth,  and  to 
be  relied  on.  I  had  the  honour  of 
giving  the  same  information  to  some 
of  the  highest  personages  in  the  king- 
dom soon  after  my  arrival,  and  ap- 
parently they  did  not  think  it  without 
importance ;  so  I  have  ventured  to  lay 
it  before  my  country,  trusting  that 
what  has  hitherto  been  dark  will  now 
appear  in  the  light  of  truth;  for  I 
have  put  nothing  down  that  did  not 
come  under  my  own  personal  obser- 
vation, or  that  I  did  not  obtain  from 
sources  on  which  I  could  rely.  I  had 
thought  of  publishing  a  larger  work 
upon  Russia,  but  was  deterred  by 
reading  the  books  already  published, 
which  showed  me  that  I  should  be 
obliged  to  repeat  much  that  has  been 
already  written  by  abler  pens,  and 
which  may  be  relied  upon;  I  have 
therefore  confined  myself  to  what 
relates  exclusively  to  the  influence 
exercised  upon  all  classes  in  the  inte- 
rior by  the  war.  There  is,  doubtless, 
much  left  unsaid  that  might  be  of 
interest,  but  of  which  I  possess  no 
information  upon  which  I  can  de- 
pend ;  and,  true  to  my  resolve  of 
only  advancing  what  I  know  to  be 
facts,  I  have  left  out  all  that  is  in  any 
way  doubtful.  I  am  quite  unused  to 
writing  for  the  public,  and  have  em- 
ployed my  native  language  so  little 
of  late  years,  that  I  trust  the  garb  in 


which  I  have  clothed  my  truths  will 
be  excused  if  it  be  a  little  foreign  in 
appearance  ;  for  the  heart  of  the 
writer  beats  with  a  truly  British  en- 
thusiasm, and  breathlessly  awaits  the 
moment  when  his  country  will  have 
triumphed  over  all  her  enemies. 

The  persons  who  are  the  greatest 
sufferers  by  the  present  war  are  the 
landed  proprietors.  If  the  war  con- 
tinue, they  will,  for  the  greater  part, 
be  brought  to  ruin.  This  will  be  seen 
by  the  following  facts,  which  came 
under  my  observation  upon  an  estate 
where  I  have  resided  for  some  years, 
and  which  I  can  give  as  an  average 
specimen  of  the  whole  country.  (It 
must  be  remembered  that  I  only  speak 
of  the  south  of  Russia ;  of  the  north 
I  know  comparatively  nothing.)  The 
estate  in  question  consists  of  about 
40,000  acres  of  land,  with  about  thir- 
teen hundred  serfs.  Its  principal 
productions  are  linseed,  corn,  and 
wool,  which  are  all  sold  for  expor- 
tation by  way  of  the  ports  of  the 
Azoff  and  Black  Seas.  These  two 
seas  having  been  closed  for  some 
time,  all  the  raw  produce  remains 
rotting  on  the  hands  of  the  pro- 
ducer, with  the  single  exception  of 
wool,  which  finds  a  ready  market 
in  Germany,  being  transported  over- 
land through  Austria ;  still  the  price  di- 
minished sensibly  last  year,  on  account 
of  the  increased  cost  of  transport.  I 
will  now  proceed  to  state  the  details  of 
the  losses  experienced  last  year  upon 
this  one  property.  The  average  in- 
come amounts  to  about  £6000,  out  of 
which  £1500  has  to  be  paid  as  inte- 
rest of  the  mortgage — for  this,  like 
most  other  estates,  is  mortgaged  to 
the  government.  Last  year  there 


250 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


[Aug. 


were  about  1500  quarters  of  linseed, 
which,  sold  on  the  spot,  would  fetch 
upon  an  average  16s.  per  quarter. 
Of  this  not  a  bushel  has  been  sold  ; 
so,  on  this  article  alone,  there  is  a 
loss  of  £1200.  The  wheat  grown 
was  about  the  same  quantity.  The 
average  price  of  wheat  is  12s.  per 
quarter,  and  now  only  a  limited 
quantity  can  be  sold  at  8s. ;  but, 
supposing  the  whole  to  be  sold  at 
that  price,  the  loss  will  still  amount 
to  £300.  This,  however,  is  not  the 
case,  and  the  loss  is  not  less  than  £500 
upon  wheat.  Last  year  the  price  of 
wool  was,  upon  an  average,  15  per 
cent  below  the  usual  price ;  in  some 
instances  there  was  a  loss  of  20  and 
25  per  cent ;  the  quantity  sold  usually 
fetched  about  £1400 — so  there  was 
another  loss  of  more  than  £200. 
Upon  this  same  estate  there  are 
kept  about  eighteen  thousand  sheep, 
of  which  there  are  generally  sold 
every  year  two  thousand  for  their 
tallow  and  skins,  at  an  average 
price  of  7s.  a-head;  now,  on  account 
of  the  difficulties  of  exporting  tallow, 
the  price  is  only  5s., — another  £200 
out  of  the  pocket  of  the  proprietor. 
It  will  be  seen  by  the  foregoing  state- 
ment, that  the  income  of  the  possessor 
of  this  one  estate  is  diminished  more 
than  one-third,  by  restrictions  laid 
upon  trade  by  the  closing  of  the 
ports  of  the  Azoff  and  Black  Seas ; 
and  as  this  may  be  taken  as  a  good 
criterion  of  the  whole  southern  part 
of  Russia,  the  loss  is  consequently 
something  enormous.  A  few  of  the 
proprietors,  it  is  true,  sold  their  pro- 
duce, at  almost  nominal  prices,  to 
merchants  who  speculated  upon  the 
results  of  the  Conferences  at  Vienna, 
and  bought  up  largely  and  transport- 
ed the  corn  to  the  different  ports  of 
the  south,  to  be  ready  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  first  opening  of  the  trade, 
had  the  Conferences  led  to  the  much- 
desired  peace.  The  immense  quanti- 
ties of  corn  destroyed  during  the  late 
expedition  to  the  Azoff,  did  not,  as 
was  stated,  belong  to  the  Russian 
government,  but  was  the  property  of 
private  speculators,  among  whom  I 
know  one  who  bought  largely  in 
wheat  in  the  month  of  March,  trans- 
porting it  to  Berdiansk,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  he  is  a  very  large  sufferer 
by  the  late  events.  I  do  not  assert, 


however,  that  no  portion  of  the  corn 
belonged  to  the  Imperial  government, 
but  certainly  not  more  than  a  fifth 
of  the  whole  quantity  destroyed  was 
intended  for  the  use  of  the  troops,  al- 
though it  might  have  all  been  seized 
for  that  purpose  later  in  the  war,  under 
the  name  of  voluntary  contributions. 

I  have  attempted  to  show  the 
losses  that  the  present  war  occasions 
the  landowner,  by  the  trammels  it 
imposes  on  trade :  we  will  now 
take  into  consideration  the  enor- 
mous taxes  he  is  subjected  to,  in 
order  that  the  government  may  be 
provided  with  means  of  carrying  on 
the  war,  or  ruining  him,  which  is 
synonymous.  The  most  severely  felt 
tax  at  all  times  is  the  conscription. 
This  in  time  of  peace  does  not  take 
place  oftener  than  once  a-year,  and 
the  number  of  recruits  required 
is  generally  seven  from  every  thou- 
sand serfs ;  but  since  the  war 
broke  out  there  have  been  two  con- 
scriptions in  the  year  1854,  and  al- 
ready one  in  1855,  each  of  twelve  in  the 
thousand,  being,  for  eighteen  months, 
thirty-six  able-bodied  labourers  out 
of  every  thousand  males,  old  and 
young  together.  I  do  not  know  what 
the  proportionate  number  of  able- 
bodied  men  there  is  in  a  thousand 
males,  but  the  effective  strength 
must  be  considerably  diminished 
when  such  a  large  number  is  taken 
away.  This  is  not  all.  When  the 
recruits  are  sent  to  the  town  to  be 
examined  and  passed  by  the  proper 
authorities,  there  must  be  for  every 
twelve  men  at  least  eighteen  more, 
in  case  the  others  should  be  rejected : 
these  are  sometimes  kept  away  from 
their  work  two  or  three  weeks,  with- 
out any  indemnity  whatever.  By 
this  statement  it  will  be  seen  that, 
during  the  last  eighteen  months,  the 
possessor  of  the  estate  I  have  quoted 
above  has  given  to  the  government 
forty-seven  conscripts,  being  the  pro- 
portion of  thirty-six  in  the  thousand 
for  thirteen  hundred,  and  lost  the 
labour  of  about  seventy  men  for  a 
space  of  fourteen  days  ;  which  latter 
loss,  at  6d.  a-day,  will  be  £24,  10s., 
without  counting  the  entire  loss  of 
forty-seven  men  for  ever.  But  every 
proprietor  is  obliged  to  pay  a  sum  of 
money  (about  £8)  to  provide  the 
recruit  with  an  outfit  and  arm  him  ; 


1855.] 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


this  will  give  again  a  sum  of  £376 
for  the  year  and  half.  The  southern 
governments,  in  consideration  of  their 
vicinity  to  the  seat  of  war,  are  ex- 
empted from  the  militia  of  thirty  in  the 
thousand,  which  is  being  raised  in  the 
northern  governments.  If  they  have 
not  the  militia,  they  are  subjected  to 
exactions  under  the  name  of  voluntary 
contributions.  In  the  spring  of  1854 
the  estate  was  obliged  to  send  forty 
oxen  as  rations  for  the  troops  then  in 
the  Danubian  provinces ;  at  the  same 
time  there  were  required  five  waggons, 
with  a  pair  of  horses  and  a  driver 
to  each,  which  are  to  be  returned  at 
the  end  of  the  war.  These  were  for 
the  transport  of  baggage  and  troops 
upon  an  emergency ;  and  it  was  upon 
them  that  the  armies  who  fought  the 
battle  of  Inkermann  were  transported 
last  autumn.  In  the  autumn  of  the 
same  year  (1854)  there  were  required 
half  a  pood  (18  Ib.)  of  biscuit  from 
every  male  serf  for  the  army,  which, 
for  1300,  would'amount  to  650  poods  ; 
but  the  proprietor  offered  1000  poods, 
which  had  to  be  made  and  despatched 
in  about  three  weeks.  While  the 
preparation  of  the  biscuit  was  going 
on,  there  came  another  order  for  ten 
waggons,  with  a  driver  and  a  pair  of 
horses  to  each,  to  be  ready  and  de- 
livered up  to  the  authorities  in  ten 
days,  as  the  case  was  urgent.  This 
was  just  before  the  news  of  the  descent 
in  the  Crimea  reached  us.  All  these 
exactions  were  made  just  at  the  time 
when  the  harvest  was  going  on — the 
end  of  August — so  that  the  hands 
were  of  the  greatest  consequence  to 
get  all  the  corn  housed  before  the 
autumnal  rains  broke  up  the  roads 
and  rendered  the  transport  impossible. 
The  number  of  oxen  required  to  trans- 
port the  biscuit  was  twenty  pairs, 
which  were  absent  nearly  four  months, 
as  they  had  to  carry  it  a  long  dis- 
tance after  the  roads  were  broken  up, 
and  when  the  mud  was  knee -deep. 
A  little  later  in  the  same  year,  there 
was  required  a  number  of  oxen  again 
for  rations.  I  do  not  remember  the 
exact  number  required ;  but  having 
sent  so  many  away  with  biscuits,  and 
the  murrain  being  very  bad  among 
the  cattle  at  this  time,  instead  of 
sending  them,  the  proprietor  for- 
warded to  the  proper  authorities  £90 
in  money. 


251 

In  the  April  of  the  present  year, 
double  the  quantity  of  biscuit  of  that 
contributed  last  year  was  required ; 
and  as  I  travelled  through  the  coun- 
try in  the  month  of  May,  I  saw  thou- 
sands of  tons  piled  outside  the  towns, 
ready  for  transportation  to  the  army, 
which  of  course  has  to  be  done  by  the 
proprietors  and  peasants  of  the  crown. 
I  met  upon  the  road  long  strings  of 
waggons  going  to  load  with  this  bis- 
cuit, and  stopped  and  talked  with  the 
drivers,  who  were  for  the  chief  part 
peasants  belonging  to  the  crown. 
They  lamented  bitterly  their  hard 
fate,  being  obliged  to  leave  their 
homes  just  as  the  haymaking  was- 
about  to  commence ;  and  as  they  had 
to  perform  a  journey  of  some  1500 
versts,  going  and  returning,  it  would  be 
late  in  the  autumn  before  they  reached 
their  homes  again,  and  consequently 
too  late  to  make  any  preparations  for 
winter.  Many  of  them  said  to  me : 
"Batushka!  we  suppose  that  we  are 
intended  to  starve  this  winter;  last 
winter  we  suffered  enough  while  the 
troops  were  passing,  but  now  we 
shall  not  be  able  to  provide  anything 
for  ourselves,  for  there  are  only  the 
babas  (old  women)  at  home,  and 
what  can  they  do?" 

The  peasants  of  the  crown  are  sub- 
jected to  many  of  the  same  exactions 
as  the  proprietors — I  think  to  all  of 
them,  except  only  the  waggons,  and 
about  them  I  am  not  sure.  I  know  they 
had  to  provide  the  biscuit  just  as  their 
superiors  had,  and  the  oxen,  too,  for 
rations.  It  is,  however,  extremely!diffi- 
cult  to  ascertain  the  amount  of  contri- 
butions exacted  from  these  poor,  mis- 
called/ree  serfs ;  for  the  employes  by 
whom  they  are  managed  exact  so  much 
from  them  for  their  own  use,  saying 
that  it  is  required  for  the  service  of  the 
government,  that  it  is  impossible  to- 
distinguish  what  is  really  for  their 
use,  and  what  for  that  of  their  master. 
The  war  is  a  rich  opportunity  for  the 
employes  to  make  money,  because 
they  make  all  their  demands  upon  the 
peasants  without  producing  any  writ- 
ten authority  from  a  superior  officer, 
merely  stating,  in  their  written  or 
verbal  orders,  that  certain  articles  are 
required  on  such  a  date,  and  of  course 
they  are  ready  without  any  demur  or 
inquiry,  as  it  may  happen  that  the 
government  actually,  in  this  particu- 


252 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War, 


[Aug. 


lar  instance,  requires  what  is  de- 
manded :  then  the  man  who  sought 
ocular  demonstration  is  considered 
refractory,  and  sent  to  Siberia  to  im- 
prove his  manners,  and  to  serve  as 
an  example  to  others,  who,  after  this, 
will  be  ready  to  give  all  that  is  re- 
quired of  them  without  inquiry. 

Another  exaction  to  which  all  the 
agricultural  population  is  subject,  is 
the  furnishing  means  to  transport  all 
the  munitions  of  war  through  the 
country.  At  the  beginning  they  were 
paid  for  this  service  in  a  kind  of  go- 
vernment check,  called  contremark, 
which  was  received  again  at  the  trea- 
sury in  payment  of  the  poll-tax;  but 
since  August  1854  this  has  been 
changed,  and  this  service  is  paid  in 
money — ».  e.,  not  paid  at  all,  for  the 
employe's  pocket  the  money,  which  it 
is  never  prudent  to  ask:  the  contre- 
markwas  of  no  use  to  the  employes, 
consequently'the  service  was  always 
accurately  paid,  but  now  the  peasants 
get  nothing';  but  kicks  and  cuffs  for 
their  trouble. 

The  sufferings  of  the  inhabitants  of 
those  villages  situated  on  the  lines  of 
march  taken  by  the  armies  that  tra- 
versed the  country  from  north  to 
south,  during  the  winter  of  1853  and 
1854,  were  so  intense  that  even  the 
soldiers  themselves  pitied  them ;  and 
it  takes  something  to  touch  the  heart 
of  a  Russian  soldier.  The  troops,  in 
order  to  obtain  sustenance,  were 
obliged  to  disperse  themselves  over  a 
large  tract  of  country,  marching  in  a 
parallel  direction,  and  falling  on  the 
poor  peasantry,  whose  stock  of  winter 
provisions  was  only  prepared  for  the 
wants  of  their  own  families ;  like  locusts, 
eating  up  everything,  and  reducing  the 
inhabitants  to  the  greatest  distress ; 
while  the  male  population,  who  gene- 
rally earn  something  considerable  with 
their  horses  during  the  winter,  in  trans- 
porting merchandise  from  one  fair  to 
another,  was  engaged  on  the  main  road 
in  the  transport  of  artillery  and  tum- 
brils, which,  by  the  wise  arrangements 
of  the  Russian  government,  had  to  be 
dragged  over  a  country  covered  to  the 
depth  of  six  or  eight  feet  with  snow, 
upon  wheels;  so  that  tumbrils,  which 
could  have  been  drawn  easily  by  four 
or  six  horses  if  placed  upon  sledges, 
required  twelve  or  fifteen  to  move  them 
with  their  large  wheels  imbedded  in 


the  snow.  During  a  journey  I  was 
obliged  to  make  in  February  1854, 1 
met  more  than  500  tumbrils  trans- 
ported in  this  laborious  manner.  It 
made  my  heart  bleed  to  see  the  treat- 
ment both  horses  and  peasants  re- 
ceived at  the  hands  of  the  soldiery 
who  were  with  them.  When  they  came 
to  a  hill,  they  were  frequently  obliged 
to  use  double,  and  even  treble,  the 
number  of  horses  required  on  the  level 
ground.  Roads  had  to  be  cut  in  some 
places  through  the  snow,  to  admit  of 
the  passage  of  the  heavy  artillery.  The 
peasants  are  seldom  kept  at  this  work 
for  more  than  a  fortnight  together ; 
but  they  are  frequently  a  hundred 
miles  from  their  homes;  so  that  after 
an  absence  of  a  month  they  return 
only  to  find  their  home  swept  clean 
by  the  hungry  warriors  whose  fighting 
materials  they  have  transported  with 
so  much  difficulty.  That  many  died 
of  the  artificial  famine  caused  by  these 
preparations  for  glorious  war,  I  have 
no  doubt.  The  .Russian  soldier,  too, 
is  much  imbued  with  a  strong  pro- 
pensity for  thieving,  and  there  is  no- 
thing he  will  not  steal  if  the  oppor- 
tunity of  so  doing  should  present 
itself.  Finding  all  the  houses  where 
they  were  billeted  without  the  master, 
of  course  many  of  the  little  articles  of 
furniture  were  missing  after  their  visit. 
These  things  were  generally  taken  to 
the  next  halting-place  and  sold  for 
brandy — only,  perhaps,  to  be  stolen 
again  by  the  next  party.  It  frequently 
happened  that  soldiers  and  recruits  met 
in  the  same  villages,  and  the  number 
billeted  in  one  house  was  so  great  that 
the  master  and  his  family  were  obliged 
to  sleep  out  in  the  sheds  with  cattle,  or 
upon  the  snow,  for  slujba  (as  the  pea- 
sants call  the  soldier)  must  have  his 
lodging.  Nor  were  the  sufferings  ot 
the  troops  themselves  less  acute, 
marching  as  they  did  at  such  an  in- 
clement season  of  the  year.  They 
strive,  however,  to  enliven  their  dreary 
marches  by  songs  and  jests,  for  in, 
every  company  there  is  always  a 
certain  number  of  singers,  who  march 
in  front,  led  by  a  man  with  a  tam- 
bourine or  an  old  violin,  who  dances, 
sings  military  songs,  of  which  the 
other  singers  take  up  the  chorus,  or 
else  he  cracks  jokes  at  any  one's  ex- 
pense. It  is  a  curious  sight  to  meet 
a  party  of  soldiers  in  the  midst  of  a 


1855.] 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


snowy  desert,  where  nothing  is  to  be 
seen  but  snow  below  and  snow  above ; 
for  the  very  air  is  impregnated  with 
it.  These  armed  men  are  wending 
their  way  to  destroy,  or  be  destroyed, 
as  the  case  may  be. 

The  immense  amount  of  misery  the 
present  war  is  causing  in  Russia  is 
little  imagined ;  but  that  country  can- 
not boast  of  its  Times.  Everything 
is  hidden  from  view  ;  and  only  those 
who  actually  take  part  in  these  scenes, 
or  are  involuntary  spectators,  can 
know  what  is  the  real  state  of  affairs. 
Even  at  St  Petersburg,  nothing  is 
known  but  what  appears  in  official 
reports ;  so  that  in  many  instances 
far  less  is  known  in  that  magnificent 
capital,  of  the  state  of  the  interior  of 
the  country,  than  in  England,  where 
such  excellent  works  as  the  Eng- 
lishwoman in  Russia  are,  or  ought 
to  be,  universally  read.  Everybody 
is  afraid  to  speak  on  these  sub- 
jects, except  to  laud  all  the  measures 
of  the  paternal  government.  I  re- 
member an  anecdote  that  was  current 
in  Russia  in  the  spring  of  1854 :  A  Rus- 
sian, who  had  attained  the  rank  of 
general  in  the  civil  service,  spoke  in 
the  theatre  of  the  absurdity  of  the 
returns  of  killed  and  wounded  pub- 
lished in  the  Russian  papers.  The 
police  master,  who  was  present,  over- 
hearing what  he  said,  observed  that  he 
should  be  obliged  to  report  his  words 
to  the  Count  Orloff ;  for  if  he  did  not, 
somebody  else  present  might,  and  he 
would  fall  into  disgrace.  The  next 
day  the  general  received  an  intima- 
tion that  it  was  the  Emperor's  plea- 
sure that  he  should  join  the  army  on 
the  Danube  immediately,  in  order  to 
satisfy  himself  of  the  truth  of  the 
returns,  by  counting  the  killed  and 
wounded  after  each  battle,  and  that 
his  military  rank  should  be  that  of 
major.  The  same  day  there  appeared 
in  the  official  gazette  :  "  Le  conseiller 

d'etat  actuel, ,  was  received,  by 

Ms  own  wish,  into  the  army  with  rank 
of  major !"  It  is  extremely  probable 
that,  had  these  remarks  been  made  in 
private,  and  reported,  the  consequences 
might  have  been  worse. 

Among  those  who  feel  the  pressure 
of  the  war  in  the  towns,  are  the  work- 
ing tradesmen,  such  as  tailors  and 
bootmakers.  In  all  regiments  there 
are  a  certain  number  of  men  who 


253 

work  for  their  comrades  in  time  of 
peace,  making  for  them  their  clothing, 
boots,  &c. ;  but  as  now  all  are  called 
upon  to  bear  arms,  they  have  to  quit 
the  needle  and  awl  for  the  rifle  and 
bayonet.  The  duty  of  providing  the 
troops  with  their  grey  greatcoats  falls 
upon  the  tailors,  who  are  suffering 
enough  from  the  depressed  state  of  all 
trades.  They  are  supplied  with  so 
much  cloth  or  leather,  as  the  case  may 
be,  and  are  required  to  return  a  cer- 
tain number  of  articles  ready  for  use ; 
but  the  materials  have  already  passed 
through  the  hands  of  the  officials,  who 
make  their  profit  out  of  the  affair  by 
keeping  back  for  their  own  use  a  good 
per-centage  of  the  materials,  exacting 
at  the  same  time  the  required  number 
of  articles.  The  poor  tradesman  has 
to  make  good  the  defalcations  of  this 
grasping  rapacity  out  of  his  own 
pocket,  besides  the  loss  of  the  labour 
he  is  compelled  to  perform.  Before  I 
left  the  town  where  I  was  last  May,  I 
could  not  get  a  pair  of  boots  made,  as 
all  the  bootmakers  were  working  upon 
this  government  work,  to  the  detri- 
ment of  their  own  interests  and  that 
of  their  customers.  For  this  work 
they  get  a  mere  nominal  price,  the 
greater  part  of  which  goes  into  the 
pockets  of  the  same  men  who  robbed 
them  of  their  cloth ;  but  they  can 
obtain  no  redress  for  this,  and  look 
upon  it  as  a  necessary  evil. 

The  merchants  are  not  subjected  to 
such  heavy  losses  as  might  be  sup- 
posed, considering  the  perfect  annihi- 
lation of  all  external  commerce.  It 
is  true  they  are  obliged  to  subscribe 
largely  to  the  voluntary  contributions 
for  the  expenses  of  the  war ;  but  as 
nearly  all  business  is  carried  on  with 
ready  money,  they  merely  withdraw 
their  capital,  and  wait  patiently  the 
course  of  events.  It  is  among  this 
class  that  the  greatest  number  of 
patriots  is  to  be  found ;  for,  as  they 
understand  no  other  language  but  their 
own,  and  are  strongly  attached  to 
their  country,  not  knowing  any  other, 
they  get  all  their  information  of  what 
passes,  from  the  highly- coloured  mis- 
representations that  are  published  for 
them  by  the  Russian  government. 
They  were  enchanted  with  the  patriotic 
verses,  that  were  to  be  found  in  all 
the  Russian  papers,  describing  the 
prowess  and  victories  (future  ?)  of  the 


254 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


[Aug. 


holy  Muscovite  armies.  Lord  Palm- 
erston  is  represented  to  them  as  a 
monster,  and  the  author  of  the  war. 
In  one  of  these  poetical  effusions  his 
lordship  is  caricatured  as  a  great 
warrior,  who  fights  his  battles  on  a 
map  with  his  forefinger.  Since  the 
battles  of  Alma  and  Inkermann,  these 
productions  have  become  less  frequent. 
There  is  one  that  appeared  in  the 
spring  of  1854,  that  I  must  mention. 
It  is  an  allegory,  composed  by  an  actor, 
I  believe ;  and  relates  that  a  Russian 
molodetz  (young  man)  was  going 
quietly  on  his  way,  when  he  found  his 
passage  stopped  by  three  men — a  tur- 
baned  Turk,  a  bearded  Frenchman, 
and  a  red-headed  English  merchant. 
With  a  few  swings  of  his  powerful 
arm  he  made  the  Turk  and  French- 
man bite  the  dust,  while  the  English- 
man was  glad  to  escape  the  same  fate 
by  surrendering  the  contents  of  his 
pockets  to  this  fine  fellow.  These  may 
serve  as  specimens  of  what  is  allowed 
to  poison  the  minds  of  those  who  can 
read ;  while  those  who  cannot  are 
excited  by  yet  grosser  fictions,  The 
attack  on  the  monastery  of  Solovetzki, 
in  the  White  Sea  last  year,  was  spread 
with  great  rapidity  through  the  coun- 
try, with  many  comments,  improve- 
ments, and  additions  by  the  priest- 
hood. I  heard  one  account  of  it  from 
a  peasant,  who  said  that  all  the  monks 
had  been  impaled  by  the  English  bar- 
barians, who  had  no  respect  either 
for  the  holy  place  or  the  holy  men 
who  inhabited  it.  I  have  frequently 
heard  it  asserted  that  there  were  no 
soldiers  in  the  place ;  and,  if  I  remem- 
ber right,  the  report  by  the  head  of 
the  monastery  to  the  synod  was  to 
that  effect,  stating  that  there  were 
only  a  few  invalids,  who  were  em- 
ployed as  servants  about  the  place. 
It  is  for  those  who  made  this  brutal 
(Russian  account)  attack  upon  a  quiet 
religious  retreat,  to  prove  that  it  was 
a  fortified  place,  although  no  Russian 
will  ever  be  convinced  of  it.  Messrs 
Bright  and  Co.  are  wonderfully  po- 
pular with  this  party,  for  all  their 
speeches  are  diligently  translated  and 
commented  upon  in  the  Russian 
papers.  They  are  generally  repre- 
sented as  the  only  true  expositors  of 
the  feelings  of  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  England  ;  so  that  the  Rus- 
sians are  firmly  convinced  that  the 


populace  is  ripe  for  a  rising ;  and  I 
have  no  doubt  the  disturbances,  which 
unfortunately  took  place  recently  in 
the  metropolis,  were  misrepresented 
as  a  serious  revolution,  caused  by  the 
burdens  entailed  on  the  people  by  the 
expenses  of  the  war.  Last  March 
there  was  an  absurd  story  spread 
about  a  similar  occurrence,  without 
any  foundation  whatever.  Russia, 
like  a  drowning  man,  catches  at 
straws ! 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  present 
year  there  has  been  a  great  scarcity 
of  silver  and  gold  coin  in  the  southern 
provinces  of  the  empire,  though  gold 
was  very  plentiful  last  autumn.  This 
scarcity  may  be  accounted  for  by  the 
merchants  withdrawing  their  capital 
from  trade.  As  few  of  them  have  any 
confidence  in  the  paper  circulation, 
they  availed  themselves  of  the  gold, 
then  very  plentiful,  which  all  disap- 
peared in  this  way  in  a  very  few 
weeks.  A  friend  of  mine,  who  was 
in  Simpheropol  in  February,  wishing 
to  change  a  hundred-rouble  note  into 
notes  of  one,  three,  and  five  roubles 
each,  was  obliged  to  pay  ten  per  cent 
for  the  exchange ;  and  he  assured  me 
that,  if  any  small  article  were  pur- 
chased, the  value  of  which  did  not 
amount  to  a  rouble,  the  merchant 
would  rather  lose  the  sale  than  give 
coin  in  exchange,  though  he  was  per- 
haps making  a  profit  of  a  hundred 
per  cent  upon  the  article.  This  state 
of  things  is  gradually  travelling  north- 
wards. In  Ekaterinoslav  it  was  the 
same  in  April ;  and  in  Kharkoff,  in 
May,  there  was  a  great  difficulty  in 
procuring  coin,  especially  gold  and 
the  smaller  silver  money.  Kharkoff 
is  a  large  commercial  town,  and  the 
capital  of  the  Ukraine.  The  issue  of 
notes  has  recently  been  very  great. 
All  this  tends  to  prove  that  every 
sinew  is  now  strained  to  bursting  to 
carry  on  the  war. 

Many  persons  have  expressed  sur- 
prise at  the  smallness  of  the  returns 
of  killed  on  the  part  of  the  Russians 
after  an  engagement ;  but,  to  any  one 
who  understands  the  Russian  system, 
this  will  not  appear  strange  at  all. 
The  practice  is  to  send  in  returns  of 
only  a  small  proportion  of  the  killed, 
while  the  remainder  are  supposed  to 
be  in  the  field,  and  receive  pay  and 
rations,  to  the  benefit  of  the  colonels* 


1855.] 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War, 


255 


As  a  great  personage,  to  whom  I 
related  this  in  England,  remarked, 
uthe  colonels  eat  the  dead  men's 
rations!"  Nor  is  there  any  danger 
of  detection,  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  generals  have  done  the  same  thing 
before,  and  are  practising  something 
similar  at  all  times,  while  the  subal- 
terns hope  some  day  to  become 
colonels  themselves.  I  know  an  in- 
stance of  a  man  commanding  a  regi- 
ment, who,  from  the  time  of  his  regi- 
ment taking  the  field  in  the  summer 
of  last  year  up  to  the  end  of  last 
November,  was  in  the  habit  of  send- 
ing two  or  three  thousand  roubles 
every  week  to  his  family,  while  he 
is  known  to  possess  no  private  for- 
tune. All  this  money  was  of  course 
squeezed  out  of  the  soldiers'  rations 
and  forage,  for  it  is  a  cavalry  regi- 
ment. The  life  of  a  Russian  soldier 
is  so  miserable,  that  I  think  half  of 
them  would  prefer  to  be  killed  to 
dragging  on  such  a  wretched  existence. 
They  are  torn  from  their  homes  by 
the  arbitrary  hand  of  despotism,  and 
made  to  form  part  of  an  immense 
machine  called  a  regiment,  which 
again  forms  part  of  another  called  a 
division ;  but  they  have  not  the  re- 
motest idea  why  they  are  made  to 
execute  certain  movements.  The 
English  officers  who  were  taken  pri- 
soners at  different  times  admired  the 
severe  discipline  of  the  Russian  army, 
little  thinking  that  it  was  purchased 
at  the  expense  of  every  moral  feeling ; 
for  the  soldier  is  brutalised  by  the 
treatment  he  receives,  every  officer 
having  the  right  to  buffet  and  cuff 
him  as  he  may  think  proper.  An  old 
cavalry  officer  once  told  me,  that,  if  a 
horse  died,  there  was  a  rigid  inquiry 
into  the  cause  of  his  death;  and  if  the 
least  thing  appeared  to  show  that  it 
had  been  neglected,  the  subaltern  in 
command  of  the  squadron  was  placed 
under  arrest ;  but  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  man  died,  on  his  death 
being  reported  to  the  colonel  he 
would  say,  "  Poor  fellow  !  I  hope 
he  is  in  heaven !"  This  may  be 
accounted  for  easily  enough.  The 
colonel  receives  an  annual  sum  to 
provide  horses  for  his  regiment,  so 
that  every  loss  affects  directly  his 
pocket ;  whereas  the  men  cost  him 
nothing  !  The  men  are  allowed  meat 
by  the  government  three  days  a-week, 


except  during  the  fasts,  and  brandy 
on  Sundays  and  great  holidays.  The 
officers  generally  propose  to  the  men 
to  accept,  instead  of  meat,  the  money, 
and  to  provide  themselves.  To  this, 
of  course,  the  poor  fellows  agree,  as 
a  proposal  from  an  officer  is  tanta- 
mount to  an  order ;  but  they  never  see 
more  than  one-fourth  of  the  money, 
which  is  disposed  of  as  follows  : — The 
colonel  takes  one-fourth,  the  majors 
commanding  battalions  another,  and 
the  captains  of  companies  a  third, 
while  the  other  goes  to  the  soldiers 
themselves  !  This  may  account  for 
the  finding  only  black  bread  in 
the  knapsacks  of  the  killed  and 
wounded.  I  have  given  these  ex- 
amples in  order  to  show  the  system 
under  which  these  men  fight  so  despe- 
rately, and  which  prevails  through- 
out the  whole  empire, — one  vast 
system  of  fraud,  peculation,  and 
pillage. 

Notwithstanding  the  immense  esta- 
blishments for  the  education  of  mili- 
tary men  that  exist  in  Russia,  great 
difficulties  are  experienced  in  obtain- 
ing officers  for  the  new  levies.  All 
the  officers  must  be  nobles,  and 
undergo  an  examination  in  various 
branches  of  science.  A  colonel,  sent 
to  obtain  officers  to  a  certain  town  in 
the  south,  persuaded  a  number  of 
copying  clerks  from  the  government 
offices  to  enter  the  army.  These  men, 
though  of  noble  birth,  only  knew  how 
to  read  and  write.  As  they  were 
earning  a  miserable  pittance,  they 
were  glad  to  embrace  the  offer,  which 
opened  to  them  a  prospect  of  advance- 
ment ;  but  they  expressed  their  fears 
of  not  being  able  to  pass  the  required 
examination.  They  were,  however, 
reassured  by  the  colonel,  who  said 
that  he  would  examine  them  himself. 
This  he  did  in  the  following  manner  : 
—Col.  "What  is  geography?"  Ans. 
"I  don't  know;  I  never  heard  of  it 
before."  Col.  "  Nonsense  !  you  must 
know  !  On  which  bank  of  what  great 
river  is  situated  the  town  of  E  ?"  (the 
town  they  were  in).  Ans.  "  On  the 
right  bank  of  the  river  D."  Col. 
"There,  I  was  sure  you  knew  all 
about  geography ! — you  are  passed." 
Another  time  the  subject  was  mathe- 
matics. Col.  "What  are  mathema- 
tics?" Ans.  "I  never  saw  them."  Co/. 
"  Add  two  to  two."  Ans.  "  Four." 


256 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


[Aug. 


Col.  "  There,  that  will  do — you  are 
passed  ! "  Of  course  I  was  not  present 
at  either  of  these  examinations,  but  I 
had  the  facts  upon  good  authority. 
These  are  the  men  who  are  to  re- 
place those  polished  gentlemen,  whose 
knowledge  of  the  European  languages 
and  suave  manners  have  been  the 
admiration  of  all  who  have  met 
them. 

The  militia  is  chiefly  officered  by 
those  who  have  been  in  the  army 
before  and  are  retired  ;  but  if  in  any 
of  the  governments  there  should  not 
be  enough  of  these,  the  nobles  choose 
them  from  among  their  own  body. 
There  is  in  general  a  great  reluctance 
to  enter  this  service,  as  well  as  mili- 
tary service  generally,  for  the  majo- 
rity of  the  Russian  people  is  anything 
but  warlike,  notwithstanding  their 
boasted  martial  prowess. 

The  want  of  proper  medical  aid  is 
much  felt  in  the  army  now.  The 
students  of  medicine  from  all  the  uni- 
versities are  forced  to  enter  the  army 
before  they  have  completed  their 
course  of  study,  which  ordinarily 
occupies  five  years,  but  is  now  cur- 
tailed to  three  and  a  half  years.  It 
may  be  objected  that  I  use  the  term 
forced,  when  they  are  only  invited  to 
join  the  army ;  but,  with  few  exceptions, 
the  invitation,  if  not  accepted,  will 
speedily  be  followed  by  an  order. 
Many  surgeons  have  lately  arrived  from 
America  and  Prussia,  who  are  at  once 
despatched  to  the  seat  of  war.  In 
Simpheropol  nearly  all  the  wounded 
English  prisoners  were  attended  by 
Americans. 

As  illustrative  of  the  difficulty  expe- 
rienced in  Russia  in  transporting  their 
armies,  may  be  mentioned  the  journey 
of  the  Sisters  of  Mercy  from  St  Peters- 
burg to  the  Crimea  last  year.  They 
left  the  capital  about  the  middle  of 
November,  and,  as  far  as  the  chaussee 
extended,  travelled  without  any  mis- 
hap; but  from  Koursk — where  the 
chaussde  finishes— to  Kharkoff,  they 
met  with  great  difficulties,  as  they 
travelled  in  large  diligences  like  those 
of  France.  It  was  on  leaving  the 
latter  town  that  they  experienced  all 
the  pleasures  of  a  Russian  autumnal 
road.  They  left  the  town  with  fifteen 
horses  to  each  carriage,  and  reached 
in  safety  the  first  station,  situated  in 
a  valley,  about  ten  miles  from  the 


town  ;  but  on  attempting  to  ascend 
the  mountain,  the  wheels  stuck  fast 
in  the  mud,  and  the  fifteen  horses 
could  not  stir  it ;  the  number  was  in- 
creased to  thirty,  but  without  moving 
the  vehicle.  Eventually  oxen  were 
procured  that  dragged  them  out,  and 
in  this  manner  they  proceeded  on  their 
way  to  the  Crimea,  to  attend  the  sick 
and  wounded,  at  the  rate  of  two  miles 
an  hour !  This  was  a  case  of  the 
most  urgent  necessity.  With  such  a 
state  of  things,  would  it  not  be  better 
and  wiser  for  Russia  to  employ  those 
means  in  improving  the  internal  state 
of  the  country,  which  she  is  now 
wasting  on  a  ruinous  war  ? 

The  English  prisoners  of  war  will 
be  able  to  give  a  good  account  of  the 
evils  of  Russian  travelling.  I  saw 
them  all,  poor  fellows !  as  they  pass- 
ed through  the  town  I  was  then  re- 
siding in,  and  can  say  that  their  suffer- 
ings were  more  intense  than  those  of 
their  comrades  who  were  left  behind. 
Those  who  were  taken  first,  and  who 
arrived  at  their  destination  before  the 
severe  colds  set  in,  suffered  compara- 
tively little.  Then  they  were  still  a 
novelty,  and  excited  a  great  deal  of 
curiosity,  which  in  a  Russian  is  never 
without  compassion.  Of  this  the  first 
parties  who  passed  reaped  the  bene- 
fit. Besides,  they  were  all  fine  men, 
taken  at  Balaklava  and  Inkermann, 
about  which  battles  every  one  was 
eager  to  get  what  information  he 
could  from  persons  who  had  assisted 
at  them.  Still  these  suffered  severely 
from  deprivation  of  all  the  comforts 
they  had  been  accustomed  to,  and 
which  they  were  unable  to  procure  in 
the  villages  they  passed  through,  even 
when  they  had  the  means ;  for  tea  and 
coffee  are  unknown  luxuries  to  the 
Russian  peasant,  but  would  have 
been  very  acceptable  to  the  pri- 
soners after  their  long  march  of  fifteen 
or  twenty  miles  through  the  mud 
reaching  to  their  knees,  with  the  pro- 
spect of  a  miserable  billet  in  a  mud- 
hut,  in  which  so  many  were  placed 
that  there  was  scarcely  room  to  lie 
down,  and  a  piece  of  black  bread 
washed  down  with  a  little  brackish 
water,  or  kras  (a  sour  liquor,  much 
used  in  Russia).  But  those  who  left 
Sim  pheropol  in  December  and  January, 
underwent  hardships  that  were  heart- 
rending to  listen  to,  for  then  they  ex- 


1855.] 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


257 


perienced  all  the  severity  of  a  Russian 
winter  during  a  march  of  about  six 
hundred  miles  to  Yoronege,  the  depot. 
They  were  about  seventy  days  upon 
the  journey  through  the  snow,  and 
frequently  subject  to  the  most  vile 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  those  to 
whose  care  they  were  committed. 
They  are  allowed  by  the  government 
20  copecks  a-day  (about  8d.)  This 
would  be  amply  sufficient  to  supply 
all  their  wants,  for  provisions  are 
very  cheap, — the  best  meat  3  and  4 
copecks  per  pound,  bread  about  1  or 
1£  copeck  per  pound ;  but  the  soldiers 
who  served  as  their  guard  usually  set 
the  prices  in  the  villages  at  about 
three  times  the  ordinary  rate,  out  of 
which  they  made  their  own  profit; 
while  ourpoor  fellows,  not  understand- 
ing the  language  or  the  prices,  were 
obliged  to  pay  whatever  was  demanded 
of  them,  or  go  hungry  to  bed.  They 
were  even  made  to  pay  for  the  very 
water  they  drank.  This  happened 
always  in  the  prisons  of  small  towns. 
Once  they  refused  to  pay  for  it,  and 
two  men  offered  to  fetch  water  for  the 
whole  party  if  a  soldier  would  show 
them  where  to  procure  it.  The  soldier, 
not  wishing  to  lose  his  perquisites, 
took  them  to  a  distance  of  about  three 
miles,  to  a  well  of  brackish  water, 
while  there  was  plenty  to  be  had 
within  two  hundred  yards  of  the  pri- 
son. After  this  they  always  preferred 
paying  to  fetching  it  themselves.  In 
the  large  towns  they  are  generally 
well  treated,  and  allowed  a  certain 
liberty.  They  may  go  out  to  the  mar- 
ket to  buy  themselves  provisions,  alone 
if  they  know  the  way ;  or  if  not,  one 
soldier  is  sent  with  them  as  a  guide. 
They  are  even  allowed  to  sleep  out  of 
the  prison,  if  some  inhabitant  of  the 
town  will  become  responsible  for  them. 
I  have  had  several  staying  with  me  ; 
and  two,  who  were  ill,  lived  with  me 
three  months  till  their  health  was 
perfectly  established,  and  the  warm 
weather  rendered  travelling  no  longer 
difficult.  One  circumstance  I  cannot 
help  mentioning,  if  only  that  it  might 
be  known  to  the  Russian  government 
by  this  means.  In  December  a  party 
of  prisoners,  of  all  nations,  numbering 
either  seventy-three  or  seventy-five — 
I  am  not  quite  sure  which — left  Sim- 
pheropol  in  charge  of  a  captain,  a 
Greek,  with  the  usual  escort.  He, 


kind,  humane  man,  proposed,  through 
my  informant,  an  English  soldier,  who 
spoke  a  little  Greek,  to  provide  the 
whole  party  with  provisions,  alleging 
that  the  country  they  were  about  to 
pass  through  was  nearly  exhausted, 
so  that,  with  their  ignorance  of  the 
language,  it  would  be  next  to  impos- 
sible for  them  to  procure  anything. 
To  this  proposal  they  all  agreed  with- 
out hesitation.  Instead  of  giving 
them  good  food,  he  gave  them  little 
more  than  black  bread  ;  so  that  out  of 
the  entire  number  only  nineteen 
reached  Ekaterinoslav !  a  distance  of 
about  270  miles  from  Simpheropol,  the 
remainder  beingleft  sick  at  the  different 
hospitals,  or  perishing  miserably  on 
the  road !  I  do  not  vouch  for  the 
truth  of  this ;  but  the  man,  who  was 
one  of  the  sufferers,  appeared  to  be 
intelligent,  and  told  his  story  clearly, 
and  without  hesitation.  I  know  that 
this  can  be  possible,  for  there  are  such 
men,  who,  in  order  to  gain  a  few 
roubles,  will  inflict  any  amount  of 
misery  on  their  fellow -creatures. 
The  English  inhabitants  of  Moscow 
and  St  Petersburg  have  nobly  come 
forward  to  assist  their  poor  fellow- 
countrymen;  and  Mr  Grey,  the  Eng- 
lish clergyman  at  Moscow,  has  exerted 
himself  greatly  on  their  behalf;  but 
unfortunately  there  are  few  English 
on  the  line  of  march,  so  that  it  is  very 
difficult  to  render  them  assistance 
where  most  it  is  wanted,  although  all 
is  done  that  humanity  could  dictate 
by  those  who  are  able  to  see  them. 
I  cannot  omit  this  occasion  of  speak- 
ing of  the  kindness  shown  by  the 
authorities  of  the  town  of  Kharkoff  to 
all  the  prisoners.  They  never  refused 
any  prayer  of  which  they  saw  the  jus- 
tice, and  tried  all  they  could  to  help 
the  poor  fellows  ;  and  had  the  same 
spirit  been  shown  by  all  parties,  there 
would  be  little  to  complain  of  in  the 
treatment  with  which  these  unfor- 
tunates met.  Many  of  the  Russian 
families  received  them  into  their  houses, 
and  at  their  own  tables.  When  remon- 
strated with  by  the  would-be  patriots, 
they  replied,—4'  These  men  are  no 
longer  to  be  looked  upon  as  enemies  : 
they  have  fought  for  their  country, 
and  by  the  fortune  of  war  are  our 
prisoners,  only  that  we  may  treat  them 
as  our  guests."  To  sum  up  all,  the 
prisoners  are  well  treated  by  all  the 


258 


Internal  Sufferings  of  Russia  from  the  War. 


[Aug, 


higher  classes,  and  suffer  only  from  the 
cupidity  of  those  who  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  making  a  few  copecks  by 
them,  and  from  the  natural  evils  im- 
posed upon  them  by  their  ignorance 
of  the  language,  manners,  and  cus- 
toms. I  do  not  speak  of  the  treat- 
ment the  officers  have  met  with, 
as  they  will  be  able  to  speak  for 
themselves  when  they  recover  their 
liberty. 

It  will  be  seen,  by  a  careful  perusal  of 
the  foregoing  statemen  t  of  facts,  that  all 
classes  in  Russia  must  ardently  desire 
peace,  as  the  only  means  of  preserving 
them  from  ruin,  to  which  the  serf- 
owners  are  more  exposed  than  any 
other  class,  from  the  continual  drain 
upon  their  resources,  already  much 
diminished  by  debts.  They  are  an 
improvident  race.  Many  of  the  lower 
orders  hoped  for  a  great  improve- 
ment in  their  position  from  the  suc- 
cess of  the  allied  armies ;  but  they 
are  disheartened  by  the  length  of 
time  they  are  obliged  to  wait.  They 
cannot  define  what  they  expect ;  but 
that  they  hoped  for  great  advantages, 
I  have  no  doubt,  from  several  con- 
versations I  have  had  with  intelligent 
men  in  the  peasant  class— men  who 
can  neither  read  nor  write,  but 
who,  by  the  force  of  their  natural 
shrewdness,  can  understand  that  a 
change  must  and  will  come.  They 
looked  upon  the  French  and  English 
as  the  heralds  of  this  change.  Had 
the  war  been  pushed  with  sufficient 
vigour  from  the  beginning,  there  is  no 
doubt  but  that  the  power  of  Russia 
would  have  been  humbled  effectually 
by  defeats  on  the  frontiers  and  inter- 
nal dissensions ;  for  all  the  south  would 
have  risen  had  the  Allies  taken  pos- 
session of  the  Crimea  when  they  first 
landed,  which  might  easily  have  been 
done, — at  least  this  is  the  opinion  of 
all  the  Russian  officers  whom  I  met, 
and  who  were  there  at  the  time.  But 
this  is  no  place  for  the  discussion  of 
the  merits  of  military  plans.  There 
have  been  grave  faults,  of  which  the 
price  is  now  being  paid  in  the  blood 
of  our  brave  countrymen  on  the 
heights  of  Sebastopol.  Nothing  re- 
mains but  to  push  the  war  with  all 


the  vigour  that  the  Allies,  with  their 
mighty  resources,  are  able  to  do,  and 
to  let  no  "  penny  wise  and  pound 
foolish"  policy  interfere  with  what 
they  have  in  hand.  Even  what  has 
been  done  has  caused  great  suffering 
to  our  enemies,  and  what  is  under- 
taken will  cause  yet  greater,  till  Russia, 
humbled  and  conquered,  is  brought  to 
sue  for  peace  at  the  feet  of  the  British 
lion  and  the  Gallic  eagle.  The  time 
is  gone  by  to  hope  for  any  co-operation 
in  the  interior  of  the  country.  As  I 
said  before,  the  people  are  disheart- 
ened by  the  length  of  time  they  have 
had  to  wait,  and  are  excited  by  the  re- 
ports spread  so  assiduously  of  the  bar- 
barity of  the  English  to  their  prison- 
ers, and  the  taking  of  the  monastery 
of  Solovetzki.  The  Russian  govern- 
ment is  never  slow  to  improve  its  ad- 
vantages ;  this  has  been  proved  in  the 
manner  the  fortifications  of  Sebastopol 
have  been  thrown  up,  and  it  has  im- 
proved the  breathing- time  given  by 
the  long  duration  of  this  too  celebrated 
siege.  There  is  now  telegraphic  com- 
munication from  Odessa  to  the  capital, 
through  Kief,  so  that  news  from  the 
seat  of  war  arrives  in  two  days.  When 
the  news  of  the  descent  first  reached 
us,  everybody  was  filled  with  conster- 
nation, and  said  we  have  now  lost  our 
Italy,  as  they  call  the  Crimea ;  but 
when  it  became  known  that,  after  the 
battle  of  Alma,  Sebastopol  did  not 
fall,  and  that  it  withstood  successfully 
the  bombardment  of  the  17th  of  Octo- 
ber, hope  again  revived,  and,  by  a  re- 
action of  popular  feeling,  everybody 
expected  to  see  the  invaders  driven 
out  of  the  country,  which  the  brilliant 
victory  (?)  of  Liprandi  seemed  to  prog- 
nosticate. What  is  more  feared  by 
the  Government,  though  less  spoken 
of,  than  the  war  itself,  is  its  results 
upon  the  population,  as  ideas  of  liberty 
and  civilisation  may  be  introduced 
with  conic  balls,  and  at  the  point  of 
the  bayonet,  that  will  destroy  the 
whole  fabric  of  despotism  erected  by 
the  Czar  and  his  subalterns,  and  that 
in  its  fall  must  crush,  and  bury 
beneath  its  ruins,  all  those  who  help- 
ed to  erect  or  support  this  monster 
of  injustice.  So  be  it ! 


1855.] 


TJie  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  IX. 


259 


THE   STORY  OF  THE   CAMPAIGN. 


CHAP.   XXV. — THE  CONFERENCES  AND  DEBATES. 


THE  conduct  of  the  Vienna  confer- 
ences, and  the  tone  of  the  parliamen- 
tary discussions  on  the  war,  were  not 
such  as  to  inspire  respect  either  for 
the  politics  or  diplomacy  of  the  age. 
Europe  fixed  its  attention  on  the  for- 
mer, and,  while  failing  to  receive  any 
lessons  of  wisdom,  was  not  even  gra- 
tified by  an  exhibition  of  skill.  The 
three  greatest  nations  of  the  earth 
were  at  war,  and  before  either  side  had 
obtained  a  decisive  advantage,  all  had 
agreed  to  treat  for  peace.  Seldom 
has  diplomacy  had  such  a  field  for  dis- 
play, and  seldom  has  it  appeared  in  a 
less  respectable  light.  No  cunning  of 
fence  was  shown,  and  the  advantages 
obtained  were  of  the  paltriest  descrip- 
tion, and  not  worth  the  playing  for, 
such  as  when  Russia  suspended  the 
conferences  to  consider  the  request  of 
the  other  powers  that  she  would  ori- 
ginate a  proposition,  and  then,  after 
securing  unnecessary  delay,  declined 
to  propose  anything.  The  negotia- 
tions and  the  war  seemed  mutually 
to  await  each  other's  chances,  and 
there  appeared  no  man  of  sufficient 
political  or  military  foresight  to  afford 
his  colleagues  the  means  of  adopting 
a  decided  course.  Perhaps  the  most 
curious  feature  in  the  spectacle  was 
the  lofty  bearing  of  beleaguered,  dis- 
tressed, and  defeated  Russia.  When 
at  the  conference  Lord  John  Russell, 
as  a  precedent  for  Russia  to  consent 
to  limit  her  power  in  the  Black  Sea, 
quoted  (not  very  happily)  the  cession 
of  Dunkirk  by  Louis  XIV.,— "  Ah ! " 
said  the  Russian  plenipotentiary,  with 
extraordinary  assurance,  "but  we 
have  met  with  none  of  his  disasters, 
and  the  case  does  not  apply."  Met 
with  no  disasters  !  when  the  banks  of 
the  Danube  were  strewn  with  dead 
Russian  armies — when  the  despised 
Turks  had  defeated  them  in  every 
action,  and  when  a  fortress  like  Silis- 
tria  had  defeated  their  whole  power 
deliberately  cast  on  it!  Met  with  no 
disasters !  when  the  defenders  of  the 
soil  were  beaten  from  their  strong 
position  at  Alma,  when  they  had  been 
repulsed  from  our  weak  point  at  In- 


kermann,  when  half  the  Black  Sea 
fleet  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  har- 
bour of  Sebastopol,  and  the  other  half 
penned  therein  as  in  a  trap  ! — when  a 
daily  augmenting  force  was  establish- 
ing itself  in  the  Crimea,  and  prepar- 
ing for  fresh  assaults  on  the  city  ! — 
when  Bomarsund  with  its  fortifica- 
tions was  demolished,  and  the  Baltic 
equally  with  the  Euxine  blotted  from 
the  highways  of  Russian  commerce  ! 
Yet  such  effrontery  passed  without 
the  obvious  rejoinder,  because  the 
English  nation  had  proposed  to  itself 
the  capture  of  Sebastopol  as  the  true 
and  only  meed  of  victory;  and  the 
wily  Russian,  adopting  the  absurd 
assumption  with  which  we  had  our- 
selves furnished  him,  asserted  that, 
while  Sebastopol  had  not  fallen,  Rus- 
sia had  suffered  no  disaster. 

But,  in  truth,  the  whole  conference 
was  an  absurdity.  The  terms  offered 
by  the  Allies,  so  far  as  their  vague- 
ness allowed  them  to  be  intelligible, 
were  ridiculously  easy,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  Russia  was  insane  to  re- 
fuse them.  She  might  have  accepted 
them,  have  procured  an  armistice, 
have  secured  a  seeming  triumph  — 
and  then,  when  it  suited  her,  and  if 
still  disposed  for  war,  she  might  have 
broken  off  the  negotiations  on  a  ques- 
tion of  details.  All  this  would  have 
been  quite  consistent  with  the  usual 
course  of  her  policy,  and  with  the 
diplomatic  resources  of  her  ministers. 
Instead  of  this,  she  assumed  the  airs 
of  a  conqueror  —  condescendingly 
agreed  to  treat — was  undisguisedly 
insolent  in  conference ;  and  when  she 
deigned  to  make  any  proposals,  they 
were  such  as  were  insulting  from 
their  absurdity.  And  this  was  at  a 
time  when  the  Allies  were  accumu- 
lating a  force  sufficient  to  take  the 
Crimea  in  a  month — when  her  own 
army  was  pressed  for  supplies,  and 
its  communications  so  ill-secured  that 
a  detachment  cut  their  main  branch 
irremediably  without  a  struggle — her 
coasts  were  threatened,  her  towns 
burnt ;  and  the  fortresses  which  she 
had  acquired,  with  great  expense  and 


260 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign — Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


trouble,  were  so  ill  provided  for  de- 
fence that,  at  the  first  approach  of 
an  enemy,  the  garrisons  abandoned 
them.  Yet  her  envoys  could  com- 
port themselves  as  if  her  great  credit 
for  resources  and  strength  were  un- 
blemished— could  not  merely  veil  dis- 
comfiture, but  assume  the  tone  of 
undoubted  success,  and  half  Europe 
was  disposed  to  admire  their  super- 
cilious demeanour.  If  such  finesse 
is  admirable,  great  empires  may  be 
dexterously  lost. 

But,  whatever  the  disasters  of  Rus- 
sia, she  at  least  enjoyed  one  advan- 
tage over  us.  Whether  her  councils 
were  directed  by  wisdom  or  pre- 
sumption, they  were  secret,  while  all 
our  elements  of  weakness  were  laid 
bare  in  the  national  discussions,  and 
were  paraded  far  more  ostentatiously 
than  those  resources  and  successes 
which  should  have  bid  us  be  of  good 
cheer.  Every  shade  of  policy  be- 
tween vigorous  prosecution  of  the 
war,  and  peace  on  any  terms,  found 
its  spokesman,  and  such  want  of 
unanimity  could  not  but  give  confi- 
dence to  the  enemy. 

Of  the  Four  Points  discussed  at 
the  conference,  the  Third  was  the 
only  one  bearing  directly  on  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  war.  In  the  par- 
liamentary debates  on  this  point,  it 
was  asserted  that  Russia  never  would 
consent  to  such  humiliation  as  a  limi- 
tation of  her  fleet  in  the  Black  Sea. 
The  objectors  spoke  as  if  that  fleet 
were  still  riding  the  Euxine  unmo- 
lested ;  in  which  case  it  might,  in- 
deed, be  derogatory  to  the  dignity  of 
the  Czar  to  consent  to  its  diminution. 
But  force  had  already  confined  the 
few  remaining  ships  of  the  Russian 
fleet  to  their  port,  dooming  them  to 
hopeless  inaction ;  and,  whatever 
turn  the  affairs  of  the  Allies  might 
take  by  land,  it  was  evident  that 
Russia  could  never,  during  the  war, 
by  any  effort  or  any  success,  regain 
her  naval  supremacy  in  the  East. 
A  more  reasonable  objection  against 
the  Third  Point  was,  that  it  left  the 
essential  article  of  limitation  inde- 
finite and  dependent  on  the  chances 
of  the  war. 

Mr  Disraeli  found  an  easy  task  in 
criticising  the  conduct  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  its  envoy,  but  was  by  no 
means  so  successful  in  amending  the 


plan  of  the  campaign  as  in  exposing 
its  errors.  He  denounced  the  aggres- 
sive movement  of  the  war  as  the 
cause  of  all  our  disasters,  maintain- 
ing that  a  purely  defensive  policy 
would  have  been  the  true  one,  and, 
like  some  other  speakers  of  great  re- 
putation, assumed  that  Russia  was 
invulnerable. 

Since  to  blockade  the  ports  of  Rus- 
sia is  in  itself  an  aggressive  move- 
ment, it  is  to  be  presumed  that  Mr 
Disraeli  meant  that  our  operations  by 
land  only  should  have  been  restricted 
to  the  defensive  —  that  our  troops 
should  have  occupied  Turkey  in  suf- 
ficient force  to  render  her  territories 
secure  against  the  armies  of  Russia, 

But,  to  maintain  in  Turkey  a  force 
sufficiently  large  to  be  effective,  would 
be  almost  as  costly  as  to  make  war  in 
the  Crimea ;  at  any  rate,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  occupying  Turkey  could 
shorten  the  war,  or  cripple  Russia 
more  effectually  than  assailing  herself. 
To  capture  Sebastopol  was  to  solve  the 
knottiest  question  of  the  war — it  was 
to  give  security  to  the  shores  of  Tur- 
key, to  deliver  her  capital  from  the 
apprehension  of  invasion,  and  to  en- 
able her  to  concentrate  her  powers  on 
her  land  defences.  It  has  been  said 
that  we  could  have  no  security  that 
Russia  would  not  rebuild  her  fortifi- 
cations and  renew  her  fleet ;  but  it  is 
not  likely  that  the  war,  if  concluded  to- 
morrow, would  leave  the  finances  of 
Russia  in  a  condition  so  flourishing  as 
to  enable  her  immediately  to  set  about 
accumulating  expensive  means  of  ag- 
gression. 

The  assumption  that  Russia  is  in- 
vulnerable by  land,  is  surely  a  mistake 
— to  an  enemy  commanding  the  sea, 
the  Crimea  is  especially  an  assailable 
province.  Far  removed  from  the  heart 
of  the  empire,  her  ponderous  powers 
cannot  be  vigorously  transmitted  to 
so  distant  an  extremity.  In  any  sea- 
son it  would  be  almost  impossible  for 
her  to  maintain  there  a  force  sufficient 
to  cope  with  ours ;  the  losses  in  march- 
ing an  army  into  the  Crimea  are  ne- 
cessarily great,  and  still  greater  in 
maintaining  it.  Our  fleets  ought  to 
give  us  an  incalculable  advantage  in 
moving  from  point  to  point  of  the  coast, 
threatening  and  harassing  the  enemy, 
and  enabling  small  bodies  to  check 
large  ones ;  and  with  such  a  force  and 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  IX. 


such  means  as  the  Allies  possessed, 
Russia  had  no  right  to  calculate  on 
calling  the  Crimea  hers  for  two  months. 
Once  ours,  the  difficult  question  of  how 
we  were  to  dispose  of  it  remained;  but 
as  that  consideration  was  not  broach- 
ed in  the  debates,  it  need  not  be  allud- 
ed to  here,  though  it  may  not  have 
been  without  important  influence  on 
the  war.  But,  however  that  might 
be  settled,  the  Crimea  ours,  and  Se- 
bastopol  dismantled  as  a  sea-fortress, 
we  should  hold  the  guarantee  we 
needed,  and  might  withdraw,  besides 
the  greater  portion  of  the  army,  all  our 
fleet,  except  a  few  war-steamers  to 
watch  the  coast.  With  the  Crimea 
lost,  with  the  Circassians  on  their  old 
frontier,  with  the  trade  of  the  Sea  of 
Azoff  cut  off,  and  its  towns  ruined,  and 
with  the  Baltic  blockaded,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  what  end  Russia  could  pro- 
pose to  herself  in  continuing  a  war  in 
which  she  could  assail  none  of  her 
enemies  but  Turkey,  who  had  already 
repelled  her  single-handed. 

We,  on  the  other  hand,  would  have 
obtained  by  force  of  arms,  what  Rus- 
sia had  refused  to  diplomacy,  the  se- 
curity of  Turkey ;  and  while  suffering 
far  less  from  the  war  (which  might 
then  become  a  blockade)  than  our  ad- 
versary, we  could  have  no  more  rea- 
son than  she  to  wish  to  prolong  it.  It 
would  be  a  question  of  endurance, 
where  Russia  would  have  most  to 
endure. 

The  facts  of  Sebastopol  being  yet 
uncaptured,  and  the  Russian  army  in 
the  Crimea  still  able  to  oppose  us,  do 
not  alter  the  real  state  of  the  case,  be- 
cause the  vulnerability  of  the  Crimea 
depends,  not  on  a  chance  combination 
of  military  and  political  circumstan- 
ces, but  on  its  natural  and  unalterable 
features.  A  temporary  failure  does 
not  lessen  our  chance  of  ultimate  suc- 
cess, nor  give  Russia  greater  security 
of  retaining  the  province.  While  we 
are  able  to  encompass  its  shores  with 
our  ships,  and  to  land  and  supply  our 
troops,  while  the  internal  resources  of 
the  peninsula  are  insufficient  to  main- 
tain large  armies,  and  the  barrenness 
of  its  northern  portion  forbids  Russia 
to  supply  adequately,  by  convoys, 
those  necessaries  which  the  country 
does  not  afford,  so  long  must  the  Cri- 
mea remain  an  arena  where  the 
chances  are  all  in  our  favour,  and 


261 

where  alone  are  neutralised  the  ad- 
vantages which  our  enemy  derives 
from  her  enormous  military  power;  and 
nothing  is  wanting  to  secure  the  prize, 
but  a  man  able  to  grasp  it. 

Such  is  the  aspect  which  the  pre- 
sent conjuncture  wears  to  some  of 
those  whose  thoughts  have  necessarily 
been  deeply  intent  on  it,  and  than 
whom  none  can  be  more  powerfully 
interested  in  a  creditable  termination. 
But  in  England,  while  our  most  reso- 
lute statesmen  have  laid  far  less  stress 
on  the  "  vigorous  prosecution  of  the 
war,"  than  on  its  inevitable  associate 
phrase, "  asafe  and  honourable  peace," 
there  are  many  of  spirit  so  abject,  that 
it  would  be  quite  consistent  with  their 
views  if  six  of  our  most  venerable 
commanders  were  to  present  them- 
selves, like  the  citizens  of  Calais,  be- 
fore Sebastopol,  in  their  shirts,  and 
with  halters  round  their  necks,  and 
humbly  beseech  the  best  terms  the 
enemy  might  please  to  allow  us.  The 
puzzled  public  is  busily  patching  the 
body  and  members  of  the  prostrate 
political  and  military  machine,  while 
the  defect  is  in  the  brain.  There  is 
sufficient  strength  and  completeness, 
but  the  Promethean  spark  is  wanting. 
Meantime,  amid  councils  so  varied 
and  irresolute,  the  nation,  like  the 
Prince  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  press- 
ing onward  to  its  goal,  is  stunned 
and  bewildered .  by  so  many  voices 
warning  it  against  false  dangers,  that 
it  pauses,  looks  back,  and  is  turned 
into  stone. 

Of  all  the  arguments  used  against 
the  war,  none  reflects  so  much  dis- 
credit on  its  propounder,  as  one  by 
Mr  Bright,  who,  in  the  course  of  a 
clever  and  much -applauded  speech, 
put  it  to  the  House,  "  whether  they 
believed  that  when  the  capital  of  the 
greatest  banking-house  in  Lombard 
Street  can  be  transferred  to  the  United 
States  on  a  small  piece  of  paper,  in 
one  post,  the  imposition  of  £75,000,000 
of  taxation  over  and  above  the  taxa- 
tion of  an  equal  population  in  the 
United  States,  will  not  have  the  effect 
of  transferring  capital  from  this  coun- 
try to  the  United  States— and  if  capital, 
then  trade,  population,  and  all  that 
forms  the  bone  and  sinew  of  this  great 
empire  ?  " 

Had  this  been  merely  a  warning  to 
Government  of  one  of  the  difficulties 


262 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  IX, 


[Aug. 


they  would  have  had  to  provide 
against,  by  rousing  the  feeling  of  pa- 
triotism till  self-interest  should  be  in 
great  measure  lost  in  the  nobler  senti- 
ment, such  a  reminder  would  have 
been  timely  and  politic.  But  the 
whole  tenor  of  the  speech  showed  that 
the  speaker,  in  all  whose  views  there 
is  an  ignoble  consistency,  believed  that 
no  capitalist  could  be  actuated  by  any 
higher  motive  than  the  desire  to  make 
the  most  of  his  money,  and  that  to 
transfer  one's  self  with  one's  property 
to  another  country,  when  our  own  was 
engaged  in  a  struggle  which  rendered 
it  no  longer  capable  of  affording  profit- 
able investment,  was  a  natural  and 
sensible  act,  such  as  British  merchants 
might  acknowledge  without  reproach. 
If  a  man's  first  duty  is  to  think  of 
himself,  and  if  his  best  interests  are 
centred  in  the  increase  of  his  capital, 
then  Mr  Bright's  argument  was  just, 


and  worthy  the  applause  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  nation.  The  Cartha- 
ginian women  who  cut  off  their  hair 
to  serve  as  bowstrings  for  the  de- 
fenders of  their  beleaguered  city,  had 
much  better  have  sold  it  to  make  wigs 
for  the  Roman  ladies.  But  if  there  be 
anything  to  admire  in  the  sacrifices  a 
nation  makes  to  sustain  a  contest  with 
a  powerful  enemy — if  it  be  more  heroic 
to  struggle  to  the  last  than  to  submit 
— what  can  be  found  worthy  of  ap- 
plause, at  a  time  when  Mr  Bright's 
countrymen  are  spending  their  energies 
and  blood  to  uphold  the  honour  of 
England,  in  an  appeal  to  a  principle, 
which,  however  legitimate  in  commer- 
cial questions,  or  in  the  ordinary  trans- 
actions of  life,  can  never  obtrude  it- 
self either  in  public  or  private  affairs, 
where  higher  interests  than  money  are 
concerned,  without  the  risk  of  fetter- 
ing justice  and  staining  honour? 


CHAPTER   XXVI. — ATTACK  OF   THE  MALAKOFF  AND   REDAN. 


The  cannonade  subsided  with  the 
capture  of  the  Mammelon  and  Quarries, 
and  trenches  were  pushed  out  from 
these  works  towards  the  Malakoff 
and  Redan.  From  the  Quarries,  zig- 
zags led  to  a  trench  sixty  or  seventy 
yards  in  advance,  where  riflemen  in- 
cessantly exchanged  shots  with  the 
garrison  of  the  Redan,  while  a  bat- 
tery for  guns  and  mortars  was  con- 
structed close  in  rear  of  it.  When 
this  was  armed,  the  guns  swept  so 
completely  one  of  the  communica- 
tions of  the  Malakoff,  that  the  enemy 
could  scarcely  use  it,  and  the  eight- 
inch  mortars  dropped  their  shells  into 
the  Redan  with  great  accuracy.  But 
neither  the  advanced  trench,  the 
Quarries  themselves,  nor  the  com- 
munications in  front  and  rear,  were 
by  any  means  secure,  either  against 
the  cannon  or  riflemen  of  the  Redan 
and  its  flanking  batteries,  and  many 
casualties  occurred  there  every  day — 
insomuch  that,  except  securing  the 
favourable  position  for  the  battery, 
the  possession  of  the  Quarries  did 
not  seem  to  bestow  any  advantage 
adequate  to  the  loss  suffered  in  their 
capture  and  occupation.  But  it  is 
probable  that,  when  the  French  re- 
solved to  attack  the  Mammelon,  we  . 
considered  ourselves  bound  to  make 


some  corresponding  advance,  without 
nicely  balancing  the  advantages  to 
be  gained.  Such  is  one  of  the  difficul- 
ties attending  the  combined  opera- 
tions of  an  allied  army. 

On  the  17th  the  cannonade  recom- 
menced. For  three  hours  the  fire 
was  warmly  returned,  and  then  the 
Russian  batteries  grew  almost  silent. 
Several  causes  might  exist  for  this ; 
their  ammunition  might  be  failing — 
their  guns  might  be  disabled  by  our 
fire— or  the  losses  in  the  batteries 
might  be  so  great  that  the  enemy 
could  no  longer  man  them.  But  this 
slackening  of  their  fire,  from  what- 
ever cause,  seemed  favourable  to  the 
success  of  another  assault,  which  had 
been  planned  to  take  place  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  as  follows  : — 

After  two  or  three  hours'  cannon- 
ade, the  French  were  to  assault  the 
Malakoff.  That  work  carried,  the 
English  were  immediately  to  assail 
the  Redan,  which  would  not  be  ten- 
able by  us  unless  the  Malakoff  were 
first  captured.  Three  columns,  of  four 
hundred  men  each,  were  to  be  ready 
in  the  Quarries  and  advanced  work, 
with  strong  supports  in  the  trenches 
and  approaches  close  behind.  At  the 
signal  they  were  to  rush  out :  the  one 
on  the  right  was  to  attack  the  angle 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  IX. 


at  the  left  face  and  flank  of  the  Redan ; 
the  one  on  the  left,  the  angle  of  the 
right  shoulder  of  the  work ;  and  the 
centre  column  was  to  advance  on  the 
salient,  and  make  a  lodgment  there. 
Twenty  artillerymen  under  an  officer 
were  to  accompany  each  column,  to 
spike  the  guns  or  turn  them  on  the 
enemy,  and  parties  of  sailors  were  to 
carry  the  scaling-ladders.  The  right 
and  left  columns,  uniting  in  rear  of 
the  Redan,  were  to  drive  the  garrison 
towards  the  water,  and  to  attack  the 
Barrack  Battery  should  the  enemy 
make  a  stand  there,  in  which  opera- 
tions they  were  to  be  assisted  by  a 
brigade  under  General  Eyre,  which 
was  to  descend  the  great  ravine  to- 
wards the  inner  harbour,  and,  when 
their  first  attempt  had  succeeded,  effect 
a  junction  with  them. 

This  plan  was  changed,  at  the  in- 
stance of  the  French,  on  the  evening 
of  the  17th,  when  it  was  resolved  that 
the  assault  should  be  made  at  day- 
break, without  a  previous  cannonade. 
The  other  arrangements  remained  the 
same.  This  change  was  regretted  by 
the  English  artillery  officers,  who 
were  very  confident  of  rendering  the 
Russian  batteries  nearly  harmless  in 
a  fire  of  three  hours.  Notwithstand- 
ing this  alteration  of  the  plan,  which, 
made  at  the  eleventh  hour,  seemed  to 
betoken  indecision,  confidence  was  at 
a  high  pitch  in  the  allied  camp.  At 
length  we  were  to  close  with  the  ene- 
my ;  the  dreary  vigils  in  the  trenches, 
the  wearisome  life  on  the  heights, 
were  to  be  at  an  end,  and,  with  the 
assured  capture  of  the  city,  a  new 
era  would  dawn  for  us  and  for  Europe. 

At  two  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
the  18th,  we  rode  towards  the  lines. 
It  was  very  dark :  the  camps  were 
still  silent  as  we  clattered  through 
them,  and  we  were  near  the  trenches 
before  a  faint  glimmer  of  daylight 
tinged  the  gloom.  A  point  in  an  ad- 
vanced trench,  which  commanded  a 
near  view  both  of  the  Redan  and 
Malakoff,  had  been  selected  as  Lord 
Raglan's  post  of  observation,  and  he 
was  already  there. 

Day  broke  rapidly,  and  we  could 
see  our  troops  destined  for  the  as- 
sault in  the  Quarry  and  advanced 
trenches,  while  the  supports  occupied 
the  lines  in  rear.  The  interval  of 
suspense  was  short  before  the  rattle 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXVUI. 


263 

of  musketry  showed  the  French  to  be 
assaulting.  It  continued,  increased, 
and  seemed  to  encompass  the  Ma- 
lakoff, though  we  could  not  see  the 
actors  in  whose  success  we  were  so 
deeply  interested.  After  a  few  min- 
utes the  guns  of  the  Malakoff  deepen- 
ed the  din,  and  covered  the  ground 
with  the  spray  of  their  grape,  the 
steadiness  of  their  fire  showing  that 
the  work  was  not  yet  entered  in  force 
by  the  French. 

However,  their  success  seems  to 
have  been  considered  sufficient  to 
warrant  the  giving  of  the  signal  to 
attack  the  Redan.  The  party  of  rifles 
and  33d,  who  were  to  lead  the  storm- 
ers  on  the  right,  at  once  quitted  their 
cover,  and,  gallantly  led  by  the  en- 
gineers and  their  own  officers,  ran 
across  the  smooth  grassy  slope  be- 
tween the  -Quarries  and  Redan,  till, 
reaching  the  abattis  which  surrounds 
the  latter  at  a  few  yards  in  front  of 
the  ditch,  they  lay  down  there  and 
fired  on  the  embrasures,  which  now 
began  to  pour  forth  grape.  Probably, 
on  the  previous  day,  the  guns  had 
been  run  behind  the  parapet  for  se- 
curity from  our  fire,  which  they  could 
not  effectually  return,  and  were  thus 
preserved  from  its  effects ;  for,  warned 
by  the  attack  on  the  Malakoff,  they 
were  already  run  out,  and  opened  on 
our  men  with  a  violence  that  nothing 
could  withstand.  In  vain  the  officers 
stood  up  amid  the  iron  shower  and 
waved  their  swords — in  vain  the  en- 
gineers returned  to  bring  up  the  sup- 
ports—the men  could  not  be  induced 
to  quit  the  parapets  in  a  body.  Small 
parties  of  half-a-dozen  or  half  a  score 
ran  out  only  to  add  to  the  slaughter. 
The  party  of  artillerymen,  whose 
business  it  was  to  follow  this  column 
and  spike  the  guns,  sallied  forth,  led 
by  their  officer,  and,  of  the  twenty, 
only  nine  returned  un  wounded ;  and 
the  sailors  who  carried  the  scaling- 
ladders,  and  the  naval  officers  who 
led  them,  also  suffered  very  severe 
loss.  Sir  John  Campbell,  calling  to 
the  nearest  troops  to  follow,  left  the 
trench,  led  the  way  to  the  abattis,  and 
was  shot  dead  under  it.  The  men 
drawn  up  behind  the  Quarry  suffered 
almost  as  severely  as  those  who  bad 
advanced  ;  and  the  remainder  of  these 
latter,  after  continuing  for  nearly  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  under  this  tremen- 


2G4 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


dous  fire  on  the  ground  before  the 
abattis,  ran  back  to  the  trenches. 

The  point  where  Lord  Raglan  stood 
was  the  focus  of  the  fire  of  the  Mala- 
koff  and  Redan,  and  such  a  storm  of 
shot  of  all  kinds  came  over  and 
through  the  parapet,  which  was  low 
and  thin,  as  rendered  it  a  very  indif- 
ferent post  of  observation.  First  a 
soldier  was  wounded  by  a  grape-shot; 
another  struck  General  Jones  on  the 
forehead,  ploughing  the  skin ;  then  a 
shot,  entering  a  neighbouring  embra- 
sure, carried  off  the  head  of  an  artil- 
leryman, killed  a  sapper,  and  struck 
off  the  right  arm  of  Captain  Brown  of 
the  88th  ;  and  the  fire  rather  increas- 
ing, his  lordship  was  recommended  to 
exchange  this  position  for  one  in  the 
first  parallel. 

The  musketry  still  continued  to 
rattle  around  the  Malakoff,  and,  from 
the  eight- gun  battery  in  our  third 
parallel,  which  now  began  to  fire,  I 
saw  several  hundreds  of  the  French 
clinging  to  scarped  spots  in  the  ground 
before  the  Malakoff,  and  firing  on  the 
parapets,  which  were  lined  with  Rus- 
sians. The  French  guns  in  the  Mam- 
melon  (where  General  Laboussiniere, 
of  the  artillery,  had  been  killed)  were 
silent,  while  our  artillery  now  opened 
both  on  the  Redan  and  Malakoff, 
principally  on  the  latter.  The  prac- 
tice was  admirable.  The  Russians 
speedily  left  their  parapets,  where 
whole  sections  of  them  must  have 
been  swept  away,  and  our  shells, 
bursting  just  after  grazing  the  edge 
of  the  work,  must  have  been  most 
destructive  to  the  troops  drawn  up  in 
its  defence.  A  couple  of  the  guns  of 
the  Malakoff  were  directed  on  the 
French  still  clinging  to  the  hill,  and 
the  grape  rattling  among  them  put 
them  to  flight ;  but  the  vigour  of  our 
artillery  fire  enabled  them  to  retreat 
with  but  little  loss  from  the  enemy's 
guns,  which,  in  their  own  defence, 
were  now  directed  on  our  batteries. 

When  it  was  known  that  the  French 
did  not  mean  to  repeat  the  assault, 
the  greatest  disappointment  prevailed. 
On  our  part  the  disaster  was  rather  a 
blunder  than  a  repulse ;  for  an  attack 
so,  feeble  against  such  a  work  as  the 
Redan  could  not  be  called  an  assault. 
Probably  its  garrison  of  thousands 
never  beheld  from  their  ramparts 
more  than  three  hundred  enemies  ad- 


vancing upon  them,  and  they  must 
have  been  puzzled  to  account  for  sr.ch 
a  futile  attempt,  taking  it,  perhaps, 
for  an  ill-concerted  feint.  The  French 
attack,  though  made  in  greater  num- 
bers, was  no  better  managed  than  our 
own.  The  business  of  the  stormers 
was  to  lose  no  time  in  reaching  the 
ditch  of  the  enemy's  work,  and,  col- 
lecting there  in  sufficient  numbers,  to 
swarm  over  the  ramparts.  Instead 
of  this,  they  appear  to  have  lain 
down  and  commenced  firing  their 
pieces  at  the  embrasures  and  para- 
pets, and  the  supporting  columns,  of 
course,  stopped  also,  instead  of  press- 
ing into  the  work,  and  driving  out 
its  defenders  with  the  bayonet.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  any  French  soldiers 
got  inside  the  Malakoff,  though  two 
battalions  are  said  to  have  held  their 
ground  in  it  for  a  short  time ;  but 
had  that  been  the  case,  the  guns  of 
the  work  could  scarcely  have  fired  so 
unremittingly  as  they  did. 

It  was  not  till  the  afternoon,  and 
while  we  felt  the  first  soreness  of  dis- 
appointment, that  it  became  at  all  ge- 
nerally known  that  Eyre's  brigade 
(consisting  of  1800  men  of  the  9th, 
18th,  28th,  38th,  and  44th  regiments), 
which,  as  before  said,  was  to  proceed 
down  the  great  ravine  towards  the 
Dockyard  Creek,  had  actually  ad- 
vanced into  the  suburbs,  and  had 
been  all  day  hotly  engaged  with  the 
enemy.  Turning  a  corner  of  the  de- 
file, just  in  advance  of  the  allied 
works,  the  head  of  the  column  came 
on  a  small  cemetery  occupied  by  Rus- 
sian sharpshooters,  whom  they  drove 
out,  and,  pushing  on,  occupied  the 
houses  which  skirt  the  course  of  the 
ravine.  A  little  further  on,  the  Wo- 
ronzoff  ravine  joins  this  one,  and  a 
broad  flat  piece  of  ground  extends  to 
the  water,  near  the  edge  of  which  is 
a  long,  low  battery,  sweeping  the 
approach.  At  the  junction  of  the 
two  ravines,  and  resting  against  the 
slope  of  the  high  ground  which  se- 
parates them,  are  a  number  of  houses 
sufficient  to  rank  as  a  small  town, 
some  mere  hovels,  some  of  better  ap- 
pearance, and  these  were  taken  pos- 
session of,  while  the  advanced  parties 
extended  in  front  of  the  low  battery, 
and,  scaling  a  hill  on  their  left,  reached 
a  battery  for  three  guns  on  a  shoulder 
of  the  cliff- like  side  of  the  ravine, 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  IX. 


from  whence  they  saw  no  obstacle  to 
their  advance  on  the  town,  which 
stands  on  a  rounded  hill,  bounding 
the  Dockyard  Creek.  They  had  now 
reached  a  point  from  which  they  could 
operate  on  either  side  of  this  Dock- 
yard Creek,  or  inner  harbour.  If  the 
attack  against  the  Eedan  were  suc- 
cessful, they  could,  by  scaling  the 
cliff  of  the  Woronzoff  ravine  on  their 
right,  effect  a  junction  with  the 
stormers ;  or,  had  the  French  pene- 
trated into  the  works  covering  the 
town,  they  would  have  received  pow- 
erful help  from  Eyre's  brigade.  This 
latter  contingency,  however,  there 
was  no  reason  to  provide  for,  as  it 
was  never  contemplated;  and  it  is 
one  of  the  most  unaccountable  fea- 
tures of  these  operations,  that,  with 
our  immense  forces,  no  diversion,  far 
less  any  real  assault,  was  made  on 
this  point.  '  Even  the  artillery  of  the 
French  lines  before  the  town  was 
silent. 

To  meet  Eyre's  force,  the  Russians, 
issuing  from  the  Garden  Batteries 
which  crown  the  left  cliff  of  the  ra- 
vine, descended  some  distance  to  a 
long,  low  breastwork,  from  whence 
they  began  to  pick  off  our  men.  Grow- 
ing excited,  they  stood  upright  on  the 
parapet,  and  exchanged  vollies  with 
our  troops,  who  poured  on  them  so 
destructive  a  fire  as  in  half-an-hour 
forced  them  again  to  have  recourse  to 
the  shelter  of  their  work.  The  guns 
in  the  Garden  Batteries  above  sent 
round  and  grape  shot  through  the 
houses  and  low  walls  of  the  gardens 
and  enclosures ;  the  stones  from  which, 
as  well  as  from  the  tombstones  in  the 
cemetery,  flying  in  all  directions, 
caused  a  great  number  of  casualties. 
A  shot,  however  ill-directed,  seldom 
failed  to  dislodge  stones  enough  to 
give  it  all  the  effect  of  a  shell,  and  none 
of  the  walls  were  thick  enough  to  re- 
sist the  heavy  missiles,  which  riddled 
them  through  and  through,  so  that 
the  wounded,  laid  in  houses  for  shel- 
ter, were  covered  with  dust  and  frag- 
ments, and  sometimes  killed.  The 
riflemen,  who  occupied  the  ground  in 
front  of  the  Barrack  Battery,  de- 
scended towards  the  ravine,  to  oppose 
our  people  there,  and  the  fire,  thus 
almost  surrounding  the  assailants, 
searched  through  them  with  deadly 
effect.  General  Eyre  was  wounded 


265 

in  the  head  early  in  the  action — with- 
drew into  a. house,  where  he  got  his 
wound  dressed — and  returned  to  his 
post.    The  brigade  was  dispersed  in 
small  parties,  wherever  cover  was  to 
be  obtained ;     the    regiments    were 
mixed,  and  all  unity  of  action  was 
lost,  as  indeed  no  attainable  object 
remained  to  strive  for.    In  front  was 
the  low  battery  before  the  creek,  some 
guns  from  which  (luckily  it  was  not 
fully  armed)  swept  along  the  course 
of  the  ravine  ;  on  their  left,  the  Gar- 
den  Batteries,  whose  shot  plunged 
into    them,    extended    towards    the 
Bastion  du  Mat,  which  appeared  far 
in  rear;    and  on  the  right  rose  the 
cliff,  by  ascending  which  they  might 
indeed  communicate  with  our  works 
before  the  Redan,  but  the  whole  in- 
tervening space  was  swept  by  the 
formidable  Barrack  Battery,  as  well 
as  by  the  flanking  fire  of  the  Garden 
Batteries  across  the  ravine,    Nothing 
could  be  finer  than  the  spirit  displayed 
by  the  troops    under  these  circum- 
stances.   Ignorant  of  the  fortunes  of 
the  day  at  other  points  of  the  line,  they 
probably  imagined  they  were  destined 
to  carry  the  town,  and  their  eagerness 
to  attempt  it  was  so  great  that  they 
were  with  difficulty  restrained  from 
pressing  forward  beyond  a  point  from 
whence  extrication  would  have  been 
impossible.    All  day  the  fight  con- 
tinued,   and    whatever    the   French 
(whose  parapets  to  the  right  of  the 
Bastion  du  Mat  looked  down  upon 
the  arena)  may  have  thought  of  the 
prudence  of  the  movement,  the  man- 
ner in  which  our  troops  maintained 
themselves  throughout  the  day  in  so 
desperate  a  position,  must  have  ex- 
cited great  respect  for  their  gallantry. 
Uncheered    by    any    hope    of   solid 
achievement  or  success,  the  brigade 
held    its    ground,   and    at   nightfall 
withdrew  unmolested,  with  a  loss  of 
six  hundred  killed  and  wounded.  We 
continued  to  hold  the  cemetery,  and 
thus  the  contest  was  not  entirely  bar- 
ren of  result,  while  the  valour  of  the 
troops  engaged  brought  some  consola- 
tion for  the  loss,  and  rendered  this  the 
least  painful  to  dwell  on  among  the 
unhappy  mistakes  of  the  day. 

Supposing,  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, that  to  prosecute  the  siege  ac- 
tively was  the  right  strategic  policy, 
and  that  the  Malakoff  and  Redan 


266 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  IX. 


[Aug. 


were  the  best  points  to  assault,  yet 
the  execution  of  the  measure  was 
such  as  to  invite  failure.  I  have 
already  mentioned  how  feeble  were 
the  attacks  in  themselves,  and  how 
much  it  was  to  be  regretted  that  the 
original  plan,  by  which  the  artillery 
was  to  fire  for  some  hours  before  the 
infantry  advanced,  should  have  been 
changed.  But,  though  the  immediate 
cause  of  failure  is  to  be  found  less  in 
the  plan  of  assault  than  in  its  very 
defective  execution,  yet  it  seems  ex- 
traordinary that,  with  the  vastly  su- 
perior force  which  the  Allies  could 
command,  attacks  were  not  made  on 
points  so  numerous  as  to  bewilder 
and  divide  the  garrison,  especially  on 
the  bastions  before  the  town,  from 
whence,  if  the  enemy  had  been  in- 
duced to  place  there  a  large  propor- 
tion of  troops,  they  could  not  have 
been  easily  transferred  across  the 
creek.  But,  so  far  from  making  any 
demonstration  which  might  induce 
the  enemy  to  believe  that  point 
menaced,  the  French  batteries  in  that 
quarter  did  not  open  in  the  first  day's 
cannonade  till  afternoon,  and  on  the 
day  of  the  assault  scarcely  fired  at  all. 
The  small  number  of  Russians  who 
opposed  Eyre's  brigade,  and  the  cir- 
cumstance of  the  riflemen  in  front 
of  the  Barrack  Battery  leaving  their 
post  to  meet  our  people  in  the  ravine, 
seem  to  warrant  the  conclusion  that 
the  great  mass  of  the  garrison  was 
placed  in  support  of  those  works 
which  alone  were  threatened. 

Faulty  as  the  assault  would  seem, 
the  general  plan  of  which  it  formed 
part,  or  rather  which  was  absorbed 
into  it,  is  no  less  open  to  criticism. 
Whatever  reasons  may  have  dictated 
our  mode  of  operations,  it  is  not  easy 
to  deny  that,  in  assembling  so  large  a 
force  on  the  extremity  of  the  penin- 
sula, in  allowing  a  great  portion  of 
the  army  to  remain  idle  while  the  re- 
mainder pressed  the  siege  on  the  old 
plan,  and  in  concentrating  our  efforts 
on  the  strongest  of  the  Russian  out- 
works, where  numbers  were  neutral- 
ised to  a  great  extent  by  the  defences, 
we  were  doing  what  the  Russians 
themselves  would  most  wish  us  to  do. 
Notwithstanding  our  altered  circum- 
stances, our  plans  were  unchanged, 
and  were  of  the  most  simple  and  un- 
scientific character.  With  an  army 


of  two  hundred  thousand  men,  we 
persisted  in  staking  success  on  the 
attack  of  two  works  which  ten  thou- 
sand men  might  defend,  and  by  the 
failure  in  which  attack  these  hosts 
were  for  a  time  paralysed.  If  we 
gained  Sebastopol  we  gained  nothing 
more,  for  the  Russian  army  could 
then  retreat  upon  its  communications. 
We  had  far  more  troops  than  were 
necessary  to  conduct  the  siege  and  to 
defend  the  plateau,  yet  the  superflu- 
ous force  attempted  no  enterprise  of 
importance,  while  the  heats  of  summer 
were  at  hand,  and  the  more  anxious 
and  far-seeing  began  already  to  anti- 
cipate another  dreary  winter  here  as 
inevitable.  Meanwhile  the  Russian 
army  was  invisible,  and  its  move- 
ments and  state  unknown  ;  but  it 
seemed  as  if  the  mere  vis  inertia  of  a 
force  like  ours  must  press  the  enemy 
back,  and  that  any  forward  move- 
ment, however  blind,  must  cause  us 
to  blunder  into  victory. 

About  this  time  death  was  busy 
among  the  chiefs.  Admiral  Boxer, 
whose  great  energy  and  activity  had 
established  order  in  the  crowded  har- 
bour of  Balaklava,  and  created  com- 
modious wharves  there,  had  been 
dead  of  cholera  some  weeks.  Gene- 
ral Alexander  La  Marmora,  brother 
of  the  commander  of  the  Sardinian 
forces,  had  fallen  a  victim  to  the 
same  disease ;  and  a  few  days  after 
the  attempt  on  the  Redan,  our  Adju- 
tant-General Estcourt,  a  man  of  re- 
markably kind  and  courteous  disposi- 
tion, died  after  a  short  illness.  At 
the  time  of  his  funeral  it  was  known 
that  Lord  Raglan  was  indisposed, 
and  next  day  he  kept  his  room ;  but 
although  the  symptoms  caused  his 
medical  attendants  to  be  apprehen- 
sive, he  did  not  appear  in  imme- 
diate danger  till  the  afternoon  of 
the  28th  June,  when  he  rapidly  sank, 
became  insensible,  and  expired  at 
half-past  eight  in  the  evening,  tran- 
quilly and  without  pain. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  3d  July 
his  body  was  conveyed  to  Kazatch 
Bay  for  embarkation.  The  funeral 
was  a  very  strange  and  splendid 
spectacle.  The  generals,  staffs,  and 
numbers  of  officers  of  the  four  armies 
—French,  English,  Turkish,  and  Sar- 
dinian— assembled  at  the  appointed 
hour  in  the  large  courtyard  of  the 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  IX. 


267 


house  which  had  been  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  deceased  marshal.  Before 
the  porch  waited,  with  its  team  of 
bay  horses,  a  horse-artillery  gun,  de- 
stined to  be  the  appropriate  hearse  of 
the  old  soldier.  The  courtyard  was 
.crowded  with  the  uniforms  of  the  dif- 
ferent nations  —  the  gaudy  colours 
and  laced  Louis-quatorze  hats  of  the 
French  staff—  the  green  plumes  and 
dresses  of  the  Sardinians— the  red 
skull-caps  of  the  Turks,  unadorned, 
except  Omer  Pasha's,  in  the  front  of 
whose  fez  blazed  a  large  ornament  of 
diamonds — and  our  own  costumes,  in 
all  the  diversity  of  cavalry,  infantry, 
and  artillery.  The  Guards  furnished 
the  guard  of  honour,  drawn  up  front- 
ing the  house  to  salute  the  body  of 
their  general,  which  had  been  en- 
closed in  coffins  of  lead  and  iron,  with 
a  plain  wooden  one  outside.  It  was 
brought  out,  placed  on  the  gun,  cov- 
ered with  a  flag,  and  the  procession 
moved  on  through  the  garden  and 
vineyard  surrounding  the  headquar- 
ters. As  it  appeared  round  the  cor- 
ner of  the  house  a  battery  on  the 
opposite  slope  saluted  with  nineteen 
guns,  which  were  echoed  by  the  de- 
sultory fire  of  the  batteries  in  the 
trenches  and  the  guns  of  the  enemy. 
The  road  from  the  house  to  Kazatch 
Bay  was  lined  throughout  its  extent 
on  each  side  with  infantry,  French 
and  English,  the  men  standing  a  few 
feet  apart.  First  the  procession  pass- 
ed between  our  own  men,  who  had 
been  last  night  fighting  in  the  trenches, 
till  it  reached  the  French  headquar- 
ters, when  a  French  battery  saluted, 
and  our  own  troops  were  succeeded 
by  those  of  our  Allies:  first,  the 
Zouaves,  wearing  to-day  green  tur- 
bans ;  then  the  Imperial  Guard,  with 
their  tall  bearskins  and  long  blue 
frocks ;  and  then  regiments  of  the  line 
— each  corps  marked  by  its  colours 
inscribed  in  gold  letters  with  the  vic- 
tories of  the  Consulate  and  the  Em- 
pire. A  body  of  cavalry  and  artillery 
escorted  the  coffin,  the  white  pall  of 
which,  with  its  cross  of  St  George, 
was  conspicuous  at  the  head  of  the 
long  procession,  which  covered  miles 
of  the  road.  Crossing  the  ridge  of  a 
slope  beyond  the  French  headquarters 
the  sea  appeared,  and,  upon  the  right, 
the  now  familiar  puffs  of  smoke  and 
sound  of  the  guns  marked  where  the 


siege  still  dragged  on  its  weary  length, 
to  the  cares,  the  honours,  and  the 
disappointments  of  which,  so  all-ab- 
sorbing to  us,  he  whom  we  escorted 
was  now  insensible.  Slowly  we  jour- 
neyed along  the  plains,  the  dust  ris- 
ing in  clouds  from  the  dry  soil,  till  at 
sunset  we  reached  Kazatch.  The 
water  of  the  harbour  was  almost  hid- 
den by  the  number  of  boats  thronged 
with  seamen  in  their  white  frocks, 
whose  uplifted  oars  looked  like  a 
grove.  At  the  end  of  one  of  the 
wooden  piers  a  crane  had  been  erect- 
ed, under  which  the  gun-carriage  was 
drawn — bareheaded  sailors  slung  the 
coffin  to  the  crane,  hoisted  it,  and  low- 
ered it  into  the  boat  destined  to  take  it 
to  the  Caradoc,  the  steamer  in  which 
Lord  Raglan  had  come  from  England, 
and  which  was  now  to  take  home  his 
remains.  A  parting  salute  was  fired  as 
the  boat  left  the  pier,  and  we  had  seen 
th  e  last  of  our  kind  and  gallant  old  chief. 
To  most  of  us  he  appeared  as  the  relic 
of  an  age  now  historical,  and  his  name, 
associated  with  the  Peninsular  vic- 
tories, caught  a  large  share  of  the 
lustre  reflected  on  all  the  companions 
of  the  great  Duke.  During  the  long 
period  in  which  he  transacted  business 
at  the  Horse  Guards,  his  reputation 
for  suavity  and  kindness  spread  widely 
through  the  army,  and  was  amply  sup- 
ported by  his  demeanour  as  com- 
mander-in-chief  in  the  present  cam- 
paign. His  rank,  his  dignified  man- 
ners and  appearance,  his  former  ser- 
vices, and  his  long  experience,  com- 
bined to  gain  for  him  the  respect  and 
willing  co-operation  of  our  allies  ;  and 
the  regret  felt  throughout  the  allied 
armies  for  his  loss,  proved  how  sincere 
was  the  regard  he  had  inspired  in  his 
associates  and  followers. 

On  the  day  of  Lord  Raglan's  death, 
Sir  George  Brown,  the  next  in  seniority, 
had  embarked  for  England  at  the  re- 
commendation of  a  medical  board ; 
and  on  the  1st  of  July  a  telegraphic 
message  from  England  confirmed 
General  Simpson,  late  chief  of  the 
staff,  in  the  command  of  the  army, 
which  had  devolved  on  him  by  sen- 
iority. 

During  the  early  part  of  June  the.* 
successes  of  the  Kertsch  expeditiofl^ 
continued  without  any  check.      At 
Taganrog  and  Berdiansk,  on  the  north 
shore  of  the  Sea  of  Azoff,  the  public 


268 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  IX. 


[Aug.  1855. 


buildings,  stores,  and  grain  were  de- 
stroyed, as  well  as  at  Genitsch,  at  the 
upper  extremity  of  the  Isthmus  of 
Arabat.  The  fort  of  Arabat  was  fired 
upon  by  our  gun-boats,  and  a  maga- 
zine was  blown  up,  but  no  landing 
was  attempted  there;  and,  intimidated 
by  the  presence  of  the  force  which 
thus  ravaged  the  coast  without  hind- 
rance, the  garrisons  of  Soujouk-kale 
and  Anapa,  blowing  up  their  maga- 
zines and  destroying  the  fortifications, 
abandoned  their  posts. 

On  looking  at  the  map,  the  reader 
will  perceive  that  the  peninsula  of 
Kertsch  narrows  to  a  neck  of  land  be- 
tween Kaffa  on  the  Black  Sea,  and 
Arabat  on  the  Sea  of  Azoff,  the  dis- 
tance across  being  about  twelve  miles. 
When  Kertsch  and  Yenikale  had  been 
so  easily  captured,  the  garrisons  of 
those  places,  in  number  about  5000, 
marched  unmolested  towards  the  in- 
terior of  the  Crimea.  It  is  evident 
that  had  Kaffa  been  attacked  imme- 
diately after  we  had  secured  an  en- 
trance into  the  Sea  of  Azoff,  on  cap- 
turing it,  a  force  might  have  marched 
on  Arabat,  with  which  our  gun-boats 
could  have  co-operated  from  the  sea. 
The  experience  we  had  gained  during 
the  enterprise,  warranted  the  belief 
that  those  places  would  have  fallen  at 
once ;  and,  the  neck  of  the  peninsula 
thus  occupied  by  a  sufficient  force  of 


the  Allies,  the  enemy's  troops  remain- 
ing in  it  must  have  laid  down  their 
arms,  and  whatever  resources  the 
country  from  thence  to  Kertsch  af- 
forded, must  have  been  lost  to  the 
Russians.  As  it  was,  the  expedition 
terminated  with  the  conquests  already 
enumerated.  GOOOTurks,  one  English, 
and  one  French  regiment,  remained  to 
garrison  Yenikale  and  St  Paul's,  the 
points  commanding  respectively  the 
two  entrances  to  the  straits ;  lines 
were  constructed  for  the  defence  of 
those  places  against  an  attack  by  land, 
and  guns  were  brought  from  Constan- 
tinople to  arm  the  batteries,  as  the 
Turkish  gunners  were  not  sufficiently 
familiar  with  the  construction  of  the 
Russian  ordnance  to  work  the  cap- 
tured pieces  with  confidence.  Kertsch 
itself,  which  stands  retired  within  the 
bay,  was  occupied  merely  by  a  guard 
for  the  protection  of  its  inhabitants  ; 
and  the  presence  of  a  few  Cossacks 
hovering  nightly  outside  the  town, 
showed  that  the  enemy  had  not  en- 
tirely withdrawn  from  the  penin- 
sula. The  town  of  Kertsch,  which 
had  been  a  flourishing  and  pleasant 
place,  containing  17,000  people, 
presented  a  melancholy  spectacle  ; 
the  houses  had  been  broken  open, 
ransacked,  and  in  part  burnt,  and 
the  inhabitants  were  not  secure  from 
ill  treatment. 


Printed  by  Willitun  lilackwood  4"  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH     MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCLXXIX.  SEPTEMBER,  1855. 


VOL.  LXXVIII. 


LIFE   IN  THE   INTERIOR   OF   RUSSIA. 

[THE  writer  of  the  article  in  last  Number,  on  the  "  Internal  Sufferings  of 
Russia  from  the  War,"  having  intrusted  to  us  his  papers,  containing  his  obser- 
vations during  his  residence  in  Russia,  we  extract  from  them  the  following 
intelligent  statement  of  the  Social  Condition  of  the  Russian  people — a  subject 
at  present  possessing  unusual  interest.  Russia,  the  Power  of  all  others  which 
has  most  to  fear  from  such  a. course,  is  now  bringing  on  a  War  of  Opinion  in 
Europe,  the  political  effects  of  which  will  in  due  time  extend  into  her  own 
dominions.  In  order  to  apprehend  what  may  be  the  effects  of  such  an  event, 
we  must  first  know  the  elements  upon  which  the  new  ideas  will  have  to  work  5 
and  viewed  in  this  light,  the  following  sober  and  authentic  resume  of  the 
social  state  of  the  Russian  nation  seems  to  us  to  possess  more  than  ordinary 
importance  in  the  present  times.] 


Landed  Proprietors — Nobles. — Many 
of  the  landed  proprietors  in  Russia, 
especially  the  small  ones,  would  like  to 
see  serfdom  abolished,  as  it  would  be 
more  profitable  for  them  to  cultivate 
their  land  with  hired  labourers  than 
with  serfs,  who  eat  up  the  greater  part  of 
the  produce.  I  am  very  well  acquaint- 
ed with  one  small  proprietor,  who 
possesses  about  1500  acres  of  land, 
and  possibly  some  70  or  80  peasants, 
and  I  know  well  that  he  does  not  get 
more  than  £100  per  annum  from  his 
property.  He  is,  however,  an  excep- 
tion to  the  general  rule,  being  very 
easy  with  them ;  but  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  they  are  better  off  for 
that ;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  in 
general  much  poorer  than  the  peasants 
of  the  neighbouring  great  estates, 
though  their  master  pays  the  poll-tax, 
which  is  never  the  case  in  large  pro- 
perties, where  there  is  more  trade,  and 
the  peasant  has  an  opportunity  of  dis- 
posing of  his  produce,  and  where  there 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


are  fairs  held,  which  gives  him  a 
chance  of  selling  many  little  articles, 
such  as  hay,  oats,  &c. 

In  general,  the  state  of  the  smaller 
landowners  is  one  much  to  be  pitied, 
for  in  many  cases  they  are  as  ignorant 
as  their  own  peasants,  and  yet  have 
all  the  pride  of  caste,  which  is  in  gene- 
ral very  strong  in  Russia,  where  much 
of  the  old  feudal  feeling  remains.  If 
they  enter  the  public  service  and  leave 
home,  their  small  properties  become 
still  smaller,  as  their  means  will  not 
allow  them  to  keep  an  intendant ;  nor 
is  the  service  sufficiently  remunera- 
tive to  live  in  ease,  or  even  without 
running  into  debt,  for  in  general  offi- 
cials are  very  badly  paid  indeed. 
Of  this  I  can  give  you  an  example  in 
the  case  of  a  young  man,  the  son  of  a 
small  proprietor,  who  pinched  himself 
in  order  to  give  his  son  a  good  educa- 
tion at  the  university,  where  he  re- 
mained till  he  was  twenty-three  years 
of  age,  when  the  father  thought  he 

T 


270 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


[Sept. 


would  be  able  to  obtain  some  good 
government  employment  —  at  least 
that  he  would  be  at  no  further  expense. 
After  waiting  nearly  a  year,  he  ob- 
tained a  place  with  a  salary  of  four 
roubles  a-month,  one  of  which  was 
deducted  for  his  rank,  leaving  him 
three  (rather  less  than  10s.  a-month) 
to  provide  himself  with  a  lodging, 
table  (which  are  to  be  had  for  about 
30s.  a-month),  clothing,  and  every- 
thing necessary  for  a  gentleman ! 
After  that,  is  it  wonderful  that  the 
Russian  officials  accept  bribes  a  tort 
et  a  tr avers  ? 

None  but  nobles  have  the  right 
to  possess  serfs,  though  it  does  not 
follow  that  all  nobles  possess  them, 
for  there  is  a  very  large  class  of  poor 
nobles  in  Russia  who  possess  nothing, 
never  did  possess  anything,  and  are 
never  likely  to  possess  anything — and 
these  are  the  most  miserable  of  all  the 
others ;  for  they  are  nothing — neither 
peasants  nor  gentlemen.  It  will  na- 
turally be  asked  how  they  became 
possessed  of  their  nobility  ?  They  are 
for  the  most  part  sons  of  ambitious 
clerks  of  churches,  &c.,  whose  fathers 
or  friends  have  taught  them  to  read  and 
write,  and  through  the  interest  of  some 
great  man  got  them  admitted  into  some 
government  office  as  copying-clerks, 
where  they  receive  a  rank  after  a  cer- 
tain number  of  years,  and  become 
noble,  and  of  course  their  children  too, 
who  do  as  their  fathers  have  done  be- 
fore them— leading  a  wretched  exist- 
ence, without  any  prospect  of  advance- 
ment, upon  a  miserable  pittance,  un- 
less they  have  great  abilities  for  plun- 
der, when,  by  dint  of  accepting  bribes, 
they  get  a  small  sum  together.  There 
is  no  sum  so  small  that  they  will  not 
accept :  you  may  even  offer  them 
articles  of  wearing  apparel — anything ; 
and  this  latter  is  too  frequently  done 
when  the  poor  suitor  has  nothing  more 
to  oifer.  I  myself  have  given  such 
small  sums  as  4d.  and  6d.  for  trifling 
services  which  they  have  seemed  re- 
luctant to  perform,  which  has  always 
had  the  desired  effect  of  accelerating 
their  movements,  and  saved  me  the 
ennui  of  waiting  half-an-hour  for  them 
to  perform  their  duty.  Some,  again, 
of  this  class,  live  by  going  from  house 
to  house  in  the  country.  They  stay 
at  a  house  till  the  master  gets  tired  of 
them ;  then  he  sends  them  to  his 


nearest  neighbour,  who  does  the  like. 
The  Russians  in  general  are  very 
hospitable ;  and  in  the  country,  where 
they  lead  a  very  solitary,  monotonous 
life,  are  glad  to  see  any  one  who  can 
procure  them  a  little  variety,  as  they 
have  no  sources  of  amusement  what- 
ever except  shooting  or  coursing ;  but 
when  a  man  is  not  a  sportsman,  even- 
these  fail  him,  for  books  are  very  rare, 
very  expensive,  and  not  very  interest- 
ing, on  account  of  the  extreme  seve- 
rity of  the  censure  that  is  exercised  : 
a  really  good  work  is  a  great  luxury, 
and  seldom  to  be  met  with  in  a  Rus- 
sian country-house  ;  hence  they  are 
glad  to  see  anybody  who  can  give 
them  a  little  news,  be  it  ever  so 
stale.  But  I  must  give  the  Russians 
their  due :  they  are,  from  highest  ta 
lowest,  very  hospitable ;  a  general 
invitation  there  always  means,  in 
town,  that  you  are  expected  to  drop 
in  two  or  three  times  a- week  about 
dinner-time,  and,  without  being  asked, 
take  your  seat  at  table  like  one  of  the 
family.  If  you  decline  staying,  they 
will  feel  quite  hurt ;  even  the  very 
servants  will  press  you  to  remain 
and  take  dinner  with  the  family. 
When  you  are  asked  to  go  to  the 
country,  you  are  never  expected 
to  give  any  previous  notice  of  your 
intended  visit,  but  to  go  at  any 
time  you  feel  inclined  ;  and  you  are 
sure  to  meet  with  a  warm  receptionr 
and  are  expected  to  remain  just  as- 
long  as  it  may  suit  your  own  conve- 
nience. 

Some  of  the  smaller  proprietors, 
from  leading  such  a  solitary  life,  get 
into  habits  of  beastly  intoxication,  in 
which  they  consume  days  and  nights, 
while  their  property  goes  to  ruin.  I 
have  even  known  instances  where 
they  have  kept  casks  of  spirits  in  their 
bedrooms,  and  been  in  the  habit  of 
crawling  on  all-fours  from  the  bed  to 
the  cask— seldom  being  in  a  state  to 
walk — drinking  out  of  the  tap,  and 
then  crawling  back  again  to  bed,  to 
sleep  till  they  should  be  ready  to  take 
another  slight  refreshment  in  the  same 
manner.  This  must  seem  very  much 
like  exaggeration;  but  I  can  assure 
my  readers  that  I  advance  nothing 
but  the  pure  truth,  and  what  fell  un- 
der my  own  personal  observation. 
Without  doubt  such  are  exceptional 
cases,  and  are  soon  brought  to  a  conclu- 


1855.] 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


271 


sion  by  death  ;  but  some  can  support 
this  life  for  two  or  three  years. 

One  great  cause  of  the  poverty  of 
the  nobles  is  the  subdivision  of  estates 
that  takes  place  on  the  death  of  the 
proprietor.  Every  son  has  an  equal 
share  in  the  property,  with  an  equal 
share  of  the  debts.  Some,  though  few, 
of  them  may  acquire  more  land,  and 
so  add  to  their  heritage  ;  but  with  the 
greater  number  the  reverse  is  the 
case,  so  that  the  debts  are  increas- 
ed, and  the  estate  in  a  similar  way 
subdivided  ;  and  thus  eventually  the 
heirs  are  obliged  to  sell  off  their 
portions  to  pay  the  mortgage,  or 
surrender  the  land  to  the  crown, 
and  the  son  of  the  late  proprietor 
becomes  a  beggar.  With  all  this 
before  their  eyes,  they  raise  a  terrible 
outcry  against  the  English  law  of 
majority,  which,  if  it  were  the  law  of 
their  country,  would  preserve  it  sol- 
vent, whereas  they  now  have  na- 
tional bankruptcy  to  look  forward  to. 

Many  of  the  poorer  class  of  nobles 
obtain  admittance  into  the  universi- 
ties at  the  expense  of  the  crown, 
where  they  are  educated  as  army 
surgeons.  They  receive  their  educa- 
tion, board,  lodging,  and  clothing — 
everything  during  the  time  they  are 
in  the  establishment — on  condition 
that  they  serve  the  government  during 
two  years  for  every  one  they  spend  in 
the  university,  with  the  same  emolu- 
ments that  the  other  army  surgeons 
receive.  These  men  are  generally 
very  unfortunate,  as  they  are  for  the 
most  part  appointed  to  situations  for 
which  there  would  be  no  volunteers — 
such  as  small  forts  in  unhealthy  parts 
of  the  Caucasus,  in  the  interior  of 
Siberia,  or  in  the  fleet,  to  which 
many  Russians  have  a  great  aversion. 
There  are  not  many  of  these  crown 
students,  as  they  are  called,  who  do 
not  feel  themselves  under  a  kind  of 
noble  slavery ;  for  when  once  they 
have  finished  their  studies,  they  can- 
not, upon  any  consideration,  refuse  to 
serve,  though  they  may  obtain  their 
liberty  by  paying,  before  they  have 
finished,  a  certain  sum  for  every  year 
they  have  been  on  the  establishment; 
but  even  then  it  requires  power- 
ful influence  to  secure  their  libera- 
tion. Others  are  received  into  the 
faculties  of  mathematics  and  belles 
lettres,  for  the  purpose  of  becoming 


masters  in  the  different  educational 
establishments;  but  they  always  re- 
ceive appointments  that  others  who 
are  free  will  not  accept.  The  num- 
ber of  these  is  very  small— army  sur- 
geons are  what  the  country  wants,  and 
will  have.  At  the  present  moment 
there  is  a  large  bounty  offered  to  all 
young  men  who  are  finishing  their 
course  of  medicine  to  enter  the  army ; 
and  instead  of  the  five  years'  study 
that  are  generally  required  before  they 
can  pass,  they  are  examined  and 
passed  in  three  years  and  a  half  if 
they  volunteer,  which,  of  course,  nine- 
tenths  of  them  do,  as  those  who  re- 
main are  very  suspiciously  looked  on 
by  the  government  as  disaffected ; 
and  they  are  expecting  an  order  to 
join,  nolens  volens — for  the  want  is 
now  greater  than  ever  it  was  before. 
[The  results  of  this  pernicious  system 
were  pointed  out  in  the  article  in  last 
month's  Number.] 

The  relation  between  the  Nobles  and 
their  Serfs. — The  relation  between  the 
peasant  and  his  master,  when  looked 
upon  on  its  fairest  side,  does  not  pre- 
sent anything  very  shocking  either  to 
the  mind  or  feelings ;  for,  with  a  kind 
master,  the  position  of  the  serf  is  any- 
thing but  pitiable  in  the  southern  dis- 
tricts of  Russia,  where  the  soil  is  very 
thinly  peopled.  The  serfs  are  obliged 
to  give  half  their  time  to  their  mas- 
ter, and  to  do  any  work  he  may  re- 
quire of  them.  Of  course,  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  land  is  their  chief  employ- 
ment, in  which  the  women  take  their 
part  as  well  as  the  men.  The  general 
arrangement  is,  that  the  peasant 
should  work  three  days  a- week  for 
his  master,  and  three  days  for  him- 
self, during  which  time  he  tills  his 
own  plot  of  ground ;  and  as  land  is 
very  plentiful  in  those  parts,  he  can 
always  have  as  much  as  he  chooses 
to  plough ;  so  that  an  industrious  man 
will  always  have  a  great  advantage 
over  one  that  is  idle,  more  so  than  in 
any  other  country.  I  have  known 
instances  of  hard-working,  labour- 
loving  serfs,  who  possessed  their 
20,000  or  30,000  roubles ;  but  these 
instances  are  rare.  Having  worked 
the  three  days  for  his  master,  the  serf 
is  quite  at  liberty  to  work  for  wages, 
either  for  his  richer  and  more  fortu- 
nate neighbours,  or  for  his  master, 
which  is  very  frequently  done,  as 


-272 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


[Sept. 


it  is  not  every  one  of  them  who 
possesses  oxen,  or  the  means  of  till- 
ing land  on  his  own  account.  Those, 
however,  who  possess  cattle,  are 
obliged  to  bring  their  oxen  with 
them  when  they  go  to  their  task, 
which  are  employed  in  ploughing,  or 
anything  else  that  requires  draught 
cattle;  and  as  the  soil  is  very  stiff, 
there  are  generally  eight  oxen  yoked 
to  each  plough,  and  never  less  than 
six — so  that  the  number  required  to 
cultivate  some  5000  or  6000  acres 
of  land  is  enormous.  Where  the 
master  is  an  absentee,  the  intend- 
ant  will  sometimes  force  the  serfs  to 
work  their  own  days  without  pay- 
ing them  any  wages,  as  he  will  pro- 
mise to  do.  The  average  rate  that  a 
labourer  can  earn  is  from  6d.  to  8d. 
a-day ;  but  during  hay-time  his  earn- 
ings are  much  greater — from  Is.  to 
Is.  4d.  a-day,  with  his  food. 

In  case  of  a  failure  of  the  harvest, 
every  proprietor  is  obliged  to  feed  his 
own  peasants ;  and  to  provide  against 
that  emergency,  there  are  established 
in  every  village  what  are  called  pro- 
vident magazines  of  corn,  in  which 
there  is  obliged  to  be  kept  a  certain 
quantity  of  rye  and  barley— (I  think 
it  is  three  quarters  for  every  soul; 
but  as  only  the  males  are  taken  in 
the  census,  of  course  it  will  only  give 
half  that  quantity  per  head).  As  it 
rarely  happens  that  the  harvest  is  a 
complete  failure,  these  stores  are  sel- 
dom drawn  upon  more  than  two  or 
three  months  in  the  worst  of  years, 
although,  in  the  years  1848  and  1849, 
they  were  completely  exhausted,  on 
account  of  the  failure  of  the  crops  for 
two  successive  years.  In  fact,  in  the 
spring  of  1849,  some  places  were  ren- 
dered desert  by  the  entire  population 
dying  from  want,  and  scurvy  produced 
by  bad  living.  Even  in  the  best 
organised  villages,  where  the  owners 
spared  neither  pains  nor  expense,  the 
mortality  was  fearful.  In  the  most 
favoured  districts  the  mortality  was 
at  the  rate  of  from  five  to  ten  per 
cent  in  the  course  of  the  winter. 
What  is  very  remarkable  is,  that  at 
this  very  time,  at  a  distance  of  per- 
haps 300  miles,  corn  was  very  plentiful, 
and  selling  at  prices  little  above  the 
ordinary  rates ;  but  as  the  tracks  were 
all  broken  up,  there  were  no  means  of 
transporting  it— there  being  no  roads,' 


properly  so  called,  in  the  interior  of 
the  country  ;  and  when  the  frost 
breaks  up,  the  mud  is  more  than  knee- 
deep  for  a  space  of  perhaps  three 
weeks  or  a  month,  and  sometimes  two 
months,  when  the  frost  breaks  up 
very  early — as  it  did  in  the  year  1849, 
and  again  in  1853. 

To  give  a  faint  idea  of  what  a 
Russian  road  is  like  in  its  worst 
state,  I  shall  just  relate  what  occur- 
red to  a  friend  of  mine  who  was  ob- 
liged to  travel  from  Ekaterinoslav 
to  Kharkoff  in  the  month  of  March, 
1853;  the  distance  ;9  about  200 
versts,  or  140  English  miles,  and  is 
generally  done  in  twenty-four  hours 
or  less  in  the  winter  or  summer.  He 
was  quite  alone,  without  servant  or 
luggage,  except  a  small  portmanteau, 
and  travelled  in  the  ordinary  post- 
waggon,  which  will  not  weigh  alto- 
gether more  than  3  or  4  cwt. — had  five 
post-horses  to  it,  the  usual  number 
being  three;  and,  notwithstanding  all 
thisjie  was  seven  days  and  six  nights 
on  the  road,  travelling  day  and  night, 
as  is  the  custom  in  Russia,  there  being 
no  inns  on  the  road  where  to  stop. 
Now,  if  travelling  by  post  is  attended 
with  so  many  difficulties  in  the  spring 
of  the  year,  what  must  be  the  ex- 
pense and  trouble  of  transporting 
corn  at  that  time  ?  It  is  utterly  im- 
possible, for  its  value  would  be 
doubled  in  about  twenty -five  miles  ! 
I  remember  the  attempt  being  made 
for  rather  less  than  a  hundred  miles 
with  horses,  but  over  such  fearful 
roads  they  could  not  load  more  than 
4  or  5  cwt.  to  each  horse:  about  a 
third  of  the  horses  perished  on  the 
road,  and  a  portion  of  the  corn  was 
consequently  abandoned,  while  -the 
keep  of  the  cattle  on  the  journey  cost 
as  much,  or  more,  than  the  corn  it- 
self, for  hay  was  very  dear  that  year; 
and  they  were  about  a  month  going 
and  returning — the  men  and  horses 
being  all  that  time  away,  and  con- 
sequently unable  to  do  any  useful 
labour. 

The  sufferings  of  the  people  during 
the  years  1848  and  1849  were  really 
dreadful.  At  that  time  I  was  in  the 

town  of  K ;  and  as  there  are  never 

any  accounts  published  of  the  calami- 
ties that  may  befall  the  people,  of 
course  it  was  only  afterwards  that  I 
obtained  my  information  from  medical 


1855.] 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


273 


men,  who  weresentby  the  government 
to  inquire  into  the  state  of  affairs,  and 
to  render  such  assistance  as  the  state 
of  things  required,  from  the  stewards 
of  estates,  and  from  the  proprietors 
themselves,  who  were  resident  on  their 
properties  at  the  time.  .There  was 
one  who,  I  remember,  told  me  that 
he  was  obliged  to  leave  his  village, 
which  was  a  small  one,  as  all  his 
peasants  were  dead,  and  he  only 
made  his  escape  with  one  man,  who 
was  his  servant — that  all  the  others 
were  lying  dead  in  their  huts,  with- 
out anybody  to  bury  them.  Scurvy 
in  its  most  malignant  form  was  the 
disease  that  carried  them  off,  which 
was  no  doubt  produced  by  improper 
food,  for  in  many  instances  straw  was 
chopped  up  and  mixed  with  the  flour 
to  make  bread,  which  at  the  best  of 
times  is  not  very  good,  being  quite 
black,  and  very  coarse  in  appearance. 
Of  this  the  quantity  was  so  small  that 
it  was  insufficient  to  keep  body  and 
soul  together. 

Happily  for  the  country,  it  is  not 
often  that  this  state  of  things  occurs, 
but  then  it  was  produced  by  the 
cholera  in  1847  and  1848  and  bad 
harvests  combined. 

The  want  of  medical  aid  is  severely 
felt  in  all  parts  of  the  empire,  for  the 
immense  number  of  surgeons  required 
for  the  army  completely  drains  all  the 
establishments  of  their  medical  stu- 
dents, and  leaves  the  country  a  prey 
to  all  the  diseases  known,  which, 
when  serious,  are  generally  fatal. 
In  a  large  district,  containing  perhaps 
four  or  five  hundred  square  miles, 
there  will  be  not  more  than  two 
doctors,  and  sometimes  only  one.  It 
is  true  that  some  of  the  larger  pro- 
prietors, who  reside  on  their  own  pro- 
perty, keep  constantly  a  medical  man 
in  their  house ;  but  these  instances  are 
very  rare,  though  on  most  large 
estates  there  are  two  or  three  barber- 
surgeons  who  understand  cupping  and 
bleeding,  and  just  enough  of  medicine 
to  do  harm.  I  know  a  large  estate 
of  upwards  of  two  thousand  males, 
and  with  the  females  about  double  that 
number,  without  any  medical  man ; 
and  the  nearest  town  is  distant  fifty 
miles,  where  resides  the  district  doc- 
tor, who  has  as  far  to  go  in  every 


direction,  so  that  when  sent  for  he 
may  be  as  far  on  the  other  side  of 
the  town.  But  the  peasants  them- 
selves have  more  faith  in  charms  than 
physic,  which  they  can  only  be  pre- 
vailed upon  to  take  with  difficulty.  As 
for  restricting  them  to  any  particular 
diet,  it  is  useless  to  attempt  it,  unless 
you  can  shut  them  up  in  a  room  and 
serve  them  yourself. 

The  corpora]  punishment  of  serfs  is 
very  common — in  fact,  of  hourly  occur- 
rence, and  very  often  arbitrarily  admi- 
nistered, though,  according  to  the  law, 
no  proprietor  of  serfs  can  give  morfr 
than  fifteen  blows  with  a  stick  at  one 
time  ;  but  this  limitation  is  never 
attended  to,  because  the  peasant  can 
get  no  possible  redress,  as  the  very 
man  to  whom  he  ought  to  apply  in 
such  a  case  is  often  a  guest  at  his 
master's  table,  and  known  to  be  in 
his  pay.*  But  notwithstanding  all 
this,  when  the  master  is  a  kind- 
hearted  man,  and  resident  upon  his 
own  property,  the  peasants  look  up 
to  him  like  their  father  and  protector; 
and  it  often  happens  even  now,  though 
some  years  ago  it  was  much  more 
frequent,  that  the  free  peasants  will 
come  and  beg  to  be  set  down  as  serfs, 
knowing,  at  the  same  time,  that  they 
cannot  recover  their  liberty  again. 
It  is  when  the  master  is  a  cruel  man, 
which  the  majority  of  them  are  not,  or 
when  the  property  is  left  to  the  care 
of  intendants  and  agents,  that  the  poor 
peasants  suffer  most :  they  are  ground 
down  to  supply  either  the  avarice  of 
the  men  to  whose  care  they  are  com- 
mitted— who  are,  for  the  most  part, 
Poles — or  in  order  to  support  their 
master,  who  is  revelling  in  all  the 
luxury  of  the  capital,  or  possibly 
Paris,  and  who  has  not  the  slightest 
idea  as  to  the  means  by  which  his 
luxuries  are  procured ;  nor  does  he 
wish  to  know.  This  last  case  is  cer- 
tainly the  exception  to  the  rule,  and 
only  occurs  when  a  man  is  living  be- 
yond his  means. 

On  most  large  estates  there  is  gene- 
rally about  20  per  cent  of  the  entire 
population  who  are  domestic  servants, 
bailiffs,  or  task- masters,  who  are  di- 
vided into  classes,  the  highest  of  which 
is  pricashchickj  or  a  man  to  transmit 
orders ;  to  these  is  the  task  assigned  of 


On  the  subject  of  bribery,  see  infra. 


274 

seeing  that  the  intendant's  orders  are 
punctually  obeyed.  Under  them  again 
come  desiatnichs,  who  are  always 
placed  over  the  men  at  their  work,  to 
see  that  they  do  not  shirk  their  duty. 
Beside  servants  and  bailiffs,  there  are 
storekeepers,  distillers  (there  is  gene- 
rally a  distillery  in  every  large  vil- 
lage), shepherds,  neatherds,  carpenters, 
joiners,  and  a  great  many  other  trades 
that  are  carried  on  in  the  villages.  In 
the  village  where  I  resided  some 
years,  we  had  some  very  good  tailors, 
and  even  bookbinders,  who,  of  course, 
were  apprenticed  in  the  neighbouring 
towns  ;  and  the  embroidery  that  used 
to  be  done  by  a  number  of  young  girls 
was  really  astonishing.  None  of 
these  things,  however,  are  to  be  found 
where  the  master  is  an  absentee. 
Not  only  those  who  hold  any  office  of 
this  kind  are  exempted  from  more 
laborious  work,  but  their  families  are 
seldom  called  upon  to  work  with  the 
rest,  and  consequently  all  their  labour 
goes  to  make  up  for  the  constant  em- 
ployment of  the  heads,  who  receive  no 
wages  except  during  the  hay- making 
season,  when  all  hands  are  turned  out 
and  a  great  many  more  hired,  as  the 
quantity  of  hay  made  for  sheep- fodder 
is  something  fabulous.  The  greater 
part  of  the  men  employed  constantly 
enj°y  great  advantages  over  the 
others,  as,  their  families  being  quite 
free  to  work  for  them,  the  greater 
the  number  of  children,  the  greater 
the  quantity  of  labour,  and  the  greater 
the  amount  of  produce,  and  conse- 
quent riches,  of  the  head  of  the 
family. 

None  of  the  peasants  can  marry 
without  the  previous  consent  of  their 
master ;  nor  can  they  intermarry  with 
those  of  neighbouring  villages  with- 
out the  consent  of  both  owners,  and 
then  the  owner  of  the  bride  generally 
makes  her  a  present  to  the  master  of 
the  bridegroom,  who  of  course  does 
the  same  on  a  similar  occasion  ;  but 
such  matches  are  of  very  rare  occur- 
rence. 

The  greatest  grievance  that  both 
proprietors  and  peasants  have  to 
complain  of,  is  the  frequent  levies 
of  soldiers,  which  is  a  great  burden 
upon  them.  But  it  is  here  the  master 
shows  his  greatest  power,  as  he  has 
the  right  to  send  whoever  he  may 
think  proper ;  and  of  course,  if  he  has' 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


[Sept. 


a  drunkard,  a  thief,  or  a  man  with 
any  other  great  moral  defect,  he  is 
made  a  soldier  of;  or  if  there  be  a  man 
who  is  too  clever  (i.  e.,  understands  too 
well  his  position,  and  is  likely  to  breed 
discontent  among  the  others),  he,  too, 
is  sent  for  a  soldier ;  in  fact,  all  who 
are  likely  to  be  in  the  way.  During 
the  present  war,  the  number  they 
have  been  obliged  to  send  is  enor- 
mous ;  but  the  details  of  this  have 
been  given  in  our  previous  paper. 

In  all  the  southern  governments 
there  are  great  numbers  of  Jews,  who 
are  not  allowed  to  live  in  the  north- 
ern, who  are  encouraged  on  many  of 
the  large  estates  under  a  pretence  of 
commerce,  but  really  because  they 
pay  the  owner  for  permission  to  live 
there ;  and  they  cause  great  distress 
to  the  poor  serfs  by  letting  them  have 
thecoru-brandy  (nearly  all  the  drinking 
houses  are  kept  by  Jews)  on  credit, 
and  then  taking  their  produce  at  half 
its  real  value,  thus  robbing  the  poor 
fellows  of  their  hard-earned  money. 
The  lower  orders  of  Russians  are 
generally  much  addicted  to  drinking, 
which  is  not  so  much  to  be  wondered 
at,  when  it  is  taken  into  consideration 
that  the  corn-brandy  of  the  country 
is  not  much  dearer  than  good  beer  is 
in  this  country,  and  at  the  same  time 
stronger  than  our  gin.  When  an  in- 
habitant of  the  Ukraine  can  get  a  glass 
of  his  favourite  liquor,  he  is  happy, 
though  you  never  see  them  merry 
when  intoxicated,  but  always  more  or 
less  thoughtful;  and  if  they  sing,  their 
soogs  are  always  of  a  melancholy 
description;  their  dances, indeed,have 
very  little  animation  in  them.  The 
old  feeling  of  freedom  that  existed  in 
the  time  of  the  Hetmans  is  gone,  and 
almost  forgotten  by  these  degenerate 
sons  of  Cozaks-Zaporojtsi,  who  in 
eastern  Europe  played  a  not  unim- 
portant part  in  the  fate  of  nations. 
They  have  one  very  beautiful  allegory 
of  the  fate  of  their  country  in  a  song 
said  to  have  been  composed  by  Ma- 
zeppa,  but  nobody  appears  now  to 
understand  it.  Mazeppa  himself  is 
execrated  by  the  people,  and  you  can- 
not insult  a  man  more  than  by  calling 
him  Mazeppa. 

The  most  interesting  sight  perhaps 
to  be  seen  iii  Little,  or  rather  New 
Russia,  is  the  steppes  during  the  hay- 
making season.  Then  these  vast  soli- 


1355.] 


Lift  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


275 


tudes  become  thickly  sprinkled  over 
with  ail  active  population  :  where  be- 
fore all  was  solitude,  now  appears 
life  ;  the  mower  re-setting  his  scythe, 
its  sharp  passage  through  the  stiff 
long  grass,  the  hum  of  voices,  the  cries 
of  the  overseers  of  the  workmen, — all 
serve  to  enliven  a  scene  that  at  all 
other  times  oppresses  one  with  a  sense 
of  deep  solitude.  The  immensity  of  the 
tracks  of  grass-growing  land  on  some 
estates  is  really  amazing  ;  I  know  on 
one  estate  20,000  acres  of  grass  in  one 
piece.  The  number  of  hands  required 
to  make  the  hay  is  in  proportion  to  the 
size  of  the  hay-field.  In  this  spot  I 
have  frequently  seen  from  five  to  seven 
hundred  men,  women,  and  children  at 
work  together :  the  men  cut  the  grass, 
and  the  others  rake  it  together,  and 
form  it  into  cocks  when  it  becomes 
dried  by  the  heat  of  the  sun.  To  turn 
it  as  in  England  is  entirely  out  of  the 
question,  on  account  of  the  immensity 
of  the  quantity.  As  the  grass  falls  so 
it  dries.  It  is  also  stacked  on  the 
spot,  being  drawn  to  the  stack  by 
oxen. 

Masters  and  Servants. — The  ser- 
vants, for  the  greater  part,  are  the 
serfs  of  their  masters ;  or  when  the 
latter  do  not  possess  any  of  their  own, 
they  hire  them  from  those  who  do. 
In  the  northern  governments,  where 
the  population  is  much  denser  than 
in  the  south,  I  believe  it  is  a  very 
common  thing  for  the  proprietor  to 
give  his  serf  a  kind  of  ticket- of- leave 
on  condition  that  he  pays  him  a 
certain  sum  annually  for  this  privi- 
lege ;  the  serfs  then  become  domestic 
servants,  or,  possibly  knowing  a  trade, 
become  journeymen,  and  sometimes 
masters,  themselves :  when  the  latter 
case  occurs,  their  owners  frequently 
recall  them  to  the  village  again,  which 
of  course  they  object  to,  and  are 
made  to  pay  a  good  price  for  their 
freedom.  When  a  servant  is  a  serf, 
and  is  guilty  of  anything  that  may 
appear  to  his  master  against  the  rules 
of  his  house,  the  police  are  sent  for, 
and  the  delinquent  is  walked  off  to 
receive  a  good  flogging — not  with  the 
knout,  however,  but  simply  with  a 
bunch  of  rods  like  a  schoolboy  ;  or  he 
is  put  into  solitary  confinement,  ac- 
cording to  the  request  of  his  master, 
no  inquiry  whatever  being  made  as 
to  why  he  is  punished,  if  the  order 


for  punishment  be  accompanied  by 
the  present  of  a  rouble  to  the  police 
officer.  Men  are  punished  in  this  way 
by  mistake,  and  no  notice  taken  of  it. 
The  men  themselves  do  not  consider 
it  as  any  disgrace  to  be  flogged, 
and  they  even  boast  of  how  much 
they  can  support.  I  could  never 
see  that  this  system  produced  any 
beneficial  result ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
only  hardened  the  men,  who  said  that 
if  they  were  flogged  for  nothing  this 
time,  it  should  be  for  something  the 
next.  A  coachman  who  was  driving 
into  a  gateway  met  another  coming 
out,  and  as  neither  the  horses  of  the 
one  nor  the  other  could  be  made  to 
back,  there  was  a  stoppage  for  foot- 
passengers  that  lasted  two  or  three 
minutes.  An  officer  of  police  happen- 
ing to  be  passing  at  the  time,  ordered 
his  soldiers  to  take  one  of  them  off 
to  the  police,  where  he  was  severely 
flogged  for  what  was  no  fault  of  his. 
If  a  droshki-driver  overcharges  or  is 
impudent,  you  have  only  to  tell  him 
to  drive  to  the  police,  and  he  falls  at 
your  feet,  and  will  not  only  return 
you  the  overcharge  or  beg  your  par- 
don, as  the  case  may  be,  but  offer  to 
buy  you  off  with  a  present,  because 
he  knows  he  will  not  only  receive 
his  flogging,  but  be  made  to  pay  smart- 
ly too,  and  perhaps  lose  one  of  his 
horses. 

The  servants  frequently  conduct 
themselves  badly,  on  purpose  to  be  sent 
to  the  village  again.  Some  masters  are 
notorious  for  ill-using  their  servants, 
knocking  them  about,  pulling  their 
hair,  merely  for  their  amusement. 
The  servants  are  also  rarely  to  be 
depended  on,  being  much  addicted  to 
petty  theft,  so  that  nothing  can  be 
left  about  the  room  that  is  not  under 
lock  and  key.  They  rarely,  however, 
attempt  anything  on  a  grand  scale. 
Sometimes  they  will,  when  pushed  to 
extremity  by  the  cruelty  they  experi- 
ence at  the  hands  of  a  master,  revenge 
themselves  by  trying  to  take  his  life, 
and  generally  effectually.  One  must 
be  especially  careful  with  servants 
who  are  very  obliging,  as  they  have 
frequently  an  interested  motive  in 
gaining  the  confidence  of  their  mas- 
ters,—they  are  police  spies.  There 
is  a  much  greater  degree  of  famili- 
arity between  master  and  servant 
than  elsewhere.  This  arises  from 


276 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


[Sept, 


the  fact  of  the  servants  being  slaves, 
and  about  their  master's  person  from 
infancy ;  but  they  are  not  the  more 
to  be  trusted  for  that.  This,  however, 
is  not  asserting  that  all  servants  are 
spies,  but  there  is  known  to  be  a  large 
proportion  among  them.  This  is  the 
cause  why  the  French  language  is  so 
extensively  employed  in  society,  for, 
with  that  language,  one  has  no  ne- 
cessity for  learning  Russian  (which 
few  foreigners  do),  except  to  speak  to 
the  servants.  Within  the  last  four  or 
five  years,  however,  the  Russian 
language  has  come  into  more  general 
use,  from  a  feeling  of  patriotism  — 
real  or  pretended;  but  it  is  no  un- 
common thing  to  meet  people,  ladies 
especially,  who  speak  French  much 
better  than  their  own  language,  which 
they  term  barbarous,  and  always  give 
the  preference  to  the  elegant  stranger. 
The  late  Emperor  was  always  pleased 
when  he  found  a  foreigner  who  could 
speak  Russian,  which  is  really  a  very 
fine  language,  though  at  present  little 
cultivated ;  it  contains  all  the  elements 
of  a  fine  tongue,  though  very  difficult 
for  both  natives  and  foreigners. 

The  nobles  keep  a  great  number  of 
servants  in  their  houses,  especially  in 
the  villages;  chiefly  men  and  boys, 
who  are  very  often  extremely  ragged, 
but  that  matters  not  if  every  one 
in  the  house  have  his  servant,  who 
does  little  else  all  day  than  sleep,  for 
nowhere  is  one  so  badly  waited  on  as 
in  Russia.  It  seems  a  general  rule, 
that  the  more  numerous  the  servants, 
the  worse  the  attendance.  I  am  quite 
convinced  that  whoever  has  been  in 
the  interior  of  Russia  will  bear  me 
out  in  this  assertion.  On  entering  a 
house  you  have  a  servant  given  you, 
whose  sole  duty  is  to  attend  to  your 
wants,  which  he  understands  to  mean 
presenting  you  all  your  clothes  while 
dressing,  at  the  same  time  assisting 
you  to  put  them  on  if  necessary,  tak- 
ing them  off  when  you  undress,  and 
sleeping  outside  your  door  in  the 
entr'actes  of  these  operations.  They 
do,  however,  pretend  to  make  your 
bed  and  clean  your  room,  but  it  is 
only  a  pretence.  If  you  should  be  so 
unfortunate  as  to  have  for  attendant 
a  son  of  nature  fresh  from  his  native 
fields,  you  must  expect  to  have  a 
great  amount  of  trouble  with  him,  for 
he  will  know  nothing  of  the  uses  of 


any  of  the  utensils  necessary  in  civil- 
ised life,  and  will  frequently  make  the 
most  ludicrous  applications  of  them. 

Crown  Peasants.  —  The  state  of 
the  free  peasants,  or  rather  the  pea- 
sants of  the  crown,  is  in  theory  much 
better  than  that  of  those  belonging  to 
private  individuals,  but  practically  it 
is  much  worse,  as  they  are  subjected 
to  the  tyranny  of  petty  officials,  who 
grind  them  down  to  the  lowest  degree. 
They  have  no  task-work,  and  the  land 
belonging  to  the  community  is  equally 
divided.  They  are  only  bound  to 
furnish  a  certain  proportion  of  corn 
every  year  to  the  public  granary, 
which,  in  case  of  need,  is  supplied  to 
them,  or  goes  to  the  benefit  of  the 
crown,  as  at  the  present  time  of  war ; 
besides  this  they  are  subjected  to  an 
annual  poll-tax  for  each  male,  and 
required  to  furnish  horses  for  any 
official  who  may  be  travelling  through 
the  country  on  the  crown  service,  or 
for  the  transport  of  any  stores  that  be- 
long to  the  government,  for  which  they 
receive  no  payment.  These  are  their 
chief  duties ;  and  they  have  the  privi- 
lege of  drawing  lots  for  soldiers,  with 
the  liberty  to  circulate  over  the  empire, 
which  many  of  them  do,  engaging  in 
trade,  and  even  making  considerable 
fortunes ;  they  have  also  the  right  of 
changing  their  denomination,  and  be- 
coming merchants  in  towns  by  paying 
for  the  guild.  The  officers  of  the  rural 
police  oppress  them  very  much,  tak- 
ing from  them  anything  they  may 
fancy ;  and  woe  be  to  the  unfortunate 
man  who  should  think  of  refusing 
them  what  they  demand.  In  that 
case  their  revenge  is  something  simi- 
lar to  the  tale  told  in  the  chapter 
on  bribery  (see  infra,  p.  285),  in 
which  they  are  made  to  give  up  all 
they  have,  in  some  instances  even 
to  borrow  or  steal,  to  satisfy  the  de- 
mands of  justice  !  They  have  often 
soldiers  quartered  upon  them,  who 
tyrannise  over  them  to  a  fearful  extent, 
and  appear  to  glory  in  the  idea  that 
they  have  some  one  upon  whom  they 
can  wreak  their  revenge  for  the 
tyranny  of  their  officers.  There  is 
nothing  the  peasant  fears  so  much  as 
to  have  soldiers  quartered  upon  him, 
for,  by  bitter  experience,  he  knows 
that  neither  his  wife  nor  his  property 
will  be  respected.  The  soldier  will 
•  take  whatever  he  thinks  proper  for 


1855.] 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


his  own  use,  and  not  unfrequently 
steal  for  the  use  of  his  officer,  the 
ideas  of  the  officers  on  the  score  of 
honesty  being  as  lax  as  those  of  the 
men. 

I  will  now  attempt   to    describe 
the  interior  of  a  Little  Russian  hut. 


E 


1.  Lobby ;  2.  Door ;  3.  Chimney  ;  4.  Stove  or 
oven ;  5.  Seat  or  bench  running  all  round  the  room ; 
6.  Large  chest  that  serves  for  a  table. 

It  is  built  by  inserting  a  number  of 
posts  into  the  ground  at  distances  of 
about  four  feet  from  each  other, 
which  are  wattled  between,  with 
spaces  left  for  the  doors,  and  three 
or  four  small  holes,  about  nine  inches 
or  a  foot  square,  for  windows.  This 
done,  the  walls  are  plastered  with 
mud  (this  is  the  work  of  the  women) 
till  they  acquire  a  thickness  of  about 
five  or  six  inches,  and  the  building, 
when  covered  in  with  straw,  is  com- 
plete :  there  remain  only  to  be  pro- 
vided the  internal  fittings  and  furni- 
ture, consisting  of  a  stove  that  occu- 
pies about  a  third  of  the  room,  with 
a  wattled  chimney  in  the  lobby,  a 
bench  of  planks  running  round  the 
room,  and  a  large  box  or  chest  that 
is  placed  in  the  opposite  corner  of  the 
room  to  the  stove,  and  serves  for  a 
table  as  well  as  for  a  general  recep- 
tacle for  all  the  mobile  property  of 
the  family.  The  stove  in  front  is 
built  nearly  up  to  the  ceiling,  but 
behind  there  is  a  large  opening, 
which  serves  as  a  bed  for  the  aged 
members  of  the  family;  for  in  this 
one  room  of  about  ten  feet  square 
you  generally  find  three  genera- 
tions— the  patriarch  and  his  wife, 
with  two  or  three  married  sons  and 
daughters,  with  their  children.  The 
old  folks,  as  we  have  said,  sleep  upon 
the  stove,  the  other  members  of  the 
family  upon  the  benches  or  earthen 
floor ;  they  have  generally  no  beds 
but  their  sheepskins,  their  tall  caps 
serving  them  as  pillows.  In  Russia 


277 

Proper,  I  have  been  told,  they  carry 
these  things  still  farther,  by  keeping 
all  the  family  together  for  centuries, 
and  adding  to  the  house  as  it 
increases;  but  in  Little  Russia  the 
children  leave  their  homes  when  the 
parents  die,  giving  up  the  hut  to  one  of 
the  family,  who  pays  the  others  their 
share,  which  of  course  is  very  small 
in  amount,  as  the  whole  would  not 
cost  more  to  construct  than  £4= 
or  £5. 

The  Little  Russians  are  very  clean- 
ly in  their  persons  and  houses,  com- 
pared to  the  inhabitants  of  Russia 
Proper :  the  houses  are  generally 
nicely  whitewashed  both  inside  and 
out,  and  have,  when  new,  a  very 
pretty  appearance.  The  costume  of 
the  men  in  summer  consists  of  a 
shirt  and  drawers  of  very  coarse 
home-made  linen :  the  drawers  are 
made  very  wide,  like  Turkish  trousers : 
to  these  are  added  boots  and  a  svitka, 
with  a  tall  cap  made  of  lamb-skin, 
with  wool  outwards.  On  holidays  and 
great  occasions  the  svitka  is  made 
of  coarse  undyed  wool,  and  fastened 
with  a  button,  and  at  the  waist  with 
a  belt  of  some  gaudy  colour.  In  the 
winter  they  add  a  sheepskin  fur, 
and  that  completes  their  wardrobe. 
The  costume  of  the  women  consists 
of  a  shirt  reaching  to  the  knees, 
and  a  piece  of  coarse  undyed  cloth 
bound  round  the  waist,  and  reaching 
also  to  the  knees,  leaving  the  feet  and 
legs  bare ;  boots  like  the  men,  except 
that  sometimes  they  are  red  or 
yellow,  and  a  svitka,  are  added  for 
holidays.  The  girls  wear  on  their 
heads  a  fillet,  with  long  streamers  of 
various -coloured  ribbons  down  the 
back,  or  a  coronet  of  rudely -made 
gaudy  paper  flowers ;  the  married 
Avomen  tie  up  their  heads  in  a 
kerchief,  hiding  all  their  hair;  in 
the  winter  they  also  add  the  sheep- 
skin fur.  The  women,  however,  have 
many  variations  in  their  costume 
there  as  everywhere :  the  petticoat  is 
often  made  of  party-coloured  printed 
cotton,  and  the  svitka  of  blue  calico, 
with  a  number  of  red  worsted  tails 
sewn  on  to  it  like  ermine. 

There  are  few  trades  followed  in 
the  crown  villages,  so  that  they  have 
to  make  a  great  many  things  for 
themselves  or  go  without  them,  or 
wait  till  there  is  a  fair  somewhere  in 


278 

the  neighbourhood,  v.*hen  they  can 
lay  in  a  stock  of  necessary  articles 
that  cannot  be  produced  at  home. 
These  fairs  are  very  curious  in  their 
way,  and  generally  collect  all  the 
peasantry  of  the  adjoining  villages, 
with  a  good  sprinkling  of  the  smaller 
class  of  proprietors,  who  have  not 
the  means  of  going  often  to  the 
town.  The  goods  chiefly  sold  are 
pots  for  cooking,  and  dishes  of  coarse 
earthenware,  hardware  goods,  small 
windows  ready  glazed,  common  print- 
ed calicoes,  cheap  ribbons,  paper 
flowers,  ear-rings  of  copper  gilt,  of 
the  very  commonest  description, 
grocery  and  indifferent  wines  from 
the  Crimea  and  the  Don  for  the 
small  gentry,  tanned  hides,  boots 
and  shoes,  rough  wheels  for  bullocks' 
cars,  and  the  cars  themselves.  Here 
it  is  that  the  peasants  dispose  of 
their  spare  stock  and  corn.  Their 
horses  are  generally  sold  to  and 
bought  of  the  gypsies,  who  attend 
the  fairs  in  great  numbers,  and  are 
very  expert  in  cheating  in  their  deal- 
ings, as  well  as  in  horse  -  stealing. 
Their  oxen,  sheep,  &c.  are  generally 
bought  by  dealers  or  exchanged 
amongst  themselves;  the  corn  usually 
finds  its  way  into  the  hands  of  the 
Jews,  who  contrive  to  make  a  rich 
harvest  out  of  these  gatherings.  On 
the  whole,  the  scene  has  a  very 
animated  appearance,  but  it  is  one 
which  must  be  seen  to  be  thoroughly 
appreciated.  On  one  side  you  see  a 
group  of  the  swarthy  sons  of  Egypt 
examining  the  merits  of  a  horse,  and 
hukstering  for  the  price  with  some 
sturdy  peasant  with  a  fine  beard ;  on 
the  other,  a  Jew  pedlar  trying  to 
dispose  of  his  wares,  and  swearing 
that  his  copper  ear-rings  are  solid 
gold  ;  here  a  woman  in  holiday  attire 
is  bargaining  for  pots  in  which  to 
cook  her  borsheh;  *  there  a  priest,  with 
long  hair  and  beard  and  sweeping 
robes,  buying  incense  for  his  church, 
haggling  with  the  huckster,  and  giving 
his  blessing  to  some  one  at  the  same 
time.  A  little  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
fair  is  erected  a  booth  for  the  sale  of 


Life  in  the,  Interior  of  Russia. 


[Sept. 

and  tea ;  opposite  to  this  is  the 
brandy-shop,  where  most  of  the  horse 
and  cattle  bargains  are  concluded, 
and  where  some  of  the  purchase- 
money  is  left  under  the  name  of 
muggeritch.%  But  the  finest  sight  of 
all  the  fair  is  what  is  called  krasni- 
riad,  or  the  street  of  the  finery, 
which  is  usually  displayed  on  tempo- 
rary shelves,  and  covered  in  with 
coarse  canvass,  each  merchant  adding 
his  piece  to  form  a  long  coWed 
avenue  ;  and  here  you  will  generate 
find  congregated  all  the  belles  of  the\ 
country,  in^-yellow  and  red  boots, ' 
with  streamed  flying,  or  flowers  on 
their  heads,  buying  ornaments  in 
order  to  touch  the  hearts  of  the 
swains  with  love,  or  those  of  their 
companions  with  envy ;  or  perhaps 
you  may  find  some  rustic  lover  pur- 
chasing presents  for  his  lady-love. 
In  all  this  assemblage  of  rude  uncul- 
tivated people — I  have  seen  as  many 
as  four  or  five  thousand  of  them  con- 
gregated together — there  are  never 
any  serious  disturbances ;  all  is  order 
and  quiet ;  they  seem  pleased  and 
amused  with  the  rude  gaiety  of  the 
scene,  and  enjoy  it  till  it  becomes 
dark,  when  some  go  to  their  homes, 
others  to  the  brandy -shop  ;  while 
those  who  have  goods  lie  down  and 
go  to  sleep  upon  them,  no  matter 
how  inclement  the  weather.  These 
fairs  in  the  winter  generally  last  a 
week,  but  in  summer  rarely  more 
than  one  or  two  days,  as  time  is 
very  valuable  during  hay-making  and 
harvest.  If  it  were  not  for  these 
institutions,  there  would  be  no 
possibility  of  the  peasant's  procuring 
anything  besides  what  was  produced 
in  his  own  vil  age,  where  he  would 
lead  the  life  of  a  kind  of  Robinson 
Crusoe  in  the  society  of  others  like 
himself. 

The  serfs,  in  general,  have  very 
limited  ideas  on  the  subject  of  reli- 
gion, as  they,  for  the  greater  part, 
can  neither  read  nor  write ;  they  go 
to  church,  where  they  repeat,  with 
great  devotion,  a  certain  number  of 
Aves  and  Paternosters  in  their  own. 


*  A  kind  of  soup  made  with  cabbage  and  other  vegetables. 

t  A  sour  liquor,  made  from  rye  flour,  which  is  also  used  in  the  preparation  of 
borsheh. 

I  In  striking  all  bargains  with  a  Little  Russian,  it  is  always  a  question  as  to  who 
shall  find  muggeritch,  or  driuking-money,  as  nothing  can  be  done  without  drink. 


1855.] 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


language,  or  rather  Slavonic,  and 
cross  themselves  while  the  priest  is 
celebrating  mass,  which  is  done  with 
more  or  less  pomp  according  to  the 
occasion,  or  the  riches  of  the  church. 
If  you  ask  a  peasant,  where  is  God  ? 
he  will  generally  point  to  the  corner 
of  the  room,  where  there  are  hanging 
one  or  more  coarse,  badly- executed 
paintings,  representing  some  of  their 
which  he  is  firmly  per- 
are  so  many  gods.  This  will, 
create  a  smile  of  pity  in  Eng- 
d, but  it  is  the  natural  result  of 
their  uneducated  state^vhich  pre- 
cludes them  from  uncj/rrstanding  all 
abstract  ideas.  They  must  have  some- 
thing corporeal— something  they  can 
see  and  feel ;  consequently,  to  abolish 
these  would  be  to  do  away  with  all 
religion  in  their  eyes.  In  their  way 
they  are  very  religious  :  I  have  even 
known  some  of  them  who,  when  they 
^are  about  to  commit  a  sin,  will  cover 
carefully  their  images,  that  God  may 
not  see  what  they  are  about.  They 
are  very  strict  in  their  fasts,  which 
are  very  severe,  as  neithermilk,  butter, 
eggs,  or  anything  that  is  produced  by 
animals,  is  permitted ;  and  of  course 
animal foodis  forbidden.  Theprincipal 
and  longest  fast  is,  of  course,  Lent,  when 
they  do  not  even  eat  fish  during  the 
first  and  last  weeks,  nor  on  Wednes- 
days and  Fridays ;  from  Good  Friday 
till  after  mass  on  Easter- day,  many 
of  them  eat  nothing,  but  spend  their 
time  in  watching,  fasting,  and  pray- 
ing, being  firmly  persuaded  that  Christ 
dies  and  rises  again  every  year  at  this 
time.  But  when  the  mass  is  over  on 
Easter-day  (generally  about  4  A.M.), 
ample  amends  is  made  for  the  long 
fast,  by  stuffing  to  a  degree  that  is 
really  disgusting  to  look  at  and  think 
of:  nor  is  the  brandy- cup  forgotten  ; 
for,  during  the  three  days  that  Easter 
lasts,  it  is  almost  a  sin  not  to  be  drunk ; 
nor  are  the  priests  backward  in  setting 
the  example  in  both  eating  and  drink- 
ing. There  is  another  curious  custom, 
which  is  universal  throughout  the  em- 
pire— that  of  kissing  :  you  frequently 
see  two  men,  who  can  hardly  keep 
their  legs,  stop  and  uncover  in  the 
streets,  one  saying,  "  Christos  vos- 
kres,"  the  other  answering,  "  Vi-istino 
voskres ;"  they  kiss  each  other  three 
times  on  alternate  cheeks,  and  then 
walk  on  to  perform  the  same  ceremony 


with  the  next  acquaintance  they  may 
happen  to  meet.  They  are  blindly 
attached  to  their  religion ;  and  this 
has  been  the  means  employed  to  arouse 
their  enthusiasm  for  the  present  war, 
which,  I  am  told,  has  been  very  suc- 
cessful in  Russia  Proper ;  but  in 
Southern  Russia  it  has  only  met  with 
partial  success,  for  there  the  people 
are  not  strongly  attached  to  the  pater- 
nal government  of  the  Czar,  and  still 
have  many  traditions  of  their  former 
freedom,  before  the  hated  Mazeppa. 
They  think  themselves  the  only  ortho- 
dox nation  in  the  world,  and  all  others 
they  call  Bussermann,  or  infidel.  They 
have  very  curious  notions  of  the  rest  of 
the  world,  and  regard  all  foreign  coun- 
tries as  so  many  provinces  belonging  to 
the  Czar.  I  have  frequently  been  told 
that  the  Turks,  incited  by  the  French 
and  English,  had  revolted,  and  that 
the  latter,  finding  that  the  Turks  were 
not  able  to  do  anything  against  tie 
White  Czar  alone,  had  revolted  too, 
although  they,  the  peasants,  could  not 
understand  why  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish should  revolt,  since,  by  all  ac- 
counts, they  were  much  better  off  than 
the  Russian  peasants,  who  were  the 
Czar's  own  particular  people.  That 
is  their  idea  of  the  present  war,  and, 
of  course,  the  rebels  are  to  be  utterly 
destroyed  by  the  power  of  the  Czar  ; 
for  they  reason,  that,  if  they  were  to 
revolt,  they,  who  are  a  great  people, 
would  soon  be  annihilated ;  what  must 
it  then  be  for  those  whom  they  esteem 
insignificant  in  proportion  to  their 
knowledge  of  them  ? 

The  priests  are  objects  of  great  ve- 
neration, although  many  of  them  are 
not  far  removed,  in  point  of  education, 
from  their  flock.  I  have  met  with 
those  who  could  scarcely  read,  except 
their  church  books,  which  they  had 
learned  by  rote.  There  are,  however, 
many  who  are  well  educated,  and 
even  learned,  but  these  are  chiefly  in. 
towns.  These  are  the  two  extremes, 
whereas  the  great  body  of  them  Cjaii 
read  and  write,  and  understand  enough, 
of  the  dogmas  of  the  Russo-Greek 
Church  to  keep  the  people  in  their 
present  state.  Here  also  we  find  the 
same  system  of  feeing  going  on  as 
elsewhere  ;  for  if  they  take  a  fancy  to 
anything  that  a  peasant  possesses,  the 
owner  knows  that  it  is  no  longer  his 
property,  or  he  will  not  receive  abso- 


280 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


[Sept. 


lution  when  he  goes  to  confession;  or 
the  priest  may  refuse  to  bury  any  of 
his  family  that  may  die,  or  to  baptise 
his  children,  or  may  even  excommuni- 
cate him.  All  classes  fall  upon  the  poor 
peasant !  Their  greatest  oppressors 
are  the  rural  police,  who  exact  from 
them  to  their  last  shirt  when  they 
can.  I  knew  one  very  intelligent  man 
among  the  crown  peasants,  who  said 
that  his  position  would  be  very  well 
for  an  uneducated  man  like  himself,  if 
it  were  not  for  the  cruel  and  unjust 
exactions  of  these  locusts.  These  were 
his  very  words.  He  was  always  glad 
when  I  talked  of  England,  and  the 
people  there,  which  I  did  but  very 
circumspectly :  he  made  frequent  and 
very  shrewd  comparisons  between  the 
two  countries,  but  could  not  under- 
stand how  the  upper  classes  could 
exist  if  there  were  no  serfdom,  or  how 
we  could  get  soldiers  if  we  had  not 
the  same  system  as  that  existing  in 
Russia.  When  I  told  him  how  our 
soldiers  were  paid  and  treated,  he  only 
wondered  how  it  was  that  every  man 
was  not  a  soldier.  That  the  law  was 
alike  for  rich  and  poor  he  could  under- 
stand, and  remarked  that  it  was  the 
wish  of  the  Emperor  that  it  should  be 
so  in  Russia,  but  that  those  who  were 
charged  with  the  execution  of  it  there 
had  all  the  po-wer  in  their  own  hands ; 
that  there  was  no  redress  for  the  poor 
peasant,  who  must  suffer  till  the 
change  came  that  would  sweep  away 
all  their  oppressors.  He  could  not  ex- 
plain what  change  was  to  take  place, 
but  was  fully  persuaded  that  it  must 
come ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  ques- 
tion of  religion  mixed  up  in  the  pre- 
sent war,  I  am  fully  convinced  that 
this  would  be  looked  upon  as  the  time 
for  effecting  that  change. 

The  peasantry  (as  was  shown  in  our 
last  Number)  have  to  endure  great 
hardships  when  troops  pass  through 
their  district.  The  passage  of  troops 
in  Russia  presents  many  singular  and 
striking  features*  Every  Russian  re- 
giment is  composed  of  four  battalions, 
each  a  thousand  strong.  On  the  march, 
two  of  these  battalions  are  sent  on, 
followed  by  the  other  two,  at  the  in- 
terval of  a  day  or  two.  These  batta- 
lions are  broken  up  into  companies  of 
two  hundred  men  each,  under  a  cap- 
tain, and  directed  to  hold  a  parallel 
course.  These  companies  are  again 


subdivided  into  detachments  of  about 
fifty,  and  take  their  way  among  the 
villages,  only  concentrating  before 
entering  a  large  town,  so  that  they 
generally  march  over  about  double  the 
actual  distance  by  the  road.  It  is  a 
curious  sight  to  meet  one  of  these  de- 
tachments on  the  march.  In  front  of 
each  party  generally  marches  a  man 
singing  military  snatches,  with  a  tam- 
bourine, or  some  such  instrument,  to 
keep  up  the  spirit  of  his  comrades, 
while  the  others  join  him  in  the  cho- 
rus. The  effect  of  this  is  very  strange, 
surrounded  as  one  is  by  the  dreary 
landscape  of  a  Russian  winter,  with- 
out tree,  house,  or  human  being  in 
sight — nothing  but  snow  both  above 
and  below,  for  the  atmosphere  seems 
impregnated  with  it,  as  the  air  of 
London  is  with  smoke — there,  in  the 
midst  of  such  a  wilderness,  to  meet  a 
body  of  armed  men,  with  one  of  them 
at  their  head,  singing,  and  perhaps 
dancing  some  war-dance. 

Russian  Travelling. — Many  persons 
may  have  given  accounts  of  the  dif- 
ferent modes  of  travelling  in  Russia, 
but  they  for  the  most  part  have  only 
travelled  on  the  roads  and  better  ways 
of  communication,  where  no  great 
difficulties  exist;  it  is  in  the  interior 
of  the  country  that  all  the  pleasures 
and  pains  of  Russian  travelling  are  to 
be  found.  If  you  want  to  go  to  any 
place  where  there  is  no  post-road,  you 
must  hire  a  kibitka  (unless  you  have 
a  carriage  of  your  own)  and  three 
horses.  A  kibitka  is,  properly  speak- 
ing, merely  an  arched  covering  of 
matting  that  can  be  put  on  to  a  wag- 
gon or  sledge :  as  the  kibitka  is  useless 
without  the  vehicle,  the  one  name  is 
applied  to  everything  that  is  covered 
in  this  way.  With  this  you  do  about 
fifty  miles  a-day,  stopping  at  night  to- 
rest  the  horses  in  miserable  huts, 
where  frequently  you  can  procure 
nothing  but  black  bread  and  a  little 
milk,  with  straw  or  hay  to  lie  upon,  if 
you  prefer  sleeping  in  the  huts,  where 
vermin  are  generally  very  abundant, 
and  the  hut  crowded.  The  best  way, 
and  that  generally  adopted  in  summer- 
time, is  to  sleep  in  the  kibitka.  Every 
little  luxury  or  convenience  you  must 
carry  with  you,  or  do  without  it ;  cups 
and  saucers,  knives  and  forks,  plates 
and  dishes,  are  things  unknown  in  a 
Russian  hut.  All  these  things  are 


1855.] 


Life,  in  the  Interior  of  llussia. 


281 


sold  packed  in  neat  boxes  for  travel- 
ling, and  without  one  of  these  boxes 
few  travel.  In  fine  weather,  or  in  the 
winter  when  the  roads  are  good,  it  is 
very  bearable ;  but  in  the  spring  and 
autumn  it  is  fearful  to  be  obliged 
to  travel,  with  the  mud  more  than 
knee -deep;  for  there  are  no  roads 
in  the  interior  of  the  country,  but 
merely  a  broad  strip  of  land  that 
is  set  apart  for  the  use  of  travellers, 
and  called  by  courtesy  a  road ;  there- 
fore it  is  easy  to  suppose  what  travel- 
ling must  be  through  a  rich  alluvial 
soil,  in  which  you  have  no  hard  bot- 
tom, but  the  heavier  the  vehicle,  the 
deeper  it  sinks. 

I  have  already  given,  at  page  272, 
an  example  of  what  travelling  is  in 
spring,  over  such  a  mockery  of  roads 
as  I  have  described.  The  Eussians 
say  that  this  state  of  things  only  lasts 
about  three  months  in  the  year,  and 
not  always  that,  while  at  the  other 
seasons  you  can  travel  faster  than  in 
many  other  countries.  This  is  so  far 
true:  I  have  often  done  myself  twelve 
miles  an  hour  with  a  post  telega ;  but 
it  frequently  happens  that,  at  the  very 
time  you  most  want  to  use  despatch, 
you  are  detained  by  bad  roads  or  want 
of  horses,  which  is  another  grievance 
that  all  travellers  are  subject  to,  having 
frequently  to  wait  hours  for  horses, 
which  are  not  kept  in  sufficient  num- 
ber to  supply  the  demand.  Besides 
all  these  inconveniences,  there  is 
another  that  must  not  be  lost  sight  of. 
The  ordinary  way  of  harnessing  the 
horses  is  three  abreast — one  in  the 
shafts,  which  are  drawn  tight  to  a  bow 
attached  to  the  collar  of  the  shaft- 
horse  ;  and  it  is  the  spring  of  this  bow 
that  keeps  the  horse  in  his  place,  for  he 
has  no  traces  to  draw  with  :  the  other 
two  horses  are  attached  by  ropes  to  a 
kind  of  outrigger  at  the  sides.  Now, 
neither  the  ropes  nor  any  other  parts 
of  the  harness  are  ever  examined  to 
test  their  capabilities,  but  everything 
is  made  to  serve  till  it  gives  way ;  and 
there  is  generally  a  breakage  of  some- 
thing to  detain  the  traveller  during 
every  other  station  upon  an  average. 
The  repair  of  these  things  does  not  re- 
quire much  time,  it  is  true ;  but  when 
they  occur  frequently  during  a  long 
journey,  then  about  one  hour  in  ten  is 
lost  in  repairing  damages.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  tra- 


velling, appointments  are  never  kept 
with  any  degree  of  punctuality.  Even 
in  the  towns,  where  there  are  few  paved 
streets,  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to 
see  vehicles  sticking  fast  in  the  mud. 
I  have  seen  carts  loaded  with  mer- 
chandise obliged  to  be  dug  out,  and 
have  passed  through  streets  indroskies 
with  the  soft  mud  running  under  my 
legs,  while  my  feet  have  been  on  the 
driver's  back  to  keep  them  out  of  it. 
In  some  government  towns  the  ladies 
have  been  known  to  pay  visits  with 
oxen  to  draw  their  carriages.  Picture 
to  yourself,  fair  reader,  if  possible, 
your  carriage  driven  up  to  a  door  by 
bullock- drivers,  to  the  sound  of  Tsob, 
tsoU  (the  ordinary  words  addressed 
by  a  Little  Russian  peasant  to  make 
his  oxen  go),  and  leavingyour  cards,  or 
going  to  a  ball  in  the  same  manner. 

Siberian  Convicts. — Those  poor  con- 
victs condemned  to  Siberia  suffer  a 
martyrdom  before  they  reach  their 
final  place  of  punishment.  There  they 
are  made  to  work  in  the  mines,  and 
only  allowed  to  see  daylight  once  a- 
year ;  or  some,  for  minor  offences,  are 
allowed  to  work  on  the  surface :  others, 
again,  are  sent  to  colonise  the  country, 
which  is  covered  with  snow  nine 
months  in  the  year ;  while  the  nobles 
are  merely  sent  to  the  towns,  where 
they  live  under  strict  surveillance 
of  the  police.  I  have  been  told  by 
many  persons  who  have  inhabited 
Tobolsk  and  other  towns,  that  the 
society  to  be  met  with  there  is  most 
superior,  being  for  the  most  part  com- 
posed of  political  exiles,  and  conse- 
quently of  men  of  good  acquirements, 
chiefly  Poles.  The  common  people, 
before  being  sent  away,  are  generally 
sentenced  to  receive  a  certain  number 
of  lashes  with  an  instrument  called  a 
pleit,  or  knout,  which  is  a  thick  leather 
plaited  thong  about  a  yard  long,  at- 
tached to  a  handle  about  the  same 
length.  The  criminal  is  paraded 
through  the  to\yn  with  the  execu- 
tioner and  a  priest,  accompanied  by 
a  drum  to  call  attention,  and  a  guard 
of  soldiers ;  he  is  then  taken  to  the 
scaffold,  which  is  generally  erected  in 
some  conspicuous  place  in  the  town  ; 
here  he  is  bound  and  stripped,  and 
the  executioner  takes  his  place  at  a 
few  yards'  distant.  Upon  his  crying 
"  Beware  !"  he  walks  slowly  up,  and 
strikes  the  culprit  across  the  back, 


Lift  in  tlie  Interior  of  Russia. 


282 

from  the  shoulder  to  the  hip ;  he  then 
walks  slowly  back  again  to  his  place, 
where  he  remains  a  short  time,  cry- 
ing again  Beware  !  and  striking  across 
the  back  in  an  opposite  direction.  As 
every  stroke  generally  draws  blood, 
and  as  they  are  delivered  at  intervals  of 
about  two  minutes,  there  are  few  who 
can  support  more  than  fifteen  blows 
at  a  time,  some  not  more  than  five. 
When  the  unfortunate  wretch  has  re- 
ceived as  many  blows  as  the  medical 
man  present  thinks  he  can  support 
without  endangering  his  life,  he  is 
taken  to  the  hospital,  where  he  is 
kept  till  he  is  in  a  fit  state  to  receive 
the  remainder,  or  a  portion  of  his 
sentence,  which  is  only  the  prelude 
to  his  long  and  painful  journey  to  the 
dreary  regions  of  northern  Asia. 

Travelling  Convicts. — When  they  set 
out,  they  have  gyves  riveted  to  their 
legs,  and  are  made  to  walk  with  these, 
which  are  excessively  painful,  chafing 
the  ankles  dreadfully.  These  are  re- 
moved about  every  four  or  five  hun- 
dred miles  for  two  or  three  days,  when 
they  are  allowed  to  rest.  While  on 
the  march,  they  are  allowed  three 
copecks  per  diem  to  provide  them- 
selves with  all  the  necessaries  of  life — 
that  is,  a  little  less  than  a  penny  far- 
thing !  Some  of  them — serfs  who  are 
sent  by  their  masters  for  no  particular 
offence,  but  simply  because  they  are 
obnoxious  to  them — have  no  fetters 
on  their  legs,  but  are  chained  together 
with  long  chains  in  groups  of  four. 
The  women  are  never  chained. 

Merchants. — The  class  of  merchants 
in  Russia  is  perhaps  the  most  truly 
national,  the  most  independent,  and 
certainly  the  most  patriotic  at  the  pre- 
sent moment.  They  are  chiefly  from 
Russia  Proper,  and  are  men  who  by 
their  own  exertions  have  raised  them- 
selves originally  from  the  state  of 
serfs  to  that  of  freemen,  as  far  as  a 
Kussian  can  be  free;  they  have  gene- 
rally begun  as  hucksters,  or  perhaps 
shopmen,  with  a  ticket  of  leave,  and  a 
condition  to  pay  their  master  a  cer- 
tain sum  annually;  then  they  have 
saved  money  enough  to  buy  their 
freedom,  then  saved  a  small  capital, 
and  begun  business,  which  has  been 
gradually  extended,  till  it  has  reached 
colossal  proportions.  One  man  whom 
I  knew,  who  began  in  this  way,  died 
worth  millions.  Of  course  there  are 


[Sept, 


the  descendants  of  those  who  com- 
menced that  still  continue  trade, 
though  many  of  them  are  desirous  of 
becoming  noble,  and  will  frequently 
expend  fortunes  that  their  fathers  had 
toiled  for  in  order  to  obtain  some 
trifling  rank ;  those  who  are  more 
sensible  continue  to  walk  in  their 
fathers'  footsteps,  extending  their 
commercial  relations  and  fortunes  at 
the  same  time.  Among  these  men 
are  to  be  found  all  the  old  customs 
that  have  now  become  obsolete  among 
the  nobles. 

The  merchant  class  complain  most 
bitterly  of  the  exactions  they  are  sub- 
jected to  at  the  hands  of  the  autho- 
rities. Every  officer  of  police  must 
have  his  pickings  out  of  them  ;  one 
has  to  furnish  them  with  cloth  for 
their  uniforms,  another  with  sugar, 
a  third  with  tea  ;  another,  again^ 
will  have  to  make  a  present  of  a  silk 
dress  for  the  wife  of  Jack  in  office,  or 
a  piece  of  linen  for  his  own  shirts; 
again,  the  tailors,  bootmakers,  and 
other  tradesmen  have  to  work  for 
them ;  in  the  market  they  receive  all 
the  provisions  they  require  for  their 
household.  If- any  one  in  the  market 
should  think  of  refusing  to  let  the 
officer  of  police  have  what  he  likes  to 
take,  all  that  he  may  bring  after  that 
will  be  condemned  as  unfit  for  food. 
The  greater  the  man,  the  larger  the 
bribe  that  must  be  made  to  him. 
Once  I  was  in  the  cellar  of  a  very 
large  wine-merchant,  who  was  speak- 
ing very  highly  of  some  wine  that  he 
had  by  him,  and  regretting  that  the 
quantity  was  very  small,  when  the 
governor  of  the  town  entered.  The 
merchant  was  cap  in  hand  to  his  ex- 
cellency. His  excellency  caught  sight 
of  the  wine  we  were  speaking  of  at  the 
time,  and  inquired  what  it  was,  when, 
to  my  great  astonishment,  the  mer- 
chant told  his  excellency  that  it  was 
good  for  nothing,  and  he  was  thinking 
of  throwing  it  away,  as  for  his  own 
reputation  he  could  not  think  of  sell- 
ing it.  The  governor  said  that  he 
was  very  fond  of  that  wine,  and 
would  like  to  have  some  when  a  bet- 
ter quality  arrived,  which  he  was 
assured  ought  to  come  very  shortly. 
When  his  excellency  was  gone,  I 
asked  the  merchant  why  he  did  not 
let  him  have  the  article  he  was  prais- 
ing so  highly  to  me  the  mmute  be- 


1855.] 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


283 


fore?  With  a  knowing  look  he  said, 
It  was  much  too  good  for  him.  How 
so?  Why,  I  should  be  obliged  to 
send  him  all  I  had  if  he  once  tasted 
it,  and  my  customers  would  be  ob- 
liged to  wait.  But  I  thought  you 
kept  wines  to  be  sold  ?  So  I  do,  but 
not  to  be  given  away  ;  for  during  the 
three  years  his  excellency  has  been 
in  the  town,  he  has  always  honoured 
me  with  his  custom,  but  never  by 
paying  any  of  his  bills,  which  I  dare 
not  ask  for;  so,  if  I  am  obliged  to 
make  him  a  present  of  all  the  wines 
he  may  choose  to  consume,  they  shall 
not  be  of  the  best  quality. 

If  any  one  should  be  found  daring 
enough  to  oppose  these  exactions,  he 
is  subjected  to  a  hundred  petty  an- 
noyances which  the  police  have  it  in 
their  power  to  inflict.  The  street 
opposite  his  house  is  badly  swept, 
and  his  servants  are  carried  off,  and 
kept  for  two  or  three  days,  to  the 
great  inconvenience  of  the  master, 
who  is  eventually  obliged  to  pay  to 
get  them  discharged  ;  then  they  will 
pretend  that  there  is  a  suspicion  that 
he  has  stolen  goods  concealed  on  his 
premises,  and  search  for  them,  carry- 
ing off,  perhaps,  something  valuable 
to  be  examined,  which  never  comes 
back  again  ;  or  even  the  master  him- 
self is  sent  to  prison,  and,  though  in- 
nocent, obliged  to  pay  smartly  to  get 
out  again.  For  all  this  there  is  no 
redress,  so  they  find  that  the  first  loss 
is  always  the  least. 

The  merchants  are  divided  into 
three  classes  or  guilds ;  those  of  the 
first  guild  have  the  right  to  trade  to 
any  amount,  with  any  part  of  the 
world,  to  establish  manufactories,  &c.; 
those  of  the  second  can  only  import 
goods  at  one  time  to  the  amount  of 
15,000  roubles ;  while  those  of  the 
third  guild  have  not  the  right  to  im- 
port at  all,  but  must  employ  agents  of 
either  of  the  other  guilds.  Of  course 
the  first  and  second  pay  more  than 
the  third,  but  it  is  very  difficult  to 
know  what  they  really  pay,  as  it  va- 
ries in  different  towns— not  the  duty 
exacted  by  the  government,  but  the 
sum  required  by  the  president  as  a 
douceur  before  he  will  give  the  receipt 
and  sign  the  necessary  papers.  They 
are  also  subjected  to  taxes  that  vary 
according  to  the  guild,  as  to  the  ex- 
actions of  the  police,  before  mentioned. 


The  Bribery  of  the  Officials.— There- 
is  one  thing  that,  so  long  as  it  lasts, 
will  prevent  Russia  from  taking  her 
rank  among  the  great  civilised  na- 
tions of  Europe,  and  that  is  the  vast 
system  of  bribery  that  is  carried  on 
in  all  the  public  offices.  It  may  ap- 
pear strange  to  say  a  system  of  brib- 
ery, but  so  it  is.  Bribery  forms  the 
rule  and  honesty  the  exception  in  all 
matters  relating  to  law  or  the  govern- 
ment, though,  doubtless,  there  are 
some  few  honest  and  honourable  men 
to  be  found  in  the  Russian  empire ;  but 
I  am  forced  to  say  that  the  number  is 
very  small.  Peculation  is  again  an- 
other very  prevalent  sin,  and  general- 
ly practised  throughout  the  country, 
otherwise  how  could  men  live  upon 
the  miserable  pittance  allowed  them 
by  the  government  for  their  services  ? 
All  this,  however,  is  not  considered 
as  a  stain  upon  men's  characters;  on 
the  contrary,  as  it  prevails  universal- 
ly throughout  the  country,  there  is 
no  dishonour  attached  to  it.  As  an 
instance  of  its  extent,  I  will  just  cite 
an  example  that  came  under  my  own 
observation  not  long  since :  A  man, 
a  staff  officer  in  the  military  service, 
holds  a  situation,  the  salary  of  which 
io  about  ,£70,  and  to  be  able  to  retain 
his  place,  he  is  obliged  to  pay,  for  the 
protection  of  another  man,  £1000 
per  annum ! !  This  he  not  only  does, 
but  keeps  up  a  large  establishment  of 
servants,  horses,  &c.  It  will  be  na- 
turally asked,  how  can  he  do  it  ? 
Why,  by  bribery,  which  renders  his 
place  worth  to  him  about  £4000  or 
£5000  a-year.  Nobody  ever  thinks 
of  inquiring  about  the  salary  attached 
to  any  office,  but  how  much  can  be 
made  in  it  ? 

There  is  a  work  in  the  Russian 
language  which  unfortunately  I  do  not 
possess,  in  which  this  system  is  very 
well  described  in  a  short  dramatic 
sketch,  the  subject  of  which  is,  as 
near  as  I  can  remember,  as  follows  : 
A  peasant  of  the  crown,  known  to  be 
rich,  is  summoned  for  having  some 
utensils  for  distilling  illicit  brandy  on 
his  premises,  which  were  placed  there 
on  purpose  to  entrap  him  by  some 
one  employed  for  that  purpose.  After 
going  on  for  two  or  three  years,  dar- 
ing which  time  the  poor  fellow  is 
made  to  pay  smartly  to  the  clerks, 
and  secretaries,  and  other  employe's 


284 


Life  in  the,  Interior  of  Russia. 


[Sept. 


of  the  criminal  court,  the  affair  goes 
to  the  president  or  judge,  and  accord- 
ingly the  quasi  criminal  waits  upon 
the  great  man  at  his  own  house.  On 
inquiring  of  the  servant  if  he  can  see 
his  master,  he  is  informed  that  he  is 
particularly  engaged  at  that  moment, 
and  he  is  requested  to  wait.  After 
waiting  for  a  considerable  length  of 
time,  during  the  whole  of  which  he 
has  seen  the  judge  through  the  open 
door  walking  up  and  down  in  the 
next  room  smoking,  he  again  ven- 
tures to  ask  the  servant  when  lie  can  see 
his  master;  and  on  receiving  the  same 
answer,  he  informs  the  lackey  that  he 
wants  to  see  him  upon  some  urgent 
business,  backing  his  argument  by 
the  present  of  a  rouble.  Serv.  "  Why 
didn't  you  say  that  before  ?  I  remem- 
ber now,  master  told  me  to  admit 
you  when  you  called."  The  suitor  is 
admitted.  Presid.  "Well,  my  good 
man,  yours  is  a  very  bad  case ;  all 
the  implements  found  upon  your  pre- 
mises. I  am  afraid  it  will  go  hard 
with  you,  and  that  nothing  can  save 
you  from  Siberia."  Peas,  (falling 
upon  his  knees).  —  "  But,  father ! 
protector !  I  am  innocent,  quite  in- 
nocent ;  I  knew  nothing  of  those  things, 
and  have  proved  it."  Presid.  "  Yes, 
yes,  but  still  they  were  found;  you 
cannot  disprove  that  fact.  It  grieves 
me  to  see  so  good  a  man  as  you  ap- 
pear to  be  sent  to  Siberia,  and  I  would 
help  you  with  pleasure ;  yet,  what  am 
I  to  do  ?  "  Peas.  "  Allow,  at  least,  my 
wife  to  go  with  me  ;  it  will  be  some 
comfort  to  me  in  my  misfortune." 
Presid.  "  I  would  with  pleasure,  my 
good  man,  but  you  know  the  law 
must  be  fulfilled,  and  I  don't  know 
whether  your  wife  can  go  or  not. 
Do  you  happen  to  know  where  I 
could  get  a  good  milch  cow  ?  milk  is 
so  difficult  to  procure  in  a  town.  Mind, 
it  must  be  a  good  onel"  Peas.  "I 
have  one  at  home  that  would  just  suit 
you,  sir,  and  she  is  heartily  at  your 
service.  Can  my  wife  go  with  me, 
sir  ?  "  Presid.  "  Well,  I'll  see  what  I 
can  do  for  you.  Don't  forget  the  cow !" 
Peas.  "  May  the  Lord  bless  your 
honour !  But,  then,  what  will  become 
of  the  children  when  we  are  both  gone 
away  ?  Perhaps  you  could  let  them 
go  too,  sir?"  Presid.  "No,  it  will  be 
a  great  favour  if  I  can  procure  per- 
mission for  your  wife  to  go  with  you  ;  ' 


as  for  the  children,  that's  impossible, 
and  not  to  be  thought  of,  Do  you 
know  that  my  corn-factor  has  dis- 
appointed me,  and  not  sent  in  the  oats 
according  to  contract,  and  by  to-mor- 
row night  I  shall  have  none  to  give 
my  horses,  and  you  know  it  is  im- 
possible to  procure  any  in  town." 
Peas.  "  I  have  some  at  home,  sir,  and 
shall  only  be  too  happy  to  send  them. 
May  the  children  go,  sir  ?  "  Presid. 
"  You  may  send  in  at  the  same  time 
some  of  the  best  wheaten  flour  for  my 
table,  and  some  rye  for  that  of  my 
servants."  Peas.  "  I  will  be  sure  to 
send  it,  sir.  May  the  children  go  ?  " 
Presid.  "  Well,  since  you  wish  it  so 
earnestly,  I  will  try  what  I  can  do  for 
you."  Peas.  "  God  bless  you,  sir! 
But  isn't  it  hard  that  a  poor  man 
should  be  sent  away  from  his  com- 
fortable home,  where  his  fathers  and 
grandfathers  have  lived  before  him, 
because  some  one  chose  to  hide  uten- 
sils for  distilling  on  his  premises? 
Perhaps  you  could  get  me  off  alto- 
gether if  you  were  to  try  !  Do  try  to 
save  a  poor  man  from  ruin !  I  shall 
be  grateful  to  you  for  ever."  Presid. 
"  Oh !  that  is  not  to  be  thought  of; 
the  whole  affair  has  been  sent  to  the 
senate,  and  consequently  is  out  of  my 
hands.  Pray,  could  you  tell  me  where 
I  could  get  a  good  pair  of  black  horses 
for  my  wife's  new  carriage?  I  am  told 
there  are  some  good  horses  in  your 
neighbourhood.  I  should  like  them  a 
good  match."  Peas.  "  I  have  at  home 
just  such  a  pair  as  you  want,  sir,  a 
beautiful  match,  four  years  old  ;  they 
are  much  too  good  for  my  use.  I  will 
send  them  to  you,  sir,  with  the  cow, 
the  oats,  and  the  flour.  Do  you  think 
it  likely  I  may  get  off,  sir?"  Presid. 
"  I  doubt  it  very  much ;  nevertheless, 
I  will  try  all  I  can  for  you  :  in  the 
mean  time,  you  send  in  to-morrow  the 
cow,  oats,  flour,  and  horses.  Stay, 
you  may  as  well  send,  at  the  same 
time,  some  fresh  butter, —  say  100 
pounds  or  so ;  some  honey,  if  you 
have  it,  or  any  other  little  country 
delicacy."  Peas.  "I  will  send  all 
you  want,  sir ;  but  say,  only  say,  I 
shall  not  be  sent  to  that  dreadful 
place  ?  "  Presid.  "  You  may  call 
again  in  three  or  four  days,  and  I 
will  let  you  know  what  I  have  done  ; 
but  mind,  I  promise  nothing."  Peas. 
(bowing  down  to  the  ground).  "  God 


1855.] 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


285 


bless  your  honour,  you  have  made  ine 
a  happy  man."  Presid.  "  Do  not 
hope  too  much  ;  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
can  save  you,  but  will  do  all  I  can. 
Don't  forget  the  flour,  the  oats,  the 
cow,  the  honey,  the  butter,  the  horses, 
and  anything  else  you  think  I  should 
like."  Peas.  "  I'll  forget  nothing, 
sir."— (Exit.}  Presid.  (solo.)  — "  I 
think  that  a  pretty  good  morn- 
ing's work,  when  that  man's  inno- 
cence was  proved,  and  his  acquittal 
made  out  and  signed  yesterday.  I 
have  it  in  my  drawer  at  the  present 
moment.  It  will  be  a  lesson  to  him 
in  future  to  keep  out  of  the  law." 

This  is,  as  well  as  I  can  remember, 
the  subject  of  the  dramatic  sketch 
above  mentioned,  and  taken  from  a 
work  entitled  Scenes  from  Life.  It 
may  be  a  little  exaggerated,  but  that 
similar  things  have  occurred  I  do  not 
for  a  moment  doubt.  It  is  a  com- 
mon saying,  that  in  London  you  can 
get  anything  for  money ;  and  in  Rus- 
sia, I  believe,  you  may  do  anything 
for  money. 

It  would  be  well  if  all  the  cases 
ended  as  well  as  the  one  above  cited. 
I  remember  very  well  a  woman,  a 
widow,  being  accused  of  infanticide. 
She  was  in  very  good  circumstances, 
possessing  two  mills  and  other  pro- 
perty worth  probably  some  £300. 
The  affair  was  arranged  as  follows : 
Some  one  belonging  to  the  court  pre- 
tended to  discover  some  flaw  in  the 
evidence,  and  offered  to  prove  her 
innocence  if  a  certain  sum  were  paid 
down  to  him.  One  of  the  mills  was 
sold  to  pay  him,  and  the  judge 
appeared  to  waver,  but  eventually 
overruled  the  objection.  Then  the 
advocate  threw  up  the  case,  having 
received  his  fee,  and  another  took  it 
up  in  the  same  manner.  The  judge 
wavered  in  his  decision  again,  and  so 
on,  till  the  poor  woman  had  disposed 
of  all  she  had,  and  paid  the  proceeds 
into  the  hands  of  one  or  other  of  the 
members  of  the  court,  who,  of  course, 
shared  with  the  judge.  When  all  the 
resources  were  at  an  end,  the  woman 
was  despatched  to  Siberia,  after  being 
kept  in  suspense  for  about  eighteen 
months.  The  way  in  which  all  law 
business  is  transacted  greatly  facili- 
tates this.  There  are  no  open  courts 
as  in  England — no  oral  testimony; 
everything  is  done  in  writing,  and 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


every  paper  must  be  stamped.  The 
sale  of  this  stamped  paper  is  the 
source  of  an  enormous  revenue  to  the 
Russian  government.  The  manner 
of  proceeding  is  nearly  as  follows : 

A.  owes  B.  a  certain  sum  of  money. 

B.  writes  a  paper  stating  the  fact, 
and  reclaiming  through  the  aid  of  the 
law,  which  he  presents  to  a  particu- 
lar division  of  the  civil  court.    If  this 
paper  be  not  accompanied  by  a  dou- 
ceur   proportioned    to    the    amount 
claimed,  he  is  sure  to  have  it  return- 
ed at  the  end  of,  perhaps,  a  month, 
with  the  observation  that  it  is  not 
written  according  to  the  established 
form,  or  that  it  is  not  upon  the  right 
description  of  paper.    There  are  se- 
veral kinds  of  stamped  paper,   and 
rules,  which  no  one  knows,  laid  down 
for  their  use.)    B.  prepares  another 
paper,  which  is  rejected  in  the  same 
manner,  and  so  on,  till,  by  finding 
that  he  is  losing  money  and  time,  he 
produces  the  required  douceur,  when 
A.  is  informed  officially  that  B.  claims 
such  a  sum  of  him,  and  is  required  to 
send  a  written   answer  into  court, 
stating  whether  he  acknowledges  it  a 
just  debt  or  not.  If  A.  deny  the  debt, 
then  B.  is  called  upon  to  produce  his 
witnesses,  whose  affidavit  is  taken 
down  in  writing  upon  stamped  paper, 
subject  to  the  same  difficulties  as  the 
first  paper.     Suppose  A.  has  no  other 
defence  to  make,  then  the  affair  (if  a 
douceur  be  given)   goes  before  the 
president  and  councillors  of  the  court 
for  decision,  where  it  is  likely  to  re- 
main till  the  president  obtains  his 
lion's  share  of  the  spoils  of  the  poor 
plaintiff,  who  is  generally  very  fortu- 
nate if  he  does  not  lose  more  than 
25  or  30  per  cent  of  the  original  debt 
due    to   him.      What   affords   these 
gentlemen  the  richest  harvest  is  a 
case    of    disputed    property,    where 
they  are  likely  to  be  paid  by  both 
parties. 

As  a  proof  that  it  is  utterly  impos- 
sible to  do  anything  without  paying, 
I  will  cite  an  instance  that  came  un- 
der my  own  observation.  A  gentle- 
man of  property  in  Southern  Russia 
had  a  dispute  about  some  property 
which  belonged  to  him,  but  which- 
was  claimed  by  another  person.  The 
affair  had  been  going  on  for  years  in 
the  manner  mentioned  above,  and 
had  been  removed  by  appellation  from 


286  Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 

court  to  court,  till  at  length  it  had  parties.  Finding 
reached  the  senate  of  Moscow,  the 
highest  court  of  appeal  in  the  empire. 
The  rightful  owner  of  the  property, 
in  order  to  hasten  on  the  affair,  went 
to  Moscow  himself,  where  he  saw  the 
secretary  of  the  senate,  who  promised 
him  that  it  should  be  decided  in  his 
favour  upon  condition  that  he  should 
give  so  much  per  cent  upon  the  value 
of  the  property.  The  gentleman  of- 
fered the  money  at  once,  but  the  offi- 
cial said  he  would  only  accept  of  it 
when  the  cause  was  decided  in  his 
favour.  A  month  or  six  weeks  after- 
wards they  met  in  the  street,  and  the 
secretary  invited  his  client  (if  I  may 
so  call  him)  into  his  office,  where  he 
showed  him  an  entry  in  the  sealed 
book  of  the  court,  in  which  the  deci- 
sion was  given  in  his  favour.  Not 
having  sufficient  money  about  Mm  at 
the  moment,  he  promised  to  go  to  his 
hotel  and  return  immediately;  but, 
on  arriving,  he  reflected  that,  as  the 
affair  was  already  settled,  entered  in 
the  book,  and  signed  by  all  the 
members  of  the  court,  it  would  be 
useless  to  pay  the  secretary  now 
all  was  done,  ordered  post-horses,  and 
set  out  on  his  journey  homeward. 
When  he  arrived,  he  called  all  his 
neighbours  together,  and  made  them 
a  feast  to  rejoice  over  his  success. 
But  it  was  "  diamond  cut  diamond." 
A  few  days  after  this  he  received  the 
official  notification  that  it  had  been 
decided  against  him,  and  that  the 
property  was  to  pass  into  the  posses- 
sion of  his  adversary.  It  is  incom- 
prehensible how  this  could  have  been 
managed  ;  for  there  is  a  string  passed 
through  every  leaf  of  an  official  book, 
with  the  ends  sealed  so  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  cut  out  the  leaf  and  re- 
place it  by  another ;  but  there  ap- 
pears to  be  some  means  of  cheating 
justice  even  at  the  last  moment, 
when  everything  is  decided. 

I  can  give  another  instance  of  the 
rapacity  of  the  officials.  Some  years 
ago,  a  gentleman,  a  foreigner,  had 
realised  a  considerable  sum,  about 
70,000  roubles,  by  keeping  a  school ; 
and,  wishing  to  retire  to  his  own  coun- 
try, gave  up  his  establishment,  giving 
at  the  same  time  notice  to  all  who 
were  owing  him  money  that  he  must 
be  paid.  I  believe  there  were  about 
30,000  roubles  owing  him  by  different 


[Sept. 

that  no  one  paid 

him,  he  determined  to  have  recourse 
to  the  law.  But  notwithstanding  his 
long  residence  in  Russia,  he  counted 
without  his  host :  the  affair  went  on 
for  some  two  or  three  months  without 
any  results,  when,  getting  tired  of 
waiting,  he  thought  he  had  better 
leave  the  country  with  what  he  had, 
and  gave  notice  accordingly  that  he 
was  ready  to  forego  all  his  claims,  at 
the  same  time  apply  ing  for  his  passport. 
The  Russian  officials  thought  it  too 
rich  an  opportunity  to  let  the  game 
slip  thus  through  their  fingers.  He 
received  a  notification  that  he  could 
not  leave  the  country  so  long  as  he 
had  any  affairs  unsettled  at  any  of 
the  courts  of  law.  He  answered  that 
he  declined  preceeding  any  farther  in 
the  matter,  and  forgave  all  his  debtors. 
But  this  was  of  no  avail,  they  would 
not  let  him  go ;  and  it  was  only 
after  a  detention  amounting  to  nearly 
two  years,  and  a  sacrifice  of  20,000 
roubles,  that  he  could  get  away.  Of 
course,  the  30,000  owing  him  he  never 
obtained,  and  was  only  too  glad  to 
make  his  escape  at  that  price. 

I  think  these  instances  will  give  a 
.pretty  good  idea  of  the  manner  in 
which  these  things  are  carried  on. 
But  the  subject  is  so  vast  that  it  would 
be  inexhaustible,  were  one  to  detail 
all  the  means  that  are  employed  to 
extort  money  or  anything  else  out  of 
the  poor  suitors.  These  hawks  are 
not  at  all  particular  as  to  what  they 
accept.  I  remember  one  poor  fellow 
who  had  a  lawsuit,  when  asked  for  a 
douceur,  said  he  had  no  money.  But 
the  official  was  not  to  be  put  off  with 
that  excuse ;  he  inquired  what  was 
the  most  valuable  article  the  suitor 
had,  and  on  hearing  that  it  was  a 
pair  of  patent-leather  boots,  imme- 
diately seized  upon  them,  saying, 
that  if  they  would  not  fit  him,  they 
would  somebody  else,  and  promised 
to  call  for  them  in  the  evening! 
Small  quantities  of  brandy  of  the 
value  of  fourpence  or  sixpence,  are 
frequently  accepted.  Nothing  is  too 
insignificant  for  the  swoop  of  these 
birds  of  prey,  who  are  protected  by 
the  double-headed  eagle  which  they 
wear  on  their  buttons. 

Peculation. — The  system  of  pecu- 
lation is  again  equally  extensive, 
but  less  generally  known ;  but  there 


1855.] 


Life  in  the  Interior  of  Russia. 


287 


is  no  doubt  that  a  very  large  per- 
centage of  the  public  money,  that 
is  destined  to  useful  improvements, 
finds  its  way  into  the  pockets  of 
those  who  are  charged  with  the  exe- 
cution of  the  imperial  projects.  The 
mode  of  proceeding  is  very  curi- 
ous. A  bridge  is  to  be  built,  and  a 
competition  is  announced  for  the  con- 
tract to  supply  the  materials,  although 
the  matter  has  long  since  been  ar- 
ranged between  the  contractor  and 
the  man  who  has  charge  of  the  works. 
But  this  is  the  form  laid  down  by  the 
law.  If  there  should  be  anybody  else 
to  compete,  he  is  either  bought  off  or 
bullied  out  of  it;  but  this  occurs  very 
rarely.  Having  arranged  all  these 
preliminaries,  the  contractor  proceeds 
to  supply  the  materials,  which  are  ac- 
cepted and  pronounced  good  by  the 
officer  charged  with  the  construction, 
although  worth  perhaps  about  half 
the  sum  put  down  in  the  estimate. 
This  worthy  gentleman  pays  the  con- 
tractor a  small  commission  over  the 
value  of  the  materials,  and  pockets  the 
remainder.  The  business  is  not  yet 
settled.  When  the  bridge  is  built,  it 
has  to  be  inspected  by  some  superior 
officer,  who,  in  his  turn,  fleeces  the 
builder  of  a  part  of  his  profits,  and 
sends  in  a  report  that  the  bridge  is 
well  built,  and  likely  to  last  the  re- 
quired time.  This  is  the  way  in  which 
nearly  all  the  government  jobs  are 
managed,  and  the  consequence  is  that 
you  seldom  find  anything  well  con- 
structed. The  bridge  above  men- 
tioned, which  ought  to  last  thirty  or 
forty  years,  is  possibly  carried  away 
at  the  end  of  five  or  six  years,  which 
is  generally  attributed  to  the  great 
floods  that  took  place  in  that  year ; 
whereas,  had  the  .bridge  been  proper- 
ly constructed,  it  would  have  stood 
against  any  flood,  the  strength  of 
which  is  easily  calculated,  and  pro- 
vided for.  But  that  is  not  their  ob- 
ject, which  is  that  of  the  boot-mender, 
who  to  obtain  work  will  repair  the 
boots  in  one  place,  and  rip  a  thread 


in  another,  so  that  he  may  have  an- 
other job  again  soon. 

As  a  proof  that  peculation  is  car- 
ried on  systematically,  I  will  cite  an 
instance  that  came  under  my  own  ob- 
servation. A  young  German  officer 
of  engineers,  who  was  rather  more 
scrupulous  as  to  peculation  than  his 
brother  officers,  applied,  after  some 
years  of  useful  service  to  the  country, 
to  his  superior  officer  that  he  would 
present  him  to  the  emperor  as  oue 
worthy  of  a  re  ward.  He  was  answer- 
ed that  he  should  be  rewarded  for  his 
application  to  his  profession.  Shortly 
after  this  he  was  intrusted  with  the 
construction  of  some  extensive  govern- 
ment works,  and  sent  to  a  distant 
government,  where  he  remained  two  or 
three  years.  On  his  return  he  present- 
ed himself  to  his  superior,  and  reported 
that  he  had  completed  the  works  he  had 
been  charged  to  superintend,  adding, 
that  if  he  was  thought  before  worthy 
of  notice,  he  must  be  still  more  so  now, 
and  that  his  former  application  had 
never  been  noticed.  The  superior 
said  he  was  to  be  more  explicit. 
Upon  which  he  said  that  he  had  never 
met  with  any  encouragement  for  his 
talents;  that,  having  completed  rather 
an  arduous  task,  he  thought  he  might 
expect  some  gratification  at  the  hands 
of  the  government.  The  chief  smiled, 
and  remarked  that  he  had  already  en- 
joyed his  reward,  as,  having  to  pre- 
pare all  the  plans,  conclude  and  pay 
all  the  contracts,  he  ought  to  consider 
himself  amply  rewarded.  The  officer 
stood  convinced  at  once,  and  for  ever, 
that  in  the  Russian  service  honesty 
was  not  the  best  policy.  He  is  living 
at  the  present  moment  upon  his  pay, 
of  about  £75  per  annum,  and  expend- 
ing not  less  than  £400  per  annum ; 
yet  he  does  not  make  debts !  The 
lesson  was  not  lost  upon  him.  We 
must  only  take  this  case  as  one  that  is 
occurring  every  day,  and  which  proves 
that  a  man  ceases  to  become  "  the 
noblest  work  of  God "  in  the  holy 
Russian  empire. 


288 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


[Sept, 


ZAIDEE:  A  ROMANCE. 


PART  X. — BOOK    III. 


CHAPTER  VIII. — VISITORS. 


"  ARE  we  to  have  a  party  here  to- 
day, Maria  Anna  ?  "  asks  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw.  "  I  might  have  had  a 
decent  cap  on,  you  know,  if  anybody 
had  taken  the  trouble  to  mention  it. 
What  is  it  to  be?" 

"  Not  a  party,  my  dear  Elizabeth, 
only  a  few  friends  from  town  to  spend 
the  day — a  country  repast,  and  a  stroll 
by  the  river,"  says  Mrs  Cumber- 
land. 

"  A  few  friends — there's  no  end  of 
people  at  the  gate,"  cried  Sylvo, 
stretching  himself  out  before  the  mir- 
ror. Appearances  there  are  not  unsatis- 
factory, it  is  to  be  presumed,  for  Sylvo 
sets  himself  up  as  a  pillar  at  one  side 
of  the  open  bow-window,  and  waits 
with  great  composure  for  the  inroad 
of  guests. 

The  flowing  of  the  tide  immediately 
becomes  audible  by  a  great  many  voices 
and  footsteps  in  the  hall.  This  hall  is 
square  like  the  house,  well-sized  and 
airy,  and  decorated  with  some 
"  images,"  as  Mrs  Burtonshaw  calls 
them,  and  a  series  of  casts  of  the 
friezes  of  the  Parthenon.  The  inde- 
finite sounds  merge  into  a  universal 
laugh,  and  then  the  door  is  opened, 
and  Mr  Cumberland  enters  at  the 
head  of  a  numerous  party — a  party 
much  too  numerous  to  be  announced 
one  by  one.  It  is  "  Steele's  last  " 
which  brings  in  Mr  Cumberland's 
company  with  such  a  breath  of  laughter. 
"  Some  one  remarked  how  cool  the 
hall  was,"  said  a  stout  gentleman,  with 
a  chuckle.  u  No  wonder,"  says  he, 
"  look  at  all  the  friezes;"  whereupon 
Sylvo's  teeth  appear  once  more  under 
the  clump  of  brushwood,  and  a  great 
"  ha,  ha  "  from  the  bow-window  swells 
the  universal  mirth. 

"  Who  is  Mr  Steele?  "  asked  Mrs 
Burtonshaw. 

44  A  poor  rascal  of  a  painter — any 
work  to  do,  ma'am  ?"  says  somebody, 
putting  up  his  hand  to  his  forehead, 
and  pulling  a  lock  of  long  hair  in  mock 
obeisance.  u  Got  a  wife  and  family 
—do  it  as  cheap  as  another.  Miss 


Cumberland  here  will  speak  to  my 
character — servant,  ma'am." 

44  Poor  old  Steele,  he  is  coming  to 
poverty  in  his  old  days,"  said  some- 
body else  behind.  With  unmingled 
consternation  Mrs  Burtonshaw  looked 
on  and  listened.  If  the  poor  gentle- 
man was  coming  to  poverty,  was  that 
a  subject  to  be  mentioned  in  polite  so- 
ciety to  hurt  his  feelings  ? — and  old  ! 
The  4' poor  gentleman"  in  question  was 
of  a  slim  and  pliant  figure,  closely  but- 
toned up,  with  long  hair  untouched  by 
grey,  and  a  face  of  beardless  youthful- 
ness.  "  It  will  give  me  great  pleasure, 
sir,  I  am  sure,  to  be  able  to  help  you 
in  any  way,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw, 
with  a  curtsey  of  antique  politeness, 
puzzled,  yet  compassionate  ;  and  Mrs 
Burtonshaw  gave  the  cut  direct  to  the 
unfeeling  personage  who  proclaimed 
the  poverty  of  Mr  Steele,  and  whom 
Mr  Cumberland  was  now  presenting 
to  her.  44 1  have  no  patience  with 
men  who  trifle  with  other  people's 
feelings,  my  love,"  said  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw, retiring  to  give  her  countenance 
to  Zaidee — "  of  course,  though  he  is  an 
artist,  the  poor  gentleman  does  not 
wish  any  one  to  know  his  poverty.  I 
wonder,  for  my  part,  how  people  can 
have  such  bad  hearts  !  " 

But  a  great  many  other  persons  fill 
the  room  to  distract  the  attention  of 
Mrs  Burtonshaw.  There  are  ladies  in 
gorgeous  brocade,  and  ladies  in  simple 
muslin ;  there  are  little  parterres  of 
bonnets  so  leafy  and  flowery  that  they 
might  almost  do  to  replace  the  clusters 
of  floral  ornament  in  these  rustic 
baskets  on  the  lawn.  There  are 
gentlemen  in  all  the  varieties  of  morn- 
ing costume,  and  gentlemen  in  full 
dress,  looking  very  odd  and  uncomfort- 
able in  the  fresh  early  daylight — 
young  gentlemen  with  clumps  of 
mustache  like  Sylvo,  who  have  no- 
thing particular  to  say ;  and  elderly 
gentlemen,  who  are  rampant,  each  on 
his  particular  hobby,  riding  very  hard 
by  the  side  of  Mr  Cumberland,  who,  in 
his  delightful  candour,  is  ready  to  trot 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


289 


with  all.  A  cluster  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished members  of  the  company 
have  gathered  round  Mrs  Cumberland, 
and  Mary  is  surrounded  by  a  gay 
crowd,  on  the  extreme  border  of  which 
stands  Zaidee  with  Aunt  Burtoushaw 
by  her  side ;  everybody  is  asking  who 
•everybody  is,  or  answering  the  same. 
The  mirror  sparkles  with  the  figures 
that  move  upon  it — the  gay  colours 
and  universal  animation.  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw  in  her  turn  becomes  interest- 
ed, and  plies  Zaidee  with  questions. 
Who  is  this  gentleman,  for  instance, 
who  is  a  little  bald,  and  prys  about 
with  an  eye-glass  ?  Perhaps  he  hears 
the  question,  for  he  immediately  ad- 
vances to  Miss  Elizabeth  Cumberland, 
to  whom  he  has  been  presented,  and 
makes  his  bow. 

"  Have  you  seen  Mrs  Montague 
Crawson?  "  asks  this  personage,  peer- 
ing eagerly  though  his  eye-glass. 
"  Have  you  not  been  introduced  to 
my  wife,  Miss  Elizabeth  ?  That  is 
Mrs  Montague  Crawson  yonder,  that 
lady  in  the  green  shawl." 

"  Then  he  has  only  his  wife,  I  sup- 
pose, and  nothing  more,  my  dear?  "  says 
the  puzzled  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  when 
Mr  Crawson  has  taken  himself  away. 
*'  Oh  yes,  he  has  his  eye-glass,"  says 
an  adjacent  young  lady,  "just  as  these 
young  gentlemen  who  support  the 
window  have  a  mustache,  each  of 
them."  The  speaker  laughs  innocently, 
unwitting  that  this  is  Sylvo's  mother 
who  refuses  to  smile  upon  her.  Mrs 
Burtonshaw  draws  herself  apart  in 
kindling  wrath. 

"  Tell  us  how  you  did  about  that 
picture — that  great  old  master.  Is  it 
a  Steele  or  a  Zurbaran  ?  "  asks  some- 
body in  the  crowd,  addressing  the 
former  hero  of  Mrs  Burtonshaw's 
sympathy. 

"  Yes,"  it's  quite  true,  I  put  in  the 
word,"  acknowledges  Mr  Steele.  "Do 
you  think  I  haven't  timber  enough  in 
my  head  to  paint  another  ?  How  is 
Mrs  Steele  ?  Mrs  Steele  is  not  here, 
-she's  gone  over  the  Channel.  Don't 
mention  it,  but  I  have  as  good  a 
chance  as  another;  all  the  ships  in  the 
world  don't  get  safe  to  their  journey's 
^nd." 

Zaidee,  who  was  looking  on  with  a 
smile,  felt  her  hand  vehemently  grasp- 
ed by  the  indignant  hand  of  Aunt 
Burtonshaw.  "  Come  away  from  that 


inhuman  man,  child!"  cried  the  good 
lady,  under  her  breath.  "  What  does 
Maria  Anna  mean,  I  wonder,  by 
bringing  such  people  here  1  enough 
to  destroy  the  morals  of  her  children. 
Mary  !  Why,  Mary  is  laughing  with 
him,  as  if  he  were  the  most  innocent 
person  in  the  world.  Who  is  this 
poor  Mrs  Steele,  Elizabeth,  my  love  ?  " 
asked  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  with  sad  so- 
lemnity. 

"  She  is  a  very  pretty  lady,  Aunt," 
said  Zaidee,  laughing  a  little  at  the 
very  matter-of-fact  understanding  of 
good  Aunt  Burtonshaw. 

"  Well,  it  is  very  sad  for  her,  pool- 
thing,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  "  but 
I  am  glad  enough  that  he  is  married, 
for  Mary's  sake,  and  all  these  young 
people.  You  are  a  great  deal  too 
frank,  you  young  ladies.  Come  here 
and  sit  by  me,  Elizabeth.  I  cannot 
let  you  go  near  that  dreadful  man." 

But  they  continue  to  hear  this 
dreadful  man  notwithstanding,  and 
he  is  telling  some  bon  mots  and 
puns  of  his  own  with  the  simplest 
glee  in  the  world.  "  ;  What  are  you 
doing  copying  this  ? .'  says  Hilton  to 
me  one  day.  It  was  a  sketch  of  a  bull's 
head  in  the  British  Institution.  What 
is  the  British  Institution  now,  you 
know?"  said  Mr  Steele.  "'Why, 
there's  no  interest  in  it.'  4  No,'  says 
I,  '  no  interest— it's  all  capital ! '"  To 
Mrs  Burtonshaw's  infinite  disgust, 
everybody  laughed,  and  everybody 
continued  to  stand  round  Mr  Steele, 
expecting  something  else  to  laugh  at. 
He  had  just  begun  to  another  of  his 
reports,  when  a  little  lady  standing 
by  touched  him  on  the  arm.  "  I  see 
you  have  quite  forgotten  me,"  said 
the  little  lady,  who  was  plump  and 
pretty.  "  I  met  vou  once  at  Holly  lee, 
Mr  Steele— Mrs  Michael." 

Mr  Steele  receded  a  step,  and  made 
one  of  his  bows  of  mock  humility. 
"  I  know  it  was  one  of  the  angels," 
said  the  wit  with  a  characteristic 
hesitation,  "but  I  had  forgot  the 
name." 

In  the  severity  of  exasperated  vir- 
tue, Mrs  Burtonshaw  rose.  "Mary, 
you  ought  not  to  listen  to  such  a  per- 
son," cried  Mrs  Burtonshaw  audibly. 
"I  cannot  tell  what  Maria  Anna 
means  by  it — it  is  dreadful ;  and 
there  is  a  Mrs  Steele  too  1 " 

"There  has  been  a  Mrs  Steele,  I 


290 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


am  happy  to  say,  any  time  these 
thirty  years,"  said  the  object  of  Mrs 
Burtonshaw's  wrath,  with  a  perfect- 
ly innocent  smile. 

Mrs  Burtonshaw  turned  round  upon 
him  once  more  with  open-eyed  asto- 
nishment. "  Do  you  mean  that  he's 
a  wandering  Jew  ?  "  cried  poor  Mrs 
Burtonshaw,  who  was  put  to  her  wit's 
end. 

"You  are  quite  right ;  no  one  knows 
how  old  he  is."  "  I  hear  he  has  got 
great-grandchildren,"  cried  one  and 
another,  eager  to  promote  the  good 
lady's  delusion.  "The  more  shame 
for  him ! "  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw 
solemnly,  "  to  speak  in  that  way  of  a 
very  pretty  lady,  and  to  make  com- 
pliments to  other  people.  I  shall 
never  give  such  things  my  sanction, 
you  may  be  sure." 

Amid  much  suppressed  and  restrain- 
ed laughter  Mrs  Burtonshaw  turned 
away ;  but  the  charm  of  the  joke  re- 
mained in  the  fact  that  this  privileged 
talker,  who  happened  to  be  a  man  of 
the  most  tender  conscience,  was  struck 
with  compunction  forthwith.  This 
gay  spirit,  with  its  fund  of  invention 
and  retort,  its  wit  and  mirth  and 
daring  sallies,  was  a  spirit  imbued 
with  the  most  susceptible  and  trem- 
bling piety.  "A  Steele"  was  just 
as  good  a  synonyme  for  a  joke  as  for 
a  picture  in  the  understanding  of 
those  who  knew  the  artist  best.  He 
had  relinquished  a  hundred  other 
"  carnal  inclinations,"  very  innocent 
to  other  men,  with  the  purest  self-de- 
nial, but  he  could  not  get  his  wit 
weeded  out  from  his  life  as  he  could 


[Sept. 

his  play-going.  With  the  most  un- 
pretending simplicity  he  bewailed  this 
sad  necessity  to  "talk  nonsense,"  which 
he  could  not  overcome  ;  and  Mrs 
Burtonshaw's  indignation  awoke  the 
slumbering  self-reproof.  He  who 
called  himself  a  religious  man  had 
compromised  his  character  ! — perhaps 
he  had  crossed  the  borders  of  inno- 
cent jesting — perhaps  jesting  was 
never  at  all  an  innocent  amusement. 
Mr  Steele  did  not  recover  himself  till 
his  audience  were  wearied  of  waiting, 
and  it  was  only  when  the  power  of 
his  self-condemnation  was  expended 
that  the  fresh  heart  which  kept  him 
youthful  came  back  with  a  rebound  ; 
he  passed  out  into  the  sunshine — 
among  the  gay  young  voices,  the 
sounds  and  the  fragrances  of  summer 
— and  was  himself  again. 

There  was  no  end  of  people,  as 
Sylvo  said,  and  there  was  no  end  to 
the  tastes  and  inclinations  which  ani- 
mated them.  Mr  Cumberland's  beau- 
tiful lawn  was  dotted  with  gay  groups, 
and  the  white  blossoms  of  the  acacia 
fell  upon  other  heads  than  the  musing 
head  of  Zaidee.  Then  came  an  after- 
noon dinner — "  a  country  repast,"  as 
Mrs  Cumberland  called  it — and  then 
a  great  deal  of  talk  and  music,  of  flirt- 
ation and  criticism,  indoors  and  out 
of  doors.  But  there  was  no  Mr 
Vivian  to  make  the  day  a  charmed 
day  for  Mary  Cumberland,  or  a  day  of 
terror  to  Aunt  Burtonshaw.  The  in- 
vasion of  guests  proved  a  sedative  to 
the  fears  of  the  old  lady,  and  kept 
the  younger  one  out  of  the  enchanted 
world  of  her  own  thoughts. 


CHAPTER  IX. — THE  EVILS  OF  KNOWING  AN  AUTHOR. 


"What  are  you  reading,  Mary? 
I  want  you  to  come  and  take  a  drive 
with  me,  my  love,"  said  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw. u  You  ought  to  have  a  rest  to- 
day, after  entertaining  all  these  people. 
Come,  my  darling,  and  drive  with  me. 
What  are  you  reading?  " 

"  It  is  a  novel,  Aunt  Burtonshaw," 
said  Mary  with  humility. 

"It  is  that  beautiful  book  of  Mi- 
Vivian's.  I  arn  delighted  to  see  how 
Mary's  taste  improves,"  said  Mrs 
Cumberland  from  her  sofa;  "  one  al- 
ways feels  more  interest  in  a  book 
when  one  knows  the  author.  I  shall 


ask  him  to  put  his  autograph  upon 
our  copy  when  he  comes  here." 

"  And  pray  what  are  you  reading, 
Elizabeth?  "  asked  Mrs  Bnrtonshaw. 

"  It  is  Mr  Vivian's  poems,  aunt," 
said  Zaidee. 

"  Upon  my  word,  I  should  be  glad 
to  know  who  Mr  Vivian  is,  or  what 
he  means,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw; 
"  you  used  to  be  glad  of  rational  oc- 
cupations— you  used  to  do  your  needle- 
work, and  take  drives  and  walks, 
and  like  a  little  conversation  :  now 
you  have  books  all  day  long — books 
.morning  and  evening ;  and  it  is  al- 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


291 


ways  Mr  Vivian.  Who  is  Mr  Vivian 
then?  will  nobody  tell  me?  Is  he  only 
an  author  ?  Now,  I  don't  want  to 
hear  that  he  is  a  delightful  young 
man,  Maria  Anna.  1  don't  think  such 
things  are  fit  to  be  said  before  these 
children.  Who  is  Mr  Vivian  ?  that 
is  what  I  want  to  know." 

"  It  is  not  because  of  Mr  Vivian  I 
am  reading,"  said  Mary,  faltering  at 
this  unusual  fib;  "  if  you  only  would 
look  here,  Aunt  Burtoushaw,  there  Js 
some  one  so  like  Elizabeth  here." 

Involuntarily  Zaidee  started ;  she 
felt  as  much  disposed  to  answer  Aunt 
Burtonshaw's  question,  and  tell  her 
who  Percy  was,  but  how  should  she 
know  ?  So  Zaidee  was  silent,  putting 
constraint  upon  herself.  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw  was  not  satisfied. 

"  If  you  will  please  me,  Mary,  yon 
will  come  and  let  me  have  my  drive, 
and  I  will  look  at  your  book  to-morrow," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  It  was  a  great 
effort  of  self-sacrifice  on  Mary's  part. 
She  rose  reluctantly,  and  with  much 
deliberation  put  her  book  aside. 
She  could  not  tell  Sylvo's  mother 
never  to  speak  to  her  of  Sylvo  again, 
and  Mary  remembered  with  a  blush 
her  almost  determination  to  put  up 
with  Sylvo  before  he  arrived  at  Twick- 
enham. Things  had  changed  wonder- 
fully since  that  time — there  was  an 
immense  gulf  between  her  feelings 
now  and  her  feelings  then.  Sylvo 
had  not  changed  the  least  in  her  esti- 
mation ;  he  was  the  same  good  fellow 
he  always  was ;  but  Mary  would 
rather  have  dropped  quietly  into  the 
river  under  the  willows  than  made  up 
her  mind  to  marry  Sylvo  now. 

When  Mary  left  the  room  with 
Aunt  Burtonshaw,  Zaidee  continued 
to  read  the  Poems  of  Percy  Vivian  ; 
these  were  mostly  fragments — snatches 
of  wild  song — sketches  of  great  things 
incomplete,  versatile  and  brilliant 
and  changeable.  She  thought  no  one 
filse  could  understand  as  she  did  the 
chance  allusions  to  the  family  history 
which  ran  through  Percy's  verses  ;  no 
one  cfuld  recognise  like  her  that  wild 
tumultuous  atmosphere,  the  rush  of 
wind  and  mass  of  cloud,  which  filled 
the  firmament  of  Percy's  song.  This 
was  not  like  Margaret's  landscape  ;  it 
was  nature,  every  word  of  it,  alive 
with  air  and  motion  ;  no  rigid  por- 
trait, but  an  animated  reflection  of 


the  scenes  familiar  to  him.  While 
Zaidee  read,  her  heart  went  back  out 
of  this  mild  and  gentle  landscape, 
with  its  noble  river  and  its  verdant 
woods.  She  saw  those  oaks  Agonistes, 
every  one  of  them,  with  the  red 
leaves  stiffening  on  their  branches, 
and  the  young  foliage  thrusting  slow- 
ly through  the  last  year's  garments, 
which  were  so  slow  to  fall.  Instead 
of  the  drooping  blossoms  of  that  beau- 
tiful acacia,  Zaidee  saw  yonder  fierce 
little  hill  of  Briarford,  with  all  its 
golden  and  purple  glories,  its  gorse 
and  heather,  and  that  old  warm 
family  home  lifting  its  face  to  the 
winds,  wistfully  gazing  on  the  flat 
country  into  the  cloudy  horizon  and 
the  far-off  sea.  Her  mind  was  far 
away,  wandering  over  those  well-re- 
membered places,  which  memory  in- 
vested with  an  imaginative  charm. 
She  had  no  recollection  of  this  wealthy 
home  at  Twickenham,  Mrs  Cumber- 
land upon  her  sofa,  or  Sylvo  out  of 
doors  with  his  cigar,  or  the  great 
mirror  which  gathered  everything 
together  within  its  pictured  breadth. 
The  mirror  caught  her  own  beauty 
unawares,  and  held  it  up  to  everyone 
who  entered,  though  Zaidee's  face 
was  turned  away  from  the  door ;  but 
Zaidee  thought  of  nothing  but  of 
what  she  found  within  those  pages, 
the  atmosphere  and  heart  of  her  early 
home. 

"  Elizabeth  1 "  said  Mrs  Cumberland. 

Zaidee  looked  up  with  a  momentary 
pang.  She  felt  as  if  called  back  from 
the  Grange  suddenly,  and  called  back 
from  her  recollections.  Mrs  Cum- 
berland was  beckoning  to  her  with  her 
hand. 

**  Come  here,  Elizabeth,  my  love  ; 
I  have  something  to  say  to  you.  Sit 
down,"  said  the  lady  of  the  house, 
pointing  to  a  stool  beside  her.  Zaidee 
obeyed  quietly,  as  it  was  her  custom 
to  obey.  Mrs  Cumberland  cleared 
her  throat,  and  seemed  to  have  a 
momentary  difficulty  in  making  a  be- 
ginning. 

"My  dear  child,  Mr  Vivian  will 
be  coming  here  one  of  these  days,  I 
trust,"  said  Mrs  Cumberland,  still  with 
a  little  hesitation. 

"  Yes, "  said  Zaidee.  Zaidee 
grasped  the  edge  of  her  seat  with 
her  hands  in  dismayed  apprehen- 
sion. Could  her  secret  be  known? 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


[Sept. 


"  Of  course  you  are  sure  to  be  much 
struck  with  him,"  said  Mrs  Cumber- 
land. "  Already  you  are  prepossessed 
in  his  favour ;  and  I  can  safely  say 
he  is  a  most  delightful  young  man. 
Now,  my  dear  love,  tell  me  candidly, 
is  your  heart  quite  free,  Elizabeth  ? 
Be  frank  with  me,  my  dear." 

The  deepest  crimson  flushed  on 
Zaidee's  face;  she  raised  her  head 
with  an  involuntary  dignity.  "  Per- 
fectly free,"  said  Zaidee  somewhat 
emphatically,  though  in  a  hurried 
under-tone.  She  felt  a  little  ashamed 
of  questioning  like  this. 

UI  have  thought  of  you  a  great 
deal,  Elizabeth,"  said  Mrs  Cumber- 
land. "  You  are  not  quite  like  other 
girls,  my  dear.  When  you  marry,  it 
will  be  proper  that  your  bridegroom 
should  know  your  real  name,  and  all 
your  circumstances ;  and  perhaps 
finding  that  you  were  not  really  our 
daughter — though  I  am  sure  I  love 
you  like  one,  my  dear  child — you  must 
not  be  offended — might  make  a  dif- 
ference with  some  young  men.  But 
there  is  one  way  in  which  you  have 
more  advantages  than  Mary ;  and  I 
feel  certain  that  Mr  Vivian,  for  ex- 
ample, who  is  a  poet  and  an  enthu- 
siast, will  be  sure  to  admire  you  very 
much.  I  should  not  like  you  to  make 
a  common  match,  Elizabeth.  I  have 
always  set  my  heart  on  something 
quite  out  of  the  usual  way  for  you. 
Now,  you  would  please  me  very  much, 
my  dear  child,  by  encouraging  Mi- 
Vivian  a  little,  if  he  seems  disposed 
to  pay  his  addresses  to  you ;  and  do 
not  be  too  shy,  but  let  him  see  you, 
and  form  a  proper  opinion  of  you  when 
he  comes  here.  My  love,  you  need 
not  blush  and  frown,  and  look  so  dis- 
turbed ;  what  I  am  saying  to  you  is 
quite  proper,  and  not  compromising 
you  in  any  way.  Will  you  attend  to 
what  I  say,  Elizabeth,  my  dear  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  no ;  do  not  bid  me.  I  do 
not  want  ever  to  go  away;  let  me 
stay  always  at  home,"  said  Zaidee, 
turning  her  flushed  and  agitated  face 
towards  Mrs  Cumberland,  but  not 
venturing  to  raise  her  eyes.  "  You 
have  been  very  good  to  me  so  many 
years ;  let  me  stay,  if  it  is  only  to  be 
your  servant,  and  take  care  of  you 
when  Mary  is  married.  I  wish  for 
nothing  else — do  not  speak  to  me  of 
anything  else ;  let  me  stay  at  home." 


Mrs  Cumberland  patted  softly  with 
her  thin  fingers  upon  Zaidee's  hand. 
"  That  is  all  very  well,  my  love ;  that 
is  what  all  young  ladies  say  at  first," 
said  Mrs  Cumberland  with  a  smile. 
"  I  will  not  say  any  more  at  present. 
You  know  my  wishes ;  I  leave  the 
rest  to  time  and  your  own  heart,  and 
— Mr  Vivian.  Now,  my  dear  child, 
go  back  to  your  book ;  I  have  said  all 
I  have  to  say." 

When  Zaidee  rose,  the  first  thing 
which  caught  her  eye  was  the  reflec- 
tion in  the  mirror  of  Mary  Cumber- 
land standing  within  the  half-opened 
door.  As  Zaidee  raised  her  troubled 
face  to  the  light,  she  caught  through 
this  medium  the  keen  look  of  her 
friend  fixed  upon  her.  Mary's  lips 
were  closed  tight;  Mary's  face  was 
very  pale,  and  her  hair  fell  down 
strangely  lank  and  disordered  upon 
her  cheek.  It  looked  like  an  imper- 
sonation of  startled  suspicion  and 
self-defence;  it  did  not  look  like  pretty 
Mary  Cumberland  returning  with 
fresh  roses  on  her  cheeks  from  her 
drive  with  Aunt  Burtonshaw.  Zai- 
dee's beautiful  face,  full  of  dismay  and 
agitation,  but  of  no  evil  emotion,  met 
with  a  gaze  of  astonishment  the  angry 
scrutiny  of  Mary.  It  struck  her  with 
a  painful  surprise;  and  she  went 
quickly  forward  to  ascertain,  if  it  was 
ascertain  able,  what  the  import  of  this 
silent  defiance  might  be;  but  Mary 
turned  before  her  friend  could  reach 
her,  and  Zaidee  only  saw  her  figure 
disappearing  up  the  stair  when  she 
came  to  the  door.  Pausing  a  moment 
to  give  Mary  time  to  reach  her  retire- 
ment, Zaidee  hastily  sought  her  own 
room.  She  was  uneasy  and  disturbed 
by  Mary's  look;  but  Mrs  Cumberland 
had  quite  unintentionally  thrown  a 
new  light  upon  Zaidee's  life.  Her 
real  name  and  all  her  circumstances — 
Zaidee  shuddered  at  the  possibility  of 
any  one  having  a  right  and  a  neces- 
sity to  be  informed  of  these.  The 
sudden  revelation  sent  her  back  with 
a  shudder  from  all  the  dreams  of 
youthful  existence.  That  any  one 
could  think  of  Percy  paying  his  ad- 
dresses to  her,— "  our  Percy,"  of  whose 
fame  she  was  so  proud — was  a  hallu- 
cination at  which  Zaidee  only  smiled. 
But  with  quite  a  different  regard  she 
looked  at  the  great  principle  which 
Mrs  Cumberland  had  stated  as  a 


1855.] 

thing  of  course,  and  which  her  own 
judgment  immediately  approved.  Who 
but  Zaidee  Vivian  could  understand 
why  Zaidee  Vivian  fled  from  home 
and  name  and  fortune?  Who  but 
herself  could  feel  the  weight  of  Grand- 
father Vivian's  legacy  ?  the  dreadful 
burden  and  guiltiness  of  disinheriting 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


293 


Philip?  Zaidee  turned  to  go  down 
stairs  again,  with  a  blank  in  her  face 
and  in  her  heart.  She  must  guard  her- 
self now  with  a  strange  and  jealous  care. 
She  must  suffer  no  stranger  to  come  in- 
to her  young  affections.  She  must  never 
put  her  secret  in  the  power  of  another 
— nor  betray  her  home  and  name. 


CHAPTER  X. — THE  GREAT  AUTHOR. 


All  that  day  Zaidee  was  left  alone 
— it  did  not  occur  to  her  to  inquire 
why  Mary  so  pertinaciously  avoided 
her  company,  rather  sitting  by  her- 
self or  leaving  the  room  than  snaring 
Zaidee's  seat  and  occupation,  as  was 
usual  to  them.  Mary's  pretty  face 
did  not  look  the  fairer  for  the  sullen 
cloud  upon  it,  and  her  manners,  al- 
ready strangely  changed,  grew  still 
more  perplexing  under  this  veil  of 
resentful  silence.  When  she  address- 
ed her  mother,  it  was  with  scarcely 
restrained  impatience,  and  Zaidee  she 
did  not  address  at  all,  except  in  case  of 
necessity.  This  added  another  shade 
to  Zaidee's  heaviness.  She  felt  that 
something  was  amiss,  though,  in  per- 
fect innocence  of  all  offence,  she 
could  not  tell  what  the  something 
was ;  the  house  was  out  of  joint ; 
there  was  a  universal  jarring  of  all  its 
members.  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  too, 
was  clouded  and  perturbed,  by  turns 
anxious  and  angry ;  and  Mary  had 
deserted  all  her  usual  amusements, 
and  sat  perpetually  by  her  work-table 
plying  her  needle,  while  Zaidee  all 
unwittingly  fanned  the  flame  which 
Mrs  Cumberland  had  kindled,  by  a 
continual  study  of  Mr  Vivian's  book. 

When  things  were  in  this  condition 
— when,  between  her  fears  for  Sylvo 
and  her  doubts  of  Mary,  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw led  a  very  troubled  exist- 
ence, and  Zaidee  and  Mary,  each  of 
them,  fell  into  strange  solitude — it 
was  intimated  one  day  with  great 
solemnity  that  Mr  Vivian  was  com- 
ing to  dinner.  Mr  Cumberland  had 
encountered  him  in  London,  had 
taken  advantage  of  the  opportunity, 
and  the  great  author  was  to  dine 
•with  them  to-day.  Zaidee,  who 
could  not  help  looking  up  with  great 
and  sudden  interest  at  this  announce- 
ment, found  Mrs  Cumberland  looking 
at  her  with  a  smile  of  private  com- 


munication, while  Mary's  face,  full  of 
clouds  and  storms,  was  also  full  of  the 
keenest  observation,  though  she  had 
turned  her  head  away.  Zaidee  col- 
oured painfully,  and  cast  down  her 
eyes  full  of  tears.  She  felt  herself  in 
an  unnatural  and  false  position  be- 
tween this  mother  and  daughter. 
It  was  impossible  to  avoid  being  in- 
terested, impossible  to  resist  a  rising 
eagerness  and  anxiety.  She  could 
not  anticipate  Percy's  visit  with  the 
tranquil  expectation  of  a  stranger; 
but  Mrs  Cumberland's  smile  and 
audible  whisper  of  the  dress  she 
should  wear  to-day  gave  her  sin- 
gular pain.  Aunt  Burtonshaw  said 
"  humph,"  and  Sylvo  yawned  in  anti- 
cipation over  Mr  Vivian's  visit,  while 
a  gleam  of  excitement  in  consequence 
came  into  Mary's  gloom;  but  Zaidee 
withdrew  very  sadly  from  the  family 
assemblage.  She  did  not  know-how 
to  subdue  these  jarring  elements 
into  concord,  or  how  to  place  herself 
in  her  natural  position  again. 

Zaidee  was  in  the  drawing-room 
early,  in  Aunt  Burtonshaw's  corner 
by  the  embroidery-frame,  hoping  to 
escape  the  especial  notice  which  she 
must  have  gained  had  she  entered 
the  room  after  Mr  Vivian's  arrival. 
Mary,  on  the  contrary,  was  late  of 
making  her  appearance.  Mr  Vivian 
arrived  with  a  dash  of  wheels,  draw- 
ing up  a  high-stepping  horse  before 
the  gate,  in  a  manner  which  called 
forth  the  cordial  plaudits  of  Sylvo, 
who  hurried  through  the  trees  to  re- 
port him  "none  of  your  spooney  fel- 
lows after  all"  before  the  stranger 
made  his  formal  entrance.  Then  the 
door  opened  with  great  solemnity, 
and  Mr  Percy  Vivian  entered  the 
room.  Zaidee,  bending  over  the  em- 
broidery, looked  up  with  great  eager- 
ness from  under  the  shelter  of  her 
curved  hand.  He  was  but  nineteen 


294 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


[Sept. 


•when  she  left  the  Grange  ;  she 
thought  he  was  no  older  still  in  his 
bright  and  versatile  youth.  The  eyes 
that  were  full  of  a  hundred  laughing 
fancies  ;  the  white  brow  all  lined  and 
puckered  under  its  wiry  hair ;  the 
cloud  that  rose  and'  descended  upon 
his  face  like  a  veil,  making  the  sun- 
shine all  the  brighter  by  its  dubious- 
ness ;  the  curved  expressive  lip  which 
was  never  quite  at  rest — these  were 
all  unchanged  ;  and  Percy  could  not 
well  be  more  easy  in  his  acquired 
eminence  than  he  had  been  in  his  na- 
tural boyish  place  at  home;  yet  some- 
thing there  was  that  told  a  man  ac- 
customed to  the  world — much  that 
denoted  one  aware  of  his  own  brilliant 
powers,  and  of  the  universal  notice 
which  followed  him.  Yes,  it  was 
Percy ;  but  it  was  Percy  the  Poet — 
Percy  the  Author — Percy  the  man  of 
fame;  he  had  come  down  to  dwell 
among  every-day  people,  and  win  re- 
putation for  himself  among  them.  It 
was  not  quite  that  boyish,  triumphant 
Percy,  looking  forth  upon  the  world 
which  lay  before  him  to  be  conquered, 
and  spurning  all  its  difficulties  in  his 
glorious  youthful  scorn. 

And  then  he  addressed  himself  to 
the  commonplaces  of  introduction 
with  such  a  laughing  saucy  contempt 
of  them  in  his  eye,  and  solemnly 
commented  on  the  weather,  and  on 
Mr  Cumberland's  beautiful  place,  with 
a  sort  of  mock  formality,  which  called 
a  smile  even  to  the  lips  of  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw.  "  Do  you  know,  I  think  he 
could  say  something  very  clever,  if  it 
were  notjust  for  form's  sake,  my  dear," 
said  the  good  lady,  whispering  over 
the  embroidery-frame.  The  stranger 
had  half  disarmed  Mrs  Burtonshaw 
already;  and  Sylvo,with  Mr  Vivian's 
cab  in  his  mind's  eye,  and  the  splen- 
did action  of  the  high-stepping  horse, 
wasmuch  disposed  to  make  Mr  Vivian's 
acquaintance,  and  had  already  inti- 
mated to  the  company  from  behind  his 
mustache  that  "  to-day  was  as  good 
as  Italy."  In  pursuance  of  the  same 
laudable  object,  Mrs  Cumberland  sat 
placidly  listening  to  Mr  Vivian's 
commonplaces,  and  Zaidee  was  un- 
introduced.  She  watched  the  stranger 
with  exceeding  interest  over  Aunt 
Burtonshaw's  embroidery- frame. 

And  now  the  door  slowly  opened, 
and  Zaidee  saw  Mary,  somewhat 


pale,  and  with  questioning  eyes, 
pause  a  moment,  and  look  round  the 
room.  Her  cheek  gradually  flushed 
with  returning  colour,  though  it  was 
evidently  not  Mr  Vivian  she  was 
looking  for.  It  was  Zaidee  whom 
Mary  sought,  and  Zaidee  was  safe  in 
the  corner,  rather  more  simply  dress- 
ed than  usual,  and  veiling  her  beauty 
in  her  remote  position  and  earnest 
employment.  Mary  entered  the  room 
after  that  so  noiselessly,  and  with 
such  a  burning  blush,  that  Zaidee  saw 
she  was  ashamed  of  something.  What 
was  she  ashamed  of?  The  unwitting 
offender  watched  her  friend  passing 
with  that  sudden  air  of  humility  about 
her,  across  the  shining  surface  of  the 
mirror — watched  her  slight  and  hur- 
ried salutation  of  the  guest  as  she 
passed  and  sat  down,  out  of  sight  of 
him,  at  her  work-table.  The  secret 
shame  of  repentance  was  on  Mary's 
face;  her  better  nature  had  asserted 
itself;  and  when  the  elders  of  the 
party  had  moved  forward  in  their 
solemn  procession  to  the  dinner- table, 
Mary  put  Sylvo  away,  and  laid  her 
soft  dimpled  hand  on  Zaidee's  arm. 
There  was  nothing  said  between 
them,  but  they  were  friends  again — 
and  Mary  had  heroically  resolved,  if 
need  was,  to  stand  aside,  and  suffer 
her  beautiful  adopted  sister  to  win 
the  day. 

This  resolution  gave  a  touch  of 
pathos  and  tenderness  to  Mary's  own 
fair  face.  She  saw  Mr  Vivian  start 
with  a  singular  astonishment  when  he 
first  observed  her  companion.  She  per- 
ceived his  eyes  turn  to  Zaidee  again 
and  again,  not  so  much  with  admira- 
tion, as  with  wondering  curiosity  and 
interest.  Every  time  she  perceived 
this  look,  she  repeated  her  struggle 
with  herself.  She  was  so  intent  upon 
Zaidee  that  she  did  not  perceive  how 
the  great  author  manoeuvred  to  be 
placed  near  herself,  and  how  his  wit 
was  perpetually  shooting  chance  ar- 
rows over  her  to  rouse  her  to  answer 
him.  Mary's  mind  was  too  much 
absorbed  by  far  for  the  sprightly  re- 
torts with  which  she  had  met  him  at 
Hollylee.  She  scarcely  spoke,  except 
to  Zaidee,  all  this  lingering  time  of 
dinner,  and  felt  so  heavy  and  op- 
pressed with  the  mirth  round  her  that 
it  was  quite  a  relief  to  her  excited 
feelings  when  the  door  of  the  dining- 


1855.] 

room  closed  upon  them,  and  made  a 
temporary  pause  in  the  excitement  of 
the  night. 

44  Now,  pray,  Mr  Vivian,  how  do 
you  do  when  you  are  going  to  write 
a  book?"  asked  Mrs  Burtonshaw, 
with  serious  curiosity,  when  the  gen- 
tlemen came  to  the  drawing-room. 
"  Do  you  just  sit  down  with  a  clean 
sheet  of  paper  before  you,  and  a  pen  in 
your  hand,  without  knowing  what 
you  are  to  say  ?  " 

"  I  think  he  is  a  happy  man  who 
knows  what  he  has  had  to  say,  after 
he  is  done  saying  it,"  said  the  young 
author.  "Now,  fancy  the  misery, 
Mrs  Burtonshaw,  of  having  nothing 
to  say  at  all." 

"  Yes,  that  is  exactly  what  I  was 
thinking  of,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw : 
"  for  instance,  writing  a  letter,  it  is 
only  polite  to  fill  three  sides.  I  never 
think  a  letter  is  a  letter  that  is  shorter 
than  that — and  how  if  you  have  said 
everything  in  the  first  page?" 

"You  sympathise  with  bookmakers, 
I  can  see,"  said  Percy,  laughing. 
"To  say  all  in  the  first  volume,  yet 
have  two  more  to  write — and  nothing 
before  yon  but  that  aforesaid  sheet  of 
clean  paper,  and  no  inspiration  in  the 
poor  goose-quill,  Mrs  Burtonshaw — 
only  a  reminiscence  of  its  primitive 
possessor — that  is  a  state  of  things 
which  we  poor  scribblers  have  to  de- 
plore every  day." 

"  You  write  with  quills,  then,  Mr 
Vivian  ?  "  said  Aunt  Burtonshaw. 
u  I  always  call  your  gold  pens  and 
your  steel  pens  disagreeable  things, 
Maria  Anna,  and  here  Mr  Vivian  is 
of  my  opinion.  Is  it  not  very  hard 
now  to  put  such  distresses  upon 
people  as  you  do  in  your  books  ?  I 
should  think  one  trouble  at  a  time 
was  very  good  measure  for  me ;  but 
one  after  another,  how  you  do  pile 
them  upon  that  poor  clear  in  the  book 
that  Mary  made  me  read  to-day." 

"  I  should  think  one  trouble  quite 
over  measure  for  you ;  I  should  cer- 
tainly vote  you  none  at  all  of  that 
disagreeable  commodity,  if  I  had  any 
voice  in  the  matter,"  said  Percy, 
smiling  and  bowing  to  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw, all  unconscious  that  he  himself 
was  a  fruitful  source  of  disturbance  to 
his  kindly  critic ;  "  but  life  and  Pro- 
Tidence  have  another  deliverance  to 
make  on  the  matter,"  continued  the 


Zaidee:  a  Romance.— Part  X.  295 

young  man,  his  eyes  flashing  from 
gay  to  grave:  "in  our  reflected  world 
we  must  dispense  as  Heaven  dispenses, 
and  Heaven  has  no  terror  of  such 
words  as  inconsistency  or  extrava- 
gance. '  When  sorrows  come,  they 
come,  not  single  spies,  but  in  bat- 
talions.' There  is  that  knave  Shake- 
speare," said  Percy,  brightening  once 
more  into  his  former  tone,  "who  wrote 
plays,  and  has  been  accused  of  poach- 
ing ; — who  gave  him  "any  right,  I 
wonder,  to  be  the  next  truest  after  the 
apostles  and  prophets  in  his  know- 
ledge of  man  ?  " 

"  You  must  excuse  my  sister — Mrs 
Burtonshaw  has  very  homely  ideas," 
said  Mrs  Cumberland.  "Tell  mer 
my  dear  Mr  Vivian,  that  sweet  Lucy 
in  your  book  —  did  you  not  quite 
love  her  yourself  before  you  were 
done?" 

Percy  laughed,  yet  was  so  un- 
sophisticated as  to  blush  too  all  over 
the  puckers  of  his  forehead.  "  Is  she 
such  a  sweet  Lucy?"  said  Percy; 
"  the  young  lady  did  not  strike  me 
much  ;  but  since  you  recommend  her, 
Mrs  Cumberland,  I  will  consider  her 
claims  again." 

"  Mansfield  puts  all  his  book  down 
out  of  his  journals — isn't  that  the 
truest  way— eh  ?  "  said  Sylvo  from 
behind  his  mustache. 

"  Mr  Mansfield's  book  is  only  ad- 
venture, Sylvo,"  said  Mary,  with  a 
little  indignation. 

"  Well,  adventure's  the  thing,  isn't 
it?  "  said  Sylvo,  who,  in  the  strength 
of  Mr  Vivian's  smile,  kept  his  place. 

"Adventure  is  the  thing,"  said 
Percy  solemnly  ;  "  and  by  far  the 
truest  way  is  to  put  down  one's  book 
out  of  one's  journal ;  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  that.  Mr  Mansfield  lived 
his  book  before  he  wrote  it ;  that  i& 
the  true  charm  of  success." 

"  Ah,  Mr  Vivian,  you  give  us  a 
rare  principle  to  judge  you  by,"  said 
Mrs  Cumberland,  with  a  sigh  of  sym- 
pathy and  admiration.  "  What  a  life 
yours  must  have  been ;  how  full  of  love 
and  emotion,  of  passion  and  sorrow, 
before  you  could  have  written  as  you 
have  done!" 

Once  more  Percy  Vivian  blushed 
uneasily,  and  through  this  blush  there 
struggled  a  laugh  of  irrestrainable 
but  somewhat  annoyed  self- ridicule. 
"  Pray,  Mrs  Cumberland,  do  not 


296 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


make  me  the  hero  of  these  stupid 
books,"  he  said,  with  comical  dis- 
tress. "  My  own  life  is  the  last  thing 
I  will  write  novels  about,  and  I 
would  find  it  an  extremely  barren 
subject;  no,  we  will  do  it  in  spas- 
modic poetry ; — that's  the  medium  for 
remorses  and  horrors,  the  true  vehicle 
for  autobiography,  Mrs  Burtonshaw," 
said  Percy  with  solemnity,  once  more 
returning  to  his  first  questioner. 

"  You  speak  of  remorses  and  hor- 
rors," said  that  lady,  looking  appre- 
hensively at  this  dangerous  neighbour 
of  hers  ;  "  and  I  found  a  book  lately, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  upon  that  very 
table — is  it  possible,  Mr  Vivian,  can 
you  be  that  T.  Percy  Jones  ?" 

"  No,  upon  my  honour,"  said  Percy 
Vivian,  taking  care  to  restrain  the 
laughter  which  made  Mary  Cumber- 
land's blue  eyes  dance  for  the  first 
time  this  evening.  "  No,  I  am  not 
that  redoubtable  incognito  —  there's 
your  man  now,  who  puts  down  his 
book  out  of  his  journal — a  tragedy  in 
his  own  person,  a  walking  fate  with 
inexorable  shears;  but  I  plead  not 
guilty.  I  am  a  Percy,  but  I  am  not 
the  genuine  Hotspur— this  is  not  me ! " 

''There's  scTmebody  ill  in  the 
kitchen,  Maria  Anna,"  said  Mr  Cum- 
berland, entering  hurriedly  ;  u  some 
fool  of  a  girl  who  has  been  trying  ex- 
periments on  my  galvanic  machine.  I 
gave  her  another  shock  to  set  her  right, 
but  she  wants  some  of  your  doctoring, 
sister  Burtonshaw.  Know  anything 
of  galvanism,  Mr  Vivian  ? — a  beauti- 
ful influence,  sir — a  beautiful  influence 
— though  startling  a  little  when  you 
eome  upon  it  unawares.  I've  a  great 


[Sept. 

mind  to  propose  a  new  system  for  the 
prevention  of  robberies  in  houses — 
connect  the  doors  and  windows  with 
so  many  wires  from  a  galvanic  bat- 
tery. Step  this  way  a  moment,  and 
you  shall  see.  I  defy  the  bravest 
housebreaker  in  Christendom  to  go 
beyond  the  electric  string." 

But  almost  while  Mr  Cumberland 
speaks,  and  while  Mrs  Burtonshaw 
bustles  away  to  minister  to  the  hap- 
less victim  of  curiosity  in  the  kitchen, 
Mr  Vivian  has  managed,  in  the  course 
of  conversation,  to  glide  outside  the 
opened  window,  and  stands  there  in 
conversation  with  Mary  Cumberland ; 
she,  somewhat  shy  and  timid,  with 
eyes  once  more  dazzled  and  a  cheek 
of  varying  colour,  stands  within.  Mr 
Vivian  is  looking  in  with  his  wayward 
brilliant  glances  into  the  deep  alcove 
of  this  lighted  room,  and  again  his 
eyes  fall  upon  the  beautiful  face  of 
Zaidee  reading  by  the  table.  It  is 
his  book  she  is  reading,  but  the  young 
poet  has  far  too  strong  and  youthful 
a  spring  of  life  within  him  to  confine 
himself  to  his  own  books ;  he  heeds  no- 
thing what  the  volume  is,  but  he  won- 
ders over  her  beautiful  face.  "  Your 
beautiful  sister  Elizabeth  is  strangely 
like  my  beautiful  sister  Elizabeth," 
he  says  to  Mary  abruptly ;  "  I  almost 
think  I  can  go  back  ten  years,  and 
that  it  is  our  own  sweet  Lizzy  I  am 
looking  at,  before  Bernard  Morton 
came  with  his  dark  face  to  carry  her 
away.  We  were  all  very  proud  of 
our  Elizabeth,  and  every  time  I  look 
at  your  sister,  every  word  and  look 
reminds  me  more  and  more  of  her— 
very  strange  ! " 


CHAP.   XI. — MISUNDERSTANDING. 


"  Mr  Vivian  says  that  he  and  I 
have  each  a  beautiful  sister,  Elizabeth, 
and  they  are  very  like  each  other — 
he  thinks  it  quite  strange,"  said  Mary. 

She  was  standing  with  her  arm  fold- 
ed tightly  round  Zaidee's  waist,  hold- 
ing her  before  the  mirror ;  the  mirror 
gave  a  dim  reflection  of  the  great 
room  half  lighted,  of  a  morsel  of  blue 
sky,  and  "  a  little  lot  of  stars  "  looking 
through  the  window ;  of  the  chairs 
standing  about  in  disorder  where  every- 
body had  left  them,  and  of  only  those 
two  figures  and  no  more  within  the 


room.  Mary,  with  a  good  deal  of  re- 
solution, and  a  colour  which  varied 
rapidly  from  these  sudden  flushes  of 
crimson  to  the  whitest  paleness,  held 
Zaidee  closely  with  her  arm.  Zaidee, 
in  much  astonishment,  with  even  a 
slight  degree  of  fear,  resisted  this 
grasp  a  little,  and  looked  not  into  the 
mirror  but  into  her  friend's  face.  She 
did  not  know  what  to  make  of  Mary's 
singular  demeanour,  nor  why  they  two 
should  be  here  alone  together,  when 
everyone  else  had  gone  to  rest.  But  at 
this  speech  Zaidee  startled—she  could 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


297 


not  but  be  started— she  was  like  her 
cousin  Elizabeth,  her  beautiful  cousin ; 
she,  poor  little  brown  Zaidee,  was 
like  the  pride  of  the  Grange,  the 
flower  of  all  the  country  round !  Un- 
suspicious of  evil,  Zaidee  did  not 
know  how  Mary  Cumberland  watched 
her  face,  and  misinterpreted  the  rising 
flush  of  gratification  and  family  pride 
— for  she  could  not  restrain  her  secret 
and  innocent  pleasure  in  being  thought 
like  Elizabeth.  This  pure  natural 
emotion  came  to  her  eyes  with  a 
sweet,  surprised,  and  almost  tearful 
gladness,  and  with  a  flush  of  delicate 
colour  to  her  cheek.  Mary  looked  at 
her  steadily,  and  almost  sternly; 
Mary  held  her  fast  with  the  strong 
grasp  of  her  arm.  Secure  in  her  good 
resolution,  in  pride  at  once,  and  in 
friendship,  of  sacrificing  herself,  Mary 
could  see  no  harm  in  severely  interro- 
gating Zaidee.  She  would  yield  up 
to  her  the  early  dream  which  had  just 
begun  to  gild  and  to  brighten  her  own 
life  ;  but  she  would  not  yield  up  the 
authority  of  a  senior,  the  superiority 
of  a  patroness,  and  Mary  was  harsh 
and  imperious  in  the  sadness  of  her 
thoughts. 

"  Speak  to  me  just  once,  Elizabeth. 
Look  at  yourself;  will  you  not  do  as  I 
tell  you  ?  Do  you  think  you  are  beau- 
tiful ?  Do  you  think,  like  Mr  Vivian 
and  all  the  rest  of  them,  that  there  is 
scarcely  any  one  so  beautiful  as  you?" 

"  No,"  said  Zaidee,  looking  up 
eagerly.  "  Mary,  I  have  made  you 
angry — do  you  think  I  am  vain  ?  1 
do  not  think  it ;  but  indeed  I  never 
thought  of  this  at  all  till  they  spoke 
something  about  me  the  day  Aunt 
Bnrtoushaw  came  home." 

"  They  !  who  were  they  ?"  asked 
Mary. 

"  It  was  —  Aunt  Burtonshaw." 
Zaidee  faltered  a  little,  and  turned 
half  away  from  the  arm  that  held  her. 
She  would  rather  not  have  said  any 
more. 

"  Aunt  Burtonshaw  is  not  they" 
said  Mary,  with  her  merciless  logic. 
"  Who  was  the  other  ?  or  others,  per- 
haps, I  should  say,  Elizabeth  ;  for  a 
great  many  people  admire  my  beauti- 
ful sister— who  were  they?" 

"  I  do  not  know  what  harm  you 
think  of  me,"  said  Zaidee,  roused  at 
last,  and  growing  pale  as  she  turned 
her  shining  dark  eyes  on  Mary's  face. 


"  This  word  '  beauty '  was  twice  men- 
tioned to  me  that  day ;  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw said  it,  and  so  did  Sylvo.  I  had 
never  thought  of  it  before,  and  did  not 
think  of  it  then— I  do  not  think  of  it 
now,"  and  Zaidee  lifted  a  glance  of 
brave  defiance  at  the  mirror.  "  I.may 
be  like  Mr  Vivian's  beautiful  sister,  and 
not  be  beautiful ;  but  however  that 
is,  I  am  as  God  made  me :  if  He  sends 
one  thing  or  another,  I  have  nothing 
to  say,  Mary — it  is  God,  it  is  not  me." 

"  Look  in  the  glass,  Elizabeth," 
said  Mary  Cumberland. 

Zaidee  looked  up  ;  her  face  was 
pale,  her  eyes  a  little  dilated,  her  hair 
falling  down  upon  her  slender  stately 
neck.  She  was  more  beautiful  then 
than  Mary  had  ever  seen  her.  While 
Zaidee  met  the  sorrowful  startled 
gaze  of  her  own  eyes,  Mary  looked  at 
her  in  the  mirror  with  an  intent  and 
steady  look,  owning  in  the  depths  of 
her  heart,  and  against  her  will,  the 
magic  influence  which  broke  forth 
from  the  "  Why"  of  logic,  with  con- 
temptuous triumph.  Why  admire  this 
form  of  feature,  this  shade  of  com- 
plexion ? — why  be  charmed  with  this 
face  more  than  with  any  other? 
Mary  could  not  answer  the  question  ; 
but  she  could  not  look  at  that  beauti- 
ful reflection  in  the  mirror,  at  the 
grieved  and  tearful  look,  the  silent 
wonder,  the  patience,  and  the  inno- 
cence of  evil  which  shone  upon  her  in 
those  wonderful  eyes,  and  remain  un- 
moved. She  suddenly  bent  down  as 
she  stood  thus,  and  gave  a  cold  but 
yet  tender  kiss  to  Zaidee's  brow — 
loosened  her  grasp  of  her,  and  with  a 
sigh  of  weariness  held  out  her  hand 
and  said,  Good  night.  Zaidee  followed 
her  slowly  up  the  silent  echoing  stairs. 
Those  two  young  figures,  each  so- 
young  and  so  fair  in  their  differing  de- 
grees and  kinds  of  beauty,  each  carry- 
ing a  light  in  her  hand,  went  up  the 
broad  staircase,  one  after  the  other, 
like  vestals  in  a  procession.  When 
they  had  parted,  and  found  shelter  in 
their  separate  apartments,  poor  Mary 
Cumberland,  disturbed  with  evil 
thoughts,  with  mortified  and  jealous 
pride,  and  with  a  bitter  fear  that  in 
heedless  prodigality  she  had  thrown 
away  her  heart,  sat  gloomily  at  her 
table  for  a  moment,  and  then  rose  to 
pace  about  the  room  in  hasty  wander- 
ings. She  had  not  been  reasonable 


298 


Zaidee:  a  JKomance. — Part  X. 


or  prudent,  as  the  whole  scope  of  her 
previous  life  had  been.  She  had  suf- 
fered a  fanciful  and  unfounded  liking 
to  creep  close  to  her  heart,  and  now 
Mary  was  sadly  conscious  that  evil 
spirits  had  come  into  it,  malice  and 
envy,  and  all  uncharitableness.  She 
had  no  human  guide  to  appeal  to  for 
counsel,  and  Mary  had  not  Zaidee's 
early  training;  nor,  in  spite  of  Zaidee's 
long  influence  upon  her,  did  this  more 
stubborn  spirit  dare  to  have  recourse  to 
Heaven  when  earth  was  incompetent, 
as  her  companion  did.  She  only  said 
her  prayers  as  usual  that  night ;  she 
did  not  pour  out  her  heart,  which  was 
sorely  rent  and  wounded ;  and  so 
went  sullen  and  uncomfortable  to  a 
rest  which  was  broken  with  dreams 
and  starts  of  wakeful  loneliness ;  for 
Mary's  heart  was  sore  within  her,  and 
sore  with  a  gnawing,  cankering  pain. 

Zaidee,  who  was  deeply  distressed, 
bewildered,  and  wondering,  fared  bet- 
ter, for  neither  malice  nor  envy  had 
found  a  place  in  her  maiden  thoughts. 
She  could  not  understand  Mary,  but 
was  glad  to  forget  this  strange  con- 
duct of  hers  in  a  burst  of  pleasant 
wonder  over  what  she  said.  Zaidee 
came  to  her  toilette-glass,  and  looked 
into  it  shyly.  "  Am  I,  indeed,  like 
Elizabeth ?  — like  Elizabeth!"  said 
Zaidee.  And  as  she  looked  upon  her- 
self with  her  eyes  thus  enlightened, 
she  discovered  the  resemblance.  It 
filled  her  with  the  purest  simple  de- 
light ;  it  was  a  new  visionary  trace  of 
this  mysterious  link  of  blood,  a  confir- 
mation of  her  title  to  be  Zaidee  Vivian 
still — a  sign  of  the  family  name,  and 
lofty  long  descent,  secretly  marked 
upon  her  brow.  It  was  not  the  beauty 
which  Zaidee  rejoiced  over  in  her  so- 
litude. She  was  like  Elizabeth,  who 
was  the  present  representative  of  all 
those  lovely  Vivians  of  many  genera- 
tions, whose  sweet  looks  had  embel- 
lished the  name.  Her  very  face  was 
her  charter  of  family  right  and  kindred. 
She  could  hot  sufficiently  rejoice  at 
this ;  and  as  she  sat  down  to  think 
over  Percy's  visit,  she  remembered 
her  cousin  with  yet  a  kinder  heart. 

Yes,  this  Percy  was  our  Percy,  and 
Zaidee's  heart  warmed  to  him  like  a 
sister's,  and  rejoiced  in  his  fame ;  but 
she  began  to  think  of  Philip,  who  was 
not  famous — Philip,  who,  though  the 
head  of  the  house,  would  only  be  "  Mr 


[Sept. 

Vivian's  brother"  in  the  world  which 
made  an  idol  of  Mr  Vivian ;  arid  Zaidee 
began  to  think,  looking  back  upon  her 
young  experience,  that  she  had  never 
seen  any  one  like  the  Head  of  the 
House — never  another  who  came  near 
to  her  ideal  of  manhood — so  simple, 
so  noble,  so  full  of  truth  and  honour. 
Percy  was  a  poet  and  a  genius,  but 
he  was  not  Philip;  yet,  perhaps,  Philip 
was  not  half  so  brilliant  as  Percy,  and 
certainly  was  not  known  to  the  world 
like  his  younger  brother.  With  a 
woman's  pride  she  regarded  the  fa- 
mily hero;  but,  looking  back  with  her 
child's  imagination,  she  thought  she 
could  put  her  hand  in  Philip's  hand, 
and  suffer  him  to  lead  her  over  the 
world. 

These  two  friends  woke  in  the 
morning  to  look  with  a  little  dismay 
on  the  proceedings  of  the  night.  Mary, 
who  was  guilty  and  self-humiliated, 
carried  matters  with  a  high  hand. 
She  came  down,  resolved  to  have  a 
condescending  conversation  with  her 
"  beautiful  sister,"  and  speak  to  her 
of  Mr  Vivian — to  be  so  entirely  self- 
restrained  and  decorous  that  Zaidee 
should  think  the  harshness  of  last 
night  only  a  dream,  and  to  follow  up  her 
mother's  counsel  so  warmly  that  the 
poor  girl  should  be  ashamed  to  meet 
Mr  Vivian  again.  All  this  Mary  re- 
solved to  do,  because  she  felt  herself  in 
the  wrong,  and  with  natural  perversity 
persisted  in  it,  though  her  heart  long- 
ed to  be  set  right.  Zaidee,  on  the 
contrary,  was  very  humble,  and  full 
of  anxious  solicitude.  She  had  no 
weight  on  her  conscience.  She  could 
afford  to  make  overtures  of  kindness, 
and  little  sisterly  submissions,  to  win 
the  offender.  She,  who  had  not 
harmed  her  companion  either  in  deed 
or  thought,  anxiously  sought  Mary's 
eye  and  Mary's  hand,  and  watched 
for  a  return  of  cordiality— such  a  silent 
reconciliation  as  that  which  brought 
Mary  to  her  side  the  previous  day,  in 
the  journey  from  the  dining-room  to 
the  drawing-room.  Looking  out  from 
behind  the  grate  of  misunderstanding 
and  wounded  pride  which  imprisoned 
it,  Mary's  frank  and  candid  natural 
heart  looked  on  and  observed  all  this ; 
but  Mary  was  not  delivered  from  her 
*'  black  dog,"  her  evil  spirit ;  she  had 
something  more  to  undergo  to  work  a 
thorough  cure. 


1855.] 


Zaldee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


299 


CHAPTER  XII.  — ECONOMY. 


"  I  do  not  know  what  this  dish 
may  be  called,  Maria  Anna,  but  I 
know  it  is  Mr  Cumberland's  cookery," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw  at  the  break- 
fast-table, looking  suspiciously  over 
the  coffee -pot  from  her  presiding  chair. 
"  I  can  recommend  the  fresh  new- 
laid  eggs  :  the  shell  is  as  pure  ascream, 
you  see,  Sylvo— but  I  really  will  not 
undertake  to  say  what  Mr  Cumber- 
land's dish  may  be." 

"  An  adaptation  of  the  ancient  ma- 
chine called  Papin's  digester,  sister 
Burtonshaw,"  said  Mr  Cumberland 
briskly,  u  with  our  modern  means  and 
appliances,  will  be  an  infinite  benefit 
to  every  family  by-and-by.  The  di- 
gester is  the  very  impersonation  of 
thrift,  sisterElizabeth — pure  economy, 
I  assure  you.  What  do  you  suppose 
this  is  made  of,  now  ?  Why,  a  couple 
of  fowls  are  in  it,  every  morsel,  yet  I 
defy  you  to  find  a  bone.  The  action 
of  heat  is  a  marvellous  thing  when 
properly  applied.  Take  a  chicken  now, 
in  the  ordinary  way  of  cooking.  I 
grant  you  it  may  be  valuable  as  a  les- 
son in  anatomy,  but  it's  poor  picking 
for  a  dinner ;  whereas,  here  is  the 
richest  savoury  jelly  in  the  world,  the 
result  of  a  little  care  and  trouble. 
Ignorance  manures  its  land  with  bones, 
Sylvo.  We  shall  have  all  England 
getting  fat  upon  them  when  my  ma- 
chine is  properly  known." 

"  A  couple  of  fowls  !  and  you  call 
that  economy  ?  "  cried  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw, in  dismay.  "  When  poor 
Roberts,  the  cook,  told  me  she  had 
got  a  pair  of  fat  capons  for  Mr  Cum- 
berland, did  I  think  that  was  what  the 
poor  birds  were  to  come  to  ?  Econo- 
my !  a  tea-cupful  of  potted  stuff  out  of 
two  beautiful  capons !  Do  you  mean 
to  ruin  yourself,  Mr  Cumberland?  and 
Maria  Anna  to  give  in  to  you !  " 

"  Pure  prejudice,  sisterBurtonshaw. 
Women  are  the  most  bigoted  of  con- 
servatives," said  the  philosopher,  with 
his  chuckle  of  laughter.  "  You  may 
innovate  as  you  will  in  other  spheres, 
but  touch  their  privileged  department, 
and  there  is  no  quarter  for  you.  But 
the  sacred  institution  of  the  kitchen 
must  bow  to  science,  my  good  sister. 
Wait  till  I  have  proved  the  powers  of 


my  digester  on  the  larger-boned  ani- 
mals. Wait  till  I  present  the  English 
peasant  with  such  a  delicacy  as  this, 
made  of  the  beef-bone  which  your  ig- 
norance would  throw  to  your  dogs, 
Sylvo,  my  boy.  I  look  for  a  testimo- 
nial of  national  gratitude  by  that  time, 
sister  Elizabeth.  My  digester  is  a 
long  way  improved  from  Papin's,  I 
assure  you.  That  was  incomplete — 
decidedly  incomplete  ;  that  is  why  it 
failed  to  make  a  revolution  in  our 
cookery  two  hundred  years  ago." 

"  I  am  sure  I  thought  I  had  given 
up  being  surprised  at  anything,"  said 
Mrs  Burtonshaw,  with  a  sigh  of  re- 
signation. "  But  I  am  sorry  for 
Roberts — I  confess  I  am  sorry  for 
Roberts,  poor  thing ;  to  see  such  de- 
struction before  her  very  eyes.  I 
suppose  it  would  be  all  the  same  to 
you,  Maria  Anna,  if  Mr  Cumberland 
were  making  jelly  of  the  trees  !" 

"  That  is  a  suggestion  to  be  consi- 
dered, sister  Elizabeth,"  said  Mr  Cum- 
berland. "  The  vegetable  juices  and 
the  animal  are  considerably  different, 
you  see,  but  worth  an  experiment — 
decidedly  worth  an  experiment — and 
of  singular  utility,  too,  if  it  should 
happen  to  be  practicable.  Your 
mother  has  invention,  Sylvo,"  said 
the  philosopher,  taking  a  memorandum 
on  his  tablets  of  this  valuable  sugges- 
tion. "  I  might  have  talked  a  month, 
I  assure  you,  to  these  girls  and  to 
Maria  Anna,  without  the  ghost  of  an 
idea  from  one  of  them." 

Mrs  Burtonshaw's  indignation  was 
too  great  to  be  softened  by  this  com- 
pliment. "  If  breakfast  is  over,  I 
will  go  to  the  drawing-room,"  said 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  solemnly ;  "  and  I 
think,  Mary  and  Elizabeth,  you  will 
be  a  great  deal  better  doing  some- 
thing than  sitting  here." 

They  followed  her  one  by  one  as 
she  took  her  way  to  this  favourite 
apartment.  It  was  Zaidee's  turn  to- 
day to  seek  the  solace  of  needlework. 
Mary,  too  restless  for  this  thoughtful 
occupation,  seated  herself  on  the 
marble  step  outside  the  window,  with 
a  book  on  her  lap.  Zaidee  sat  sewing 
within.  Sylvo  lounged  about  the 
room,  not  knowing  what  to  do  with 


300 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


[Sept, 


himself,  and  much  inclined  to  set  out 
again  without  delay  for  his  "  place." 
It  was  he,  poor  .fellow,  in  innocent 
vacancy,  who  propounded  the  questio 
vexata,  the  tabooed  subject  of  the 
morning,  by  declaring  his  opinion  that 
Mr  Vivian  was  a  "  regular  good  fel- 
low— none  of  your  die-away  men — a 
fellow  that  was  up  to  everything." 

"When  Sylvo  took  himself  away 
after  this  enlightened  estimate  of 
character,  Mary  turned  from  gazing 
at  the  river.  "Speaking  of  Mr  Vivian," 
said  Mary  with  the  voice  of  elderly 
experience,  addressing  Zaidee,  "  I 
forgot  to  mention  to  you  that  I  over- 
heard what  mamma  said  to  you  one 
day  before  he  came  here.  *It  was 
about  encouraging  him,  you  know,  if 
he  should  think  of  paying  his  addresses 
to  you.  Now,  of  course,  as  he  ad- 
mires you  so  much,  that  is  quite  likely, 
Elizabeth,"  said  Mary,  with  dry  lips 
and  a  forced  smile ;  "  and  I  hope  you 
will  not  let  any  foolish  scruples  weigh 
with  you,  but  will  guide  your  conduct 
by  mamma's  advice.  I  quite  agree 
with  her ;  it  would  be  an  admirable 
match  — 4  Beauty  and  genius,  you 
know.' "  And  Mary  sang,  with  scorn- 
ful levity,  the  burden  of  the  ballad, 
"Be  honoured  aye  the  bravest  knight, 
beloved  the  fairest  fair." 

"  Mary,"  said  Zaidee  earnestly,  "I 
do  not  know  why  it  is  that  I  am  so 
much  pained  to  hear  you  speaking  so. 
I  suppose  it  is  no  harm  to  speak  so ; 
it  is  two  strangers  talking  to  each 
other ;  it  is  not  you  and  me.  But  I 
have  grown  a  woman,"  said  Zaidee, 
raising  her  head  with  the  simplicity 
of  a  child,  "  and  there  are  some 
things  which  must  not  be  said  to  me. 
No  one  must  tell  me  to  encourage  Mi- 
Vivian  ;  no  one  must  talk  to  me  of 
paying  addresses.  I  cannot  bear  it, 
indeed,  and  I  must  not,"  continued 
Zaidee,  warming  into  strange  deci- 
sion. "If  I  am  like  Mr  Vivian's 
sister,  he  is  like  some  one  whom  I 
knew  when  I  was  a  child.  If  it  were 
not  so,  I  should  be  ashamed  to  see 
Mr  Vivian  again ;  but  now  I  should 
be  glad  to  be  friends  with  him  if  he 
pleased.  I  was  very  proud  and  very 
glad  to  see  him  here  with  you  last 
night ;  and  I  think  I  will  try  not  to 
be  affronted,  nor  shut  myself  up  when 
he  comes.  But  there  is  to  be  no  more 
of  addresses,  if  you  please.  I  am  sure 


I  should  quite  as  soon  think  of  paying 
my  addresses  to  Mr  Vivian  as  he  to- 
me." 

Mary  Cumberland,  with  her  book 
lying  open  on  her  lap,  followed  the 
motion  of  Zaidee's  lips,  and  her  slight 
unconscious  gestures,  with  the  ex- 
tremest  astonishment.  Mary  felt  the 
ground  suddenly  taken  from  beneath 
her  feet.  She  was  entirely  discon- 
certed and  thrown  back  upon  herself 
by  this  simple  decision — by  the  words 
which,  spoken  with  so  little  preten- 
sion, had  yet  all  the  authority  which 
words  could  have  coming  from  the 
lips  of  a  queen.  Her  own  scornful 
satire  and  uncharitable  mood  were 
thrown  far  into  the  distance.  Zai- 
dee, resenting  nothing,  but  only  put- 
ting an  end  to  it,  passed  by  like  a 
young  princesSj  and  left  Mary  far 
behind  her  in  the  way.  Their  position 
was  reversed  in  a  moment;  Mary's 
scornful  and  unkindly  advice  was 
quite  thrown  out  of  court :  it  returned 
upon  herself  with  double  mortification 
and  annoyance.  She  felt  so  guilty 
that  she  attempted  no  answer,  but 
only  said  "  Oh,"  with  a  last  attempt 
at  superiority,  and,  leaving  the  win- 
dow, wandered  down  the  lawn,  as  ill 
at  ease  as  it  was  possibflj  to  be,  to  take 
her  place  under  the  falling  blossoms 
of  the  acacia,  and  consume  her  heart 
with  bootless  vexation  and  shame. 

Meanwhile  Zaidee,  grieved  and  si- 
lent, sat  at  her  work  alone.  Mr 
Vivian  had  thrown  a  great  gulf  be- 
tween these  girlish  intimates,  the 
friends  of  many  years.  It  was  the 
first  indication  of  that  maturer  life  in 
which  their  hearts  could  no  longer 
dwell  together,  and  their  young  exist- 
ence run  on  in  one  common  stream. 
To  the  trusting  and  simple  heart  of 
Zaidee  it  was  a  very  harsh  disjunction 
— a  rending  asunder  causeless  and 
cruel.  If  Mr  Vivian  had  not  been 
"our  Percy,"  Mary  must  have  in- 
curred for  him  the  positive  dislike  of 
her  "  beautiful  sister."  As  it  was, 
Zaidee  only  thought  of  him  with  the  • 
kindest  thoughts. 

"  I  am  going  to  town,  to  call  on  Mr 
Vivian's  sister,"  said  Mrs  Cumber- 
land, the  same  day  ;  "  he  was  so  good 
as  to  ask  me,  Mary,  my  love;  and 
you  may  be  sure  I  shall  be  only  too 
happy  to  show  some  attention  to  Mrs 
Morton.  I  think  you  should  both  come 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


301 


with  me,  you  young  ladies ;  you  are 
neither  of  you  in  great  spirits,  I  per- 
ceive, this  morning.  Ah,  I  can  make 
allowance  for  youthful  feelings,  my 
sweet  Elizabeth  ;  and  Mary's  gravity, 
with  so  many  things  to  consider — the 
crisis  of  her  life — is  equally  excusable. 
Go  and  get  your  bonnets,  my  dear 
children  ;  the  drive  will  refresh  us  all 
to-day." 

They  went  to  do  her  bidding  silent- 
ly; Mary  contracting  her  brow  and 
setting  her  pretty  teeth  together  in 
the  very  impatience  of  passion,  as  she 
heard  her  own  circumstances — "the 
crisis  of  her  life" — thus  alluded  to. 
For  the  first  time  Mary  shed  bitter 
tears  when  she  had  reached  her  own 
apartment,  and  concealed  herself  and 
her  secret  heartbreak  within  its  closed 
door.  "  They  give  me  to  Sylvo 
without  a  thought ;  this  is  all  the 
care  they  have  for  their  daughter," 
cried  Mary,  with  unrestrainable  com- 
plaint ;  "  and  Elizabeth,  Elizabeth  ! 
the  sunshine  of  this  life  is  all  for  her, 
and  there  is  only  Sylvo  for  me  ! " 

The  tears  poured  down  heavily 
over  Mary's  cheeks ;  it  was  the  crisis 


of  her  life,  though  Mrs  Cumberland 
wot  not  of  it.  With  a  hasty  motion 
she  went  to  the  darkest  corner  of  the 
room,  and,  hid  by  the  curtains  of  her 
bed,  bent  her  knee.  They  were  wait- 
ing for  her  down  stairs  in  wonder — 
Mary's  toilet  was  seldom  such  a 
lengthy  operation— but  the  floodgates 
of  her  heart  were  opened,  and  all 
her  emotions,  good  and  evil,  were 
pouring  forth  in  a  deluge.  She  forgot 
everything  except  her  own  guiltiness, 
and  the  relief  and  ease  it  was  to  un- 
burden herself — to  confess  and  empty 
all  her  heart.  When  she  rose  from 
her  knees  she  had  to  bathe  her  face, 
so  many  traces  of  tears  were  on  it. 
"  Now,  I  will  be  good,"  said  Mary, 
with  a  smile  which  was  bright  and 
childlike,  though  it  was  tearful ;  and 
she  tied  on  her  bonnet  with  trembling 
hands,  and  went  down  to  the  little 
party  that  waited  for  her.  The 
day  was  a  brilliant  one,  fresh  and 
sweet,  and  the  river  flashed  gaily  in 
the  sunshine.  After  that  preparation 
Mary's  heart  was  open  to  be  refresh- 
ed by  the  cheerful  shining  of  the  uni- 
versal light. 


CHAPTER   XIII. — A   VISIT. 


Mrs  Cumberland,  reclining  back  in 
her  comfortable  corner,  as  they  pur- 
sued their  way  to  town,  had  given  her- 
self up  to  u  languor,"  or  to  thought. 
Her  young  companions  were  very 
silent  both  of  them  ;  for  Mary  did  not 
find  it  suitable  to  disperse  her  better 
thoughts  by  talking  of  them,  and  Zai- 
dee was  full  of  silent  anticipation, 
timidity,  and  longing.  She  was  safe 
in  her  changed  looks  and  name — she 
had  come  through  the  scrutiny  of 
Percy,  and  remained  undiscovered  ; 
and  though  she  trembled  a  little  with 
eagerness  and  anxious  interest,  she 
was  not  afraid  of  Elizabeth.  Eliza- 
beth !  Elizabeth  had  been  the  idol  of 
Zaidee's  childish  fancy,  as  of  every 
other  member  of  the  family  of  the 
Grange  ;  her  wonderful  beauty,  her 
simplicity,  the  humbleness  of  her 
perfect  womanhood,  had  given  her  a 
magical  sway  over  all  these  fresh 
young  hearts.  Perhaps  there  was 
not  one  of  them  but  had  a  wider 
range  and  a  stronger  impulse  of  life 
than  she  had,  but  within  her  own 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


boundary  there  was  a  perfection  and 
sweet  repose  in  the  mind  of  Elizabeth 
which  every  one  was  soothed  and 
strengthened  by.  Her  young  cousin's 
thoughts  dwelt  upon  her  image  in  the 
past — wondered  how  far  Mrs  Bernard 
Morton  might  prove  different  from 
Elizabeth  Vivian — marvelled  at  her 
own  resemblance  to  her.  There  was 
no  lack  of  occupation  for  Zaidee's 
mind  and  memory  as  they  drove  to- 
wards town. 

And  Captain  Bernard  was  a  mem- 
ber of  Parliament,  one  of  the  legisla- 
tors of  the  country — a  man  stepping 
forward  to  the  sober  precincts  of 
middle  age.  They  lived  in  a  little 
house  near  the  Parks,  of  which  the 
fashion  was  more  satisfactory  than 
the  size.  (  When  Mrs  Cumberland 
and  her  young  companions  entered 
the  small  drawing-room,  the  first  per- 
son who  met  their  eyes  was  Mr  Vivi- 
an, with  a  rosy  boy  seated  astride  on 
his  shoulders,  holding  his  wavy  hair 
for  a  bridle.  Percy  was  flushed  with 
the  canter  at  which  he  had  been  car- 


302 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


[Sept. 


rying  this  small  equestrian  round  the 
very  limited  circle  of  the  apartment, 
and  was,  moreover,  being  called  back 
by  two  small  nieces  at  the  window, 
who  referred  some  dispute  to  Uncle 
Percy.  A  little  girl  of  five  years  old 
sat  on  a  footstool  close  by  her  mother, 
looking  at  a  childish  picture-book 
with  an  air  of  childish  abstraction  and 
thoughtfulness,  and  Mrs  Morton  her- 
self rose  to  meet  her  visitors  as  they 
entered.  Mary  Cumberland's  quick 
eye,  guided  by  what  Percy  had  said, 
made  an  instant  comparison  between 
these  two  faces,  which  were  said  to 
resemble  each  other.  It  was  indeed 
very  strange.  Mrs  Morton's  expand- 
ed and  matronly  beauty  was  in  the 
fulness  of  its  bloom.  Zaidee  had  still 
the  shelter  and  the  sweetness  of  the 
bud,  coy  and  half  -  disclosed ;  and 
there  were  individual  differences 
marked  and  visible — but  the  resem- 
blance was  enough  to  bewilder  the 
looker-on.  It  seemed  the  same  face 
in  different  circumstances  and  linked 
to  different  spirits — the  same,  and  yet 
another  —  something  cast  from  the 
same  mould,  yet  strangely  diversified 
by  a  change  of  material.  It  was  a 
very  remarkable  resemblance — quite 
enough  to  account  for  Percy's  won- 
dering looks  and  interest  in  the  beau- 
tiful sister  who  was  so  like  his  own. 

Zaidee,  on  her  part,  after  her  first 
recognition  of  Elizabeth — the  eager 
glance  from  under  her  eyelids,  which 
showed  how  little  her  beautiful  cousin 
was  changed — was  completely  en- 
grossed by  the  children,  those  won- 
derful little  unknown  existences  of 
whom  she  had  never  dreamed.  In 
Zaidee's  thoughts  life  had  stood  still 
with  the  family  at  the  Grange ;  her 
fancy  consented  indeed  to  Elizabeth's 
marriage  and  to  Percy's  fame,  but 
her  mind  had  gone  no  further;  and 
this  rosy  boy  and  these  pretty  girls 
burst  upon  her  like  a  revelation :  she 
could  not  withdraw  her  eyes  from 
these  new  children — these  members 
of  the  family  for  whom  she  was  to- 
tally unprepared.  She  had  been  the 
youngest  herself  at  home  in  the  old 
days,  and  she  was  conscious  of  an 
amusing  rivalry  with  this  intrusive 
new  generation.  Perhaps  they  were 
not  the  only  ones ;  perhaps  there  were 
other  children  besides  these  claiming 
an  interest  in  the  Grange  ;  and  Zai- 


dee shyly  took  a  seat  in  a  corner  with 
comical  dismay. 

"  No,  Philip,  my  boy,  no  more 
rides,"  said  Percy,  setting  down  his 
little  cavalier.  u  Go  and  make  your 
obeisance,  you  small  rebel,  and  apolo- 
gise for  the  use  you  have  put  your 
respectable  uncle  to.  I  am  better 
than  any  pony,  and  half  as  good  as 
an  Arab,  in  Philip's  apprehension, 
Mrs  Cumberland.  The  children  esti- 
mate my  powers  very  highly,  I  am 
glad  to  say — I  am  quite  invaluable  to 
them." 

"  Genius  unbending — Genius  in  its 
sportive  mood,"  said  Mrs  Cumber- 
land. "  You  are  so  fortunate,  my 
dear  Mrs  Morton  ;  I  envy  you  the 
constant  society  of  one  so  richly  en- 
dowed." 

"  Do  you  mean  Percy?"  said  Eli- 
zabeth Vivian  with  a  smile.  She  was 
very  proud  of  her  younger  brother, 
but  he  was  her  younger  brother  still, 
and  she  smiled  a  little  at  these  com- 
mendations, though  she  liked  the 
speaker  all  the  better  for  them. 

"  Elizabeth  is  my  elder  sister,  Miss 
Cumberland,"  said  Percy,  coming 
confidentially  and  with  a  little  em- 
barrassment to  Mary's  side — "  Eliza- 
beth is  the  ideal  of  domestic  superi- 
ority for  her  brothers,  at  least.  I 
cannot  quite  swallow  applause  in 
Elizabeth's  presence ;  I  have  always 
a  ludicrous  sense  of  its  inappropriate- 
ness.  Mrs  Cumberland  is  very  kind, 
no  doubt,  but  I  would  much  rather 
she  forgot  those  unfortunate  books  in 
presence  of  Elizabeth." 

"  Is  she  not  proud  of  them,  then  ?" 
asked  Mary,  with  a  glance  of  wonder. 

u  You  defeat  me,  Miss  Cumber- 
land ;  you  kill  the  precious  blossoms 
of  my  humility,"  said  Percy,  but  still 
in  an  under-tone ;  "  how  shall  I  refuse 
to  be  applauded,  think  you,  when  you 
intoxicate  me  after  this  barbarous 
fashion?  Yes,  Elizabeth  likes  very 
well  to  hear  of  them  ;  and  I  have  a 
home  in  the  country,  too,  where  I 
should  like  to  show  you  how  fiercely 
the  feminine  jury  pronounce  on  the 
demerits  of  any  hapless  critic  who 
falls  upon  Percy.  Yes,  that  bubble 
reputation — they  have  real  enjoyment 
of  it,  those  good  people  in  Cheshire. 
Do  you  know  I  should  like  you  to 
see  the  Grange?" 

Mary  stammered  something  of  be- 


1855.] 

ing  very  glad ;  it  took  her  by  surprise 
to  be  so  addressed. 

"  Yes :  yet  I  am  by  no  means 
sure  that  you  would  be  pleased  with 
it,"  said  Percy,  with  one  of  his  dubi- 
ous glances ;  a  our  country  is  too 
bleak,  and  our  climate  too  boisterous 
for  your  fancy.  I  think  I  should  suc- 
ceed better  in  flowery  Hampshire,  or 
sweet  Devon,  in  pleasing  you.  What 
do  you  think?  Do  I  guess  your  taste? 
Sweet  English  calm  and  comfort,  with 
the  winds  and  the  storms  far  away  ?" 

"  I  have  very  common  tastes," 
said  Mary,  shy  of  this  conversation. 
"  Does  not  every  one  prefer  calm  and 
comfort  to  the  winds  and  the  storms?  " 

"  I  do  at  least,"  said  Percy  ;  u  I  am 
of  the  Epicurean  temper.  My  brother 
is  of  a  different  frame  ;  the  Cheshire 
gales  are  sweeter  than  Araby  to  him. 
Yet,  poor  fellow,  he  toils  by  the  burn- 
ing banks  of  the  Ganges,  and  does 
kind  things  for  everybody,  and  never 
thinks  of  himself.  I  am  a  very  poor 
fellow  to  have  such  friends.  A  man 
who  is  brother  to  Philip  Vivian  and 
Elizabeth  ought  to  be  a  better  man." 

The  young  listener  to  whom  he  was 
thus  unbosoming  himself  looked  up 
at  Percy  with  shy  glances  and  a 
swelling  heart.  More  than  all  the 
self-assertion  in  the  world,  this  com- 
punction endeared  him  to  Mary.  She 
could  not  continue  to  close  her  heart, 
as  she  had  vowed  to  do  this  morning. 
Involuntarily  she  smiled,  wondering 
within  herself  at  the  humility  which 
fancied  some  small  Cheshire  squire 
or  Indian  merchant,  or  this  Mrs 
Morton,  who  was  only  the  beautiful 
young  wife  of  a  middle-aged  member 
of  Parliament,  superior  to  Percy 
Vivian,  poet,  author,  man  of  letters. 
Literature  had  suddenly  become  the 
noblest  of  all  professions  to  Mary — 
fame,  the  most  dazzling  of  human 
possessions.  She  smiled  at  her  hero's 
humility;  it  never  entered  into  her 
head  for  an  instant  that  Percy  could 
be  right. 

But  some  one  else  was  listening  by 
her,  with  such  a  flush  of  interest  and 
anxiety  as  scarcely  could  be  control- 
led. Yes,  Percy  was  right ;  but  Zaidee 
was  proud  he  had  the  nobleness  to  own 
this  superior  excellence  ;  and  Philip — 
why  was  Philip  in  India?  What 
had  the  Squire  of  Briarford  to  do  on 
the  banks  of  the  Ganges  ?  WThat  did 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


303 


this  mean  ?  It  might  betray  her,  but 
she  could  not  restrain  the  question 
that  came  to  her  anxious  lips.  Percy 
had  changed  his  position  a  little,  and 
stood  between  them  now.  He  was 
near  enough  to  be  addressed. 

44  What  did  your  brother  go  to 
India  for?"  asked  Zaidee,  looking  up 
with  her  old  wistfulness. 

Mr  Vivian  looked  extremely  aston- 
ished, and  so  did  Mary  Cumberland. 
Their  amazement  made  no  differ- 
ence in  the  anxious  curiosity  of  the 
questioner. 

44  We  are  not  the  richest  family 
in  the  world,"  said  Percy,  with  a 
smile.  u  Philip  is  about  a  very  com- 
monplace business ;  he  is  making  a 
fortune." 

But  why  did  he  need  to  make  a 
fortune?  The  question  was  on  Zaidee's 
lips  ;  but  she  had  prudence  enough  to 
restrain  it.  Her  face  grew  troubled  ; 
her  heart  was  full  of  yearning  curi- 
osity. Why  did  Philip  go  away? 
She  could  not  form  an  answer  for 
herself. 

44  Zaidee,  you  must  go  up-stairs 
with  Philip,"  said  the  sweet  voice  of 
Elizabeth.  With  a  start  of  terror 
Zaidee  listened;  but  saw  that  it  was 
the  little  studious  girl  with  the  pic- 
ture-book, and  not  her  changed  and 
unknown  self,  who  was  addressed. 
This  was  almost  too  much  for  Zaidee's 
forced  composure.  She  felt  her  heart 
leaping  to  her  throat;  her  face  flushed 
and  paled  with  extreme  emotion  ;  she 
could  scarcely  keep  the  voice  of  her 
yearning  silent.  Zaidee  ! — they  had 
not  forgotten  her;  they  had  com- 
memorated even  her  name. 

44  What  a  sweet  name ! — what  a 
strange  unusual  name !"  cried  Mrs 
Cumberland ;  '4  one  may  trace  the 
poet's  suggestion  there,  I  am  sure." 

44  No,  indeed,"  said  Elizabeth  seri- 
ously, yet  with  a  smile  ;  "  my  Zaidee 
is  named  for  a  dear  child  we  lost  from 
the  Grange  in  a  very  extraordinary 
way — a  little  cousin,  an  orphan,  who 
was  very  dear  to  us  all.  My  little 
Zaidee  is  a  great  favourite  at  home 
for  her  name's  sake.  Even  Percy 
there,  who  has  a  hundred  nicknames 
for  everybody,  is  too  tender  of  this 
name  to  mock  at  it.  Our  first  Zaidee — 
our  lost  child' — we  had  each  of  us  a 
different  contraction  for  her  strange 
name ;  but  no  one  likes  to  say  Zay 


304  Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  X. 

— not  even  Sophy.    We  cannot 


play  with  poor  Zaidee's  name." 

There  was  a  little  pause  which  no 
one  interrupted,  and  then  Mrs  Cum- 
berland rose  to  take  leave.  Zaidee 
never  knew  how  she  reached  the  foot 
of  that  narrow  staircase.  She  stum- 


[Sept. 

bled  down  the  steps  with  a  blindness 
upon  her  eyes,  and  a  strange  joy  of 
grief  about  her  heart.  They  remem- 
bered her — cared  for — kept  her  name 
among  them — in  the  family !  But  what 
misfortune  was  it  which  had  driven 
Philip  away  ? 


CHAPTER   XIV. — HEAVINESS. 


The  excitement  of  these  discoveries 
was  almost  too  much  for  Zaidee  ;  her 
secret  life — her  secret  world — her  un- 
communicated  thoughts,  pressed  upon 
her  heart  like  a  nightmare.  When 
she  had  only  the  past  to  look  back 
upon,  she  could  muse  over  it  in  quiet ; 
but  here  was  the  present,  the  living 
to-day,  full  of  a  world  of  surprises 
and  undreamt-of  chances,  which  her 
veiled  and  unknown  existence  must 
take  no  cognisance  of,  though  they 
were  nearest  to  her  heart.  It  was  to 
Zaidee  as  it  might  be  to  a  spirit  re- 
turned to  the  earth  ;  she  walked  side 
by  side  with  those  who  mourned  for 
her,  sat  at  their  table,  heard  them 
speaking  of  herself,  yet  durst  not 
reveal  herself  to  their  lingering  tender- 
ness, or  make  known  to  them  the 
heart  which  glowed  with  answering 
affection.  She  walked  in  a  dream  the 
live-long  day,  her  inner  life  differing 
so  strangely  from  her  external  one — 
as  strangely  as  Elizabeth  Cumber- 
land, the  beautiful  daughter  of  these 
kind  people,  differed  from  brown 
Zaidee  Vivian,  the  heiress  of  the 
Grange.  They  saw  her  beauty  pale, 
and  her  mind  become  preoccupied, 
and  Mrs  Cumberland  u  made  allow- 
ance for  youthful  feelings;"  and 
Mary,  struck  with  penitence  for  her 
own  conduct,  made  effort  upon  effort 
to  win  back  the  confidence  she  fancied 
she  had  alienated,  and  wondered  with 
an  anxious  heart  what  Percy  Vivian 
might  have  to  do  with  this  musing 
heaviness.  Percy  had  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  it,  but  not  as  Mary  sup- 
posed; and  now,  when  Percy  came 
and  went  about  the  house  perpetually, 
Mary  was  no  longer  excited  with 
c.auseless  doubts.  That  the  young 
man  felt  a  singular  interest  in  her 
beautiful  sister  was  sufficiently  appa- 
rent— that  he  followed  Zaidee's  looks 
and  movements  with  a  wondering 
regard,  for  which  he  himself  could  not 


account ; — but  something  else  was 
still  more  evident,  and  still  more  satis- 
factory. Percy  did  not  worship  at 
the  feet  of  this  more  lofty  and  poetic 
beauty ;  he  brought  his  homage  to 
the  sunny  eyes,  the  lighter  heart,  and 
less  fanciful  spirit  of  Mary  Cumber- 
land ;  he  had  only  interest  and  ad- 
miration to  bestow  upon  her  beautiful 
sister  Elizabeth.  And  never  yet, 
though  they  were  come  to  be  on  very 
confidential  terms,  had  Percy  the 
slightest  opening  for  inquiry  —  the 
slightest  reason  to  suspect  that  this 
beautiful  Elizabeth  was  not  the  child 
of  the  house. 

In  other  respects  than  this,  the 
household  was  slightly  jarring  and 
uncomfortable.  Mrs  Burtonshaw  did 
not  have  her  son's  claims  acknow- 
ledged as  they  should  have  been  ;  the 
good  lady  found  everybody  around 
her,  and  herself  not  less  than  every- 
body, unexpectedly  fascinated  with 
this  Mr  Percy  Vivian,  and  she  did 
not  doubt  that  the  young  author 
would  carry  off  Mary  from  under 
her  very  eyes,  and  amid  the  plau- 
dits of  Sylvo.  Sylvo  still  looked 
with  delight  on  Mr  Vivian's  high- 
stepping  horse,  and  admired  the 
dashing  style  in  which  Mr  Vivian 
drew  up  at  Mr  Cumberland's  gate. 
Sylvo  never  suspected  when  his  new 
friend  laughed  at  him — never  grew 
suspicious  of  the  solemn  assent  which 
Mr  Vivian  gave  to  his  brilliant  sugges- 
tions; and  he  had  not  the  slightest  ob- 
jection to  the  new-comer's  devotion  to 
Mary,  nor  grumbled  that  her  ear  was 
engrossed  and  her  attention  occupied 
night  after  night.  Mr  Cumberland  and 
Mrs  Cumberland  were  equally  indiffe- 
rent ;  all  the  discretion  in  the  house  was 
embodied  in  the  person  of  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw, and  even  her  remonstrances 
and  representations  failed  to  open  the 
eyes  of  this  careless  father  and  mo- 
ther to  the  danger  of  their  child. 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


305 


44  I  wanted  very  much  to  have  a 
little  girl  myself  when  Sylvo  was 
born,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw solemnly ; 
"  but  when  I  found  that  I  had  got  a 
big  boy,  and  when  by-and-by  the 
little  girl  came  to  Maria  Anna,  of 
course  I  very  soon  came  to  a  decision, 
my  love.  I  set  my  heart  upon  it 
when  you  were  in  your  cradle,  Mary. 
I  said  to  myself,  *  Here  is  my  Sylvo 
now ;  he  shall  wait  for  his  little 
cousin.  He  is  a  good  boy ;  he  will 
be  guided  by  his  mother,  and  I  shall 
take  care  never  to  lose  sight  of  this 
sweet  little  darling  till  she  is  my 
Sylvo's  wife.'  I  have  never  lost  sight 
of  you,  Mary,  my  dear  child,  and  you 
could  not  be  so  cruel  as  to  break  my 
heart  now." 

44  No,  indeed,  Aunt  Burtonshaw," 
said  Mary,  laughing  and  blushing ; 
44  but  why  should  you  break  your 
heart  ?  Sylvo's  heart  would  not 
break,  I  am  sure,  if  I  were  to  run 
away  to-morrow,  and  I  belong  to  you 
now  as  much  as  Sylvo  does.  Why 
should  the  poor  boy  have  a  wife  ?  He 
does  not  want  a  wife ;  he  would 
much  rather  be  left  to  his  travels  and 
Mr  Mansfield." 

"That  is  the  very  thing  I  am 
afraid  of,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw. 
u  Why,  Mary,  my  love,  if  it  is  not 
soon,  Sylvo  will  go  away." 

44  Dear  Aunt  Burtonshaw,  it  must 
not  be  soon,"  said  Mary,  growing  red 
and  serious  ;  "  and  indeed  you  must 
not  speak  of  it  again.  Poor  Sylvo, 
he  deserves  better  than  to  have  me 
laughing  at  him,  and  you  speaking  as 
if  he  were  a  child.  You  should  hear 
what  Elizabeth  says." 

"What  does  Elizabeth  say?"  asked 
Mrs  Burtonshaw,  with  great  curiosity. 

Zaidee  had  to  be  recalled  from  her 
own  thoughts  by  a  repetition  of  the 
question  before  she  heard  it.  4t  I  only 
say  that  Sylvo  is  very  good  and  very 
kind,  and  ought  to  have  some  one 
who  cares  for  him,"  said  Zaidee,  dis- 
missing the  subject  quietly.  It  was 
more  important  to  Aunt  Burtonshaw 
than  it  was  to  Zaidee.  She  looked 
from  one  to  the  other  with  a  new 
light  thrown  on  her  thoughts.  "  Mary 
does  not  care  for  Sylvo;  Elizabeth 
does,"  said  Aunt  Burtonshaw  within 
herself.  She  was  quite  excited  with 
her  imagined  discovery.  She  re- 
called the  paleness,  the  abstraction, 


the  many  silent  thoughts  and  hours 
of  musing  which  had  slightly  separat- 
ed Zaidee  from  the  family.  Looking 
back,  she  found  that  these  unquestion- 
able tokens  of  "falling  in  love"  had 
all  made  their  appearance  since  Sylvo 
came  to  Twickenham.  She  could 
scarcely  refrain  from  going  at  once  to 
this  pensive  young  martyr  of  a  secret 
attachment,  and  caressing  her  into 
hope  and  cheerfulness.  "  I  am  sure 
Sylvo  will  be  a  happy  man/'  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw  with  a  little  emphasis. 
Alas!  Sylvo  was  so  unimportant  a 
person  in  the  eyes  of  those  ungrate- 
ful young  ladies,  that  neither  of  them 
observed  how  emphatic  his  mother's 
words  were;  but  Mrs  Burtonshaw's 
own  thoughts  did  not  let  the  matter 
rest.  She  resolved  that  the  "  poor 
dear"  should  not  pine  in  vain  for 
Sylvo.  She  resolved  that  Sylvo's 
hopes  should  change  their  direction 
without  delay.  Mary,  indeed,  had 
been  destined  for  him  from  the  cradle, 
but  Elizabeth  was  certainly  the  next 
best  when  Mary  did  not  care  for  him  ; 
and  then  such  a  beauty  !  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw—  a  wise  woman  —  finding 
that  she  could  not  have  exactly  what 
she  would,  instantly  burst  into  delight 
with  the  substitute  which  she  could 
have.  She  did  not  love  Mary  less, 
but  she  loved  Elizabeth  more.  She 
abounded  in  caresses  and  in  delicate 
allusions  to  her  dear  child's  "feel- 
ings." Poor  Zaidee  had  no  mercy 
shown  to  her  on  one  side  or  the  other. 
Perfectly  guiltless  of  "  falling  in  love  " 
as  she  was,  she  was  concluded  to  be 
over  head  and  ears  in  it  by  both  par- 
ties in  the  house.  Mrs  Cumberland 
pathetically  assured  the  wondering 
Zaidee,  "  Ah,  my  love,  I  know 
woman's  heart."  And  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw, with  equal  tenderness,  said, 
44  Come  with  me,  my  darling,  and 
look  for  Sylvo."  There  was  no  re- 
fuge for  her  between  the  two;  she 
must  either  be  smitten  with  the 
charms  of  Sylvester,  or  bound  to  Mr 
Vivian's  chariot-wheels.  Mary,  who 
sometimes  was  a  little  troubled,  fear- 
ing for  the  last  of  these  misfortunes, 
had  a  wicked  delight  in  the  absurdity 
of  the  former  one.  She  increased 
Aunt  Burtonshaw's  delusion  with  the 
greatest  glee.  Mary's  conscience  was 
clear  now  of  all  her  own  misbehaviour. 
She  was  once  more  Zaidee's  most  lov- 


306 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


ing  sister,  and  Zaidee  had  forgiven 
and  forgotten  her  evil  manners.  Mary 
was  in  the  highest  spirits,  without  a 
drawback  upon  her  happiness,  except 
the  fear  which  sometimes  glanced 
across  her,  that  her  companion  really 
had  an  unfortunate  liking  for  Mr 
Vivian.  This,  however,  was  too  tran- 
sitory, and  had  too  slight  a  foundation 
to  give  any  permanent  trouble  to  her 
mind  ;  and  Mary  was  in  the  highest 
flow  of  her  naturally  happy  disposi- 
tion, and  ^gave  herself  full  scope. 
Aunt  Burtonshaw's  delusion  grew 
more  and  more  complete  under  her 
exertions.  u  I  only  trust  you  may 
be  as  happy  yourself,  my  dear  love," 
said  Aunt  Burtonshaw,  "  and  then  I 
will  be  content." 

Meanwhile  Zaidee  wandered  on 
through  that  other  world  of  hers,  of 
which  they  were  all  ignorant.  Mrs 
Bernard  Morton  came  to  Twicken- 
ham to  return  Mrs  Cumberland's 
visit.  Mr  Percy  Vivian  came  almost 
every  day.  She  heard  them  speak 
the  names  familiar  to  her — she  lis- 
tened to  the  family  allusions  now  and 
then  made  by  the  brother  and  sister, 


[Sept. 

which  she  alone  understood  in  this 
company  of  strangers.  Mrs  Morton 
wondered  why  the  beautiful  Miss 
Cumberland  would  stay  so  pertina- 
ciously in  her  corner,  and  Percy  began 
to  fancy  that  those  sweet  lips,  which 
never  opened,  had  really  nothing  to 
say.  "  She  is  very  unlike  the  other 
members  of  the  family,"  Elizabeth 
Vivian  said ;  and  they  both  felt  so 
strange  an  interest  in  her — so  much 
curiosity — that  she  puzzled  their  ob- 
servation exceedingly.  Quite  uncon- 
scious that  any  one  remarked  her,  per- 
fectly unaware  of  the  interpretations 
given  to  her  abstraction,  Zaidee  went 
upon  her  silent  way.  The  secresy 
which,  when  it  concerned  the  past 
alone,  was  no  burden  to  her,  oppressed 
her  now  like  a  thundery  and  sultry 
atmosphere.  The  flush  of  secret  ex- 
citement varied  her  paleness  with  a 
feverish  hectic,  her  sweet  composure 
was  disturbed  and  broken,  and  all  her 
life  seemed  subsidiary  to  those  mo- 
ments of  intense  and  eager  interest 
in  which  she  sat  listening  to  Eliza- 
beth and  Percy  in  their  involuntary 
references  to  their  home. 


CHAPTER  XV. — A   NEW  THOUGHT. 


"  The  use  of  ornament  is  to  make 
us  happy."  Mr  Cumberland  laid 
down  his  book,  and  looked  around  the 
room.  "This  is  an  extremely  com- 
monplace apartment,  Maria  Anna — 
the  house  altogether  is  the  most  pro- 
saic affair  in  the  world,  Sister  Bur- 
tonshaw. Who  could  be  happier,  now, 
passing  up  or  down  the  river,  for  the 
sight  of  such  a  house  as  this?  " 

"  The  house  is  a  very  comfortable 
house,  Mr  Cumberland,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw.  "  I  do  not  see,  for  my 
part,  what  we  have  to  do  with  the 
people  in  the  steamboats,  whether  it 
makes  them  happy  or  not." 

u  These  are  the  degenerate  ideas 
which  belong  to  this  age,  sister  Bur- 
tonshaw," said  the  philosopher.  "  Do 
you  mean  to  say  that  I  discharge  my 
duty  to  the  commonwealth  when  I 
build  a  square  box,  and  congratulate 
myself  that  it  is  comfortable?  I  do 
not  see  that  the  world,  in  general,  has 
any  concern  with  my  comfort.  To  the 
mass  of  people  this  is  quite  an  indif- 
ferent subject,  sister  Elizabeth;  but 


everybody  knows  the  difference  be- 
tween an  ugly  house  and  a  graceful 
one.  Where  does  Nature  tolerate 
such  angles  as  these  four  corners?  and 
what  are  all  her  graceful  curves  and 
rounded  outlines  for,  but  that  we 
should  enjoy  them  ?  There  is  the  line 
of  a  mountain,  now,  in  this  admirable 
book,  and  there  is  the  line  of  a  leaf; 
look  at  them,  sister  Burtonshaw,  and 
then  look  at  this  square  block  of  brick 
and  mortar.  The  thing  is  a  monster — 
it  is  at  discord  with  everything." 

"  So  you  will  build  a  house  shaped 
like  a  mountain,  Mr  Cumberland?" 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  who  had  made 
up  her  mind  never  to  be  astonishe'd 
again. 

u  I  shall  employ  such  a  selection  of 
natural  lines  as  will  produce  the  most 
perfect  whole,"  said  Mr  Cumberland. 
"Never  fear,  sister  Burtonshaw,  we 
will  bring  something  quite  unique  out 
of  it — not  a  square  box,  I  promise 
you.  We  will  bring  in  a  new  era  in 
domestic  architecture.  I  am  a  candid 
man — I  never  shut  my  mind  to  con- 


1855.]  Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  X. 

viction  ;  and  if  there  is  no  one  else  in     Nurnberg   with  envy, 


307 


England  bold  enough  to  embody  these 
principles  in  stone  and  lime,  I  am. 
Sylvo,  my  boy,  if  you  can't  rebuild, 
you  can  have  your  house  decorated  at 
least.  How  do  you  excuse  yourself 
for  presenting  nothing  to  the  eyes  of 
your  peasants  but  a  larger  hut — a 
cottage  on  a  great  scale  ?  A  landed 
proprietor  ought  to  be  a  public  edu- 
cator, Sylvo.  You  don't  appreciate 
your  position,  sir." 

Sylvo's  "  ha,  ha"  rung  like  a  distant 
chorus  upon  the  somewhat  high-pitch- 
ed treble  of  his  respectable  uncle, 
but  Mrs  Burtonshaw  was  roused  for 
her  son's  honour.  u  If  Sylvo  pays  a 
schoolmaster,  I  assure  you  he  does 
very  well,  Mr  Cumberland,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw.  "  What  has  he  to  do 
teaching  classes  ?  And  you  are  ex- 
tremely mistaken  if  you  think  Sylvo's 
place  is  only  a  cottage  on  a  great 
scale.  It  is  a  very  handsome  mansion, 
Mr  Cumberland — a  gentlemanly  resi- 
dence, the  advertisement  said  —  it 
might  do  for  any  landed  proprietor  in 
England.  Yes,  Elizabeth,  my  love,  it 
is  a  very  excellent  house." 

"  I  am  quite  astonished  that  I  can 
have  shut  my  eyes  to  it  so  long,"  said 
Mr  Cumberland,  too  zealous  about  his 
own  house  to  care  for  Sylvo's.  "  There 
is  an  inhuman  character,  a  hardness 
and  pitilessness  about  our  architecture, 
which  is  sufficiently  striking  when  one 
comes  to  consider.  Fancy  some  poor 
creature  now  passing  this  house  in  a 
storm,  sister  Burtonshaw — where  is  the 
roofed  porch  and  the  grateful  seat  to 
give  shelter  to  the  traveller?  I  must 
set  about  it  at  once." 

"  What  is  Mr  Cumberland  to  set 
about  at  once?"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw, 
with  a  little  scream.  <tp  A  porch  to 
shelter  vagrants — at  our  very  door — 
and  you  will  give  in  to  him,  Maria 
Anna  !  I  have  never  been  considered 
pitiless  to  the  poor.  I  have  always 
helped  my  fellow-creatures  when  I 
had  opportunity,"  continued  the  good 
lady,  raising  her  head  with  offence ; 
'k  but  to  have  a  porch  full  of  vagabonds 
on  a  rainy  day,  whoever  might  happen 
to  call !  It  is  a  great  deal  too  much, 
Mr  C  umberland.  It  is  not  benevolence, 
it  is  only  fancy  that  goes  so  far." 

But  Mr  Cumberland,  who  was  mak- 
ing magnificent  designs  on  paper, 
gables  and  pinnacles  enough  to  strike 


and  carry  off 

half  his  fortune,  had  no  ear  for  the 
protest  of  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  The 
philosopher  spurred  his  new  Rosin- 
ante  with  the  greatest  ardour,  and 
Mrs  Cumberland,  so  far  from  object- 
ing, was  struck  with  the  romantic 
beauty  of  the  idea. 

"So  like  those  delightful  feudal 
times,"  said  Mrs  Cumberland,  "  when 
of  course  the  grateful  dependants  had 
a  right  to  the  shelter  of  their  superior's 
threshold.  That  beautiful  connection 
between  the  different  classes  which  we 
all  ought  to  promote ;  it  is  never  so 
well  advanced  as  by  kind  contrivances 
like  these." 

"  Do  you  think  it  is  a  kind  contri- 
vance to  fill  the  house  with  workmen," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  u  to  have  the 
furniture  spoiled  with  dust,  and  our 
things  not  fit  to  put  on,  and  quite  im- 
possible to  ask  any  one  here?  You 
never  think  of  the  good  of  the  family, 
or  the  pleasure  of  these  dear  children, 
Maria  Anna.  People  cannot  come  in 
through  the  window.  Perhaps  even 
the  windows  will  not  be  left  to  us, 
my  dears.  I  think  we  had  better  go 
away." 

"  The  window  left,  sister  Burton- 
shaw ?  I  promise  you  the  window 
shall  not  be  left,"  said  the  philoso- 
pher. "  The  rest  of  the  house  is 
simply  ugly,  but  this  is  detestable. 
No,  we  must  have  truth  of  form — that 
is  the  fundamental  principle — and 
beauty  of  ornamentation  follows,  just 
as  in  the  moral  world  pleasure  comes 
when  necessity  is  served.  Architec- 
ture is  not  merely  the  art  of  building, 
sister  Elizabeth.  Architecture  is  a 
severely  moral  science ;  her  mission  is 
not  so  much  to  build  churches  and 
houses,  as  to  form  and  reform  the 
principles  of  her  time.  A  square  is  a 
heathen  ideal — pure  paganism,  Sylvo. 
Christian  art  rejects  squares.  You 
shall  see,  you  shall  see." 

u  You  may  say  so  if  you  like,  Mi- 
Cumberland — but  a  great  many  artists 
live  in  squares, "said  Mrs  Bnrtonshaw. 
"  Do  you  say  your  friend  Mr  Steele  is 
not  a  Christian  ?  for  his  house  is  in 
Fitzroy  Square,  I  know.  There  he 
is,  I  believe.  I  was  sure  it  was  him 
when  I  heard  the  door  open  ;  and  of 
course  John  will  be  doing  all  he  can 
to  keep  from  laughing  when  he  brings 
Mr  Steele  here." 


308 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 


[Sept. 


"  Of  course,"  as  Mrs  Burtonshaw 
said,  John  was  in  a  state  of  extreme 
anguish  from  suppressed  laughter 
when  he  ushered  Mr  Steele  into  the 
drawing-room.  The  maids  in  the 
house  pronounced  Mr  Steele  "  a  very 
funny  gentleman  ;"  but  John  anathe- 
matised him  when  he  retired  to  ex- 
plode in  private.  John  did  not  like 
making  his  appearance  with  all  his 
laughter,  painfully  restrained,  bursting 
in  his  face. 

"  I  wish  I  could  do  it  half  as  well," 
said  Mr  Steele,  lifting  his  eyebrows 
as  Mr  Cumberland  placed  his  sketch 
of  a  porch  before  him.  "What  is  it  for? 
Break  out  a  light  here" — and  the  artist 
mercilessly  scribbled  on  the  porch 
which  the  philosopher  had  been  at  so 
much  pains  with — "  and  you'll  make 
it  a  famous  painting-room.  I've  got  a 
picture  to  paint  now  for  the  Duke  of 
Scattergood  ;  it's  full  of  leafage  and 
fruitage,  and  running  to  seed.  What 
would  you  advise  me  to  call  it,  eh? — 
the  hardest  thing  in  a  picture  is  the 
name." 

"  Call  it '  After  the  Harvest,' "  said 
Mary. 

444Afterthe  Harvest.'  Let's  see  now: 
that  ought  to  be  a  stubble-field,  with 
some  cornflowers  half  dead,  and  a 
shower  of  apples.  No ;  I  want  to  give 
his  grace  a  hint  of  a  lecture.  '  After 
the  Harvest !' — no.  'Too  Latefor  Reap- 
ing— scatter  it,' — how  would  that  do  ? 
He's  Scattergood,  you  know — eh  ?  Do 
you  think  he'll  make  it  out  ?" 

44  I  do,"  said  Sylvo. 

"Do  you?"  said  the  artist.  It  was 
evidently  quite  satisfactory,  since  what 
Sylvo  made  out  could  not  be  very 
abstruse.  All  this  while  Mr  Steele  was 
scribbling  at  that  pretty  porch  of  Mr 
Cumberland's.  It  was  a  grievous  trial 
to  the  temper  of  the  philosopher. 

44  I'll  tell  you  a  thing  that  happened 
to  me,"  said  Mr  Steele,  without  look- 
ing up  from  his  work  of  mischief.  "  I 
saw  a  picture  in  a  window  the  other 
day — a  little  sketch  of  my  own — so  I 
went  in.  *  Who's  that  by  ? '  says  I. 
'  Can't  tell,  sir,'  says  the  dealer; 4  said 
to  be  a  Steele ;  but  I  don't  pretend  it's 
a  Steele;  you  shall  have  it  for  six 
pounds.'  Well,  I  knew  my  name 
was  on  it,  so  I  turned  to  the  back — 
*  There's  George  Steele  on  it,'  says  I. 
4  Yes,  to  be  sure,  anybody  could  put 
that  on,'  says  the  dealer,  so  I  gave' 


him  six  pounds,  and  brought  off  the 
picture.  Next  day  I  sold  it  for  a 
hundred.  Now,  do  you  know,"  said 
the  artist,  looking  up  with  a  face  which 
had  suddenly  subsided,  out  of  the  satis- 
faction with  which  he  had  repeated 
this  dialogue,  into  doubt  and  irresolu- 
tion, "  I  can't  rest  since.  I  think  I 
ought  to  go  and  give  him  half.  What 
do  you  say?" 

u  Such  beautiful  disinterestedness! " 
said  Mrs  Cumberland,  holding  up  her 
hands. 

44  Eh?"  said  Mr  Steele.  He  was 
a  great  deal  too  much  in  earnest  about 
what  he  said  to  notice  that  this  was 
commendation.  "  I  know  where  it 
came  from ;  it  had  gone  for  next  to 
nothing  at  a  sale.  The  dealer  had 
his  profit,  of  course:  catch  one  of  them 
selling  a  picture  without  a  profit. 
Now,  what  do  you  think  I  should  do?" 

44  You  are  spoiling  my  drawing, 
Steele,"  said  Mr  Cumberland  at  last, 
worn  out  of  patience;  "  how  do  you 
think  any  man  is  to  work  from  it  after 
allyour  flourishes?  Let  me  have  it  here." 

44  I  am  working  from  it  myself," 
said  the  artist,  throwing  out  a  succes- 
sion of  fanciful  branches  from  Mr 
Cumberland's  Gothic  porch.  4t  See 
now,  because  I'm  ornamenting  his 
shabby  bit  of  outline,  how  he  keeps  in 
his  counsel.  I  had  rather  work  from 
it  than  for  it,  I  can  tell  you.  Don't 
let  him  begin  to  build;  he'll  never  be 
done :  he'll  cumber  land  with  his  porches 
and  his  pinnacles,  if  he  once  begins." 

44  That  is  just  what  I  say,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw.  44  You  are  a  painter ; 
you  are  always  doing  ornaments. 
Do  ornaments  make  you  happy,  Mr 
Steele  ?  " 

Mr  Steele  looked  with  some  doubt- 
fulness at  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  She  who 
had  once  brought  the  reproaches  of  his 
own  conscience  upon  him  was  some- 
what of  an  awful  personage  to  this 
acute  yet  simple  spirit.  u  Now,  what 
do  you  say  I  ought  to  do?"  said  the 
artist.  He  was  convinced  this  must 
be  a  very  conscientious  person  —  a 
mind  still  more  upright  than  his  own. 

u  Do? — why,  give  me  back  my  draw- 
ing, to  be  sure,"  said  Mr  Cumber- 
land. 44  Eh  !  why,  Steele,  what's  this 
you've  been  about?"  It  was  still 
Mr  Cumberland's  porch,  but  it  was 
a  porch  luxuriantly  mantled  over 
with  the  fantastic  wreathwork  of  a 


1855.] 

vine.  The  bit  of  paper  was  hence- 
forth not  an  idea  of  Mr  Cumberland's, 
but  a  thing  called,  in  the  dialect  of 
picture- dealers,  "  a  Steele."  Mary 
seized  upon  it  eagerly  for  the  album, 
in  which  already  Percy  Vivian  figured, 
and  Mr  Steele  threw  down  his  pencil. 
"  Come  in  and  see  my  picture,  will 
you  ?  "  said  the  artist ;  u  I'll  introduce 
you  to  Shenkin  Powis,  who  makes  all 


Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  X.  309 

that  row  about  architecture.  That's 
his  book,  is  it? — it's  all  along  of  him 
you  are  going  to  build.  Does  orna- 
ment make  me  happy,  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw? — now,  when  do  you  see  an 
ornament  on  me?  Ask  him  with 
his  mustache  there.  Are  you  'appy, 
young  gentleman  ?  He  has  a  better 
right,  his  young  squireship,  than  a 
poor  old  fellow  like  me." 


CHAPTER  XVI.— IMPROVEMENT. 


But  though  Mr  Cumberland's  de- 
sign had  passed  out  of  his  hands,  and 
become  "  a  Steele,"  his  intention 
was  unchanged.  Our  philosopher 
drove  into  London,  was  introduced 
to  Mr  Shenkin  Powis,  and  drove  out 
again,  bringing  with  him  that  lumi- 
nary of  architectural  morality,  while 
Mary's  pretty  face,  full  of  sunny 
mirth,  looked  out  from  the  bow- 
window,  and  Zaidee,  reserved  and 
silent,  her  ears  tingling  once  again 
to  the  stranger's  familiar  name,  sat 
behind.  Mr  Cumberland  stood  on  the 
lawn  with  his  visitor,  dooming  to  de- 
struction this  hapless  square  house, 
with  its  four  corners,  and  projecting  a 
Gothic  castle  in  its  stead.  Mrs  Cum- 
berland, reclining  on  her  sofa,  com- 
forted herself  that  it  was  a  "  beau- 
tiful idea;"  but  the  whole  feminine 
population  of  the  house,  except  her- 
self, watched  the  two  gentlemen  on 
the  lawn  as  they  might  have  watched 
an  invading  army,  with  earnest  hos- 
tility and  eager  vigilance.  "  I  won- 
der how  they  can  look  at  all  these 
pretty  innocent  trees,"  said  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw,  "  and  that  grass  that  is 
like  velvet,  and  everything  so  settled 
and  comfortable;— I  wonder  they  have 
the  heart  to  look  at  them,  Maria 
Anna!  and  to  think  that,  in  a  day  or 
two,  there  will  be  nothing  but  dust, 
and  hammers,  and  masons,  and  all 
sorts  of  people.  What  does  Mr  Cum- 
berland mean  by  a  square  being  a 
heathen  institution  ?  We  are  not  liv- 
ing in  a  square;  and  I  am  sure  there 
is  Belgravia,  and  Grosvenor  Square, 
and  all  the  rest  of  them,  which  are 
iust  the  very  best  places  one  can  live 
in  ;  but  Mr  Cumberland,  of  course, 
will  never  be  like  other  people.  Mary, 
my  love,  we  will  have  to  go  away." 

k'  I  would  rather  not  go  away,  Aunt 


Burtonshaw,"  said  Mary.  Papa's  new 
freak  became  somewhat  more  serious 
if  it  involved  this  necessity. 

"  But,  my  love,  we  cannot  help 
ourselves,"  said  Aunt  Burtonshaw.  "  I 
think  we  will  go  to  Sylvo's  place,  Eli- 
zabeth ;  you  would  like  to  see  Sylvo's 
place,  my  dear  child ;  now  I  am  sure 
you  would,  though  you  do  not  like  to 
say  it." 

"  But  I  do  like  to  say  it,"  said 
Zaidee,  with  a  smile  of  wonder  ;  "  I 
should  like  very  well  to  see  Sylvo's 
place,  Aunt  Burtonshaw,  if  we  must 
leave  home." 

"  Poor  dear!"  said  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw, lovingly,  smoothing  Zaidee's 
beautiful  hair,  and  thinking  of  the 
refractory  Sylvo,  who  could  not  now 
be  induced  to  devote  himself  to  Zaidee. 
Sylvo  had  his  repulse  fresh  in  his  mind 
yet,  but  did  not  condescend  to  inform 
his  mother  why  he  regarded  her  re- 
commendation so  little  ;  so  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw expended  a  great  deal  of 
sympathy  upon  Zaidee's  unfortunate 
attachment,  and  constantly  called  her 
u  poor  dear  !  " 

Mr  Shenkin  Powis  was  a  man  of 
some  note  in  the  world.  Mrs  Cum- 
berland had  a  luncheon  prepared  for 
him,  and  waited  to  receive  him  with 
a  very  pretty  compliment ;  while  old 
Jane  Williams  lingered  on  the  stair- 
case, anxious  to  waylay  the  visitor, 
and  inspect  him,  to  discover  what  re- 
lationship he  bore  to  the  house  of 
Powisland.  The  disappointment  of 
both  these  watchers  was  great,  when 
Mr  Shenkin  Powis  shook  hands  with 
Mr  Cumberland  on  the  lawn,  and 
left  this  hospitable  mansion  unde- 
molished  and  unvisited.  "  I  have  sent 
Parkins  to  drive  him  to  Richmond," 
said  Mr  Cumberland,  as  he  came 


in 


he  could    not  wait— he    had 


310 


an  appointment.  I 
appointed  in  him,  sister  Burtonshaw 
— clever  undoubtedly,  but  a  crotchety 
man — a  crotchety  man.  The  fact  is,  my 
genius  will  not  go  in  leading-strings. 
Think  of  the  man  trying  to  convince 
me  that,  unless  I  pulled  it  down  and 
rebuilt  it  from  the  foundations,  it 
would  be  better  to  leave  the  house  as 
it  is.  He  does  not  approve  of  rounding 
an  angle  by  thickening  the  masonry; 
it  is  not  sincere.  I  grant  the  necessity 
of  truth  in  form — that  is  the  beauty  of 
it;  but  think  of  a  sincere  wall,  sister 
Burtonshaw!  No  :  I  find  I  must  ori- 
ginate and  execute  by  myself;  the 
result  will  show." 

"  Then  you  will  go  on,  Mr  Cumber- 
land," said  Mrs  Burtonshaw, "  though 
even  Mr  Shenkin  Powis  knows  bet- 
ter !  Well,  I  am  sure  I  have  told  you 
what  I  think,  and  if  you  will  not  hear 
common  sense  I  cannot  help  it.  But 
we  must  go  away,  you  know;  we 
cannot  stay  when  you  have  workmen 
all  over  the  house.  The  children  want 
a  change,  too ;  they  want  change  of 
air,  poor  dears.  We  will  go  to  Sylvo's 
place,  Mr  Cumberland ;  and  when  you 
have  cut'up  all  the  poor  pretty  lawn, 
and  destroyed  everything,  you  will 
send  for  us  to  come  home." 

But  Mr  Cumberland  was  quite  be- 
yond the  reach  of  Aunt  Burtonshaw's 
innocent  sarcasm.  He  was  measur- 
ing, and  planning,  and  making  very 
rude  sketches  with  a  great  pencil 
which  one  of  the  workmen,  brought 
here  on  an  errand  of  investigation, 
had  left  this  morning.  Mr  Cumber- 
land made  his  design  for  the  Gothic 
porch  over  again,  putting  particular 
emphasis  on  its  roof  and  its  benches. 
"  We  would  want  no  refuge  for  the 
destitute,  no  great  indiscriminate 
shelter  for  the  houseless  poor,  if  this 
plan  were  universally  adopted,"  said 
Mr  Cumberland ;  "  the  greatest  possi- 
ble incentive  to  private  charity — the 
best  plan  that  could  be  adopted  for 
giving  each  family  a  little  community 
of  friendly  dependents.  Depend  upon 
it,  sister  Burtonshaw,  you  will  hear  of 
this  before  the  year  is  out." 

But  Mrs  Burtonshaw  had  gone  to 
seek  Sylvo,  to  prepare  him  for  the 
honour  about  to  be  done  to  his  place. 
Sylvo  received  the  proposal  somewhat 
gruffly,  but  not  without  satisfaction. 
He  was  pleased  to  have  "  a  regular 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  X. 
am  a  little  dis-     beauty,"   to  make 


[Sept. 

his  place  famous 
among  his  neighbours ;  and  perhaps 
Sylvo  had  an  idea  that  he  had  been 
sufficiently  rude  and  resentful,  and 
that  now  it  might  be  time  to  melt  a 
little  towards  Zaidee,  and  give  her 
another  chance.  "  People  say  you 
should  never  take  a  woman  at  her 
first  word,"  muttered  Sylvo,  as  he 
lounged  with  his  cigar  among  the 
trees,  and  recalled  with  complacency 
his  mother's  flattering  explanation 
of  Zaidee's  silence  and  thoughtful- 
ness.  "  Why  can't  she  be  honest, 
and  say  as  much  ?  "  said  Sylvo ;  "  but 
I  suppose  it's  woman's  way."  He 
was  very  well  satisfied  with  this  con- 
clusion. The  young  gentleman  was  not 
of  an  inquiring  mind  in  general — and 
he  graciously  resolved  upon  giving 
Zaidee  another  chance. 

"  Sylvo's  place  !  where  the  only  so- 
ciety is  the  gentleman  savage  whom 
Aunt  Burtonshaw  is  so  much  afraid 
of,"  said  Mary  ;  and  Mary  shrugged 
her  shoulders,  and  pouted  her  red  lip. 
"  Yes,  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see 
Sylvo's  place,  my  dear  Elizabeth," 
said  Mrs  Cumberland ;  "  we  will  carry 
female  influence,  and  I  trust  refine- 
ment, there :  it  will  do  Sylvo  good,  I 
am  sure."  Only  Zaidee  said  nothing 
either  of  satisfaction  or  approval. 
"  She  thinks  the  more,  poor  dear," 
said  Aunt  Burtonshaw. 

And  it  was  a  very  fortunate  change 
for  Zaidee  this  removal ;  it  carried 
her  away  from  the  daily  excitement — 
the  secret  anxiety,  which  constantly 
had  fresh  fuel  added  to  raise  it  higher. 
Mary  might  pout,  but  she  could 
not  help  herself;  and  perhaps  it  was 
no  harm  to  Mary  either,  this  going 
away.  The  preparations  were  made 
very  hastily,  for  Mr  Cumberland 
was  taking  vigorous  measures.  The 
door  was  impassable  before  the 
little  party  were  ready:  they  had 
to  make  their  escape  by  the  win- 
dow, after  all,  according  to  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw's prophecy;  and  even  the 
window  would  not  have  been  left  to 
them  had  they  stayed  another  day. 
From  the  noise  and  dust  and  disturb- 
ance of  Mr  Cumberland's  improve- 
ments, they  went  gratefully  through 
the  bright  country,  on  their  short 
summer's  day's  journey  to  Sylvo's 
place.  Sylvo  was  quite  in  great 
spirits,  laughing  great "  ha,  ha's"  from 


1855.]  Maud.     By 

under  his  mustache,  no  one  could 
tell  for  what  reason,  and  preparing 
himself  for  the  most  joyous  hospi- 
tality; he  felt  that  he  would  rather 
astonish  Mansfield,  when  that  excel- 
lent savage  came  to  visit  him,  on 
his  arrival.  Two  beautiful  cousins 
do  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  every  man ; 
the  curve  of  Sylvo's  mustache  re- 
laxed, and  those  admirable  teeth  of 
his  slightly  revealed  themselves ;  he 
tried  a  pun  after  the  fashion  of  Mr 
Steele,  and  made  such  a  deplorable 
failure  that  the  attempt  was  followed 
by  infinite  plaudits;  and  on  the  whole 
he  could  not  help  a  comfortable  con- 
viction of  his  own  attractions,  mental 
and  physical.  Sylvo  was  returning  to 
his  place,  improved  by  the  society  of 
genius  and  feminine  refinement,  in  the 
best  temper  and  best  hopes  imaginable. 
It  was  quite  a  brilliant  day  for  Sylvo, 
the  day  which  made  him  sole  cava- 
lier of  this  little  travelling  party  ;  he 
grew  quite  elated  with  his  important 
position  as  he  drew  "nearer  home. 

And  Sylvo  was  not  disappointed  in 
his  expectations.  Mr  Mansfield  was 
astonished  when  he  stalked  in,  in  his 
morning  costume,  redolent  of  cigars, 
and  was  ushered  into  a  drawing- 
room  full  of  ladies.  Mr  Mansfield's 


Alfred  Tennyson.  311 

astonishment  was  so  extreme  indeed 
that  he  well-nigh  made  a  quarrel  with 
Sylvo,  who  "  might  have  let  a  man 
know  before  he  went  right  in  among 
them,"  Mr  Mansfield  thought.  The 
beautiful  cousins  made  a  great  sensa- 
tion in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sylvo's 
place,  where  they  shook  off  his 
attendance  rather  unceremoniously, 
and  wandered  by  themselves  through 
the  flowery  lanes  and  fields.  It  was 
a  great  refreshment  to  each  of  these 
young  hearts;  they  expanded  once 
more  to  each  other,  and  from  this 
little  pause  and  moment  of  observa- 
tion looked  back  upon  the  time  which 
had  just  passed.  It  was  a  time  of 
infinite  interest  and  importance  to 
both  of  them :  to  Mary  the  crisis  of 
her  life;  to  Zaidee  a  great  and 
strange  trial,  by  means  of  which  the 
crisis  of  her  life  also  was  to  come. 
While  Mr  Cumberland's  porch  rose 
with  its  odd  Gothic  pinnacles  on  the 
square  gable,  which  it  was  his  in- 
tention to  mould  into  conformity  with 
the  lines  of  nature,  Mr  Cumber- 
land's household  found  a  very  plea- 
sant change  in  Sylvo's  place;  and 
Sylvo  had  quite  made  up  his  mind,  by 
this  time,  when  and  how  he  was  to 
offer  to  Zaidee  "  another  chance." 


MAUD.      BY  ALFRED   TENNYSON. 


WE  are  old  enough  to  remember 
the  time  when  the  bare  announce- 
ment of  a  new  poem  from  the  pen  of 
Byron,  or  of  a  new  romance  from 
that  of  Scott,  was  sufficient  to  send  a 
thrill  of  curiosity  and  expectation 
through  the  whole  body  of  the  pub- 
lic. No  ingenious  newspaper  puffs, 
containing  hints  as  to  the  nature  and 
tone  of  the  forthcoming  production, 
were  then  required  to  stimulate  the 
jaded  appetite,  and  prepare  it  for  the 
enjoyment  of  the  promised  feast. 
Gluttons  all  of  us,  we  had  hardly 
devoured  one  dish  fit  for  a  banquet  of 
the  gods,  before  we  were  ready  for 
another ;  and  it  needed  not  the  note 
of  lute  or  psaltery,  sackbut  or  dul- 
cimer, to  induce  us  to  pounce,  raven- 
ous as  eagles,  upon  the  coming  prey. 


Some  selfishness  undoubtedly  there 
was ;  for  we  have  known  desperate, 
and  even  demoniacal,  struggles  take 
place  for  the  possession  of  an  early 
copy.  The  mail-coach,  which  was 
supposed  to  carry  one  or  more  of 
these  precious  parcels  a  week  or  so 
before  the  general  delivery,  was  in 
much  greater  danger  of  being  stopped 
and  plundered  than  if  the  boot  had 
been  stuffed  with  boxes  containing 
the  laminous  issue  of  the  Bank  of 
England.  One  ancient  guard,  well 
known  to  travellers  on  the  north 
road  for  his  civility  to  passengers 
and  his  admiration  of  rum  and  milk, 
used  to  exhibit  a  lump  behind  his  ear, 
about  the  size  of  a  magnum  bonum 
plum,  arising  from  an  injury  caused 
by  the  pistol  of  a  literary  footpad, 


Maud,    and   other    Poems.    By    ALFRED    TENNYSON,   D.C.L.,    Poet   Laureate. 
London,  1855. 


312  Maud.     By 

who  attacked  the  mail  near  Alnwick 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  forcible 
possession  of  a  proof  copy  of  Rob  Roy. 
Judges  were  known  to  have  absented 
themselves  from  the  bench  for  the  un- 
disturbed engorgement,  and  for  weeks 
afterwards  the  legal  opinions  which 
they  delivered  were  strangely  studded 
with  medieval  terms.  As  for  the 
poetical  apprentices,  Byron  was,  in- 
deed, the  very  prince  of  the  flat-caps. 
No  sooner  was  a  fresh  work  of  his 
announced,  than  opium  and  prussic 
acid  rose  rapidly  in  the  market ;  and 
the  joyous  tidings  of  some  new  har- 
lotry by  Mr  Thomas  Moore  created  a 
fluttering  as  of  besmirched  doves 
among  the  delicate  damsels  of  Drury 
Lane. 

All  that,  however,  is  matter  of  his- 
tory, for  the  world  since  then  has 
become,  if  not  wiser,  much  more  cal- 
lous and  indifferent.  We  have  been 
fed  for  a  long  time  upon  adulterated 
viands,  and  have  grown  mightily  sus- 
picious of  the  sauce.  Since  the  lite- 
rary caterers,  with  very  few  excep- 
tions, betook  themselves  to  puffing, 
and  to  the  dubious  task  of  represent- 
ing garbage  only  fit  for  cat's- meat,  as 
pieces  of  the  primest  quality,  men 
have  grown  shy  through  frequent 
disappointment,  and  will  not  allow 
themselves  to  be  seduced  into  antici- 
patory ecstasies  even  by  the  most 
tempting  bill  of  fare.  When  every 
possible  kind  of  publication — from 
the  lumbering  journals  and  salacious 
court-gossip  of  some  antiquated  pa- 
trician pantaloon,  edited  by  his  sense- 
less son,  down  to  the  last  History  of 
the  Highway,  with  sketches  of  emi- 
nent burglars — from  the  play  after 
the  perusal  of  which  in  manuscript 
Mr  Macready  was  attacked  by  Brit- 
ish cholera,  down  to  the  poem  so  very 
spasmodic  that  it  reminds  you  of  the 
writhing  of  a  knot  of  worms — from 
audacious,  though  most  contemptible, 
forgeries  on  the  dead,  down  to  the 
autobiography  of  a  rogue  and  a 
swindler— is  represented  as  k'  a  work 
of  surpassing  interest,  full  of  genius, 
calculated  to  make  a  lasting  impres- 
sion on  the  public  mind,"  and  so  forth, 
can  it  be  wondered  at  if  the  public 
has  long  ago  lost  faith  in  such  an- 
nouncements ?  It  would  be  as  easy  to 
induce  a  pack  of  fox-hounds  to  follow 
a  trail  through  the  town  of  Wick  in 


Alfred  Tennyson.  [Sept. 

the  herring  season,  as  to  allure  pur- 
chasers by  dint  of  this  indiscriminate 
system  of  laudation. 

Yet  we  deny  not  that  at  times  we 
feel  a  recurrence  of  the  old  fever-fit  of 
expectation.  The  advertisement  of 
a  forthcoming  novel  by  Sir  E.  B. 
Lytton  would  excite  in  the  bosoms  of 
many  of  us  sensations  similar  to  those 
which  agitate  a  Junior  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  at  the  near  approach  of 
quarter-day.  If  we  could  only  be 
assured  of  the  exact  time  when  Mr 
Macaulay's  new  volumes  are  to  ap- 
pear, we  might,  even  now,  forgive 
him  for  having  kept  us  so  long  upon 
the  tenter-hooks.  Let  Lord  Paliner- 
ston  fix  a  precise  day  for  the  issue  of 
his  Life  and  Political  Reminiscences, 
and  we  gage  our  credit  that,  before 
dawn,  the  doors  of  his  publisher  will 
be  besieged ;  and,  to  come  to  the 
immediate  subject  of  this  article, 
we  have  been  waiting  for  a  long 
time,  with  deep  anxiety,  for  the 
promised  new  volume  of  poems  by 
Alfred  Tennyson.  The  young  cor- 
morant, whom  from  our  study  window 
we  see  sitting  upon  a  rock  in  the  voe, 
was  an  egg  on  a  ledge  of  the  cliff 
when  we  first  heard  whisper  that  the 
Laureate  was  again  preparing  to  sing. 
The  early  daisies  were  then  starring 
the  sward,  and  the  primroses  bloom- 
ing on  the  bank ;  and  now  the  pop- 
pies are  red  amongst  the  corn,  and 
the  corn  itself  yellowing  into  harvest. 
Post  after  post  arrived,  and  yet  they 
brought  not  Maud — a  sore  disap- 
pointment to  us,  for  we  are  dwelling 
in  the  land  of  the  Niebelungen,  where, 
Providence  be  praised,  there  are  no 
railways,  and  cheap  literature  is  de- 
liciously  scarce — so  we  fell  back  upon 
Tennyson's  earlier  poems,  solaced 
ourselves  with  the  glorious  rhythm  of 
Locksley  Hall  and  the  Morte  D 'Arthur \ 
lay  among  the  purple  heather,  and 
read  Ulysses  and  the  Lotos-eaters,  and 
dreamed  luxuriously  of  the  Sleeping 
Beauty.  These,  and  one  or  two 
others,  such  as  Dora,  and  the  Gar' 
dener's  Daughter,  are  poems  of  which 
we  never  tire,  so  exquisite  is  their 
expression,  and  so  delicate  their  music; 
and  for  their  sake  we  are  content  to 
pass  over  a  good  deal  that  is  indiffer- 
ent in  quality,  and  much  that  is  af- 
fected in  manner.  For — the  truth 
'  must  be  said,  notwithstanding  the 


1855.] 


Maud.     By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


chirping  of  numerous  indiscreet  ad- 
mirers who  are  incapable  of  distin- 
guishing one  note  from  another — 
Alfred  Tennyson  is  singularly  un- 
equal in  composition.  Some  of  the 
poems  upon  which  he  appears  to  have 
bestowed  the  greatest  amount  of  la- 
bour, and  on  which  we  suspect  he 
particularly  plumes  himself,  are  his 
worst;  and  we  never  could  join  in 
the  admiration  which  we  have  heard 
expressed  for  In  Memoriam.  It  is 
simply  a  dirge  with  countless  vari- 
ations, calculated,  no  doubt,  to  show 
the  skill  of  the  musician,  but  convey- 
ing no  impression  of  reality  or  truth- 
fulness to  the  mind.  Grief  may  be 
so  drawled  out  and  protracted  as  to 
lose  its  primary  character,  and  to  as- 
sume that  very  modified  form  which 
the  older  poets  used  to  denominate 
the  luxury  of  woe.  One  epitaph,  in 
prose  or  verse,  is  enough  for  even  the 
best  of  our  race,  and  the  briefer  it 
can  be  made,  the  better.  To  sit 
down  deliberately  and  elaborate  se- 
veral scores  in  memory  of  the  same 
individual,  is  a  waste  of  ingenuity  on 
the  part  of  the  writer,  and  a  sore 
trial  of  temper  to  the  reader.  Nor 
can  we  aver  that  we  are  at  all  partial 
to  this  kind  of  funereal  commemoration 
when  carried  to  an  extreme.  Poets 
may  be  excused  for  fabricating,  in 
their  hours  of  melancholy,  an  occa- 
sional dirge  or  so,  which  may  serve 
as  a  safety-valve  to  their  excited  feel- 
ings ;  but  their  voices  were  given 
them  for  something  better  than  to 
keep  wheezing  all  day  long  like  a 
chorus  of  consumptive  sextons.  There- 
fore we  have  never  included  In  Me- 
moriam in  the  list  of  our  travelling 
library,  but  have  left  it  at  home  on  the 
same  shelf  with  Blair's  Grave,  and  the 
Oraisons  Funebres. 

We  confess  to  have  been  disap- 
pointed with  The  Princess.  The  idea 
of  the  poem,  though  somewhat  bi- 
zarre, was  novel  and  ingenious,  and 
allowed  scope  for  great  variety,  but 
it  necessarily  implied  the  possession 
of  more  humorous  power  than  Mr 
Tennyson  has  yet  displayed.  In  it, 
however,  are  to  be  found  some  most 
beautiful  lines  and  passages — so  beau- 
tiful, indeed,  that  they  almost  seem 
out  of  place  in  a  poem  which,  as  a 
whole,  leaves  so  faint  and  vague  an 
impression  on  the  mind  of  the  reader. 


313 

We  ought,  however,  to  accept  The 
Princess,  a  Medley,  for  what  it  pro- 
bably was  intended  to  be — a  freak  of 
fancy  ;  and  in  that  view  it  would  be 
unfair  to  apply  to  it  any  stringent 
rules  of  criticism. 

Even  those  who  esteemed  his  later 
volumes  more  highly  than  we  were 
able  to  do — who  protested  that  they 
had  wept  over  portions  of  In  Memo- 
riam, and  that  they  were  able  to  ex- 
tract deep  lessons  of  philosophy  from 
divers  dark  sayings  in  The  Princess, 
which,  to  uninitiated  eyes,  seemed 
rather  devoid  of  meaning — even  they 
were  constrained  to  admit  that  some- 
thing better  might  have  been  expected 
from  Alfred.  And  now,  when,  after  a 
breathing -time,  he  had  taken  the 
field  afresh,  we  entertained  a  sincere 
and  earnest  hope  that  his  new  poem 
would  be  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  any 
of  his  former  productions. 

We  have  at  last  received  Maud, 
and  we  have  risen  from  its  perusal 
dispirited  and  sorrowful.  It  is  not  a 
light  thing  nor  a  trivial  annoyance  to 
a  sincere  lover  of  literature  to  have  it 
forced  upon  his  conviction  that  the 
man,  who  has  unquestionably  occu- 
pied for  years  the  first  place  among 
the  living  British  poets,  is  losing 
ground  with  each  successive  effort. 
During  the  earlier  part  of  the  present 
century,  when  poetry  as  an  especial 
art  was  more  cultivated  if  not  more 
prized  than  now,  there  were  many 
competitors  for  the  laurels  ;  and 
when  the  song  of  one  minstrel  ceased 
or  grew  faint,  another  was  emulous 
with  his  strain.  It  is  not  so  now. 
We  have,  indeed,  much  piping,  but 
little  real  melody  5  and  knowing  that 
we  have  but  a  very  slight  poetical 
reserve  to  fall  back  upon,  we  watch 
with  more  than  ordinary  vigilance 
and  anxiety  the  career  of  those  who 
have  already  won  a  reputation.  It 
is  singular,  but  true,  that  the  high 
burst  of  poetry  which  many  years 
ago  was  simultaneously  exhibited 
both  in  Germany  and  Great  Bri- 
tain, has  suddenly  declined  in  either 
country — that  no  adequate  successors 
should  be  found  to  Schiller,  Goethe, 
Tieck,  and  Uhland,  in  the  one — or  to 
Scott,  Byron,  Campbell,  and  Cole- 
ridge, in  the  other.  Many  more 
names,  both  German  and  British,  we 
might  have  cited  as  belonging  to  the 


3U 


Maud.     By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


[Sept. 


last  poetic  era,  but  these  are  enough 
to  show,  by  comparison,  how  much 
we  have  dwarfed  in  poetry.  It  may 
be  that  this  is  partly  owing  to  the 
wider  range  of  modern  literature,  and 
the  greatly  increased  demand  for 
ready  literary  ability,  but  the  fact  re- 
mains as  we  have  stated  it ;  and  cer- 
tainly there  are  now  few  among  us 
who  devote  themselves  exclusively 
to  the  poetic  art,  and  fewer  still  who 
have  cultivated  it  with  anything  ap- 
proaching to  success.  First  among 
the  latter  class  we  have  ranked,  and 
still  do  rank,  Tennyson.  He  has  re- 
sisted all  literary  temptations  which 
might  have  interfered  with  his  craft ; 
like  Wordsworth,  he  has  refused  to 
become  a  litterateur,  and  has  taken  his 
lofty  stand  upon  minstrelsy  alone.  And 
upon  that  one  account,  if  on  no  other, 
we  should  deeply  regret  to  see  him 
fail.  Occasional  failure,  or  what  the 
world  will  term  as  such,  is  no  more 
than  every  poet  who  has  early  de- 
veloped his  powers,  and  whose  genius 
has  met  with  ready  recognition,  must 
expect;  for,  in  the  absence  of  any 
universal  standard,  the  public  are 
wont  to  weigh  the  actions,  words,  and 
writings  of  each  man  separately,  and 
to  decide  upon  their  merit  according 
to  previous  achievement.  It  may  be 
a  positive  misfortune  to  have  suc- 
ceeded too  early.  There  is  much  more 
in  the  word  "  Excelsior  "  than  meets 
the  common  eyes,  or,  we  shrewdly 
apprehend,  than  reaches  the  under- 
standing of  the  men  who  use  it  so 
freely.  A  man  may  rise  to  fame  by 
one  sudden  effort ;  but  unless  he  can 
leap  as  high,  if  not  higher,  again,  he 
will  presently  be  talked  of  as  a  cripple 
by  multitudes,  who,  but  for  his  first 
airy  vault,  would  have  regarded  his 
second  with  astonishment.  It  is  the 
consciousness  of  the  universal  appli- 
cation of  this  rule  of  individual  com- 
parison which,  in  all  ages,  has  forced 
poets  and  other  literary  men  to  study 
variety.  Having  achieved  decided 
success  in  one  department,  they  doubt 
Vhether  their  second  effort  can  tran- 
scend the  first ;  and  being  unwilling 
to  acknowledge  discomfiture,  even  by 
themselves,  they  essay  some  new  feat 
of  intellectual  gymnastics.  That  the 
world  has  been  a  gainer  thereby  we 
do  not  doubt.  "  New  fields  and  new 
pastures"  are  as  necessary  to  the. 


poet  as  to  the  shepherd ;  only  it  be- 
hoves him  to  take  care  that  he  does 
not  conduct  us  to  a  barren  moor. 

Now  let  us  examine  more  parti- 
cularly the  poem  before  us.  Had 
Maud  been  put  into  our  hands  as  the 
work  of  some  young  unrecognised 
poet,  we  should  have  said  that  it  ex- 
hibited very  great  promise — that  it 
contained  at  least  one  passage  of  such 
extraordinary  rythmical  music,  that 
the  sense  became  subordinate  to  the 
sound,  a  result  which,  except  in  the 
case  of  one  or  two  of  the  plaintive 
ancient  Scottish  ballads,  and  some 
of  the  lyrics  of  Burns,  has  hardly 
ever  been  attained  by  any  British 
writer  of  poetry — that  such  passages, 
however,  though  they  exhibited  the 
remarkable  powers  of  the  author,  were 
by  no  means  to  be  considered  as  mani- 
festations, or  rather  assurances,  of  his 
judgment,  even  in  musical  matters, 
since  they  alternated  with  others  of 
positively  hideous  cacophony,  such  as 
we  should  have  supposed  that  no 
man  gifted  with  a  tolerable  ear  and 
pliable  fingers  would  have  perpetrated 
— that  sometimes  a  questionable  taste 
had  been  exhibited  in  the  selection  of 
ornaments,  which  were  rather  gaudy 
than  graceful,  and  often  too  ostenta- 
tiously exposed — that  there  were  other 
grave  errors  against  taste  which  we 
could  only  attribute  to  want  of  prac- 
tice and  study — that  the  objection- 
able and  unartistic  portions  of  the 
poem  were,  leaving  the  mediocre 
ones  altogether  out  of  the  question, 
grossly  disproportionate  to  the  good 
— and  that  the  general  effect  of  the 
poem  was  unhappy,  unwholesome, 
and  disagreeable.  Such  would  have 
been  our  verdict,  had  we  not  known 
who  was  the  writer;  and  we  feel 
a  double  disappointment  now  when 
forced  to  record  it  against  a  poet  of 
such  deserved  reputation.  But  it  is 
the  best  course  to  express  our  opinion 
honestly,  and  without  reservation. 
Mr  Tennyson's  indiscriminate  ad- 
mirers may  possibly  think  it  their 
duty  to  represent  this,  his  latest  pro- 
duction, as  a  magnificent  triumph  of 
genius,  but  they  never  will  be  able 
to  persuade  the  public  to  adopt  that 
view,  and  we  trust  most  sincerely 
that  the  Laureate  will  not  permit  him- 
self to  be  confirmed  in  practical  error 
through  their  flatteries.  We  say  this 


1855.] 


Maud.     By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


much  because  we  see  no  reason  for 
attributing  the  inferior  quality  of  his 
later  poems  to  any  decay  of  his  native 
or  acquired  powers.  We  believe  that 
he  can,  whenever  he  pleases,  delight 
the  world  once  more  with  such  poetry 
as  he  enunciated  in  his  youth  ;  but 
we  think  that  he  has  somehow  or  other 
been  led  astray  by  poetic  theories, 
which  may  be  admirably  adapted  for 
the  consideration  of  dilettanti,  but 
which  are  calculated  rather  to  spoil 
than  to  enhance  the  productions  of 
a  man  of  real  genius.  Theories 
have  been  ere  now  the  curse  of  many 
poets.  For  example,  who  will  deny 
that,  but  for  their  obstinate  adher- 
ence to  theory,  the  reputations  both 
of  Wordsworth  and  of  Southey 
would  have  been  greater  than  they 
presently  are  ? 

Maud  is  a  monologue  in  six-and- 
twenty  parts,  each  of  them  intended 
to  depict  a  peculiar  phase  of  the  mind 
of  the  speaker,  who  is  a  young  gentle- 
man in  decayed  circumstances,  and 
therefore  morbid  aud  misanthropical. 
The  poem  opens  thus  : — 

"  I  hate  the  dreadful  hollow  behind  the  little 
wood, 

Its  lips  in  the  field  above  are  dabbled  with 
blood-red  heath, 

The  red-ribb'd  ledges  drip  with  a  silent  hor- 
ror of  blood, 

And  Echo  there,  whatever  is  ask'd  her,  an- 
swers 4  Death.' 

For  there  in  the  ghastly  pit  long  since  a  body 

was  found, 
His  who  had  given  me  life— O  father  !  O  God ! 

was  it  well  ? — 
Mangled,  and  flattened,  and  crush 'd,  and  dinted 

into  the  ground : 
There  yet  lies  the  rock  that  fell  with  him  when 

he  fell. 

Did  he  fling  himself  down  ?  who  knows  ?  for 

a  great  speculation  had  fail'd, 
And  ever  he  mutter 'd  and  madden  "d,  and  ever 

wann'd  with  despair, 
And  out  he  walk'd  when  the  wind  like  a 

broken  worldling  wail'd, 
And  the  flying  gold  of  the  ruin'd  woodlands 

drove  thro'  the  air. 

I  remember  the  time,  for  the  roots  of  my  hair 

were  stirrM 
By  a  shuffled  step,  by  a  dead  weight  trail'd, 

by  a  whisper'd  fright, 
And  my  pulses  closed  their  gates  with  a  shock 

on  my  heart  as  I  heard 
The  shrill-edged  shriek  of  a  mother  divide  the 

shuddering  niyht. 

Villany  somewhere  !  whose  ?     One  says  we 

are  villains  all. 
Not  he  :  his  honest  fame  should  at  least  by 

me  be  maintained : 


315 

But  that  old  man,  now  lord  of  the  broad 

estate  and  the  Hall, 
Dropt  off  gorged  from  a  scheme  that  had  left 

us  flaccid  and  drained. 
Why  do  they  prate  of  the  blessings  of  Peace  ? 

we  have  made  them  a  curse, 
Pickpockets,  each  hand  lusting  for  all  that  is 

not  its  own  ; 
And  lust  of  gain,  in  the  spirit  of  Cain,  is  it 

better  or  worse 
Than  the  heart  of  the  citizen  hissing  in  war  on 

his  own  hearthstone  ? 
But  these  are  the  days  of  advance,  the  works 

of  the  men  of  mind, 
When  who  but  a  fool  would  have  faith  in  a 

tradesman's  ware  or  his  word  ? 
Is  it  peace  or  war  ?     Civil  ivar,  as  I  think, 

and  that  of  a  kind 
The  viler,  as  underhand^  not  openly  bearing 

the  sword. 
Sooner  or  latter  I  too  may  passively  take  the 

print 
Of  the  golden  age  — why  not  ?  I  have  neither 

hope  nor  trust : 
May  make  my  heart  as  a  millstone,  set  my 

face  as  a  flint, 
Cheat  and  be  cheated,  and  die  :  who  knows  ? 

we  are  ashes  and  dust." 

Is  that  poetry  ?  Is  it  even  respect- 
able verse?  Is  it  not  altogether  an 
ill  -  conceived  and  worse  -  expressed 
screed  of  bombast,  set  to  a  metre 
which  has  the  string-halt,  without 
even  the  advantage  of  regularity  in 
its  hobble  ?  Do  not  say  that  we  are 
severe,  we  are  merely  speaking  the 
truth,  and  we  are  ready  to  furnish  a 
test.  Let  any  man  who  can  appreci- 
ate melody,  turn  to  Locksley  Hall^  and 
read  aloud  eight  or  ten  stanzas  of  that 
wonderful  poem,  until  he  has  pos- 
sessed himself  with  its  music,  then 
let  him  attempt  to  sound  the  passage 
which  we  have  just  quoted,  and  he 
will  immediately  perceive  the  woe- 
ful difference.  The  contrast  between 
the  breathings  of  an  JEolian  harp  and 
the  rasping  of  a  blacksmith's  file  is 
scarcely  more  palpable.  Our  young 
misanthrope  goes  on  to  describe  the 
ways  of  the  world,  of  which  he  seems 
to  entertain  a  very  bad  opinion,  and 
finally  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
war  upon  a  large  scale  is  the  only 
proper  remedy  for  adulteration  of  co- 
mestibles, house-breaking,  and  child- 
murder. 

"  And  the  vitriol  madness  flushes  up  in  the 

ruffian's  head, 
Till  the  filthy  by- lane  rings  to  the  yell  of  the 

trampled  wife, 
While  chalk  and  alum  aud  plaster  are  sold  to 

the  poor  for  bread, 
And  the  spirit  of  murder  works  in  the  very 

means  of  life. 


316 


Maud.     By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


[Sept. 


And  Sleep  must  lie  down  arm'd,  for  the  vil- 

lanous  centre-bits 
Grind  on  the  wakeful  ear  in  the  hush  of  the 

moonless  nights, 
While  another  is  cheating  the  sick  of  a  few 

last  gasps,  as  he  sits 
To  pestle  a  poisoned  poison  behind  his  crimson 

lights. 

When  a  Mammonite  mother  kills  her  hahe  for 
a  burial  fee, 

A  nd  Timour-Mammon  grins  on  a  pile  of  chil- 
dren's bones, 

Is  it  peace  or  war  ?  better,  war  !  loud  war  by 
land  and  by  sea, 

War  with  a  thousand  battles,  and  shaking  a 
hundred  thrones. 

For  I  trust  if  an  enemy's  fleet  came  yonder 

round  by  the  hill, 
And  the  rushing  battle-bolt  sang  from  the 

three-decker  out  of  the  foam, 
That  the  smooth-faced  snub-nosed  rogue  would 

leap  from  his  counter  and  till, 
And  strike,  if  he  could,  were  it  but  with  his 

cheating  yardwand,  home." 

Having  thus  vented  his  bile  by  a 
wholesale  objurgation  of  the  peace- 
party,  which  shows,  as  Bailie  Jarvie 
says,  that  "the  creature  has  occasional 
glimmerings,"  this  unhappy  victim  of 
paternal  speculation  suddenly  bethinks 
himself  that  there  are  workmen  at 
the  Hall,  now  the  property  of  the 
"  millionaire"  or  "  grey  old  wolf,"  by 
which  endearing  titles  the  father  of 
Maud  is  designated  throughout,  and 
that  the  family  are  coming  home.  He 
remembers  the  little  girl — 

"  Maud  with  her  sweet  purse-mouth  when 
my  father  dangled  the  grapes," 

but  makes    up    his    mind    to    have 
nothing  to  say  to  her  : 

"  Thanks,  for  the  fiend  best  knows  whether 

woman  or  man  be  the  worse. 
I  will  bury  myself  in  my  books,  and  the  Devil 

may  pipe  to  his  own." 

However,  on  an  early  day  he  ob- 
tains a  glimpse,  in  a  carriage,  of  "  a 
cold  and  clear-cut  face,"  which  proves 
to  belong  to  Maud,  and  he  thus  de- 
scribes her — 

"  Faultily  faultless,  icily  regular,  splendidly 

null, 
Dead  perfection,  no  more  ;  nothing  more,  if 

it  had  not  been 
For  a  chance  of  travel,  a  paleness,  an  hour's 

defect  of  the  rose, 
Or  an  underlip,  you  may  call  it  a  little  too 

ripe,  too  full, 
Or  the  least  little  delicate  aquiline  curve  in  a 

sensitive  nose, 
From  which  I  escaped  heart -free,  with  the 

least  little  touch  of  spleen." 

The    thaw,  however,  commences.- 


He  presently  hears  her  singing  ;  and, 
as  this  passage  is  the  first  in  the 
volume  which  displays  a  scintillation 
of  poetic  power,  or  reminds  us  in  any- 
way of  the  former  writings  of  Mr 
Tennyson,  we  gladly  insert  it : — 

"  A  voice  by  the  cedar  tree, 
In  the  meadow  under  the  Hall  ! 
She  is  singing  an  air  that  is  known  to  me, 
A  passionate  ballad  gallant  and  gay, 
A  martial  song  like  a  trumpet's  call ! 
Singing  alone  in  the  morning  of  life, 
In  the  happy  morning  of  life  and  of  May, 
Singing  of  men  that  in  battle  array, 
Ready  in  heart  and  ready  in  hand, 
March  with  banner  and  bugle  and  fife 
To  the  death  for  their  native  land. 

Maud  with  her  exquisite  face, 

And  wild  voice  pealing  up  to  the  sunny  sky, 

And  feet  like  sunny  gems  on  an  English 
green, 

Maud  in  the  light  of  her  youth  and  her  grace, 

Singing  of  Death,  and  of  Honour  that  can- 
not die, 

Till  I  well  could  weep  for  a  time  so  sordid 
and  mean, 

And  myself  so  languid  and  base. 

Silence,  beautiful  voice  ! 

Be  still,  for  you  only  trouble  the  mind 

With  a  joy  in  which  I  cannot  rejoice, 

A  glory  I  shall  not  find. 

Still  !   I  will  hear  you  no  more, 

For  your    sweetness    hardly   leaves    me   a 

choice 

But  to  move  to  the  meadow  and  fall  before 
Her  feet  on  the  meadow  grass,  and  adore, 
Not  her,  who  is  neither  courtly  nor  kind, 
Not  her,  not  her,  but  a  voice." 

When  we  read  the  above  passage 
we  had  good  hope  that  the  Laureate 
had  emerged  from  the  fog,  but  he 
again  becomes  indistinct  and  distort- 
ed. However,  the  worst  is  past,  for 
we  verily  believe  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  ingenuity  itself  to  caricature 
the  commencement.  Maud  begins  to 
smile  upon  Misanthropes,  who  is,  how- 
ever, still  suspicious  ;  for  her  brother 
has  an  eye  to  a  seat  for  the  county, 
and  the  young  lady  may  be  a  can- 
vasser in  disguise.  We  should  like  to 
know  what  gentleman  sate  for  the 
following  sketch : — 

"  What  if  tho'  her  eye  seem'd  full 
Of  a  kind  intent  to  me, 
What  if  that  dandy-despot,  he, 
ThatjeweWd  mass  of  millinery, 
That  oifd  and  curl  d  Assyrian  Bull 
Smelling  of  musk  and  of  insolence, 
Her  brother,  from  whom  I  keep  aloof, 
Who  wants  the  finer  politic  sense 
To  mask,  tho'  but  in  his  own  behoof, 
With  a  glassy  smile  his  brutal  scorn — 
What  if  he  had  told  her  yestermorn 


1855.] 


Maud.    By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


317 


How  prettily  for  his  own  sweet  sake 
A  face  of  tenderness  might  he  feign'd, 
And  a  moist  mirage  in  desert  eyes, 
That  so,  when  the  rotten  hustings  shake 
In  another  month  to  his  brazen  lies, 
A  wretched  vote  may  be  gain'd." 

It  seems,  however,  that  a  young 
member  of  the  peerage,  who  owes  his 
rank  to  black  diamonds,  is  an  ad- 
mirer of  Maud ;  whereupon  the  mis- 
anthropic lover  again  becomes  abu- 
sive :— 

"  Sick,  am  I  sick  of  a  jealous  dread  ? 

Was  not  one  of  the  two  at  her  side 

This  new-made  lord,  whose  splendour  plucks 

The  slavish  hat  from  the  villager's  head  ? 

Whose  old  grandfather  has  lately  died, 

Gone  to  a  blacker  pit,  for  whom 

Grimy  nakedness  dragging  his  trucks 

And  laying  his  trams  in  a  poison'd  gloom 

Wrought,  till  he  crept  from  a  gutted  mine 

Master  of  half  a  servile  shire, 

And  left  his  coal  all  turn'd  into  gold 

To  a  grandson,  first  of  his  noble  line, 

Rich  in  the  grace  all  women  desire, 

Strong  in  the  power  that  all  men  adore, 

And  simper  and  set  their  voices  lower, 

And  soften  as  if  to  a  girl,  and  hold 

Awe-stricken  breaths  at  a  work  divine, 

Seeing  his  gewgaw  castle  shine, 

New  as  his  title,  built  last  year, 

There  amid  perky  larches  and  pine, 

And  over  the  sullen-purple  moor 

(Look  at  it)  pricking  a  cockney  ear. 

What,  has  he  found  my  jewel  out  ? 
For  one  of  the  two  that  rode  at  her  side 
Bound  for  the  Hall,  I  am  sure  was  he  : 
Bound  for  the  Hall,  and  I  think  for  a  bride. 
Blithe  would  her  brother's  acceptance  be. 
Maud  could  be  gracious  too,  no  doubt, 
To  a  lord,  a  captain,  a  padded  shape, 
A  bought  commission,  a  waxen  face, 
A  rabbit  mouth  that  is  ever  agape — 
Bought  ?  what  is  it  he  cannot  buy  ? 
And  therefore,  splenetic,  personal,  base, 
Sick,  sick  to  the  heart  of  life,  am  I." 

But,  after  all,  Misanthropes  proves 
too  much  for  the  titled  Lord  of  the 
Mines,  for  he  and  Maud  have  a  walk 
together  in  a  wood,  and  the  courtship 
commences  in  earnest. 

"  Birds  in  our  wood  sang 

Ringing  thro'  the  valleys, 
Maud  is  here,  here,  here 
In  among  the  lilies. 

I  kiss'd  her  slender  hand, 
She  took  the  kiss  sedately  ; 

Maud  is  not  seventeen, 
But  she  is  tall  and  stately. 
*  *  *  * 

Look,  a  horse  at  the  door, 

And  little  King  Charles  is  snarling, 
Go  back,  my  lord,  across  the  moor, 

You  are  not  her  darling." 

O  dear,  dear!  what  manner  of  stuff 
is  this  ? 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


But  that  Assyrian  Bull  of  a  brother 
is  again  in  the  way,  and  treats  Mis- 
anthropos  cavalierly ;  notwithstand- 
ing which,  he  proposes  to  Maud,  and 
is  accepted.  We  make  every  allow- 
ance for  the  raptures  of  a  lover  on 
such  an  occasion,  and  admit  that 
he  is  privileged  to  talk  very  great 
nonsense  ;  but  there  must  be  a 
limit  somewhere  ;  and  we  submit  to 
Mr  Tennyson  whether  he  was  justi- 
fied, for  his  own  sake,  in  putting  a 
passage  so  outrageously  silly  as  the 
following  into  the  mouth  of  his  hero: — 

"  Go  not,  happy  day, 

From  the  shining  fields, 
Go  not,  happy  day, 

Till  the  maiden  yields. 
Rosy  is  the  West, 

Rosy  is  the  South, 
Roses  are  her  cheeks, 

And  a  rose  her  mouth. 
When  the  happy  Yes 

Falters  from  her  lips, 
Pass  and  blush  the  news 

O'er  the  blowing  ships. 
Over  blowing  seas, 

Over  seas  at  rest, 
Pass  the  happy  news, 

Blush  it  thro'  the  West ; 
Till  the  red  man  dance 

By  his  red  cedar  tree, 
And  the  red  man's  babe 

Leap,  beyond  the  sea. 
Blush  from  West  to  East, 

Blush  from  East  to  West, 
Till  the  West  is  East, 

Blush  it  thro*  the  West. 
Rosy  is  the  West, 

Rosy  is  the  South, 
Roses  are  her  cheeks, 

And  a  rose  her  mouth." 

Mr  Halliwell  some  years  ago  pub- 
lished a  collection  of  Nursery  Rhymes. 
We  have  not  the  volume  by  us  at 
present;  but  we  are  fully  satisfied 
that  nothing  so  bairnly  as  the  above 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Breviary  of  the 
Innocents.  The  part  which  follows 
this  is  ambitiously  and  elaborately 
written,  and  we  doubt  not  will  find 
many  admirers.  It  is  eminently 
rhetorical,  and  replete  with  graceful 
imagery,  but  somehow  there  is  not  a 
line  in  it  which  haunts  us.  It  seems 
to  us  a  splendid  piece  of  versification, 
but  deficient  in  melody  and  passion, 
and  much  too  artificial  for  the  situa- 
tion. Others,  however,  may  think 
differently,  and  therefore  we  extract 
the  conclusion : — 

"•  Is  that  enchanted  moan  only  the  swell 
Of  the  long  waves  that  roll  in  yonder  bay  ? 
Y 


318 


Maud.     By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


[Sept. 


And  hark  the  clock  within,  the  silver  knell 
Of  twelve  sweet  hours  that  past   in   bridal 

white, 

And  died  to  live,  long  as  my  pulses  play  ; 
But  now  by  this  my  love  has   closed  her 

sight 
A  nd  yiven  false  death  her  hand,  and  stolen 

away 
To   dreamful  wastes  wJtere  footless  fancies 

dwell 

Among  the  fragments  of  the  golden  day. 
May  nothing  there  her  maiden  grace  affright ! 
Dear  heart,  I  feel  with  thee  the  drowsy  spell. 
My  bride  to  be,  my  evermore  delight, 
My  own  heart's  heart  and  ownest  own,  fare- 

well. 

It  is  but  for  a  little  space  I  go : 
And  ye  meanwhile  far  over  moor  and  fell 
Beat  to  the  noiseless  music  of  the  night  ! 
Has  our  whole  earth  gone  nearer  to  the  glow 
Of  your  soft  splendours  that   you  look   so 

bright  ? 

/  have  climb'd  nearer  out  of  lonely  Hell. 
Beat,  happy  stars,  timing  with  things  below, 
Beat  with  my  heart  more  blest  than  heart  can 

tell, 

Blest,  but  for  some  dark  undercurrent  woe 
That  seems  to  draw — but  it  shall  not  be  so : 
Let  all  be  well,  be  well," 

Then  follows  some  namby-pamby 
which  we  shall  not  quote.  There  is 
to  be  a  grand  political  dinner  and 
dance  at  the  Hall,  to  which  Mis- 
anthropes is  not  invited ;  but  he 
intends  to  wait  in  Maud's  own 
rose-garden  until  the  ball  is  over, 
when  he  hopes  to  obtain  an  inter- 
view for  a  moment.  Then  comes  a 
very  remarkable  passage,  in  which 
Mr  Tennyson  gives  a  signal  specimen 
of  the  rhythmical  power  which  he  pos- 
sesses. The  music  of  it  is  faultless  ; 
and  we  at  least  are  not  disposed  to 
cavil  at  the  quaintness  of  the  imagery, 
which  is  almost  Oriental  in  its  tone. 
We  treasure  it  the  more,  because  it  is 
the  one  gem  of  the  collection — the 
only  passage  that  we  can  read  with 
pure  unmixed  delight,  and  with  a 
perfect  conviction  that  it  is  the  strain 
of  a  true  poet.  Other  passages  there 
are,  more  ambitious  and  elaborate, 
studded  all  over  with  those  metaphors, 
strange  epithets,  and  conceits  which 
are  the  disfigurement  of  modern  poet- 
ry, and  which  we  are  surprised  that 
a  man  of  genius  and  experience  should 
persist  in  using ;  but  they  all  seem  to 
us  to  want  life  and  reality,  and  surely 
the  ink  was  sluggish  in  the  pen  when 
they  were  written.  Only  in  this  one 
does  the  verse  flash  out  like  a  golden 
thread  from  a  reel ;  and  we  feel  that 
our  hands  are  bound,  like  those  ot 


Thalaba,  when  the  enchantress  sang 
to  him  as  she  spun  : — 

"  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown, 

Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
I  am  here  at  the  gate  alone  ; 

And  the  woodbine  spices  are  wafted  abroad, 
And  the  musk  of  the  roses  blown. 

For  a  breeze  of  morning  moves, 
And  the  planet  of  Love  is  on  high, 

Beginning  to  faint  in  the  light  that  she  loves 
On  a  bed  of  daffodil  sky, 

To  faint  in  the  light  of  the  sun  she  loves, 
To  faint  in  his  light,  and  to  die. 

All  night  have  the  roses  heard 

The  flute,  violin,  bassoon  ; 
All  night  has  the  casement  jessamine  stirr'd 

To  the  dancers  dancing  in  tune; 
Till  a  silence  fell  with  the  waking  bird, 

And  a  hush  with  the  setting  moon. 

I  said  to  the  lily,  « There  is  but  one 

With  whom  she  has  heart  to  be  gay. 
When  will  the  dancers  leave  her  alone  ? 

She  is  weary  of  dance  and  play.' 
Now  half  to  the  setting  moon  are  gone, 

And  half  to  the  rising  day ; 
Low  on  the  sand  and  loud  on  the  stone 

The  last  wheel  echoes  away. 

I  said  to  the  rose,  '  The  brief  night  goes 

In  babble  and  revel  and  wine. 
O  young  lord-lover,  what  sighs  are  those, 

For  one  that  will  never  be  thine  ? 
But  mine,  but  mine,'  so  I  sware  to  the  rose, 

4  For  ever  and  ever,  mine.' 

And  the  soul  of  the  rose  went  into  my  blood, 
As  the  music  clash 'd  in  the  hall  ; 

And  long  by  the  garden  lake  I  stood, 
For  I  heard  your  rivulet  fall 

From  the  lake  to  the  meadow  and  on  to  the 

wood, 
Our  wood,  that  is  dearer  than  all  ; 

From  the  meadow  your  walks  have  left  so 
sweet 

That  whenever  a  March-wind  sighs 
He  sets  the  jewel-print  of  your  feet 

In  violets  blue  as  your  eyes, 
To  the  woody  hollows  in  which  we  meet 

And  the  valleys  of  Paradise. 

The  slender  acacia  would  not  shake 

One  long  milk-bloom  on  the  tree  ; 
The  white  lake-blossom  fell  into  the  lake, 

As  the  pimpernel  dozed  on  the  lea  ; 
But  the  rose  was  awake  all  night  for  your 
sake, 

Knowing  your  promise  to  me; 
The  lilies  and  roses  were  all  awake, 

They  sigh'd  for  the  dawn  and  thee. 

Queen  rose  of  the  rosebud  garden  of  girls. 

Come  hither,  the  dances  are  done, 
In  gloss  of  satin  and  glimmer  of  pearls, 

Queen  lily  and  rose  in  one; 
Shine  out,  little  head,  sunning  over  with  curls, 

To  the  flowers,  and  be  their  sun. 


1855.] 


Maud.     By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


There  has  fallen  a  splendid  tear 

From  the  passion-flower  at  the  gate, 
She  is  coming,  my  dove,  my  dear  ; 

She  is  coming,  my  life,  my  fate; 
The  red  rose  cries,  '  She  is  near,  she  is  near;' 

And  the  white  rose  weeps,  '  She  is  late  ; ' 
The  larkspur  listens,  '  I  hear,  I  hear  ;' 

And  the  lily  whispers,  '  I  wait.' 
She  is  coming,  my  own,  my  sweet  ; 

Were  it  ever  so  airy  a  tread, 
My  heart  would  hear  her  and  beat, 

Were  it  earth  in  an  earthy  bed  ; 
My  dust  would  hear  her  and  beat, 

Had  I  lain  for  a  century  dead  ; 
Would  start  and  tremble  under  her  feet, 

And  blossom  in  purple  and  red." 

Little  more  of  story  is  there.  The 
lovers  are  surprised  in  the  garden  by 
the  Assyrian  Bull  and  Lord  Culm 
and  Coke,  and  the  former  smites 
Misanthropos  on  the  face.  A  duel 
ensues,  when  "  procumbit  humi  bos." 
Misanthropos  betakes  himself  to 
France,  returns,  finds  that  his  love  is 
dead,  and  goes  mad.  Mr  Tennyson 
has  written  a  mad  passage,  but  we 
must  needs  say  that  he  had  better 
have  spared  himself  the  trouble. 
Seven  pages  of  what  he  most  accu- 
rately calls  "  idiot  gabble,"  are  rather 
too  much,  more  especially  when  they 
do  not  contain  a  touch  of  pathos.  We 
weep  over  the  disordered  wits  of 
Ophelia — we  listen  to  the  ravings  of 
Misanthropos,  and  are  nervous  as  to 
what  may  happen  if  the  keeper  should 
not  presently  appear  with  a  strait- 
jacket.  The  case  is  bad  enough  when 
young  poetasters  essay  to  gain  a 
hearing  by  dint  of  maniacal  howls ; 
but  it  is  far  worse  when  we  find  a 
man  of  undoubted  genius  and  wide- 
spread reputation,  demeaning  himself 
by  putting  his  name  to  such  absolute 
nonsense  as  this :  — 

"  Not  that  grey  old  wolf,  for  he  came  not  back 
From  the  wilderness,  full  of  wolves,  where  he 

used  to  lie  ; 
He  has  gather'd  the  bones  for  his  o'ergrown 

whelp  to  crack  ; 
Crack  them  now  for  yourself,  and  howl,  and 

die. 

Prophet,  curse  me  the  blabbing  lip, 
And  curse  me  the  British  vermin,  the  rat ; 
I  know  not  whether  he  came  in  the  Hanover 

ship, 

But  I  know  that  he  lies  and  listens  mute 
In  an  ancient  mansion's  crannies  and  holes  : 
Arsenic,  arsenic,  sir,  would  do  it, 
Except  that  now  we  poison  our  babes,  poor 

souls  ! 
It  is  all  used  up  for  that." 

Can  Mr  Tennyson  possibly  be  la- 
bouring under  the  delusion  that  he  is 


319 

using  his  high  talents  well  and  wisely, 
and  giving  a  valuable  contribution  to 
the  poetic  literature  of  England,  by 
composing  and  publishing  such  gibber- 
ish? We  are  told  that  there  is  method 
in  madness,  and  Shakespeare  never 
lost  sight  of  that  when  giving  voice 
to  the  ravings  of  King  Lear ;  but  this 
is  mere  barbarous  bedlamite  jargon, 
without  a  vestige  of  meaning,  and  it 
is  a  sore  humiliation  to  us  to  know 
that  it  was  written  by  the  Laureate. 

At  length  Misanthropos  recovers 
his  senses ;  principally,  in  so  far  as  we 
can  gather  from  the  poem,  because 
the  British  nation  has  gone  to  war 
with  Russia ;  and  we  expected  to  learn 
from  Mr  Tennyson  that  he  had  enlist- 
ed, and  gone  out  to  the  Crimea  to 
head  a  forlorn  hope,  and  perish  in  a 
hostile  battery.  It  appears,  however, 
that  he  had  no  such  intention ;  and 
the  poem  closes  with  the  following 
passage,  which  bears  a  singular  resem- 
blance to  fustian  :— 

"  Tho'  many  a  light  shall  darken,  and  many 

shall  weep 
For  those  that   are  crush 'd  in  the  clash  of 

jarring  claims, 
Yet  God's  just  doom  shall  be  wreak 'd  on  a 

giant  liar ; 

And  many  a  darkness  into  the  light  shall  leap, 
And  shine  in  the  sudden  making  of  splendid 

names, 

And  noble  thought  be  freer  under  the  sun, 
And  the  heart  of  a  people  beat  with  one  desire ; 
For  the  long,  long  canker  of  peace  is  over 

and  done, 
And  now  by  the  side  of  the  Black  and  the 

Baltic  deep, 
And  deathful -grinning  mouths  of  the  fortress, 

flames 
The  blood-red  blossom  of  war  with  a  heart  of 

fire." 

It  must,  we  think,  have  been  ob- 
served by  most  readers  of  Tennyson's 
poetry,  that  his  later  productions  do 
not  exhibit  that  felicity  of  diction 
which  characterised  those  of  an  earlier 
period.  It  seems  to  us  that  he  for- 
merly bestowed  great  pains  upon  his 
style,  which  was  naturally  ornate,  for 
the  purpose  of  attaining  that  simpli- 
city of  expression  which  is  the  highest 
excellence  in  poetry  as  in  every  other 
kind  of  composition.  By  simplicity 
we  do  not  mean  bald  diction,  or  baby 
utterance ;—  we  use  the  term  in  its 
high  sense,  as  expressive  of  the  ut- 
most degree  of  lucidity  combined  with 
energy,  when  all  false  images,  far- 
fetched metaphors  and  comparisons, 


320 


Maud.    By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


[Sept. 


and  mystical  forms  of  speech,  are  dis- 
carded. The  best  of  Tennyson's  early 
poems  are  composed  in  that  manner  ; 
but  of  late  years  there  has  been  a 
marked  alteration  in  his  style.  He 
gives  us  no  longer  such  exquisite  little 
gems  as  Hero  and  Leander,  which  was 
printed  in  the  first  edition  of  his  poems, 
but  which  seems  to  have  been  ex- 
cluded, through  over-fastidiousness, 
from  the  subsequent  collection.  It  is 
many  a  long  year  since  we  read  that 
poem,  but  we  know  it  by  heart  suffi- 
ciently well  to  declaim  it;  and  we 
venture  from  memory  to  transcribe 
the  opening  stanza ; — 

"  O  go  not  yet,  my  love ! 
The  night  is  dark  and  vast, 
The  moon  is  hid  in  the  heaven  above, 
And  the  waves  are  climbing  fast  ; 
O  kiss  me,  kiss  me  once  again, 
Lest  that  kiss  should  be  the  last ! 
O  kiss  me  ere  we  part — 
Grow  closer  to  my  heart — 
My  heart  is  warmer  surely  than  the  bosom 
of  the  main  !  " 

What  can  be  more  beautiful,  musi- 
cal, or  exquisite  than  that  passage? 
No  wonder  that  it  lingers  on  the  mind, 
like  the  echo  of  a  fairy  strain.  But 
turn  to  those  simple  passages  in  Maud, 
and  you  find  nothing  but  namby- 
pamby.  We  have  already  quoted 
more  than  one  such  passage,  and  per- 
haps it  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  in- 
stances; but,  lest  it  should  be  said 
that  lovers'  raptures,  being  often  in- 
comprehensible, incoherent,  and  rather 
childish  in  reality,  ought  to  be  so  ren- 
dered in  verse,  we  pray  the  attention 
of  the  reader  to  the  following  few 
lines,  which  admit  of  no  such  plea  in 
justification : — 

"  So  dark  a  mind  within  me  dwells, 
And  I  make  myself  such  evil  cheer, 

That  if  I  be  dear  to  some  one  else, 

Then  some  one  else  may  have  much  to  fear  ; 

But  if  I  be  dear  to  some  one  else, 

Then  I  should  be  to  myself  more  dear. 

Shall  I  not  take  care  of  all  that  I  think, 

Yea  ev'n  of  wretched  meat  and  drink, 

If  I  be  dear, 

If  I  be  dear  to  some  one  else  ?  " 

On  what  possible  pretext  can  lines 
like  these  be  ranked  as  poetry  ?  Why 
should  we  continue  to  sneer  at  Stern- 
hold  and  Hopkins,  when  the  first  po- 
etical writer  of  the  day  is  not  ashamed 
to  give  such  offerings  to  the  public  ? 

In  his  more  ambitious  attempts,  Mr 
Tennyson  is  now  wordy,  and  very  often  • 


rugged.  Some  of  his  later  verses  bear 
a  strong  resemblance  to  that  kind  of 
crambo  which  was  invented  to  test  the 
youthful  powers  of  pronunciation ;  and 
the  enigma  relating  to  "  Peter  Piper," 
who  "  pecked  a  peck  of  pepper  off  a 
pewter  platter,"  is  not  more  execrably 
cacophonous  than  many  lines  which  we 
could  select  from  the  volume  before  us. 
Here  is  one  instance,  not  by  any  means 
the  strongest : — 

"  Be  mine  a  philosopher's  life  in  the  quiet 

woodland  ways, 
Where  if  I  cannot  be  gay  let  a  passionless 

peace  be  my  lot, 
Far-off  from  the  clamour  of  liars  belied  in  the 

hubbub  of  lies ; 
From  the  long-necked  geese  of  the  world  that 

are  ever  hissing  dispraise 
Because  their  natures  are  little,  and,  whether 

he  heed  it  or  not, 
Where  each  man  walks  ivith  his  head  in  a  cloud 

of  poisonous  flies. " 

Also  it  appears  to  us  that  he  has 
become  addicted  to  exaggeration,  and 
an  unnecessary  use  of  very  strong  lan- 
guage. The  reader  must  have  already 
perceived  this  from  the  extracts  we  have 
given  descriptive  of  Maud's  brother, 
and  of  his  friend ;  but  the  same  vio- 
lence of  phraseology  is  exhibited  when 
there  appears  no  occasion  for  hyper- 
bole, and  then  the  effect  becomes  ludi- 
crous. In  former  times,  few  could  vie 
with  Mr  Tennyson  in  the  art  of  height- 
ening a  picture ;  now  he  has  lost  all 
discretion,  and  overlays  his  subject, 
whether  it  relates  to  a  material  or  a 
mental  image.  We  might  pass  over 
"  daffodil  skies,"  "  gross  mud-honey," 
"  ashen -grey  delights,"  "  the  delicate 
Arab  arch"  of  a  lady's  feet,  and  "  the 
grace  that,  bright  and  light  as  a  crest 
of  a  peacock,  sits  on  her  shining  head." 
We  might,  we  say,  pass  over  these 
things,  as  mere  casual  lapses  or  man- 
nerisms ;  but  when  Mr  Tennyson,  for 
the  purpose,  we  presume,  of  indicating 
the  morbid  tendencies  of  his  hero, 
makes  him  give  vent  to  the  following 
confession,  we  have  no  bowels  of  com- 
passion left,  and  we  feel  a  considerable 
degree  of  contempt  for  Maud  for  hav- 
ing condescended  to  listen  to  the  ad- 
dresses of  such  a  pitiful  poltroon  : — 

"  Living  alone  in  an  empty  house, 
Here  half-hid  in  the  gleaming  wood, 
Where  I  hear  the  dead  at  mid-day  moan, 
And  the  shrieking  rush  of  the  wainscot  mouse, 
And  my  own  sad  name  in  corners  cried, 
When  the  shiver  of  dancing  leaves  is  thrown 
About  its  echoing  chambers  wide, 


1855.] 


Maud.     By  Alfred  Tennyson. 


321 


Till  a  morbid  hate  and  horror  have  grown 
Of  a  world  in  which  I  have  hardly  mixt, 
And  a  morbid  eating  lichen  fixt 
On  a  heart  half  turned  to  stone." 

But  we  have  no  heart  to  go  on  fur- 
ther ;  nor  shall  we  criticise  the  minor 
poems  appended  to  Maud,  for  there  is 
not  one  of  them  which  we  consider  at 
all  worthy  of  the  genius  of  the  author. 

A  more  unpleasant  task  than  that 
which  we  have  just  performed  in  re- 
viewing this  poem,  and  in  passing  so 
unfavourable  a  judgment,  has  not  de- 
volved upon  us  for  many  a  day.  We 
hoped  to  have  been  able  to  applaud — 
we  have  been  compelled,  against  our 
wish  and  expectation,  to  condemn.  It 
may  possibly  be  said  that  there  was  no 
occasion  for  expressing  any  kind  of 
opinion ;  and  that  if,  after  perusing 
Maud,  we  found  that  we  could  not 
conscientiously  praise  it,  it  was  in  our 
option  to  let  it  pass  unnoticed.  But 
we  cannot  so  deal  with  Mr  Tennyson. 
His  reputation  is  a  high  one ;  and  he 
has  a  large  poetic  following.  In  justice 
to  others  of  less  note,  upon  whose 
works  we  have  commented  freely,  we 
cannot  maintain  silence  when  the  Lau- 
reate has  taken  the  field.  Some  of 
those  whom  we  have  previously  no- 
ticed, may  possibly  think  that  our 
judgments  have  been  harsh — for  when 
did  ever  youthful  poet  listen  compla- 
cently to  an  honest  censor  ? — but  they 
shall  not  have  an  excuse  for  saying 
that,  while  we  spoke  our  mind  freely 
with  regard  to  them,  we  have  allowed 


others  of  more  acknowledged  credit  to 
escape,  when  their  writings  demanded 
condemnation.  Why  should  we  at- 
tempt reviewing  at  all,  if  we  are  not 
to  be  impartial  in  our  judgments?  If 
the  opinion  which  we  have  expressed 
should  have  the  effect  of  making  Mr 
Tennyson  aware  of  the  fact  that  he  is 
seriously  imperilling  his  fame  by  issu- 
ing poems  so  ill  considered,  crude, 
tawdry,  and  objectionable  as  this,  then 
we  believe  that  our  present  plainness 
of  speech  will  be  the  cause  of  a  great 
gain  to  the  poetic  literature  of  the 
country.  If,  on  the  contrary,  Mr  Ten- 
nyson chooses  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  our 
remonstrance,  we  cannot  help  it ;  but 
we  have  performed  our  duty.  We  have 
never  been  insensible  to  his  merits,  nor 
have  we  wilfully  withheld  our  admira- 
tion; and  it  is  from  the  very  poignancy 
of  our  regret  to  see  a  man  so  gifted  de- 
scend to  platitudes  like  these,  that  we 
have  expressed  ourselves  so  broadly. 
Fain  would  we,  like  Ventidius  in  Dry- 
den's  play,  arouse  our  Anthony  to  ac- 
tion ;  but  we  cannot  hope  to  compass 
that  by  sugared  words,  or  terms  of  in- 
dolent approval.  We  must  touch  him 
to  the  quick.  In  virtue  of  the  laurel- 
wreath,  he  is  the  poetical  champion  of 
Britain,  and  should  be  prepared  to 
maintain  the  lists  against  all  comers. 
Is  this  a  proper  specimen  of  his  powers? 
By  our  Lady  of  the  Lances !  we  know 
half-a-dozen  minor  poets  who,  in  his 
present  condition,  could  bear  him  from 
his  saddle  in  a  canter. 


322 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.         [Sept. 


NOTES   ON   CANADA  AND   THE   NORTH-WEST   STATES   OF   AMERICA. 


PART  VI. 


MINNESOTA. 


THERE  was  no  little  curiosity  ex- 
cited in  the  quiet  and  remote  town  of 
St  Anthony  as  the  unusual  procession 
passed  through  it,  of  a  bark-canoe  in 
a  waggon,  followed  by  two  voyageurs 
and  four  Englishmen  ;  and  when  we 
stopped  for  a  moment  at  the  hotel 
and  entered  the  bar,  the  billiard- 
players  in  the  adjoining  room,  and  the 
loafers  of  the  neighbourhood,  crowded 
inquisitively  round  to  discover  the 
origin  of  the  visit.  When  they  heard 
the  route  we  had  taken  from  Superior, 
we  were  overwhelmed  with  inquiries 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  country,  the 
character  of  the  pines  on  the  Upper 
Mississippi,  and  its  advantages  gene- 
rally as  a  district  in  which  to  settle  ; 
for  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  these 
western  towns  are  anxious  to  hold 
land  beyond  them,  so  as  to  profit  by 
the  advance  of  civilisation,  and  are 
ever  seeking  information  from  ex- 
plorers, who,  if  they  are  personally 
interested,  give  the  public  no  more  of 
their  experience  and  observation  than 
they  can  help,  until  they  have  estab- 
lished their  own  claims  in  an  indis- 
putable manner,  and  then  their  de- 
scriptions are  of  course  framed  so  as 
to  induce  emigration  to  flow  in  the 
desired  direction  as  freely  as  possible. 
As  we  were  quite  uninterested,  we 
were  also  quite  impartial,  and  gave  a 
true  account,  which,  however,  was 
most  probably  not  believed.  St 
Anthony  is  a  cheerful,  pretty  place, 
clean  and  well  built,  containing  about 
two  thousand  five  hundred  inhabitants. 
A  great  rivalry  exists  between  it  and 
St  Paul ;  the  former  owing  its  pros- 
perity to  the  conveniences  it  de- 
rives for  timber  operations  from  the 
magnificent  water-power — the  latter 
from  its  position  at  the  head  of  Mis- 
sissippi navigation.  It  is,  indeed, 
possible  to  navigate  the  river  to  this 
point  with  a  smaller  class  of  boats  ; 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  those  em- 
ployed below  St  Paul  will  ever  be  able 
to  reach  it,  or  whether  it  would  be 
desirable  that  they  should  do  so.  The 


distance  is  about  fourteen  miles,  but 
the  actual  northing  is  not  more  than 
two,  while  the  stages  perform  the 
journey  overland  in  less  than  an  hour, 
the  distance  not  exceeding  eight  miles. 
St  Anthony  is  already  a  curious 
mixture  of  a  manufacturing  town 
and  a  watering-place.  The  extreme 
beauty  of  the  scenery  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, the  attractions  of  the  Falls 
themselves,  and  the  comfortable  and 
civilised  aspect  of  the  town,  are  begin- 
ning to  render  it  a  fashionable  summer 
resort,  and  picturesque  villas  are 
springing  up  on  all  available  sites ;  but 
upon  the  bank  of  the  river,  saw-mills, 
foundries,  shingle-machines,  lath-fac- 
tories, &c.,  keep  up  an  incessant 
hubbub — delightful  music  to  the  white 
man,  who  recognises  in  the  plashing 
of  water,  and  the  roar  of  steam,  and 
the  ring  of  a  thousand  hammers,  the 
potent  agency  which  is  to  regenerate 
a  magnificent  country,  and  to  enrich 
himself — but  the  harshest  sounds  that 
ever  fell  upon  the  ear  of  the  Indian, 
for  they  remind  him  of  the  great 
change  through  which  he  has  already 
passed,  and  proclaim  his  inevitable 
destiny  in  loud  unfaltering  tones. 

The  first  dwelling-house  was  only 
erected  in  this  city  in  the  autumn  of 
1847,  and  Mrs  Ard  Godfrey  claims 
the  honour  of  having  given  birth  to 
the  first  of  the  fair  daughters  of  St 
Anthony.  There  are  now  numerous 
manufactories,  shops,  newspaper 
offices,  and  young  ladies ;  four  organ- 
ised churches — Presbyterian,  Baptist, 
Episcopalian,  and  Methodist ;  while 
the  importance  of  the  place  has  been 
much  increased  by  its  having  been 
selected  as  the  location  for  the  uni- 
versity of  Minnesota  ;  the  Act  pro- 
viding "  that  the  proceeds  of  all  lands 
that  may  hereafter  be  granted  by  the 
United  States  to  the  territory,  for  the 
support  of  a  university,  shall  be,  and 
remain,  a  perpetual  fund,  to  be  called 
the  '  University  Fund,'  the  interest  of 
which  shall  be  appropriated  to  the 
support  of  a  university."  This  univer- 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  tlie  North-west  States  of  America. 


sity  was  opened  in  1851,  and  already 
contains  about  a  hundred  pupils. 
Indeed,  Minnesota  seems  determined 
to  be  in  advance  of  the  age,  for  two 
sections  in  every  township  have  been 
appropriated  for  the  support  of  com- 
mon schools,  no  other  State  having 
previously  obtained  more  than  one 
section  in  each  township  for  such  a 
purpose. 

At  the  foot  of  the  Falls  the 
voyageurs  launched  the  canoe  and 
prepared  lunch,  whilst  we  explored 


323 

and  lay  back  in  quiet  contemplation 
of  most  magnificent  scenery  pos- 
sessing all  the  charms  of  novelty, 
and  the  advantages  of  being  visited 
under  the  most  favourable,  though 
certainly  somewhat  unusual  circum- 
stances. 

The  stream  was  broad  and  sluggish , 
and  the  fish  rose  so  freely  in  every 
direction,  and  exhibited  themselves  so 
temptingly  as  they  jumped  and  glitter- 
ed in  the  sunshine,  that  our  indefatig- 
able fishing  companion  destroyed  his 


the  neighbourhood  and  sketched  the  own  peace  of  mind,  and  kept  continu 
___  __i_  *. 1_  f^,.  ,-„  a]|y  h00fcing  njs  friends  in  unsuccess- 
ful attempts  to  delude  his  prey  with 
gaudy-coloured  flies;  but  he  could 
only  boast  of  one  rise,  and  that  was 
known  to  himself  alone,  so  we  voted 
that  the  tranquil  enjoyments  of  the 
evening  ought  not  to  be  disturbed  by 
such  restless  proceedings  ;  and  pro- 


Falls.  They  are  only  twenty  feet  in 
height  ;  but  the  scenery  does  not  de- 
rive its  interest  from  their  grandeur, 
but  from  the  perfect  grouping  of  rock 
and  wood  and  water  on  a  magnifi- 
cent scale.  The  Mississippi  is  up- 
wards of  six  hundred  yards  wide 
above  the  Falls.  These  are  quite 


perpendicular,  and  the  water  drops  in     hibiting  all  distracting  ejaculations  of 


beautiful  single-  sheets  on  either  side 
of  a  huge  mass  of  white  sandstone, 
of  a  pyramidal  form,  which  splits 
the  stream.  The  rapids  below  ex- 


surprise or  delight,  made  Le  Feve 
chaunt  the  melodious  song  of  the 
voyageur,  and  watched  the  thin  blue 
clouds  of  the  fragrant  pure  leaf  of  Vir- 


tend for  several  hundred  yards,  and  ginia  circling  in  the  air.    There  was 

are  very  broad,   divided  into    vari-  one    reach    inexpressibly    beautiful, 

ous  channels  by  precipitous   islands  where  a  stream  issues  from  beneath 

of   sandstone,    gigantic    blocks     of  thick  foliage,  and  leaps  a  perpendicular 

which  are  strewn  in  grotesque  con-  cliff  seventy  or  eighty  feet  high.     It 

fusion  at  the  base  of  lofty  walls  of  takes  its  rise  in  Lake  Minnetonka, 


stratification  of  dazzling  whiteness. 
These    fantasticall      shaed    islands 


twelve  miles  distant,  to  the  fertile 
shores    of  which  many   immigrants 


are  thickly  wooded,  and  birch  and     have    already   been   attracted,   and 

passing  through  the  romantically 
situated  Lake  Calhoun,  terminates 
thus  abruptly  its  brief  existence.  A 
little  below  it,  a  lofty  wall  of  white 
sandstone,  about  two  hundred  feet 
in  height,  seems  to  bar  the  passage 
of  the  river ;  and  the  loop-holed  walls 
of  Fort  Snelling  appear  to  totter  upon 
the  brink  of  the  dizzy  precipice,  but 


maple  cling  with  desperate  tenacity 
to  nooks  and  crannies  in  the  perpen- 
dicular cliffs.  The  banks  of  the  river 
are  of  a  character  similar  to  the 
islands  in  its  stream  ;  and  there  is  a 
picturesque  old  mill  upon  the  opposite 
side,  the  first  that  was  built  here, 
which  has  just  arrived  at  such  a  stage 
of  decay  as  to  give  an  additional  charm 


to  the  scene.    The  white  houses  of    the  stars  and  stripes  flaunt  bravely 


St  Anthony  are  almost  hidden  by  the 
thick  foliage  of  the  left  bank. 

We  could  scarcely  bear  to  tear  our- 
selves away  from  so  lovely  a  spot, 
after  only  two  hours  spent  in  explor- 


above them,  and  are  as  little 
likely  to  be  moved  as  the  rock  on 
which  they  are  planted.  Passing 
round  the  base  of  this  promontory, 
we  find  ourselves  opposite  the  de- 


ing its  beauties  ;  but  we  had  fourteen     bouchure  of  the  most  important  tribu- 


miles  still  before  us  to  St  Paul,  and 
the  sun  was  already  getting  low  in 


tary  of  the  Upper  Mississippi.     Here 
the  Minnesota,  or  St  Peter's  River, 


the  heavens  ;  so  we  paddled  gently     pours  in  its  deep,  quiet  volume,  after 
on,  or  sometimes  rested  on  our  oars, 
and,  letting  our  canoe  float  down  the 
stream  between  perpendicular  cliffs 


a  long  course  through  a  district  which 
has  been  described  as  the  Italy  of  the 
north-west  —  the  "  Undine  region  "  of 


gave  ourselves  up  to  the  enervating     Nicollet.     It  is  navigable  for  many 
influences  of  the  balmy  evening  air,     miles,  and  opens  up  a  country  con- 


824 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the,  North-west  States  of  America.          [Sept. 


cerning  which  we  can  obtain  and  im- 
part more  full  information  when  we 
arrive  at  St  Paul.  Meantime  there 
is  the  city  of  Mendota,  situated  upon 
an  island  at  the  confluence  of  the  two 
rivers  —  a  less  rapidly  progressive 
place  than  is  usual  in  these  parts, 
having  suffered  from  those  obstructive 
tendencies  which  characterise  war 
departments  generally,  and  in  conse- 
quence of  which  the  large  military 
reserve  attached  to  Fort  Snelling, 
upon  which  it  is  situated,  has  only 
recently  been  available  for  practical 
purposes.  Mendota  possesses  great 
advantages  of  position,  and  was  for 
long  a  trading-post  of  the  American 
Fur  Company.  Five  miles  lower 
down,  upon  a  lofty  bluff  overhanging 
the  Mississippi,  stands  the  city  of  St 
Paul  —  its  handsome  houses  and 
churches  crowning  the  heights,  and  a 
fleet  of  steamboats  moored  at  their 
base.  Slipping  unassumingly  behind 
one  of  these  white  ungainly  river- 
monsters,  we  hauled  up  our  picturesque 
little  bark,  and,  shouldering  our  packs 
for  the  last  time,  ascended  the  long 
staircase  which  led  up  the  cliff,  and 
found  ourselves  in  the  main  street  of 
the  capital  of  Minnesota. 

"  Wai,  gentlemen,  you  seem  flush 
of  camp-fixings,  any  why,"  said  one  of 
a  group  of  tall  Americans  who  were 
lounging  at  the  bar  of  the  hotel  at  St 
Paul,  when  we  entered  and  deposited 
upon  the  floor  sundry  kettles,  grid- 
irons, bags  of  provisions,  &c.  "  Just 
come  in  from  the  pereras,  I  reckon  ; 
but  as  there  ain't  been  a  steamer  in 
from  St  Peter's  for  a  week,  guess  you 
must  have  tramped  it."  "  No  ;  we 
have  come  from  Superior  in  a  bark 
canoe."  "  And  whar  are  you  bound 
for  ?  "  "  For  Chicago  and  the  east." 
"  Then,  of  course,  you'll  take  the  cars 
from  Rock  Island."  "  Well,  we 
think  of  leaving  the  Mississippi  at 
Galena,  and  going  by  rail  from  thence 
— a  route  at  least  a  hundred  miles 
shorter  than  by  Rock  Island."  "  Ah  ! 
take  you  a  tarnation  longer  time 
though,  and  cost  you  a  steeper  lot  of 
dollars — that's  a  fact !  "  As  this  was 
manifestly  absurd,  we  vouchsafed  no 
reply,  so  he  went  on  another  tack. 
",Liquor  up,  gentlemen."  We  bowed. 
"  Let  me  introduce  you  to  some  of 
the  most  highly  esteemed  of  our  citi- 
zens." We  bowed  again.  "  Now 


then,  mister,"  turning  to  the  man  at 
the  bar,  "  drinks  round,  and  cobblers 
at  that."  We  all  indulged  in  long  sucks 
at  the  seductive  reeds;  then  a  "  high- 
ly esteemed  citizen"  ejaculated,  "Bri- 
tishers " — I  nodded  —  "  and  pretty 
smart  ones  too,"  said  our  entertainer; 
"  there  ain't  many  men  in  St  Paul 
that's  made  your  journey.  I'm  the 
agent  of  the  Rock  Island  Railway, 
and  I'll  tell  you  what  — I'll  trade 
tickets  to  Chicago  for  the  hull  four  of 
you  against  your  canoe,  this  hyar 
gun,  and  them  fixings  right  off ;  and 
if  you've  a  mind  to  do  the  thing  cheap, 
don't  think  twice  about  it,  for  you 
won't  get  such  an  offer  from  the  'coon 
over  the  way."  We  said  we  were 
not  smart  enough  to  embark  so  ra- 
pidly in  the  speculation ;  and  then 
followed  a  series  of  inquiries  as  to  the 
present  condition  of  Superior,  and  its 
future  prospects— for  the  latest  intel- 
ligence of  its  progress  was  as  eagerly 
received  by  this  knot  of  speculators 
as  a  Crimean  telegraph  at  the  War 
Office.  We  in  our  turn  heard,  to  our 
dismay,  that  the  water  in  the  river 
was  so  low  that  the  departure  of  any 
steamer  was  most  uncertain ;  so  we 
were  fain  to  console  ourselves  with  a 
comfortable  night's  rest,  and  the  pro- 
spect of  exploring  at  our  leisure  the 
town  and  its  neighbourhood.  St  Paul 
is  perhaps  the  best  specimen  to  be 
found  in  the  States  of  a  town  still  in 
its  infancy  with  a  great  destiny  before 
it.  Its  progress  hitherto  has  been 
equalled  only  by  Chicago.  In  1847 
a  few  trading-huts,  rejoicing  under 
the  soubriquet  of  Pig's  Eye — a  name 
still  retained  by  some  rapids  just 
below  the  town — marked  the  site  of 
the  present  city ;  and  it  occurred  to 
some  of  the  French  traders  and  Yan- 
kee squatters  upon  the  unpre-empted 
land  in  the  neighbourhood,  to  mark 
out  what  is  called  in  the  States  a 
town  plat,  without  apparently  any 
anticipation  of  the  important  results 
which  were  ultimately  to  attend  their 
speculation  ;  indeed,  they  were  some- 
what old-fashioned  in  their  notions, 
and  laid  out  their  plat  in  what  one  of 
the  present  citizens,  in  his  account  of 
the  first  years  of  St  Paul,  calls  "  little 
skewdangular  lots,  about  as  large  as 
a  stingy  card  of  gingerbread  broke  in 
two  diagonally."  The  consequence 
was,  that  for  the  first  two  years  there 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


325 


was  very  little  temptation  to  put  any- 
thing upon  the  said  lots;  but  in  1849, 
some  celebrated  go-ahead  speculators 
took  up  the  thing,  one  of  whom,  Henry 
M.  Rice,  is  now  pushing  on  Superior 
as  he  did  St  Paul,  when  he  was  in 
company  with  John  R.  Irving,  with 
whom  he  u  bought  in."  At  this  time 
there  were  half-a-dozen  log- huts,  a 
hotel,  a  couple  of  stores,  a  log  Catholic 
chapel,  and  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  inhabitants — a  community  which 
was  worthy  of  being  represented  by 
the  press;  and,  accordingly,  Colonel 
James  M.  Goodhue  arrived  in  the 
same  year  to  start  a  paper,  which  he 
intended  to  call  "  The  Epistle  of  St 
Paul."  The  good  people  there,  how- 
ever, had  discrimination  enough  to 
object  to  the  name,  and  so  he  called 
it  the  Minnesota  Pioneer,  in  one  of  the 
articles  of  which  he  gives  an  amusing 
description  of  his  finding  himself,  on  a 
raw,  cloudy  day  in  April  '49,  in  a 
forlorn  condition,  at  the  bottom  of  the 
cliff,  surrounded  by  his  press,  types, 
and  printing  apparatus,  with  no  shed 
to  put  them  in,  or  acquaintance  in 
the  place.  A  Yankee  editor  is  not  to 
be  discouraged  by  trifles ;  so  he  got 
a  room  "  on"  Third  Street,  "as  open 
as  a  corn-rick,"  from  which  airy  tene- 
ment his  first  number  issued,  "in  the 
presence  of  Mr  Lull,  Mr  Cavileer,  Mr 
Neill,  and  perhaps  Major  Murphy." 
After  that  he  got  a  lot  in  what  he  sup- 
posed would  be  the  middle  of  the  town, 
having  "  calculated  that  the  two  ends 
would  probably  unite  there,"  and, 
building  a  dwelling-house,  lived  in  it 
through  the  next  year,  without  having 
it  lathed  or  plastered.  Such  was  the 
origin  of  St  Paul,  and  such  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Pioneer,  which,  in 
the  language  of  the  editor,  has  "  ad- 
vocated Minnesota,  morality,  and  re- 
ligion, from  the  beginning."  In  the 
recent  death  of  this  gentleman,  St  Paul 
has  sustained  a  great  loss  ;  and  if  he 
had  been  as  successful  in  his  advocacy 
of  the  two  latter  principles  as  of  that 
of  the  territory,  Minnesota  would  be 
a  terrestrial  paradise  ;  for  it  began  to 
shoot  ahead  thenceforward  with  a  ven- 
geance. There  are  now  four  daily, 
four  weekly,  and  two  tri- weekly 
papers,  which  is  pretty  well  for  a  Far 
West  town  only  five  years  old,  and 
more  than  Manchester  and  Liverpool 
put  together.  There  are  four  or  five 


hotels,  and  at  least  half-a-dozen  hand- 
some churches,  with  tall  spires  point- 
ing heavenward,  and  sundry  meeting- 
houses, and  a  population  of  seven  or 
eight  thousand  to  go  to  them,  and  good 
streets  with  side-walks,  and  lofty 
brick  warehouses,  and  stores,  and 
shops,  as  well  supplied  as  any  in  the 
Union;  and  "  an  academy  of  the  high- 
est grade  for  young  ladies ;"  and 
wharves  at  which  upwards  of  three 
hundred  steamers  arrive  annually, 
bringing  new  settlers  to  this  favoured 
land,  and  carrying  away  its  produce 
to  the  south  and  east.  The  navi- 
gation of  the  river  is  closed  during 
the  four  winter  months,  or  from  No- 
vember to  March.  As  the  resources 
of  Minnesota  are  developed,  the  trade 
upon  the  river  must  continue  to  in- 
crease. The  saw-mills  of  St  Anthony, 
St  Paul,  and  Stillwater  will  supply 
countless  feet  of  timber  for  the  states 
further  south ;  its  prairies  will  fur- 
pish  live  stock  ad  libitum;  and 
its  cereal  produce  will,  according  to 
Colonel  Goodhue,  hold  its  own  with 
the  most  favoured  States.  That  gen- 
tleman thus  compares  its  capabilities 
in  this  respect  with  its  principal  rival, 
Illinois.  "  We  will  give  Illinois  May 
the  start,  and  Minnesota  shall  come 
out  ahead.  Don't  care  what  the  crop 
is — any  grain,  any  root  —  anything 
from  a  castor  bean,  or  an  apple  or  pear 
tree,  or  a  pumpkin,  to  a  sweet  potato 
or  a  tobacco  plant.  Why,  sucker,  do 
you  know  you  have  frosts  about  two 
weeks  earlier  in  Illinois  than  we  do 
here?  It  is  a  fact!  We  will  show  these 
people  sights  who  come  up  here  in. 
May,  and  go  shivering  back  home, 
saying  that  Minnesota  is  *  too  cold 
for  craps.1 "  And  so  on  in  the  same 
strain  with  regard  to  cattle.  In  addi- 
tion to  all  this,  there  is  the  Indian 
trade,  which  is  certainly  diminishing, 
but  still  forms  a  large  share  of  the 
business  done  in  St  Paul.  During 
our  stay  there,  we  frequented  con- 
stantly the  shops  of  some  of  the  traders, 
and  overhauled  moccasins  embroider- 
ed with  porcupine  quills;  tobacco- 
pouches  ornamented  with  beads ; 
tomahawks,  pipes,  and  all  the  appur- 
tenances of  Indian  life,  which  these 
men  pick  up  from  Sioux  or  Chippeway 
warriors,  and  sell  as  curiosities,  with 
histories  attached  to  certain  articles, 
alleged  to  have  been  bought  from 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.  [Sept. 


326 

famous  chiefs,  which  may  or  may 
not  be  true,  but  in  consideration 
of  which  extra  charge  is  made. 
At  all  events,  I  am  prepared  to  as- 
sert against  all  comers,  on  the  autho- 
rity of  a  most  respectable  citizen  from 
whom  I  bought  them,  that  a  pipe 
now  in  my  possession,  and  which 
bore  the  traces  of  recent  use,  toge- 
ther with  a  very  frowzy  old  tobacco- 
pouch,  did  really  belong  to  the  most 
celebrated  war-chief  and  extensive 
scalp-taker  among  the  Sioux,  popu- 
larly called  "Medicine  Bottle,"  but 
whose  Indian  name  is  Wah-kan-o- 
jan-jan,  which  is  an  unconscionable 
amount  of  gibberish  for  the  word  light, 
which  it  literally  signifies.  These 
shops  have  their  agents  up  the  coun- 
try, who  supply  the  Indians  with  am- 
munition, blankets,  guns,  &c.  in  ad- 
vance, and  at  a  considerable  profit,  in 
anticipation  of  the  price  at  which  they 
purchase  their  furs  and  peltries  from 
them.  The  young  men  of  the  tribes, 
however,  very  often  come  into  the 
town  to  trade,  and  a  party  of  Chip- 
peways  had  been  in  St  Paul  about 
three  weeks  before  our  visit,  who  had 
afterwards  gone  out  upon  the  war- 
path. Some  Sioux,  however,  disco- 
vered their  trail  upon  the  St  Peter's 
River,  between  Fort  Ridgley  and 
Traverse  des  Sioux,  and  having  lain 
in  ambush  till  their  enemies  were  in 
the  act  of  fording  the  stream,  rushed 
upon  them,  and  took  fifteen  scalps. 
Some  of  the  victims  were  women  and 
children ;  the  Chippeways  are  the 
only  tribe  who  take  their  families  with 
them  on  the  war-path. 

We  hired  a  light  waggon  one  after- 
noon, and  drove  about  the  country  near 
St  Paul,  in  search  of  trout  streams  and 
pretty  scenery.  We  were  not  happy 
in  lighting  upon  the  former,  but  there 
was  ample  to  gratify  us  so  far  as  the 
latter  was  concerned.  St  Paul  is 
generally  the  prominent  feature  in 
every  view,  and  its  noble  position 
justly  entitles  it  to  this  distinction. 
I  scarcely  ever  remember  to  have 
seen  anything  more  lovely  than  the 
sunset,  as  we  stood  upon  a  newly- 
raised  terrace  near  an  unfinished 
Elizabethan  villa,  which  an  evidently 
prosperous  citizen  was  erecting  upon 
a  hill,  and  which  commanded  a  noble 
view  of  the  town,  with  the  deep  broad 
river  sweeping  past  lofty  cliffs,  and 


the  woodland  country  stretching  away 
to  distant  hills  bathed  in  tints  of 
richest  purple. 

The  most  striking  characteristic  of 
the  environs  of  St  Paul,  however,  is 
the  utter  wildness  of  the  surrounding 
country.  In  whatever  direction  you 
ascend  the  hills  which  encircle  the 
town,  with  the  exception  of  the  busy, 
gay-looking  city,  all  is  gloomy  forest 
or  solitary  prairie  ;  and  there  can  be 
no  stronger  testimony  to  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  place,  than  the  fact  that 
the  country  in  the  immediate  vici- 
nity is  still  in  a  state  of  savage  na- 
ture. No  doubt  a  few  years  will 
work  a  marvellous  change  here  too  ; 
but  the  most  interesting  element  of 
the  scenery  will  be  destroyed  when 
this  wonderful  combination  of  civili- 
sation and  barbarism  has  disappeared. 

The  land  immediately  round  St 
Paul  is  not  very  fertile,  as  it  consists 
principally  of  sand  and  loam  ;  it  pos- 
sesses, however,  the  advantage  of 
retaining  heat  and  producing  rapid 
vegetation.  That  portion  of  Minne- 
sota which  is  universally  admitted  to 
be  endowed  with  greater  advantages 
of  soil  and  climate,  and  to  be  gene- 
rally a  more  favoured  district,  than 
any  other  in  the  north-west,  is  the 
valley  of  the  St  Peter's,  and  which 
was  described  as  "  the  prettiest  coun- 
try lying  wild  that  the  world  can 
boast  of,  got  up  with  the  greatest  care 
and  effort  by  old  dame  Nature  ten 
thousand  years  or  more  ago,  and  which 
she  has  been  improving  ever  since." 
Indeed,  I  was  quite  tired  of  hearing  its 
praises,  and  looking  at  the  plans  of 
prospective  cities  on  the  banks  of  the 
river.  There  is  Shakopee,  Le  Sueur, 
Traverse  des  Sioux,  Kasota,  Mankato, 
and  Henderson,  all  thriving  cities, 
containing  from  one  to  fifty  log-houses 
each,  but  with  imaginary  public 
buildings,  squares,  and  streets,  enough 
for  a  moderately- sized  empire.  That 
they  have  a  great  future  in  store 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  St  Peter's 
is  navigable  for  upwards  of  a  hundred 
miles,  and  receives  numerous  streams, 
fertilising  this  region  so  prolific  in  re- 
sources, and  affording  at  the  same 
time  a  ready  outlet.  We  unfortu- 
nately had  not  time  to  ascend  this 
river,  or  to  judge  for  ourselves  upon  its 
capabilities  and  beauties.  But  Mr  Bond , 
who  has  written  a  book  describing 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


his  adopted  territory,  kindles  when  he 
writes  of  this  valley,  and  in  a  burst  of 
enthusiasm  exclaims,  that  you  may 
ride  "  across  rolling  prairies  of  rich 
luxuriance,  sloping  away  in  the  wide 
blue  dreamy-looking  basin  of  the 
Minnesota,  the  loveliest  view  of  broad 
fair  voluptuous  Nature,  in  all  her  un- 
concealed beauty,  that  ever  flashed 
upon  mortal  vision,  to  Henderson." 
It  would  be  manifestly  out  of  place  for 
any  mortal,  whose  vision  had  not  been 
thus  blessed,  to  say  anything  more 
about  Henderson,  or  the  way  to  it ; 
and  if  people  won't  go  and  settle  there, 
atleast  neither  Mr  Bond  nor  I  willhave 
anything  to  reproach  ourselves  with. 

The  population  of  the  territory 
has  increased  since  1850,  when  it  was 
6077,  to  140,000  ;  so  that  even  a  go- 
ahead  Yankee  has  no  cause  for  com- 
plaint ;  and  the  influx  of  immigrants 
must  augment  with  increased  facilities 
of  access.  From  its  position  near  the 
centre  of  the  continent  of  North 
America,  with  excellent  water-car- 
riage to  the  gulfs  of  Mexico  and  the 
St  Lawrence,  a  railway  to  the  Pacific 
is  only  needed,  to  render  perfect  a 
chain  of  communication,  which  would 
advance,  not  only  the  prosperity  of  the 
territory  from  which  it  started,  but  of 
the  whole  Union  and  of  Canada.  At 
present,  however,  if  there  is  not  a  rail- 
way in  Minnesota,  there  is  no  coun- 
try in  the  world  where  they  are  more 
wanted,  and  where  they  are  likely  to 
spring  up  more  rapidly.  It  may  be 
interesting  to  glance  at  the  probable 
direction  of  these  lines,  and  the  traffic 
which  will  pass  along  them.  The  first 
•which  will  be  completed  will  be  a 
short  one,  eight  miles  long,  from  St 
Paul  to  St  Anthony;  but  the  one 
which  will  contribute  chiefly  to  the 
settlement  of  the  territory,  is  from 
Madison,  the  capital  of  Wisconsin, 
which  is  already  connected  with  New 
York  by  rail,  to  St  Paul,  a  distance  of 
two  hundred  miles,  through  the  most 
fertile  part  of  Wisconsin.  This  rail- 
road has  been  chartered  to  extend 
from  St  Paul  to  the  western  boundary 
of  the  territory,  and  it  is  contemplated 
ultimately  to  the  Pacific.  At  present 
a  "  difficulty"  has  arisen  in  its  con- 
struction, which  will  probably  be  set- 
tled by  Congress,  as  difficulties  usually 
are  in  the  States.  Other  lines  from 
the  east  will  tap  the  Mississippi  valley 


327 

at  Prairie  du  Chien,  or  Prairie  la  Crosse. 
The  one  to  Dubuque,  in  Iowa,  is 
already  finished,  and  this  city  can 
now  be  reached  by  rail  from  New 
York,  a  distance  of  twelve  hundred 
miles.  A  projection,  second  only  in 
magnitude  to  the  great  Pacific  scheme, 
has  been  entertained,  of  connecting 
St  Paul  with  New  Orleans,  a  distance 
of  two  thousand  miles.  This  will  pro- 
bably be  completed  in  the  course  of  a 
very  few  years,  as  the  line  presents 
no  engineering  difficulties,  passing 
through  a  populous  country  the  whole 
way,  and,  in  its  successful  competition 
with  the  Mississippi,  will  set  at  rest 
for  ever  any  doubt  of  the  superiority 
of  rail  way  over  water  carriage,  if  it  still 
exists  in  the  minds  of  benighted  east- 
erns. Another  line  essential  to  the 
interests  of  Minnesota  is  already  com- 
menced, to  connect  St  Paul  with  Su- 
perior. When  I  visited  St  Paul  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  excitement,  involv- 
ing a  great  consumption  of  quid  and 
expenditure  of  oaths,  in  consequence 
of  the  conduct  of  a  certain  Colonel, 
who  was  also  a  member  of  Congress, 
and  who,  after  the  bill  was  passed, 
sanctioning  the  railway,  by  the  exer- 
cise of  what  is  called,  in  Congressional 
language,  "  outside  influence,"  but 
which,  in  unvarnished  American, 
means  dollars,  persuaded  the  engross- 
ing clerk  to  substitute  "  and  "  for  "  or," 
thereby  altering  entirely  a  most  im- 
portant provision  in  the  bill,  which 
somewhat  interfered  with  his  particu- 
lar interest.  This  was  accidentally 
discovered  before  the  final  assent  to 
the  bill  was  given,  and  the  charter 
was  repealed  in  consequence. 

The  effect  will  simply  be  to  run  a 
line  in  another  direction  between  the 
two  places  ;  for  the  value  of  this 
connection  is  incalculable,  and  the  ad- 
vantage to  be  gained  from  it  is  not  to 
be  lost  by  individual  roguery.  The 
two  great  ports  upon  the  western 
lakes  must  ever  be  Chicago  and  Supe- 
rior. From  the  former  is  now  ex- 
ported the  produce  of  the  West  for  the 
Atlantic  board.  To  reach  the  entrance 
of  the  Erie  Canal,  it  makes  a  circuit 
of  980  miles.  The  distance  from  Su- 
perior to  the  same  point  is  only  thirty- 
six  miles  more.  It  is  evident  that  the 
produce  of  the  country  lying  to  the 
back  of  these  ports,  will  find  its  way 
by  the  most  convenient  route  to  the 


328 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.          [Sept. 


nearest  outlet.  At  present  the  whole 
surplus  produce  of  Minnesota  goes  to 
Chicago  by  river  and  rail,  a  distance 
of  500  miles.  When  the  rail  to  Supe- 
rior is  completed  through  the  hundred 
miles  of  magnificent  lumber  country 
which  separates  that  city  from  St 
Paul,  the  whole  produce  of  the  Upper 
Mississippi  valley,  as  far  south  as  the 
borders  of  Iowa,  will  find  its  outlet  in 
this  direction,  instead  of  in  the  other. 
The  lumber  of  the  St  Croix,  the  live 
stock  of  the  St  Peter's,  the  cereals  of 
the  Eed  River  and  Western  Wiscon- 
sin, will  centre  at  Superior.  Here,  too, 
will  be  the  emporium  for  the  pro- 
ducts of  that  mineral  region  in  the 
midst  of  which  it  is  situated,  and  which 
may  safely  be  pronounced  the  most 
prolific  in  the  world.  The  iron  and 
copper  for  the  south  will  be  conveyed 
to  St  Paul  by  this  railway,  and  thence 
by  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans,  or 
wherever  may  be  its  ultimate  destina- 
tion. It  is  clear  from  this  that  the 
railway  which  connects  these  towns 
will  be  the  channel  through  which  the 
trade  of  the  east  and  the  south  of  this 
great  continent  will  freely  flow,  gath- 
ering volume  as  it  passes  from  the 
mighty  stream  of  western  produce 
which  here  pours  into  it.  But  the 
enterprise  which  lies  nearest  the 
heart  of  every  Minnesotian  is  the  rail- 
way to  the  Pacific.  I  was  fortunate 
enough,  when  at  Washington,  to  meet 
Governor  Stevens,  of  Washington 
Territory,  in  which  the  western  ter- 
minus is  situated,  upon  the  Straits  of 
De  Fuca,  which  separates  our  colony 
of  Vancouver's  Island  from  the  main- 
land. This  gentleman  had  just  ar- 
rived to  lay  his  survey  and  report 
upon  the  northern  route  before  Con- 
gress. He  entertained  the  strongest 
opinion  of  its  practicability.  The 
length  of  the  line  from  Chicago  to 
the  Pacific  will  be  1960  miles.  Of  this 
distance  990  miles,  or  about  one-half 
of  the  whole,  are  embraced  under  ex- 
isting acts  of  incorporation,  granted 
by  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota,  for  the 
construction  of  a  railway  in  the  re- 
quired direction,  some  portion  of  which 
is  already  completed.  It  is  true  that 
the  remaining  900  must  pass  through 
country  uninhabited  except  by  Indians 
and  buffalo,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Eed  River  settlements,  a  little  to  the 
south  of  which  it  is  designed  to  pass, 
and  the  settlements  upon  the  Pacific  ; 


but  experience  has  shown  that,  in  the 
United  States,  it  will  always  pay  to 
construct  a  railway  through  a  wild 
country,  for  the  purpose  of  opening  it 
up  for  settlement ;  and  a  single  log- 
hut  is  frequently  the  terminus  of  a 
paying  line.  The  very  manner  in 
which  they  are  located  shows  this. 
Thus  the  government  will  reserve  on 
a  railway  a  strip  of  land,  perhaps  fif- 
teen miles  wide,  upon  each  side  of  the 
line,  throughout  its  entire  length.  This 
is  divided  into  sections  of  640  acres, 
which  is  again  divided  into  eight  lots. 
No  person  is  permitted  to  purchase 
less  than  half  a  lot,  the  upset  price 
being  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  the 
acre.  The  alternate  sections  are  the 
property  of  the  railway,  and  it  is  en- 
titled to  make  its  selection  of  these  as 
it  progresses.  Hence  the  character 
of  the  country  through  which  it  passes 
becomes  very  important.  The  North 
Pacific  Rail  way  follows  the  Mississippi 
from  St  Paul  to  the  Sauk  Rapids,  where 
it  trends  westward,  and  forms  a  junc- 
tion with  a  branch  from  Superior,  which 
crosses  the  Mississippi  near  Sandy 
Lake,  thence  to  the  great  bend  of  the 
Upper  Missouri,  across  an  undulating 
country  abounding  in  buffalo,  with  a 
mild  climate,  no  engineering  diffi- 
culties, and  capable  of  producing 
good  crops  and  supporting  a  large 
population ;  then  across  a  more  sterile 
country,  bare  of  timber  to  the  base  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  over  them 
by  a  pass  nearly  six  thousand  feet 
high,  and  down  into  a  fertile  valley  to 
cross  another  range  at  an  elevation  of 
about  four  thousand  feet,  which  rises 
abruptly  from  the  Pacific.  There  is 
every  reason  to  suppose  that  by  mak- 
ing a  short  bend  to  the  north  into  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company's  territory, 
both  these  ranges  might  be  crossed  at 
a  much  less  elevation.  The  Straits  of 
De  Fuca  are  only  fifteen  days'  steam 
from  Shanghai,  which  would  then  be 
brought  within  a  month's  journey  of 
Liverpool. 

These  may  be  deemed  extravagant 
expectations  in  quiet  old-fashioned 
countries  like  our  own,  but  people  in 
America  are  familiar  with  such  enter- 
prises. The  rapidity  of  railway  ex- 
tension in  the  States  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  present  railway  traffic 
of  Chicago.  In  1852  there  was  only 
one  railway,  forty  miles  long,  into 
this  city.  When  I  was  there,  two 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


years  afterwards,  nearly  twenty  rail- 
ways  radiated  either  directly  or  by 
connections  from  Chicago,  with  an  ag- 
gregate length  of  2500  miles.  They  ex- 
tend north,  south,  west,  and  south-east. 
They  are  each  from  one  to  three  hun- 
dred miles  long,  passing  through  and 
opening  up  new  fertile  districts.  Eighty 
trains,  averaging  120  passengers  each, 
arrive  daily  at  Chicago,  and  eighty 
trains,  taking  nearly  the  same  number 
of  persons,  depart.  The  Illinois  Cen- 
tral, which  is  the  longest  railway  in  the 
world — being  771  miles  in  length,  in- 
cluding branches — passes  through  this 
town ;  so  it  is  well  qualified  to  be  the 
terminus  for  the  North  Pacific  line ;  and 
we  have  no  business  to  doubt  the  en- 
gineering performances  of  a  country  in 
which  there  are  already  21,310  miles 
of  railway  laid  down,  or  about  2500 
miles  more  than  in  the  whole  of  the 
rest  of  the  world  put  together. 

But  our  discussion  upon  this  sub- 
ject is  getting  very  nearly  as  long 
as  the  North  Pacific  Bailway  itself ; 
so,  having  sufficiently  considered  the 
political  economy  and  statistics  of 
Minnesota  and  its  capital,  it  is  time, 
before  leaving  the  latter,  to  look  at  it 
socially.  Everybody  in  the  Far  West 
is  hospitable,  but  there  is  very  little 
time  for  idle  ceremony  in  the  exercise 
of  hospitality.  We  did  not  know  any 
persons  there  except  those  we  met 
accidentally  at  the  hotel,  and  the 
gentleman  who  disposed  of  our  canoe 
and  camp-fixings  by  auction  for  our 
benefit.  He  was  a  prosperous  mer- 
chant of  the  place,  with  a  well- sup- 
plied store ;  and  we  were  referred  to 
him  as  the  principal  auctioneer.  Ac- 
cordingly, we  arranged  the  time  and 
place  for  the  auction,  and  two  small 
boys  perambulated  the  streets  with 
dinner-bells,  informing  the  public  of 
St  Paul,  at  the  pitch  of  their  voices, 
that  a  bark-canoe,  gun,  and  camp^ 
fixings,  were  to  be  put  up  for  compe- 
tition near  the  wharf,  where  our  faith- 
ful canoe  was  peacefully  reclining. 
At  the  appointed  hour  we  sneaked 
down  to  the  river-side  to  see  our  dear 
old  craft  knocked  down  to  the  highest 
bidder.  Our  respect  for  her  was  too 
great  to  admit  of  our  approach  so  near 
as  to  hear  the  unkind  criticisms  made 
at  her  expense ;  and  the  natural  deli- 
cacy of  our  feelings  prevented  our 
listening  to  the  deprecatory  remarks 
which  were  lavished  upon  our  pro- 


329 

perty  generally ;  so  we  retired  to  a 
respectful  distance,  just  far  enough  off 
to  hear  Mr  Collins,  with  a  loud  voice, 
proclaim  that  she  had  "gone"  for 
seven  dollars,  and  accompany  his  as- 
sertion by  a  rap  with  his  hammer, 
which  I  hoped  knocked  a  hole  in  the 
bottom,  for  she  was  worth  more  in. 
spite  of  her  patches,  and  we  had  ori- 
ginally purchased  her  for  twenty  dol- 
lars. We  were  somewhat  consoled 
by  hearing  that  an  extra  gun  which 
we  had  bought  at  the  Sault  for  ten 
dollars,  for  the  use  of  the  Indians  or 
voyageurs,  fetched  twelve.  It  was  a 
wretched  piece  of  workmanship  :  one 
barrel  had  never  been  known  to  go 
off;  the  other,  which  everybody  seem- 
ed to  consider  a  special  duty  to  keep 
loaded,  used  to  explode  spontane- 
ously at  the  most  unexpected  and  in- 
convenient seasons. 

Some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the 
rapid  increase  of  the  value  of  town 
lots  in  new  cities,  from  the  fact  that 
Mr  Collins  showed  us  one  which  he 
had  purchased  three  years  before  for 
150  dollars.  He  was  allowed  three 
years  in  which  to  pay  his  purchase 
money.  Upon  the  day  he  paid  in 
the  last  instalment,  and  thus  com- 
pleted his  title,  he  sold  the  same  lot 
for  1600  dollars. 

The  weather  was  frightfully  hot 
during  our  stay  in  St  Paul :  the 
thermometer  stood  one  day  at  95° 
in  my  bedroom.  There  is  in  conse- 
quence an  immense  consumption  ot 
cooling  drinks  always  going  on  at 
the  bar.  On  Sunday  I  was  struck 
with  a  greater  observance  of  the  day 
than  I  had  anticipated.  The  numerous 
churches  are  well  filled,  and  St  Paul 
is  rather  celebrated  for  a  more  uni- 
versal profession  of  religion  than  or- 
dinarily characterises  western  towns, 
— the  inhabitants  of  which  will  tell 
you  that  the  Sunday  is  "just  like 
any  other  day,  or  indeed  rather  more 
so."  The  dinner  was  the  most  un- 
pleasant process  at  St  Paul.  In  the 
first  place,  the  rush  into  the  room  at 
the  sound  of  the  gong  was  terrific, 
and  excited  and  heated  one  in  an 
atmosphere  at  "  blood-heat "  to  such 
an  extent  that,  combined  with  the 
exertion  of  scrambling  for  dishes,  and 
the  rapidity  with  which  their  contents 
were  necessarily  bolted,  we  found 
ourselves  at  the  end  of  ten  minutes 
seated  at  the  deserted  tables,  replete, 


330 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.  [Sept. 


panting,  perspiring,  and  exhausted. 
The  master  of  the  hotel  sat  at  au 
upper  table,  upon  the  sanctity  of 
which  "unprotected  males"  were  not 
allowed  to  intrude,  much  to  our  dis- 
gust, for  the  ladies  have  a  private  entry 
before  the  gong  rings,  and  sit  at  least 
three  minutes  longer  after  dinner  than 
the  gentlemen,  besides  indulging  in 
more  elaborate  preparations  of  corn, 
buckwheat,  and  other  special  deli- 
cacies. After  dinner  it  is  the  correct 
thing  to  go  out  upon  the  steps  in 
front  of  the  hotel,  unbutton  your 
waistcoat,  and  make  one  of  a  row  of 
tobacco  consumers,  some  of  whom 
chew,  some  smoke,  and  some  do  both. 
Here  we  tilt  our  chairs  well  back, 
criticise  the  passers-by,  as  this  is  in 
the  main  street — talk  politics,  and 
drink  cooling  beverages;  indeed,  the 
object  of  hurrying  through  dinner  at 
a  railway  pace  is  thus  most  satis- 
factorily explained.  It  is  evident  that 
the  pleasures  of  the  table  consist,  in 
this  country,  not  in  the  delicacy  of  the 
viands,  or  in  the  act  of  their  con- 
sumption, but  in  the  process  of  their 
digestion,  which  is  certainly  doubly 
necessary,  ancj  which  is  prolonged  as 
much  as  possible,  and  enjoyed  in  a 
very  epicurean  manner. 

We  generally  find  ourselves  here 
in  the  best  possible  company ;  and  if 
we  do  not  actually  mix  with  the 
highest  officials  in  the  territory,  at 
least  hear  all  about  them.  There  is 
a  Governor,  who  is  appointed  by  the 
President  and  Senate  for  four  years, 
and  who  is  ex  ojficio  Superintendent 
of  Indian  Affairs  and  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Militia ;  and  there  is  a 
Council  and  House  of  Representatives. 
The  number  of  councillors  is  limited 
to  fifteen,  and  of  representatives  to 
thirty-nine,  to  be  elected  by  a  plural- 
ity of  votes.  The  suffrage  is  of 
course  universal  to  every  free  white 
male  inhabitant  who  is  twenty- one 
years  old,  and  who  has  sworn  to  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  act  forming  that  of  the  territory. 
There  is  a  Supreme  Court,  with  a 
Chief  Justice,  and  which  goes  circuits; 
district  courts,  justices  of  the  peace, 
&c.  There  is  also  a  pretty  strong 
militia.  As  the  territory  is  only  six 
years  old,  all  here  are  strangers,  and  all 
adventurers  ;  and  the  most  confused 
Babel  of  languages  greets  our  ears  as- 


we  stroll  along.  Of  course  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  language,  in  its  varied  modi- 
fications of  Yankee,  English,  Scotch, 
and  Irish  prevails ;  but  there  is 
plenty  of  good  French,  and  the  voy- 
ageur  patois,  Chippeway  or  Sioux, 
German,  Dutch,  and  Norwegian.  The 
possessors  of  these  divers  tongues  are, 
however,  all  very  industrious  and  pros- 
perous, and  happy  in  the  anticipation 
of  fortune-making.  Joining  ourselves 
to  some  of  these,  we  may  enter  with 
them  a  bowling  saloon,  as  these  afford 
great  opportunities  for  observing  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  inhabit- 
ants. The  roughest  characters  from 
all  parts  of  the  West,  between  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Pacific,  collect 
here,  and  from  morning  till  night, 
shouts  of  hoarse  laughter,  extraordin- 
ary and  complicated  imprecations,  the 
shrill  cries  of  the  boy-markers  calling 
the  game,  and  the  booming  of  the 
heavy  bowls,  are  strangely  inter- 
mingled, and  you  come  out  stunned 
with  noise,  and  half  blinded  with  to- 
bacco smoke.  Some  of  these  men 
were  settlers  from  Pembina  and  the 
Red  River  settlements.  They  come 
down  to  Traverse  des  Sioux  with  a 
long  caravan  of  carts,  horses,  and  oxen. 
These  they  leave  there,  and  take 
steamer  to  St  Paul  for  a  hundred  miles 
down  the  St  Peter,  and  lay  in  their 
luxuries  of  civilisation,  and  those  ne- 
cessaries of  life  which  are  unprocur- 
able in  their  remote  settlement.  They 
were  just  starting  for  their  return 
journey  when  we  were  at  St  Paul, 
and  did  not  expect  to  arrive  at  Pem- 
bina for  a  month  or  six  weeks.  The 
distance  from  Traverse  des  Sioux  is 
about  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles. 
The  country  through  which  they  pass 
abounds  in  buffalo,  but  it  is  also  in- 
fested with  hostile  Sioux,  who  have 
lately  been  particularly  earnest  in 
their  quest  for  white  scalps,  and  they 
are  consequently  compelled  to  raise 
a  breastwork  for  protection  at  the 
camping  -  ground  every  night.  In 
winter,  the  journey  is  made  with  dog- 
teams  and  snow-shoes.  The  popula- 
tion upon  the  Red  River  is  made  up 
of  half-breeds,  buffalo  hunters,  and 
Scotch  farmers,  besides  a  few  Indian 
traders. 

At  last,  after  waiting  three  days 
at  St  Paul,  and  haying  sundry  false 
alarms  of  a  start,  it  was  intimated 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  Slates  of  America. 


to  us  that  we  should  be  conveyed 
from  the  hotel  in  an  omnibus  to  a 
steamer  that  really  was  about  to 
leave  for  Galena.  It  was  somewhat 
discouraging,  when  we  bade  adieu  to 
one  of  our  friends,  to  see  him  turn  up 
his  eyes  when  we  told  him  the  name 
of  the  boat.  "  Wai,  mister,"  he  said, 
"  it's  your  business,  not  mine  ;  but  I 
know  something  of  that  boat.  She 
belongs  to  that  darned  picayunishold 
'coon,  Jim  Mason,  and  he'll  run  her 
till  she  sinks,  or  busts  up,  and  then 
God  help  the  crowd."  The  Nominee, 
one  of  the  oldest  and  safest  boats  on 
the  river,  was  expected  up  in  a  day  or 
two,  and  we  were  half  tempted  to  wait 
for  her ;  but  we  were  too  much  pressed 
for  time  to  justify  such  a  proceeding; 
so  we  drove  down  to  the  wharf,  shook 
hands  tenderly  with  the  omnibus- 
driver,  and  boots,  who  accompanied 
him  to  help  us  to  get  our  luggage  on 
board,  and  went  in  search  of  cabins,  in 
the  course  of  which  B.  found  himself, 
by  mistake,  in  the  ladies'  saloon — a 
fact  he  was  politely  informed  of  by  one 
of  the  occupants,  who  said,  "  Guess 
you  put  for  the  wrong  pew,  mister." 

The  view  of  St  Paul  and  the  banks 
of  the  river  just  below  it  is  very  beau- 
tiful, and  I  was  thankful  for  a  stop- 
page upon  the  Pig's  Eye,  as  the  delay 
enabled  me  to  take  a  sketch  of  the 
town.  The  process  of  getting  over  a 
shallow  in  a  river  steamer  is  somewhat 
novel.  The  boat  we  were  in  had  only 
one  paddle-wheel  behind,  and  looked 
like  an  animated  water-mill.  When 
we  got  near  a  shallow,  the  pressure 
was  increased,  and  we  charged  it. 
Our  first  attempt  at  the  Pig's  Eye  was 
a  failure,  and  we  were  obliged  to  back 
off;  but  we  took  another  run  and  went 
at  it  resolutely — then  groaned  and 
creaked  severely  upon  the  sand,  while 
the  old  wheel  behind  worked  and 
pushed  away  bravely,  stirring  up 
oceans  of  mud,  until  we  scraped  over 
and  paddled  away  again  with  the 
rapid  current. 

The  population  upon  the  Upper  Mis- 
sissippi is  beginning  to  be  considerable, 
and  the  settlers  who  have  chosen  their 
locations  upon  its  banks  at  all  events 
revel  in  magnificent  scenery.  There 
are  bold  perpendicular  cliffs  towering 
above  the  dark  stream,  like  the  ruined 
walls  of  some  gigantic  fortress,  divided 
by  deep  valleys,  where  lofty  forest  trees 


331 

are  connected  by  hanging  creepers,  and 
grassy  glades  open  up  into  rolling 
prairie,  dotted  with  cattle  wading  in 
the  deep  pasturage;  while  here  and 
there  a  thin  wreath  of  blue  smoke, 
curling  over  all,  betokens  the  log-hut 
and  its  entourage  of  cultivation.  I  un- 
derstood that  all  this  land  was  already 
in  the  market,  and  most  of  it  private 
property.  The  way  in  which  wild 
land  is  settled  in  the  States  is  worthy 
of  notice.  The  pioneers  of  civilisation, 
without  capital  to  purchase  land,  go 
to  those  distant  parts  where  they  are 
at  liberty  to  "  squat "  without  any 
payment.  A  short  residence  of  a 
month  or  two  on  a  piece  of  land  is 
sufficient  to  give  a  man  a  pre-emptive 
claim  to  it  at  any  future  period ;  so 
that  when  it  is  surveyed  and  put  up 
for  sale  by  the  government,  he  is  en- 
titled to  buy  it  at  the  fixed  price  of  a 
dollar  and  a  quarter  the  acre,  thereby 
getting  the  advantage  of  his  own  im- 
provement. He  may  then  actually 
sell  the  land  at  five  or  six  times  this 
rate,  and,  paying  the  government  the 
amount  due,  pocket  the  difference,  and 
"  make  tracks  "  to  wild  lands  further 
west,  and  repeat  the  process  there. 
Thus  there  is  always  a  great  deal  of 
settled  land  beyond  that  which  is  ac- 
tually surveyed  and  available  for  pur- 
chase at  land-offices.  There  are  about 
twenty  millions  of  acres  open  for  this 
sort  of  settlement  in  Minnesota,  and 
the  emigrant  has  free  choice  to  go 
and  take  possession  of  any  loca- 
tion that  suits  his  fancy,  without 
asking  permission,  or  being  called 
upon  to  pay  a  farthing  to  anybody. 
He  had  better  make  his  claim  upon 
the  side  of  some  navigable  river,  so 
that  he  can  reach  a  settlement  without 
difficulty  ;  or  if  he  "  conclude"  to  re- 
main in  a  town,  he  must  buy  a  lot, 
and  can  run  up  a  small  house  for  him- 
self in  ten  days  or  a  fortnight.  What 
is  called  "  green  dimension  lumber" 
is  twelve  dollars  a  thousand  feet  at 
St  Paul,  and  nine  dollars  at  St  An- 
thony. He  will  get  shingles  for  his 
roof  at  two  dollars  a  thousand,  and 
find  all  the  other  necessaries  in  the 
shape  of  glass,  nails,  putty,  &c.,  at 
reasonable  prices. 

The  St  Croix  River  enters  the  Mis- 
sissippi from  the  left,  about  fifteen 
miles  below  St  Paul.  It  expands  into  a 
lake  just  above  the  confluence,  and 


332 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.         [Sept. 


divides  Minnesota  from  Wisconsin. 
We  stopped  at  Point  Douglas  to  take 
in  wood  for  fuel.  It  is  a  thriving  town 
opposite  Point  Prescot,  a  rival  village 
upon  the  Wisconsin  side.  Between 
them  was  Lake  St  Croix,  glowing  in 
the  evening  sun,  and  surrounded  by  a 
charmingly  diversified  country,  the 
hills  swelling  back  from  the  water,  and 
covered  with  prairie  or  forest,  and 
watered  by  large  streams,  abounding 
in  waterfalls  and  trout.  Steamers 
run  up  the  St  Croix  to  Stillwater,  a 
large  town,  settled  long  before  St  Paul, 
and  owing  its  prosperity  to  the  lum- 
ber districts  upon  the  head  waters  of 
the  river  upon  which  it  is  situated. 
By  ascending  the  St  Croix  for  a  hun- 
dred miles  in  a  bark  canoe,  and  mak- 
ing a  short  portage  to  the  Brule 
River,  Lake  Superior  is  easily  reached. 
At  present  Stillwater  is  a  formidable 
rival  to  St  Anthony,  boasting  nume- 
rous saw-mills,  and  floating  countless 
lumber  rafts  to  the  Southern  States. 
Lumber  is,  indeed,  the  most  important 
item  of  Minnesota  exports,  and  fur- 
nishes more  employment  to  labour 
than  any  other  trade.  Upwards  of  a 
hundred  persons  are  employed  at  the 
Mississippi  Boom  alone,  exclusive  of 
those  engaged  in  running  the  rafts 
down  the  river.  The  booms  on  the 
St  Croix,  Rum  River,  and  at  the  Falls 
of  St  Anthony,  require  at  least  300 
more.  But  there  is  besides  quite  a 
floating  population  on  the  rafts,  who 
are  always  getting  in  the  way  of  the 
steamers,  and  indulging  in  an  immense 
deal  of  "chaff"  at  their  expense. 
The  wood  here  is  cheaper  than  on  Lake 
Superior,  128  solid  feet  costing  only 
two  dollars  instead  of  three. 

The  most  celebrated  part  of  the 
Upper  Mississippi,  as  well  for  the 
beauty  of  the  scenery  as  for  the  ro- 
mantic Indian  legends  which  attach 
to  many  of  the  most  striking  objects 
in  it,  is  Lake  Pepin.  It  is  properly  an 
expansion  of  the  river,  not  exceeding 
four  or  five  miles  in  width,  and  twenty- 
five  in  length.  The  current  is,  however, 
barely  perceptible.  Upon  the  right, 
lofty  calcareous  cliffs  terminate  ab- 
ruptly. They  are  generally  pyramidal 
in  form.  The  La  Grange  cliff  at  the 
entrance  to  the  lake  is  about  350  feet 
in  height,  and  a  remarkable  instance 
of  this ;  the  "  Maiden's  Rock"  is  a 
lofty  promontory  projecting  into  the 


lake,  upon  the  north-east  side,  and 
rising  from  it  to  an  elevation  of  about 
400  feet.  It  is  so  called  because  an 
Indian  damsel  precipitated  herself 
from  the  top  of  it,  like  any  civilised 
young  lady.  Winona — for  that  was 
her  name — was  incited  to  this  act  by  a 
sentiment  which  it  has  been  supposed 
only  exists  in  the  form  of  temporary 
insanity  in  refined  society.  Her  story 
is  considered,  therefore,  very  re- 
markable by  the  Indians,  who  have 
handed  down  the  romantic  talc ;  but 
it  is  common  enough  among  whites. 
She  was  in  love  with  rather  a  fast 
young  Sioux  hunter,  with  no  means 
of  his  own,  and  no  interest  to  obtain 
anything,  and  of  whom  the  parents, 
therefore,  did  not  approve  as  a  match, 
more  particularly  when  an  unexcep- 
tionable "  partie  "  offered  himself,  in 
the  shape  of  a  warrior  with  a  very  good 
income,  a  lodge  very  well  garnished 
with  scalps,  and  an  establishment 
generally  which  no  young  woman  of 
proper  feelings  would  have  dreamt  of 
refusing.  Winona,  however,  seems 
to  have  been  badly  brought  up,  for  she 
persisted  in  her  obstinacy.  She  cer- 
tainly did  go  so  far  as  to  flirt  a  little 
with  the  warrior,  and  chose  him  more 
often  than  was  quite  correct,  if  she  did 
not  mean  anything,  as  her  partner  at 
scalp-dances ;  but  this,  she  assured  her 
lover,  was  only  for  the  sake  of  keep- 
ing up  appearances. in  society:  her 
heart  could  never  be  another's,  &c.,  &c. 
At  last  her  mamma  said  that  it  was 
quite  absurd  of  Winona  to  put  the 
whole  family  to  inconvenience,  and 
prevent  her  younger  sisters  from  being 
settled  in  life  through  her  caprice,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  money  that  had 
been  lavished  upon  her,  and  the  trouble 
which  had  been  taken  to  get  into  the 
best  society  on  her  account ;  so  she 
read  her  husband  a  curtain-lecture  to 
that  effect,  and  that  respectable  indi- 
vidual took  the  opportunity  of  inform- 
ing Winona  one  day,  when  they  went 
to  get  some  blue  clay,  used  as  a  pig- 
ment, upon  the  shores  of  Lake  Pepin, 
that  she  must  marry  forthwith  the 
obnoxious  warrior.  Winona  looked 
submissive,  but  she  was  evidently  a 
determined  little  vixen  at  bottom, 
for  she  stole  away  up  the  cliff,  from 
the  top  of  which  she  harangued  her 
parents  and  some  of  her  relations, 
in  reproachful  and  even  disrespectful 


1855.] 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.       333 


terms,  and  then,  in  spite  of  their  ap- 
peals "  to  return  and  all  would  be  for- 
given," she  precipitated  herself  head- 
long among  them.  It  is  said  that  the 
young  gentleman  for  whose  sake  she 
thus  terminated  her  existence,  ap- 
peared utterly  disconsolate  at  the  time; 
but  this  is  doubted,  as,  although  no 
very  distinct  traces  of  him  have  been 
discovered,  he  is  supposed  to  have 
found  consolation  in  the  orthodox  way, 
and  to  have  married  an  heiress. 

There  are  some  conical  mounds  upon 
the  prairie  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
lake,  which  look  as  if  they  were  arti- 
ficial, and  are  supposed  to  be  similar 
to  those  which  have  been  opened  in 
other  parts  of  the  continent,  and  to 
contain  quantities  of  bones,  showing 
that  they  were  the  bury  ing- places  of 
Indians.  A  few  years  will  suffice  to 
obliterate  all  traces  of  the  nations  who 
once  inhabited  these  shores.  Not  only 
will  their  present  occupants  be  driven 
farther  west,  but  those  mounds  which 
mark  the  resting-places  of  their  ances- 
tors will  shortly  be  levelled  by  the 
ploughshare,  and  the  inequalities  of 
the  ground,  now  so  significant,  will  be 
hidden  by  the  long  waving  corn.  The 
very  means  of  our  locomotion  suggest- 
ed the  rapidity  of  the  change  which  is 
taking  place.  A  bark  canoe  is  un- 
known upon  the  waters  of  this  part  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  would  now  excite 
as  much  wonder  and  curiosity  among 
the  white  men  upon  its  banks,  as  a 
steamer  did  fifteen  years  ago  among 
the  red  men,  whose  bark-lodges  have 
since  made  way  for  the  log-huts.  We 
therefore  regretted  that  we  had  not 
pushed  on  in  our  bark  canoe  from  St 
Paul,  instead  of  waiting  for  the 
steamer,  as  we  flattered  ourselves  we 
should  have  produced  very  much  the 
same  effect  upon  the  inhabitants  as 
those  gentlemen  did  who  recently 
pulled  down  the  Danube  in  a  Thames 
wherry. 

A  little  below  Lake  Pepin,  a  rocky 
island,  as  lofty  as  the  bluffs  upon 
either  side,  divides  the  stream,  and  is 
remarkable  as  being  of  the  same  for- 
mation as  the  cliffs,  and  not  a  mere 
bank  of  alluvial  deposit,  as  is  the  case 
with  everj7  other  island  on  the  river, 
as  far  as  New  Orleans,  with  one  or 
two  exceptions.  As  yet  the  popula- 
tion seems  almost  altogether  confined 
to  the  eastern  or  Wisconsin  bank  of 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


the  river.  There  was  seldom  an  inter- 
val of  more  than  a  mile  without  some 
sign  of  the  white  man.  Generally  it 
was  the  solitary  log-hut,  with  the 
usual  wife,  children,  and  chickens  at 
the  door  ;  now  and  then  a  small 
village,  until  we  reach  Prairie  la 
Crosse,  a  town  rapidly  rising  into 
importance,  and  the  projected  termi- 
nus of  a  railway  from  Madison.  Our 
stoppages,  however,  were  generally  so 
short  that  we  could  do  little  more 
than  stretch  our  legs  for  a  few  mo- 
ments on  terra  firrna,  when  we  were 
warned  on  board  again  by  the  steamer's 
bell. 

Soon  after  leaving  La  Crosse, 
we  passed  the  "  Nominee,"  crowded 
with  passengers,  and  firmly  imbedded 
on  a  sand-bank.  We  stopped  for  a 
moment  to  make  a  few  sarcastic  and 
humorous  remarks  upon  their  condi- 
tion, when  we  touched  the  ground 
ourselves,  and  were  greeted  by  a  loud 
shout  of  laughter  at  this  just  retribu- 
tion. However,  our  anterior  wheel 
exerted  itself  miraculously,  and  we 
left  the  "  Nominee"  disconsolate,  and 
its  captain  devising  Yankee  dodges  for 
her  release.  She  drew  more  water 
than  we  did,  and  had  two  paddle- 
wheels.  In  spite  of  their  predicament, 
I  half  envied  the  passengers  in  her, 
who  were  going  to  try  their  fortune  in 
the  country  we  were  turning  our  backs 
upon.  The  boundary  of  Iowa  and 
Minnesota  was  upon  our  right,  and 
I  looked  for  the  last  time  with  regret 
upon  this  vast  territory,  which  covers 
an  area  of  200,000  miles,  which  gives 
origin  to  the  mighty  Mississippi,  and 
furnishes  a  thousand  miles  of  its  banks, 
and  which  is  as  prolific  in  its  resources 
as  inviting  in  its  aspect.  Blessed 
with  such  advantages  of  soil  and  cli- 
mate, daily  becoming  more  easy  of 
access,  with  mercantile,  agricultural, 
lumbering,  and  mineral  interests  so 
rapidly  developing,  no  wonder  that 
the  tide  of  emigration  sets  steadily  in 
its  direction  ;  and  he  would  be  a  rash 
individual  indeed,  who  would  dare  to 
take  the  bet  of  one  of  its  inhabitants, 
who  said,  u  We  just  setup  Minnesota 
against  the  rest  of  the  world^  and  all 
the  other  planets,  and  coolly  offer  to 
back  her  with  any  odds  you  may 
choose  to  offer." 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  we 
could  make  a  voyage  of  two  days  and 
z 


334 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.  [Sept. 


nights  in  a  Mississippi  steamboat  with- 
out getting  "  snagged,"  and  we  were 
always  on  the  tiptoe  of  expectation 
for  the  crash,  which  at  last  came,  and 
"  broke  up  "  our  paddle-wheel.  We  had 
been  reminded  most  forcibly  of  the 
possibility  of  such  an  occurrence,  hav- 
ing nearly  run  up  against  the  huge 
stranded  carcass  of  a  steamer,  which 
not  long  before  had  shared  this  fate. 
Fortunately,  the  bottom  of  our  boat 
did  not  suffer,  so  that  a  detention  of 
some  hours  under  a  range  of  bluffs 
four  or  five  hundred  feet  in  height, 
was  the  only  inconvenience ;  indeed, 
we  scarcely  regretted  even  this,  for 
we  enjoyed  a  ramble  along  the  base 
of  the  cliffs,  and  a  swim  in  the  river, 
peculiarly  grateful  after  the  crowded 
arrangements  on  board  the  boat. 
This  craft  was  by  no  means  well 
adapted  for  passengers  under  any 
circumstances  ;  but  in  spite  of  her 
bad  character  she  had  managed  to 
start  from  St  Paul  with  a  host  of 
deluded  beings,  who  were  for  the 
most  part  unprovided  with  berths, 
and  supplied  to  a  very  limited  extent 
with  food.  The  consequence  was, 
that  as  the  dinner-hour  drew  near, 
the  doors  of  the  saloon  were  besieged 
very  much  as  those  of  an  opera-house 
are  at  a  popular  singer's  benefit ;  and 
upon  their  being  opened,  a  rush  took 
place,  succeeded  by  a  hot  contest  for 
seats.  This  was  a  most  disagreeable 
process,  and  one  which  was  very  apt 
to  lead  to  unpleasant  results  ;  so  we 
used  generally  to  wait  until  two  de- 
tachments of  unshaven  ruffians  had 
dined,  and  then  we  came  in  for  the 
scraps  at  a  late  hour  in  the  afternoon. 
Upon  one  occasion  we  made  a  despe- 
rate effort,  and  I  got  next  the  purser, 
who  always  secured  a  good  place  for 
himself  at  the  first  table.  My  mild  re- 
monstrance producing  no  effect,  I  was 
roused  by  his  placidity  to  still  stronger 
language,  much  to  the  astonishment 
of  the  passengers,  who  look  upon  the 
purser  of  a  steamer  in  America  with 
as  much  awe  as  if  they  were  under  a 
despotic  monarchy,  and  he  was  (as 
steamboat  captains  in  the  latter  coun- 
tries always  are)  a  government  spy. 
The  effect  was  as  extraordinary  as  it 
was  unexpected.  Instead  either  of 
retorting  with  an  oath  or  a  bowie,  or 
following  a  totally  different  line  and 
adopting  a  conciliatory  tone,  the 


purser,  without  relaxing  his  imper- 
turbability, rose  from  his  seat  and 
disappeared,  leaving  his  plate,  which 
had  just  been  replenished,  untouched. 
We  were  unable  to  discover  whether 
his  feelings  or  his  food  had  been  too 
much  for  him  ;  but  it  was  perplexing 
conduct,  and  made  me  feel  a  strong 
desire  to  apologise  to  him  upon  the 
first  opportunity.  He,  however,  never 
exhibited  any  traces  either  of  dis- 
pleasure or  of  increased  civility ;  so- 
we  regarded  it  as  a  curious  develop- 
ment of  Far  West  forbearance,  and 
one  which  (if  he  had  taken  his  dinner 
with  him)  would  furnish  a  most  use- 
ful and  profitable  lesson  to  people  in 
any  part  of  the  world.  From  this 
absence  on  the  part  of  the  purser  of 
any  power  or  disposition  to  indulge 
in  repartee,  he  could  hardly  be  the 
one  to  whom,  when  a  complaint  was 
made  in  one  of  these  very  boats  that 
the  towel  in  the  public  washing-room 
was  filthy,  answered  pithily,  u  Wai 
now,  I  reckon  there's  fifty  passengers 
on  board  this  boat,  and  they've  all 
used  that  towel,  and  you're  the  first 
one  on  'em  that's  complained  of  it." 

The  most  singular-looking  place  at 
which  we  stopped  was  Winona — a 
village  called  after  the  Sioux  maiden 
before  mentioned.  It  consists  of 
thirty  or  forty  wooden  houses,  scat- 
tered over  a  perfectly  level  prairie 
eight  or  ten  miles  long  and  about  two 
in  width,  and  backed  by  a  range  of 
well-rounded  partially-wooded  hills. 
This  prairie  was  the  more  remarkable, 
because  the  scenery  had  been  of  the 
same  character,  with  this  exception, 
ever  since  leaving  St  Paul.  The  high 
bluffs  on  either  side,  which  appeared 
so  fantastic  in  shape  at  first,  had  lost 
their  interest  in  a  large  measure  from 
the  great  similarity  which  subsists 
between  them,  and  it  was  quite  a  relief 
to  come  upon  a  stretch  of  prairie  land. 

Shortly  after  passing  the  mouth  of 
the  Wisconsin  river — celebrated  as- 
the  one  by  which  the  Mississippi  was 
first  reached  by  Marquette — we  saw 
the  large  and  handsome  town  of  Du- 
buque  upon  the  left  bank,  situated  at 
the  base  of  hills  terraced  with  vines 
to  the  summit,  and  very  much  remind- 
ing me  of  those  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Ehine.  A  long  low  island,  with  a 
shallow  channel  between  it  and  the 
town,  renders  Dubuque  somewhat 


1855.]         Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


335 


difficult  of  access.  We  were  so  tired 
of  the  steamer  that  we  determined  to 
land  here,  and  find  our  way  across 
the  prairie  to  the  Illinois  Central 
Railway,  instead  of  going  on  to  Ga- 
lena. We  were  fortunate  in  meeting 
with  a  hotel-keeper  on  the  point  of 
starting  in  a  light  well  -  appointed 
waggon,  and  four  very  bright-looking 
nags.  He  offered  to  take  the  whole 
party  to  Warren,  forty  miles,  for  a 
consideration;  and  in  half -an -hour 
we  were  galloping  along  the  main 
street  to  the  river.  We  were  pretty 
well  able  to  judge  of  the  extent 
and  prosperity  of  the  town,  and  I 
was  not  surprised  to  learn  that  it 
was  becoming  a  formidable  rival  to 
Galena.  It  is  the  largest  town  in  the 
State  of  Iowa,  with  a  population  of 
about  8000,  and  an  increasing  trade. 
It  was  first  settled  by  the  Canadian 
French  in  1686,  or  a  very  few  years 
after  the  Mississippi  was  discovered, 
for  trading  purposes  with  the  Indians. 
The  streets  are  broad,  and  well  laid 
out,  at  right  angles  to  one  another, 
with  an  active  bustling  population. 
The  progress  of  the  town  is,  however, 
quite  of  recent  date,  and  is  to  be  attri- 
buted partly  to  the  great  influx  of  immi- 
gration towards  the  whole  west,  more 
particularly  since  the  organisation  of 
Nebraska  territory,  to  which  it  is  an 
important  outlet,  and  partly  to  the 
existence  of  the  most  prolific  lead 
mines  which  are  to  be  found  in  the 
"  States,"  in  its  immediate  neighbour- 
hood. Dr  Owen  says  that  these  af- 
ford as  much  lead  as  the  whole  of 
Europe,  excepting  Great  Britain,  and 
that  their  capabilities  are  unbounded. 
It  is  found  principally  in  the  upper 
magnesian  limestone.  Zinc  occurs 
in  fissures  along  with  the  lead.  Iron 
ore  is  also  abundantly  distributed. 
There  is  a  coal-field  in  the  State, 
not  far  south  of  Dubuque,  em- 
bracing an  area  of  20,000  square 
miles,  through  which  flow  the  Iowa 
and  Des  Moines,  both  navigable  rivers. 
Wine  is  becoming  quite  an  import- 
ant article  of  manufacture  and  ex- 
port from  Dubuque,  and  the  growth 
of  the  vine  certainly  adds  much  to  the 
beauty  of  the  place,  whatever  may  be 
its  effect  upon  its  prosperity.  Here, 
as  in  Minnesota,  a  great  railway 
system  has  been  projected,  and  Du- 
buque will  shortly  be  connected  with 


Iowa  city,  the  capital  of  the  State, 
from  which  it  is  distant  seventy- two 
miles.  Here  other  railways  from  the 
east  will  centre,  and  a  grand  trunk 
line  will  extend  to  Council  Bluffs 
upon  the  Missouri,  which  forms  the 
western  boundary  of  the  States,  and 
divides  it  from  the  territory  of  Ne- 
braska, which  was  only  organised  as 
such  last  year.  The  general  aspect 
of  the  country  is  that  of  a  high  roll- 
ing prairie,  watered  by  magnificent 
streams,  and  on  the  river  courses 
skirted  with  woodland.  There  are, 
besides,  timber  lands  less  extensive 
than  the  prairies.  In  an  agricultural 
point  of  view  its  capabilities  are  very 
great ;  the  soil  is  everywhere  fertile, 
and  its  natural  pastures  afford  great 
facilities  for  the  rearing  of  sheep  and 
cattle.  When  the  great  enterprise 
which  has  been  undertaken  by  the 
State,  of  rendering  the  Des  Moines 
river,  which  flows  into  theMississippi, 
navigable  for  two  hundred  miles  from 
its  mouth,  is  completed,  a  tract  of 
country  will  be  opened  up  well  worthy 
the  attention  of  theintending  emigrant. 
At  present  the  great  rush  is  through 
this  state  to  Nebraska ;  and  I  was  sur- 
prised to  hear  that  comparatively  few 
took  up  locations  upon  the  sunny  hill- 
sides of  Iowa.  It  was  only  admitted 
into  the  Union  in  1846,  and  its  popu- 
lation, in  1852,  had  already  reached 
230,000,  so  that  now  it  probably 
amounts  to  about  400,000.  We  cross- 
ed the  river  by  a  curiously  construct- 
ed ferry-boat,  and  found,  waiting  to 
be  conveyed  to  the  western  bank,  ox 
waggons,  reminding  me  of  those  used 
at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope— covered 
with  white  canvass,  and  containing 
the  settler's  family,  and  all  his  goods 
and  chattels.  There  seemed  to  be 
very  little  difference  in  the  process 
which  the  Dutch  boor  calls  "  trekk- 
ing," and  that  which  the  Illinois 
farmer  terms  "  making  tracks."  Our 
Dubuque  friend  told  us  that  through- 
out the  summer  there  had  been  an 
unceasing  stream  of  waggons  and 
teams  crossing  the  river,  and  "  mov- 
ing to  "  the  Far  West ;  and  his  asser- 
tion was  corroborated  by  the  ferry- 
man, who  complained  that  one  boat 
had  not  been  enough  to  do  the  work. 
Ascending  a  steep  hill,  we  shortly 
after  came  upon  an  interesting  family. 
First,  some  yards  in  advance,  the 


Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America.         [Sept. 


336 

patriarch  appeared,  with  rounded 
shoulders  and  slouching  gait,  clothed 
in  a  negligee  buff- coloured  suit  — 
his  loose  hunting-shirt  reached  near- 
ly to  his  knees — his  wide  trousers 
fell  over  low  fox -coloured  shoes  — 
one  of  his  long  arms  swung  by 
his  side,  the  other  supported  a 
heavy  rifle  —  his  powder-horn,  en- 
cased in  deer-skin,  and  his  bullet- 
pouch,  ornamented  with  a  squirrel's 
tail,  hung  round  his  coarse  sunburnt 
neck.  With  long  steps  and  flat  In- 
dian tread  he  stalked  past,  scarce 
honouring  with  a  glance  of  his  keen 
«ye  our  dashing  equipage.  Behind 
trim  came  the  waggon  with  the  hardy- 
looking  mother  surrounded  by  a  brood 
of  small  fry  sitting  in  front,  and  all 
their  worldly  possessions,  from  a  bed- 
stead to  a  tea-cup,  stowed  away  in- 
side. There  was  a  big  sensible-look- 
ing dog  keeping  watch  over  all,  doubt- 
less a  tried  and  faithful  servant,  to 
whom  I  attached  some  significance 
after  the  description  I  once  heard  a 
Yankee  give  of  the  greatest  friend  he 
possessed  in  the  world.  "Ah!"  he 
said,  "  my  friend  Sam  is  a  hull  team 
and  a  horse  to  spare,  besides  a  big 
dog  under  the  waggon."  It  said  more 
for  the  consistency  of  Sam's  friend- 
ship than  if  he  had  panegyrised  him 
for  half-an-hour  in  our  less  forcible 
Anglican  mode  of  expression.  A  few 
hundred  yards  in  the  rear  came  some 
stray  horses  and  cows,  driven  by  a 
barefooted  lass  with  evidently  nothing 
on  but  a  cotton  gown,  and  even  that 
seemed  to  be  an  unnatural  and  dis- 
agreeable encumbrance  to  her  lower 
extremities.  The  probability  is,  how- 
ever, that  some  stray  senator  may 
pick  her  up  on  some  future  day  when 
the  "  diggins,"  to  which  she  is  now 
bound,  become  thickly  populated  and 
progressive.  Meantime  her  father 
complains  of  being  "  crowded  out," 
and  says  that  he  has  no  longer  elbow- 
room,  and  that  people  are  settling 
down  under  his  nose,  "  when  the  near- 
est farm  to  that  which  he  has  just  left 
in  disgust  is  at  least  twenty  miles  dis- 
tance by  the  sectional  lines."  He  is 
no  emigrant  from  the  old  country,  but 
moved  into  Western  Illinois  when 
that  was  the  Far  West.  But  he  sees 
crowds  of  emigrants  moving  beyond 
him,  and  crowds  more  taking  up  their 
location  where  he  once  roved  in  soli- 


tary dignity;  and  that  disturbs  his 
peace  of  mind,  and  he  leaves  the 
cockney  atmosphere  for  the  silent 
prairie  far  beyond  the  most  distant 
emigrant,  never  stopping,  perhaps, 
till  he  reaches  the  western  borders  of 
Nebraska,  where  the  Indian  war- 
whoop  is  still  heard  to  recall  the  expe- 
riences of  his  earlier  days,  and  to  keep 
ever  bright  the  watchful  eye,  and  the 
listening  ear  ever  attentive,  and  thus 
to  add  to  the  peaceful  occupations  of 
agriculture,  the  excitement  incident  to 
a  border  life. 

"  As  the  tinkling  of  the  cattle-bells 
died  upon  the  ear,  we  emerged  from  a 
wooded  glen  and  found  ourselves  up- 
on the  open  prairie.  We  were  on 
the  southern  border  of  Wisconsin  and 
Illinois,  and  the  air  of  the  wide  open 
country  was  fresh  and  exhilarating. 
There  were  some  large  brick-fields 
here,  from  which  the  town  of  Dubuque 
was  principally  built;  but  it  is  pro- 
gressing so  rapidly  that  they  are  now 
found  to  afford  an  inadequate  supply. 
Lead-shafts  and  furnaces  were  nume- 
rous, and  betokened  the  abundance  of 
the  ore,  which  is  found  throughout  a 
great  portion  of  South-western  Wis- 
consin, as  well  as  in  Iowa.  No  man 
who  visits  America  should  leave  it,  if 
possible,  without  taking  a  run  upon 
"  our  pereras."  They  certainly  con- 
tribute in  no  small  degree  towards 
enabling  "  our  country  to  whip  crea- 
tion." And  there  is  an  expanse  and 
freedom  about  them  which  accords 
well  with  the  spirit  of  the  people  who 
occupy  them.  We  galloped  over  the 
grass,  flushing  prairie  chickens,  and 
cracking  our  whips  about  our  nags' 
ears,  to  whose  credit  it  must  be  said 
that  they  did  not  need  any  such  admo- 
nition to  do  their  duty,  for  in  two  hours 
and  a  half  we  had  rattled  over  the  first 
twenty  miles,  and  stopped  to  bait  at  a 
neat  village,  where  we  were  tenderly 
cared  for,  and  regaled  with  excellent 
fare,  by  a  German  housewife,  who  was 
as  primitive  and  simple  in  her  manners 
as  if  she  was  still  in  some  Thai  or  other 
in  her  fatherland ;  then  we  "  inspan- 
ned  "  and  passed  thriving  farms  and 
stacks  of  hay,  and  here  and  there  en- 
closures where  the  harvest  had  just 
been  gathered,  every  now  and  then 
meeting  more  families  moving  west, 
and  once  passing  a  traveller  going  in 
the  same  direction  as  ourselves,  whose 


1855.]          Notes  on  Canada  and  the  North-west  States  of  America. 


costume  and  appearance  excited  the 
deepest  interest.  He  looked  as  per- 
fect a  representation  of  Don  Quixote 
as  did  his  horse  of  Rosinante.  In- 
stead of  a  squire,  however,  he  was 
followed  by  a  particularly  thin  mule, 
on  whose  back  were  strapped  all  his 
worldly  effects,  and  which  was  at- 
tached by  a  leading-rein  to  the  tail  of 
his  horse.  He  wore  a  tall  conical 
wide-awake,  a  long  pointed  beard, 
and  drooping  mustache,  and  smoked 
aCubano  of  surpassing  size  and  length. 
His  sleeves  were  slashed  to  the  shoul- 
der, and  his  jacket  ornamented  with 
rows  of  buttons.  From  a  girdle  round 
his  waist  peered  forth  the  handles  of 
sundry  daggers  and  the  butts  of  re- 
volvers. A  high  -  peaked  Spanish 
saddle  was  furnished  with  stirrups  of 
cumbrous  manufacture,  into  which 
were  thrust  heavy  jack -boots,  with 
spurs  such  as  Cromwell's  dragoons 
would  have  gazed  at  with  wonder.  It 
was  only  natural  that  we  should  do  the 
same;  and  I  did  not  think  such  speci- 
mens were  extant  except  in  museums 
of  Spanish  curiosities.  He  puffed  along 
with  a  dignified  air,  not  appearing  in 
the  least  discomposed  by  his  solitary 
ride  from  California,  or  anxious  to 
reach  its  termination,  which  was  in 
all  probability  the  railway,  now  only 
about  ten  miles  distant.  Perhaps  he 
felt  regret  at  the  prospect  of  giving 
up  the  wild  adventurous  life  he  had 
been  leading,  and  did  not  wish  to 
hurry — or  perhaps  his  animals  were 
tired,  which,  considering  they  had 
come  two  thousand  miles,  was  not  to 
be  wondered  at ;  but  they  looked  as 
hard  as  nails,  or  as  he  did  himself. 
Whatever  was  the  cause,  he  jogged 
slowly  on ;  and  I  watched  him  with 
feelings  of  mingled  curiosity  and  awe, 
until  his  quaint  form  was  lost  in  the 
distance.  The  only  other  excitement 
of  the  drive  was  a  break-neck  race 
with  another  waggon,  in  which  we 
were  both  very  nearly  smashed,  and 
which  had  the  advantage  of  hurrying 
us  over  five  miles  of  our  journey  be- 
fore we  knew  it,  and  of  bringing  us 
in  time  for  the  train  a  little  after  dark. 
We  did  not  see  much  of  Warren  in 
consequence,  but  ensconced  ourselves 
in  the  most  comfortable  corner  of  the 
car  we  could  find,  and  gave  ourselves 
up  to  the  luxuries  of  rapid  locomotion 
and  civilisation.  We  were  now  in 


337 

Illinois — our  Far  West  experiences 
were  fast  drawing  to  a  close — and 
before  daybreak  we  found  ourselves 
at  Chicago,  that  emporium  for  west- 
ern produce.  The  history  of  its  rise 
and  progress  has  been  fully  discussed 
by  recent  travellers ;  and  all  the  world 
knows  how,  twenty  years  ago,  there 
were  only  a  few  log-huts  here,  ex- 
posed to  the  depradations  of  savage 
Indian  tribes ;  how,  since  then,  it  has 
been  increasing  with  untold  rapidity; 
how,  within  the  last  three  years,  the 
population  has  risen  from  38,000  to 
75,000 ;  how  railways  diverge  from 
it  in  all  directions  —  the  arteries  of 
that  magnificent  country  of  which  it 
is  the  heart ;  how  its  lake  commerce 
rivals  its  railway  traffic,  and  surpasses 
that  of  any  other  town  similarly 
situated.  It  would  betray  the  great- 
est ignorance,  nowadays,  not  to  be 
familiar  with  all  this ;  and  they  must 
be  ill-informed  indeed  who  do  not 
know,  moreover,  that  Colonel  R.  J. 
Hamilton  is  the  oldest  inhabitant,  but 
that  Mr  G.  W.  Dole,  and  Mr  P.  F. 
W.  Peck  came  here  so  soon  after  that 
they  almost  share  the  honours  with 
him,  and  are  always  referred  to  upon 
interesting  points  touching  the  wea- 
ther, the  crops,  &c. ;  that  the  oldest 
native  inhabitant  is  a  daughter  of  the 
gallant  colonel ;  and  that  Mr  Robert 
A.  Kinzie  opened  the  first  store,  .and 
Mr  Elijah  Wentwprth  kept  the  first 
tavern.  All  this  is  so  much  matter 
of  history  that  it  would  alike  be  in- 
sulting to  the  individuals  and  the 
British  public  to  allude  to  it  more 
fully,  or  to  dwell  longer  upon  this 
western  metropolis ;  so  we  again 
ascend  the  cars,  and,  choosing  for 
greater  expedition  the  "  lightning 
run" — Anglice,  the  express  train  — 
sweep  past  clearings,  forest,  and  farms 
and  villages,  always  accompanied  by 
the  eternal  telegraph  wires  and  the 
eternal  ticket-taker,  who  perambu- 
lates the  cars ;  and  occasionally 
making  exploratory  expeditions  on 
our  own  account  through  the  cars 
to  pick  up  information,  and  jump 
from  one  to  the  other — an  agreeable 
and  exciting  amusement  when  the 
speed  averages  fifty  miles  an  hour. 
Of  course  we  run  off  the  rails,  but 
there  are  no  lives  lost,  or  any  damage 
done  beyond  a  few  bruises,  and  the  most 
intense  exertion  on  the  part  of  the 


338 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


[Sept. 


male  contents  of  the  train,  for  three 
hours  in  a  broiling  sun,  to  get  the 
engine  and  four  carriages,  which  are 
deeply  imbedded  in  a  clay  ditch,  out 
of  it,  and  back  upon  the  rails,  in  which 
at  last  we  are  successful.  The  acci- 
dent turns  out  to  have  been  exclu- 
sively the  fault  of  Tom,  the  switch- 
man, whom  the  engine-driver  thus 
admonishes  :  —  "  Now,  Tom,  you 
skunk,  this  is  the  third  time  you  for- 
got to  set  on  that  switch,  and  last 
time  there  was  twenty  people  went 
under,  and  the  balance  was  bruised, 
so  you  mind  what  you're  about,  and 
don't  forget  that  switch  again,  or  I'm 
darned  if  Idon't  tell  the  Boss"  (station- 
master).  In  a  few  hours  after  this 
we  had  traversed  the  whole  breadth 
of  Michigan,  and  found  ourselves  at 
its  principal  city,  Detroit.  We  could 
say  as  much  about  it  as  about  Chicago, 
but  abstain  for  the  same  reason  ;  and 
jumping  into  the  ferry-boat,  in  five 


minutes  afterwards  we  stand  once 
more  upon  British  ground.  But  we 
determine  not  to  take  breath  until  we 
get  to  Niagara,  though  it  is  a  bad 
place  to  select  for  this  purpose,  as  the 
first  sensation,  on  suddenly  bursting 
upon  that  unrivalled  scene,  is  rather 
that  of  impeded  than  of  free  respi- 
ration. Accordingly,  we  rush  in  the 
Great  Western  Railway  through  the 
most  fertile  provinces  of  tipper  Canada, 
reach  and  cross  the  seething,  boiling 
water,  and,  seeking  some  grassy  nook 
upon  Goat  Island,  overshadowed  by 
lofty  forest  trees,  we  listen  to  the 
solemn  roar  of  the  mighty  cataract, 
and  indulge  in  sensations  which  must 
ever  be  more  thoroughly  appreciated 
and  intensely  enjoyed  with  every  suc- 
ceeding visit,  just  as  the  music  of  a 
favourite  air  never  palls  by  repetition, 
but  only  engraves  itself  more  deeply 
upon  the  memory  of  those  senses  it 
has  served  to  charm. 


THE   IMPERIAL   POLICY   OF   RUSSIA. 


PART   III. 


ON  a  late  occasion  in  California, 
the  officers  of  the  law  having  inter- 
fered with  some  very  flagrant  case  of 
lynching,  the  sovereign  people,  of- 
fended at  such  an  infringement  of 
their  privileges,  met  in  solemn  coun- 
cil, and  passed  the  following  resolu- 
tion :  "  That  the  theory  of  the  supre- 
macy and  infallibility  of  the  law  is  the 
doctrine  of  tyrants,  and  is  incompa- 
tible with  the  spirit  and  genius  of  a 
free  and  enlightened  people,  who  are 
the  source  of  all  power."  *  Democracy 
has  this  advantage  over  despotism  on 
the  score  of  honesty,  that  it  sometimes 
has  the  candour  to  avow  the  principles 
on  which  it  acts.  Despotism  has  the 
bump  of  caution  more  largely  devel- 
oped ;  and,  while  acting  on  the  theory 
propounded  in  the  above  unique  reso- 


lution, affects  to  be  moral,  religious, 
and  legal,  and  plays  the  hypocrite  for 
ages  as  the  guardian  of  order,  until 
the  divinely-inflicted  madness,  so  well 
understood  by  the  ancients,  seizes  it, 
when,  in  an  unwary  moment,  it  shows 
the  cloven  foot,  and  its  real  character 
at  last  dawns  upon  the  world,  and  it 
is  discovered  to  be  quite  as  old  an 
anarch  as  democracy.  We  have  come 
to  a  point  in  Russian  history  where  a 
French  minister  of  more  than  ordinary 
sagacity  saw  the  dangers  likely  to 
accrue  to  Europe  from  Russian  pre- 
ponderance for  the  first  time.  Turkey 
being  appealed  to  in  the  Polish  ques- 
tion, prepared  to  make  war ;  but  Ca- 
tharine's plans  were  not  yet  matured, 
or  she  preferred  to  wait  until  the  ris- 
ing suspicious  of  the  Court  of  Ver- 


Life  of  Catharine  the  Second.     London,  1799. 
SCHLOSSER'S  Geschichte  des  ISten  und  des  IQten  Jahrhunderts. 
Histoire  de  Russie.     Bibliothdque  de  Lille. 
THIBRS.     Histoire  du  Consulat  et  de  VEmpire. 

Histoire  de  Napoleon.     Par  M.  LAURENT  DE  L'ARDECHE.     Paris,  1839. 
ALISON.    History  of  Europe,  from  the  Fall  of  Napoleon  to  the  Accession  of  Louis 
Napoleon.     Edinburgh,  1854. 
*  Times,  July  2. 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


339 


sallies  should  be  allayed.  So  she 
gave  up  for  the  present  the  deter- 
mination of  the  limits  between  Russia 
and  Poland;  and  Poland,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  imbroglio  of  her  affairs 
under  Kussian  intervention,  became 
the  scene  of  the  worst  of  wars — a  war 
partly  religious,  partly  political,  partly 
foreign.  A  foreign  army  had  occu- 
pied a  country  to  which  no  just  claim 
was  even  pretended.  The  internal 
affairs  of  a  once  great  and  free  nation 
had  been  administered  under  the  pres- 
sure of  the  terrorism  of  its  presence. 
Its  senators  had  been  seized  and 
hurried  off  to  exile,  like  common 
felons,  for  daring  to  have  a  voice  in 
their  own  affairs.  But  it  was  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  some  spirit  still 
remained  —  especially  among  those 
nobles  who  had  been  accustomed  to 
arbitrary  power  in  their  own  provinces 
— to  resent  and  revolt  against  a  coer- 
cion so  unnatural  and  anti-national. 
Hence  it  came  to  pass  that  about  the 
year  1768  the  condition  of  Poland  was 
about  as  miserable  as  that  of  any  na- 
tion could  be.  Some  of  those  that 
were  impatient  of  the  Eussian  yoke 
attacked  the  armies  of  that  empire. 
Secretly  encouraged  by  Austria,  and 
more  openly  by  France,  they  made 
themselves  masters  of  Cracow,  and 
of  a  part  of  Podolia ;  and  they  met 
together  in  the  fortress  of  Bar,  which 
gave  its  name  to  their  confederation. 
The  present  Kussian  troops  being  in- 
sufficient, the  Empress  sent  others 
under  the  command  of  General  Solti- 
koff.  The  confederates  made  a  second 
application  to  the  Turks.  The  Count 
of  Yergennes,  the  French  minister 
with  the  Porte,  seconded  them  again, 
and  this  time  with  more  success.  By 
way  of  throwing  away  the  scabbard 
with  a  declaration  of  war,  the  Otto- 
man government  sent  Catharine's 
ambassador  to  the  prison  of  the  Seven 
Towers,  and  gave  out  that  they  were 
going  to  open  a  campaign  against 
Russia  with  an  army  of  500,000  men. 
Russia,  it  appears,  would  have  avoid- 
ed this  war,  as  she  would  the  present, 
had  she  been  able  to  gain  her  ends  in 
Poland  without  it,  for  she  had  enough 
on  her  hands  in  that  country.  How- 
ever, the  Turkish  declaration  was  far 
from  finding  her  unprepared ;  for  pre- 
paration for  war  has  always  been  an 
essential  part  of  the  Imperial  Policy, 


even  in  profoundest  peace  ;  and  from 
this  cause  Russia  is  apt  to  begin  every 
war  with  other  nations  in  a  position 
of  advantage.  We  are  not  to  suppose 
that  the  Divan  acted,  in  entering  upon 
this  war,  entirely  from  a  disinterest- 
ed sympathy  with  Poland.  Coming 
events  cast  their  shadows  before — 
and  it  probably  saw  that  the  excuse 
for  protecting  the  Dissidents  at  War- 
saw would  be  preliminary  to  that  of 
protecting  the  Christians  in  the  do- 
minions of  the  Porte,  and  the  protec- 
tion would  take  the  shape  of  military 
occupation  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other. 

This  gathering  storm  of  war  first 
broke  on  the  Tartars  in  and  about 
the  Crimea,  though  the  Russian  armies 
had  been  moved  from  the  banks  of 
the  Danube  to  those  of  the  Kuban. 
The  Tartars  had  invaded  the  Danu- 
bian  principalities ;  General  Izaakoff 
drove  them  out  of  New  Servia,  while 
the  Ukraine  Cossacks  penetrated  Mol- 
davia. Prince  Galitzin  attacked  the 
Turks  under  the  walls  of  Khotyirn, 
but  was  beaten  back  again  across  the 
Dniester.  In  the  mean  time  the 
Russians  were  making  good  use  of 
their  ports  of  Azoff  and  Taganrog  to 
harass  their  old  possessors  in  that 
direction.  IsTor  were  they  idle  in 
Poland.  Prince  Galitzin,  after  his 
defeat,  published  a  manifesto,  inviting 
all  the  Poles  not  included  in  the 
Confederation  to  join  against  it,  and 
proclaimed  a  penalty  for  every  one 
who  should  take  a  Confederate  and 
let  him  go  with  his  life.  So  horrid 
were  the  cruelties  inflicted  by  the 
belligerents  of  the  time  on  each  other, 
that  we  read  of  nine  Polish  gentlemen, 
by  the  sentence  of  a  court-martial  of 
the  Russian  general  Dievitch,  appear- 
ing in  Warsaw  with  their  hands  cut 
off  at  the  wrists.  But  Catharine  saw 
that  things  were  going  too  far  in 
Poland ;  at  least  that  the  time  was 
not  come  for  such  extreme  severities ; 
so  she  recalled  Repnin,  who  was  in 
danger  of  combining  the  whole  nation 
against  Russia,  and  substituted  Prince 
Volkonsky  as  her  ambassador.  This, 
however,  would  have  availed  her 
little  had  the  court  of  Versailles 
strenuously  supported  the  league  of 
Bar,  instead  of  again  lapsing  into 
apathy.  The  relaxation  of  its  vigi- 
lance was  owing  to  the  intrigues  of 


340 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


[Sept. 


Austria,  which  was  convicted,  by  the 
subsequent  partition,  of  having  formed 
at  this  time  secret  views  of  its  own 
upon  Poland.  Prussia,  also  repre- 
sented by  its  king,  Frederick,  had 
set  its  eyes  on  the  forbidden  fruit ; 
Frederick  and  Catharine  understood 
each  other,  but  for  some  time  they 
did  not  feel  able  to  confer  on  the 
subject — partly,  in  all  probability,  be- 
cause neither  entirely  trusted  the 
other,  and  partly  because  the  publicity 
of  their  meeting  might  give  umbrage 
to  the  other  states  of  Europe.  At 
last  the  matter  was  managed  by 
Henry,  prince  of  Prussia,  being  sent, 
not  to  St  Petersburg,  but  to  Stock- 
holm, to  visit  his  sister,  the  Queen  of 
Sweden.  While  there,  he  talked  about 
coming  home  by  Denmark,  but  seemed 
to  change  his  mind  in  deference  to 
the  repeated  invitations  of  Catharine, 
and  so  arrived  at  St  Petersburg. 
While  there,  he  was  fgted  and  flat- 
tered by  the  empress  to  his  heart's 
content.  In  the  midst  of  fiddling  and 
festivity,  the  partition  of  Poland  was 
determined  on  in  the  private  conver- 
sations of  the  empress  and  the  prince. 
However,  it  could  not  be  done  with- 
out a  third  ally.  Maria  Theresa  was 
dead,  or,  with  that  high-principled 
princess  on  the  throne,  there  might 
have  been  a  difficulty  with  Austria. 
Joseph  II.  was  not  so  scrupulous  as 
she  would  have  been,  and  the  promise 
of  a  good  slice  of  territory  easily  se- 
cured him.  As  for  the  other  powers, 
Catharine  seems  to  have  disposed  of 
their  likings  and  dislikings  in  a  very 
few  words,  which,  if  authentic,  show 
what  she  herself  thought  of  her  pre- 
sent position  in  Europe.  She  is  re- 
ported to  have  said  to  Prince  Henry, 
"  I  will  frighten  Turkey ;  I  will  flatter 
England ;  do  you  take  upon  yourself 
to  buy  over  Austria,  that  she  may 
amuse  France."  The  treaty  of  par- 
tition was  signed  about  two  years 
afterwards  in  the  month  of  February 
1772,  at  St  Petersburg.  With  regard 
to  this  transaction  itself,  it  is  im- 
possible to  speak  in  too  strong  terms 
of  such  a  flagrant  violation  of  inter- 
national honesty ;  but  with  regard  to 
the  Poles,  our  sympathy  is  diminished 
by  the  knowledge  that  they  brought 
it  in  a  great  measure  on  themselves. 
If  the  oak  had  not  been  hollow,  it  would 
not  so  easily  have  been  blown  down  by 


thestorm.  Poland  was  untrue  to  herself 
before  other  nations  played  her  false. 
We  question  whether  any  nation  of 
any  weight  in  the  scale  of  nations  has 
ever  fallen  in  the  same  manner,  in 
which  similar  agencies  have  not  been 
at  work.  It  was  the  divisions  between 
the  royal  family  of  France  with  its 
own  members  and  its  powerful'vassals, 
which  enabled  Edward  III.  to  over- 
run, and  Henry  V.  to  conquer,  that 
country  with  such  comparative  ease. 
It  was  the  treachery  of  a  party  that 
enabled  the  First  Edward  to  over- 
run, though  not  to  subjugate,  Scot- 
land. It  was  the  petty  quarrels 
of  the  Irish  kings  which  brought 
Strongbow  and  his  Anglo-Normans 
as  permanent  settlers  among  them ; 
and  so  it  has  ever  been :  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  united  countries, 
though  weak,  have  often  been  able  to 
keep  at  bay,  and  at  length  to  weary 
out,  the  aggression  of  the  strong  ;  for 
instance,  Switzerland,  exposed  in 
turn  to  the  ambitious  attempts  of 
three  powerful  neighbours,  France, 
Burgundy,  and  Austria.  If  Poland 
is  ever  to  be  made  anything  of  now, 
if  the  remains  of  its  nationality  are 
yet  to  be  resuscitated,  if  it  is  ever 
to  be  made  useful  to  Europe  as  a  bar- 
rier against  Russia,  a  singleness  of 
patriotic  feeling  must  be  aroused  in 
it  which  will  be  quite  new  to  its  history. 
But  instead  of  things  tending  to  such 
a  consummation,  the  contrary  has 
been  the  case ;  the  elements  of  dis- 
union have  been  purposely  kept  alive 
by  the  interested  powers  in  its  dis- 
membered limbs,  so  that  the  chance 
of  their  future  union  becomes  less 
every  day.  Somewhat  later,  indeed, 
than  the  time  we  are  speaking  of  now, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  consolidate 
the  Polish  constitution  on  patriotic 
principles,  but  Poland's  freedom  was 
already  gone,  and  Russia  took  good  care 
that  the  attempt  should  be  abortive. 

While  Poland's  flesh  and  blood  was 
being  signed  away,  the  war  was  rag- 
ing with  fury  on  the  borders  of  Tur- 
key. Prince  Galitzin  made  another 
attempt  on  Khotyirn,  and  was  beaten 
as  before,  and  now  quite  back  into 
Poland  ;  but  this  time  he  avenged  his 
defeat,  and  drove  the  Turks  into 
Moldavia.  Then,  as  now,  we  find 
the  courage  of  the  Turkish  soldier 
spoken  of  highly,  while  the  sloth  and 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


341 


ignorance  of  the  officers  prevented  it 
from  achieving  any  important  suc- 
cess. After  ten  years  of  war,  the 
Ottoman  army  was  quite  destroyed, 
and  Khotyirn  fell  to  a  detachment  of 
grenadiers.  The  empress  hearing  that 
the  Turks  had  on  the  occasion  of  the 
second  defeat  of  Galitzin  violated  the 
Polish  territory,  made  that  an  excuse 
for  insisting  that  Stanislaus  Augustus 
and  the  senate  of  Warsaw  should  de- 
clare war  against  the  Porte.  Poland, 
however,  could  do  little  for  Kussia  at 
this  time,  but  show  her  entire  subser- 
viency to  her  commands.  At  this 
point  of  history  we  find  Catharine 
taking  a  most  important  step  in  ad- 
vance of  her  predecessors,  and  one,  if 
successful,  likely  to  be  of  all  others 
most  conducive  to  that  darling  object 
of  the  imperial  policy,  the  possession 
of  Constantinople.  This  was  nothing 
less  than  a  display  of  her  maritime 
force  ia  the  Mediterranean,  with  the 
object  of  hunting  down  the  Turkish 
fleets  among  the  Greeks  islands. 
All  the  dockyards  of  Archangel, 
Cronstadt,  and  Revel,  were  full  of 
life  and  preparation  ;  and  Catharine's 
policy  in  securing  the  friendship  of 
England  appeared  by  her  being  able 
to  engage  a  great  number  of  English- 
men in  her  service  as  the  school- 
masters of  her  own  sailors.  We  find 
the  names  of  Elphinstone,  Greig,  Tate, 
Dugdale,  and  Sir  Charles  Knowles, 
conspicuous  among  them  ;  to  the  lat- 
ter officer,  who  acted  chiefly  as  a 
superintendent  of  dockyards,  Russia 
was  indebted  for  great  improvements 
in  the  art  of  shipbuilding.  Besides 
the  English,  the  empress  bound  Den- 
mark by  a  treaty  to  keep  800  sea- 
men in  constant  readiness  for  the 
Russian  service.  Then  she  made  a 
request  to  all  the  maritime  powers 
that  they  would  grant  hospitality  to 
her  ships  of  war.  This  request  was 
no  bad  method  of  feeling  the  pulses 
of  the  sea-faring  nations.  England 
and  Tuscany  at  once  complied.  Malta, 
then  under  the  Knights  of  St  John, 
showed  some  suspicion  by  admitting 
but  three  Russian  ships  of  war. 
France,  Spain,  Venice,  Naples,  de- 
clined the  company  of  all  but  mer- 
chant-ships. In  September  1769,  just 
in  time  to  escape  the  ice,  the  north- 
ern squadrons  sailed  and  made  their 
way  round  into  the  Mediterranean. 


They  amounted  to  twenty  ships  of 
the  line,  besides  a  number  of  smaller 
vessels,  and  the  whole  fleet  was  com- 
manded by  Admiral  Spiridoff,  who 
himself  acted  under  Alexis  Orloff,  a 
man  who  had  raised  himself  from  the 
rank  of  a  common  soldier  to  the  high- 
est posts  by  his  unparalleled  auda- 
city. The  seeds  of  discontent  and 
revolution  had  long  been  dormant 
among  the  Greeks;  Russia,  true  to 
her  subversive  policy,  called  them 
into  life.  The  flag  of  Russia  was  seen 
in  the  roads  of  all  the  cities  famous 
in  antiquity.  Corinth  was  besieged, 
Lemnos  and  Mytilene  taken.  Even 
in  Syria  and  Egypt  war  was  carried 
on  by  the  troops  from  the  North  Pole, 
who  came  in  support  of  the  revolt  of 
Ali  Bey.  Catharine  knew  that  a 
mighty  demonstration  was  necessary, 
and  that  the  success  of  her  schemes 
in  Poland,  and,  in  fact,  the  whole 
future  of  Russia,  depended  on  her 
success  in  this  war.  Nor  did  the 
Porte  overlook  the  importance  of  the 
struggle.  The  Grand  Vizier  took  the 
chief  command.  The  Crimea  sent 
powerful  assistance.  The  famous 
Khan  Kerim-Gherai  was  lately  dead, 
and  his  successor,  being  of  unwarlike 
disposition,  the  Turks  deposed  him, 
and  elected  Kaplan-Gherai,  who  was 
an  efficient  general.  The  Russians 
began  by  the  siege  of  Bender,  but 
were  obliged  to  raise  it ;  they  took 
Jassy,  and  afterwards  on  the  banks 
of  the  Prutb,  under  Romantzoff,  gain- 
ed two  most  important  victories — in 
the  latter  of  which  an  almost  hope- 
less position  was  retrieved  by  the 
bayonet,  and  at  the  close  the  whole 
materiel  of  the  enemy  remained  in 
the  hands  of  the  conquerors.  Ro- 
mantzoff passed  the  Dniester  as  the 
fruit  of  these  victories  ;  Repnin  took 
Ismailoff,  and  Panin  Bender,  which 
fell  after  a  three  months'  resistance, 
bringing  with  it  the  submission  of 
the  Tartars  of  Budziak  and  Otcha- 
koff.  Elsewhere  the  Russians  were 
not  idle:  Ackerman,  the  capital  of 
Bessarabia,  was  stormed  by  General 
Igelstrohm,  and  then  a  strong  port 
on  the  Black  Sea,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Dniester,  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  Russians.  In  consequence  of 
these  successes,  we  now  find  the 
Danubian  Principalities  sending  de- 
puties to  the  empress  with  offers  of 


342 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  III. 


[Sept. 


homage:  it  is  needless  to  say  that 
the  reception  which  she  gave  them 
was  flattering  and  magnificent.  Thus 
did  these  provinces  appear  ripe  for 
annexation  to  Russia — more  ripe,  per- 
haps, than  now,  as  they  were  smart- 
ing from  the  oppression  of  the  Turkish 
rule,  which  has  given  them  no  cause 
of  complaint  in  latter  times,  and 
were  besides  afflicted  by  the  canker 
of  internal  misgovernment.  Catha- 
rine's name  now  became  famous  in 
Europe,  and  foreigners  flocked  to 
her  standard;  and  we  are  sorry  to  find 
again  the  names  of  Englishmen  help- 
ing to  build  up  a  power  which  was  to 
be  one  day  so  troublesome  to  the  land 
of  their  birth.  Amongst  these  were 
eminent  General  Lloyd  and  Major 
Carlton,  men  of  tried  courage  and 
conduct.  Now,  if  ever,  seemed  the 
time  for  the  realisation  of  Russia's 
darling  dream.  Catharine's  double- 
headed  eagle  hung  over  Constanti- 
nople, and  seemed  on  the  point  of 
pouncing.  As  a  proof  how  much  the 
perpetuation  of  the  imperial  policy  of 
Russia  was  due  to  the  influence  of 
those  about  court,  as  well  as  to  the 
traditions  of  the  Tsars,  we  find  that 
the  idea  was  first  suggested  to  Catha- 
rine by  Marshal  Munich,  who  offered 
to  conduct  the  enterprise,  which  was 
to  end  in  clearing  Europe  of  the 
Turks ;  but  that  was  soon  after  Catha- 
rine's accession ;  and  though  for  the 
present  she  declined  the  attempt,  she 
was  only  biding  her  time.  The  astute 
empress  saw  that  the  old  republican 
spirit  still  lingered  in  the  Greek 
islands  ;  so,  instead  of  pretending  to 
annex  them,  she  gave  out  that  she 
was  going  to  restore  their  ancient  free- 
dom, and  set  up  a  republic.  The 
Greeks  immediately  looked  upon  the 
Russians  as  their  deliverers,  as  in  a 
great  measure  they  look  upon  them  at 
this  day.  They  took  up  arms,  the 
Mainotes  first,  and  in  many  of  the 
islands  ageneral  massacre  of  theTurks 
ensued,  to  be  avenged  with  interest 
soon  afterwards  by  the  janissaries. 

Spiridoff' s  squadron  was  now  joined 
by  that  of  Elphinstone.  The  English 
Vice-Admiral  brought  success  with 
him.  They  were  opposed  by  the  Ca- 
pudan  Pasha  Hassan,  a  man  as  brave 
as  a  lion,  but  probably  not  much  more 
nautical  than  the  king  of  beasts.  The 
fleets  met  in  the  strait  between  Scio, 


the  old  Chios,  and  the  mainland.  The 
Turks  fought  with  unusual  obstinacy. 
The  ships  of  the  Capudan  Pasha  and 
Spiridoff  grappled  and  blew  up  to- 
gether. Night  separated  the  rest  of 
the  combatants.  Next  morning, 
Elphinstone  having  seen  that  the 
Turks  had  got  hampered  in  the  shal- 
low bay  of  Tchesme,  with  some  of 
their  ships  aground,  a  thought  struck 
him  that  they  might  all  be  destroyed 
at  once  ;  so  he  ordered  out  four  fire- 
ships  under  the  command  of  Dugdale, 
and,  protected  by  the  squadron  of 
Greig,  the  manoeuvre  was  complete- 
ly successful.  Dugdale  himself  grap- 
pled a  fire-ship  to  a  Turkish  vessel, 
and,  badly  burnt,  escaped  by  swim- 
ming to  the  Russian  fleet.  When  the 
sun  rose  the  next  day,  the  Turkish 
flag  had  disappeared/and  nothing  was 
left  but  the  floating  embers  of  a  vast 
fleet.  The  Russians  took  advantage 
of  the  annihilation  of  the  fleet,  and 
burnt  the  town  that  was  on  the  bay, 
blowing  up  the  castle  that  protected 
it.  Thus  effectually  did  three  English- 
men, Elphinstone,  Greig,  andDugdale, 
play  the  game  of  Russia,  much  as  Ad- 
miral Codrington  did  at  Navarino  in 
our  own  century.  Their  eyes  might 
have  been  opened  by  the  way  in 
which  Catharine  treated  them,  forshe 
wrote  to  Voltaire,  and  repeated  to  the 
French  ambassador,  in  1788,  that  the 
credit  of  the  victory  of  Tchesme  was 
due  to  Alexis  Orloff,  who  was  no 
sailor  at  all. 

In  addition  to  their  troubles  in  the 
Archipelago,  the  Turks  were  suffering 
at  this  time  from  insurrections  in  Syria 
and  Egypt.  In  the  latter  country, 
AH  Bey,  the  worthy  predecessor  of 
Mehemet  Ali,  thought  the  Russian 
war  a  good  opportunity  for  declaring 
his  pashalic  independent.  So  far,  all 
went  smooth  for  Russia ;  but  the  stu- 
pidity and  misconduct  of  Orloff  and 
her  other  principal  officers  paralysed 
her  right  arm.  The  news  of  Tchesme 
was  carried  to  the  empress  first  of  any 
one  in  Russia,  by  a  special  courier. 
St  Petersburg  was  at  once  in  a  blaze 
of  joy,  and  Alexis  Orloff,  instead  of 
following  up  the  victories  which  he 
claimed,  came  back  to  enjoy  the  fame 
of  them,  at  the  same  time  offering  to 
force  the  passage  of  the  Dardanelles 
with  some  additional  strength.  But 
the  crisis  was  past,  and  Russia  was 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


foiled  of  her  prey  when  it  seemed 
in  her  grasp.  The  Dardanelles  were 
strengthened,  and  made  secure  against 
a  coup  de  mam,  and  even  the  ordinary 
passage  of  commerce  through  them 
was  resumed  when  the  Eussian  fleet 
was  drawn  from  the  blockade  by  the 
approach  of  winter.  Thus  the  incom- 
petency  of  Alexis  Orloff  proved  a 
godsend  to  Turkey.  It  is  probable 
that  the  English  officers  under  his 
command  did  not  care  to  urge  the 
Eussian  successes  to  their  ultimate 
consequences,  but  were  satisfied  with 
doing  the  immediate  work  for  which 
they  were  engaged.  The  Ottoman 
armies  in  the  north  of  Turkey  showed 
still  extraordinary  vitality  ;  they 
even  were  completely  victorious  at 
Bucharest ;  but  the  Grand  Vizier  was 
at  last  driven  into  the  Bulgarian 
mountains,  and  the  Eussians  took  up 
their  winter-quarters  in  the  Principa- 
lities. The  Khan  of  the  Crimea  aided 
the  Turks  materially  in  this  war  ;  so 
Catharine  set  up  a  party  against  hirn 
among  his  own  subjects;  and  the 
small  end  of  the  wedge  having  thus 
been  introduced,  her  generals  drove 
it  home.  Forty  years  before,  the 
lines  of  Perekop  had  submitted  to 
Munich.  The  Khans  of  the  Crimea, 
taught  by  experience,  fortified  this 
passage  with  a  ditch,  72  feet 
wide,  42  deep,  and  defended  it  with, 
50,000  men.  But  Prince  Dolgo- 
rouki  had  the  address  to  force  this 
barrier,  and  make  himself  master  of 
the  Crimea,  earning  thus  the  title 
Krimsky,  in  the  old  Eoman  style, 
after  the  country  he  had  conquered. 
The  Crimea  was  partly  lost  by  the 
abandonment  of  the  Turkish  com- 
manders, who  were  bowstringed  when 
they  came  home,  by  order  of  the  Sultan. 
At  this  time  the  Porte  had  a  speci- 
men of  the  double-dealing  of  Austria. 
It  had  just  concluded  with  the  Cabi- 
net of  Vienna  a  secret  treaty,  by 
which  that  power  engaged  to  act 
offensively  in  its  behalf,  on  condition 
of  the  expenses  of  the  war  being 
paid,  and  part  of  Wallachia,  which 
had  belonged  to  Austria,  being  re- 
stored. The  Porte,  with  the  good  faith 
for  which  it  has  generally  been  dis- 
tinguished, began  with  the  payment 
of  five  millions  of  florins.  The  Court 
of  Vienna  immediately  spent  the 
money  on  warlike  preparations,  not 


343 

against  Eussia,  but  against  Turkey. 
This  was  an  act  worthy  of  that  power, 
which  has  profited  by  the  troubles  of 
its  neighbours  to  seize  the  Danubian 
Principalities,  no  doubt  with  much 
chuckling  at  its  own  sharp  practice 
in  outwitting  the  two  great  bellige- 
rent powers,  and  with  supreme  in- 
difference to  the  political  debasement 
implied— in  fact,  with  the  precise  feel- 
ing of  Horace's  miser,  excepting  the 
possession  of  the  coin — 

"  Populus  me  sibilat,  at  raihi  plaudo 
Ipse  domi,  simul  ac  nummos  contemplor  in 
area." 

A  knave  has  been  well  defined  a 
roundabout  fool ;  and  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  Austria's  smartness,  as 
it  would  be  called  by  our  Transatlantic 
cousins,  will  bring  discomfiture  and 
bankruptcy  upon  her  in  the  end. 

A  new  enemy  now  appeared  on  the 
banks  of  the  Danube,  to  which  both 
contending  armies  were  obliged  to  suc- 
cumb. This  was  the  Levant  plague, 
which,  like  a  Divine  retribution,  found 
its  way  to  Moscow  from  Constanti- 
nople, avenging  at  the  gate  of  the  em- 
press her  designs  on  Turkey.  The  year 
1772  found  the  Eussians  and  Otto- 
mans equally  inclined  to  peace.  Con- 
stantinople was  missed  for  the  present. 
The  Eussians  had  been  much  reduced 
by  war  and  pestilence,  and  the  Turks, 
under  the  guidance  of  a  French  of- 
ficer, were  engaged  in  repairing  the 
disaster  of  Tchesme,  and  organising 
another  powerful  fleet.  An  armistice 
was  brought  about  by  the  Austrian 
and  Prussian  ministers,  and  a  con- 
gress appointed  to  meet  at  Fokshi- 
ani.  Orloff,  who  represented  Eus- 
sia at  this  congress,  appears  to  have 
desired  peace,  because  the  conclusion 
of  peace  would  make  safe  for  him  the 
fame  he  had  earned  by  the  brains  of 
others,  and  enable  him,  as  he  thought, 
to  secure  the  highest  object  of  his  am- 
bition, which  was  no  other  than  the 
hand  of  the  imperial  lady  whom  he 
served.  He  had  not  the  wit  to  see 
that  his  projects  clashed  with'  the 
policy  of  the  empire ;  and  accordingly 
we  now  find  Catharine's  too  old- 
fashioned  friend  cast  off  like  a  robe  in 
the  same  condition,  and  supplanted 
by  the  less  aspiring  Vassiltchikoflf. 
The  congress  of  Fokshiani  came  to 
nothing.  The  Eussians  had  managed 
to  inveigle  the  Khan  of  the  Crimea 


344 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  111. 


[Sept. 


into  a  treaty  by  which  he  renounced 
the  suzerainty  of  the  Porte,  and  put 
himself  under  that  of  the  empress. 
The  Porte,  incensed  at  this,  and  espe- 
cially by  the  cession  of  the  forts  of 
Kertch  and  Yenikale,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Sea  of  Azoff,  to  Russia,  sent  into 
the  Black  Sea  a  large  squadron  of 
small  vessels.  By  this  it  appears  that 
the  Porte  at  this  period  knew  the  re- 
quirements of  these  inland  seas  better 
than  our  enlightened  Government  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  Catharine 
sent  to  meet  it  a  powerful  fleet,  man- 
ned by  Dutch,  and  again,  alas  1  by 
English  officers.  Sir  Charles  Knowles 
was  its  admiral. 

Meanwhile  Catharine  had  not  forgot- 
ten Poland  ;  indeed,  her  maternal  love 
could  not  long  suffer  it  to  be  out  of  her 
sight.  Prussia  was  to  manage  Austria 
for  her.  France  had  a  minister,  the  Due 
d'Aiguillon,  not  so  sharp-sighted  as  his 
predecessor.  England  was  bound  with 
the  chains  of  free  (?)  trade.  The 
Baltic  states  were  too  disunited  to  be 
even  able  to  object  to  Russia  and 
Prussia  opening  ports  on  that  sea. 
Turkey  was  sufficiently  weakened. 
The  refusal  of  Austria,  which  Fred- 
erick had  engaged  to  prevent,  was 
alone  worth  thinking  of.  However, 
no  difficulty  presented  itself  on  the 
part  of  Joseph  II.,  and  the  dismem- 
berment of  Poland  was  finally  settled 
at  an  interview  of  the  Prussian  and 
Austrian  sovereigns  at  Neustadt  in 
Austria,  in  the  year  1770.  The 
plague,  which  had  ravaged  the  fron- 
tiers of  Poland  in  the  previous  year, 
furnished  an  excuse  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  both  Prussian  and  Austrian 
troops,  as  a  sanitary  measure,  further 
into  its  provinces.  And  now  the  con- 
duct of  Austria  is  well  worth  our 
attention.  Joseph  II.  had  actually 
promised  to  succour  the  confederates 
of  Bar,  and  pretended  to  sympathise 
with  Turkey  against  Russia.  "  So 
well,"  says  our  historian,  "  was  this 
prince  practised  in  the  arts  of  dissimu- 
lation, that  the  confederates,  deceived 
by  his  promises,  regarded  for  a  long 
time  as  their  defenders  the  soldiers  who 
were  come  to  make  a  prey  of  their 
country."  For  Joseph  II.  readFrancis- 
Joseph — for  1772,  read  1855 — and  for 
the  confederates  of  Bar,  the  Danubian 
Principalities — and  the  doings  of  that 
time  were  identical  with  those  of  the 


present.  The  confederates  were  soon 
dispersed  by  their  defenders  :  most  of 
them  simply  wenthome ;  the  rest  went 
abroad,  to  publish  their  complaints  and 
their  misfortunes.  The  three  parti- 
tioning powers  now  thought  that  they 
had  sufficiently  felt  the  pulse  of  Europe, 
and  that  the  time  was  come  to  un- 
mask. The  Austrian  minister  first 
notified  the  treaty  of  St  Petersburg  to 
the  king  and  senate  of  Poland ;  and 
afterwards  a  manifesto  appeared  at 
Warsaw,  in  which  the  "  dauntless 
three  "  declared  their  intentions.  The 
King  of  Prussia  had  already,  with 
consummate  impudence,  given  to  the 
provinces  appropriated  by  him  the 
name  of  New  Prussia,  as  if  they  had 
been  some  newly-discovered  Transat- 
lantic acquisition.  Nothing  could  be 
more  amusing,  were  it  not  for  the  tra- 
gical significance  of  the  jest,  than  the 
deep  affection  for  Poland  which  this 
manifesto  pretended.  Poland  was 
torn  to  pieces  by  anarchy ;  and  out  of 
pure  love  of  her,  as  well  as  an  abstract 
admiration  of  order,  the  three  powers 
were  willing  to  take  her  under  their 
joint  guardianship,  even  though  this 
step  endangered  the  intimate  friend- 
ship existing  between  themselves. 
However,  as  they  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  be  entirely  disinterested, 
they  claimed,  as  a  trifling  compensa- 
tion for  their  trouble  and  anxiety,  the 
effectual  possession  of  such  parts  of 
the  Polish  territory  as  might  serve  to 
fix  more  natural  and  sure  bounds  be- 
tween Poland  and  the  three  powers. 
At  the  same  time,  they  generally  re- 
mitted all  debts  due  to  themselves 
from  Poland  or  Poles ;  and  as  a 
voucher  for  the  purity  of  their  inten- 
tions, invited  the  Poles  to  a  general 
handshaking,  in  order  thataDiet  might 
be  called  in  which  the  new  arrange- 
ment might  be  discussed  and  ratified. 
TheEmpressCatharinehavingby  these 
means  obtained  a  new  batch  of  sub- 
jects, began  to  caress  them  into  tame- 
ness,  like  those  clever  female  elephants 
in  India  who,  being  in  league  with 
the  hunters,  keep  the  wild  males  quiet 
with  their  blandishments  until  the 
ropes  are  safely  round  their  legs.  She 
did  not  immediately  enforce  the  oath 
of  allegiance,  but  merely  desired  her 
dutiful  subjects  to  keep  quiet  till  they 
should  be  indulged  by  being  allowed 
to  take  it  at  her  leisure.  She  pro- 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


mised  them  the  full  and  free  exercise 
of  their  religion  and  political  rights ; 
or,  what  was  still  better,  she  was 
willing  to  go  so  far  as  to  "  treat  them 
as  one  of  the  family,"  and  give  them 
an  equal  share  in  the  rights,  liberties, 
and  prerogatives  so  fully  enjoyed  by 
her  ancient  subjects.  All  that  she 
asked  in  return  was  their  prayers. 
She  desired  that  the  Empress  and 
Grand  Duke  should  be  prayed  for  in 
all  the  churches. 

While  Catharine  justified  herself 
thus  by  the  plea  of  "  natural  love  and 
affection,"  as  lawyers  have  it,  Frede- 
rick endeavoured  to  justify  his  terri- 
torial peculations  by  fictions  of  law, 
resting  on  pretensions  entirely  anti- 
quated, much  resembling  those  of 
Denmark  to  the  islands  at  the  north 
of  Scotland.  The  justification  of  Aus- 
tria is  not  recorded  by  our  authority, 
but  probably  it  was  an  echo  of  both 
of  these  pleas.  The  Poles  remon- 
strated, and  the  trio  answered,  "  Had 
they  not  summoned  a  diet,  where  every 
opportunity  of  discussion  would  be 
afforded  ?"  They  had,  indeed ;  but  a 
diet  hedged  in  by  bayonets.  Intimi- 
dation, bribery,  and  corruption,  pro- 
cured a  sufficient  attendance,  and  the 
business  was,  of  course,  done  much 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Allies,  but 
in  a  somewhat  perfunctory  manner. 
King  Stanislaus  had  the  spirit  to 
make  objections,  but  these  were  easily 
overruled,  and  by  so  doing  he  only 
incurred  the  enmity  of  Catharine 
without  gaming  the  confidence  of  his 
subjects,  who  believed  him  still  insin- 
cere. By  this  dismemberment  Poland 
lost  nearly  five  millions  of  inhabitants. 
Russia  got  a  million  and  a  half,  with 
the  largest  territory ;  Austria  two 
millions  and  a  half,  with  a  smaller 
slice ;  and  Prussia  got  rather  less 
than  a  million  souls,  but  was  indem- 
nified by  the  city  of  Dantzic  and 
the  commercial  advantages  of  the 
Vistula.  Prussia  appears  at  first  to 
have  acted  with  the  greatest  hardness 
of  the  three  dividing  powers.  Not 
only  were  extraordinary  imposts  laid 
on  the  annexed  province,  but,  besides 
the  ordinary  conscription,  there  was 
one  which  brings  to  memory  the  deeds 
of  eastern  dynasties,  in  times  savage 
and  fabulous,  and  the  story  of  the 
Sabine  women  and  early  Rome.  Part 
of  Prussia  was  very  thin  of  inhabi- 


345 

tants,  so  every  town  and  village  in 
the  new  province  was  obliged  to 
furnish  a  quota  of  grown-up  girls,  to 
each  of  whom  the  parents  were  obliged 
to  give  as  portion  a  feather-bed,  four 
pillows,  one  cow,  two  hogs,  and  three 
gold  ducats.  These  gentle  conscripts 
were  sent  to  be  married  to  men  they 
had  never  seen  before,  in  the  less 
populous  quarters  of  the  king's  domi- 
nions. We  are  grown  so  used  to 
the  partition  of  Poland  and  similar 
territorial  changes  by  this  time,  that 
we  have  but  a  faint  idea  of  the  horror 
with  which  such  acts  were  regarded 
in  Europe  before  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. The  ease  with  which  it  was 
accomplished  must  be  partly  attri- 
buted to  the  fact  that  the  revolution- 
ary yeast  had  already  begun  to  work 
in  the  European  states ;  and  in  the 
bewilderment  of  domestic  questions 
the  relations  of  foreign  states  assumed 
only  a  secondary  interest.  We  can  easily 
understand  why  Russia  treated  her 
annexations  with  so  much  moderation 
at  first.  She  had  made  a  step  in  ad- 
vance; she  had  planted  her  foot  on 
the  map  of  Western  Europe,  and  she 
wished  to  strengthen  that  position 
and  not  to  imperil  it ;  besides,  she 
had  for  the  present  a  war  in  Turkey 
on  her  hands — a  war  in  which  fortune 
did  not  always  favour  her.  On  the 
banks  of  the  Danube,  in  particular, 
the  advantage  was  rather  on  the  side 
of  Turkey,  so  that  Catharine,  growing 
impatient,  sent  to  Marshal  Romant- 
zoff  to  know  why  he  had  not  delivered 
a  pitched  battle.  The  marshal  replied 
that  it  was  because  the  Grand  Vizier 
had  then  twice  as  many  men  as  him- 
self, and  that  he  could  more  easily 
repair  his  losses.  The  rejoinder  of  the 
empress  was  characteristic  :  "  The 
Romans  never  asked  after  the  num- 
ber of  their  enemies,  but  where  they 
were,  in  order  to  fight  them."  We 
find  at  this  period  the  naval  war  still 
smouldering  on  in  the  Levant,  but 
not  with  the  brilliant  success  which 
the  victory  of  Tchesme  seemed  to 
prognosticate.  The  Russians  lost  a 
useful  ally  in  Ali  Bey,  who  was  de- 
feated and  slain ;  and  in  their  expedi- 
tions to  the  islands  they  were  often 
unfortunate.  From  the  island  of 
Setanchio  the  Turks  sent  four  sacks 
of  Russian  heads  to  Constantinople, 
as  a  proof  of  one  of  their  failures. 


346 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


[Sept. 


Most  mischief  was  done  by  the  smaller 
vessels  of  the  Russians,  manned  by 
Greeks  and  Albanians;  and  this  is 
worth  our  notice,  because  it  shows 
how  inoperative  the  Russian  navy 
has  always  been,  except  when  manned 
by  foreign  sailors  and  commanded  by 
foreign  officers.  Greece  would  at  any 
time  be  a  most  valuable  acquisition 
to  Russia,  from  the  maritime  excel- 
lence of  her  population,  testified  by 
their  incurable  instinct  of  piracy.  In 
1774  Turkey  was  shaken  by  the  death 
of  the  Sultan  Mustapha  III.,  a  liberal 
and  beneficent  monarch,  but  the  most 
unfortunate  of  any  since  the  time  of 
Bajazet.  Thinking  his  son  too  young, 
he  had  appointed  Abdul  Hamed,  his 
brother,  to  succeed  him  ;  but  this  ap- 
pointment was  not  accepted  by  the 
janissaries,  who  became  for  some  time 
troublesome  in  consequence,  and  thus 
indirectly  strengthened  the  hands  of 
Russia.  Prussia  and  Austria  now  kept 
Poland  quiet,  and  enabled  Catharine 
to  mobilise  additional  troops  in  aid 
of  Romantzoff's  army.  RomantzofF, 
amongst  other  successes,  pushed  his 
way  to  the  gates  of  Silistria ;  and  at 
last  the  Grand  Vizier,  hemmed  in  at 
Shumla,  was  obliged  to  sue  for  peace. 
The  plenipotentiaries  met  at  Kudjuk 
Kainardji  in  Bulgaria.  Russia,  of 
course,  was  the  gainer  by  a  peace 
dictated  at  her  sword's  point.  Russia 
got  the  Euxine  and  all  the  Ottoman 
seas,  with  the  condition  that  she 
should  never  navigate  the  seas  about 
Constantinople  with  more  than  one 
armed  vessel  at  a  time.  Moderation, 
however,  was  still  her  game,  for  fear 
of  alarming  Europe.  She  restored  all 
her  conquests  but  Kinburn,  Azoff, 
Taganrog,  and  Kertch,  which  is  much 
as  if  a  turnkey  were  to  lock  up  a 
prisoner,  put  the  keys  in  his  pocket, 
and  tell  him  he  was  free  of  his  own 
dungeon.  The  Crimea  was  not  to 
become  Russian,  but  independent  of 
the  Porte.  What  this  independence 
was  worth  is  seen  by  the  fact  that 
the  Khan  of  the  Crimea  was  in  former 
times  the  freely  elected  chief  of  a  free 
people,  only  acknowledging  the  Sultan 
as  his  Khalif,  or  religious  chief.  It 
does  not  even  seem  that  this  suzerainty 
of  the  Porte  cost  the  Crimea  anything. 
Russia  played  the  same  game  as  in 
Poland.  Her  whole  conduct  was 
actuated  by  care  for  the  liberty  of  the 


Crimean  subject,  and  affectionate  soli- 
citude for  law  and  order.  Thus  the 
Crimea  was  not  yet  married  to  the 
northern  colossus,  but  the  ring  of 
betrothal  was  forced  on  her  unwilling 
finger.  This  peace  was  celebrated 
with  great  joy  in  Russia,  and  wel- 
come at  the  time,  because  Russia  was 
suffering  from  dearth,  pestilence,  and 
an  extraordinary  emigration — circum- 
stances which  may  have,  indeed,  con- 
duced to  the  moderation  of  its  terms, 
which,  of  course,  she  took  good  care 
to  make  the  most  of. 

The  emigration  here  alluded  to  was 
one  of  an  enormous  multitude  of  Cal- 
mucks,  or  wild  Tartars,  whom  the 
extortions  and  insults  of  Russian 
officials  drove  from  the  heart  of  the 
empire  to  take  refuge  on  the  frontier 
of  China.  The  government  of  Russia 
was  so  concerned  at  such  a  wholesale 
loss  of  population,  that  it  communi- 
cated with  the  Chinese  for  the  resto- 
ration of  the  fugitives.  But  the 
Chinese  government  answered  with  a 
spirit  which  was  new  to  Catharine, 
and  refused  to  give  them  up.  The 
rebellion  of  Pugatscheff  followed,  and 
a  servile  war  which  shook  Russia  to 
her  centre,  and  gave  her  little  leisure 
for  foreign  acquisitions.  Neverthe- 
less, Catharine  did  not  lose  one  inch 
of  ground  that  she  had  gained  ;  and, 
on  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion 
appeared  as  powerful  as  ever,  and 
was  ready  for  new  encroachments. 
An  historian  of  this  period— Von 
Struensee — speaking  of  the  present 
and  future  of  Russia,  remarks  with 
much  acumen  that  her  true  policy  was 
not  war,  but  peace  ;  and  that,  being 
safe  from  foreign  attacks  by  her  situa- 
tion, it  was  her  own  fault  if  she  en- 
gaged in  any  wars  at  all.  Her  re- 
sources required  development,  and  if 
she  made  the  most  of  them,  her  foreign 
relations  would  be  infinitely  more  ad- 
vanced by  commerce  than  by  the  most 
brilliant  conquests.  He  might  have 
remarked,  in  addition,  that  though 
peace  and  not  war  was  the  true  policy 
of  the  Russian  nation,  war  and  not 
peace  was,  on  the  contrary,  that  of  the 
court  and  courtiers,  since  a  state  of 
commercial  prosperity  would  soon  en- 
gender constitutional  longings  in  the 
middle  and  upper  classes,  fatal  to  the 
perpetuation  of  a  pure  despotism ; 
•while  a  state  of  progressive  conquest 


1855.J 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  111. 


drained  off  by  the  conscriptions  the 
energies  of  the  lower  classes,  and 
dazzled  the  higher  by  its  successes, 
so  as  to  leave  either  little  leisure  for 
political  aspirations.  We  must  ob- 
serve that  Catharine  and  the  other 
progressive  and  aggressive  monarchs 
of  Kussia  did  not  neglect  commercial 
aggrandisement;  much  the  contrary  ; 
but  they  ever  made  it  subservient  to 
the  nourishment  of  the  sinews  of  war. 
Peace  had  now  for  some  time  been 
concluded  between  Russia  and  Tur- 
key, but  the  Tartars  still  continued 
in  arms.  Having  no  foreign  enemy  to 
fight,  they  were  fighting  amongst  each 
other.  All  at  once  a  Russian  force 
appeared  in  the  Crimea  to  settle  their 
differences — expelled  the  Khan  Dow- 
let-Gherai,  and  set  up  Sahim-Gherai 
in  his  stead.  Soon  after  this,  in  1776, 
they  showed  what  they  meant  by  the 
change,  by  building  a  fort  between 
Kertch  and  Yenikale,  and  making  the 
town  of  Kertch  a  sort  of-  asylum  for 
all  the  Crimean  Christians  who  would 
come  over  to  them.  The  Porte,  tak- 
ing alarm  very  naturally  at  this 
measure,  again  threatened  war,  and 
Sahim-Gherai  sent  an  embassy  to  the 
empress  to  ask  for  protection,  which 
was  the  more  easily  granted,  as  the 
whole  matter  was  doubtless  quite  as 
much  of  previous  arrangement  as  the 
ministerial  questions  in  our  House  of 
Commons.  Meanwhile,  Roman tzoff 
had  received  orders  to  be  ready  with 
an  army  on  the  Borysthenes ;  the  sky 
became  overcast  and  lowering,  but 
Catharine  sent  Prince  Repnin  to 
Constantinople  to  keep  the  Porte 
quiet  till  she  was  ready  to  enter  the 
lists  at  an  advantage.  That  Catha- 
rine found  time  to  direct  foreign 
affairs  at  all,  and  contrive  the  fall  of 
empires  at  this  period,  is  wonderful, 
when  we  read  of  the  round  of  dissipa- 
tion in  which  she  passed  her  days. 
Incessantly  occupied  with  political 
and  social  intrigues,  constantly  chang- 
ing her  ministers  and  her  favourites, 
she  still  managed  to. map  out  her  time 
so  well,  that  business  and  pleasure 
fell  naturally  into  their  proper  places, 
and  never  interfered  with  each  other. 
It  is  almost  terrifying  to  think  that  a 
woman,  so  shamelessly  abandoned  in 
her  life,  should  yet  have  exercised  the 
self-command  of  an  anchorite  with 
regard  to  the  distribution  of  her  time. 


347 

There  is  a  kind  of  unconsciousness  in 
her  conduct  like  that  of  innocence ; 
and  the  best  that  can  be  said  of  her 
is,  that  she  was  partly  forced  to  ac- 
cept, with  an  exotic  civilisation,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  the  savage  and 
Polynesian  traditions  of  her  native 
predecessors.  The  suspicion  fell  on 
her  about  this  time  of  causing  her 
daughter-in-law,  Natalia  Alexicona, 
to  be  put  to  death.  It  is  only  useful 
to  notice  this,  because  her  death  led 
to  another  marriage  which  united 
Russia  and  Prussia  more  strongly 
than  ever.  A  few  days  before  the 
death  of  the  Grand  Duke's  wife, 
Prince  Henry  of  Prussia  came  to  St 
Petersburg  to  discuss  difficulties  aris- 
ing from  the  Polish  partition.  In  a 
conversation  with  the  empress  this 
prince  is  said  to  have  spoken  to  the 
following  effect: — "Madam,  I  see 
but  one  way  of  obviating  all  difficulty. 
It  may  perhaps  be  displeasing  to  you 
on  account  of  Poniatowsky  (Stanis- 
laus), but  you  will  nevertheless  do 
well  to  give  it  your  approbation,  since 
compensations  may  be  offered  to  that 
monarch  of  greater  value  to  him  than 
the  throne  which  is  continually  tot- 
tering under  him.  The  remainder  of 
Poland  must  be  partitioned."  Of 
course  this  conversation  sealed  the 
doom  of  that  country.  The  death 
of  the  Grand  Duchess  supervened, 
and  in  consequence  it  was  agreed  at 
the  time  that  the  Grand  Duke  Paul 
should  marry  the  Princess  of  Wur- 
temburg,  Prince  Henry's  niece,  in 
spite  of  her  previous  betrothal  to  the 
hereditary  sovereign  of  Hesse-Darm- 
stadt. Whether  the  Princess  of 
Wiirtemburg  made  any  objection  to 
having  her  affections  thus  summarily 
disposed  of,  is  not  of  much  conse- 
quence. She  changed  her  religion 
with  the  same  apparent  ease  as  her 
intended  bridegroom,  and  was  married 
to  Paul  Petrovitch,  under  the  name 
of  Maria  Feodorovna,  just  twenty 
years  before  her  husband  ascended 
the  throne  of  the  Tsars.  About  this 
time  we  find  Russia  negotiating  with 
Denmark,  and,  as  was  believed  at 
the  time,  duped  by  that  power,  for 
she  was  induced  to  cede  Holstein  to 
Denmark.  The  cession,  we  may  well 
think,  was  not  made  for  nothing ;  and 
the  detachment  of  one  of  the  great 
Scandinavian  states  from  general 


348 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  III. 


[Sept. 


Scandinavian  interests  was  not  an 
object  to  be  overlooked.  Besides  this, 
Russia  had  always  immediate  views 
on  Sweden.  Since  the  time  of  Eliza- 
beth she  had  always  kept  up  by 
means  of  her  ministers,  and  by  the 
use  of  intrigues  and  bribery,  a  Rus- 
sian party  in  that  country,  who  were 
known  as  the  party  of  the  Caps,  in 
contradistinction  to  that  of  the  Hats, 
and  who  took  the  patriotic  line  in  op- 
position to  the  absolutist  tendencies 
of  the  Swedish  monarchs.  Gustavus 
III.  succeeded  by  a  well- managed 
coup  d'etat  in  getting  the  mastery  over 
this  party;  but  finding  that  his  suc- 
cess brought  a  Russian  fleet  into  the 
Gulf  of  Finland,  he  went  to  nego- 
tiate in  1777  with  Catharine  at  St 
Petersburg,  who,  of  course,  quieted 
his  alarms  as  to  the  armament,  and 
on  all  points  completely  outwitted 
him.  She  was  active,  at  the  same 
time,  both  in  the  north  and  in  the 
south.  In  1778  the  war  threatened 
to  break  out  again  between  Russia 
and  Turkey  about  the  Khans  of  the 
Crimea.  It  is  worth  recording  that, 
before  undertaking  this  war,  Catha- 
rine obtained  a  promise  of  assistance 
from  the  Shah  of  Persia,  so  that  the 
present  is  not  the  first  time  that  that 
court  has  been  subservient  to  Russian 
designs.  The  Shah's  death,  however, 
prevented  the  fulfilment  of  the  pro- 
mise. One  special  grievance  with 
the  Porte  was  the  protection  claimed 
by  Russia  over  the  Christians  in  the 
Danubian  Principalities  ;  in  order  to 
render  which  independent  of  the 
Porte,  Russia  stipulated  that  the 
sovereigns  of  these  countries  should 
not  be  removable  at  the  will  of  the 
Sultan ,  their  suzerain.  Matters  were, 
however,  arranged  for  the  present  by 
the  French  ambassador;  for  a  war 
between  that  power  and  England 
having  just  broken  out,  it  was  de- 
sirable to  him  that  the  connection 
between  Russia  and  England  should 
be  severed.  Nevertheless,  the  em- 
press found  the  English  too  useful  to 
break  with  them  altogether;  and  while 
she  still  refused  to  abet  them  in  their 
endeavours  to  retain  their  American 
colonies,  she  invited  them  to  indem- 
nify themselves  by  Russian  commerce 
for  what  they  lost  in  America,  and 
thus  profited  commercially  as  well  as 
politically  by  their  embarrassments. 


With  regard  to  Catharine's  cold- 
ness towards  England  at  this  time,  it 
is  perfectly  consistent  with  her  gene- 
ral policy.  England  seemed  in  dan- 
ger of  losing  the  empire  of  the  seas, 
with  her  colonies  in  revolt  and  France 
against  her.  Catharine  would  not 
break  with  her  altogether,  for  Eng- 
land might  recover  her  position.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  plain,  by  at 
the  same  time  flattering  the  Ameri- 
cans, that  she  was  ready  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  every  contingency.  Ac- 
cordingly, she  was  induced  by  the 
French  minister,  with  no  great  diffi- 
culty, to  set  on  foot  an  armed  neu- 
trality among  the  maritime  powers 
of  the  north,  on  the  plea  of  the  seve- 
rities of  the  right  of  search  as  prac- 
tised in  the  Baltic.  This  desertion  of 
England  in  her  need  ought  to  have 
opened  the  eyes  of  her  statesmen  to 
the  imperial  policy,  but  we  do  not 
find  that  it  had  this  immediate  effect. 
The  armed  neutrality  was  established, 
Sweden  being  the  only  reluctant 
power ;  and,  under  the  circumstances, 
our  government  thought  it  best  to 
release  the  ships  that  were  in  limbo 
waiting  for  adjudication.  Catharine 
had  at  this  period  by  her  side  a 
powerful,  ambitious,  and  talented 
counsellor  in  Prince  Potemkin,  the 
only  minister  who  ever  seemed  to 
come  near  herself  in  ability.  He 
had  been  the  court  favourite,  and  in 
due  time,  like  all  the  rest,  received 
his  dismissal;  but  nothing  daunted, 
he  had  the  consummate  assurance  to 
present  himself  as  usual  at  her  card- 
table,  and,  as  often  happens  in  such 
cases,  sheer  impudence  succeeded ; 
the  empress  sat  down  to  her  game, 
merely  remarking  that  Potemkin  al- 
ways played  luckily.  Instead  of  re- 
tiring in  dudgeon  for  the  loss  of  a 
heart  which  had  been  so  often  lost 
and  gained  before  as  scarcely  to  be 
regretable,  Potemkin  knew  hence- 
forth how  to  make  himself  so  gene- 
rally useful,  that  he  gained  an  ascen- 
dancy over  Catharine's  mind  which 
lasted  till  his  death.  He  saw  that  his 
name  would  be  inseparably  associated 
with  the  glories  of  the  empire,  could  he 
but  cause  Catharine,  or  one  of  her  fa- 
mily, to  be  crowned  at  Constantinople ; 
so  he  directed  all  his  efforts  to  this  end, 
and  thought  rightly,  that  the  first  step 
in  that  direction  was  the  possession  of 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


the  Crimea.  He  also  thought  that 
•Austria,  as  conterminous  with  Tur- 
key, was  the  right  ally  for  this  busi- 
ness ;  and,  in  consequence,  an  inter- 
view was  arranged  between  Joseph 
II.  and  Catharine  at  Mohilef.  It  was 
agreed  that  they  should  attack  the 
Ottomans  in  concert,  share  the  spoils 
between  them,  but  in  Greece  set  up 
the  old  republics,  probably  with  a 
view  of  conciliating  other  powers. 
Turkey  had  been  much  chafed  since 
the  last  peace,  by  the  articles  grant- 
ing Kussia  the  use  of  the  Euxine, 
which,  of  course,  she  took  care  to 
improve  to  the  utmost,  and  that  by 
which  the  independence  of  the  Crimea 
was  stipulated — an  independence  by 
which  this  province  and  its  neigh- 
bours were  fast  becoming  Muscovite. 
Just  so  in  theDanubian  Principalities : 
war  seemed  preferable  to  those  in- 
trigues by  which  Russia  gained  new 
ground  every  day  ;  for  Potemkin  had 
ingeniously  contrived  to  establish  a 
network  of  agencies  in  all  the  principal 
towns,  under  the  name  of  consulships, 
to  which  he  appointed  tried  and  safe 
men,  whom  he  had  known  personally 
at  St  Petersburg.  On  the  whole,  the 
Porte  was  disposed  for  war,  finding 
that,  although  war  was  dangerous, 
peace  was  inevitably  fatal,  because, 
during  peace,  Russia  was  driving  a 
sap  in  several  directions  at  the  same 
time,  the  final  explosion  of  which 
would  be  nearer  to  the  heart  of  the 
empire  than  the  present  attacks  of 
war.  It  was  on  the  matter  of  the 
consuls  that  Turkey  was  sorest;  but, 
nevertheless,  she  found  it  necessary, 
towards  the  close  of  1781,  to  accept 
the  Russian  policy  on  this  point,  and 
to  receive  Laskaroif  as  consul-general 
of  Russia,  with  liberty  to  reside  at 
Bucharest,  Jassy,  or  anywhere  else 
he  might  think  proper.  But  this 
concession  did  not  long  ward  off  war. 
The  creature  of  Russia,  Sahim-Gherai, 
was  worsted  in  a  rebellion  of  the 
Crimean  Tartars,  which  gave  Rus- 
sia a  pretence  for  sending  an  army  to 
help  him. 

Towards  the  close  of  1782,  two 
spirited  memorials,  as  they  were 
called,  were  presented  to  the  Porte 
from  St  Petersburg  and  Vienna,  with 
hints  of  further  consequences  if  their 
requests  were  not  complied  with  ;  and 
Turkey,  though  still  negotiating,  pre- 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


349 

pared  for  war.  Kherson  was  the 
Sebastopol  of  that  time,  a  city  built 
as  if  by  magic  by  Potemkhij  contain- 
ing harbours  for  shipping,  and  capable 
of  becoming  a  standing  menace  to  the 
Ottoman  empire.  Catharine  flattered 
the  Khan  of  Crimea,  Sahim- Gherai, 
into  insulting  the  Turks ;  and  because 
they  resented  it,  accused  them  of 
breaking  the  treaty  of  Kainardji. 
Moreover,  she  seemed  determined  to 
drive  Turkey  to  declare  war,  (the  very 
cue  of  Nicholas,)  by  making  demands 
continually  increasing  in  exorbitancy. 
She  demanded  now  the  Crimea  in 
full  possession,  the  isle  of  Tamau,  the 
Kuban  and  Budziak,  with  the  fortress 
of  Otchakoff,  besides  less  important 
cessions.  Nor  were  the  demands  of 
Austria  less  unreasonable,  for  she  de- 
manded Belgrade,  a  great  part  of  Wal- 
lachia,  Bosnia,  and  Servia,  and  the 
free  navigation  of  the  Danube  and 
the  Turkish  seas.  Meanwhile  Russia 
had  made  herself  mistress  of  all  the 
principal  ports  in  the  Crimea,  and 
extended  her  power  over  the  Cauca- 
sus into  Georgia  and  Armenia.  Min- 
grelia  and  Georgia  had  entered  into  a 
state  of  vassalage  to  the  empress,  and 
at  last,  by  a  mock  abdication,  she 
got  the  Khari  to  vacate  to  her,  in  con- 
sideration of  estates  in  Russia,  the 
whole  of  the  Crimean  peninsula. 

For  this  annexation  of  the  Crimea, 
Catharine  published  a  manifesto,, 
urging,  as  in  the  case  of  Poland,  her 
benevolent  dispositions  towards  that 
country,  and  satisfactorily  showing  to 
all  who  were  willing  to  be  deceived, 
that  she  had  no  motive  but  that  of 
pure  love  for  her  new  dominions. 
The  Porte  answered  this  manifesto  in 
a  masterly  reply,  which  was  attri- 
buted to  Sir  Robert  Ainslie,  the  then 
English  ambassador  at  Constanti- 
nople. To  keep  Sweden  quiet,  Ca- 
tharine appointed  a  meeting  with 
Gustavus  III.,  and  offered  to  help 
him  in  gaining  Norway,  if  he  would 
remain  neuter.  He  seemed  to  com- 
ply, but  broke  his  engagement  at  the 
first  opportunity.  Enormous  Rus- 
sian armies  now  hovered  on  the  fron- 
tiers of  Turkey.  England  did  all 
she  could  to  rouse  Turkey  to  arms, 
but  France  and  Austria  prevented  it. 
The  storm  blew  over,  Catharine  got 
all  her  demands  without  fighting — the 
Crimea,  the  Caucasus,  the  Euxine^. 

2A 


350 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


[Sept. 


and  the  right  of  passing  the  Dardan- 
elles ;  and  this  time,  at  least,  France 
as  well  as  Austria  completely  played 
into  the  hands  of  Russia.  Thus  there 
was  a  lull  in  the  East  for  some  time, 
and  Catharine  was  free  to  intrigue 
in  the  West,  and  we  find  her  doing 
so  on  several  international  occa- 
sions. Potemkin  was  busy  in  car- 
rying out  Catharine's  benevolent 
intentions  in  the  Crimea;  and  so 
effectually  did  he  do  this,  that,  as 
Schlosser  remarks,  a  people,  in  1780, 
still  numerous,  free,  rich,  clad  in  silks, 
and  outwardly  decorous,  soon  entirely 
vanished  into  insignificance,  and  shrunk 
into  a  mere  hungry  horde  of  beggars  ; 
its  once  brilliant  and  splendid  towns 
of  pavilions  became  mere  hovels  for 
goats ;  and  its  strongholds,  houses,  and 
palaces,  built  of  solid  stone,  lapsed 
into  mere  heaps  of  ruins.  In  1783, 
Paul  Potemkin,  cousin  of  the  Prince, 
by  way  of  keeping  order  in  the  Crimea, 
butchered  30,000  Tartars  in  cold  blood ; 
and  in  every  respect  the  imperial 
policy  of  Russia  showed  itself  as  in 
Poland,  closely  imitating  the  animal 
so  often  used  to  symbolise  it,  by  hug- 
ging affectionately  at  first,  and  crush- 
ing in  the  end.  We  mentioned  at 
the  end  of  the  last  paper  that  the  eyes 
of  far-seeing  men  in  Europe  were 
opened  to  the  designs  of  Russia  early 
in  the  reign  of  Catharine.  We  are  in- 
formed by  the  Moniteur  of  June  30 
of  the  present  year,  of  a  correspond- 
ence which  took  place  in  1783  be- 
tween M.  de  Vergennes,  then  Foreign 
Minister  at  Paris  under  Louis  XVI., 
and  the  French  Ministers  at  the  courts 
of  Vienna  and  London,  showing  that 
the  subject  was  still  considered  of 
high  State  importance.  We  must  quote 
from  the  Times'  Paris  Correspondent's 
own  words,  written  in  the  style,  at 
once  vigorous  and  lucid,  in  which  he 
is  accustomed  to  give  the  English 
public  the  pith  of  the  French  press  : 
— "  The  first  (despatch)  bears  date 
January  6,  1783  ;  and  the  last,  July 
18  of  the  same  year.  These  State 
papers  present  a  striking  picture  of 
the  designs  of  Russia,  then  under  the 
sway  of  Catharine  II.,  and  they  prove 
the  sagacity  and  foresight  of  the 
minister  who  then  directed  the  coun- 
cils of  the  French  monarch.  But 
they  are  chiefly  curious  from  the  ex- 
traordinary similarity  of  the  facts  nar- 


rated in  them  with  those  that  occur  at 
the  present  day  ;  and  we  have  but  to 
change  the  date  and  names  in  order 
to  have  a  complete  idea  of  contempor- 
ary events.  The  remarks  of  M.  de 
Vergennes  on  the  aggressive  and  per- 
fidious character  of  Muscovite  policy, 
and  the  hesitations,  if  not  worse,  of 
Austria,  might  be  made  by  M.  Drouyn 
de  Lhuys  or  M.  de  Walewski  in 
1855  ;  and  the  reasons  put  forward  by 
Austria  for  not  taking  an  active  part 
in  the  resistance  to  Russia  are  nearly 
identical  with  what  we  have  heard 
for  the  last  two  years.  We  have  the 
Emperor  Joseph  declaring  to  M.  de 
Breteuil,  that  "  if  the  obstinacy  of 
Turkey  (that  is,  her  resistance  to  the 
unjust  demands  of  the  Czarina)  led 
to  a  rupture  with  Russia,  he  should 
take  possession  of  Moldavia  and 
Wallachia.  The  Turkey  of  Abdul 
Medjid  has  resisted  the  Russia  of 
Nicholas,  and  the  Austria  of  Francis 
Joseph  has  taken  possession  of  the 
Danubian  Provinces."  An  extract 
of  a  letter  is  then  given,  in  which  M. 
de  Vergennes  communicates  to  M. 
d'Ahemar  in  London  his  suspicions  of 
the  existence  of  an  understanding 
between  Austria  and  Russia  to  divide 
Turkey;  and  the  extract  concludes 
with  this  pregnant  sentence  :  "  The 
only  difference  is,  that  the  Emperor 
(of  Austria),  better  advised,  will  em- 
ploy more  form  to  colour  the  spolia- 
tion of  the  Ottoman  empire."  Then 
follows  the  picture  of  proceedings 
exactly  parallel  with  Menschikoff's 
bullying  mission,  in  which  it  is  shown 
that,  as  Turkey  yields,  Russia  pushes 
forward  with  new  demands,  deter- 
mined either  to  goad  her  into  war,  or 
to  fence  her  back  over  the  precipice 
of  self-destruction.  And  to  the  French 
ambassador  at  Vienna  M.  de  Ver- 
gennes writes,  declaring  the  neces- 
sity of  extorting  from  Austria1,  an 
explicit  declaration  of  her  intentions, 
and  divining  that  Austria  will  take 
possession  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia 
as  soon  as  the  Russian  spoliation  is 
complete  ;  adding,  that  the  Emperor  is 
at  present  probably  divided  between 
the  greed  of  dominion  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  fear  of  the  exhausting 
results  of  a  war  on  the  other ;  and 
that  it  behoves  France  to  know  im- 
mediately what  he  means.  And  the 
despatches  addressed  to  the  French 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


351 


ambassador  in  London  as  to  the 
attempts  made  to  induce  Mr  Fox,  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  to  join  in 
opposing  Russia,  are  said  to  furnish 
an  exact  parallel  with  part  of  the 
history  of  the  late  Administration. 
What  says  Mr  Gladstone  to  all  this  ? 
England  missed  that  opportunity  of 
stopping  Russian  aggression,  as  she  has 
missed  her  opportunity  many  times 
since,  and  Russiacontiuuedto  advance 
her  pretensions. 

The  progress  of  Catharine  to  the 
Crimea  was  managed  by  Prince  Potem- 
kin  with  a  view  of  consolidating  her 
power  in  the  south,  by  receiving  in  per- 
son the  homage  of  the  Crimean  Tartars ; 
and  there  was  yet  an  ulterior  design 
in  this  extraordinary  journey,  which 
shows,  that  the  fall  of  Constantinople 
was  already  looked  upon  as  a  u/a#  ac- 
compli" This  was  no  less  than  the  in- 
ducting of  Constantine,  the  grandson  of 
the  Empress,  in  to  that  Oriental  Empire 
for  which  she  had  destined  him  from 
birth.  We  are  told  that  in  his  earliest 
infancy  he  was  put  into  the  hands  of 
nurses  from  the  isle  of  Naxos ;  that 
he  was  always  dressed  in  the  Greek 
fashion,  and  surrounded  with  Greek 
children,  so  that  he  soon  spoke  that 
language  with  facility,  and  it  was 
even  with  reference  to  him  that  the 
Greek  cadet  corps  of  200  cadets  was 
established.  Catharine  received  the 
homage  of  Stanislaus  Augustus  at 
Kanief,  travelling  under  his  old  name 
of  Poniatowsky,  and  of  Joseph  II. 
at  Kherson,  where,  as  the  Empress 
was  proceeding  through  the  town,  she 
read  an  inscription  on  the  eastern 
gate,  in  Greek,  to  this  effect :  "  This 
is  the  road  to  Byzantium."  The 
whole  progress  was  managed  by  Po- 
temkin  with  a  magnificent  mendacity 
only  possible  to  a  Russian  grandee. 
Towns  appeared  to  have  been  built, 
and  deserts  peopled,  to  please  the  eyes 
of  the  Empress.  Whether  she  was 
deceived  or  not,  she  took  no  pains  to 
inquire  into  the  flattering  though 
monstrous  imposition.  While  the 
Empress  was  at  Kherson,  four  Turkish 
ships  of  the  line  took  the  liberty  to 
anchor  at  the  mouth  of  the  Borysthenes, 
which  caused  her  to  exclaim  :  "  One 
would  suppose  that  the  Turks  had  no 
recollection  of  Tchesme."  The  pup- 
pet Khan  Sahim-Gherai  was  re- 
moved from  the  Crimea  when  Catha- 


rine took  possession  of  it ;  and  after 
having  been  abundantly  made  a  fool 
of  by  Potemkin,  took  refuge  in  Rhodes, 
where  he  was  strangled  by  the  Turks. 
The  cup  of  insult  was  now  full,  and 
running  over  ;  and,  fretted  by  the  in- 
trigues of  the  consuls,  especially  by 
one  in  Moldavia,  an  Englishman  we 
are  sorry  to  say,  the  Divan  at  last 
declared  war  ;  and,  by  way  of  doing 
this  emphatically,  sent  Bulgakoff,  the 
Russian  ambassador,  to  the  castle  of 
the  Seven  Towers.  Of  course  Catha- 
rine was  prepared  for  this  result. 
The  Austrians  were  with  her,  and 
the  Western  Powers  not  sufficiently 
united  to  thwart  her,  so  she  published 
a  manifesto  of  lamb-like  innocence  in 
answer  to  the  unanswerable  appeal 
of  the  Porte  to  the  justice  of  Europe, 
and  sent  out  fleets  and  armies  to  back  it. 
The  first  great  exploit  was  the  victory 
before  Otchakoff,  gained  by  Suwarrow 
and  Beck,  who  were  both  wounded, 
but  in  which  a  Turkish  army  was 
annihilated.  From  its  circumstances 
it  was  a  narrow  escape  for  the  victors, 
and  gave  good  reason  for  "Te  Deums" 
at  St  Petersburg.  And  now  the  Em- 
press wanted  to  induce  France  to  join 
her,  by  the  bribe  of  Egypt  in  the 
spoliation  of  Turkey.  But  the  French 
court  of  that  time,  like  the  imperial 
government  of  the  present  day,  was 
not  to  be  tempted  by  the  specious 
bait.  It  was  pleaded  in  vain  by 
Russia  that  Egypt  would  instantly 
fall  to  France,  and  Egypt  was  the  gate 
of  India.  The  Turks  had  now  a 
piece  of  good  fortune  in  taking  the 
Borysthenes,  of  64  guns,  which  was 
driven  by  weather  to  Constantinople, 
and  another  of  greater  importance, 
which  they  had  not  counted  on. 
Catharine  was  prepared  for  the  oppo- 
sition of  England  and  Prussia  to  her 
plans,  in  everything  short  of  actual 
hostility.  She  was  not  prepared  for 
a  declaration  of  war  from  Gustavus 
III.  of  Sweden,  who  seemed,  in  a 
measure,  actuated  by  the  contemp- 
tuous scorn  with  which  his  offers  of 
mediation  between  Russia  and  Turkey 
had  been  treated.  Catharine  was  in 
great  danger.  All  her  best  soldiers 
were  gone  to  the  south  ;  but,  with  her 
usual  presence  of  mind,  she  got  to- 
gether such  troops  as  she  could,  and 
prepared  to  defend  her  capital,  which 
was  in  fact  seriously  menaced.  Ad- 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


352 

rniral  Greig,  a  Scotchman,  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  command  of  the  fleet 
at  Cronstadt,  which  was  sent  against 
the  Swedes,  while  another  fleet  was 
prepared  for  the  Euxine.  A  remark 
made  by  the  historian  on  this  latter 
squadron  is  worth  our  heeding.  It 
was  meant  that  the  large  ships  of  the 
Turkish  fleet  should  be  avoided ;  and 
a  great  flotilla  of  light  ships,  furnished 
with  heavy  artillery,  for  acting  in 
shallows  and  in  the  mouths  of  rivers, 
both  for  the  defence  and  attack  of  sea- 
side places,  was  got  together.  The  ad- 
vantages of  this  arrangement  were 
obvious.  Europe,  which  had  slum- 
bered through  the  partition  of  Po- 
land, was  now  in  part  awakened  by 
the  approaching  dismemberment  of 
Turkey.  Thus  Austria  and  Russia, 
though  pretending  a  crusade,  met  with 
nothing  but  coldness  through  Christ- 
endom, except  from  Genoa,  which 
actively  assisted  them.  Venice,  Sar- 
dinia, and  Spain,  then  very  powerful 
by  sea,  showed  decided  hostility  ;  and 
as  for  France,  she  was  quite  aware  of 
all  that  was  going  on ;  but  this  was 
now  "  tfce  Gallic  era,  88,"  and  there 
was  a  leaven  working  in  her  own  con- 
stitution which  rendered  her  utterly 
incapable  of  any  external  feelings. 
Prussia  was  satisfied  with  standing 
on  the  defensive  and  awaiting  con- 
tingencies. As  for  England,  Russia 
hoped  to  bribe  her  into  acquiescence, 
by  employing  her  pilots,  seamen,  and 
shipping  in  transport ;  and  the  mer- 
chants were  of  course  well  pleased  to 
turn  a  penny :  but  the  Government 
put  a  timely  check  on  it  by  a  procla- 
mation in  the  London  Gazette,  pro- 
hibiting foreign  service  to  British 
sailors,  and  at  the  same  timenullifying 
the  contracts  of  those  who  had  taken 
any  tenders  up  for  Russia.  But  this 
refusal  of  England  to  abet  Russia  pro- 
bably saved  St  Petersburg,  for  it  de- 
layed the  sailing  of  the  Russian  fleet, 
and  kept  it  at  home  to  cover  the  capi- 
tal against  Sweden.  England  did  not 
go  the  length  of  recalling  her  officers 
already  in  the  Russian  service ;  and 
amongst  other  heroes  of  the  Cronstadt 
fleet,  Catharine  had  the  good  fortune  to 
engage  the  notorious  American  pirate 
Paul  Jones.  She  was,  however,  soon 
obliged  to  rescind  this  appointment, 
as  the  British  officers  refused  to  serve 
with  a  deserter  from  their  own  service. 


[Sept. 


The  King  of  Sweden  declared  war 
a  little  too  soon,  and  missed  his  mark. 
The  Russian  fleet,  with  its  English 
officers,  soon  shut  the  Swedes  up  in 
Sweaborg,  which  then  belonged  to- 
Sweden;  but  notwithstanding  this, 
Gustavus  thought  of  getting  an  ad- 
vantageous peace.  Above  all  he  wish- 
ed to  free  Finland  from  Russian  in- 
trigue. It  appears  that  ever  since  the 
peace  of  Abo,  Russia,  under  the  pre- 
tence of  making  them  independent,  had 
endeavoured  to  detach  the  Finlanders 
from  Sweden,  playing  the  same  game 
as  with  Courland,  which  she  first  de- 
clared independent  and  then  annexed. 
But  Catharine  was  his  implacable  foe 
at  this  time,  and  no  peace  was  pos- 
sible. She  had  corrupted  the  Swedish 
nobles,  so  that  they  deserted  their 
king  on  the  field  of  battle.  It  was 
even  said  that  she  aimed  at  dethron- 
ing him,  and  reviving  the  extinct 
claim  of  Peter  III.  to  the  throne  of 
Sweden,  in  the  person  of  her  son,  the 
Grand  Duke.  To  add  to  the  difficul- 
ties of  Gustavus,  the  Danes  invaded 
him  from  Norway,  the  hostility  of 
the  Danes  having  been  excited  by 
Gustavus's  wish  to  take  Norway  from 
them  and  annex  it ;  and  also,  of  course, 
by  no  lack  of  Russian  intrigue  at  the 
same  time,  the  handsome  present  of 
Holstein  not  being  forgotten  at  the  court 
of  Copenhagen.  It  is  said,  indeed, 
that  on  the  cession  of  Holstein  to 
Denmark,  that  power  was  secretly 
bound  to  provide  Russia  with  12,000 
auxiliary  troops,  and  six  ships  of  the 
line,  when  she  wanted  them.'  The 
date  of  this  treaty  was  1773,  a  time 
when  Sweden  menaced  Norway.  In 
1787,  Gustavus,  seeing  that  he  might 
attack  Russia  with  advantage,  as  she 
was  busy  with  the  Ottoman  war,  paid 
a  friendly  visit  to  Copenhagen,  to  im- 
press on  the  Danish  court  the  dangers 
of  Russian  ambition  and  intrigues, 
and  ^the  necessity  of  a  Scandinavian 
union.  But  it  was  too  late:  the  in- 
terests of  Denmark  had  been  sold  by 
her  court  already,  and  it  was  in  obe- 
dience to  Russia  that  Denmark  made 
the  invasion  mentioned  before,  as  a 
diversion  to  the  war  in  Finland. 
Gottenburg  was  invested,  and  Gus- 
tavus, at  the  head  of  the  brave  Dale- 
carlians,  hastened  to  relieve  it,  leaving 
the  army  in  Finland  to  shift  for  itself. 
He  was  now  in  imminent  danger. 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  III. 


England,  Prussia,  and  Holland,  now 
in  firm  alliance,  saved  him,  for  France 
was  in  a  state  of  internal  paralysis. 
Mr  Elliott,  the  English  ambassador 
at  Copenhagen,  went  to  Gottenburg, 
and  made  the  Danish  prince  raise  the 
siege  by  threatening  an  embargo 
on  Danish  ships  in  England,  followed 
up  by  operations  in  the  Sound. 
He  was  seconded  by  the  Prussian 
minister,  and  Gustavus  had  both  his 
hands  free  again  for  the  war  in  Fin- 
land. In  the  mean  time  the  war  in 
the  East  was  raging  furiously,  and 
most  to  the  advantage  of  Russia. 
Potemkin  took  Otchakoff  on  the  fes- 
tival of  St  Nicholas,  to  whom  the 
Russians  gave  the  credit,  as  he  was 
their  tutelary  saint,  but  at  the  price 
of  the  loss  of  12,000  men.  At  this 
period,  the  beginning  of  1789,  the 
exhaustion  of  Russia  is  remarked  on 
by  our  authority :  "  Men  began  to 
grow  scarce  in  the  Russian  empire ; 
the  wilds  of  Siberia  were  therefore 
ransacked  for  its  exiles  ;  and  a  part 
of  them  were  brought  to  be  incorpo- 
rated with  the  recruits."  Meanwhile 
the  war  in  Finland  waged,  at  first 
with  advantage  to  Russia.  Gusta- 
vus's  troops  were  pushed  out  of  Rus- 
sian into  Swedish  Finland.  In  the 
next  year,  1790,  fortune  turned. 
Gustavus  took  thirty  ships  from 
the  Prince  of  Nassau,  and  excited 
great  consternation  at  St  Peters- 
burg, by  disembarking  an  army  only 
thirty  miles  from  that  capital.  Why 
have  not  England  and  France,  in 
1855,  imitated  his  example?  The 
Swedes  chased  a  Russian  squadron 
into  Revel,  but  lost  two  ships,  and 
their  navy  was  entrapped,  and  seri- 
ously compromised  in  the  Gulf  of 
Viborg ;  and  might  have  been  taken 
entire,  had  Admiral  Tschitschagoff 
and  the  Prince  of  Nassau  put  batte- 
ries at  the  entrance  of  the  passages. 
As  it  was,  the  Swedes  lost  nine  ships 
of  the  line,  three  frigates,  and  up- 
wards of  twenty  galleys.  The  Rus- 
sians paid  for  this  success  by  the  loss 
of  several  of  their  boldest  British 
officers  ;  amongst  others  the  Captains 
Denison,  Marshall,  Miller,  Aiken, 
and  Trevenen. 

The  Prince  of  Nassau  attacked  the 
remainder  of  the  Swedish  galleys  be- 
hind the  rocks  of  Svenkosund,  where 
they  had  hidden  themselves  for  safety. 


353 

Gustavus's  star  was  now  in  the  as- 
cendant. The  Russians  lost  half  their 
fleet,  and  10,000  men.  The  Empress 
now  offered  terms  to  Gustavus,  which 
were,  the  re-establishment  of  the  trea- 
ties of  Abo  and  Nystadt,  coupled 
with  the  condition  that  Gustavus 
should  march  against  the  French.  He 
complied,  thinking  himself  too  weak 
to  follow  up  his  temporary  advan- 
tages. In  Turkey  the  war  went  on. 
Abdul  Achmed  was  dead.  He  was 
a  genial  kind  of  Sultan,  considered 
by  M.  De  Vergennes  as  one  of  the 
finest  gentlemen  of  his  time.  Amongst 
other  proofs  of  his  civilised  tenden- 
cies, his  heterodox  love  of  wine  is 
put  on  record.  He  is  said  to  have 
said  in  one  of  his  hilarious  moments, 
"  If  he  were  to  become  an  infidel,  he 
should  assuredly  embrace  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion,  for  all  the  best 
European  wines  grew  in  Catholic 
countries ;  and,  indeed,  he  had  never 
heard  of  a  good  Protestant  wine." 
Selim  III.  succeeded  him.  It  was 
now  thought  that  if  Catharine  failed 
in  her  design  on  Constantinople,  she 
would,  as  the  second  best  thing  to  be 
done,  invest  Potemkin  with  the  sove- 
reignty of  the  Danubian  Principa- 
lities. As  it  was,  the  opposition  of 
the  allies  forced  her  to  content  her- 
self with  making  him  hetman  of  the 
Cossacks.  And  with  regard  to  her 
conquests  of  the  Crimea,  Otchakoff, 
and  the  Black  Sea,  she  was  on  the 
point  of  going  to  war  with  England 
and  Prussia,  because  she  insisted  in 
clinging  to  them.  The  fear  of  this 
war  induced  her  to  give  easier  terms 
to  Gustavus,  as  those  two  powers 
with  Sweden  would  have  been  too 
much  for  her.  The  Russian  general 
Suwarrow  was  now  making  his  abi- 
lity manifest  by  beating  the  Turks. 
On  one  occasion,  near  the  river 
Rimniks,  he  saved  the  Austrian 
army,  and  gained  the  honorary  name 
of  Rimniksky.  He  celebrated  his 
conquest  of  Tnrtukai  by  four  lines  of 
Russian  doggrel :  u  Glory  to  God  ! 
Praises  to  Catharine !  Turtukai  is 
taken!  Suwarrow  is  in  it."  Other 
victories  followed.  Ackerman  and 
Keglia  Nova,  on  the  northern  mouth 
of  the  Danube,  were  taken.  Potem- 
kin had  been  sitting  for  some  months 
before  Ismail.  He  ordered  Suwar- 
row to  take  it,  and  gave  him  but 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  111. 


351 

three  days  to  do  it  in.  The  Russians 
stormed  the  town  at  the  third  assault, 
but  with  the  loss  of  15,000  men. 
Catharine  was  much  elated  with  these 
splendid  successes,  and  ironically  re- 
marked to  Sir  Charles  Whitworth, 
"  Sir,  since  the  king,  your  master,  is 
determined  to  drive  me  out  of  St 
Petersburg,  I  hope  he  will  permit  me 
to  retire  to  Constantinople."  Prince 
Potemkin  remained  her  prime  minis- 
ter and  coadjutor  through  all  these 
triumphs.  Besides  his  designs  on 
Constantinople,  he  is  said  to  have 
had  dreams  even  of  Chinese  con- 
quest ;  his  death  alone  stopt  an  ex- 
pedition which  was  to  have  begun 
with  taking  possession  of  the  Amoor 
at  Nertschinsk,  and  he  thoroughly 
believed  that  only  10,000  men  were 
wanted  to  march  through  China. 
Nothing  annoyed  him  more  than  the 
French  Revolution,  for  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  detaching  the  Bourbon 
dynasty  from  Turkey.  The  French 
Revolution  was  beginning  to  tell  upon 
Poland;  and  Catharine,  fearing  for 
that  country,  where  Prussian  inter- 
ests were  getting  the  upper  hand, 
began  to  think  a  peace  with  Turkey 
necessary.  England  wished  to  be 
mediator,  as,  in  consequence  of  the 
rupture  between  France  and  Rus- 
sia, she  was  anxious  to  have  good 
terms  with  the  latter  power.  The 
peace  was  concluded  on  the  basis  of 
that  of  Kainardji,  the  preliminaries 
being  signed  on  the  9th  of  January 
1791,  at  Galatch,  leading  to  a  defi- 
nitive treaty  concluded  at  Jassy. 
It  is  said  that  this  war  cost  Rus- 
sia 200,000  men,  and  200,000,000 
roubles ;  Austria,  130,000  men,  and 
300,000,000  florins  ;  and  Turkey, 
330,000  men,  and  250,000,000  pi- 
astres. Sweden  had  expended  in  her 
war  70,000,000  of  rix-dollars,  and 
lost  the  best  part  of  her  fleet.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten  that,  while  the 
English  were  threatening  to  force  this 
treaty  on  the  Empress  by  a  fleet  in 
the  Baltic,  Prince  Nassau  Siegen  put 
a  project  before  her  of  marching  an 
army  through  Bokhara  to  Cashmere 
and  Bengal,  with  the  view  of  driving 
the  British  out  of  India.  The  plan  is 
said  to  have  been  originally  conceived 
by  a  Frenchman  named  St  Genie. 
It  is  well  also  to  remember  that  this  • 
project  was  laughed  to  scorn  by  the 


[Sept. 


sagacious  Potemkin,  who  did  not  live 
long  after  this  to  direct  the  counsels 
of  Russia.  He  died  near  Jassy, 
whither  he  had  gone  to  be  present  at 
the  congress.  He  was  a  powerful 
and  able  man,  in  spite  of  his  giant 
vices,  and  the  very  incarnation  in  the 
person  of  a  courtier  of  the  imperial 
policy  of  Russia. 

The  business  withTurkey  was  now 
settled,  and  Catharine  reverted  to  her 
old  scheme  of  the  annihilation  of  Poland. 
The  Poles  had  been  showing  some  signs 
of  life.  In  1788  they  had  abrogated 
the  constitution  dictated  by  violence  in 
1775,  and  in  1791  they  had  put  forth 
a  new  constitution  in  a  sense  entirely 
adverse  to  her  interests.  The  English 
constitution  was  the  model  on  which 
the  patriotic  Poles  proposed  to  re- 
model their  own.  The  nobles  thought 
of  initiating  a  peerage  after  the  Eng- 
lish pattern ;  but  instead  of  beginning 
with  solidity,  they  began  with  splen- 
dour. Amongst  other  follies,  while  the 
very  existence  of  Poland  was  trem- 
bling in  the  balance,  they  were  sending 
embassies  to  all  the  chief  European 
courts.  Their  propositions  were  fair 
enough,  but  all  was  too  late.  They 
determined  to  have  done  with  foreign 
interference,  and  have  Poland  for  the 
Poles.  Stanislaus  entered  into  these 
proceedings  with  theatrical  ostenta- 
tion. The  chief  innovation  was  that, 
after  the  English  model,  a  Third  Estate 
was  to  be  placed  by  the  side  of  the  Up- 
per House.  To  compensate  this,  the 
nobles  were  to  be  confirmed  in  their 
privileges.  The  veto  of  a  single  vote 
was  repealed,  and  all  cabals  and  private 
meetings  of  confederates  forbidden.  A 
revision  of  the  constitution  was  to 
take  place  every  twenty- five  years, 
which,  considering  the  short  time  the 
constitution  was  to  last,  seemed  the 
most  foolish  provision  of  all.  This 
change  caused  a  universal  jubilee  in 
Poland,  but  with  little  reason.  Aus- 
tria, England,  and  Prussia  had  formed 
an  anti-revolutionary  league.  Prus- 
sia wavered  for  some  time  between 
conservatism  and  liberalism.  But  the 
chief  enemies  of  Poland  were  her  own 
children.  They  had  treason  in  the 
camp,  and  traitors  in  the  church,  one 
of  the  chief  of  whom  was  Bishop 
Kossakowsky.  The  traitors  called  on 
Russia  to  rescue  Polish  liberty,  which 
they  declared  in  danger;  and  Russian 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia. — Part  III. 


355 


intervention  always  rested  on  a  hair- 
trigger,  which  a  touch  would  explode. 
With  Poland  it  was  the  old  story  of 
the  wolf  and  the  lamb ;  and  as  to 
Germany,  the  Russians  pretended  that 
their  intervention  was  welcome  to  her 
dynasties,  as  she  protected  the  old 
constitutions,  and  at  the  same  time 
conveniently  supplied  their  neces- 
sities. Russia  complained  that  Poland 
had  declared  the  permanency  of  the 
Diet,  contrary  to  treaties,  and  also 
had  negotiated  with  the  Turks.  At 
this  crisis  Stanislaus  turned  traitor. 
The  confederation  of  the  Russianising 
Poles  assembled  at  Grodno,  and  were 
humiliated  by  seeing  the  Russian 
minister  seated  under  the  canopy  of 
the  throne  he  was  going  to  overturn. 
The  King  of  Prussia,  in  concert  with 
Catharine,  had  already  marched  an 
army  into  Poland  (1793).  The  Poles 
rose  in  insurrection,  and  the  next 
year  Kosciusko  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  the  patriotic  army.  He  suc- 
ceeded for  a  while,  but  Russia  and 
Prussia  were  too  strong,  and  he  was 
totally  defeated  at  the  battle  of  Ma- 
cieyo witch  on  the  4th  of  October  1794. 
The  Empress  and  Frederick  now  par- 
titioned Poland  at  their  leisure;  Sta- 
nislaus became  a  pensioner  on  the 
bounty  of  Catharine,  and  Prince  Rep- 
nin  was  appointed  governor  of  Poland. 
Meanwhile  Gustavus  of  Sweden  was 
prevented  from  setting  out  on  the 
Empress's  expedition  against  France 
by  his  assassination.  He  was  always 
unpopular  with  the  Swedish  nobles, 
and  at  last  three  of  them  entered  into 
a  conspiracy  against  his  life.  Anker- 
stroem  had  the  questionable  honour 
of  shooting  his  king  with  a  pistol  in 
the  back.  He  was  succeeded  by  his 
son  Gustavus  Adolphus.  The  Em- 
press instantly  fixed  on  the  young 
king  as  a  husband  for  one  of  her 
granddaughters  ;  but  the  negotiation 
came  to  nothing,  as  it  appeared  by 
the  law  of  Sweden  that  it  would  be 
necessary  for  the  bride  to  change  her 
religion.  Catharine  was  more  suc- 
cessful in  other  alliances.  She  mar- 
ried her  grandson  Alexander  to  the 
Princess  Louisa  of  Baden- Omlach, 
and  Constantine  to  the  youngest 
daughter  of  the  Prince  of  Saxe- Co- 
burg.  Another  bloodless  triumph  of 
about  the  same  date  (1796)  was  the 
complete  annexation  of  the  grand- 


duchy  of  Courland,  effected  by  some 
masterly  intrigues. 

Catharine  now  turned  her  attention 
to  Persia.  The  Porte  would  not  se- 
cond her,  so  she  proceeded  alone. 
Valerian  Zuboff,  her  general,  pene- 
trated into  Daghestan  and  took  Der- 
bend  on  the  Caspian,  but  he  was 
beaten  back  into  it.  Catharine  or- 
dered him  to  be  reinforced  from  the 
Kuban,  and  expected  soon  to  conquer 
Persia.  This  was  not  her  only  dream, 
for  now  at  last  she  seemed  on  the 
point  of  grasping  the  darling  object  of 
her  ambition.  She  had  just  secured, 
by  a  new  treaty  with  Great  Britain 
and  Austria,  the  assistance  of  both 
those  powers  against  Turkey,  and  she 
already  in  imagination  saw  her  em- 
pire extending  from  the  White  Sea  to 
the  Bosphorus,  and  from  the  Atlan- 
tic to  Japan.  But  an  unforeseen 
enemy  conquered  her  at  a  single  blow. 
She  died  suddenly  on  the  9th  of  No- 
vember 1796,  having  scarcely  ever 
ailed  before.  She  had  advanced  the 
policy  of  Peter  the  Great  more  than 
any  sovereign  before  or  since;  and 
the  inscription  which  she  put  up  on 
the  statue  she  erected  to  him  was  not 
too  presumptuous  in  its  simplicity: 
"To  Peter  I.,  Catharine  II."  She 
reigned  for  thirty-five  years,  and  left 
Russia  one  of  the  five  great  European 
powers.  When  Paul  Petrovitch  suc- 
ceeded her,  he  was  forty-two  years 
old.  He  had  been  kept  in  the  back- 
ground by  his  mother  during  his 
whole  life,  probably  because  she  found 
that  little  was  to  be  made  of  him  in 
reference  to  her  ambitious  schemes. 
She  lived  at  a  later  period  than  Peter 
the  Great,  or  she  would  probably  have 
put  Paul  to  death  for  his  conservatism, 
as  Peter  did  Alexis.  The  first  thing 
Paul  did  was  to  do  honour  to  his 
father's  memory,  which  was  an  ear- 
nest of  the  policy  he  meant  to  pursue. 
He  altered  the  law  of  succession  by 
an  ukase  of  the  16th  April  1797,  ex- 
cluding female  in  case  of  male  heirs 
remaining.  Thus  he  sought  to  put  the 
monarch  above  the  courtiers,  and  the 
throne  above  the  national  policy.  He 
made  peace  with  Persia ;  he  endeavour- 
ed to  do  justice  to  the  Poles,  and  even 
favoured  Kosciusko.  His  intentions 
seemed  generally  just  and  good.  But 
his  ability  to  do  good  was  limited  by 
his  intelligence.  His  character  soon 


356 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  II L 


[Sept. 


displayed  eccentricities  amounting  to 
madness ;  which,  although  his  views 
were  just,  caused  him  to  act  as  a 
tyrant  in  detail.  He  was  a  man  of 
impulse  and  passion,  a  new  character 
for  a  Russian  sovereign.  He  took  up 
arms  against  the  French  Revolution, 
solely  from  his  sympathies  with  kings, 
and  even  offered  Louis  XVIII.  an 
asylum.  But  ill  success  in  the  war 
with  France  soon  drove  Paul  to 
change  sides,  and  Buonaparte,  now 
First  Consul,  induced  him  to  form  an 
alliance  with  France,  expelling  Louis 
XVIII.  and  the  rest  of  the  emi- 
grants. He  afterwards  was  persuaded 
to  re-establish  the  armed  neutrality 
set  on  foot  against  England,  which 
involved  a  war  with  this  power.  But 
he  scarcely  advanced  the  imperial 
policy  of  Russia  ;  and  this  omission, 
probably  much  more  than  any  acts  of 
tyranny  (for  the  Russians  had  been 
growing  used  to  them  since  Ivan  the 
Terrible),  cost  him  his  life.  He  was 
strangled  with  his  own  scarf,  in  the 
night  between  llth  and  12th  March 
1801,  by  some  of  the  courtiers  who 
had  conspired  against  him.  He  had 
been  twice  married.  His  first  wife  was 
daughter  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse- 
Darmstadt,  who  died  in  childbed.  The 
second,  Dorothea,  Princess  of  Wu'rtem- 
burg,  rebaptised  Maria-Fedorovna, 
bore  him  the  Grand-Duke  Alexander, 
Constantino,  Nicholas,  and  Michael ; 
and  the  Grand-Duchesses  Alexandra, 
Maria  Grand-Duchess  of  Saxe-Wei- 
mar,  Helen  Grand-Duchess  of  Meck- 
lenburg, Catharine  Queen  of  "Wiirtem- 
burg,  and  Anne  Queen  of  Holland. 

The  perusal  of  this  list  of  daughters 
will  show  what  care  had  been  taken 
in  placing  them  so  that  the  roots  of 
Russia  should  spread  themselves  in 
the  soil  of  Germany.  Of  course  it 
was  their  grandmother's  doing,  and 
not  their  father's.  Alexander  I.  is 
said  to  have  inherited  with  the  throne 
a  remorse  which  haunted  him  to  the 

frave.  Whether  his  father  was  mur- 
ered  with  his  privity  has  never  been 
ascertained  ;  but  certain  it  is  that  he 
took  no  decided  steps  to  avenge  him. 
He  is  said  not  to  have  been  so  much 
a  Russian  in  temperament,  as  a  Greek 
of  the  Lower  Empire.  The  bonhomie 
and  blandness  of  his  address  con- 
cealed an  ever- watchful  astuteness,, 
which  qualified  him  more  than  per- 


haps any  one  of  his  predecessors, 
with  the  exception  of  Catharine  II., 
who  had  also  worn  a  mask  of  apparent 
frankness,  and  even  levity,  to  carry 
out  the  schemes  of  Peter  the  Great. 
But  the  tornado  of  the  French  Re- 
volution changed  all  the  currents  of 
events,  and  turned  them  out  of  their 
accustomed  channels.  For  the  greatest 
part  of  his  reign,  Alexander  had 
enough  to  do  to  keep  his  dominions 
together,  and  himself  on  the  throne. 
Still  the  fact  that  Russia  during  his 
reign  came  out  from  all  her  reverses 
with  increased  dominions,  and  seemed 
to  profit  whichever  side  was  upper- 
most, proves  that  Alexander  was  well 
worthy  of  inheriting  the  tradition  of 
his  fathers.  The  eyes  of  all  the  Euro- 
pean powers  were  turned  from  Russia 
by  fear  of  French  aggrandisement ; 
and  thus  Russia  was  near  accomplish- 
ing, by  the  assistance  of  her  friends, 
some  of  the  objects  in  aiming  at  which 
she  had  failed  in  her  own  strength. 
In  1807  Admiral  Duckworth,  to  dis- 
solve the  alliance  between  France  and 
Turkey,  forced  the  Dardanelles,  and 
was  only  prevented  from  burning 
Constantinople  by  the  dismissal  of  the 
French  ambassador.  Besides  doing 
much  damage  to  the  Turkish  navy, 
the  Russians,  meanwhile,  were  stirring 
up  revolt  in  Greece.  But  in  this  year 
took  place  the  memorable  battle  of 
Friedland,  which  was  the  last  of  a 
series  of  defeats,  and  seemed  to  con- 
summate the  ruin  of  Russia  on  the 
continent,  and  constitute  Napoleon 
the  sole  and  unquestioned  arbiter  of 
the  destinies  of  Europe.  It  is  im- 
possible to  help  admiring  the  dexterity 
with  which  the  Tsar  managed  the 
Great  Captain  at  the  peace  of  Tilsit. 
Alexander  threw  himself  heart  and 
soul,  or  pretended  to  do*  so,  into 
Napoleon's  hostility  to  England.  He 
was  not  improbably  sincere  in  this, 
as  English  supremacy  at  sea  has  al- 
ways been  a  greater  difficulty  with 
Russia  than  French  ascendancy  on 
the  continent ;  and  unlike  the  Em- 
peror Paul,  he  was  probably  free 
from  all  political  sympathies  with 
other  nations  on  their  own  account. 
Young  as  he  was,  he  saw  Napoleon's 
weak  point  at  once,  and  flattered  the 
vanity  of  his  conqueror  by  seeming  to 
be  overcome  with  admiration  of  his 
military  prowess,  nor  least  by  ac- 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


knowledging  him  what  he  was  not, 
his  superior  in  diplomacy.  During 
the  conferences  at  Tilsit,  Alexander 
and  Napoleon  in  general  terms  agreed 
to  divide  the  world  between  them. 
Many  accounts  of  these  conferences 
have  been  published,  some  of  which 
are  doubtless  fabulous,  some  apocry- 
phal, and  some  of  course  true.  In 
the  mean  time,  the  startling  news 
came  that  Turkey  was  in  a  state  of 
anarchy ;  the  janissaries  having  re- 
volted against  the  reforms  of  Selim, 
and  deposed  and  imprisoned  that 
monarch.  M.  Thiers  mentions  that 
Napoleon  spoke  of  Turkey  on  that 
occasion  in  a  manner  strikingly  simi- 
lar to  the  expressions  of  Nicholas 
addressed  to  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour. 
We  quote  M.  Thiers'  words  : — 

"  '  Un  coup  du  del,'  dit-il  k  Alex- 
andre,  '  vient  de  me  degager  k  1'egard 
de  la  Porte.  Mon  allie  et  mon  ami, 
le  sultan  Selim,  a  e"te  pre'cipite  du 
trone  dans  les  fers.  J'avais  era 
qu'on  pouvait  faire  quelque  chose  de 
ces  Turcs,  leur  rendre  quelque  ener- 
gie,  leur  apprendre  a  se  servir  de  leur 
courage  naturel :  c'est  une  illusion.  II 
faut  en  finir  d'un  empire  qui  ne  peut 
plus  subsister,  ;et  empecher  que  ses 
ddpouilles  ne  contribuent  a  augmen- 
ter  la  domination  d'Angleterre."  Na- 
poleon, of  course,  only  spoke  what 
was  in  Alexander's  own  heart.  He 
proved  to  him,  moreover,  that  French 
preponderance  was  never  dangerous 
to  Russia,  while  England  was  always 
her  natural  rival,  and  could  blockade 
her  ports  and  menace  Sebastopol, 
Odessa,  and  her  other  sea-fortresses, 
at  any  time.  There  was  every  rea- 
son that  Russia  and  France  should 
form  an  alliance  against  England  and 
against  Germ  any.  Finally,  Napoleon 
proposed  to  give  Finland  to  Alexan- 
der, or  rather  to  help  him  to  take  it 
from  Sweden  by  force  of  arms.  Fin- 

tland  was  the  chief  bribe  by  which  Na- 
poleon counted  on  making  Alexander 
his  constant  ally ;  but  he  still  with- 
held from  him  the  maritime  provinces 
of  Turkey  and  Constantinople  itself, 


357 

and  therefore  most  probably  did  Alex- 
ander intend  to  promise  all,  and,  as 
soon  as  he  had  got  his  price,  break 
faith  with  France  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. It  was,  perhaps,  fortunate 
for  us  that  the  Tsar's  constitutional 
duplicity  was  too  strong  even  for  his 
own  interests. 

In  these  conferences  Alexander 
came  again  and  again  to  the  subject 
of  Constantinople,  but  Napoleon  was 
firm — he  would  not  let  Russia  cross 
the  Balkan.  One  day  the  two  em- 
perors came  in  from  a  walk,  and  Na- 
poleon asked  for  a  map  of  Europe, 
and,  putting  his  finger  on  Constanti- 
nople, seemed  to  continue  to  himself 
a  conversation  just  finished  with 
Alexander.  The  Secretary  is  said  to 
have  heard  the  expression  more  than 
once,  u  Constantinople  !  Constanti- 
nople! jamais  !  c'est  1'empire  du 
monde."  It  must  be  allowed  that 
Alexander,  though  he  did  not  get 
Constantinople,  considering  his  posi- 
tion, was  pretty  well  indemnified  by 
Finland.  It  did  not  suit  him  just 
then  to  complain  of  Napoleon's  views 
regarding  Poland,  which  the  latter 
promised  to  restore  to  its  indepen- 
dence. Russia  managed  to  trim  her 
bark  so  well  in  the  storm  which 
shook  every  throne  in  Europe,  that 
she  retained  Finland  from  Napoleon's 
hands,  and  Poland  from  those  of  the 
Allies.*  This  happy  faculty  of  Rus- 
sia, of  always  falling  on  her  legs  after 
every  temporary  reverse  of  fortune, 
reminds  us  forcibly  of  those  lines  of 
Horace,  applied  in  a  nobler  sense  to 
the  destinies  of  Rome — 

*'  Merses  profundo,  pulchrior  evenit, 
Luctere,  multa  proruet  integrum 
Cum  laude  victorem,  geretque 
Proelia  conjugibus  loquenda." 

Alexander  only  clave  to  Napoleon 
as  long  as  his  good  fortune  suffered 
no  diminution.  As  far  as  his  cha- 
racter was  concerned,  he  had  better 
have  had  no  dealings  with  him,  for 
the  Allies  could  no  longer  believe  in 
his  dynastic  orthodoxy,  though  of 


*  "  The  carnage  of  Eylau,-the  overthrow  of  Tilsit,  led  only  to  the  incorporation  of 
Finland  with  its  vast  dominions,  the  acquisition  of  a  considerable  territory  from  its 
ally  Prussia,  the  consolidation  of  its  power  in  the  Caucasus  and  Georgia,  and  the 
incorporation  of  Wallachia  and  Moldavia,  and  extension  of  its  southern  frontier  to 
the  Danube."— ALISON'S  History  of  Europe,  from  the  Fall  of  Napoleon.  Vol.  ii. 
p.  114. 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  III. 


358 

course  Russia  was  too  powerful  a 
friend  to  be  spurned.  The  English 
had  become  masters  of  the  Baltic  by 
the  bombardment  of  Copenhagen 
under  Lord  Cathcart,  and  the  re- 
awakened hostility  of  Austria  to 
France  shook  Alexander's  faith  in  the 
star  of  his  new  ally.  Austria  was 
beaten,  and  occupied  by  a  French 
army,  and  then  Alexander  trembled 
for  his  frontier.  But  what  galled 
Alexander  most,  was  Napoleon's  per- 
sistence in  restoring  Poland.  He 
still  trimmed  and  endeavoured  to 
please  both  sides,  and  Napoleon  grew 
dissatisfied  with  the  bad  performance 
of  his  promises.  At  last,  by  an  ukase, 
of  15th  January  1811,  a  safe  time  of 
year  for  him,  as  he  thought,  he  placed 
prohibitions  on  French  commerce. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  rupture, 
which  continued  to  increase,  and  led 
to  the  campaign  of  1812,  the  result  of 
which  is  well  known.  Napoleon  never 
calculated  on  the  power  of  Russian 
despotism  over  the  minds  of  its  sub- 
jects. The  burning  of  Moscow  was 
but  a  symptom  of  that  fanatical  sub- 
missiveness  which  had  been  part  of 
the  Russian  character  since  the  days 
of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  After  this  Alex- 
ander became  one  of  the  heroes  of 
Europe  by  force  of  circumstances,  and 
gained  great  praise  abroad  by  refus- 
ing divine  honours  at  the  hands  of  his 
people.  When  in  the  plenitude  of  his 
power  in  1815,  he  caused  himself  to 
be  crowned  King  of  Poland,  giving  the 
Poles  at  the  same  time  a  mock  consti- 
tution to  play  with.  The  divine  hon- 
ours which  he  refused  for  himself  he 
generously  claimed  for  the  alliance  of 
sovereigns  of  which  he  was  the  devis- 
er, called  u  The  Holy  Alliance,"  the 
holiness  of  which  was  of  course  a  re- 
flection from  that  of  Russia,  By  his 
duties  to  this  alliance,  he  pretended 
his  hands  were  tied  from  assisting  the 
Greeks,  whom  he  had  stirred  up  to 
rebellion,  and  then  left  to  the  mercy 
of  the  Pashas.  The  remainder  of  his 
years  were  occupied  with  the  peace- 
ful consolidation  of  his  empire.  He 
died  in  1825,  at  Taganrog,  whither  he 
had  gone  for  the  Empress's  health.  He 
carried  out  the  imperial  policy  of  Rus- 
sia under  greater  difficulties  than  any 
of  his  predecessors,  and,  amongst  other 
acquisitions,  took  advantage  of  some 
sparse  trading  settlements,  to  annex, 


[Sept. 


in  1821,  Russian  America,  a  tract  of 
land  twice  as  large  as  France.  He 
was  succeeded  by  Nicholas,  his  bro- 
ther, under  circumstances  to  which  we 
adverted  in  an  article  entitled  the 
"  Death  of  Nicholas,"  in  the  April 
number  of  this  Magazine.  Nicholas 
was  as  much  Alexander's  superior  as 
a  man,  as  he  was  his  inferior  as  a  po- 
litician. The  events  of  his  reign  are 
too  well  known  to  justify  our  dwell- 
ing upon  them  now.  Generally  speak- 
ing, he  seems  to  have  endeavoured  to 
reconcile  with  faith  and  honour  the 
observance  of  the  policy  of  his  fore- 
fathers, and  only  to  have  deviated  from 
this  rule  of  life  in  his  latter  days, 
when  his  temper  seems  to  have  got 
the  better  of  his  conscience.  Not  that 
he  ever  lost  sight  for  a  moment  of  the 
aggrandisement  of  Russia.  Inhistime 
the  absolutism  of  the  Tsar,  compro- 
mised by  Alexander's  sincere  or  in- 
sincere tamperings  with  constitution- 
alism, reached  a  point  beyond  which 
it  was  not  possible  to  go,  by  the  union 
of  all  Church  as  well  as  all  State  au- 
thority in  the  Emperor's  person.  In 
his  reign,  however,  we  may  safely  say, 
that  the  imperial  policy  was  more  for- 
warded by  the  assistance  of  his 
European  alliances,  than  by  any 
efforts  made  by  the  Emperor  alone. 
In  1826  a  protocol  was  signed  between 
theDuke  of  Wellington  and  CountNes- 
selrode,  guaranteeing  the  independ- 
ence of  Greece.  England  did  not  see 
that  the  division  of  Turkey  must  be  a 
powerful  diversion  in  favour  of  Russia, 
and  that  the  object  would  be  lost 
through  the  means  used  to  secure  it. 
Greece,  ceasing  to  be  Turkish,  would 
inevitably  become  Russian,  especially 
by  the  strength  of  religious  sympathy. 
An  event  soon  after  happened  in 
Turkey,  peculiarly  favourable  to  Rus- 
sian views  :  the  Janissaries  revolted 
against  Sultan  Mahmoud,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  exterminate  them.  Thus 
the  Porte  was  denuded  of  its  ancient 
protectors,  and  obliged  to  trust  to  un- 
tried levies.  Nicholas  saw  the  oppor- 
tunity. The  land  forces  of  Turkey 
were  disorganised  ;  her  navy  had  dis- 
appeared under  the  fire  of  British  and 
French  ships,  as  well  as  Russian,  in 
that  gigantic  mistake,  the  "untoward" 
battle  of  Navarino.  The  Tsar  made  at 
Ackerman  certain  demands  which  Otto- 
man pride  could  not  well  stomach ,  espe- 


1855.]  The  Imperial  Policy 

dally  as  they  were  made  with  all  the 
insolence  of  one  already  a  conqueror; 
bat  which,  nevertheless,  were  submit- 
ted to  under  the  compulsion  of  the  cir- 
cumstances. The  most  important  step 
which  Russia  gained  at  the  Conven- 
tion of  Ackerman  was  the  recognition 
of  her  protectorate  over  the  Danubian 
Principalities  in  a  solemn  and  avowed 
form  ;  thus,  while  Paskiewitch  beat 
the  Persians  and  conquered  Erivan, 
Turkey  was  bound  hand  and  foot  to 
be  slaughtered  at  leisure.  Russia 
then  bound  Persia  likewise,  and 
turned  her  attention  to  Turkey. 
Mutual  recriminations  easily  led  to  a 
war,  which  ambition  desired  on  the 
one  side,  and  revenge  on  the  other. 
It  was  waged  with  unexampled  fury, 
both  in  Asia  and  Europe,  and  the 
Turks,  in  spite  of  weakening  causes, 
showed  a  wonderful  vitality  in  re- 
sistance. Strange  to  say,  while  Die- 
bitch  passed  the  Balkan  and  occupied 
Adrianople,  after  Silistria  and  Varna 
had  fallen,  England  and  France  were 
still  playing  the  game  of  Russia,  and 
securing  for  her  the  command  of  the 
sea.  Constantinople,  this  time  at 
least,  seemed  doomed.  The  Western 
Powers  now  took  alarm,  thinking 
that  a  Russian  host  was  at  the  gates 
of  Constantinople,  while,  in  fact, 
Diebitch  was  at  the  head  of  but 
about  15,000  effective  men,  all  the 
rest  of  his  muster-roll  being  killed, 
wounded,  or  in  hospital.  Never  was 
the  morbid  propensity  of  certain  of  our 
statesmen  to  meddling  with  what  did 
not  concern  them,  and  in  a  blunder- 
ing and  untimely  manner,  more  dis- 
astrously exemplified  than  by  what 
took  place  now. 

MahmoudjWith  tears  inhiseyes,  was 
persuaded  by  the  ambassadors  to  sign 
the  treaty  of  Adrianople,  as  the  only 
means  of  saving  his  capital ;  the  most 
important  stipulations  of  which  were, 
the  occupation  by  Russia  of  a  number 
of  strongholds  on  the  Turkish  territory, 
with  a  valuable  territory  on  the  Black 
Sea  and  Georgia.  All  Russian  stipu- 
lations have  always  seemed  very 
moderate  at  first  reading :  those  of 
the  Treaties  of  Adrianople,  and  again 
of  Unkiar  Skelessi,  in  which,  for  serv- 
ing Turkey,  Russia  claimed  the  keys 
of  the  Euxine,  were  no  exception. 

The  insurrection  of  Poland  in  1831, 
and  its  suppression  by  Russia,  only 


of  Russia.— Part  111.  359 

resulted  in  the  more  complete  fusion 
of  that  kingdom  with  Russia;  which 
indeed  seems  now  to  have  been  ac- 
complished so  far  as,  in  the  opinion 
of  many  intelligent  Poles,  to  make  the 
future  separation  of  the  two  countries 
an  exceedingly  difficult  problem.  If 
Nicholas  did  not  carry  out  the  impe- 
rial policy  of  Russia  with  the  expan- 
sive force  of  his  predecessors,  he 
braced  and  strengthened  it  internally 
with  an  organisation  unknown  before. 
Under  him  Russia,  before  an  aggre- 
gate, became  a  vast  unit.  The 
aggressions  from  which  the  present 
war  arose  were  probably  suggested 
by  the  reports  of  approaching  hos- 
tility between  England  and  Impe- 
rial France,  which  our  newspapers 
in  part  gave  birth  to.  Yet  it  is 
rumoured  that  the  ambition  of  Men- 
schikoff  may  have  involved  his  master 
in  a  position  from  which  he  would 
only  have  been  too  happy  to  have 
extricated  himself  with  honour.  Not 
to  have  made  sure  of  the  division 
between  England  and  France  was  a 
mistake  which  Peter,  Catharine,  or 
Alexander  would  never  have  com- 
mitted. As  it  is,  the  war  is  carried 
on  by  the  body  of  Russia  without  its 
head,  and  Russia  appears  like  a  loco- 
motive that  has  run  away  on  a  rail- 
road after  throwing  its  engineer. 
Appeals  to  its  reason  are  rendered 
futile  by  the  death  of  Nicholas ;  for 
Alexander  II.  appears  to  be  a  mere 
cipher,  as  far  as  we  know,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  imperial  policy.  It  is 
plain  enough,  from  the  facts  alone 
which  we  have  enumerated  in  these 
papers,  what  that  policy  is.  It  is 
simply  universal  dominion,  aimed  at 
by  incessant  intrigue  or  incessant 
conquest.  This  is  now  so  generally 
allowed,  that  to  dilate  on  it  would  be 
superfluous.  We  have  gathered  from 
Russian  history  some  of  the  corrobo- 
rative facts — we  have  especially  dwelt 
on  the  reign  of  Catharine  II.,  because 
in  that  reign  the  greatest  strides  were 
made,  and  because  the  general  course 
of  events  is  strikingly  similar  to 
that  of  those  in  our  own  time.  Yet 
strangely  enough  some  of  our  states- 
men talk  and  act  as  if  all  this  history 
were  fabulous  :  they  still  talk  of  be- 
lieving the  word  of  Russia,  and  bind- 
ing this  Ishmaelite  of  nations  by 
international  law.  The  fascination 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  HI. 


360 

of  Mr  Gladstone,  Lord  John  Russell, 
and  the  rest,  "  all  honourable  men," 
by  the  power  of  Russia,  would  have 
been  attributed  in  the  middle  ages  to 
magic,  or  possession,  and  they  would 
have  been  made  the  subjects  of  exor- 
cism. Yet  it  seems  to  us  to  be  only 
the  power  with  which  evil,  that  has 
cast  aside  all  scruples,  constantly 
invests  itself.  The  massacres  of 
Sinope  and  Hango,  the  bayonetings 
of  the  wounded,  and  the  enormous 
lying  authorised  to  explain  these 
things,  look  almost  as  frightful  as 
if  one -seventh  of  the  world  were 
Thugs  or  Atheist  Caffres,  civilised 
only  for  destruction,  but  sworn  to 
internecine  war  with  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. We  confess  ourselves  at  a  loss 
to  see  in  what  the  great  power  of 
Russia  consists,  except  in  wickedness. 
She  never  waged  a  great  war  yet  but 
she  was  obliged  to  desist  from  abso- 
lute prostration,  always  waging  war 
on  the  principle  of  human  life  being 
no  object.  This  imperial  policy  is 
suicidal ;  and  if  only  left  to  work  its 
will,  it  will  as  certainly  destroy 
Russia  as  the  light  will  destroy  the 
insect,  who,  undeterred  by  burnt 
wings,  morbidly  and  madly  seeks  it. 
But  it  may  be  asked.  Why  is  this 
policy  persisted  in,  if  it  is  known  to 
intelligent  Russians  to  be  contrary 
to  the  interests  of  the  country  ?  For 
this  reason,  that  it  is  the  policy 
of  the  court  and  the  courtiers,  and 
not  of  the  people.  It  is  perfectly 
true  that  the  court  has  fastened 
on  the  old  dream  of  the  revival 
of  the  Greek  Empire,  and  made 
it  efficacious  as  an  instrument  of  its 
ambition ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  the 
best  of  the  Russians  see  that  their 
country,  more  than  any  other  in 
Europe,  needs  the  peaceful  growth  of 
civilising  institutions,  if  its  happiness 
is  to  be  aimed  at.  The  wars  of 
Russia,  a  perpetual  nuisance  to  the 
rest  of  the  world,  have  been  an  ever- 
present  blight  to  the  country  itself, 
and  prevented  the  growth  of  any  one 
sane  institution.  The  utter  destruc- 
tion of  her  military  power  would  be 
the  greatest  possible  blessing  for  Rus- 
sia. As  to  her  court  and  courtiers,  it 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  rest  of 
Europe,  even  the  believing  and  tremb- 
ling German  dynasties,  should  greatly 
sympathise  with  them.  The  selfishness 


[Sept. 


of  the  Russian  court  keeps  up  this  sui- 
cidal policy,  because  the  prosperity  of 
the  country,  and  the  consequent  growth 
of  a  powerful  upper  class  and  a  power- 
ful middle  class,  would  be  fatal  to 
that  system  of  unmitigated  despotism 
which  lives  in  the  relation  of  one 
slave-owner  and  a  few  hundred  slave- 
drivers  to  seventy  millions  of  slaves. 
But  supposing  that  court  actuated  by 
good  intentions,  could  it  liberalise 
with  safety?  could  it  even  hope  to 
substitute  an  intelligent  and  paternal 
absolutism  for  this  naked  autocracy  ? 
We  think  that  Alexander  I.,  in  his 
better  moments,  must  have  credit  for 
some  thoughts  of  this  kind ;  and  per- 
haps he  was  partly  killed  by  qualms 
of  conscience  and  fears  of  results. 
We  know  the  fate  of  every  Tsar  who 
tried  to  be  a  better  man  than  the 
courtiers ;  for  Paul  was  scarcely  an 
exception :  his  madness  has  been  mis- 
represented into  hard  and  systematic 
tyranny.  As  for  Nicholas,  he  had 
history  before  him,  and  he  judged, 
we  believe  honestly,  that  he  could 
only  act  the  part  which  he  did.  There 
is  but  one  fear  in  pushing  Russia  too 
hard,  and  refusing  to  make  peace 
when  she  begins  to  give  ground,  as 
she  infallibly  will  before  long,  if  we 
carry  on  the  war  with  cautious  firm- 
ness :  it  is  this,  that  a  wilder  and 
more  frightful  democracy  may  spring 
up  in  the  East  than  has  ever  yet  reared 
its  head  in  the  West,  threatening  to 
bring  back  the  whole  world  into  a 
state  of  moral  chaos.  The  Russian 
despotism  contains,  as  well  as  its  own, 
all  the  liberticide  elements  of  the 
worst  democracy.  Than  that  this 
should  happen,  it  is  perhaps  better 
to  keep  Russia  miserable  for  the  sake 
of  the  happiness  of  the  rest  of  the 
world,  and  content  ourselves  with 
tying  her  hands  from  further  mischief. 
At  the  same  time,  her  aggressions  and 
misdeeds  are  such  that  we  should  be 
fully  justified  in  thrusting  home,  and 
leaving  the  result  in  the  hands  of  God. 
The  principle  of  punishment  for  which 
we  have  Divine  authority,  in  dealing 
with  individuals,  cannot  be  ignored  in 
the  case  of  nations.  But  how  would 
her  bands  most  effectually  be  tied? 
In  considering  this,  we  must  distin- 
guish the  desirable  from  the  possible. 
It  would  be  perhaps  desirable  to  de- 
grade the  European  Emperor  to  a 


' 


1855.] 


The  Imperial  Policy  of  Russia.— Part  HI. 


361 


mere  Asiatic  Tsar ;  to  restore  Poland 
as  a  state,  and  give  it  a  constitutional 
monarchy ;  to  set  up  a  Christian  em- 
pire in  Constantinople ;  to  banish  the 
Turks  to  Asia;  to  oblige  the  Emperor 
of  Austria  to  content  himself  with 
being  the  constitutional  king  of  a  free 
and  powerful  Hungary ;  to  give  Lom- 
bardy  to  Piedmont,  and  consolidate 
Italy  ;  to  consolidate  Germany  under 
the  hegemony  of  the  Prussian  crown ; 
to  strengthen  Persia ;  to  make  the 
Crimea  independent ;  to  restore  Fin- 
land to  Sweden,  and  establish  a  strong 
Scandinavian  state,  made  up  of  Den- 
mark, Norway,  and  Sweden  —  the 
England,  Scotland,  and  France  of  the 
north — if  not  by  a  second  union  of 
Calmar,  at  least  by  an  offensive  and 
defensive  alliance,  as  a  perpetual 
barrier  against  Russia.  All  this 
might  be  desirable  ;  the  possibility 
is  another  question.  We  might,  per- 
haps, consolidate  Scandinavia.  Swe- 
den lost  Finland  through  her  good 
faith  with  England,  and  deserves 
better  at  our  hands  than  that  we 
should  leave  northern  interests  out  of 
the  bases  of  negotiation,  and  allow 
Eomarsund  to  be  rebuilt  as  another 
Sebastopol,  with  Stockholm  almost 
commanded  by  its  guns.  We  might 
give  consistence  and  independent  ex- 
istence to  the  Danubian  Principalities, 
and  also  to  the  Caucasus.  We  might 
conquer  the  Crimea  for  France,  and 
Georgia  for  ourselves  ;  or  vice  versa, 
and  hold  these  provinces  till  the  ex- 
penses of  the  war  are  paid.  We  might 
stop  up  Russia's  outlets  at  the  north 
and  south ;  and  if  she  threatened  to 
break  down  the  wall  of  Germany,  we 
should  be  only  just  in  leaving  the 
Germans  to  defend  themselves,  for  as 
yet  they  deserve  nothing  better  at  our 
hands.  We  are  certain  of  success,  if, 


as  Pericles  said  to  the  Athenians,  we 
carry  on  the  war  patiently,  warily, 
and  watchfully,  and  give  our  resources 
their  due  preponderance.  One  of  our 
greatest  dangers  is,  that  we  should 
again  lapse,  after  some  partial  suc- 
cess, into  our  old  mercantile  obesity, 
and  have  to  fight  again  with  Russia, 
without  the  golden  advantage  of  a 
French  alliance.  We  must  beware 
of  that  state  of  apathy  from  which 
Demosthenes,  at  a  later  stage  of  the 
existence  of  the  Athenian  republic, 
tried  to  rouse  his  countrymen  when 
he  said  that,  even  supposing  Philip 
were  dead,  as  was  rumoured,  their 
indifference  and  sloth  would  soon 
create  another  Philip  to  terrify  them. 
Even  now,  why  are  we  not  all  arming, 
when  we  know  not  what  contingency 
may  arise — when  we  know  that  the 
much-valued  alliance  of  France  pro- 
bably rests  on  the  single  life  of  one 
man  of  genius,  which  might  at  any 
moment  succumb  to  some  base  assas- 
sin? There  is  something  fearfully 
imperturbable  in  the  English  charac- 
ter ;  and  fortune  certainly  favours  the 
bold.  An  Englishman  is  said,  in  some 
foreign  hotel,  when  called  by  the  af- 
frighted waiter,  and  told  the  house 
was  on  fire,  to  have  given  another 
turn  in  bed,  and  desired  him  to  call 
him  again  when  the  fire  was  in  the 
next  room ;  and  here  is  the  world  in 
flames,  and  all  the  north  and  south 
wrapt  in  blaze  of  artillery,  and  boom- 
ing with  its  echoes ;  while,  if  this 
year  is  to  witness  the  repetition  of 
the  programme  of  the  last,  it  is  likely 
enough  that  our  legislators  are  getting 
their  guns  in  order,  and  either  going 
or  gone,  not  to  the  steppes  of  the 
Crimea,  but  to  the  moors  of  North 
Britain,  to  wage  truceless  war — with 
the  grouse ! 


362 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


[Sept. 


LIGHT   LITERATURE   FOR  THE   HOLIDAYS. 


NO.  i. — BELL'S  LIFE  IN  LONDON. 


THE  modern  philosopher  and  ad- 
mirer of  the  triumphs  of  civilisation 
may,  if  he  so  pleases,  bestow  either  his 
pity  or  his  contempt  upon  the  "  grey 
barbarian,"  who  lives  beyond  the  in- 
fluences of  cheap  literature  and  stimu- 
lating print,  and  whose  enjoyments  do 
not  depend  upon  the  acceleration  of 
the  march  of  mind — but  we  hope  that 
he  will  at  least  have  some  toleration 
for  those  who  opine  that  the  said  bar- 
barian has  by  no  means  the  worst  of  it 
under  present  circumstances.  The 
savage,  when  he  betakes  himself  to  the 
prairie,  the  hunting-grounds,  or  the 
jungle,  encumbers  himself  with  nothing 
more  than  his  deer-skin  shirt,  his  rifle, 
knife,  powder-horn,  shot-pouch,  and 
a  handful  or  so  of  pemmican ;  and  thus 
provided,  he  is  able  to  traverse  half  a 
continent.  The  civilised  sportsman, 
on  the  other  hand,  never  quits  town 
without  two  lumbering  gun- cases, 
enough  to  load  a  mule— a  sheaf  of 
fishing-rods,  and  a  box  of  tackle — a 
couple  of  portmanteaus  stuffed  with 
all  manner  of  extraordinary  apparel, 
includingjerseys,socks,drawers,water- 
proofs,  hose,  and  galligaskins — a  brace 
of  hampers,  one  containing  wine,  and 
the  other  some  dozens  of  pale  ale — a 
box  of  Yorkshire  pie,  potted  brawn, 
anchovies,  soup  cakes,  and  various 
other  kinds  of  bilious  abominations — 
not  to  specify  rugs  and  wrappers,  and 
a  perfect  model  of  a  dressing-case. 
These  furnishings  he  considers  indis- 
pensably necessary  to  insure  the  com- 
fort of  his  solitary  carcass  during  his 
three  weeks'  peregrination  of  a  moor 
which  does  not  measure  three  miles 
upon  the  map,  he  all  the  while  residing 
at  a  respectable  inn,  where  the  whis- 
ky is  of  undeniable  excellence,  the 
beds  bug-less,  and  where  fresh  meat 
is  regularly  supplied  twice  in  the  week. 
We  have  purposely  mitigated  the 
sketch,  not  imputing  to  civilisation, 
as  we  might  have  done,  the  enormity 
of  preserved  turtle,  nor  invidiously 
specifying  champagne  ;  but,  in  spite 
of  our  sober  toning,  is  it  possible  that 
any  one  can  fail  to  recognise  the  vast 
superiority  of  the  savage  preparation 


over  that  which  is  encumbered  by  the 
trash  of  modern  appliances? 

Again,  what  a  prodigious  advantage 
does  the  unlettered  savage  enjoy  over 
his  type-thralled  brother,  when  he 
turns  his  face  to  the  wilderness !  What 
•  cares  he  for  the  fluctuations  of  consols, 
or  the  rise  or  decline  of  railway  shares, 
or  the  result  of  political  debates,  or 
Lord  John  Russell's  juggleries,  or  Mr 
Layard's  mistakes,  or  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  sorry  jokes,  or  any  other  topic 
upon  which  civilised  dotards  delight 
to  be  advised?  That  hideous  and  in- 
satiable thirst  for  information  which  is 
the  last  and  worst  effect  of  a  too  indis- 
criminate use  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree 
of  knowledge,  has  not  affected  his 
simple  palate.  The  only  news  for 
which  he  would  barter  an  ounce  of 
lead,  relates  to  the  vicinity  of  a  herd 
of  buffalo,  or  a  chance  at  a  drove  of 
big-horns.  The  strife  of  parties  or 
the  fall  of  empires  affect  him  not  as 
he  eats  his  venison  beneath  the  kindly 
glitter  of  the  stars,  and  composes  him- 
self to  rest  with  a  log  for  his  pillow,  a 
God- protected  man  in  the  deeps  of  the 
boundless  desert.  Not  so  with  the 
modern  sportsman.  He  cannot  even 
start  on  his  journey  without  providing 
himself  with  a  variety  of  those  twelve- 
penny  volumes  which  are  recommend- 
ed as  sure  antidotes  against  tedium  in 
travelling  ;  and  wretched  indeed  does 
he  esteem  himself  if,  on  arriving  at 
his  destination,  thepost-office  arrange- 
ments should  prove  to  be  so  defective 
that  he  cannot  depend  upon  the  daily 
arrival  of  his  Times.  His  mental 
constitution  has  become  so  perverted 
by  a  long  course  of  unwholesome 
literary  stimulants,  that  he  feels  un- 
easy if  deprived  of  them.  Self- com- 
muning and  meditation  are  things 
utterly  beyond  his  power— he  has  lost 
for  ever  that  divine  faculty  which  en- 
ables a  man  to  be  a  most  agreeable 
companion  to  himself,  independent  of 
all  other  aids.  Bad  as  are  the  effects 
of  indulgence  in  opium  or  alcohol,  it 
ought  to  be  distinctly  proclaimed  that 
mental  imbecility  may  be  quite  as 
easily  induced  by  unrestrained  habits 


1855.] 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


363 


of  indiscriminate  reading  ;  and  in  de- 
fiance of  the  enlightenment  howl  which 
has  lately  proceeded  from  the  Oola- 
laskan  throats  of  the  orators  of  the 
philosophical  institutes,  we  venture 
boldly  to  state  our  opinion  that  the 
remedy  for  that  mediocrity,  which 
every  one  complains  of  as  a  remark- 
able characteristic  of  the  present  age, 
might  at  once  be  attained,  if  men 
would  think  for  themselves,  instead  of 
delegating  to  others  the  task  of  fur- 
nishing them  with  thoughts,  and, 
what  is  more  degrading,  with  opinions. 
We  have  heard  of  physicians  who, 
when  compelled  to  resort  to  the 
country  for  relaxation,  carry  with 
them  the  last  crop  of  truculent  medi- 
cal publications,  and,  in  arbours  of 
the  rose  and  the  jessamine,  solace 
themselves  with  the  perusal  of  trea- 
tises on  the  diseases  of  the  liver  and 
the  lungs.  Lawyers  have  been  known 
to  study  briefs  in  the  Pass  of  Killie- 
crankie,  and  politicians  to  read  the 
Edinburgh  Review  by  the  shores  of 
Loch  Corruisk.  Need  we  say  that 
our  whole  being  revolts  from  such 
profanity.  Why  seek  the  country  at 
all,  if  not  to  shake  off  the  memory  of 
the  sights,  and  sounds,  and  thoughts 
which  beset  our  ordinary  existence  in 
the  towns?  Why  bring  with  us  an 
urban  poison  to  taint  the  purity  of  the 
mountain  air?  Man  is  naturally  a 
savage,  and  it  is  good  for  him  some- 
times to  return  to  the  normal  state. 
To  carry  with  you  into  the  wilds  and 
fastnesses  of  nature  the  clumsy  pan- 
oply of  civilisation,  is  almost  as  absurd 
as  if  you  were  to  bathe  in  your  clothes. 
So  if  you  want  to  enjoy  yourself,  and 
to  make  the  holidays  available  to  gain 
an  accession  of  strength  both  in  mind 
and  body,  and  to  sweep  all  cobwebs 
from  your  brain — do  not,  we  beseech 
you,  go  forth  as  the  proprietor  of  various 
hampers,  to  find  stowage  and  convey- 
ance for  which  will  render  your  exist- 
ence miserable,  but  trust  to  Providence 
for  the  means  of  satisfying  that  envi- 
able appetite,  which,  if  you  give  proper 
play  to  your  limbs,  will  rapidly  arise  in 
your  maw.  Be  not  particular  as  to  your 
toggery.  You  will  pass  muster  well 
enough,  even  on  a  Sunday,  in  a  shoot- 
ing jacket;  and  in  hob-nails  there  is 
no  disgrace.  Take  no  thought  about 
your  letters.  Dismiss  from  your  mind 
the  delusion  that  Her  Majesty  will 


send  for  you  to  form  an  administra- 
tion, in  the  event  of  an  unforeseen 
political  crisis,  or  that  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  will  invite  you  to  take  office  under 
him.  If  any  misguided  person  should 
chance  to  leave  you  a  fortune  during 
your  absence,  it  will  be  time  enough 
for  you  to  order  becoming  mourning 
on  yeur  return.  We  conclude  that 
you  are  in  no  haste  to  peruse  those 
suspicious  epistles  which  are  secured 
by  wafered  envelopes,  and  you  may 
safely  satisfy  your  conscience  by 
carrying  a  motion  that  they  be  read 
this  day  six  months.  And  to  the 
general  contents  of  the  sheaf  of  cor- 
respondence, there  is  no  occasion 
whatever  to  reply.  What  does  that 
sheaf  consist  of  ?  Wedding-cards  from 
Mr  and  Mrs  Doddles ;  a  letter  from 
the  secretary  of  your  club  reminding 
you  that  you  have  not  paid  your  sub- 
scription ;  the  prospectus  of  a  new 
Gazetteer  ;  three  billets  for  meetings 
of  a  Horticultural  Society  ;  a  request 
for  an  autograph ;  a  circular  from  a 
coal-merchant  who  is  eager  to  supply 
you  with  bituminous  shale ;  and  a 
card  requesting  your  attendance  on 
the  platform,  during  the  dog-days,  at 
a  meeting  of  administrative  reformers. 
Nothing  of  more  importance,  rely 
upon  it,  is  likely  to  be  addressed  to 
you ;  and  the  mails  will  be  all  the 
lighter  without  such  superfluous  rub- 
bish. Emancipate  yourself  for  a  time, 
if  you  are  wise,  from  the  degrading 
thraldom  of  news.  If,  as  you  must 
needs  confess,  the  effect  of  the  electric 
telegraph  has  been  to  fritter  all  in- 
terest away,  and  to  mock  the  public 
craving  with  infinitesimal^ homoeopa- 
thic doses,  instead  of  solid  lumps,  you 
have  it  still  in  your  power,  by  sternly 
refusing  your  address,  to  procure  the 
gratification,  on  your  return,  of  learn- 
ing what  has  been  doing  in  the  world 
during  the  month  of  your  absence. 
Would  that  not  be  a  luxury  ?  What 
are  the  sensations  of  the  habitual 
news-room  lounger,  compared  with 
those  of  the  man  who,  after  a  winter 
spent  amongst  the  polar  ice,  receives 
at  once  the  accumulated  information 
of  an  eventful  year  ? 

As  we  preach,  we  practise.  The 
twelfth  of  August  was  not  yet  at 
hand  ;  and,  save  in  the  way  of  snipes 
and  flappers,  there  was  little  to  be 
effected  with  the  gun.  So  we  betook 


364 

ourselves  with  our  rod  to  a  region  of 
lochs,  hitherto  uuprofaned  by  the  fly 
of  the  southern  angler ;  and,  were  we 
now  in  a  legendary  humour,  startling 
is  the  narrative  we  might  tell  of 
baskets  filled  to  the  top  with  lovely 
yellow  trout  from  the  lake,  near 
which  in  days  of  old  the  Norsemen 
held  their  gathering — or  of  sea-trout, 
white  as  silver,  that  made  the  reel 
spin  and  the  rod  bend  as  they  rushed 
frantically  towards  ocean  with  the 
barb  buried  in  their  jaws.  But 
anglers  would  scarcely  thank  us  for  a 
mere  recapitulation  of  the  delight 
which,  if  they  be  true  brethren  of  the 
craft,  they  must  ere  now,  in  this  fine 
fishing  weather,  have  experienced  ; 
and  we  despair  of  inspiring  those  dull 
souls  who  yawn  over  Walton,  and 
profess  their  inability  to  understand 
the  deep  philosophy  of  Stoddart,  with 
anything  like  an  enthusiasm  for  the 
waters.  Therefore  we  shall  not  dilate 
upon  pur  piscatorial  achievements, 
or  excite  the  envy  of  those  to  whom 
fortune  has  been  less  favourable.  All 
we  need  say  is,  that  during  that  ex- 
pedition we  remained  as  innocent  of 
print  or  correspondence  as  an  un- 
weaned  child. 

With  loathing  we  observed,  on  our 
return  to  headquarters  at  the  cottage, 
that  some  ill-judging  friend,  probably 
envious  of  our  freedom  and  escape, 
had  taken  upon  himself  to  forward  the 
newspapers.  There  they  lay,  in  bulk 
equal  to  a  hay-stack.  Rolls  of  the 
Times  with  its  supplement,  heaps  of 
Heralds,  piles  of  the  Press,  bales  of 
BelVs  Life,  Edinburgh  Advertisers, 
and  Glasgow  Constitutionals  by  the 
score,  besides  penny  journals  numer- 
ous enough  to  have  enwrapped  the 
whole  cheesedom  of  Dunlop.  To  read 
them  through  was  obviously  im- 
possible—even to  unfold  them  was  a 
task  which  we  could  not  contemplate 
without  a  shudder.  So  we  made 
short  work  of  it  by  dividing  the  liter- 
ary Himalaya  into  three  portions  ; 
one  of  which  we  sent  in  a  game-bag 
and  two  fishing  creels,  with  our  com- 
pliments, to  the  parish  minister — 
another,  at  the  request  of  Helen  Mac- 
gregor,  who  does  us  the  honour  to 
attend  to  our  personal  wants,  we 
devoted  to  the  singeing  of  fowls— the 
third  we  retained  for  our  own  perusal. 
It  was  a  tearing  night  of  wind  and 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


[Sept. 


rain  when  we  set  ourselves  down  to 
gather  information  regarding  the  state 
of  Europe,  the  prospects  of  the  war, 
and  the  doings  of  the  British  Legis- 
lature ;  and  we  must  really  confess 
that  we  never  spent  a  more  unprofit- 
able evening.  We  read  of  notes  and 
counter  notes  between  the  cabinets  of 
Austria  and  Prussia,  out  of  which  we 
hopelessly  and  helplessly  attempt- 
ed to  extract  a  meaning.  We  read 
the  names  of  Buol  and  Manteuffel  and 
Bulow  and  Titoff,  until  we  utterly  con- 
founded the  one  diplomatist  with  the 
other.  There  was  "  no  fresh  news  " 
from  Sebastopol ;  and  the  conversa- 
tions in  Parliament — for  debates  they 
could  not  be  called — were  of  the  most 
uninteresting  kind.  Life  was  given 
for  nobler  purposes  than  the  perusal 
of  u  explanations  "  by  Mr  Wilson,  or 
u  statements  "  by  Mr  Frederick  Peel ; 
and  even  Sir  Charles  Wood  seemed 
to  be  more  than  usually  dreary.  It 
was  no  novelty  to  us  to  be  informed 
that  the  Thames  was  in  a  very  filthy 
state,  or  that  it  was  impossible  to 
procure  unadulterated  cayenne  pepper. 
The  investigation  into  the  Hyde  Park 
riots  might  be  very  interesting  to  the 
Cockneys ;  but  what  human  being, 
distant  ten  miles  from  the  hearing  of 
Bow-bells,  would  care  to  be  certiorated 
whether  policeman  X  or  the  boy 
Jones  behaved  the  worst  on  that  oc- 
casion ?  We  turned  to  the  city 
article  : — "  The  English  funds  to-day 
have  again  been  inactive,  but  steady  : 
consols  opened  at  the  last  price  of 
yesterday,  and  remained  without  the 
slightest  variation  up  to  the  close  of 
business."  —  All  right,  we  suppose. 
"  There  was  great  inactivity  in  the 
Railway  market  to-day." — So  much 
the  better,  as  fewer  fingers  will  be 
burned.  "  Mining  shares  are  flat." 
— We  cannot  wonder  at  that,  when 
we  glance  at  the  outlandish  names  in 
the  list,  which  might  puzzle  the 
President  of  the  Geographical  Society. 
"  Trade  Report— there  has  been  little 
inquiry  for  blankets."  —  Why,  how 
the  deuce  can  they  expect  people  to 
buy  blankets  at  midsummer?  "At 
Huddersfield  there  is  a  demand  for 
dark  mixtures."  —  We  have  heard  of 
such  demands  elsewhere. 

O  ruthless  expenditure  of  paper — 
O  profligate  waste  of  printer's  ink  ! 
Is  this  the  kind  of  literature  which  is 


1855.] 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


365 


to  usher  in  the  millennium  ?  Is  this 
the  consummation  of  the  march  of 
mind  and  the  spread  of  universal 
knowledge?  Why,  Dickey  Gossip, 
the  village  barber,  would  tell  you 
more  to  the  purpose  in  the  shaving  of 
half  a  whisker  !  See  what  it  is  to  live 
as  the  slave  of  modern  improvements. 
A  hundred  years  ago  we  could  have 
sent  down  to  the  clachan,  and,  for  the 
matter  of  a  pound  of  snuff  and  a 
bottle  of  whisky,  have  secured  for 
the  evening  the  society  of  an  ancient 
sennachie  who  would  have  sung  to  us 
the  songs  of  Selma,  chaunted  to  us  the 
deeds  of  Fingal,  and  told  us  how  Gaul, 
and  Oscar,  and  Ryno  fought  with  the 
warriors  of  Lochlin.  But  the  race  of 
Highland  minstrels  is  now  no  more, 
and  the  words  of  Ossian  are  perishing 
from  the  face  of  the  land.  Or,  if  the 
Gaelic  gutturals  were  not  harmonious 
to  our  ear,  and  barely  intelligible  to 
our  understanding,  could  we  not 
have  coaxed  the  dominie,  a  native  of 
Aberdeen,  from  his  fireside,  and  per- 
suaded him  to  recite  to  us  the  Burn- 
ing of  Frendraught,  the  Battle  of  the 
Harlaw,  the  Wife  of  Usher's  Well, 
or  other  of  the  noble  ballads  that 
rang  through  the  north  countrie? 
Alas,  the  native  minstrelsy,  of  which 
they  were  once  so  justly  proud,  has 
died  from  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
and  the  deeds  of  their  forefathers  and 
the  grand  old  memories  of  the  days 
that  have  gone  by  are  now  forgotten 
and  unsung.  All  that  is  owing  to 
print,  broadsheets,  pestilent  political 
tracts,  and  still  more  pestilent  polemi- 
cal controversies.  Were  the  framing 
of  education  bills  left  in  our  hands, 
we  would  establish  in  every  parish 
throughout  the  kingdom,  a  Bard, 
with  a  salary  not  inferior  to  that  of 
the  schoolmaster,  whose  duty  it 
should  be  to  revive  the  minstrelsy  of 
the  olden  times,  and  to  add,  if  possi- 
ble, to  its  store.  By  such  means  a 
healthy  tone  of  feeling  would  be  re- 
stored to  the  population,  their  hearts 
would  once  more  thrill  with  generous 
and  manly  emotion,  they  would  feel 
a  pride  in  the  land  that  gave  them 
birth,  and  would  turn  a  deaf  ear  to 
the  poisonous  whispers  of  democracy. 
We  wish  that  a  little  more  attention 
were  paid  to  the  framing  of  the  na- 
tion's songs,  and  a  little  less  zeal 
displayed  for  the  uprooting  of  our  old 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


institutions.  Such  were  the  thoughts 
that  meandered  through  our  mind,  as, 
after  a  weary  spell  of  several  hours  at 
the  journals,  we  finished  our  cigar  by 
the  decaying  embers  of  a  peat-fire, 
looked  into  the  night,  which  was  at 
least  as  thick  as  brose,  returned  the 
Glenlivet  to  its  cupboard,  and  heard 
the  wooden  stair  creak  beneath  our 
feet  as  we  ascended  to  our  silent  dor- 
mitory. 

Next  day  was  fine ;  and  we  saun- 
tered forth  to  a  hill  behind  the  cot- 
tage, where  in  days  of  old  a  fierce 
battle  was  fought  between  a  chief  of 
the  Isles,  and  a  great  Earl  who  led 
the  Royal  troops  of  Scotland.  Still 
amongst  the  heather  you  see  the  grey 
stones  which  mark  the  resting-place 
of  the  brave ;  and  a  little  way  off 
there  is  a  broken  pillar  carved  with  a 
Runic  inscription,  which  antiquaries 
and  men  who  are  skilled  in  cairns, 
aver  to  be  the  memorial  of  a  yet 
earlier  and  more  desperate  strife.  Of 
that  we  know  nothing,  and  we  are 
not  curious  as  to  particulars.  The 
gor-cock  crows,  and  the  plover  on  the 
hillside  whistles,  as  we  wend  our  way 
to  the  stone,  and,  seated  at  its  foot, 
attempt  to  realise  the  scene  which 
was  enacted  here.  Down  yonder, 
doubtless,  by  the  side  of  the  river 
which  throws  a  mighty  coil  across 
the  valley,  rode  the  Earl,  with  his 
knights  and  men-at-arms,  the  Royal 
banner  of  Scotland  displayed  to  the 
wind,  and  pennon  and  pennoucelle 
dancing  above  the  dark  masses  of  the 
spearmen.  On  they  come — the  whole 
array  moving  as  by  one  volition, 
whilst  the  sunbeams  glint  on  helmet, 
and  corslet,  and  lance,  and  ever  and 
anon  the  shrill  note  of  the  trumpet 
sounds  defiantly  from  the  vanguard. 
There  on  the  ridge  of  the  mountain  is 
drawn  up  the  Highland  and  Island 
power  —  wild,  stalwart,  unkempt 
caterans,  strong  of  arm,  heavy  of 
hand,  fearless  of  death,  nay,  esteem- 
ing death  a  duty,  if  their  Lord  com- 
manded them  to  die.  Mingling  with 
the  bright  tartan  of  the  mainland 
clans,  is  the  more  sombre  chequer  of 
the  Islesmen,  descendants  of  the  old 
Norsemen,  who  were  the  terror  of 
the  seas,  and  who  never  shrank  from 
the  face  of  man.  Nor  helmet  nor 
hauberk  have  they.  No  defensive 
armour  do  they  carry,  but  each  man 

2B 


366 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


[Sept. 


bears  the  two-handed  sword  or  the 
ponderous  battle-axe,  and  woe  to  the 
wearer  of  the  Milan  corslet  who  shall 
meet  the  sway  of  either : — 

"  They  hadna  ridden  a  mile,  a  mile, 

A  mile,  but  barely  ten. 
When  Donald  came  branking  down  the  brae, 
Wi'  twice  ten  thousand  men. 

"  Their  tartans  they  were  waving  wide, 
Their  glaives  were  glancing  clear — 
The  pibroch  rang  frae  side  to  side, 
Wad  deafen  ye  to  hear." 

And  now  the  battle  joins— Shall 
we  go  on  ?  Most  assuredly  not ;  for 
though  our  own  ideal  may  not  be  of 
the  most  vivid  kind,  we  are  yet  more 
lacking  in  words,  and  dare  not  ven- 
ture upon  an  elaborate  description  of 
a  fight.  Would  that  some  of  our 
poets,  who  have  essayed  to  sing  the 
deeds  in  the  Crimea,  had  been  as 
discreet ! 

But  what  is  this  1  The  whole  scene 
has  faded  from  our  eyes,  and  we  sus- 
pect that  we  have  been  fast  asleep. 
Nay,  it  is  more  than  suspicion,  for 
the  shadow  of  the  stone  has  shifted, 
and  the  sun  is  burning  fiercely  on  our 
forehead.  Unwittingly  we  plunge 
our  hand  into  the  pocket  of  our  shoot- 
ing-coat, and  draw  forth — BeIVs  Life 
in  London!  It  would  be  ungrateful 
to  turn  away  from  a  boon  so  unex- 
pectedly proffered,  and  we  surrender 
ourselves  to  the  influence  of  the  Genie 
of  the  Ring.  Again  we  lift  our  eyes, 
and  lo,  what  a  change  !  Mountain, 
loch,  moor,  grey  stones,  and  heather 
have  disappeared  ;  and  we  now  find 
ourselves  on  a  breezy  down,  com- 
pelled to  become  the  spectator  of  one 
scene  of  modern  warfare.  Eight  before 
us  is  the  ring,  encircled  by  the  choice 
spirits  of  the  Fancy.  Nice  lads  they 
seem  and  athletic;  though  it  might 
puzzle  a  philosopher  to  explain  why 
so  many  of  their  countenances  are 
bashed,  and  why  their  foreheads  are 
so  villanously  low.  But  they  all 
look  in  high  glee,  for  on  this  day 
Jemmy  Norton  and  Con  Quin  are 
to  fight  for  Thirty-five  Pounds.  Let 
us  accept  Bell  as  our  Herodotus, 
and  receive  his  explanations  with 
reverence.  Of  Jemmy  Norton  the 
world  knows  little,  save  that  a  short 
time  ago  he  had  to  succumb  to  "  the 
accomplished  Tom  Harrington,"  after 
a  rattling  fight.  We  are  ashamed 
to  say  that  we  have  hitherto  been 


ignorant  of  the  accomplishments  of 
Tom  Harrington,  but  we  doubt  not 
that  he  amply  deserves  the  praise  of 
his  eulogist,  and  we  are  pleased  to 
see  him  appear  along  with  Jemmy 
Welsh  (of  the  George,  East  Harding- 
street),  to  second  his  former  antago- 
nist. Con  Quin,  we  are  told,  is  a 
new  candidate  for  pugilistic  honours, 
but  he  seems  sufficiently  muscular, 
though  not  in  prime  condition,  and 
is  fortunate  in  his  advisers,  Tom 
Sayers  and  Ned  Connolly  being  re- 
tained as  his  "leading  counsel." 
Peeling  over,  the  combat  begins. 
Here  we  are  not  prevented  by  mo- 
desty from  attempting  some  kind  of 
description,  though  it  is  merely  a 
posy  of  a  few  blood-red  roses  culled 
from  the  rhetorical  garden  of  Bell. 

In  the  first  round,  we  observe  that 
Quin  "  planted  a  terrific  spank  on  the 
jaw  with  the  left,  drawing  first  blood." 
The  round  was  brought  to  a  termina- 
tion by  both  "  going  to  grass."  In 
the  second,  Quin  planted  "  a  stinger 
on  the  dial,"  which  was  returned ; 
and  he  also  "  succeeded  in  giving  his 
man  a  flash  hit  on  the  ivories."  In 
the  third,  u  Quin  led  off  the  left,  and 
got  home  a  pretty  one -two  on  the 
head,  but  in  return  napped  a  stinger 
on  the  top  part  of  his  brain-canister 
from  Norton's  left,  while,  with  the 
right,  Norton  also  administered  a  hot- 
un  on  the  ribs."  In  the  fourth,  Quin 
"  produced  another  supply  of  the  ruby 
from  Norton's  mouth."  Fifth  and 
sixth  present  no  particular  features, 
beyond  "  a  tremendous  thwack  with 
the  left  on  Quin's  proboscis."  In  the 
ninth,  Quin  receives  a"  rib-roaster." 
In  the  tenth,  Norton  "got  well  on 
the  physiognomy,  which  again  pro- 
duced the  claret  from  Quin's  nasal 
prominence."  Twelfth,  "  some  ter- 
rific counters."  Thirteenth,  u  a  couple 
of  heavy  shots  full  in  the  face,"  "  a 
wild  sally,"  and  so  forth ;  but  here 
our  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend, 
ceases  to  be  particular  in  details.  The 
fact  is,  that  Con  Quin,  though  full  of 
pluck,  was  over-matched;  and  after 
the  combat  had  endured  for  two  hours, 
and  sixty-six  rounds  had  been  fought, 
Ned  Connolly  "  prudently  threwup  the 
sponge."  "  On  leaving  the  ring  both 
men  were  much  punished  ;  Quin  was 
nearly  blind  in  both  eyes,  while  Nor- 
ton, although  the  winner,  had  receiv- 


1855.] 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


367 


ed  such  a  licking,  as  to  make  the  day's 
work  anything  but  an  easy  one." 

Every  British  heart  must  thrill 
while  reading  the  record  of  so  much 
valour ;  though  it  does  appear  to  us — 
we  say  it  with  humility — that,  under 
present  circumstances,  that  valour  has 
been  somewhat  misapplied.  If  our 
voice  was  likely  to  reach  the  ears  of 
Messrs  Norton  and  Quin,  or  those  of 
their  eminent  "  counsel,"  Welsh, 
Harrington,  Sayers,  and  Connolly, 
we  would  suggest  whether  it  might 
not  be  more  creditable,  useful,  and  pa- 
triotic for  them  to  enlist,  and  devote 
their  undoubted  energies  to  "milling" 
the  Eussians,  than  to  amuse  them- 
selves by  drawing  lots  of  the  ruby 
from  each  others'  conks,  or  even  be- 
stowing mutual  stingers  on  the  top- 
part  of  the  brain-canister  ?  To  give 
and  take  punishment  must  be  a  glori- 
ous thing,  else  how  can  we  account 
for  the  indomitable  pluck  of  these 
heroes  ;  but  surely  it  would  be  better 
and  more  satisfactory  to  bestow  pun- 
ishment upon  an  enemy  than  on  a  friend. 

We  dismiss  with  scorn  and  indigna- 
tion the  idea  that  these  illustrious  in- 
dividuals met  and  pummelled  each 
other  for  two  mortal  hours,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  a  select  circle  of  betting  ad- 
mirers, from  no  higher  motive  than  a 
desire  to  gain  possession  of  the  stakes. 
Some  kind  of  stake  there  must  be  to 
satisfy  usage  and  precedent ;  but  we 
refuse  to  believe,  without  the  strong- 
est evidence,  that  the  heroes  whom 
Bell  delights  to  honour  are  actu- 
ated by  any  such  mercenary  consider- 
ations. Still  a  suspicious  mind  might 
be  startled  by  observing,  in  the  same 
paper,  that' Johnny  Walker  and  Wil- 
liam Hayes  have  made  a  match  "for 
£200a-side,  according  to  the  rules  of  the 
ring  of  the  Pugilistic  Benevolent  Asso- 
ciation." We,  having  no  reason  to 
doubt  the  large-heartedness  either  of 
Johnny  Walker  or  of  Bill  Hayes,  in- 
terpret this  announcement  to  mean 
that  the  winner  is  bound  to  hand  over 
the  stakes  to  some  charitable  society. 
Viewed  in  this  light,  Protestant  pugil- 
ism presents  a  fine  contrast  to  Roman 
Catholic  asceticism.  The  anchorite 
who  flagellates  himself,  confers  no  be- 
nefit on  his  fellow- creatures.  Johnny 
Walker  and  Bill  Hayes,  on  the  con- 
trary, propose  to  flatten  each  others' 
probosces  in  the  cause  of  self-denying 


charity.  All  honour  to  them  both  I 
But  again  a  doubt  arises,  for  we  read 
as  follows :  "  Tom  Sayers,  in  reply 
to  Orme,  says  he  cannot  get  £200, 
but  if  Orme  will  make  a  match  for 
£100  a-side,  and  leave  it  open  to 
Sayers  to  add  as  much  more  as  he  can 

f3t,  he  will  be  obliged.  He  thinks 
100  quite  enough  to  fight  for,  espe- 
cially when  the  match  is  such  a  gift  to 
the  renowned  Orme."  Evidently  some 
splendid  irony  is  conveyed  by  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  sentence  which  we 
have  italicised,  and  it  reads  very  like 
the  defiance  of  a  Homeric  hero.  Our 
notion  is,  that  Orme  is  somewhat 
purse-proud,  and  that  Sayers  has  an 
eye  to  the  tin. 

Really  we  begin  to  think  that  this 
is  very  pleasant  and  profitable  read- 
ing ;  but  we  are  rather  disappointed 
to  find  that  the  number  of  actual 
fights  bears  no  reasonable  proportion 
to  the  number  of  bragging  challenges. 
We  hate  that  chaffering  about  weight, 
which  is  too  common  among  the  minor 
luminaries  of  the  ring ;  and  we  really 
cannot  see  why  "  the  Spider"  should 
hesitate  to  engage  "  Alf  Walker,"  on 
account  of  the  trifling  difference  of  a 
few  pounds  of  flesh.  David  did  not 
insist  upon  Goliah  being  placed  in  the 
scales.  But  some  pugilists  there 
are  who  scorn  such  pitiful  conditions. 
Witness  the  following  challenge, 
trumpet-tongued,  as'that  of  Coeur-de- 
Lion  when  he  defied  the  whole  host  of 
the  Saracen : — 

"  AARON  JONES  AGAIN  IN  THE 
FIELD. — A  friend  of  Aaron  Jones  has 
deposited  £20  with  us  for  Jones,  to 
fight  any  man  in  the  world  for  <£100 
a  side.  Jones  states  that  he  will  at- 
tend at  Mr  Champion's  Sun  Tavern, 
Gray's  Inn-road,  to  morrow  (Monday) 
evening,  to  meet  the  Tipton  Slasher, 
who  has  announced  his  intention  of 
being  there  on  that  evening  to  make 
a  match  for  the  championship  ;  and 
if  Paddock  and  the  Tipton  do  not 
come  to  terms,  Jones  will  fight  either 
of  them  for  £100  a  side.  He  is  al- 
ways to  be  heard  of  at  Bill  Hayes's, 
Crown,  Cranbourne-street,  or  Jem 
Burn's,  Rising  Sun,  Air-street,  Picca- 
dilly." 

TO  FIGHT  ANY  MAN  IN  THE  WORLD! 

Why,  that  was  the  boast  of  Hercu- 
les ;  and  for  having  fulfilled  that  boast, 
he  was  translated  to  the  heathen 


368 


Light  Literature  for  tlie  Holidays. 


[Sept, 


heaven,  and  wedded  to  Hebe,  the 
trim  little  bar-maid  of  Olympus,  who 
supplied  the  deites  with  goes.  We 
know  not  what  may  be  in  store  for 
Aaron,  as  it  is  possible  that  his  may 
be  the  fate  of  Antaeus  rather  than  that 
of  Hercules ;  but  at  all  events  he  has 
uttered  brave  words,  and  we  do  not 
see  how  "  the  Tipton"can  decline  the 
challenge.  If  the  possession  of  a 
Hebe  depends  upon  the  contest,  we 
should  not  be  inclined  to  lay  the  odds 
upon  the  Slasher. 

But  what  is  this  ?  Can  we  believe 
our  eyes?  Is  it  possible  that  the 
beaks — we  think  that  is  the  correct 
phrase— can  be  so  lost  to  all  sense  of 
decency  as  to  interfere  with  the  sports 
of  the  ring  ?  Will  the  public  remain 
quiescent  when  they  know  that  the 
match  between  Toddy  Middleton  and 
Cooksey  of  Birmingham  is  off,  "  Mid- 
dleton having  been  taken  into  custody 
by  the  authorities,  and  bound  over  to 
keep  the  peace  ?"  When  such  atro- 
cities are  perpetrated  in  the  name  of 
the  law,  and  the  authorities  interfere 
with  our  Toddy,  it  is  full  time  to  in- 
quire what  has  become  of  Habeas 
Corpus,  and  the  Bill  of  Rights. 

Great  men,  it  has  been  truly  ob- 
served, are  to  be  found  in  every  walk 
and  profession  of  life ;  and  we  are  ap- 
prehensive that  an  undue  fastidiousness 
has  hitherto  prevented  us  from  making 
some  useful  and  agreeable  acquaint- 
ances. We  must  positively,  ere  long, 
have  a  social  night  with  Cooksey, 
Posh  Price,  and  Toddy  Middleton. 
Nor  do  opportunities  for  such  interest- 
ing and  intellectual  reunions  appear  to 
be  unfrequent. 

"Nat  Langham,  of  the  Cambrian 
Stores,  Castle- street,  Leicester-square, 
begs  to  inform  his  friends  that  his 
house  affords  excellent  accommoda- 
tion, enhanced  by  sport,  singing,  and 
conviviality.  Pugilistic  displays  on 
Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Saturday 
evenings,  conducted  by  the  veteran, 
Alec  Reid,  and  a  host  of  tip-toppers. 
Harmony,  as  usual,  on  Tuesday  and 
Friday  nights.  Nat  himself  chaunts 
the  best  Cambridge  lyrics.  Private 
lessons  daily.  Notice  ! — The  eccen- 
tric Joe  Jones  will  take  the  chair  on 
Tuesday  night,  faced  by  Tom  Sayers." 

To  those  tip-toppers  it  is  our  pur- 
pose to  be  speedily  introduced.  Clas- 
sic Cambridge  must  rejoice  to  know 


that  so  accomplished  a  scholar  as  Nat 
Langham  patronises  her  lyrics,  and 
even,  if  the  notice  is  correctly  worded, 
delivers  prelections  thereon.  The 
eccentric  Joe  Jones  must  be  a  felloAv  of 
infinite  fancy ;  and  we  greatly  regret 
that,  through  ignorance,  we  were  pre- 
vented from  obtaining  his  portrait, 
which  some  time  ago  he  so  generous- 
ly bestowed  upon  his  friends. 

"  SURREY  Music  HALL. — The  ec- 
centric Joe  Jones  takes  his  benefit  at 
the  above  hall  on  Thursday,  March 
29, 1855,  when  he  will  present  to  the 
first  100  a  portrait  of  his  own  mug. 
Open  at  half-past  six.  Ned  Connolly 
and  the  facetious  Jerry  Noon  will 
dance  during  the  evening." 

However,  there  is  a  good  time  com- 
ing. We  intend,  with  the  least  pos- 
sible delay,  to  qualify  as  a  member  of 
the  ancient  and  distinguished  order  of 
the  "  Jolly  Trumps  ;"  which  seems 
to  us  to  hold  forth  the  promise  of 
many  and  tempting  privileges : — 

"At  George  Brown's,  the  Bell, 
Red  Lion  Market,  Whitecross-street, 
St  Luke's,  the  Jolly  Trumps  meet 
every  Tuesday  and  Saturday  evenings 
for  harmony  and  conviviality.  This 
evening  (Saturday)  the  chair  will  be 
taken  by  J.  Hamblin,  faced  by  J. 
Parker,  the  Irish  comic  singer.  On 
Tuesday  next  Joe  Jones  takes  the 
chair,  faced  by  a  Jolly  Trump.  Public 
sparring  every  Monday  evening  by 
first-rate  professors.  Private  lessons 
given  by  George  Brown  at  any  hour.'* 

But  hold !— We  must  not  rashly  in- 
volve ourselves  in  too  many  engage- 
ments. Doubtless  the  hours  would 
pass  like  swallows  on  the  wing,  while 
we  listened  to  the  jocularities  of  Joe 
Jones,  gazed  on  the  wild  Pyrrhic  dance 
performed  by  Ned  Connolly  and  Jerry 
Noon,  or  heard  the  words  of  wisdom 
flow  from  the  honoured  lips  of  the 
veteran  Alec  Reid.  Sweet  as  the 
voice  of  Apollo  singing  to  the  muses 
would  be  the  lyrical  chaunts  of  Nat 
Langham  ;  and  a  pot  of  half-and-half 
would  become  veritable  nectar,  if 
quaffed  in  company  with  the  accom- 
plished Sayers.  Yet,  after  all,  these 
are  but  the  minor  heroes  of  the  host. 
What  Greek  worshipper  of  valour 
would  have  been  contented  to  eat  a 
quiet  kidney  with  Patroclus,  when 
he  had  the  opportunity  of  supping  in 
the  tent  of  Achilles  himself?  Way, 


1855.] 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


then — way  for  the  Champion — for  the 
smasher  of  a  thousand  mugs,  the 
drawer  of  unlimited  claret,  the  frac- 
turer  of  unnumbered  ivories — way  for 
the  modern  Pelides  GAUNT  ! 

"  Ben  Gaunt,  of  the  Coach  and 
Horses,  St  Martin's  Lane,  after  great 
exertion  and  expense,  has  succeeded 
in  establishing  a  commodious  and 
elegant  retreat  for  the  lovers  of  sport 
and  harmony,  where,  surrounded  by 
every  elegance,  the  lover  of  gymnastic 
amusements  can  survey  the  feats  of 
good  men  and  true,  who  exhibit  on 
Tuesday,  Thursday,  and  Friday  even- 
ings, under  the  superintendence  of  his 
sable  highness  Young  Sambo  ;  and  on 
Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Saturday 
nights  listen  to  the  Orphean  warblings 
of  the  best  vocalists.  On  these  latter 
occasions  Ben  himself  endeavours  to 
enchant  the  ears  of  his  customers — 
his  voice  being  now  two  octaves  above 
perfection." 

But,  amidst  mirth  there  is  sorrow. 
We  hear  a  note  of  lamentation— a 
wail  for  the  departed  brave.  A  re- 
nowned bruiser  has  gone  to  his  long 
home  ;  and  a  friend  thus  describes  his 
obsequies,  in  a  letter  to  the  Editor  of 
Bell:— 

"  MR  EDITOR  :  From  the  kind  notice 
which  appeared  in  the  last  JBell's  Life 
relative  to  our  friend  and  townsman,  the 
late  lamented  John  Broome,  I  presume  a 
few  circumstances  connected  with  the  last 
sad  offices  may  not  be  unacceptable.  The 
moment  we  received  a  communication 
from  his  afflicted  brother,  Henry  Broome, 
as  to  the  time  when  the  last  tribute  of  re- 
spect was  to  be  paid  to  him,  William 
Aston,  his  long-tried  and  valued  friend, 
myself,  and  a  few  more,  started  for  Lon- 
don. We  knew  him  in  boyhood,  manhood, 
and  maturer  days,  and  did  not  think  we 
were  doing  too  much  for  days  gone  by  in 
thus  sacrificing  business  upon  the  altar 
of  friendship.  We  found  upon  our  arrival 
that  the  towns  of  Leicester  and  Liver- 
pool had  done  the  same,  and  that  John 
Broome's  name  received  one  universal 
tribute  of  respect  ;from  all  his  old  and 
well-tried  friends.  On  the  morning  of  his 
interment  we  assembled  in  one  of  the 
leading  hotels  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
St  Martin's  Lane  (where  a  suite  of  rooms 
was  placed  at  the  command  of  Henry 
Brooine,  and  a  splendid  dejeuner  served 
up),  to  see  the  last  of  the  '  brave  Johnny' 

of  other  days A  fine  cast  of 

Broome,  taken  after  death  by  a  dis- 
tinguished artist,  at  the  desire  of  Henry 


369 

Broome,  was  placed  upon  the  sofa.  Be- 
fore the  melancholy  cortege  started,  at  the 
desire  of  John's  most  distinguished 
brother  professionals,  Ward,  Caunt, 
Richard  Cain,  Dismore,  Adams,  &c.  &e., 
we  went  to  see  him  lying  in  his  coffin.  A 
beautiful  embroidered  handkerchief,  with 
the  following  inscription,  '  to  the  memory 
of  John  Broome,  who  leaves  this  world 
with  the  prayers  and  tears  of  his  two 
brothers  and  aged  mother/  was  placed 
over  his  manly  countenance.  Upon  its 
being  removed,  there  was  a  general  ex- 
pression of  admiration  and  astonishment 
at  the  calm  and  contented  appearance  of 
the  face.  A  large  concourse  of  persons 
had  assembled  in  St  Martin's  Lane,  and 
showed  by  their  respectful  bearing  how 
the  character  of  the  deceased  was  appre- 
ciated. On  arriving  at  Norwood  Cemetery, 
where  a  grave  had  been  purchased  by 
Harry,  the  funeral  service  was  read  with 
great  effect,  and  amidst  the  tears  of  all, 
and  the  violent  grief  of  his  brothers  Henry 
and  Frederick,  within  a  few  yards  of  his 
first  backer  and  friend,  Tom  Spring,  was 
lowered  into  the  grave  the  once  renowned 
Johnny  Broome." 

Peace  be  with  Johnny !  It  is  beauti- 
ful to  observe  how  merit  in  every  de- 
partment is  recognised  by  the  British 
public  ;  for  Wilberforce  himself  could 
not  have  obtained  more  distinguished 
funeral  honours.  Deputations  from 
Birmingham,  Leicester,  and  Liver- 
pool, were  there;  and  even  the  de- 
lights of  "  a  splendid  dejeuner"  to 
which,  doubtless,  they  did  ample  jus- 
tice, could  not  stifle  their  tears.  But, 
the  funeral  over,  shall  Johnny  Broome 
be  forgotten  ?  By  Pollux,  god  of  fisti- 
cuffs, no  !  Down  with  your  money, 
lads  of  the  Fancy,  that  the  marble 
may  be  he'wn,  and  a  monument  reared 
to  this  distinguished  British  worthy. 
England  must  not  forget  her  hero,  of 
whom  living  she  was  so  justly  proud. 

"  THE  LATE  JOHNNY  BROOME. — 
We  understand  that  it  is  in  contem- 
plation to  erect  a  monument  to  the 
late  Johnny  Broome,  in  memory  of  his 
excellent  qualities  as  a  British  pugilist. 
Subscription  lists  are  to  be  forwarded 
to  the  various  towns  throughout  the 
country,  and  we  have  been  requested 
to  receive  the  amounts  when  collected, 
in  order  that  they  may  be  properly 
applied." 

We  confess  to  being  deeply  affected, 
but  we  must  not  give  way  to  grief. 
Let  us  see  whether,  apart  from  pugil- 
ism, Bell  cannot  introduce  us  to 


870 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


[Sept. 


some  alluring  sports.  Of  cricket,  in 
our  humble  opinion,  rather  too  much 
is  said.  We  grudge  the  space  occupied 
by  the  narrative  of  every  parish  and 
school  match  in  the  country  ;  and  we 
do  not  feel  ourselves  wiser  or  better 
from  being  told  that  Sutherton  was 
point,  Mortlock  long-stop,  Beauchamp 
mid -wicket,  Mr  Miller,  cover-point 
and  leg,  Caflfyn  and  Caesar  cover- 
slip."  A  beautiful  arrangement  doubt- 
less, but  not  interesting  to  those  who 
did  not  see  it.  Was  it  worth  while 
recording  that  "  Martin gell  drove 
Beckley  for  three,  and  in  playing  for- 
ward at  one  of  Clark's  own,  got  his 
toe  on  the  crease,  which  gave  Box  the 
opportunity  of  stumping  him ; "  or  that 
u  Mr  Burbidge  made  a  good  hit  for 
four,  and  Shermin  a  drive  for  the  like 
number,  and,  by  an  overthrow,  crept 
into  a  double  figure  ?"  Surely  a  line 
or  two  of  concentrated  information 
would  suffice,  instead  of  compelling  us 
to  wade  through  this  interminable  re- 
cord of  byes,  cuts,  and  drives.  A 
cricket-match  is,  to  those  who  are  not 
engaged  in  it,  about  as  slow  an  affair  as 
it  is  possible  to  conceive,  and  it  does 
not  improve  through  narrative. 

The  ancient  English  sports  of  bull- 
baiting,  cock-fighting  and  badger-draw- 
ing seem  to  have  fallen  into  desuetude 
— at  least  no  notices  of  meetings  for 
those  humane  purposes  are  now  pub- 
lished. Cocking,  however,  we  appre- 
hend, is  still  practised  on  the  sly,  and 
is  countenanced  by  some  rather  re- 
spectable people  who  keep  cocks  out 
at  walk,  and  constitute  a  secret 
society.  Not  very  long  ago  we  over- 
heard an  elderly  individual,  who,  from 
his  appearance,  might  have  passed  for 
a  clergyman,  accost  another  thus : 
"  Doubtless  you  have  heard  of  the 
loss  which  the  cocking  world  has 
sustained  in  the  death  of  our  poor 
friend,  Heckles.  He  was  a  good  man, 
sir;  an  excellent  man,  and  a  first-rate 
cocker."  Still,  opportunities  are  af- 
forded for  witnessing  a  quiet  worry. 
The  following  announcement  speaks 
for  itself:— 

41  Ratting  sports  in  reality  next 
Tuesday  evening,  at  Jemmy  Shaw's 
favourite  resort,  Queen's  Head  Tavern, 
Crown  Court,  Windmill- street,  Hay- 
market,  with  mongoose,  small  dogs, 
&c.  A  good  supply  of  barn  rats  on 
hand  for  public  or  private  sport,  with 
use  of  pit  gratis.  The  Treatise  on 


Hats  can  be  had  of  J.  Shaw  only,  by 
sending  12  postage  stamps.  The 
United  West  End  Canine  Club  meet 
every  Wednesday  evening.  Entrance 
free.  Next  Wednesday  there  will  be 
a  strong  muster  of  the  fancy  to  pro- 
pose, &c.,  also  to  enrol  fresh  members* 
On  this  occasion  Mr  J.  Evans  will 
preside,  and  produce  his  beautiful 
stud,  assisted  by  the  whole  of  the 
club." 

Not  having  the  advantage  of  Mr 
Evans'  acquaintance,  we  cannot  be 
certain  of  what  kind  of  animals  **  his 
beautiful  stud"  is  composed.  Mr 
Shaw's  Treatise  on  Rats  we  have 
not  seen;  but,  doubtless,  it  is  a 
valuable  contribution  to  natural 
history. 

One  feature  in  Bell  we  are  greatly 
pleased  with,  and  that  is  the  estab-  • 
lishment  of  a  register  for  the  birth  of 
the  canine  species.  We  have  often 
been  at  a  loss  to  divine  what  good 
purpose  can  be  served  by  the  an- 
nouncement in  the  newspapers  of  the 
addition  of  each  unit  to  the  human 
population.  Of  what  earthly  use  are 
such  notices  as  this :  "  On  the  30th 
inst.,  the  lady  of  John  Smith,  Esq. 
of  Chester  Street,  of  a  son?"  No- 
body can  buy  the  infantine  Smith — 
indeed,  nobody  would  take  him  at 
any  price;  and,  considering  that  he 
is  the  thirteenth  product  of  the  nup- 
tials, we  think  that  his  parents  ought 
to  have  been  ashamed  to  publish  the 
fact  to  the  world.  But  the  case  is 
different  with  dogs.  Puppies  may 
rise  to  a  premium;  and  there  is  a 
fine  regard  to  ancestry  established  in 
the  following  notice : — 

"  SPRINGFIELD,  ESSEX. — Mr  J.  G. 
Simpson's  celebrated  bitch  Miss  Han- 
nah, by  Sam  out  of  Tollwife,  whelped, 
on  the  3d  inst,  eight  puppies  — 
namely,  six  black  bitches  and  two 
black  dogs  (some  with  little  white  on 
chest  and  toes),  to  Mr  Brown's  Bed- 
lamite. 

"  On  the  29th  ult.,  Mr  Ashmore's 
Jenny  Jones,  by  a  brother  to  Hay- 
maker, out  of  a  bitch  by  Senate  out  of 
Empress,  whelped  nine  black  pups  to 
Mr  Randall's  Ranter  (five  bitches, 
four  dogs). 

"  On  the  23d  ult.,  at  Richmond, 
Dublin,  Mr  Nolan's  fawn  bitch  Whirl- 
wind, six  puppies  to  Mr  Brown's 
Bedlamite  (all  black),  three  dogs  and 
three  bitches. 


1855.] 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


371 


"  On  the  1st  inst,  Mr  Cain's  black 
bitch  Sable  (sister  to  Sam),  eight 
whelps  to  Esquire." 

We  trust  that  the  system  of  regis- 
tration thus  happily  begun  will  be 
continued  and  augmented;  and  we 
would  respectfully  suggest  that  in 
future  a  column  should  be  dedicated 
to  cats.  Many  ladies,  slightly  ad- 
vanced in  years,  feel  a  preference  for 
the  feline  over  the  canine  race,  and 
would  pay  handsomely  for  any  infor- 
mation whereby  they  might  be  en- 
abled to  obtain  that  most  coveted  of 
all  rarities,  a  Tom  Tortoise-shell. 
We  are  aware  that  it  would  be  use- 
less, in  consequence  of  their  amazing 
fecundity,  to  urge  the  claims  of  rab- 
bits to  a  register. 

Let  us  dismiss  with  a  mere  glance 
the  columns  which  refer  to  pigeon- 
shooting,  aquatics,  quoits,  and  nurr 
and  spell,  and  come  at  once  to  that 
most  interesting  subject,  the  turf. 
Here  we  may  as  well  confess  that  we 
wander  in  darkness  as  deep  as  that  of 
Erebus.  We  know  literally  nothing 
about  horse-racing;  and  a  child  might 
take  us  in.  But  we  have  long  ad- 
mired the  freshness,  variety,  and  fine 
colouring  displayed  in  the  racing  re- 
ports of  Bell,  which  leave  nothing 
to  be  desired.  On  turning  to  the  ad- 
vertisements, however,  we  are  some- 
what startled  to  find  that,  for  a  very 
small  consideration,  any  gentleman 
disposed  to  bet  upon  a  race  may  be 
made  acquainted  with  the  name  of 
the  winner.  The  process  by  which 
this  foreknowledge  has  been  at- 
tained by  the  sporting  oracles  is 
not  explained;  and  it  may,  for  any- 
thing we  know,  involve  some  such 
occult  mystery  as  casting  the  nativity 
of  colts.  Clairvoyance  it  can  hardly 
be;  for  even  Apollonius  of  Tyana, 
the  most  renowned  professor  of  that 
art,  did  not  affect  to  see  into  the 
future.  But  there  are  spaewives 
upon  the  turf ;  and  they  compete  as 
eraulously  for  custom  as  the  priest- 
esses of  Delphi  and  Dodona.  Let  us 
give  a  few  specimens  from  a  single 
number  of  Bell. 

The  first  advertiser  is  cautious,  and 
does  not  commit  himself  by  over- 
eagerness.  We  rather  admire  the 
chastened  tone  of  his  address  : — 

"  GOODWOOD  STAKES  AND  CUP. — 
A  grand  double  event  200  to  1.— This 
is  truly  one  of  the  best  things  of  the 


season.  E.  A.  advises  his  subscribers 
to  get  on  immediately,  as  both  horses 
will  become  great  favourites.  Terms 
(including  the  winner  of  the  Liver- 
pool Cup),  5s.  Post-Office  orders 
payable  to  Edwin  Alien,  Halliford 
Street,  Islington,  London." 

Not  so  "  Fairplay."  He  is  a  regu- 
lar glutton  for  commissions,  and  issues 
three  advertisements  at  once : — 

"  SEE  FAIRPLAY'S  GUIDE  TO  THE 
TURF. — It  will  put  money  in  thy 
purse. — Latest  Intelligence:  I  have 
now  the  certain  winner;  the  best 
thing  ever  sent  out  for  the  Goodwood 
Stakes.  Advice  2s.,  and  10s.  for  a 
winner. — John  Fairplay,  Ipswich." 

"  FAIRPLAY'S  TRIUMPH.  —  Mar- 
chioness, Oaks. — Exact  copy  of  ad- 
vice sent  to  all  subscribers : — 

"  *  OAKS. 
" '  BACK  MARCHIONESS. 

"  '  Subscribers  :  The  last  three 
times  I  have  put  you  on  the  winner. 
I  shall  do  so  this.  Bet  freely  and 
fearlessly — success  is  certain. — Yours, 
confidently,  *  FAIRPLAY.'  " 

"  FAIRPLAY'S  LEDGER  WINNER. — 
Long  Odds. — A  dark  horse  will  win, 
now  at  long  odds.  This  is  such  an 
important  secret,  I  will  not  send  to 
any  one  unless  they  promise  to  put 
me  on  10s.,  the  same  time  they  get  on 
themselves.  Remember  I  will  not 
take  anything  before  the  race,  I  am 
so  confident  of  success.  I  am  quite 
satisfied  you  can  make  your  fortune 
by  backing  this  horse.  I  intend  to 
make  mine. — John  Fairplay,  Ipswich. 
Send  a  directed  envelope." 

Can  anything  beat  the  penultimate 
paragraph— "  I  am  quite  satisfied  you 
can  make  your  fortune  by  backing 
this  horse  —  I  INTEND  TO  MAKE 
MINE  "  ?  Fairplay,  our  fine  fellow, 
there  is  an  old  but  rather  vulgar  pro- 
verb, u  It  is  the  silent  sow  that  sups 
the  broth."  If  you  are  sure  of  mak- 
ing your  own  fortune,  why  should 
you  be  so  desperately  solicitous  to 
make  those  of  others? 

Here  comes  a  blunt,  candid,  disin- 
terested creature,  without  persiflage 
or  humbug.  He  is  willing  to  trust  to 
the  gratitude  of  winners,  and  will 
serve  you  gratis,  only  you  ought  to 
send  stamps  for  a  reference  list. 
Otherwise  he  merely  says,  like  the 
ghost  hi  Hamlet,  "  Remember  me  I " 

"  GRATIS,  STAMFORD'S  GOODWOOD 
STAKES  WINNER. — Now  is  your  time 


372 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays. 


[Sept. 


to  do  the  trick.  Yo  may  safely  go 
for  a  stake.  It  is  indeed  all  over  but 
shouting.  Respectable  persons  can 
have  it  on  application.  All  I  ask  is, 
that  as  you  pocket  your  winnings, 
*  you  will  remember  me,'  and  you 
must  send  enclosed  directed  envelope 
to  John  Stamford,  Ipswich.— N.B. 
A  numbered  reference  -  list  twelve 
postage  stamps  extra." 
Next  appears  Hotspur : — 

'* '  What  horse,  a  roan,  a  crop-ear,  is  it  not  ?' 

Send  2s.  Id.  in  stamps,  and  you  may 
chance  to  learn." 

"  HOTSPUR  and  OSBORNE'S  FINAL 
ADVICE  was,  back  Whitelock  for 
Northumberland  Plate,  as  he  will 
win  in  a  trot.  Our  nag  for  Good- 
wood Stakes  cannot  lose,  and  is  now 
at  50  to  1.  Also  'our  Leger  flyer 
ought  to  be  backed  at  once,  as  he  has 
come  to  30  to  1,  and  he  is  sure  to  see 
6  to  1  in  a  week,  so  get  on  at  once. 
Liverpool  Cup:  Back  No.  6,  as  Wells 
rides,  and  is  now  at  15  to  1.  Fee  for 
each  event,  25  stamps.  Address, 
Hotspur,  35  Church  -  street,  Soho, 
London." 

If  scared  by  the  impetuosity  of 
Hotspur,  why  not  confide  in  Eogers  ? 
He  only  requires  one  shilling,  and  a 
promise  to  act  handsomely. 

"  ROGERS. — No  Cure  no  Pay. — 
Rogers,  the  celebrated  old  estab- 
lished Newmarket  tip,  whose  extra- 
ordinary success  in  spotting  the  win- 
ners of  the  great  races,  has  for  the 
last  seven  years  completely  astonished 
the  knowing  ones.  R.  has  now  ready 
his  tips  for  the  Goodwood  Stakes.  R. 
thinks  it  quite  a  certainty  at  good 
odds.  Send  one  shilling  in  money  or 
stamps,  and  promise  to  act  hand- 
somely from  your  winnings.  Direct, 
Thomas  Rogers,  to  be  left  at  the 
Post- Office,  Newmarket,  till  called 
for." 

Should  you  prefer  applying  to  Mr 
Darvill,  you  must  be  more  liberal 
with  your  silver.  He,  as  well  as 
Fairplay,  has  "  a  dark  horse,"  and  he 
predicts  that  he  will  absolutely  win, 
which,  to  use  his  own  words,  is  say- 
ing a  great  deal. 

"  MR  HENRY  DARYILL  has  just 
received  a  most  important  communica- 
tion respecting  the  Goodwood  Stakes. 
A  dark  horse,  at  30  to  1,  will  abso- 
lutely win,  which  is  saying  a  great 
deal ;  his  trials  have  been  extraordi- 


nary. Send  at  once,  for  he  will  see  a 
short  price.  Terms :  Stakes  and  Cup, 
3s.  6d. ;  single,  2s.  6d. ;  to  Doncas- 
ter,  7s.  6d.;  end  of  season,  15s.;  with 
per-centage.  My  Liverpool  Cup  nag 
is  sure  to  win. — 13  Duke  Street, 
Adelphi.  Commissions  as  usual,  from 
10s.  Post- Office  orders  payable  at 
Charing  Cross.  Send  for  my  St 
Leger  outsider,  only  5s.,  worth  £5." 

Beyond  these  there  is  ample  choice. 
"  A  gentleman,  intimately  acquainted 
with  several  of  the  principal  trainers, 
and  who  is  in  possession  of  some 
valuable  information  relating  to  forth- 
coming events,  will  be  happy  to 
send  his  advice  to  those  parties  who 
will  agree  to  reward  him  liberally 
after  each  win."  He  also,  we  are 
bound  to  believe,  is  in  the  secret  of 
"  the  dark  horse."  Messrs  Howard 
and  Clinton  "  are  certain  of  winning 
the  Liverpool  Cup,  besides  some 
other  first-rate  things  at  the  same 
meeting."  A.  Chester  considers  that 
the  Goodwood  Stakes  and  Cup  "  are 
certainties."  But  the  most  alluring 
fellow  of  all  is  Alexis  Taylor.  Talk 
of  the  philosopher's  stone  or  the  mul- 
tiplication of  metals  by  alchemy ! 
You  have  but  to  send  £5  to  Alexis, 
and  he  will  return  you  £100,  or  £65, 
or  £35.  Read  for  yourselves,  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  and  judge  whether 
we  over-estimate  his  offer. 

"  BRILLIANT  SUCCESS. — Mr  Alexis 
Taylor  congratulates  his  patrons  and 
subscribers  on  their  success  on  all  the 
principal  past  events,  and  begs  to 
assure  them  that  he  is  in  possession  of 
most  important  information  on  the 
Goodwood  Stakes  and  Cup.  A  fiver 
sent  instanter  will  realise  an  immense 
stake.  Commissions  executed  for  the 
Liverpool,  and  all  the  meetings  up  to 
Goodwood.  £5  sent  for  Liverpool 
will  realise  £100  on  the  meeting. 
Goodwood  Stakes :  for  every  £5  sent 
£65  returned  ;  for  every  £2  sent  £26 
returned;  for  every  £1  sent  £13  re- 
turned. Goodwood  Cup:  for  every 
£5  sent  £35  returned. 

"A.  T.  will  not  execute  commis- 
sions for  less  than  £1.  Gentlemen 
can  have  their  own  selections  backed 
for  any  race  to  £25  on  becoming  sub- 
scribers to  Mr  A.  Taylor's  list  with- 
out sending  the  money  until  after  the 
race.  Terms  of  subscription,  £2,  2s. 
per  annum ;  5  per  cent  for  winnings 
deducted.  Post-Office  orders  made 


1855.]  Light  Literature 

payable  to  Alexis  Taylor,  City.  Let- 
ters addressed  to  Mr  A.  Taylor,  No. 
5  Box,  General  Post- Office,  London. 
Every  provincial  roan  should  become 
a  subscriber.  Commissions  received 
up  to  the  first  post  the  day  of  the 
race." 

Youatt  W.  Gray  has  unusual  faith 
in  the  discretion  of  his  customers. 
He  says : — 

"I  am  in  possession  of  a  secret 
connected  with  the  Nottinghamshire 
Handicap,  which  I  will  impart  to 
subscribers  providing  they  will  keep 
it  in  confidence.  The  owner  is  a 
4  queer  fish,'  and  if  he  should  suspect 
for  a  moment  that  I  was  in  the 
4  stream,'  he  would  reverse  the  '  cur- 
rent.' I  shall  staud  on  one  horse 
only." 

Surely  nobody  expected  Mr  Youatt 
W.  Gray  to  stand  upon  four  horses 
at  once,  like  the  late  Mr  Ducrow. 

The  issuers  of  these  advertisements 
claim  to  be  the  brokers  of  the  turf,  and 
we  must  needs  express  our  opinion  that 
their  calling  is  the  reverse  of  respect- 
able. The  fee  which  they  demand  may 
be  small  or  large,  but  betting  is  the 
necessary  consequence ;  and  we  have 
little  doubt  that  many  a  poor  fellow, 
who,  if  allowed  to  subscribe  to  an 
occasional  sweep,  would  never  have 
gone  farther,  and  scarcely  would  have 
missed  the  money,  has  been  led  into 
acts  of  dishonesty  for  the  purpose  of 
procuring  the  means  of  testing  the 
"  important  and  valuable  informa- 
tion" which  such  vampires  affect  to 
have  received.  We  cannot  regard 
the  publication  of  such  advertise- 
ments otherwise  than  as  an  outrage 
on  public  morals,  quite  as  likely 
to  do  harm  as  announcements  of  a 
gambling-house  or  a  brothel,  and  we 
regret  that  they  should  be  allowed  to 
appear  in  the  columns  of  a  news- 
paper so  popular  and  amusing  as 
Bell's  Life  in  London. 

For,  bating  peculiarities,  it  is  a 
most  amusing  paper.  No  other 
country  in  the  world  possesses  a 
journal  of  the  kind,  which  lays  before 
us  every  week  an  epitome  of  the 
sporting  habits  of  the  people  of  Bri- 
tain. Not  that  we  consider  every- 
thing which  it  contains  to  belong 
properly  to  the  category  of  sport,  or 
that  we  can  conscientiously  approve 
of  some  of  the  pastimes  which  it  takes 
such  pains  to  chronicle.  They  do  not 


for  the  Holidays.  373 

convey  the  impression  of  a  high  de- 
gree of  refinement,  and  they  give 
colour  to  the  charge  of  coarseness 
which  has  so  often  been  preferred 
against  the  English  by  their  southern 
neighbours.  But  John  Bull  has  never 
piqued  himself  on  the  possession  of 
extraordinary  politeness,  and  notwith- 
standing his  occasional  roughness  and 
want  of  refinement,  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find  his  equal  in  sterling  quali- 
ties. There  is  about  him  a  super- 
abundance of  animal  energy  which 
must  find  vent,  and  if  he  is  debarred 
from  showing  it  in  one  direction,  it 
will  exhibit  itself  in  another.  That 
inhabitants  of  towns  should  addict 
themselves  to  amusements  which  may 
appear  coarse,  and  even  savage,  is 
possibly  the  consequence  of  their 
restrained  and  restricted  condition. 
Pugilism  and  ratting  are  the  urban 
substitutes  for  wrestling  and  the 
chase ;  and  perhaps  the  race-course  is 
the  only  common  ground  upon  which 
all  classes  of  the  people  meet  with 
zest  and  general  enjoyment.  But 
sporting,  in  its  higher  sense,  is  some- 
thing more  than  the  mere  indulgence 
of  animal  instinct;  and  we  cannot 
find  words  to  express  our  contempt 
for  the  stupidity  of  those  who  affect 
to  look  down  upon  and  decry  such 
amusements.  Constantly,  by  poets 
and  romance-writers,  do  we  find  "  the 
pale  student "  referred  to  as  the  type 
of  perfection ;  in  reality  he  is  an  ex- 
ceedingly poor  creature,  weak  in  body 
and  diseased  in  mind,  and  dares  not 
venture  to  "  swagger  with  a  Barbary 
hen."  Send  him  to  the  country,  and 
instead  of  betaking  himself  to  manly 
athletic  exercises,  he  keeps  poking 
about  ditches  for  weeds  which  he 
dignifies  with  a  name  as  long  as  your 
arm,  or  hunts  the  pools  on  the  sea- 
shore for  infinitesimally  minute  mol- 
luscs, or  knocks  down  and  impales 
butterflies  on  pins,  or  is  guilty  of  the 
atrocious  meanness  of  abstracting  eggs 
from  the  nests  of  the  singing-birds 
during  the  absence  of  the  mothers. 
He  writes  verses  too;  and  never  in 
the  whole  course  of  your  existence 
did  you  see  such"  pitiful  stuff.  There 
is  not  in  them,  from  beginning  to 
end,  a  single  manly,  brave,  or  spirited 
idea.  They  consist  of  what  he  calls 
reflections  of  his  moods  of  mind ;  and 
as  you  read  you  are  filled  with  amaze- 
ment that  any  human  being  can  be 


374 


Light  Literature  for  the  Holidays, 


[Sept. 


at  once  so  silly,  conceited,  and  de- 
praved. Not  so  the  youth  whose 
energies,  physical  and  mental,  have 
been  developed  by  early  athletic  ex- 
ercises. At  the  University  he  works 
like  a  tiger,  with  the'  more  success 
and  the  greater  power  of  work,  be- 
cause body  and  brain  are  healthy, 
and  he  has  no  affections  of  the  nerves. 
Down  he  goes,  when  vacation  arrives, 
to  the  Hall  or  Grange,  with  merited 
honours ;  and,  a  week  after,  you  may 
see  him  following  the  hounds  in  all 
the  glory  of  pink,  or  stalking  the 
red-deer  up  the  mountain  corrie,  or 
waist-deep  in  the  rushing  river  with 
a  twenty-pound  salmon  on  his  line. 
Such  are  the  sports  which  have  made 
the  British  gentleman  what  he  is; 
and  we  should  regard  their  abandon- 
ment as  little  short  of  a  national  mis- 
fortune. Generally  speaking,  when- 
ever you  hear  a  man  assert  that  he 
has  no  relish  for  field-sports,  you  may 
set  him  down  as  a  prig,  and  act  to- 
wards him  accordingly.  He  is  deny- 
ing his  possession  of  instinct ;  and 
the  man  in  whom  instinct  is  not 
strongly  developed,  is  an  inferior 
specimen  of  his  species.  Take  the 
Oxford  or  Cambridge  man,  who  rows, 
plays  cricket,  shoots,  fishes,  and  oc- 
casionally hunts,  and  you  will  find 
him  to  be  about  as  fine  a  specimen  of 
humanity  as  the  world  can  produce. 
Who  but  an  arrant  ass  would  com- 
pare with  him  the  blear-eyed  German 
student,  whose  only  recreations  con- 
sist in  washing  down  musty  meta- 
physics with  copious  mugs  of  beer,  in 
smoking  countless  pipes  of  execrable 
tobacco,  and  in  slashing  with  a  clumsy 
rapier  at  the  haggis-like  countenance 
of  his  fellow  ?  Student-life  in  France 
may  have  its  attractions,  but  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  moral ;  and  we  cannot 
admit  that  habitual  attendance  at  the 
Bal  Montesquieu,  or  at  the  Grande 
Chaumiere  du  Mont  Parnasse,  where 
grisettes  most  do  congregate,  is  as 
profitable  for  mind  or  body  as  the 
athletic  pursuits  by  field  and  flood 
which  are  practised  by  our  academic 
youth.  Take  the  old  English  squire, 
or  the  Scottish  laird,  to  whom  field- 
sports  are  as  the  breath  of  their 
nostrils,  and  tell  us  if  you  will  find 
anywhere  on  the  face  of  the  globe  a 
body  of  men  to  be  compared  with 
them  for  sterling  worth,  high  prin- 


ciple, chivalrous  patriotism,  and  kind, 
unostentatious  benevolence?  It  cer- 
tainly is  not  their  way,  nor  do  they 
feel  it  their  duty,  to  spout  from  plat- 
forms to  ignorant  mobs,  and  excite 
disaffection  by  advocating  what  are 
called  the  rights  of  the  people.  They 
know  full  well  what  is  due  to  their 
country's  honour  and  their  own  ;  and 
they  regard  with  equal  loathing  the 
cold-blooded  chafferer,  who,  for  the 
sake  of  personal  gain,  would  submit 
to  the  humiliation  of  Britain,  and  the 
slippery  Jesuit,  to  whom  perfidy  has 
become  so  much  a  matter  of  course 
that  he  considers  no  apology  neces- 
sary for  the  enormity  of  his  barefaced 
tergiversations.  Politicians  of  the 
modern  degenerate  school,  who  regard 
the  welfare  of  their  country  less  than 
the  ascendancy  of  their  particular 
party,  may  affect  to  despise  these  men, 
and  may  taunt  them  as  obstinate  and 
bigotted ;  but  it  would  be  well  for  us 
all  if  our  rulers  were  possessed  with 
the  same  high  feelings  of  honour,  duty, 
loyalty,  and  devotion,  which  are  emi- 
nently the  characteristics  of  the  coun- 
try gentlemen  of  England. 

But— hold  hard!  We  vow  that 
we  are  becoming  political ;  and  if  we 
do  not  throw  down  the  pen  at  once, 
we  may,  without  intending  it,  be 
seduced  into  an  onslaught  on  Lord 
John  Russell,  or  an  uncomplimentary 
criticism  upon  the  Muscovite  speeches 
of  Mr  Gladstone.  So,  from  pruden- 
tial motives,  we  shall  fold  up  Bell, 
and  return  him  to  the  pocket  of  our 
shooting-coat,  from  which  he  came, 
thankful  for  the  hour's  amusement  he 
has  afforded  us.  Nor  have  we  time 
to  dally,  as  every  true  sportsman  will 
admit,  when  we  assure  him  that  we 
are  polishing  off  this  article  on  the 
llth  of  August.  The  life  of  innumer- 
able grouse  will  this  year  be  pro- 
longed four- and- twenty  hours  beyond 
the  ordinary  span,  because  the  twelfth 
falls  upon  a  Sunday.  We  intend  to 
devote  this  evening  to  the  necessary 
preparation — to-morrow  we  shall  go 
to  church — but  on  Monday  morning 
we  take  the  hill,  and  we  trust  that 
Captain  will  be  steady.  Bless  the 
fine  fellow — what  a  nose  he  has !  He 
has  slipped  out  after  us  unobserved, 
and  is  now  standing  at  point,  a  per- 
fect model  for  a  sculptor,  among  the 
heather. 


1855.]  Wagram ;  or,  Victory  in  Death.  375 


WAGRAM  ;    OR,   VICTORY   IN  DEATH. ' 

[The  battle  of  Wagram  was  fought  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube  in  1809,  between 
the  Grand-army  under  Napoleon,  and  the  Austrians  under  the  command  of  the 
Archduke  Charles.  On  the  20th  May  preceding,  Napoleon,  in  attempting  to  force 
the  passage  of  the  river,  had  been  signally  defeated  by  the  Archduke  after  a  bloody 
battle  on  the  field  of  Aspern,  and  compelled  to  retire  into  a  critical  position  in  the 
islands  of  the  Danube  ;  but  six  weeks  afterwards,  on  the  5th  July,  the  French 
Emperor  suddenly  threw  a  bridge  across  the  stream,  at  a  point  where  he  was  not 
expected,  and  established  his  army  in  safety  on  the  left  bank.  Here  he  was  attacked 
next  day  by  the  Archduke  Charles  and  the  Austrian  Grand-army  on  the  plains  of 
Wagram ;  while  a  lesser  army,  under  the  Archduke  John,  advanced  towards  the 
same  spot  from  Rhab,  but,  being  inefficiently  led,  arrived  too  late  to  affect  the  for- 
tunes of  the  day.  Resolving  to  anticipate  the  plans  of  his  dread  antagonist,  the 
Archduke  Charles  put  his  columns  in  motion  at  dawn,  and,  descending  from  the 
plateau  of  Wagram,  attacked  the  French  at  all  points, — especially  pushing  forward 
energetically  his  right  wing,  whose  success  soon  threatened  to  cut  off  the  French 
from  their  bridge  over  the  Danube,  and  spread  dismay  throughout  the  rear  of  their 
army.  The  charge  of  the  Imperial  Guard  in  the  centre,  under  General  Macdonald, 
a  Scotchman  by  extraction,  retrieved  the  fortunes  of  the  day  for  the  French ;  and 
the  Austrian  empire,  prostrated  in  the  dust,  only  escaped  dismemberment  by  yield- 
ing the  hand  of  an  Archduchess  to  the  Imperial  victor.  Wagram  deservedly  ranks 
among  the  decisive  battles  of  the  world.  Had  the  French  lost  it*  the  catastrophe 
of  Waterloo  would  have  been  anticipated  in  1809,  and  the  star  of  Napoleon  have 
sunk  for  ever  on  the  shores  of  the  Danube.] 

I  SAW  a  sunrise  on  a  battle-field.— 

E'en  at  that  early  hour  the  gladsome  beams 

Broke  upon  smoke- wreaths  and  the  roar  of  war ; 

And  o'er  the  dewy  grass  rush'd  hurrying  feet, — 

Austria's  white  uniforms  sweeping  to  the  charge, 

While  France's  eagles  trembled  in  the  gale. 

—Full  'gainst  the  Gallic  left,  not  half  array'd, 

The  Austrian  horse  are  charging  home ;  and  foot 

And  cannon  follow  fast,  quick-belching  forth 

Their  thunders.    Troop  on  troop,  amidst  the  smoke, 

NAPOLEON  sees  them  sweeping  between  him 

Arid  the  broad  Danube ;  and  their  loud  hurrahs, 

Heard  o'er  the  din  of  battle,  tell  how  nigh 

They  come  upon  his  rear,  and  threat  with  fire 

The  floating  bridge  that  brought  his  host  across. 

Already  stragglers  flying  from  the  charge, 

Are  seen,  and  baggage-waggons  with  their  startled  team, 

Scampering  in  hot  haste  for  the  river's  bank. 

But  in  the  centre,  where  the  Old  Guard  stands 
Like  serried  granite  'neath  the  enemies'  fire, 
Paces  "  the  Emperor"  to  and  fro,  in  front 
Of  the  tall  bearskin  shakos, — where  the  shot 
And  shell  of  Austria's  cannon  make  huge  gaps. 
Courier  on  courier,  breathless  spurring  up, 
Bring  him  untoward  tidings  of  the  fight. 
Yet  in  a  marble  calm,  as  if  no  turn 
Of  Fortune's  wheel  could  shake  his  clear-eyed  soul, 


376  Wagram  ;  or,  Victory  in  Death.  [Sept. 

He  paces  steadily  that  storm-swept  spot, 

Rooting  by  his  example  to  their  place 

His  vext  brigades,  now  mustering  dense  and  fast 

For  the  bold  game  on  which  his  soul  is  set. 

"  Massena  !  keep  the  Archduke's  right  in  check  : 

Roll  it  but  backward  from  the  bridge  apace, — 

And  the  day  yet  is  ours."     But  still  his  ear 

Dreads  every  moment  on  his  right  to  hear 

The  thundering  of  the  Archduke's  brother's  horse, 

The  vanguard  of  the  host  on  march  from  Rhab, 

Charging  with  freshness  on  his  press'd  array. 

At  last  the  moment  comes, — the  word  is  given, — 
The  Emperor's  self,  as  past  his  squadrons  rush, 
Down-bending  o'er  their  chargers  in  hot  haste, 
Stabbing  the  air,  cries  out,  "  Give  point !  give  point ! " 
And  on  sweep  cuirassiers,  hussars,  and  all, 
Spurring,  and  thundering  their  "  Vive  VEmpereur! " — 
Rank  after  rank  bright-flashing  in  the  sun 
Like  brazen  waves  of  battle, — charging  on 
.  Right  into  smoke  of  th'  enemies'  batteries. 
— Roar  upon  roar,  and  flash  on  flash,  break  out 
Like  a  volcano  bursting, — a  red  chaos  glares  ; — 
And  back  they  come,  the  routed  horse,  pell-mell, 
Gnashing  their  teeth  in  fury  at  defeat ; 
Rallying  with  dinted  helms  and  batter'd  mail, 
Again  to  plunge  into  the  thick  of  fight. 
And  still  the  saddles  empty,  and  scared  steeds 
Rush  backwards  riderless  ;  and  with  oaths  and  cries 
Again  a  broken  flood  of  horse  o'erspreads  the  plain. 

"  Macdonald !  take  the  Guards,  and  lead  them  on. 
The  Plateau  must  be  won  I"    And  through  the  mass 
Of  flyers  straight  the  serried  column  moves, 
And  the  war  storms  anew.    Right  on  they  go, 
Like  men  who  hold  life  as  a  bagatelle, 
Up  the  brief  slope,  and  in  among  the  guns, 
Giving  and  taking  death, — yet  still  advancing, 
Pushing  their  way  with  shot  and  bayonet-thrust 
Amidst  the  foe,  who  round  them  like  a  wall 
In  front  and  on  each  flank  hang  dense  :  and  still 
The  cannon  thunder  on  the  advancing  band. — 
Oh,  then  there  was  grim  conflict !  and  the  ranks 
Of  the  French  column  melted  fast  away 
In  the  unequal  strife  ;  and  oft  their  chief 
Sends  word  for  help,  and  hears  no  help  can  come, — 
And  that  he  must  go  on.     "  Go  on  :  the  day 
Hangs  on  your  sword  ! "    And  on  they  went  in  sooth. 
And  as  the  hostile  fire,  or  want  of  breath, 
Or  the  re-forming  of  their  shatter'd  line, 
Brings  to  a  halt  that  foe-encompass'd  band, 
Nigh  ruin'd  by  success,  the  Imperial  Voice 
Still  sends  them  for  sole  word :  "  No  aid— Go  on !  " 

'Twas  a  brave,  bitter  sight !  Blacken'd  and  scorch'd, 
Circled  with  fire  and  thunder,  and  the  shouts 
Of  a  most  maddening  war,  where  each  man  knows 
Ruin  or  victory  is  in  the  scales, 
Hewing  their  way,  each  step  o'er  fallen  foes, 
That  Column  marches  on.    On  over  guns 


1855.]  Wagram ;  or,  Victory  in  Death.  377 

Dismounted,  and  rent  banners,  and  the  wreck 
Of  war's  magnificence,— with  blood-stain'd  step, 
O'er  brothers,  kinsmen,  comrades  dropping  fast, 
With  clenched  teeth  and  flashing  eyes  they  press, 
Panting,  fainting,  dwindling  'neath  the  fire  ; 
Yet  back— and  back— and  back  compelling  still 
The  foemen  to  give  ground.    O !  sure 
In  that  fell  strife,  with  all  its  wasted  wealth, 
And  wasted  lives,  and  broken  hopes,  and  hearts 
Bleeding  in  far-off  homes,  and  fever'd  cries 
Of  mangled  myriads, — there's  enough  of  woe 
To  glut  Ambition  for  a  thousand  years ! 

I  saw  the  sun  set  on  that  battle-field. — 
A  remnant  of  that  Column,  paused  at  last 
On  ground  shot- furrowed,  all  begrimed  and  scorch'd 
Like  men  escaped  from  out  a  crater's  mouth, 
Lean  wearily  on  their  arms.    The  clarion's  call 
Is  pealing  through  the  air  of  Victory ! 
And  banners  wave,  and  the  bright  setting  sun 
Streams  o'er  the  armed  field,  from  whence  arose 
The  exultant  music  of  a  hundred  bands, 
Making  war  glorious.    But  no  poean  comes 
From  that  lone  Victor- Column.    They  have  fought 
And  won, — but  won  at  what  a  cost !  They  have 
No  heart  or  breath  for  triumph  :  so  they  stand, 
And  hear  but  join  not  in  the  loud  acclaim, — 
Sad,  mute,  erect.    'Twas  Victory  in  Death  ! 

My  Soul,  be  like  that  Column !    Oh  to  be 
Dauntless,  devoted  in  the  war  of  Life  ; — 
Neither  to  sorrow,  pain,  nor  trouble  down 
Bending  thy  colours,  but  march  right  through  all, 
Obedient  to  the  Voice  that  says,  "  Go  on  1 " 
Oh,  there  are  shot  and  shell  that  rend  the  heart, 
And  swords  that  pierce  the  soul,  and  pangs  to  which 
A  bayonet-thrust  were  mercy, — wounds  within, 
That  perchance  bleed  not  in  the  sight  of  men, 
Yet  ah  1  that  will  not  heal.    Oh,  to  be  strong ! 
And  with  a  faith  enduring  all  things,  still 
To  look  to  Thee,  and  battle  stoutly  through, 
Ne'er  growing  weary  of  the  glorious  strife  ! 
Ah  !  if  on  that  red  day  a  Herald  of  truce 
Had  check'd  that  Column  in  its  bold  advance, 
And  bade  it  pile  its  arms,  and  take  its  ease, 
Who  would  have  thrill'd  as  now  at  Wagram's  name ! 
What  generous  hearts  been  fired  with  rivalry  ! 
Or  could  that  Band  itself  have  ever  heard 
The  pceans  of  an  army  saved,  or  seen 
A  hostile  Empire  prostrate  in  the  dust, — 
Or,  proudest,  sweetest  thought  of  all,  have  felt 
Victorious  o'er  themselves  as  o'er  the  foe ! 

And  if  such  things  were  dared  in  duty's  cause 
For  a  mere  martial  crown,  shall  less  be  done 
In  the  far  nobler  war  of  Life,— that  war, 
That  ceaseless  war,  which  goes  where'er  we  go, — 
At  work,— at  ease,— at  home,— or  in  the  stream 
Of  social  intercourse,— nor  least  e'en  then 
When  we  sit  lonely  with  our  thoughts,  and  build 


378  Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War.  [Sept. 

A  day-dream  world  to  compensate  the  old. 
Alas,  how  weak  and  wavering  !    How  the  world, 
And  life,  and  love,  and  death,  and  grief  all  lay 
A  hand  upon  the  soul  to  turn't  away 
From  its  high  mission  1    *    *    * 

My  Father  1  Heavenly  Father !  to  whom  sole 
I  lift  my  eye  in  trouble  or  in  joy, — 
Thou  who  hast  led  me,  erst  a  wayward  child, — 
And  wayward  still,  from  weakness,  not  from  choice, — 
And  brought  me  thus  far  on  my^  journey's  way, 
Grant  in  the  years  to  come  I  still  may  prove 
Obedient  to  the  imperial  Voice  within, — 
Voice  of  that  Soul  which  Thou  hast  given,-— which  bids 
Still  to  go  forward,  resting  not  till  death  ; — 
Oh,  make  me  strong !  that  so  when  sorrows  come, 
When  loved  ones  die  and  leave  me,  and  the  day 
Grows  dark  about  me,  and  the  sunshine  comes 
To  the  heart  no  more,  and  the  Spirit's  life  seems  gone 
With  the  love  that  fed  it,  I  may  still  march  on, 
Content  to  do  Thy  work,  and  heed  no  more  > 

Whether  the  clarion-voice  of  Fame  do  come 
In  life,  or  after  death,  or  not  at  all. 
Oh,  be  it  mine,  at  life's  bless'd  close,  to  stand 
Scarr'd  though  it  be  with  sorrows,  still  erect, 
In  harness  to  the  last, — raising  my  hands 
On  the  won  battle-field  aloft  to  Thee, 
And  with  a  calm  joy  yielding  up  my  soul, — 
Scourged,  chastened,  purified, — and  hearing  now 
The  inner  voices  chauting  victory ! 
Like  some  old  warrior-chief,  on  his  last  field, 
Dying  with  upturn'd  face,  and  in  his  ears 
An  army's  songs  of  triumph, — heedless  all, 
If  so  be  the  stern  fight  is  won  at  last, 
And  his  flag  flies,  Victorious  still  in  Death  ! 

R.  H.  P. 


OUR  BEGINNING   OF  THE   LAST  WAR. 

THE  volumes  which  we  are  about  of  value.  They  chronicle  the  failings, 
to  introduce  to  the  notice  of  our  not  the  triumphs  of  British  armies, 
readers,  will,  we  think,  be  read  at  the  They  exhibit  to  our  gaze  the  states- 
present  moment  with  no  common  men  of  a  bygone  generation  drifted 
interest.  They  discuss  with  fairness  into  a  war  which  they  did  their  best 
the  war-councils,  and  describe  with  to  avoid,  and  entering  upon  it  at  last 
accuracy  the  military  operations  of  a  without  having  made  the  smallest 
period  which  historians  must  describe  preparation  for  the  event.  The  re- 
to  the  end  of  time  as  one  of  the  most  suits  are  not  different  from  what 
critical  in  the  affairs  of  the  world ;  ought  to  have  been  anticipated.  The 
and  this  alone  were  reason  sufficient  enormous  expenditure  of  life  and 
why  they  should  command  the  atten-  treasure  brings  neither  honour  nor 
tive  perusal  of  all  searchers  after  truth,  success  in  its  train.  Our  money  is 
But  there  are  other  circumstances  squandered  in  the  arrangement  of 
which  impart  to  them,  as  far  at  least  as  plans,  which  fail  us  ere  they  come  to 
we  are  concerned,  a  still  greater  degree  maturity.  Our  troops,  ill-appointed, 

Journals  and  Correspondence  of  General  Sir  Harry  Calvert. 

The  Great  War  with  France,  1793--1810.     By  Lieut.-General  BUNBURY. 


1855.] 


Our  Beginning  of  the  La&t  \Yar. 


and  scattered  by  driblets  over  the 
face  of  the  earth,  are  overmatched 
and  defeated  as  often  as  they  come 
in  contact  with  the  enemy.  And  this 
not  in  the  co.urse  of  a  single  cam- 
paign, or  on  a  single  theatre  of  opera- 
tions, but  throughout  well-nigh  twelve 
years  of  incessant  warfare,  waged  in 
every  part  of  the  world  that  seemed 
to  be  accessible  to  us.  Now,  un- 
doubtedly the  new  war  in  which  the 
country  is  engaged  has  become  a  source 
of  sore  perplexity  and  trouble  to  us 
all.  We  have  long  been  aware  that 
it  was  neither  foreseen  nor  provided 
against  as  it  ought  to  have  been  by 
the  advisers  of  the  Crown  ;  and  most 
of  us  believe  that  the  measures  sub- 
sequently adopted  were  characterised 
neither  by  wisdom  nor  by  vigour.  But 
we  must  not  permit  the  feeling  to  go 
further.  We  shall  come  out  of  the 
struggle  triumphantly  yet.  In  spite 
of  the  blundering  of  successive  ad- 
ministrations— in  spite  of  the  absence 
of  commanding  ability  on  the  part  of 
our  generals — there  is  that  in  the  dog- 
ged resolution  of  the  British  character 
which  prevents  us  from  entertaining 
the  faintest  distrust  of  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  our  arms.  Does  not  all 
past  experience  teach  this  lesson  ? 
Surely  it  does.  Twelve  years  of  dis- 
aster in  the  last  war  passed  out  of 
men's  minds  as  soon  as  the  tide  of 
victory  began  to  turn ;  and  now  Sala- 
manca, Vittoria,  and  Waterloo,  remain 
as  the  sole  surviving  memorials  of  a 
strife  which  gave  promise  at  one  period 
of  a  very  different  issue.  Does  it  then 
become  us,  no  matter  how  critical  our 
position  may  be,  to  speak  otherwise 
than  hopefully  of  a  contest,  wherein 
as  yet  we  have  suffered  no  defeat  in 
the  field,  and  which  is  still  but  in  the 
second  year  of  its  continuance? 

There  is  perhaps  no  period  in  our 
history  on  which  we  ought  to  look 
back  with  greater  shame  than  that 
which  immediately  preceded  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  war  of  the  first  great 
French  Revolution.  Humbled  by  re- 
collections of  the  war  of  American 
independence,  our  statesmen  of  1792 
professed  their  determination  to 
keep  aloof,  at  all  hazards,  from  the 
tempest  which  had  begun  to  sweep 
over  continental  Europe;  and,  in  proof 
that  they  were  sincere,  came  down  to 
Parliament,  and  asked,  and  with  dif- 


379 

ficnlty  obtained,  leave  to  move  for  the 
service  of  the  year  just  21,000  regular 
troops,  including  cavalry,  artillery, 
and  infantry  of  the  line  and  of  the 
Guards.  And  for  the  naval  force, 
which  it  was  considered  necessary  to 
maintain  in  a  state  of  efficiency,  the 
vote  taken  was  ludicrously  small. 
The  army  estimates  amounted  only 
to  £420,200;  the  estimates  for  the 
navy  somewhat  exceeded  £2,800,000; 
and  the  total  expenses  for  the  year, 
including  pensions  and  non-effective 
allowances,  came  to  £3,605,316. 

The  votes  in  question  were  taken, 
after  a  sharp  debate,  in  the  month  of 
February  1792.  The  most  solemn 
protestations  were  at  the  same  time 
made  to  France,  that  England  en- 
tertained no  thought  whatever  of  join- 
ing the  coalition  into  which  Austria 
and  Prussia  had  entered  against  her. 
But  the  autumn  of  the  same  year  was 
still  ripe  when  the  possibility  of  ad- 
hering to  this  line  of  policy  began  to 
be  doubted ;  and  in  December  a  bill 
for  calling  out  the  militia  was  passed 
through  Parliament.  There  soon  fol- 
lowed the  judicial  murder  of  the 
French  king ;  the  memorable  decla- 
ration, by  the  French  Republic,  of  war 
against  England  and  Holland,  and 
the  invasion  of  the  latter  country  by 
such  a  force  as  the  Dutch  govern- 
ment felt  itself  unable  to  face.  Ap- 
plication was  at  once  made  to  the 
Cabinet  of  St  James's  for  the  armed 
support  which  it  was  bound  by 
ancient  treaty  to  afford;  and  the 
cabinet  of  St  James's,  however 
peaceably  disposed,  could  not  in 
justice  refuse  to  accede  to  the  pro- 
position. The  Dutch  were  accord- 
ingly assured  that  every  dispos- 
able man  would  be  despatched  to 
their  assistance ;  and  the  Cabinet  of 
St  James's  kept  its  word.  And  what 
do  our  readers  imagine  was  the 
amount  of  force  which  the  warlike 
government  of  1793  mustered  for 
battle?  Just  1700  of  the  Foot  Guards, 
with  about  eighty  artillerymen  ! !  ! 
These  troops  were  paraded  with  vast 
pomp  in  Hyde  Park.  Old  George 
III.  rode  down  the  line,  arrayed 
as  London  may  any  day  see  him, 
through  his  bronze  effigy  in  Pall  Mali 
East.  They  were  followed  to  Dept- 
ford  by  the  whole  of  the  royal  family, 
and  there  embarked,  not  in.  ships  of 


880 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


[Sept. 


war,  but  in  half-a-dozen  empty  col- 
liers. They  put  to  sea  on  the  25th 
of  February ;  and  the  5th  of  March 
barely  saw  them,  after  incredible 
hardships  and  some  danger,  put 
ashore  again,  by  means  of  lighters 
and  small  craft,  at  Dort ! !  ! 

Such  was  the  military  figure  which 
Great  Britain  cut  at  the  opening  of 
the  most  terrible  war  of  modern  times. 
She  is  called  upon  to  support  an 
ancient  ally,  and  she  proceeds  to 
her  assistance  with  something  less 
than  1800  men.  For  lack  of  any 
better  description  of  transports,  she 
thrusts  her  troops  into  filthy  coal 
vessels,  hired  for  the  occasion,  and 
leaves  them  there,  during  eight  days, 
not  only  without  fresh  provisions,  or 
vegetables,  or  any  luxury  of  a  more 
expensive  kind,  but  so  deficient 
even  in  fresh  water,  that  many  of  the 
men  brought  disease  upon  themselves 
by  vainly  striving  to  allay  their  thirst 
with  draughts  from  the  sea. 

"  It  is  much  to  be  lamented,"  writes 
Sir  Harry  Calvert,  himself  a  sharer  in 
the  misery  which  he  describes,  "  that  the 
first  observation  which  must  occur  to 
every  officer  employed  in  this  service,  is 
the  very  unfit  state  the  transports  were 
in  for  the  reception  of  troops,  and  the 
very  small  provision  that  was  made  for 
their  health  and  accommodation  while  on 
board.  The  tonnage  of  the  ships  was  so 
inadequate  to  the  numbers  embarked, 
that  every  bad  consequence  was  to  be 
apprehended  had  it  been  necessary  to 
put  on  the  hatches,  which  must  have  been 
the  case  had  we  not  made  Helvoet  before 
the  gale  of  wind  came  on.  There  was  no 
small  species  of  provisions  on  board  ;  no 
vinegar,  that  most  essential  preventive ; 
and,  lastly,  neither  medicines  nor  sur- 
gical instruments." 

What  an  outcry  would  have  been 
raised,  and  justly  too,  had  any  de- 
tachment of  the  army  of  1854,  how- 
ever numerically  weak,  been  sent  to 
sea  in  such  a  plight !  and  yet  with- 
in the  narrow  space  of  barely  ten 
years,  the  nation  had  passed,  when 
these  things  befell,  from  a  state  of  war 
to  a  state  of  peace. 

The  arrival  of  the  Guards  at  Dort 
saved  that  place,  and  the  bold  front 
which  they  put  on  co-operated,  with 
the  successes  of  the  Austrians  in  his 
rear,  to  force  back  Dumourier,  first  to 
Neerwinden,  where,  on  the  18th  of 
March,  he  sustained  a  severe  defeat, 


and  by -and -by  across  the  Flemish- 
frontier  into  France.  Meanwhile  the 
Duke  of  York's  corps  had  been  in- 
creased by  the  addition  of  three  whole 
battalions  of  the  line,  which  arrived 
from  England  under  the  command 
of  General  Ralph  Abercromby,  and 
which,  forming  a  junction  with  the 
brigade  of  Guards  at  Antwerp,  raised 
the  total  strength  of  the  English  corps 
to  3000!!  But  wretched  as  this  amount 
offeree  must  have  appeared  in  the  eyes 
even  of  the  Dutch,  who  brought  20,000 
into  the  field,  it  was  still  more  an 
object  of  shame  and  regret  to  the  Brit- 
ish officers  because  of  the  personal 
unfitness  of  the  men  of  whom  it  was 
composed.  **  On  the  junction  of  the 
brigade  of  the  line,"  says  Sir  Harry, 
"  we  remarked  with  concern  that  the 
recruits  they  had  lately  received  were 
in  general  totally  unfit  for  service,and  in- 
adequate to  the  fatigue  of  the  campaign, 
being  mostly  either  old  men  or  quite 
boys,  extremely  weak  and  short."  In- 
deed, the  effects  of  so  injudicious 
a  method  of  raising  the  nominal 
strength  of  an  army  were  not  slow 
in  developing  themselves.  „  On  the 
26th  of  April  (his  first  account  of  the 
brigade  was  given  on  the  9th)  Sir 
Harry  writes :  "  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  our  small  force  is  much  dimin- 
ished, by  two  of  the  regiments  in  the 
second  brigade  being  totally  unfit  for 
service — so  much  so,  that  the  Duke  of 
York  has  left  the  37th  and  53d  regi- 
ments at  Bruges  and  Ostend."  Let 
us  hope  that  in  the  war  in  which  we 
are  now  engaged,  no  such  stern  neces- 
sity may  be  imposed  upon  the  com- 
manders of  our  forces  by  the  same 
cause. 

The  war  went  on,  and  millions  were 
squandered  in  the  vain  effort  to  ac- 
complish, in  a  day,  purposes  which 
ought  to  have  been  contemplated  and 
gradually  approached  for  years.  The 
militia  was  no  sooner  embodied  than 
the  men  composing  it  were  bribed, 
cajoled,  and  in  some  measure  forced 
to  volunteer  for  the  line.  Horses  were 
bought  up  for  the  cavalry  at  a  ruin- 
ous price,  and  whole  brigades  of 
Hanoverian  and  Hessian  troops  taken 
into  British  pay.  These,  marching 
towards  the  Low  Countries,  formed  a 
junction  with  the  English  division  in 
the  vicinity  of  Bruges  and  Ghent,  and 
placed  the  Duke  of  York  thereby  at 


1855.] 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


381 


the  head  of  about  17,000  men.  With 
this  force  he  took  no  inconsiderable 
part  in  the  battle  of  Famars,  which 
was  fought  on  the  22d  of  May  ;  and 
on  the  27th  the  siege  of  Valenciennes 
was  formed.  It  fell  to  the  lot  of  his 
Royal  Highness,  reinforced  by  de- 
tachments from  the  allied  armies,  to 
conduct  this  operation  ;  while  the 
Prince  of  Cobourg,  with  the  main 
body  of  the  Austrians,  kept  General 
Custine  at  bay.  Custine  made  "no 
serious  attempt  to  interrupt  the  siege, 
which  lasted  from  the  4th  of  June  to 
the  26th  of  July,  when,  after  seeing 
the  assailants  masters  of  the  covered- 
way,  and  established  on  one  of  the 
hornworks  which  completely  over- 
looked the  town,  the  enemy  demanded 
a  cessation  of  arms,  and  surrendered 
on  capitulation.  It  may  be  worth  the 
reader's  while  to  compare  the  means 
placed  by  combined  England,  Hol- 
land, Austria,  and  Hanover  at  the 
disposal  of  the  military  chief  who 
had  been  selected  to  conduct  this 
siege,  with  the  materiel  which  Eng- 
land alone  sent  put  last  year  for  a 
similar  operation  in  the  Crimea.  Our 
first  batteries  that  opened  on  Sebasto- 
pol  were  armed  with  32  and  68  pound- 
ers, which  we  counted  by  the  score. 
The  batteries  of  the  Duke  of  York 
are  thus  described,  and  that,  too,  in  a 
tone  of  undisguised  exultation  : — 

<!  July  22.— A  detachment  of  British 
artillery,  consisting  chiefly  of  long  6- 
pounders,  arrived  from  Ostend.  On  the 
23d,  at  break  of  day,  the  batteries  of  the 
third  parallel  opened  on  the  town,  and 
continued  a  very  severe  fire  till  night ; 
at  the  same  time  two  batteries  opened 
at  Anzain,  one  consisting  of  six  16-poun- 
ders  en  ricochet,  and  one  of  four  mortars. 
The  fire  against  the  town  was  at  this 
time  as  follows  : — 

"  1st  Parallel.  —  Ten  guns,  eight  mor- 
tars. 

"  2d  Parallel — No.  1 ,  eight  12-pounders ; 
No.  2,  three  howitzers  ;  No.  3,  four  mor- 
tars ;  No.  4,  six  howitzers  ;  No.  5,  four 
mortars  ;  No.  6,  eight  24-pounders  ;  No. 
7,  eight  24-pounders ;  No.  8,  three  how- 
itzers ;  No.  9, 

"  3d  Parallel— No.  1,  eight  24-pounders ; 
No.  2,  two  howitzers  ;  No.  3,  four  mor- 
tars ;  No.  4,  four  mortars  ;  No^  5,  four 
mortars  ;  No.  6,  two  mortars  ;  No.  7, 
eight  24-pounders ;  No.  8,  eight  24- 
pouuders  ;  No.  9,  six  mortars;  No.  10, 
four  24-pounders  ;  No.  11,  two  howitzers  ; 
No.  12,  four  24-pounders." 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXIX. 


It  will  be  seen  that  out  of  this  mass 
of  artillery,  not  inconsiderable  as  re- 
gards the  number  of  pieces,  there  was 
no  gun  of  heavier  calibre  than  a  24- 
pounder,  and  that  the  sole  contribu- 
tion of  England  to  the  train  consisted 
of  a  few  long  6-pounders  ! 

The  capture  of  Valenciennes,  and 
the  fall  of  Conde   which    preceded 
it,  left  to  the  Allies  the   choice  of 
two    plans    of   operation,  either    of 
which  it  is  now  well  known  might 
have  brought  the  war  to  a  speedy  and 
successful  termination.    On  the  one 
hand,  the  line  of  policy  which  prudence 
and  moderation  seemed  to  dictate, 
would  have  hindered  them  from  pro- 
ceeding further  in  a  war  of  aggression. 
They  had  saved  Holland,  they  had 
recovered    Austrian   Flanders,    and 
were  masters  of  the  whole  course  of 
the  Rhine.    Had  they  halted  there  in 
an  attitude  purely  defensive,  there 
were  tokens  in  the  political  horizon 
which  justify  the  belief  that  the  fac- 
tions in  France,  which  then  cherished  a 
bitter  but  restrained  hatred  to  one 
another,  would  have  entered  upon  a 
course  of  open  strife,  and  that  in  the 
struggle  the  cause  of  good  govern- 
ment might  have  prevailed.      Or  in 
the  event  of  looking  further,  it  was 
the  obvious  business  of  the  Allies  to 
march    direct  upon  Paris,    for  the 
road  to  Paris  was  completely  open. 
Recent  successes  had  made  them  mas- 
ters of  all  the  fortresses  which  girdle 
in  the  frontier,  and  there  stood  be- 
tween them  and  the  capital  only  a 
broken  and  dispirited  rabble  of  con- 
scripts. But  the  Allies  folio  wed  neither 
of  these  plans.    Austria  and  England 
had  each  their  separate  objects  to  gain. 
The  former  had  hoisted  her  own  flag, 
not  the  flag  of  France,  over  the  bat- 
tlements of   Valenciennes,    and  sat 
down  with  45,000  men  before  Ques- 
noy,   for   the   avowed    purpose    of 
adding  that  place  also  to  the  posses- 
sions, of  the  empire  ;   the  latter — or, 
to  speak  accurately,  the  Cabinet  of  St 
James's — became  inflamed  with  a  de- 
sire to  acquire  a  portion  of  the  sea- 
coast  of  French  Flanders  ;  and  Prus- 
sia, jealous  of  both,  but  especially  of 
the  aggrandisement  of  her  rival  in 
Germany,    grew    lukewarm    in    the 
cause.  It  must  be  acknowledged,  with 
shame,  that  for  the  fatal  results  which 
ensued  the  British  government  was 
2c 


382 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War, 


[Sept, 


mainly,  if  not  wholly,  responsible.  It 
was  in  London  that  the  notable 
scheme  for  reducing  Dunkirk  was  de- 
vised; and  from  London  the  orders 
emanated  which  withdrew  the  Duke 
of  York  and  his  motley  corps  of 
35,000  men  from  acting  in  concert 
with  the  Prince  of  Cobourg. 

Mad  as  the  scheme  of  laying  siege 
to  Dunkirk  was,  some  good  might,  by 
possibility,  have  accrued  from  it,  had 
the  Government  of  the  day  fulfilled 
the  engagements  into  which  it  had 
entered  with  the  general  of  its  armies. 
Not  in  one  solitary  instance,  however, 
was  the  Government  true  to  its  pledge. 
Supplies  of  all  sorts  soon  began  to 
fail.  Heavy  ordnance,  which  had 
been  promised,  never  arrived ;  and 
the  fleet,  which  it  had  been  agreed 
should  co-operate  by  blockading  Dun- 
kirk from  the  sea,  lay  at  anchor  in 
the  Downs,  and  permitted  the  Duke 
of  York  to  be  insulted  day  and  night 
by  the  fire  of  the  enemy's  gun-boats, 
and  even  of  the  privateers  from  the 
harbour. 

The  Duke  of  York's  force,  in  British 
infantry  and  cavalry,  never,  during  the 
campaign  of  1793,  exceeded  3000  of 
the  former  and  700  of  the  latter. 
In  spite  of  an  ill-managed  commis- 
sariat, and  the  dissolute  habits  of  too 
many  of  the  officers,  these  troops  al- 
ways behaved  well ;  as  the  issues  of 
the  fighting  at  Lincelles,  Villoers-en- 
Cauchie,  and  Pont-a-chin,bear  witness. 
He  made  repeated  applications  for 
heavy  guns  while  entangled  in  the 
siege  of  Dunkirk,  which  were  for  the 
most  part  evaded  rather  than  refused. 
For  there  had  been  awakened  in  the 
minds  of  the  home  authorities  an  ar- 
dent thirst  of  conquest  elsewhere  ;  and 
though  soldiers  enough  were  brought 
together,  few,  and  these  chiefly  horse- 
men, found  their  way  to  the  arena, 
within  which  the  issues  of  the  war  must 
be  determined.  The  Duke  of  York 
received  an  increase  to  his  cavalry, 
with  drafts  to  fill  up  the  casualties 
which  had  occurred  in  his  battalions. 
But  the  available  infantry  of  England 
was  scattered  about— a  portion  of  it  to 
seize  Toulon,  a  portion  to  reduce  the 
French  West  India  Islands,  a  portion  to 
die  of  yellow  fever  in  St  Domingo,  and 
a  portion  to  do  the  duty  of  marines  on 
board  the  fleet.  And  here  it  may  be. 
worth  while  to  draw  the  reader's  at- 


tention to  the  means  which  were 
adopted  in  order  to  secure  these  men. 
To  the  calling  out  of  the  militia,  by 
the  constitutional  application  of  the 
ballot,  no  objection  can  be  offered. 
If  it  be  the  first  duty  of  every  citi- 
zen to  provide  for  the  defence  of  his 
country,  it  is  clearly  the  business  of 
the  Government  to  see  that  all  shall 
come  under  the  obligation  of  the  law; 
and  where  personal  service  shall  hap- 
pen to  be  more  than  commonly  inconve- 
nient,  it  is  equally  just  that  there 
should  be  afforded  the  opportunity  of 
providing  a  substitute  at  the  expense 
of  the  parties  indisposed  to  serve. 
But  the  Governments  of  1793-4  and  5 
went  far  beyond  this.  Letters  of  ser- 
vice were  issued  to  noblemen  and 
gentlemen,  assuring  to  them  sundry 
steps  of  rank,  on  condition  that 
they  should,  for  certain  stipulated 
sums  of  money,  raise  and  bring  to  the 
service  of  the  Crown  certain  stipu- 
lated contingents  of  men.  Noblemen 
and  gentlemen  undertook  the  charge, 
and  raised  men  from  among  their 
own  tenantry  and  dependants  ex- 
pressly for  regiments  to  be  command- 
ed by  themselves.  These  regiments 
were  no  sooner  embodied  than  Go- 
vernment dissolved  them  again,  and, 
drafting  the  men  into  corps  employed 
at  the  moment  on  the  most  unpopular 
services,  either  placed  the  officers  on 
half-pay,  or  gave  them  other  employ- 
ment. 

"In  the  spring  of  1795,"  says  Sir 
Henry  Bunbury,  "  the  shattered  re- 
mains of  the  British  troops  returned  to 
England.  The  results  of  their  campaign 
had  been  ill  calculated  to  improve  their 
discipline,  or  to  excite  a  military  spirit 
in  the  country.  Nor  had  our  arms  ac- 
quired reputation  on  land  in  any  other 
quarter.  In  1793  a  short  attempt  to  de- 
fend Toulon  had  ended  in  our  expulsion, 
and  a  few  regiments,  afterwards  employ- 
ed in  Corsica,  found  no  opportunities  of 
gaining  distinction.  So  inefficient  were 
the  means  even  in  the  naval  service  of 
England,  that,  small  as  our  army  was,  it 
was  required  to  furnish  battalions  to  serve 
as  marines  on  board  our  fleets.  With  the 
year  1794  began  the  fatal  passion  for  car- 
rying on  the  war  in  every  part  of  the 
West  Indies,  though  the  Bulam  fever 
was  raging  in  all  quarters.  Multitudes 
of  brave  men  perished  in  this  and  the  two- 
succeeding  years,  for  the  sake  of  grasping 
more  sugar-islands,  and  particularly  in 


1855.] 


Oar  Beginning  of  the  Last  War, 


383 


the  vain  attempt  to  hold  St  Domingo. 
Our  infantry  and  artillery  were  drained 
to  the  lowest  point  by  the  incessant  de- 
mands of  our  War  Minister  for  fresh  sup- 
plies of  men  to  replace  the  victims  of  the 
yellow  fever.  To  the  mania  for  prosecut- 
ing this  ill-omened  service  is  to  be  ascrib- 
ed, more  than  to  any  other  cause,  the 
inefficiency  of  the  British  army  during 
several  years.  Even  those  regiments 
which  returned  from  that  fatal  climate 
were  long  unfit  for  service  :  they  consist- 
ed of  feeble,  worn-out  invalids.  Nor, 
while  sketching  the  condition  and  gene- 
ral character  of  the  British  army  in  those 
days,  can  I  omit  to  mention  the  manner 
in  which  (the  ordinary  recruiting  being 
found  insufficient)  men  were  obtained,  in 
order  to  fill  up  the  enormous  void  occa- 
sioned by  the  deaths  in  the  West  Indies. 
It  is  useful  to  note  this  matter,  because  it 
serves  to  account  in  part  for  the  degrad- 
ed state  of  the  service,  and  the  odium 
which  long  attended  it.  I  will  not  dwell 
on  the  political  jobs  which  characterised 
the  raising  of  many  regiments  in  Ireland, 
though  I  cannot  forget  that  faith  was 
often  broken  with  the  men  who  had  been 
thus  enlisted.  The  officers,  having  ob- 
tained their  steps  of  rank,  were  content- 
ed ;  the  nominal  corps  were  reduced  ; 
and  the  men  were  drafted  into  regiments 
in  India  or  St  Domingo.  But  the  most 
crying  infamy  was  that  which  resulted 
from  the  employment  of  crimps  on  a  very 
large  scale.  Our  Government  made  con- 
tracts with  certain  scoundrels  (bearing'- the 
king's  commission  !)  who  engaged  to  fur- 
nish so  many  hundred  men  each  for  such 
and  such  sums  of  money.  The  deeds  of 
atrocity,  to  say  nothing  of  the  frauds, 
which  attended  the  working  of  this  scheme, 
could  hardly  be  credited  in  the  present 
times.  They  occasioned  many  serious 
riots,  and  they  spread  the  taint  of  disaf- 
fection to  the  service." 

Time  passed,  and  the  estrangement, 
which  had  already  begun,  of  one  mem- 
ber of  the  coalition  from  another,  grew 
day  by  day  more  marked.  The  Aus- 
trian cabinet,  influenced  by  the  coun- 
sels of  Thugut,  changed  its  views  alto- 
gether. The  schemes  of  conquest 
which  had  induced  the  Emperor  to 
pass  the  Belgian  frontier  were  not 
only  abandoned,  but  advances  were 
made  to  the  French  Directory,  having 
for  their  object  the  exchange  of 
Austrian  Flanders  for  provinces  to 
be  wrested  from  Austria's  German 
neighbours  nearer  home.  Meanwhile 
Prussia,  though  she  readily  accepted 
the  subsidy  which  England  proifered, 


abstained  from  putting  in  motion  to- 
wards Holland  the  62,000  men  for 
which  she  had  engaged.  Accordingly 
the  Duke,  after  receiving  an  unsuc- 
cessful battle  atHondschoote,  was  forc- 
ed to  raise  the  siege  of  Dunkirk,  and, 
leaving  behind  him  between  forty  and 
fifty  pieces  of  cannon,  and  a  consider- 
able amount  of  baggage  and  military 
stores,  to  commence  hismarch  towards 
Menin.  Finally,  after  a  good  deal  of 
marching  and  counter-marching,  and 
various  affairs,  in  which  victory  alter- 
nated now  to  one  side  and  now  to 
the  other,  the  campaign  of  1793  came 
to  an  end  ;  and  in  the  month  of  De- 
cember the  British  portion  of  the 
allied  army  went  into  quarters  in 
Tournay  and  Ghent. 

The  campaign  of  1793,  which  had 
opened  with  every  prospect  of  suc- 
cess, closed  with  little  credit  to  the 
army  of  the  coalition.  That  of  1794 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  other- 
wise than  discreditable  from  the  begin- 
ning. The  Emperor  of  Germany  came 
indeed  to  Brussels,  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  180,000  allies,  and  reviewed 
them  with  great  pomp  on  the  heights 
above  Cateau.  This  was  on  the  16th 
of  April,  and  on  the  17th  active  hos- 
tilities began.  They  were  maintain- 
ed with  alternations  of  fortune  round 
Landrecies,  at  Caesar's  Camp,  along  the 
heights  of  Cateau  and  elsewhere  ;  till 
at  last,  on  the  16th  of  May,  a  general 
action  was  fought  on  and  around 
Moucron,  Turcoin,  and  Lannoy.  We 
have  no  means  at  hand  accurately  to 
determine  how  many  men  on  eaclf  side 
were  engaged.  We  know,  indeed, 
what  the  force  of  the  Allies  was  on  the 
16th  of  April,  and  that  General  Piche- 
gru,  on  the  22d  of  May,  commenced 
his  operations  with  not  fewer  than 
200,000  men;  but  what  portion  of 
these  actually  came  under  fire  on  the 
16th  we  cannot  undertake  to  say. 
This  much,  however,  is  certain,  that 
notwithstanding  the  urgency  of  the 
occasion,  and  in  the  second  year  of 
the  war,  the  Duke  of  York  could  carry 
with  him,  in  the  column  of  which  he 
was  at  the  head,  only  seven  English 
battalions  and  ten  squadrons  of 
horse.  All  the  rest  of  England's 
might  was  distributed  as  has  already 
been  explained,  as  if  it  had  been  the 
object  of  those  to  whom  the  manage- 
ment of  the  war  was  intrusted,  to 


384 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


[Sept. 


show  how  entirely  the  experience  of 
past  failures,  from  causes  not  dis- 
similar, was  to  be  thrown  away  upon 
them. 

The  battle  of  Turcoin  was  not  in 
favour  of  the  Allies.  Two  of  three 
columns  failed  to  reach  their  ground 
in  time ;  three  more,  on  arriving  at 
Moucron,  found  themselves  quite 
overmarched.  The  Duke  of  York, 
with  his  seven  English,  five  Austrian, 
and  two  Hessian  battalions,  drove 
the  enemy  from  Launoy;  and  halted, 
according  to  orders,  till  the  corps  in 
co-operation  with  him  should  have 
attained  their  objects.  But  nobody 
£ame  to  communicate  with  him,  and 
the  forward  movement  of  a  brigade, 
under  Abercromby,  as  far  as  Roubaix, 
showed  that  the  enemy  were  strongly 
intrenched  there,  and  had  never  been 
molested.  It  was  then  as  it  is  now  ; 
to  arrive  in  front  of  an  intrenched 
position  held  by  their  opponents,  serv- 
ed but  to  stimulate  the  English  to 
give  the  assault.  The  works  were 
stormed,  and  the  French  driven  from 
them  with  the  loss  of  three  guns ;  but 
here  the  successes  of  the  day  came  to 
an  end.  Early  on  the  17th  the 
French  fell  upon  Turcoin,  and  carried 
it ;  and  later  in  the  day  a  strong 
division  from  Lisle  forced  its  way 
through  General  Otto's  corps,  posted 
at  Waterloo,  and  attacked  the  Eng- 
lish rear  at  Koubaix.  A  rapid  retreat 
was  all  that  remained  for  these  brave 
men.  They  were  separated  from 
their  comrades  ;  the  Duke  strove,  but 
in  vain,  to  join  them;  and  so  the 
whole  corps,  marching  in  two  lines, 
fell  back — one  portion  to  Temploux, 
the  other  to  Waterloo.  They  sub- 
sequently reunited,  and  took  up  a 
position,  which,  being  covered  in 
ifront  by  one  or  two  redoubts,  ex- 
tended from  the  Orchies  road  to  the 
Scheldt. 

From  that  day  till  the  final  aban- 
donment of  the  enterprise  the  tide  of 
fortune  flowed  well-nigh  without  in- 
terruption in  favour  of  the  French. 
The  Imperialists,  beaten  in  every  en- 
counter, relinquished,  one  by  one,  all 
that  yet  remained  to  them  of  the 
conquests  of  the  previous  year.  They 
even  suffered  the  enemy  to  interpose 
between  the  Duke  of  York  and 
Ostend,  where  Lord  Moira,  with  6000. 
or  7000  men,  had  arrived,  and  forced 


that  able  officer  to  execute  a  dif- 
ficult and  dangerous  detour  before  he 
could  effect  his  junction  with  the 
headquarters  of  the  English  army. 
Then  followed,  as  far  as  we  were 
concerned,  the  retreat  through  West 
Wesel,  the  halt  for  a  time  at  Ooster- 
hout,  and  the  passage  of  the  Meuse 
to  Wiben.  There  was  sharp  fighting 
here,  which  ended  in  the  concentra- 
tion of  the  Duke's  corps  about  Nime- 
guen,  and  the  successful  defence  of 
the  outposts  of  the  army  on  the  25th 
of  October.  But  no  one  now  fought 
for  victory.  The  utmost  to  which  it 
was  possible  to  look  seemed  to  be, 
that  when  winter  set  fairly  in  the 
troops  might  rest ;  for  the  rivers  and 
canals  would  then  offer  to  the  enemy 
a  more  formidable  obstacle  than  for- 
tified towns  very  inadequately  gar- 
risoned, and  allies  in  the  field  notori- 
ously lukewarm. 

The  following  account  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  Duke's  force,  so  far  as 
it  was  affected  by  practices  then  of 
everyday  occurrence,  and  not  quite 
beyond  the  reach  of  possibility  now, 
is  at  least  instructive.  Writing  to 
Sir  Hew  Dalrymple,  Sir  Harry  Cal- 
vert  says  on  the  9th  Nov.  1794  : — 

11  The  want  of  general  officers  to  com- 
mand brigades  has,  in  this  army,  been  an 
evil  of  the  most  serious  nature,  and  has 
been  attended  with  the  very  worst  con- 
sequences. From  the  time  Lord  Cath- 
cart  left  us— which,  if  I  recollect  right, 
was  about  the  23d  of  July — till  Generals 
Balfour  and  De  Burg  joined,  which  was 
the  latter  end  of  September,  we  had  five 
brigades  of  infantry  of  the  Line,  with  one 
major-general  (Stewart),  for  General  Fox 
is  too  much  occupied  in  his  staff  employ- 
ment to  be  reckoned  as  a  major-general, 
though  his  zeal  induces  him  to  come  for- 
ward as  such  whenever  he  can. 

"In  this  time,  the  command  of  brigades 
devolved  on  young  men  newly  come  into 
the  service,  whose  years  and  inexperience 
totally  disqualified  them  for  the  situation. 
I  could  mention  lads  of  one-and-twenty 
who  had  never  been  on  service  before. 
Be  assured,  the  Duke  made  the  most 
urgent  and  repeated  representations  how 
much  the  service  was  injured  by  this 
circumstance  ;  but  the  two  most  active 
months  of  the  campaign  were  allowed  to 
pass  without  any  redress ;  and  then,  at 
that  late  period,  two  major-generals  came 
put,  in  lieu  of  the  four  that  were  want- 
ing ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  an  augmenta- 
tion to  the  army  of  those  regiments 


1855.] 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


385 


which  were  sent  from  Lord  Mulgrave, 
made  a  fifth  absolutely  necessary. 

"  The  want  of  general  officers  is  always 
a  great  detriment  to  the  service  ;  but  in 
this  army  particularly  so,  where  the 
field-officers  are  many  of  them  boys,  and 
have  attained  their  rank  by  means  sug- 
gested by  Government  at  home,  which,  I 
am  sure,  have  never  directly  or  indirectly 
received  the  smallest  countenance  from 
the  commander-in-chief  in  this  country  : 
consequently  his  Royal  Highness  cannot 
be  responsible  for  their  youth  and  inex- 
perience." 

Pass  we  on  now  from  the  campaigns 
of  1793  and  1794.  Begun  without  a 
plan,  'carried  on  with  means  entirely 
inadequate,  they  brought  unmerited 
disgrace  upon  both  the  army  and  its 
leader ;  and  awakened,  as  there  was 
the  best  reason  that  they  should,  the 
indignation  of  the  whole  people.  At 
first  an  attempt  was  made  to  throw 
the  entire  blame  upon  the  Duke  of 
York.  But  from  this — which  would 
have  been  a  bitter  wrong — his  Royal 
Highness  was  shielded  by  the  failures, 
not  less  lamentable,  at  Toulon  and  in 
Corsica,  as  well  as  by  the  fatal  results 
of  the  expedition  to  St  Domingo,  and 
the  dearly -purchased  achievements 
at  Guadaloupe  and  Martinique.  A 
strong  reaction  in  his  favour  accord- 
ingly took  place,  and  he  was  in  1795 
raised  to  the  chief  command  of  the 
army.  It  would  be  difficult  to  over- 
estimate the  benefits  to  the  service 
•which  arose  out  of  this  appointment. 

Up  to  the  year  1796,  the  British 
army  had  been  destitute  of  the  first 
elements  of  drill.  No  book  of  instruc- 
tion existed  according  to  which  officers 
might  discipline  their  troops ;  but 
each  battalion  worked  according  to 
the  whims  and  caprices  of  its  com- 
mandant, and  almost  all  upon  a  prin- 
ciple more  or  less  at  variance  with 
that  adopted  elsewhere.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  when  two  or  three 
battalions  came  together,  they  were 
unable  to  move,  except  in  the  simplest 
formations.  If  a  brigade  attempted 
to  march  in  line,  the  chances  were, 
that,  owing  to  the  inequality  of  step, 
regiments  lost  their  touch  ere  a  hun- 
dred yards  were  covered ;  and  ex- 
cept in  line  or  in  the  column  of  march, 
which  would,  of  course,  be  adapted  to 
the  road  which  the  troops  were  to 
traverse,  the  brigade  could  not  work 


at  all.  One  of  the  first  measures  of 
the  new  commander-in-chief  was  to 
apply  a  remedy  to  this  defect.  Sir 
David  Dundas,  who  during  the  Seven 
Years'  War  had  served  in  the  Prussian 
army,  was  directed  to  elaborate  a  sys- 
tem of  drill  for  the  army  of  England. 
He  took  his  ideas,  of  course,  from 
drill-books  which  had  passed  under 
the  critical  eye  of  the  Great  Frederick, 
and  produced  in  due  time  his  Eighteen 
Manoeuvres,  a  compilation  somewhat 
pedantic,  no  doubt,  and  considerably 
improved  upon  in  later  years,  but  in 
the  main  resting  upon  sound  prin- 
ciples. The  volume  in  question  be- 
came at  once  the  text-book  for  the 
British  army,  and  so  continued  till 
long  after  the  hand  which  scrawls 
these  lines  first  wielded  a  sword. 

Another  flagrant  blot  in  the  military 
system  of  the  country  the  late  Duke 
of  York  had  the  merit  of  wiping  out. 
We  speak  of  jobbing  in  these  days — 
and  jobbing,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
there  will  always  be,  not  in  the  army 
alone,  but  in  every  department  of 
Church  and  State,  so  long  as  human 
nature  remains  as  it  is  ;  but  the  job- 
bing of  our  times  puts  on  the  hue  of 
absolute  purity  when  brought  into 
contrast  with  that  which  prevailed  up 
to  the  period  of  which  we  now  write. 
Previously  to  1796,  commissions  in  the 
Guards  and  appointments  to  the  staff 
were  considered  as  the  birthright  of 
young  gentlemen  holding  a  particular 
place  in  society ;  while  commissions 
in  the  Line  went  to  the  dependants  of 
men  in  power,  to  their  supporters  at 
the  hustings,  and  not  unfrequently  to 
the  sons  or  brothers  of  their  mistresses. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  not  unusual 
to  find  a  young  scion  of  nobility 
raised  to  the  rank  of  major  ere  he  had 
escaped  from  the  nursery.  Indeed, 
there  are  present  to  our  recollection 
at  this  moment  the  names  of  several 
officers,  most  of  them,  by  the  by,  of 
distinguished  reputation  in  the  late 
war,  who,  by  force  of  high  connection, 
joined  their  regiments  as  lieutenant- 
colonels  commanding,  at  the  age  of 
eighteen.  The  Duke  of  York,  by  a 
regulation  which  rendered  it  necessary 
for  a  youth  to  have  attained  his  six- 
teenth year  ere  he  could  be  gazetted 
to  an  ensigncy,  struck  at  the  root  of 
this  enormous  evil.  The  blow  was 
not,  indeed,  effectual,  because  means 


386 

were  constantly  found  of  evading  a 
rule  which  few  seemed  anxious  to  en- 
force ;  but  at  least  the  indecency  was 
avoided  of  having  field-officers  carried 
about  in  their  nurses'  arms,  and  grey- 
headed captains  and  subalterns  put  un- 
der the  command  of  boys  fresh  from 
the  schools  of  Eton  and  Westminster. 

With  all  his  desire  to  reform  the 
military  institutions  of  the  country, 
the  Duke  of  York  could  not,  however, 
succeed  in  amalgamating  the  artillery 
and  engineer  corps  with  the  rest  of  the 
army,  or  otherwise  getting  the  Board  of 
Ordnance  into  manageable  condition. 
The  commissariat  and  medical  de- 
partments likewise,  but  especially  the 
former,  continued  absolutely  out  of 
joint.  There  was  no  system,  no  re- 
gularity, no  organised  means  of  trans- 
port. Provisions  continually  failed 
during  the  progress  of  the  campaign, 
and  medicines  were  always  insufficient. 
It  was  to  little  purpose  that  generals 
at  home  and  abroad  remonstrated 
against  these  things,  and  the  Duke 
himself  at  last  gave  up  his  projects  in 
despair. 

We  had  by  this  time  taken  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  Ceylon,  both 
important  conquests ;  and  of  the  West 
India  Islands,  all  which  formerly  be- 
longed to  France  had,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  St  Domingo,  fallen  into  our 
hands.  Garrisons  were  required  to 
hold  them,  and  the  army  was  in  con- 
sequence frittered  away  into  so  many 
detachments  that  the  home  duties, 
including  the  occupation  of  Ireland, 
devolved  principally  on  militia  and 
fencible  regiments.  The  discipline 
among  these  corps,  and  especially  the 
Irish  portion  of  them,  was  exceedingly 
lax,  and  the  regiments  of  the  line 
which  served  with  them  caught  the 
infection.  Hence,  when  the  Rebellion 
of  1798  broke  out,  terrible  excesses 
were  committed;  indeed,  one  dragoon 
regiment  so  disgraced  itself  that  it 
was  dissolved,  and  the  number  effaced 
by  order  of  the  Sovereign  from  the 
army  list.  But  what  followed  ?  Sir 
Ralph  Abercromby,  one  of  the  best 
officers  which  the  British  army  has 
produced,  did  his  best  to  restrain  the 
license  of  the  soldiery,  and  received 
his  reward  by  a  sharp  rebuke  from 
Downing  Street,  and  being  superseded 
in  the  command  of  the  troops  in  Ire- 
land. 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


[Sept. 


Our  military  efforts  on  the  continent 
of  Europe  had,  meanwhile,  been 
limited  to  the  wretched  attempt  at 
destroying  the  sluice-gates  of  Ostend. 
It  was  a  measure  recommended  by 
Admiral  Sir  Home  Popham,  and  well 
deserved  the  issues  in  which  it  re- 
sulted. We  succeeded  in  dam  aging  a 
harbour  which  was  available  only  for 
merchant  vessels,  and  being  unable, 
in  consequence  of  a  heavy  surf,  to 
embark  our  troops,  were  compelled  to 
leave  a  full  brigade  of  Guards  under 
General  Coote  prisoners  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy.  In  1799,  however, 
brighter  prospects  seemed  to  open : 
Russia  had  joined  a  new  coalition. 
The  French  yoke  waa  understood  to 
press  heavily  on  the  Netherlands,  and 
arrangements  were  made  for  throwing 
into  Holland  13,000  English  and 
17,000  Russian  troops,  of  which  the 
D  uke  of  York  was  to  take  the  command. 
This  army,  after  restoring  Breda  to 
the  Dutch,  was  to  push  forward  into 
Belgium,  and  thereby  effect  an  im- 
portant diversion  in  favour  of  the 
Allies  on  the  Upper  Rhine  and  in 
Switzerland.  And  so  thoroughly  in 
concert  were  both  England  and  Rus- 
sia, that  they  respectively  exceeded 
the  contingents  which  they  had  bound 
themselves  to  supply.  Before  sketch- 
ing the  progress  and  result  of  the  ex- 
pedition to  the  Helder,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  if  we  present  our  readers  with 
a  short  extract  from  a  valuable  manu- 
script which  we  have  been  allowed  to 
peruse.  It  is  a  journal  kept  by  Gene- 
ral Sir  Frederick  Adam,  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  officers  which  the 
late  great  war  raised  up,  and  is  curi- 
ous as  showing  how  imperfectly  five 
years  of  steady  reform  had  corrected 
the  abuses,  even  in  matters  of  discipline, 
which  used  to  prevail  in  the  British 
army.  What  must  these  abuses  have 
been  ere  the  first  attempts  to  get  rid 
of  them  were  made  ! 

Mr  Adam,  it  appears,  had,  through 
his  father's  interest,  been  appointed 
an  ensign,  unattached,  while  yet  a 
boy  at  school.  The  fact  that  he  had 
become  an  officer  was  as  long  as  pos- 
sible concealed  from  the  lad  ;  nor  did 
he  discover,  till  a  confidential  butler 
letoutthe  secret,  that,  being  an  officer, 
he  was  entitled  to  pay.  His  prudent 
guardian  intended,  as  it  appeared,  to 
let  the  pay  accumulate,  so  that  the 


1855.]  Our  Beginning 

young  gentleman,  when  old  enough 
to  join  his  regiment,  might  join  with 
a  balance  at  his  agent's.  But  though 
the  butler's  breach  of  faith  led  to  the 
squandering  awayof  the  accumulations, 
no  more  serious  consequences  befell. 
Adam,  the  elder,  had  many  friends  in 
high  places ;  and  Adam,  the  younger, 
was  in  consequence  admitted  as  a  sort 
of  attache  into  the  family  of  Sir  Ralph 
Abercromby.  Sir  Ralph  treated  the 
youth,  as  indeed  he  treated  everybody, 
with  the  utmost  kindness  ;  but  being 
a  conscientious  man  as  well  as  a  zeal- 
ous soldier,  he  could  not  consent  to 
regard  the  arrangement  as  a  permanent 
one.  In  his  judgment,  officers  were 
all  equally  bound  to  learn  their  duty, 
and  to  learn  it  with  their  regiments  and 
companies,  ere  they  aspired  to  situa- 
tions on  the  staff.  Accordingly,  the 
force  which  was  to  invade  Holland  no 
sooner  began  to  assemble,  and  its 
advanced  corps,  of  which  he  had  re- 
ceived the  command,  to  be  complete, 
than  he  attached  young  Adam  to  the 
27th  foot ;  who  thus  describes  his  first 
experience  of  the  manner  in  which 
discipline  was  maintained  by  officers 
and  non-commissioned  officers  among 
their  men: — 

"I  attended  the  company's  parades 
while  the  inspection  was  going  on  ;  saw 
the  opening  and  shutting  of  pans,  the 
examination  of  arms,  and  such-like  de- 
tails, and  picked  up  from  my  own  obser- 
vation what  I  could  ;  but  I  cannot  say 
that  I  obtained  much  knowledge  by  any 
specific  communication  from  my  imme- 
diate commander.  There  was  not  time, 
however,  for  much  of  this,  as  we  left 
Barham  Downs  to  march  to  Margate,  to 
embark  a  few  days  after  I  joined  ;  but 
before  this  movement,  and  on  the  second 
or  third  day  after  joining,  I  received  a 
practical  lesson  in  discipline  which  it 
may  be  worth  while  to  relate. 

"  Haversacks  and  canteens  had  been 
issued,  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon,  to 
the  company  ;  and  when  on  the  evening 
private  parade  in  the  company's  lines,  a 
private  soldier  named  Cavanagh,  who 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  articles  he  had 
received,  approached  MrBevan,  and,  very 
respectfully  recovering  his  arms,  made 
some  statement  in  complaint,  and  which 
involved  a  question  of  partiality  on  the 
part  of  the  sergeant  who  had  made  the 
issue.  There  was  nothing  that  I  heard 
unfitting  on  the  part  of  the  man,  except 
the  insinuation  or  assertion,  perhaps,  of 
not  having  been  fairly  treated  by  his 


of  the  Last  War. 


387 


non-commissioned  officer.  Bevan  ap- 
peared to  listen  quite  patiently  to  the 
man's  statement,  and  called  for  the  ser- 
geant to  inquire  into  the  case,  who  justi- 
fied his  proceedings,  and  said  the  man 
was  a  troublesome,  discontented  fellow  ; 
and  some  few  words  passed  from  each 
of  the  parties.  During  this  time  I  was 
standing  alongside  of  Bevan,  the  soldier 
opposite  to  him,  at  a  couple  of  yards  dis- 
tant. Bevan  stepped  forward,  clenched 
his  fist,  and  struck  the  man  a  strong 
blow  on  the  chest,  uttering  at  the  same 
time,  in  a  strong  Irish  accent,  '  To  hell 
with  ye,  you  bloody  villain  ! '  This  oc- 
curred while  all  the  men  were  standing 
about  and  close  to  us,  previous  to  falling 
in  for  inspection,  and  it  did  not  appear 
to  me  that  the  transaction  caused  any 
sensation.  Such  was  the  first  lesson  of 
practical  discipline  I  received  ;  and  it 
may  well  be  imagined  what  its  effects  on 
a  boy  of  fifteen  must  have  been,  coming 
as  it  did  from  one  whom  I  had  been 
specially  led  to  believe  was  to  be  my 
model,  and  to  whom  I  was  to  look  up. 
The  whole  thing  rather  astonished  me 
than  shocked  me,  and  this,  perhaps,  be- 
cause it  appeared  to  be  taken  quite  as  a 
matter  of  course.  Nor  did  I  afterwards 
hear  any  murmuring  amongst  the  men  ; 
nor  did  I  learn  that  it  caused  any  dis- 
satisfaction ;  from  which  I  conclude  that 
such  proceedings  must  have  been  not  un- 
common in  the  regiment,  as  well  as  in 
the  company,  although  to  strike  a  soldier 
was  then,  as  it  is  now,  contrary  to  the 
regulations  of  the  army,  as  it  must  have 
been  at  all  times  contrary  to  every  good 
principle.  But  at  that  time  the  whole 
system  was  harsh  and  brutal ;  coercion 
and  severity  were  the  rule  ;  reward  or 
encouragement  little  thought  of.  I  be- 
lieve this  to  have  been  the  general  prin- 
ciple. I  am  sure  it  was  so  in  the  27th 
regiment ;  and  the  effect  of  this  upon  the 
mind  of  a  boy  like  myself  must,  of  course, 
have  been  very  detrimental." 

On  the  13th  of  August  1799,  the 
advance  of  the  British  army,  under 
Sir  Ralph  Abercromby,  quitted  the 
shores  of  England.  Including  artil- 
lery— of  which  the  equipment  was  still 
very  defective  —  it  numbered  about 
10,000  fighting  men ;  four  battalions 
of  Guards  and  eleven  of  the  line  being 
divided  into  five  brigades,  having 
at  the  head  of  each  respectively 
the  generals  D'Oyly,  Burrard,  Coote, 
Moore,  and  Colonel  Macdonald.  The 
squadron  steered  towards  the  Helder, 
the  British  government  being,  as  usual, 
much  more  intent  upon  the  accom- 


388 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


[Sept, 


plisliment  of  a  purely  British  object, 
than  thoughtful  of  the  needs  of  the 
coalition ;  and  after  a  gallant  resist- 
ance from  the  Dutch  General  Daendels, 
made  good  its  landing.  But  the  open- 
ing of  the  enterprise  gave  only  too 
sure  a  presage  of  all  that  was  to  fol- 
low. The  establishment  of  a  large 
camp  on  Barham  Downs,  and  the 
assembling  of  transports  at  Margate 
and  Ramsgate,  had  sufficiently  ad- 
vertised the  French-  government  of 
the  point  on  which  the  cloud  would 
burst ;  and  a  tedious  and  uncom- 
fortable passage  of  not  fewer  than 
thirteen  days,  gave  to  it  full  time  to 
complete  its  preparations.  Hence, 
though  the  Dutch  fleet  in  the  Texel 
Channel  could  not  be  saved,  the 
opportunity  was  afforded  of  getting 
together  about  20,000  men,  6000 
of  which  disputed  with  us  the  land- 
ing, while  the  remainder  took  post, 
corps  by  corps  as  it  came  up,  at  an 
easy  march  from  the  Zype,  where 
Abercromby  proceeded  to  intrench 
himself. 

We  agree  with  General  Bunbury 
that,  looking  to  the  mistakes  thus 
early  committed,  it  would  have  been 
well  if  the  Government  had  rested 
content  with  the  accomplishment  of 
this  the  only  practicable  object  of  the 
expedition.  There  had  fallen  into 
our  hands  seven  sail  of  the  line,  three 
fifty- gun  ships,  and  several  frigates. 
To  have  brought  these  back  to  Ports- 
mouth would  have  exhibited  us  to 
the  people  of  England  in  the  light 
of  victors  ;  but  much  more  had 
been  determined  upon,  and,  fail- 
ing to  achieve  all,  we  lost  all.  On 
the  10th  of  September,  Abercromby 
received  and  repulsed  a  fierce  attack 
of  the  enemy.  He  did  not,  however, 
follow,  up  his  successes,  because  he 
knew  that  the  Duke  of  York,  with 
the  residue  of  the  English  contingent, 
must  shortly  arrive  ;  and  on  the  13th 
he  found  himself  strengthened  by  the 
coming  up  of  the  first  division  of  the 
Eussian  army,  under  General  D' Her- 
mann. The  second  division  made  its 
appearance  shortly  afterwards ;  while, 
day  by  day,  infantry,  cavalry,  and 
artillery  from  England  continued  to 
pour  in.  It  cannot  be  said  that  they 
were  of  the  best  description.  The 
infantry,  indeed,  seemed  to  be  made 
up  chiefly  of  volunteers  from  the  mi- 


litia, whom  it  was  found  necessary  to 
ship  off  ere  time  could  be  afforded 
to  give  to  them  the  uniforms  of 
the  corps  to  which  they  were  trans- 
ferred. Of  course,  these  men  knew 
nothing  whatever  of  the  officers  under 
whom  they  were  going  to  serve,  and 
took  the  field  ignorant  of  the  very 
rudiments  of  their  duty.  The  cavalry, 
in  like  manner,  ill-appointed,  worse 
dressed,  and  mounted  on  imperfectly- 
broken  horses,  had  little  to  recom- 
mend it  except  the  courage  of  the 
men ;  and  the  field-guns  were  dragged, 
sometimes  with  hand-ropes  by  sea- 
men, sometimes  by  horses  fastened 
in  a  row,  one  before  the  other,  and 
kept  at  a  walking  pace  by  carters 
with  long  whips  in  their  hands.  It 
appeared,  too,  that  as  yet  the  Govern- 
ment had  not  learned  fully  to  under- 
stand that  bandages,  lint,  medicines, 
surgical  instruments,  and  surgeons, 
are  as  necessary  to  the  proper  ap- 
pointment of  an  army  as  either  in- 
fantry or  cavalry  soldiers ;  and  in  re- 
gard to  a  commissariat,  it  had  no 
existence  at  all.  The  army  depended 
for  its  supplies  absolutely  upon  the 
fleet.  Still  there  it  was,  18,000  Eng- 
lish and  as  many  Russians,  all  eager 
for  the  fray ;  nor  did  any  great  while 
elapse  ere  the  courage  and  endurance 
of  the  men  were  put  to  the  test. 

The  weather  had  been  wretched 
ever  since  the  expedition  sailed  from 
England.  Eain  fell  in  torrents,  which, 
being  accompanied  by  cold  winds,  told 
severely  upon  the  troops,  who,  if  un- 
able to  find  cover  in  houses,  were  en- 
tirely without  shelter,  except  such  as 
the  great-coats  afforded;  and  even  great- 
coats were  in  many  cases  wanting.  Yet 
the  courage  both  of  officers  and  men 
never  flagged ;  and  there  were  those 
among  the  leaders  whose  after  career 
gave  proof  that,  had  the  chief  manage- 
ment of  affairs  been  committed  to 
them,  the  results  might  have  been  dif- 
ferent. Unfortunately,  however,  the 
custom  then  prevailed  of  considering 
every  operation,  ere  it  was  entered 
upon,  in  a  council  of  war,  and  the 
council,  which  assembled  on  the  17th, 
came  to  the  determination  that  the 
enemy  should  be  attacked  upon  a  plan 
radically  defective. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  describe  the 

.  battle  of  the  19th  of  September,  or  to 

state  its  issues.    Throwing  away  the 


1855.] 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


389 


advantage  of  numbers  which  belonged 
to  them,  and  detaching  10,000  of  their 
best  troops  towards  a  point  which 
it  was  impossible  that  they  could 
reach  in  time,  the  Allies  fell  upon  the 
French,  as  it  were,  by  detachments, 
the  Russians  making  their  advance  as 
much  too  early  as  the  English  made 
theirs  too  late  in  the  day.  The  former 
were  in  Bergen,  having  carried  all 
before  them,  ere  the  latter  found  them- 
selves in  a  condition  to  afford  any 
support,  and,  having  suffered  severely 
in  such  an  ill- conducted  advance,  were 
well-nigh  destroyed  by  the  reserves 
which  they  encountered  there.  A 
catastrophe  of  this  sort  is  too  apt  to 
change  the  whole  order  of  a  battle. 
Instead  of  pushing  on  their  own  at- 
tacks, the  English  columns  were  forced 
to  detach  to  the  succour  of  the  Rus- 
sians, and  the  whole,  getting  into  dis- 
order, were  driven  back  with  heavy 
loss  to  the  position  of  the  Zype.  As 
to  the  detached  column,  of  which 
Abercromby  was  the  head,  it  had  be- 
gun its  march  on  a  false  calculation 
as  to  time,  and  after  exposure  to  a 
heavy  rain  throughout  the  night  of 
the  18th,  reached  Hoorn  at  four  in 
the  morning  of  the  19th,  completely 
exhausted.  What  could  Abercromby 
do?  He  despatched  General,  then 
Captain  Bunbury,  to  inform  the  Duke 
of  York  of  his  case,  and  learned  about 
noon  from  an  aide-de-camp,  who  seems 
to  have  crossed  Bunbury  on  the  way, 
that  the  battle  was  lost.  Abercromby 
retraced  his  steps  to  the  old  ground 
behind  the  Zype,  and  put  his  men  as 
he  best  could  into  quarters. 

From  this  hour  the  fate  of  the  expe- 
dition may  be  said  to  have  been  sealed. 
Another  battle,  which  cost  the  Allies 
2000  valuable  lives,  was  indeed  fought 
on  the  2d  of  October;  but  though 
claimed  as  a  victory  because  the 
enemy  abandoned  Alkmaar,  it  pro- 
duced no  effect  upon  the  issues  of  the 
struggle.  Le  Brune  retired  to  a  still 
stronger  position  at  Beverwyk,  where 
the  junction  of  5000  good  French 
troops  more  than  repaired  his  losses. 
General  Bunbury  shall  narrate  for  us 
the  evils  that  befell  shortly  afterwards. 
The  Allies,  it  appears,  thought  that  in 
occupying  Alkmaar  they  had  won  the 
key  of  North  Holland.  They  were 
eager  to  improve  the  advantage  thus 
secured,  and— 


"  On  Sunday,  the  6th  of  October,  there- 
fore, our  advanced  posts  on  the  right 
were  ordered  to  move  forward,  to  occupy 
some  of  the  villages  in  front,  and  force 
the  enemy's  detachments  to  fall  back 
upon  the  position  where  it  was  assumed 
that  he  would  make  his  stand.  Our 
army  was  to  follow  the  next  morning. 
But  we  had  mistaken  the  intentions  of 
our  antagonists,  as  well  as  the  numbers 
immediately  in  our  front,  and  the  strength 
of  the  ground.  At  first,  the  troops  that 
were  pushed  forward  met  with  but  little 
difficulty  in  their  task,  and  were  allowed  to 
occupy  some  of  the  villages  and  posts 
allotted  to  them  after  sharp  skirmishing. 
But  at  an  important  point  near  Baccum, 
the  advanced  guard  of  the  Russian  co- 
lumn was  checked  by  an  unexpected  and 
severe  resistance.  Finding  the  enemy 
too  strong  for  him,  the  commander  sent 
back  for  reinforcements  ;  regiment  after 
regiment  arrived,  till  seven  Russian  bat- 
talions were  hotly  engaged,  and  still  they 
found  the  growing  strength  of  the  enemy 
overpowering  .them  more  and  more.  The 
French  arriving  rapidly,  became  the  at- 
tacking instead  of  the  defending  party. 
Sir  Ralph  Abercromby,  seeing  how  things 
were  going,  moved  up  to  the  support  of 
the  Russians;  but  the  enemy's  whole 
force  was  in  motion.  By  degrees,  the 
fighting,  instead  of  being  confined  to 
Baccum,  grew  hot  in  every  village  and 
post  along  the  line.  The  brigades  of 
Dundas's  division,  as  well  as  those  under 
Abercromby,  were  drawn  successively 
into  severe  action,  and  the  Duke  of  York 
in  Alkmaar  was  wondering  what  had 
fallen  out,  and  what  had  become  of  his 
army.  Though  the  rain  poured  down  in 
torrents,  the  musketry  was  incessant, 
aide-de-camp  after  aide-de-camp  was  sent 
forth  to  make  out  what  were  the  causes 
and  objects  of  this  off-hand  engagement, 
and  I  was  carried  up  and  perched  on  the 
top  of  the  tall  steeple  of  Alkmaar,  with 
a  spying-glass,  to  try  to  ascertain  for  the 
Duke  what  was  the  direction,  and  where 
were  the  main  points  of  the  fight.  But 
all  was  confusion,  and  in  fact  the  troops 
were  intermingled :  they  had  been  brought 
irregularly  into  action,  without  any  defi- 
nite plan  on  either  side  ;  engaging  wher- 
ever they  happened  to  meet  with  an 
enemy,  and  advancing  or  retreating  in 
various  directions  as  the  one  or  the  other 
party  proved  the  stronger.  The  country 
itself  was  extremely  intricate,  and  the 
thick  rain  and  the  heavy  smoke  dwelling 
on  the  coppice-woods  and  enclosures  of  the 
villages,  made  it  impossible  to  distinguish 
anything  clearly.  This  obstinate  and 
bloody  fighting  ceased  only  with  the  day. 
At  nightfall,  the  French  drew  back,  and 


390 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


[Sept. 


left  our  troops  in  possession  of  the  line  of 
posts  for  which  we  had  unwittingly  involv- 
ed ourselves  in  this  fierce  and  fruitless  con- 
test. The  loss  of  the  Allies  was  not  less 
than  2500  men,  of  whom  about  700  were 
prisoners  ;  that  of  the  enemy  was 
heavier  than  it  had  been  in  the  former 
battles,  and  between  400  and  500  of  the 
French  were  taken.  The  only  gleam  of 
brilliancy  through  this  dark  thunder- 
storm, was  a  charge  of  five  companies  of 
the  Guards,  under  Colonel  Clephane,  into 
the  village  of  Ackersloot,  from  which 
they  drove  two  battalions  of  French, 
killing  many,  and  taking  200  prisoners." 

The  battle  of  the  6th  of  October 
seems  to  have  overthrown  every  lin- 
gering hope  of  success  on  the  part  of 
the  aSied  generals.  Even  the  best  of 
our  own  troops  began  to  show  that 
they  were  disheartened,  and  the  Rus- 
sians made  no  secret  of  their  despon- 
dency and  anger.  A  retreat  to  the 
old  position  of  the  Zype  was  accor- 
dingly effected,  and  a  council  of  war 
assembled  to  deliberate  on  the  steps 
which  it  had  now  become  necessary 
to  adopt.  It  is  not  worth  while  to 
follow  the  members  of  that  conclave 
through  their  deliberations.  Ten  thou- 
sand men,  the  elite  of  the  allied  armies, 
had  fallen.  The  weather  was  com- 
pletely broken,  and  of  support  from 
any  quarter — such  as  would  enable 
them,  even  if  they  survived  the  win- 
ter, to  enter  with  better  prospect  of 
success  upon  a  new  campaign— no 
one  pretended  to  speak.  A  proposal 
was  therefore  made  and  unanimously 
adopted  to  open  a  negotiation  with 
the  leader  of  the  French  army,  and 
discuss  with  him  terms  for  the  evacu- 
ation of  the  country.  How  the  pro- 
position was  received,  and  to  what 
discreditable  results  it  led,  we  need 
not  pause  to  describe.  Rather  let  us, 
keeping  in  view  the  proper  object  of 
our  present  article,  consider  how, 
sixty  years  ago,  military  affairs  were 
managed  in  this  country,  and,  by  con- 
trasting the  policy  of  cabinets  in  1799 
and  1853,  endeavour  if  possible  to 
convince  our  readers  that  the  prestige 
which  outlived  the  blunders  of  the 
former  body  is  in  no  great  danger  of 
extinction  because  of  the  shortcom- 
ings of  the  latter. 

The  expedition  to  Holland  in  1799, 
if  not  conceived,  was  managed  al- 
most exclusively  by  Mr  Dundas,  then 
Secretary  of  State  for  War  and  the  Co- 


lonies.   His  entire  force  did  not,  it  is 
believed,  at  the  most,  exceed  10,000 
or  12,000  infantry,  in  such  a  state, 
at  least  as  regarded  the  numerical 
strength  and  discipline  of  battalions, 
as  to  render  them  disposable  for  ac- 
tive service  in  the  field.    He  had,  to 
be  sure,  nominally  at  his  disposal  a 
good  many  corps,  the  wrecks  of  regi- 
ments which  had  perished  of  fever 
rather  than  by  the  sword  in  the  West 
Indies.    But  these,  besides  that  they 
consisted  of  old  or  worn-out  men,  were 
mere  skeletons,  and  could  not,  in  their 
existing  state,  be  employed  out  of  the 
United  Kingdom.   He  was  bent,  how- 
ever, upon  his  enterprise,  and  in  the 
month  of  July  passed  the  act  which 
has  ever  since  rendered  the  militia  our 
best  nursery  for  the  Line.   This  mea- 
sure he  followed  up  by  offering  such 
an  exorbitant  bounty  to  volunteers  as 
won  them  over  to  these  skeleton  regi- 
ments in  shoals,  but,  of  course,  in  such 
a  state  as  rendered  it  impossible  to 
create  any  bond  of  union  between  them 
and  the  officers  under  whom  they  were 
thenceforth  to  serve.    They  were  all 
drunk  when  they  reached  headquar- 
ters, and  continued  in  a  state  of  beastly 
intoxication  till  shipped  off  to  the  seat 
of  war.   As  has  elsewhere  been  stated, 
they  took  their  places  in  the  ranks 
without  having  had  their  militia  uni- 
forms exchanged   for  those   of   the 
regiments  which  they  came  to  rein- 
force ;  and  though  not  without  some 
acquaintance  with  the   elements  of 
drill,  they  lacked  almost  all  the  other 
qualities    which  combine  to    create 
what  is  called  a  good  soldier.   Hence, 
though,  like  Englishmen  in  general, 
constitutionally  brave,  they  made  but 
indifferent    head    against  the  disci- 
plined regiments  of  France;  and,  fail- 
ing of  absolute  success  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  campaign,  they  grew  posi- 
tively despondent  ere  it  came  to  a 
close. 

If  the  constitution  of  the  army 
was  bad,  its  association  with  such 
allies  as  the  Russians,  and  the 
selection  of  the  particular  field  on 
which  it  was  sent  abroad  ,to  operate, 
were  measures  not  less  deserv- 
ing of  censure.  The  state  of  mind 
into  which  Paul  had  already  fallen 
could  not  be  unknown  to  the  English 
cabinet.  As  long  as  victory  followed 
his  standards,  the  crazy  emperor's 


1855.] 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


391 


' 


enthusiasm  knew  no  bounds.  He  be- 
lieved that  his  troops  were  superior  to 
those  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  and 
that  disaster  could  not  overtake  them 
except  through  the  treachery  of  others. 
And  as  soon  as  a  check  came,  a  revul- 
sion of  feeling  came  with  it,  and  he 
regarded  himself  as  betrayed  by  those 
whose  battles  he  had  undertaken  to 
fight.  That  the  same  temper  which 
animated  their  master  prevailed 
among  the  Russian  soldiers  of  every 
rank,  had  already  been  made  mani- 
fest in  Switzerland.  It  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  the  divisions  which  had 
been  sent  to  co-operate  with  us,  should 
carry  with  them  a  more  reasonable 
disposition ;  and  Mr  Dundas,  there- 
fore, hazarded  a  great  deal  when  he 
associated  his  own  ill-organised  army 
of  18,000  Englishmen  with  an  equal 
force  of  Russians — arrogant,  tena- 
cious, and  ready  to  quarrel  with  their 
allies  on  the  slightest  pretext ;  and 
he  reaped  his  reward  in  the  alienation 
which  at  once  manifested  itself  be- 
tween them,  when  the  result  of  the 
first  combined  operation  came  to  be 
canvassed.  Moreover,  he  directed  a 
really  formidable  expedition  against 
almost  the  only  point  on  the  conti- 
nent of  Europe  where  even  partial 
success  was  impossible.  However  de- 
sirous the  Dutch  people  might  be  of 
regaining  their  independence,  there 
were  probably  not  a  thousand  men 
among  them  who  wished  to  replace 
the  House  of  Orange  in  the  Stadthold- 
ership.  There  were  certainly  not  a 
hundred  who  would  have  risked  the 
chances  of  a  war  in  order  to  accom- 
plish that  object.  And  so  it  appeared, 
after  the  Allies  made  good  their  land- 
ing ;  for,  though  the  Orange  flag  was 
immediately  unfurled,  scarce  half-a- 
dozen  gentlemen  rallied  round  it,  all 
of  whom,  by  the  by,  were  natives  of 
distant  provinces,  and  were  already  in 
exile  on  account  of  their  anti- republi- 
can principles. 

Again,  Mr  Dundas  and  Mr  Pitt 
(for  on  this  point  Mr  Pitt  is  known  to 
have  given  Dundas  his  cordial  sup- 
port), after  having  selected  a  com- 
mander for  this  expedition  on  political 
considerations,  testified  to  their  want 
of  confidence  in  the  man  of  their  own 
choice,  by  subjecting  him  to  a  degree 
of  restraint  which  cannot  upon  any 
principle  be  justified.  The  Duke  of 


York  was  charged  to  undertake  no 
important  operation  without  first  sub- 
mitting his  plan  to  a  council  of  war, 
and  receiving  the  council's  sanction  to 
its  execution.  Now,  a  general  so 
hampered  may  possess  the  genius  of 
a  Hannibal  or  a  Napoleon,  but  we 
defy  him  to  accomplish  anything  great, 
even  if  he  desire  it.  And  there  were 
those  in  the  Duke  of  York's  council 
(for  the  very  members  of  the  council 
were  nominated  from  home)  who  were 
little  likely  to  deal,  even  with  a  royal 
president,  in  a  spirit  of  too  much  sub- 
mission. The  Duke's  advisers  were 
Lieutenant- Generals  Sir  Ralph  Aber- 
cromby,  David  Dundas,  James  Mur- 
ray Pulteney,  the  Russian  commander, 
and  Major-General  Lord  Chatham, 
the  last  wholly  without  experience, 
and  indolent  to  an  extent  scarcely 
conceivable.  How  could  a  force  so 
composed,  and  so  commanded,  even 
though  it  numbered  at  one  time  at 
least  35,000  effective  troops,  succeed 
in  any  large  undertaking  ?  What  can 
we  say  of  a  system  under  which  such 
outre  combinations  could  be  formed, 
except  that  the  country  which  proved 
sufficiently  energetic  to  survive  and 
break  through  it,  need  not,  under  any 
circumstances,  despair  of  its  own 
greatness  or  its  own  glory? 

The  expedition  to  Holland  failed ; 
and  there  succeeded  to  the  confi- 
dence which  had  animated  all  classes 
of  society,  when  the  first  division  of 
transports  put  to  sea,  the  despondency 
into  which  it  is  the  habit  of  our  coun- 
trymen to  fall  after  every  mishap  of 
the  kind.  Partly  to  allay  the  clamour 
with  which  they  were  assailed,  partly 
because  they  laboured  under  a  chronic 
disposition  always  to  be  doing  some- 
thing, without  having  any  accurate 
idea  of  the  end  which  they  were  to 
achieve,  the  Government  no  sooner 
got  the  remains  of  the  army  back  to 
England,  than  theycastabout  for  some 
other  Continental  field  on  which  to 
employ  it.  It  was  mid-winter,  to  be 
sure,  and  winter  is  not  exactly  the 
season  when  military  operations  — 
particularly  operations  to  be  conduct- 
ed partly  by  sea — are  most  conve- 
niently undertaken.  And  the  Cabinet 
itself  could  not  but  be  aware  that  de- 
feated armies  seldom  regain  their  con- 
fidence, unless  time  be  afforded  to  re- 
store their  discipline  and  fill  up  their 


392 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


[Sept, 


numbers.  Still  there  were  not  want- 
ing authorities  to  advise  a  descent  on 
the  coast  of  Brittany,  and  the  giving 
of  the  hand  to  the  Royalist  chiefs  of 
La  Vendee,  and  the  Chouans,  who 
still  maintained  a  not  unequal  combat 
with  such  forces  as  the  First  Consul 
could  afford  to  send  against  them.  A 
better  scheme  by  far  Avas,  however,  in 
December  of  this  year,  proposed  by 
Sir  Charles  Stewart — an  officer  who 
wanted  but  the  opportunity  to  show 
that  England  had  in  him  a  General 
worthy  to  be  placed  at  the  head  of 
her  gallant  army.  His  soldier's  eye 
had  detected  where,  at  that  moment, 
the  fate  of  the  war  was  about  to  be 
decided.  There  lay,  in  an  extended 
line,  from  Nice  to  Genoa,  a  French 
army  of  38,000  or  40,000  men,  of 
which  the  condition,  as  well  physically 
as  morally,  was  deplorable  in  the  ex- 
treme. The  Austrian  general,  Melas, 
with  80,000  good  troops,  threatened 
it  from  the  north  side  of  the  Apen- 
nines; and  Napoleon,  in  the  utmost 
anxiety  for  the  results,  was  quietly 
but  energetically  preparing  for  that 
marvellous  passage  of  the  Alps,  which 
will  hand  down  his  name  to  the  latest 
generations,  in  a  sort  of  rivalry  with 
that  of  the  great  Carthagenian  com- 
mander. It  was  Sir  Charles  Stewart's 
opinion,  that  a  corps  of  15,000  British 
troops,  thrown  ashore  at  this  juncture 
near  Nice  or  Ventimiglia,  would  have 
given  such  a  vast  preponderance  to 
the  Austrian  arms,  that  the  expulsion 
of  the  French  from  Italy,  perhaps  the 
entire  destruction  of  the  French  ar- 
mies, must  have  ensued.  He  urged 
his  plan  vigorously  upon  the  Minis- 
ters, and  succeeded  in  obtaining  its 
adoption.  But  Pitt  and  Dundas,  how- 
ever able  in  the  concoction  of  great 
plans,  seldom  looked,  in  the  manage- 
ment of  details,  beyond  the  day  that 
was  passing;  and  though,  in  February 
1800,  Stewart  had  made  all  his  ar- 
rangements, in  the  following  March 
it  was  announced  to  him  that  only 
10,000  men  could  be  spared  for  the 
enterprise.  For  the  winter  had  been 
allowed  to  pass  away  in  a  manner  of 
which  we  cannot  now  think  without 
indignation.  Scarcely  any  measures 
were  adopted  to  restore  discipline  and 
efficiency  to  regiments,  and  recruiting 
seemed  to  have  come  to  a  stand-still, 
Stewart,  though  mortified,  adhered  to 


his  resolution.  But  when,  by-and-by, 
he  was  informed  that  only  5000  men 
could  be  placed  at  his  disposal,  he 
threw  up  his  command  in  disgust. 
How  strangely  is  the  fate  of  great 
struggles  determined !  Had  Stewart's 
original  project  been  carried  into  exe- 
cution, Genoa  would  have  fallen  pro- 
bably a  full  month  ere  it  opened  its 
gates.  Melas,  free  from  anxiety  for 
his  rear,  would  have  marched  to  meet 
Napoleon,  at  the  foot  of  St  BernardT 
with  20,000  more  men  than  he  actually 
carried  with  him ;  the  battles  of  Monte- 
bello  and  Marengo  might  never  have 
been  fought,  or,  if  fought  at  all,  would 
have  probably  ended  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  First  Consul.  Such  wis- 
dom, however,  did  not  then  prevail 
in  our  military  councils.  On  the  con- 
trary, while  5000  men  proceeded  with 
General  Pigott  to  Minorca,  and  5000 
more  made  ready  to  assist  Portugal 
against  a  danger  which  never  seriously 
threatened,  Napoleon  achieved  those 
wondrous  successes  which  ended  in 
the  treaty  of  Alessandria,  and  the 
temporary  secession  of  Austria  from 
a  league  into  which  she  had  but  lately, 
and  not  without  considerable  pressure 
from  without,  been  persuaded  to  en- 
ter. 

We  should  weary  our  readers  were 
we  to  describe  how,  upon  one  abortive 
attempt  after  another,  the  strength  and 
reputation  of  the  British  empire  were 
thenceforth  wasted.  Abercromby's 
visit  to  Leghorn,  just  as  the  opportu- 
nity of  effecting  anything  there  had  been 
taken  away ;  his  cruise  from  port  to 
port,  with  at  least  10,000  men,  up  and 
down  the  Mediterranean ;  the  abortive 
expedition  to  Quiberon  Bay  ;  the  re- 
connoissance  of  Ferrol;  and  the  final 
junction  of  all  the  divisions  of  Lord 
Keith's  fleet  in  the  Bay  of  Cadiz,  are 
matters  of  history.  They  were  the 
natural  issues  of  plans  ill-conceived, 
ill- directed,  and  wholly  undeserving 
of  success.  Indeed,  we  became,  in 
consequence  of  them,  objects  of  ridi- 
cule to  all  Europe.  But  as  in  the 
natural  world  it  is  said  that  the  dark- 
est hour  of  the  night  is  that  which 
precedes  the  dawn,  so  we  seem  justi- 
fied in  asserting  that  the  ungenerous 
attempt  on  Cadiz,  and  its  not  very 
creditable  abandonment,"placed  us,  so 
.  to  speak,  on  the  apex  of  our  military 
blundering.  It  suddenly  occurred  to- 


1855.] 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


393 


the  War  Minister  and  his  colleagues 
that  the  continued  occupation  of  Egypt 
by  a  French  army  could  not  but 
operate  injuriously  to  British  interests 
in  India ;  and  Abercromby,  who  had 
begun  to  despair  of  being  allowed  to 
attempt  anything,  received  orders  to 
carry  his  troops  to  the  land  of  the 
Pharaohs.  But  observe  how,  in  all 
respects,  our  policy  was  then  a  policy 
of  errors.  Always  reluctant  to  keep 
a  sufficient  force  on  foot  —  always 
driven,  in  consequence,  to  enlist  in  a 
hurry,  as  often  as  troops  appeared  to 
be  required  —  our  rulers  had  taken 
into  the  service  multitudes  of  men, 
the  terms  of  whose  engagements  hin- 
dered them  from  being  sent  beyond 
the  limits  of  Europe.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  Abercromby,  who, 
when  threatening  Cadiz,  had  been  at 
the  head  of  22,000  infantry;  found, 
when  about  to  sail  for  Egypt,  that  he 
could  carry  scarce  11,000  with  him; 
and  that  his  entire  force  in  cavalry 
consisted  of  two  squadrons,  or  about 
150  men,  of  the  22d  Light  Dragoons. 
Here,  then,  we  are  in  the  seventh 
year  of  a  war,  which,  undertaken  in 
defence  of  a  great  principle,  was 
waged  with  the  whole  force  of  the 
empire ;  and,  though  constantly  en- 
gaged in  military  operations,  we  have 
not  one  solid  advantage,  scarce  a 
single  passing  triumph,  to  place  upon 
record.  The  defence  of  the  Nether- 
lands, which  we  originally  undertook, 
had  signally  failed.  From  Toulon, 
which  we  had  occupied  with  exceed- 
ing rashness,  we  were  driven  with 
disgrace.  Corsica  we  abandoned,  as 
we  did  the  unhappy  Koyalists  of  Brit- 
tany. At  Ostend  we  had  left  a  whole 
brigade  in  the  enemy's  hands ;  and  an 
entire  army  escaped  from  North  Hol- 
land only  by  terms  of  a  most  humiliat- 
ing capitulation.  The  whole  of  the 
year  1800  had  been  wasted,  though 
we  had  then  at  our  disposal  25,000 
excellent  troops,  with  a  navy  which 
dominated  over  every  sea  in  Europe. 
We  had  failed  to  support  Austria  and 
to  save  Germany.  We  had  retired 
with  discredit  from  before  Ferrol  and 
Cadiz.  We  had  sacrificed  thousands 
of  valuable  lives,  not  in  battle,  but  to 
yellow  fever,  and  obtained  in  exchange 
for  them  a  few  worthless  sugar  islands. 
And  now,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  we 
direct  Sir  Ralph  Abercromby,  with 


15,000  men,  to  invade  a  country  of 
which  all  the  harbours  and  fortresses 
were  occupied  by  little  short  of  30,000 
of  the  best  troops  in  the  world.  That 
we  succeeded  in  defeating  those  troops, 
and  forcing  them  to  evacuate  their 
conquests,  is  indeed  true;  but  our 
triumph  was  that — not  of  sagacious 
forethought,  but  —  of  constitutional 
bravery.  We  prevailed,  in  spite  of 
the  absence  of  all  the  means  which 
were  necessary  to  render  success 
certain. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  over-esti- 
mate the  importance  of  the  Egyptian 
campaign,  as  well  to  the  British  na- 
tion as  to  the  British  army.  There 
had  begun  to  grow  up,  even  among 
our  own  people,  a  suspicion  that,  ex- 
cept at  sea,  the  military  spirit  was 
wanting  among  us  ;  and  throughout 
continental  Europe  no  doubt  what- 
ever was  entertained  on  the  subject. 
The  successful  landing  at  Aboukir, 
and  the  victory  of  the  21st  of  March, 
dissipated  the  former  delusion,  and 
went  some  way  to  disturb  the  latter. 
It  had  the  effect,  also,  of  restoring  to 
the  British  soldier  that  feeling  of  self- 
respect,  without  which  no  army  ever 
has  achieved,  or  ever  will  achieve, 
great  successes.  But  it  is  idle  to 
blink  the  truth,  that  neither  then,  nor 
for  some  years  afterwards,  were  any 
steps  taken  to  improve  the  military 
system  of  the  country.  No  sooner 
was  the  peace  of  Amiens  ratified, 
than  the  English  government  hasten- 
ed to  reduce  its  fleets  and  armies  to 
the  lowest  attainable  figure;  just  as 
the  Government  which  happens  to  be 
in  office  will,  in  all  probability,  reduce 
them  again,  when  our  present  war 
with  Russia  ceases.  And  so,  on  the 
renewal  of  hostilities  in  1803,  every- 
thing which  was  necessary  to  conduct 
war  effectively  proved  to  be  want- 
ing. There  was  the  same  scramble 
to  enrol  and  equip  men — the  same 
absence  of  all  the  appliances  of  an 
army — the  same  eagerness  to  strike 
before  proper  preparation  was  made 
to  strike  home,  which  distinguished 
the  country's  efforts  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  revolutionary 
war.  Expeditions  were  fitted  out, 
sent  to  sea,  and  brought  back  again 
always  without  accomplishing  any 
object  worthy  of  the  cost,  and  not  un- 
frequently  without  accomplishing  any- 


394 


Our  Beginning  of  the  Last  War. 


[Sept.  1855, 


thing.  Even  the  occupation  of  Sicily, 
though  complete  in  itself,  cannot  be 
said  to  have  served  any  good  purpose ; 
for  Sicily  could  be  no  object  to  France 
so  long  as  the  command  of  the  sea 
remained  with  her  rival — and  that  the 
victory  of  Trafalgar  effectually  secured 
to  us.  As  to  other  operations — the 
landing  in  Calabria,  the  second  expe- 
dition to  Egypt,  the  shilly-shallying 
at  Stockholm,  and  the  buccaneering 
descent  upon  Copenhagen — the  less 
that  is  said  or  written  about  them  the 
better.  With  the  exception  of  this 
last — of  which  the  morality  is  at  least 
doubtful — they  all  alike  testified  to 
the  fact  that  the  courage  and  endur- 
ance of  the  British  soldier  were  then, 
as  now,  beyond  praise,  but  that  there 
was  no  military  mind  in  the  camp 
or  the  cabinet  capable  of  turning  his 
good  qualities  to  a  right  account. 

Thus  matters  went  on,  till  the 
condition  of  the  Spanish  peninsula 
presented  an  opening  to  British  enter- 
prise which  happily  could  not  be  over- 
looked. An  army  respectable  in  point 
of  numbers  accordingly  took  the  field ; 
but  it  did  so,  as  usual,  destitute  of 
a  transport  corps,  of  a  commis- 
sariat, ;of  medical  stores,— of  every- 
thing, in  short,  in  the  absence  of 
which  no  army  can  move,  or  even 
subsist,  two  days'  march  from  its  re- 
sources.. Its  first  essay  was  brilliant, 
because  Arthur  Wellesley  led  it  on, 
and  it  executed  every  movement  with- 
in sight  of  its  shipping;  its  second, 
though  far  from  dishonourable,  affords 
small  subject  of  boasting,  because  the 
gallant  Moore  failed  to  obtain  sup- 
port from  home,  and  abroad  was  de- 
ceived and  betrayed  on  all  sides.  Its 
third— and  three  trials  were  needed — 
led  to  very  different  issues.  Why? 
Because  the  iron  will  of  Wellesley 
bent  by  degrees  feebler  wills  to  itself, 
and  his  genius  elaborated  on  the  spot 
all  that  the  Government  which  he 
served  ought  to  have  supplied,  but 
did  not.  Read  his  immortal  Des- 
patches, and  you  will  see  how,  day  by 
day,  he  makes  known  his  wants, 


without  having  the  slightest  attention 
paid  to  them.  We  conquer,  indeed, 
and  win  for  ourselves  a  high  name  in 
Europe ;  but  it  is  in  spite  of  the  im- 
becility of  our  rulers  and  the  unwise 
parsimony  of  our  legislature,  which, 
though  prodigal  enough  both  of  life 
and  treasure  in  the  wretched  expedi- 
tion to  Walcheren,  kept  him  always  at 
starvation  point,  and  thereby  protract- 
ed for  seven  long  years  a  war  which,  if 
wisely  fed,  might  have  been  brought 
to  a  successful  conclusion  in  three. 

The  result  which  we  are  induced  to 
draw  from  all  this  is  obvious  enough. 
The  country  is  without  doubt  at  this 
moment  in  great  difficulty.  The  finest 
army  that  ever  left  our  shores  liea 
cooped  up  in  a  barren  corner  of  the 
Crimea,  whence  it  cannot  move  ex- 
cept over  the  ruins  of  a  town,  which, 
for  a  whole  year,  has  resisted  the 
utmost  endeavours  of  the  Allies  to 
reduce  it.  Meanwhile  a  fleet,  such  as 
never  before  darkened  the  surface  of 
any  sea,  lies  idle  in  the  Baltic ;  and 
there  is  exhibited  by  the  Government 
neither  military  genius  enough  to 
devise  an  effective  diversion  for  the 
former,  nor  common  industry  to 
supply  the  latter  with  means  of  as- 
sailing the  enemy.  There  is  ample 
ground  of  sorrow,  perhaps  of  indigna- 
tion, when  we  contemplate  these 
facts;  but  there  is  no  just  cause  for 
despondency.  The  heart  of  the  nation 
is  sound,  its  resources  as  yet  scarcely 
called  forth ;  and  by-and-by,  when  its 
patience  shall  have  been  tried  beyond 
endurance,  it  will  take  the  matter 
into  its  own  hands.  Lord  Ellen- 
borough's  manly  speech  of  the  3d  of 
August  last,  has  already  found  an 
echo  in  many  a  household  throughout 
the  empire ;  and  the  prophecy  will,  as 
usual,  work  out  its  own  accomplish- 
ment. We  fully  anticipate  such 
changes,  when  Parliamentmeets  again, 
as  shall  at  least  set  us  on  a  road  to 
triumph,  quite  as  sure,  and  probably 
much  more  rapid,  than  that  by  which, 
half  a  century  ago,  we  conquered  forty 
years'  peace  for  the  world. 


Printed  by  William  Blaclwood  $  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH     MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCLXXX.  OCTOBER,  1855. 


VOL.  LXXVIII. 


NORTH  AND   THE   NOCTES. 


MAGA  is  fat,  fair,  and  close  on  forty. 
Her  disposition,  now  mild  and  mo- 
therly, was  dashed  in  youth  with  a 
touch  of  acerbity,  sometimes  sudden- 
ly varying  the  sweetness  of  her  aspect 
with  a  curl  of  disdain  or  a  gleam  of 
fierceness.  Like  Pallas,  Britomart, 
Britannia,  and  other  belligerent  young 
virgins,  she  went  forth  glorying  in 
her  keen  weapons  and  bright  armour; 
she  would  strike  an  adversary's  shield 
as  Ivanhoe  struck  Bois  -  Guilbert's, 
with  the  sharp  end  of  her  lance  till  it 
rung  again ;  and  the  foe  thus  chal- 
lenged would,  if  a  craven,  cower  out  of 
sight,  but  if  worthy  of  her  steel,  would 
meet  her  in  mid  career,  and  blows 
were  struck  with  which  not  only  the 
lists  but  the  whole  world  re-echoed. 
Now  she  applauds  with  equanimity, 
and  chides  with  tenderness.  A  certain 
Crutch,  once  the  terror  of  evil-doers, 
after  long  leaning  idle  in  the  chim- 
ney corner,  is  become  a  treasured  relic 
to  be  gazed  on  with  reverence,  but 
never  more  strong  to  support  or  swift 
to  smite.  Such  forbearance,  admir- 
ably according  with  the  dignity  of  the 
matron  Maga,  and  with  the  stateli- 
ness  of  her  full-blown  presence,  has 
not  been  without  ill  consequences.  All 
Cockaigne  echoes  with  shrill  voices 
like  a  marsh  filled  with  frogs  on  a 
summer's  evening.  A  cockney  may 
no  longer  be  called  a  cockney,  nor  a 
fool  a  fool,  but  each  must  be  apos- 


trophised in  a  polite  periphrasis.  The 
chivalry  of  periodical  writing  has  lost 
some  dash  and  brilliancy  since  the 
laws  of  the  combat  place  buttons  on 
the  foils  ;  the  fiercer  spirits  miss  the 
excitement  of  the  game  of  earnest — 
meek  men  in  spectacles  venture  into 
the  ring  once  sacred  to  the  grim  yet 
graceful  athlete,  victor  in  a  hundred 
fights — the  combatants  pique  them- 
selves on  being  (ha,  ha  !)  open  to 
conviction,  and  fight  in  the  courteous 
spirit  of  Aberdeen  as  War  Minister, 
and  Dundas  at  Odessa.  The  stream 
of  thought,  no  longer  vigorously  im- 
pelled through  the  channel  of  partisan- 
ship, is  diffused  in  wide  pools  over  the 
flats  of  liberalism  and  toleration, 
where  public  opinion  may  hang  Nar- 
cissus-like, over  its  own  reflection,  but 
where  there  is  none  of  the  rush,  the 
ripple,  nor  the  cataract,  that  lent  pic- 
turesqueness  to  the  earlier  course  of 
the  flood.  Impetuosity  has  given 
place  to  a  calm,  where  no  breeze 
breaks  the  mirrored  images.  Not  so 
when  Maga,  heavenly  maid,  was 
young. 

Thirty  years  ago  the  world  had  far 
other  objects  of  interest  than  now. 
That  fine  elderly  gentleman,  your  fa- 
ther, sir,  and  that  charming  old  lady 
to  whom  you  are  equally  indebted 
for  your  being,  whose  silvered  hair 
beneath  her  cap  lends  beauty  to 
wrinkles,  and  invests  her  faded  coun- 


Noctes  Ambrosiance.     By  PROFESSOR  WILSON,  vol. 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


396 


North  and  the  Nodes. 


[Oct. 


tenance  with  the  mellow  richness  and 
melancholy  charm  of  the  later  autumn, 
remember  a  state  of  things  which  ap- 
pears to  us  dim  and  distant  as  the 
golden  age,  or  the  time  when  the  Sau- 
rians  wallowed  at  Brighton.  They 
remember  an  era  previous  to  the  Peace 
Society,  when  Brougham,  to  whom 
years  have  brought  the  philosophic 
mind,  shone  with  fierce  and  fitful 
brightness  in  the  Blue- and- Yellow, 
corruscating  into  the  most  eccentric 
and  many  -  coloured  sparks  —  when 
Pam  was  young  as  well  as  gay — when 
the  Whigs  were  acquiring  instead  of 
losing  confidence  in  Lord  John — when 
Wordsworth's  reputation  as  a  poet  was 
still  matter  of  dispute— when  Byron 
had  just  shot  athwart  the  globe  like  a 
meteor,  and  vanished,  leaving  mankind 
still  rubbing  their  eyes,  dazed  with 
the  glare — when  the  novels  of  Scott 
perplexed  the  world  with  the  mystery 
of  their  authorship — and  when  Mac- 
aulay,  the  present  poet,  politician,  es- 
sayist, historian,  was  alluded  to  as  ua 
young  gentleman  who  ought  to  make 
a  figure  in  the  world." — (Nodes, 
p.  60.) 

Well,  in  those  times,  from  which  we 
have  steamed  so  far  ahead,  and  to  see 
which  we  look  across  an  abyss  deep- 
ened by  volcanic  political  changes — 
Reform  bills,  Catholic  emancipations, 
Education  bills,  Repeal  of  Corn  Laws, 
French  empires,  and  the  like  yawning 
fissures, — by  revolutions  in  literature, 
heralded  (not  to  mention  portentous 
foreign  apparitions)  by  the  mournful 
shade  of  Tennyson,  the  genial  sprite 
of  Dickens,  the  dismal  prophecies  of 
Thomas  Carlyle,  and  the  impish  ubi- 
quity of  cheap  editions  ;  and  vast 
upheavingsin  science  and  art,  whence 
have  had  birth  railways,  steamboats, 
photographs,  electric  telegraphs  — 
there  still  existed  a  race  of  beings 
known  to  many  in  our  land  by  the 
name  of  Tories,  now  recognised  prin- 
cipally in  fossilised  specimens.  If  a 
man's  heart  were  fine  and  his  preju- 
dices strong, — if  he  bore  in  the  main 
features  of  his  character  distinct  traces 
of  relationship  to  the  Bayards  and  De 
Coverleys, — if  his  natural  refinement 
caused  him  to  revolt  at  popular  forms 
of  government  and  their  results — such, 
for  instance,  as  the  sad  spectacle  of  a 
lettered  and  polished  gentleman,  proud 


as  Coriolanus,  suing,  cap  in  hand,  the 
mob  for  their  most  sweet  voices — you 
had  a  specimen  of  the  better  type  of 
Tory ;  and  if  to  these  elements  were 
added  scholastic  learning,  high  intel- 
lect, rich  humour,  fine  wit,  and  gor- 
geous imagination,  you  had  a  first- 
class  man  of  that  type.  Place  that 
man  in  a  position  where  he  mingles 
much  and  intimately  with  the  most 
distinguished  characters  of  the  day, 
and  where  his  duty  no  less  than  his 
taste  impels  him  to  be  conversant 
with  all  questions  of  contemporary 
politics,  literature,  and  art  —  let  his 
opinions  be  conveyed  in  the  form  of 
dialogues  between  characters  based  in 
truth  but  coloured  by  imagination, 
where  philosophy  and  metaphysics, 
and  public  men  and  measures  and 
poetry,  all  lightly  and  forcibly  touched 
with  the  free  hand  of  a  master  who 
can  afford  to  sport  with  his  brush,  are 
relieved  by  an  ever-shifting  mosaic 
background  of  fun,  pathos,  and  the 
most  marvellous  descriptions  of  natu- 
ral scenery — and  you  have  the  first 
broad  idea  of  Christopher  North  and 
his  famous  Nodes. 

In  those  days  when  you,  dear  ladyy 
our  own  contemporary,  with  whom 
womanhood  now  approaching  its  high 
noon — say  about  half-past  eleven — 
finds  some  of  its  early  freshness  re- 
placed by  the  mellow  ripeness  of  a 
sultrier  hour,  were  sucking  your  coral 
or  your  thumb,  while  on  the  ceiling, 
in  'the  wondering  gaze  of  infancy, 
were  fixed  those  eyes  which  have 
since  done  such  dire  execution  in  the 
breasts  of  three  generations,  includ- 
ing— first,  the  present  old  gentleman 
who  at  fifty,  after  having  bemoaned 
for  half  his  well-spent  existence  his 
lost  love,  charming  Betty  Careless, 
married  to  a  rival  about  the  time  the 
Reform  Bill  was  passed,  conceived 
for  you  a  second  and  enduring  passion 
which  he  will  carry  to  his  octogenarian 
tomb  ;  secondly,  your  nearer  contem- 
porary, now  beginning  to  lose,  in  the 
practice  of  a  rising  barrister,  the  me- 
mory of  that  terrible  evening  ten 
years  ago,  when  you  civilly  declined 
his  proposals  under  the  laurels,  through 
whose  leaves,  gilded  by  moonshine, 
came  the  tender  beams  which  showed 
the  despair  written  in  his  unfortunate 
face;  and  thirdly,  the  sentimental 


1855.] 


North  and  the  Nodes. 


397 


individual  who,  in  his  short  halt  be- 
tween Eton  and  Oxford,  has  suc- 
cumbed at  once  to  your  experienced 
wiles,  half- worrying,  half-flattering 
you  with  his  protestations  that  "  dis- 
parity of  age  is  nothing  to  a  passion 
like  his."  Well,  when  your  ladyship 
was  sucking  your  thumb  as  aforesaid 
(that  thumb  against  which  your  last 
enterprising  lover  rubbed  his  nose  in 
a  futile  attempt  to  kiss  your  hand), 
your  ladyship's  father  and  mother, 
and  other  grown-up  relations  and 
friends  of  cultivated  and  discriminat- 
ing tastes,  looked  forward  from  month 
to  month,  with  an  eagerness  of  which 
you,  inured  to  patience  by  a  long 
course  of  intermittent  and  hiatical 
literature,  doled  forth  by  Dickens, 
Lever,  Thackeray,  and  the  periodi- 
cals, can  have  but  faint  conception,  to 
the  publishing  of  the  new  Blacliwood, 
in  which  some  lively  instinct  fore- 
warned them  to  expect  a  Noctes 
where  North,  Tickler,  and  the  Shep- 
herd, in  Titanic  sport  and  revelry, 
should  gladden,  inform,  and  divert 
their  rapt  audience  with  a  pathos 
melting  old  Miss  Backbite  into  bene- 
volence, with  vivid  descriptions  re- 
storing to  Mr  Omnium  of  the  Stock 
Exchange  a  temporary  boyhood,  and 
with  passages  of  mirth  forcing  the 
rusty  corners  of  old  Billy  Roller's 
mouth  to  relax  into  a  stern  smile 
(the  only  one  that  had  distorted  that 
feature  since  the  last  rise  in  cottons), 
but  which  must  be  carefully  skipt  in 
reading  the  article  aloud  to  that 
charming  consumptive  patient  in  the 
cushioned  chair,  for  fear  of  inducing 
haemorrhage  in  the  lungs  by  sudden 
fits  of  laughter. 

North — Shepherd — Tickler — how 
real  yet  fantastic  is  the  celebrated 
trio !  Professor  Ferrier  is  at  pains  in 
the  preface  to  this  new  edition  to 
assure  us  that  their  jovial  meetings 
were  purely  imaginary,  and  that  the 
festive  scenes  rose  before  the  genial 
imagination  of  a  solitary  writer.  We 
are  very  sorry  to  throw  any  discredit 
on  the  testimony  of  a  man  like  the 
Professor,  but  we  won't  believe  a  word 
of  it.  We  have,  through  faith,  been 
familiar  from  early  boyhood  with 
that  Blue  Parlour.  Other  celebrated 
apartments  may  or  may  not  have 
really  existed.  Whether  Rizzio  was 


or  was  not  murdered  in  Holyrood — 
whether  there  was  a  secret  chamber 
in  the  family  seat  of  Bluebeard — 
whether  the  convention  of  Cintra 
was  signed  in  the  Marialva  palace 
or  the  convent  at  Mafra,  or  on 
the  head  of  a  French  drum,  are  all 
questions  we  leave  antiquarians  to 
decide,  and  will  never  draw  pen  for. 
But  to  tell  us  deliberately  that  those 
three  philosophers,  poets,  and  hu- 
mourists, did  not  carry  on  their 
learned  orgies  periodically  and  habi- 
tually, among  other  places,  in  the 
Blue  Parlour  of  a  hostelry  in  Edin- 
burgh, kept  by  one  Ambrose,  is  an 
outrage  on  belief  which,  if  successful, 
would  go  far  to  upset  all  confidence 
in  internal  evidence  and  written  tes- 
timony. We  expect  to  be  told  next 
that  there  is  no  Ettrick  Forest ;  nay, 
that  Edinburgh  itself,  with  the  old 
and  new  towns,  Arthur  Seat, 
Princes  Street,  and  45  George  Street, 
is  an  imaginary  city,  which,  like  an 
unsubstantial  pageant  faded,  leaves 
not  a  wrack  behind. 

The  Shepherd  occupies  the  lion's 
share  of  the  conversation,  his  part  in 
which  reveals  a  character,  odd,  fine, 
and  finished,  with  a  great  deal  of  self- 
conceit,  breaking  out  not  only  in  his 
discourse,  but  in  his  dreams ;  for  in  de- 
scribing a  vision  hehad  of  an  unearthly 
Hallow-fair,  there  were  there,  he  says, 
"  chiels  from  China,  apparently,  and 
the  lands  ayont  the  pole,  who  jogged 
ane  anither's  shouthers,  and  said, 
'  That'sthe  Ettrick  Shepherd.'"  This 
vanity  and  some  comic  testiness 
serve  to  connect  the  man  of  genius 
with  ordinary  mortality,  but  the  better 
part  is  all  eloquence,  of  a  kind  at  once 
minutely  graphic  and  lavishly  copious, 
giving  appropriate  utterance  to  the 
warmest  sympathies  with  men  and 
nature.  Not  very  much  does  the 
Shepherd  care  for  politics,  except  such 
as  lie  in  the  domain  of  plain  common 
sense ;  not  much  does  he  trouble  him- 
self about  philosophy,  except  the  un- 
taught philosophy  native  to  genius — 
but  -he  is  a  poet  and  an  artist,  with 
the  finest  eye  to  appreciate  both  the 
common  features  of  everyday  life  and 
the  grandest  expanse  of  landscape, 
and  in  describing  these  he  shows  a 
power  of  word-painting,  beside  which 
the  Dutch  representations  of  our 


398  North  and  the  Nodes.  [Oct. 

day  are  stiff,  laborious,  and  ineffec-  most,  sometimes  leads  him  into  con- 

tive.  tradictions,  or,  at  any  rate,  proves  he 

The  Shepherd's  vigorous  power  of  can  be  equally  eloquent  on  both  sides 

expressing  whatever    comes    upper-  of  a  subject.    At  page  1  he  says: — 

"  I  never  dream  between  the  blankets.  To  me  sleep  has  no  separate  world  ; 
it  is  as  a  transient  mental  annihilator.  I  snore,  but  dream  not.  What  is 
the  use  of  sleep  at  all,  if  you  are  to  toss  and  tumble,  sigh  and  groan,  shudder 
and  shriek,  and  agonise  in  the  convulsions  of  night-mayoralty  ?  I  lie  all 
night  like  a  stone,  and  in  the  morning  up  I  go,  like  a  dewy  leaf  before  the 
zephyr's  breath,  glittering  in  the  sunshine." 

At  page  275  a  great  revolution  specting  dreamless  sleep  and  snor- 
iias  taken  place  in  his  opinions  re-  ing  :— 

NORTH. 
I  forget  if  you  are  a  great  dreamer,  James  ? 

SHEPHERD. 

Sleepin  or  waukin  ? 

NORTH. 

Sleeping — and  on  a  heavy  supper. 

SHEPHERD. 

Oh  !  sir,  I  not  only  pity  but  despise  the  coof,  that  aff  wi'  his  claes,  on  wi' 
his  nichtcap,  into  the  sheets,  doun  wi'  his  head  on  the  bowster,  and  then  afore 
anither  man  could  hae  weel  taken  aff  his  breeks,  snorin  awa  wi'  a  great  open 
mouth,  without  a  single  dream  ever  travellin  through  his  fancy  !  What  wad 
be  the  harm  o'  pittin  him  to  death? 

NORTH. 

What !  murder  a  man  for  not  dreaming,  James  ? 

SHEPHERD. 

Na — but  for  no  dreamin,  and  for  snorin  at  the  same  time.  WThat  for  blaw 
a  trumpet  through  the  haill  house  at  the  dead  o'  nicht,  just  to  tell  that  you've 
lost  your  soul  and  your  senses,  and  become  a  breathin  clod?  What  a  blow 
it  maun  be  to  a  man  to  marry  a  snorin  woman  !  Think  o'  her  during  the  haill 
hinnymoon,  resting  her  head,  with  a  long  gurgling  snorting  snore,  on  her  hus- 
band's bosom  ! 

Tickler  is  a  fine  old  boy;  which  ex-  he  manfully  sustains  his  share  in  the 
pression  we  use,  not  in  its  general  conversation.  His  humorous  specu- 
and  familiar  sense,  but  intending  to  lations  on  the  duties  of  a  polygamist 
convey  the  idea  of  the  uncommon  (p.  34)  serve  to  show  his  comic  vein, 
union  of  an  old  head  with  a  young  and,  though  the  soberest  and  most 
heart.  Of  singular  height,  great  ac-  discriminating  of  critics,  he  can  some- 
tivity,  and  with  "  een  like  daggers,"  times  give  his  fancy  the  fling,  as  when 
and  "  maist  amazin  appeteete  "  (in  he  describes  how  Malvina  stole  his 
which  he  is  by  no  means  unrivalled  breeches,  at  the  beginning  of  Nox  III. ; 
by  his  co-bon-vivants,  whose  powers  and  for  his  descriptive  powers,  take 
of  eating  and  drinking  are  not  the  this  little  bit  of  landscape  and  water- 
least  singular  of  their  endowments),  scape  : — 

TICKLER. 

The  Falls  of  the  Clyde  are  majestic.  Over  Corra  Linn  the  river  rolls  ex- 
ultingly ;  and,  recovering  itself  from  that  headlong  plunge,  after  some  trou- 
bled struggles  among  the  shattered  cliffs,  away  it  floats  in  stately  pomp,  dally- 
ing with  the  noble  banks,  and  subsiding  into  a  deep  bright  foaming  current. 
Then  what  woods  and  groves  crowning  the  noble  rocks  !  How  cheerful  laughs 
the  cottage  pestered  by  the  spray !  and  how  vivid  the  verdure  on  each  ivied 
ruin  !  The  cooing  of  the  cushats  is  a  solemn  accompaniment  to  the  cataract, 
and  aloft  in  heaven  the  choughs  reply  to  that  voice  of  the  Forest. — P.  52. 


1855.] 


North  and  the  Noctes. 


399 


The  idea  of  motion  is  conveyed  in 
the  flow  of  words  in  this  passage  as 
happily  as  in  the  celebrated  lines 
where  Ajax,  "  striving  some  rock's 
vast  weight  to  throw,"  is  contrasted 
with  "the  swift  Camilla"  scouring 
the  plain. 

But  North— North  of  the  Noctes— 
is  but  an  adumbration  of  the  complete 
Christopher.  Unto  us  he  hath  a  spell 
beyond  his  share  in  those  festive 
meetings.  First  we  knew  and  loved 
him,  while  we  were  as  yet  un- 
breeched,  in  his  SPORTING  JACKET, 
that  remarkable  garment  about  which 
so  many  memories  cluster.  Faithfully 
did  we  follow  him  in  his  career,  from 
his  first  attempt  at  shooting  swallows 
with  a  horse-pistol,  to  the  moment,  half- 
sad,  half- exulting,  when  the  adolescent 
Kit,  leaning  on  his  long  single-barrel, 
stands  over  the  curlew,  victim  to  his 
unerring  aim,  and  grieves  that  its 
wild  cry  will  be  heard  no  more — from 
the  capture  of  the  baggy,  out  of  whose 
maw  he  scoops  the  pin,  and  subse- 
quently exults  in  the  scales  adhering 
to  his  thumb,  to  the  death  of  the 
mighty  salmon  of  the  Tweed.  Not 
unfruitful  of  results  was  that  epoch 
in  our  literary  life  and  opinions — first 
in  the  purchase  of  a  rusty  musket, 
whose  lock  was  fastened  to  the  brass- 
bound  stock  by  a  supplementary  screw 
of  great  solidity  and  power,  about  the 
size  of  a  linch-pin,  which  we  got  for 
five  shillings  from  a  poaching  shoe- 
maker, and  which  was  luckily  found 
under  our  bed  and  confiscated  before 
we  had  blown  ourselves  to  atoms  at 
the  first  discharge — and,  secondly,  in 
the  secret  production  of  a  paper  in 
the  same  style  as  that  we  so  much 
admired,  where,  under  the  pseudonym 
of  South,  as  having  some  magnetic 
relation  to  North,  we  set  forth,  in 
imitative  phraseology,  our  own  early 
initiation  into  rabbit-shooting,  being 
accompanied  in  our  imaginary  sport- 
ing excursions  by  our  parent,  whom 
(he  being  of  the  nautical  profession) 
we  filially  and  periphrastically  alluded 
to  as  ua  sou  of  the  sea,"  thereby 
genealogically  representing  ourself  as 
grandson  to  the  Ocean.  Our  diligence 
in  prosecuting  this  secret  and  brilliant 
work  was  very  praiseworthy.  In 
dusky  corners,  where  we  were  sup- 
posed to  be  acquainting  ourself  with 
syntax,  under  apple-trees  in  the 


orchard,  and  acacias  in  the  shrub- 
bery, it  continued  to  expand,  the 
death  of  each  rabbit  being  chronicled 
with  the  minuteness  of  a  hero  slain 
before  Troy,  until  one  day  at  dinner 
we  were  blasted  into  nothing  by  hear- 
ing choice  phrases  of  our  own  coining, 
existing  only  in  the  pages  of  this 
cherished  production,  bandied  signifi- 
cantly round  the  table.  The  roots  of 
our  hair  became  suddenly  instinct 
with  fire,  emitting  sparks  which  we 
felt  like  a  palpable  halo  of  shame ; 
our  ordinary  under-clothing  seemed 
exchanged  for  the  horse-hair  peniten- 
tial shirt  of  an  early  martyr ;  and  the 
last  sound  we  remember  hearing  as, 
with  the  conviction  that  we  were  dis- 
covered and  betrayed,  we  subsided, 
glowing  and  tingling,  in  our  red-hot 
sand-bath,  was  the  chuckle  of  the 
son  of  the  sea  himself  at  hearing  his 
own  historical  appellation. 

Next  came  Christopher  on  Colon- 
say,  splendidly  absurd  in  equestrian- 
ism, performing  his  involuntary  cir- 
cuits on  his  runaway  steed  round  the 
great  square  of  Edinburgh,  at  the 
fourth  or  fifth  of  which  u  there  was  a 
ringing  of  lost  stirrups  and  much 
holding  of  the  mane ; "  and  the  race 
he  subsequently  rode  against  Sitwell 
"  in  a  saddle  and  holsters  weighing 
about  a  couple  of  stone,  which  had 
originally  belonged  to  the  great  Mar- 
quis of  Montrose,"  of  the  truth  of  all 
which  we  were  as  firmly  persuaded 
then  as  we  still  are  of  the  existence  of 
the  Blue  Parlour.  Then  those  charm- 
ing papers  on  Christmas  Books,  de- 
scribing several  varieties  of  young 
lady,  each  of  whom  we  madly  loved 
as  she  came  forward  to  receive  her 
gift-volume ;  and  those  slashing  re- 
views, in  which  literary  offenders  were 
hoisted  for  punishment,  and  made  to 
feel  themselves,  over  and  above  the 
pain,  in  a  situation  as  miserably  ridi- 
culous as  a  culprit  schoolboy,  when 
the  master  in  the  old  story-books  said, 
"  Take  him  up,"  he  having  been  pre- 
viously ordered  to  take  something 
down,  viz.  the  plural  garment  of 
tweed,  doeskin,  or  corduroy,  which 
at  ordinary  times  and  seasons  is  but- 
toned over  the  blue  jacket,  beneath 
which  his  heart  now  palpitates  so 
wildly.  The  glee  with  which  these 
scourgings  were  administered  was  of 
a  tremendous  kind,  scarifying  and 


400 


scalping,  yet  depriving  the  subject 
operated  on  of  the  sympathy  else  due 
to  his  severe  expiation,  by  the  comic 
light  thrown  over  his  sufferings.  The 
kettle  is  so  dexterously  adjusted  to 
his  unhappy  tail,  that,  though  yon 
perceive  the  full  terror  of  the  victim, 
and  know  that,  inevitably  driven  mad 
by  the  infliction,  his  career  will  be 
ended  by  a  pitchfork  under  some 
hedge  in  a  lane,  counties  off,  you 
laugh  in  spite  of  yourself  at  his  con- 
tortions, and  join  in  the  shout  which 
greets  him  as  he  scours  clattering  by 
on  his  way  to  extinction. 

And  behind  this  many-sided  mask 
lurked,  half-seen,  the  Professor  him- 
self, the  real  man — the  gipsy-queller, 
salmon -killer,  grouse  and  red -deer 
shooter,  scholar,  critic,  essayist,  poet 
— landing  at  one  time  a  salmon,  at 
another  a  sophism  —  now  bringing 
down  a  black  cock,  now  a  political 
opponent  —  Wilson  lending  reality  to 
North,  North  mystery  to  Wilson,  the 
brilliant  imposing  whole  silencing  de- 
traction, terrifying  enmity,  and  in- 
spiring admirers  with  reverence,  till 
the  combined  name  stood  of  foremost 
mark  in  Scotland. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  faculty 
of  this  remarkable  man  is  his  humour, 
a  gift  never  bestowed  in  any  high 
degree  without  great  accompaniments 
in  sufficient  measure  to  constitute 
genius.  The  warrant  which  it  gives 
of  mental  superiority  can  never  be 
forged.  Other  charms  of  style  may 
be  imitated— we  may  get  sentiment, 
pathos,  and  wit,  all  Brummagem,  to 
look  very  like  the  precious  metals  ; 
but  humour  depends  on  inimitable, 
though  universally  recognisable,  graces 
and  felicities.  The  more  laborious  the 
copy  the  more  signal  the  failure,  and 
the  aspiring  impostor,  instead  of  soar- 


North and  the  Nodes.  [Oct. 

ing  in  buoyant  airy  currents  hither 


and  thither,  catching  echoes  of  mirth- 
ful applause  from  below,  looks  more 
goose  than  eagle,  when,  after  flapping 
his  short  wings  on  the  edge  of  the 
eminence  he  has  laboriously  climbed 
to,  he  casts  himself  off  with  the  grace 
of  a  cat  in  bladders,  and  flaps  and 
flutters  towards  the  ground,  in  what 
he  thinks  may  pass  for  a  flight,  but 
what  the  aggrieved  witnesses  of  his 
calamitous  attempt  know  to  be  a  dizzy 
and  dismal  tumble.  In  our  days, 
besides  the  numerous  pretenders,  there 
are  many  genuine  "  professors  of  ap- 
prehension," as  Beatrice  calls  them — 
men  who  can  turn  a  jest  neatly,  and 
make  you  laugh  for  sentences  together ; 
but  modern  times  have  seen  but  three 
great  masters  of  humour  in  England, 
triply  gilding  our  boyhood  with  the 
bright  light  of  merriment — Dickens, 
Sam  Slick,  and  Christopher  North. 
Of  all  the  varieties  of  humour,  none 
can  be  attempted  with  less  hope  of 
success  than  North's.  It  does  not 
depend  on  odd  turns  of  expression,  or 
quaint  incongruities  between  style  and 
subject,  but  springs  from  the  keenest 
sense  of  absurdity,  ever  open  to  the 
most  eccentric  images,  and  so  com- 
pletely under  control,  that,  with  the 
wish  to  invest  a  thing  or  person  with 
ridicule,  the  situation,  position,  or  ac- 
tion required  for  the  purpose  suggests 
itself  at  once  ;  the  business  is  done  in 
a  sentence,  and  place  and  dignity  can 
no  more  stave  off  derision  than  King 
Solomon's  throne,  had  he  been  com- 
pelled to  sit  on  it  in  the  cap  and  bells 
of  a  jester. 

As  an  instance,  we  will  give  a  pas- 
sage from  page  141.  They  have  been 
talking  of  the  presumption  of  some 
writers  on  political  economy  whom 
they  deride  each  in  his  own  style  : — 


TICKLER. 

About  a  thousand  editors  of  pelting  journals,  and  three  times  that  number  of 
understrappers  "  upon  the  establishment,"  think  themselves  able  to  correct  the 
errors  of  Adam  Smith.  "  We  cannot  help  being  surprised  that  Adam  Smith," 
&c. ;  and  then  the  dunce,  shutting  his  eyes,  and  clenching  his  fists,  without  the 
slightest  provocation,  runs  his  numskull  bang  against  the  illustrious  sage. 

NORTH. 

Adam  never  so  much  as  inclines  from  the  centre  of  gravity— while  the 
periodical  meal-monger,  leaving  only  some  white  on  the  sleeve  of  the  old 
gentleman's  coat,  which  is  easily  brushed  off  by  the  hand,  reels  off  into  the 
ditch,  as  if  he  had  been  repelled  from  the  wall  of  a  house,  and  is  extricated 
by  some  good-natured  friend,  who  holds  him  up,  dirty  and  dripping,  to  the 
derision  of  all  beholders. 


1855.] 


North  and  the  Nodes. 


401 


SHEPHERD. 

It's  perfectly  true,  that  a'  the  newspaper  chiels  speak  out  bauldly  upon  the 
principles  and  yeleraents  o'  the  science  —  and  though  I'm  wullin  to  alloo  that 
there's  some  verra  clever  fallows  amang  them,  yet  oh  I  man,  its  mair  than 
laughable,  for  it's  loathsome,  to  hear  them  ca'in  that  ower  kittle  for  Sir  Walter 
that's  sae  easy  to  themselves,  wha  write,  in  my  opinion,  a  sair  splutterin 
style,  as  to  language,— and,  as  to  thocht,  they  gang  roun'  and  roun',  and 
across  and  reacross,  back'ards  and  forrits,  out  o'  ae  yett  and  in  at  anither,  now 
loupin  ower  the  hedges,  and  now  bringin  doun  the  stane-wa's, — sometimes 
playin  plouter  into  a  wat  place  up  to  the  oxters,  and  sometimes  stumblin 
amang  stanes, — now  rionin  fast  fast,  like  a  jowler  on  the  scent,  and  then 
sittin  doun  on  a  knowe,  and  yowlin  like  a  collie  at  the  moon, — in  short,  like 
a  fou  fallow  that  has  lost  his  way  in  a  darkish  nicht,  and  after  sax  hours'  sair 
and  unavailing  travel,  is  discovered  snoring  sound  asleep  on  the  road-side  by 
decent  folk  riding  in  to  the  market. 


Ridicule  is  a  weapon  as  potent  as  it 
is  difficult  to  wield ;  few  the  gymnasts 
that  can  effectively  sway  the  trenchant 
blade  without  tottering  overbalanced. 
What  numberless  shams  and  absur- 
dities —  Palmerston  Administrations, 
poetastings,  Peace  Societies,  Vienna 
conferences, — all  peculiarly  open  to 
Christopherian  assault,  stalk  about 
without  meeting  half  the  derision  they 
deserve  for  want  of  a  North  ! 

Whether  in  light  or  serious  mood, 
the  prevailing  quality  of  his  mind  is 
force.  Whatever  the  subject,  or  what- 
ever the  vein  in  which  he  treats  it — 
whether  reproducing  a  landscape, 
discussing  a  book,  dissecting  a  char- 
acter, or  retracing  the  steps  of  some 
famous  day's  sport — the  same  power 
is  apparent,  impelling  the  stream  of 
thought  into  the  minutest  ramifications 
of  the  subject,  and  making  his  lighter 
fancies  resemble  the  relaxation  of  a 
jovial  giant.  Here,  again,  we  have  a 
quality  impossible  to  simulate.  Re- 
finement of  style  may  be  attained  by 
practice,  so  may  logical  clearness ; 
and  many  men  whom  nature  never 
designed  for  story-tellers,  have  lived 
to  construct  respectable  novels  and 
romances.  The  industrious  Mr  Rab- 
bit studies  Scott,  detects  the  princi- 
ples he  worked  on,  and  with  much 
mechanical  skill  produces,  by  the 
dozen,  novels  which,  equally  re- 
moved from  genius  and  folly,  shall 
lead  the  reader's  attention  onward, 
and  leave  him  as  dubious  of  the  re- 
sult up  to  the  last  page  as  when  he 
perused  Waverley.  But  practice, 
though  it  may  enable  a  man  to  keep 
three  balls  in  the  air,  or  to  fence  well, 
will  never  give  him  the  power  to 
rend,  like  the  Douglas,  uan  earth- 


fast  stone,"  and  "send  the  fragment 
through  the  sky."  An  ordinary  writer 
can  no  more  feign  force  of  style  than 
add  a  cubit  to  his  stature  ;  no  more 
wield  the  weapons  of  North  than 
bend  the  bow  of  Ulysses. 

The  value,  nay  essentiality,  of 
these  characteristics  of  force  and  hu- 
mour in  carrying  out  the  scheme  of 
such  a  work  as  the  Noctes,  in  perpe- 
tually sustaining  the  ever-varying  in- 
terest of  the  devious  discourse,  and 
touching  the  subject  as  it  shifts  with 
the  bright  relief  of  laughter,  is  at 
once  apparent.  Do  but  imagine  snch 
a  work  executed  by  some  even  of  our 
best  authors — think  how,  lost  in  the 
mazes  of  the  plan,  one  would  inevit- 
ably deviate  into  twaddle,  another 
into  prosing,  a  third  into  elegant  fee- 
bleness, a  fourth  into  flippancy.  Set 
some  popular  and  really  good  writer, 
though  lacking  the  aforesaid  requi- 
sites, to  work  in  this  way,  and  do  but 
think  of  his  wretched  efforts  to  wan- 
der back  again  to  a  beaten  path  out 
of  bramble-bushes  and  dry  wells,  torn 
and  bedraggled — of  the  smile  at  once 
hopeless  and  silly  with  which  he 
would  gaze  round  him  from  the 
dreary  summit  of  some  impracticable 
subject  looking  pleasant  in  the  dis- 
tance but  leading  nowhere,  whence 
North  would  have  descended  with  the 
graceful  agility  of  harlequin  vaulting 
through  a  flapped  window,  simulta- 
neously giving  old  Pantaloon  a  whack 
that  makes  him  stare  again,  and 
sends  the  audience  into  fits ; — how 
the  mistaken  man  would,  under  the 
impression  that  his  readers  were 
cheerfully  following  him,  pursue  his 
solitary  way,  on  some  favourite 
though  broken-winded  hobby,  like 


402 


North  and  the  Nodes. 


Cruikshank's  deaf  postilion  trotting 
away  with  the  fore-wheels  of  the  dis- 
located chaise,  and  leaving  in  the 
road  the  body  of  the  vehicle  with  the 
enamoured  couple  whom  he  was  con- 
veying to  Gretna  ; — how,  on  instinc- 
tively becoming  aware  that  he  was 
disgusting  his  readers,  and  really  had 
nothing  to  say  worth  saying,  he 
would,  in  a  playful  attempt  to  amuse, 
gambol  with  the  ease  of  a  stout  old 
lady  with  elephantiasis  in  both  legs  ; 
— how,  in  short,  after  making  it  at 
every  step  more  painfully  apparent 
that  he  possessed  not  the  multifarious 
requisites  for  the  enterprise,  he  would 
at  length,  bewildered  by  frequent 
failure,  stand  stock-still,  fatuous  and 
open-mouthed,  till  some  good-natured 
friend  drew  him  by  the  coat-tails 
with  gentle  force  from  the  melancholy 
scene. 

Famous  as  the  Professor's  name 
was  to  our  fathers,  it  is  quite  possible 
that  the  intelligent  youth  of  Great 
Britain,  or  rather  we  will  say  of 
England,  up  to  two  or  three  and 
twenty  years  of  age,  are  partially 
ignorant  of  it,  or,  at  any  rate,  to 
many  of  them  he  is  merely  a  great 
name  :  and  as  the  name  is  a  common 
one,  such  of  them  as  are  naturalists 
will,  perhaps,  on  hearing  of  the  re- 
publication  of  Wilson's  writings,  con- 
found them  with  those  of  the  eminent 
ornithologist,  while  the  more  devout 
among  ouryoung  friends  may  imagine 
them  to  be  religious  works  by  the  au- 
thor of  the  Sacra  Privata.  But  "  nolo 
episcopari,"  says  North  —  "  Don't 
confound  me  with  the  bishop ; "  and  as 
for  the  bird-fancier,  keenly,  it  is  true, 
has  our  Christopher  studied  ornitho- 
logy, but  it  has  been  on  a  moor  or  a 
grouse  mountain,  double-barrel  in 
hand,  and  with  Ponto  and  Sancho  for 
associates.  Sportsman,  poet,  philo- 
sopher, humourist,  critic — as  such 
was  he  dear  to  the  last  generation, 
and  as  such  he  reappears  to  the  pre- 
sent. Let  us  introduce  the  characters 
of  the  Noctes  to  our  dear  young 
friend :  Mr  North,  Mr  Tickler,  the 
Ettrick  Shepherd, — our  young  friend, 
intelligent,  appreciative,  and  reveren- 
tial. Be  seated,  young  sir.  To-mor- 
row you  shall  give  us  thanks  for  the 
pleasant  evening  you  have  spent, 
floating  on  the  stream  of  discourse 
with  such  companions,  discussing 


[Oct. 

works  now  classic,  men  now  histo- 
rical, and  catching  as  you  go  breezes 
heather  -  scented,  and  glimpses  of 
Highland  lochs  and  glens  in  the 
mountains. 

Or  suppose  now,  if  instead  of  enjoy- 
ing an  evening  after  this  fashion,  you 
accept  any  of  the  invitations  to  din- 
ner sticking  in  the  mirror  over  your 
mantelpiece,  and  go  into  real  society, 
what  there  can  you  hope  to  find 
worthy  of  replacing  these  ideal  jovial- 
ities ?  Of  course,  we  begin  by  pre- 
suming you  are  not  in  love,  because  if 
you  are,  and  the  object  of  your  affec- 
tions is  absent,  you  are  absent  also  in 
the  spirit,  and  the  bodily  appearance 
which  sits  at  table  and  passes  for  you, 
is  a  mere  clod  of  the  valley  in  em- 
broidered waistcoat  and  coral  buttons, 
incapable  of  relishing  either  the  wit  or 
the  cookery,  of  being  stimulated  into 
vitality  by  conversation,  curry,  or 
claret ;  whereas,  if  she  be  at  your  side 
you  think  her  teeming  with  wit  pass- 
ing the  wit  of  women,  though  she 
should  never  have  opened  her  mouth 
except  to  ask  for  mustard,  while  all 
the  wearisome  twaddle  talked  around 
you  conveys  a  dim  and  delicious  sense 
of  social  enjoyment  and  intellectual 
power ;  and  you  go  away  convinced 
that  everybody  agrees  with  you  in 
thinking  this  the  most  delightful  din- 
ner-party ever  known,  and  little  sus- 
pecting that  the  rest  of  the  guests 
pronounce,  with  one  voice,  you,  who 
were  formerly  thoughtrather  amusing, 
to  have  become  absolutely  idiotic  ever 
since  you  took  that  fancy  for  Fanny. 

But  we  will  supposethat,quiteheart- 
free,  and  otherwise  qualified  for  social 
give-and-take,  you  proceed  to  dine 
with  some  Mrs  Leo  Hunter,  who  aims 
at  making  her  menagerie  a  Holland 
House,  and  who,  partly  from  private 
friendship,  partly  from  respect  to  your 
literary  talents  (you  being  suspected 
of  writing  in  the  poet's  corner  of  the 
principal  newspaper  of  your  native 
county),  has  invited  you  to  meet  some 
of  the  greatest  celebrities  of  the  day. 
That  poet  whose  works  first  opened 
the  latent  vein  of  sentiment  in  your 
own  mind— the  novelist  whose  peculiar 
humour  you  find  socongenial — and  the 
great  critic  who,  in  praise  or  censure, 
seems  to  look  down  from  a  monthly  or 
quarterly  eminence  on  these  and  all 
other  master-spirits  of  the  time,  are 


1855.] 


North  and  the  Nodes. 


403 


to  meet  in  harmonious  rivalry;  the 
critic  starting  subjects  of  discourse, 
which  the  novelist  will  treat  in  his 
own  peculiar  vein,  with  a  fine  bass 
accompaniment  of  deep  feeling  from 
the  poet,  and  the  critic  coming  in 
again  at  intervals  to  throw  over  the 
whole  the  charm  of  conversational 
skill;  while  you,  sharp-set  as  Boswell, 
and  twice  as  appreciative,  will  feast 
and  batten  on  the  intellectual  banquet, 
and  carry  away  fragments  enough  to 
make  you  the  wonder  and  delight  of 
the  lesser  circles  in  which  you  com- 
monly revolve  for  the  remainder  of 
your  natural  life.  Tremulously,  yet 
hopefully,  you  enter  the  room  and  get 
through  the  introduction.  Despite 
the  disappointing  appearance  and 
manner  of  the  three  great  men,  you 
persist,  during  fish  and  soup,  in  prac- 
tising towards  them  the  parasitical 
adulation  which  you  intend  for  the 
homage  due  to  genius ;  with  the  en- 
trees you  begin  to  suspect  that  the  no- 
velist cannot  afford  to  be  colloquially 
pleasant,  and  that  the  critic  shines 
principally  in  print:  the  haunch  settles 
the  hash  of  both  these  luminaries;  with 
the  cheese  vanishes  the  last  lingering 
prestige  which  still  illuminated  the 
poet,  whose  silence,  you  at  length  un- 
willingly perceive,  is  quite  as  much 
owing  to  stupidity  as  shyness — and 
three  stars  have  fallen  out  of  the  con- 
stellation Leo,  never  to  reappear  to 
your  astronomical  gaze.  Not  only  do 
they  refuse  to  be  amusing  themselves, 
but  they  turn  on  the  efforts  of  others 
a  damned  disinheriting  countenance,  so 
that  the  only  sally  which,  in  your  first 
exhilaration,  you  attempted,  was  ap- 
preciated by  nobody  except  your 
hostess,  an  old  lady  in  a  turban,  whose 
laugh  ended  in  a  choke;  after  her 
dubious  recovery  from  which  she  re- 
marked, apologetically,  that  you  were 
41  such  a  funny  creature," — an  opinion 
which  nobody  responded  to. 

Or  you  have  arranged  to  dine  at 
your  club — say  the  Rag — with  Cutler 
and  Keene,  fellows,  by  Jove,  who, 
though  they  choose  to  fritter  away 
their  fine  powers  chiefly  in  conviviality, 
might  be  anything  they  liked,  sir ! 
You  order  the  dinner  yourself.  Juli- 
enne soup,  soles,  roast  lamb,  duck  and 
pease,  both  just  approaching  puberty, 
and  lobster  salad,  and  jelly,  all  light 
conversational  dishes,  moistened  with 


nothing  but  sparkling  Moselle  at  din- 
ner, and  claret  after,  port,  sherry,  and 
Madeira  being  fulsome  and  oppressive. 
Nothing  can  be  finer  than  the  fun  for 
the  first  half-hour  after  dinner ;  tap 
after  tap  delivered  with  the  right 
fencing  grace ;  ministers,  generals, 
authors,  and  the  press  discussed  with 
sportive  sparkling  wisdom,  and  all 
going  merry  as  a  marriage  -  bell, 
when  that  cursed  question  arose,  no- 
body knows  how,  as  to  whether 
Grinder  or  Grubb  wrote  that  article  in 
the  Westminster,  which  appeared, 
Keene  says  seven,  Cutler  eight,  years 
ago.  From  that  moment  the  demon 
of  discord  has  it  all  his  own  way — the 
phantoms  of  Grinder  and  Grubb  pre- 
sently vanish  in  the  wide  field  ot 
debate  into  which  the  disputants 
wander,  reasoning  in  circles,  mistak- 
ing assertion  for  proof,  shifting  their 
ground,  begging  the  question,  losing 
sight  of  it  altogether,  and  performing 
all  the  logic-defying  feats  which  distin- 
guish after-dinner  argument,  till,  wak- 
ing cold  and  with  a  headache  about 
two  in  the  morning  from  a  temporary 
slumber,  in  which  you  had  taken 
refuge  with  your  face  among  the  wal- 
nut shells,  you  find  Cutler  and  Keene 
just  leaving  the  club,  and  grimly 
bidding  each  other  good-night  with 
feelings  of  violent  animosity,  each 
persuaded  that  the  other  is  the  most 
obstinate  ass  in  existence,  and  ter- 
minating in  this  agreeable  manner 
the  evening  which  you  had  intended 
should  be  worthy  to  be  marked  with 
a  white  stone. 

If,  instead  of  these  futile  attempts 
at  social  enjoyment,  you  eat  your 
solitary  steak  quietly  in  your  robe-de- 
chambre  and  slippers,  after  a  couple 
of  glasses  draw  your  chair  to  the  fire, 
which  responds  warmly  and  cheer- 
fully to  your  persuasive  poke,  and 
opening  the  magic  drab-coloured  paper 
boards,  transfer  yourself  to  Ambrose's, 
none  of  these  disappointments  can 
possibly  await  you.  Nothing  but  the 
untimely  extinction  of  the  lamp,  from 
failure  of  wick  or  bad  oil,  or  some 
accursed  moth  smothering  the  flame 
of  the  candle  with  his  ill-timed  suttee, 
can  disperse  the  genial  assembly  of 
fun  and  wisdom  a  minute  before  the 
end  of  the  volume.  The  Shepherd  is 
ever  eloquent,  North  ever  gracious, 
Tickler  always  responsive  and  socia- 


404  North  and  the  Nodes.  [Oct. 

ble;   and  should  the  subject-matter  that  abstracted  meal,  where,  absorbed 

of  discourse  flag  for  a  page  or  two,  in  the  book  beside  his  plate,  he  had 

you  may  skip,  or  even  vault,  in  per-  attempted   to  eat  his    egg    without 

feet  security  that  you  let  slip  no  impor-  looking  at  it,  daubing  cheeks  and  chin 

tant  thread  of  story  in  doing  so,  and  horridly  with  the  yolk,  while  the  cat, 

are  certain  to  land  yourself  in  fresh  after  devouring  on  the  love-embroi- 

fields  of  imagery,  description,  or  criti-  dered  cushion  of  a  neighbouring  sofa 

cisrn.     This  makes  the  Nodes  espe-  his  only   mutton-chop,  returned  to 

cially  eligible  perusal  for  those  whose  wash  down  the  ill-gotten  morsel  by 

avocations  only  permit  them  to  read  inserting  her  head  in  the  cream -jug, 

in  snatches.     We  can  picture  to  our-  and  lapping  up  the  contents  unmo- 

self  some  high-minded  clerk  in  the  lested.    No  social  circle  beams  for 

public  offices,  framed  for  better  things,  him.    London  is   a  desert;   but  at 

wending  his  way  of  a  morning  to  Ambrose's  there  is  an  invisible  chair 

Downing  Street,  where  he  has  daily  where  he  may  sit  unnoticed  and  hear 

and  hourly  to  do  the  bidding  of  the  converse  high. 

present  ministry,  like  an  Ariel,  com-  Here  is  a  bit  of  castle -building 
pelled  to  fulfil  the  bests  of  some  which  a  Rich ter- worshipping  friend  as- 
damned  witch  or  foul  magician,  and  sures  us  is  like  a  felicitous  fragment  of 
enlivening  the  road  by  the  recollec-  Jean  Paul,  idol  of  the  Teutons.  The 
tion  of  such  a  passage  as  we  are  Shepherd  is  describing  a  calm  as  a  con- 
about  to  quote,  perused  at  breakfast,  trast  to  a  storm  he  has  first  painted, — 

SHEPHERD. 

I'm  wrapped  up  in  my  plaid,  and  lyin  a'  my  length  on  a  bit  green  platform, 
fit  for  the  fairies'  feet,  wi'  a  craig  hangin  ower  me  a  thousand  feet  high,  yet 
bright  and  balmy  a'  the  way  up  wi'  flowers  and  briars,  and  broom  and  birks, 
and  mosses  maist  beautifu'  to  behold  wi'  half-shut  ee,  and  through  aneath 
ane's  arm  guardin  the  face  frae  the  cloudless  sunshine  ! 

NORTH. 

A  rivulet  leaping  from  the  rock 

SHEPHERD. 

No,  Mr  North,  no  loupiu  ;  for  it  seems  as  if  it  were  nature's  ain  Sabbath, 
and  the  verra  waters  were  at  rest.  Look  down  upon  the  vale  profound,  and 
the  stream  is  without  motion  !  No  doubt,  if  you  were  walking  along  the  bank, 
it  would  be  murmuring  with  your  feet.  But  here — here  up  among  the  hills, 
we  can  imagine  it  asleep,  even  like  the  well  within  reach  of  my  staff ! 

NORTH. 

Tickler,  pray  make  less  noise,  if  you  can,  in  drinking,  and  also  in  putting 
down  your  tumbler.  You  break  in  upon  the  repose  of  James's  picture. 

SHEPHERD. 

Perhaps  a  bit  bonny  butterfly  is  resting,  wi'  faulded  wings,  on  a  gowan,  no 
a  yard  frae  your  cheek ;  and  noo,  waukening  out  o'  a  simmer  dream,  floats 
awa  in  its  wavering  beauty,  but  as  if  unwilling  to  leave  its  place  of  mid-day 
sleep,  comin  back  and  back,  and  roun'  and  roun',  on  this  side  and  that  side, 
and  ettlin  in  its  capricious  happiness  to  fasten  again  on  some  brighter  floweret, 
till  the  same  breath  o'  wund  that  lifts  up  your  hair  sae  refreshingly  catches 
the  airy  voyager,  and  wafts  her  away  into  some  other  nook  of  her  ephemeral 
paradise. 

TICKLER. 

I  did  not  know  that  butterflies  inhabited  the  region  of  snow. 

SHEPHERD. 

Ay,  and  mony  million  moths  ;  some  o'  as  lovely  green  as  of  the  leaf  of  the 
moss-rose,  and  ithers  bright  as  the  blush  with  which  she  salutes  the  dewy 
dawn  ;  some  yellow  as  the  long  steady  streaks  that  lie  below  the  sun  at  set, 
and  ithers  blue  as  the  sky  before  his  orb  has  westered.  Spotted,  too,  are  all 
the  glorious  creatures'  wings — say  rather,  starred  wi'  constellations  !  Yet,  O 
sirs,  they  are  but  creatures  o'  a  day  ! 

NORTH. 

Go  on  with  the  calm,  James— the  calm  ! 


1855.]  North  and  the  Nodes.  405 

SHEPHERD. 

Gin  a  pile  o'  grass  straughtens  itself  in  silence,  you  hear  it  distinctly.  I'm 
thinkin  that  was  the  noise  o'  a  beetle  gaun  to  pay  a  visit  to  a  freen  on  the 
ither  side  o'  that  mossy  stane.  The  melting  dew  quakes  !  Ay,  sing  awa,  my 
bonny  bee,  maist  industrious  o'  God's  creatures  !  Dear  me,  the  heat  is  ower 
muckle  for  him  ;  and  he  burrows  himsel  in  amang  a  tuft  o'  grass,  like  a  beetle 
panting  !  and  noo  invisible  a'  but  the  yellow  doup  o'  him.  I  too  feel  drowsy, 
and  will  go  to  sleep  amang  the  mountain  solitude. 

NORTH. 

Not  with  such  a  show  of  clouds 

SHEPHERD. 

No  !  not  with  such  a  show  of  clouds.  A  congregation  of  a  million  might 
worship  in  that  Cathedral !  What  a  dome  !  And  is  not  that  flight  of  steps 
magnificent?  My  imagination  sees  a  crowd  of  white-robed  spirits  ascending 
to  the  inner  shrine  of  the  temple.  Hark — a  bell  tolls  !  Yonder  it  is,  swinging 
to  and  fro,  half-minute  time,  in  its  tower  of  clouds.  The  great  air-organ  'gins 
to  blow  its  pealing  anthem — and  the  overcharged  spirit  falling  from  its  vision, 
sees  nothing  but  the  pageantry  of  earth's  common  vapours — that  erelong  will 
melt  in  showers,  or  be  wafted  away  in  darker  masses  over  the  distance  of  the 
sea.  Of  what  better  stuff,  O  Mr  North,  are  made  all  our  waking  dreams  ? 
Call  not  thy  Shepherd's  strain  fantastic  ;  but  look  abroad  over  the  work-day 
world,  and  tell  him  where  thou  seest  aught  more  steadfast  or  substantial  than 
that  cloud-cathedral,  with  its  flight  of  vapour-steps,  and  its  mist  towers,  and 
its  air- organ,  now  all  gone  for  ever,  like  the  idle  words  that  imaged  the  tran- 
sitory and  delusive  glories. 

The  editor,  who  assures  us  that  the  the  Teutonic  gutturals  to  read  Goethe 
Scotch  of  the  dialogues  is  of  the  most  and  Jean  Paul,  why  not  devote  a 
classical  description,  has  appended  short  space  of  attention  to  the  Ian- 
foot-notes  explaining  the  hardest  guage  of  the  Shepherd? 
words.  One  consequence  we  foresee  Many  of  the  topics  have  great 
from  the  republication  of  the  Noctes,  interest  just  now ;  for  instance,  at 
is  the  universal  study  of  the  northern  page  77,  the  trio  discourse  as  fol- 
dialect.  French,  German,  and  Italian  lows  on  the  power  of  war  to  afford 
masters  will  find  their  occupation  fitting  subject  and  inspiration  to  the 
gone.  If  it  is  worth  while  mastering  poet : — 

TICKLER. 

True.  But  military  war  is  much  harder  to  conceive  in  poetry.  Our  army 
is  not  an  independent  existence,  having  for  ages  a  peculiar  life  of  its  own. 
It  is  merely  an  arm  of  the  nation,  which  it  stretches  forth  when  need  requires. 
Thus  though  there  are  the  highest  qualities  in  our  soldiery,  there  is  scarcely 
the  individual  life  which  fits  a  body  of  men  to  belong  to  poetry. 

NORTH. 

In  Schiller's  Camp  of  Wallenstein  there  is  individual  life  given  to  soldiers, 
and  with  fine  effect.  But  I  do  not  see  that  the  army  of  Lord  Wellington, 
all  through  the  war  of  the  Peninsula,  though  the  most  like  a  continued 
separate  life  of  anything  we  have  had  in  the  military  way,  comes  up  to 
poetry. 

TICKLER. 

Scarcely,  North.  I  think  that  if  an  army  can  be  viewed  poetically,  it 
must  be  merely  considering  it  as  the  courage  of  the  nation,  clothed  in  shape, 
and  acting  in  visible  energy  ;  and  to  that  tune  there  might  be  warlike  strains 
for  the  late  war.  But  then  it  could  have  nothing  of  peculiar  military  life, 
but  would  merge  in  the  general  life  of  the  nation.  There  could  be  no  camp 
life. 

SHEPHERD. 

I  don't  know,  gentlemen,  that  I  follow  you,  for  I  am  no  great  scholar. 
But  allow  me  to  say,  in  better  English  than  I  generally  speak,  for  that 
beautiful  star— Venus,  I  suspec,  or  perhaps  Mars— in  ancient  times  they 


406 


North  and  the  Noctes. 


[Oct. 


shone  together— that  if  any  poet,  breathing  the  spirit  of  battle,  knew  inti- 
mately the  Peninsular  War,  it  would  rest  entirely  with  himself  to  derive 
poetry  from  it  or  not.  Every  passion  that  is  intense  may  be  made  the 
groundwork  of  poetry ;  and  the  passion  with  which  the  British  charge  the 
French  is  sufficiently  intense,  I  suspec,  to  ground  poetry  upon.  Not  a  critic 
of  the  French  School  would  deny  it. 

Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports — and  so 
ascending  from  triumph  to  triumph, 
from  honour  to  honour,  till  the  popu- 
lation of  Edinburgh  throngs  out  to 
join  in  one  wild  uproar  of  applause, 
in  greeting  Duke  Christopher  re- 
turning from  the  East. 

Yes,  he  would  have  made  a  fine 
soldier,  but  more  fitted  to  shine  before 
Troy  than  before  Sebastopol.  Not  in 
our  days,  or  in  our  army,  is  the  race  to 
the  swift,  the  battle  to  the  strong.  Per- 
chance the  Norths  might  not  have  been 
connected  with  any  family  in  power, 
or  perchance  there  might  have  been 
some  adverse  star  in  the  ascendant 
at  the  Horse  Guards,  or  some  of  those 
numerous  causes  which  blight  the 
military  aspirant  might  have  kept 
him  back,  while  flippancy  and  incom- 
petence were  raised  to  the  high  places, 
and  distinctions,  missing  him,  alighted 
on  heads  never  meant  for  honour, 
till,  wearied  and  soured  —  but  no, 
North  was  too  loyal  for  a  grumbler. 
Maimed  and  obscure,  but  conscious  of 
having  done  his  duty,  he  might  have 
lived  through  the  war  to  retire  on  a 
stipend  just  capable  of  keeping  him 
in  wooden  legs,  and  have  beguiled 
the  long  leisure  of  lameness  by  writ- 
ing the  Noctes  painfully  with  his  left 
hand,  his  right  having  been  long  since 
disabled  by  a  bullet  in  the  trenches 
before  the  Redan.  So,  on  maturely 
weighing  both  sides  of  the  question, 
we  will  not  regret  that  his  paths  were 
paths  of  peace. 

No  picture-gallery  in  the  world  con- 
tains scenery  more  varied  and  vivid 
than  the  pages  of  the  Noctes.  We 
know  not  what  great  master  would 
have  best  rendered  this  Burning  of 
the  Heather — perhaps  Rembrandt. 


Seldom  has  Mars  offered  to  the 
Muses  a  more  attractive  spectacle 
than  now,  as  he  stands  erect,  and, 
strangling  Plutus  with  his  left  hand, 
waves  his  right  to  Venus,  who 
stretches  her  white  arms  lovingly 
towards  him  across  the  sea.  What 
a  soldier  North  would  have  made  ! 
What  fiery  valour,  what  chivalrous 
devotion,  what  energy  of  command ! 
By  soldier  we  mean  general  and 
commander-in-chief, — or,  if  he  held  a 
lesser  command,  it  should  be  the 
cavalry,  and  that  entirely  independ- 
ent. He  would  advance  from  Eupa- 
toria  to  cut  the  communications  of 
the  enemy  with  the  same  confidence 
as  he  used  to  invade  Cockaigne, 
throwing  out  his  skirmishers,  cover- 
ing his  flanks,  and  always  mindful  of 
the  commissariat.  What  a  gleam  in 
his  eye  when  he  caught  sight  of  the 
marshalled  hordes  of  the  enemy  on  that 
wide  green  horizon! — what  a  trum- 
pet-clearness in  his  word  to  charge  ! 
— what  splendour  in  the  rush,  at  once 
wild  and  majestic,  with  which  he 
would  lead  the  line  of  sparkling 
helmets  and  dark  Busbies  against 
the  northern  hosts,  cleaving,  repell- 
ing, and  scattering  them,  and  weary 
only  of  smiting  when  the  foe  no 
longer  resisted  but  fled,  crouching  on 
the  mane  ! — Elected  unanimously  to 
the  chief  command,  he  moulds  Pelis- 
sier  to  his  potent  will — the  weak 
point  of  the  garrison  is  detected,  and 
after  a  brief  cannonade,  hark! — the 
rush  of  the  stormers  and  the  cheer 
of  Zouave  and  Guardsman  charging 
along  the  streets  of  the  captured 
city ! — Then  the  gazettes  and  tributes 
of  a  grateful  country — Sir  Christo- 
pher North,  G.C.B.— Lord  North, 


SHEPHERD. 

Was  you  ever  at  the  burning  o'  heather  or  whins,  Mr  North  ? 

NORTH. 

I  have,  and  have  enjoyed  the  illuminated  heavens. 

TICKLER. 

Describe. 

NORTH. 

In  half-an-hour  from  the  first  spark,,  the  hill  glowed  with  fire  unextinguish- 
able  by  waterspout.    The  crackle  became  a  growl,  as  acre  after  acre  joined 


1855.]  North  and  the  Nodes.  407 

the  flames.  Here  and  there  a  rock  stood  in  the  way,  and  the  burning  waves 
broke  against  it,  till  the  crowning  birch-tree  took  fire,  and  its  tresses,  like  a 
shower  of  flaming  diamonds,  were  in  a  minute  consumed.  Whirr,  whirr, 
played  the  frequent  gor-cock,  gobbling  in  his  fear  ;  and,  swift  as  shadows,  the 
old  hawks  flew  screaming  from  their  young,  all  smothered  in  a  nest  of  ashes. 

TICKLER. 
Good— excellent !— Go  it  again. 

NORTH. 

The  great  pine-forest  on  the  mountain-side,  two  miles  off,  frowned  in 
ghastly  light,  as  in  a  stormy  sunset — and  you  could  see  the  herd  of  red  deer, 
a  whirlwind  of  antlers,  descending,  in  their  terror,  into  the  black  glen,  whose 
entrance  gleamed  once — twice — thrice,  as  if  there  had  been  lightning ;  and 
then,  as  the  wind  changed  the  direction  of  the  flames,  all  the  distance  sunk  in 
dark  repose. 

TICKLER. 

Vivid  colouring,  indeed,  sir.    Paint  away. 

NORTH. 

That  was  an  eagle  that  shot  between  and  the  moon. 

TICKLER. 

What  an  image ! 

NORTH. 

Millions  of  millions  of  sparks  of  fire  in  heaven,  but  only  some  six  or  seven 
stars.  How  calm  the  large  lustre  of  Hesperus ! 

TICKLER. 

James,  what  do  you  think  of  that,  eh  ? 

SHEPHERD. 

Didna  ye  pity  the  taids  and  paddocks,  and  asks  and  beetles,  and 
slaters  and  snails  and  spiders,  and  worms  and  ants,  and  caterpillars  and 
bumbees,  and  a'  the  rest  o'  the  insect-world,  perishin  in  the  flamin  nicht  o' 
their  last  judgment? 

NORTH. 

In  another  season,  James,  what  life,  beauty,  and  bliss  over  the  verdant 
wilderness!  There  you  see  and  hear  the  bees  busy  on  the  white  clover — 
while  the  lark  comes  wavering  down  from  heaven,  to  sit  beside  his  mate  on 
her  nest !  Here  and  there  are  still  seen  the  traces  of  fire,  but  they  are  nearly 
hidden  by  flowers. 

A  grand  piece,  like  a  storm    by  lers,  stretching  against  the  grey  sky, 

some  great  musician,  where  sunshine  noiseless   and  motionless,   though   a 

follows  the  thunder.     So  does  Nature  breeze  waved  the  living  forest,  and 

ever  essay  to  hide  the  traces  of  de-  the  pines,  whispering  as  they  bent 

struction.    We  remember  once,  while  and  swayed  to  its  wing,  seemed  to 

pursuing  a  moose  in  the  woods  of  be  telling   the  weird  secrets  of  that 

Maine,  over  snow  frozen  to  a  hardness  ghostly    scene,    fit    for    lost    spirits 

and  smoothness  unattained  by  Mac-  to  wander  in,  for  ever  desolate.    A 

adam,  the  devious  track  through  that  hunter,  of  a  race  of  redskins  wellnigh 

white  world  led  us  to  the  borders  of  extinct,  leaned  on  his  rifle,  and  told 

a  region  swept  years  before  by  a  fire  how,  many  years  before,  he,  then  a 

in  the  forest.     The  stately  pine,  with  boy,  had  fled  for  life  through  these 

its  deep  green  canopy,  the  feathery  woods,    pursued    by    the    crackling 

pointed  firs,   with  their  flake-roofed  roaring  flames,  which  made  the  forest 

bending  branches,  the  deep  hemlock  behind  him  one  endless  furnace,  where 

swamps,  where  black  foliage  and  stems  trees  glowed  and  shrivelled  in  a  long 

and  snow  were  huddled  and  heaped  in  perspective   of  shadowless  fire,   and 

a  wild  tangle,  as  of  ebony  inlaid  on  before  whose  hot  breath  lie  dashed  on 

ivory  —  all    vanished  ;   and    instead,  in  his  race  with  red  destruction  to- 

there   sprung    from    the    undulating  wards  the  river    below,   and  found 

desert  only  the  grim  charred  skele-  shelterinits  welcome  waters.  Therehe 

tons  of  trees,  bare,  spectral,  and  omin-  crouched,  while  there  swarmed  round 

ous,  with  black  branches,  like  ant-  him  the  wild  beasts  and  venomed 


408 


North  and  the  Nodes. 


[Oct. 


snakes  of  the  forest,  their  savage  in- 
stincts quelled  in  the  fear  of  burning, 
and  the  flames  spreading  to  the  other 
bank,  and  darting  down  like  fierce 
serpents,  till  he  and  all  the  other 
living  creatures  scarce  dared  to  gasp 
at  the  surface  for  those  breaths  which 
scorched  their  vitals,  formed  an  arch 
beneath  which  the  river,  reddened  to 
a  bright  glow,  flowed  on  in  a  long 
vista  of  terrible  beauty.  Yet  even  on 
this  blasted  spot  the  soil,  scarred  but 
not  desolated,  had  re-clad  itself  in 
verdure,  now  hidden  by  the  snow, 
except  where  the  tops  of  the  infant 
forest  peeped  through,  and  was  in 
summer  filled  with  birds  and  fruits 
and  humming  life. 

We  remember  to  have  somewhere 
heard,  read,  or  dreamed,  a  kind  of 
lament,  that  such  a  genius  as  North's 
should  have  written  itself  on  his  age 
in  such  desultory  characters,  and 
should  not  rather,  with  labour  and 
thought,  have  left  some  complete  and 
magnificent  literary  edifice,  construct- 
ed by  stricter  rules,  as  an  enduring 
testimony  of  its  powers.  No  reader 
and  appreciator  of  the  Nodes  will 
experience  such  vain  and  shallow  re- 
grets. It  is  better  to  have  the  Krem- 
lin and  the  Parthenon  than  two  Par- 
thenons,  —  and  something  like  the 
northern  structure,  vast,  various,  emi- 
nently picturesque,  sometimes  grot- 
esque in  its  quaintness,  often  sublime 
in  its  savage  grandeur,  with  dark 
corners  of  mystery,  and  nooks  bright 
with  sport  and  enjoyment,  and  always 
teeming  with  life  and  interest,  is  the 
monument  left  to  the  world  by  Chris- 
topher North.  None  but  a  mind  of 
unequalled  richness  could  venture  to 
range,  as  his  does,  without  other  limits 
than  the  chances  of  discourse.  Mat- 
ters the  highest  and  the  lowest,  of 
recondite  philosophy  and  of  everyday 
life,  are  connected  by  links  slender, 
yet  perfectly  natural,  and  of  quaint 
and  various  design,  into  a  chain  rich 
with  ornament.  Every  subject  in 
turn,  and  all  alike,  are  treated  with 
the  fulness  and  luxuriance  generally 
bestowed  only  on  some  pet  theme. 
Such  evidence  of  rare  power  leaves 
nothing  to  regret.  Novelists  and 


dramatists  must  have  some  tambonr- 
frame  of  plot  on  which  to  embroider 
their  characters  and  scenes — essayists 
must  acknowledge  the  efficacy  of  rule 
and  compass  in  enabling  them  to  ex- 
press the  results  of  thought,  reading, 
and  experience ;  and  on  their  inge- 
nuity and  constructive  power  often 
depends,  in  great  measure,  the  success 
of  their  work.  But  when  an  author, 
taking  us,  like  some  genie,  by  the 
hand,  leads  us,  with  no  apparent 
choice  of  path,  through  scenes  now 
wild,  now  familiar  —  sometimes  by 
dark  glens  and  gloomy  forests,  some- 
times through  cheerful  streets,  where 
the  common  sights  of  daily  life  are 
suddenly  bright  with  interest — away 
across  wide  moors  haunted  by  the 
gor-cock  and  curlew,  to  the  deep  ra- 
vine where  we  are  made  to  pause  and 
listen  to  the  waterfall  before  being 
taken  into  the  cottage  on  its  bank, 
and  shown  not  only  the  faces  but  the 
hearts  of  its  inhabitants — and  then, 
with  a  heigh  presto !  off  to  Princes 
Street,  where  the  passengers  on  the 
pavement  have  a  new  meaning  in 
their  ordinary  faces — now  saddened 
with  a  tale  of  pathos,  now  convulsed 
with  laughter  —  we  acknowledge  a 
power  which  has  more  resemblance  to 
inspiration  than  the  spirit  which  dic- 
tates either  brilliant  romance  or  pro- 
found philosophy. 

Now  is  Maga  like  some  fair  widow 
who  sees  stalwart  boys,  blooming 
daughters,  and  laughing  children  of 
sweet  promise,  around  her.  Cheerful 
and  bright,  diffusing  light  through  the 
household,  and  bringing  pleasure  to 
many  a  circle,  she  ceases  not  to  re- 
member him  who  was  her  pride,  who 
has  left  on  her  mind,  and  the  minds 
of  her  numerous  offspring,  the  impress 
of  his  powerful  spirit.  The  feelings 
with  which,  in  moments  sacred  to 
memory,  she  reperuses  the  letters  of 
her  lost  and  wedded  love — dwelling 
with  fondness  on  the  well-known  cha- 
racters, her  eyes  blinded  with  tears 
even  while  her  lips  smile  brightly, 
mirth  broken  by  sighs,  weeping  dashed 
with  soft  laughter — are  such  as  Maga 
experiences  in  reviewing  the  writings 
and  recalling  the  genius  of  North. 


CAMP  BEFORE  SEBASTOPOL,  1st  September. 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


409 


ZAIDEE  :    A   ROMANCE. 


PART  XI. — BOOK    III. 


CHAPTER   XVII. — WANDERINGS. 


BUT  Sylvo's  place,  which  was  very 
well  for  a  visit  of  two  or  three  weeks, 
did  not  retain  its  attractions  for  a 
longer  residence,  and  there  was  no 
telling  when  the  unhappy  house  at 
Twickenham  might  be  habitable.  Mr 
and  Mrs  Cumberland  were  people 
happily  independent  of  fashion;  it 
mattered  very  little  to  them  that 
"  the  season  "  was  ending,  and  people 
rushing  everywhere  out  of  London. 
Mrs  Cumberland  was  suddenly  seized 
with  a  desire  to  spend  a  few  weeks 
in  town;  and  Mary — albeit  Mary 
was  by  no  means  so  indifferent  to 
fashion  as  her  mother  was — eagerly 
seconded  the  proposal.  It  was  in 
vain  that  Sylvo,  somewhat  discomfit- 
ed, echoed  Mr  Mansfield's  protest 
that  there  was  "nobody"  in  town. 
"  There  are  a  great  many  charming 
people,  my  dear  Sylvo,"  said  Mrs 
Cumberland.  "  I  am  thankful  to  say 
my  friends  are  not  of  an  exclusive 
caste ;  /can  find  some  one  worth  visit- 
ing in  London  all  the  year  round." 

"  London  in  August !  I  admire 
your  taste,  I  am  sure,  Maria  Anna," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  But  even 
these  dreadful  sarcasms  of  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw did  not  deter  her  sister. 
Sylvo  had  found  no  opportunity  of 
giving  Zaidee  that  other  chance.  He 
thought  it  might  be  as  prudent  to 
leave  her  time  to  contrast  this  place 
of  his,  and  all  the  delights  and 
honours  of  which  its  mistress  would 
have  full  possession,  with  "  some 
shabby  house  in  London,"  where  his 
own  graceful  attentions  would  be 
wanting.  One  of  Mrs  Cumberland's 
friends,  who  was  on  the  wing  for  her 
place  in  the  country,  willingly  hand- 
ed over  her  house  to  Mrs  Cumber- 
land. If  not  a  shabby  house,  it  was 
rather  a  faded  one,  with  little  rooms, 
and  no  remarkable  advantages  of 
position,  so  far  as  these  rustic  people 
could  judge.  Mrs  Burtonshaw  was 
seized  with  shortness  of  breath  the 
very  first  day  of  their  entry  into  it ; 
she  thanked  Providence  she  was  not 


obliged  to  live  in  rooms  of  such  pro- 
portions. "  Very  different  from 
Sylvo's  place,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw  ;  u  you  are  pale  already, 
Elizabeth,  my  sweet  love  !  Maria 
Anna  ought  to  have  more  thought 
for  you." 

And  it  was  very  true  that  Zaidee 
was  pale,  and  that  the  mother  of 
Sylvo  was  more  and  more  impressed 
with  the  attachment  to  her  son, 
which  was  so  apparent.  Mary's  soft 
cheek,  too,  owned  a  flutter  of  variable 
colour,  but  this  Mrs  Burtonshaw  did 
not  notice.  The  good  lady  audibly 
wondered  whether  Mr  Vivian,  or 
that  pretty  sweet  Mrs  Bernard  Mor- 
ton, would  still  be  in  town ;  but  Mrs 
Burtonshaw  was  not  quite  aware 
how  important  a  question  this  was 
to  both  her  young  companions,  or 
how  often  their  thoughts  made  the 
same  inquiry.  But  when  they  had 
been  a  week  or  two  in  London,  it 
grew  sufficiently  evident  that  Mr 
Percy  Vivian  was  not  in  town.  Seve- 
ral of  Mrs  Cumberland's  "  charming  " 
acquaintances,  who  were  of  the  circle 
of  Percy's  worshippers,  reported  that 
he  had  gone  home  to  Cheshire ;  and 
that  Mrs  Morton,  though  still  de- 
tained by  her  husband's  parlia- 
mentary duties,  was  also  preparing 
to  go — "  everybody, "  indeed,  was  in 
the  flutter  of  departure;  even  the 
good  people  who  could  only  afford  a 
fortnight's  holiday,  and  who  were 
innocent  of  fashion,  closed  up  their 
windows  and  "  went  out  of  town." 
The  sunshine  burned  upon  the  Lon- 
don streets,  upon  the  hosts  of  people 
who  have  no  holiday,  and  pleasure- 
seekers  from  the  country,  innocently 
unaware  that  "  all  the  world "  had 
forsaken  the  busy  Babylon.  Mrs 
Cumberland  almost  repented  of  her 
visit  to  London  ;  and  Mary,  who  was 
not  above  the  horror  of  being  un- 
fashionable, began  to  urge  retreat 
again  with  much  perseverance.  They 
drove  down  to  Twickenham  only  to 
find  Mr  Cumberland  peering  over  his 


410 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


spectacles  with  his  curious  eyes  at 
the  mass  of  indiscriminate  rubbish 
which  encumbered  the  lawn,  and 
attaching  turrets  and  pinnacles  and 
rounding  corners  at  his  own  sweet 
will,  fearless  of  criticism.  Already, 
if  the  steamboat  passengers  up  and 
down  the  Thames  were  not  the  hap- 
pier for  Mr  Cumberland's  improve- 
ments, they  were  the  more  amused  ; 
and  it  was  even  said  that  Mr  Shenkin 
Powis  had  undertaken  a  voyage  as 
far  as  Hampton  Court,  to  survey  with 
horror  the  extremely  original  speci- 
men of  domestic  architecture  which 
the  philosopher  was  elaborating  out 
of  his  comfortable  square  box.  The 
holiday  people  on  the  river  no  longer 
passed  this  pretty  corner  with  silent 
envy.  There  was  always  a  crowd  of 
gazers  turning  their  attention  to 
this  grand  effort  of  Mr  Cumberland 
for  the  commonweal.  The  acacia 
on  the  lawn,  being  of  a  fastidious 
nature,  had  begun  to  droop  and 
sicken  in  spite  of  the  rude  wooden 
railings  put  up  to  protect  it,  and  shed 
its  foliage  in  yellow  flakes,  no  longer 
upon  the  beautiful  head  of  Zaidee 
Vivian,  or  the  clustering  curls  of 
Mary  Cumberland,  but  upon  the 
paper  caps  of  plasterers,  and  carpen- 
ters, and  sandy  masonic  locks.  "  We 
are  getting  on,"  said  Mr  Cumberland, 
rubbing  his  hands  with  glee  as  the 
ladies  of  his  family  stood  by  in  horror- 
stricken  silence — "  already  making 
progress,  sister  Burtonshavv.  Before 
the  winter  frosts  set  in,  you  shall  see 
a  very  different-looking  building,  I 
assure  yon,  from  the  thing  you  left. 
This  crocket  is  from  York,  and  the 
work  of  this  oriel  window  copied 
from  a  beautiful  example  in  Nurem- 
berg. I  do  not  reject  authority  — 
far  be  it  from  me  to  dispute  the  wis- 
dom of  the  past — but  I  retain  my  own 
ideas  notwithstanding,  sister  Eliza- 
beth. But  for  my  oversight  and  care, 
it  would  be  impossible  to  harmonise 
the  whole ;  and  I  expect  the  science 
of  domestic  architecture  to  date  this 
building  as  the  first  in  a  new  period. 
The  buildings  of  the  age  shall  be 
harmonised,  sister  Burtonshaw ;  a 
character  of  benevolent  forethought 
shall  be  added  to  the  conscientious 
morality  of  Mr  Shenkin  Powis  :  there 
is  not  an  addition  here  which  does 
not  represent,  really  or  symbolically, 


[Oct. 

the  celestial  attribute  of  benevolence ; 
but  I  have  no  time  to  enter  into 
detail.  No,  by  no  means,  I  do  not 
wish  you  to  come  home ;  women  are 
always  in  the  way  of  improvements  ; 
and  I  am  glad  to  tell  you  that  I  am 
perfectly  satisfied  with  the  way  we 
are  going  on." 

The  visitors  got  into  their  carriage, 
and  drove  away  in  respectful  silence. 
Mrs  Burtonshaw,  panting  for  words 
in  which  to  express  her  admiration 
of  Mr  Cumberland's  proceedings, 
could  find  none  sufficiently  terse 
and  expressive;  and  Mrs  Cumber- 
land contented  herself  with  a  sigh  of 
relief  when  they  emerged  from  the 
dust  with  which  this  benevolent  archi- 
tecture filled  the  atmosphere.  They 
were  quite  cast  out  of  their  home, 
these  unfortunate  ladies.  However 
benevolent  the  porch  might  be  when 
completed,  it  threw  most  inhospitable 
obstacles  in  the  mean  time  across  the 
familiar  threshold,  and  access  by  door 
or  window  was  equally  denied  to 
them.  When  they  reached  their 
faded  drawing-room,  and  looked  out 
upon  the  closed  shutters  of  this  ex- 
tremely fashionable  and  dingy  little 
street,  Mrs  Burtonshaw  thought  it 
the  best  possible  opportunity  for  urg- 
ing a  return  to  Sylvo's  place. 

"  You  will  go  back  to  Essex  now, 
of  course,  Maria  Anna,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw  ;  "  you  will  not  shut  up 
these  dear  children  here,  to  pine 
away  and  lose  their  health  again. 
Keep  up  your  spirits,  Elizabeth,  my 
love — we  shall  soon  return  again — for 
I  am  sure  you  looked  quite  a  differ- 
ent creature  in  Sylvo's  place." 

"  But  I  cannot  think  of  returning 
to  Sylvo's  place,"  said  Mrs  Cumber- 
land from  her  sofa.  "  My  dear  Eliza- 
beth, you  are  very  kind,  but  we  will 
take  advantage  of  our  opportunity, 
and  have  a  change  of  scene.  I  have 
been  thinking — we  will  not  go  to  the 
coast,  nor  to  Scotland,  nor  any  place 
we  have  been  before  —  we  will  go 
into  the  beautiful  heart  of  England, 
my  dear  children.  When  your  aunt 
Burtonshaw  and  I  were  young,  we 
were  there  once  many  years  ago ;  we 
will  go  to  Malvern  —  we  will  quite 
enjoy  ourselves  being  alone.  My  dear 
Elizabeth,  I  trust  you  have  no  objec- 
tion ;  we  shall  be  quite  hermits,  and 
enjoy  that  beautiful  hill." 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


411 


If  Mrs  Burtonshaw  had  objections, 
it  did  not  seem  that  they  were  par- 
ticularly important.  Mary,  being  in 
the  state  of  mind  to  which  change  of 
one  sort  or  another  was  indispens- 
able, eagerly  lent  her  assistance,  and 
within  a  few  days  the  little  party  set 
out  once  more.  "We  know  no  one 
there — we  will  be  quite  alone,  Lizzy," 
said  Mary,  with  a  sigh.  Perhaps 
Miss  Cumberland  did  not  appreciate 
as  her  mother  did  the  romantic  de- 
lights of  solitude,  but  Mary  was  eager 
to  set  out  from  this  desolate  Lon- 
don, echoing  with  emphasis  the  uni- 
versal declaration  that  "  no  one 
was  in  town."  An  express  North- 
Western  train  might  have  made 
London  populous  in  a  very  few 
hours  for  Mary,  but  "  nobody  "  was 
in  it  now. 

u  My  dear  love,  we  will  not  stay 
long — we  will  soon  come  back  to 
Sylvo's  place,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw, 
patting  the  beautiful  head  of  Zaidee. 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  thought  it  was 
very  cruel  of  Maria  Anna  to  shut  her 
eyes  to  the  dear  child's  feelings  so 
\vantonly.  What  did  any  one  care 
lur  Malvern ?  and  it  was  easy  to  see 
how  deeply  interested  this  poor  dear 
was  in  Sylvo's  place. 

But    Zaidee  bore  with  Avonderful 


fortitude  the  journey  which  carried 
her  farther  and  farther  away  from 
Sylvo.  Zaidee's  fresh  young  spirit, 
and  eyes  shining  with  life  and  interest, 
traced  all  these  inland  roads  with 
pleasure.  The  apple-trees  on  the 
pathway  clustered  with  their  rus- 
set fruit,  and  the  pollard  willows 
bristling  over  every  little  stream  — 
the  great  Vale  of  Severn  with  its 
churches  and  towns,  and  that  odd 
miniature  mountain  which  has  lo&t 
its  way  so  strangely,  and  settled  it- 
self in  the  wide  flat  of  this  level 
country,  where  there  is  not  another 
mound  to  break  the  horizon — were 
matters  more  interesting  to  Zaidee 
than  to  any  of  her  companions.  Mrs 
Cumberland  was  languid,  and  reclined 
in  a  corner  of  the  carriage.  Mrs 
Burtonshaw  was  interested,  but  de- 
preciatory, making  a  perpetual  com- 
parison between  Sylvo's  place  and 
this  unfamiliar  country.  Mary  was 
wandering  in  her  own  thoughts,  and 
noticed  external  matters  only  by  fits 
and  starts ;  and  no  one  knew  how 
Zaidee's  eyes  brightened  at  the  sight 
of  gorse  and  heather,  and  how  friend- 
ly looked  these  grassy  heights  of 
Malvern  to  one  who  had  not  seen 
for  eight  long  years  the  rugged  ele- 
vation of  Briarford  Hill. 


CHAPTER   XVIII.— MALVERN. 


"Are  we  growing  old,  Elizabeth? 
We  are  not  girls  as  we  used  to  be," 
said  Mary  Cumberland.  "  Do  you 
remember  when  we  sat  in  that  great 
room  at  Ulm,  where  mamma  tried  to 
make  us  think,  and  we  would  not, 
but  quite  made  up  for  it  when  we 
were  by  ourselves  ?  Do  you  remem- 
ber all  the  sewing  we  used  to  do,  and 
all  our  speculations?  When  Aunt 
Burtonshaw  praised  us  for  the  one, 
she  never  dreamt  of  the  other,  Lizzy  ; 
bnt  we  never  speculate  now." 

u  No,"  said  Zaidee.  She  was  pluck- 
ing up  the  short  hill-side  grass  unwit- 
tingly with  her  hands,  and  thinking 
her  own  private  thoughts. 

"  I  suppose  we  were  only  looking  at 
life  then,  and  now  we  are  in  it,"  said 
Mary  musingly.  " Nothing  concerned 
us  very  much,  and  we  could  wonder  at 
everything.  Life  is  a  strange  thing, 
Lizzy — what  is  the  good  of  all  these 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


humdrum  quiet  days,  do  you  think  ? 
We  never  do  anything — were  we  made 
for  any  use,  do  you  suppose?  Eliza- 
beth !  why  can  you  not  answer  me  ?" 

For  Mary  was  as  much  given  as 
ever  to  a  comparison  of  ideas,  and 
as  curious  to  know  her  companion's 
opinion ;  while  Zaidee,  for  her  part, 
was  not  very  much  more  disposed  to 
u  rational  answers  "  than  before. 

"  I  think  God  made  the  days," 
said  Zaidee,  "  and  He  must  see 
some  use  in  them.  We  have  to  live 
our  lives  out,  however  long  they  may 
be.  Do  people  sometimes  wish  for 
long  life,  Mary  ?  If  it  was  fifty  years, 
or  sixty  years,  what  a  dreary  length 
of  way !" 

"Now,  that  is  just  in  your  old 
strain, "  said  Mary  Cumberland. 
11  Why  should  it  be  a  dreary  length 
of  way?  I  have  no  regard  for  church- 
yards and  tombstones  for  my  part ; 

2E* 


412 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XL 


[Oct. 


I  am  not  in  a  hurry  to  live  my  life 
out, — one  may  be  a  little  dull  now 
and  then,  and  wonder  what  is  the 
good  of  oneself,  without  such  dismal 
thoughts  as  these." 

Zaidee  made  no  answer.  They 
were  seated  upon  the  hill  of  Malvern, 
with  some  grey  slopes  towering  above 
them,  yet,  at  a  considerable  altitude ; 
as  far  as  they  could  see  on  every  side, 
a  vast  level  of  cultivated  country 
stretched  into  the  skies, — low  down 
at  their  feet  lay  the  houses  of 
the  little  town,  the  grey  towers  of 
the  abbey,  and  the  setting  of  rich 
orchards  in  which  these  habitations 
were  enclosed, — while  striking  up 
from  the  fertile  flat  were  little  far-off 
cities,  sparkling  with  spires  and  gilded 
weathercocks,  small  ancient  dignified 
cathedral  towns, — and  a  faint  line  far 
away,  of  broken  banks  over-lapping 
each  other,  with  a  thin  silver  thread 
here  and  there  shining  out  between, 
gave  note  of  the  Severn,  treeless  and 
labourless,  pursuing  his  path  to  the 
sea.  The  multitude  of  roads  map- 
ping this  strange  wide  landscape  in 
every  direction — the  morsels  of  vil- 
lage glistening  in  a  chance  ray  of 
sunshine,  and  churches  which  in 
fancy  you  could  lift  in  your  hand,  so 
dwarfed  are  they  by  the  long  distance, 
— give  a  strange  attraction  to  the  scene. 
Of  itself  it  is  not  a  beautiful  scene, 
and  a  dull  sky  sweeps  down  upon  it, 
blending  its  unfeatured  breadths  with 
the  clouds  of  the  horizon ;  but  the 
air,  which  has  travelled  many  a  mile 
since  last  it  encountered  any  emi- 
nence, comes  fresh  and  full  upon  this 
hill-side  ;  and  the  eye,  which  is  never 
satisfied  with  seeing,  takes  in  with  a 
peculiar  gratification  this  singular 
extent  of  space  presented  to  it,  and 
revels  in  the  world  of  air  and  cloud 
upon  that  vast  uninterrupted  sky. 

"  See,  there  is  a  bold  road  striking 
out  by  itself  across  all  that  wilder- 
ness of  fields,"  said  Mary.  "  What 
strange  abrupt  turns  it  takes ;  but  it 
is  not  even  crossed  by  another,  so  far 
as  I  can  see :  that  is  a  man's  road, 
Lizzy, — for  my  part,  I  do  not  like 
travelling  alone." 

"  It  is  not  quite  alone,"  said  Zaidee, 
speaking  low.  "  There  is  a  little  foot- 
path behind  the  hedge,  sometimes  on 
one  side,  sometimes  on  the  other : 
some  one  might  walk  perpetually  un- 


der the  hedgerow  side  by  side  with 
the  traveller  on  the  high-road,  and 
he  would  never  know." 

"  Well,  I  cannot  say  that  makes  it 
much  more  comfortable,"  said  Mary, 
laughing.  "  You  are  mysterious  to- 
day, Elizabeth.  I  do  not  like  your 
secret  people  who  travel  under  hedge- 
rows. I  like  daylight  and  the  broad 
highway  for  my  own  share.  You  like 
this  place,  do  you  not  ?  I  suppose  I 
do  ;  I  don't  want  any  one  to  talk  to 
me  ;  I  want  to  think,  Lizzy.  How  far 
away  you  can  look,  straining  your 
beautiful  eyes,  Mr  Vivian  would  say. 
What  a  weary  length  these  days  are 
for  August  days.  Heigh  ho  ! " 

But  Zaidee  was  so  little  disposed  to 
interrupt  Mary's  thoughts  by  talking, 
that  it  was  Mary  herself  who  broke 
the  silence  first.  Mary  was  in  a  strange 
mood  of  restless  idleness ;  she  was 
perpetually  changing  her  position,  as 
she  half  sat  and  half  reclined  upon 
this  bank  of  luxuriant  greensward ; 
laughter  that  was  rounded  with  a  sigh, 
and  sighing  which  incontinently  burst 
into  laughter,  were  the  signs  and  sym- 
bols of  Mary's  state  of  mind.  She  was 
greatly  in  want  of  some  little  piece  of 
excitement;  her  mind  had  a  great 
deal  too  much  scope,  wandering  back 
and  forward  in  a  restless  haste,  spe- 
culating on  the  future  and  on  the  past. 
Mary,  half  emerged  from  her  first  en- 
chanted maze,  was  full  of  a  restless 
disquietude ;  her  whole  life  beyond 
seemed  hanging  upon  some  uncertain 
decision — a  nervous,  anxious,  trouble- 
some uncertainty — a  decision  which 
she  would  be  ashamed  to  expedite  by 
any  measures  of  her  own.  Mary  was 
not  a  little  ashamed  of  herself  for  the 
length  her  thoughts  had  gone  already, 
and  scornfully  scouted  the  idea  that 
"  any  man"  held  her  fate  in  his  hands. 
Nevertheless,  she  had  been  an  ex- 
tremely imprudent  guardian  of  her 
own  happiness.  Mr  Percy  Vivian, 
perhaps,  might  be  quite  unaware  of 
this  rich  gift  lavished  on  him ;  perhaps 
he  was  aware,  and  did  not  appreciate 
the  possession :  but  whatever  Mr 
Percy  Vivian's  sentiments  might  be,, 
there  was  no  longer  any  safeguard  for 
Mary ;  her  good  sense,  as  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw  predicted,  had  been  no  de- 
fence to  her;  she  had  thrown  away 
her  heart. 

"  I  think  you  are  very  innocent, 


1855.] 


Zaldee:  a  Romance.— Part  XI. 


413 


Lizzy,"  said  Mary,  suddenly  starting 
from  an  apparent  contemplation  of  the 
landscape  before  her,  of  which  land- 
scape, in  reality,  she  saw  nothing. 
"  You  never  understand  at  all,  nor 
seek  to  understand,  what  all  Aunt 
Burtonshaw's  hints  and  double  mean- 
ings are  full  of.  There,  now,  you  look 
quite  incredulous.  Is  it  my  fault  if 
your  thoughts  are  always  at  the  end 
of  the  world  ?  Who  can  you  have  to 
think  of,  Elizabeth  ?  I  suppose  you 
never  found  out  that  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw  had  double  meanings  at  all  ?  " 

"  No,  indeed.  I  always  understand 
Aunt  Burtonshaw  perfectly,"  said 
Zaidee,  with  a  smile. 

"  Which  means,  that  you  are  per- 
fectly unconscious  of  all  her  endea- 
vours," said  Mary.  "  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw thinks — I  really  ought  not  to 
tell  you  —  Aunt  Burtonshaw  believes 
you  are  very  much  interested  in  Sylvo, 
Elizabeth." 

"  Very  much  interested  !  I  will  not 
answer  for  the  '  very  much,' "  said 
Zaidee ;  "  but,  indeed,  I  do  think  of 
Sylvo,  Mary ;  only  Sylvo  will  find 
some  one  better  for  him  than  you." 

"  You  are  a  simpleton,  and  I  will 
not  enlighten  you,"  said  Mary.  "  What 
do  you  think  of  Mrs  Morton  ?  "  she 
asked  abruptly,  after  a  pause.  Mary, 
but  for  very  shame,  would  have  been 
so  glad  to  unbosom  herself,  and  make 
a  confidant  of  her  friend — would  have 
been  so  much  relieved,  indeed,  if  Zai- 
dee had  taken  the  initiative,  and 
pressed  into  her  confidence ;  but  Zai- 
dee was  quite  as  shy  of  the  subject  as 
Mary  was,  though  she  was  sufficiently 
clearsighted  to  see  how  matters  stood. 
Zaidee  faltered  a  good  deal.  What 
did  she  think  of  Mrs  Morton  ?  — what 
did  she  think  of  Elizabeth  Vivian, 
her  cousin,  the  beautiful  Elizabeth 
of  the  Grange  ?  Zaidee  felt  herself 
change  colour  painfully — she  scarcely 
knew  what  to  say. 

"  I  heard  Mr  Vivian  say  there  was 
no  woman  like  his  sister  ;  he  ought  to 
know  best,"  said  Zaidee. 

It  was  an  unfortunate  speech  in 
every  way  ;  unfortunate  in  its  hesita- 
tion and  faltering  tone— unfortunate 
in  quoting  Mr  Vivian— and,  lastly,  in 


the  opinion  it  conveyed.  Mary  Cum- 
berland did  not  choose  that  Percy 
should  think  his  sister  the  first  of 
womankind.  She  did  not  at  all  ap- 
preciate such  an  extent  of  fraternal 
affection ;  and  Mary  was  piqued  at 
the  idea  that  any  one  knew  better 
than  she  did  what  Percy's  opinion 
was. 

"  I  asked  what  you  thought  yourself, 
not  what  Mr  Percy  Vivian  thought," 
said  Mary.  "One  does  not  care  for 
having  Mr  Percy  Vivian's  opinions 
at  secondhand.  He  is  a  very  great 
author,  perhaps ;  but  I  would  not 
quote  him  so  often  if  I  were  you, 
Elizabeth." 

When  Zaidee  raised  her  eyes  in 
astonishment,  she  saw  Mary,  very  red, 
and  with  a  disturbed  and  troubled 
face,  gazing  down  the  hilly  path,  while 
she  plucked  the  grass  by  handfuls. 
Some  one  was  toiling  upward,  looking 
about  him  anxiously,  sometimes  paus- 
ing to  survey  the  wide  landscape  be- 
hind him,  sometimes  turning  aside  to 
gather  a  wildflower,  but  always  on 
the  alert,  as  if  looking  for  some  one 
on  the  hill.  As  his  figure  advanced, 
Mary  Cumberland's  face  varied  like 
a  changing  sky ;  as  it  drew  near  and 
nearer,  she  rose  to  her  feet  with  irre- 
strainable  excitement.  Zaidee  looked 
at  her  pretty  form,  relieved  against 
the  dark  background  of  the  hill,  and 
at  the  stranger  advancing  hastily,  be- 
fore she  herself  rose,  and  then  with  an 
instinctive  impulse  of  reserve,  to  con- 
trol and  subdue  her  friend.  Zaidee 
took  Mary's  hand  with  an  involuntary 
grasp  of  caution,  which  Mary  return- 
ed vehemently,  and  then  the  pretty 
fingers  unclasped,  and  these  two  stood 
distinctly  visible,  waiting  to  greet  Mr 
Percy  Vivian  as  he  appeared  out  of 
breath  behind  an  angle  of  the  path. 
In  the  moment's  interval,  Mary's  good 
sense  and  Mary's  pride  had  come 
to  her  rescue  triumphantly.  Percy 
thought  the  beautiful  sister  gave  him 
the  warmest  welcome,  and  was  much 
concerned  to  see  Mary  so  reserved 
and  stately  ;  the  young  gentleman 
was  extremely  assiduous— extremely 
devoted;  he  fancied  he  had  been  losing 
time. 


414 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XL 


[Oct. 


CHAPTER  XIX. — THE   BEGINNING  OF  DANGER. 


"  So  you  found  the  young  ladies, 
Mr  Vivian,"  said  Mrs  Cumberland. 
41  Dear  children !  they  love  nature. 
I  was  convinced  they  were  on  the 
hill.  I  tell  them  we  have  nearly  as 
good  a  prospect  from  this  window ; 
but  they  are  young,  and  have  more 
enterprise  than  I  have.  Is  it  not  a 
delightful  surprise,  my  dear  Mary, 
to  see  Mr  Vivian  here  ?" 

"We  were  much  astonished,"  says 
Mary  in  an  under- tone.  Mr  Vivian, 
who  has  looked  up  to  catch  her  answer, 
though  people  say  he  has  a  great 
knowledge  of  character,  and  though 
this  constraint  is  the  very  thing  with 
which  he  would  endow  his  heroine  in 
a  novel,  to  evidence  the  state  of  her 
feelings  in  presence  of  her  lover,  has 
so  totally  lost  his  penetration  that  he 
is  quite  disappointed.  "It  was  no 
pleasure  to  her,  then,"  muses  Percy ; 
"only  a  surprise." 

"  For  my  part,  I  thought  Mr  Vivian 
had  come  to  tell  us  of  some  great 
misfortune,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw— 
"  that  the  house  had  come  down,  or 
that  Mr  Cumberland  had  had  a  fall, 
or  some  accident;  nothing  else  was  to 
be  looked  for,  I  am  sure." 

"  There  has  been  no  accident ;  Mr 
Cumberland  was  in  excellent  spirits," 
said  Percy,  "  and  feels  that  he  is 
making  progress.  The  porch,  I  assure 
you,  would  accommodate  a  couple  of 
poor  families  already,  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw; and  when  Mr  Cumberland  has 
his  heating  apparatus  in  order,  I  have 
no  doubt  it  will  be  greatly  patronised 
in  the  cold  weather.  If  you  were 
nearer  town,  a  benevolent  institution 
like  this  might  be  subject  to  abuse, 
Mrs  Cumberland.  I  am  afraid  a 
colony  of  London  boys  in  immediate 
possession  would  not  quite  carry  out 
your  charitable  views." 

"  Charitable  views !  "  echoed  Mrs 
B:irtonshaw ;  "  what  sort  of  views 
will  we  have  from  our  windows  when 
we  get  back  to  our  poor,  pretty,  un- 
fortunate house  at  Twickenham — if, 
indeed,  there  are  any  windows  left? 
The  little  wretches  will  play  at  marbles 
and  all  sorts  of  games ;  it  will  not 
matter  to  them  if  the  Queen  should, 
come  to  call.  Mr  Cumberland  has 


all  his  own  way,  Mr  Vivian.  Maria 
Anna  will  give  in  to  him,  and  I  can- 
not describe  to  you  the  trouble  I  have. 
Do  not  speak  to  me,  Maria  Anna !  I 
have  no  patience  with  it ;  and  it  will 
be  all  the  same,  of  course,  whosoever 
comes  to  call." 

"  I  had  an  interview  with  Mr  Cum- 
berland on  the  lawn  over  a  heap  of 
mortar,"  said  Percy,  while  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw groaned  aloud,  "  and  heard 
from  him  you  were  at  Malvern.  I 
had  business  in  this  quarter.  No  lack 
of  views  here,  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  though 
they  are  not  charitable  ones.  This 
place  reminds  me  a  little,  I  scarcely 
can  tell  why,  of  my  own  home." 

"That  delightful  Grange  which  you 
described  to  us  once?"  said  Mrs  Cum- 
berland from  her  sofa;  "  and  of  course 
I  recognised  it  again  in  your  last 
charming  book.  When  are  you  going 
to  favour  us  with  another,  Mr  Vivian  I 
But  first  tell  me  how  this  reminds 
you  of  your  own  ancient  romantic 
home." 

"  I  suppose  because  it  is  perfectly 
unlike,"  said  Percy,  with  a  little 
laugh.  "  There  is  no  Grange  on  the 
hill  of  Malvern ;  but  we  stand  upon 
a  lesser  eminence  at  home,  and  look 
out  from  our  height  upon  a  flat  ex- 
panse, which  this  is  just  sufficient  to 
recall  to  me.  Our  low  country  is  not 
a  cultivated  plain,  or  a  Vale  of  Severn ; 
it  is  only  a  bleak  stretch  of  Cheshire 
fields,  a  low  sandy  coast,  and  sullen 
sea.  There  are  a  multitude  of  roads, 
Mrs  Burtonshaw,  all  leading  to  the 
Grange,  as  you  would  suppose,  and 
never  a  wayfarer  on  one  of  them ; 
and  we  have  a  fierce  little  hill  for  our 
henchman,  bristling  with  gorse,  and 
armed  with  broken  rocks,  and  undergo 
a  perpetual  siege  and  cannonade  from 
all  the  winds.  There  are  only  inland 
gales  at  Malvern,  but  our  visitors 
come  fresh  from  the  sea." 

"  It  is  very  strange ;  that  is  like  the 
place  Elizabeth  used  to  tell  me  of," 
said  Mary. 

And  Mary,  looking  up,  found  Zai- 
dee's  eyes  fixed  upon  her  with  such  a 
trembling  eagerness  of  entreaty,  that 
her  idea  of  resemblance  between  the 
two  descriptions  was  quickened  into 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XL 


415 


instant  certainty.  She  returned  this 
beseeching  look  with  a  glance  of  the 
extremest  surprise.  Her  curiosity  was 
suddenly  roused.  What  did  it  mean  ? 
When  Mary's  look  left  Zaidee,  she 
met  Mr  Vivian's ;  and  Mr  Vivian  had 
been  watching  this  interchange  of 
glances,  and  looked  at  her,  earnestly 
repeating  the  question.  Mary  was 
quite  perplexed  ;  she  could  only  look 
at  Zaidee  again. 

"Perhaps  Miss  Elizabeth  Cumber- 
land has  been  in  Cheshire,"  said  Percy. 
Percy  was  very  curious;  but  he  always 
was,  Mary  remembered  with  wonder,  in 
everything  that  concerned  Elizabeth. 

"  No — no,"  said  Zaidee  hurriedly. 
She  withdrew  back  out  of  the  light  of 
the  window,  and  grew  very  pale.  She 
dared  not  lift  her  eyes  again,  but  sat 
trembling  and  in  terror.  Never  had 
she  been  so  near  betrayed ;  and  her 
ears  tingled,  almost  expecting  to  hear 
the  cry  of  "  Zaidee !  Zaidee!"  with 
which  Percy  could  throw  her  disguise 
to  the  winds. 

For  Zaidee  did  not  think  that  Percy 
Vivian  held  her  without  a  doubt  for 
the  daughter  of  this  fantastic,  kind 
Mrs  Cumberland,  reclining  on  her 
sofa — the  sister  of  Mary,  the  niece  of 
Aunt  Burtonshaw.  Percy  could  not 
account  for  his  own  interest  in  her, 
nor  for  sundry  little  occurrences  which 
startled  him  with  a  vague  wonder  and 
suspicion.  He  never  dreamed  that 
she  was  Zaidee ;  he  had  not  even 
connected  her  with  the  lost  child  ;  he 
had  only  a  vague,  floating  curiosity 
about  her,  which  he  himself  thought 
he  had  no  right  to  have,  and  did  not 
understand. 

Zaidee  dared  not  withdraw  to  her 
own  apartment  to  subdue  her  agita- 
tion. She  must  sit  still  to  watch  the 
conversation,  to  hear  what  they  said, 
to  guard  her  secret  at  all  hazards. 
She  scarcely  knew  how  the  day  went 
on  as  she  sat  among  them,  watching 
them  with  this  intense  and  steady 
vigilance :  she  made  no  sense  of  the 
buzz  of  words  which  rung  in  her  ears. 
She  only  knew  that  her  secret  was 
not  threatened,  nor  her  possible  know- 
ledge of  the  Grange  discussed  again. 
There  were  a  great  many  other  sub- 
jects of  interest  to  the  other  members 
of  the  party.  There  was  one  most 
absorbing  topic  in  the  minds  of  two 
of  them,  which,  like  Zaidee's  secret 


anxiety,  did  not  bear  talking  of;  and 
beyond  the  surprise  of  the  moment, 
Zaidee's  brief  and  hurried  answer  was 
not  remarked  by  her  companions.  She 
kept  with  the  little  company  obsti- 
nately in  her  great  anxiety.  When 
Mary  and  Percy  spoke  aside  for  an 
instant,  Zaidee  was  thrown  into  a 
secret  agony ;  and  when  the  evening 
came,  and  Mr  Vivian  followed  Miss 
Cumberland  into  the  garden  in  the 
twilight  to  listen  to  the  nightingales, 
Zaidee  sat  unseen  by  the  window 
watching  them,  as  they  wandered 
through  the  trees.  Her  overpowering 
terror  made  her  forget  for  the  moment 
that  they  had  other  things  to  talk  of 
than  her  secret — this  secret  which 
neither  of  them  could  have  suspected 
till  to-night,  and  which  both  had  for- 
gotten before  now. 

"  These  two  young  creatures,  they 
are  quite  happy;  they  forget  how  cold 
the  night  air  has  grown,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw,  coming  behind  the  chair 
where  Zaidee  sat  alone  looking  out 
into  the  dewy  darkness  of  the  garden. 
"  My  dear  love,  you  are  sighing;  you 
are  all  by  yourself  while  Mary  is 
away.  Ah  !  it  is  all  very  well  to 
speak  of  business  in  this  quarter.  I 
suppose  Mr  Vivian  is  attending  to  his 
business  among  the  trees  yonder. 
These  young  men  are  such  hypocrites, 
Elizabeth.  I  should  be  glad  to  see 
what  lawful  errand  Mr  Vivian  had 
here." 

Relieved  by  remembering  that  there 
was  no  fear  of  her  secret  coming  into 
discussion  between  two  people  who 
were  busy  with  themselves,  Zaidee 
bethought  her  of  the  disappointment 
of  Sylvo's  anxious  mother. 

"I  am  afraid,  indeed,  Mary  likes 
Mr  Vivian,  Aunt  Burtonshaw,"  said 
Zaidee.  "  I  should  be  very  glad,  if 
it  were  not  for  you." 

"You  are  a  dear,  unselfish  child," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  stooping  to 
bestow  a  kiss  on  Zaidee's  brow,  "  and 
you  need  not  be  sorry  for  me,  my 
darling.  I  have  quite  made  up  my 
mind  to  lose  Mary.  I  have  other 
views  for  Sylvo  now." 

"  I  am  very  glad,  then.  I  think 
Mary  will  be  happy,"  said  Zaidee 
musingly.  "  Percy  would  not  grieve 
any  one ;  no,  I  am  sure  of  that." 

u  Did  you  say  Sylvo  would  not 
grieve  ?  I  do  not  think  he  will,  my 


416 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XL 


[Oct. 


love,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  "  You 
do  not  ask  me  what  my  views  are  for 
Sylvo,  now,  Elizabeth ;  but  you  are 
quite  right,  my  dear  child.  I  will  not 
say  anything  of  them  ;  I  will  leave  it 
all  to  Sylvo  himself." 

"  Yes,  Aunt  Burtonshaw,"  said 
Zaidee.  Sylvo  was  not  farther  from 
the  scene  in  person  than  he  was  in 
imagination  from  Zaidee's  thoughts — 
she  was  thinking  of  Mary  and  Percy, 
in  charmed  twilight,  with  the  sweet 
dew  falling  on  their  young  heads,  and 
the  air  full  of  the  singing  of  nightin- 
gales. She  was  lingering  for  a  mo- 
ment in  her  maiden  meditations  upon 
that  oldest  and  newest  subject  of 
romance — that  universal  love  tale 
which  somebody  is  always  telling — 
that  unknown  witchcraft  to  which 
her  own  heart  had  never  been  tempt- 
ed. Beguiled  out  of  her  mere  per- 
sonal agitation,  Zaidee's  heart  beat 
with  a  wondering  sympathy ;  with  a 
smile  on  her  lip,  and  a  tear  in  her 
eye,  she  watched  for  Mary  coming 


home  out  of  the  realm  of  fairyland, 
out  of  the  enchanted  twilight,  to  the 
lights  and  common  life  of  this  dusky 
room.  Zaidee's  own  eyes  were  dazzled 
by  these  lights,  and  with  a  pensive 
wistful  sweetness,  through  the  tears 
that  made  them  brighter,  those  beau- 
tiful eyes  turned  back  again  to  the 
falling  night.  With  a  little  visionary 
sadness,  her  thoughts  too  returned 
again  to  herself :  all  by  herself,  alone 
and  solitary,  this  turning-point  of 
youthful  history  must  never  come  to 
Zaidee;  she  must  never  wish,  nay, 
more  than  that,  she  must  so  guard 
her  daily  living  that  no  affection  shall 
be  drawn  towards  her.  No  one  must 
love  Zaidee,  if  Zaidee  can  help  it, 
except  those  kind  friends  who  shelter 
her  and  the  innocent  hearts  of  little 
children.  She  must  do  no  more  harm, 
and  it  is  strange  to  see  her  bending 
her  beautiful  face  in  the  darkness, 
praying  never  to  be  tempted,  praying 
to  be  left  in  her  solitude,  to  harm  no 
one  any  more. 


CHAPTER   XX. — MAKY  S  FATE. 


Zaidee  had  gone  to  her  own  apart- 
ment thoughtful  and  somewhat  anx- 
ious. Her  mind,  which  had  begun  to 
recover  its  composure,  was  stirred  to 
its  depths  once  more,  and  her  thoughts 
were  full  of  a  longing  and  wistful 
inquiry  about  Mary,  who  had  been 
very  silent  and  strangely  reserved 
through  all  that  evening.  Sitting  in 
the  shadow  where  Zaidee  could  not 
see  her  face,  answering  in  monosyl- 
lables, and  in  a  voice  so  low  and  shy 
that  even  Aunt  Burtonshaw  was  as- 
tonished, Mary  had  given  no  indica- 
tion of  Mr  Vivian's  business,  nor  of 
how  it  sped.  As  Zaidee  went  about 
her  own  chamber,  preparing  for  rest, 
her  ear  was  caught  once  or  twice  by 
a  faint  rustling  in  the  passage  outside. 
She  turned  to  listen  with  quick  curio- 
sity, and  in  time  to  see  Mary  softly 
open  the  door  and  look  in,  with  a  mo- 
mentary investigation.  "  I  thought 
you  had  lain  down  by  this  time,"  said 
Mary.  "  I  have  been  waiting  till  you 
were  quiet,  and  the  light  out.  Why 
don't  you  go  to  bed,  Elizabeth? 
Young  people  should  not  sit  up  so  late 
at  night — there,  let  me  put  out  the- 
light." 


Before  Zaidee  could  remonstrate, 
the  little  light  was  extinguished,  and 
in  the  faint  radiance  of  the  moon, 
Zaidee  saw  her  friend  drawing  near 
her  with  a  shy  yet  hasty  step.  "  Sit 
down,  Lizzy  ;  I  have  a  great  deal  to 
say  to  you,"  said  her  visitor,  and  Mary 
herself  drew  a  stool  to  Zaidee's  feet, 
and  threw  herself  down  beside  her 
half  kneeling,  embracing  her  com- 
panion's waist,  and  leaning  on  her 
knee.  But  though  this  satisfactory 
attitude  was  assumed,  the  great  deal 
which  Mary  had  to  say  remained  still 
unsaid.  She  leaned  her  soft  cheek  on 
Zaidee's  hand,  and  Zaidee  knew  in- 
stinctively that  it  was  warm  with 
blushes  of  pride,  and  shame,  and 
pleasure :  she  played  with  Zaidee's 
fingers,  folding  them  over  her  lips : 
she  held  Zaidee's  waist  more  closely 
with  her  arm ;  but  Mary  was  quite 
content  to  lean  here,  as  it  seemed, 
and  forget  that  she  had  anything  to 
say. 

"  Mary,  tell  me,"  said  Zaidee— 
Zaidee's  own  heart  beat  high  with 
sympathy.  Zaidee,  though  she  was 
quite  new  to  it,  and  had  never  been 
much  a  confidant  before,  had  an  instinc- 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


417 


tive  perception  of  the  tale  which  Mary 
came  to  tell. 

44  My  mother  never  taught  me  to 
go  to  her ;  I  cannot  tell  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw.  I  never  have  had  any  one 
but  you,  Elizabeth,  that  knew  all  my 
heart !" 

This  was  the  beginning  of  Mary's 
confession,  and  then  there  followed  a 
long  pause — so  long  a  pause  that 
Zaidee  feared  this  was  all,  and  that 
there  was  nothing  to  follow. 

44 1  have  never  been  like  you,  Eliza- 
beth. I  do  not  think  I  deserve  to  have 
a  very  noble  nature  near  me,"  said 
Mary.  "  Instead  of  being  very  glad  as 
I  thought  I  should  be,  I  think  I  am 
sad  to-night— not  sad  either — I  can- 
not tell  how  I  am.  It  is  so  strange,  so 
very  strange.  I  think  I  am  ventur- 
ing into  a  new  country.  Perhaps  I 
had  better  have  been  content  with 
Sylvo,  Elizabeth,"  said  Mary,  rising 
into  her  more  natural  tone  ;  '4  one 
could  find  out  Sylvo's  depth,  poor 
fellow,  and  measure  him  to  all  his 
height — no  one  will  be  troubled  with 
anything  wonderful  in  Sylvo — but 
now!" 

Mary's  voice  sunk  again,  and  so 
did  Mary's  cheek,  once  more  resting 
on  Zaidee's  hand.  The  office  of  con- 
fidant and  confessor  to  Mary  was 
doomed  to  be  rather  a  perplexing  one. 

41  A  common  person,"  said  Mary 
again,  with  a  little  sigh  of  self- con- 
tempt. u  Yes,  I  think  I  should  only 
have  had  a  common  person.  I  can- 
not tell  why  this  strange  fortune  has 
come  to  me.  If  I  had  been  full  of 
dreams  and  fancies,  Elizabeth,  like 
what  one  reads  of— perhaps  like  what 
you  have,  my  beautiful  sister ;  but  you 
are  sitting  here  by  yourself,  Lizzy, 
with  all  your  sweet  thoughts  and 
your  lovely  face,  and  this  has  come 
to  me." 

44  It  is  best  for  me  to  be  alone," 
said  Zaidee  ;  "  and  this  should  come 
to  you,  for  it  is  your  proper  fortune. 
I  have  been  sure  of  it  since  ever  Percy 
came." 

44  Do  you  call  him  Percy  ?"  said 
Mary,  raising  her  head  in  sudden 
wonder.  "  Well,  but  of  course  Lizzy 
had  no  reason  to  be  ashamed,  no  need 
to  be  so  precise  as  I  was,"  she  con- 
tinued with  a  low  laugh.  u  I  was  so 
much  ashamed  of  myself,  Elizabeth. 
Do  you  know,  I  thought  he  had  found 


me  out.  I  thought  he  was  coming  to 
enjoy  his  triumph.  I  really  do  think 
I  could  have  killed  myself  sooner  than 
have  let  him  fancy  I  cared  for  him 
when  he  did  not  care  for  me." 

It  was  not  necessary  for  Zaidee  to 
say  anything,  the  stream  of  commu- 
nication was  interrupted,  but  con- 
tinuous, and  wanted  no  help  as  it  flow- 
ed on. 

44  But  instead  of  that !  "—Mary 
paused,  and  lingered  on  the  words, 
u  instead  of  that !  I  think  it  can  only 
be  a  poet  who  is  so  reverent  of 
women,"  said  Mary,  touched  to  the 
heart  by  the  deference  of  her  betroth- 
ed. 44  We  are  no  such  great  things 
after  all,  Elizabeth.  We  are  very 
poor  creatures,  a  great  many  of  us. 
Fancy  me  standing  listening  to  him. 
I  am  nobody  ;  I  am  only  Mary  Cum- 
berland ;  and  he,  bending  that  noble 
heart  of  his,  and  speaking  as  if  he 
spoke  to  a  princess, — he  whom  all  the 
world  honours.  I  don't  believe  it  is 
true  after  all,  and  that  makes  me 
melancholy,"  said  Mary  with  a  change 
in  her  voice — "  it  is  his  own  eyes 
that  see  something  else  in  me  than 
what  I  have." 

A  long  pause  followed  after  this, 
which  Zaidee  only  disturbed  by  a  silent 
caress  of  sympathy  and  encourage- 
ment, and  she  resumed  her  monologue. 

"  Did  you  wonder  what  I  meant 
putting  out  the  light?  I  will  be  your 
maid  now,  Elizabeth,  since  I  have 
left  you  in  the  dark  ;  but  you  do  not 
think  I  could  come  in,  and  sit  down 
opposite  you,  and  tell  you  all  this, 
looking  in  your  face,  with  that  inqui- 
sitive candle  twinkling  like  a  saucy 
listener.  You  cannot  see  how  I  am  look- 
ing, Lizzy — it  does  me  no  harm  that 
you  are  shining  over  me  with  those 
eyes  of  yours.  It  is  very  hard  to  have 
eyes  looking  into  one's  heart.  Yes,  I 
think  he  has  enchantment  in  his, 
Lizzy ;  they  make  beauty  for  them- 
selves wherever  they  glance ;  and 
suppose  he  should  awake  some  time, 
and  instead  of  the  princess  whom  he 
spoke  to  to-night,  find  only  me !  I  do 
not  think  I  was  very  humble  before, 
but  one  grows  humble  in  spite  of  one- 
self when  one  is  addressed  so  grandly. 
He  thinks  I  have  a  noble  nature  like 
his  own,  Elizabeth — a  pure  religious 
spirit,  like  what  you  are,  Lizzy  ;  and 
when  I  try  to  convince  him,  he  only 


418  Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  XL  [Oct. 

smiles  and  thinks  the  more  of  me.     darker    consideration    mingled  with 


When  he  finds  it  is  only  plain  work- 
ing-day Mary  Cumberland,  what  will 
he  say?" 

"  That  she  is  better  than  all  the 
princesses,"  said  Zaidee,  clasping  her 
friend  round  with  her  loving  arms ; 
and  then  Mary  cried  a  little,  with  a  sob 
half  of  joy  and  half  of  melancholy,  and 
then  ran  off  into  low,  sweet,  tremu- 
lous laughter,  as  she  raised  her  head 
from  Zaidee's  knee. 

"  You  think  I  am  very  humble,  do 
you  not?"  said  Mary,  "yet  I  am  afraid 
I  shall  be  as  saucy  as  ever,  and  as 
stupid,  and  as  perverse  when  to-mor- 
row's daylight  comes.  Do  you  want 
to  go  to  sleep,  Elizabeth  ? — for  I  had 
rather  stay  here,  if  you  are  as  wakeful 
as  I  am.  I  have  made  a  great  many 
resolutions  to-night — I  should  not 
like  him  to  change  his  opinion  of  me, 
Lizzy ;  but  I  am  afraid  they  will  all 
vanish  with  to-morrow.  One  cannot 
overcome  two-and-twenty  years  in  a 
single  day." 

And  thus  they  sat  in  the  moonlight 
talking  a  great  deal,  and  quite  forget- 
ful of  the  lapse  of  these  swift-footed 
hours;  their  low  voices  whispered  so 
lightly  that  no  one  woke  in  the  neigh- 
bouring chambers  to  be  aware  of  this 
innocent  midnight  conference.  Mary 
did  not  leave  Zaidee's  room  all  that 
night, — truth  to  say,  Mary  did  not 
wake  after  her  unusual  vigil  till  Mrs 
Burtonshawhad  sighed  over  the  break- 
fast table  all  alone  for  a  full  hour,  and 
the  sun  was  full  in  the  sky.  Zaidee 
was  more  wakeful;  her  morning 
dreams  were  disturbed  and  broken  by 
a  strange  pleasure,  and  a  strange 
dread  of  this  new  connection-  She 
was  glad  and  proud  that  Percy  and 
Mary  were  betrothed  to  each  other. 
She  pleased  herself  with  thinking  that 
"  our  Percy's"  manly  care  and  tender- 
ness would  make  amends  to  the  real 
daughter  of  this  house  for  all  the  love 
and  kindness  which  she  herself  had 
met  with  at  Mary's  hands.  They  had 
been  very  good  to  Zaidee  Vivian,  all 
these  kind  people ;  and  Percy  Vivian's 
devotion  would  repay  them  for  the 
great  debt  his  cousin  owed.  But  a 


that;  Mary  was  now  of  course  on 
terms  of  perfect  confidence  with 
Percy.  Mary  would  tell  him  that 
her  beautiful  sister  was  a  stranger,  a 
poor  little  orphan  adopted  of  the 
house ;  and  Percy  and  Elizabeth, 
who  remembered  so  well  the  lost 
Zaidee,  would  discover  her  secret  ere 
she  was  aware.  This  fancy  filled  her 
mind  with  dreary  anticipations.  Only 
one  resource  seemed  open  to  Zaidee  ; 
once  more  she  must  go  out  unfriended 
upon  the  world,  —  she  must  not  be 
taken  home  to  annul  all  previous 
sacrifices — to  make  this  seven  years' 
banishment  of  none  effect.  No  longer 
a  child,  a  woman  with  that  perilous 
inheritance  of  beauty  to  make  her 
way  harder,  she  must  once  more 
break  from  the  grasp  of  affection  and 
friendliness,  and  go  forth  to  the  un- 
known. Zaidee  looked  at  Mary's 
face  sleeping  under  the  morning  light, 
with  its  sweet  colour  and  its  uncon- 
scious smiles ;  she  could  not  grudge 
the  happiness  of  Mary  ;  she  could  not 
be  otherwise  than  glad  for  this  con- 
summation, whatever  the  result  might 
be  to  herself.  Zaidee's  generous  heart 
never  faltered  in  its  congratulations 
for  the  sore  and  hapless  chance  which 
she  perceived  approaching  in  the  dis- 
tance ;  however  it  might  fare  with-her, 
she  was  glad  for  Mary.  A  distinct 
and  pleasant  future  full  of  sunshine 
lay  before  the  footsteps  of  her  friend  ; 
for  herself  Zaidee  saw  nothing  but  a 
world  of  clouds  and  shadows — a  for- 
lorn path  leading  away  through  the 
solitude  towards  the  horizon.  Lover 
nor  friend  was  never  to  stretch  out  a 
hand  to  her;  she  had  no  possession 
in  the  world  but  her  father's  Bible, 
and  that  book  of  Grandfather  Vivian's, 
— no  sweet  fortune  descending  out 
of  the  tender  twilight  skies,  but  an 
inexorable  necessity,  a  pursuing  fate. 
To  the  end  of  the  world,  if  need  were 
— to  the  unfriendly  crowds  of  London, 
or  the  stranger  solitudes  of  some  dis- 
tant country, — anywhere  rather  than 
here,  where  she  was  in  danger  of  dis- 
covery,— anywhere  sooner  than  the 
Grange. 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


419 


CHAPTER   XXL— CONSENT. 


The  next  morning  overwhelmed 
Mrs  Cumberland  with  surprise  and 
doubtful  pleasure.  "I  should  have 
been  very  glad  had  it  been  Eliza- 
beth," said  Mrs  Cumberland ;  "  but 
Mary  ! — how  could  you  possibly  think 
of  Mary,  my  dear  Mr  Vivian  ?  I  am 
sure  I  will  not  stand  in  the  way  of 
your  happiness — one  to  whom  the 
whole"  world  of  readers  owes  so  much ! 
— and  I  assure  you  it  will  make  me 
very  proud  to  call  the  author  of  those 
delightful  volumes  my  son-in-law. 
But  Mary ! — Mary  has  no  genius,  Mi- 
Vivian.  She  is  a  child  of  very  plain 
tastes,  and  takes  strangely  after  her 
Aunt  Burtonshaw.  I  am  extremely 
surprised ;  I  cannot  understand  it : 
Mary  !  Are  you  sure  yon  have  made 
a  wise  choice  ?  " 

"I  am  very  sure  I  have  no  other 
choice  in  my  power,"  said  Percy, 
somewhat  astonished  at  this  novel 
reception  of  his  addresses.  "  Choice 
is  a  fiction,  I  suspect ;  tit  all  events, 
I  am  quite  beyond  that  agreeable 
freedom." 

"  I  assure  you  I  will  never  stand  in 
the  way  of  your  happiness,"  said  Mrs 
Cumberland  ;  "on  the  contrary,  I  am 
only  top  much  delighted  to  have  it  in 
my  power  to  aid  your  wishes.  Mary 
is  a  good  child  ;  but  she  has  no  genius, 
Mr  Vivian." 

"I  fancy  I  prefer  having  all  the 
genius  myself,"  said  Percy  with  a 
saucy  smile.  This  was  for  the  bene- 
fit of  Mary,  who  entered  at  the  mo- 
ment, abruptly  concluding  Mr  Vivian's 
audience.  Mrs  Cumberland,  much 
bewildered,  followed  her  daughter 
through  the  room  with  her  eyes. 
Mary  ! — How  could  the  distinguished 
author  by  any  possibility  think  of 
her  ? 

But  Mrs  Cumberland  had  no  alter- 
native but  assent,  and  the  concurrence 
of  Mr  Cumberland  was  certain  ;  even 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  gave  her  approval 
of  this  conclusive  blow  to  all  her  for- 
mer hopes.  "But  it  is  some  time 
since  I  made  up  my  mind  to  lose 
Mary.  I  have  other  views  for  Sylvo 
now,  my  love,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw. 
Again  Zaidee  assented  innocently  to 


this  seeming  harmless  declaration,  and 
asked  no  questions.  u  She  never  asks 
me  what  my  views  are,  poor  dear," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw  within  herself; 
and  she  received  her  sister's  condol- 
ences over  Mary's  new  engagement 
with  great  resignation.  Zaidee's 
want  of  curiosity  was  proof  positive 
to  Aunt  Burtonshaw. 

**  Promise  me  one  thing,  Mary," 
said  Zaidee,  wistfully,  amid  the  many 
talks  and  confidences  of  the  following 
night.  u  Do  not  tell  Mr  Vivian  I  am 
not  your  sister  —  I  would  rather  he 
thought  me  your  sister ;  do  not  tell 
him,  Mary,  for  my  sake." 

"Why?"  Mary  looked  up  with 
immediate  curiosity.  Mary  had  one 
or  two  strange  things  in  her  mind  to 
wonder  at  when  she  had  leisure ;  her 
glance  was  so  sudden  that  Zaidee's 
face  was  almost  surprised  into  the 
beseeching  look  with  which  she  had 
barred  further  mention  of  the  Grange 
on  the  previous  day ;  but  she  was 
wise  enough  to  subdue  her  anxiety, 
and  look  unconcerned. 

"  I  suppose  if  he  comes  to  know  all 
our  family  matters  by-and-by,"  said 
Mary  with  a  blush,  and  a  little  hesita- 
tion, "  he  will  have  to  know  that  you 
were  not  born  my  sister,  Lizzy — he 
will  never  know  anything  else,  I  am 
sure  ;  the  only  difference  is,  that  if 
you  had  been  born  my  sister,  I  might 
not  have  liked  you  so  well— one  of  us 
surely  must  have  taken  after  our 
father  or  our  mother.  But  I  will  not 
tell  him,  Elizabeth  ;  I  will  not  say  a 
word  about  it,  I  assure  you.  I  wonder 
if  you  will  ever  be  on  good  terms— I 
think  he  is  a  little  afraid  of  you :  it  is 
always  my  beautiful  sister,  or  Miss 
Elizabeth  Cumberland ;  he  does  not 
half  understand  you,  I  am  sure ;  I  won- 
der if  you  will  ever  be  friends  ?  " 

Zaidee  could  not  answer;  she  durst 
not  say  no.  No,  it  was  impossible — 
she  must  not  be  friends  with  Percy — 
but  Zaidee  became  aware  that  a  cloud 
and  weight  of  doubtfulness  began  to 
be  visible  on  Mary's  face  ;  she  could 
not  understand  either  Percy's  curio- 
sity about  Zaidee,  or  Zaidee's  evident 
wish  to  avoid  his  presence  and  his 


420 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


friendship ;  she  could  not  be  jealous 
any  longer  —  far  from  that,  she  had 
given  up  all  her  thoughts  to  the  safe 
keeping  of  her  beautiful  sister,  and 
made  a  confidant  deeply  interested 
and  most  sympathetic  of  Zaidee.  But 
she  was  disturbed ;  there  was  some 
mystery  in  it:  could  Zaidee  have 
known  Percy  before? — and  immediate- 
ly there  returned  to  Mary's  memory, 
that  description  of  the  Grange  which 
corresponded  so  strangely  with  a  de- 
scription Zaidee  had  once  given  to 
her.  Had  Percy  by  any  chance  made 
Mary  acquainted  to-day  with  the 
story  of  his  lost  cousin,  Mary  must 
have  leaped  to  the  conclusion,  and 
Zaidee's  secret  been  discovered  on  the 
spot.  As  it  was,  Mary  went  out  with 
a  good  deal  of  doubt  and  wonder  in 
her  mind,  but  after  half  an  hour's 
wandering  through  those  hilly  paths 
where  the  sunshine  lay  warm  upon 
the  grass,  and  the  air  came  fresh  and 
sweet  across  the  plain,  Mary  forgot  in 
a  great  measure  her  doubt  and  her 
wonder.  She  forgot  her  beautiful 
sister  altogether,  and  all  that  was 
mysterious  in  her  —  she  thought  of 
nothing  but  the  present  sunny  hour, 
and  the  charmed  prospect  of  the 
future.  Mary,  though  she  was  gene- 
rous by  nature,  was  not  a  striking 
example  of  unselfishness;  and  per- 
haps,i  under  her  circumstances,  it 
would  have  been  an  equivocal  kind- 
ness to  suffer  her  anxiety  for  any  one 
else  .to  interfere  with  the  regard  she 
owed  to  Percy,  who  was  devoting 
all  his  thoughts  and  all  his  cares 
to  her. 

So  they  came  and  went  together 
unreproved  upon  these  hilly  ways, 
and  grew  into  acquaintance  with  each 
other  on  the  grassy  slopes  of  Malvern. 
To  Percy  Vivian's  versatile  and  many- 
sided  nature  there  was  repose  arid 
support  in  the  much  more  limited 
mind  of  Mary,  which  was  strong  in 
what  it  did  grasp — though  its  grasp 
comprehended  but  a  small  part  of  his 
wide  range  of  thought  and  fancy.  She 
never  brought  him  down  out  of  his 
aerial  flights  by  lack  of  understand- 
ing, but  sometimes  she  listened  with 
a  smile.  His  sister  Elizabeth,  who 
also  was  limited  in  her  mental  range, 
was  perfect,  in  Percy's  apprehension, 
within  her  boundaries  ;  but  Mary  was 


[Oct. 

not  perfect.  She  was  young ;  she  had 
a  world  before  her,  on  which  she,  too, 
glanced  undismayed.  She  was  ready 
to  follow  his  caprices  of  exuberant 
imagination — she  was  ready  to  share 
the  impetuous  delight  with  which  he 
threw  himself  on  one  new  field  after 
another,  and  rejoiced  in  his  waste  of 
power  and  universal  reputation — his 
capacity  for  everything.  Percy's  pru- 
dent friends  warned  him  to  build  his 
edifice  of  fame  on  more  lasting  foun- 
dations, and  consolidate  his  glories ; 
but  Percy,  who  threw  himself  from 
one  branch  of  the  profession  he  had 
chosen  to  another  for  pure  delight  in 
the  change,  and  exultation  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  his  young  powers,  took  no 
time  to  pause  and  think  of  fame ;  and 
Mary,  glorying,  like  himself,  in  the 
magic  of  that  power  of  his,  scorned, 
like  himself,  to  bring  this  glorious 
vassal  into  harness,  and  make  Pega- 
sus do  his  day's  work  steadily,  like  an 
ignoble  steed.  He  told  her  of  all  his 
countless  schemes  and  projects;  and 
she,  to  whom  the  profession  of  litera- 
ture had  become  the  most  noble  pro- 
fession under  heaven,  heard  and  gave 
her  whole  heart  to  them,  without  a 
single  reserve  of  prudence  or  recom- 
mendation to  concentrate  ;  they  were 
quite  unanimous  in  running  this  bril- 
liant race,  and  Percy's  breast  expand- 
ed as  he  stood  looking  out  upon  that 
great  plain,  with  Mary  leaning  on  his 
arm,  and  the  fresh  wind  tossing  his 
wavy  hair  about  his  temples,  at 
thought  of  all  that  he  could  do. 

"I'll  make  thee  famous  with  my 
pen,"  quoted  Percy,  half  laughing  and 
half  in  earnest — 

"  I'll  serve  thee  in  such  glorious  ways, 

As  ne'er  were  known  before  ; 
I'll  deck  and  crown  my  head  with  bays, 
And  love  thee  evermore." 

"  Should  it  not  be  my  head  you 
crown  with  bays — is  that  not  the  strain 
of  the  song?"  said  Mary,  looking  up  to 
him  as  his  eyes  brightened  under  the 
influence  of  the  verse.  "  You  are 
only  the  crowner — you  are  not  the 
crowned." 

"  Ah,  Montrose  knew  better,"  said 
Percy.  "  If  I  crown  my  head  with  bays, 
I  am  a  more  creditable  vassal.  You 
will  rather  conquer  the  conqueror 
than  hold  a  slave  in  your  fetters ;  the 
bays  are  not  emblems  of  great  enough 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  XL 


421 


royalty  for  a  poet's  bride ;  it  is  only 
her  knight,  her  vassal,  her  sworn 
servant,  who  must  be  laureated. 
Stars,  or  the  living  sunshine,  are  the 
only  fitting  crown  for  the  brow  of  her 
beauty,  which  is  above  fame ;  the  man 
has  honour  to  win,  but  the  lady  of  his 
thoughts  is  above  his  honour ;  the 
rewarder  and  inspirer  of  it,  throned  in 
an  atmosphere  higher  than  his  bays 
and  his  fightings.  Yes,  yes,  Montrose 
knew  the  homage  he  could  offer — not 
the  bays,  but  the  love." 

And  Mary  Cumberland  cast  down 
her  eyes,  and  bent  her  pretty  head  in 
humility  almost  painful.  This  ethereal 
type  of  womanhood  was  not  "  me." 
She  was  ashamed  of  herself,  to  have 
all  these  undeserved  glories  laid  upon 
her.  Her  atmosphere  was  not  so 
high,  nor  her  world  so  pure  as  the 
poet  represented  it,  and  Mary  was 
humbled  with  too  much  praise.  Yes, 
he  had  crowned  his  head  with  laurels, 
fresh  and  noble;  he  had  taken  the 
universal  heart  by  storm,  and  raised 
a  fairy  temple  of  fame  for  himself; 
and  all  the  store  he  set  by  it  was  to 
make  his  homage  more  worthy  of  her 
— of  that  Mary  Cumberland  who 
boasted  of  being  one  of  the  common 
people,  neither  intellectual  nor  supe- 
rior. Mary  went  by  his  side  very 
humbly  after  this  conversation;  the 


burden  of  his  song  rang  in  her  ears, 
"  and  love  thee  evermore."  Mary's 
fancy  was  singing  as  she  listened  to 
his  voice  rather  vaguely,  more  for  the 
music  of  it  than  to  understand  its 
words ;  she  could  be  even  with  him 
in  that  one  particular, — it  was  acorn- 
fort  to  Mary. 

And  Zaidee  sat  at  home  thinking 
over  this  strange  chance  which  had 
befallen  the  family — wondering  how 
she  could  have  been  so  glad  of  it  last 
night — how  she  could  have  shut  her 
eyes  to  its  important  bearing  on  her 
own  fate !  Percy  would  by-and-by 
become  a  member  of  the  family,  and 
know  all  its  secrets  ;  Percy  would 
soon  have  perfect  acquaintance  with 
all  that  his  bride  knew  of  her — Mary's 
suspicions  perhaps — her  own  request 
to  Mary, — a  hundred  circumstances 
which  only  Mary  could  remember. 
She  sat  in  desolate  idleness,  twining 
her  fingers  together,  and  looking 
blankly  towards  the  future.  When 
this  engagement  ended  in  the  mar- 
riage to  which  they  all  began  to  look 
forward,  this  place  was  no  longer  a 
shelter  for  Zaidee.  Were  it  but  for 
her  own  self,  she  could  not  endure 
close  intercourse  with  the  family  so 
infinitely  dear  to  her.  She  could  not 
meet  Aunt  Vivian  —  Philip  — all  of 
them,  as  strangers.  She  must  go  away. 


CHAPTER  xxn. — PERCY'S  SHORTCOMINGS. 


"  My  dear  love,  you  are  losing  all 
your  beautiful  colour — you  are  pining 
to  a  shadow,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw. 
"  We  must  go  home,  Elizabeth.  I 
will  go  home  with  you  myself  if  Maria 
Anna  will  not  hear  reason,  and  the 
sweet  air  of  Sylvo's  place  will  set  you 
up  again,  my  dear  child." 

Mrs  Burtonshaw  could  not  be  suf- 
ficiently grateful  for  this  constant 
affection,  which  rewarded  Sylvo  so 
abundantly  for  Mary's  loss.  She 
exhausted  herself  in  solicitude  for  the 
unconscious  Zaidee,  who  never 
dreamed  of  any  special  reason  for 
this  excessive  kindness.  Except  in 
the  lengthened  confidences  which 
brought  Mary  every  evening  into 
Zaidee's  room,  and  delayed  their  rest 
till  far  into  the  night,  Zaidee  had  lost 
her  companion.  Mr  Cumberland  had 


given  his  consent  by  this  time  in  an 
odd  letter — a  curious  contrast  to  the 
eloquent  one  which  Percy  sent  to 
him,  and  to  the  elegant  epistle  full 
of  notes  of  admiration  in  which  Mrs 
Cumberland  had  intimated  the  event, 
and  her  own  wonder ;  so  that  the  way 
was  quite  without  an  obstacle,  and  the 
course  of  this  true  love  threatened  to 
run  provokingly  smooth,  and  to  have 
no  obstructions.  There  began  to  be 
considerable  talk  even  in  Zaidee's 
chamber,  where  sentiment  was  a  little 
more  prevalent  than  formerly,  of  the 
trousseau,  and  the  important  prepara- 
tions of  the  wedding.  There  was  a  great 
flutter  among  the  attendant  maids, 
who  had  come  here  with  the  family, 
and  a  general  excitement  and  expec- 
tation of  the  great  event  which  began 
to  draw  near. 


422 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XL 


On  one  of  these  evenings,  when 
Mary  followed  Zaidee  up-stairs,  no 
longer  finding  any  occasion  to  ex- 
tinguish the  light,  the  old  spark  of 
mirth  was  dancing  once  more  in 
Mary's  e}Te.  *'  I  have  given  up  being 
humble,  Elizabeth,"  said  Mary  ;  "  I 
have  no  such  extraordinary  occasion 
as  I  fancied  myself  to  have  ;  he  is  not 
so  immaculate  after  all,  Lizzy.  I  am 
very  glad  ;  a  perfect  man  would  be  a 
sad  weariness.  He  has  human  frailty 
in  him.  The  lofty  Percy  Vivian,  who 
has  only  to  say  the  word  and  his  hero 
or  his  heroine  is  forthwith  endowed 
with  fairy  fortune,  is  much  troubled 
with  the  vulgar  question  of  ways  and 
means,  Elizabeth.  He  has  been  mak- 
ing a  great  many  confessions  to  me. 
He  is  quite  afraid  to  bring  Mr  Cum- 
berland's daughter  into  poverty,  and 
talks  of  taking  advantage  of  '  our 
goodness.'  He  should  have  thought 
of  that  in  time." 

"  But  you  did  not  think  he  was 
rich,"  said  Zaidee  hastily.  Zaidee's 
face  flushed  with  a  little  family  pride. 
She  was  not  content  to  hear  a  Vivian 
spoken  of  so. 

"  Of  course,  I  did  not  think  him 
rich,"  said  Mary,  u  and  I  am  sure  I 
did  not  care  whether  he  was  rich  or 
poor.  I  don't  believe  he  ever  thought 
of  it  himself,  till  Aunt  Burtonshaw 
had  been  saying  something  of  my  for- 
tune ;  and  when  I  came  in,  I  saw 
something  was  wrong;  he  was  restless 
and  disturbed,  Elizabeth,  and  his  eyes 
wereflashing  about  every  where.  Now, 
when  I  think  of  it,  his  eyes  are  not 
nnlike  your  eyes,  and  he  was  a  little 
haughty,  and  a  great  deal  troubled. 
After  a  long  time,  I  prevailed  on  him 
to  tell  me,  and  it  appears  that  Mr 
Percy  Vivian  has  been  an  extravagant 
young  gentleman,  Lizzy;  that  he  is 
not  quite  prepared,  after  all,  for  en- 
tering upon  what  mamma  calls  '  new 
responsibilities,'  as  he  was  so  anxious 
to  do ;  and  that  something  more  is 
necessary  than  papa's  consent.  We 
are  not  running  quite  so  smooth  after 
all,  you  see,"  said  Mary,  with  a  little 
sigh ;  "  I  believe  he  has  followed 
Sylvo's  example,  and  taken  a  cigar 
into  his  counsel.  There  is  a  little  red 
spark  down  below  there,  pacing  up 
and  down  through  the  darkness.  He 
has  confided  his  trouble  to  me  very 


[Oct. 

frankly,  Lizzy;  but  when  I  tried  to 
hint  at  that  poor  little  fortune  of  mine, 
you  should  have  seen  what  a  glance 
he  gave  me.  I  may  sympathise,  or 
I  may  advise,  but  I  cannot  try  to 
assist ;  I  see  he  must  do  it  all  by 
himself." 

"  He  must  do  it  all  by  himself," 
echoed  Zaidee  eagerly.  Zaidee  forgot 
for  the  moment  everything  but  that 
she  was  a  Vivian,  and  looked  almost 
as  haughty  at  the  idea  of  Mary  Cum- 
berland's fortune  as  Percy  himself 
could  do  ;  "  but  Mr  Vivian  was  of  a 
good  family,  you  told  me;  will  not 
they  set  him  right  ?  " 

"  Like  those  bad  princes  tha.t  Aunt 
Burtonshaw  talks  about,"  said  Mary, 
laughing,  "  who  had  all  their  debts 
paid  when  they  suffered  themselves  to 
be  '  settled.'  I  do  not  think  I  ought  to 
talk  like  this.  Percy  only  told  me, 
because  I  plagued  him  to  know  what 
was  the  matter,  and  he  said  he  must 
tell  papa ;  but  I  do  not  think  he 
thought  it  anything  to  laugh  at.  I  do 
not  suppose  they  can  be  people  of 
fortune,  Lizzy,  for  his  elder  brother 
is  in  India.  Why  should  he  be 
there,  if  there  was  a  good  estate  at 
home?" 

"  Does  Mr  Vivian  speak  of  him?  " 
said  Zaidee.  Zaidee  could  by  no  means 
explain  to  herself  why  Philip  was  in 
India,  nor  what  reason  he  could  have 
had  for  leaving  the  Grange. 

"  Yes,  he  speaks  of  him.  One  would 
think  he  was  a  preux  chevalier,  and  he 
is  onty  a  merchant — an  Indian  prince's 
agent — a  something  in  business,"  said 
Mary,  who  was  a  little  jealous  of  this 
much-commended  brother.  "  Percy 
says  Philip  —  that  is  his  brother's 
name — used  to  send  him  an  allowance 
to  help  him  to  prosecute  his  studies, 
till  he  gave  up  the  law  for  literature, 
and  had  a  great  deal  of  money  of  his 
own,  and  did  not  want  it  any  more. 
Do  you  know  Percy  really  is  a  bar- 
rister, Elizabeth  ?  He  could  go  and 
plead  to-morrow,  if  any  one  gave  him 
a  brief.  I  do  not  know  if  he  is  a  good 
lawyer,  but  I  am  sure  he  is  an  orator 
by  nature.  I  am  certain  he  would 
win  his  plea.  I  do  not  believe  he  ever 
failed  in  anything.  You  need  not 
smile  ;  it  is  a  simple  truth.  It  would 
kill  Percy  to  fail." 

"  And  his  brother— he  whom  you 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


423 


call  Philip  ? "  asked  Zaidee,  with 
hesitation.  "  Mary,  he  will  help 
him  now." 

"  I  do  not  know,"  said  Mary  slow- 
ly; "  perhaps  Percy  will  not  ask  him. 
I  think  he  will  resume  his  profession, 
and  work  very  hard,  and  get  over  his 
difficulty  by  himself.  He  will  not 
give  up  literature,  of  course ;  but  I  am 
sure,  if  he  devoted  himself  to  his  pro- 
fession, he  might  be  lord- chancellor, 
Elizabeth ! " 

For  Mary  Cumberland's  well-regu- 
lated and  sensible  mind  had  been  daz- 
zled into  an  overweening  admiration 
for  the  genius  of  her  betrothed.  Some- 
what cynical  of  every  other  excel- 
lence, Mary  had  yielded  all  the  more 
completely  to  this  one,  in  which  she 
believed.  She  was  not  much  given 
to  exercising  faith  where  reason  was 
practicable,  but  in  the  preseiit  case 
the  neglected  capabilities  of  belief  and 
enthusiasm  avenged  themselves  on 
Mary.  She  delivered  herself  over  to 
this  overpowering  fascination.  She 
Avho  was  so  wary  and  cautious  in  her 
ordinary  judgments,  believed  in  Percy 
with  the  blindest  faith.  There  was 
nothing  too  glorious  for  his  attain- 
ment, nothing  too  great  for  him  to 
reach.  Her  sober  fancy  borrowed 
and  exaggerated  the  glowing  colours 
of  his  poetic  imagination.  Every- 
where else  the  earth  was  common  soil 
to  Mary  Cumberland;  the  days  were 
working  days,  the  men  and  the  women 
very  ordinary  people;  but  all  the  vague 
indefinite  charms  which  a  youthful 
imagination  throws  upon  the  general 
surface  of  the  world  were  gathered 
into  one  for  Mary.  There  was  but 
one  magician  sufficiently  potent  to 
throw  this  spell  upon  her ;  but  now, 
when  she  was  fairly  enthralled  by  the 
magical  influence,  she  gave  up  her 
whole  heart  to  it,  and  reasoned  no 
more. 

But  here  was  a  temporary  pause 
in  the  smooth  current  of  their  love. 
Percy's  wooing  must  not  blossom  into 
Percy's  marriage  quite  so  rapidly  as 
that  ardent  young  gentleman  had  in- 
tended. All  these  wanderings  over 
the  hill  of  Malvern,  those  charmed 
walks  and  fairy  twilights,  must  be  in- 
terrupted by  a  laborious  necessity, 
and  their  renewal  indefinitely  post- 
poned. Percy  would  have  started  for 


town  that  same  night  could  he  have 
had  his  will,  but  being  persuaded  to 
wait  till  the  morning,  he  waited  long- 
er; a  day  or  two  did  not  so  much 
signify — and  a  world  of  plans  were 
formed  and  discussed,  and  little  time 
lost,  as  these  two  well-occupied  people 
thought.  Zaidee  did  not  even  have 
that  evening's  report  of  the  day's 
proceedings,  which  at  first  had  in- 
demnified her  for  the  loss  of  Mary's 
society.  Marv's  thoughts  and  time 
were  alike  swallowed  up  by  Percy 
Vivian  ;  and  Zaidee,  whose  interest  in 
Percy  no  one  suspected,  wondered 
by  herself  over  the  family  circum- 
stances unknown  to  her,  and  could 
not  understand  why  Philip  went  to 
India,  or  how  Percy's  allowance  dur- 
ing his  time  of  study  should  come 
from  him.  Could  some  new  and  un- 
thought-of  misfortune  have  plucked  the 
little  possessions  of  JBriarford  out  of 
Philip's  hands  once  more?  But  Percy 
still  spoke  of  the  Grange.  Zaidee 
wasted  many  an  hour  in  wonder,  but 
without  comprehension.  She  had  re- 
linquished all  that  she  had, seven  years 
ago,  when  she  left  her  home.  Whatever 
difficulties  they  might  be  in,  even  if 
by  chance  they  should  come  to  po- 
verty, as  Zaidee's  old  vision  was,  she 
could  no  longer  help  them  now.  It 
was  bootless  for  her  to  ponder  Percy's 
difficulties  —  to  wonder  why  Philip 
should  not  help  him — but  Zaidee  could 
think  of  nothing  else,  as  she  bore 
Mrs  Cumberland  and  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw  company  in  that  little  draw- 
ing-room, or  sat  in  her  own  chamber 
alone. 

When  Percy  did  go  away  at  last,  it 
was  at  night.  He  could  not  set  out 
upon  his  journey,  he  protested,  while 
the  morning  light  lay  so  sweetly  upon 
these  heights  of  Malvern,  and  when 
there  was  a  whole  day  to  be  enjoyed. 
He  proposed  setting  out  when  he  had 
said  good-night — when  there  was  no 
more  to  be  seen  of  Mary  for  all  these 
hours  of  darkness;  and  when  another 
moment's  lingering  would  have  made 
him  too  late,  Percy  dashed  off  in  great 
haste,  and  went  whirling  past  their 
gate  in  the  night  coach,  which  he 
caught,  with  his  usual  good  fortune, 
after  it  had  left  its  starting-place. 
When  the  sound  of  its  wheels  had 
died  into  the  distance,  Mary  turned 


424 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XL 


from  the  window  with  a  sigh.  She 
was  very  anxious  for  the  breaking-up 
of  the  little  party  this  evening — very 
anxious  to  take  Zaidee's  arm,  and 
hurry  her  up-stairs.  Mary  had  no 
patience  for  mamma  and  Aunt  Bur- 


[Oct. 

tonshaw  in  the  sudden  relapse  into 
languor  and  quietness  which  followed 
Percy's  farewell,  and  she  had  more 
than  usual  occasion  for  her  confi- 
dante, and  more  than  common  news 
to  carry  to  Zaidee  to-night. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. — THE  HISTORY   OF   THE   VIVIANS. 


"I  have  never  heard  a  stranger 
story,"  said  Mary  Cumberland ;  u  it 
is  like  romance.  I  am  very  sure  it  is 
not  like  actual  life.  He  only  told  me 
last  night,  and  I  have  had  no  time  to 
speak  to  you  to-day.  Do  not  stand 
there,  Elizabeth,  as  if  you  were  marble ; 
you  are  as  pale  as  marble,  indeed. 
Are  you  really  pining  for  Sylvo's  place, 
as  Aunt  Burtonshaw  persuades  her- 
self? And  what  are  you  going  to  do 
with  work — work  at  this  hour  of  the 
night?  I  really  do  wish  you  would  sit 
down,  Lizzy,  and  let  me  tell  you  my 
tale." 

Zaidee  sat  down  with  passive  obe- 
dience. She  did  not  take  the  work 
she  had  lifted,  but  she  turned  her  face 
away  from  Mary,  and  sat  with  a 
breathless  interest  in  her  look,  which 
made  her  great  paleness  more  appar- 
ent. Mary  did  not  observe  this ;  she 
was  full  of  her  own  thoughts,  and 
went  on. 

"  His  family  had  a  little  cousin  liv- 
ing with  them,  and  they  had  been  very 
kind  to  her ;  but  suddenly  a  will  was 
found  made  by  Percy's  grandfather — 
who  must  have  been  a  dreadful  per- 
son, if  all  is  true  that  is  said  of  him — 
leaving  the  estate  to  this  child.  She 
was  quite  young,  and  her  name  was 
Zaidee.  Mrs  Morton's  little  girl  is 
called  after  her.  Well,  of  course  the 
family  were  very  much  disturbed 
about  this,  and  they  all  made  up  their 
minds  unanimously  not  to  dispute  the 
will — as  I  should  fancy  could  have 
been  done — but  to  give  up  the  estate 
at  once  to  this  girl.  The  eldest  son — 
who  is  Philip — was  especially  anxious, 
and  determined  to  go  to  India ;  and 
when  little  Zaidee  found  that  she 
could  not  persuade  them  to  burn  the 
will,  or  to  take  the  property  from  her, 
what  do  you  think  she  did,  Elizabeth  ? 
Percy  says  she  was  only  a  child — not 
pretty,  nor  very  clever,  nor  anything 
particular— she  ran  away ! " 


Mary  waited  an  instant  for  some 
comment,  but,  hearing  none,  resumed 
her  story. 

"  I  think  it  was  very  grand  of  her ! 
whatever  you  may  think,  Elizabeth ; 
and  though  it  was  a  very  foolish  thing, 
you  know,  and  gave  them  great  dis- 
tress and  trouble,  I  think  it  was  very 
grand  of  that  child.  They  never 
could  find  her,  though  they  were  once 
very  near ;  so  where  she  is,  or  if  she 
is  living  at  all,  they  have  no  know- 
ledge— they  cannot  tell  anything  at 
all  of  her.  She  may  be  in  Malvern 
here,  or  she  may  be  at  the  end  of  the 
world.  They  advertised,  and  did  all 
sorts  of  things,  but  Zaidee  was  never 
heard  of  again." 

Zaidee  listened  to  all  this,  and  was 
silent ;  she  had  clasped  her  hands  to- 
gether so  tightly  that  they  were  some 
support  to  her,  and  her  heart  was 
leaping  against  her  breast  with  such 
loud  throbs  that  she  feared  lest  Mary 
should  hear.  Another  vehement  aching 
pulse  beat  in  Zaidee's  temples.  Her 
slight  figure  now  and  then  was  swept 
by  a  sudden  shuddering ;  but  she  felt 
that  on  her  self-denial  now  depended 
all  her  hope  of  eluding  discovery ;  and 
with  an  effort  of  which  she  could  not 
have  believed  herself  capable,  she 
kept  herself  from  trembling,  and 
cleared  her  choking  voice  to  speak. 
"What  then?"  said  Zaidee.  Her 
whole  force  was  strained  to  make  the 
tone  of  these  two  little  syllables 
clear  and  calm ;  no  trace  of  the  burn- 
ing anxiety  with  which  she  listened, 
nor  of  her  passion  of  fear  and  excite- 
ment, was  betrayed  in  her  voice, 
— "  What  then  ?  "  but  no  effort 
could  have  strengthened  her  to  say 
more. 

"I  suppose  she  had  thought  they 
would  remain  quietly  in  possession  of 
the  estate  after  she  was  gone,"  said 
Mary,  in  her  lightness  of  speech — and 
every  word  that  Mary  spoke  was  a 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XI. 


425 


revelation  to  Zaidee  ;  "  of  course  that 
was  what  she  meant,  the  poor,  foolish 
child ;  but  her  running  away  did  not 
make  any  difference,  except  to  em- 
barrass them  all  the  more :  for  you 
could  never  expect  that  Philip  — 
Philip  must  be  very  proud,  I  am 
afraid,  Elizabeth— would  be  content 
to  have  the  estate  after  the  heiress 
had  run  away ;  so,  when  he  could  not 
find  her,  Philip  went  to  India,  and 
Percy  came  to  London,  and  Mrs  Mor- 
ton was  married, — all  these  changes 
happened  at  the  same  time  ;  and  their 
mother  and  their  two  younger  sisters 
were  left  in  the  Grange." 

Another  dreadful  pause,  and  Zaidee 
must  compel  herself  to  speak  again. 
"  But  at  least  they  are  there  now," 
said  Zaidee.  Her  great  strain  of  ex- 
citement was  slackened  a  little ;  she 
was  no  longer  in  doubt ;  she  saw  the 
whole ;  and,  with  bitter  disappoint- 
ment and  mortification,  marvelled  at 
her  own  blindness,  which  could  not 
foresee  this  certain  failure  of  her  child- 
ish sacrifice. 

"  They  are  there  now,"  said  Mary — 
and  Mary's  light  and  sprightly  tones 
fell  so  strangely  upon  this  heart  which 
was  troubled  to  its  very  depths  ;  "  at 
least  the  old  lady  is  there  now,  for  I 
am  not  sure  whether  one  or  both  of 
the  sisters  are  married.  Mrs  Vivian 
must  be  a  very  active  old  lady,  Eliza- 
beth. Percy  says  she  manages  all 
the  estate,  and  looks  after  everything ; 
and  if  this  little  cousin  should  ever 
be  found,  she  will  be  a  very  great 
heiress — one  of  the  richest  in  the  coun- 
try— for  the  rents  have  been  accumu- 
lating ever  since  she  ran  away. 
Percy  does  not  think  she  will  ever  be 
found  now,  it  is  so  long  since  they 
lost  her ;  and  I  do  not  know  who  all 
this  money  will  go  to,  I  am  sure  ;  but 
that  is  why  his  own  family  cannot 
help  him  in  his  difficulties — none  of 
them  would  touch  this  that  is  left  for 
Zaidee,  however  great  the  necessity 
might  be.  Now  is  it  not  a  very  strange 
tale?" 

The  conclusion  of  the  story  restored 
Zaidee  to  herself ;  she  had  heard  all 
Mary  knew  of  these  dearest  friends, 
whom  she  yearned  at  all  times  to  hear 
of,  and  she  recalled  her  mind  to  the 
present  moment,  and  left  all  this 
startling  intelligence  to  be  considered 


hereafter.  Slowly,  and  with  pain,  she 
unclosed  the  white  hands  which  had 
held  to  each  other  with  such  a  fixed 
and  deadly  grasp,  and  constrained  the 
sobbing  sigh  which  struggled  in  her 
breast.  She  knew  that  her  face  did 
not  betray  her  when  she  turned  it  to 
the  light ;  she  saw  that  Mary's  eyes 
were  quite  unsuspicious,  and  her  com- 
posure unbroken ;  and  she  felt  her 
heart  expand  with  a  strange  satisfac- 
tion in  her  own  power — she  had  been 
able  to  listen  to  all  this,  yet  make 
no  sign. 

"  In  other  circumstances,  Percy 
could  have  had  little  difficulty;  but 
he  must  do  all  for  himself  now,  and 
we  must  delay.  It  does  not  trouble 
wie,"  said  Mary,  with  a  blush  ;  "  but 
it  troubles  Percy,  and  I  am  afraid  he 
must  be  more  than  a  little  embarrass- 
ed. It  was  natural  that  he  should 
live  as  he  had  been  used  to  live ;  and 
then  he  got  a  great  deal  of  money  for 
writing,  you  know,  and  was  so  much 
applauded,  and  invited  everywhere. 
I  do  not  wonder  at  it  in  the  least,  Eli- 
zabeth ;  it  was  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world.  I  am  afraid  it  will  be 
some  time  before  he  is  able  to  encoun- 
ter *  new  responsibilities,'  Lizzy.  I 
am  afraid  it  will  be  a  long  time — per- 
haps two  or  three  years.  If  he  should 
happen  to  make  an  extraordinary  im- 
pression in  the  first  case  he  conducts 
—  as  I  have  no  doubt  he  will — it 
may  be  different;  but  otherwise, 
we  will  have  to  be  patient,  and  he 
must  work,  and  I  must  cheer  him  all 
I  can." 

Mary  ended  with  a  little  sigh ;  then 
she  took  up  one  of  the  lights,  and  gave 
her  good-night  kiss  to  Zaidee,  listless- 
ly, and  went  out  of  the  room  with  a 
languid  step.  Percy  was  gone  ;  there 
was  a  long  working- day  of  labour  and 
anxiety  before  the  brilliant,  versatile 
genius.  Mary,  in  her  undoubting  con- 
fidence in  him,  did  not  inquire  how  he 
would  bear  this  ordeal ;  but  she  felt 
that  it  must  be  a  very  wearisome, 
tedious  time,  and  she  yielded  to  a  little 
natural  depression  as  she  went  slowly . 
to  her  rest. 

But  there  was  no  rest  for  Zaidee 
that  night.  When  she  had  closed  her 
door,  she  returned  to  think  over  all 
this  story — the  story  of  her  family  and 
of  herself.  She  could  not  sit  still  to 


426 


a  Romance. — Part  Xf. 


[Oct. 


contemplate  this  glimpse  of  her  home; 
she  wandered  through  the  little  cham- 
ber, by  turns  calling  upon  one  and 
another,  with  tears  and  an  unspeak- 
able yearning.  She  fancied  she  saw 
Aunt  Vivian  alone  in  the  Grange, 
every  one  of  them  gone  away  from 
her  ;  no  Philip  to  support  her  declin- 
ing years,  not  even  pretty  Sophy,  per- 
haps, to  gladden  her  mother's  heart. 
Alone — all  by  herself— Zaidee's  fairy 
godmother,  employed  in  anxious  cares 
for  the  lost  child  ;  while  Philip,  un- 
der the  burning  Eastern  skies,  toiled 
to  achieve  for  himself  the  fortune  of 
which  Zaidee  had  deprived  him  at 
home.  With  an  eager  and  hasty 
anxiety,  her  thoughts  laboured  to  find 
some  other  means  of  making  effectual 
her  futile  and  useless  sacrifice.  All 
these  years  she  had  been  consoling 
herself,  in  her  simplicity,  with  the 
thought  that  she  had  done  justice ; 
but  she  had  not  done  justice ;  her  la- 
bour and  exile,  and  martyrdom  of 
love,  were  all  in  vain.  Zaidee  could 
not  tell  what  side  to  turn  to  in  her 
momentary  despair ;  she  had  lost  her 
name,  her  home,  her  identity;  but  she 
had  not  fulfilled  that  last  command 
of  Grandfather  Vivian :  with  all  her 
anxiety,  and  all  her  exertion,  she  had 
still  supplanted  Philip;  the  house  was 
desolate,  and  the  heir  in  a  far  country, 
and  on  Zaidee's  heart  lay  the  weight 
of  it  all. 
She  could  have  hated  her  own  for- 


lorn existence — she  could  have  prayed 
again  her  child's  prayer  to  die ;  but 
Zaidee  was  a  woman  now,  and  had 
not  any  longer  the  boldness  and  the 
ignorance  of  the  child  to  justify  these 
cries  of  her  grieving  heart.  When 
she  lay  down  upon  her  bed  for  form's 
sake,  and  when  she  rose  again  in  the 
early  dawning,  her  mind  followed, 
without  intermission,  a  serious  ques- 
tion— a  matter  of  life  or  death.  She 
had  failed — and  now,  how  to  succeed 
— how  to  put  her  urgent  duty  beyond 
reach  of  failure  ?  She  had  attained  to 
an  elder  age,  and  a  more  mature  un- 
derstanding ;  but  she  was  still  simple, 
youthful,  inexperienced,  and  knew  of 
no  certain  means  to  attain  her  object. 
A  thousand  impracticable  plans  crowd- 
ed upon  her  as  she  stood  at  the  win- 
dow, watching  the  sun  climb  up  the 
eastern  sky.  Mary  was  dreaming  the 
morning  dreams  of  youth  and  happi- 
ness ;  Percy  was  resting  from  his 
night  journey,  and  even  in  his  sleep 
impetuously  pressing  forward  to  over- 
vault  his  difficulties.  Where  was 
Philip,  in  his  far-away  exile,  near 
yonder  sunrising  ?  But  had  they  seen 
this  beautiful  face,  gazing  with  wist- 
ful eyes  upon  the  golden  light  of  the 
morning,  neither  Percy  nor  Philip 
could  have  dreamed  that  this  was 
Zaidee,  labouring,  in  her  secret  heart, 
with  prayers  and  plans  a  hundredfold, 
to  restore  to  his  inheritance  the  exiled 
heir  of  the  Grange. 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Part  II. 


427 


THE   BALTIC   IN   1855. 


PART  II. 


IN  estimating  the  elements  of  Rus- 
sian defence — in  describing  the  mate- 
rial form  it  presented  at  Cronstadt — 
we  made  no  mention  of  man ;  yet  man 
and  his  labour  constitute  its  real 
strength  and  vitality;  and  no  true 
calculation  can  be  made  of  it  as  a 
whole  without  taking  account  of  these, 
as  the  means  by  which  the  system 
has  been  raised,  and  must  be  main- 
tained. Russia's  strength — both  ag- 
gressive and  defensive — lies,  no  doubt, 
in  the  possession  of  masses  of  men, 
and  in  the  entire  command  and  dis- 
posal which  despotism  gives  her  over 
them  :  in  defence  especially  she  finds 
therein  a  compensation  for  her  defi- 
ciency in  other  resources — a  power 
which  enables  her  to  combat  the  art 
and  science  of  more  civilised  nations. 
During  this  struggle  she  has  used 
this  power — this  resource — ruthlessly, 
yet  effectively;  she  has  worked  her 
men  as  we  would  our  steam-engines, 
but  she  has  thereby  baffled  our 
chivalry  and  skill  in  the  Crimea,  and 
nullified  our  steam  force  in  the  Baltic. 
She  has  set  man-power  against  steam, 
muscle  against  mechanicalskill,  masses 
against  valour — and  the  result  has 
been  an  amount  of  resistance,  and  an 
equality  betwixt  the  aggressive  and 
defensive  forces,  which  we  hardly  ex- 
pected. The  present  state  of  Cron- 
stadt exemplifies  such  a  result.  Last 
year  there  was  a  consciousness  on 
both  sides  that  the  place  was  assail- 
able ;  on  both  sides  there  was  a  sense 
of  weakness.  The  enemy  knew  that 
his  defence  was  in  some  degree  open 
to  the  vantage  of  steam  attack ;  we 
felt  that  we  had  not  the  proper  means 
to  make  that  attack  with  success. 
The  campaign  closed  virtually  in 
September,  and  could  not  open  again 
until  May,  thus  leaving  to  both  an 
interval  of  many  months  for  prepara- 
tion— for  supplying  deficiencies,  and 
remedying  defects  in  their  adopted 
mode  of  warfare.  When  the  allied 
fleet  appeared  once  more  before  Cron- 
stadt, it  found  that  the  foe  had  em- 
)loyed  its  mechanism  of  bone  and 
iinew  well  and  vigorously  in  repairing 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


old  and  creating  new  defences.  The 
weakness  had  become  strength.  Did 
we  also  make  our  advance  prepared 
and  ready?  Alas!  what  we  lacked 
at  first,  we  lacked  now.  The  gun- 
boats were  still  too  few;  we  were 
still  too  weak  for  attack.  Spite  of 
our  steam-manufacturing  and  mecha- 
nical resources,  man-power  had  beaten 
us.  Much  allowance  must  be  made 
for  the  energy  with  which  it  was 
wielded,  and  the  apathy  which  had 
stagnated  our  own  arrangements; 
but  even  in  what  has  been  done,  the 
evidence  of  man-power  as  the  vital 
source  of  the  antagonists  we  have  to 
encounter,  stands  forth  so  prominently, 
that  we  could  not  rightly  value  Cron- 
stadt without  reckoning  it  as  a  main 
agent  therein — without  considering 
the  fact  that  the  living  element  is 
equal  to  the  material — that  these  forts 
are  no  empty  vaunts — that  within 
and  behind  these  walls  abides  a  mass 
of  at  least  forty  thousand  men,  ready 
all  to  dig  or  build— to  fight  and  to  be 
slain  in  heaps  at  one  despotic  com- 
mand. 

The  fact  of  these  forty  thousand 
wills,  these  forty  thousand  bodies,  all 
in  subjection  to  one  purpose,  gives  a 
stern  meaning  to  the  batteries  of 
Cronstadt ;  gives  us  a  strong  warning 
that  we  must  not  sleep,  that  we  must 
gird  up  our  strength,  rouse  all  our 
energies,  and  gather  in  all  our  re- 
sources to  meet  a  force  which  is  ever 
acting,  ever  preparing  against  our 
attack,  if  we  would  conquer  our 
enemy's  defences.  It  was  said  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  in  reference  to 
Russia's  soldiers  and  sailors,  that  ill- 
paid,  ill-fed,  ill-clad  slaves  would 
neither  work  nor  fight,  and  that  they 
would  assuredly  fail  their  masters  in 
the  hour  of  need  ;  but  despotism  has 
shown  that  it  possesses  some  strong 
principle  which  can  extract  from  men 
as  much  of  labour,  endurance,  suffer- 
ing, and  obedience  as  human  nature 
is  capable  of  rendering.  It  cannot 
beget  chivalry  or  high  heroism,  but 
it  can  command-  a  dogged  resolution, 
a  disciplined  obedience,  which,  after 
2r 


428 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Part  II. 


[Oct. 


them,  are  perhaps  the  qualities  most 
effective  in  military  operations.  Man- 
power has  done  great  things,  left  vast 
monuments,  vast  signs  and  tokens  in 
the  past ;  and  now  it  is  achieving  a 
defence  which  will  form  a  marked 
page  in  the  annals  of  military  his- 
tory. 

So  wholly  martial,  so  wholly  a 
tenement  of  war  seems  the  place  we 
are  looking  at,  that  it  is  hard  to  asso- 
ciate it  with  civil  or  social  life,  much 
less  with  commerce;  and  yet  hither 
and  hence  flows  and  reflows  the  great 
current  of  Russian  trade.  In  peace- 
ful times,  whole  fleets  of  merchant- 
ships  sail  beneath  those  grim  for- 
tresses, carrying  out  their  freights  of 
machinery  and  cotton,  and  bearing 
back  cargoes  of  flax,  hemp,  tallow, 
and  timber.  An  unromantic  traffic, 
yet  it  meets  many  of  our  commercial 
wants,  and  feeds  the  luxury  of  many 
a  palace  at  St  Petersburg.  Entire 
lords  of  the  soil,  the  nobles  are  the 
chief  exporters  of  its  products ;  and 
so  much  are  their  revenues  dependent 
on  this  trade,  that  it  is  said  English 
gold  buys  the  crops  ere  they  are  sown, 
and  that  English  capital  furnishes  the 
means  of  production.  The  course  of 
this  trade  is  now  dammed  up.  Our 
commercial  enterprise  has  already 
opened  other  sources  of  supply,  and 
found  other  markets.  Where  are 
theirs?  On  such  battle-ground  we 
should  assuredly  be  victors;  but  we 
hope — we  men  of  the  sword,  we  as- 
pirants for  martial  renown — that  to 
us  and  to  our  allies  will  be  given  the 
glory  of  subduing  the  foe  in  the  grand 
assay  of  arms  to  which  he  has  pro- 
voked us,  long  ere  his  might  can  be 
frittered  away  by  the  slow  operation  of 
blockades,  closed  markets,  and  sus- 
pended commerce.  Our  traders  re- 
late curious  incidents  in  their  barter, 
and  tell  strange  tales  of  the  effect  pro- 
duced on  a  cocked-hat  and  green 
plume  by  an  English  cheese,  and  ot 
the  strange  power  which  Yorkshire 
hams  have  on  the  vision  of  belaced 
and  bespurred  functionaries.  But 
our  business  is  not  with  trade,  with 
cheeses,  or  hams.  Our  aim  is  war. 
Let  us  then  pursue  the  system  of  de- 
fence, as  it  extends  itself  along  the 
northern  shore  of  the  Gulf— a  shore 
which  fell  into  the  hands  of  its  con- 
querors ready  armed,  strongly  by  art,. 


more  strongly  by  nature.  The  for- 
tress of  Sveaborg  stood  a  citadel  al- 
ready built  to  their  hands,  and  the 
coast,  more  broken,  more  strewn  with 
islands,  and  more  exposed  to  prevail- 
ing gales,  than  the  southern,  offers 
many  and  great  difficulties  to  inroad 
or  invasion.  This  shore,  so  long 
coveted,  so  long  regarded  with  wistful 
eyes — this  shore,  which  would  make 
the  sovereignty  of  the  Gulf  complete, 
and  convert  a  hostile  frontier  into  a 
sea  boundary,  was  an  acquisition  very 
alluring  to  Russian  ambition,  and  very 
advantageous  to  Russian  policy.  The 
extension  of  territory,  the  addition  of 
so  many  square  miles  of  empire,  and 
so  many  heads  of  people,  are  in  them- 
selves, without  any  other  advantage, 
motives  enough  for  Russia's  aggres- 
sion. But  here  was  a  position  which 
combined  for  her  the  possession  of  a 
vast  seaboard  with  the  dominancy  of 
the  North,  and  she  hugged  the  oppor- 
tunity which  extended  such  a  prize 
to  her  grasp.  It  fell  an  easy  prey — 
European  politics  aided  the  conquest. 
Gold  won  its  great  fortress  from 
traitor  hands,  and  gave  it  to  new 
masters  in  all  its  virgin  strength,  un- 
assayed,  unsubdued  by  arms.  The 
country  and  people  could  offer  little 
temptation.  Cold  and  sterile,  Fin- 
land became  the  last  refuge,  the  last 
home  of  the  Finnic  race.  Driven  by 
stronger  migrations  from  their  first 
settlements  and  conquests,  they  re- 
treated hither.  Seas  and  oceans 
barred  their  further  wanderings,  so 
they  spread  themselves  along  its  fens 
and  forests,  and  sat  down  quietly  be- 
side its  lakes,  rivers,  and  shores. 
Broken  in  spirit  and  in  fortune,  they 
subsided  gradually  into  subjection 
under  the  Teutonic  knights,  Swedes, 
Russians,  or  any  power  which  claimed 
sovereignty  over  the  land — sank  into 
a  state  simple  and  rude  as  their  an- 
cient nomade  condition,  only  lacking 
its  wildness  and  movement.  Thus 
they  have  remained  for  centuries,  ad- 
vancing little  with  the  tide  of  progress, 
and  retaining  many  of  their  nomadic 
characteristics  and  habits.  To  chase 
the  elk  in  their  forests,  to  trap  the 
fox  and  marten  for  their  furs,  to  fish 
in  their  turbid  streams  or  lakes,  are 
still  more  congenial  modes  of  liveli- 
hood than  to  dig,  or  plough,  or  reap. 
Necessity,  however,  in  many  places 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Part  II. 


429 


compels  them  to  agriculture,  and  there 
are  many  slopes  and  valleys,  lying 
betwixt  the  hills  and  beside  the  rivers, 
which  even  now  stand  thick  with 
corn,  and  are  green  with  rich  pastu- 
rage, in  which  large  herds  of  cattle 
and  horses  are  fed. 

They  boast,  these  Finns,  of  a  sort 
of  liberty,  in  an  exemption  from  serf- 
dom, though  subject  ever  to  a  foreign 
power,  and  little  raised  in  actual  life 
above  the  condition  of  a  serf;  and, 
doubtless,  this  consciousness  of  indi- 
vidual freemanship  makes  the  black 
bread  more  sweet,  the  cold  less  chill- 
ing, the  toil  less  heavy,  and  the  squalid 
homes  less  dark  and  dreary.  These 
homes  are  wretched  enough  in  appear- 
ance. The  houses  are  built  of  pines, 
roughly  hewn  and  rudely  joisted  to- 
gether, the  interstices  being  filled  up 
by  a  lining  of  moss.  The  rural  popu- 
lation live  scattered  about  in  hamlets 
formed  of  these  houses,  heaped  irregu- 
larly together,  on  ground  often  only 
partially  cleared,  and  enclosed  by  a 
rude  paling.  The  Finns  have  no 
noble  class  ;  the  merchants,  the  offi- 
cials, and  the  dwellers  in  cities,  form 
their  aristocracy.  The  cities,  which 
are  all  on  the  coast,  boast  a  moderate 
civilisation,  and  are  peopled  chiefly 
by  the  functionaries  and  soldiers  of 
Russia,  who  keep  aloof  and  apart 
from  the  natives.  These  Russian 
garrisons  and  this  corps  of  officials 
stand  amid  the  people,  much  as  the 
Norman  castles  stood  at  first  amid  the 
Saxon  peasantry,  awing  and  repress- 
ing them,  but  aiding  little  in  the 
cause  of  civilisation  or  amalgama- 
tion. 

The  Finns  have  one  luxury — salt ; 
one  source  of  wealth  and  traffic  in  the 
beautiful  Baltic  pines,  which  have  no 
equal  in  other  countries,  and  for  which, 
in  certain  species  of  workmanship, 
no  substitute  can  be  found.  Both  the 
luxury  and  the  traffic  have  been  cut 
off  by  our  blockade.  They  can  get 
no  salt  wherewith  to  prepare  their 
winter  store,  and  daily  see  the  small 
vessels  laden  with  planks  of  deal  for 
exportation,  or  firewood  for  St  Peters- 
burg, seized  by  our  cruisers.  As 
these  prizes  are  made,  we  can  think 
without  pity  that  many  a  palace  grate 
in  the  capital  may  thereby  be  fireless, 
but  it  grieves  us  to  feel  that  war  com- 
pels us  to  throw  the  shadow  of  pri- 


vation over  the  squalid  content  of 
these  poor  Finns. 

Even  such  a  country  and  such  a 
people  have  been  turned  to  the  ac- 
count of  despotism.  The  country,  as 
we  said  before,  gave  the  command  of 
a  sea  and  an  ocean  boundary — things 
more  acceptable  to  Russian  aggran- 
disement than  a  wealth  of  products 
or  an  internal  prosperity  ;  the  people, 
skilful  at  sea  from  early  training  in 
the  fishing  and  coasting  trade,  were 
eagerly  seized  for  the  Russian  navy, 
and  made  the  picked  crews  of  the 
Baltic  fleet.  So  much  for  Finland 
and  the  Finns.  Let  us  turn  again  to 
the  shore.  Low  and  wooded,  it  has 
rather  bolder  features  than  the  south- 
ern coast,  and  does  not,  like  it,  run 
into  wide  bays,  and  out  in  long  pro- 
montories, but  breaks  into  narrow 
indents,  creeks,  and  inlets,  and  is 
bordered  ever  by  thousands  of  islets, 
which  lie  thickly  clustered  together  in 
a  minute  intricacy  resembling  the 
tracery  of  a  tessellated  pavement,  or 
the  mazes  of  a  gossamer  web.  Strange 
and  eccentric  are  the  figures — the 
fretted  points,  the  jagged  indents, 
and  the  irregular  sinuosities — which 
the  coast  works  as  it  winds  onward. 
Starting  from  Cronstadt,  and  leaving 
the  close  narrow  funnel  end  of  the 
Gulf,  we  find  for  the  distance  of 
twenty  miles  that  its  shores  begin  to 
bend  outwards,  until  it  opens  into  its 
greatest  width  in  the  bay  of  Narva 
on  the  south,  and  in  Trans-Sund  on 
the  north  side.  Betwixt  these,  though 
nearer  the  ^southern  shore,  is  the 
island  of  Seskar,  which  is  now  a  station 
for  a  portion  of  the  English  fleet.  To 
the  north,  the  shore  rounds  suddenly 
into  a  bay  and  fine  anchorage  near 
the  island  of  Biorko,  and,  winding 
thence,  makes  its  first  and  largest 
indent  in  Trans-Sund.  At  the  end  of 
this  stands  Viborg,  a  considerable 
town,  and  the  capital  of  a  province, 
included  in  the  government  of  Fin- 
land, though  a  much  older  possession. 
The  passage,  however,  from  the  en- 
trance is  intricate  and  difficult,  and 
in  many  parts  so  narrow,  that  ships 
passing  through  would  be  exposed  to 
the  fire  of  rifles  from  either  banks : 
near  the  town,  too,  it  is  defended  by 
earthwork  batteries  and  a  barrier  of 
piles,  behind  which  are  war-steamers. 
Lower  down,  in  other  islets,  are  the 


430 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Part  II. 


[Oct. 


towns  of  Fredericksham  and  Lovisa, 
places  of  some  importance,  and  which 
have  been  the  objects  of  attacks  here- 
after to  be  narrated.  Following  the 
shore  hence  as  it  bends  rather  more  to 
the  southward,  we  arrive  at  Helsing- 
fors  and  its  fortress  of  Sveaborg,  a 
name  of  strength.  Here  we  are  ar- 
rested by  the  second  great  strong- 
hold— the  second  point  in  Russian 
defence.  Though  only  the  adaptation 
of  her  policy,  not  its  creation,  Svea- 
borg stands  before  us  still  as  another 
index  of  Russia's  system — another 
proof  of  her  strength.  The  natural 
advantages  of  Sveaborg,  as  and  for  a 
naval  station,  though  different,  are  as 
great  and  peculiar  as  those  of  Cron- 
stadt.  Its  position  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Gulf  gives  it  a  primary  im- 
portance to  a  power  which  would 
stretch  its  empire  onwards — marking 
the  stages  by  -strongholds,  until 
Bothnia  and  the  Baltic  become  as 
much  a  Russian  sea  as  the  Gulf  of 
Finland :  its  harbour,  its  strength, 
the  vicinity  of  the  pine  forests,  all 
increase  its  value  to  a  power  which 
would  create  and  maintain  a  great 
navy. 

At  a  point  on  the  northern  shore, 
almost  opposite  to  Revel,  but  rather 
more  to  the  eastward,  where  the  land 
circles  in  a  bight,  and  then,  springing 
out,  spreads  like  a  mushroom  into  a 
broad  low  promontory,  stands  Hel- 
singfors — a  stately  city,  with  its 
squares,  streets,  promenades,  dock- 
yards, and  official  buildings.  More 
central  in  position,  it  has  superseded 
Abo  as  a  capital,  and  become  the  seat 
of  government,  or  rather  the  head- 
quarters of  the  military  rule  which 
subjects  the  land.  From  the  lowest 
point  of  this  promontory  a  chain  of 
small  islands  stretches  for  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  to  the  south,  and 
then,  bending  to  the  eastward  till  it 
again  meets  the  mainland,  completely 
encloses  a  magnificent  basin,  broad, 
deep,  spacious,  and  sheltered,  like  a 
lake.  Nature  had  made  this  a  haven. 
Its  advantages  also  as  a  naval  sta- 
tion, its  size,  its  security,  the  diffi- 
culty of  access,  and  the  capacity  for 
defence,  were  too  great  to  be  over- 
looked ;  and  there  Sweden,  in  its 
palmy  days,  when  its  strength  was 
unbroken  and  its  pride  unquelled, 
when  it  could  stand  face  to  face  and 


foot  to  foot  with  its  great  rival,  built 
its  ships  and  fixed  its  power.  The 
place,  position,  and  character  of  the 
defences  declared  themselves.  The 
islands  in  the  eastern  part  of  the 
chain  being  comparatively  large,  and 
divided  only  by  narrow  channels,  pos- 
sess almost  the  impenetrability  of  a 
promontory,  but  betwixt  the  east  of 
these  (Back  Holmen)  and  the  city  a 
number  of  islands,  smaller,  more  open, 
and  scattered,  form  the  south-west 
face  of  the  harbour.  Amid  these  were 
five,  which  lay  nestled  so  closely  to- 
gether in  a  group,  and  were  so  situ- 
ated relatively,  that  they  could  be  all 
easily  joined  and  united  as  parts  in 
one  whole  of  defence.  On  these  Swe- 
den set  its  fortress  of  Sveaborg.  Built 
on  rocky  foundations,  constructed  ac- 
cording to  the  rules  of  regular  art, 
and  planned  so  that  though  each 
island  was  a  complete  fort  in  itself, 
the  five  might  be  still  constituent 
parts  of  one  great  work,  it  was  long 
numbered  among  the  strong  places  of 
the  world,  and  stood  pre-eminent 
as  the  stronghold  of  the  North.  Svea- 
borg has  been  often  styled  the  Gib- 
raltar of  the  North,  but  to  military 
eyes  it  will  suggest  a  greater  resem- 
blance to  Malta.  Like  that  island- 
fortification,  it  is,  though  on  a  much 
smaller  scale,  a  combination  of  de- 
tached forts;  like  it,  has  its  walls 
built  on  and  out  of  the  rock  itself, 
many  of  its  embrasures  hewn  and  its 
slopes  scarped  from  the  solid  stone  of 
its  own  basement ;  like  it,  its  ramparts 
rise  tier  above  tier,  frowning  down  on 
deep  narrow  passages;  and  it,  also,  is 
esteemed  a  model  of  art.  This  island- 
fortress  follows  next  in  proximity  to 
Back  Holmen,  which  we  spoke  of 
as  the  last  link  of  the  eastern  bend. 
Betwixt  the  latter  and  Gustavsvard, 
the  southernmost  fort,  which  hangs 
like  a  pendant  from  the  rest,  flows 
the  chief  channel  or  entrance  to  the 
haven  of  Helsingfors.  This  channel, 
though  deep,  is  only  about  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  yards  in  breadth,  and 
twice  as  much  in  length.  On  the 
side  of  Back  Holmen  it  was  quite 
naked  of  defences,  but  the  rock-built, 
rock-hewn  batteries  of  Gustavsvard 
flank  it  with  a  strong  and  heavy  fire, 
and,  as  the  chain  here  makes  a  sud- 
den turn  to  the  north,  the  inner  end 
of  the  entrance  is  overlapped  and 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855— Part  II. 


431 


raked  by  the  guns  from  the  south 
faces  of  Vargon  and  Oster  or  East 
Svarto.  These  islands  lie  north  of 
Gustavsvard,  nearly  abreast  of  each 
other,  are  the  principal  in  size  and 
importance,  and  form,  as  it  were,  the 
mainland  of  the  group.  Vargon,  the 
chief  and  centre,  is  the  citadel,  to 
which  the  others,  attached  by  cause- 
ways and  bridges,  serve  as  outworks. 
Its  fortifications,  planned  on  scientific 
principles,  and  comprehending  all  the 
regular  details  of  ravelin,  lunette, 
bastion,  cavalier,  &c.,  command,  over- 
top, and  enfilade  all  the  rest,  though 
its  main  batteries  bear  towards  the 
south-west  or  sea  side,  and  the  en- 
trance to  the  harbour.  A  little  mili- 
tary town,  with  its  church,  barracks, 
and  official  houses,  stands  within  its 
lines  ;  behind  its  south-west  bastions 
are  large  magazines ;  a  larger  one  is 
placed  on  the  north-east  shore,  and 
near  it  appears  a  most  extensive 
range  of  docks  for  galleys.  A  pon- 
toon bridge  and  causeway  connect 
Vargon  with  East  Svarto,  a  large 
long  island,  which  lies  close  to  it  on 
the  harbour  side,  and  though  sur- 
rounded by  fortified  lines,  has  few 
guns  mounted,  except  on  the  south 
side.  Its  central  space  is  appropri- 
ated to  ground  for  the  exercise  of 
troops,  gardens,  barracks,  and  provi- 
sion stores.  Along  the  north  and 
eastern  side,  facing  the  harbour,  are 
sheds  for  one  hundred  and  sixty  gun- 
boats, and  immense  stacks  of  wood  ; 
on  that  next  to  Vargon  stands  an 
extensive  arsenal.  Directly  north  of 
this  and  Vargon,  Lilla,  Svarto,  and 
West  Svarto,  complete  the  cluster  of 
islands  and  the  chain  of  defences.  At 
a  little  distance  from  the  latter  is 
a  detached  islet  called  Lang-brn, 
strongly  fortified  also;  these  together 
defend  another  passage,  which  leads 
into  the  north  or  inner  harbour,  and 
though  less  deep  and  practicable  than 
the  main  one,  is  still  available,  espe- 
cially for  small  vessels.  One  other 
island,  Stora  Rantan,  originally  un- 
fortified, carries  on  the  chain  to  the 
mainland  of  Helsingfors. 

Let  us  review  briefly  this  position 
and  defence  of  the  enemy  as  it  existed 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war.  There 
was  a  fine  harbour  formed  by  a  bight 
in  the  land,  and  a  barrier  of  islands 
which  circled  from  one  side  of  it  to 


the  other.  In  its  centre  was  an  an- 
chorage for  ships  of  war,  sheltered 
and  spacious;  and  if  this  were  not 
secure  enough,  there  was  an  inner 
one  close  under  the  walls  of  the  town 
still  more  land-locked  and  more  pro- 
tected. Of  the  many  inlets  which  led 
betwixt  the  islands  to  these  anchor- 
ages two  only  were  practicable  for 
attack,  and  these  were  guarded  by  a 
fortress,  the  batteries  of  which  would 
sweep  both  them  and  the  sea -ap- 
proaches by  a  fire  from  hundreds  of 
guns.  There  was  the  fortress  itself, 
strong  by  nature  and  art,  and  amply 
supplied  with  all  the  resources  of 
men,  munition,  and  material, — there 
was  the  town,  with  its  garrison  of 
forty  thousand  men,  and  its  immense 
reserves  of  stores,  from  which  the 
wants  of  Sveaborg  could  be  readily 
fed  and  supplied  in  case  of  need,  and 
in  front  of  its  walls,  for  many  miles 
betwixt  it  and  the  open  waters  of  the 
Gulf,  lay  myriads  of  islets  and  sunken 
rocks,  which  rendered  the  navigation 
difficult,  if  not  perilous,  spite  of  the 
general  depth  of  water.  Across  the 
main  channel  a  three-decker  man-of- 
war  had  been  moored  to  obstruct  the 
passage,  and  some  earthworks  thrown 
up  hastily  on  Sveaborg.  Such  was 
the  position.  What  was  its  strength 
— what  its  weakness?  Its  strength 
consisted  first,  of  course,  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  fortification,  the  number 
of  its  guns,  in  the  difficulty  of  ap- 
proach, and  of  making  an  impression 
on  its  walls ;  then,  in  the  facts  that 
nought  could  be  done  until  Sveaborg 
was  subdued — that  it  could  be  at- 
tacked on  its  own  ground  only  by 
ships,  as  not  a  line  could  be  raised 
against  it  or  a  soldier  landed  on  its 
shores  until  its  fire  was  silenced  and 
it  had  become  untenable— that  ships 
attempting  to  force  the  entrances 
would  be  opposed  by  a  crushing  fire — 
and  that  the  strong  garrison  at  Hel- 
singfors rendered  a  combined  attack 
by  land  and  sea  possible  only  by  the 
presence  of  a  large  army. 

Its  weaknesses  were  many, — more, 
perhaps,  than  are  at  first  apparent,  or 
have  been  fairly  reckoned.  In  the 
first  place,  the  islands  to  the  east- 
ward of  the  chain  offered  points  of 
occupation,  where  troops  might  be 
landed  and  batteries  erected  against 
the  ships  in  the  harbour  and  the 


432 


The  Baltic  in  1855.—  Part  II. 


[Oct. 


forts  ;  then  the  depth  of  water  along 
the  sea  face  and  the  absence  of  a 
cross  fire  admitted  of  ships  steaming 
in  within  point-blank  range,  exposed 
only  to  the  direct  fire  of  the  batteries, 
which,  however,  would  be  formidable 
enough;  then  there  were  many  points 
from  which  Sveaborg  and  the  town  it 
protected  were  open  to  the  effects  of  a 
distant  cannonade  without  the  oppor- 
tunity of  return,  and  the  numerous 
islands  which  lay  at  a  distance  of  two 
thousand  yards  from  the  forts,  and 
nearly  in  a  parallel  line  to  them,  were 
so  many  sites  for  batteries :  any  and 
each  of  these  weaknesses  suggested 
a  separate  plan  of  attack — combined, 
they  presented  an  opportunity  which 
might  have  been  fatal  to  the  enemy ; 
but  the  means  or  the  will  were  wanting. 
The  opportunity  passed  away.  Such 
was  the  position  in  1854  ;  what  was 
it  in  1855?  Had  the  enemy  overlook- 
ed the  weak  points,  or  neglected  to 
strengthen  them  ?  Such  oversight  or 
neglect  was  hardly  to  be  expected. 
When  the  second  campaign  opened, 
the  islands  of  Back  Holmen,  Kung's 
Holmen,  and  all  the  prominent  points 
of  the  mainland  on  either  side,  were 
studded  with  earthworks,  and  a  two- 
decker  was  moored  in  the  passage 
betwixt  Lang-orn  and  West  Svarto, 
so  that  General  Jones's  plan  of  an 
attack  from  Back  Holmen  had  be- 
come impracticable,  and  many  places 
formerly  favourable  for  a  distant  fire 
were  now  effectually  commanded. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Sveaborg  dif- 
fered much  from  Cronstadt  in  the 
character  of  its  defences.  On  paper, 
or  to  an  unpractised  eye,  it  might  look 
as  formidable ;  but  to  those  who  un- 
derstood naval  movements — to  those 
who  had  rather  encounter  heavy 
guns  than  shoal  water,  narrow  pas- 
sages, and  pile  barriers — to  those  who 
held  it  the  highest  vantage  to  close 
with  an  enemy,  it  would  seem  an 
easier  enterprise.  It  was  doubtless 
more  accessible,  more  assailable.  So 
thought  Russia,  for  she  withdrew  her 
ships  from  thence  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. Near  Helsingfors  is  the  fine 
anchorage  of  Baro  Sound,  and  lower 
down  the  Gulf  are  the  Han  go  forts — 
the  objects  last  year  of  our  mock 
demonstration — now  deserted  posts, 
abandoned  by  the  enemy  on  account  of 
their  confessed  weakness.  Rounding 


the  turning  of  the  Gulf,  and  thread- 
ing an  intricacy  of  passages  greater 
than  has  yet  been  met,  we  arrive  at 
Abo,  the  ancient  capital  of  Finland, 
and  there  find  the  usual  obstacles  of 
boom-barrier  and  earthwork. 

Thus  have  we  traversed  the  Gulf 
of  Finland,  surveyed  its  shores,  re- 
connoitred its  strongholds,  and  noted, 
as  we  were  able,  the  details  of  Rus- 
sian defence.  Let  us  view  it  for  a 
moment  as  a  whole.  The  line  of 
this  defence  includes  two  shores  of  a 
narrow  sea,  which  flows  betwixt  dif- 
ferent divisions  of  the  empire.  This 
line  is  guarded  by  strong  military 
positions  at  all  the  prominent  points 
of  attack,  three  of  these  being  naval 
stations,  and  two  first-class  fortresses: 
it  is  occupied  by  large  bodies  of 
troops,  connected  by  a  chain  of  posts, 
and  capable  of  speedy  concentration 
or  reinforcement ;  and  a  system  of 
telegraphs  keeps  up  a  communication 
throughout  it.  Its  great  extent 
would  be  a  weakness  did  the  different 
parts  depend  on  the  capital  for  sup- 
plies, but  each  province  has  its  own 
corps,  and  can  feed  its  own  seaboard 
strongholds  from  its  own  resources. 
Long  preparation  had  provided  every- 
where abundant  war  materiel,  had 
strengthened  the  different  posts ;  the 
weak  ones  were  abandoned,  and  the 
ships  withdrawn  within  their  de- 
fences. Thus,  trusting  to  the  number 
of  her  men,  the  extent  of  her  war 
resources,  to  the  difficulty  of  her 
shores,  and  the  strength  of  her  for- 
tresses, Russia  stood  on  her  defence. 
The  great  objects  of  this  defence 
were  to  maintain  her  seaboard  intact, 
and  to  preserve  her  navy. 

This  defence  suggested  several 
modes  of  attack:  one  was  to  seize  the 
Aland  Islands  as  a  point  cfappui  ; 
thence  to  carry  on  a  series  of  com- 
bined operations  by  sea  and  land 
successively  against  Abo,  Helsingfors, 
Vyborg,  and  the  strong  places  of 
Finland,  and  thus  wrest  from  the 
enemy  the  possession  of  one  of  his 
lines  of  coast  anti;  the  military  domi- 
nancy  of  a  province.  This,  how- 
ever, demanded  the  co  -  operation 
of  an  army,  and  more  time,  per- 
haps, than  a  summer  campaign  could 
have  afforded.  Another  was,  by 
an  organised  plan  of  assault  on 
one  or  both  of  the  great  fortresses, 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Part  II. 


433 


to  break  the  line  of  defence,  destroy 
the  fleet  and  resources,  and  thereby 
strike  a  blow  at  the  life  of  the  naval 
power  of  Russia.  The  proper  execu- 
tion of  this  required  a  large  force  of 
gun-boats  and  mortars,  skill  and 
opportunity.  A  third  was  simply  to 
drive  the  enemy  within  his  lines,  to 
blockade  his  seas  and  ports ;  a  naval 
force  which  he  feared  to  meet  would 
suffice  for  this  purpose. 

A  brief  narrative  of  the  events  of 
the  year  1855  will  best  show  how 
much  or  little  we,  as  assailants, 
adopted  any  or  either  of  these  modes. 
Such  a  narrative  will  perchance  ap- 
pear tame  to  a  public  already  glutted 
with  highly  spiced  and  highly  embel- 
lished accounts,  in  which  the  blowing 
up  a  deserted  fort,  the  burning  of 
storehouses,  and  the  capture  of  wood 
boats,  were  described  in  terms  gran- 
diloquent and  lengthy  enough  to  have 
sufficed  for  announcing  such  battles  as 
Copenhagen  or  Algiers.  The  exag- 
geration of  military  exploits  is  ever 
the  bane  of  military  glory.  The  meed 
of  praise  or  reward  lightly  won  leaves 
no  incentive  to  real  heroism ;  the  self- 
laudation  of  small  deeds  gives  little 
promise  of  great  ones. 

In  our  last  chapter  we  left  the  allied 
fleets  anchored  off  the  north  shore  of 
Cronstadt. 

No  change  disturbed,  DO  event 
varied,  the  monotony  of  their  blockade, 
save  light  skirmishes  with  telegraph 
stations,  and  chases  after  poor  wood- 
boats.  The  expedition  to  Narva  has 
been  already  alluded  to.  Men's  minds 
were  still  anxiously  turned  to  the 
future. 

On  the  14th  July  the  two  British 
admirals,  accompanied  by  the  French 
squadron,  and  taking  with  them  the 
greater  part  of  the  gun-boats,  and  all 
the  mortar-vessels,  departed  for  Nar- 
gen,  leaving  Admiral  Baines,  with 
eleven  line-of-battle  ships,  in  the  old 
anchorage  off  the  Tolbuken. 

Meanwhile  a  flying  squadron,  under 
Captain  Yelverton,  consisting  of  the 
Arrogant,  Magicienne,  and  Ruby  gun- 
boats, with  occasional  changes  and 
additions,  made  frequent  raids  and  in- 
cursions on  the  shore  betwixt  Vyborg 
and  Helsingfors.  A  numerous  fleet 
of  unarmed  boats  was  captured  at 
Kotka;  at  Svartholm,  near  the  en- 
trance to  Lovisa,  a  large  fort,  from 


which  the  garrison  had  fled,  was  blown 
up,  immense  ranges  of  barracks  and 
storehouses,  and  great  quantities  of 
war  material,  were  burnt  or  destroyed. 
A  landing  was  effected  in  the  town  of 
Lovisa  itself,  which  was  accidentally 
set  on  fire  during  the  night ;  at  Fre- 
dericksham  a  battery  was  engaged, 
silenced,  and  great  loss  of  life,  it  was 
supposed,  inflicted  on  the  enemy  ;  the 
whole  coast  was  harried,  and  much 
mischief  done. 

An  attempt  to  inflict  the  same  de- 
struction on  Vyborg  failed  signally. 
The  Ruby  and  boats  'detached 
from  the  Arrogant  and  Magicienne 
having  proceeded  within  sight  of  the 
town,  found  their  farther  advance 
checked  by  a  strong  barrier  and  a 
masked  battery,  and  were  obliged  to 
withdraw,  their  retreat  being  harassed 
by  the  fire  of  riflemen  from  the  banks, 
and  impeded  by  the  explosion  of  a 
magazine  in  one  of  their  own  boats. 

Thus  the  month  of  July  passed 
away.  It  was  well  known  now  that 
an  expedition  against  Sveaborg  was 
meditated,  and  men's  interest  was 
speedily  turned  from  the  small  actions 
of  the  summer  to  the  expectation  of 
this  greater  enterprise.  The  admirals 
remained  at  Nargen,  maturing  their 
plans,  and  awaiting  the  arrival  of 
reinforcements,  and  fresh  supplies  of 
ammunition,  and  other  materiel. 
Early  in  August  the  vessels  were  all 
assembled  and  arrangements  com- 
pleted. On  the  6th  the  allied  squad- 
rons left  Nargen  and  appeared  before 
Sveaborg.  The  British  force  consisted 
of  two  liners,  four  block-ships,  four 
screw  -frigates,  four  large  paddle- 
wheel,  and  several  smaller  steamers, 
sixteen  mortar  and  sixteen  gun  boats. 
The  French  had  their  line-of-battle 
ships,  five  mortar  and  five  gun  boats. 
On  the  8th  the  position,  which  had 
been  already  planned,  was  taken  up. 
Nearly  south-west  of  Vargon,  and  at 
a  distance  of  about  3300  yards  from 
it,  is  the  small  island  of  Oterhall. 
This  was  the  site  of  a  reconnoissance 
in  the  early  part  of  the  year,  and  to 
the  left  and  right  of  it  the  mortar- 
vessels  were  moored  head  and  stern, 
at  an  average  range  of  3200  yards, — 
hawsers  being  laid  out,  whereby  the 
distance  might  be  altered  according 
to  circumstances.  Lieut.  Hobart  was 
intrusted  with  the  naval  management 


434 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Part  IT. 


[Oct. 


of  these  vessels.  The  mortars  were 
manned  by  men  of  the  Royal  Marine 
Artillery,  and  Captain  Wemyss  of  that 
corps  had  the  chief  charge  and  direc- 
tion of  them ;  Captains  Lawrence  and 
Schomberg,  commanding  divisions  un- 
der him,  and  nine  subalterns,  being 
distributed  among  the  different  vessels. 
The  gun-boats,  arranged  in  several 
divisions,  were  to  take  their  stations 
respectively  about  400  or  500  yards 
in  advance  of  the  right,  left,  right  and 
left  centre  of  this  line  ;  five,  under 
Commander  Preedy,  were  to  manoeuvre 
in  front,  and  rather  in  prolongation  of 
the  extreme  left ;  two,  under  the 
orders  of  Captain  Stewart,  were  placed 
round  Oterhall ;  and  seven  more,  com- 
manded by  Captains  Ramsay,  Glasse, 
and  Vansittart,  occupied  the  right 
and  right  centre.  Two  others,  armed 
with  Lancaster  guns,  under  the  orders 
and  direction  of  Captain  Hewlett, 
were  to  assail  the  three-decker  moored 
in  the  channel.  In  front  of  our  right 
the  French  planted  four  mortars  on 
the  island  of  Ny  Rantan,  and  in  rear 
of  and  around  it  their  gun  and  mor- 
tar boats  took  position.  The  Corn- 
wallis,  Hastings,  and  Amphion,  at 
some  distance  to  the  eastward,  occu- 
pied the  attention  of  the  batteries  on 
Sandhamm  and  Kung's  Holmen.  The 
flag-ships  and  other  liners  were  an-, 
chored  out  of  range  in  rear  of  the  left 
or  western  division  ;  a  frigate  and  the 
paddle-wheel  steamers  behind  Oter- 
hall forming  a  reserve  to  the  different 
parts  of  the  attack.  The  Arrogant, 
Cossack,  and  Cruiser  kept  in  check 
some  troops  lauded  on  the  island  of 
Drumsir  to  the  westward. 

Thus  disposed,  our  force  occupied 
a  position  parallel  to  the  line  of  the 
forts  from  Back  Holmen  to  Lang-bra, 
threatening  and  commanding  all  the 
different  points. 

Between  seven  and  eight  in  the 
morning  of  the  9th  the  first  shell  was 
fired, — it  was  a  trial  shot.  Many  eyes 
watched  its  course.  It  fell  well  and 
truly.  The  range  was  good.  Then 
mortar  after  mortar  opened  fire,  and 
their  shells  burst  in  the  very  heart  of 
Vargon — a  little  white  cloud  rising 
where  each  had  sped  its  way.  Soon 
after,  the  gun-boats  took  up  their  sta- 
tions about  four  or  five  hundred  yards 
in  advance  of  the  mortars,  moving 
hither  and  thither,  circling  and  wheel- 


ing, passing  and  repassing — ever  in 
motion,  never  giving  a  fixed  point 
for  aim,  so  that  the  shot  plunged  about 
and  around  them,  without  taking  a 
life  or  striking  a  splinter.  Their  fire 
was  directed  chiefly  against  Stora 
Rantan,  now  armed  by  a  battery, 
Lang-orn,  West  Svarto,  and  the  two- 
decker  lying  betwixt  them  ;  and  was 
throughout  effective.  The  enemy  re- 
turned the  fire  vigorously  at  first.  The 
cannonade  grew  loud  and  heavy — 
gun  answered  gun,  and  "  far  flashed 
the  red  artillery."  About  nine  o'clock 
those  who  witnessed  the  conflict  saw 
a  bright  flame  and  a  thick  cloud  rise 
from  Vargon ;  presently  the  flame  grew 
redder  and  redder,  the  cloud  darker 
and  thicker,  and  then  the  whole  centre 
of  the  fort  was  wrapped  in  fire  and 
smoke.  Every  moment  the  fire  be- 
came fiercer  and  spread  wider,  until 
a  loud  explosion  told  that  it  had 
reached  a  magazine.  Another  explo- 
sion followed,  and  about  noon  one 
again,  louder  and  heavier,  which  seem- 
ed to  shake  the  very  battlements. 
There  is  no  event  of  war  more  strik- 
ing in  effect,  more  grand,  than  an  ex- 
plosion. The  deep  heavy  concussion, 
the  bursting  cloud,  and  the  eruption 
of  dust  and  stones,  fire  and  smoke, 
into  the  air — the  shaking  of  land  and 
waters,  as  if  by  an  earthquake,  the 
hush  which  involuntarily  follows, 
whilst  men  take  breath,  and  think 
what  has  happened, — all  these  must 
create  a  new  and  startling  sensation, 
even  amid  the  din  and  blaze  of  con- 
flict. All  day  the  bombardment  con- 
tinued; the  shells  fell  with  deadly  aim, 
and  the  fire  did  its  wild  and  devas- 
tating work.  At  night  there  was  no 
cessation.  The  gun-boats  were  re- 
called, and  replaced  by  rocket-boats. 
The  mortars  still  threw  their  mis- 
siles, "  spreading  death-shapes."  The 
rockets  sped,  hissing  and  writhing 
through  the  air  like  fiery  serpents, 
streaking  the  darkness  with  meteoric 
flashes,  and  the  fires  of  Sveaborg, 
with  u  conflagration  pale,  lit  the  gloom." 
In  the  morning  the  gun-boats  came  to 
their  old  posts,  and  the  work  began 
earnestly  as  ever.  The  three-decker 
had  been  compelled  to  move  from  the 
channel  betwixt  Gustavsvard  and 
Back  Holmen,  and  find  shelter  behind 
East  Svarto,  where,  it  is  said,  she  after- 
wards sank.  Towards  mid-day  the 


1855.] 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Par*  II. 


435 


conflagration  seemed  to  break  out 
afresh  and  extend  to  East  Svarto;  and 
there  finding  more  combustible  mate- 
rial to  feed  on,  burnt  more  furiously 
and  fiercely  than  ever,  sweeping  and 
rushing  on  over  the  buildings,  throw- 
ing up  great  jets  of  light  and  columns 
of  smoke,  and  lapping  the  walls  with 
angry  flames.  Again  the  night  came 
on,  again  the  shells  fell,  the  rockets 
sped,  and  the  fires  burned.  In  the 
morning  the  firing  ceased — Sveaborg 
stood  a  charred,  blackened,  and 
smouldering  ruin.  All  that  was  with- 
in the  reach  of  destruction  had  been 
destroyed ;  but  though  there  was  so 
much  desolation  within,  without  the 
walls  stood  intact  and  strong  as  ever. 
However,  all  had  been  done  which 
could  or  was  intended  to  be  done.  So 
the  ships  were  withdrawn. 

So  ended  the  bombardment,  which 
had  been  carried  on  for  two  days  with- 
out intermission — night  and  day  it  had 
neither  ceased  nor  slackened.  All 
parts  of  the  attacking  force  had  been 
engaged  in  it ;  all  had  acted  in  sup- 
port and  unison ;  the  efficacy  of  all 
arms  had  been  tried ;  the  energy  of 
all  classes  called  into  play.  The  re- 
sults had  been  great ;  and  though  it 
may  not  be  worthy  of  record  among 
our  triumphs  or  our  great  deeds,  it 
will  be  recognised  as  an  exploit  of  war, 
exhibiting  much  skill,  zeal,  and  con- 
duct. 

The  mortars,  of  course,  bore  the 
brunt  of  the  work.  Their  fire  was 
excellent,  and  its  rapidity  and  exact- 
ness were  high  eulogies  on  the  skill 
and  judgment  of  the  officers  who  di- 
rected it.  The  gun-boats  were  more 
exposed  to  danger,  had  plenty  to  do, 
and  did  it  well.  The  officers  and  men 
belonging  to  the  larger  ships  were 
afforded  an  opportunity  of  service  in 
the  rocket-boats. 

The  brilliant  delusion  which  seized 
the  minds  of  the  people  of  England, 
moving  even  the  dull  hearts  of  the 
men  of  Manchester  with  a  spasm  of 
triumph,  that  "Sveaborg  was  no 
more,"  has  doubtless  passed  away ; 
those  who  were  loud  in  their  po3ans, 
and  saw  in  imagination  the  fortress 
lying  in  ruin  and  annihilation  before 
them,  have  doubtless  returned  to  rea- 
son, and  men  will  be  ready  to  receive 
a  calm  and  dispassionate  comment  on 
the  event  as  it  really  was— on  its  real 


issue  and  importance.  Military  ex- 
ploits can  never  be  fairly  judged  by 
extravagant  expectations,  by  proba- 
bilities or  theories,  or  what  might  have 
been  done,  but  by  a  comparison  be- 
twixt the  design  or  purpose  with 
which  they  were  undertaken,  and 
their  fulfilment  of  it.  The  admirals 
assert  "that  the  operations  contem- 
plated by  them  were  limited  to  such 
destruction  of  the  fortress  and 
arsenals  as  could  be  accomplished  by 
means  of  mortars."  As  such,  the  ope- 
rations were  eminently  successful — 
successful  as  punishment  and  warn- 
ing to  the  enemy — as  an  experiment 
for  ourselves.  The  enemy  had  been 
scared  out  of  the  belief  of  his  invul- 
nerability, had  been  attacked  at  all 
points,  assailed  with  every  kind  of 
missile ;  had  seen  his  men  falling 
around  him,  his  material  consumed, 
and  had  felt  his  powerlessness  to  de- 
fend or  retaliate  ;  he  had  been  com- 
pelled to  withdraw  the  three- decker,  a 
part  of  his  defences,  and  had  been  left  at 
last  with  a  naked  fortress,  a  mere  shell, 
gutted  and  cleared  of  all  its  habita- 
tions and  arsenals.  This  was  certain- 
ly ample  fulfilment  of  the  design. 

Spies  and  deserters  brought  intel- 
ligence that  two  thousand  men  had 
been  killed  or  wounded,  that  six  hun- 
dred had  perished  in  the  great  explo- 
sion alone,  that  the  three-decker  had 
sunk,  and  that  all  the  buildings  on 
Vargon  and  Svarto  had  been  burnt  to 
the  ground.  This  was  scarcely  an  ex- 
aggeration of  the  results  to  be  expect- 
ed from  such  a  bombardment.  Var- 
gon, from  its  position,  had  suffered 
most,  but  all  the  other  forts  along  the 
line  showed  marks  of  injury.  Helsing- 
fors  lay  at  our  mercy.  It  was  spared. 
Our  foes,  it  is  said,  gratefully  acknow- 
ledged this  generous  forbearance ;  it 
was  a  noble  return  for  the  brutality  of 
Hango.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that 
Sveaborg,  as  a  fortress,  stands  firm 
and  formidable  as  ever,  that  not  a 
stone  of  its  walls  was  overturned,  nor 
a  gun  injured  ;  but  the  demolition  of 
its  stores,  and  the  destruction  of  its 
arsenals,  will  doubtless  be  a  severe 
loss  and  mortification.  It  boots  not 
now  to  argue  whether  or  not  more 
might  have  been  done.  .Such  results 
were  aimed  at,  such  results  have  been 
attained. 

As  an  experiment  the  bombard- 


436 


The  Baltic  in  1855.— Part  JI. 


[Oct. 


ment  has  taught  us  many  lessons.  It 
has  taught  us  that  our  foe  is  not  be- 
yond our  reach  ;  it  has  taught  us  the 
value  of  the  long-range  missiles,  and 
the  proper  means  to  be  employed  for 
the  future.  There  was  a  failure  in 
the  material.  The  mortars,  owing 
either  to  defective  casting  or  the 
quick  and  frequent  firing,  became 
quite  unserviceable  at  the  end  of  the 
two  days, — two  were  burst,  and  al- 
most all  the  rest  ran  at  the  vent  and 
chamber,  so  that  they  could  not  be 
fired  again ;  and  our  rockets  seem  so 
dangerous  to  handle,  that  they  fre- 
quently inflict  serious  injury  on  our 
own  men. 

This  bombardment  will  probably 
close  the  campaign,  which  has  not 
been  signalised  by  any  great  event. 
Its  operations  have  been  restricted  to 
the  annoyance  of  the  enemy  and  the 
destruction  of  his  property.  Not  a 
ship  mounting  a  gun  nor  a  defended 
fort  has  been  taken;  not  a  foot  of 
ground  been  wrested  from  him  ;  not 
a  trophy  captured.  His  line  of  de- 
fence remains  unbroken,  and  our  re- 
lative position  as  assailants  and  de- 
fenders is  little  altered.  Such  opera- 
tions as  it  has  displayed  are  necessary, 
but  they  are  overrated  when  looked 
upon  as  having  any  important  effect 
on  the  bearing  of  a  war  or  the  ex- 
haustion of  a  powerful  enemy's  re- 
sources. They  are  great  accessories, 
though  they  alone  will  never  decide 
the  war,  or  affect  its  continuance — 
can  never  subdue  or  humble  an  ene- 
my like  ours.  Expenditure  of  money 
and  man-power  may  distress,  but  will 
neither  exhaust  nor  humble  him. 
Such  a  result  will  be  only  achieved 
by  a  blow  struck  at  his  territorial 
power  or  political  ascendancy.  Such 
a  blow  would  be  the  overthrow  of 
one  or  both  of  the  great  strongholds. 
Such  a  blow  it  was  the  hope  of  the 
nation  would  have  been  struck  in  each 
successive  year  of  the  campaign.  That 
hope  must  now  be  carried  on  to  a 
third  ;  yet  it  still  lives  and  is  strong. 

1854  was  a  year  of  reconnoissance. 


It  was  also  a  year  of  golden  oppor- 
tunities. Few  men  doubt  now  that 
Sveaborg  was  then  open  to  destruc- 
tion, and  that  the  impregnability  of 
Cronstadt  might  then  have  been 
fairly  tested.  We  were  unready, 
however, — unprepared  with  the  pro- 
per means  —  diffident  of  our  own 
strength — ignorant  of  the  enemy's — 
loth  to  stamp  the  commencement  of 
the  war  with  the  evil  augury  of  a 
catastrophe ; — so  the  opportunity  was 
lost.  "  There  are  three  things,"  says 
the  Arab,  "  which  can  never  be  re- 
claimed,— the  spoken  word,  the  sped 
arrow,  and  the  lost  opportunity." 

1855  has  been  a  year  of  experiment. 
We  are  well  assured  now  of  all  the 
best  points  of  attack,  and  of  the  best 
means  to  be  used.    We  know  that  an 
overwhelming  force  of  gun  and  mortar 
boats  will  be  necessary  for    future 
operations,  and  that  ships  of  light 
draught,  and  guns  of  long  range,  are 
our    best    weapons.      It    might    be 
thought,  too,  that  a  body  of  troops, 
to  be  landed  for  short  operations  at 
different  points,  might  take  from  our 
enterprises  the  doubtfulness  and  in- 
completeness which  has  hitherto  cha- 
racterised them.  Such  a  force,  wielded 
by  hands  which  can  unite  the  discre- 
tion of  present  with  the  daring  of 
past  days,  must  surely  be  successful. 

1856  should  be  the  year  of  great 
deeds  and  great  results.    It  will  have 
the  wisdom  and  experience  gathered 
in  the  former  ones,  and  should  garner 
their  fruits.     The  success  which  was 
once  offered  to  opportunity,  must  now 
be  won  by  force  and  daring.    With 
added  strength  we  shall  meet  added 
resistance.      Yet    still  the    hope    is 
strong  within  us,   if  the  nation  be 
true  to  itself,  and  send  forth  an  arma- 
ment   equal    to    the    service,    that 
Sveaborg  will  be  ours,  and  that  the 
scene  of  conflagrations,   explosions, 
crippled  ships,  and  blackened  ruins 
which  we  have  just  been  rejoicing 
over,  will  be  enacted  anew  at  Cron- 
stadt with  more  terribleness,  and  at- 
tended with  fuller  triumph. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature— History. 


437 


MODERN  LIGHT  LITERATURE— HISTORY. 


Two  or  three  generations  ago,  when 
it  was  our  wont  to  have  extensive 
dealings  with  the  Muses,  and  invoke 
these  venerable  ladies  for  every  page 
of  turgid  verse  or  inflated  prose 
"  composition,"  the  Muse  of  History 
— a  matron  of  the  direst  respectabi- 
lity— was  something  awful  to  approach 
or  venture  upon.  Who  does  not  re- 
member the  rustling  echo  of  these 
prodigious  brocades  of  hers,  as  she 
swept  by  in  hoop  and  farthingale, 
keeping  her  solemn  antique  fashion, 
with  a  grave  disdain  of  the  scanty 
draperies  of  her  less  decorous  sisters? 
Thalia  might  be  extravagant,  or  Mel- 
pomene forget  her  gravity;  but  the 
historic  muse  was  always  proper, 
always  observant  of  becoming  de- 
corums— a  general  chaperone  and  mis- 
tress of  the  ceremonies,  taking  care  of 
all  the  young  ladies  of  Olympus,  and 
preserving  a  moderate  degree  of  order 
and  propriety  even  in  the  much- in- 
vaded court  of  these  poetic  deities. 
We  might  trifle  with  the  others  as  we 
would,  but  who  dared  be  less  than 
respectful  of  this  severe  and  "  unim- 
passioned"  dowager — this  impartial 
observer  of  everything,  who  sat  aloft 
like  a  second  Justice,  weighing  the 
nations  in  her  gigantic  scales  ? 

And  when  she  would  write,  she 
went  about  this  solemn  operation 
with  an  importance  becoming  its 
weighty  nature.  Great  were  the  pre- 
parations of  the  historic  muse ;  and 
with  awe  and  wonder,  out  of  this 
busy  age  of  ours,  we  look  back  upon 
her  as  she  accumulates  libraries, 
stalks  over  hills  and  sea  in  solemn 
travel,  buries  herself  in  important 
and  mystical  seclusion ;  and  after  a 
year  or  two  of  uninterrupted  quiet 
and  mysterious  labours,  lays  down 
her  pen,  an  immortal  relic  for  the 
veneration  of  future  ages,  when  her 
great  achievement  is  completed  at 
last. 

Alas !  the  spirit  of  her  dream  has 
changed.  No  rustling  brocades,  no 
measured  march,  no  solemn  avant 
courier  proclaims  the  journeys  or  the 
researches  of  our  historic  muse.  There 
she  is— behold  her !— in  the  library  of 
the  British  Museum,  with  her  poke 


bonnet,  her  umbrella,  her  india-rubber 
overshoes;  perhaps — most  likely— 
some  sandwiches  in  that  pocket  where 
weighty  tablets  and  bits  of  antiquity 
alone  were  wont  to  be.  There  she 
sits  all  the  dull  November  day,  the 
London  fog  peering  in  at  her  through 
the  big  windows ;  nobody  blowing  a 
trumpet  to  clear  the  way  as  she  goes 
home  through  the  dingy  streets  of 
Bloomsbury, — instead  of  her  triumphal 
car,  putting  up  with  an  omnibus,  and 
possibly  carrying  her  notes  in  her 
little  bag  or  basket,  like  any  ordinary 
womankind  who  has  been  buying 
buttons  or  hooks -and -eyes.  Oh, 
grievous  downfall  and  decadence ! 
Yet  is  not  this  the  whole.  For  her 
one  immortal  quill  the  poor  lady  has 
nothing  better  than  a  box  of  steel 
pens,  hard  and  mercantile,  which  the 
most  enthusiastic  fancy  could  scarcely 
consecrate;  and  instead  of  a  slow 
succession  of  elaborate  volumes,  full 
of  style  and  pomp,  accuracy  and  im- 
portance, it  is  a  shower  of  pretty 
books  in  red  and  blue,  gilded  and 
illustrated,  light  and  dainty  and  per- 
sonal, that  fall  upon  us  from  her 
hands.  In  short,  it  is  not  Edward 
Gibbon,  but  Agnes  Strickland — the 
literary  woman  of  business,  and  not 
the  antique  man  of  study — who  in- 
troduces familiarly  to  our  households 
in  these  days  the  reduced  pretensions 
of  the  historic  muse. 

Now,  it  is  not  to  be  disputed  that, 
to  a  great  majority  of  us,  who  are 
working -day  people,  and  scarcely 
know  what  retirement  and  leisure  is, 
Borne  and  its  Decline  and  Fall  are 
something  of  a  bore ;  and  though  we 
speak  of  him  with  the  profoundest 
respect,  who  reads  the  elaborate  and 
ponderous  volumes  of  Gibbon  ?  It  is 
but  of  small  comparative  importance 
to  us  that  he  should  keep  step  with 
himself,  elegantly,  and  in  perfect 
time ;  indeed,  to  tell  the  truth,  in  our 
irregular  and  impetuous  age,  a  break 
in  the  cadence  would  be  the  greatest 
relief  to  us,  and  a  "  false  quantity  " 
endear  the  historian  more  than  the 
most  rigid  correctness  in  the  world. 
These  books  were  made  for  an  age  of 
leisure,  for  a  restricted  and  narrow 


438 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


[Oct. 


audience,  which  itself  dabbled  in 
"composition,"  and  appreciated  its 
niceties.  But  we  are  little  given  to 
style  in  this  busy  generation,  and  the 
mannerisms  in  which  we  abound  are 
for  the  most  part  characteristic  and 
individual,  marvellously  different  from 
the  solemn  polish  of  the  coat- armour 
of  our  predecessors.  So  far  our  pub- 
lic is  better  off  when  we  have  anything 
to  say  to  them ;  and  when  we  have 
nothing  to  say,  pure  foolishness  itselt 
is  at  least  honester  than  a  string  of 
pompous  sentences,  which  look  as  if 
they  meant  something,  but  in  reality 
are  only  empty  vestments — style,  and 
nothing  more. 

The  historic  muse,  however,  has 
lost  more  than  her  mere  personal 
eclat  and  importance  in  these  days. 
The  historical  poem  is  an  extinct 
existence;  they  are  neither  Shake- 
speares  nor  Homers  who  frequent  the 
British  Museum.  Our  poets  are  a 
great  deal  too  much  occupied  about 
the  inner  life  to  have  a  due  apprecia- 
tion of  the  outer  one,  and,  in  making 
"magnificent  protests  against  material- 
ism," are  gradually  excluding  them- 
selves from  all  that  noble  externalform 
and  circumstance  which  the  old  min- 
strels used  so  picturesquely  and  so  lov- 
ingly, and  which  the  grand  Poet  of  the 
universe  does  not  disdain  to  use.  So  long 
as  we  are  dealing  with  human  people, 
and  not  with  pure  intellects,  we  are 
afraid  an  event  must  remain  more 
important  than  a  mere  significance, 
though  it  is  a  significance  of  our  own 
finding  out,  which  nobody  ever  dreamt 
of  before.  Your  poet  of  history  must 
have  an  eye  for  things,  as  well  as  a 
soul  for  subtle  investigations — a  per- 
ception of  appearances,  and  humanity 
enough  in  him  to  believe  in  what  he 
sees.  The  outward  dress  and  habili- 
ment of  this  world  is  something  more 
than  a  mere  husk,  after  all ;  and  the 
secret  soul  within  which  fashions  all 
our  movements,  takes  colour  and  im- 
pulse many  a  time  from  the  "  mate- 
rialisms," which  also  are  of  God's 
making,  and  perhaps  not  so  vulgar, 
after  all,  if  we  could  but  look  at  them 
aright.  But  however  that  may  be,  it 
is  not  mere  ethical  Mind  which  is 
qualified  to  deal  with  history;  and  as 
our  Tennysons,  great  and  small,  are 
psychological,  and  given  to  meta- 
physics, the  result  is  that  historical 


poems  are  numbered  with  the  things 
that  have  been. 

We  are  not  great  at  historical 
novels  either  in  this  day — perhaps 
because  we  are  more  universally  ac- 
quainted with  the  costume  and  lan- 
guage of  the  old  time,  and  are  rather 
a  hard  audience  to  deal  with,  and 
much  disposed  to  suspect  a  masquer- 
ade ;  perhaps  because  we  are  seldom 
or  never  honest  in  our  historical  fic- 
tions, but  always  have  some  ulterior 
motive,  some  development  to  trace 
out,  or  principle  to  illustrate,  or  hid- 
den significance  to  evolve.  This  in- 
trusive century  of  ours  goes  with  us 
everywhere.  We  are  perpetually 
tracing  out  with  inquisitive  finger,  in 
the  far-away  records  of  the  past,  those 
springs  and  fountain-heads  from  which, 
by  far  descent  and  slow  degrees,  the 
rivers  of  our  prosperity  and  national 
character  have  come — a  laudable  oc- 
cupation certainly;  but  it  is  always 
the  safest  policy  to  do  what  we  are 
about,  "  aefauld,"  and  single-minded, 
and  to  keep  our  eye  upon  our  subject, 
altogether  independent  of  its  connec- 
tion with  ourselves — especially  when 
we  recollect  that  these  old  heroes  had 
not  a  thought  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury under  these  grim  visors  of  theirs, 
nor  the  smallest  intention  of  benefit- 
ing us  by  their  blunders  and  mis- 
chances, their  breaking  of  heads  and 
spears,  their  squabbles  with  kings 
and  commons.  So  our  philosophising 
tendency  comes  in  our  way  once  more. 
The  historical  novel  is  beyond  our 
powers,  like  the  historical  poem  ;  and 
we  can  no  more  write  a  second 
Quentin  Durward  than  a  second  King 
John. 

Yes,  it  is  very  true — yet  there  is 
comfort  in  the  circulating  library ;  we 
are  not  altogether  delivered  into  the 
grim  hands  of  the  old  historic  muse. 
Novel-less,  and  without  a  single  heroic 
canto  to  brag  of,  we  have  still  an 
easy  byway  here  and  there  remain- 
ing, by  which  a  glimpse  of  the  grand 
highroad  may  be  had  at  small  ex- 
pense. The  idea  was  a  happy  one, 
though  neither  quite  new,  nor  very 
admirably  carried  out.  Biographies 
of  kings  and  great  persons  are  al- 
ways the  staple  of  history ;  and  the 
true  poetic  idea  of  historic  teaching,  / 
the  principle  adopted  in  the  grandest 
and  most  antique  of  records,  the  Bible 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


itself,  is  that  of  personal  narrative. 
To  this  larger  principle  it  occurred  to 
one  ingenious  lady  to  unite  a  lesser 
one,  very  well  established  in  private 
life ;  to  wit,  that  you  are  much 
more  likely  to  attain  a  thorough  ac- 
quaintance with  a  man,  the  habits, 
nature,  and  motives  of  the  same, 
when  you  know  his  wife,  than  when 
your  personal  knowledge  is  only  of 
himself.  A  homely  truth  enough, 
when  placed  in  conjunction  with  the 
more  important  one ;  yet  true  not- 
withstanding, and  of  practical  use 
and  importance,  as  most  of  us  know 
experimentally.  So  we  have  no 
longer  mere  records  of  kings  and 
statesmen  and  politicians.  The  faded 
glories  of  old  wardrobes-  bloom  out 
before  us  from  the  dusty  account- 
books,  that  were  closed  and  reckoned 
up  a  thousand  years  ago.  Old  cham- 
bers of  old  palaces  wake  up  to  echoes 
of  their  ancient  housewifery  ;  and 
through  this  quaint  telescopic  glass 
we  have  a  strange  one-sided  glimpse 
of  the  larger  historic  scene,  its  posi- 
tions reversed  for  once,  and  its  great 
people  coming  in  only  as  incidental 
figures,  to  the  clearer  revealing  of  the 
throned  and  sceptred  lady  who  was 
but  a  very  secondary  personage  in 
our  other  view  of  this  same  scene. 
It  was  a  pretty  thought,  and  struck 
the  popular  fancy  ;  and  if  we  are  not 
tolerably  well  satisfied  by  this  time 
with  the  records  of  feminine  royalty, 
we  are  very  ungrateful  people,  and 
do  not  appreciate  as  we  ought  the 
exertions  of  Miss  Strickland,  and  of 
the  host  of  disciples  and  imitators 
who  have  followed  in  her  train. 

The  first  place  in  this  branch  of 
modern  literature  belongs  without 
dispute  to  Miss  Strickland,  by  right 
of  superior  value  and  importance,  as 
well  as  of  priority.  She  has  founded 
the  school,  such  as  it  is,  and  deserves 
full  credit  for  the  original  conception  ; 
and  her  works  are  at  once  more  vol- 
uminous, and  more  entitled  to  serious 
consideration,  than  any  of  her  suc- 
cessors. It  seems  to  us  idle  to  discuss 
what  claims  these  volumes  have  as  his- 
torical authorities ;  their  view  is  partial 
and  limited  by  necessity,  and  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  true  to  their  im- 
mediate subject,  they  must  be  content 
to  lose  in  breadth  and  general  power. 
The  court  affront  or  saucy  indecorum 


439 

which  brings  tears  to  a  fair  queen's 
eyes,  may  be  a  much  more  pictur- 
esque and  characteristic  incident  than 
a  prosy  board  of  council  or  clamorous 

Eopular  assembly,  though  the  ruder 
ict  is  tenfold  more  important ;  and 
little  weight  can  be  attached  to  the 
chronicle  in  which  a  graceful  individual 
act  holds  equal  place  with  a  national 
revolution ;  and  the  fashion  of  a  coro- 
nation robe  is  of  quite  as  much  im- 
portance as  the  framing  of  a  law. 
Undue  pretension  would  only  bring 
contempt  upon  these  pleasant  addi- 
tions to  our  literature.  We  will  not 
say  that  Miss  Strickland  makes  saints 
of  her  Catholic  princesses,  and  deals 
unjustly  with  their  Protestant  sisters, 
as  she  tells  us  she  has  been  accused 
of  doing ;  but  our  authoress  has  not 
failed  to  perceive,  with  many  a  greater 
writer,  how  much  more  picturesque 
and  attractive  adversity  and  misfor- 
tune are  than  success  and  happiness, 
and  with  a  very  natural  generosity 
she  takes  the  part  of  the  afflicted  and 
belied.  Discrowned  and  humiliated 
royalty  has  always  something  pathe- 
tic in  its  condition ;  and  in  general,  if 
we  are  not  very  mean  creatures  our- 
selves, we  have  an  instinctive  respect 
for  the  fallen  greatness,  which  con- 
quers our  enmity  by  its  own  over- 
throw. Nor  does  Miss  Strickland's 
weakness  in  this  respect  go  half  so 
far  as  some  of  her  greater  contem- 
poraries. She  has  never  reached  at 
any  time  that  height  of  sentimen- 
talism  to  which  Lamartine  attains  in 
his  Girondists.  Misfortune  is  the 
most  extraordinary  talisman  in  the 
world,  in  the  hands  of  the  French 
historian.  The  fiercest  ruffian  of  the 
Mountain  expands  into  sublimity  and 
heroism  whenever  this  touchstone  is 
applied  to  him  ;  and  the  tyrant  whom 
we  abhor  and  denounce  on  one  page, 
becomes,  by  a  rapid  revolution  on  the 
next,  the  martyr  for  whose  sorrows 
we  are  called  upon  to  weep. 

We  lose  our  sense  of  moral  right 
and  wrong  altogether  over  such  fas- 
cinating volumes  as  those  of  the 
French  poet,  philosopher,  and  states- 
man. Such  a  formal  and  cruel  thing 
as  justice  is  not  to  be  tolerated  in  the 
rose-coloured  atmosphere  of  his  philo- 
sophy, where  the  first  touch  of  suffer- 
ing is  enough  to  efface  the  cruelest 
vices,  and  where  misfortune,  more 


440 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


[Oct. 


effectual  than  the  purgatorial  fires, 
infallibly  and  speedily  throws  an  an- 
gelic radiance  over  the  murderers  and 
despots  whom  success  made  infamous. 
A  little  of  this  same  sentiment  is  in 
all  our  histories.  Who  can  doubt 
that  a  hundred  charms  of  romance 
and  imagination,  which  endear  to  us 
the  hapless  race  of  Stuarts,  would  never 
have  belonged  to  them  had  the  race 
been  prosperous  instead  of  hapless? 
Who  cares  for  James,  the  First  and 
Sixth  —  he  who  was  prosperous  and 
peaceable,  and  reaped  none  of  the 
dragon's  teeth,  yet  who,  perchance, 
might  have  made  a  very  pretty 
martyr,  had  such  been  his  fate?  or 
who  will  ever  take  the  pains  to  tell  us 
what  the  second  Charles  remembered 
of  his  romantic  youthful  adventures, 
in  such  rhymes  as  those  that  embody 
the  reverie  of  "  Charles  Edward  at 
Versailles  ?  "  Mary  herself,  the  fruit- 
ful subject  of  tale  and  song,  had  she 
lived  to  the  age  of  her  princely  rival 
Elizabeth,  and  died  in  full  possession 
of  her  power  and  state,  but  with 
beauty  gone  and  strength  exhausted, 
who  would  have  cared,  in  these  later 
days,  to  swear  themselves  knight- 
errants  for  her  reputation  ?  No  !  Put 
political  opinions  aside,  and  moral 
verdicts;  but  the  death-room  of  state, 
in  the  great  halls  of  Windsor,  has  no 
chance  against  the  "  ensanguined 
block  of  Fotheringay."  The  tears  of 
half-a-dozen  poor  attendants  speak 
more  eloquently  than  the  plaudits  of 
a  multitude ;  and  we  sigh  for  the 
heroine  of  prisons  and  flights  and 
disastrous  battles,  while  we  dislike 
her  of  the  state  pageants  and  royal 
progresses.  We  have  a  certain  uni- 
versal sentiment  of  generosity  about 
us,  whatever  our  practice  may  be. 
John  Bull  himself,  as  Sir  Walter 
says,  after  his  illuminations  and 
thanksgivings,  and  universal  rejoic- 
ing over  Waterloo  —  John  himself 
"  had  well-nigh  wept  for  Bonyparty ;" 
and  he  must  be  a  very  mean  figure 
indeed,  who,  after  play  ing  a  prominent 
part  in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  does 
not  attract  more  eyes,  and  conciliate 
more  hearts  by  the  downfall  and  fail- 
ure of  his  greatness,  than  he  could 
have  done  by  the  most  triumphant  end. 
We  remember  in  the  days  of  our 
youth,  when  Napoleon  was  our  great 
hero,  how  extremely  annoyed  we 


were  that  he  did  not  die  at  Waterloo : 
an  apotheosis  and  grand  definitive 
conclusion  were  all  he  wanted,  to  our 
fancy,  to  make  the  hero  sublime. 
But  our  youthful  impatience  was  as 
wrong  and  as  shortsighted  as  the 
fervour  of  youth  most  usually  is  ;  for 
there  are  no  such  effectual  words  as 
sorrow  and  suffering  and  exile  for 
moving  the  impressionable  heart  of 
posterity,  and  even  for  making  the 
contemporary  mind  very  heartily 
ashamed  of  itself,  when  it  remembers 
its  first  flush  of  exultation  over  the 
fallen  foe. 

But  the  plea  which  so  prettily  justi- 
fies Margaret  Ramsay  for  her  foolish 
fancy  to  the  young  Glenvarloch — 
"  He  is  unfortunate ;"  the  plea  which 
has  made  the  most  of  us  furious  Jaco- 
bites for  some  certain  period  of  our 
lives,  one  time  or  other,  though  a  very 
poor  justification  for  a  careful  and  ela- 
borate historian,  is  plea  enough  to  vin- 
dicate Miss  Strickland  in  her  kindly  re- 
gard towards  the  poor  Catholicprincess- 
es  of  our  fighting  times.  Sore  enough 
bested  and  hardly  judged  were  these 
poor  women,  and  with  so  many  pic- 
turesque incidents  in  their  lives  and 
surroundings,  they  are  very  tempting 
themes  for  historical  romance.  Our 
authoress  will  not  thank  us,  perhaps, 
for  saying  so  much ;  but  we  are  not 
at  all  disposed  to  judge  her  after  the 
standard  of  severe  authenticity.  We 
can  get  the  grander  historical  facts 
elsewhere  ;  and  so  long  as  she  is 
honest,  and  says  nothing  positively 
against  truth,  the  zeal  of  a  partisan  is 
quite  befitting  to  the  fair  historian. 
It  is  true  that  this  sometimes  exhibits 
itself  in  an  amusing  and  most  femi- 
nine fashion,  as  in  a  passage  on  which 
we  have  just  lighted  accidentally  in 
her  last  published  volume,  wherein 
poor  Morton — he  who  was  Regent  of 
Scotland  in  his  day,  and  a  notable  man 
enough  among  the  men  of  his  genera- 
tion— has  his  portrait  painted  for  him, 
with  no  very  flattering  pencil.  Why 
it  should  be  necessary,  or  for  Miss 
Strickland's  benefit,  to  prove  this  grim 
old  earl  ugly,  as  well  as  a  plotter  and 
dangerous  person,  we  cannot  well  see ; 
and  it  reminds  us  of  the  story  told  of 
some  Edinburgh  infidel  of  the  last 
century,  who  shocked  the  orthodox 
ears  of  certain  fistierwomen  with  some 
of  those  miserable  little  bits  of  bias- 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


phemy  which  passed  for  wit  in  those 
dark  days.  "  Eh  sirs,"  cried  one  of 
them,  "  look  till  him  ;  what  an 
atomy  !"  and  it  is  quite  probable  that 
this  little  personal  compliment  struck 
deeper  than  a  sounder  argument.  But 
we  cannot  read  Miss  Strickland's  de- 
scription of  the  stormy  old  Scottish 
baron  without  a  smile.  The  dark  and 
dangerous  Douglas,  no  longer  a  pala- 
din "  tender  and  trew,"  is  a  singular 
object  for  such  a  shaft  of  lady -like 
malice. 

And  we  are  afraid  that  our  author- 
ess is  kindly  willing  to  believe  in  the 
beneficent  influence  of  her  royal  hero- 
ines, when  she  has  no  great  ground  to 
build  her  faith  upon — not  much,  in- 
deed, beyond  an  inference  or  a  possi- 
bility ;  and  that  the  generally  lofty  and 
elevated  tone  of  sentiment  which  we 
find  among  those  illustrious  ladies, 
says  more  for  the  courtesy  than  for 
the  strict  reality  of  the  story.  We 
have  been  used  to  fancy,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  that  queens  whose  hands 
were  gages  of  state,  or  prizes  of  battle 
—poor  princesses,  born  to  establish 
political  compacts  and  seal  the  alli- 
ances of  their  fathers  —  had  often 
enough  an  unkindly  fate,  and  did  not 
always  find  the  husband  chosen  for 
them  either  fond  or  attractive.  But, 
as  a  general  rule,  Miss  Strickland's 
queens  are  very  happy  wives,  and 
"  fond  love  "  and  "  conjugal  tender- 
ness "  are  very  common  phrases  in 
these  volumes.  Grim  middle-aged 
kings,  and  widows  at  their  third  or 
fourth  marrying,  are  not  quite  fitting 
subjects  for  the  sentimental  language 
of  romance;  and  we  are  doubtful 
whether  any  lower  class  of  "  wives  of 
England,"  take  them  in  general  suc- 
cession, could  exhibit  conjugal  hero- 
ism, wifely  forbearance,  and  self-for- 
getting devotedness  in  such  bright 
and  ideal  perfection,  as  do  the  royal 
wives  of  Miss  Strickland's  picture- 
gallery.  One  would  suppose,  to  read 
these  histories,  that  there  was  no 
school  like  a  court  for  inculcating  the 
domestic  virtues ;  and  that  so  far  from 
being  hindered  or  burdened  by  the 
cares  of  state,  the  royal  matron  was 
almost  invariably  the  flower  and  per- 
fection of  matrons  ; — not  only  a  good 
queen,  but  a  model  wife  and  mother, 
an  example  to  her  humbler  and  less  en- 
cumbered subjects.  This,  we  humbly 


441 

opine,  was  scarcely  a  thing  to  be  ex- 
pected. One  business  is  about  as 
much  as  one  person  can  manage  in 
common  circumstances ;  and  we  have 
always  had  a  strong  conviction  that 
Elizabeth  was  in  the  right,  and  that  a 
sovereign  prince  who  has  the  misfor- 
tune to  be  born  a  woman,  should  give 
herself  to  her  profession,  and  let  com- 
mon life  and  its  responsibilities  alone, 
— always  excepting,  as  in  duty  bound, 
pur  own  most  gracious  liege  Lady,  who 
is  not  called  upon  to  be  a  ruler  and 
governor,  like  Elizabeth.  Yes,  the 
poor  needlewoman  who  rocks  her 
baby's  cradle  as  she  works,  has  no 
better  claim  upon  our  forbearance  and 
sympathy  than  the  poor  queen  who 
is  not  permitted  to  rock  the  cradle, 
but  has  the  care  of  it  notwithstand- 
ing, and  a  more  onerous  business 
besides  than  the  needlewoman's  — 
and  whose  "  little  tempers  "  should 
require  quite  as  much  allowance  made 
for  them.  But  we  are  amazed  when 
we  come  to  find  how  unnecessary  our 
forbearance  is,  and  wonderin  silence  at 
the  unruffled  amiability  of  the  illustri- 
ous heroines  of  Miss  Strickland.  Every- 
thing here — or  almost  everything, 
for  our  authoress  has  her  aversions 
— is  couleur  de  rose ;  and  Miss  Strick- 
land is  quite  willing  to  take  the  word 
of  the  court  poet  for  her  lady's  beauty, 
and  to  give  the  same  lady  every  credit 
for  the  highest  womanly  qualities, 
whether  possible  or  not,  in  her  cir- 
cumstances. Poor  Catherine  of  Bra- 
ganza,  for  instance,  some  two  months 
after  her  marriage  to  the  stranger 
Charles,  whom  she  had  never  seen 
before — and  while  in  the  very  act  of 
struggling  with  him  against  the  un- 
pardonable insult  of  introducing  Lady 
Castlemaine  to  her,  and  placing  this 
wretched  woman  about  her  person — 
"Catherine,"  says  Miss  Strickland, 
"  loved  him  too  well  to  dissemble  her 
feelings."  What  evidence  is  there  of 
this  extraordinary  love?  The  chances 
are  certainly  very  much  against  it ; 
and  if  it  rests  only  upon  the  poor 
queen's  formal  expressions  now  and 
then  quoted,  of  entire  devotion  to  her 
neglectful  husband,  that  age  of  sin 
and  impurity  must  have  been  the  most 
affectionate  age  of  the  world — for  even 
Evelyn  and  Pepys,  who  were  only 
acquaintances,  exhaust  themselves  in 
expressions  of  mutual  devotion.  For 


442 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


[Oct. 


our  own  part,  we  are  very  slow  to 
believe  in  a  love  which  could  be  con- 
ciliated by  a  few  days'  fondness,  and 
live  through  insult  and  neglect  ever 
after.  Life  is  not  so  partial  and  un- 
equal after  all;  and  "woman's  gentle 
heart,"  which  our  lady-writers  are  so 
fond  of  magnifying,  is  fortunately 
human,  and  capable  of  disgust  and  in- 
dignation, as  well  as  the  stouter  or- 
ganisation which  belongs  to  man.  For 
our  own  part  we  cannot  see  that  the 
Portuguese  Catherine  gains  any  credit 
from  the  unlikely  supposition  that  she 
"loved"  her  disreputable  spouse  "too 
well."  It  seems  misery  enough  for  a 
devout  and  virtuous  woman  to  live  in 
that  foul  atmosphere  through  all  her 
best  days ;  but  if  she  gave  her  heart 
to  the  princely  satyr,  whom  even 
Pepys  despised,  she  must  have  been 
such  a  "  miracle  of  womankind  "  as 
one  does  not  care  to  hear  of,  and  no 
particular  credit  to  her  sex  or  name. 

Miss  Strickland's  great  work,  as 
everybody  knows,  embraces  almost 
the  whole  historical  period,  properly 
so  called,  of  our  national  existence. 
Neither  exercising  her  imagination 
upon  the  half- fabulous  heroines  of 
the  early  English,  nor  losing  herself 
in  the  chronicles  of  our  grandfathers, 
which  are  scarcely  old  enough  to 
reach  the  importance  of  history,  our 
authoress  has  made  a  wise  limitation 
to  her  labours.  The  Matildas,  though 
they  are  a  little  like  figures  in 
tapestry,  the  Shakespearian  queens, 
whom  Miss  Strickland  bravely  ven- 
tures to  handle — not  fearing  even  to 
differ  from  Shakespeare,  which  is  no 
small  boldness — are  safer  ground,  on 
the  whole,  than  those  princesses  of 
later  times,  whose  perplexed  and 
troublous  age  still  agitates  with  a 
certain  partisanship  our  far-off  exist- 
ence. Yet  we  are  slightly  disposed 
to  resent  the  presumption  of  the 
historian  who  converts  the  weeping 
queen  of  the  second  Richard  into  a 
little  innocent  girl ;  and  who  presents 
a  very  bloodless  but  stately  per- 
sonage before  us  in  the  real  aspect 
of  that  grand  termagant  and  heroine, 
Margaret  of  Anjou,  of  whom  it  is  not 
pleasant  to  read  in  the  common  terms 
of  biography.  After  all,  it  is  bad 
policy  to  contradict  that  Lancastrian 
chronicler,  who  is  an  authority  above 
history.  Let  facts  say  what  they 


may,  who  will  ever  bring  such  a 
certain  impression  from  any  page  of 
well-  attested  veracity,  as  from  those 
pages,  where  not  facts  but  persons — 
not  wooden  appearances  of  men,  but 
real  princes  and  nobles,  fierce  and 
rapid — come  and  go  before  our  very 
eyes?  We  acquiesce  in  the  state- 
ments of  Miss  Strickland,  and  con- 
sent to  the  decision  of  historians  of 
heavier  metal.  Yes,  we  suppose 
Isabella  of  Valois  was  only  nine  when 
she  was  married,  and  never  could 
have  spoken  that  speech  full  of  tears. 
We  agree  that  the  same  merry  and  coy 
Catherine,  who  spoke  French-English 
to  Harry  of  Agincourt,  was  not  half 
so  easily  disposed  of  as  the  play  writer 
would  have  us  suppose.  And  having 
satisfied  our  conscience  by  concur- 
rence, of  course  we  go  on  like  sensible 
people,  believing  Shakespeare  quite  as 
much  as  ever,  and  forming  our  real 
opinion,  if  we  have  one,  from  his 
view  of  the  matter,  as  steadily  as 
if  we  had  never  heard  a  word  on  the 
subject  from  the  true  historic  muse. 

But,  seriously  speaking,  we  do  not 
think  Miss  Strickland  has  done  half 
justice  to  her  happy  idea  in  the  execu- 
tion of  this  work.  Those  picturesque 
and  animated  times, — those  half-dis- 
closed, half -visionary  personages, 
blazing  forth  in  the  splendour  of  a 
coronation  pageant,  or  the  more  ro- 
mantic royalty  of  tilt  and  tourney, 
only  to  disappear  into  long  myste- 
rious seclusion  in  some  jealous  tower 
or  rush  -  strewn  chamber  —  those 
strange  eventful  passages  of  life— 
those  quiet  days  of  patience  and 
embroidery — those  sudden  and  mag- 
nificent revels  —  those  wild  flights, 
disasters,  and  calamities, — how  much 
might  have  been  made  of  them? 
What  Miss  Strickland  has  made  is  an 
extremely  creditable  and  well- com- 
piled historical  work — a  book  invalu- 
able to  all  the  good  people  who  have 
a  natural  craving  for  story-telling, 
yet  deny  themselves  novels,  and  also 
for  that  other  numerous  class  who 
do  their  reading  conscientiously,  and 
with  a  view  of  improving  their 
minds.  But  the  execution  comes  a  very 
long  way  behind  the  conception  of 
the  book.  Of  how  many  books  in 
existence  can  we  say  anything  else? 
Like  the  painter  who  owns  to  an 
ecstasy  at  sight  of  the  blank  and 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


spotless  breadth  of  that  untouched 
canvass  of  his,  where  his  imagination 
is  free  to  produce  such  creations  as  no 
picture  in  the  world  could  equal,  we 
are  all  of  us  able  to  improve  in  fancy 
upon  any  human  performance.  Our 
authoress  might  have  made  a  very 
animated,  graceful,  and  picturesque 
book  of  it, — she  has  made  a  very  good 
and  serviceable  one ;  and  popular 
opinion,  less  fastidious  than  critical 
judgment,  has  plentifully  received 
and  acknowledged  the  labours  of 
Miss  Strickland.  She  has  originated 
a  class  of  books — a  distinct  school  of 
minor  historians — and  her  disciples 
own  her  pre-eminence  and  authority, 
by  eagerly  supplementing  her  original 
work.  We  are  now  extremely  well 
informed  respecting  the  lives  of  our 
female  sovereigns ;  at  least,  if  we  are 
not  so,  it  is  our  own  fault,  and  not 
that  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
literature  who  cater  for  us.  Here  is 
one  enterprising  writer  who  sends  us 
the  Queens  before  the  Conquest* — a 
daring  attempt  to  rescue  from  dark- 
ness and  chaos  a  number  of  royal 
ladies,  as  distant  and  misty  in  their 
obscure  past  as  those  doubtful  Scot- 
tish potentates,  over  whom  we  re- 
member puzzling  in  the  days  of  our 
very  youth,  as  they  appeared  in  the 
learned  pages  of  Buchanan's  History ; 
and  to  another  witty  and  accom- 
plished author  (a  male  intruder,  by 
the  way,  into  this  feminine  preserve — 
a  gentleman  who  has  clearly  no  busi- 
ness here,  and  who  ought  to  be  in- 
continently expelled  by  the  original 
proprietors  of  the  domain)  we  are 
indebted  for  the  equally  daring 
attempt  of  rescuing  from  gossip  and 
court  scandal,  and  transferring  to 
history,  the  Hanoverian  queens. 

A  bolder  woman  than  any  other  of 
her  sisterhood  is  Mrs  Matthew  Hall — 
who  does  not  hesitate  to  declare,  of 
her  two  pretty  volumes,  that  they 
"  will  be  found  to  present  the  first 
connected  outline  of  the  history  of 
royal  women  prior  to  the  Norman 
Conquest."  We  are  entitled  to  ex- 
pect something  serious  from  such 
an  important  preface  ;  but  we  are 
straightway  startled,  before  we  are 
aware,  by  an  instantaneous  leap  to 
the  fabulous  or  conjectural  history  of 


443 

sundry  illustrious  and  princely  people 
who  arrayed  themselves  after  the 
most  primitive  fashion  imaginable, 
cutting  their  embroideries  upon  their 
own  persons,  and  substituting  a  simple 
coat  of  colour  for  the  "  robes  of  pall," 
which  were  usual  in  more  sophisti- 
cated society.  To  this  primitive  com- 
munity of  early  Britons  comes  a 
"  royal  woman,"  in  whom  the  primi- 
tive and  unalterable  qualities  of  am- 
bition and  love  of  power  are  very  suf- 
ficiently developed — whom  it  pleases 
Mrs  Hall  to  call  the  consort  of 
Cymbeline,  but  who  might  just  as 
well,  for  any  identity  she  has,  be 
called  the  consort  of  Jack  the  Giant- 
killer,  or  any  other  worthy  of  anti- 
quity. Cartismandua,  but  for  her 
royal  weakness  of  marrying  a  great 
many  people,  has  very  little  to 
distinguish  her ;  but  turns  out  a  very 
indifferent  character  in  her  latter 
days,  and  is  by  no  means  a  creditable x 
leader  to  the  long  array  of  queens  of 
England.  Nevertheless  Cymbeline, 
it  appears,  did  not  have  two  wives, 
as  is  falsely  reported  of  him  by  that 
very  untrustworthy  person  who  wrote 
a  play  on  the  subject — never  had  a 
daughter  Imogen  either,  nor  survived 
the  sainted  mother  of  the  same,  but 
was  survived  and  superseded  by  some 
five  or  six  successors  in  the  affections 
of  the  redoubtable  Cartismandua,  the 
mother  of  the  two  boys  who  never 
were  lost, — who  never  lived  in  a  cave 
at  Milford  Haven,  nor  entertained  a 
runaway  princess,  nor  won  a  battle 
by  their  individual  arms.  It  is  rather 
humiliating  all  this  to  us,  who  used 
to  have  familiar  acquaintance  with 
Guiderius  and  Arviragus  long  ago, 
and  had  a  certain  affection  for  these 
imps  of  fame— nor,  as  Mrs  Hall  has 
nothing  more  satisfactory  to  tell  us  of 
her  obscure  heroine  than  a  "  may  be 
imagined,"  are  we  very  much  the 
better  for  this  grievous  unsettlement 
of  our  ideas.  Boadicea  follows  next 
in  this  list  of  queens — and  Boadicea 
had  a  "  fine  womanly  nature,"  Mrs 
Hall  says;  and  we  are  expected  to 
be  very  much  moved  by  her  affect- 
ing story, — which,  however,  we  are 
obliged  to  say,  has  no  more  effect 
upon  us  than  mere  words  without 
life  or  meaning  generally  have.  And 


*  Queens  before  the  Conquest.  By  Mrs  MATTHEW  HALL. 
VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


2   G 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


444 

then  comes  a  formidable  array  of 
Roman  matrons,  empresses  of  the 
imperial  state,  including  no  less  a 
person  than  St  Helena — most  royal 
and  renowned  ladies  all,  we  do 
not  doubt  —  though  to  call  them 
queens  before  the  Conquest  is  to 
use  a  very  extraordinary  license 
with  words.  Gradually  coming  down 
from  these  mists  of  antiquity,  we 
feel  we  are  getting  into  quite  accurate 
and  historical  ground  when  we  reach 
as  far  as  King  Arthur  and  Queen 
Guenever.  How  many  Queen  Gue- 
nevers  do  you  suppose  there  are, 
most  courteous  reader  ?  We,  in  our 
ignorance,  wist  of  but  one  lawful 
possessor  of  the  mythical  king's 
affections ;  but  Mrs  Hall  says  there 
were  three  of  them,  a  perfect  trio  and 
complement  of  wives ;  and  this  learn- 
ed lady  gravely  discusses  their  dif- 
ferent qualities,  and  professes  to  write 
distinct  biographies  for  our  instruc- 
tion of  Guenever  I.  II.  and  III.  with 
as  much  importance  as  if  she  had 
mountains  of  information  to  build 
upon,  when  in  fact  she  has  no  mate- 
rials whatever,  and  nothing  to  justify 
her  story  except  a  name  and  a  scrap 
of  ballad!  We  protest  against  this 
foolish  playing  with  the  public.  If 
this  lady,  or  any  other,  has  power 
enough  to  make  ballads  or  legends  out 
of  the  far-off  echoes  of  history,  let 
her  do  it  by  all  means ;  nay,  if  she 
will  write  trite  essays  upon  names,  we 
have  no  desire  to  baulk  her  fancy.  But 
to  present  to  us,  as  a  contribution  to 
historical  literature,  these  perfectly 
profitless  chapters,  in  which  there  are 
neither  information  nor  interest,  is  a 
pure  piece  of  literary  imposition,  and 
deserves  no  mercy  at  any  honest 
hands.  We  have  no  doubt  that  many 
innocent  people  will  fill  up  one  end  of 
the  shelves  which  contain  their  Lives 
of  the  Queens,  with  this  supposititious 
preface  and  introduction  to  them.  But 
it  is  a  pure  delusion  ;  and  we  beg  to 
assure  all  well-intentioned  persons  that 
Sir  E.  B.  Lytton's  Harold  contains  a 
hundredfold  more  of  real  historical 
information  about  the  early  Saxon 
princesses  than  they  will  find  in  the 
empty  and  pretentious  pages  of  the 
Queens  before  the  Conquest — where 
Edith  the  Good  and  Edith  the  Fair 


[Oct. 


come  in  after  all  the  Cartismanduas 
and  Guenevers,  and  look  as  lifeless  and 
as  mythical  as  they. 

A  very  different  period  and  class  of 
heroines  has  been  chosen  by  Dr  Do- 
ran.  *  This  learned  and  witty  gentle- 
man has  just  a  shade  of  consciousness 
upon  him,  as  it  seems  to  us,  that  he  is 
poaching  upon  somebody  else's  man- 
or, and  writing  a  book  which  no  one 
expected  at  his  hands.  But  this  does 
not  hinder  his  book  from  being  at 
once  an  amusing  and  valuable  pro- 
duction. These  volumes  have  of  ne- 
cessity considerably  more  political  and 
immediate  interest  than  the  pageants 
of  the  middle  ages,  or  even  the  vexed 
questions  of  our  grand  era  of  national 
history — the  coming  in  and  going  out 
of  the  Stuarts.  Our  fathers  and 
mothers  were  partisans  for  and  against 
the  hapless  Caroline  of  Brunswick ; 
and  to  whom  but  Queen  Charlotte  are 
we  indebted  for  the  greater  share  of 
our  social  proprieties?  So  far  there 
is  a  peculiar  interest  in  Dr  Doran's 
book ;  but  it  has  likewise  the  great 
disadvantage  of  belonging  to  a  prosaic 
and  unpicturesque  age,  and  dealing 
with  characters  mean,  small,  and  un- 
elevated.  There  are  clever  people  in 
the  world,  and  one  great  leader  at 
their  head,  who  can  still  make  a  hero 
of  Dutch  William,  and  find  sublimity 
and  nobleness  in  all  he  did,  and  all  he 
did  not  do ;  but  no  one  has  had  the 
boldness  to  put  lance  in  rest,  or  strike 
one  blow  for  the  honour  of  the  first 
Georges ;  no  one  has  vindicated  the 
memory  of  the  "  wee,  wee  German 
lairdie"  —  immortalised  only  by  his 
gay  Jacobite  ballad-making  enemies — 
who  made  the  winning  of  three  king- 
doms no  longer  a  heroic  achievement, 
but  the  dullest  event  in  existence,  and 
distinguished  himself  among  many 
royal  and  princely  competitors  only 
by  his  supereminently  evil  treatment 
of  his  innocent  wife.  It  is  something 
of  a  misnomer  to  call  the  first  part  of 
this  work  a  biography  of  Sophia 
Dorothea — for  she,  poor  lady,  has  the 
smallest  part  in  it — and  save  for  some 
details  of  her  personal  appearance,  we 
do  not  really  know  much  more  about 
her  at  the  conclusion  than  at  the  be- 
ginning of  her  story ;  but  it  is  a  dis- 
tinct and  well-written  chapter  of  his- 


Lives  of  the  Queens  of  the  House  of  Hanover. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


tory,  which,  though  disfigured  by 
some  trifling  at  the  beginning,  and 
not  without  something  of  that  popular 
affectation  which  prompts  the  histo- 
rian— a  much  wiser  man,  and  of  a 
greater  altitude  than  they — to  exhibit 
his  characters  as  he  might  exhibit  a 
set  of  puppets,  and  to  be  very  con- 
descending to  them,  their  motives, 
and  performances, — tells  its  story  ho- 
nestly, and  is  what  it  professes  to  be. 
The  electoral  Prince  of  Hanover  and 
the  young  Princess  of  Zell  could  not 
have  looked  like  a  loving  couple  at 
any  time,  even  under  Miss  Strickland's 
peace-making  hands  ;  and  though  So- 
phia Dorothea  seems  too  good  and 
gentle  to  have  hated  anybody,  her 
husband  was  in  no  such  condition,  and 
detested  her  cordially.  The  miserable 
little  German  court,  in  which  this 
miserable  couple  held  their  state,  re- 
ceives no  flattering  portraiture  from 
the  hand  of  Dr  Doran.  To  say  it 
was  immoral  would  not  be  to  speak 
truth,  for  that  would  imply  some  con- 
science or  consciousness  of  its  offences ; 
whereas,  in  fact,  its  very  breath  and 
existence  was  pollution,  and  the  only 
standard  of  manners  seems  to  have 
been  a  heroic  emulation  which  should 
go  furthest  in  the  abominations  of  the 
time.  Poor  Sophia  of  Zell,  like  other 
poor  women  in  like  wretched  circum- 
stances, was  jealous,  by  way  of  making 
herself  more  miserable ;  and  being  an 
innocent  woman,  was  also  indiscreet 
a  little,  and  gave  a  handle  to  her  hus- 
band's hatred,  and  to  the  ingenuity  of 
the  plotters  round  her.  With  the 
habitual  want  of  logic  which  guilty 
people  and  intriguantes  betray  them- 
selves into,  her  persecutors  seem  very 
early  to  have  given  up  the  shadowy 
and  false  stigma  which  they  had  tried 
to  cast  upon  her  honour,  but  did  not 
give  up  the  punishment  appended  to 
it ;  and  the  unfortunate  princess  was 
accordingly  banished,  under  the  strict- 
est surveillance,  to  a  solitary  German 
castle — a  true  princess  of  romance, 
but  unfortunately  with  no  chivalrous 
knight  at  hand  to  dare  her  rescue;  in 
which  hard  durance  she  remained, 
while  her  husband  was  crowned  King 
of  Great  Britain,  while  her  children 
were  married,  and  her  grandchildren 
born ;  and  while  her  entire  family 
hurried  on  in  the  crowded  ways  of 
life,  leaving  her  behind,  not  even  per- 


445 

mitted,  from  the  battlements  of  her 
dungeon,  to  be  a  spectator  of  their 
progress.  A  very  sad,  dismal,  heart- 
breaking story;  but,  after  we  have 
assisted  to  lock  the  poor  lady  up  in 
her  forlorn  castle,  rather  a  barren  one 
—for  there  is  not  even  a  prison  scene — 
not  one  melancholy  episode  of  tears  and 
tapestry-work — to  give  us  a  parting 
glimpse  of  the  sufferer.  Perhaps  it 
was  really  impracticable,  and  nothing 
more  authentic  than  imagination 
could  find  entrance  within  these  jeal- 
ous walls ;  but  we  had  rather  have 
heard  something  of  this  dreary,  long 
imprisonment,  which  doubtless  had  its 
incidents,  than  of  the  vulgar  little 
Dutch  king,  and  his  first  pagean-ts  of 
state.  How  wonderfully  strong,  after 
all,  must  have  been  that  national  con- 
viction, which,  in  spite  of  sentiment, 
and  in  spite  of  the  enthusiastic  fervour 
of  the  partisans  of  the  Stuarts,  had 
self-denial  and  perseverance  enough 
to  establish  these  mean  and  disagree- 
able Dutchmen — abstract  representa- 
tives of  the  constitutional  Protestant 
monarchy — upon  the  throne,  instead 
of  the  graceful  race,  with  all  its  pre- 
cedents and  associations,  to  whom  the 
longest  exile,  and  the  greatest  misfor- 
tunes, could  never  teach  wisdom. 

Our  historian  makes  a  much  more 
distinct  and  characteristic  sketch  of  the 
elder  Sophia,  who  ought  to  have  been 
the  first  queen  of  the  house  of  Han- 
over, and  would  have  made  a  queen 
of  other  metal  than  this  patient  prin- 
cess. Sophia  of  Brunswick,  a  caustic, 
shrewd,  philosophical  old  lady,  is  no 
great  favourite  with  Dr  Doran.  Miss 
Strickland  has  quite  a  different  opinion 
of  her  ;  and  it  is  amusing,  and  slightly 
perplexing  to  simple  faculties,  to  see 
how  totally  unlike  are  the  two  views 
of  this  one  illustrious  personage.  The 
ancestress  of  our  royal  house  is  a  wise, 
liberal,  and  princely  matron,  in  the 
kind  judgment  of  Miss  Strickland  ; 
she  is  only  a  clever  old  lady  who 
snuffs,  and  dabbles  in  philosophy,  and 
desires  with  her  whole  soul  to  reign 
Queen  of  England,  if  only  long  enough 
to  have  that  title  on  her  coffin,  to  Dr 
Doran.  Queen  Anne  had  the  griev- 
ous discourtesy  to  refuse  this  melan- 
choly satisfaction  to  her  august  re- 
lative— the  queen  lived  longer  than 
the  electress — and  the  philosophic 
Sophia  had  no  prouder  titles  thaii 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


446 

those  of  Hanover  and  Brunswick 
upon  her  coffin-lid;  from  whence  it 
comes  that  a  much  less  distinct  Sophia, 
— the  voiceless  and  patient  prisoner  of 
Ahlden — never  called  by  the  name, 
nor  invested  with  the  symbols  of  ma- 
jesty, holds  shadowy  rank  as  the  first 
Hanoverian  queen,  if  in  no  more  regal 
record,  at  least  in  Dr  Doran's  book. 

And  to  balance  Miss  Strickland's 
loving  and  happy  royal  wives, 
Dr  Doran  presents  us  incidentally 
with  a  sad  list  of  broken-hearted 
women,  all  within  the  same  family 
circle,  and  not  unfit  companions  for 
his  first  heroine,  Sophia  of  Zell.  Her 
own  daughter,  the  Queen  of  Prussia, 
mother  of  Frederick  the  Great ;  her 
immediate  descendant,  the  unfortunate 
Caroline  Matilda,  Queen  of  Denmark ; 
and  others  whom  we  have  not  space  to 
name ;  ending  with  the  name  of  the 
foolish  and  hapless  woman,  the  second 
uncrowned  Hanoverian  Queen,  Caro- 
line, also  of  Brunswick,  whose  memory 
is  still  among  us. 

Our  author's  second  heroine  is  no 
queen  of  misfortunes,  of  heartbreak, 
or  oppression,  or  jealousy.  Queen 
Caroline,  not  only  crowned,  but  reg- 
nant, forms  the  greatest  contrast  in 
the  world  to  the  pale  and  weak  vic- 
tims of  conjugal  cruelty  whom  we  have 
just  been  contemplating.  Dr  Doran  is 
not  favourable  to  Caroline;  and,  to 
tell  the  truth,  not  all  her  great  qualities, 
nor  even  greater  qualities  than  hers, 
could  veil  the  disgusting  and  vile  ac- 
companiments of  her  power.  How- 
ever, the  historic  muse  is  not  particu- 
larly called  upon  to  record  these  cir- 
cumstances, though  Dr  Doran  cannot 
help  it.  And  though  the  wife  who 
manages  her  husband  with  such  ex- 
treme and  notable  art  that  he  never 
knows  he  is  managed,  and  the  mother 
who  is  at  deadly  feud  with  her  first- 
born son,  is  not  quite  the  person  to 
whom  we  give  our  private  esteem, 
we  cannot  refuse  our  admiration  to 
the  accomplished  and  powerful  prin- 
cess who  made  her  husband's  reign 
respectable,  and  procured  that  no 
harm  should  come  to  the  nation  from 
his  disgraceful  pleasures.  But  what 
a  court,  and  what  a  society !  One 
shudders  while  one  reads  of  the  daily 
talk  and  habits  of  these  princes  and 
princesses ;  and  there  is  some  little 
difficulty  in  believing  that  while  Jeanie 


[Oct. 


Deans  and  her  history  are  a  true 
though  ideal  representation  of  one  ex- 
treme of  society,  this  picture  of  court 
manners  and  morals  should  be  a  faith- 
ful portrait  of  the  other.  In  truth, 
these  philosophical  and  tolerant  wo- 
men who,  wiser  than  poor  Catherine 
of  Braganza,  patronise  instead  of  ex- 
pelling the  Lady  Castlemaines  from 
their  train,  are  about  the  most  dis- 
agreeable representatives  of  that  com- 
placent and  inhuman  philosophy  which 
we  have  come  to  identify  with  the 
eighteenth  century ; — that  philosophy 
which,  in  its  pretended  intellectual 
elevation  and  superiority  to  merely 
moral  qualities,  only  made  its  own 
meanness  and  poverty  the  more  con- 
spicuous. Those  witty  people,  who 
laughed  at  * l  vice  "  and  patronised  "vir- 
tue," or,  still  worse,  made  a  tool  and 
instrument  of  the  iniquities  of  their 
time,  establish  a  very  precarious  foot- 
ing for  themselves'in  the  estimation  of 
posterity ;  and  though  we  smile  at  the 
extreme  of  feminine  love  and  jealousy 
with  which  Miss  Strickland  endows 
her  royal  heroines,  we  find  something 
a  great  deal  more  detestable  in  the 
toleration  of  Caroline,  and  unfeignedly 
trust  that  we  will  never  see  such  a 
race  of  philosophical  and  forbearing 
women  as  this  irreproachable  queen 
or  her  gifted  grandmother-in-law,  the 
Serene  Sophia,  in  this  dull  island  of 
ours,  which  does  not  appreciate  such 
a  degree  of  virtue. 

Had  Dr  Doran  been  at  all  given  to 
symbolism,  he  might  have  classed 
these  four  heroines  of  his  after  an  ima- 
ginative fashion.  The  contrast  of 
power  and  want  of  power — of  one 
woman  who  was  mistress  of  her  posi- 
tion, and  another  who  was  only  the 
victim  of  it — could  not  be  more  com- 
plete than  in  these  two  portraits  of 
Caroline  and  Sophia.  Nor  could  there 
be  found  a  more  perfect  balance  than 
in  Queen  Charlotte  on  her  high  pin- 
nacle of  decorum,  prudence,  and  per- 
fect irreproachableness,  and  the  poor, 
light-headed,  foolish,  flighty  Caroline, 
who  perhaps  was  not  bad  at  all,  and 
perhaps  was  very  bad — but  who,  at 
least,  did  everything  in  her  own  power 
to  make  all  the  world  condemn  her. 
Queen  Charlotte  has  never  been  a 
popular  favourite  ;  yet  if  we  consider 
that  she  was  the  next  successor  of 
George  the  Second's  strong-minded 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


447 


queen,  and  that  her  house  itself  was 
scarcely  cleansed  of  its  immediate  pollu- 
tions when  she  came,  a  stranger  and  a 
young  girl,  to  assume  the  sway  of  it, 
we  will  feel  sufficiently  grateful  to  this 
model  woman  for  all  she  really  ac- 
complished. She  had  a  graceless 
family,  but  many  a  good  mother  has 
like  evil  fortune ;  and  though  the  curse 
of  the  race  descended  to  her  household, 
it  did  not  go  quite  so  far  as  the  feud 
between  the  last  Prince  of  Wales  and 
his  father  and  mother  had  gone. 
Then  her  gossiping  and  tea-drinkings 
with  Mrs  Delany  are  kindly  and  wo- 
manly enough  to  balance  her  rigid 
etiquette,  and  the  fainting  of  the  hap- 
less court  ladies,  who  perhaps  did  not 
suffer  so  much  as  she  herself,  in  her 
training  for  this  dignity,  had  already 
done.  To  be  a  model  person  is  always 
a  perilous  elevation,  and  Charlotte 
had  the  full  pains  and  penalties  of  this 
exalted  place;  but  a  model  woman 
she  was  notwithstanding,  let  who 
will  say  ill  of  her — narrow,  perhaps 
limited,  and  full  of  prejudice — but,  in 
reality,  by  mere  dint  of  walking  in  her 
own  way,  and  attending  to  her  own 
business,  a  very  important  agent  in 
the  social  reformation  which  began  in 
her  time.  Sweet  ladies !  gentle  preach- 
ers !  you  who  talk  of  woman's  mission, 
and  of  the  especial  vocation  your  sex 
has  in  the  world — you  who  make  elo- 
quent appeals  to  your  sisters,  and 
write  books  to  show  what  a  woman 
can  do, — softly,  let  us  whisper  in  your 
ear — a  woman  can  do — not  by  way  of 
any  celestial  mission  or  inspired  en- 
terprise, but  simply  because  she  must, 
and  it  is  her  duty,  as  it  is  the  duty  of 
that  uninspired  animal  by  her  side, 
who  is  a  man,  and  has  no  mission — a 
woman  can  do  —  her  own  business, 
whatever  that  may  be.  This  was  what 
Queen  Charlotte  did  with  conscien- 
tiousness, if  not  always  gracefully ; 
and  now  indecorum  is  so  entirely  out 
of  fashion,  that  we  no  more  believe  in 
it  than  the  first  Queen  Caroline  be- 
lieved in  that  pure  delicacy  which  she 
herself  had  no  understanding  of. 

The  best  and  most  closely- written 
of  these  four  biographies  is  the  last. 
Dr  Dorau  seems  to  find  it  rather  se- 
rious work  here,  and  goes  about  it 
seriously.  It  is  a  deplorable  story  ; 
and  though  the  training  of  the  bride, 
and  the  careful  and  anxious  tutorage 


of  the  perplexed  statesman  who  was 
sent  to  bring  her  home,  is  sufficiently 
amusing,  the  calamities  that  follow 
are  miserable  enough  to  keep  us  from 
all  further  inclination  to  smile.  In  the 
whole  narrative  there  is  not  one  re- 
deeming point ;  we  scarcely  can  be 
indignant,  because  the  oppressed  per- 
son does  not  deserve  any  champion- 
ship ;  and  we  have  no  sympathy  to 
bestow  upon  either  of  the  belligerent 
powers.  It  is  all  pure,  disgusting,  de- 
plorable misery  ;  there  is  no  pathos  in 
the  sufferings,  no  justice  in  the  pun- 
ishment. The  unfortunate  heroine, 
who  never  makes  an  effort  to  gain 
any  one's  good  opinion,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  does  all  a  reckless  woman 
can  to  sully  her  own  good  fame,  is 
recommended  to  us  by  few  even  of 
those  superficial  virtues  which  some- 
times redeem  an  erring  character. 
Her  circumstances  are  all  that  give 
her  interest ;  and  even  the  sympathy 
she  certainly  met  with  seems  more  an 
indignant  popular  protest  against  her 
husband  than  any  regard  for  herself. 
Is  not  Dr  Doran  somewhat  severe 
upon  this  unhappy  lady  ?  We  acquit 
him  entirely  of  any  apparent  animus 
against  her ;  but  the  picture  is  re- 
morselessly drawn ;  and  almost  the 
only  incidents  that  the  reader  is  tempt- 
ed to  linger  on  are  those  little  out- 
breaks of  spirit  and  affectionate  self- 
will  which  the  Princess  Charlotte  ex- 
hibited once  or  twice  in  her  short 
career.  We  are  afraid  that  nothing 
but  the  pity  of  the  moment  could  ever 
defend  the  cause  of  Caroline  of  Bruns- 
wick ;  and  the  story  of  her  funeral 
procession  is  a  strange  and  striking 
comment  on  her  unhappy  life.  With 
the  poor  spite  and  malice  which  dis- 
tinguished all  the  proceedings  against 
her  during  her  lifetime,  the  governing 
party  set  themselves  to  thwart  her  in- 
tentions after  her  death;  but  jealously 
watched  by  a  mob,  and  under  fierce 
compulsion  of  the  same,  the  officials 
who  were  charged  to  convey  her  re- 
mains to  their  place  of  embarkation 
were  driven  from  street  to  street  out 
of  the  route  appointed  to  them,  and 
obliged  to  obey  the  dead  queen's  will 
by  the  enraged  populace,  the  self- 
appointed  executors  of  poor  Caroline's 
last  desire.  It  is  a  miserable  story 
from  its  beginning  to  its  end ;  and 
such  a  tumultuous  funeral  procession 


448 

was  scarcely  even  an  unsuitable  dis- 
play to  mark  the  last  scene  of  this 
troubled  and  agitated  life. 

Our  author  keeps  very  close  by  the 
court  in  these  biographies  :  they  were 
stirring  times  enough,  and  great  things 
were  being  done,  and  greater  attempt- 
ed ;  but  we  hear  little  of  them.  We 
have  reached  to  an  entirely  opposite 
point  of  view  in  these  volumes  from 
that  which  we  have  in  the  more  popu- 
lar histories  of  the  time.  It  is  the 
king  and  queen,  a  minister  or  two, 
and  a  select  suite  of  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen, of  whom  our  author  treats  ; 
and  we  can  scarcely  fancy  that  the 
wild  mob  in  Edinburgh  were  hanging 
Porteous,  or  that  all  Scotland  was 
trembling  with  expectation  and  in- 
trigue, and  Prince  Charlie  about  to 
raise  the  old  standard  of  his  house, 
while  we  are  hearing  of  little  but  court 
squabbles  and  fashions,  and  the  ridi- 
culous likings  of  the  old  king.  Neither 
is  the  house  of  Hanover  supremely 
indebted  to  Dr  Doran  for  this  arrange- 
ment of  its  history,  seeing  that  a  less 
amiable  and  less  harmonious  family 
scarcely  ever  was  presented  upon  any 
canvass.  Here  there  is  nobody  re- 
spectable but  "  that  decent  man" 
George  III.,  and  Queen  Charlotte, 
who  really  seem  to  have  had  a  very 
commendable  kindly  household  till 
their  sons  grew  men,  and  threw  them 
into  squabbles  and  unseemly  domestic 
warfare :  for  the  rest,  the  less  opinion 
we  express  upon  their  royal  characters 
the  better.  The  nation  was  extremely 
indulgent  to  them  on  the  whole;  and 
the  nation  was  perhaps  not  so  very 
much  in  advance  of  them  as  we  are 
disposed  to  fancy  now. 

We  have  left  ourselves  small  space 
for  the  other  branches  of  historical 
light  literature ;  but  one  thing  we 
cannot  help  expressing  our  unfeigned 
gratitude  for — the  Queens  at  last  are 
exhausted.  Nobody  can  write  any 
more  lives  of  our  female  sovereigns  ; 
and  though  there  are  a  formidable  num- 
ber of  princesses  remaining,  we  trust 
our  fair  writers  (begging  humble  pardon 
of  Dr  Doran,  who  is  not  fair — but  if 
it  is  his  will  to  place  himself  in  the 
Am  azonian  cohort,  it  is  no  fault  of  ours) 
will  be  merciful,  and  not  overwhelm 
us  with  a  new  series.  Saying  this, 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


[Oct. 


however,  we  would  give  all  commenda- 
tion to  Mrs  Everett  Green's  learned 
and  painstaking  efforts.  We  have 
been  introduced  to  a  great  many  prin- 
cesses by  this  lady's  kind  exertions  ; 
and  from  the  faint  Adelizas  of  the  Con- 
quest to  that  burly  Margaret  Tudor, 
who  was  a  Henry  VIII.  in  petticoats, 
and  whohas  twice  had  herlife  "taken," 
there  is  a  most  wearisome  amount 
of  them,  we  can  assure  our  readers,  and 
one  not  to  be  lightly  ventured  upon  ; 
but  we  trust  that  nobody  will  be  bold 
enough  to  leap  over  those  blissful 
interregnums  of  Elizabeth,  Mary,  and 
Anne,  when  there  were  no  princesses, 
and  tell  the  weary  story  of  all  the  Ger- 
man beauties  whom  Dr  Doran  dis- 
poses of  without  much  ceremony  in 
his  Hanoverian  Queens. 

But  there  is  another  prospect  which 
we  confess'appals  us — the  Queens  of 
France!  Alas  !  already  we  have  be- 
gun to  nibble  at  them ;  and  when 
some  Amazonian  knight  spurs  upon 
that  enterprise,  we  tremble  to  think 
that  we  will  find  no  end  to  it.  We 
have  already  in  our  hands  two  Lives 
of  French  Queens  :  one  *  brief,  grace- 
ful, very  well  written,  and  very  en- 
durable, of  a  picturesque  and  virtuous 
personage  —  a  heroine  very  well 
worthy  of  a  biography,  especially 
when  her  historian  is  discreet,  and 
confines  it  to  one  volume.  Anne  of 
Brittany,  whose  hap  it  was  to  marry 
two  French  monarchs,  and  whose  very 
early  youth  before  her  first  marriage 
was  a  very  good  specimen  of  the 
troublous  if  flattering  homage  to 
which  a  great  heiress  and  a  beautiful 
young  woman  was  subject  in  chival- 
rous times,  is  the  worthy  subject  of 
Miss  Costello, — who  could  have  done 
this  book  better,  we  are  inclined  to 
fancy,  had  she  left  the  beaten  track,  but 
who  has  done  it  very  well.  The 
young  Duchess  of  Brittany  married 
for  her  second  husband  that  Orleans 
whom  we  are  all  acquainted  with  in 
QuentinDurward,  but  whom, perhaps, 
we  do  not  all  recognise  again  as  Louis 
XII. — a  sensible  monarch,  who  in  his 
foolish  young  days  had  been  Anne 
of  Brittany's  first  lover,  and  in  his  age 
was  the  husband  of  that  English  Prin- 
cess Mary,  who  married  Suffolk  when 
she  had  shaken  off  her  cumbrous 


*  Anne  of  Brittany.    By  Miss  COSTELLO. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


but  shortly-worn  crown.  This  maze 
of  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage  is 
very  hard  to  thread  sometimes.  Young 
ladies  and  young  gentlemen  of  meaner 
origin  do  riot,  fortunately,  cross  hands 
and  exchange  partners  with  the  mar- 
vellous facility  of  these  illustrious  brides 
and  bridegrooms — and  the  number  of 
fiancees,  betrothed,  rejected,  or  "under 
consideration,"  who  crowd  round  a  mo- 
narch of  the  middle  ages,  is  something 
quite  overwhelming — not  to  speak  of 
the  confusion  of  kindred  which  takes 
place  at  almost  every  royal  alliance. 
The  other  French  biography  is  that  of 
Mary  de  Medici,*  a  historical  chapter 
very  uninstructive,  and  far  from  agree- 
able, lengthy,  ponderous,  and  drawn 
out — three  great  volumes  full  of  loves 
and  intrigues,  in  which  Henry  of 
Navarre,  the  Protestant  hero,  the 
grand  Henri  Quatre,  makes  a  very 
poor  figure  indeed,  and  where  his 
Italian  wife  finds  an  ardent  champion 
eager  in  her  defence,  and  quite  re- 
gardless of  the  unfavourable  opinion 
pronounced  by  Miss  Strickland  upon 
the  mother  of  Henrietta  Maria.  It  is 
not  easy  to  reconcile  the  difference  of 
these  fair  historians  ;  but  in  this  de- 
partment of  history,  partisanship  is 
a  small  fault  if  it  is  not  carried  en- 
tirely beyond  the  bounds  of  truth. 

A  series  of  lives  is  a  dangerous  un- 
dertaking for  the  most  accomplished 
biographiser ;  and  the  often-repeated 
saying,  that  every  man's  life,  could 
it  be  truly  told,  is  interesting  to  all 
his  brother  men,  is  not  near  so  true 
as  it  appears  to  be  at  the  first  glance. 
For  the  most  part,  we  want  either  the 
glamour  of  love,  which  can  only  ex- 
tend to  a  limited  circle,  or  the  glory  of 
personal  greatness  in  one  manifesta- 
tion or  another,  to  make  us  interest- 
ing to  the  world  of  other  people,  whose 
sorrows,  and  cares,  and  difficulties  are 
perhaps  more  serious  and  important 
a  great  deal  than  ours  have  been — and 
queens  are  no  exception  to  the  ordi- 
nary and  universal  rule.  A  line  of 
common  human  succession  embraces 
commonplace,  insipid,  and  unlovable 
people  as  an  invariable  necessity ;  and 
in  this  particular,  also,  the  families  of 
royalty  are  not  more  fortunate  than 
their  neighbours ;  and,  to  crown  all, 


449 

it  is  very  possible,  as  experience 
proves,  to  occupy  a  historical  posi- 
tion, yet  have  little  more  influence  on 
history  than  a  milkmaid  or  a  plough- 
boy.  History  indeed,  in  her  severer 
guise,  puts  out  a  king  or  a  queen  en- 
tirely sometimes, — extinguishes  the 
imperial  existence  with  the  irresis- 
tible sweep  of  events,  without  re- 
morse or  compunction  ;  and  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  to  write  the  life 
of  a  sovereign  is  to  make  an  im- 
portant addition  to  historical  litera- 
ture. This  practice  has  been  long 
enough  in  fashion  ;  and  it  is  no  great 
proof  of  our  boasted  superiority  when 
we  observe  the  eagerness  with  which 
every  literary  success  is  followed  up, 
and  how  many  followers  throng  upon 
the  traces  of  the  fortunate  author  who 
has  hit  the  popular  fancy,  or  lighted 
upon  a  new  vein.  "  Kill  a  shentle- 
mans  for  yoursel,"  said  the  aggrieved 
Highlander,  whose  comrade  showed  a 
disposition  to  share  in  the  spoils  of 
Donald's  lawful  victim ;  and  we  can 
fancy  Miss  Strickland  echoing  Don- 
ald's protest,  in  dismay  at  the  multi- 
tudinous invasion  which  has  poured 
in  upon  her  rightful  but  limited  stand- 
ing-ground. Kill  your  own  shentle- 
mans,  good  people,  before  you  essay 
to  plunder  him ;  find  out  your  own 
diggings  before  you  poach  upon  the 
reserve  of  another — for  one  scheme 
will  not  last  for  ever ;  and  there  is 
scope  enough  for  historical  chapters 
out  of  our  island  history,  without 
hunting  one  idea  to  the  death. 

We  have  scarcely  left  ourselves 
space  for  any  other  branch  of  light 
historical  literature,  and  cannot  ven- 
ture now  to  return  to  the  Girondists, 
or  any  equally  important  book.  Here 
is  one  pretty  bit  of  gossip,  however, 
lightly  interspersed  with  twaddle,  in 
pretty  binding  and  broad  margins — 
a  piece  of  bookmaking  not  too  ele- 
vated to  complete  our  tale.  We  know 
tolerably  well  what  we  have  to  ex- 
pect when  we  see  the  name  of  Leigh 
Hunt f  upon  the  title-page;  but  the 
veteran  does  no  great  service  to  his 
reputation  by  such  an  effort  as  this, 
though  the  book  has  a  pretty  title, 
suggestive  and  promising.  The  Old 
Court  Suburb  is  Kensington,  where 


*  Life  of  Mary  de  Medici     By  Miss  PARDOE. 
t  The  Old  Court  Suburb.    By  LEIGH  HUNT. 


450 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


[Oct. 


the  first  Georges  held  their  state, — 
where  Queen  Victoria  was  born, — 
and  where,  in  the  last  generation, 
flourished  that  mimic  court  of  litera- 
ture and  fame  where  great  people 
dined  and  supped,  and  made  reputa- 
tions— where  wit  was  patronised,  and 
genius  had  its  laurels  made  up  for  it 
into  crowns  of  proper  fashion,  becom- 
ing the  lofty  latitude  of  Holland 
House.  Mr  Leigh  Hunt  goes  over 
this  favoured  quarter  with  affection- 
ate garrulity ;  and  we  confess  we  will 
look  with  more  interest  hereafter 
upon  the  prosaic  streets  and  terraces, 
which  never  had  any  history  to  our 
dull  eyes  before.  But  why  should 
our  old  friend  labour  to  spoil  his 
pleasant  volumes  with  his  own  dog- 
mas—he who  is  so  intolerant  of  other 
people's,  and  snubs  so  peremptorily 
men  bearing  names  even  more  hon- 
oured than  his  own?  Preach  charity 
by  all  means;  but  ye  who  fly  your 
arrows  perpetually  at  the  good  people 
whom  it  pleases  you  to  call  saints, 
and  whom,  perhaps,  you  name  more 
appropriately  than  you  have  any  in- 
tention of  doing,  does  it  never  occur 
to  you  that,  of  all  censorious  com- 
mentators, yourselves  are  the  least 
charitable,  the  most  intolerant,  and 
show  the  most  impertinent  determina- 
tion to  thrust  your  opinions  in  at  all 
unsuitable  places,  whether  your  au- 
dience choose  it  or  no  ?  We  remem- 
ber the  name  of  Leigh  Hunt  from  of 
old  with  the  kindliest  sentiments  ; 
his  very  twaddle,  which  was  more 
sentimental  in  those  days,  charmed 
our  youth,  and  we  never  wearied  of 
him  while  he  babbled  of  green  fields. 
Even  now  we  cannot  lift  our  hand 
unkindly  upon  our  ancient  favourite ; 
but  what  Scottish  flesh  and  blood 
could  tamely  submit  to  this  ? — 

**  We  know  not  what  assured  evils 
would  have  resulted  to  Scotland  had 
Mary  and  her  maids  of  honour  been 
suffered  to  dance  and  play  their  gui- 
tars in  peace;  but  it  is  certain  that 
John  Knox  was  the  founder  of  whis- 
ky shops." 

Now,  will  anybody  tell  us  the  use 
or  advantage  of  this  stupid  piece  of 
impertinence?  John  Knox  had  as 
little  to  do  with  Kensington  as  we 
have,  who  never  saw  the  fading  glo- 
ries of  Holland  House;  and  though 
we  know  very  well  what  an  old  man's 


dogma  is,  and  can  smile  at  the  "  it  is 
certain"  which  even  a  domestic  circle 
is  not  always  very  tolerant  of,  we  are 
irritated,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  at  so 
foolish  and  causeless  an  interruption 
of  the  pleasant  strain  of  talk,  in  the 
midst  of  which  this  and  other  bits  of 
ignorant  assumption — all  aimed  at 
the  unfortunate  saints,  whom  so  many 
witlings  shoot  at — find  a  place.  Had 
the  writer  of  the  book  been  a  boy,  we 
might  have  chastised  him  accordingly ; 
but  he  is  Leigh  Hunt,  and  so  he  dis- 
arms us — which  is  taking  an  ungener- 
ous advantage  of  us,  as  well  as  lower- 
ing himself. 

However,  we  will  not  rail  where 
we  cannot  fight,  and  it  is  our  turn  to 
vindicate  ourselves  for  placing  The 
Old  Court  Suburb  among  the  lighter 
productions  of  the  historic  muse.  This 
is  history  after  a  fashion,  good  reader 
— and  a  very  pleasant  method  of  his- 
tory, if  it  were  but  a  little  more  dis- 
tinct and  accurate.  Kensington  Pal- 
ace is  not  Windsor  Castle,  yet  has 
its  share  in  the  national  records ;  and 
this  pretty  book,  though  it  is  only  at 
second-hand,  and  by  means  of  Lord 
Hervey,  gives  a  very  pretty  notion  of 
Queen  Caroline,  and  identifies  her 
pleasantly  with  the  house  of  her 
royal  habitation.  In  that  other  court, 
too,  the  temple  of  fame,  where  no 
greater  combats  are  now  than  single- 
stick and  innocent  sword -exercise, 
and  no  more  important  athletes  than 
brawny  Highlanders — the  "  five-and- 
twenty  men,  and  six-and-thirty  pip- 
ers" of  the  ballad  —  this  gossiping 
story-teller  is  much  at  home ;  and  we 
have  the  history  of  all  the  Foxes — no 
very  long  line,  it  is  true,  when  all  is 
done — with  many  an  agreeable  little 
incidental  notice  of  the  personages  of 
their  time;  and  much  talk  of  the  beau- 
ties of  the  "Popish"  age — of  their 
promenade  in  Kensington  Gardens — 
of  their  hoops  and  head-dresses,  their 
loves  and  marryings  —  in  all  which 
agreeable  gossip  our  author  is  skilled. 
On  the  whole,  this  book  is  a  very  fair 
specimen  of  the  bookmaking  of  our 
time — aiming  a  little  at  instructive- 
ness,  a  little  at  amusement — smoothly 
written,  easily  read,  most  easily  for- 
gotten— the  current  coin  of  our  uni- 
versal literature, —  which  would  be 
very  well  and  agreeable  in  its  place, 
did  it  not  threaten  to  overwhelm  us 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — History. 


451 


with  the  most  woeful  of  over-produc- 
tions— a  deluge  of  unimportant  books. 
But  we  venture  respectfully  to  re- 
commend to  the  consideration  of  those 
ladies  and  gentlemen  who  make  books 
on  "  historical  subjects,"  Mr  Leigh 
Hunt's  plan  in  preference  to  Miss 
Strickland's.  The  idea  does  not  be- 
long to  Mr  Leigh  Hunt,  but  has  been 
used  before  by  sundry  writers  after  a 
more  important  fashion ;  so  there  is 
no  particular  danger  of  poaching  on 
other  people's  preserves  in  this  case. 
And  in  the  story  of  historical  places 
there  would  be  this  advantage,  that 
only  the  more  notable  figures  of  the 
past  appear  upon  the  scene,  and  that 
the  chronicler  has  no  call  to  register 
secondary  names,  or  shadowy  per- 
sonages. The  charm  of  locality  is 
very  strong  with  most  of  us ;  and  the 
steady  background  of  one  distinct  place 
is  of  infinite  advantage  to  the  story- 
teller, and,  if  he  has  an  eye  as  well 
as  a  pen,  may  furnish  him  with  many 
a  picturesque  particular,  and  give  life 
and  colour  to  his  tale.  There  must 
be  scores  of  places  in  the  country 
more  interesting  than  Kensington, 
and  with  greater  memories  attached 
to  them  than  those  of  the  royal 
Georges  or  Holland  House;  and  many 
a  range  of  ruined  battlements  might 
speak  their  bold  addition  to  our  na- 
tional history  if  some  fit  interpreter 
were  by.  We  remember  us  of  Corfe 
Castle,  and  some  other  ancient  po- 
tentates, who  have  told  their  tale 
already ;  but  there  is  abundant  scope, 
— though,  if  we  be  left  much  longer  to 
the  tender  mercies  of  American  tour- 
ists, and  the  pert  observation  of 
Notes  and  Queries,  the  chances  are 
that  we  will  tremble  at  such  a  name 


as  Kenilworth,  and  flee  before  the 
mention  of  tower  or  castle.  Mean- 
while the  ground  is  open,  though  en- 
cumbered ;  and  stories  of  siege  and 
beleaguerment  will  have  all  the 
greater  interest  for  a  generation  which 
has  kept  its  watch  one  weary  twelve- 
month, among  battlefields  and 
trenches,  upon  that  heap  of  smoking 
ruins  which  once  was  called  Sebas- 
topol. 

Yes,  while  we  are  talking  of  it,  our 
sons  and  brothers  yonder  have  been 
making  history — rounding  their  so- 
lemn periods  with  the  roar  of  cannon, 
or  the  last  pathetic  volley  over  a  sol- 
dier's grave.  Many  a  sore  heart 
among  us  has  had  full  share  in  the 
lengthened  vigil;  and  it  is  good  to 
know,  before  the  20th  of  September 
comes  again,  that  all  the  noble  blood 
shed  upon  the  heights  of  Alma,  and 
all  the  nobler  patience  of  the  inter- 
vening time,  have  not  been  spent  in 
vain.  It  may  be  but  the  beginning 
chapter  of  a  grander  historic  episode 
than  our  age  has  known — it  may  be 
the  inauguration  triumph  of  a  grand 
final  peace ;  but  we  walk  darkly 
step  by  step,  and  see  nothing  of  the 
history  that  will  be,  which  God  holds, 
in  the  unrevealed  silence  of  His  pro- 
vidence, in  the  grasp  of  His  almighty 
hand.  It  is  easy  to  expend  our  com- 
ments on  the  past;  but  before  the  un- 
drawn curtain  of  the  future  we  wait 
on  equal  terms,  both  great  and  small 
of  us,  learning,  in  the  midst  of  great 
events — of  national  loss  and  triumph 
— of  personal  anguish  and  deliverance 
— how  true  He  spoke  who  said  to  our 
whole  race,  wise  and  foolish,  "  Ye 
know  not  what  a  day  or  an  hour  may 
bring  forth." 


452 


From  Madrid  to  Balahlava. 


[Oct. 


FROM   MADRID  TO   BALAKLAVA. 


FROM  west  to  east,  much-esteemed 
Ebony,  has  my  course  been  since  I 
wrote  to  you  in  May  from  Madrid. 
It  is  now  nearly  two  months  ago  that 
I  entered  a  carriage  on  the  Albacete 
railway,  my  destination  the  Crimea, 
by  way  of  Valencia,  Marseilles,  and 
Constantinople.  Spanish  railways  are 
very  deliberate  in  their  proceedings, 
and  after  much  loitering  on  the  road, 
and  lingering  at  stations,  it  was  live 
in  the  morning  before  we  reached 
Albacete,  an  uninteresting  little  town, 
as  far  as  which  the  iron  line  from 
Madrid  to  the  Mediterranean  is  com- 
pleted. Two  hours  were  wasted  there, 
over  an  execrable  breakfast  in  a  pic- 
turesque inn,  situated  at  the  extremity 
of  a  square  old-fashioned  court,  to 
which  a  spreading  vine  forms  a  roof 
of  foliage.  At  last  the  correo  diligencia, 
a  diligence  that  conveys  the  mails, 
was  declared  to  be  ready,  and  twelve 
unfortunates  packed  themselves,  as 
best  they  might,  into  a  vehicle  that 
would  hold  eight  but  inconveniently. 
It  was  a  blazing  July  day ;  the  road 
was  a  foot  deep  in  dust,  the  ruts  re- 
sembled ravines,  the  drivers  were 
reckless,  and  the  jolts  sent  our  heads 
against  the  tops  of  the  carriage.  As 
regards  speed  and  safety,  we  got  on 
pretty  well,  until  we  passed  the  Sierra 
of  Almansa  and  began  to  wind  down 
towards  the  Valencian  plains.  Con- 
fident in  the  strength  of  his  wheels, 
and  in  the  efficacy  of  certain  antedi- 
luvian hooks  and  chains  used  to  secure 
them  at  a  descent,  the  mayoral  suf- 
fered his  postilion  to  gallop  down  hill 
as  well  as  up.  Suddenly,  as  we  swept 
swiftly  round  a  declivitous  angle,  there 
was  a  shout  and  scream,  immediately 
followed  by  a  shock  and  crash,  and  a 
volley  of  obscene  Spanish  oaths.  A 
heavy  galera,  with  which  we  had  come 
in  violent  contact,  pursued  its  upward 
way,  whilst  we,  unable  to  check  our 
speed,  bounded  on  to  the  bottom  of  the 
hill.  There  we  pulled  up  to  ascertain 
damages.  A  spring  was  broken,  an 
axle  injured,  a  linchpin  lost.  Al- 
though such  accidents  are  frequent 
enough  (the  mayoral  boasted  that  this 


CRIMEA,  28f/t  August  1855. 

was  the  first  that  month,  of  which  we 
were  in  the  first  week)  no  provision  is 
made  for  them.  Fortunately  we  were 
not  far  from  a  desolate-looking  venta, 
where  it  at  first  appeared  likely  we 
should  have  to  pass  the  night,  and 
whence  ropes  and  rude  tools  were 
procured.  The  spring  was  patched 
up,  a  nail  replaced  the  linchpin,  and 
we  proceeded,  at  more  prudent  pace, 
to  Jativa.  That  we  were  too  late  for 
the  last  train  was  the  less  regretted, 
for  by  starting  at  four  in  the  morn- 
ing, instead  of  at  nightfall,  we  had  full 
enjoyment  of  the  beautiful  garden 
through  which  passes  the  railway  from 
Jativa  to  Valencia.  The  richness  of 
the  far-famed  huerta  can  hardly  be 
exaggerated.  Carefully  cultivated, 
its  productions  are  innumerable.  Al- 
ready, before  reaching  Jativa,  we  had 
been  warned  of  our  entrance  into  a 
new  zone  and  climate  by  the  appear- 
ance of  an  olive  ground,  whilst  in  the 
barrancos  the  rhododendron,  the  rose- 
laurel,  and  other  naturalised  tenants 
of  English  gardens  and  greenhouses, 
grew  wild  and  luxuriant.  At  Jativa, 
lofty  palms,  rearing  their  tufted  sum- 
mits above  the  surrounding  foliage, 
gave  an  Eastern  character  to  the  land- 
scape. In  the  plain  of  Valencia  the 
productions  of  the  temperate  and  the 
torrid  zones  mingle.  The  rich  soil, 
for  the  most  part  of  a  vivid  red  colour 
— which  contrasts  with  the  fresh  ver- 
dure of  that  well-irrigated  region  as 
strongly  as  does  a  new  brick  house 
with  the  vine  that  climbs  its  wall — 
yields  an  infinite  variety  of  fruits, 
grain,  and  vegetables.  Luxuriant 
rice-fields,  overflowed  with  water,  lie 
adjacent  to  glorious  apple-orchards, 
whose  healthy-looking  trees  bend  with 
the  load  of  ripe  and  rosy  fruit,  and  to 
mulberry  plantations,  the  silkworm's 
storehouse.  There  is  a  field  of  melons, 
here  one  of  peaches ;  orange  groves 
mingle  with  tracts  of  the  algurroba, 
a  large  handsome  tree  bearing  long 
pods  of  beans,  which  serve  as  food  for 
cattle.  The  hedges  are  of  pomegra- 
nate and  prickly  pear,  and  tall  tufts 
of  aloes  shoot  up  by  the  roadside.  In 


1855.] 


From  Madrid  to  Balaklava. 


453 


the  field  the  labourers  wear  but  a  shirt 
and  a  pair  of  very  loose  linen  drawers, 
reaching  to  the  knee  or  just  below  it. 
The  labour  of  the  Valencian  peasant 
is  a  rewarding  one.  Rich  and  frequent 
crops  crown  his  exertions;  he  lives  in 
ease,  if  not  in  affluence;  foreign  lands 
and  distant  provinces  traffic  for  his 
produce,  and  Madrid,  the  barren  and 
unfruitful,  derives  her  luxuries  from 
his  superfluity. 

The  city  of  Valencia  is  pleasant  and 
clean-looking.  Its  narrow  streets  have 
no  footpaths,  its  women  are  pretty,  and 
the  Oid  is  a  good  hotel — for  Spain  a 
particularly  good  one.  I  would  gladly 
have  remained  there  a  day  or  two,  but 
our  break-down  on  the  road  had 
stinted  me  of  time,  the  Vifredo,  which 
had  arrived  a  few  hours  previously 
from  Cadiz,  was  getting  up  her  steam, 
and  I  hurried  down  to  the  Grao  (the 
port  of  Valencia)  as  fast  as  one  of 
those springless,  bone-setting  tartanas, 
which  there  supply  the  place  of  cabs, 
could  be  prevailed  upon  to  take  me. 
A  word  of  warning  here  against  the 
Spanish  steamers  that  ply  from  the 
south  of  Spain  to  Marseilles,  touching 
at  various  places  on  the  southern  and 
eastern  coast.  Spaniards  are  utterly 
incompetent  in  anything  that  requires 
punctuality  and  despatch.  Now  that 
a  railway  takes  you  in  forty-eight  hours 
from  Marseilles  to  London,  steam- 
boats up  tti"e  eastern  coast  should  be  a 
favourite  mode  of  conveyance  with 
many  foreign  travellers  in  Andalusia. 
This  is  so  evident  that,  a  short  time 
ago,  a  French  naval  officer  was  sent 
by  a  company  to  establish  a  line,  but 
the  outbreak  of  war  caused  the  pro- 
ject to  be  postponed.  So  the  Span- 
iards, for  the  present,  have  it  all 
their  own  way,  and  a  very  bad  way 
it  is.  A  good  English  or  French  com- 
pany would  quickly  beat  them  out  of 
the  field.  Their  narrow,  dirty,  slow- 
sailing  boats  fill  extremely  well  at  ex- 
orbitant rates.  The  agents  at  the 
various  ports  give  intending  passen- 
gers most  flattering  assurances  of 
speed,  assurances  never  realised.  They 
lie  with  a  bonhomie  and  appearance  of 
candour  that  would  deceive  the  most 
wary.  Forty-eight  hours  are  ample 
time  for  a  steamer  of  average  speed 
to  get  from  Valencia  to  Marseilles. 
The  Vifredo  took  117  hours,  thanks 
to  stoppages  of  unreasonable  length 


and  at  undue  places,  thanks  also  to 
her  wretched  rate  of  travelling,  and 
to  the  extreme  prudence  of  the  cap- 
tain, who,  when  there  chanced  to  be 
a  mist  on  the  water,  lay  to  until  it 
dispersed.  We  should  have  risked 
perishing  of  monotony  and  ennui  but 
for  the  presence  on  board  of  musicians 
and  dancers,  returning  from  starring 
expeditions  in  the  southern  towns. 
Chief  amongst  these  were  two  Span- 
ish ballerinas  of  some  fame — one  of 
them  a  fine  woman,  with  masculine 
but  handsome  features — and  an  Ita- 
lian pianist,  a  dapper  gentleman  with 
a  well-trimmed  beard,  a  good  musi- 
cian and  an  arrant  coxcomb.  There 
was  a  piano  in  the  cabin,  on  which  he 
played  for  hours  together — with  great 
good-nature,  I  should  say,  were  it  not 
that  the  sole  object  of  the  tuneful 
Adonis  evidently  was  to  fascinate  the 
fair  Pepita  by  the  display  of  his  skill, 
and  by  flashing  in  her  eyes  a  diamond 
solitaire,  that  sparkled  on  the  little 
finger  of  his  white  and  carefully-tended 
hand.  There  was  also  a  guitar-player 
and  a  guitar,  and  the  boat  resounded 
with  the  lively  strains  of  the  Jaque, 
the  Torros  del  Puerto,  and  the  well- 
known  and  piquant  Andalusian  dit- 
ties. Adding  to  these  sources  of 
amusement  the  studies  afforded  by  a 
male  dancer — a  comical  little  old  crea- 
ture with  muscular  legs,  a  shrimp-like 
body,  and  traces  of  rouge  about  his 
cheek-bones,  —  and  by  a  venerable 
duenna  and  a  sort  of  perenoble— snuffy, 
seedy,  and  facetious — we  managed  to 
pass  away  the  time,  but  still  it  was  a 
delightful  change  to  find  oneself  on 
board  the  fine  French  steamer  Thabor, 
bound  for  Malta  and  Constantinople. 
With  light  and  pleasant  breezes  we 
skimmed  over  the  sunny  Mediter- 
ranean, down  the  coasts  of  Sardinia 
and  Corsica,  paused  for  a  few  hours 
at  the  "little  military  hothouse," 
Malta— and  hot  enough  it  certainly 
was — got  a  good  English  breakfast  at 
Dunsford's,  and  visited  the  curious 
old  church  of  St  John,  paved  with  the 
tombs  of  the  Knights,  and  were  put 
in  quarantine  at  Syra,  in  the  heart 
of  those  "isles  of  Greece,"  beloved 
of  Byron.  Most  tourists  are  disap- 
pointed on  their  first  passage  through 
that  Greek  Archipelago,  of  which  all 
have  heard  so  much,  and  whose  beau- 
ties have  been  exalted  and  exagger- 


454 


From  Madrid 


ated  by  poets.  They  disappointed 
me,  I  confess,  as  we  glided  past  them 
on  the  stout  and  pleasant  Thabor. 
The  eye  seeks  in  vain  for  the  refresh- 
ment of  foliage.  A  few  stunted  olive- 
trees  mock  instead  of  rewarding  the 
search.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing 
can  be  more  beautiful  than  the  waters 
of  the  Archipelago.  Their  deep,  clear, 
transparent  blue  is  not  to  be  surpassed. 
It  forms  a  magnificent  setting  for  those 
delicately-tinted  islets,  amidst  whose 
lilac  and  golden  hues  is  here  and  there 
discerned  the  shimmering  white  of  a 
Greek  town  or  village,  whilst  along 
the  shore  rise  rocks  of  a  green  bronze 
colour,  at  whose  base  fancy  easily  de- 
picts Nereids  disporting  themselves  in 
the  azure  ripple. 

We  had  brought  very  few  pas- 
sengers from  Marseilles,  and  —  a 
blessing  which  those  only  who  have 
made  passages  in  transports  can  fully 
appreciate — no  troops.  Two  or  three 
English  officers,  a  French  aide-de- 
camp, returning  to  his  duty  after 
recovering  from  a  severe  wound  re- 
ceived at  Inkermann,  a  Cockney 
speculator  in  liquids,  proceeding  to 
Balaklava  to  meet  a  cargo  of  beer 
and  wine,  three  amateurs  on  a  visit 
to  the  scene  of  war,  and  a  Queen's 
messenger  bearing  despatches,  com- 
posed the  whole  of  the  first- cabin 
passengers  ;  but  we  gathered  as  we 
went.  At  Malta  we  picked  up  two 
more  amateurs  (the  tide  of  them  is 
considerable  this  year),  and  a  couple 
of  naval  officers.  One  of  them  had 
been  terribly  wounded  in  the  naval  at- 
tack on  the  forts  of  Sebastopoi  on  the 
17th  October  last  year.  A  Russian 
bullet  had  crippled  his  right  arm  for  life 
and  given  him  his  commander's  rank 
— not  too  soon,  I  thought,  when  I 
found  he  had  been  seven-and-twenty 
years  in  the  service,  and  half  that 
time  a  lieutenant.  At  Malta  we 
also  received  on  board  a  Greek  lady 
and  her  two  daughters,  the  latter  the 
most  passive,  tranquil,  and  impas- 
sible of  beings,  who  sat  on  deck  the 
whole  voyage,  motionless  as  a  group 
in  a  picture,  and  rarely  exchanging 
a  word.  One  of  them  had  the  pure 
Greek  features,  and  needed  only  a  little 
more  delicacy  in  their  chiselling  and 
a  more  intellectual  expression  to  be 
very  lovely.  But  it  was  at  Smyrna, 
Mitylene,  and  the  Dardanelles  that 


to  Balahtava.  [Oct. 

our  numbers  were  most  increased. 
Turks,  Greeks,  and  Armenians,  male 
and  female,  crowded  our  decks,  en- 
cumbering them  with  their  beds  and 
baggage,  their  long  pipes  and  not 
very  cleanly  persons,  until  we  were 
compelled  almost  to  give  up  walking, 
and  fain  to  take  refuge  in  the  cabin. 
There  were  some  capital  groups  for 
a  sketcher,  and  our  French  aide- de- 
camp, and  a  professional  artist,  who 
was  proceeding  eastward  in  search 
of  the  picturesque,  were  busy  with 
book  and  pencil.  We  had  one  com- 
plete Turkish  family  on  board,  with, 
to  all  appearance,  their  entire  stock 
of  household  goods  and  chattels. 
They  at  once  established  themselves 
close  to  the  larboard  bulwark,  and 
made  their  domestic  arrangements 
for  the  voyage,  spreading  out  carpets 
and  thin  mattresses.  The  head  of 
the  family  was  a  slender,  rather 
good-looking  Turk,  clad  in  a  long 
wadded  coat  like  a  dressing-gown. 
He  did  little  during  the  whole  time 
he  was  on  board  but  smoke  and 
sleep.  His  wife,  whose  figure  was 
concealed  by  an  ample  green  robe, 
was  pretty  in  her  style,  notwithstand- 
ing the  yellow  tint  of  her  complexion 
and  her  massive  black  eyebrows, 
which  would  have  been  more  in  place 
on  the  face  of  an  Arragonese  mule- 
teer. She  had  beautiful  dark  eyes, 
and  small  hands  and  feet ;  the  latter, 
which  she  bared  whilst  resting  on 
her  carpet,  were  stained  with  henna 
in  broad  parallel  bands,  extending 
across  the  sole.  She  cared  very  little 
for  exposing  her  face,  and  frequently 
allowed  her  yashmak  to  fall  entirely 
aside,  at  most  retaining  a  corner  of 
it  in  her  mouth — an  un-Turkish  dis- 
play to  which  her  husband  seemed  in 
no  way  to  object.  With  her  was  an 
old  lady,  whom  I  took  for  her  mother, 
or  mother  -  in  -  law,  and  who  was 
much  more  particular  about  the  con- 
cealment of  her  shrivelled  physiog- 
nomy. Her  yashmak  was  thick  and 
closely  drawn.  Then  there  was  a 
little  boy  in  a  striped  Turkish  dress, 
looking  like  a  diminutive  Bajazet  in  an 
oriental  melodrama,  and  reminding  one 
of  Astley's  amphitheatre.  A  young 
and  rather  handsome  negress,  a  slave, 
dressed  also  in  long  loose  striped 
trousers,  with  a  short  frock,  open  in 
front,  and  wearing  a  necklace  of  gold 


1855.] 


From  Madrid  to  Balaklava. 


455 


coins  and  other  baubles  round  her 
neck,  completed  the  group.  The 
family's  luggage  and  furniture  con- 
sisted of — besides  the  carpets,  mat- 
tresses, and  pipe  aforesaid — a  huge 
pair  of  greasy  and  well- crammed 
saddle-bags;  aponderous  leather  case, 
which  might  have  served  as  sheath 
for  a  six-pounder,  but  contained  only 
some  harmless  umbrellas,  two  water- 
jars  of  elegant  shape,  made  of  streaky 
red  clay,  and  glazed  green  round  the 
top ;  and  a  long  cage,  formed  of  paint- 
ed laths  of  wood,  and  having  two 
compartments,  in  each  one  of  which 
was  a  magpie  of  staid  and  respect- 
able demeanour.  The  magpies  were 
the  object  of  particular  attention  on 
the  part  of  the  ship's  cat,  &  newly- 
embarked  grimalkin,  which,  after 
being  grievously  sea- sick  during  the 
first  two  days  of  the  voyage,  and 
disturbing  the  entire  cabin  by  her 
piteous  moans  and  ejaculations,  end- 
ed by  becoming  habituated  to  the 
roll  of  the  ship,  and  roamed  raven- 
ously to  and  fro,  seeking  something 
to  devour.  Pacing  the  deck  towards 
eleven  at  night,  the  aide-de-camp 
and  I  amused  ourselves  by  watching 
puss's  strategical  combinations,  her 
gradual  approaches,  her  cautious  ad- 
vances, until  at  last  she  was  close 
upon  the  cage,  and  evidently  on  the 
point  of  a  coup  de  patte.  But  Africa 
was  wakeful.  A  heavy  yellow  slip- 
per, launched  from  the  hand  of  the 
female  Ethiopian,  caught  the  cat 
under  the  ear  and  spoiled  her  game 
and  supper.  She  fled,  utterly  routed, 
to  an  undiscoverable  retreat  in  the 
forecastle.  In  the  Dardanelles  we 
received  on  board  thirty  negro  slave 
girls,  presents,  as  we  were  informed, 
from  pashas  in  that  vicinity  to  friends 
in  Constantinople.  The  unfortunate 
creatures,  children  of  twelve  or  thir- 
teen years  of  age,  cowered  upon  the 
fore-deck  under  their  coarse  coverings, 
and  were  guarded  by  a  despotic 
white- bearded  old  negro.  They  were 
planted  down  in  ranks,  and,  except 
that  they  were  not  closely  packed, 
reminded  one  of  the  arrangements 
of  human  cargoes  on  board  slavers. 
They  seemed  cheerful  and  contented 
with  their  lot;  but  the  question 
might  be  raised,  how  far  a  vessel 
under  French  colours  is  justified  in 
conveying  slaves  of  any  description, 


and  to  whatever  purpose  destined. 
A  couple  of  Turkish  deserters, 
manacled,  but  allowed  to  drag  their 
chains  about  the  deck,  completed  the 
motley  collection  of  passengers  by 
the  Thabor. 

At  the  Dardanelles,  where  we 
paused  for  two  or  three  hours,  we  had 
a  glimpse  of  the  Bashi-Bazouks,  who 
were  encamped  there  to  the  number 
of  about  a  thousand,  under  command 
of  General  Beatson.  They  were 
careering  about  the  shore  on  their 
little  active  horses,  and  looking  just 
what  they  are,  a  most  ill-disciplined, 
incorrigible  set  of  scamps.  There 
had  been  a  sort  of  mutiny  amongst 
them  a  day  or  two  before,  and  a  re- 
port followed  us  to  Constantinople 
that  they  had  arisen  and  murdered 
their  chief.  For  this,  however,  there 
was  no  foundation.  General  Beatson 
is  a  distinguished  officer,  who  has 
done  good  service  as  commander  of 
irregular  cavalry  in  India,  and  fought 
with  credit  under  General  Evans  in 
Spain,  but  it  seems  doubtful  whether 
he  will  succeed  in  making  anything 
of  the  reckless  insubordinate  band 
now  placed  under  his  orders. 

It  was  daybreak  when  we  reached 
the  Golden  Horn  and  took  leave  of 
the  Thabor.  The  journey  to  Con- 
stantinople is  now  reduced  to  a  mere 
pleasure-trip,  since  railway  takes  one 
to  Marseilles,  and  thence,  twice-a- 
week,  start  these  excellent  and  well-ap- 
pointed boats,  commanded  by  French 
naval  lieutenants,  and  leaving  little 
to  be  desired  in  respect  of  speed  and 
accommodation.  Nevertheless,  we 
were  not  sorry  to  get  on  shore,  al- 
though really  the  change  was  hardly 
for  the  better,  from  the  steamer's 
cabin  to  Misseri's  crowded  hotel, 
where  it  seems  to  be  considered  that 
exorbitant  charges  atone  for  indif- 
ferent accommodation  and  scanty 
civility.  What  struck  me  most  at 
this,  the  fashionable  hotel  at  Pera, 
was  the  scarcity  of  ice  and  the  abund- 
ance of  fleas.  Ice  is  of  all  things  the 
most  necessary  in  such  a  diabolical 
atmosphere  as  that  of  Constantinople 
in  July.  One  literally  melts  and  dis- 
solves away,  losing  daily  pounds  of 
solid  flesh,  which  stream  off  in  per- 
spiration. Misseri's,  however,  has  got 
the  vogue,  and  is  always  full  of  Eng- 
lish. The  spacious  entrance- hall  is 


456 


From  Madrid  to  Balahlava. 


at  present,  I  suppose,  the  most  amus- 
ing room  in  Europe,  through  which 
passes  a  constant  current  of  many 
nations  and  varied  costumes.  There 
are  to  be  seen  officers  going  out  to 
join,  others  returning  sick  or  wound- 
ed, others  who  linger  in  Constan- 
tinople to  regain  health,  which  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  the  place  to  restore ; 
naval  officers,  amateur  tourists,  medi- 
cal men  temporarily  attached  to  the 
service ;  adventurous  spirits,  come  out 
to  join  the  Turkish  contingent,  now 
encamped  and  organising  on  the 
heights  above  Buyukdere;  commercial 
speculators,  bent  on  making  the  most 
they  can  out  of  Crimean  necessi- 
ties, and  occasionally  a  lady  or  two, 
whom  maternal  or  conjugal  affection 
has  brought  out  to  sooth  the  weary 


[Oct. 

time,  will  they  prize  a  cool  mug  of 
ration-beer  or  rum  and  water,  and  the 
blanket  that  shelters  their  limbs  from 
Crimean  dews.  And  how  many  of 
them,  perhaps,  ere  a  few  weeks  have 
elapsed,  will  have  been  laid  in  the 
inhospitable  earth  that  already  covers 
the  bones  of  legions  of  their  country- 
men !  From  what  I  have  seen,  and 
from  the  material  evidence  I  have 
collected  since  my  arrival  here,  I  am 
persuaded  that  it  is  a  fatal  mistake 
to  send  out  very  young  men  to  the 
Crimea.  Their  frames  are  not  suffi- 
ciently matured  to  resist  the  hard- 
ships to  which  they  inevitably  are 
exposed  ;  and  the  majority  of  them 
lack  the  knowledge  and  self-command 
necessary  to  govern  their  lives  in  a 
manner  that  might  save  them  from 


pillow  of  a  wounded  man :  with  such     disease.      It  is  to  be  regretted  that 


is  Misseri's  crowded.  Around  them 
hover  a  host  of  Turks,  lonians, 
Greeks,  Jews,  eager  to  sell,  waiting 
to  be  hired,  ready  to  guide,  and  in- 
variably trying  to  cheat.  Constan- 
tinople is  literally  a  den  of  thieves, 
where  everybody  you  deal  with  seeks 
to  extort  more  than  the  value  of  his 
wares  or  services.  Here  one  begins 
to  note  the  effects  of  war  on  the 
usually  trim  and  elegant  appearance 
of  England's  officers.  The  gilding  is 
somewhat  rubbed  off;  regulation  is 
less  attended  to  ;  the  unbuttoned  coat 
discloses  the  coloured  flannel  shirt; 
the  neat  forage-cap,  with  its  gold 
band  or  embroidered  device,  is  cover- 
ed with  quilted  white  cotton ;  spurs 
are  not  so  bright,  or  boots  so  exqui- 
sitely polished  as  on  a  parade-ground 
at  Hounslow,  Windsor,  or  Brighton. 
The  realities  of  service  are  substituted 
for  its  fripperies.  On  board  the  trans- 
port that  conveys  us  from  the  Bos- 
phorus  to  Balaklava  are  a  dozen  fine 
lads,  high  in  spirit  and  full  of  enthu- 
siasm, eager  to  flesh  their  maiden 
swords  in  the  Russian's  hide,  and  as 
yet  but  partially  informed  as  to  the 
hardships  and  privations  that  await 
them.  They  drink,  as  they  steam 
across  the  Euxine,  bottled  liquids, 
adorned  with  the  names  of  sauterne 
and  champagne,  to  an  early  encounter 
and  speedy  promotion  ;  and,  as  they 
approach  the  port,  trunks  are  opened, 
and  they  appear  in  all  the  glory  of 
vivid  scarlet  and  brilliant  gold.  How 
much  more  highly,  in  a  few 


means  cannot  be  found  to  obtain  older 
recruits  to  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our 
army  here.  At  every  step  through 
the  camp  one  meets  lads  who  may  be 
eighteen  years  of  age,  but  who  do  not 
appear  to  be  more  than  sixteen  or 
seventeen  ;  fine  smart  boys,  many  of 
them,  with  all  the  making  of  good 
soldiers,  but  particularly  liable  to  the 
prevalent  diseases,  and  speedily  pros- 
trated. The  regimental  and  divisional 
surgeons  will  tell  you  that,  when  a 
draft  of  such  recruits  joins  their  corps, 
they  quickly  find  an  increase  in  the 
hospital  returns.  Their  constitutions 
are  as  yet  too  tender  for  the  sort  of 
life,  and  to  resist  the  noxious  in- 
fluence of  the  climate.  Would  not  a 
higher  bounty  procure  older  and 
hardier  men  ?  If  so,  it  would  be  true 
economy  to  offer  it.  Looking  at  the 
soldier  as  a  mere  machine,  he  is  so 
costly  a  one,  by  the  time  he  arrives  in 
the  Crimea,  that  it  is  waste  and  ex- 
travagance to  send  out  an  inferior 
article,  to  perish  almost  as  soon  as 
landed.  My  stay  here  has  been  as 
yet  too  short  to  embolden  me  to  put 
forward  my  own  observation  as  evi- 
dence of  any  value  in  a  question  of 
this  kind,  but  I  could  adduce,  in  its 
support,  the  testimony  of  numerous 
officers,  medical  and  others,  who  have 
had  experience  of  this  war  from  its 
commencement,  and  who  declare  that 
the  Crimean  army  at  this  moment, 
although  well  cared  for,  in  good 
spirits,  and  as  brave  as  any  army  can 
be,  has  not  the  elements  of  fortitude 


1855.] 


From  Madrid  to  Balakhva. 


457 


and  endurance  possessed  by  the  troops 
that  fought  at  Alma  and  Inkermann, 
and  that  were  sacrificed  in  thousands 
during  the  last  winter,  by  the  shame- 
ful mismanagement  and  want  of  fore- 
sight of  an  incapable  government. 
But  I  do  not  intend  getting  into 
politics,  and  moreover  I  am  outrun- 
ning my  conveyance. 

We  are  off  Balaklava.  The  coast 
is  wild,  the  morning  gloomy,  heavy 
clouds  rest  upon  the  mountain-tops, 
there  is  a  nasty  chopping  sea;  the 
Crimea  presents  itself  to  us  under  no 
cheering  aspect.  A  number  of  ves- 
sels are  at  anchor,  or  lying  to,  outside 
the  harbour,  awaiting  the  hour  of  de- 
parture or  permission  to  enter.  Ships 
thus  situated,  in  that  place,  may  em- 
phatically be  said  to  exist  by  the 
mercy  of  Providence.  A  sudden  vio- 
lent squall  would  dash  them  against 
the  lofty  rocks.  There,  on  the  right 
hand,  within  a  stone's  throw,  as  it 
seems,  of  the  port,  the  ill-fated 
"  Prince,"  and  some  fifteen  other  ves- 
sels, were  destroyed.  Yonder  the  pre- 
cipices open,  but  there  is  little  appear- 
ance of  a  port.  As  we  near  the  land, 
however,  we  discern  the  low  hull  of 
the  little  "  Triton,"  moored  close  to 
the  shore,  just  opposite  the  harbour's 
entrance.  And  yonder,  painted  on  a 
slab  of  the  rock,  are  the  words  "  Cos- 
sack Bay."  Only  a  small  portion,  a 
nook  of  Balaklava  harbour,  is  visible 
from  without.  As  you  enter,  it  opens 
on  your  right  hand,  a  loop  of  water 
enclosed  by  high  rocks,  and  of  such 
depth  up  to  their  base  that  the  largest 
vessels  lie  close  in  to  the  shore.  In 
some  other  situation  Balaklava  har- 
bour would  be  precious,  for  it  is  a 
natural  dock ;  and,  to  complete  it,  all 
that  is  required  is,  to  cut  quays  out  of 
the  surrounding  rocks,  which  in  some 
places  rise  perpendicularly  from  the 
water.  It  is  crowded  with  vessels — 
British  men-of-war  and  transports  of 
many  nations.  The  town  itself  is  a 
paltry  group  of  wretched  houses. 
Passing  through  High  Street  and  Rag- 
lan Square,  sites  far  less  imposing 
than  their  names  would  indicate,  we 
leave  it  behind  us  and  make  for  the 
camp.  At  a  short  distance  along  the 
road  the  village  of  Kadukoi  for  a 
moment  arrests  our  attention.  Built 
almost  entirely  of  planks,  it  is  the 
British  bazaar,  as  Kamiesch  is  that 


of  the  French.  There  a  colony  of 
sutlers  thrive  and  fatten  on  the  Brit- 
ish army.  Thither  all  the  wine- 
merchants  and  grocers  of  London 
appear  to  have  despatched  their  worst 
fabrications  and  stalest  goods.  The 
English  in  the  Crimea  do  not  grumble 
at  paying  exorbitant  prices  for  their 
little  luxuries,  but  they  do  complain 
that  most  of  the  merchandise  they 
get  for  their  money  is  of  the  most 
execrable  quality.  Good  brandy  (al- 
most a  necessary  of  life  in  that 
country)  is  not  to  be  obtained  for  any 
money  nearer  than  Constantinople — 
I  might  almost  say  nearer  than  Malta. 
An  honest  trader,  bringing  out  a  well- 
assorted  cargo  of  "  notions  "  of  good 
quality,  might  run  it  off  in  an  ex- 
tremely short  time,  and  realise  a  very 
handsome  profit.  From  Kadukoi  va- 
rious tracks  lead  out  to  the  camp. 
The  regular  road  is  bad  —  in  win- 
ter wretched  and  almost  impassable. 
People  generally  canter  over  the 
downs,  which  are  tolerably  good  rid- 
ing ground  in  dry  weather,  barring 
these  blocks  of  stones  and  patches  of 
smooth  rocky  surface  that  one  en- 
counters in  some  places  at  every  step, 
and  the  broken  bottles  and  iron  hoops 
that  are  strewed  wherever  there  has 
been  a  camp.  Bottles  and  barrels  are 
a  drug  here.  The  former,  perfectly 
useless,  are  heedlessly  tossed  away 
by  the  soldiers,  regardless  of  probable 
damage  to  horses'  feet ;  the  staves  of 
the  latter  are  applied  to  various  pur- 
poses, to  making  fences,  building 
stables,  and  as  firewood, — but  with  the 
iron  hoops  little  can  be  done,  and 
these  are  scattered  over  the  soil  in 
rusty  profusion. 

The  British  camp  before  Sebasto- 
pol  is  spread  over  an  undulating  sur- 
face, and  it  is  necessary  to  seek  an 
elevated  point  in  order  to  obtain  a 
view  of  it  as  a  whole.  Various  con- 
siderations have  prevented  much  re- 
gard to  symmetry  in  its  construction. 
Many  regiments  have  pitched  their 
tents  in  tolerably  regular  lines,  but 
then  these  perhaps  run  off  at  an  ob- 
lique angle  to  those  of  some  other 
corps,  and  are  broken  by  tenements 
of  other  descriptions.  The  general 
aspect  of  the  camp,  seen  at  a  glance, 
is  that  of  a  confused  assemblage  of 
tents,  marquees,  huts,  painted  and  un- 
painted,  and  of  low  buildings,  variously 


458 


From  Madrid  to  Balaklava. 


[Oct. 


shaped  and  roofed,  and  the  occupants 
of  which  live  partly  below  the  surface. 
The  huts  are  used  chiefly  for  stores 
and  hospitals,  but  the  number  of  them 
increases,  and  not  a  few  officers  and 
men  enjoy  their  shelter,  at  all  seasons 
far  preferable  to  that  of  a  tent.  On 
a  dark  night  the  camp  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  town,  nothing  being 
seen  of  it  but  numerous  lights.  Pro- 
bably the  best  way  of  giving  you  an 
idea  of  its  general  aspect  by  day  is  to 
sketch  that  part  of  it  visible  from  the 
door  of  the  hut  in  which  I  now  write. 
Six  o'clock  has  just  been  sounded  on 
a  gong,  which  the  captain  of  a  neigh- 
bouring division  of  the  Land  Trans- 
port Corps  keeps  going  to  promote 
punctuality  amongst  his  motley  com- 
mand, composed  of  English,  French, 
Spaniards,  Poles,  Turks,  Affghans, 
and  of  heathens  and  infidels  of  every 
clime  and  description.  The  heat  and 
glare  of  the  day,  which  have  been 
considerable,  begin  to  be  agreeably 
replaced  by  a  cooler  air  and  more 
subdued  light;  the  atmosphere  is 
beautifully  clear,  and  the  slightest 
undulations  of  the  Inkermann  heights, 
which  tower  in  the  distance  over  the 
edge  of  the  plateau,  are  distinctly 
visible,  as  are  also  the  white  tents  of 
the  Russian  encampment  on  the  north 
side  of  Sebastopol.  Directly  oppo- 
site, a  break  in  the  hills  affords  a 
glimpse  of  a  more  distant  and  ele- 
vated ridge ;  and,  away  to  the  right, 
where  a  French  semaphore  just  now 
brandishes  its  black  arms,  is  a  sort  of 
jumble  of  hills  enclosing  the  valley  of 
the  Tchernaya,  where  the  action  of 
the  16th  August  was  fought.  To  the 
left  the  ground  rises,  and  on  the  sum- 
mit we  see  a  flagstaff,  in  the  direction 
whence  proceeds  the  noise  of  the  can- 
nonade, which,  as  is  usual  at  this 
hour,  has  just  freshened  up.  The 
flagstaff  is  planted  at  the  corner  of 
the  cemetery,  on  Cathcart's  Hill,  where 
a  too  numerous  group  of  tombstones 
and  of  uninscribed  mounds  cover  the 
remains  of  victims  of  this  long  and 
bloody  campaign.  On  the  hill  a  num- 
ber of  figures  are  visible,  on  foot  and 
on  horseback.  The  same  is  the  case 
every  fine  evening  at  this  hour.  Our 
soldiers  are  particularly  fond  of  going 
up  there  and  watching  the  fire ;  it  is 
also  a  favourite  lounge  with  the  of- 
ficers, and  some  of  the  cavalrymen 


generally  ride  over  of  an  afternoon 
from  their  quarters  near  Balaklava. 
Not  unfrequently,  when  a  tolerable 
group  is  assembled,  the  Eussians 
throw  up  shot,  which  usually  have 
the  effect  of  dispersing,  or  at  least  di- 
minishing it.  In  the  course  of  August 
they  have  fired  a  good  deal  at  the 
camp,  but  the  distance  is  great,  and 
few  of  their  shots  have  taken  effect. 
Looking  nearer  home, — to  our  right 
front,  we  see  a  dark  column  ap- 
proaching with  the  steady  even  march 
that  characterises  British  troops,  and 
contrasts  with  the  loose  irregular  ar- 
ray of  the  French  on  the  move.  They 
are  in  light  marching  order,  undress 
and  forage-caps.  The  Guards  and 
Highlanders  are  on  their  way  to  the 
trenches.  Following  them  is  a  work- 
ing party,  clad  in  coarse  grey  drill 
frocks  and  trousers,  and  carrying  no- 
thing but  wooden  canteens  of  drink 
slung  round  their  bodies.  Two  or 
three  stretchers  follow,  to  bring  off 
the  wounded,  for  no  night  passes 
without  casualties.  The  whole  pre- 
sently disappear  in  the  ravine,  where 
the  shades  of  evening  already  begin 
to  gather,  although  a  rich  sun-glow 
still  lights  up  the  plain. 

Scampering  to  and  fro,  on  ponies  of 
every  size  and  description,  are  num- 
bers of  infantry  officers,  who  seem  to 
hold  it  their  duty  to  keep  their  unfor- 
tunate Crimean  and  Turkish  chargers 
at  a  perpetual  gallop.  Some  are  re- 
turning from  Sutler's  Town  (Kadu- 
koi),  and  carry  loads  with  which 
they  certainly  would  not  traverse 
even  a  lonely  country  common  in 
England.  Birds,  bottles,  sauce,  and 
biscuits  apparently  occupy  the 
thoughts  and  havresacks  of  most  of 
them.  Here  is  one  who  has  slung 
around  him  a  capacious  game-bag, 
containing  a  turkey,  and  two  couple 
of  fowls,  all  alive.  There  is  no  say- 
ing with  what  he  may  have  filled  up 
the  corners  ;  perhaps  with  a  bottle  of 
pickles  and  a  pot  of  preserved  meat. 
Another  manhasaham;athirdwater- 
melons,  and  a  jar  of  honey.  This  last 
is  a  very  young  sub,  who  has  not  yet 
lost  his  sweet  tooth  and  taste  for  for- 
bidden fruit,  and  who  will  probably 
pay  for  his  school- boy  indulgence, 
with  an  attack  of  a  complaint  easily 
provoked  in  the  Crimea.  Not  all, 
however,  come  from  market.  Not  a 


1855.] 


From  Madrid  to  Balaklava. 


459 


few  blue  frocks  and  scarlet  jackets  are 
seen,  converging  towards  a  point  near 
the  edge  of  the  plateau,  hard  by  the 
Semaphore.  There  stand  a  gourbi 
•(an  African  wigwara,built  of  branches), 
and  a  long  white  hut,  close  to  which 
the  band  of  the  Zouaves  forms  a  circle, 
the  bandmaster  in  the  centre.  These 
are  General  Bosquet's  quarters,  and 
every  evening  there  is  military  music 
in  front  of  them.  The  attendance  of 
English  officers  is  regular,  and  often 
large.  Few  French  officers  are  seen 
there ;  but  there  are  generally  groups 
of  French  soldiers,  and  especially  of 
the  Zouave,  in  his  green  turban,  short 
loose  jacket,  red  petticoat,  and  yellow 
leggings,  and  wearing  that  peculiarly, 
devil-may-care  air,  which  at  all  times 
characterises  him.  Looking  nearer  to 
where  we  now  stand,  the  view  in  the 
foreground  assumes  a  domestic  cha- 
racter— almost  a  farmyard  aspect. 
There  is  the  commissariat  cattle-pound , 
formed  of  empty  barrels,  and  to  which 
the  sheep  and  oxen  have  just  returned 
from  the  scanty  pastures,  whither  each 
morning  they  are  driven.  Here  are 
the  stores.  A  huge  mass  of  compress- 
ed hay,  each  truss  bound  in  iron  bands, 
is  piled  under  tarpaulins.  Nearer 
still  at  hand,  a  tethered  goat  nibbles 
the  few  grass  roots  that  remain  on  the 
well-trodden  plain.  She  supplies  milk 
for  our  mess  (a  mess  of  four  persons), 
when  our  milker  is  not  forestalled  by 
some  early-rising  pilferer.  Fowls, 
turkeys,  a  solitary  goose — who  looks 
as  if  he  would  prefer  the  greenest 
horse-pond  in  which  ever  frog  fatten- 
ed, to  the  arid  and  dusty  heights  of 
Balaklava ;  a  grunter  in  a  corner 
(promising  fat  feeding  for  winter),  in  a 
sty  made  up' of  old  wine-cases,  and 
a  varmint-looking  little  bantam  cock, 
who  has  taken  a  dislike  to  the  goose, 
and  spurs  and  pecks  him  by  the  hour 
together,  complete  the  farming- stock. 
Throw  a  sunny  glow  over  the  whole 
picture,  and  you  will  probably,  on  re- 
viewing it,  declare  it  to  be  not  an  un- 
pleasing  one,  and  decide  that,  after 
all,  things  are  not  so  bad  in  the  Cri- 
mea, or  campaigners  there  to  be  greatly 
pitied.  A  little  examination  will  dis- 
close the  reverse  of  the  model,  the  dis- 
comforts and  hardships  of  camp  life. 
There  are  not  a  few  even  in  fine  weather; 
when  it  rains,  discomfort  is  perfect 
and  complete.  Your  drenched  tent 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


totters  before  the  rude  blast ;  wind 
and  wet  penetrate  between  the  ill- 
joined  planks  of  the  huts,  and  dash 
into  the  low  entrances  of  the  caves  or 
dens  in  which  some  of  the  officers  live. 
These  last  are  ditches  or  holes  in  the 
ground,  surrounded  with  low  walls, 
supporting  roofs  formed  of  planks, 
sailcloth,  tarpaulin,  old  tents — any- 
thing that  comes  to  hand.  These  are 
the  favourite  abodes  of  rats  and  mice, 
which  however  abound  everywhere 
in  the  camp,  and  increase  so  rapidly, 
that  if  our  army  passes  the  winter 
where  it  now  is,  and  does  not  call  to 
its  aid  a  cargo  of  cats  and  terriers,  it 
risks  being  eaten  up  (it  or  its  rations) 
by  the  audacious  and  innumerable 
vermin.  The  Crimean  rat  is  of  very 
large  size;  many  of  the  mice  are  as  big 
as  a  small  English  rat.  Traps  being 
here  unknown,  and  cats  extremely 
scarce,  both  rats  and  mice  revel  in 
impunity,  and  one  hears  them  fight- 
ing and  frolicking  all  around  one.  At 
meals  they  walk  deliberately  about 
your  hut ;  when  you  sleep  they  run 
across  your  bed,  and  sometimes 
awaken  you  by  marching  over  your 
face.  As  hanging  shelves  and  well- 
closed  safes  enter  very  little  into 
housekeeping  arrangements  in  the 
Crimea,  it  is  difficult,  indeed  impos- 
sible, to  keep  them  from  one's  food. 
Every  morning  the  bread  bears  marks 
of  their  teeth,  and  it  is  considered 
lucky  if  they  have  respected  the  bit  of 
cold -ration  mutton  reserved  from 
yesterday's  dinner  for  to-day's  break- 
fast. Another  nuisance  here  is  the 
centipede,  an  ill  -  favoured  reptile, 
some  two  or  three  inches  long,  its 
body  about  the  size  of  a  flattened 
quill,  and  fringed  by  numerous  feet, 
by  the  aid  of  which  it  hooks  itself  on 
to  its  prey,  and  stings  venomously. 
The  injury  it  inflicts  is  often  very  se- 
rious ;  the  part  swells  to  an  enormous 
size,  and  is  long  in  getting  well.  These 
loathsome  creatures  are  not  unfre- 
quent  about  the  huts  and  tents  ;  they 
get  into  your  boots,  and  occasionally 
into  your  bed,  and  it  is  not  a  bad  pre- 
caution to  shake  the  former  before 
drawing  them  on,  and  to  examine  the 
latter  before  getting  into  it,  especially 
if  it  be  upon  the  ground.  Beds  here, 
I  need  hardly  say,  are  innocent  of 
sheets.  Sleeping  between  blankets  is 
no  hardship,  especially  in  winter,  and 
2  H 


400 


From  Madrid  to  Balaklava. 


[Oct. 


even  in  summer  the  nights  are  rarely 
Tery  warm  in  the  Crimea,  where, 
moreover,  one  may  be  said  to  sleep 
alfresco,  since  even  persons  who  have 
doors  to  their  huts  usually  leave  them 
open  in  fine  weather.  The  absence 
of  sheets  is,  I  think,  rather  favourable 
to  fleas,  which  are  tolerably  active; 
but  after  a  few  days  one  hardly 
feels  them.  Generally  speaking,  the 
Crimea  is  a  great  place  for  insects 
of  all  kinds.  I  was  at  first  tempted 
to  believe  that  the  camp,  the  nume- 
rous collection  of  men,  the  cooking, 
the  food,  the  refuse  that  inevitably 
gets  more  or  less  thrown  about,  the 
great  number  of  horses  and  mules, 
were  the  causes  that  the  common  black 
house-fly  abounds  here  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  become  an  almost  unen- 
durable plague  and  torment,  and  ac- 
tually to  embitter  one's  existence. 
But  on  going  up  to  visit  a  friend,  who 
has  pitched  his  tent  at  some  miles 
from  camp,  in  a  charming  rural  situa- 
tion, high  above  the  sea,  and  remote 
from  most  of  the  fly- producing  cir- 
cumstances I  have  enumerated,  I 
found  him  just  as  much  a  martyr  as 
we  who  abide  on  the  heights  before 
Sebastopol.  Fortunately,  by  a  mer- 
ciful dispensation  of  Providence,  the 
Crimean  fly,  like  other  flies,  requires 
sleep ;  and,  when  darkness  covers  the 
earth  and  you  put  out  your  candle, 
he  leaves  you  in  peace  until  sunrise ; 
then  he  is  up  again,  vigorous  and  re- 
freshed, and  quickly  rouses  you  from 
the  soundest  slumber.  At  night,  how- 
ever, when  he  rests,  blackening  your 
walls  and  roof  with  his  sleeping 
masses,  which  the  first  sunbeam  will 
rouse  into  activity,  other  insects  and 
winged  things  visit  and  afflict  you. 
To  give  you  an  example.  It  is  now 
past  eleven ;  the  camp  is  quiet ;  two 
or  three  friends,  who  dropped  in  in 
the  course  of  the  evening  to  smoke 
the  pipe  of  consolation,  and  imbibe 
the  grog  of  good-fellowship,  have  just 
departed  (people  go  to  roost  pretty 
early  here)  ;  the  stillness  of  the  camp 
is  broken  only  by  an  occasional  scrim- 
mage between  Turkish  ponies  and 
Spanish  mules — closely  picketed  in 
an  adjacent  enclosure,  and  who  seem 
to  have  inherited  the  traditional  feuds 
of  the  Moslem  and  the  Spaniard — and 
by  "  the  distant  random-gun  of  the 
enemy  sullenly  firing."  I  sit  down 


to  conclude  this  letter,  and,  as  I  write, 
various  monsters  hop  and  flutter 
around  me  and  my  guttering  candles. 
They  are  of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  from 
a  tiny  midge  to  a  locust  two  inches 
long.  Moths  are  there  in  great  plenty, 
and  some  of  them,  I  daresay,  would 
be  prizes  for  the  entomologist,  for 
their  wings  are  beautifully  pencilled. 
I  sincerely  wish  the  entomologist  had 
them.  There  is  a  great  green  fly  (I 
never  see  it  in  the  day),  with  gauzy 
green  wings,  which  has  the  look  of  a 
diminutive  imp  in  an  incantation 
scene,  as  it  squats  itself  close  to  my 
paper,  and  impertinently  watches  me 
write  ;  and  there  are  other  queer- 
shaped  creatures,  whose  shadows, 
cast  upon  the  wall,  have  the  most  gro- 
tesque appearance,  reminding  one  of 
some  of  the  little  fantastical  diablotins 
which  Teuiers  loved  to  introduce  into 
his  pictures  of  St  Anthony's  temptation. 
The  tobacco  smoke  has  cleared  away, 
and  the  quietness  and  the  light  have 
attracted  the  myriad  of  winged  tor- 
mentors. All  these,  however,  are  but 
summer  plagues,  and,  although  har- 
assing enough,  may  be  cheerfully 
endured  by  those  who  went  through 
the  serious  and  terrible  sufferings  of 
last  winter  in  the  Crimea.  Heat  and 
insects,  and  even  the  indescribably 
nauseous  smells  one  here  and  there- 
encounters  —  proceeding,  in  many 
cases,  from  shallow  graves  of  man  or 
beast — are  light  evils  compared  with 
bitter  cold,  incessant  wet,  scanty  rai- 
ment, and  little  or  no  shelter.  One 
has  read  much  of  the  winter  sufferings 
of  our  gallant  and  unfortunate  army ; 
but  the  narrative  acquires  fresh  in- 
terest, to  a  new-comer  in  the  Crimea, 
when  derived  from  the  lips  of  the 
survivors.  One  hears  of  men  passing 
many  weeks  without  once  taking  off 
any  part  of  their  clothes.  Wet  through 
regularly  every  day,  at  night  they 
found  it  impossible  to  get  warm.  Had 
they  removed  their  boots  they  would 
not  have  been  able  to  get  them  on  to 
go  to  their  duty  in  the  morning. 
Those  who  risked  it  found  their  feet 
swell  instantly.  Few  had  a  change 
of  anything.  Most  men  had  one  suit 
—often  a  most  uncouth  and  incon- 
gruous assemblage  of  garments — but 
they  had  no  more ;  and,  if  one  article 
of  their  dress  gave  way,  they  were 
put  to  dire  shifts  to  replace  it.  Im- 


1855.] 


From  Madrid  to  Balaklava. 


461 


mense  prices  were  paid  for  the  com- 
monest clothes;  a  second-hand  pair 
of  seaman's  boots  was  worth  more 
than  the  choicest  work  of  art  that 
ever  issued  from  Hoby's  shop.  I 
heard  of  ten  pounds  being  offered  for 
a  pair  of  trousers  by  an  unfortunate 
wight  who  had  split  his  across  the 
stern — and  drawers,  it  is  to  be  ob- 
served, were  then  scarcer  even  than 
trousers.  The  owner  refused  to  sell 
them,  but  afterwards,  touched  by  the 
applicant's  misery,  bestowed  them  as 
a  free  gift.  Such  generosity,  under 
such  circumstances,  should  have  con- 
stituted an  eternal  bond  of  friendship. 
A  terrible  moment  was  that  which 
immediately  followed  the  November 
hurricane,  when  tents,  clothes,  and 
every  kind  of  comfort  were  swept 
away,  with  scarce  a  chance  of  reco- 
very— when  sheep  were  blown  into 
the  Russian  lines,  and  the  men  on 
the  Marine  Heights,  above  Balaklava, 
had  to  throw  themselves  down,  and 
hold  on  by  the  ground  to  save  them- 
selves from  being  hurled  over  the 
cliffs.  The  ensuing  twenty-four  hours 
were  passed  by  many  seated  in  the 
wet,  under  the  lea  of  low  walls,  heaps 
of  stones,  or  any  other  partial  shelter 
they  could  discover;  and  all  winter 
the  road  from  Balaklava  was  a  quag- 
mire, through  which  it  was  scarcely 
possible  to  bring  such  scanty  supplies 
as  should  keep  body  and  soul  to- 
gether; whilst  in  the  camp  it  was 
mud  to  the  knees,  and  overhead  the 
cheerless,  turbid,  stormy  Crimean 
sky.  It  is  useless  and  painful  to 
dwell  on  that  horrible  time,  except  as 
a  warning  for  the  future.  Things  are 
now  better  organised  ;  there  is  abund- 
ance in  the  camp  ;  the  army  is  well 
provided  with  clothes  and  necessaries ; 
storehouses  have  been  erected,  and 
others  are  in  course  of  erection  ;  and 
if,  as  many  believe,  our  troops  are 
destined  to  pass  another  winter  before 
the  almost  impregnable  fortress  that 
has  already  cost  us  rivers  of  blood, 
and  gold,  it  will  be  under  less  trying 
circumstances  than  before.  Assured- 
ly there  will  be  plenty  of  hardships  to 
endure;  disease  and  the  climate  must 
be  expected  to  snatch  many  victims 
from  the  ranks  of  the  fine  young  sol- 
diers who  have  replaced  the  veterans 
that  last  winter  destroyed.  And  if 
we  fail  in  capturing  the  south  side  of 


Sebastopol  before  the  bad  weather  sets 
in,  the  wet  and  cold  of  the  trenches 
will  render  them  the  grave  of  thou- 
sands. At  this  moment  opinions  are 
much  divided.  The  generals-in- chief 
may  possibly  be  possessed  of  informa- 
tion enabling  them  to  calculate  the 
probabilities  of  the  campaign  ;  but  all 
others  in  the  camp  are  confined  to 
conjectures,  to  doubts,  and  hopes,  and 
fears.  All  are  weary  of  the  long  pro- 
tracted campaign,  in  which  so  much 
has  been  sacrificed  for  the  gain  of  so 
few  solid  advantages.  But  the  men 
are  cheerful,  obedient,  and  full  of 
spirit  and  ardour ;  whilst  the  feeling 
of  duty  and  honour  supports  the  officers, 
although,  from  all  I  have  seen  and 
heard,  I  believe  there  are  few  of  these, 
at  least  those  who  have  been  out  from 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  who  would 
not  gladly  purchase,  at  the  price  of  a 
sharp  wound,  a  few  months'  or  weeks' 
repose  in  England. 

I  shall  not  attempt,  in  this  letter, 
which  does  not  aspire  to  be  more  than 
a  mere  feather-light  bundle  of  im- 
pressions, to  enter  into  any  of  the 
grave  questions  connected  with  the 
war,  or  even  to  give  you  a  detailed 
account  of  the  chief  events  that  have 
occurred  since  my  arrival  in  the  camp. 
The  former  would  be  more  fitly  dis- 
cussed in  another  form,  and  of  the  lat- 
ter you  will  doubtless  receive  full  par- 
ticulars from  your  able  military  corre- 
spondent, whose  "  Story  of  the  Cam- 
paign" is  as  highly  appreciated  here  as 
it  cannot  fail  to  be  in  England.  Before 
this  reaches  you  the  newspapers  will 
have  informed  you  of  the  pretty  action 
on  theTchernaya — the  first  in  this  war 
in  which  the  French  have  triumphed 
nnassociated  with  the  English.  The 
fight,  which  commenced  before  day- 
break, was  on  a  series  of  small  hills 
bordering  on  the  river,  and  terminated 
in  the  utter  rout  of  the  Eussians,  who 
came  on  in  great  force,  and  at  first 
were  encouraged  by  a  shadow  of  suc- 
cess. It  was  but  a  shadow.  The 
Zouaves,  who  gave  back  for  a  moment 
before  the  swarm  of  enemies  that  ad- 
vanced upon  them  up  the  side  of  one 
of  the  Mammelons,  rallied  upon  other 
battalions  of  their  own  corps,  and  met 
the  advance  with  a  murderous  fire, 
driving  back  the  Muscovite.  The 
artillery,  however,  played  the  most 
important  part  in  the  fight,  at  least  as 


462 


From  Madrid  to  Balaklava. 


[Oct. 


regarded,  what  is  here  colloquially 
termed,  "the  butcher's  bill."  The 
French,  the  Sardinians,  and  Moubray's 
English  battery,  sent  shot  and  shell 
with  terrible  effect  through  the  hos- 
tile masses.  It  has  been  said  that  the 
victory  could  have  been  more  com- 
plete had  the  cavalry  been  sent  for- 
ward, but  this  appears  doubtful.  As 
it  was,  the  Russians  lost  as  many 
thousands  as  the  Allies  lost  hundreds. 
Had  the  cavalry  pursued,  they  could 
have  gone  but  a  short  distance  before 
coming  under  fire  of  the  enemy's  bat- 
teries, which  awaited  them  in  position, 
hoping,  perhaps,  for  a  repetition  of  the 
mad  scamper  at  Balaklava.  The  Sar- 
dinians behaved  extremely  well,  prov- 
ing themselves  gallant,  steady,  and 
skilful  soldiers.  Their  artillery  prac- 
tice elicited  high  praise  from  all  who 
beheld  it.  Their  pride  has  since 
been  wounded  by  an  order  of  the 
day,  issued  by  the  English  Com- 
mander-in-chief, who  declared  that 
their  conduct  on  the  16th  August 
proved  them  worthy  to  fight  by  the 
side  of  the  first  military  nation  of 
Europe.  A  little  reflection  might  have 
helped  General  Simpson  to  a  happier 
form  of  compliment.  In  military 
power,  France  is  to  Sardinia  as  a 
giant  to  a  pigmy ;  but  in  soldiership 
and  warlike  prowess  the  Sardinians 
have  never  deemed  themselves  in- 
ferior to  any ;  and  certainly  it  was 
not  the  moment,  when  their  valiant 
struggle  against  Austria  is  still  fresh 
in  every  man's  memory,  to  hint,  how- 
ever remotely,  that  a  doubt  had  been 
entertained  of  their  being  found  up  to 
the  French  mark.  Generals  may  be 
pardoned  for  being  but  clumsy  with 
the  pen  if  they  prove  themselves  able 
with  the  sword.  As  yet  we  have 
had  no  taste  of  General  Simpson's 
quality— at  least  in  his  capacity  of 
-Commander-in-chief.  Since  he  as- 


sumed the  supreme  command  the 
camp  has  been  simmering  in  sunshine 
and  idleness.  Down  into  the  trenches, 
nightly,  go  some  1 5,000  men  (English 
and  French),  to  shoot  and  be  shot  at 
for  twenty-four  hours.  Scarcely  even 
a  sortie,  worthy  of  note,  to  vary  the 
monotony.  On  the  Malakoff  are  all 
eyes  centred  ;  that  key  by  which, 
if  once  we  grasped  it,  we  should 
quickly  open  to  ourselves  the  gate 
of  southern  Sebastopol.  The  French 
are  working  up  to  it,  but  they  get  on 
very  slowly.  When  little  expected, 
the  Russians  roused  us  from  our  seem- 
ing slumber.  The  trumpet  of  the 
Tchernaya  sounded  the  note  of  action. 
So  at  least  it  appears  to  us,  although 
it  perhaps  may  long  before  have  been 
resolved,  in  the  inscrutable  councils 
of  Head  Quarters,  that,  at  four  in  the 
morning  of  the  18th  August,  another 
bombardment  should  commence.  It 
lasted  three  days,  varying  in  vigour, 
and  under  its  cover  the  French  ad- 
vanced their  works.  They  are  now 
so  near  to  the  enemy — and  so  are  the 
English  on  the  left — that  it  seems  im- 
possible a  bloody  and  decisive  en- 
counter should  not  very  soon  occur. 

About  this  time,  you,  oh  fortunate 
Ebony,  are  doubtless  disporting  your- 
self on  the  moors,  slaying  and  eating 
the  most  fragrant  of  grouse,  dulcify- 
ing your  oesophagus  with  that  nectar- 
ean  compound  known  as  the  brose  of 
Atholl,  solacing  your  evening  repose 
with  a  moderate  tumbler  of  toddy, 
inhaling  the  balmy  breezes  that  blow 
from  Highland  hills.  But  I  dare 
swear  that,  amidst  those  pleasant 
pastimes  and  peaceful  enjoyments, 
your  thoughts  wander,  not  seldom,  to 
your  less  comfortably-quartered  and 
cared -for  countrymen,  who  sleep  in 
hovels  and  under  canvass  on  unfriend- 
ly Crimean  hills,  like  your  faithful 

VEDETTE. 


CAMP  BEFORE  SEBASTOPOL,  28$  August. 


1855.] 


Boohs  for  the  Holidays. 


463 


BOOKS   FOR   THE   HOLIDAYS. 


NO.    II. — ANY    RECENT   WORK   UPON   SPORTING. 


MOST  notable  among  the  drawbacks 
which  attend  the  literary  profession, 
is  the  extreme  jealousy,  almost 
amounting  to  hatred,  manifested  by 
the  great  body  of  authors  towards 
those  who  undertake  the  duty  of  re- 
viewing. Converse  with  any  young 
gentleman  who  has  presented  a  vol- 
ume of  spasmody  to  the  public  in- 
spection, and  you  will  find  him  as  full 
of  bile  against  the  critics  as  if  he  had 
subsisted  solely  upon  curried  oysters 
since  the  eve  of  publication.  He  de- 
nounces them  en  masse,  as  a  gang  of 
heartless  desperadoes,  cold-blooded 
assassins,  mean-spirited  stabbersiuthe 
dark,  malevolent  scalp-hunters,  ig- 
norant pretenders,  shallow  boys,  ar- 
rogant asses,  conceited  prigs,  egre- 
gious numskulls,  and  so  forth — pro- 
testing, at  the  same  time,  with  a  hol- 
low laugh,  that  he  cares  nothing  for 
them  or  their  verdicts,  but  despises 
them  from  the  bottom  of  his  soul. 
From  this  you  conclude,  naturally 
enough,  that  the  poor  young  fellow 
has  been  made  the  victim  of  some 
foul  literary  conspiracy — that  a  whole 
nest  of  hornets  has  been  buzzing 
about  his  ears  and  stinging  him  to 
exasperation — that  he  has  been  flayed 
alive,  gibbeted,  and  quartered,  in  the 
most  ruthless  and  savage  manner — 
and  that  his  mental  pangs  must  have 
been  more  exquisitely  acute  than  those 
of  "  Eleemon  who  was  sold  to  the  de- 
mon." Never  in  your  life  were  you 
more  mistaken.  No  familiar  of  the 
Inquisition  has  laid  hands  on  his  in- 
nocent carcass,  or  proceeded  to  stretch 
his  limbs  on  the  rack.  No  midnight 
murderer  has  been  thirsting  for  his 
gore.  He  has  sent  copies  of  his  duo- 
decimo to  the  editors  of  every  con- 
ceivable periodical  in  the  United  King- 
dom ;  but  not  one  of  them  has  even 
recognised  his  existence,  much  less 
expressed  an  opinion  derogatory  of 
his  poetical  abilities.  He  is  suffering 
indeed  ;  but  it  is  simply  from  the  want 
of  notoriety,  to  achieve  which,  he 
would,  in  reality,  be  glad  to  undergo 
any  reasonable  amount  of  tomahawk- 
ing. 


After  all,  in  cases  of  this  sort,  the 
critics  are  the  parties  who  have  real 
ground  for  complaint;  and  we  can 
speak  most  feelingly  on  the  subject, 
having  undergone,  at  the  hands  of  un- 
noticed authors,  every  imaginable 
species  of  persecution.  Over  and  over 
again  has  the  public  been  assured  in 
these  columns  that  Maga  edits  herself; 
and  on  the  title-page  of  every  num- 
ber there  is  a  distinct  intimation  that 
all  communications  (post  paid)  must 
be  addressed  to  William  Blackwood 
and  Sons,  45  George  Street,  Edin- 
burgh, and  37  Paternoster  Row,  Lon- 
don. After  such  clear  announce- 
ments, it  appears  absolutely  amaz- 
ing that  human  beings  should  per- 
sist in  attributing  the  editorial  func- 
tions to  those  who  neither  claim  nor 
exercise  them ;  and  in  poisoning  and 
embittering,  by  their  solicitations  and 
complaints,  the  lives  of  lazy  contri- 
butors, who  have  seldom  the  inclina- 
tion and  frequently  not  the  opportu- 
nity of  revising  the  proof-sheets  of 
their  own  articles.  We  cannot  un- 
dertake to  specify  the  amount  of  in- 
dividual annoyance  which  may  fall  to 
the  share  of  our  fellow- labourers  in 
the  vineyard  of  Buchanan;  but  we 
can  assert  with  perfect  truth,  that 
upon  one  devoted,  but  blameless,  head, 
a  whole  Niagara  of  literary  indigna- 
tion, has  been  poured.  The  process 
usually  is  as  follows : — One  morning 
we  receive  an  unstamped  letter,  which 
the  servant,  contrary  to  orders,  has 
taken  in,  referring  to  a  volume  which 
the  writer  states  that  he  forwarded 
six  weeks  previously,  and  requesting 
to  know  when  the  work  is  likely  to  be 
reviewed.  As  we  never  saw  the  vol- 
ume, have  no  intention  whatever  of 
reviewing  it,  and  feel  deeply  aggra- 
vated because  of  the  sacrificed  two- 
pence, we  chuck  the  communication 
into  the  fire,  hoping  that  silence  may 
be  deemed  a  satisfactory  reply.  But 
we  reckon  without  our  host.  A  week 
afterwards  another  epistle  arrives, 
again  unstamped ;  but  this  time  we 
are  more  wary,  and  the  letter  is  per- 
emptorily refused.  Next  comes  a 


464 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


[Oct. 


communication  from  a  fellow  who 
styles  himself  "  an  old  friend,"  and  a 
very  old  friend  he  mast  be,  for  we 
have  not  set  eyes  upon  him  since  we  left 
school,  and  remember  his  name  solely 
from  the  circumstance  that  he  was  the 
perpetual  booby  of  the  class.  He 
canters  through  a  few  preliminary 
compliments  and  reminiscences,  and 
then  comes  "  to  the  object  of  my 
troubling  you  at  present,"  which 
turns  out  to  be  a  request  that 
you  will  notice,  "  for  the  sake  of  auld 
lang  syne,"  the  volume  published  by 
the  man  who  sent  the  unstamped 
letters,  and  who  turns  out  to  be  a 
brother-in-law,  cousin,  or  some  other 
indefinite  connection  of  the  affection- 
ate booby.  What  "  auld  lang  syne  " 
has  to  do  with  the  matter  we  cannot 
exactly  perceive ;  but  our  heart  yearns 
towards  our  ancient  playmate,  who 
used  to  take  his  floggings  with  such 
stoical  indifference,  and  we  write  him 
a  very  kind  letter,  explaining  that  we 
have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
management  of  the  Magazine,  and 
that  we  have  never  set  eyes  upon  the 
literary  production  of  his  friend.  The 
last  is  an  unlucky  remark,  for,  by  re- 
turn of  post,  we  receive  a  copy  of  the 
volume  in  question — prepaid,  however, 
for  our  friend  the  Booby,  though  some- 
what dull  of  apprehension,  is  a  thorough 
gentleman  in  his  feelings.  We  open 
the  book — find  that  it  is,  as  we  ex- 
pected, rubbish  of  the  worst  quality — 
and  fling  it  aside,  trusting  to  hear  no 
more  about  the  author.  Again  we  are 
wrong.  This  time  the  author  writes, 
ostensibly  to  apologise  for  his  former 
error,  but  in  reality  to  inquire  whether, 
now  that  we  are  made  aware  of  his 
connection  with  the  house  of  Booby, 
we  will  not  exert  our  influence  with 
the  Messrs  Blackwood  to  get  the  work 
noticed.  "  Perhaps,"  so  writes  the 
unblushing  one,  "  you  may  be  inclined 
to  undertake  the  task  yourself."  As- 
suredly if  the  book  were  only  three 
shades  less  contemptible  than  it  is,  we 
would  comply  with  his  wishes,  and 
give  him  such  a  capper -clawing  as 
would  send  him  for  a  season  howling 
to  the  wilderness ;  but  we  hate  need- 
less cruelty,  and  the  imbecility  of  the 
creature  is  his  salvation.  Therefore 
we  write  the  iciest  of  all  possible 
epistles,  declining  the  flattering  pro- 
posal; and  believe  that  we  have  at 


length  got  rid  of  the  incubus.  Not 
so.  We  receive  a  jaunty  epistle  from 
Booby,  apparently  quite  delighted 
with  our  recognition,  expressing  a  hope 
that  when  we  come  to  his  part  of  the 
country  we  will  pay  him  a  visit  and 
talk  over  old  stories,  and  then  diverg- 
ing to  the  subject  of  the  accursed  duo- 
decimo, and  its  persevering  author, 
who,  Booby  assures  us,  is  one  of  the 
finest  fellows  in  the  universe.  "  Do 
write  me  what  you  think  of  his  book,  " 
quoth  Booby ;  u  I  do  not  pretend  to  be 
a  judge  of  such  matters,  but  I  think 
some  parts  of  it  are  very  clever." 
Goaded  on  to  desperation,  we  sit  down 
deliberately,  and  waste  a  whole  pre- 
cious morning  in  explaining  to  Booby, 
in  no  unequivocal  language,  our  opin- 
ion of  the  intellects  of  his  friend. 
That  epistleof  ours  Booby,  with  exqui- 
site good  taste,  communicates  to  the 
aspirant  after  literary  distinction,  who 
consequently  becomes  our  enemy  for 
life. 

Scott,  whose  knowledge  of  human 
nature  was  scarcely  inferior  to  that 
possessed  by  Shakespeare,  has  admir- 
ably brought  out  this  itch  for  notoriety, 
in  the  character  of  the  dwarf,  Sir  Geoffry 
Hudson.  Rather  than  not  be  noticed, 
the  little  man  would  submit  to  the  im- 
putation of  impossible  crimes ;  and  his 
self- conceit  rose  proportionally  with  the 
enormity  of  thecharge  preferred.  With 
one  literary  Hudson  it  might  be  easy  to 
deal,  but  it  is  no  joking  matter  to  be 
molested  by  scores.  Like  the  detest- 
able Swiss  children  who  infest  the  fall 
of  the  Staubach,  they  will  not  let  you 
alone,  even  though  you  would  give  a 
tolerable  ransom  to  be  freed  from  their 
company.  They  cling  to  your  skirts, 
follow  at  your  heels,  and  perform 
every  conceivable  manner  of  antic  in 
order  to  attract  attention  ;  in  vain  do 
you  alternately  resort  to  the  distribu- 
tion of  coppers,  and  a  warning  flourish 
of  the  horse-whip — the  crowd  increases 
and  sticks  to  you  with  thecloseness  and 
tenacity  of  a  swarm  of  midges,  until, 
driven  to  desperation,  you  rush  fran- 
tically from  the  valley,  registering  a 
vow  that  no  power  on  earth  will  in- 
duce you  again  to  set  foot  within  pre- 
cincts so  beautiful  yet  so  rife  with 
irritation. 

Far  be  it  from  us  to  insinuate  that 
this  strong  passion  for  notoriety  is 
peculiar  to  literary  aspirants,  or  that 


1855.] 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


465 


it  is  more  observable  in  them  than  in 
the  followers  of  regular  professions. 
We  never  yet  knew  the  briefless  law- 
yer,  or    the   patient-less    physician, 
whose  want  of  success  was  not  attri- 
buted by  themselves  and  their  friends 
to  the  heartless  neglect  of  the  world  ; 
nor  do  we  remember  any  instance  of 
the  kind  in  which   the  consummate 
abilities,  erudition,  and  talents  of  the 
would-be  practitioners  were  not  as- 
sumed as  notorious  and  indisputable 
facts.    Vanity  is  the  one  common  gar- 
ment of  the  whole  human  race :   it 
cleaves  as  closely  to  the  frame  as  the 
poisoned  shirt  of  Nessus,  and  torture 
unutterable  is  caused  by  any  attempt 
to  remove  it.     Our  observations,  if 
properly  understood,   merely  go   the 
length  of  vindicating  reviewers  from 
the  charges  of  hard-heartedness,  in- 
difference, and  cruelty,  which   have 
been  so  often  brought  against  them 
by  unnoticed  authors.     Not  one  of 
those  latter  seems  to  imagine  it  pos- 
sible that  the  almost   preternatural 
silence  of  the  critics  with  regard  to 
his  productions  can  be  caused  by  their 
insignificance  or  worthlessness.    De- 
lusions of  this  kind  are  common,  and 
they  are  easily  accounted  for.    The 
gradations  of  nature  are  infinite  ;  and 
however  weak  may  be  the  intellects 
of  a  man,  he  is  pretty  sure,  in  the 
course  of  his  career,  to  encounter  one 
or  two  others  who  are  even  less  gifted 
than  himself.     To  them,  by  a  natural 
law,  he  appears  an  oracle  of  wisdom  : 
they  adopt  his  opinions,  repeat  his 
sayings,  and,  if  he  ventures  into  the 
perilous  field  of  authorship,  applaud 
his  writings  to  the  echo.     He  is  the 
prime  star  of  a  very  minute  constella- 
tion—  the  biggest  animalcule  in  an 
isolated  drop  of  water.    So  that  when 
Vespasian    Tims,     the     boast     and 
cynosure  of  the  literary  club  which 
holds  its  weekly  meetings  at  the  sign 
of  the  Jolly  Ogre,  has  indulged  his 
friends  with  a  private  audience  of  his 
forthcoming  tragedy  entitled  Abdel- 
buffer,  or  the  Bravo  of  the  Bospkoms, 
it  is  small  wonder  if  the  little  circlet 
vibrates  with  delight,  and  if  Vespasian 
is  assured  by  more  than  one  devoted 
satellite  that  his  work  will  stand  com- 
parison with  the  choicest  productions  of 
the  Elizabethan  era.     As  a  matter  of 
course,   Tims  would  rather    "doubt 
truth  to  be  a  liar,"  than  question  the 


propriety  of  such  a  verdict ;  accord- 
ingly, after  he  has  committed  him- 
self in  print,  he  cannot  for  the  life  of 
him  understand  the  universal  apathy 
and  indifference  which  appears  to  have 
pervaded  the  whole  body  of  the 
British  critics.  For  hostile  notices, 
of  the  most  truculent  kind,  our 
Vespasian  is  prepared.  He  knows 
that  he  has  enemies ;  for,  to  use  his 
own  beautiful  language, — 

"  Genius  is  a  flower 
Which  the  base  market-gardeners  of  this  rank 

world 
Won't  let  the  sunshine  beam  on  ;  but  they 

clap 

Shards,  broken  envy-bottles,  hideous  heods 
Of  most  opaquy  and  unnatural  tint, 
Right  on  the  top  on't  ;  and  so  deem  to  pale, 
By  shutting  out  the  bright  effulgence  of 
The  locks  of  Phoebus,  that  splendiferous, 
And  never-to-be-classed-in-catalogue 
Star  of  the  mind " 

Any  attempt  to  put  him  down  he  is 
prepared,  like  another  Antaeus,  to  re- 
sist ;  but  he  can  meet  with  no  antago- 
nist. He  has  entered  the  lists,  dis- 
played his  banner,  and  blown  his 
trumpet ;  but  not  a  living  soul  will 
vouchsafe  him  the  slightest  notice. 
He  is  as  unfortunate  as  the  knight  of 
the  Round  Table,  who,  though  con- 
stantly on  horseback,  and  in  the  very 
midst  of  a  prime  preserve  of  giants, 
never  could  fall  in  with  an  adventure  ; 
and,  like  that  worthy  scion  of  chivalry, 
he  halts  before  the  drawbridge  of 
every  castle,  and  heaps  every  kind  of 
vituperation  upon  its  inmates,  because 
nobody  will  take  the  trouble  to  sally 
out  and  indulge  him  with  the  luxury 
of  a  drubbing. 

Critics,  however,  are  merely  men, 
liable  to  human  infirmity  and  impulse, 
and  we  have  known  instances  in  which, 
when  irritated  by  incessant  badgering, 
they  have  so  far  forgot  their  duty  as 
to  allow  their  temper  to  overcome 
their  discretion,  and  have  administer- 
ed a  contemptuous  shake  or  so  to  the 
clamorous  candidate  for  notoriety. 
Then — mercy  on  us — what  a  yowling 
ensues  !  No  lady's  lap-dog  could  shriek 
louder,  when,  after  a  series  of  deliber- 
ate small  insults  directed  against  a 
mastiff,  Jowler  makes  a  spring,  and 
catches  the  unfortunate  pug  in  his 
jaws,  than  does  the  new-fledged 
author  when  the  critic  is  down  upon 
him.  The  public,  who  really  are  in 
the  main  good-natured,  and  who  hate 


466 

to  see  any  man  or  any  animal  over- 
matched, are  apt  to  cry  "shame" 
upon  such  occasions,  being,  of  course, 
in  utter  ignorance  of  the  previous 
provocation ;  and  the  mangled  inno- 
cent, who,  after  all,  is  more  frightened 
than  hurt,  is  picked  up  and  covered 
with  caresses — which,  however,  have 
merely  the  effect  of  prolonging  the 
period  of  his  yelping.  He  has  been 
attacked — he  has  been  bitten — he  has 
excited  sympathy;  and  he  is  deter- 
mined that,  in  so  far  as  in  him  lies, 
that  sympathy  shall  not  be  permitted 
to  abate.  So  he  continues  to  howl, 
and  disturb  the  whole  neighbourhood, 
until  even  his  well-wishers  pronounce 
him  to  be  a  posjtive  nuisance,  and 
become  rather  angry  with  Jowler  be- 
cause he  did  not  finish  him  at  once. 

If  any  of  our  readers  should  be 
at  a  loss  to  know  what  these  prelimi- 
nary remarks  portend,  we  beg  to  in- 
form them  that  they  are  merely  in 
explanation  of  the  title  which  we 
have  affixed  to  the  present  article. 
The  fact  is,  that,  situated  as  we  are, 
we  have  no  book  before  us  to  review ; 
and  we  are  anxious,  before  the  expiry 
of  the  legitimate  holidays,  to  deliver 
ourselves  of  a  sporting  article.  Were 
we  as  unscrupulous  as  some  of  our 
Quarterly  brethren,  we  might  have 
adopted  their  convenient  custom  of 
transferring,  from  the  advertising  por- 
tion of  the  Times,  the  names  of  any 
new  works  which  appear  to  have  the 
slightest  relation  to  the  topic  in  hand, 
and  then  compounding  an  article  from 
ingredients  totally  different.  But,  in 
our  estimation,  the  practice  to  which 
we  refer  is  base  and  cowardly ;  and, 
follow  it  who  will,  we  trust  that  the 
columns  of  Maga  may  never  be 
stained  by  such  degradation.  It  is 
an  utter  abuse  of  literature,  and  an 
insult  to  literary  men,  to  string  to- 
gether the  titles  of  some  six  or  seven 
different  works  bearing  upon  the  same 
subject,  in  order  to  make  a  preliminary 
flourish,  and  then  calmly,  in  the  text, 
to  pass  them  over  as  if  they  were  so 
much  waste  paper,  undeserving  either 
of  praise  or  of  censure.  Who,  in  the 
name  of  Mumbo-  Jumbo,  wants  to  see 
a  book-catalogue  in  the  table  of  con- 
tents of  a  quarterly  review  ?  and  yet, 
what  other  denomination  can  be  cor- 
rectly given  to  the  literary  bills  of 
fare  which  our  bulky  brothers  are 


Boohs  for  the  Holidays. 


[Oct. 


wont  to  throw  out  for  our  allure- 
ment ?  Why  should  Mr  Mechi's  list 
of  cutlery  be  made  the  mere  handle 
or  apology  for  a  prosy  article  regard- 
ing the  manufacture  of  iron  ?  or  a 
treatise  upon  Macadamisation  be 
paraded  as  an  excuse  for  a  rickety 
essay  upon  mail-coaches?  It  would 
be  quite  as  sensible  a  proceeding  to 
select  Tooke's  Diversions  of  Pur  ley  as 
the  proper  text  for  a  dissertation  upon 
nursery  literature. 

Our  sporting  friends,  therefore,  will 
understand  that  we  intend  no  manner 
of  disparagement  to  recent  writers 
upon  wood  or  water  craft,  by  omitting 
to  specify  their  names.  Some  of 
them,  we  doubt  not,  are  practical 
men,  and  conversant  with  the  subjects 
they  have  selected ;  while  it  is  not 
irrational,  nor  even  uncharitable,  to 
surmise  that  others  are  rank  impos- 
tors. Be  that  as  it  may,  we  shall 
summon  no  parties  to  the  bar ;  and 
therefore  we  hope  for  once  to  escape 
from  expostulation  or  complaint. 

The  compilation  of  a  really  good 
sporting  work  is,  we  suspect,  a  task 
of  great  difficulty,  requiring,  in  the 
person  of  the  author,  the  union  of 
many  accomplishments.  A  man  may 
be  a  first-rate  shot,  a  deadly  angler, 
an  admired  disposer  of  a  field,  or  a 
prime  judge  of  dogs  and  horses,  with- 
out being  able  to  commit  any  of  his 
experiences  to  paper.  Many  men 
who  ;are  admirable  practitioners  in 
their  art  either  fail  in  the  exposition 
of  its  principles,  or  make  that  exposi- 
tion so  exceedingly  bald  as  to  be 
devoid  of  interest.  The  truth  is,  that 
in  sporting  matters  there  is  not  very 
much  to  be  learned  from  the  perusal 
of  books.  Practice  and  perseverance, 
combined  with  a  just  enthusiasm,  are 
indispensably  necessary  for  the  for- 
mation of  the  finished  sportsman; 
and  many  lessons  there  are  which 
cannot  be  imparted  through  the  me- 
dium of  print  or  precept.  We  are- 
aware  that,  in  saying  this,  we  run 
counter  to  the  prevalent  theory  of  the- 
day,  and  the  opinions  of  those  eminent 
philosophers  and  philanthropists  who 
maintain  that  the  only  effectual  means- 
of  educating  the  masses,  are  by  deluging 
the  country  with  cheap  publications, 
and  letting  loose  a  horde  of  itinerant 
lecturers.  We  more  than  doubt  the 
soundness  of  that  view.  No  amount 


1855.] 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


of  attendance  upon  lectures  on  typo- 
graphy will  make  a  man  a  creditable 
printer ;  and  heaven  forbid  that  any 
of  us  should  intrust  our  persons  to  the 
tender  mercies  and  scientific  direction 
of  a  railway- driver,  whose  means  of 
knowledge  were  solely  derived  from  the 
perusal  of  treatises  upon  engines.  If 
we  heard  a  stoker  descanting  learnedly 
upon  the  merits  of  the  machine  in- 
vented by  Hiero  of  Alexandria,  we 
should  feel  very  much  inclined  to 
eschew  proceeding  by  the  train  of 
which  he  is  so  accomplished  an  orna- 
ment; nor  would  our  mind  be  much 
more  at  ease  if  forced  to  cross  the 
Pentland  Firth  during  stormy  weather, 
were  the  helm  intrusted  to  the  hands 
of  the  most  eminent  living  lecturer 
upon  navigation.  Able  and  perspi- 
cuous as  are  the  art- writings  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,  no  man,  however 
attached  to  art,  will  become  a  painter 
merely  through  their  study  ;  and,  not- 
withstanding all  the  treatises  upon 
poetry,  ancient  and  modern,  which  are 
extant  for  our  perusal,  the  art  is  not, 
at  least  at  the  present  time,  in  a 
thriving  or  a  healthy  condition. 

In  sporting,  practice  is  all  in  all. 
We  verily  believe  that  no  angler  can 
honestly  say  that  he  has  ever  added 
the  weight  of  six  ounces  to  his  creel 
in  consequence  of  all  the.maxims  that 
are  laid  down  by  Isaak  Walton ;  and 
we  are  quite  sure  that  no  marked 
diminution  in  the  race  of  wild-fowl 
followed  the  revelations  of  Colonel 
Hawker.  Old  Isaak's  book,  of  which 
no  one  who  is  able  to  appreciate  the 
charm  of  a  simple,  manly,  and  un^ 
affected  style  can  speak  otherwise  than 
in  terms  of  love,  is  a  mere  pastoral ; 
beautiful  indeed  as  a  composition,  but 
useless  as  an  angling  treatise.  Use- 
less at  least,  in  so  far  as  its  precepts 
are  concerned  ;  but  not  useless  from 
the  spirit  which  it  breathes,  and  the 
enthusiasm  which  it  has  often  kindled. 
Many  anglers,  who  otherwise  might 
never  have  thrown  a  line,  have  con- 
fessed that  the  perusal  of  Walton  was 
the  first  incentive  which  urged  them 
to  the  water-side  ;  and  they  have 
blessed  the  memory  of  the  good  old 
man  who  introduced  them  to  a  pastime 
which  never  palls,  and  to  an  enjoyment 
as  keenly  relished  in  age  as  in  early 
youth.  But  in  angling,  there  are  many 
gradations.  The  generic  term  of 


467 

angler  embraces  men  of  totally  oppo- 
site temperaments  and  habits.  The 
placid  drowsy  citizen  who  in  his  punt, 
with  a  gallon  of  beer  beside  him,  be- 
guiles gudgeons  at  Twickenham  or 
Kingston,  claims  the  same  title  with 
the  sturdy  Gael,  who  despises  angling 
even  for  trout,  but  confines  himself  to 
the  capture  of  the  salmon.  There  are 
those  who  esteem  the  conquest  of  a 
single  pike  enough  foundation  for  a 
piscatory  name — there  are  others  who 
expect  to  be  known  to  posterity  as  the 
slayers  of  thumping  barbel.  And  what 
is  there  unreasonable  in  this  ?  But  for 
the  boar  of  Caledon  we  never  should 
have  heard  of  Meleager — take  away 
the  dolphin  from  Arion,  and  the  poet 
becomes  an  empty  sound. 

Pastoral  or  no  pastoral,  we  stil 
place  the  Complete  Angler  of  Walton 
in  the  foremost  rank  of  treatises  upon 
the  gentle  craft,  and  hail  him  as  the 
Homer  of  the  streams.  Had  he  been 
more  practical,  more  fishified,  less 
credulous,  and  less  discursive  than  he 
is,  it  may  be  that  the  virtue  would 
have  departed  from  him,  and  his  trea- 
tise have  lost  that  charm  which  has 
been  recognised  by  many  generations. 
Only  once  was  it  our  lot  to  tread  on 
the  grassy  margin  of  the  Lea — to  see 
in  fancy  the  venerable  form  of  Pis- 
cator  with  his  pupil  by  his  side,  re- 
clining under  the  shelter  of  an  elm, 
and  watching  the  floats,  as  the  big 
drops  pattered  on  the  leaves  above,  or 
made  a  thousand  dimples  in  the  pool 
— and  to  cast  a  line  in  the  waters, 
hallowed  by  such  classic  recollections. 
We  wish  now  that  we  had  left  the 
latter  deed  undone  ;  for  the  man 
who  accompanied  us,  and  who  called 
himself,  par  excellence,  "  the  fisher- 
man," put  into  our  hands  something 
which  more  nearly  resembled  a  staff 
than  a  rod,  with  a  line  which  might 
have  held  a  porpoise,  garnished  with 
a  couple  of  bullets  ;  then,  shouldering 
a  hamper,  which  contained  what  he 
denominated  u  ground-bait,"  he  in- 
formed us  that  we  were  to  fish  for 
barbel.  Of  course  we  made  no  objec- 
tion. Arriving  at  a  very  dirty  and 
drumly  pool,  our  guide,  philosopher, 
and  friend — who,  by  the  way,  was  the 
ugliest  dog  we  ever  had  the  fortune  to 
set  eyes  on — opened  his  wallet,  and 
drew  out  some  balls  about  the  size 
of  oranges,  which  he  stated  to  be 


468 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


[Oct. 


a  compound  of  tallow  -  greaves, 
slugs,  and  cheese!  We  had  heard 
previously,  or  read  somewhere,  that 
barbel  were  by  no  means  delicate 
or  particular  in  their  diet,  but  we 
really  did  not  suppose  that  they 
would  have  touched  anything  so 
ineffably  abominable.  Howbeit  the 
filth- balls  were  broken  into  frag- 
ments, and  thrown  into  the  hole, 
which  we  were  assured  was  the  finest 
cast  for  barbel  in  the  river — in  fact, 
quite  "  a  favourite  lie."  We  baited 
the  hook  with  gentles,  and  pitched 
the  bullets  in.  We  sat  for  three 
hours,  and  smoked  four  pipes,  without 
even  the  semblance  of  a  nibble; 
maintaining  all  the  while  a  grim 
silence,  which  Harpocrates  might 
have  envied.  Not  so  our  guide,  who 
kept  up  a  perpetual  torrent  of  gabble 
touching  the  monsters  that  he  had  seen 
extracted  from  "  that  'ere  deep,  vich 
his  the  primish  bit  for  barbel  in  them 
'ere  parts,"  varied  only  by  personal 
anecdotes  of  the  Cockneys  who  were 
in  the  habit  of  resorting  to  the  river, 
and  who,  judging  from  his  account, 
must  have  been  sportive  and  playful 
rogues,  addicted  to  all  manner  of 
practical  jokes,  but  "  real  gemmen," 
in  so  far  as  liquor  was  concerned. 
At  length,  when  further  sufferance 
would  have  become  a  positive  sin,  we 
kicked  the  basket  with  the  tallow- 
greaves  into  the  river,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  fish,  if  there  really  were  any 
there — a  question  regarding  which 
we  entertain  the  gravest  doubt ;  ex- 
pressed, in  unmistakable  terms,  to 
the  panic-stricken  fisherman,  our 
opinion  of  the  piscatory  merits  of  the 
stream  of  which  he  was  the  guardian  ; 
and,  guiltless  of  barbel's  blood, 
quitted  the  banks  of  the  lazy  Lea, 
which  assuredly  we  shall  not  visit 
again,  at  least  for  angling  purposes. 

Stoddart  is  an  excellent  practical 
guide,  and  displays,  in  dealing  with 
his  subject,  the  decision  and  clearness 
of  a  master.  His  observations  are 
the  result  of  long  experience ;  and 
even  by  the  best  anglers,  some  of 
whom  are  rather  crotchety  in  matters 
of  detail,  and  wedded  to  their  own 
systems,  he  is  acknowledged  to  be  a 
first-rate  authority.  But  Stoddart, 
though  himself  a  poet  of  no  mean 
ability,  as  his  capital  angling  songs 
do  sufficiently  testify,  has  put  less  of 


the  leaven  of  poetry  than  we  could 
have  desired  into  the  Scottish  Angler, 
and  is  technical  almost  to  a  fault. 
We  doubt  whether  any  sporting 
book  which  does  not  contain  very 
vivid  and  graphic  sketches  can  be 
popular  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word ; 
for  the  author  who  delights  us  by  his 
enthusiasm  and  manner  of  style,  will 
always  be  preferred  to  the  writer 
whose  object  is  solely  to  instruct.  And 
if,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  it  is 
impossible  to  gain  any  deep  insight 
into  the  mysteries  of  wood  or  water 
craft  from  the  mere  perusal  of  books, 
it  follows  that  books  upon  these 
subjects  ought  to  be  made  as  attrac- 
tive as  possible,  in  order  to  win 
new  votaries  to  the  science  of  the 
sweet  Sir  Tristrem.  Ah,  kind  Sir 
Tristrem !  —  courteous  knight  —  fine 
forester — lover  of  ladies,  and  of  all 
manner  of  vert  and  venison ! — well 
is  it  for  thee  that  thou  canst  not 
know  what  a  ninny-hammer  thou 
art  made  to  appear  in  the  strains 
of  modern  poets  !  What  though  thou 
wert  luckless  in  love,  as  many  a  good 
fellow  was  before  thee,  and  has  been 
since  thy  time — is  that  any  reason 
why  thou  shouldst  be  depicted  shiver- 
ing under  the  attack  of  a  tertian 
ague,  and  moaning  for  the  absent 
Iseult  in  thy  disordered  sleep? 
Caesars  and  Alexanders  were,  like 
others  of  the  human  race,  liable  to 
the  stroke  of  disease,  and  have  called 
piteously  on  Titinius  or  Hephsestion 
for  drink ;  but  what  eulogist  of  either 
hero  would  select  for  illustration 
those  moments  when  he  lay  with  a 
nightcap  drawn  over  his  aching 
temples,  and  a  pitcher  of  ptisan  by 
his  pillow  ?  Not  so,  assuredly,  Tris- 
trem, would  we  have  depicted  thee, 
had  it  been  our  vocation  or  choice 
to  summon  thine  eidolon  from  the 
thickness  of  the  mediaeval  mist  !  Not 
as  a  brain-sick  lazar,  ghost -like, 
wan,  and  gibbering,  shouldst  thou 
have  appeared  —  but  as  a  free  and 
joyous  knight  riding  through  the 
greenwood,  and  making  bolt  and 
thicket  ring  again  with  the  blast 
of  thy  merry  bugle — or,  as  a  cham- 
pion of  the  Table  Round,  splintering 
lances  in  the  tilt-yard  with  Laun- 
celot,  Gareth,  and  Gawaine,  before 
the  eyes  of  King  Arthur  and  Guenever 
'his  beloved  queeii ! 


1855.] 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


469 


Having  delivered  ourselves  of  this 
apostrophe  to  an  eminent  early  sports- 
man, let  us  return  to  our  more  imme- 
diate gear.  We  eye  our  rods,  as  they 
stand,  a  slender  sheaf  in  the  corner, 
with  a  feeling  approaching  to  melan- 
choly ;  for  the  season  is  now  far  ad- 
vanced, and  in  a  few  days  most  of 
the  rivers  will  be  shut  up.  That 
circumstance,  however,  is  in  itself  of 
little  consequence  ;  for  the  sea-shore 
still  remains  open,  and  there  is  as  good 
angling  in  the  salt-water  as  in  the 
fresh.  This  must  be,  we  know,  a 
startling  announcement  to  many,  who 
have  been  reared  in  the  belief  that, 
below  tide- way,  the  rod  and  line  are 
useless.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  fact 
that,  in  the  northern  counties  of  Scot- 
land, and  more  especially  in  the  islands 
which  contain  few  streams,  and  those 
but  of  insignificant  size,  it  is  not  only 
possible,  but  easy,  for  a  good  angler, 
during  the  months  of  September  and 
October,  and  even  later,  to  fill  his 
basket  with  splendid  trout  in  the  bays. 
Nay,  we  are  using  far  too  moderate  a 
term  ;  for  no  basket  that  angler  ever 
slung  at  his  back  could  contain  one- 
half  of  the  fish  which  we  have  seen 
taken  by  a  single  rod  in  the  course  of 
a  few  hours.  It  is  quite  a  mistaken 
idea  to  suppose  that  there  is  any  vir- 
tue in  fresh-water  or  running  streams, 
which  causes  migratory  fish  to  rise  at 
the  artificial  fly,  or  to  seize  on  the 
minnow  or  other  natural  bait.  They 
bite  freely  in  the  sea ;  and  we  have 
repeatedly  captured  trout  from  the 
end  of  a  little  pier,  at  a  great  distance 
from  any  stream,  with  no  other  bait 
than  a  common  limpet.  In  order  to 
insure  success  in  this  kind  of  fishing, 
the  angler  must  make  himself  ac- 
quainted with  the  localities,  must 
study  the  state  of  the  tides,  and  must 
not  be  anywise  particular  about  wad- 
ing. He  should  provide  himself  with 
a  stout  rod  and  strong  tackle ;  for  if 
the  day  is  a  propitious  one,  he  may 
expect  to  meet  with  fish  of  four,  six, 
or  even  eight  pounds  weight,  and 
he  has  to  bring  them  ashore  among 
patches  of  the  toughest  sea-weed.  He 
may  use  either  the  fly  or  the  worm  ; 
but  the  latter  is  the  surest  bait,  and 
trout  will  rise  at  it  when  they  will  not 
look  at  the  feathers  and  tinsel.  The 
bait  must  not  be  allowed  to  sink,  but 
the  worm  should  be  kept  near  the 


surface,  and  drawn  slowly  along,  very 
much  as  if  you  were  fishing  with  a 
minnow.  The  best  time  to  commence 
is  about  half-an-hour  before  full  tide, 
spring-tides  being  decidedly  prefer- 
able, as  the  trout  are  then  upon  the 
move,  and  the  sport  will  continue  as 
long  as  the  nature  of  the  bottom  will 
allow.  But  as  the  fish  go  out  very 
fast  with  the  receding  waters,  it  is  in 
most  places  difficult  to  reach  them 
after  the  tide  has  half  ebbed.  An  ex- 
cellent station  for  taking  sea- trout  is 
where  the  tide  runs  rapidly  past  a 
ledge  of  rocks ;  indeed,  the  more  cur- 
rent there  is,  the  greater  is  the  chance 
of  success.  The  ground  near  the 
mouth  of  streams,  even  though  these 
may  be  so  small  as  scarcely  to  make 
their  way  through  the  gravel,  is  almost 
always  good ;  but  even  in  bays,  where 
there  is  neither  rock  nor  stream,  ex- 
cellent sport  may  be  obtained,  espe- 
cially if  the  wind  is  blowing  freshly 
from  shore.  One  great  advantage  of 
this  kind  of  angling  is,  that  all  the 
fish,  without  exception,  are  in  prime 
condition ;  and,  as  regards  sport,  we 
would  at  any  time  as  lieve  angle  in  a 
Zetland  voe  as  in  a  Highland  river. 
You  may  miss  the  trees  and  the  moun- 
tains ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
stretches  before  you,  fresh  and  free, 
the  glorious  ocean,  with  the  white 
comb  on  every  wave,  as  it  rolls  to- 
ward the  barrier-cliffs  of  the  rocky 
island,  and,  bursting  on  that  wall  of 
adamant,  sends  the  spray  of  its  surges, 
glittering  in  the  sunbeams,  in  a  rain- 
bow shower,  up  to  the  grand  old 
ruined  fortress,  which,  in  times  of 
yore,  Earl  Erlend,  for  the  sake  of  his 
bride,  made  good  against  the  hosts  of 
the  Norsemen. 

Do  you  open  your  eyes  in  wonder- 
ment at  this  kind  of  sport,  ye  sons  of 
the  city,  whose  souls  are  set  upon 
gudgeon,  and  whose  highest  aspira- 
tions are  after  dace?  Come  then 
with  us  to  the  brow  of  the  cliffs,  and 
we  will  show  you  greater  marvels  ! 
Take  heed  to  your  footing,  for  the 
herbage  is  short  and  slippery,  the 
precipice  goes  down  sheer  two  hun- 
dred feet  to  the  water;  and,  were 
your  heels  to  fail  you  now,  you  would 
never  eat  white- bait  at  the  Trafalgar 
more.  But  be  of  good  courage — for 
here  the  ledge  is  broad  ;  and  it  is  only 
a  pic-tarnie,  and  not  an  eagle,  that  is 


470 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


[Oct. 


circling  round  your  heads  with  such 
vehement  and  threatening  screams. 
Look  out  seaward,  and  tell  us  what 
you  behold.  Gulls  of  every  kind, 
white,  black,  and  grey,  are  wheeling 
round  the  broken  skerry,  and  adding 
their  distracting  clamour  to  the  cries 
of  the  tern,  auk,  and  teist ;  whilst  the 
long- necked  cormorants  fly  sullenly 
over  the  face  of  the  deep.  Down 
yonder,  on  the  point  of  the  reef,  are 
some  thirty  seals — Neptuni  pecus,  the 
herd  that  only  will  obey  the  wind- 
ing of  the  Triton's  horn — basking  in 
the  sun,  flapping  their  tails  as  they 
revel  in  the  unwonted  luxury  of  heat, 
and  nodding  their  heads  as  if  in  ac- 
quiescence to  the  sage  remarks  of  their 
neighbours.  For  they  are  right  wise 
fellows,  those  seals — more  sagacious 
than  many  a  biped  who  piques  himself 
upon  his  superior  education — and  it 
would  puzzle  an  acuter  youth  than 
ever  stood  in  your  shoes  to  circumvent 
them.  But  look  out  yonder  ;  can  you 
not  descry  something  like  white  spouts 
bursting  from  the  water,  and  occasion- 
ally a  dark  speck  rising  to  the  sur- 
face and  disappearing  ?  Congratulate 
yourself,  child  of  Whittington ;  for 
that  is  a  shoal  of  whales,  and  it  may 
be  your  good  fortune  to  witness  the 
most  exciting  of  all  spectacles — a 
WHALE  HUNT  among  the  northern 
islands ! 

Other  eyes  than  ours  have  lighted 
upon  that  most  gladsome  apparition. 
On  the  hill-side  stands  a  frantic  wo- 
man waving  her  apron — yea,  she  has 
even  torn  off  her  petticoat  for  a  more 
conspicuous  banner — and,  leaping  like 
aMcenad,  she  vociferates,  "Whales — 
whales  ! "  And  well  may  Tronda  leap 
and  vociferate ;  for,  if  the  chase 
should  prove  successful,  her  superior 
sharpness  of  vision  may  win  her  a 
five-pound  note,  besides  diffusing  com- 
fort over  the  neighbourhood  for  miles 
around.  "  Whales — whales  !"  The 
whole  district  rises  at  the  cry.  The 
township  below  vomits  forth  its  in- 
mates by  tens  and  twenties.  The 
fisherman,  dozing  on  the  beach  with 
the  pipe  in  his  mouth,  bounds  to  his 
feet  as  though  an  adder  had  stung 
him,  and  rushes  desperately  to  his 
boat.  Swarthy  men,  and  weather- 
bronzed  women,  their  hair  streaming 
in  the  wind,  unconfined  by  snood  or 
kerchief,  start  out  of  peat-mosses,  and 


race  violently  to  the  shore.  The 
reaper  abandons  his  sickle,  and  runs 
with  the  rest ;  for  oil  is  dearer  to  him 
than  corn  ;  besides,  the  oats  and  bere 
cannot  swim  away,  which  is  more  than 
can  be  said  of  the  whales.  Horses 
may  take  to  the  hill,  and  cows  make 
havoc  among  the  crop,  for  their  ap- 
pointed guardians  are  gone  ; — even 
the  ragged  urchin,  whose  duty  it  is 
to  herd  the  geese,  has  caught  the 
general  infection,  and,  mad  as  a  March 
hare,  gallops  after  his  insane  mother, 
both  of  them  shouting,  as  if  for  dear 
life,  "Whales— whales!"  though  the 
whole  inhabitants  of  the  parish  are  by 
this  time  thoroughly  cognisant  of  the 
shoal. 

Quick— quick!  shove  off  the  boats 
— every  one  of  them,  however  old 
and  leaky,  and  tarry  not  for  thwart 
or  rowing-pin,  because  every  minute 
is  precious.  "  Huzza !  here  comes 
the  minister  1"  "Bless  you,  my 
bairns!"  quoth  the  good  man,  as, 
armed  with  a  flinching  knife,  he  steps 
panting  into  a  boat ;  and  the  flotilla 
begins  to  move.  "  How  many  whales 
may  there  be  ?  "  On  this  point  there 
is  some  diversity  of  opinion,  for,  large 
as  they  are,  whales  in  the  sea  are  not 
so  easily  counted  as  chickens  in  a 
farmyard,  but  nobody  thinks  there 
are  fewer  than  four,  and  some  esti- 
mate the  number  at  five  hundred  ! 

"  Five  hundred  whales  ! — well,  that 
is  coming  it  rather  strong!"  Hold 
your  tongue,  you  ignoramus !  and, 
for  the  future,  confine  your  remarks 
to  what  you  know  and  understand. 
If  we  had  told  you  an  hour  ago  that 
we  could  show  you  thirty  seals,  some 
of  them  not  much  smaller  in  carcass 
than  a  young  Highland  bullock,  lying 
together  upon  a  rock,  you  would  not 
have  believed  us.  You  have  seen 
that  number  now ;  and  very  much 
mistaken  shall  we  be,  if  on  your  re- 
turn to  Cheapside,  you  do  not  multi- 
ply it  fourfold.  The  whales  out 
yonder  are  not  Greenlanders,  such  as 
Scoresby  has  written  about  so  well 
and  oleaginously — they  are  "  ca'ing 
whales,"  which  the  learned  style 
DelpJdnus  deductor,  and  there  are 
huge  shoals  of  them  in  the  northern 
seas,  especially  around  the  Faroe 
Islands,  which  pertain  to  the  Crown 
of  Denmark.  In  those  distant  islands 
their  appearance  at  a  certain  season, 


1855.] 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


471 


of  the  year  is  confidently  expected ; 
and  regular  preparation  is  made  for 
the  fishing,  or  rather  the  chase.  Round 
the  British  Islands  they  are  not  so 
common ;  but  few  years  elapse  in 
which  they  do  not  show  themselves 
off  some  part  of  the  coast  of  Zetland, 
and  they  are  frequently  captured  in 
large  numbers.  Among  the  Orkneys 
they  are  not  often  seen,  probably 
owing  to  the  extreme  rapidity  of  the 
tides  in  that  archipelago  ;  and  of  late 
they  have  been  rare  visitors.  In  the 
bays  of  Skye  and  the  sea-lochs  of  the 
Lews  they  are  occasionally  visible — 
indeed  we  believe  that  the  largest 
shoal  of  the  past  season  came  on  shore 
in  the  latter  island. 

These  fish— for  such  by  immemorial 
usage  we  are  entitled  to  term  them — 
often  reach  the  size  of  twenty  or  four- 
and-twenty  feet ;  and  their  carcasses 
are  extremely  valuable  on  account  of 
the  quantity  of  oil  which  they  pro- 
duce. Although  "  whales,"  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  Scotland,  are  droits 
of  the  Crown,  that  claim  has  long 
since  been  abandoned  as  regards  the 
"  ca'ing  "  whale ;  and  the  proceeds  of 
a  lucky  chase  are  divided  in  certain 
proportions,  and  according  to  a  gradu- 
ated scale,  among  the  captors,  after 
deducting  a  certain  share  for  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  ground  adjacent  to  the 
shore  where  the  fish  maybe  stranded. 
Such  at  least  is  the  custom  hi  Zetland ; 
and  therefore  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  if  the  apparition  of  a  shoal  should 
be  sufficient  to  throw  the  inhabitants 
of  the  fortunate  district  into  a  state 
of  the  most  violent  excitement.  For 
yonder,  where  the  spouts  are  rising, 
and  the  black  backs  dipping,  swim 
creatures  to  the  marketable  value  of, 
it  may  be,  two  thousand  pounds  ;  and 
with  patience,  caution,  and  persever- 
ance, they  may  all  of  them  be  driven 
ashore. 

Of  that  little  fleet  there  is  no  ap- 
pointed admiral  ;  but,  by  common 
consent,  Jerome  Jeromson,  a  very  pa- 
triarchal Triton,  who  for  more  than 
forty  years  has  gone  out  regularly  to 
the  haaf,  and  who  has  even  witnessed 
and  joined  in  a  whale-hunt  at  Faroe, 
is  installed  in  the  chief  command;  or, 
to  speak  more  correctly,  assumes  it 
without  any  murmur.  But  for  him 
some  of  the  hastier  hands  would  have 
pushed  off  without  ammunition,  there- 


by committing  the  same  blunder  which 
was  perpetrated  by  that  sagacious 
creature,  and  bright  star  of  intelli- 
gence, Sir  Charles  Wood,  in  despatch- 
ing our  fleet  to  bombard  the  Baltic 
fortresses  without  a  relay  of  mortars. 
But,  fortunately  for  the  Zetlanders, 
and  their  chance  of  spoil  and  oil, 
Jeromson,  unlike  Wood,  is  thoroughly 
up  to  his  business,  and  has  taken  good 
care  that  no  boat  has  been  allowed  to 
leave  shore  without  a  proper  provision 
of  stones.  Start  not  again,  youth  of  our 
adoption,  nor  insinuate  that  we  mean 
harpoons.  We  mean  simply  what 
we  say,  stones — tidy  pebbles  from  the 
beach,  to  make,  when  necessary,  a 
splashing  in  the  water,  and  nrge  the 
whales  onwards  to  their  doom.  This 
is  at  best  but  a  clumsy  substitute  for 
the  more  regular  apparatus  employed 
at  Faroe,  which  consists  of  ropes  ex- 
tending from  boat  to  boat,  to  which 
wisps  of  straw  are  tied ;  and  that  is 
said  to  constitute  an  impenetrable  bar- 
rier, at  least  effectually  to  prevent  the 
shoal  from  heading  backwards.  But 
we  have  already  explained  that  the 
appearance  of  whales  off  the  coasts  of 
Zetland  cannot  be  relied  npon  with 
certainty,  and  therefore  it  is  no  won- 
der if  each  township  or  fishing  village 
should  be  but  scantily  provided  with 
the  implements  appropriate  for  this 
occasional  chase.  After  all,  stones 
answer  the  purpose  pretty  well,  the 
great  matter  being  to  keep  up  a  suffi- 
cient splashing ;  and  we  dare  to  say 
that  a  Cockney  in  a  cork  jacket  would 
be  sufficient  to  terrify  the  whales.  As 
for  harpoons,  they  are  quite  out  of  the 
question,  for  the  use  of  them  would 
break  the  shoal  at  once,  and  so  de- 
stroy the  hopes  of  the  fishing. 

Pull  strong  and  steady,  and  keep 
the  line,  and  above  all,  in  the  mean 
time,  keep  silence ;  for  we  are  now  at 
no  great  distance  from  the  whales, 
and  the  first  manoeuvre  is  to  place 
the  boats  between  them  and  the  outer 
ocean.  Old  Jerome  leads  the  way ; 
and  gradually  the  boats  creep  round 
the  shoal,  and  place  it  between  them 
and  the  land.  So  far  good ;  but  even 
yet  there  must  be  no  noise,  for  the 
fish  are  still  in  deep  water,  and  if 
greatly  alarmed  will  inevitably  make 
a  rush  and  escape.  Nor  is  the  shore 
immediately  opposite  of  a  kind  to  ren- 
der their  capture  practicable ;  for  it 


472 

is  rocky  and  broken,  and  there  is  no 
beach  upon  which  whales  could  be 
run.  But  yonder,  beyond  the  point, 
is  the  Trows  Bay,  with  a  fine  mar- 
ginal sweep  of  white  sand,  a  fitting 
race-course  for  the  steeds  of  Amphi- 
trite ;  and  if  we  can  beguile  them  on 
there,  our  triumph  is  next  to  secure. 

Though  not  alarmed,  the  whales 
are  evidently  conscious  of  the  proxi- 
mity of  danger,  for  they  cease  their 
gambols  and  swim  in  more  compact 
order,  the  smallest  and  weakest  being 
placed  nearest  to  the  shore  ;  and  one 
fine  old  "  bull,"  who  probably  has 
been  in  trouble  ere  now,  leads  the 
van,  and  occasionally  rears  his  head 
as  if  to  reconnoitre.  There  is  now  no 
need  to  enforce  silence,  for  the  whales 
are  running  fast,  and  every  sinew  of 
the  strong  fishermen  at  the  oars  is 
strained  to  keep  pace  with  them. 
Hurrah  !  the  point  is  passed  —  the 
white  sands  of  Trows  Bay  are  visible— 
and  the  boats  rapidly  form  a  semi- 
circle round  the  shoal. 

Now,  then,  give  tongue,  and  splash 
with  stone  and  oar,  for  the  "bull" 
begins  to  see  that  he  has  been  led 
into  a  natural  trap ;  he  swims  no 
longer  in  front  of  the  shoal,  but  turns 
his  head  toward  the  boats,  and  it  is 
evident  that  he  meditates  a  rush.  If 
he  makes  his  purpose  good,  and  his 
heart  fail  him  not,  farewell  to  our 
hope  of  oil ;  for  the  whole  herd  will 
follow  in  his  wake,  and,  tough  though 
Norway  timber  be,  it  cannot  resist  the 
shock  of  the  ocean  cavalry.  There- 
fore shout,  splash,  howl  like  demons, 
ye  sons  and  daughters  of  Hialtland  ! 
Chaunt  runes,  pitch  stones,  and  roar 
vociferously  like  the  Berserkars  of  old, 
for  the  moment  of  battle  has  come 
when  the  voice  of  the  champions 
should  be  heard  !  And  heard  it  is, 
for  never  from  the  heart  of  a  sacked 
city  arose  a  more  discordant  cry;  and 
the  "bull,"  fairly  cowed,  turns  tail, 
and  runs  himself  precipitately  ashore. 
Then  what  a  flurry!  what  a  lash- 
ing of  tails,  and  walloping,  and  snort- 
ing, and  moaning,  as  the  poor  mis- 
guided whales  recklessly  follow  their 
leader,  and  attempt  to  escape  from 
their  enemies  at  sea  by  throwing 
themselves  on  the  sand!  And  here 
let  us  close  the  picture.  After  vic- 
tory, what  boots  it  describing  the 
horrors  of  the  battle-field  ?  After  the 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


[Oct. 


excitement  of  the  chase,  is  not  the 
process  of  gralloching  disgusting  ? 
Therefore,  having  seen  the  whales 
stranded,  and  past  the  possibility  of 
escape,  let  us,  if  you  please,  leave  the 
captors  to  despatch  them  at  their  lei- 
sure, and  turn  to  some  other  field. 
Indeed,  after  such  a  take  as  this,  the 
shore  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Trows 
Bay  will  be  anything  but  an  agree- 
able promenade  for  persons  whose 
olfactory  organs  are  sensitive.  It  is 
possible  that  invalids  to  whom  the  use 
of  cod-liver  oil  has  been  recommended 
by  the  faculty,  might  derive  benefit 
from  inhaling  the  odours  which  arise 
during  the  subsequent  processes  of 
flinching  and  boiling;  but,  as  our 
lungs  are  reasonably  sound,  we  beg 
to  make  our  bow,  and  cheerfully  sur- 
render our  share  of  the  profits  for  the 
benefit  of  the  common  fund. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  scenesr 
such  as  that  of  which  we  have  at- 
tempted to  give  a  sketch,  are  of  ordi- 
nary occurrence  ;  or  that,  when  a 
shoal  of  whales  is  discovered,  the 
chances  of  capture  exceed  those  of 
loss.  The  reverse,  indeed,  is  the 
case.  Within  a  fortnight  from  the 
time  when  we  are  writing,  a  consider- 
able shoal  appeared  in  the  Bay  of 
Scapa,  within  two  miles  of  Kirkwall, 
the  capital  of  Orkney;  but,  though 
the  chase  was  perseveringly  main- 
tained so  long  as  there  was  hope,  it 
was  found  impossible  to  drive  them 
on  shore.  In  1852,  a  shoal,  computed 
at  the  enormous  number  of  eleven 
hundred,  was  seen  near  Scalloway  in 
Zetland ;  but  the  result,  in  that  case, 
was  equally  unfortunate.  Still  the 
chances  are  great  enough  to  excite 
the  cupidity  and  arouse  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  fishermen  ;  and  few 
Zetlanders  are  so  stolid  and  impas- 
sible as  not  to  exhibit  eloquence,  if 
you  can  induce  them  to  describe  the 
charms,  vicissitudes,  and  dangers  of 
a  whale-hunt. 

Some  enthusiastic  members  of  Par- 
liament meditate,  as  we  are  given  to 
understand,  a  complete  codification 
of  the  laws  of  England — by  which  we 
presume  they  mean,  the  condensation 
of  all  existing  and  operative  statutes 
in  one  Brobdignagian  act.  We  shall 
not  venture,  at  the  present  time,  to 
offer  any  opinion  as  to  the  feasibility 
of  that  scheme  ;  but  we  should  much 


1855.] 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


rejoice,  were  it  possible,  to  see  the 
whole  science  of  sporting  expounded 
in  a  fitting  Encylopedia.  Such  as  do 
exist  are  worse  than  useless;  but 
surely,  with  so  many  splendid  sport- 
ing writers  upon  various  topics  as  the 
present  age  has  produced,  something 
might  be  done  towards  furnishing  us 
with  a  creditable  code  of  St  Hubert, 
applicable  to  the  British  Isles.  Take, 
for  example,  the  subject  of  deer-stalk- 
ing. The  Stuarts,  Mr  Scrope,  and 
Mr  St  John  respectively  have  written 
books,  which  have  not  only  com- 
manded general  applause  from  the 
fascination  of  their  style,  but  have 
been  acknowledged  by  sportsmen  of 
the  highest  accomplishments,  as  noble 
works  of  strategy.  Colquhoun's  book 
— "the  Moor  and  the  Loch" — is,  in 
our  opinion,  one  of  the  very  best 
sporting  works  that  ever  was  com- 
piled; inasmuch  as  it  is  eminently 
practical,  while  entrancing  the  reader 
with  the  vitality  and  power  of  its 
descriptions.  Scrope,  though  good 
upon  deer,  is  bad  upon  salmon — at 
least  to  any  real  purpose — and,  for  a 
first-rate  "  kettle  of  fish,"  he  must 
needs  succumb  to  Stoddart.  In  the 
chase,  there  has  been  a  decided  hiatus, 
since  "Nimrod"  was  called  away; 
still,  there  is  ample  material,  from  his 
writings  and  those  of  others,  who  may 
not  have  achieved  the  same  degree  of 
notoriety,  for  maintaining  the  honour 
of  *'  the  brush."  Probably,  however, 
a  long  time  must  elapse  before  what 
we  contemplate  could  be  realised  ; 
and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  re- 
alisation might,  when  attained,  be,  in 
many  respects,  mere  matter  of  history. 
For,  in  the  north,  so  rapid  are  the 
changes,  that  each  succeeding  year 
makes  a  marked  difference  both  on 
the  sporting  grounds  and  on  the 
streams.  The  former  are  becoming 
more  circumscribed ;  and  as  cultiva- 
tion increases,  there  is  a  change  in  the 
character  of  the  fauna.  Within  our 
own  recollection,  many  streams,  once 
famous  for  the  sport  they  afforded  to 
the  angler,  have  become  compara- 
tively barren,  owing,  as  we  think,  to  the 
system  of  drainage,  which  renders  the 
floods  more  heavy  and  impetuous  than 
they  were  before,  and  in  dry  seasons 
cuts  off  the  supply  of  water  which  was 
previously  yielded  by  the  mosses.  Some 
birds  and  wild  animals  have  become 


473 

very  scarce.  The  haunts  of  the  eagles 
have  been  thinned ;  and  rarely  now, 
except  in  the  remotest  districts,  can 
you  hear  the  scream  of  the  king 
of  birds  as  he  swoops  down  upon 
his  quarry.  The  capercailzie,  though 
lately  restored  from  Norway,  was 
extinct  for  nearly  a  century  ;  and 
in  the  south,  as  we  are  informed,  the 
breed  of  bustards  exists  no  longer. 
If  a  story  which  was  once  told  to  us 
by  an  English  sportsman  be  true, 
ignominious  was  the  termination  of 
that  noble  race  of  birds.  For  many 
years  the  numbers  of  the  bustards 
had  been  declining,  and  they  had  dis- 
appeared from  one  locality  after  an- 
other, until  it  was  supposed  that  only 
three  were  left.  These  were  known 
to  frequent  one  of  the  large  downs  in 
the  south  of  England;  and  as  the 
plain  was  a  wide  one,  and  not  likely 
to  be  broken  up  by  cultivation,  it  was 
still  hoped  that  the  birds  might  mul- 
tiply. But  one  day  there  arrived,  on 
a  visit  to  the  lord  of  the  manor,  a 
London  tradesman — we  believe  a  dry- 
salter  by  profession — who  happened 
to  possess  that  sort  of  influence  over 
his  host  which  is  often  the  result  of 
pecuniary  accommodation.  Now, 
Stigginson,  like  Mr  Winkle,  had  the 
soul  of  a  sportsman,  and  he  yearned 
to  perform  some  exploit  in  the  fields 
which  might  entitle  him  to  claim  the 
admiration  of  his  less  fortunate  friends 
in  the  city.  The  only  drawback  to 
his  ambition  was  that,  though  well 
advanced  in  years,  Stigginson  had 
never  handled  a  gun ;  and,  in  conse- 
quence, his  notions  upon  the  subject 
of  projectiles  were  somewhat  hazy 
and  indefinite.  But  the  drysalter 
was  a  man  of  courage,  and  knew  full 
well  that  the  only  way  to  conquer 
difficulties  was  to  face  them ;  so 
when  his  host  offered  him  some  shoot- 
ing, he  eagerly  accepted,  and  went 
forth  to  the  stubbles  and  potato-fields 
to  wage  war  with  the  partridges. 
The  birds  were  numerous,  and  not 
wild;  but  that  day  fortune  did  not 
smile  upon  Stigginson.  Blood  in- 
deed he  shed ;  but  the  blood  was  that 
of  an  unfortunate  pointer,  who,  stand- 
ing dead  at  point,  thirty  yards  off, 
received  in  his  rump  a  charge  of  No. 
5  from  the  barrel  of  Stigginson's  gun, 
which,  as  he  protested  to  the  keeper, 
had  exploded  of  its  own  accord  ;  and 


Boohs  for  the  Holidays. 


474 

the  poor  brute  limped  home  yowling 
to  his  kennel.  Next  morning,  on 
being  ordered  to  proceed  to  the  fields 
in  charge  of  the  aspiring  neophyte, 
the  keeper  sternly  refused  to  budge  a 
single  step,  and  had  the  insolence  to 
state  to  the  squire  that,  though  he 
was  a  keeper,  he  was  also  a  Christian 
man,  with  a  wife  and  five  children 
depending  upon  him  for  support ;  and 
he  would  not  stand  the  extreme  risk 
of  being  shot  dead  upon  the  spot,  or 
rendered,  like  poor  Ponto,  a  cripple 
for  life,  to  gratify  any  Cockney,  even 
were  he  an  alderman  of  London.  It 
was  of  no  use  showing  the  gentleman 
where  the  birds  were,  for  he  could 
not  hit  one,  were  it  to  sit  up  stuffed 
before  him  as  a  mark;  and  as  for 
carrying  the  bag,  surely  Mr  Stiggin- 
son's  own  man  was  quite  competent 
for  that  duty — besides,  the  exercise 
would  do  him  good.  As  Sykes  the 
gamekeeper  was  a  valuable  servant, 
and,  moreover,  had  reason  on  his  side, 
the  squire  was  compelled  to  yield,  and 
Stigginson  and  his  man  went  forth 
together.  Ignorant  of  the  country, 
they  proceeded  right  across  the  cul- 
tivated fields,  without  any  notable 
result,  and  at  last  reached  the  open 
ground.  In  the  futile  expectation  of 
iinding  a  hare,  they  walked  some  dis- 
tance over  the  downs,  and  at  length, 
in  the  heat  of  the  day,  lay  down  in  a 
gravel-pit  to  enjoy  their  luncheon. 
Then  and  there  Stigginson  began  to 
bewail  his  ill-luck,  which  his  servant, 
who  had  once,  in  the  days  of  his 
youth,  been  employed  to  shoot  crows, 
attributed  entirely  to  the  over-fine- 
ness of  his  ammunition.  "  For," 
said  he,  "  if  you  fires  at  a  feather 
pillow  with  them  'ere  little  drops, 
you'll  find  they  won't  go  through  ; 
and  it  stands  to  reason  that  they 
won't  do  no  harm  to  a  bird,  vich  also 
is  all  feathers,  or  mostly.  I  knows 
what  shooting  is;  and  I  never  see 
any  real  work  done  with  shot  as  is 
less  than  peas."  In  consequence  of 
this  remark,  which  appeared  to  him 
to  throw  a  totally  new  light  upon  the 
subject,  and  satisfactorily  to  account 
for  the  failures  of  the  previous  day, 
the  drysalter,  without  drawing  his 
charge,  rammed  into  each  barrel  a 
cartridge  intended  for  shooting  wild 
fowl  at  a  long  range.  Not  ten  minutes 
afterwards  a  whirring  of  wings  was 
heard;  and  there,  sure  enough,  over 


[Oct. 


the  quarry,  with  a  slow  and  deliberate 
flight,  came  an  enormous  bird,  which, 
to  the  diseased  imagination  of  the 
drysalter,  appeared  larger  than  the 
roc  of  the  Arabian  Tales.  "  Fire !  " 
roared  his  man  ;  and  Stigginson, 
shutting  both  eyes,  fired  both  barrels, 
and  rolled  over  from  the  recoil.  But 
he  fell  not  alone;  for  down,  with  a 
violent  thump  upon  the  sward,  came 
the  bird  that  he  had  aimed  at.  It  was 
a  memorable  shot,  for  it  took  the  life 
of  the  last  cock-bustard  in  England  ! 
Foxes,  were  they  not  preserved  for 
the  purposes  of  the  chase,  would  very 
soon  become  extinct  in  Britain,  like 
their  more  ferocious  cousins  the  wolves ; 
indeed,  the  hill-foxes,  as  well  as  the 
genuine  wild-cat,  are  now  very  rare. 
On  the  other  hand,  Alpine  or  white 
hares  are  fast  increasing  in  some  dis- 
tricts, and  afford  excellent  sport  in 
high  grass -fields  and  enclosures. 
Somehow  or  other,  seals  are  not  so 
plentiful  as  they  once  were  around 
the  Scottish  coasts,  though  they  are 
still  to  be  found  in  large  numbers 
about  the  islands.  We  do  not  attri- 
bute their  diminution  so  much  to  the 
exertions  of  regular  sportsmen  — 
though  to  secure  a  seal  is  reckoned 
no  contemptible  feat— as  to  the  deadly 
hostility  with  which  they  are  pursued 
by  the  owners  of  salmon  fisheries,  to 
whose  nets  and  tackle  they  do  an 
infinite  deal  of  damage.  The  appetite 
of  the  seal  for  salmon  is  something 
perfectly  uncontrollable ;  and  he  is  so 
far  from  being  a  fair  fisher,  that  he 
plunders  without  any  scruple.  He 
will  even  force  his  way  into  the  nets 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  out  salmon  ; 
and  if  he  could  effect  this  delicately 
and  cleanly,  there  would  be  compara- 
tively little  ground  for  complaint  ; 
but  he  rends  the  net  to  pieces  with 
his  strong,  sharp  claws,  and  facilitates 
the  escape  of  many  more  fish  than  he 
actually  carries  away.  Therefore  he 
is  looked  upon  as  an  enemy  entitled 
to  no  law  or  quarter,  and  is  shot 
down  and  knocked  upon  the  head 
without  mercy ;  even  poison  has  been 
resorted  to  as  an  effectual  means  of 
destruction.  For  our  own  part,  as 
we  do  riot  happen  to  have  any  pecu- 
niary interest  in  salmon  fisheries,  we 
are  rather  partial  to  seals  than  other- 
wise; and  we  have  often  derived  much 
amusement  from  watching  a  herd  of 
them  lying  on  the  skerries.  They 


1855.] 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


475 


must  have  many  fine  points  in  their 
character,  for  they  manage  to  conci- 
liate, in  a  wonderful  degree,  the  affec- 
tions of  the  gulls  and  terns,  who  offi- 
ciate for  them  as  sentinels,  and  seem 
really  intent  on  giving  them  special 
warning  of  the  approach  of  danger. 
These  keep  circling  round  the  seals, 
screaming  with  all  their  might,  as  if 
to  inform  them  that  an  enemy  in  a 
shooting-jacket  is  creeping  up  towards 
them  behind  the  rocks;  and  seldom 
do  the  phoca?  neglect  the  intimation. 
They  wallop  with  a  loud  splash  into 
the  sea,  their  round  bullet-heads  not 
appearing  again  on  the  surface  until 
they  are  safe  from  the  reach  of  shot ; 
while  the  gulls,  having  successfully 
executed  their  mission,  keep  sailing 
above  your  head,  taunting  you  with  a 
kind  of  hoarse,  derisive  laugh,  and 
most  certainly  enjoying  the  spectacle 
of  your  disappointment. 

Very  interesting  also  is  the  solici- 
tude with  which  these  animals  watch 
their  young — an  instinct  which  seems 
to  be  strongly  developed  in  all  marine 
creatures.  The  mother  seal,  when  her 
young  are  killed,  will  not  quit  the 
place ;  and  then  the  gunner,  if  hard 
of  heart,  may  easily  make  her  his 
prey.  Sometimes  young  seals,  from 
curiosity,  will  follow  boats,  and  ap- 
proach so  near  that  it  is  possible  to 
strike  them  with  an  oar.  On  such 
occasions,  the  mother,  if  near  at  hand, 
rises  to  the  rescue,  and  carries  off  the 
unconscious  offender,  very  much  in  the 
same  way  that  an  excited  parent  of 
the  human  race  dashes  into  the  street, 
to  pick  up  her  dirty  darling  who  will 
persist  in  crossing  before  cart  or  coach. 

Various  are  the  modes  resorted  to 
for  entrapping  and  destroying  seals ; 
but  by  far  the  most  original  plan  that 
we  have  heard  of,  sprang  from  the 
fertile  brain  of  Rory  M'Nab,  a  fisher- 
man, and  occasional  poacher,  whose 
habitation  stood  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Oikel.  We  give  the  tale  as  it  was 
told  to  us,  without  pretending  to 
vouch  for  its  authenticity.  Rory  was 
one  of  the  race  which  has  been  thus 
characterised  by  a  Highland  min- 
strel— 

"  Of  all  the  Highland  clans, 

M'Nab  is  most  ferocious, 
Except  the  Macintyres, 

M'Craws  and  Mackintoshes  ; " 

but,  after  all,  though  hot  in  temper, 

VOL.  LXXVIII.-— NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


he  was  no  desperado,  and  was  a  very 
pleasant  companion  in  a  small  still. 
Rory's  circumstances  were  not  sup- 
posed to  be  remarkably  flourishing ; 
but  all  at  once  he  came  out  strong  in 
the  article  of  peltry,  offering  for  sale 
as  many  sealskins  as  would  have 
served  to  furnish  winter-clothing  for 
a  company  in  the  Crimea ;  and  a  re- 
venue-officer who  had  occasion  to 
search  his  house  for  the  products  of 
illicit  distillation,  was  perfectly  petri- 
fied to  find  that  his  barrels  were 
overflowing  with  oil.  Nobody  ia 
the  district  could  say  that  he  had 
seen  Rory  out  shooting  seals;  but 
however  he  might  come  by  them,  the 
fact  remained  that  he  secured  a  far 
greater  number  than  any  six  men  in. 
the  district  put  together ;  and  great 
was  the  marvel  and  curiosity  as  to 
his  secret.  Some  opined  that  "  the 
Queen  of  Phairie,"  had  communicated 
to  him  a  charm,  by  means  of  which 
he  could  tempt  the  creatures  to  follow 
him  far  away  from  shore,  into  a  se- 
questered place,  where  they  might  be 
despatched  at  leisure.  Others  of  less 
superstitious  tendencies,  who  knew 
that  Rory  M'Nab  was  a  capital  per- 
former upon  the  bagpipes,  opined  that 
he  took  advantage  of  the  notorious 
fondness  of  seals  for  music,  and  be- 
guiled them  to  their  ruin,  like  the 
mysterious  musician  of  Nuremberg, 
who  first  enticed  the  rats  and  then  the 
children  belonging  to  that  city.  But 
though  speculation  was  rife,  nothing 
could  be  known  to  a  certainty;  for 
Rory,  with  admirable  discretion,  pre- 
served his  own  secret,  and  could  not 
be  brought  to  blab,  even  under  the 
influence  of  usquebaugh. 

The  river  Oikel  expands  into  the 
estuary  called  the  Firth  of  Dornoch, 
and  a  very  valuable  salmon-fishing  is 
carried  on  there ;  consequently  it  is  a 
favourite  haunt  of  seals,  who  may  be 
seen  in  considerable  numbers  upon  the 
mud  banks  left  by  the  receding  tide. 
One  evening  towards  dusk,  some  fisher- 
men were  returning  in  their  boat  from 
a  station  near  Bonar  Bridge,  exceed- 
ingly incensed  at  the  injury  which  they 
had  just  discovered  to  have  been  in- 
flicted upon  their  nets  by  the  seals. 
"  The  tefil  is  shoorely  in  the  baistes!" 
said  one  of  them,  Angus  M'Bane  by 
name.  "  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is,  you 
might  have  putten  a  stot  through  the 
2i 


476 


Books  for  the  Holidays. 


[Oct. 


hole  that  was  in  my  nets ;  and  it  is  not 
my  believement  that  it  was  done  by 
any  ordinary  sealgh.  Pesides,  and  what 
is  more,  I  have  seen  my  own  self 
something  going  about  that  is  not 
canny;  and  you  yourself,  Lachlan 
M'Tavish,  were  witness  to  things 
whereof  you  can  testify." 

"  And  that  shoorely  I  will  do,"  re- 
plied the  party  thus  appealed  to;  "  for 
no  later  than  yesterday  was  two  days, 
I  saw  down  there  something  that  was 
not  a  sealgh,  though  it  was  fery  hairy; 
and  what  do  you  think  it  was  doing? 
May  I  never  taste  Glenlivet  more,  if 
the  creature  was  not  smoking  a  pipe !" 

"  And  I  will  tell  you  merely,"  said 
another,  "  I  would  rather  take  than 
receive  a  plow  from  the  baiste  that 
has  been  leaving  its  marks  on  the 
mud  for  this  last  two  weeks ;  for  I 
looked  at  them  as  I  went  by,  and  saw 
the  print  of  toe-nails  as  clearly  as  I 
see  this  tobacco.  But  yonder  are  the 
sealghs— filthy  prutes ! " 

And  undoubtedly  there  lay,  upon  a 
mudbank  opposite,  a  large  herd  of 
these  animals,  apparently  not  at  all 
inclined  to  move.  Among  them  were 
some  of  great  size,  especially  one, 
which,  in  the  uncertain  light  of  a 
September  evening,  looked  positively 
enormous  in  bulk.  It  seemed  of  an 
amorous  disposition,  for  it  was  sidling 
towards  a  group  of  females. 

"  I  will  make  them  get  out  of  that, 
in  a  fery  small  expenditure  of  time !" 
said  Angus  M'Bane;  and  he  lifted  up 
his  voice,  and  shouted,  as  did  his 
comrades.  Down  rushed  the  seals 
precipitately  to  the  water,  as  is  the 
wont  of  those  animals — all,  save  the 
monster  who,  to  the  consternation  and 
terror  of  the  fishermen,  reared  him- 
self bolt  upright  upon  his  tail,  shook 
his  clenched  flipper  at  the  boat,  and 
spoke  thus  with  a  human  voice  : — 

"  A  plack  fushing  and  a  pad 
harfest  to  you  ;  and  ill  luck  upon 
your  head,  and  on  your  fireside,  and 
to  all  your  undertakings,  and  fe- 
male relations,  you  Angus  M'Bane, 
son  of  Dugald  M'Bane,  blacksmith, 
at  the  Meikle  Ferry  !  And  the  same 
to  you,  Lachlan  M'Tavish,  who  do 
not  know  who  your  own  father 
was,  though  your  mother  was  Elspat 
M'Farlane,  in  Tomantoul !  And  the 
like  to  the  rest  of  you  down  there, 
whom  I  shall  descry  as  soon  as  I  can 
perceive  you  !  I'll  tell  you  what  it  is — 


I  will  not  submit  to  be  molusted  by 
such  insucts ;  and  if  I  should  catch 
you  again  disturbing  the  panks,  tefil 
take  me  if  I  do  not  give  you  some 
shots  from  a  gun,  which  will  be  no- 
ways comfortable  for  your  bodies  ! " 

But  ere  the  seal  apparent  had  de- 
livered himself  of  half  of  this  defiance, 
Angus  M'Bane  and  his  comrades  were 
a  long  way  down  the  firth,  making 
the  boat  spin  through  the  water  in  the 
sheer  ecstasy  of  their  panic. 

But  after  this  encounter,  notwith- 
standing the  asseverations  of  the  fisher- 
men, who  declared  themselves  ready 
to  testify  before  the  kirk-session  that 
a  seal  had  spoken  to  them  (a  marvel, 
after  all,  not  much  greater  than  Livy's 
stock  omen,  "  bos  locutus  e*£"),  Rory's 
secret  oozed  out ;  in  fact  the  story  was 
so  good,  that  he  could  not  keep  it  to 
himself,  but  disclosed  it  under  a  so- 
lemn oath  of  secresy  to  Evan  M'Kay, 
who,  in  like  manner,  communicated  it 
toDonaldGunn.  In  consequence,  not  a 
week  elapsed  beforeevery  man, woman, 
and  child  in  the  district  knew  Rory 
M'Nab's  method  of  dealing  with  the 
seals.  It  was  ingenious  in  conception, 
and  was  very  cleverly  carried  into 
practice.  Disguised  as  a  seal,  in  a 
cunning  garment  of  skins,  Rory  used, 
when  the  tide  began  to  ebb,  to  lay 
himself  down  upon  a  sand-bank,  and 
imitate  the  grotesque  motions  of  the 
creature.  Unsuspicious  of  danger, 
the  seals  scrambled  up  to  their  usual 
place  of  resort ;  and  then  Rory,  taking 
care  to  avail  himself  of  the  wind,  for 
the  scenting  power  of  these  animals  is 
nearly  as  acute  as  that  of  deer,  crawl- 
ed towards  them,  and  stunned  the 
nearest  by  a  blow  over  the  nose  with 
a  short  bludgeon  which  he  carried. 
In  this  way  he  was  able  to  secure  five 
or  six  seals  for  each  tide  ;  and,  mira- 
culous as  it  may  appear,  he  was  only 
once  fired  at  by  a  sportsman.  On 
that  occasion  Rory  displayed  great  pre- 
sence of  mind  ;  for  the  bullet  struck 
within  an  inch  or  so  of  his  whiskers. 
Most  men,  under  such  circumstances, 
would  have  made  an  attempt  to  dis- 
close themselves;  but  Rory,  not  know- 
ing, as  he  afterwards  said,  "  but  that 
the  carle  might  have  another  parrel," 
thought  it  most  prudent  to  preserve 
his  phocean  character,  took  the  water 
along  with  the  herd,  and  reached  the 
shore  without  discovery. 

Such  were  the  adventures  of  Rory 


1855.]  Books  for 

M'Nab  with  the  seals;  and  if  any 
man  doubts  the  veracity  of  the  narra- 
tive, or  the  possibility  of  so  beguiling 
them,  let  him  purchase  a  sealskin  and 
try.  People  have  no  right  to  be  in- 
credulous until  they  have  convinced 
themselves,  by  personal  experiment, 
of  the  impossibility  of  the  thingstated ; 
and  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  we 
should  think  ourselves  guilty  of  an 
act  of  unpardonable  impertinence,  were 
we  to  express  a  doubt  regarding  the 
accuracy  of  any  anecdote  which  a 
sportsman  may  be  pleased  to  cammu- 
nicate.  Indeed  it  is  not  safe  to  indulge 
in  doubts,  lest  these  should  degener- 
ate into  positive  scepticism ;  and  the 
best  method  to  deal  with  a  sportsman 
who  is  recounting  his  own  feats,  is  to 
take  your  tumbler  quietly  till  his  is  ex- 
hausted, and  then  trump  him  if  you 
can. 

But  we  are  running  short  of  paper, 
and  the  advance  of  time  admonishes 
us  to  draw  to  a  close.  Yet  another 
day,  and  the  cottage  which  has  been 
our  headquarters  for  so  many  weeks 
will  be  deserted,  and  not  again,  this 
year  at  least,  shall  we,  descending 
from  the  hill,  see  the  blue  smoke  curl- 
ing upwards  in  the  hush  of  a  summer's 
eve.  Soon  —  very  soon,  must  the 
flowers  in  the  little  garden  be  beaten 
down  and  withered  in  the  rain,  and 
the  bonny  bower  be  broken.  No  mare, 
at  early  morning,  shall  we  hear  the 
crowing  of  the  gorcock  among  the 
heather,  or  watch  the  herons  winging 
their  lazy  flight  to  the  promontory 
where  they  delight  to  dwell.  Ever 
with  the  waning  year  is  there  a  tinge 
of  melancholy  and  regret ;  for  the  sea- 
sons glide  away  like  shadows,  and 
with  them  we  hurry  to  our  end. 

Short  but  sweet  is  the  northern 
summer ;  and  after  its  delights  have 
drawn  to  a  close,  sportsmen  as  well 
as  birds  begin  to  migrate,  and  turn 
their  faces  towards  the  south.  The 
days  have  become  perceptibly  shorter, 
and  almost  every  night  there  is  a  glare 
of  aurora  in  the  sky.  The  winds  be- 
gin to  pipe  shrilly,  and  the  seas  to 
awaken  from  their  summer  calm ;  and 
gladsome  of  an  evening  is  the  flicker- 
ing of  the  fire  upon  the  hearth.  Men 
are  not  yet  prepared  to  settle  down 
deliberately  for  the  winter  city  life ; 
but  they  are  withdrawing  themselves 
from  the  remote  districts,  and  are  be- 
ginning, like  swallows  or  plovers,  to 


the  Holidays.  477 

congregate."  All  over  the  Highlands, 
now  once  more  gladdened  by  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Queen,  there  are  gather- 
ings and  games;  and  loud  and  cla- 
morous has  been  the  strife  of  rival 
pipers  at  Inverness.  Birmingham  has 
had  its  musical  festival,  whereat  Costa 
has  won  fresh  laurels ;  and  hospitable 
Glasgow  has  spread  the  board  for  up- 
wards of  a  thousand  philosophers.  The 
heather  is  well-nigh  deserted  for  the 
stubbles  ;  and  soon  among  the  yellow- 
ing woods  and  coppices  the  whirring 
of  the  gorgeous  pheasant  will  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  deadly  report. 

And  hark  !  over  laud  and  sea  ring 
the  thrilling  news  of  victory.  Sebas- 
topol,  that  grim  fortress  of  the  Euxine, 
before  whose  bastions  so  many  heroes 
have  fought  and  died,  has  at  length 
fallen,  as  a  giant  falls,  after  a  des- 
perate and  sanguinary  struggle ;  and 
the  flags  of  Britain  and  France  wave 
together  in  glory  and  amity  above 
its  ruins.  Confounded,  conscience- 
stricken,  and  dumb,  stand  the  hypo- 
critical cravens,  who,  in  the  very  hour 
when  it  was  most  needful  that  the 
country  should  put  forth  its  strength, 
and  that  its  great  heart  should  beac 
with  energy  and  power,  attempted  to 
quench  the  enthusiasm  of  the  nation 
by  lying  prophecies  of  disaster,  and 
whining  homilies  upon  peace.  Who 
is  there  within  the  compass  of  the 
land  that  does  not  feel  and  know  that 
no  lasting  or  honourable  peace  could 
be  effected  until  Russia  had  been  made 
to  feel  the  arm  of  retributive  justice — 
until  the  mortifying  conviction  had 
been  forced  upon  the  Czar  that,  with 
all  his  armies  and  allies,  it  was  utter- 
ly beyond  his  power  to  coerce  or  cope 
with  the  free  States  of  Western  Europe  ? 
This  is  not  a  quarrel  to  be  patched  up 
by  mere  dexterous  negotiation,  by 
seeming  concessions  which  mean,  and 
are  intended  to  mean,  nothing,  by 
counterpoises  and  other  preposterous 
projects  emanating  from  the  silly  brain 
of  a  Russell.  As  an  aggressor  and 
undisguised  robber,  Russia  took  the 
field;  nor  will  she  quit  her  scent  of 
her  intended  prey  until  she  has  been 
driven,  howling  and  crippled,  to  her 
den.  Then  let  the  bells  ring,  and  the 
cannon  thunder,  and  the  bonfires  be 
lighted  on  the  hills  ;  for  the  great  for- 
tress of  Russia  has  fallen  ;  and  wall, 
town,  aud  ships,  are  confounded  in  the 
common  ruin  ! 


478 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Oct. 


AN  OLD    CONTRIBUTOR  AT   THE    SEA- SIDE. 

To  the  Editor  of  BlacJcwood's  Magazine. 

MONT  _ 


SIR, 


September  1855. 


WHERE   AM    I  ? 


AHA  1  Here  I  am  !  I  could  crow 
like  Chanticleer  1  And  so  would  you, 
were  you  in  my  position  at  this 
moment :  snugly  nestled  in  a  small 
chateau  perched  on  a  breezy  summit, 
embosomed  among  trees  and  grace- 
fully-disposed shrubberies,  largely  in- 
termingled with  the  chastely-drooping 
fuchsia — all  waving  in  obedience  to  a 
gentle  wind,  so  as  to  afford  me  fitful 
glimpses  of  the  glittering  blue  ocean, 
as  I  sit  ensconced  in  my  little  library 
• — one  window  opening  on  a  terrace 
sloping  down  with  undulating  rich 
greensward  towards  the  ridge  of  an 
eminence,  bordered  with  poplars, 
which  seem  to  stand  as  sentries  round 
my  charming  solitude,  but  only  as 
against  any  intruder  adventurous 
enough  to  scale  heights  somewhat  of 
the  steepest;  the  other  window  afford- 
ing me  an  ever -refreshing  vista  of 
laurels  and  laurustines,  disposed,  ah  ! 
how  picturesquely !  Here,  again,  the 
fuchsia  in  blushing  dalliance  with  the 
breeze,  and  roses  glistening  in  autum- 
nal pensiveness  and  beauty!  Aha! 
'tis  not  very  early  morning,  and  the 
dew  lies  still  glistening  on  the  foliage 
and  greensward,  but  soon  to  exhale 
under  the  beams  of  the  glorious  sun, 
intermingling  in  mellow  harmony  with 
the  cloudless  azure  —  morning,  still 
morning !  in  all  her  fresh  loveliness ; 
her  tresses  all  uncurled ;  her  smile, 
shedding  serene  cheerfulness,  soothing 
the  sense  into  sympathy  with  nature's 
beauty,  and  then  hallowing  the  soul 


into  wrapt  contemplation  of  nature's 
God  !  I  do  but  change  my  position  afe 
my  desk,  and  through  an  opening  ia 
the  foliage  my  eye  rests  on  a  grand 
ruin  at  scarce  three  hundred  yards' 
distance — once  a  castle  famed  in  his- 
tory. How  dignified  in  its  age  stands 
it  now;  the  slanting  sunlight  caus- 
ing the  ivy,  tenderly  o'ermantling  the 
ruder  ravages  of  Time,  to  glow  like  a 
tissue  of  emeralds  :  aye,  it  stands 
enthroned  grandly  on  a  rocky  pro- 
montory, at  the  base  of  which  surges 
ever  the  profound  blue  ocean,  on 
which  have  thence  looked  the  wistful 
eye  of  royal  and  noble  captive — the 
beautiful,  the  brave — envying  the  sea- 
gulls, then,  as  at  this  moment,  wheel- 
ing gaily  and  freely  around  turret  and 
dungeon-keep.  —  Hark  !  a  sound !  a 
gentle  bleat !  It  is  the  kid  that  I  saw 
last  night,  a  white  tuft  in  the  moon- 
light, resting  on  the  lofty  ledge  of  the 
cliff,  from  which  one  might  fear  it 
would  fall  some  fine  day,  but  that 
it  evidently  feels  its  footing  firm  I 
Another  sound! — a  faint  click-click, 
as  with  a  hammer.  I  know  what 
it  is,  and  exactly  whence  it  comes, 
though  I  can  see  nothing  here.  It 
is  a  fisherman  mending  his  boat, 
far  down  on  the  beach ;  and  why 
should  I  not  throw  myself  for  a 
moment  upon  yon  green  sofa,  from 
which  I  can  see  nothing  but  the  illi- 
mitable ocean,  and  dream  a  while  of 
Robinson  Crusoe,  hard  at  work  on 
his  canoe  ? 


WHAT  I   GOT   OUT   OF,   TO   GET  INTO  ALL  THIS. 


Out  of  a  quandary  :  I  leaped,  by  a 
bold  bound,  out  of  a  very  Slough  of 
Despond.  I  was  sick  of  London,  and 
yet  knew  not  whither  to  go  for  the 
autumn.  But  this  is  too  serious  a 
business  to  be  slurred  over.  What  is 


meant  by  being  sick  of  London? 
The  very  Babylon  of  Babylon  for 
magnitude  and  moral  grandeur  :  the 
radiating  centre  of  Intellect,  Civil- 
isation, Virtue,  Power, —  and  at- 
tracting to  itself  the  attention  and 


1855.]  An  Old  Contributor  at  tlie  Sea-Side.  479 

Anxieties  of  the  whole  earth !    What,     and  luxuriate  night  after   night    in 
then,  do  you  mean,  I  may  be  asked, 


•i 

good  sir,  by  being  sick  of  such 
stupendous  scene  of  action  ?  Do  you 
presume  to  use  such  language  out 
of  a  mere  silly  would-be  sympathy 
with  others?  Without  maudlin  or 
affectation,  tell  us,  like  a  man,  what 
you  are  sick  of.  Do  you  mean  merely 
that  you  are  tired  for  a  while  of  dissi- 
pation ?  Or — let  ine  faintly  whisper  so 
hateful  a  word — of  dun-dodging  ?  Are 
you  heart-sickened  amid  the  scene  of 
ambitious  hopes  blighted?  If  those 
hopes  were  well  founded,  you  are  en- 
titled to  sympathy  ;  if  ill  founded,  to  a 
pity  which,  it  is  feared,  you  will  feel  in- 
tolerable. Are  you  well  or  ill  ?  Have 
you  had  a  hard  year's  work,  whether 
sufficiently  or  insufficiently  paid  for  it? 
But  what  are  you  ?  A  parson,  a  law- 
yer, a  literary  man,  a  politician,  or  a 
doctor  ?  But  if  the  last — only  fancy 
Jiim  daring  to  sneak  out  of  town,  be- 
yond, at  least,  immediate  contiguity 
to  the  telegraph,  and  half-an-hour's 
return  to  hospital  an* bed-side?  O, 
doleful  must  be  a  doctor's  holiday,  if 
for  this  only — that  he  leaves  so  many 
voracious  and  sedulous  rivals  behind 
him,  eager  to  snap  at  the  chance 
afforded  by  his  absence  !  As  for  the 
leather-tongued  and  blear-eyed  law- 
yer, one  does  not  care  what  becomes 
of  him  :  he  will  probably  oscillate  be- 
tween Margate,  Ramsgate,  Clerken- 
well,  and  the  Old  Bailey,  or  seek  the 
picturesque  and  romantic  solitude  of 
Herne  Bay,  whither  tape- tied  packages 
may  reach  him  regularly.  The  London 
parson  one  wishes  a  comfortable  month 
in  the  country,  and  hopes  he  has  culti- 
vated the  acquaintance  of  some  coun- 
try brother  with  a  pretty  vicarage  or 
rectory,  and  who  wishes  to  come  up 
to  see  London  even  in  the  autumn. 
The  literary  man  one  wishes  heartily 
well  to,  for,  generally  speaking,  no 
one  works  harder,  and  for  more  pre- 
carious pay,  in  London,  teaching  and 
pleasing  us ;  but,  by  thinking  for  us, 
he  unconsciously  lulls  us  into  a  sort 
of  indolence  that  may  ultimately  sub- 
side into  mental  paralysis.  The  poli- 
tician ! — I  mean  the  member  of  Par- 
liament, Peer  or  Commoner,  not  in 
office  (as  for  those  who  are,  confound 
them  !  let  them,  as  they  are  paid  for 
it,  and  have  intrigued  for  it,  be  kept 
with  their  noses  to  the  grindstone, 


dreams  of  red-tape  convolutions, 
imagining  it  statesmanship  !)  they — 
peer  and  commoner  out  of  office — may 
go  to  their  castles  and  seats  to  enjoy 
themselves  as  best  they  may.  But 
there  are  poor  Peers,  and  exceedingly 
common  Commoners! — what  is  to 
become  of  them,  if  no  one  will  invite 
them  into  the  country?  As  for  me, 
to  which  of  these  classes  I  belong 
is  a  point  of  mighty  little  conse- 
quence to  any  one  except  myself; 
but  I  may,  if  it  pleases  any  one,  be 
imagined  one  of  these  aforesaid  ex- 
ceedingly common  Commoners;  and 
yet  who,  he  conceives,  possesses  pre- 
tensions to  be  considered  a  very 
uncommon  Commoner.  For  he  did 
not  go  into  the  House  of  Commons 
as  an  adventurer ;  he  made  no  inordi- 
nate professions  to  his  constituents ; 
never  asked  a  favour  for  himself,  or 
a  constituent,  of  any  minister ;  never 
failed  to  attend  a  committee  to  which 
he  was  appointed,  and  discharge  his 
duties  to  the  best  of  his  abilities ; 
never  neglected  to  read  as  much 
of  the  most  lumbering,  ill-digested 
blue-book  as  he  had  time  for ;  never 
gave  a  vote  on  a  question  he  had  not 
attempted  really  to  understand ;  never 
paired  off  for  mere  pleasure,  or  avoid- 
ed a  vote  which  he  feared  might  be 
unpopular.  But  such  an  one,  though 
not  aspiring  to  be  a  model  member, 
may  be  entitled  to  your  sympathy  in 
respect  of  leisure  and  domestic  com- 
forts sacrificed  for  the  public  good. 
Oh  those  misty,  chilly,  half-and-half 
nights  and  mornings  on  which  he 
has  crawled  shivering  homeward,  his 
wearied  ears  ringing  with  u  Hear, 
hear ! — oh,  oh  ! — order,  order  ! — the 
noble  lord — the  right  honourable 
baronet,  or  gentleman — the  honour- 
able member," — all  the  cant  terms 
and  war-cries  of  party!  Oh  the 
misery,  far  beyond  all  this,  of  having 
mastered  a  subject,  and  got  up  to 
perfection  a  speech  that  must  tell  on 
the  country,  and  with  which  you 
have,  so  to  speak,  sate  enceinte  during 
the  whole  session— never  being  able 
to  get  an  opportunity  when  you  were 
in  the  humour,  and  the  wicked 
whipper-in,  suspecting  your  intention, 
passes  you  with  a  semi- wink,  and  his 
tongue  thrust  into  his  cheek  !— which 
signifies,  that  the  arrival  of  the  Greek 


480 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


[Oct. 


Kalends  will  be  exactly  the  happy 
moment  for  your  speech.  Methinks 
I  see  him  at  this  moment,  with  his 
oily  leer!  The  rogue  knows  that  I 
cannot  be  angry  with  him,  and  am 
as  much  tickled  with  his  impudence 
as  he  with  my  discomfiture.  But 
what  is  to  be  done?  So  this  would 
really  constitute  a  quandary  such  as 
I  have  spoken  of,  and  surely  a  thing 
to  be  got  out  of  as  soon  as  possible. 
And  at  length  came  the  end  of  the 
session — the  very  last  day ;  as  it  ap- 
proached, gilding  brighter  and  brighter 
the  visages  of  the  veriest  hacks  about 
the  House — official  and  non-official, 
place-holders  and  place-hunters — in 
fact,  parliamentary  vermin  of  all 
sorts,  glistening  for  a  moment  into 
popularly-visible  existence,  as  they 
wriggle  into  obscurity,  to  crawl  out 
at  the  commencement  of  the  next 
session !  But  this  year  the  sunshine 
of  the  Queen's  presence  was  want- 
ing ;  her  silvery  voice  did  not  dismiss 
my  lords  and  gentlemen  into  privacy 
as  heretofore;  so  the  effete  and 
drowsy  Legislature,  exhibiting  almost 
the  features  of  a  collapse,  sunk  into 
slumber  ingloriously.  The  Chancellor 
and  Speaker  gave,  each  of  them, 
delighted,  a  puff  of  relief  as  their 
attendants  respectively  received  the 
awe-inspiring  wig.  u  Good -by," 
said  each,  as  he  gazed  at  it,  "  till 
February,  or"— adding,  with  a  sym- 
pathetic spasm,  quod  Deus  avertat — 
"November!"  It  would  have  done 
your  heart  good  to  be  present  at  the 
improvised  tete-a-tete  of  those  two 
exalted  functionaries  that  day  at  the 
Crown  and  Sceptre,  where  each,  in 
his  inexperienced  simplicity,  fancied 
the  gigantic  white-bait  to  be  in  full 
season,  and  gave  orders  to  the 
admiring  waiters  for  some  to  be 
potted  1 

u  From  the  sublime  to  the  ridicu- 
lous!" — but  the  proverb  is  somewhat 
musty;  yet  from  hilarious  Chan- 
cellor and  Speaker  what  can  I  do 
but,  by  a  facilis  descensus,  with  all 
its  consequences,  come  to  MYSELF? 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  they 
had  made  charming  arrangements  for 
the  recess ;  but  as  for  myself— just 
listen  for  a  moment :  'Twas  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day,  in  the  middle  of  the 
month  of  August,  and  London  was 
frying  under  the  heat  canicular. 


There  was  not  a  drop  of  moisture  in 
the  gutters — and  the  man  with  the 
watering-cart  found  that  our  street, 
none  of  the  longest,  nevertheless 
occupied  his  thoughtful  attention  all 
day  long — seeing  that  the  spot  which 
he  had  left  watered  four  minutes 
before  was  again  heated  to  a  whiteheat, 
and  cried,  "  Give !  give  ! "  So  he  took 
off  his  cap,  wiped  his  head,  and  be- 
took himself  again  to  the  pump.  The 
modicum  of  meat  brought  by  a  languid 
butcher's  boy  to  the  area-gate  of  the 
west  door,  to  keep  life  in  the  old 
creature  that  kept  the  house  in  the 
absence  of  its  owners,  looked  flaccid, 
and,  as  it  were,  warm ;  and  by-and- 
by  a  handful  of  greens,  brought  by 
another,  looked  withered  as  though 
it  had  lain  in  a  hot  green-grocer's 
window  for  a  week.  The  policeman 
would  stop  opposite  every  house, 
take  off  his  iron-bound  hat,  and  wipe 
his  oppressed  forehead.  The  dogs 
walked  leisurely  past,  with  elongated 
tongue  hanging  out,  and  panting  with 
the  heat  visibly  radiating  from  the 
pavement.  Doubtless  it  was  the  same 
irresistible  absorbing  agent  that  lick- 
ed the  froth  off  the  contents  of  the 
vessels  carried  by  the  leisurely  pot- 
boys about  dinner-time,  and  left  an 
interval  of  an  inch  from  the  top  of 
every  quart,  pint,  and  half-pint !  If 
a  cab  passed,  it  was  laden  with  lug- 
gage, and  always  going  in  the  direction 
of  one  of  the  two  railroads  with  which 
our  blessed  neighbourhood  was  fa- 
voured. The  five  houses  opposite — 
numbers  15  to  19,  both  inclusive — 
eloquently  indicated  the  absence  of 
their  occupiers  in  various  ways :  the 
blinds  of  the  upper  windows  drawn 
down,  and  nice  little  tea  and  supper 
parties  held  in  the  area-regions  at  the 
expense  of  the  unconsciously  hospit- 
able and  absent  occupiers.  AtNo.  14, 
next  door  to  us,  on  the  right  side, 
they  were  laying  in  an  enormous 
stock  of  coals,  because  a  paragraph  in 
the  day  before's  paper  said,  u  Now  is 
the  time  for  doing  so."  Next  day 
the  provided  occupants  left  town  ; 
and  the  morning  after  that,  No. 
13  had  three  cabs  before  it,  and 
the  like  thing  was  done,  my  wife  and 
twoof  the  children  looking  on  through 
our  windows  in  highly -significant 
silence,  and  T  making  similar  use  of 
the  other.  The  pale  face  of  madame 


1855.] 

spoke  volumes,  and  my  fingers  grop- 
ing into  my  breeches'  pocket  with  a 
curious  and  only  moderately  satisfac- 
tory air.  It  had  been  an  indifferent 
good  year,  had  that — that  is,  this — 
with  one  or  two  of  my  friends,  -who 
had  become  Eight  Honourables,  and 
entitled  to  grin  at  Fortune  every 
quarter-day  for  some  time  to  come  ; 
but  with  me  it  was  quite  another 
way,  and  Fortune,  I  grieve  to  say, 
whenever  she  cast  her  eye  on  me, 
grinned  at  me  !  I  heaved  a  deep  sigh, 
and  tried  to  whistle  her  off,  when  I 
heard  a  heavy  knock  at  the  door  ;  and 
looking  towards  it,  there  stood  a  fat, 
hard-faced,  white-haired  man,  with  a 
thin  red  book  under  his  arm,  and  an 
ink-bottle  hanging  from  his  waistcoat 
button-hole.  It  was  that  attentive 
person,  Mr  Gripe,  the  tax-gatherer, 
who  had  called  to  pay  his  compli- 
ments to  me  on  behalf  of  the  Govern- 
ment ;  and  when  I  had  paid  him 
some  eleven  pounds  thirteen  shillings 
and  ninepence,  favoured  me  with  a 
long  document,  to  wit,  an  income- 
tax  paper,  w7hich  I  was  to  fill  up 
within  twenty -one  days  under  a 
penalty  of  fifty  pounds — to  enable  my 
delightful  fat  friend  to  pay  his  respects 
to  me  again  at  his  earliest  conve- 
nience. When  he  left,  I  played  the 
devil's  tattoo  for  a  minute  or  two 
with  considerable  emphasis,  and  then 
set  myself  to  consider  by  what  singu- 
lar provision  of  nature  tax-gatherers 
were  always  such  ugly,  hard-featured 
men,  with  a  twinkle  of  calm  insolence 
in  the  eye  !  Scarcely  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  afterwards,  a  bold  rat-tat-tat- 
tat  recalled  me  from  a  reverie,  and 
— would  you  believe  it  ?  but  Gripe 
had  met  his  friend  Grab,  the  poor's- 
rate  collector  (the  wretches  keep 
shops  opposite  each  other),  and  told 
him  that  I  was  still  in  town,  and  that 
now !  was  his  time.  The  friend  came 
in  calmly,  and  sate  down  to  write  me 
a  receipt  for  a  rate  considerably 
higher  than  that  of  the  preceding 
quarter.  I  ventured,  with  forced  com- 
posure, to  ask  the  reason  ?  "  Provi- 
sions is  raised,"  he  said,  in  a  heartless 
way,  blotting  the  receipt,  which  he 
gave  me  with  a  certain  hateful  mat- 
ter-of-fact air,  and  left  the  room  with 
a  whole  skin,  nay,  positively  un- 
touched, though  I  found  he  did  not 
deserve  it.  A  shower-bath  would 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


481 


have  had  a  delightful  and  salutary 
effect  upon  my  heated  body  and  soul 
at  that  moment  (for  each  stimulated 
the  other).  Matters  were  getting  to 
a  high  pitch  ;  for  I  suddenly  set  my 
teeth  together,  and,  with  a  sort  of 
spasm,  hoped  that  everybody  else 
whom  I  owed  anything  on  any  pre- 
tence whatever  would  take  it  into  his 
head  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  Messrs 
Gripe  and  Grab,  and  suck  me  dry  at 
once  !  Now,  be  it  observed,  that  in 
giving  you  this  little  tit-bit  of  frank 
autobiography,  I  do  not  desire  it  to  be 
understood  that  I  kick  at  rendering 
to  Ca3sar  the  things  which  are  his; 
I  wish  to  starve  neither  the  poor  nor 
the  war ;  but  what  I  want,  with  a 
little  suppressed  fury,  to  know  is, 
what  put  it  into  the  heads  of  this 
brace  of  ill-omened  birds  of  prey  to 
pounce  upon  me,  at  that  particular 
moment?  and  to  look  so  hatefully 
matter-of-fact  about  the  business  ?  I 
threw  myself  into  my  easy-chair,  and, 
in  the  irritation  of  the  moment,  pitch- 
ed down  two  deeply-interesting  blue- 
books,  with  an  enthralling  array  of 

figures Philosophy  at 

length  came  to  my  assistance;  and 
some  cheerful  little  sprite  soothed  me 
into  a  brown  study,  pointing  my 
thoughts  steadily  the  while  towards 
the  sea-side,  as  the  appropriate  re- 
medy for  over- taxed  faculties  and  de- 
pressed spirits,  as  far  as  I  was  con- 
cerned, and  for  the  pale  cheeks  of  a 
confiding  and  submissive  wife  and 
children. 

Yes,  with  the  utmost  respect  to 
Madame  London,  I  determined  to 
take  French  leave  of  her  and  be  off — 
for  a  while.  Should  it  be  to  Brighton? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  "Tis  a  crowded  and 
conceited  place,  not  to  my  taste — 
merely  fourth -rate  London  gone  out 
of  town  :  the  act  of  going,  simply 
as  it  were  the  being  crammed  into  a 
mortar  and  shot  out  at  Brighton,  and 
vice  versa.  I  shall  not  say  what  I  think 
of  Margate,  Ramsgate,  and  certain 
other  '"  watering-places,"  except  that 
those  who  go  thither,  and  are  of  my 
sort,  have  my  true  sympathy.  But 
as  for  myself,  I'll  none  on't.  I'll  strike 
a  blow  in  a  new  hemisphere.  I'll  go 
clean  out  of  England  with  all  my 
family  bodily!  I  had  long  fixed  my 
eye  on  a  particular  locality,  of  which  I 
had  heard  alluring  accounts  from  a 


482 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Oct. 


trustworthy  friend  ;  and  having  long 
since  found  that  decision  is  the  great 
engine  for  working  out  differences 
between  man  and  man,  I  said — Fiat! 
took  my  hat  and  stick ;  and  saying 
simply  that  I  should  return  to  dinner 
at  half-past  six,  sallied  forth,  not  to 
commit  suicide,  in  order  to  be  re- 
venged, at  my  own  and  family's  ex- 
pense, on  Messrs  Gripe  and  Grab, 
but  to  present  myself  at  my  banker's, 
and  see  how  matters  stood  there. 
Passably  well;  the  thing  I  found 
could  be  done,  provided  my  expendi- 
ture did  not  prove  heavy.  After  this 
I  made  such  good  use  of  my  time, 
that,  when  I  returned  to  dinner,  I 
was  able  to  issue  marching  orders! 
the  proximate  effect  thereof  being 
some  skipping  and  dancing  over- 
head, and  a  merry  air  dashed  off 
on  the  piano  at  an  astounding 
rate.  Our  forces  consisted  of  seven 
souls — eight,  if  I  may  venture  to  in- 
clude a  lively  little  gentleman  from 
the  Isle  of  Skye,  who  looked  as  if  he 
felt  it  out  of  the  question  that  he  was 
to  be  left  behind,  to  luxuriate  on 
board-wages.  We  were  to  start,  D.V., 
on  the  fourth  ensuing  morning,  at 

6.45,  for  the  good  steam-ship  , 

then  lying  near  the  Tower,  and  by 
which  we  hoped  to  reach  our  destina- 
tion, wind  and  weather  permitting, 
after  a  delightful  two  days'  sail. 
Whither,  you  may  ask,  were  we  bent  ? 
I  decline  to  tell  you,  for  several  rea- 
sons, some  of  which  may  appear  by- 
and-by,  in  the  course  of  this  letter; 
but  I  had  boldly  determined  to  go  be- 
yond Cockney-ken — the  reach  of  rail 
or  telegraph,  or  the  entertaining  and 
useful  hand-books  of  Mr  Murray,  and 
even  out  of  the  magic  circle  of  news- 
paper intelligence,  content  to  be  for  a 
while  several  days  behind  the  age  in 
that  particular ;  for,  as  far  as  I  could 
make  out,  I  should  have  to  trust  to 
tidings  from  the  great  world  once  or 
twice  a-week !  But  even  this  became 
of  itself  somewhat  exciting ;  for  who 
could  tell,  in  the  present  grand  and 
fitful  march  of  events,  what  a  day  or 
an  hour  might  have  brought  forth? 
Sebastopol  might  have  been  basking 
for  a  fortnight  under  the  three-fold 
flags  of  its  chivalrous  conquerors;  the 
Emperor  Alexander  dethroned ;  or  the 
long-dreaded  explosion  might  have 
occurred  in  Italy,  kindling  an  Euro- 
pean conflagration  not  to  be  extin- 


guished during  the  present  generation. 
Or  matters  might  have  gone  awfully 
wrong  with  us  and  our  allies  in  the 
Crimea,  and  Austria  and  Prussia  have 
then  dared  to  draw  their  swords  on 
behalf  of  Russia ! 

Of  all  the  preparations  for  this  ex- 
pedition, I  allotted  to  myself  but  two 
— arranging  for  the  transmission  of 
letters  and  newspapers  during  our  ab- 
sence; and  completing  the  transfer, 
from  my  bankers  to  myself,  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  spick-and-span  new 
sovereigns,  at  their  recommendation, 
and  which  they  obligingly  enclosed 
for  me  in  a  small  canvass  bag,  which, 
with  a  half  sigh,  I  perceived  could 
have  held  twice  as  many  more  of  the 
glittering  effigies  of  our  gracious  Queen 
as  I  was  taking  with  me ! 

There  being,  in  the  opinion  of  cer- 
tain of  my  senatorial  friends,  nothing 
like  statistics  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  it  occurs  to  me  to  view  our 
meditated  departure  from  town  some- 
what thus.  Based  on  the  census  of 
1851,  the  present  population  of  our 
modern  Babylon  may  stand  at  the 
figure  of  2,663,378,  which  being  re- 
duced by  the  number  of  those  who 
have  gone  out  of  town  for  the  autumn, 
looks  like  .  .  .  2,343,378 
This  being  subjected  to  de- 
duction for  ourselves,  .  7 

there  remain,  .  2,343,371 
to  represent  so  many  as  two  million, 
three  hundred  and  forty-three  thou- 
sand, three  hundred  and  seventy-one 
nobodies  left  in  town — seeing  "  every- 
body" is  gone  out  of  town  I  How  all 
these  Nobodies  are  to  get  on  in  our 
absence,  I  must  leave  themselves  to 
discover  against  our  return;  but,  to 
do  them  barely  justice,  I  must  advert 
to  the  singular  and  creditable  circum- 
stance that,  to  look  after  all  these 
Nobodies,  we  leave  only  one  Jack 
Ketch — unless  he  be,  by  the  way, 
himself  gone  out  of  town  on  a  non- 
professional  tour;  for  surely  Jack's 
spirits  must  require  recruiting  equally 
with  those  of  any  of  his  professional 
brethren  of  the  law.  Not  that  it  is 
the  gloomy  nature,  as  some  might  sen- 
sitively consider  it,  of  his  calling,  that 
oppresses  him;  but  that  the  Legisla- 
ture has  so  seriously  interfered  with 
th.e  extent  of  his  practice  as  may  some 
day  tempt  him  to  keep  his  hand  in, 
by  trying  it  upon  himself. 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


483 


HOW   I   GOT   OUT   OF   ALL   THIS. 


Why,  by  putting  our  five  selves, 
two  servants,  our  lively  Skye  friend, 
and  no  end  of  luggage,  into  and  upon 
divers  cabs,  which  startled  the  sere- 
nity of  the  morning,  at  6  A.M.,  on  the 
26th  August  1855.  At  length  we  rolled 
off,  and  had  any  one  else  been  left  in 
London  to  see  it,  our  appearance  might 
have  been  as  wistfully  regarded  by 
such  as  we  passed,  as  we  had  regarded 
similar  objects. 

What  a  contrast  did  the  silent  city 
present — Holborn,  Cheapside,  Thames 
Street — that  early  Sunday  morning — 
to  its  state  on  week  days  !  At  length 
we  reached  the  stairs,  and  found  the 
little  steamer  lying  in  mid- stream,  it 
being  dead-low  water;  which  afforded 
a  fitting  opportunity,  of  which  they 
availed  themselves,  to  the  porters  to 
fleece  us,  while  carrying  our  luggage 
from  cabs  to  boat ;  and  boatmen,  for 
rowing  us  a  few  yards  to  the  steamer. 
But  we  at  length  got  afloat,  and  so 
actually  commenced  our  adventurous 
voyage  of  forty  hours  at  least.  'Twas 
a  plain  little  boat,  whose  professed 
character  was  slow  and  sure,  carrying 
goods  as  well  as  passengers,  and  of 
the  latter  at  least  three  times  as  many 
as  could  be  accommodated  with  berths. 
We,  however,  had  been  so  question- 
ably fortunate  as  to  secure  the  right 
of  suffocation  in  separate  night-births 
had  we  pleased  to  exercise  it.  The 
majority  of  those  who  might  survive 
the  process,  I  soon  found  had  not  our 
destination,  but  would  be  disposed  of 
many  hours  before  we  should  land  on 
our  terra  incognita. 

The  day  was  bright  and  beautiful ; 
and  as  we  .slowly  sailed  out  of  the 
narrow  and  crowded  into  the  rapidly 
widening  river,  our  spirits  became 
buoyant.  It  was  quite  exhilarating 
to  see  the  Gravesend,  South  End, 
Margate,  and  Ramsgate  boats,  crowd- 
ed with  cheerful  faces,  in  quest  of  a 
day's  fresh  air  and  relaxation  ;  but  a 
little  mortifying  to  see  every  one  of 
them  leave  us  behind  ;  and  that  being 
so,  what  justification  was  there  of  the 
fat  citizen,  with  a  glistering  new  tra- 
velling-cap on,  and  a  jolly  face,  to 
put,  as  he  passed  us  close,  his  left 
thumb  to  his  nose,  and  his  right  thumb 
to  the  extended  little  finger  of  his  left 


hand,  and  then  give  the  former  a  gy- 
ratory movement  ?  Was  not  this  add- 
ing insult  to  injury  ?  As  his  dignified 
figure  grew  dim  in  the  distance,  so 
also  died  away  the  rich  echoes  of  fiddle 
and  clarionet,  to  the  tune  of  "  The 
girl  I  left  behind  me ;"  which  doubt- 
less, to  his  mind,  had  suggested  the 
pleasing  paraphrase,  "  The  boat  I  left 
behind  me."  What,  again,  did  the 
charming  fair  one  in  the  next  boat 
mean,  while  busied  in  engulfing  de- 
ceased shrimps  in  fizzing  ginger-beer, 
in  flinging  towards  us  the  undevonred 
remains  of  the  aforesaid  shrimps? 
And  was  it  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  day's  enjoyment  of  the  young  gen- 
tleman in  the  boat  following,  whose 
admiring  parents  had  permitted  him 
to  wear  a  blue  cap  with  a  gold  band, 
to  ask  me,  in  shrill  tones,  if  "  my  mo- 
ther knew  I  was  out  ?  "  Long  fami- 
liarity, however,  with  parliamentary 
sarcasms,  had  contributed  to  indurate 
my  sometime  sensitive  idiosyncrasy  ; 
till  I  reflected,  with  a  sort  of  sudden 
sting,  that  he  might  have  meant,  by 
my  mother,  my  country ;  and  that 
u  out"  meant  out  of  office,  to  that 
mother's  great  concern.  The  sea- 
breezes  soon  puffed  away  the  smoke 
which  hung  about  the  organs  of  my 
offended  sensibility,  and  also  ope- 
rated sensibly  on  the  drooping  ener- 
gies of  my  inner  man.  What  a  sort 
of  secret  fascination  there  is,  by  the 
way,  about  a  glass  of  soda-water  and 
brandy — at  sea  !  Down  I  went,  and 
got  it ;  the  steward  telling  me,  as  I 
gave  him  my  shilling,  that  at  the  place 
I  was  going  to  I  could  get  no  soda- 
water,  but  brandy  for  asking;  and 
then  he  inquired  if  "my  party"  in- 
tended dining  ?  This  sent  me  back  to 
the  deck  to  inquire ;  but  by  this  time 
we  were  not  fifty  miles  off  Ramsgate : 
and  a  certain  luxurious  rolling,  fan- 
cifully varied  by  sudden  jerks  and 
throbs,  seemed  strangely  to  disincline 
them  to  whom  I  spoke  to  any  mention 
of  dinner.  Over  feminine  features 
was  creeping  a  visible  expression  of 
white-faced  Resignation  setting  out 
on  a  voyage  to  Cape  Despair;  the 
aforesaid  resignation  being  liable,  to 
a  keen  eye,  to  little  puffs  of  disgust 
and  misery.  Nevertheless,  closed  eyes, 


484 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


[Oct. 


perfect  quietude,  and  an  undoubted 
diminution  of  Neptune's  heavy  antics, 
soon  began  to  mend  matters ;  and 
such  proceedings  were  thereupon  had 
(taliter  processum  est,  would  say  my 
brother  the  lawyer)  that  all  our  party, 
within  half-an-hour's  time,  might  have 
been  seen  seated  at  the  table  of  the 
hospitable  captain,  before  the  follow- 
ing liquorish  array:  two-thirds  of  a 
large  salmon,  corned  beef,  roast  beef, 
boiled  and  roast  fowl,  potatoes,  pease, 
French  beans.  Nothing  could  be 
nicer  !  What  an  appetite  the  sea  air 
gave  !  "That  pale  ale  is  particularly 
nice,  captain." — u  Take  another  glass, 
ma'am  ;  it's  Bass's  best ;  for  our  own- 
ers are  remarkable  particular  about 
providing  for  our  passengers." — "  And 


these  pease,  too,  are  excellent  for  the 
season  of  the  year."  .  .  .  But  by 
this  time  was  becoming  more  and  more 
sensible  a  recurrence  of  the  rolling ; 
so  that  through  the  cabin-windows 
were  alternately  visible  and  invisible 
the  frolicsome  green  waters,  with  their 
feathery  or  fleecy  chaplets.  .  .  .  "  Do 
you  think  they  have  any  brandy  on 
board  ?  "  was  faintly  whispered  in  my 
ear.  A  faint  smile  of  mine  was  en- 
countered by  a  look  of  unutterable 
apprehension  and  uncertainty.  .  .  . 
"  O  !  that  horrible  jerk!  ...  Is 
there  anything  the  matter  with  the 
machinery?  .  .  .  I  should  like  to 
go  on  deck  and  see,"  quoth  the  fair 
but  lily-cheeked  speaker;  and  so  she 
did.  . 


I  AM   GETTING   ALONG. 


Moonlight  on  the  waters !  Thou 
orb  of  beauty  ineffable!  Thou  lesser 
light,  ruling  the  night,  according  to 
pristine  ordination,  and  so  serenely  ! 
How  thy  bright  mantle  trails  along 
the  surface  of  the  undulating  deep! 
Thou  gentle  but  potent  Magnet !  at- 
tracting the  waters  of  our  planet ;  and 
at  the  same  time  the  devout  medita- 
tion of  its  inhabitants  towards  the 
Almighty  and  beneficent  Maker  of 
thyself  and  them  I 

'Twas  a  glorious  night,  and  I  spent 
it  on  deck,  wrapped  up  in  a  huge 
cloak,  which  also  served  to  shelter  my 
little  Skye  friend.  I  do  not  think  he 
slept  a  wink,  though  I  did,  occasion- 
ally. 'Tis  charming  to  be  consciously 
retreating  into  unconsciousness. — The 
man  is  at  the  wheel ;  the  captain  has 
turned  in,  as  it  is  near  midnight,  and 
the  mate  has  taken  to  the  look-out, 
and  is  enjoying  his  pipe,  in  silence. 
No  one  else  but  myself  and  Tickler  is 
on  deck.  How  pleasant  is  the  gug- 
gling and  splashing  sound  of  the  water 
against  the  side  of  the  good  little  ship! 
The  night -wind  moans  plaintively. 
The  moon  seems  going  to  bed,  and 
drawing  dark  curtains  about  her;  and 
Venus,  also,  appears  to  be  thinking  of 
her  nightcap.  Tickler  lies  still  as  a 
mouse,  his  little  nose  resting  on  his 
fore-paws,  and  his  coal-black  bright 
eyes  fixed  on  the  man  at  the  wheel. 
What  a  time  for  meditation !  This  so- 
lemn sense  of  quietude  and  freshness 


of  itself  repays  the  effort  I  have  made 
to  gain  it !  I  wonder  whether  I  shall 
succeed  in  obtaining  the  object  of  my 
wishes  when  I  land !  The  captain 
says,  that  if  I  want  wildness,he  thinks 
I  shall  be  satisfied,  from  what  he  has 
heard  of  that  part  of  the  coast— but  I 
shall  find  it  rather  lonely.  I  dare  say 
our  dear  little  Queen  is  just  now  fast 
asleep,  and  dream- dazzled  with  the 
ceaseless  splendours  of  the  past  week. 
.  .  .  .  What  fearful  scenes  may 
now  be  enacting  at  Sebastopol !  And 
the  one  and  the  other  may  at  this  mo- 
ment be  intermingling  —  as  it  were 
blood  and  light  alternating  in  imperial 
and  royal  fancy,  not  yet  steeped  in 
forgetfulness.  Ay — yonder,  appa- 
rently within  a  stone's  throw,  is  the 
French  Sebastopol,  barely  visible,  ex- 
cept in  stupendous  outline  and  pro- 
portion— Cherbourg  !  What  a  scene 
occurred  hereabout  in  this  month  of 
August,  wanting  three  years,  a  century 
ago. — What  events  here  may  history 
have  yet  to  chronicle !  Victoria  and 
Louis  Napoleon  —  the  lips  imperial 
have  kissed  the  royal  cheek — two 
mighty  nations  are  in  union. — But  a 
few  short  months  ago  preparing,  as  it 
seemed,  for  mortal  encounter — their 
ancient  rivalry  boiling  up  to  blood- 
heat — but — 

"  Now  is  the  winter  of  their  discontent 
Made  glorious  summer     .     .     . 
'And  all  the  clouds  that  lowered  upon  their 
house, 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


485 


In  the  deep  bosom  of  the  ocean  hurled. 

Now  are  their  brows  bound  with  victorious 
wreaths, 

Their  bruised  arms  hung  up  for  monuments  ; 

Our  stern  alarums  changed  to  merry  meet- 
ings, 

Our  dreadful  marches  to  delightful  measures. 

Grim-visaged  war  hath  smoothed  his  wrinkled 
front, 

And  now,  instead  of  mounting  barbed  steeds 

To  fright  the  souls  of  fearful  adversaries — " 

And  fearful  they  are,  as  fearless  we  ! 
— Cherbourg!  Sebastopol  —  fire  re- 
opened —  concentric  —  hideous — the 
rumbling  of  the  distant  cannonade. 
.  .  .  But,  sir,  I  own  that  what  I 
fear  is,  that  as  soon  as  the  noble  lord 
has  got  rid  of  the  House, — has  sent  it 
about  its  business,  and  no  impertinent 
questions  can  be  asked— (hear,  hear), 
—  when  the  cat's  away, — I  say,  sir, 
when  the  cat's  away,  the  mice — the 
mice — (order,  order !) — will  play — will 
play — play — (great  confusion,  amidst 
which  the  Speaker,  who  has  got  red 


in  the  face,  rises  up,  snatches  off  his 
wig,  and  flings  it  into  the  face  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  who,  taking  up  a  flute, 
plays  "  The  British  Grenadier;"  while 
Mr  Disraeli  and  Mr  Gladstone  dance 
hornpipes  on  their  respective  sides  of 
the  House,  amidst  cries  of  the  right 
man  in  the  right  place — the  wrong 
man  in  the  wrong  place — great  cheer- 
ing and  counter- cheering — the  wrong 
man  in  the  right — the  right  man  in  the 
wrong  place.  Sir  Charles  Napier  and 
Sir  James  Graham  fighting  behind  the 
Speaker's  chair,  and  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell can't  separate  them.  Divide  !  di- 
vide). .  .  . 

"  Bow  !  wow  !  wow  !  Bow  !  wow  ! 
wow,"  suddenly  exclaimed  Tickler, 
at  the  top  of  his  voice,  and  leaped 
clean  out  of  his  snuggery  under  my 
cloak:  had  he  been  dreaming,  too, 
and  had  my  dream  made  me  disturb 
his? 


I   AM   GETTING   NEAR   THE   END  OF  THE  VOYAGE. 


Morn  on  the  waters  !  O  trans- 
cendant,  pure,  and  soul  -  inspiring 
spectacle  !  The  rising  sun,  in  crimson 
glory  !  Not  a  word  can  I  utter,  to 
desecrate  the  silence,  or  disturb  the 
reverence  with  which  my  soul  is  pros- 
trate before  the  Almighty  Maker  of 
that  greater  light  to  rule  the  day  ! 

Full  fifty- one  hours  have  elapsed 
(it  was  now  11  A.M.  on  Tuesday), 
since  we  left  London,  having  enjoyed 
settled  sunshine  and  brisk  breezes  all 
the  way  ;  and  another  hour  will,  we 
are  assured,  enable  us  to  land  in  the 

harbour  of  ,  not  yet  in   sight. 

But  we  were  in  close  proximity  to 
what  filled  me  with  admiration — the 
grandest  rocky  coast  I  ever  beheld — 
one  of  wild  magnificence,  and  solitary, 
with  a  witness.  The  first  symptom 
of  life  was  a  striking  one:  perched  on  the 
peaksof  as  many  rugged  rocks,  within 
apparently  a  few  feet  of  each  other, 
were  six  (two  of  the  largest  particu- 
larly recalling  the  images  of  Gripe  and 
Grab)  cormorants,  whom  no  shouting 
could  rouse  into  any  sort  of  motion, 
though  we  passed  within  three  or  four 


hundred  yards  of  them.  The  swelling 
blue  waters  were  bursting  into  foam 
at  the  base  of  the  steep  rocks.  There 
was  not  a  glimpse  of  shore.  By-and- 
by  became  visible  a  goat  or  two ; — 
and  then,  at  the  door  of  a  small  cabin, 
stuck  between  two  great  ledges  of 
rock,  as  a  sort  of  look  -  out,  stood, 
shading  her  eyes  from  the  sun,  a  young 
woman,  eyeing  our  somewhat  sooty 
little  majesty,  as  she  came  hissing 
past.  A  few  moments  afterwards  we 
turned  a  corner  of  the  coast,  and  then 
burst  on  us  a  bay  more  beautiful  than 
any  I  had  ever  seen  in  England  :  per- 
fectly semicircular,  the  calm  and  bright 
blue  waters  leaving  only  a  thin  white 
line  of  shore  between  themselves  and 
the  luxuriant  verdure  here  and  there 
studded  with  white  cottages,  and  pic- 
turesquely seated  enclosures.  We 
eyed  them  wistfully,  as  we  left  it 
behind  us,  coasting  the  rocky  but 
beautiful  shore.  We  might  well  do 
this ;  for  I  must  remind  you  that 
we  had  come  —  so  considerable  a 
party  —  all  this  way,  entirely  on  spe- 
culation, as  to  the  discovery  of  a  fit- 
ting locality. 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Oct. 


EYPHKA ! 


Mercy  on  us  !  what  a  jabber !    Al- 
most before  we  could  land,  the  Philis- 
tines viere  upon  ws,  showing  that  the 
English  were  not  the  only  boatmen 
and  porters  who  knew  how  to  deal 
advantageously  (for  themselves)  with 
passengers  and  luggage.  But  at  length, 
at  1  P.M.,  we  were  all  safely  housed 
in  probably  the  best,  and  certainly, 
as  it  proved,  most  expensive,  hotel, 
in  the  little  town.    Pretty  figures  we 
looked, — our  faces  glaring  red,  and 
the  skin  even  beginning  to  peel  off! 
Having  been  refreshed  with  an  excel- 
lent breakfast,  I  at  once  commenced 
my  inquiries  for  a  suitable  residence ; 
and  on  hearing  my  requirements,  the 
quiet  man  of  business  whom  I  con- 
sulted,  and  whose  name  had  been 
mentioned  to  us  by  a  respectable  fel- 
low-passenger, said  that  as  it  happen- 
ed, he  could  exactly  suit  us  ;  and  en- 
gaging a  carriage,  he  accompanied  me 
on  a  five  miles'  drive  to  the  charming 
spot  where  I  am  now  writing.    Two 
days,  however,  would  be  requisite  for 
getting  it  into  proper  trim — which 
insured  us  two  days  at  our  hotel,  at  a 
cost  of  £5,  British  money.    Nor  was 
this  the  only  little  drawback  ;  for,  re- 
lying on  misinformation  before  leaving 
town,  we  had  come  unprovided  with 
household  linen  of  any  sort  —  and 
being  unable  to  hire  any,  were  forced 
forthwith  to  invest  divers  monies  in 
the  purchase  of  materials  for  sheet- 
ing, table-linen,  napkins,   &c.,   and 
have  them  made  at  once !    These, 
however,  were  but  small  difficulties  ; 
and  having  overcome  them,  and  or- 
dered pretty  freely  stores  of  all  sorts 
from  the  market  town,  at  3  P.M.,  of 
Thursday  August  the  30th,  behold  us 
installed  in  our  little  chateau ;  but  not 
before  I  had  been  required,  in  accor- 
dance with  the  law  of  the  country,  to 
take  a  formal  written  lease  of  the  pre- 
mises for  one  month  certain,  and  an 
additional    fortnight,    dependent   on 
certain  contingencies.  The  rental  was 
fifty  shillings   a- week  !    with  a  sum 
of  £1,   to  be  paid  on  quitting  the 
premises,  for  cleaning  the  same.  Thus 
I  became  a  landed  proprietor,  in  a 
foreign  country,  of  house  and  grounds, 
—  including    garden  crammed  with 


heavily-laden  pear,  plum,  greengage, 
and  other  fruit-trees, — coach-house, 
and  stabling, — as  tenant  to  an  absent 
proprietaire.       We    were     fortunate 
enough  to  meet  with  an  English  cook, 
and  our  establishment  was  thus  com- 
plete.     For    butcher  -  meat,  wine, 
groceries,  &c.,  we  place  our  depen- 
dence on  dealers  in  the  neighbouring 
town  (at  five  miles'  distance),  who 
ordinarily  make  the  tour  of  these  re- 
gions twice  or  thrice  a-week  ;  for  fish, 
especially  oysters,  and  delicious  sand- 
eels,  with  which  the  shore  swarms- 
bread,  butter,  and  milk,  we  rely  on 
the  little  village  beneath  us  ;  and  for 
fowls,  pork,  &c.,  on  the  neighbouring 
farm-houses,   to  which  we  are  con- 
stantly sending  foraging  expeditions, 
which  constitute  a  substantial  item  of 
occupation  and  excitement  to  certain 
members  of  my  famity.    No  sooner, 
indeed,  had  I  been  installed  in  my 
brief  lordship,  than  a  very  particular 
domestic    event    occurred    to    me: 
Madame  presented   me   a  couple  of 
fowls,  who  are  at  this  moment  eat- 
ing their  heads  off  with  corn,   for 
prudential  reasons  best  appreciated 
by  the   astute  economists  who  have 
thus  early  made  me,  for  the  first  time, 
a  proprietor  of  Live  Stock.    Nay,  if 
things  go  on  at  this  rate,  I  expect,  on 
sallying  some  fine  day  from  my  library, 
to  be  saluted  by  the  gentle  tones  of  a 
pig;   for  I  have  caught  some  faint 
ominous  hints  about  that  also  being 
economical,  since  the  little  grunter  is 
to  fatten  himself  cheerfully  on  "mere 
slops  and  offscourings !  "    In  short,  I 
think  my  friend  Stephens'  far-famed 
Booh  of  the  Farm  is  exactly  the  kind 
of  literature  suited  to  my  present  exi- 
gencies ;  and  I  must  send  for  my  copy 
from  town  forthwith.    But  in  serious- 
ness, how  can  a  man,  loving  solitude 
and  seeking  relaxation ,  be  more  favour- 
ably situated  than  I  am  at  this  mo- 
ment ?  Resolved  to  make  the  most  of 
the  halcyon  interval,  the  last  thing  I 
did,  on  retiring  to  rest  the  first  night 
(how  hard  it  was  to  tear  oneself  from 
"  the  terrace  irradiated  by  the  mellow 
moonlight !)  was  to  issue  an  order, 
that  all  were  henceforth  to  rise  at  six, 
and  breakfast  be  ready  at  seven  every 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


487 


morning,  thus  securing  a  long  day, 
but  which  was  to  close,  as  far  as  bed- 
time was  concerned,  at  half-past  nine, 
or  at  latest  ten  o'clock.  This  having 
done — u  Good-night  to  you,  Mr  Gripe ! 
good-night  to  you,  Mr  Grab !  good 
night,  Mr  Speaker ! — and  by  the  way, 

P ,  if  any  sand-eels  are  brought 

in  the  morning,  have  them  fried  for 
breakfast !  Good-night,  good  people 
all  1  "  Our  chief  bedrooms  are  en  suite 
with  the  others ;  mine  opens  on  the 
terrace  ;  and  throwing  it  wide  open, 
I  stood  gazing  at  the  moonlit  foliage, 
the  greens  ward,  the  calm  silver  sea,  and 
the  richly  fringed  and  variegated  bay 
stretching  away  to  the  right,  and 
soothed  by  the  silence, — in  fact,  I  could 
have  got  a  chair,  and  slept  sitting 
there  all  niglft ! 

An  over  -  excited  brain  kept  me 
tossed  about  from  one  wild  dream  into 
another  almost  the  whole  night ;  but 
the  moment  after  I  had  left  my  bed, 
and  glanced  round  the  lovely  scenery 
glittering  in  the  dew  and  morning  sun- 
beams, all  sense  of  disturbedness  left 
me.  What  a  contrast  to  the  morn- 
ings of  every  previous  day  in  the  year  1 

At  seven  o'clock,  precisely,  behold 
our  little  party  of  five,  as  cheerful  as 
larks,  sitting  round  the  breakfast- 
table,  on  which  was  spread  simple  but 
inviting  fare,  of  which — I  can  speak 
for  myself  at  least — we  partook  with  a 
tranquil  satisfaction  and  deliberation 
unknown  in  town ;  where  my  morning 
meal  is  restricted  to  a  cup  of  tea,  the 
newspapers,  and  my  letters !  But 
here  I  the  birds  were  singing  merrily 
in  the  little  grove  on  which  the  win- 
dow to  my  right  opened,  and  on  the 
other,  a  few  spreading  laurustines  and 
fuchsias,  with  pinks  gaily  bedizening 
the  border  of  the  terrace,  served  to 
afford  us  picturesque  glimpses  of 
the  glittering  ocean  which  was  visi- 
ble where  we  sate.  The  prospect 
seemed  to  afford  equal  satisfaction  to 
Tickler,  if  one  might  judge  from  the 
attitude  of  quiet  attention  with  which 
he  sate  in  the  middle  of  the  large 
opened  bay-window.  Fancy  break- 
fast entirely  over,  and  all  trace  of  it 
gone,  before  the  old  clock  in  the  hall 
had  struck  eight !  Shortly  afterwards, 
my  two  sons  set  off  to  reconnoitre  our 
position,  chiefly  with  a  view  to  dis- 
cover by  what  means  we  were  to 
communicate  with  the  village  beneath, 


finding  it  sufficiently  precipitous. 
There  were  three  modes  of  access — 
but  one  only,  and  that  very  steep, 
suitable  for  ladies :  the  other  two 
seemed  favourite  pathways  of  the 
village  dogs,  who  in  considerable  num- 
bers during  the  day  came  by  that 
route  to  pay  their  respects  to  Mi- 
Tickler,  of  whose  arrival,  I  suppose, 
they  had  heard  down  below.  As  for 
myself,  I  was  well  pleased  to  see  my- 
self soon  made  snug  in  my  study. 
I  had  brought  ample  writing  mate- 
rials, for  I  was  heavily  in  arrears 
with  correspondence;  but  I  own,  I 
little  thought  of  writing  to  you,  and 
so  lengthy  an  epistle.  I  had  brought 
my  library  with  me :  there  it  stands 
on  the  spacious  mantel-piece  ;  and  as 
you  may  like  to  know  the  selection 
made  by  your  quaint  correspondent 
of  literature  for  the  sea-side,  here  is 
the  aforesaid  library  for  the  whole 
family:  Shakespeare;  Soyer's  Cook- 
ery ;  Butler's  Analogy  and  Sermons  ; 
Haydn's  Dates ;  Richardson's  Dic- 
tionary ;  Thucydides  ;  Christopher 
North,  vol.  i. ;  Tacitus  ;  Blackwood's 
Magazine  for  August  and  September. 
The  light  literature  department  com- 
prised the  Penny  Census,  and  an  Al- 
manac gratuitously  presented  to  us 
by  our  London  stationers,  its  pub- 
lishers, Messrs  Parkins  and  Gotto. 
Add  to  this  two  or  three  bibles 
and  prayer-books,  in  French  and 
English,  and  you  have  our  whole 
stock  of  sea-side  books — sacred  and 
profane — by  which  the  inner  man  was 
"  doubly  armed !" 

The  first  time  that  I  came  to  the 
place,  I  saw  how  it  would  be :  that 
the  long,  smooth,  straight  avenue 
leading  from  the  high  white  gate, 
opening  on  the  high-road  down  to 
the  chateau — which,  however,  you 
reached  by  a  slight  detour  at  the  last 
• — would  be  appropriated  for  my  pro- 
menade at  all  times  of  the  day.  'Tis 
exactly  one  hundred  and  seventy  of 
my  ordinary  paces,  and  between  two 
rows  of  trees,  not  quite  turned  my  own 
height,  and  affording  a  free  view  of 
the  green  country  on  one  side,  and  the 
sea,  with  the  aforesaid  glorious  old 
castle,  on  the  other.  Up  and  down, 
up  and  down  this  avenue  for  me ! 
early  in  the  morning,  or  during  the 
lovely  evening — alone,  if  in  meditative 
mood,  or  with  one  of  our  little  circle, 


488 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


[Oct. 


if  in  chattering  humour !   By  the  way, 
I  shall  lay  down  my  pen  now   and 


stirring,  and  the  glorious  sun's  rays 
are  tempered  by  a  few  fleecy  clouds. 


play  the  peripatetic  for  a  quarter  of     So  in  a  twinkling  I  step  on  to  the 


an  hour.  I  have  been  writing  to  you 
since  breakfast-  time,  and  it  is  now 
nearly  ten  :  there  is  a  brisk  breeze 


lawn,  through  the  open  window-  door, 
and  commence  my  constitutional! 


BATHING,    AT 

Saturday. — I  have  had  nothing  to 
do  to-day,  and  done  it  to  perfection. 
Yet,  on  further  thought,  I  am  rather 
hasty.  I  have  shared  the  responsi- 
bility of  ordering  dinner;  the  main 
knot  of  difficulty  being,  that  high 
winds  had  prevented  any  fish  but 
oysters  making  their  appearance — and 
they  for  the  first  time  this  season — 
in  the  village :  should  we  have  them 
in  their  native  unadorned  state,  or 
scalloped,  or  stewed?  After  much 
consideration,  and  a  little  difference  of 
opinion,  we  chose  the  last;  so  an 
order  was  forthwith  given  to  the 
fisherman's  wife,  who  had  come  up  to 
announce  the  boat's  arrival  with  her 
first  cargo,  for  five  dozen.  Well,  don't 
start !  Are  we  not  five  in  number  ? 
And  don't  three  of  us  intend  to  take  a 
walk  between  this  and  dinner  ?  Be- 
sides, we  shall  have  the  beards  cut  off, 
so  we  bought  'em — splendid  oysters, 
at  3d.  per  dozen.  The  fowls,  it  was 
agreed,  should  be  roasted ;  and  the 
younger  folk  put  in  their  claim  for 
stewed  pears — (pur  own  pears !  the 
plea  was  irresistible) — and  cream; 
and  having  got  this  weighty  business 
over,  we  felt  greatly  relieved,  knowing 
that  each  had  honestly  done  his  best 
to  contribute  to  his  own  enjoyment. 
As  for  myself,  I  must  confess  that  I 
several  times  thought  of  the  arrival 
of  five  o'clock,  relying  on  the  tried 
talents  of  our  cook,  without  any  dis- 
placency  or  impatience.  About  eleven 
o'clock  A.M.,  I  found  that  everybody 
under  my  roof  had  gone  everywhere ; 
so  why  should  not  I  go  somewhere  ? 
I  had  read  nothing  for  three  hours, 
nor  set  pen  to  paper,  nor  could  I  do 
either  that  day ;  but  I  had  walked  for 
an  hour  up  and  down  the  avenue,  then 
lain  on  the  library  sofa  for  half  an 
hour,  then  sauntered  about  the  shrub- 
bery, sitting  down  at  length  on  the 
bench  in  the  centre  of  the  laurel  ar- 
bour, my  ears  soothed  by  the  sound 
of  the  trembling  poplar's  leaves  be- 


hind me,  and  the  faint  fitful  creaking 
of  the  old-fashioned  vane  just  before 
me,  unsteadily  indicating  a  S.W.  ten- 
dency of  the  wind,  and  suggesting 
to  me — who  was  in  a  mood  of  utter 
listlessness — half-formed  fine  notions 
of  the  contrast  between  the  arrow  in 
one  direction,  and  the  fickle  vane  boxing 
the  compass;  symbolling  Constancy 
and  Inconstancy — "  true  as  the  dial 
to  the  sun,  although  it  be  not  shone 
upon."  Unstable  as  water,  thou  shalt 
not  excel,  says  Wisdom :  how  many 
men  I  know  who  illustrate  that  say- 
ing— C ,  and  M ,  and  Z , 

— then  the  hum  of  a  bee  steals  into 
my  ear ;  and — I  am  on  the  point  of 
being 

"  By  whispering  winds  soon  lulled  to  sleep" — 

positively  !  Not  much  past  eleven 
o'clock,  and  I  am  on  the  eve  of  dozing 
and  dreaming ;  so  I  jump  up,  and  re- 
solve to  go  and  bathe  —  ay,  really 
to  bathe !  Not,  be  it  observed,  to 
go  down  to  the  cockney-crowded 
sands,  with  a  wretched  row  of  "  bathing- 
machines,"  for  one  of  which  I  am  to 
wait  my  turn  in  the  broiling  sun, 
squatting  on  red-hot  shingle,  till  the 
fat  old  gentleman  has  got  out,  having 
taken  half  an  hour  to  himself ; — then 
to  be  told  to  "  hold  hard" — while  a 
man  astride  of  a  huge,  raw-boned, 
rough-hided  hack  urges  it  into  a  hor- 
rid canter,  or  worse  trot,  over  the 
shingle,  into  water  which  comes  up 
to  your  knee  only,  and  you  are  told 
as  he  unhooks  his  horse,  that  there 
are  several  waiting  for  the  machine, 
and  he  hopes  you  will  not  be  long. 
Now  it  takes  you  five  minutes  to  get 
into  water  not  so  high  as  your  hips  : 
and  having  tried  patiently  to  get  your 
whole  body  for  a  moment  under  wa- 
ter, you  uncomfortably  retrace  your 
steps,  finding  yourself  Hearing  a 
motley  group  of  children,  and  old 
ladies  and  gentlemen  picking  up  shells 
close  to  the  machine,  into  which  you 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


1855.] 

sneak  with  mingled  shame  and  fury ; 
and  just  as  you  are  beginning  to  wipe 
your  shoulders  with  a  towel  which  has 
done  duty  that  morning  to  a  dozen 
predecessors,  you  are  pleasantly  pros- 
trated by  the  aforesaid  hack  suddenly 
starting  back  with  you  at  a  rattling 
pace  towards  the  shingle.    Do  you 
call  this  sea-bathing  ?     I  do  not :  but 
slowly  rising  from  my  bench  in  the 
laurel  arbour,  while  disappear  from 
my  mind's  eye  "  the  fickle  pensioners 
of  Morpheus'  train " — I  saunter  lei- 
surely up  the  avenue  ;  turn  down  the 
steep  road  leading  me,  in  five  min- 
utes' time,  to  the  foot  of    the   old 
castle,  and  then  take  the  narrow  road 
to  the  left,   and    am    instantly   in 
close  proximity  to  the  rocky  shore. 
I  pass  one  or  two  vine- clad  fisher- 
men's cottages,  every  now  and  then 
pausing, — the  heathery  hill -side  on 
my  left,  where  one  or  two  goats  are 
browsing,  and  the  blue  boundless  wa- 
ters on  my  right  are  softly  swelling 
against  the  huge  rugged  rocks.    I  ask 
a  fisherman's  wife  where  I  can  bathe? 
and  she  with  good-natured  volubility 
tells  me  that  Monsieur  must  follow 
the  road  down  to  a  little  bay  close  by, 
and  that  there  is  beautiful  bathing 
there  now,  for  the  tide  just  suits  ;  and 
that  in  answer  to  inquiries  if  Madame 
or  Mademoiselle  choose  to  bathe,  they 
must  do  the  same,  for  there  is  no  one 
to  interrupt  them.     ...      O  !  en- 
chanting scene !  Here  is  the  bay!   Its 
two  extremities  consist  of  huge  rocks 
scattered  about  in  rugged  and  wild 
grandeur,  but  all  the  interior  of  fine 
white  sand,  over  which   the  bright 
blue  waters   are  advancing    gently, 
their  surface  just,  as  it  were,  ripple- 
ruffled  with  the  fluttering  of  zephyr's 
wing.    Around  the  bay,  sheltered  by 
high  rising  ground  covered  with  luxu- 
riant   foliage,  may  be  seen  two  or 
three  humble  cottages,  and  the  gable- 
ends  of  a  structure  of  far  higher  preten- 
sions, barely  visible  through  the  sur- 
rounding trees— and  now,  on  glancing 
towards  the  rocks  nearest  to  it,  but 
furthest  from  me,  I  can  perceive  some- 
thing glistening  indistinctly :  while  a 
slight  blue  figure  is  seen  in  the  water 
close  beside  them ;  doubtless  a  nymph 


489 


were  strong  enough,  one  might  see  her 
maid  standing  by  the  edge  of  the  wa- 
ter, laughing  at  her  young  mistress's 
efforts  to  swim  !— and  presently  to 
assist  her  in  dressing  behind  a  huge 
blue  umbrella !    But  take  care,  my 
fair  one  ;  has  your  delicate  feet  quit 
the  silver  sand  to  tread  those  relent- 
less rocks!    Pursue  your  gambols  un- 
disturbed !  dress  at  a  distance  that  is 
sacred.    But  as  for  me,  I  betake  my- 
self to  the  huge  rocks  at  my  end  of 
the  bay — and  grope  my  way  to  a  hol- 
low in  the  rock,  where  I  am  hidden 
from  mortal  eye,  with  nought  to  look 
on  but  the  deep  blue  azure  beneath, 
and  the  stainless  azure  above.  Which 
is  the  bluer?     Meth inks  the  sea:  on 
which  I  cannot  perceive  the  glimpse 
of  a  sail,  as  there  is  not  a    fleecy 
trace  above.      The  glorious  sun   is 
pouring  its  golden  flood  on  sea  and 
sky  from  behind  me.    No  sound  is 
audible  but  the  waters  gently  insinu- 
ating themselves  into  the  crevices  and 
fissures  of  the  rocky  fragments  around 
me.    I  sigh  involuntarily,  from  a  deep 
sense  of  enjoyment,   and  sympathy 
with  the  beauty  of  nature.     How  it 
contrasts  with  the  anxiety  and  hub- 
bub of  life !    This  is— solitude  ! 

"  Hail,  sacred  Solitude  !  from  this  calm  bay 
I  view  the  world's  tempestuous  sea  ! 
And  with  wise  pride  despise 
All  its  senseless  vanities !  " 

— 'Butdo  I? 

Ah  !  what  a  question !  Folding  my 
arms,  I  lean  against  my  rock,  and 
sink  into  reflection — concerning  my 
relations  to  my  Maker,  All- Glorious, 
Good,  and  Long-Suffering  with  His 
wayward  creatures :  concerning  the 
use  I  am  making  of  the  life  ebbing 
from  me  for  ever :  is  one's  sensual  en- 
croaching on  one's  moral,  or  that 
overcoming  one's  sensual  nature? — 
What  distinguishes  me  from  the  kid, 
browsing  yonder,  but  who,  having 
suddenly  caught  sight  of  me,  is  gaz- 
ing down  in  timid  wonder  at  a  Lord 
of  Creation,  in  me  ?  Physically,  we 
are  both  marvellously  made — we  both 
eat  and  drink,— are  born,  grow,  and 
die  :  we  both  feel  pleasure  and  pain, 
and  have  even  some  mysterious  ap- 
proximation towards  each  other,  in 
respect  of  intellectual  action !  but  as 


laving  in  the  crystal  wave — if  wave 

there  be.     'Tis  one  of  the  fair  young  to  moral  nature,  you  have,  methinks, 

tenants  of  yon  house  "  bosomed  high  no  more  of  it  than  the  rock  on  which 

in  tufted  trees  j "  and  if  one's  eyesight  I  sit,  and  which— bless  us!— is  very 


490 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


[Oct. 


nearly  surrounded  with  the  smooth 
insinuating  waters  !  'I  look  around, 
and  soon  find  a  safe  exit  from  my 
strait,  infinitely  easier  and  sooner  than 
I  should  have  found  my  way  out  of 
the  mists  of  metaphysical  speculation 
into  which  I  had  begun  to  stray.  I 
emerge  from  my  rocky  solitude, — I 
return  to  the  beach,  and  am  now  its 
only  tenant,  for  my  sea-nymph  is 
gone.  In  a  trice  I  am  in  the  sea ! 
the  water  clear  as  crystal,  and  almost 
smooth  as  glass.  How  warm  is  the 
surface  of  it !  Smooth  as  velvet  are 
the  sands;  and  were  any  stones  or 
rocks  nearer  me  than  the  high  ledge 
on  which  I  have  deposited  my  clothes, 
safe  from  the  softly  but  swiftly  ad- 
vancing tide,  I  must  but  do  not  see 
them  through  this  pellucid  medium. 
Five  or  six  strides  bring  me  into  safe 
dipping-depth,  and  in  an  instant  my 
feet  slip  from  me,  and  I  plunge  —  a 
little  startled  with  the  coldness  of  my 


first  immersion  into  salt  water  for  a 
year.  Quickly  accustomed  to  it,  how- 
ever, I  swim— I  float— I  splash— I 
plunge  again— being,  in  fact,  so  ex- 
hilarated as  to  feel  inclined  to  swim 
farther  out  than  is  prudent,  having 
regard  to  my  being  alone.  But  this 
is  only  my  first  introduction  to  the 
gentle  Thetis,  and  I  have  six  weeks 
before  me  !  Will  she,  however,  be 
always  in  this  lovely  humour  ?  Shall 
I  have  to  say,  as  the  poet  to  the  fickle 
Pyrrha — 

"  Qui  semper  vacuam,  semper  amabilem, 
Sperat  nescius  aurse, 
Fallacis!" 

But  this  can  be  more  readily  quoted  by 
that  laughing  youngster  now  bound- 
ing towards  me,  having  been  hurried 
down  by  one  who  aifects  to  believe  I 
had  given  her  a  promise — after  a  for- 
mer hair-breadth  'scape — never  again 
to  bathe  alone ! 


LETTERS  AND  NEWSPAPERS  !      EMPEROR  AND   QUEEN  ! 


News  from  the  world  !  Five  letters 
and  six  English  newspapers  spread  out 
on  my  table  !  Three  of  the  former  are 
for  me,  and  all  the  latter :  so  despatch- 
ing the  two  letters  to  those  whom 
they  concern,  and  graciously  giving 
out  five  of  the  newspapers  to  diffuse 
useful  and  entertaining  knowledge 
throughout  the  household,  till  I  have 
devoured  whatever  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Evening  Mail,  considerately  com- 
ing twice  a  -  week  in  modest  and 
agreeable  guise, — the  Times  stripped 
of  its  horrid  advertisements.  In  this, 
its  reduced  form,  is  to  be  found  all  I 
want  to  know ;  for  whatever  isn't 
there  hasn't  happened  ! — but  whether 
everything  has,  that  is,  I  shall  not  take 
npon  me  to  decide.  False  intelligence 
may  for  a  while  alarm,  or  delight— at 
all  events  it  titillates,  or  excites.  'Tis 
awkward,  however,  if  it  have  elicited 
a  dogmatic — "I  always  anticipated 
and  predicted  this — I  saw  the  course 
of  events  tending  in  this  direction 
months  ago,  though  everybody  else 
denied  it.  Such  and  such  will  be 
the  consequences  of  it."  If  the  next 
paper  bring  a  contradiction,  and  edi- 
torial peccavi  —  you  can  only  say 
"  a-hem  "—take  a  long  walk  in  the 
country,  and  on  your  return  allude  to 


every  other  topic  except  that  which 
has  made  you  wince  so  much,  in  your 
stinging  reflections  on  the  extent  to 
which  you  have  committed  yourself 
in  the  character  of  Sir  Oracle.  If  the 
intelligence  was  unpleasant  and  un- 
favourable, it  is  delightful  to  have  it 
contradicted ;  but  if  it  were  the  other 
way,  what  can  you  do,  but  grin  and 
hear  it,  and  practise  a  sagacious  shake 
of  the  head,  against  the  time  that  any 
other  intelligence  of  a  pleasingly  sur- 
prising nature  may  present  itself  for 
your  acceptance?  There  lies  the 
Mail  before  us,  as  yet  unopened,  con- 
taining the  first  account  of  what  has 
happened  in  England  since  it  lost  for 
a  while  the  inestimable  safeguard  of 
my  presence !  At  length  I  open  it, 
and  with  every  Englishman  have  at 
this  moment  only  two  topics  present 
to  my  mind  —  our  Queen,  and  our 
Army  before  Sebastopol.  With  a 
suspended  sigh,  a  glance  tells  me  that 
"  nothing  new  has  happened  there;" 
but  I  am  rejoiced  to  find  that  the  dear 
little  lady  who  rules  over  us,  and  was 
so  lately  "  the  cynosure  of  neighbour- 
ing eyes,"  "  raining  influence"  of  af- 
fable queenly  dignity,  has  returned  to 
her  own  dominions,  and  is  again  quiet- 
ly ensconced  in  her  royal  nook  at  Os- 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


491 


borne.  Well,  pleasant  and  profitable 
may  her  meditations  be  on  the  stately 
and  splendid  hospitalities  of  her  Im- 
perial brother !  The  interchange  of 
visits  between  these  now  puissant 
personages  which  this  summer  has 
witnessed,  constitutes,  with  existing 
circumstances,  antecedents,  and  pro- 
bable consequences,  a  wonderful  and 
dazzling  event,  to  be  recorded  by  the 
pen  of  history,  before  which  the  Field 
of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  sinks  into  a  mere 
gaudy  display  of  theatrical  extrava- 
gance and  improvidence.  How  thick 
the  veil  hanging  before  the  nearest 
Future  of  mankind !  Who  can  tell 
what  a  day  or  an  hour  may  bring 
forth  with  nations  as  with  indivi- 
duals ?  And  what  lessons  should 
it  teach  both,  of  virtue,  prudence, 
and  moderation  in  regulating  their 
Now,  according  to  the  precepts  of 
Him  who  has  placed  us  in  this  brief 
scene  of  action,  and  whose  perfect 
existence  is  an  Eternal  Now  !  Three 
short  years  ago  we  were  making 
almost  convulsive  efforts  to  provide 
against  an  apparently  imminent 
French  invasion  of  our  shores  by  a 
hundred  thousand  soldiers,  whose 
hearts  bore  the  searing  scar  of  Water- 
loo! Now,  both  sovereigns  and  people 
are  in  strict  accord,  in  ardent  alliance 
against  a  colossal  Northern  Power, 
who  was  then  our  long-tried  ally  and 
friend  ! — London  was  familiar  to  its 
imperial  visitor;  every  moment  of 
whose  stay,  and  every  object  which 
met  his  eye,  was  pregnant  with  re- 
collections and  suggestions  of  unutter- 
able interest  and  mighty  significance. 
I  was  one  of  those  to  whom  his  stay 
here  was  a  continued  spasm  of  appre- 
hension for  his  personal  safety,  from 
the  blood-red  hand  of  some  fell  foreign 
assassin.  Had  that  hand  been  raised 
here,  and  successfully,  what  incalcu- 
lable consequences  would  have  ensued, 


such  as  make  the  boldest  and  strongest 
heart  quiver  to  contemplate !  Yet 
they  were  within  a  hair's-breadth  of 
being  precipitated  upon  Europe  within 
a  few  short  hours  of  the  Emperor's 
return  to  his  own  capital.  And  our 
fearless  Queen  went,  in  return  for  his 
visit  to  her,  to  be  the  guest  of  him 
whose  life  she  might  deem  so  awfully 
precarious,  trusting,  not  to  a  gallant 
and  chivalrous  people  only,  but  to  the 
protection  of  the  King  of  Kings! 
Both  Queen  and  Emperor  have  played 
their  parts  grandly  in  this  historic 
scene.  The  course  of  each  was  deeply 
considered  with  reference  to  the  tem- 
pers of  the  two  great  nations  of  France 
and  England,  and  the  great  and  unex- 
pected exigencies  of  the  times.  Mak- 
ing all  due  allowances  for  errors  and 
shortcomings  referable  to  our  respec- 
tive idiosyncrasies,  let  the  severest 
censor  of  the  two  countries  point  to 
any  others,  morally  and  intellectually, 
comparable  to  them  in  ancient  and 
modern  times;  and  I  do  from  the 
depths  of  my  soul  believe,  that  if  their 
present  union  prove  stable,  a  new  era 
for  civilisation  is  dawning.  Grave 
difficulties,  and  infinitely  graver  con- 
tingencies, may  present  themselves  to 
the  eye  of  the  wisely  forecasting  ;  but 
let  us  repose  a  rational  and  manly 
confidence  in  each  other's  perceptions 
of  duty  and  interest,  as  involved  in 
a  glorious  destiny,  under  an  approv- 
ing Providence.  All  that  England 
and  France  have  ever  known  of  each 
other's  characters  and  capabilities 
is  calculated  to  engender  recipro- 
cally admiration  and  respect ;  and 
their  richest  blood,  intermingled  in 
a  magnificent  enterprise  like  that  on 
which  the  eyes  of  all  other  nations 
are  now  fixed,  will  prove  a  perfect 
styptic  for  any  wound  which  either 
may  have  heretofore  inflicted  on  the 
other. 


THE   SNAKE. 


See  what  the  Evening  Mail  is  an- 
swerable for  in  the  case  of  a  politician 
turned  sea- side  recluse! — But  I  am 
invited,  with  eager  haste,  to  go  and 
see  "  a  large  snake,"  just  caught  and 
killed  by  a  neighbouring  farmer.  'Tis 
irresistible — and  I  start  off.  What  an 
instinctive  horror  one  has  of  the  whole 

VOL.  LXXVUI. — NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


tribe :  and  yet,  speaking  for  myself 
at  least,  one  has  a  queer  perverse 
satisfaction  and  curiosity  in  looking  at 
them,  dead  or  alive,  or  hearing  or 
reading  of  their  horrid  doings.  The 
last  time  I  saw  a  French  adder,  or 
viper — they  are,  as  you  know,  differ- 
ent names  for  the  same  reptile — was 
2  K 


492 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Oct. 


at  the  Zoological  Gardens  in  the 
Kegent's  Park,  London.  It  was  "  a 
very  fine  specimen,"  as  a  naturalist 
would  express  himself,  doubtless ;  but 
it  looked  hideous  enough  to  me,  and 
must  have  appeared  utterly  blasting 
to  a  poor  little  mouse,  screwed  up  in 
a  corner  of  the  cage,  at  an  angle  just 
above  a  small  trough  of  water.  If 
ever  horror  started  out  of  eyes,  it 
looked  out  of  those  of  the  poor  destined 
victim  of  the  viper;  which  seemed 
beginning  to  get  lively — writhing 
about  not  ungracefully  ;  sometimes 
passing  its  whole  body  slowly  through 
the  agreeable  water.  At  length  the 
monster  approached  the  quarter  where 
the  mouse  had  planted  itself,  resting 
on  its  two  front  paws,  immovable, 
but  its  eyes  following  every  turn  of 
the  snake,  with  an  expression  of  terror 
that  was  sickening  to  behold.  The 
snake  advanced  nearer  and  nearer, 
but  in  rather  a  languid  mood,  and  at 
length  slowly  and  gently  lifted  its 
hideous  head  out  of  the  water,  close 
to  the  mouse,  with  faintly  flickering 
tongue  and  glittering  eye,  when  the 
poor  mouse,  with  a  sudden  and  despe- 
rate effort,  sprung  clear  over  the 
snake's  head  to  the  opposite  corner  of 
the  cage,  and  there  planted  itself  as 
before,  apparently  trembling  violently, 
the  snake  taking  no  farther  notice  of 
it.  "He  ain't  ready  for  his  supper 
yet,"  said  the  sentimental  keeper  with 
a  smile,  apparently  amused  at  the  start 
I  gave.  The  reptile  which  I  was  on  my 
way  to  see,  while  recalling  the  above 
scene  to  my  memory,  had  been  luckily 
detected  by  the  farmer  in  the  act  of 
entering  his  parlour  door,  a  not  very 
welcome  visitor.  A  well-aimed  blow 
with  a  stick,  however,  immediately 
behind  the  head,  killed  it,  without 
interfering  much  with  the  head. 
When  I  saw  it,  the  reptile  lay  scarce 
cold  on  the  top  of  a  small  heap  of 
manure.  It  was  nearly  four  feet 
in  length,  in  the  middle  about  an 
inch  and  a  half  in  diameter,  a  larger 
and  finer  specimen  than  that  of  which 
I  have  been  speaking.  In  spite  of 
the  blow  which  had  extinguished  life, 
its  eyes  had  a  sort  of  cruel  brightness, 


and  a  faint  undulatory  movement  wa3 
visible  in  the  body.  Such  creatures 
as  this  were  not,  surely,  pleasant  com- 
panions in  our  solitary  walks;  and 
one  is  now  on  the  qui  vive  whenever 
one  hears  any  rustling,  or  sees  any 
motion  at  the  foot  of  a  hedge,  or  among 
the  dry  leaves.  I  examined  the  in- 
terior of  the  mouth.  The  fangs  were 
large  and  powerful — but  ask  any  natu- 
ralist to  tell  you  a  tale  of  wonder,  in 
describing  the  structure  of  the  roof 
of  a  serpent's  mouth,  so  exquisitely 
contrived  to  work  downward,  and 
prevent  the  exit  of  anything  which 
has  once  been  introduced  as  prey, 
for  deglutition  !  Here  are  organs  for 
the  destruction  of  other  animals,  as 
consummately  contrived  by  the  Crea- 
tor to  effect  that  object,  as  the 
mental  organs  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
to  discover  the  law  of  gravitation  ! 
But  to  what  purpose  are  such  idle 
inquiries  and  speculations,  as — why 
all  animals,  and  why  man  himself, 
might  not  have  been  graminivor- 
ous instead  of  carnivorous  ?  Or,  why 
those  destined  to  be  the  prey  of  others, 
should  have  been  invested  in  any 
degree  with  that  sense  or  sensibility 
which  occasions  the  suffering  attend- 
ant on  the  apprehension  or  infliction 
of  violent  death  ?  What  thoughtful 
person  ever  witnessed  a  cat  playing 
with  a  mouse,  and  was  not  impelled 
to  speculate  on  the  objects  with  which 
such  an  inclination,  or  disposition, 
was  conferred,  and  such  opportunities 
for  indulging  it  were  afforded  by  an 
infinitely  wise  and  beneficent  Creator?* 
Yet  all  such  questions  run  up  into 
another — why  should  not  everything 
have  been  otherwise  than  it  is? — and 
are  calculated  to  set  weak,  ignorant, 
and  presumptuous  minds  floundering 
down  in  thick  fog,  and  the  very  slough 
of  despond.  The  Christian  philoso- 
pher is  not  thus  bewildered  or  har- 
assed, but  with  confiding  humility 
reflects  upon  his  own  limited  faculties, 
and  the  infinite  Power,  Goodness, 
and  Wisdom,  of  his  Maker ;  and  be- 
takes himself  to  Holy  Scripture, 
which  expressly  tells  him  that  now  he 
sees  through  a  glass  darkly,  and  now 


*  Very  different  thoughts  and  emotions  are  excited  by  the  spectacle  of  a  human 
being — a  rational  and  moral  agent — wantonly  inflicting  pain  and  suffering  on  either 
one  of  his  own  species,  or  one  of  the  animal  creation. 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


493 


knows  inpart.  And  so  I  shall  not  con- 
cern myself  with  Archdeacon  Paley's 
ingeniously  -  unsatisfactory  specula- 
tions in  his  Natural  Theology  on 
the  subject  of  poisonous  serpents,  but, 
laying  down  my  pen,  will  betake  my- 
self to  my  favourite  and  secluded  seat 
in  the  laurel  arbour,  with  my  copy 
of  Butler's  Sermons,  and  again  read 
over  that  grave  and  noble  one,  Upon 
the  Ignorance  of  Man.  There  he  says 
what  completely  satisfies  me.  "  But 
it  is  evident  that  there  is  another 
mark  set  up  for  us  to  aim  at ;  another 
end  appointed  us  to  direct  our  lives  to 
— an  end  which  the  most  knowing  may 
fail  of,  and  the  most  ignorant  arrive 
at.  The  secret  things  belong  unto  the 
Lord  our  God,  but  those  things  which 
are  revealed  belong  unto  us  and  to  our 
children  for  ever,  that  we  may  do  all 
the  words  of  this  law.  Which  reflec- 
tion of  Moses,  put  in  general  terms, 


is,  that  the  only  knowledge  which  is 
of  any  avail  to  us,  is  that  which 
teaches  us  our  duty,  or  assists  us  in 
the  discharge  of  it.  The  economy  of 
the  universe,  the  course  of  nature, 
almighty  power  exerted  in  the  crea- 
tion and  government  of  the  world,  is 
out  of  our  reach.  What  would  be  the 
consequence  if  we  could  really  get  an 
insight  into  these  things,  is  very  un- 
certain ;  whether  it  would  assist  us  in 
or  divert  us  from  what  we  have  to  do 
in  this  present  state.  .  .  .  Othejr 
orders  of  creatures  may  perhaps  be 
let  into  the  secret  counsels  of  Heaven, 
and  have  the  designs  and  methods  of 
Providence  in  the  creation  and  govern- 
ment of  the  world  communicated  to 
them  ;  but  this  does  not  belong  to  our 
rank  or  condition.  The  fear  of  the 
Lord,  and  to  depart  from  evil,  is  the 
only  wisdom  which  man  should  aspire 
after,  as  his  work  and  business  !  " 


A  LITTLE  EVENT  ! 


Monday.  —  There  is  a  particular 
corner  of  my  domain,  whence,  through 
a  loophole  contrived  partly  by  myself, 
I  catch  a  view  of  the  Castle  in  its 
most  commanding  aspect ;  and  this 
morning,  about  ten  o'clock,  the  sun's 
rays  coming  from  behind,  arrayed  it 
in  magnificently  disposed  light  and 
shade.  And  behold,  from  the  top- 
most tower  waved  two  flags,  the 
Tricolor  and  Union- Jack  !  I  gave  a 
great  start,  and  my  heart  began  to 
palpitate :  what  might  this  mean  ? 
Anything  glorious  from  the  East? — 
Hastening  into  the  house,  I  made  eager 
inquiries,  but  no  one  had  heard  any- 
thing from  abroad  :  the  good  lady  who 
had  just  brought  us  a  brace  ofpoulets 
knew  of  nothing  ;  the  gentleman  who 
had  brought  our  butcher-meat  from 
the  neighbouring  town,  said  that  all 
was  quiet  when  he  left :  but  there 
were  fluttering  the  two  brave  flags — 
and  something  must  have  happened. 
On  this  we  formed  ourselves  into  a 
council,  to  consider  how  best  we 
could  make  discoveries.  I  presided  ; 
but  several  of  the  members  gave  home- 
thrusts  to  the  president.  "This  is 
getting  out  of  the  way  of  the  tele- 
graph ! "  said  one. — "What  would  you 
give  now,  for  a  second  edition  of  this 
morning's  paper?"  inquired  another. 


— "And  of  the  daily  post?"  subjoined 
a  third.  "  For  my  part,  this  place  is 
very  beautiful,  I  dare  say,"  quoth  the 
senior  member,  madame,  "  but  I  con- 
fess I  don't  quite  like  being  so  com- 
pletely out  of  the  world,  and  the  way 
of  everybody,  and  everything  ! " — 
"Go  and  look  after  your  fowls,  ma- 
dame  ! "  said  the  president  sternly. — 
"  Ah,  but  we're  likely,"  said  the  junior 
member  brightly,  "to  have  A  PIG  by 
to-night — mamma  saw  such  a  love  of 
a  pig  last  night—" — "  Well,  and  what 
if  I  did,  sirrah  ?  Haven't  we  plenty 

of  accommodation  and  food " 

President. — "  Order  1  order  !  is  the 
order  of  the  day !  and  the  matter  of 
the  Pig  is  not  one !  " — Solvuntur  tabulae 
— and  each  of  us  determined  to  go 
about  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  espe- 
cially the  village,  to  ascertain  the  news, 
it  occurring  to  one  long-headed  in- 
dividual to  go  straight  t«  the  castle. 
But  as  that  distinguished  personage 
— to-wit,  myself — was  just  entering 
the  avenue,  behold,  an  apparition  I 
Half-way  down  was  a  gay  little  fellow, 
apparently  about  twelve  years  old, 
gaily  dressed,  and  carrying  on  his 
shoulders  two  flags — little  counter- 
parts of  those  great  ones  now  waving 
in  proud  amity  from  the  castle  tower ! 
— "Ah,  mon  cher  Eugene!"  thought 


494 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


[Oct. 


I,  "how  graceful  of  you,  or  those 
who  sent  you,  to  bring  an  English 
visitor  such  glorious  intelligence  1 " — 
and  I  hastened  towards  him ;  but  I 
was  on  a  false  scent  altogether !  The 
modest  youngster,  placing  both  flags 
on  his  left  shoulder,  removed  his  cap, 
and  in  the  prettiest  way  in  the  world, 
with  a  low  bow,  begged  to  know 
if  Monsieur  would  give  them  some 
flowers?  "Flowers,  my  child!  what 
for?"  'Twas  a  great  day,  it  seemed, 
in  these  parts ;  for  there  was  to  be  a 
treat  given  to  the  scholars  of  several 
village-schools,  and  one  or  two  prizes 
delivered,  and  romps  on  the  castle 
green,  and,  in  plain  English,  what 
we  should  call  a  tea-party  !  This  was 
his  peaceful  intelligence,  not  that  bril- 
liant and  bloody  news  of  which  I  was 
expectant.  So  I  said,  "  Go  into  the 
garden  and  grounds,  and  you  shall 
have  as  many  as  you  can  carry!" 
Forthwith  my  willing  servant  and  he 
paid  their  respects  to  such  flowers 
as  we  had,  and  ere  long  he  went 
away  almost  staggering  under  his 
brace  of  flags  and  a  huge  bouquet. 
Having  planned  an  expedition  for  the 
day,  we  could  not  go  to  witness,  and 
perhaps  share,  the  festivities  of  the 
castle ;  but  just  as  we  were  finishing 
dinner,  about  seven  o'clock,  a  sound 
of  merry  music — drums  and  fifes  ap- 
proaching from  the  direction  of  the 
castle,  but  evidently  far  beneath  us — 
sent  us  all — masters,  servants,  and 
Mr  Tickler — to  run  round  the  planta- 
tion to  a  small  plateau  overhanging 
the  village,  and  there  all  eight  of  us 
stood,  witnessing  a  charming  sight — 


the  procession  of  the  children,  some 
two  dozen,  two  and  two,  and  every 
couple  bearing  a  flag — the  union-jack 
and  tricolor  pretty  evenly  mingled — 
and  waving  about  merrily  by  the 
youngsters  to  the  air  of  Partani  pour 
la  Syrie !  First  came  the  good  cure, 
marching  at  the  head  of  his  troops, 
as  a  proud  and  cheerful  conqueror 
of — ignorance  !  Then  came  four  fifes, 
a  clarionet,  and  a  drum ;  and  then 
the  dear  little  heroes  of  the  day,  two 
and  two,  with  a  small  concourse  of 
attendant  mothers,  brothers,  and  sis- 
ters. Was  it  in  compliment  to  the 
compact  phalanx  heading  the  heights, 
headed  by  the  donor  of  the  flowers, 
that,  as  they  approached  us,  Partant 
pour  la  Syrie  gave  way  to  our  grave 
and  thrilling—"  God  save  the  Queen  ?  " 
'T would  have  done  your  heart  good 
to  see  us  all :  the  castle,  glistening  in 
the  mellow  evening  sunlight,  and  now 
silent  and  deserted  by  the  merry  throng 
of  that  day — the  blithe  little  vari- 
coloured procession  winding  through 
the  village  below  us — the  band  play- 
ing with  renewed  vigour  as  they  passed 
us — faint  sounds  of  tiny  voices  shout- 
ing, till  sights  and  sounds  are  lost  in 
the  approaching  shades  of  evening  and 
the  distance.  These  little  events  of 
the  day  supplied  food  for  pleasant 
meditation  during  the  evening,  but 
during  the  night  for  monstrously- 
confused  dreams,  in  which  our 
little  procession,  and  the  castle 
whence  it  had  so  merrily  issued, 
mingled  with  the  fortress  of  Sebas- 
topol,  the  trenches,  and  storming- 
parties ! 


A  DAY   OF   GLOOM 


Wednesday. — Nothinghashappened 
that  ought  to  have  happened,  and  that 
has  which  ought  not.  The  morning 
was  ushered  in  with  fitful  gusts  and  a 
cloudy  sky,  with  one  or  two  symptoms 
of  swelling  by-and-by  into  a  storm  of 
grandeur,  giving  us  a  new  aspect  of 
our  romantic  locality.  But  nothing 
came  of  it  all  day  long;  only  little 
gusts  of  wind ;  occasional  driblets  of 
rain ;  glimpses  of  the  sun,  sullen  and 
watery-eyed  —  nothing  came,  either 
one  thing  or  the  other ;  and  as  for  the 
thunder-storm,  "it  did  not  come  off." 
The  newspaper  did  not  come,  and  only 


one  letter,  and  that  I  did  not  wish 
to  receive. 

No  fish  was  to  be  got  for  love  or 
money ;  the  butcher,  grocer,  and  wine- 
merchant  at  had  forgotten  us, 

as  if  by  concert ;  the  beer  had  gone 
sour;  the  blancheuseliaA  again  broken 
her  promise,  and  allowed  our  linen  to 
accumulate  on  her  hands,  while  she 
and  her  daughters  went  out  on  field- 
duty — viz.  to  dig  potatoes.  All  of  us 
seemed  prepared  to  find  fault  with 
everything  and  one  another.  Tickler 
was  skulking  under  the  sofa ;  I  broke 
the  lamp -glass;  the  drawing-room 


1855.] 


window  was  broken  by  nobody ;  my 
library  afforded  me  no  relief;  we  had 
a  hasty  little  dinner  of  odds  and  ends, 
the  servants,  dining  before  us,  having 
had  the  choice.  I  walked  moodily  up 
and  down  my  favourite  avenue  half-a- 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side.  495 

dozen  times  in  vain ;  I  could  settle 
to  nothing ;  we  all  seemed  in  a  con- 
tradictory humour;  and  I  went  to 
bed  at  9.30  P.M.,  not  caring  one 
button  whether  I  slept  or  not.  Dies 
ater!  Per  eat  I 


COULEUR  DE  ROSE ! 


Thursday. — In  a  philosophical  hum- 
our to-day.  After  much  reflection  on 
men  and  things,  I  am  satisfied  that, 
upon  the  whole,  everything  serves 
everybody  right.  As  for  myself,  I 
think  I  have  a  very  fine  forgiving 
disposition,  particularly  active  when 
nobody  requires  forgiveness  but  my- 
self, for  whom,  however,  I  am  always 
willing  to  make  vast  allowances  ;  and 
I  am  at  this  moment  disposed  to  look 
with  forbearance  and  compassion  on 
the  erring  portion  of  mankind.  I 
confess  it  looks  odd  to  say  it  in  so 
many  words,  but  I  feel  in  a  humour 
of  dignified  benignity.  So  serene  is 
my  temper,  that  I  see  everything  in 
couleur  de  rose.  How  is  it  to  be  ac- 
counted for,  but  by  my  possessing  the 
well-spring  of  a  genial  temper,  always 
ready  to  look  on  the  bright  side  of 
things,  and  so  become  independent 
of  accidents  and  external  things  ?  I 
woke  well  and  cheerful ;  the  sun  wore 
an  enchanting  smile ;  the  breeze  was 
disporting  himself  merrily  among  the 
trees  ;  breakfast  laid  out  prettily, 
and  abundance  of  nicely-fried  sand- 
eels  !  And  we  had  scarcely  finished 
breakfast,  before  we  had  the  offer  of 
as  much  fish,  and  of  the  best  and 
freshest,  as  would  have  kept  .us  for  a 
fortnight.  And,  in  fact,  the  butcher 


brought  us  a  lovely  piece  of  beef 
for  to-day,  and  an  unexceptionable 
haunch  of  mutton  for  the  next ;  the 
grocer  soon  afterwards  deposited  mis- 
cellaneous excellencies  on  the  hall 
table ;  the  wine-merchant,  followed 
by  the  brewer,  did  his  duty ;  two 
huge  baskets-full  of  the  snowy  linen 
made  their  appearance  during  the 
morning ;  the  drawing-room  window 
is  set  down  in  the  inventory  as  broken ; 
the  postman  brought  me  my  paper, 
with  voluble  apologies  for  having  left 

it,  the  day  before,    at    1'A by 

mistake.  Such  a  delicious  bath,  in 
my  favourite  bay,  between  4  and  5.20 
P.M.  ;  a  plump  little  turbot,  ribs  of 
roast-beef,  and  plum-tart  for  dinner. 
Such  appetites !  Wine  excellent,  and 
so  reasonable ;  we  drink  one  another's 
healths  ;  the  evening  as  pensively,  as 
the  day  has  been  briskly  beautiful. 
Oh,  that  solemnly  beautiful  old  castle ! 
I  could  gaze  on  thee  all  night  long — 
but  'tis  ten  o'clock,  and  I  shall  retire. 
I  care  little  whether  I  sleep  or  not : 
if  I  lie  awake,  I  have  many  things  to 
think  of  pleasantly  ;  if  I  sleep,  I  may 
dream,  I  feel  sure,  charmingly.  N.B. 
How  delightful  to  have  a  tempera- 
ment so  even  and  well-regulated  as 
to  be  independent  of  external  circum- 
stances ! 


A  GREAT  EVENT! 


Thursday.  —  Let  me  now  write 
gravely  and  calmly  as  is  becoming. 
Imagine  your  contributor  sitting  on 
a  grand  evening  on  a  rude  stone  bench 
in  a  ruined,  and  the  highest,  turret  of 
the  castle  facing  the  sea — the  evening 
wind  sighing  around  me,  the  blue 
ocean  undulating  gently  far  beneath, 
the  sun  setting  magnificently — a  news- 
paper lies  at  my  feet,  with  a  stone  on 
it  to  prevent  its  being  hurried  away 
by  the  breeze — I,  gazing  on  the  dis- 
appearing monarch  of  day,  but  my 


thoughts  profoundly  occupied  by  the 
tidings  recently  brought  by  that  same 
newspaper  —  that  at  last  —  at  last! 
SEBASTOPOL  HAS  FALLEN  !  Two 
hours  of  solitude  passed  away  in  me- 
ditation upon  an  event  so  immense, 
and  having  so  many  aspects,  as  well 
towards  the  past  as  the  future  ;  and 
well  may  any  one  meditate  long  and 
deeply  on  such  an  event,  who  feels  the 
slightest  interest  in  the  welfare  of 
Europe,  and  any  degree  of  respon- 
sibility for  public  affairs.  As  a  mill- 


496 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Oct. 


tary  feat,  it  seems  resplendent  and 
unique  among  all  sieges  on  record ; 
but  the  political  consequences  which 
may  ensue  from  it,  are  such  as  no  man 
living  can  venture  to  speak  of  confi- 
dently. What  may  we  suppose  would 
have  been  the  view  taken  of  it  by  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  ?  But  that  ques- 
tion suggests  another :  had  he  been 
living,  would  the  war  have  arisen  ? 
What  weight  would  not  his  counsels 
have  had  with  all  Europe,  and  es- 
pecially the  belligerent?  As  far  as 
this  country  is  concerned,  we  have 
had  to  deplore  a  great  and  lamentable 
want :  we  have  not  had  a  single 
statesman  on  the  scene  whose  sole 
opinion  would  have  decisively  in- 
fluenced public  opinion.  The  nearest 
approach  is  the  aged  and  gifted  Lord 
Lyndhurst:  with  his  exception,  all 
others  are,  comparatively  speaking, 
little  men — very  little  men,  pace  tan- 
toruml — men  destitute  of  that  com- 
bined fixity  of  purpose,  strength  of 
will,  clearness  of  sight,  and  experience, 
which  must  concur  in  order  to  impress 
and  guide  public  opinion  in  any  given 
direction.  And  the  want  of  such  a 
master-mind  ot  the  statesman  is  the 
more  felt,  and  the  more  deplorable, 
when  so  many  ambitious  political  men 
are  at  once  so  clever,  and  only  so 
clever;  have  such  weight,  and  only 
so  much ;  and  when  political  parties 
are  so  subdivided  and  balanced  as 
they  are.  Under  these  circumstances 
it  is  marvellous  with  what  prompti- 
tude, simplicity,  and  decision  the  pub- 
lic opinion  of  the  country  has  spoken 
out  for  itself,  dictating  a  policy,  in  its 
great  features,  signally  impressed  with 
our  national  characteristics  of  good 
sense  and  straightforwardness.  This 
power  of  public  opinion  has  com- 
pletely puffed  out  little  politicians, 
how  noisy  and  pretentious  soever, 
either  compelling  them  to  follow,  with 
what  grace  they  might,  or  contemp- 
tuously discarding  them  as  old-fash- 
ioned political  lumber.  Had  the  Great 
Duke  been  alive,  he  would  have  either 
prevented  the  war  altogether,  or  con- 
ducted it  in  a  manner  and  on  a  scale 
vastly  different  from  that  which  has 
occasioned  us  so  much  anxiety,  misery, 
and  mortification. 

It  is  true  that  had  war  become,  in 
spite  of  his  counsels  and  influence, 
both  at  home  and  with  every  Con- 


tinental court,  inevitable,  it  would 
have  found  the  Great  Duke  a  very 
old  man,  and  possibly  not  over  easy 
in  accommodating  himself  to  the  novel 
exigencies  of  war.  Now,  we  may 
rely  upon  it  that  his  prodigious  mili- 
tary genius  would  have  flamed  forth, 
for  however  brief  a  period,  illuminat- 
ing the  whole  course  of  the  campaign. 
Had  he  approved  of  the  expedition  to 
the  Crimea,  how  different  a  measure 
would  he  have  taken  of  the  difficulties 
to  be  overcome,  what  prescience  and 
providence  would  he  have  exhibited ! 
The  man  of  the  time  who  seems  to 
have  satisfied  the  condition  of  great- 
ness is  Louis  Napoleon.  He  has  ex- 
hibited a  magnificent  spectacle  of  self- 
reliance,  sagacity,  and  determination. 
His  Atlantean  shoulders  have  sup- 
ported the  mighty  enterprise  which 
would  have  crushed,  and  has  so  nearly 
crushed,  so  many  British  statesmen  ; 
and  with  what  feelings  of  lofty  exul- 
tation is  he  at  this  moment  meditat- 
ing upon  the  new  phase  of  that  enter- 
prise, introduced  by  the  event  which 
has  just  happened?  If  any  depend- 
ence can  be  placed  upon  the  cor- 
respondent of  an  American  news- 
paper, who  professes  to  have  heard 
the  conversation,  Louis  Napoleon 
lately  thus  expressed  himself :  "  I 
acknowledge  the  tactics  of  the  Cri- 
mean campaign  to  be  my  own  pro- 
jection, and  I  confess  myself  satis- 
fied, mainly,  with  the  results.  The 
people  of  France  and  Britain  want 
a  feat  of  arms,  and  perhaps  the  people 
of  America  would  applaud  another 
SmolenskoandMoskowa.  No;  France 
in  1813  crossed  the  arid  steppes  and 
deadly  snows  of  Russia.  1  will  now 
make  Russia  traverse  her  own  wilder- 
ness  to  meet  us  on  her  frontier.  There 
is  not  a  man  who  enters  the  Crimea 
that  has  not  undergone  all  we  suffered 
in  the  retreat  from  Moscow.  There 
is  not  a  regiment  that  arrives  at  Pere- 
kop  that  is  not  decimated.  Whole 
battalions  have  been  engulfed.  The 
Russian  loss,  according  to  their  own 
estimate,  rendered  to  the  Emperor 
Nicholas  last  December,  amounted  to 
270,000.  The  allied  troops  at  that 
time  had  not  lost  one-tenth  of  that 
number.  I  am  content  to  protract 
the  struggle  in  the  Crimea  on  these 
terms.  ...  A  Russian  army  is 
not  recruited  with  facility— men  can 


1855.]  Centralisation 

be  had,  but  not  soldiers.  The  Rus- 
sian peasantry  require  from  two  to 
three  years'  exercise  at  drill  before 
they  are  fit  for  the  ranks.  We  have 
nearly  extirpated  the  elite  of  their 
forces  —  those  which  the  Czar  has 
taken  many  years  to  create.  Eng- 
land and  France,  on  the  contrary, 
grow  stronger  as  the  struggle  pro- 
ceeds ;  our  peasantry  in  a  few  weeks 
become  stanch  troops;  and  the  fire 
of  war,  which  burns  slowly  at  first 
among  our  population,  increases  with 
reverses.  ...  It  would  be  folly 
to  inflict  merely  a  wound  upon  Rus- 
sia, from  which  she  would  soon  re- 
cover. Let  us  rather  establish  a  run- 
ning sore  on  her  side,  from  which  her 
strength  will  run  out.  Sebastopol  is 
draining  her  system.  The  future  will 
judge  my  tactics,  but  the  people  are 
too  small  to  see  far  around  them." 
What  a  lurid  glare  does  the  fall  of 
Sebastopol  cast  on  these  words !  And 
now  what  is  to  be  done?  Are  we" 
nearer  peace — a  solid,  honourable, 
enduring  peace,  as  the  result  of  the 
stupendous  and  sanguinary  struggle 
in  which  we  have  embarked?  On 
what  basis  can  peace  now  rest,  but 
the  humiliation  of  Russia?  Events 
have  vastly  outgrown  the  Four  Points 
— or  rather  they  have  disappeared 
under  the  bloody  smear  of  war.  What 
are  we  to  do  with  the  Crimea  ?  If 


— A  Dialogue. 


497 


we  do  let  the  lion  go  again,  we  must 
draw  his  teeth,  and  pare  his  claws ; 
we  must  not  merely  scotch,  but  kill 
the  snake.  What  will  Austria  and 
Prussia  now  do  ?  How  is  the  former 
to  be  got  out  of  the  Principalities  ? 
What  is  to  be  done  with  reference  to 
the  expenses  of  the  war,  providing 
peace  becomes  the  subject  of  speedy 
consideration  ?  Will  Russia  now 
yield,  and  be  perforce  content  to 
bear  the  burning  brand  of  defeat  and 
shame  on  her  brow  ?  How,  indeed, 
can  she  continue  the  struggle?  Eng- 
land and  France  have,  so  to  speak, 
their  finger  on  the  carotid  artery  of 
Russia.  The  deeply  interesting  and 
important  revelations  of  the  interior 
condition  of  Russia,  contained  in  two 
articles  in  the  August  and  September 
numbers  of  Blackwoods  Magazine, 
tally  with  the  conclusions  which  have 
been  drawn  for  half  a  year  by  those 
who  are  carefully  watching  the  course 
of  events.  A  great  crisis  of  Russian 
affairs  —  a  national  collapse  —  may 
occur  much  sooner  than  either  her 
enemies  or  friends  suppose.  We  are, 
indeed,  on  the  eve  of  great  events. 

But  while  I  have  been  sitting  here, 
absorbed  with  these  thoughts  and 
speculations,  the  shades  of  evening 
have  enshrouded  nature  in  a  grand 
obscurity,  and  I  must  creep  chillily 
home  ! 


\To  be  concluded  in  our  next."} 


CENTRALISATION — A   DIALOGUE. 


Scene— STDENHAM. 


THE  present  is  supposed  by  popular 
belief  to  be  one  of  the  four  seasons. 
Not  so  in  the  creed  of  the  Londoner. 
It  is  no  season  at  all.  The  metro- 
polis is  in  the  plight  of  an  ancient  city 
on  the  point  of  being  conquered. 
"  Absit  omen. "  Its  divinities  have 
all  taken  wing.  The  last  belle  of 
Belgravia,  if  any  be  still  left  bloom- 
ing alone,  would  be  in  the  position  of 
the  lady  by  the  springs  of  Dove, 
"  with  none  to  praise,  and  very  few  to 
love ; "  and  unless  her  voice  were 
silent  from  solitude  and  ennui,  she 
would  merely  be  bidding  the  "  Ma- 
nners of  Spain,"  or,  more  correctly 


speaking,  the  Directors  of  the  Great 
Northern,  to  "  bring  my  love  again, 
for  he  lies  among  the  moors,"  and, 
what  is  worse,  enjoying  himself 
amongst  them  to  almost  the  greatest 
extent  of  which  human  nature  is  ca- 
pable. It  is  well  that  our  fair  ladies 
should  not  shut  their  eyes  to  the  fact, 
that  the  masculine  nature  has  a  world 
of  its  own  into  which  few  of  them  can 
enter — for  I  do  not  say  none — a  world 
of  pleasures  and  pains,  certainly  not 
to  be  compared  with  those  their  kind- 
ness can  bestow,  or  unkindness  inflict, 
but  of  a  nature  totally  different,  and 
in  some  measure  excluding  them,  in 


498 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


which  Cupid  is  either  hooded  like  a 
falcon,  or  condemned  to  run  about 
with  dipt  wings  till  such  time  as  his 
feathers  shall  sprout  again.  And 
they  ought  to  be  thankful  for  this,  for 
these  rivalries,  paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  are  the  cause  why  British  hus- 
bands and  lovers,  as  a  general  rule, 
are  the  most  faithful  in  the  civilised 
world.  And  they  are  so  chiefly  be- 
cause they  have  some  of  the  feelings 
of  the  savage.  For  to  the  British 
masculine  nature,  while  it  has  a  due 
appreciation  of  the  pleasure  of  being 
hooked,  the  pleasure  of  hooking  is  by 
no  means  despicable,  especially  if  it 
lead — and  this  our  fair  ones  better 
understand — to  a  twenty  minutes'  play 
of  the  fish,  keeping  expectation  on 
tiptoe  before  he  is  landed.  And  we 
may  just  mention  the  satisfaction  of  a 
right  and  left  shot,  each  bringing  down 
a  plump  bird,  or  of  the  deer  stalked 
through  toilsome  hours,  stopt  by  a 
well- aimed  ball,  and  dropping  over,  as 
if  lightning- struck,  in  a  stream-bed  in 
a  narrow  glen.  It  is  not  for  us  to 
speak  of  these  things,  still  doomed  to 
hang  about  the  sickly  and  sorrow- 
stricken  streets  of  September  London, 
contemplating  the  unemployed  misery 
of  hungry  cabmen  and  dry  watermen, 
and  half  choked  with  the  smoke,  which 
has  now,  it  seems,  taken  upon  itself 
to  come,  like  the  lady's  "yes"  in 
Maud,  from  "  the  east  to  west,  till 
the  west  is  east,"  invading  the  sacred 
quarters,  as  the  throng  of  waiters  are 
wont  to  invade  the  scene  of  a  banquet 
for  the  sake  of  remnants  of  lobster- 
salad  and  bottoms  of  dead  champagne. 
Must  we  grin,  and  bear  it  ?  Not 
quite,  thanks  to  Sir  Joseph  Paxton. 
There  is  the  People's  Palace  and  its 
unrivalled  garden,  a  land  of  Goshen 
in  the  bondage  of  London,  where  we 
may  flee  for  a  day  to  the  out-of-doors 
cheerfulness  of  Continental  life,  and 
escape  the  feeling  of  crowded  loneli- 
ness, which  is  the  most  painful  one 
associated  with  the  great  metropolis. 
It  is  perhaps  the  cheapest  half-crown's 
worth  to  be  had  in  the  world,  always 
save  and  excepting  the  new  number 
of  Maga ;  for  such  is  the  cost  of  the 
•"ourney  and  of  admission  to  the  plea- 
sures of  the  Palace.  Consider  what 
it  would  cost  to  make  the  voyage 
round  the  world,  and  then  consider 
whether  this  single  half-crown  does 


not  procure  you  almost  all  the  en- 
tertainment of  such  a  voyage  with- 
out its  pains  and  perils.  Have  you 
not  there  the  poles,  north  and  south, 
bears  and  all,  without  the  horrible 
climates  of  those  flattened  places  of 
the  globe  ?  Have  you  not  the  tropics 
in  all  their  beauty,  without  their  heat, 
serpents,  and  venomous  insects? 
Have  you  not  "  the  palms  and  temples 
of  the  south,  "tand  a  perpetual  Italian 
climate  in  a  glass  case?  And  you 
have  all  time  as  well  as  all  space. 
You  have  Nineveh  and  Egypt,  and 
Greece  and  Eome,  and  the  Middle 
Ages  ;  all  History,  from  Cheops  down 
to  Lord  John  Russell.  You  have  all 
the  poets,  or  their  busts,  without  being 
obliged  to  read  their  poetry ;  you 
have  all  the  orators,  without  the 
necessity  of  "  sitting  under"  them. 
You  have  all  nations — the  white 
man,  the  black  man,  the  yellow  man, 
the  red  man,  and  the  "  red  man's 
babe ;"  the  green  man,  and  his  olive- 
branches,  probably  an  extinct  race  in 
this  wide-awake  age.  You  have  them 
all  as  large  as  life.  You  may  eat 
your  luncheon  within  sight  of  savages 
without  the  slightest  fear  of  being 
eaten  by  them.  And  if  you  have  all 
the  men,  you  have  all  the  gods  to 
keep  them  in  order,  from  the  fetishes 
of  Africa,  which  are  flogged  like 
naughty  boys,  up  to  those  awful  twins 
of  Egypt,  whose  heads  reach  the  top 
of  the  enormous  building.  It  is  surely 
well  that  these  last  should  be  cor- 
rectly described,  else  they  might  be 
taken  by  foreign  dilettanti  for  the 
gods  the  Britons  worship,  called,  in 
the  vernacular,  Gog  and  Magog,  and, 
classically,  Chrysos  and  Argyros, 
being  set  up  amidst  the  people  in  the 
high  places  and  groves  of  Sydenham ; 
and  some  future  New  Zealand  Nie- 
buhr,  arguing  away  preceding  history 
on  the  strength  of  ascertained  fact, 
might  fix  upon  the  second  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  as  that  in  which 
the  inhabitants  of  Britain  reverted  to 
the  polytheism  of  their  ancestors,  as 
it  was  in  times  distressing  to  artists 
by  profession,  when  every  man  was 
his  own  painter.  I  am  not  going  to 
write  a  guide-book  of  the  Crystal 
Palace,  for  two  reasons, — one,  that 
I  do  not  manage  details  well ;  and 
the  other,  that  it  has  been  well 
done  already ;  and  therefore  I  shall 


1855.] 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


content  myself  with  observing  that 
the  real  glory  of  the  place  seems 
to  consist  in  the  beautiful  collec- 
tion of  strange  plants  and  exotic 
trees;  some  floating  in  water,  like 
the  queen-like  Victoria  Regia;  others 
standing  in  their  native  mould, 
covered,  in  many  cases,  with  a  piled 
velvet  cloth  of  the  beautiful  French 
moss;  others  hanging,  like  Mahomet's 
coffin,  between  earth  and  heaven,  in 
baskets  which  seem  held  in  the  hands 
of  some  invisible  genius  of  Spring 
pouring  out  streams  of  honours  on 
the  earth,  which  are  arrested  in  mid 
air  as  they  fall  by  the  wand  of  the 
enchanter  Paxton.  I  sat  down  on 
one  of  the  benches  in  the  centre, 
listening  to  a  fine  band  of  music,  and 
was  soon  joined,  according  to  ap- 
pointment, by  Friend  Irenseus,  to 
whose  good  taste  and  appreciation  of 
the  beautiful  in  every  kind  I  have 
already  borne  abundant  testimony. 

IREN^EUS. — Well,  here  I  am  ;  but 
the  fact  is,  the  whole  thing  is  a  mis- 
take. 

TLEPOLEMUS.  —  You  don't  mean 
the  Palace. 

IRENJSUS. — No,  but  the  ways 
and  means  of  getting  to  it ;  they  are 
so  utterly  prosaic  that  they  spoil 
much  of  the  poetry  of  the  Palace  it- 
self. First  you  go  down  to  an  ordi- 
nary railway-station,  then  you  pay 
half- a- crown. 

TLEPOLEMUS.  —  You  don't  com- 
plain of  that,  I  hope. 

IREISLEUS. — Yes,  I  do  ;  you  ought 
either  to  be  admitted  for  nothing,  or 
pay  much  more.  A  crown,  for  in- 
stance, is  a  round  sum,  complete  in 
itself,  like  the  thing  from  which  it 
takes  its  name,  and  to  right-minded 
people  it  has  dutiful  associations. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — You  may  go  on  the 
five-shilling  day  if  you  like. 

IREN^US. — But  I  don't  like.  I 
will  tell  you  why.  The  fact  is,  there 
ought  to  be  nothing  to  pay;  the 
whole  thing  ought  to  be  paid  for  by 
the  nation. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Like  the  war,  or 
any  other  great  national  undertak- 
ing. 

IREN^EUS.— I  confess  it  would  be  a 
hard  matter  with  a  Government 
which  refused  a  paltry  thousand  to 
the  Royal  Society,  and  who  have 
been  only  consistent  in  carrying  out 


499 

through  everything  a  penny -wise- 
pound- foolish  policy. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — The  policy  which 
refused  Admiral  Dundas  an  efficient 
supply  of  mortars  to  shake  the  mortar 
of  Sveaborg ;  and  commits  everyday 
extravagancies,  like  that  of  an  artist 
who  pays  his  fare  to  the  Highlands 
and  back  to  make  a  sketch  worth 
thirty  shillings. 

IREN^US. — I  object,  however,  to 
the  five-shilling  day,  because  I  hate 
to  be  select.  The  very  institution  of 
such  a  day,  a  Sabbath  of  gentility 
in  the  People's  Palace,  is  a  piece  of 
vulgarity  symptomatic  of  the  worship 
of  wealth  for  wealth's  sake,  which 
those  who  set  this  Palace  on  foot 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of.  There  is 
room  enough  for  all  here.  It  is  not 
like  a  railway  second-class  carriage, 
into  which  eight  are  stuffed  in  hot 
days  when  there  is  only  room  for 
six,  and  you  have  some  excuse  for 
riding  first-class.  It  is  a  delight  to 
me  to  behold  a  place  crowded  which 
is  meant  to  contain  crowds,  and 
which  no  crowd  will  ever  fill,  and  to 
see  those  who  are  poorer  than  myself 
made  happy  at  so  cheap  a  rate. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — I  perfectly  agree 
with  you,  though  you  know  my  in- 
curable Toryism.  The  creation  of 
artificial  distinctions  between  classes 
is  the  surest  way  to  foster  discontent 
and  a  revolutionary  spirit,  and  it 
tends  to  confounding  those  distinc- 
tions in  the  language  of  agitators 
and  the  minds  of  the  people  with 
those  which  exist  by  nature  and  the 
appointment  of  God.  The  spirit  of 
the  Pharisee,  who  thanks  God  that 
he  is  not  as  other  men  are,  is  seen  in 
other  matters  besides  religion.  Ho- 
race was  a  great  poet,  and,  generally 
speaking,  a  gentleman ;  but  when,  in 
his  Ode  to  Xanthias  Phoccus,  he 
calls  the  people  "  scelesta,"  or  "  ras- 
cal," he  shows  himself  the  son  of  a 
freedman,  as  he  was.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  Conservatism  to  love  the 
people,  and  endeavour  to  make  them 
happy  in  the  state  to  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  callthem;  it  is  the  spirit 
of  Radicalism  to  make  them  uncom- 
fortable in  their  station,  and  afflict  them 
with  a  morbid  desire  to  climb.  In  this 
matter  of  admission  to  the  People's 
Palace  the  French  have  shown  a 
truer  instinct :  it  is  found  as  a  matter 


500 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


of  experience  that  the  five -franc 
day  does  not  pay ;  because  the  Paris 
fashionables,  if  ifor  no  better  reason, 
like  to  display  their  glories  to  the 
world  at  large. 

IRENJEUS. — I  was  speaking  of  the 
manner  of  coming  here  destroying 
the  illusion.  After  paying  your  half- 
crown,  you  pass  over  the  bisected 
houses  and  smocky  chimneys  of  the 
Borough,  and  your  nose  is  insulted 
by  the  odours  of  offensive  manufac- 
tures ;  and  when  you  arrive  at  Syden- 
ham,  your  first  introduction  is  to  the 
monsters  of  the  geological  island. 
After  that  you  ascend  to  the  intellec- 
tual feast  through  a  lane  of  refresh- 
ments redolent  of  coffee,  and  vocal 
with  the  poppings  of  aerated  liquids, 
and  paved  in  some  places  with  broken 
meat  as  thickly  asVallambrosais  with 
leaves,  or  the  trenches  before  Sebas- 
topol  are  with  shot  and  shell.  I  do 
not  like  the  introduction. 

TLEPOLEMUS.  — But  what  would 
you  have,  then  ? 

IREN^US. — I  should  like  to  be 
brought  here  blindfolded — if  with  a 
sensation  of  being  carried  through  the 
air,  so  much  the  better — and  have  the 
bandage  taken  off  just  at  this  spot. 
The  sensation  in  that  case  would  be 
like  that  of  the  poor  man  in  the 
Arabian  Nights  translated  by  Ha- 
roun  Alraschid  to  his  palace,  or  that 
of  Christopherus  Sly  in  my  lord's  cham- 
ber. I  should  rub  my  eyes,  and  ask 
myself  whether  I  was  awake.  Sup- 
pose one  of  the  classic  ancients — Vir- 
gil for  instance  —  had  been  brought 
here  in  such  a  manner,  he  would  have 
imagined  himself  dead  and  with  the 
blest,  for  he  would  have  found  most 
of  the  conditions  of  his  fancied  Ely  sium . 
Look  out  of  that  window  at  the  people 
buzzing  round  the  fountains : 

"  Domos  placidas  qui  prsenatat,  amnem. 
Hunc   circum   innumerse    gentes   populique 

volabant  ; 

Ac  veluti  in  pratis  ubi  apes  aestate  serenS, 
Floribus  insidunt  variis,  et  Candida  circum 
Lilia    funduntur ;   strepit   omnis   murmure 

campus." 

A  people  who  not  half  an  hour  ago 
were  gasping  in  the  metropolis, 

"  Devenere  locos  Isetos,  et  amoena  vireta 
Fortunatorum  nemorum,  sedesque  beatas 
Largior  hie  campos  aether  et  lumiue  vestit 
Purpureo ;  solemque  suum,su&  sidera  n6runt. 


Conspicit  ecce   alios  dextr4  Isev&que  per 

herbam 

Vescentes,lsetumque  choro  pseana  canentes, 
Inter  odoratum  lauri  nemus." 

Well  might  Virgil  say — 

"  Sufi,  sidera  norunt," 

for  our  constellations  as  we  sit  here 
are  flowers.  Longfellow  writes  : — 

"  Well   he  spake   in  language   quaint   and 

olden 

One  that  dwelleth  by  the  castled  Rhine, 
When  he   named  the  flowers   so  blue  and 

golden, 
Stars  that  in  earth's  firmament  do  shine.'* 

But  here  they  have  mounted  from 
the  firmament  of  earth  to  that  of 
heaven,  and  the  sun  shines  through 
their  petals.  As  for  the  rows  of 
beautiful  casts  arranged  round  the 
central  aisle,  we  might  fancy  them 
stately  shades  of  the  dead  looking 
kindly  upon,  yet  repelling  with  dig- 
nity the  intimacy  of  a  fleshly  visitor. 
To  come  to  matter  of  fact,  Tlepo- 
lemus,  with  all  its  faults,  it  is  a  glo- 
rious place,  and  one  calculated  to  do 
wonders  in  improving  the  taste  of  the 
people  of  Great  Britain. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — I  quite  agree  with 
you ;  but  I  value  it  most  in  this,  that 
it  is  a  standing  specific  against  a 
poison  which  is  fast  overcrowing  the 
spirit  of  our  country ;  it  is  a  central- 
ised antidote  against  centralisation. 
It  is,  in  fact,  a  great  conservative  con- 
servatory. 

IRENJEUS. — You  have  brought  me 
over  to  your  views  in  many  important 
matters  ;  but  you  have  not  yet  con- 
vinced me  that  centralisation  is  an 
unmitigated  evil. 

TLEPOLEMUS.— There  are  few  un- 
mitigated evils.  As  it  is  a  law  of 
nature  that  almost  every  rose  has  a 
thorn,  and 

"  Medio  de  fonte  leporum 
Surgit  amari  aliquid  quod  in  ipsis  floribus 
angat ;" 

so  there  is  a  law  divine  which  brings 
good  out  of  evil,  and  overrules  to 
benevolent  ends  the  perverse  propen- 
sities of  man.  But,  on  the  whole,  I 
do  not  love  the  tendencies  of  central- 
isation. One  of  its  chiefest  effects  is 
to  vulgarise  everything  it  touches,  as 
the  harpies  besmirched  everything 
.on  which  they  laid  their  talons.  To 
counteract  this  effect  is  the  whole 


1855.] 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


duty  and  glorious  privilege  of  the 
Crystal  Palace. 
IRESLEUS. — How  so  ? 
TLEPOLEMUS. — Because  as  London 
is  wont  to  collect  everything  into 
itself,  man  and  beast,  and  all  things 
bad,  good,  and  indifferent,  it  was  ne- 
c'essary,  to  prevent  the  mass  from 
putrefaction,  that  a  temple  of  beauty 
should  be  raised  somewhere  of  world- 
wide significance,  where  art  alone 
should  be  supreme,  resting,  as  all  true 
art  ever  must,  on  a  strong  basis  of  na- 
ture. What  I  regret  is,  that  it  should 
be  a  thing  somewhat  separate  and 
apart  from  the  religion  of  the  good. 

IREN^EUS. — Would  you  throw  open 
the  Palace  on  Sundays  ? 

TLEPOLEMUS.— That  is  a  difficult 
and  delicate  question.  Unhappily  the 
air  of  London  on  Sundays  is  not  better 
than  it  is  during  the  \veek.  People 
have  been  kept  in  town  for  six  days  by 
the  strong  chains  of  business.  Well, 
perhaps,  it  may  be  right  to  keep 
them  to  their  parish  churches  on 
Sunday  by  an  additional  chain  of 
piety ;  yet  this  seems  to  me  to  be 
investing  religion  with  the  inexorable 
nature  of  trade.  But,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  inclination  to  gulp  fresh 
air  cannot  be  overcome  ;  and  the  con- 
sequence is,  the  central  churches  are 
deserted  even  under  the  most  popular 
preachers.  Some  fly  to  the  parks, 
and  gaze  on  each  other's  dresses  and 
equipages ;  some,  not  with  worse 
feeling,  fly  to  green  fields,  perhaps  only 
that,  like  Falstaff,  they  may  babble 
of  them  afterwards  on  their  death- 
beds. Are  they  to  blame?  But  a 
large  part  spend  the  day  in  low  de- 
bauchery, and  some  of  these  might 
come  to  Sydenham  and  be  improved, 
though  not  quite  in  the  manner  most 
agreeable  to  the  Record.  I  cannot 
see  why  certain  buildings  for  religious 
worship  should  not  be  opened  within 
tempting  distance  of  the  gardens,  or 
in  them,  and  the  Palace  itself  shut 
during  the  time  of  services.  These 
buildings  might  make  all  legitimate 
appeals  to  the  senses  in  the  shape  of 
music  and  decorations  ;  and  it  should 
be,  in  consequence  of  their  accessi- 
bility, people's  own  fault  if  they  ne- 
glected the  call  of  the  bells.  After 
the  afternoon  service  the  band  and 
the  fountains  might  play  ;  and  if  you 
see  any  harm  in  this,  I  confess  I  do 


not,  for  I  cannot  see  how  that  which 
is  in  itself  innocent  and  perfectly 
beautiful  can  be  in  any  way  antago- 
nistic to  religion. 

IREN^US. — I  agree  with  you  on 
the  whole;  but  the  pulse  of  the  people 
must  be  felt,  and  such  changes  must 
only  be  introduced  when  the  blood 
has  learned  to  flow  temperately ;  if 
you  open  one  sluice,  you  may  be  ad- 
mitting an  inundation.  You  recol- 
lect the  recoil  from  Puritanism  in 
Charles  II.'s  time. 

TLEPOLEMUS.  —  I  think  that  the 
feeling  can  only  be  altered  by  experi- 
ments of  this  kind.  If  you  are  for 
destroying  Puritanism  in  order  to  make 
the  people  fit  to  receive  impressions 
rightly,  I  am  your  man  ;  but  Puritan- 
ism is  not  to  be  destroyed  in  a  moment 
— it  must  give  way  by  degrees  to  the 
improvement  of  the  general  health  of 
the  people,  like  many  disagreeable 
physical  eruptions  of  the  same  com- 
plexion. But  this  question  apart, 
there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed  between 
high  religion  and  low  vice  or  crude 
mammon-worship  ;  the  subjects  of  the 
latter  evils  cannot  spring  over  this 
gulf  to  the  good  in  many  cases,  though, 
of  course,  they  can  in  some,  by  a  mys- 
tic strength  not  of  their  own  giving ; 
but  how  often  does  not  art  furnish 
the  bridge  which  leads  from  evil  to 
good? 

IREN^EUS.  —  And  sometimes  from 
good  to  evil  ? 

TLEPOLEMUS.— There  is  a  little  of 
the  Quaker  leaven  in  you  yet.  Yet 
you  are  right.  If  such  abuse  did  not 
occasionally  happen,  Art  would  be  all 
divine,  which  it  is  not,  but  half  earthly, 
and  the  trail  of  the  serpent  has  passed 
over  the  earthly  half.  But  in  this  view 
Art  is  no  worse  off  than  Nature,  and 
yet  Nature  was  pronounced  very  good 
by  its  Maker,  and  in  spite  of  the 
action  of  evil,  will  remain  so  at  the 
end. 

IREN^EUS. — But  I  wish  you  to  ex- 
plain more  definitely  how  it  is  that 
centralisation  vulgarises  everything. 

TLEPOLEMUS.  —  Because  it  has  a 
tendency  to  destroy  the  poetry  of 
variety  and  individual  character.  Take 
a  lady  and  a  peasant  girl  by  them- 
selves, they  are  each  complete  beings; 
assimilate  the  peasant  girl  to  the  lady, 
put  a  Paris  bonnet  over  her  buxom 
cheeks,  and  she  becomes  at  once  a  bad 


•502 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


imitation.  How  beautiful  is  national 
costume  in  countries  where  it  exists. 
In  France,  though  much  is  centralis- 
ed, much  of  provincialism  still  exists. 
Pass  through  Normandy,  Brittany, 
the  Vendee  to  Bordeaux,  you  see  a 
new  costume  in  each  district,  each 
becoming,  because  each  natural  from 
usage  :  there  is  no  vulgarity  about 
the  peasants ;  yet  dress  them  alaPa- 
risienne,  and  you  vulgarise  them  im- 
mediately. This  matter  of  costume  is 
a  much  more  important  one  than  ap- 
pears at  first  sight.  Stage-players  as 
we  all  are,  we  are  apt  naturally  to  fall 
into  the  character  in  which  we  are 
dressed.  Put  me  in  a  dressing-gown 
and  slippers,  and  I  feel  chained  to  the 
fireplace ;  in  a  shooting-coat,  and  I 
want  to  be  off  to  Norway  ;  in  a  black 
frock-coat,  and  a  feeling  of  intense 
respectability  comes  over  me ;  and  I 
would  not  for  a  consideration  be  caught 
smoking  in  a  dress- coat:- -do  not,  if 
you  love  me,  put  me  in  a  dress-coat 
at  all,  unless  you  can  offer  me  a  plea- 
sure to  compensate  for  the  pain — the 
song  of  a  Lind,  or  an  Attic  dinner  sea- 
soned by  a  dropping  fire  of  repartee, 
or  standing-room  in  a  ball-room,  to 
•watch  the  eddies  of  black  and  scarlet 
and  white  muslin  borne  at  the  will  of 
the  mastering  melody.  The  utter 
decay  of  national  costume  amongst 
our  working-classes  is  one  of  the  sad- 
dest signs  of  our  times  both  in  the 
country  and  the  towns ;  it  lingers  alone 
in  the  smock-frock  of  the  agricultural 
labourer — the  garment  in  which  Bul- 
wer  tells  us  his  ancestors  fought  at 
Hastings  ;  and  to  a  handsome  young 
fellow,  when  put  on  clean  for  church, 
it  is  a  most  becoming  garment,  espe- 
cially when  dandified  by  a  little  em- 
broidery. But  the  women  have  lost, 
at  least  in  England,  with  every  rem- 
nant of  class  dress,  much  of  class 
pride  and  self-respect ;  their  costume 
is  but  a  sorry  imitation  of  a  lady's, 
where  the  bright  colours,  which  in 
peasant  costume  are  so  tasteful,  are 
entirely  out  of  place  ;  and  this  is  one 
of  many  reasons  why  vulgarity  in 
England  and  America  is  certainly 
more  rampant  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world,  vulgarity  being  only  another 
name  for  a  kind  of  assumption  or 
affectation,  which  indicates  the  ex- 
istence in  the  mind  of  a  false  standard 
of  worth.  It  is  not  without  a  know- 


ledge of  human  nature  that  Tennyson 
writes  in  his  Lord  of  Burleigh — 
"  Then  her  people,  softly  treading, 
Bore  to  earth  her  body,  drest 
In  the  dress  that  she  was  wed  in, 
That  her  spirit  might  have  rest." 

The  Lady  of  Burleigh,  one  of  nature's 
ladies,  was  killed  by  the  consciousness 
of  an  exotic  atmosphere,  and  the  sense 
of  a  position  which  most  women  in 
her  original  sphere  would  have  thought 
the  happiest  in  the  world— and  this 
from  vulgarity  of  mind.  As  it  is  with 
dress,  so  with  language.  When  Burns 
speaks  in  his  true  Doric,  he  is  every 
inch  the  gentleman,  and  every  line 
that  he  writes  is  truest  poetry  ;  but 
when  he  tries  to  write  in  Cockney 
English,  he  falls  into  slip-shod  com- 
monplace. The  provinces  of  a  country 
have  just  as  much  right  to  their  lan- 
guage as  that  excrescence  the  capital ; 
but  as  soon  as  they  grow  ashamed  of 
it,  then  provincialism  becomes  vulgar, 
as  the  little  shibboleths  of  slang  can 
only  be  learned  by  those  who  live  on 
the  spot,  and  these  are  accounted  by 
Cockneys  the  test  of  good  education. 
Every  provinciation  of  dialect  has 
ancestral  rights  deeply  rooted  in  the 
history  of  language  ;  and  he  who 
would  destroy  these  differences  is 
simply  an  ignorant  prig,  without  the 
bump  of  veneration,  and  deserves  to 
be  made  in  the  infernal  regions  a  per- 
petual compositor  of  some  Phonetic 
News  which  cannot  sell  a  second  num- 
ber. I  have  always  thought  the  con- 
fusion of  tongues  a  divine  protest 
against  centralisation ;  for  God  ordered 
man  to  increase  and  multiply,  and  re- 
plenish the  earth,  not  to  fix  himself 
in  swarms  on  a  few  spots  in  it,  like 
bees  climbing  over  each  other's  backs 
and  trampling  on  each  other's  bowels. 
What  a  miserable  caricature  of  cen- 
tralisation was  that  first  French  Re- 
volution, of  odious  memory !  To  each 
man  his  own  wretched  carcass  was 
made  the  centre  of  all  things,  and  he 
himself  supposed  to  form  an  integral 
part  of  a  central  state.  Everything 
was  to  be  rounded  off  and  simplified, 
but  many  things  were  simply  changed 
because  they  had  been  [of  old — for 
instance,  the  names  of  the  months  ; 
they  were  put  into  frames  ending  with 
"  ose  "  and  "  al  "  and  u  or  "  and 
"aire,"  as  if  Nature  had  put  them  into 
frames,  and  as  if  even  in  frames  she 


1855.] 

never  exhibited  any  of  that  lovely 
coquettishness  which  makes  her  so 
irresistible  with  us.  The  provinces, 
fine  old  divisions,  knitting  men's 
hearts  into  great  families,  were  cut  up 
into  the  miserable  departments,  the 
very  names  of  which  prove  their  un- 
reality and  artificiality,  utterly  desti- 
tute of  poetry  and  truth ;  the  coins 
and  weights  and  measures  were  all 
reduced  to  decimal  uniformity. 

IKEN^US. — Hold  hard  1  Come,  you 
must  agree  that  decimal  coinage  and 
decimal  weights  and  measures  great- 
ly facilitate  calculation. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — That  is  the  very 
reason  why  I  dislike  them ;  they 
enable  people — innkeepers  and  others 
— more  quickly  to  run  up  bills  against 
you ;  and  as  for  the  centimes,  they 
are  utterly  useless,  and  only  puzzle 
with  decimals  when  "sous"  would 
do  quite  as  well  in  units. 

IREN^US. — I  recollect  one  place 
where  centimes  are  in  actual  use — a 
bridge  near  Rouen — where  you  re- 
ceive four  centimes  in  change  for  a 
sou.  It  was  found  that  a  toll  of  a 
sou  sent  the  working  people  some 
two  miles  round  in  preference  to  pay- 
ing, while  the  sou  will  take  them 
over  five  times — and  so  the  bridge 
pays  very  well. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Centralisation  vul- 
garises, because  it  casts  off  antiquity, 
and  antiquity  is  a  holy  thing.  You  have 
no  more  right  to  destroy  things  and 
institutions  on  the  ground  that  Time 
must  one  day  destroy  them,  than 
you  have  to  put  me  to  death  because 
Time  is  already  braiding  a  line  or 
two  of  silver  among  my  brown  hair. 
The  ancient  Roman  had  a  most 
beautiful  idiom  in  using  the  word 
"  antiquus,"  "  ancient"  for  "dear." 
We  have  one,  too,  beautiful,  even  in 
its  familiarity,  when  we  say  "  old 
fellow  "  to  a  dear  friend,  though  still 
young ;  and  lamentable  indeed  is  the 
state  of  a  nation  which  turns  its  back 
upon  antiquity  for  the  sake  of  cen- 
tralisation. That  is  a  fact  that 
awakens  much  anxiety  in  all  thinking 
persons  for  the  future  of  France. 
One  cannot  help  loving  France,  as 
one  cannot  help  loving  a  generous 
and  high-minded  collegian  who  has 
crammed  himself  with  Shelley  and 
radicalism,  but  whose  real  self  we  see 
in  the  mean  time  will  one  day  triumph 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


503 

like  the  noble  self  of  Prince  Hal, 
One  mourns  over  his  extravagancies 
of  action  and  word,  but  one  knows 
they  come  from  an  energy  that  will 
one  day  work  for  good,  and  a  real 
unselfish  dissatisfaction  with  the 
ways  of  the  world,  any  change  in 
which  appears  for  the  better  to  his 
sanguine  temperament.  Neverthe- 
less, he  does  himself  much  mischief 
in  the  mean  time.  France  is  an  old 
country,  but  what  youth  and  vitality 
she  possesses !  Nevertheless  this  will 
not  save  her,  unless  she  is  becoming 
sufficiently  of  age  to  recur  to  the 
institutions  and  associations  of  her 
history,  which  in  1788  she  so  reck- 
lessly discarded.  The  greatest  mis- 
take she  ever  made  was  to  fancy 
herself  capable  of  bearing  democratic 
institutions.  A  Frenchman  is  by 
nature  social,  kind,  hospitable,  gene- 
rous, jovial,  fond  of  display,  cour- 
teous, and  chivalrous;  a  republican 
is  by  nature,  though  in  name  a 
Socialist,  essentially  unsocial,  inde- 
pendent, selfish,  churlish,  sulky,  satur- 
nine, shabby,  rude  to  men  and  brutal 
to  women,  a  goat-footed  satyr  dwell- 
ing among  kindred  wild  beasts  in  the 
backwoods. 

IREN.EDS.  —  Still  I  cannot  help 
thinking  the  centralising  tendency  to 
agree  with  a  law  of  nature.  Why, 
we  stand  upon  our  legs  instead  of 
hovering  in  the  air,  because  we  have 
ourselves  a  centripetal  inclination. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Would  you  tumble 
down  to  the  central  fire,  if  such 
there  be?  The  Creator  has  kindly 
interposed  the  crust  of  the  earth  to 
prevent  you.  The  sun  is  the  centre 
of  our  system,  and  while  we  go 
round  him  at  a  respectful  distance, 
all  is  well ; — woe  be  to  us  if  we 
were  drawn  into  him.  Nature  has 
counteracted  the  centripetal  by  the 
centrifugal  force,  and  established  a 
balance  which  harmonises  all  things, 
and  human  institutions  ought  thus  to 
frame  themselves  by  the  rule  of  the 
solar  system.  And  nature  will  have 
her  way  in  spite  of  man.  Look  at 
London.  Everybody  was  for  crowd- 
ing into  it  out  of  the  country,  and 
the  consequence  is,  it  is  grown  too 
large  to  live  in.  It  has  become  hol- 
low in  the  middle,  for  the  inhabitants 
fly  from  its  centre  at  night,  and  live 
iu  its  extremities— the  suburbs.  A 


504 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


very  general  feeling  of  alarm  seems 
to  be  gaining  ground,  that  if  the 
Londoners  stick  to  their  centralisa- 
tion, they  will  soon  have  no  water  to 
drink,  as  well  as  no  air  to  breathe. 
If  poor  old  Father  Thames  has  any 
spirit  left,  poisoned  as  he  has  been  for 
ages,  he  would  be  the  first  to  protest 
against  centralisation.  Do  you  recol- 
lect the  panic  among  the  Londoners 
during  the  deep  snow  last  winter, 
amply  fomented  by  the  Times?  The 
coal  was  to  fail,  and  all  the  gas  to 
go  out,  and  two  millions  of  people 
to  be  left  subject  to  one  of  the  plagues 
of  Egypt — a  darkness  which  might 
be  felt.  This  was  one  of  the  effects 
of  centralisation.  I  apprehend  that 
few  people  now  live  in  London 
without -some  undeh'nable  dread  of 
some  enormous  evil  far  worse  than 
the  confusion  of  Babylon — such  as 
might  in  some  sense  truly  be  called 
a  judgment,  under  the  proviso  that 
judgments  are  generally  evils  which 
people  bring  on  themselves  by  their 
own  wickedness,  folly,  and  stupidity. 
What  a  kindly  and  gentle  judgment 
of  the  All-powerful  that  confusion  of 
tongues  was!  Will  a  world  which 
has  so  little  profited  by  it  be  again 
so  tenderly  reprimanded?  Or  is 
there  nothing  in  that  vague  dread 
of  pestilence,  famine,  or  outer  dark- 
ness? Has  not  London  already 
neglected  the  warning  of  the  confu- 
sion of  tongues  ? — for  do  we  not  hear 
already  all  the  languages  and  half 
the  dialects  of  Europe  in  its  streets  ? 
IREN^US.  —  There  certainly  has 
been  for  some  time  gaining  ground  a 
notion  that  London  was  the  only 
town  in  the  United  Kingdom  where 
a  tradesman  could  get  on,  an  artist 
ply  his  craft,  or  a  man  of  fashion  en- 
joy himself.  Yet  what  are  the  pre- 
dominant features  of  London  ?  — 
wealth  and  ugliness.  Manufactur- 
ing towns  cannot  help  being  ugly ; 
they  were  made  so,  and  it  is  not 
their  fault.  But  the  seat  of  law  and 
government  ought  to  be  beautiful — 
the  seat  of  royalty,  we  were  going  to 
say,  but  that  it  is  not,*for  royalty  has 
the  good  sense  to  live  outside  it. 
Look  at  that  plain  on  which  it  stands. 
Nature  has  done  as  little  for  it  as  art. 
And  then  turn  your  eyes  to  other 
towns  in  the  United  Kingdom.  There 
is  Dublin,  beautifully  situated  on  its 


glorious  bay,  the  ever-living  sea  wash- 
ing up  to  its  feet,  and  a  nucleus  of 
sweet  mountain  scenery  within  an  easy 
drive  of  it.  There  is  Edinburgh,  with 
its  Castle,  and  its  Calton  Hill,  and 
its  majestic  watch-tower  Arthur  Seat 
hanging  over  it,  and  its  distant  views 
of  sea  and  land,  and  nothing  wanting 
but  a  river  running  through  its  centre 
instead  of  that  incarnation  of  central- 
isation, a  railway.  There  is  Oxford, 
with  its  gardens  and  confluences  of 
rivers,  and  medieval  buildings,  and 
streets  like  boulevards  planted  with 
trees,  and  only  wanting  fountains  to 
make  it  perfect.  And  will  any  one  pre- 
tend to  say  that  a  man  cannot  live  and 
be  happy  in  any  one  of  these  three  of 
the  fairest  cities  in  the  world  ?  I  say 
nothing  of  towns  less  metropolitan, 
but  doubtless  there  are  many  of  them 
where  you  might  live  and  do  well, 

"Si  potes  avelli  circensibus  ;" 

which,  being  interpreted  in  modern 
phrase,  means,  if  you  can  do  without 
a  wet  Times  on  your  breakfast-table. 
But  here  the  evil  you  complain  of  in 
some  measure  cures  itself,  for  the 
railroads,  being,  though  I  called  them 
incarnations  of  centralisation  to  please 
you,  centrifugal  as  well  as  centripetal, 
will  bring  you  the  Times  at  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth  before  the 
news  has  quite  recovered  from  the 
effects  of  its  morning  bath. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Allow  me  a  word 
or  two  on  railways. 

IRENJEUS. — Disparaging  of  course. 
Why,  one  brought  you  here,  ingrate. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Yes  it  did,  through 
the  borough.  Well,  railways  are  to 
travelling  what  the  photographic  pro- 
cess is  to  drawing ;  they  have  all  the 
same  usefulness  and  the  same  defi- 
ciencies. If  travelling  is  to  be  con- 
sidered only  as  a  means,  I  grant  their 
superiority  to  all  other  methods,  for 
they  place  you  without  loss  of  time 
or  waste  of  money  at  any  spot  where 
you  wish  to  be ;  but  they  destroy  all 
the  beauty  and  poetry  of  travelling, 
considered  by  itself.  The  photo- 
graphic drawing  places  the  scene  be- 
fore the  eye  at  once  and  with  truth, 
but  just  as  it  places  before  the  eye 
living  men  under  the  influence  of  a 
galvanic  suspension  of  their  souls,  for 
so  they  appear,  and  artists  are  obliged 
to  add  a  little  colour  to  them  to  pre- 


1855.] 


vent  them  from  frightening  children ; 
so  does  it  place  nature  before  the  eyes 
colourless  and  soulless,  though  as  in- 
geniously as  the  insects  which  make 
leaves  into  skeletons.  In  a  pencil- 
drawing  we  are  not  dissatisfied  with 
this,  because  we  feel  at  once  that 
colour  is  indicated.  Not  so  with  the 
photograph,  for  it  ignores  it  alto- 
gether, and  it  ignores  at  the  same 
time  all  the  exquisite  motion  of 
nature ;  for  nature  beats  it  with  the 
moving  stream  or  the  moving  leaves, 
and  causes  it  to  produce  mere  woolli- 
ness.  Nevertheless  it  is  an  undeni- 
ably useful  process,  and  artists  might 
make  a  great  economy  of  time  by 
carrying  about  a  photographic  ma- 
chine to  work  while  they  are  sketch- 
ing. As  the  sun  gives  the  same  cha- 
racter to  all  photographic  scenes, 
making  them  in  that  respect  so  un- 
like paintings  or  drawings,  which  are 
married  to  the  individuality  of  the 
artist,  so  does  railway  travelling  give 
the  same  character  to  all  the  towns 
and  countries  of  the  world.  You 
pass  through  the  most  beautiful  coun- 
try with  impressions  very  little  differ- 
ing from  those  produced  by  passing 
over  a  dead  level ;  you  pass  by,  not 
through,  places  of  historical  sacred- 
ness  with  the  same  light-minded  irre- 
verence that  you  pass  by  a  nest  of 
cotton-spinners ;  with  the  same  tone 
of  voice  the  arrival  at  the  scene  of  an 
^ancient  battle  is  announced  by  the 
porter  as  the  arrival  at  a  mushroom  - 
bed  of  civilisation;  and,  oddly  enough, 
the  most  beautiful  cathedrals — York 
or  Ely,  for  instance — have  the  same 
commonplace  look  as  you  pass  them 
as  the  Zions  and  Bethesdas  of  a 
tasteless  generation.  The  train  bursts 
through  the  fortifications  of  Berwick 
or  the  Box-tunnel  with  the  same  in- 
discriminating  impetuosity,  and  ends 
by  leaving  much  the  same  impression 
on  the  mind  of  the  traveller.  Still, 
however,  when  you  alight  at  a  sta- 
tion, a  sweet  surprise  is  prepared,  for 
where  the  scenery  is  beautiful,  all 
changes  as  if  by  magic,  and  you 
awake  to  its  real  beauty.  But  then 
the  generality  of  persons  are  not  aware 
of  this  power,  and  will  only  stop  at  the 
principal  towns. 

IRENJEUS.— But  you  must  allow 
that  this  method  of  travelling  is  espe- 
cially comfortable. 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue.  505 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Comfortable  at  the 
expense  of  your  self-respect.  Besides, 
I  doubt  of  the  comfort.  Every  now 
and  then  one's  hand  goes  to  one's 
pocket  with  a  spasm  of  apprehension 
as  to  the  safety  of  the  ticket,  as  it  does 
in  Austria  as  to  the  safety  of  a  pass- 
port. Besides,  you  are  treated  with 
as  little  ceremony  as  the  parcels,  for 
which  the  best  carriages,  at  least  in 
the  second  class,  are  generally  re- 
served. You  can  go  nowhere  on  credit 
without  the  possession  of  the  actual 
coin  ;  whereas,  on  a  coach  journey, 
when  all  your  ready-money  was  spent 
at  the  beginning,  you  might  proceed 
from  the  coachman's  knowledge  of  your 
character.  As  in  foreign  countries 
the  police  treat  every  one  as  "suspect," 
and  expect  him  to  assign  a  reason  for 
his  existence,  so  in  England  do  the 
railways  treat  every  one  as  a  Peter 
Schlemihl  who  has  lost  the  shadow 
which  symbolised  his  character.  And 
as  men  are  ignored  by  the  railway 
system,  so  are  their  abodes ;  instead 
of  putting  you  down  at  your  own  door 
as  the  coach  did,  or,  at  all  events,  at 
the  end  of  the  avenue  leading  to  it, 
the  railway  carries  you  past  with  the 
utmost  contempt  for  your  feres,  and  sets 
you  down  perhaps  fivemilesbeyond  that 
fireside  the  glimmer  of  which  you  saw 
in  passing,  leaving  you  to  find  the  way 
thither  as  best  you  may.  If  you  at- 
tempt to  cut  the  matter  short,  and 
jump  out  at  the  end  of  your  own  lane 
as  you  pass  it,  it  is  as  much  as  your 
life  is  worth  ;  and  if  you  employ  some 
innocent  man  to  stop  a  train,  in  order 
to  have  a  ride — and  a  ride,  moreover, 
you  are  willing  to  pay  for — you  will 
be  fined  for  insulting  the  dignity  of 
the  locomotive, — a  thing  which  to  my 
knowledge  happened  to  a  poor  country- 
man on  a  line  in  the  west  of  England. 
Again,  no  courtesy  on  the  part  of  in- 
dividual officials  can  make  up  for  the 
want  of  courtesy  manifested  in  many 
of  the  arrangements.  What  can  be 
worse  than  shutting  the  doors  of  the 
station  in  the  faces  of  people  arriving 
before  the  train  starts,  because  they 
happen  to  be  too  late  for  a  certain 
bell?  I  myself  was  excluded  once, 
having  lodged  the  night  before  in  an 
inn  facing  the  station  to  make  all  sure, 
and  by  a  new  regulation  which  laid 
down  that  passengers  must  be  at  the 
station  three  minutes  before  the  time 


506 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


of  advertised  starting.  The  whole 
system  is  uncourteous ;  and  if  uncour- 
teous,  therefore  in  principle  inhuman. 

IREN^EUS. — But  are  you  quite  fair 
in  taking  railways  as  the  strongest 
example  of  centralisation?  To  be  sure, 
they  do  tie  many  towns  into  one,  and 
make  no  account  of  the  country  which 
lies  between  them ;  but  then  that  very 
fact  is  one  calculated  to  prevent  any 
town  from  enormously  increasing  ;  it 
is  a  want  of  good  circulation,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  tends  to  a  congestion 
of  blood  in  the  brain  or  the  heart. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — But  supposing  the 
circulation  all  carried  on  by  a  few 
great  channels  instead  of  a  myriad  of 
little  ones,  you  would  soon  have  aneur- 
isms and  all  kinds  of  horrors  in  the 
human  body  :  now,  a  railway  accident 
is  the  breaking  of  such  an  aneurism. 
The  railway  system  is  favourable  to 
the  growth  of  towns  and  the  depopu- 
lation of  the  country — it  tends  to  ex- 
aggerate the  importance  of  everything 
urban,  and  to  depreciate  everything 
rural — it  cheats  the  people  with  excur- 
sion-trains, which  profess  to  take  them 
out  of  the  city,  but,  only  tantalising 
them  with  fresh  air,  hasten  to  bury 
them  in  some  other  city,  instead  of 
dropping  them,  as  a  fashionable  phy- 
sician is  said  to  do  hypochondriacal 
patients,  on  a  distant  down,  and  ob- 
liging them  to  walk  home.  These 
excursion-trains  are  to  me  merely  a 
gigantic  swindle,  taking  money  out  of 
the  pockets  of  the  people  on  false  pre- 
tences; giving  them  tickets  of  leave  as 
they  think,  and  then  dropping  them  in 
other  prisons,  until  they  become  so 
demoralised  that  they  cease  to  care 
for  liberty. 

IREN^US.  —  But  yet  how  vastly 
convenient  they  are  to  you  and  me, 
setting  us  down  with  no  trouble  in 
places  whence  the  beauties  of  the'earth 
are  easily  reached,  and  enabling  the 
poor  fagged  barrister  or  town  physi- 
cian to  be  in  the  Alps,  Alpenstock  in 
hand,  before  he  well  knows  he  is  out  of 
the  sound  of  Bow  Bells  ? 

TLEPOLEMUS. — That  is  the  redeem- 
ing point.  To  those  who  will  seek 
the  beauties  of  nature  they  are  a  vast 
convenience,  and,  like  fire,  become 
good  servants,  however  bad  masters  ; 
but  their  general  tendency  is  to  vul- 
garise and  demoralise,  and  this  you 
do  not  mean  to  deny. 


IREN^EUS. — It  is  of  little  use  de- 
nying the  positions  of  a  dogmatist,  for 
the  stronger  will  has  its  way  in  spite 
of  truth  and  right. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — As  a  general  rule, 
Truth  and  Right  are  grasped  by  the 
stronger  Will.  Might  has  a  kind  of 
divine  right  even  in  argument,  and  in 
action  it  makes  prescription,  and  pre- 
scription makes  right. 

IREN^EUS. — Then  Louis  Napoleon 
was  right  in  seizing  power. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — The  French  people 
have  declared  him  so,  and  I  am  not 
going  to  contradict  the  opinion  ex- 
pressed by  a  large  number  of  millions; 
for  although  I  think  it  a  fable  that  the 
voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of 
Heaven,  I  cannot  help  thinking  most 
respectfully  of  the  instincts  and  in- 
stinctive actions  of  the  people  ;  and 
no  instinct  appears  to  me  more  deserv- 
ing of  respect  than  that  by  which  a 
people  see  in  a  man  one  who  is  fit  to 
be  their  master.  I  should  pay  far  less 
respect  to  their  opinion  if  it  merely 
asserted  that  they  were  fit  to  govern 
themselves,  because  such  an  assertion 
would  contradict  all  probability  as 
well  as  all  experience. 

IREN^EUS. — I  am  not  quite  in  the 
humour  for  a  political  discussion,  so  to 
get  out  of  it  I  move  an  adjournment  to 
a  knoll  at  the  other  side  of  the  Palace 
grounds,  under  a  clump  of  trees,  where 
we  may  smoke  the  pipe  of  peace,  and, 
like  the  Miltonic  spirits,  though  I 
should  be  sorry  to  carry  the  compa- 
rison too  far, 

"  Apart  sit  on  a  hill  retired, 
In  thoughts  more  elevate,  and  reason  high 
Of  Providence,  foreknowledge,  will,  and  fate ;" 

or,  what  better  suits  us,  of  much  more 
sublunary  things. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — I  have  no  objection ; 
we  will  stroll  round  the  garden  to  that 
spot. 

IREN^US  (seated  on  the  knoll). — A 
truly  beautiful  view !  It  is  incredible 
that  such  appearance  of  wildness 
should  b,e  found  in  any  prospect  so 
near  London,  for  the  houses  are  hid- 
den ;  and  a  country  that  looks  at  a 
distance  like  a  mixture  of  unclaimed 
forest  and  rolling  prairie,  stretches  up 
to  the  horizon ;  and  on  the  other  side 
we  have  a  fine  effect  of  the  sun  set- 
ting behind  the  great  town  on  the  left 
of  the  great  glass  plant-case,  lighting  it 
up  with  a  strange,  supernatural  glory. 


1855.]  Centralisation 

The  wildness  of  the  view  northward 
is  a  pleasant  contrast  to  the  perfect 
artificiality  of  the  garden.  Who  ever 
saw  turf  shorn  so  close,  and  tamed 
down  to  such  perfect  smoothness  on 
so  large  a  scale?  and  in  the  innume- 
rable flower-beds  there  is  not  a  weed 
to  be  seen,  for  so  we  call  our  indige- 
nous flowers,  the  favourites  of  our 
garden  being  but  the  weeds  of  China 
or  Peru.  I  suppose  they  must,  every 
one  of  them,  be  moved  elsewhere  at 
the  first  frost  of  winter.  You  re- 
marked the  oak-coppice  with  its  rug- 
ged bank  of  roots,  ramped  over  by  a 
thousand  climbers,  which  we  passed 
on  the  right.  Artificial  it  is  in  the 
last  degree,  but  still  how  perfectly 
pretty  !  Truly,  I  can  see  only  one 
advantage  in  having  a  garden  of  one's 
own,  the  advantage  of  watching  the 
growth  of  flowers  as  you  do  the 
growth  of  children ;  but  what  a  splen- 
did compensation  is  provided  here  for 
the  poor  imprisoned  Londoners,  whose 
utmost  aspiration  used  to  be  a  smoke- 
sickened  mignonette  or  geranium ! 
This  garden  belongs  less  to  those  who 
have  gardens  of  their  own  than  to 
those  who  have  none,  because  those 
who  have  gardens  of  their  own  are  in 
a  manner  in  duty  bound  to  attend  to 
them. 

TLEPOLEMUS.  —  Have  you  ever 
read  UA  Tour  round  my  Garden,"  by 
Alphonse  Karr?  You  should  read 
it.  It  is  a  book  of  deep  philosophy, 
showing  what  compensations  the  Crea- 
tor provides  for  persons  in  different 
stations.  Its  first  object  is  to  solace 
those  who  cannot  travel,  by  showing 
that  in  the  small  compass  of  a  Paris 
garden  all  the  advantages  of  travel 
are  to  be  obtained  without  its  ex- 
pense and  inconveniences.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  consoles  those  who 
have  not  a  yard  of  ground  of  their 
own,  by  showing  that  they  are  free 
of  the  whole  earth,  whereas  every 
possessor  becomes,  to  the  extent  of 
his  possession,  a  prisoner. 

IREN^US. — All  such  books  do  good 
by  showing  us  the  relative  importance 
of  the  hobbies  which  we  ride.  But 
to  return  to  the  subject  we  were  talk- 
ing about — the  longer  one  lingers  here 
the  more  deeply  impressed  one  becomes 
with  the  philanthropy  which  invented 
for  the  poor  this  magnificent  central- 
isation of  most  of  the  enjoyments  of 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXX. 


— A  Dialogue. 


507 


the  rich.  After  all,  the  rich  soon 
come  to  the  limit  of  the  enjoyment  of 
their  possessions.  Why  was  the  Petite 
Maison  built  at  Versailles  but  that 
the  human  nature  of  royalty  found 
itself  lost  in  the  endless  galleries,  and 
as  much  a  victim  of  centralisation  as 
the  houseless  outcast  of  the  metropo- 
lis? I  heard  once  of  a  noble  lady 
here  at  home  who  had  a  sly  cottage- 
garden  where  she  could  work  herself 
and  identify  the  flowers  she  tended, 
while,  at  the  same  time,  she  possessed 
vast  and  princely  gardens,  ruled  over 
by  a  despotic  gardener  who  would 
not  let  her  have  her  own  way  in  them. 
If  you  want  a  garden  to  expatiate  in, 
come  to  Sydenham,  for  the  enjoyment 
of  such  a  place  is  heightened  by  know- 
ing that  it  may  be  equally  partaken 
of  by  thousands  of  other  people.  It 
is,  in  fact,  though  the  growth  of  a 
liberalising  age,  an  institution  of  op- 
posite tendency,  tending  to  philoso- 
phic contentment.  Why,  here,  for 
your  admission  shilling,  you  enjoy 
what  it  would  take  thousands  a-year 
and  an  army  of  servants  to  keep  up 
for  individual  enjoyment,  and  I  can- 
not conceive  any  possible  motive  for 
a  man  wishing  to  keep  up  such  a 
place  for  himself. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — I  feel  inclined  to 
come  to  the  conclusion  that,  as  a 
general  rule,  centralisation  is  a  good 
principle  as  applied  to  the  beautiful, 
for  size  added  to  beauty  becomes  sub- 
limity. It  is  bad  as  applied  to  the 
useful,  for  the  useful  being  incom- 
plete in  itself,  a  means  and  not  an 
end,  when  increased  or  multiplied, 
becomes  simply  an  amplification  of 
ugliness.  How  beautiful,  how  sub- 
lime, is  the  ritual  of  religion  con- 
centrated in  St  Peter's  at  Rome,  Milan 
Cathedral,  or  the  Minster  of  York! 
How  glorious  are  the  finest  art-collec- 
tions of  the  world,  the  Vatican  of 
Rome,  the  galleries  of  Florence  and 
Dresden,  the  Pinacothek  and  Glypto- 
thek  of  Munich !  but  come  to  what  is 
simply  useful,  and  the  less  you  see  of 
it  the  better.  Springs  and  levers, 
and  all  such  things,  are  better  in  the 
dark,  like  the  bones  and  ligaments  of 
the  human  body,  covered  by  a  decent 
robe  of  flesh.  The  mechanism  of  a 
clock  should  be  kept  out  of  sight, 
although  beautiful  in  its  relations.  I 
have  a  skeleton-clock  which,  being  a 

2L 


508 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


gift -horse,  I  must  not  look  in  the 
mouth,  but  I  should  scarcely  have 
bought  it.  Its  wheels  and  springs 
are  all  most  indecorously  bare  under 
a  glass-case,  and  what  makes  it  worse 
is,  that  a  brass  structure,  to  imitate 
Sir  Walter  Scott's  monument  at  Edin- 
burgh, rises  in  the  midst  of  them.  All 
anatomies  should  be  covered.  But, 
more  apropos  of  what  I  just  now 
observed,  what  can  be  more  ugly  than 
a  monster  steam-engine  or  a  monster 
steamship  ?  I  saw  one  the  other  day 
at  Messrs  Scott,  Russell,  and  Co.'s 
yard  at  Limehouse,  in  course  of  con- 
struction. It  is  said  to  be  the  largest 
thing  that  ever  floated,  not  excepting 
Sinbad's  whale.  I  forgot;  it  is  not 
afloat  yet ;  I  say  it,  and  not  she,  for 
though  it  professes  to  be  a  ship,  I 
dare  not  assign  the  gentle  sex  to  such 
a  monstrous  mass.  It  is  not  afloat 
yet,  and  there  may  be  some  difficulties 
in  getting  it  to  sea  ;  but  if  ever  it  is 
launched,  never  was  such  a  thing  ever 
before  on  the  face  of  the  waters  since 
Noah's  ark, — and  Noah's  ark,  it  must 
be  remembered,  made  no  pretences  to 
any  quality  but  that  of  extensive  ac- 
commodation. As  you  approach  it, 
it  rises  above  the  houses  and  trees  of 
the  Isle  of  Dogs  (so  called,  I  suppose, 
from  its  detaining  on  its  shores  the 
carcasses  of  those  animals  in  their  up- 
ward and  downward  voyages  on  the 
Thames)  like  the  wooden  horse  over 
the  walls  of  Troy — 

"  Inspectura  domos,  venturaque  desuper  urbi." 

It  looks  like  a  machine  meant  to  take 
a  city,  and  after  taking  it,  to  carry  it 
away  bodily  to  Australia;  for  some 
such  is  indeed  its  object.  It  is  cal- 
culated that  it  will  bear  two  thousand 
emigrants  at  once,  with  all  their  goods 
and  chattels,  besides  the  crew ;  and 
there  are  cities  in  the  world  with  no 
more  than  two  thousand  inhabitants. 
And  as  it  is  to  carry  two  thousand 
people,  and  it  is  not  desirable  to  have 
two  thousand  sea-sick  at  once,  it  is 
expected  that  its  length,  360  feet 
more  than  the  Great  Britain,  will 
enable  it  to  lie  level  on  all  ordinary 
seas,  so  that  if  this  is  not  the  first 
ship  wherewith  Britannia  has  ruled 
the  waves,  it  is  the  first  wherewith 
she  has  ruled  them  straight.  As  to 
its  steam  power,  it  is  not  easy  to  be 
reckoned  by  horses  or  by  any  kind 


of  asses,  but  by  the  power  of  some 
large  figure  of  fossil  animals  extinct, 
as  iguanodons  or  megatheriums,  some 
of  which  "  monstrous  efts  "  it  will  in 
fact  resemble,  for  it  will  have  paddles 
on  each  side  and  a  screw  in  its  tail  as 
they  had.  As  to  the  word  of  com- 
mand— for  like  all  other  ships  it  will 
be  under  a  despotism,  and  the  captain 
will  be  a  sort  of  floating  emperor  of 
Russia  in  the  extent  of  his  dominions 
— it  must  either  be  uttered  by  some 
acoustic  instrument,  still  to  be  in- 
vented, as  loud  as  a  great  gun,  or 
flashed  along  the  wires  of  an  electric 
telegraph  from  one  end  to  the  other. 
Those  who  have  to  board  it,  if  you 
can  indeed  board  an  iron  vessel  at  all, 
will  have  to  provide  themselves  with 
guides  and  flasks  of  whisky,  and  after 
having  accomplished  the  feat,  will  be 
qualified  to  give  an  entertainment 
after  the  manner  of  Albert  Smith, 
diversified  with  accounts  of  numerous 
incidents,  dangers,  and  difficulties,  for 
the  "  mur  de  la  cote  "  will  be  a  joke 
in  comparison.  If  you  have  a  chapel 
on  board,  as  chapel  there  ought  to 
be,  it  may  easily  be  of  the  dimensions 
of  an  ordinary  cathedral,  for  more 
than  one  moderate -sized  cathedral 
might  be  put  inside  it. 

IRENJEUS. — It  is  a  great  triumph 
of  art. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Of  power  and  in- 
genuity, if  you  please ;  not  of  art.  It 
is  just  a  thing  to  make  us  worms  con- 
ceited, and  fancy  our  works  of  some 
importance  in  the  universe.  After  all, 
our  most  stupendous  works  are  bodies 
without  souls,  for  they  have  no  divine 
beauty  in  them,  as  those  have  which 
are  done  in  a  humbler  spirit.  How 
ugly  is  an  Egyptian  pyramid  !  And 
this  great  centralisation  of  naval  archi- 
tecture has  not  half  the  finish  of  a 
little  black  animated  boat  which  sculls 
itself  about  in  any  half-stagnant  brook. 
Here  is  a  ship  which,  by  outcentralising 
centralisation,  has  -exceeded  all  the 
bounds  of  beauty  and  proportion.  An 
ordinary  steamer  cannot  help  being 
to  a  certain  degree  pretty  in  that  it  is 
a  ship,  but  here  is  a  floating  mass  in 
which  everything  ship-shape  has  been 
discarded.  It  is  an  illustration  of  my 
general  position,  that  the  tendency  of 
centralisation  is  to  vulgarise. 

IRENJEUS. — But  surely  when  you 
'  centralise  men  upon  earth,  you  do  not 


1855.] 

vulgarise  them.  Language  is  against 
you.  An  urbane  man  means  one  who 
dwells  in  cities,  and  has  profited  by 
it ;  a  civil  man  means  much  the  same 
thing. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — These  were  words 
invented  by  Cockneys,  as  courteous 
and  courtly  were  words  invented  by 
courtiers.  Generally  speaking,  your 
country  people  are  only  externally 
rougher  than  those  who  dwell  in  towns ; 
and  if  you  take  the  evidence  of  Latin 
words,  it  is  well  known  that  the 
"  Plebs  rustica  was  accounted  more 
honourable  than  the  Pkbs  urbana" 
Again,  the  terms  you  speak  of  were 
intended  to  designate  persons  accus- 
tomed to  cities,  and  conversant  with 
them,  rather  than  those  always  living 
in  them ;  in  fact,  the  wealthy  and 
migratory  classes,  and  those,  there- 
fore, not  fair  specimens  of  cits;  but 
take  the  humblest  class  who  are  con- 
fined to  town  or  country,  and  I  think 
your  experience  will  bear  witness 
that  the  country  folk — except  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  metropolis,  where 
they  have  all  the  evil  and  none  of  the 
good  of  the  town — are,  as  a  general 
rule,  much  more  civilised,  and  much 
more  civil.  I  am  strongly  supported 
by  the  evidence  of  the  traveller,  Mr 
Catlin,  who  found  true  nobility  of 
manner  and  action  among  the  so-called 
savages  of  the  Far  West,  so  that  he 
was  painfully  impressed  by  the  con- 
trast when  he  returned  among  the 
centralised  citizens  of  the  free  and 
enlightened  Republic.  Of  all  people 
in  the  world  the  Arabs  are  the  least 
centralised,  and  the  most  thoroughly 
well-bred.  The  reason  is  obvious : 
when  men  are  all  treading  on  each 
other's  heels,  they  hate  every  face 
that  they  meet  and  do  not  know,  as  a 
cur  does.  They  are  like  people  quar- 
relling in  a  wreck  for  a  piece  of  floating 
timber.  Not  so  where  men  are  rare ; 
there  humanity  and  courtesy  gain 
their  natural  ascendancy ;  and  all  the 
evils  of  the  spirit  of  centralisation  are 
but  a  bagatelle  compared  with  this — 
that  it  tends  to  depopulate  the  coun- 
try, and  increase  the  population  of 
the  towns.  As  for  your  agricultural 
machinery  and  high-farming 

IREN^US.— Well,  I  think  you  are 
going  a  little  too  far.  We  shall  have 
you  advocating  the  burning  of  thresh- 
ing-machines next. 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


509 


TLEPOLEMUS. — Well,  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  say  that  I  shall  not,  the  chief 
objections  to  such  summary  justice 
being  its  illegality,  and  the  laws  being 
made  not  quite  fairly  at  present,  as 
they  are  made  only  by  and  for  the 
towns.  The  peasant  says  that  these 
things  take  the  bread  out  of  his  mouth. 
Those  who  advocate  them  say  not ; 
for  that  they  multiply  and  cheapen 
food,  and  therefore  they  enable  the 
labourer  to  live  better  on  lower  wages. 
But  their  chief  evil  is — although  this 
instinct  may  not  be  quite  correct — 
that  they  induce  the  labourer,  by  the 
hope  of  bettering  his  condition,  to  go 
from  the  country  to  the  town,  where 
work  is  better  paid.  The  more  you 
centralise  labour,  the  most  you  cen- 
tralise mankind ;  and  in  proportion  as 
you  do  work  in  this  way  wholesale, 
is  it  badly,  clumsily,  and  inefficiently 
done.  We  all  know  how  much  better 
things  are  worked  by  hand  than  by 
machinery,  as  a  general  rule;  and  how 
we  are  obliged  to  seek  our  best  woollen 
socks  for  shooting,  and  so  on,  in  the 
Shetland  Islands  or  Connemara  ;  and 
for  this  plain  reason,  that  God  made 
the  hands,  but  man  made  the  ma- 
chinery ;  so  that  hand-made  works 
are  but  God's  works  second-hand, 
while  machine-made  works  are  third 
or  fourth-hand.  Not  to  put  too  fine 
a  point  on  this  argument,  the  general 
fact  that  centralisation  depopulates 
the  rural  districts  is,  I  think,  indis- 
putable. 

IREN^US. — Well  then? 

TLEPOLEMUS.  —  Well  then ;  the 
more  you  destroy  provincialism,  the 
more  you  destroy  nationality.  Every 
provincial  tie  is  an  additional  nucleus 
of  national  strength  in  the  body  politic 
of  a  country.  1  lament  that  the  feel- 
ing is  dying  away.  What  is  Corn- 
wall now,  for  instance,  but  a  mere 
part  of  England  ?  and  it  is  but  one 
step  more  that  England  should  become 
a  mere  part  of  Europe.  In  the  time 
of  the  Second  James  was  made  an 
old  patriotic  song,  when  the  bishops 
were  in  danger,  one  being  a  Cornish- 
man,  beginning — 

"  Shall  Trelawney  die  ? 
Then  forty  thousand  Cornishmen  shall  know 
the  reason  why." 

IREN.EUS.— If  Trelawney  had  been 
an  Englishman  at  large,  you  do  not 


510 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


suppose  he  would  have  excited  the 
same  interest. 

TLEPOLEMUS.— Certainly  not ;  but 
at  that  time  Cornwall  was  not  a  clan 
on  a  large  scale.    England  is  becom- 
ing now  such  a  generalisation,  that 
one's  blood  does  not  boil  when  an 
Englishman  is  insulted  abroad  as  it 
would  were  the  idea  more  condensed  ; 
and  as  for  feeling  proud  of  belonging 
to  such  an  aggregate,  it  is  an  exceed- 
ingly difficult  matter.    If  the  respect- 
able family  of  the  Smiths  were  not  so 
numerous,  they  might  be  as  proud 
of  their  name  as  any  other.    I  quoted 
a  song.    It  is  odd  that  England  has 
produced  so  few  truly  national  songs. 
When  you  have  said  "  Chevy  Chase" 
and  "  Rule  Britannia,"  you  have  al- 
most said  all.    And  "  Rule  Britannia" 
was  the  production  of  a  cosmopolitan 
poet,  not  a  voice  of  nature.    Scotland, 
Ireland,  and  I  believe  Wales,  are  far 
better  off  in  this  matter.  What  north- 
countryman's  blood  is  not  stirred  by 
the  first  words  of "  Scots  wha  hae  wi' 
Wallace  bled  ?"  or  "  Wha  wadna  fecht 
for  Charlie  ?"  or  "  Bonnie  Dundee?  " 
No  matter  that  the  feeling  with  which 
such  songs  originated  has  been  modi- 
fied ;  they  are  chains  of  gold  which  bind 
the  heart  of  a  people,  and  keep  it  in 
its  right  place.     Other  provinces  as 
well  as  Cornwall  have  their  songs, 
and  long  may  they  continue  to  be 
sung.  There  is  one  in  Gloucestershire, 
for  instance,  sung  at  the  anniversaries  of 
the  Gloucestershire  Society,  of  ancient 
renown,  and  still  enduring  popularity, 
commencing — 

"  The  stoans  that  built  George  Ridler's  oven." 

I  am  afraid  to  quote  more,  for  fear 
of  quoting  wrong.  And  of  the  same 
sort  are  the  toasts  of  particular  coun- 
ties, such  as  the  "  Friends  all  round 
the  Wrekin"  of  the  Salopian.  No  one 
ever  fancied  that  any  of  these  effusions 
were  disloyal  to  the  empire.  The  very 
Jacobite  songs  themselves,  firebrands 
of  rebellion  as  they  must  have  been 
at  first,  if  they  have  any  effect  now, 
have  that  of  attaching  the  affections 
of  the  Scottish  nation  to  the  actual 
reigning  dynasty,  and  our  good  Queen 
has  shown  in  time  past  her  apprecia- 
tion of  the  fact,  by  listening  to  them 
with  marked  approbation.  The  songs 
of  a  nation,  it  has  been  often  and  aptly 
remarked,  are  more  important  even 


than  its  laws,  and  we  know  that  an 
era  of  improvement  in  the  British 
navy  began  with  the  introduction  of 
the  sea-songs  composed  by  Dibdin. 
What  I  have  said  of  songs  applies 
equally  to  provincial  idioms ;  they  have 
often  poetry  in  them  peculiarly  their 
own,  and  ought  by  all  means  to  be 
kept  up  and  cultivated ;  and  it  is  well 
that  some  of  our  young  ladies  should 
bear  this  in  mind,  who,  with  the  best 
intentions,  endeavour  to  substitute  in 
their  parochial  school  a  spurious  Cock  - 
neyism  for  provincialisms  of  etymo- 
logy and  pronunciation.  From  ignor- 
ance of  gardening,  they  pull  up  flowers 
when  they  imagine  they  are  only 
weeding. 

IREN^US. — Yet  provincialism  seems 
destined  to  die  a  natural  death,  like 
chivalry;  and  those  who  attempt  to 
revive  it  in  these  days  seem  to  me  to 
be  a  clique  of  idle  dilettanti  who  want 
to  be  put  about  some  earnest  work. 
What  do  you  say,  for  instance,  to 
that  Scottish  movement,  and  the 
abortive  attempts  of  the  Irish  national 
party  to  reconquer  their  country's  in- 
dependence ? 

TLEPOLEMUS. — It  is  a  shame  to 
mention  the  two  things  in  the  same 
breath.  The  Scottish  national  move- 
ment— I  say  nothing  about  its  details 
—  is  essentially  conservative ;  the 
Irish  movement  simply  aimed  at  the 
dismemberment  and  destruction  of  the 
British  empire,  and  the  glorification 
of  a  few  hair-brained  demagogues. 
The  more  you  can  attach  people  by 
local  associations  to  the  soil  from 
which  they  sprang,  the  more  firmly 
do  you  root  them  in  the  soil  of  their 
common  country.  The  power  which 
centralisation  gives  is  vain  and  illu- 
sory. One  strong  place — and  that 
too  large  to  be  strong — is  created,  and 
all  other  spots  are  proportion  ally  weak. 
It  is  a  fictitious  and  a  local  strength, 
like  the  juncture  of  a  broken  bone. 
It  ends  with  the  centre  absorbing  the 
parts,  and  being  all  in  all  itself— just 
as  I  have  read  a  story  which  I  think 
apocryphal,  but  still  much  to  the 
point,  of  a  single  great  pike  in  a 
pond  in  Ireland  absorbing  all  the 
other  fish,  and  growing  so  large  that 
at  last  he  took  up  the  place  of  all  the 
water  in  the  pond,  and  accordingly 
.  died  the  death  he  deserved.  It  is, 
indeed,  no  laughing  matter ;  we,  with 


1855.] 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


511 


our  centralised  populations,  numerous 
as  they  are,  have  taken  up  the  glove 
which  Russia  has  thrown  us  ;  I  should 
like  to  know  what  we  could  have  done 
without  France.  We  have  already  been 
obliged  to  hawk  bounties  for  mercenary 
troops  over  half  Europe,  and  the  other 
half,  suspecting  our  wares,  has  driven 
us  from  its  doors  with  insult;  and 
many  of  us  seem  to  think  that  we  are 
to  do  nothing  but  make  dives  in  our 
pockets,  and  let  France  fight  for  us. 

IREN^EUS. — Why,  we  could  not 
have  done  much  by  land,  it  is  true, 
but  we  might  have  blockaded  her 
ports,  and  shut  her  out  of  the  sea.  We 
never  pretended  to  be  a  great  military 
nation. 

TLEPOLEMUS. — I  am  almost  angered 
by  hearing  this  old  exploded  dictum 
from  your  mouth ;  back  you  go  to  it 
again,  like  a  dog  to — his  buried  and 
putrid  store  of  bones.  I  won't  take 
the  trouble  to  answer  it,  merely  ob- 
serving that  we  measured  our  strength 
at  Agincourt  with  the  first  military 
nation  in  the  world,  and  this  with 
Scotland,  now  an  integral  part  of  our 
empire,  then  as  foreign  and  as  hostile 
as  France.  But  Englishmen  were  all 
men-at-arms  or  archers  in  those  days. 
It  is  quite  certain  that  soldiers  we  can- 
not have  in  sufficient  abundance  to 
carry  on  war  creditably,  and  worthily  of 
our  great  name,  unless  we  have  a  large, 
healthy,  sturdy,  rural  population  with 
some  hands  to  spare.  It  is  kept  far 
too  much  out  of  sight,  that  every 
single  man  in  the  country  ought  to  be 
reckoned  upon  as  a  soldier  in  his  coun- 
try's need,  and  that  without  pay;  and 
it  is  a  man's  duty  to  lead  that  sort  of 
life  which  shall  make  him  the  most  effi- 
cient soldier.  For  this  purpose  there 
is  nothing  like  both  the  work  and 
the  play  of  the  country.  Our  citi- 
zens very  patriotically,  and  much  to 
their  credit,  get  up  rifle-clubs,  and  then 
are  in  a  difficulty  as  to  places  where 
they  can  practise  with  safety;  and 
practise  they  must,  because  they  are 
not  shots  by  nature. 

IRENJBUS. — You  would  not  have 
respectable  fathers  of  families  keeping 
themselves  in  training  for  the  Crimea, 
the  swamps  of  the  Irrawaddy,  or  the 
Australian  diggings  ? 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Such  services  are 
exceptional,  and  ought  not,  I  think, 
to  be  forced  on  any  man.  And  per- 


haps the  same  might  be  said  of  nearly 
all  our  foreign  service.  But  it  is  every 
m  an's  duty  to  consider  himself  a  soldier, 
if  necessary,  for  the  defence  of  his  coun- 
try, and  any  enemy  who  sets  his  foot 
on  British  ground  ought  thus  to  ex- 
pect to  meet,  in  a  few  hours'  time,  by 
means  of  the  railroads 

IREN.EUS. — Centralisation ! 

TLEPOLEMUS.  —  Don't  interrupt. 
Half-a-million  of  Britons  in  arms. 
What  would  twenty  thousand  men 
meet  if  they  landed  now,  but  half-a- 
dozen  babies  in  arms  of  as  many  Brit- 
ish mothers? 

IREISLEUS. — God  bless  them  ! 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Amen.  But  our 
boast  is  that  of  the  Spartan,  that  our 
women  have  never  seen  the  smoke  of 
the  enemy's  camp.  Have  we  as  good 
grounds  as  they  ?  The  Spartan  wo- 
men saw  it  not,  because  the  stout 
hearts  of  the  men  came  in  the  way. 
The  Englishwomen  have  seen  it  once, 
perhaps,  over  the  straits  at  Boulogne. 
In  their  case,  hearts  of  men  were  the 
obstacle,  in  ours  heart  of  oak,  and  the 
element  which  bore  it.  But  trusting 
to  walls,  even  wooden  ones,  is  not 
right,  with  the  stakes  that  we  hold. 
We  ought  to  pay  just  as  much  atten- 
tion to  our  army  as  if  the  Straits  of 
Dover  were  bridged  overv  or  tunnelled 
under ;  and  this  not  from  distrust  of 
our  gallant  seamen,  but  from  the  pos- 
sibility of  accidents  happening  with 
that  element  which  Britannia  pro- 
fesses to  rule.  We  put  a  French  war 
for  the  present  out  of  the  question ; 
but  an  American  war  might  arise  at 
any  time.  We  might  be  exposed,  if 
not  to  danger,  like  the  one-eyed  stag 
in  the  fable,  at  any  rate  to  insult  on 
the  side  of  the  sea.  In  fact,  a  self- 
respecting  nation  ought  to  be  prepared 
for  all  contingencies.  Why,  only  the 
other  day  King  Bomba,  after  insult- 
ing the  Emperor  of  Russia  because  he 
heard  the  false  report  of  his  losing 
Sebastopol  after  the  Alma,  thought 
fit  to  insult  an  Englishman  attached 
to  the  Embassy,  thinking  with  equal 
wisdom,  from  our  delay  in  taking 
Sebastopol,  that  our  military  power  at 
any  rate  was  at  its  lowest  ebb. 

IRESLEUS. — But  I  believe  that  even 
if  it  was  so,  the  flow  is  setting  in,  and 
a  reaction  is  taking  place  in  other 
matters  as  well ;  thus  the  most  gloomy 
view  is  not  the  true  one. 


512 


Centralisation — A  Dialogue. 


[Oct. 


TLEPOLEMUS. — No  thanks  to  our 
Legislature !  but  thanks  where  thanks 
are  due.  The  manhood  of  the  coun- 
try, and  the  chivalry  of  the  country, 
is  becoming  reversed,  and  will  speedily 
cast  off  the  bondage  to  which  it  has 
been  subjected,  by  the  long  tenure  of 
power  of  a  covetous,  unprincipled,  and 
anti-national  faction.  The  impostors 
who  have  been  so  long  duping  the 
people  by  pretending  to  be  their 
friends,  are  fast  being  unmasked. 
They  would  have  brought  greater 
evils  on  the  country  ere  this,  but  that 
those  evils  have  in  mercy  been  averted. 
The  discovery  of  Australian  gold  cre- 
ated an  antidote  to  free  trade  which 
robbed  it  of  half  of  its  pernicious 
effects.  The  exposure  of  the  wholesale 
corruption  of  popular  constituencies, 
and  the  rejection  of  the  best  men  from 
Parliament  by  the  extension  of  the 
franchise,  has  aided  to  open  the  eyes 
of  the  people  to  the  true  tendency  of 
democratic  institutions,  and  to  show 
them  that  their  only  result  is  to  sub- 
stitute a  tyranny  of  wealth  for  the 
legitimate  rule  of  elements  influential 
from  other  causes.  Last  of  all,  the 
war  has  torn  the  mask  from  the  face 
of  centralisation.  And  again,  central- 
isation bears  in  some  measure  its  cure 
within  itself.  London  dies  in  the 
middle,  becomes  unpeopled,  and 
spreads  itself  in  the  suburbs,  as  cer- 
tain plants  spread  their  seedlings  in 
circles  round  the  original  clump  which 
dies  away.  If  it  goes  on  for  ever  as 
it  is  going  on  now,  the  radius  of  the 
suburbs  will  in  time  engross  England, 
and  then  we  may  expect  again  to  see 
the  corn  waving  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields.  There  is  a  beneficent  provision 
of  nature  by  which  evils  cure  them- 
selves, and  evil  means  produce  good 
ends;  this  prevents  us  from  undue 
croaking,  but  at  the  same  time  it  does 
not  change  the  character  of  evil,  or 
change  deterioration  and  destruction 
into  wholesome  growth.  It  is  little 
consolation  for  me  to  be  told  that  when 
I  die,  I  shall  fertilise  the  earth,  and 
the  earth  will  feed  cows,  and  the  cows 
will  feed  the  men  that  live  after  me. 
I  love  my  own  individuality,  and 
think  it  right  for  that  reason  to  respect 
other  individualities,  both  of  persons, 
things,  and  institutions.  Centralisa- 


tion will  go  on,  and  we  cannot  help  it ; 
and  so  will  the  age  of  ourselves  and 
our  country  go  on,  till  we  and  it  fall 
into  decrepitude.  But  why  attempt  to 
hasten  our  own  decay  by  dissolute  ha- 
bits— or  our  country's,  by  political  or 
social  dissipation?  We  can  do  some- 
thing even  to  arrest  a  law  of  nature. 
The  law  declares  that  such  a  process 
is  to  be,  it  does  not  declare  at  what 
pace  it  is  to  proceed.  But  when  we 
ourselves  are  concerned  in  the  preser- 
vation of  our  youth,  we  know  better 
how  to  act  than  when  we  are  concern- 
ed with  the  preservation  of  that  of  our 
country.  And  the  mistake  arises  from 
a  mistake  in  the  use  of  names.  Anti- 
quity is  the  youth  of  a  country,  and 
every  man  who  strives  to  preserve  the 
records  of  the  past,  or  recall  the  feel- 
ings of  the  past,  or  restore  the  institu- 
tions of  the  past,  is  one  who,  whether 
he  seeks  to  restore  the  good  or  the 
evil,  is  at  all  events  labouring  to  keep 
up  as  long  as  possible  his  country's 
youth,  vitality,  and  vigour — is  striving 
to  hold  her  back,  so  that  she  shall  not 
be  driven  with  shipwreck  rapidity 
down  the  stream  of  time.  And  after 
all,  it  is  with  a  country  much  as  with 
a  man  ;  all  the  glories  of  age  are 
nothing  to  the  freshness  of  youth. 

"The  myrtle  and  ivy  of  sweet  two-and-twenty 
Are  worth  all  life's  laurels,  though  never  so 
plenty." 

And  again — 

"  Give  me  back,  give  me  hack,  the  wild  fresh- 
ness of  morning ; 

Its  smiles  and  its  tears  are  worth  evening's 
best  light." 

The  only  fear  is,  that  in  the  war  of 
innovation  and  conservatism,  or  re- 
storation, poor  John  Bull  should  fall 
into  the  plight  of  the  elderly  gentle- 
man in  the  fable,  who  had  two  wives, 
one  young  and  the  other  old,  one 
weeding  out  the  grey  hairs,  and  the 
other  the  black,  till  in  the  end  he  was 
left  as  bald  as  when  he  first  made  his 
appearance  on  life's  stage. 

IKEN^TJS. — But  it  is  time  to  be  go- 
ing. The  last  train  to  town 

TLEPOLEMUS. — Time  was  made  for 
slaves.  "We  cannot  help  it;  we  are 
so.  And  yet  we  are  Britons,  and  have 
boasted  that  we  would  never  be  so. 
Alas  !  centralisation  reigns — having 
deposed  British  Freedom, 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  X. 


513 


THE   STORY   OF  THE   CAMPAIGN. 


CHAP.    XXVII. — PROGRESS   OP   THE   SIEGE. 


DURING  July  and  August  the  in- 
terest of  the  siege  was  concentred  in 
the  attack  of  the  Malakoff,  as  little 
progress  could  be  made  with  the  works 
before  the  Redan,  owing  to  the  nature 
of  the  ground ;  while  the  French  at- 
tack on  the  bastions  before  the  town 
had  been  for  months  stationary.  In 
Chap.  XXL,  speculating  on  the 
various  methods  of  continuing  the 
contest,  I  remarked  that,  if  the  attack 
by  regular  siege  operations  were  per- 
sisted in,  the  siege  would  resolve  itself 
into  several  sieges,  each  demanding 
much  labour  and  time;  and  that  a 
consecutive  attack  on  the  different 
outworks  would  require  months  to 
accomplish.  It  appears,  however, 
that  this  objection  of  long  delay  was 
held  less  powerful  than  the  obstacles 
to  more  prompt  and  comprehensive 
designs,  and  the  advance  on  the 
Malakoff  had  been  patiently  prose- 
cuted for  a  quarter  of  a  year;  and 
now,  for  the  first  time,  the  operations, 
thus  confined  by  the  suspension  of  the 
other  attacks  to  a  point,  presented 
the  appearance  of  an  ordinary  siege. 

On  its  own  right,  the  works  crown- 
ing the  Malakoff  hill  are  extended 
down  the  slope  in  a  series  of  batteries 
to  the  ravine  which  separates  it  from 
the  Redan.  On  its  left,  other  works 
extend  to  the  great  harbour,  ter- 
minating at  a  point  below  Careening 
Bay,  on  the  opposite  side  of  which 
the  French  had  placed  batteries. 
Thus  the  Russian  line  of  intrench- 
ment,  from  the  salient  of  the  Malakoff 
to  the  harbour,  about  the  middle  of 
which  was  a  smaller  work  (called  the 
Little  Redan  by  us,  by  the  French 
Redan  de  Carenage),  was  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  enclosed  by  a  larger  arc 
of  attack;  and  the  captured  Mammelon 
became  the  base  of  the  attack  of  the 
Malakoff.  These  two  hills  are  about 
500  yards  apart,  the  slope  of  the 
Mammelon  being  rather  more  abrupt 
than  the  opposing  one,  which  rises  in 
a  gentle,  gradual  glacis  to  the  foot  of 
the  ditch.  Down  one  slope,  and  up 
the  other,  the  French  sap  was  pushed 
in  a  network  of  trenches,  advancing 


on  the  two  salients  of  the  Malakoff 
and  the  Little  Redan,  and  connecting 
the  advances  by  parallels.  It  is  a 
general  rule  that  a  second  parallel 
cannot  be  formed  till  the  artillery  of 
the  assailed  work,  and  of  those  that 
flank  it,  is  silenced.  Such  was  not 
the  case  here.  Had  a  fire  been  con- 
centrated on  the  Malakoff  for  the 
purpose  of  silencing  it,  the  Redan 
would  have  supported  it  by  opening 
on  the  aggressive  batteries;  these  and 
others  would  have  replied  in  their  own 
defence,  and  so  the  cannonade  would 
become  general  along  the  whole  line; 
and  to  expend  ammunition  which 
cost  so  much  labour  to  accumulate 
on  so  extensive  a  scale,  was  a 
serious  consideration :  therefore  the 
French  continued  to  advance  under  a 
fire  which,  though  desultory,  and  held 
in  check  by  the  English  batteries  as 
well  as  their  own,  never  ceased  to 
annoy  them.  A  loss  of  a  hundred 
men  a-night,  and  sometimes  greatly 
exceeding  that  number,  testified  that 
the  rules  of  military  science,  the 
result  of  long  experience  in  war,  can- 
not be  disregarded  with  impunity. 
But  there  was  no  help  for  it ;  the 
bloodless  method  of  conducting  ap- 
proaches detailed  by  Vauban  is  based 
on  the  certainty  that  the  enemy's 
guns,  silenced  or  disabled  by  an 
overpowering  fire,  cannot  be  re- 
placed, as  they  were  here,  from  a 
full  arsenal,  and  the  damaged  works 
easily  repaired  ;  so  the  French  had  to 
make  the  best  of  it.  The  fire  of  the 
Malakoff  itself  was  in  some  degree 
kept  down  by  riflemen  in  the  advanced 
trenches  ;  but  a  few  guns  in  the  low 
batteries  on  each  side  dropped  missiles 
into  the  parallels  and  batteries,  from 
whence  they  were  often  themselves 
unseen.  In  spite  of  these,  the  ap- 
proaches continued  steadily  to  advance 
on  the  salients,  and  to  be  connected 
by  long  parallels  and  communications, 
till,  on  reaching  a  certain  point  about 
eighty  yards  from  the  ditch,  it  was 
found  impossible  to  proceed  without 
first  silencing  some  guns  whose  fire 
generally  destroyed  in  the  day  the 


514 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  X. 


[Oct. 


work  of  the  preceding  night.  With 
this  view  our  batteries  were  to  be 
opened  again  on  the  17th,  not  in  a 
general  cannonade,  but  directed  to 
this  special  object.  The  battle  of  the 
16th  did  not  retard  the  execution  of 
the  design,  and  the  English  guns 
opened  next  morning  ;  but  as  the 
French  on  our  left  hardly  fired  at 
all,  the  Russians  were  enabled  to 
concentrate  their  guns  on  our  most 
advanced  batteries,  some  of  which 
suffered  considerably,  and  where  we 
lost  some  valuable  artillery  officers. 
Captain  Oldfield,  who  had  shown  the 
greatest  energy  throughout  the  siege, 
and  entirely  devoted  himself  to  the 
trenches,  was  killed  by  a  piece  of 
shell  striking  him  on  the  temple ; 
Commander  Hammett,  R.N.,  by  a 
round  shot ;  and  Major  Henry,  R.A., 
promoted  for  previous  service  in  the 
trenches,  lost  his  right  arm.  The 
object  of  the  cannonade,  which  was 
steadily  maintained,  was  quite  secured 
by  the  damage  done  to  the  enemy's 
batteries.  At  six  in  the  evening  a 
magazine  blew  up  in  a  work  between 
the  Malakoff  and  Redan,  and  a  num- 
ber of  shells  there  accumulated  were 
hurled  into  the  air,  exploding  in  all 
directions ;  the  occupants  of  the  bat- 
tery were  seen  leaping  outside  their 
parapets  in  consternation,  and  the 
mortars  which  the  shells  were  intended 
to  supply  were  completely  silenced ; 
and  the  guns  whose  fire  had  been  so 
mischievous  being  also  quieted,  the 
French  were  enabled  to  continue  their 
approaches  on  the  night  of  the  18th 
and  following  day.  On  the  night 
of  the  18th  it  became  known  to  us 
that  large  bodies  were  assembled  with- 
in the  enemy's  works,  and  a  heavy 
fire  of  mortars  was  directed  on  them, 
which  must  have  proved  very  destruc- 
tive. They  lined  the  parapets  and 
opened  a  heavy  musketry  fire,  which 
was  replied  to  by  us  and  the  French  ; 
but  no  sortie  was  attempted,  and  the 
fire  of  small-arms  soon  ceased.  On 
some  subsequent  nights  the  same 
incident  occurred ;  but  whether  the 
enemy's  troops  were  placed  in  the 
works  to  resist  an  anticipated  attack 
from  us,  or  to  make  a  sortie,  which 
was  not  afterwards  found  practicable, 
we  did  not  learn. 

On  the  20th,  some  rockets  from  the 
advance  of  our  right  attack  fired  the 


Karabelnaia  suburb,  situated  behind 
the  Malakoff,  which  consists  of  a  great 
number  of  small  houses  adjacent  to 
though  not  adjoining  each  other,  in 
which  the  troops  for  the  defence  of 
this  part  of  the  Russian  works  reside. 
When  the  alarm  of  fire  was  given 
there,  a  great  number  of  soldiers 
thronged  out  in  disorder,  and  a  mul- 
titude of  carts  made  their  appearance. 
At  first  only  one  of  our  guns  bore  on 
the  crowded  space  between  the  houses, 
from  whence  the  troops  attempted  to 
pass  towards  the  Malakoff  after  each 
discharge.  By  widening  an  embra- 
sure, a  second  gun  was  brought  to 
bear  on  them  with  spherical  case,  and 
proved  very  destructive  —  prostrate 
men,  broken  carts,  and  runaway  horses 
marking  its  effect.  The  fire  continued 
to  burn  all  day,  and  destroyed  several 
houses,  and  others  were  frequently 
set  on  fire  afterwards  by  rockets,  while 
the  guns  continued  to  enfilade  the 
streets  of  the  suburb  whenever  a  few 
persons  were  visible. 

Towards  evening  on  the  20th,  the 
French  batteries  on  our  left  before  the 
town,  suddenly  opened,  without  warn- 
ing, and  in  a  short  time  the  Russians 
replied  from  the  bastions  covering  the 
town,  and  from  the  Creek  and  Barrack 
Batteries.  On  both  sides  the  firing  was 
extremely  violent  till  dark.  I  was  in 
the  third  parallel  of  our  left  attack  at 
the  time ;  and  never  beheld  a  more 
splendid  spectacle  than  the  setting  of 
the  sun  behind  the  Bastion  du  Mat. 
Purple  masses  lay  on  the  horizon,  be- 
coming luminous  as  the  sun  passed 
behind  them,  till  the  whole  western 
sky  was  in  a  softened  glow  of  orange, 
with  red  and  crimson  of  every  grada- 
tion in  the  cloudy  glories  around  and 
above  the  orb.  Against  the  fiery 
space  was  sharply  cut  the  purple  line 
of  the  enemy's  rampart — 

"  A  looming  bastion  fringed  with  fire," 

whence  the  smoke  from  the  cannon 
curled  upward  in  dark  blue  wreaths 
with  rosy  edges.  Sometimes  a  shell, 
bursting  high,  left  a  compact  rounded 
cloud  tinged  with  light,  till  it  was 
slowly  dissipated  in  streaks  as  of  blood, 
while  the  din  of  the  cannonade,  rever- 
berated from  all  the  ravines  in  pro- 
longed peals,  filled  the  air.  On  leav- 
ing the  batteries  at  dusk,  I  found  that 
my  horse,  which  I  had  left  tied  up  in 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  X. 


the  ravine  below  the  second  parallel, 
had  broken  loose,  frightened  by  the 
uproar  and  by  some  shells  which  burst 
near  him,  and  made  off.  The  ravine, 
besides  being  about  three  miles  long, 
has  several  branches,  some  towards 
the  French  camp,  some  towards  our 
own,  and  on  the  side  of  one  of  the  lat- 
ter the  sailors  are  encamped  ;  so  that, 
besides  the  walk  home  late  and  hungry, 
there  was  a  very  good  prospect  of  my 
horse  being  stolen,  or,  at  any  rate,  if 
fortunately  recovered,  yet  without 
saddle  or  bridle.  The  sailors  had  long 
been  notorious  horse  -  appropriators, 
while  the  public,  including  everybody 
whose  horse  was  not  stolen,  had  agreed 
to  look  on  the  proceedings  of  "  Jack," 
and  the  "  honest  tar,"  as  they  affec- 
tionately term  our  naval  friends,  as 
rather  eccentric  than  felonious,  so 
that,  considering  the  indulgence  with 
which  these  speculations  in  horse  flesh 
were  regarded,  they  may  on  the  whole 
be  praised  for  their  moderation.  On 
reaching  home,  however,  I  found  the 
knowing  animal  had  arrived  a  short 
time  before  me  (having  stopped  to 
water  on  the  road),  bringing  his  saddle 
and  bridle  with  him,  and  creating 
some  doubt  as  to  the  probable  fate  of 
his  rider. 

A  few  days  before  this  opening  of 
the  batteries,  I  visited  the  Mammelon 
and  the  advanced  batteries  before  the 
Malakoff.  A  broad  road  passed  over 
the  rampart  of  the  former  work,  where 
the  guns  had  once  looked  on  the 
French  lines,  while  what  had  been  its 
gorge  or  rear  when  the  enemy  held  it, 
was  now  a  formidable  battery,  as  yet 
unmasked,  but  completed,  armed,  and 
ready  to  open  on  its  old  ally  the  Round 
Tower.  The  interior  was  still  in  a 
state  of  great  confusion  ;  Russian 
guns  were  lying  dismounted  and 
half-buried,  platforms  shattered,  gun- 
carriages  with  their  trucks  in  the 
air,  and  the  numerous  traverses  which 
the  Russians  had  thrown  up  for 
protection  from  our  shells,  were  pound- 
ed and  blown  by  explosions  into 
shapeless  heaps,  making  the  interior 
of  theredoubt  look  like  anewly-opened 
quarry.  From  one  of  its  angles  a 
path  led  to  the  advanced  trenches  and 
batteries,  the  latter  beautifully  finish- 
ed and  revetted  with  fascines,  the 
guns  already  in  them,  and  nothing 
wanting  but  the  removal  of  the  screen 


515 

of  earth  still  hiding  the  embrasures  to 
enable  them  to  open.  The  work  was 
greatly  facilitated  by  the  nature  of  the 
soil,  which  was  clayey,  and  might 
be  cut  like  a  cheese  to  the  required 
depth,  while,  in  most  other  parts  of 
our  extensive  lines,  the  trenches  had 
been  quarried  with  infinite  toil  through 
solid  rocks,  and  among  huge  pebbles 
and  imbedded  flints,  where  the  tools 
were  broken  and  blunted,  the  arms  of 
the  workmen  jarred,  and  the  weary 
night's  work  scarcely  afforded  the 
satisfaction  of  a  perceptible  advance. 
In  one  part  of  these  lines  a  kind  of 
watch-tower,  indistinguishable  from 
without,  had  been  erected,  where  the 
French  generals,  looking  through  three 
loopholes,  rendered  quite  bullet-proof 
with  timber  and  sandbags,  might  con- 
veniently watch  the  progress  of  affairs ; 
and  near  at  hand  was  a  spacious 
subterranean  chamber,  cool  as  an  ice- 
house though  the  day  was  very  hot, 
where  the  commanding  officers  of 
the  trenches  might  sit  unmolested 
by  shot  and  shell,  ready  to  issue  such 
orders  as  might  be  needful.  In  a  beam 
over  the  entrance  stuck  a  large  shot, 
there  arrested  in  its  flight.  As  we 
entered  the  Mammelon,  a  French  mor- 
tar-battery on  the  right  was  throwing 
shells  which  probably  galled  the 
enemy,  for  on  pausing  in  it  in  return- 
ing, to  make  some  sketches  of  the 
works  and  men  in  the  interior,  such 
flights  of  shells  from  the  Malakoff 
alighted  and  exploded  within  as  ren- 
dered the  operation  of  drawing  some- 
what difficult  and  interrupted. 

On  the  night  of  the  27th,  the  whole 
camp  was  aroused,  shortly  after  mid- 
night, by  a  tremendous  explosion,  and 
beyond  the  Mammelon  might  be  seen, 
in  the  moonlight,  a  huge  white  cloud, 
casting  acres  of  shadow  as  it  spread 
and  slowly  dispersed.  A  magazine 
made  by  the  Russians  in  the  Mamme- 
lon, in  which  the  French  had  placed 
35,000  pounds  of  powder,  had  been 
blown  up  by  a  shell — more  than  a 
hundred  Frenchmen  lay  prostrate, 
bruised  or  scorched,  of  whom  about 
thirty  were  killed  on  the  spot;  and  beams 
were  hurled  through  the  air  to  a  distance 
of  seven  hundred  yards,  wounding  men 
in  our  trenches.  Time  was  when  the 
Russians  would  have  seized  the  op- 
portunity to  pour  shot  and  shell  on 
the  scene  of  ruin,  or  have  followed  up 


516 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  X. 


[Oct. 


the  accidental  success  by  a  sortie; 
but  perhaps  imagining  this  to  be  the 
explosion  of  the  mine  that  was  to 
breach  their  own  ramparts,  they  re- 
mained silent ;  while  the  English  ar- 
tillery opened  on  the  Malakoff,  in 
order  to  anticipate  a  sally  or  a  can- 


nonade, and  to  cover  the  necessary 
confusion  of  their  allies.  Beyond  the 
loss  of  life,  no  serious  damage  was 
done  by  this  explosion,  which  left,  in 
token  of  its  occurrence,  a  vast  crater 
like  a  quarry  in  the  middle  of  the 
Mammelon. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII.— BATTLE  OF  THE  TBAKTIR  BRIDGE. 


Intelligence  of  an  intended  attack 
had  reached  the  camp  of  so  reliable  a 
nature  that,  on  the  morning  of  the 
13th  August,  the  whole  army  was 
under  arms  before  dawn,  pursuant  to 
the  orders  of  the  night  before.  The 
trenches  were  fully  manned,  strong 
columns  guarded  the  ravines,  and 
other  bodies  lined  the  rear  of  the  ridge 
in  support,  in  expectation  of  a  sally 
from  the  town  —  and  shortly  after 
midnight  light  sleepers  might  have 
been  roused  by  the  rumble  of  wheels, 
as  the  field-artillery  passed  through 
the  camps  towards  its  appointed  posi- 
tion in  the  front.  The  expected 
attack  was  eagerly  awaited,  in  full 
confidence  that  the  enemy  would  be 
driven  back  shattered  and  discomfited 
to  their  defences  ;  but  day  broke,  and 
showed  the  line  of  works  silent,  and 
no  preparation  apparent,  on  the  side 
of  the  Russians,  for  an  action.  When 
it  became  evident  that  the  attack,  if 
designed,  was  postponed,  our  troops 
returned  to  their  encampments.  Still 
the  impression  continued  strong  that 
the  enemy,  who  had,  as  we  knew, 
been  largely  reinforced,  were  about  to 
try  their  fortune  in  an  assault  on  our 
position.  There  could  be  but  one 
object  in  sending  troops  in  any  con- 
siderable numbers  to  the  south  of  the 
Crimea,  where  it  must  be  so  difficult 
to  maintain  them  even  for  a  short 
time — and  that  object  must  have  been 
a  sudden  and  powerful  attempt  to 
raise  the  siege — and  the  truth  of  this 
general  impression  was  soon  con- 
firmed. 

The  cluster  of  heights  on  our  side 
of  the  Tchernaya,  which  have  before 
been  described  as  dividing  part  of  the 
broad  valley  extending  from  the  har- 
bour of  Sebastopol  to  that  of  Bala- 
klava  into  two  defiles,  were  occupied, 
when  General  Pelissier  assumed  the 
command  of  the  army,  by  the  French, 
at  first  under  Canrobert,  and  when 


that  General  returned  to  France, 
under  General  Herbillon,  an  old  offi- 
cer, commonly  called  by  the  troops 
Le  pere  Herbillon.  These  heights, 
lower  than  the  plateaus,  and  of  insig- 
nificant elevation  compared  with  the 
surrounding  mountain-ranges,  are  as- 
cended by  easy  slopes,  are  smooth  and 
grassy  at  the  top,  'and  are  furrowed 
by  deep  chasms,  in  one  of  which  lies 
the  road  to  the  Traktir  bridge  over 
the  Tchernaya,  which  the  French  had 
fortified.  Other  and  more  abrupt 
hills  rise  to  the  right  on  both  sides  of 
the  river,  and  these  were  crowned  by 
Sardinian  advanced  posts  —  but  in 
front  of  the  French  the  ground,  beyond 
the  Tchernaya,  extends  in  level  mea- 
dows to  the  wide  plain  which  winds 
round  the  base  of  the  great  plateau  of 
Inkermann. 

Down  this  plain  a  Russian  army  of 
6000  cavalry,  five  divisions  of  infantry, 
and  twenty  field-batteries,  was  march- 
ed from  the  heights  of  Mackenzie's 
Farm,  and  drawn  up  in  the  night  of 
the  15th,  while  a  smaller  force  of  in- 
fantry and  guns  appeared  near  Tcher- 
goum.  At  daybreak  the  attack  was 
opened  by  the  Russian  guns,  drawn 
up  at  long  range,  and  the  Sardinian 
outposts  being  at  once  driven  in,  the 
hill  they  had  held  across  the  river  was 
occupied  by  a  Russian  field-battery. 
These  were  opposed  by  the  French 
batteries  drawn  up,  some  across  the 
heights,  some  along  the  bank  of  the 
river,  in  which  latter  position  a  bat- 
tery of  horse  -  artillery  suffered  very 
severely. 

The  Russian  infantry  advanced  to 
the  attack  in  columns  and  reached  the 
river,  now  an  inconsiderable  streamlet 
knee  deep,  which  some  crossed,  while 
others  assailed  the  tete-du-pont  or 
field-work  covering  the  bridge.  After 
a  sharp  conflict  the  Russians  carried 
this,  and  the  whole  advanced  to 
the  heights  which  rise  almost  directly 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  X. 


from  the  river's  bank  at  this  point ; 
but  to  the  left  and  right  of  the  bridge 
a  second  obstacle  remained  to  be 
crossed  in  the  shape  of  the  aqueduct, 
a  small  canal,  six  feet  wide  and  three 
deep.  Numbers  of  Russians  fell  on 
the  bank  of  this  ;  but  others,  crossing 
and  joining  those  who  had  forced  the 
passage  of  the  bridge,  passed  along 
the  road  and  up  the  heights  on  each 
side.  Here  the  French  infantry  met 
them,  and  after  a  short  struggle,  the 
enemy,  leaving  three  or  four  hundred 
dead  and  wounded,  fled  tumultuously 
down  to  the  river,  mixed  up  with  the 
pursuing  French,  plunged  in  and 
crossed  it,  and  continued  their  flight 
across  the  meadows  beyond,  pursued 
by  the  fire  of  the  infantry,  who  halted 
at  the  stream,  and  of  the  French  guns, 
which  ploughed  through  the  fugitive 
masses,  killing  hundreds.  If  the 
French  cavalry,  crossing  the  river 
above,  near  the  Sardinians,  had 
charged  along  these  meadows,  mul- 
titudes of  prisoners  might  have  been 
made  ;  but  the  position  of  the  Russian 
battery  on  the  hill  before  occupied  by 
the  Sardinians  was  probably  what 
prevented  this  movement.  A  feeble 
attack  made  on  the  Piedmontese  in 
the  valley  of  Tchergoum  was  also 
easily  repulsed,  with  the  co-operation 
of  some  8-iiich  howitzers  we  had  lent 
to  the  Sardinians,  and  an  English  bat- 
tery of  32-pound  howitzers,  which 
compelled  a  Russian  battery  of  lighter 
metal  to  withdraw.  An  attempt 
against  the  left  of  the  heights,  where 
they  look  towards  the  Ruins  of  Inker- 
mann,  was  also  made,  the  Russians 
advancing  to  the  white  house  near 
the  pond  at  their  base,  but  it  met  no 
better  success  than  the  others. 

At  eight  o'clock  A.M.  the  enemy's 
infantry,  entirely  repulsed,  had  with- 
drawn behind  the  line  of  cavalry  and 
guns,  and  there  re-formed  in  deep 
square  columns,  out  of  cannon-shot. 
Their  artillery  on  the  heights  still  con- 
tinued to  exchange  shots  with  the 
opposite  French  batteries,  while  some 
French  rockets  from  the  plateau  flew 
to  an  extraordinary  distance,  explod- 
ing among  bodies  of  the  enemy  so  far 
off,  that  it  was  difficult  to  ascertain 
through  the  telescope  whether  they 
were  cavalry  or  infantry.  Large  re- 
inforcements arrived  at  this  time  for 
the  French,  including  the  Imperial 


517 

Guard,  which  had  left  the  plateau  a 
short  time  before.  A  considerable 
number  of  French  troops  were  crowded 
down  the  road  to  the  bridge,  when 
the  enemy  suddenly  discharged  salvos 
from  some  heavy  guns,  on  a  knoll 
forming  one  of  the  roots  of  the  cliff  of 
the  plateau  of  Inkermann,  and  some  of 
the  shells  pitched  with  good  aim  on 
the  tete-du-pont  and  the  slopes 
around.  This,  repeated  twice  or 
thrice,  was  the  last  effort  of  the  enemy 
to  revenge  their  defeat ;  their  battery 
on  the  Sardinian  height  was  with- 
drawn, together  with  the  cavalry  sup- 
porting it,  and  the  Piedmontese  lan- 
cers immediately  advanced,  some  onto 
the  meadows  of  the  plain,  and  others 
(consisting  of  a  troop  supported  by  a 
company  of  riflemen)  followed  the 
enemy  as  they  quitted  the  heights. 
Joining  the  advance  of  this  troop, 
I  passed  through  the  intrenchments 
taken  from  the  Sardinian  outposts, 
where  the  struggle  had  been  but  slight, 
for  I  saw  only  three  dead  Russians, 
and  one  ammunition  waggon,  blown 
up  afterwards  by  a  shell,  remaining  as 
traces  of  conflict.  Advancing  along 
these  heights  we  came  on  the  cover- 
ers  of  the  Russian  rearguard,  distant 
about  a  carbine  shot,  in  a  line  of  single 
horsemen.  Behind  appeared  a  larger 
body,  and  on  our  left  on  the  plain, 
still  drawn  up  as  before,  awaiting, 
perhaps,  a  charge  which  they  hoped 
to  make  as  disastrous  to  the  Allies  as 
that  of  Balaklava,  were  the  cavalry 
and  guns,  those  nearest,  close  enough 
for  the  colour  of  the  horses  and  the 
uniforms  to  be  discernible,  and  on  the 
right  were  what  looked  like  cuiras- 
siers with  two  long  standards  flying. 
Along  the  plain,  and  all  the  way  up 
the  dusty  chalky  road  that  leads  to 
Mackenzie's  Farm  on  the  plateau,  filed 
the  retiring  infantry.  It  certainly  ap- 
peared to  me  that,  if  the  attention  of 
the  enemy  had  been  engaged  by  a 
feint  in  front,  a  strong  body  of  cavalry 
and  light  guns  might  have  formed  on 
these  heights,  the  slopes  of  which  to 
the  plain  are  of  easy  descent,  and 
thence  have  poured  down  on  the  ene  - 
my  before  they  could  have  change  d 
their  front,  and  rolled  them  up  and 
cut  them  to  pieces  long  ere  the  infan  - 
try  could  have  returned  to  their  sup  - 
port.  However,  the  opportunity , 
whether  good  or  objectionable,  was 


518 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  X. 


allowed  to  pass,  and  the  enemy  here, 
as  well  as  in  the  valley  of  Tchergoum, 
retired  unmolested.  The  latter  force 
was  to  have  been  supported,  it  is  said, 
by  another  Russian  division,  which, 
however,  halted  at  Aitodor, — and  ru- 
mour goes  on  to  say  that  its  general 
was  disgraced,  and  the  division,  as  a 
punishment  for  its  non  -  appearance, 
sent  to  form  part  of  the  garrison  of 
Sebastopol. 

The  Russians,  who  were  command- 
ed by  Prince  Gortchakoff,  left,  accord- 
ing to  the  French  returns,  2700  dead 
on  the  field,  some  on  the  slopes  of  the 
heights  held  by  the  French,  most  on 
the  meadow  beyond  the  river,  and  a 
good  many  had  fallen  between  the 
river  and  the  watercourse,  which  here 
branches  off  as  the  acqueduct  of  Se- 
bastopol, for  the  crossing  of  which 
many  of  the  Russians  were  provided 
with  small  portable  bridges  of  plank. 
Including  the  wounded,  2200  prison- 
ers remained  with  the  French,  and  the 
enemy's  loss  was  estimated,  in  all,  at 
10,000.  The  French  lost  less  than  800 
killed  and  wounded  (many  of  the  latter 
slightly),  and  the  Sardinians  200. 

The  immediate  object  of  this  attack 
was  to  obtain  possession  of  the  heights 
held  by  the  French.  This  would  have 
conferred  on  the  enemy  the  advantage 


[Oct. 

of  the  river  as  a  watering-place  for  the 
cavalry  and  troops,  of  which  we  should 
have  been  deprived ;  it  would  have 
enabled  them  to  act  against  the  Sar- 
dinians on  the  right,  and  our  detach- 
ments at  Baidar,  whose  position  would 
have  been  somewhat  awkward,  though 
they  would  probably  have  effected  their 
j  unction  with  the  army  by  the  road  along 
the  cliffs ;  and  it  would  have  served  as 
a  point  to  make  an  attack  against  the 
plateau,  in  co-operation  with  a  sortie 
from  the  town.  A  detailed  plan  of 
attack  on  these  bases,  including  also 
the  capture  of  Balaklava,  was  found 
on  the  body  of-General  Read,  a  Rus- 
sian officer.  But  the  enemy  never 
at  anytime  had  any  prospect  of  suc- 
cess, and  the  attempt  seems  to  have 
been  dictated  by  desperation. 

While  the  French  were  removing 
the  wounded  of  the  enemy  from  the 
battle-field,  the  Russian  batteries  did 
not  cease  to  fire  on  that  part  of  the 
ground ;  General  Pelissier  therefore 
sent  to  say  that  he  would  not  bury 
the  Russian  dead,  but,  if  they  pleased, 
they  might  have  a  truce  for  the  pur- 
pose. On  the  18th  a  party  of  Russi- 
ans, escorted  by  a  detachment  of  Cos- 
sacks, mounted  on  shabby  ill-fed 
ponies,  came  down  to  the  Tchernaya 
to  inter  the  bodies. 


CHAPTER   XXIX. — A   CRISIS  IN   THE   CAMPAIGN. 


As  our  prospects  changed  with  the 
advance  of  the  works,  so  did  new 
features  disclose  themselves  in  the 
operations  of  the  enemy.  Thrown 
from  the  shore  of  the  north  side  of  the 
harbour  opposite  Fort  Nicholas,  the 
rudiments  of  a  bridge  appeared,  made 
of  rafts,  moored  side  by  side.  After 
the  battle  of  the  16th,  the  work  pro- 
ceeded with  increased  diligence,  and 
about  the  26th  or  27th  it  stretched 
completely  across  to  the  point  of  rock 
on  which  Fort  Nicholas  is  built,  and 
was  speedily  put  into  operation,  great 
trains  of  vehicles  moving  incessantly 
across,  conveying  articles,  apparently 
of  furniture,  to  the  north  shore.  We 
had  looked  attentively  for  the  comple- 
tion of  this  bridge — rumour  said  that, 
as  soon  as  large  bodies  of  troops  should 
be  enabled  to  move  across  with  ease 
and  celerity,  a  simultaneous  attack 
would  be  made  from  the  town,  and  by 
the  army  on  the  heights,  the  latter 


aiming  at  Balaklava,  while  the  force 
sallying  from  the  town  would  distract 
our  attention,  and,  if  successful,  effect 
a  junction  with  their  comrades  across 
the  plateau.  This  comprehensive 
scheme  was  perhaps  the  same  that 
had  been  so  early  blighted  in  the  at- 
tack of  the  16th,  when  the  sanguine 
expectations  of  our  opponents  met 
with  something  the  same  fate  as  those 
of  Alnaschar,  the  barber's  brother, 
who  saw  his  way  clearly,  by  succes- 
sive steps,  to  the  post  of  Grand  Vizier 
and  son-in-law  to  the  caliph,  till  he 
was  roused  from  his  dreams  by  the 
shattering  of  the  basket  of  glass  which 
was  to  be  the  foundation  of  his  for- 
tunes. On  that  memorable  occasion 
Pelissier  might  truly  have  remarked 
to  Gortchakoff,  "  C'est  le  premier 
pas  qui  coute."  However,  the  belief 
remained  strong  that  the  Russian 
army  had  been  reinforced  for  the  spe- 
cial purpose  of  immediately  attacking 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  X. 


519 


us,  that  the  Czar's  orders  so  to  attack 
were  imperative,  and  that  the  condi- 
tion of  the  enemy's  troops,  too  nume- 
rous for  their  supplies,  and  threatened 
with  starvation,  or  a  retreat  in  winter, 
admitted  of  no  alternative,  but  at  once 
to  attack,  or  at  once  to  retire.  Seve- 
ral false  alarms  placed  the  army  under 
arms  at  day-break,  and  on  three  or 
four  occasions  the  onset  was  confi- 
dently looked  for  by  the  generals.  On 
the  first  of  these,  staff-officers,  warn- 
ed over- night,  were  ready  to  issue 
forth  before  dawn,  each  with  a  feed  of 
corn  hanging  from  his  horse's  crupper, 
and  biscuit  and  brandy  in  the  leather 
pocket  attached  to  the  saddle,  that 
both  steed  and  rider  might  be  prepar- 
ed for  a  long  day's  work.  Living  a 
little  apart,  I  missed  the  others,  and 
followed  in  the  darkness,  not  knowing 
which  road  they  had  taken,  till,  as  I 
descended  a  hill,  I  saw  on  the  rise 
over  me,  against  the  sky,  the  dark 
shapes  of  the  detachment  of  lancers 
forming  the  commander -in -chief's 
escort,  their  weapons,  with  the  square 
pennons  blown  out  by  the  night  wind, 
giving  them,  in  the  gloom,  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  bannered  towers  of 
a  castle.  As  we  gained  the  verge  of 
the  plateau,  the  first  salmon-coloured 
streak  of  dawn  appeared ;  all  was 
silent,  and  no  light  visible  beyond  the 
sparks,  like  fireflies,  which  marked 
the  clustered  lines  of  French  and  Sar- 
dinians on  the  mounds  of  the  valley ; 
and,  as  day  broke,  the  only  object  in 
front  of  the  allies  was  a  thin  white 
mist  steaming  up  from  the  river ;  but 
no  sign  of  a  foe.  This  was  repeated 
on  several  subsequent  occasions,  but 
— except  the  opportunities  afforded  of 
studying  different  specimens  of  sun- 
rise— without  any  notable  result. 

On  the  5th  September  the  cannon- 
ade re-commenced,  slowly  and  steadily 
at  first,  on  our  part  and  on  the  part  of 
the  French  before  the  Malakoflf;  but  on 
the  works  before  the  town  with  a 
vigour  greater  and  more  sustained  than 
in  any  previous  fire  from  the  French 
batteries.  At  night  a  frigate  in  the 
harbour  was  set  on  fire  by  a  shell 
from  the  French,  and  burnt  to  the 
water's  edge,  lighting  up  the  whole 
harbour.  On  this  day  the  Eussians 
made  a  reconnoissance  in  force 
(10,000  to  15,000)  at  Tchergoum. 
There  they  could  find  little  to  en- 
courage them  for  another  attack. 


The  French  position,  which  they  failed 
to  take  on  the  16th,  was  now  greatly 
strengthened.  The  tete-du-pont  was 
thickened  and  revetted,  lines  of 
trenches  surrounded  the  bases  and 
summits  of  the  heights ;  on  the  left, 
towards  Inkermann,  a  watercourse 
from  the  Tchernaya  which  fills  a  re- 
servoir had  been  bordered  with  a  para- 
pet. A  battery'  for  guns  had  also 
been  constructed  there,  another  on 
the  middle  of  the  heights,  and  others 
looked  on  the  bridge,  especially  one 
for  12  guns,  in  the  road  leading  down 
to  the  bridge,  which,  as  well  as  the  ap- 
proach from  beyond  the  river,  was 
completely  swept  by  it. 

On  the  6th  the  French  before  the 
town  continued  to  fire  vigorously. 
Sometimes,  after  a  lull  of  an  hour  or 
two,  all  their  batteries  would  suddenly 
open  together,  and  the  volleys  of 
smoke  would  increase  and  mingle  till 
the  whole  ground  presented  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  burning  of  a  hundred 
farm-steads  with  all  their  stacks  and 
barns.  The  Russians  on  these  days, 
and  on  the  7th,  replied  but  feebly. 
On  the  afternoon  of  the  7th  one  of 
the  two-deckers  in  the  harbour  was 
set  on  fire  by  a  shell  from  a  mortar, 
and  burnt  all  night.  This  was  the 
eve  of  the  assault,  the  orders  for  which, 
detailing  the  divisions  of  attack,  were 
issued  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  hour 
fixed  for  noon. 

Thus  it  seemed  as  if  all  the  efforts 
of  Russia  to  raise  the  siege  had  only 
enabled  Jier  to  collect  a  number  of 
military  spectators  at  the  final  struggle 
for  the  prize.  And,  supposing  the 
war  destined  to  continue,  it  would 
have  been  better  for  her  had  Sebasto- 
pol  been  carried  in  1854  by  a  coup-de- 
main.  The  efforts  to  reinforce  the 
garrison,  and  to  maintain  the  army 
outside,  must  have  been  most  ex- 
haustive. Every  man,  every  shot  and 
barrel  of  powder,  and  every  sack  of 
grain  that  reached  Sebastopol,  must 
have  been  transmitted  at  ruinous  cost, 
and  the  maintenance  of  the  garrison 
and  the  army  on  the  heights  must 
have  been  as  expensive  as  that  of  a 
five-fold  force  on  the  frontiers  of  Tur- 
key, Austria,  or  Poland.  The  want 
of  roads  in  Southern  Russia,  from  the 
clayey  nature  of  the  soil,  where  no 
stones,  or  even  pebbles,  are  to  be  met 
with  for  a  hundred  miles  together,  the 
fewness  of  towns,  and  the  sparse  po- 


520 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  X.  [Oct.  1855. 


pulation,  all  render  the  collection  and 
transmission  of  convoys  more  difficult 
to  Russia  than  to  any  country  of 
Europe.  It  is  less  easy  to  create  a 
road  in  a  boggy  steppe  than  to  carry 
one  over  the  Alps.  Hence  the  main- 
tenance of  Sebastopol  was  a  perpetual 
and  debilitating  drain  on  the  resources 
of  Russia,  in  men,  money,  and  material. 
It  has  been  said  that  the  credit  of 
holding  Sebastopol  against  all  the 
efforts  of  the  Allies  must  have  an  im- 
portant effect  on  the  relations  of  Rus- 
sia with  the  Asiatic  powers.  When 
it  is  remembered  that-  Sebastopol, 
never  a  trading  port,  was  inaccessible 
to  the  ships  of  other  nations,  and  that 
it  had  never  made  its  influence  actu- 
ally felt  as  dominant  in  the  Black 
Sea,  the  political  importance  of  its 
defence  seems  much  overrated ;  and 
after  the  Sea  of  Azoff  was  occupied  by 
the  Allies,  and  Anapa  abandoned,  the 
small  portion  of  prestige  yet  remain- 
ing to  Russia,  in  the  possession  of 
Sebastopol,  seems  scarcely  worth  the 
ruinous  efforts  made  to  maintain  it. 
More,  if  the  object  of  France  and 
England  were  to  exhaust  as  speedily 
as  possible  the  defensive  resources  of 
Russia,  and  to  protract  the  war  till 
their  enemy  should  be  shorn  of  his 
vast  military  powers,  it  would  even 
have  been  wise  policy  (but  for  the 
impatience  for  results  manifested  by 
the  two  nations)  to  delay  the  assault 
of  the  town,  secure  that  it  must  even- 
tually be  theirs,  and  that  every  sup- 
ply sent  to  the  garrison  was  another 
jet  of  life-blood  from  the  arteries  of 
Russia.  In  continuing  to  hold  Sebas- 
topol, hers  was  the  policy  of  the 
speculator  who,  living  beyond  his 
means,  will  not  retrench  lest  the 
world  should  suspect  him  of  insol- 
vency. To  maintain  a  province  which 
(except  through  some  unforeseen  poli- 
tical chance)  it  is  beyond  her  power  to 
preserve,  she  squanders  the  resources 
which,  rightly  applied,  would  render 
her  empire  elsewhere  unassailable. 
If  the  Czar  were  able  to  say  "  attack 
the  Crimea  if  you  will— I  acknow- 
ledge it  to  be  my  vulnerable  point — 
but  in  that  case  I  will  retaliate  on 
your  weak  points,"  there  might  be 
CAMP  BEFORE  SEBASTOPOL,  Sept.  7. 


good  argument  for  defending  it  to  the 
last,  while  aiming  at  the  joints  of  his 
adversary's  armour.  But  the  terri- 
tories of  England  and  France  are  be- 
yond menace ;  and,  meantime,  the 
vitality  of  the  Russian  Achilles  is 
frittered  away  by  the  irritation  of  the 
incurable  and  poisoned  wound  in  the 
vulnerable  heel,  when  timely  excision 
would  have  left  the  vast  frame,  though 
maimed,  yet  potent  for  defence. 

For  the  sake  of  all  the  powers  en- 
gaged, and  of  the  world,  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that,  whenever  Sebastopol  falls, 
Russia  will  see  the  necessity  of  con- 
cluding peace.  But  if  glory  be  worth 
fighting  for,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  de- 
sired that  the  war  should  soon  ter- 
minate, while  the  idea  of  England's 
military  deficiencies,  so  strongly  im- 
pressed of  late  on  the  mind  of  Europe, 
is  yet  undispelled  by  an  adequate  ex- 
hibition of  her  real  power.  Through 
the  clouds  of  gossip,  twaddle,  lamen- 
tation, and  foreboding,  which  form 
part  of  the  conditions  of  our  national 
existence,  the  fact  will  at  length  be- 
come lustrously  apparent,  that  the 
nation  which  forty  years  ago  found 
itself,  at  the  termination  of  a  long 
war,  not  only  unrivalled  by  sea,  but 
possessed  of  as  complete  and  formi- 
dable an  army  as  any  country  of 
Europe,  has,  since  then,  with  her 
advances  in  wealth,  science,  and  the 
arts  of  peace,  grown  also  in  military 
resources  in  greater  proportion  than 
her  neighbours.  With  each  successive 
year  her  preponderance  will  increase 
till,  at  her  full  development,  attained 
not  without  distraction,  sacrifice,  and 
internal  disquietude,  she  shall  wield 
a  power  capable  of  stilling  the  world's 
convulsions,  and  of  securing  for  her- 
self at  once  pre-eminence  and  peace. 
Then  she  will,  as  before,  trust  only  to 
her  splendid  reputation,  till  the  trum- 
pet will  again  startle  her  amid  her 
bales  and  machinery,  and  she  will  find 
her  arms  rusted,  her  sinews  relaxed, 
and  her  great  name  endangered  by  the 
feebleness  with  which  her  first  blows 
are  delivered ;  and  she  will  be  more 
fortunate  than  she  deserves,  if  her 
latent  strength  can  yet  be  called  forth 
in  time  to  redeem  her  reputation. 


Printed  by  William  Blackwood  $  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH     MAGAZINE 


No.  CCCCLXXXI.  NOVEMBER,  1855. 


VOL.  LXXVIII. 


THE   EASTERN   SHORES   OF   THE   BLACK   SEA. 


THOSE  only  who  know  what  it  is, 
night  after  night,  to  court  sleep  in  de- 
fiance of  the  thundering  of  a  hundred 
cannon — to  be  ever  conscious,  in  their 
dreams  of  home,  of  the  incessant 
whistle  of  shot  and  shell — and  to 
be  generally  roused  from  a  rickety 
stretcher  by  the  explosion  of  a  mine, 
can  fully  appreciate  the  comfort  of  a 
quiet  cabin  far  removed  from  these 
disturbing  influences,  where  the  shrill 
pipe  of  the  boatswain,  or  the  morning 
sun  gleaming  in  at  the  port-hole,  re- 
mind him  that  another  day  of  doke 
far  niente  has  dawned.  It  was  upon 
a  lovely  morning  in  September  last, 
and  only  a  week  prior  to  that  great 
event  the  news  of  which  is  still  echo- 
ing through  the  world,  that  I  looked 
upon  the  magnificent  range  which 
skirts  the  southern  shores  of  the 
Crimea,  where  wooded  dells  wind 
among  the  mountains,  and  vines  and 
olives  clothe  its  slopes,  and  white 
chateaus  gleam  from  out  the  dark 
foliage  of  the  overshadowing  horse- 
chestnut,  and,  towering  over  all,  the 
Tchatir  Dagh  abruptly  rises  and 
throws  its  sombre  shade  over  the 
sunny  landscape.  Rounding  Cape 
Takli,  whose  friendly  beacon  no 
longer  exists  to  guide  the  benighted 
mariner,  we  soon  after  drop  anchor 
beneath  the  newly- constructed  fortifi- 
cations of  St  Paul,  where  the  British 
flag  would  indicate  that  the  white 
tents  which  crown  the  hill  are  those  of 
our  own  soldiers,  even  were  the  tartan 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXI. 


trews  of  a  Highland  regiment  not  so 
clearly  discernible.  But  when  we  land 
and  inspect  the  fort,  we  find  ourselves 
surrounded  as  well  by  Turks  and 
French,  who  here  occupy  such  a  posi- 
tion as  to  render  any  hostile  move- 
ment, except  with  a  larger  body  of 
troops  than  the  Russians  can  now 
spare,  unavailing. 

It  is  about  two  miles  across  a  gently 
undulating  steppe  from  here  to  Kertch, 
the  well-built  mansions  of  which,  from 
this  distance,  look  as  handsome  and 
substantial  as  though  it  were  still  a 
flourishing  mercantile  emporium.  As 
we  enter,  however,  the  delusion  rapid- 
ly vanishes,  and  it  was  painful  to  wit- 
ness a  ruin  and  desolation  so  universal. 
Three  years  ago  I  had  walked  along 
the  quay  in  the  midst  of  a  throng  of 
gay  promenaders.  Fashionable  ladies, 
escorted  by  well-dressed  beaux,  stroll- 
ed by  the  water-side,  or  lingered  round 
the  baud  which  played  in  the  garden 
opposite  the  governor's  house,  for  it 
was  a  Sunday  afternoon  in  autumn, 
and  all  the  world  was  enjoying  the 
delicious  air,  which  at  this  time  of 
year  renders  the  Crimean  climate  so 
particularly  delightful.  Then  the 
market-place  was  full  of  bustle  and 
activity ;  camel-carts  and  Tartar  wag- 
gons, with  scraggy  ponies,  crowded 
the  streets ;  and  Russian  officials  stalk- 
ed pompously  about,  with  that  digni- 
fied air  which  increases  in  intensity, 
by  geometrical  progression,  until  it 
reaches  the  ninety-seventh  clerk  in 
2  M 


522 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


[Nov. 


the  police-office.  Now  how  changed 
was  the  aspect  of  affairs  !  A  couple 
of  regiments  of  slouching  Turks,  pre- 
ceded by  the  most  villanous  of  music, 
tramped  over  the  flagstones,  shattered 
and  displaced  by  recent  explosions ; — 
lively  Frenchmen  were  bargaining 
for  water  -  melons  with  blear  -  eyed 
Tartars,  or  fishing  for  diminutive  dol- 
phin-shaped fish  with  improvised  fish- 
ing -  tackle  ;— British  sentinels  were 
keeping  guard  with  measured  tread 
over  dilapidated  mansions,  and  the 
shrill  tones  of  the  bagpipe  echoed 
through  deserted  halls ;  every  house 
was  unroofed,  every  window  encircled 
by  a  frame  of  charred  wood ;  piles  of 
rubbish  blocked  up  the  doorways; 
along  the  whole  length  of  the  princi- 
pal street  there  was  scarcely  a  habit- 
able mansion  left — scarcely  a  soul 
loitering  under  the  shadow  of  the 
ruined  walls.  We  toiled  up  the  steep 
hill  of  Mithridates,  and  entered  the 
museum.  Here  the  destruction  was 
even  more  universal  than  in  the  town, 
and  the  remains  of  works  of  ancient 
art,  which  had  bravely  borne  the  ra- 
vages of  time,  lay  mutilated  and  de- 
stroyed by  the  barbarous  hands  of 
French  and  Turkish  soldiers.  Rank 
weeds  were  springing  up  in  humid 
corners,  creeping  along  the  ground, 
over  prostrate  figures,  fragments  of 
antique  vases,  or  blocks  of  marble 
covered  with  inscriptions ;  but  so  com- 
pletely had  the  work  of  destruction 
been  effected  that  I  could  find  nothing 
among  the  debris  worth  preserving. 
There  was  nothing  left  but  the  view ; 
that  was  always  interesting,  but  now 
how  changed  in  its  character!  We 
overlooked  the  roofless  houses  and 
crumbling  walls  of  the  town,  the 
sunken  ships  in  the  bay,  the  grassy 
steppe  beyond,  and,  shutting  in  the 
prospect,  the  heights  of  Yenikale 
crowned  with  the  fortifications  of  the 
Allies. 

Under  what  widely  different  cir- 
cumstances did  I  now  enter  almost 
the  only  entire  house  which  still  ex- 
ists, and  find  myself  seated  at  break- 
fast with  a  number  of  officers  whom 
I  had  last  seen  at  a  Canadian  pic-nic, 
and  in  the  very  room  too  in  which  I 
had  formerly  been  hospitably  enter- 
tained by  our  late  vice-consul.  Then, 
looking  over  the  harbour  full  of  ship- 
ping, our  conversation  was  of  trade; 


now,  we  watched  a  footsore  regiment 
march  down  the  street  on  their  return 
from  a  razzia,  and  talked  of  war. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  present 
condition  of  Kertch  tempting  enough 
to  induce  us  to  prolong  our  stay,  and 
I  was  glad  to  shake  off  those  feelings 
of  melancholy  which  such  scenes  as  I 
had  witnessed  could  not  fail  to  pro- 
duce, on  board  the  smart  little  gun- 
boat in  which  we  ran  up  the  Cim- 
merian Bosphorus  to  Yenikale.  Here 
the  old  Tartar  town,  always  too  dila- 
pidated to  suffer  very  much  from  the 
most  strongly  developed  destructive 
tendencies,  looked  very  little  changed 
from  the  time  when  I  last  rumbled  along 
its  single  street  in  a  Tartar  waggon. 
There  were  not  so  many  Tartars  to  be 
seen,  and  all  the  women  had  disap- 
peared. There  was  the  same  variety 
in  a  military  point  of  view  which  we 
had  seen  at  Kertch,  the  same  style  of 
fortification  which  we  had  inspected 
at  St  Paul,  but  more  substantial  in  its 
character,  and  the  fortress  seemed  as 
well  qualified  to  stand  a  siege  as  that 
of  Sebastopol  itself.  The  evening 
found  us  again  under  way,  and  at 
d  ay  ligh  t  next  mornin  g  I  looked  through 
the  port-hole  of  my  cabin  upon  the 
walls  of  Anapa.  There  was  nothing 
very  inviting  in  its  aspect  from  the 
seaward.  The  fort  is  built  upon  a 
curved  promontory,  which  forms  an 
insecure  bay,  and  which  presents  a 
precipitous  cliff  upwards  of  fifty  feet 
in  height.  The  fortifications,  which 
run  along  the  summit  of  this  cliff,  are 
breached  here  and  there  by  the  ex- 
plosions of  the  Russian  mines,  which 
were  fired  by  themselves  before  evacu- 
ating the  place.  To  the  left  extends 
a  wide  plain,  watered  by  a  sluggish 
stream,  upon  which,  some  miles  from 
its  mouth,  are  situated  two  Cossack 
villages,  now  deserted.  A  range  of 
sand-hills,  covered  with  scrub,  about 
five  hundred  feet  in  height,  forms  the 
background.  We  were  received  at 
the  little  pier  by  a  number  of  Circas- 
sians, whose  appearance  is  well  calcu- 
lated to  impress  a  stranger  for  the  first 
time  visiting  their  country.  Their 
fur- caps,  as  tall  as  those  of  a  grena- 
dier, surmount  swarthy,  sun-dried,  but 
not  irregular  features ;  there  is  a  fire 
in  the  eye  and  a  compression  of  the 
lip,  which  marks  that  courage  and  re- 
solution which  they  have  so  univer- 


1855.] 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


523 


sally  displayed  in  their  prolonged  con- 
tests with  the  Russians.  Their  long 
coats,  open  at  the  breast,  reach  to  the 
knee,  and  are  confined  at  the  waist  by 
a  leather  girdle.  A  shirt  covers  the 
breast,  and  is  closely  fastened  round 
the  neck.  Eight  or  ten  ivory  tubes, 
containing  powder,  are  ranged  upon 
each  lappet  of  the  coat,  and  form  the 
most  striking  feature  in  the  costume. 
A  plenitude  of  knives  and  pistols 
garnish  the  waist-belt.  A  short  sword 
depends  from  the  left  side,  and  a  rifle, 
covered  with  a  sort  of  felt,  swings  at 
their  back,  and  completes  their  war- 
like accoutrements.  Red  or  yellow 
trousers  are  enclosed  below  the  knee 
by  a  particoloured  gaiter  and  a  red 
slipper,  fitting  closer  than  the  Indian 
moccasin,  makes  the  most  perfect 
chaussure  I  ever  remember  to  have 
seen.  The  picturesque  effect  of  this 
costume  is  enhanced  by  a  most  inde- 
pendent bearing,  and  an  insouciance 
and  self-confidence  which  suggest  that 
they  probably  understand  the  use  of  the 
weapons  with  which  they  are  so  abun- 
dantly supplied.  When  we  had  scram- 
bled over  a  quantity  of  debris  through 
the  breach  in  the  walls,  we  found  our- 
selves in  the  principal  street  of  the 
place.  It  was,  however,  even  in  a 
more  ruinous  condition  than  those  we 
had  seen  at  Kertch,  for  the  agents 
had  been,  not  the  besiegers,  but  the 
besieged.  If  Turks  are  unsparing  in 
the  work  of  demolition,  the  Russians 
themselves  understand  still  better 
the  art  of  rendering  every  dwelling- 
house  untenable,  and  every  gun  unser- 
viceable, and  they  can  hardly  com- 
plain of  the  devastation  caused  by 
their  enemies,  when  they  themselves 
set  them  so  brilliant  an  example. 

Mounted  Circassians,  on  wiry  little 
ponies,  were  galloping  in  every  direc- 
tion. Their  saddles  are  high  and  nar- 
row ;  their  stirrups  so  short,  as  to 
throw  the  knee  almost  at  right  angles 
to  the  horse.  They  seem  at  home 
only  on  horseback,  and  congregated  in 
knots  at  the  corners  of  the  streets,  or 
dismounted  to  ransack,  in  the  hope  of 
finding  more  spoil,  some  house  which 
had  already  been  thoroughly  gutted. 
They  watched  us  with  no  Mttle  curio- 
sity as  we  walked  up  to  a  habitation 
which  Sefer  Pasha  had  put  in  decent 
repair,  and  where,  seated  on  a  high 
sofa  smoking  his  chibouk,  we  found 


him  holding  his  court.  The  anteroom 
was  filled  with  Circassian  nobles  of 
the  highest  grade,  who  saluted  us  as 
we  passed,  and  then  crowded  round 
the  doorway  to  watch  proceedings. 
These  consisted  in  pipes,  coffee,  and 
conversation,  the  result  of  which  did 
not  give  us  a  very  favourable  impres- 
sion of  the  representative  of  the 
Sublime  Porte  in  these  regions.  Sefer 
Pasha  is  a  Circassian  by  birth,  but 
he  has  been  in  Turkish  employ  long 
enough  to  have  acquired  a  taste  for 
political  intrigue,  and  the  art  of  re- 
plenishing his  purse  and  gratifying  his 
private  schemes  of  ambition  at  the 
expense  of  those  whom  he  thinks  he 
has  a  right  to  subject  to  such  treat- 
ment. The  Circassians  as  yet  are  too 
unsophisticated  to  have  discovered 
this ;  and,  carried  away  by  religious 
zeal,  they  look  with  respect  and  af- 
fection upon  the  envoy  of  the  Sultan. 
They  do  not  conceive  it  possible  that 
the  head  of  their  religion  could  be  a 
party  to  any  tampering  with  their 
civil  liberty ;  and  until  that  conviction 
dawns  upon  them,  Ottoman  influence 
will  be  predominant.  Meantime  un- 
scrupulous Turkish  agents,  dotted 
along  the  coast,  already  begin  to  per- 
ceive that  it  is  their  interest  to  de- 
preciate Europeans,  who  would  not 
tolerate  their  iniquities,  and  to  mis- 
lead this  ignorant  people  as  to  our 
real  designs  with  respect  to  their 
country.  They  are  in  consequence 
changing  sensibly  in  their  demeanour 
towards  us.  Instead  of  hailing  us  as 
allies  as  formerly,  they  look  with 
coldness  and  suspicion  upon  our  ad- 
vances, and  protest  that  they  only 
wish  to  be  left  alone.  They  say,  with 
some  justice,  that  they  know  very 
little  about  us.  And  considering  how 
little  trouble  we  have  taken  either  to 
acquire  information  about  them,  or  to 
impart  any,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  if  they  deem  us  somewhat  luke- 
warm in  the  cause  we  pretend  to 
have  so  much  at  heart.  Had  we 
never  allowed  a  Turkish  authority 
to  set  foot  in  a  country  to  which 
they  have  no  manner  of  claim,  and 
dealt,  by  means  of  suitable  agents, 
directly  with  the  people  themselves, 
or  assisted  them  with  troops,  we 
should  now  have  the  whole  country 
arrayed  upon  our  side.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  before  long  such  an 


524 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


[Nov. 


alliance  will  be  of  the  highest  possible 
importance  to  us.  We  have  yet  time 
to  recall  the  Turks  who  are  now  do- 
ing so  much  mischief.  If  we  could 
direct  in  a  proper  channel  the  influ- 
ence they  wield,  it  would  be  invalu- 
able ;  but  as  no  honest  Turkish  official 
can  be  found,  that  is  an  impossible 
contingency.  It  therefore  becomes  us 
to  choose  whether  we  shall  attempt  to 
cope  with  intriguing  pashas,  and  by 
bribery  or  any  other  inducement  per- 
suade them  to  use  their  power  for  the 
public  good;  or  whether,  dispensing 
with  such  an  unsatisfactory  medium, 
we  had  not  better  find  another,  either 
through  the  nobles  themselves  in 
those  parts  of  the  country  where  they 
still  have  influence,  or  in  those  parts 
where  their  prestige  is  lost,  by  hold- 
ing out  to  the  people  themselves  such 
advantages,  political  or  pecuniary,  as 
should  induce  them  to  co-operate 
with  us  cordially  in  the  event  of 
future  military  operations  in  their 
direction.  While,  however,  discussing 
the  question  of  individual  influence  in 
Circassia,  it  would  scarcely  be  fair  to 
-overlook  the  only  man  who  has  ever 
really  effected  a  great  social  revolu- 
tion in  the  country,  and  for  the  first 
time  induced  the  inhabitants  to  or- 
ganise themselves  definitely  for  the 
defence  of  their  country.  The  Naib 
or  lieutenant  of  Schamyl  is  indeed  a 
scarcely  less  remarkable  man  than 
the  great  warrior  himself.  Arriving 
as  a  mere  traveller  in  the  country,  he 
went  about  administering  to  the  Cir- 
cassians an  oath  pledging  them  to 
eternal  war  with  Russia,  and  levying 
fines  upon  those  who  either  would  not 
join  the  compact,  or  who,  having 
joined  it,  failed  to  preserve  their 
fidelity.  By  these  means  he  soon 
acquired  a  paramount  influence  over 
a  great  portion  of  Circassia,  not, 
however,  without  causing  consider- 
able apprehension  to  the  usdens,  or 
nobles,  who  perceived  that  their  im- 
portance was  diminished  in  propor- 
tion as  that  of  the  interloper  in- 
creased. It  would  scarcely  be  politic 
at  this  juncture  to  enter  more  minute- 
ly into  the  present  state  of  that  part 
over  which  his  influence  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent  still  prevails,  or  to  dis- 
cuss the  question  of  whether  it  can  or 
cannot  be  turned  to  account  by  the 
Allied  Powers.  There  can  be  no 


doubt  of  the  necessity  of  entertaining 
these  points  ;  and  though  the  subject 
is  one  involved  in  great  difficulty,  its 
importance  is  such  as  to  render  it 
highly  desirable  that  Government 
should  lose  no  time  in  adopting  a 
definite  policy,  and  in  pursuing  it 
with  vigour,  which  may  insure  to  it 
a  successful  and  satisfactory  result. 

Although  the  ignorance  of  the  British 
public  has  been  such  as  to  lead  them 
to  depreciate  in  a  great  measure  the 
value  of  the  Circassian  element  in  the 
question  which  is  now  absorbing  their 
attention,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that,  before 
this,  its  importance  has  been  recog- 
nised ;  and  it  will  therefore  be  unne- 
cessary to  enter  upon  it  now.  The 
people  themselves  would  prove  hearty 
and  cordial  allies ;  and  it  is  only  to  be 
wondered  at,  that,  while  we  have 
given  ourselves  so  much  trouble,  and 
degraded  ourselves  so  unnecessarily 
in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  by  our  attempts 
to  enlist  in  our  cause  Powers  who 
have  no  sympathy  with  it,  and  are 
under  no  circumstances  to  be  trusted, 
we  have  not  taken  advantage  of  the 
co-operation  of  a  hardy  and  indepen- 
dent race,  from  whom  we  could  gain 
assistance  which  would  be  far  more 
valuable,  and  with  whom  we  could  form 
an  alliance  which  would  be  far  more 
honourable  than  with  Germ  an  despots. 

Our  visit  to  Sefer  Pasha  having 
terminated,  we  strolled  round  the  for- 
tifications of  Anapa,  and  were  struck 
with  the  pertinacity  with  which  the 
Russians  had  destroyed  everything 
connected  with  the  means  of  defence. 
With  one  or  two  exceptions,  the 
trunnions  had  been  knocked  off  every 
gun,  the  platforms  burnt,  and  here 
and  there  the  fortifications  levelled. 
From  one  point  we  had  an  extensive 
view  over  the  plain,  and  could  discern 
parties  of  mounted  Circassians  emerg- 
ing here  and  there  from  clouds  of 
dust,  or  driving  cattle  towards  the 
town.  The  houses  in  Anapa  are  all 
isolated,  and  have  been  dotted  about 
without  much  attempt  at  regularity. 
The  hospital  has  been  a  handsome 
building ;  it  is  now  roofless,  and  part- 
ly demolished.  The  church,  however, 
with  its  green  roof  and  belfry  (from 
which  the  bell  has  been  abstracted),  is 
in  good  repair,  and  is  converted  into 
a  Mahommedan  mosque.  We  entered 
a  house  which  had  evidently  been  the 


1855.] 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


police-office,  and  waded  about,  knee 
deep  in  Russian  documents,  with  two 
or  three  Circassians,  who  seemed  to 
take  a  great  interest  in  our  proceed- 
ings. We  tried  to  learn  from  them  a 
few  words  of  their  language  ;  but  the 
sounds  were  so  hopeless,  that,  after  a 
good  deal  of  sneezing  and  coughing, 
as  the  nearest  approaches  we  could 
make  to  them,  we  abandoned  the  at- 
tempt in  despair. 

I  was  struck  with  an  episode  which 
occurred  while  walking  about  the 
town,  as  being,  under  existing  circum- 
stances, fraught  with  a  peculiar  signi- 
ficance. A  handsome  old  Circassian, 
followed  by  his  squire  or  page,  was 
standing  looking  at  a  collection  of 
cannon-balls  and  ammunition,  when 
a  slouching  Turk,  who  happened 
to  be  passing,  but  did  not  profess 
to  be  a  sentry,  told  him  peremp- 
torily to  move  on.  Upon  the  Circas- 
sian either  not  hearing  or  not  choos- 
ing to  pay  attention  to  this  command, 
the  Turk,  with  a  most  insulting  ex- 
pression, threw  a  large  fragment  of 
wood  at  the  page,  which  struck  the 
horse.  His  master  took  the  hint, 
and  moved  on  without  uttering  a  syl- 
lable of  remonstrance.  Had  this  in- 
cident occurred  outside  the  walls,  it 
is  probable  that  it  would  have  termi- 
nated in  a  somewhat  different  man- 
ner. In  the  two  provinces  which 
form  the  north-west  angle  of  Circas- 
sia,  of  one  of  which  (Natquoitch) 
Anapa  may  be  considered  the  ca- 
pital, the  old  feudal  system  has  al- 
most disappeared,  while  in  the  pro- 
vinces upon  the  Kuban  it  is  still  in 
force.  The  wily  policy  of  concilia- 
tion, by  wholesale  bribery,  pursued  by 
Russia,  resulted  in  the  defection  of 
many  of  the  nobles  in  these  two  pro- 
vinces, which  were  at  the  same  time 
chiefly  exposed  to  the  depredations 
of  her  troops  ;  and  as  one  by  one 
these  men  temporised  with  Russia, 
they  lost  their  hold  upon  the  mass  of 
the  people,  whose  animosity  against 
their  common  enemy  remained  in  full 
force,  and  who  did  not  derive  the 
same  advantages  from  an  alliance 
with  her  as  their  more  wealthy  mas- 
ters. The  difference  in  the  social 
condition  of  this  part  of  Circassia 
from  that  of  the  interior  and  the  pro- 
vinces farther  east,  is  the  cause  of 
one  of  the  greatest  difficulties  with 


525 

which  the  western  diplomatist  has  to 
contend.  Those  influences  which  are 
in  the  one  case  mainly  to  be  depended 
upon,  do  not  exist  at  all  in  the  other, 
and  there  is  consequently  an  estrange- 
ment between  the  tribes  whose 
relative  position  has  thus  become 
changed. 

It  is  only  a  few  hours'  run  from 
Anapa  to  Stidjak  Kaleh.  The  dis- 
tance by  land  is  only  twenty-three 
miles.  A  long  promontory,  while  it 
renders  the  distance  considerably 
more  by  sea,  forms  one  shore  of  the 
deep  bay,  at  the  end  of  which  the 
town  is  situated. 

From  its  handsome  appearance  I 
could  hardly  believe  that  we  should 
find,  upon  landing,  the  same  scenes  of 
devastation  ;  but  it  was  complete  here 
as  elsewhere :  there  were  only  two 
habitable  houses  left  in  the  place.  The 
ruins  were  so  entirely  overgrown  iu 
places,  that  one  might  have  sup- 
posed many  years  to  have  elapsed 
since  their  destruction.  At  least  a 
hundred  mounted  Circassians  were 
collected  in  a  shady  angle  of  the  ruined 
street  as  we  approached,  and  greeted 
us  in  a  hesitating  manner,  as  though 
they  were  uncertain  which  party  were 
the  greatest  intruders.  They  seemed 
to  love  to  linger  near  the  monuments 
of  a  power  now  annihilated ;  and  it  is 
easy  to  understand  the  satisfaction 
with  which  they  tread  under  foot  these 
memorials  of  the  former  invaders 
of  their  country.  With  what  glee 
they  scamper  on  their  wiry  ponies 
down  the  green  hill-sides  which  they 
used  once  to  cultivate,  but  which  have 
been  left  untouched  and  unfruitful  for 
many  a  long  year.  How  merrily  they 
journey  along  the  sea-shore,  no  longer 
obliged  to  skulk  down  to  it  between 
forts,  which  prevented  all  intercourse 
with  strangers  except  at  a  great  risk  ;„ 
how  they  revel  in  their  freedom — glory 
in  dashing  along  roads  made  for  Rus- 
sian artillery,  in  climbing  up  walls 
over  which  Russian  flags  once  waved, 
and  inhabiting  (where  they  exist) 
houses  built  for  Russian  soldiers.  We 
heard  them  shouting  and  firing  off 
their  guns  as  they  galloped  in  triumph 
about  the  deserted  squares,  thus  giv- 
ing vent  to  the  exuberance  of  their 
spirits  upon  again  finding  themselves 
in  quiet  possession  of  their  own  pro- 
perty. Some  of  the  chiefs  whom  wo 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


[Nov. 


saw  here  bad  just  arrived  from  the 
interior,  on  their  way  to  Mustapha 
Pasha,  at  Batoum,  to  pay  a  visit  of 
ceremony  and  homage  to  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Padisha  in  these  parts. 
Upon  the  hill  to  the  left  of  the  town 
stands  a  handsome  Greek  church, 
paved  with  marble,  where  the  Rus- 
sians had  taken  the  trouble  to  smash 
every  slab.  From  the  belfry  an  ex- 
tensive view  is  obtained  up  the  valley, 
from  which  a  small  stream  debouches 
into  the  harbour.  Along  the  banks  of 
this  stream  the  vegetation  is  very 
luxuriant,  but  the  hills  which  enclose 
it  are  generally  barren,  covered  here 
and  there  with  scrub,  but  nowhere 
attaining  an  elevation  of  more  than 
a  thousand  feet.  Over  a  depression  in 
the  range,  a  military  road  has  been 
constructed  by  the  Russians,  leading 
to  the  Kuban.  It  ascends  by  a  suc- 
cession of  zigzags  up  the  steep  side  of 
the  hills,  and,  winding  down  the  more 
gentle  slopes  to  the  north,  extends  for 
about  forty  miles  to  the  Russian  fron- 
tier. We  had  intended  following  this 
road  as  far  as  possible,  and  then  turn- 
ing to  the  east ;  but  the  jealousy  of  the 
Turks  of  European  influence  or  inter- 
ference is  so  great,  that  they  succeeded 
in  throwing  obstacles  in  the  way,  which 
we  did  not  at  the  time  think  it  politic 
to  attempt  to  surmount.  We  there- 
fore re-embarked,  in  time  to  reach 
Ghelendjik  before  evening.  The  sun 
was  just  setting  as  we  entered  the 
landlocked  little  harbour,  overhung  by 
lofty  hills,  on  which  the  setting  sun 
shed  purple  hues,  while  the  white 
houses  of  the  fort  contrasted  strongly 
with  the  dark  green  of  the  trees 
amongst  which  they  were  buried. 
Ghelendjik  is  about  fifteen  miles  from 
Sudjak,  and,  from  its  safe  harbour, 
was  considered  by  the  Russians  a 
place  of  some  importance.  There  was 
nothing,  however,  to  detain  us  at  this 
deserted  little  fort ;  and  so,  after  we 
had  sufficiently  admired  the  beauty  of 
its  position,  we  pursued  our  voyage, 
and  found  ourselves  anchored  at  day- 
light off  the  Russian  port  of  Weljam- 
inoffsk  ;  or,  in  the  Circassian  tongue, 
Tuapse.  Here  for  the  first  time  Cir- 
cassian scenery  in  all  its  beauty  burst 
nponus.  The  hills  swelled  into  moun- 
tains, and  were  wooded  to  the  summit, 
dotted  with  fields  of  yellow  corn  ready 
for  the  sickle,  or  cultivation  of  a  bright 


green.  Narrow  valleys  lying  in  deep 
shade  intersected  the  mountains,  down 
the  sides  of  which  danced  sparkling 
streams,  meeting  a  little  river,  which, 
falling  sluggishly  into  the  sea,  watered 
a  fertile  plain.  Upon  the  summit  of  ahill 
that  rose  from  this,  appeared  the  white 
walls  of  a  little  fort,  and  over  them 
waved  lofty  poplars.  Behind  them  a 
wretched  regiment  of  Cossacks  was 
formerly  ensconced,  surrounded  by  a 
hostile  population.  They  were  com- 
pletely imprisoned,  and  the  confine- 
ment must  have  been  doubly  irksome 
in  the  centre  of  a  country  affording  so 
many  attractions.  We  were  welcomed 
here  by  a  magnificent  fellow,  who, 
springing  lightly  from  his  horse,  made 
us  a  respectful  but  by  no  means  servile 
obeisance,  and  professed  himself  ready 
to  do  the  honours  of  his  country. 
Notwithstanding  the  native  grace  and 
dignity  of  his  manner,  he  was  a  tho- 
rough savage,  and,  to  one  accustomed 
only  to  consider  barbarians  as  belong- 
ing to  a  totally  different  race  from  our- 
selves, it  was  somewhat  startling  to 
find  in  the  expansive  forehead,  the 
light  blue  eye,  and  sandy  hair,  the 
transparent  complexion,  and  exqui- 
sitely chiselled  features  of  the  Circas- 
sian chief,  so  perfect  a  type  of  a 
handsome  Anglo-Saxon.  We  were 
soon  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  pic- 
turesquely attired  wild-looking  hill- 
men,  all  armed  to  the  teeth,  and  some 
of  them  expensively  dressed.  They 
were  occupying  a  few  cottages  upon 
the  sea-shore,  formerly  inhabited  by 
Russians,  and  told  us  that  a  good  road 
led  through  the  mountains  in  twenty 
hours  to  the  Kuban.  It  was  with 
some  reluctance  that,  in  spite  of  this 
intelligence,  we  found  ourselves  obliged 
to  bid  them  adieu,  and  to  leave  the 
wondering  group  to  watch  our  rapid 
return  to  the  puffing  monster  which 
was  to  convey  us  upon  our  southward 
course.  As  we  continued  coasting 
along  the  Circassian  shore,  the  moun- 
tains became  higher,  the  scenery 
grander ;  every  mile  disclosed  some 
new  beauty,  and  stimulated  my  desire 
to  penetrate  a  country  hitherto  so 
little  known,  and  affording  so  tempt- 
ing a  field  for  exploration.  I  consoled 
myself,  however,  by  hoping  that  the 
day  was  not  far  distant  when  I  should 
be  clambering  over  the  mountain-tops 
I  now  saw  towering  in  the  dim  distance. 


1855.] 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


527 


Souchoum  Kaleh  has   always   been 
considered  one  of  the  most  important 
places  upon  the  coast  of  Circassia, 
and  the  Russians  used  to  maintain 
here  a  large   garrison.      Its  aspect 
from  the  sea  is  charming ;  and  it  was 
refreshing  to  find,  upon  landing,  that 
it  was  in  a  better  state  of  preserva- 
tion than  the  towns  we  had  hitherto 
visited,  and  could  actually  boast  of  a 
resident    population.       The    French 
consul  inhabited  a  substantial-looking 
mansion  upon  the  sea- coast.   A  street 
of  Turkish  houses  leading  along  the 
shore  terminated  in  an  avenue  of  pop- 
lars, at  the  end  of  which  the  pic- 
turesque walls  of  an  old  Turkish  fort 
enclosed  a  number  of  rusty  dismounted 
guns,   tattered  and   ill- fed  soldiers, 
tumble- down  barracks,  and  more  pop- 
lars.   Bekchit  Pasha,  an  emasculated- 
Ipoking  specimen  of  Turkish  nobility, 
lived  in  a  well-built  house,  which  had 
formerly  belonged  to  some  thriving 
Russian  merchant.    We  paid  him  a 
visit,  and  found  him  shivering  from 
the  effects  of  fever  in  a  confined  and 
by  no  means  agreeable  atmosphere. 
However,  he  was  civil  enough  to  sup- 
ply us   with  four  very  good   nags, 
which  we  mounted  in  order  to  explore 
a  little  of  the  neighbourhood.    The 
town  itself  is  built  upon  a  swamp, 
surrounded  by  swelling  hills  clothed 
with  the  richest  verdure.      Always 
unhealthy,  its  climate  is  by  no  means 
improved  by  the  neglect  of  the  Turks, 
who  allow  the  drains  to  stop  up  and 
collect  masses  of  putrid  vegetation. 
But  to  the  eye  nothing  can  be  more 
enchanting  than  this  deadly  spot.    As 
we  ascended  the  hill  immediately  be- 
hind the   town,   the  views    became 
more  lovely  at  every  turn.    The  posi- 
tion of  the  hospitals,  which  are  now 
deserted,   is  well  chosen  ;    but  the 
Turkish  officer  commanding  does  not 
find  it  convenient  to  have  his  sick 
men  in  a  healthy  locality  on  the  top 
of  a  hill,  so  he  has  moved  the  hospital 
down  to  the  swamp.   Then  the  houses 
are  dotted  throughout  the  rank  vege- 
tation, almost  buried  in  long  grass 
and  tangled  underwood.     Beyond  is 
the  deep  bay,  with  wooded  hills  rising 
from  its  opposite  shore.     We  rode  on 
by  a  mountain  path  which  the  Rus- 
sians used  as  a  road  to  a  forage  sta- 
tion on  a  hill  a  few  miles  distant. 
Before  us  hill  rose  on  hill,  deep  val- 


leys wound  amongst  the  mountains, 
grassy  swards  clothed  the  slopes,  and 
magnificent  trees  cast  their  broad 
shadows  over  the  delightful  verdure. 
Patches  of  cultivation  here  and  there 
showed  that  the  inhabitants  were 
rapidly  regaining  confidence,  and  ap- 
proaching a  neighbourhood  from  which 
they  had  long  been  excluded.  Far 
above  all  rose  the  heaven- piercing 
summits  of  the  Caucasian  range, 
clothed  in  eternal  snow.  It  was  a 
most  tempting  little  peep  of  the  moun- 
tains ;  but  after  we  had  ridden  about 
three  miles  into  the  interior,  our  com- 
panion the  French  consul  assured  us 
that,  as  we  were  unaccompanied  by 
any  Circassian,  we  were  considered 
fair  spoil  to  any  band  of  mountaineers 
who  might  be  prowling  about  the 
vicinity,  and  so  we  reluctantly  turned 
our  horses'  heads  upon  our  backward 
path.  On  our  return  to  the  town  we 
were  surprised  by  the  arrival  of  a 
large  cavalcade,  which  came  trooping 
up  to  the  door  of  the  consul's  house 
in  picturesque  confusion.  In  the 
centre  of  the  group,  which  was  com- 
posed of  about  a  hundred  wild-looking 
Circassians,  rode  a  handsome  grey- 
haired  man,  whose  tall  cap  of  pure 
white  distinguished  him  from  those 
by  whom  he  was  surrounded.  There 
was  that  in  his  bearing,  moreover, 
which  at  once  marked  him  as  a  chief 
of  note ;  and  I  was  not  surprised  to 
observe  that,  on  his  dismounting, 
every  one  of  his  followers  sprung 
from  his  horse,  and  dashed  at  the 
great  man's  bridle,  as  though  vying 
with  one  another  who  should  be  the 
first  to  render  him  a  service.  He  re- 
ceived their  attentions  in  an  easy  off- 
hand manner,  as  if  they  were  his  due; 
and,  followed  by  two  or  three  of  his 
principal  squires  or  serving-men,  he 
caine  up  to  pay  us  a  visit.  His  cos- 
tume was  simple  but  handsome.  A 
long  buff-coloured  coat  of  camel-cloth 
was  confined  round  the  waist  by  a 
leathern  girdle,  which  was  ornamented 
by  a  few  handsomely-mounted  wea- 
pons. The  cartridge -tubes  on  his 
breast  were  of  a  slate  colour,  and 
richly  inlaid  with  silver.  A  pair  of 
heavy  jack- boots  reached  up  to  the 
thigh,  and  his  peaked  cap  was  trim- 
med with  white  fur.  The  only  incon- 
gruity about  the  costume  was  a  black 
satin  stock  and  a  shirt  collar,  which 


528 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


[Nov. 


painfully  detracted  from  its  general 
effect ;  indeed,  when  his  cap  was  off, 
his  jovial  rubicund  countenance,  curly 
grey  hair  and  whiskers,  and  well- 
rounded  chin  reposing  contentedly 
between  a  pair  of  unmistakable  gills, 
was  precisely  those  of  an  English 
country  gentleman.  Below  the  neck 
the  savage  reappeared ;  but  the  boots, 
though  not  unbecoming,  were  a  great 
deal  too  civilised.  There  were  no 
such  marks  of  refinement  about  his 
clan.  Their  muscular  sun-browned 
throats  were  confined  by  no  paltry 
invention  of  modern  times ;  their  stal- 
wart legs  were  enclosed  in  coarse 
brown  or  yellow  felt  gaiters;  their 
well-shaped  feet  in  red  leather  mocca- 
sins,— for  though  that  is  a  word  be- 
longing to  another  hemisphere,  it  is 
the  only  one  which  in  the  least  de- 
scribes their  chaussure.  Instead  of 
the  high  cap,  some  of  these  wore  a 
species  of  hood  similar  to  those  of  the 
Bedouin  Arabs,  the  point  sticking  out 
behind,  and  the  ends  brought  round 
the  neck  like  a  comforter.  It  was  an 
agreeable  variation  in  the  costume, 
and  added  to  the  wildness  of  their 
aspect.  About  a  hundred  of  these 
men  filled  the  space  in  front  of  the 
house.  Lounging  between  their  horses, 
or  squatting  in  groups  by  the  road- 
side, they  let  the  nags  take  care  of 
themselves.  Meanwhile  their  lord 
and  master,  who  was  none  other  than 
Prince  Michael — a  man  of  some  cele- 
brity in  the  history  of  his  country — 
discoursed  with  us  upon  the  war,  and 
the  affairs  of  Europe  generally.  As 
he  had  been  brought  up  in  St  Peters- 
burg, and  was  a  general  in  the 
Russian  service,  he  required  deli- 
cate treatment,  and  we  dealt  princi- 
pally in  generalities  in  consequence. 
He  is  in  correspondence,  no  doubt, 
with  his  late  masters,  and  admits 
that  he  is  Russian  in  his  sympathies 
from  long  habit,  though  he  finds  it 
necessary  to  go  with  the  tide.  He 
has  a  great  influence  in  the  country, 
and  it  is  a  pity  that  he  is  not  a  little 
more  of  a  patriot.  He  owns  a  great 
extent  of  land  in  Abkasia,  and  in- 
formed us  that  he  preserved  his  game 
like  a  gentleman ;  that  he  was  a 
great  sportsman ;  and  that  his  pre- 
serves contained  wild  boar,  elk,  wild 
sheep,  deer,  &c.  However,  he  wound 
up  by  saying,  in  answer  to  my  in- 


quiries, that  I  had  better  come  to 
stay  with  him  and  judge  for  myself. 
I  have  seldom  received  an  invitation 
which  presented  greater  attractions, 
but  I  was  reluctantly  obliged  to  decline 
it  for  the  present,  promising  him  that, 
before  very  long,  if  all  went  well, 
I  should  avail  myself  of  his  kind 
offer.  After  a  long  visit,  a  great 
deal  of  amicable  chat,  and  an  im- 
mense consumption  of  tobacco  and 
coffee,  he  took  his  leave,  and  we  saw 
him  mount  his  fiery  steed,  and  in 
the  very  centre  of  his  retainers  trot 
carelessly  away  along  a  mountain 
path, — the  most  complete  instance  of 
a  feudal  chieftain  I  had  ever  seen. 
In  the  part  of  the  Caucasus  in  which 
Prince  Michael  holds  his  sway,  a  new 
and  most  important  element  is  in- 
troduced into  the  political  condition 
of  the  country.  Abkasia,  which 
bounds  with  Circassia  Proper  a  few 
miles  to  the  north  of  Souchoum,  has 
an  average  breadth  of  about  two  days* 
journey,  and  contains  a  population 
parti}7  Christian  and  partly  Mahoin- 
medan.  The  feelings  and  sympathies 
of  those  entertaining  such  different 
religious  sentiments  are  of  course  in 
every  way  antagonistic.  BekchitPasha 
and  Prince  Michael  will  not  speak  to 
one  another  :  the  one  is  looked  upon 
as  an  interloper,  the  other  as  a  here- 
tic ;  but  the  Christian  party  attached 
to  Prince  Michael  is  far  superior  in 
numbers  and  influence  to  the  Mahom- 
medan  party  attached  to  Bekchit. 
The  love  of  freedom,  however,  ani- 
mates all  ;  and  the  sentiments  of 
Prince  Michael  with  regard  to  Russia 
are  certainly  not  participated  in  by  his 
followers.  On  the  whole,  it  is  per- 
haps fortunate  that  the  co-operation  of 
the  Abkasians  is  not  so  important  to 
us  as  that  of  the  tribes  to  the  north 
of  the  range.  The  corner  of  the 
mountains  in  which  they  live  is  cut 
off  from  Russia  Proper  by  the  whole 
of  Circassia,  and  their  assistance  is 
not  necessary  to  enable  us  to  demo- 
lish the  Russian  army  in  Georgia. 
At  present  there  is  not  a  Russian 
soldier  in  the  country.  Indeed,  the- 
garrisons  on  the  south  appear  to 
have  been  much  more  hurriedly  eva- 
cuated than  those  we  had  already 
visited.  Souchoum  is  in  a  compara- 
tively good  state  of  preservation,  and 
any  injury  which  it  has  sustained 


1855.] 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


529 


has  been  at  the  hands  of  the  Turks 
since  the  departure  of  the  Russians. 
During  our  numerous  visits  upon  the 
Circassian  coast  I  was  disappointed 
in  not  seeing  any  of  the  women  of 
the  country,  the  fame  of  whose 
beauty  has  been  so  widely  acknow- 
ledged. Until  within  the  last  few 
months  the  slave  trade  was  carried 
on  with  considerable  vigour ;  but  a 
recent  firman,  at  our  instigation,  has 
completely  put  a  stop  to  speculation 
in  young  women ;  at  all  events  for  the 
present.  It  is  a  question,  however, 
whether  a  traffic  which  is  so  highly 
remunerative  to  those  engaged  in  it 
can  be  permanently  destroyed.  The 
immediate  effect  has  been  to  create 
the  greatest  dissatisfaction  among  the 
Circassians  themselves;  and  now  that 
our  name  is  coupled  with,  to  them,  so 
obnoxious  a  measure,  it  is  by  no  means 
so  popular  as  it  might  have  been.  It 
is  questionable,  therefore,  whether  it 
would  not  have  been  wiser  to  have 
waited  until  the  termination  of  the 
war,  before  doing  anything  to  disgust 
allies  whose  goodwill  it  is  so  impor- 
tant to  secure.  No  doubt  the  Cir- 
cassian slave  trade  is  utterly  inde- 
fensible in  a  moral  point  of  view, 
but  it  does  not  appeal  to  our  feelings 
of  humanity  as  does  that  of  the  traffic 
in  negroes  upon  the  coast  of  Africa. 
It  is  a  proceeding  which  is  eminently 
satisfactory  to  all  parties ;  whereas  now 
the  young  ladies  are  disappointed,  the 
Turks  are  disconsolate,  the  merchants 
are  ruined,  and  the  papas  are  dis- 
gusted. "Alas!"  said  a  tattered  old 
serf,  "  there  is  no  longer  now  the 
possibility  of  my  granddaughter  be- 
coming the  mother  of  a  sultan." 

It  is  not  far  from  Souchoum  Kaleh 
to  the  once  important  port  of  Redoute 
Kaleh.  Soon  after  leaving  Souchoum 
the  high  land  retreats  from  the  shore, 
and  flat  wooded  plains  stretch  into 
the  interior.  On  this  account  Re- 
doute Kaleh  is  quite  a  difficult  place 
to  find  of  a  dark  night ;  and  when 
morning  broke,  the  half  of  the  town 
seemed  scarcely  raised  above  the 
water's  edge.  The  rising  sun  colour- 
ed with  a  vermilion  tinge  the  snow- 
capped Caucasus,  Mount  Elbruz 
peering  from  behind  a  lofty  range, 
which  intercepted  our  view  of  many 
of  the  lower  summits.  To  the  south, 
the  mountains  of  Gowriel  and  Ar- 


menia, scarcely  inferior  in  height,  and 
also  covered  with  snow,  closed  the 
prospect ;  and  between  these  rival 
ranges  stretched  the  broad  plains  of 
Imeretia,  which  here  divide  Russia 
from  Turkey,  and  across  which  lies 
the  road  to  Tiflis.  I;;  have  seldom 
been  in  a  more  miserable  hole  than 
that  in  which  2500  Turks  now  pitched 
their  flimsy  tents.  A  river  with  a 
bar  at  its  mouth,  upon  which,  how- 
ever, there  are  four  or  five  feet  of 
water,  debouches  into  the  sea,  and 
forms  a  sort  of  promontory,  upon 
which  a  few  miserable  wooden  sheds 
are  built.  Between  them  are  a  num- 
ber of  tents,  imbedded  in  mud  ;  and 
in  the  centre  of  the  group  a  large 
green  marquee  betokens  the  residence 
of  the  lucky  commandant,  to  whom 
we  paid  a  visit  of  condolence.  He 
showed  us  over  the  camp  and  fortifi- 
cations. The  latter  consist  of  earth- 
works, which  seem  to  be  well  de- 
signed, and  which  enclose  the  delec- 
table assemblage  of  habitations  I 
have  just  described.  Outside  the 
fort,  the  tents  of  the  soldiers  extend 
for  some  distance  up  the  left  bank  of 
the  river.  We  walked  up  a  narrow 
chausse'd  path,  and  I  never  saw  in 
the  backwoods  of  America  a  more 
perfect  specimen  of  Eden  than  in  the 
swamps  of  Redoute  Kaleh.  Many 
of  the  tents  were  actually  surrounded 
on  all  sides  by  water.  To  all  of  them 
it  was  necessary  to  construct  raised 
causeways,  plank  paths,  or  stepping- 
stones.  It  seemed  a  perfect  hotbed 
of  fever,  and  I  was  surprised  to  hear 
from  the  commandant  that  the  troops 
had  suffered  very  slightly  from  illness 
of  any  kind.  A  few  wooden  houses, 
which  were  not  destroyed  by  the 
Russians,  are  also  inhabited.  They  are 
raised  above  the  marsh  on  piles,  but 
the  thick  ooze  exhales  its  putrid  va- 
pours through  the  flooring.  The 
camp  terminates  at  the  junction  of  a 
river,  which  is  said  also  to  be  con- 
nected with  the  Rhion  ;  so  that  Re- 
doute Kaleh  is  in  fact  an  island  raised 
a  very  little  above  the  level  of  the 
sea,  —  so  little,  that  the  water  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  flow  into  it.  About 
eight  miles  distant,  upon  the  grassy 
slope  of  a  gentle  eminence,  we  could 
discern  the  tents  of  the  Russians  in 
two  lines.  They  are  said  to  number 
only  fifty-six  ;  but  there  are  probably 


530 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


[Nov. 


a  good  many  more  pitched  in  the 
wood  which  were  not  visible.  It  was 
scarcely  possible  to  believe  that  Be- 
doute  Kaleh  was  once  a  flourishing 
place,  owing  its  importance  to  the 
fact  of  its  having  been  the  port  of 
Tiflis.  A  good  road  leads  from  here 
to  that  city,  distant  about  a  hundred 
and  fifty  miles.  Coasting  along  the 
low  shore,  we  could  just  discern  the 
river  Rhion,  which  empties  itself  into 
the  Black  Sea  by  two  mouths,  at 
each  of  which  there  is  a  bar.  I  was 
sorry  that  our  time  did  not  admit  of 
our  stopping,  to  settle  definitely  the 
question  of  the  depth  of  water  upon 
them,  which  has  been  stated  dif- 
ferently at  from  four  to  ten  feet. 
Taking  the  medium  as  the  probable 
depth,  there  is  quite  enough  water  for 
steamers  of  light  draught  to  navigate 
the  river  almost  up  to  Kutais,  as 
there  is  deep  water  to  within  a  few 
miles  of  that  city ;  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  this  would  be  the  most 
convenient  way  of  conveying  an  in- 
vading army  into  Georgia.  If  there 
is  not  quite  enough  water  now  upon 
the  bar,  a  few  weeks  with  a  dredging- 
machine  would  be  time  and  labour  pro- 
fitably bestowed.  The  deserted  fort  of 
Little  Poti  was  visible  from  the  ship; 
the  larger  fort  of  the  same  name  is  hid- 
den by  the  trees.  Passing  Skefkatil,  the 
frontier  fort  of  Turkey,  we  saw  lining 
the  water's  edge,  clustering  upon  the 
green  hill-sides,  peeping  from  under 
overhanging  trees,  perched  upon  pre- 
cipitous rocks,  a  number  of  white  huts, 
denoting  not  a  permanent  garrison, 
but  an  army  in  the  process  of  trans- 
port. It  was  a  portion  of  those  troops 
with  which  Omer  Pasha  is  about  to 
invade  Georgia.  The  expediency  of 
this  proceeding  seems  at  last  to  have 
forced  itself  upon  the  conviction  of 
the  Allied  powers,  though  at  so  late  a 
period  of  the  year  that  it  will  be  al- 
most impossible  for  Omer  Pasha  to 
advance  further  this  winter  than 
Kutais.  Had  it  been  undertaken  even 
two  months  earlier,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  whatever  that  Tiflis  would 
ere  now  (supposing  the  expedition  to 
have  been  accompanied  by  a  few 
English  troops)  have  been  in  our 


hands.*  We  landed  under  the  ivy- 
covered  battlements  of  the  old  castle 
of  Zikinzir,  from  the  walls  of  which 
waved  the  Turkish  flag.  The  coun- 
try was  everywhere  clothed  in  the 
richest  verdure.  Here  and  there  the 
hill-slopes,  waving  with  long  rich 
grass,  terminated  abruptly  in  pre- 
cipitous walls  of  rock,  to  which  the 
rank  vegetation  still  clung  with  despe- 
rate tenacity,  and  from  which  long 
creepers  drooped  into  the  sea.  The 
range  behind  the  castle  was  densely 
wooded,  and  a  lofty  range  of  snowy 
peaks  gave  a  sterner  character  to 
scenery  which  combined  with  the 
most  exquisite  softness  features  of  a 
sublime  grandeur.  It  was  a  fairy- 
like  scene,  and  the  delusion  was 
scarcely  dispelled  when,  upon  land- 
ing, we  found  ourselves  surrounded 
by  negroes,  who,  peering  out  of  their 
huts,  looked  like  the  slaves  of  some 
tale  in  the  Arabian  Nights.  The 
officers  were  as  black  as  the  men ; 
and  a  swarthy  colonel  assured  us 
that  these  were  Tunisian  troops  wait- 
ing for  the  arrival  of  Omer  Pasha.  As 
his  highness  had  not  yet  arrived,  we 
had  no  temptation  to  linger  longer  at 
Zikinzir,  though  I  thought  it  scarcely 
justifiable  to  be  contented  with  so 
hurried  a  glance  at  such  lovely  scenery. 
The  mountains  now  lined  the  coast  all 
the  way  to  Batoum,  displaying  at 
every  turn  scenery  of  the  same  cha- 
racter and  beauty.  Indeed,  its  situa- 
tion is  the  only  thing  about  Batoum 
to  recommend  it.  It  is  certainly  cele- 
brated for  the  depth  of  the  water  in- 
shore on  a  coast  where  a  safe  anchor- 
age is  somewhat  uncommon  ;  but  the 
harbour  is  by  no  means  so  superb  as 
its  reputation  led  me  to  expect.  Here, 
too,  were  crowds  of  soldiers  of  all 
kinds,  rejoicing  in  the  greatest  possible 
variety  of  uniform — Gowriel  militia 
and  Laristan  regulars,  the  men  of 
Anatolia  and  Tunisian  cohorts,  Turks 
European  and  Turks  Asiatic,  Chris- 
tians, infidels,  and  heretics.  It  would 
have  been  well,  however,  if  the 
Christians  had  been  recognisable  as 
such,  and  somewhat  more  abundant. 
Had  a  few  thousand  English  or  French 
soldiers  been  sent  into  these  provinces 


*  A  campaign  in  Georgia,  with  the  Rhion  as  the  base  of  operations,  was  suggested 
in  May  last,  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  The  Coming  Campaign,  by  Mr  Lawrence 
Oliphaut.  • 


1855.] 


The  Eastern  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 


531 


alone,  or  even  in  company  with  Omer 
Pasha's  army,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  population  would  have 
risen  to  a  man.  It  is  now  no  less 
certain  that  the  population,  so  far 
from  affording  assistance  to  the 
Turks,  will  probably  be  loth  to  sup- 
ply their  commissariat,  or  facilitate 
in  any  way  their  progress  through  the 
country. 

We  had  brought  with  us  from  Sou- 
choum  Kaleh,Bekchit  Pasha,  a  perfect 
specimen  of  the  contemptible  class  to 
which  he  belongs.  He  was  on  his 
way  to  pay  a  visit  to  his  superior, 
Mustapha  Pasha,  who  has  been  exer- 
cising, until  Omer  Pasha's  arrival,  the 
supreme  control  in  these  parts.  The 
usual  costume  of  a  Turkish  pasha  is  a 
la  vender- coloured  pair  of  trousers — 
patent  leather  boots — a  frogged  sur- 
tout,  trimmed  with  fur — a  gorgeous 
sword,  with  a  scabbard  mounted  with 
gold,  and  belt  and  hilt  to  match— an 
infinity  of  rings  upon  fingers,  which  are 
ever  blazing  with  the  tespe — and  a 
Fez  cap.  We  were  ushered  into  a 
room  u  with  a  fire-place  at  one  end, 
and  Mustapha  Pasha  at  the  other," 
as  says  Eotfien;  and  after  the  two 
great  men  had  sufficiently  kissed  the 
hems  of  each  other's  garments,  we 
talked  in  a  mincing  way  of  sublunary 
affairs,  and  were,  as  usual,  unbounded 
in  the  expression  of  our  mutual  affec- 
tion. Mustapha  Pasha  informed  us 
that  Omer  Pasha  was  at  Trebizond, 
to  which  place  we  accordingly  re- 
paired without  delay.  The  sun  was 
shining  brightly  upon  its  red  roofs, 
rising  one  above  another  at  the  steep 
hill-side — upon  its  minarets  and 
mosques,  half  hidden  among  waving 
cypresses — upon  the  turreted  walls 
of  its  picturesque  old  castle,  as  we 
dropped  anchor  in  the  harbour. 

I  had  scarcely  been  three  days  in 
Trebizond  before  the  intelligence  ar- 
rived of  the  fall  of  Sebastopol.  Since 
the  days  of  the  Byzantine  Empire 
this  usually  quiet  town  had  never  been 
in  such  a  state  of  commotion.  Sedate 
Turks  panted  breathless  at  the  corners 
of  the  streets,  with  their  hands  pressed 
upon  their  hearts  to  stop  the  too 
tumultuous  throb,  and  ejaculated 
"  Mashallah."  Timid  Greeks  struck 
down  back  alleys,  afraid  of  exciting 
the  wrath  of  the  conquerors ;  and  as 
they  passed  under  our  windows,  we 


vented  our  feelings  of  triumph.  The 
cannon  of  the  old  castle  thundered 
forth  the  news  to  the  distant  villages ; 
the  ships  in  the  harbour  were  dressed 
put  in  their  gayest  flags ;  and  as  even- 
ing closed  in,  lights  began  to  twinkle 
in  every  balcony,  and  the  hissing  of 
the  rockets  and  explosion  of  small- 
arms  effectually  banished  sleep  from, 
the  eyes  of  those  who  were  disloyal 
enough  to  court  it.  Then  revolvers 
and  double-barrelled  guns  were  in 
immense  request,  and  a  singular  scene 
was  presented  in  the  courtyard  of  a 
hospitable  merchant  with  whom  I  had 
been  dining.  Persians,  Albanians, 
Turks,  officers  in  the  British  navy, 
and  civilians  both  English  and  French, 
in  their  different  costumes,  were  col- 
lected under  the  glare  of  a  thousand 
lamps,  blazing  away  small-arms,  and 
letting  off  rockets  with  a  gusto  which 
somewhat  astonished  the  inhabitants 
of  a  neighbouring  mansion,  whose 
closed  windows  betokened  that  its 
owner  was  a  Greek.  And  then  with  a 
mighty  torch  we  paraded  the  streets, 
applauding  the  national  anthems, 
which  we  lustily  shouted  on  our  march, 
with  cheers  and  pistol-shots.  And 
having  testified  the  exuberance  of  our 
joy  to  our  hearts'  content,  and  suffi- 
ciently astonished  the  Turks  and  fright- 
ened the  Greeks,  we  relapsed  into  a 
softer  mood,  and  found,  ere  we  finished 
the  evening,  that  the  fairer  portion  of 
Trebizond  society  was  not  behind- 
hand in  their  manifestations  of  loyalty. 
Like  all  Levantine  cities,  though  Tre- 
bizond can  scarcely  be  brought  into 
that  category,  the  society  here,  though 
small,  is  agreeable,  and  the  traveller 
may  consider  himself  fortunate  if,  in 
the  course  of  his  wanderings,  he  often 
stumbles  upon  a  place  in  which  he 
may  amuse  himself  so  well.  Its  scenic 
attractions  are,  moreover,  very  great. 
The  city  itself  is  always  beautiful, 
whether  we  look  up  at  it  from  the  sea, 
or  down  upon  it  from  the  brow  of  the 
lofty  hill  which  overhangs  the  town ; 
or,  riding  along  its  narrow  streets, 
where  overhanging  eaves  shut  out  the 
sunlight,  we  suddenly  emerge  upon 
one  of  the  romantic  bridges  which 
span  the  deep  ravines  leading  to  the 
sea,  where  the  tiny  rivulet  at  the  bot- 
tom is  hidden  by  the  dense  foliage, 
and  vines  and  ivy  cling  to  lofty  trees, 
or  clamber  up  the  precipitous  sides  of 


532 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


the  ravine  and  overrun  the  walls  of 
the  castle,  perched  upon  its  dizzy 
brink ;  and  then  following  the  sea- 
shore we  reach  the  commanding  pro- 
montory upon  which  stands  the  old 
Byzantine  Church  of  St  Sophia,  with 
its  half-effaced  frescoes  and  tessellat- 
ed pavement,  now  a  Mahommedan 
mosque;  and  from  here  the  viewextends 
along  the  broken  line  of  coast,  from 
whence  rise  lofty  mountains  piled  one 
upon  the  other  till  they  reach  the  snow. 
There  is  no  direction  in  which  we  can 
go,  where  there  is  not  scenery  to  charm 
TREBIZOND,  September  15, 1855. 


[Nov. 

and  an  object  to  interest.  And  now, 
as  sitting  upon  the  verandah  of  our 
hospitable  Consul,  I  watch  the  ships 
and  steamers  in  the  harbour,  lying 
motionless  upon  its  unruffled  surface, 
my  impatience  to  enter  upon  a  more 
exciting  life  is  not  unmingled  with  re- 
gret, as  I  observe  that  from  one  of 
them  issues  a  thin  wreath  of  white 
smoke,  which  warns  me  that  it  is  time 
to  lay  my  pen  aside,  and,  bidding  adieu 
to  the  attractions  of  Trebizond,  to 
steer  once  more  for  the  white  moun- 
tains of  Circassia. 


ZAIDEE  :   A   ROMANCE. 

PART   XII. — BOOK   III. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. — ANOTHER   EFFORT. 


WHEN  Mary  came  in  rather  late  that 
morning  to  seek  Zaidee — for  Mary 
was  very  listless  and  a  little  exacting 
to-day,  not  feeling  that  she  had  any 
great  object  in  getting  up  from  her 
sweet  sleep  and  dreams,  and  rather 
disposed  to  think  that  she  ought  to 
be  amused  and  sympathised  with — 
she  found  Zaidee  writing.  This  was 
rather  a  singular  occurrence,  for  Zaidee 
had  no  correspondents,  and  not  many 
literary  attainments ;  and  Mary,  who 
was  inclined  to  be  curious  about  any- 
thing by  way  of  diverting  her  languor, 
was  still  more  attracted  by  perceiving 
that  her  friend  gathered  up  her  ma- 
terials hastily,  and  put  them  away. 
"  What  are  you  writing  ? "  asked 
Mary,  and  Zaidee  said,  "  Nothing." 

"  Nothing  !  I  will  tell  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw  it  was  a  letter  to  Sylvo," 
said  Mary.  Zaidee  only  laughed  at 
this  ;  she  had  no  idea  of  the  close 
chain  of  circumstantial  evidence  by 
which  she  was  convicted  of  being  "  in 
love  "  with  this  redoubtable  squire  ; 
nor  did  she  suspect  either  how 
this  writing  of  hers  found  a  place  in 
Mary's  memory,  and  was  laid  aside 
among  the  sundry  other  things  which 
were  mysteries  to  be  inquired  into 
some  day.  Mary  made  a  great  many 
claims  upon  her  this  morning ;  she 
wanted  to  talk  to  her  of  a  hundred 
things,  which  neither  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw  nor  Mrs  Cumberland  would  care 


for  hearing,  but  which  Zaidee  at  an- 
other time  would  have  entered  into 
with  all  the  generous  sympathy  of 
youthful  friendship.  Mary  had  not 
the  faintest  idea  of  Zaidee's  full  heart 
and  preoccupied  attention;  she  poured 
her  own  happy  schemes  and  projects 
into  her  companion's  ears,  all  unaware 
that  her  companion  was  absorbed 
heart  and  soul  in  attempting  once 
more  to  carry  out  the  one  sole  pro- 
ject of  her  life.  When  Mary  went 
out  for  a  solitary  morning  walk,  car- 
rying Mr  Vivian's  poems  secretly  in 
her  hand,  to  be  read  in  some  nook  of 
the  hill  which  Percy's  presence  had 
made  pleasant  to  his  betrothed, 
Zaidee  returned  hastily  to  her  own 
apartment.  This  time  she  fastened 
her  door  with  a  precaution  strangely 
new  to  her;  and  taking  out  her  papers, 
and  that  book  of  Grandfather  Vivian's 
which  still  bore  the  tarnished  livery 
of  the  library  at  the  Grange,  sat  down 
again  to  her  writing.  She  wrote 
slowly,  for  she  was  not  much  used  to 
the  exercise  of  composition ;  but 
Zaidee  had  no  occasion  to  labour 
after  a  feigned  handwriting  ;  she  had 
attained  the  lady's  hand,  which  is  the 
most  undistinguishable  of  all  styles  of 
caligraphy.  Mary  wrote  exactly  the 
same,  and  so  did  the  young-ladies'- 
maid,  and  Mrs  Cumberland's  accom- 
.plished  waiting- woman.  Zaidee  had 
long  ago  given  up  her  characteristic; 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


533 


childish  pot-hooks  ;  this  letter  of  hers 
had  not  a  trace  of  individuality  in  its 
penmanship  —  and  Zaidee  perceived 
this,  and  wrote  without  fear.  The 
matter  was  somewhat  different  from 
the  manner,  however ;  this  was  how 
the  epistle  ran.  She  began  boldly, 
by  making  herself  known. 

"Aunt  Vivian,  I  am  Zaidee  whom 
you  have  lost ;  but  I  do  not  write  to 
tell  you  where  to  find  me,  for  my 
mind  has  never  changed,  though  I 
am  a  woman  grown.  If  I  could  be 
a  child  again,  and  Grandfather  Vivian 
had  made  no  will  to  defraud  Philip, 
and  take  my  natural  life  from  me,  I 
would  give  all  the  world  to  be  at 
home  ;  but  I  fear  I  must  never  be  at 
home  now.  For  all  these  years  I  have 
hoped  that  my  coming  away  had  re- 
moved all  the  difficulty ;  that  you  no 
longer  thought  of  Zaidee,  who  did  you 
an  unwilling  injury,  but  that  Philip 
was  the  master  of  his  own  lands,  as 
nature  and  justice  made  him.  Dear 
Aunt  Vivian,  I  have  almost  broken 
my  heart  to  hear  that  it  is  not  so. 
Philip,  in  his  pride  and  his  honour, 
has  been  cruel  to  poor  Zaidee  ;  he  has 
not  given  me  the  satisfaction  of  doing 
him  justice.  What  can  I  do  now? 
I  will  never  come  back  to  take  the 
Grange  from  Philip.  I  will  be  an 
exile  and  a  stranger  all  my  life  while 
Philip  refuses  to  return  to  his  own 
land.  Will  you  tell  him  that  he  takes 
her  only  comfort  from  poor  Zaidee, 
and  that  I  can  never  know  rest  nor 
pleasure  till  I  hear  he  has  taken  all 
that  is  his  into  his  own  possession,  and 
no  longer  compels  me,  or  even  the 
name  of  me,  to  be  the  instrument  of 
wrong  ? 

"And  he  is  not  carrying  out  Grand- 
father Vivian's  will — and  neither  are 
you,  dear  Aunt  Vivian.  I  send  you 
a  book,  which  I  found  many  years 
ago.  I  found  it  very  strangely  among 
strangers ;  and  then  I  thought  it  was 
Grandfather  Vivian  himself  whom 
God  had  permitted  to  guide  me  to 
this,  his  last  will  of  all.  See  what 
he  says.  I  think  it  must  have  been 
when  death  was  on  him,  and  when  no 
one  but  God  could  see  his  repentance. 
Let  Philip  know  of  it,  Aunt  Vivian. 
Ask  him  if  he  will  still  make  Zaidee's 
name  a  dishonour  to  her  father's  me- 
mory. My  father  would  have  done 
justice  had  he  lived— and  this  was 


all  the  inheritance  he  left  to  me. — 
Will  not  Philip  have  pity  upon  me  ? 
Will  he  not  take  back  his  own  ? 

"  And  Percy  wants  these  useless 
riches  that  you  are  hoarding  for 
Zaidee.  Will  you  give  them  to  Percy, 
Aunt  Vivian?  If  nothing  else  can  be 
done  for  me— if  Philip  will  not  hear 
the  prayer  I  make,  though  I  pray 
God  every  day  to  soften  his  heart — 
will  you  do  this  one  thing  for  me? 
I  will  never  see  you  again — I  do  not 
think  I  will  ever  see  you  again — but 
I  love  you  all  as  dearly  as  the  day  I 
left  the  Grange.  I  think  of  you  con- 
stantly in  my  secret  heart.  Pray 
Philip  that  he  will  have  pity  upon  me, 
Aunt  Vivian— that  he  will  come  back 
to  claim  his  own." 

And  then  Zaidee  paused,  and,  with 
a  swelling  heart  and  tears  in  her  eyes, 
wrote  her  own  name — her  own  name 
— the  name  of  her  father,  her  kindred, 
her  home.  A  long  time  had  passed 
since  she  wrote  "  Zaidee  Vivian" 
before ;  and  strangely  dear  was  this 
forbidden  and  discarded  signature,  so 
different  from  the  "  Elizabeth  Cum- 
berland," her  disguise  and  the  token 
of  her  banishment.  Then  she  read 
her  letter  once  more,  and  then  put  it 
up  carefully  in  a  parcel  with  that  pre- 
cious book.  With  infinite  precaution, 
and  with  trembling  hands,  she  fasten- 
ed it,  as  much  afraid  of  the  safety 
of  this  packet  as  if  these  worm-eaten 
leaves  had  been  priceless  jewels,  and 
deposited  the  whole  carefully  at  last 
in  the  heart  of  her  own  particular  pos- 
sessions, safe  from  all  scrutiny.  Her 
plan  was  to  send  it  to  the  Grange 
from  some  town  adjacent  to  Malvern 
— some  unknown  place  from  which 
she  could  not  be  traced  ;  for  she 
did  not  doubt  Aunt  Vivian's  in- 
stant endeavour  to  search  for  her  once 
more.  When  this  duty  was  done — 
and  it  had  occupied  a  long  space  of 
Zaidee's  day — she  had  nothing  more 
refreshing  before  her  than  to  go  over 
it  all  again,  questioning  and  wonder- 
ing if  this  appeal  would  be  effectual— 
if  they  would  accept  Grandfather  Vi- 
vian's latest  wish  as  annulling  that 
miserable  will  which  had  wrought  so 
much  evil — if  Philip  would  come  at 
her  entreaty,  and  take  back  his  natu- 
ral inheritance.  Bitter  as  Zaidee's 
disappointment  was  to  find  her  own 
self-sacrifices  useless,  her  heart  swell- 


534 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


[Nov. 


ed  with  generous  pride  for  this  very 
cause.  She  felt  in  her  heart  that 
Philip  was  right,  in  his  youthful 
honour  making  his  own  independence 
bravely  and  painfully.  She  acknow- 
ledged that  the  head  of  the  house 
would  have  preserved  his  dignity  less 
pure  had  he  remained  in  the  quiet 
opulence  of  the  Grange ;  and  yet, 
strangely  inconsistent,  she  prayed 
again,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  that 
Philip  might  come  home.  She  could 
not  cease  thinking  of  this — it  filled  her 
mind  and  heart  to  overflowing,  and 
engrossed  her  still  the  more  in  her 
solitude,  because  it  was  a  pent-up 
stream,  and  must  never  have  issue. 
Zaidee,  in  her  painful  loneliness, 
thought  of  a  traveller  upon  the  high- 
way, which  Mary  had  pointed  out  to 
her  from  Malvern  Hill,  and  of  some 
one  on  the  hidden  footpath  below,  un- 
der the  hedgerow  keeping  step  for 
step  with  him,  with  steps  which  were 
only  an  echo  of  the  bolder  wayfarer's, 
always  present  but  never  seen.  It 
was  thus  with  herself  in  her  secret 
post  of  observation,  and  she  antici- 
pated, with  a  strange  tremor,  hearing 
of  this  communication  of  hers,  and  of 
the  wonder  and  excitement  of  the 
family.  Her  cheek  was  flushing  once 
more  with  a  dangerous  hectic;  her 
secret  life  began  once  more  to  devour 
her  obvious  one ;  and  Zaidee  sat 
alone,  with  her  busy  imagination  con- 
suming her  heart. 

And  then  there  returned  Mary, 
with  the  fresh  air  fragrant  round 
her,  her  lassitude  worn  off,  and  her 
volume  of  poems  in  her  hand.  Mary 
was  ready  to  plunge  with  renewed 
spirit  into  all  their  former  occupations. 
She  had  rested  and  refreshed  herself, 
and  her  natural  mood  returned  upon 
Mary.  She  laughed  a  little  at  her 
new-born  sentimentalism— put  away 
carefully  the  book  of  poems,  which 
was  precious  because  it  was  Percy's 


— coloured  a  little  with  proud  pleasure 
at  the  remembrance  that  Percy's  af- 
fection and  their  betrothal  were  things 
not  to  be  laughed  away — and  then 
returned  to  her  old  use  and  wont  with 
returning  animation.  It  was  very 
well  for  Zaidee,  though  Zaidee  scarce- 
ly thought  so  as  her  light-hearted 
companion  led  her  hither  and  thither, 
and  made  claims  upon  her  opinions, 
her  thoughts,  and  her  experience,  in 
her  old  girlish  way.  It  was  often  a 
sick  heart  which  went  with  Mary  over 
the  slopes  of  Malvern,  and  eyes  that 
pierced  beyond  the  low  line  of  yonder 
horizon  which  looked  forth  by  Mary's 
side  upon  this  sunny  plain ;  and 
Mary,  who  could  not  comprehend 
"  what  you  can  have  to  think  of, 
Elizabeth  !"  roused  her  with  the  gay 
sallies  of  her  own  happy  spirit,  and 
kept  Zaidee  perpetually  in  the  centre 
of  her  own  absorbing  projects.  Mean- 
while Aunt  Burtonshaw  mourned 
more  and  more  for  that  fresh  air  of 
Sylvo's  place,  which  would  "  set  up" 
her  dear  child  again  ;  and  Mrs  Cum- 
berland became  tired  of  looking  con- 
stantly upon  the  vale  of  Severn  and 
the  slopes  of  this  spectator  hill. 

One  day  when,  by  a  rare  chance,  they 
left  Zaidee  at  home  while  they  went  to 
pay  a  visit  to  some  ancient  acquaint- 
ance established  in  the  neighbourhood, 
Zaidee  set  out  with  her  precious  packet. 
Quite  a  long  journey,  back  and  for- 
ward, she  achieved  in  secret  that  day. 
The  servants  only  thought  that  Miss 
Elizabeth  was  reading  on  the  hill,  as 
Miss  Cumberland  was  in  the  habit  of 
doing  ;  and  with  a  flutter  of  guilt  and 
a  flush  on  her  cheek,  Zaidee  awaited 
the  home-coming  of  the  little  party. 
She  had  done  her  errand  boldly  and 
speedily,  though  with  many  a  pang  of 
terror;  and  those  silent  hours  of 
night,  through  which  she  lay  awake 
thinking  of  it,  were  carrying  her  first 
letter  home  to  the  Grange. 


CHAPTER  XXV. — RETURN. 


"  We  cannot  stay  always  at  Mal- 
vern," said  Mrs  Cumberland.  "  Since 
we  have  lost  the  charm  of  Mr  Vivian's 
society,  I  confess  this  place  has  less 
attraction  for  me.  I  should  prefer 
being  at  home." 

"  You  had  a  great  deal  better  come 


to  Essex,  Maria  Anna,"  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw.  "  The  children,  I  am 
sure,  would  like  a  few  weeks  at  Syl- 
vo's place.  My  dear  Mary,  you  must 
not  be  selfish.  Think  of  Elizabeth, 
poor  darling  I  We  ought  to  consult 
her  wishes  now." 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


535 


"  Indeed  I  should  be  very  glad  to 
be  at  home,  Aunt  Burtonshaw— and  I 
like  Sylvo's  place  very  well.  I  have 
no  wish  on  the  subject,"  said  the 
unsuspecting  Zaidee. 

Mrs  Bnrtonshaw  only  said,  "  Poor 
dear!" 

It  was  the  day  following  Zaidee's 
secret  expedition  ;  and  with  great  sa- 
tisfaction Zaidee  noted  Mrs  Cum- 
berland's frequent  pilgrimages  from 
the  sofa  to  the  window,  and  the  rest- 
lessness which  disturbed  her  "  lan- 
guor." These  were  all  intimations 
that  this  fanciful  lady  was  already 
fluttering  her  wings  for  a  rapid  flight 
ill  one  direction  or  another.  Zaidee 
was  very  indifferent  as  to  the  place 
they  went  to, — whether  to  Twicken- 
ham or  to  Essex  she  did  not  greatly 
care;  but  she  was  very  glad  to  be 
suddenly  removed  from  this  quarter, 
from  whence  she  had  sent  her  first 
missive  to  the  Grange. 

Mary ,  equally  anxious,  was  more 
precise  in  her  choice  to  go  home.  Mr 
Cumberland  was  too  busy  for  cor- 
respondence. They  did  not  know 
very  well  how  his  work  prospered. 
They  were  not,  indeed,  much  of  a 
letter-writing  family,  though  Mrs 
Cumberland  was  rather  thought  to 
excel  in  the  composition  of  beautiful 
letters ;  but  it  did  not  surprise  any 
one  when  she  proposed  that  even- 
ing to  set  off  next  day  for  town. 

"  If  Mr  Cumberland  is  not  ready 
for  us,  we  can  go  back  to  Mrs  Har- 
ley's,  where  we  were  before,"  said 
Mrs  Cumberland ;  "  but  the  work 
must  be  so  far  advanced  at  home  that 
our  presence  and  suggestions  might 
be  useful.  My  dear  Elizabeth,  Sylvo 
must  come  to  us  at  Twickenham.  I 
have  always  begged  him  to  consider 
our  house  his  home— but  I  think  you 
must  not  ask  us  to  go  back  to  Essex 
this  year." 

Mrs  Burtonshaw's  remonstrances 
being  ineffectual,  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  as 
usual,  yielded.  She  was  not  without 
curiosity  to  see  what  had  happened  to 
the  unfortunate  square  box  which  Mr 
Cumberland  was  ornamenting,  and 
to  ascertain  if  any  new  object  had 
taken  the  place  of  the  benevolent  and 
moral  science  of  architecture.  Mary 
did  not  conceal  her  satisfaction, 
and  Zaidee  was  not  less  pleased;  so 
they  set  out  in  very  good  spirits 


next  morning  for  London  and  for 
home. 

A  day's  rest  in  town,  where  Percy 
met  and  greeted  them,  brought  a  per- 
mission from  Mr  Cumberland  to  come 
"  if  they  liked."  They  did  like,  and 
set  out  accordingly.  When  their  car- 
riage drew  up  before  the  well-known 
gate,  Mrs  Burtonshaw  looked  out  with 
horror,  and  Mrs  Cumberland  with  ad- 
miration. The  square  gable  had  be- 
come a  pointed  one,  and  glittered  with 
little  pinnacles  surmounted  by  gilded 
balls,  which  shone  in  the  sun.  The 
famous  porch  stretched  along  the  side 
of  the  building,  with  a  similar  little 
point  of  glittering  light  above  its  cen- 
tral door.  O  ver  this,  again ,  was  thrown 
out  an  oriel  window,  and  on  a  shield 
above  the  door  a  gorgeous  monogram 
was  just  now  attracting  the  wonder 
and  admiration  of  half-a-dozen  little 
beggar-boys,  whose  respectable  mam- 
mas reclined  on  the  benches  under 
shelter.  A  great  "  I, "  in  purple,  and 
blue,  and  scarlet,  "  picked  out"  with 
gilding,  which  rose  into  a  cross  above, 
and  ran  out  below  into  the  gay  ex- 
travagance of  a  dragon's  tail,  closely 
embraced  by  a  "  C,"  a  less  demonstra- 
tive letter,  which  contented  itself  with 
innocent  bits  of  floriation  in  the  curves 
of  its  half  moon,  attracted  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw no  less  than  it  did  the  juve- 
nile vagabonds  who  clapped  their 
hands  at  it  below.  "  What  does  it 
mean?"  asked  Mrs  Burtonshaw  with 
horror,  while  her  uninstructed  eyes 
followed  the  curves  of  the  dragon's 
tail,  and  opened  wide  at  the  papistical 
cross ;  but  it  did  not  mean  anything 
very  mysterious—it  only  meant  John 
Cumberland,  his  mark,  shining  above 
the  lintel  of  his  hospitable  door. 

A  hospitable  door  it  was  in  literal 
truth.  The  porch  ran  along  the  gable, 
a  sort  of  arcade,  elevated  three  or  four 
steps  from  the  ground,  and  lined  with 
benches.  Stone  benches  might  have 
given  the  poor  creatures  cold,  Mr 
Cumberland  thought,  and  his  bene- 
volent forethought  made  them  oak. 
Ornamented  hooks  attached  to  the 
pillars  of  this  porch  of  charity,  and 
low  stands,  not  unlike  reading-desks, 
supported  on  grotesque  corbels,  at- 
tached to  the  wall  of  the  house,  just 
over  the  benches — for  Mr  Cumberland 
was  not  above  amusing  his  chance 
visitors— were  exhibited  in  their  pro- 


536 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


per  use  at  this  moment,  supporting 
one  the  basket  of  a  feminine  pedlar, 
full  of  pins  and  stay-laces,  and  such 
small  merchandise ;  and  another,  a 
beggar's  wallet  full  of  pickings.  But 
the  novelties  were  not  exhausted  when 
the  wondering  ladies  had  glanced  at 
these,  and  at  the  proprietors  of  the 
same.  One  end  of  the  porch  was 
closed  by  an  ornamental  window,  that 
there  might  be  no  draught  through  it, 
and  the  other  led  down  by  a  flight  of 
steps  to  the  garden.  At  the  upper  end 
was  a  fountain  where  a  little  stream  of 
water  poppled  pleasantly  from  the 
mouth  of  a  benevolent  dolphin,  who 
did  double  service  by  holding  in  his 
claw  a  handsome  goblet.  Mr  Cum- 
berland, unwillingly  yielding  to  the 
vulgar  prejudice  that  silver  was  not  a 
safe  commodity  to  trust  to  the  natural 
honesty  of  his  wayfaring  guests,  had 
compromised  the  matter  by  lining  with 
delicate  white  enamel  the  iron  cup 
which  his  charitable  dolphin  extended 
to  all  the  world.  And  close  by  this 
provision  of  water  was  a  hatch,  com- 
municating with  a  well-stocked  pantry 
inside — an  orthodox  buttery-hatch, 
after  the  fashion  of  a  very  creditable 
old  "  example,"  by  which  the  staff  of 
life  might  be  dispensed  to  add  its  sub- 
stantial refreshment  to  the  other  ne- 
cessity. While  the  new  arrivals  were 
examining,  with  speechless  curiosi- 
ty, these  extraordinary  improvements, 
and  when  the  basket-woman  had  risen 
to  follow  Mrs  Burtonshaw  up  and 
down  in  her  investigations,  recom- 
mending in  the  richest  of  Irish  brogues 
the  merchandise  she  carried,  Mr  Cum- 
berland made  his  appearance  upon 
the  flight  of  steps  which  led  to  the 
garden.  "  You  find  us  in  very  good 
trim,"  said  Mr  Cumberland,  rubbing 
his  hands  with  satisfaction.  "  Come 
here  ;  never  mind  the  porch :  here  is 
something  better  worth  looking  at. 
What  do  you  think  of  my  monogram, 
sister  Burtonshaw?  There  is  what  I 
call  a  true  feeling  for  art !  Look  at 
the  curves  of  that  first  letter,  what  a 
graceful  sweep  they  have  !  and  the 
leafage  of  the  C,  how  full  of  nature ! 
Not  one  scrap  of  foliage  repeated, 
sister  Elizabeth.  A  true  artist  scorns 
to  repeat  himself.  It  is  only  your 
mechanical  slave  who  wears  his  life 
out  making  both  sides^alike!  And  the 
colour— look  at  that  conjunction;  pur- 


[Nov. 

pie  and  blue  and  scarlet— colour  is  the 
sign  of  life  and  sanctity,  sister  Burton- 
shaw. Your  dead  whites  and  greys  and 
dull  monotones  are  all  marks  of  de- 
graded souls  and  a  degenerate  time. 
We  must  throw  colour  boldly  on  our 
lifeless  fronts,  sister  Burtonshaw.  We 
must  make  a  revolution  in  all  that ; 
wait  but  a  year,  and  you  shall  see." 

"  I  only  see  this  woman  following 
me  with  her  pins  and  her  laces — am  I 
like  a  person  to  buy  stay-laces  from  a 
vagrant?"  cried  Mrs  Burtonshaw  re- 
sentfully ;  "  and  as  for  your  letters,  I 
see  only  these  little  ragged  vagabonds 
looking  at  them,  and  dancing  the  poor 
innocent  turf  away.  I  see  nothing  to 
admire,  I  assure  you,  Mr  Cumberland, 
when  that  is  all  I  see  !  " 

"  Yes,  these  urchins  have  an  advan- 
tage which  neither  your  child  nor  mine 
had,  sister  Burtonshaw,"  said  Mr  Cum- 
berland ;  "we  had  miserable  primers 
in  our  nurseries,  with  black  and  white 
lies  about  A  being  an  archer,  and  so 
on.  How  could  A  be  an  archer,  I 
should  like  to  know  ?  But  when  the 
general  public  in  England  follows  my 
example,  sister  Burtonshaw,  as  I  have 
sanguine  expectations  they  will,  these 
little  rascals  will  learn  their  letters 
from  the  very  hand  of  art.  What  is 
an  archer  to  a  child  now? — only  a 
hieroglyphic  a  little  more  intelligible 
than  an  A.  But  suppose  you  illuminate 
your  letter,  sister  Burtonshaw,  and 
show  us  the  archer  shooting  his  arrow 
out  of  the  very  heart  of  his  initial — 
that  is  the  style  of  teaching !  Talk  of 
your  popular  schools — your  courses  of 
education.  Give  me  the  education 
which  shall  make  every  street  a  grand 
primer.  Yes,  sister  Elizabeth,  my  so- 
lemn conviction  is,  that  this  is  the  true 
education  of  the  poor ! " 

Mrs  Burtonshaw  opened  her  eyes 
and  lips  in  mute  astonishment,  and 
immediately  broke  forth  upon  the  poor 
Irish  basket-woman,  expending  her 
indignation,  "  Woman,  am  I  like  a 
person  to  want  your  stay-laces?" — 
while  Mrs  Cumberland  looked  up  at 
these  famous  letters  critically,  with 
her  head  held  a  little  to  one  side,  and 
with  a  gentle  sigh  of  approval  said, 
"  A  beautiful  idea — sermons  in  stones 
— a  sweet  thought !  I  am  delighted 
to  think  that  we  are  first  in  such  a  de- 
licate effort  of  benevolence." 

"  He  that  runs  may  read ! "  cried  Mr 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  Xll. 


537 


Cumberland  triumphantly.  "  Very 
different  from  a  dog's-eared  spelling- 
book,  sister  Burtonshaw.  The  letters, 
the  great  fundamental  principles  of  all 
literature,  I  hope  to  live  long  enough 
to  see  them  emblazoned  over  every 
threshold.  We  acknowledge  their  im- 
portance unconsciously ;  we  call  a 
famous  author  a  man  of  letters ;  we 
have  professors  of  belles  lettres.  These 
are  the  true  belles  lettres,  sister  Eliza- 
beth! You  see  the  beginning  here 
to-day;  who  can  tell  what  influence 
upon  the  future  life  of  these  urchins 
the  sight  of  this  monogram  may  have? 
They  are  happier  for  it  at  this  mo- 
ment, and  it  is  impossible  to  predict 
what  an  amount  of  good  may  follow. 
Let  us  throw  the  primers  into  the  sea, 
and  emblazon  all  our  houses,  sister 
Burtonshaw,  and  I  undertake  for  it  we 
shall  have  a  better  educated  population 
than  we  have  now." 
Mrs  Burtonshaw,  struck  dumb  by 


extreme  amazement  and  wrath,  swept 
past  the  pertinacious  basket-woman, 
and  went  into  the  house  without  a 
word.  "  They're  illigant  laces,  sure, 
my  lady,"  said  this  indefatigable  trader, 
dropping  her  curtsey  to  Mrs  Cumber- 
land. Mrs  Cumberland  thought  it 
would  be  cruel  not  to  encourage  this 
honourable  industry.  Alms  were  not 
always  good,  but  to  patronise  a  lawful 
traffic  was  quite  ! a  different  matter; 
and  while  the  sons  of  this  successful 
merchant  learned  the  I  and  C  of  Mr 
Cumberland's  monogram  with  devo- 
tion, their  worthy  mother  adroitly 
flattered  "  my  lady"  into  buying  half 
the  contents  of  her  basket.  "  They 
are  useless  to  me,  of  course,  Mary,  my 
love,  but  a  great  encouragement  to  this 
poor  honest  woman,"  said  Mrs  Cum- 
berland, as  she  passed  through  the  be- 
nevolent porch.  More  and  more  visi 
tors  were  arriving;  it  promised  to  be  a 
most  well-frequented  sheltering-place. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. — IN   PERIL. 


The  unfortunate  mansion  of  Mr 
Cumberland  had  not  suffered  so  much 
within  as  without,  since  it  was  scarcely 
possible,  with  any  amount  of  ingen- 
uity, to  make  the  modern  English 
drawing-room  into  a  Gothic  hall.  The 
bow- window  alone,  the  broad  sunshine 
of  which  was  now  broken  by  mullions 
and  tracery,  to  the  sad  diminution  of 
its  brightness,  had  been  put  into 
masquerade.  Zaidee  could  not  but 
remember,  as  she  sat  down  by  it  once 
more,  that  great  window  at  the  Grange, 
with  its  old  real  mullions,  and  its 
breadth  of  cloud  and  atmosphere. 
Something  like  an  attempt  to  imitate 
it  was  in  this  window  of  Mr  Cumber- 
land's, which,  Aunt  Burtonshaw  was 
horror-stricken  to  find,  Mr  Cum- 
berland intended  filling  with  painted 
glass  one  day.  "  And  shut  out  the 
river  1  "  cried  Mrs  Burtonshaw.  Mr 
Cumberland,  worsted  for  the  moment, 
confessed  that  he  had  not  thought  of 
that,  and  graciously  gave  it  up  to  the 
dissentient  ladies  ;  it  would  be  quite 
easy  to  break  out  another  window  for 
this  special  purpose  at  the  other  side. 
11  One  would  think  the  house  was 
having  the  measles,"  said  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw ungratefully ;  "  it  is  breaking 
out  into  windows  everywhere,  Mr 

VOL,  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXI. 


Cumberland — there  are  not  two  alike, 
I  declare;  and  now  we  shall  have  the 
workmen  back  for  this!  " 

"  You  make  a  slave  of  your  work- 
man, when  you  compel  him  to  form 
two  things  alike,"  said  Mr  Cumber- 
land. "When  you  have  your  gowns 
made  exact  to  a  pattern,  you  are  no 
better  than  a  slave-driver,  sister  Bur- 
tonshaw." Mrs  Burtonshaw  with- 
drew in  silent  indignation,  too  much 
affronted  to  answer,  and  Mr  Cum- 
berland set  about  designing  his 
window.  The  lady  of  the  house  had 
resumed  her  sofa,  and  Zaidee  and 
Mary  their  former  places,  and  the  day 
went  on  until  the  evening  very  much 
as  of  old. 

In  the  evening,  just  before  sunset,. 
Percy  Vivian  made  his  appearance 
very  hurriedly.  Percy  had  discarded 
his  high-stepping  horse  by  this  time-, 
and  came  on  foot  to  Mr  Cumberland's 
gate.  He  said  he  had  only  half  an 
hour  to  stay — that  this  was  merely  a 
flying  visit — that  his  mother  had  come 
to  town  quite  unexpectedly,  and  he 
must  hurry  back  to  spend  the  night 
with  her. 

"  Your  mother  ?  Mrs  Vivian  will 
surely  do  us  the  great  pleasure  of 
coming  to  Twickenham,  or  at  least 
2  N 


538 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


[Nov. 


we  must  call  upon  her,  my  dear  Mr 
Vivian,"  said  Mrs  Cumberland;  "you 
cannot  suppose  we  would  let  your 
mother  be  in  town,  and  not  go  to  see 
her — she  we  all  owe  so  much  admira- 
tion to — the  mother  of  such  a  son!  " 

" .My  mother  must  leave  London 
to-morrow,"  said  Percy,  with  the  slight 
quiver  of  laughter  in  his  voice  which 
always  hailed  Mrs  Cumberland's  com- 
pliments. "  She  has  only  come  up  for  a 
few  hours,  very  unexpectedly,  on  fa- 
mily business.  No  one  could  be 
more  astonished  than  I  was  when  I 
saw  her.  I  had  heard  from  her  only 
the  day  before  without  the  slightest 
intimation  of  her  coming  here,  and 
DOW  she  must  go  as  suddenly  as  she 
has  come." 

Scarcely  hearing  Mrs  Cumberland's 
polite  hopes  that  Mrs  Vivian  might 
not  suffer  from  the  fatigue  of  the  jour- 
ney, Percy  turned  to  Mary.  At  the 
first  mention  of  Aunt  Vivian,  Zaidee 
had  taken  a  book  from  the  table,  and 
held  it  before  her  face ;  it  was  not 
very  easy  to  hold  it  steadily,  but  she 
put  force  upon  herself,  and  listened 
with  attention  so  strained  that  the 
slightest  whisper  must  have  caught 
her  eager  ear. 

"  Did  you  ever  go  to  Worcester 
while  you  were  at  Malvern?  "  asked 
Percy  in  an  undertone  of  his  betrothed. 

"  No ;  never  except  yesterday  on 
our  way  here,"  said  Mary,  looking  at 
him  in  surprise. 

"Nor  knew  any  one  there — any 
one,  Mary  ?  "  Percy  was  very  earnest. 

"  No  indeed ;  not  any  one,"  an- 
swered Mary  Cumberland.  "  Why 
do  you  ask  me  ?  what  has  happened  ? 
You  look  very  serious.  Do  you  know 
any  one  there  ?  " 

"My  mother  has  just  received  a 
most  singular  communication,"  said 
Percy,  tossing  the  damp  hair  from 
his  forehead — "  a  very  strange  com- 
munication from  Zaidee,  whom  I  told 
you  of  so  lately — Zaidee,  who,  I  had 
made  up  my  mind,  was  lost  for  ever. 
A  letter  from  her  own  hand,  and  a 
book  of  Grandfather  Vivian's,  which 
she  says  she  found ;  and  this  extra- 
ordinary packet  came  from  Worcester. 
My  mother  left  home  at  once,  and 
travelled  at  express  speed  to  mo.  I 
must  go  down  with  her  there  to-mor- 
row to  make  inquiries.  It  is  most 
extraordinary.  Zaidee,  whom  we 


have  not  heard  of  for  seven  years — 
and  she  mentions  me.  She  mentions 
those  very  difficulties  of  mine,  Mary  ! 
I  am  quite  at  a  loss  to  understand  it 
— it  looks  like  witchcraft.  What  do 
you  think  ?  Can  you  tell  me  any  one 
to  inquire  of?  Give  me  your  counsel, 
Mary." 

But  Mary  could  not  give  him  her 
counsel.  She  was  watching  silently, 
and  with  the  breathless  scrutiny  of 
suspicion,  the  book  in  Zaidee's  hand. 
The  book  was  not  held  lightly,  care- 
lessly, as  one  would  hold  it  who  was 
reading  it ;  it  was  held  with  fingers 
which  grasped  at  it  desperately,  and 
were  white  to  the  very  points  with 
the  strain.  From  Worcester!  and 
Percy  and  Percy's  difficulties  men- 
tioned in  the  letter.  Flashing  into 
life,  as  by  an  electric  spark,  Mary's 
suspicion  came  to  sudden  form. 
Elizabeth  Cumberland,  who  was  like 
Elizabeth  Vivian — seven  years — that 
Grange  which  was  so  strangely  like 
her  beautiful  sister's  first  home.  Mary 
started  and  was  troubled  ;  she  could 
scarcely  answer  Percy  for  the  sudden 
necessity  she  felt  to  follow  out  this 
clue. 

"And  what  was  the  letter  ?"  she 
asked  at  last  eagerly. 

"Poor  Zaidee,  poor  child  !  her 
whole  heart,"  said  Percy,  with  tears 
in  his  eyes.  "  A  passionate  appeal  to 
rny  mother  and  Philip  to  take  back 
the  land — to  make  her  name  no  longer 
an  instrument  of  wrong.  A  reference 
to  the  book,  which  is  of  itself  a  strange 
and  affecting  revelation  to  us.  AVhere 
Zaidee  can  have  found  it  I  cannot 
tell,  but  it  contains  a  sort  of  prayer 
in  that  handwriting  of  Grandfather 
Vivian's  which  we  all  know  so  well, 
entreating  Frank  Vivian,  her  father, 
to  do  justice  to  Percy.  She  says  this 
is  her  inheritance,  and  pleads  that 
Philip  will  not  be  so  cruel  as  to  com- 
pel her  to  defraud  him.  It  is  a  very 
moving  letter,  M^ary,  to  us  who  re- 
member Zaidee  so  well.  Poor  little 
innocent  heart !  and  she  seems  quite 
unchanged." 

"  Will  your  mother  and  your  brother 
hear  her  prayer  ?  "  said  Mary ;  and 
Mary  saw  that  the  book  swayed  aside 
for  a  moment  in  the  hands  that  held 
it.  "  If  they  did,  she  might  still  conie 
home." 

"But  they  will   not  do  it,"  said 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romame.—Part  XII. 


539 


Percy ;  u  Philip  is  the  head  of  the 
house  ;  he  cannot  accept  this  gift  of 
Zaidee's — it  is  quite  impossible.  My 
mother  might  perhaps  be  induced  to 
it  by  Zaidee's  importunity  ;  but  even 
she  would  not,  could  not  —  no,  it 
is  impossible.  If  we  could  but  find 
her  !  And  I  must  set  out  with  my 
mother  for  this  search  to-night." 

Mary  made  no  answer,  but  she 
saw  a  flutter  in  the  folds  of  Zaidee's 
dress — a  faint,  slight  motion  which 
Percy  never  perceived  at  all,  so  mo- 
mentary it  was.  Mary  marked  it  in- 
stantly with  her  quickened  and  sus- 
picious eye. 

"  I  sometimes  think  it  would  be 
kindness  to  assume  at  last  that  we 
had  accepted  her  often-repeated  re- 
linquishment — to  pretend  it,  if  pre- 
tending were  ever  a  worthy  thing," 
said  Percy,  "  that  we  might  have 
some  hope  of  discovering  her  retreat. 
But  Zaidee  lives,  and  is  in  England. 
When  I  remember  that,  my  first  im- 
pulse is  to  rush  away  somewhere  to 
find  her.  Another  thing,  too,  has  hap- 
pened strangely.  Philip  writes  to  us 
news  of  good  fortune,  and  he  is  coming 
home.  But  my  time  is  gone,  and  you 
have  hardly  spoken  a  word  to  me, 
Mary.  Come  to  the  door  with  me, 
and  let  me  see  this  wonderful  porch  ; 
for  I  must  go  away." 

He  did  go  away,  and  he  had  no 
eyes  for  the  blanched  face  of  Zaidee 
nor  her  trembling  hand.  Mary  noted 
every  particular  with  one  distinct  and 
hasty  glance.  But  Mary  did  not 
utter  a  word  of  her  suspicion — did 
not  say  anything  to  deter  her  be- 
trothed from  this  bootless  quest.  It 
was  still  only  suspicion ;  she  did  not 
venture  to  think  that  her  beautiful 
sister  was  really  the  Zaidee  lost  seven 
years  ago  ;  but  she  had  a  great  many 
things  to  contrast  and  put  together 
when  she  should  be  alone  once  more. 
To  Mary's  mind  there  was  a  peculiar 
pleasure  in  thus  "putting  things  to- 
gether ;"  her  understanding  was  of  a 
logical  and  circumstantial  kind ;  she 
enjoyed  those  exercises  of  ingenious 
reasoning,  though,  to  do  her  justice, 
her  mind  was  so  much  excited 
with  the  possibilities  of  her  suddenly 
aroused  suspicion  that  everything 
else  sank  into  the  shade.  With 
characteristic  reserve,  she  gave  no 
hint  to  Percy  of  these  thoughts  of 


hers ;  she  had  never  told  him  that 
her  beautiful  sister  was  an  adopted 
child.  She  must  conquer  the  mys- 
tery herself  before  she  confided  it  to 
another. 

And  Zaidee  remained  with  her 
book  before  her,  and  the  blood  tin- 
gling and  flowing  back  from  its  full 
ebb  upon  her  heart.  Already  she 
was  less  pale,  already  steadier  and 
more  composed.  By  some  intuitive 
perception  Zaidee  knew  that  there 
was  suspicion  in  Mary's  gaze,  that 
Mary  very  likely  would  endeavour  to 
startle  her,  and  throw  her  off  her 
guard  to  elicit  a  confession,  and  with 
her  whole  force  she  concentrated 
about  herself  all  the  safeguards  she 
could  reach.  She  put  down  her  book, 
and  went  to  sit  by  Aunt  Burtonshaw. 
She  compelled  herself  to  listen  to 
this  troubled  critic's  running  com- 
ments on  Mr  Cumberland's  last  fancy, 
and  to  join  in  them  j  she  turned  her 
face  away  from  that  window  with  its 
new  decorations,  that  nothing  might 
remind  her  of  home  ;  and  when  Mary 
came  back,  to  find  her  beautiful  sister 
engaged  in  the  natural  conversation 
of  the  household,  with  her  brow  as 
calm,  and  her  smile  as  unconstrained 
as  even  Aunt  Burtonshaw's,  Mary, 
judicious  observer  as  she  was,  was 
staggered  in  her  suspicion.  "  Who 
could  write  from  Worcester  to  Mrs 
Vivian — who  do  you  think  it  could 
be  ?"  she  whispered,  by  way  of  expe- 
riment. "  We  knew  no  one  at  Wor- 
cester, Mary,"  said  Zaidee;  and 
Zaidee  was  busy  with  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw's embroidery,  and  did  not  look  up 
to  meet  the  scrutiny  of  her  companion's 
eyes.  Mary  was  not  nearly  so  con- 
fident as  she  had  been,  when  the  even- 
ing ended  ;  but  she  found  no  en- 
couragement in  Zaidee's  decisive  good- 
night for  their  usual  conference.  These 
two  friends  separated  to  go  to  their 
different  rooms,  and  think  over  this 
one  subject — Zaidee  sinking  down  in 
utter  exhaustion  when  she  closed  her 
door,  and  Mary  with  her  eager  logic 
tracing  her  chain  of  evidence  whenever 
she  was  sheltered  within  her  own. 
She  sat  bending  her  pretty  brow  over 
it,  her  blue  eyes  shining  in  the  light 
over  which  they  bent,  as  if  to  seek 
guidance  there,  for  a  full  hour  after 
the  feverish  sleep  of  exhaustion  had 
fallen  on  Zaidee.  Mary  gathered  the 


540 


Zaidee:  a  Romance.— Part  XII. 


[Nov. 


facts  together  with  anxious  industry, 
and  recalled  one  after  another  the  cir- 
cumstances of  confirmation  which  of 
late  she  had  noted  onebyone.  Bringing 
them  together,  they  formed  a  strange 
body  of  presumptive  evidence,  but 
not  so  complete  a  chain  as  to  justify 
her  in  the  conclusion  that  her  mo- 
ther's adopted  child  was  in  reality 
the  lost  heiress  of  the  Grange.  She 
was  not  satisfied ;  her  mind  scanned 
Zaidee's  sentiments  and  modes 
of  acting  with  the  keenest  investi- 


gation, and  drew  confirming  "evi- 
dence from  every  point  of  character 
which  her  girlish  friend  had  betrayed 
to  her ;  but  all  this  was  not  enough. 
Mary,  who  was  waging  no  mental 
conflict,  who  was  only  curious  and 
interested,  but  had  no  stake  in  the- 
matter,  found  it  rather  a  pleasant  ex- 
citation to  her  intelligence.  Poor 
Zaidee  was  now  beset  on  all  sides  ; 
for  it  was  not  in  Mary's  nature  to- 
give  up  this  question  till  she  had 
come  to  the  very  truth. 


CHAPTER   XXVII. — ANOTHER  HOPE. 


When  the  light  of  another  morn- 
ing awoke  Zaidee  out  of  the  deep 
sleep  of  her  weariness  to  this  mortal 
coil  and  strife  once  more,  the  poor 
girl  would  fain  have  shut  her  eyes, 
and  turned  away  for  ever  from  that 
cheerful  light.  In  the  first  pause  of  her 
waking,  the  new  aggravation  of  her 
distress  returned  upon  her  with  a 
pang  of  pain  and  terror.  Mary's  eyes 
were  turned  on  her  with  suspicion. 
Mary,  her  own  especial  friend,  was 
groping  darkly  after  her  secret ;  had 
already  a  perception  of  it— and  from 
henceforward  was  to  be  leaned  upon 
no  more.  Zaidee  thought  this  was 
the  last  drop  in  her  cup.  "  Oh,  if  I 
had  never  waked  ( again !"  said  this 
forlorn  heart,  with  a  burst  of  passion- 
ate tears ;  but  when  she  had  said  it, 
her  words  returned  upon  her  with 
sudden  self-reproach,  and  Zaidee  went 
away  to  the  corner  of  her  chamber  to 
carry  all  her  troubles,  where  she  had 
always  carried  them,  to  the  one  sole 
compassionate  Friend  who  neverfailed 
the  motherless  child  in  her  necessity. 
If  she  was  simple  still  in  her  inter- 
course with  the  world,  Zaidee  here, 
upon  her  knees,  was  a  child  indeed, 
full  of  the  sincerest  humility  and 
most  implicit  trustfulness ;  and  when 
she  had  put  herself  and  all  her 
affairs  once  again  into  the  heavenly 
Father's  hand,  she  rose  to  go  about 
her  morning  toilette  with  a  face  from 
which  all  the  bitterness  of  her  distress 
and  conflict  was  gone.  There  was 
still  a  little  time  to  spare,  and  Zaidee 
opened  her  window  to  let  in  the 
sweet  morning  air,  and  looked  out 
upon  the  river  and  the  drooping 
acacia,  which  now  had  only  here  and 


there  a  blade  of  autumn  foliage  hang- 
ing yellow  upon  the  end  of  a  bough. 
Shehad  a  great  longing  in  her  heart  to 
do  something  more — a  great  yearning 
of  anxiety  to  know  if  anything  more 
was  practicable ;  but  there  was  no  one 
to  guide  her,  no  one)  to  instruct  her, 
how  authoritative  law  could  come  to 
the  assistance  of  natural  justice.  When 
she  had  spent  a  little  time  in  unpro- 
fitable thinking,  of  which  no  result 
came,  she  went  down  stairs  to  the 
breakfast-table,  where  Mr  Cumber- 
land was  the  only  person  before  her. 
Mr  Cumberland  had  some  papers 
upon  a  little  table  before  him,  and 
was  reading  them  over  half  aloud. 
After  a  while  Zaidee's  ear  was  caught 
by  a  title  "  deed  of  gift."  It  caught 
her  attention  strangely ;  and  as  it 
came  more  than  once  in  the  course  of 
Mr  Cumberland's  mumbling,  she  was 
induced  to  draw  near.  He  was  al- 
ways very  kind  to  her,  this  whimsical 
philosopher,  and  at  all  times  was  ex- 
tremely ready  to  answer  questions. 
"  What  is  a  '  deed  of  gift  ?'"  said  Zai- 
dee. She  asked  it  very  simply,  and 
this  good  man  would  have  believed 
any  impossibility  in  the  world  sooner 
than  that  his  beautiful  adopted  daugh- 
ter had  an  estate  to  dispose  of. 

"A  deed  of  gift  is  a  legal  instrument,  by 
which  I  give  something  which  belongs 
to  me  into  another  person's  posses- 
sion," said  Mr  Cumberland  ;  "  a  sort 
of  will,  which  does  not  necessitate 
the  death  of  the  testator,  Elizabeth ; 
but  which  can  come  into  effect  imme- 
diately, though  you  should  live  a 
hundred  years;"  and  Mr  Cumber- 
land returned  to  his  mumbling.  He 
had  not  the  most  distant  idea  that 


1655.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


541 


he  had  said  anything  of  the  slightest 
importance  to  his  hearer,  and  he  went 
on  with  his  necessary  business  with- 
out so  much  as  observing  that  she  was 
there. 

And  she  went  forward  to  the  win- 
dow, and  leaned  her  head  upon  those 
new  mullions  with  a  sudden  flush  of 
pride  and  delight.  When  Mrs  Cum- 
berland and  Mrs  Burtonshaw  entered 
the  room  Zaidee  did  not  know  ;  they 
never  attracted  her  observation  ;  but 
she  knew  in  an  instant  when  Mary 
-came,  aud  recalled  her  wandering 
thoughts,  and  recovered  her  self-pos- 
session. Mr  Cumberland  was  reso- 
lute to  have  his  new  window  "  broken 
out"  without  delay.  He  thought  they 
had  better  return  once  more  for  a 
few  days  to  Mrs  Harley's.  The  sea- 
son was  advancing ;  it  might  not  be 
so  practicable  at  another  time,  and 
Mr  Cumberland  was  himself  going  to 
town  to  deliver  a  lecture  on  mono- 
grams and  decorated  letters  in  gene- 
ral, and  their  effect  upon  the  educa- 
tion of  the  poor.  Mrs  Cumberland, 
who  thought  it  "  a  sweet  idea,"  and 
who  was  very  well  disposed  to  have 
a  window  of  painted  glass,  was  quite 
inclined  to  return  for  a  week  to  Lon- 
don ;  and  even  Mrs  Burtonshaw, 
whose  life  was  made  miserable  by  a 
report  that  certain  occupants  of  the 
porch  of  chanty  had  harboured  there 
all  night,  and  made  a  saturnalia, 
strewing  the  tiled  and  particoloured 
floor  with  bones  and  crumbs,  and  un- 
sightly memorials  of  their  feast,  had 
no  objections.  They  set  off  accord- 
ingly, this  unsettled  and  wandering 
party,  and  again  took  possession  of 
the  faded  London  drawing  -  room. 
Next  evening  was  the  time  of  Mr 
Cumberland's  lecture,  and  he  was  to 
be  in  town  with  them  all  day. 

The  next  morning  Zaidee  set  out 
by  herself  to  make  some  purchases  for 
Mrs  Cumberland.  She  was  very  ig- 
norant of  everything  practical  out  of 
her  own  limited  womanly  sphere.  She 
could  not  tell  where  to  go  to  seek  for 
some  lawyer,  as  she  wished  to  do. 
She  knew  the  names  of  the  Inns  of 
€ourt  well  enough,  and  of  the  Tern  pie, 
and  had  a  vague  idea  that  lawyers 
were  plentiful  in  these  quarters,  but 
that  was  the  sum  of  Zaidee's  know- 
ledge. As  she  walked  along  very  un- 
certainly, at  a  rapid  pace,  but  doubt- 


ful of  where  to  go,  somebody  who  was 
shooting  past  her,  turned  round  with 
a  quick  and  smiling  greeting.  His 
friendly  face  gave  her  comfort  in  an 
instant — it  was  the  artist  Steele. 

"  Does  your  father  know  Creswick 
— have  you  seen  his  picture?"  said 
Mr  Steele,  not  recollecting  at  the  in- 
stant that  pictures  were  not  the  great 
events  of  life  in  the  house  of  Mr  Cum- 
berland— "  famous  isn't  it  ?  I  wish  I 
could  paint  like  that  fellow ;  I'd  make 
my  fortune." 

"  Does  he  paint  better  than  you?  " 
said  Zaidee,  smiling. 

"  Better !  of  course  he  does  ;  why, 
everybody  paints  better  than  me.  I'm 
not  in  the  Academy,"  said  Mr  Steele. 
"  When  the  Duke  of  Scattergood 
writes  to  me,  he  calls  me  Steele,  R.A., 
and  won't  be  persuaded  I've  no  right 
to  it.  Have  I  seen  you  since  I  sent 
him  home  his  picture?  Well,  he  likes 
it— yes— he  says  it's  the  best  of  mine 
he's  ever  seen,  and  wants  me  to  take 
another  commission.  And  there's  Fur- 
long at  me  for  his  picture  for  the  Aca- 
demy next  year.  I'll  tell  you  a  thing  I 
said  the  other  day.  I  was  going  some- 
where with  some  gentlemen  from  the 
country — connoisseurs  you  know  — 
people  one  must  keep  in  with  ;  it  was 
my  night  at  the  Graphic,  and  I  took 
them  to  see  some  sketches.  Big  Fill- 
more,  that  big  fat  fellow,  was  standing 
in  the  doorway.  '  Here's  Steele,  with 
his  sparks,'  says  Fillmore.  '  What 
has  that  scarecrow  to  do  with  it?' 
said  I ;  'all  the  sparks  he  can  fitid  he 
has  to  steal!'" 

Zaidee  did  not  pause  to  think  that 
she  had  heard  a  great  deal  better  jokes 
than  this  from  her  witty  companion. 
She  almost  interrupted  him  with  the 
eager  question  which  hung  on  her  lips. 
"  Could  you  tell  me  where  to  find  a 
lawyer?  Do  you  know  a  gentleman 
I  could  ask  about  something?  It  is  a 
secret.  I  would  rather  they  did  not 
know  at  home,"  said  Zaidee  anxiously. 

The  artist's  face  grew  serious. 
"  You  are  very  young  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  lawyers— a  great  deal 
too  young.  Now,  I  know  you're  a 
good  girl.  You  need  not  say  any- 
thing. I  don't  mean  it  for  a  compli- 
ment. It's  no  credit  to  you.  Of  course, 
you'd  have  been  as  bad  as  another, 
but  for  grace  and  mercy.  If  you  tell 
me  on  your  word  it's  nothing  that 


542 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


they  ought  to  know  at  home — nothing 
that  will  lie  on  your  conscience — I'll 
take  you  to  a  lawyer.  I  won't  trust 
you,  because  you're  a  nice  girl,  and  I 
like  you;  but  if  you'll  give  me  your 
word  as  a  Christian" — 

"  Indeed,  I  will,"  said  Zaidee,  her 
cheek  reddening  with  a  sweet  colour. 
"  It  is  no  harm,  indeed  ;  it  is  to  save 
harm.  I  can  ask  God  to  bless  my 
errand  ;  I  give  you  my  word." 

Mr  Steele  looked  in  her  face  ear- 
nestly, and  she  returned  his  look  with 
those  open  candid  eyes  of  hers,  as 
free  of  evil  intent  as  the  clear  sky 
above.  "  Come  on,  then,"  said  her 
new  companion,  drawing  her  hand 
through  his  arm  with  a  fatherly  kind- 
ness. "  You're  too  young  and  too 
pretty  to  go  to  a  lawyer's  office ;  I'll 
take  you  in,  and  wait  for  you.  Don't 
thank  me,  now — we've  all  one  Father 
— it  would  be  hard  if  we  could  not 
help  each  other  without  looking  for 
thanks, — come  along." 

As  they  went  along,  her  guide  went 
on  talking  with  the  kindest  attempt  to 
divert  her  thoughts,  but  Zaidee  could 
make  very  little  of  it  in  her  great 
anxiety  and  eagerness.  Her  heart 
beat  very  high  when  they  stopped  at 
last,  and  entered  a  great  grim  house, 
and  were  shown  in  with  solemnity  to 
the  lawyer's  private  sanctuary.  Mr 
Furnival  was  at  home;  and  Mr  Steele, 
after  introducing  her  simply  as  "  a 
young  lady,"  withdrew  to  wait  for 
Zaidee  outside.  Mr  Furnival  was  not 
an  old  man,  as  Zaidee  hoped,  but  quite 
sufficiently  youthful  to  be  dazzled  by 
the  unusual  beauty  of  his  visitor. 
He  placed  a  chair  for  her  with  the 
most  deferential  bow.  She  was  very 
plainly  dressed,  and  had  nothing  about 
her  to  indicate  rank,  or  call  for  this 
respect.  She  was  a  little  disconcerted 
by  it,  having  in  her  own  simple  mind 
the  greatest  awe  for  this  legal  autho- 
rity, and  seated  herself  with  trepida- 
tion, looking  up  wistfully  at  the  man 
who  might  do  so  much  for  her.  For 
his  part,  this  astonished  representative 
of  law  looked  round  upon  his  dusty 
office  with  a  momentary  shame,  and 
looked  at  the  small  hand  which  rustled 
his  papers,  as  Zaidee  leaned  forward 
slightly  towards  his  table,  with  a  secret 
idea  of  some  fairy  gift  of  wealth  and 
happiness  being  found  on  the  magical 
spot  when  it  was  gone. 


[Nov. 

"I  came  to  ask  about  a  deed  of 
gift.  Can  I  give  something  that  I 
have,  absolutely  away  from  me,  and 
never  have  any  power  to  reclaim  it 
again  ?  "  —  asked  Zaidee  anxiously. 
UI  have  something  which  has  been 
left  to  me  away  from  the  natural  heir, 
and  he  will  not  take  it  back,  though  I 
plead  with  him  constantly.  Can  I 
make  a  deed  giving  it  back  to  him 
whether  he  will  or  no  ?—  can  I  put  it 
away  from  myself  absolutely  and  for 
ever?" 

"  You  can  execute  a  deed  of  gift," 
said  the  lawyer,  u  certainly,  if  you 
have  attained  the  legal  age  ;  but,  per- 
haps, if  you  empowered  me  to  treat 
with  the  other  party — if  you  would 
kindly  enter  a  little  more  into  de- 
tail." 

Zaidee  was  becoming  very  much 
agitated— it  seemed  like  a  voluntary 
self-betrayal  for  a  very  questionable 
good. 

"But  I  cannot  enter  into  detail, 
and  no  one  can  treat  with  him,"  she 
said  with  simple  earnestness,  her  voice 
trembling,  and  her  eyes  filling  with 
tears.  "  Pray,  if  you  will  be  so  very 
good  as  to  draw  this  out  for  me — say- 
that  I  give  everything  that  was  left 
to  me  by  my  grandfather's  will,  abso- 
lutely, to  my  cousin  Philip — that  I 
know  my  grandfather  intended  to  de- 
stroy that  will.  No,  stay,  that  will 
not  do.  It  must  not  be  a  gift  to  Philip, 
who  is  the  head  of  the  house.  I  give 
it  all  to  my  aunt — will  you  please  to 
say,  sir? — everything  absolutely  to 
her,  to  be  disposed  of  as  she  pleases. 
I  give  up  all  property  in  it,  and  protest 
that  I  never  was  entitled  to  have  any. 
Pray  will  you  be  so  good  as  to  say 
all  {his  for  me?" 

The  lawyer  attempted  to  take  a 
note  of  these  instructions,  but  shook 
his  head.  "  I  am  afraid  I  mast  trouble 
you  to  be  a  little  more  particular,"  he 
said,  "to  mention  the  nature  of  the 
property,  the  names — I  think  that 
would  do.  I  think  I  understand  your 
wishes,  with  these  details." 

u  It  is  my  grandfather's  estate," 
said  Zaidee,  growing  more  and  more 
agitated  ;  "  and  the  names — could  not 
I  put  in  the  names,  if  you  will  write 
all  the  rest?" 

ButMrFurnival  smiled,  and, though 
-with  the  most  deferential  politeness, 
demurred  to  the  possibility  of  this. 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XIJ. 


543 


His  beautiful  client  moved  the  lawyer 
into  unusual  curiosity  and  interest — 
her  singular  errand  and  her  visible 
distress. 

"Are  you  trusted  with  a  great  many 
secrets?"  said  Zaidee,  anxiously. 
"  This  is  the  secret  of  all  my  life  ;  if 
they  find  me,  or  have  any  trace  where 
to  find  me,  they  ^will  not  accept  this. 
If  I  tell  you  my  name — our  name — 
will  you  keep  my  secret?  You  are  a 
stranger ;  you  do  not  know  them :  if 
I  trust  you,  will  you  not  betray  me?" 

"A  lawyer  is  a  secret-keeper  by 
profession,"  said  Mr  FurnivaJ,  some- 
what shaken  out  of  his  composure  by 
this  appeal.  u  It  will  become  my  duty 
to  keep  your  secret  when  you  trust  me 
with  it.  I  think  you  need  fear  no  be- 
trayal from  me." 

Then  she  told  him  her  name,  and 


the  name  of  Mrs  Vivian  of  the  Grange. 
Mr  Furnival  was  very  anxious  to  be 
permitted  to  bring  the  paper  to  Miss 
Vivian  when  he  had  executed  it,  and 
did  not  understand  the  hasty  terror 
with  which  she  volunteered  to  come 
again.  In  two  days  she  was  to  come 
again,  Mr  Furnival  pledging  himself 
to  have  the  momentous  deed  ready 
for  her  signature ;  and  Zaidee  hasten- 
ed out  to  join  Mr  Steele  at  the  door, 
leaving  the  dazzled  lawyer  in  the  pri- 
vate room,  which  had  never  looked  so 
dingy,  and  to  the  labours  which  were 
perpetually  interrupted  by  a  pause  of 
wonder  and  admiration.  Mr  Furnival 
would  almost  have  sacrificed  the 
Grange  himself,  if  he  had  had  it,  for  a 
better  introduction  and  a  less  embar- 
rassing acquaintance  with  that  beauti- 
ful face. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII. — ALARMS, 


Mr  Cumberland's  lecture  was  a  very 
successful  lecture ;  it  had  the  merit — 
not  a  particularly  distinguished  fea- 
ture of  popular  platform  instruction — 
of  sticking  very  closely  to  its  text, 
and  being  perfectly  in  earnest.  Mr 
Cumberland  did  not  address  himself 
to  a  hypothetical  body  of  illuminators 
who  might  be  present ;  he  addressed 
himself  boldly  to  the  wealthy  class, 
of  which  lie  himself  was  a  member — 
comfortable  elderly  gentlemen,  whose 
balance  at  their  bankers'  was  extreme- 
ly satisfactory,  and  who  rode  violently 
each  some  particular  hobby.  On  these 
respectable  brethren  Mr  Cumberland 
vehemently  urged  the  sacred  duty  of 
illuminating  their  houses ;  he  exhibit- 
ed to  them  his  own  I.  and  C.,  and 
pathetically  related  the  interest  of  the 
urchins  who  clapped  their  hands  at 
the  emblazoned  letters.  "  We  talk 
of  popular  instruction,  the  education 
of  the  poor,"  said  Mr  Cumberland  ; 
"  you  have  my  permission  to  make  a 
grand  bonfire  of  spelling-books,  if  you 
will  but  adopt  this  decoration,  of  it- 
self so  beautiful,  for  the  front  of  your 
houses.  What  contribution  do  you 
make,  my  good  sir,  to  the  moral  cul- 
ture of  that  little  vagabond  who  dances 
before  your  door?  what  the  better  is 
it  for  him  that  you  know  your  letters? 
But  let  him  learn  to  know  that,  in 
these  three  mystic  and  sacred  colours 


emblazoned  over  your  door,  you  are 
communicating  to  him  two  or  three  of 
the  radical  characters  of  the  alphabet, 
the  foundation  of  all  learning,  and 
your  relation  is  immediately  changed. 
You  no  longer  throw  a  penny  to  the 
breechless  imp,  as  you  throw  a  bone 
to  his  companion  cur;  you  make  a 
beautiful  picture  for  his  enjoyment, 
you  cheer  his  life,  you  educate  his 
taste,  you  improve  his  mind ;  all  the 
national  schools  in  the  world  will  not 
work  such  a  revolution  as  you  have 
it  in  your  power  to  work  by  this 
beautiful  expedient— the  encourage- 
ment of  arts  and  morals — the  improve- 
ment of  the  world  ! " 

A  burst  of  emphatic  applause,  led 
by  Mr  Steele,  who  clapped  his  hands 
with  the  glee  of  a  schoolboy,  cheered 
on  the  lecturer ;  the  members  of  the 
association  under  whose  auspices  he 
delivered  his  address  bit  their  lips  and 
smiled;  the  elderly  gentlemen,  each 
of  whom  clung  tightly  to  his  own 
saddle,  looked  upon  the  prancing  of 
this  new  steed  with  small  admiration, 
and  believed  Cumberland  was  crazy 
at  last.  But,  with  the  valour  of  a 
champion,  and  the  ardour  due  to  so 
great  a  principle,  Mr  Cumberland 
went  on. 

The  next  two  days  were  once  more  a 
pause  in  Zaidee's  troubled  existence. 
Percy  was  not  here  to  quicken  Mary's 


544 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


suspicions  by  talk  of  Zaidee;  and 
though  Mary  watched  with  unwaver- 
ing observation,  nothing  occurred  to 
add  to  her  chain  of  evidence.  Mary 
made  great  demands  upon  Zaidee's 
time ;  when  she  could  help  it,  she 
never  left  her  alone,  but  pressed  her 
into  a  continual  round  of  engagements, 
and  it  was  only  with  the  greatest  dif- 
ficulty that  Zaidee  was  able  to  escape 
from  her  watchful  companion,  to  keep 
her  engagement  with  the  lawyer. 
With  great  exertion,  however,  she 
was  able  to  do  it,  and  to  fiend  off  the 
deed  in  another  packet — a  second 
startling  communication  to  Aunt  Vi- 
vian. Zaidee  had  done  her  utmost 
when  she  had  done  this :  she  returned 
home,  trembling  with  suppressed  ex- 
citement, exhausted  and  pale  as  with 
great  labour ;  nor  did  she  return  to 
find  any  comfort  or  relaxation  in  the 
temporary  dwelling-place  of  her  adopt- 
ed father.  Mary  received  her  with 
minute  inquiries  as  to  where  she  had 
been,  and  looks  of  unequivocal  suspi- 
cion. Poor  Zaidee  durst  not  retreat 
to  her  own  room  to  rest,  and  elude 
this  ingenious  torture.  She  was  com- 
pelled to  be  still,  and  bear  the  brunt 
of  all,  to  compose  her  beating  heart 
as  well  as  she  was  able,  and  to  fall 
into  the  everyday  quietness  of  Mrs 
Burtonshaw's  talk,  and  Mary  Cum- 
berland's occupation.  She  did  it  with 
the  painful  self-constraint  which  more 
and  more  felt  like  guilt  to  her.  She 
perceived  herself  shrinking  like  a  cri- 
minal from  Mary's  notice;  and  Zaidee 
wondered,  with  a  great  pang,  if  this 
was  not  dissimulation,  deceit,  practi- 
cal falsehood,  and  felt  all  her  supports 
and  all  her  strength  yielding  under 
her;  was  she  doing  evil  that  good 
might  come  ? 

And  she  began  to  have  hours  of 
that  indefinite  illness  and  sadness 
which  people  compassionately  call 
headache,  and  to  feel,  indeed,  her  un- 
shed tears  a  burning  weight  over  her 
-eyebrows.  When  Percy  returned,  she 
saw  him  talking  apart  with  Mary,  and 
with  terror  perceived  that  Mary  no 
longer  wished  to  confide  to  her  what 
Percy  said.  Zaidee  asked  herself, 
night  and  day,  should  she  fly  away 
again? — but  she  had  no  longer  the 
strength  of  resolution  which  would  fit 
her  for  this,  nor  had  she  the  happy 
immunity  from  evil  which  belonged 


[Nov. 

to  a  child.  She  was  a  woman  grown 
— a  beautiful  woman  ;  her  heart  sick- 
ened at  the  prospect  of  the  desert 
world  which  lay  before  her,  and  she 
clung  with  a  strange  regard  to  her 
familiar  shelter :  Time  enough  for 
flight  when  her  fears  were  verified — 
when  the  last  evil,  the  distinct  dis- 
covery, came.  She  stayed  with  her 
kind  friends,  day  by  day,  like  one  over 
whom  the  extreme  punishment  of  the 
law  was  hanging:  before  to-morrow 
she  might  be  flying  from  them  a  hope- 
less fugitive ;  before  to-morrow  she 
might  have  said  farewell  to  these 
affectionate  faces,  and  be  dead  for 
ever  to  her  second  home. 

And  when  Percy  came,  Zaidee  could 
not  be  still  in  her  favourite  corner,  or 
withdraw  her  attention  from  him. 
With  her  beating  heart  and  her  strain- 
ed ear,  she  came  as  close  beside  these 
betrothed  companions  as  it  was  pos- 
sible to  come,  and  listened  with  a 
sickening  anxiety.  She  knew  the 
glance  of  Percy's  excitement  when  he 
entered,  a  few  days  after  she  had  sent 
away  her  deed,  as  well  as  if  he  had 
proclaimed  it  aloud,  and  in  a  moment 
the  most  complete  self-control  calmed 
Zaidee's  mind  and  person,  and  she 
waited  with  breathless  eagerness  to 
hear  what  he  would  say. 

u  Let  me  speak  to  you,  Mary,"  said 
Percy ;  "  we  have  another  event  in 
this  marvellous  history.  Come,  let 
me  tell  you  here." 

But  Mary,  who  had  her  own  rea- 
sons for  permitting  Zaidee  to  listen, 
sat  still,  and  heard  his  story  where 
she  was.  "  A  deed  of  gift — a  legal 
instrument — and  from  London  this 
time,"  said  Percy,  with  great  excite- 
ment, though  in  an  under-tone.  "  We 
cannot  cope  with  this  invisible  agent; 
while  we  are  searching  for  her  in  one 
place,  she  makes  her  appearance  sud- 
denly in  another.  It  is  like  an  actual 
dealing  with  some  spiritual  influence. 
My  mother  says,  Search  London. 
Heaven  knows,  I  am  as  anxious  as 
she  is ;  but  how  to  search  London, 
Mary  !  I  am  at  my  wit's  end  ;  advise 
me  what  I  must  do." 

"  I  will  advise  jrou  by-and-by," 
said  Mary,  quietly,  "  but  tell  me  now 
what  is  this  new  thing — another  let- 
ter ? — is  that  what  you  mean  ?  " 
.  "  Not  a  letter — a  deed  executed  by 
a  lawyer,  conferring  the  Grange  upon 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


545 


my  mother  by  a  formal  gift.  My 
mother,  of  course,  can  refuse  to  accept 
it ;  but,  to  tell  the  truth,  these  lands 
occupy  a  very  small  share  of  our 
thoughts.  My  mother  can  think  of 
nothing  but  Zaidee.  I  have  sent  for 
Sophy  to  the  Grange  to  keep  her 
company :  left  to  herself  with  nothing 
but  these  strange  communications,  the 
author  of  which  it  is  impossible  to 
trace,  I  almost  fear  for  my  mother. 
She  is  neither  nervous  nor  fanciful, 
or  she  must  have  been  ill  before 
now." 

"And  Sophy  is  your  youngest 
sister,"  said  Mary  Cumberland.  Zai- 
dee, driven  to  another  expedient,  was 
working  now  at  her  needle,  and  had 
made  no  sign,  ever  so  secret,  of  inte- 
rest. This  perfect  composure  gave 
ground  for  Mary's  suspicion  as  potent 
as  agitation  could  have  done.  "  The 
story  is  a  strange  story ;  she  is  near 
enough  to  hear ;  she  could  not  have 
listened  so  quietly  had  it  been  new  to 
her,"  said  Mary  ;  and  not  without  an 
object  was  her  present  question,  to 
draw  a  little  more  of  the  family  his- 
tory from  Percy,  and  put  Zaidee  off 
her  guard. 

u  Sophy  is  my  youngest  sister,  and 
though  I  believe  the  most  practical  of 
us  all,  she  has  made  what  people  call 
a  very  foolish  marriage ;  and  neither 
Reginald  nor  she  are  likely  to  be  in- 
jured by  three  months  in  the  Grange. 
But  do  not  think  of  Sophy — think  of 
our  mysterious  correspondent — and 
help  me  if  you  can." 

Mary  shook  her  head,  and  could 
suggest  nothing.  But  she  had  seen 
Zaidee's  work  pause  in  interest  for 
Sophy — that  was  worth  an  exertion  ; 
and  she  set  herself  anew  to  build  up  her 
chain  of  evidence.  Mary  had  a  certain 
pride  of  intellect  about  her,  though 
her  understanding  was  by  no  means 
of  a  brilliant  character.  She  would 
not  ask  Percy's  assistance,  as  he  asked 
hers;  she  was  resolute  to  discover  this 
mystery  unaided.  Then  she  recollect- 
ed Zaidee's  absence,  which  she  had 
not  accounted  for— she  became  very 


eager  in  her  investigations,  and  very 
full  of  hope. 

But  Zaidee  heard  no  more  of  this 
conversation  till  Percy  was  on  the 
point  of  departure.  Then  one  thing 
rung  upon  her  ear,  "  Philip  is  on  his 
way ;  he  was  to  start  with  the  next 
mail,  and  a  week  or  two  more  will 
bring  him  home." 

"  A  week  or  two  more."  The  room 
swam  in  Zaidee's  eyes  —  she  did  not 
see  this  time  the  sidelong  look  with 
which  Mary  watched  the  sudden 
paleness  and  blindness  which  came 
upon  her.  Eestraint  had  gone  as  far 
as  restraint  could  go ;  she  rose  up,  and 
went  away  from  the  room  swiftly  and 
suddenly,  stumbling  over  some  unseen 
pieces  of  furniture  in  her  way.  Poor 
Zaidee,  she  had  but  thrown  herself 
upon  her  bed,  and  pressed  her  burning 
temples  with  her  hands,  when  Mary 
opened  the  door  and  asked,  "May  I 
come  in  ?  "  With  the  quietness  of  de- 
spair, Zaidee  raised  herself  up  once 
more.  "  You  look  very  pale  ;  your 
eyes  are  red — what  is  the  matter  with 
you,  Lizzy?"  asked  her  visitor,  struck 
with  compassion,  as  she  saw  her 
face.  "Only  my  head  aches,"  said 
Zaidee.  Her  head  did  ache,  and 
throb,  and  burn  with  great  pain — 
her  mind  was  almost  yielding  to  this 
persecution.  She  raised  herself  with 
a  momentary  sullenness  of  resistance, 
and  turned  round  upon  her  pursuer 
with  her  dark  eyes  dilated,  and  an 
agony  of  determination  in  them.  If 
Mary  had  any  purpose  in  thus  follow- 
ing her,  she  wanted  resolution  to 
carry  it  out.  "  Lie  down  and  rest," 
said  Mary,  laying  back  Zaidee's  head 
against  her  will,  upon  the  pillow,  and 
wrapping  a  shawl  round  her;  and 
Mary  stooped  to  kiss  her  with  a  tear 
in  her  eye,  and  said,  like  Percy,  "  Poor 
child ! " 

When  Mary  was  gone,  a  long,  long 
burst  of  restrained  tears  gave  ease  to 
the  throbbing  brow  which  was  laden 
with  this  unshed  torrent — and  then 
poor  Zaidee  in  her  great  weariness  com- 
posed herself  like  a  child,  and  slept. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. — ANOTHER  TRIAL. 


The  next  morning  restored  to  a  thinking  over  her  own  position,  and 
calmer  and  less  constrained  composure  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  she 
the  mind  of  Zaidee ;  she  had  been  could  not  remain  much  longer  here 


546 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


without  Mary  acquiring  complete  pos- 
session of  her  secret.  But  along  with 
this  conviction  came  all  the  strength 
of  affection  which  Zaidee  cherished 
for  her  adopted  sister,  and  these  most 
kind  and  loving  friends.  She  was  not 
so  ready  to  throw  away  for  a  second 
time  all  the  comforts  of  existence. 
"  I  will  stay  while  I  can,"  said  Zaidee 
to  herself  mournfully ;  "  I  will  not 
hasten  my  fate ;"  and  she  went  down 
to  the  family  breakfast-table  with  sad 
self-possession,  and,  making  up  her 
mind  that  she  could  be  only  a  very 
little  time  with  them,  exhausted  her- 
self in  grateful  cares  and  attentions  to 
Mrs  Cumberland,  who,  not  much  used 
to  real  devotion,  was  touched  for  a 
moment  out  of  her  extravagance  into 
reality ;  and  to  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  whose 
mind,  always  full  of  reference  to  Sylvo, 
became  more  and  more  convinced  of 
his  good  fortune.  By  this  time  they 
had  once  more  returned  home,  and 
the  great  mirror  reflected  in  the  midst 
of  its  gay  panorama  of  moving  figures 
and  bright  looks  one  beautiful  face 
-  full  of  wistful  thought  and  sorrowful- 
ness, one  perfect  form  seated  quietly 
within  its  range,  working  at  bits  of 
rare  embroidery, — an  art  in  which 
Zaidee's  powers  of  execution  now 
were  almost  equal  to  her  inventive 
fancy.  These  were  all  intended  for 
little  presents,  gifts  of  remembrance 
to  the  friends  from  whom  this  loving 
exile  must  shortly  go  away.  As  she 
sat  there  at  her  thoughtful  occupation, 
Zaidee  was  as  fair  a  type  of  woman- 
hood as  ever  painter  made  immortal ; 
and  with  her  woman's  work,  her  face 
so  full  of  thought,  her  unconscious 
and  unremembered  beauty,  you  would 
have  thought  her  one  of  those  domestic 
angels,  whose'peace  and  gladness  every 
heart  of  her  kindred  would  defend  to 
the  death.  Lovingly,  and  with  a  touch 
of  pathos,  this  softened  reflection  gave 
back  the  beautiful  wave  of  dark  brown 
hair — the  brow  like  a  young  queen's, 
the  graceful  head  bent  over  its  quiet 
labour ;  and  you  could  not  have  be- 
lieved with  what  a  precarious  and 
uncertain  grasp  this  beautiful  girl  held 
every  kindness  that  blessed  her,  and 
how  doubtful  was  her  possession  of 
home  and  shelter,  how  uncertain  and 
how  clouded  her  approaching  fate. 

"  He  will  not  come  to-day,"  said 
Mary,  in  answer  to  her  mother's  ques- 


[Nov. 

tion,  "  When  are  we  to  expect  Mr 
Vivian  ?  "  "  Mrs  Vivian  is  very  ill, 
mamma  ;  he  is  called  to  the  Grange." 

Mary  spoke  in  an  under-tone,  but 
Zaidee's  quick  ear  caught  the  words. 
She  went  on  with  her  sewing  without 
a  pause.  She  gave  no  evidence  of 
anxiety  ;  but  the  blood  rushed  to  her 
heart,  and  her  face  paled  to  a  deadly 
colour.  "  Very  ill — called  home  to  the 
Grange  ;"  she  repeated  the  words  in 
her  mind  vacantly,  aware  that  they 
had  stunned  her,  but  knowing  no- 
thing more.  Then  gradually  she 
began  to  think  of  Aunt  Vivian !— aunt 
Vivian ! — aunt  Vivian !  She  repeated 
this  name,  too,  again  and  again, 
while  tears  crept  to  her  eyes.  Why 
was  Aunt  Vivian  very  ill?  had  all 
this  fatigue  and  excitement  done  it  ? 
had  she  done  it? — she,  this  unfor- 
tunate Zaidee  1  When  they  all  dis- 
persed and  went  about  their  different 
occupations,  Zaidee  sat  still  like  a 
statue,  working  mechanically,  in  a 
stupor  of  inquiry  and  anxiety,  and 
blank  woefulness.  She  had  risen  this 
morning  with  a  heavy  presentiment ; 
was  this  how  it  was  to  be  fulfilled  ? 
When  Mary  left  the  room,  she  called 
Zaidee  to  accompany  her,  but  Zaidee 
did  not  hear  the  call.  It  was  a  very 
different  thing,  saying,  "  I  will  never 
see  Aunt  Vivian  again,"  and  contem- 
plating the  possibility  of  God  Himself 
stepping  in  to  make  this  certain. 
Zaidee  was  lost  in  a  realisation  of  the 
infinite  greatness  of  this  calamity  ;  her 
thoughts  leaped  to  the  extremest 
limit  of  it  with  the  terror  of  love. 
She  would  die ;  she  was  all  the  mother 
whom  Zaidee's  orphanhood  had  ever 
known,  and  she  should  never  see  her 
again. 

After  awhile  she  put  down  her  work 
and  went  to  her  own  room  and  tried 
to  pray — but  her  prayers  were  broken 
with  bursts  of  tears  and  sobbing,  and 
restrained  cries — u  Aunt  Vivian !  aunt 
Vivian!"  Zaidee  stretched  out  her 
hand  as  if  to  stay  her  departing — 
cried  aloud  with  a  passionate  sup- 
plication. This  dreadful  imperious 
Death  had  never  yet  crossed  her  way 
— her  heart  shrank  before  him,  and 
made  a  wild  appeal  against  his  power. 
Keligion  itself,  with  all  its  mighty 
hopes  and  consolations,  did  not  still 
the  first  outcry  of  startled  nature.  It 
was  very  hard  for  her  now  to  put  a 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  XII. 


547 


veil  upon  her  heart,  and  descend  once 
more  to  the  family  circle,  which  was 
unshadowed  by  her  dreadful  anxiety. 
She  remained  in  her  own  apartment 
almost  all  the  day,  shut  up  by  herself, 
and  was  glad  to  say  that  her  head 
ached  when  she  was  inquired  for. 
Her  head  ached,  indeed,  but  not  so 
sorely  as  her  heart. 

And  Mary  was  merciful  and  for- 
bearing, and  did  not  scrutinise  Zaidee's 
distress,  as  the  first  suggestion  of  her 
curiosity  impelled  her  to  do.  There 
was  a  cruelty  in  this  which  not  all 
Mary's  natural  pleasure  in  investiga- 
tion, nor  her  eagerness  to  make  a 
discovery,  could  lead  her  to  do.  She  no 
longer  doubted  what  was  the  cause. 
She  saw  the  connection  clearly  be- 
tween Mrs  Vivian's  illness  and  the 
anxiety  of  Zaidee,  and  with  careful 
kindness  Mary  guarded  the  door  of 
her  beautiful  sister  from  the  solicitous 
visits  of  Aunt  Burtonshaw.  What 
step  she  herself  would  take  to  prove 
her  imagined  discovery,  or  to  make 
it  known  to  Percy,  Mary  had  not  yet 
resolved  ;  but  from  henceforward  she 
took  under  her  own  efficient  protection 
the  lost  child  whom  she  had  found. 
44  I  have  a  right  to  take  care  of  her — 
she  is  not  only  my  beautiful  sister, 
she  is  Percy's  cousin — the  child  of 
his  house.  I  will  let  no  one  intrude 
on  her  now." 

So  said  Mary  as  she  guarded  Zaidee's 
door.  And  Mary  was  at  no  loss  to 
know  why  Zaidee  always  appeared 
at  the  breakfast- table  in  the  morning, 
though  her  "  head  ached "  all  day. 
But  a  long  week  of  weariness  and 
suffering  passed,  and  still  Percy  wrote 
hurried  notes,  only  speaking  of  his 
mother's  great  illness,  his  mother's 
danger.  Zaidee's  eyes  were  becomiDg 
hollow,  her  beautiful  cheek  was  white 
with  watching,  with  pain  and  anxiety, 
and  her  heart  failed  her  day  by  day. 
No  one  understood  what  was  the 
strange  and  sudden  ailment  which  had 
come  upon  her ;  only  Mary,  active 
and  firm,  kept  the  doctor  away  from 
Zaidee's  door,  warded  off  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw's  nursing,  and  left  the  poor 
girl  to  herself  unmolested.  Mary  was 
content  to  wait  for  her  proof.  She 
had  attained  to  a  distinct  moral  cer- 
tainty, and  with  a  firm  and  ready 
hand  she  took  possession  of  this  suf- 
ferer, who  could  not  defend  herself 


from  the  efforts  of  mistaken  kindness. 
She  was  brave  in  the  cause  of  her  own 
dear  and  intimate  friend  —  Percy's 
cousin — the  heiress  of  the  Grange. 
Zaidee  was  no  longer  "  a  subject"  to- 
ner acute  and  watchful  faculties,  but 
her  own  very  sister — her  charge,  whose 
distress  she  alone  could  soften  or  re- 
lieve. 

And  then,  like  a  revelation  from 
heaven,  came  these  blessed  news, — 
first,  that  there  was  hope  ;  then  that 
danger  was  over;  finally,  that  the 
patient  was  rapidly  recovering,  and 
Percy  on  his  way  back  to  London  j 
and  then,  standing  behind  her,  Mary 
Cumberland  saw  Zaidee  once  more 
reflected  in  the  mirror,  working  at 
her  embroidery,  and  putting  up  her 
hand  in  silence  to  wipe  off  from  her 
pale  cheek  those  tears  of  joy.  When 
this  end  was  reached,  the  active  mind 
of  Mary  betook  itself  to  another  ques- 
tion— distinct  proof.  It  cost  her  a 
great  deal  of  consideration— a  great 
deal  of  care  and  elaborate  precaution. 
She  must  not  hastily  betray  her  own 
plan  of  operations,  and  give  the  sub- 
ject of  them  time  to  make  another 
forlorn  flight  forth  into  the  world. 
Even  in  case  of  that,  Mary,  a  little 
complacent  in  her  own  sagacity,  had 
no  doubt  she  could  find  her  ;  but  the 
matter  now  was  how  to  avoid  this  ; 
and  with  infinite  pains  and  caution 
Mary  laid  her  snare. 

44  Elizabeth  was  very  much  con- 
cerned— she  was  extremely  anxious 
about  Mrs  Vivian,"  said  Mary,  with 
a  look  of  dubious  meaning,  which 
Percy  did  not  comprehend. 

And  Percy,  to  whom  this  beautiful 
sister  was  a  perpetual  enigma,  looked 
very  curious  and  very  much  interested, 
and  said,  "  Was  she  anxious? — yet 
you  never  saw  my  mother.  Your  sis- 
ter is  one  of  those  pure  disengaged 
hearts,  is  she,  Mary,  who  think  of 
every  other  before  themselves?" 

44  Yes,  I  think  you  are  right,"  said 
Mary,  "  but  she  is  not  my  sister.  I 
never  told  you — she  is  only  an  adopt- 
ed child." 

Percy  said  4' Indeed!"  and  was 
startled.  But  his  suspicions  had  no 
direction  towards  Zaidee ;  he  mused 
over  it  a  little  in  his  mind,  .but  asked 
no  further  questions.  Now  this  was 
all  the  clue  this  youthful  diplomatist 
proposed  to  give  to  her  lover.  She 


548 

was  quite  elated  that  he  did  not  im- 
mediately follow  it  out — it  left  all  the 
more  to  be  done  by  herself. 

And  Mary  began  to  propose  to  him 
a  little  plan  for  a  journey  to  Cheshire, 
of  which  her  mind  was  full.  She  was 
anxious  to  see  Mrs  Vivian,  to  see  the 
Grange  and  Castle  Vivian,  too,  of 
which  Percy  had  spoken  to  her  more 
than  once  of  late.  Then  there  was 
Philip,  who  was  coming  home  so 
shortly.  Mary  wished  very  much  to 
meet  with  this  unknown  and  much 
commended  brother  in  his  native 
county — to  see  him  come  home.  Such 
a  project  was  much  too  flattering  to 
meet  with  any  objections  from  Percy; 
he  entered  into  it  with  the  greatest 
delight.  "  Elizabeth  requires  a 
change,"  said  Mary  pointedly;  "  I  will 
speak  to  mamma  to-night.  Do  you  tell 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


[Nov. 


her  what  rejoicings  there  will  be  for 
your  brother's  return,  and  something 
about  romantic  scenery,  and  attached 
tenants,  and  your  ancient  house.  You 
know  very  well  how  to  do  it,  and  so  I 
shall  get  my  request  granted.  I  know 
I  will." 

Percy  laughed,  and  promised  to  do 
his  best,  and  they  separated.  As  he 
went  upon  his  homeward  way,  Percy 
could  not  detach  his  thoughts  from 
this  beautiful  sister.  His  mind  wan- 
dered about  her  with  an  unaccount- 
able attraction,  a  strange  painful  inte- 
rest. He  would  not  have  been  much 
surprised  at  anything  which  was  told 
him  of  her,  but  his  suspicion  took  no 
definite  form.  Mary,  full  of  glee  in 
her  skill  and  powers,  had  this  secret 
to  solve  by  her  own  wit  and  daring 
alone. 


PROFESSOR  JOHNSTON'S  LAST  WORK. 


DEATH  has  struck  a  bright  name 
from  the  roll  of  Science,  by  removing 
from  us  Professor  Johnston  of  Dur- 
ham. It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say, 
that  the  death  of  this  eminent  writer 
is  a  national  loss  ;  for  by  it  the 
country  has  been  bereft  of  one  who 
has  done  more  than  has  ever  yet  been 
done  to  preach  science  to  the  masses, 
and  to  set  its  laws,  discovered  in  the 
laboratory,  a -working  in  our  fields 
and  factories.  The  professional  pur- 
suit of  science  has  two  phases.  One 
of  these  consists  in  the  discovery  of 
occult  laws  of  nature,  and  the  detec- 
tion of  valuable  properties  in  matter ; 
the  other  consists  in  publicly  set- 
ting forth  these  discoveries  in  such  a 
way  that  they  become  known  and  ap- 
preciated by  the  masses,  and,  being 
applied  in  the  arts  of  life,  prove  a 
permanent  addition  to  the  comforts 
and  resources  of  mankind.  Dis- 
tinguished in  the  first  of  these  depart- 
ments of  science,  Professor  Johnston 
was  without  an  equal  in  the  second. 
Though  not  devoid  of  high  specula- 
tive power,  his  love  of  the  useful,  and 
his  eminently  practical  turn  of 
thought,  attracted  him  ever  to  sub- 
jects of  a  national  importance.  To 
the  farmers  especially,  struggling  with 


the  competition  of  foreign  grain,  his 
science  did  good  service ;  and  if  our 
fields  are  now  greener,  our  crops 
heavier,  and  our  stock  fatter,  we  owe 
somewhat  of  this  great  boon  to  him. 
To  convert  the  truths  of  science  into 
tangible  results, — that  was  his  chief 
aim, — and  who  ever  succeeded  so  well 
in  it  as  he?  Untiring  industry  and  a 
prescient  tenacity  of  purpose  mark- 
ed his  career.  Conscious  of  good 
talents,  and  of  a  strong  natural  pre- 
dilection for  scientific  pursuits,  the 
development  of  this  aim  of  his  life, 
though  at  times  moving  but  slowly,  or 
even  to  appearance  standing  still,  was 
ever  uppermost  in  his  thoughts. 
While  he  taught  as  a  tutor  or  trained 
as  a  schoolmaster,  the  aim  of  his  life 
was  still  present  to  him, — still  quietly 
and  resolutely  worked  after ;  and  in 
due  time  it  came.  He  broke  from  the 
obscurity  of  his  little-noticed  noviciate 
into  a  reputation  which  is  more  than 
European.  And  now,  when  he  had 
reached  the  zenith  of  his  powers, — 
when  the  fruits  of  long  years  of 
patient  and  admirably-directed  study 
were  being  so  attractively  developed, 
he  has  passed  away,  —  leaving  the 
traces  of  his  matchless  handiwork  in 
many  a  department  of  applied  science, 


The  Chemistry  of  Common  Life.      By  JAMES  F.  W.  JOHNSTON,  M.A.,  F.R.SS. 
L.  &  E.,  &c.     2  Vols.     Edinburgh  :  William  Blackwood  &  Sons. 


1855.] 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


549 


but  with  no  one  for  the  present  to 
take  up  his  mantle. 

To  such  regrets  at  the  loss  which 
science  has  sustained  by  the  death  of 
Professor  Johnston,  we  must  add 
others  of  a  personal  character.  Not 
seldom  has  the  Professor's  graphic 
and  ever-interesting  pen  contributed 
to  this  Magazine ;  and  his  untimely 
death  recalls  vividly  to  mind  a  tribute 
which  he  paid  to  a  fellow-worker  in 
science,  cut  off  in  circumstances  very 
analogous  to  his  own.  Two  years 
ago,  when  alluding  to  a  work  of  Dr 
Pereira's,  he  spoke  of  its  author  in  the 
following  touching  and  most  gener- 
ous terms,  than  which  none  fitter  can 
now  be  used  in  regard  to  himself: 
"  Snatched  suddenly  from  the  midst 
of  his  labours,  there  are  few  in  any 
way  familiar  with  the  subject  who 
will  not  regret  the  extinction  of  so 
much  learning,  and,  apart  from  all 
private  considerations,  that  the  world 
should  have  so  prematurely  lost  the 
benefits  of  his  ripening  judgment  and 
experience,  and  the  result  of  his  ex- 
tended reading  and  research.  Yet 
how  many  precious  cabinets  of  col- 
lected knowledge  do  we  see  thus  hur- 
riedly sealed  up  for  ever !  How  often, 
when  a  man  appears  to  have  reached 
that  condition  of  mental  culture  and 
accumulated  information,  in  which  he 
is  fitted  to  do  the  most  for  the  ad- 
vancement of  learning,  or  for  pro- 
moting the  material  comfort  of  his 
fellows — how  often  does  the  cold  hand 
suddenly  and  mysteriously  paralyse 
and  stop  him  !  He  has  been  per- 
mitted to  add  only  a  small  burden  of 
earth  to  the  rising  mound  of  intellec- 
tual elevation, — scarcely  enough  to 
signify  to  after-comers  that  his  hand 
has  laboured  at  the  work.  Neverthe- 
less, he  may  have  shown  a  new  way 
of  advancing,  so  that  to  others  the 
toil  is  easier  and  the  progress  faster, 
because  he  has  gone  before."  * 

Professor  Johnston's  last  work  was 
his  best, — if  not  the  most  importantly 
useful,  it  at  least  possessed  in  a  greater 
degree  than  any  of  his  other  works 
the  charm  of  exceeding  interest  of  sub- 
ject, and  a  grace  and  graphicness  of 
treatment. 

It  is  curious  to  mark  how  many 
interesting  works  have  been,  and 


may  still  be,  written  upon  "  com- 
mon things;"  but  we  do  not  think 
we  overrate  the  importance  of  the 
topic,  or  the  ability  with  which  it  is 
handled,  when  we  say  it  is  hardly 
possible  to  imagine  a  more  useful  or 
attractive  work  of  its  kind  than  that 
which  the  lamented  Professor  has  pub- 
lished on  the  Chemistry  of  Common 
Life.  It  is  one  of  those  books  so 
compendious  in  its  nature  and  so 
varied  in  its  contents — treating  its 
multiplicity  of  details  with  such  terse 
symmetry,  and  illustrating  them  so 
neatly  and  suggestively  by  woodcuts 
— that  nothing  less  than  a  perusal 
will  do  justice  to  it.  But  what  a 
wide,  curious,  and  instructive  field  of 
thought  does  such  a  perusal  open  up ! 
Commencing  with  the  bread  and  beef, 
the  beer  and  tobacco,  forming  the  diet 
and  exhilarants  of  our  own  popula- 
tion, we  pass  abroad,  and,  journeying 
from  clime  to  clime,  are  shown  the 
various  articles  which  men  eat,  drink, 
and  make  merry  with,  from  the  Pole  to 
the  Equator,  from  England  to  Cathay. 
And  all  this  information  is  pervaded 
by  a  spirit  of  scientific  philosophy, 
which  is  hardly  seen  to  be  profound,  it 
is  so  clear  and  practical  in  its  bearings ; 
— while  the  concluding  chapters,  round- 
ing off  the  work,  discuss  all  the  strange 
physical  phenomena  of  human  life,  and 
the  not  less  strange  and  ceaseless  cir- 
culation by  which  matter,  that  true 
Proteus  of  the  universe,  is  built  up 
now  into  one  form,  now  into  an- 
other. 

Instinct  proves  a  safe  guide  to 
mankind  long  before  the  acquired 
powers  of  science  step  in  to  corrobo- 
rate its  convictions.  Hence  we  find 
that  the  staple  food  of  the  most  bar- 
barous and  most  civilised  races,  how- 
ever it  may  vary  in  outward  sem- 
blance, is  in  essence  the  same.  The 
rude  Papuan  of  the  Eastern  Archi- 
pelago, and  the  Indian  savage  of  the 
American  prairies,  present  in  their 
culinary  and  dietetic  arrangements 
the  most  extraordinary  contrast  to 
the  highly  -  favoured  people  whose 
palates  are  tended  with  exquisite 
skill  by  the  Ve"rys  and  Soyers  of 
Paris  and  London.  Yet  cast  the  edi- 
bles and  even  the  potables  of  these 
very  opposite  sections  of  mankind 


*  The  Narcotics  we  Indulge  in.     August  1853. 


550 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


[Nov. 


into  the  crucible  or  retort  of  the  che- 
mist, and  it  will  be  found  that  bar- 
barism knows  the  wants  of  the 
human  frame  in  such  matters  quite 
as  well  as  civilisation.  It  is  hard  to 
say  by  what  happy  instinct  the  vari- 
ous tribes  of  mankind  have  lighted 
upon  those  productions  of  earth  most 
fitted  for  their  sustenance.  It  is  im- 
possible to  attribute  their  knowledge 
in  this  matter  to  one  common  and 
primeval  source,  from  whence  it  has 
been  scattered  by  tradition  into  every 
quarter  of  the  globe ;  for,  although 
there  is  no  part  of  the  habitable 
world  in  which  the  staple  food  of 
mankind  is  not  to  be  found,  yet  that 
food  varies  in  form  from  clime  to 
clime — here  a  tree  and  there  a  cereal, 
now  the  fruit,  now  the  leaf,  and  now 
the  root, — so  that  each  region  de- 
mands a  knowledge  peculiar  to  itself. 
Yet  so  it  is, — in  all  countries  man  has 
found  out  what  is  good  for  him,  by 
experience  or  unerring  instinct,  long 
before  the  light  of  science  dawned 
upon  his  path.  Over  one  wide  re- 
gion we  find  the  grasses  developed 
by  cultivation  into  the  precious  ce- 
reals,— in  another  quarter  we  find  wild- 
growing  roots,  such  as  the  yam  and 
potato,  converted  into  staple  articles 
of  food, — while  the  primeval  woods 
have  everywhere  furnished  trees  and 
bushes  whose  leaves  or  fruit  have  been 
made  use  of  by  mankind  from  the 
earliest  times. 

When  the  Spaniards  first  landed  in 
the  New  World,  they  found  the  In- 
dians smoking  the  leaf  of  a  plant  which 
had  been  in  use  amongst  them  from 
time  immemorial,  and  which,  trans- 
ported by  Raleigh  and  others  to 
Europe,  has  now  found  favour  in  every 
quarter  of  the  globe ;  and  it  would 
seem,  from  the  old  monuments  of 
China,  that  a  species  of  the  same  to- 
bacco-plant had  been  similarly  made 
use  of  there  from  the  remotest  anti- 
quity. When  Cortes  penetrated  into 
Mexico,  he  found  the  natives  bruising 
the  oily  seeds  of  the  cocoa-plant  in 
order  to  form  a  beverage;  and  so 
highly  did  the  father  of  botany,  the 
great  Linnaeus,  think  of  the  discern- 
ment of  these  barbarians,  that  he  styles 
the  plant  Theobroma,  or  "  the  food  of 
the  gods."  When  Pizarro  and  his  va- 
gabond adventurers  reached  Peru, 
they  found  the  mountaineers  of  the" 


Andes  chewing  the  remarkable  coca- 
leaf,  which  at  once  invigorated  them 
for  their  labours,  and  solaced  and  de- 
lighted their  mind.  And,  in  fine, 
who  can  tell  when  the  tea -plant  was 
first  singled  out,  as  a  precious  exhilar- 
ant,  from  the  wild  shrubs  of  China  ; 
or  when  the  native  tribes  of  South 
America  first  discovered  and  availed 
themselves  of  the  virtues  latent  in  the 
so-called  tea-plant  of  Paraguay  ?  Our 
own  fields  and  gardens  are  full  of  ve- 
getable transformations  bespeaking 
the  skill  and  natural  intelligence  of 
man  in  selecting  and  converting  to  his 
use  the  food-products  of  earth.  The 
JEgilops,  a  wild  neglected  grass  on 
the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  in 
long  past  ages  has  been  converted  by 
cultivation  into  perfect  and  productive 
wheat ;  and  from  others  originally 
wild  like  this,  though  as  yet  unknown, 
have  come  our  oats  and  barley,  and 
rye  and  maize,  in  all  their  varieties, — 
as  well  as  the  numerous  forms  of  the 
Eastern  dhurra,  rice,  and  millet,  and 
of  the  less  known  quinoa  of  South 
America.  Our  cultivated  potato,  with 
all  its  varieties,  springs  from  the  tiny 
and  bitter  root  of  the  wild  plant,  which 
has  its  native  home  on  the  sea-shores 
of  Chili.  Our  cabbages,  cauliflowers, 
kohl-rabis,  and  turnips,  all  spring  from 
one  or  more  species  of  Brassica,  which 
in  their  natural  state  have  poor  woody 
bitter  stems  and  leaves,  and  useless 
spindle-shaped  roots ;  while  our  apples, 
plums,  grapes,  and  other  prized  fruits, 
come  from  well-known  wild  and  little- 
esteemed  progenitors. 

Beef  and  bread — these,  like  two 
pillars,  support  corporeal  existence, — 
being  not  merely  the  staff,  but  the 
very  legs  upon  which  human  life  pro- 
ceeds upon  its  journey.  Fibrin  and 
starch  are  the  chief  elements  of  our 
corporeal  frame ;  and  beef,  peculiarly 
abounding  in  the  former,  and  bread, 
not  less  abounding  in  the  latter,  are 
thus  the  types  of  the  two  great  classes 
into  which  the  articles  of  human  food 
may  be  divided.  We  need  say  no- 
thing about  Beef,  which  in  its  generic 
sense  includes  mutton,  pork,. veal,  and 
everything  that  comes  within  the  wide 
category  of  Flesh.  Everything  that 
runs  upon  four  legs  has  been  com- 
placently appropriated  by  man  for  the 
edification  and  sustentation  of  his  own 
frame — his  corporeal  ego.  Besides 


1855.] 


Professor  Johnston 's  Last  Work. 


551 


the  domesticated  herds  and  flocks  im- 
molated for  the  perpetuation  of  civil- 
ised life,  the  vast  reserves  of  nature — 
the  unclaimed  portions  of  earth,  where 
man  has  never  shocked  Jean- Jacques 
Rousseau  by  saying,  u  This  is  mine" — 
swarm  with  herds  more  numerous 
still,  for  the  sustenance  of  the  savage 
and  the  hunter.  Over  the  prairies  of 
America  roam  uncounted  herds  of  the 
lordly  buffalo,  with  the  black  beards 
of  the  bulls  sweeping  the  ground,  and 
their  hoofs  spurning  the  sward  with 
the  speed  of  horses, — diminishing  year 
by  year  beneath  the  arrows  of  the 
Indians  and  the  rifles  of  the  trappers, 
and  destined  to  disappear  even  as  the 
mammoth  itself  has  done  from  the 
same  fields,  and  as  the  Red  Men  are 
likewise  doing.  Over  the  steppes  of 
Tartary  roam  herds  of  the  wild  horse, 
the  lasso'd  captives  from  whose  ranks 
support  the  nomade  tribes  by  the  milk 
of  the  mares,  and  which  have  sent 
forth  that  Scythian  cavalry  which,  in 
every  age,  has  been  the  terror  of  the 
civilised  world,  and  the  great  agent 
of  change  among  the  empires  of  the 
East.  The  vast  plains  of  Africa  are 
still  more  numerously  tenanted.  This 
continent,  too  often  thought  of  as 
one  vast  expanse  of  sterility,  is,  in 
fact,  the  great  Menagerie  of  Nature, 
whose  verdant  savannahs  and  lofty 
evergreen  forests  form  a  lordly  soli- 
tude for  all  manner  of  untamed  beasts, 
and  over  whose  southern  plains  glide 
the  springbok  and  other  deer,  in 
herds,  sometimes  three  days'  journey 
in  length,  furnishing  food  for  the 
Kaffir  tribes  who  follow  in  their  track, 
and  who  migrate  with  them  in  search 
of  verdure  all  the  year  round.  We 
are  far  from  saying,  as  some  do,  that 
the  main  design  of  this  profusion  of 
animal  life  is  to  furnish  food  for  man ; 
— we  should  much  rather  say  that  the 
Creator  filled  the  solitudes  with  these 
wild  creatures,  enjoying  in  their  own 
untrammelled  fashion  the  boon  of  life, 
in  order  that  they  might  occupy  until 
man  came.  But  it  is  unquestionable 
that  we  do  prey  upon  the  lower 
animals  even  as  they  victimise  the 
vegetable  creation.  And  so  general 
is  the  craving  for  the  fibrinous  flesh 
of  animals,  and  so  potent  in  some 
regions  the  demands  of  hunger,  that 
there  is  hardly  a  single  species  of  bird 
or  beast  or  creeping  thing  that  has 


not  contributed  to  the  sustenance  of 
the  omnivorous  biped,  Man; — even 
alligator -chops  and  roasted  rattle- 
snakes, figuring  in  the  bill  of  fare  in 
certain  parts  of  the  world. 

But  these  solids  of  man's  diet  by  no 
means  furnish  so  interesting  a  theme 
as  the  beverages  and  exhilarants 
which  he  has  sought  out  for  himself. 
A  very  large  portion  of  liquid  is 
needed  to  supply  the  demands  of  the 
human  frame,  so  that,  besides  the 
liquid  contained  in  or  mingled  with 
our  articles  of  diet,  we  find  drinks 
prepared  from  vegetable  substances  in 
use  in  all  quarters  of  the  world.  These 
drinks,  though  not  devoid  of  useful- 
ness, belong  rather  to  the  luxuries 
than  to  the  necessaries  of  life  :  they 
consist  of  infused  beverages,  which 
are  drunk  hot,  and  fermented  liquors, 
which  are  usually  taken  cold.  The 
love  of  such  warm  drinks  prevails 
almost  universally,  in  tropical  equally 
as  in  arctic  regions  ;  so  that  the  prac- 
tice evidently  meets  some  universal 
want  of  our  poor  human  nature.  "  la 
Central  America  the  Indian  of  native 
blood,  and  the  Creole  of  mixed  Euro- 
pean race,  indulge  alike  in  their  ancient 
chocolate.  In  Southern  America  the 
tea  of  Paraguay  is  an  almost  universal 
beverage.  The  native  North  American 
tribes  have  their  Apallachian  tea,  their 
Oswego  tea,  their  Labrador  tea,  and 
many  others.  From  Florida  to  Georgia 
in  the  United  States,  and  over  all  the 
West  India  Islands,  the  naturalised 
European  races  sip  their  favourite 
coffee ;  while  over  the  Northern  States 
of  the  Union,  and  in  the  British  pro- 
vinces, the  tea  of  China  is  in  constant 
and  daily  use.  All  Europe,  too,  has 
chosen  its  prevailing  beverage.  Spain 
and  Italy  delight  in  chocolate ;  France 
and  Germany,  Sweden  and  Turkey,  in 
coffee;  Russia,  Holland,  and  England 
in  tea ; — while  poor  Ireland  makes  a 
warm  drink  from  the  husks  of  the 
cocoa,  the  refuse  of  the  chocolate  mills 
of  Italy  and  Spain.  All  Asia  feels  the 
same  want,  and  in  different  ways  has 
long  gratified  it.  Coffee,  indigenous 
in  Arabia  or  the  adjoining  countries, 
has  followed  the  banner  of  the  Prophet 
wherever  his  false  faith  has  triumphed. 
Tea,  a  native  of  China,  has  spread 
spontaneously  over  the  hill-country 
of  the  Himalayas,  the  table-lands  of 
Tartary  and  Tibet,  and  the  plains  of 


552 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


[Nov. 


Siberia— has  climbed  the  Altais,  over- 
spread all  Russia,  and  is  equally  des- 
potic in  Moscow  as  in  St  Petersburg. 
In  Sumatra,  the  coffee-leaf  yields  the 
favourite  tea  of  the  dark-skinned  po- 
pulation, while  Central  Africa  boasts 
of  the  Abyssinian  chaat  as  the  indi- 
genous warm  drink  of  its  Ethiopian 
peoples.  Everywhere  un-intoxicating 
and  non- narcotic  beverages  are  in  ge- 
neral use — among  tribes  of  every 
colour,  beneath  every  sun,  and  in 
every  condition  of  life." 

The  tea  of  China  forms  the  daily 
drink  of  a  larger  number  of  men  than 
all  the  rest  of  these  beverages  put  to- 
gether. The  plant  from  which  it  is 
obtained  is  to  be  seen  growing  to  per- 
fection on  the  dry  sunny  slopes  of 
central  China.  It  is  cropped  down 
and  made  to  grow  bushy  ;  and  being 
planted  in  rows  three  or  four  feet 
apart,  the  crops  have  some  resemblance 
to  a  garden  of  gooseberry  bushes. 
Strange  to  say,  the  leaves,  when  freshly 
plucked,  possess  nothing  either  of  the 
odour  or  flavour  of  the  dried  leaves — 
the  pleasant  taste  and  delightful  na- 
tural scent  for  which  they  are  after- 
wards so  highly  prized,  being  all  de- 
veloped by  the  roasting  which  they 
undergo  in  the  process  of  drying.  The 
mode  of  using  the  prepared  tea-leaves 
in  China  is  to  put  them  into  a  cup,  to 
pour  hot  water  upon  them,  and  then 
to  drink  the  infusion  off  the  leaves, 
and  without  admixture.  Only  once, 
while  wandering  over  the  tea-districts, 
did  Mr  Fortune  meet  with  sugar  and 
a  tea-spoon.  In  China  cold  water  is 
disliked,  and  considered  unwholesome, 
and  therefore  tea  is  taken  to  quench 
the  thirst,  which  it  does  best  when 
unmixed— (a  bottle  of  cold  tea,  with- 
out either  milk  or  sugar,  being,  ac- 
cording to  Mr  Colquhoun  of  The  Moor 
and  the  Loch,  the  best  thirst-assuager 
a  sportsman  can  carry  with  him). 
The  universal  use,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  sugar  and  cream  or  milk  among  us, 
probably  arose  from  tea  being  intro- 
duced here  as  a  beverage  among 
grown-up  people  whose  tastes  were 
already  formed,  and  who  required 
something  to  make  the  bitter  infusion 
palatable.  The  practice  thus  begun 
has  ever  since  continued,  and,  physio- 
logically considered,  is  probably  an 
improvement  upon  the  Eastern  fashion. 
The  practice  of  scenting  teas  is  very 


common  in  China,  and  various  odori- 
ferous plants  are  employed  for  this 
purpose.  In  Russia  a  squeeze  of  a 
lemon  often  takes  the  place  of  our 
cream;  and  in  Germany,  where  the 
tea  is  made  very  weak,  it  is  common 
to  flavour  it  with  rum,  cinnamon,  or 
vanilla.  A  pinch  of  soda  put  into  the 
water  along  with  the  leaves  has  the 
effect  of  dissolving  a  portion  at  least 
of  the  very  large  proportion  of  gluten 
which  they  contain  (which  by  the  ordi- 
nary process  of  infusion  is  almost  en- 
tirely lost),  and  the  beverage  in  conse- 
quence is  made  more  nutritious.  The 
method  of  preparing  the  brick- tea 
adopted  among  the  Mongols  and  other 
tribes  of  Tartary,  is  believed  to  ex- 
tract the  greater  part  of  the  nutriment 
of  the  leaH  They  rub  the  tea  to  fine 
powder,  boil  it  with  the  alkaline  water 
of  the  Steppes,  to  which  salt  and  fat 
have  been  added,  and  pour  off  the  de- 
coction from  the  sediment.  Of  this 
liquid  they  drink  from  twenty  to  thirty 
cups  a-day,  mixing  it  first  with  milk, 
butter,  and  a  little  roasted  meal. 
Even  without  meal,  and  mixed  only 
with  a  little  milk,  they  can  subsist  (at 
a  pinch,  we  presume)  upon  it  for  weeks 
in  succession.  But  "  the  most  perfect 
way  of  using  tea,"  says  Professor 
Johnston,  "  is  that  described,  I  think, 
by  Captain  Basil  Hall,  as  practised 
on  the  coast  of  South  America,  where 
tea-leaves,  after  being  exhausted  by 
infusion,  are  handed  round  the  com"- 
pany  upon  a  silver  salver,  and  par- 
taken of  by  each  guest  in  succession. 
The  exhilarating  effects  of  the  hot 
liquid  are  in  this  practice  followed  by 
the  nutritive  effects  of  the  solid  leaf. 
It  is  possible  that  this  practice  may 
refer  to  the  Paraguay  tea,  so  exten- 
sively used  in  South  America ;  but  in 
either  case  the  merit  of  it  is  the  same." 
We  read  of  tea  being  used  in  China 
as  early  as  the  third  century,  and 
probably  the  practice  is  still  older. 
The  Chinese,  who  are  great  admirers 
of  the  beverage,  have  interwoven  the 
origin  of  it  with  the  graces  of  fable. 
The  legend  relates  that  "a  pious 
hermit,  who,  in  his  watchiugs  and 
prayers,  had  often  been  overtaken  by 
sleep,  so  that  his  eyelids  closed,  in 
holy  wrath  against  the  weakness  of 
the  flesh,  cut  them  off,  and  threw 
them  on  the  ground.  But  a  god 
caused  a  tea-shrub  to  spring  out  of 


1855.] 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


them,  the  leaves  of  which  exhibit  the 
form  of  an  eyelid  bordered  with  lashes, 
and  possess  the  gift  of  hindering 
sleep."  A  somewhat  similar  story  is 
related  concerning  the  introduction  of 
coffee  into  Arabia ;  but  both  legends 
were  probably  invented  long  after  the 
qualities  of  tea  and  coffee  had  be- 
come known.  It  was  after  the  year 
600  A.  D.  that  the  use  of  tea  became 
general  in  China,  and  early  in  the 
ninth  century  it  was  introduced  into 
Japan.  To  Europe  it  was  not  brought 
till  about  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  Hot  infusions  of 
leaves  had  been  already  long  familiar 
as  drinks  in  European  countries. 
Dried  sage-leaves  were  much  in  use 
in  England,  and  are  even  said  to  have 
been  carried  by  the  Dutch  as  an  ar- 
ticle of  trade  to  China,  there  to  be 
exchanged  for  the  Chinese  leaf,  which 
has  since  almost  entirely  superseded 
them.  A  Russian  embassy  to  China 
also  brought  back  to  Moscow  some 
carefully-packed  green  tea,  which  was 
received  with  great  acceptance.  And 
in  the  same  century  (1664)  the  Eng- 
lish East  India  Company  considered 
it  as  a  rare  gift  to  present  the  Queen 
of  England  with  two  pounds  of  tea ! 

The  important  manner  in  which  the 
tea-duties  now  figure  in  the  budgets  of 
our  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer  show 
what  a  change  has  taken  place  since 
then.  Tea,  from  being  a  rare  luxury, 
is  now  consumed  by  all  classes  of  the 
community.  Its  mild  and  attractive 
influence  has  greatly  helped  to  ren- 
der obsolete  the  after-dinner  orgies 
of  our  grandfathers ;  and,  by  drawing 
men  from  the  rough  intercourse  of 
their  own  sex  in  the  dining-room  into 
the  gentler  communion  of  the  fair 
sex,  it  has  done  much  to  refine  the 
habits  of  the  former,  and  to  give  to 
woman  a  higher  and  more  influential 
position  in  the  social  circle.  It  would 
be  well  if  the  process  were  carried 
yet  farther ;  for  is  it  not  a  slur  upon 
our  dinner-parties,  as  well  as  a  great 
diminisher  of  their  pleasure,  that  we 
must  so  long  exclude  the  gentler  sex, 
who  give  the  grace  to  life  and  inter- 
course, from  our  communion?  It 
cannot  be  doubted,  too,  that  the  in- 
troduction and  large  consumption  of 
tea  amongst  us,  has  exercised  a 
physical  as  well  as  a  social  change-j- 
although  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  is 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXI. 


553 

the  exact  nature  or  degree  of  that 
change  which  the  constant  use  of  this 
nerve-exciting  beverage  has  wrought 
upon  our  corporeal  frames.  Along 
with  the  great  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  the  national  character  in 
recent  times,  of  which  it  is  at  once 
an  index  and  an  aid,  the  use  of  tea 
has  probably  conduced  to  that  greater 
nervous  sensibility  which  distinguishes 
us  from  our  ancestors.  It  would  be 
curious  to  speculate  how  far  the  con- 
stant and  all-prevalent  use  of  tea, 
acting  upon  us  from  sire  to  son,  has 
tended  to  produce  the  "spasmodic" 
spiritualism  which  characterises  the 
New  School  of  English  poetry.  In 
the  opinion  of  a  French  critic  in  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes^  the  rise  and 
popularity  of  this  new  school  indicates 
a  change,  and  threatens  a  bouleverse- 
ment  of  all  that  has  hitherto  been  most 
characteristic  of  John  Bull ;  but,  with 
all  deference  to  the  Gallic  critic,  we 
rejoice  to  say  that  it  is  quite  clear,  from 
the  daring  prowess  of  our  soldiers  at 
Alma  and  Inkermann,  that  neither  the 
poetry  nor  the  tea  have  in  any  way 
diminished  the  steady  pluck  and  bot- 
tom so  characteristic  of  the  British 
nation. 

Although  brought  into  notice  at  the 
Great  Exhibition  of  1851,  it  is  a  fact 
little  known  in  this  country  that  the 
leaf  of  the  coffee-tree  may  be,  and  is, 
used  as  a  substitute  for  that  of  the 
tea-plant.  The  use  of  the  coffee-leaf 
in  this  way  is  said  to  be  an  old  prac- 
tice in  the  Eastern  Archipelago ;  and 
in  the  island  of  Sumatra,  especially, 
says  Professor  Brande,  prepared  coffee- 
leaves  "  form  the  only  beverage  of  the 
whole  population,  and,  from  their 
nutritive  qualities,  have  become  an 
important  necessary  of  life."  Mr 
Ward,  who  has  been  many  years 
settled  in  Sumatra,  bears  the  follow- 
ing remarkable  testimony  to  the  good 
qualities  of  this  coffee-tea : — 

"  The  natives  have  a  prejudice  against 
the  use  of  water  as  a  beverage,  asserting 
that  it  does  not  quench  thirst,  or  afford 
the  strength  and  support  the  coffee-leaf 
does.  With  a  little  boiled  rice  and  infu- 
sion of  the  coffee-leaf,  a  man  will  support 
the  labours  of  the  field  in  rice-planting 
for  days  and  weeks  successively,  up  to 
the  knees  in  mud,  under  a  burning  sun  or 
drenching  rain,  which  he  could  not  do  by 
the  use  of  simple  water,  or  by  the  aid  of 
2o 


554 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


[Nov. 


spirituous  or  fermented  liquors.  I  have 
had  the  opportunity  of  observing  for 
twenty  years  the  comparative  use  of  the 
coffee-leaf  in  one  class  of  natives,  and  of 
spirituous  liquors  in  another — the  native 
Sumatrans  using  the  former,  and  the 
natives  of  British  India,  settled  here,  the 
latter  ;  and  I  find  that,  while  the  former 
expose  themselves  with  impunity  to  every 
degree  of  heat,  cold,  and  wet,  the  latter 
can  endure  neither  wet  nor  cold  for  even 
a  short  period,  without  danger  to  their 
health. 

"  Engaged  myself  in  agriculture,  and 
being  in  consequence  much  exposed  to 
the  weather,  I  was  induced  several  years 
ago,  from  an  occasional  use  of  the  coffee- 
leaf,  to  adopt  it  as  a  daily  beverage,  and 
my  constant  practice  has  been  to  take 
two  cups  of  a  strong  infusion,  with  milk, 
in  the  evening,  as  a  restorative  after  the 
business  of  the  day.  I  find  from  it  im- 
mediate relief  from  hunger  and  fatigue. 
The  bodily  strength  is  increased,  and  the 
mind  left  for  the  evening  clear  and  in  full 
possession  of  its  faculties.  On  its  first 
use,  and  when  the  leaf  has  not  been  suffi- 
ciently roasted,  it  is  said  to  produce  vigi- 
lance ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that, 
where  this  is  the  case,  it  is  rather  by 
adding  strength  and  activity  to  the  mental 
faculties,  than  by  inducing  nervous  ex- 
citement. I  do  not  recollect  this  effect 
on  myself  except  once,  and  that  was  when 
the  leaf  was  insufficiently  roasted. 

"  As  a  beverage  the  natives  universally 
prefer  the  leaf  to  the  berry,  giving  as  a 
reason  that  it  contains  more  of  the  bitter 
principle,  and  is  more  nutritious.  In  the 
lowlands,  coffee  is  not  planted  for  the 
berry,  not  being  sufficiently  productive  ; 
but,  for  the  leaf,  the  people  plant  it  round 
their  houses  for  their  own  use.  It  is  an 
undoubted  fact  that  everywhere  they 
prefer  the  leaf  to  the  berry."* 

As  we  have  before  remarked,  leaf- 
decoctions  resembling  tea  have  been 
in  use  in  almost  every  quarter  of  the 
world,  and  Professor  Johnston  enume- 
rates thirty  different  species  of  plants 
from  which  such  decoctions  are  made. 
All  these,  however,  are  so  very  limit- 
ed in  their  use  compared  with  those 
which  we  have  described,  that  we  may 
pass  on  to  the  other  class  of  infusions, 
— namely,  those  prepared  from  the 
seeds  or  roots  of  plants,  roasted, 
ground,  and  infused  in  boiling  water. 
Foremost  of  these  is  coffee,  which 
comes  to  us  from  three  quarters  of  the 
globe,  namely,  the  East  Indies,  the 


West  Indies,  and  Arabia.  The  coffee- 
tree  averages  in  height  from  ten  to 
twenty  feet,  according  to  the  clime  and 
soil  in  which  it  grows.  It  is  covered 
with  a  dark,  smooth,  shining,  and 
evergreen  foliage ;  its  flowers  are  pale 
white,  fragrant,  and  rapidly  fading : 
its  fruit  is  like  that  of  the  cherry-tree, 
but  grows  in  clusters ;  and  within  the 
fruit  are  the  seeds  or  berries.  It  is 
said  to  be  indigenous  to  the  districts 
of  Enarea  and  Caffa  in  Southern 
Abyssinia,  where  it  grows  wild  and 
stunted  over  the  rocky  surface  of  the 
country.  The  roasted  seed  or  bean 
has  been  in  use  as  a  beverage  in 
Abyssinia  generally  from  time  imme- 
morial, and  is  at  the  present  day  ex- 
tensively cultivated  in  that  country. 
In  Persia  it  is  known  to  have  been  in 
use  as  early  as  the  year  875  A.D. 
About  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century  it  began  to  be  used  in  Con- 
stantinople, and,  in  spite  of  the  violent 
opposition  of  the  priesthood,  became 
an  article  of  general  consumption.  In 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century 
(1652),  the  first  coffee  -  house  was 
opened  in  London  by  a  Greek  named 
Pasqua ;  and  twenty  years  after,  the 
first  was  established  at  Marseilles. 
Since  that  time  both  the  culture  and 
consumption  of  coffee  have  continually 
extended  ;  but  it  is  much  more  used 
on  the  continent  of  Europe  than  among 
ourselves.  As  with  the  tea-leaf,  it  is 
during  the  roasting  of  coffee  that  the 
much-prized  aroma  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  taste  and  flavour  are 
brought  out  or  produced.  Certain 
medicinal  virtues  are  ascribed  to  this 
beverage.  The  great  use  of  it  in 
France  is  supposed  to  have  abated 
the  prevalence  of  the  gravel  in  that 
country  ;  and  in  the  French  colonies, 
where  coffee  is  more  used  than  in  the 
English,  as  well  as  in  Turkey,  where 
it  is  the  principal  beverage,  not  only 
the  gravel,  but  the  gout,  is  scarcely 
known.  Among  others,  also,  a  case 
is  mentioned  of  a  gentleman  who  was 
attacked  with  gout  at  twenty -five 
years  of  age,  and  had  it  severely  till 
he  was  upwards  of  fifty,  with  chalk- 
stones  in  the  joints  of  his  hands  and 
feet ;  but  the  use  of  coffee  then  recom- 
mended to  him  completely  removed 
the  complaint. 


*  See  the  Chemistry  of  Common  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  191. 


1855.] 

To  show  the  extent  to  which  these 
exhilarating  and  anti-narcotic  bever- 
ages are  in  use  among  mankind,  we 
may  state  that  it  is  estimated  that 
nearly  3000  millions  of  pounds  are 
annually  consumed  of  the  raw  ma- 


Professor  Johmton's  Last  Work. 


555 


terials  which  produce  them.  And 
the  following  table,  given  in  Mr 
Johnston's  work,  exhibits  the  pro- 
portion in  which  each  of  them  is 
used  by  the  various  nations  of  the 
earth : — 


Chinese  tea, 

Mate  or  Paraguay 

tea, 
Coffee-tea, 

Coffee-bean, 

Chicory, 
Cocoa, 


Is  consumed  in 
China,    Russia,     Tartary, 

England,  Holland,   and 

North  America, 
Peru,    Paraguay,    Brazil, 

&c., 

Sumatra,  &c., 
(   Arabia,    Ceylon,  Jamaica, 

Germany,  France,  North 

America, 
Germany,  Belgium,  France, 

England, 

Spain,  Italy,  France,  Cen- 
tral America,  Mexico, 


By  about 

500  millions  of  men. 

10  „ 

2  „ 

HO  „ 

50  „         „ 

50 


The  characteristic  influences  which 
these  beverages  exert  upon  those  who 
use  them,  are,  firstly,  the  increasing 
the  activity  of  the  nervous  life ;  and, 
secondly,  the  retarding,  at  the  same 
time,  the  change  and  waste  of  matter 
in  the  corporeal  system.  In  these  re- 
spects they  cannot,  according  to  our 
present  knowledge,  be  replaced  by  the 
strongest  soups  or  flesh-teas,  or  by 
any  other  decoctions  which  merely 
supply  the  ordinary  kinds  of  nourish- 
ment in  more  or  less  diluted  and  di- 
gestible forms.  Hence  it  appears  that 
the  use  of  tea  and  coffee,  which  has 
now  become  universal  even  amongst 
our  poorer  classes,  is  no  mere  extra- 
vagance or  profitless  expenditure. 
The  poorest  and  humblest  amongst  us, 
we  see,  devotes  a  part  of  his  little 
earnings  to  the  purchase  of  these  be- 
verages. The  cup  of  tea  or  coffee  is 
preferred  to  the  extra  potato  or  the 
somewhat  larger  loaf.  But  though 
his  stomach  be  thereby  less  filled,  his 
hunger  is  equally  allayed,  and  his 
comfort,  both  bodily  and  mental,  won- 
derfully increased.  He  will  probably 
live  as  long  under  the  one  regimen  as 
the  other:  and  while  he  does  live,  he 
will  both  be  less  miserable  in  mind, 
and  will  show  more  spirit  and  anima- 
tion in  the  face  of  difficulties,  than  if 
he  had  denied  himself  the  so-called 
luxury  of  the  theine  beverage.  Be- 
sides the  mere  brickwork  and  marbje, 
so  to  speak,  by  which  the  human  body 
is  built  up  and  sustained,  it  is  evident 
that  there  are  rarer  forms  of  matter 
upon  which  the  life  of  the  body,  and 


the  comfort  of  animal  existence,  most 
essentially  depend.  And  this  truth, 
as  Professor  Johnston  observes,  "  is 
not  unworthy  the  consideration  of 
those  to  whom  the  arrangement  of  the 
dietaries  of  our  prisons,  and  other 
public  institutions,  has  been  confided. 
So  many  ounces  of  gluten,  and  so  many 
of  starch  and  fat,  are  assigned  by  these 
food-providers  as  an  ample  allowance 
for  everyday  use ;  and  from  these 
dietaries,  except  for  the  infirm  and 
the  invalid,  tea  and  coffee  are  for  the 
most  part  excluded.  But  it  is  worthy 
of  trial,  whether  the  lessening  of  the 
general  bodily  waste,  which  would 
follow  the  consumption  of  a  daily  al- 
lowance of  coffee,  would  not  cause  a 
saving  of  gluten  and  starch  equal  to 
the  cost  of  the  coffee ;  and  even  should 
this  not  prove  the  case,  whether  the 
increased  comfort  and  happiness  of  the 
inmates,  and  the  greater  consequent 
facility  of  management,  would  not 
make  up  for  the  difference,  if  any. 
Where  reformation  is  aimed  at,  the 
moral  sense  will  be  found  most  acces- 
sible where  the  mind  is  maintained  in 
most  healthy  activity,  and  where  the 
general  comfort  of  the  whole  system 
is  most  effectually  promoted." 

Although  the  beverages  we  infuse 
are  in  some  countries  taken  unmixed, 
in  general  they  are  sweetened  by 
saccharine  matter  or  juices  which  we 
extract  from  trees  and  plants.  Of 
these  sweet  substances  the  sap  of  the 
sugar-cane  is  the  only  one  worth  par- 
ticularising, as  it  is  the  source  of 
eleven-twelfths  of  all  the  sugar  in  use. 


556  Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work.  [Nov. 

Though  almost  unknown  to  the  Greeks     fermented  intoxicating  drinks  which 


and  Romans,  and  now  cultivated  most 
extensively  in  America,  the  sugar- 
cane is  indigenous  in  the  Old  World. 
It  was  familiar  in  the  East  in  most 
remote  times,  and  appears  to  have 
been  cultivated  in  China  and  the  South 
Sea  Islands  long  before  Europeans 
approached  their  shores.  In  Europe 
and  most  northern  countries,  cane- 
sugar  is  only  an  article  of  luxury, 
though  one  with  which  most  of  us 
would  now  find  it  difficult  to  dispense. 
In  many  tropical  regions,  however, 
the  sugar-cane  forms  a  staple  part  ot 
the  ordinary  food.  The  ripe  stalk  ot 
the  plant  is  chewed  and  sucked  after 
being  made  soft  by  boring  it,  and 
almost  incredible  quantities  are  con- 
sumed in  this  way,  alike  in  the  East 
and  West  Indies.  In  the  Sandwich, 
and  many  other  islands  of  the  Pacific, 
every  child  has  a  piece  of  sugar-cane 
in  its  hand ;  while  in  our  own  sugar 
colonies  the  Negroes  become  fat  in 
crop-time  on  the  abundant  juice  of  the 
ripening  cane.  This  mode  of  using 
the  cane  is  no  doubt  the  most  ancient 
of  all,  and  was  known  to  the  Roman 
writers.  Lucan,  for  example,  speaks 
of  the  eaters  of  the  cane,  as  "  those 
who  drink  sweet  juices  from  the  tender 
reed,"— 

"  Quique  bibunt  tener&  dulces  ab  arundine 

SUCC03." 

In  vegetable  sweets,  however,  as 
luxuries  of  life,  modern  times  are  far 
ahead  of  the  ancient  world;  and  to 
the  honey,  grape,  manna,  and  fruit 
sugars,  which  formed  the  principal 
sweets  of  the  ancient  nations,  we  now 
add  the  cane-sugar  in  abundance, 
besides  making  saccharine  extracts 
from  beet  and  maize,  as  well  as  from 
the  maple-woods  of  North  America, 
and  the  palms  of  Africa  and  the  tro- 
pics. We  manufacture  sugar  also 
from  potatoes,  and  other  substances 
rich  in  starch  ;  from  sea-weeds  gath- 
ered by  the  shore,  even  from  sawdust, 
when  an  emergency  arises;  and  we 
extract  it  from  the  milk  of  our  do- 
mestic cattle.  It  has  become  to  us 
almost  a  necessary  of  life.  We  con- 
sume it  in  millions  of  tons,  and  em- 
ploy thousands  of  ships  in  transport- 
ing it. 

It  is  from  vegetable  substances  con-  . 
taining  sugar  that  are  produced  those 


the  most  civilised  nations  delight  in, 
and  which  even  the  most  barbarous 
have  not  failed  to  invent.    This  part 
of  our  subject  is  so  well  known  that 
we  need  not  dwell  upon  it.     Grain 
and  fruit  are  the  chief  substances  from 
which  these  alcoholic  drinks  are  de- 
rived.   From  the  former  of  these  are 
produced  malt    liquors    and    ardent 
spirits  in  great  variety.    Besides  the 
ordinary  beers  and  spirits  of  our  own 
country    and    Western  Europe,   we 
have  the  acid  quass  or  rye-beer  of 
Russia, — the  millet-beer  of  Crim-Tar- 
tary,    Arabia,    Abyssinia,    and    the 
southern  slopes  of  the  Himalayas, — 
the  chica  or  maize-beer,  as  well  as  the 
liquors  which  go  by  the  same  name, 
prepared  from  barley,  rice,  and  pease 
in  South  America.     Grapes,  apples, 
and  pears,  are  the  chief  fruits  from 
which  wines  are  produced  in  tempe- 
rate climates ;  but  we  must  not  forget 
the  "  toddy,"  or  wine  made  from  the 
sap  of  the  palm-tree  of  the  south.  This 
is  extensively  consumed  in  India  and 
the  islands  of  the  Pacific ;  in  Chile  and 
also  in  Africa  it  is  almost  the  only  fer- 
mented liquor  in  general  use.   Though 
we  know  so  little  of  it  in  Europe, 
therefore,  the  wine  of  the  palm-tree  is 
drunk  as  an  exhilarating  liquor  by  a 
larger  number  of  the  human  race  than 
the  wine  of  the  grape.    In  the  oasis 
of  Tozer,  a  dependency  of  Tunis,  the 
wine  of  the  date-palm  is  to  be  found 
in  every  house,  and  reeling  Arabs  are 
frequently  to  be  seen  in  the  streets  of 
its  towns.    They  are  strict  Mahom- 
medans;  but  they  justify  their  disobe- 
dience to  the  Prophet's  injunctions  by 
saying,  "  Lagmi  is  not  wine,  and  the 
Prophet's  prohibition  refers  to  wine." 
The  Negroes  of  America  prepare  an 
intoxicating  liquor  from  the  juice  of 
the  sugar-cane ;  and  pulque,  or  agave- 
wine,  produced  by  fermenting  the  sap 
of  the  American  aloe,  is  the  favourite 
drink  of  the  lower  classes  in  the  cen- 
tral part  of  the  table-land  of  Mexico. 
Ava,  also,  the  name  given  to  the  root 
of  the  intoxicating  long-pepper,  yields 
a  liquor  which  is  in  use  over  a  very 
wide  area  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.    It  is 
chewed, — as  the  Indian  chews  his 
maize,  when  he  wants  to  produce  his 
finest  kind  of  chica,— and  the  pulp  is 
then  mixed  with  cold  water,  which, 
after  a  brief  interval,  is  strained  from 


1855.] 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


557 


the  chewed  fibre,  and  is  ready  for  use. 
This  infusion  does  not  intoxicate  in 
the  same  manner  as  ardent  spirits,  for 
some  of  its  effects  resemble  those  of 
opium.  In  fine,  so  great  is  the  pas- 
sion of  mankind  for  these  dangerous 
exhilarants,  that  even  milk  has  been 
made  to  yield  an  alcoholic  drink  by 
fermentation,  —  a  milk-beer  being  in 
use  among  the  Tartars  of  the  Steppes, 
the  Arabians,  and  the  nomadic  tribes 
of  Turks. 

Like  tea  and  coffee,  these  fermented 
liquors  tend  to  diminish  the  natural 
waste  of  the  body,  given  off  through 
the  lungs  and  the  kidneys,  and  conse- 
quently diminish  in  an  equal  degree 
the  quantity  of  ordinary  food  which  is 
necessary  to  keep  up  the  weight  of  the 
body.  Secondly,  they  warm  the  body, 
and,  by  the  changes  they  undergo  in 
the  blood,  supply  the  place  of  the  fat 
and  starch  of  our  usual  food.  Hence 
a  schnapps  in  Germany,  with  a  slice 
of  lean  dried  meat,  make  a  mixture 
like  that  of  the  starch  and  gluten  in 
our  bread,  which  is  capable  of  sustain- 
ing life.  Owing  to  these  properties, 
fermented  liquors  are  found  in  some 
cases  to  be  beneficial  to  old  people,  in 
whom  the  weakened  powers  of  diges- 
tion do  not  replace  the  tissues  as  fast 
as  they  naturally  waste;  and  hence 
poets,  by  a  metaphor  which  is  only 
partially  true,  have  called  wine  "  the 
milk  of  the  old." 

It  is  to  be  recollected,  however, 
that  although  alcoholic  drinks  are 
not  devoid  of  useful  qualities,  it  is 
not  for  these  useful  or  medicinal 
properties  that  they  are  commonly 
used  by  us.  It  is  almost  entirely 
for  their  exhilarating  intoxicating 
qualities  that  men  indulge  in  them ; 
and  of  all  the  exhilarants  in  the 
world,  whether  narcotic  or  non-nar- 
cotic, there  are  none  that  have  inflicted 
such  tremendous  injury  upon  commu- 
nities as  these  alcoholic  stimulants. 
There  seem  to  be  two  reasons  for  this. 
One  of  these  is,  that  the  votaries  of 
alcohol  do  not  seclude  themselves, 
like  those  of  opium,  and  in  a  lesser 
degree  of  haschish,  and  other  narcotics. 
They  get  drunk  in  company  ;  and 
hence  the  amplest  scope  is  afforded 
for  that  other  feature  of  alcohol- 
drinking,  —  namely,  its  brutalising 
and  quarrel- provoking  influences:  for 
when  several  inebriated  men  come  to- 


gether, surely  the  contagion  of  passion 
and  irrationalism  can  no  further  go. 
Thanks  to  the  progress  of  society,  in- 
toxication is  becoming  confined  to  the 
lower  classes ;  but  let  us  venture  a 
word  of  caution  (drawn  from  Dr  Car- 
penter's writings),  even  for  those  who 
do  not  exceed  in  this  indulgence. 
We  have  seen  that  alcohol  warms  u& 
by  supplying  carbonic  or  fatty  matter 
to  the  blood ;  and  to  persons  ordinarily 
circumstanced,  two  noxious  effects  are 
produced  by  this, — Firstly,  from  the 
greater  affinity  of  this  alcoholic  carbon 
for  the  oxygen  of  the  atmosphere,  its 
particles  are  burnt  out  of  the  system 
by  the  breathing  process  in  preference 
to  the  waste  particles  of  the  body  with 
which  the  blood  on  entering  the  lungs 
is  charged  ;  so  that  the  blood  becomes 
vitiated  unless  an  unusual  quantity  of 
open-air  exercise  be  taken,  and  the 
lungs  made  to  do  double  work.  Se- 
condly, the  accumulation  of  fatty 
matter  in  the  blood  (a  single  drinking- 
bout,  it  has  been  ascertained,  some- 
times increasing  the  quantity  five- 
fold!} tends  to  produce  that  fatty 
degeneration  of  the  tissues,  which  the 
medical  faculty  are  now  discovering 
to  be  so  frequently  the  source  of  mor- 
tal illness  and  sudden  death.  That 
fatal  "  softening  of  the  heart,"  which 
generally  cuts  off  its  victim  at  last 
in  a  moment,  is  one  result  of  this- 
fatty  degeneration.  Apoplexy,  also,  is 
frequently  attributable  to  the  same 
cause ;  for  on  microscopic  inspection y 
the  sheath  of  the  ruptured  blood-vessel 
in  the  brain  has  in  many  cases  been 
found  to  be  composed  of  fat  instead  of 
fibre.  So  that,  especially  with  alcohol- 
drinkers,  a  fleshy -looking  condition 
of  body  is  not  always  a  sign  of  health. 
But  mankind  have  discovered  finer 
and  more  potent  exhilarants  than  any 
we  have  yet  mentioned.  The  same 
common  instinct  which  led  them  to 
discover  the  virtues  of  the  tea  and 
coffee  plants,  and  which  taught  even 
the  rudest  tribes  the  art  of  preparing 
fermented  liquors,  and  of  procuring  for 
themselves  the  pleasures  and  miseries 
of  intoxication,  led  them  to  the  dis- 
covery of  a  higher  and  stranger  source 
of  enjoyment.  They  found  that  by 
using  a  minute  portion  of  certain 
plants,  they  were  thrown  into  a  state 
of  delicious  waking  trance  and  mental 
elation,-— terminating,  if  carried  fur- 


558 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


[Nov. 


ther,  in  sleep  or  in  death.  The  articles 
producing  these  singular  effects  are 
those  known  by  the  name  of  narcotics, 
— the  strangest  products  of  the  vege- 
table world,  and  the  use  of  them,  in 
order  to  create  mental  pleasure,  is 
nearly  coextensive  with  the  diffu- 
sion of  the  human  race.  "  Siberia," 
says  Professor  Johnston,  "  has  its 
fungus,— Turkey,  India,  and  China, 
their  opium,  —  Persia,  India,  and 
Turkey,  with  all  Africa  from  Morocco 
to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  even 
the  Indians  of  Brazil,  have  their 
hemp  and  haschisch, — India,  China, 
and  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  have 
their  betel-nut  and  betel-pepper, — the 
Polynesian  islands  their  daily  ava, — 
Peru  and  Bolivia  their  long-used  coca, 
— New  Granada  and  the  Himalayas 
their  red  and  common  thorn-apples, — 
Asia  and  America,  and  all  the  world, 
we  may  say,  their  tobacco, —  the 
Florida  Indians  their  emetic  holly, — 
Northern  Europe  and  America  their 
ledums  and  sweet-gale, — the  English- 
man and  German  their  hop,  and  the 
Frenchman  his  lettuce."  No  nation  so 
ancient  but  has  had  its  narcotic 
soother, — none  so  remote  and  isolated 
but  has  found  a  pain-allayer  of  native 
growth.  The  craving  for  such  indul- 
gence, in  fact,  and  the  habit  of  grati- 
fying it,  are  little  less  universal  than 
the  desire  for  and  practice  of  consum- 
ing the  necessary  materials  of  our 
common  food, — as  will  be  seen  from 
the  following  estimate  of  the  degree  in 
which  the  several  narcotics  are  used: — 

Tobacco,  among       800          millions  of  men. 

Opium,         „  400  ,,  „ 

Hemp,          „       200  to  300 

Betel,  „  100 

Coca,  ,,  10  „  „ 

Each  of  these  narcotics  acts  upon 
the  human  system  in  a  manner  more 
or  less  peculiar  to  itself.  Thus,  while 
tobacco  soothes,  and  with  some  na- 
tions, such  as  the  Turks,  sets  the  mind 
to  sleep,— or  rather  we  should  say, 
lulls  them  into  an  unconsciousness  of 
the  instinctive  movements  of  the  mind, 
— opium  and  hemp  stimulate  and  ex- 
alt the  mental  faculties,  and  delight 
us  with  a  sense  of  increased  intellec- 
tual power  and  activity.  In  the  case 
of  opium  this  intellectual  activity  may 
be  said  to  resemble  the  activity  of  the 
mind  during  sleep,  with  this  difference, 
that  we  are  conscious  of  all  its  move- 


ments. It  seems  as  if,  all  the  bodily 
organs  being  at  rest,  thoughts  and 
images  innumerable  float  over  or 
through  the  quiescent  brain  without 
fatiguing  or  wasting  it,  as  cloud  and 
sunshine  flit  over  a  fair  landscape 
without  stirring  or  physically  changing 
it.  It  is  as  if  the  spirit  were  acting 
and  enjoying  independent  of  the  body. 
With  hemp  it  is  otherwise, — the  rich 
flow  of  ideas  exhausts  the  body,  and 
brings  on  a  hunger  which  can  only  be 
stayed  by  ordinary  food.  This  agrees 
with  another  observed  difference  be- 
tween the  two.  Opium  lessens  the 
susceptibility  to  external  impressions, 
while  haschisch  increases  and  quickens 
it  in  a  high  degree.  In  the  one  case 
it  is  the  splendour  and  riches  of  the 
inner  world  that  rejoice  the  soul, — in 
the  other  it  is  the  objects  of  the  outer 
world  which  are  made  beautiful,  and 
excite  to  joy  the  senses  and  emotions. 
Solitary,  and  heedless  of  all  around, 
the  Theriakee,  or  votary  of  opium,  sits 
on  the  marble  steps  of  his  coffee-house 
at  Stamboul,  looking  down  upon  the 
beautiful  scenery  of  the  Bosphorus, 
but  seeing  it  not  for  the  greater  bright- 
ness of  his  inner  visions ;  while  the 
hemp-dreamer  lies  pillowed  on  the 
couches  of  his  harem,  with  the  bright- 
eyed  Georgian  beauties  flitting  to  and 
fro,  the  sound  of  falling  fountains  in. 
his  ear,  and  surrounded  by  all  that  is 
gorgeous,  and  that  can  fill  his  dreams 
with  love.  Coca  and  opium,  again, 
agree  in  sustaining  the  strength,  in 
certain  circumstances,  in  a  marvellous 
manner, — the  former  almost  supersed- 
ing the  use  both  of  food  and  sleep ; 
but  they  differ  in  their  physical  action, 
— for  the  former  never  induces  sleep 
as  opium  does,  and,  even  when  taken 
in  great  excess,  is  not  constipating, 
while  opium  usually  is  so.  Betel 
rouses  from  the  effects  of  opium,  as 
tea  does  from  that  of  ardent  spirits. 
The  thorn-apple  causes  spectral  illu- 
sions; while  the  Siberian  fungus  opens 
and  shows  the  heart,  as  good  wine  is 
said  to  do,  and  secrets  drop  out  spon- 
taneously under  its  influence.  It  must 
be  added  that  the  preference  for  any 
of  these  various  narcotics  over  the 
rest,  and  the  mode  in  which  each  of 
them  affects  those  who  indulge  in  it, 
undergo  a  change,  according  to  the 
nation  or  even  individual  by  whom 
they  are  used ; — the  quantity  of  opium 


1855.] 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


559 


which  makes  the  phlegmatic  self-pos- 
sessed Englishman  merely  cheerful  and 
slightly  talkative,  sufficing  to  drive  the 
slender  excitable  Malay  into  frenzy, 
and  set  him  a  running  a-muck  through 
the  streets  of  Singapore. 

All  of  them,  as  well  as  the  harm- 
less and  pleasant  theine  stimulants, 
are  remarkable  for  lessening  the  ordi- 
nary waste  of  matter  in  the  human 
frame.  Physiologists  consider  this 
phenomenon  inexplicable,  but  to  us 
the  explanation  seems  not  difficult. 
Life,  whether  animal  or  vegetable, 
embraces  a  ceaseless  struggle  between 
the  vital  and  chemical  forces, — the 
former  ever  striving  to  build  up,  the 
latter  to  pull  down.  In  the  human 
frame,  as  in  all  other  living  bodies, 
the  vital  forces  are  more  potent 
than  the  chemical ;  and  as  long  as 
the  union  between  soul  and  body 
continues — as  long  as  the  spirit  holds 
matter  in  its  life-giving  embrace, 
the  chemical  force,  which  ever  tends 
to  sunder  and  corrupt,  is  kept  in  com- 
parative abeyance,  and  the  waste  of 
the  tissues  is  small.  Anything,  there- 
fore, whether  it  be  the  exhilaration  of 
an  idea,  or  of  tea  or  the  coca-leaf, 
which  stimulates  our  spiritual  essence, 
and  gives  it  a  firmer  hold  over  its 
bodily  organism,  tends  to  arrest  cor- 
poreal decay  and  waste.*  Hence,  in- 
ter alia,  the  healthiness  of  Joy;  which  in 
moderation  is  a  true  elixir  of  life,  but 
which  (like  these  narcotics  and  every 
kind  of  stimulant)  kills  when  carried 
to  excess, — sundering  the  spirit  and 
body,  which  it  is  its  normal  function 
to  keep  in  firmest  union.  The  same 
considerations  explain  the  extraordi- 
nary strength- sustaining  powers  im- 
parted by  the  use  of  opium  and  coca, 
and  which  are  so  marvellous  as  al- 
most to  exceed  belief.  By  the  ac- 
tion of  these  drugs  on  the  nervous 
system,  the  animating  spirit  is  sti- 
mulated, and  physical  life  (which  is 
but  another  name  for  the  union  of 
soul  and  body)  develops  itself  to  an 
unusual  degree.  Thus  the  Halcarras, 
who  carry  letters  and  run  messages 
through  the  provinces  of  India,  when 
provided  only  with  a  small  piece  of 
opium,  a  bag  of  rice,  and  a  pot  to  draw 


water  from  the  wells,  perform  almost 
incredible  journeys.  The  Tartar  cour- 
iers also,  who  travel  for  many  days 
and  nights  continuously,  make  much 
use  of  opium.  With  a  few  dates  or  a 
lump  of  coarse  bread,  they  traverse  the 
trackless  desert  amidst  privations  and 
hardships  which  can  only  be  supported 
under  the  influence  of  the  drug.  And 
hence  travellers  in  the  Ottoman  domi- 
nions generally  carry  opium  with  them 
in  the  form  of  lozenges  or  cakes  stamp- 
ed with  the  Turkish  legend,  "  Mash 
Allah,"  the  Gift  of  God.  Even  the 
horses  in  the  East  are  sustained  by  its 
influence.  The  Cutchee  horseman 
shares  his  store  of  opium  with  his  flag- 
ging steed,  which  thus  makes  an  in- 
credible stretch,  though  apparently 
wearied  out  before.  Thus  also,  with 
a  feeble  ration  of  dried  maize,  or  bar- 
ley crushed  into  flour,  the  Indian  of 
Peru,  if  duly  supplied  with  coca,  toils 
under  heavy  burdens,  day  after  day, 
up  the  steep  slopes  of  the  mountain- 
passes  ;  or  digs  for  years  in  the  sub- 
terranean mines,  insensible  to  weari- 
ness, to  cold  or  to  hunger.  Von 
Tschudi — quoted  by  our  author,  who 
culls  his  curious  facts  from  all  quarters 
— says :  "A  cholo  of  Huari  was 
employed  by  me  in  very  laborious 
digging.  During  the  five  days  and 
nights  he  was  in  my  service,  he  never 
tasted  any  food,  and  took  only  two 
hours'  sleep  each  night.  But  at  inter- 
vals of  two  and  a  half  or  three  hours, 
he  regularly  chewed  about  half  an 
ounce  of  coca  leaves,  and  he  kept  an 
acullico  continually  in  his  mouth.  I 
was  constantly  beside  him,  and  there- 
fore I  had  the  opportunity  of  closely 
observing  him.  After  finishing  the 
work  for  which  I  engaged  him,  he  ac- 
companied me  on  a  two  days'  journey 
of  twenty -three  leagues  across  the 
level  heights  ;  and  though  on  foot,  he 
kept  up  with  the  pace  of  my  mule,  and 
halted  only  for  the  chaccar.  On  leav- 
ing me,  he  declared  he  would  willing- 
ly engage  himself  again  for  the  same 
amount  of  work,  and  that  he  would  go 
through  it  without  food,  if  I  would  but 
allow  him  a  sufficient  supply  of  coca. 
The  village  priest  assured  me  that  the 
man  was  sixty-two  years  of  age,  and 


*  In  fevers,  for  instance,  which  are  the  sharpest  assaults  which  sickness  makes  on 
us,  the  dark  colour  of  the  urine  shows  the  unusual  waste  going  on  in  the  system,  the 
enfeebling  of  the  life-spirit  being  accompanied  by  a  putrefying  tendency  in  the  body. 


560 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


[Nc 


that  he  had  never  known  him  to  be  ill 
in  his  life." 

These  things  are  marvels  truly,  and 
read  like  excerpts  from  Rosicrucian 
romance.  But  the  associations  which 
they  suggest  have  a  dark  side  as  well 
as  a  bright  one.  Who  does  not  know 
that  certain  forms  of  madness  produce 
analogous  phenomena?  Without  sleep 
and  without  food,  restless  as  panthers, 
will  not  some  maniacs  show  powers  of 
endurance  which  may  well  be  called 
superhuman?  Do  not  "possessed" 
ones,  when  the  fit  seizes  them,  baffle 
the  strength  of  half-a-dozen  men  ?  Do 
not  even  delicate  females,  under  the 
delirium  of  fever,  exhibit  a  physical 
power  which,  looking  at  their  muscu- 
lar organism,  seems  totally  unaccount- 
able? And  have  there  not  been 
maniacs  whom  no  man  could  bind — 
no,  u  not  even  with  chains  ?" 

Another  point  in  which  the  influ- 
ence of  these  narcotics  resembles  the 
working  of  insanity,  is  the  weakening 
which  they  produce  upon  the  Will. 
The  very  joy  which  they  produce  con- 
sists in  the  abeyance  of  the  self-direc- 
tive powerof  the  mind.  Brilliant  pano- 
ramas of  thought  pass  on  in  endless 
succession,  coming  and  going  and 
changing  independently  of  the  will, — 
a  luxury  of  sensation  which  comes 
without  an  effort,  and  which,  even 
when  it  deepens  (as  sometimes  it  does) 
into  visionary  horrors  or  the  wailing 
phantasmagoria  of  sorrow,  we  are  un- 
able to  control.  As  might  be  expect- 
ed, an  indulgence  in  these  narcotic 
exhilarants  weakens  the  will  even 
during  the  hours  of  common  waking 
life.  Their  votaries  lose  steadiness  of 
purpose.  Their  working- efforts  lose  co- 
herency;  the  resolute  will  is  gone  which 
should  steer  them  steadily  and  straight 
through  the  billows  of  life ;  and  like  a 
De  Quincey  or  a  Coleridge,  they  work 
only  by  fragmentary  efforts,  or  live  a 
purposeless  life  of  dreams.*  It  is  a 
strange  thing  the  automatic  action  of 
the  mind,  by  the  stimulating  of  which 
these  narcotics  work  their  charm.  The 
brain  works,  the  mind  lives,  indepen- 
dent of  volition.  Like  the  pulsing  of 


the  heart  and  the  processes  of  breathing 
and  digestion,  which  act  independent- 
ly of  the  will,  the  mind  has  an  in- 
stinctive involuntary  action  of  its  own, 
which  underlies  our  voluntary  pro- 
cesses of  thinking,  and  in  seasons  of 
morbid  excitement  is  apt  to  develop 
itself  to  the  exclusion  of  the  logic  of 
the  will.  In  certain  cases  of  inci- 
pient insanity,  this  cerebral  excite- 
ment and  automatic  action  of  the 
mind  are  distinctly  observable.  The 
feeling  at  first  is,  that  the  mind  will 
not  cease  thinking; — thought  after 
thought  comes  rolling  endlessly 
through  the  brain,  more  and  more 
setting  the  controlling  power  of  the 
will  at  defiance, — until  the  cerebral 
machine  seems  to  lose  its  balance- 
wheel,  or  spins  on  like  a  railway- en- 
gine that  has  lost  its  driver.  It  is  to 
be  remarked,  however,  that  as  this 
involuntary  or  automatic  action  of  the 
mind  is  generally  felt  by  narcotic  in- 
dulges to  be  extremely  delightful,  it 
is  probable  that  in  many  forms  of 
insanity  the  sensations  of  the  afflicted 
person,  far  from  being  such  as  to  de- 
mand our  pity,  may  be  highly  agree- 
able. His  "  castles  in  the  air"  and 
exuberant  ideas  may  give  him  as  much 
'delight  as  the  airy  visions  and  spiri- 
tual elation  of  the  opium-eater.  The 
Orientals  look  upon  all  madmen  as 
inspired,— probably  they  do  so  from 
the  analogy  which  they  perceive  be- 
tween certain  kinds  of  frenzy,  and 
the  artificial  "  possession"  of  the  vo- 
taries of  hemp  and  opium. 

The  universal  craving  for  these 
stimulants,  which  confer  for  the  time 
such  enjoyment  and  spiritual  elation, 
however  dangerous  may  be  the  indul- 
gence to  which  it  leads,  springs  from 
an  attribute  of  our  nature  which  may 
well  be  called  divine.  What  occa- 
sions that  craving  but  a  longing  for  a 
higher  species  of  enjoyment  than  men 
can  find  in  ordinary  life  ?  In  its  lower 
forms,  it  may  be  but  a  craving  for 
sensual  excitement, — but  it  is  supreme- 
spiritual  joy  and  intellectual  exalta- 
tion that  allure  the  victims  of  nar- 
cotics. They  yearn  for  the  dawn 


*  How  extreme  must  have  been  Coleridge's  sense  of  his  own  impotency  of  will 
when  he  could  write  thus  of  himself : — "  There  is  no  hope.  0  God  !  how  willingly 
would  I  place  myself  under  Dr  Fox  in  his  establishment ;  for  my  case  is  a  species  of 
madness,  only  that  it  is  a  derangement,  an  utter  impotence  of  the  volition,  and  not  o£ 
the  intellectual  faculties." 


1855.] 


Professor  Johnston's  Last  Work. 


561 


of  that  heaven  within  which  makes 
their  joy.  A  Platonist  would  say  it 
is  a  yearning  of  the  soul  after  joys 
which  it  once  knew,  but  has  now  lost, 
and  whose  memories  haunt  it  like  the 
lingering  echoes  of  music  heard  in 
dreams.  More  truly,  however,  would 
it  be  said  to  be  a  proof  of  the  divine 
nature  of  the  soul,  which  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  the  pleasures  of  a  fallen 
world,  and  which  yearns  after  the 
happiness  of  a  higher  state  of  being, — 
a  happiness  which  is  indeed  held  out 
in  prospect  to  all,  but  the  true  pass- 
port to  which  is  not  the  hasty  coining 
of  an  indolent  counterfeit  of  it  here, 
but  a  manly  facing  of  work  and  purify- 
ing sorrows,  and  the  steady  cultivation 
of  the  noble  grace  of  self-denial. 

The  intense  miseries  which  are  the 
set-off  to  this  fleeting  artificial  en- 
joyment may  well  repel  men  from  re- 
lying upon  narcotics  as  a  means  of 
gratification.  Truly  it  may  be  said  of 
such  indulgence,  "the  end  of  these 
things  is  death."  For  what  is  the 
existence  of  the  habitual  opium- 
eater  but  a  waking  nightmare,  a  life- 
in-death?  "Conceive  a  poor  miser- 
able wretch,"  wrote  Coleridge  of 
himself,  "  who  for  many  years  has 
been  attempting  to  beat  off  pain  by  a 
constant  recurrence  to  a  vice  that  re- 
produces it.  Conceive  a  spirit  in  hell 
employed  in  tracing  out  for  others  the 
road  to  that  heaven  from  which  his 
crimes  exclude  him  !  In  short,  con- 
ceive whatever  is  most  wretched, 
helpless,  and  hopeless,  and  you  will 
form  as  tolerable  a  notion  of  my  state 
as  it  is  possible  for  a  good  man  to 
have."  How  difficult  it  is  to  redeem 
oneself  from  such  bondage  is  known 
to  all,  but  hardly  the  agonies  and  dis- 
tresses which  accompany  the  efforts 
at  self- deliverance.  Even  supposing, 
after  the  inseparable  lapses  and  re- 
lapses of  months,  the  victim  triumphs, 
and  the  vice  is  abandoned,— what  a 
melancholy  paean  is  that  which  comes 
from  the  lips  of  the  victor !  "I  tri- 
umphed," says  De  Quincey  :  "  but 
think  not,  reader,  that  my  sufferings 
were  ended.  Think  of  me  as  of  one, 
even  when  four  months  had  passed, 
still  agitated,  writhing,  throbbing,  pal- 
pitating, shattered,  and  much  in  the 
situation  of  one  who  has  been  racked." 


To  preach  effectively  against  this 
seductive  misery  that  allures  like  the 
Syren,  we  must  not  content  ourselves 
with  simply  denouncing  the  practice 
and  pointing  out  its  evils.  The  crav- 
ing which  leads  to  the  practice  is 
almost  universal  in  the  human  heart, 
and,  in  one  shape  or  other,  will  have 
its  way.  Like  all  the  other  passions 
of  our  nature,  it  is  the  manner  of  its 
development  which  determines  whe- 
ther it  is  to  be  a  fiend  of  darkness  or 
an  angel  of  light.  That  yearning 
after  higher  happiness  than  common 
life  can  bestow,  what  a  fountain  of 
good  it  may  become  if  rightly  direct- 
ed !  Instead  of  striving  to  attain  a 
shortlived  delirium  of  joy  by  means 
of  physical  stimulants,  let  but  the 
yearner  after  pleasure  seek  to  create 
it  healthily  and  normally  in  his  own 
mind,  and  upon  what  a  career  of  pure 
and  lofty  improvement  is  he  at  once 
ushered  !  The  way,  indeed,  is  hard. 
You  cannot  snatch  enjoyment  here  so 
speedily  as  by  the  quaffing  of  the 
hemp  or  opium  cup.  But  then — and 
here  is  the  great  counter- charm — you 
have  no  after-misery,  no  dejection, 
no  reaction  into  anguish.  Then,  too, 
there  is  no  necessary  limit  to  this  en- 
joyment. The  oftener  you  regale 
yourself  with  the  material  stimulants, 
the  more  the  strength  of  those  stimu- 
lants must  be  increased, — the  oftener 
must  you  drain  the  wine- cup,  and  the 
more  must  you  swallow  of  the  nar- 
cotic drug.  But  when  the  mind  is 
the  maker  of  its  own  joy,  the  very  re- 
verse of  this  occurs,  and  each  step 
gained  on  the  ladder  of  spiritual  en- 
joyment only  leads  more  easily  to  a  still 
higher  stage.  It  is  seldom,  indeed, 
that  even  the  best- developed  nature, 
can  experience  normally  a  height  of 
pleasure  equal  to  that  of  the  brief 
rapture  of  the  opium- dreamer, — his 
gratification  rarely  culminates  into- 
such  sudden  ecstasies ;  but  it  is  con- 
tinuous, in  amount  far  greater,  and 
in  duration  immortal  as  his  own  soul. 
To  be  good,  wise,  and  healthy — mens 
sana  in  corpore  sano — is  the  true 
source  of  enjoyment  in  life,  and  is 
worth  all  the  narcotics  and  artificial 
stimulants  to  joy  which  poor  short- 
sighted and  pleasure-seeking  human 
nature  ever  invented. 


562 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


[Nov. 


AN   OLD   CONTRIBUTOR  AT  THE   SEA- SIDE. 

(Concluded.) 


TICKLER,  BUTTERFLY,   WASP,  AND  MYSELF. 


Saturday.  —  Heigho !  ten  o'clock 
A.M.,  or  thereabouts;  but  'tis  too  much 
trouble  to  take  out  my  watch,  and  I 
really  don't  care  what  the  time  is,  be- 
ing sure  of  one  thing,  that  it  is  flying 
away  for  ever,  far  too  fast  in  this 
charming  solitude:  the  exact  time 
signifies  little  to  either  Tickler  or  my- 
self. Just  consider  the  state  of  the 
case.  We  found  our  way  down  to 
this  dear  little  bay  half  an  hour  ago, 
and  have  lain  basking  on  the  well- 
sunned  shingle  ever  since.  I  purpose 
by-and-by  to  bathe;  but  Tickler,  not 
having  the  slightest  intention  of  the 
sort, — though  a  very  Skye  of  Skyes,  he 
dislikes  water,  for  some  reason  or 
other  which  I  never  could  fathom ; 
and  yet  the  little  rogue  likes  nothing 
better  apparently  than  to  accompany 
me  on  the  rocks  at  low  water,  and 
paddle  bravely  through  the  little  crys- 
tal pools ;  when  woe  to  the  crab 
that  unsuspectingly  discloses  itself, 
and  is  —  very  small,  indeed !  For  I 
am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  tell  you, 
that  Tickler's  courage  increases  ex- 
actly as  the  size  of  the  crab  and  its 
powers  of  resistance  diminish;  but,  to 
be  sure,  he  got  such  a  precious  nip 
on  his  nose  from  an  infuriate  and 
freshly-disturbed  crab  some  six  years 
ago,  at  the  back  of  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
as  may  well  account  for  his  having 
ever  since  sedulously  cultivated  that 
which  is,  after  all,  the  better  part  of 
valour  !  But  however  that  may  be, 
he  has  no  idea  of  an  idea  of  mine  con- 
oerning  himself:  viz.,  that  as  soon  as 
ever  the  waters  have  sufficiently  sur- 
rounded the  little  rocky  promontory 
near  him,  to  admit  of  my  securing 
him  a  delicious  plunge,  and  a  swim 
out  of  about  eight  yards, — souse  !  into 
the  blue  depth  goes  the  aforesaid  Mr 
Tickler I  like  a  plunge 


myself,  and  why  should  not  he  ?  And 
yet,  by  the  way,  suppose  some  unseen 
giant  should  suddenly  seize  me  by  the 
nape  of  the  neck,  and  stride  off  with 
me  to  yonder  promontory  at  least  two 
miles  out  in  the  sea,  and  then  drop 
me  into  the  bottomless  blue,  .  .  . 
still,  I  think  it  will  do  Tickler  good,  if 
it  only  kill  the  fleas  ;  which  are  pes- 
tering him  exactly  as  their  fellow- 
vermin  the  place-men  are  at  this 
moment  pestering  the  poor  Premier ! 
I  wonder  what  Tickler  is  thinking 
of  at  this  moment !  Beside  me  lies  a 
book  which  I  have  not  the  smallest 
intention  of  reading,  though  I  have 
brought  it  with  me ;  and  on  the  other 
side  lies  Tickler,  at  full  length,  on  his 
back,  his  fore-paws  hanging  down, 
and  his  hind-legs  stretched  out — his 
eyes  luxuriously  closed,  and  with 
somewhat  the  expression  of  a  con- 
noisseur, forsooth !  How  he  is  enjoy- 
ing himself !  Can  I  do  more  ?  He  is 
not  asleep — not  he ;  for  both  his  glit- 
tering little  eyes  opened  just  now, 
when  a  gorgeously-arrayed  butterfly 
fluttered  over  them,  and  then  he  closed 
them  again,  without  further  disturbing 
himself. — How  beautiful  that  splendid 
insect  of  an  hour !  With  what  object 
was  created  thy  lovely  innocence? 
What  end  dost  thou  answer  in  the 
stupendous  and  mysterious  scene  of 
Life  and  Action  around  thee?  He 
that  willed  thine,  has  willed  my  ex- 
istence ;  and  it  may  not  be  for  no- 
thing, that  it  has  occurred  to  me  thus 
to  contemplate  thee,  and  Him !  .  .  . 
So  thou  art  outward-bound,  too ! 
flattering  out  to  sea,  with  powerful 
pinion  sustaining  thee  I  knew  not 
how  far,  nor  how  long  !*.... 
Now  a  wasp  pays  her  compliments  to 
Tickler,  whose  trance  of  enjoyment  is 
thereby  brought  to  an  end  suddenly: 


*  A  common  white  butterfly  hovered  close  over  me  in  the  steamboat,  when  we 
were  at  least  thirty  or  forty  miles  from  any  land,  and  no  other  vessel  was  within  sight. 
This  showed  indeed  something  like  muscular,  power  ! 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


563 


he  starts  to  his  feet :  every  single 
hair  is  instinct  with  life  :  his  black 
eyes  burn  like  little  live  coals :  he 
snaps — and  growls — and;  barks — and 
springs  hither  and  thither — but  his 
tormentor  is  gone:  and  by-and-by, 
stretched  at  full  length  on  the  sand, 
Tickler  lies  with  his  nose  between  his 
fore-paws,  and  his  eyes  exceedingly 
wide  open  —  the  impersonation  of 

Armed  Caution Yonder 

is  a  hawk.  I  have  watched  him  for 
some  moments,  attentively,  as  he 
wheels  about  the  lofty  crag ; — noise- 
less :  now  he  is  in  deadly  poise  :  if  his 
wings  move,  I  cannot  perceive  it : 
are  his  piercing  eyes  settled  on  his 
destined  prey?  No  other  tenant  of 
the  air  is  moving,  or  visible  to  me: 
but  it  may  be  otherwise  with  the 
fierce  one  above  :  or  he  may  see  ... 
however  that  may  be,  he  has  sudden- 
ly and  gracefully  wheeled  off  again, 
and  is  gone — and — Now  I  pronounce 
this  scene  around  me  charming — 
ineffably  so.  Zephyr  is  in  frolicking 
dalliance  with  the  soft  water,  and  the 
sun  looks  down  with  radiant  satisfac- 
tion on  both.  There  is  not  a  sound, 
except  of  the  tide  gently  laving  the 
silvery  sand.  Let  me  forget,  for  a 
moment,  everything  but  the  present, 
.  .  .  .  let  me  fully  enter  into, 
enjoy,  and  make  it  MINE  !  There 
.  .  .  .  I  am  consciously  gliding 
into  the  dolce  far  niente  .... 
fluttering  with  a  delicious  languor  and 
indifference  between  care  and  care- 
lessness, thought  and  thoughtlessness, 
yet  faintly  stimulated  by  a  latent  con- 
sciousness that  one  could  think  were 
one  so  disposed,  ....  and  only 
of  pleasant  subjects.  Well  —  sole 
tenant,  with  Tickler,  of  this  delicious 
bay,  and  the  smooth  advancing  sea 
yet  at  a  dozen  yards'  distance,  I  will  lie 
flat  on  my  back ;  put  Shakespeare  un- 
der my  head,  and,  besides,  clasp  my 
hands  to  support  it ;  draw  my  cap 
over  my  face,  so  as  to  shield  my  eyes 
from  the  dazzling  sunlight,  —  yet 
leave  myself  a  sly  corner  to  glance 
into  the  stainless  cerulean  above  ;  and 
thus  happily  circumstanced,  I  will 
meditate. 

Meditate!  By  the  way,  what  is  the 
word  derived  from?  Well,  I  don't 
care ;  but  if  it  signify  anything  like 
continuous  mental  action,  it  does  not 


designate  my  present  condition,  for 
I  not  only  can't,  but  won't  think. 
Anything  may  come  into  my  mind 
that  likes,  and  stay  as  long,  or  go  as 
soon,  as  it  chooses.  My  mind !  Tick- 
ler's mind :  both  of  us  have  minds. 
.  .  .  By  the  way,  I  would  give 
something  to  know,  for  a  certainty, 
what  he  is  thinking  about  at  this 
moment !  I  dare  say  he  is  eyeing 
the  softly  approaching  waters:  I 
wonder  whether  he  is  aware  that 
they  are  approaching  1  Will  he  start 
before  they  actually  wet  his  paws? 
By  what  process  would  he  become 
aware  of  the  fact  of  diminishing  dis- 
tance ?  .  .  I  feel  morally  certain 
that  he  never  puzzled  his  little  brain 
about  the  cause  of  the  sea's  saltness 
nor  the  nature  of  his  own  inner  man ! 
But  having  thus  satisfactorily  and 
scientifically  disposed  of  Mr  Tickler, 
what  if  I  were  to  look  for  one 
moment,  and  faithfully,  at  my  inner 
man  ?  My  own  inner  self :  what ! 
Myself  look  at  myself?  And  with- 
out a  glass  ?  Odd  and  inconceivable 
as  it  may  be,  or  seem,  I  will  make  the 
attempt :  I  will  inspect  myself,  and 
sit  in  judgment  on  myself !  No  human 
being,  that  I  know  of,  now  sees,  or  is 
thinking  of  me :  so  I  will  think  of 
nobody  else ;  only  myself.  So !  .  . 
,  .  Well ;  .  .  .  nay,  but  it  is 
Hot  well.  I  am  more  and  more 
startled  the  deeper  I  look  into  my- 
self. Suppose  every  one  of  my  fellow- 
creatures  knew  as  much  of  me  as  I 
begin  to  think  I  know  of  myself :  of 
the  real  motives  which  influence,  and 
objects  which  attract  me  I  Nay — let 
me,  trembling,  imagine  myself  for  one 
moment,  known  to  myself,  or  to 
others,  as  I  am  known,  by  the  Efful- 
gent Omniscience  whose  eye  is  now 
upon  me !  Doth  not  He  see  my  ways, 

and  count  all  my  steps  ! 

I  have  a  great  mind  to  get  up  and 
read  As  You  Like  It  /  no  I  shan't — I 
know  enough  of  it  for  my  purpose. 
Tis  one  Touchstone  that  somewhat 
roughly  thus  salutes  the  shepherd 
Corin  :  "  God  help  thee,  shallow  man ! 
God  make  incision  in  thee !  thou  art 
raw  !"— to  which  the  cheery  shepherd 
thus  replieth :  "  Sir,  I  am  a  true  la- 
bourer :  I  earn  that  I  eat ;  get  that  I 
wear;  owe  no  man  hate ;  envy  no  man's 
happiness  ;  glad  of  other  men's  good, 


564 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


content  with  my  harm 

Heigho !  Can  I  take  this  measure  of 
myself?  To  be  sure,  good  Corin,  you 
and  I  are  somewhat  differently  situ- 


[Nov. 

ated,  and  must  be  tried  by  different 
standards,  as  we  move  among  widely 
different  scenes  of  action,  temptation, 
and  trial :  still,  each  is  man !  .  . 


ROSALIND. 


And  talking  of  As  You  Like  It, 
yonder  is  my  Rosalind  ! — my  sea- 
nymph  ! — my  fair  incognita  I — for  fair 
she  must  be,  surely  !  While  I  have 
been  musing,  till  the  water  was  softly 
surging  against  my  very  feet— Tick- 
ler having  had  sagacity  enough  to 
retreat  in  good  time,  and  sit  a  yard 
or  two  in  my  rear,  doubtless  wonder- 
ing why  one  blessed  with  the  reason 
denied  to  him,  was  foolish  enough  to 
let  the  water  reach  him — she  came,  and 
has  been  sitting  on  the  rocks,  with 
her  maid,  and  little  King  Charles,  I 
know  not  how  long !  She  thinks 
Monsieur  too  near,  eh?  Well,  my 
Beauty,  so  I  may  be,  and  I  beg  you 
ten  thousand  pardons  !  Come  along, 
Tickler!  Who  is  she? — Madame,  or 
Mademoiselle?  Youthful  I  feel  sure 
she  is,  and  fair ;  but  whether  so,  or 
blonde  or  brunette,  I  cannot  from  this 
distance  pronounce.  I  can  see,  how- 
ever, that  she  has  not  mounted  one  of 
those  hideous  toadstool  bonnets  with 
which  English  women  seek  to  disguise 
ugliness  or  age,  and  pretty  simpletons 


their  comeliness,— no,  she  wears,  some- 
what jauntily,  what  seems  a  small 
straw-hat.  But  now  I  retreat  to  my 
rocky  seclusion,  and  soon  see  that  it 
is  I  who  have  kept  the  sea-nymph 
from  her  native  element !  For  behold, 
the  huge  umbrella  is  expanded :  she 
retreats  behind  its  amply  protecting 
shade :  .  .  .  anon  there  emerges 
a  slight  blue  figure,  attired  in  loose 
tunic  and  drawers  a  la  Turque  ...  In 
the  clear  bright  air  I  can  see  her  white 
feet  as  she  cautiously  quits  the  rocks 
and  steps  towards  the  silver  sand, 
when  she  advances  boldly  into  the 
pellucid  water,  smooth  and  shining 
as  the  polished  mirror.  .  .  Now  she 
is  in,  half  her  height,  and  then — 
brava !  brava  I  there  was  a  plunge ! 
And  she  can  swim  !  unless,  to  be  sure, 
the  sly  puss  has  one  foot  all  the  while 
on  the  sand ! — I  daresay  her  maid, 
who  has  advanced  to  the  edge  of  the 
water,  is  laughing  merrily  at  her  young 
— for  young  she  must  be — mistress's 
gambols.  ...  . 


ALAS,  POOR  ROSALIND  ! 


The  moon  sate  enthroned  so  magni- 
ficently in  the  heavens,  that  I  fancied 
it  almost  an  act  of  disloyalty  to  the 
radiant  Queen  of  Night  to  go  to  bed 
when  my  family  did — viz.  at  9.50P.M. ; 
so  telling  madame  not  to  be  alarm- 
ed, I  slipped  quietly  out  of  the  draw- 
ing-room window -door,  and  sans 
Tickler  (who  was  as  sleepy  as  the 
rest  of  my  party,  whom  he  had  ac- 
companied that  day  on  a  walk  of  at 
least — as  they  vowed — fourteen  miles 
thither  and  back),  I  sauntered  slowly 
up  the  avenue  to  enjoy  the  delicious 
scenery.  The  moonbeams  fell,  as  it 
were,  mottled  on  my  path,  through 
the  gently  waving  trees  lining  it 
seaward,  and  affording  me,  every  now 
and  then,  ravishing  glimpses  of  the 
ivy-clad  ruin.  Except  the  faint  flut- 
tering of  the  leaves,  as  Zephyr  swept 


through  them,  no  sound  invaded  the 
ear.  If  I  turned  towards  the  south, 
and  looked  over  the  low  roof  of  my 
chateau,  and  the  trees  which  concealed 
all  but  the  roof,  my  eye  luxuriated 
on  the  spreading  bay,  the  further 
extremity  of  which  stretched  far  into 
the  waters — a  mass  of  rock,  with  th& 
hoary  remains  of  an  old  watch-tower 
glistening  at  the  very  extremity,  and 
with  which  was  connected  a  marvel- 
lous and  mournful  legend — and  be- 
yond it  was  a  silvery  expanse  of 
waters  far  off,  on  which,  though  it 
might  be  only  fancy,  was  visible  a 
snowy  sail.  I  stood  leaning  against 
a  small  silvery  ash,  my  arms  folded, 
gazing  on  the  transcendent  beauty  of 
the  scene,  and  almost  unconsciously 
slipped  into  a  melancholy  humour,  as 
fancy  re-peopled  the  ruined  watch- 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


565 


tower  with  those  whose  grievous  fate 
it  was  said  to  have  witnessed';  es- 
pecially of  the  beauteous  Imogen, 
who,  in  long  passed  time,  had  sprung 
from  it  wildly  into  the  blue  depth 
beneath,  rather  than  have  the  veil 
drop  for  ever  between  her  and  life 
and  love !  While  occupied  with  such 
fancies,  and  almost  sighing  with  sym- 
pathy for  the  fate  of  a  heroine  un- 
known to  me  except  through  the  con- 
fused patois  of  an  old  crone  in  the 
village  beneath,  as  fate  would  have 
it,  a  raven  flew  suddenly  and  omin- 
ously out  of  a  tree  within  only  a 
yard  or  two  of  me ;  and  before  I  had 
recovered  from  the  start  occasioned 
by  so  simple  an  occurrence,  my  eyes, 
happening  to  be  directed  downward, 
lit  on  the  loathsome  figure  of  the 
most  monstrous  toad  I  had  ever  be- 
held! It  was  crawling  leisurely  to- 
ward me ;  and  it  required  some  effort 
to  restrain  myself  from  consigning  it 
to  death  by  a  blow  of  my  heavy 
walking-stick.  But  what  harm,  I 
thought,  had  the  poor  unsightly  crea- 
ture ever  intended  or  done  to  me  or 
mortal  man?  Though  thou  mayst 
be  ugly,  thought  I,  thou  art  not  ven- 
omous ;  nor  shall  my  hand  ruthlessly 
destroy  that  precious  jewel  which  thou 
art  said  to  wear !  But  I  retreated, 
somewhat  precipitately,  I  own,  to- 
wards the  further  extremity  of  the 
avenue — the  high  gate  opening  from 
the  retired  high-road — and  the  view 
thence  of  castle  and  shore  was  so 
irresistibly  attractive,  that  I  opened 
the  gate,  and  resolved  to  saunter 
down  towards  the  shore.  When  I 
•  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice, 
from  which  a  by-way  wound  down 
towards  my  favourite  bay,  feelings 
of  a  peculiarly  sombre  character  came 
over  me ;  and  the  moon  seemed  to 
look  down  ominously  at  me  as  she 
entered  the  silver- edged  obscurity  of 
a  huge  cloud.  Everything  was  still 
clearly  and  beautifully  distinct,  but  a 
kind  of  mysterious  air  had  crept  over 
the  scene,  The  silence  was  absolute, 
and  its  influence  thrilling,  and  even 
oppressive.  Scarce  knowing  why  I 
did  so,  I  slowly  directed  my  steps 
towards  the  bay  where  I  had  passed 
so  much  of  my  time  during  the  day, 
and  several  hours  that  very  morning. 
Just  as  I  reached  the  turning  in  the 
little  foot-path  which  brought  me  into 


the  bay,  the  moon  emerged  with  sud- 
den glory  from  her  obscurity,  but  only, 
after  a  moment's  interval,  to  plunge 
into  one  at  least  as  black.  Brief, 
however,  as  that  interval  was,  it  suf- 
ficed to  render  visible  something  white 
lying  on  the  furthermost  rocks,  and  a 
solitary  white  figure  walking  slowly 
from  it  towards  the  water !  I  looked 
at  my  watch  with  sudden  uneasiness, 
and  saw  that  it  was  rather  more  than 
half-past  ten  o'clock,  which  seemed 
an  extraordinary  hour  for  any  one  to 
be  bathing.  I  approached  the  spot, 
where  lay  what  I  supposed  to  be 
clothes,  as  quickly  as  the  intervening 
shingle  and  rock  would  permit,  and  felt 
not  a  little  agitation  on  perceiving  the 
white  figure  floating  on  the  surface  of 
the  water,  at  least  twenty  yards  from 
the  shore,  and  towards  a  wild  rocky 
outlet,  which  Iknew  to  be  exceedingly 
dangerous,  as  directly  within  the  sweep 
of  the  Atlantic !  I  rushed  up  to  the  spot 
where  glistened— a  lady's  dress  !  and 
suspended  from  the  sharp  corner  of  a 
ledge  of  rock,  the  sort  of  small  straw- 
hat  which  I  had  seen,  as  I  fancied, 
that  very  morning  on  the  lady  who 
had  bathed  thereabouts !  I  instantly 
shouted  "help!  help!"  with  all  my 
force,  for  I  saw  distinctly  that  the 
floating  figure  exhibited  motions,  as  if 
desperately  attempting  to  arrest  its 
course  towards  the  open  sea !  I  called 
"help!  help!"  again,  and  sprang 
from  rock  to  rock  towards  that,  round 
the  corner  of  which,  the  object  was 
floating.  With  an  almost  superhuman 
effort  I  vaulted  over  an  interval  be- 
tween two  rocks,  of  apparently  more 
than  three  yards,  still  shouting  "  help ! 
help ! "  for  I  then  distinguished  the 
dark  dishevelled  hair  of  a  woman ! 
Nearly  toppling  headlong  into  the 
water,  I  rushed  to  the  furthest  ex- 
tremity of  the  rock,  but  only  in 
time  to  see  two  white  hands  sud- 
denly raised  in  imploring  gesture, 
after  which  they  sank  under  the 
water.  .  .  . 

"Help!  help!  for  Heaven's  sake, 
help!"  I  shouted,  at  the  top  of 
my  voice;  but  there  was  no  one 
to  see  or  hear  !  I  would  have 
sprung  into  the  water,  had  not 
some  petrific  influence  prevented 
me.  ... 

"Help!" .... 

"  What   is   the    matter  ?     Good 


566 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


Heavens  !"  and  I  felt  shaken  not 
very  gently,  while  Madame's  voice 
redoubled  her  inquiries. 

"  Save  her J— a  boat !  She's  drown- 
ing !  She  sinks !  Help !  help  !" 

"Pray  don't  disturb  one  in  this  way ! 
You  are  enough  to  send  one  into  a 
fit.  I  suppose  you've  had  some  horrid 
dream— Rouse  yourself!" — And  at 
length  I  did. 

"And  pray  who  was  it  that  was 
drowning?  Was  it  I?" 

"  Oh— no  !  not  you—"  quoth  I,— 
perhaps  it  was  fancied,  with  a  sigh  ! 
for  the  snappish  rejoinder  was — 

"Then  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it 


[Nov. 

was  that  creature  that  you  are  al- 
ways talking  of " 

" That  creature!!"— 

"  Yes— that  creature  !— Pho  !  get 
to  sleep,  and  don't  think  any  more  of 
such  nonsense!  See  what  comes  of 
such  an  outlandish  sort  of  place  as 
this  !  Nothing  would  suit  you  but — " 

"  Outlandish  sort  of  place  ! !— Well, 
upon  my  word,  that's  rather  gratify- 
ing, after  all  the " 

"  Fiddle-de-dee !  then  go  to  sleep  ! " 
And  so  I  did,  gradually,  but  not  till 
after  I  had  inwardly  breathed  a  hope 
that  my  dream  should  never  come  true 
with  fair  Rosalind  of  the  Rock  ! 


THE  MIDNIGHT  ALARM  ! 


Tuesday. — How  profound  our  silence 
and  repose  at  nights !  On  the  particu- 
lar one  of  which  I  am  about  to  speak, 
we  had  no  moon ;  and  as  Madame  had 
consented,  but  very  reluctantly,  to  our 
door-window  remaining  open  to  its 
widest  extent  during  the  nights,  I 
was  forced  to  submit  to  the  abomina- 
tion of  an  Albert  Night  Light,  always 
regarded  by  me  as  in  the  nature  of  a 
glittering  eyesore.  But  I  lie  awake 
much  longer  than  Madame  ;  and  as 
soon  as  ever  she  had  surrendered  her- 
self to  Morpheus  in  right  earnest,  I 
used  gently  and  treacherously  to  slip 
out  of  bed,  make  my  way  up  to  where 
the  glimmering  nuisance  stood,  on  the 
hob  of  the  fireplace,  and  puff  out  that 
same  Albert;  on  which  I  groped  my 
way  back  to  bed,  hoping  that  the  in- 
jured and  betrayed  lady  would  sleep 
till  the  morning  sunbeams  stole  into 
our  chamber.  So  she  generally  did ; 
but  several  times  it  has  been  other- 
wise— and,  with  a  silent  shudder,  I 
have  heard  her  say  to  herself—  "There ! 
that  horrid  night-light's  gone  out  again ! 
.  .  I  wish  we'd  brought  some  from 
town  ! ! "  If  I  appeared  awake,  I  could 
do  nothing  else  but  concur  with  her, 
saying,  "  How  can  you  expect  to  get 
things  as  good  here,  as  in  town  ?" 

"  Yes,  but  Kate  vows  that  though 
she  always  finds  the  light  out,  how- 
ever early  she  comes  in,  it's  often  only 
half  or  a  quarter  burnt !  And  when 
she  lights  the  remainder  next  night, 
it  burns  well  enough  till  she  leaves  me 
— and  I  know  it's  always  burning  as 
long  as  I  am  awake ! " 


"How  very  odd!" 

Well — this  (to  be  candid)  mean 
procedure  of  mine,  secured  its  fitting 
reward.  But  duly  to  appreciate  this 
remarkable  occurrence,  permit  me  to 
explain  a  little.  The  only  persons 
who  sleep  down  stairs  are  four :  my- 
self and  Madame  ;  Tickler  under  our 
bed  ;  and  Mademoiselle  in  a  bedroom 
opposite  to  ours.  We  have  no  cat,  that 
we  know  of.  The  larder  is  about  four 
yards'  distance  from  our  bedroom, 
exactly  opposite  the  small  butler's 
pantry.  Everybody  goes  to  bed— I 
last — by  ten  o'clock 

"  Do  you  hear  that  ?— Do  you  hear 
that?"  agitatedly  exclaimed  Madame, 
waking  me. 

"  No !— I  hear  nothing  !— " 

"  Hush !— " 

"  Pho,  pho  ! — you've  been  dream- 
ing!" 

"Never  was  I  more  wide  —  but 
there's  that  intolerable  night-light  out 
again—"  We  were  certainly  in  dark- 
ness inspissated ;  and  I  knew  who 
might  be  thanked  for  it.  "  There !— " 

I  jumped  up.  There  could  be  no 
mistake  about  it.  We  had  no  idea 
what  o'clock  it  was.  .  .  All  was 
again  silent.  ...  I  had  no  fire- 
arms, but  I  knew  there  were  fire-irons, 
though  none  of  the  largest :  so  slipping 
out  of  bed,  I  groped  my  way,  some- 
what startled,  I  own,  to  the  fireplace, 
and  resolutely  grasping  the  poker 
(Madame  probably  buried,  head  and 
all,  under  the  clothing),  walked  to- 
wards the  open  window — and  through 
it  to  the  terrace.  It  was  pitch  dark ; 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


567 


and  though  I/ancied  I  saw  some  mo- 
tion in  the  laurel  grove,  I  was  mis- 
taken. Just  as  I  had  returned  to  the 
bedroom,  having  gone  round  two- 
thirds  of  the  house,  I  heard  the 
sound  again  —  accompanied  by  a 
stifled  scream  from  Madame.  'Twas 
the  sound  of  crockery  smashing  !  and 
came  from  the  direction  of  the  kitchen. 
There  I  got  a  match,  and  succeeded  in 
lighting  the  candle  I  had  with  me : 
but  all  was  silent  and  safe  there.  The 
pantry-door  was  locked,  and  on  listen- 
ing, nothing  seemed  moving.  Then 
I  went  to  the  larder,  the  door  of  which 
also  was  closed,  but  not  locked :  and 
just  as  I  gently  opened  the  door  and 
thrust  in  the  candle,  peering  in  after 
it,  I  distinctly  heard  something  mov- 
ing, and  that  slowly.  .  .  Heavens! 
.  .  .  I  suddenly  closed  the  door, 
having  seen  nothing.  .  .  .  Could 
it  be  some  hideous  snake  writhing 
about?  Ugh!  .  .  A  cold  shudder 
came  over  me.  Eousing  my  valiant 
servant,  but  nobody  else,  for  the  pre- 
sent, lest  we  should  have  a  great  com- 
motion, we  both  armed  ourselves  suit- 
ably  But  let  me  in  the 

mean  time  intimate  that  that  evening 
we  had  bought  a  live  crab,  of  colossal 
proportions.  .  .  .  he  was  the  ad- 
miration of  the  whole  circle,  perhaps 


the  very  King  of  Crabs;  and  you  should 
have  seen  the  indentation  he  made  in 
the  piece  of  wood  thrust  between  his 
claw  to  ascertain  if  he  meant  mischief ! 
.  .  .  He  was  a  monster  ;  yet  he  had 
become  my  property  for  the  sum  of 
eighteen-pence !  Well :  our  cook  in- 
tending to  borrow  a  saucepan  to  boil 
him  in  the  morning  (I  never  could 
divine  the  reason  of  his  not  having 
been  boiled  instanter),  he  had  been 
placed  in  an  open  and  shallow  basket,, 
on  the  floor  of  the  larder;  and  not 
relishing  his  quarters,  had  gone  out 
reconnoitring:  and  behold  the  bold 
burglar!  Bursting  into  what  was 
meant  to  be  an  assuring  laugh  to  all 
that  might  hear  it,  how  do  you  think 
we  disposed  of  our  restless  captive  ? 
Eemoving  a  loaf  from  the  bread-pan, 
I  offered  a  stick  to  one  of  his  claws, 
which  grasped  it  with  a  deadly  te- 
nacity, enabling  us  to  lift  our  grim 
friend,  unconscious  of  the  manoeuvre, 
into  the  deep  bread-pan ;  presently 
he  relaxed  his  hold  of  the  stick ;  we 
turned  him  with  it  on  his  back  \ 
clapped  the  cover  on  the  bread-pan ; 
— and  ...  at  five  o'clock  P.M., 
of  that  day,  taliter  processum  est, 
that  he  meekly  graced  our  modest 
dinner-table  in  the  guise  of— curried 
crab ! 


TICKLER  MISSING  ! 


I  sauntered  down  to  my  Bay,  with 
four  newspapers  in  my  pocket,  and 
accompanied  by  Tickler  alone,  about 
11  A.M.,  intending  to  bathe,  and  then 
lie  on  the  shingle  reading  my  papers. 
When  I  had  got  down  to  the  water's 
edge,  the  wicked  idea  occurred  to  me 
of  suddenly  sousing  Tickler  into  the 
calm  blue  advancing  water,  before  I 
bathed  myself.  So  without  giving 
him  the  least  idea  of  what  I  was 
about,  by  divers  false  pretences  I  in- 
veigled him  some  little  way  on  to  the 
rocks :  and  then  suddenly  seized  him, 
and  before  the  little  fellow  had  time 
to  be  frightened,  dropped  him  calmly 
into  the  calm  waters !  Clean  over 
head  he  went  instanter;  and  then, 
with  uncommon  sagacity,  observing 
where  the  shore  was,  swam  straight 
towards  it  —  a  fearful  distance  of 
nearly  seven  yards.  On  reaching 
land,  he  shook  himself ;  and  then 


seemed  perfectly  astounded  at  what 
had  taken  place.  Having  assisted  in 
squeezing  the  salt  water  out  of  his 
dear  little  pepper-and-salt  jacket,  I 
rolled  him  good-humouredly  in  the 
shingle ;  and  as  he  was  in  the  fervid 
sunshine,  he  soon  got  dry.  Then  it 
was  my  turn  to  dip ;  and  leaving 
Tickler  squatting  beside  my  clothes, 
with  strict  injunctions  not  to  stir  till 
I  came  out,  I  abandoned  myself  to 
the  lovely  blue !— At  length  I  got  out, 
and  made  towards  my  clothes.  For 
the  first  time  occurred  to  me  the  idea 

of  Tickler But  he  was  not 

there!  I  called  him— gently— angrily : 
I  whistled  :  —  but  no  Tickler  1  I 
dressed  myself  hastily,  and  scrambled 
up  into  the  road:  still  no  Tickler! 
And  to  every  inquiry  whether  any 
one  had  seen  a  little  grey  dog,  the 
answer  was,  "  Non,  Monsieur."  I 
started  back  to  the  chateau— no :  no 


568 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Nov. 


one  had  seen  him !  So  I  hastened 
back  to  the  bay;  and— in  short,  I 
spent  three  hours,  under  a  broiling 
sun,  and  without  having  waited  for 
lunch,  in  hunting  for  Tickler.  I  went 
to  every  cottage  I  could  see,  on  a 
rapid  tour  of  at  least  seven  miles, — 
calling  out  "Tickler!  Tickler!"  — 
making  anxious  inquiries  after  him ; 
and  offering  five  francs  to  any  one  who 
would  bring  him  to  the  chateau.  "  Tell 
us  the  name,  Monsieur  !"— "  Tickler  !" 
"O!  oui!  Teekel?"  — "Teek!"  — 
"Teekleur  !"— "Taklar !"— "Teekle  !" 
.  .  .  .__«  ^Vhat  sort  of  a  dog  is  it?"— 
"  A  little  one — very  pretty — a  lady's 
dog!" — "Quellecouleur,  Monsieur?" — 
"Gris ! — presque  gris !" — "Bien,  Mon- 
sieur !"  —  Five  francs  freely  offered 
must  have  set  five  times  as  many 
eager  searchers  a -foot,  calling  out 


Tickler's  name  in  every  variation  of 
which  it  was  susceptible  in  Norman- 
French  :  —  and  at  length,  dispirited 
and  exhausted,  I  reached  the  chateau. 
Half-way  down  the  avenue  was  Ma- 
dame, reading  a  book.  I  dared  hardly 

tell  her  of  my  misfortune "I 

suppose  you  haven't  seen  Tickler?" 
at  length  I  asked.—"  Seen  Tickler  !— 
Yes  —  he's  lying  fast  asleep  on  the 

ottoman "— "  He  is ! ! !"— "  Why, 

yes — he's  been  here  this  three  hours  : 
and  I  do  believe  you've  been  bathing 
him  !" — He  had  had  his  revenge.  I 
did  not  recover  the  fatigue  for  two  or 
three  hours  ;  and  next  day  Madame, 
attended  by  Tickler,  having  taken  a 
little  walk  into  the  interior,  was 
pitched  upon  by  one  of  my  lynx- 
eyed  myrmidons,  and  told  that  she 
had  got  "  Monsieur's  dog  !" 


FINE  WRITING. 


Wednesday. — Did  I  not  take  my 
seat  in  my  library  this  glorious  morn- 
ing, at  8.30A.M.,  one  whole  hour  after 
breakfast,  with  the  firm  determina- 
tion to  do  some  fine  writing  1  I  know 
I  did  !  Do  some  fine  writing,  by  the 
way — the  phrase  is  my  own,  and  im- 
pertinently significant  !  And,  forsooth ! 
the  fine  writing  was  to  be  on  any  sub- 
ject !  Nothing,  it  seemed,  was  to 
come  amiss  to  the  Fine  Writer  — 
prose  or  poetry  ;  morals,  politics,  cri- 
ticism,—  sentiment,  romance — bah  ! 
However,  being  in  the  humour  for 
something  or  other  intellectual,  I 
spread  out  the  doomed  sheet;  adjusted 
it  exactly  on  the  bloating-case,  and  it 
again  on  the  table,  in  such  a  direc- 
tion as  enabled  me  to  command  a 
sight  of  everything  provocative  of 
Fine  Writing.  I  took  my  pen  ; 
rested  my  left  elbow  on  the  table, 
and  my  chin  on  the  palm  of  my 
hand  ;  half  closed  my  eyes,  and  gazed 
on  the  magnificent  expanse.  Anon 
my  right  hand  hung  down  listlessly, 
or  rather  rested  on  the  arm  of  the  an- 
tique easy-chair,  as  though  belonging 
to  the  very  Genius  of  musing.  But 
what  do  you  think  was  the  first  thing 
that  occurred  to  me  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when,  "  with  all  appliances  and 
means  to  boot,"  I  had  determined  on 
doing  Fine  Writing  ?  When  Silence, 
Solitude,  Snugness,  combined  their 


efforts  to  let  me  have  it  all  my  own 
way !  I  am  really  ashamed  to  tell  you, 
but  'tis  the  truth  ;  and  is  this  :— As 
regards  my  chin  and  left  hand,  the 
posture  is  one  of  those  in  which  Lord 
Byron  was  painted  ; — and  as  regards 
the  right  hand,  with  the  pen,  and 
hanging  down, — the  position  is  that 
chosen  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  to 
represent  the  musing  moralist,  Dr 
Johnson.  .  .  .  Now,  no  mortal 
eye  was  at  that  moment  looking  on 
your  obedient  servant ;  nor  was  there 
anything  in  the  shape  of  a  looking- 
glass  in  the  room  that  he  could 
gaze  at  himself.  Having  probed 
the  matter  as  deeply  as  I  could,  I  am 
as  certain  as  I  can  be  of  anything, 
that  I  had  fallen  into  each  attitude 
unconsciously  ...  but  what  ill- 
natured  imp  was  it  that  placed  before 
my  mind's  eye  the  hackneyed  engrav- 
ings of  these  two  personages,  one  so 
celebrated,  and  the  other  so  great? 
Come,  now,  you  are  alone  with  your- 
self, and  be  frank :  give  up  your  at- 
tempt to  account  for  it  by  anxiously 
referring  to  the  mysteries  of  Sugges- 
tion and  Association  .  .  .  and  tell  us 
whether,  in  your  innermost  self,  the 
idea  did  not  occur  to  you,  that  .  .  . 
if  a  portrait  were  to  be  taken  of  you 
— forsooth  ! — by  hand  of  man,  or — 
dignus  vindice  nodus  I  the  Great  Sun 
himself!  .  .  now  was  the  time !  .  .  . 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


569 


the  points  of  each  position  would  be 
hit  off  at  once !  .  .  .  .  Whew ! 
Eugh  !  ...  In  a  fit  of  genuine  and 
desperate  disgust  at  the  bare  possi- 
bility, and  almost  dreading  and  hating 
the  neglected  science  of  Self- Know- 
ledge, if  it  were  of  such  a  searching 
character  as  this,  searing  one's  very 
vitals, — I  suddenly  thre\v  down  my 
pen  on  the  table ;  started  up ;  enfolded 
myself  in  my  loose  wrapper  ;  walked 
up  and  down  my  room  for  a  minute 
or  two  ;  and  then,  with  a  little  more 
impetuosity  than  was  necessary,  put 
aside  my  paper  ;  shut  up  my  writing- 
case  ;  threw  off  my  wrapper ;  put  on 
my  thin  p'- jacket — my  very  ugly 
travelling-cap,  which  is  an  eyesore  to 
all  my  little  circle ;  strode  out  into 
the  avenue  ;  thrust  my  hands  into  niy 
pockets,  and  for  a  long  time  paced  the 
avenue  in  that  pleasing  state  of  mind 
which  reminds  me  now  of  that  which  Sir 
William  Blackstone  describes  as  "ma- 
lice against  all  mankind" — (forsooth! 
because  I  had  had  cause  to  hate  ni}*- 
self,  I  must  hate  my  species  !) — and 
all  this  came  of  my  sitting  down  de- 
termined to  do  Fine  Writing  !  If 


ever  I  do  anything  of  the  sort  again, 
may  I  .  .  "  Papa  !  here's  Pierre 
at  the  door,  and  wants  to  know 
if  you  would  like  to  go  out  this  morn- 
ing and  fish  among  the  rocks, — he 
says  we're  likely  to  catch  some  conger 
eels."  .... 

"  Oh,  yes,"  desperately ;  "  I'll 
go  —  instantly  !  Anything's  better 
than  .  .  .  Yes !  the  hook  is  in 
my  gills  ;  and  I'll  go  and  put  it  into 
those  of  some  sea-snake  !  Ducky, 
ducky  !  Come  and  be  killed  !"  .  . 
And  He  did  !  Such  a  piece  of  work 
to  get  him  on  board,  of  which  he 
gave  us  fair  notice  the  moment  we 
had  intimated  to  him,  perhaps  some- 
what roughly,  our  intention  to  give 
him  a  little  fresh  air !  I  pulled  the 
line  for  a  yard  or  two,  and  then  ex- 
claimed, "  Hollo  !  here's  something 
strong — "  Pierre  put  his  hand  to  the 
line,  "  Ah  !  oui,  monsieur — c'est  une 
congre  " — he  hauled  in  the  line — "tres 
petit."  And  to  be  sure  it  was  not 
longer  than  my  friend  the  viper  of  the 
other  day — four  feet,  though  consider- 
ably thicker :  how  his  greedy  eyes 
glared  as  he  neared  us  ! 


MAUD   V.   CORDELIA. 


The  evening  was  so  bewitch- 
ingly  beautiful,  that  I  sallied  forth 
to  enjoy  it,  somewhat  selfishly,  alone, 
more  solito  :  and  yet  not  alone 
— for  in  my  pocket  I  took  a  volume 
of  Shakespeare.  Scarce  had  I  seated 
myself  in  the  silent  grass-grown  quad- 
rangle representing  the  keep  of  the 
castle,  before  one  made  her  appear- 
ance with  the  long-desired  volume — 
the  Laureate's  last— Maud!  When 
she  had  left  me,  I  read  it — beginning 
with  the  respectful  and  eager  expec- 
tation which  one  or  two  exquisite 
performances  of  his  might  well  inspire 
in  even  the  most  exacting  and  fastidi- 
ous—right through 

So,  with  a  sigh,  I  took  out  the 
volume  of  Shakespeare  which  I  had 
brought  with  me,  determined  to  com- 
mence King  Lear,  which  I  had  not 
read  for  many  years !  O,  don't  fear 
that  an  Old  Contributor  has  grown 
young  enough  to  favour  you,  at  this 
time  of  day — at  least  of  the  evening — 

VOL.  LXXYIII.—- NO.  CCCCLXXXI. 


with  a  critique  of  that  magnificent 
play,  whose  glorious  and  immortal 
author  has  the  humblest  homage  of  my 
heart  and  intellect — would  they  were 
worthier  of  rendering  it!  In  his 
inspiring  presence  even  littleness 
seems  to  swell  into  bigger  propor- 
tions; but  really  if  one  begins,  one  shall 
never  end,  so  be  it  understood  that, 
with  one  line,  when  I  had  got  down 
to  it — the  shades  of  evening  falling 
deeper  and  deeper  around  me  —  I 
closed  the  volume,  and  in  the  recol- 
lection of  that  rich  and  lovely  line  have 
revelled  ever  since.  It  occurs  in  the 
very  first  scene,  where,  while  her  two 
false-hearted  sisters  are  flattering  their 
royal  old  father,  who  has  required 
each  of  the  three  to  tell  him  which 
loves  him  most,  says  Cordelia,  aside 
—the  first  intimation  she  has  given 
of  her  presence — 

"  What  shall  Cordelia  do  ?     Love,  and  le 
silent !  " 

O,  Shakespeare !  and  so  will  I ! 


570 


An  Old  Contributor  at  tie  Sea- Side. 


[Nov. 


CATERPILLARS. 


"May  I  kill  a  caterpillar?"  "Why 
should  -  you  ?  mav  be  asked  in  re- 
turn." "  Well,  but  why  shouldn't 
I?  They  are  of  a  very  destructive 
nature — .they've  almost  annihilated 
everything  in  the  shape  of  green 
in  poor  Masurier's  little  garden  near 
the  castle,  and  you  should  hear  him 
invoke  vengeance  on  them  "  a  bos 
les  chenilles! "  u  So  you  imagine  your- 
self armed  with  a  roving  commission  to 
destroy  any  animallife,  which  you  may 
regard,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly, 
as  mischievous?  "  "  Why,  if  I  should 
meet  an  adder  crossing  the  road  in 
my  walk  this  afternoon,  mayn't  I 
kill  it?"  "No,  I  think  not;  unless 
the  creature  appear  bent  on  doing 
you  or  yours  harm."  "  I  mayn't 
crush  a  centipede !  !  if  I  should 
see  one— or  a  cobra?!!"  "That  is 
only  varying  the  instance,  not  the 
question.  I  look  upon  it  as  really  a 
serious  consideration  how  one,  formed 
himself  in  God's  image,  can  feel  him- 
self justified  in  arbitrarily  depriving 
of  life  anything  on  which  He  has  been 
pleased  to  confer  it,  for  reasons  which 
in  the  mysterious  economy  of  nature 
He  has  not  revealed  to  us.  Prima  facie 
the  destruction  of  animal  life  is  wrong ; 
it  lies  on  him  who  does  so,  to  justify  it 
by  the  plea  of  requirement  for  food,  or 
of  self-defence,  fairly,  and  not  capri- 
ciously urged  ;  just  as  the  lawyers  say 
of  homicide — that  it  is  presumed  to  be 
malicious,  and  that  it  lies  on  the  pri- 
soner charged  with  it  to  rebut  that 
presumption."  "  Well,  it  don't  signify. 
.  .  .  I've  killed  a  goodly  number, 
as  I  saw  them  crawling  steadily  from 
the  shrubberies  up  the  walls,  and  into 
the  windows  of  my  house  here.  .  ." 
"  The  creatures  are  all  on  their  way 
upwards — each,  as  it  were,  crying 
Excelsior!  impelled  by  unerring  in- 
stinct to  fulfil  their  destiny — to  seek 
some  spot  where,  in  repose,  they  may 
mysteriously  pass  out  of  that  unsightly 
form  of  existence  into  another  of  a 
wholly  different  character.  .  .  ." 
Well,  my  friend,  I  have  observed  it, 


and  pondered  it  long,  and  deeply.  I 
have  watched  the  mystic  metamor- 
phosis with  profound  interest ;  and 
here  let  me  quote  the  pregnant  words 
of  the  great  patriarch  St  Basil,  who 
(A.D.  370)  thus  illustrated  the  doctrine 
of  the  Resurrection  by  the  instance  of 
metamorphosis  exhibited  by  the  silk- 
worm :  — 

"  What  have  you  to  say,  who  dis- 
believe the  assertion  of  the  Apostle 
Paul,  concerning  the  change  at  the 
resurrection,  when  you  see  many  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  air  changing  their 
forms?  Consider,  for  example,  the 
account  of  the  horned  worm  from  In- 
dia: which  having  first  changed  into  a 
caterpillar,  then,  in  process  of  time,  be- 
comes a  cocoon ;  and  does  not  continue 
in  even  that  form,  but  assumes  light 
and  expanding  wings !  Ye  women  who 
sit  winding,  upon  the  bobbins,  the  pro- 
duce of  these  animals,  bear  in  mind 
the  change  of  form  in  this  creature ! 
Derive  from  it  a  clear  conception  of 
the  resurrection,  and  discredit  not  that 
transformation  which  St  Paul  an- 
nounces to  us  all !" 

Mark,  then,  with  me,  yon  caterpill  ar, 
which  I  have  watched  creeping 
steadily  across  the  terrace,  how  often 
soever  pushed  aside,  till  it  reaches  the 
wall :  then  it  ascends,  turns  first  this, 
then  that  way,  its  head  inquisitively 
raised  the  while,  evidently  in  quest  of 
something.  It  is  looking  for  a  fitting 
spot  to  which  it  may  attach  itself,  and 
at  length  has  found  one  to  its  mind, 
alongside  another,  and  is  stationary. 
There  it  will  remain,  like  its  semi- 
metamorphosed  companion,  which  at 
present  it  no  more  resembles  than  a 
bird,  a  frog.  There  will  both  remain, 
unconsciously  undergoing  the  mystic 
process  of  transformation,  till,  with 
returning  sunshine,  they  start  winged 
into  the  air,  New  Creatures.  And 
shall  I  doubt  the  stupendous  fact 
which  God  has  vouchsafed  to  tell 
me,  of  my  own  Resurrection  ?  No  ; 
and  therefore  my  flesh  shall  rest  in 
hope! 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


571 


A   DEED   OF   DARKNESS. 


Tuesday.—.  .  .  'Tis  done !— I  felt 
certain  that  I  heard  a  step  stealthily 
approaching  the  garden,  and  after  lying 
still  in  my  Albert-less  bed-chamber, 
for  some  moments,  the  old  clock  in 
the  hall  droned  out  four  o'clock.  Is 
that  some  one  after  my  pears  ?  (I 
mentally  asked  the  question,  with  the 
air  of  a  suspicious  landed  proprietor.) 
No,  it  was  not,  but  somewhat  infinitely 
more  serious  ;  and  strange  to  say,  a 
realisation  of  sundry  misgivings  that 
had  haunted  me  for  some  time.  I  rose 
from  bed  quietly,  and  stepped  to  the 
open  window.  All  was  dark  and  silent. 
By-and-by  it  returned :  I 
distinctly  saw  a  figure  in  a  blouse, 
stealthily  slipping  down  the  poplar- 
avenue  on  the  western  side  of  the 
shrubbery,  at  the  end  of  which  there 
was  a  wicket  which  opened  on  a  nar- 
row winding  path  leading  down  the 
declivity  towards  the  village.  .  .  . 
In  one  hand  he  carried  the  ensanguined 
instrument  with  which  he  had  done 
the  deed.  'Twas  a  small  hatchet — 
the  wretch !  and  with  two  blows  he 
had  made  me  cease  to  be  a  proprietor 

of  live  stock I  crept 

into  bed  again  and  shuddered.  .    .     . 


"  I  know  what  was  done,  ma'am, 
about  four  o'clock  this  morning,"  said 
I,  mysteriously,  while  I  was  dressing, 
some  hours  afterwards. 

"Well?"  quoth  madame,  sheep- 
ishly. 

11 1  shan't  touch  a  morsel  of  either. 
.  .  .  Positively  I  will  not." 

"  Well,  I  dare  say  there  are  those 
that  will  in  this  house.  I  never  saw- 
plumper  things  in  my  life.  .  .  And 
you  said  they  were  eating  their  heads 
off  in  corn.  ...  I  dare  say  you 
feel  very  sentimental,  and  would  like 
to  have  taken  the  things  up  to  town 
alive!" 

"  Well— but  why  not  tell  me  ?" 

"  Pho— I  thought  you'd  say  some- 
thing touching,  and  all  that,  and  put 
it  off — and  off — sol  told  Henri  to  come 
very  early  and  do  it,  and  when  they 
came  up  to  table,  you  might  have 
supposed  that  the  fowls  had  been 
bought  during  the  day." 

"Well, — I  won't  touch 'em.  They've 
eaten  corn  out  of  my  hands.  But  mind 
I  won't  have  any  more  bought." 

"  Oh,  very  well !"  replied  the  lady 
of  the  landlord,  somewhat  stiffly,  I 
thought. 


CREATURE   COMFORTS. 


Wednesday.— I  really  don't  half  like 
to  own  it  to  myself  even ;  but  I  am 
getting  shockingly  fond  of  A  Good 
Dinner.  Speaking  for  myself  only,  I 
think  sometimes  half-a-dozen  times 
during  the  day  (and,  fie  on  me!  some- 
times catch  myself  licking  my  lips  !  ) 
of  the  dinner  which  is  to  wind  it  up, 
practically :  for  what  with  expedi- 
tions into  the  lovely  and  varied  inte- 
rior of  this  country — expeditious  afoot; 
for  unless  we  choose  to  take  a  jolt  in 
a  cart,  I  should  like  to  see  how  else 
we  are  to  go.  And  that  reminds  me 
of  a  nice  little  char-a-banc  standing  in 
our  stable  ;  but  when  we  had  done  our 
best  in  and  about  the  village — and  far 
and  near — to  get  a  horse,  helas ! — it  was 
not  to  be  had ;  gratefully  acknowledg- 
ing, however,  the  proffered  loan  of  a 
stupendous  cart-horse,  which  could  no 
more  have  got  into  our  little  shafts, 


than  a  hippopotamus  cross  the  Thames 
in  a  wherry.  Well — I  say,  what  with 
expeditions  everywhere,  for  miles  and 
hours ;  and  bathing ;  and  sitting  in 
the  open  air  in  the  laurel  arbour ;  at 
the  top  of  the  castle  (when  I  am  in 
fits  of  fine  thought) ;  and,  O  joy 
of  joys,  ensconced  on  the  rocks, 
on  a  huge  ledge  which  seems  made 
to  shelter  me  from  the  N.  and  N.  E. 
wind  (while  another  protects  me 
from  the  S.W.  which  is  now  blowing), 
and  shields  my  book  or  newspaper 
from  the  aforesaid  wind  ; — and  what 
with  thinking,  and  writing  letters,  and 
reading  good  books  ; — what  with  all 
this,  one  gets  quite  ready  for  dinner, 
ay,  and  now  and  then  looks  at  one's 
watch  as  the  hour  draws  near,  and 
that's  the  truth,  and  I  can't  help  it, 
and  I  don't  care.  Now  look  at  to-day, 
for  instance.  If  all  go  well,  you  may 


572 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


[Nov. 


at  5  P.M.,  military  time,  see  a  very 
splendid  red-mullet,  caught  off  the 
rocks  this  morning  by  one  of  my  hardy 
friends  down  below,  who  has  taken  a 
fancy  to  me,  because  I  admire  his 
little  boy,  and  sent  him  up  with  the 
prize,  as  a  present  for  Monsieur ;  who 
secretly  resolved  to  give  a  franc  and  a 
half  as  a  present  in  return,  on  some 
pretence  or  other  :  —Well  —  there's 
that  Mullet  (I  had  to  give  the  cook  au 
entire  sheet  of  the  nice  paper  on  which 
I  am  writing  to  you,  that  the  afore- 
said Mullet  might  come  to  table  in 
due  state  :  then  (lest  it  should  not  be 
enough  for  five),  two  dozen  and  a  half 
of  curried  oysters  (I  intend  to  eat  some 
of  both) ;  then  some  hashed  mutton, 
and  a  little  piece  of  cold  corned  beef; 
to  be  eaten  to  the  tune  of  pickled 
girkins,  a  jar  of  which,  with  admirable 
forethought,  I  had  brought  from  Eng- 
land— a  rice-pudding  made  of  cream, 
which  they  call  milk  here  ;  salad, 
which  our  servant  has  a  great  fancy 
for  placing  before  us  daily,  seeing  he 
gets  the  lettuce  and  endive  out  of  Our 
Own  Grounds  ;  and  as  for  dessert, 
what  think  you  of  two  dishes  of  lus- 


cious grapes,  and  two  of  large  melting 
pears,  presented  to  us  by  a  courteous 
Military  Proprietaire  and  Neighbour 
only  eight  miles  off.  Thanks,  gallant 
Colonel ;  and  may  this  kind  of  grape 
be  the  only  one  that  is  ever  here- 
after interchanged  between  French 
and  English,  whether  military  or  ci- 
vilian !  Then  concerning  liquor,  what 
say  you  to  pure  Marsala?  Besides 
port:  which,  after  dinner,  being  an 
Englishman,  I  will  have,  whenever, 
and  wherever,  I  can  ?  And  touching 
cider,  no  champagne  cork  ever  bounced 
and  fizzed  out  of  his  bottle  more  im- 
patient to  be  disposed  of,  than  did  the 
cork  yesterday  out  of  our  cider  bottle, 
as  our  astounded  servant  can  testify — 
And  thus  much  in  respect  of  creature 
comforts  ;  and  if  the  truth  were  to  be 
told,  every  one  likes  'em,  that  can  get 
'em.  Don't  you?  [N.B.— We  have 
just  had  a  very  fine  mackerel  brought, 
for  which  we  gave  the  fortunate  fish- 
erman an  entire  franc :  fancy  the  afore- 
said mackerel  to  -  morrow  morning 
broiled,  with  just  a  tincture  of  Sauce 
Epicurienne,  by  way  of  relish,  for 
breakfast!] 


STARLIGHT. 


Thursday.— Isn't  there  something 
suggestive  in  the  very  word  ?  Star- 
light !  But  you  should  have  been  with 
me  this  morning,  when  I  took  it  into 
my  head  to  step  to  the  window  of  my 
bedroom  about  three  o'clock  A.M.  :  not 
a  mouse  stirring ;  even  the  tremulous- 
leaved  poplar  silent :  and  the  sea 
motionless.  Unless  I  walked  out  on 
the  terrace  and  went  round  to  the 
N.E.  front,  the  Moon  was  not  visible: 
but  she  was  such  a  delicate  crescent, 
and  could  in  no  way  interfere  with 
the  solemn  starlight.  Orion  looked 
perfectly  tremendous !  and  seemed  to 
have  come  so  near  !  How  he  gleamed 
in  the  van  of  the  glittering  starry 
host !  [Here  imagine  me  indulging  in 
thoughts  of  the  utmost  sublimity — in- 
conceivably so,  and  inexpressibly  : 
and  that  notwithstanding  my  despe- 
rate efforts,  again,  at  fine  writing  !  ] 


Thou  transcendant  constellation — by 
the  way,  has  any  one  ever  suggested 
or  imagined  any  reason  for  the  fixed 
relative  positions  of  those  stars  which 
we  call  constellations  ?  How  I  should 
like  to  have  a  hint  on  the  subject  from 
some  Angel,  who  may  know  all  about 
it — or  Sir  David  Brewster,by  the  way, 
who  certainly  does !  .  .  .  So  I 
stand  with  folded  arms  and  eyes  gaz- 
ing upward,  looking,  in  my  night  attire, 
like  sheeted  ghost 

Madame  (suddenly)— "Who's  that? 

What's  that  standing  in  the oh, 

it's  you,  is  it !  You'll  catch  your 
death  of  cold  some  of  these  nights ; 
besides,  there  are  no  end  of  insects  and 
creeping  things  about — " 

So  Socrates  stalked  back  to  his 

Xant but  I  won't  finish  the  word. 

I  am  sure  she  means  it  kindly,  and  it 
certainly  is  chilly. 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


573 


CRITICISM 


Many  thanks  for  your  well-meant 
consideration  in  sending  to  me,  in 

my  solitude, .    I  agree  with 

you.    It  is  first-rate  trash;    and  I 


shall  give  it  to  some  villager  here, 
who  cannot  read  English,  and  there- 
fore will  not  have  his  opinion  of  us 
lowered. 


QUITE   OUT   OF  THE  WORLD. 


ls£  October,  Monday. — Five  weeks 
have  now  elapsed  since  I  let  a  thick 
veil  drop  between  myself  and  the 
world.  She  may  have  thought  no- 
thing since  about  me;  but  I  have 
«very  now  and  then  lifted  up  that  veil 
a  little  bit,  just  to  see  how  her  lady- 
ship was  going  on — May  I,  without 
offence,  say  that  she  is  a  little  given 
to  masquerading?  What  does  she 
mean,  for  instance,  by  at  one  time  ap- 
pearing in  grave  and  penitential  garb 
as  the  Religious  World  ?  And  while 
your  feelings  are  getting  attuned  to 
sympathy  with  her,  in  so  grand  a 
character,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye 
all  is  changed,  and  she  flaunts  before 
you  as  the  Fashionable  World.  By- 
and-by  she  assumes  a  smug  self-sa- 
tisfied look,  and  calls  herself  the  Lite- 
rary World ;  and  anon,  as  if  to  show 
how  priggish  and  disagreeable  she 
could  make  herself  if  she  pleased,  The 
Scientific  World.  Just  as  she  is  put- 
ting you  into  a  very  bad  humour, 
presto !  she  capers  before  you  as  The 
Sporting  World !  But  here  again, 
when  you  feel  inwardly  getting  tickled 
into  good  humour,  all  is  changed  in  a 
trice,  and  she  is  quite  fussing  and 
pretentious,  and  in  a  prodigious  pucker, 
as  The  Political  World !  So  that  one 
might  regard  the  world  as  a  huge 
Chameleon !  Well,  but  am  not  I  my- 
self a  part  of  that  Chameleon  ?  What 
do  I  call  myself?  A  Man  of  the 
World? 

But  why  is  The  World  to  derive  its 
aspects  and  denominations  merely 
from  the  Pursuits  in  which  those  in- 
dulge who  constitute  it?  Is  there 
any  harm  in  conceiving  of  The  World 
— its  varied  phases — according  to  hu- 
man characteristics,  the  moral  nature 
and  disposition  of  that  profound  mys- 
tery, Man  ?  Shall  we  speak,  for  in- 
stance, of  The  Cruel  World?  The 
-Covetous  World?  The  Selfish  World? 


The  Ambitious  World?  The  Proud 
World?  The  Sensual  World?  The 
Profane  World?  The  Trifling  World  ? 
Or  may  we  presume  to  speak  of  The 
Just  World?  The  Generous  World ? 
The  Self-denying  World?  The  Hum- 
ble World?  The  Sincere  World?  The 
Reverend  World  ?  The  Believing 
World? 

Answer,  Man!  that  art  thus  per- 
mitted the  inclination  and  opportunity 
of  Self-Examination  and  Devout  Re- 
flection, while  love  of  thy  fellows 
should  mingle  with  reverence  to 
thy  Maker  —  to  which  of  all  these 
thou  claimest  to  belong  ?  Thy  days 
are  melting  away  fast  —  thy  Time 
rapidly  dissolving  into  Eternity, — 
and  yet  thy  destiny  therein  dependeth 
on  thyself.  I  tremble  in  this  awful 
solitude ;  while  I  hear  a  voice  saying, 
Be  not  conformed  to  this  world; 
but  be  ye  transformed  by  the  Renew- 
ing of  your  mind,  that  ye  may  prove 
what  is  that  good,  and  acceptable,  and 
perfect  Will  of  God.  For  1  say, 
through  the  grace  given  unto  me,  to 
every  man  that  is  among  you,  not  to 
think  of  himself  more  highly  than  he 
ought  to  think;  but  to  think  soberly, 
accordingly  as  God  hath  dealt  to  every 
man  the  measure  of  faith. 

The  Sun  is  setting,  and  my  soul  is 
subdued.  O,  the  soothing  glory!  the 
tender  majesty!  the  awful  silence! 
Now  his  last  rays  have  vanished 
from  the  calm  bosom  of  the  ocean : 
why  did  that  tear  descend  my  cheek, 
startling  me  with  its  suddenness? 
It  told  of  the  over- swelling  of  a 
heart  solemnised,  and  a  little  sad- 
dened ;  for  I  suddenly  recollect  that 
the  very  first  object  which  met  my 
eye,  on  entering  this  lovely  residence, 
was  a  letter,  with  gloomy  bordering, 
enclosing  a  card  announcing  the  sud- 
den death  of  my  oldest  friend,  and 
with  these  words  accompanying  the 


574 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea- Side. 


announcement  —  Be  ye  also  ready, 
for  in  such  an  hour  as  ye  think  not, 
the  Son  of  Man  cometh : — and  those 
very  words  I  have  just  read  on  a 
gravestone  in  a  rustic  churchyard 
near  me !  As  I  descend  from  my 


[Nov. 

Well  —  we  have  got  calmly  and 
happily  into  October !  What  a  Sep- 
tember have  we  had!  The  month 
has  been — with  scarce  an  exception — 
one  long  lovely  day,  and  as  lovely 
night!  And  yet,  by  the  way,  to- 


solitary  rock,  my  watch-tower  of  Ob-  wards  its    close,    there    were,    now 

servation,  methinks  I  see  a  new  signi-  I  am  reminded  of  it,   some  pretty 

ficance  in  the  words,  The  fashion  of  stern  intimations     of    Equinoctial- 

this  World  passeth  away,  isrn  ! 


THE  STORM. 


The  Monarch  of  Storms  seemed  to 
be  marshalling  his  forces  in  the  N.E., 
whence  he  kept  every  now  and  then 
throwing  out  clouds  of  skirmishers. 
How  our  poor  laurels  and  laurestines 
bowed  their  heads  and  moaned !  And 
as  for  the  fuchsias,  they  trembled  in 
every  limb,  and  shed,  strange  sight ! 
tears  of  crimson  !  The  poplars  waved 
wildly  to  and  fro,  as  though,  from 
their  higher  positions,  they  could  see 
the  main  body  of  the  Army  of  Hur- 
ricanes, in  close  proximity,  and  lower- 
ing in  battle  array.  Ay  !  and  at 
length  They  Come  !  .  .  .  . 

The  Wind  and  the  Sea  are  going 
to  make  a  night  on't :  so  I'll  e'en  go 
out  and  see  at  least  the  beginning. 
I  get  my  pilot-jacket  and  cap :  I  but- 
ton the  former  up  to  my  chin,  and  tie 
the  latter  close  round  my  neck,  en- 
closing my  ears  from  assault  of  the 
auxiliary  forces— to  wit,  the  Rain,— 
which  have  evidently  joined  with 
King  Wind. 

Madame  and  Mademoiselle.— Why, 
you  can't  really  be  going  out  such  an 
evening  as  this?  Impossible!  What 
a  fright  you  look ! 

Myself  (drily).— It  isn't  impossible  ; 
but  I  may  look  a  Fright :  I  don't  care, 
I'll  go  and  see  The  Storm. 

They  (looking  apprehensively 
through  the  drawing-room  windows, 
which  they  proceed  to  close). — How 
black  it  looks  (so  it  did,  with  a 
witness!)  You'll  be  wet  to  the 

skin And  where  are  you 

going?  To  your  rock,  I  suppose, 
as  usual ! 

Myself.— Well,  by  the  way,  that's 
not  a  bad  idea  at  all :  it  hadn't  oc- 
curred to  me.  I  was  thinking  of  the 
Castle  ....  in  fact,  I'll  go  to 
both 

They. — Well,  take  a  glass  of  wine 


(dessert  on  table),  and  don't  be  out 
long.     But  it's  a  mad  freak. 

Myself. — Didn't  I  say,  when  we 
came,  that  this  was  to  be  Liberty 
Hall  ?  And  havn't  all  of  you  been 
every  where  ?  Chacun  a  son  grout.— 
and  this  is  mine.  Good  evening. 

[I  go.] 

The  instant  that  I  had  got  into  my 
heretofore  tranquil  avenue,  JEolus,  at 
the  head  of  a  strong  column,  charged 
right  down  upon  me,  and  I  was  nearly 
worsted.  I  stood  my  ground,  how- 
ever, keeping  a  sharp  look-out  on  my 
left  flank ;  for  operations  there,  by  one 
of  the  allied  forces,  were  indicated  by 
large  dashing  drops  of  Rain.  But  I 
persevered ;  and  when  I  had  got  to 
the  edge  of  the  declivity,  there  stood 
the  magnificent  old  Ruin,  relieved 
grandly  against  the  leaden-hued  and 
wrathful  sky,  while  the  infuriate  gale 
seemed  bent  on  stripping  off  the  ivy 
close-clinging  in  tender  concealment 
of  the  ravages  of  Time. 

"  Monsieur,  forgive  me,  should  not 
leave  home  such  a  night  as  this — he 
will  be  drenched  in  a  few  minutes,'* 
said  one  of  my  sea-shore  friends,  who 
stood  at  the  door  of  his  hut,  smoking 
his  cigar,  with  an  air  of  luxury. 

"  No,  Jacques,  I  think  not.  I  shall 
be  in  the  Castle  in  a  minute."  .  . 

"  Well,  well,  if  it  so  please  you ; 
but  you  will  be  wet  nevertheless." 
With  this,  a  sudden  puff  of  the  hur- 
ricane whipped  off  his  great  broad 
hat ;  and  with  a  certain  exclamation 
which  I  shall  not  give  or  translate 
for  English  ears  polite,  he  set  off 
after  it,  and  I  with  him,  lest  it  should 
be  whisked  off  to  sea.  But  the  owner 
was  spared  the  bereavement :  the  cap 
blew  right  into  the  hollow  of  a  bush 
that  seemed  made  for  the  purpose ; 
and  Jacques,  with  many  thanks  to 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  tJie  Sea-Side. 


575 


me,  instantly  resumed  his  good-na- 
ture, and  with  a  gay  "  Bon  soir, 
Monsieur  !"  betook  himself  to  his  hut, 
and  I  to  the  Castle.  I  knew  the 
exact  spot  from  which  to  see  with 
advantage,  on  this  particular  occa- 
sion, and  with  that  quarter  of  the 
wind,  whatever  might  happen :  and 
a  few  minutes'  time  sufficed  to  bring 
me, — not  having  been  blown  down 
by  gusts  which  caught  me  every  now 
and  then  in  my  ascent  of  the  time- 
worn  steps — to  the  little  turret.  .  . 
'Twas  sublime.  A  glance  down- 
wards showed  you  stupendous  billows 
broken  incessantly  into  snowy  foam 
at  the  base  of  the  ironstone  rocks 
forming  the  foundation  of  the  Castle. 
I  am  so  high,  and  the  tempest  so  loud- 
voiced,  that  I  scarce  heard  the  thunder- 
ing accompaniment  of  the  onslaught 
beneath.  In  the  far  distance  there 
seemed,  if  my  eyes  did  not  deceive 
me,  a  ship  scudding  under  bare  poles. 
I  was  snug  enough  in  my  little  watch- 
tower,  and  could  not  help  thinking, 
for  a  moment,  of  Lucretius'  famous 
lines  —  Suave  mari  mayno,  —  but 
they  were  quickly  replaced  by  the 
utterances  of  our  own  magnificent 
Tongue  of  Nature  :  * 

"  Kent.—  Alas,  Sir,  are  you  here  ?    Things 

that  love  night 
Love  not  such  nights  as  these  ;  the  wrathful 

skies 

Gullowf*  the  very  wanderers  of  the  dark, 
And  make  them  keep  their  caves.     Since  I 

was  man, 
Such   sheets  of  fire,  such  bursts  of  horrid 

thunder, 

Such  groans  of  roaring  wind  and  rain,  I  never 
Remember   to    have  heard.     Man's   nature 

cannot  carry 
The  affliction  nor  the  fear. 

Lear. —  Let  the  great  gods 

That  keep  this  dreadful  pother  o'er  our  heads, 
Find   out   their   enemies   now  !      Tremble, 

thou  wretch 

That  hast  within  thee  undivulged  crimes, 
Unwhipped    of   justice ;    hide    thee,    thou 

bloody  hand  : 
Thou   perjured,   and  thou  similar  man  of 

virtue ! 

Caitiff,  to  pieces  shake, 
That  under  covert  and  convenient  seeming, 
Hast  practised  on  man's  life.  Close  pent-up 

guilts, 

Rive  your  concealing  continents  !  and  cry 
These  dreadful  summoners,  grace  !  " 

These  lines  had  I  been  reading  that 
very  morning  ;  arid  having  cited  them 
here,  I  shall  not  be  guilty  of  profana- 


tion, by  attempting  any  description  of 
the  scene  which  I  witnessed  that 
evening.  But  what  harm  is  there  in 
mentioning,  as  a  bit  of  dry  matter-of- 
fact,  that  according  to  the  celebrated 
Arago,  as  touching  lightning,  "  the 
most  brilliant  and  extensive  flashes 
— even  those  which  appear  to  embrace 
the  whole  extent  of  the  visible  horizon 
— have  not  a  duration  equal  to  the 
thousandth  part  of  a  second  of  time  /" 
This  conclusion,  he  says,  is  derived 
from  our  distinguished  countryman  Mr 
Wheatstone's  ingenious  rotatory  appa- 
ratus for  determining  the  duration  of  the 
electric  spark  :  which  he  demonstrates 
to  last  not  the  millionth  part  of  a 
second !  However  this  may  be,  one 
of  these  evanescent  irradiations  lasted 
long  enough  to  render  visible  this 
ajfiche,  as  I  quitted  the  majestic  ruin 
— and  infinitely  heightened  the  tone 
of  one's  feeling — "•  II  est  defendu  de 
fumer  au  dedans  de  ces  portes!"  I 
had  escaped  the  deluge  of  rain  which 
had  descended  on  the  turret  in  which 
I  was  snugly  ensconced  ;  and  a  little 
before  eight  o'clock  quitted  the  Castle, 
hoping  to  reach  my  little  chateau  with 
a  dry  skin,  that  I  might  triumph  over 
those  who  had  augured  ill  of  my  ex- 
pedition. But  diis  aliter  visam:  not 
long  after  I  had  sallied  forth  from  the 
mouldering  gateway,  down  came  the 
rain  again  like  a  cataract,  rendering 
me  a  pretty  object,  but  in  no  degree 
shaking  the  iron  resolution  which  had 
sustained  me  through  the  adventure ! 
As  I  passed  the  hut  of  my  friend 
Jacques,  there  he  and  his  wife  and 
daughter  were  cowering  over  the  little 
wood- fire.  He  came  to  the  door, 
shook  his  head,  smiled,  and  gave  such  a 
shrug  !  "  Monsieur  is  wet ! "  "  Enter, 
enter ! "  "  No,  thank  you — I  am  near 
home."  u  Will  Monsieur  take  a  cigar?  " 
I  declined  the  civilly  proffered  but  to 
me  hateful  weed,  and  commenced  the 
ascent  to  my  chateau.  Just  as  I 
reached  it,  the  Moon  that  had  ap- 
peared suffocated  by  the  incessantly 
drifting  clouds,  owing  to  the  inter- 
ference of  a  great  blast  of  wind,  be- 
came suddenly  visible — but  only  to 
cast  akind  of  convulsive  glance — awild 
glare — on  the  tempest  scene  around 
her,  and  withdraw  for  the  night. 
How  the  wind  howled  round  me  as  I 


King  Lear,  Act  iii.,  Scene  2. 


f  i.  e.  affright. 


576 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Nov. 


paced  rapidly  the  avenue  !  At  length 
I  reached  our  clematis-covered  porch : 
the  rain  still  "  came  down  like  music" 
— but  I  had  reached  the  goal !  The 
storm-shutters  had  been  all  closed 
upwards  of  an  hour  before ;  every- 
thing made  snug  for  the  night ;  a 
blazing  fire  lit  in  the  drawing-room  ; 
tea  was  awaiting  my  arrival ;  every- 
body delighted  that  I  had  returned  ; 
off  went  pilot-jacket  and  heavy  soaked 
cap ;  I  retired  to  my  dressing-room 
and  paid  myself  such  attentions,  with 
a  view  to  complete  comfort,  as  seemed 
necessary  ;  then  returned  to  the  draw- 
ing-room, where  Madame  sate  perfectly 


good-humoured  before  the  hissing 
urn ;  Tickler  was  overjoyed  to  see 
me ;  the  two  youngsters  profoundly 
intent  on  the  chess-board ; — tea  is 
soon  ready ;  but  before  the  cup  was 
handed  to  me — "Un  petit  ver  de 
cognac,  Monsieur  ? "  quoth  Made- 
moiselle, slily  ;  "Oui;"  and  all  was 
right.  And  at  9.30.,  good-night ! 
good-night !  Never  mind  the  wind 
howling  down  the  chimneys,  nor  the 
trees  shivering  and  groaning  outside, 
nor  the  rain  spitting  furiously  against 
the  massive  shutters.  Good-night ! 
good-night !  [N.B. — I  hope  that  poor 
bare  ship  is  all  right !] 


AN   ORDER  OF  THE  DAT  ! 


2d  October  1855,  Tuesday,  8  A.M. — 
"  WE,  &c.,  to  all  whom  it  may  concern. 
And  whereas  the  day  is  now  drawing 
in  rather  rapidly,  and  its  candle  is 
burning  at  both  ends,  we,  having 
taken  this  into  Our  consideration,  do 
Order, 

"That  henceforth,  every  one  rise  at 
6.30  A.M.  ;  breakfast  be  at  7.30  A.M.  ; 
lunch  at  12.15  P.M.  ;  dinner  at  6  P.M.  ; 
bed  as  before. 

"  It  is  also  further  Ordered,  that 
every  exertion  be  made  by  everybody 
in  this  expedition  to  get  fish,  particu- 
larly mackerel ;  for  which  purpose 
they  are  to  be  on  the  look-out  at  all 


times,  but  especially  early  in  the 
mornings,  to  intercept  the  fishermen 
carrying  their  fish  to  the  town. 

"  And  whereas  the  fishermen  show 
a  great  disinclination  to  part  with 
their  sand-eels,  for  reasons  best  known 
to  themselves,  every  one  is  at  liberty 
to  go,  at  proper  states  of  the  tide, 
armed  with  rakes,  and  get  'em  for 
themselves — if  they  can. 

"And  touching  oysters,  if  any  one 
can  devise  any  other  method  of  treat- 
ing oysters,  than  eating  'em  raw, 
scalloped,  stewed,  or  curried,  he  is  to 
do  so. 

"  Done  at ." 


MY   BAT. 


Tuesday,  noon.' — "The  ruffian 
Boreas"  has  indeed  "  enraged  the 
gentle  Thetis  !"  She  was  tearing  her 
hair,  stamping  her  feet,  and  springing 
frantically  to  and  fro  —  one  of  the 
Graces  become  one  of  the  Furies  ;  in 
plain  prose,  my  little  Bay,  with  its 
placid  loveliness,  was  now  the  scene 
of  thundering  tumult.  The  sky  looked 
still  wrathful;  dusky  clouds  fly  ing  swift- 
ly and  confusedly  before  the  victorious 
winds.  How  the  green  waters  come 
tumbling  in  mountains  high  !  till  they 
burst  into  clouds  of  foam  against  the 
huge  serried  rocks  on  either  extre- 
mity, or,  gathering  into  higher  and 
higher  curves  as  they  advanced  rapidly 
up  the  beach,  precipitated  themselves 
on  the  shingle  with  deafening  uproar! 
The  three  little  ferry-boats  which  had 


heretofore  lain  in  assured  repose  on 
the  beach,  were  now  hauled  up  high 
and  dry  out  of  the  reach  of  the  raging 
element — one  transferred  to  the  road, 
and  the  other  two  hauled  up  and  left 
hanging  against  the  steep  declivity. 
Where  now  was  the  site  of  my 
quondam  Sea  Nymph's  gentle  antics  ? 
Submerged  some  forty  feet  beneath 
the  snow-crested  billows  !  And  as  for 
my  tower  of  contemplation  at  the 
opposite  extremity,  nothing  of  it  was 
visible,  except,  at  intervals,  black 
ragged  ridges,  or  peaks,  for  the  most 
part  enveloped  in  foam.  The  turbu- 
lent waters  had  overspread  the  entire 
bay,  and  came  riotously  up  to  even 
the  rude  break-water  which  lined  the 
narrow  roadway,  on  the  other  side  of 
which  were  two  or  three  cottages 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


577 


liable  to  be  flooded  unless  the  tide 
retreated.  How  the  wind  howled  ! 
And  as  for  the  San,  which  had  here- 
tofore shone,  now  with  such  pensive, 
then  such  dazzling  radiance  over  the 
lovely  scene,  he  seemed  to  have 
withdrawn  in  anger !  Yet.  .  .  . 
Wednesday  (next  day)  11  A.M. — All 
again  bright,  blue,  and  beautiful  as 
ever  !  The  Monarch  of  day,  blazing 
over  head  in  effulgent  state,  the  fleecy 
clouds  melting  as  they  approach.  The 
wind,  too,  has  fallen  ;  and  though  out 
at  sea,  beyond  the  bay,  the  blue  waters 
are  swelling  and  foam-crested — within 
this  charming  sanctum  they  are  well- 


nigh  calm  and  smooth  as  ever !  .  . 
O,  how  beautiful !  I  spend  the  whole 
morning,  musing  ;  reading  King  Lear'; 
walking  on  the  smooth  and  spreading 
sand ;  or  reclining  on  my  favourite 
rock.  .  .  mine,  not  hers !  Rosalind! 
where  are  you  ?  I  have  not  seen  you 
here  for  now  this  many  a  day !  I 
know  not  yet  who  you  are ;  nor 
whether  you  be  Madame  or  Mademoi- 
selle ;  or  young  and  fair.  Yes,  yes, 
that  I  choose  to  presume  !  Adieu  ! 
So,  as  he  has  the  shore  to  himself, 
Monsieur  will  take  his  bath,  which 
makes  his  fortieth ! 


SABBATH  MORNING. 


O  hallowed  morn !  O,  the  blessed 
freshness  !  The  solemnising  solitude  ! 
The  inspiring  silence ! 

The  sun  had  risen  about  two  hours, 
and  seemed  to  look  benignantly  but 
sadly  out  of  the  cloudless  sky  upon 
the  silver  surface  of  the  sea,  and  the 
valleys  and  eminences  around  me, 
their  foliage  rich  with  the  mellow  and 
varying  tints  of  autumn.  In  a  pensive 
humour  I  sauntered  slowly  and  alone 
up  the  avenue,  and  took  my  old  course 
past  the  lofty  ivy-mantled  ruin,  looking, 
if  possible,  more  beautiful,  and  tenderly 
so,  than  ever.  How  the  bare  crum- 
bling stone  mingled  its  grey  hue  with 
the  rich  green  of  the  ivy,  and  how 
beautiful  on  both  lay  the  slanting 
sunlight !  At  the  base,  and  far  be- 
low, in  the  primitive  little  harbour, 
lay  a  fleet  of  some  fifty  fishing-ves- 
sels, mostly  decked  in  Sunday  attire, 
and  watched  over  by  His  Imperial 
Majesty's  screw  steam-ship  Ariel, 
moored  at  the  corner  of  the  harbour, 
white  as  snow,  with  tricolor  flutter- 
ing faintly  at  stem  and  stern.  On  her 
main-deck  I  could  see  the  crew, 
with  captain  and  officers,  standing 
bare-headed,  at  prayers :  and  with 
this  exception,  not  a  soul  was  stirring 
or  visible  in  the  harbour.  After  con- 
templating the  scene  with  deep  in- 
terest for  a  few  moments,  removing  my 
hat  on  seeing  my  fellow-beings  wor- 
shipping our  Maker,  I  turned  east- 


ward, and  walked  slowly  along  the 
narrow  path  skirting  the  bay.  The 
profound  silence  was  interrupted  for  a 
moment  by  a  sudden  and  distant 
cock-crow,  serving  only  to  enhance 
that  silence.  My  bay  was  filled  with 
the  soft  and  silent  blue  waters ;  and 
from  two  or  three  little  cottages  or 
huts  white  curls  of  smoke  arose,  dis- 
persing slowly  in  the  serene  air.  Not 
a  human  being  was  visible.  I  resolved 
to  scale  the  steep  heathery  eminence 
on  my  left,  to  obtain  a  more  extensive 
view  of  the  enchanting  scene.  At 
length  I  reached  the  summit;  and 
leaning  against  the  weather-beaten 
and  decayed  fragment  of  a  watch- 
tower  that  had  been  erected  during 
the  war,  I  stood,  with  folded  arms, 
lost  in  a  sense  of  the  lovely  repose 
that  breathed  around.  It  was  my 
last  Sabbath  in  those  parts :  and  shall 
I  hesitate  to  own  that  my  soul  was 
dissolved  in  reverent  thankfulness  to 
Him  who  had  given  me,  thus  richly  to 
enjoy,  an  oasis  in  the  wilderness — so 
salutary  and  invigorating  a  respite 
from  the  active  cares  and  anxieties  of 
life  ?  Let  me  humbly  express  a  be- 
lief, and  a  hope,  that  His  creatures 
may  regard  such  a  moment  as  this, 
and  such  a  devout  condition  of  the 
soul  towards  Him  in  whom  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being,  as/ee/- 
ing  after  Him,  and  finding  Him,  though 
He  be  not  far  from  every  one  of  us  I 


578 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Nov. 


MEDITATION   ON   A   MOUNTAIN. 


If  this  were  not  a  time  and  an 
occasion  calling  for  grave  reflection, 
to  one  even  but  little  accustomed  to, 
or  capable  of  it,  when  would  such 
arrive?  Such  is  to  be  regarded  as 
being,  so  to  speak,  a  halt  in  the  march 
of  life ;  not  that  one  can  arrest  one's 
earthly  progress  for  an  instant ;  for 
the  sand  is  still  running  on,  though  he 
who  is  interested  in  it  may  for  the 
first  time  have  thought  of  pausing 
amidst  his  multifarious  occupations  to 
meditate  upon  the  silent  significance 
of  that  running  sand.  So :  one  looks 
backward  :  is  the  retrospect  satisfac- 
tory?—forward:  is  the  prospect  cheer- 
ing ?  or  is  the  former  unsatisfactory, 
and  the  latter  cheerless  ?  Then  fol- 
lows in  either  case  the  weighty  — 
WHY?  Has  the  brief  interval  be- 
tween this  and  one's  last  periodical 
pause,  been  passed  in  a  way  worthy 
of  a  moral,  a  rational,  an  accountable 
being — a  Christian  being,  though  even 
only  nominally  such?  For,  in  my 
view  of  the  momentous  matter,  it  is 
idle  to  ask  the  question  of  any  other, 
nor  would  his  answer  be  interesting 
or  satisfying.  Has  that  space  been 
traversed  in  the  degrading  spirit  of — 
let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  die  ?  Has  one's  moral  and  intel- 
lectual nature  been  more  and  more 
immersed  in  sense?  Does  one  secretly 
believe  that  one's  Whole  ends,  abso- 
lutely, with  a  HicJacet? — That 

'ff  .'        We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep  ? 

Alas  !  I  knew  well  a  man,  a  gifted 
one  too,  who  took  this  dreadful  view 
of  the  matter.  He  was  refined  from 
all  sensual  grossness,  and  I  believe 
his  life  to  have  been  scrupulously 
moral ;  but  though  in  scarcely  middle 
age,  he  could  never  bear  to  be  re- 
minded of  the  decline  of  life — saying, 
with  a  tone  and  a  look  still  present 
to  me,  **  Why  should  I  overshadow 
my  present  by  anticipating  my  ex- 
tinction?" And  I  protest,  that  a 
man  more  calmly  and  hopelessly  un- 
happy, from  this  consideration  alone, 


I  scarcely  ever  knew,  and  it  always 
saddened  me  to  think  of  him.  How, 
then,  would  such  a  one  answer  the 
—  Why  ?  above  proposed  !  But  if  one 
believe  oneself  not  one  of  the  herd 
who,  "from  hour  to  hour,"  thus  "ripe 
and  ripe,"  and  "  then  rot  and  rot,"  is 
one  living  accordingly?  Does  one 
really  square  one's  conduct  with  one's 
belief  of  the  realities  of  Hereafter  ? 
Does  Ambition  burn  as  fiercely  within 
one  as  ever  ?  Is  the  garden  of  one's 
soul  rank  with  the  thickening  ill  weeds 
of  covetousness,  pride,  sensuality,  and 
many  others,  that  do  indeed  "  grow 
apace  "  ?  Is  the  soil  become  too  hard 
to  receive  that  seed  scattered  by  the 
divine  husbandman — Good  Resolu- 
tions? Is  SELF  as  domineering  an 
Upas-tree  as  ever,  under  whose  deadly 
shade  the  faint  growth  of  love  perishes? 
Has  disappointment  soured  or  sweet- 
ened, though  saddening,  the  disposi- 
tion ?  Has  success  made  one  insolent, 
or  meek  and  lowly  ?  Has  knowledge- 
of  oneself,  and  observation  of  others, 
made  one  forbearing,  tolerant,  charit- 
able, in  the  construction  and  estimate 
of  others'  motives  and  conduct  ? 
While  one  has  time,  is  one  really  doing 
good  to  all  men  ? 

Well,  these  are  questions  of  a 

solemn  nature ;  and  the  putting  them 
to  oneself,  steadily  and  faithfully,  may 
well  occasion  sighs  of  humility  and 
self-distrust,  and  direct  the  soul  to  that 
boundless  ocean  of  mercy  and  grace 
which  is  sufficient  for  us! — Thus  sure- 
ly may  meditate,  on  this  mountain, 
amidst  the  lovely  radiance  of  Nature, 
and  the  hallowing  calm  of  Sabbath,  a 
poor  man  of  the  world  ;  who,  though 
he  may  sigh,  does  not  sigh  as  one 
without  hope;  and  also,  as  the  precious- 
season  of  his  solitude  and  seclusion 
draws  to  a  close,  would  return  to  the 
scene  of  life's  ordinary  duties  and 
trials,  even  if  visited  by  adversities,, 
with  gratitude  and  courage,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Royal  Psalmist,— Blessed 
are  they  who  going  through  the  vale  of 
misery  use  it  for  a  well:*  which  good 
old  Bishop  Patrick  would  have  u& 
read  thus  : — "Who  travelling  through 


*  Psalm  Ixxxiv.  6. 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


579 


the  thirsty  valley,  where  there  is  no  the  blessing  of  plentiful  and  season- 
water,  pass  it  as  cheerfully  as  if  it  able  showers  to  refresh  them  in  their 
abounded  with  pleasant  springs  ;  and  journey ;  so  that  the  whole  company 
depending  on  God,  as  the  fountain  of  go  from  stage  to  stage,  with  unwearied 
what  they  want,  receive  from  Him  vigour." 


SYMPTOMS  OF  THE  CAMP  BREAKING  UP. 


Monday. — "All  that's  bright  must 
fade,"  quoth  the  poet;  and  so  it  began 
to  be  with  our  charming  little  cM- 
teau.  In  spite  of  the  rich,  untarnished, 
and  undiminished  foliage  of  evergreens 
so  gracefully  disposed  around  it,  the 
fall  of  the  leaf, — rudely  quickened 
by  the  gales  which  had  latterly  pre- 
vailed,— and  the  bronzing  touch  of 
autumn,  were  telling  daily,  and  al- 
most visibly.  We  were  ceasing  to 
be  quite  as  secluded  as  we  had  been  ; 
and  could  see  and  be  seen,  not  un- 
pleasantly to  be  sure,  but  still  to  a 
much  greater  extent  than  heretofore. 
.  .  Leaves  great  and  small  would 
accumulate  on  our  greensward,  and 
rustle  loudly  as  they  were  hustled 
about  by  the  eddying  gusts ;  and 
'twas  not  inspiriting  to  look  at  the 
stripped  branches  from  which  they 
had  descended.  How  often,  as  I 
paced  our  long  avenue,  under  these 


circumstances,  occurred  the  mournful 
lines  of  old  Homer — 

"  Like  leaves  on  trees  the  race  of  Men  is- 

found, 
Now  green  in  life,  then  withering  on  the 

ground  !" 

The  so  long-enjoyed  blessed  days 
were  shortening  rapidly :  mornings 
and  evenings  grew  chilly  :  we  began 
to  dine  by  lamp-light,  and  those  wha 
did  not  fall  asleep,  sate  reading  round 
the  glowing  fireplaces.  'Twas  rather 
hard  and  uugracious,  I  own,  but  one 
could  not  help,  as  it  were,  solacing  one- 
self with  the  reflection,  that  the  place 
must  look  very  different  in  a  week  or 
two,  and  in  winter,  from  what  we 
had  seen  it !  Yet,  again,  Winter  here 
hath  his  appropriate  splendours :  fancy 
the  noble  old  Ruin  yonder,  his  emerald 
mantle  covered  with  snow,  dazzling  to 
behold  in  the  morning  or  evening  sun- 
light, or  by  the  rich  moonlight ! 


A  DEBATE  CONCERNING  TICKLER,  AND  HIS  SINGULAR  CONVERSATION  WITH  ME. 


Well,  however  this  might  be,  the 
approach  of  our  inevitable  hour  was 
betokened  in  various  ways ;  and  first 
by  the  necessity  of  my  little  forces 
being  diminished  by  two,  with  re- 
spective marching  orders  for  Oxford 
and  a  Public  School.  One  of  these 
two  conceived  a  masterly  idea — that 
since  they  two  could  have  but  little 
luggage  to  look  after,  and  we  "no  end 
of  it,"  with  ladies,  sea-sickness,  and 
searching  to  boot — what  if  they  were 
to  request  the  favour  of  Mr  Tickler's 
accompany  ing  them?  But  this  startled 
some. 

Madame.— Take  Tickler  ! !  What, 
with  them  ? 

Myself  (authoritatively). — Yes. 

Madame. — Well,  of  course,  if  you 
say  it's  to  be  done,  I  suppose  it  must. 

Myself.— Yes. 

Madame. — He'll  break  his  heart — 
to  be  separated  from  me — 


Myself.— Dogs'  hearts,  like  those 
of  some  other  people,  are  not  quite  so 
easily  broken.  He  goes. 

Madame. — He's  never  been  sepa- 
rated from  me  for  six  hours  since  we 
had  him 

Myself.— Poor  little  soul!  I  dare 
say  he  hasn't. 

Madame  (tenderly).— Tickler !  Tick- 
ler !  Tickler !  Poor  Tickler !  [He 
jumps  on  to  her  lap  and  looks  elo- 
quently into  her  eyes.]  Positively  he 
knows  there's  something  or  other 
going  on  ! 

Myself  (in  the  imperative  mood). — 
Tickler,  come  hither  !  [He  jumps 
down,  and  actually  slinks  under  the 
sofa  ! !  so  he  has  heard  it  all,  and  this 
is  a  touch  of  disaffection,  perhaps  to 
be  fostered  into  mutiny.  Mais  riim- 
porte !  He  goes.]  .  . 

But  these  are  painful  scenes ;  and  not 
to  harrow  the  reader's  feelings,  as  was 


580 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Nov. 


considerately  said  by  the  Minerva 
Press-gang,  an  order  of  the  day  was 
issued,  that  everything  was  to  be  in 
readiness  against  5.30  A.M.,  military 
time,  the  morning  but  one  after,  for  the 
departure  of  three:  and  one  of  them  was 
the  aforesaid  Tickler,  as  I  dare  say  you 
may  guess,  who  looked  quite  fascinat- 
ing during  the  day,  by  reason  of  a 
fuchsia  or  two  gracefully  interwoven 
by  Mademoiselle  into  his  collar.  I 
own,  for  all  my  sternness,  that  I  eyed 
the  little  fellow  very  affectionately,  as 
the  hour  of  his  departure  drew  nigh  ; 
but  I  was  little  aware  of  what  was  to 
occur.  On  the  evening  before  he 
went,  we  were  left  alone  in  the  draw- 
ing-room, all  others  having  retired 
early  to  bed.  He  lay  quietly  before 
the  fire  for  some  time,  and  then  got 
up  suddenly,  and  to  my  great  sur- 
prise, addressed  me,  as  nearly  as  I  can 
recollect,  as  follows : 

Tickler.  —  Well,  now  I'm  going, 
with  two  other  members  of  the  fa- 
mily, and  no  mistake  whatever  about 
it  —  he  paused  for  a  moment,  inquir- 
ingly ;  but  as  I  made  no  sign,  he  pro- 
ceeded, with  a  faltering  voice  :  I — 
can't  help  it,  and  shall  offer  no  ob- 
struction, or  opposition,  and  do  my 
best  to  be  good  company  to  my  young 
masters.  Well,  I  must  say,  I've  en- 
joyed myself  uncommonly  in  this 
place,  and  feel  all  the  better  for  it. 
The  only  thing  I  regret  is,  you're 
having  thrown  me  that  day  into  the 
sea — 

Myself.— Q,  as  for  that,  Tickler,  let 
by-gones  be  by-gones. 

Tickler. — Well,  I  suppose  it  must  be 
so,  as  you  say  it  must,  sir ;  but  I  was 
most  horribly  astonished  and  alarmed, 
and  had  a  ringing  in  my  ears  all  the 
rest  of  the  day  ! 

Myself. — Had  you,  really !  So  have 
I,  sometimes. 

Tickler. — You  would  have  been  just 
as  much  astonished  as  I  was,  if  some 
huge  being — 

Myself. — I  don't  allow  a  dog  to  rea- 
son with  me,  sir.  Proceed,  that  is,  if 
you  have  really  anything  to  say. 

Tickler  (after  a  sigh,  and  a  pause). 
— I  don't  wish  to  be  thought  presump- 
tuous, or  give  offence ;  but  I  think 
men  and  dogs  have  a  great  deal  more 
in  common  than  either  thinks  for. 
^  Myself  (loftily,  but  kindly).— Pos- 
sibly ;  but  proceed,  my  poor  creature ! 


In  your  little  way,  you're  not  without 
intelligence. 

Tickler  (meekly).  —  Thank  you, 
sir ;  and  I  hope  you  will  think  us  not 
without  affection  for  mankind  .  .  . 

Myself  (suddenly). — My  poor,  dear 
dog!  Dear  little  Tickler,  I  really 
can't  tell  you  how  much  I  love  you, 
and  I  believe  you  love  us  all,  as  sin- 
cerely. 

Tickler. — That  I  am  very  sure  of! 
But  a  very  particular  circumstance 
that  I  heard  you  read  out  of  a  news- 
paper some  weeks  ago  .  .  . 

Myself. — You  did ! 

Tickler. — Yes,  sir ;  don't  you  recol- 
lect my  being  called  to  order  for  sud- 
denly barking  when  you  were  reading 
the  paper  one  evening? 

Myself. — Well — by  the  way ,  I  really 
do  !  What  of  it  ?  (curiously). 

Tickler,. — It  was  the  account  of  the 
dog  getting  a  medal  the  other  day, 
with  the  soldiers,  for  brave  and  faith- 
ful conduct,  beside  his  master,  in 
battle.  He  wouldn't  leave  him,  for  all 
the  trampling  down,  and  blood,  and 
bullets,  and  bayoneting.  [Here  he 
paused,  and  his  voice  quivered ;  and 
I  was  so  much  touched  myself,  that  I 
said  nothing.]  But  he  did  his  duty, 
only  .  .  . 

Myself. — Good  dog]  Brave  dog! 
Methinks  I  see  him,  with  his  ribbon 
and  medal ! 

Tickler. — That  was  a  proud  day  for 
the  dogs,  sir,  I  assure  you ;  and  I 
heard  one  of  you  say,  sir,  that  another 
dog  has  since  done  prodigies  of  valour, 
fighting  beside  his  master,  and  actually 
making  several  prisoners ! 

Myself. — Why,  Tickler!  Certainly! 
You're  right!  'Twas  a  wonderful 
thing,  and  I've  no  doubt  he,  too,  will 
get  a  medal ! 

Tickler. — They  happened  to  be  both 
French  dogs,  sir,  and  belonged  to 
French  masters! 

Myself.— That  was  the  case,  to  be 
sure  .  .  . 

Tickler  (every  hair  alive  with  ex- 
citement).— But  don't  you  believe  the 
same  could  have  been  done  by  an 
English  dog? 

Myself. — But  you  are  a  Scotch  dog! 

Tickler. — Well,  sir,  and  I'm  proud 
of  it.  And  don't  you  think  that  a 
Scotch  dog  would  have  done  the 
same  ? 

Myself.— Very  probably  ;  but  Tick- 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


581 


ler,  who  was  it  that  ran  away  from  a 
grasshopper  the  other  day  ? 

Tickler. — I  was  not  born  to  kill 
them  (proudly)  ;  but  I  feel  from  that 
hint,  that  I  am  taking  too  great  a 
liberty  .  .  . 

Myself. — Not  at  all — not  at  all ;  only 
as  we've  all  got  to  get  up  very  early 
in  the  morning,  I  should  be  obliged  if 
you  would  be  short.  [I  wind  up  my 
watch  and  give  a  slight  yawn.] 

Tickler. — I  will,  sir.  I  do  assure  you, 
sir,  that  dogs  think  a  great  deal  more 
than  you  suppose. 

Myself. — Ay,  I  dare  say,  about 
their  own  affairs — nice  bones,  and  so 
forth.  Ah,  Tickler! 

Tickler.— I'll  not  deny  that  I  like  a 
fresh  bone,  not  too  cleanly  picked  be- 
forehand, as  well  as  any  dog;  but 
we  observe  and  reflect  on  mankind 
much  more  than  they  imagine,  and 
in  a  very  different  way,  besides,  from 
what  might  be  supposed.  Did  you 
ever  see  a  Dog's  Memoirs,  or  Auto- 
biography, sir? — 

Myself.— Ha,  ha,  ha !— A  Dog's  Me- 
moirs, or  Autobiography?  Excel- 
lent! 

Tickler. — But  did  you,  sir  1—  (anx- 
iously). 

Myself  (musing). —  You  take  me 
quite  by  surprise.    Let  me  see:   at 
this  moment  I  really  don't 
ah  !  ha !  but  I'm  uncommonly  tickled 
by  the  idea ! 

Tickler. — Have  you  ever  read  La 
Fontaine  ? 

Myself—  (gravely  and  musingly).— 
What  a  question  for  a  dog  ! — and  such 
a  little  one  too  !  Well,  I  have,  but 
not  all  he  has  written. 

Tickler.— Nor,  sir,  have  I ;  but  I 
think  he  somewhere  speaks  of  a  man 
playing  with  a  cat;  and  says,  "I 
wonder  whether  that  cat  thinks  it  is 
she  who  is  playing  with  me,  and  not 
I  who  am  playing  with  her  ?  "  Now  I 
think  there's  a  good  deal  in  that,  sir. 

Myself. — I  must  own  it's  rather  in- 
genious and  suggestive  ;  but  what 
upon  earth  can  that  have  to  do  with 
what  you  were  talking  about  ? 


Tickler.— Only  suppose,  for  one  mo- 
ment, that  it  is  possible  we  approach 
more  closely  to  our  human  masters 
than  we've  hitherto  had  credit  for 
.  and  that  I,  for  instance, 
when  under  the  sofa,  or  on  the  otto- 
man, or  on  the  hearth-rug,  and  sup- 
posed asleep,  have  been  watching  and 
listening  .  .  . 

Myself. — O,  you  sweet  rogue !  (good- 
naturedly). 

Tickler. — And  forming  my  own  con- 
clusions of  what  was  said  by  yourself 
and  your  many  friends  and  acquaint- 
ance. 

Myself.— ^m  little  sly  knave! 
[Aside. — Humph!  is  this  a  case  of 
metempsychosis  ?  .  .  At  any  rate,  if 
he's  really  heard  all  that's  been  said 
in  my  house,  he's  heard  some  rather 
queer  things,  and  plain  speaking !] 

Tickler. — I  see,  sir,  that  you  can 
hardly  keep  your  eyes  open,  and  I 
have  only  one  word  more  to  say — 
will  you  kindly  write  my  Autobio- 
graphy, or  Memoirs,  if  I  will  dic- 
tate them  ?  And  if  I'm  frank,  will 
you  be  honest  1 

Myself. — Honest  ?  what  d'ye  mean, 
sir  ?  It's  a  rather  impertinent  ques- 
tion. If  you'd  been  a  man  .  .  . 

Tickler  (humbly).— But  I'm  only  a 
dog,  sir  ... 

Myself  (musing). — What  an  idea  ! 
"  Tickler's  Autobiography  ! "— "  Me- 
moirs of  Tickler ! " 

Madame  (putting  herhead  through 
the  half-open  doorway). — There  you 
are !  Talking  with  that  dog  again  1 
Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  recollect 
that  we  rise  at  half-past  four  to-morrow 
morning?  and  that  Tickler's  going 
too  ?  for  I  suppose  he  is,  poor  brute. 

Myself.— Poor  brute  ! !— [To  myself, 
inaudibly  to  everybody  else : — If  I  be- 
come Tickler's  amanuensis,  Madame, 
I'll  set  down  with  very  particular 
and  rigorous  faithfulness  all  that  he 
has  to  say  about  somebody,  who's 
very  nearly  related  to  the  aforesaid 
amanuensis  !] — Come  along,  Tickler  ! 
(We  go  to  our  respective  beds  very 
submissively.) 


DEPARTURE  OF  THE  DETACHMENT. 


Next  morning,  5.45  A.M. — The  car- 
riage— such  a  carriage — is  standing 
before  the  clematis-covered  porch 


.  .  .  and  in  go  The  Three  !  As  for 
Tickler,  all  his  wonted  agility  and 
sprightliness  had  deserted  trim ;  he  was 


582 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


[Nov. 


fairly  lifted  into  the  vehicle,  he  passive 
the  while,  a  completely  subdued  and 
dejected  dog.  But  just  as  the  carriage 
started  off,  he  presented  himself  at  the 
open  window,  without  moan,  whine,  or 
bark,  but  with  a  look  which,  as  young 
lady-writers  are  so  fond  of  saying, 
would  have  broke  a  heart  of  stone ! 
.  .  .  As,  however,  I  was  inside 
(for  I  was  not  going  to  desert  My 
Boys),  I  cannot  speak  from  a  full  view 
of  Tickler's  countenance;  but  this  I 
know,  that  during  the  whole  five  miles 
he  never  spoke  a  syllable,  though  he 
had  sufficient  pluck  not  to  shed  a  tear 
— that  I  saw,  though  it  is  possible  that 
I  was  taken  up  with  my  sons,  whom 
I  saw  off,  with  every  advantage  of 
wind  and  tide,  and  a  bright  enliven- 
ing sun.  As  the  packet  quitted  the 
harbour,  I  saw  them  both  standing  un- 
covered, kissing  their  hands  to  me  ; 
though  my  glistening  eye  did  not  see 
with  perfect  distinctness,  while  my 
tongue  gently  uttered,  The  God,  ivhich 
fed  me  all  my  life  long  unto  this 
day,  bless  the  lads !  * 

This  was  the  first  time  that  I  had 
been  to  the  harbour,  or  the  town,  since 
quitting  the  vessel  in  which  we  had 


come ;  and  so  much  was  I  occupied 
with  my  thoughts,  and  so  little  ac- 
quainted with  the  road,  that  I  mistook 
the  latter,  and  did  not  reach  home  till 
nearly  ten  o'clock,  having  been  walk- 
ing for  nearly  three  hours,  whereas 
one  should  have  sufficed  :  and  when  I 
did,  how  different  the  place  seemed, 
with  our  suddenly-reduced  numbers  1 
"  Heigho !  how  wretchedly  silent 
and  deserted  it  is,"  quoth  Madame. 
"  I  wish  we  had  all  gone  together !  " 
The  day,  however,  was  exquisitely 
beautiful ;  we  cheered  one  another 
with  saying,  What  a  delightful  pas- 
sage they  will  have  !  And  when  Mon- 
sieur, Madame,  et  Mademoiselle,  met 
at  dinner,  which  was  very  consider- 
ably quieter  than  heretofore,  I  direct- 
ed poor  Tickler's  water-basin,  which 
stood  rather  too  conspicuously  under 
the  side -board,  to  be  removed ;  and 
before  we  rose  from  table,  with  ex- 
tremely few  words,  we  drank  the 
health  of  the  two  who  had  that  morn- 
ing returned  to  their  respective  posts 
in  the  Great  World,  on  which  our 
own  thoughts  were  getting  anxiously 
fixed,  and  to  which  our  steps  were  to 
be  also  soon  directed. 


A  PARTING  WORD   OR  TWO   ON  POLITICS. 


My  last  batch  of  newspapers  has 
arrived — or  if  any  more  should  come, 
they  will  be  too  late  for  me ;  and  after 
having  looked  over  the  chief  of  them 
with  interest,  and  not  carelessly,  how 
one's  thoughts  are  attracted,  irresis- 
tibly and  exclusively,  by  one  vast 
topic — The  War  !  Much  dogmatic 
nonsense  is  almost  naturally  written 
and  talked  about  it,  both  at  home  and 
abroad :  confidently  ignorant  criti- 
cism is  shot  incessantly,  like  the  fool's 
bolt :  you  might  imagine  great  states- 
men and  strategists  to  be  plentiful  as 
blackberries,  and  all  engaged  vehe- 
mently in  quill-driving.  So  marvel- 
lously accurate  and  prescient  more- 
over are  these  gentlemen,  that  you 
never  hear  of  any  of  them  having  to 
acknowledge — or  at  least  acknowledg- 
ing, an  error.  Whatever  event  turns 
up,  it  disturbs  none  of  their  calcula- 
tions, and  falsifies  none  of  their  pre- 
dictions— only  confirming  them  ;  as 


is  complacently  indicated  by  the  bad 
stereotyped  phraselogy — u  Our  read- 
ers will  do  us  the  justice  to  remember 
that  so  long  ago  as" — or  "  from  the 
first,  we  said  that — ,"  and  so  forth. 
Meanwhile  the  war  goes  on,  grimly  tell- 
ing its  own  tremendous  tale,  in  its  own 
tremendous  way — in  blood,  bereave- 
ment, destruction,  desolation — as  it 
were,  exposing  to  the  mind's  eye  huge 
bloody  foot -prints  —  and  crushing 
taxation.  It  is  vitally  important  for 
the  great  clear-headed  English  nation 
to  look  with  equal  coolness  and  reso- 
lution at  its  present  position  with  re- 
ference to  the  war  ;  and  for  this  pur- 
pose is  principally  necessary  an  accu- 
rate knowledge  of  the  history  of 
Europe  during  the  last  hundred,  or  at 
least  fifty  years,  and  a  map  of  Europe, 
to  be  never  from  under  the  eye.  One 
not  thus  furnished  is  a  child,  whom  it 
would  be  childish  to  listen  to,  and 
whom  one  has  not  time  to  teach  ;  but 


*  Gen.  xlviii.  15,  16. 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


583 


one  who  is  thus  furnished,  and  not 
warped  by  a  morbid  idiosyncrasy,  or 
detestably  sordid  and  degrading  party 
politics,  cannot,  I  should  think,  fail 
to  see  that  prodigious  causes  are  pro- 
ducing, and  that  rapidly,  prodigious 
effects,  such  as  may  well  keep  the 
longest-headed  statesmen  longest  on 
the  alert. 

In  undertaking  the  invasion  of  the 
Crimea,  and  the  siege  of  Sebastopol, 
we  did,  indeed,  "  beard  the  lion  in  his 
den,  the  Douglas  in  his  hall ; "  we 
may  be  said  to  have  taken  the  bull 
by  the  horns,  with  all  the  desperate 
chances  attendant  on  such  an  attempt. 
My  own  belief  is,  that  from  the  mo- 
ment Russia  saw  England  and  France 
finally  committed  to  that  enterprise, 
she  foresaw  her  fate  in  the  Crimea. 
Thenceforward  she  fought  at  a  mur- 
derous disadvantage  —  quite  contra 
spem;  the  chapter  of  accidents,  on 
which  she  relied,  totally  failed  her  as 
far  as  concerned  substantial  results ; 
and  unless  her  statesmen,  soldiers, 
and  sailors,  were  all  smitten  with 
judicial  blindness,  they  must  have 
clearly  seen  that,  so  far,  already  the 
game  was  up,  and  the  only  object 
was  to  die  hard.  The  resolve  of  the 
Western  Powers  was  mome.ntous — in- 
expressibly so ;  and  those  who  have 
been  able  to  look  on  with  tolerable 
calmness,  up  to  the  present  point, 
have  lived  in  a  continuous  spasm  of 
anxiety,  which  has  by  no  means  yet 
subsided.  There  have  been,  and 
there  continue,  contingencies  of  the 
most  serious  nature,  to  which  no  one 
thinks  it  necessary  or  politic  speci- 
fically to  advert.  It  were  folly  to 
speak  confidently ;  but  as  far  as  I,  for 
one,  can  see,  after  every  consider- 
ation which,  as  an  independent  man, 
I  have  been  able  to  give  the  subject, 
I  think  an  impartial  posterity  will  ap- 
prove of  what  we  are  doing,  and  con- 
demn Russia  as  guilty  of  flagrant 
wickedness.  It  will,  perhaps,  suffice 
for  them  to  couple  Sir  Hamilton  Sey- 
mour's marvellous  disclosures  with 
the  marvellous  state  of  things  which 
we  found  in  Sebastopol. 

The  internal  condition  of  Russia 
must,  at  this  moment,  be  appalling, 
in  spite  of  all  attempts  of  her  rulers 
to  put  a  good  face  on  matters,  and 
which  may  be  imagined  as  flinging  a 
pall  over  a  man  in  convulsions.  It 


is  the  Spartan  boy,  with  the  unseen 
wolf  devouring  his  vitals.  Her  ef- 
forts, however  apparently  gigantic,  are 
in  truth  but  the  spasms  of  weakness. 
Unless  something  totally  unlocked 
for  should  occur,  she  must  by-and-by 
give  way,  bursting,  though  it  may  be, 
with  abortive  fury,  mortification,  and 
despair.  Yet  the  humiliation  and 
discomfiture  of  Russia  are  matters 
for  serious  consideration  to  European 
statesmen,  especially  those  of  Eng- 
land, on  whom  it  is  specially  incum- 
bent to  temper  resolution  with  moder- 
ation. But  the  cry  "hold!  enough!" 
must  first  come,  or  rather  be  forced, 
from  Russia,  by  her  mighty  antago- 
nists, and  so  far  her  fate  is  in  her 
own  hands.  She  must  really  be  de- 
prived of  the  power  of  again,  for  her 
own  selfish  objects  of  aggrandisement, 
convulsing  Europe  to  its  centre,  and 
perilling  civilisation.  It  is  utterly 
intolerable.  And  she  must  pay  the 
expense  of  giving  her  the  desperate 
knouting,  which  she  has  provoked  in 
the  ordinary  rule  of  the  law,  victor 
victori  in  expensis  condemnandus.  God 
grant  that  she  may  soon  be  brought 
to  her  senses ;  but  till  she  be,  we 
must  take  the  advice  of  the  veteran 
statesman,  Lord  Lyndhurst — "  PER- 
SEVERE !"  Woe  be  to  those  who  would 
trifle  with  us  at  such  a  crisis,  and 
cry  Peace!  peace!  where  there  is  no 
peace !  Much  more  could  I  say ;  but 
my  word  or  two  are  already  exhaust- 
ed ;  and  even  they,  before  these  lines 
meet  the  eyes  of  your  readers,  may 
possibly  have  lost  any  force  they  at 
this  moment  may  possess. 

The  country  appears  to  be  think- 
ing soberly  of  the  war,  with  a  due 
sense  of  responsibility,  but  without 
having  abated  one  jot  or  tittle  of  its 
determination,  which  is  honestly  to 
fight  out  the  battle  on  behalf  of  jus- 
tice and  freedom.  "  Thrice  is  he 
armed,  who  hath  his  quarrel  just."  It 
behoves  us  to  be  prepared  for  immense 
results;  therefore  let  England  never 
quit  her  watch-tower  of  observation ; 
let  her  ever  sleep  in  her  armour ! 
In  the  mean  time  I  would  conclude 
these  observations  with  a  few  mo- 
mentous words  spoken  at  Glasgow  by 
Prince  Lucien  Buonaparte,  when  at- 
tending the  recent  meeting  of  the 
British  Association  :  words  which 
must  give  the  utmost  satisfaction  to 


584  An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 

the  best  men  of  all  classes  in  France 
and  England,  and  on  which  it  is  to 
be  devoutly  hoped  Providence  will 
set  the  seal  of  truth  : — 

"  We  have  arrived  at  a  time  when 
the  alliance  between  the  French  and 


[Nov. 

English  has  come  to  a  point  at  which 
the  interests  of  humanity  will  make 
it  last  for  ever.  The  British  soldier 
can  never  cross  swords  with  the 
French  soldier,  after  having  fought 
together  at  Sevastopol." 


THE  DAY  BEFORE  GOING  OFF 


Was  spent  by  the  commander-in-chief 
in  holding  himself  sternly  in  readiness 
to  discharge  a  painful  duty,  viz.,  pay 
all  such  bills  as  should  be  duly  laid  be- 
fore him,  after  examination,  and  adjust- 
ment to  the  English  measure  of  pecuni- 
ary liability.  Little  unthought-of  claims 
started  pleasantly  up  in  every  direction, 
but  we  were  obliged  to  grin  and  bear 
it,  since  we  could  not  deny  that  upon 
the  whole  they  were  just !  Then  came 
from the  courteous  man  of  busi- 
ness through  whom  we  had  taken  the 
chateau  and  grounds,  to  spend  two  or 
three  hours  with  my  servant,  in  the 
exciting  amusement  of  going  over  the 
Inventory ;  and  the  result  of  a  search 
made  with  excruciating  but  perfectly 
fair  exactness  on  behalf  of  the  pro- 
prietaire,  to  the  everlasting  credit  of 
the  whole  expedition,  proved  to  be 
breakage  during  the  six  weeks  to  the 
tune  of  seven  shillings  and  sixpence 
only  :  of  which,  prohpudor!  five  shil- 
lings was  due  to  an  unlucky  mischance 
of  my  own  !  You  may  depend  upon 
it  that  I  kept  studiously  out  of  the 
way  of  packing  up,  but  first  issued  a 
stringent  Order  of  the  Day  against 
any  infraction  of  the  Revenue  Laws 
of  England.  This,  however,  was  not 
sufficient  to  prevent  every  soul  of  us — 
including  myself!  —  taking  home  at 
least  one  bottle  of  eau  -  de  -  cologne ; 
and  I  also  heard  some  mysterious 
hints  about  its  being  always  allow- 
able to  take  home  one  bottle  of  cognac 
— such  as  could  not  be  got  for  love  or 
money  in  England !  forsooth  ! — pro- 
vided you  had  drawn  the  cork,  and 
perhaps  withdrawn  a  teaspoonful  of 
the  inestimable  spirit !  We  sat  down 
to  dinner  at  six  o'clock ;  and  our 
table  rather  vividly  reminded  me  of 
the  condition  to  which  the  eloquently- 
sorrowful  cow  had  reduced  herself, 
when  she  addressed  me.  'Twas  plea- 
sant to  receive  a  letter,  that  evening, 
from  those  who  had  gone  before  us, 
announcing  the  safe  arrival  of  all 


three  (but  Tickler  in  very  depressed 
spirits),  after  a  delightful  passage; 
though  as  to  this  latter  item  of  intelli- 
gence, it  made  me  listen  with  some 
disquietude  to  the  rapidly  rising  wind. 
It  might,  however,  abate  by  the  morn- 
ing :  but  would  the  sea  be  settled 
down  ?  There  was  the  rub  ! 

We  had  a  week  before  ordered  our 
carriage  to  be  at  the  door  by  5.30  A.M., 
without  fail ;  and,  to  prevent  all  reason- 
able chance  of  mistake,  a  highly  influ- 
ential personage  at ,  with  whom 

we  had  become  acquainted,  good-na- 
turedly called  at  the  voiturier^s  that 
evening,  to  give  the  strictest  injunc- 
tions as  to  punctuality.  We  were 
awoke  about  2.30  A.M.  by  a  perfect 
hurricane,  the  uproar  of  which,  and 
the  apprehensions  which  might  be 
caused  by  it  in  those  who  were  to 
accompany  me,  kept  me — in  fact  all 
of  us — awake  till  4.15,  when  we  rose 
and  dressed  ;  partaking  of  break- 
fast at  5  A.M.  precisely,  by  bright 
candle  -  and  -  fire  light.  All  was 
charmingly  snug  and  comfortable 
within,  sure  enough  ; — but  how  the 
wind  raged  outside !  I  offered  Ma- 
dame to  postpone  our  departure,  if  she 
pleased,  till  the  fourth  day  afterwards, 
no  other  packet  sailing  till  then ;  but 
we  had  already  surrendered  the  key  of 
the  chateau, — the  fair  proprietrix  her- 
self was  immediately  to  succeed  us ; 
it  would  be  highly  inconvenient  and 
expensive  to  secure  other  quarters 
during  the  interval ;  we  might  alarm 
and  disappoint  those  in  England,  whom 
we  had  no  opportunity  of  apprising 
of  our  non-arrival.  No  !  go  we  would 
— "  e'en  let  the  storm  on."  But  5.30 
arrived — and  no  carriage ;  5.45,  ditto ! 
6  A.M.,  ditto ! !  and  no  other  carriage 
of  any  description  was  to  be  obtained, 

at  anyplace  nearer  than itself,  for 

love  or  money,  simply  because  there 
was  none  !  This  dire  quandary  put 
the  storm  clean  out  of  our  heads. 
What  upon  earth  could  have  become  of 


1855.] 


An  Old  Contributor  at  the  Sea-Side. 


535 


our  Jehu?  1>ice  before,  we  had 
employed,  and  paid  him  liberally ! 
We  were  all  in  real  distress  at  this 
serious  contre-temps :  I  —  Madame — 
Mademoiselle— paced  the  avenue  in 
momentarily  increasing  anxiety  and 
impatience,  knowing  that  the  packet 
sailed  at  7  A.M.  to  a  moment, — and 
that  we  were  five  miles  off !  In  my 
distress  1  walked  on  the  road  for  a 
full  mile,  every  now  and  then  stopping 
to  listen  for  the  sound  of  wheels — but 
in  vain.  It  was  now  a  quarter  past 
six  o'clock,  and  I  gave  the  matter  up 
in  calm  despair,  and  returned  home- 
ward miserably,  earnestly  striving  to 
abate  one's  excited  vexation.  We 
were  evidently  u  in  for  it, "for  three  days 
longer,  which  would  have  seriously 
dislocated  my  London  arrangements; 

— and  the  town  of ,  where  we  must 

have  spent  the  interval, we  all  disliked. 
Once  more,  however,  I  turned — paus- 


ed— fancied  I  heard  sounds  approach- 
ing,  and  in  a  moment  or  two  a  pair  of 
horses  came  galloping  round  a  turn 
of  the  road — they,  and  the  lumbering 
vehicle  they  dragged  were  ours. 
What  do  you  think  was  the  reason  of 
all  this?  The  fellow  phlegmatically 
told  me  that  he  had  overslept  himself! 
— without  breathing  a  syllable  of  con- 
cern, or  apology  !  I  now  feared  it  was 
too  late ;  but  suffice  it  to  say,  that  in 
ten  minutes'  time  we  were  on  our 

way  to ,  at  top  speed  :  I,  watch 

in  hand  almost  every  two  minutes. 
Twice  the  rotten  harness  broke!  How 
I  pitied  the  poor  horses !  But  there 
was  no  help  for  it ;  and  at  length  we 
dashed  up  to  the  pier  side,  a  very 
few  minutes  before  the  packet  sailed', 
our  reeking  horses  an  object  of  com- 
miseration to  ourselves,  and  all  others 
who  saw  them.  Now,  was  not  this  a 
severe  little  trial  of  temper  ? 


THE   PASSAGE   HOME. 


'Twas  not  the  packet  by  which  we 
had  come,  but  the  mail,  and  a  very 
fine  vessel  she  was,  and  needed  to  be, 
as  I  thought,  the  instant  that  we  had 
cleared  the  harbour  and  began  the 
game  of  pitch-and-toss  in  prodigious 
earnest.  All  my  companions,  in  their 
respective  quarters  below,  were  quick- 
ly hors  de  combat;  but  I,  who  am  not 
liable  to  sea-sickness,  remained  on 
deck  the  whole  passage,  protecting 
myself  as  well  as  I  could  with  a  huge 
rug  against  the  sea  which  perpetu- 
ally broke  over  us.  It  was  truly 
magnificent,  and  there  is  little  exag- 
geration in  saying  that  it  u  ran  moun- 
tains high."  Now  we  were  engulfed 
in  a  valley,  then  quivering  on  the 
summits  of  two  mountains,  which, 
suddenly  melting  away,  plunged  us 
again  into  a  gulf.  Once  or  twice, 
snugly  esconced  in  the  seat  along  the 
side  of  the  cabin,  I  involuntarily 
started  at  the  immediate  proximity  of 
two  prodigious  water-mountains  ap- 
parently about  to  overwhelm  us.  You 
shall  not,  however,  have  a  laugh  at  a 
landsman,  and  I  have  done ;  but  the 
sailors  said  that  it  was  "far  away  the 
dirtiest  passage  they  had  made  that 
year."  This  state  of  things  lasted 

Done  at  London, 
far  on  in  October  1855. 
VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXI. 


till  7.30  P.M.,  when  we  got  into  com- 
paratively smooth  water,  and  by  eight, 
accompanied  by  a  heavy  shower  of 
rain,  we  reached  the  harbour.  The 
"searching"  was  got  over  promptly 
and  satisfactorily ;  a  special  train  was 
in  readiness  for  us,  and  at  9  P.M.  we 
started  for  Babylon,  —  Babylon  the 
Great !  which  we,  having  slept  all 
the  way  (unconscious  that  our  train 
had  got  slightly  off  the  rail  !) — 
reached  shortly  after  twelve  o'clock. 
How  it  may  be  with  others  I  know 
not,  but  I  never  re-enter  London, 
after  any  considerable  absence,  but 
with  a  certain  gravity  amounting  to  de- 
pression. Awe  overshadows  one 

But  I  have  now  got  quite  to  the  end 
of  my  tether.  We  found  all  ready  for 
us  on  our  arrival,  a  main  feature  of 
that  all  being  an  unexceptionable 
little  supper.  Tickler  was  asleep  in 
his  old  quarters  up-stairs  when  we 
arrived ;  but  he  was  soon  roused,  and 
when  he  saw  us,  and  felt  sure  that 
he  was  not  dreaming,  he  became  a 
little  Ecstasy. 

So  no  more,  at  present,  from, 

Your 
OLD  CONTRIBUTOR. 


586 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


[Nov. 


MODERN    LIGHT   LITERATURE— TRAVELLERS'   TALES. 


IT  is  now  a  very  long  time  indeed 
since  the  world  discovered  and  con- 
cluded upon  the  value  of  travel  as  an 
agent  in  education.  The  necessity 
was  insignificant,  perhaps,  and  un- 
thought  of,  before  the  fated  days  of 
Babel,  or  in  the  temporary  bewilder- 
ment that  followed  that  first  grand 
era  of  history ;  but  who  can  doubt 
that  the  felicity  of  acquiring  strange 
tongues,  and  the  unquestioned  supe- 
riority of  the  man  who  knows  two 
languages,  must  immediately  have 
commended  themselves  to  that  undy- 
ing human  vanity,  older  than  Babel, 
which  had  no  small  share  in  the  first 
dispersion  of  the  race  ?  We  can  in- 
demnify ourselves  for  the  superior  in- 
formation of  the  philosopher,  the  stu- 
dent, or  the  man  of  science — we  can 
conclude  metaphysics  useless,  and 
learning  unproductive  and  impractical 
— and  it  is  not  difficult  to  appropriate 
and  take  possession  of  the  results  of 
science,  with  little  acknowledgment 
of  the  investigators  of  the  same  ;  but 
the  traveller's  advantage  over  us  is 
tangible,  and  not  to  be  disputed. 
What  we  have  only  heard  of,  he  has 
seen  ;  and  before  his  eye  and  recol- 
lection, in  distinct  and  palpable  re- 
ality, are  scenes  and  places  which  float 
before  our  imagination  vaguely,  in  un- 
certain ideal  proportions,  not  to  be 
relied  upon.  Yes  ;  such  grand  mate- 
rialisms as  rivers  and  mountains,  con- 
tinents and  oceans,  triumph  mightily 
over  us  and  our  imagination  ;  and 
the  humblest  peasant  who  has  eyes, 
and  uses  them,  is  a  greater  authority 
than  the  profoundest  philosopher 
who  only  knows  what  such  things 
ought  to  be,  without  having  looked 
upon  them  what  they  are.  You 
may  be  a  great  geographer,  able 
to  settle  a  disputed  boundary,  and 
famous  enough  to  arbitrate  upon  a 
debatable  land  ;  but  the  ship-boy,  on 
the  high  and  giddy  mast,  who  has 
seen  that  country  gleam  out  of  the 
horizon  as  his  first  long  voyage  ended, 
and  know  its  bays  and  headlands,  not 
by  specks  upon  a  map,  but  by  tem- 
pests and  terrors,  and  unhoped-for 
deliverances,  has  taken  such  a  hold 
and  grip  of  the  unknown  territory  as 


science  can  never  give;  and  his  de- 
scription gleams  with  superior  truth 
and  reality  even  to  you.  "  Travel- 
lers' tales,"  though  they  have  had 
their  share  of  popular  reproach,  and 
acquired  a  proverbial  relationship 
to  fables  and  leasing- making,  have, 
notwithstanding,  a  more  unfailing 
hold  upon  the  popular  regard  than 
any  other  class  of  narratives  ;  and 
the  simpler  the  audience,  the  more 
profound  is  the  attraction.  The 
wandering  minstrel  or  troubadour — 
the  pilgrim,  half  saint,  half  vagrant, 
41  with  his  cockle  hat  and  staff,  and  his 
sandal  shoon  " — was  scarcely  a  more 
interesting  visitor  to  the  picturesque 
chimney-corner  of  Gothic  times,  than 
is  the  old  soldier  or  man-o'-war's- 
man  in  these  days  of  cheap  literature 
and  universal  information ;  and  whe- 
ther it  be  Mr  Albert  Smith  or  Mr 
Gordon  Gumming — the  Cockney  tour- 
ist or  the  savage  huntsman — few  of 
us.  are  wise  enough  or  dull  enough  to 
refuse  a  warmer  glow  of  interest,  and 
a  more  exciting  thrill  of  sympathy, 
to  the  tale  of  the  real  traveller  than  to 
any  narrative  less  distinct  and  personal. 
The  most  popular  show  of  the  day  is 
"  Mont  Blanc,"  though  the  ascent  of 
it,  even  without  the  guidance  of  Mr 
Albert  Smith,  becomes  quite  a  com- 
mon achievement  among  our  travel- 
ling young  gentlemen  ;  and,  in  re- 
ality, we  all  of  us  acknowledge,  by 
natural  instinct,  this  absolute  force 
of  the  actual  and  positive  ;  and  a  man 
has  but  to  tell  us  honestly  what  he 
has  seen,  and  observed,  and  encoun- 
tered, to  secure  our  instant  attention 
and  involuntary  respectfulness.  Even 
our  own  journeys,  though  the  chances 
are  that  they  do  not  afford  us,  being 
comfort -loving  Britishers,  much  in- 
disposed to  part  with  our  habitual 
comforts  and  solaces,  any  extreme 
amount  of  pleasure  at  the  time,  turn 
out  very  agreeable  points  of  recollec- 
tion by-and-by,  when  the  bad  dinners 
and  the  frouzy  chambers,  the  violent 
paroxysm  of  that  storm  on  the 
Channel,  and  the  slower  misery  of 
that  nightmare  diligence,  are  softened 
into  the  haze  of  distance,  and  we 
•  have  the  luxury,  at  our  leisure,  of 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature— Travellers'  Tales. 


enacting  a  private  Desdemona,  and 
loving  ourselves  the  better  for  "  the 
dangers  we  have  known." 

There  are  two  or  three  periods  of 
the  world's  history  which  are  distinctly 
ages  of  travel,  splendid  in  the  experi- 
ences and  discoveries  of  great  adven- 
turers. Thetimeof Columbus!  howpic- 
turesque  and  various  are  the  scenes — 
ho  w  noble  and  individual  the  characters 
which  this  name  presents  to  us!  Per- 
haps— it  is  possible — the  national  cha- 
racter was  as  little  elevated  then  as 
now,  could  we  behold  it  with  the  same 
familiar  eye.  Perhaps  the  Cid  him- 
self loved  garlic  and  onions,  and  was 
not  over-particular  about  the  com- 
plexion of  his  linen ;  but  we  cannot 
speak  contemptuously  of  the  magnifi- 
cent Spaniard  of  the  elder  ages,  grand, 
sombre,  and  lofty  as  tradition  and 
poetry  have  painted  him,  nor  ever 
lose  the  charm  of  that  wonderful  out- 
burst of  enterprise,  adventure,  and 
conquest  which  revealed  to  the  old 
universe  in  its  unknown  waters  another 
world.  Columbus  himself,  the  hero  of 
all,  across  whose  imagination  ambi- 
tious visions  of  unpossessed  countries 
and  mines  of  gold  and  diamonds  might 
indeed  loom  faintly  as  his  own  great 
continent  loomed  through  the  haze  of 
those  troublous  seas,  but  to  whose 
surpassing  soul  this  consciousness  of 
something  vast  and  noble  to  be  found 
was  the  real  inspiration,  must  ever 
remain  one  of  the  greatest  figures  in 
the  shifting  panorama  of  history — at 
once  a  seaman  and  a  paladin,  the 
most  pursuivant  of  great  dreamers,  a 
good  sailor,  and  a  true  knight.  The 
cumbrous  antique  ship  upon  those  un- 
discovered waters — the  turbulent  crew, 
mutinous,  selfish,  undevoted  —  the 
tedium  of  those  long  strange  bright 
days  with  nothing  but  the  wide  glis- 
tening sea  and  the  unbroken  curve  of 
the  horizon  line,  to  dismay  the  dull 
hearts  which  had  no  prescience  of 
what  awaited  them — and  in  the  midst 
of  all,  the  one  steadfast  single  man 
looking  out  for  his  grand  object,  un- 
supported, unsolaced,  undismayed. 
What  a  noble  picture  it  is  !  not  of 
genius  dominant  and  worshipped,  or 
of  a  natural  ruler  of  his  fellows,  lead- 
ing them  where  he  would,  at  the  co- 
ercion of  his  own  superior  will.  Co- 
lumbus, hero  as  he  was,  was  no  king. 
In  this  rude  company  on  shipboard, 


587 

the  leader  is  no  coercive  potentate, — 
you  can  fancy  him  the  most  humble 
of  all,  acknowledging  the  justice  of 
their  complaints  against  him,  arguing 
their  very  cause  to  himself.  How 
hard  it  is  for  them  to  consent  that 
their  lives  and  fortunes  should  be  put 
upon  the  hazard  for  nothing  better 
than  this  faith  that  is  in  him.  And 
so  he  stands  apart  upon  his  narrow 
deck,  through  those  last  days  of  hope. 
If  they  compel  him  back,  his  foot  will 
scarce  have  touched  the  shore  ere  he 
is  busy  with  plans  to  set  out  again; 
and  all  this  time  his  eager  eye  strains 
out  upon  these  wide,  wide  shining 
hopeless  lines  of  light,  nothing  but 
sky  and  sea,  to  answer  that  faith  and 
prayer,  and  passionate  craving  in  his 
heart.  Yes,  it  is  something  against 
our  modern  theories  of  the  highest 
human  excellence,  but  this  wonderful 
pioneer  of  all  subsequent  researches 
— this  first  Christian  knight-errant  in- 
to an  undiscovered  universe — does  not 
seem  to  have  possessed  the  kingly 
gift  of  government :  his  sailors  had  no 
natural  instinct  of  dependence  and 
subordination  so  far  as  he  was  con- 
cerned ;  and  while  they  are  busy  with 
their  talk  and  their  plottings,  lying  in 
the  sun,  warming  their  discontent 
into  rebellion,  pulling  at  sail  and  rope 
with  no  heart  in. the  hopeless  work, 
jeering  at  his  abstracted  eye  as  he 
gazes  afar  into  the  vacant  heavens, 
there  is  nothing  for  this  man  to  do 
but  to  watch — to  stand  upon  his  post 
night  and  day,  and  wait  for  what  God 
will  show  him.  And  it  is  not  to  those 
sullen  shipmates — dull  souls  —  that 
God  does  show  the  varying  colour  of 
the  great  sea-margin,  the  broken 
boughs  afloat  upon  the  wave,  the 
glimmering  twilight  shadow  between 
the  sun  and  sky.  But  which  heart 
among  us  has  not  leaped,  one  time  or 
other,  in  sympathy  with  that  great 
pang  of  joy  which  forestalled  the 
wondering  shout  of  u  Land ! "  to  Chris- 
topher Columbus,  when  at  last  his 
guide  and  leader  slowly  revealed  to 
him  out  of  the  heavens  the  grand  new 
hemisphere  found — discovered — won 
for  God  and  for  Spain  V 

And  though  he  broke  his  great  heart 
upon  it  after  all,  and  lived  to  see  its 
pristine  freshness  faded,  and  pillage, 
and  outrage,  and  broken  faith  bring- 
ing down  his  own  grand  Christian 


Modern  Light  Literature— Travellers'  Tales. 


588 

intent  to  the  vulgar  conquest  of  a 
freebooter,  it  is  well  for  us  who  come 
after  to  have  such  a  type  of  the  origi- 
nal investigator — the  first  great  hero 
of  travel  in  our  modern  and  Christian 
world.  Our  own  salt-water  heroes  of 
the  Elizabethan  times  are  all  of  the 
lower  and  vulgarer  type — all  Pizarros, 
if  MrKingsleyis  to  be  depended  upon; 
but  this  patient  noble  leader  of  this 
host  has  younger  children  in  such 
names  as  Franklin  and  Bellot,  and 
many  an  unknown  martyr  worthy  of 
his  fame. 

And  perhaps  the  gold  and  the  ter- 
ritory, the  barbarity  and  the  avarice, 
frightful  accessories  as  these  last  are, 
had  their  share  in  the  splendour  of 
that  age  which  produced  and  neglected 
Columbus,  and  after  him  gave  birth 
to  the  secondary  class  of  wild  and 
daring  adventurers  who  confirmed  and 
extended  his  discoveries.  There  is  a 
great  intoxication  in  the  mere  fact  of 
finding,  if  it  be  but  a  purse  or  a  jewel ; 
and  the  poor  man  who  finds  the  brooch 
of  gold  is  not  to  be  blamed  if  he  is  a 
little  thrown  off  his  natural  balance  by 
such  an  extraordinary  fortune.  Find- 
ing a  world  was  something  wilder, 
grander,  more  overpowering  than  we 
can  well  realise  in  our  days ;  and  the 
poor  Spanish  gallant,  in  imagination 
at  least,  wanted  little  more  than  a 
stout  heart,  a  little  patience,  and  a 
clumsy  caravel,  to  find  himself  sud- 
denly lord  and  potentate  of  some 
sweetest  isle  or  richest  mainland, 
where  the  very  veins  of  the  earth 
were  silver  and  gold,  and  where  the 
ancient  miser,  mother  of  all  things,  hid 
her  jewels  in  her  brown  bosom,  not  so 
closely  but  that  a  cunning  eye  and  a 
bold  hand  might  tear  them  thence. 
Rude  pomp  and  magnificence,  barbaric 
pearl  and  gold,  picturesque  pageants 
and  progresses,  were  as  necessary  fea- 
tures of  this  singular  time,  as  was  the 
wild  universal  passion  of  travel  which 
possessed  it,  an  enthusiasm  in  some,  a 
positive  act  of  worship  and  devotion 
in  others,  although  perhaps  in  the 
great  mass  merely  the  eager  instinct 
of  acquisition,  joined  to  that  daring 
and  adventurous  spirit  which  thegrand 
event  of  the  period  was  so  much  cal- 
culated to  call  forth.  There  is  a  flush 
and  fulness  about  the  story  of  this 
age,  a  rapid  universal  impulse  of  mo- 
tion and  progression,  which  is  strangely 


[Nov. 


fascinating ;  and  even  we  ourselves* 
who  have  known  all  about  it  in  these 
days — we  to  whom  the  ocean  is  no 
longer  a  great  wistful  highway,  lead- 
ing into  the  infinite  and  unknown, 
but  a  familiar  common,  tracked  all 
over  with  lines  of  smoke  and  traffic — 
even  we  can  sympathise  with  that 
wonderful  thrill  of  awe,  and  faith,  and 
solemn  expectation  with  which  the 
great  Spaniard  sailed  into  the  blank 
of  waters  to  find  his  new  world. 

But  we  are  grieved  to  confess  that 
Mr  Kingsley  will  not  permit  us  to 
make  much  romance  out  of  Eliza- 
beth's sailors,  or  the  researches  of 
their  time.  Hunting  Spaniards  and 
taking  convoys  of  gold  were  doubt- 
less very  exciting  pastimes,  but  they 
appeal  to  quite  a  different  class  of 
sympathies  from  those  which  follow 
the  track  of  Columbus,  though  here 
again  are  the  same  characteristics — 
the  same  fulness  and  exuberance  in 
the  age  of  travel — the  same  magnifi- 
cent sweep  of  progression  and  general 
splendour  of  aspect.  After  all,  per- 
haps, the  common  mind  is  more  en- 
tirely stirred  by  that  species  of  adven- 
ture which  combines  with  conquest 
and  acquisition,  and  adds  at  once  to 
the  nation  and  the  individual  a  more 
tangible  treasure  -  trove  than  mere 
knowledge,  or  research,  or  experience. 
It  is  not  enough  to  widen  the  mere 
visible  horizon,  and  put  a  name  upon 
a  map  where  no  name  was  wont  to 
be.  The  real  bit  of  territory  taken 
possession  of,  and  fairly  seized,  justly 
or  unjustly,  by  the  strong  hand,  out 
of  the  unknown,  is  something  of  much 
more  distinct  and  positive  interest 
than  a  series  of  savage  capes  and 
headlands  complimented  with  names 
as  foreign  to  them  as  their  baptism  is 
profitless  to  the  unconscious  godfathers 
at  home ;  and  the  peaceful  pilgrim, 
who  risks  his  life  to  classify  rhodo- 
dendrons upon  the  Himalayan  range, 
has  no  such  magical  influence  over  us, 
carnal  and  worldly-minded  as  we  are, 
as  the  much  less  disinterested  and 
commendable  adventurer  who  has  the 
luck  to  light  upon  a  nest  of  jewels, 
and  comes  home  glittering  in  his 
wealthy  spoil.  Ours,  too,  is  an  age 
of  travel ;  and  the  restless  feet  of  this 
wayfaring  generation  have  penetrated 
into  solitudes  which  Columbus  never 
dreamt  of,  and  where  Drake  had  no 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


589 


vocation  to  explore  ;  but  so  far  being 
peaceable,  mercantile,  and  scientific, 
with  no  evil  designs  upon  anybody's 
country  or  anybody's  treasures,  "pay- 
ing our  way"  after  our  own  base 
mechanical  fashion,  and  feeling  it  as 
incumbent  upon  us  to  be  respectable 
in  the  wilds  of  Africa  as  in  Oxford 
Street,  we  have  not  hitherto,  even  in 
the  abundance  of  our  journeyings  and 
our  investigations,  been  able  to  add  to 
our  everyday  existence  the  splendour 
and  plenitude  of  the  days  of  Elizabeth, 
or  the  romantic  magnificence  of  those 
of  Isabella  of  Spain. 

No  ;  there  are  no  more  sunny  con- 
tinents— no  more  islands  of  the  blest 
—  hidden  under  the  far  horizon, 
tempting  the  dreamer  over  the  un- 
discovered sea ;  nothing  but  those 
weird  and  tragic  shores,  those  cliffs  of 
everlasting  ice  and  mainlands  of 
frozen  snow,  which  have  never  pro- 
duced anything  to  us  but  a  late  and 
sad  discovery  of  depths  of  human 
heroism,  patience,  and  bravery,  such 
as  imagination  could  scarcely  dream 
of.  It  would  be  vain  to  say  that 
neither  the  age  of  Elizabeth  nor  of 
Columbus — being  times  of  dauntless 
enterprise  and  glorious  success  above 
all  others — could  have  produced,  as 
ours  has  done,  examples  like  these  of 
constancy  and  courage,  alike  un- 
paralleled and  unrewardable ;  but 
we,  at  least,  have  the  distinction  of 
belonging  to  a  country  which,  with 
no  glittering  prize  of  either  fame  or 
conquest  or  personal  aggrandisement 
to  hold  out  to  them,  has  become  more 
content  to  undertake  the  most  despe- 
rate hazards  and  risk  the  uttermost 
peril  in  the  cause  of  science,  and  which 
did  not  hesitate  to  seek,  at  a  cost 
more  frightful  than  older  heroes  have 
purchased  empire  by,  the  scanty 
harvest  of  undiscovered  truths  and 
knowledge  which  might  be  gained  on 
these  inhospitable  shores.  Alas 
for  those  whose  hardly-gained  ex- 
perience has  died  with  them,  and 
who  have  not  even  been  permitted 
the  satisfaction  of  telling  what  they 
learned  at  the  cost  of  their  lives  ! 
We  confess  we  have  not  heart 
enough,  in  the  grand  enterprise  of 
knowledge,  to  view  such  a  sacrifice 
as  that  of  Franklin  and  his  crew 
without  a  chill  of  horror :  there  is 
something  frightful,  inexorable,  in- 


human, in  prosecuting  researches, 
which  are  mere  researches,  after 
such  a  costly  fashion.  When  a 
brave  man  dies  for  the  benefit  of  his 
fellows,  or  in  the  direct  service  of  his 
Maker,  we  do  not  grudge  his  blood, 
but  we  demand  a  sufficient  reason 
for  its  expenditure;  and  when  we 
hear  of  the  martyrs  of  science, 
whether  they  perish  among  the 
arctic  snow  or  on  the  sands  of  the 
desert,  we  begin  to  think  of  science 
herself  as  of  a  placid  Juggernaut,  a 
Moloch  with  benevolent  pretensions, 
winning,  by  some  weird  magic,  and 
throwing  away  with  all  the  calmness 
of  an  abstract  and  impersonal  prin- 
ciple, those  generous  lives,  born  to 
disregard  their  own  interest  and 
comfort,  which  might  have  saved  a 
kingdom  or  helped  a  world. 

We  have  strayed  a  world  apart 
from  light  literature  and  all  the  jour- 
neyings of  its  professors  —  and  we 
flatter  ourselves  that  it  would  be 
scarcely  possible  to  take  that  famous 
step,  from  the  sublime  to  the  ridicu- 
lous, more  expeditiously  than  by  lift- 
ing the  nearest  volume  upon  our 
table,  and  smiting  our  reader,  who 
perchance  was  disposed  for  the 
moment  to  be  in  earnest  and  sympa- 
thetic, knocking  him  down  headlong, 
without  remorse  or  compunction,  into 
the  abyss  of  bathos,  nonsense,  and 
pure  maundering,  on  the  very  brink 
of  which,  if  he  will  believe  us,  his  un- 
wary steps  have  been  arrested  all  this 
time.  Yes,  it  is  all  very  well  to  talk 
of  Columbus,  of  Franklin,  even  of 
the  Pizarros  and  Drakes  and  Amyas 
Leighs  ;  but  these  are  all  dead  lions, 
and  there  is  no  roar  as  of  a  monarch 
of  the  forest  among  the  sweet  voices 
of  those  alliterative  tourists  who 
travel  from  Piccadilly  to  Peru,  and 
from  May  fair  to  Marathon.  But 
fear  not,  gentle  reader ;  we  will  not 
hazard  your  displeasure,  nor  risk  a  fit 
of  dizziness,  by  such  a  headlong  leap 
all  at  once  ;  let  us  come  down  gently  : 
ours,  too,  is  an  age  of  travel ;  but 
our  misfortune  is,  that  not  the  born 
travellers  specially  marked  for  the 
office,  but  everybody,  wise  and  fool- 
ish, runs  to  and  fro,  and  that  we  are 
fairly  wearied  out  with  constant  ad- 
ditions to  our  information,  and  can 
sigh  more  sadly  than  even  Solomon, 
that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


590 

sun.  There  can  be  few  more  convinc- 
ing evidences  of  our  national  pro- 
sperity than  the  fact,  that  almost 
every  one  of  us  has  some  legitimate 
period  of  leisure  in  the  hard-working 
year  —  and  that,  if  we  except  the 
poorest  labouring -classes,  and  here 
and  there  a  toil-worn  professional 
man,  it  has  become  a  matter  of  con- 
firmed habit  with  the  great  mass  of 
the  population  of  these  islands,  from 
the  well-paid  working-man  up  to  the 
loftiest  noble,  to  "  go  somewhere"  for 
an  acknowledged  and  legitimate  holi- 
day once  in  the  twelvemonth.  Would 
that  this  were  all !  But  the  attendant 
drawback  upon  all  this  wholesome 
and  refreshing  pleasure  is,  that 
almost  every  tenth  person  in  this 
erovul  of  tourists,  actuated  by  the 
most  laudable  of  motives — perhaps 
to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  journey — 
perhaps  to  celebrate  its  delights  — 
perhaps,  in  the  exercise  of  a  wider 
philanthropy,  from  a  pure  enthusiasm 
for  the  benefit  of  the  world — finds  it 
necessary  to  write  a  book.  Now, 
whatever  Mr  Thackeray  may  be  dis- 
posed to  say  upon  the  subject,  every 
tenth  person  is  not  gifted  by  nature 
with  the  faculty  of  book-writing  ; 
and  so  it  comes  about,  that  we  are 
hunted  out  of  all  the  more  accessible 
regions  of  the  sublime  and  beautiful 
by  just  such  a  gabble  of  admiration, 
such  a  boast  of  sentiment,  and  of 
the  want  of  sentiment,  such  a  flut- 
ter of  drawing-room  enthusiasm  or 
affected  indifference,  as  we  had  flown 
thither  to  avoid.  And  the  flood 
spreads  wider  every  year :  not  only 
the  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  but  the 
Nile  and  the  Bosphorus,  are  lost  for 
all  reasonable  uses  in  an  overflow  of 
books ;  and  when  we  seek  novelty, 
u  change,"  something  new,  we  have 
no  chance  between  the  Thames  or  the 
Forth  and  the  Amazon ;  no  interme- 
diate ground  for  one  foot  to  rest  upon, 
where  freshness  and  interest  have  still 
been  permitted  to  remain,  between 
the  savage  distance  of  tropical  forests 
and  the  nooks  of  pleasant  country 
within  an  hour's  journey,  which  are 
near  enough,  and  accessible  enough, 
to  be  comfortably  despised. 

All  modern  travellers,  however,  are 
not  mere  tourists,  and  we  may  classify 


[Nov. 


the  species,  like  the  arguments  of  a 
sermon,  under  "  three  heads:"  first, 
the  bond  fide  travellers — men  whom 
the  real  impulse  of  adventure,  or  the 
additional  momentum  of  some  worthy 
pursuit,  send  forth  upon  serious  jour- 
neys to  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  second, 
a  limited  number  of  sensible  people, 
who,  without  much  vocation  either 
for  travel  or  book-making,  have  been 
led  by  business  or  pleasure  into  some 
comparatively  unexplored  region, 
which  causes  independent  of  its  own 
attractions  have  since  rendered  im- 
portant and  interesting,  such  as  the 
Crimea;  and,  thirdly,  the  holiday 
people,  the  pleasure  -  seekers,  who 
rush  forth  upon  the  Continent,  or 
upon  the  "Morning  land,"  or  any 
whither,  and  rush  remorselessly  into 
print  on  their  return.  The  first  class 
is  too  important  in  literature — though 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  most 
genuine  and  thorough  of  travellers 
should  be  master  of  that  captious  little 
instrument  the  pen — for  our  present 
handling ;  yet  we  are  seduced  into 
dealings  with  one  member  of  the 
class  by  the  lively  and  agreeable 
story  of  Lieutenant  Burton,*  who, 
though  he  does  a  great  deal  of  u  in- 
struction" by  the  way,  carries  on  his 
interesting  monologue  so  pleasantly, 
and  with  so  much  vivacity  and  anima- 
tion, that  we  are  very  grateful  for  the 
opportunity  he  gives  us  of  ballasting 
our  "trifles  light  as  air"— our  long 
array  of  handsome  volumes,  which  a 
single  breath  would  puff  away — with 
one  valuable  and  curious  work,  which 
is,  notwithstanding  its  importance, 
about  the  most  amusing  of  the  whole. 
The  productions  of  our  second  class  of 
travellers  have  crowded  upon  us  in 
later  days,  under  the  form  of  books 
upon  Russia,  Turkey,  and  the  Crimea, 
and  all  those  adjacent  countries,  only 
half  known,  and  wholly  uncared  for, 
a  few  years  ago,  which  recent  events 
have  made  important  and  of  the 
deepest  interest  to-day.  That  man 
must  indeed  be  a  stoic,  and  great  in 
virtue,  unknown  to  this  generation, 
who,  once  having  acquaintance  with 
that  wonderful  morsel  of  territory 
around  which  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  are  thronging,  breathless  spec- 
tators of  the  desperate,  splendid,  and 


A  Pilgrimage  to  El  Medinah.     By  RICHARD  F.  BURTON. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


frightful  game,  on  whose  issues  the 
fortune  of  the  civilised  world  depends, 
has  fortitude  enough  to  restrain  him- 
self from  telling  what  he  knows  about 
it,  because  he  does  not  happen  to  have 
those  "  strange  powers  of  speech"  on 
which  the  success  of  the  mere  story- 
teller depends.  This  present  race  is 
not  burdened  by  such  an  amount  of 
self-denial;  and  accordingly  everybody 
who  had  the  slightest  pretext  to  build 
it  upon,  has  written  a  book  on  the 
Crimea.  So  far  it  is  well  enough ; 
but  here  again  comes  in  our  third 
class,  people  who  have  no  pretext 
but  their  own  brief  holiday  experi- 
ences, glimpses  of  the  road  to  the 
war,  a  day's  sail  up  the  sunny  waters 
of  the  Bosphorus,  or  the  more  serious 
reality  of  a  gale  on  the  Black  Sea, 
to  qualify  them  for  our  instruction. 
These,  however,  have  only  a  factitious 
claim  to  rank  even  among  the  lightest 
of  the  light  literature  of  travel,  for  such 
interest  as  they  possess  is  entirely  de- 
pendent upon  secondary  causes,  and  has 
only  the  smallest  possible  connection 
either  with  the  travelleror  the  journey. 
Lieutenant  Burton,  an  Indian 
officer,  known  to  fame  under  these 
Prankish  titles,  but  known  to  El 
Islam  under  the  more  imposing  appel- 
lation of  Abdullah,  the  son  of  Zunef, 
a  learned  hakim,  dervish,  and  haji, 
is  a  traveller  born.  Were  he  our 
brother,  we  could  adventure  him 
cheerfully  on  the  remotest  researches 
— anywhere  but  into  the  arctic  regions 
— without  the  slightest  dread  of  his 
achieving  the  melancholy  distinction 
of  a  martyr  to  Science.  He  is  not 
born  to  be  beaten,  this  stout-hearted 
and  jolly  pilgrim,  and  he  sets  about 
his  preparations  with  such  a  thorough 
hearty  determination  to  succeed  in 
them,  and  is  so  entirely  fearless  on 
his  own  account,  that  we  are  never 
troubled  with  apprehensions  for  his 
safety,  nor  feel  at  all  called  upon  to 
take  care  of  him,  or  to  deprecate  his 
enterprise  at  any  period  of  it.  So 
completely  does  he  enter  into  his 
assumed  character,  that  even  we 
who  are  behind  the  scenes  feel 
no  surprise  that  his  Moslem  com- 
panions and  entertainers  do  not  find 
him  out,  and  fully  believe  in  the 
boy  Mohammed  as  a  very  acute 
rascal  indeed  for  his  suspicions  of  his 
master.  Perhaps  there  never  has 


591 

been  a  story  of  permanent  disguise 
so  complete  and  successful ;  and  our 
hero  is  so  entirely  destitute  of  any 
feeling,  and  divests  himself  of  his 
English  fastidiousness  with  such 
honest  simplicity,  without  an  effort 
at  self-pity,  or  any  claim  upon  our 
sympathy,  that  we  enjoy  his  journey 
as  much  as  he  himself  seems  to  have 
done,  and  are  as  greatly  interested  in 
his  picturesque  fellow-travellers  as 
story-teller  could  desire.  For  Lieu- 
tenant Burton  has  an  eye  for  charac- 
ter as  well  as  for  scenery,  and  his 
companions  are  grouped  with  drama- 
tic effect,  and  contrast  with  each  other 
admirably.  There  is  Omar  Effendi, 
the  studious,  pious,  somewhat  effemi- 
nate Moslem,  pale  of  face  and  slight 
of  frame,  who  is,  however,  firmest  of 
all  when  the  business  in  hand  is  a 
fight  with  the  Maghrabi  in  that  "  pil- 
grim ship"  on  the  Red  Sea,  whose 
riotous  voyage  makes  a  very  ludicrous 
comparison  with  its  devotional  object ; 
and  there  is  "  Saad  the  Devil,"  a 
ferocious  negro,  big  and  bold  and 
audacious,  who  might  have  figured 
in  the  Arabian  Nights.  Then  comes 
Shakyh  Hamid,  afterwards  the  pious 
tutor  and  cicerone  of  our  devout  Ab- 
dullah, when  the  end  of  the  pilgrimage 
is  reached ;  and  the  clever,  elfish, 
naughty  little  rogue  Mohammed,  a 
Callum  Beg  in  Turkish  finery,  the 
handiest  and  most  amusing  of  rascals, 
who  has  a  conscientious  objection  to 
permit  his  master  to  be  cheated  by 
any  one  but  himself.  With  several 
other  less  prominent  comrades,  of  all 
possible  shades  of  complexion,  with 
an  accompaniment  of  gaunt  camels, 
laden  asses,  attendant  Bedouins,  and 
a  band  of  tattered  and  starving  Magh- 
rabi menacing  in  the  distance,  our 
learned  pilgrim  pursues  his  way  to  El 
Medinah.  If  the  disguised  Englishman 
had  any  tremors  as  he  approached  the 
holy  and  dangerous  city,  we  see  no 
trace  of  them ;  and  the  cool  and 
leisurely  way  in  which  he  proceeds 
upon  his  visitation — even,  with  mar- 
vellous audacity,  performing  certain 
"  complimentary"  prayers  for  a  Mos- 
lem friend  in  Cairo  at  the  innermost 
shrine  of  the  Faith,  the  very  tomb 
of  the  Prophet— says  much  for  this 
stout-hearted  haji's  entire  emancipa- 
tion from  any  such  servile  sentiment 
as  personal  fear. 


592 


Modern  Light  Literature— Travellers'1  Tales. 


[Nov. 


How  Lieutenant  Burton  manages 
matters  with  his  conscience  is  entirely 
a  different  matter,  and  over  which  he 
gives  us  no  right  to  enter  upon.  He, 
at  least,  has  no  qualms  upon  the  sub- 
ject ;  and  whether  he  considers  his 
prayers  to  Allah  and  the  Prophet  in 
the  light  of  a  good  joke,  or  a  mere 
matter  of  form,  meaning  nothing,  he 
leaves  us  no  room  to  inquire.  We 
may  approve  or  disapprove  at  our 
pleasure,  but  our  traveller  takes  no 
pains  to  come  at  our  opinion,  and, 
with  wise  courage,  takes  his  own 
responsibility  upon  himself,  and  offers 
no  confidential  deprecation  or  self- 
excusings  to  his  audience.  We  shrug 
onr  shoulders — we  shake  our  head — 
we  find  ourselves  very  doubtful  on 
the  subject — but  at  last,  being  quite 
put  out  of  court,  and  having  no  stand- 
ing-ground in  the  matter,  we  are  fain 
to  conclude  that  our  pilgrim — whether 
as  Lieutenant  Burton,  a  sahib  and 
soldier,  or  Abdullah,  a  hakim  and 
haji— shows  an  entire  ability  to  take 
care  of  himself,  and  wants  none  of  our 
interference ;  with  which  conclusion 
we  leave  the  religious  aspect  of  his 
journey,  trusting  that  our  agreeable 
companion  is  more  assured  of  his  own 
motives  than  we  are— is  better  quali- 
fied to  proportion  the  means  to  the 
end — and  will  be  able  to  manage  this 
more  serious  business  as  well  and 
satisfactorily  as  he  has  managed  all 
the  rest. 

Perhaps  the  most  novel  and  curious 
portion  of  this  extraordinary  journey 
is  the  systematic  course  of  preparation 
for  it  to  which  the  traveller  subjected 
himself.  As  a  Moslem  our  hero  left 
England,  arrived  and  lived  in  Egypt, 
and,  with  singular  self-  denial,  re- 
frained at  once  from  the  society  of  his 
countrymen  and  the  advantages  of  a 
British  subject.  A  more  remarkable 
position  can  scarcely  be  conceived  ; 
and  perhaps  nobody  but  an  English- 
man, a  member  of  the  most  dominant 
race  in  existence,  could  have  volun- 
tarily consented  to  put  away  from  him 
all  the  helps  and  benefits  of  civilisa- 
tion, as  well  as  its  superior  prestige 
and  importance,  in  pursuance  of  such 
an  object  as  this  pilgrimage.  Few 
travellers  are  willing  to  part  with  the 
supreme  delight  of  known  and  ac- 
knowledged superiority  to  their  wild 
companions  ;  but  Lieutenant  Burton's 


powers  were  equal  to  this  grand  re- 
nunciation, and  in  proportion  to  his 
thorough  and  honest  execution  of  it, 
has  been  the  complete  success  of  his 
enterprise. 

We  have  neither  space  nor  power 
to  enter  upon  a  consideration  of  the 
real  value  of  this  undertaking;  neither, 
we  presume,  could  it  be  justly  esti- 
mated until  the  publication  of  the 
third  volume,  this  Meccan  pilgrim- 
age, which  is  not  yet  given  to  the 
world ;  but  if  we  understand  our 
author  rightly,  that  this  is  a  sort  of 
experimental  journey,  to  prove  him 
fully  qualified  and  perfectly  to  be 
trusted  on  a  still  greater  and  more 
serious  expedition,  we  would  humbly 
crave  to  know  when  Sir  James  Weir 
Hogg  and  the  East  Tndia  Company 
expect  to  find  a  traveller  sufficiently 
able  to  take  care  of  himself  under  all 
circumstances,  if  they  are  still  doubt- 
ful of  Lieutenant  Burton  !  No  ;  hard- 
ship and  fatigue,  and  that  fiery  sun 
which  he  describes  so  well,  might 
possibly,  one  day  or  other,  prove  too 
many  even  for  our  redoubtable  haji ; 
but  we  confess,  for  our  own  part,  we 
do  not  believe  in  it;  and  when  he  has 
set  out  again,  will  look  as  cheerfully 
for  his  reappearing,  though  in  the  un- 
likeliest  of  shapes,  and  so  transmogri- 
fied that  the  most  intimate  of  friends 
or  lovers  would  not  know  him,  as  if 
the  extent  of  his  journey  was  only  the 
Rhine  and  Chamouni,  or  the  still  more 
panoramic  route  of  the  Overland  Mail. 

We  had  intended  to  make  various 
extracts  from  Lieutenant  Burton's 
agreeable  story,  but  seeing  we  have 
no  room  to  do  justice  either  to  the 
style  or  subject  of  his  book  by  speci- 
mens, and  seeing  also,  O  courteous 
reader !  that  we  have  an  extreme 
disinclination  to  disfigure  our  copy  of 
the  same  by  dog's-ears  for  your  bene- 
fit, who  certainly  have  full  power,  as 
you  ought  to  have  inclination,  to  read 
it  forthwith  for  yourself,  we  have 
decided  to  refrain.  A  traveller  so 
daring  and  self-possessed  is  in  no 
danger  of  losing  the  ear  or  interest 
of  his  audience,  and  the  literary  quali- 
ties of  the  book  are  of  a  high  order, 
and  need  no  critic's  patronage. 

We  have  already  stated  our  belief 
that,  so  far  as  novelty  is  concerned, 
there  is  no  refuge  for  us,  in  the  litera- 
ture of  travel,  between  the  extremely 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


distant  and  the  very  near  at  hand. 
Softly,  gentle  reader;  if  }rour  eyes  are 
dazzled  by  the  hot  sand  of  the  desert, 
you  ought  to  be  all  the  more  grateful 
for  these  cool  rocks  and  soft  grey 
monotones ;  and  not  even  the  famous 
carpet  of  the  Arabian  prince  could 
have  transported  you  more  softly  and 
speedily  than  the  magic  car  of  Maga, 
to  whom  it  is  possible  to  pass  from 
the  mosques  of  El  Medinah  to  the 
villages  of  Cornwall  without  disturb- 
ing a  single  fold  of  her  matronly  dra- 
pery, or  soiling  her  velvet  slipper  with 
speck  or  stain.  Yes ;  one  requires  a 
moment's  pause  to  reconcile  oneself 
to  the  change  of  scene.  This  sun  is  a 
mild  and  modest  English  sun,  which 
slants  upon  the  English  high-road, 
making  long  lines  of  light  and  long 
phantoms  of  attenuated  shadow  over 
the  quiet  fields  and  rustic  byways ; 
and  instead  of  hooded  and  turbaned 
hajis  on  camels  and  in  litters,  with 
all  the  picturesque  accessories  of 
Eastern  travel,  it  is  two  ordinary 
English  figures  in  all  the  respectabi- 
lity of  commonplace,  with  nothing  but 
a  couple  of  knapsacks  and  the  dust  of 
a  day's  pedestrianism  to  distinguish 
them  from  their  fellows,  jogging  on 
peaceably  towards  their  inn  and  com- 
ing rest,  who  meet  our  eye  as  we 
begin  the  pleasant  record  of  this  * 
brief  journey  of  pleasure,  which  offers 
about  the  greatest  contrast  possible  in 
books  to  the  story  of  pilgrimage  and 
adventure  which  we  have  just  left. 
Rambles  beyond  Railways  is  the  story 
of  a  holiday  tour — a  few  years  old 
certainly,  but  one  of  the  best  books 
of  its  class  which  we  have  ever  met 
with ;  in  which  we  have  a  very  agree- 
able sketch  of  one  of  the  most  pic- 
turesque and  least  known  of  English 
counties.  The  journey,  made  in  the 
most  primitive  and  bond  fide  mode  of 
travelling — on  foot — was  one  which  re- 
quired neither  preparation  nor  study 
— not  so  much  even  as  a  consulta- 
tion with  a  Bradshaw,  for  railways 
were  not  in  these  days  in  the  unex- 
plored depths  of  Cornwall.  The  tra- 
vellers were  a  professor  of  literature 
and  one  of  landscape,  neither  of  them 
troublesomely  great;  and  the  issue  of 
their  joint  exertions  is  a  very  well- 
looking  and  amusing  volume,  some- 


what ambitious  in  style  occasionally 
but  never  heavy;  which  we  doubt  not 
has  inspired  many  a  tired  tourist  since 
the  time  of  its  publication,  as  we  con- 
fess it  inspires  ourself  at  this  present 
moment  in  the  middle  of  October 
and  of  a  pitiless  shower,  with  a  de- 
cided inclination  to  follow  the  foot- 
steps of  W.  Wilkie  Collins  over  the 
moors  and  among  the  rocks  of  the 
quaint  and  unhackneyed  Cornish 
land.  Mr  Collins  makes  no  attempt 
to  arrange  his  journey  formally,  or 
guide  other  people  in  subsequent  pere- 
grinations; and  he  does  the  best  thing 
he  can  for  us,  by  simply  following  his 
own  pleasure,  lingering  when  he  is  in- 
terested, describing  when  he  admires, 
and  telling  an  occasional  legend  now 
and  then  by  the  way,  as  he  comes  to 
the  locality  of  the  same.  Though 
there  are  few  things  we  fear  more 
thoroughly  than  a  "series,"  we  should 
be  glad  to  see  half-a-dozen  books  as 
interesting  as  this  on  half-a-dozen 
other  counties  which  might  be  found 
to  rival  Cornwall  in  piquancy  and 
picturesqueness ;  for  we  cannot  all 
travel  in  Africa  or  the  East :  and 
when  the  Rhine  becomes  a  bore,  and 
even  Switzerland  savours  of  vulgar- 
ity, where  are  we  to  spend  our  holi- 
day? The  question  is  a  serious  one — 
let  us  not  deal  with  it  lightly  ;  but  in 
the  mean  time  we  recommend  to  the 
consideration  of  ladies  and  gentlemen 
curious  about  an  entirely  "  new " 
watering-place  unknown  to  Cockney 
invaders,  Mr  Collins'  fascinating  de- 
scriptions of  the  little  "  seaport  on  the 
south  coast,"  which  he  calls  Looe. 
We  will  not  venture  to  say  what  may 
be  the  pronunciation  of  this  very  odd 
word,  but  so  it  is  written ;  and  a 
prettier  picture  in  words  has  seldom 
charmed  our  imagination  than  Mr 
Collins'  account  of  this  delightful  little 
primitive  town. 

After  all,  perhaps  there  are  few 
counties  in  our  island  as  character- 
istic and  peculiar  as  the  shire  of 
Cornwall,  where  one  could  almost 
believe  in  some  mighty  race  of 
gnomes,  fantastic  but  not  malicious, 
whose  rude  wit  has  left  its  marks 
over  all  the  face  of  the  country  in 
those  grotesque  marvels,  such  as  the 
Loggan  Stone,  which  are  entirely  pe- 


Rambles  beyond  Railways.     By  W.  WILKIE  COLLINS. 


594 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


[Nov. 


culiar  to  this  quarter.  Precipices  as 
grand  and  startling,  and  a  coast  as 
wild,  are  doubtless  to  be  found  else- 
where, but  the  ludicrous  element 
mingled  with  them,  the  Titanic  od- 
dities and  absurd  eccentric  wonders 
which  abound  here,  are  not  paralleled 
in  any  other  single  district,  so  far  as 
we  are  aware.  Indeed,  this  country, 
undermined  and  subterraneous  in  so 
many  parts,  with  its  rumbles  of  echo 
far  below  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and 
its  mines,  where  the  sturdy  Cornish 
labourers  procure  their  daily  work 
and  earn  their  daily  bread  ever  so 
many  fathoms  under  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  is  the  very  country  for  super- 
stitions, their  natural  and  fit  abid- 
ing-place. We  do  not,  however,  re- 
collect any  recognised  order  of  spirits 
which  would  quite  answer  all  the  re- 
quirements of  this  eccentric  county ; 
jocular  giants,  equal  to  any  degree  of 
"  labour  in  piled  stones,"  strongly 
impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  ludi- 
crous, and  disposed  to  make  a  perfect 
hurricane  of  laughter  upon  the  moors 
and  in  the  caves  at  the  result  of  their 
own  fantastic  exertions,  yet  good- 
humoured  and  kindly  withal,  and  as 
much  disposed  to  do  a  good  turn  to  a 
distressed  human  neighbour  as  to 
emulate  each  other  in  these  wild  feats 
of  architecture,  should  be  this  pristine 
and  aboriginal  Cornish  race;  and 
though  Mr  Wilkie  Collins  has  mount- 
ed to  the  Devil's  Throat,  and  de- 
scended a  shaft  of  the  great  Botallach 
mine,  we  do  not  hear  that  he  fell 
upon  any  distinct  traces  of  these 
elder  inhabitants.  Another  traveller, 
perhaps,  will  go  deeper  into  the  pre- 
historic annals  of  Cornwall,  and  give 
us  some  more  satisfactory  information 
concerning  the  authors  of  the  piled 
rocks  of  Tintagel,  or  who  it  was  who 
found  so  nice  a  poise  for  that  pebble 
which  we  small  mortal  people  call  the 
Loggan  Stone. 

Being  by  this  time  as  far  on  our 
way  to  America  as  a  man  may  walk 
— to  quote  the  "  Londoner"  who 
writes  another  book  upon  this  same 
locality — that  is  to  say,  being  at  the 
Land's  End,  we  do  not  see  what  better 
we  can  do  than  to  prolong  our  journey 
across  the  Atlantic  towards  that  great 
juvenile  continent  which  has  begun  to 
retaliate  upon  us  for  our  Trollopes 
and  Marryats,  by  a  shoal  of  tourists 


of  its  own,  who  "  do  "  our  unfortunate 
little  island  after  the  most  remorseless 
fashion,  and  tell  all  about  our  innocent 
private  tea-drinking  and  domestic  va- 
nities. Our  travellers  of  late  have  been 
merciful  to  America,  perhaps  because 
they  had  no  chance  in  the  interchange 
of  personal  gossip  and  household  dis- 
closures, in  which  species  of  literature 
our  Yankee  visitors  show  such  re- 
markable attainments ;  and  we  are 
not  particularly  called  upon  to  note 
the  extraordinary  productions  of  these 
said  visitors — the  "  memories,"  whe- 
ther "  sunny"  or  cloudy,  in  which  it 
has  pleased  the  travelling  ladies  and 
gentlemen  of  America  to  immortalise 
some  scores  of  British  friends.  In  our 
country,  at  least,  public  opinion  is 
very  decidedly  adverse  to  this  system 
of  book-making,  which  may  be  amus- 
ing enough  to  other  people,  but  is  very 
poor  fun,  in  most  cases,  to  the  victims 
of  such  literary  gossipred ;  and  it  is 
rather  hard  upon  the  respectable  mem- 
ber of  society  who  happens  to  have  a 
regard  for  the  private  decorums  of 
ordinary  life,  yet  whose  hard  fate  it  is 
to  be  a  literary  man  by  profession, 
and  for  the  poor  lady  who  has  written 
a  book,  but  is  innocent  of  any  greater 
social  transgression,  to  find  them- 
selves pinned  up,  like  entomological 
specimens,  in  the  glass-cases  of  the 
American  Museum — all  because  they 
have  been  sufficiently  unwary  to  show 
a  passing  courtesy  to  a  stranger. 
Writing  a  book,  after  all,  is  neither  a 
grand  offence  nor  a  great  virtue; 
nay,  it  is  becoming  day  by  day  even 
a  less  notable  circumstance,  and  even- 
tually, if  we  progress  at  our  present 
rate,  will  doubtless  end  in  being  the 
common  condition  of  mankind — which 
delightful  period,  when  it  arrives,  will 
doubtless  be  the  climax  and  conclu- 
sion of  literary  gossip.  But  in  the 
mean  time  the  American  literature  of 
travel  —  though  American  travellers 
are  about  the  most  enterprising  of  our 
day,  and  ought  to  have  a  keener  eye 
than  any  other  for  many  a  marvel 
which  custom  has  rendered  familiar 
to  the  elder  nations — is  spoiled  in  all 
its  lighter  branches  by  this  annoying 
propensity ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  we  lose  the  benefit  of  much  clever 
observation,  and  many  a  shrewd  criti- 
cism, in  pure  dislike  to  the  personali- 
ties with  which  they  are  mixed. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


595 


But  while  we  are  pausing  to  make 
our  comment  upon  our  visitors  from 
America,  with  whom,  as  it  happens, 
we  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  at  the 
present  moment,  Mr  Beste  *  is  making 
his  way  across  the  Atlantic,  "  the 
father  of  as  beautiful  a  family"  as  ever 
invaded  the  New  World.  It  has  been 
our  fortune  to  meet  in  recent  publica- 
tions with  few  books  so  amusing  as 
The  Wabash — not  that  it  is  very  bril- 
liant or  very  witty,  or  much  distin- 
guished by  points  of  humour.  A  cer- 
tain quiet  sturdy  perseveraut  dulness, 
impassible  and  matter-of-fact,  is  an  odd 
enough  recommendation — .the  chief 
merit  of  these  volumes — but  a  very 
amusing  characteristic  this  is  to  any 
one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  ob- 
serve it ;  and  so  thoroughly  well-sus- 
tained, natural,  and  unconscious  is  the 
author's  self- development  that  we 
have  paused  once  or  twice  to  ask  our- 
selves whether  it  was  not  a  clever 
hoax,  instead  of  the  real  and  genuine 
Mrs  Harris,  safely  rescued  at  last  from 
the  infidel  scepticism  of  all  the  Betsey 
Prigs,  with  whom  we  were  forming 
acquaintance.  Mr  Beste  takes  the  ut- 
most pains  to  inform  us  that  The 
Wabask  is  "  a  narrative  of  the  adven- 
tures of  a  gentleman's  family  in  the 
interior  of  America."  Our  author  is 
extremely  nervous  on  the  subject  of  his 
gentility.  From  some  mysterious  cause 
which  he  perpetually  keeps  before  us, 
and  promises  to  explain  hereafter,  this 
gentleman's  family  travelled  in  humble 
guise,  without  equipage  or  attendants, 
and  indeed  were  actually  suspected  to 
be  an  emigrant's  family,  of  no  import- 
ance at  all  so  far  as  rank  was  con- 
cerned— people  who  had  merely  come 
out  to  the  new  country  in  the  common 
way,  "  to  better  themselves,"  as  com- 
mon observers  supposed.  Let  not  the 
reader  fall  into  this  grievous  error. 
Mr  Beste  can  be  magnanimous,  and 
smile  at  the  ignorance  of  the  plebeians 
of  Terre  Haute,  so  long  as  you,  oh 
sympathetic  listener!  are  in  his  confi- 
dence, and  show  a  proper  appreciation 
of  his  voluntary  humility ;  and  his 
extreme  and  amiable  admiration  of  his 
daughters,  in  their  exertions  for  the 
comfort  of  the  family,  is  always  bright- 
ened by  a  contrast  of  "  what  they 
have  been  accustomed  to."  We  can- 


not resist  giving  one  example  of  this 
whimsical  and  persevering  vanity.  Mr 
Beste  has  just  quoted  from  his  daugh- 
ter's diary  an  account  of  a  sadly  dis- 
turbed night  she  had,  in  consequence 
of  the  baby  ailment  of  a  little  brother 
committed  to  her  charge.  The  young 
lady  was  a  most  devoted  nurse,  we 
have  no  doubt;  and  this  is  her  papa's 
comment  upon  her  broken  rest : — 

"  What  think  you,  reader,  of  a  night 
so  passed  in  a  steamboat  on  Lake  Erie, 
by  the  delicate,  slim  young  girl,  whom 
you  may  have  known  in  far  other 
scenes  ?  W'hile  she  was  chatting,  or 
was  dancing  with  you  last  winter, 
amid  the  gay  and  the  high-born  of 
those  who  thronged  her  mother's  draw- 
ing-rooms in  the  handsomest  palace 
in  Rome,  I  warrant  me  she  often 
thought  with  pleasure  of  her  night  on 
Lake  Erie ;  as  I  trust  my  wife,  and 
my  other  children,  often  think  of  the 
still  harder  and  more  menial  offices  to 
which  we  shall  see  them  all  hereafu  r 
so  lovingly  and  so  gallantly  bow  them- 
selves. Thus  do  I  testify  my  grati- 
tude to  them  ;  hereafter  I  may  tell  the 
cause  of  our  so  *  roughing  it.'" 

So  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  dis- 
cover, however,  these  mysterious  pro- 
mises come  to  no  fruition.  We  never 
do  learn  the  mystical  cause  of  Mr 
Beste  and  his  family  "  roughing  it ;" 
and  as  we  fear  to  suppose  that  any- 
thing so  vulgar  as  reasons  pecuniary 
could  have  influenced  such  an  extra- 
ordinary piece  of  heroism,  we  are  con- 
strained to  be  content  with  our  igno- 
rance. Perhaps  it  was  a  family  pen- 
ance, for  our  author  and  his  descend- 
ants are  Catholics  ;  perhaps  a  family 
romance :  we  are  as  ignorant,  though 
perhaps  scarcely  as  curious,  as  our 
traveller  could  desire  us  to  be. 

Circumstances  compelled  Mr  Beste 
to  set  sail  for  the  New  World  with 
only  eleven  of  his  children  ;  and  hav- 
ing sundry  floating  intentions  of  mak- 
ing his  younger  sons  settlers  and 
backwoodsmen,  he  made  no  pause  in 
the  greater  towns,  but  pushed  on  at 
once  to  the  interior,  travelling,  with 
scarcely  any  interval  of  rest,  to  Indi- 
ana, where  he  was  brought  to  a  forced 
halt,  on  the  banks  of  the  Wabash,  by 
a  severe  illness.  This  illness  turned 
out  so  severe,  that  it  entirely  changed 


*  The  Wabash.    By  J.  R.  BESTE. 


596 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


[Nov. 


the  plans  of  the  little  (?)  party.  The 
father  of  the  family  was  on  the  verge 
of  death  ;  one  of  the  younger  children 
died ;  and  all  of  them  were  more  or 
less  affected :  so  the  family  courage 
failed,  and  an  immediate  retreat  was 
made.  The  extreme  sojourn  of  the 
household  party  in  America  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  above  three  or  four 
months ;  which  time  was  entirely  spent 
in  travelling  towards  the  little  town 
of  Terre  Haute,  in  Indiana ;  in  being 
ill  there,  and  making  notes  upon  the 
American  families  who  had  their  abode 
in  the  hotel  Prairie  House  ;  and  in 
hastening  back  to  New  York  again, 
to  embark  for  England.  The  journey 
was  marked  by  a  great  deal  of  disas- 
ter, courage,  and  family  affectionate- 
ness  ;  and  the  young  people  were  very 
tolerable  observers  sometimes,  and 
make  smart  remarks,  to  the  delight 
and  satisfaction  of  papa.  Such  is  the 
story  of  The  Wabash;  and  it  is  not 
much  of  a  story  ;  but  to  leisurely  peo- 
ple, with  a  little  patience,  there  is 
amusement  to  be  found  in  this  oddest 
of  "  travellers'  tales."  Mr  Beste's 
unconscious  portrait  of  himself  is  as 
real  as  if  Miss  Austin  had  been  the 
painter ;  and  the  indescribable  mixture 
of  oldwifishness  which  "  the  young 
father  of  a  family  of  twelve  children  " 
is  very  like  to  fall  into,  the  extraor- 
dinary plainness  of  speech,  which,  in- 
deed, in  one  or  two  instances  (being 
as  much  out  of  the  category  of  tVideli- 
cacy  as  of  delicacy),  is  such  as  only  a 
privileged  person,  accustomed  to  pre- 
side over  all  manner  of  household 
necessities,  could  permit  himself;  and 
altogether  the  odd  family  feeling  of 
the  book,  where  the  author  is  always 
a  "  representative  man,"  and  never 
can  forget  that  he  is  a  dozen  people, 
gives,  in  spite  of  dulness,  common- 
place, and  the  most  perfect  want  of 
originality  in  observation,  a  certain 
freshness  and  attraction — such  as  it 
is — to  volumes  which,  we  fear,  will 
not  find  many  readers.  Miss  Austin 
would  have  made  a  better  thing  of 
it,  no  doubt — would  have  woven  in 
two  or  three  dainty  little  love-stories, 
and  ended  by  making  brides,  instead 
of  nuns,  of  these  good  young  ladies  ; 
but  Miss  Austin  herself  could  not  have 
improved  the  family  head,  though  he 
is  just  the  subject  in  which  she  would 
have  delighted. 


We  have  said  Mr  Beste's  observa- 
tions are  not  original ;  but  he  is  judi- 
cious, and  does  not  trouble  us  with 
many  of  his  own.  Some  little  he  says 
about  the  price  of  land  and  agricul- 
ture, of  which  a  man  who  can  say, 
with  careless  magnificence,  "  at  this 
very  time  I  kept  in  hand,  and  farmed 
by  my  bailiffs,  about  two  thousand 
acres  of  our  estates  in  different  coun- 
ties in  England,"  ought,  of  course,  to 
be  "  competent  to  form  an  opinion  ;" 
something,  too,  about  Catholic  schools 
and  colleges,  which,  according  to  Mr 
Beste,  do  their  parts  of  the  education 
of  the  better  classes  in  the  United 
States,  and  are  universally  popular ; 
and  a  very  decided  something  on  the 
subject  of  American  ladies,  of  whom 
also,  doubtless,  a  man  in  peaceable 
possession  of  a  wife  and  six  daughters 
ought  to  be  competent  to  form  an 
opinion.  The  English  gentleman  is 
very  severe — not  to  say  ungallant — 
towards  the  unfortunate  female  popu- 
lation of  America;  they  drawl,  snuffle, 
look  sentimental,  dress  extravagantly, 
and  do  nothing — or,  at  least,  are  seen 
to  do  nothing,  says  this  "  father  of  as 
beautiful  a  family."  Let  Mr  Beste 
beware  ;  these  fair  idlers  have  steel- 
pens  if  they  have  no  crochet-needles, 
and  the  pinch  of  retaliation  may  come 
before  he  is  prepared. 

The  name  of  this  book  suggests  to 
us  a  word  of  passing  comment  upon 
one  of  the  most  foolish  of  the  "  tricks 
of  the  trade."  We  were  inclined,  in 
our  ignorance,  to  suppose  The  Wabash 
to  have  a  family  relationship  to  the 
Fetish,  or  the  Calabash,  or  some  simi- 
lar institution  ;  it  might  have  been  an 
ancient  classic,  or  a  modern  slang, 
appellative  for  a  journey,  for  aught 
we  knew  to  the  contrary  ;  and  when 
we  find  out  at  length  that  it  means 
nothing  but  the  name  of  a  river,  and 
is  not  mentioned  half-a-dozen  times 
in  the  two  volumes,  we  are  propor- 
tionably  aggravated.  Here,  again, 
is  another  book,  Purple  Tints  of  Paris, 
which  is  just  as  silly  a  misnomer. 
How  long  do  the  good  people  of  Great 
Marlborough  and  New  Burlington 
Streets  suppose  the  public  to  be  blind- 
ed by  a  u  taking  title?"  Alas!  the 
most  romantic  name  in  the  world, 
even  though  it  stimulate  our  curiosity, 
by  having  no  visible  connection  what- 
soever with  the  book  to  which  it  is 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


affixed,  will  not  delude  us  over  half- 
a-dozen  dull  pages ;  and  it  is  a  sad 
circumstance  when  the  advertising 
sheet  comes  to  be  the  liveliest  contri- 
bution to  literature  which  "our  fathers 
in  the  Row  "  have  to  offer  us.  It  was 
not  so  even  in  the  days  of  that  exult- 
ant schemer  who  stood  godfather  to 
Rob  Roy. 

Yes,  Purple  Tints  of  Paris  is  a 
great  misnomer  ;  and  it  is  likewise 
an  unfortunate  book.  The  date  from 
the  title-page  is  by  no  means  antique ; 
but  the  book  is  old,  old  —  prema- 
turely superannuated,  and  out  of  date. 
We  have  entirely  forgotten  by  this 
time,  whatever  Mr  Bayle  St  John 
may  think  upon  the  subject,  that  the 
superb  personage  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Channel  is  anything  but  a 
great  monarch ;  and  we  have  no 
longer  any  eye  for  the  barricades 
of  Parisian  insurrectionists,  and  the 
grumbles  of  Parisian  bourgeoisie. 
Our  scorn,  our  indifference,  our  con- 
descending patronage,  are  all  over; — 
we  even  cease  to  speak  of  Louis 
Napoleon,  and  prefer  to  name  this 
wonderful  man  by  the  name  of  his 
vocation,  indifferent  to  his  patro- 
nymic. It  is  a  singular  fact,  but  we 
believe  few  people  in  this  country 
retain  any  very  marked  recollection 
of  the  lineage  of  the  present  Emperor 
of  the  French.  It  is  now  by  no  means 
uppermost  in  our  minds  that  he  is 
the  nephew  of  his  uncle — he  is  him- 
self as  it  happens — and  being  him- 
self, by  genius,  fate,  or  Providence,  as 
we  may  choose  to  name  it,  is,  without 
question,  almost,  if  not  altogether, 
at  this  moment  the  most  potent  indi- 
vidual influence  in  the  civilised  world. 
A  man  like  this  is  the  man,  above 
all  others,  to  keep  evil-speakers  in 
activity.  Last  year's  slanders,  which 
may  answer  just  as  well  for  your 
King  of  Prussia  or  your  ordinary 
country  gentleman  of  to-day,  or  ten 
years  hence,  as  at  their  first  making, 
are  entirely  effete  and  ridiculous 
in  the  case  of  such  a  man  as  he  of 
France.  The  backbiter  must  march 
with  his  subject,  or  his  shafts  are 
vain ;  and  public  opinion  is  already 
a  long  way  out  of  earshot  of  the 
animadversions  of  Mr  Bayle  St  John. 
But  this,  after  all,  is  scarcely  what 
we  meant  to  say — which  was,  that 
here  are  no  purple  tints — no  traces 


597 

of  imperial  influence — nothing  more 
than  faint  guesses  of  what  might  be, 
and  the  stale  grumblings  of  yester- 
day, and  that  the  book,  whatever 
it  may  teach  us  about  Paris,  teaches 
us  nothing  in  any  shape  of  the  new 
regime,  nor  of  the  influence  upon  his 
capital  of  Louis  Napoleon's  rule. 

Mr  Bayle  St  John  is  a  member 
of  a  family  which  professes  literature 
for  its  vocation — a  very  dangerous 
craft,  for  even  the  art  of  book-making 
does  not  run  in  families — and  is  him- 
self author  of  several  works  prior 
to  this  one,  and  evidently  considers 
himself  one  of  the  recognised  inter- 
preters of  the  world.  His  benevo- 
lent object  in  the  present  volume 
is  to  make  us  acquainted  with  Paris — 
with  life,  manners,  morals,  politics, 
and  education,  in  the  great  heart 
of  France  —  to  take  us  there  —  in 
short,  to  introduce  us  to  the  people 
and  their  ways,  and  make  us  as 
well  acquainted  with  them  as  he  feels 
himself  to  be.  Books  about  Paris 
are  not  in  general  very  edifying 
books ;  and  we  have  always  been 
at  a  loss  to  discover  what  good  end 
our  moralising  tourists  proposed  to 
themselves  by  their  elaborate  hints 
or  plain  revelations  of  a  depravity 
which  we  certainly  cannot  remedy, 
and  which  we  may  charitably  desire, 
having  nothing  else  in  our  power, 
to  doubt.  But  this  young  gentleman 
goes  a  step  farther.  What  would 
we  say  to  a  book  about  England,  or 
about  London — a  description  of  the 
life,  manners,  and  morals  of  this 
overgrown  town,  where  we  ourselves, 
sober  everyday  people,  live  and  toil, 
and  have  our  griefs  and  our  rejoicings, 
which  should  quietly  take  its  stand 
with  Mr  Bob  Sawyer  and  Mr  Ben 
Allen,  and  illustrate  our  existence 
by  means  of  their  carouses  ?  Let  us 
grant  that  the  students  and  young 
men  of  Paris  are  more  truthful  repre- 
sentations of  the  real  life  about  them, 
than  Mr  Bob  and  Mr  Ben  are  of 
Bloomsbury  and  Belgravia ;  but  not 
even  our  properest  of  alumni — not 
our  most  irreproachable  of  "  single 
gentlemen,"  are — begging  pardon  of 
Mr  St  John — our  types  of  social  life. 
They  are  the  Bedouins  of  civilisation ; 
they  come  and  go,  and  no  man,  save 
an  angry  papa  or  a  broken-hearted 
tailor,  cares  to  know  the  why  and  the 


598 


Modern  Light  Literature — Travellers'  Tales. 


[Nov. 


wherefore  of  their  migrations.  They 
"  have  no  stake  in  the  country" — 
have  "  given  no  hostages  to  society," 
according  to  our  old-fashioned  but 
extremely  sensible  apothegms;  and 
life  and  youth  are  two  distinct  regions 
of  experience  not  to  be  confounded — 
unless,  indeed,  we  understand  by 
"life"  what  old  Lady  Kew  might 
have  understood  by  it,  or  what  Mr 
Pendennis  at  one  time,  before  he 
came  to  his  present  responsibilities, 
might  have  represented  it  to  be — 
to  wit,  a  certain  amount  of  dissipa- 
tion and  pleasure,  flavoured  with 
vice,  according  to  the  taste  of  the 
recipient — a  thing  to  be  experienced 
in  hells,  and  race-courses,  and  Back- 
Kitchens— to  be  abandoned  when  the 
season  of  respectability  arrived — and 
to  be  ruefully  repented  of  when 
damaged  purses,  tempers,  and  talents 
showed  it  under  its  true  guise — a 
thing  as  different  from  the  life  of 
nations  as  it  is  possible  to  suppose. 
The  Parisians  are  not  given  to 
domesticity,  nor  are  they  a  virtuous 
people  ;  but  they  are  a  people  surely 
notwithstanding,  and  have  houses, 
homes,  and  definite  occupations  of 
one  sort  or  another ;  and  we  cannot 
take  the  menage  of  a  poor  young 
student  and  his  unfortunate  com- 
panion for  anything  but  what  it  is — 
a  very  truthful  episode  perhaps  in 
student  life,  but  no  representation 
of  society — no  type  of  the  broader 
social  existence  either  in  country 
or  town.  A  young  man  tells  us,  as 
is  very  natural,  of  the  life  of  his 
companions,  and  their  pursuits  and 
pleasures  :  that  is  very  well ;  and 
when  the  thing  has  its  right  name, 
we  understand  "  and  recognise  its 
value;  but  it  is  a  great  stretch  of 
the  vanity  of  youth  to  call  this  life. 
Young  men,  as  custom  and  use  have 
permitted,  have  leisure  and  immu- 
nities everywhere;  and  even  those 
who  most  condemn  and  deepest 
grieve,  find  excuses  for  the  "  folly  " 
of  their  sons ;  but  young  men  are 
only  a  class,  and  by  no  means  the 
class  which  represents  most  com- 
pletely the  state  of  society  or  the  life 
of  a  nation. 

This  volume,  then,  which  calls 
itself  Purple  Tints  of  Paris,  and  pro- 
fesses to  give  us  a  full  account  of 
Parisian  life  under  the  new  Empire, 


is  in  fact  a  careful  study  of  a  certain 
portion  of  French  youth,  migrated 
into  the  capital  under  pretence  of 
study,  and  forming  a  distinct  order 
of  educated,  talented,  well-mannered, 
but  semi- vagabond  sojourners  in  the 
gayest  metropolis  in  the  world.  There 
are  no  lack  of  tints  in  this  picture ; 
and  it  has  tragic  scenes  in  it,  though 
it  most  abounds  in  the  situations  of 
the  melodrame ;  also,  by  necessity, 
opinions  of  all  kinds  abound  ;  and  no 
subject  is  too  great  or  too  recondite 
for  the  youthful  speculations  which 
are,  at  their  liveliest,  unrestrained  by 
anything  like  authority ; — so  we  do 
not  doubt  that  many  people  have 
found  amusement  in  its  story,  which 
may,  indeed,  be  prefaced  and  con- 
cluded by  a  few  superficial  observa- 
tions upon  the  general  appearance 
of  things,  and  certain  deeply-learned 
comments  on  the  position  of  women, 
and  the  social  vices  proper  to  the 
place  ;  but  is  in  reality  a  story  of  the 
Aquioles  and  Alexises,  the  Fifines 
and  the  Adeles,  the  debts  and  the 
intrigues  of  young  France.  It  is  not 
an  encouraging  picture ;  and  we  are 
somewhat  puzzled  to  understand  how 
people  who  write  such  books  as  this 
are  still  able  to  rejoice  over  the 
prospect  of  our  own  inoculation  with 
the  prettier  customs  of  French  life. 
If  we  are  to  be  persuaded  that  the 
gay  Sunday  of  the  student  and  the 
grisette  is  something  much  more 
pleasant  and  beneficial  than  the  dull 
Sunday  of  the  English  churchgoer, 
we  had  better  have  as  few  books  as 
possible  in  this  strain.  For  ourselves, 
we  are  slow  to  discover  the  use  of 
such  revelations:  it  seems  the  last 
resource  of  that  species  of  literature, 
now  happily  defunct  among  us, 
which  chose  to  preach  morality  by 
describing  evil.  We  are  powerless 
to  reform, — is  it  necessary  to  disgust 
us  ?  And  what  right  have  we  to 
lift  up  our  voice  of  virtuous  condem- 
nation against  French  novels,  when 
English  travellers  and  observers,  with 
philosophic  and  benevolent  purposes, 
are  permitted  to  tell  just  such  tales 
for  our  instruction  as  the  others 
elaborate  for  our  amusement?  We 
cannot  perceive  the  difference,  for 
our  own  part;  and  we  can  scarcely 
suppose  that  innocent  minds  could 
find  less  delicate  reading  even  in  the 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


599 


tabooed  pages  of  French  story-telling 
than  in  the  Purple  Tints  of  Mi- 
Bay  le  St  John. 

We  might  have  chosen  a  better 
specimen  of  the  philosophic  and 
moralist  species  of  travellers'  tales  ; 
but  we  cannot  linger  to  touch  upon 
the  sentimental  tourist,  upon  the 
mystic  or  the  dilettanti,  the  inquirer 
into  the  Asian  mystery,  or  the  wor- 
shipper of  ruined  shrines  and  deso- 
lated temples.  There  is  no  lack  of 
variety  in  the  catalogue  of  modern 
travel  ;  from  the  religious  sage  and 
scientific  explorer,  down  to  the 
roving  Englishman  and  wandering 
Cockney,  there  are  now  shades  of 
difference  to  meet  everybody's  liking; 
and  a  publisher's  catalogue  is  quite 
a  picturesque  performance  in  these 


days,  full  of  sudden  scenic  effects — 
of  contrasts  and  combinations  as  new 
and  startling  as  circulating  library 
could  desire — "  as  good  as  a  play." 
"Men  run  to  and  fro,  and  knowledge 
is  increased,"  —  a  better  description 
could  scarcely  be  given  of  our  fa- 
vourite national  habit  and  amuse- 
ment ;  and  from  the  extremity  of 
arctic  desolation  to  the  wildest 
haunt  of  tropical  savagery,  it  will 
soon  be  hard  to  find  a  footbreadth  of 
virgin  soil — impossible  to  light  upon 
an  Esquimaux  hut  or  an  Abyssinian 
hamlet  where  some  English  traveller 
has  not  made  a  martyr  of  himself  for 
his  own  amusement,  and  for  the  edifi- 
cation and  delight  of  the  daily  lessen- 
ing number  of  his  countrymen  who 
dwell  at  home. 


PARIS   AND   THE    EXHIBITION. 


LETTER   TO   IRENJEUS. 


MY  DEAR  IREN^US, — It  requires 
no  small  moral  courage  for  a  member 
of  your  late  persuasion  to  show  himself 
in  his  distinctive  costume  in  the 
French  capital  at  this  time.  Yet  I 
saw  one  of  them  the  other  day  walk- 
ing down  the  *'  Rue  de  la  Paix,"  with 
his  flanks  guarded  on  each  side  by  a 
lady  wearing  on  her  head  a  kind  of 
coal-scuttle  of  whity-brown  silk,  and 
drest  himself  with  the  most  scrupu- 
lous observance  of  the  traditions  of 
his  sect.  He  had  perhaps  chosen  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix  as  his  promenade,  in 
consequence  of  its  pacific  name  and 
associations;  but  how  changed  was 
the  thing  itself.  The  "Rue  de  la 
Guerre"  would  now  be  much  more 
appropriate.  For  the  houses  on  each 
side  flaunted  with  the  banners  of  the 
Allies  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and 
echoed  with  the  reverberations  of 
martial  music  from  a  band  in  the 
Place  Vendome,  which  was  bright 
with  the  glitter  of  uniforms.  Paris, 
like  the  wooden  horse  which  took 
Troy,  is  "  teeming  with  arms,"  and 
ringing  with  exuberant  joy  at  the 
triumphant  successes  of  the  Allies. 
But  it  may  be  easily  conceived  that 
this  was  not  the  reason  why  our  staid 
compatriot  directed  his  steps  thither- 
ward. He  came,  doubtless,  like  my- 


self, to  see  the  Great  Exhibition — the 
son  and  heir,  or  rather,  to  speak  cor- 
rectly, the  daughter  and  heiress  (for 
to  all  things  combining  utility  with 
ornament  we  ought  to  assign  the 
gender  feminine),  of  the  World's  Fair 
in  Hyde  Park.  You  wish  to  know 
what  I  think  of  it ;  and  as  you  seem 
to  attach  a  value  to  my  opinion, 
which  indeed  it  does  not  deserve,  I 
will  endeavour  to  satisfy  you.  But 
you  must  only  expect  the  judgments 
of  a  dilettante.  I  know  nothing  of 
the  relative  merits  of  hardware  or 
soft  wear.  I  cannot  decide  between 
the  silks  of  Lyons  and  the  stuffs  of 
Manchester.  As  for  the  machinery, 
it  dazzled  my  eyes  and  puzzled  my 
brain,  and  the  ideas  it  produced  were 
naturally  in  the  highest  degree  con- 
fused. If  you  wish  details,  I  must 
refer  you  to  the  admirable  account 
published  in  the  Times  newspaper, 
and  to  the  illustrated  journals.  My 
general  impression  was  that,  as  a 
whole,  the  Paris  Exhibition  is  not 
to  be  compared  with  that  in  Hyde 
Park,  as  its  want  of  the  same  totality 
and  unity  puts  it  out  of  the  pale  of 
comparison.  But  when  you  come  to 
look  into  the  details,  the  things  exhi- 
bited, or  "  exposed,"  as  the  French 
would  say,  are  seen  to  be  more  com- 


600 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


[Nov. 


plete  in  themselves,  generally  of  a 
better  kind,  and  certainly  displayed 
to  greater  advantage.  Those  painful 
vacancies  and  empty  spaces  which 
disfigured  the  London  Exhibition  are 
not  seen  at  Paris ;  for  where  there  is 
little  to  show,  the  space  allowed  is  in 
proportion.  I  recollect  that  in  Hyde 
Park  it  was  playfully  observed  that  a 
duel  might  be  fought  with  Colt's  re- 
volvers so  temptingly  displayed  at 
the  entrance  of  the  nave,  in  the  wil- 
derness of  the  United  States  depart- 
ment, with  little  fear  of  interruption 
from  public  or  police  ;  and  other 
countries — for  instance  Russia,  which 
is  banished  from  the  Paris  Exhibi- 
tion— had  more  space  allotted  to  them 
than  they  were  able  to  fill.  The  dif- 
ference in  this  respect  between  the 
Exhibitions  results  from  their  original 
plan.  The  London  Exhibition,  like 
an  American  city,  was  mapped  out 
into  streets  and  squares  before  it  was 
filled  in  with  houses  or  inhabitants  ; 
the  Paris  Exhibition  has  grown  up 
like  a  European  city — like  Paris 
itself,  as  so  graphically  described  in 
the  Notre  Dame  of  Victor  Hugo — by 
accumulation  of  houses  and  inhabi- 
tants. It  was  found  impossible,  I 
suppose,  to  collect  the  whole  Exhibi- 
tion in  one  solid  stone-building,  in- 
tended to  be  permanent ;  therefore  the 
Annexe  was  built  on  a  mile  in  length 
for  the  wild  and  gigantic  machinery 
to  stable  in,  and  the  Rotunda  was 
brought  into  requisition,  and  the 
Palais  des  Beaux  Arts  was  added, 
like  the  tower  of  a  Herefordshire 
church,  belonging  to  it,  yet  not  attach- 
ed to  it,  and  enforcing  a  second  en- 
trance-fee ;  a  reason  why  the  greatest 
number  of  the  public  are  said  never  to 
enter  the  "Beaux  Arts"  at  all,  which 
is  nevertheless,  to  my  mind,  by  far  the 
most  attractive  part  of  the  Exhibi- 
tion. This  being  the  case,  I  think  I 
was  right  in  making  it  the  dessert  of 
the  intellectual  feast,  and  seeing  it 
last.  The  stranger  who  approaches 
the  Exhibition  from  the  garden  of 
the  Tuileries,  is  disappointed  at  see- 
ing nothing  to  strike  the  eye  before 
him  so  forcibly  as  the  ever-new  scene 
he  leaves  behind  him — the  sparkling 
gardens,  the  beautiful  fountains,  the 
swarming  quays.  He  passes  through 
a  group  of  many-tongued  and  many- 
coloured  loungers,  not  the  least  pic- 


turesque part  of  it  being  a  knot  of  live 
Zouaves,  looking  much  more  like  Turks 
or  Arabs  than  Turks  or  Arabs  them- 
selves, and  only  betraying,  as  often 
happens,  imitation  by  too  exact  resem- 
blance. On  his  right,  moored  alongside 
the  quay  of  the  Seine,  is  a  tolerably 
large-sized  model  of  a  frigate,  on  the 
mainsail  of  which  is  written  in  large 
characters  the  word  "Diners;"  while 
<k  Dejeuners"  is  flapping  on  the  fore- 
sail ;  a  temptation  to  sight-seers  to  take 
their  meals  in  an  eccentric  manner. 
If  disinclined  to  walk  further,  there 
is  a  railroad,  on  which  plies  a  huge 
omnibus  drawn  by  horses,  and  gene- 
rally thickly  crowded.  It  runs  the 
whole  length  of  the  Annexe  down  to 
the  "  Palais  des  Beaux  Arts,"  which 
lies  beyond.  But  by  taking  the 
avenue  of  the  Champs  Elysees,  the 
main  building  of  the  Exhibition  is 
reached  in  a  short  time,  the  entrance 
being  through  clicking  turnstiles, 
where  the  money  is  paid  ;  the  price 
of  admission  being  one  franc  on  five 
days  of  the  week,  two  on  the  sixth, 
and  only  a  few  sous  on  Sundays,  on 
which  day  the  Exhibition  is  crowded 
with  a  dense  population,  chiefly  com- 
posed of  native  Parisians  and  pro- 
vincials, with  their  odd  head-dresses, 
from  the  tiara  of  Normandy  to  the 
square-built  coiffure  of  the  Vendee. 
u  No  change  is  given,"  is  written  on  a 
board,  legible  to  all,  in  four  languages ; 
though  for  what  reason  Spanish  in- 
stead of  Italian  is  one  of  these  is 
hard  to  say.  Paris,  by  the  way, 
seems  to  have  made  great  acquisitions 
in  language-learning  since  the  Exhi- 
bition opened  ;  at  least  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  shop-windows,  in  one 
of  which  I  remarked  a  long  list  of 
languages  spoken  within,  ending  with 
the  still  glorious  tongue  of  modern 
Greece. 

The  first  impression  on  entrance  is 
one  of  disappointment.  It  would, 
however,  scarcely  be  so  but  for  the 
fact  that  most  of  those  who  see  the 
present  Exhibition  have  still  the  first 
impression  of  that  of  1851  in  their 
mind's  eye.  Who  can  forget  his  first 
introduction  into  that  beautiful  tran- 
sept, with  its  great  fountain  and 
elegant  casts,  and  arch  of  glass  span- 
ning the  tops  of  the  Hyde  Park  trees, 
which,  in  their  full  maturity  of  years 
or  ages,  had  been  suddenly  changed 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


601 


from  rude  out-of-door  life  to  green- 
house luxury  ?  The  first  impression 
of  the  Paris  Exhibition  is  simply 
that  of  a  huge  bazaar  or  fancy  fair. 
The  allegorical  transparencies  at  the 
ends  are  gaudy  without  being  impos- 
ing, and  the  vistas  of  banners  add 
to  the  fair-like  effect.  But  when  the 
eyes  are  able  to  repose  on  individual 
objects,  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  takes 
the  spectator  somewhat  by  surprise. 
Look  at  that  fountain,  for  instance  : 
how  elegant  in  conception !  There 
are  no  water-vomiting  monsters,  but 
piles  of  water- flowers,  from  the  beau- 
tifully imitated  pistils  and  anthers 
of  which  come  forth  little  jets  of 
water,  to  which  the  variety  of  colour 
gives  a  peculiarly  crystalline  appear- 
aiice  as  they  spurt  and  trickle  down 
into  the  basin  below.  It  is  much 
the  same  with  the  effect  of  the  com- 
partments. In  each  compartment  all 
is  harmony  and  tasteful  arrangement, 
but  the  general  effect  is  confusion. 
It  seems  a  pity  that  no  space  could 
be  found  for  model  lighthouses,  huge 
clocks,  and  other  overgrown  objects, 
except  in  the  midst  of  the  nave  or 
transept;  it  would  have  been  much 
better  to  have  left  that  clear  had  the 
space  allowed,  with  a  fountain  or  two 
at  intervals,  and  some  plaster  casts — 
the  expense  of  which,  in  the  native 
country  of  gypsum,  would  have  been 
no  great  object — placed  on  each  side, 
so  as  to  give,  by  the  graduated  diminu- 
tion of  the  forms,  the  idea  of  a  length- 
ened avenue.  The  "Palais  del'Indus- 
trie"  is  inconveniently  crowded  with 
objects,  especially  in  its  main  channels 
of  circulation.  Not  one  of  the  least 
attractive  sights  of  the  London  Exhi- 
bition was  the  streams  of  living  beings, 
on  the  cheap  days,  as- they  flooded  in 
regular  sea-like  currents  from  one  end 
of  the  building  to  the  other,  arrested 
sometimes,  and  eddying  round  some 
shrine  of  Mammon — the  Koh-i-noor, 
for  instance — as  the  tidal  waters  do 
round  intercepting  rocks.  In  Paris 
the  crowd  is  so  broken  up  by  the  ob- 
jects exhibited  in  the  nave,  that  it 
gives  the  appearance  of  the  whole 
building  having  been  invaded  by  a 
mob,  though  a  mob  well  dressed  and 
excellently  conducted.  This  appear- 
ance of  confusion  is  added  to  by  the 
fact  of  three  entrances  being  allowed 
to  the  quadrangular  structure ;  one 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXI. 


on  the  east,  from  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde ;  the  other  on  the  north, 
from  the  Champs  Elysees ;  the  other 
on  the  west,  from  the  Allee  d'Antin. 
It  would  have  been  no  hardship  had 
the  entrance  from  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde  been  the  only  one,  as  that 
is  the  end  whence  the  largest  stream 
of  people  would  naturally  come,  and 
it  would  have  removed  the  temptation 
to  enter  the  building  in  the  middle, 
and  thus  to  lose  the  effect  of  the 
length  at  first  sight.  By  entering 
from  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  you 
have  the  productions  of  France  on 
the  right,  extending  the  whole  length 
of  the  ground -floor  down  to  the 
western  entrance,  and  occupying  the 
right  half  of  that  area;  those  of  Eng- 
land and  its  dependencies  on  the  left, 
occupying  nearly  one- fourth  of  the 
same.  At  the  end  of  the  English  de- 
partment France  interposes  a  small 
quadrangle  resting  on  a  broad  base, 
as  if  to  prevent  England  from  quar- 
relling with  the  United  States,  whose 
jealousy  might  be  aroused  from  the 
smallness  of  the  space  allotted  to 
them,  though  a  space  quite  as  great 
as  they  deserve,  and  honoured  by 
a  position  in  the  very  centre  of 
the  building.  From  this  department 
France  throws  out  a  long  arm  as  if  to 
usher  the  visitors  into  the  Annexe, 
which  there  is  thus  a  temptation  to 
enter  at  some  distance  from  the  end, 
especially  as  the  very  interesting 
Panorama,  where  the  tapestry  and 
crown-jewels  are  exhibited,  stands 
on  the  way  thither.  Next  to  the 
United  States  is  the  Belgian  depart- 
ment ;  next  the  Belgian,  the  Austrian ; 
next  to  the  Austrian,  the  Prussian, 
which  takes  under  its  wing  the  smaller 
states  of  Germany,  and  concludes  the 
occupation  of  the  space  on  the  left  of 
the  nave  looking  from  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde,  or  the  side  of  the  Seine. 
The  arrangement  of  the  galleries  on 
the  first  floor  is  nearly  similar.  They 
are  entered  by  staircases  at  the  angles. 
In  the  corner  of  the  British  space 
nestle  the  productions  of  young  Aus- 
tralia, distinguished  in  general  by 
their  practical  plainness;  and  hugging 
these,  the  gorgeous  contributions  of  old 
India.  Over  the  eastern  entrance, 
Egypt,  Tunis,  and  Turkey,  vie  with 
India  in  the  taste  and  richness,  and 
somewhat  in  the  character,  of  their 

2R 


602 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


[Nov. 


products;  and  then,  as  if  to  keep 
Greece  at  a  respectful  distance  from 
Turkey,  a  strip  of  China  is  inter- 
posed. Greece  follows  suit,  her  most 
conspicuous  object  being  a  gentleman 
with  complexion  as  pure  as  that  of  a 
barber's  block,  undeniable  moustache, 
and  full  national  dress,  splendid  with 
scarlet  and  stiif  with  gold.  Tuscany 
clings  to  Greece;  and  in  the  juxta- 
position of  these  two  countries  there 
is  something  mournful,  as  they  both 
represent  the  decadence  of  an  antique 
civilisation.  Joined  to  this  Tuscan 
department,  at  the  corner,  as  in  real 
geography,  are  the  Pontifical  States, 
put  safely  away  under  the  wing  of 
France,  and  protected,  like  the  Pope, 
by  her  bayonets.  Sardinia,  a  little 
farther  on,  clings  to  the  side  of  France 
as  an  independent  but  loving  ally. 
France  extends  up  the  northern  side 
as  on  the  ground-floor,  but  she  finds 
room  near  the  end  for  Portugal  and 
Spain,  occupying  two  squares  placed 
together.  At  the  end  of  France,  over 
the  western  entrance,  Switzerland  dis- 
plays the  unrivalled  results  of  her  in- 
dustry, and  contrasts  the  productions 
of  her  mountains  with  those  of  the 
Low  Countries,  which  lie  close  to  them 
in  the  geography  of  the  Palais.  Swe- 
den and  Denmark,  in  their  places  here 
as  in  their  language,  come  between 
the  Low  German  and  the  High  Ger- 
man nations,  which  occupy  the  north- 
western galleries,  the  arrangement  of 
which  is  nearly  the  same  as  of  that 
of  the  ground -floor,  save  that  the 
United  States  department  is  repre- 
sented by  one  still  smaller  than  its 
own,  devoted  to  the  productions  of 
South  America.  Behind  this  depart- 
ment, however,  and  also  on  the  side 
of  England,  France  occupies  a  small 
square,  in  the  latter  case  with  musical 
instruments,  as  if  to  serenade  her 
neighbour  and  ally. 

To  those  who  have  walked  through 
those  parts  of  the  Exhibition  we  have 
just  touched  upon,  a  feeling  of  lassitude 
will  probably  supervene,  increased  by 
the  stifling  atmosphere  of  the  galleries 
and  the  multiplicity  of  objects  dis- 
played. But  the  work  is  not  half 
done.  The  Gallery  of  Communica- 
tion, the  Panorama,  the  Annexe,  and 
the  Beaux  Arts,  have  yet  to  be  seen, 
each  of  these  alone  enough  to  glut  the 
appetite  of  any  moderate  sight-seer. 


Besides  these,  a  number  of  ungainly 
productions,  such  as  model-houses, 
have  been  turned  out  of  doors  into 
an  enclosed  space  on  the  south,  where 
is  also  a  long  gallery  of  carriages. 
And  then  there  is  a  flower  and  fruit 
show,  also  appertaining  to  the  Exhibi- 
tion, to  be  seen  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Champs  Elysees.  We  must  take 
these  things  in  due  order.  But  first 
let  us  consider  what  pleased  us  most 
in  our  walk  through  the  ground-floor 
and  round  the  galleries.  It  is  no  easy 
matter  to  arrange  that  walk  through 
the  ground-floor  to  one's  satisfaction. 
If  you  go  round  it  as  you  go  round 
the  gallery  above,  you  are  apt  to  pass 
by  some  of  the  islands  of  interesting 
objects  which  are  dispersed  along  the 
centre;  and  if  you  walk  straight  down 
the  centre,  you  miss  the  objects  at  the 
sides.  We  managed  the  difficulty  by 
vibrating  from  one  side  to  the  other 
and  back  again,  like  a  draught-horse 
when  left  to  himself  going  up-hill,  or 
that  ancient  method  of  reading  from 
right  to  left  and  from  left  to  right 
again,  which  was  named  from  oxen  at 
plough.  This  manner  of  proceeding, 
though  effectual  as  far  as  omitting 
nothing  was  concerned,  tended  to  con- 
fusion in  the  impressions  produced. 
Of  one  fact  we  were  very  soon  con- 
vinced—  that  England  and  France 
were  running  a  twofold  race.  Eng- 
land was  endeavouring  to  keep  pace 
with  France  in  matters  of  invention 
and  taste,  having  seen  and  acknow- 
ledged her  superiority  in  the  Exhibi- 
tion of  1851 ;  and  France  was  endea- 
vouring to  vie  with  England  in  manu- 
factures of  practical  utility,  her  efforts 
having  probably  had  the  same  origin. 
The  success  of  both,  in  their  respec- 
tive aspirations,  appeared  marvellous. 
Minton  and  Wedgwood  are  artists  in 
pottery  of  a  most  superior  kind,  repro- 
ducing all  the  endless  variety  and 
beauty  of  Etrurian  workmanship  — 
jugs,  vases,  and  statuettes  of  chaste 
and  incomparable  beauty — and  exer- 
cising the  imagination  in  a  thousand 
curious  developments  ;  while  Elking- 
ton,  Mason  and  Co.,  make  the  pre- 
cious metals  play  the  part  of  marble, 
and  endue  the  symbols  of  utility  with 
an  artistic  character  never  before 
supposed  to  belong  to  them.  Mean- 
while France  is  vying  with  our  ma- 
nufacturing towns  in  the  fabric  of 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


603 


all  useful  articles,  and  stamping  them 
in  addition  with  the  impress  of  her 
superior  taste.  In  no  department 
does  she  show  such  progress  as  in 
the  production  of  implements  of  de- 
struction, ingeniously  fancied  and 
beautifully  arranged  ;  but  the  extra- 
ordinary growth  of  this  crop  must  of 
course  in  part  be  attributed  to  the 
hotbed  influences  of  the  present  war. 
The  United  States  are  as  poor  and 
practical  as  at  our  own  Exhibition. 
Colt's  revolvers  now,  as  then,  are  the 
chief  centre  of  interest ;  and,  to  eco- 
nomise the  labour  of  the  assistant 
exhibitor,  specimens  of  these  deadly 
tools  are  hung  in  chains,  like  the  cups 
by  a  public  well,  to  be  snapped  and 
clicked  by  every  comer  who  wishes 
to  try  them,  until  at  last  they  are 
rendered  totally  useless.  Belgium, 
Austria,  and  Prussia,  seem  but  little 
in  the  wake  of  France,  and  though 
slow  in  drawing  the  sword  for  the 
cause  of  Europe,  quite  as  adroit  in 
making  it.  Austria  has  a  perfect 
right  to  plume  herself  upon  the  dis- 
play of  Bohemian  glass,  for  Bo- 
hemia has  no  standing -ground  of 
her  own  but  a  barbarous  antiquity  ; 
but  the  case  is  different  as  regards 
Venice ;  not  that  the  appropria- 
tion of  the  Venetian  glass  is  the 
worst  insult  inflicted  by  the  "  bar- 
baro  Tedesco"  on  unfortunate  Italy. 
It  becomes  a  monster  injustice  when 
statues  and  paintings  are  claimed 
under  the  ill-favoured  name  of  Au- 
triche,  and  Italy,  the  mother  of  all 
the  arts  and  civilisation  of  the  west, 
is  ignored  in  the  nomenclature.  This 
is  worse  than  bad  taste ;  it  is  an  his- 
torical solecism.  Yet  it  is  only  a  re- 
petition of  the  injustice  that  took 
place  in  our  Exhibition  of  1851 .  Who 
can  forget  the  beautiful  little  room  of 
sculpture,  round  which  there  was  the 
incessant  flow  of  an  admiring  crowd, 
and  the  name  of  Monti  of  Milan  ? 
Yet  this  was  commonly  called  the 
Austrian  sculpture  ;!  as  if  the  adjec- 
tive and  substantive  could  ever  be 
joined  with  any  extent  of  application. 
Let  Austria  stick  to  her  meerschaum 
pipes  of  curious  workmanship,  and 
put  the  indignation  of  the  world  of 
artists  into  them,  and  smoke  it.  We 
ascend  the  staircase,  and  make  the 
door  of  the  galleries.  Here  is  a 
wonderful  display  of  velvet,  cotton, 


linen,  and  all  other  kinds  of  stuff's, 
the  relative  excellences  of  which  are 
Hebrew  to  us,  but  which  we  must 
suppose  to  be  very  good,  because 
they  nearly  all  of  them  seem  to  be 
sold,  being  ticketed  "  vendu."  We 
hasten  to  the  British  department.  In 
this,  amongst  many  admirable  pro- 
ductions, our  eyes  chiefly  rest  on  the 
exhibition  of  photographs.  These 
sun-pictures,  though  deficient  in  the 
imaginative  variety  of  genuine  art, 
and  no  more  like  paintings  than  the 
dry  petals  of  a  "  hortus  siccus"  are 
like  the  glorious  flowers  of  May,  are  yet 
excellently  adapted  to  give  the  sight- 
seer an  idea  of  the  scenery  which 
they  represent,  because,  as  far  as 
they  go,  they  are  the  thing  itself. 
After  seeing  them,  no  Frenchman 
could  go  away  without  carrying  in 
his  mind's  eye  a  pretty  accurate  no- 
tion of  that  peculiar  scenery  which  is 
the  glory  of  England.  Of  this  the 
scenes  about  Bolton  Abbey  present  a 
good  average  specimen.  From  Leeds 
and  Manchester  we  pass  to  Delhi  and 
Hyderabad.  We  may  say  of  our 
Indian  collection — 

"  Grsecia  capta  ferum  victorem  cepit,  et  artes 
Intulit  agresti  Latio." 

All  the  invention  of  our  manufac- 
turers can  never  produce  the  exqui- 
site combination  of  form  and  colour 
displayed  in  the  tissues  of  British 
India.  And  to  do  ourselves  justice, 
we  give  them  credit  for  what  is  their 
own,  and  do  not  adopt  the  miserable 
getting-up-behind  system  of  Austria. 
The  innate  conservatism  of  British 
India,  like  nature  in  the  factory  of  the 
spring-time,  continues  to  reproduce 
the  beautiful  structures  of  thousands 
of  years  ago; — for  this  good  andsimple 
reason,  that  perfection  having  been 
long  ago  attained,  there  is  no  room 
for. progress :  all  attempts  at  improve- 
ment must  be  retrogressive  and  de- 
structive. It  is  the  very  poetry  of 
manufacture ;  and  it  is  so,  because  in 
its  prodigious  industry  it  embalms 
the  holiness  of  antiquity.  Taste, 
with  the  most  tasteful  western  na- 
tions, even  with  Italy  and  France,  is 
a  thing  of  culture  and  education  ;  in 
India  it  seems  to  be  a  thing  which 
men  imbibe  with  the  milk  of  their 
swarthy  mothers.  How  often  does 
the  barrenness  of  this  instinct  with  us 


601 


Pans  and  the  Exhibition. 


take  refuge  in  puritanism  of  form  and 
pattern,  whether  in  dress,  equipages, 
or  house  decoration ;  while  in  India 
the  most  gorgeous  hues  and  costly 
materials  are  resorted  to  daringly 
and  unflinchingly,  and  no  error  in 
taste  is  ever  committed !  Much  the 
same  praise  may  be  given  to  the  pro- 
ductions of  modern  Egypt,  Tunis,  and 
Turkey,  which  also  partake  of  the 
Oriental  character.  In  China  this 
conservatism  of  taste  is  seen  in  its 
exaggeration,  and  frozen  into  formal 
absurdity.  We  pass  admiringly 
through  France  to  the  Pontifical 
States,  and  stay  to  wonder  at  the 
Mosaics,  which  give  with  such  infi- 
nite labour  an  eternity  to  pictorial 
representation.  Even  in  its  present 
low  estate  the  Eternal  City  clings  to 
the  preservation  of  its  peculiar  glory. 
And  we  turn  away  with  a  feeling  of 
sadness  at  thinking  that  this  is  all 
which  her  present  state  of  political 
health  enables  her  to  do.  Her  artistic 
vitality  is  at  the  lowest  ebb — a  ner- 
vously flickering  lamp  of  genius  that 
we  fear  every  moment  to  see  go  out 
altogether.  We  may  well  ask  how  long 
the  present  most  anomalous  state  of 
things  in  the  temporal  dominions  of 
the  Pope  is  to  go  on?  France  has 
got  into  a  scrape  in  supporting  him, 
like  that  which  some  honest  hard- 
working man  gets  into  by  putting  his 
name  to  a  bond  for  some  scape-grace 
friend — being  perpetually  called  upon 
to  pay  up  instalments  from  the  savings 
of  industry  to  cancel  the  debts  incur- 
red by  insolvent  extravagance  and 
debauchery.  The  decrepit  system  lies 
like  a  blight  upon  the  land,  and  has 
already  reversed  the  boast  of  the  poet 
in  the  Augustine  times,  that  "  a 
marsh  long  neglected,  and  only  fit  for 
navigation,  feeds  the  neighbouring 
cities,  and  feels  the  weight  of  the 
plough."  Feelingless  must  that  man 
be  who  has  travelled  over  the  desola- 
tion of  the  Campagna,  and  the  dreary 
length  of  the  Pontine  Marshes,  with 
their  consumptive  ghostlike  remnants 
of  population,  without  inwardly  curs- 
ing the  Papacy.  Blest  in  climate 
and  soil  beyond  almost  every  other 
region  of  the  earth,  and  even  yet 
in  their  hills  producing  men  who 
sit  on  the  Pincian  steps  to  be  hired 
by  artists  as  models  for  gods,  the 
States  of  the  Church  have  become  a 


howling  wilderness,  without  form  and 
void,  like  the  primeval  chaos,  and 
France  and  England,  the  nations  in 
the  vanguard  of  civilisation, have  been 
consenting  parties  to  this  systematic 
thwarting  of  the  designs  of  a  benefi- 
cent Creator.  They  have  done  this, 
one  in  the  purposeless  delirium  of  a 
revolutionary  crisis,  frightened  at  its 
own  ravings  ;  the  other  in  the  incon- 
sistent restlessness  of  Whig  policy, 
encouraging  conspiracy,  but  snubbing 
national  movements,  sacrificing  truth 
and  justice  to  the  maintenance  of  a 
popularity  necessary  to  the  tenure  of 
office,  coquetting  with  the  most  dan- 
gerous principles  of  subversion  at 
home,  and  winking  at  the  foulest 
abuses  abroad,  when  the  time  for 
action  has  arrived.  Such  reflec- 
tions may  be  in  the  slightest  degree 
out  of  place  at  the  Paris  Exhibi- 
tion, but  they  will  intrude  themselves. 
The  circumstances  of  this  Exhibition 
are  different  from  those  of  ours.  Ours 
was  supposed  by  sanguine  enthusias- 
tics  to  be  a  handshaking  of  all  nations, 
a  prelude  to  a  universal  peace,  never 
again  to  be  broken  by  international 
strife.  We  know  better  now.  The 
Paris  Exhibition  is  unconnected  with 
any  such  visions  of  dreamland.  It 
stands  on  its  own  merits  as  a  display 
of  industry  and  of  art ;  a  temple  of 
peace  amid  the  clash  of  arms,  but  a 
temple  where  it  is  impossible  for  any 
to  worship  without  the  intrusion  of 
thoughts  which  take  their  colour  with 
the  world  without,  confused  as  it  is 
with  mortal  conflicts,  and  teeming 
with  political  convulsion.  With  re- 
spect to  France,  a  state  of  war  seems 
even  more  favourable  than  one  of 
peace  to  her  industrial  energies,  pro- 
bably because  in  such  a  state  her  blood 
flows  more  naturally  and  temperately. 
Is  it  a  necessity  of  her  nature  that  her 
life  should  be  divided  between  foreign 
war  and  internal  disquietude?  We 
know  not ;  if  it  is,  foreign  war  is  cer- 
tainly preferable.  Is  it  a  condition  of 
the  existence  of  every  great  old  na- 
tion— of  our  own  nation  likewise  ?  It 
would  be  a  bold  step  to  answer  this 
question  dogmatically.  Certain  it  is 
that  it  would  be  well  for  any  people  if 
the  horrors  of  war  were  inseparably 
bound  up  with  a  diminution  of  those 
of  peace. 
We  have  walked  over  the  ground- 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


605 


floorof  the  building,  and  round  the  gal- 
leries, and  find  we  have  done  a  day's 
work. 

"  But  half  of  our  heavy  task  was  done 
When  the  bell  struck  the  hour  for  retiring;" 

— that  hour  being  five  o'clock,  and  the 
bell  tolling  at  the  quarter  before  it, 
sweeping  the  Palais  of  its  gazers  with 
the  fright  and  haste  of  Cinderella  when 
she  heard  the  fatal  twelve.  We  are 
bound  for  the  restaurant  or  the  table- 
d'hote,  where  light  wine  and  exquisite 
cookery  will  superinduce  no  after-din- 
ner lethargy,  and  insensibly  strength- 
ening, prepare  us  for  the  work  or  play 
of  to-morrow. 

To-morrow  having  become  to-day, 
we  pass  in  by  the  main  entrance  by  the 
north,  and  with  a  glance  right  and  left 
and  no  more,  enter  the  passage  of  com- 
munication which  leads  through  the 
panoramic  building  into  the  Annexe. 
In  the  Panorama  are  displayed  selec- 
tions of  those  industrial  products 
which  are  the  chief  glory  of  France. 
We  are  introduced  to  the  Gobelins 
tapestry  and  the  porcelain  of  Sevres, 
the  former  appearing  to  have  at- 
tained the  acme  of  perfection  of 
workmanship  and  mellowness  of  col- 
our, the  latter  being  so  perfectly  beau- 
tiful and  so  extravagantly  costly, 
that  the  quality  of  brittleness  we 
know  to  be  inseparable  from  it,  gives 
an  almost  uncomfortable  interest  in 
its  preservation  to  the  beholder.  We 
long  to  insure  its  life  in  some  material 
which  should  bear  the  same  relation 
to  it  in  durability  that  the  marble 
does  to  the  plaster  cast.  In  the 
centre  of  the  raised  dais,  and  the 
exact  centre  of  the  building,  are  the 
"Crown  diamonds,"  suggesting  re- 
miniscences of  a  very  pretty  opera, 
and  worth  looking  at  quite  as  much 
for  their  tasteful  setting  by  Limon- 
nier  as  for  their  own  value.  In  Eng- 
land the  greatest  crowd  was  at  the 
Koh-i-noor — in  France  at  the  Crown 
diamonds.  The  London  multitude 
appeared  thus  to  worship  wealth 
chiefly  for  what  it  was  worth — the 
Paris  multitude  chiefly  for  the  splendid 
effect  it  produced.  Possibly  there  was 
this  not  very  important  difference  in 
the  spirit  in  which  the  homage  was 
paid.  The  approach  to  this  centre  of 
attraction  was  rendered  intricate  and 
winding  to  avoid  a  crush ,  and  the  crowd 


was  unravelled  by  the  police,  as  in  all 
cases  of  the  kind,  into  a  long  "  queue," 
where  each  must  take  his  place  and 
wait  patiently  his  turn  of  arrival  at 
the  inheritance  of  his  eyes.  This  ad- 
mirable method,  adopted,  I  believe, 
almost  universally  in  France  and  Ger- 
many, is  far  better  than  the  British 
rush,  in  which  strength  and  rudeness 
have  an  unfair  advantage,  and  women 
and  children  are  trampled  on.  When 
Jenny  Lind  was  in  London  filling  the 
opera-house  to  overflowing,  the  incon- 
sistency between  the  faultless  costume 
of  the  opera  mob  and  its  scramble  to 
get  in,  was  positively  ridiculous.  This 
is  one  of  those  points  where  we  may 
well  take  a  leaf  from  the  book  of  our 
Continental  neighbours.  Before  pass- 
ing into  the  Annexe,  we  stroll  about 
the  enclosed  ground  dedicated  to  re- 
freshment-stalls and  the  bulky  objects, 
and  cast  an  eye  down  the  long  line  of 
exhibited  carriages.  It  appears  from 
these  that  the  plainness  so  long  in 
vogue  is  giving  way  to  a  more  ad- 
vanced style,  which  shows  more  cou- 
rageousness  of  taste.  Although  the 
Lord  Mayor's  coach  cannot  pass  for 
the  beau-ideal  of  a  carriage,  we  cannot 
see  why  these  things,  being  essentially 
luxuries,  should  not  be  splendid  in 
decoration  as  well  as  elegant  in  form. 
At  the  same  time,  beautiful  horses  are 
ever  the  first  requisite  of  a  handsome 
equipage ;  and  this  truth  seems  never 
to  have  been  lost  sight  of  in  England. 
The  Annexe  itself  is  a  good  mile  of 
bewilderment  and  perpetual  motion. 
Add  a  ghastly  twilight  and  a  lurid 
atmosphere  overhead,  and  you  might 
fancy  yourself  in  the  Inferno  of  Dante, 

"  La  bufera  infernal,  che  mai  non  resta, 
Meni  gli  spirti  con  la  sua  rapina, 
Voltando,  e  percotendo  gli  molesta." 

I  know  few  things  more  painful 
to  behold,  and  to  hear  for  any  length 
of  time,  than  a  collection  of  machines 
in  motion,  set  on  by  steam.  Puff, 
puff,  puff;  rattle,  rattle,  rattle;  whirr, 
whirr,  whirr!  Great  elbows  and 
knees  of  iron  going  up  and  down  with 
irresistible  power,  and  threatening  in- 
stant dislocation  and  dismemberment 
to  any  flesh  and  blood  that  might 
come  in  their  way !  I  can  easily  be- 
lieve that  the  accidents  produced  by 
unfenced  machinery,  though  greatly 
owing  to  the  habitual  carelessness 
produced  in  factories  by  living  amongst 


606 


Pans  and  the  Exhibition. 


them,  have  sometimes  their  origin  in 
a  terrible  fascination,  by  which  those 
who  look  long  at  them  are  drawn  into 
them.  I  suppose  these  things  must 
be,  but  I  do  not  love  them.  With 
us  they  are  unquestionably  supersed- 
ing human  muscle,  and  draining  the 
country  of  its  manhood.  I  walked 
through  the  Annexe,  as  in  duty 
bound,  and  emerged  safely,  only  too 
happy  to  be  quit  of  it,  and  to  efface 
its  disagreeable  impression  in  the 
tranquillity  of  the  Palais  des  Beaux 
Arts.  My  feelings  were  those  of  a 
weather-beaten  sailor  who  has  gained 
the  shore,  or  rather  those  of  some  un- 
fortunate landsman  who  has  just 
escaped  a  nauseous  and  bewildering 
night  on  board  a  pitching  and  rolling 
steam er.  The  sight-seer  who  expects 
novelty  in  this  great  exhibition  of  pic- 
tures will  be  disappointed.  He  must 
rest  for  the  most  part  satisfied  with 
the  pleasure  he  will  feel  at  seeing  old 
friends  in  a  new  light.  The  pictures 
are  collected  from  various  sources, 
and,  as  a  rule,  are  by  living  artists. 
That  this  rule  has  not  been  rigidly 
adhered  to,  appears,  as  one  instance, 
by  the  exhibition  of  some  of  Copley 
Fielding's  water- colours;  and  it  seems 
a  pity  that,  instead  of  such  a  distinction 
being  made,  a  line  was  not  drawn  at 
some  definite  period  of  time  ;  for  ex- 
ample, at  the  end  of  the  second  decade 
of  the  present  century.  The  life  or 
death  of  the  artist  is  scarcely  a  crite- 
rion of  time,  for  an  artist  may  die  at 
twenty -five,  or  live  to  the  age  of 
Turner.  We  miss  Turner  and 
Etty  sadly  ;  for  whatever  may 
have  been  the  faults  of  these  masters, 
masters  they  certainly  were  in  every 
sense  of  the  word ;  and  no  collection, 
professing  to  give  to  the  world  speci- 
mens of  British  contemporaneous 
painting,  could  be  complete  without 
them.  With  regard  to  the  proportion 
of  the  pictures  exhibited,  France  of 
course  takes  the  lead,  and  Great 
Britain  follows;  Belgium  and  the 
Netherlands  make  a  respectable  show; 
Prussia,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  Ger- 
many, is  meagre,  and  we  miss  some 
of  the  greatest  names;  Switzerland 
does  well — better  than  Italy;  but 
Italy  has  been  robbed  of  her  fame  by 
Austria,  which,  with  apparent  effron- 
tery, but  really  in  consequence  of 
alphabetical  arrangement,  places  her 


[Nov. 

name  first  on  the  catalogue.  On 
every  work  of  art  proceeding  from 
Northern  Italy  should  be  inscribed 
the  complaint  of  Virgil— himself  an 
inhabitant  of  that  garden  of  nature 
and  art — 

"  Sic  vos  non  vobis  mellificatis  apes." 

But  the  cold  countries  of  the  north 
have  caught  a  reflection  of  Italian 
sunshine,  and  Sweden,  Denmark,  and 
Norway  show  much  artistic  aspira- 
tion—if scarcely  yet,  to  speak  gene- 
rally, much  inspiration.  Their  pro- 
ductions look  chiefly  like  those  of 
young  beginners ;  but  there  is  one 
magnificent  exception,  which  I  shall 
come  to  by-and-by.  The  productions 
of  the  United  States  had  better  have 
remained  on  the  other  side  of  the  At- 
lantic, where  they  might  have  been 
appreciated.  Spain  is  pretty  well  re- 
presented, but  chiefly  by  portraits; 
and  there  are  countries  which  have 
sent  one  picture  each,  and  are  no 
doubt  as  proud  of  them  as  a  hen  with 
a  single  chicken — Mexico  and  Turkey. 
When  Turkey  begins  to  paint,  we 
wonder  what  she  will  do  next — per- 
haps dance.  At  our  first  entrance, 
our  attention  is  arrested  by  a  picture 
under  the  head  of  Sweden,  and,  in  my 
humble  opinion,  we  shall  see  no  better 
in  the  whole  gallery.  We  refer  to 
the  Catalogue:  1980— "Declaration 
d'amour,"  by  Mdlle  Amelie  Linde- 
gren.  The  tritest  of  all  subjects  is 
treated  in  a  manner  fascinating  from 
its  originality,  and  this  is  a  sign  of  true 
genius.  The  figures  are  two  Swedish 
peasants ;  the  man  has  a  thick  club  on 
his  shoulder,  as  if  to  show  the  natural 
roughness  of  his  character  and  oc- 
cupations. He  is  not  a  paladin,  but  a 
peasant,  and  feeling  has  subdued  his 
expression  into  one  of  refined  passion 
and  respectful  admiration.  His  fea- 
tures, though  handsome,  are  rugged; 
but  his  look  is  full  of  inexpressible 
tenderness,  without  losing  the  least 
part  of  its  manliness.  This  is  truth. 
It  has  been  well  remarked  that  the 
sternest  and  strongest  men  have  ever 
a  soft  side  to  their  nature ;  the  only 
beings  who  are  consistently  and  tho- 
roughly hard,  are  masculine  women. 
Half-embraced  by  his  left  arm  is  an 
easy  and  graceful  female  figure,  yet 
no  drawing- room  nymph,  but  a  healthy 
buxom  lass,  used  to  milking  cows  as  a 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


607 


rule,  and  cutting  fodder  for  them  as  an 
exception.  Her  face  is  very  lifelike. 
There  is  no  effort  at  extraordinary 
beauty  of  feature,  but  the  beauty  of 
expression  is  consummate.  Well 
pleased  she  is  to  hear  what  she  hears, 
and  deeply  contented.  Happiness  is 
seen  in  the  mouth  and  cheeks,  while 
the  eyes  are  demurely  downcast,  and 
affect  to  be  intent  on  the  knitting  with 
which  her  fingers  are  at  the  moment 
unusually  busy.  The  costume  and 
pose  are  faultless.  The  other  pic- 
tures produced  by  the  states  of  Scan- 
dinavia, though  some  of  them  good, 
especially  the  battle-pieces,  are  al- 
most a  foil  to  this  one,  the  production 
of  a  genuine  lady's  mind,  and  one  who 
observes  nature  like  Rosa  Bonheur. 
We  pass  to  the  rooms  containing  the 
pictures  of  the  French  School.  I  can- 
not retract  what  I  said  to  you  about 
this  school  in  the  letter  produced  by 
my  flying  visit  in  January.  The 
French  artists  are  too  affected  and 
too  little  natural.  Rosa  Bonheur  is 
almost  the  only  exception.  The  best 
of  them  seem  ever  to  have  some  mas- 
ter in  their  eye,  and  to  be  straining  at 
supernatural  effects.  They  paint  on 
stilts,  metaphorically  if  not  literally, 
for  the  enormous  size  of  some  of  their 
canvasses  must  often  preclude  the 
possibility  of  their  painting  on  their 
natural  legs.  And  as  they  paint  on 
too  large  a  scale,  so  they  paint  far 
too  much,  at  least  the  historical  paint- 
ers ;  and  some  of  the  time  which  they 
give  to  throwing  off  new  subjects, 
might  be  much  better  employed  in 
working  up  and  mellowing  down  the 
old  ones ;  for,  as  a  general  rule, 
they  are  stiff  in  outline,  and  crude  in 
colour,  though  very  grand  in  concep- 
tion. If  I  was  writing  a  detailed  ac- 
count of  them,  I  should  hardly  know 
where  to  begin,  and  so  have  no  re- 
source but  to  follow  the  direction  of 
chance,  for  the  rooms  are  so  ar- 
ranged that  it  is  hard  to  know  which 
room  and  which  side  to  take  in  walk- 
ing. As  it  is,  I  am  only  writing  a 
letter,  and  therefore  do  not  consider 
myself  bound  to  give  you  my  impres- 
sions in  order.  A  plunge  into  the 
centre  room  displays  at  once  some  of 
the  largest  historical  pieces.  It  is 
warm,  and  you  may  take  the  oppor- 
tunity of  doffing  your  hat  to  the 
charming  Empress,  occupying  the 


chief  place  in  a  group  by  Winter- 
halter.  The  other  figures  are  the 
ladies  of  the  court,  over  whom  she 
shines  like  "  the  moon  among  the 
lesser  fires."  The  group  is  well  ar- 
ranged, seated  on  the  grass  in  a  nook 
in  one  of  the  imperial  woods.  The 
ground  slopes  so  that  the  Empress 
takes  her  position  naturally  as  the 
head  of  the  female  circle,  like  the  front 
jewel  in  a  coronet.  The  likeness  ia 
well  preserved,  and  the  picture,  apart 
from  its  interesting  associations,  is  a 
very  pleasant  composition.  You  may 
lounge,  if  you  please,  on  that  great 
square-cushioned  seat,  and  look  at  it 
as  long  as  you  like,  without  disturb- 
ance from  the  stout  islander  who  is 
so  comfortably  asleep  at  your  side, 
with  a  face  of  baby-like  innocence 
above  his  russet  beard.  Many  of  the 
other  pictures  are  old  acquaintances 
of  the  Luxembourg.  Mark  well  the 
Bravest  of  the  Brave  in  that  picture 
by  Adolphe  Yvon,  with  firelock  in 
hand,  like  a  common  soldier,  to  en- 
courage his  frostbitten  men,  the  last 
in  the  miserable  but  heroic  rearguard 
of  the  Moscow  retreat !  Would  not 
he  have  warmed  up  at  that  moment 
had  he  been  permitted  to  dream  of 
the  fall  of  Sebastopol !  Ney  has  an 
English  face,  and  there  is  something 
in  his  character  which  finds  a  response 
in  most  English  hearts  in  spite  of  his 
political  derelictions.  The  Great  Duke 
would  perhaps  have  been  even  great- 
er, had  he  stretched  out  a  hand,  when 
he  had  the  power,  to  save  the  magni- 
ficent rebel ;  but  the  Great  Duke  was 
the  Iron  Duke,  and  in  his  eyes  the 
breach  of  a  soldier's  allegiance  was 
the  one  unpardonable  sin.  But  why 
have  they  chosen  to  transport  here 
some  of  the  fine  but  horrid  subjects  of 
the  Luxembourg?  Surely  pleasanter 
paintings  might  have  been  gathered 
in  other  quarters.  Those  I  objected 
to  so  strongly  in  my  letter  to  you  last 
winter,  have  some  of  them  risen  up 
in  their  ghastliness  to  affront  my  vi- 
sion in  the  Champs  Elyse"es,  as  if  in 
revenge  for  the  criticisms.  But  if 
another  notice  was  the  object  of  their 
renovation,  they  will  not  get  it,  for  we 
pass  elsewhere.  Horace  Vernet  is 
plenteously  represented.  If  all  his 
pictures  were  as  large  as  "  La  Smala," 
and  the  "  Battle  of  Isly,"  no  exhibi- 
tion in  the  world  would  be  able  to 


608 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


hold  him,  and  he  would  be  to  paint- 
ers what  Livy  was  to  historians  be- 
fore a  great  part  of  bis  works  were 
fortunately  lost,  when  Martial  called 
him  "  vast  Livy,  the  whole  of  whom 
my  library  is  scarcely  sufficient  to 
accommodate." 

"  Livius  ingens, 
Quern  mea  vix  totum  bibliotheca  capit." 

Vernet's  larger  paintings  are  too 
spacious  for  pictures,  and  not  long 
enough  for  panoramas.  It  is,  indeed, 
difficult  to  assign  any  arbitrary  limit 
to  the  size  of  a  picture ;  but  must  it 
not  be  in  some  measure  determined 
by  the  capacity  of  a  human  pair  of 
eyes  ll  When  a  picture  passes  those 


[Nov. 

his  colours  want  toning  down,  and  he 
appears  least  to  shine  in  those  reli- 
gious subjects  upon  which  he  appears 
anxious  to  found  his  reputation.  All 
of  his  pictures,  however,  are  more  or 
less  good ;  and  one  in  particular,  "La 
Vierge  a  I'Hostie,"  has  somewhat  of  a 
Raphaelesque  character.  But  this  is 
not  the  highest  praise  for  a  modern 
painter,  for  unless  he  can  be  quite 
original,  he  had  better  copy  the  Old 
Masters  exactly,  and  endeavour  to 
reproduce  them.  The  "Madonna  de 
la  Vigne"  of  Paul  de  la  Roche  is 
very  beautiful,  but  not  at  all  Raphael- 
esque. Where  is  Paul  de  la  Roche  ? 
He  is  one  of  the  first  we  look  for  on 


proportions  which  the  eye  assigns  to     the  walls,  but  we  cannot  find  him,  nor 


it — when  it  ceases  to  become  a  unit  in 
vision,  and  the  direction  of  the  look 


can  we  find  his  name  on  the  catalogue. 
We  miss  him  the  more,  that  we  have 


is  changed,  not  for  the  purpose   of    just  been  delighted  by  seeing  at  the 
examination  of  the  parts,  but  for  that     French   exhibition  in  London,   that 


of  comprehension  of  the  whole — it  is 
no  longer  a  single  picture,  but  a  plu- 
rality of  pictures  on  the  same  canvass. 
Nature  gives  us  thus  many  pictures 
in  one  scene  ;  and  when  Art  attempts 
to  do  the  same,  it  seems  to  me  that  it 
passes  its  proper  bounds,  and,  in  en- 
deavouring to  become  a  literal  copy  of 
nature,  commits  a  solecism  in  taste  of 
the  same  kind  as  that  committed  by 
colouring  statues  and  assimulating 
sculpture  to  wax-work.  Art  ought  to 
assist  the  appreciation  of  the  beholder 
by  limiting  pictures  within  reasonable 
frames.  Horace  Vernet  imposes  the 
necessity  on  the  beholder  of  limiting 
them  for  himself,  which  is  more  than 
he  has  a  right  to  expect  from  com- 
monplace people.  His  figures  are  in 
the  highest  degree  spirited  and  life- 
like, and  the  horsemen  in  his  large 
battle-pieces  seem  to  be  on  the  point 
of  riding  down  and  shooting  down 
the  spectator,  in  a  manner  which 
mixes  a  concern  for  his  personal 
safety  with  admiration  for  the  pic- 
ture. The  idea  may  have  been  taken 
from  the  cavalry  charges  at  the  hip- 
podrome and  circus,  in  which  the 
horses  are  wheeled  just  as  they  are 
brought  to  the  barrier,  and  seem  on 
the  point  of  leaping  over  upon  the 
lowest  circle  of  people.  All  this  is 
clever,  but  fatal  to  the  repose  neces- 
sary to  the  contemplation  of  paint- 
ings. Another  voluminous  master  is 
Jean  Auguste  Dominique  Ingres.  He 
chiefly  excels  in  figure-painting,  but 


admirable  picture  of  his  of  "  Strafford 
going  to  execution."  And  there  is 
another  who  is  inadequately  repre- 
sented in  the  Great  Exhibition,  one 
of  the  brightest  stars  of  modern  art — 
Mdlle  Rosa  Bonheur.  Surely  it  is 
owing  to  gross  mismanagement  that 
her  glorious  work,  "  The  Horse-Fair 
at  Paris,"  should  have  been  seen  in 
London  this  year  and  not  at  home. 
Landseer  is  an  exquisite  painter  of 
the  carcasses  of  animals — of  all  the 
minor  adjuncts  of  skin,  hair,  hoofs, 
and  corporeal  details ;  but  he  endues 
them  with  too  much  of  soul,  and  too 
high  an  order  of  intelligence — all  ex- 
cepting his  dogs,  to  whom  he  does  but 
even-handed  justice.  Rosa  Bonheur 
paints  the  very  "  ego"  of  her  animals, 
if  animals  have  any  "  ego,"  and  does 
not  spend  too  much  time  over  the 
subordinate  parts.  Every  one  of  those 
horses  in  the  "  Horse-Fair  "  has  its 
own  character,  as  it  has  its  own  face 
and  figure;  but  they  are  all  neither 
more  nor  less  than  horses.  She  has  a 
perfect  sympathy  with  the  ox  that 
treadeth  out  the  corn,  and  apparently 
enters  into  the  whole  of  the  narrow 
circle  of  his  pleasures  and  pains,  the 
greatest  of  the  former  of  which  is 
probably  cud-chewing,  and  the  greatest 
of  the  latter,  too  sharp  a  prick  of  the 
goad.  We  shall  never  forget  her 
calves  in  the  London  French  exhibi- 
tion, with  the  head  of  one  of  them 
turned  round  in  the  stall,  and  its  im- 
mature, parboiled,  watery,  stolid  eye. 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


609 


In  the  Paris  Exhibition  she  is  repre- 
sented by  a  picture  entitled  "La 
Fenaison-Auvergne."  The  load  of  hay 
is  the  only  part  of  it  not  well  done, 
its  perspective  being  too  flat,  and  its 
colour  too  monotonous;  but  that  is  a 
part  of  the  picture  which  we  should 
be  least  disposed  to  criticise  severely. 
The  oxen  are  true  to  the  life;  the 
roughness  of  their  coats  is  far  better 
represented  than  if  each  hair  were 
photographically  drawn  by  itself,  and 
their  sleepy  eyes  and  slobbering 
mouths  are  nature  itself.  She  is 
originating  a  school  in  French  art, 
which  has  long  been  a  desideratum — 
a  school  which  shall  boldly  discard  all 
models  but  those  furnished  by  the 
fields  of  its  native  country.  We  are 
glad  to  see  the  evidences  of  the  rise  of 
such  a  school  in  the  hunting- pieces 
and  dogs'  heads  of  Louis  Godefroy 
Jadin.  He  has  been  conscientiously 
painting  portraits  of  the  Emperor's 
stag-hounds,  and  throwing  them  to- 
gether in  hunting-groups  under  deep- 
toned  conventional  skies,  which,  though 
out  of  place  in  landscape -painting, 
are  just  what  is  wanted  with  such 
subjects.  They  are  something  like 
the  skies  of  Titian,  and  those  that 
Etty  painted  behind  his  brilliant 
flesh-tints. 

The  principal  historical  paintings  of 
the  French  school  are  so  well  known 
to  us  that  a  look  at  them  in  passing  is 
enough.  There  is  a  splendid  sameness 
running  through  them  all,  and  some 
fresh  element  is  awanting — what,  it  is 
hard  to  say.  Perhaps  it  is  a  some- 
what more  conscientious  study  of 
natural  forms,  such  as  that  carried  to 
excess  by  our  own  pre-Raphaelites.  If 
the  historical  painters  would  give 
more  time  to  genre  studies,  and  less  to 
history,  in  which  imagination  must 
furnish  the  chief  part  of  the  treat- 
ment, they  would  do  greater  things. 
As  it  is,  they  repeat  themselves  like 
an  extempore  preacher.  We  are 
happy  to  see  more  attention  paid  to 
landscape  than  was  formerly  the  case 
among  the  French  artists.  The  great 
superiority  that  the  English  have 
gained,  and  still  possess,  in  this  depart- 
ment, arises  perhaps  from  a  very 
simple  cause — the  rural  tastes  of  the 
English  nation.  The  English  artist 
has  his  atelier  in  London,  but  he  seeks 
his  subjects  on  the  mountain  and  the 


moor,  by  brook  and  glen,  in  field  and 
in  park.  In  fact  he  has  an  "al  fresco" 
workshop  as  well  as  a  town  one,  for 
there  are  few  of  our  eminent  landscape- 
painters  who  do  not  finish  many  of  their 
pictures  in  the  open  air.  Many  a  tired 
pedestrian  has  probably  found,  to  his 
cost,  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  accom- 
modation— in  the  Snowdon  district  of 
North  Wales,  for  instance — during  the 
summer ;  all  the  rooms  in  the  inns 
and  in  the  cottages  retained  by  them 
being  engaged  by  artists,  and  only 
those  who  have  put  up  for  some  time 
with  the  inferior  comforts  of  the  cot- 
tage being  allowed  to  be  promoted  to 
the  inn  in  fair  rotation ;  or,  as  the 
Parisians  would  say,  when  their  part 
of  the  "  queue  "  arrives  there.  Many 
of  our  best  men  have  sporting  tastes 
as  well,  which  assist  them  in  the 
treatment  of  their  subjects,  and  in 
their  knowledge  of  nature,  besides 
being  an  inducement  to  inhabit  the 
country  for  a  prolonged  period.  One 
of  our  most  popular  R.  A.'s  is  as  fa- 
mous for  his  fly-fishing  as  for  his 
painting.  Some  work  all  the  year 
round  in  their  own  cottages  in  some 
wild  place,  and  only  send  their  pic- 
tures to  town.  The  French  cannot 
live  in  this  manner.  They  travel  to 
sketch,  but  not  to  study.  Their  homes 
are  in  cities ;  and  as  cities  like  Paris 
or  Rome  furnish  the  greatest  abun- 
dance of  living  models,  they  chiefly 
devote  themselves  to  historical  paint- 
ing. Even  in  the  most  interesting 
kind  of  genre  pictures,  those  display- 
ing the  habits  and  costumes  of  rural 
places,  they  are  surpassed  by  the 
English.  Those  who  do  paint  land- 
scape seem  chiefly  to  finish  them  in 
the  studio,  and  their  pictures  bear  the 
impress  of  other  masters.  Neverthe- 
less there  are  bright  exceptions.  We 
may  mention  Theodore  Gudin  as  one 
of  them.  Though  he  seems  to  have 
had  Stanfield  and  Turner  in  his  eye, 
he  shows  great  originality  of  concep- 
tion and  pains-taking  observation  of 
nature.  He  chiefly  excels  in  sea- 
pieces.  Here  is  one  at  Marseilles, 
"  Le  Port  des  Catalans,"  interesting 
from  association  with  Dumas's  Monte 
Christo.  The  burning  of  the  Kent 
East  Indiaman  is  a  picture  which 
brings  to  mind  Turner's  wreck  of  the 
Minotaur.  The  horror  of  the  scene  is 
subordinate,  as  it  should  be,  to  its 


610 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


[Nor. 


awfulness,  and  human  heroism  shines 
brightly  forth  in  the  remorseless  grasp 
of  that  implacable  power  of  nature — 
the  raging  ocean.  He  has  travelled 
far  to  seek  the  sea.  Here  he  paints 
it  slumbering  in  treacherous  innocence 
at  Constantinople,  imprisoned  by  the 
beautiful  banks  and  draped  by  the 
cypress-woods  of  the  Golden  Horn ; 
there  he  paints  it,  in  its  naked 
sublimity,  alive  and  rollicking  on 
the  north  coast  of  Scotland,  beat- 
ing vindictively  on  rocks  which  are 
covered  with  a  shivering  crowd  of 
wrecked  fishermen,  and  strewn  with 
the  remnants  of  their  shattered  boats. 
Here  is  a  moon-rise  on  the  coast  of 
Aberdeen,  admirably  painted ;  here 
a  view  of  the  ocean  at  Peterness, 
taken  from  near  Lord  Aberdeen's  cot- 
tage. Here  again,  not  satisfied  with 
the  greater  light  of  day  and  the  lesser 
lights  of  night,  he  paints  Aurora  Bo- 
realis,  which  is  of  both  or  neither, 
and  fixes  on  the  canvass  its  transient 
and  spectral  flashes.  Perhaps  the 
most  sublimely  imagined  of  all  these 
pictures  is  one  simply  entitled  "La 
Mer,"  which  is  all  sea  and  sky,  furi- 
ous waves  and  driving  clouds,  and  we 
feel  it  as  a  relief  that  there  is  no  ob- 
ject on  which  they  may  vent  their 
violence.  But  he  leans  to  the  com- 
mon fault  of  his  nation — the  love  of 
excitement  and  avoidance  of  tranquil- 
lity ;  and  one  of  his  pictures  is  decid- 
edly painful,  because  it  represents 
in  the  power  of  the  elements  the 
misery  and  helplessness  of  the  brave. 
This  is  one  named  in  the  catalogue, 
"The  Syr^ne  frigate  struck  by  a 
squall  at  the  moment  of  the  embarka- 
tion of  the  wounded."  Though  we 
deprecate  its  subject,  we  cannot  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  merits  of  this  picture. 
It  is  one  great  peculiarity  of  this 
artist  that  he  displays  but  little  repe- 
tition of  himself,  and  is  as  far  as  pos- 
sible removed  from  the  praise  or  dis- 
praise of  being  mannerised.  He  does 
not  spurn  the  assistance  of  others,  but 
yet  leans  principally  on  nature.  "  Un 
soir  d'Orage,"  in  its  quiet  solemnity 
and  depth  of  colouring,  might  be 
taken  for  a  Danby.  Amongst  the 
historical  pictures  of  the  French 
school  we  noticed  one  by  Scheffer, 
"The  Vision  of  Charles  IX."  The 
half-insane,  half-wicked  king  is  sink- 
ing under  the  horrors  produced  by 


his  guilty  conscience,  embodied  in  the 
apparition  of  the  spirits  of  Coligny 
and  the  other  murdered  Huguenots, 
whose  calm  earnest  faces  are  in 
strong  contrast  to  his  own  features, 
racked  by  conflicting  passions. 

There  are  some  good  portraits 
among  the  paintings  of  the  French 
school ;  one  of  General  Ulrich  by 
Loustau  ;  another  —  an  equestrian 
figure — by  de  Dreux;  another,  call- 
ed in  the  catalogue  "  La  Reflexion 
e"tude,"  by  Matet ;  another,  of  won- 
derful power,  in  chalk,  by  Charles 
Laurent  Marechal,  "  Galileo  at  Ville- 
trin."  The  figure  is  half  reclined, 
and  the  sage  has  just  withdrawn  the 
telescope  from  his  eye,  and  is  rumin- 
ating on  what  he  has  seen.  The  face 
is  grandly  patriarchal,  and  the  whole 
composition  is  in  keeping — the  sky  at 
once  glowing  and  sombre,  and  the 
atmosphere  in  solemn  repose,  inviting 
contemplation.  This  figure  is  among 
the  drawings  in  the  upper  gallery. 
Amongst  the  quieter  landscapes  of 
the  French  school  is  one  remarkably 
good,  called  "  Crepuscule  de  Novem- 
bre,"  by  Leon  Belley.  The  painter 
has  caught  the  genius  of  the  last 
month  of  autumn,  and  admirably 
painted  its  peculiarly  tender  and  so- 
lemn sky-tints,  and  the  somewhat 
damp  and  chilly  look  of  the  ground  at 
that  time.  As  a  direct  contrast  to 
such  a  subject,  the  gallery  is  crowded 
with  battle-pieces,  some  of  the  best 
being  taken  from  the  present  war, 
but  none  of  extraordinary  merit.  A 
good  specimen  of  these  is  one  by 
Courdouan,  "  Zouaves  embarking  for 
the  Crimea ;" — the  extremely  pictur- 
esque dress  of  these  troops  being  a 
great  assistance  to  the  painter  in 
grouping  them. 

When  we  leave  the  French  pic- 
tures and  pass  on  to  those  of  other 
nations,  we  cannot  help  being  struck 
with  a  fact,  which  has  been  remark- 
ed upon  elsewhere — the  similarity  of 
all  the  Continental  schools  to  the 
French,  or  their  similarity  to  each 
other.  It  seems  as  if  there  were 
but  two  great  divisions  of  the  art 
— the  Continental  and  the  English. 
The  world  still  looks  upon  us  in  many 
things — 

"  Penitus  toto  divisos  orbe  Britannos." 

As  in  dress  and  manners,  as  in  arts 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


611 


and  sciences,  we  still  stand  alone, 
eccentric  and  isolated.  Some  of  our 
eccentricities  are  good,  others  bad : 
amongst  the  good  ones  are  undoubt- 
edly to  be  classed  our  artistic  origi- 
nalities. The  school,  to  all  appear- 
ance, most  resembling  the  French  is 
the  Belgian;  and  it  would  be  difficult, 
without  reference  to  the  catalogue,  to 
distinguish  the  pictures  of  this  school 
from  those  of  the  French  artists.  The 
difference,  if  any,  is  to  be  sought  in 
the  influence  still  exercised  by  Rubens. 
Charles  Verlat  of  Antwerp  exhibits  a 
spirited  picture  of  "Godfrey  of  Bou- 
illon at  the  assault  of  Jerusalem." 
This  picture  has  been  ordered  by  the 
Belgian  government,  and  is  well 
worthy  of  a  place  in  some  public  gal- 
lery. There  are  many  good  genre 
pictures,  both  serious  and  comic. 
Among  the  former  we  may  mention 
"  Le  dernier  Adieu,"  by  Degroux  ; 
among  the  latter,  "Le  premier  Cheveu 
Blanc  "  of  Cockelaere.  In  landscape 
we  are  arrested  by  Roffiaen's  "Recol- 
lection of  the  Lake  of  the  Four  Can- 
tons," in  which  his  imagination  gives 
the  leading  features  of  that  singularly 
beautiful  scenery.  The  distance  is 
admirably  done ;  the  aerial  perspective, 
a  somewhat  difficult  matter  in  that 
subject,  being  perfectly  preserved. 
Very  good,  also,  is  Van  Schendel's 
"View  of  Rotterdam,  with  a  moon- 
light effect."  Holland  is  not  equal  to 
Belgium,  but  exhibits  some  good  low- 
art  studies.  Spain  gives  us  more 
pleasure,  although  her  contributions 
are  insignificant  in  point  of  number. 
Her  most  prolific  artist  is  Federico 
Madrazo.  He  exhibits  fourteen  por- 
traits, and  one  religious  picture,  well 
worth  the  fourteen.  Its  name  is  "The 
Holy  Women  at  the  Sepulchre,"  and 
its  great  beauty  is  the  "  aureole  "  or 
glory,  which  is  a  soft  supernatural 
light  of  its  own  kind,  and  could  not, 
like  most  of  those  represented,  have 
proceeded  from  earthly  illumination. 
It  is,  so  to  speak,  a  holy  phosphor- 
escence. 

The  portraits  are,  some  of  them, 
very  good,  and  fortunately  some  of 
the  ladies  have  consented  to  sit  to  the 
painter  in  national  costume.  The 
king,  Don  Francisco  d'Assis,  is  there, 
in  the  costume  of  the  Order  of  the 
Golden  Fleece;  and  very  stupid  and 
sheepish  he  looks.  The  queen's  por- 


trait had  not  arrived  when  we  looked 
for  it ;  probably  when  she  comes,  the 
king  will  go,  as  she  is  said  to  be 
rather  ashamed  of  being  seen  in  his 
company.  Close  to  Spain,  in  the 
catalogue,  stand  the  "  Pontifical 
States ;  "  but  the  productions,  both 
in  painting  and  sculpture,  classed 
under  this  head,  ought  to  have  been 
attributed  to  the  nations  in  which  the 
artists  were  born.  We  only  find, 
among  the  list,  four  or  five  artists 
born  in  the  Roman  States.  One 
Englishman,  Leighton,  might  be  sup- 
posed by  the  uninitiated  to  be  an 
Italian,  as  he  is  described  in  the  list 
as  "ne  a  Scarbro."  Our  attention 
was  arrested  by  his  one  picture,  the 
subject  of  which  is  well  chosen,  and 
poetically  treated,  "The  Reconcilia- 
tion of  the  Montagues  and  Capulets 
over  the  Corpses  of  their  Children." 
With  regard  to  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Two  Sicilies,  the  state  of  the  case  is 
even  worse  than  with  regard  to  the 
Pontifical  States.  Of  the  three  artists 
exhibiting  pictures,  there  is  not  one 
whose  address  is  not  at  Paris.  The 
explanation  is  easy.  That  enlighten- 
ed monarch,  King  Bomba,  has  deter- 
mined to  send  the  French  Exhibition, 
as  he  did  the  English,  to  Coventry, 
though  we  cannot  see  what  possible 
advantage  can  accrue  to  him  from  his 
dog-in-the-manger  policy.  The  ex- 
hibition of  the  United  States,  where 
no  such  prohibition  could  have  exist- 
ed, is  also  very  meagre,  and  the  ex- 
hibiting artists  are  mostly  residents 
in  Paris.  It  seems  as  if  the  two  po- 
litical extremes  were  equally  fatal  to 
the  growth  of  the  fine  arts.  Never- 
theless, the  Americans  have  sent  some 
interesting  landscapes  of  the  scenery 
of  their  own  country;  and  as  few  of  us 
have  opportunities  of  travelling  thi- 
ther, we  wish  we  had  more  of  them. 
George  Healy,  of  Boston,  exhibits  a 
long  list  of  portraits,  some  of  them 
interesting,  as  being  those  of  persons 
of  whom  the  world  has  heard  and 
read  much.  However,  we  have  small 
cause  to  linger  among  them,  and  are 
glad  enough  to  get  away  amongst  our 
old  friends  of  the  British  school,  seen 
with  a  clean  face  under  the  brighter 
sun  of  Paris.  Happy  as  we  were  to 
see  them  all  again,  and  in  juxtaposi- 
tion, it  would  be  invidious  to  mention 
names,  and  superfluous  to  descant  on 


612 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


[Nov. 


their  merits.  To  the  French  and 
other  Continental  spectators  they  must 
possess  an  interest  which  we  are 
hardly  in  a  position  to  appreciate. 
To  most  of  them,  the  pictures  with 
which  we  are  most  familiar,  such  as 
the  u  Evening  Gun"  of  Danby,  and 
the  "  Sanctuary"  of  Landseer,  are 
entirely  new,  and  our  friends  on  the 
Continent  have  now  an  advantage 
which  we  have  never  before  possessed, 
that  of  being  able  to  form  a  collective 
impression  of  the  British  school,  from 
seeing  so  many  of  its  best  pictures  at 
once.  The  perfection  to  which  water- 
colour  has  been  carried  by  the  English 
masters  will  doubtless  astonish  the 
natives  of  Paris,  and  give  a  new  im- 
pulse to  this  department  of  art  over 
the  whole  of  Europe.  I  could  never 
see  why  this  department  should  be 
conventionally  inferior  to  oil-paint- 
ing. Oil-painting  appears  now  only  to 
have  the  advantage  in  size,  and  yet 
water-colour  paintings  are  commonly, 
as  if  in  disparagement,  only  desig- 
nated by  the  name  of  drawings.  The 
English  painters  have  one  great  merit, 
which,  as  it  is  perfectly  accessible  to 
all,  the  Continental  painters  would  do 
well  to  imitate — that  of  nationality ; 
all  the  other  schools  are  too  Euro- 
pean or  cosmopolitan.  If  the  artists 
of  every  nation  were  chiefly  to  con- 
fine themselves  to  painting  the  land- 
scapes and  costumes  of  their  own 
country,  and  their  productions  were 
to  be  periodically  sent  to  a  European 
exhibition,  a  display  of  art  would  be 
the  result,  the  interest  and  variety  of 
which  it  would  be  impossible  too 
highly  to  estimate.  But  artists  seem 
rather  in  the  habit  of  going  to  seek 
their  subjects  abroad.  We  miss 
among  the  pictures  of  the  German 
school  the  distinctive  scenery  of  Ger- 
many. Leu  goes  to  Norway  and 
paints  the  illimitable  horizon  of 
44  fields"  and  "fiords"  very  admir- 
ably; but  does  Scandinavia  produce 
no  artists  who  could  do  this,  while 
he  is  busied  with  the  rich  subjects  of 
the  Rhine  and  the  Moselle?  As  for 
the  Swiss  artists,  they  appear  chiefly, 
like  the  Pope's  Swiss  guards,  to  be  at 
home  in  Italy ;  and  though  Italy  is 
more  conventionally  picturesque  even 
than  the  Alps,  and  its  subjects  are 
easier,  surely  that  mountain  subli- 
mity which  impresses  itself  so  strongly 


on  the  mind  of  the  most  commonplace 
beholder,  might  be  most  adequately 
portrayed  by  those  who  breathe  and 
live  in  the  midst  of  it.  The  old  pro- 
verb, "  Omne  ignotum  pro  magnifico," 
holds  good  here,  and  artists  of  merit 
are  wasting  their  time  and  money  in 
travelling  to  get  studies  which  present 
themselves  in  rich  abundance  at  their 
own  doors.  In  their  attachment  to 
scenes  of  home-interest,  and  in  suc- 
cess in  painting  home  landscape,  the 
British  artists  stand  almost  alone ; 
they  have  most  excuse  for  travelling, 
in  the  dearth  of  genre  studies,  as 
peasant  costume,  except  in  the  wilder 
provinces,  has  almost  entirely  disap- 
peared from  the  British  Isles.  I  would 
not  have  the  artist  soil-bound,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  limit 
his  genius ;  but  with  reference  to  the 
interest  of  a  world- wide  collection,  it 
would  certainly  have  been  better  had 
such  subjects  chiefly  been  selected  for 
exhibition  which  showed  the  cos- 
tumes, customs,  and  scenery  of  the 
native  countries  of  the  respective 
artists.  I  would  scarcely  apply  this 
remark  to  sculpture.  The  depart- 
ment of  the  statuary  art  is  narrower, 
more  classical,  being  confined,  or 
nearly  so,  to  the  representation  of 
abstract  humanity.  In  this  depart- 
ment we  must  look  upon  all  artists 
as  of  one  family,  working  in  the  same 
track,  and  unable,  without  running 
into  barbarisms,  to  deviate  much 
from  the  perfect  models  of  ancient 
Greek  antiquity.  Thorwaldsen  was 
admirable,  because  he  was  so  entirely 
and  thoroughly  Greek ;  Canova  less 
so,  because  he  was  under  the  domin- 
ion of  a  conventional  sameness  and 
stiffness  foreign  to  the  Athenians. 
In  the  present  Exhibition  the  plaid  of 
the  "Highland  Mary"  of  Burns  by 
Spence  appears  a  slight  anachronism, 
although  the  statue  is  beautiful.  On 
the  whole,  the  statuary  collection  of 
all  nations — that  of  the  British  de- 
partment chiefly  consisting,  like  the 
paintings,  of  old  acquaintances — pre- 
serves its  just  proportion  to  the  pic- 
tures. In  this,  however,  as  said 
before,  the  Austrian  injustice  becomes 
flagrantly  apparent.  If  political  ne- 
cessities justify  the  maintenance  of 
the  present  bounds  of  nations,  it  is 
surely  an  ingratitude  in  Western 
Europe  to  consider  Italy  as  anything 


1855.] 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


613 


but  a  living  and  united  nation  in 
respect  of  the  arts.  The  sculptors  of 
Northern  Italy  are  maintaining  the 
high  position  which  they  assumed  at 
our  own  Exhibition.  Vienna  is  doing 
respectably,  but,  like  the  daw  with 
borrowed  plumes,  is  in  danger  of  los- 
ing her  own  honours  by  assuming 
those  which  do  not  of  right  belong  to 
her.  The  brightest  of  these  plumes 
are  stolen  from  Milan.  Germany  has 
a  character  of  her  own  in  the  plastic 
as  well  as  the  pictorial  art,  which 
she  would  do  well  to  develop.  This 
character  is  seen  in  Kiss  of  Berlin's 
colossal  statues.  It  is  romantic, 
with  a  dash  of  the  grotesque,  and  the 
amplitude  of  Michael  Angel  o  is  fused 
into  it.  We  are  disappointed  in  not 
seeing  more  statues  by  the  artists  of 
Denmark.  We  fear  that  Thorwald- 
sen's  extraordinary  merits  must  have 
dispirited  his  countrymen,  instead  of 
encouraging  them  to  follow  his  glori- 
ous path. 

As  for  France,  she  has  returned 
from  the  meretricious  extravagance 
of  the  sculpture  of  the  Regency  into 
the  severe  elegance  of  the  classic  mas- 
ters, chastened  and  penitent,  under 
the  bright  examples  of  Bosio  and 
Pradier.  Nevertheless,  her  boyish 
exuberance  of  spirits  is  ever  and  anon 
breaking  forth.  With  regard  to  the 
special  character  of  the  Exhibition, 
the  collection  of  statuary,  setting  apart 
the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  works,  ap- 
pears only  of  subordinate  interest. 
This  province  of  the  Fine  Arts  gives 
no  scope  for  nationality,  and  the  in- 
dividual artists  run  a  race  with  each 
other,  unembarrassed  by  the  duty  of 
illustrating  a  national  school.  But 
this  very  freedom,  or  restriction,  as  it 
may  be  considered,  gives  to  a  cosmo- 
politan collection  of  sculpture  a  minor 
interest,  as  compared  with  one  of 
other  objects,  in  which  national  va- 
riety is  not  only  a  merit,  but  indis- 
pensable to  the  object  in  view.  I 
should  like  to  see,  as  I  said,  a  good 
exhibition  at  some  central  place,  such 
as  Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  limited  to 
landscape  and  costume,  and  admitting 
no  pictures  but  those  illustrative  of 
the  countries  which  produce  the  art- 
ists. The  taste  of  the  world  would 
be  greatly  improved  by  such  an  ex- 
hibition. And  it  should  be  required 
that  fair  specimens  should  be  sent  of 


the  bad  taste  as  well  as  the  good  of 
each  country,  that  faults  might  be 
corrected,  if  necessary,  by  ridicule. 
Chambers  of  horrors  should  be  admis- 
sible. How  much  good,  for  instance, 
would  it  do  our  countrymen  to  see 
their  tasteless  towns,  plate- glass  shop- 
windows  and  all,  contrasted  with  the 
pretty  house-rows  of  Pisa  or  Bologna, 
and  the  grand  gable  architecture  of 
the  middle  ages  at  home.  And  por- 
traits of  model  Englishmen  might  be 
introduced,  in  hopes  of  some  change 
for  the  better  taking  place  in  a  cos- 
tume which,  however  commodious,  is 
far  from  elegant,  and  a  fashion  of  cut- 
ting the  beard  which  destroys  all  the 
manly  dignity  of  the  face.  These 
outward  things  may  appear  trifles, 
but  they  have  to  do  with  the  artistic 
or  inartistic  character  of  a  nation. 
Our  countrymen  must  seem  to  foreign- 
ers to  be  great  admirers  of  their  own 
faces,  as  they  set  their  ruddy  breadth 
in  a  frame  of  red  or  golden  whiskers, 
as  stiff  and  formal  as  a  picture-frame. 
Why  must  this  tasteless  fashion  be 
an  heirloom  for  ever  ?  The  favoris  a 
lacotelette  are  a  favourite  subject  of 
joke  with  the  French.  So  with  many 
other  minor  matters.  A  country  pos- 
sessing the  most  glorious  variety  of 
natural  features  of  almost  any  in  the 
world,  and  building  upon  this  founda- 
tion an  unrivalled  school  of  landscape- 
painting,  such  as  we  dare  to  say  the 
old  masters  of  Italy  have  never  sur- 
passed ;  possessing,  moreover,  an  abun- 
dance of  architectural  models ;  is  in- 
habited by  a  race  of  people  of  Egyp- 
tian rigidity  in  their  customs,  cos- 
tumes, and  everyday  life,  who  have 
all  to  gain  in  this  respect  from  con- 
tact with  the  people  of  the  Continent. 
It  was  not  always  so ;  it  has  only  been 
so  since  the  working  of  the  puritanical 
and  commercial  leaven.  Thankful  we 
ought  to  be  that  this  social  blight,  the 
vine-disease  of  our  institutions,  has 
left  our  mountains  and  rivers,  and  ex- 
quisite rural  scenery,  in  great  part 
unscathed.  Whatever  man  could  do 
to  spoil  nature  he  has  done  with  us  ; 
but  nature  is  happily  eternal,  and  bad 
taste  is  perishable.  There  is  a  limit 
even  to  the  mischief  of  formal  planta- 
tions, ugly  buildings,  intrusive  facto- 
ries, and  model  farms.  The  artist 
may  yet  escape  them  all  in  the  glo- 
rious Highlands,  the  sea -indented 


614 


Paris  and  tlie  Exhibition. 


[Nov; 


rocks  of  Ireland,  or  the  Arcadian 
wilds  of  North  Wales ;  and  he  does 
escape  them ;  and  here,  on  the  walls 
of  the  Palais  des  Beaux  Arts,  are  the 
glorious  evidences  of  that  son  of  na- 
ture having  burst  the  chains  of  a 
levelling,  yet  tyrannical,  a  formal, 
yet  barbarous  civilisation.  Let  us 
live  and  learn — and,  learning,  let  us 
teach. 

Let  the  inhabitants  of  countries 
where  men  live  more  easily,  come  to 
the  British  artist  and  learn  to  paint 
from  nature.  Interested,  but  bewilder- 
ed and  fatigued,  we  bid  farewell  to  the 
Paris  Exhibition.  The  length  and 
breadth  of  the  spaces  to  be  traversed 
in  thebuildings  makes  walking  through 
them  no  light  task  ;  and  in  parts  there 
is  an  oppressive  lack  of  oxygen — or, 
to  speak  more  correctly,  an  oppressive 
abundance  of  the  carbonic  acid  which 
human  lungs  elaborate  :  the  finishing 
stroke  is  given  by  a  walk  through 
those  galleries  in  the  Palais  des  Beaux 
Arts  which  are  chiefly  devoted  to 
drawings.  We  are  glad  to  cross  the 
Champs  Elysees,  and  devote  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  to  the  exhibition  of 
flowers  and  fruits  in  the  garden  on 
the  opposite  side.  The  flower-show 
is  good,  considering  the  time  of  the 
year;  and  the  fruit-show,  as  one  would 
expect,  still  better.  Amongst  the  ob- 
jects coming  under  the  latter  head  are 
some  melons  and  gourds  that  might 
have  furnished  a  dessert  to  the  king 
of  Brobdignag.  We  look  at  the  front 
of  the  Exhibition  building  as  we  come 
out.  It  is  a  handsome  piece  of  archi- 
tecture, and  ornaments  its  site.  It 
has  often  been  said  that  the  coup  d'ceil 
of  the  interior  was  inferior  to  that  of 
the  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park.  But 
this  seems  a  necessity  of  the  whole 
scheme.  It  might  have  equalled  or 
surpassed  it,  had  an  enormous  palace 
of  glass  been  erected.  But  then  such 
a  monster  building  could  only  have 
answered  a  temporary  purpose,  and, 
when  the  first  excitement  was  over, 
its  contents  would  not  have  filled  it. 
As  a  permanent  stone-building  was 
determined  on,  which  should  answer 
a  permanent  purpose,  it  was  necessary 
to  build  the  additional  structures  for 
the  temporary  purpose,  and  to  sacri- 
fice unity  of  design.  Looking  at  it  in 
this  point  of  view,  we  cannot  consider 
the  Paris  Exhibition  as  in  any  respect 


a  failure  by  the  side  of  our  own ;  and 
it  will  leave  on  its  site  a  handsome 
monument,  which  may  be  devoted  to 
any  national  purpose.  England  has 
profited  by  the  Exhibition  of  1851  in 
greatly  improving  the  designs  of  her 
manufactures ;  France  has  profited  by 
an  immense  progress  in  industrial  pro- 
duction. It  must  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration, that  this  success  of  France 
has  been  achieved  among  the  distrac- 
tions of  an  engrossing  war,  while  that 
of  England  was  effected  in  a  period 
of  singular  and  profound  tranquillity, 
when  the  embers  of  the  revolutionary 
fires  had  been  extinguished,  and  the 
great  tempest  that  has  since  over- 
shadowed Europe  was  as  yet  a  small 
cloud,  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand, 
on  the  distant  horizon.  The  whole 
manner  in  which  it  has  passed  off 
must  be  a  subject  of  congratulation  to 
all  wellwishers  of  both  Great  Britain 
and  France.  It  has  given  rise  to  that 
brilliant  visit  of  the  Queen  of  England 
to  Paris,  which  will  be  remembered, 
with  the  fall  of  Sebastopol,  as  one 
of  the  two  great  historical  events  of 
1855,  and  throw  a  lustre  of  a  new 
kind  on  the  new  empire  to  which  the 
old  one  was  a  stranger.  Happy  I  was 
to  meet  everywhere  in  Paris,  both 
high  and  low,  with  the  symptoms  of  a 
hearty  international  feeling.  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that,  at  any  time  in  the 
modern  history  of  France,  a  monarch 
of  Great  Britain  would  have  been 
well  received;  but  then  it  would  have 
been  for  the  sake  of  the  "  spectacle" 
more  than  for  the  sake  of  the  country 
or  the  person.  Triumphal  arches, 
a  long  array  of  soldiers,  and  a  crowd- 
ing and  shouting  populace,  constitute 
a  grand  "  spectacle,"  and  the  recep- 
tion of  a  great  personage  may  be 
tumultuously  brilliant  even  when  it 
is  far  from  hearty.  The  Parisian 
populace  has  a  weakness  for  shows, 
but  the  populace  in  all  countries  has 
somewhat  of  the  same  character.  The 
populace  of  our  own  country  would 
have  cheered  Napoleon  the  First  had 
he  made  his  entry  into  London  in  a 
sufficiently  imposing  manner ;  they 
did  cheer  the  Emperor  Nicholas  at 
Ascot,  and  no  doubt  voted  him 
"  a  jolly  good  fellow"  for  giving 
the  Emperor's  cup, — a  present  which, 
by  the  way,  he  was  handsome  enough 
to  offer  in  spite  of  the  war,  but 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


1855.] 

which  the  Jockey  Club,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  felt  obliged  to  refuse. 
No  one  was  more  lionised  than  Abd  el 
Kader  when  he  first  came  to  Paris, 
but  then  it  certainly  may  be  said 
that  his  presence  there  was  a  sign  of 
French  prowess.  Again,  a  queen  of 
England  would  always  have  been 
well  received,  even  when  England 
was  unpopular,  as  the  French  people 
are  generous  and  chivalrous,  and 
would  have  appreciated  the  confi- 
dence placed  in  them  by  a  woman. 
But  the  welcome  which  Paris  gave 
to  our  excellent  Queen  evidently 
came  from  the  hearts  of  her  people. 
The  feeling  appeared  more  enthu- 
siastic and  demonstrative  in  propor- 
tion as  the  source  from  which  it 
proceeded  was  lower  in  the  social 
scale.  I  may  mention,  as  an  indica- 
tion of  this  fact,  the  applause  with 
which  one  of  the  concluding  scenes  of 
an  historical  drama,  called  "1'Histoire 
de  Paris,"  was  received  at  the  theatre 
of  the  Porte  St  Martin,  which  is  a 
favourite  resort  of  the  Parisian  bour- 
geoisie. Two  young  men  appear  on 
the  stage  in  their  shirt- sleeves,  on 
the  point  of  fighting  a  deadly  duel 
with  small  swords.  They  are  sup- 
posed to  typify  the  two  nations  so 
long  enemies.  By  the  discovery  that 
the  links  of  a  broken  gold  chain 
fitted  to  each  other,  they  find  out 
that  they  are  brothers,  and  rush  into 
each  other's  arms.  We  may  con- 
clude that  the  pulse  of  a  higher  class 
had  been  felt  before  the  managers 
of  the  Opera  Comique  gave  orders 
for  the  painting  of  a  new  drop-scene, 
one  oval  of  which  represented  the 
visit  of  the  Emperor  to  Windsor 
Castle,  and  the  other  the  entrance 
of  the  Queen  into  Paris.  As  the 
drop-scene  is  intended  to  be  perma- 
nent, it  must  be  supposed  that  it 
was  taken  for  granted  that  the  feel- 
ing it  was  meant  to  flatter  would  be 
permanent  likewise.  In  all  the  print- 
shops,  even  in  remote  parts  of  the 
town,  the  English  soldiers  are  repre- 
sented as  bearing  a  prominent  part 
in  the  Crimean  actions,  and  the 
heroism  of  Inkermann  and  Balaklava 
has  been  abundantly  celebrated.  Nor, 
chilling  as  it  may  be  to  our  national 
vanity,  must  it  be  supposed  to  have 
weakened  the  union,  that  the  English 
army  has  missed  the  first  prize  in  the 


615 


Sebastopol  campaign.  The  self-love 
of  France,  thrown  off  its  balance  by 
the  disastrous  results  of  the  last 
great  European  war,  has  thoroughly 
recovered  its  equilibrium  and  solidity 
by  her  having  gained  the  earliest 
laurels  at  the  taking  of  Sebastopol. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  event, 
which  has  been  to  France  a  singu- 
larly unchequered  triumph,  is  mixed 
up  with  a  degree  of  national  dis- 
appointment to  England.  Our  leading 
popular  journals  are  ready  enough 
to  throw  the  blame  of  our  short- 
comings on  the  generals  and  on  those 
who  conduct  the  war,  but  the  real 
fault  lies  with  the  English  people. 
We  have  not  shown,  as  a  people, 
a  military  spirit  commensurate  with 
the  resources,  importance,  and  mag- 
nitude of  our  country.  We  have 
starved  and  crimped  our  army,  and 
our  army  has  broken  down  not  in 
spirit  but  in  strength,  and  stumbles  in 
the  da}-  of  need.  We  have  suffered 
the  heroes  of  Alma  and  Inkermann  to 
perish  from  want  of  the  common 
necessaries  of  life ;  and  this,  had  our 
reserves  been  exhaustless,  would 
have  branded  us  with  eternal  dis- 
grace. But  our  weakness  principally 
lies  in  the  fact,  that  we  have  no 
reserves  to  fall  back  upon.  Though 
a  nation  of  shopkeepers,  we  put  our 
best  goods  in  the  window ;  and  when 
they  are  used  up,  there  are  -no 
more  in  the  stores  to  fill  their  places. 
Our  poor  Whig  ministers,  in  spite  of 
all  that  is  said  against  them,  are 
probably  doing  the  best  that  their 
limited  intelligence  allows.  Even 
now,  when  we  have  received  from 
success  a  warning  as  loud  as  any 
that  national  misfortune  could  have 
given  us,  there  is  no  popular  cry  for 
an  organisation  of  the  army  adequate 
to  the  population,  character,  and 
resources  of  the  country.  The  militia 
in  time  of  war,  instead  of  being  made 
up  of  stray  recruits,  attracted  by 
"  a  roving  disposition, "  and  the 
charms  of  bounty  -  money,  which 
quickly  dissolves  into  beer,  ought  to 
be  composed  of  the  whole  male  popu- 
lation of  the  country,  under  certain 
limitations ;  and  serving  in  it,  if  not 
seen  by  all  in  the  light  of  a  duty, 
ought  to  be  made  a  matter  of  com- 
pulsion. If  this  were  the  state  of 
the  case,  we  should  have  volunteers 


616 


Paris  and  the  Exhibition. 


for  the  line  sufficient,  without  a  con- 
scription, to  keep  up  at  all  times  a 
standing  array  worthy  to  take  the 
field  on  equal  terms  with  that  of 
France.  Some  of  us  are  quite  satis- 
fied to  appropriate  the  successes  of 
the  French,  and  like  a  lazy  horse 
in  a  pair  going  up-hill,  to  shirk  our 
own  share  of  the  work,  and  throw 
it  upon  the  forward  and  high-spirited 
yoke-fellow.  And  yet  the  few  men  we 
had  in  this  last  affair  covered  them- 
selves with  glory.  "Would  there  had 
been  more  of  them  !  The  security  of 
our  shores — an  advantage,  doubtless, 
in  some  respects— giveslittle  hope  that 
this  state  of  things  will,  at  least 
for  the  present,  be  changed  for  a 
better.  We  spend  our  energies  in 
talking,  and  writing  leading- articles, 
and  letters  from  correspondents,  and 
speechifying  at  public  dinners.  Never 
was  a  war  more  talked  about, 
written  about,  than  the  present. 
Our  print-shops  and  map-shops  are 
full  of  delineations  of  places  to  be 
besieged,  in  every  respect  most  ac- 
curate. We  get  them  up,  and  leave 
them  alone.  We  know  the  Crimea, 
and  Cronstadt,  and  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic  and  Black  Seas,  better  than  we 
know  the  shape  of  Cornwall.  We 
are  angry  and  impatient  with  Gov- 
ernment if  we  do  not  get  a  new 
telegraphic  despatch  every  day.  As 
for  financial  matters — in  everything 
else  an  economical,  nation — in  war 
we  are  deplorably  extravagant.  We 
make  our  money  like  horses,  and 
spend  it  like  asses.  But  in  spite  of 
all  this,  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear, 
there  exists  in  the  nation  an  in- 
domitable martial  spirit,  and  no  cir- 
cumstance bears  higher  testimony  to 
the  valour  of  our  countrymen  than 
this,  that  both  officers  and  men  come 
forward  to  be  sent  on  a  distant  service, 
where  heroism  is  sacrificed  to  muddle 
and  mismanagement,  and  devotion 
will  gain  little  reward  but  the  self- 
applause  of  a  good  conscience.  Our 
navy  still  holds  its  supremacy ;  but  it 
has  not  been  allowed  to  display  its 
full  strength,  partly  because  the  enemy 
has  not  accepted  its  challenge,  partly 
because  we  have  not  chosen  to  modify 
it  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
war:  but  our  army,  in  spite  of  our 
wonderful  sacrifices,  must  be  for  some 
time  to  come,  even  under  the  best  ma- 


[Nov. 

nagement,  secondary  and  subsidiary 
to  that  of  France  ;  and  for  this  simple 
reason,  that  no  excellence  of  quality 
can  make  up  for  its  deficiency  in 
quantity.  Perhaps  it  is  well  that 
we  should  be  thus  humbled.  We 
have  been  too  proud ;  and  we  ought 
to  be  thankful  that  our  humiliation 
has  come  from  our  friends  and  not 
from  our  enemies,  and  has  not  taken 
the  shape  of  national  disaster.  If  any- 
thing additional  was  wanted  to  bind 
our  hearts  to  the  French  nation,  it  is 
found  in  the  modesty  and  generosity 
with  which  they  appreciate  our  alliance, 
and  are  ready  to  share  with  us,  on 
equal  terms,  all  the  glories  attending 
our  united  efforts  ;  for  none  will  deny 
that  we  too  have  made  great  efforts, 
however  ill-regulated  and  misdirected 
by  the  civil  authorities.  But  what- 
ever view  we  may  take  of  the 
events  of  the  present  war,  the 
French  alliance  is  a  great  fact,  which 
makes  us,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  san- 
guine for  the  future.  The  last  step  of 
international  reconciliation  was  taken 
when  our  Queen  consented  to  visit  the 
tomb  of  Napoleon  the  First.  What  a 
fine  subject  that  would  have  made  for 
Paul  de  la  Roche,  or  any  other  great 
historical  painter.  The  Queen  of 
England  stands  by  the  last  resting- 
place  of  England's  greatest  antagonist, 
and,  with  a  countenance,  shown  by 
torch-light  in  the  gloom,  not  melting 
in  unjustifiable  penitence,  but  full  of 
a  generous  admiration  and  respectful 
sympathy,  adds,  with  her  own  gentle 
hand,  one  more  immortelle  to  the  thou- 
sands that  have  been  offered  there, 
while  France  looks  on  and  applauds 
in  the  person  of  the  reigning  sovereign. 
We  do  not  much  care  for '  the  facts ; 
but  such  should  be  the  sketch  for  this 
grand  picture. 

I  must  add  a  few  words,  Irenseus, 
on  the  route  which  I  chose  for  my  late 
visit  to  Paris.  It  was  that  by  Havre 
and  Southampton.  I  chose  it  for 
change,  but  I  need  not  tell  you  that 
it  is  by  far  the  most  interesting  and 
picturesque  route.  When  I  arrived 
at  Havre,  on  my  way  out,  I  found  the 
town  greatly  changed  since  my  last 
visit  to  it  in  1840.  It  is  a  place  full  of 
life  and  activity,  and  undeniably 
amusing.  It  is  an  important  manu- 
facturing town,  a  busy  seaport,  and  a 
fashionable  bathing-place.  The  suburb 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XL 


of  Ingouville  climbs  to  the  summit  of 
the  high  cliff  which  overhangs  it,  aiid 
has  somewhat  of  an  Italian  aspect,  its 
villas  and  gardens  standing  for  the 
most  part  alone,  and  being  laid  out 
with  great  taste.  With  all  my  preju- 
dice against  manufactories  and  tall 
chimneys,  I  cannot  deny  that  the  opu- 
lence they  produce  may  be  directed 
to  civic  embellishments  which  are  a 
counterpoise  to  their  necessary  un- 
sightliness ;  and  in  a  place  of  new 
growth  like  Havre,  I  have, but  a  mo- 
dified objection  to  them.  It  is  other- 
wise with  Rouen.  I  mounted  the 
same  hill  overhanging  Rouen  which  I 
climbed  fifteen  years  ago.  The  bend- 
ing Seine,  studded  with  islands,  wore 
the  same  bright  face  as  ever.  The 
medieval  capital  of  English  France 
retained  all  its  grand  historical  asso- 
ciations, and  its  noble  churches  still 
reared  their  time-honoured  towers  in 
the  midst  of  it.  But  the  flat  country 
on  the  opposite  banks  of  the  Seine  was 
disfigured  with  numerous  factories, 
and  resembled  the  country  round 
Chesterfield  or  Wolverhampton.  This 


617 

was  to  me  positively  painful.  These 
things  have  their  places;  but  here, 
in  a  scene  of  extraordinary  natural 
beauty,  and  hallowed  with  a  thousand 
memories,  they  appeared  sadly  out  of 
place.  But  France  belongs  to  the 
French,  and  not  to  us.  If  she  will 
have  commerce  and  manufactures, 
and  develop  the  spirit  of  trade  as  part 
of  her  present  system,  we  have  the 
last  right  to  quarrel  with  her :  the 
mischief  is  done  with  our  coals.  All 
we  can  do  is  to  mend  our  own  ways  ; 
and  by  observing  the  ugliness  of  the 
mote  in  our  neighbour's  eye,  consider 
the  beam  in  our  own.  If  France  be- 
comes more  practical  and  utilitarian, 
we  must  become  more  poetical  and 
artistic,  and  thus  perhaps  we  shall  at 
last  meet  together  half  way,  and  the 
lives  of  the  nations  which  have  waged 
war  side  by  side,  will  continue  to  flow 
on  together,  without  contentions  or 
bickerings,  but  with  harmonious  emu- 
lations, exulting  and  abounding,  down 
the  fair  broad  channel  of  peace. 
Your  loving  friend, 

TLEPOLEMUS. 


THE    STORY   OF   THE    CAMPAIGN. 


CHAPTER   XXX. — THE   GENERAL   ASSAULT. 


THE  day  before  the  fire  opened,  the 
generals  of  the  two  armies  had  finally 
settled  the  duration  of  the  cannonade 
and  the  hour  of  the  assault.  The 
French  were  decided  by  the  consider- 
ation that  the  nature  of  the  ground 
would  not  allow  them  to  push  their 
approaches  on  the  Malakoff  and  the 
Little  Redan  closer  without  great  loss, 
and  the  operation  of  running  a  gallery 
beneath  the  enemy's  counterscarp,  or 
rampart,  would  take  up  eight  or  ten 
days,  which  delay,  it  was  considered, 
would  be  prejudicial  to  the  success  of 
the  assault.  The  enemy  had  begun  a 
second  line  of  works  behind  those  of  the 
Malakoff,  and,  if  permitted  to  finish 
them,  a  troublesome  obstacle  might 
still  exist  after  the  Malakoff  was  taken. 
Therefore,  on  the  fourth  day  of  the 
cannonade,  at  noon  (Sept.  8),  the  at- 
tempt was  to  be  made. 

A  strong  gale,  which  had  on  the  pre- 
vious day  blown  towards  the  enemy, 
now  changed  round  straight  in  our 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXI. 


faces.  The  smoke  drifting  and  eddy- 
ing in  thin  veils  before  the  city  and 
its  defences,  rendered  them  almost  in- 
visible. The  fine  earth  of  the  trenches, 
dried  to  the  lightness  of  sand  by  the 
sun,  was  blown  in  clouds  from  the 
parapets,  rendering  it  difficult  and 
even  painful  to  look  over  them.  The 
fire  of  the  French  on  the  left  was  as 
fierce]as  ever;  ours,  which,  though  very 
sustained,  had  not,  owing  to  the  delay 
of  ships  with  ammunition,  hitherto 
exerted  its  full  vigour,  was  increased 
to  the  utmost  from  daybreak  ;  and  the 
Mammelon,  the  batteries  before  it,  and 
the  White  Works,  all  opened,  thus 
completing  the  semicircle  of  fire  which 
enveloped  the  ramparts  of  the  city. 
The  enemy  replied  only  by  an  occa- 
sional gun. 

Shortly  before  noon,  General  Simp- 
son and  his  staff  entered  the  first  pa- 
rallel of  our  left  attack.  From  hence 
a  view  was  obtained  of  the  Malakoff, 
which,  together  with  the  curtain  and 
2s 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XI. 


618 

the  Little  Redan,  was  to  be  first  at- 
tacked ;  and  the  tricolor  hoisted  on  it, 
and  repeated  in  the  Mammelon,  where 
General  Pelissier  had  stationed  him- 
self, was  to  be  the  signal  that  the 
French  had  made  good  their  footing, 
when  a  simultaneous  attack  on  the 
Redan  and  on  the  Central  Bastion 
covering  the  town  would  compel  the 
enemy's  attention  to  those  points. 

A  short  description  of  the  works  on 
the  French  right,  comprised  between 
the  Karabelnaia  Ravine  and  the  Ra- 
vine of  Careening  Bay,  will  render 
the  details  clearer. 

The  Malakoff  hill  is  an  eminence 
towering  over  all  the  rest.  The  stone 
building  known  by  us  as  the  Round 
Tower,  which  was  of  semicircular 
•form,  had  originally  an  upper  storey, 
and  on  the  flat  roof  a  battery  was 
mounted.  In  the  first  urgency  of  de- 
fence this  tower  had  been  regarded  as 
the  citadel  of  this  part  of  the  works, 
and  the  earthen  rampart  covering  it, 
following  its  shape,  was  also  made  semi- 
circular, and  was  called  by  the  French 
and  Russians  the  Kornileff  Bastion. 
Eventually  an  entire  enclosed  work, 
in  the  form  of  an  irregular  redoubt, 
had  been  made  in  rear  of  the  tower, 
communicating  with  the  left  flank  of 
the  work  covering  it.  The  upper  part 
of  the  tower,  rendered  ruinous  in  our 
first  bombardment,  had  been  long  since 
pulled  down,  and  only  a  small  portion 
of  the  masonry  of  the  lower  storey 
appeared  over  the  ramparts. 

From  the  right  of  the  tower  a  line 
of  rampart,  known  as  the  Gervais 
Battery,  extended  to  the  Karabelnaia 
Ravine.  On  the  left,  towards  Careen- 
ing Bay,  at  500  yards  from  Malakofi^ 
was  a  smaller  eminence  crowned  with 
an  irregular  work,  known  by  the  Rus- 
sians as  Bastion  No.  2,  by  us  as  the 
Little  Redan  ;  and  a  line  of  intrench- 
ment  connected  these  two  salients, 
known  in  military  phrase  as  the  Cur- 
tain. Finally,  the  Russian  line  of 
defence  was  completed  by  a  rampart 
extending  from  the  Little  Redan  to 
the  Great  Harbour,  at  the  junction  of 
which  with  Careening  Bay  was  Bastion 
No.  1,  one  of  whose  batteries  sweeps 
the  ground  in  front  of  the  Little 
Redan. 

The  first  parallel  made  by  the 
French  in  advance  after  they  gained 
the  Mammelon,  extended  from  the 


[Nov. 


Karabelnaia  Ravine  to  that  of  Careen- 
ing Bay.  The  second,  100  yards  in 
advance  of  this,  touched  the  Careen- 
ing Ravine,  but  extended  on  the  left 
only  far  enough  to  embrace  the  works 
of  the  Malakoff;  and  from  this,  two 
lines  of  zigzag  trench  were  pushed,  the 
one  on  the  Kornileff  Bastion,  the  other 
on  the  inner  or  proper  right  face  of  the 
Little  Redan.  The  former  approach 
had  reached  within  fifteen  yards  of  the 
Malakoff  ditch,  the  latter  to  about 
thirty  yards  from  the  Little  Redan, 
where  the  ground  became  so  stony  that 
there  was  great  difficulty  in  working. 

As  a  precaution  to  deceive  the  ene- 
my, the  French  had,  the  night  before 
the  assault,  broken  out  the  commence- 
ment of  a  new  sap,  and  had  also,  in 
the  morning,  exploded  two  or  three 
mines,  which  they  were  accustomed 
to  do  to  loosen  the  earth  where  they 
intended  to  work  ;  and  the  Russians 
were  thus  induced  to  believe  that  they 
meant  to  advance  closer  before  the 
assault.  The  French  troops  were  also 
assembled  in  the  trenches  with  all 
possible  secresy  ;  moreover,  the  Rus- 
sians, knowing  we  had  always  assault- 
ed either  in  the  morning  or  evening, 
considered  themselves  safe  during  the 
middle  of  the  day  ;  and  so  completely 
unexpected  was  the  assault,  that,  at 
the  moment  it  was  given,  the  troops 
in  the  Malakoff  were  just  being  re- 
lieved. The  usual  mode  of  doing  this 
is  to  introduce  the  new  garrison  be- 
fore withdrawing  the  old  ;  but  so  hot 
was  the  fire  of  our  shells,  that,. during 
the  bombardment,  they  marched  out 
the  old  troops  before  introducing  the 
relief;  and  thus  it  happened,  that  at 
this  most  important  moment  the  work 
was  unusually  ill- prepared  for  resist- 
ance. 

The  French  columns  of  attack,  num- 
bering, reserves  and  all,  24,000,  being 
all  ready  in  the  trenches,  precisely  at 
twelve  o'clock  the  assault  began. 
There  were  three  points  to  be  assail- 
ed,—1st,  The  middle  of  the  Kornileff 
Bastion;  2d,  The  curtain  near  its 
centre  ;  3d,  The  inner  face  of  the 
Little  Redan,— and  all  were  attacked 
and  entered  almost  simultaneously. 

The  first  column,  throwing  some 
planks  across  the  ditch  of  the  Korni- 
leff Bastion,  at  the  point  where  the 
circular  form  prevented  it  from  being 
seen  from  the  flanks,  rushed  through 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  XI. 


619 


that  work  and  got  possession  of  the 
redoubt  almost  without  a  struggle. 
But  some  of  the  garrison  were,  at  the 
moment  of  attack,  in  the  bomb-proof 
chamber  at  the  base  of  the  Round 
Tower,  whose  loop-holed  wall  looks 
on  the  rear  of  the  interior,  from 
whence  they  began  to  annoy  the 
French  extremely,  and  kept  a  large 
space  clear  from  the  assailants.  A 
reminiscence  of  their  Algerine  expe- 
rience helped  our  allies  in  this  diffi- 
culty. General  MacMahon,  collect- 
ing a  quantity  of  gabions  from  the 
works  around,  heaped  them  round  the 
tower,  and  set  them  on  fire,  when 
the  garrison  made  signs  of  surrender. 
But  no  sooner  had  this  measure  suc- 
ceeded than  it  occurred  to  the  general 
that  there  might  possibly  be  mines  in 
the  neighbourhood  which  would  be 


killed  men  and  officers  in  the  Mam- 
melon.  To  support  the  attack  of  the 
infantry,  some  field  -  artillery  was 
brought  on  the  scene.  In  anticipa- 
tion of  such  a  measure,  a  road  had 
been  levelled  straight  across  the 
trenches,  and  the  gaps  filled  with 
gabions  ;  these  were  thrown  down  by 
sappers  posted  behind  them  as  the 
guns  approached,  and  a  troop  of 
French  horse-  artillery,  galloping  by 
from  the  rear,  and  losing  a  good 
many  horses  as  it  went,  emerged  on 
the  level  space  between  the  French 
works  and  the  Curtain,  and  its  six 
12-pounders  came  into  action  against 
the  ramparts.  It  was  a  deed  of  great 
daring  ;  the  ground  was  swept  by  the 
Russian  guns  as  well  as  those  still 
serviceable  in  the  works,  and  the 
musketry  of  the  Little  Redan  and 


exploded  by  the  burning  gabions,  and  »  Curtain  fired  at  a  range  which  ren- 


he  looked  hastily  round  for  some 
means  of  extinguishing  them.  For- 
tunately intrenching  -tools  were  at 
hand;  a  trench  was  dug  along  the 
course  of  the  fire,  and  the  earth  heap- 
ed on  it,  which  put  it  out.  And  here 
occurred  a  singular  chance  —  the  trench 
thus  dug  laid  bare  the  wires  placed 
by  the  Russians  to  fire  a  mine,  which 
were  immediately  cut  and  rendered 
useless.  After  this,  though  the  battle 
raged  hotly  round  the  Malakoff,  and 
several  desperate  attempts  were  made 
to  retake  it,  the  French  never  found 
their  possession  of  it  endangered. 

When  the  columns  entered,  the 
French  officers  in  the  trenches,  be- 
lieving the  victory  secure,  fell  to  em- 
bracing one  another,  in  token  of  con- 
gratulation. These  rejoicings,  how- 
ever, were  premature.  The  two  right 
columns  presently  returned  from  the 
Curtain  and  Little  Redan,  having 
found  the  fire  of  musketry  from  the 
retrenchment,  and  of  field-artillery 
posted  on  various  commanding  points 
of  the  interior,  too  hot  to  be  sup- 
ported. The  crowded  trenches  were 
ploughed  through  by  the  enemy's 
shot  ;  numbers  were  killed  among 
the  reserves  in  rear  ;  and  three  Rus- 
sian steamers  coming  up  near  the 
mouth  of  Careening  Bay,  in  spite 
of  a  French  battery  lately  erected 
on  the  opposite  point,  the  guns  of 
which  could  not  probably  be  suffi- 
ciently depressed  to  bear  upon  them, 
also  enfiladed  the  approaches,  and 


dered  their  aim  deadly.  In  taking 
up  such  a  position,  these  field-guns 
achieved  a  novel  and  brilliant  exploit, 
and  one  which  will  no  doubt  be  com- 
memorated with  pride  in  the  annals 
of  the  French  artillery  :  but  their  gal- 
lantry was  unavailing  ;  they  were  im- 
mediately crushed  by  the  tremendous 
fire,  and  withdrew,  having  lost  a 
great  number  of  officers,  men,  and 
horses,  besides  the  captain,  who  was 
killed. 

The  French  supports  advancing 
when  the  stormers  were  repulsed,  a 
continual  stream  of  men  poured  for 
several  hours  between  the  French  and 
Russian  works.  The  inside  of  the 
assailed  angle  of  the  Little  Redan 
was  heaped  with  dead,  over  whose 
bodies  others  constantly  advanced 
and  retired,  till  the  struggle  ceasing 
at  sunset  left  the  Russians  in  posses- 
sion  of  this  work  and  the  Curtain.  In 
the  course  of  the  afternoon  a  mine 
had  blown  up  near  the  Malakoff,  and 
appeared  to  those  in  the  trenches  to 
explode  in  that  work,  creating  great 
uncertainty  for  its  tenure  ;  and  some 
French  officers,  headed  by  General 
de  Cissey,  leaping  from  the  trenches, 
made  a  movement  to  succour  it  ;  but 
as  the  dust  cleared,  the  tricolor  was 
still  seen  floating  on  the  ramparts. 

The  attacks  on  the  Little  Redan 
cost  the  French  near  4000  men.  But, 
though  the  work  remained  uncap- 
tured,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
this  heavy  loss  was  altogether  fruit- 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XI. 


C20 

less  of  result,  as,  had  the  French  de- 
sisted from  the  attack,  a  large  Rus- 
sian force  would  have  been  set  free 
to  join  in  the  attempt  to  retake  the 
Malakoff. 

In  ten  minutes  from  the  commence- 
ment of  the  attack,  the  signal-flag, 
anxiously  looked  for  from  the  English 
trenches,  was  hoisted,  and  the  storm- 
ing party  of  800  men  of  the  62d,  41st, 
90th,  and  97th  regiments,  with  a  de- 
tachment of  the  3d  Buffs,  carrying 
ladders,  and  another  of  Rifles,  to  keep 
down  the  fire  from  the  ramparts, 
issued  from  the  trenches.  First  went 
the  Rifles,  and,  closely  following 
them,  the  ladder  party,  who  had  been 
posted  in  the  most  advanced  trench, 
an  unfinished  one,  about  150  yards 
from  the  Redan.  While  crossing  the 
intervening  space,  a  number  of  men 
were  wounded  by  grape  from  the 
flanks,  where  several  guns  opened 
fiercely,  and  a  great  many  ladders 
were  dropt  as  the  bearers  fell;  but 
about  six  reached  the  ditch,  into 
which  they  were  let  down,  and  four 
were  transferred  to  the  opposite  side. 
Though  an  assistance  in  descending 
and  mounting,  they  were  not  abso- 
lutely essential,  as  many  officers  and 
men  passed  over  the  work  without 
their  aid,  so  ruined  was  the  slope  by 
the  artillery  fire.  The  stormers  ad- 
vanced without  a  pause,  though  the 
grape  thinned  them  as  they  went,  and 
part  of  them  entered  at  once,  when 
the  Russians  within,  seemingly  sur- 
prised, fled  without  resistance.  Had 
the  whole  of  the  storming  party  now 
pushed  on,  followed  by  efficient  sup- 
port, it  is  probable  that  we  might 
have  secured  possession  of  the  work. 
But  an  opinion  which  I  had  previous- 
ly heard  from  our  engineers,  that  the 
long  period  of  duty  in  the  trenches 
would  be  found,  without  diminishing 
the  intrepidity  of  the  troops,  to  im- 
pair their  dash,  and  make  them  un- 
duly careful  of  obtaining  cover,  was 
now  confirmed.  Most  of  those  who 
reached  the  parapet  lay  down  there 
and  began  to  fire,  while  those  officers 
and  men  who  had  entered  extended 
over  a  space  reaching  to  the  third  or 
fourth  gun  on  each  side.  Recovering 
from  their  first  panic,  the  Russians 
began  to  return,  and  large  reinforce- 
ments constantly  arrived,  emerging, 
probably,  from  the  subterranean 


[Nov. 


chambers  of  the  work.  These  began 
a  hot  fire,  standing  partly  across  the 
open  space  thirty  or  forty  yards  from 
the  salient,  partly  behind  the  tra- 
verses and  embrasures.  This  desul- 
tory combat  lasted  about  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  during  which  many  officers 
and  men  distinguished  themselves  by 
gallant  attempts  to  head  a  rush 
against  the  enemy,  ending  in  the  im- 
mediate fall  of  the  leaders ;  then  our 
supports  advanced  in  a  large  square 
column,  and  the  former  scene  was 
renewed.  Small  parties  of  men  led 
by  their  officers  got  over  the  parapet, 
but  the  number  actually  within  the 
work  was  never  sufficient  for  its  cap- 
ture, while  the  enemy  received  con- 
stant reinforcements  from  the  rear. 

All  this  time  the  rattle  of  small- 
arms  was  incessant,  and  showed  a 
great  number  of  men  to  be  engaged  in 
and  about  the  Redan ;  but  the  duration 
of  the  struggle  created  unpleasant 
doubts  in  the  minds  of  those  in  the 
trenches.  We  saw  the  stormers  first, 
then  the  supports,  advance,  disappear 
in  the  ditch,  and  reappear  on  the  pa- 
rapet; then  all  became  smoke  and 
confusion.  The  guns  in  the  faces  of 
the  Redan  were  almost  silenced,  but 
those  in  the  flanks  continued  to  fire, 
while  several  other  Russian  batteries 
suddenly  opened,  and  sent  shot  thick- 
ly over  all  parts  of  our  trenches.  After 
a  time  we  could  see  Russian  soldiers 
standing  in  the  embrasures  of  the 
faces  of  the  Redan,  loading,  and  firing 
into  the  interior  of  the  work.  At  the 
end  of  an  hour,  the  number  of  men 
seen  hastening  back,  proved  that  we 
had  suffered  a  repulse.  The  enemy 
had  come  up  in  overpowering  numbers,, 
and  the  assailants  suddenly  gave  way; 
all  rushed  from  the  place  at  once,  car- 
rying their  officers  with  them,  many  of 
whom  were  swept  off  their  feet  by  the 
tide  of  fugitives.  Numbers  fell  on  the 
way  back,  and  all  the  advanced  trenches 
were  thronged  three  or  four  deep  by 
those  who  flocked  into  them. 

There  had  been  two  brass  field-guns 
in  the  Redan  when  our  men  entered, 
and  these  the  Russians,  immediately 
after  the  repulse,  placed  in  embra- 
sures, where  their  green  wheels  were 
plainly  visible,  and  began  firing  on 
our  trenches,  and  on  the  French  on 
the  slope  before  the  Malakoff.  Two 
or  three  of  our  guns  were  directed  on 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XI. 


them,  and  struck  and  silenced  both. 
The  heavy  guns  of  the  Redan,  some  of 
which  had  been  spiked  by  our  people, 
scarcely  fired  at  all  after  the  attack. 

Messengers  came  at  intervals  from 
General  Pelissier,  to  report  the  pro- 
gress of  the  French,  saying  they  had 
made  good  their  footing  in  the  Mala- 
koff,  and  could  hold  it,  but  were 
hard  pressed  on  the  right.  How  the 
day  had  gone  with  them  on  the  left 
was  not  known  till  afterwards. 

At  the  same  time  as  the  English 
attacked  the  Redan,  the  French  on  the 
left  attempted  to  enter  the  Central 
Bastion.  The  guns  along  the  front  of 
the  Russian  works  here  had  been  al- 
most silenced  by  the  vigour  of  the 
French  fire,  and  the  stormers  reached 
the  ditch  without  difficulty.  But  the 
obstacles  here  were  even  more  formid- 
able than  on  the  right;  and  though 
200  or  300  Frenchmen  succeeded 
in  penetrating  at  one  point  of  the 
Bastion,  and  remained  there  some 
time,  they  were  unable  to  support  the 
fire  from  the  interior  defences,  or  to 
make  head  against  the  overwhelming 
force  of  the  Russians,  and  retreated  to 
their  trenches,  with  a  loss  on  this  side 
of  about  600  killed  and  wounded.  One 
regiment  (the  42d)  lost  thirty  officers 
out  of  forty-five,  and  two  generals 
were  killed  here.  The  Russians  ex- 
ploded a  mine  in  this  attack,  which 
•caused  great  loss  to  the  assailants. 

The  smoke  from  the  Russian  bat- 
teries clearing  after  the  repulse,  we 
<:ould  see  the  salient  of  the  Redan 
heaped  with  red-coated  dead.  When 
•our  men  first  issued  forth  to  assault,  I 
saw  a  rifleman  knocked  over  half-way 
across.  As  soon  as  he  dropt,  he  be- 
gan rolling  over  and  over,  till,  reach- 
ing a  hollow,  he  lay  still  there.  To- 
wards evening  he  lifted  up  his  head,  and 
looked  cautiously  round,  and,  rising, 
ran  a  short  distance,  when  a  bullet 
striking  near  him,  he  dropt  behind  a 
bush.  After  a  time  he  rose  again, 
and  this  time  got  over  the  nearest 
parapet,  where  a  comrade  received 
and  assisted  him.  Far  away  to  the 
right  we  could  see  some  Russians 
•clinging  to  the  houses  of  the  Karabel- 
naia  suburb,  close  up  to  the  ditch  of 
the  Malakoff,  till  they  were  scattered 
by  shells  from  our  guns  in  the  Quar- 
ries ;  while  on  the  French  extreme 
right,  which  we  could  not  see,  a  con- 


621 

tinued  fire  of  small-arms  told  that  the 
struggle  which  ended  in  the  repulse  of 
the  French  from  the  Little  Redan  was 
still  undecided.  The  sun  went  duski- 
ly down,  and  darkness  found  us  doubt- 
fully speculating  on  the  results  of  the 
day.  The  general  opinion  was  that 
the  Russian  defence,  though  now 
hopeless,  would  be  protracted  till  the 
French  guns  from  the  Malakoff  should 
open;  but  no  one  guessed  that  the 
enemy  was  at  that  moment  abandon- 
ing the  place,  though  General  Pelissier 
at  one  time  appears  to  have  thought  so, 
for  I  heard  one  of  the  messengers  who 
came  from  him  to  General  Simpson 
state  that  the  Russians  were  passing 
the  harbour  in  great  numbers,  appar- 
ently in  full  retreat.  These,  however, 
were  supposed  to  be  parties  conduct- 
ing prisoners  to  the  north  side. 

The  Russians  committed,  in  con- 
structing their  most  important  de- 
fences, those  of  the  Malakoff,  two  con- 
siderable errors.  First,  they  adapt- 
ed the  trace  of  their  intrenchment  to 
the  shape  of  the  stone  tower  it  was 
intended  to  cover,  which  was  the  arc 
of  a  circle :  thus,  at  the  middle  of  the 
arc,  the  ditch  could  not  be  seen  from 
the  flanks,  as  it  could  have  been  if 
the  salient  had  been  carried  out  to  an 
angle;  and  a  most  important  point 
was  left  without  other  defence  than 
the  direct  fire  from  its  own  parapet — 
that  is  to  say,  there  was  one  spot 
where,  standing  on  the  edge  of  the 
ditch,  you  could  see  no  other 
portion  of  the  works  than  the  part 
of  the  rampart  immediately  be- 
fore you — and  this  was  the  point  at 
which  the  French  threw  their  bridge. 

The  other  error  was  even  more 
fatal — it  was  that  of  making  the  Ma- 
lakoff an  enclosed  work.  The  first 
error  enabled  the  French  to  penetrate 
the  work— the  second  to  hold  it.  Had 
it,  like  the  Redan,  been  open  in  rear, 
the  defenders  might  have  returned  in 
force  and  maintained  the  struggle  ; 
but,  once  lost,  it  became  as  great  an 
obstacle  to  the  Russians  as  it  had 
been  to  the  French. 

My  faith  in  historical  narrative, 
founded  in  anything  else  than  personal 
observation,  has  been  greatly  shaken 
by  the  numerous  instances  in  which, 
during  the  present  campaign,  anec- 
dotes, apparently  trustworthy,  have 
subsequently  appeared  untrue.  The 


622 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XL 


[Nov. 


information  I  collected  to  add  to  my 
own  observation  of  the  events  just 
narrated,  did  not  always  bear  sifting, 
and  several  particulars  were  given 
me  by  eyewitnesses,  who  had  the 
best  opportunities  of  watching  the 
course  of  events,  which  an  examina- 
tion of  the  ground  convinced  me 
were  erroneous.  In  these  moments 
of  intense  interest  and  excitement, 
the  imagination  has  undue  sway,  and 


gaps  are  filled  up  by  suppositions 
adopted  merely  for  their  plausibility 
and  convenience,  till  it  is  difficult  to  se- 
parate fact  from  fiction,  and  the  whole 
assumes  the  coherent  and  circumstan- 
tial air  of  perfect  truth.  Unfortunately, 
the  prettiest  and  most  poetical  inci- 
dents are  such  as  frequently  dwindle 
to  nothing  under  a  strict  scrutiny,  and 
I  have  often  been  sorry  to  relinquish 
the  agreeable  fictions. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. — THE  LAST  HOURS  OP   SEBASTOPOL. 


There  was  but  little  sleep  that  night 
in  the  camps.  Successive  explosions 
of  the  most  tremendous  description 
shook  the  whole  plateau,  making  tent 
and  hut  quiver  as  if  in  an  earthquake. 
The  information  thus  loudly  given, 
that  the  enemy  was  about  to  abandon 
the  place,  was  confirmed  soon  after 
midnight  in  a  singular  manner. 

An  officer  had  lost  a  friend  in  the 
assault  of  the  Redan,  and  his  regi- 
ment being  one  of  those  occupying 
the  advanced  trenches,  he  prevailed 
on  twenty  volunteers  to  accompany 
him  in  the  search  for  the  body.  Not 
finding  it  among  the  dead  in  the  open 
ground,  he  advanced  towards,  the 
ditch.  All  was  silent ;  he  entered 
the  ditch,  which  was  of  easy  descent, 
and  still  finding  no  obstacle,  and  no 
sign  of  the  presence  of  the  enemy,  he 
and  his  men  went  softly  up  the  ram- 
part. There  was  no  token  of  life  or 
motion  ;  the  guns  were  there,  the  iron 
guardians  of  the  city,  but  they  alone 
remained. 

It  was  intended  that  the  Highland 
regiments,  which  had  relieved  those 
of  the  light  and  second  divisions  in 
the  advanced  trenches,  should  at 
daybreak  repeat  the  assault.  But, 
in  case  this  attack  also  should  fail, 
and  an  advance  by  sap  become  ulti- 
mately necessary,  the  trenches  were 
meanwhile  pushed  forward.  The 
engineer  conducting  them  suspected, 
from  the  silence,  that  the  enemy  had 
deserted  the  work,  and  a  corporal  of 
sappers,  creeping  stealthily  forward, 
returned  with  the  intelligence  that 
all  was  still  within.  This  being 
reported  to  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  he 
called  for  ten  volunteers  from  each 
of  the  Scotch  regiments  to  ascertain 
the  truth.  These,  advancing  at  a 


run,  crossed  the  ditch ;  a  93d  man 
standing  on  the  rampart  shouted  out 
his  name  in  token  that  he  was  the 
first  to  scale  it ;  and,  entering,  they 
found  the  place  empty. 

On  the  night  before  the  assault, 
two  considerable  fires  —  one  near 
Fort  Nicholas,  the  result  of  shells 
from  our  thirteen-inch  mortars,  the 
other  in  the  town — had  burnt  briskly, 
and  the  conflagration  continued  next 
day.  These  the  garrison  tried  to 
stop.  In  the  evening  of  the  8th  the 
figures  of  many  men  might  be  seen 
darkly  hovering  on  the  roofs  of  a 
large  building,  where  they  were  try- 
ing to  extinguish  the  flames  that  lit 
up  the  whole  interior,  and  burst  from 
every  window.  But  now  their  efforts 
were  all  for  destruction.  After  every 
explosion  the  fires  augmented,  till, 
towards  morning,  the  whole  city  and 
its  suburbs  were  in  flames,  sending 
one  vast  column  of  smoke  upward, 
which  leaned  heavily,  from  the  pres- 
sure of  the  wind,  now  almost  lulled 
by  the  cannonade,  towards  the  head 
of  the  harbour,  over  which  it  hung 
in  a  vast  canopy.  Soon  after  day- 
break, one  terrific  explosion,  surpass- 
ing all  the  rest,  pealed  through  the 
camp,  and  a  cloud,  which  seemed 
like  the  upheaving  of  the  whole  pro- 
montory, rose  in  earthy  volumes,  and 
hung  for  a  space  a  blot  upon  the 
landscape,  pierced  murkily  by  the 
rays  of  the  rising  sun.  The  har- 
bour gleamed  of  a  dusky  yellow 
amid  the  dark- grey  hazy  capes  and 
buildings.  Fort  Paul,  veiled  in  smoke, 
but  visible,  remained  standing  on  its 
jutting  mole  till  afternoon,  when  a 
fire  in  a  building  near  communicated 
with  its  magazine,  and  it  was  hurled 
into  the  air.  When  the  dust  of  the 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XL 


628 


explosion  subsided,  nothing  was  left 
of  it  but  a  heap  of  loose  stones. 

The  continual  explosions  by  no 
means  prevented  enterprising  French- 
men from  searching  the  town  for 
valuables.  I  met  one  party  who  had 
been  plundering  a  church :  one  man 
had  an  immense  bible  bound  in  green 
velvet,  another  displayed  a  white 
altar-cloth  with  a  gold  cross  em- 
broidered on  it,  a  third  was  partly 
attired  in  the  vestments  of  a  priest. 
I  told  the  adventurer  with  the  altar- 
cloth  that  the  bishop  would  excom- 
municate him  ;  to  which  he  replied 
by  a  gesture  by  no  means  flattering 
to  episcopacy. 

The  motives  of  the  Russians  in 
setting  fire  to  the  city  are  not  quite 
clear,  or,  at  any  rate,  are  question- 
able in  point  of  expediency.  At  the 
conclusion  of  the  war,  they  might 
look  on  it  as  likely  that  they  would 
resume  possession,  and  this  consider- 
ation might  have  restrained  them. 
But  their  traditionary  stroke  of  policy 
in  burning  Moscow  seems  to  have 
impressed  on  the  national  mind  a 
general  idea  of  the  virtue  of  incen- 
diarism ;  and  the  catastrophe  of  Rus- 
sian towns  and  fortresses,  like  that 
of  a  Vauxhall  entertainment,  would 
appear  incomplete  without  a  general 
conflagration. 

The  whole  garrison  withdrew  un- 
molested under  cover  of  the  night, 
and  destroyed  the  end  of  the  bridge 
of  rafts  on  our  side  of  the  harbour. 
The  bursting  mines  and  blazing 
streets  prevented  an  entrance  in  the 
dark,  and  it  was  not  till  after  day- 
break that  the  Allies  were  within  the 
works  in  any  numbers,  when  the 
only  Russians  captured  were  a  few — 
some  of  them  wounded — who  were 
found  lurking  in  pits  and  holes,  and 
who  had  perhaps  remained  to  fire 
some  of  the  mines. 

The  bodies  of  those  slain  in  the 
assault  were  collected  in  the  ditch  of 
the  Redan.  Riflemen  and  soldiers 
of  the  line  lay  together  in  all  pos- 
tures—  some  shattered,  some  with 
their  wounds  not  visible — here  a 
bearded  sergeant,  there  a  boy-recruit 
lying  on  a  tangle  of  blood-stained 
bodies,  fragments  of  limbs,  and  pro- 
truding stumps  ;  amid  which  appear- 
ed here  and  there,  in  frightful  con- 
trast to  such  ghastly  pillows,  a  face 


calm  as  in  calmest  sleep.  The  dead 
Russians  were  placed  together  at  one 
end,  and  when  all  were  collected,  the 
earth  of  the  slope  was  shovelled  over, 
and  the  rampart  they  had  fought  for 
formed  above  assailant  and  defender 
a  common  funeral  mound. 

The  interior  of  the  Redan  is  a  wide, 
level  space,  filled  with  debris  of  all 
kinds — fragments  of  gabions,  broken 
guns  and  carriages,  beams  hurled  from 
exploded  magazines,  and  chasms  made 
by  bursting  shells.  Parallel  to  the 
faces  of  the  work,  and  in  rear  of  the 
guns,  are  mounds  of  earth  in  the  form 
of  traverses,  revetted  with  gabions, 
containing  splinter- proof  chambers  for 
a  part  of  the  garrison  ;  but  the  greater 
part  of  these  found  shelter  underneath 
the  surface  of  the  whole  interior  space, 
where  a  kind  of  subterranean  barrack, 
capable  of  holding  many  hundred  men 
in  its  low,  flat  cells,  and  entered  by 
several  short  descending  galleries,  had 
been  constructed.  From  the  Redan 
a  continuous  line  of  batteries  extends 
down  the  hill  almost  to  the  Karabel- 
naia  Ravine,  where  the  pass  is  de- 
fended by  a  ditch  and  parapet  for 
musketry  ;  and  the  end  of  the  ravine, 
instead  of  sweeping,  as  might  be  sup- 
posed, down  to  an  inlet,  slopes  curi- 
ously upward  to  a  point  at  the  edge 
of  the  harbour-bank,  where  a  battery 
looks  along  its  course.  The  guns  in 
these  batteries  and  in  most  of  the  de- 
fences were  worked,  as  on  board  ship, 
with  breechings  to  prevent  recoil,  and 
these  breechings  had  been  cut  through 
before  the  enemy  abandoned  them. 
At  two  or  three  places  a  heap  of  slain 
Russian  gunners  were  collected  behind 
their  batteries,  whose  bodies  wore 
terrible  marks  of  shot  and  shell  ; 
numbers  were  headless,  some  cut  ab- 
solutely in  two,  with  the  upper  or 
lower  half  wanting  ;  some  torn  open, 
some  with  great  holes  in  their  skulls  ; 
and  detached  from  the  group  might 
be  sometimes  seen  a  human  thigh  or 
shoulder.  All  the  way  down,  the 
underground  habitations  were  con- 
tinued, showing  how  terrible  must 
have  been  the  fire  which  rendered 
works  of  such  labour  necessary,  and 
giving  a  lamentable  idea  of  the  life  of 
the  wretched  occupants,  whose  mo- 
ments of  relief  from  the  service  of  the 
batteries  were  thus  passed  in  dark, 
crowded  collars.  Crossing  the  ravine, 


624 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XL 


[Nov. 


you  are  at  the  foot  of  the  steep  hill  or 
mound  of  the  Malakoff,  whose  redoubt 
stretches  across  the  summit,  one  side 
of  its  rampart  looking  along  the  in- 
terior of  the  more  advanced  Redan, 
and  sweeping  the  whole  space  down 
to  the  inner  harbour.  The  battery 
extending  up  the  slope  to  the  re- 
doubt is  the  Gervais  Battery  ;  and 
here  the  French  stormers,  quitting 
the  Malakoff,  had  attempted  to  pass 
down  the  hill,  and  bodies  of  Zouaves 
and  Chasseurs  were  scattered  about. 
In  some  places  numbers  had  been 
engaged  hand  to  hand,  in  others  men 
had  fallen  darkly  and  unnoted,  and 
lay  unseen  till,  in  some  narrow  pas- 
sage, you  stumbled  over  their  bodies. 
A  Frenchman  lay  in  one  of  these 
spots,  near  a  magazine,  from  the  door 
of  which  protruded  a  pair  of  boots : 
the  wearer,  a  Russian,  lay  dead  in 
the  dark  receptacle,  into  which  he  had 
probably  crept  when  wounded,  and 
perished  close  to  his  enemy.  In 
this  battery  near  the  Malakoff,  was  a 
small  chamber  hollowed  in  the  ram- 
part, which  had  apparently  been  a 
surgery,  for  a  Russian  soldier,  half- 
stript,  as  if  to  get  at  his  wound,  lay 
-dead  on  his  back  on  a  table  of  plank. 
A  Russian  lay  in  one  of  the  passages 
between  a  traverse  and  the  rampart, 
his  face  covered  by  the  cape  of  his 
coat.  Fancying  I  saw  him  breathe 
as  I  passed,  I  stooped  to  uncover  his 
face;  but  he  silently  resisted,  as  if 
-desirous  of  dying  in  peace.  I  pointed 
him  out  to  some  Frenchmen  engaged 
in  removing  the  wounded. 

The  Malakoff  redoubt  was  a  large 
enclosed  work,  its  interior  crossed  by 
huge  traverses,  with  a  row  of  open 
doorways  along  one  side  of  each  ; 
stooping  to  enter  which,  you  found 
yourself  in  a  long,  low,  narrow  cham- 
ber, extending  along  the  length  of  the 
traverse,  with  soldiers'  pallets  spread 
on  the  floor  as  thickly  as  the  space 
allowed,  for  the  garrison  to  repose  on 
in  the  intervals  of  relief.  In  two  open 
spots  were  collected  the  ordnance  in- 
jured and  dismounted  by  our  fire — 
guns  of  all  sizes,  some  half  buried,  all 
dragged  there  out  of  the  way.  From 
the  Malakoff  to  the  Little  Redan,  be- 
hind the  Curtain,  is  a  wide  open  space 
terminated  towards  the  harbour  by 
the  retrenchment  which  the  Russians 
had  begun  to  throw  up.  All  this 


space,  almost  paved  with  iron,  so 
thick  lay  the  fragments  of  shells,  was 
covered  with  bodies  of  Frenchmen 
and  Russians,  some  of  the  latter  still 
alive ;  and  two  vivandieres  were  mov- 
ing about  giving  water  to  those  who 
needed  it.  In  the  corner  of  the  Little 
Redan,  which  also,  notwithstanding 
its  name,  is  an  enclosed  work,  had 
been  the  principal  struggle,  and  French 
and  Russians  lay  heaped  there  to- 
gether in  great  numbers.  In  another 
corner  was  a  chasm  made  by  an  ex- 
ploded mine  ;  planks  had  been  thrust 
down  the  side  of  it,  and  the  Russian 
bodies,  brought  to  the  edge,  were 
placed  on  the  planks,  down  which 
they  rolled,  rigidly  vibrating,  to  the 
bottom  of  their  ready-made  sepulchre. 
The  most  frightful  spectacle  of  all  was 
in  a  corner  of  the  Malakoff:  it  was 
the  corpse  of  a  man  who  had  been 
killed  by  the  explosion  either  of  a 
mine  or  a  large  shell — probably  the 
former.  Not  a  vestige  of  clothes  re- 
mained on  the  body,  from  which  the 
hair  and  features  had  been  also  burnt ; 
the  legs  were  doubled  back,  the  chest 
torn  open  and  shrivelled,  and  the 
whole  figure  blasted  into  the  appear- 
ance of  an  ape  or  mummy. 

Outside  the  Curtain,  between  it  and 
the  French  trenches,  burial  -  parties 
brought  the  dead  Frenchmen  and  laid 
them  side  by  side  on  the  grass.  Even 
here  the  peculiar  national  taste  for 
effect  was  visible  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  rows  of  bodies  in  symmetrical 
figures.  About  one  thousand  lay  there, 
and  all  had  not  been  collected— chas- 
seurs, indigenes,  and  soldiers  of  the 
line ;  but  no  Zouaves,  for  these  last 
had  attacked  the  Malakoff.  Lord 
George  Paget,  passing  the  place  at 
the  time,  saw  one  of  the  bodies  move, 
and  pointed  out  the  circumstance :  the 
man  was  examined,  found  alive,  and 
conveyed  to  the  hospital,  and  thus 
preserved  from  a  fate  the  most  hor- 
rible. 

Mines  and  magazines  left  by  the 
Russians  continued  to  explode  at  in- 
tervals, and  there  were  some  others 
which  the  fire  failed  to  ignite.  I  had 
been  asleep  about  an  hour  that  night, 
having  lain  down  in  full  confidence  of 
getting  the  first  night's  sound  rest  I  had 
enjoyed  for  a  week,  when  I  was  roused 
by  a  summons  to  convey  directions 
for  the  swamping  of  a  mine,  which 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XI. 


625 


had  been  discovered  in  the  cellar  of  a 
large  building  in  the  barrack.  As  I 
rode  across  the  dark  plains  on  this 
errand,  a  fringe  of  clear  flame  marked 
the  outline  of  the  hill  the  city  stands 
on.  Two  deserters  or  prisoners  had 
told  of  the  existence  of  this  mine, 
which  was  a  large  magazine  of  powder- 
barrels  in  a  cellar,  surrounded  by  loose 
powder  to  catch  any  stray  sparks  : 
it  was  rendered  harmless  by  a  party 
of  artillerymen. 

A  cordon  of  sentries  had  been  drawn 
round  the  whole  place,  and  none  but 
general  officers,  or  those  having  pass- 
ports, were  at  first  allowed  to  enter 
the  town  or  works,  except  on  duty. 
On  the  10th  I  accompanied  Sir 
Richard  Dacres  into  the  place.  We 
entered  the  Centre  Bastion,  where 
the  French  had  been  repulsed,  and 
afterwards  made  a  circuit  of  the  walls 
nearly  down  to  the  sea,  passing  the 
•  scene  of  contest  of  the  22d  and  23d  of 
May,  and  re-entering  the  place  at  a 
large  folding-door  in  a  wall  of  masonry 
rising  from  the  ditch.  Here  we  were 
in  a  suburb  of  ruined  hovels,  roofless 
and  windowless,  and  pierced  with 
shot ;  and,  from  an  eminence,  looked 
across  the  ravine  at  the  best-built 
portion  of  the  skeleton  city.  Some 
houses  were  still  smoking,  and  one  or 
two  were  in  flames,  especially  near 
Fort  Nicholas.  The  streets  of  the 
suburbs,  far  from  being  paved,  were 
rough  and  rocky  as  a  mountain-path, 
but  in  the  heart  of  the  city  itself  were 
several  wide  streets,  extending  in  long 
perspective  towards  the  harbour,  hav- 
ing trottoirs,  and  bordered  by  houses 
of  a  better  stamp  than  the  others, 
though  by  no  means  equal  to  the 
average  habitations  in  an  English 
town  of  the  same  magnitude.  The 
churches,  and  most  considerable 
buildings,  stand  along  the  crest 
of  the  hill,  looking,  on  one  side, 
to  the  Black  Sea,  on  the  other 
to  the  Inner  Harbour.  Towards  the 
latter  a  large  garden  extends  down 
the  hill.  Two  buildings  which  had 
often  fixed  our  glances  from  the 
trenches,  the  one  surrounded  with  a 
colonnade,  the  other  bristling  with 
pinnacles,  were  both  churches.  The 
-columns  of  the  former,  which  were 
not  of  stone,  but  of  some  composition, 
had  been  struck  by  shot  in  several 
places,  and  huge  pieces  knocked  away. 


From  the  colonnade,  at  one  end  of  this 
building,  nearly  the  whole  scene  of 
contest  was  visible — the  Garden  Bat- 
teries, the  Creek  Battery  bordering 
the  head  of  the  Inner  Harbour,  and 
sweeping  the  ground  where  Eyre's 
brigade  had  suffered  so  severely  on 
the  18th  June,  the  interior  of  the 
Redan,  and  the  hill  of  the  Malakoff,  and, 
beyond,  the  plains  furrowed  with  our 
trenches.  Passing  down  a  road  par- 
allel to  the  inner  harbour,  we  crossed 
on  a  wharf  between  the  Creek  Battery 
and  the  water,  and  entered  the  arsenal, 
which  lies  along  the  edge  of  the  inlet, 
and  contains  many  rows  of  ordnance 
never  used,  cast,  as  our  own  used  to 
be,  at  the  Carron  Foundry.  The  road 
from  thence  to  the  barracks  behind 
the  Redan,  lying  at  the  foot  of  the 
steep  hill,  is  pitted  with  shell  holes. 

The  barrack  in  rear  of  the  Redan  is 
a  huge  quadrangle  of  several  storeys, 
with  smaller  buildings  interspersed, 
the  walls  pitted  with  shot,  with  gaping 
chasms  here  and  there,  and  the  roofs 
perforated  like  a  cullender.  Along 
the  ground  between  this  and  the  Ma- 
lakoff  is  the  Karabelnaia  suburb, 
a  large  collection  of  insignificant  stone 
houses,  with  a  few  of  better  class 
among  them,  the  whole  smashed  into 
one  shapeless  mass  of  ruin,  and  for  the 
most  part  completely  uninhabitable. 
A  great  many  cats  and  a  few  dogs, 
nevertheless,  adhered  to  their  ancient 
homes,  the  latter  skulking  and  down- 
cast, the  former  making  for  their 
retreats  in  a  great  hurry  when  any 
one  approached.  Behind  the  suburb, 
at  the  edge  of  the  dockyard  basin,  is 
a  loop-holed  wall  plentifully  marked 
with  shot.  The  docks  are  in  the  deep 
dry  basin  at  the  head  of  the  dockyard 
creek,  a  small  branch  of  the  inner  har- 
bour. Along  the  water's  edge  is  a 
very  spacious  well-built  barrack  left 
unconsumed  amid  the  surrounding 
flames,  the  reason  of  which  became 
apparent  on  the  afternoon  of  the  10th, 
when  a  steamer  came  across  with  a 
flag  of  truce,  to  ask  for  the  wounded 
left  in  these  buildings  when  the  garri- 
son retreated ;  and  this  was  the  first 
intimation  we  had  of  their  presence  on 
our  side  of  the  harbour. 

The  scene  that  ensued  was  a  climax 
of  the  horrors  of  war.  In  these  vast 
apartments,  and  in  the  cellars  beneath, 
not  less  than  two  thousand  desperately 


626 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XI. 


[Nov. 


wounded  men  had  been  laid.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  to  conceive  a  situation 
more  horrible  than  theirs,  for  two 
days  and  nights  lying  here,  helpless, 
and  tortured  by  wounds,  without 
assistance,  and  without  nourishment, 
surrounded  by  flaming  buildings  and 
exploding  mines.  When  the  place 
was  entered,  about  five  hundred  re- 
mained alive,  and  were  transferred  in 
a  lamentable  condition  to  the  steamer. 
The  corpses  of  the  rest  were  buried 
by  our  troops.  In  one  room  alone 
seven  hundred  dead  were  counted, 
many  of  whom  had  undergone  ampu- 
tation. The  sudden  revealment  of 
the  secrets  of  a  churchyard  would 
disclose  nothing  half  so  horrible  as 
the  spectacle  of  this  cemetery  above- 
ground,  where  the  dead  lay  in  every 
posture  of  agony,  on  and  beside  their 
beds.  One  small  cellar  was  altogether 
filled  with  thebodies  of  Russian  officers. 
Three  English  officers?:  wounded  and 
taken  in  the  assault,  were  found  here, 
two  of  whom  lived  to  be  removed  to 
camp,  where  they  lingered  for  a  few 
days. 

On  the  night  of  the  llth,  the  Rus- 
sian steamers  were  burnt :  those  line- 
of-battle  ships  not  destroyed  before, 
had  been  sunk  on  the  night  of  the  8th, 
one  close  to  Fort  Paul,  where  its  huge 
masts  and  tops  projected  high  above 
the  water,  a  kind  of  satire  on  the 
Third  Point  of  the  Conference,  re- 
specting the  limitation  of  the  Russian 
naval  power  in  the  Black  Sea ;  and 
the  fleet  of  Sebastopol  thus  become 
utterly  extinct.  The  captain  of  the 
Vladimir,  who  came  with  the  flag  of 
truce,  boasted  to  Captain  Keppel  of 
the  speed  of  his  vessel,  and,  it  is  said, 
avowed  his  intention  of  running  the 
gauntlet  of  our  fleet,  and  trying  to 
make  his  way  to  Odessa ;  but  the 
gale  which  prevented  our  fleet  from 
weighing  to  take  part  in  the  assault, 
also  defeated  his  project,  and  the  Vla- 
dimir was  burnt  with  the  rest. 

So  ended  amid  death  and  destruc- 
tion the  great  siege  of  Sebastopol. 
The  drama,  with  its  many  dull  tedious 
passages,  and  its  many  scenes  of  in- 
tense and  painful  interest,  extending 
over  nearly  a  year,  had  for  actors  the 
three  greatest  nations  of  the  earth, 
and  all  the  world  for  an  audience.  The 
catastrophe  solved  many  difficulties, 
quieted  many  doubts,  and  falsified 


many  prophecies.  Besides  those  fore- 
boders  who  founded  their  prognostics 
on  reason,  there  were  some  seers  who 
traced  in  the  campaign  and  siege  the 
fulfilment  of  revelation,  and  who 
must  now  search  elsewhere  for  the 
great  valley  of  Armageddon,  a  name 
which  they  found  to  be  merely  He- 
brew for  Sebastopol,  with  such  nicety 
did  their  expositions  correspond  with 
Scripture.  But,  indeed,  so  great  were 
the  interests  involved,  so  massive  the 
events,  and  so  dark  the  uncertainty 
which  shrouded  them,  that  others  be- 
sides visionaries  have  read  in  the  pro- 
gress of  aff<airs  the  manifestations  of 
Divine  interference ;  and  I  have  heard 
of  a  French  general,  who  characterised 
the  taking  of  the  Malakoff  as  a  thing 
beyond  expectation,  "  which  was  to 
be,  because  else  the  flags  of  France 
and  England  would  have  been  trailed 
in  the  dust."  Pelissier's  mode  of  ex- 
pressing his  sense  of  the  fortune  of 
war  was  by  a  comparison  drawn  from, 
ecarte  :  "  Nous  etions  quatre  d  quatre, 
et  j'ai  tourne  le  roi." 

So  ended,  too,  our  first  campaign. 
Hitherto  I,  and  doubtless  most  others 
my  contemporaries,  had  viewed  in  a 
kind  of  epic  light  the  men  of  Welling- 
ton's campaigns,  beside  whose  rich 
and  stirring  youth  ours  seemed  pale 
and  empty.  Now  we,  too,  had  pass- 
ed behind  the  scenes;  we,  too,  had 
been  initiated  into  that  jumble  of 
glory  and  calamity,  war,  and  had 
been  acting  history.  In  one  step  we 
had  passed  from  civilisation  and 
luxury,  such  as  our  fathers  knew  not 
of,  to  a  campaign  of  uncommon  pri- 
vation. We,  too,  knew  of  the  mar- 
shalling of  hosts%  the  licensed  devas- 
tation, the  ghastly  burden  of  the 
battle-lield,  and  the  sensation  of  front- 
ing death;  and,  henceforth,  the  pages 
of  military  history,  hitherto  somewhat 
dim  and  oracular,  were  for  us  illumi- 
nated by  the  red  light  of  experience. 

The  barren  plateau,  with  which 
the  army  of  the  East  is  now  so 
wearily  familiar,  has  for  France  and 
England  an  interest  deeper  than  their 
most  cherished  possessions.  There 
are  few  communities  in  either  country 
with  whose  memories  it  is  not  associ- 
ated by  the  sad  link  of  a  citizen's 
grave.  The  bones  of  a  mighty  host 
are  scattered  here,  Russian  and  Turk, 
Frenchman  and  Englishman  ;  and  if, 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  XI. 


627 


as  our  Saxon  forefathers  believed,  the 
spirits  of  the  departed  hovered  above 
their  resting-places,  no  dreary  dell, 
no  hill,  or  plain,  or  trench -furrowed 
slope,  would  be  without  its  troop  of 
shadows.  When  these  great  armies 
have  departed,  when  the  cities  of 


tents  have  vanished,  and  the  last 
echoes  of  the  tramp  of  troops,  the 
hum  of  camps,  and  the  roll  of  artil- 
lery, have  died  away,  these  solitudes, 
tenanted  only  by  the  fox  and  the 
eagle,  will  continue  for  us  and  our 
descendants  a  colony  of  the  dead. 


CHAPTER   XXXII. — A   RETROSPECT. 


Thus  by  main  force,  strength 
matched  against  strength,  "  in  plain 
and  even  shock  of  battle,"  France  and 
England  had  pushed  Russia  from  her 
stronghold.  Such  has  been  the  course 
of  the  campaign,  so  peculiar  and  ex- 
ceptional, that  it  is  not  easy  to  say 
what  military  lessons  have  been  de- 
rived from  its  incidents,  or  what  ad- 
vance in  soldiership  has  been  gained 
by  our  army,  beyond  the  experience 
of  encamping  in  the  field  in  presence 
of  an  enemy.  But  from  our  present 
stand-point  of  an  appreciable  result 
we  may  at  least  survey  comprehen- 
sively and  clearly  the  events  of  the 
campaign,  and  trace  with  something 
like  certainty  the  circumstances  which 
produced  them. 

The  questions  of  the  merits  of  the 
policy  pursued  up  to  the  time  of  the 
departure  from  Varna,  and  the  amount 
of  neglect  attributable  to  the  Govern- 
ment in  allowing  the  expedition  to 
depart  with  such  slender  preparation, 
are  such  as  persons  conversant  with 
public  business  at  home  are  most 
competent  to  decide.  Admitting  that 
the  state  of  public  feeling  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1854  rendered  some  enterprise 
necessary,  and  that  the  capture  of 
Sevastopol,  as  solving  one  of  the 
principal  problems  of  the  war,  was  an 
object  of  first-rate  importance,  we 
may,  by  pursuing  the  course  of  affairs 
from  the  commencement  of  the  expe- 
dition to  its  crisis,  compare  the  means 
with  which  the  attempt  was  made 
with  the  chances  of  success. 

No  objections  have  been  made 
to  the  conduct  of  affairs  up  to  the 
battle  of  the  Alma.  Some  critics  have 
objected  to  the  tactics  of  the  Allies 
on  that  occasion.  Certainly  nothing 
could  well  be  simpler  or  less  scientific 
than  the  plan  of  attack  ;  but  the 
moral  effect  produced  on  the  Russians 
by  the  gallantry  of  the  English  ad- 
vance, preventing,  as  it  probably  did, 


the  defence  of  either  the  Katcha  or 
the  Balbek,  may  well  be  held  to  com- 
pensate for  the  absence  of  brilliant 
manoeuvring.  The  next  error  im- 
puted is  in  the  assertion  that  the 
Allies  should  have  advanced  immedi- 
ately after  the  battle.  But  this 
would  have  left  not  only  our  dead 
unburied,  but  our  wounded  at  the 
mercy  of  the  Cossacks,  who  hovered 
round  in  sufficient  numbers  to  over- 
power any  small  detachment  left  as  a 
guard,  and  a  large  one  we  could  not 
spare.  We  had  no  superfluous  troops 
to  detach,  because  our  deficiency  in 
transport  compelled  us  to  leave  seve- 
ral thousand  French  at  Varna,  and 
nearly  all  our  cavalry,  which  would 
have  been  inestimable  in  such  a 
country  as  we  advanced  over. 

The  next  point  of  debate  is  whether 
the  north  side  of  Sebastopol  should 
not  have  been  threatened  instead  of 
the  south.  Now,  there  are  no  har- 
bours on  the  north  side  ;  the  posses- 
sion of  the  forts  there  would  not  have 
secured  the  immediate  capture  of  the 
city;  and,  in  case  of  a  repulse,  the  posi- 
tion was  greatly  inferior  in  security  to 
the  southern  plateau.  But  the  true 
grounds  on  which  the  flank  march: 
was  decided  on  I  believe  to  be  these : 
The  French,  after  passing  the  Balbek, 
found  a  strong  fort  on  their  right, 
which  it  would  have  been  necessary 
to  take  before  advancing  upon  the 
north  side;  this  our  allies  were  not 
prepared  to  attempt,  and  the  design 
was  changed  accordingly. 

Meanwhile  the  Russian  commander, 
unable  to  make  a  stand  on  the  Katcha 
or  Balbek,  would  have  found  himself, 
supposing  we  had  occupied,  as  he  ex- 
pected, the  ground  to  the  north  of  the 
town,  cut  off  from  Bakshi-serai  and 
Simferopol,  and  dependent  almost  al- 
together for  the  subsistence  of  his 
army  on  the  stores  of  the  fortress, 
while  he  could  not  have  attacked  or 


628 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  XL 


[Nov. 


even  annoyed  us  without  crossing  the 
harbour  or  the  deep  valley  of  the 
Tchernaya.  Therefore,  to  keep  open 
his  communications  with  the  northern 
depots,  and  to  enable  him  to  act  on 
our  flank  and  rear,  he  made  the 
movement  during  which  we  came  on 
his  rearguard  at  Mackenzie's  Farm, 
and  we  took  possession  of  Balaklava 
and  the  southern  heights  unmolested. 

Thus,  then,  with  far  less  loss  than 
could  have  been  anticipated,  the  expe- 
dition found  itself  close  to  its  object. 
Fifty  thousand  men  were  on  the 
heights  before  the  city,  its  garrison 
were  panic-stricken,  its  defences  feeble, 
the  beaten  army  in  retreat,  and  the 
Allied  fleets  at  the  harbour's  mouth. 
Here  we  have  the  conditions,  if  not 
of  absolute  success,  yet  of  great  ad- 
vantage on  our  side,  and  those  who 
most  strongly  objected  to  the  enter- 
prise would  have  been  silenced  could 
they  have  foreseen  a  juncture  so 
favourable.  But  Menschikoif's  wise 
measure  of  sinking  part  of  his  ships 
across  the  harbour  to  bar  the  access  to 
our  fleets,  totally  changed  the  aspect 
of  affairs.  The  coup  de  main  so  strong- 
ly insisted  on  became  simply  impos- 
sible, because  no  troops  could  have 
continued  on  the  ground  within  the 
subsequent  Russian  lines  of  defence, 
under  the  fire  of  ships'  batteries  in- 
comparably more  powerful  than  any- 
thing we  could  oppose  them  with. 
The  presence  of  a  siege  train  proves 
that  the  contingency  of  a  siege  had 
been  anticipated ;  but,  no  doubt, 
whether  the  assault  was  to  be  given 
at  once  or  after  a  cannonade,  a  com- 
bined attack  by  sea  and  land  was 
always  contemplated.  Thus  the  de- 
sign of  the  campaign  was  frustrated 
by  the  sinking  of  the  ships,  a  measure 
which  critics  have  not  sufficiently 
taken  into  their  calculations,  and  since 
then  no  event  has  occurred  which 
could  within  its  possible  limits  have 
altered  the  course  of  events.  That 
caused  all  subsequent  doubt  and  dis- 
aster ;  and,  but  for  that,  the  attempt 
promised  well  for  success.  Then  it 
was  that  the  character  of  the  enter- 
prise was  totally  changed,  from  a 
brisk  advance  followed  by  a  sudden 
assault,  to  a  permanent  occupation  of 
the  plateau  and  a  protracted  siege. 

On  these  grounds,  a  review  of  the 
past  convinces  me  that,  with  the  means 


we  had,  the  course  taken  was  a  right 
one,  and  that  we  may  consider  our- 
selves fortunate  in  having  been  impel- 
led into  it.  Throughout  the  war  very 
little  foresight  is  apparent,  if  any  has 
been  used ;  there  has  been  little 
opportunity  for  free  action,  and  once 
begun,  all  seems  the  result  of  sheer 
necessity,  like  the  descent  of  a  Mon- 
tagne  Russe.  The  chance  character 
of  the  campaign  is  notably  illustrated 
by  the  state  of  the  weather  on  the  day 
and  hour  when  I  write  this — noon,  on 
the  anniversary  of  the  Alma.  Last 
night,  the  anniversary  of  our  bivouac 
on  the  Bulganak,  was  a  night  of  winter's 
cold,  storm,  and  rain,  and  to-day  the 
dreary  drenched  plains  are  thick  with 
mud,  while  over  them  still  whistles  a 
chilling  wind  driving  sharp  showers 
before  it.  Had  that  season  been  as 
this,  we  should  have  advanced  upon 
the  foe,  not  as  then  with  a  bright  sun 
and  a  firm  soil,  but  over  boggy  plains, 
our  limbs,  cramped  by  the  stresses 
of  the  previous  night,  scarcely  enabling 
us  to  lift  our  mud-laden  feet  to  the 
margin  of  the  Alma,  where  we  should 
have  found  a  turbid,  swollen  flood  in- 
stead of  a  clear  stream,  while  the 
vineyards  on  its  overflowed  banks 
would  have  been  a  vast  swamp.  Such 
circumstances  might  well  have  changed 
the  fate  of  the  day  and  of  the  war. 

The  garrison,  relieved  from  the  ap- 
prehension of  an  attack  from  our 
fleets,  now  occupied  itself  in  the  rapid 
construction  of  the  most  essential  of 
those  gigantic  defences,  the  conception 
and  execution  of  which  would  have 
been  alike  beyond  the  reach  of  an 
ordinary  engineer.  A  man  of  genius 
was  called  for,  and  he  was  at  hand  in 
Totleben.  It  is  true  that  nature,  in 
surrounding  the  south  of  Sebastopol 
with  a  line  of  commanding  eminences 
between  deep  ravines,  has  made  the 
position  eminently  defensible ;  but  the 
advantage  was  unimproved  by  art 
till  we  were  before  the  place,  when,  in 
an  incredibly  short  space  of  time,  mas- 
sive ramparts  armed  with  formidable 
batteries  rose  opposite  our  trenches  ; 
and  were  added  to  from  time  to  time, 
till  they  assumed  the  completeness 
and  extent  which  now  surprises  the 
spectator.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
the  interior  aspect  of  the  Malakoff 
and  Redan,  but,  of  all  the  defences, 
the  Bastion  du  Mat,  or  Flagstaff  Baa- 


1855.] 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign.— Part  XL 


629 


tion,  on  the  left  of  the  line  covering 
the  town,  was  the  strongest.  Its 
rampart  was  the  highest  and  most 
massive,  its  escarp  alone  was  faced 
with  a  strong  stockade,  and  its  ditch 
was  defended  by  a  caponniere  or  small 
flanking  battery  extending  across  it. 
Galleries  and  countermines  threaded 
in  a  labyrinth  towards  the  French 
lines.  Within  the  work  the  large 
space  was  heaped  with  mounds,  mark- 
ing the  sites  of  blindages  or  subterra- 
nean chambers  for  the  troops,  and  all 
the  numerous  lengthy  approaches  from 
here  to  the  termination  of  the  Garden 
Batteries  above  the  head  of  the  Creek 
were  lined  with  these  cells,  or  rather 
dens,  with  apertures  so  frequent  that 
it  must  have  been  difficult  for  each 
individual  to  recognise  his  own  abode. 
Heavy  beams  laid  across  each  excava- 
tion supported  the  roof  of  gabions, 
fascines,  and  earth.  The  number  of 
troops  capable  of  being  thus  accom- 
modated, proves  how  anxious  the 
enemy  were  to  be  prepared  on  this 
side  against  a  sudden  attack ;  but  the 
openings  to  the  chambers  were  so 
narrow,  frequently  indeed  so  difficult 
of  entrance,  that  a  rapid  advance 
would  have  surprised  them  before  they 
could  quit  their  burrows.  The  lines 
of  the  Allies  are  extensive  beyond 
precedent,  but  these  defences  of  the 
Russians  are  stupendous.  The  long 
lines  of  rampart  are,  throughout,  of 
enormous  thickness,  with  no  weak 
points,  and  bearing  the  signs  of  a  pre- 
siding genius  everywhere.  These 
alone  would  have  been  far  beyond  the 
powers  of  any  ordinary  garrison  of  a 
fortress  of  this  stamp,  but  they  are 
surpassed  by  the  subterranean  labours 
which  cause  the  spectator  almost  to 
believe  that  some  band  of  gnomes, 
such  as  mine  in  the  Hartz  mountains, 
must  have  volunteered  to  act  as  auxi- 
liaries. Fighting  was  the  least  part 
of  the  work  of  this  indefatigable 
garrison. 

In  the  chapter  headed  "  Exculpa- 
tory," *  I  have  attempted  to  show  how 
unreasonable  was  the  public  indigna- 
tion during  the  disasters  of  our  troops 
in  the  first  part  of  the  siege ;  and  it 
is  unnecessary  to  recapitulate  the  view 
I  took,  which  subsequent  events  have 
not  induced  me  to  modify ;  besides, 


public  opinion,  which  then  found  such 
strong  expression,  has  since  changed. 
It  will  be  instructive  for  men  in  au- 
thority, at  the  commencement  of  a 
future  war,  to  mark  the  fate  of  those 
who  conducted  this  campaign.  Lord 
Raglan — his  Quartermaster  and  Ad- 
jutant Generals  —  his  Commissary- 
General—Admiral  Boxer,  the  naval 
superintendent  in  the  Bosphorus — 
and  Captain  Christie,  superintendent 
of  transports  at  Balaklava — bore  for 
a  time  the  most  unpopular  names  in 
England, — names  gibbeted  like  dead 
kites  and  magpies  nailed  to  a  stable- 
door.  They  were  reviled,  ridiculed, 
menaced ;  the  culpability  so  freely 
attributed  to  them  was,  to  a  great 
extent,  credited  by  the  country;  their 
imputed  crimes  were  hotly  debated 
in  Parliament, — and  the  contest  was 
in  some  instances  continued  over  their 
graves.  It  seemed  as  if  nothing  but 
their  immediate  and  ignominious  dis- 
missal from  the  public  service  could 
satisfy  the  country.  Yet,  "in  a  little 
month,"  all  this  clamour  died  away, 
and  the  advocacy  of  their  friends  was 
favourably  listened  to. 

A  great  deal  has  been  said  and 
written  by  military  critics  of  the 
faultiness  of  our  position  on  the  pla- 
teau. It  is  very  true  that  the  forma- 
tion of  an  army  en  potence — that  is, 
with  a  salient  angle  towards  the  ene- 
my— must,  generally,  be  weak  and 
dangerous.  It  is  clear  enough  that, 
on  ordinary  ground,  a  formation  which 
enables  the  foe  to  throw  all  his  force 
on  a  single  point,  or  a  single  face,  of 
your  line,  must  be  objectionable.  But 
if  the  nature  of  the  position  be  such, 
that  its  apex  is  unassailable,  or  capa- 
ble of  being  made  so,  and  its  wings 
so  posted  that  the  enemy  can  only 
advance  to  the  attack  at  a  disadvan- 
tage more  than  counterbalancing  the 
superiority  of  force  he  can  bring 
against  that  face,  all  objection  ceases ; 
— and  such  a  position  was  ours.  It 
was  endangered,  it  is  true,  on  the  5th 
November ;  but  redoubts  and  in- 
trenchments  subsequently  made  this 
the  strongest  point  of  our  line.  The 
left  wing  faced  the  town,  and  must 
be  attacked  either  up  ravines,  deep, 
narrow,  and  easily  defensible,  or  in 
the  teeth  of  our  siege-batteries;  more- 


*  Magazine,  April  1855. 


630 


The  Story  of  the  Campaign. — Part  XI. 


[Nov. 


over,  in  a  repulse,  the  pursuers  might 
pass  within  the  defences  along  with 
the  flying  enemy,  and  the  prize  might 
fall  into  our  hands.  The  other  wing 
could  not  be  directly  attacked,  be- 
cause, opposite  it,  across  the  valley, 
rises  an  impassable  mountain  barrier. 
Thus  an  enemy's  force  entering  the 
valley  had  Balaklava  in  its  front,  the 
troops  on  the  plateau  on  its  right 
flank,  a  mountain  on  its  left,  and  the 
Tchernaya  in  its  rear.  For  these 
reasons,  I  have  always  considered 
Liprandi's  attack  on  the  25th  Oc- 
tober a  mistake.  His  success,  such 
as  it  was,  proved  of  no  eventual  be- 
nefit to  him,  and  during  the  winter 
he  abandoned  the  position,  which  was 
one  of  great  hazard.  It  is  true  that  we 
committed  an  error  in  occupying  the 
outposts  which  he  took  from  the  Turks 
on  that  occasion,  but  it  was  an  error 
only  because  our  force  did  not  admit 
of  such  extension.  When  our  rein- 
forcements warranted  the  step,  the 
line  of  the  Tchernaya  was  taken  up  ; 
and  thus  Balaklava  was  secured  by 
triple  lines  of  defence,  against  the 
foremost  of  which  the  Russians  cast 
their  whole  weight  in  vain  on  the 
16th  August. 

Spring  found  us  still  in  the  strong 
position  to  which  circumstances  be- 
yond control  had  conducted  us.  Con- 
sidering the  impatience  for  a  result 
manifested  at  home,  and  the  bad  con- 
dition of  the  army,  I  was  among  those 
who  thought  that  we  should  before 
then  have  assaulted,  with  all  the  force 
we  could  command,  the  defences  be- 
fore the  town.  Experience  has  shown 
that  such  an  attempt,  unless  aided  by 
some  happy  chance,  would  have  failed. 
In  May,  our  circumstances  altogether 
changed,  and  again  the  campaign  as- 
sumed a  new  aspect.  Large  reinforce- 
ments of  French  and  Turks,  besides 
a  Sardinian  army,  had  arrived ; 
Kertsch  was  taken ;  and  newer  and 
more  extensive  operations  than  those 
of  the  siege  were  apparently  feasible. 
Two  movements  offered  themselves — 
the  one  from  Eupatoria  or  along  the 
Bulganak — the  other  from  Kertsch. 
In  advancing  from  Eupatoria,  the 
want  of  water  would  always  prevent 
other  than  a  rapid  movement,  follow- 
ed, if  not  at  once  successful,  by  as 
rapid  a  retreat.  At  the  same  time, 
with  our  force  of  cavalry,  and  with 


our  fleet  on  the  coast,  besides  Eupa- 
toria itself  to  fall  back  on,  there  could 
be  no  great  risk  in  case  of  an  attack 
by  the  enemy ;  while  even  a  very 
short  interruption  of  the  stream  of 
supply  to  the  garrison  or  army — such 
as  the  presence  of  a  strong  cavalry 
force  on  the  road  for  two  days — might 
have  been  fatal  to  the  defence  of 
Sebastopol.  The  advance  from  the 
peninsula  of  Kertsch,  involving  the 
capture  of  Kaffa  and  Arabat,  would 
have  been  a  safer  and  more  sustained 
operation,  and  its  consequences  more 
destructive  to  the  enemy. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  occur 
to  every  one,  that  a  man  like  the 
French  Emperor  does  not  require 
to  be  told  that,  in  a  military  point  of 
view,  it  is  better  to  attack  the  flank 
of  an  enemy's  line  of  operations  than 
its  extremity.  The  eager  interest 
with  which  his  attention  has  for  so 
long  been  rivetted  on  the  theatre  of 
war  must  have  rendered  him  at  least 
as  capable  of  judging  of  the  merits  of 
an  obvious  plan  as  any  of  the  critics. 
In  a  former  chapter  I  have  said,  that 
had  we,  in  1854,  succeeded  in  a  coup 
de  main  against  Sebastopol,  it  would 
have  been  fortunate  for  Russia.  Sol- 
diers naturally  look  to  military  suc- 
cesses as  all- important  in  war,  but 
the  glance  of  a  ruler  comprehends 
other  considerations.  Louis  Na- 
poleon is  a  far-seeing  genius,  capable 
of  distinguishing  between  the  inte- 
rests of  the  army  and  those  of  the 
alliance — of  separating  military  from 
national  success.  I  can  imagine  such 
a  man  saying,  "  It  is  true  I  can  take 
the  Crimea,  and  with  it  Sebastopol, 
when  I  please ;  but,  besides  the  loss 
of  town  and  territory,  I  will  drain 
Russia  of  whole  armies.  Pride  will 
not  allow  her  to  abandon  a  contest 
which  it  is  ruin  to  her  to  maintain, 
and  I  will  not  do  her  the  favour  to 
precipitate  its  termination."  To  those 
who  reckon  up  the  losses  of  Russia 
since  the  siege  commenced,  and  com- 
pare them  with  those  of  the  Allies, 
such  language  will  not  seem  unreason- 
able nor  inconsistent  with  the  charac- 
ter of  a  man  so  calculating  in  his  aims, 
so  persevering  in  pursuing  them. 

How  deeply  Russia  has  felt  the 
evil  of  our  presence  here  is  proved  by 
the  attack  at  Traktir,  which  seemed 
the  result  of  desperation.  From  that 


1855.] 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for . 


631 


time,  the  beaten  army  remained 
merely  spectators  of  the  siege, — the 
termination  of  which  Prince  Gort- 
schakoff's  preparations  showed  to  be 
approaching.  The  bridge  was  com- 
pleted across  the  harbour,  and  stores 
of  all  kinds  removed  to  the  north 
side  ;  while  the  tenor  of  some  of  the 
Russian  commander's  previous  des- 
patches pointed  to  the  evacuation  of 
the  place.  The  tremendous  fire  of  the 
Allied  artillery,  searching  through  the 
town  and  works  with  an  enormous 
destruction  of  life,  could  not  be  much 
longer  supported  ;  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  capture  of  the  Malakoff  only 
precipitated  a  measure  already  re- 
solved on.  The  Prince's  subsequent 
despatches,  and  the  Czar's  proclama- 
tion, place  the  abandonment  of  the 
town  in  a  peculiar  light — as  a  great 
stroke  of  generalship,  and  rather  ad- 
vantageous than  otherwise  to  the  Rus- 
sian cause ;  so  that,  unlike  the  loss  of 
fortresses  in  general,  the  event  seems  to 
bave  given  satisfaction  to  everybody. 
Although  long  service  in  the 


trenches  is  undoubtedly  prejudicial 
to  the  discipline  of  troops,  yet  any 
detriment  of  this  kind  the  armies 
have  suffered  will  soon  be  repaired 
now  that  the  siege  is  over.  In  another 
campaign  they  will  take  the  field 
seasoned  to  the  climate,  inured  to 
hardship,  and  familiar  with  all  the 
exigencies  and  shifts  of  life  in  the 
bivouac  and  camp.  What  is  most  to 
be  regretted  is,  that  the  course  of  the 
campaign  has  not  been  such  as  to  de- 
velop what  of  military  genius  England 
may  possess.  Russia  has  her  Totle- 
ben,  the  good  soldier  who,  in  her  hour 
of  need,  was  equal  to  the  emergency 
— the  creator  of  the  vast  works  that 
have  so  long  repelled  us.  Should 
peace  not  shortly  ensue,  we  may  see 
whether  his  genius  is  as  potent  in  the 
open  field  as  in  defence  of  a  city, 
and  how  far  generalship  and  science 
can  avail  against  French  vivacity  and 
British  firmness.  To  us  opportunity 
has  been  denied  for  showing  pre-emi- 
nence, and  the  coming  general  is  still 
unrevealed. 


WAR- POLITICS — WHAT  WE   ARE   FIGHTING  FOR. 


WHENEVER  England  and  France 
put  forth  their  strength,  Russia,  if 
unassisted,  must  go  to  the  wall.  As 
yet  the  Western  Powers  have  not  put 
forth  their  full  strength — they  have 
still  in  their  armoury  many  resources 
unapplied ;  but  they  have  at  length 
aroused  themselves  from  the  aimless 
apathy  of  the  first  year  of  hostilities, 
and  the  flag  of  Russia  has  begun  de- 
finitely to  recoil.  Last  summer  saw 
the  combatants  fighting  on  nearly 
equal  terms.  We  had  indeed  routed 
the  Russians  at  the  Alma,  repulsed 
them  at  Inkermann,  and  checked  the 
half-successful  foray  of  Liprandi  at 
Balaklava ;  but  Sebastopol  still  held 
out, — and  it  was  to  take  Sebastopol 
that  we  went  to  the  Crimea.  Nay, 
the  beleaguered  city  grew  stronger 
and  stronger  beneath  our  eyes, — 
stronger  and  stronger  under  the  fire 
of  an  artillery  such  as  the  world  had 
never  before  gathered  into  one  place. 
A  poor  captain  of  Russian  engineers 
was  baffling  the  skill  of  the  West's  best 
veterans  and  the  power  of  our  mightiest 
engines  of  destruction.  The  month  of 


May  saw  the  Mammelon  taken,  and  the 
Sea  of  Azoff  subject  to  ourfleets,— that 
was  a  great  success;  but  then  came 
the  bloody  repulses  of  the  18th  June, 
to  add  a  new  wreath  to  the  laurels  of 
Totleben,  and  to  revive  misgiving  in 
the  heart  of  the  Allies.  Throughout 
Germany  the  partisans  of  Russia  ex- 
ulted— vaunting  that  the  Allies  were 
dashing  their  strength  like  foam  against 
a  place  which  they  would  never  take. 
But  patience, — the  assault  on  the  18th 
June,  we  believe,  was  made  knowingly 
in  defiance  of  the  dictates  of  military 
prudence,  in  order  to  give  effect  to  the 
generous  wish  of  the  French  Emperor 
that  something  should  be  done  on  that 
memorable  day, — that  the  soldiers  of 
England  and  France  should  then  be 
seen  fighting  together  as  allies  as 
strenuously  as  forty  years  before  they 
had  fought  as  foes, — and  that  the  18th 
of  June  should  thenceforth  be  remem- 
bered less  as  the  anniversary  of  Water- 
loo than  of  the  Fall  of  Sebastopol.  The 
magnanimous  desire  was  frustrated, 
but  the  siege  went  on ;  the  iron  ring 
drew  closer  and  closer  around  the  foe, 


632 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


[Nor. 


and  the  iron  shower  rained  heavier 
and  heavier  upon  the  doomed  city. 
The  Russian  General  made  a  despe- 
rate attempt  to  break  the  leaguer, — 
only  to  find,  in  the  bloody  repulse  of 
Traktir,  a  proof  that  the  Allied  posi- 
tion was  impregnable,  and  that  Totle- 
ben's  earthworks  were  the  sole  safe- 
guard of  Sebastopol.  The  brilliant 
rush  of  the  French  at  noon  on  the  8th 
September  disappointed  this  last  hope ; 
the  surprised  Russians  in  the  Mala- 
koff  were  submerged  in  their  bomb- 
proofs  by  the  sudden  flood  of  assault ; 
the  devoted  gallantry  of  the  British 
at  the  Redan  gave  a  breathing-time  to 
our  allies ;  the  Malakoif  was  secured, 
and  Sebastopol  fell. 

For  the  first  time,  then,  we  are  in 
an  unequivocal  position  of  success. 
The  Black  Sea  fleet  of  Russia  is  anni- 
hilated,— an  enormous  artillery  has 
fallen  into  our  hands, — the  splendid 
docks  and  quays,  and  one-half  of  the 
sea-forts,  of  Sebastopol  are  mined  and 
ready  to  be  blown  into  the  water,  to 
add  their  ruins  to  those  of  the  sub- 
merged fleet, — and  the  enemy  have 
been  driven  from  good  winter-quarters 
which  are  now  in  our  own  possession. 
True,  the  task  is  not  completed— 
there  are  forts  on  the  north  side, 
which  should  likewise  be  blown  into 
the  bay,  and  earthworks  mounted 
with  an  immense  artillery  which  may 
yet  add  to  our  spoils.  But  the  French 
Marshal  with  his  gallant  troops  is 
now  feeling  his  way  round  the  enemy's 
position, — searching  for  an  opening 
through  the  rocky  intrenched  line  of 
the  Russians  ;  and  a  single  successful 
irruption  of  the  assailants  would  prove 
the  ruin  of  the  wide-extended  army 
of  Prince  Gortschakoff.  On  the 
Tchernaya,  therefore,  though  at  pre- 
sent kept  at  bay,  the  Allies  are  the 
winning  party,  and  maintain  the  initi- 
ative ;  while  at  Eupatoria  they  possess 
a  secure  place  d'armes,  from  which 
they  can  debouch  at  pleasure  against 
the  enemy's  rear.  The  capture  of 
Kinburn  has  placed  us  in  a  position 
to  threaten  Nicolaieff,  the  great  naval 
building- station  of  the  Russians  in 
the  south,  as  well  as  to  menace  the 
chief  line  of  communication  by  which 
supplies  are  forwarded  to  Prince 
Gortschakoff's  army  in  the  Crimea. 
In  Asia  also  the  Allied  arms  have 
prospered.  The  splendid  courage  of 


the  Turkish  garrison  of  Kars,  led  by 
the  English  General  Williams,  has 
not  only  secured  that  important 
town,  but  has  inflicted  upon  the 
assailants  so  bloody  a  repulse,  that 
the  fate  of  the  campaign  in  that 
quarter  is  decided.  Nothing  is  left 
to  the  Russians  but  a  more  or  less 
disastrous  retreat,  with  the  army  of 
Omer  Pasha  threatening  them  in 
flank  from  Batoum. 

Such,  then,  is  the  favourable  posi- 
tion which  we  have  reached  in  the 
war.  We  have  fought  our  way  to  it 
through  much  blood,  and  by  the  ex- 
penditure of  much  treasure  ;  and  the 
nation  now  congratulates  itself  on  the 
prospect  of  its  sacrifices  not  having 
been  made  in  vain.  But  let  the 
country  take  care.  Even  triumph 
has  its  difficulties.  Every  new  phase 
in  this  war,  like  every  new  phase  in 
the  last  one,  calls  forth  a  fresh  onset 
from  the  friends  of  our  enemy  at  home. 
In  their  absorbing  desire  to  oppose,  the 
Peace-party  are  equally  prepared  for 
failure  or  success.  Had  failure  come, 
they  would  have  said, — "Well,  did 
not  we  tell  you  no  good  would  come 
of  this  war?"  and  they  would  have 
lashed  on  the  people  against  the  Go- 
vernment as  squandering  the  blood 
and  treasure  of  the  country  only  to 
cover  us  with  disgrace.  Triumph  has 
come,  —  triumph  hard -bought,  and 
prospective  of  more;  and  while  the 
country's  cheers  are  still  ringing,  poli- 
tical combinations  are  being  formed 
to  wrench  from  us  the  fruits  of  success. 
"  Enough  has  been  done,"  say  these 
advocates  of  premature  peace ;  "  it  is 
time  to  make  peace."  And  the  old 
Gladstonian  cry,  "  We  must  not  hum- 
ble Russia  ! "  begins  to  be  heard  even 
in  unexpected  quarters.  Two  sets 
of  politicians — for  the  cry  finds  no 
response  in  the  country — unite  in  us- 
ing this  language.  One  of  these  is 
the  Peace  party  par  excellence, — the 
men  of  Manchester,  the  Cobdens  and 
Brights,  who  have  no  soul  above  cali- 
coes, and  to  whom  all  war,  for  what- 
ever end  waged,  is  an  abomination,, 
as  interfering  with  trade  and  material 
comfort, — utterly  forgetting  that  a 
nation  which  does  not  defend  itself, 
will  soon  be  left  without  much  either 
of  trade  or  comfort  to  enjoy.  The 
other  set  consists  of  the  philo-Russians, 
— the  Grahams  and  Gladstones,  the 


1855.] 


War-Politics— What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


633 


Woods  and  Russells,  who  have  op- 
posed and  vilified  the  French  Emperor 
from  the  first  dawn  of  his  illustrious 
career,  and  who  prefer  to  ally  this 
country  with  the  despotism  of  Russia 
rather  than  with  the  freedom  of  the 
West.  They  would  have  England 
violate  her  geographical  as  well  as 
political  sympathies,  and  become  a 
traitor  in  the  camp  of  Western  civili- 
sation. By  this  sin  thechief  statesmen 
of  this  party  have  already  fallen, — for 
holding  these  views  they  are  still  under 
ban.  But  they  do  not  despair.  In  the 
very  magnitude  of  their  ignominy  there 
is  hope.  So  many  of  them  have  fallen 
together,  that  their  ostracism  has 
ceased  to  be  peculiar;  and  their 
names  have  hitherto  been  so  asso- 
ciated with  the  Government  of  the 
country,  that  they  do  not  believe  the 
Administration  can  go  on  without  them. 
They  belong  to  a  class  of  men  always 
dangerous  in  a  country,  who,  once 
filling  important  offices  in  the  Govern- 
ment, have  fallen  behind  their  times, 
but  will  not  resign  themselves  to  their 
natural  fate,  and,  making  free  use  of 
their  old  influence,  are  ever  intriguing 
to  obtain  by  means  of  party-man- 
O3uvres  a  return  to  power,  which  can 
only  end  in  further  mischief  to  the 
country,  and  in  tenfold  deeper  humi- 
liation to  themselves. 

The  present  intriguers  are  all  dis- 
appointed men.  The  coalition  they  pro- 
pose to  form  very  closely  resembles  that 
which  three  years  ago  overthrew  the 
Derby  Administration.  That  Coali- 
tion, as  we  showed  on  a  former  occa- 
sion, was  mainly  formed  in  the  interest 
of  Russia.  Aberdeen,  Russell,  Glad- 
stone, Wood,  Graham,  Herbert,  - 
does  the  country  wonder  now  that  the 
Czar  should  have  hasted  to  congratu- 
late these  men  on  their  accession  to 
office?— or  that,  with  the  British  lion 
so  muzzled,  he  should  instantly  have 
commenced  his  ambitious  projects 
against  the  integrity  of  Turkey  and 
the  independence  of  Europe  ?  Let 
the  country  see  to  it  that  a  similar 
coalition  is  not  successful  now.  What 
have  Gladstone  and  Cobden,  Russell 
and  Bright  in  common,  but  the  desire 
to  destroy  any  ministry  that  has 
the  wisdom  and  manliness  to  stand 
up,  along  with  Western  Europe, 
against  the  colossal  and  ever-encroach- 
ing ambition  of  the  Czars?  It  was 

VOL.  LXXVIIT. — NO.  CCCCLXXXF. 


these  men  that  caused  the  war.  It 
was  they — the  Peelites  by  their  philo- 
Russianism,  the  Cobdenites  by  their 
perpetual  denunciations  of  armies  and 
war — that  tempted  Russia  to  com- 
mence her  long-cherished  designs 
against  Europe ;  and  it  is  the  same 
parties  who,  by  a  fresh  coalition,  now 
seek  to  save  Russia  in  the  hour  of 
disaster.  "England  does  not  love 
coalitions,"  said  Mr  Disraeli,  when 
the  victim  of  an  unscrupulous 
cabal.  The  words  are  truer  now  than 
ever.  The  first  Coalition  imposed 
upon  England  by  fair  words,  and 
ousted  their  opponents  upon  a  ques- 
tion of  merely  party- character ; — the 
new  coalition  is  openly  an  anti-na- 
tional one,  and  can  only  triumph  at 
the  expense  of  their  country.  It  is  a 
league  against  England's  honour  and 
Europe's  independence.  We  desire  to 
warn  the  country  of  it  betimes.  It  is 
a  meagre  party  of  self-seeking  poli- 
ticians who  are  to  head  the  movement, 
and  a  timely  expression  of  public 
opinion  may  suffice  to  deter  them 
from  the  attempt.  In  any  event,  the 
Conservative  phalanx  will  stand  firm. 
"  England,"  said  Lord  Derby  at  Eg- 
liuton  Castle,  "  will  never  sheathe 
the  sword  which  she  has  so  reluctantly 
drawn,  until  the  noble  and  disinte- 
rested designs  of  the  Allies  have  been 
completely  obtained,  the  independence 
of  Turkey  secured,  and  the  schemes 
of  Russia  upon  Europe  and  Asia 
effectually  checked."  These  are  the 
sentiments  of  the  party,  and  found  si- 
multaneous expression  in  the  eloquent 
speech  of  Sir  E.  B.  Lytton  at  Herts. 
In  this  war,  as  throughout  the  last,  the 
Conservatives  will  rally  round  the  na- 
tional colours,  and  merge  all  minor 
differences  in  the  one  desire  to  uphold 
the  honour  and  true  interests  of  the 
country. 

"  It  is  time  to  make  peace,  for  Tur- 
key is  safe,"  say  some.  "Do  not 
humble  Russia— mind  the  balance  of 
power,"  say  others.  How  ignorant 
men  can  make  themselves  when  it 
suits  their  purpose !  To  hear  them 
speak,  one  would  think  that  the  war 
was  occasioned  by  a  mere  spurt  of 
passion  on  the  part  of  Russia,  for 
which  she  is  now  penitential,  and 
which  she  cannot  renew.  Was  ever 
the  common-sense  of  England  insulted 
by  a  more  glaring  and  daring  perver- 


634 


War- Politics— What  we  are  Fighting  for.  [Nov. 

sees  a  powerful  party  in  the  British 
Parliament  bent  upon  making  peace 
at  any  price  ?  England  has  already 
suffered  heavily  from  this  cause.  It 
was  a  similar  train  of  circumstances 
that  indefinitely  prolonged  and  conse- 


sion  of  well-known  facts  ?  Is  Russia 
penitent  ?  Has  she,  even  in  profession, 
renounced  her  long-standing  schemes 
of  ambition?  Does  she  offer  securities 
for  her  future  observance  of  peace,— 
a  "  material  guarantee "  against  a 
revival  of  the  war  at  a  time  for  her 
more  fitting?  Quite  the  reverse. 
Russia  breathes  defiance  more  fiercely 
than  ever.  Instead  of  showing  peni- 
tence, she  preaches  a  "  holy  war," — 
she  makes  conquest  a  State-principle, 
and  seeks  to  give  to  her  ambitious 
projects  the  sanction  of  religion.  How, 
then,  is  peace  possible?  And  why 
should  we,  the  winning-party,  go  and 
beg  peace  from  so  audacious  an  op- 
ponent ?  If  Russia  desire  peace,  let 
her  say  so ;  and  in  that  case,  if  she 
give  security  for  the  future,  no  spirit 
of  revenge  will  prevent  the  acceptance 
of  her  terms.  But  she  will  give  no 
such  security.  She  boldly  publishes 
to  Europe  that  she  will  not  abate  a 
hair's-breadth  of  her  pretensions, — 
that  the  terms  which  she  rejected  in 
April  at  Vienna,  she  will  reject  still. 
Nay,  so  great  is  her  audacity  that 
she  declares  she  will  not  negotiate 
at  all  after  defeat !  Unquestionably 
there  is  much  of  the  bully  in  this  style 
of  conduct.  Her  object  plainly  is,  to 
make  her  enemies  despair,  and  lead 
them  to  offer  peace  on  her  own  terms 
now,  rather  than  face  an  indefinite 
prolongation  of  the  contest.  She 
wants  to  furnish  a  new  argument  to 
her  Peace  friends  in  England.  Mr 
Cobden — who  has  of  a  sudden  given 
up  his  notion  as  to  the  ease  with 
which  Russia  may  be  "crumpled  up" 
— now  argues  that  it  is  madness  to 
continue  the  war  when  it  is  impos- 
sible to  extract  any  better  terms  from 
the  foe ;  while  Mr  Gladstone,  to  his 
old  cry,  uDo  not  humble  Russia," 
will  now,  more  suo,  append  the  para- 
doxical reason,  "  because  the  more 
you  humble  her,  the  less  she  will  give 
in  !"  It  is  because  she  sees  a  party 
friendly  to  her  in  this  country,  that 
Russia  so  openly  publishes  this  bully- 
ing declaration.  Let  the  Peace  party 
consider  what  they  are  doing.  By 
their  perpetual  clamour  for  peace,  are 
they  not  really  lengthening  the  war  ? 
Is  a  besieged  city  likely  to  capitulate 
when  it  knows  there  is  open  dissension 
in  the  camp  of  the  besiegers  ?  And  is 
Bussia  likely  to  give  in  as  long  as  she 


quently  greatly  envenomed  the  last 
war,  and,  by  so  doing,  made  our 
National  Debt  one-half  larger  than  it 
would  otherwise  have  been.  France 
would  then  have  triumphed  and  Eu- 
rope been  enslaved,  but  for  England  ; 
and,  misled  by  the  loud  denunciations 
of  the  war  by  the  Opposition  in  the 
British  Parliament,  the  successive 
Governments  which  ruled  revolution- 
ary France,  and  especially  the  last 
and  greatest  of  them,  Napoleon, 
imagined  that  England  would  soon 
recede  from  the  contest,  and  the  last 
obstacle  to  French  domination  on  the 
Continent  be  removed.  The  idea  was 
a  fallacious  one,  but  what  a  prolonged 
outpouring  of  blood  and  treasure  did 
it  occasion  !  Despite  all  the  intrigues, 
vociferations,  and  astute  energies  of 
the  Peace  party  now,  we  are  persuaded 
that  the  encouragement  which  their 
conduct  gives  to  Russia  is  not  less 
fallacious.  England,  we  are  persuad- 
ed, will  not  sheath  her  sword  in  dis- 
honour, with  the  objects  of  the  war  un- 
accomplished. Nevertheless,  the  hopes 
of  Russia,  founded  upon  the  pusillani- 
mity of  certain  politicians  at  home,  will 
hardly  fail  to  greatly  prolong  the  war, 
and,  by  the  prolongation,  almost  in- 
evitably impart  to  it  that  extension 
and  envenomed  character  which  it  is 
most  desirous  to  avoid. 

It  is  not  true  that  Russia  does  not 
negotiate  after  defeat.  Was  Fried- 
land,  where  she  lost  half  an  army,  no 
defeat  ?  yet  that  did  not  prevent  the 
Czar  Alexander  from  soliciting  the 
conference  of  Tilsit.  But  take  as  ex- 
ample that  typical  monarch  of  Russia, 
the  great  Peter  himself.  When  worsted 
and  surrounded  by  the  Turks  on  the 
Pruth,  did  that  first  of  the  Czars  hesi- 
tate to  negotiate  ?  On  the  contrary, 
he  begged  for  peace,  made  great  con- 
cessions, and  in  the  treaty  itself  ex- 
pressed his  gratitude  to  his  enemies 
for  granting  him  such  terms.  The 
same  common-sense  principle  applies 
still :  the  greater  the  straits  to  which 
a  Power  is  reduced,  the  less  obstinate 
will  it  be  in  refusing  to  treat.  Russia 
will  not  prove  an  exception  to  the 


1855.] 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


635 


rule,  however  she  may  disguise  her 
real  inclinations.  She  finds  she  has 
miscalculated  her  time  for  beginning 
this  war  of  aggression ;  she  did  not 
reckon  upon  England  and  France 
being  united  against  her  ;  and  she 
would  willingly  retreat  from  it,  and 
await  a  more  convenient  season  for 
renewing  her  ambitious  designs.  But 
then  her  difficulty  is,  that  by  her  pre- 
mature onslaught  upon  Turkey,  she 
has  awakened  the  Western  Powers 
to  a  sense  of  their  danger ;  and  she 
naturally  apprehends  that  they  will 
not  let  her  escape  from  the  war  which 
she  provoked  without  obtaining  suffi- 
cient securities  for  her  not  resuming 
the  work  of  aggression.  To  give  such 
securities  would  be  to  abandon  the 
grand  scheme  of  ambition  which  the 
Czars  have  steadily  and  successfully 
acted  upon  for  a  century  and  a  half. 
It  would  do  so  in  two  ways,  both  by 
the  material  guarantees  to  be  exacted 
by  the  Allies,  and  by  the  shock  to  the 
prestige  of  Russia,  which  would  loosen 
her  grasp  over  the  states  of  Central 
Europe.  Russia  will  not  submit  to 
this, — therefore  the  alternatives  are 
obvious  and  simple.  Either  theWestern 
Powers  must  consent  to  illusory  terms, 
which  will  leave  Russia  free  to  resume 
her  aggressions  upon  Europe  at  a  future 
and  more  favourable  time,  or  the  war 
must  go  on.  Can  any  one  doubt  that 
the  voice  of  free  England  will  be  given 
for  the  latter  alternative  ? 

"  Turkey  is  safe,"— what  then  ?  It 
may  suit  the  Peelites  to  say  that  the 
.war  was  undertaken  solely  on  behalf 
of  Turkey, — for  in  point  of  fact  they 
and  their  colleagues  in  the  Aberdeen 
Ministry  did  not  undertake  it  on  be- 
half of  anything,  and  were  forced  into 
it  against  their  will  by  the  might  of 
public  opinion.  But  the  statement  is 
false,  and  the  whole  country  knows  it 
to  be  so.  The  defence  of  Turkey  was 
but  an  accident  in  the  matter.  It 
might  as  well  have  been  Sweden  that 
we  drew  the  sword  to  defend.  It  was 
to  resist  the  undue  preponderance  in 
Europe  which  the  ceaseless  aggres- 
sions of  Russia  were  securing  for  her, 
and  of  which,  the  attack  upon  Turkey 
war  but  a  fresh  step.  The  cause  of  the 
was  was  not  a  mere  isolated  attack — 
a  spurt  of  casual  passion  on  the  part  of 
a  despotic  monarch,,  which  might  be 
forgotten  as  soon  as  it  was  repelled. 


The  attack  in  question  was  part  of 
a  system — of  a  system  long  cherish- 
ed and  hitherto  successful,  but  which, 
if  not  checked,  would  certainly  make 
the  Czar  lord  -  paramount  of  all 
Europe.  Therefore,  merely  to  repel 
the  attack — merely  to  make  Turkey 
safe  for  the  moment — is  evidently  not 
enough — is  nothing  at  all.  If  we  do 
not  wish  to  see  Europe  in  virtual  vas- 
salage to  the  Czars,  we  must  take 
measures  to  curb  that  overvaulting 
ambition,  which  for  the  last  century 
and  a  half  has  preyed  upon  the  dis- 
sensions of  Europe. 

Peace!  it  is  a  blessed  word— a 
thing  that  man's  heart  yearns  after, 
and  which  the  nations  have  a  right  to 
look  forward  to  as  a  crowning  bless- 
ing. Peace  ! — none  can  prize  it  more 
than  we ;  no  country  prizes  it  more 
than  England  does  now.  But  in  our 
yearning  after  it,  let  us  not  mistake 
a  sham  for  reality.  Let  us  have  peace 
— by  all  means,  PEACE — a  calm  which 
will  fall  like  quiet  sunshine  all  over 
Europe,  and  allow  each  nation  to  de- 
velop its  powers  in  its  own  way.  We 
must  have  that  peace ;  and  it  is  be- 
cause we  desire  that  peace  —  that 
crowning  blessing  for  Europe— so  fer- 
vently, that  we  would  now  have  the 
nation  spurn  from  them  in  disdain  a 
base  counterfeit.  Let  us  have  a  Peace, 
but  not  a  mere  truce — not  a  mere 
armed  breathing-time,  which  we  give 
to  our  adversary  to  recruit  his  strength, 
and  watch  a  more  favourable  hour  for 
resuming  the  struggle.  Now  that  war 
has  been  forced  upon  us,  we  must  see 
that  we  do  not  leave  the  peace  of 
Europe  for  ever  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Czars.  Now  that  Russia  has  openly 
resumed  her  old  work  of  aggression, 
and  has  published  her  resolution  to 
abide  to  the  death  by  her  policy  of 
encroachment,  we  must  either  now 
force  her  to  relinquish  that  policy,  or 
prepare  to  see  the  rule  of  the  Cossack 
spread  westwards  to  the  Atlantic. 

"  Russia  never  negotiates  after  de- 
feat." The  maxim  is  borrowed  from 
Rome ;  and  Dr  Arnold,  remarking 
upon  this  feature  of  the  old  Roman 
policy,  declares  that  the  Power  which 
holds  such  language  as  this  ought  to 
be  put  beyond  the  pale  of  civilisation. 
Yes,  andforanotherreason  besides  that 
imagined  by  the  historian.  He  looks 
upon  the  maxim  simply  as  an  embit- 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


636 

terer  of  strife — as  a  principle  which 
lends  to  war  a  fearful  aggravation. 
True ;  but  there  is  more  than  this  in 
it.  Rome  was  an  aggressive  state,  as 
Russia  is  now.  The  Legions  were  ever 
on  the  aggressive ;  and  therefore, 
when  Rome  declared  she  would  not 
negotiate  after  defeat,  it  was  but  say- 
ing that  she  was  resolved  to  conquer 
every  people,  one  after  another,  that 
came  in  her  way.  To  have  yielded 
before  one,  would  have  frustrated  her 
whole  future  of  conquest ;  and  hence 
she  adopted  this  maxim  as  a  deliberate 
principle  of  conquest,  and,  moreover, 
published  it  abroad  as  a  means  of  ter- 
rifying her  adversaries.  Even  so  Rus- 
sia, the  nascent  power  of  modern  Eu- 
rope— even  so  the  Czars,  who  now 
wear  the  Greek  helmet  on  gala-days, 
as  representatives  of  the  Latin  Em- 
perors of  the  East,  have  adopted  the 
same  maxim  of  conquest,  and  pub- 
lished the  same  manifesto  of  all-de- 
fiance. The  Czar  of  Russia  is  the 
Ishmael  of  the  European  community. 
For  a  century  past  he  has  been  at 
work,  sowing  dissension,  and  breaking 
into  war  whenever  it  has  suited  him 
to  do  so.  Now,  when  brought  to  bay, 
he  has  thrown  off  disguise,  and  ap- 
pears in  his  true  character ;  and  if 
his  dream  of  conquest  be  not  rudely 
broken,  Europe  must  choose  as  its 
future  either  a  ceaseless  warfare  or  an 
Oriental  servitude.* 


[Nov. 


Those  who  now  clamour  for  peace 
need  not  seek  to  disguise  their  real 
sentiments.  By  peace  now,  they 
mean  peace  at  any  price, — peace  on 
Russia's  own  terms.  That  is  their 
plain  meaning.  They  know  that  Rus- 
sia will  not  recede  a  hair's-breadth 
from  the  terms  which  were  judged 
inadmissible  in  April.  AVhy,  then, 
this  clamour  for  peace,  as  if  it  were  a 
thing  at  present  attainable  on  satis- 
factory terms?  Let  such  clamourers 
leave  off  the  unmanly  subterfuge,  and 
say  at  once  that  they  want  peace  on 
any  terms, — that  they  care  nothing 
for  the  future,  either  of  their  own 
country  or  of  Europe, — that  enough 
for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof,  and  that 
if  they  can  get  a  good  market  for 
their  calicoes,  or  their  bread  and 
sugar  a  little  cheaper,  the  next  gene- 
ration may  fare  as  it  best  may. 
"  After  us,  the  deluge," — that  is  their 
motto.  O  cowards  and  faithless! — 
mere  clingers  after  the  creature-com- 
forts of  existence !  sacrificers  of  a 
long  future,  the  future  of  your  sons 
and  grandsons,  to  the  brief  hour  of 
your  own  nigh-spent  existence ! — alas 
that  England  should  have  ever  born 
such  sons.  Alas  that  the  Genius  of 
independent  Europe,  in  the  hour  of 
her  extremity,  should  now  point  with 
mingled  scorn  and  painful  apprehen- 
sion to  a  batch  of  veteran  politicians 
in  England  —  to  the  Grahams  and 


*  Read  "  Russia  "  for  "  Rome  "  in  the  following  passage,  and  see  what  sentence 
even  the  philanthropic  Arnold  would  have  pronounced  upon  the  conduct  and  policy 
of  our  adversary  : — "  This  refusal  to  negotiate  after  a  defeat  was  a  general  maxim 
of  Roman  policy,  and  has  often  been  extolled  as  a  proof  of  heroic  magnanimity.  It 
should  rather  be  considered  as  a  direct  outrage  on  the  honour  and  independence  of 
all  other  nations,  which  ought,  injustice,  to  have  put  the  people  who  professed  it  out  of 
the  pale  of  all  friendly  relations  with  mankind.  In  a  moment  of  madness,  the  French 
Convention,  in  1794,  passed  a  decree  that  the  garrisons  of  the  four  fortresses  on  the 
northern  frontier,  then  in  the  possession  of  the  Allies,  should  be  put  to  the  sword  if 
ihey  did  not  surrender  within  twenty-four  hours  after  they  were  summoned.  To  this 
decree,  a  notice  of  which  accompanied  the  summons  6f  the  besieging  general,  the 
Austrian  governor  of  Le  Quesnoy  nobly  replied,  *  No  one  nation  has  a  right  to 

•  decree  the  dishonour  of  another;  I  shall  maintain  my  post  so  as  to  deserve  the 
esteem  of  my  master,  and  even  that  of  the  French  people  themselves.'    In  like 
manner,  a  refusal  to  make  peace  except  on  their  submission  was  to  decree  the 
dishonour  of  every  other  nation;  nor  had  Home  any  right  to  insist  that  whatever  were 
the  events  of  a  war,  it  should  only  be  terminated  on  such  conditions  as  should  make  her 

•  enemy  the  inferior  party.    Had  other  nations  acted  on  the  same  principle,  every  war 
must  necessarily  have  been  a  war  of  extermination ;  and  thus  the  pride  of  one  people 
•would  have  multiplied  infinitely  the  sufferings  of  the  human  race,  and  have  reduced 
mankind  to  a  state  of  worse  than  savage  ferocity.     The  avowal  of  such  a  maxim,  in 
short,  placed  Some  in  a  condition  of  actual  hostility  with  the  whole  world,  and  would 
hatejustifed  all  nations  in  uniting  together  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  a  solemn  and 
practical  renunciation  of  it ;  or,  in  case  of  a  refusal,  of  extirpating  utterly  the  Roman 
people,  as  the  common  enemies  of  the  peace  and  honour  of  mankind." — Dr  Arnold. 


1855.] 


War-Politics — What  ice  are  Fighting  for. 


6S7 


Aberdeens,  the  Russells  and  Cobdens 
—as  potent  allies  of  the  common 
foe, — as  men  whose  only  common 
bond  of  union  is  the  desire  to  barter 
a  long  future  for  a  brief  present,  and 
to  rend  asunder  the  glorious  League 
which  Western  Europe  has  formed  to 
arrest  the  onset  of  Cossack  barbarism 
and  Oriental  despotism ! 

If  we  are  not  to  fight  now,  when 
are  we  to  fight  ?  Is  Russia  likely  to 
lose  either  the  power  or  the  appetite 
for  conquest,  if  we  leave  her  to  triumph 
high-handed  and  unopposed?  Or  are 
we  likely  to  grow  better  able  to  cope 
with  the  Colossus  ?  Is  an  alliance 
between  France  and  England  such  a 
common  occurrence  that  we  should 
not  avail  ourselves  of  it  ? — is  it  so 
certain  to  endure,  so  certain  to  revive 
when  wanted,  that  we  can  afford  for 
the  present  to  let  it  lie  in  abeyance  ? 
Does  not  that  alliance  depend  mainly 
upon  the  life  of  one  man,  and  that 
man  surrounded  by  daggers  ?  France, 
Spain,  Turkey,  and  Sardinia  are  now 
leagued  with  us — when  are  we  likely 
ever  to  form  a  more  potent  or  con- 
genial Alliance  ?  Break  from  this  Al- 
liance now,  and  you  insure  the  tri- 
umph of  Russianism  on  the  Continent, 
— break  from  it,  and  you  become  a  trai- 
tor to  the  liberties  of  Europe, — break 
from  it,  and  you  sunder  England  from 
the  community  of  European  nations. 
And  remember,  the  day  of  Western 
triumph  and  European  independence 
will  come,  whether  you  aid  in  it  now  or 
not.  We  do  not  look  for  a  smooth 
course  and  unbroken  success  in  the 
struggle  on  which  we  have  embarked. 
Possibly  a  reaction  may  set  in,  which 
for  a  season  may  overcast  the  pros- 
pects of  Europe.  But  the  issue  is 
certain.  Providence  watches  over  the 
development  of  nations,  and  accom- 
plishes it  in  its  own  good  time  ;  and 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  Western 
civilisation  and  European  freedom  is 
as  sure  as  the  coming  of  harvest-time 
in  the  year.  What  will  England  feel, 
where  will  her  place  be  then,  if  we 
abandon  the  cause  now  ?  Nor  let  the 
Peace  party  imagine  that  our  loss 
then  would  be,  what  they  call,  a  mere 
loss  of  honour.  It  would  be  material 
as  well  as  moral,  affecting  our  pockets 
as  well  as  our  pride,  and  keeping  us 
at  feud  with  the  then  triumphant 
party  on  the  Continent. 


7*  Turkey  safe?  So  long  as  our 
armies  and  fleets  are  there,  but  no 
longer.  So  long  as  the  fleets  of  Eng- 
land and  France  ride  supreme  in  the 
Black  Sea,  and  two  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  troops  of  Western 
Europe  co-operate  with  those  of  Tur- 
key against,  the  armies  of  the  Czar '. 
Well  may  Turkey  be  safe  behind  such 
ashield  !  Hussars  from  India,  Zouaves 
from  Africa, — troops  from  Egypt — 
troops  from  the  Sardinian  mountains, 
— armies  from  France, — the  whole 
military  strength  (alas  that  it  is  so- 
small  !)  of  Great  Britain,— the  gather- 
ed might  of  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
soldiers  from  the  banks  of  the  Tigris, 
the  Anatolian  valleys,  the  Albanian 
mountains,  and  both  shores  of  the 
JEgean !  Well  may  Turkey  be  safe. 
But  this  mighty  out-putting  of  mili- 
tary strength  cannot  be  permanent. 
The  question  is,  then,  are  we  to  dis- 
band these  vast  armaments,  as- 
sembled at  so  much  cost  and  by  s& 
happy  a  juncture  of  circumstances, 
without  taking  precautions  for  the 
future  peace  of  Europe?  We  have 
intervened  between  the  robber  and 
his  victim,  and  now  kneel  upon  the 
breast  of  the  aggressor.  The  intend- 
ed victim  is  safe  as  long  as  we  hold 
the  dagger  at  the  robber's  throat ;  but 
are  we  now  to  sheathe  our  arms  and 
walk  away,  leaving  the  robber  un- 
bound and  free  to  resume  his  on- 
slaught ?  Forbid  it !  If  the  short- 
sighted policy  of  the  Peace  party  were 
successful,  we  should  lose  even  in  a 
monetary  point  of  view.  We  would 
straightway  find  ourselves  necessi- 
tated either  to  maintain,  year  by  year, 
a  large  standing  force,  naval  arid 
military,  for  the  repression  of  any  new 
onset  by  Russia;  or  else  Turkey 
in  a  few  years  would  be  swallowed  up- 
by  its  colossal  neighbour.  And  Tur- 
key would  not  fall  alone.  Her  ab- 
sorption would  be  but  another  mile- 
stone in  the  march  of  Muscovite  con- 
quest. There  have  been  "  sick  men"" 
before  Turkey,  and  there  will  be 
"  sick  men"  after  her.  Poland  was 
the  invalid  of  last  century,  and  where 
is  she  now  ?  Swallowed  up  by  the 
imperial  robber,  and  adding  to  the 
strength  of  his  armies  by  twenty 
millions  of  the  most  gallant  popula- 
tion in  the  world.  Turkey,  if  we 
prove  false  to  ourselves,  will  share  a> 


War-Politics— What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


638 

similar  fate,  and  give  other  races  and 
territory  to  swell  the  military  strength 
of  the  Czar.  Thus  made  irresistible, 
will  Russia  pause  in  her  career  ?  Will 
she  not  find  a  new  "  sick  man"  in  due 
time  upon  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  and 
strive  to  make  that  sea  also  a  mare 
clausum,  a  vast  lake  within  which 
Russia  can  train  her  sailors  and  aug- 
ment her  fleet  until  she  be  ready  for 
her  last  triumph?  Let  not  England 
hug  herself  now  in  fancied  security, 
and  say.  What  have  I  to  do  with 
checking  Russia?  Russia,  at  the 
beginning  of  this  war,  had  a  fleet  equal 
to  those  of  England  and  France  united, 
— what  will  she  not  have  when  the 
Euxine  and  the  Baltic  are  both  in 
her  power,  and  when  she  can  press 
into  her  marine  alike  the  hardy 
Scandinavians  and  the  adroit  seamen 
of  the  Greek  isles  ?  Peace- seeking, 
trade-seeking  England,  isolated  by 
her  selfishness,  would  then  not  only 
see  her  whole  Mediterranean  sta- 
tions rent  from  her,  but  be:!  utterly 
crushed  upon  her  own  shores  by  the 
mighty  fleets  of  Russia  issuing  simul- 
taneously from  the  Baltic  and  the 
Straits  of  Gibraltar.  Far-off  con- 
tingencies !  it  may  be  said.  True, 
but  not  the  less  certain  to  happen,  if 
Europe  continue  to  slumber  while 
Russia  conquers.  Let  us  say  it,  we 
do  not  believe  this  lamentable  issue 
will  happen, — but  only  because  we 
believe  that  England  will  fight  be- 
times, and  not  when  too  late, — because 
we  do  not  believe  that  England  will 
be  so  mad  or  so  mean  as  to  sacrifice 
her  own  future  and  that  of  Europe 
for  the  sake  of  a  short-lived  hour  of 
lighter  taxes,  and  at  the  bidding  of  a 
clique  of  politicians  who  have  already 
shown  themselves  beyond  measure,  in- 
fatuated, dishonest  to  the  nation,  and 
as  little  prescient  of  the  future  as  they 
have  been  taught  by  the  past. 

Let  us  recall  two  passages  from  our 
past  history.  We  have  tried"  the 
Peace-policy  before,— let  us  see  with 
what  results.  Let  us  see  if  the  two 
instances  to  be  related  were  not 
actual,  though  distant  causes  of  the 
very  crisis  in  which  Europe  now  finds 
itself.  Turn  back  nearly  a  century. 
Poland  was  the  "  sick  man"  of  those 
days, — Russia  the  robber  then  as  now. 
Russia's  policy  also  was  the  same 
then  as  now.  In  the  assumed  guise 


[Nov. 


of  a  doctor,  she  adopted  towards  the 
"  sick  man "  a  mode  of  treatment 
identical  with  that  which  she  has 
since  followed  towards  the  Ottoman 
Empire.  It  was  on  the  plea  of  secur- 
ing the  religious  liberty  of  the  members 
of  the  Greek  Church  in  Poland,  that 
Russia  made  her  first  attack  upon 
the  independence  of  that  country. 
Russia's  diplomacy  was  also  then 
adroit  and  lying  as  now,  and  played 
its  part  so  well  that  the  other  Powers 
of  Europe  did  not  penetrate  her  de- 
signs, and  even  aided  her  in  imposing 
her  terms  upon  the  Poles— a  nation, 
be  it  said,  whose  previous  history  had 
shown  them  to  be  the  most  tolerant 
in  Europe.  By  the  treaty  of  Oliva  in 
1760,  this  protectorate  of  the  Greek 
dissenters  in  Poland  was  accorded 
to  Russia.  Several  deluded  Powers, 
and  Great  Britain  among  the  num- 
ber, became  guarantees  of  this  treaty, 
and  by  this  step  gave  a  quasi  legal 
sanction  to  interference  with  the 
domestic  affairs  of  the  "  sick  man," — 
a  letting  out  of  waters  very  analo- 
gous to  the  intermeddling  of  the 
Great  Powers  between  the  Sultan 
and  his  Christian  subjects  which  im- 
mediately preceded  the  mission  of 
Menschikoff  and  present  onslaught  of 
Russia.  The  first  partition  of  Poland 
(1772)  followed.  France,  England, 
Sweden,  and  Spain  had  guaranteed  the 
integrity  of  that  unhappy  country  by 
solemn  treaties,  particularly  those  of 
Volawand  Oliva;  yet  the  partitioning 
Powers  were  allowed  to  work  their 
will  unopposed,  while  the  Western 
States  looked  quietly  on,  passively 
sanctioning — 

"  The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan, 
That  he  shall  take  who  has  the  power, 
And  he  shall  keep  who  can." 

We  know  what  was  the  issue  of  all 
this,  —  how  Poland  was  bit  by  bit 
swallowed  up,  and  how  Russia  grew 
and  prospered  upon  the  peace-policy 
of  her  neighbours.  But  let  us  take 
another  instance.  Turkey  was  the 
only  Power  that  at  that  time  penetrated 
Russia's  designs  upon  Poland,  and 
struggled  to  prevent  their  realisation. 
On  this  account,  as  well  as  in  pursuit 
of  the  cherished  dream  of  placing  a 
Czar  upon  the  throne  of  Byzantium, 
and  renewing  the  empire  of  Con- 
stantine,  Russia  had  no  sooner 
swallowed  her  first  slice  of  Poland 


1855.] 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


639 


than  she  bore  down  heavily  upon  the 
Ottomans.      "  Through  this  gate  lies 
the  road  to  Byzantium!'11  was  the  omi- 
nous inscription  which  Catherine  II. 
placed  over  the  west  gate  of  Cherson, 
and  she  was  resolved  that  her  pro- 
phecy should  be  realised.    The  year 
1788  saw    Turkey  in    great    peril. 
In    the    spring    of    that     year    the 
Czarina   Catherine  and  Joseph  II. 
of  Austria    met    at    Cherson,    and 
concerted  a  joint  plan  of  operations, 
which  embraced  at    once    the   par- 
tition of  Turkey  and  a  curtailment 
of  the  power  of  Prussia.    The  Court 
of  Berlin  took  the  alarm.    Great  Bri- 
tain, led  by  Pitt,  resolved  upon  timely 
interference— Holland,  Poland,  Swe- 
den, and  Turkey  joined  them  ;  and 
in  June  was  concluded  the  conven- 
tion of  Loo,  which  had  for  its  object 
resistance  to  the  encroachments  of 
Russia  and  Austria  upon  the  com- 
monwealth of  Europe.     What  was 
the  effect  of  this  League  ?    Why,  it  so 
effectually  checked  the  ambition  of 
these  two  Powers  that    they  made 
peace  with  Turkey  within  two  months 
of  its  ratification ! — a  proof,  among 
others,  how  easily  this  modern  onset 
of  Russia  might  have  been  stayed  had 
the  British  Government  co-operated 
heartily  with  that  of  France  in  the 
spring    or    summer  of    1853.      But 
what  became  of  this  League  when 
Russia,  a  few  years  afterwards,  re- 
commenced her  work  of  aggression 
both  against  Turkey    and    Poland? 
Why,  it  had  expired,  and  England 
had  been  the  death  of  it!    No  blame 
to  Mr  Pitt  for  this.     In  those  days  it 
was  the  reverse  of  what  we  have  lately 
seen, — the  Cabinet  was  prescient  and 
alive  to  our  true  interests  ;  it  was  the 
Parliament    and    people    that   were 
blind.     Although  Russia  was  already 
in  possession  of  the  Crimea,  Mr  Pitt 
held    that  the  strong  sea-board    of 
Oczakow— that  which  theAllied  fleets 
are   at  this  moment  assailing   with 
their  broadsides— was  the  real  key  to 
Constantinople  and  Egypt,  and  he  was 
resolved  not  to  leave  it  in  the  posses- 
sion of  Russia.     A  fleet  was  in  the  act 
of  being  fitted  out,  and  an  English  war 
with  Russia  was  at  hand— nay,  seemed 
inevitable,  in  order  that  this  impor- 
tant region  might  be  saved  from  the 
devouring  jaws  of  the  Northern  sav- 
age,  when   the  intervention  of  Mr 


Fox  and  the  manufacturing  interests 
came  to   the  help  of  Russia,  just  as 
Russell  and  Cobden  would  fain  help 
that  Power  now.    In  March  1791,  a 
royal  message  was  delivered  to  both 
Houses  of  Parliament,  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  importance  to  England, 
and  to  Europe  in  general,  of  the  pos- 
sible consequences  of  Russia's  war 
with  the  Porte,  and  asking  for  an 
augmentation  of  naval  force  to  be  em- 
ployed for  "  the  restoration  of  tran- 
quillity on  a  secure  and  lasting  foun- 
dation."   The  gifted  Prime-Minister 
of  the  time  supported  the  measure  on 
the  ground  of  the  direct  interest  of 
England  in  the  struggle  then  going 
on,  as  well  as  for  the  sake  of  keeping 
faith  with  allies  with  whom  we  had 
contracted    offensive    and   defensive 
alliances.    Should  Turkey  be  further 
weakened    by    Russia,    he    argued, 
Prussia  would  shortly  be  placed  un- 
der pressure, — and  not  Prussia  only, 
but  all  Europe,  the  political  system  of 
which   might    be    shaken    to  its  very 
foundation.      The  measure  was  op- 
posed   by  Messrs    Fox   and    Grey, 
whose  reasoning  was  a  type  of  that 
employed  by  the  Peace-party  of  the 
present    day,  —  mercantile   cupidity 
being  set  against  honour,  the  general 
interests  of  the  empire,  and  the  liberty 
of  Europe.    Mr   Grey,   anticipating 
his  grandson  the  present  Earl,  con- 
tended that  the  larger  Russia  grew, 
the  weaker  she  would  be ;  and  that 
even  though  the  wildest  dream  of  her 
ambition  should  be  realised  by  the 
possession  of  Constantinople  and  ex- 
termination   of   the    Ottomans,    we 
should  be  none  the  worse,  and  the 
world  greatly  benefited.    Sixty  years 
ago  Russia  was  hardly  known  in  this 
country  save  by  name:  the    conse- 
quence was,   that   the  views  of  the 
Opposition    became    popular,  —  Mr 
Pitt  was  forced  to  yield, — and  Great 
Britain,  turning  her  back  upon  Tur- 
key, Poland,  and  Prussia,  as  well  as 
forsaking  her  own  honour  and  true 
interest,  declined  to  fulfil  the  engage- 
ments of  her  treaties,  and  left  the 
field  open^o  the  ambitious  progress 
of  Russia.    The  end  is  shortly  told. 
The  natural  result  of  this  faithlessness 
on  the  part  of  Great  Britain,  was  an 
immediate  change  in  the   policy  of 
Prussia, — a  state   which    could   not 
be  expected  to  stand  out  single-handed 


640 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


[Nov. 


against  Russia  and  Austria.  "  Fre- 
derick-William," we  are  told,  u  at 
once  felt  the  force  of  the  ridicule 
thrown  by  the  agents  of  Russia  upon 
the  parade  [is  not  the  word  too  ap- 
plicable still?]  of  the  English  fleet  in 
the  Baltic,  which  they  said  was  '  only 
dangerous  to  itself,  and  at  the  utmost 
could  do  no  more  than  throw  half-a- 
dozen  bombs  to  destroy  the  counting- 
houses  or  warehouses,  possibly  of  as 
many  merchants  in  Riga,  Revel,  or 
Cronstadt.' "  Thus  perished  the  anti- 
Russian  League  of  1788.  And,  as  the 
immediate  consequence  of  England's 
secession,  Prussia,  left  to  shift  for  her- 
self, at  once  reversed  her  policy,  and 
joined  the  league  of  general  plunder, 
resulting  in  fresh  gain  to  Russia  from 
the  final  partition  of  Poland  in  1794. 
If  history  be  "  philosophy  teaching 
by  example,"  we  ought  to  take  a  les- 
son from  these  events.  The  parallel 
is  a  warning  one.  We  see  Russia  in 
the  same  attitude  of  aggression  then  as 
now, — a  similar  league  formed  to  re- 
sist her, — and  a  similar  Peace-party 
at  home  urging  this  country  to  break 
off  from  the  alliance,  and  leave  Russia 
unopposed.  Let  us  see  what  we  have 
gained  by  breaking  up  the  alliance  in 
1791.  Has  not  Prussia,  as  Mr  Pitt 
predicted,  since  then  been  subjected 
to  such  pressure,  that  she  dare  no 
longer  act  independently  of  her  co- 
lossal neighbour  ?  Has  Russia,  as  Mr 
Grey  vainly  imagined,  grown  weaker 
by  her  vast  subsequent  conquests,  or 
has  she  not  rather  doubled  her  strength 
for  future  aggression  ?  Or  has  she 
lost  the  taste  for  aggression,  the  lust 
for  territorial  aggrandisement?  Have 
we  not  found  ourselves  compelled  to 
adopt  now  the  very  course  which  Mr 
Pitt  proposed  to  follow  sixty  years  ago  ? 
Nay,  is  not  the  Allied  fleet  at  this  mo- 
ment engaged  in  the  identical  opera- 
tion which  Mr  Pitt  was  fitting  out  a 


fleet  to  do  in  1791  ?  True,  the  contest 
is  now  on  a  much  vaster  scale.  The 
fleet,  which  would  have  sufficed  to 
check  Russia  in  1791,  now  plays  a 
very  subordinate  part  in  the  terrible 
drama, — being  all  but  checkmated  by 
the  formidable  fortifications  which 
the  Czars  have  built  since  these  times. 
Moreover,  the  military  strength  of 
Russia  has  so  immensely  increased, 
that  the  Ottoman  power,  which  then 
struggled  with  her  on  equal  terms,  is 
now  quite  inadequate,  and  the  West 
has  to  put  forth  a  crusade  of  220,000 
men,  admirably  equipped,  to  restore 
the  balance.  Had  we  proved  true  to 
ourselves,  to  the  alliance,  and  to  Eu- 
rope, in  1791,  we  would  have  been 
spared  the  excessive  exertions  entailed 
upon  us  now.  But  we  proved  blind  to- 
our  own  interests,  faithless  to  those  of 
our  allies,  and  now  we  reap  the  pen- 
alty. The  contest  would  have  been 
an  easy  one  in  1791.  England,  Hol- 
land, Prussia,  Poland,  acting  together 
in  the  north,  in  concert  with  the 
Turkish  power  and  British  fleet  in 
the  south,  would  soon  have  annihi- 
lated the  armies  and  commerce  of 
Austria  and  Russia.  France,  para- 
lysed by  her  own  Revolution,  could 
not  join  the  anti-Russian  alliance ; 
but,  as  appears  from  the  papers  of 
M.  de  Vergennes,  the  cabinet  of  the 
Tuileries  had  early  penetrated  the 
designs  of  Russia,  and  the  consequent 
danger  to  Europe.  The  court  of  Sar- 
dinia, too,  was  equally  alive  to  the  dan- 
ger, and  the  views  of  its  king,  Victor 
Andre"e  III.,  may  still  be  read  with 
profit  at  the  present  day.  It  gives  us 
pleasure  to  pay  this  tribute  to  the 
gallant  little  state,  which  has  so  nobly 
ranged  itself  in  the  front  rank  of  the 
great  Western  alliance.  In  joining 
the  anti-Russian  league  of  1854,  Sar- 
dinia only  does  what  it  was  ready  to 
have  done  in  1791.* 


*  A  series  of  State-papers,  relative  to  its  own  conduct,  and  that  of  other  Powers,, 
in  regard  to  the  Eastern  question,  eighty  years  ago  (1782-3),  has  recently  been  pub- 
lished by  the  Sardinian  Cabinet.  The  conduct  of  England,  under  the  Fox  Adminis- 
tration, shows  to  little  advantage  in  these  negotiations.  The  following  is  part  of  a 
letter  from  King  Victor  Andaee  III.  to  Count  Scarafis,  the  Sardinian  ambassador  at 
Paris  : — "  There  is  always  reason  to  suspect  that  the  Court  of  Russia  is  labouring  to. 
place  the  British  Ministry  in  its  interests,  and  it  is  even  pretended  that  it  has  in- 
sinuated that  England  would  find  it  to  her  advantage  to  delay  the  conclusion  of  the 
definitive  treaty  with  France The  language  which  the  Count  de  Ver- 
gennes has  held  to  some  foreign  Ministers  as  to  the  difficulty  of  negotiating  with  Mr 
Fox,  joined  to  the  information  which  we  have  received  that  the  Czarina  is  soliciting 
the  Court  of  London  not  to  hurry  in  signing  the  definitive  treaty  with  France,  denote 


1855.]  War-Politics— What  we  are  Fighting  for.  C41 

We  say  again,  Do  not  let  us,  in  the  upon    it,   this  time    they  will  come 

face  of  these  warning  examples,  and  nearer  home  !    You  can  again  betray 

in  defiance  of  the  most  obvious  rea-  Turkey,- — you  can  dishearten  Spain, 

sons,  repeat  a  faithless  and  pusillani-  as  you  then  disheartened  Holland, — 

mous  policy  now.    Has  the  country  you  can  sacrifice    Sardinia,   as  you 

not  already  suffered  sufficiently  from  then    sacrificed  Poland,  —  you    can 

listening  to  the  fallacies  of  the  Peace-  estrange  France,  as  you  then  estrang- 

party  ?    They  arc  the  true  authors  of  ed  Prussia.    Is  not  the  danger  coming 

the  war  now  forced  upon  us.    By  their  nearer  home  ?    Give  the  Euxine  and 

recent  policy  they  have  invoked  it, —  Dardanelles  to  Russia,  and  where  is 

by  their  past  policy  they  have  render-  your  commerce  in  the  Levant — and, 

ed  it  a  desperate  one,— by  their  pre-  by-and-by,  your  communication  with 

sent  policy  they  would  render  it  from  India  ?    Let  Russia  stand  forth  tri- 

henceforth  a  hopeless  one.    England  !  umphant    and    all-puissant,    by  the 

awake ;    it  is  now  or  never !      By  breaking  up  of  the  Western  alliance, 

breaking  from  the  first  alliance,  you  and  how  long  will  the  Baltic  Powers 

made  Prussia  a  vassal  of  Russia, —  be  able  to  maintain  their  independ- 

another  of  your  allies,  Poland,  you  ence?     Betray  and  mortally  offend 

sacrificed  to  your  foes, — Turkey  you  France,  and  you  virtually  throw  off 

betrayed, — Holland  you  permanently  your  corslet,  and  stand  helpless  with- 

disheartened, — Russia  you  mightily  in  reach    of   your   enemy's   dagger, 

strengthened.    It  is  in  your  power  to  France,   except  in  times  of  revolu- 

ruin  yourself  by  a  similar  perfidy  now.  tion,  cannot  make  head  alone  against 

The  results  will  be  the  same  in  kind,  Eastern    Europe.      If   deserted    by 

but  on  a  vaster  scale, — and,  depend  us,  she  must    succumb.      Will  she, 

clearly  that  the  British  Minister  is  perhaps  only  too  ready  to  lend  an  ear  to  the  in- 
sinuations of  Russia,  and  to  enter  into  some  engagements  with  her,  in  case  France 
should  desire  to  oppose  the  entrance  of  her  fleets  into  the  Mediterranean.  Things, 
however,  being  at  the  point  at  which  they  have  arrived,  it  appears  to  us  impossible 
that  England  can  draw  back  without  being  taxed  with  perfidy,  but  the  desire  to  re- 
cover her  losses,  and  to  contribute  to  the  restoration  of  the  ancient  system,  may  over- 
come every  other  consideration.  This  is  the  point  to  which  you  must  be  extremely 
attentive,  in  order  to  give  us  good  notions  thereupon  ;  for,  supposing  a  general  war 
to  take  place,  affairs  would  completely  change  their  aspect  if  England  were  to  join 
the  two  Imperial  Courts."  England  did  draw  back,  as  she  drew  back  again,  in  spite 
of  Mr  Pitt,  ten  years  afterwards.  The  consequences  of  this  first  secession  were  that 
Russia  won  from  Turkey  the  Crimea  and  the  provinces  of  the  Kouban, — of  the  second,, 
that  Russia  destroyed  Poland,  and  Austria  and  Prussia  obtained  part  of  the  spoils. 

The  Debats,  commenting  upon  these  State-Papers,  draws  from  them  the  following 
deductions  : — "  The  Cabinet  of  Versailles  had  foreseen  from  an  early  hour  the  pro- 
jects of  the  Empress  Catherine,  understood  the  importance  of  them,  and  wished  to 
prevent  their  execution.  It  could  not  count  on  the  support  of  Austria,  for  the  Em- 
peror Joseph  II.  had  become  the  ally  of  Catherine,  and  that  prince  made  public  pre- 
parations for  war,  which  could  only  be  directed  against  Turkey,  whether  he  acted  on 
his  own  account  or  confined  himself  to  second  the  ambition  of  Russia.  The  Cabinet 
of  Versailles  believed  itself  assured  of  the  alliance  of  Spain  and  of  that  of  Sardinia  ; 
but  those  alliances  were  not  sufficient,  and  it  needed  that  of  England.  To  obtain  it, 
Louis  XVI.  and  M.  de  Vergennes  addressed  to  the  Ministers  of  George  III.,  and  to 
the  King  himself,  the  most  pressing  entreaties  ;  they  invoked  the  general  interests  of 
Europe  and  the  special  interests  of  England;  they  brought  forward  important  con- 
siderations based  on  the  morality  of  nations.  But  they  failed — they  failed  against 
the  mysterious  and  indefatigable  exertions  of  Russia,  the  seductions  of  which  were 
more  powerful  at  London  than  the  counsels  'of  justice  and  prudence.  Must  we 
believe  with  M.  d'Adhemar  that  the  policy  of  England  was  decided  by  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  prejudice  which  France  would  suffer  from  the  enterprises  of  Catherine, 
or  subjugated,  as  was  thought  at  Turin,  by  the  hope  of  indemnifying  herself  from 
losses,  and  the  desire  of  establishing  her  ancient  alliance  with  Austria  and  Russia  ? 
This  point  is  not  sufficiently  cleared  up;  but  what  is  certain  is,  that  in  1783  England 
would  not  unite  herself  to  France  to  restrain  Russia  within  just  limits;  and  if  the 
Empress  Catherine  succeeded  in  despoiling  Turkey  of  the  Crimea  and  the  provinces 
of  the  Kouban,  she  was  indebted  for  her  success  principally  to  the  inertness  of 
England." 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


642 

ought  she,  in  such  circumstances, 
ever  to  forgive  us?  And  think  you 
that  the  long-forbearing,  because  far- 
seeing,  man  who  rules  her  destinies 
will  remain  on  the  throne  when  his 
enemies  are  triumphant?  Will  we 
not  then  see  a  Russianised  Bourbon 
again  on  the  throne  of  France, — one 
who  may  not  scruple  to  repeat  the 
alliance  projected  by  Charles  X.  in 
1829,  whereby  France  and  Russia 
were  to  aggrandise  themselves  at  the 
expense  of  Great  Britain  ? 

We  have  written  these  things  more 
that  the  fallacies  of  the  Peace-party 
may  be  understood,  than  from  any 
real  distrust  of  the  national  senti- 
ments. In  the  last  war,  the  nation 
gave  as  noble  an  example  of  resolu- 
tion, crowned  by  success,  as  is  to  be 
found  in  the  annals  of  the  world. 
That  war,  although  heartily  embraced 
by  the  people,  was  primarily  the  work 
of  our  nobles, — the  present  one  is  es- 
sentially the  work  of  the  people.  The 
masses  understand  it,  the  masses  sym- 
pathise with  it, — it  marches  on  with  a 
nation  at  its  back.  Can  it,  then,  fail 
in  vigour  and  endurance?  Never, 
except  by  the  defection  of  our  states- 
men. All  that  is  wanted  of  our  nobles 
is  to  lead, — and  they  will  lead.  They 
will  lead,  in  the  senate-house  as  in 
the  field.  They  have  shed  their  blood 
like  water  on  the  breach  and  in  the 
battle,  and  we  know  that  they  will 
not  be  less  ready  to  answer  with 
heart  and  life  to  the  call  of  the  country 
at  home.  The  gentlemen  of  England 
have  a  noble  heritage, — the  accumu- 
lated laurels  of  generations  rest  upon 
their  brows, — the  noblest  nation  in 
the  world  looks  up  to  them  as  its 
leaders.  They  are  true  to  their 
position.  Now,  as  ever,  they  will  be 
worthy  of  themselves  and  their  coun- 
try ;  and  whatever  be  the  issue  of  this 
stern  contest,  no  future  historian  will 
ever  have  it  in  his  power  to  write  that, 
"  in  the  hour  of  Europe's  extremity, 
England  retired  from  the  combat,  be- 
cause she  could  not  find  statesmen  to 
lead  her !" 

"  Do  not  humble  Russia — preserve 
the  balance  of  power!"  exclaim  the 
advocates  of  peace,  when  all  their  other 
fallacies  have  been  exposed.  This  is 
a  mere  fetch, — a  trumped-up  cry  to 
defend  their  foregone  conclusion  of 
peace  at  any  price.  Humble  Russia! 


[Nov. 


— we  wish  it  were  as  easy  a  task  as 
these  gentlemen  affect  to  believe.  We 
never  shared  in  Mr  Cobden's  notion 
as  to  the  feasibility  of  "  crumpling  up 
Russia  like  a  sheet  of  paper ;"  and  the 
character  of  this  contest  has  not  been 
such  as  to  make  us  alter  our  opinion 
(so  often  expressed  in  this  Magazine) 
as  to  the  redoubtableness  of  the  power 
with  which  we  are  at  war.  Let  those 
who  affect  to  be  concerned  lest  Russia 
be  annihilated,  take  comfort.  A  po- 
pulation of  sixty  millions — possessing, 
too,  facilities  of  increase  beyond  any 
nation  in  the  Old  World — is  in  no 
danger  of  being  over-much  humbled. 
Like  a  vast  primeval  forest,  it  is  root- 
ed to  the  earth  by  millions  of  supports, 
and  it  is  only  upon  its  outskirts  that 
the  hostile  winds,  or  the  axe  of  the 
woodman,  can  beat  with  effect.  It  is 
a  forest  which,  ever  growing  and 
spreading,  threatens  to  bring  Europe 
back  to  its  primeval  condition,  and  en- 
velop a  whole  civilisation  in  its  blight- 
ing shadow.  In  a  contest  with  such 
a  power,  the  only  danger  is,  not  that 
we  shall  succeed  too  much,  but  that  we 
may  not  be  able  to  curb  her  sufficient- 
ly. A  mighty  unit,  surrounded  by 
feebler  and  disunited  States,  the  danger 
is  that,  by  sheer  weight  of  mass,  she 
will  crush  her  way  into  her  neighbours' 
territories,  and  will  rule  by  her  prestige 
even  where  she  does  not  rule  by  actual 
possession.  It  is  a  danger  no  longer 
problematical.  It  is  one  which  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  of  years  have  been 
writing  out  in  plain  characters,  as  a 
warning  to  Europe.  It  is  a  danger 
which  has  been  realising  itself  beneath 
the  eyes  of  this  very  generation.  "  Pre- 
serve the  balance  of  power !"  Why, 
for  threescore  years  we  have  done  no- 
thing but  sacrifice  it  to  Russia.  What 
other  European  State  in  that  time  has 
extended  its  borders?  Unless  the 
land  rise,  Great  Britain  must  ever  re- 
main the  same, — France,  Prussia,  and 
Austria  are  no  bigger  than  they  were 
sixty  years  ago,  and  Spain  is  the  same 
as  she  has  ever  been  since  she  lost  the 
Netherlands.  But  look  at  Russia  ! 
Leaving  out  of  view  her  great  Asiatic 
conquests,  which  may  be  left  to  bal- 
ance the  extra-European  conquests 
of  the  other  Powers, — what  do  we  see 
of  her  progress  in  the  very  heart  of 
Europe  itself?  Take  up  that  most 
suggestive  of  maps  recently  pub- 


1855.] 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


645 


lished  by  the  Messrs  Johnston,*  and 
see  how,  from  the  little  Duchy  of 
Kiev,  Muscovy  has  swelled  out  into 
a  monster,  covering  with  its  green 
tint  nearly  a  half  of  the  entire  Con- 
tinent !  By  all  means  let  Russian 
power  extend  to  the  limits  of  its  own 
people.  But  that  legitimate  expansion 
of  Russia  was  over  a  century  ago, 
and  since  then  its  growth  has  been  but 
the  absorption  of  other  States.  The 
Pole  is  no  more  a  Russian  than  the 
French  are  Germans;  and  the  con- 
quest of  Poland  was  as  unnatural  and 
unrighteous  an  act  as  if  Germany 
and  Spain  were  to  partition  France. 
Is  Finland  Russian?  —  is  Courland 
Russian? — are  the  Roumeliote  race 
in  Bessarabia  Russian?  Certainly 
not.  Russia,  then,  has  been  not  only 
ceaselessly  extending  her  frontiers 
while  the  other  States  of  Europe 
remained  stationary,  but  for  the  last 
century  her  extension  has  been  one 
continuous  act  of  robbery.  And  yet 
we  talk  still  of  the  balance  of  power ! 
— as  if  oblivious  that  for  long  past 
that  balance  has  been  steadily  and 
unrighteously  inclining  in  favour  of 
Russia.  Bit  by  bit  has  she  advanced, 
ever  loudly  disavowing  her  pro- 
-"ects  until  she  could  announce  them 
to  the  world  as  accomplished  facts, 
—  disarming  by  her  cajolery,  and 
triumphing  by  sowing  disunion  among 
her  natural  opponents.  Thus  she  has 
gone  on  long  without  being  checked. 
Hitherto  the  other  Powers  have 
ever  been  too  late  or  too  disunited 
to  oppose  her.  Now  they  are  awaked, 
and  in  time;  and  their  object  must 
be  in  some  measure  to  rectify  the 
overweighted  balance,  in  order  that 
peace  and  independence  may  hence- 
forth be  made  more  secure  to  the 
European  commonwealth. 

"For  what  do  we  fight?"  There  is 
no  mystery  in  the  matter,  although 
the  cavilling  parties  may  affect  to 
think  so.  The  answer  is  simple.  The 
power  of  Russia  has  unduly  increased, 
is  increasing,  and  must  be  checked. 
The  interests  of  civilisation  and  of 
every  free  State  in  Europe  demand 
this.  We  have  seen  how  the  do- 
minions of  the  Czar  have  gone  on 
increasing  in  extent,  spreading  further 


and  further  into  the  heart  of  Europe, 
— an  ever-rising  tide  of  barbarism 
setting  in  against  the  civilisation  of 
the  West.  But  contemporaneously 
with  this  physical  expansion,  there 
has  been  a  far  wider  expansion  of 
moral  sway— a  progress  subtler  but 
not  less  important  than  the  other,  and 
ever  preparing  the  way  for  it.  It  is 
the  saliva  of  the  boa,  with  which  it 
covers  its  prey  before  devouring 
it.  •  It  is  a  virtual  extension  of  the 
sceptre  of  the  Czars  over  the  rest  of 
Europe.  Physically,  Russia  covers 
nearly  a  half  of  Europe, — her  moral 
power  extends  over  at  least  another 
fourth.  To  whom  do  the  Greeks  and 
Montenegrins  look  as  their  protector? 
Whose  power  has  sufficed  to  stir  up  re- 
bellion in  Queen  Victoria's  subjects  in 
the  Ionian  Islands  ?  Who  has  kept 
the  House  of  Hapsburg  on  the  throne 
of  Austria  ?  Whose  influence  is  now 
supreme  at  the  Court  of  Berlin, — of 
Bavaria,  of  Saxony,  of  Wlirtemberg, 
and  other  lesser  States  of  Germany  ? 
For  whose  sake  has  the  Government  ot 
Denmark  been  at  direct  issue  with  its 
Parliament  and  people  ?  Is  it  not  known 
that,  despite  the  patriotic  feelings  of  his 
subjects,  young  King  Oscar  of  Sweden 
is  not  proof  against  the  evil  influence 
of  the  Northern  basilisk  ?  Even 
King  Bomba,  in  far  Naples,  has  an 
excessive  regard  for  the  Czar.  CZAR 
—  that  monosyllable,  how  it  weighs 
like  a  nightmare  over  Europe  !  Who 
is  now  supplying  money  to  the  Car- 
lists,  to  excite  rebellion  against  the 
Liberal  Government  in  Spain  ?  Again 
the  Czar.  Who  patronises  the  Legi- 
timists in  their  machinations  to  over- 
turn the  Napoleon  dynasty  in  France  ? 
Still  the  Czar ! 

With  Russia,  as  with  all  States,  her 
moral  power  is  based  on  her  physical. 
Strike  a  body-blow  at  the  latter,  and 
the  former  will  collapse.  Her  enor- 
mous influence  in  other  countries  is, 
as  it  were,  a  paper-circulation  issued 
on  the  faith  of  her  vast  military 
strength.  Prostrate  that  strength, 
destroy  that  credit,  and  her  influence 
abroad  will  collapse,  and  leave  the 
nations  to  live  and  act  for  themselves 
— each  in  the  way  natural  to  it.  That 
is  what  is  wanted.  At  present  Cen- 


*  "  War-Map  of  Europe,  distinguishing  by  colours  the  original  area,  progressive 
extent,  and  present  limits  of  the  Russian  Empire."    Edin.  1855. 


644 


War-Politics — What  we  are  Fighting  for . 


[Nor. 


tral  Europe  is  not  free ;  an  artificial 
state  of  matters  exists  there,  upheld 
by  the  Czar.  Russian  influence  over- 
rides many  of  the  courts  of  Germany, 
and  hinders  the  national  sympathies 
and  desires  from  finding  an  echo  in 
the  breasts  of  their  rulers.  Germany 
is  half-Russianised,  and  will  be  wholly 
so,  if  the  overbearing  influence  of  the 
Czars  be  not  timeously  checked.  There 
is  no  lack  of  physical  strength  in 
Germany  to  resist  Russia,  but  it  lacks 
moral  strength.  Germany  is  severed, 
instead  of  being  united  ;  and  even  its 
fragments  want  consistency.  Each 
petty  State  has  a  Russianised  court 
pulling  one  way,  and  a  German  people 
wishing  to  go  another;  and  the  result, 
as  we  see,  is  a  dead-lock.  In  the 
face  of  Russia,  Germany  has  not  the 
moral  strength  to  emancipate  itself, 
and  pursue  its  own  natural  course  of 
development.  Its  princes  will  go  on 
breaking  their  pledges,  and  thwarting 
their  peoples,  as  long  as  all-puissant 
Russia  encourages  and  supports  them 
in  doing  so.  Take  away  that  foreign 
influence,  and  things  will  fall  into 
their  natural  course.  Germany  will 
become  German,  and  will  thereupon 
at  once  rise  into  a  barrier  to  Russian 
encroachment.  Once  the  sixty  mil- 
lion Teutons  of  Central  Europe  come 
to  think  and  act  for  themselves, 
in  their  own  way,  and  for  their 
own  interests,  the  day  of  Russian 
aggrandisement  is  past,  and  Europe 
is  permanently  free.  What  is  wanted 
in  the  meanwhile  is  to  give  Germany 
a  breathing-time, — to  tie  up  for  a 
season  the  bully  that  now  browbeats 
and  intermeddles  with  her.  Europe 
contains  three  great  segments  of  popu- 
lation, each  in  a  different  stage  of 
development.  To  the  east,  the  Sla- 
vonians, least  developed  of  all,  but 
subordinated  under  a  single,  all-per- 
vading, and  most  astute  government 
— a  huge  barbaric  body  with  a  civilised 
head.  In  Central  Europe,  the  Teu- 
tons, a  much  more  developed  race 
than  the  Slavonians,  but  split  up  into 
a  multiplicity  of  sections,  and  with 
governments  which,  browbeat  by  their 
colossal  neighbour,  do  not  act  in  per- 
fect accord  with  the  national  senti- 
ments. Compared  with  Western  Eu- 
rope, Germany  is  still  in  its  adol- 
escence; and,  like  youth  in  general,  it 
neither  knows  its  own  strength  aright, 


nor  has  the  resolution  to  use  it.  la 
this  state,  Russian  influence  is  now- 
creeping  over  it,  and  hopes  to  have  is 
fairly  in  the  toils  before  it  can  act  for 
itself.  It  is  an  infant  Hercules  which 
Russia  seeks  to  strangle  in  its  cradle. 
It  is  for  the  Western  Powers  to  take 
care  that  the  attempt  be  made  in 
vain.  Their  own  safety  depends  on 
this.  Strike — we  again  say — at  the 
military  strength  of  Russia, — strike 
firmly  and  unsparingly.  With  every 
blow  her  far-spread  influence  will  ebb 
back  from  the  face  of  Europe, — the 
fetters,  not  less  potent  because  moral, 
will  fall  from  many  a  State, — and 
each  people  will  have  an  opportunity 
of  developing  its  powers  and  institu- 
tions in  its  own  way.  That  is  what 
we  are  fighting  for.  It  is  at  once  the 
Independence  of  Europe  and  the- 
Safety  of  Europe.  The  two  go  to- 
gether, and  have  their  natural  result 
in  PEACE.  Peace — not  a  truce — not 
a  mere  breathing-time  of  arms, — a 
lasting,  healthy,  righteous  peace,— a 
blessing  to  all,  and  desired  by  all, 
because  continued  at  the  expense  of 
none.  That  is  the  peace  which  we 
desire, — what  result  can  the  so-called 
Peace  party  promise  that  will  com- 
pare with  it  ? 

We  desire  to  secure  the  liberty  and 
independence  of  Europe.  These,  we 
regret  to  say,  have  other  enemies 
than  those  of  which  we  have  spoken. 
Extremes  meet, — and  Red-Republi- 
canism now  threatens  to  do  the  work 
of  Despotism.  Kossuth,  Mazzinir 
Ledru-Rollin,  in  this  hour  of  Europe's 
extremity,  act  as  allies  of  the  Czar. 
WThat  is  the  position  ?  Eastern 
Europe  is  aggressive, — Western  Eu- 
rope stands  on  the  defence, — Central 
Europe  is  dormant,  neutral,  but 
strongly  Russianised.  Western  Eu- 
rope is  winning, — in  a  short  time 
Russian  influence  will  be  loosened 
from  Germany,  and  all  will  be  well. 
But,  just  at  this  juncture,  forth  step 
this  insane  Triumvirate,  to  preach  to- 
the  Continental  peoples  a  line  of  action 
that  cannot  fail  to  drive  the  neutral 
powers  into  the  arms  of  the  Czar. 
Red-Republicanism, — whisper  but  the- 
word  at  Berlin,  and  the  wavering 
Frederick- William  will  then  find  the- 
excuse  he  wants  to  take  arms  for  his 
Russian  nephew, — let  it  but  break 
out  in  flames  in  the  Italian  Penin- 


1-855.] 


War- Politics— What  we  are  Fighting  for. 


sula,  and  the  firmness  of  the  young 
Austrian  Emperor  will  vanish  in  dis- 
may. The  Czar,  the  great  champion 
of  despotism  everywhere — to  whom 
the  support  of  kings  against  their 
peoples  is  a  matter  of  principle — will 
hold  forth  his  arms  to  both  these 
powers  in  their  hour  of  extremity. 
**  See,"  he  will  say,—"  did  not  I  tell 
you  the  real  character  of  the  Western 
Coalition?  See  how  it  shakes  your 
thrones,  and  convulses  your  domi- 
nions. But  come  to  me,  and  you 
will  be  safe.  Let  us  make  another 
Holy  Alliance,  and  the  mass  of  our 
enormous  armies  will  soon  smite  down 
revolution  and  the  powers  who  foster 
it."  Let  Prussia  and  Austria  thus 
invoke  the  Russian  eagle,  and  they 
fix  a  not  far  distant  day  for  their  own 
doom.  First  vassals,  and  then  vic- 
tims, of  their  colossal  protector, — that 
will  be  their  fate.  But  if  Red-Repub- 
licanism show  head  just  now,  have 
they  a  choice  left  ? — and  how  will  the 
Western  Powers  bear  up  against  the 
shock  of  this  Coalition  of  Despotism? 
That  is  the  sole  but  formidable  rock 
ahead  of  the  West  and  Liberty;  and 
for  it  these  republican  madmen  are 
responsible. 

What  intolerance  does  the  mani- 
festo of  these  men  breathe — what  nar- 
row-minded bigotry — what  supreme 
self-sufficiency  !  Republics  —  nothing 
but  republics, — Europe,  the  world, 
must  be  one  vast  nursery  of  republics ! 
What  a  mockery  !  How  the  lessons 
of  history  have  been  lost  upon  these 
men, — .experience  cannot  preach  to 
them,  observation  cannot  enlighten. 
The  nations  differ  in  their  moral  as  much 
as  they  do  in  their  physical  features, 
yet  these  republicans  would  force  a 
drear  and  impossible  uniformity  of 
government  upon  all.  As  well  decree 
that  every  tree  in  the  woods  shall  be  an 
ash  or  a  poplar  as  that  every  government 
in  the  world  shall  be  a  republic.  And 
then,  what  tyranny  in  the  proposition ! 
These  men  cry  out  against  despotism, 
against  rulers  who  thwart  the  wishes 
of  their  people  ;  and  yet  what  do  they 
themselves  but  preach  a  despotism 
more  unbearable  by  far?  u  For  God 
and  the  people  !" — that  was  once  the 
noble  motto  of  Mazzini, — the  rallying- 
cry  with  which  he  was  to  have  created 
a  new,  free,  and  united  Italy.  Alas, 
that  cry  has  sunk  now  into  the  hoarse 


645 

vociferations  of  red  sans  -  culottery. 
"  For  Republics  and  Ourselves !"— so 
goes  the  shout  now.  It  is  a  melan- 
choly sight  ever  to  see  a  high  mind 
sinking, — and,  though  never  favour- 
able to  the  views  of  either,  in  their 
better  days  we  have  certainly  seen 
flashes  of  that  high  mind  both  in 
Kossuth  and  Mazzini.  Now,  neither 
their  exile,  nor  their  enthusiasm,  nor 
their  past  sufferings  can  affect  us 
more.  We  but  see  in  them  Europe's 
direst  -4foes  in  her  greatest  extremity, 
— the  assassins  of  her  liberty,  the  be- 
trayers of  her  Future.  Let  each  na- 
tion act  and  choose  for  itself,— that  is 
the  golden  law  of  liberty.  The  only 
interference  that  real  Independence 
ever  demands  or  allows,  is  to  prevent 
the  weaker  portions  of  the  common- 
wealth from  being  thralled  by  the 
stronger.  But  to  demand  everywhere 
republics,  nothing  but  republics,  is  to 
enact  a  tyranny  and  inculcate  an  im- 
possibility. And  to  do  this  at  the 
present  juncture,  is  simply  to  help 
despotism  by  preaching  anarchy. 

We  feel  it  is  almost  profaning  our 
pages  to  allude  to  thatother  triumvirate 
of  demagoguery,  whose  infamous  "Let- 
ter to  the  Queen  of  England"  has 
shocked  every  man  of  every  grade  in 
the  kingdom.  Foul-mouthed  libellers 
of  our  Queen,  demoniacal  denouncers 
of  our  Ally,  preachers  of  assassination, 
— for  the  first  time  the  public  of  this 
country  has  got  a  glimpse  of  the  Sa- 
tanic rhapsodies  which  envenom  and 
make  so  abhorrent  the  revolutions  of 
Continental  Europe.  "  To  kill  Kings 
and  Emperors,"  they  say, "  is  an  honour 
and  duty."  This  truculent  denunciation 
is  directed  against  our  own  Sovereign 
among  the  rest,  and  we  almost  regret 
that  expulsion  from  our  shores  is  the 
only  penalty  that  has  overtaken  the 
criminals.  But  more  remains  to  be  done. 
Refugees  of  this  abominable  stamp 
now  swarm  in  London,  and  the  hands 
of  Government  must  be  strengthened 
to  deal  with  them  summarily.  When 
engaged  in  a  great  war,  we  cannot 
allow  London  to  be  made  a  focus  for 
the  concoction  of  mines  and  conspi- 
racies which  may  help  to  throw,  if 
not  ourselves,  our  allies  into  disorder. 
Remember,  Pianori  came  from  Lon- 
don,— Pianori  was  equipped  for  his 
bloody  task  by  these  same  refugees  in 
the  English  metropolis.  Had  Napo- 


War-Politics— What  we  are  Fighting  for.  [Nov.  1855, 


G46 

leon  III.  fallen  by  his  hand,  would 
not  France,  blinded  with  wrath  for 
the  death  of  its  Emperor,  have  bitterly 
charged  England  with  nourishing  and 
sending  forth  the  assassin?  After 
the  warnings,  both  in  act  and  in  words, 
which  we  have  now  had,  we  cannot 
longer  plead  ignorance.  We  must 
either  instantly  take  the  needful  mea- 
sures against  these  men  of  blood  who 
shelter  themselves  on  our  shores,  or 
else  abide  the  stern  consequences.  The 
country  that  shelters  assassins,  truly 
incurs  a  fearful  responsibility. 

We  must  hasten  to  a  close,  leaving 
untouched  many  topics  to  which  we 
would  fain  have  directed  public  atten- 
tion. But  there  is  one  subject  which, 
however  briefly,  we  feel  imperatively 
called  upon  to  single  out  for  the  con- 
sideration of  our  statesmen  and  people. 
That  subject  is  our  Currency  Laws. 
A  money-famine  and  consequent  panic 
is  setting  in,  entirely  occasioned  by 
the  absurd  provisions  of  Sir  R.  Peel's 
Currency  Act  of  1844  ;  and  as  money 
is  the  sinews  of  war,  unless  we  set. 
right  the  former,  we  shall  never  be 
able  to  carry  on  the  latter.  A  para- 
lysis at  home  threatens  to  neutralise 
all  our  successes  abroad.  If  we  do 
not  take  care,  we  shall  find  ourselves 
in  the  position  of  a  soldier  who  is 
choked  by  his  equipment, — we  shall 
be  strangled  while  we  fight.  Our 
currency  is  made  to  depend  upon  gold 
in  so  absurd  a  fashion,  that  as  sove- 
reigns go  out  of  the  country,  bank-, 
notes  are  likewise  withdrawn  from 
circulation, — so  that  the  drain  upon  the 
currency  of  the  country  is  doubled,— 
it  is  like  lighting  the  candle  at  both 
ends.  We  ourselves  need  to  export 
specie  to  defray  the  expense  of  our 
army  abroad, — so  does  France, — so 
does  Russia ;  in  fact,  it  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say,  that  at  present  there  is  a 
general  rush  among  the  Powers  of 
Europe  to  possess  themselves  of  gold. 
Well,  although  our  present  currency 
system  is  entirely  based  upon  the  re- 
tention of  a  large  amount  of  gold  in 
this  country,  that  retention  is  not  pos- 


sible. If  other  states  wish  gold,  they 
can  always  have  it  from  this  country 
by  paying  a  commensurate  price  for 
it.  The  consequences  of  this  to  us,  if 
not  warded  off  by  an  alteration  of  our 
Currency  laws,  will  be  ruin.  The 
deadliest  blow  that  Russia  could  now 
level  at  us,  would  be  to  draw  from 
this  country  a  million  or  two  of  bul- 
lion,— even  although  it  were  to  pay  for 
it  at  the  rate  of  L.5  or  L.6,  or  even 
L.10  the  ounce.  In  our  present  posi- 
tion, such  a  step  would  paralyse  us  at 
once.  And  can  any  one  as  yet  be  sure 
that  much  of  the  gold  recently  drawn 
from  this  country  has  not  been  so 
bought  up  by  our  adversary  ? 

An  early  meeting  of  Parliament  is 
demanded  by  this  great  but  easily 
overcome  difficulty  of  our  position. 
It  is  a  difficulty  entirely  artificial—it 
is  one  of  our  own  imposing :  an  Act 
ean  unmake  it  as  an  Act  has  made. 
If  the  present  Premier  be  strong  in 
anything,  it  is  in  good  common  sense, 
and  in  a  power  of  seeing  readily  in 
any  given  case  where  the  shoe  pinch- 
es. Let  him  show  that  quality  nowt 
and,  by  so  doing,  sweep  away  the 
sole  impediment  that  exists  to  a  vi- 
gorous prosecution  of  the  war.  It 
depends  upon  himself  whether  the 
Conservatives  are  with  him  or  against 
him.  If  he  act  the  part  of  an  earnest, 
able,  and  patriotic  statesman,  he  may 
rely  upon  it  that  the  gentry  of  Eng- 
land will  not  leave  him  unsupported. 
Nor  will  the  country.  If  the  influ- 
ence of  extinct  reputations  be  still 
strong  in  the  House,  and  the  coali- 
tions of  the  Peace -party  threaten 
to  clog  the  wheels  of  government, 
let  Parliament  be  dissolved,  and  let 
the  voice  of  the  nation  decide  upon 
its  future  destinies.  In  the  present 
critical  times,  Parliament  may  meet 
ere  a  few  weeks  are  over ;  and  in 
anticipation  of  such  a  meeting  of 
the  Legislature,  the  last  words  we 
would  say  to  the  Government  are 
—  If  cabal  prevail,  Dissolve ;  and 
in  any  case  repeal  the  Currency 
Laws. 


Printed  by  William  Blackwood-$  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH     MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCLXXXII.  DECEMBER,  1855. 


VOL.  LXXVIII. 


ZAIDEE  !   A  ROMANCE. 

PART   THE   LAST. — BOOK  III. 

CHAPTER  XXX. — ANOTHER  JOURNEY. 


THERE  was  no  very  long  time  neces- 
sary to  bring  to  completion  the  scheme 
of  Mary ;  it  was  still  fine  weather  al- 
though the  end  of  October,  and  Mrs 
Cumberland  became  very  soon  enthu- 
siastic about  the  visit  to  Cheshire,  to 
Castle  Vivian,  and  the  Grange.  "  I 
expect  to  see  quite  a  delightful  sight 
in  your  brother's  return  to  your  at- 
tached peasantry,  Mr  Vivian,"  said 
Mrs  Cumberland ;  and  Mr  Cumberland 
himself  was  persuaded  to  go  with  the 
party,  to  initiate  the  country  gentle- 
men there  into  his  views,  and  perhaps 
to  extend  his  own  ideas.  "There  are 
many  admirable  customs  hidden  in  the 
depths  of  the  country,"  said  this  candid 
philosopher;  "some  ancient  use  and 
wont  in  the  matter  of  welcome,  I  should 
not  be  surprised— and  I  am  a  candid 
man,  sister  Burtonshaw."  So  the  phi- 
losopher gave  his  consent ;  and  hers 
too,  with  a  sigh  of  regret  for  Sylvo's 
place,  gave  Mrs  Burtonshaw. 

Duringthe  one  day  which  they  spent 
in  London  before  starting  for  Cheshire, 
Zaidee,  who  felt  this  journey  full  of 
fate  for  her,  a  new  and  decisive  crisis 
in  her  life,  wandered  out  in  her  rest- 
less uneasiness.  Mary  did  not  watch 
her  quite  so  jealously  as  she  had  done, 
and  she  was  glad  to  be  alone.  With- 
out thinking,  Zaidee  strayed  along 
those  unfeatured  lines  of  street  till 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


she  came  to  the  well-remembered  en- 
vironmen  t  of  squares  which  surrounded 
Bedford  Place.  Thinking  wistfully  of 
her  old  self,  and  her  vain  childish  sa- 
crifice, Zaidee  passed  timidly  through 
it,  looking  up  for  Mrs  Disbrowe's 
house.  Some  one  before  her  went  up 
to  this  house  hurriedly  as  Zaidee  ad- 
vanced, but  hesitated,  as  she  did,  when 
he  perceived  a  great  many  carriages, 
with  coachmen  in  white  gloves  and 
favours,  a  large  bridal  party  before  the 
door.  The  gentleman  before  her 
paused  a  little,  and  so  did  Zaidee ; 
there  was  a  momentary  commotion  in 
the  little  crowd  which  made  an  avenue 
between  the  door  of  the  house  and 
the  carriage  drawn  up  before  it,  and 
forth  issued  a  bride  in  flowing  white 
robes  and  orange  blossoms,  not  too 
shy  to  throw  a  glance  around  her  as 
she  stepped  into  the  vehicle.  Zaidee 
shrank,  fearing  to  be  remembered, 
when  she  found  how  she  recognised  at 
once  Minnie  Disbrowe's  saucy  face. 
And  Mr  Disbrowe  is  with  the  bride ; 
and  there  is  mamma,  of  still  ampler 
proportions,  but  not  less  comely,  than 
of  old ;  and  a  string  of  bridesmaids,  in 
whose  degrees  of  stature,  one  lesser 
than  the  other,  Zaidee  fancies  she  can 
see  Kosie  and  Lettie  and  Sissy,  the 
little  rebels  who  tried  her  so  sorely 
once.  Looking  on  all  this  with  iiite- 
2  u 


648 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


[Dec. 


rested  eyes,  Zaidee  does  not  immedi- 
ately perceive  that  this  is  Mr  Percy 
Vivian  who  was  bending  his  course 
to  Mrs  Disbrowe's.  When  she  does 
perceive  him,  there  is  a  pause  of  mu- 
tual embarrassment.  He  is  wondering 
if  she  can  know  these  people,  and  she 
is  wondering  why  he  should  call  at 
Bedford  Place ;  but  the  carriages  sweep 
on  with  their  gay  com  pany,  and  after  the 
interchange  of  a  very  few  formal  words, 
Percy  and  Zaidee  take  different  direc- 
tions. There  is  a  painful  hesitation 
between  them  when  they  address  each 
other,  which  Zaidee  understands  very 
well,  but  which  Percy  cannot  under- 
stand ;  and  once  more  his  thoughts, 
baffled  and  perptexed,  centre  upon 
Mary  Cumberland's  beautiful  sister, 
who  is  so  like  his  own.  Unconsciously 
to  himself,  this  rencontre  increases 
Percy's  difficulty.  She  is  not  Mary 
Cumberland's  sister;  she  is  only  an 
adopted  child.  It  suddenly  occurs  to 
Percy  that  Mary  meant  him  to  draw 
some  inference  from  this  fact,  which 
she  stated  to  him  so  abruptly ;  and, 
more  than  ever  puzzled,  his  thoughts 
pursue  the  subject ;  but  he  can  draw 
no  inference ;  he  is  only  extremely 
curious,  interested,  and  wondering; 
he  never  thinks  of  Zaidee  in  connec- 
tion with  this  beautiful  and  silent 
girl. 

And  the  next  day  their  journey  be- 
gan. Travelling  in  a  railway  carriage, 
even  when  you  can  fill  it  comfortably 
with  your  own  party,  is  not  a  mode  of 
journeying  favourable  to  conversation. 
Leaning  back  in  her  corner,  covered 
up  and  half  concealed  under  Aunt 
Burtonshaw's  shawls,  looking  at  the 
long  stripes  of  green  fields,  the  flat 
lines  of  country  that  quivered  by  the 
window  with  the  speed  of  lightning, 
Zaidee  found  in  this  dreaded  journey 
a  soothing  influence  which  calmed 
her  heart.  Convinced  as  she  was 
that  Mary's  object  was  to  try  her 
fully,  by  bringing  her  into  close  con- 
tact with  her  own  family,  Zaidee  had 
earnestly  endeavoured  to  fortify  her- 
self for  the  ordeal.  But  through  this 
long  day,  when  her  thoughts  were  un- 
interrupted, when  no  one  spoke  but 
Percy  and  Mary,  whose  conversation 
was  not  for  the  common  ear — or  Aunt 
Burtonshaw,  whose  addresses  were 
more  general,  and  chiefly  directed  to 
the  subjects  of  taking  cold  or  taking 


refreshments— a  pleasant  delusion  of 
going  home  stole  upon  Zaidee's  weary 
heart.  Mr  Cumberland,  who  had 
been  greatly  struck  at  the  very  outset 
of  their  journey  by  the  large  sphere 
of  operation  for  his  educational  theory, 
his  decorated  and  emblazoned  letters, 
in  those  names  of  railway  stations  at 
present  inscribed  in  prosaic  black  and 
white,  was  making  notes  and  sketches 
for  this  important  object,  to  lose  no 
time  ;  Mrs  Cumberland  was  enjoying 
her  languor;  Mrs  Burtonshaw  pre- 
sided over  the  draughts,  the  windows, 
and  the  basket  of  sandwiches.  There 
was  no  painful  idea,  no  scrutiny,  or 
search,  or  suspicion,  in  all  these  faces. 
Going  home !  The  dream  crept  over 
Zaidee's  mind,  and  it  was  so  sweet, 
she  suffered  it  to  come.  She  closed 
her  eyes  to  see  the  joyous  drawing- 
room  of  the  Grange,  all  bright  and  gay 
for  .the  travellers — Elizabeth,  Marga- 
ret, Sophy — Philip  even — and  Zaidee 
coming  home.  These  impossible 
dreams  were  not  common  to  Zaidee ; 
she  yielded  herself  up  to  the  charm  of 
this  one  with  a  thankful  heart. 

That  night  they  spent  at  Chester, 
where  Mr  Cumberland  made  great 
progress  in  his  scheme  for  the  railway 
stations.  There  was  still  another  day's 
respite  for  Zaidee,  for  to-morrow  they 
had  arranged  to  visit  Castle  Vivian, 
and  the  next  day  after  that  to  con- 
tinue their  journey  to  the  Grange. 

In  the  morning  Percy  left  the  party 
early;  he  had  some  business,  and  was 
to  rejoin  them  by-and-by,  but  they 
started  without  him  for  Castle  Vivian, 
It  was  a  beautiful  October  day,  bright 
and  calm  like  summer,  but  with  a 
bracing  breeze,  and  all  the  face  of  the 
country  gleaming  with  a  shower  which 
had  fallen-  over-night.  The  leaves 
were  dropping  from  the  trees  upon 
their  path,  the  clouds  hurrying  along 
the  horizon  before  the  wind,  leaving 
great  plains  and  valleys  of  clear  sky, 
as  bright  as  sunshine ;  unseen  streams 
trickled  behind  the  hedgerows,  the 
air  was  full  of  a  twittering  cadence  of 
singing-birds  and  waters.  Here  and 
there  a  bit  of  rude  uncultivated  land 
threw  up  its  group  of  ragged  firs,  and 
spread  its  purple  flush  of  heather,  be- 
ginning to  fade,  before  the  travellers; 
and  the  woods  were  rich  in  autumn 
robes,  against  which  now  and  then  the 
playful  gale  made  a  sudden  rush, 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance.— Part  i/le  Last. 


649 


throwing  a  handful  of  yellow  leaves 
into  the  air,  which  caught  them  gently, 
and  sent  them  downward  in  silent 
circles  to  their  parent  soil.  When 
they  had  come  to  the  gate  of  Castle 
Vivian,  Percy  met  them.  He  was 
very  anxious  that  the  young  ladies 
should  alight,  and  walk  up  the  avenue 
with  him,  while  the  elders  of  the  party 
drove  on.  "  Come,  Lizzy,  come," 
Mary  cried,  as  she  sprang  from  the 
carriage.  Zaidee  obeyed  with  some 
astonishment.  Within  the  gate  the 
road  ascended  between  high  sloping 
banks  of  turf,  here  and  there  broken 
by  an  edge  of  projecting  rock  or  a 
bush  of  furze.  Percy  led  his  compan- 
ions up  a  narrow  ascent,  half  stair, 
half  path,  to  the  top  of  the  bank,  from 
whence  they  looked  down  upon  the 
well-kept  carriage-road,  with  its  sandy 
crystals  sparkling  in  the  sun.  At 
some  little  distance  before  them,  where 
the  road,  gradually  sweeping  upward, 
had  reached  to  the  level  of  the  banks, 
a  stately  avenue  of  elms  threw  their 
lofty  branches  against  the  sky ;  and  at 
a  long  distance  within  these  you  look- 
ed down  upon  the  noble  front  of  a 
great  house,  a  building  of  the  age  of 
Elizabeth,  planting  itself  firmly  with 
a  massive  and  solid  splendour  in  a 
bright  enclosure  of  antique  gardens. 
The  great  deep  porch  of  the  central 
entrance  was  occupied  by  servants, 
one  after  another  looking  out  as  if  in 
expectation;  and  the  balcony  of  a  large 
window  close  by  the  door  was  filled 
with  a  company  of  ladies :  down  be- 
low, too,  in  the  carriage-road,  and 
dotted  along  the  banks,  were  other 
spectators  looking  out  anxiously  as  if 
for  some  expected  arrival.  Percy  led 
his  companions  on  till  they  had  almost 
reached  the  entrance  of  that  lofty 
cluster  of  elm  trees,  and  were  but  a 
little  above  the  level  of  the  road.  "  Let 
us  wait  here,"  said  Percy,  in  whose 
voice  there  was  a  quiver  of  emotion. 
"  The  heir  is  coming  home  to-day — we 
will  see  him  pass  if  we  wait  here." 

Mary  did  not  speak,  but  Zaidee's 
surprise  was  too  great  for  caution. 
"  The  heir  ?"  and  she  turned  towards 
him  with  an  eager  glance  of  inquiry. 

"  Sir  Francis  Vivian  is  dead,"  said 
Percy ;  "  his  successor  is  to  take  pos- 
session to-day." 

"  Had  he  a  son  ?"  asked  Zaidee. 

"  He  had  no  son ;  this  is  the  heir 


of  the  family,  scarcely  the  heir  of  Sir 
Francis  Vivian.    We  make  strange 
wills  in  our  family,"  said  Percy,  who, 
though  restless  and  expectant,  could 
still  smile.    "  Sir  Francis  left  his  pro- 
perty under  peculiar  conditions,"  he 
concluded     abruptly,     looking    with 
astonishment  at  Mary,  whose  touch 
upon  his  arm  had  brought  his  expla- 
nation to  a  close.    But  Mary  was 
looking    at    Zaidee,    and    he,    too, 
turned  to  look  at  her.     Percy  was 
the  unwitting  instrument  of  Mary's 
plot ;  he  was  rather  excited,  full  of  a 
vague  and  startled  expectation  ;  but 
she  had  not  told  him  the  reason  of 
her  contrivance,  and  his  mind  was 
busy  with  speculations.    Still  more 
uneasy  grew  Percy  as  his  eyes  follow- 
ed Mary's  glance.    Zaidee's  beauti- 
ful figure,  standing  on  this  elevated 
ground,  was  distinctly  relieved  against 
the  far-  off  line  of  sky.  She  was  stand  - 
ing  shading  her  eyes  with  her  hand, 
as  she,  too,  gazed  down  the  road  in 
expectation   of  the  new  master   of  - 
Castle   Vivian,  and    her  eyes  were 
looking  far  into  the  air,  half  wistful, 
half  indifferent ;  her  cheek  was  paler 
than  its  wont — her  hair  was  loosened 
a  little  by  the  wind.    Percy  could 
not  recollect  where  he  had  seen  this 
simple  attitude,  so  full  of  unconscious 
grace  and  preoccupied  attention,  but 
it  was  strangely  familiar  and  well 
known  to  him.    While  he  stood  in 
doubt,  a  very  handsome  greyhound 
slowly    approached  the    group,  and 
with  the  instinct  which  directs  these 
animals  to  lovers  of  their  kind,  seated 
himself,  after  a  few  disdainful  sniffs  at 
the  others  of  the  party,  by  Zaidee's 
feet.      Percy    started    with    a  sup- 
pressed   exclamation.      Long   years 
ago    Sermo    was   dead — long    years 
ago  Zaidee  was  lost.     This  was   a 
beautiful  woman ;  this  was  not  the 
brown  girl  of  the  Grange ;  but  the 
group  before  him  was  Zaidee    and 
Sermo  ;  the  attitude  and  the  conjunc- 
tion burst  upon  him  with  a  sudden 
flash  of  recognition.     His  voice  did 
not  disturb  Zaidee;    her  mind  was 
absorbed  with  this  gaze  of  hers  look- 
ing for  the  heir  of  the  house  of  Vivian ; 
but  he  felt  upon  his  arm  the  warning 
touch  of  Mary's  hand.    Mary's  eyes 
were  meeting  his  with   a  glance  of 
warning;    and  there,   ringing    along 
the  road,  were  the  cheers  of  the  spec- 


G50 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


[Dec. 


tators,  and    the  sound  of  carriage- 
wheels. 

There  was  not  a  sound  or  motion 
more  between  these  watchers ;  Zai- 
dee, unconscious  of  their  scrutiny, 
looked  down  upon  the  arriving 
stranger.  The  carriage  approached 
rapidly  ;  the  spectators  on  the  road- 
side raised  their  hats  and  waved 
their  hands,  and  cheered  his  approach 
with  unusual  animation.  Who  was 
the  heir  of  Sir  Francis  Vivian  ?  She 
looked  down  upon  him  with  her  dark 
wistful  eyes,  anxious  and  yet  weary, 
touched  with  the  listlessness  of  her 
long  endurance.  She  was  not  pre- 
pared for  any  trial — she  had  given 
herself  this  day  to  rest.  The  carriage 
was  an  open  carriage,  and  one  man 
alone  sat  within  it :  he  was  bronzed 
and  darkened,  a  man  beyond  his 
early  youth.  Zaidee  looked  at  him 
with  eyes  which  flashed  out  of  their 
passive  observation  into  the  keenest 
scrutiny.  In  the  greatness  of  her 
amazed  and  troubled  joy,  she  could 
no  longer  restrain  herself.  As  the 
.carriage-wheels  crashed  by,  over  the 
sandy  soil,  Zaidee  cried  aloud — "It 
is  Philip —Philip.  Philip  is  the 
•heir !" 


Her  voice  rose  and  broke  in  this 
great  momentary  outcry,  and  she 
stood  still  for  a  moment,  with  her 
hands  raised  and  her  face  flushing 
like  the  sky  under  the  sun  ;  then  her 
beautiful  arms  fell  by  her  side  ;  sud- 
denly she  "  came  to  herself."  She 
turned  round  upon  them,  drawing 
back  a  step,  and  looking  out  from  her 
sudden  flush  of  joy  with  a  chill  creep- 
ing to  her  heart.  She  did  not  look  at 
Mary,  she  looked  past  her,  full  upon 
Percy  Vivian ,  and  with  eyes  full  of  sup- 
plicating terror.  Percy,  almost  un- 
manned, did  not  say  a  word  in  that 
moment.  He  only  put  out  his  arms, 
held  up  his  hands  before  her;  shut 
out  everything  from  her  eyes  with 
an  eager  gesture.  u  Home,  Zaidee, 
home,"  said  Percy  ;  "  there  is  no 
other  place  in  the  world — you  can 
only  flee  to  our  own  home." 

For  he  did  not  even  think  of  her  in 
this  extremity.  Flight  was  the  first 
idea  in  the  minds  of  both.  "  I  bar 
you — I  bar  you ;  you  are  ours  now 
and  for  ever,"  cried  Percy,  grasping 
her  hands  together,  and  forgetting 
even  his  brother.  "Zaidee — Zaidee 
— Zaidee — there  is  nowhere  to  flee  to 
but  home!" 


CHAPTER   XXXI. —  HOME. 


But  they  were  lingering  still  upon 
this  same  spot.  Zaidee,  who  made 
no  single  effort  to  deny  her  identity, 
with  tears  in  her  beautiful  eyes,  and 
her  face  full  of  supplicating  earnest- 
ness, stood  withdrawn  from  them  a 
little,  pleading  that  they  would  let  her 
go.  Her  whole  heart  was  in  this 
dreary  prayer  of  hers.  Withdrawing 
from  Mary  her  friend,  and  Percy  her 
cousin,  she  turned  her  face  away  from 
stately  Castle  Vivian,  and  looked  out 
upon  the  desolate  and  blank  horizon 
over  which  the  clouds  were  stealing, 
and  from  whence  the  chill  of  ap- 
proaching winter  came  in  the  wind. 
:Zaidee  had  forgotten  for  the  moment 
•that  she  had  just  seen  Philip  pass  to 
a  better  inheritance  than  the  Grange. 
She  forgot  everything  except  that 
she  was  discovered,  and  that  they 
were  about  to  take  her,  the  sup- 
planter,  the  wrongful  heir,  to  the 
home  whose  natural  possessor  she 
had  defrauded.  She  would  not  per- 


mit either  of  them  to  hold  that  trem- 
bling and  chilled  hand  of  hers,  she  only 
besought  them — "  Let  me  go  away." 
The  new  master  of  Castle  Vivian 
had  reached  the  house  by  this  time 
and  entered,  and  from  the  door  came 
a  hasty  message  to  call  these  loiterers 
in.  This  pretty  figure  ran  towards 
them,  across  that  flickering  breadth 
of  light  and  shadow,  the  path  under 
the  elm  trees.  In  her  haste  her  fair 
hair  came  down  upon  her  neck  in  a 
long  half-curling  lock ;  but  Sophy 
Vivian,  though  she  was  now  the  Rev. 
Mrs  Burlington,  a  married  lady,  did 
not  think  her  dignity  at  all  compro- 
mised, but  ran  on  breathless  and 
laughing,  as  she  caught  the  rebellious 
tress  in  her  pretty  head.  Before  she 
had  reached  the  end  of  the  avenue 
she  began  calling  to  them.  "  Percy, 
Percy,  why  are  you  lingering  ?  Philip 
has  come — every  one  is  there  but 
you  ;  mamma  is  anxious  to  see  Miss 
Cumberland.  I  am  sure  this  is  Miss 


1855.] 

Cumberland.  Come,  come  ;  how  can 
you  linger  so  ?  Philip  is  at  home." 

And  by  the  time  she  had  reach- 
ed this  climax,  Sophy  came  up  to  the 
little  group  which  had  delayed  so  long. 
Sophy's  lilies  and  roses  were  as  sweet 
as  ever,  her  blue  eyes  were  bright  with 
tears  and  laughter,  her  pretty  face  was 
dimpling  and  sparkling  all  over  with 
the  family  joy.  But  when  she  reach- 
ed as  far  as  Zaidee,  whose  face  she 
had  not  seen  at  first,  Sophy  came  to  a 
sudden  pause.  Zaidee  could  give  but 
one  glance  at  her  first  and  dearest 
companion,  whose  wistful  and  amazed 
look  was  turned  upon  her.  Trembling, 
overpowered  and  helpless,  she  covered 
her  eyes  with  her  hand,  and  turned 
away  to  hide  the  burst  of  weeping 
which  she  could  no  longer  control. 
"Percy,"  said  Sophy, in  a  low  and  hur- 
ried voice,  "  who  is  this  that  is  so  like 
our  Elizabeth — who  is  it  that  weeps  at 
seeing  me  ?"  Percy  made  no  answer. 
The  hound  still  sat  at  Zaidee's  feet, 
raising  his  large  eyes  wistfully  to  the 
discussion,  sympathetic,  and  making 
earnest  endeavours  to  discover  what 
the  subject  of  all  this  distress  and 
wonder  was.  Sophy  no  longer  noted 
Percy  and  his  betrothed  ;  she  saw 
only  these  two  figures — the  dog  with 
his  head  raised,  the  beautiful  stranger 
turning  away  from  all  of  them,  and 
struggling  with  her  sobs  and  tears. 
She  was  too  hurried,  too  much  ex- 
cited, to  wait  for  an  answer  to  her 
question.  She  fell  upon  Zaidee,  sud- 
denly clasping  her  soft  arms  round  her, 
taking  possession  of  the  hands  which 
no  longer  made  an  effort  to  with- 
draw themselves.  "It  is  Zaidee  !  Zai- 
dee !  Nobody  can  deceive  me  !  it  is 
our  own  Zay,"  cried  Sophy,  with  a 
great  outburst.  "Did  you  think  I 
would  not  know  her  ?  I !— you  know 
me,  Zaidee  ?  say  you  know  me — and 
you  were  coming  of  your  own  will  to 
welcome  Philip.  I  knew  you  would 
come  home  when  Philip  had  Castle 
Vivian.  Zay  ! — only  speak  to  me — 
say  you  know  me  as  I  know  you." 

The  two  spectators  of  this  scene 
bent  forward  anxiously  to  listen. 
"  Yes,  Sophy,"  said  Zaidee,  among  her 
tears.  Zaidee  offered  no  resistance  to 
the  close  embrace,  and  made  no  longer 
any  effort  to  withdraw  herself.  Sophy, 
with  her  arm  round  her  new-found 
cousin,  looked  back  to  them,  Avaving 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


651 


them  on,  and  hurried  forward,  breath- 
less with  her  haste,  her  crying,  her 
laughing,  her  joy  of  tears.  The  hound 
stalked  solemnly  forward  by  Zaidee's 
side,  mending  his  stately  pace,  as 
Sophy  at  every  step  quickened  hers. 
Percy  Vivian  and  Mary  Cumberland, 
left  far  behind,  looked  into  each  other's 
faces.  "  When  did  you  discover 
this  ?"  said  the  one ;  and  "  How  slow 
you  were  to  find  it  out  !"  said  the 
other.  Percy  had  by  no  means  sub- 
sided out  of  his  first  bewildered  and 
joyful  amazement.  But  Mary's  satis- 
faction and  delight  were  altogether 
unmingled,  and  had  the  most  agree- 
able shade  of  self-gratulation  in  them, 
u  They  would  never  have  found  her 
but  for  me,"  said  Mary  Cumberland  to 
herself,  and  it  was  not  in  nature  that 
the  planner  of  this  successful  plot 
should  not  be  a  little  proud  of  her 
wisdom  and  her  skill. 

The  windows  were  open  in  th® 
great  drawing-room  in  Castle  Vivian  r 
and  some  of  the  family  had  come  to 
the  balcony,  once  more  to  wonder  at 
Percy's  delay,  and  look  out  for  him, 
"  Can  this  be  Miss  Cumberland  whom 
Sophy  is  bringing  forward  so  ?  "  asked 
one.  "  Who  does  the  dog  belong  to  ?  " 
said  another.  "Elizabeth,  Elizabeth— 
who  is  this?"  cried  Margaret.  They 
began  to  wonder,  and  to  grow  excited, 
especially  as  Percy  was  visible  in  the 
distance,  approaching  quietly  with  the 
real  Miss  Cumberland.  At  this  mo- 
ment the  distant  ringing  of  Sophy's 
voice  came  to  their  ears — there  was 
a  great  start,  and  rush  to  the  window. 
"  Zaidee,  Zaidee!"  cried  Sophy  at  the 
highest  pitch  of  her  sweet  youthful 
voice.  "I  have  found  Zay — here  is 
Zay,  mamma — Philip,  here  is  Zay ; 
she  has  come  home!" 

And  when  Zaidee  reached  the  porch',, 
it  was  to  be  plunged  into  such  a 
vehement  embrace,  such  aconflict  of  ex- 
clamations, of  inquiries,  of  wonders — 
such  an  eager  crowd  of  faces  and  out- 
stretched arms,  such  a  tumult  of  sound, 
that  what  little  strength  remained  to 
her  was  overpowered.  She  saw  them  all 
through  a  mist,  face  behind  face.  Even 
Aunt  Vivian  herself,  though  she  was 
still  an  invalid,  was  first  at  the  door, 
wrapped  in  her  shawl,  to  see  if  Sophy's 
wonderful  discovery  was  true,  and 
Zaidee  grasped  the  arm  of  Elizabeth 
to  save  herself  from  falling.  She  was 


652 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


[Dec. 


half  led,  half  carried  into  the  great 
warm  hospitable  room  they  had  left, 
in  which  Mr  Cumberland,  Mrs  Cum- 
berland, and  Aunt  Burtonshaw  stood 
together  at  one  of  the  windows  in  a 
group,  looking  out  upon  the  approach 
of  Percy  and  Mary,  and  marvelling 
what  was  the  cause  of  all  this  ex- 
citement. These  good  people  were 
mightily  amazed  when  they  saw  this 
triumphal  entry  of  their  own  Eliza- 
beth, whom  Mrs  Vivian  held  very 
firmly  by  one  hand,  whom  Mrs  Mor- 
ton supported  on  the  other  side,  whom 
Sophy  danced  joyously  before,  her 
fair  hair  streaming  down  upon  her 
neck,  and  her  pretty  figure  instinct  in 
every  line  of  it  with  the  simplest  and 
fullest  joy.  Margaret,  behind,  looked 
over  Zaidee's  shoulder,  guarding  her 
on  that  side ;  and  behind  all  walked 
the  newly  -  arrived  Lord  of  Castle 
Vivian,  a  little  withdrawn  from  the 
group,  a  little  disconcerted,  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  universal  centre,  and  a 
flush  upon  his  face.  The  procession 
marched  on,  never  intermitting  in  its 
cries  of  joy  and  welcome  till  it  reached 
Mrs  Vivian's  chair,  and  then  the  ranks 
opened,  the  family  dispersed  them- 
selves around  this  domestic  throne, 
and  Mrs  Vivian  took  her  place  in  it, 
still  holding  firmly  by  her  captive, 
whom  Elizabeth  still  supported  by  her 
mother's  side.  "  Now,  we  are  all 
here.  Philip  has  come  home,"  said 
Mrs  Vivian,  with  her  voice  trembling. 
"  Zaidee,  child,  look  in  my  face,  and 
tell  me  it  is  you." 

But  Zaidee  could  not  look  in  Aunt 
Vivian's  face;  she  sank  upon  her 
knees,  half  with  intention,  half  from 
faintness.  This  attitude  was  quite 
involuntary,  but  it  filled  Mrs  Vivian's 
eyes  with  tears,  and  she  extended 
her  arms,  and  drew  the  beautiful 
sinking  head  to  her  breast.  "Do  you 
remember?  "  said  Mrs  Vivian,  looking 
round  upon  them ;  and  so  well  they 
all  remembered  little  orphan  Zaidee 
kneeling  by  the  hearth  of  the  Grange 
—that  dear  warm  family  hearth— by 
the  house-mother's  knee. 

"You  need  not  be  sad  now,  Zaidee," 
said  Sophy  in  her  ear;  "  no  need  to 
be  sad  now.  Philip  has  Castle  Vivian ; 
Philip  is  the  head  of  the  house.  He 
ought  to  have  given  you  the  Grange 
now,  if  it  had  not  been  yours  before. 
He  cannot  have  everything,  Zaidee. 


Philip  has  Castle  Vivian,  and  it  is 
nothing  but  joy  now  that  you  have 
the  Grange." 

Sophy  was  the  wisest  in  her  prac- 
tical comfortings.  Zaidee  lifted  up 
her  drooping  head.  "Is  Philip  the 
heir  of  all  ?  "  said  Zaidee.  She  was 
answered  by  a  cry  of  assent  from  the 
whole  of  them,  and  Philip  came  near. 
This  Philip  was  scarcely  more  like 
the  Philip  of  seven  years  ago  than 
Zaidee  was  like  the  Zaidee  of  that 
time.  It  was  not  only  that  he  was 
now  in  the  flush  and  prime  of  youth- 
ful manhood,  with  powers  developed 
by  trial,  and  a  character  proved  and 
established,  but  the  wonder  was  that 
Philip,  who  came  forward  eagerly, 
drew  back  again  with  an  extraor- 
dinary deference  and  respect,  which 
Zaidee  could  not  comprehend;  and 
instead  of  the  eager  and  overwhelm- 
ing joy  of  the  others,  Philip  could  only 
stammer  and  hesitate,  and  finally  ex- 
press in  a  little  effusion  of  warmth, 
which  brought  a  renewed  flush  to  his 
cheek,  his  delight  in  seeing  his  cousin. 
He  said  "  My  cousin ;"  he  did  not  say 
"Zay." 

"Zaidee?  Zaidee?  "  said  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw, coming  forward  at  last  when 
there  was  an  opening  for  her  ;  "  what 
do  they  mean,  Elizabeth?  Tell  them 
your  proper  name,  my  love.  Mrs 
Vivian  and  her  family  are  mistaken 
strangely.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
it  all?  Your  name  was  Elizabeth 
Francis  before  you  were  adopted  by 
Maria  Anna,  and  I  do  not  know  what 
this  means— indeed  I  do  not  know." 

'*  Yes,  indeed,  she  is  my  adopted 
daughter,  Elizabeth  Cumberland," 
said  Mrs  Cumberland,  adding  her 
word.  "  My  dear  Mr  Vivian,  I  am 
convinced  there  is  some  delightful 
tale  to  be  told  here.  Elizabeth,  ex- 
plain it  to  us.  Who  are  you,  child?" 

Zaidee  rose  from  her  knees,  but 
stood  before  them  in  a  stooping  humble 
attitude,  looking  at  no  one.  "  I  am 
Zaidee  Vivian,"  she  said  hurriedly. 
"I  left  the  Grange  because  Philip 
would  not  take  his  natural  right,  but 
left  it  to  me.  I  have  deceived  you, 
Aunt  Burtonshaw — I  have  deceived 
every  one — though  every  one  has  been 
so  kind  to  me.  But  it  was  all  that  I 
might  not  defraud  Philip — that  I  might 
fulfil  Grandfather  Vivian's  latest  will." 

Some  spell  is  upon  Philip,  that  he 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romatwe. — Part  the  Last. 


653 


cannot  say  a  single  word  of  acknow- 
ledgment. His  mother  answers  for 
him.  "Philip  has  Castle  Vivian 
now,  Zaidee — take  your  own  place, 
dear  child.  Sit  down  by  me  once 
more.  It  is  my  business  now  to 
satisfy  your  kind  friends  that  you 
have  not  deceived  them.  Tell  Mrs 
Cumberland,  Percy,  Zaidee's  story, 
and  thank  her  for  us  all  that  she  has 
kept  our  child  so  tenderly.  Bring 


Miss  Cumberland  to  me— bring  me  my 
new  daughter,  Percy — and  thank  her 
mother  for  her  goodness  to  our  other 
child." 

u  And  Zaidee  is  a  great  beauty !  " 
cried  Sophy.  "  Zaidee  is  more  beau- 
tiful than  Elizabeth.  Mother,  look 
at  her!  Why,  Philip  is  afraid  of 
Zaidee ;  and  instead  of  little  Zay,  the 
greatest  beauty  of  all  the  house  has 
come  home  to  Castle  Vivian  to-day !" 


CHAP,  xxxii. — EVERYBODY'S  STORY. 


"Now  that  we  are  all  here  to- 
gether," says  Sophy,  "I  think,  instead 
of  every  one  telling  her  own  story,  I 
had  better  tell  Zaidee  all  about  it— 
what  has  happened  to  us  all." 

This  day  had  worn  on  from  morning 
to  evening  in  spite  of  its  great  excite- 
ment, and  they  were  now  assembled 
round  the  fireplace — a  wide  circle. 
Mrs  Vivian,  seated  on  one  side  of  the 
hearth,  occupied  just  such  a  seat  of 
honour  and  supremacy  as  she  had  in 
the  Grange  ;  and  half  hidden  within 
her  shadow  was  Zaidee,  with  Aunt 
Vivian's  hand  resting  upon  her  low 
chair.  Aunt  Vivian  was  supported 
on  the  other  side  by  Philip,  who  had 
been  greatly  thrown  into  the  shade 
by  Zaidee's  return.  He  was  no  longer 
the  hero  of  the  day ;  the  family  fete 
celebrated  the  recovery  of  the  lost 
child  much  more  than  the  return  of 
the  head  of  the  house ;  and  Philip 
was  still  singularly  silent  and  discom- 
posed, and  gave  abundant  reason  for 
Sophy's  saying  that  he  was  afraid  of 
the  beauty.  He  looked  at  her  very 
often,  this  chief  of  the  house  of  Vivian; 
he  referred  to  her  after  a  stately  sort 
as  u  my  cousin."  But  Philip  did  not 
seem  able  to  join  in  the  family  over- 
flow of  rejoicing  over  "  our  Zay." 
He  was  a  great  deal  more  respectful 
of  the  stranger  than  any  other  indi- 
vidual present.  He  showed  the  most 
courtly  and  observant  regard  of  her ; 
and  Zaidee  never  looked  up  but  she 
found  Philip's  eyes  retiring  from  her 
own  beautiful  face.  Bat  in  spite  of 
this,  she  was  wonderfully  disappointed 
in  Philip.  He  was  so  cold,  be  must 
surely  be  angry.  Her  heart  was  sore 
within  her  by  reason  of  this  one  re- 
maining pain. 
And  Mrs  Cumberland,  Zaidee's 


kind  and  fanciful  patroness,  sat  at 
Philip's  right  hand,  the  object  of 
his  most  particular  attention.  Mrs 
Cumberland  indeed  had  given  up 
her  son-in-law  elect,  who  was  only 
the  genius  of  the  family,  in  preference 
for  the  head  of  the  house,  and  the 
head  of  the  house  lavished  upon  her 
his  greatest  cares.  Then  came  Eliza- 
beth, in  her  matronly  and  noble 
beauty,  with  Zaidee's  little  gold  chain 
round  her  beautiful  throat ;  and  there 
was  Mary  Cumberland,  rather  shy 
and  discomposed,  between  Mrs  Mor- 
ton and  her  sister  Margaret.  Mar- 
garet was  indisputably  the  most 
splendid  person  present.  In  dress 
and  manner  alike,  this  once  pensive 
Margaret  was  much  more  of  the  great 
lady  than  either  her  mother  or  sister ; 
and  a  pretty  boy  rather  fantasti- 
cally, but  very  richly  dressed,  was 
seated  on  her  footstool,  and  leaning 
his  head  upon  her  knee.  Then  came 
Captain  Bernard  Morton,  then  a  fair 
high-featured  man,  bland  and  lofty, 
in  whom  the  grand  manner  was  still 
more  apparent.  And  then  came  Aunt 
Burtonshaw,  extremely  bewildered, 
and  Percy,  and  the  young  clergyman 
who  had  once  been  Mr  Wyburgh's 
curate,  and  whose  intimacy  at  the 
Grange  had  filled  good  Mr  Green 
with  terror  for  the  young  ladies.  Last 
of  all  pretty  Sophy  Vivian,  leaning 
forward  from  her  corner,  volunteered 
the  family  history,  and  was  accepted 
as  spokeswoman  by  universal  consent. 
The  great  room  was  lighted  in  every 
part,  but  entirely  deserted  for  this 
closer  circle  round  the  fire.  While 
just  outside  the  circle,  with  a  small 
reading- table  before  him,  piled  with 
old  volumes  from  the  library,  Mr 
Cumberland  sat  ready  to  hear  any- 


654 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


[Dec. 


thing  that  struck  his  wandering  fancy, 
but  pursuing  his  favourite  whim  of 
the  moment,  through  various  psalters 
and  antique  bibles,  with  great  devo- 
tion. The  conversation  within  the 
circle  was  occasionally  broken  by  an 
exclamation  of  rapture  from  Mr  Cum- 
berland over  some  emblazoned  initial, 
but  these  did  not  come  sufficiently 
often  to  break  upon  any  more  import- 
ant speech. 

"  Well,  Zaidee,"  said  Sophy,  "  when 
we  could  hear  nothing  of  you,  Philip 
had  to  go  away.  And  here  is  Captain 
Bernard  Morton  !  But  you  remember 
Captain  Bernard,  Zay,  who  married 
Elizabeth  ?— and  this  gentleman  is  Sir 
David  Powis,  who  married  Margaret. 
Margaret  is  Lady  Powis.  Did  no  one 
ever  tell  you?  And  they  live  at  Powis- 
land,  just  over  the  Dee ;  and  this  is 
Reginald  Burlington.  He  is  Rector  of 
Woodchurch  now,  Zaidee,  since  Mr 
Powis  went  away.  And — and — we 
live  there,  you  know,  when  we  are  not 
at  the  Grange;  and  we  are  all  very 
happy ;  and  Elizabeth  has  four  chil- 
dren ;  and  Margaret  has  two  ;  and 
Percy  is  a  great  author,  and  writes 
books ;  and  Philip  has  come  home  to 
be  a  great  man,  and  the  head  of  the 
family ;  and  mamma  has  got  well 
again ;  and  we  wanted  nothing  to 
make  this  the  happiest  day  in  this 
world,"  said  Sophy,  her  eyes  running 
over  with  tears  and  gladness,  "  but 
to  have  Zaidee  back  again;  and  Zaidee 
has  come  back  again — the  same  as 
ever,  but  a  great  beauty  as  well ;  and 
Philip  is  at  home ;  and  if  any  fairy 
should  ask  me  to  wish  now,  I  am 
sure  I  could  not  tell  what  to  think  of, 
everything  has  come  so  full  of  joy !" 

This  brief  epitome  of  the  family  his- 
tory was  received  with  great  applause 
by  the  sons  and  sons-in-law,  to  whom 
it  alluded.  Zaidee  sat  quite  silent, 
listening  very  eagerly,  yet  in  reality 
making  very  little  of  it.  She  sat  close 
by  Aunt  Vivian,  with  a  strange  per- 
ception of  her  changed  position — a 
strange  dreamy  realisation  of  the  time 
which  was  past.  Nothing  of  all  these 
seven  years  was  so  strangely  bewil- 
dering to  her  as  the  events  of  to-day. 
She  could  recall  everything  except 
these  crowded  and  hurrying  hours 
which  had  swept  away,  before  their 
flood  of  surprise  and  sudden  enlighten- 
ment, all  the  barriers  which  she  had 


built  about  her  life.  She  was  seated 
by  Aunt  Vivian's  side — she  was  sur- 
rounded by  all  the  endearing  bonds  of 
the  family — she  was  grasped  on  every 
side  by  new  relationships ;  and,  most 
wonderful  change  of  all,  she  was  now 
no  longer  Philip's  supplanter,  but  only 
the  heir  of  the  secondary  estate — the 
jointure-house,  the  younger  son's  por- 
tion ;  and  Philip  was  of  Castle  Vivian, 
the  head  of  the  house.  She  heard  the 
voices  rising  in  general  conversation ; 
she  heard  Mary  Cumberland  detail- 
ing, with  a  happy  readiness,  the  gra- 
dual light  thrown  to  herself  upon 
Zaidee,  and  how  at  last  she  was  con- 
vinced of  her  identity  when  new& 
of  Mrs  Vivian's  illness  came ;  she- 
heard  the  wondering  exclamations  of 
Aunt  Burtonsh aw,  and  the  joyous 
voice  of  Sophy  ringing  a  universal 
chorus  to  every  other  felicitation  ; 
she  heard  it  all,  but  only  as  some  one 
far  off  might  hear.  She  was  in  a  maze 
of  strange  bewilderment — was  it  pos- 
sible that  she  was  at  home? — that  her 
name  was  Zaidee  Vivian,  and  not 
Elizabeth  Cumberland  ?  —  that  she 
was  restored  to  her  identity,  to  her- 
self, and  to  her  friends  ?  Zaidee  sat 
bending  her  beautiful  head  upon  her 
hands  —  uncertain,  wondering;  then 
falling  back  at  last  on  one  thing  cer- 
tain, pausing  to  ask  herself  why  Philip 
had  not  a  word  to  say  when  Zaidee 
was  found  again. 

When  the  barrier  of  a  night  was 
placed  between  her  and  this  won- 
derful day,  it  became  less  unreal  to- 
the  returned  exile.  While  every  one 
else  was  still  asleep,  Zaidee,  waking  in 
the  early  dawn,  went  out  to  wander 
about  this  lordly  dwelling  of  her  racer 
and  with  family  pride  and  interest 
admire  its  massive  front  and  noble 
proportions.  She  stood  within  the 
wide  deep  alcove  of  the  porch,  looking 
down  upon  that  line  of  noble  trees 
fluttering  their  yellow  foliage  in  the 
morning  sun,  and  throwing  down  a 
shower  of  leaves  with  every  breath  of 
wind.  Their  shadows  lay  across  the 
path,  dividing  it  into  long  lines  ;  and 
beyond  lay  the  rich  foreground  of 
turf,  the  grassy  banks  between  which 
the  road  disappeared,  passing  out  from 
this  retired  and  lofty  privacy  into  the 
busy  world.  The  broad  stone  balcony 
from  which  Elizabeth  and  Margaret 
had  caught  their  first  glimpse  of  her 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


655 


yesterday,  descended  by  a  flight  of 
stairs  into  the  old  rich  flower-garden, 
still  gay  with  patches  of  old-fashioned 
flowers ;  and  the  great  house,  so  large, 
so  lofty,  with  its  air  of  wealth,  and 
place,  and  old  magnificence,  filled 
Zaidee  with  a  great  thrill  of  pleasure 
and  of  pride.  As  she  made  her  way 
by  the  garden  path  to  the  other  side 
of  the  house,  looking  up  at  it  with 
simple  delight  and  admiration,  and 
pausing  to  see  far  off  the  hills  of 
Wales,  and  a  beautiful  glimpse  of 
green  fields  and  woodlands  without 
this  domain,  Zaidee  could  not  repress 
her  exultation.  "  And  this  is  Philip's 
— and  Philip  is  the  true  head  of  the 
house — and  Castle  Vivian  has  come 
back  to  him,"  said  Zaidee.  She  spoke 
under  her  breath,  but  still  she  started 
to  see  Philip  himself  approaching  her. 
A  glow  of  pleasure  was  on  Philip's 
face,  but  still  he  drew  back,  and 
bowed,  and  was  ceremonious.  He 
offered  her  his  arm  with  the  respect  of 
a  courtier.  He  called  her  cousin ; 
and  Zaidee  looked  up  at  him  timidly, 
afraid  to  say,  as  she  had  intended  to 
say,  "  Philip,  are  you  angry?1'  The 
two  continued  their  walk  together  in 
silence.  She  suffered  him  to  lead  her 
quietly,  and  did  not  ask  where  he  was 
going ;  but  where  he  was  going  was 
simply  out  of  the  flower-garden  into  a 
noble  park,  dotted  with  grand  trees, 
and  undulating  into  knolls  and  hol- 
lows, covered  with  the  richest  green- 
sward. He  led  her  to  one  of  these 
little  eminences,  and  they  looked  back 
together  upon  the  beautiful  pile  of 
building  before  them,  on  which  the 
morning  sun  shone  with  a  tender 
brightness.  "  You  are  glad  that  I 
have  Castle  Vivian,"  said  Philip ;  "  do 
you  know  how  I  have  it,  Zaidee?" 
He  had  never  called  her  Zaidee  before, 
and  she  looked  up  gratefully,  thinking 
the  cloud  had  passed  away. 

But  it  did  not  seem  that  Philip 
could  bear  this  upward  look,  for  he 
turned  his  head  from  her  a  little,  and 
led  her  down  again  rather  abruptly, 
as  he  began  to  speak  in  the  plainest 
and  most  matter-of-fact  style.  "  Sir 
Francis  Vivian  had  no  son,"  said 
Philip;  "  his  only  heir  was  a  favourite 
adopted  child,  and  he  would  not  con- 
fer the  lands  of  the  Vivians  upon  one 
who  bore  another  name.  So  he  be- 
queathed to  me  the  house  itself,  on 


condition  that  I  was  able  to  purchase 
the  lands  attached  to  it  for  a  sum  he 
named  —  a  sufficient  sum  to  endow 
richly  his  adopted  son.  I  was  able  to 
do  this  by  good  fortune — and  now  the 
chief  branch  of  our  family  is  once  more 
seated  in  its  original  place." 

He  ended  abruptly  as  he  had  be- 
gan ;  and  but  that  he  kept  her  hand 
very  closely  upon  his  arm,  Zaidee 
would  have  thought  she  was  a  great 
encumbrance  to  him,  and  that  he 
wished  her  away. 

"  When  I  left  the  Grange  first,  I 
was  continually  dreaming  of  happy 
chances  to  bring  me  home  again," 
said  Zaidee,  "but  I  wonder  that  I 
never  thought  of  this,  the  best  way  of 
all.  I  imagined  you  a  very  great  man 
often,  and  gave  you  every  kind  of 
rank  and  honour ;  but  I  never  thought 
of  Castle  Vivian  ;  I  never  thought  of 
the  other  family  house,  which  we  must 
always  have  even  a  greater  pride  in 
than  even  in  our  own  Grange." 

"  You  gave  me  rank  and  honour, 
did  you  ?  "  said  Philip,  melting  a  little. 
"  Well,  I  thought  of  you  often  enough, 
Zaidee ;  many  a  day." 

When  he  said  this,  they  were  at  the 
door,  and  Philip  escaped  hastily  with 
the  look  of  a  culprit.  "  There  was 
surely  nothing  wrong  in  thinking  of 
me,"  Zaidee  said  to  herself  as  she 
threaded  those  lofty  passages  to  her 
own  room.  When  she  arrived  there, 
and  by  chance  saw  herself  in  the 
mirror  with  the  faint  colour  of  her 
cheek  freshened  by  the  morning,  and 
her  eyes  full  of  light  and  pleasure, 
Zaidee  was  struck  with  a  momentary 
consciousness.  She  went  away  from 
the  glass  in  great  haste  with  a  blush 
of  shame ;  at  that  moment,  of  all 
moments,  Sophy's  burst  of  triumph 
"  a  great  beauty  ! "  flashed  into  Zai- 
dee's  mind.  If  she  was  a  great  beauty, 
poor  Zaidee  could  not  help  it ;  but 
she  arranged  her  morning-dress  very 
rapidly,  and  kept  far  away  from  the 
mirror.  Zaidee  was  sadly  ashamed 
of  herself  when  this  annoying  con- 
sciousness came  to  her  mind. 

"  Maylcome  in?"  said  Mary  Cum- 
berland, as  she  opened  the  door.  "  I 
wonder  what  I  am  to  call  you  now  : 
it  must  be  Lizzy  still.  And  how  could 
you  keep  such  a  secret  from  me  ?  You 
might  have  told  me;  indeed  you 
might,  you  secret  heiress  —  you  lady 


656 


a  Romance. — Part  the  Last, 


[Dec. 


of  mystery.  I  remember  such  quan- 
tities of  things  now,  about  how  you 
used  to  talk  at  Ulm,  and  words  I 
thought  so  strange.  Of  course,  if 
mamma  had  known,  or  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw,  your  secret  would  have  been  no 
secret ;  but  you  might  have  trusted 
me." 

"  I  dared  not  trust  any  one,  Mary," 
said  Zaidee. 

"And  to  think  how  slow  Percy 
was,"  continued  Mary,  who  had  by  no 
means  exhausted  her  own  self-congra- 
tulations, "  and  how  ready  to  believe 
that  I  myself,  and  only  me,  was  anx- 
ious to  see  Philip  on  his  way  home. 


He  said  I  had  a  right  to  my  whim — 
simple  Percy  ! — and  after  all,  the  dog 
was  a  greater  assistance  to  him  than 
I  was  in  finding  you  out ;  for  he  had 
found  you  out  before  you  discovered 
yourself.  Poor  Sylvo,  Lizzy,  what 
will  become  of  him  ?  He  will  go  away 
to  the  delights  of  savagery  ;  he  will 
shoot  elephants,  or  be  an  Abyssinian 
dandy,  and  Sylvo's  place  will  go  to 
waste,  and  all  the  while  your  cousin 
Philip  and  you  will  look  at  each  other. 
What  do  I  mean?  I  do  not  mean  any- 
thing, my  princess — but  there  is  Mrs 
Burlington  coming  to  rejoice  over  you, 
and  I  will  go  away." 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. — SOPHY. 


"Mrs  Burlington!" 

"  Yes,  indeed,  it  is  so,  Zay,"  said 
Sophy,  shaking  her  pretty  head  with 
mock  melancholy  as  she  came  in  ; 
"  everybody  must  be  Mrs  something, 
you  know,  and  we  are  all  very  happy. 
But  Zay,  Zay  !  I  want  you  to  tell  me 
from  the  very  beginning.  And  are  you 
glad  to  be  home  ?  And  you  were  nearly 
breaking  your  heart  when  mamma 
was  ill,  Miss  Cumberland  says  ?  Do 
you  think  Philip  is  changed  ?  did  you 
not  wonder  to  hear  that  Margaret  was 
married  to  a  Powis,  after  all  ?  and  do 
you  know  Elizabeth's  little  girl,  the 
dearest  of  all  the  children,  is  called 
Zaidee  ?  Dear  Zay,  you  are  our  own 
now,  you  are  no  one  else's.  Begin  at 
the  beginning,  where  you  went  as  a 
governess — Mrs  Disbrowe's.  What  in 
the  world  did  you  teach  the  children, 
-Zaidee  ? — did  you  tell  them  stories  ? 
for  you  know  you  never  would  learn 
anything  else  yourself." 

"I  could  not  teach  them  at  all," 
said  Zaidee,  "  and  they  would  not 
have  me.  I  thought  they  were  very 
right  at  the  time ;  but  they  were  cruel 
— children  are  very  cruel  sometimes — 
and  I  wished  for  nothing  but  to  die." 

"  And  then  ?  "  cried  Sophy.  Sophy 
was  very  curious  to  hear  the  whole. 

"  And  then  I  went  to  Mrs  Lancas- 
ter's and  met  Aunt  Burtonshaw;  good 
Aunt  Burtonshaw!  I  should  have  died, 
and  never  seen  this  day,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  her,"  said  Zaidee  ;  "  and  I 
went  to  Ulm  with  her,  to  be  a  com- 
panion to  Mary." 

"  To  Ulm !— where  is  that  ?  "  said 


Sophy.  "Mamma  heard  you  had 
gone  abroad,  and  they  went  every- 
where seeking  you,  and  every  one  of 
them  saw  you  somewhere,  Zaidee.  It 
had  never  been  you  at  all !  for  I  am 
sure  they  did  not  go  to  Ulm." 

"It  is  on  the  Danube.  We  were 
there  a  great  many  years,"  said  Zai- 
dee, "  and  then  when  I  grew  up,  Mrs 
Cumberland  said  I  should  be  called 
by  their  name,  and  be  her  adopted 
daughter.  They  have  been  very  kind 
to  me,  Sophy — as  kind  as  they  were 
to  Mary.  But  first  I  found  that  book 
— an  old  woman  had  it — an  old  Welsh 
servant,  who  was  a  servant  at  Powis- 
land,  and  her  father  was  with  Grand- 
father Vivian.  Did  they  put  it  back 
in  the  Grange  library,  Sophy  ?  it  had 
the  same  binding  as  all  the  other 
books.  Did  you  see  it,  that  strange 
legacy?  I  thought  Grandfather  Vivian 
was  leading  me  then ;  and  when  I 
found  the  book,  I  was  very  ill,  and 
had  a  fever.  I  thought  at  first  I 
would  have  come  home,  but  it  was 
not  enough  for  Philip,  and  I  never 
knew  he  had  gone  to  India  :  I  thought 
he  was  at  the  Grange,  arid  you  were 
all  happy  at  home." 

"  Happy  at  home,  when  we  had 
lost  you,  Zay ! "  cried  Sophy ;  "  the 
Grange  was  never  like  its  own  self 
again.  We  will  keep  Philip's  birth- 
day at  home  this  year — we  will  keep 
it  at  Briarford — you  shall  ask  every 
one  of  us  to  come  to  the  Grange.  But 
after  your  fever,  Zaidee,  what  hap- 
pened then  ?  " 

"  We  travelled  a  great  deal,  and 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


657 


then  we  came  back  to  England.  I 
was  afraid  to  come  to  England,"  said 
Zaidee ;  "  and  so  indeed  we  had  not 
been  very  long  settled  here  when 
Mary  met  Percy.  I  went  one  even- 
ing in  the  carriage  to  bring  her  home, 
and  then  I  saw  him.  I  could  not  tell 
who  he  was,  Sophy,  and  yet  I  knew 
him  ;  and  then  I  heard  it  was  Mr 
Vivian,  the  great  author !  and  then 
he  came  to  Twickenham,  and  I  read 
his  books,  and  I  was  very  proud,  you 
may  be  sure.  But  to  hear  of  you  all 
as  if  I  was  a  stranger,  and  to  hear 
Elizabeth's  little  girl  called  Zaidee, 
and  to  hear  that  Aunt  Vivian  was  ill, 
and  Philip  coming  home — oh,  Sophy, 
I  had  nearly  broken  my  heart!" 

"  But  it  is  all  over  now,  dear  Zay, 
— dear  Zay  !"  cried  Sophy,  with  her 
arms  round  her  recovered  companion. 
"  And  you  were  grieved  to  hear  that 
Philip  had  gone  to  India;  and  you 
ventured  to  write  and  send  the  deed. 
Do  you  know,  we  began  to  be  so 
eager  every  post- time  after  your  first 
letter  came.  Mamma  said  you  would 
be  sure  to  write  again,  and  at  first 
she  was  quite  confident  of  finding 
you.  But  never  mind  all  that — you 
are  found  now,  Zaidee,  and  you  will 
never  be  lost  again.  Come  down 
stairs,  where  they  are  all  waiting  for 
us.  Where  did  you  get  the  grey- 
hound, Zay  ? — was  it  only  one  of  Sir 
David's  hounds  ?  for  poor  Sermo  is  not 
living  now,  to  stalk  after  you.  I  think 
I  should  not  have  known  you  so  soon 
but  for  the  dog.  Poor  Sermo  pined 
and  died  when  you  were  gone.  I  have 
so  much  to  tell  you,  and  so  much  to 
ask  you.  Do  you  think  Philip  is 
Changed?  But  come,  they  are  wait- 
ing for  us  down  stairs." 

"  Here  is  Sophy,  with  Miss  Vivian ; 
and  here  is  the  whole  breakfast-table 
in  alarm,  lest  our  heroine  should  have 
disappeared  again,"  said  the  stately 
Sir  David  Powis,  as  Zaidee  followed 
her  cousin  into  the  well- tilled  break- 
fast-room. 

"  Miss  Vivian!"  said  Sophy;  "  only 
think,  mamma,  what  a  devastation 
when  Zaidee  comes  to  be  Miss  Vivian ! 
Elizabeth  was  Miss  Vivian  when 
Zaidee  went  away.  Then  it  was  Mar- 
garet's turn  and  mine,  and  now  there 
is  only  the  youngest.  There  is  no 
Miss  Vivian  in  the  world  but 
Zay!" 


"  Zaidee,  come  to  me,"  said  Marga- 
ret, with  a  little  authority;  "  mamma 
had  you  all  last  night,  and  Sophy  has 
had  you  this  morning,  and  Elizabeth 
will  have  you  at  all  times.  What 
beautiful  hair  she  has  got,  and  how 
she  has  grown,  and  how  much  she  is 
like  Elizabeth !  Don't  you  think  so, 
mamma  ?  There  is  a  picture  in  the 
gallery  that  might  have  been  done  for 
Zaidee.  It  is  quite  the  family  face. 
My  little  Herbert  has  a  little  of  it. 
Did  you  see  my  boy,  Zaidee  ?  And 
you  saw  all  Elizabeth's  children? 
Why  have  you  stayed  so  long  away 
from  home,  you  foolish  child?  You 
don't  know  how  we  have  wished  for 
you,  and  searched  for  you.  Sophy 
sobbed  herself  to  sleep,  I  cannot  tell 
how  many  nights  after  you  were  lost, 
and  we  did  nothing  but  dream  of  you 
night  and  day.  I  never  hear  the 
winter  wind  even  at  Powisland  but  I 
listen  for  footsteps;  and  you  have 
been  Miss  Cumberland  all  the  while. 
How  very  strange  that  your  adopted 
sister  should  be  Percy's  betrothed ! — 
how  very  strange !  When  we  heard 
of  Miss  Cumberland,  and  of  Miss 
Cumberland's  sister,  who  was  like  our 
Elizabeth,  how  little  we  dreamt  that 
she  was  our  own  Zaidee !  You  must 
bring  Zay  to  Powisland,  mamma. 
And  Zay,  Sir  David  wants  to  know 
about  the  old  woman  who  was  a  ser- 
vant to  his  family.  Everything  is  so 
wonderful  about  this  child— Grand- 
father Vivian's  book,  and  the  person 
who  served  the  Powises — she  must 
have  been  quite  surrounded  with 
things  belonging  to  the  family.  You 
must  have  remembered  us  as  well, 
Zaidee,  as  we  remembered  you." 

When  Lady  Powis  paused  to  take 
breath,  Mrs  Burtonshaw  eagerly  took 
the  opportunity.  "  My  dear  child," 
said  Mrs  Burtonshaw,  "  I  am  sure 
I  shall  never  be  able  to  call  you  any- 
thing but  Elizabeth,  or  to  think  you 
belong  to  another  family.  Indeed,  I 
am  sure  I  never  shall;  and  to  think 
we  should  have  had  her  so  long,  and 
never  found  this  out.  Maria  Anna ! — 
and  Mary  to  discover  it  all!  But  my 
dear  Mary  always  was  so  sensible  a 
child.  We  will  all  find  it  very  dull 
going  back  to  Twickenham,  and  leav- 
ing you  behind,  my  dear  love;  and 
Sylvo  will  never  believe  it,  I  am  sure. 
It  will  be  very  dreary  for  me,  Eliza- 


C58 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


beth,  and  Maria  Anna  will  feel  it  a 
great  deal,  and  so  will  Mr  Cumber- 
land. I  think  we  will  never  be  able 
to  stay  in  that  house  when  we  lose 
both  Mary  and  yon." 

"  The  house  is  necessarily  imperfect, 
sister  Burtonshaw,"  said  Mr  Cumber- 
land. "  Improvements  are  never  so 
satisfactory  as  a  place  well  planned 
from  the  beginning.  I  have  a  great 
mind  to  begin  anew — the  Elizabeth- 
an style  has  its  advantages ;  and  I 
hear  a  great  deal  of  the  adaptability  of 
glass.  What  do  you  think  of  glass 
and  iron  as  materials  for  your  cottages, 
Sir  David?— a  beautiful  material,  bril- 
liant and  inexpensive,  and  capable  of 
very  rapid  erection.  By  the  way,  I 
know  of  nothing  better  adapted  to 
promote  the  artistic  education  of  the 
people.  Those  slight  iron  shafts  take 
the  most  beautiful  forms ;  and  as  for 
colour,  nothing  can  excel  glass.  Sup- 
pose a  row  of  cottages  now,  instead 
of  the  ordinary  affairs,  with  low 
walls  and  thatched  roof,  springing  up 
to  the  light  with  these  glittering 
arches.  Depend  upon  it,  sir,  a  very 
great  moral  influence  is  in  the  nature 
of  our  houses.  You  could  not  do  any- 
thing so  sure  to  correct  the  faults 
of  your  peasantry  as  to  build  them 
palaces  of  glass." 

"  It  certainly  would  be  an  effectual 
lesson  against  throwing  stones,"  said 
Sir  David  Powis,  with  well-bred 
gravity. 

"  But,  Mr  Cumberland,  only  think 
how  cold!"  cried  Sophy,  whose  appre- 
hension was  as  practical  and  matter- 
of-fact  as  ever ;  "  they  could  never 
stand  a  gale  at  Briarford  ;  and  then 

why,  it  would  quite  be  living  in 

public;  everybody  would  see  every- 
thing they  did"." 

"  So  much  the  better  for  their  trans- 
parency and  purity  of  character,"  said 
MrCumberland;  "  so  much  the  better, 
my  dear  madam — and  an  immediate 
cure  to  the  dangerous  propensity  of 


[Dec. 

the  poorer  classes  for  throwing  stones, 
as  Sir  David  very  justly  says — but  per- 
fectly capable  of  a  high  rate  of  tem- 
perature, as  our  conservatories  show, 
I  should  not  be  at  all  surprised  if 
the  old  proverb  of  "  those  who  live  in 
glass  houses"  had  a  prophetic  refer- 
ence to  this  beautiful  suggestion.  We 
do  our  ancestors  very  poor  justice, 
Sir  David.  I  am  convinced  they  per- 
ceived the  capacity  of  a  great  many 
things  that  we,  with  all  our  boasts, 
are  only  beginning  to  put  into  use.  I 
consider  this  an  admirable  opportunity 
for  a  great  moral  reformation — to  a 
man  who  considers  the  welfare  of  his 
country,  a  perfectly  sufficient  reason 
for  acquiring  land." 

And  Mr  Cumberland  turned  imme- 
diately to  the  Times  Supplement  of 
yesterday,  and  began  to  turn  over  its 
advertisements  with  an  interested  eye. 
Mr  Cumberland  already  felt  a  dis- 
interested necessity  for  becoming  a 
landed  proprietor,  and  in  imagination 
saw  his  glittering  line  of  novel  cot- 
tages, the  inhabitants  of  which  should 
be  effectually  convinced  of  the  damage 
of  throwing  stories,  shining  under  the 
sun,  with  a  sheen  of  reflection  against 
which  the  homely  thatched  roof  had 
no  chance.  Sir  David  Powis,  who 
was  a  satirist,  and  loved  "  a  cha- 
racter" with  his  whole  heart,  drew 
near  Mr  Cumberland  with  the  most 
benevolent  eagerness  to  ascertain  the 
particulars  of  his  scheme ;  and  Philip 
was  being  questioned  at  one  end  of 
the  table,  and  Zaidee  at  the  other. 
The  family  party  abounded  in  conver- 
sation, every  one  had  so  much  to  ask, 
and  so  much  to  tell  ;  and  though 
Zaidee  was  the  greater  wonder  of  the 
two,  and  somewhat  eclipsed  Philip, 
Philip  had  been  absent  equally  long, 
and  had  a  larger  stock  of  adventures. 
The  very  servants  moved  about  in- 
quickened  time  in  that  buzz  of  happy 
commotion — the  wide  family  circle 
was  so  full  of  life. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV. — THE   HEAD   OF   THE   HOUSE. 


To  the  much  amazement  of  all  the 
family,  it  appeared  that  Philip  was 
anxious  to  go  to  London  before  pro- 
ceeding to  the  Grange,  which  was 
still  "home"  to  all  these  Vivians. 
Grandfather  Vivian's  will  had  to  be 


proved  and  established,  and  Zaidee 
formally  invested  with  her  property, 
and  Philip  had  business  of  his  own  in 
town.  Philip  proposed  a  family  mi- 
gration thither  ;  he  was  very  sympa- 
thetic of  the  loss  which  Zaidee's  kind 


3855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


659 


friends  must  feel  iii  losing  her  so  sud- 
denly. "  I  do  not  care  to  part  with 
you,  mother,  even  for  a  day,"  said 
Philip ;  "  and  it  is  hard  to  separate 
my  cousin  from  her  old  life  so  hur- 
riedly." 

"  But,  Philip,  it  is  no  worse,  at 
the  very  worst,  than  if  she  had  been 
married,"  said  Sophy;  "when  she 
married,  of  course,  she  must  have  left 
Mrs  Cumberland.  Miss  Cumberland 
herself  must  leave  home  when  she  is 
married.  It  may  be  very  hard,  you 
know,  but  we  all  have  to  do  it,  and 
this  is  no  worse  than  Zaidee's  mar- 
riage would  be."  But  to  the  sur- 
prise of  Sophy,  Philip  regarded  with 
considerable  haughtiness  the  prospect 
of  Zaidee's  marriage.  It  did  not  seem 
at  all  an  agreeable  object  of  contem- 
plation to  the  head  of  the  house.  He 
withdrew  from  the  question  with  great 
gravity  and  stateliness,  and,  with 
considerable  embarrassment  mingling 
in  his  usual  deference,  turned  to 
Zaidee  herself.  "  If  it  is  only  a 
whim,  will  you  humour  it?"  said 
Philip,  bending  over  Zaidee's  hand. 
"  I  would  rather  have  a  little  time 
elapse  before  we  all  go  back  to  the 
Grange  ;  our  old  home  is  very  dear 
to  us  all,  but  I  ask  for  a  few  weeks',  a 
very  few  weeks',  delay." 

Zaidee  became  embarrassed,  too, 
in  sight  of  Philip's  embarrassment ; 
she  withdrew  from  him  a  little,  and 
her  eyes  fell  under  his  glance  with  an 
uncomfortable  consciousness.  Won- 
dering, as  she  did,  what  Philip  could 
mean,  Zaidee  did  not  inquire  into  it ; 
she  consented  to  his  wish  readily, 
but  with  considerable  confusion.  "  If 
Zaidee  will  invite  us,  let  us  all  keep 
Philip's  birthday  at  home  in  the 
Grange,"  cried  Sophy;  and  to  this 
there  was  a  universal  assent.  But 
when  Mary  and  Zaidee,  with  Percy 
for  their  squire,  and  Mrs  Burling- 
ton for  their  chaperone,  set  out  on  a 
day's  visit  to  the  old  family  dwelling- 
place,  Philip  evaded  all  invitations  to 
accompany  them.  He  preferred  not 
to  see  the  Grange  till  his  business 
was  done,  and  all  his  plans  concluded. 
Nobody  could  understand  Philip,  and 
mysterious  whispers  of  wonder  stole 
through  the  family,  and  Sophy  and 
Margaret  held  synods  upon  him. 
Could  Philip  be  u  in  love,"  that  mys- 
terious condition  which  these  old 


married  ladies  were  amused  at,  yet 
interested  in  ?  Elizabeth,  for  her  part, 
only  smiled  when  she  was  introduced 
to  these  discussions.  Nobody  was 
jealous  of  Elizabeth — yet  Lady  Powis 
did  grudge  a  little  that  the  newly- 
returned  and  well-beloved  brother 
should  not  give  his  confidence  equally 
to  all. 

But  as  it  happened,  Philip  had  not 
given  his  confidence  to  any  one,  if  he 
had  a  confidence  to  give.  The  family 
assembly  dispersed  from  Castle  Vivian 
to  gather  again  at  the  Grange ;  and 
Philip  and  Percy  and  Aunt  Vivian 
accompanied  the  Cumberland  family 
to  London.  Zaidee  was  still  Eliza- 
beth, their  adopted  daughter,  to  these 
kind  people  ;  she  was  still  Aunt  Bur- 
tonshaw's  dear  child,  though  Aunt 
Burtonshaw's  hopes  for  Sylvo  grew 
fainter  and  fainter  ;  and  the  house  at 
Twickenham  was  honoured  to  receive 
Mrs  Vivian,  who  would  not  again 
lose  sight  of  the  long-lost  child.  To 
the  kind  but  somewhat  imperious 
mistress  of  the  Grange,  Mr  Cumber- 
land's porch  was  an  intolerable  nui- 
sance ;  she  had  much  ado  restraining 
herself  from  sweeping  forth  its  inap- 
propriate inmates,  who,  indeed,  made 
themselves  somewhat  embarrassing 
neighbours  even  to  Mrs  Cumberland. 
Silver  spoons  were  continually  sliding 
out  by  the  buttery-hatch,  which  was 
intended  for  nothing  less  innocent  than 
broken  meats  or  bread ;  and  the  bene- 
volent dolphin  of  the  fountain  was 
long  since  robbed  of  his  enamelled 
cup.  But,  last  and  worst,  the  un- 
kindest  cut  of  all,  those  urchins,  for 
whose  benefit  Mr  Cumberland  be- 
sought his  wealthy  brethren  to  deco- 
rate with  monograms  the  front  of 
their  houses,  took  into  their  indepen- 
dent British  minds  to  pelt  Mr  Cum- 
berland's own  monogram  with  clay, 
and,  finding  it  an  admirable  butt,  per- 
severed till  the  philanthropist  found 
only  bits  of  the  dragon's  tail  and 
morsels  of  the  gilding  peering  out, 
unfortunate  memorials  of  the  cannon- 
ade. ."  If  these  little  vagabonds  had 
been  bred  in  houses  of  crystal,  it 
would  have  fared  better  with  this 
ornamentation,  for  which  they  do  not 
yet  show  themselves  sufficiently  edu- 
cated," said  Mr  Cumberland,  undis- 
mayed. "  Sir  David  Powis  is  a  very 
sensible  man,  sister  Burtonshaw. 


660 


Zaldee :  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


[Dec, 


The  next  generation  will  be  better 
taught.  You  shall  see  no  missiles 
either  of  stone  or  clay  in  the  hands 
of  the  boys  of  my  cottages.  We  will 
refine  these  uncultivated  natures,  sis- 
ter Burtonshaw — never  fear!"  and 
Mr  Cumberland  retired  to  perfect  his 
plan  for  the  construction  of  cottages 
of  iron  and  glass. 

"  Sylvo  is  coming  here  for  a  week 
or  two,  Elizabeth,"  said  Mrs  Burton- 
shaw. "  Poor  Sylvo,  I  am  sure  you 
will  be  kind  to  him,  my  darling,  and 
not  send  the  poor  boy  away.  He  is 
a  very  different  man  from  Mr  Vivian, 
my  love.  I  do  not  deny  that  Mr 
Vivian  is  handsome,  Elizabeth,  and 
a  very  fine  young  man;  but  I  am 
afraid  he  always  takes  his  own  way. 
Now  Sylvo,  though  he  is  so  manly,  is 
so  easy,  and  so  good ;  any  one  that 
he  loves  can  make  him  do  anything, 
my  dear  child." 

"  Sylvo  is  very  good  and  very 
kind.  I  know  he  is,  Aunt  Burton- 
shaw," said  Zaidee. 

"  Yes,  indeed,  my  love,  though  I 
am  his  mother,  Sylvo  is  very  good, 
Elizabeth.  Now,  I  am  sure  there  is 
something  very  grand  about  Mr 
Vivian;  but  for  my  part,  I  always 
feel  I  would  rather  do  his  way  than 
make  him  do  mine,  and  that  makes 
a  great  difference  in  married  life,  my 
dear  child.  All  the  ladies  wanted  to 
go  to  the  Grange,  that  place  of  yours, 
my  dear ;  but  Mr  Vivian  wanted  to 
come  to  London,  and  therefore  we 
came  ;  and  all  your  trouble  and  your 
running  away  was  because  Mr  Vivian 
would  not  hear  reason.  I  like  him 
very  well ;  he  is  a  very  handsome 
young  man,  and  I  do  not  wonder  his 
family  are  proud  of  him;  but  I  do 
not  think  I  should  like  to  marry  Mr 
Vivian,  Elizabeth  ;  he  is  a  great  deal 
different  from  my  Sylvo.  I  am  afraid 
he  always  takes  his  own  way." 

Zaidee  did  not  dispute  the  fact,  for 
in  her  secret  heart  she  was  greatly 
disturbed  about  Philip.  What  Philip 
was  doing  was  not  at  present  very 
well  known  to  any  of  them.  He 
lived  in  London  with  Percy,  but  came 
faithfully  with  Percy  every  night  to 
visit  the  family  at  Twickenham. 
Percy  had  made  the  boldest  dash  into 
the  business  of  his  legitimate  profes- 
sion. Some  one  who  knew  the  family, 
and  admired  the  genius  of  it,  had  re- 


tained him  to  advocate  his  cause  in 
a  plea  very  shortly  to  be  tried  ;  and 
Percy  laughed  his  gay,  scornful  laugh 
when  remonstrances  were  made  against 
his  daily  visits  to  his  betrothed,  and 
when  his  time  of  preparation  was 
spoken  of.  "  I  am  quite  prepared," 
said  Percy,  and  there  was  no  farther 
room  to  say  a  word.  But  one  even- 
ing, while  they  sat  in  expectation  of 
the  brothers,  Mr  Steele  came  to  pay 
one  of  his  visits.  "  Have  you  heard 
what  happened  to  young  Vivian?" 
said  Mr  Steele.  "  The  case  came  on 
before  it  was  expected,  and  he  got  up 
immediately,  and  made  the  most  bril- 
liant speech  that  has  been  heard  for 
years ;  but  when  the  young  gentle- 
man sat  down,  what  do  you  think  he 
had  done,  Mrs  Burtonshaw  ?  Instead 
of  pleading  his  client's  cause,  he  had 
been  pleading  the  opposition — and 
gained  his  plea!" 

It  was  but  too  true.  Percy  came 
out  very  rueful,  very  comical — vary- 
ing between  great  discomfiture  and 
despondency,  and  fits  of  overpowering 
laughter.  "It  was  not  my  side,  to 
be  sure,  but  it  was  the  right  of  the 
question,"  said  Percy.  "  They  could 
never  have  gained  it  with  their 
blundering  fellow  of  a  leading  coun- 
sel, who  could  make  nothing  of  it, 
right  or  wrong.  I  can't  help  it ;  and 
now  I  suppose  I  am  done  ;  they  may 
call  me  Single- speech  Vivian.  Alas 
for  the  evanescent  glory  of  fees  !  I 
will  never  get  one  again." 

It  happened,  fortunately,  that  Mr 
Cumberland  was  greatly  tickled  with 
this  misadventure  of  his  son-in-law 
elect.  It  struck  the  philosopher's 
peculiar  sense  of  humour ;  and  no- 
body had  a  word  of  blame  to  say  to  the 
gay  Percy,  who  was  already  casting 
about  in  his  fertile  brains  for  some 
other  expedient,  which  might  be  more 
successful,  to  disembarrasshim.  Philip 
was  standing  by  the  window  with  his 
mother.  The  mirror  gave  a  pretty 
reflection  of  these  two  figures — the 
little  lady  in  her  widow's  dress,  with 
a  rich  India  shawl  which  Philip  had 
brought,  replacing  the  Shetland  wool 
one  which  has  been  worn  out  before 
now;  but  her  rich,  dim,  black  silk 
gown,  and  her  widow's  cap  the  same 
as  of  old,  her  waist  as  slender,  her 
foot  in  its  high-heeled  shoe,  as  rapid 
and  as  peremptory — her  whole  person 


1855.] 


Zaidee :  a  Romance.— Part  the  Last. 


661 


as  completely  realising  the  fairy  god- 
mother of  Zaidee' s  fancy  as  it  had 
ever  done ;  while  Philip  stood  beside 
her  in  the  easy,  unelaborate  dress  of 
an  English  gentleman,  with  his  close 
curls  clustering  about  his  manly  head, 
his  cheek  bronzed,  his  hand  laid 
playfully  upon  his  mother's  shoulder : 
he  has  been  making  a  report  to  her, 
laughing  at  some  objections  she  urges, 
and  explaining  rapidly  and  clearly 
something  which  his  mother  only 
receives  with  difficulty,  shaking  her 
head.  While  they  stand  thus,  Mrs 
Vivian  suddenly  calls  Zaidee  to  her ; 
on  the  instant  Philip  Vivian  relapses 
into  a  stately  and  deferential  paladin 
— the  most  chivalrous  knight  who 
ever  worshipped  his  lady  from  afar— 
and  withdraws  a  step  back  as  his 
beautiful  cousin  comes  forward  to 
answer  his  mother's  summons.  Mrs 
Vivian  has  put  away  Zaidee's  simple 
muslin  gowns,  and  has  dressed  her 
richly  as  it  suits  her  fair  form  to  be 
dressed ;  and  the  maker  of  these 
rustling  silks  has  made  them  after 
an  antique  fashion,  which,  in  Philip's 
fancy,  adds  the  last  aggravation  of 
which  it  is  capable  to  Zaidee's  singular 
beauty.  This  lovely  lady  of  romance 
is  that  same  Zaidee  who,  with  a  child's 
love  and  unthinking  generosity,  sacri- 
ficed all  her  world  of  comfort  and  secu- 
rity for  the  sake  of  Philip.  This  is  the 
Zaidee  who  once  made  a  certain  pro- 
posal to  Philip,  which  roused  his 
boyish  manhood  only  to  annoyance 
and  embarrassment ;  but  the  Philip  of 
the  present  time  has  learned  an  in- 
finite deal  of  humility  from  those  eyes 
which  once  appealed  to  him  as  the 
highest  judge.  As  he  steps  back,  he 
makes  a  beseeching  sign  to  his  mother, 
of  which  Mrs  Vivian,  who  is  not  in 


the  habit  of  hiding  her  son's  candle 
under  a  measure,  takes  no  notice  as 
she  proceeds. 

"What  do  you  think  Philip  has 
been  doing,  Zaidee?  Your  cousins' 
portions  were  suddenly  brought  to  no- 
thing by  that  unfortunate  will.  The 
children  were  all  penniless  :  Margaret 
had  nothing  when  she  married,  and 
neither  had  Sophy,  poor  child,  who 
had  more  need  for  it ;  and  Percy  has 
got  embarrassed,  you  know.  Well, 
here  is  Philip,  who,  after  all,  did  not 
get  Castle  Vivian  as  an  inheritance 
so  much  as  a  purchase — what  do  you 
think  he  says  he  has  been  doing? 
He  has  been  settling  the  portions  of 
the  younger  children  upon  them — 
more  than  they  could  have  had,  had 
we  kept  the  Grange — very  consider- 
able fortunes,  indeed,  Zaidee.  He 
has  made  himself  quite  a  poor  man, 
Philip  ought  not  to  have  done  it ; 
what  do  you  say,  child?" 

"  I  only  remember  what  Philip  said 
to  me,  Aunt  Vivian,  when  I  found 
the  will,"  said  Zaidee. 

"And  what  was  that?"  said  Mrs 
Vivian  eagerly.  Philip  made  a  pre- 
tence of  drawing  still  farther  back, 
but,  like  a  hypocrite,  while  he  pre- 
tended to  turn  away,  only  came  the 
nearer. 

"  He  said  it  was  the  office  of  the 
head  of  the  house  to  see  that  the 
children  of  the  house  had  all  their 
rights,"  said  Zaidee ;  and  she  raised 
to  Philip  those  glistening  beautiful 
eyes  which  struck  Philip  with  such 
profound  humility.  He  turned  away 
on  the  instant,  afraid  to  trust  himself, 
but  he  could  not  help  hearing  the  end 
of  Zaidee's  sentence.  "  This  is  Philip's 
inheritance,  Aunt  Vivian.  I  under- 
stand it— he  is  the  head  of  the  house !" 


CHAPTER  XXXV. — CONCLUSION. 


14  My  dear  love,  Sylvo  is  coming 
to-morrow,"  said  Mrs  Burtonshaw. 
Mrs  Burtonshaw  was  nervous  about 
Sylvo' s  coming,  and  told  every  indi- 
vidual in  the  house,  though  every  one 
already  knew.  Sylvo  came  from  Lon- 
don, and  brought  with  him,  instead  of 
the  peaceful  portmanteau  which  might 
have  been  expected,  the  most  marvel- 
lous stock  of  baggage—"  traps,"  as 
Sylvo  was  pleased  to  entitle  them. 


Among  these  were  two  fowling-pieces, 
a  magnificently  mounted  dirk,  and 
some  murderous  revolvers,  with  one 
or  two  extraordinary  plaids  or  blan- 
kets, the  use  of  all  which  to  a  quiet 
country  gentleman  in  Essex,  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw could  not  divine.  Sylvo  was 
much  disposed  to  silence  for  the  first 
day  of  his  visit ;  and  though  the  leaves 
were  thin,  and  the  grass  no  longer  de- 
sirable as  a  couch,  Sylvo  still  frequent- 


6*82 


Zaidee :  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


[Dec, 


ed  the  group  of  trees  among  which  he 
had  been  wont  to  enjoy  his  cigar.  On 
the  second  day,  Sylvo's  mouth  was 
opened  ;  he  had  been  discovered  seat- 
ed among  the  trees,  polishing  with  his 
own  hand  the  silver  mounting  of  his 
favourite  revolver.  "  Mansfield  is 
just  about  setting  out ;  he's  a  famous 
fellow,"  said  Sylvo.  This  oracular 
speech  was  enough  to  fill  his  mother 
with  alarm  and  trembling.  "  Mr  Mans- 
field is  quite  a  savage,"  said  Mrs  Bur- 
tonshaw, with  dignity ;  "  I  do  not 
wonder  he  should  be  glad  to  go  back 
again.  He  may  be  quite  a  fine  gen- 
tleman among  those  poor  creatures, 
Sylvo,  but  he  is  not  very  much  at 
home." 

Sylvo's  "  ha,  ha"  came  with  consi- 
derable embarrassment  from  behind  his 
mustache.  "  Fact  is,  I  thought  of 
taking  a  turn  myself  to  see  the  world," 
said  Sylvo.  "A  man  can't  be  shut 
up  in  a  house  like  a  girl.  Mansfield's 
the  best  companyXgoing — better  than 
a  score  of  your  grand  men ;  never  have 
such  another  chance." 

"  To  see  the  world  ? "  said  Mrs 
Burtonshaw.  "  What  do  you  call 
seeing  the  world,  you  poor  simple  boy? 
And  there  is  my  dear  darling  child, 
Elizabeth,  you  will  leave  her  pining, 
you  unfeeling  great  fellow,  and  never 
say  a  word  ?  " 

"Much  she  cares!"    said  Sylvo, 
getting  up  very  hastily.    u  If  she  is  a 
beauty,  what  have  I  got  to  do  with  it, 
when  she  won't  have  me  ?    I'll  be  off, 
mother ;  you  can  keep  the  place,  and 
see  things  all  right.    Mansfield's  a^ 
long  way  better  than  Elizabeth  for* 
me." 

"  My  dear  boy,  she  would  have  you. 
Do  not  go  and  leave  us,  Sylvo ;  she 
will  break  her  heart,"  said  simple  Mrs 
Burtonshaw. 

But  Sylvo  only  whistled  a  long 
shrill  "  whew ! "  of  undutiful  scepti- 
cism. "  I  know  better,"  said  Sylvo  ; 
and  he  went  off  to  his  cigar. 

And  thus  was  the  exit  of  Sylvester 
Burtonshaw.  Sylvo  may  write  a  book 
when  he  comes  home,  for  anything 
that  can  be  predicted  to  the  contrary. 
Sylvo,  at  the  present  moment,  lives  a 
life  which  the  vagrants  in  Mrs  Cum- 
berland's porch  would  sink  under  in  a 
week.  Sylvo  tramps  barefoot  over 
burning  deserts,  hews  his  way  through 
unimaginable  jungle,  fights  wild  beasts, 


and  has  a  very  hard  struggle  for  his 
savage  existence ;  all  for  no  reason  in 
the  world,  but  because  he  happened 
to  be  born  to  wealth  and  leisure,  and 
found  it  a  very  slow  thing  to  be  an 
English  country  gentleman.  No  won- 
der the  savages  whom  Sylvo  emulates 
open  their  heathen  eyes  in  the  utmost 
wonder ;  he  does  it  for  pleasure,  this 
extraordinary  Englishman,  and  roars 
his  "  ha,  ha,"  out  of  his  forest  of  beard, 
over  all  his  voluntary  hardship.  Sa- 
vage life  has  no  such  phenomenon ; 
and,  for  the  good  of  society,  when 
he  comes  home,  Sylvo  will  write  a 
book. 

"  Sylvo  will  be  quite  happy— it  will 
do  him  good,  Aunt  Burtonshaw," 
said  Mary  Cumberland  ;  "  and  you 
have  still  two  children — you  have 
Elizabeth  and  me." 

Whereupon  Aunt  Burtonshaw  wipes 
her  kind  eyes,  and  is  comforted. 

Mary  will  be  a  bride  so  soon, 
there  is  little  time  to  think  of  any- 
thing else  —  for  Percy,  with  his 
younger  brother's  fortune,  can  be  con- 
tent with  that  other  profession  of 
literature,  in  which  he  cannot  have 
the  same  brilliant  misadventures  as 
in  the  learned  myteries  of  law — and 
there  is  to  be  a  marriage  here  at 
Twickenham.  But  all  this  while 
the  great  mirror  over  the  wall,  when 
it  holds  up  its  picture  of  Zaidee's 
beautiful  face,  chronicles  a  constant 
shade  of  perplexity — an  anxious  cloud 
upon  this  fair  brow  of  hers,  which  is 
like  the  brow  of  a  queen.  There  is 
^o  understanding  Philip — he  is  a  per- 
petual mystery  with  his  reserve  and 
courtly  politeness  ;  and  now  his  birth- 
day is  approaching  very  closely,  and 
they  all  prepare  to  go  home  to  the 
Grange. 

It  is  wild  October  weather  on  the 
hill  of  Briarford.  Over  that  great 
waste  of  sky  the  clouds  are  hurrying 
in  the  wildest  flight,  and  this  bold 
gale  has  pleasure  in  tossing  them  close 
upon  each  other  in  black  tumultuous 
masses,  and  scattering  them  abroad 
anon  with  a  shout  of  triumph.  There 
is  no  change  upon  the  wet  green  carpet 
of  these  Cheshire  fields,  and  there  are 
still  the  old  gables  and  haystacks  of 
Briarford,  the  square  tower  of  the 
church  among  these  little  plumes  of 
blue  smoke,  and  the  dwarf  oaks  in  the 
hedgerows  shaking  their  knotted 


1855.] 


Zaidee:  a  Romance. — Part  the  Last. 


663 


branches  and  remainder  leaves  in  the 
face  of  the  strong  blast.  Above  here, 
on  the  lawn  of  the  Grange,  the  winds 
are  rushing  together,  as  the  strangers 
think,  from  every  quarter  under 
heaven ;  but  even  the  strangers  feel  the 
wild  exhilaration  of  the  sweeping  gale, 
which  raises  their  voices  into  gay  shouts 
of  half-heard  words  and  laughter,  and 
keeps  up  a  perpetual  riot  round  this 
exposed  and  far-seeing  dwelling-place. 
The  sea  is  roaring  with  an  angry  curl 
upon  yonder  line  of  sandbanks  far 
away — a  lingering  line  of  red  among 
yonder  storm-clouds  tells  of  the  sun- 
set, as  it  yields  unwillingly  to  night — 
and  all  these  solitary  lines  of  road 
trace  out  the  silent  country  travelling 
towards  the  sky;  but  there  is  no  Mari- 
ana now  at  the  window  of  the  Grange 
looking  for  the  wayfarer  who  never 
comes.  The  red  and  genial  fire-light 
gleams  between  the  heavy  mullions  of 
the  great  window ;  there  is  light  in 
the  library,  light  in  the  young  ladies 
room — the  bright  cross  light  of  old. 
The  modern  windows  at  the  other  end 
of  the  drawing-room  are  draped  once 
more  to  their  feet  with  crimson  cur- 
tains, but  no  veil  shuts  out  that 
glimpse  of  wild  sky  with  its  tumult  of 
cloud  and  wind,  across  which  these 
great  mullions  of  stone  print  them- 
selves like  bars.  There  is  Mrs  Vivian's 
easy-chair  and  her  high  footstool; 
there  is  Percy's  writing-table,  where 
Percy  has  been  writing  ;  there  is  the 
hereditary  newspaper,  at  which  Philip 
no  longer  "  pshaws,"  but  sometimes 
laughs  outright.  But  in  all  this  familiar 
room  there  is  no  living  object  familiar; 
there  is  only  a  group  of  beautiful 
children  playing  in  the  light  of  the  fire. 

Lady  Powis  is  making  a  grand 
toilette.  Sophy  is  wasting  her  dress- 
ing-hour talking  to  Mary  Cumber- 
land, but  there  are  still  two  beautiful 
faces  reflected  dimly  in  the  little  mir- 
ror over  the  bright  fireplace  of  the 
young  ladies'  room.  One  of  them,  in 
its  matronly  fulness  and  sweet  tran- 
quillity, is  Elizabeth  Vivian;  the  other 
has  a  shadow  on  its  beauty.  Zaidee 
is  in  her  own  house,  but  Zaidee  is  not 
at  rest. 

"Philip  says  perhaps— perhaps  he 
may  still  return  to  India,"  says  Zaidee. 
"  Even  Castle  Vivian  does  not  undo 
the  harm  I  did,  Elizabeth.  I  think 
Philip  is  changed." 

VOL.  LXXVIIL— NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


"  And  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think," 
said  Elizabeth,  drawing  close  to  her 
the  beautiful  cheek  which  was  so  like 
her  own.  "I  have  always  thought  it 
through  all  our  trouble,  and  I  have 
always  been  right,  Zaidee;  we  will 
wait  quietly,  and  see  what  God  is 
pleased  to  make  of  this,  dear  child.  I 
fear  no  change." 

"  You  said  that  long  ago,  before  I 
left  the  Grange,"  said  Zaidee. 

"Did  I  say  it  of  Bernard ?  I  for- 
get now  that  Bernard  is  not  myself," 
said  Elizabeth,  with  a  smile,  and  in 
those  sweet  tones  which  came  to  every 
one  like  the  voice  of  peace.  "  I  am  a 
good  prophet,  then,  for  this  came 
true." 

And  Elizabeth  left  the  young  heiress 
alone  with  her  thoughts.  These  were 
not  desirable  companions  for  Zaidee. 
She  came  into  the  drawing-room, 
paused  a  moment  before  the  great  win- 
dow to  look  at  the  sky  and  the  clouds-, 
paused  again  to  speak  to  the  children, 
and  then,  struck  by  a  sudden  fancy, 
went  to  the  library  to  look  for  Grand- 
father Vivian's  book,  which  had  been 
restored  to  its  place  there.  The  library 
was  half  lighted,  the  curtains  were  not 
drawn,  the  open  sky  looked  in  once 
more,  and  Zaidee  started  to  see  Philip 
sitting  in  the  partial  light  by  the  table, 
leaning  his  head  upon  his  hands. 

She  would  have  turned  back  again, 
but  he  rose  and  brought  her  to  the 
table ;  she  stood  by  him  for  a  moment 
there,  with  the  strangest  unspeakable 
embarrassment.  In  the  darkness, 
Zaidee's  beautiful  cheek  burned  with 
a  blush  of  recollection :  she  remem- 
bered the  last  time  she  stood  by  Philip's 
side  in  this  apartment — she  remem- 
bered her  own  child's  heart  troubled 
to  its  depths,  and  the  young  man's 
momentary  harshness  and  boyish 
shame.  It  was  the  same  scene,  the 
same  half  light,  the  same  uncurtained 
window  ;  and  there  stood  the  elbow- 
chair,  in  which  she  fancied  Grand- 
father Vivian  might  sit  exulting  in  the 
success  of  his  evil  purpose.  Zaidee 
stood  quite  still,  neither  moving  nor 
speaking.  Was  Grandfather  Vivian 
looking  on  now  ? 

Then  Philip  said,  "Zaidee."  He 
never  called  her  so — yet  Zaidee  did 
not  look  up  "with  pleasure  —  she 
rather  looked  down  all  the  more,  and 
felt  her  blush  burn  warmer  upon  her 
2  x 


664: 

cheek.  Philip  took  the  only  mode 
which  remained  to  him  of  ascertaining 
what  her  eyes  were  dreaming  of.  He 
stooped  so  low  that  his  proud  head 
touched  those  hands  of  Zaidee's  which 
unwillingly  submitted  to  be  held  in 
Philip's  hand — and  then  the  head  of 
the  house  spoke  to  the  heiress  of  the 
Grange. 

"  Zaidee,  what  did  you  say  to  me 
when  we  were  last  here  together  ?  Do 
you  remember?  that  pure  child's  heart 
of  yours  that  feared  no  evil — Zaidee, 
where  is  it  now?" 

Zaidee  made  no  answer — but  she 
stood  quite  still,  with  her  blush  burn- 
ing on  her  cheek,  and  the  tears  in  her 
eyes. 

"  I  am  not  so  disinterested  as  you 
were.  You  kill  me  if  you  send  me 
away,"  said  Philip.  "  I  have  no 
thought  of  generosity  for  my  part, 
Zaidee.  I  confess  it  is  myself  and  my 
own  happiness  I  am  thinking  of.  I 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


cannot  be  content  to  share  you  with 
my  mother,  with  Sophy  and  Marga- 
ret and  Elizabeth.  You  drive  me 
now  to  the  humblest  attitude,  the 
meanest  argument.  You  little  Zaidee, 
who  once  would  have  married  Philip, 
will  you  do  it  now  1 — or  will  you 
send  me  to  India  again  to  throw  my 
life  away  ?  " 

How  Philip  pleaded  further,  there 
is  no  record, — but  Philip  neither  threw 
his  life  away  nor  went  to  India.  Philip 
Vivian  of  Castle  Vivian  and  of  Briar- 
ford,  the  head  of  the  house,  has  the 
most  beautiful  wife  in  all  Cheshire, 
not  even  excepting  Mrs  Bernard 
Morton  ;  and  after  all  the  grief 
and  sacrifice  and  suffering  it  has 
occasioned,  this  will  of  Grandfather 
Vivian  has  become  the  most  harmless 
piece  of  paper  in  the  world,  and  it  is 
not  of  the  slightest  importance  to  any 
creature  which  of  these  two  claimants 
is  the  true  heir  of  the  Grange. 


SIMONY  AND   LAY   PATRONAGE,   HISTORICALLY   AND   MORALLY   CONSIDERED. 


THE  present  century  has  been  fer- 
tile in  legal  reforms:  a  vast  deal, 
however,  remains  to  be  accomplished ; 
and  there  is  probably  hardly  a  pro- 
vince of  the  law  so  urgently  demand- 
ing revision  as  that  which  regulates 
the  transfer  of  the  temporalities  of  the 
Church.  The  anomalies  which  dis- 
figure this  branch  of  our  jurisprudence 
are  disgraceful  to  any  code,  and  are 
fraught  with  constant  prejudice  to  re- 
ligion. They  originated,  for  the  most 
part,  in  an  early  confusion  between 
the  temporal  and  the  spiritual  ele- 
ments of  ecclesiastical  office — a  con- 
fusion at  first  rather  accidental  than 
designed,  but  afterwards  systemati- 
cally fostered  by  the  policy  of  the 
medieval  champions  of  the  Roman 
Church,  with  a  view  to  her  own 
monopoly  of  ecclesiastical  patronage. 
A  mischievous  principle  thus  incor- 
porated in  the  canon  law  has  trans- 
mitted its  pernicious  influence  to  our 
own  days :  it  has  engendered  infinite 
caprice  and  inconsistency  in  the  law — 
great  embarrassment  in  the  conscience 


— great  scandals  in  the  Church — and 
great  inconvenience  both  to  clergy- 
men and  to  lay  patrons  of  ecclesias- 
tical preferment. 

The  remedy  for  these  obliquities 
cannot  safely  be  delayed  ;  and  there 
are  many  symptoms  of  the  approach 
of  a  crisis,  when  the  excess  of  the 
evil  will  work  its  cure.  The  subject 
has  twice  undergone  parliamentary 
discussion  :  it  was  suspended  during 
last  session  owing  to  the  absorbing 
interest  of  the  war,  but  will  probably 
be  revived  when  our  legislators  re- 
sume their  functions  at  St  Stephen's. 
A  late  Minister  pledged  himself  to  a 
revision  of  this  province  of  the  law, 
the  complications  and  absurdities  of 
which  afford  so  convenient  a  handle 
to  the  champions  of  opposite  creeds 
and  parties,  whose  organs  in  the  press 
have  recently  propounded  various 
solutions  of  the  problem.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  enemies  of  the  Church 
point  the  finger  of  triumphant  scorn 
to  these  defects  in  the  ecclesiastical 
system  ;  on  the  other,  a  small  but  in- 


1.  WADDILOVE'S  Church  Patronage.     1 854. 

2.  Bill  for  the  Amendment  of  the  Laws  relating  to 
M.P.     March  1854. 


.    H.  J.  PHILLIMORE, 


1855.J 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


fluential  section  of  the  Church— with 
whom  Dr  Robert  Phillimore  may 
fairly  be  held  to  have  identified  him- 
self— have  long  been  availing  them- 
selves of  the  scandals  thus  excited, 
and  of  the  popular  misconception  of 
the  true  attributes  of  simony,  to  fet- 
ter with  additional  and  highly  in- 
jurious restrictions  the  transfer  of  lay 
patronage,  with  a  view,  apparently, 
to  its  eventual  extinction.  They 
modestly  call  upon  Parliament  to 
forbid  the  sale  of  next  presentations, 
—  a  prohibition  which,  if  once  en- 
acted, must  soon  extend  to  the  pur- 
chase of  advowsons  ;  and  this  neces- 
sary concession  would,  as  we  shall 
subsequently  explain,  virtually  sub- 
Tert  that  system  of  lay  patronage 
which,  among  its  many  benefits,  has 
secured  a  fair  representation  of  theo- 
logical principles,  and  the  due  influ- 
ence of  the  laity  in  ecclesiastical 
nominations.  The  large  majorities 
which  rejected  Dr  Phillimore's  bill 
relieve  us  from  any  apprehension  that 
a  rechauffe  of  his  abortive  and  illusory 
scheme — the  herald  of  evils  greater 
than  those  it  fallaciously  pretended 
to  cure — will  receive  the  sanction  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  It  is,  how- 
ever, upon  several  grounds,  entitled 
to  serious  attention.  It  derives  im- 
portance from  its  author's  connection 
with  Gladstone,  whose  tool  and  in- 
strument he  is  ;  from  the  persevering 
and  determined  efforts  which,  if  we 
may  judge  from  the  tone  of  the 
Guardian  newspaper,  an  extreme 
party  in  the  Church  are  exerting  to 
convert  it  into  law ;  from  its  tendency 
to  exclude  the  middle  classes  from 
the  avenues  to  clerical  preferment, 
and  to  enhance  the  existing  evils  of 
family  patronage,  as  well  as  from  the 
reality  of  the  evil  of  which  it  is  pro- 
fessedly the  palliative  or  the  anti- 
dote, but  in  truth  an  aggravation. 
That  evil  must  be  encountered,  not 
by  paltry  shifts  and  empirical  altera- 
tives— Lord  John  Russell's  favourite 
machinery — but  by  measures  at  once 
cautious  and  comprehensive  —  mea- 
sures which  can  only  originate  from 
a  thorough  appreciation  of  its  real 
character  and  sources. 

A  brief  historical  sketch  of  the  laws 
relating  to  simony,  lay  patronage, 
and  the  transfer  of  benefices,  forms 
an  essential  prelude  to  any  intelligible 


665 

discussion  of  the  question,  which 
naturally  divides  itself  into  three 
heads : — 

I.  Church  legislation  on  simony, 
and  on  lay  patronage,  from  the  earliest 
times  down  to  the  close  of  the  great 
contest  of  investitures.  II;  The  de- 
velopment of  this  branch  of  the  ec- 
clesiastical and  common  law  of 
England.  III.  The  anomalies  and 
mischievous  influence  of  the  statutes 
now  in  operation,  and  the  various 
suggestions  which  have  been  offered 
for  the  amendment  of  the  law. 

I.  The  offence  for  which  Simon 
Magus  was  denounced  by  St  Peter 
was  "  the  thought  that  the  gift  of 
God"  (the  power  of  conferring  the 
Holy  Ghost  upon  others)  "  might  be 
purchased  with  money."  —  (Acts, 
viii.  20.)  Thus  the  primitive  idea 
of  simony  denoted  the  purchase  of 
spiritual  powers  for  mercenary  ends  : 
the  medieval  confusion,  as  we  shall 
presently  explain,  applied  it  indis- 
criminately to  the  transfer  of  tempo- 
ralities by  sale ;  while  our  own  law 
is  so  perplexed,  not  to  say  contradic- 
tory, that  it  is  impossible  to  elicit 
from  its  study  any  clear  and  consis- 
tent definition  of  the  crime  denounced. 

The  early  legislation  of  the  Church, 
and  especially  the  subsequent  recog- 
nition of  the  rights  of  lay  patronage, 
will  authenticate  our  version  of  the 
original  attributes  of  simony,  since 
they  show  that  it  was  thus  under- 
stood for  ages  by  the  Church,  before 
any  source  of  confusion  or  motive  for 
misconstruction  had  arisen.  The 
earliest  allusion  to  the  sale  of  ordi- 
nations occurs  in  the  twenty- second 
of  the  apostolical  canons,  said  to  have 
been  drawn  up  by  Clement,  who,  at 
the  end  of  the  first  century,  was  con- 
secrated Bishop  of  Rome.  Those 
canons,  however,  never  made  their 
appearance  before  the  fifth  century, 
whose  production  they  have  been 
generally  held.  The  so-called  apos- 
tolic decrees  were  probably  invented 
to  support  the  authority  of  the  second 
canon  of  the  council  of  Chalcedon, 
which  assembled  in  the  year  452  A.D., 
and  was  the  first  O3cumenical  council 
which  denounced  ecclesiastical  pen- 
alties against  the  bishop  who  should 
ordain  for  **  money,  or  put  a  price  on 
the  gift  of  the  Spirit,  which  cannot 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


be  made  the  subject  of  sale  ;  or  who 
should  promote  any  one  of  those  who 
bear  any  clerical  office,  for  his  own 
gain  of  filthy  lucre."  Previously  to 
this,  however,  towards  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century,  the  practice  of  taking 
money  for  the  consecration  of  bishops 
had  aroused  the  indignation  of  Basil, 
the  successor  of  Eusebius  on  the  epis- 
copal throne  of  Caesarea.  In  his  se- 
venty-sixth epistle,  he  launches  his 
episcopal  censure  against  several  pre- 
lates under  his  jurisdiction,  who  were 
sufficiently  convicted  by  their  own  de- 
fence, which  alleged  that,  as  they  had 
received  the  money  after,  and  not 
before  ordination,  they  were  not 
strictly  amenable  to  the  charge  of 
simony.  Half  a  century  later,  the 
venerable  St  Isidore  echoes  the  de- 
nunciations of  Basil,  inveighing, 
among  other  delinquencies,  against 
the  Bishop  of  Damietta,  who  had 
reared  a  magnificent  church  by  the 
profits  arising  from  the  sale  of  ad- 
missions to  the  priesthood.  In  the 
year  401,  St  Chrysostom  held  a  coun- 
cil at  Ephesus,  which  was  attended 
by  seventy- six  prelates,  who  arraigned 
and  convicted  six  members  of  the 
episcopal  order  of  the  crime  of  pur- 
chasing their  consecration. 

The  rights  and  privileges  of  lay 
patronage  originated  in  the  legislation 
of  Justinian,  who,  in  order  to  encour- 
age the  endowment  of  churches  in  the 
country,  gave  the  founders  a  qualified 
right  of  appointing  clerks  to  minister 
therein.  He  protected  the  Church  by 
reserving  to  the  bishop  a  right  of  re- 
jection, in  case  the  patron's  nominee, 
on  presenting  himself  as  a  candidate 
for  holy  orders,  proved  unworthy  of 
the  sacred  office.  He  also  exacted  from 
the  young  Levite  an  oath  that  he  had 
neither  given  nor  promised  anything 
for  his  ordination ;  and  the  prelate 
who  dispensed  with  this  engagement 
was  liable  to  lose  his  mitre. 

But  the  guarantee  devised  by  the 
emperor  to  insure  the  purity  of 
church  appointments  was  unhappily 
imperfect.  If  the  patron's  nominee 
was  a  layman,  the  discretion  reserved 


to  the  diocesan  was  available,  for  he 
could  always  refuse  ordination  upon 
reasonable  grounds  of  objection.  But 
if  the  candidate  was  a  clergyman,  the 
patron's  nomination  was  absolute  : 
and  the  bishop  had  no  authority  to- 
reject  the  clerk.  There  is  scarcely  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt — so  decided  is  the 
balance  both  of  authorities  and  of  pro- 
bability— that  from  the  age  of  Jus- 
tinian clown  to  the  end  of  the  great 
contest  for  investitures,  the  whole  ot 
the  benefices  in  the  gift  of  lay  patrons 
corresponded  to  that  inconsiderable 
class  of  English  livings  entitled  "Don- 
atives," where  there  is  no  institution 
or  induction  on  the  part  of  the  bishop, 
but  the  patron's  choice  confers  a  full 
right  both  to  the  temporal  emoluments 
and  the  cure  of  souls.  "  Formerly," 
says  Mr  Cripps,*  u  the  incumbent 
took  his  church  by  investiture  of 
the  patron.  Institution  by  the  ordi- 
nary was  introduced  about  the  time 
of  Richard  I.  or  John."  "  Where  the 
clerk  was  already  in  orders,"  says 
Blackstone,f  "  the  living  was  usually 
vested  in  him  by  the  sole  donation  of 
the  patron,  till  about  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century,  when  the  pope  and 
his  bishops  endeavoured  to  introduce 
a  kind  of  feodal  dominion  over  eccle- 
siastical benefices,  and  in  consequence 
thereof  began  to  claim  and  exercise 
the  right  of  institution  universally  as 
a  species  of  spiritual  investiture."  The 
efforts  of  Hildebrand  and  his  party 
were,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  crown- 
ed with  partial  success :  and  Arch- 
bishop Becket,  the  champion  of  the 
papal  policy,  gained  an  important  ad- 
vantage to  his  Church  when  he  made 
episcopal  institution  essential  to  the 
enjoyment  of  an  English  benefice. 

A  definitive  sanction  of  the  rights 
of  lay  patronage  was  conceded  by  the 
Church  in  the  ninth  council  of  Toledo 
(655  A.D.)  :  while  the  corruptions  in- 
cidental to  absolute  lay  nominations 
were  encountered  by  a  whole  armoury  J: 
of  ecclesiastical  admonitions  and  de- 
crees, from  the  middle  of  the  sixth  to 
the  commencement  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury. 


*  Lam  relating  to  the  Church  and  Clergy,  p.  492 ;  Selden  de  Dec.,  86,  375  383  ; 
BURN'S  Eccl.  Law,  8th  ed.,  note  164. 

t  STEPHEN'S  Blackstone,  vol.  iii.  p.  31.    Decretal,  lib.  iii.,  tit.  7,  cap.  3. 

4-  Alluding  to  the  Fourth  Council  of  Orleans,  cap.  7,  26,  held  541  A.D.;  the  Third 
Council  of  Toledo,  589  A.D.,  cap.  19. ;  the  Sixth  Council  of  Aries,  813  A.D.,  cap  8. 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


Archbishop  Theodore  introduced 
into  England  an  arrangement  similar 
to  that  of  Justinian,  with  the  same 
view  of  encouraging  landed  proprie- 
tors to  build  churches ;  and  Athel- 
stane  granted  the  rank  of  thane  to 
those  lords  of  the  soil  who  provided 
by  permanent  endowment  for  the  reli- 
gious education  of  their  tenants. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, Gregory  I.— an  implacable  foe 
to  every  form  of  clerical  corruption — 
was  elected  pope.  "  He  watched,"  says 
Dupin,  "  continually  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  discipline.  Everywhere  he 
persecuted  vice  and  disorder  where- 
soever they  appeared,  and  would  not 
suffer  any  simony  in  the  Church  of 
Christ."  The  denunciations,  how- 
ever, against  simony,  contained  in  his 
letters  to  the  bishops  and  clergy  of 
his  day,  are  limited  to  the  sale  and 
purchase  of  orders,  or  spiritual  func- 
tions, by  ecclesiastics.  Silvester  II., 
Leo  IX.,  and  Nicholas  II.,  issued 
various  injunctions  to  check  the  pre- 
valent abuses  of  ordination  ;  but  the 
pontificate  of  Alexander  II.,  the  im- 
mediate predecessor  of  Gregory  VII., 
under  whose  instigation  he  probably 
acted,  marks  the  birth  of  a  new  era 
in  the  policy  of  the  Roman  pontiffs. 
Then  it  was  that  the  first  attempt  was 
made  to  blend  in  one  general  category 
the  acquisition  of  temporalities  and 
the  purchase  of  the  spiritual  powers 
conferred  by  ordination,  and  to  ex- 
tend the  definition  of  simony  from  its 
legitimate  sphere,  the  traffic  in  spiri- 
tual functions,  to  the  patron  who  dis- 
posed by  sale  of  the  emoluments  of  a 
benefice  or  bishopric.  There  had  long 
been  a  growing  tendency  towards  this 
development.  The  instances  were 
very  numerous  in  which  the  patron's 
appointment  to  a  benefice  was  entirely 
beyond  episcopal  control.  Abuses  of 
such  patronage  were  naturally  fre- 
quent ;  they  entailed  degradation  on 
the  Church,  and  inspired  the  keenest 
indignation  in  the  champions  of  her 
rights,  whose  resentment  could  hardly 
be  restrained  when  they  saw  the  spiri- 
tual emblems  of  the  episcopate,  the 
ring  and  the  crosier,  conferred  by  the 
hands  of  unsanctified  laymen,  and 
observed  the  imminent  danger  of  the 


667 

absorption  of  the  Church  within  the 
widening  vortex  of  the  feudal  system. 
A  remarkable  illustration  of  the  con» 
temporary  tone  of  feeling,  and  of  the 
policy  adopted  by  the  adherents  of 
the  Papacy,  will  be  found  in  a  letter 
of  Damiani,  cardinal  bishop  of  Ostia, 
a  zealous  champion  of  papal  aggran- 
disement. Two  chaplains  of  Prince 
Godfrey,  marquis  of  Tuscany,  having 
maintained  that  to  purchase  a  bishop- 
ric, provided  that  nothing  was  given 
for  consecration,  did  not  constitute 
simony,  since  there  was  no  sale  of  the 
sacerdotal  office,  the  cardinal  ven- 
tures a  refutation  in  the  following 
terms  :•*— 

"  Since  a  man  cannot  be  divided 
into  two  distinct  persons,  whereof 
one  shall  enjoy  the  temporalities,  and 
the  other  perform  the  spiritual  func- 
tions ;  therefore,  when  he  buys  the 
temporalities,  which  he  cannot  enjoy 
until  he  is  advanced  to  the  ecclesias- 
tical dignity,  and  performs  the  func- 
tions thereof,  it  may  be  truly  said 
that  he  buys  the  ecclesiastical  dig- 
nity and  the  sacrament  too ;  for  the 
prince,  in  granting  the  investiture  of  a 
bishop,  does  not  give  a  mere  rod  only, 
but  the  pastoral  staff,  and  the  title 
of  priesthood,  the  sacrament  whereof 
is  conferred  by  ordination ;  and  there- 
fore, although  he  does  not  directly 
give  money  for  his  ordination,  yet  it 
cannot  be  said  to  be  a  gratuitous 
donation,  since  money  was  instru- 
mental to  it."  *  The  fallacy  of  the 
cardinal's  logic  is  of  course  obvious 
enough.  Strictly  speaking,  his  argu- 
ment applies  only  to  that  class  of 
benefices  to  which  we  have  alluded 
above,  where  clergymen  already  in 
orders  were  presented  by  the  patron, 
and  where  the  diocesan  had  no  power 
of  rejection,  as  he  had  already  con- 
ferred ordination,  and  episcopal  in- 
stitution had  in  those  days  no  exist- 
ence. His  great  object,  however, 
was  to  develop  the  idea  of  the  rightful 
supremacy  of  the  sovereign  pontiff 
in  all  ecclesiastical  appointments.  He 
therefore  endeavours  to  apply  uni- 
versally an  argument  only  true  par- 
tially. He  applies  the  argument 
derivable  from  the  abuses  incidental 
to  absolute  lay  nomination  to  the 


*  Letter  to  Pope  Alexander  II.  ;  DUPIN,  Eccl.  Hist.,  Eleventh   Century,  p.  85  ; 
BAEONIUS,  Ann.  Eccl.,  yol.  ii.  p.  367. 


668 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


very  different  case  of  the  episcopate, 
where  the  Church  was  protected  by 
the  indispensable  rite  of  consecration. 
He  fails  equally  in  attempting  to 
support  his  theory  by  citing  the  de- 
crees of  councils,  relying  entirely 
upon  the  canons  of  the  council  of 
Chalcedon,  which,  as  we  have  already 
stated,  deal  solely  with  the  trade  in 
spiritualities. 

With  this  period— the  eleventh  cen- 
tury— commenced,  as  we  have  said,  a 
new  phase  in  the  policy  of  the  Papal 
Court.  Hitherto  the  pontiffs  had 
been  contented  with  retaining,  through 
the  occasional  aid  of  some  powerful 
sovereign  or  soldier,  the  slender 
patch  of  territory  which  the  asserted 
grant  of  Constantine  had  conferred 
upon  them.  Their  spiritual  supre- 
macy soared  far  beyond  the  paltry 
bounds  of  their  temporal  dominion ; 
but  that  very  supremacy  engendered 
projects  of  ambition,  which  aspired  to 
secular  as  well  as  spiritual  control. 
Independence  of  all  foreign  influence 
was  the  first  step  to  be  attained  in 
the  development  of  papal  supremacy. 
From  the  days  of  Constantine,  the 
pontiffs  had  been  elected  by  the  con- 
current voice  of  the  nobles,  the 
clergy,  and  the  people ;  but  the  elec- 
tion could  only  be  confirmed  by  the 
emperor's  assent.  This  imperial  pre- 
rogative had  been  vigorously  as- 
serted by  Justinian  and  Charlemagne, 
and  had  been  fully  sanctioned  by  a 
Lateran  council,  which  granted  to 
Otho  and  his  successors  the  regula- 
tion of  the  papal  See,  and  the  uncon- 
trolled election  of  its  bishops.  But 
the  dawn  of  a  new  era  had  arrived ; 
the  haughty  prelates  thought  they 
could  now  dispense  with  the  em- 
peror's protection,  and  they  scorned 
to  allow  the  laity,  whether  patrician, 
royal,  or  plebeian,  a  voice  in  the  elec- 
tion of  the  heirs  of  Peter.  Accord- 
ingly, Nicholas  II.,  swayed  by  the 
paramount  influence  of  Hildebrand, 
summoned  a  council  at  Rome,  which 
limited  exclusively  to  the  college  of 
cardinals  the  future  nomination  of 
the  pontiffs.  Nicholas  II.  died  ;  and 
the  purple  conclave  instantly  elected 
and  installed  Alexander  II.,  without 
vouchsafing  the  slightest  intimation 
of  their  design  or  its  accomplishment 
to  the  emperor,  Henry  IV.  The  sur- 


prise succeeded :  Alexander  held  the 
papal  throne  against  Honorius,  the 
imperial  nominee,  and  only  surrend- 
ered the  reins  of  power  "to  Hilde- 
brand, whose  puppet  he  and  several 
preceding  popes  had  been.  The  re- 
cent triumph  of  the  Papacy  over  the 
emperor  enabled  Gregory  VII.  to 
advance  his  pretensions,  and  the 
crisis  of  the  papal  fortunes  was  at- 
tained in  his  demand  for  the  sole 
right  of  presentation  and  investiture 
to  all  ecclesiastical  dignities. 

Arguments  like  these  may  in  some 
degree  have  paved  the  way  for  Hil- 
debrand's  amalgamation  of  the  tem- 
poralities and  the  spiritual  functions 
of  ecclesiastical  preferment ;  but  it 
was  materially  aided  by  favourable 
coincidences — by  the  general  condi- 
tion of  Europe,  and  by  the  flagrant 
abuses  both  of  lay  and  clerical  pa- 
tronage. The  petty  states  of  Italy 
laboured,  as  at  the  present  day, 
under  the  curse  of  political  isolation  : 
Calabria,  Apulia,  and  Sicily  were 
already  feudatories  of  the  Roman 
prelates;  Robert  the  Norman  held 
his  kingdom  as  a  vassal  of  the  pope  ; 
commerce,  not  papal  aggrandisement, 
was  the  care  of  Venice,  Genoa,  and 
Pisa ;  and  the  voluptuous  Philip  I. 
of  France,  surrendering  ambition  to- 
sensuality  and  luxury,  fell  an  easy 
victim  to  the  censures  and  the  inter- 
dict launched  by  Hildebrand  against 
him.  Denmark,  Hungary,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Poland,  Russia — each  in  their 
turn  were  summoned  to  do  homage  to 
the  pontiff— fealty  and  protection  on 
the  one  hand,  vengeance  and  excom- 
munication on  the  other. 

At  this  important  crisis,  the  tide  of 
venality  in  the  barter  of  ecclesiastical 
offices  had  reached  its  flood.  Of  this 
evil,  Gregory  himself  and  his  par- 
tisans in  the  Church  were  in  no 
slight  degree  the  authors  and  abettors. 
They  had  perpetrated  a  fatal  incon- 
sistency. Nothing  short  of  a  radical 
change  in  human  nature  could  justify 
their  presumption  that  vast  temporal 
possessions,  and  vast  temporal  power, 
would  neither  inspire  unhallowed 
motives  for  seeking  ordination,  nor 
lead  to  misuse  of  the  overflowing 
treasures,  once  obtained.  The  clergy 
were  above  public  opinion — of  which, 
indeed,  they  were  the  sole  organs. 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


"  Religion,"  says  a  celebrated  author,* 
"  might  at  first  beguile  itself  into 
rapacity,  on  account  of  the  sacred 
and  beneficent  uses  to  which  it  de- 
signed to  devote  wealth  and  power. 
But  rapacity  would  soon  throw  off 
the  mask,  and  assume  its  real  cha- 
racter. Personal  passions  and  desires 
would  intrude  into  the  holiest  sanc- 
tuary. Pious  works  would  become 
secondary,  subordinate,  till  at  last 
they  would  vanish  from  the  view ; 
ambition,  avarice,  pride,  prodigality, 
luxury,  would  by  degrees  supplant 
those  rare  and  singular  virtues." 
The  Church  derived  her  recruits  at 
once  from  the  highest  and  the  lowest 
classes  of  the  community.  The  loftiest 
noble  might  well  covet  the  archi- 
episcopal  throne,  \vhich,  in  many 
cases,  such  as  that  of  Hincmar,  over- 
shadowed and  eclipsed  the  crown; 
•while  the  lowliest  peasant  found  his 
account  in  the  security,  the  immuni- 
ties, and  the  respect  paid  to  the 
humblest  orders  of  the  clergy.  What 
was  so  valuable  attracted  general 
cupidity  ;  and  the  contagion  of  simony 
pervaded  every  ecclesiastical  grade. 
"  The  bishop  who  had  bought  his 
see  indemnified  himself  by  selling 
the  inferior  prebends  or  cures.  The 
layman  who  purchased  holy  orders 
bought  usually  peace,  security  of 
life,  comparative  ease.  Those  who 
aspired  to  higher  dignities  soon  re- 
paid themselves  for  the  outlay,  how- 
ever large  and  extortionate.  At  this 
period,  not  merely  the  indignant 
satire  of  the  more  austere,  but  graver 
history  and  historical  poetry — even 
the  acts  and  decrees  of  councils — 
declare  that,  from  the  Papacy  down 
to  the  lowest  parochial  cure,  every 
spiritual  dignity  and  function  was 
venal.  The  highest  bishops  confessed 
their  own  guilt ;  the  bishopric  of 
Rome  had  too  often  been  notoriously 
bought  and  sold."  In  Milan — the 
Ambrosian  Milan— simony  had  reach- 
ed such  a  height,  that  for  every 
spiritual  office  a  sum  was  paid  pro- 
portionate to  its  value.  The  bishop, 
Guido,  himself  attained  the  episco- 
pate by  sheer  purchase  ;  and  Ariald, 


the  tribune  of  the  Church,  the  im- 
passioned advocate  of  purity,  paid 
the  forfeit  of  his  life,  notwithstanding 
the  support  of  Rome,  to  the  fury  of 
the  faction  which  opposed  reform. 

Nor  were  lay  patrons  slow  to  swell 
the  tide  of  corruption.  Too  often  the 
martial  retainer  of  some  powerful 
noble  or  baronial  chief  received  from 
his  lord  an  abbacy  or  a  priory  as  the 
guerdon  of  his  spear.  Too  often 
clerical  preferment  was  the  degrading 
reward  of  some  deed  of  villany  which 
could  only  be  accomplished  by  priest- 
ly intervention.  Sometimesx  too,  by 
virtue  of  a  compromise,  which  re- 
vealed the  purity  of  both  parties, 
half  the  annual  profits  of  the  benefice 
were  reserved  to  the  patron  by  his 
nominee.  u  The  nobles,"  says  Mr 
Bowden,  "  in  those  times,  continually 
procured  the  ordination  of  their 
younger  sons  or  relatives,  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  qualifying  them  for 
the  acceptance  of  lucrative  benefices ; 
giving  them,  while  they  did  so,  the 
same  military  training  and  secular 
habits  with  the  rest  of  the  family. 
Others  procured  the  admission  to  the 
priesthood  of  dependants,  whom  they 
intended  to  retain  in  subordinate 
stations  in  their  household.  4  Such,' 
says  the  high-principled  Agobard, 
archbishop  of  Lyons  in  the  days  of 
Louis  the  Debonnair,  *  is  the  disgrace 
of  our  times,  that  there  is  scarcely 
one  who  aspires  to  any  degree  of 
honour  who  has  not  his  domestic 
priest;  and  this,  not  that  he  may 
obey  him,  but  that  he  may  command 
his  obedience  alike  in  things  lawful 
and  things  unlawful,  in  things  human 
and  things  divine:  so  that  these 
chaplains  are  constantly  to  be  found 
serving  the  tables,  mixing  the  strain- 
ed wine,  leading  out  the  dogs, 
managing  the  ladies'  horses,  or  look- 
ing after  the  lands.'" f 

In  this  wide  and  general  reign  of 
avarice  and  cupidity,  the  excess  of 
the  evil  rejected  palliatives,  and  de- 
manded an  extraordinary  and  radical 
cure.  It  thus  became  easy  for  Hilde- 
brand  to  justify  to  himself,  and  to  the 
ardent  zeal  of  his  partisans,  his  ex- 


*  DEAN  MILMAN,  History  of  Latin  Christianity,  vol.  iii.  p.  105. 
t  BOWDEN,  Life  of  Gregory  VIL,  vol.  i.  p.  47 ;  AGOBARD,  De  Privilegio  et  Jure 
Sacerdotii,  §  xi.     Henry  IV.,  the  Franconian  Emperor,  sat  in  council  with  his  nobles 


670 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


travagant  demand  for  the  presenta- 
tion and  investiture  to  every  eccle- 
siastical dignity.  To  effect  this,  how- 
ever, it  was  necessary  to  fuse  toge- 
ther the  rights  and  privileges  of  lay 
patrons  and  the  independent  spiritual 
powers  of  the  Episcopate,  as  equally 
amenable  to  the  arbitration  of  the 
supreme  pontiff.  It  was  necessary 
to  obliterate  the  distinction,  acknow- 
ledged both  by  law  and  reason,  be- 
tween the  temporalities  and  the 
spiritualities  of  the  Church.  Not 
only  the  bishop,  who  bartered  ordi- 
nation for  gold,  but  the  patron,  who 
negotiated  a  transfer  of  the  temporal 
emoluments  by  sale,  was  branded 
with  the  odious  imputation  of  simony. 
*'  The  definition  of  the  crime,"  says 
Mr  Bowderi,  the  eloquent  apologist  of 
Hildebrand,  tfwas,  in  the  language 
of  its  impugners,  so  far  extended  as 
to  include  the  obtaining  benefices  by 
undue  obsequiousness  or  adulation, 
as  well  as  by  positive  purchase."* 
Threats  of  excommunication  and  de- 
privation were  fulminated  against  all 
ecclesiastics  who  should  accept  pre- 
ferment at  the  hands  of  the  laity, 
whether  emperors  and  kings,  or 
others  of  inferior  degree ;  and  this 
notwithstanding  the  recent  confirma- 
tion, by  a  council  assembled  at  Rome, 
of  the  rights  which  Justinian  had 
sanctioned. 

The  Church,  in  entering  upon  the 
conflict,  had  a  show  of  justice  upon 
her  side.  The  first  step  was  happily 
timed.  Much  scandal  had  arisen 
from  the  royal  custom  of  investiture 
by  the  ring  and  crosier,  purely  spiri- 
tual symbols  in  the  belief  of  church- 
men,— the  one  being  the  emblem  of 
the  bishop's  marriage  to  his  Church, 
the  other  the  type  of  his  pastoral 
charge.  Various  expedients  were 
mutually  espoused  and  defeated  ;  till, 
at  last,  the  outrage  of  a  layman  gave 
Hildebrand  a  base  whereon  to  rear 
his  magnificent  exaggeration  of  the 
papal  dignity.  A  council  was  sum- 
moned at  Rome,  "  which  forbade 
the  kings  and  princes  of  the  earth  to 
exercise  their  right  of  investiture  to 


any  spiritual  dignity,  and  transferred 
to  the  pope  alone  a  patronage  and  in- 
fluence more  than  sufficient  to  bal- 
ance, within  their  own  dominions,  all 
the  powers  of  all  the  monarchs  of 
Christendom.''!  The  councils  of 
Clermont  and  Placentia  faithfully  re- 
gistered and  re-echoed  the  pontifical 
edict ;  bishops  and  priests  were  for- 
bidden to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  their  princes  ;  and  it  was  only  by 
appeal  to  arms  that  Henry  V.,  after 
many  vicissitudes,  in  the  course  of 
which  the  sanctuary  of  St  Peter  was 
polluted  with  blood,  settled  the  terms 
of  a  compromise  between  the  lay  and 
ecclesiastical  powers.  In  that  settle- 
ment, the  Church,  in  "  the  first  gene- 
ral Lateran  Council,"  declared  that 
the  ecclesiastic  elected  to  a  bishopric 
or  abbacy  should  receive  his  regalia 
at  the  hands  of  the  emperor,  and  do 
homage  for  them;  but  that,  in  the 
ceremony  of  investiture,  the  emperor 
should  no  longer  use  the  insignia  ot 
spiritual  authority,  but  the  sceptre 
only.  Thus  the  Church  recognised 
the  twofold  attributes  of  a  bishopric, 
as  illustrated  by  the  distinctive  sym- 
bols of  investiture, — the  one  denoting 
the  spiritual  functions,  the  other  the 
temporal  accidents  of  the  episcopal 
office.  That  reaction  which,  by  the 
inexorable  decree  of  Providence, 
avenges  every  usurpation  of  ecclesi- 
astical or  civil  power,  in  some  degree 
restored  the  equitable  balance  which 
the  papal  encroachments  had  dis- 
turbed. 

Much  injustice  has  been  done  to  the 
character  of  Hildebrand  by  critics 
who  cannot  or  will  not  appreciate 
the  external  conditions  which  of  ne- 
cessity largely  influenced  his  career. 
Sir  James  Stephen,  whom  we  have 
cited  above,  merely  paints  over  again 
that  traditional  image  which  the  pen 
of  Hallam  has  bequeathed  to  a  tribe 
of  inferior  writers.  They  have  alto- 
gether ignored  a  most  important  ele- 
ment in  forming  their  estimate  of 
Gregory  VII., — that  exaggeration  of 
the  rights  of  lay  patronage  which  we 
have  alluded  to  above,  and  which 


on  the  disposal  of  the  vacant  abbey  of  Fulda,  when  a  crowd  of  abbots  and  monks  bid 
publicly  and  unblushingly  before  him,  as  at  an  auction,  for  that  much-coveted  dignity. 


And  similar  scenes  were  not  unfrequent. — BOWDEN,  vol.  ii.  p 
*  Ibid.,  vol.  i.  p.  289.  f  Sir  J.  STEPHEN'S  Es 


72. 


STEPHEN'S  Assays,  tit.  "  Hildebrand." 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


671 


frequently  entitled  a  layman  to  the 
uncontrolled  nomination  of  a  minister. 
In  mere  justice,  it  ought  to  have  been 
alleged  as  a  partial  solution  of  those 
stretches  of  ecclesiastical  prerogative, 
fraught  at  first  sight  with  so  arrogant 
a  semblance.  It  was  essential  to 
vindicate  the  right  either  of  the  dio- 
cesan, the  metropolitan,  or  the  su- 
preme pontiff,  to  ratify  or  annul  the 
patron's  election  of  a  priest.  This 
Gregory  attempted  to  do  when  he 
claimed  the  privilege  of  investiture, 
by  which  he  signified  the  spiritual 
rite  of  institution.  His  pontificate 
undeniably  achieved  the  recognition 
by  mankind  of  what  had  come  to 
seem,  in  the  eyes  of  his  generation, 
strange  and  novel  principles  ;  the 
rightful  exemption  of  the  Church 
from  feudal  vassalage;  and  the  ne- 
cessary existence  in  her  constitution 
of  an  authority  independent  of  the 
authority  of  kings,  and  underived 
from  any  regulations  of  merely  human 
original.  He  prevented  that  secular- 
isation of  the  Church — that  amalga- 
mating incorporation  into  the  state — 
which  must,  humanly  speaking,  have 
reduced  that  divine  institution  into  a 
machine  to  be  worked  by  the  hands 
of  the  civil  magistrate,  like  the  hea- 
then religions — into  a  mere  compo- 
nent of  the  feudal  system  of  the  em- 
pire. His  absorption  into  the  Papacy 
of  the  independent  powers  of  the 
episcopate  is  theoretically  indefen- 
sible ;  but  mighty  evils  require 
mighty  remedies — unity  is  essential 
to  the  prompt  exertion  of  power ;  and 
the  temporary  elevation  of  the  Papacy 
achieved  the  end  assigned  by  the  wis- 
dom of  ancient  legislation  to  the  dic- 
tators of  classical  Rome. 

The  contest  of  investiture  was 
fought  in  England  with  a  nearly  simi- 
lar issue.  The  arrogant  demands  pre- 
ferred by  Anselm  in  the  name  of  the 
pope  were  energetically  resisted  by 
Henry  I. ;  the  sovereign  retained  the 
privilege  of  the  conge  cfelire,  the  cus- 
tody of  the  temporalities  during  the 
vacancy  of  a  see,  and  the  right  of 
homage  from  the  bishop-elect,  while 
the  free  election  of  abbots  and  pre- 


lates was  secured  to  the  clergy. 
These  rights  were  confirmed  by  the 
constitutions  of  Clarendon,  which, 
beneath  the  sceptre  of  Henry  II., 
subverted,  by  subjecting  the  clerical 
order  to  secular  authority,  that  para- 
mount ecclesiastical  supremacy  which 
had  ever  been  the  darling  scheme  of 
Hildebrand.  The  concessions  ex- 
torted from  the  imbecile  and  tyran- 
nical John  by  the  papal  Court  were 
redeemed  by  the  energy  and  wisdom 
of  Edward  I.,  the  English  Justinian, 
in  whose  reign  were  passed  the  sta- 
tutes entitled  "Quare  impedit,"  and 
"•  Pnemunire," —  the  one  fortifying 
the  privileges  of  lay  patrons  against 
the  encroachments  of  the  prelacy,  the 
other  securing  the  rights  of  the  crown 
in  episcopal  nominations. 

II.  Thus,  at  the  close  of  the  great 
struggle  for  investiture,  the  mischiev- 
ous confusion  between  the  temporali- 
ties and  the  spiritual  functions  of  the 
Church,  which  the  papal  policy  had 
aggravated,  was  in  some  measure 
dispelled.  Several  circumstances, 
however,  unhappily  conspired  to  be- 
queath it  as  a  legacy  to  our  own 
days ;  and  we  discern  its  pernicious 
fruit  in  the  anomalies  and  the  caprice 
of  our  own  law.  The  Gregorian  defi- 
nition of  simony  survived  the  Lateran 
settlement,  and  was  incorporated  in 
the  canon  law  ;  the  mutual  jealousy 
of  civilians,  canonists,  and  common 
lawyers,  fomented  and  stereotyped 
arbitrary  distinctions ;  the  ambitious 
zeal  or  the  sordid  craft  of  powerful 
churchmen,  embraced  every  expedient 
for  the  monopoly  of  ecclesiastical  pa- 
tronage within  their  own  order;  while 
the  authors  of  the  Reformation  could 
hardly  afford  that  semblance  of  laxity 
which,  in  the  prevailing  opinion  of 
these  times,  a  relaxation  of  the  exist- 
ing restrictions  on  the  transfer  of  church 
temporalities  would  have  presented  to 
the  public  eye. 

These,  and  a  few  other  points  essen- 
tial to  the  true  apprehension  of  the 
problem,  we  will  briefly  lay  before  the 
reader. 

The  civil  law,*  says  Selden,  was 


*  We  are  infinitely  surprised  at  the  singular  ignorance  betrayed  in  Dr  Waddilove'a 
sketch  of  the  modern  destinies  of  the  Roman  law.  He  had  better  have  left  the  sub- 
ject untouched ;  to  trace  it  at  any  length  was  totally  irreleyant.  By  profession  a  canon- 


672 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


fostered  by  the  wise  policy  of  the 
kings  and  princes  of  Europe,  "anxious 
to  counteract  the  ascendancy  of  the 
popes,  who  were  endeavouring  to 
establish  their  authority  on  the  basis 
of  their  canon  law."  The  clergy  pro- 
fited by  the  example  their  opponents 
set  them  in  the  science  of  codification. 
The  scattered  fragments  of  the  canon 
law  needed  revision  and  consolidation 
far  more  urgently  than  the  elements 
of  Roman  jurisprudence  previous  to 
the  era  of  Justinian.  They  were  dis- 
persed, without  form,  order,  or  cohe- 
sion, throughout  the  decrees  of  recog- 
nised and  unrecognised  synods,  pro- 
vincial and  oecumenical  councils,  de- 
crees of  emperors  and  popes,  epistles 
of  learned  ecclesiastics,  and  other  still 
less  formal  and  more  uncertain  dicta. 
The  middle  of  the  twelfth  century 
found  the  monk  Gratian,  after  twenty- 
four  years  of  hard  labour,  still  busily 
engaged  with  the  unfinished  task  of 
codification ;  thirty  years  later,  Gre- 
gory XIII.  affixed  the  "  seal  of  the 
fisherman's  ring,"  the  stamp  of  papal 
authority,  to  the  miscellaneous  code, 
thus  reduced  to  the  decrees  of  Gratian, 
the  decretals  of  Gregory,  the  consti- 
tutions of  Clement,  and  the  "  extrava- 
gants  "  of  John.  This  elaborate  com- 
pilation contained  many  prohibitions 
against  what  it  termed  the  heresy  of 
simony.  The  seventh  canon  chari- 
tably condemns,  "  by  perpetual  ana- 
thema," the  layman  who  sells  church 
temporalities  to  a  clerk.  It  bears  un- 
mistakably the  impress  of  Hilde- 
brand's  definition,  which  had  enlarged 
the  scope  of  the  offence,  till  it  embrac- 
ed the  purchase,  directly  or  indirectly, 
of  a  benefice,  gaining  the  patron's 
favour  by  signal  service;  and  even 
the  solicitation  of  preferment,  whether 
personally  or  through  the  recommen- 
dation of  a  friend.  In  the  spirit  of 
this  decree,  Urban  II.  determined,  at 
the  council  of  Claremont,  that  it  was 
simony  to  buy  the  revenues  attached 


to  church  livings,  since  spiritual  func- 
tions were  involved  in  their  posses- 
sion. Such  a  prohibition  obviously 
includes  the  purchase  and  sale  of 
tithes, — a  transaction  of  ordinary  oc- 
currence, which  can  hardly  wound  the 
most  sensitive  conscience.  Aquinas, 
following  in  the  same  steps,  is  anxious 
to  persuade  us  that  the  vendor  of  the 
temporalities  attached  to  a  benefice  is 
guilty  of  the  crime  of  Gehazi,  when  he 
took  from  Naaman's  servants  a  reward 
for  their  master's  cure  by  the  hands  of 
Elisha.  Even  dealing  in  relics  was  de- 
clared simony.  A  curious  illustration 
of  this  view  is  furnished  by  an  expe- 
dient which  the  piety  of  Louis  IX. 
condescended  to  adopt.  Baldwin,  the 
Latin  claimant  to  the  throne  of  Con- 
stantinople, offered  to  sell  to  Louis 
what  he  asserted  to  be  the  true  crown 
of  thorns,  as  an  inducement  to  the 
monarch  to  aid  him  in  recovering  his 
kingdom.  The  king  was  perplexed 
between  his  apprehensions  of  simony, 
and  his  strong  desire  to  possess  him- 
self of  the  sacred  object.  The  diffi- 
culty was  adjusted  by  a  compromise. 
Baldwin  undertook  to  present  the 
treasured  relic  as  a  free  gift  and  gage 
of  love,  and  Louis,  not  to  be  behind 
in  disinterested  generosity,  agreed, 
out  of  pure  affection,  to  pay  Baldwin 
a  fair  equivalent  in  gold. 

Long  before  the  formal  consolidation 
of  the  canon  law,  the  canonical  de- 
crees had  largely  influenced  the  legal 
systems  of  the  realms  of  Europe,  their 
authority  varying  with  the  fluctuations 
of  clerical  power  in  different  times  and 
countries.  In  England,  long  before 
the  Norman  Conquest,  the  prelates 
and  clergy  had  held,  without  any  en- 
croachment on  the  royal  prerogative, 
synods  and  councils,  whence  issued 
canons  and  constitutions  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Church.  The  bishops 
divided  with  the  sheriffs  the  admini- 
stration of  justice,  and  shared  the  de- 
liberations of  the  national  council ; 


1st  and  civilian,  he  writes  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  Spence  and  Savigny.  He  re- 
peats the  obsolete  fiction  which  represents  the  Roman  jurisprudence  as  falling  with 
the  fall  of  Rome,  and  as  totally  extinct  till  the  era  of  its  accidental  discovery  in  the 
twelfth  century  ;  whereas,  in  the  words  of  Mr  Long,  "  it  has  never  been  out  of 
use  since  the  days  of  Justinian,  but  incorporated  itself  with  the  codes  of  civilised 
Europe,  forming  the  common  law  of  the  great  Continental  states,  and  by  far  the  most 
valuable  portion  of  the  equitable  jurisprudence  of  our  own  country."  The  masterly 
work  of  Savigny,  and  the  elaborate  investigations  of  Mr  Spence,  Q.C.,  have  effected 
a  revolution  in  this  province  of  learning  since  the  days  of  the  orthodox  Judge  Black- 
stone. 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


673 


and  the  clerical  monopoly  of  learning 
powerfully  influenced  the  development 
of  British  jurisprudence.  The  rising 
ascendancy  of  the  clergy  was  further 
promoted  by  the  Conqueror's  inde- 
pendent organisation  of  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction.  Anxious  to  avoid  the 
confusions  arising  in  the  sheriffs' courts 
from  the  antagonistic  principles  of 
feudal  and  canon  law,  he  severed  the 
civil  from  the  spiritual  jurisdiction, 
allowing  the  secular  magistrate  no 
control  whatever  over  ecclesiastical 
persons  or  affairs,  the  cognisance 
whereof  was  vested  entirely  in  the 
bishop.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the 
jurisdiction  possessed  by  the  ecclesias- 
tical courts  at  the  present  day.  Wil- 
liam was  probably  little  aware  how 
formidable  an  instrument  of  usurpa- 
tion he  had  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
clergy.  Their  independence  of  secular 
control  was  abused  by  a  license  in- 
tolerable to  the  country,  and  utterly 
incompatible  with  the  maintenance  of 
the  royal  authority.  The  flagrancy 
of  the  evil  excited  the  spirited  resist- 
ance of  Henry  IT. ;  but  the  fall  of 
Becket  was  followed  by  a  reaction, 
and  the  tide  of  sacerdotal  influence 
variously  ebbed  and  flowed  till  the 
clergy  found  a  champion  in  Stephen, 
who  repaid  their  support  of  his  claims 
to  the  throne  by  a  formal  promulga- 
tion of  the  civil  and  canon  law.  By 
Vacarius  at  Oxford,  the  extravagant 
principles  which  characterise  the  de- 
crees of  Gratian  were  propounded  ;  a 
custom  traversing  a  papal  edict  was  de- 
clared void';  anathema  was  pronounc- 
ed upon  the  man  who  sued  a  clerk 
before  a  lay  tribunal ;  nor  was  a  lay- 
man competent  even  to  give  evidence 
against  a  member  of  the  sacred  order. 
Notwithstanding,  however,  the  high 
position  of  the  clergy,  and  the  elabo- 
rate compilations  by  which  canonists 
sought  to  dignify  their  code,  two 
canons  only,  out  of  the  innumerable 
decrees  which  throughout  papal  Eu- 
rope denounced  simony  as  a  deadly 
heresy,  appear  to  have  met  with  any 
favour  or  acceptance  in  England. 
They  are  to  be  found  in  the  well- 
known  collection  of  Lyndwood,  the 


leading  authority  on  the  canon  law. 
The  first*  is  couched  in  the  following 
terms :  "  It  shall  not  be  lawful  for 
any  person  to  transfer  a  church  to 
another  by  way  of  a  portion,  or  to 
take  any  money  or  other  benefit  by 
reason  of  any  previous  agreement ; 
and  if  any  person  shall  be  found  guilty 
thereof,  either  by  proof  or  by  his  own 
confession,  we  do  decree,  by  the  king's 
authority,  and  our  own,  that  he  shall  be 
for  ever  deprived  of  the  patronage  of 
that  church."  It  is  curious  to  remark 
the  commentary  with  which  Sir  Simon 
Degge  quotes  this  cool  assumption  of 
a  right  to  share  in  the  royal  functionsr 
and  to  adjudicate  on  real  property 
rights  without  parliamentary  sanction, 
and  independently  of  the  common 
law.  "  It  was  not  sufficient,"  says 
that  learned  civilian,  u  by  a  canon  to 
deprive  a  man  of  his  freehold  and  in- 
heritance; neither  was  this  canon  ever 
put  in  execution,  or  attempted  to  be 
so,  as  I  find."f  The  second  J  canon 
was  enacted  by  a  council  of  ecclesias- 
tics assembled  at  London,  A.D.  1268, 
under  Othobon,  cardinal  legate  of 
Clement  IV.  The  thirty-third  con- 
stitution revokes  and  annuls  all  com- 
pacts made  with  the  patron  of  a  bene- 
fice to  reserve  to  him  a  certain  annu- 
ity out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  living. 
Herein  also  the  church  invaded  the 
province  of  the  common  law.  "  This 
canon,"  says  Sir  Simon,  "  was  of  as 
little  effect  as  the  other  as  to  the 
making  contracts  void,  which  only 
were  determinable  at  the  common 
law,  where  this  canon  could  not  be 
pleaded  in  bar."  Such  was  the  prac- 
tical influence  of  these  arrogant  en- 
actments, even  in  the  high  noon  and 
zenith  of  papal  ascendancy.  The 
terms  of  their  preamble  betray  the 
spirit  which  animated  their  authors* 
Their  professed  aim  is  "  to  obviate 
waste  done  to  the  Church."  By  de- 
claring the  temporalities  of  a  benefice 
incapable  of  transfer  on  the  same 
terms  as  ordinary  property,  they 
obstructed  the  legal  privileges  of  lay 
patrons ;  and  made  it  easy  to  set  up 
imaginary  cases  of  abuse,  whereby  the 
rights  of  presentation  might,  on  pre- 


*  LTNDWOOD'S  Promnciale,  p.  278.     The  date  of  the  canon  is  1175,  A.D. 

+  PARSON'S  Counsellor,  tit.  "  Simony,"  p.  44. 

£  LTNDWOOD'S  Prcef.  Olholoni,  p.  75.    JOHNSON'S  Canons,  part  ii.  p.  211. 


674 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


tence  of  escheat,  be  gradually  absorbed 
in  the  vortex  of  clerical  ambition.  In 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  an  act*  of 
Parliament  empowered  the  king  to 
issue  a  mixed  commission  of  clergy 
and  laity  to  revise  the  ecclesiastical 
laws,  providing  that  "such  canons, 
constitutions,  ordinances,  and  synodals 
provincial,  being  already  made,  which 
were  not  contrariant  nor  repugnant  to 
the  laws,  statutes,  and  customs  of  this 
realm,  nor  to  the  damage  or  hurt  of 
the  king's  prerogative -royal,  should 
still  be  used  and  executed  as  they 
were  before  the  making  of  this  act." 
This  statute,  says  Lord  Hardwicke,f 
gave  no  further  legislative  sanction  to 
the  canon  law  than  it  previously 
possessed ;  it  recognised  its  obligation 
solely  upon  the  clergy.  The  revision 
contemplated  by  the  act  of  Henry 
VIII.  was  carried  into  execution. 
The  compilation  appeared  in  the  reign 
of  Edward  VI.,  under  the  title  of  the 
Reformatio  Legum  Ecclesiasticarum, 
but  the  monarch's  early  death  pre- 
vented its  enrolment  among  the  sta- 
tutes of  the  land.  The  accession  of 
Mary  reversed  the  current  of  the  Pro- 
testant tide  :  an  act  %  was  passed  "  re- 
pealing all  articles  and  provisions 
made  against  the  apostolic  See  of 
Rome."  But  although  Cardinal 
Pole  was  licensed  by  the  crown  to 
hold  a  synod,  at  which  the  old  eccle- 
siastical denunciations  against  simony 
were  re-echoed,  outlawry  and  depri- 
vation of  patronage  were  no  longer 
attempted  against  lay  abusers  of 
clerical  preferment  ;  a  significant 
token  of  the  check  which  the  papal 
absorption  of  spiritual  and  temporal 
jurisdictions  had  received.  Queen 
Elizabeth  did  not  attempt  to  carry  the 
Reformat™  Legum  through  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  thus  this  elaborate  and 
well- digested  compilation  virtually 
degenerated  into  a  dead  letter,  valu- 
able rather  to  the  historian  than  the 
lawyer.  She,  however,  promulgated 
a  code  entitled  the  Queen's  Injunc- 
tions, which  embodied  a  transcript 
against  simony  from  King  Edward's 
compilation,  afterwards  inserted  in 


the  canons  of  1603,  to  whose  autho- 
rity the  clergy  are  amenable,  irrespec- 
tively of  statute  or  of  common  law. 
The  object  of  this  provision  was,  how- 
ever, rather  to  restrain  patrons  from 
reserving  to  themselves  any  portion 
of  the  emoluments  of  a  benefice,  than 
to  repress  simoniacal  transactions 
properly  so  called  ;  in  other  words, 
rather  to  defend  the  clergy  against 
the  laity,  than  the  Church  against  the 
clergy.  The  corrupt  patron  was  aban- 
doned to  the  terrors  of  conscience ;  the 
corrupt  nominee  lost  his  preferment ; 
but  the  rights  of  patronage  were  left 
untouched.  The  motives  of  the  prin- 
cipal reformers  in  continuing,  with 
certain  reservations,  the  papal  strain 
of  denunciation  against  simony,  are 
very  obvious.  Any  imputation  of 
laxity  would  have  been  exceedingly 
dangerous  to  their  cause;  they  pro- 
fessed to  reform  the  lives  and  practice, 
as  well  as  the  doctrines  of  the  clergy  : 
a  horror  of  simoniacal  corruptions  had 
been  studiously  instilled  into  the  po- 
pular mind ;  and  the  advocates  of  the 
reformed  faith  could  hardly  afford  to 
be  more  favourable  than  their  antago- 
nists to  the  privileges  of  lay  patronage. 
The  secret  bias  of  the  public  feeling 
towards  a  truer  interpretation  of  the 
temporalities  and  spiritualities  of  the 
Church  was,  however,  betrayed  by 
several  legislative  acts,  both  positive 
and  negative.  The  Court  of  High 
Commission,  though  invested  with 
powers  so  comprehensive  that  they 
speedily  constituted  a  new  ecclesiasti- 
cal tyranny,  abstained  from  multiply- 
ing the  existing  restrictions  against 
the  transfer  of  benefices,  and  assumed 
no  cognisance  of  simony.  In  the  year 
1571, §  an  abortive  attempt  was  made 
to  carry  through  Parliament  a  "  Bill 
for  Suppressing  Simony  in  Presenta- 
tion to  Benefices,"  apparently  prompt- 
ed by  a  desire  to  protect  the  Church 
from  spoliation.  But  the  author  of 
the  bill  contended  that  the  patron  had 
nothing  but  a  bare  right  of  nomina- 
tion, which  he  could  not  transfer,  or 
deal  with  as  part  and  parcel  of  his 
real  property;  and  that  the  claims 


*  25  Henry  VIIL,  c.  19. 

f  Decision  in  Middleton  v.  Croft,  Strange's  Rep.,  vol.  ii.  p.  1060  ;  Atkia's  Rep.3 
vol.  ii.  p.  650. 

t  1  &  2  Phil,  and  M.,  c.  8. 

§  SIR  SIMOND  D'EWES'S  Journal,  p.  165. 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


675 


of  blood,  affection,  and  friendship  in 
the  donation  of  a  benefice  were  null 
and  void.  This  reasoning,  however, 
found  no  sympathy  from  the  House; 
the  bill  was  rejected,  the  presenta- 
tion to  livings  was  left  unaffected  by 
statute,  and  simony  remained,  as  before, 
an  offence  only  at  the  canon  law.  The 
same  year  was  marked  by  an  incident 
which  remarkably  illustrates  the  re- 
cognition of  the  temporal  character  of 
lay  patronage.  An  advowson  be- 
longing to  the  Earl  of  Sussex  having 
repeatedly  changed  hands,  his  lord- 
ship, who  was  perhaps  not  the  most 
clear-headed  member  of  the  peerage, 
wrote  to  the  bishop  of  the  diocese, 
expressing  his  aversion  to  anything 
bearing  the  semblance  of  simony,  and 
requesting  his  advice.*  The  prelate, 
after  conference  with  the  leading 
authorities  in  the  civil  law,  replied 
that  the  sale  of  advowsons  was  not 
tolerated  in  the  old  canons,  but  that 
it  was  fully  sanctioned  by  the  com- 
mon law,  whereby  all  controversies 
about  rights  of  patronage  were  ruled, 
and  which  regarded  those  rights  as 
simply  temporal  in  their  nature. 
Eighteen  years  subsequently,  how- 
ever, the  temporal  courts  were  indi- 
rectly armed  with  jurisdiction  in  re- 
straining simoniacal  contracts.  We 
say  indirectly,  for  the  title  of  the 
actf  affords  the  strongest  presumption 
that  a  prohibition  against  simony,  so 
called,  was  a  secondary  object.  This 
is  still  clearer  from  the  preamble  of 
the  statute,  which,  says  Chief- Justice 
Dyer,J  "  was  not  framed  to  prevent 
the  offence  of  simony,  since  there  is 
no  mention  of  or  allusion  to  it.  It 
was  not,"  says  the  learned  judge, 
"  because  such  presentations  occa- 
sioned scandal  or  offence  to  the  piety 
of  the  Church,  or  were  repugnant  to 
the  feelings  of  the  nation,  or  prejudi- 
cial to  the  national  weal ;  but  because 
the  election  and  presentation  of  unfit 
persons  to  fellowships  and  colleges, 
and  cathedral  offices,  had  been  preju- 
dicial to  learning,  to  the  common- 
wealth, and  the  estate  of  the  realm, 
that  legislative  interference  was  re- 


quired." Much  injury,  however,  was 
inflicted,  and  much  discreditable  sub- 
terfuge and  evasion  has  resulted  from 
the  ultra  severity  and  mistaken  prin- 
ciple of  the  40th  of  the  canons  of  1603, 
which  were  framed  from  the  articles, 
injunctions,  and  synodal  acts  pub- 
lished during  the  reigns  of  Edward 
VI.  and  Elizabeth,  and  adopted  by 
the  clergy  in  convocation  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  reign  of  James  I., 
who,  in  the  following  year,  gave  them 
his  assent,  and  caused  their  publica- 
tion by  royal  authority.  The  title  of 
the  canon  is,  An  Oath  against  Simony 
at  Institution  into  Benefices.  All  who 
have  authority  to  admit  to  ecclesi- 
astical offices  and  benefices  are 
charged  to  administer  to  applicants 
the  following  oath  :  "  I,  A.  B.,  do 
swear  that  I  have  made  no  simoniacal 
payment,  contract,  or  promise,  directly 
or  indirectly,  by  myself  or  any  other, 
by  my  knowledge  or  with  my  con- 
sent, to  any  person  or  persons 
whatsoever,  for  or  concerning  the 
procuring  this  ecclesiastical  dignity, 
place, preferment,  office,  or  living."  If 
the  equivocal  term,  simoniacal,  be 
construed  in  its  true  sense,  no  clergy- 
man who  has,  whether  personally  or 
through  a  friend,  purchased  the  tem- 
poralities of  a  benefice,  need  hesitate 
to  pledge  himself  to  the  above  en- 
gagement ;  but  if  it  be  construed  in  the 
confused  and  traditional  sense  be- 
queathed by  centuries  of  Romanist 
perversion — the  sense  probably  con- 
templated by  the  authors  of  the  law — 
it  is  a  very  mischievous  restraint  upon 
a  right  of  transfer,  which  is  at  once 
innocent,  and  highly  conducive,  as  we 
shall  presently  show,  to  the  public 
advantage  and  the  welfare  of  the 
Church.  That  the  terms  of  the  en- 
gagement were  intended  to  bear  the 
latter  construction  is  indeed  tolerably 
clear  from  a  subsequent  statute,  the 
12th  of  Anne,  st.  ii.  c.  12.  That  the 
oath  had  been  in  the  interval  re- 
peatedly evaded,  if  not  directly  vio- 
lated, is  evident  from  the  same  source. 
The  act,  after  declaring  that  some  of 
the  clergy  have  procured  preferments 


*  STRYPE'S  Annals,  vol.  ii.,  pt.  i.,  p.  172,  Oxford  edition,  1824. 

*h  31st  Elizabeth,  c.  6,  An  Act  against  the  Abuses  in  the  Election  of  Scholars  and 
Presentation  to  Benefices. 

J  In  Stowell  v.  Lord  Zouch :  Plowd.  Rep.,  369.  Reiterated  by  Lord  C.  J. 
Tindal  in  the  Sussex  Peerage  case,  11  Clarke  and  Fin.  (H.  of  L.  Rep.),  p.  143. 


676 

by  buying  livings,  enacts  that  if  in 
future  any  person  shall  directly  or  in- 
directly, for  any  sum  of  money,  gift, 
reward,  or  benefit  whatsoever,  procure 
or  accept  the  next  avoidance  of  any 
benefice  or  ecclesiastical  dignity,  his 
presentation  thereto  shall  be  void,  and 
such  agreement  shall  be  taken  to  be  a 
simoniacal  contract. 

III.  Such,  then,  is  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  most  prominent  acts  of  British 
legislation  upon  this  entangled  and 
perplexed,  yet  most  important  pro- 
vince of  ecclesiastical  law.  We  will 
now  endeavour  to  lay  before  the  reader 
the  mischievous  inconsistencies — the 
monstrous  anomalies — engendered  by 
the  statutes  now  in  operation,  toge- 
ther with  the  chief  amendments  hith- 
erto proposed  —  amendments  which 
we  earnestly  recommend  the  Houses 
of  Parliament  not  to  favour  with  their 
patronage,  unless  they  wish  to  aggra- 
vate the  evils  which  it  is  their  pri- 
vilege to  relieve  :— 

1.  A  clergyman  may  not  purchase 
a  next  presentation  to  a  benefice. 

2.  A  layman  may  purchase  a  next 
presentation,  but  not  when  the  living 
is  vacant. 

3.  It  is  legal  for  a  clergyman  to  give 
a  bond  of  resignation  in  favour  of  cer- 
tain specified  relatives  of  the  patron. 

4.  It  is  illegal  for  a  clergyman  to 
give  a  general  resignation  bond. 

These  anomalies  are  scarcely  more 
ridiculous,  both  intrinsically  and  his- 
torically, than  their  practical  opera- 
tion is  mischievous,  and  pregnant 
with  scandal  to  the  Church.  To  take 
the  first  of  the  above  restrictions  :  it 
is  indefensible  in  principle,  and  in- 
jurious in  practice.  In  principle:  be- 
cause no  just  distinction  can  be  insti- 
tuted between  clerk  and  layman,  un- 
less some  spiritual  function  is  conveyed 
by  the  transfer  of  the  temporalities,  in 
which  case  (which  we  totally  deny)  cler- 
gyman and  layman  are  equally  parties 
to  a  simoniacal  transaction  ; — in  prac- 
tice :  because  it  directly  gives  rise  to 
scandalous  evasions— evasions  so  fre- 
quent, that  it  is  clear  that  in  this  case 
the  obligation  sustainable  in  a  court 
of  law  has  no  correlative  sanction  in 
the  court  of  conscience.  Thus  the 
very  severity  of  the  law  defeats  itself. 
Between  legal  enactments  and  public 
opinion  or  private  conscience  there  is 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


a  mutual  reaction.  Public  opinion 
may  influence  widely  without  the 
direct  support  of  the  law ;  but  without 
the  alliance  of  public  opinion,  law  is 
powerless.  Bereft  of  friendly  sympathy 
with  the  sentiment  or  conscience  of  a 
nation,  the  law  is  not  merely  nerve- 
less and  inert,  but  it  creates  a  feeling, 
it  evokes  a  practice,  antagonistic  to 
itself.  All  manner  of  elusory  expe- 
dients are  devised  to  neutralise  prohi- 
bitions which  the  intrinsic  perceptions 
of  right  and  wrong  declare  to  be  void 
of  moral  sanction.  Thus  the  clerk 
who  cannot  buy  a  next  presentation 
in  his  own  name  and  person,  either 
purchases  the  presentation  before  he 
receives  holy  orders,  and  afterwards 
presents  himself,  or  avails  himself  of 
the  mediation  of  some  lay  relative  or 
friend  to  negotiate  the  transfer  for 
him.  The  only  difficulty  presented  to 
his  conscience  is  the  oath  imposed  by 
the  40th  canon ;  he  there  declares  that 
he  has  "neither  directly  or  indirectly  " 
given  any  payment  or  consideration 
for  the  benefice.  This  may  be  a  stum- 
blingblockto  many;  but  the  law,  as  if 
aware  of  its  own  total  imbecility,  opens 
an  easy  subterfuge,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  epithet  simoniacal  attached  to 
the  word  payment.  It  is,  however,  a 
subterfuge  of  which,  we  confess,  we 
could  not  venture  to  avail  ourselves 
in  the  face  of  the  well-known  rule  that 
engagements  are  to  be  construed  in 
the  sense  in  which  they  are  imposed. 
Another  method  of  evasion,  scarcely 
more  creditable  to  the  statutes  which 
provoked  it,  has  been  sanctioned  by 
the  right  reverend  bench,  and  is  en- 
couraged by  devout  friends  of  the 
Church.  It  is  simply  the  payment  of  a 
large  sum  towards  the  erection  of  a 
church  by  a  clergyman,  upon  the 
understanding  that  he  shall  be  the 
first  incumbent  of  the  new  district 
Church.  The  law  is  eluded  by  the 
casuistical  pretext  that  at  the  time 
when  the  money  was  subscribed  the 
Church  was  not  consecrated;  or,  in 
other  words,  had  as  yet  no  cure  of 
souls  attached  to  it 

Then,  as  to  the  second  of  the  above 
restrictions,  by  virtue  of  which  no 
one  can  sell  a  presentation  when  the 
church  is  vacant, — it  has  been  said 
that  this  prohibition  rests  entirely 
upon  a  mere  technicality,  which  re- 
gards the  fallen  vacancy  as  a  chose  in 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


677 


action.  But  we  decline  to  avail  our- 
selves of  the  imputation  thus  levelled 
at  the  law  by  its  own  expositors,  and 
adopt  the  principle  declared  by  Lord 
Mansfield  and  Archdeacon  Paley  to 
be  the  basis  of  the  limitation.  These 
eminent  authorities  assign,  as  the  rea- 
son of  the  statute,*  "the  public  utility, 
the  better  to  guard  against  simony," 
the  object  being  "to  restraint  the 
patron  who  possesses  the  right  of  pre- 
senting, at  the  vacancy,  from  being 
influenced  in  the  choice  of  a  presentee 
by  a  bribe  or  benefit  to  himself." 
Construing  the  law,  then,  in  the  sense 
attached  to  it  by  its  best  friends,  we 
say  it  is  clearly  open  to  two  fatal  ob- 
jections. It  is  founded  upon  a  false 
principle,  and  it  leads  directly  to  evils 
worse  than  those  it  pretends  to  cure. 
It  is  a  false  principle  to  institute 
merely  factitious  distinctions  between 
moral  right  and  wrong ;  nor  can  men 
be  rendered  religious  by  Act  of  Par- 
liament. If  it  is  wrong  to  sell  a  pre- 
sentation when  a  church  is  vacant, 
how  can  it  be  right  to  dispose  of  the 
temporalities  by  sale  an  hour  before 
the  incumbent  breathes  his  last  sigh?  % 
Independently  of  this  flagrant  incon- 
sistency, the  law  allows  a  man  to  hold 
a  trust  which  none  but  a  conscien- 
tious man  can  duly  exercise,  and  yet 
presumes  that  he  will  not  discharge  it 
conscientiously.  Next,  as  to  the  scan- 
dal which  this  abortive  and  suicidal 
restriction  continually  creates, — it  fre- 


quently happens  that  a  patron  wishes 
to  sell  a  presentation,  when  the  living 
casually  falls  in  before  he  can  effect 
the  transfer;  or  he  is  desirous  of 
presenting  a  friend  or  relative  who 
has  not  actually  taken  holy  orders 
when  the  vacancy  occurs.  He  ac- 
cordingly resorts  to  the  following  ex- 
pedient, several  scandalous  instances 
of  which  have  figured  in  the  Times, 
from  the  pen  of  that  fervid  ecclesias- 
tical purist,  S.  G.  Osborne.§  An  aged 
incumbent,  tottering  on  the  verge  of 
the  grave,  is  ingeniously  selected  as  a 
warming-pan.  It  is  presumed  that 
unless  he  is,  in  Charles  II.'s  phrase, 
"  a  most  unconscionable  time  dying," 
two  or  three  years  at  most  will  libe- 
rate him  from  all  parochial  troubles. 
Meanwhile  his  successor  receives  his 
ordination,  and  is  ready  for  the  living 
when  it  drops;  or,  if  the  object  is 
simply  the  sale  of  the  presentation  on 
the  best  terms,  the  same  device  is 
tried.  The  old  man  is  appointed,  the 
benefice  is  now  full,  and  has  thereby 
become  a  marketable  commodity.  An 
advertisement  forthwith  appears,  set- 
ting forth  the  hoary  antiquity  of  the 
present  rector,  and  the  prospect  of 
early  possession,  so  captivating  to  pur- 
chasers. We  cannot,  in  general,  re- 
fer with  much  satisfaction  to  the  lucu- 
brations of  Dr  Waddilove,  but  his 
commentary  on  these  proceedings  is 
just  and  true  : — 

"  That  this  is  repulsive,"  he  says,  "  to 


*  Lord  C.  J.  Mansfield,  in  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  v.  Wolferston. 

t  PALEY,  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  book  iii. 

J  That  this  is  no  imaginary  case  is  clear  from  the  following  decision,  in  Fox  v . 
Bishop  of  Chester,  1  Dow.  416;  S.  C.  6  Bing.  1.  T.  conveyed  by  bargain  and  sale  the 
advowson  of  a  rectory  to  E.  F.,  the  incumbent  being  then,  to  the  knowledge  of  both 
parties,  at  the  point  of  death;  but  it  did  not  appear  that  either  party  had  any  par- 
ticular clerk  in  view  for  the  next  presentation,  or  that  the  clerk  afterwards  knew 
anything  of  the  transaction.  It  was  held,  reversing  the  Court  of  Great  Session  at 
Chester,  and  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  that  this  was  not  simony,  so  as  to  authorise 
the  bishop's  rejection  of  the  clerk.  Thus,  although  the  incumbent  was  actually  in  a 
dying  state,  the  sale  was  held  to  be  legal. 

§  One  of  the  worst  of  these  cases  occurred  about  two  years  ago  at  St  Ervan's,  in 
the  diocese  of  Exeter.  The  bishop  instituted  an  old  man  in  the  last  stage  of  decrepi- 
tude, whom  his  own  secretary  acknowledged  to  be,  at  the  time  of  his  induction,  "  in- 
capable personally  to  discharge  the  duties  of  his  office"  (Times,  Aug.  20,  1853).  The 
Edinburgh  Review  unjustly  reflects  on  the  bishop.  The  truth  is,  that  the  law  left  his 
lordship  no  alternative  as  to  institution.  The  ecclesiastical  tribune  (S.  G.  0.)  after- 
wards most  unjustly  preferred  a  similar  charge  in  the  columns  of  the  Times  against 
au  excellent  country  gentleman,  Philip  Bennet,  Esq.,  M.P.,  Rougham  Hall,  Suffolk. 
So  far  from  presenting  to  the  rectory  of  Rougham  "  an  old  and  infirm  man,"  he  dis- 
posed of  the  presentation  at  a  sum  considerably  below  its  real  marketable  value,  in 
order  to  secure  the  services  of  an  active  and  efficient  rector  for  the  parish.  So  much 
for  the  calumnies  of  an  agitator,  whom  it  is  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  man  iniquitously 
assailed  to  answer. 


678 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec, 


religious  feeling  and  decency,  none  will 
deny;  but  it  may  be  said  that,  if  the  sale 
of  presentations  to  vacant  benefices  is 
legalised,  attractive  advertisements  re- 
specting them  will  still  be  put  forth. 
Granted ;  but  we  shall  then  be  spared  the 
spectacle  of  a  decrepit  old  man  invested 
with  sacred  duties  which  his  age  and  infir- 
mities render  him  incapable  of  discharg- 
ing; and  the  patron  will  escape  the  ne- 
cessity of  resorting  to  the  degrading  al- 
ternative of  presenting  one  whom  he 
knows  to  be  unable  to  discharge  the 
sacred  obligations  he  has  undertaken, 
and  will  be  in  a  position  to  declare  at 
once,  honestly  and  openly,  that  the  living 
is  vacant,  and  that  he  is  desirous  of  sell- 
ing it.  And  if  he  is  at  liberty  to  sell  it  at 
all,  it  is  absurd  to  prohibit  him  from  do- 
ing so  when  it  is  of  most  value — that  is, 
when  it  is  vacant ;  and  if,  moreover,  as 
we  contend,  nothing  spiritual  passes  by 
the  transfer  of  a  benefice,  it  is  as  unrea- 
sonable as  it  is  unjust  to  preclude  from 
sale  an  interest  of  which  the  purchaser 
may  become  at  once  possessed;  but,  at 
the  same  time,  to  permit  the  sale  of  that 
same  interest  in  reversion." — Pp.  144,145. 

The  dereliction  of  principle  which 
characterises  our  legislation  upon  this 
point  has  been  acknowledged  in  the 
following  terms  by  a  learned  judge  :* 

"  If  the  perpetual  advowson  be  sold 
when  the  church  is  void,  the  next 
presentation  will  not  pass ;  and  if 
the  next  avoidance  only  were  sold 
after  the  death  of  the  incumbent,  the 
sale  is  altogether  void.  It  may  be 
wise  to  carry  the  restraint  in  the  sale 
of  this  species  of  property  still  far- 
ther, and  to  say  the  next  avoidance 
shall  in  no  case  be  sold.f  For  if  it  be 
proper  to  prevent  the  giving  money 
for  a  presentation,  it  seems  equally 
proper  to  prevent  the  sale  of  that 
which  gives  the  immediate  right  to 
present ;  but  the  courts  of  law  never 
thought  they  were  authorised  to  go 
that  length." 

Such  is  the  sentence  passed  upon 
the  consistency  of  the  law  by  one  of 
its  best  and  ablest  ministers. 

"  The  next  anomaly, "  says  Dr 
Waddilove,  "  which  the  law  presents, 
is,  that  by  statute,  a  bond  condition- 
ed for  the  resignation  of  a  living  in 
favour  of  any  one  or  two  persons  so 
named,  provided  that  each  of  them 


shall  be,  either  by  blood  or  by  mar- 
riage, an  uncle,  son,  grandson,  bro- 
ther, nephew,  or  grand-nephew  of 
the  patron,  or  one  of  the  patrons,  of 
the  living,  is  capable  of  being  en- 
forced ;  bat  a  bond  expressed  in  ge- 
neral terms  of  resignation  cannot  be 
enforced."— P.  149. 

The  distinction  is  indefensible  in 
theory  ;  but  it  does  not  practically 
entail  inconvenience  in  anything  like 
an  equal  ratio  with  the  ingenious  legal 
distortions  quoted  above.  Histori- 
cally considered,  however,  it  has  a 
very  exceptionable  claim  to  continu- 
ance on  the  statute-book.  It  origi- 
nated in  an  evasion  of  the  Elizabethan 
provision  against  presentation  to  a 
living  for  any  bond,  covenant,  or  as- 
surance. To  defeat  this  prohibition 
on  its  own  ground,  "  general  bonds 
of  resignation"  were  invented,  and 
until  the  year  1783  were  capable 
of  enforcement  both  at  law  and  equity. 
In  that  year 

"  The  judges  of  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench,  with  Lord  Mansfield  as  their 
chief,  had,  upon  the  authority  of  several 
decided  cases,  held  these  general  bonds 
valid,  confirming,  on  appeal,  a  decision 
of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  Upon  a 
further  appeal,  however,  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  that  tribunal  was,  after  several 
questions  had  been  put  to  the  judges, 
who,  differing  in  opinion,  were  directed 
to  deliver  their  opinions  seriatim,  moved 
by  Lord  Thurlow  to  reverse  the  judgment 
of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench.  The  mo- 
tion was  carried  by  a  majority  of  1, 
there  being  19  votes  in  the  affirmative, 
and  18  in  the  negative.  The  question, 
however,  was  not  yet  fully  settled.  Whe- 
ther bonds  conditioned  on  resignation  in 
favour  of  specified  persons  were  illegal 
or  not,  remained  an  open  question. 

"  But  in  the  year  1826  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  held  that  such  bonds  were 
legal  ;  but  the  House  of  Lords  again  dif- 
fered from  the  Court  of  King's  Bench. 
The  judges  to  whom  the  question  was 
referred  also  differed  in  opinion,  but  the 
majority  pronounced  such  a  bond  to  be 
illegal,  the  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon  and 
six  judges  holding  a  contrary  opinion. 
At  length,  to  set  the  question  at  rest,  the 
Statutes  7  and  8  George  IV.,  c.  25,  and 
9  George  IV.,  c.  94,  were  passed,  where- 
by bonds  conditioned  for  the  resignation 


*  Chief  Justice  Best:  Fox  «.  Bishop  of  Chester,  6  Bing.  Rep.,  1  &  2  B.  and  Cr.,  635. 
t  This  lame  expedient  would  only  have  the  effect  of  increasing  the  sale  of  advow- 
sons. 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


67$ 


of  a  benefice  are  rendered  legal,  under 
the  provisions  we  have  named. " — Pp. 
150, 151,  WADDILOVE. 

The  law,  however,  has  pronounced 
its  own  condemnation  by  its  well- 
attested  inefficiency.  That  ineffi- 
ciency cannot  be  attributed  to  any 
want  of  severity :  its  very  severity 
has  been  the  cause  of  its  defeat.  In- 
tending murder,  it  has  committed  sui- 
cide. The  public  opinion  of  this  hard- 
headed  generation,  apt  to  examine 
the  principle  of  things,  and  no  longer 
the  slave  of  mere  tradition,  has  ma- 
terially influenced  the  tone  of  parlia- 
mentary legislation  on  the  point  in 
question.  Several  recent  acts,  not 
only  enabling,  but  compelling  the 
sale  of  benefices,  prove  that  modern 
parliaments  view  the  transfer  of 
Church  temporalities  in  a  very  differ- 
ent light  from  that  in  which  it  was 
regarded  by  the  senates  of  Elizabeth 
and  Anne.  The  Municipal  Corpora- 
tion Act  directs  that  advowsons,  and 
the  right  of  presentation  to  any  bene- 
fice possessed  by  any  body  corporate, 
shall  be  sold,  and  the  proceeds  ap- 
plied to  the  purposes  and  uses  of  the 
body  corporate.  The  powers  vested 
in  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners, 
and  the  reception  given  to  certain 
Capitular  Estate  Bills,  speak  unde- 
niably the  same  language.  The  in- 
efficiency of  the  law  is  patent :  acts 
which  it  declares  simoniacal  are  fre- 
quent, but  no  steps  are  taken  to 
punish  the  offenders.  The  reports  of 
our  common  law  courts  are  almost 
barren  of  proceedings  against  Simon- 
iacal patrons  :  nor  are  the  ecclesias- 
tical courts  more  apt  to  encourage 
the  prosecution  of  corrupt  presentees. 
From  the  year  1752  to  the  present 
day,  two  solitary  cases  only  are  re- 
corded. In  1840,  a  serious  charge  of 
selling  his  collations  to  various  be- 
nefices was  brought  against  the  Dean 
of  York.  *  The  Archbishop's  com- 
missary declared  himself  satisfied  with 
the  proofs ;  but  the  Court  of  Queen's 
Bench  overruled  his  sentence,  and 
saved  the  Dean  from  deprivation. 
And  this  is  a  case  where  the  charge 
amounted  to  simony  in  its  truest 
sense  ;  for  the  Dean  was  both  patron 
and  ordinary  of  the  churches  he  was 
accused  of  selling.  And  the  insufficiency 


of  the  oath  at  institution  is  acknow- 
ledged by  Dr  Phillimore  himself,  f 

But  what  is  the  specific  devised  by 
Dr  Phillimore  for  the  solution  of  this 
problem  in  ecclesiastical  law?  All 
the  ingenuity  and  learning  of  this 
experienced  lawyer  can  contrive  no 
more  felicitous  expedient  than  a  pro- 
hibition of  the  sale  of  next  presenta- 
tions. Such  was  the  measure  which 
he  and  his  party  perseveringly  urged 
upon  Parliament  last  year  and  the 
year  before,— a  measure  still  falla- 
ciously paraded  and  eulogised  by  his 
partisans  in  the  press,  and  only 
dropped  for  the  moment  to  be  revived 
on  the  first  opportunity. 

Manifold  and  decisive  are  the  objec- 
tions to  such  an  antidote ;  space  will 
not  allow  us  to  specify  them  all  in  de- 
tail, but  we  will  at  any  rate  invite  the 
reader's  attention  to  their  salient 
points,  and  enable  him  to  judge  whe- 
ther it  may  not  be  possible  to  suggest 
a  scheme  less  open  to  exceptions  fatal 
to  its  efficacy. 

In  the  first  place,  the  measure,  so 
far  from  palliating,  would  only  aggra- 
vate the  disease.  It  would  only  have 
the  effect  of  multiplying  tenfold  the 
sale  of  advowsons.  To  give  the  mea- 
sure any  degree  of  practical  efficiency, 
it  would  be  requisite  to  introduce  a 
bill  dealing  with  advowsons  also. 
Dr  Phillimore,  indeed,  denies  that  he 
has  any  such  intention:  his  innocence 
is  most  engaging;  but  we  can  only 
infer  that  he  enjoys  but  partially  the 
confidence  of  the  party  which  has  found 
it  convenient  to  employ  him  as  their 
tool.  That  the  annihilation  of  the  rights 
of  lay  patronage  is  their  real  and  scarce- 
ly-concealed object,  is  clear  from  the 
articles  of  their  organ — the  Guard- 
ian newspaper,  which  complains  that 
Dr  Phillimore  did  not  go  far  enough, 
and  that  the  sale  of  advowsons  also 
must  be  prohibited.  For  what  would 
be  the  effect  of  such  a  prohibition  ? 
The  disposal  of  presentations  and  ad- 
vowsons by  sale  being  denied  to  their 
possessors,  the  appointments  would 
remain,  in  a  vast  number  of  instances, 
in  the  most  indigent,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  most  improper  hands  in 
which  we  could  possibly  vest  the  no- 
mination. Not  only  would  the  ap- 
pointments themselves  suffer,  but  the 


*  Reported  2  Adol.  and  Ell.,  p.  1. 
VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


f  HANSARD,  March  22, 1854. 

2Y 


680 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


local  charities,  the  parochial  interests, 
would  be  starved.    A  cry  would  then 
be  raised  against  lay  patronage  itself. 
The  siege  indeed  would  have  been 
conducted  after  the  most  approved 
methods  of  certain  modern  politicians. 
The  institution,  long  undermined  by 
systematic  and   studiously -cherished 
abuse,  would  at  first  be  mutilated,  and 
then  destroyed.    Dr  Phillimore,  in- 
deed, thinks  proper  to  lavish  his  very 
suspicious   eulogy  upon  lay  patron- 
age, abstractly  considered.    But  we 
hardly  know  whether  the  smiles  or 
the  frowns  of  these  ecclesiastical  re- 
formers are  the  most  deadly  to  their 
victims.     "  When  they  take  to  prais- 
ing institutions,"  says  Sir  E.  B.  Lyt- 
ton,  "  it  is  time  to  pray  God  for  them." 
It  would  be  truistical  to  expatiate  at 
length  on  the  benefits  of  lay  patron- 
age ;  suffice  it  to  remind  the  reader 
that  it  insures  two  objects  of  para- 
mount importance,— the  due  influence 
of  the  laity  in  Church  appointments, 
and  the  protection  of  the  Church  from 
a  very  serious  evil — the  exclusive  as- 
cendancy of  anyone  theological  school. 
Annihilate  it,  and  what  remains?  The 
vacant  patronage  must  either  be  as- 
signed to  the  Crown  or  the  Bishops, 
or  else  be  vested  in  a  permanent  com- 
mission.     The  two  former  alterna- 
tives will  not  hold  water  for  an  in- 
stant ;  the  latter  would  be  the  most 
odious  and  pernicious  form  in  which 
centralisation   could  be    substituted 
for  local  government.    It  would  lead, 
besides,  to  a  vast  amount  of  system- 
atic jobbery,  and  would  achieve   all 
that  legislation  could  effect  towards 
killing  those  pious   and  affectionate 
sympathies   which  bind  the  country 
gentleman  to  the  parish  church.    To 
abandon  the  preferment  to  the  Crown, 
would  be  almost  as  impossible  as  it 
would  be  prejudicial :  the  nomination 
of  bishops  by  a  Minister  who  may  be 
a    dissenter,    is    already    unpopular 
enough,      Erastianism,  strained  fur- 
ther, would  be  self- destructive.    To 
vest  the  lay  *  patronage  in  the  Epis- 
copal bench,  would  be  to  realise  in 


Protestant  England  the  darling  scheme 
of  Hildebrand ;  a  vision  which  may 
float  before  the  dreamy  imagination 
of  some  enthusiastic  medievalist; 
but  which,  were  it  not  the  legitimate 
issue  of  Dr  Phillimore's  proposals, 
could  hardly,  we  should  have  thought, 
have  presented  itself  to  the  practical 
reformer. 

Independently  of  this,  it  would  tend 
directly  to  aggravate  one  of  the  worst 
abuses  incidental  to  the  existing  sys- 
tem. If  a  man  is  prevented  from  sell- 
ing the  next  presentation,  but  is  able 
to  sell  the  next  but  one,  the  result 
will  be  that  predicted  by  the  Attorney- 
General  :  the  next  presentation  will 
be  given,  by  an  arrangement  between 
the  seller  and  the  buyer,  to  some  one 
whose  years  and  infirmities  have  been 
most  carefully  ascertained  and  weigh- 
ed, and  the  following  presentation 
will  be  sold  at  a  higher  rate  to  the 
purchaser. 

Another  and  more  serious  objection 
to  Dr  Phillimore's  scheme  is  furnished 
by  the  fact  that  it  would  enhance 
the  existing  evils  of  family  patronage, 
and  would  close  the  main  avenue  to 
clerical  independence  against  that 
large  and  useful  class  of  clergymen 
who  have  no  family  livings  to  reward 
them,  and  who  are  too  numerous  to 
receive,  or  too  unambitious  to  court, 
episcopal  preferment.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  middle  classes  are  far 
more  apt  to  consult  the  capabilities 
and  wishes  of  their  children,  in  the 
choice  of  professions,  than  the  aristo- 
cracy and  the  country  gentlemen. 
They  contribute  to  the  service  of  the 
Church  a  body  of  men  whom  taste 
and  conscious  fitness  lead  to  the  min- 
istry, and  whose  private  fortunes 
exempt  them  from  the  mean  and 
odious  subservience  of  the  clerical 
adventurer.  From  this  infusion  of 
new  blood,  the  Church  and  the  patri- 
cian order  alike  reap  strength  and 
vigour.  The  merchant  who  starts  his 
sons  in  life  with  .£5000  or  £10,000 
a-piece,  invests  the  clerical  aspirant's 
portion  in  the  purchase  of  a  benefice, 


*  Of  the  11,728  benefices  in  England  and  Wales,  1144  are  in  the  gift  of  the 
Crown  ;  1853  in  that  of  the  bishops;  938  in  that  of  cathedral  chapters  and  other 
dignitaries;  790,  in  addition  to  the  presentation  of  those  belonging  to  Papists,  are  in 
that  of  the  universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  the  Colleges  of  Eton,  Win- 
chester, &c. ;  931  in  that  of  the  ministers  of  the  mother  churches  ;  and  the  residue, 
6092,  in  that  of  private  persons.— Return  on  Religious  Worship,  Census  of  1851. 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


681 


which  will  at  least  insure  his  ministe- 
rial labours  a  healthy  independence. 
Dr  Phillimore  would  condemn  many  a 
pious  and  able  clergyman  to  waste  his 
days  in  the  uncongenial  sphere  of  a 
curacy,  his  best  efforts  neutralised 
by  the  apathy  or  stupidity  of  a  rector 
who  cannot  appreciate,  and  will  not 
second  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  future  career  of  the  youthful  scions 
of  a  landed  family  is  frequently  deter- 
mined, almost  before  their  birth,  by 
influences  beyond  their  control.  For 
the  advowson  acts  as  a  perpetual  in- 
centive to  train  up  a  member  of  the 
family  to  fill  the  vacant  living ; 
whereas  a  next  presentation  is  bought 
with  a  view  to  some  definite  person, 
who  is  either  already  a  clergyman,  or 
about  to  enter  into  holy  orders,  and 
whom  his  own  taste  and  inclinations 
have  led  to  the  service  of  the  Church. 
So  fallacious  is  the  argument  of  Dr 
Phillimore  and  Lord  Goderich,  that 
the  power  of  purchasing  next  presen- 
tations is  a  dangerous  incentive  to 
seek  admission  to  holy  orders  from 
corrupt  motives  !  It  is  the  possession 
of  advowsons,  which  these  eccentric 
politicians  retain — not  the  sale  of  pre- 
sentations, which  they  long  to  abolish 
— that  is  apt  to  exert  this  influence ! 
Besides,  it  is  ridiculous  to  assert  that, 
in  purchasing  a  next  presentation  for 
a  son,  a  parent  suggests  to  him  "  cor- 
rupt motives "  for  aspiring  to  the 
ministry.  In  a  pecuniary  point  of 
view,  the  purchase  of  a  benefice  is 
probably  the  worst  investment  in 
which  the  filial  fortunes  could  embark. 
The  truth  is,  that  Dr  Phillimore, 
though  a  civilian  and  canonist  of  no 
mean  reputation,  has  been  guilty  of 
the  great  logical  and  historical  error 
of  confounding  the  vital  distinction 
between  the  temporal  and  the  spiri- 
tual elements  of  ecclesiastical  office. 
This  is  clear,  not  only  from  the  general 
tenor  of  his  speech,  but  from  the 


egregious  fallacy  of  the  comparisons 
by  which  he  seeks  to  illustrate  and  to 
fortify  his  argument.  He  actually 
attempts  to  identify  the  sale  of  a 
benefice  with  the  sale  of  a  judgeship, 
as  equally  a  breach  of  decency  and 
propriety.  It  is  almost  superfluous 
to  remark  that  the  appointment  of  a 
judge  is  but  a  civil  act  of  the  Crown, 
involving,  without  any  formal  inquiry, 
a  presumed  capacity  of  administering 
justice  in  the  nominee  ;  whereas  the 
purchase  of  a  benefice  merely  implies 
a  right  to  the  emoluments  conditional 
on  the  diocesan's  approbation  of  the 
minister.  To  justify  the  fictitious 
analogy  set  up  by  Dr  Phillimore,  not 
only  the  mere  temporalities  of  a  living 
must  have  been  conveyed  by  sale,  but 
the  bishop  must  have  been  prevailed 
upon  to  institute  by  bribes.  His 
whole  scheme  is  pervaded  by  the 
radical  error  into  which,  as  we  have 
explained  above,  accident  rather  than 
intention  originally  betrayed  the  Me- 
dieval Church ;  an  error  palliable, 
perhaps,  in  the  abettors  of  Hilde- 
brand's  policy,  but  not  in  Dr  Philli- 
more, who  might  have  learnt  better 
even  from  a  common  lawyer  half  a 
century  ago.  For  Blackstone,  pre- 
judiced as  he  undoubtedly  was  in 
favour  of  received  and  traditional  ex- 
positions of  the  law,  had  forcibly 
pointed  out  the  general  misapprehen- 
sion of  the  essence  of  Simony.  "  The 
true,"  writes  that  eminent  authority, 
"though  not  the  common  notion  of 
Simony,  is,  if  any  person  obtains 
orders  or  a  license  to  preach  by  money 
or  corrupt  practices ; "  an  offence 
punishable  by  statute,  both  in  the 
person  giving  and  the  person  receiv- 
ing preferment. 

We  have  too  strong  a  case  against 
Dr  Phillimore  to  think  it  needful  to 
press  the  argument  derivable  from  the 
widespread  mischiefs  which  a  revul- 
sion in  the  law  of  property  *  invariably 


*  Supposing  the  owner  of  a  next  presentation  to  die  bankrupt  or  insolvent,  hia 
assignee  is  bound  by  the  law  to  sell  the  next  presentation,  and  divide  the  proceeds 
among  the  creditors.  Turns  of  presentation  are  frequently  the  subjects  of  bequest  by 
will,  with  directions  for  their  sale— are  dealt  with  by  settlement  and  deeds  of  gift- 
are  not  unfrequently  affected  by  mortgage  and  similar  charges,  and  are  deemed  as 
much  a  portion  of  the  estate  of  individuals  as  the  acres  they  hold  or  the  money  they 
possess.  This  constitutes  their  wide  difference  from  the  disfranchised  boroughs,  the 
traffic  in  which,  though  practised,  was  never  recognised  as  a  legal  transaction  capable 
of  enforcement.  Advowsons,  &c.  are  at  once  a  property  and  a  trust  j  borough  nomi- 
nations were,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  a  trust  only. 


682 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage, 


[Dec. 


occasions.  We  might  also  clearly 
show  that,  in  mere  consistency,  the 
principle  of  his  bill  involves  a  crusade 
against  the  lay  impropriation  of 
tithes.  But  perhaps  the  strongest 
objection  to  his  proposal,  is  the  ut- 
ter impossibility  of  his  ever  inducing 
the  House  of  Commons  to  acquiesce 
in  such  a  scheme.  The  large  majori- 
ties which  rejected  the  bills — the  ex- 
posure of  the  futility  and  the  suicidal 
tendency  of  the  measure — together 
with  the  vast  and  pernicious  surrender 
of  the  rights  of  the  laity,  which  its  prin- 
ciple, once  embodied  in  an  Act  of  Par- 
liament, would  concede  to  an  extreme 
party  in  the  Church,  distrusted  by 
every  section  of  the  House — these  and 
other  considerations  conspire  to  re- 
lieve us  from  any  apprehension  that 
it  will  ever  be  registered  by  a  British 
Senate  among  the  statutes  of  the  land. 
Fully  acknowledging,  however,  the 
reality  of  the  evils  upon  which  the 
learned  civilian  and  his  party  have 
founded  their  repeated  appeals  to  the 
legislature,  we  will  endeavour  to  sug- 
gest a  mode  of  dealing  with  the  sub- 
ject which  will  cancel  the  anomalies 
of  the  existing  law ;  which,  without 
any  compromise  of  Church  principle, 
will  prove  acceptable  to  Parliament, 
and  especially  to  the  proprietors  of  lay 
patronage ;  and  will  the  better  entitle 
the  Church  to  demand  from  the  Legis- 
lature, by  way  of  return,  a  security 
we  believe  essential  to  her  welfare. 
If,  as  we  trust,  we  have  successfully 
shown  that  the  distinction  between 
the  temporalities  and  spiritualities  of 
the  Church  is  a  real  distinction,  found- 
ed in  the  nature  of  things — a  distinc- 
tion at  first  undesignedly  obscured, 
but  afterwards  systematically  ignored 
by  the  policy  of  the  medieval,  but 
especially  of  the  papal  Church  ;  if  we 
have  shown  that  the  obliteration  of 
that  distinction  has  engendered  great 
anomalies  in  the  law,  great  perplexity 
in  the  conscience,  great  scandal  in  the 
Church,  and  great  embarrassment  both 
to  clergymen  and  to  lay  patrons; — 
then,  surely,  we  may  safely  appeal  to 
Parliament  to  vindicate  the  true  prin- 
ciple of  the  law;  to  revert  to  the 
original,  we  might  justly  say,  the 
apostolic  definition  of  simony;  to 


disentangle  our  statutes  from  the  com- 
plication and  confusion  in  which  the 
irreconcilable  jealousies  of  civilians, 
canonists,  and  common  lawyers  have 
involved  them ;  to  cancel  the  unnatural 
divorce  between  the  rights  of  con- 
science and  the  statute  law;  in  a 
word,  to  repeal  the  arbitrary  and 
vexatious  restrictions  which  so  in- 
juriously fetter  the  innocent  transfer 
of  the  temporalities  of  the  Church. 

Superficial  critics  and  dreamy  en- 
thusiasts may  charge  us  with  scandal- 
ising the  feelings  of  certain  pious  but 
weak  members  of  the  Anglican  com- 
munion, who  profess  their  horror  ot 
the  sale  of  presentations.  We  beg  to 
ask,  what  can  be  more  scandalous, 
what  can  be  a  readier  weapon  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemies  of  the  Church, 
than  the  spectacle  of  clergymen  tam- 
pering with  their  engagements ;  evad- 
ing the  statute  of  Elizabeth  by  a  sin- 
ister interpretation,  and  the  statute  of 
Anne  by  negotiating,  through  the 
medium  of  friends  or  relatives,  what 
they  cannot  negotiate  in  person? 
Evasions  of  the  law  are  always  more 
disparaging  to  the  clergy  than  to  other 
classes  of  the  community;  they  are 
especially  so,  when  the  law,  so  tena- 
cious of  ancient  prejudice,  brands 
these  innocent  transactions  with  the 
odious  imputation  of  simony. 

There  is,  however,  as  we  have 
stated,  an  essential  counterpart  to  this 
measure.  If  lay  patronage  requires 
freedom  from  arbitrary  fetters,  the 
Church  demands  protection  against 
corrupt  nominations.  The  bishops 
ought  to  be  invested  with  power — ot 
course,  subject  to  appeal — to  reject 
disqualified  candidates  when  they 
present  themselves  for  institution. 
At  present  the  law  is  in  a  very  un- 
satisfactory state  upon  this  point. 
The  EdinburgTi,  as  we  mentioned,  re- 
flects upon  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  the 
odium  of  admitting  the  decrepit  rector 
of  St  Ervan's  to  his  cure ;  but  the 
truth  is,  as  the  bishop's  secretary  ad- 
mitted, that  the  law  allowed  his  lord- 
ship no  discretion.  The  diocesan* 
may  object  to  a  candidate  on  the 
ground  that  he  is  under  the  age  re- 
quired by  law;  that  he  is  not  in 
priest's  orders ;  and  upon  the  grounds 


*  CRIPPS'  Law*  relating  to  the  Church  and  Clergy,  p.  488  ;  STEPHEN'S  Blackstone* 


1855.] 


Historically  and  Morally  Considered. 


683 


of  heretical  doctrine,  insufficient  learn- 
ing, and  immoral  conduct.  But  if  a 
bishop  were  to  ground  his  objection 
on  the  score  of  old  age  or  physical 
infirmity,  it  is  more  than  doubtful 
whether  the  law  would,  on  appeal, 
sustain  his  refusal.  Many  cases,  of 
which  it  would  be  painful  and  invidious 
to  specify  the  details,  might  be  alleged 
in  proof,  if  proof  was  required,  of  the 
inadequacy  of  the  powers  vested  in 
the  bishop.  That  of  St  Ervan's,  which 
owes  its  publicity  to  the  pen  of  that  in- 
defatigable agitator,  Mr  Osborne,  is 
only  one  among  a  hundred  such.  In 
a  recent  instance,  in  Bucks,  a  very  old 
and  infirm  clerk  having  been  presented 
to  a  rectory,  in  the  charitable  hope  that 
he  might  officiate  as  a  warming-pan  for  a 
year  or  so,  though  disabled  from  offi- 
ciating as  rector,  the  diocesan,  well 
aware  that  he  could  not  meet  the  case 
upon  its  own  merits,  informed  the  no- 
minee, that  if  he  applied  for  institu- 
tion, he  should  push  his  right  of  exa- 
mination to  the  utmost  length  sanc- 
tioned by  law.  The  expedient,  we 
believe,  succeeded ;  but  it  casts  a  severe 
reflection  upon  the  law,  which  con- 
demns a  conscientious  and  eminent 
prelate  to  so  evasive  a  method  of  re- 
jection. A  few  years  ago,  a  discussion 
took  place  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
on  the  presentation  of  Mr  Bennett  to 
the  vicarage  of  Frome,  by  the  Mar- 
chioness of  Bath.  The  friends  of  the 
late  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells  stated, 
upon  that  occasion,  that  had  his  lord- 
ship been  averse  to  the  admission  of 
that  gentleman,  it  was  more  than  pro- 
bable that  he  could  not  legally  have 
denied  him  institution.  Lord  John 
Russell  then  pledged  himself,  in  the 
name  of  the  Government,  to  a  revi- 
sion of  the  law ;  a  pledge  which  we 
trust  will  at  no  distant  period  be  re- 
deemed. Never  was  any  reform  more 
urgently  demanded.  Only  a  few  months 
ago,  a  scene  was  enacted  in  the  dio- 
cese of  Oxford,  which  strikingly  illus- 
trates the  tyranny  of  the  law.  A  lay 
patron  having  applied  to  a  noble  mar- 
quess, the  heir  of  a  noble  duke,  to  re- 
commendhim  a  clergyman  fora  vacant 
benefice  in  his  gift,  the  marquess's  choice 
fell  upon  a  gentleman  who  had  just 
emerged  from  a  second  incarceration 
in  the  county  lunatic  asylum,  and 
whose  mental  imbecility  afforded  him 
every  prospect  of  further  entertain- 


ment within  the  walls  of  that  hospit- 
able and  commodious  structure.  The 
diocesan  remonstrated  with  the  pa- 
tron, who  referred  him  to  themarquess. 
The  nomination  being  persistedin,  the 
prelate  consulted  his  chancellor,  who 
informed  him  that  the  law  would  not 
sanction  his  refusal  to  institute  such 
a  nominee.  The  bishop,  however, 
greatly  to  his  honour,  declared  that 
nothing  short  of  legal  compulsion 
should  induce  him  to  grant  institution 
in  so  flagrant  a  case  of  incapacity. 

Our  readers  will  not  suspect  us  ot 
advocating  any  undue  concession  to 
episcopal  authority;  neither  are  we 
chargeable  with  offering  legitimate 
freedom  to  lay  patronage  with  one 
hand,  while  we  tie  it  up  with  the  other. 
Our  appeal  is  merely  for  that  protec- 
tion to  the  spiritual  functions  of  the 
Church,  which,  from  the  first  institu- 
tion of  lay  patronage,  has  been  de- 
clared, both  by  theory  and  by  experi- 
ence, essential  to  their  purity.  We 
have  no  desire  to  enlarge  indefinitely 
the  scope  of  episcopal  discretion  in 
the  admission  of  nominees  to  the  cure 
of  souls,  even  with  the  safeguard  of 
appeal  to  the  Metropolitan  Court.  One 
great  merit  of  the  common  law  of 
England  is,  the  precision  with  which 
it  fixes  the  rights  and  liabilities  of  per- 
sons. In  this  it  is  even  superior  to 
the  Roman  jurisprudence.  Yet,  in 
this  department  of  the  ecclesiastical 
code,  though  it  is  clear  that  physical 
or  even  mental  debility  is  no  legal  bar 
to  institution,  the  greatest  uncertainty 
prevails  as  to  the  validity  of  other 
exceptions.  On  the  one  hand,  the  law 
urgently  demands  revision;  on  the 
other  hand,  it  requires  enlargement ; 
for  physical  incapacity  ought  surely  to 
be  included  among  the  reasonable 
grounds  which  entitle  a  prelate  to  re- 
ject a  candidate.  Disqualifications 
should  be  defined  with  as  much  preci- 
sion as  the  fluctuation  of  circumstan- 
ces will  allow;  a  candidate  would 
then  find  very  little  difficulty  in  ascer- 
taining his  own  fitness  for  presenta- 
tion to  the  bishop.  The  right  of  ap- 
peal would  of  course  be  retained ;  and, 
while  all  reasonable  freedom  would  be 
given  to  the  transfer  of  temporalities, 
the  Church  would  be  saved  from  the 
scandal  heaped  upon  her  by  the  iniquit- 
ous intrusion  of  clerks  incompetent  to 
fulfil  the  sacred  duties  of  her  ministry. 


684 


Simony  and  Lay  Patronage,  fyc. 


[Dec, 


Such,  then,  are  the  measures  which 
we  earnestly  recommend  for  the  adop- 
tion of  Parliament.  Let  us,  on  the 
one  side,  emancipate  the  sale  of  pre- 
sentations and  advowsons  in  the  pa- 
tronage of  laymen  from  the  galling 
but  abortive  fetters  which  medieval 
tyranny  imposed,  and  popular  preju- 
dice has  riveted — from  restrictions 
powerless  for  good,  powerful  only  to 
promote  evil,  to  embarrass  the  con- 
science, to  perplex  the  law,  and  to 
scandalise  the  Church.  Let  us,  on 
the  other  side,  no  longer  withhold 
from  the  Anglican  Church  those  safe- 
guards which  the  wisdom  of  age  has 
declared  essential  to  the  chastity  of 
her  honour  and  the  purity  of  her  rites. 
Let  Government  boldly  meet  this  im- 
portant question  on  its  own  merits.  Let 
it  dare,  on  this  point  at  least,  to  lead, 
and  not  to  loiter  in  the  rear  of  public 
opinion.  Let  it,  above  all  things, 
warned  by  a  highly  suggestive  paral- 
lel—the melancholy  secession  in  the 
Scotch  communion — dread  to  adjourn 
its  intervention  till  the  rising  tide  of 
party  feeling  becomes  ungovernable, 
and  strands  the  vessel  of  Keform  on 
the  rocks  of  Revolution. 

And  let  it  not  be  said  that  such  a 
relaxation  as  we  recommend  would 
shock  the  religious  feelings  of  the 
people.  At  the  present  day,  nothing 
can  be  more  common  than  the  pur- 
chase and  sale  of  this  species  of  pro- 
perty. The  recently  published  regis- 
ter of  Messrs  Mair  exhibits  every 
month  a  long  array  of  presentations 
and  advowsons  advertised  for  sale. 
But,  it  may  possibly  be  urged,  minis- 
ters who  have  bought  their  own  pre- 
sentations are  hardly  so  acceptable  to 
their  parishioners  as  those  whose  me- 
rits have  been  acknowledged  by  Epis- 
copal preferment.  In  a  few  excep- 
tional cases  such  a  feeling  may  pos- 
sibly exist,  but  we  believe  that  cler- 
gymen are  almost  invariably  esti- 
mated by  the  standard  of  their  own 
character  and  talents  ;  and  the 
feeling  itself  arises  from  the  artificial 
colouring  with  which  a  highly  com- 
plicated system  of  jurisprudence  has 
overlaid  and  distorted  the  genuine 
lineaments  of  the  question  ;  and  also, 
in  a  general  sense  of  the  very  inade- 


quate security  afforded  by  the  law 
against  the  institution  of  candidates 
disqualified  for  the  spiritual  functions 
of  the  ministry.  Let  us  then  revise, 
reform,  and  simplify  this  branch  of 
onr  jurisprudence.  Let  us  grant  the 
Church  the  safeguards  which  she  re- 
quires, and  the  clouds  of  popular  mis- 
apprehension will  speedily  roll  away, 
leaving  the  coast  clear  for  that  equi- 
table adjustment  of  the  problem  which 
alone  can  satisfy  the  exigencies  of  the 
case,  and  reconcile  the  just  pretensions 
of  two  parties  equally  entitled  to  con- 
sideration— the  advocates  of  the  time- 
honoured  system  of  lay  patronage,  and 
the  advocates  of  Episcopal  rights. 

We  will  close  this  article  with  an 
earnest  protest  against  a  corrective 
recommended  by  the  Edinburgh  Review v 
The  writer,  who  agrees  with  us  in  his 
opinion  of  Dr  Phillimore's  bill,  and 
also  in  advising  that  the  sale  of  pre- 
sentations should  be  legalised  without 
restriction,  instead  of  strengthening 
— quoad spiritualia — the  legitimate  au- 
thority of  the  bishop,  suggests,  among 
other  elusory  expedients,  that  the 
parishioners  should  be  intrusted  with 
a  veto  on  the  nomination.  The  mis- 
chiefs of  such  a  concession  are  so  pa- 
tent as  almost  to  dispense  with  illus- 
tration ;  it  would  reduce  the  rights  of 
the  patron  to  an  unsubstantial  shadow ; 
it  would  administer  a  pernicious  sti- 
mulus to  all  the  virulence  of  sectarian 
animosity  and  party  feeling;  it  would 
place  the  clergyman  in  a  very  undig- 
nified position  with  regard  to  all  his 
parishioners — in  a  position  scarcely 
tolerable  towards  the  minority  who 
opposed  his  election ;  while  it  would 
give  birth  to  a  species  of  canvassing 
and  intriguing  as  distressing  to  the 
friends,  as  acceptable  to  the  enemies 
of  the  Church.  We  would  only  refer 
to  the  lamentable  scenes  enacted  at 
Piddington,  in  the  diocese  of  Oxford, 
and  Painswick,  a  sweet  village  over- 
looking the  rich  Vale  of  Gloucester. 
In  the  latter  locality,  where  popular 
election  reigned  supreme,  more  beer 
was  drunk,  and  more  disgraceful  exhi- 
bitions ensued,  than  had  previously 
been  observed  even  at  the  old  borough 
elections,  by  no  means  remarkable  for 
sobriety  and  purity. 


1855.] 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


685 


ILLUSTRATIONS   OF   HERODOTUS. 


WHEN  we  of  the  present  generation 
were  little  boys,  or  rather  a  little  be- 
fore our  time,  classical  proficiency 
was  supposed  to  form  the  neplus  ultra 
of  a  liberal  education ;  and  by  classical 
proficiency  was  understood  the  accu- 
rate and  grammatical  knowledge  of 
the  Greek  and  Roman  languages — 
of  the  Greek  language,  as  limited,  or 
nearly  so,  to  the  dialect  of  Attica — 
of  the  Roman,  as  limited  to  the  Latin 
written  or  spoken  in  the  days  of 
Caesar  and  Cicero.  When  a  man  had 
passed  through  some  great  public 
school,  and  attained  a  tolerable  faci- 
lity in  verse  composition  in  the  dead 
languages — when  he  had  capped  this 
result  by  a  university  degree,  and 
made  what  was  called  the  grand  tour 
of  Europe — his  education  was  said  to 
be  finished  ;  and  if  he  never  opened  a 
book  again,  he  was  considered  quali- 
fied to  rank  as  a  scholar  and  a  gentle- 
man. This  period  was  followed  by  a 
reaction  in  the  opposite  direction : 
except  with  a  small  class  who  still 
adhered  to  the  old  dogmas,  classical 
studies  became  unduly  depreciated, 
and  their  popularity  fell  away.  The 
value  of  all  other  kinds  of  erudition, 
especially  of  that  which  was  practical 
and  utilitarian  in  its  tendency,  became 
enhanced  in  comparison,  and  the-  an- 
tique models  of  thought  and  expression 
seemed  to  incur  the  danger  of  oblivion 
and  contempt.  The  tide  has  now  for 
some  time  been  flowing  again  as  of 
old,  thanks  chiefly  to  the  scholars  of 
Germany,  who,  whatever  harm  they 
may  have  done  by  their  sceptical 
treatment,  have  succeeded  in  restoring 
popularity  to  those  studies  which, 
though  seemingly  inferior  in  market- 
able value,  are  perhaps  superior  to 
all  others  as  a  means  of  perfecting 
the  taste  and  developing  the  imagina- 
tion. At  the  same  time,  it  is  seen 
that  the  old  system  of  teaching  and 
learning  must  be  modified  in  deference 
to  the  requirements  of  the  times — 
that  it  is  necessary  to  remove  ob- 


stacles rather  than  to  create  them,  as 
there  is  so  much  to  learn  in  a  short 
life  that  even  those  studies  which  are 
the  basis  of  all  sound  education  can- 
not claim  the  right  to  be  exclusively 
pursued,  but  must  be  arranged  so  as 
to  leave  time  for  other  things,  which, 
though  less  dignified  in  their  nature, 
are  still  essential,  and  indeed  indis- 
pensable. 

It  stands  to  reason  that,  before  the 
invention  of  printing,  when  books 
were  scarce  and  dear,  and  the  multi- 
plication of  copies  at  the  same  time 
an  impossibility,  men  were  more  apt 
to  write,  if  they  did  not  think  or 
speak,  correctly  and  with  forethought, 
than  in  these  days,  when  -the  results 
of  some  years'  labour  of  a  mighty 
genius  may  be  bought  at  a  railway- 
stall  for  a  shilling,  as  well  as  a  budget 
of  trash  by  some  third-rate  novelist. 
This  carefulness  in  composition  be- 
came in  the  middle  ages,  under  the 
Procrustean  rule  of  the  Church,  pe- 
dantry and  primness ;  and  the  same 
character  was  given  to  the  publication 
of  the  works  of  the  ancients, — works 
as  free  from  these  qualities  as  any  in 
modern  times,  and  which  united  ex- 
quisite taste  with  scope  of  thought 
and  freedom  of  speculation,  such  as 
modern  genius  can  only  at  best  re- 
produce and  amplify.  In  this  point 
of  view,  the  Greek  mind  resembled 
the  modern  even  more  than  the  Ro- 
man, as  the  Romans  were  litterateurs 
not  so  much  by  nature  as  by  imita- 
tion, their  proper  vocation  being  war 
and  legislation.  It  follows  that  no- 
where is  scholastic  dust  and  pedantry 
more  out  of  place  than  when  lying 
like  a  dead  weight  on  the  works  of 
the  Greeks,  which  are  by  nature 
lively,  luminous  as  the  air  of  Attica, 
and  free  as  the  winds  which  swept 
over  the  mountains  of  Arcadia.  Na- 
tural science  alone  can  boast  of  im- 
proving on  the  Greeks ;  in  the  philo- 
sophy of  mind  and  morals — in  all 
that  regards  man  as  man — in  the 


The  Geography  of  Herodotus.  By  J.  TALBOTS  WHEELEB,  F.R.G.S.  Longman  and 
Co.  1854.' 

The  Life  and  Travels  of  Herodotus.  By  J.  TALBOTS  WHEELEB,  F.R.G.S.  Longman 
and  Co.  1855. 


686 

expression  of  all  verities  but  the 
miraculous  truths  of  Revelation — in 
politics  and  belles  lettres,  and  the 
principles  of  the  fine  arts — they  are, 
and  are  likely  to  remain  for  ever,  our 
masters.  On  these  subjects,  every- 
thing that  has  been  said  in  modern 
times  has  perhaps  been  better  said  by 
the  Greeks,  because  they  possess  a 
language  to  winch,  in  power  and 
beauty  and  versatility,  no  language  of 
modern  Europe  has  ever  yet  been 
able  to  approach.  The  surpassing 
excellence  of  that  language  is  an 
index  of  the  extraordinary  vigour  and 
subtlety  of  the  genius  that  engendered 
it.  Each  of  their  authors  of  the  first 
class  is  a  mine  of  intellectual  wealth, 
to  the  availability  of  whose  riches  it 
is  impossible  to  say  how  much  we 
owe,  and  from  which  all  well-educated 
readers  and  thinkers  in  our  times  steal 
and  borrow,  sometimes  unconsciously, 
but  always  too  frequently  without 
acknowledgment,  as  the  remoteness 
of  the  times  in  which  they  lived  has 
destroyed  that  fence  of  jealousy  which 
guards  the  productions  of  contempo- 
raries or  immediate  predecessors. 

Now,  there  is  none  among  the 
ancients  who  has  done  more  for  uni- 
versal knowledge  than  Herodotus  of 
Halicarnassus,  and  no  great  teacher 
has  ever  taught  mankind  in  a  more 
modest,  genial,  and  agreeable  manner. 
Thucydides  is  a  great  sage,  but  so 
unalterably  and  unbendingly  grave 
that  we  always  feel  abashed  in  his 
presence ;  and  true  to  his  character 
as  a  philosophic  historian,  he  disdains 
to  descend  to  the  lesser  feelings  of 
humanity.  He  mentions  the  death 
of  a  hero,  the  capture  of  a  city,  or  the 
change  of  a  government,  with  the  same 
self-complacent  terseness  and  practi- 
cality ;  while  Herodotus,  in  his  unaf- 
fected narratives,  is  for  ever  pulling 
at  the  heart-strings  of  his  readers, 
and,  as  you  stop  to  converse  with 
him,  hooks  his  arm  in  yours,  and 
takes  you  a  very  long  walk,  beguiling 
your  ears  all  the  way  with  his  de- 
lightful gossip,  and  making  you  laugh 
and  cry  by  turns,  till  you  are  much 
too  late  for  all  your  appointments, 
and  well  contented  with  having  been 
so  cheated  out  of  them. 

If  Mr  Wheeler's  task  had  merely 
been  to  make  Herodotus  easy,  we 
should  have  said  that  he  might  have 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


[Dec. 


spared  his  labour,  as  there  is  no  easier 
author  in  existence.  His  meaning  is 
always  clear;  his  constructions  are 
never  crabbed;  his  soft  Ionian  lan- 
guage flows  on  in  an  unbroken  and 
gentle  stream, 

"  With  syllables  that  should  be  writ  ou 
satin." 

His  digressions  from  the  pursuit  of 
his  subject  are  delightful  in  their 
naivete",  and  their  causes  are  so 
manifest  that  they  never  confuse  or 
puzzle.  They  make  up  a  tale  which 
is  like  the  expanded  table-talk  of  some 
charming  companion,  digressing  to 
any  extent  for  the  sake  of  explana- 
tion, but  never  wearying,  because  he 
has  always  something  novel  or  en- 
tertaining to  say.  But  Mr  Wheeler 
has  brought  a  vast  store  of  modern 
research  to  bear  on  the  subjects  of 
Herodotus's  history ;  he  has  con- 
sulted nearly  every  known  autho- 
rity, and  by  adding  to  his  facts,  and 
elucidating  things  necessarily  ob- 
scure in  his  time,  he  has  given  him  the 
benefit  of  two  thousand  years  of  expe- 
rience, and  brought  him,  as  it  were,  on 
the  stage  of  life,  so  as  not  to  startle 
those  he  meets,  in  a  costume  of  the 
present  day.  His  facts  are  impressed 
on  the  memory  by  comparison  with 
parallel  facts  that  have  come  to  pass 
since  ;  his  fables  are  cleared  of  their 
fiction,  and  the  truth  that  is  in  them 
brought  out ;  his  theories  are  weighed 
in  the  balance,  and  often,  when  least 
expected,  not  found  wanting ;  above 
all,  his  character  as  an  honest  man  for 
a  Greek,  and  honest  teacher,  is  abun- 
dantly indicated,  and  he  comes  before 
us,  not  so  much  as  an  obscure  lion 
introduced  by  a  patron,  as  a  great 
master  ushered  into  notice  by  an  affec- 
tionate and  reverential  pupil.  From 
circumstances  in  which  he  has  recently 
been  placed,  Herodotus  has  only  stood 
in  too  much  need  of  such  an  advocate 
or  witness  to  character.  Mr  Wheeler 
says,  in  his  preface  to  the  Geography — 

"While  the  present  work  has  been 
passing  through  the  press,  a  new  attempt 
lias  been  made  to  assail  the  credibility  of 
Herodotus,  and  to  detract  from  his  renown 
as  a  traveller  and  historian.  The  genius 
of  the  great  father  of  history  has  preserved 
his  writings  nearly  intact  for  twenty-three 
centuries  ;  whilst  his  character  for  integ- 
rity has  outlived  the  attacks  of  every  dis- 


1855.] 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


contented  critic  from  Plutarch  to  Voltaire. 
His  present  assailant,  Mr  Blakesley,  is  a 
scholar  of  a  very  different  stamp  from  his 
predecessors.  Actuated  by  no  mean  jea- 
lousy, and  yielding  to  the  influence  of  no 
scornful  wit,  he  has  been  led,  by  a  pro- 
found love  for  abstract  truth,  to  pronounce 
somewhat  too  harshly  against  the  straight- 
forward narrative  of  the  old  Ionian.  That 
much  of  Herodotus's  information  is  only  to 
be  received  on  secondary  evidence,  will 
be  readily  admitted  by  all ;  but  Mr 
Blakesley  would  regard  him  as  a  mere 
pleasing  compiler,  like  Oliver  Goldsmith, 
prevented  from  travelling  by  the  exigen- 
cies of  the  time,  and  differing  but  very 
little,  if  at  all,  from  the  logographers  who 
preceded  him,  either  in  critical  sagacity, 
diligent  investigation,  or  historical  fidelity ; 
blending  together  in  one  mass  the  yarns 
of  merchant  skippers,  the  tales  current  in 
caravanseries,  the  legends  of  the  exegetse 
of  temples,  and  the  long  details  of  veteran 
sailors  and  septuagenarian  hoplites ;  ex- 
ercising but  little  discrimination  in  the 
solution  of  his  facts,  careless  in  stating  his 
authorities,  laying  claim  to  more  experi- 
ence and  personal  research  than  he  was 
entitled  to ;  and,  in  fact,  belonging  to  the 
same  school  as  Charon,  Hellanicus,  Xan- 
thus,  Hecatseus,  and  others,  from  whom 
lie  largely  copied  without  acknowledg- 
ment, and  only  exhibited  perhaps  a  doubt- 
ful superiority  in  the  style  and  treatment 
of  his  materials." 

We  are  happy  to  see  Mr  Wheeler 
take  up  arms  against  the  historical 
sceptics  ;  those  who  shake  the  founda- 
tion of  all  hitherto  believed  facts  by 
an  incredulous  treatment  which,  how- 
ever honest  and  sincere  it  may  be, 
appears  like  an  attempt  to  earn  the 
praise  of  novelty  and  ingenuity  at  the 
expense  of  the  character  of  all  anti- 
quity. 

We  have  had  enough  of  this  from 
the  Germans,  whose  present  political 
situation  is  a  fit  commentary  on  the 
dreary  scepticism  of  their  philosophy. 
We  are  sorry  to  see  Englishmen  fol- 
lowing in  their  path.  They  had  better 
give  up  the  attempt  at  such  imitation, 
for  they  do  it  badly;  they  are  checked 
in  their  career  of  the  destruction  of 
historical  faith  by  the  honesty  and 
straightforwardness  of  their  own  cha- 
racters. It  was  inconsistent,  for  in- 
stance, in  a  man  so  positive  and  dog- 
matic as  Arnold  to  follow  in  the  steps 
of  Niebuhr,  and  attempt  to  sublime 
away  the  personalities  of  the  sturdy 
old  kings  of  Rome  into  epochs  ;  incou- 


687 

sistent  in  Grote,  another  positive  and 
dogmatic  writer,  though  in  his  own 
peculiar  way,  to  attempt  to  reverse 
the  judgments  of  all  the  best  of  the 
ancients,  and  rescue  from  merited 
shame  the  demagogues  and  sophists 
of  ancient  Athens.  We  may  eluci- 
date and  enlarge  upon  the  classic 
writers ;  we  can  scarcely,  unless  we 
have  an  overweening  confidence  in 
our  own  judgment,  endeavour  to  put 
the  facts  they  give  us  in  a  new  light, 
or  turn  into  symbolic  shadows  those 
things  which  they  put  before  us  as 
hard  facts. 

But  no  one  will  deny,  these  men 
may  say,  that  Herodotus  and  Livy 
mixed  up  fables  innumerable  with 
their  respective  histories.  True  ;  but 
they  never  intended  to  palm  off  fable 
for  fact.  Before  novels  existed,  his- 
torical works  partook  of  the  character 
of  novels,  and  it  is  quite  as  easy  to  sec 
what  part  the  writer  intended  to  be 
accepted  as  fact,  and  what  part  he 
appended  being  fabulous,  for  the  sake 
of  embellishment,  as  it  is  to  distin- 
guish fact  from  fiction  in  the  histori- 
cal plays  of  Shakespeare,  or  the  his- 
torical romances  of  Scott.  It  was 
necessary,  before  hard-headed  plodding 
readers  existed,  to  make  all  works 
artistic,  entertaining,  and  poetical ; 
and  for  this  reason  the  old  historians 
made  no  secret  of  dressing  out  the  facts 
they  presented  with  an  elaborate  or- 
namentation of  fable.  The  intellec- 
tual digestion  of  the  ancients  was 
incapable  of  relishing  any  feast  that 
was  not  dressed  out  with  flowers  ;  for 
though  giants  in  imaginative  power, 
they  were  children  in  freshness  of  feel- 
ing, and  peremptory  demand  for  in- 
cessant amusement.  But  the  fact  is, 
that  this  tendency  to  explain  away 
facts  which  has  now  resulted  in  Ger- 
many in  explaining  away  duties  both 
social  and  political,  is  as  uncalled  for 
as  it  was  perverse.  The  fables  of 
Herodotus  and  Livy  were  not  false- 
hoods, for  they  were  not  intended  to 
deceive.  No  one  could  really  be- 
lieve that  Romulus  and  Remus  were 
suckled  by  a  she-wolf;  but  we  cannot 
see  what  the  identity  of  the  brothers 
themselves  had  to  do  with  that  of  their 
fabulous  nurse.  And  if  the  historians 
themselves  partly  believed  the  fables 
they  related,  this  was  only  a  proof  of 
their  childlike  credulity,  surely  not  of 


688 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


[Dec. 


their  dishonesty.  We  must  of  course 
exercise  our  common  sense  as  to  the 
selection  of  their  facts  ;  but  if  we  find 
their  characters  to  be  such  as  to  en- 
title them  to  our  personal  respect,  we 
are  bound  to  give  them  credit  for  ab- 
sence of  an  intention  to  deceive  us,  by 
presenting  us  with  fictions  in  the  shape 
of  facts.  With  regard  to  Livy,  we 
think  the  honesty  of  his  narrative 
more  difficult  to  prove  than  that  of 
Herodotus.  He  may  have  been  led 
astray,  not  by  selfish  motives,  but  by 
his  patriotism,  to  suppress  things  which 
tended  to  diminish  the  glory  of  Rome, 
and  relate  problematical  anecdotes 
which  redounded  to  her  credit.  But  we 
have  nothing  to  do  with  him  now.  We 
have  to  do  with  Herodotus,  justly 
called  the  father  of  history,  whom 
every  man  who  pretends  to  write  his- 
tory himself,  or  to  comment  on  it 
when  written  by  others,  ought  to  treat 
with  filial  respect,  and  whom  we  are 
ready  to  maintain  against  all  comers 
to  have  been  as  honest  and  simple- 
minded  a  narrator  of  facts  as  ever 
trod  this  earth.  We  imagine  that  we 
are  borne  out  in  this  assertion  by 
probabilities  derived  from  considera- 
tion of  the  times  in  which  Herodotus 
lived,  and  also  by  the  internal  evidence 
of  his  own  writings.  Herodotus, 
though  by  birth  a  Dorian,  was  by 
education  and  sympathies  Ionian, 
and  as  such  looked  on  Athens  as 
his  metropolis  or  mother-city  —  a 
point  to  which  all  the  holiest  feelings 
of  a  Greek  converged  in  a  manner  that 
is  difficult  for  us  of  the  present  day  to 
appreciate.  To  us  the  State  exists 
for  the  sake  of  the  individual,  and  the 
liberty  of  the  subject  or  the  license  of 
the  citizen,  as  the  case  may  be,  is  to 
the  average  Anglo-Saxon  generally 
paramount  to  the  glory,  honour,  and 
independence  of  the  common  country. 
Patriotism  is  evoked  when  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  individual  is  in  jeop- 
ardy, seldom  before.  But  the  best  and 
bravest  man  of  the  Greeks  being  inca- 
pable of  feeling  any  deep  personal  affec- 
tion towards  the  gods  of  his  fathers, 
though  his  religion  influenced  more  or 
less  directly  the  whole  course  of  his 
life,  kept  the  holy  of  holies  in  his  heart 
for  his  mother-city,  loved  her  with  a 
love  "passing  the  love  of  woman," 
lived  or  died  for  her;  and  when  forced 
to  migrate  from  her  soil,  carried  the 


fire  from  the  altar  of  Hestia  to  the  ut- 
termost parts  of  the  earth,  that  the 
soul  of  his  city  might  be  present  with 
him,  though  she  was  absent  in  the 
body.  It  is  thus  that  Aristotle  names 
one  description  of  courage,  the  politi- 
cal courage,  averring  that,  though  it 
is  not  the  truest  kind,  being  mixed, 
yet  that  it  sometimes  enacts  greater 
wonders  in  war  than  any  other,  and 
that  in  emergencies  when  the  courage 
of  the  soldier  is  overborne,  the  courage 
of  the  citizen  abides  and  dies.  In 
short,  the  city  was  the  church  of  the 
heathen,  and  his  religion  was  but  an 
accessory  of  his  patriotism :  he  rever- 
enced the  gods  not  so  much  for  their 
own  sake,  as  because  they  glorified  and 
upheld  his  city,  and  gave  them  prece- 
dence, not  according  to  their  abstract 
dignity,  but  according  as  they  were 
more  or  less  nearly  connected  with, 
her.  Thus  Athene  was  paramount 
to  the  Athenian,  and  Here  to  the  Ar- 
give,  Artemis  to  the  Ephesian.  This 
strong  affection  for  the  city  must  have 
been  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles 
with  which  the  early  preachers  of 
Christianity  had  to  contend;  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  our  religion  did  not 
become  the  creed  of  Europe  until  the 
pride  of  particular  citizenship  had 
been  humbled,  and  all  the  minor 
states  had  been  swallowed  up  in  the 
preponderance  of  Rome,  while  the 
feeling  of  Roman  citizenship  became 
weakened,  and  diluted  by  its  extent, 
and  by  the  vagueness  of  its  applica- 
tion. 

Although  Herodotus  looked  upon 
Athens  as  his  metropolis,  having  be- 
come a  citizen  of  Thurii  in  Italy,  ta 
which  the  sacred  fire  was  brought  from 
Athens,  nevertheless  we  cannot  sup- 
pose him  to  have  become  so  thoroughly 
an  Athenian  in  feeling  as  to  have 
lost  all  sympathy  with  that  Dorian 
race  from  which  he  originally  sprang. 
This  circumstance  is  a  great  security 
for  his  impartiality  as  an  historian. 
If  -ZEschylus  had  written  the  same  his- 
tory, Athens  and  the  Ionian  states 
would  probably  have  been  exclusively 
and  unduly  honoured — Sparta  and  the 
Dorian  have  been  unduly  depreciated. 
Herodotus,  from  the  circumstances  in 
which  he  was  placed,  was  as  much  of 
a  cosmopolite  as  any  Greek  could  be 
expected  to  be.  Although  Athens 
was  his  first  consideration  as  a  matter 


1855.] 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


689 


of  duty,  all  Greece  was  to  him  as  one 
city ;  and  the  glorification  of  the  Hel- 
lenic race,  and  the  celebration  of  their 
triumph  over  the  Persian,  appears  to 
have  been  the  main  object  of  his  his- 
tory. Although  the  lamentable  split 
between  the  Grecian  states,  which 
divided  them  into  two  hostile  camps, 
had  even  in  his  time  begun,  it  was  as 
yet  almost  invisible,  and  had  not  yet 
assumed  an  irreconcilable  character. 
This  great  division,  which  was  the 
bane  and  ruin  of  Greece,  probably 
originated  in  that  change  in  the  insti- 
tutions of  Athens,  by  which  the  demo- 
cratical  element  got  the  upper  hand, 
while  the  aristocratical  still  held  its 
ground  in  the  rival  states.  The  date 
of  this  change  was  the  so-called  reform 
of  Clisthenes  the  Alcmceonid,  which 
took  place  about  B.C.  510.  Solon 
had  before  introduced  the  small  end 
of  the  wedge,  by  giving  increased  power 
to  the  popular  assembly.  After  that 
the  tyranny  of  the  Pisistratids  super- 
vened. The  nobility  were  in  conse- 
quence so  depressed,  that  one  ambi- 
tious family,  discontented  with  being 
no  better  than  their  peers,  were  will- 
ing to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  their 
order,  and  by  means,  it  may  be  sup- 
posed, of  popular  terrorism,  succeeded 
in  effecting  a  revolution,  which,  al- 
though bloodless,  was  as  complete  a 
subversion  of  the  constitution  of  Athens 
as  that  which  the  first  French  Revolu- 
tion effected  in  the  constitution  of 
France.  Like  our  own  Reform  Act, 
it  was  carried  by  means  apparently 
constitutional,  but  really  inconsistent 
with  liberty  ;  and,  similarly,  the  evil 
effects  with  which  it  was  pregnant  did 
not  come  to  pass  at  once,  but  were 
produced  in  time,  when  it  was  too 
late  to  retract  the  fatal  step,  and  ward 
off  the  ruin  in  store  for  Athens,  and 
after  Athens  for  the  whole  of  Greece, 
of  which  Athens  was  the  guiding  soul. 
This  change  consisted  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  four  genealogical  Ionic 
tribes  as  governing  bodies,  and  the 
substitution  of  ten  territorial  tribes, 
with  their  subdivisions,  in  which  all 
Athenian  citizens  were  enrolled,  with- 
out respect  to  natural  clanship,  simply 
according  to  the  district  in  which 
they  happened  to  be  located.  There 
is  no  doubt  but  that  the  inauguration 
of  the  reign  of  liberty,  fraternity,  and 
equality  at  Athens,  gave  for  some 


time  a  new  life  to  that  state;  but,  in 
taking  her  subsequent  glories  into 
consideration,  we  must  give  a  certain 
value  to  the  previous  education  of  her 
heroic  citizens,  whose  childhood  had 
been  brought  up  under  the  older  and 
holier  regime.  The  burning  patriotism 
of  JEschylus,  and  his  deep  veneration 
for  all  that  was  great  and  good,  was 
certainly  not  engendered  by  demo- 
cratical  inspiration — nor  was  that  of 
Cynasgirus,  his  brother,  who  caught 
the  Persian  ship  in  his  teeth,  after 
Marathon,  when  his  arms  had  been 
lopped  off— nor  was  the  virtue  of  Aris- 
tides — nor  was  the  brilliant  heroism  of 
the  "  tyrant  of  the  Chersonese,  free- 
dom's best  and  bravest  friend."  Even 
under  the  oppression  of  democracy,  the 
hero-sons  of  conservative  Athens  were 
true  to  themselves  and  their  country  r 
and  remained  for  a  while  the  salt  of 
the  state  which  preserved  her  from 
corruption.  But  the  most  fatal  effect 
of  the  revolution  of  Clisthenes  was  the 
destruction  of  the  old  Hellenicfeeling  in 
the  course  of  time,  beginning  with  the 
antagonism  between  Athens  and  Spar- 
ta. When  Greeks  began  to  look  upon 
Greeks  as  natural  enemies,  their  sym- 
pathies became  narrowed  to  the  par- 
ticular community  to  which  they  be- 
longed ;  and  all  other  Greek  states 
were  placed  in  the  same  position,  in 
their  estimation,  with  the  king  of 
Persia  or  any  other  barbarian  power. 
It  is  true  that  this  source  of  disunion 
existed  before  the  glories  of  Marathon, 
Salamis,  and  Platea,  and  that  under 
no  circumstances  could  the  discom- 
fiture of  the  Persian  have  been  more 
complete  ;  nevertheless,  the  existence 
of  the  germ  of  the  evil  was  to  be  re- 
cognised even  then  in  the  jealousies  be- 
tween the  rival  states,  and  the  bicker- 
ings between  the  rival  commanders, 
in  the  reluctance  of  Sparta  to  assist 
Athens  in  her  need,  and  the  heart- 
burnings that  reluctance  occasioned  in 
her  ally,  giving  rise  to  the  pursuit 
of  a  separate  line  of  policy  in  which 
Athens  began  to  dream  of  an  empire 
for  herself,  including  both  Greeks  and 
barbarians,  and  bound  together  by 
a  similarity  of  form  of  government,, 
rather  than  by  the  natural  sympathies 
of  race  or  nation.  The  end  of  all 
this  is  well  known.  Greece  could  af- 
ford to  set  Persia  at  defiance,  and 
quarrel  within  herself  at  the  same 


690 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


[Dec, 


time,  but  she  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the 
young  and  vigorous  barbarian  state  of 
Macedon. 

It  is  cheerful  to  recognise  in  the 
pages  of  Herodotus  the  old  and  healthy 
Hellenic  feeling.  Political  partisan- 
ship, which  grows  embittered  in  later 
writers,  appears  with  him  easy  and 
good-natured ;  and  although  he  has 
certain  sympathies  with  democracy, 
there  are  certain  passages  which  show 
that  he  was  far  from  having  made  np 
his  mind  as  to  which  was  the  best 
form  of  government.  We  may  take 
as  an  instance  the  supposed  dialogue 
of  the  Persian  chiefs  after  the  putting 
to  death  of  the  impostor  Smerdis,  in 
which  the  three  forms  of  government, 
despotism,  oligarchy,  and  democracy, 
are  discussed,  and  all  seem,  according 
to  the  arguments,  to  be  equally  objec- 
tionable ;  and  also  that  passage  about 
Mseandrins  of  Samos,  who,  though  in 
order  to  carry  out  his  wish  to  be  "the 
justest  of  men,"  he  tried  to  lay  aside 
his  despotism  and  establish  a  demo- 
cracy, quickly  changed  his  opinion 
when  he  found  that  the  emancipated 
people  immediately  turned  upon  him, 
and  accused  him  of  embezzlement, 
and  with  fortunate  sagacity  had  se- 
cured to  himself  the  power  of  chang- 
ing it,  by  keeping  possession  of  the 
citadel.  A  good  deal  of  stress  has 
been  laid  on  the  scepticism  of  Hero- 
dotus as  to  the  religion  of  his  country : 
we  cannot  attach  much  weight  to  this, 
when  we  consider  how  perfectly  com- 
patible a  general  and  indeed  devout 
belief  in  their  religious  system  was 
with  incredulity  as  to  details,  with  the 
Greeks.  The  mistake  arises  from  the 
Protestant  manner  of  regarding  these 
matters.  The  Protestant  mind,  limit- 
ing the  objects  of  belief,  allows  of 
no  latitude  of  scepticism  within  that 
range ;  and  the  Roman  Catholic, 
taught  by  such  example,  now  applies 
the  same  rule  to  a  larger  extent.  But 
before  the  Reformation  it  was  not  so. 
A_ certain  degree  of  scepticism  as  to 
minor  matters  was  allowed  to  the 
most  devout  Catholics,  and  the  clergy 
did  not  at  once  see  to  what  dangerous 
results  it  would  be  carried.  It  was 
part  of  the  Greek  religion  to  unbend 
the  bow  by  ridiculing  the  gods  them- 
selves, as  it  was  not  thought  incon- 
sistent with  good  churchmanship  in 
the  middle  ages  to  travesty  the  reli- 


gious orders,  and  even  to  allow  rival 
monkish  societies  to  ridicule  each  other 
in  permanent  stone  on  the  walls  of  the 
churches.  There  could  have  been  no 
more  devout  believer  than  Dante,  and 
yet  Dante  makes  the  Inferno  a  con- 
venient receptacle  for  his  personal 
enemies,  and  banishes  thither  even 
some  of  the  leading  men  of  that 
Church  of  whose  doctrines  he  was  so 
distinguished  an  illustrator. 

But  the  days  of  Herodotus  were  days 
of  transition  as  regarded  the  mytho- 
logy itself,  and  therefore  we  should 
be  surprised  if  we  did  not  find  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  doubt  and  distrust  as 
to  the  details  of  belief,  though  the 
heart  remains  in  the  right  place.  The 
ancient  belief  of  Greece  was  a  deifica- 
tion of  the  great  powers  of  nature, 
and  the  gods  were  worshipped  as  holy 
and  pure,  the  rewarders  of  the  good 
and  punishers  of  the  evil;  the  modern 
belief  was  a  deification  of  the  bad 
passions  of  man,  so  that  at  length  the 
discrepancy  between  morals  and  reli- 
gion became  so  great  that  Socrates 
and  Plato,  the  great  teachers  of  morals, 
were  obliged  to  throw  overboard  all 
the  popular  notions  regarding  the 
gods  as  inconsistent  with  holiness  of 
character.  It  is  supposed  that  the 
purer  belief  was  still  perpetuated  in 
the  Eleusinian  and  other  mysteries. 
The  mind  of  Herodotus  is  so  deeply 
imbued  with  religious  awe,  and  yet 
so  uncomfortable  about  the  gods  them- 
selves, that  he  seems  generally  inclined 
to  rush  into  the  other  extreme  of  super- 
stition from  modesty  and  self-distrust, 
and  to  speak  with  respect  of  rites  as 
different  as  possible  from  those  of  the 
Greeks,  for  fear  there  should  be  some- 
thingofdivineinthem.  Often  and  often 
does  he  say  that  he  has  heard  this 
and  that  about  some  outlandish  divi- 
nity, but  is  afraid  to  mention  it.  It 
is  true  that  his  piety  runs  riot,  and 
takes  the  complexion  of  pantheism, 
speaking  of  the  sun  as  a  god,  and 
rivers  and  other  natural  phenomena 
as  equally  gods  with  those  of  Olympus ; 
but  it  never  verges  towards  atheism, 
or  indeed  latitudinarian  indifference. 
It  must  always  be  premised,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  piety  of  the  ancients,  that 
they  never  thought  perfect  goodness 
a  necessary  attribute  of  divinity,  but 
worshipped  the  divinity  as  perfect  in 
the  attributes  given  him,  whatever 


1855.] 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


they  might  be.  Thus  JEschylus  can- 
not be  accused  of  impiety  in  investing 
Zeus  with  inexorable  sternness,  or 
the  Eumenides  with  normal  malevo- 
lence. Indeed,  the  want  of  moral 
perfection  may  have  increased  the 
awe  with  which  these  beings  were  re- 
garded. The  ancients  were  afraid  of 
the  selfishness  of  the  gods.  They 
imagined  that  they  had  decreed  to 
man  only  a  certain  degree  of  happi- 
ness, and  that  if  his  happiness  came 
in  any  degree  near  the  measure  of 
their  own,  they  kept  in  store  some 
frightful  misfortune,  which  they  let 
loose  at  will,  and  destroyed  his  pros- 
perity in  a  moment.  Nemesis  was  the 
goddess  into  whose  hands  was  given 
the  fearful  task  of  keeping  human 
happiness  within  due  bounds.  She 
was  accustomed  to  effect  this  by  means 
of  a  secret  minister  called  Ate,  or  In- 
fatuation. Prosperity  begat  Hybris, 
or  Insolence,  and  Insolence  made  its 
subject  his  own  destroyer.  This  was 
the  source  of  the  misfortunes  of 
CEdipus  and  his  race,  and  of  all  those 
master  races  whose  superhuman  mis- 
fortune furnished  the  general  frame- 
work of  Greek  tragedy.  Herodotus 
is  a  deep  believer  in  this  influence, 
and  the  moral  of  his  whole  History  is 
an  illustration  of  the  terrible  agency 
of  Nemesis.  The  great  event  in  which 
that  History  culminates,  the  defeat  of 
Xerxes,  was  one  of  its  most  striking 
manifestations,  as  it  occasioned  the 
statue  of  the  goddess  to  be  set  up  on 
the  spot  whence  the  great  king  beheld 
the  overthrow  of  his  fleet.  And  all 
the  other  events  of  the  particular  and 
subordinate  histories  hinge  upon  this 
great  idea.  It  was  Nemesis  who  re- 
duced Croesus  the  Lydian  from  a 
millionaire  to  a  slave  ;  it  was  she  who 
produced  the  judicial  blindness  of  the 
Spartan  king  Cleomenes ;  it  was  she 
who  punished  Cambyses  in  the  same 
way  for  violating  the  religion  of 
Egypt;  it  was  she  who  plunged  in 
sudden  ruin  the  extraordinary  pros- 
perity of  Polycrates  the  Samian.  This 
last  [case  was  perhaps  of  all  the  most 
directly  striking.  The  prosperity  of 
Polycrates  appeared  so  complete  and 
astonishing,  that  his  friend  Amasis 
king  of  Egypt,  dreading  the  inevitable 
reaction,  advised  the  despot  of  Samos 
to  destroy  some  very  precious  posses- 
sion in  order  to  satisfy,  if  possible, 


691 

the  appetite  of  Nemesis.  Polycrates 
threw  into  the  sea  a  ring  which  he 
prized  exceedingly,  hoping  to  obtain 
this  result;  but  Nemesis  would  not 
be  got  rid  of  on  terms  so  easy :  the 
ring  was  discovered  in  the  belly  of  a 
fish  which  was  opened  on  Polycrates' 
table,  and  Amasis,  when  he  heard  of 
this  failure,  with  less  generosity  than 
prudence,  sent  to  renounce  the  friend- 
ship of  a  man  whom  the  gods  seemed 
to  have  doomed  to  destruction,  as  they 
would  apparently  be  satisfied  with  no 
smaller  counterpoise  to  his  past  hap- 
piness. The  treacherous  murder  of 
Polycrates  by  a  Persian  satrap  was  a 
sequel  which  took  nobody  by  surprise. 
It  is  very  delightful  to  recognise  in 
Herodotus  this  freshness  of  feeling  as 
regards  the  religion  of  his  country- 
men ;  it  is  a  thing  which  we  miss  in 
later  writers,  in  whom  intellectual 
power  predominates  over  faith.  With 
the  energy,  courage,  and  perseverance 
of  a  man,  Herodotus  is  a  child  in 
facility  of  obtaining  amusement  and 
interest  from  everybody  and  every- 
thing ;  and  his  elaborate  tale  is  espe- 
cially charming  from  its  childlike 
naivete".  Neither  is  he  free  from  the 
faults  of  childhood :  he  sometimes 
dwells  with  a  zest  on  scenes  of  cruelty, 
a  practice  which  reminds  one  of  a  child's 
love  of  the  horrible.  He  is  indecorous 
sometimes,  not  from  conscious  and 
mature  sensuality,  but  from  original 
sin;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is 
tender  and  sensitive  at  times  as  a 
child  when  moved  to  tears,  and  he  is 
full  of  fun  and  of  quaintness  as  one 
whose  deep  sympathy  with  the  ludi- 
crous is  not  checked  by  thoughts  of 
what  is  due  to  his  own  dignity,  as 
would  certainly  have  been  the  case 
with  Thucydides.  He  writes  history 
in  the  same  spirit  as  that  in  which 
Homer  wrote  poetry,  as  the  unreason- 
ing emanation  of  a  great  and  power- 
ful soul,  which  preserved  the  freshness 
of  early  years  to  the  limit  of  an  ener- 
getic and  laborious  life.  It  would  not 
be  amiss  to  mention  a  few  of  the 
anecdotes  which  illustrate  these  quali- 
ties of  Herodotus,  and  we  must  do 
Mr  Wheeler  the  justice  to  say  that 
he  helps  the  reader  of  Herodotus  very 
considerably  by  attracting  his  atten- 
tion to  the  characteristics  of  such 
passages. 

Cyrus  wished  to  cross  the  river 


€92 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


[Dec. 


Gyndes  on  his  way  to  Babylon. 
While  his  army  was  on  its  banks, 
one  of  the  white  horses,  which,  like 
the  white  elephants  of  India,  were 
held  sacred,  broke  loose,  plunged  into 
the  river  from  wantonness,  and  was 
swept  away  and  drowned.  Herodo- 
tus represents  the  anger  of  Cyrus 
on  that  occasion  as  similar  to  that 
which  a  child  feels  against  inani- 
mate things  that  hurt  him.  Cyrus 
immediately  swore  that  he  would 
serve  out  the  river  in  such  a  way  that 
^ven  women  should  cross  it  without 
wetting  their  knees.  So  he  dug  a 
multitude  of  little  canals  and  distri- 
buted the  water,  and  thus  the  insolent 
Gyndes  was  abundantly  paid  out 
(thus  it  is  expressed  in  Greek). 

How  fresh  and  quaint  is  Herodotus's 
approval  of  the  lady-auction  at  Baby- 
lon !  An  excellent  plan  he  thinks  it 
for  equalising  the  gifts  of  fortune. 
All  the  marriageable  young  ladies  are 
shown  together  as  the  English  show 
cattle,  and  the  Americans  babies :  the 
most  beautiful  is  singled  out  first,  and 
knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder ; 
and  so  the  auction  goes  on,  descending 
in  the  scale  of  beauty  and  of  prices,  un- 
til one  bidder  gets  his  wife  for  nothing, 
she  being  exactly  the  happy  mean  be- 
tween beauty  and  ugliness ;  then  the 
plain  ones  are  trotted  out,  and  the 
question  is  put,  who  will  take  the  least 
plain  for  the  smallest  consideration  ? 
As  soon  as  she  is  disposed  of,  the 
auctioneer  passes  from  plainer  to 
plainer  until  he  comes  to  the  plainest 
of  all,  who  is  got  rid  of  as  well  as  the 
rest  at  the  highest  figure  of  compen- 
sation. Thus  they  all  find  husbands, 
prettiness  being  paid  for  and  ugliness 
paying,  and  the  sums  paid  for  the  pretty 
creating  a  fund  which  provides  for- 
tunes for  the  ugly.  Any  other  historian 
than  Herodotus  would  probably  have 
thought  twice  before  he  expressed  his 
unqualified  approval  of  this  proceed- 
ing, for  fear  of  being  laughed  at  for 
his  oddity. 

Herodotus  is  no  better  and  no 
worse  than  the  average  Greek  stan- 
dard as  to  his  morality.  Although 
his  mind  is  deeply  tinctured  with  the 
antique  heroism,  yet  there  is  none  of 
that  deification  of  honour  and  honesty 
in  him  which,  Macaulay  observes  in 
his  remarks  on  Machiavelli,  belongs 
rather  to  the  north  than  the  south. 


With  all  his  artlessness  he  has  a  great 
admiration  for  cunning,  and  shows 
himself  in  many  places  the  good- 
natured  and  genial,  but  not  over- 
scrupulous southern.  There  is  no 
nation  with  whom  he  seems  to  have 
had  a  greater  sympathy  than  with 
the  Egyptian.  This  people  have 
handed  down  to  us  their  physiogno- 
mies, and  from  them  we  may  form 
a  pretty  correct  judgment  of  their 
characters.  There  was  certainly  no 
false  pride  about  them.  They  were  a 
good-natured,  good-humoured,  lively, 
versatile,  clever  people  ;  but  their 
ideas  of  meum  and  tuum  were  not  of 
the  clearest ;  and  the  worst  of  it  was, 
that  they  were  terribly  sanctimoni- 
ous withal.  How  Herodotus  seems 
to  enjoy  that  story  of  the  treasure  ot 
Rampsinitus ! 

Rampsinitus  had  more  money  than 
he  knew  what  to  do  with,  so  he 
ordered  a  stone  building  to  be  made, 
one  of  the  walls  of  which  was  joined 
to  an  outer  wall  of  his  own  dwelling. 
Wishing  to  make  all  safe,  he  ordered 
the  building  to  be  made  without  an 
entrance,  so  that  the  treasure,  being 
built  in,  could  never  be  got  out  again 
without  pulling  down  the  wall.  The 
architect,  however,  thinking  it  a  pity 
that  the  treasure  should  be  of  no  use 
to  any  one,  and  that  the  king  would 
scarcely  perceive  a  certain  amount  of 
subtraction,  devised  a  stone  in  the 
wall,  which  was  in  appearance  as  fast 
as  the  rest,  but  really  movable  by  a 
secret  spring,  and  thus  supplied  his 
necessities  from  time  to  time  from  the 
king's  hoard.  This  went  on  for  all 
his  life.  On  his  death-bed  the  old 
scoundrel,  instead  of  repenting,  let  his 
two  sons  into  the  secret  of  the  mov- 
able stone,  consoling  his  conscience 
with  the  flattering  unction  that  he 
was  thereby  securing  a  livelihood  for 
his  children  without  greatly  hurting 
any  one.  The  sons  felt  themselves  in 
duty  bound  to  help  themselves,  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  father's  wishes. 
But  they  were  not  so  fortunate  as  he 
was,  for  one  day  the  king  took  it 
into  his  head  to  pull  down  part  of  the 
wall  and  have  a  look  at  his  treasure. 
What  was  his  astonishment  when  he 
saw  that  a  good  part  of  it  had  been 
spirited  away.  All  the  seals  were 
safe,  and  there  was  no  window,  door, 
or  chimney.  He  thought  he  must 


1855.] 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


have  made  a  mistake  as  to  the  origi- 
nal amount,  so  he  plastered  the  hole 
up  again,  and  opened  it,  some  time 
after,  a  second  time.  The  treasure 
had  suffered  a  further  diminution.  He 
was  out  of  his  wits  what  to  think  of 
it.  However,  he  set  man-traps  among 
the  coffers,  built  the  place  up  again, 
opened  it  again,  and  found,  not  a 
man,  but  a  man's  body,  with  the  leg 
fast  in  a  gin  and  the  head  gone ; 
still  there  was  no  sign  of  entrance 
or  exit. 

Rampsinitus  now  thought  he  had 
hit  on  a  device  to  catch  the  thief.  He 
hung  up  the  body  in  a  public  place, 
and  set  guards  by  it,  ordering  them 
to  apprehend  any  one  they  might  see 
making  demonstrations  of  grief  be- 
fore it. 

The  mother  of  the  dead  man  was 
horrified  at  this  exposure  of  the 
corpse,  and  so,  after  making  some 
difficulties,  her  surviving  son  deter- 
mined to  rescue  it.  He  provided  him- 
self with  several  asses,  and  loading 
them  with  a  skin  of  wine  each,  drove 
them  on  till  he  came  by  his  brother's 
corpse,  and  those  who  were  watching 
it.  Then  he  managed  to  unfasten  two 
or  three  of  the  skins,  so  that  the  wine 
ran  out,  but  in  such  a  manner  that  it 
seemed  accidental.  This  part  of  the 
story  shows  of  how  old  origin  was  the 
image-breaking  dodge,  said  to  be  still 
sometimes  practised  in  the  streets  of 
London.  Then  he  began  beating  his 
head,  and  cursing  his  stars,  as  not 
knowing  which  ass  was  losing  most 
wine,  and  being  consequently  in  a 
difficulty  which  way  to  run  to  the 
rescue.  The  guards,  in  high  glee,  and 
thinking  it  a  good  joke,  all  ran  to 
fetch  vessels  to  catch  the  wasting 
wine,  while  he  pretended  to  be  in  a 
passion  with  them,  and  began  abusing 
them,  which,  under  the  circumstances, 
amused  them  still  more.  Having  thus 
got  them  into  high  good-humour,  he 
ended  by  appearing  to  make  it  up,  and 
gave  them  one  of  the  skins  to  drink. 
When  they  were  royally  drunk,  and 
all  asleep,  he  stole  away  his  brother's 
carcass ;  and  not  content  with  the 
completeness  of  this  job,  left  all  the 
guards  with  their  right  whiskers 
shaven  off.  The  king,  when  he  heard 
of  the  stealing  away  of  the  corpse, 
was  in  a  greater  rage  than  ever,  but 
he  kept  it  to  himself,  and  was  deter- 


693 

mined  to  find  out  the  thief  at  any 
price. 

As  Herodotus  avows  his  disbelief 
in  the  remainder  of  the  story,  it  is 
not  necessary  for  us  to  enter  into  par- 
ticulars. Rampsinitus  employed  his 
daughter  as  the  detective,  and  she, 
watching  her  opportunity,  extracted 
a  confession  from  the  culprit,  and, 
immediately  she  had  heard  it,  seized 
him  by  the  arm.  He  was  prepared 
for  this,  and  ran  away,  leaving  a  false 
arm  in  her  hands.  The  confession 
was  an  answer  to  the  question,  What 
was  the  wickedest  and  wisest  thing  he 
had  ever  done.  The  wickedest  thing 
he  allowed  to  have  been  beheading 
his  brother,  when  he  was  caught  in 
the  trap,  to  prevent  recognition,  and 
the  wisest  thing  making  the  king's 
guards  drunk,  and  carrying  off  the 
body.  This  new  escape  brought  the 
king's  rage  to  a  climax,  and  it  eva- 
porated in  admiration  of  the  exceed- 
ing cleverness  of  this  prince  of  artful 
dodgers.  So  he  made  a  proclamation, 
promising  a  free  pardon,  and  all  kind 
of  favours  besides,  if  the  party  would 
disclose  himself.  The  thief  trusted 
the  king,  and  the  king  rewarded  him 
by  giving  him  his  detective  daughter 
in  marriage,  considering  him  worthy 
of  that  honour,  as  being  the  most 
knowing  of  all  men ;  for  that  the 
Egyptians  were  the  shrewdest  of 
mankind,  and  he  was  the  shrewdest 
of  the  Egyptians. 

Equally  characteristic  is  that  other 
story  of  the  Egyptian  king  Menkahre 
or  Mycerinus,  who  lived  long  enough 
before  Moses  or  the  Trojan  war,  and 
whose  bones  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
British  Museum.  An  oracle  came  to 
this  king  from  the  temple  of  Leto,  in 
the  isle  of  Buto,  saying  that  he  had 
only  six  years  more  to  live.  At  first 
he  took  it  to  heart,  and  sent  a  re- 
proachful message  to  the  goddess,  say- 
ing that  his  father  Cheops  and  uncle 
Chephren,  who  had  cared  nothing 
about  the  gods,  and  afflicted  their 
subjects,  were  allowed  to  live  long, 
whereas  he  who  paid  both  so  much 
attention  was  condemned  to  an  early 
death.  The  oracle  told  him  that  this 
very  piety  brought  all  the  mischief 
upon  him,  because  he  was  going 
against  the  destiny  of  Egypt,  which 
was,  that  it  should  be  tyrannised  over 
for  a  century  and  a  half.  At  this 


694 

unfeeling  answer  Mycerinus  grew 
desperate,  and  determined  to  make 
the  best  of  a  bad  matter,  and  cheat 
the  oracle,  by  living  twelve  years  in- 
stead of  six.  So  he  ordered  lamps 
enough  to  be  lighted  every  night  to 
turn  night  into  day ;  and,  like  the 
mythical  "gentlemen that neversleep" 
of  some  Irish  novelist,  addressed  him- 
self to  a  perpetual  round  of  jollifica- 
tion. Of  course  nothing  would  kill 
him,  not  even  delirium  tremens,  be- 
fore his  appointed  time. 

Such  stories  are  seemingly  at  va- 
riance with  what  Herodotus  says  of 
the  thickness  of  the  skulls  of  the 
Egyptians,  as  observed  after  the  bat- 
tle between  their  king  and  Cambyses, 
the  Egyptian  skull  scarcely  admitting 
of  being  broken  with  a  large  stone, 
while  a  pebble  would  crack  the  pate 
of  a  Persian.  We  pass  to  a  story  or 
two  which  tells  more  in  favour  of  the 
heart  of  the  historian.  Cambyses  was 
the  Persian  Caligula.  His  tyranny 
was  aggravated  by  madness,  induced 
by  offence  to  the  gods.  His  insane 
self-will  led  to  his  murdering  his 
brother  Smerdis,  and  marrying  his 
sister,  permission  having  been  given 
him  by  the  slavish  judges,  on  the 
ground  that,  though  the  deed  was 
against  an  existing  law,  it  was  con- 
tradicted by  another  law,  that  a  king 
of  Persia  might  do  whatever  he 
pleased.  This  unfortunate  sister  came 
by  her  death  at  the  tyrant's  hands 
by  an  indiscreet  display  of  sympathy. 
Cambyses,  like  Domitian,  delighted 
in  small  cruelties.  He  had  one  day, 
for  his  amusement,  put  a  puppy  to 
fight  with  a  lion- cub.  The  young 
lion  was  getting  the  best  of  it,  when 
the  young  dog's  brother,  who  was 
chained  up,  broke  his  chain,  flew  to 
the  rescue,  and  the  two  together  mas- 
tered the  crown- prince  of  beasts. 

The  sister  of  Cambyses,  when  she 
saw  it,  burst  into  tears,  while  her 
brother  was  convulsed  with  laughter. 
He  asked  the  reason  of  this,  and  she 
told  him  that  she  wept  to  think  of 
their  brother  Smerdis,  and  how  he 
perished  with  no  brother  to  rescue 
him.  Her  frankness  cost  her  her 
life.  Not  less  touching  is  the  story 
of  Labda  and  the  infant  Cypselus, 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


[Dec, 


Amphion,  one  of  the  noble  and  ruling 
family  of  the  Bacchiadae,  had  a  lame 
daughter,  by  name  Labda.  Her  in- 
firmity preventing  her  from  marrying 
in  her  own  rank,  she  became  the  wife 
of  one  Eetion,  a  poor  man,  though  of 
wonderfully  old  family.  In  conse- 
quence of  oracles  which  foretold  dan- 
ger to  the  established  system  from 
the  future  offspring  of  Eetion  and 
Labda,  the  Bacchiads,  as  soon  as  the 
child  was  born,  sent  ten  of  their 
number,  under  the  pretence  of  con- 
gratulation, to  put  it  to  death.  They 
agreed  among  themselves  on  the  way, 
that  the  first  to  whom  the  mother 
should  give  the  child  should  dash  it 
on  the  earth.  Labda,  in  the  pride  of 
her  heart  and  suspecting  no  harm, 
gave  it  to  one  of  them,  and  Herodotus 
describes  what  followed  in  words  to 
the  following  effect : — 

"  When  then  Labda  brought  the  child 
and  handed  it  over,  by  some  divine  pro- 
vidence the  infant  smiled  at  the  man 
who  received  it ;  and  when  he  observed 
this,  a  kind  of  pity  restrained  him  from 
killing  it:  and  thus  having  had  compassion 
on  it,  he  gave  it  to  the  second,  and  he  to 
the  third,  and  so  it  passed  through  the 
whole  ten,  being  handed  from  one  to  the 
other,  and  no  one  was  minded  to  make 
away  with  it." 

So  overcome  by  their  better  feelings, 
they  went  out,  and  then  Labda  was 
horrified  at  overhearing  a  conversa- 
tion, in  which  they  reproached  one 
another  for  their  faint-heartedness, 
and  determined  to  go  back  and  do 
the  business  better.  Forewarned, 
however,  of  their  intention,  the  mo- 
ther hid  the  child  in  a  chest,  and 
they,  thinking  it  had  been  sent 
away,  falsely  told  those  who  had 
commissioned  them,  as  Hubert  made 
King  John  believe,  that  they  had 
committed  the  murder.  Thus  Cypse- 
lus  escaped  with  his  life,  and  was 
named  after  the  Greek  name  of  his 
place  of  concealment,  and  lived  to 
ruin  the  Bacchiadse.  The  manner  of 
telling  such  stories  reveals  the  mind 
of  Herodotus,  and  does  credit  to  the 
manly  simplicity  of  his  character. 

Again,  as  Mr  Wheeler  very  pro- 
perly observes,  he  has  been  unjustly 
treated  by  the  doubts  that  have  been 


in  that  part  of  the  History  which  treats  thrown  on  the  reality  of  his  travels, 
of  Corinth,  and  the  change  of  her  go-  We  can  conceive  of  nothing  more 
vernment  from  oligarchy  to  tyranny,  painful  to  a  man  who  has  been  at  the 


1855.] 


Illustrations 


trouble  and  expense  of  making  long 
journeys  or  voyages,  partly  for  the 
satisfaction  of  his  own  vanity,  partly 
for  the  sake  of  imparting  knowledge 
to  his  fellow-creatures,  than  that  his 
stories  should  not  be  believed  when 
he  comes  back.  But  in  proportion  to 
the  magnitude  of  the  dangers  and 
difficulties  he  has  passed  through,  is 
the  danger  of  not  being  believed. 
This  is  the  most  cruel  part  of  the 
business.  Suppose  Desdemona,  in- 
stead of  falling  in  love  with  Othello 
for  the  perils  he  had  passed,  had 
burst  out  laughing  at  the  account  of 
the  "  Anthropophagi,  and  men  whose 
heads  do  grow  beneath  their  shoul- 
ders," it  would  have  been  better  for 
her  in  the  end  certainly,  but  very 
cruel  to  Othello.  That  injustice  has 
often  been  done  in  actual  cases,  when, 
like  Bruce  the  African  explorer,  the 
man  who  has  gone  through  fire  and 
water  and  every  kind  of  daring  ad- 
venture, is  doomed  for  that  very 
reason  to  have  his  honesty  questioned 
by  some  Cockney  who  has  never 
stirred  from  his  fireside.  We  believe 
Herodotus  for  the  same  reason  that 
we  believe  Gordon  Gumming,  because 
we  know  enough  of  what  he  has  done 
to  think  him  capable  of  doing  any- 
thing. We  must  recollect  that  the 
most  incredible  of  his  stories  he  al- 
ways relates  on  the  authority  of 
others,  and  as  to  what  he  saw  he  is 
generally  supported  by  fact.  Such 
wholesale  imposture  as  the  German- 
ising commentators  impute  to  him 
was  not  natural  in  those  days.  If 
travellers  pulled  the  long  bow,  they 
did  so  because  they  knew  no  better, 
and  with  no  intention  of  deceiving. 
At  a  time  when  the  greater  part  of 
the  world  was  unexplored,  men 
thought  nothing  too  marvellous  to 
expect  beyond  the  range  of  their  own 
experience,  and  easily  credited  any 
stories  that  were  told  them  of  the 
miraculous.  Even  so  did  the  Eliza- 
bethan voyagers  bring  home  stories 
of  people  whose  ears  were  so  long 
that  they  used  one  as  a  bed  and  the 
other  as  a  coverlet,  not  imagining 
that  their  stories  would  require, 
to  be  believed,  any  extraordinary 
length  of  ear  in  those  to  whom  they 
were  addressed.  And  far  too  much 
stress  is  laid  on  the  difficulties  of 
travelling  in  the  days  of  Herodotus  ; 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


of  Herodotus.  695 

as  if  there  could  have  been  scarcely 
any  travelling  without  modern  ap- 
pliances. We  are  in  many  things 
far  too  conceited  as  to  what  time 
has  done  for  us,  and  in  no  matter 
more  than  this.  How  is  it  in  our 
own  country  since  the  invention  of 
railroads  ?  We  travel  faster  in  cer- 
tain directions,  and  certain  lines  of 
country  are  better  known,  but  a  thou- 
sand conveniences  for  travelling,  in 
the  shape  of  country  inns,  and  their 
establishments  of  horses,  coaches,  &c., 
have  disappeared,  and  the  difficulties 
of  the  post-office,  excepting  on  the 
lines  of  rail,  have  notoriously  increas- 
ed. The  consular  system  was  very 
perfect  in  ancient  times  ;  every  state 
of  any  importance  had  a  resident  at 
each  foreign  city,  whose  business  it 
was  to  entertain  the  citizens  whose 
interests  he  represented.  There  were 
plenty  of  horses  and  mules,  waggons 
at  a  pinch,  and  the  ancients,  as  we 
know  from  many  writers,  used  to  tra- 
vel much  on  foot ;  and  every  one  who 
has  done  the  same  thing  knows  that, 
though  without  much  time  you  cannot 
see  a  great  deal  of  the  world  in  this 
way,  you  see  it  better  so  than  in  any 
other  manner.  After  all,  the  travels 
of  Herodotus  are  Qf  limited  extent, 
for  he  got  no  higher  than  the  Crimea, 
and  no  lower  than  the  first  or  second 
cataract,  and  he  might  easily  have 
done  this  with  the  appliances  of  the 
time.  His  whole  manner  and  matter 
stamp  him  as  a  cosmopolite.  He  was 
evidently  one  who,  if  he  had  gone  so 
far  as  Rome,  would  have  done  there 
as  the  Romans  do ;  and  wherever  he 
went,  he  recollected  that  he  had  a 
tongue  in  his  head,  and  made  it  serve 
his  purposes  wherever  his  eyes  could 
not  help  him.  No  doubt,  some  of 
the  people  he  questioned  must  have 
thought  him  a  bore.  He  did  not  care 
for  this  ;  like  a  true  traveller,  he  took 
no  offence,  but  if  he  met  with  a  rebuff 
from  one,  he  tried  another,  till  he  got 
what  he-  wanted,  knowing  from  his 
experience  of  mankind  that  churlish- 
ness is  the  exception  and  good-nature 
the  rule;  and  perseverance,  acting  on 
that  assumption,  is  sure  to  be  reward- 
ed by  the  result.  Amongst  those  who 
evidently  were  tired  by  his  importu- 
nity, and  wished  to  indemnify  them- 
selves by  a  laugh  at  his  expense,  were 
those  Egyptian  priests,  who  told  him 
2  z 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


[Dec. 


that  the  Nile  rose  between  two  moun- 
tains in  Ethiopia,  of  the  names  of 
Crophi  and  Mophi.  In  telling  him 
the  fact,  they  told  him  what  they 
thought  was  the  truth,  but  as  to  the 
names,  they  gave  them  at  a  guess,  as 
he  would  not  go  away  satisfied  with- 
out them.  As  for  the  pirates  who 
swarmed  about  the  seas  in  those 
times,  Herodotus  would  have  run  the 
gauntlet  of  .them  had  they  existed; 
and  Mr  Wheeler  gives  us  every  reason 
to  believe  that,  at  the  time  at  which 
Herodotus  travelled,  the  sea  had  been 
cleared  of  them  by  the  Athenian 
cruisers.  Does  any  one  think  that  Dr 
Barth  would  have  been  deterred  from 
going  to  Timbuctoo  for  fear  of  robbers? 
We  are  glad  to  see  Mr  Wheeler 
vindicating  the  honesty  of  Herodotus, 
and  the  authenticity  of  his  travels. 
We  think  that  he  might  have  done 
this  a  little  more  fully  and  positively ; 
still  he  has  acquitted  himself  of  the 
task  very  fairly.  With  regard  to  the 
books  themselves,  whose  names  form 
the  heading  of  this  article,  one  may 
have  been  supposed  to  render  the 
other  unnecessary,  unless  it  be  said 
that  they  are  intended  for  two  distinct 
classes  of  readers. 

The  "Geography  of  Herodotus  deve- 
loped, explained,  and  illustrated  from 
Modern  Researches  and  Discoveries  " 
(for  that  is  the  title  of  the  work  in 
full),  is  a  most  valuable  work  of  re- 
ference to  the  Herodotean  student. 
Notwithstanding  its  utility,  it  is  a 
book  of  pleasing  exterior,  good  ad- 
dress, and  clear  type,  and  we  cannot 
help  thinking  these  qualities  as  essen- 
tial to  the  first  success  of  a  book,  as 
the  corresponding  ones  are  to  that  of 
a  person.  The  subject  itself,  as  far  as 
we  can  see,  has  been  exhausted,  the 
facts  collected  from  Herodotus  having 
been  strengthened  or  modified  by 
every  important  authority,  and  the 
whole  work  being  placed  before  the 
reader  with  the  freshness  of  a  new 
book,  though  the  greater  part  of  it  is 
founded  on  the  researches  of  antiquity. 
The  preface  itself  is  full  of  valuable 
information.  After  defending  against 
Mr  Blakesley  and  others  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  travels  of  Herodotus  on 
other  grounds,  Mr  Wheeler  goes  on 
to  say : — 

"  One  fact  has  been  missed,  not  only 
by  Mr  Blakesley,  but  by  every  commen- 


tator on  the  Geography  of  Herodotus 
whom  the  present  author  has  consulted, 
namely,  that  the  political  relations  of 
Halicarnassus  with  Persia  were  especially 
favourable  to  every  well-accredited  native 
of  that  city  who  desired  to  visit  the 
Persian  capital.  Halicarnassus  was  ex- 
cluded from  the  Dorian  Confederacy 
worshipping  at  Triopium,  and  at  the  time 
of  the  battle  of  Salamis  was  united  with 
the  neighbouring  islands  of  Cos,  Calydna^ 
and  Nysirus,  under  the  dependent  sceptre 

of  the  celebrated  Artemisia 

Herodotus  himself  openly  expresses  his 
admiration  of  Artemisia,  though  she 
fought  on  the  side  of  the  Persians ;  and 
the  little  kingdom  remained  faithful  to 
her  and  to  her  family,  even  whilst  Cimon 
the  Athenian  was  frightening  the  whole 
Asiatic  coast  by  his  exploits.  Herodo- 
tus no  doubt  belonged  to  a  family  of 
some  consideration  at  Halicarnassus.  At 
fifty  years  of  age  he  assisted  in  the  popu- 
lar revolution  which  deprived  the  grand- 
son of  Artemisia  of  the  tyranny." 

From  this  ingenious  observation  of 
Mr  Wheeler,  we  find  that  Herodotus 
was  enabled  to  make  use  of  his  Per- 
sian connection  in  the  way  of  his 
travels,  while  his  Greek  sympathies 
qualified  him  for  an  enthusiastic  chro- 
nicler of  Grecian  heroism.  At  the  end 
of  this  preface  to  the  Geography,  he 
expresses  a  hope  to  reproduce  the 
pictures,  with  which  the  Homer  of 
history  had  filled  his  mind's  eye,  in  a 
popular  form ;  and  this  aspiration 
finds  its  fulfilment  in  the  work  called 
the  Life  and  Travels  of  Herodotus. 
Valuable  as  a  book  of  reference  may  be, 
there  is  no  kind  of  book  more  difficult 
to  review,  because  the  form  and  style 
of  its  details  being  a  secondary  consi- 
deration, it  is  nearly  as  difficult  to  give 
specimens  of  it  by  extracts  as  it  is  to 
give  the  idea  of  a  house  from  separate 
bricks.  From  its  reference  to  the  pre- 
sent seat  of  war,  and  as  touching  the 
scene  of  the  late  brilliant  affair  of 
Kinburn,  we  may  excerpt  the  follow- 
ing passage  from  the  part  which  treats 
of  Scythia : — 

u  Between  the  Aratores  and  the  Alaz- 
ones  was  the  bitter  spring  Exampseus, 
already  mentioned,  which  also  appears  to 
have  given  its  name  to  the  surrounding 
district ;  and  between  the  mouths  of  the 
Hypanis  and  Borysthenes  (Bog  and  Dnie- 
per), was  a  projecting  piece  of  land  called 
the  Promontory  of  Hippoleon,  upon  which 
was  a  temple  of  Demeter.  Crossing  the 
Borysthenes  to  its  eastern  bank,  near  the 


1855.] 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


697 


course  of  Achilles,  lies  the  woody  district 
called  Hylsea,  which  is  full  of  trees,  and 
watered  by  the  river  Panticapes.  This 
tract  is  that  part  of  the  steppe  between 
the  Dnieper  and  the  Sea  of  Azoff,  which 
the  Nogai  Tartars  called  Gambogluk. 
The  Georgi,  or  Agriculturists,  were  named 
Borysthenitse  by  the  Olbiopolitse  Greeks, 
settled  on  the  Hypanis  (Bog),  but  called 
themselves  Obliopolitse.  They  occupied 
the  country  above  Hylsea,  and  extended 
three  days'  journey  eastward,  as  far  as 
the  river  Panticapes,  and  eleven  days 
northward  along  the  Borysthenes  (or 
Dnieper).  According  to  their  own  ac- 
count, they  were  descended  from  the 
Milesians;  and  we  learn  that  their  city 
had  walls,  and  gates,  and  a  town,  together 
with  suburbs  outside  the  walls.  Here 
also  the  Scythian  king  Scylas  built  a 
large  and  magnificent  palace,  surrounded 
by  griffins  and  sphinxes  made  of  white 
marble  ;  but  the  building  was  struck  by 
lightning,  and  burnt  down.  Beyond  the 
country  of  the  Georgi  was  a  desert." 

This  extract,  dry  in  itself,  but  in- 
teresting as  relating  to  the  liman  of 
the  Dnieper,  now  connected  with  the 
history  of  England,  is  a  good  specimen 
of  the  accurate  and  circumstantial 
character  of  the  book.  But  all  is  not 
so  dry  :  as  we  go  on,  we  come  to  an 
interesting  controversy  as  to  whether 
the  Phoenicians  sent  by  Pharaoh  Necho 
did  really  go  round  Africa,  and  came 
back  through  the  Pillars  of  Hercules. 
Herodotus  gives  the  following  simple 
and  straightforward  account  of  the 
voyage : — 

"  The  Phoenicians,  setting  out  from  the 
Erythraean  (  Red  Sea  ) ,  navigated  the 
Southern  Sea.  When  autumn  came,  they 
sowed  the  land  at  whatever  part  of  Libya 
they  happened  to  be  sailing,  and  waited 
for  the  harvest  ;  then,  haying  reaped  the 
corn,  they  put  to  sea  again.  Two  years 
thus  passed  away.  At  length,  in  the  third 
year  of  their  voyage,having  sailed  through 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  they  arrived  in 
Egypt,  and  related  what  does  not  seem 
credible  to  me,  but  which  may  be  believed 
by  others,  that  as  they  sailed  round  Lib- 
ya, they  had  the  sun  on  their  right 
hand."  " 

This  passage  is  one  of  those  which 
gives  the  most  pleasing  evidence  of 
Herodotus's  honesty,  and  proves  the 
truth  of  the  story  of  the  Phoenicians, 
by  what  Paley  calls,  as  applied  to 
Holy  Writ,  an  undesigned  coincidence. 
Those  who  had  passed  the  equatorial 
line  would  naturally  have  the  sun  on 
their  right  in  going  round  from  east  to 


west.  The  very  incredulity  of  Hero- 
dotus as  to  the  phenomenon  proves  its 
truth.  It  was  a  thing  so  simple,  yet 
so  extraordinary,  that  it  was  not  likely 
to  be  invented.  Had  not  Herodotus's 
modesty  been  stronger  than  his  incre- 
dulity, the  best  part  of  the  story  would 
have  been  lost. 

Another  such  instance  in  Herodotus's 
favour  was  the  fact,  that  among  three 
theories  which  he  gave  with  regard  to 
the  overflowings  of  the  Nile,  he  gave 
the  right  one  without  knowing  it  to  be 
so,  but  in  fact  setting  it  aside  as  erro- 
neous. This  theory  supposed  the  in- 
undations of  the  Nile  to  result  from 
the  melting  of  the  snow,  or  from  heavy 
rains  in  the  highlands  of  Ethiopia; 
and  Herodotus  sets  it  aside  by  the 
consideration  of  the  fact,  supposed 
universally  admitted,  that  in  those 
southern  regions  the  heat  was  far  too 
great  to  admit  of  the  existence  of 
snow.  The  theory  that  he  brings  for- 
ward as  the  right  one  is  clumsily  un- 
scientific, and  yet  does  credit  to  his 
ingenuity ;  while  the  other,  the  right 
one,  that  he  mentions  and  discards, 
proves  his  fidelity  as  a  narrator,  as 
well  as  his  anxiety  to  get  at  the  real 
truth.  In  the  department  of  Egypt, 
Mr  Wheeler  is  peculiarly  rich  and 
felicitous  as  an  illustrator.  He  takes 
full  advantage  of  modern  discoveries 
with  regard  to  the  pyramids,  and  the 
other  mysterious  monuments  of  the 
Nile.  It  is  worth  while  to  bear  in 
mind  the  following  facts,  obtained  by 
the  examinations  of  Lepsius : — 

"  At  the  commencement  of  each  reign 
the  rock-chamber  destined  for  the  mo- 
narch's grave  was  excavated,  and  one 
course  of  masonry  erected  above  it.  If 
the  king  died  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign, 
a  casing  was  put  upon  it,  and  a  pyramid 
formed.  But  if  the  king  did  not  die,  an- 
other course  of  stone  was  added  above, 
and  two  of  the  same  height  and  thickness 
on  each  side.  Thus  in  process  of  time  the 
building  assumed  the  form  of  a  series  of 
regular  steps,  which,  on  the  death  of  a 
monarch,  were  cased  over  with  limestone 
or  granite.  The  different  sizes  in  the 
pyramids  is  therefore  to  be  accounted  for, 
by  the  difference  in  the  duration  of  the 
several  reigns ;  and  the  length  of  a  reign 
might  be  ascertained,  if  it  were  possible 
to  learn  the  number  of  courses  over  the 
internal  rock-chamber  in  which  the  mo- 
narch himself  was  deposited." 

Thus  it  seems  that  the  length  of  an 


BOS 


Illustrations 


Egyptian  king's  reign  may  be  dis- 
covered by  the  layers  of  his  tomb- 
stone, just  as  a  farmer  knows  a  cow's 
age  by  the  rings  on  her  horns,  or  a 
botanist  a  tree's  growth  by  the  circles 
of  woody  fibre  in  a  section.  This 
passage  is  sufficient  to  show  that  Mr 
Wheeler's  work,  although  chiefly  valu- 
able as  a  book  of  reference,  is  far 
from  being  a  mere  dictionary  of  names, 
dates,  and  facts. 

It  is  somewhat  more  difficult  to 
describe  the  character  of  the  more 
popular  work,  entitled  the  Life  and 
Travels  of  Herodotus.  To  the  pro- 
found scholar  it  would  perhaps  be 
superfluous,  as  it  consists  of  the  actual 
History  of  Herodotus,  or  at  least  the 
most  entertaining  part  of  it,  together 
with  the  outlines  of  the  Geography  so 
&bly  treated  of  in  the  before-men- 
tioned volume,  strung  upon  an  imagi- 
nary life,  which  we  cannot  help  think- 
ing the  weakest  part  of  the  entire 
work,  and  whose  evident  subordina- 
tion to  the  other  parts  seems  almost 
to  take  away  all  excuse  for  its  exist- 
ence. The  life  of  Herodotus,  as  nar- 
rated by  Mr  Wheeler,  is  prosaic  and 
uninteresting.  Herodotus,  as  hero, 
cannot  do  everything  well,  as  a  hero 
of  romance  should.  He  is  beaten  by 
a  bully,  who  provokes  him  at  Sparta ; 
and  though  he  falls  in  love  more  than 
once  or  twice,  and  once  at  first  sight, 
he  falls  but  waist-deep,  not  over  head 
.and  ears,  as  a  legitimate  novel-hero 
-ought  to  do.  At  last  he  marries  most 
dutifully,  and  in  a  most  matter-of-fact 
.manner,  a  lady  who  has  been  destined 
for  him  by  his  and  her  parents  from 
childhood ;  and  the  tale  concludes  with 
a  smooth  course  of  undramatic  hap- 
piness by  means  of  a  second  marriage, 
when  the  historian  had  migrated  to 
Thurii,  in  Italy,  undertaken  at  the  dis- 
creet age  of  forty-five,  and  with  a  lady 
young  enough  for  his  daughter.  Not- 
withstanding these  objections — chiefly 
made,  we  must  own,  in  deference  to 
conventional  notions  of  what  fiction 
ought  to  be — we  must  allow  that  to 
.the  general  reader  the  Life  and  Travels 
.of  Herodotus  will  open  a  wide  and 
novel  field  of  information,  especially 
interesting  at  present,  as  the  scene  is 
laid  precisely  where  the  mightiest 
events  of  this  century  are  being 
evolved.  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  Tur- 
key, the  Crimea,  Egypt,  Russia,  the 


of  Herodotus.  [Dec. 

Danubian  Principalities, —  these  are 
now,  whatever  they  may  have  been  a 
short  time  since,  the  spots  of  greatest 
attraction  to  all  who  are  directly  or 
indirectly  interested  in  the  present 
mighty  struggle;  and  these  are  pre- 
cisely those  places  which  formed  the 
scenes  of  Herodotus's  travels,  and  the 
materials  of  his  most  elaborate  de- 
scriptions, both  topographical  and  his- 
torical. These  volumes  might  justly 
be  reckoned  indispensable  to  a  com- 
plete library  of  the  war ;  and  in  fact 
any  one  who  would  wish  to  read  up 
the  subject  conscientiously  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  would  look  to  them 
for  its  rudiments,  and  not  lay  them 
aside  till  he  had  conned  them  well, 
and  got  by  heart  the  principal  facts 
presented  in  them. 

With  regard  to  countries  about  the 
Crimea  itself,  the  focus  of  present  in- 
terest, there  is  rich  and  abundant  in- 
formation in  the  course  of  this  narra- 
tive. The  Scythians  of  the  time  of 
Herodotus  seem  to  have  been  much 
the  same  people  as  to  manners  and 
customs  as  the  Cossacks  of  the  Don 
are  now.  Their  great  principle  of 
waging  war,  running  away,  seems  to 
have  been  precisely  the  same.  One  of 
the  most  interesting  parts  of  Herodo- 
tus's account  of  Scythia  is  the  fruitless 
expedition  of  Darius  Hystaspes  into 
the  unknown  wild  inhabited  by  its 
savage  race,  which  resulted  in  much 
the  same  way  as  that  of  Napoleon  the 
First  in  our  own  century.  The  Scyth- 
ians retired  before  the  Grand  Army 
till  it  was  out  of  provisions,  and  then 
harassed  its  retreat  till  it  was  brought 
to  the  brink  of  despair  by  an  insult- 
ing message,  delivered  in  the  symbolic 
manner  of  the  East.  The  Scythian 
herald  brought  a  bird,  a  mouse,  a  frog, 
and  five  arrows,  which,  being  inter- 
preted, signified,  "  Unless,  O  Persians ! 
ye  become  birds,  and  fly  into  the  air, 
or  mice,  and  hide  in  the  earth,  or 
frogs,  and  leap  into  the  sea,  you  shall 
never  return  home,  but  be  stricken 
with  these  arrows."  Darius,  it  is  well 
known,  made  good  his  retreat,  and 
put  the  Danube  between  himself  and 
the  rough-riders  of  the  wilderness ; 
but  he  left  at  least  as  large  a  portion 
of  his  army  behind  him  as  that  which 
Napoleon  sacrificed  in  the  Moscow 
retreat.  The  curiosity  of  Herodotus 
seems  to  have  been  especially  stimu- 


1855.] 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


699 


lated  as  to  the  nations  who  inhabited 
these  regions,  and  the  kind  of  trade 
that  was  carried  on  between  the  Greek 
settlement  of  Olbia  (another  Porto- 
Rico),  occupying  a  site  near  those  of 
Kherson  and  Nicolaieff,  and  the  in- 
terior. 

"  On  the  west  of  Scythia,  and  in  the 
country  now  called  Transylvania,  lived  a 
people  named  Agathyrii,  who  wore  a  pro- 
fusion of  gold  on  their  persons,  which  they 
seem  to  have  obtained  from  the  Carpa- 
thian mountains.  Poland  was  at  that 
time  inhabited  by  a  people  called  the 
.TSTeuri,  of  whom  every  man  was  said  to 
become  a  wolf  for  a  few  days  once  every 
year,  and  then  to  reassume  his  former 
shape.  .  .  .  Herodotus  was  induced,  by 
the  prevalent  notions  of  the  time,  to  fancy 
that  the  people  were  magicians  ;  but  the 
origin  of  the  story  ought,  perhaps,  to  be 
looked  for  in  the  peculiar  character  which 
mania  would  be  likely  to  assume  in  a  po- 
pulation living  among  forests,  and  accus- 
tomed to  hear  the  howling  of  wolves  at 
night." 

Mr  Wheeler  might  have  mentioned, 
that  a  similar  superstition  has  pre- 
vailed, from  the  earliest  times,  among 
the  people  of  Scandinavia,  Germany, 
and  the  conterminous  countries,  and 
has  hardly  ceased  to  exist  even  now. 
"  The  Russian  governments  to  the 
north  of  Scythia  were  inhabited  by 
people  of  Scythian  or  Tartar  origin, 
but  whose  habits  were  still  more  un- 
civilised than  their  neighbours.  Some 
were  named  Androphagi,  because  they 
were  cannibals,  and  others  were  nam- 
ed Melanchlaeni,  because  they  wore 
black  garments."  It  is  difficult  what 
to  make  of  these  tribes,  unless  we  may 
suppose  the  former  name  to  have  ori- 
ginated in  the  fondness  of  northern 
tribes  for  all  sorts  of  flesh,  and  the 
latter  from  their  being  dressed  in  dark 
sheep- skins  in  preference  to  light. 
"  Eastward  of  Scythia  and  the  river 
Don  lived  the  Sauromatse,  in  the  re- 
gion which  now  includes  part  of  the 
country  of  the  Don  Cossacks,  and  part 
of  the  province  of  Astracan."  The 
fabulous  origin  of  these  Sauromatse  is 
related  at  length.  They  were  the 
offspring  of  Scyth.ians  and  Amazons, 
who  met  to  fight,  but  ended  with  one 
hostile  army  marrying  the  other. 
With  what  we  know  about  the  female 
army  of  the  king  of  Dahomey,  we 
should  pause  before  we  utterly  reject 
the  possibility  of  the  existence  of 


Amazons.  The  Amazons  were  ori- 
ginally inhabitants  of  the  Caucasus, 
and  it  is  just  possible  that  the  Sauro- 
mata3  may  have  been  a  tribe  newly 
arrived  from  the  Caucasus,  who  en- 
tered into  amicable  relations  with  the 
original  Scythians,  and  whose  wives 
were  distinguished  by  manlike  tastes 
and  pursuits.  What  we  are  told  of 
the  habits  of  these  Sauromatse  accords 
with  what  is  said  of  the  Calmncks  in 
Dr  Clarke's  Travels  in  Russia. 

"  Calmuck  women  ride  better  than  the 
men.  A  male  Calmuck  on  horseback 
looks  as  if  he  were  intoxicated,  and  likely 
to  fall  off  every  instant,  though  he  never 
loses  his  seat  ;  but  the  women  sit  with 
more  ease,  and  ride  with  extraordinary 
skill.  The  ceremony  of  marriage  among 
the  Calmucks  is  performed  on  horseback. 
A  girl  is  first  mounted,  who  rides  off  at 
full  speed.  Her  lover  pursues  ;  and,  if  he 
overtakes  her,  she  becomes  his  wife,  re- 
turning with  him  to  his  tent.  But  it 
sometimes  happens  that  the  woman  does 
not  wish  to  marry  the  person  by  whom 
she  is  pursued,  in  which  case  she  will  not 
suffer  him  to  overtake  her  ;  and  we  were 
assured  that  no  instance  occurs  of  a  Cal- 
muck girl  being  thus  caught,  unless  she 
has  a  partiality  for  her  pursuer." 

"  Southward  of  the  Sauromataj  were 
the  savage  tribes  inhabiting  the  Cau- 
casus, between  the  Black  Sea  and  the 
Caspian.  They  wore  woollen  gar- 
ments, and  had  a  curious  way  of 
painting  figures  on  their  dress  with  a 
dye  which  they  made  from  the  leaves 
of  certain  trees,  and  which  would 
never  wash  out."  We  should  be  cu- 
rious to  know  if  any  such  customs  still 
exist  among  the  Circassians  or  their 
congeners  who  inhabit  these  regions. 
u  Northward  of  the  Sauromatse  were 
a  great  and  numerous  people  called 
Budini  and  Geloni,  whose  country  ex- 
tended from  the  river  Don  to  the  river 
Volga." 

The  commerce  of  Olbia,  it  seems, 
passed  by  a  caravan  route  through 
all  these  wild  peoples  over  the  Ural 
Mountains  and  the  Kirghiz  steppe,, 
even  as  far  as  the  Altai  chain  and  Si- 
beria. Gold  seems  to  have  been  most 
abundant  in  those  parts,  and  easily 
procurable  in  exchange  for  articles 
common  elsewhere.  It  is  mentioned 
that  the  caravans  passed  first  through 
the  Budini,  who  are  a  people  with 
blue  eyes  and  red  hair.  From  this  we 


700 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


gather  that  they  were  not  of  Mongolian 
but  of  Indo- Germanic  origin,  and 
may  have  been  an  offshoot  of  the  great 
Sclavonic  family.  The  Geloni  ap- 
peared to  have  been  originally  a  co- 
lony of  Greeks,  who  had  become  bar- 
barised  by  intercourse  with  the  tribes 
among  whom  they  settled.  When  the 
caravan  got  to  the  Ural  Mountains,  it 
fell  in  with  two  sporting  tribes  called 
the  Thyssagitae  and  Jyrcse.  The  latter 
used  to  hunt  in  a  peculiar  fashion. 
The  sportsman  got  up  in  a  tree  with 
his  bow  and  arrows ;  if  he  saw  any 
game  pass,  he  shot  at  it,  but  if  he  miss- 
ed or  did  not  kill,  he  had  a  horse 
and  dog  in  waiting  below,  to  pursue 
and  make  sure  of  it.  The  Argippsei, 
the  modern  Calmucks,  occupied  part 
of  the  great  steppe.  Herodotus  was 
told  that  this  was  a  flat-nosed  and 
large-chinned  people,  bald  from  birth. 
The  former  are  well-known  Mongolian 
characteristics  ;  the  natural  baldness 
must  have  been  a  mistake  occasioned 
by  the  custom  of  shaving  the  head, 
still  practised  among  many  of  these 
nations.  What  Herodotus  says  as  to 
these  people  living  on  a  fruit  called 
Ponticon,  exactly  tallies  as  to  what  is 
told  by  modern  travellers  about  the 
bird's-eye  cherry  which  is  still  eaten 
by  the  Calmucks.  There  is  a  passage 
here  which  the  Peace  Society  are  wel- 
come to  make  the  best  of  as  a  basis  for 
argument: — 

'*  Each  man  dwelt  under  a  tree, 
over  which,  in  the  winter  time,  he 
spread  a  thick  white  covering  of  felt 
cloth.  The  whole  tribe  was  account- 
ed sacred  ;  its  members  possessed  no 
implements  of  war,  but  yet  no  one 
even  attempted  to  do  them  any  injury. 
They  arbitrated  on  the  disputes  of 
neighbouring  nations,  and  whoever 
took  refuge  amongst  them  had  nothing 
to  fear."  Mr  Wheeler  adds,  "  that  the 
peace-makers  were  most  probably 
Calmuck  priests."  We  cannot  but 
think  that  the  moral  courage  of  these 
people,  if  truly  told,  was  to  their  cre- 
dit, when  we  read  of  the  peculiar 
tastes  of  the  Issedones,  a  people  who 
dwelt  to  the  east  of  them.  These  Is- 
sedones had  the  singular  custom,  when 
a  man's  father  died,  of  calling  all  his 
relations  together,  and  when  they  had 
slain  a  sufficient  number  of  small  cattle, 
mincing  them  up  with  the  deceased 
parent,  and  serving  the  whole  mess 


[Dec. 

up  for  dinner.  This  paterophagy,  as 
we  may  call  it,  as  an  aggravated  form, 
of  cannibalism,  is  elsewhere  ascribed 
by  Herodotus  to  the  Callatian  Indi- 
ans, who  held  it  a  religious  obligation, 
and  when  asked  by  Darius  Hystaspes, 
who  wished  to  prove  the  convention- 
ality of  right  and  wrong,  what  they 
would  take  to  give  up  the  practice  of 
eating  their  fathers,  told  him  to  hold 
his  tongue,  if  he  could  not  make  a 
proposition  of  a  more  decent  kind.  We 
cannot  help  thinking  that  there  is  a 
connection  in  these  cases  with  the 
practice  of  exposing  aged  parents,  or 
sacrificing  them  to  the  gods,  existing 
until  lately,  if  not  now,  among  the 
natives  of  India,  rumours  of  which 
must  have  given  rise  to  exaggeration 
in  the  minds  of  the  Greeks,  a  people 
who  regarded  as  the  most  sacred  of 
obligations  the  duty  of  the  son  to  the 
father,  and  found  in  it  an  excuse  even 
for  the  crime  of  Orestes. 

Notwithstanding  this  discrepancy 
from  Greek  usage,  it  was  evident  that 
the  Issedones  intended  a  compliment  to 
the  deceased  by  this  practice,  for  they 
used  to  have  the  skull  cleaned  and 
gilt,  and  preserved  it  as  a  religious 
object,  sacrificing  to  it  annually  ;  and 
in  this  latter  observance  they  resem- 
bled the  Greeks.  Southward  of  this 
singular  people  were  the  Massagetse,  a 
warlike  tribe,  who  had  conquered  the 
Scythians  in  those  parts.  It  was  in. 
an  expedition  against  this  people  that 
the  great  Cyrus  was  killed,  and  insult- 
ed after  his  death  by  having  molten 
gold  poured  down  his  throat.  It  is  un- 
certain how  far  the  travels  of  Herodotus 
extended  in  these  directions ;  proba- 
bly he  only  reached  the  city  of  Olbia; 
but  he  kept  his  ears  open,  and  ga- 
thered information  from  a  variety 
of  sources.  For  instance,  it  was  told 
him  that  northward  of  the  Argippaji 
were  people  having  goats'  feet,  by  which 
was  evidently  meant  that  they  wore 
buskins  of  skins  to  shield  their  legs 
from  the  cold ;  and  northward  of 
them  again  were  people  who  slept  six 
months  at  a  time.  By  these  were, 
of  course,  indicated  the  people  of  the 
extreme  north,  whose  night  as  well 
as  their  day  may  be  said  to  last  six 
months.  Travellers  in  Finmark  dur- 
ing the  summer  have  remarked  that, 
at  whatever  hour  of  the  night  they 
arrived  at  a  house,  they  generally 


1855.] 

found  the  people  wide  awake  and 
about,  so  that  it  would  seem  that  they 
really  do  sleep  more  in  the  winter  to 
make  up  for  their  wakefulness  during 
summer.  The  Arimaspi  were  another 
curious  nation,  who  had  but  one  eye 
each,  but  that  eye  powerfully  awake 
to  their  own  interests  ;  for  there  were 
certain  gold-diggings  in  their  neigh- 
bourhood which,  as  a  security  against 
depredations,  were  incessantly  guard- 
ed by  griffins.  Beyond  all  these 
strange  creatures  dwelt  the  Hyperbo- 
reans in  a  clime  of  peace  and  blessed- 
ness, a  righteous  and  happy  people, 
who  lived  lives  of  extraordinary 
length,  and  were  in  every  respect  per- 
fect, but  whom,  though  they  were 
generally  believed  in  by  the  ancients, 
no  one  appears  to  have  known  per- 
sonally. It  is  strange  that,  even  in 
modern  days,  arctic  navigators  have 
dreamed  of  some  happy  land  like  this 
within  the  icy  barrier  of  the  polar 
circle;  and  it  was  even  surmised 
before  the  ghastly  truth  xcame  out, 
that  poor  Franklin  and  his  companions 
might  have  penetrated  thither.  From 
his  investigations  in  these  dismal  re- 
gions, Herodotus,  according  to  Mr 
Wheeler,  made  the  best  of  his  way  to 
Athens,  happy,  no  doubt,  to  be  once 
more  in  civilised  society. 

In  his  description  of  the  sojourn  of 
the  historian  at  Athens,  Mr  Wheeler 
grows  eloquent,  and  is  very  felicitous 
in  his  descriptions.  He  takes  the 
opportunity  of  describing  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  Oresteian  tetralogy  of  . 
-dEschylus,  and  the  several  great  festi- 
vals of  the  Athenian  people  ;  he  does 
full  justice  to  Athenian  art  as  it  exist- 
ed in  the  palmy  days  of  Pericles,  and 
a  little  before  his  time ;  and  he  relates 
circumstantially,  and  with  all  the  aids 
that  modern  researches  have  given, 
those  eternal  glories  of  Greece  gained 
in  war  against  the  Persian,  which 


Illustrations  of  Herodotus. 


701 


have  been  used  ever  since  as  an  un- 
surpassable standard  of  comparison  in 
taking  the  measure  of  human  achieve- 
ment. Let  us  never  forget  that  old 
Herodotus  is  their  peculiar  chronicler. 
The  struggle  of  Athens  and  Sparta, 
related  by  Thucydides  and  Xenophon, 
had  something  about  it  of  the  un- 
healthy and  fratricidal  character  of 
our  own  wars  of  the  Rebellion,  or  the 
horrible  street-fights  of  Paris ;  and 
just  as  historians  have  shown  a  mor- 
bid propensity  to  dwell  on  the  inci- 
dents of  the  first  French  Revolution, 
have  they  revelled  in  the  seditions  of 
Corey ra,  and  in  the  intestine  strife  of 
embittered  Grecian  parties;  for  the 
war  between  Athens  and  Sparta  was, 
in  fact,  nothing  more  than  a  war  of 
political  parties.  The  great  grand 
struggle  against  Persia  is  one  of  those 
holy  wars  waged  rather  by  gods  than 
by  men  or  demons,  where  generous 
heroism  may  see  the  private  friend  in 
the  public  enemy,  rather  than  the 
public  enemy  in  the  private  friend. 
When  England  speaks  of  Trafalgar, 
Waterloo,  Inkermann — when  France 
speaks  of  Austerlitz,  Marengo,  Boro- 
dino— when  Germany  thinks  on  the 
days  of  Culm  and  Leipsic,  and  now 
peaceful  Switzerland  on  the  elder  days 
of  Sempach  and  Morgarten,— it  is 
ever  with  Marathon,  Salamis,  Ther- 
mopylae, that  these  thrilling  names 
are  compared ;  and  never  should  it  be 
forgotten  that  for  the  perpetuation 
of  these  names  the  world  is  chiefly 
indebted  to  Herodotus  of  Halicar- 
nassus.  Let  us  have  mercy  on  the 
poor  Greeks,  now  the  dupes  and  tools 
of  Russia ;  and  even  yet,  if  we  can, 
recover  from  political  abasement  the 
degenerate  and  prodigal  sons  who 
still  bear  the  features,  speak  the  lan- 
guage, and  are  baptised  by  the  very 
names  of  their  heroic  and  immortal 
progenitors ! 


702 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


[Dee, 


MODERN   LIGHT  LITERATURE — ART. 


THE  art  of  criticism  is  essentially 
an  art  of  fault-finding.  We  speak  of 
the  kindly,  the  genial,  the  candid 
critic ;  but,  after  all,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  is  the  man  who  picks 
holes  in  all  our  coats  who  is  most 
likely  to  be  notable  in  his  generation 
for  the  discriminating  eye  and  acute 
judgment  necessary  to  the  craft.  "  I 
am  nothing  if  not  critical,"  says  lago, 
in  that  diabolical  cold  wisdom  of  his  ; 
and,  after  all,  the  true  pith  of  your 
popular  commentator  lies  in  the  force 
of  his  objections,  and  the  vigour  of 
his  condemnation.  The  "  This  will 
never  do,"  though  it  looks  somewhat 
foolish  after  the  lapse  of  years  which 
establishes  the  poet,  and  unveils  the 
censor,  is  immensely  effective  and  cap- 
tivating at  the  time  of  its  delivery ;  and 
if  we  have  no  private  bias  beforehand 
towards  the  unfortunate  subject  under 
operation,  the  chances  are  that  we  quite 
enjoy  the  critic's  superiority,  and  have 
our  quiet  chuckle  over  his  shoulder 
with  most  complacent  and  satisfac- 
tory glee.  It  is  only  very  bad  abuse, 
indeed,  which  rouses  a  reactionary 
generosity  in  the  general  audience — 
very  bad  abuse,  or  abuse  very  invete- 
rate and  continuous — as  when  the 
Times,  the  most  eminent  of  modern 
pugilists,  not  content  with  once 
44  walking  into "  its  victim,  returns 
again  and  again  to  the  exhausted 
subject,  and  "  hews  him  down  in 
pieces  sma',"  with  a  virulence  which 
transfers  all  our  sympathy  to  the 
sufferer.  In  ordinary  cases — let  the 
public  confess  its  weakness — we  like 
the  crash  and  the  dust  of  genuine 
demolishment,  and  rub  our  hands 
with  Dr  Johnson,  when  Mrs  Mon- 
tagu comes  visiting,  and  cry — "  Down 
with  her,  little  Burney ! — have  her 
down ! " 

But  even  in  books  there  is  no  such 
scope  for  authoritative  denunciation 
as  we  find  in  the  more  tangible  pro- 
ductions of  art.  Supereminent  lite- 
rary powers  have  a  wonderful  advan- 
tage over  supereminent  powers  of 
any  other  class.  Your  Burns,  who 
does  not  know  what  study  means, 
bursts  in  a  moment  in  glorious  triumph 
over  all  the  learned  heads  of  all  the 


mellifluous  singers  who  have  studied 
the  Ars  Poetica  for  a  life-long,  and 
ought  to  know  all  about  the  divine 
craft  a  thousand  times  better  than  he. 
But  your  young  Raphael,  though  his 
imagination  flashes  as  brightly  with 
all  the  lights  and  shades  of  heaven, 
and  all  the  combinations  of  inspired 
unconscious  genius,  has  an  inevitable 
apprenticeship  before  him,  ere  he  can 
produce  to  our  eyes  the  superb  visions 
which  haunt  and  charm  his  own ;  and 
even  the  spectator  requires  an  addi- 
tional and  peculiar  education  before 
he  can  fitly  appreciate  and  enjoy  the 
poems  of  the  painter — so  at  least  say 
all  the  connoisseurs :  and  though  it 
seems  a  paradox  when  we  think  of  it, 
and  somewhat  hard  to  comprehend 
why  the  more  palpable  art  should  re- 
quire the  greater  interpretation,  yet 
so  the  universal  assent  allows  it  to  be. 
44 1  am  no  judge,"  says  the  modest 
bystander,  diffidently  lingering  before 
some  great  canvass;  and  iii  comes 
the  bustling  critic,  who  is  a  judge,. 
and  demeans  himself  accordingly. 
Alas,  poor  painter!  for  you  are  a 
great  deal  safer  in  the  hand  of  the 
common  people — the  natural  eye,  and 
the  kindly  understanding — than  under 
the  inspection  of  the  connoisseur. 

Yes,  the  worker  in  words  has  fewer 
difficulties  to  contend  with  than  have 
his  brethren  in  the  realm  and  region 
of  high  art :  language  is  a  living  ma- 
terial; it  is  not  easy  for  the  dullest 
workman  to  take  action  and  meaning 
altogether  out  of  it;  and  to  make 
words  breathe  and  thoughts  burn  is 
much  less  hard  as  an  actual  operation 
than  to  confer  the  same  magical 
existence  upon  the  dull  blank  of  can- 
vass or  the  shapeless  mass  of  marble 
which  is  no  inherent  quality  of  life. 
And  the  writer,  it  is  true,  describes 
his  scene,  but  there  he  leaves  it,  a 
vivid  bright  suggestion  which  leaps 
into  reality  by  means  of  our  own  ap- 
prehension, and  has  a  different  look 
to  almost  every  intelligent  eye, — 
whereas  the  unfortunate  artist,  who 
is  not  permitted  to  suggest  but  must 
exhibit,  lays  himself  open  to  a  hun- 
dred matter-of-fact  censures,  besides 
those  transcendental  and  ethereal 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


ones  which  he  shares  with  his  poetic 
brother.  u  Fancy  alone  is  high  fan- 
tastical," says  the  greatest  of  all 
authorities  in  such  a  matter ;  and  we 
suppose  that  nothing  really  produced 
and  completed  ever  could  fully  satisfy 
the  restless  imagination  to  which 
u  the  dying  fall,"  which  was  sweet  as 
the  sweet  south,  becomes  the  next 
moment  "  not  so  sweet  now  as  it 
was  before." 

The  canons  of  criticism  in  art  have 
altered  little  since  the  days  of  that  en- 
lightened cognoscento,  who  instructed 
Dr  Primrose's  wandering  son  in  the 
art  of  professional  dilettantism  ;  and 
it  is  amusing  to  take  this  gentleman's 
two  rules  with  ns  into  the  field  of 
modern  criticism,  when  they  are 
quite  as  universal  and  considerably 
more  dogmatic  than  of  old  —  "•  the 
one  always  to  observe  that  the  pic- 
ture might  have  been  better  if  the 
painter  had  taken  more  pains  ; "  and 
the  other  to  praise  the  works  of  not 
always  Perngiuo  certainly — it  may 
just  as  well  be  J.  M.  W.  Turner — 
but  of  somebody  super-excellent  and 
pre-eminent  above  everybody  else. 
Therefore,  oh  budding  critic,  choose 
your  man  !  the  widest  license  is  per- 
mitted you  in  this  field  of  opinion ; 
and  though,  if  we  were  to  hazard  a 
modest  word  of  advice,  we  would 
counsel  you  to  choose  either  an  ac- 
knowledged great  artist,  or  an  entirely 
unknown  one,  yet  you  are  left  to  the 
most  perfect  freedom,  and  have  all 
the  world  of  the  studio  before  you 
in  which  to  select  your  unconscious 
hero.  A  great  man  has  his  advan- 
tages, because  the  greatest  exaggera- 
tion can  never  make  praise  of  him 
quite  ridiculous ;  but,  to  tell  the 
truth,  our  own  conviction  is  entirely 
in  favour  of  the  other — the  unknown 
genius — who  is  almost  as  good  for  all 
purposes  of  comparison  as  a  man  of 
straw.  Name  him  boldly,  worship  him 
without  terror,  nobody  can  contradict 
you,  because  nobody  knows.  This  sim- 
ple expedient  puts  you  at  once  out  of 
the  reach  of  answer  arid  argument;,  for 
what  are  all  the  Raphaels  and  Michael 
Angelos  ? — mere  realities,  known  to 
all  the  world,  compared  with  your 
private  reserve  of  individual  genius — 
your  own  John  Smith,  whom  nobody 
knows  but  you?  But  however  your 
choice  may  be  exercised,  we  adjure 


703 

you,  leader  of  the  popular  under- 
standing, do  not  omit  to  make  one. 
Whatever  you  do,  choose  your  man ! 

To  discuss  our  modern  critics  of 
art,  and  not  to  discuss  Mr  Ruskin, 
would  be  an  impossibility ;  and  the 
man  who  has  so  distinctly  set  his 
mark  upon  one  branch  of  literature 
is  no  contemptible  antagonist.  We 
paused  as  we  were  about  to  ring  a 
modest  challenge  upon  the  champion's 
buckler.  Did  not  Mr  Ruskin  warn 
Maga  once  upon  a  time  of  some 
mysterious  horror  of  reprisals,  what 
time  a  better  knight  than  we  un- 
horsed the  Oxford  graduate  from  his 
earliest  saddle  ?  "  Let  Maga  be- 
ware," said  Mr  Ruskin;  but  Maga, 
incautious  amazon!  has  not  been 
wary.  Do  you  think,  upon  your 
conscience,  gentle  reader,  that  he  will 
do  it  this  time,  and  kill  us  out  and 
out  ?  For  great  as  is  our  ambition  to 
measure  swords  with  so  redoubtable 
a  fighter,  we  would  not  do  anything 
matricidal ;  far  be  it  from  us  to  accele- 
rate our  kindly  mother's  fate — and  if 
it  is  your  serious  opinion.  But  no, 
Mr  Ruskin  is  human— would  not  find 
it  in  his  heart,  despite  a  hundred 
flying  arrows,  to  bring  this  sublimely 
indefinite  doom  upon  the  time-hon- 
oured head  of  Maga.  Though  it  is 
noble  to  have  a  giant's  strength,  he 
knows  how  tyrannous  it  is  to  use  it 
like  a  giant,  so  we  take  heart  and 
breathe  again.  Mr  Ruskin  will  be 
merciful ;  he  will  not  annihilate  us 
this  time ;  and  hilarious  in  restored 
confidence,  we  proceed. 

This  great  critic  is  one  of  those  un- 
fortunate people  whose  "mission"  is 
to  prove  every  other  man  a  blunderer 
or  a  fool — an  ungracious  office,  for  few 
of  us  have  the  virtue  of  Dogberry ; 
and,  moreover,  in  many  respects  a 
self- debasing  office,  being  the  direct 
opposite  of  that  sweet-hearted  and 
genial  policy  which  "  esteems  every 
man  better  than  himself."  Mr  Ruskin 
is  neither  first  nor  greatest  in  this 
species  of  philosophy,  but  he  is  indivi- 
dual notwithstanding,  and  like  him- 
self. There  is  little  resemblance,  for 
instance,  between  his  denunciations 
and  those  of  Carlyle,  an  altogether 
bigger  personage,  who  knocks  down 
his  opponents  with  just  such  an  amount 
of  glee — of  Titanic  fun  and  extra- 
vagance —  as,  sweeping,  dogmatic^ 


704 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


[Dec. 


and  unreasonable  though  it  may  be, 
takes  malice  out  of  the  thundering 
roll  of  invective,  which  the  utterer 
himself  has  more  pleasure  in  for  its 
power  of  big  words  and  grotesque 
appellation,  than  for  any  ill-nature 
against  its  objects.  Very  different  is 
the  author  of  the  Notes  on  the  last  Ex- 
hibition of  the  Royal  Academy,  which 
is  about  the  sourest  morsel  of  criticism 
we  have  ever  looked  into.  Mr  Ruskin 
utters  his  censures  with  a  shrewish 
pertinacity  in  which  there  is  no  enjoy- 
ment. They  are  bad,  to  judge  him 
by  his  own  standards,  for  he  has  no 
pleasure  in  them.  There  is  no  twinkle 
in  his  eye,  no  roll  in  his  speech,  no- 
thing of  the  dash  and  sparkle,  the 
impetuous  gleeful  impulse  of  demolish- 
ment,  which  makes  vituperation  al- 
most an  excusable,  as  it  certainly  is 
an  exciting  pastime.  He  is  not  bitter 
always,  but  he  is  always  sour — a  more 
ignoble  quality.  His  own  temper  is  on 
edge — his  mind  is  galled — and  we  turn 
with  wonder  from  those  descriptive 
pictures  of  his  which,  in  their  pic- 
turesque flow  and  fulness,  we  venture 
to  call  almost  unrivalled,  to  the  shrill 
high  scoldings  of  his  denunciation,  the 
spiteful  tone  and  unkindly  spirit  which 
seem  to  work  full  as  great  harm  upon 
the  critic's  own  mind  and  judgment  as 
upon  the  workers  whom  he  attacks 
and  overthrows. 

Notwithstanding,  MrRuskin's  claims 
to  be  considered  among  the  foremost  of 
our  modern  writers  upon  art  are  indis- 
putable. He  has  made  a  very  ela- 
borate theory  of  the  laws  and  princi- 
ples of  painting  ;  he  has  slain  outright 
the  greater  number  of  people,  ex- 
cepting wholly  only  Turner  and  various 
members  of  the  water-colour  society, 
who  have  for  a  thousand  years  or  so 
practised  the  same.  He  has  written 
sundry  books,  full  of  detached  passages 
of  the  most  remarkable  eloquence,  and 
is  himself  a  landscape-painter  (in 
words)  of  singular  power.  Also  hav- 
ing "settled"  the  most  important 
branch  of  art,  he  has  turned  his 
thoughts  to  architecture,  and  is  now 
a  living  and  leading  authority  in  that 
revived  and  rising  and  most  talkative 
province  of  art.  You  say  he  has 
done  nothing — critics  seldom  do  any- 
thing, our  good  friend — but  hush  !  let 
as  take  heed  to  what  we  say.  Has  it 
not  been  intimated  to  the  world,  in 


terms  befitting  the  solemnity  of  the 
occasion,  that  "  a  house  is  about  to 
be  erected,  from  the  designs  of  Mr 
Ruskin,  assisted  by  an  architect?" 
Oh,  hapless  architect !  unfortunate, 
deluded,  predestined  victim !  if  this 
wonderful  erection  turns  out  a  failure, 
who,  think  you,  will  bear  the  blame  ? 

Theories  of  painting,  and  criticisms 
upon  pictures,  are  two  things  widely 
different,  and  it  is  not  our  vocation  to 
discuss  the  science  of  the  laws  of  art. 
Mr  Ruskin's  theory,  moreover,  has 
attained  to  years ;  and  Modern  Paint- 
ers, buried  under  libraries  of  later 
books,  no  longer  lies  upon  anybody's 
operating  table,  but  has  subsided  into 
its  appropriate  shelf  like  any  other 
harmless  volume,  and  shakes  the 
world  no  more.  Yet  we  cannot  but 
pause  a  moment  to  note  that  most 
injurious  wile  of  Mr  Ruskin's,  by 
which  he  furtively  supplies  himself 
with  a  weapon  under  pretence  of  ex- 
pounding a  principle.  You  would  not 
suspect  it — the  manoeuvre  is  accom- 
plished so  skilfully ;  but  wait  till  he 
has  occasion  for  it,  and  you  will  find 
out  what  a  serviceable  little  stiletto 
this  is  which  our  critic  has  hidden, 
in  his  sleeve.  Mr  Ruskin  is  expound- 
ing and  classifying  the  ideas  which 
we  receive  from  works  of  art;  and 
second  and  third  upon  his  roll  he  en- 
ters "  Ideas  of  Imitation,"  and  "  Ideas 
of  Truth."  We  want  no  learned  dis- 
sertation to  convince  us  that"  Truth  13 
the  one  unfailing  necessity  of  poem 
alike  and  picture.  The  fact  is  at 
once  indisputable  and  undisputed. 
But  what  is  imitation  ?  Is  it  a  se- 
condary and  ministering  faculty,  by 
which  our  human  weakness  constrains 
the  loftierTruth  to  express  her  message1? 
or  is  it  a  falsehood  and  pretence — a 
thing,  and  not  a  power  ?  Mr  Ruskin 
gives  an  elaborate  chapter  to  the 
settlement  of  this  question,  but  never 
seems  for  a  moment  to  contemplate 
anything  but  the  thing — an  Imita- 
tion, which  of  its  nature  and  essence 
is  a  cheat  and  delusion,  and  has  no- 
thing to  do  with  art. 

We  assent  to  every  word,  so  long  as 
it  confines  itself  to  the  false  tooth  or 
the  waxen  apple, — nay,  we  might 
even  stretch  so  far  as  to  take  in  the 
glittering  beauffel  of  Messrs  Elking- 
ton,  resplendent  with  salvers  and 
flagons  which  are  not  silver,  though 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


nobody  knows  the  difference.  These 
are  imitations,  shams,  counterfeits 
— things  which  profess  to  be  what 
they  are  not.  But  it  is  a  mere  juggle 
of  words  to  confound  the  imitative 
faculty  with  the  imitated  thing,  and, 
like  all  disingenuous  arguments,  is 
very  like  to  deceive  the  unwary.  We 
will  let  Mr  Kuskin  explain  for  him- 
self what  an  "  idea  of  imitation " 
is:— 

"When  ever  any  thing  looks  like  what 
it  is  not,  the  resemblance  being  so 
great  as  nearly  to  deceive,  we  feel  a 
kind  of  pleasurable  surprise  —  an 
agreeable  excitement  of  mind,  exact- 
ly the  same  in  its  nature  as  that 
which  we  receive  from  juggling. 
Whenever  we  perceive  this  in  some- 
thing produced  by  art — that  is  to  say, 
whenever  the  work  is  seen  to  resemble 
something  which  we  know  it  is  not — 
we  receive  what  I  call  an  idea  of  imi- 
tation. Why  such  ideas  are  pleasing, 
it  would  be  out  of  our  present 
purpose  to  inquire ;  we  only  know 
that  there  is  no  man  who  does  not 
feel  pleasure  in  his  animal  nature 
from  gentle  surprise,  and  that  such 
surprise  can  be  excited  in  no  more 
distinct  manner  than  by  the  evidence 
that  a  thing  is  not  what  it  appears  to 
be.  Now  two  things  are  requisite  to 
our  complete  and  most  pleasurable 
perception  of  this  :  first,  that  the  re- 
semblance be  so  perfect  as  to  amount 
to  a  deception;  secondly,  that  there 
be  some  means  of  proving,  at  the  same 
moment,  that  it  is  a  deception.  The 
most  perfect  ideas  and  pleasures  of 
imitation  are,  therefore,  when  one 
sense  is  contradicted  by  another,  both 
bearing  as  positive  evidence  on  the 
subject  as  each  is  capable  of  alone ; 
as  when  the  eye  says  a  thing  is  round, 
and  the  finger  says  it  is  flat:  they  are, 
therefore,  nowhere  more  felt  in  so  high 
a  degree  as  in  painting,  where  appear- 
ances of  projection,  roughness,  hair, 
velvet,  &c.,  are  given  with  a  smooth 
surface,  or  in  wax- work,  where  the 
first  evidence  of  the  senses  is  per- 
petually contradicted  by  their  expe- 
rience  Ideas  of  imita- 
tion, then,  act  by  producing  the  simple 
pleasure  of  surprise,  and  that  not  of 
surprise  in  its  higher  sense  and  func- 
tion, but  of  the  mean  and  paltry  sur- 
prise which  is  felt  in  juggling.  These 
ideas  and  pleasures  are  the  most 


705 

contemptible  which  can  be  derived 
from  art." 

We  bethink  us  of  the  painted  per- 
spective at  the  end  of  a  little  strip  of 
garden,  which  Evelyn  records  as  a 
laudable  and  pleasant  delusion.  We 
bethink  us  of  the  fly  which  Holbein, 
with  wicked  wit,  painted  upon  the 
nose  of  that  portrait,  which  the  poor 
painter  had  charged  his  disguised 
serving-man  to  guard  from  insect  in- 
vasions. Very  true,  but  what  then 
was  "Titian's  flesh-tint,"  which  Mr 
Ruskin  has  just  instanced  as  an  ex- 
ample of  that  power  which  constitutes 
excellence?  "Whatever  can  excite 
in  the  mind  the  conception  of  certain 
facts,  can  give  ideas  of  truth,  though 
it  be  in  no  degree  the  imitation  or  re- 
semblance of  those  facts,"  says  Mr 
Kuskin ;  but  the  tints  of  the  veriest 
dauber  who  ever  attempted  a  portrait, 
convey  a  conception  to  the  mind  of 
the  fact  of  flesh  such  as  it  is,  in  one 
way  or  another.  Are  we  to  accept 
Mr  John  Smith's  suggestion  that  his 
sitter,  being  human,  has  flesh  and  a 
complexion  as  an  idea  of  truth,  and 
reject,  as  an  idea  of  imitation,  the 
flesh-tint  of  Titian,  which  certainly 
most  closely  "resembles  something 
which  we  know  it  is  not  ?  "  For  our 
own  part,  we  see  no  way  of  escaping 
from  this  logical  necessity.  But  Mr 
Ruskin  emancipates  himself  after  the 
cleverest  and  skilfullest  fashion :  all 
this  time,  indeed,  while  he  has  been 
talking  so  plausibly,  and  while  we 
have  been  puzzling  our  perplexed 
brains  how  we  are  to  get  out  of  the 
dilemma,  our  critic  is  quietly  arming 
himself  for  the  campaign  upon  which 
he  is  about  to  enter.  He  looks  bravely 
in  your  face  all  the  time,  most  honest 
and  unsuspicious  reader,  but,  notwith- 
standing, he  has  managed  to  slip  the 
wicked  weapon  up  his  sleeve ;  and 
when  you  come  to  see  him  in  full 
career  against  artistical  honours  and 
reputations,  you  will  find  out  the 
value  of  these  two  sets  of  principles, 
and  their  newly-established  antagon- 
ism. The  knot  of  difficulty  is  cut  in 
the  most  expeditious  manner  possible. 
When  Mr  Ruskin  dislikes  a  picture, 
he  calls  all  its  truthfulness,  Imitation 
—when  it  has  the  wonderful  good 
fortune  to  please  him,  he  receives  all 
its  imitation  as  Truth. 

Now  it  is  not  our  business  to  set  up 


706  Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 

our  theory  in  opposition  to  the  theory  of 
Mr  Ruskin — far  be  such  a  presump- 
tion from  our  intent ;  we  are  of  the 
public,  we  are  not  of  the  connoisseurs, 
and  have  even,  we  humbly  confess 
it,  no  manner  of  right  to  prick  into 
this  field  where  a  better  cavalier  than 
we  has  been  wont  to  bear  the  banner 
of  Maga,  and  cry  her  war-cry.  It  is 
not  our  vocation  to  discuss  the  prin- 
ciples of  art :  we  have  to  deal  with — 
not  the  science  of  the  beautiful,  but — 
oh  infinite  distinction  ! — the  candour 
and  consistency  of  the  critic.  To 
pur  own  humble  thinking,  imitation 
in.the  craft  of  painting  is  an  attend- 
ant geni  to  the  nobler  master-spirit, 
Truth.  This  art,  whose  vocation  it  is 
to  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,  must 
do  something  more  than  convey  to 
our  minds  a  "  conception  of  certain 
facts  "—hieroglyphics  would  do  that ; 
nay,  that  first  primitive  symbol  of 
a  human  figure  which  adorns  our 
doorpost,  in  the  energetic  chalk  of 
some  passing  errand-boy,  conveys  a 
most  indubitable  conception  of  such 
certain  facts  as  arms  and  legs,  and 
even  fingers,  to  the  inquiring  mind  : 
but  art  has  a  somewhat  wider  field  of 
occupation,  to  the  common  belief,  and 
has  rather  more  expected  at  her 
hands.  To  affirm  that  Truth  is  true, 
and  imitation  is  false,  answers  very 
well  for  a  saying,  and  it  is  an  admi- 
rable expedient  in  criticism  to  con- 
trast the  two,  and  place  them  in 
antagonism ;  but  this  is  just  one  of 
those  axioms  which  must  land  in 
hopeless  perplexity  every  unbiassed 
and  candid  looker-on.  Mr  Buskin 
specifies  one  picture  in  the  last  Aca- 
demy as  truly  and  as  very  great — the 
"Rescue"  of  Mr  Millais.  Let  us  take 
for  granted  the  truth  of  this  remark- 
able production.  It  has  a  wonderful 
balance  and  contrast  of  human  emo- 
tions in  it,  with  which  imitation  has 
nothing  to  do  ;  and  it  may  very  well 
chance  that  many  a  spectator,  silenced 
by  the  first  glance  of  that  passion  and 
agony  of  joy  which  is  its  principal 
inspiration,  is  glad  to  pause  a  moment 
upon  the  accessories  of  the  scene. 
That  carpet  on  the  burning  stair — a 
carpet-dealer  could  "match"  it  for 
you,  and  tell  you  how  much  a  yard  it 
was  ;  and  there  is  not  a  young-lady 
critic  in  the  crowd  who  could  not 
vouch  for  the  authenticity  of  those 


[Dec, 

bits  of  embroidered  work  in  the 
crimsoned  sleeve  of  that  dainty  night- 
dress. Are  these  matters  of  detail  to 
be  dignified  by  the  title  of  truths  of 
nature— or  are  they  to  be  rejected 
and  condemned  as  miserable  and 
mean  ideas  of  imitation,  conveying 
surprise  to  our  animal  nature  and  an 
ignoble  pleasure  to  our  senses — the 
same  pleasure  which  we  derive  in  a 
higher  degree  from  sleight-of-hand  and 
jugglery,  the  delight  of  being  deceiv- 
ed ?  We  do  not  see  how  Mr  Ruskin, 
believing  and  holding  his  own  prin- 
ciple, can  refuse  to  go  so  far  as  this. 

Had  we  space  to  consider  the  mat- 
ter more  closely,  we  would  say  that 
delusion  never  can  by  possibility  go 
so  far,  in  painting,  as  Mr  Ruskin  re- 
presents— nay,  that  he  himself  has  no- 
faith  in  the  marvellous  falsehood  of 
imitation  which  he  describes  to  us. 
He  himself  says :  "M.  de  Marmontel, 
going  into  a  connoisseur's  gallery, 
pretends  to  mistake  a  fine  Berghem 
for  a  window  ;" — pretends,  but  of 
course  every  one  knows  exactly  what 
amount  of  reality  there  is  in  this  pic- 
ture, and  what  a  pure  physical  im- 
possibility it  is  that  the  fine  Berghem 
could  deceive  any  one  into  more  than 
the  common  hyperbole  of  intended 
compliment.  A  better  story  than  this 
is  the  well-known  anecdote  of  Philip 
of  Spain,  who,  suddenly  coming  upon 
a  portrait,  in  the  studio  of  Velasquez, 
of  an  admiral,  then  on  the  high  seas, 
angrily  addressed  the  picture,  de- 
manding of  the  imaginary  hero  why 
he  was  not  gone  ?  Does  Mr  Ruskin 
think  this  was  an  insult  to  the  painter, 
or  that  it  brought  Velasquez  down  to 
the  level  of  Madame  Tussaud  ?  But 
the  best  story  of  all,  and  most  for  the- 
critic's  purpose,  is  that  which  records- 
the  trick  of  the  well-known  Monsieur 
Violet,  who  delighted  to  paint  a  fire- 
place and  blazing  fire  upon  the  shin- 
ing board,  and  delighted  still  more 
when  the  deluded  stranger  opened  out 
his  hands  and  warmed  his  fingers  at 
the  fictitious  glow.  We  hand  this- 
last  instance  cheerfully  over  to  Mr 
Ruskin.  This  piece  of  humbug  and 
practical  joking  was  an  imitation,  and 
doubtless  done  by  means  of  paints- 
and  brushes,  the  common  tools  of 
art ;  but  we  leave  our  readers  to  de- 
cide in  what  degree  the  fine  Berghem 
or  the  living  Velasquez  resembled* 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


this  real  sleight-of-hand ; — about  as 
much  perhaps  as  the  glass  jar,  made 
into  sham  Dresden  or  Sevres  by  the 
noble  art  of  potichomania,  resembles 
the  morsel  of  antique  china  introduced 
into  the  corner  of  a  picture  by  some 
painter  who  has  chosen  his  scene  in 
the  "  Popish "  period,  and  whose 
Belinda  or  Lady  Mary  would  not  have 
known  her  own  sanctum,  had  its 
favourite  idol  been  omitted,  or  repre- 
sented by  the  mere  blotch  upon  the 
canvass,  which  would  *'  convey  a 
conception  of  the  fact"  of  its  exist- 
ence to  the  mind  of  the  looker-on. 

No:  this  imitative  faculty,  in  its 
true  use  and  exercise,  is  no  ignoble 
trickster,  but  a  faithful  and  favourite 
vassal  of  its  superior,  Truth  ;  or  let  us 
say,  which  is  equally  true,  that  it  is 
an  inevitable  condition  of  the  huma- 
nity of  art.  We  are  all  servants,  the 
greatest  of  us,  and  that  man  is  not 
the  noblest  who  exaggerates  most  the 
conditions  under  which  he  is  per- 
mitted to  possess  the  grand  gifts  of 
life  and  hope;  nor  is  it  well  to  say 
that  any  special  curb  is  mean  or  con- 
temptible. This  piece  of  bondage,  if 
bondage  it  be,  is  but  the  golden  collar 
about  the  neck  of  the  favourite  thrall 
of  nature ;  it  is.  the  standing  confes- 
sion of  servitude,  the  declaration  of 
humility  which  becomes  a  man,  pri- 
vileged indeed  to  create,  after  a  hu- 
man fashion,  but  not  to  place  his 
works  upon  equality  with  those  of 
the  Divine  Creator,  the  Author  of  a 
vaster  landscape,  the  Poet  of  a  sub- 
limer  strain.  When  Art  becomes  the 
master  even  of  material  nature,  the 
bonds  of  this  condition  may  be  broken ; 
but  meantime  Art  is  but  the  servant, 
honoured  and  glorified  by  a  trans- 
mitted lustre,  and  the  great  compen- 
sation of  Providence  has  made  the 
sign  of  her  servitude  an  instrument 
of  her  true  and  real  power. 

We  have  lingered  too  long  upon 
this  piece  of  critic- craft,  in  which, 
indeed,  with  a  great  show  of  origin- 
ality and  metaphysical  discrimination, 
Mr  Ruskin  has  wrapped  up  a  very 
ancient  and  commonplace  truism, 
which  we  may  admit  as  a  truth, — 
namely,  that  the  means,  laboriously 
pursued  for  its  own  sake,  and  dignified 
by  no  greater  object,  is  extremely 
like  to  fall  into  mere  manual  dex- 
terity, and  always  is  more  or  less 


707 

contemptible  ;  but  we  venture  to 
think  that  most  minds  worthy  of  con- 
sultation will  agree  with  us,  that  the 
same  means  becomes  noble  when  cul- 
tivated in  the  lawful  and  faithful  pur- 
suance of  a  great  end.  The  perfec- 
tion of  texture  in  a  satin  gown,  or  a 
suit  of  armour,  or  even  the  marvel- 
lous reality  of  the  soldier's  coat  and 
the  fireman's  boots,  in  the  works  of 
Mr  Millais,  is  of  itself  a  very  poor 
result  of  art  and  labour ;  but  it  ceases 
to  be  poor  when  it  comes  to  be  only  a 
secondary  bit  of  excellence,  contri- 
buting to  the  general  perfection  of 
an  admirable  portrait  or  a  noble  scene. 
We  cannot  follow  Mr  Ruskin  while 
he  runs  his  fierce  career  through  all 
the  eminences  of  art.  He  is  brave,  but 
his  bravery  is  not  magnanimous ;  there 
is  nothing  in  it  of  that  heroic  pride 
which  would  rather  measure  swords 
with  Dunois  than  triumph  over  a  less 
redoubtable  champion.  Not  that  our 
critic  is  afraid,  for  fear  is  not  in  him, 
but  he  has  no  understanding  of 

"  That  stern  joy  which  warriors  feel 
In  foemen  worthy  of  their  steel." 

True,  he  challenges  the  greatest  name 
without  pause  or  diffidence  ;  but  so 
far  from  showing  a  generous  satisfac- 
tion in  the  greatness  of  the  name  he 
has  challenged,  he  sets  to,  with  spite- 
ful depreciation,  to  convince  you  that, 
after  all,  there  is  no  credit  in  his  own 
enterprise,seeingthattheClaude,orthe 
Poussin,  or  the  Domenichino,  is  mean, 
debased,  and  ignoble,  to  begin  with, 
and  scarcely  worth  an  honest  man's 
while.  Had  Mr  Ruskin  been  with 
Lars  Porsena  when  "  brave  Horatius 
kept  the  bridge,"  he  could  not  have 
comprehended  why  "  even  the  Tus- 
can chivalry  could  scarce  forbear 
a  cheer."  Our  critic  would  have 
straightway  lectured  these  gener- 
ous men-at-arms  —  pointed  out  to 
them  some  subtle  precaution  that 
their  fancied  hero  had  taken  for  his 
own  safety,  or  wondered  how  they 
could  suppose  there  was  any  real 
danger  in  that  shallow  Tiber  for  the 
noble  Roman  in  his  well-tried  arms. 
A  noble  foe  is  not  in  Mr  Ruskin's  way. 
He  has  no  true  satisfaction  in  another 
man's  reputation,  unless  he  himself 
has  had  a  hand  in  making  it ;  and 
the  reputation  of  his  adversary  he 
assails  enviously,  and  with  a  grudge, 


708  'Modern  Liyld  Literature — Art.  [Dec, 

and  never  desires  to  know  the  mag-     gentlemen — how  soon  they  can  make 


nanimous  delight  of  a  passage  of  arms 
with  his  superior,  or  even  with  his 
equal.  He  never  fights  "for  love," 
and  has  a  disagreeable  knack  of  find- 
ing out  the  joints  of  his  opponent's 
armour,  and  the  weak  points  of  his 
defence.  Not  very  long  ago  the  felicity 
of  listening  to  a  course  of  lectures  deli- 
vered by  Mr  Ruskin  was  permit- 
ted to  ourselves.  The  subject  was 
abstruse  and  recondite  in  a  high  de- 
gree, being  no  less  than  the  art  of 
Illumination,  as  practised  in  the  days 
of  leisure  and  medieval  art.  In 
the  course  of  his  illustrations  the 
lecturer  exhibited  an  outline  drawing 
of  a  figure  bending  a  bow.  It  was 
by  no  means  a  handsome  figure ;  and 
as  we  perfectly  understood  that  it  was 
intended  we  should  laugh  at  it,  we 
did  laugh,  like  a  good  auditory,  dis- 
posed to  oblige  our  instructor.  Then 
Mr  Ruskin  called  upon  us  to  remark 
those  debased  lines,  the  entire  igno- 
rance of  grace,  of  nature,  and  of  draw- 
ing, exhibited  in  this  unfortunate  out- 
line. What  a  mean  soul  the  man 
must  have  had  who  could  have  pro- 
duced it,  and  how  destitute  of  every 
elevated  feeling  it  was.  This  figure, 
said  the  lecturer — and  we  perceived 
we  were  coming  to  a  grand  climax — 
this  miserable  instance  of  ignorance 
and  falsehood  in  art,  was  a  faithful 
transcript  enlarged — so  many  dia- 
meters, as  the  microscopists  say — of 
one  of  the  figures  in  one  of  the  most 
famous  landscapes  of— Claude  Lor- 
raine !  Let  anybody  who  knows  the 
nature  of  a  schoolmaster's  joke,  and 
the  explosion  which  is  certain  to 
follow  it,  imagine  with  what  a  soft 
flutter  of  tittering  the  attendant  ladies, 
and  with  what  a  gust  of  laughter  the 
admiring  young  gentlemen,  received 
this  piece  of  information — how  de- 
lighted we  were  to  put  down  Claude, 
and  extinguish  him  for  ever  under  our 
applausive  merriment,  even  as  we  re- 
member once  hearing  a  Cockney  peda- 
gogue and  his  audience  put  down  and 
extinguish  Sir  Walter,  on  the  score  of 
his  Scotticisms  and  confusion  of  shalls 
and  wills  !  Unhappy  Claude  !  mis- 
fortunate  Sir  Walter !  the  Dominie, 
with  his  boys  and  girls— the  lecturer, 
with  his  young  ladies  and  his  young 


an  end  of  you  ! 

We  believe  it  is  a  common  enough 
idea  to  imagine  Mr  Ruskin  a  great 
authority  and  influence  in  art.  We 
cannot  for  a  moment  consent  that  he 
is  so.  Mr  Ruskin  is  a  great  writer ; 
and  if  it  pleased  him  to  expatiate 
upon  smoky  chimneys  instead  of 
great  pictures,  we  do  not  doubt  for  a 
moment  that  he  could  charm  us  into 
interest,  and  make  grander  "effects" 
of  smoke  and  flame,  the  fierce  tricks 
of  the  fire- spirit,  and  the  picturesque 
glimmers  of  the  fireside  light,  than 
anything  yet  achieved  by  Mr  Millais. 
Literary  gifts  so  great  and  so  attrac- 
tive cannot  fail  to  draw  after  any  man 
a  great  "  following ; "  but  the  majo- 
rity of  Mr  Ruskin's  admirers,  to  our 
thinking,  admire  and  throng  after 
him,  notjfor,  but  despite  of  his  prin- 
ciples in  art.  Among  artists,  this  man 
who  stands  apart  upon  his  own  ama- 
teur position,  congratulating  himself 
on  the  freedom  of  his  independent 
standing-ground,  and  writing  Notes 
on  the  last  Exhibition  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  can  never  be  either  popu- 
lar or  useful ;  and  it  is  only  the  gene- 
ral public,  to  whom  art  is  unknown, 
who  can  consent  with  patience  to  any 
such  general  denunciation  and  over- 
throw as  is  the  use  and  wont  of  our 
ungenial  critic.  But  when  we  say 
this,  we  say  nothing  against  the  real 
reputation  of  Mr  Ruskin,  which,  so 
far  as  we  are  able  to  judge,  is  not 
founded  upon  any  real  wisdom  or  in- 
sight into  the  mysteries  of  art,  but  is 
a  pure  issue  of  the  powers  of  litera- 
ture,—a  tribute,  not  to  able  theories 
or  judicious  investigation,  or  wise 
criticism,  but  to  a  wealth  of  lan- 
guage, and  fulness  of  fancy— the  gifts 
of  the  great  writer — seldom  before 
brought  into  vigorous  exercise  in  this 
separate  field. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  make  a 
greater  transition,  or  change  our  at- 
mosphere more  completely,  than  we 
do  in  leaving  the  sublime  pretences 
of  Mr  Ruskin's  philosophy  to  take  up 
the  graceful  volumes  of  Mrs  Jame- 
son.* The  more  eminent  writer  tells 
us  with  a  shrewish  arrogance  that  he 
has  studied  the  subject  all  his  life, 
ami  of  course  knows  a  great  deal 


*  Sacred  and  Legendary  Art.    By  Mrs  JAMESON. 


1855.] 


Modem  Light  Literature — Art. 


709 


more  about  it,  and  is  in  a  much  better 
position  to  judge  than  we.  The  lady, 
on  the  contrary,  without  any  brag  of 
her  experience,  quietly  sets  about  the 
benevolent  business  of  making  us  as 
well  acquainted  as  herself  with  her 
own  particular  field  of  art.  Mrs 
Jameson  is  content  to  divest  herself 
of  her  superiority,  and  give  her  au- 
dience an  opportunity  of  judging  with 
her ;  and  her  work  is  painstaking  and 
laborious  as  well  as  elegant,  and 
adds  to  our  practical  acquaintance 
with  its  subject.  We  have  here  no 
great  critic  to  deal  with,  but  an  ac- 
complished observer,  and  lover  of 
art ;  and  the  subject  and  period  which 
this  writer  makes  choice  of,  sends  us 
back  to  consider  pictures  and  paint- 
ing as  the  grand  instruments  of  an  un- 
learned age  for  general  popular  in- 
struction— the  plain  handwriting,  dis- 
tinct and  palpable,  in  which  the  great 
events  of  the  past  were  commemo- 
rated, and  the  great  mysteries  of  the 
future  symbolised.  The  change  is 
strange :  so  far  from  needing  a  priest- 
hood of  interpretation  to  find  out  the 
cunning  artist's  meaning,  and  trans- 
late his  greatness  to  the  vacant  unin- 
structed  eye,  the  artist  himself  was 
the  interpreter  in  those  strange  old 
days,  making  a  bolder  and  more  im- 
pressive writing  of  his  own  to  come 
home,  not  to  cognoscenti,  but  to  the 
simple  understanding  which  compre- 
hended a  thing  better  than  a  word, 
and  found  more  meaning  in  a  picture 
than  in  all  the  explanations  in  the 
world.  Perhaps  our  superior  edu- 
cation makes  it  no  longer  either  pos- 
sible or  desirable  that  Art  should  re- 
tain its  old  position  as  the  great 
popular  remembrancer,  prompting 
the  general  imagination  to  a  clearer 
grasp  of  the  most  momentous  truths ; 
but  it  is  strange  to  find  that  from  this 
simple  and  noble  position  it  should 
have  lapsed  into  the  region  of  the 
recondite,  and  that  the  same  plain 
people  who  once  were  its  chief  pupils, 
should  now  be  supposed  too  dull  an 
audience  to  profit  by  its  teachings,  or 
to  understand  them.  For  our  own 
part,  we  have  no  confidence  in  any- 
thing which  is  not  for  the  common 
people.  The  broad  mass  of  humanity, 
and  the  art  which  works  for  connois- 
seurs, and  confines  its  ambition  to  the 
applause  of  the  few,  even  though  these 


few  are  fame-makers  and  worthy  of 
their  elevation,  is  not,  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  word,  great  art.  The  old 
religious  masters  of  early  painting 
have  this  advantage  over  us,  that 
they  take  God's  own  grandest  example, 
and  offer  their  best  to  enlighten  the 
common  understanding,  and  move  the 
simple  heart ;  and  we  are  tempted  to 
forget  our  Reformation  terrors  when 
we  perceive  what  wonderful  pathetic 
beauty,  grandeur,  and  tenderness  has 
many  a  time  come  into  the  world 
through  some  man's  sincere  desire  to 
represent ,  aright  a  Madonna,  or  a 
Magdalene,  or  a  warrior  saint.  In 
these  days  we  have  no  such  debate- 
able  land  of  sainthood  and  martyr- 
hood — no  such  charmed  scope  for 
imagination,  as  among  the  visionary 
or  traditionary  persons  of  the  Romish 
calendar  ;  and  somehow  it  seems  hard 
to  throw  upon  mere  human  history 
the  magic  of  that  universal  relation- 
ship and  sympathy  which  the  un- 
learned in  the  old  times  must  have 
found  in  the  half-mythical  legends  of 
the  saints.  This  half- realised  and 
visionary  region  was  a  very  El  Dorado 
of  art. 

Mrs  Jameson's  object  in  the  three 
handsome  volumes  which  form  this 
series,  has  been  to  make  us  acquainted 
with  the  illustrations  (meaning  there- 
by, most  courteous  reader,  not  the 
pretty  woodcuts  of  Mr  Birket  Foster, 
nor  any  productions  of  their  class, 
however  admirable,  but  a  succession 
of  the  greatest  works  and  most  me- 
morable names  of  art)  of  sacred  his- 
tory produced  in  Catholic  times.  It  is 
scarcely  needful  to  distinguish  between 
those  which  are  of  real  and  Scriptural 
events,  and  those  which  are  pure 
legend — for  the  strain  of  legend  runs 
back  over  the  New  Testament,  and 
intrudes  itself  among  the  Apostles, 
and  into  the  very  presence  of  the 
Lord,  -without  hesitation,  so  that  a 
tinge  of  human  romance  constantly 
blends  with  the  narrative,  even  where 
the  narrative  itself  is  in  reality  Scrip- 
tural. Mrs  Jameson,  though  admir- 
ably qualified  in  some  respects,  has 
not,  in  other  points  as  important,  the 
character  of  mind  proper  to  such  a 
work  as  this.  She  has  no  touch  of 
genuine  superstition  in  her — her  mild 
and  mystical  faith  makes  symbols  of 
everything,  but  takes  nothing  in  its 


710 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


mere  literal  plainness  for  true ;  and 
however  suitable  this  may  be  to  the 
St  Catherines,  Ursulas,  and  Christo- 
phers, we  stumble  at  the  universal 
symbolism  when  we  come  to  hear  of  the 
Eastern  Magi  paying  their  homage  to 
the  divine  Child  and  to  His  mother,  as 
glorified  types  of  the  infancy  and 
womanhood,  the  representatives  of  a 
new  rule  of  gentleness  and  mercy,  be- 
fore whose  sweeter  sovereignty  the 
old  reign  of  force  was  to  soften  away. 
This  is  perilous  stuff,  for  there  is  no 
scepticism  like  that  of  the  mystic  who 
believes  everything  after  his  fashion, 
and  can  find  symbolical  truths  alike 
in  the  fables  of  Olympus  and  in  the 
story  of  Christianity ;  and  even  for 
the  mere  effect  of  all  this  graceful 
author's  ready  and  fluent  writing,  a 
bit  of  rougher  faith  here  and  there 
would  be  a  great  desideratum,  giving 
herself  a  clearer  insight,  and  her 
readers  a  more  substantial  interest  in 
her  tale.  After  all,  what  an  inspira- 
tion there  is  in  genuine  believing! 
These  old,  stern,  unlovely  pictures  of 
the  very  early  schools  of  art — what  a 
reality  and  force  one  sometimes  feels 
in  the  severe  lines  and  formal  arrange- 
ment of  works  which  seem  wrung  and 
extorted  out  of  the  reluctant  material, 
compelled  to  express  the  primitive 
artist's  strong  conviction  or  fervent 
faith!  Among  the  many  beautiful 
examples  of  more  refined  and  advan- 
ced art,  it  is  at  once  touching  and  in- 
structive to  glance  at  the  solemn  Ma- 
donnas and  stern  saints  of  those  ear- 
lier centuries,  when  the  workman  had 
little  comparative  power  over  his  im- 
plements, and  little  conception  of 
what  they  might  produce ;  but  found 
inspiration  enough  in  the  strong  desire 
within  him,  to  honour  and  make 
known  the  objects  of  his  faith. 

It  was  Love,  as  the  fable  goes, 
whose  idle  finger  traced  the  first 
portrait,  and  made  the  first  begin- 
ning of  pictorial  art ;  but  history 
leaves  little  doubt  upon  the  subject, 
that  all  primitive  efforts  of  genius 
have  been  dedicated  to  the  temple 
and  sanctuary,  and  that  human  skill 
and  power  never  yet  did  their  best 
except  at  the  bidding  of  Religion. 
When  we  say  this,  we  feel  no  neces- 
sity to  add  our  voice  to  the  popular  de- 
nunciation of  that  Puritanism  which 
took  down  the  pictures  from  our 


[Dec. 

churches,  and  thrust  out  from  niche 
and  altar  the  sculptured  saints  of 
medieval  times.  That  Faith,  whose 
divine  Author  proclaimed  Himself 
come  to  send,  not  peace  upon  earth, 
but  a  sword,  has  even  had  occasion 
to  regard  as  her  foes  those  of  her 
own  household  more  than  once  in  the 
history  of  the  world  ;  and  it  was  well 
to  sacrifice  the  favourite  handmaid 
whose  labours  were  no  longer  an 
advantage,  but  a  snare,  to  the  humble 
children  of  the  Father's  house.  In 
Mrs  Jameson's  book,  however,  we 
pass  into  the  other  world,  which  lies 
behind  the  grand  Reformation  era, 
with  all  its  stern  necessities  ;  and 
whether  we  call  these  ages  "  dark 
ages,"  or  "  ages  of  faith,"  we  are  at 
no  loss  to  perceive  the  marked  and 
conspicuous  difference  between  that 
period  and  our  own.  A  world  of 
things  and  persons,  less  than  of  words 
and  thoughts,  the  common  mind  of 
these  days,  had  need  of  palpable  pre- 
sentments—  of  bold  and  startling 
imagery — of  story,  rapid,  active,  and 
personal,  to  balance  in  the  intel- 
lectual atmosphere  the  throng  and 
stir  of  external  life.  Ours  is  an  age 
of  events,  but  not  as  theirs  was  ;  and 
the  u  battle,  and  murder,  and  sud- 
den death,"  which  were  familiar  and 
everyday  incidents  in  the  experience 
of  our  forefathers,  are  far  from  the 
quiet  tenor  of  our  existence.  We  have 
other  means  of  knowledge,  and  other 
modes  of  occupation  than  they  had ; 
and  one  great  war,  though  it  con- 
vulses a  continent,  does  not  come 
home  to  the  heart,  nor  embroil  the 
commonwealth  like  a  hundred  petty 
feuds.  Times  of  war,  of  commo- 
tion, and  disturbance,  call  for  bold 
types  and  visible  representations ; 
and  the  same  necessity  which  made 
the  poet  of  the  medieval  ages  a 
Dante,  produced  school  after  school 
of  painters,  and  filled  cathedral, 
chapel,  and  palace  with  works  of 
art.  In  those  days  there  were  not 
many  pictures  upon  "  indifferent " 
subjects ;  lessons  of  theology  in  the 
shape  of  martyrdoms  and  sufferings, 
saintly  charities  and  triumphs,  were 
the  ordinary  product  of  the  studio ; 
and  from  the  universal  Madonna,  to 
the  least-known  local  monastic  saint, 
the  desire  of  the  time  seems  to  have 
been  almost  exclusively  for  religious 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


representations,  expressions,  or  illus- 
trations of  the  faith. 

Mrs  Jameson's  labours,  though 
evidently  labours  of  love,  have  not 
been  either  brief  or  light,  and  must 
have  involved  a  very  large  amount  of 
research  and  exertion.  Her  plan  is 
excellent,  and  it  is  conscientiously 
carried  out ;  and  our  author  takes 
care  to  make  us  understand  all  the 
accessories  of  the  scene,  and  seldom 
fails  to  introduce  the  pretty  and 
romantic  legend,  as  well  as  the  bit  of 
history,  real  or  assumed,  on  which  it 
is  grounded.  For  instance,  we  our- 
selves, being  unlearned  at  once  in 
art  and  in  Catholic  tradition,  have 
vainly  puzzled  more  than  once  over 
the  action  of  a  figure  in  a  "  Marriage 
of  the  Virgin"— a  young  man  who  is 
represented  breaking  a  wand  over 
his  knee  while  the  ceremony  goes  on. 
Was  this  a  Jewish  custom  ?  No  one 
could  tell  us.  Mrs  Jameson  explains 
the  matter  at  once  by  the  fable, 
which  describes  how  many  candi- 
dates there  were  for  the  hand  of 
Mary — how  each  suitor  was  com- 
manded to  bring  a  wand — how  the 
wands,  being  solemnly  laid  up  for  a 
night  in  the  temple,  had  the  miracle 
of  old  repeated  upon  them — and  how 
Joseph  was  chosen  by  the  mystic 
sign  of  lilies  budded  and  blooming 
upon  his.  Accordingly,  in  the  pic- 
ture, the  disappointed  suitor  breaks 
his  wand  impatiently,  and  the  bride- 
groom bears  in  modest  triumph  his 
miraculous  lily.  A  very  strange  fable 
is  this  legend  of  the  Virgin ;  and  the 
old  devout  believers  in  it,  if  they 
ever  permitted  themselves  to  specu- 
late upon  the  subject,  must  have 
found  it  extremely  hard  to  account 
for  the  inveterate  malice  and  obsti- 
nate unbelief  of  the  later  Jews,  when, 
in  the  visionary  world  of  this  history, 
they  saw  how  it  fared  with  Joachim 
and  Anna,  and  what  a  solemn  love 
and  expectation  attended  the  maid 
Mary,  already  half- deified  among  her 
neighbours  and  in  her  nation;  but 
they  were  not  given  to  logic  in  those 
simple  days. 

The  latest,  and  perhaps  most  popu- 
larly attractive  of  these  volumes,  con- 
tains the  life  of  Mary,  from  its  mysti- 
cal and  immaculate  beginning,  to  its 
equally  mysterious  and  supernatural 
end ;  bu  t  though  we  would  no t  be  so  hete- 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


711 

rodox  as  to  profess  a  lesser  interest  in 
one  who — not  to  consider  her  higher 
claims — has  been  for  so  many  ages 
the  very  type  and  impersonation  of 
womanly  love  and  suffering,  we  con- 
fess a  strong  leaning,  for  our  own 
part,  to  the  ruder  saints  who  have  no 
such  dangerous  fascination  and  pre- 
eminence as  Our  Lady.  St  Christo- 
pher, for  instance,  that  burly,  simple- 
hearted  giant — what  a  capital  "  mo- 
rality," manly  and  spirit-stirring, 
might  be  made  of  the  earlier  part  of 
his  history.  Our  familiar  acquaint- 
ance with  this  antique  worthy  is 
confined,  for,  the  most  part,  to  that 
one  moment  of  his  later  career,  which 
finds  a  counterpart  in  the  life  of 
almost  every  other  saint  with  whom 
we  have  the  felicity  of  being  ac- 
quainted. Christopher,  with  his 
brawny  limbs  and  his  great  club,  in 
the  middle  of  the  river,  carrying  high 
upon  his  shoulder  the  wondrous  child, 
whose  importunity  had  roused  him 
from  his  rest,  is  a  well-known  sub- 
ject ;  but  the  story  of  that  same 
Christopher,  setting  forth  with  his 
honest  ambition  to  serve  the  greatest 
man  on  earth,  and  none  but  him,  is 
by  no  means  so  familiar  to  us.  The- 
greatest  man  at  that  period,  as  the 
story  goes,  was  one  King  Maximus, 
into  whose  service  the  manful  pagan- 
entered,  to  the  mutual  satisfaction  of 
man  and  master;  till  one  fine  day, 
Christopher  discovered  that  his  great 
monarch  stood  in  awe  of  a  certain 
greater  personage  called  the  Devil, 
whom  straightway  our  hero,  in  his 
plain  and  dauntless  simplicity,  went 
in  search  of,  and  found  right  readily, 
as  men  do  in  general  who  seek  the- 
satanic  potentate.  Thereafter  Chris- 
topher, with  zeal  and  devotion,  did 
his  service  to  this  "  black  knight"  for 
a  period,  until  he  made  the  discovery 
that  his  second  leader  stood  in  awe 
and  trembled  for  One  who  once  had 
hung  upon  a  cross ;  whereupon  Chris- 
topher, setting  about  his  search  once 
more,  came  at  last  to  the  service  of  the 
Greatest,  and  was  converted  and  bap- 
tised, and  became  a  Christian  saint  in- 
stead of  a  heathen  man-at-arms,  after 
which  time  the  proper  miraculous  pe- 
riod of  his  history  commences,  and  our 
interest  in  him  fails.  The  story  needs 
no  symbolisation ;  it  is  as  plain  a  par- 
able as  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  we 
SA 


712 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


[Dec. 


know  no  stouter  groundwork  for  a 
thorough  schoolboy's  drama,  martial 
and  warm-hearted,  than  this  story  of 
Christopher  the  pagan,  and  how  he 
came  to  be  Christopher  the  saint. 
By  the  way,  it  is  a  very  odd  circum- 
stance in  the  concluding  scene  of  all 
these  martyrs,  that  after  coming  harm- 
lessly through  a  dozen  deaths  and 
tortures,  every  man  of  them  submits 
to  be  beheaded.  Boiling  baths  and 
fire,  wild  beasts  and  poisoned  cups, 
are  successively  triumphed  over ;  but 
neither  prayer  nor  faith  seems  able  to 
blunt  the  sword  of  the  executioner. 
Decapitation  is  the  last  resort,  and 
invariably  successful  after  everything 
else  has  failed. 

We  are  afraid  it  is  scarcely  in  our 
way  to  remark  much  upon  the  very 
judicious  and  sensible  Handbook*  of 
Mr  Leslie.  It  is  a  thoroughly  read- 
able book,  written  in  an  agreeable 
and  modest  style,  without  either  pre- 
tension or  pedantry;  and,  like  most 
men  who  have  made  real  experiment 
in  the  difficulties  of  this  profession,  and 
given  a  whole  life,  or  the  best  years 
of  it,  to  their  study,  Mr  Leslie  makes 
little  assertion  of  superior  wisdom, 
and  never  insinuates  "  I  am  Sir 
Oracle."  An  eminent  painter,  in- 
deed— and  the  fact  is  worthy  notice — 
is  seldom  an  unkindly  critic ;  and  we 
scarcely  can  remember  an  instance 
— excepting  only  the  waspish  and 
ill-natured  Northcote,  whose  malice 
was  elfish  and  characteristic,  and  had 
little  to  do  with  his  profession — of 
an  old  man,  with  any  reputation  in 
art,  who  has  not  been  the  most  gentle 
and  tender-handed  of  censors,  willing 
to  perceive  excellence,  and  slow  to 
condemn  any  honest  effort.  In  art, 
at  least,  genuine  experience  seems  the 
natural  progenitor  of  patience  and 
charity  ;  it  is  only  your  amateur  who 
can  afford  to  make  light  of  the  exer- 
tions which  in  his  own  person  he 
never  ventures  upon.  But  Mr  Leslie's 
book  belongs  to  the  scientific,  rather 
than  to  the  light  literature  of  art, 
and  addresses  itself  neither  to  the 
general  public,  which  reads  books 
upon  all  subjects  provided  they  be 
but  readable,  nor  to  the  dilettanti 
public,  which,  in  discharge  of  its  self- 
imposed  duty  to  society,  laboriously 


studies  everything  which  bears  upon 
art.  Even  the  modest  title — strangely 
at  variance  with  the  ordinary  rule  in 
the  modern  naming  of  books — gives 
an  inadequate  idea  of  this,  which  is 
not  in  reality  a  handbook,  but  a 
course  of  lectures,  well-considered 
and  worthy  productions,  to  which 
any  class  of  students  might  be  glad 
to  listen.  The  academical  character 


of  the  work,  however,  precludes  us 
from  entering  upon  it,  though  we 
were  much  disposed  to  quote  Mr 
Leslie's  acute  and  able  remarks  upon 
the  subject  of  imitation  in  art. 

Lord  Napier's  little  bookf  is  a  pure 
dilettanti  production,  one  of  those 
straws  which  show  which  way  the 
wind  is  blowing.  We  cannot  promise 
our  readers  either  instruction  or  amuse- 
ment from  its  pages,  nor  will  its  noble 
author  derive  much  reputation  from 
his  work.  It  is  a  simple  badge  of  a 
class  greatly  increased  in  late  years, 
and  will  suffice  to  acquaint  the  public 
with  the  fact  that  another  gentleman, 
hitherto  unknown  to  fame,  has  united 
himself  to  the  brotherhood  of  cognos- 
centi, and  is  qualified  to  discuss  old 
pictures  and  new,  to  worship  the  great 
masters,  and  to  snub  the  small,  as 
occasion  offers.  But  Lord  Napier, 
unfortunately,  has  not  been  born  with 
the  gift  of  speech,  and  an  odder  spe- 
cimen of  writing  could  scarcely  be 
found  than  this  little  biographical  dic- 
tionary of  his,  in  which  any  one  in- 
terested may  discover  all  about  the 
painters  of  Naples,  so  far  as  mere 
facts — and  these  doubtless  perfectly 
correct  and  authentic — can  teach  him. 
The  different  branches  of  the  craft  are 
conscientiously  classified,  moreover, 
and  every  man  has  his  right  place ; 
also,  we  are  favoured  with  an  account 
of  the  means  of  study  and  chances  of 
patronage  under  the  government  of 
King  Bomba,  which  seem  abundant 
enough,  and  worthy  of  a  better  fruit- 
age :  but  Lord  Napier  must  be  con- 
tent with  the  fact,  that  he  has  written 
a  book,  and  so  established  his  con- 
noisseurship ;  for  we  cannot  flatter  him 
that  he  has  done  anything  to  increase 
our  real  acquaintance  even  with  local 
art. 

But  the  class  which  this  little  vo- 
lume gives  us  an  indication  of,  and 


*  Handbook  for  Young  Painters. 


t  Modern  Painting  at  Naples. 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


713 


which  we  form  a  much  more  dignified 
and  worthy  acquaintance  with  in  the 
volumes  of  Lord  Lindsay,  an  accom- 
plished writer,  whom  we  have  neither 
space  nor  fit  occasion  to  introduce 
here — the  class  of  noble  or  wealthy 
travellers,  men  of  a  placid  and  refined 
temper,  who  find  more  pleasure  in  the 
byways  of  the  artistic  world  than  on 
the  broader  road  of  life — is  far  from 
an  uninteresting  one  ;  and  though 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this 
aristocratic  and  patronising  amateur- 
ship  is  quite  as  like  to  harm  as  to  en- 
courage the  natural  development  of 
art,  yet  the  brotherhood  has  its  uses, 
and  provides  an  audience  of  refine- 
ment and  discrimination  within  its 
narrow  limits,  with  time  to  be  enthu- 
siastic and  means  to  be  liberal.  We 
are  brought  immediately,  by  a  natural 
and  easy  transition,  from  the  field  of 
painting  to  that  of  architecture,  when 
we  begin  to  consider  these  graceful 
illuminati,  the  special  patrons  of  this 
reviving  art.  Among  a  large  class  of 
educated  and  polished  people,  Archi- 
tecture is  the  fashionable  study  of  the 
time  ;  and  a  very  fascinating  study  it 
is  beyond  dispute,  especially  when 
pursued  in  a  "snug  rectory  or  heredi- 
tary hall,  with  a  fine  old  church  at 
one's  door,  full  of  ancient  "examples," 
or,  more  attractive  still,  beginning  to 
fall  to  pieces,  and  loudly  craving  to 
be  "restored."  Many  a  slumbrous 
rural  parish,  inaccessible  heretofore  to 
anything  better  than  a  heavy  far-off 
rumble  of  echoed  politics,  has  woke 
up,  within  recent  days,  to  the  most 
comfortable  little  agitation  of  its  own, 
concerning  its  church  and  antiquities ; 
and  if  this  awakening  has  not  been 
unattended  by  direful  skirmishes  of 
church-rate  and  anti-church-rate,  it 
has  doubtless  been  of  use  in  its  way, 
besides  its  primary  advantage  of  rais- 
ing a  mighty  pother  and  excitement 
in  the  countryside — undeniable  bless- 
ings, which  only  rural  people,  who 
want  them  most,  can  fully  realise. 
The  question  has  a  ridiculous  side, 
of  course ;  and  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
restrain  a  smile  at  the  grand  preten- 
sions of  Ecclesiological,  and  Archaeo- 
logical, and  Architectural  Societies, 
each  one  more  ambitious  than  its 
neighbour ;  nor  at  the  magniloquent 
phrases  of  the  modern  Dr  Primrose, 
whose  Whistonian  controversy  is  a 


controversy  concerning  "  early  deco- 
rated," or  "perpendicular,"  or  the 
"  florid  Gothic,"  in  which  these  "  se- 
vere "  periods  blossomed  out  and  ran 
to  seed.  But  there  is  also  a  great  deal 
of  sentiment,  and  that  of  no  ignoble 
character,  in  this  agitation;  for  though, 
unfortunately,  we  do  not  know  very 
much  of  it  on  the  northern  side  of  the 
Tweed,  few  of  us  fail  to  appreciate 
the  affectionate  regard,  half  romance, 
half  veneration,  and  a  great  deal  more 
than  half  the  love  of  home,  which 
surrounds  the  old  parish  churches  of 
England,  the  graceful  relics  of  historic 
times;  and  we  already  owe  a  great 
many  graceful  books  and  picturesque 
things  to  the  modern  mania  for  church 
restoration  and  decoration,  and  the 
studies  to  which  it  has  given  rise. 

In  itself,  Architecture  is  one  of  the 
grandest  and  most  interesting  of  arts. 
We,  for  our  own  part,  have  little  liking 
for  the  antiquarian  investigations 
which  are  concerned  with  bits  of  brok- 
en pottery,  or  even  with  the  speech- 
less relics  of  that  earlier  heathendom 
which  preceded  Rome  ;  but  the  science 
which  reads  articulate  records  of  our 
own  historic  period — "  sermons  in 
stones" — from  the  differing  pillars  and 
diversified  pinnacles  of  those  familiar 
places,  which  have  never  before  sug- 
gested to  us  their  own  gradual  accu- 
mulation, demolishment,  and  re-erec- 
tion, gives  reality  to  our  actual "  book- 
learning,"  and  makes  a  vague  infor- 
mation into  a  realised  truth.  To  feel 
the  presence  of  our  sturdy  Saxon  fore- 
fathers in  that  massive  low-browed 
rounded  arch  lingering  at  the  further 
end  of  the  light-springing  columns 
and  lofty  vaulting  of  the  more  imagi- 
native and  later  Norman,  is  quite  a 
different  thing  from  reading  or  learn- 
ing the  dull  matter-of-fact  statement, 
that  "  this  building  was  begun  in  the 
reign"  of  some  Osbert  or  Ethelwold, 
fabulous  and  undiscoverable — and  the 
forlorn  bit  of  antiquity,  the  sedilia 
boxed  up  into  a  squire's  pew,  or  the 
old  old  morsel  of  window  in  some 
half-lighted  corner,  throwing  down 
dull  gleams  of  colour  upon  slumbrous 
peasants,  buried  in  the  high  pews  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  connects  our 
little  rural  church  with  the  ancient 
ages,  in  a  way  far  more  potent  and 
realisable  than  dates  or  figures.  Be- 
sides all  this,  there  is  in  universal 


714 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


[Dec, 


human  nature  an  inherent  delight  in 
the  art  of  construction,  a  primitive 
craft  of  which  architecture  must  always 
afford  the  noblest  and  most  substan- 
tial examples';  and  few  of  us  are  so 
dull  as  to  feel  no  thrill  or  flush  of  na- 
tural and  generous  triumph  (very 
different,  however,  from  Mr  Ruskin's 
snobbish  "  admiration  of  pride"  which 
he  confines  to  the  rich),  when  we 
enter  one  of  those  glorious  buildings — 
great  epics,  grown  and  effloresced  out 
of  stone — which  forms  our  most  mag- 
nificent evidences  of  that  half-divine 
faculty  of  making,  the  shadow  of  His 
own  sublime  creative  power,  which 
God  has  given  to  man. 

Yet  hold !  we  speak  of  the  art  of 
construction,  and  of  our  instinctive 
human  pleasure  in  it.  But  what  says 
Mr  Ruskin  on  the  subject — a  gentle- 
man who  has  written  as  many  volumes 
as  we  have  written  words,  and  knew 
all  about  it  ere  ever  we  were  en- 
lightened to  discover  th'e  difference 
between  flamboyant  and  perpendicu- 
lar? It  is  a  singular  fact,  and  passes 
our  dull  powers  of  comprehension ;  but 
we  stumble  and  stand  aghast  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  first  book  in 
which  this  great  authority  announces 
his  opinions  to  the  world.  What  is 
architecture  ?— something  which  de- 
mands the  exercise  of  all  our  highest 
faculties  —  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  of 
truthfulness,  of  obedience — the  energy 
of  life  and  power  —  the  exercise  of 
memory,  the  appreciation  and  produc- 
tion of  beauty.  Yes,  that  is  all  true, 
but  that  is  no  definition.  What  is 
architecture?  Do  Mr  Ruskin's  readers 
understand  that  he  who  has  written 
so  many  splendid  volumes  on  the  sub- 
ject, starts  in  his  career  by  declaring  it 
only  a  gigantic  craft  of  case- making, 
and  in  reality  of  itself  no  art  at  all  ? 
It  may  be  a  degree  of  natural  stupi- 
dity, not  enlightenable  even  by  the 
noble  periods  of  Mr  Ruskin— but  we 
confess  that  we  pause  here  in  amaze- 
ment and  perplexity.  Give  us  your 
counsel,  kindest  reader.  Has  it  been 
your  hap  to  "  find,"  with  Mr  Ruskin, 
such  following  facts  as  these  ?  — 

"  I  found,  finally,  that  artistical  and 
rational  admiration — the  only  admiration 
worth  having — attached  itself  wholly  to  the 
meaning  of  the  sculpture  and  colour  on 
the  building;  that  it  was  very  regard- 
less of  general  form  and  size,  but  in- 


tensely observant  of  the  statuary,  floral 
mouldings,  mosaics,  and  other  decorations. 
Upon  which,  little  by  little,  it  gradually 
became  manifest  to  me  that  the  sculpture 
and  painting  were  in  fact  the  all-in-all  of 
the  thing  to  be  done  ;  that  these,  which 
I  had  long  been  in  the  careless  habit  of 
thinking  subordinate  to  the  architecture, 
were  in  fact  the  entire  masters  of  the  arch- 
itecture ;  and  that  the  architect,  who- 
was  not  a  sculptor  or  a  painter,  was 
nothing  better  than  a  frame-maker  on  a 
large  scale.  Having  once  got  a  clue  to 
this  truth,  every  question  about  architec- 
ture immediately  settled  itself  without 
further  difficulty.  I  saw  that  the  idea 
of  an  independent  architectural  profession 
was  a  mere  modern  fallacy,  the  thought 
of  which  had  never  so  much  as  entered 
the  heads  of  the  great  nations  of  earlier 
times  ;  but  that  it  had  always,  till  lately, 
been  understood,  that  to  have  a  Parthe- 
non one  had  to  get  a  preliminary  Phidias  ; 
and  to  have  a  cathedral  of  Florence,  a  preli- 
minary Giotto  ;  and  to  have  even  a  St 
Peter's  at  Rome,  a  preliminary  Michael 
Angelo." 

This  being  the  case,  ascertained  and 
concluded,  it  seems  to  us  nothing  but 
sheer  superfluity  and  foolishness  to 
speak  any  more  about  architecture* 
If  architecture  means  simply  "  the  as- 
sociation of  sculpture  and  painting  in 
noble  masses,  or  the  placing  them  in 
fit  places,"  let  us  write  about  sculp- 
ture and  painting  under  their  true 
names,  and  not  under  a  sham  appella- 
tion—the  mere  ghost  of  a  term,  with 
no  commensurate  meaning.  When 
we  read  this  definition,  we  cannot  help 
reverting  in  imagination  to  a  little 
church  on  the  Rhine,  which  seems  to 
us  quite  a  beau  ideal  of  architecture  in 
this  sense  of  the  word,  though  we  fear 
us  much  it  would  not  satisfy  Mr  Rus- 
kin. When  we  entered  within  the 
walls  of  the  Apollinarisberg,  we  were 
not  tempted  for  a  moment  to  think  ot 
the  building.  The  architect — mecha- 
nical slave ! — had  raised  his  walls  and 
put  on  his  roof;  and  the  "  frame  "  was 
worthy  of  so  lofty  a  conception,  and 
never  would  attract  any  mortal  eye 
or  imagination  if  it  stood  till  the  end 
of  time.  But  the  soft  frescoes  of 
Miiller  were  bright  upon  every  wall ; 
the  pinky  rounded  draperies,  the 
sweet  angelic  faces,  filled  the  whole 
tabernacle  with  aflutter  of  habitation. 
Well;  our  admiration,  though  pos- 
sibly not  very  artistic  or  rational, 
"attached  itself  wholly  to"  these; 


1855.] 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art. 


715 


but  we  never  before  conceived  it 
possible  that  we  could  be  paying 
homage  to  architecture  in  our  gaze 
At  the  frescoes,  then  in  the  freshest, 
pinkest,  prettiest  stage  of  their  exist- 
ence, and  warm  from  the  master's 
hand.  A  very  different  feeling,  if  we 
do  not  strangely  mistake  ourselves, 
arrests  us  on  the  threshold  of  a  grand 
•Gothic  cathedral,  though  the  great 
nave  lie  bright  in  all  the  flush  of  noon- 
day, and  there  be  no  sentimental  ad- 
junct of  "  darkness,  or  music  in  a 
minor  key."  Who,  if  it  be  not  Mr 
Ruskin,  cares,  at  the  first  glance,  for 
the  saints  in  their  sculptured  niches, 
or  the  pictures  over  the  altar  ?  Who 
pauses  to  consider  what  flowers  have 
budded  in  those  capitals,  or  suggested 
those  clusters  of  rich  ornamentation, 
which  at  this  present  moment  we  see 
as  if  we  saw  them  not  ?  By-and-by, 
of  natural  necessity,  we  are  thankful 
to  take  rest  in  the  wealth  of  detail 
which  prolongs  and  extends  our  inte- 
rest in  the  magnificent  erection ;  but 
it  is  the  erection  itself — the  wonderful 
thing  stretching  its  glorious  arches 
over  us — lifting  its  lofty  shafts,  so 
strong,  and  firm,  and  delicate,  far 
above  our  heads,  which  takes  our 
heart  by  storm. 

But  if  Mr  Ruskin  really  holds  his 
own  opinion,  we  cannot  for  our  life 
make  out  what  all  this  following  din 
is  about.  Why  knock  down  all  our 
beautiful  unfortunate  Edinburgh,  if 
u  rational  and  artistic  admiration  "  is 
"  very  regardless  of  general  form  and 
size  "?  Vines  and  jessamines,  wood- 
bines and  roses,  can  cluster  just  as 
well  about  a  square  window  as  about 
a  pointed  one ;  and  if  in  reality  the 
floral  moulding  be  all  that  is  needful, 
why  anathematise  the  innocent  angles 
of  our  square  houses,  which  have  very 
little  to  do  with  the  matter  after  all  ? 
After  this  grand  statement  of  princi- 
ples, our  author  gives  himself  most 
unnecessary  trouble  by  returning  to 
the  region  of  shafts,  and  vaults,  and 
architraves — those  mere  matters  of 
form,  of  which,  being  a  "rational  and 
artistic  "  critic,  he  ought  to  be  "  very 
regardless."  Why  did  not  Mr  Rus- 
kin, with  the  true  originality  of  a 
hero,  pursue  and  make  a  system  of  his 
own  grand  and  picturesque  suggestion 
which  follows,  and  which  certainly 
would  be  something  practicable,  and 


could  be  tried  at  any  rate?  uAs 
soon  as  we  possess  a  body  of  sculp- 
tors, able  and  willing,  and  having 
leave  from  the  English  public  to 
carve  on  the  facades  of  our  cathe- 
drals portraits  of  the  living  bishops, 
deans,  canons,  and  choristers  who  are 
to  minister  in  the  said  cathedrals ; 
and  on  the  facades  of  our  public 
buildings,  portraits  of  the  men  chiefly 
moving  or  acting  in  the  same;  and 
on  our  buildings  generally,  the  birds 
and  flowers  which  are  singing  and 
budding  in  the  fields  around  them,  we 
shall  have  a  school  of  English  archi- 
tecture—not till  then." 

We  have  found  it ;  for  who  could 
studv  Mr  Ruskin  and  not  find  inspi- 
ration at  last  ?  The  "  Working  Man's 
College"  has  not  found  a  building  for 
itself  yet,  so  far  as  we  are  aware. 
Friends  and  countrymen !  heroes  and 
patriots  of  undeveloped  fame!  will 
nobody  hear  one  appeal  for  the  love 
of  art  and  honour,  and  a  deed  of  derr- 
ing-do? Let  us  have  a  Working  Man's 
College ;  let  us  carve  upon  it  the  noble 
effigies  of  its  founders,  all  of  them  in 
hats  and  frockcoats,  their  true  and 
native  costume.  The  honoured  pre- 
sence of  Mr  Ruskin,  in  habit  as  he 
lives,  shall  be  our  presiding  figure, 
and  we  will  build  a  bower  of  fretted 
stone,  fashioned  like  boughs  of  poplar 
and  branches  of  laburnum,  with  London 
sparrows,  homely  minions  !  twittering 
among  the  leaves.  We  never  hoped 
to  achieve  immortality  until  this  mo* 
ment ;  but  already  we  can  see  the 
amaranthine  wreath  approaching  us, 
in  honour  of  our  suggestion  ;  and  so 
shall  the  school  of  English  architec- 
ture, "  very  regardless  of  form  and 
size,  but  intensely  observant  of 
statuary,  floral  mouldings,  mosaics, 
and  other  decorations,"  have  its  be- 
ginning. We  submit  that  it  will  be 
time  enough  for  a  new  Exeter  Hall, 
with  a  fringe  of  lecturers,  headed  by 
Lord  John  Russell,  and  choral  groups 
of  all  the  performers  in  all  the  Wed- 
nesday concerts ;  and  also  for  new 
Houses  of  Parliament,  "done"  all 
over  with  Lord  Palmerston,  and  Lord 
Panmure,  and  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  when  our  experiment  has 
achieved  its  legitimate  and  certain 
triumph. 

But,  alas  !  Mr  Ruskin  is  not  con- 
sistent. He  will  come  back,  after  all, 


716 


Modern  Light  Literature- — A  rt. 


[Dec. 


to  this  mere  vulgar  question  of  form, 
actuated,  as  we  suppose,  by  "  senti- 
mental admiration,"  since  the  rational 
and  artistic  has  no  concern  with  so 
inferior  a  matter.  But  here  our 
author  is  not  original.  Few,  we  sup- 
pose, except  professional  readers,  are 
likely  to  be  acquainted  with  an  ex- 
traordinary and  whimsical  little  folio — 
ajeu  cFesprit,  very  telling  in  its  points, 
though  one  of  the  oddest  pieces  of 
literary  composition  imaginable — the 
Contrasts  of  the  late  Augustus  Welby 
Pugin.  This  great  architect  and 
singular  man  was,  as  most  people 
know,  a  Roman  Catholic  of  the  true 
antique  faith,  and  his  little  treatise, 
with  its  odd  illustrations,  was  made 
to  prove  the  utter  degradation  and 
debasement  of  architectural  art — the 
art  of  the  "  ages  of  Faith,"  under  the 
combined  barbaric  influences  of  Pro- 
testantism and  Paganism,  the  Refor- 
mation and  the  Renaissance.  It 
would  be  worth  any  one's  while,  who 
knows  Mr  Ruskin's  Edinburgh  Lec- 
tures, to  make  himself  acquainted  with 
this  older  volume,  in  which  the  root 
of  the  eloquent  critic's  grand  denun- 
ciations is  to  be  found.  Yet  we  will 
not  be  so  ungenerous  either,  as  to  say 
"is  to  be  found,"  for  perhaps  Mr 
Ruskin  himself  is  not  unaware  of  the 
unusual  closeness  of  resemblance  be- 
tween his  own  remarks  and  the  pre- 
ceding observations  of  a  man  whom 
he  does  not  hesitate  to  patronise  with 
disdainful  superiority.  We  recom- 
mend the  volume  to  his  notice,  if  he 
does  not  know  it ;  it  is  not  a  great 
literary  composition  like  his  own 
works,  but  it  throws  a  suspicious 
shadow  over  some  very  glowing  para- 
graphs of  his,  and  certainly  exhibits 
a  prior  critic  and  an  earlier  insight 
than  his  own. 

For  our  own  part,  we  confess  to  a 
much  greater  sympathy  with  Mr 
Ruskin's  inconsistency  than  with  his 
principle.  In  our  own  judgment,  it  is 
impossible  to  entertain  the  most  rudi- 
mentary opinion  about  architecture, 
and  to  be  regardless  of  form  and  size  ; 
nor  can  we  by  any  means  permit  our- 
selves to  be  persuaded  that  mere 
form,  unpainted,  unsculptured,  and 
undecorated,  has  not  a  most  subtle 
fascination — an  influence  more  spiri- 


tual and  penetrating  than  ever  can 
belong  to  floral  mouldings  or  decorat- 
ed capitals,  however  exquisite  in 
themselves.  We  know  a  certains 
spire,  for  instance,  which,  if  it  has  any 
ornamentation  at  all,  hides  it  in  the 
distance  and  the  sunshine,  through 
which  its  own  fair  outline  is  always 
visible ;  yet  there  is  no  steeple  of  our 
acquaintance  so  pleasant  to  our  eye  \ 
and  though  we  do  not  suppose  a  fre- 
quent contemplation  of  it  has  made 
us  much  u  happier,  holier,  or  wiser,'* 
yet  we  like  our  silent  acquaintance, 
and  would  miss  it  were  it  gone.  Nor 
will  we  allow  that  the  architect  of 
this  piece  of  shapely  balance  and  pro- 
portion, which  cleaves  the  air  with  so 
light  and  natural  a  spring,  is  a  simple 
builder  no  better  than  the  man  of 
brick  and  square  windows,  because 
it  is  possible  that  he  could  not  design, 
to  Mr  Ruskin's  satisfaction,  a  cluster 
of  oak-leaves.  But,  whether  it  be 
form  or  ornamentation,  let  us  only 
know  what  it  is ;  for  it  is  perplexing 
in  the  extreme  to  be  told  that  u  the 
only  admiration  worth  having  at- 
taches itself  wholly  to  the  meaning 
of  the  sculpture  and  colour  on  the 
building,"  and  straightway  to  find 
ourselves  in  the  midst  of  a  very  row 
about  square  windows,  which  can 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  higher 
question  at  all. 

But,  oh  and  alas,  Mr  Ruskin  !  Mr 
Ruskin !  what  have  not  your  teachings 
to  answer  for?  Here  is  an  unfortunate 
young  architect,*  deluded  by  so  grand 
an  example,  who,  in  a  hapless  hour,  has 
been  persuaded  that  he  too  could  write 
a  book,  and  interest  the  world  in  the 
tour  of  his  holiday,  and  the  researches 
of  his  craft.  True,  he  might  still  have 
written  a  book  had  there  been  no- 
Stones  of  Venice,  for  this  mania  is  cer- 
tainly not  to  be  attributed  to  the  ex- 
ample of  Mr  Ruskin;  but  the  chances 
are  that  this  hapless  youth  would  not 
have  tried  those  wonderful  bits  of 
writing,  if  a  grand  panoramic  sketch 
or  dissolving  view  had  not  become 
the  habitual  chapter-conclusion  of  the 
great  living  "  example "  in  whose 
steps  his  ambition  aimed  to  follow. 
We  are  extremely  sorry  for  Mr  Street, 
but  we  are  as  intolerant  of  shams  ia 
our  profession,  as  he  has  a  perfect  right 


*  Brick  and  Marble  Architecture  in  Italy.     By  GEORGE  EDMUND  STREET. 


1855.] 

to  be  in  his;  and 
things  tolerable  from  Mr  Ruskin,  who 
is  in  reality  a  great  master  of  lan- 
guage and  expression,  which  are  very 
doleful  rubbish  indeed  in  the  hands  of 
this  neophyte.  What  does  anybody 
think  of  such  a  piece  of  imitation  as 
this  ? — 

"  The  work  of  our  modern  sculptors  is 
all  foreign  and  unreal,  and  almost  always 
involves  the  assumption  that  they  are  re- 
presenting the  proceedings  of  the  Greeks 
or  Romans,  and  not  of  the  English :  it  is 
impossible,  therefore,  that  such  a  school 
can  be  healthy,  strong,  or  successful.  It 
has  not  been  enough  considered  how 
much  the  draperies  of  different  countries 
always  must  and  will  affect  the  style  of 
sculpture  suitable  for  them.  In  the  north, 
with  our  thick  woollen  garments  and 
warm  clothing,  no  figure,  either  nude  or 
clothed  in  muslin,  can  hope  to  appeal  to 
the  mind  of  the  world  at  large  except  as 
an  unreal  representation,  which,  as  un- 
real, is  wondered  at  and  passed  by  with- 
out a  thought  of  love  or  gratitude." 

Now,  we  repeat,  it  is  just  possible, 
in  the  glamour  which  genius  always 
casts  into  our  eyes,  that  we  might 
lose  our  perception  of  the  ridiculous  if 
something  to  this  effect  had  been  said 
by  Mr  Ruskin.  Let  us  be  grateful 
when  pure  nonsense  reveals  itself  in 
its  own  likeness,  and  when  we  come 
down  to  innocent  bathos  and  the  cli- 
maxes of  Mr  Street. 

This  book,  as  its  title  implies,  is, 
barring  the  bits  of  writing,  all  about 
Italian  architecture,  and  the  buildings 
of  those  old  cities  whose  very  names 
it  is  excusable  for  youth  and  inexpe- 
rience to  rave  about;  and  the  illustra- 
tions are  extremely  creditable,  and 
may  be  of  use,  we  do  not  doubt;  but 
we  seriously  advise  Mr  Street,  when 
he  takes  his  next  holiday,  to  carry 
some  one  with  him  who  can  do  the 
writing,  and  to  keep  by  his  pencil, 
which  is  a  less  deceitful  and  treach- 


Modern  Light  Literature — Art.  1\7 

there  are  many     erous  implement  than  the  unfamiliar 
Also,  we  venture  to  recommend 


pen. 

to  all  new  travellers  that  they  should 
have  some  knowledge  of  other  people's 
information  before  they  essay  too 
boldly  to  communicate  their  own. 
Mr  Street  permits  himself  to  be  drawn 
into  a  positive  impertinence  when  he 
gives  us  his  complacent  little  descrip- 
tion of  those  far-famed  monuments 
at  Verona,  which  were  known  and 
celebrated  many  a  day  before  his 
penetrating  vision  found  them  out. 
This  book,  however,  is,  we  presume, 
a  first  offence:  we  hold  it  up  as  a 
warning  to  other  enthusiastic  young 
architects,  who  may  also  have  made 
sketches  and  taken  notes  upon  a  holi- 
day tour.  We  have  already  Seven 
Lamps  of  Architecture,  and  we  really 
do  not  want  all  these  twinkling  little 
tapers,  for  there  actually  are  such 
things  as  honesty,  humility,  and 
beauty  necessary  in  our  inferior  craft 
of  bookmaking,  as  well  as  in  the  elder 
and  more  substantial  art. 

We  have  fallen  upon  ambitious 
times  —  we  must  be  philosophical, 
metaphysical,  transcendental,  even  in 
our  comments  upon  art ;  and  that 
class  of  amiable  and  graceful  writers, 
which  we  may  well  identify  with  the 
Sketcher*  of  our  own  special  fraternity, 
full  of  a  tender  appreciation  and  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  gentle  Nature 
and  her  refined  attendant  art,  is  much 
diminished  in  number  of  late  days. 
The  fashionable  poet  may  be  per- 
mitted to  shroud  himself  in  the  elabo- 
rate twilight  of  mysticism,  but  it  will 
soon  be  very  needful  for  the  fashion- 
able painter,  if  art-criticism  proceeds 
as  it  threatens  to  do,  and  if  we  are 
really  favoured  with  the  annual  Notes 
of  Mr  Ruskin,  to  learn  for  himself  the 
use  of  the  literary  cudgel,  and  take 
immediate  lessons  in  u  the  noble  art 
of  self-defence!" 


[*  Alas  !  the  writer  here  alluded  to,  our  old  friend  and  correspondent  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  is  now  no  more.  At  the  end  of  the  present  Number  of  the  Magazine 
there  will  be  found  a  short  sketch,  in  which  some  attempt  is  made  to  do  justice  to 
a  very  fine  character.  We  feel  sure  that  all  who  knew  the  Rev.  John  Eagles  will 
agree  with  us  when  we  say  that  a  better  specimen  of  the  highly-accomplished  old 
English  clergyman  and  country  gentleman  could  not  be  met  with.] 


718 


Courtship  tinder  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


COURTSHIP   UNDER  DIFFICULTIES. 


A   HUMOROUS   HISTORY. 


TROM  THE  GERMAN  OF  FERDINAND  STOLLE. 


WHEN  I  left  the  university  of  Jena, 
I  went  to  live  with  an  uncle — who, 
since  the  death  of  my  parents,  had 
supplied  their  place  to  me — at  a  plea- 
sant country-house  within  an  easy 
distance  of  his  manufactory.  Uncle 
Keinhold  was  much  attached  to  me, 
and  although  he  had  not  objected  to 
my  prolonging  my  university  life 
rather  beyond  the  usual  age,  when  I 
finally  quitted  Jena  he  strongly  urged 
me  to  turn  my  attention  to  industrial 
pursuits,  holding  out  to  me  the  pro- 
spect of  becoming  his  partner,  and 
ultimately  sole  proprietor  of  his  profit- 
able business.  Accordingly,  for  up- 
wards of  a  year  I  applied  myself  to 
master  the  mysteries  of  looms  and 
shuttles,  correspondence  and  accounts, 
^although  these  were  much  less  to  my 
taste  than  the  tranquil  life  I  had  led 
at  Jena,  studying  little  law,  but  diving 
-deep  into  our  noble  German  classics, 
and  storing  my  mind  from  the  works 
of  the  best  prose-writers  and  poets. 
Before  the  year  was  half  out,  I  fell 
deeply  in  love,  but  this  I  dared  not 
tell  my  uncle.  Minnie  was  the  sweetest 
fairy  that  ever  tripped  over  a  lawn 
without  doubling  a  daisy;  her  hair 
was  of  the  richest  auburn,  her  eyes 
were  of  the  deepest  blue,  her  mouth 
was  a  rosebud,  and  with  my  hands  I 
could  span  her  waist ;  but — alas!  that 
terrible  but  —  she  lacked  one  thing 
which  my  uncle  set  above  all  the 
graces  ever  combined  in  a  goddess. 
Her  mother,  the  widow  of  a  poor 
clergyman,  lived  upon  a  scanty  pen- 
sion, and  Minnie  was  dowerless.  So 
we  kept  our  loves  a  profound  secret, 
and  trusted  to  time  and  the  chapter 
of  accidents.  Both  young,  we  could 
afford  to  wait,  and,  confident  in  each 
other's  affection,  the  possibility  of 
another  union  never  entered  the  head 
of  either  of  us. 

My  uncle  frequently  spoke  to  me  of 
matrimony.  He  advocated  my  early 
marriage — perhaps  a  little  from  selfish 
motives,  for  he  often  joyously  antici- 
pated the  charm  a  young  and  grace- 


ful woman  would  bring  into  his  dwell- 
ing, and  the  delight  he  should  have  in 
dandling  a  grand-nephew  on  his  knee. 
Warm-hearted  and  generous,  he  yet 
in  everything  was  completely  the  man 
of  business,  and  he  looked  upon  it  as  a 
settled  matter,  that,  although  I  had 
very  little  fortune  of  my  own,  my 
expectations  from  him  should  insure 
me  a  rich  wife.  This  idea  seemed  so 
rooted  in  his  mind,  that  it  sometimes 
occasioned  me  uneasiness.  I  foresaw 
some  anger  and  much  opposition  when 
the  day  should  come,  and  come  it 
must,  that  I  should  confess  to  him  my 
love  for  sweet  penniless  Minnie. 

One  morning,  in  the  usual  bundle 
of  letters  came  one  which  seemed  to 

f've  my  uncle  unusual  satisfaction, 
supposed  it  to  contain  a  large  and 
profitable  order,  for  those  were  the 
letters  over  which  he  generally  rubbed 
his  hands,  twinkled  his  eyes,  and  gave 
other  unmistakable  marks  of  content- 
ment. To  ray  surprise,  instead  of 
tossing  it  over  to  me,  with  an  exult- 
ing "There,  my  boy!"  he  carefully 
folded  it  up  and  put  it  into  the 
breast-pocket  of  his  coat.  All  thafc 
day  he  was  in  a  state  of  particu- 
lar exhilaration.  At  dinner  he  said 
little,  but  something  agreeable  evi- 
dently occupied  his  mind.  At  last, 
when,  at  evening,  he  had  established 
himself  in  his  easy-chair  at  the  open 
window,  his  meerschaum  in  his  mouth, 
a  flask  of  golden  Rhenish  at  his  elbow, 
a  lovely  landscape  and  gorgeous  sun- 
set before  him,  the  mystery  was  re- 
vealed. The  letter  was  from  his  old 
friend,  Counsellor  Frager,  who  lived  on 
his  pleasant  domain  of  Wiesenthal, 
about  a  day  and  a  half's  drive  from 
us.  The  counsellor,  whom  I  had 
twice  seen  at  my  uncle's  since  my 
return  from  college,  was  a  wealthy 
widower  with  three  marriageable 
daughters,  whom  I  had  not  seen.  My 
uncle,  it  appeared,  had  lately  been  in 
correspondence  with  him  respecting 
the  propriety  of  bringing  about  a  union 
between  me  and  one  of  the  young 


1355.] 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


719 


ladies,  who  were  reputed  handsome ; 
and  that  morning's  letter  contained 
the  counsellor's  full  acquiescence  in 
the  scheme,  and  an  invitation  for  me 
to  pass  a  few  days  at  Wiesenthal.  Jn 
vain  did  I  raise  obstacles,  and  declare 
my  conviction  that  none  of  the  Misses 
Frager  would  suit  me.  Uncle  Rein- 
hold  had  the  ready  reply  that  I 
could  not  tell  that  until  I  had  seen 
them.  After  making  all  possible  ob- 
jections, I  felt  that  to  persist  longer 
might  excite  suspicions  of  a  prior  at- 
tachment. And,  after  all,  it  was  but 
a  week's  absence,  and  no  unpleasant 
escape  from  the  monotony  of  the 
counting-house.  All  that  I  was  re- 
quired to  do  was,  to  go  and  see  the 
damsels,  who  assuredly  would  not  carry 
me  off  and  marry  me  by  force.  But 
when  I  told  Minnie  of  my  approach- 
ing departure,  I  thought  she  would 
have  broken  her  heart.  Her  confi- 
dence in  me  was  great,  but  the  cir- 
cumstances were  certainly  trying. 
She  could  not  endure  my  being  thus 
driven  into  temptation.  She  had 
heard  of  the  counsellor's  daughters  as 
very  handsome  and  very  rich.  She 
doubted  not  my  truth,  but  she  had 
forebodings  of  evil,  and  implored  me 
not  to  leave  her.  I  had  promised  my 
uncle  to  go,  however,  and  I  could  not 
retract  my  word.  It  took  a  great 
many  vows,  and  not  a  few  kisses,  to 
console  the  little  timid  loving  girl, 
and  even  then  she  was  but  half  con- 
soled. 

Before  my  departure  I  had  another 
grave  interview  with  my  uncle.  "You 
will  not  regret  your  journey,  Frank," 
he  said.  "The  girls  are  pretty,  witty, 
and  well  read.  Not  geese,  such  as 
one  finds  in  our  Kirchberg  and  other 
country  villages.  You  must  rub  up 
your  learning,  I  can  tell  you.  And 
the  chief  thing  is,  that  each  of  them 
will  have  her  thirty  thousand  dollars. 
Bring  me  home  such  a  golden  niece 
as  that,  and  I  take  you  into  partner- 
ship. A  few  years  more,  and  I  retire 
altogether,  and  you  are  a  made  man. 
My  old  friend  the  counsellor  warmly 
desires  the  alliance.  Not  all  wooers 
find  their  path  so  smooth.  I  ran 
myself  nearly  off  my  legs  after  my 
-dear  departed  wife.  The  old  people 
were  against  it,  and  would  not  listen 
to  me.  Luck  lies  before  you,  my 
boy;  seize  it  with  both  hands." 


"  All  very  well,"  thought  I,  as  I  got 
into  the  gig  and  drove  off;  "  but  my 
hands  are  bound,  and  my  heart  too. 
What  is  money  compared  to  Minnie? 
One  lock  of  her  lovely  hair  would 
make  all  the  old  counsellor's  money- 
bags kick  the  beam!  And  even  if 
she  were  not  in  the  way,  I  hate 
these  mercenary  unions,  got  up  by 
third  parties,  where  everything  is  for 
the  purse,  and  nothing  for  the  heart. 
To  pleasure  my  uncle,  however,  I 
can  very  well  manage  to  get  through 
a  few  days  at  Wiesenthal,  and  see 
the  counsellor's  graces  on  their  best 
behaviour.  I  owe  much  more  than 
that  to  my  kind  kinsman  and  second 
father.  I  will  look  at  the  ladies,  but 
there  is  no  fear  of  my  marrying  one 
of  them.  Poor  dear  Minnie  !  But 
if  the  Frager  girls  are  suctf"beauties, 
besides  being  fortunes,  what  on  earth 
is  the  reason  that  none  of  them  have 
yet  got  married?  I  should  not  wonder 
if  the  glitter  of  their  thirty  thousand 
dollars  had  somewhat  blinded  my 
worthy  uncle.  It  would  not  surprise 
me  if  one  of  them  squinted,  and 
another  had  red  hair.  But  there  is 
no  harm  in  going  to  see." 

Thus  communing  with  myself,  I 
rolled  pleasantly  along  the  level  road, 
in  the  warm  autumn  sun,  through 
mile  after  mile  of  dew -spangled 
orchard.  Those  were  my  romantic 
days,  and  nothing  would  have  pleased 
me  better  than  to  have  met  with  an 
adventure  or  two  by  the  way.  These 
were  denied  me ;  but,  upon  the  other 
hand,  an  abundance  awaited  me  at 
the  place  of  my  destination. 

It  was  between  nine  and  ten  in 
the  forenoon  when  I  reached  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  rich  counsellor's 
fine  domain.  The  morning  was  so 
fine,  the  country  so  beautiful,  that  I 
determined  to  leave  my  gig  at  a  road- 
side inn,  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour's 
drive  from  Wiesenthal,  and  to  pro- 
ceed thither  on  foot.  Perhaps,  also, 
if  truth  be  told,  I  was  not  sorry  to 
stop  at  the  inn  to  get  rid  of  the  dust 
of  the  highway,  and  arrange  my  dress 
a  little.  I  had  certainly  no  desire  to 
please  any  one  of  the  three  Misses 
Frager,  but  that  was  not  a  reason 
for  appearing  to  disadvantage  before 
them.  The  disorder  of  my  toilet 
repaired,  I  set  out  on  my  walk,  and 
soon  came  in  sight  of  the  counsel- 


720 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


lor's  villa.  A  small  birch  wood  lay 
before  me,  through  which  I  had  to 
pass,  and  then  I  should  be  in  the 
garden,  which  stretched  up  to  the 
house.  As  I  proceeded  I  looked 
about  me  on  all  sides,  thinking  I 
might  by  chance  descry  one  of  the 
three  graces  from  which  it  was  my 
uncle's  will,  but  not  my  intention, 
that  I  should  select  a  wife.  The  only 
women  I  saw  were  two  peasants 
toiling  in  a  field.  I  was  about  to 
enter  the  wood,  when,  at  some  two 
hundred  paces  from  me,  the  slender 
figure  of  a  woman,  attired  in  a  fantas- 
tical costume,  between  a  riding-habit 
and  a  hunting-coat,  and  bearing  a 
double-barrelled  gun  in  her  hand, 
stepped  out  from  among  the  foliage. 
Leaning  upon  her  weapon,  she  seem- 
ed enjoying  the  charming  landscape. 

44  If  that  be  one  of  Frager's  daugh- 
ters," thought  I  to  myself,  "  Uncle 
Reinhold  was  not  so  far  wrong.  A 
fine  girl  she  seems." 

Not  wishing  to  disturb  the  graceful 
apparition  in  her  contemplation  of 
the  scenery,  I  walked  on  as  if  I  had 
not  perceived  her.  I  had  taken  but  a 
few  steps  when  a  female  voice,  melo- 
dious but  powerful,  shouted  "  Halt!" 
That  cannot  be  addressed  to  me, 
thought  I  to  myself,  and  walked  on. 
Then  came  a  sound  like  the  cocking 
of  a  gun,  and  the  next  instant  a 
bullet  whistled,  as  it  seemed  to  me, 
close  over  my  head,  The  hint  sufficed, 
and  I  halted  at  once. 

"The  woman  must  be  crazed," 
thought  I,  as  I  gazed  at  the  reckless 
amazon,  who  walked  slowly  towards 
me.  I  had  leisure  to  observe  her, 
and  to  admire  her  remarkable  beauty. 
Her  graceful  figure  was  set  off  to 
advantage  by  the  close-fitting  habit, 
and  her  blooming  countenance  by  a 
profusion  of  fair  curls.  I  thought 
to  myself;  what  pity  it  was  that 
so  lovely  a  form  should  be  that  of 
a  mad  woman.  When  she  arrived 
within  twenty  paces  of  me — 

"  Why  did  ye  not  halt,"  she  asked 
in  commanding  tones,  "  when  I  order- 
ed you?" 

I  really  knew  not  what  to  reply  to 
the  imperious  beauty;  so  I  varied 
the  subject. 

"  If  I  do  not  mistake,"  I  said,  "  I 
heard  a  bullet  whistle  rather  near 
me." 


"  Are  you  afraid  of  bullets?  " 

"  Well— there  may  be  cases." 

44  For  shame  !  a  man  should  never 
be  afraid,  least  of  all  of  a  lady.  You 
thought  I  should  hurt  you  ?  Do  you 
take  me  for  an  assassin,  or  for  a  bad 
shot?" 

"  Neither,  upon  my  word." 

14  There  is  a  fine  apple  hanging 
over  your  head.  Lay  it  on  your 
palm,  stretch  out  your  arm,  and  I  will 
shoot  it  off.  Will  you  bet  that  I 
don't?" 

44  I  am  not  fond  of  such  bets." 

"  Afraid  again  ?  " 

44  Every  man  has  his  moments  of 
weakness." 

"  Poltroon  ! "  scornfully  exclaimed 
this  demon  in  petticoats,  raised  her 
gun,  and  levelled  it  at  my  head. 

"  For  God's  sake  !  "  I  cried,  but 
before  the  words  were  out  of  my 
mouth  came  the  flash  and  report.  I 
thought  I  should  have  fallen  to  the 
ground.  To  a  dead  certainty  the 
monster  had  hit  my  hat. 

44  Take  off  your  hat,"  said  she.  I 
mechanically  obeyed.  There  was  a 
hole  close  to  the  crown.  I  shuddered 
from  head  to  foot. 

44  Where  are  you  going  to  ?  "  said 
the  terrible  markswoman. 

Not  to  anger  her,  I  replied,  as 
courteously  as  possible — 

44  To  Wiesenthal;  to  Counsellor 
Frager's." 

41  Beware  of  his  daughters,"  said 
the  female  fiend,  with  a  laugh  that 
reminded  me  of  the  wild  huntsman. 
And  she  disappeared  in  the  wood.  It 
may  be  supposed  that  I  did  not  linger 
long  in  so  dangerous  a  neighbourhood. 
The  lady  might  take  a  fancy  to  load 
again.  I  made  the  best  of  my  way 
towards  the  house,  wondering,  as  I 
strode  along,  whether  Wiesenthal  was 
a  Turkish  province,  or  whether  we 
were  back  again  in  the  middle  ages, 
when  people  shot  at  peaceable  passen- 
gers for  pure  pastime.  What  could 
this  semi-assassin  be?  Was  she  a 
goblin,  a  wood  demon,  whose  occu- 
pation was  to  frighten  men,  or  real 
flesh  and  blood?  If  the  latter,  where 
had  she  acquired  this  preternatural 
dexterity  with  the  gun,  and  the  abo- 
minable habit  of  firing  at  travellers  ? 
Handsome  she  undoubtedly  was,  but 
when  the  devil  disguises  himself,  he 
does  not  assume  the  ugliest  form- 


1855.] 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


721 


And  my  thoughts  reverted  to  my 
pretty  gentle  Minnie,  a  less  imposing 
beauty,  but  a  far  safer  companion 
than  this  lunatic  William  Tell,  whose 
warning  against  the  counsellor's 
daughters  also  recurred  to  my  mind. 
I  would  not  allow  myself  to  suppose 
that  the  sharpshooter  was  one  of 
Frager's  daughters  ;  but  if  she  was, 
and  her  sisters  resembled  her,  there 
was  no  danger  of  my  falling  in  love 
with  one  of  them.  I  should  as  soon 
have  thought  of  becoming  enamoured 
of  a  Zouave.  I  looked  cautiously 
around  me  as  I  hurried  through  the 
wood,  every  moment  expecting  to  see 
the  terrible  double-barrel  peering 
through  the  bushes.  Uncas  in  the 
forests  of  the  Hudson,  with  Pawnees 
upon  his  trail,  could  not  have  recon- 
noitred more  carefully.  At  last  I 
emerged  from  the  trees,  and  breathed 
more  freely  as  I  entered  the  garden. 
My  wish  had  been  for  adventures,  and 
I  was  punished  by  its  fulfilment.  Ro- 
mance and  danger  were  certainly 
combined  in  the  one  I  had  just  met 
with. 

The  worthy  counsellor  gave  me  a 
hearty  reception,  and  made  me  wel- 
come to  Wiesenthal.  I  'must  be 
hungry,  he  said,  after  my  drive,  and 
calling  a  servant,  he  bade  him  bring 
refreshment.  Cold  game  and  a  bot- 
tle of  Steinberger  were  soon  upon  the 
table,  and  truly  I  wanted  something 
to  revive  me  after  my  recent  peril. 
My  friendly  host  pledged  me  in  a 
bumper,  and  lamented  the  absence  of 
his  daughters,  whom  he  was  most  de- 
sirous to  introduce  to  me.  He  hoped 
they  would  be  back  to  dinner.  I  ven- 
tured a  conjecture  that  they  were  on 
a  visit  somewhere.  Not  a  bit  of  it, 
was  the  reply  ;  each  one  of  them  had 
gone  her  own  way,  and  on  her  own 
business.  Business  !  thought  I  to 
myself,  what  business  can  these  young 
ladies  possibly  have  ?  And  I  fervent- 
ly trusted  it  was  not  that  of  waylay- 
ing travellers,  and  shooting  at  hats 
with  heads  in  them. 

"  Though  I  cannot  show  you  my 
family,"  quoth  the  counsellor,  when 
I  had  done  eating,  "  if  you  will  come 
with  me  into  the  next  room,  I  will 
make  you  acquainted  with  their  por- 
traits." 

I  followed  Mr  Frager.  Beaming 
out  of  their  golden  frames  were  three 


of  the  handsomest  female  faces  man's 
eyes  ever  rested  upon.  But  my  admi- 
ration was  converted  into  something 
like  terror,  when  I  recognised  in  one 
of  the  portraits  the  redoubtable  guer- 
illa who,  one  short  hour  before,  had 
sent  a  bullet  within  six  inches  of  my 
head. 

u  This  blonde,"  said  Frager,  play- 
ing the  showman,  "  is  my  eldest  girlr 
Louisa,  a  terrible  madcap  and  hair- 
brained  puss,  who  should  have  been 
a  boy.  I  always  call  her  my  Nimrod, 
for  she  is  passionately  fond  of  hunt- 
ing, and  rides  and  shoots  to  perfec- 
tion. I  own  that  I  am  not  partial  to 
such  tastes  in  young  ladies,  but  youth 
and  high  spirits  must  be  allowed  their 
way,  and  as  the  girl  is  a  real  angel  in 
every  other  respect,  and  has  the  best 
heart  in  the  world,  I  tolerate  her  ca- 
valier customs." 

"As  regards  the  young  lady's 
shooting,"  I  replied,  u  I  have  had 
some  experience  of  it  myself  this 
morning.  She  sent  a  bullet  through 
my  hat  as  I  walked  up  to  the  house." 
And  I  related  my  adventure.  The 
counsellor  tried  to  look  indignant,  but 
his  frown  melted  into  a  smile. 

"  Just  like  the  gipsy,"  he  said. 
"  But  you  had  nothing  to  fear.  Her 
hand  is  steady  and  her  aim  sure." 

"  I  will  take  the  liberty  to  remark 
that  I  do  not  think  such  masculine  ac- 
complishments particularly  becoming 
in  a  young  lady." 

u  Certainly  not,  certainly  not,"  re- 
plied the  fond  father.  "  You  are 
quite  right,  and  I  preach  to  her  every 
day.  But  it  goes  in  at  one  ear  and 
out  at  the  other.  And  if  I  get  seriously 
angry,  she  throws  her  arms  round  my 
neck,  and  vows  she  will  be  a  better 
girl,  and  leaves  me  no  rest  till  I  for- 
give and  kiss  her.  Then  off  she  goes, 
and  good  resolutions  are  all  forgotten. 
I  confess  my  weakness;  I  have  not 
the  heart  to  thwart  the  child." 

The  next  portrait  was  that  of  the 
second  daughter,  Emily  by  name.  It 
was  that  of  one  of  the  handsomest 
brunettes  I  ever  saw — a  lofty  com- 
manding style  of  beauty,  but  the  fea- 
tures wore  an  unmistakable  expression 
of  masculine  earnestness  and  decision. 
I  stood  lost  in  admiration  before  the 
beautiful  countenance.  The  counsel- 
lor noted,  with  evident  satisfaction, 
the  effect  it  produced  upon  me. 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


"  That  is  my  Dieffenbach,"  he  said. 

"  Your  Dieffenbach  ! "  I  repeated, 
wondering  what  on  earth  the  name  of 
the  renowned  surgeon  had  to  do  there. 

"  The  same,"  replied  Frager,  smil- 
ing. u  Emily  is  the  cleverest  surgeon 
in  the  whole  neighbourhood.  She  is 
just  now  down  at  the  village,  helping 
the  doctor  to  amputate  the  hand  of  a 
gamekeeper  who  has  had  an  accident 
with  his  gun." 

"A  fine  profession,"  I  remarked, 
not  knowing  what  to  say ;  and  I  turn- 
ed, with  somewhat  altered  feelings, 
from  the  portrait  of  the  fair  Escu- 
lapius.  The  third  portrait  was  not 
less  charming  than  the  other  two. 
Rich  masses  of  brown  hair  shaded 
a  countenance  whose  features  were 
more  delicate  and  its  expression  softer 
thaninthatofeitheroftheothersisters. 
"Let  us  hope,"  I  thought  to  myself, 
"that  this  one  has  no  such  extra- 
ordinary and  unwomanly  tastes  as 
Nimrod  and  Dieffenbach.  She  looks 
milder  and  more  feminine." 

"  That  is  my  Oken,"  said  Frager. 

"  What  ?    The  naturalist ?  " 

"  The  same.  This,  my  youngest 
daughter,  was  baptised  by  the  name 
of  Ernestine,  but  I  always  caliber  my 
Oken.  No  professor  knows  more  of 
zoology,  ornithology,  ichthyology,  en- 
tomology, and  a  few  other  hard-named 
sciences.  She  is  passionately  fond 
of  the  study  of  nature,  notwithstand- 
ing the  occasional  disagreeables  con- 
nected with  it." 

"  Disagreeables  ?  " 

"Certainly.  From  her  wanderings 
over  hill  and  dale,  through  thicket  and 
forest,  the  girl  brings  home  so  much 
vermin  that  I  have  repeatedly  been 
quite  angry  with  her.  Snakes  and 
lizards,  frogs  and  toads,  are  continually 
crawling,  writhing,  and  jumping  about 
the  house.  She  is  particularly  attached 
to  spiders,  of  which  she  has  a  splendid 
collection.  If  you  could  procure  her 
an  American  tarantula,  which  is  the 
object  of  her  most  ardent  desires,  you 
would  at  once  attain  a  high  place  in 
her  esteem.  You  should  see  Oken's 
boudoir,"  concluded  the  happy  father ; 
"  you  would  never  think  you  were  in 
a  lady's  apartment,  but  in  a  museum 
of  natural  history." 

"  My  dear  sir,"  I  exclaimed,  now 
completely  astonished,  "  how  is  it  that 
your  amiable  daughters  have  become 


addicted  to  such  extraordinary  and 
unfeminine  pursuits?  " 

"  The  cause  is  soon  told,  my  dear 
Mr  Frank,"  replied  Frager ;  "  they  had 
the  misfortune  to  lose  their  mother 
very  young.  My  occupation  rendered 
it  impossible  for  me  to  attend  to  their 
education,  and  I  thought  I  had  done 
all  that  was  necessary  when  I  intrust- 
ed the  girls  to  a  tutor,  highly  re- 
commended to  me,  but  who  brought 
them  up  like  boys.  Their  only  com- 
panion was  their  brother  Bernard, 
since  unhappily  drowned  when  study- 
ing medicine  at  the  university.  From 
him  the  sisters  learned  and  inherited 
their  various  passions — Louisa  her 
riding  and  shooting,  Emily  her  sur- 
gery, and  Ernestine  her  natural  his- 
tory. I  live  in  hopes  that  when  they 
are  well  married  they  will  be  weaned 
from  their  strange  fancies ;  housekeep- 
ing will  not  leave  them  much  time  for 
shooting  and  operating,  or  for  collecting 
frogs  and  snakes.  I  feel  that  I  ought 
to  have  been  stricter  with  the  girls, 
but  the  harm  is  done  now,  and  I  can 
but  hope  in  the  future." 

I  was  far  from  displeased  at  the 
counsellor's  revelations.  The  pecu- 
liarities of  the  three  beautiful  sisters 
justified  opposition  to  my  uncle's 
wishes.  He  could  not  expect  me  to 
take  to  wife  a  Nimrod,  a  Dieffenbach, 
or  an  Oken.  The  thing  was  absurd. 
No  amount  of  gold  and  beauty  could 
atone  for  such  unwomanly  eccentrici- 
ties. At  the  same  time,  I  was  curious 
to  see  the  two  younger  sisters.  They 
must  be  very  beautiful.  I  was  less 
anxious  for  another  meeting  with  Miss 
Nimrod.  The  whistle  of  her  bullets 
still  resounded  in  my  ears.  The  fe- 
male Freischiitze  was  capable  of  shoot- 
ing the  cigar  from  my  mouth,  or  the 
rose  from  my  button -hole.  I  am  not 
fond  of  such  practical  jokes. 

We  had  hardly  returned  into  the 
breakfast -room  when  there  was  bark- 
ing of  dogs  without,  and  Louisa  dashed 
into  the  court  on  a  snow-white  pal- 
frey. Nothing  could  be  more  graceful 
and  charming  than  this  slender  daring 
amazon  in  her  well-fitting  habit.  She 
sprung  lightly  from  the  saddle,  and 
hurried  into  the  house.  From  the 
window  the  counsellor  watched  her 
with  ill-concealed  pride  and  satisfac- 
tion. The  door  flew  open,  Louisa 
darted  in,  and,  without  taking  the 


1855.] 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


723 


slightest  notice  of  me,  threw  her  arras 
round  her  father's  neck. 

"  Mad  girl!"  cried  Frager,  with  a 
most  ineffectual  attempt  at  severity  of 
tone,  "  do  you  not  see  there  is  a  guest 
in  the  room,  a  worthy  friend  of  mine?  " 

Rearing  her  elegant  form  to  its  full 
height,  the  wayward  beauty,  glowing 
with  recent  exercise,  measured  me 
with  a  glance  that  spoke  anything  but 
friendly  welcome.  A  sarcastic  smile 
played  about  her  beautiful  mouth, 
which  Diana  might  have  envied. 

"  If  I  do  not  mistake,"  said  she 
coldly,  "  I  have  already  made  the 
gentleman's  acquaintance." 

"  I  had  the  honour,"  replied  I,  with 
a  bow,  "  to  serve  you  as  a  target." 

"  I  wish  you  had  behaved  better, 
Louisa,"  said  the  counsellor,  with 
some  displeasure ;  "  you  are  really  in- 
corrigible." 

"  So  he  has  blabbed  already,"  said 
the  damsel  scornfully.  "  Only  think, 
papa,"  she  added,  turning  to  Frager, 
"  the  young  man  was  frightened,  and 
thought  I  would  kill  him!" 

"  Louisa!"  growled  her  father,  now 
really  angry,  "  I  insist  upon  your 
treating  my  esteemed  guest  with  pro- 
per respect." 

Louisa  answerednothing,  but  walked 
pouting  to  the  window,  and  stood  there 
fanning  herself  with  her  handkerchief. 
Suddenly  she  turned,  and  addressed  me. 

"  Are  you  a  good  pistol-shot  ?  " 

"  It  is  some  years  since  I  prac- 
tised," I  replied,  wondering  what  on 
earth  was  coming  next. 

"  Come  with  me  to  my  gallery;  we 
will  shoot  a  match." 

44  But,  Louisa,"  interposed  the  coun- 
sellor, u  let  our  guest  rest  himself  to- 
day ;  to-morrow,  or  the  day  after,  you 
can  shoot  as  much  a'§,you  like." 

"  You  are  not  tired?  are  you?"  said 
Louisa  to  me.  What  ctxuld  I  say  but 
that  I  was  perfectly  fresh,  and  quite 
at  her  orders  ?  I  adde'd  that  I  should 
certainly  have  no  chance  of  equalling 
her  shooting.  "  Never  mind  that," 
was  her  reply,  and  she  carried  off  her 
victim.  I  had  not  fired  a  pistol  for 
five  years ;  she  handled  the  weapons 
with  a  practised  dexterity  that  made 
me  look  very  clumsy.  As  I  had  fore- 
seen, I  had  not  the  slightest  chance 
with  the  expert  markswoman.  I  con- 
sidered myself  very  fortunate  when  I 
hit  the  target,  which  was  as  big  as  a 


plate;  whereas  she  put  the  bullet  in 
the  bull's  eye  at  almost  every  shot. 
She  soon  got  tired  of  that,  and  fired 
at  birds,  and  at  fruit  upon  the  trees. 
At  last  she  produced  an  ace  of  hearts, 
and  bade  me  hold  it  out  at  arm's 
length.  I  inquired  her  object.  She 
would  shoot  the  ace  out,  she  said.  I 
expostulated;  she  was  firm.  ."•  At- 
tention!" she  cried,  "  I  fire."  I  threw 
the  accursed  card  away. 

44  This  is  tempting  Providence,"  I 
said.  "  I  have  not  the  least  doubt  of 
your  skill.  On  the  contrary — " 

Louisa  stood  before  me,  with  her 
pistol  cocked,  like  a  destroying  angel. 

"  Will  you  instantly  pick  up  that 
card,  or  I  send  a  bullet  through  your 
hair." 

This  was  worse  than  scalping.  I 
tried  to  smile,  and  turn  it  off  as  a  joke. 
44  I  do  not  joke,"  calmly  replied  the 
terrible  Louisa,  and  took  a  steady  aim 
at  my  head.  I  thought  I  should  have 
fainted.  Mechanically  I  stooped, 
picked  up  the  card,  and  held  it  by  the 
extreme  edge,  as  far  from  my  body  as 
possible.  I  felt  that  my  hand  trem- 
bled, but  I  preferred  a  shot  in  the  arm 
to  one  in  the  head.  The  pistol  went 
off,  and  Louisa  hurried  up  to  me.  The 
bullet  had  cut  out  the  ace.  My  pa- 
tience was  at  an  end. 

u  Madam,"  said  I,  very  seriously, 
and  rather  angrily,  "  I  must  inform  you 
that  I  do  not  relish  jests  of  this  kind." 

44  All  one  to  me,"  was  her  laughing 
reply ;  "  I  do.  But  you  are  only  a 
Philistine,"  she  added,  in  university 
phrase,  looking  down  upon  me  as  a 
student  of  five  years'  standing  might 
upon  some  pusillanimous  freshman. 
And  away  she  tripped,  discourteously 
leaving  me  by  myself.  I  thought  little 
of  the  discourtesy,  and  was  glad  to  be 
rid  of  her  at  any  price. 

u  A  real  blessing  would  such  a  wife 
be,"  thought  I  to  myself.  And  I  made 
up  my  mind  that  my  stay  at  Wiesen- 
thal  should  be  of  very  short  duration. 
Passing  through  the  garden,  I  met  old 
Frager,  who  doubtless  noted  discom- 
posure on  my  countenance. 

"  I  fear,"  he  said,  "  that  Nimrod 
has  played  you  some  fresh  trick." 

44  The  young  lady,"  I  replied,  "  is 
undoubtedly  an  excellent  shot ;  but  I 
am  no  lover  of  such  military  exer- 
cises." 

44  You  really  have  nothing  to  fear." 


724 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


"  The  devil  I  haven't !  "  thought  I 
to  myself.  "  No  one,"  I  added  aloud, 
"  can  always  answer  where  a  bullet 
shall  strike.  A  quicker  throb  of  the 
pulse,  the  sudden  sting  of  an  insect, 
may  alter  the  direction  of  the  wea- 
pon." 

The  doating  father  seemed  struck 
by  the  truth  of  this  ;  but  he  said  no- 
thing, and  turned  the  conversation. 
Strolling  together  through  the  garden, 
we  stopped  to  look  at  a  gigantic  sun- 
flower, which  I  thought  was  the  largest 
I  had  ever  seen.  As  we  stood  ad- 
miring the  enormous  flower,  a  gun 
was  fired  close  at  hand;  the  bullet 
passed  less  than  two  feet  before  us, 
and  went  right  through  the  sunflower, 
severing  it  from  its  stem.  This  was 
too  much  even  for  Frager' s  endurance. 
**  By  heavens  ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  you 
are  right;  the  girl  is  intolerable!"  and, 
turning  to  Louisa,  whose  lovely  laugh- 
ing countenance  appeared  through  the 
branches  of  a  rose-laurel,  he  ordered 
her,  in  an  angry  tone,  to  take  the  gun 
into  the  house,  and  not  to  touch  it 
again  for  four-and-twenty  hours.  Nim- 
rod  forthwith  disappeared. 

"  I  hope,"  said  the  counsellor,  apo- 
logisingly,  as  we  walked  back  to  the 
house,  "  that  my  Emily  will  efface 
the  bad  impression  her  sister's  pranks 
have  made  upon  you.  If  Louisa,  with 
her  rage  for  shooting,  risks  inflicting 
wounds,  Emily,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
always  ready  to  heal  them." 

In  the  dining-room  the  table  was 
spread  for  five.  A  servant  asked  if 
he  should  bring  in  dinner. 

"  Are  Emily  and  Ernestine  at  home  ?" 
asked  Frager. 

"  Not  yet  returned." 

"And  Louisa?" 

"  Miss  Louisa  has  just  ridden  out 
again." 

"  Well,"  said  the  patient  counsel- 
lor, without  a  word  of  disapproval, 
"  then  we  shall  dine  alone.  I  cannot 
imagine,"  he  continued,  when  we  had 
sat  ourselves  down,  "  what  is  come  to 
the  girl.  I  never  saw  her  so  unruly 
and  reckless  as  to-day." 

For  my  part,  I  did  not  at  all  regret 
Nimrod's  absence.  Had  she  been 
there,  I  do  not  believe  I  could  have 
swallowed  a  mouthful.  I  made  no 
doubt  that,  like  the  pirate  captains  of 
the  Spanish  Main,  she  dined  with  a 
brace  of  pistols  beside  her  plate.  Not- 


withstanding the  fright  she  had  given 
me,  I  was  very  hungry ;  the  counsel- 
lor's cook  was  good,  and  I  was  pass- 
ing nearly  the  first  pleasant  moments 
I  had  had  since  my  arrival  at  Wiesen- 
thal,  when  the  door  opened,  and  the 
dark-browed  Emily  entered.  The  por- 
trait had  told  the  truth.  She  was,  if 
possible,  still  handsomer  than  Louisa. 
Quite  dazzled  by  her  beauty,  I  rose 
and  bowed.  Like  her  sister,  she  heed- 
ed me  not,  but  hurried  to  her  father, 
and  embraced  him. 

"  A  most  successful  operation,"  she 
cried ;  "  poor  Arnold  is  saved.  It  was 
high  time  to  amputate,  however.  See, 
here,  the  state  the  hand  is  in." 

And  as  she  spoke,  she  unfolded  a 
linen  cloth,  and  displayed  the  shatter- 
ed hand  with  its  raw  stump.  I  have 
always  had  the  greatest  horror  of  ope- 
rations, and  aversion  for  everything 
savouring  of  the  dissecting-room ;  and 
the  sight  of  this  dead  hand  made  me 
quite  sick.  It  was  all  up  with  my 
appetite  for  that  day. 

u  But,  girl  ! "  the  counsellor  ex- 
claimed, "  we  are  at  dinner ;  how  can 
you  bring  us  such  disgusting  objects?  " 

"  Naturalia  non  sunt  turpia"  re- 
plied the  female  surgeon  ;  "  what  care 
art  and  science  about  your  appetite?" 

"  If  you  do  not  consider  me,"  con- 
tinued Frager,  "  you  might  my  guest. 
This  is  Mr  Frank  Steinman,  the 
nephew  of  my  old  friend,  of  whom  I 
have  often  spoken  to  you." 

Dieffenbach  regarded  me,  as  I 
thought,  with  no  very  friendly  expres- 
sion. 

"  Had  I  known,"  she  said,  speaking 
coldly  and  contemptuously,  "  that  the 
gentleman  shudders  at  blood,  and 
cannot  bear  to  behold  an  amputated 
limb,  I  would  certainly  have  spared 
him  the  sight  of  the  result  of  our  ope- 
ration. I  thought  he  had  been  a 
scientifically  educated  man." 

Miss  Emily  was  gradually  becom- 
ing as  odious  to  me  as  her  galloping 
pistol-firing  sister.  Her  father  scolded, 
but  his  words  were  mere  wind,  as  re- 
garded their  effect  upon  Dieffenbach, 
who  was  far  too  much  engrossed  with 
her  amputation  to  care  a  copper  for 
paternal  chidings.  Again  putting  for- 
ward the  abominable  hand,  she  began 
to  explain,  in  scientific  phrase,  the 
nature  of  the  injuries,  and  the  neces- 
sity of  its  removal,  when  Frager  lost 


1855.] 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


725 


all  patience,  and  ordered  her  immedi- 
ately to  remove  the  abominable  thing 
from  his  sight.  Emily  carefully 
wrapped  up  her  hand  in  the  cloth  and 
left  the  room. 

"  The  deuce  take  me,"  growled  the 
counsellor,  "  if  I  know  what  is  come 
to  her  to-day.  She  does  not  gene- 
rally intrude  her  surgical  learning. 
The  successful  amputation  must  have 
turned  her  head.  Well,  let's  think 
no  more  of  it,  but  return  to  our 
dinner." 

To  dinner,  with  what  appetites  we 
might.  I  could  not  swallow  a  bit.  I 
had  dined  for  a  week — on  that  hor- 
rible dead  flesh.  Presently  in  came 
Emily  and  sat  down  to  table. 

"  Fall  to,  my  friend,"  said  the 
hearty  and  hospitable  Frager,  who 
saw  that  I  did  but  play  with  my 
knife  and  fork,  and  put  nothing  into 
my  mouth.  "  This  fillet  of  roebuck 
is  done  to  a  turn." 

Desirous  to  conceal  the  fact  that 
the  amputated  hand  had  cut  off  my 
appetite,  I  took  out  my  handkerchief 
and  held  it  to  my  mouth. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  asked  the 
counsellor.  Dieffenbach  looked  in- 
quiringly at  me. 

"  I  have  a  tooth  that  pains  me,"  I 
replied. 

"  Do  you  suffer  from  a  decayed 
tooth  ?  "  hastily  inquired  Emily. 

One  lie  begets  another.  "  At  times," 
I  answered,  "  when  eating,  one  of  my 
double  teeth  is  very  apt  to  ache." 

"  We  must  have  it  out,"  said 
Dieffenbach,  in  a  tone  of  decision  that 
made  me  tremble  for  the  safety  of  my 
thirty-two  perfectly  sound  grinders. 
And  up  she  jumped,  and,  hurrying 
into  the  next  room,  returned  instantly 
with  an  instrument-case. 

"  Pray  give  yourself  no  trouble  on 
my  account,  Miss  Emily,"  I  said ; 
*'  the  pain  already  diminishes." 

"  We  must  have  it  out,"  repeated 
Emily,  firmly.  "  A  bad  tooth  is  like 
a  bad  conscience,  it  may  be  stilled  for 
a  moment,  but  never  rests.  You  are 
never  sure  of  being  an  hour  free  from 
pain." 

"  I  am  really  extremely  obliged  to 
you,"  said  I,  deprecatingly,  and  ob- 
serving with  horror  that  the  desperate 
dentist  drew  from  her  case  a  hideous 
instrument,  in  form  something  between 
a  boot-hook  and  a  corkscrew. 


"At  least  allow  me  to  examine 
your  teeth." 

"  Must  really  decline,"  I  replied, 
setting  my  jaws  firmly  together.  "If 
I  once  open  my  mouth,"  I  thought  to 
myself,  "  this  demon  is  capable  of 
breaking  every  bit  of  ivory  I  have  in 
it."  And  I  muttered  a  host  of  excuses, 
which  sufficiently  showed  my  aversion 
to  operations  on  the  teeth.  Dieffen- 
bach did  not  seem  to  listen  to  me,  but 
drew  an  arm-chair  to  the  window,  and 
bade  the  servant  bring  in  a  basin  and 
water.  Then,  with  an  angelic  smile, 
she  invited  me  to  sit  down  in  the 
chair. 

"  Satan  himself,"  thought  I,  "  must 
have  brought  me  to  this  house ; "  and 
straightway  I  declared  that  I  could 
not  consent  to  submit  to  any  opera- 
tion, and  that,  as  to  tooth- drawing,  it 
was  clean  against  my  principles. 

"I  will  do  nothing  at  all  to  your 
mouth,"  replied  Emily ;  "  but  the 
teeth  are  one  of  my  favourite  studies, 
and  I  beg  you  will  allow  me  to  ex- 
amine yours." 

I  thought  it  rather  an  odd  wish,  but 
I  did  not  like  to  refuse,  lest  she  should 
think  me  a  coward.  I  did  make  some 
further  objections — would  not  give  her 
the  trouble,  and  so  forth ;  but  all  this 
was  of  no  use.  I  at  last  had  to  sit  down 
in  the  chair  by  the  window,  and  open 
my  mouth.  Just  as  I  did  so,  the 
counsellor  left  the  room.  My  heart 
sank  within  me ;  I  was  now  com- 
pletely in  the  power  of  this  fiend  and 
her  forceps.  She  took  a  sort  of  probe, 
and  scraped  and  poked  about  my 
mouth  in  a  manner  that  was  anything 
but  agreeable.  I  endured  the  pain, 
however,  and  said  nothing.  Then 
she  took  some  other  instrument,  and 
scraped  and  scratched  again.  The 
sufferings  of  Job  can  hardly  have  ex- 
ceeded mine. 

"  Have  the  goodness  to  wash  out 
your  mouth,"  said  the  operator,  hand- 
ing me  a  glass  of  water.  I  did  as  I 
was  bid,  and  discovered,  to  my  horror, 
that  my  gums  bled  profusely. 

"Nothing  more  dangerous,"  said 
this  infernal  Dieffenbach,  "than  to 
have  the  gums  growing  too  low  down 
upon  the  teeth.  I  have  separated 
them  a  little." 

"Small  thanks  to  you,"  thought  I, 
and  hoped,  with  a  sigh,  that  my  tor- 
tures were  at  an  end.  Not  a  bit  of 


720 

it.  Emily  again  rummaged  in  her 
instrument-case. 

"I  will  not  trouble  you  any  more," 
I  said,  closing  my  mouth. 

"  Only  one  moment,"  said  the  de- 
termined dentist,  and  in  an  instant 
thrust  some  hideous  piece  of  mechan- 
ism into  my  mouth,  and  grappled  a 
tooth.  Before  I  knew  where  I  was,  blue 
lights  danced  before  my  eyes,  and  I 
felt  as  if  my  jaw  was  breaking.  The 
next  moment  a  magnificent  double 
tooth,  with  two  prodigious  fangs,  was 
waved  in  triumph  before  my  eyes. 

"  It  must  have  come  out  very  soon," 
quoth  Dieffenbach,  with  imperturb- 
able calmness;  "decay  had  begun, 
and  would  shortly  have  spread  to  the 
other  teeth,  and  caused  you  great 
pain." 

I  was  more  dead  than  alive.  My 
tongue  convulsively  sought  the  hor- 
rible gap  left  by  my  departed  and 
irreplaceable  grinder. 

"  You  have  two  other  double  teeth 
that  will  not  last  you  long,"  con- 
tinued Emily;  "if  you  please,  we 
will  take  them  out  at  once,  to  save 
future  trouble.  My  hand  is  in,  and  I 
should  be  of  opinion  to  have  them 
out."  She  flourished  her  diabolical 
implement,  but  I  shouted  with  terror, 
and  sprang  from  the  chair  as  if  a 
scorpion  had  stung  me. 

"  As  you  please,"  said  Emily  with 
a  charming  smile,  and,  gathering  to- 
gether her  instruments,  left  the  room 
with  a  gracious  gesture,  leaving  me 
spitting  blood  and  musing  over  this 
new  and  most  abominable  adventure. 
Never  was  any  suitor  so  infamously 
treated.  Nearly  shot  through  the 
head  by  one  lady,  and  having  his 
tooth  wrenched  out  by  another.  I 
gazed  sorrowfully  at  the  recent  occu- 
pant of  my  mouth,  which  had  never 
caused  me  a  moment's  pain,  when  the 
counsellor,  whose  ears  my  shriek  of 
agony  had  reached,  hastily  entered  the 
room  and  inquired  what  was  the 
matter. 

"  Your  daughter,"  replied  I,  in  no 
very  friendly  tone,  u  has  been  pleased 
to  extract,  in  spite  of  my  resistance, 
a  perfectly  sound  tooth  from  my 
mouth ;  an  exploit  for  which  I  am 
far  from  obliged  to  her." 

"Perfectly  sound,"  said  Frager, 
shaking  his  head ;  u  there  I  must  beg 
to  differ  from  you.  Emily  under- 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


stands  teeth,  and  is  incapable  of  such 
a  mistake.  You  should  rejoice,  in- 
stead of  lamenting.  At  the  price  of 
a  momentary  pang,  you  have  been 
saved  from  much  suffering.  The 
operation  has  been  highly  successful, 
thanks  to  my  daughter's  skill.  If  you 
complain  now,  what  would  you  have 
clone  had  your  jaw  been  broken,  as 
sometimes,  happens  in  tooth-drawing  ? 
But  you  must  need  repose.  A  short 
siesta  will  do  you  no  harm.  If  you 
will  accompany  me,  I  will  show  you 
your  room." 

I  gladly  accepted  the  offer,  well 
pleased  to  have  at  last  a  refuge  from 
Nimrod's  gun  and  Dieffenbach's  in- 
struments. My  host  led  the  way 
to  a  comfortable  and  well- furnished 
apartment,  wished  me  a  pleasant  nap, 
and  departed.  Left  alone,  I  fell  to 
musing  on  the  events  of  the  day,  and 
as  I  gazed  through  the  window  on 
the  beautiful  landscape  without,  I 
thought  to  myself  what  a  pity  it  was 
that  such  a  charming  residence  should 
be  rendered  intolerable  by  the  vagaries 
of  the  owner's  daughters.  The  old 
gentleman  was  far  too  indulgent — 
very  weak  indeed— and  seemed  to 
think  DiefFenbach  had  done  me  a  great 
service  by  robbing  me  of  one  of  my 
best  teeth.  I  made  up  my  mind  soon 
to  depart.  I  would  wait  to  have  a 
look  at  Oken,  that  my  uncle  might 
not  be  able  to  say  I  had  not  complied 
with  his  wish  that  I  should  see  all 
three  daughters.  As  to  stopping  a 
week,  it  was  out  of  the  question. 
Before  that  time  elapsed  I  should 
lose  a  leg  or  an  arm  at  the  hands  of 
Dieffenbach,  or  be  laid  low  by  the 
bullets  of  Nimrod.  More  beautiful 
girls  I  had  never  seen,  and  doubted 
that  handsomer  existed ;  but  what  is 
the  value  of  beauty  in  whose  presence 
there  is  no  security  for  life  or  limb  ? 
My  thoughts  turned  to  the  youngest 
sister,  Ernestine.  Judging  from  her 
portrait,  she  was  of  softer  mood  than 
her  elders.  Her  father's  account  of 
her  partiality  to  spiders  and  other 
vermin  was  not  very  encouraging, 
but  at  any  rate  with  her  one  risked 
neither  death  nor  mutilation. 

I  would  gladly  have  smoked  a 
cigar,  my  custom  of  an  afternoon,  but 
the  state  of  my  gums  rendered  it  im- 
possible. I  was  quite  exhausted  by 
the  various  extraordinary  adventures 


1855.] 


Courtskij)  under  Difficulties. 


727 


that  in  so  short  a  time  had  occurred 
to  me,  and  I  felt  inclined  to  sleep. 
The  afternoon  was  very  warm,  so  I 
pulled  off  my  coat  and  laid  myself 
down  in  my  shirt-sleeves  on  a  soft 
and  excellent  sofa.  Sleep  soon  closed 
iny  eyes,  but  it  was  neither  a  pleasant 
nor  a  refreshing  slumber.  The  in- 
cidents of  the  day  were  reproduced 
and  exaggerated  in  my  dreams.  First 
came  Louisa,  and  shot  my  nose  com- 
pletely off,  as  if  it  had  been  the  beak 
of  a  popinjay  at  a  shooting-match. 
Then  Emily  appeared,  with  a  horrible 
screw,  which  she  insisted  on  passing 
through  my  head.  The  dream  was  a 
succession  of  ghastly  visions,  each 
one  more  painful  and  oppressive  than 
its  predecessor.  I  tossed  about,  and 
groaned,  and  perspired  with  terror, 
but  my  persecutors  would  not  leave 
me.  After  Nimrod  had  shot  a  hole 
right  through  my  body,  so  that  the 
gun  shone  through,  and  the  landscape 
behind  me  was  visible  to  those  in 
front,  Dieffenbach  approached  me, 
wearing  a  string  round  her  neck,  on 
which  were  strung  my  thirty-one  re- 
maining teeth.  So  that  I  was  as 
toothless  as  an  old  man  of  a  hundred, 
and  grievously  did  I  bewail  myself. 
But  my  sufferings  were  not  over. 
Dieffenbach  produced  a  long  slender 
sharp-pointed  instrument  of  polished 
steel,  and  insisted  upon  operating 
upon  me  for  disease  of  the  heart.  I 
naturally  protested  against  this,  and 
made  a  desperate  defence,  but  all  was 
in  vain :  invisible  hands  seized  me, 
fettered  me,  so  that  I  could  not  stir; 
my  breast  was  bared,  and  with  a 
fiendish  laugh,  my  persecutor  drove 
the  iron  into  my  heart.  Thereupon 
I  screamed  out  loud — and  awoke. 
My  dream  was  not  all  a  dream, 
although  it  seemed  one  to  me  for  some 
seconds  after  I  opened  my  eyes. 
Emily  stood  beside  me,  a  lancet  in 
her  hand ;  my  arm  was  bandaged, 
and  from  the  vein  a  dark-red  stream- 
let gushed  into  a  basin,  held  by  a 
maid-servant. 

"  Merciful  heavens !"  I  exclaimed, 
already  weakened  by  the  loss  of  blood, 
"  what  is  all  this?" 

" Hush,  hush!"  said  my  murderess, 
for  such  I  now  held  her  to  be ;  "  keep 
yourself  quiet,  or  you  will  bring  on 
fever." 

VOL.  LXXVIII.— NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


"You  want  to  bring  me  to  my 
grave." 

"By  no  means.  By  this  prompt 
bleeding  I  have  probably  saved  you 
from  it.  Not  aware  that  you  were 
installed  in  this  apartment,  I  acci- 
dentally entered,  and  found  you  in  a 
high  fever,  quite  delirious.  There 
was  nothing  for  it  but  the  lancet. 
See  how  feverish  your  blood  is." 

I  saw  nothing,  but  I  felt  weak.  I 
let  my  head  fall  back  upon  the  sofa- 
cushion  and  closed  my  eyes.  "  Bled 
to  death,"  thought  I  to  myself,  and 
stirred  not,  for  I  was  quite  resigned 
to  my  fate,  and  convinced  that  there 
was  no  chance  of  my  escaping  alive 
from  Wiesenthal.  I  rather  think  my 
senses  left  me.  At  least  I  remember 
little  of  what  passed,  until,  an  hour 
and  a  half  later,  I  found  myself  walk- 
ing in  the  grounds  with  Frager.  I 
walked  but  slowly,  for  the  blood- 
letting had  really  weakened  me. 

"I  go  too  fast  for  you,"  said  the 
counsellor,  who  observed  that  I  had 
difficulty  in  keeping  up  with  him ; 
and  he  slackened  his  pace.  "My 
poor  friend,"  he  continued,  "  you  little 
thought,  when  you  started  on  a  plea- 
sure-trip to  Wiesenthal,  that  you 
would  leave  some  of  your  blood  be- 
hind you.  I  cannot  imagine  what 
evil  spirit  has  taken  possession  of  my 
daughters.  I  assure  you  that  they 
are  usually  the  gentlest  kind-hearted 
creatures  in  the  world." 

I  ascribed  this  astonishing  state- 
ment to  paternal  blindness,  and,  to 
avoid  contradicting  my  host,  I  held 
my  tongue. 

"  You  must  have  been  in  real 
clanger,"  said  Frager,  apologetically. 
"  Emily  has  excellent  judgment  and 
a  quick  eye,  and  certainly  would  not 
have  bled  you  bad  it  not  been  neces- 


sary ; 


and  to  lose  a  few  ounces  of 


blood  never  does  any  one  harm." 

I  began  to  lose  all  patience  with 
this  absurd  old  counsellor,  who  took 
his  daughters'  mad  freaks  for  so  many 
proofs  of  skill  and  wisdom.  I  believe 
that  if  they  had  cut  my  head  off  he 
would  have  maintained  them  to  be 
perfectly  justified  by  the  precarious 
state  of  my  health.  I  examined  my- 
self to  see  if  there  were  anything 
about  me  that  could  possibly  afford 
Dieffenbach  a  pretext  for  another 


728 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


operation.  Commencing  with  my 
head,  I  travelled  down  to  my  feet, 
and  rejoiced  to  find  that,  with  the 
exception  of  my  tortured  mouth  and 
punctured  arm,  everything  was  in  a 
perfectly  natural  and  healthy  state. 
There  was  nothing  to  justify  any 
further  practice  of  surgery  upon  my 
unfortunate  person.  I  resolved  to  be 
extremely  on  my  guard,  and  to  lock 
the  room  door  whenever  I  was  alone. 
The  day  was  near  its  close  when 
we  returned  to  the  house,  where  we 
found  the  supper-table  spread.  The 
young  ladies  were  all  absent.  Heaven 
only  knew  in  which  direction  Nimrod 
was  out  shooting,  Dieffenbach  ampu- 
tating, and  Oken  collecting  spiders. 
I  must  confess  to  a  greater  wish  to 
see  Oken  than  Minnie,  perhaps,  would 
altogether  have  approved.  At  any 
rate,  with  her  I  should  not  be  in  bodily 
danger.  She  would  hardly  attempt 
to  impale  me  on  a  corking-pin,  like  a 
beetle  or  a  butterfly.  I  was  very  glad 
her  two  sisters  did  not  make  their 
appearance.  To  me  their  presence 
would  have  imbittered  the  meal.  We 
waited  a  while,  expecting  their  ar- 
rival, and  the  counsellor,  who  could 
not  but  remark  or  suppose  that  the 
impression  made  upon  me  by  the  oc- 
currences of  the  morning  was  not  par- 
ticularly favourable,  filled  up  the  in- 
terval with  praises  of  his  daughters, 
lauding  the  excellence  of  their  hearts, 
and  pointing  out  how  much  better  it 
was  that  they  should  have  been  suf- 
fered to  grow  up  half  wild  in  the 
country  than  that  they  should  have 
been  exposed,  without  the  guidance 
and  protection  of  a  mother,  to  the 
corrupt  atmosphere  and  dangerous  re- 
finements of  the  town.  When  upon 
this  theme,  Frager  was  inexhaustible. 
I  never  saw  a  man  so  much  in  love 
with  his  own  children.  At  last  he 
declared  he  would  wait  no  longer  for 
the  girls,  and  we  began  supper.  We 
had  been  at  table  about  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  when  the  door  opened,  and 
Oken,  long  expected,  came  at  last. 
Very  different  was  the  impression  she 
made  upon  me  to  that  produced  by 
her  sisters.  She  was  quite  as  pretty, 
but  gentle  and  amiable  in  counte- 
nance and  manner.  She  did  not  run 
past  me,  like  Nimrod  and  Dieffen- 
bach, as  if  I  had  been  a  part  of  the 
furniture,  but  bowed  her  head  grace- 


fully and  courteously,  apologised  for 
her  tardy  arrival,  and  added  that  had 
she  known  I  was  at  Wiesenthal,  the 
most  interesting  researches  in  natural 
history  should  not  have  withheld  her 
from  returning  home  to  welcome  me. 
I  was  delighted  to  find  her  so  pleasing 
a  contrast  to  her  sisters,  and,  but  for 
thoughts  of  Minnie,  I  should  at  once 
have  admitted  myself  vanquished  by 
her  charms.  She  was  tastefully  dressed 
— her  hair  just  a  little  blown  about 
by  the  evening  breeze.  In  her  hand 
she  carried  a  covered  basket,  which 
she  placed  upon  a  chair  beside  her 
when  she  sat  down.  The  conversa- 
tion turned  on  natural  history.  Out 
of  complaisance,  and  to  win  her  good 
opinion,  I  feigned  a  lively  interest  in 
the  science,  about  which  I  had  never 
in  the  least  troubled  my  head.  We 
were  a  most  harmonious  trio.  Coun- 
sellor Frager  was  in  the  seventh  hea- 
ven. It  was  clear  to  the  worthy  man 
that  Ernestine  and  I  were  born  for 
each  other.  For  my  part,  I  forgot 
the  disasters  of  the  morning,  and 
basked  in  the  smiles  of  the  lovely 
naturalist,  who  by  this  time  was  deep 
in  the  latest  discoveries  respecting 
amphibia.  Concerning  these  I  neither 
knew  nor  cared  anything,  but  I  pre- 
tended profound  attention,  and  gazed 
with  delight  on  the  lovely  mouth  that 
spoke  so  learnedly.  It  was  quite  a 
little  lecture  on  reptiles.  Presently 
Ernestine  opened  the  basket  beside 
her,  and  the  next  moment  an  extra- 
ordinary object  writhed  and  danced 
within  a  few  inches  of  my  face.  Its 
appearance  was  so  sudden  that  I  did 
not  at  the  instant  recognise  its  nature, 
but  when  I  did,  I  thought  I  should 
have  fallen  from  my  chair  with  ter- 
ror. A  living  and  very  lively  snake 
stretched  out  towards  me  its  horrible 
head  and  forked  tongue. 

"  Here  you  have  a  most  beautiful 

specimen  of  the ."  She  wound 

up  the  sentence  with  some  Latin 
name  of  a  snake.  I  was  almost  be- 
side myself.  From  my  infancy  up- 
wards I  had  held  serpents  of  every 
kind  in  extraordinary  respect.  Oken 
detected  my  discomposure.  "  What ! " 
she  exclaimed,  laughing  scornfully, 
"  you  would  pass  for  a  naturalist,  and 
are  afraid  for  a  snake  ?  Impossible ! " 

And  the  accursed  head,  with  its 
quivering  tongue  and  bright  beadlike 


1855.] 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


eyes,  drew  nearer  and  nearer,  Oken 
seeming  to  enjoy  my  manifest  uneasi- 


"  For  Heaven's  sake  !  "  I  cried, 
"  take  away  that  horrible  creature." 

"I  see  nothing  horrible  in  it," 
quietly  replied  Ernestine.  "  Observe 
how  gracefully  its  body  undulates." 
And  again  the  reptile  writhed  itself 
just  before  my  nose.  I  jumped  up 
and  retreated.  Ernestine  followed 
me,  snake  in  hand. 

"  I  have  never  been  able  to  under- 
stand," began  the  idiotic  counsellor, 
in  a  doctoral  tone,  u  whence  arose 
the  peculiar  aversion  with  which  men 
regard  all  kinds  of  reptiles." 

"  The  deuce  you  have  not ! "  cried 
I,  still  retreating  from  Oken  and  her 
odious  pet.  "  The  aversion  is  not 
very  difficult  to  account  for.  For  my 
part,  I  abhor  the  creatures." 

u  Pshaw ! "  said  Ernestine,  angrily; 
"you  are  but  a  counterfeit  natu- 
ralist." And  thereupon  she  slapped 
me  across  the  face  with  the  snake.  I 
could  not  restrain  a  cry  of  horror  and 
disgust.  Then  she  returned  to  her 
seat,  and  put  the  vermin  into  its 
basket. 

In  my  estimation  the  counsellor's 
third  daughter  had  now  fallen  into 
the  same  category  with  her  sisters. 
Frager,  who  saw  that  I  was  unable 
to  conquer  my  innate  horror  of  snakes, 
had  ordered  his  daughter  to  discon- 
tinue her  unseemly  jest ;  but  the  poor 
old  gentleman's  authority  was  evi- 
dently at  a  discount  that  day,  and 
Oken,  with  diabolical  malignity,  had 
continued  to  torture  me  until  the  per- 
spiration rolled  off  my  forehead. 

"  Now  may  Old  Nick  fly  away 
with  all  three  of  you,"  said  I  to  my- 
self, as  I  passed  my  handkerchief 
across  my  dank  brow.  "  You  have 
seen  the  last  of  me  at  Wiesenthal. 
At  daybreak  I  pack  up  my  traps  and 
leave  this  place  of  torment,  worse 
than  a  cell  of  the  inquisition,  or  a 
dungeon  in  Front  de  Bceuf's  Castle. 
A  nice  place  to  come  a- wooing  1— 
snakes,  bullets,  and  tooth-drawing  !— 
pleasant  welcome  for  a  suitor  1 " 

The  evening  wore  wearily  away. 
Miss  Okeii,  having  ascertained  that  I 
was  no  naturalist,  adopted  her  sisters' 
system,  and  treated  me  with  profound 
contempt ;  in  fact,  she  hardly  seemed 
aware  of  my  presence.  For  my  part, 


729 

the  sympathy  with  which  she  had 
at  first  inspired  me  had  completely 
vanished.  Frager  was  quite  put  out 
by  the  change  in  his  daughter's  de- 
meanour, and  of  course  cast  the  blame 
of  it  on  me.  "  I  should  never  have 
thought,"  he  said,  "  that  you  would 
be  so  alarmed  by  a  little  harmless 
snake." 

"  Who  could  have  supposed  it ! " 
cried  Ernestine,  applauding  her  father's 
words.  "We  are  different  sort  of 
people  here." 

"It  is  impossible  to  change  one's 
nature,"  I  replied. 

"  Nature ! "  repeated  Ernestine ; 
"what  do  you  know  about  nature? 
For  Heaven's  sake  hold  your  tongue." 

This  was  really  too  rude.  I  was 
on  the  point  of  making  a  sharp  reply, 
when  I  saw  Oken  extend  her  hand 
towards  the  reptile's  cage.  I  kept 
silence,  and  prepared  for  flight. 

Never  have  I  passed  two  more  irk- 
some hours  than  those  that  elapsed 
before  bedtime  came.  The  counsellor 
proposed  a  cigar.  I  caught  at  the 
idea.  With  a  glowing  havannah  in 
my  mouth,  I  felt  as  if  I  should  be  safer 
from  the  assaults  of  that  cobra  de 
capello,  or  whatever  else  it  was,  that 
Oken  kept  beside  her,  like  a  grey- 
hound in  leash,  ready  to  let  slip  upon 
her  game.  I  vowed  to  myself  to 
smoke  the  beast  to  death  if  possible. 
Again  I  was  to  be  balked. 

"  Bless  me,  papa ! "  cried  the  natu- 
ralist, "  you  forget  that  my  pet  can- 
not bear  smoke.  Can  you  ?  "  she  said, 
raising,  to  my  infinite  alarm,  the  lid 
of  the  snake-inhabited  hamper. 

"True,  my  dear,"  placidly  replied 
her  father,  "I  did  not  think  of  it;" 
and,  turning  to  me,  "  Excuse  me,  my 
dear  friend,"  he  added,  "  but  the  little 
animal  really  cannot  endure  tobacco." 

It  is  bad  enough  to  be  henpecked, 
but  to  be  chickpecked,  to  be  the  slave 
of  three  daughters,  and  they  possessed 
of  the  devil,  appeared  to  me  the  lowest 
depth  of  human  degradation.  So,  be- 
cause a  wretched  viper  objected  to  the 
fragrant  vapour  of  a  cigar,  I  was  to  be 
deprived  of  my  after-supper  smoke. 
For  a  moment  my  impulse  was  to  kick 
the  counsellor,  jump  upon  the  basket, 
and  bolt  from  the  house  ;  but  calmer 
thoughts  succeeded,  and  I  sat  resign- 
ed, merely  secretly  wishing  that  Oken 
and  the  snake  were  sitting  tete-a-tete 


730 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


in  a  Libyan  desert  or  a  Louisiana 
swamp,  and  that  I  was  a  hundred 
leagues  from  "Wiesenthal.  I  had 
suffered  so  much  all  day  that  my 
moral  energy  was  completely  gone. 
I  was  overwhelmed  by  the  rapid  suc- 
cession of  unpleasant  events.  I  started 
at  every  noise,  expecting  to  see  Nim- 
rod  or  Dieffenbach,  or  both  of  them, 
enter  the  room  and  perpetrate  some 
fresh  assault  upon  me.  Nimrod  would 
of  course  begin  snuffing  the  candles 
with  pistol- balls ;  and  DiefFenbach, 
as  soon  as  she  observed  my  state  of 
nervous  excitement,  would  insist  upon 
blisters  and  mustard-plasters,  and  per- 
haps upon  a  little  more  phlebotomy. 
Hitherto  I  had  had  but  one  sister  at 
a  time  to  deal  with.  But  if  they  formed 
a  triple  alliance,  and  set  upon  me  in 
concert,  I  was  lost,  without  hope  of 
rescue.  Fortunately  neither  of  the 
elder  sisters  made  their  appearance, 
and  at  last  the  youngest,  to  my  great 
relief,  took  up  her  basket  and  de- 
parted. No  sooner  was  she  gone 
than  Frager,  according  to  his  custom, 
tried  to  remove  the  disagreeable  im- 
pression she  had  made  upon  me.  One 
got  accustomed  in  time,  he  said,  to 
her  strange  tastes  and  stranger  pets, 
and  when  once  she  was  married  she 
would  give  up  her  researches  in  na- 
tural history,  and  settle  down  into  an 
excellent  wife.  I  was  quite  sick  of 
the  simple  old  creature's  infatuation 
and  apologies,  and  begged  to  be  al- 
lowed to  go  to  bed. 

"  At  last,"  said  I  to  myself,  on  find- 
ing myself  alone  in  my  room,  "  I 
shall  have  a  little  repose  after  the 
heat  and  burthen  of  the  day,  after  all 
my  dangers  and  adventures."  So  tired 
-was  I  that  I  immediately  undressed, 
blew  out  the  lights,  and  sought  my 
"bed.  Pulling  back  the  clothes,  I 
stepped  in,  and  much  more  hastily 
jumped  out  again.  I  had  come  upon 
some  hard  substance  which  moved 
between  the  sheets.  If  I  was  not 
greatly  mistaken,  it  was  a  live  tor- 
toise. Whilst  I  deliberated  whether 
I  should  cry  murder,  sleep  on  the 
sofa,  or  dress  and  leave  the  house, 
something  bit  my  great  toe  with  such 
violence  that  I  actually  yelled  with 
agony.  A  gigantic  crawfish  clung 
to  my  foot.  I  kicked  about  in  so 
desperate  a  manner  that  I  at  last 
shook  the  creature  off,  and  I  heard  it 


go  with  a  crack  against  the  wall.  I 
fled  to  the  sofa.  A  horrible  thought 
assailed  me.  What  if  Frager,  through 
absence  of  mind,  had  ushered  me  into 
Oken's  museum  and  menagerie.  This 
appeared  to  me  the  more  probable 
that  on  all  sides  I  heard  strange 
sounds,  as  if  numerous  creatures  were 
crawling,  trotting,  singing,  and  hum- 
ming around  me.  Something  flew  up 
to  me  with  a  buzz  and  a  bounce,  and 
caught  in  my  hair.  I  clutched  at  it, 
and  shuddered  as  I  found  in  my  grasp 
a  beetle  as  big  as  a  sparrow.  I  dashed 
it  furiously  from  me,  and  had  the  sa- 
tisfaction of  hearing  it  smash  against 
some  hard  substance.  Scarcely  was 
I  rid  of  the  beetle  when  I  was  bitten 
sharply  in  the  calf  of  the  leg.  I  put 
down  my  hand,  but  the  creature  had 
done  his  work  and  gone,  leaving  a 
severe  smarting  and  irritation.  I 
know  not  whether  it  was  he  or  one  of 
his  friends  who  the  next  instant  made 
an  onslaught  upon  my  ankle.  I  be- 
gan to  hunt  about  for  the  match-box, 
that  I  might  at  least  see  my  enemies. 
I  sought  in  vain,  and  was  quite  un- 
able to  conjecture  the  nature  of  the 
monsters  that,  during  my  search, 
pinched,  bit,  and  stung,  and  assailed 
me  in  every  conceivable  manner. 
Once  or  twice  I  trod  with  my  bare 
foot  on  hideous  reptiles,  whose  cold 
slimy  touch  made  me  leap  into  the 
air.  My  capers  would  doubtless  have 
diverted  any  who  saw  them,  but  to 
me  it  was  no  laughing  matter.  No 
martyr  of  ancient  times  or  victim  of 
the  vehm-gericht  ever  suffered  more 
than  I  did  in  that  chamber  of  horrors. 
The  monsters  that  congregate  on  the 
bottom  of  the  sea  can  hardly  surpass 
in  variety  the  inmates  of  that  room. 
The  darkness  and  my  excited  imagi- 
nation further  embellished  them.  Pre- 
sently I  heard  a  hiss.  "A  snake,  by 
all  that's  horrible  ! "  said  I  to  myself, 
*'  about  to  coil  round  and  devour  me." 
And  I  set  up  such  an  infernal  clamour, 
shouting  and  cursing,  like  Ajax  when 
wounded,  that  I  must  have  been  aud- 
ible half  a  mile  round  the  house.  To 
add  to  the  turmoil,  in  my  eagerness 
to  escape  from  something  which  I 
heard  coming  after  me  with  a  sort  of 
clappering  noise,  I  upset  the  table. 
Several  large  boxes  which  stood  upon 
it  were  opened  by  the  fall,  and  I  im- 
mediately perceived  a  great  increase 


1855.] 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


731 


of  animation  around  me.  I  continued 
to  storm  like  a  lunatic.  It  was  all 
one  to  me  whether  anybody  in  the 
house  slept  or  not.  The  awful  row  I 
kept  up  at  last  roused  the  counsellor, 
who  made  his  appearance  in  his  dress- 
ing-gown, candle  in  hand.  He  at  once 
saw  the  cause  of  the  disturbance. 

"  Hang  the  girl  1"  he  cried  ;  u  she 
will  soon  fill  the  whole  house  with  her 
zoological  collection." 

I  put  myself  in  mind  of  pictures  I 
had  seen  of  Adam  on  the  sixth  day  of 
the  creation,  surrounded  by  all  man- 
ner of  beasts  and  creeping  things. 
Frager  led  the  way  to  another  room, 
which  as  yet  was  not  invaded  by 
Oken's  vermin. 

"  You  have  nothing  to  fear  here," 
said  my  host ;  and  added,  true  to  his 
system  of  making  the  best  of  every- 
thing, "you  will  sleep  all  the  better 
for  your  little  misfortunes." 

"  Heaven  grant  it  1"  sighed  I,  and 
thought  that  I  should  have  slept  quite 
well  enough  without  them.  After 
searching  the  whole  room,  under  the 
bed,  in  the  drawers  and  closets,  and 
satisfying  myself  that  no  specimens  of 
natural  history,  either  alive  or  dead, 
were  there,  I  again  got  between  the 
sheets— this  time  without  encounter- 
ing a  tortoise,  but  not  the  less  deter- 
mined to  fly  Wiesenthal  at  cockcrow. 
With  this  wholesome  resolve  I  stretch- 
ed myself  out  and  went  to  sleep,  as  I 
presume  the  tortoise  did  in  the  bed 
originally  destined  for  me. 

Scarce  had  Aurora,  with  her  rosy  fingers, 
Tinged  the  hill-tops  and  bathed  the  plain  in 
dew, 

when  I  was  afoot  and  packing.  Whilst 
thus  occupied,  I  reflected  that,  under 
all  the  circumstances,  French  leave 
was  decidedly  the  best  leave  for  me 
to  take,  otherwise  I  should  have  a 
regular  fight  with  Frager,  who  would 
never  let  me  depart.  When  I  halted 
for  the  night,  I  would  write  him  a  let- 
ter, telling  him  that,  with  the  best 
will  in  the  world,  I  had  been  unable 
longer  to  endure  the  eccentricities  of 
his  charming  daughters.  I  would  put 
it  to  him  as  gently  as  possible,  so  as 
not  to  hurt  his  feelings ;  and  I  felt  sure 
that  when  he  reflected  on  all  I  had  gone 
through  under  his  roof,  he  would  not 
feel  surprised  at  my  abrupt  departure. 
Nor  could  my  uncle  blame  me,  when 
I  told  him  of  my  tribulations,  and  re- 


lated the  conduct  of  the  three  mad 
women. 

Whilst  pondering  all  these  things,  I 
completed  my  packing.  I  made  sure 
that  nobody  would  be  stirring  in  the 
house  at  that  early  hour,  and  at  any 
rate  that  the  ladies  would  be  deep  in 
their  feather-beds.  I  was  deliberat- 
ing whether  I  should  bravely  shoulder 
my  portmanteau  or  leave  it  to  be  sent 
after  me,  when  the  door  burst  open, 
and  to  my  immense  consternation,  in 
strode  Nimrod,  a  brace  of  duelling 
pistols  in  her  hand. 

"  Merciful  heavens !"  said  I  to  my- 
self, "  torture  begins  again.  It  must 
be  owned  that  these  amiable  demons 
go  to  work  early." 

Without  salutation  or  ceremony 
Nimrod  strode  up  to  me. 

"Your  conduct  last  night,"  she 
said,  "  your  ill-treatment  of  my  sis- 
ter's property,  and  barbarity  to  several 
of  her  pets,  are  an  insult  to  the  family 
and  demand  atonement.  I  have  taken 
the  business  into  my  hands.  We  will 
exchange  shots." 

"  Are  you  out  of  your  mind  ?  "  cried 
I  impatiently. 

"You  will  soon  see  that,"  replied 
Louisa,  coldly  and  decidedly.  "  An- 
swer me.  Is  it  you  who  broke  the 
claw  of  that  rare  specimen  of  the  lob- 
ster tribe  ?  Is  it  you  who  threw  the 
horned  beetle  with  such  violence 
against  the  wall  tbat  the  poor  crea- 
ture is  still  unable  to  walk  or  fly  ? 
And  are  you  the  delinquent  who  up- 
set the  cases  in  which  colonies  of 
spiders,  earwigs,  and  centipedes  had 
long  led  a  tranquil  and  happy  life  ? 
Do  you  confess  all  these  offences  ?" 

My  politeness  was  clean  gone.  I 
had  come  to  consider  Nimrod  as  a 
man,  and  should  as  soon  have  thought 
of  putting  on  white  kid  gloves  to  sad- 
dle a  horse,  as  of  using  towards  her 
that  subdued  tone  and  those  guarded 
expressions  one  usually  adopts  with 
the  gentler  sex. 

"  May  the  devil  fly  away  with  the 
whole  brood!  "cried  I,  perfectly  ex- 
asperated at  being  called  to  account 
for  my  defence  against  the  menagerie. 

"Follow  me,  sir,"  said  Louisa; 
"  such  expressions  as  these  can  be 
washed  out  only  with  blood.  Come, 
sir ! " 

"  Nonsense  !"  I  replied  ;  "I  do  not 
fight  duels  with  young  ladies." 


732 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


[Dec. 


44  Ha  1"  cried  Nimrod,  stepping  up 
close  to  me,  with  raised  pistol  and  an 
unwholesome  sparkle  in  ber  eye ; 
44  Nonsense,  did  you  say  ?  Afraid,  I 
suppose.  But  it  won't  do.  Follow 
me,  sir." 

44 1  tell  you  again  that  I  will  not. 
How  could  I  answer  to  God  and  my 
conscience  for  having  levelled  a  pistol 
at  you?" 

41  Need  not  to  level  it  without  you 
choose.  Fire  in  the  air.  I  am  the 
aggrieved  party,  and  will  fire  at  you." 

44  A  thousand  thanks." 

44  For  the  last  time  I  ask  if  you  will 
follow  me  ?  If  not,  I  declare  you  the 
greatest  coward  that  ever  trod  the 
earth  and  called  himself  a  man." 

44  As  you  please." 

44  Yes,  but  that  is  not  all.  You 
shall  carry  away  a  mark  that  will  re- 
mind you,  your  life  long,  of  your  con- 
duct this  day. 

44  A  mark,"  said  I  to  myself;  44  what 
does  the  assassin  mean?  She  is 
capable  of  any  crime."  And  I  con- 
fess I  felt  uneasy.  Xouisa  came 
nearer  and  nearer,  her  pistol  raised, 
her  countenance  threatening.  In  her 
eye  there  was  something  deadly  and 
alarming.  I  began  to  retreat.  As  I 
drew  back,  she  advanced,  taking  step 
for  step  with  me,  her  pistol  aimed  at 
my  head,  her  finger,  as  it  seemed  to 
me,  actually  pressing  the  trigger.  I 
could  bear  it  no  longer. 

44 Fiend!"  I  exclaimed,  4'for  Hea- 
ven's sake  leave  me  in  peace.  I  am 
about  to  quit  this  inhospitable  house." 

"  You  are  going  away  ?  "  cried  Lou- 
isa, in  a  strangely  joyful  tone,  and 
sinking  the  muzzle  of  her  pistol. 

44 1  heartily  wish  I  had  never  come," 
was  my  answer;  "nor  would  I  but 
for  my  uncle's  desire." 

44 Speak  the  truth!"  said  Louisa, 
resuming  her  threatening  tone.  t4  It 
was  not  your  uncle's  desire  alone,  but 
views  of  your  own,  that  brought  you 
to  Wiesenthal.  You  wished  to  marry 
me  or  one  of  my  sisters." 

44  Good  heavens ! "  I  exclaimed, 
44  marry  you?  I  should  as  soon  think 
of  marrying  a  Minie  rifle.  Never 
dreamed  of  such  a  thing,  I  assure  you. 
Besides,  I  am  engaged  to  be  married 
already." 

44 What!"  cried  Louisa,  perfectly 
overjoyed.  And  she  threw  the  pis- 
tol away,  and  herself  almost  into  my 


arms.  "What!  you  are  engaged  to 
be  married?  Why  did  you  not  say 
so  before  ?  " 

44 1  was  not  asked  the  question," 
replied  I,  quite  taken  aback  by  the 
sudden  embrace  and  change  of  mood. 

41  You  would  have  saved  yourself  a 
deal  of  unpleasantness,  poor  fellow ! " 
continued  Louisa.  "  I  would  not  have 
shot  at  you,  nor  would  Ernestine  have 
tormented  you  with  her  snake,  nor 
Emily  have  let  you  blood  and  drawn 
your  tooth." 

44 1  should  have  been  well  pleased 
to  have  been  spared  the  last  opera- 
tion," said  I. 

44  You  would  have  found  us  all  very 
amiable,  good-tempered  girls." 

44 1  have  no  doubt  of  it,  since  you 
say  so;  but  I  really  do  not  under- 
stand—" 

"  I  will  explain,"  said  the  trans- 
formed Nimrod,  who  each  moment 
became  gentler  and  more  charming. 
44  It  is  a  secret ;  but  we,  too,  are  en- 
gaged to  be  married." 

"All  three?" 

44  All  three.  Notwithstanding  our 
rather  masculine  tastes,  we  are  women 
at  heart." 

44 1  am  glad  to  hear  it." 

44  Are  you  ?  And  surprised,  too, 
apparently.  Well,  never  mind ;  you 
will  learn  to  know  us  better.  But 
our  father,  kind  and  indulgent  though 
he  be,  is  a  great  deal  too  practical  in 
love  matters.  He  thinks  too  much 
about  what  he  calls  4  good  matches,' 
and  unfortunately  the  men  of  our 
choice  do  not  come  under  that  head. 
One  is  a  lieutenant  with  nothing  but 
his  pay,  the  other  a  clergyman  with- 
out a  living,  the  third  an  artist  whose 
pictures  nobody  buys." 

"  May  I  venture  to  inquire  which 
of  the  three  the  beautiful  Louisa  has 
honoured  with  her  preference  ?  " 

"The  clergyman." 

"  The  clergyman ! "  I  repeated,  per- 
fectly astonished. 

44  You  think  me  rather  too  wild  to 
be  a  parson's  wife  ?  " 

44  Well,"  I  replied,  as  her  sharp- 
shooting  exploits  recurred  to  my  mind, 
"  a  preacher  of  peace  and  a  daring 
sportswoman — " 

44  Love  levels  everything,"  returned 
Louisa,  with  enchanting  frankness. 
44  And  do  you  think  I  cannot  be  gentle 
when  I  please  ?  " 


1855.] 


Courtship  under  Difficulties. 


733 


"I  think  that  to  you  nothing  is 
impossible." 

"  When  it  is  to  pleasure  him — no- 
thing!"  she  answered,  with  a  touch  of 
the  old  Nimrod  energy.  The  next 
instant  the  woman  resumed  the  as- 
cendant. She  cast  down  her  eyes, 
and  blushed  divinely  at  the  confes- 
sion that  had  escaped  her.  Then, 
recovering  herself:  "Not  a  word,  I 
entreat,  to  my  father  of  what  I 
have  told  you.  He  would  never  for- 
give us.  We  pray  to  Heaven  day 
and  night  to  improve  the  circum- 
stances of  the  men  of  our  choice,  for 
whose  sake  we  have  already  driven 
more  than  one  wooer  from  Wiesenthal. 
When  a  danger  of  that  kind  ap- 
proaches, we  form  our  plans,  and  if 
one  of  us  does  not  succeed  in  repel- 
ling it,  another  surely  does.  Confess 
whether,  even  if  you  had  not  already 
given  away  your  heart,  you  would 
have  sought  one  of  us  as  a  wife  after 
yesterday's  adventures  ?  " 

u  Not  if  you  had  had  provinces  for 
your  dowry,"  was  my  uncivil  but 
honest  reply. 

"  Many  thanks,"  said  Louisa, 
laughing.  "  An  excellent  proof  of  the 
efficacy  of  our  measures." 

I  now  had  to  tell  my  new  friend 
about  my  love  affairs,  and  how  it 
was  that  I  found  myself  nearly  in  the 
same  position  as  herself,  since  my 
uncle  had  no  idea  of  my  attachment  to 
Minnie,  the  poor  widow's  daughter. 
To  make  a  long  story  short,  I  was  in- 
troduced over  again  to  Dieffenbach, 
who  no  longer  menaced  my  masti- 
cators, or  flourished  a  lancet,  and  to 
Oken,  now  unaccompanied  by  her 
•viper,  and  I  found  the  three  sisters  as 
amiable  as  I  the  day  before  had 
thought  them  detestable.  I  was 
obliged  to  promise  to  remain  a  few 
days  longer  at  Wiesenthal.  To  con- 
firm our  alliance,  prove  my  forgive- 
ness, and  heap  coals  of  fire  upon  the 
heads  of  my  tormentors,  I  volunteered 
to  undertake  the  delicate  task  of  in- 
terceding with  the  counsellor,  and  de- 
clared that  I  would  not  leave  the 
house  until  he  had  given  his  consent 
to  his  daughters'  marriage  with  the 
men  they  preferred.  Upon  receiving 
this  promise,  the  sisters  were  near 
killing  me  with  kindness  and  caresses. 
It  was  no  small  thing  I  had  pledged 
myself  to  perform,  but,  thus  encourag- 


ed, I  felt  myself  equal  to  any  dif- 
ficulty. We  held  a  council  of  war, 
and  that  same  day  the  siege  began. 
I  worked  hard  in  the  trenches,  was 
repeatedly  under  fire,  and  had  to 
repel  several  smart  sorties.  On  the 
first  day  I  made  little  progress,  but, 
encouraged  by  the  imploring  looks 
and  honied  words  of  the  female 
besieging  army,  I  persisted,  and  held 
my  ground.  Frager  proved  an  obsti- 
nate old  fortress.  Fond  though  he 
was  of  his  daughters,  and  generally 
indulgent  and  easy-going,  in  some 
things  he  was  stubborn  as  any  mule. 
However,  on  the  evening  of  the 
second  day  I  had  opened  a  breach, 
and  on  the  third  I  headed  the  storm- 
ing party.  Thereupon  the  enemy 
hung  out  the  white  flag,  and  asked 
for  a  day's  truce.  This  was  granted, 
but  a  strict  blockade  was  maintained. 
The  truce  expired,  the  storming  party 
again  advanced,  capitulation  ensued, 
and  general  rejoicings  celebrated  our 
triumph. 

The  betrothal  of  the  three  sisters 
was  now  officially  announced,  and  the 
customary  festival  was  to  take  place 
in  a  fortnight.  I  was  to  be  there,  and 
to  bring  Minnie  with  me.  For,  as  a 
good  deed  rarely  goes  unrewarded, 
Frager,  my  conquered  foe,  undertook 
to  intercede  with  my  uncle  and  ob- 
tain his  consent.  And  so,  after 
another  happy  day  at  Wiesenthal,  I 
departed,  a  tooth  the  poorer  than  on 
my  arrival,  but  radiant  with  victory 
and  rich  in  hope. 

It  was  long  since  I  had  seen  my 
worthy  uncle  laugh  so  heartily  as  at 
the  narration  of  my  adventures  with 
the  counsellor's  daughters.  It  put 
him  in  such  a  fine  humour  that 
when  Frager,  true  to  his  promise, 
made  his  appearance  a  day  or  two 
later,  he  had  much  less  difficulty  than 
I  expected  in  obtaining  his  consent  to 
my  union  with  Minnie.  A  fortnight 
afterwards,  a  happy  party  was  as- 
sembled at  Wiesenthal;  I  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  parson,  the  dragoon, 
and  the  painter,  and  was  obliged  to 
admit  that  Nimrod,  Dieffenbach,  and 
Oken  had  shown  both  good  taste 
and  good  judgment  in  their  choice. 
My  day's  adventures  at  Wiesenthal 
were  of  course  again  brought  upon 
the  tapis,  and  were  a  source  of  never- 
ending  mirth.  The  three  young  men 


734 


Oar  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dee. 


who,  indirectly,  were  the  cause  of  my 
misfortunes,  cordially  consoled  with 
me.  But  Dieffenbach,  the  operator, 
declared  (and  let  this  be  the  moral 
of  my  tale)  that  the  loss  of  the  tooth 
was  but  a  just  punishment  for  going 
to  look  at  other  women  when  I  was 
already  a  plighted  and  accepted  lover ; 
a  sentiment  in  which  her  sisters  and 
Minnie  (especially  the  latter)  most 
cordially  concurred. 

Before  a  year  was  out,  there  were 
four  weddings  at  Wiesenthal.  Since 
then,  two  more  years  have  elapsed, 
bringing  on  their  wings  various 
changes,  most  of  them  for  the  better. 
Although  I  did  not  marry  exactly  as 


my  uncle  wished,  he  did  not  the  less 
make  me  his  partner.  Nimrod,  en- 
grossed with  gentler  cares,  is  no 
longer  a  sporting  character  ;  much  to 
the  satisfaction  of  her  husband,  who 
has  a  pleasant  country  living.  Dieffen- 
bach has  long  since  retired  from  me- 
dical practice,  and  the  dragoon,  now  a 
captain,  is  quartered  a  few  miles  from 
Wiesenthal.  Oken  pets  a  baby  in- 
stead of  a  snake.  The  painter  has 
thrown  away  his  unprofitable  palette, 
has  taken  to  agriculture,  and  lives  with 
his  father-in-law,  whose  estate  he 
manages.  Such  are  the  satisfactory 
results  of  my  "  Courtship  under 
Difficulties." 


OUR  RURAL  POPULATION  AND  THE  WAR. 


A  GREAT  revolution  is  taking 
place  in  the  character  of  our  popula- 
tion. For  fifty  years  it  has  been 
going  on  rapidly,  changing  alike  the 
physical  and  moral  constitution  of  the 
British  race.  The  old  preponderance 
of  the  rural  element  in  our  population 
has  vanished,  and  every  year  the 
nation  is  becoming  more  purely  urban. 
What  such  a  revolution  portends,  we 
shall  see  in  the  sequel ;  in  the  mean 
time,  let  us  express  our  satisfaction 
that  the  phenomenon  has  at  length, 
in  some  measure,  attracted  public 
attention.  The  rough-and-ready  pro- 
cesses of  a  season  of  war  doubtless 
engender  abuses  of  a  certain  kind; 
but  peace  is  quite  as  good  a  shelterer 
of  error.  Peace  and  war  come  by 
turns  upon  the  world,  that  each  may 
make  manifest  the  errors  and  abuses 
that  have  grown  up  under  the  other. 
No  kind  of  suffering  is  all  loss, — in 
fact,  suffering  never  fails  to  be  its 
own  recompense  if  we  do  but  learn 
the  lessons  it  is  fitted  to  teach.  This 
is  true  even  in  the  case  of  individuals, 
who  live  but  their  short  threescore 
years  and  ten ;  how  much  more  true 
is  it  of  nations,  to  whose  existence  as 
free  and  happy  agents  nature  has 
fixed  no  term  save  that  imposed  by 
their  own  foolishness.  Yes,  a  New 
Zealander,  as  it  has  been  fancied, 
may  yet  stand  upon  London  Bridge, 
and,  gazing  upon  a  stagnant  stream 
beneath  him  and  a  mouldering  city 
around,  be  lost  in  awe  at  the 


wreck  of  the  mightiest  civilisatioo 
that  ever  dominated  the  world.  Yes, 
a  foreign  foe  may  yet  set  his  heel  upon 
England's  neck,  and  annex  her  as  a 
tributary  isle  to  his  far-spread  Con- 
tinental realms.  But  never  will  that 
hour  come — never  will  the  Queen  of 
the  Seas,  the  parent  of  half  a  world's 
civilisation,  thus  totter  to  her  fall, 
until  her  own  children  have  betrayed 
her, — until  the  British  race  have  lost 
its  manliness— have  sunk  its  physical 
and  moral  vigour  in  the  heated  atmo- 
sphere of  an  over-civilisation  and  all- 
pervading  town-life,  and  have  aban- 
doned the  free  generous  spirit  of  its 
prime  in  an  absorbing  desire  for  the 
mere  creature-comforts  of  existence. 

After  forty  years  of  peace,  we  are 
again  at  war ;  we  want  an  army,  and 
recruits  come  in  but  slowly.  We 
cannot  even  keep  our  handful  of 
militia  regiments  at  half  their  com- 
plement ;  and  for  service  abroad,  we 
have  been  hunting  for  the  last  twelve- 
month for  foreigners  —  Germans, 
Italians,  Poles,  Turks,  Americans — 
and  have  got  into  all  manner  of  poli- 
tical desagremens  by  our  desperate 
efforts  to  procure  their  services.  We 
do  not  wonder  that  France  should 
have  begun  to  mutter  discontent- 
ment at  our  efforts,  and  doubts  as  to 
whether  we  do  not  design  to  shirk 
our  part  in  the  war- alliance.  During 
the  present  year,  our  army  in  the 
Crimea  has  not  averaged  above  half 
the  strength  of  the  native  British 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


735 


troops  which  Wellington  led  into 
France  in  1814 ;  and  yet  the  number 
of  males  at  the  military  age  in  this 
country  has  nearly  doubled  since  then. 
The  number  of  men  who  ought  to  be 
capable  of  bearing  arms  is  in  round 
numbers  3,200,000;  and  yet,  after 
two  years'  recruiting  for  as  arduous  a 
contest  as  ever  Great  Britain  engaged 
in,  our  army  in  the  Crimea  does  not 
exceed  50,000  men !  This  is  a  curious 
and  certainly  startling  phenomenon, 
and  sundry  minor  circumstances  of  a 
similar  complexion  intensify  the  un- 
pleasant aspect  of  affairs.  No  one 
who  has  read  the  Biography  of  Sir 
John  Sinclair  by  his  accomplished 
son,  can  have  forgotten  the  con- 
duct of  that  patriotic  Scotchman  in 
1794,  when  the  national  defences  were 
the  subject  of  as  anxious  thought  to 
the  Government  as  they  are  at  pre- 
sent,—how  he  offered  Mr  Pitt  to  set 
the  example  of  raising  a  regiment  on 
his  own  estate,  and  to  command  it 
himself — and  how,  in  seven  months' 
time  from  the  acceptance  of  his  offer, 
the  "Caithness  Regiment"  passed  a 
favourable  inspection  at  Inverness 
before  General  Monro.  "The  bat- 
talion," we  are  told,  "  was  at  first 
600  strong,  but  Sir  John  subsequently 
increased  the  number  of  his  men  to 
1000.  They  were  dressed  in  a  hand- 
some Highland  uniform ;  and  it  was 
noted  that  nineteen  of  the  officers 
averaged  above  six  feet  high."*  A 
thousand  stalwart  men  in  a  few  months 
from  estates  in  barren  Caithness  ! 
How  are  we  fallen  !  Several  Scottish 
counties  united  fail  to  produce  half 
as  many  militiamen  now.f  What  is 
the  cause  of  this?  Is  it  the  people, 
or  the  people's  leaders  that  are  failing? 
Is  it  the  gentry,  or  their  tenantry? 
Alas  !  where  are  their  tenantry  ?  A 
few  big  names  scattered  at  long  dis- 
tances— that  is  all  we  find, — 

"  Rari  nantes  in  gurgite  vasto  !  " 


The  cottars  and  yeomen — the  free 
tillers  of  the  soil,  the  essence  of  our 
rural  population — are  gone ;  and  a 
thin  race  of  hirelings  and  vagrant 
workers  is  what  we  now  find  in  their 
room. 

Several  times  during  the  last  ten 
years  has  the  Magazine,  aided  by  the 
brilliant  pen  of  Sir  A.  Alison  and  the 
earnest  contributions  of  his  philan- 
thropic brother,  endeavoured  to  direct 
attention  to  this  change  in  our  popu- 
lation, and  to  the  disastrous  results 
which  it  forebodes  to  the  power 
and  wellbeing  of  the  empire.  The 
present  is  a  favourable  season  for 
recurring  to  the  subject.  The  dif- 
ficulty of  finding  recruits  for  the 
army  is  a  fact  at  once  so  patent, 
so  novel,  and  so  startling,  that  gene- 
ral attention  is  being  drawn  to  the 
depopulation  of  our  rural  districts  as 
the  prime  cause  of  this  difficulty.  It 
is  so  unquestionably, — but  the  subject 
is  of  still  wider  and  profounder  signi- 
ficance than  this;  and  we  gladly  avail 
ourselves  of  the  present  awakening  of 
the  public  mind,  to  examine  briefly 
into  the  whole  matter,  and  to  set 
forth  some  evils  of  the  change  at  pre- 
sent at  work  in  the  character  of  our 
population,  other  and  far  more  abiding 
than  the  difficulty  of  finding  soldiers 
for  the  war. 

A  recent  slapdash  haphazard  article 
in  the  Times,  directed  against  the 
Highland  landowners  for  their  "clear- 
ances," and  the  consequent  want  of 
recruits  for  Sir  Colin's  brigade  in  the 
Crimea,  had  the  good  effect  of  setting 
people  to  talk  and  think  of  the  matter. 
The  subject,  as  we  knew  would  be  the 
case,  has  proved  a  much  graver  one 
than  people  imagined.  The  Census 
tables  have  been  looked  into,  and  the 
question  of  the  depopulation  has  been 
looked  at  from  almost  every  point  of 
view, — and  what  is  the  result?  What 
are  the  facts  now  thoroughly  esta- 


*  This  noble  corps  was  disbanded  in  1806, — their  Colonel  taking  leave  of  them  ia 
front  of  his  house  in  Charlotte  Square,  Edinburgh  ;  upon  which  occasion  not  a  man 
was  unfit  for  duty.  General  Vyse  well  said  that  "  he  had  often  heard  of  a  regiment 
of  1000  men,  but  never  till  then  had  he  seen  one."  The  greater  part  of  the  regiment 
immediately  afterwards  enlisted  in  the  line  for  foreign  service. 

•f*  The  complement  fixed  for  the  militia  regiment  furnished  by  the  three  counties 
of  Roxburgh,  Selkirk,  and  Dumfries,  is  500  men,  and  the  regiment,  though  a  fine- 
one  as  regards  physique,  is  100  men  short.  Most  of  the  other  regiments  are  much 
more  deficient ;  so  that  instead  of  10,000  men,  the  Scottish  militia  at  present  only 
musters  about  4500  ! 


736 


Our  Rural  Population  and  tlte  War. 


[Dec. 


blished  ?  We  shall  not  speak  of  Ire- 
land, where  the  decrease  of  a  million 
and  a  half  of  the  rural  population  is 
too  notorious  to  need  remark,  and 
produced  by  causes  too  exceptional  to 
be  treated  as  part  of  that  steady  re- 
volution upon  which  we  desire  to  com- 
ment. Let  us  look  merely  at  Scot- 
land and  England,  and  in  the  changes 
there  observable  we  shall  find  ample 
cause  for  reflection. 

Take  the  northern  half  of  the  king- 
dom first, — and  what  do  we  find?  One- 
half  of  the  parishes,  and  two-thirds  of 
the  area,  of  Scotland  are  decreasing 
in  population  !  The  fact,  which  we 
may  well  call  astounding,  is  estab- 
lished by  the  last  Census  Returns,  and 
is  acknowledged  by  all  parties  to  be 
indisputable.  Over  two-thirds  of  its 
extent,  Scotland  has  suffered  a  positive 
diminution  in  the  number  of  its  inha- 
bitants,— a  diminution  not  merely  re- 
lative (that  is  to  say,  with  reference 
to  the  increase  of  the  population  gene- 
rally), but  absolute,— the  population 
in  those  parts  falling  short  of  the 
amount  which  it  once  reached.  And 
what  deserves  to  be  noticed  is,  that 
the  decrease  is  UNIVERSAL  throughout 
the  rural  districts.  The  wastes  of 
Sutherland,  the  bleak  mountains  of 
Argyll,  are  hardly  (if  at  all)  decreas- 
ing faster  than  the  rich  straths  and 
carses  of  the  Lowlands — than  the 


green  hills  of  the  Borders,  or  the 
Arcadian  region  of  the  Ettrick  and 
Yarrow.  Bonnie  Teviotdale  with  its 
sunny  haughs,  and  the  sheltered  val- 
ley-land of  the  bright-running  Tweed, 
exhibit  the  same  phenomena  as  do  the 
bleaker  valleys  of  the  Nith  and  the 
Spey.  "  The  Flowers  o'  the  Forest 
are  a'  wede  away  !"  The  lament  for 
the  loss  of  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the 
country  after  the  disastrous  fight  of 
Flodden,  may  be  renewed  now  with 
still  more  justice  and  not  less  regret. 
War  made  the  first  clearance, — Peace 
and  false  theories  have  done  the  last. 
War  has  swept  away  its  thousands, 
but  Peace  its  tens  of  thousands.  The 
so-called  "  progress  of  society "  is 
sweeping  our  peasantry  from  the 
fields.  The  acres  which  their  fathers 
rented  or  owned,  are  now  merged  in 
the  latifundia  that  are  creeping  over 
the  country ;  and  they  themselves  have 
either  emigrated,  or  gone  to  swell  the 
pauperism  and  sink  into  the  physical 
degeneracy  of  the  factory-towns.  A 
Juggernaut  civilisation  is  crushing 
them  beneath  the  wheels  of  its  onward 
car. 

It  is  hardly  a  century  since  a  re- 
bellion of  the  Highland  Clans  sufficed 
to  shake  the  British  throne  to  its 
base, — where  is  that  host  of  match- 
less soldiers  now  ?  We  have  it  on  re- 
cord* that  in  1745  there  were  upwards 


*  The  following  Returns,  prepared  by  the  Lord  President  Forbes  of  Cullodea 
for  the  information  of  the  Government  in  1745,  give  the  number  of  able-bodied  fight- 
ing men  the  Clans  could  bring  to  the  field  on  three  days'  notice — (See  Brown's  His- 


Argyll      ., ._.,_   v    ., 
Breadalbane 
Lochnell,  and  other  Campbel  s 
M'Leans 
M'Lauchlans 
Stewart  of  Appin 
M'Dougalls 
Stewart  of  Grandtully 
Clan  Gregor 
Duke  of  Atholl      . 
Farquharsons          . 
Duke  of  Gordon    . 
Orant  of  Grant      . 
Mackintosh  „ 

Macphersons 
Frasers          ;        . 
Grants  of  Glenmorriston 
Chisholms 
Duke  of  Perth 

Cromarty,  Scatwall,  Gairloch 
other  Mackenzies 


and 


3000 
1000 
1000 
500 
200 
300 
200 
300 
700 
3000 
500 
300 
850 
800 
400 
900 
150 
200 
300 

1500 


Carryforward,    .        .     16,100 


Brought  forward,       16,100 

Seaforth        .  1000 

Laird  of  Menzies  300 

Munroes  300 

The  Rosses  500 

Sutherland  2000 

Mackays  800 

Sinclairs  1100 

M'Donald  of  Sleat  700 

M'Donaldof  Clanranald  700 

M'Donnell  of  Glengary  500 

M'Donnell  of  Keppoch  300 

M'Donald  of  Glencoe  130 

Robertsons     .         .  200 

Camerons      .         ,  800 

M'Kinnon     .        .  200 

M'Leod         .        .  700 
The  Duke  of  Montrose;  the  Earls 
of  Bute,  and  Moray;  Macfar- 
lanes,       M'Neills,      M'Nabs, 

M'Naughtons,  and  Lamonts,  5600 

31,930 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


737 


of  30,000  able-bodied  clansmen  in  the 
Highlands,  fit  for  home  or  foreign 
service, — every  man  of  them,  alike  in 
frame  and  spirit,  a  warrior.  There  is 
not  a  tithe  of  that  number  now ;  and 
many  districts  which  furnished  their 
500,  700,  or  800  soldiers  in  time  of 
the  wars,  are  now  without  a  single 
human  being  in  them  but  a  shepherd 
or  two  and  a  brace  of  gamekeepers. 
Even  the  Western  Isles,  now  noted 
only  for  their  poverty,  were  once  a 
nursery  for  brave  soldiers  ; — and  it  is 
stated  that  the  Island  of  Skye  alone  fur- 
nished during  the  Peninsular  War,  no 
fewer  than  21  lieutenant-generals  and 
major-generals,  48  lieutenant- colonels, 
600  majors,  captains,  and  subalterns, 
10,000  foot  -  soldiers,  120  pipers  — 
besides  3  persons  for  the  public  ser- 
vice, 4  Governors  of  British  colonies, 
1  Governor-General,  1  Chief  Baron  of 
England,  and  1  Judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Scotland.  Well  might  the 
clergyman  who  made  the  statement  * 
ask  if  it  was  credible  that  a  people 
who  have  manifested  so  much  spirit, 
industry,  and  enterprise,  are  the  su- 
pine indolent  race  which  some,  who 
know  not  the  untoward  condition  in 
which  they  are  now  placed,  have  as- 
serted. u  He  had  been  a  parish- 
minister  there,"  he  said,  "for  a  num- 
ber of  years,  and  a  more  loyal,  peace- 
able, patient,  and  well-disposed  class 
of  men  were  not  to  be  found  in  her 
Majesty's  dominions,  though  at  pre- 
sent they  are  in  the  very  depths  of 
poverty." 

Races  do  not  change  their  cha- 
racter in  a  day ;  and  if  the  energy 
and  martial  spirit  of  the  Highlanders 
have  disappeared  from  view,  the 
cause  of  the  phenomenon  is  to  be  found 
in  the  untoward  change  that  has  been 
imposed  upon  their  outward  condi- 
tion. The  Highlands  were  once,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  the  property  of 
the  Clans;  but,  says  Hugh  Miller, 
"  by  the  introduction  of  the  English 
doctrine  of  property,  the  old  system 
of  customary  occupation  was  entirely 
superseded,  and  a  new  system  substi- 
tuted, which  threw  vast  territories 
into  the  absolute  control  of  single  in- 
dividuals, who  had  previously  been 
only  the  representatives  of  their  tribe, 


and  who  had  held  the  lands  not  as 
their  own,  but  in  virtue  of  their  office 
as  chiefs  or  petty  sovereigns,  who 
ruled  over  a  given  district,  and  ad- 
ministered the  public  affairs  of  the 
clan."  Some  of  the  Highland  Chiefs 
have  not  been  forgetful  of  this ;  and 
the  late  M'Neill  of  Colonsay,  (father 
of  the  excellent  Lord  President  of  the 
Court  of  Session)  once  astounded 
some  "man  of  progress"  who  was 
advising  him  to  make  clearances,  by 
answering,  more  emphatically  than 
we  need  here  print,  that  "  his  people 
had  as  good  a  right  to  the  land  as 
himself ! "  The  gradual  result,  how- 
ever, of  the  introduction  of  the  English 
doctrine  of  property  into  the  High- 
lands has  been,  that  the  lands,  in- 
stead of  progressing  in  fertility  un- 
der the  care  of  their  hereditary  occu- 
piers, have  been  in  a  great  degree 
thrown  out  of  cultivation.  "  The 
cottage  and  the  croft  have  been  her- 
ried  to  make  way  for  grouse  and 
deer  ;  and,  so  far  as  the  production  of 
food  is  concerned — food  available  for 
the  ordinary  purposes  of  life — hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  acres  that  once 
grew,  and  supported  soldiers  second 
to  none  who  ever  stepped,  might  as 
well  be  sunk  in  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 
Not  only  are  they  not  cultivated,  but, 
in  some  cases,  they  are  not  even  to 
be  seen.'1'1  To  say  that  the  aggregate 
population  of  the  Highlands  has  not 
decreased,  only  serves  to  bring  out 
more  forcibly  the  contrast  between 
their  past  and  present  condition.  The 
men  are  there,  but  of  what  sort  ?  The 
general  population  of  the  kingdom  has 
trebled  since  1750,  but  what  has  been 
the  fate  of  the  Highlanders?  They 
have  been  removed  from  their  glens 
in  the  interior,  where  they  and  their 
fathers  had  lived  for  centuries,  and 
planted  forcibly  on  the  sea-shore, 
sometimes  on  as  barren  spots  as 
could  be  selected.  Although  naturally 
indisposed  to  a  seafaring  life,  and 
without  any  previous  training  or  ex- 
perience, they  were  forced  to  de- 
pend for  subsistence  on  the  sea  and  a 
niggard  patch  of  the  neighbouring 
muir.  The  only  escape  from  this 
stern  lot  has  been  by  Emigration; 
and  the  consequence  is,  that  the  po- 


*  The  Rev.  Alexander  M'Gregor,  late  minister  of  the  Gaelic  Church,  Edinburgh, 
and  now  in  Inverness. 


738 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dec. 


pnlation  has  been  riddled,  as  it  were, 
by  emigration-agents, — removing  the 
strong  and  able-bodied,  and  leaving 
behind  the  weak,  the  aged,  and  the 
helpless  to  famine  and  destitution. 
"  Battling  for  years  with  hanger,  cold, 
disease,  and  discomfort  in  every 
shape,  attributed — right  or  wrong — 
to  the  original  forcible  removal  from 
their  ancient  hearths,  who  can  won- 
der at  a  pauperised  population,  at  a 
dearth  of  military  spirit,  at  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  feelings  of  clanship  ? 
The  population  is  there ;  poverty  even 
tending  to  fecundity  —  not  spread, 
however,  over  the  country  according 
to  the  ordinary  mode,  but  gathered  in 
patches  along  the  sea- coast — sheep 
and  deer  being  the  only  denizens  of 
the  inland  straths  once  gladdened  by 
the  busy  hum  of  men." 

"  The  conversion  of  small  holdings 
into  large  farms,  which  ruined  Rome, 
has  destroyed  Scotland,"  says  the 
French  historian  Michelet,  who  has 
learnt  from  a  study  of  the  past  that 
military  strength  and  a  free  rural  po- 
pulation are  indispensable  to  the  last- 
ing prosperity  of  a  country.  Curious 
signs  are  still  to  be  seen  of  the  extent 
to  which  corn-culture  was  carried 
under  the  old  cottar-system  of  Scot- 
land. Every  one  has  heard  of  the 
"Fairy  rings"  in  pasture-ground,— 
those  strange  markings  on  turf  or 
amidst  the  heather,  which  erewhile 
were  held  to  indicate  the  place  where 
fairies  in  their  green  mantles  had 
been  tripping  in  the  pale  moonlight. 
These  elf-furrows  cannot  of  them- 
selves tell  the  date  at  which  they  were 
first  formed — whether  they  are  me- 
morials of  a  time  almost  beyond  tra- 
dition, and  of  the  enterprising  agricul- 
ture of  the  early  Dalriadic  ages, — 
neither  do  they  determine  explicitly 
the  time  at  which  cultivation  receded 
from  these  upland  altitudes,  but  they 
suffice  to  show  how  corn  was  grown 
once  on  districts  now  resigned  to  the 
grouse  and  the  plover.  "  If  the 
parts  of  Scotland  south  of  the  Forth 
were  submerged  to  the  depth  of  800 
feet,  all  the  wheat-growing  districts 
would  disappear, — and  on  the  ground 
left  uncovered  there  would  be  pre- 
sented some  patches  of  barley  and 
rye,  some  pease  and  potatoes,  a  large 


breadth  of  good  oats,  and  for  the  sake 
of  the  sheep,  a  still  greater  extent 
of  fair  turnips;  but,  perhaps,  nine- 
tenths  of  the  dry  land  would  be  cover- 
ed with  heather,  bent,  and  pasture. 
In  the  lowest  parts  of  this  pasture, 
however,  elf-furrows  would  appear; 
and  especially  on  the  sides  of  the 
hopes, — i.e.,  valleys  having  only  one 
end,  the  other  being  lost  as  they  rise 
up  amongst  the  hills.  Many  south- 
country  sheep-farms  retain  this  word 
in  the  names  by  which  they  are  dis- 
tinguished,— such  as  Charlieshope, 
Corsehope,  and  Blackhope.  The 
marks  of  former  culture  observable  in 
these  districts  may  tell  the  time  when 
the  outfield  and  infield  system  of  cul- 
ture prevailed,  and  also  of  the  time 
when,  by  the  enlargement  of  farms,  a 
sufficiency  of  ground  for  culture  was 
found  in  the  infields,  or  lower  part  of 
the  hopes,  and  the  outfields  were 
allowed  to  revert  into  permanent  pas- 
turage. Many  portions  of  inferior 
soil  went  out  of  culture  in  this  way, 
when  the  prices  of  grain  had  fallen 
after  Waterloo."*  In  the  Highland 
districts  these  elf-furrows  sometimes 
occupy  positions  so  bare  and  exposed 
as  to  render  it  evident  that  sheltering 
forests  must  in  former  times  have  risen 
still  higher  on  the  hill-sides ;  and  iu 
so  far  as  these  woods  have  disappear- 
ed, cultivation  cannot  now  be  carried 
so  high  up  as  formerly,  unless  the 
woods  be  replaced.  Nevertheless  it 
is  the  abolition  of  the  rights  founded 
on  the  old  Scottish  system  of  "  cus- 
tomary tenure,"  that  has  been  the 
main  agent  of  destruction,  by  sweep- 
ing away  the  small  fertile  crofts,  and 
merging  them  into  estates  which 
bear  too  much  the  character  of  vast 
solitudes. 

Sheep  and  black  cattle  may  be 
more  remunerative  to  the  large  High- 
land farmer  of  the  present  day  than 
corn  ;  but  it  is  still  to  be  desired  that 
corn-culture  were  restored  to  some 
parts  of  the  Highland  glens,  so  that 
the  independent  race  of  Highland 
crofters  may  not  altogether  disap- 
pear. It  is  stated  by  Mr  M'Intosh 
in  his  Book  of  the  Garden,  that 
the  peach,  the  apricot,  and  many  of 
our  finest  apples  and  pears,  ripen  in 
some  parts  of  Ross-shire  better  than 


*  Quoted  from  an  article  on  "  Elf-furrows"  in  the  Perthshire  Courier. 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


739 


they  do  in  many  districts  of  North- 
umberland, even  at  the  same  height 
above  the  sea  ;  and  it  may  safely  be 
concluded  that  the  lowness  of  the 
cultivated  zone  in  the  West  High- 
lands, confined  as  it  is  to  a  few  crofts 
near  the  sea-shore,  is  caused  by  some- 
thing else  than  distance  from  the 
equator.  Some  proprietors  are  re- 
storing the  plantations  that  formerly 
sheltered  the  face  of  the  country. 
Let  them  restore  also  the  inducements 
to  pains-taking  industry  which  former- 
ly lent  vigour  to  the  peasant's  arm  as 
he  worked  in  his  little  field,  and  they 
will  render  no  light  service  to  their 
country.  Without  a  proportion  of 
small  farms  in  the  Highlands,  the 
shepherds,  the  ploughmen,  and  the  la- 
bourers can  never  rise  above  the  rank 
of  servants,-— there  will  be  no  induce- 
ment for  them  to  save  money  for  the 
purpose  of  stocking  a  small  "  haddin  " 
of  their  own,  in  their  old  days;  and 
as  men  have  already  disappeared  be- 
fore feathered  and  four-footed  game, 
so  will  the  ancient  feeling  of  Highland 
independence  vanish  before  rapidly 
increasing  poor-rates.  To  show  (if 
proof  be  needed)  that  we  advocate  no 
impracticable  scheme,  and  to  pay  a 
tribute  where  tribute  is  richly  due, 
let  [us  select  a  few  sentences  from  a 
letter  from  Mr  Dempster  of  Skibo, 
which  lately  appeared  in  the  news- 
papers,— and  let  it  be  remembered 
that  the  estates  of  this  painstaking 
and  patriotic  proprietor  lie  in  the 
most  northerly  part  of  Scotland. 
Opposing  the  system  of  enlarging 
farms  to  the  exclusion  of  all  small 
ones,  he  says : — 

.  .  .  .  "  A  part  of  ray  own  estate 
in  Sutherland  is  held  by  a  tenantry  pay- 
ing from  five  pounds  a-year,  and  even  less, 
to  fifteen.  These  families  have  in  many 
cases  been  on  the  estate  for  generations  ; 
they  live  in  very  considerable  comfort,  as 
is  testified  by  their  annual  purchases  of 
groceries,  broadcloth,  and  the  like ;  they 
pay  with  average  punctuality  rents  which, 
though  moderate,  are  not  much  less  than 
large  farms  would  yield,  after  allowing 
for  the  cost  of  a  superior  style  of  build- 
ings ;  and  they  are,  I  say  it  most  positive- 
ly, industrious  and  sober.  Would  it  be 
right  in  me  to  remove  these  hundred 
families  for  no  reason  than  that  their 
numbers  are  distasteful  to  some  politico- 
economist  or  statistician  ? — or  because  he 
would  tell  me  that,,  after  maintaining 


themselves,  they  cannot  contribute  much 
to  the  general  food-resources  of  the 
empire?  That  they  do  not  fulfil  this 
last  requirement  is  true  ;  but  I  maintain 
that  they  contribute  very  largely  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  neighbouring  towns 
and  villages,  and  through  these  to  that 
of  many  other  classes. 

"  Again,  the  condition  of  mere  labourers 
— let  noble  lords  and  mechanics'  institutes 
do  their  best — is  still  one  from  which  these 
useful  individuals  may  well  hope,  by  fru- 
gality and  exertion,  to  rise  to  something 
better  ;  and  to  what  can  they  look  but 
to  the  occupancy  and  improvement  of  a 
small  farm  ? — and  why  should  this  re- 
source be  closed  to  them,  and  to  many 
other  humble  and  contented  citizens,  to 
whom  a  lease  of  ten  acres  of  tolerable 
land — even  though  hitherto  uncultivated 
— is  a  perfect  heaven  of  happiness,  if  not 
of  rest,  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives  ? 
1  hold  that  a  gradation  of  ranks,  even 
among  the  industrious  classes,  is  essential 
to  a  thriving  and  improving  commu- 
nity. It  is  true  that  care  should  be 
taken  to  prevent  these  small  farms  being 
still  farther  reduced.  And  I  readily 
admit  that  I  take  advantage  myself  of 
opportunities  as  they  rise,  to  enlarge 
these  little  farms  where  the  juxtaposition 
of  a  thriving  and  an  unthriving  tenant 
seems  to  invite  me  to  do  so  ;  and  I  have 
also  removed  tenants,  though  generally 
only  from  one  part  of  the  estate  to  an- 
other, where  their  chance  location  stood 
in  the  way  of  well-considered  plans  of 
tillage  or  planting.  To  be  deterred  from 
doing  this  would  be  to  surrender  the 
rights  and  to  abdicate  the  duties  of  pro- 
perty ;  and  had  I  yielded  to  abuse  or 
clamour  in  one  or  two  cases  such  as  I 
have  named,  I  should  never  have  been 
able  to  create  those  woods  which  have  so 
much  added  to  the  beauty  of  the  district, 
and,  let  me  add,  to  the  convenience  of  the 
inhabitants,  as  well  as  to  the  income  of 
the  owner. 

"  Any  person  doubting  these  state- 
ments may  easily  verify  them  by  looking 
at  the  tenantry  I  have  named.  He  will 
find  them  growing  turnips  and  using 
lime  ;  and  if  their  surplus  labour  is  often 
employed  elsewhere,  its  produce  returns 
home  with  themselves.  While  this  is  the 
condition  of  so  many  respectable  and  com- 
fortable people,  it  will  require  better 
argument  than  any  I  have  yet  heard  to 
induce  me  to  reverse  the  system  on  which 
I  have  all  my  life  acted  ;  and  I  earnestly 
hope  that  such  will  be  the  resolution  of 
the  owners  of  estates  in  this  part  of  Scot- 
land generally." 

But  it  is  not  the  Highlands  only 
that  have  been  depopulated.  The 


740 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dec. 


diminution  of  the  rural  population  is 
almost  as  great  in  the  Lowlands.  In 
the  five  Highland  counties  of  Argyll, 
Inverness,  Perth,  Ross,  and  Suther- 
land, 156  out  of  their  211  parishes 
show  an  actual  decrease, — a  propor- 
tion one-fourth  greater  than  that  ex- 
hibited by  the  country  generally ; 
and  in  the  rural  districts  of  Suther- 
land there  is  only  one  person  to  each 
59  acres, — being  the  thinnest  popula- 
tion in  Scotland.  But  even  in  the 
most  fertile  of  the  mainly  agricultural 
counties  of  the  Lowlands,  more  than 
a  half  of  the  parishes  are  decreasing 
in  population.  Excluding  in  both 
cases  the  town-population,  so  as  to 
get  at  the  state  of  the  rural  territory, 
we  find  that  the  population  to  the 
square  mile  in  the  shires  of  Selkirk, 
Peebles,  Kirkcudbright,  and  Dumfries, 
is  only  a  shade  less  sparse  than  it  is  in 
Inverness,  Ross,  Argyll,  and  Perth ; 
and  the  population  of  the  bleak  isles 
of  Lewis  and  Skye  is  nearly  three 
times  greater  in  proportion  to  their 
extent  than  that  of  the  infinitely  more 
fertile  Selkirkshire!  M.  Michelet's 
statement,  it  will  thus  be  seen,  is  no  ex- 
aggeration. False  theories,  and  the 
consequent  sweeping  away  of  small 
holdings,  is  ruining,  not  merely  the 
Highlands,  but  the  best  districts  of 
Scotland.  "  With  the  extension  of 
sheep-farming,"  says  a  writer,  detail- 
ing the  successive  steps  in  the  work 
of  depopulation,  "  much  land  in  the 
Border  counties  employed  in  raising 
inferior  grain  was  thrown  into  pasture. 
Small  farms  at  the  same  time  were 
swallowed  up  in  large  ones.  On  each 
farm,  however,  there  was  almost 
always  found  a  resident  tenant ;  shep- 
herds, labourers,  cotters,  were  scatter- 
ed in  fair  proportions  throughout  the 
district.  Other  changes,  however, 
occurred.  Farms  were  added  to 
farms  already  too  large ;  labour,  ex- 
cept what  was  indispensable  to  tend- 
ing the  flocks,  was  altogether  dis- 
pensed with ;  population  was  dis- 
couraged ;  houses,  unlet,  became  ruin- 
ous and  disappeared."  In  the  High- 
lands, difference  of  language  present- 
ed for  a  while  a  formidable  barrier  to 
emigration,  but  in  the  Border  counties 
no  such  obstacles  existed.  Educated, 
enterprising,  and  self-reliant,  the  Bor- 
der peasants  began  to  quit  as  the  field 
of  exertion  became  narrowed.  Resi- 


dent tenants  in  those  pastoral  districts 
became  the  exception,  and  Emigration 
set  in  on  so  enormous  a  scale  as  to 
drain  the  very  life-blood  from  the 
country. 

Turn  to  England,  and  we  find  the 
same  sad  spectacle.  Between  1831 
and  1841  not  a  single  county  (though 
many  parishes)  showed  a  decrease  of 
population  ;  but  in  the  ten  years 
which  followed — namely,  from  1841 
to  51 — as  we  learn  from  the  last 
Census,  no  fewer  than  twenty-seven 
entire  counties  have  undergone  a  di- 
minution !  If  the  abolition  of  the  old 
system  of  customary  occupation  paved 
the  way  for  the  Highland  "clear- 
ances," the  enclosure  of  the  commons 
has  not  been  without  a  similar,  though 
lesser,  effect  upon  the  rural  population 
of  England.  "  Both  measures,"  says 
Hugh  Miller,  "  had  essentially  the 
same  result  in  one  respect, — essential- 
ly a  different  result  in  another.  They 
both  left  a  country  population  com- 
posed of  a  very  small  number  of  great 
landed  proprietors,  surrounded  by  a 
dependent  and  almost  subject  tenantry, 
outside  of  which  remained  the  mass 
of  those  who  live  by  labour  alone, — 
who  have  been  cast  loose  from  all  in- 
terest in  the  soil,  and  who  are  regard- 
ed as  machines  for  the  execution  of 
work."  In  England,  it  is  true,  the  en- 
closure of  the  commons  brought  these 
lands  into  cultivation, — unlike  the  cor- 
responding measure  in  the  Highlands, 
which  threw  the  lands  out  of  cultiva- 
tion. "  Still,  even  supposing  that  the 
produce  after  the  enclosure  was  five  or 
ten  times  greater  than  before,  it  was 
more  advantageous  to  the  peasantry, 
(that  is,  to  the  great  body  of  the  rural 
population)  to  have  only  the  fifth  or 
the  tenth  as  their  own,  than  to  be  de- 
prived of  it  altogether,  and  to  see  ten 
times  the  produce  passing  into  the 
hands  of  the  great  landlords  and  great 
agriculturists.  The  landlords  and  far- 
mers acquired  wealth,  the  peasants 
went  on  the  parish,  and  were  support- 
ed by  the  parish-rates."  Besides  the 
decline  in  the  numbers  of  the  English 
peasantry,  there  has,  we  regret  to 
say,  been  a  simultaneous  lagging  be- 
hind in  their  comforts  and  condition. 
Take  the  case  of  Lincolnshire,— the 
best- cultivated  district  in  England, 
and  the  very  paradise  of  the  agri- 
cultural labourer.  Comparing  the 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


741 


rate  of  wages  and  price  of  provisions 
in  that  county  in  1797-8-9,  the  period 
over  which  Arthur  Young's  report  ex- 
tends, with  those  current  in  1849,  when 
Mr  Clarke's  prize-essay  on  the  farming 
of  Lincolnshire  was  written,  we  find 
that  the  labourer's  command  over 
the  necessaries  of  life  has  remain- 
ed stationary,  if  not  retrograded, 
while  the  rental  of  the  county  has  in- 
creased 87  per  cent !  Thus  the  only 
parties  benefited  by  the  improvements 
in  farming  and  general  progress  of  the 
county  have  been  the  landlords  and 
tenants,  while  the  farm-labourers  are 
no  better  off  than  they  were  half-a- 
century  ago.  Can  we  wonder  that 
our  rural  population  should  emigrate, 
when  they  thus  find  themselves  sta- 
tionary in  comfort,  while  not  only 
their  employers,  but  every  other  class 
of  the  community  around  them,  have 
immensely  improved  ? 

With  the  help  of  Mr  Clarke's  prize- 
essay,  and  Mr  Young's  report,  let  us 
look  a  little  closer  into  the  condition 
of  Lincolnshire  now  and  at  the  close 
of  last  century.  In  1799,  Mr  Young 
spoke  of  Lincolnshire  as  the  county 
in  which  wages  were  higher  than  in 
any  other  part  of  the  kingdom,  poor- 
rates  lower,  and  able-bodied  paupers 
fewer.  And  he  thus  writes  of  the 
condition  of  the  labourer :  "It  is  im- 
possible to  speak  too  highly  of  the 
cottage-system  of  Lincolnshire,  where 
land,  gardens,  cows,  and  pigs  are  so 
generally  in  the  hands  of  the  poor. 
On  views  of  humanity  and  benevo- 
lence, it  is  gratifying  to  see  that  class 
of  the  people  comfortable,  upon  whom 
all  others  depend.  Wherever  that 
system  is  found,  poor-rates  are  low. 
And  another  object  yet  more  impor- 
tant is,  the  attachment  men  must  in- 
evitably feel  to  their  country  when 
they  participate  in  its  prosperity." 

Here  are  the  same  "  small  hold- 
ings" whose  disappearance  we  have 
recorded  in  the  case  of  Scotland, — we 
have  likewise  to  record  their  disap- 
pearance in  England.  In  1800-1, 
Mr  Gourlay  (as  we  learn  from  the 
Annals  of  Agriculture),  visited  forty 
villages  chiefly  in  Lincolnshire,  ave- 
raging 326  inhabitants,  or  sixty-five 
families  each,  and  in  each  he  found  at 
least  fifteen  cottagers  (or  every  fourth 
family)  keeping  cows,  and  occupying 
on  the  average  6£  acres.  "  At  the 


present  time,"  says  Mr  Clarke,  writ- 
ing in  1849,  u  gardens  are  very  gene- 
rally attached  to  the  cottages;  but 
the  six  acres  of  ground  have  been 
much  curtailed,  and  the  cows  are  com- 
paratively rare."  Mr  Gourlay  tells 
us  that  in  those  parishes  where  the 
cottagers  had  a  croft  and  cows,  the 
poor-rates  averaged  Is.  5£d.  in  the 
pound;  while  in  those  where  there 
were  few  or  no  crofts  and  cows,  they 
were  four  times  as  much,  or  5s.  lid. ; 
and  he  gave,  moreover,  a  table  show- 
ing that  the  poor-rates  increased  in 
exact  proportion  as  the  number  of 
cottagers  keeping  cows  diminished. 
In  several  articles  on  this  subject 
in  the  Mark-Lane  Express,  a  return 
to  the  cottage- system  is  very  strongly 
advocated.  Speaking  of  the  English 
farm-labourer,  that  journal  says : — 

"  The  clearing  system  has  deprived  him 
of  a  home  ;  he  has  rarely  a  cow,  and,  in- 
stead of  a  warm  supper,  he  eats  dry 
bread,  after  the  fashion  of  some  counties 
where  wages  are  low,  or  bolts  raw  bacon 
with  it,  after  the  fashion  of  others  where 
they  are  high.  The  amended  Law  of  Set- 
tlement will  restore  that  home  of  which 
the  '  clearing-system'  has  deprived  him, 
and  by  so  depriving  him  has  greatly  con- 
tributed to  drive  him  to  the  beer-shop.  He 
who  trudges,  daily,  miles  enough  to  consti- 
tute of  itself  a  day's  work,  between  the 
farm  on  which  he  toils  and  the  town  or 
village  where  he  '  bides  '  —  for  one  of 
this  class  well  knew  the  distinction  be- 
tween biding  and  living — must  not  be 
judged  too  harshly  if  he  seeks  in  beer, 
rather  than  in  wholesome  food,  a  stimu- 
lus to  his  flagging  spirits  and  exhausted 
strength.  The  fault  is  with  those  who 
pulled  down  his  cottage,  and  sent  him 
within  the  reach  of  temptation.  A  Union- 
rating  will  correct  this  evil,  and  will 
cause  dwellings  for  the  labourer  to  arise 
on  the  farm  at  which  he  works,  with 
gardens  attached,  with  which  to  amuse 
his  leisure  hours.  And  the  farmer  will 
in  time  find  it  his  interest  to  adopt 
the  northern  system,  which  we  have  so 
frequently  recommended,  of  keeping  a 
cow  for  him. 

In  every  district,  whether  wages  be 
paid  by  the  year  in  kind,  or  by  the 
week  in  money,  a  number  of  cottages 
with  five  or  six  acres  of  land  attached, 
are  desirable,  as  a  source  whence  occa- 
sional labour  may  be  derived  for  that 
work  which  is  now  performed  by  itin- 
erants, or  by  residents  who  are  merci- 
lessly dismissed  to  the  parish,  when  the 
busy  season  is  over.  They  are  desir- 


742 

able  also  as  an  h amble  kind  of  indepen- 
dence, to  which  the  labourer  may  hope  to 
raise  himself;  but  the  keeping  of  cows 
by  the  population  who  labour  on  large 
farms,  will,  in  the  present  state  of  things, 
be  more  generally  and  easily  effected,  by 
making  the  keep  of  a  cow  on  the  land  of 
the  farmer  part  of  their  wages." 

With  these  striking  facts  before  us 
in  England  and  Scotland,  we  need  not 
go  to  Ireland,  and  point  to  the  alto- 
gether unparalleled  flight  of  a  million 
and  a-half  of  the  peasantry  from  its 
unhappy  shores.  That  Exodus  was 
a  reaction  from  the  former  abnormal 
social  condition  of  Ireland,  where  ab- 
senteeism and  a  dozen  other  baneful 
influences  had  given  birth  to  a  state 
of  things  without  a  parallel  in  the 
civilised  world.  But  we  must  caution 
Irish  landlords  against  the  natural 
mistake  of  now  flying  to  the  other 
extreme ;  and,  with  all  deference  to 
young  Lord  Stanley,  we  agree  witb 
Mr  Dempster  of  Skibo  in  thinking  that 
it  would  be  a  very  great  evil  indeed 
were  the  system  of  enlarging  farms, 
which  his  lordship  inculcates,  to  be 
allowed  to  extirpate  the  small  hold- 
ings, and  inflict  on  Ireland  that  undue 
thinning  of  the  rural  population  which 
it  has  already  accomplished  in  Scot- 
land and  England. 

Such,  then,  are  the  facts  of  this 
depopulation  of  our  rural  districts, — 
facts  carefully  collected,  and,  we  be- 
lieve, most  impartially  stated.  Let 
us  consider  their  import.  Firstly,  it 
is  manifest  that  an  entire  change  is 
taking  place  in  the  relations  of  the 
British  people  to  the  British  soil. 
Instead  of  several  millions  of  our 
people  having  a  share  or  direct  inte- 
rest in  the  soil  of  their  country — as 
would  have  been  the  case  had  small 
properties  and  the  cottage-system  con- 
tinued until  now,— the  number  of  pro- 
prietors is  dwindling  down  to  a  handful, 
and  the  tenants,  owing  to  the  enlarge- 
ment of  farms,  are  undergoing  a  corre- 
sponding diminution.  This  separation 
of  them  from  the  soil,  takes  away  the 
independent  spirit  which  used  to  char- 
acterise our  rural  population,  and  also 
raises  an  insurmountable  barrier  to 
their  rising  in  the  social  scale, — conse- 
quences in  some  respects  unjust,  and 
in  every  respect  to  be  regretted.  Nor, 
to  our  mind,  is  the  position  of  our 
landed  proprietors  improved  by  this 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dec. 


change.  To  judge  of  the  real  charac- 
ter of  a  change,  you  must  consider  the 
future  as  well  as  the  present ;  and,  to 
one  thus  calmly  considering  the  matter, 
the  question  suggests  itself, — though 
their  estates  are  enlarging,  is  the  posi- 
tion of  our  proprietors  so  secure  ?  Are 
they  not  like  mountains  scarping  away 
their  own  base, — inverted  pyramids 
trying  upon  how  small  a  support  they 
can  stand?  Any  system  that  severs 
the  landed  proprietors  of  a  country 
from  the  direct  sympathy  of,  founded 
upon  a  community  of  interest  with,  the 
rural  population,  will  be  viewed  as- 
kance by  the  patriot  who  loves  his 
country,  and  by  the  philosopher  who 
foresees  the  future.  A  landed  aristo- 
cracy need  not  trust  its  rights  and 
privileges  to  the  guardianship  of  the 
towns, — yet  our  people  are  becoming 
every  year  more  urban ;  it  must  ever 
rest  mainly  on  the  rural  population,  yet 
these  we  are  yearly  sweeping  away. 

Thus  there  is  a  present  social  de- 
terioration and  a  future  political  dan- 
ger in  the  change  now  at  work  in  our 
rural  districts.  Secondly,  there  is  a, 
physical  deterioration  taking  place 
among  our  people.  We  need  not  say 
that  rural  life  and  rural  labour  in  all 
countries  produce  the  healthiest  and 
most  robust  portion  of  the  people. 
That  is  beyond  question.  But  look 
at  the  manufacturing  towns  into  which 
so  large  a  portion  of  our  peasantry 
have  of  late  years  been  compelled  to 
seek  refuge."  Stand  on  Glasgow 
Bridge  at  two  o'clock,  and  in  the 
crowds  of  artisans  and  factory  work- 
ers that  hurry  past  you,  see  how 
weak  is  the  physique^  how  de- 
generate the  type  of  the  British  race. 
The  descendants  of  many  a  stalwart 
ploughman — of  peasants  driven  from 
the  fields  in  their  old  age — pass  you 
by ;  yet  where  now  the  brawny  limb, 
the  stalwart  frame,  the  honest  look 
of  single-mindedness  and  contentment 
that  marks  the  British  peasant  ?  Go 
to  Manchester,  and  a  far  worse  spec- 
tacle presents  itself.  Those  thin  sharp 
faces,  old  before  their  time,  joined  to 
limbs  that  look  shrunk  beneath  their 
covering  clothes,  tell  of  unhealthy 
labour  too  early  begun,— of  a  vitiated 
temperament,  that  will  have  vicious 
stimulants, — and  in  many  cases  ot 
an  imbittered  nature,  that  sees  no 
hope  of  rising  in  the  world,  and  rushes 


1355.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


madly  and  despairingly  into  u  strikes" 
against  their  masters,  or  conspiracies 
against  the  Government.  Early  mar- 
riages, a  quick  one-sided  develop- 
ment, and  premature  decay, — that  is 
their  lot ;  each  generation  breeding 
one  r-till  more  degenerate.  Hume 
reckoned  it  one  of  the  advantages  of 
manufactures  that  they  maintain  a 
surplus  population  which  can  be 
drafted  into  the  army  in  times  of 
war, —  an  idea  which  must  horrify 
Messrs  Bright  and  Cobden ;  but  manu- 
factures a  century  ago  were  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  they  are  now,  and  a 
glance  at  the  mill-workers  of  to-day 
would  have  made  the  Scottish  philo- 
sopher revise  his  somewhat  incon- 
siderate opinion.  Look  at  the  mor- 
tality-tables for  our  great  manufac- 
turing towns,  and  see  how  fearfully 
their  rate  of  deaths  rises  above  the 
average  mortality  of  the  country. 
Nothing  but  the  influx  of  peasant- 
families  from  the  surrounding  districts 
prevents  these  factory- cities  from  de- 
vouring themselves— from  extinguish- 
ing their  own  population.  They  are 
useful — very  useful, — and  in  time  we 
hope  means  may  be  found  to  lessen  the 
rate  of  mortality  which  there  prevails. 
But  not  even  a  millennial  Manchester, 
Glasgow,  or  Birmingham  would  pro- 
duce anything  like  so  healthy- condi- 
tioned a  race  as  our  rural  population  ; 
and  at  present,  with  all  their  useful- 
fulness  in  other  respects,  these  huge 
centres  of  manufacturing  industry  act 
upon  the  population  simply  as  vast 
machines  for  lowering  the  physical, 
and  in  many  respects  also  the  moral 
tone  of  our  population, — Moloch- 
temples  ever  attracting  fresh  crowds 
of  victims, — furnaces  burning  out 
the  stamina  of  the  British  nation. 
Again  we  say,  we  do  not  overlook 
the  national  benefits  accruing  from 
these  vast  marts  of  industry,— they 
tend  to  accumulate  capital,  by 
which  the  country  at  large  is  be- 
liefited.  But  it  is  not  less  certain  a 
fact  that  this  wealth  is  coined  out  of 
the  sacrificed  health  and  strength  of 
our  labouring-classes, — and  that  into 
these  marts  our  peasanty  are  yearly 
being  more  and  more  drafted  from 
the  healthy  fields,  in  consequence  of 
the  ties  which  have  so  long  attached 
them  to  the  soil  being  more  and  more 
sundered  or  extinguished. 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


From  this  physical  deterioration 
and  moral  enfeeblement  of  our  people 
necessarily  ensues  a  decline  in  their 
military  character,  and  in  the  wur- 
gtrength  of  the  empire.  It  is  not 
merely  that  physical  robustness  dimi- 
nishes in  an  urban  and  especially  ma- 
nufacturing population,  but  moral 
robustness  tends  likewise  to  disap- 
pear. And  this  from  no  fault  on  the 
part  of  the  factory- workers  and  even 
shopkeeping  classes  of  our  towns. 
Even  where  the  physical  health  re- 
mains good,  the  habits  of  a  to\Mi- 
population — so  founded  upon  indul- 
gences compared  with  the  simplicity 
and  open-air  life  of  the  country— ren- 
der them  averse  to  engage  in  the  rude 
life  of  camps,  and  undergo  the  hard- 
ships of  actual  campaigning.  The 
history  of  all  nations  testifies  to  the 
superior  fitness  of  a  rural  to  an  urban 
population  for  the  career  of  arms.  It 
was  the  cottars  of  the  Campagna — 
the  five-acre  men — the  sturdy  tillers 
of  the  pente  jitgera — that  formed  the 
bone  and  sinew  of  the  Roman  armies  ; 
and  with  their  disappearance  —  with 
the  spread  of  large  properties  and  the 
gradual  absorption  of  the  rural  popu- 
lation into  the  towns,  the  proud  Eagles 
drooped,  and  the  barbaric  hordes  of 
the  North,  slaughtered  with  ease  a 
hundred  times  as  long  as  Rome  had 
soldiers,  broke  in  unopposed  into  the 
desert  fields  of  Italy.  Who  but  pea- 
sants have  won  the  most  striking  vic- 
tories of  modern  Europe  ?  It  was  the 
hardy  peasant-proprietors  of  Switzer- 
land, fighting  for  their  free  homes, 
that  again  and  again  overthrew  the 
chivalry  of  Austria  and  the  bold 
lances  of  Burgundy.  It  was  not 
the  mountains,  but  the  healthy  life 
and  independent  proprietorship  of 
the  people,  that  made  the  Tyrol  so 
Jong  an  impregnable  country  to  the 
French.  And  who  was  it  that  won 


Crecy,  and  Agio-court, 


Poitiers, 


but  the  free  yeomen  of  England, — 
the  race  of  small  proprietors,  uhosc 
bold  hearts  and  stout  arms  made 
their  country  redoubtable  abroad,  and 
whose  rustic  abundance  and  cheerful 
hearts  then  made  England  what  it 
was,  "  merry  England  ! "  England 
then  beat  the  world  with  her  bow- 
men, for  no  other  country  at  that 
time  possessed  the  class  from  which 
such  stout  "experts"  could  be  drawn. 
3  c 


744 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dec. 


The  softening  of  the  feudal  system  in 
England  centuries  before  any  such 
relaxation  took  place  on  the  Conti- 
nent, allowed  of  the  growth  of  those 
peasant-proprietors ;  and  so  we  got  the 
start  of  modern  Europe  in  this  mat- 
ter, and  in  a  hundred  ways  reaped  the 
benefit.  But  now  England  has  aban- 
doned the  position.  Having  been 
first  up,  she  is  now  resolved  to  be 
first  down.  The  present  aspect  of  these 
Islands  in  relation  to  the  rest  of  Europe 
is  not  a  pleasant  one  as  regards  the 
future.  The  eastern  half  of  Europe 
(namely  Russia),  still  thralled  by  a 
gigantic  feudalism,  has  not  yet 
reached  the  era  of  small  holders  and 
peasant  -  proprietors,  but  will  reach 
it,— Germany  has  entered  it,— France 
is  fully  in  it, — Britain  is  past  it! 

A  vast  town-life  looms  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  threatens  to  obscure  the 
future  of  England.  And  it  will  ob- 
scure it,  unless,  by  one  of  those  happy 
reactions  so  frequent  in  free  States, 
we  turn  the  current  on  which  we  are 
floating  onwards  into  another  channel. 
The  course  which  things  are  taking 
with  us  is  quite  a  natural  one, — 
and  hence  its  danger.  We  say  it  is 
a  natural  course,  but  we  do  not  say 
it  is  either  a  right  or  an  inevitable 
one.  The  saddest  thought  that  enters 
the  mind  of  the  philosophic  historian 
is  to  observe  how  ceaselessly  the 
Progress  of  humanity  ever  brings  the 
race  face  to  face  with  new  evils, — 
how  the  dawn  of  Light  ever  brings 
new  shadows, — and  how  mankind, 
taught  by  suffering,  no  sooner  aban- 
don one  class  of  errors  than  they 
stumble  afresh  into  others  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind.  The  whole  world  has 
no  sadder  truth  than  this.  How  it 
chills  with  despair  the  heart,  and 
shakes  to  its  deep  centre  the  faith  of 
those  who,  yearning  to  their  kind, 
and  knowing  that  the  world's  history 
is  but  God's  plan,  yet  seek  in  vain 
for  some  bright  star  of  the  future — 
for  some  clear  path  along  which  the 
race  may  advance  indefinitely,  with 
no  check,  towards  the  goal  of  millen- 
nial happiness  which  the  heart  be- 
lieves vaguely  and  Revelation  de- 
clares! But  progress  and  decay,  in 
the  moral  world,  happily  own  no  bond 
of  union  save  that  created  by  our 
own  foolishness.  When  a  certain 
regime  of  affairs  has  long  continued, 


its  faults,  owing  to  the  suffering  they 
entail,  impress  us  more  than  its  ex- 
cellences,— and  in  reacting  against  the 
former  we  generally  sacrifice  the 
latter  also.  The  new  evils  thus  aris- 
ing for  long  escape  observation  ;  and 
even  when  they  have  begun  to  make 
themselves  much  felt,  danger  is  so 
little  apprehended  in  that  quarter, 
that  their  effects  are  generally  attri- 
buted to  other  causes  than  the  real 
ones.  We  believe  that  this  is  very 
much  the  case  in  the  present  instance. 
Impressed  with  the  immense  advan- 
tages arising  from  manufactures  and 
town-life  generally,  we  are  forgetting 
the  other  side  of  the  question.  We  are 
giving  to  our  civilisation  a  one-sided 
development.  The  "  progress  of  the 
age"  is  entirely  of  an  urban  charac- 
ter ;  and  if  we  men  of  progress  do 
not  change  our  carriage,  or  "shunt 
off"  into  another  line,  we  shall  arrive 
in  due  time,  as  a  terminus,  at  an  age 
of  monster  cities  and  deserted  fields, 
— when  we  shall  have  abandoned  the 
healthy  and  permanently  -  enriching 
pursuits  of  agriculture  for  those  of 
Commerce,  which  may  pass  from  us 
as  it  has  done  from  Tyre,  Egypt, 
Venice,  Holland,  and  many  another 
before  us, — and  those  of  fluctuating 
Manufactures,  which  debilitate  and 
pauperise  the  many  almost  as  much 
as  they  enrich  the  few. 

We  have  said  that  the  main  danger 
of  the  change  that  is  going  on  amongst 
us,  is  its  naturalness.  False  theories 
have  helped  it,  and  the  love  of  adding 
acre  to  acre  has  intensified  it;  yet  the 
error  was  to  be  expected.  Civilisation 
breeds  Capital  and  the  Division  of 
Labour,  and  these  twin-offspring  of 
progress  ever  tend  to  produce  the 
centralisation  of  man  in  vast  foci  of 
industry.  Individual  labour,  or  small 
establishments,  cannot  compete  with 
the  monster  ones  which  capital  erects 
in  the  towns.  Hence  domestic  manu- 
factures and  the  tiny  trades  of  rural 
towns  die  out,  especially  when  rail- 
ways have  annihilated  distance,  and 
opened  the  whole  country  to  the  goods 
of  the  urban  capitalists.  Thus  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  employment  is  taken 
away  from  the  rural  population;  and, 
if  no  fresh  industrial  openings  are  afford- 
ed them  in  the  country,  they  are  forced 
to  ebb  off  the  face  of  the  land  into  the 
towns,  there  to  swell  the  very  monster 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


745 


trades  and  factories  which  have  de- 
stroyed them.  Thus  every  influx  of  the 
impoverished  rural  population  is  but 
the  precursor  of  further  rural  impover- 
ishment and  depopulation.  And  so  the 
fearful  work  of  centralisation  goes  on 
— the  towns  growing  more  and  more 
plethoric  as  the  country  declines. 

Observe  the  exemplification  of  this 
in  our  own  islands.  Down  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  present  century,  the 
rural  population  manufactured  for 
themselves.  The  cottars  not  only 
grew  their  own  flax  and  wool,  but 
spun,  wove,  and  clad  themselves  in 
them.  Countless  small  mills  and 
kilns  by  the  burnsides,  and  numerous 
village-breweries,  supplied  the  peasan- 
try with  food  and  drink,  their  oatmeal 
and  whisky ;  while  the  greater  part 
of  their  household  furnishings  were 
made  in  the  village.  Now,  matters  are 
totally  changed.  Every  description  of 
handicraft  or  manufacture  is  removed 
to  the  towns.  A  shrewd  but  anony- 
mous writer,  who  signs  himself  "  A 
Mid-Lothian  Farmer,"  thus  comments 
on  the  change  :  "  You  may  travel 
the  length  of  the  Lothians  without 
seeing  a  spot  of  flax ;  whereas  at  one 
time  every  labourer  conditioned  to 
have  so  much  of  it  as  part  of  his 
wages  ;  and  the  birr  of  the  spinning- 
wheel  or  sound  of  the  shuttle  is  heard 
no  more ;  the  din  of  the  waulk  and  the 
lint-mill  disturbs  no  one ;  and,  save 
for  the  local  demand  for  oatmeal, 
the  milling-trade  is  concentrated  in 
the  hands  of  large  mill-owners  in  the 
towns.  There  is  scarcely  such  a  place 
as  a  village-brewery  now.  The  brew- 
ers and  their  men  have  betaken  them- 
selves to  the  towns.  Even  the  tailors 
and  cobblers  feel  the  effects  of  the 
town-competition  ;  for  enter  any  small 
market-place  or  large  village,  and, 
dangling  from  the  shop-doors,  are  to 
be  seen  ready-made  clothes,  boots,  and 
shoes.  The  period,  in  fact,  seems  fast 
hastening  on  when  the  whole  of  the 
wants  of  the  labouring  population, 
save  what  the  soil  produces  to  their 
hands,  will  be  supplied  by  the  towns. 
As  to  agriculture  itself,  —  formerly 
the  village  wright  and  blacksmith  fur- 
nished the  whole  of  the  implements 
required.  But  now  the  steam-engine 
and  iron -castings,  spades,  shovels, 
chains,  ropes,  sacks,  come  from  the 
towns;  the  linseed  and  rape -cakes 


from  the  sea- ports;  so  do  the  guano 
and  the  artificial  manures ;  and  seeds 
are  supplied  by  merchants  in  the 
towns.  Railways,  also,  have  dimi- 
nished the  number  of  the  rural  popu- 
lation,— the  stations  not  making  up  for 
the  inns  shut  up,  or  the  carriers  super- 
seded, or  hostlers,  waiters,  and  strap- 
pers driven  away." 

The  great  obstacle  to  progress  in 
early  States  is  the  sparseness  of  popu- 
lation, and  the  purely  agricultural 
pursuits  of  the  people.  The  first  step 
in  civilisation  is  the  founding  of  cities, 
and  the  commencement  of  commerce* 
As  commerce  increases,  cities  grow; 
while  agriculture  receives  a  great  im- 
petus, alike  from  commerce,  which 
exchanges  its  surplus  for  the  goods  of 
other  lands,  and  from  the  urban  po- 
pulation, who,  maintaining  themselves 
by  other  occupations,  are  just  so  many 
new  customers  for  the  farmer.  But 
as  commerce — sustained  by,  and  in 
turn  sustaining  agriculture  —  brings 
wealth  into  the  country,  a  third  phase 
of  the  national  life  commences ;  and 
the  capitalists,  no  longer  content  to 
purchase  articles  from  other  countries, 
begin  to  manufacture  them  for  them- 
selves. This  era  once  fairly  esta- 
blished, a  depopulation  of  the  rural 
districts  (as  we  have  shown  above) 
is  apt  to  ensue.  If  such  a  depopula- 
tion do  not  ensue,  it  promises  an 
eternity  of  duration  to  the  State;  for  it 
shows  that  the  relation  of  the  rural 
population  to  the  soil  is  just,  stable, 
and  attractive,— and  that  therefore 
civilisation  is  not  likely  to  assume  a 
pernicious  one-sided  development,  by 
the  sacrifice  of  the  all-parent  Agricul- 
ture to  the  less  stable  and  healthy  pur- 
suits of  manufactures  and  town-life. 

The  age  of  great  cities  is  ever  a 
perilous  one  for  civilisation.  It  is  the 
fatal  plethora  that  precedes  corrup- 
tion and  decay.  The  phenomenon  has 
been  witnessed  in  the  past,  and  may 
be  realised  again  in  the  future.  It  is 
hard,  through  the  veil  of  remote  ages, 
to  ascertain  with  certainty  the  real 
inner  causes  which  worked  the  ruin 
of  Egypt,  Assyria,  and  the  old  pri- 
meval empires  of  the  world ;  but  the 
history  of  one  far  greater  than  they 
lies  clearly  before  us,  and  in  it  we  see 
a  warning  for  all  times.  It  was  the 
death  of  its  rural  population  that  pro- 
duced the  fall  of  Italy.  Rome  had 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


flS 

become  the  plethoric  head  of  a  lifeless 
trunk,  and  had  not  a  hand  to  lift  in 
defence  when  the  peasant  hordes  of 
Alaric  came  knocking  at  its  gates. 
But  it  was  not  a  mere  city,  great  as 
that  city  was,  that  fell  thus.  The  fall 
of  Rome  typified  the  death  of  that  last 
and  greatest  of  Pagan  civilisations. 
The  same  cause  that  wrought  the  rnin 
of  Italy,  produced,  it  seems  to  ns,  the 
fall  of  the  whole  old  Roman  world. 
It  is  the  natural  death  of  so-called 
"  over-civilisation."  For  many  cen- 
turies the  Roman  world,  spreading 
around  the  Mediterranean  Sea  as 
around  an  inland  lake,  had  formed 
a  vast  whole,  linked  together  in  all  its 
parts  by  commerce,  and  enjoying,  un- 
der the  protecting  sword  of  the  Crcsars, 
a  peace  so  stable  and  enduring  that 
Gibbon  regards  those  centuries  as  the 
happiest  the  world  has  seen.  But 
gradually,  from  causes  which  we  have 
shown  at  work  among  ourselves,  po- 
pulation ebbed  from  the  rural  districts, 
and  gathered  in  fermenting  and  en- 
feebled masses  in  the  cities, — where 
great  riches  in  a  few  coexisted  with 
grinding  poverty  in  the  masses,  and 
the  military  spirit  died  out  in  the  lat- 
ter, not  more  from  physical  enfeeble- 
ment  than  from  the  feeling  that  they 
had  nothing  to  fight  for,  nothing  to 
lose  !  The  Roman  Civilisation,  in  its 
last  phase,  gathered  into  vast  urban 
centres,  where  the  arts,  luxury,  and  in- 
tellect still  flourished, but  from  which  all 
robust  strength  was  gone,  and  which, 
once  prostrated  before  the  Saracen, 
the  Turk,  or  the  Northman,  never 
made  even  an  effort  to  rise  again.  So 
perished  the  Roman  world,  the  Roman 
civilisation  ;  and  whenever  any  civili- 
sation dies  a  natural  death,  it  will  ex- 
pire in  the  same  manner.  M.  Sismondi 
yome  years  ago  expressed  a  fear  that 
Europe  (he  meant  its  western  an<\ 
southern  States,)  owing  to  the  gra- 
dual decrease  of  its  rural  popula- 
tion, had  entered  upon  a  period  of  de- 
cline and  fall.  Means  of  regeneration, 
it  seems  to  us,  are  open  to  Europe  which 
were  not  possessed  to  the  same  extent 
by  the  Roman  world ;  but  clearly,  if 
Sismondi's  dogma  be  applicable  to  any 
one  country  more  than  to  another, 
that  country  is  our  own, —  for  nowhere 
in  Europe  has  the  rural  population  so 
greatly  diminished,  urban  life  so  rapid- 
ly increased,  or  excessive  division  of 


[Dec. 


labour  so  much  impaired  the  bodily 
and  mental  robustness  of  the  people. 

The  culminating  point  of  a  nation's 
decline  is  evidently  still  far  distant 
from  us ;  but  there  are  precursor  evils 
whose  advent  it  is  not  difficult  to  dis- 
cern. An  excessive  urban  population 
is  fraught  with  great  political  peril 
to  'the  State.  In  old  States,  Town  and 
Country  constitute  the  opposite  poles 
of  the  political  world.  The  former  is 
as  innovating  as  the  latter  is  conser- 
vative. Acute,  theoretical,  and  fault- 
finding, the  intellect  of  towns  is  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  slow-moving, 
easily-contented,  yet  generally  sen- 
sible judgment  of  the  country.  The 
two,  therefore,  naturally  balance  one 
another  ;  and  as,  when  either  is  plain- 
ly in  the  right,  it  always  finds  support 
from  a  section  of  the  other,  the  course 
of  legislation  moves  steadily  and  cau- 
tiously onward.  But  in  the  British 
Islands  we  are  now  approaching  a 
period  when  this  balance  will  be  de- 
stroyed, and  legislation,  falling  wholly 
into  the  possession  of  the  towns,  will 
become  one-sided  in  character  and 
reckless  in  speed, — hurrying  along  the 
State  like  a  machine  that  has  lost  its 
balance-wheel — a  railway-car  without 
its  driver.  Let  it  be  recollected,  too, 
that  it  is  in  the  rural  population  of  a 
country  that  Order,  that  prime  bless- 
ing of  society,  finds  its  main  support 
and  most  steady  defenders ;  whereas 
the  masses  in  towns — the  classes  dan- 
aereuses  of  French  writers — ever  tend 
to  discontent,  unruliness,  and,  in  their 
poverty,  to  a  disregard  of  the  rights 
of  property.  These  qualities  are  the 
results  of  their  condition,  and  can 
never  be  eradicated.  Look,  for  in- 
stance, at  the  example  of  France. 
Although  the  cities  of  that  country 
have  hardly  reached  half  the  propor- 
tions of  ours,  such  is  the  excitable 
character  of  the  people  that  the 
French  urban  population  has  again 
and  again  plunged  the  country  into 
terrible  convulsions.  But  for  the  con- 
servative and  order-preserving  spirit 
of  the  rural  districts,  Paris,  Lyons, 
and  Rouen  would  turn  things  upside 
down  every  ten  years.  Twice  already 
(in  1830  and  1848)  have  the  peasants 
of  the  provinces  interposed  to  aid  in 
repressing  the  revolutionary  excesses 
of  the  terrible  mob  of  the  capital;  and, 
looking  to  the  increased  wide-awake- 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


747 


ness  of  the  rural  population,  and  the 
augmented  facilities  of  communication 
by  means  of  railways  and  telegraph, 
we  will  hazard  the  prediction  that 
the  next  time  Paris  makes  a  revolu- 
tion (probably  within  the  next  fifteen 
or  twenty  years),  the  national  guards 
of  the  provinces,  arrayed  on  the  side 
of  Order,  will  teach  the  bloody  revo- 
lutionists of  the  capital  a  lesson,  and 
at  length  make  them  feel  that  France 
is  more  powerful  than  Paris.  But 
observe,  the  rural  inhabitants  of 
France  amount  to  two-thirds  of  the 
entire  population, — ours  barely  to  a 
half;  there,  the  peasants  are  in  most 
instances  proprietors — in  nearly  all, 
tenants, — whereas  ours  are  rarely  even 
tenants,  and  in  almost  all  cases  mere 
hirelings  on  the  soil  they  cultivate. 
Had  our  people  the  temperament  of 
the  French,  our  liberty  must  ere  this 
have  been  exchanged  for  the  strong 
bridle  of  adespotism, — or  ahuge  stand- 
ing army,  eating  up  the  vitals  of  the 
State,  have  been  the  sole  preservative 
of  order  and  property  from  the  mighty 
mob  of  the  towns.  British  phlegm 
stands  all  things, — "  nee  tamen  consu- 
mebatur! "  Like  asbestos,  it  seems  to 
have  the  property  of  living  cool  and 
unharmed  through  conflagrations  that 
consume  all  else.  But  do  not  let  us 
try  it  too  far,  lest  we  meet,  although 
nut  annihilation,  disintegration, — lest 
society  be  dissolved,  though  its  atoms 
remain. 

Civilisation  in  its  decay  returns,  in 
the  rural  districts,  to  tbe  condition 
from  which  it  emerged.  But  its  last 
state  is  worse  than  the  first.  Over- 
civilised  Italy  became  what  nascent 
Russia  is  now.  A  few  immense  pro- 
prietors, living  in  luxury  in  the  towns, 
and  drawing  their  revenues  from  a 
wilderness  of  serfs — that  was  the  last 
state  of  Rome,  and  the  present  one 
of  Russia :  but  in  Russia  they  grow 
grain, — in  falling  Italy  they  reared 
only  flocks  ;  and  hence  the  over- 
civilised  land  became  still  more  thinly 
peopled  than  the  barbarous  one.  And 
so,  what  with  deserted  rural  districts, 
and  plethoric,  corrupt,  and  pauperised 
towns,  the  Roman  world  fell — as  a 
lesson  to  future  ages.  Our  theory  on 
ihia  point  is  not  an  imperfect,  one- 
sided one ;  it  applies  to  the  States 
that  have  stood,  as  well  as  to  those 
which  have  fallen.  Apurelyurban  civi- 


lisation, and  the  reign  of  great 
is  ever  insecure,  and  tends  to  destruc- 
tion, from  external  foe  acting  upon 
corruption  and  disorder  within.  The 
old  empires  of  India,  Assyria,  Egypt, 
Persia,  and  Rome  have  passed  away — 
vanished  utterly  from  the  face  of  the 
earth.  One  empire  only  of  the 
primeval  world  still  endures— China, 
pre-eminently  the  empire  of  cottars, 
of  small  holdings,  of  tillers  of  the 
ground.  Agriculture  there  is  the  main- 
stay of  the  State ;  sheep  and  cattle  are 
almost  proscribed,  large  properties 
are  rare,  and  the  whole  face  of  the 
immense  territory  is  covered  with  five 
or  ten  acre  farms,  cultivated  with  a 
skill  and  care  that  might  claim  appro- 
bation even  from  Mr  Stephens.  Groat 
cities  there  are  in  China ;  the  division 
of  labour  is  carried  in  many  pursuits 
as  far  as  it  is  here,  —  sometimes 
further ;  and  luxury  finds  no  want 
of  delicacies.  .But  these  things  are 
all  balanced,  and  more  than  balanced, 
by  the  immense  numbers  of  the  sturdy, 
simple-living,  order-loving,  rural  po- 
pulation— face  to  face  with  whom  the 
dangerous  mob  of  Pekin  and  the  im- 
ruly  one  of  Canton  are  perfectly  im- 
potent to  affect  the  fortunes  of  the 
State.  It  is  a  land-tax  (or  rent  to 
the  State)  upon  these  countless  small 
holdings  that  constitutes  the  chief 
portion  of  the  imperial  revenue  ;  and 
out  of  this  revenue  are  defrayed  the 
expenses  of  a  vast  system  of  national 
Education,  in  comparison  with  Avhich 
even  that  of  the  United  States  is  frag- 
mentary— which  to  cottar  and  artisaa 
alike,  brings  home  the  rudiments  of 
reading,  writing,  and  practical  morals 
— and  from  whose  higher  schools  and 
colleges,  rising  in  numerous  grada- 
tions, are  selected  by  competition  the 
men  who  are  destined  to  fill  the 
myriad  posts  in  the  civil  service  of 
China.  For  four  thousand  years — 
for  thrice  the  length  of  mighty  Rome's 
duration — has  this  empire  of  cottars 
stood,  changing  its  dynasty  about 
pnce  in  three  centuries,  as  the  reign- 
ing family  grows  effete,  but  Society 
and  the  State  remaining  ever  the 
same.  And  so  it  will  last.  The 
rights  of  property  are  in  every  heart. 
The  guardians  of  an  Order  which  is 
founded  on  Justice  are  overpoweringly 
in  the  ascendant;  and  so  far  as  human 
judgment,  enlightened  by  a  study  of 


748 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dec. 


the  past,  can  discern,  this  Empire,  in 
character  standing  alone  in  the  world, 
is  destined  yet  to  endure  for  indefinite 


The  evil  change  which  is  taking 
place  in  our  own  population  is  not  the 
result  of  evil  intention.  In  some  re- 
spects it  is  a  change  which  was  almost 
sure  to  supervene  with  the  progress  of 
civilisation,  if  the  nation  and  its 
leaders  were  not  on  the  outlook  to 
prevent  it.  In  other  respects,  and 
chiefly,  it  has  been  the  work  of  error 
— of  False  Theories.  Alas,  how  many 
a  mite  on  the  road  to  ruin  have  nations 
been  hurried  by  the  false  speculations 
of  those  who  assume  to  guide  their 
course !  Never  was  there  a  greater 
or  more  practical  intellect  than  that 
of  the  first  Napoleon,  and  we  do  not 
think  his  usual  discernment  failed  him 
when  he  said — "  Give  these  *  political 
economists '  an  empire  of  granite,  and 
they  will  reduce  it  to  powder."  The 
history  of  France  bears  witness  to  the 
general  justice  of  the  remark,  and  the 
recent  history  of  our  own  country  fur- 
nishes additional  illustration.  Adam 
Smith  was  a  man  of  sense;  but  how 
many  crotchet-mongers  have  affected 
to  wear  his  mantle !  The  fundamental 
error  of  this  pestiferous  sect  is,  that 
they  are  profoundly  insensible  to  moral 
causes.  Eapt  in  contemplation  of 
material  agencies,  they  are  blind  to 
the  potency  of  moral  influences,  which, 
in  truth,  are  the  prime  movers  to  hu- 
man action.  Such  men  are  as  bad 
judges  of  human  nature  as  mathema- 
ticians are  of  evidence, — both  of  these 
parties  can  judge  well  of  what  is 
material  and  definite;  but  ofthemoral, 
the  indefinite,  and  the  fluctuating 
elements,  which  constitute  one- half  of 
human  nature,  they  can  form  no  cor- 
rect appreciation. 

It  is  the  Large-Farm  theory  of  these 
doctrinaires  that  has  done  so  much  to 
produce  the  depopulation  of  our  rural 
districts.  A  very  fatal  heresy  for  a 
country  in  the  condition,  and  at  the 
particular  life-period  of  ours.  Granted 
that  large  farms  produce  more  surplus 
wealth  than  small  ones — and  that  such 
surplus  wealth  is  exceedingly  valuable 


for  breeding  more  wealth  of  the  same 
kind,  orforadvancingcivilisation  by  al- 
lowing of  a  large  national  expenditure 
upon  literature,  the  arts,  and  luxury, — 
or  even  as  a  reserve  from  which  the  State 
may  draw  heavily  in  times  of  need. 
We  readily  grant  all  this, — for  what 
we  aim  at  is  not  special  pleading,  but 
an  exposition  of  the  truth.  But  do 
these,  as  the  economists  seem  to  con- 
sider, embrace  all  that  is  necessary  to 
a  nation's  wellbeing?  Far  from  it. 
The  production  of  surplus  or  concen- 
trated wealth,  in  some  advanced  stages 
of  society,  is  much  less  to  be  attended 
to  than  a  proper  diffusion  of  wealth. 
Old  societies  ever  tend  to  produce 
great  wealth  in  a  few,  and  great 
poverty  in  the  many, — and  this  is  the 
rock  ahead  which  our  own  country 
must  steer  clear  of.  The  economists 
overlook  this.  They  do  not  perceive 
that  what  is  good  in  one  stage  of  na- 
tional development,  may  become  bad, 
because  in  excess,  in  another.  It  is 
a  good  thing  to  inculcate  economy 
upon  a  youth, — it  is  seldom  desirable 
to  preach  it  to  octogenarians.  Any 
one  may  see  that  whatever  be  the 
matter  with  England,  it  is  not  the 
want  of  surplus  wealth.  We  have 
surplus  wealth  equal  to  that  of  any 
other  two  nations  in  the  world, — and 
what  is  more,  the  whole  tendency  of 
things  amongst  us  is,  to  produce  this 
kind  of  wealth  every  year  in  still  greater 
abundance.  Capital  has  a  rare  fruc- 
tifying power — it  increases  in  a  com- 
pound ratio.  It  will  always  hold  its 
own  against  labour;  and  hence  it  ever 
tends  to  concentrate  itself  more  and 
more  in  few  hands.  This  power,  we 
say,  is  in  full  force  amongst  us,— it  will 
continue  to  operate  under  any  circum- 
stances,— and,  we  fear,  under  any 
that  are  practicable  in  this  country, 
it  will  still  operate  too  powerfully  for 
the  general  wellbeing  of  the  commu- 
nity, and  the  lasting  interests  of  the 
State. 

What  we  need  to  attend  to,  then, 
is  not  the  production  of  surplus  wealth, 
—that  takes  care  of  itself, — but  rather 
a  right  diffusion  of  wealth.t  In  truth, 
a  real  shortsightedness  is  involved  in 


*  For  detailed  corroboration  of  these  statements  see  the  articles  on  China  in  the 
numbers  of  this  Magazine  for  January  and  May  1854, —  also  "  Agriculture  in  China" 
in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Agriculture  for  January  1851. 

t  rf  When  we  look  at  a  regiment/'  says  Hugh  Miller,  "  we  must  ask  not  only  what 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


this  preaching  up  of  u  surplus  wealth" 
as  the  prime  good.  For  how  does  the 
case  stand  in  regard  to  the  general 
community?  The  only  way  to  pro- 
duce surplus  wealth  is  to  concentrate 
it  in  few  hands — that  is  indisputable. 
Well,  then,  in  what  state  do  you  leave 
the  masses  ?  You  achieve  this  surplus 
wealth  by  extinguishing  small  trades 
and  small  farms,  and  by  concentrating 
all  commerce,  manufactures,  and  agri- 
culture in  as  few  hands  as  possible. 
By  so  doing,  you  tend  to  extinguish 
the  independent  position  and  inde- 
pendent spirit  of  the  masses,  who  can 
no  longer  rise  in  the  world,  and,  losing 
the  power  of  self-action,  tend  to  be- 
come dependent  upon  the  fluctuations 
of  a  few  great  businesses  in  towns, 
—or  of  large  farms  in  the  country, 
ever  tending  to  become  more  pastoral 
and  deserted.  The  result  is,  that  be- 
tween these  two  causes — between  the 
great  fluctuations  of  trade  in  towns 
and  the  gradual  thinning  of  the  rural 
districts-^-we  have  produced,  either 
permanently  or  at  intervals,  vast 
masses  of  pauperism,  which  not  only 
menace  the  foundations  of  order,  but 
— O  shortsighted  economist! — tend 
to  consume  the  very  surplus  wealth 
which  out  of  their  misery  you  have 
been  seeking  to  create.  Are  the  Poor- 
rates  of  the  United  Kingdom  a  trifle  ? 
are  our  Prison- rates  a  trifle  ?  or  is  it 
a  light  thing,  either  in  a  political  or 
philanthropic  point  of  view,  to  see 
such  masses  of  squalid  misery,  reck- 
less poverty,  and  crime  growing  up  in 
all  our  large  cities  ?  Coexistent  with 
all  the  wealth,  and  charities,  and 
luxuries  of  London,  what  misery ! 
The  very  houseless  there  would  form 
an  army,  —  so  would  the  criminal 
population — so,  in  number,  would  the 
prostitutes ;  while,  so  precarious  and 


749 

artificial  are  some  of  the  avocations 
plied  in  that  mighty  place,  that  Mr 
Mayhew  states  that  "three  wet  days 
will  bring  the  greater  part  of  30,000 
people  to  the  brink  of  starvation ! " 
What  a  Babylon  !  Is  there  no  dan- 
ger for  the  future,  think  you,  in  the 
growth,  side  by  side,  of  such  reck- 
less masses  and  so  much  wealth? 
Washington  wisely  fixed  the  capi- 
tal of  his  infant  Republic  in  a  spot 
where  the  growth  of  a  large  city  was 
impossible,  and  so  freed  the  Ame- 
rican Legislature  from  the  imme- 
diate pressure  of  the  masses.  The 
British  Legislature  is  not  so  happily 
situated, — and  the  French  Govern- 
ment has  to  redeem  its  weakness  in 
this  respect  by  a  standing  army  in 
Paris.  Looking  at  the  overgrown  di- 
mensions of  London,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  gradual  diminution  of  theorder- 
ly  and  conservative  rural  population 
on  the  other,  it  is  impossible  to  forget 
that  the  Roman  mob  was  for  long  a 
power  in  the  State,  or  to  dismiss  the 
apprehension  that  their  extortionate 
cry  for  "panem  etcircensesl"  may  yet 
in  future  ages  be  heard  from  the  mon- 
ster mob  of  the  English  metropolis. 

Small  holdings,  especially  when  the 
tenant  is  also  proprietor,  benefit  a 
country  in  many  ways.  It  is  indis- 
putable that  they  produce  more  than 
the  large-farm  system ;  and  hence, 
the  produce  being  divided  among 
many,  they  can  support  a  greater 
population  in  greater  comfort  and  in- 
dependence than  is  possible  under  the 
other  system.  No  slight  advantage 
this,  in  the  present  times.  It  ap- 
pears, also,  that  small  holdings  often 
pay  a  higher  rent  than  a  single  large 
farm  of  the  same  extent, — so  that,  in 
a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  our  proprie- 
tors would  be  rather  gainers  than 


is  the  condition  of  these  young  men,  but  what  is  the  condition  of  their  wives,  their 
children,  and  their  aged  parents  2  Muster  the  whole  on  parade,  let  us  inspect 
the  whole,  and  then  we  shall  be  able  to  form  an  opinion  as  to  the  success  of  the  sys- 
tem. And  so  also,  when  Mr  M'Culloch  tells  us  to  look  at  the  success  of  our  large 
properties  and  large  farms, — let  us  look  at  the  whole  population, — let  us  look  at  the 
fact,  that  at  the  very  moment  of  his  writing,  about  every  tenth  person  in  England 
was  a  pauper, — let  us  look  at  our  prisons,  our  poor  laws,  our  union  workhouses,  our 
poisonings  for  the  sake  of  burial  fees,  our  emigration,  as  if  our  people  were  flying  like 
rats,  belter  skelter,  from  a  drowning  ship.  Let  us  sum  up  the  whole,  and  then  per- 
haps we  should  find  that  our  boasted  system  of  social  distribution  was  no  more  suc- 
cessful than  the  muster  of  one  regiment,  where  we  should  find  on  the  one  hand,  order 
and  competence  ;  on  the  other,  rags  and  tatters,  wives  abandoned,  parents  neglected, 
children  left  to  the  hazard  of  casual  charity,  and  too  often  a  dark  shadow  of  vice 
and  wretchedness  following  in  the  train  of  our  vaunted  institutions." 


750 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  Y\rar. 


[De?. 


losers  by  adopting  the  system.  True, 
it  would  cost  them  more  care  and 
providence  in  the  management  of  their 
properties,  than  under  the  wholesale 
large-farm  system ;  but  men  who, 
like  Mr  Dempster  of  Skibo,  are  intent 
to  fulfil  the  duties  of  their  station, 
will  find  themselves  amply  recom- 
pensed, and  placed  in  a  prouder  and 
more  influential  position,  by  being  the 
chief  and  honoured  guardians  of  a 
population  of  thriving  small  tenants, 
filling  up  the  interstices  of  larger 
farms,  than  by  being  lords  of  desert 
pasture-ranges,  or  of  a  few  monster 
farms  worked  by  hirelings.  In  truth, 
a  reaction  in  this  respect  must  soon 
set  in.  The  large-farm  system  is  a 
mere  transition-period  in  the  progress 
of  agriculture.  You  cannot  have 
•"high  farming"  with  a  thin  popula- 
tion. The  more  you  weed,  and  drain, 
and  harrow,  the  more  hands  you  must 
have  to  do  it.  Already  our  farmers 
feel  this  want.  For  the  last  two  years 
they  have  hardly  been  able  to  find 
hands  enough  to  cyt  down  the  crops, 
and  the  rate  of  wages  has  been  exor- 
bitant. The  work,  too,  is  worse  done 
now  than  of  old.  The  vagrant  popu- 
lation from  which  the  farmers  now 
draw  so  large  a  proportion  of  their 
labourers,  are  far  inferior  in  skill  to 
those  who  used  to  be  bred  to  the 
work.  Large  farms,  too,  won't  do 
with  high  farming.  Let  a  young 
farmer  consult  Henry  Stephens,  and 
his  first  advice  will  be,  "Don't  take 
too  much  land."  Large  farms  take 
too  much  capital  to  work  them  proper- 
ly, and  every  farm  imperfectly  work- 
ed is  so  much  loss  to  the  nation. 

If  we  wish  to  do  justice  to  our 
country,  and  develop  the  resources  of 
the  soil  in  the  same  way  as  we  have 
developed  our  commerce  and  manu- 
factures, we  must  have  a  more  nume- 
rous rural  population, — both  as  an 
end  and  a  means.  As  a  means,— be- 
cause you  never  can  have  really  high 
cultivation,  no  more  than  great  manu- 
factures, without  a  numerous  popula- 
tion ;  as  an  end, — because  a  nume- 
rous population,  existing  in  comfort,  is 
the  country's  best  strength  and  most 
.reasonable  pride.  Both  of  these  ob- 
jects are  quite  attainable  in  this 
country.  Hear  what  that  acute  ob- 
server Mr  Lain g  says.  First,  as  to 
the  possible  increase  of  our  rural 


lation.  An  estate  of  sixteen 
hundred  acres  in  Scotland,  divided 
into  eight  farms,  will  employ  labour 
equivalent  to  that  of  eighty  people  all 
the  year  round;  but,  saysMrLaing, 
under  another  system,  every  acre 
might  have  its  man.  For  example : — 

"  Take  under  your  eye  a  space  of  land 
in  Flanders,  that  you  judge  to  be  about 
1600  acres.  Walk  over  it,  examine  it. 
Every  foot  of  the  land  is  cultivated, 
dug  with  the  spade  or  hoe  where 
horse  and  plough  cannot  work,  and  all  is 
in  crop,  or  in  preparation  for  crop.  In 
our  best-farmed  districts  there  are  corners 
and  patches  in  every  field  lying  waste  and 
uncultivated,  because  the  large  rent-pay- 
ing farmers  cannot  afford  labour,  super- 
intendence, and  manure,  for  such  minute 
portions  of  land  and  gardenlike  work  as 
the  owner  of  a  small  piece  of  land  cau 
bestow  on  every  corner  and  spot  of  his 
own  property.  Here  the  whole  1600 
must  be  in  garden-farms  of  five  or  six 
acres ;  and  it  is  evident  that  in  the 
amount  of  produce  from  the  land,  in  the 
crops  of  rye,  wheat,  barley,  rape,  clover, 
lucern,  and  flax  for  clothing  material, 
which  are  the  usual  crops,  the  1600  acre?, 
under  such  garden-culture,  surpass  the 
1600  acres  under  large-farm  cultivation, 
as  much  as  a  kitchen-garden  surpasses  in 
productiveness  a  common  field.  On  the 
1600  acres  here  in  Flanders  or  Belgium, 
instead  of  the  eight  farmers  with  their 
eighty  farm-servants,  there  will  be  from 
300  to  320  families,  or  from  1400  to  1600 
individuals,  each  family  working  its  own 
piece  of  land;  and  with  some  property  iu 
cows,  sheep,  pigs,  utensils,  and  other  stock 
in  proportion  to  their  land,  and  with  con- 
stant employment  and  secure  subsistence 
on  their  own  little  estates." 

Or,  again,  as  to  the  superior  fer- 
tility attainable  by  small  holdings. 
Pay  a  visit  to  Flanders,  Holstein,  the 
Palatinate,  or  some  of  the  northern 
provinces  of  France,  and  you  will  see 
that,  despite  the  boorish  look  of  the 
owners  and  the  clumsiness  of  their 
implements,  crops  are  produced  there 
which  in  excellence  you  will  search 
for  in  vain  on  this  side  the  Channel. 
Speaking  of  Flanders,  Mr  Laing 


"  The  clean  state  of  the  crops  here — 
not  a  weed  in  a  mile  of  country,  for  they 
are  all  hand-weeded  out  of  the  land,  and 
applied  for  fodder  or  manure — the  careful 
digging  of  every  corner  which  the  plough 
cannot  reach — the  headlands  and  ditch- 
slopes,  down  to  the  water-edge,  and  evea 


1855.]  Ou,*  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 

the  circle  round  single  trees  close  up  to 
the  stem,  being  all  dug,  and  under  crop 
of  some  kind  —  show  that  the  stock  of 
people,  to  do  all  this  minute  hand-work, 
must  be  very  much  greater  than  the 
land  employs  with  us.  The  rent-paying 
j'armer,  on  a  nineteen  years'  lease,  could 
not  afford  eighteenpence  or  two  shillings 
a-day  of  wages  for  doing  such  work,  be- 
cause it  never  could  make  him  any  ade- 
quate return.  But  to  the  owner  of  the 
soil  it  is  worth  doing  such  work  by  his 
own  and  his  family's  labour  at  odd  hours,  - 
because  it  is  adding  to  the  perpetual 
fertility  and  value  of  his  own  property.  . 
.  .  .  His  piece  of  land  to  him  is  his 
savings-bank,  in  which  the  value  of  his 
labour  is  hoarded  up,  to  be  repaid  him  at 
a  future  day,  and  secured  to  his  family 
after  him." 

A  more  recent,  but  anonymous 
writer,  whose  prepossessions  were  in 
favour  of  the  large-farm  system,  thus 
bears  testimony  to  the  excellence  of 
the  cottar- system  in  France : — 

"  As  the  valley  of  the  Seine  is  reached 
before  the  town  of  Rouen  is  seen,  and  as 
the  high  lands  on  both  sides  of  this  val- 
ley are  cultivated  up  to  near  the  summits, 
the  small  patches  occupied  by  the  respec- 
tive crops  give  a  very  curious  appearance 
to  the  country.  The  division  of  land  is 
carried  to  nearly  its  utmost  limit,  especi- 
ally near  to  towns  and  villages,  and  ex- 
hibits a  desire  to  cultivate  the  soil  which 
scarcely  be  understood  in  England, 


751 

and  the  fields  give  place  to  hedgeless 
gardens,  in  which,  to  use  the  phrase 
of  Washington  Irving,  "  the  furrows 
seem  finished  rather  with  the  pencil 
than  the  plough."  Acre  after  acre 
flashes  with  hand-glasses,  streaks  of 
verdure  are  ruled  in  close  parallel 
lines  across  the  soil  with  mathemati- 
cal precision,  interspersed  here  and 
there  with  patches  as  sharp  cut  at  the 
edges  as  though  they  were  pieces  of 
green  baize.  In  these  far-famed 
market- gardens,  manure  and  spade- 
husbandry  compensate  for  lack  of 
space,  and  four  and  sometimes  five 
crops  are  extracted  from  the  land  in 
the  course  of  the  year  !  A  recent 
writer  in  the  Quarterly  Review 
says  :— 

"  The  care  and  attention  bestowed  by 
the  market-gardeners  is  incredible  to  those 
who  have  not  witnessed  it.  Every  inch 
of  ground  is  taken  advantage  of— culti- 
vation runs  between  the  fruit-trees  ; 
storming-parties  of  cabbages  and  cauli- 
flowers swarm  up  to  the  very  trunks  of 
apple-trees  ;  raspberry  bushes  are  sur- 
rounded and  cut  off  by  young  seedlings. 
If  you  see  an  acre  of  celery  growing  in 
ridges,  be  sure  that,  on  a  narrow  inspec- 
tion, you  will  find  long  files  of  young 
peas  picking  their  way  along  the  furrows. 
Everything  flourishes  here  except  weeds, 
and  you  may  go  over  a  1 50-acre  piece  of 
ground  without  discovering  a  single  one. 


where  other  objects  of  pursuit  for  the  en-      •     ...     But  the   very  high  state   of 


terprising  are  more  open  than  in  France. 
Still  it  is  due  to  sta-te  that,  where  the 
peasantry  are  to  be  seen  in  the  fields, 
whether  tending  their  single  cow  or  la- 
bouring the  soil,  they  wear  an  air  of  con- 
tentment and  unwearied  industry  arguing 
well  for  the  individual  happiness  of  the 
population.  Fences  in  such  districts  are 
all  but  unknown.  The  divisions  are 
marked  by  stones  partly  visible.  These 
are  inserted  by  the  authorities,  and  while 
pains  and  penalties  await  the  disturber  of 
such  landmarks,  public  opinion — a  still 
stronger  check — brands  the  man  who  dares 
to  violate  these  outlines  of  property." 

Almost  nothing  of  this  kind,  AVC  re- 
gret to  say,  is  to  be  found  in  our  own 
country,  —  save  in  the  exceptional 
position  of  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
London.  There,  indeed,  we  have  a 
striking  exemplification  of  the  pro- 
ntablencss  of  the  petite  culture,  and  of 
the  dense  population  it  is  capable  of 
supporting.  As  we  approach,  from 
whatever  quarter,  the  suburbs  of  that 
monster  city,  large  farms  disappear, 


cultivation  in  the  metropolitan  market- 
gardens  necessitates  the  employment  of  a 
large  amount  of  labour  ;  and  it  is  sup- 
posed that  no  less  than  35,000  persons 
are  engaged  in  the  service  of  filling  the 
vegetable  and  dessert  dishes  of  the  metro- 
polis. This  estimate  leaves  out  those  in 
the  provinces  and  on  the  Continent,  which 
would,  we  doubt  not,  nearly  double  the 
calculation,  and  show  a  troop  of  men  and 
women  as  large  as  the  Allied  army  now 
acting  in  the  East." 

This,  as  we  have  said,  is  an  excep- 
tional case.  We  cannot  have  a  Lon- 
don everywhere  to  stimulate  such 
painstaking  production.  But  in  many 
parts  of  the  Continent,  as  formerly 
in  our  own  islands,  there  exists  a 
talisman  which  supersedes  the  pre- 
sence of  great  cities,  and  replaces  the 
external  stimulus  by  one  within.  The 
secret  of  the  marvellous  industry  that 
has  converted  the  barren  sands  of 
Flanders,  the  scantily-covered  rocks 
of  the  Tyrol,  the  acres  of  the  Black 
Forest,  of  Holstein,  and  of  Northern 


752 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dec. 


France,  into  blooming  fields  of  amaz- 
ing fertility,  is  the  sense  of  Property. 
It  has  been  accomplished  by  what  we 
may  call  spontaneous,  in  opposition 
to  hired,  labour.  When  the  labourer 
is  himself  the  owner  of  the  soil,  work 
assumes  a  different  aspect, — the  spade 
goes  deeper,  the  scythe  takes  a  wider 
sweep,  and  the  muscles  lift  a  heavier 
burden.  It  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  Britain  if  there  were  more  of  this 
class  amongst  us, — a  class  at  once 
enriching  the  soil,  strengthening  the 
fabric  of  society,  increasing  the 
healthy  population  of  the  country, 
and  rearing  their  children  in  regular 
habits  of  rural  industry  from  their 
earliest  years.  In  any  case,  it  is  in- 
dispensable that  small  holdings  on 
lease  should  be  multiplied.  And 
as  fragmentary  .instances  of  what 
these  can  accomplish,  read  (in  the 
Quarterly  Review  for  July  1829)  how 
Thomas  Rook  did  his  hired  work 
regularly,  and  yet  made  £30  a-year 
out  of  a  little  bit  of  land ;  and  how 
Richard  Thompson  kept  two  pigs  and 
a  Scotch  cow  on  an  acre  and  a  quar- 
ter, worth,  when  he  got  it,  only  five 
shillings  per  acre  of  rent ;  and  how 
the  widow  Hasketon  brought  up  her 
fourteen  children,  and  saved  them 
from  the  degradation  of  the  parish, 
by  being  allowed  to  retain  as  much 
land  as  kept  her  two  cows; — and 
mark,  on  the  other  hand,  how  poor- 
rates  and  degradation  have  always 
followed  the  severance  of  the  pea- 
santry from  the  soil. 

We  believe  we  have  already  suffi- 
ciently demonstrated  the  desirableness, 
alike  in  a  political,  social,  and  patrio- 
tic point  of  view,  of  not  only  check- 
ing the  alarming  decrease  of  our  rural 
population,  but  of  sedulously  recruit- 
ing its  numbers.  Before  conclud- 
ing, however,  let  as  fortify  our  posi- 
tion, as  well  as  remove  the  silly  but 


too  general  depreciation  of  the  pea- 
santry in  comparison  with  urban 
labouring-classes,  by  quotations  which, 
we  think,  will  suffice  to  put  the  ques- 
tion in  its  true  light.  Sir  John 
M'Neill — who  has  had  ample  oppor- 
tunities of  testing  the  truth  both  at 
home  and  among  our  soldiers  in  the 
Crimea — in  his  recent  address  at  the 
opening  of  the  Edinburgh  Philosophi- 
cal Institution,  gave  utterance  to  the 
following  very  striking  remarks  : — 

u  The  minute  division  of  labour,  which 
is  a  result  of  high  civilisation,  has  a  ten- 
dency to  carry  men  back  to  a  condition 
analogous  in  some  respects  to  a  state  of 
primitive  barbarism.  That  kind  of  help- 
lessness in  our  soldiers  to  which  I  have 
referred,  arises  from  the  similar  help- 
lessness of  the  classes  of  our  population 
which  furnish  the  recruits.  The  minute 
division  of  labour  in  a  highly  civilised 
community  reduces  the  individuals  of 
whom  it  is  composed  to  a  condition  as 
helpless,  whenever  they  are  separated 
from  it  and  thrown  upon  their  own 
resources,  as  if  the  arts  of  civilised 
life  had  not  yet  been  invented.  But 
that  is  not  its  most  important  in- 
fluence. This  restriction  of  a  man's  daily 
occupation  to  what  may  be  truly  de- 
scribed as  the  production  of  the  fractional 
part  of  a  unit,  must  have  a  tendency  to 
narrow  and  cramp  his  intellect,  and  pre- 
vent him  from  acquiring  versatility  of 
mind  and  variety  of  ideas,  unless  active 
and  efficient  educational  measures  are 
employed  to  counteract  the  effect  of  his 
ordinary  occupation,  and  to  expand 
his  mind.  .  .  Consider  the  condi-' 
tion  of  a  person  employed  in  repeating, 
day  after  day,  the  same  mechanical  pro- 
cess of  making  the  head  or  the  point  of 
a  pin,  or  joining  the  broken  threads  of 
bobbins — passing  every  day  along  the 
same  street  to  the  same  workshop  or 
factory — where  the  range  of  observation 
is  confined  for  successive  weeks  and 
months,  or  even  years,  to  the  same  un- 
varying objects.* 

On  the  other  hand,  a  shepherd  on  the 


*  A  correspondent  of  the  Times,  in  reference  to  these  statements  of  Sir  John  M'Neill's, 
claims  exemption  on  behalf  of  the  artisans  of  Sheffield  ;  and  the  reason  which  he 
gives  for  the  "  greater  general  expertness  "  of  these  workmen,  strikingly  corroborates 
the  truth  of  Sir  John's  opinions,  and  of  our  own  general  statements.  His  explana- 
tion is  as  follows  : — "  Sheffield  is  surrounded  on  nearly  all  sides  by  hundreds  of  gar- 
den allotments,  from  500  yards,  or  less  in  extent,  upwards.  These  are  in  great  part 
cultivated  by  artisans.  Here  they  spend  some  hours  almost  every  summer  day.  They 
generally  have  a  summer-house  or  tool-house  of  their  own  erection,  constructed  with 
degrees  of  solidity  varying  with  the  means  or  energies  of  the  proprietor.  In  many 
cases  they  sink  a  well  and  rig  a  windlass,  or  put  down  steps,  to  reach  the  water. 
They  plant  fences,  make  doors,  fix  locks  and  fastenings,  pitch  or  macadamise  walks, 
set  edgestones,  erect  seats,  and,  in  short,  make  a  practical  acquaintance  with  the 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


753 


hill-side  may  be  unable  to  read  a  print- 
ed page,  but  the  phenomena  of  nature 
are  continually  before  him.  Every 
change  in  the  face  of  heaven  or  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth  is  an  object  of 
his  careful  contemplation.  He  watches 
the  continual  succession  of  regenera- 
tion and  decay — the  instincts  and  habits 
of  all  living  things  attract  his  at- 
tention— it  is  his  business  to  notice  the 
variety  of  plants  that  clothe  the  earth, 
and  to  know  their  seasons — he  has  learn- 
ed orally  the  great  truths  of  revelation, 
and  during  his  solitary  night-watches  re- 
cognises in  the  starry  firmament  God's 
mighty  handiwork,  as  the  Chaldean  shep- 
herds did  of  old.  In  the  lonely  glen, 
the  thunder,  as  it  were  the  voice  of 
Heaven,  awes  his  soul  to  reverence — the 
lightning  and  the  tempest,  the  cataract  or 
the  crash  of  the  ocean-wave  that  makes 
the  rocks  tremble  under  his  feet,  teach 
him  the  feebleness  of  man  and  of  his 
works.  In  the  unvarying  succession  of 
the  seasons,  he  acknowledges  the  guid- 
ance of  Him  who  set  the  sun  to  rule  by 
day  and  the  moon  by  night.  His  depen- 
dence upon  the  course  of  nature  —  the 
seed-time  and  the  harvest,  the  sunshine 
and  the  rain,  over  which  he  has  no  con- 
trol—teach him  his  dependence  upon  the 
bounty  and  goodness  of  that  Being  whose 
will  and  whose  laws  they  obey.  Speak 
to  him,  and  if  there  be  no  sneer  on  your 
lip — if  you  be  a  man  to  whom  he  feels 
that  he  can  open  his  heart  without  risk 
of  ridicule — you  will  find  that  in  his  own 
simple  and  untutored  way  he  has  specu- 
lated upon  the  high  mysteries  of  Na- 
ture, and  tried  to  divine  many  of  her  laws 
That  man  may  be  altogether  illiterate, 
but  who  will  venture  to  say  that  he  is 
uneducated  ] " 

Though  be  were  unable  either  to 
read  or  write,  says  Mr  Laing,  such  a 
peasant  has  an  educated  mind, — amind 
trained  and  disciplined  in  the  school  of 
nature, — trained  also,  let  us  add,  in 
the  moral  qualities  of  patience,  self-re- 
straint, and  thought  for  the  future. 
But  in  case  the  disciples  of  our  modern 
"  economists "  should  harden  their 
hearts  against  the  testimony  of  men 
not  belonging  to  their  own  sect,  let 
us  give  them  an  extract  from  old 
Adam  Smith  himself,  who  knew  a 
great  deal  more  of  political  economy 
than  those  who  prate  so  much  about 
it  nowadays.  Hear  how  emphati- 


cally he  awards  the  palm  to  the  rural 
labourer,  when  compared  with  the 
corresponding  class  in  the  towns :  — 

"After  what  are  called  the  fine  arts  and 
the  liberal  professions,  however,  there  is, 
perhaps,  no  trade  which  requires  so  great 
a  variety  of  knowledge  and  experience  as 
farming.  The  innumerable  volumes  which 
have  been  written  upon  it  in  all  languages, 
may  satisfy  us  that  amongst  the  wisest  and 
most  learned  nations  it  has  never  been 
regarded  as  a  matter  very  easily  under- 
stood. And  from  all  those  volumes  we 
shall  in  vain  attempt  to  collect  that 
knowledge  of  its  various  and  complicated 
operations  which  is  commonly  possessed 
even  by  the  common  farmer, — how  con- 
temptuously soever  the  very  contemptible 
authors  of  some  of  them  may  sometimes 
affect  to  speak  of  him.  There  is  scarce 
any  common  mechanic  trade,  on  the  con- 
trary, of  which  all  the  operations  may  not 
be  as  completely  and  distinctly  explained 
in  a  pamphlet  of  a  very  few  pages  as  it  is 
possible  for  words  illustrated  by  figures 
to  explain  them.  The  direction  of  opera- 
tions, besides,  which  must  be  varied  with 
every  change  of  the  weather,  as  well  as 
with  many  other  accidents,  requires  much 
more  judgment  and  discretion  than  that 
of  those  which  are  always  the  same,  or 
very  nearly  the  same. 

"  Not  only  the  art  of  the  farmer,  the 
general  direction  of  the  operations  of 
husbandry,  but  many  inferior  branches  of 
country  labour,  require  much  more  skill 
and  experience  than  the  greater  part  of 
mechanic  trades.  The  man  who  works 
upon  brass  and  iron,  works  with  instru- 
ments and  upon  materials  of  which  the 
temper  is  always  the  same,  or  very  nearly 
the  same.  But  the  man  who  ploughs  the 
ground  with  a  team  of  horses  or  oxen 
works  with  instruments  of  which  the 
health,  strength,  and  temper  are  very 
different  upon  different  occasions.  The 
condition  of  the  materials  which  he  works 
upon,  too,  is  as  variable  as  that  of  the 
instruments  which  he  works  with,  and 
both  require  to  be  managed  with  much 
judgment  and  discretion.  The  common 
ploughman,  though  generally  regarded  as 
the  pattern  of  stupidity  and  ignorance,  is 
seldom  defective  in  this  judgment  and 
discretion.  He  is  less  accustomed,  in- 
deed, to  social  intercourse  than  the 
mechanic,  who  lives  in  a  town.  His  voice 
and  language  are  more  uncouth,  and  more 
difficult  to  be  understood  by  those  who 
are  not  used  to  them.  His  understanding, 


tools  of  the  labourer,  mason,  and  carpenter  ;  and,  besides  this,  often  obtain  no  incon- 
siderable skill  in  cooking  a  bit  of  dinner  or  snack,  to  save  the  time  it  would  occupy 
to  go  home  for  it." 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


734 

however,  being  accustomed  to  consider  a 
greater  variety  of  objects,  is  generally 
much  superior  to  that  of  the  other,  whose 
whole  attention,  from  morning  till  night, 
is  commonly  occupied  in  performing  one 
or  two  very  simple  operations.  How 
much  the  lower  ranks  of  people  in  the 
country  are  really  superior  to  those  of  the 
town,  is  well  known  to  every  man  ivhom 
cither  business  or  curiosity  has  led  to  con- 
verse much  with  both."* 

When  such  is  the  relative  character 
of  the  urban  and  rural  population, 
nothing  at  first  sight  appears  more 
singular  than  that  the  favour  of  our 
legislators  should  have  hitherto  been 
almost  entirely  bestowed  upon  the 
former.  But  then,  the  urban  classes 
are  united  and  clamorous, — the  rural 
are  scattered  and  quiet.  The  former 
have  already  usurped  the  superior 
share  in  the  legislation  of  the  country, 
and  it  is  the  votes  of  the  burgh  Mem- 
bers that  a  Ministry  is  most  desirous 
to  secure.  Hence  a  grievance  in  the 
towns  is  quickly  remedied,  and  even 
imaginary  urban  grievances  receive 
most  respectful  consideration.  But 
alas  for  the  country  districts, — for 
the  land,— for  the  peasants  !  They 
are  kept  subject  to  their  old  difficul- 
ties, while  all  else  goes  free  ;  and  al- 
though depopulation  goes  on,  and  the 
hope  of  rising,  or  even  of  maintaining, 
their  position,  is  under  the  present 
system  taken  from  the  peasantry  and 
small  tenants,  our  legislators  coolly 
close  their  ears  against  complaints— 
on  the  ground,  forsooth,  that  certain 
would-be  authorities  in  political 
science  have  imagined  such  a  state  of 
things  to  be  the  best !  As  if  hardship 
and  injustice  to  the  many  ever  yet 
conduced  to  the  security  of  the  few,— 
as  if  a  nation  every  grew  truly  rich  by 
the  impoverishment  of  its  producing- 
classes,— as  if  a  country  ever  grew 
strong  by  the  flight  of  its  population  ! 

Let  it  be  clearly  understood  what 
we  advocate.  There  is  nothing  Uto- 
pian—nothing  extreme  in  what  we 
propose.  Happily  the  course  of 
things  has  not  yet  flowed  so  far  in 
the  wrong  channel  as  to  need  other 
than  simple  remedies.  Do  not  let  it 
be  said  that  we  desire  to  see  this 
country  overspread  exclusively  by 
small  holdings.  Even  if  we  were  to 


[Dec. 


desire  it,  the  thing  is  impossible.  In 
this  age  of  great  capital  and  urbati 
centralisation,  there  is  as  little  fear  of 
our  agriculture  reverting  simply  to 
the  cottar-system,  as  there  is  of  the 
nation  returning  to  bows  and  arrows, 
and  the  rude  life  of  the  chase.  Let 
this  reassure  trembling  speculators 
of  the  closet,  who  too  seldom  give 
their  wits  an  airing  to  see  how  their 
theories  work  among  the  population 
for  whom  they  prescribe.  A  mixed 
system  is  what  we  desire.  Let  small 
holdings  and  small  properties  interlace 
with  the  large  farms  and  monster 
estates.  Farmers  would  gain  by  tin's 
arrangement.  Every  year,  as  farming 
advances,  more  hands  are  required  for 
the  work.  Draining,  tiirnip-husband- 
ry,  extra  manuring,  all  require  addi- 
tional workers;  and  these  small  hold- 
ings would  form  a  reservoir  of  labour, 
from  which  at  regular  intervals  —  at 
the  busy  times  of  hay-making,  turnip- 
singling,  or  the  grain  harvest  —  a 
supply  of  skilled  labourers  would  pour 
forth  to  supplement  the  ordinary  corps 
of  the  farm.  The  peasants  would 
benefit.  These  small  holdings  ever 
before  their  eyes  would  be  a  constant 
stimulus  to  exertion ;  they  would 
furnish  an  inducement  to  save,  an 
opportunity  to  rise,  a  home  for  the 
domestic  virtues,  a  prospective  asylum 
for  their  old  age.  And  the  cruel  sight 
would  no  longer  be  seen  of  ploughmen, 
cast  off  as  hirelings  when  past  then- 
prime,  wending  their  way,  with  every 
bit  of  manly  feeling  crushed  out  of 
them,  into  the  towns — there,  with 
their  families,  to  swell  the  mob,  and 
share  in  the  pauperism  of  factory- 
life. 

The'  present  system  is  a  wrong  to 
the  peasants,  a  damper  to  the  far- 
mers, a  loss  to  the  nation.  u  It' 
any  man  retain  land  which  he 
has  not  the  power  to  improve,"  said 
Lord  Stanley  lately,  "  and  will  not 
sell,  he  is  a  wrong-doer  to  the  com- 
munity." The  remark  is  just.  And 
there  are  too  many  proprietors  at  pre- 
sent, who  go  on  adding  field  to  field, 
and  estate  to  estate — from  a  most 
mistaken  pride  of  acreage — and  yet 
cannot  make  those  outlays,  in  con- 
junction with  their  tenants,  which  are 
necessary  to  the  right  cultivation  of 


Wealth  of  Nations,  book  i.,  chap.  x. 


1855.] 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


755 


the  soil,  and  which  never  fail  amply 
to  repay  themselves.  Let  no  great 
proprietor  allege  that  fresh  purchases 
of  land  are  necessary  as  an  investment 
for  his  surplus  wealth, — for  that  wealth 
would  be  quite  as  profitably  spent 
(and  more  so)  in  helping  his  tenants 
to  improve  the  land  he  already  ha?. 
To  leave  the  fertility  of  thousands 
of  acres  only  half  developed,  for  the 
sake  of  adding  neglected  acres  to  those 
already  neglected,  is  neither  wise 
nor  patriotic.  It  is,  indeed,  a  wrong 
which  law  cannot  touch,  but  it  is  an 
error  which  public  opinion  can  en- 
lighten. But  if  Lord  Stanley's  re- 
mark be  applicable  to  individuals, 
how  much  more  applicable  is  it  to  the 
Legislature,  which  is  the  very  foun- 
tain-head of  the  wrong '?  The  Legis- 
lature has  been  kind  enough  to  give 
us  free  trade  in  all  kinds  of  foreign 
produce,  yet  it  still  keeps  fettered  the 
land,  the  prime  producer  at  home.  In 
a  country  like  this,  where  the  popula- 
tion is  fast  pressing  upon  the  means 
of  subsistence,  it  is  neither  right  nor 
expedient  to  retain  any  of  those  laws, 
dues,  or  customs  which  impede  the 
free  cultivation  of  the  soil, — which  at 
once  oppress  the  labouring -classes, 
and  do  injustice  to  the  whole  com- 
munity. A  relaxation  of  the  laws  of 
entail  would  render  proprietors  more 
willing  to  make  a  proper  outlay  on 
their  estates,  and  so  at  once  lessen  the 
amount  of  waste  grounds,  and  render 
more  fertile  those  already  under  culti- 
vation. But  no  reliance  can  be  placed 
on  such  a  measure  for  checking  the 
spread  of  large  properties ;  without  a 
change  of  opinion,  we  fear  it  would 
only  increase  it.  In  the  present  con- 
dition of  things,  the  abolition  of  entails 
would  be  quite  as  likely  to  throw  the 
land  into  fewer  hands  as  into  more; 
because  the  great  proprietors,  who 
have  large  revenues  or  unlimited  cre- 
dit, will  often  give  more  for  the  land 
than  its  actual  mercantile  worth  ;  so 
that  the  estates  of  impoverished  fami- 


lies would,  in  mauy  cases,  only  be 
transferred  to  those  already  possessed 
of  extensive  domains.  The  offer  of 
ten  thousand  pounds  for  a  small  pro- 
perty that  was  only  worth  five  thou- 
sand, would  be  no  difficulty  to  a  lord 
or  duke,  who  has  perhaps  a  clear  in- 
come of  a  hundred  thousand  a-year, 
and  whose  object  is  not  to  get  money, 
but  to  get  more  land.  If  he  can  duly 
cultivate,  or  develop  the  resources  of 
all  that  land,  good  and  well;  but  if  he 
cannot,  let  him  leave  it  to  others  who 
can.  A  bad  pride  may  counsel  an 
opposite  course,  but  his  true  interest 
is  identical  with  that  of  the  commu- 
nity. At  present  there  are  lying 
waste  in  the  United  Kingdom  no  less 
than  fifteen  million  acres,  which  are 
capable  of  improvement  and  cultiva- 
tion; while  there  are  thousands  of  in- 
dividuals who  would  sooner  invest 
their  small  capitals  in  land  than  in 
manufactures  or  the  funds.  What 
prevents  this  capital  and  these  waste 
lands  coming  together,  but,  firstly, 
the  pernicious  land-mania  of  the  great 
proprietors;  and,  secondly,  the  un- 
just burdens  placed  on  the  soil  by 
the  Legislature.  Trade  and  commerce 
are  free.  A  man  has  every  facility 
for  opening  a  shop,  purchasing  a  fac- 
tory, or  commencing  to  trade.  He 
may  easily  buy  the  ship  he  trades  with, 
the  shop  or  the  factory  where  he  car- 
ries on  his  business.  But  the  land  is 
shut  against  him.  Who  ever  heard 
of  a  farmer  being  allowed  to  purchase 
the  land  which  he  cultivates?  The 
very  buying  and  selling  of  land  is 
like  nothing  else.  Corn,  manufac- 
tures, everything,  passes  from  hand 
to  hand  in  the  simplest  manner  pos- 
sible ;  but  the  transfer  of  land  is 
shackled  by  technicalities  and  ex- 
penses, that  make  it  evident  that  free- 
trade  is  a  thing  still  monopolised  by 
the  towns.  The  simple  processes  iu 
the  Encumbered  Estates  Courts  of  Ire- 
land might  well  be  made  of  wider  ap- 
plication ;*  and  as  to  the  extra  burdens 


*  In  a  recent  letter  to  the  Times  (Nov.  19),  Dr  Leisinger  directs  attention  to  the 
very  simple,  cheap,  and  well-tried  method  of  conveying  land  that  is  adopted  through- 
out Germany.  He  says  : — "  All  landed  proprietors  are  registered,  and  their  proper- 
ties accurately,  but  briefly,  described  in  public  State  records,  easily  accessible  to  any 
inquirers.  In  like  manner,  the  names  and  claims  of  all  mortgagees  upon  the  pro- 
perties arc  registered  in  other  public  books.  In  case  of  sale  or  transfer,  the  parties 
concerned  appear  personally  or  by  their  attorneys  before  the  registration  authorities, 
and,  the  terms  of  the  contract  being  duly  inspected,  the  name  of  the  new  proprietor, 


756 


Our  Rural  Population  and  the  War. 


[Dec. 


upon  land,  we  trust  the  Legislature 
will  soon  come  to  see  that,  in  carry- 
ing out  the  principle  of  exempting  raw 
produce  from  taxation,  they  have 
hitherto  too  much  overlooked  the 
greatest  "  raw  material"  of  all — the 
soil  itself. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  beg  the  great 
proprietors  to  give  to  this  subject  a 
serious  attention.  It  is  in  their  power 
to  increase  the  rural  depopulation, — it 
is  in  their  power  to  check  it.  As  we 
wrote  long  ago,  "  people  do  not  crowd 
into  towns  of  their  own  choice.  Give 
them  their  free  will  and  the  means  of 
subsistence,  and  one  and  all  of  them 
will  prefer  the  fresh  air,  and  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  nature,  to  the  stifling  at- 
mosphere, the  reeking  filth,  and  the 
discordant  cries  of  the  city  lanes  and 
courts."  Give  to  peasants  an  induce- 
ment to  stay  on  estates,  and  they  .will 
not  migrate ;  give  capital  an  opportu- 
nity to  settle  there,  and  it  will  come. 
Small  holdings  is  what  is  wanted  to  se- 
cure the  first  object, — an  abandonment 
of  the  passion  for  adding  acre  to  acre 
is  requisite  for  the  second.  If  there 
be  one  quality  more  than  another  for 
which  the  landed  aristocracy  of  Great 
Britain  are  distinguished,  it  is  the 
noble  one  of  self-sacrifice.  Of  late, 
by  the  abolition  of  the  corn-laws, 
they  have  been  well  tried,  and  they 
have  come  out  pure.  If  the  present 
question,  so  momentous  to  the  last- 
ing interests  of  Britain,  required  any 
sacrifice  on  their  part,  we  doubt  not  it 
would  be  accorded.  But  no  sacrifice 
is  required  ;  the  interests  of  the  land- 
holders are  peculiarly  those  of  the 
country  at  large.  Their  regard  for  the 
rural  population,  though  it  have  lost 
the  warm  ties  of  clanship  that  once 
held  lord  and  peasant  in  affectionate 
union,  has  never  ceased, — we  hope 
soon  to  see  it  manifest  itself  more  un- 
mistakably. We  hope  soon  to  see 
a  large  increase  of  small  holdings  for 
the  peasantry, — a  freer  opening  for 
the  growth  of  small  proprietors.  By 
so  doing,  the  political  power  of  the 
Land  would  be  greatly  increased. 
Property  and  Numbers  are  the  real 


elements  of  weight  in  the  political 
scale,  and  it  will  not  do  to  rely  on  the 
former  alone.  The  Land  has  been 
slighted  of  late,  its  rights  endanger- 
ed, because  those  interested  in  it  are 
few ;  but  its  rights  would  stand  se- 
cure for  all  time  were  the  proper- 
ties many,  and  the  rural  population 
interested  in  the  land  which  they  till. 
The  Conservative  Land-societies  are 
doing  some  little  good  in  this  way  ; 
but  it  is  in  a  national,  not  in  a 
political,  light,  that  we  would  now 
view  their  labours,  and  trust  to  see 
their  efforts  lead  to  wider  results  than 
those  originally  contemplated.  No- 
time  more  favourable  than  the  present 
for  commencing  this  re-peopling  ot 
our  rural  districts.  Rents  are  high, 
prices  are  high, — both  landlords  and 
tenants  are  prospering.  After  a  long 
depression,  the  Land  enjoys  a  much- 
needed  access  of  prosperity.  Let  it 
be  turned  to  account.  Let  the  land- 
ed proprietors  add  to  their  declining 
political  weight  by  a  timely  accession 
to  their  numbers  ; — let  the  farmers  be 
benefited  by  having  around  them  a 
population  adequate  to  the  increasing 
labour-wants  of  an  advancing  agricul- 
ture ;  let  the  peasantry  benefit,  by  a 
great  increase  in  the  number  of  small 
holdings,  which  are  just  so  many  op- 
portunities for  them  to  rise  in  life, 
and  to  find  asylums  in  their  old  age 
amidst  the  fields  they  had  helped  to  till. 
Finally,  let  the  Legislature  set  free 
the  land  by  relieving  it  of  its  undue 
burdens.  They  will  be  slow  to  do  this 
as  long  as  those  interested  in  the  land 
are  few, — they  will  do  it  at  once  if 
the  demand  become  a  national  one. 

Here  let  us  close.  We  cannot  go 
back  to  the  still  larger  question 
respecting  the  power,  welfare,  and 
stability  of  the  empire  as  affected 
by  the  purely  urban  tendencies  ot 
the  present  regime  ;  but,  despite  the 
many  shortcomings  of  our  exposition, 
we  trust,  for  the  sake  of  our  coun- 
try, that  these  matters  will  not  be 
overlooked  by  those  who  enjoy  the 
high  privilege  of  affecting,  by  direct 
action,  the  fortunes  of  the  empire. 


with  the  date  of  the  transaction,  is  simply  entered  by  the  appointed  officer  under  the 
name  of  the  last  one  in  the  State  register  aforesaid,  and  his  claim  is  thenceforth  legally 
secured  against  all  future  question.  The  only  objection  to  introducing  this  easy  and 
inexpensive  plan  into  practice  here,"  drily  adds  the  writer,  "  would  be,  that  it  would 
render  impossible  a  monstrous  amount  of  complicated  litigation  and  still  more  mon- 
strous lawyers'  bills. 


1855.]  Death  of  the  Rev.  John  Eagles.  757 


DEATH  OF  THE  REV.  JOHN  EAGLES. 

WE  have  to  mourn  the  death  of  a  gifted  contributor  of  twenty-five  years' 
standing,  which  took  place  on  the  9th  of  the  past  month.  The  Rev.  John 
Eagles,  best  known  to  many  of  our  readers  as  the  author  of  "  The  Sketcher  " 
papers,  has  passed  from  us  at  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-one,  but  in  the  full 
vigour  of  his  singularly  versatile  genius,  and  the  undiminished  exercise  of 
his  intellectual  activities.  His  bodily  frame  suddenly  gave  way  under  the 
pressure  of  a  complaint  which,  with  but  slight  external  symptoms,  had  been 
for  some  time  undermining  his  constitution ;  but,  like  that  of  the  patriarch 
of  old,  his  end  came  upon  him  with  his  eye  undimmed,  and  his  natural  force 
unabated. 

That  his  years  should  have  been  cut  short  in  the  midst  of  a  prolonged 
fruit- season,  without  passing  under  the  oppression  of  wintry  decrepitude, 
which,  if  he  had  been  longer  spared,  would  certainly  at  some  time  have 
ensued,  may  to  some  be  an  occasion  of  regret.  Let  us  rather  be  thankful 
that  so  much  has  been  granted,  and  not  repine  for  the  want  of  those  supple- 
mentary years  which  are  at  best  but  a  questionable  boon  to  humanity,  but 
which  it  certainly  has  no  right  to  expect.  As  we  must  count  the  soldier 
happy,  who,  whatever  may  be  his  worth,  dies  full  of  strength  and  flushed 
with  victory,  because  he  passes  through  the  dark  gateway  of  the  Unseen  with 
dignity  sustained  to  the  end ;  so  let  us  not  complain  that  the  Artist  and  the 
Man  of  Letters  has  passed  from  Time  into  Eternity  with  undarkened  spirit 
and  untarnished  honours.  It  might  have  been  otherwise,  for  instances  to  the 
contrary,  no  less  painful  than  striking,  have  occurred. 

Checking,  on  these  grounds,  any  feeling  of  impatience  which  may  give  to 
grief  for  the  departed  a  complexion  less  sacred  than  its  proper  one,  we  are  led 
to  look  back  from  the  boundary  of  a  life,  the  value  of  whose  acts  is  enhanced 
by  the  limit  now  assigned  to  their  multiplication,  in  order  that  we  may  recall 
some  points  in  that  course  at  the  end  of  which  we  now  stand.  Mr  Eagles 
was  not  only  himself  an  important  contributor  to  this  Magazine,  but  the 
son  of  a  contributor,  whose  productions  appeared  under  the  signature  ot 
u  Athenaeus"  in  some  of  pur  older  numbers.  He  was  born  at  Bristol  in  1784, 
and  began  his  education  in  the  school  of  Mr  Sayer,  eminent  as  an  antiquarian. 
He  became  a  Wykehamist  at  twelve  or  thirteen,  and  passed  from  Winchester 
to  Wadham  College,  Oxford,  where  he  took  his  degree,  and  entered  Holy 
Orders  in  the  Church  of  England.  His  first  curacy,  which  he  held  for  twelve 
or  fourteen  years,  was  Halberton,  in  Devonshire,  the  Rev.  Sydney  Smith 
having  been  his  rector  for  the  last  five  years  of  this  time.  It  is  remarkable 
that  he  was  cut  off  while  preparing  a  review  of  Sydney  Smith's  Memoirs  for 
the  pages  of  this  Magazine.  He  removed  from  Halberton  to  the  curacy  of 
Winford,  near  Bristol ;  but  in  the  year  1841  relinquished  this  charge  for  a 
residence  in  or  near  his*  native  city,  which  continued  till  his  death.  His 
life,  like  those  of  many  others  of  similar  pursuits,  appears  to  have  been  free 
from  any  very  startling  incidents,  while  it  was  fertile  in  mental  impressions, 
and  at  some  periods  active  and  busy  beyond  ordinary  powers  or  opportunities. 
To  us  his  literary  character  naturally  assumes  a  prominent  position. 

But  his  writings  were  chiefly  the  expression  and  interpretation  of  his  thoughts 
and  feelings  as  an  artist.  The  bulk  of  his  papers  were  written  on  subjects 
connected  with  painting.  His  contributions  to  the  Magazine  extend  from  1831 
to  the  present  time,  his  last  paper  being  a  review  of  Once  upon  a  Time.  But 
in  1833  and  the  two  following  years  the  admirable  papers  called  "The 
Sketcher  "  appeared — a  series  made  up  of  critiques  on  schools  and  exhibitions 
of  painting,  descriptions  of  scenery,  elucidations  of  the  principles  of  art — all 
full  of  truth  and  beauty;  pieces  of  poetry  being  judiciously  introduced  in 
such  measure  and  manner  as  only  to  give  piquancy  to  the  prose  ;  if  indeed 
that  be  truly  called  prose  which  is  but  poetry  unfettered  by  metre,  a 
"linked"  sweetness,  long  drawn  out,  "  of  luxuriant  fancies  and  harmonious 
imagery." 


75*  Death  of  the  Rev.  Jo/tn  Eagles.  [Dec.  1855. 

But  he  also  wrote  on  subjects  political,  social,  and  purely  literary,  in  a 
style  changing  from  grave  to  gay,  but  in  all  its  changes  attractive.  Many  ot 
his  papers  were  written  in  the  form  of  "  Letters  to  Eusebius" — a  name  which 
stands  for  that  of  an  old  and  still  surviving  friend.  All  of  them  arc  distin- 
guished, not  only  by  rare  erudition  and  exquisite  taste,  but  by  a  novelty  of 
treatment  and  a  racy  humour,  which,  while  it  enforces  respect  for  the  author, 
opens  a  wide  fund  of  interest  and  entertainment  to  the  reader.  A  living  and 
sparkling  wit  accompanies  the  course  of  his  subject  in  every  direction,  playful 
and  innocuous  as  summer  lightning,  occasionally  breaking  into  stronger  flashes 
of  satire,  too  much  tempered  with  charity  to  sting,  but  touching  the  salient 
points  of  our  weaknesses,  and  making  vulgarity  and  pretence  ashamed,  by 
simply  throwing  light  upon  them.  An  enthusiastic  scholar,  he  made  those 
immortal  authors  the  teachers  of  his  boyhood,  the  favourite  companions  of 
an  age  which  perhaps  alone  is  capable  of  fully  appreciating  them  ;  and  his 
mind  showed  itself,  in  all  that  he  spoke,  wrote,  or  did,  thoroughly  imbued 
with  their  spirit,  but  without  the  slightest  tinge  of  pedantry.  In  this  we  may 
compare  him  to  a  living  author  of  nearly  the  same  age  as  himself,  and  whose 
friendship  he  enjoyed — Walter  Savage  Landor.  His  translations  of  Homer's 
Hymns  are  well  known  to  many  of  our  readers  ;  and  his  happy  illustrations 
of  Horace,  Catullus,  and  others  of  the  ancient  poets,  are  not  easily  to  be 
forgotten.  He  was  also  the  author  of  original  poems  of  great  merit,  inspired 
by  the  classic  models,  and  showing  the  capacities  of  the  English  language  as 
a' vehicle  of  antique  modes  of  thought. 

No  man  has  ever  had  a  right  to  speak  on  the  subject  of  Painting  with 
fuller  knowledge,  and  on  the  strength  of  more  practical  experience  ;  for  few 
amateurs,  if  any,  have  ever  plied  the  brush  with  greater  perseverance  and 
success.  Having  formed  his  style  principally  on  that  of  the  great  Italian 
masters  of  landscape-painting,  as  well  as  by  studies  pursued  during  travel  in 
their  glorious  country,  he  painted  English  scenery  with  great  truth,  but  ever 
in  its  best  aspects.  He  had  a  rare  faculty  of  seeing  the  latent  picture  in  every 
form  of  nature,  drawing  out,  as  it  were,  the  soul  of  the  scene,  and  putting  it 
on  canvass  by  itself,  apart  from  all  vulgarising  accidents. 

As  a  parochial  clergyman,  Mr  Eagles  earned  the  respect  of  all  who  knew 
him,  and  was  especially  beloved  by  the  poor,  for  the  patient  good-humour  with 
which  he  attended  to  their  wants,  and  interested  himself  in  their  occupations. 
But  all  that  the  world  knows  of  such  a  man  is  trivial  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  had  the  privilege  of  his  friendship.  When  his  countenance  became 
animated  in  conversation,  the  great  intellectual  beauty  with  which  it  was 
endued  became  for  the  first  time  apparent.  Then  first  was  seen  the  full  effect 
of  his  eloquent  eyes,  noble  forehead,  and  most  expressive  mouth.  His  figure, 
though  not  very  tall,  was  majestic,  from  the  fineness  of  the  bust,  and  the 
manner  in  which  he  carried  his  head.  Though  of  strongly  pronounced 
opinions,  a  Tory  of  the  old  school  in  matters  both  of  Church  and  State,  he 
was  able  to  count  some  of  his  staunchest  private  friends  amongst  the  number 
of  his  political  and  polemical  enemies;  for  all  knew  that  in  controversy  he 
never  exceeded  the  bounds  of  the  most  delicate  courtesy. 

Of  retiring  habits,  in  consequence  of  a  sensibility  which  shrunk  into  itself 
when  exposed  to  assumption  and  intrusion,  and  thus  begrudging  the  riches  of 
his  converse  to  general  society,  he  was  a  charming  companion  to  the  few 
before  whom  he  chose  to  unveil  his  mind,  delighting  especially,  by  illustration 
and  argument,  in  drawing  out  the  young,  and  leading  the  old  back  to  youth 
again — teaching  ever  that  Poetry  is  the  fairest  side  of  Truth,  and  Charity  the 
highest  law  of  action :  above  all,  by  living  as  an  example  of  buoyancy  of 
mind  and  freshness  of  feeling,  at  an  advanced  age,  and  thus  unconsciously 
furnishing  to  any  that  might  need  it,  one  of  the  least  fallacious  proofs  of  the 
indestructibility  of  the  soul. 


INDEX   TO  VOL.   LXXVIII. 


Abercromby,  sir  Ralph,  387— his  expedi- 
tion to  Egypt,  392. 

Aberdeen  ministry,  revelations  regarding 
the,  99— review  of  their  policy,  101 
et  seq. 

Abkasia,  the  inhabitants  of,  &c.,  528. 

Acheta,  the  works  of,  227. 

Actiniae,  the,  224. 

Adam,  sir  F.,  extracts  from  journal  of, 
387. 

ADMINISTRATIVE  REFORM  —  THE  CIVIL 
SERVICE,  116. 

Administrative  reformers,  objects,  &c.  of 
the,  119. 

Africa,  the  circumnavigation  of,  by  the 
Phoenicians,  697. 

Albacete  railway,  the,  452. 

Alcoholic  drinks,  use,  &c.  of,  556. 

Alexander,  fort,  at  Cronstadt,  139. 

Algonquin  and  Dakotah  Indians,  war  be- 
tween the,  166. 

Allies,  the  terms  offered  to  Russia  by  the, 
259. 

Alpine  hare,  the,  474. 

AMERICA,  THE  NORTH-WEST  STATES  OF, 
see  Canada. 

America,  passion  for  speculation  in,  42 — 
beverages  used  in,  551 — the  era  of  the 
discovery  of,  587. 

American  fur  company,  the,  1 70. 

Anapa,  the  evacuation  of,  by  the  Rus- 
sians, 268 — visit  to,  522. 

Anastasia,  wife  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  9, 
10. 

Anderson,  Mr,  on  civil  service  appoint- 
ments, 123. 

Animals,  variety  of,  used  for  food,  551. 

Anne,  empress  of  Russia,  185. 

Anne  of  Brittany,  Miss  Costello's  life  of, 
448. 

Antiquity,  sonnet  to,  54. 

Apollinarisberg,  the,  714. 

Apraxin,  marshal,  191. 

Aquarium,  the,  221. 

Arabat,  destruction  of,  92,  268. 

Architecture,  the  art  of,  7 1 3 — Ruskin  on, 
714. 

Arctic  discovery,  enterprise,  &c.  of,  589. 

Aristocracy,  the  outcry  against  the,  117. 

Arnold,  Edwin,  Vernier  by,  86. 

ART,  MODERN  WORKS  ON,  702. 

Asia,  beverages  used  in,  551. 

Astrological  almanacs,  on,  61. 

Aubrey,  John,  62,  63. 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


Augustus  III.,  king  of  Poland,  186,  195. 

Austria,  present  position  of,  231 — con- 
duct of,  at  the  Vienna  conferences,  237 — 
a  party  to  the  partition  of  Poland,  340 
— the  first  partition,  344 — the  second, 
354— the  productions  x>f,  at  the  Paris 
exhibition,  603. 

Authors  and  reviewers,  on,  463. 

Ayton,  sir  R.,  verses  by,  63. 

Azoff,  sea  of,  operations  and  successes  of 
the  Allies  in  the,  92,  267. 

Back  Holmen,  island,  &c.  of,  460. 

Backwoods  hotel,  a,  41. 

Bacon,  connection  of  Shakespeare  with, 
55. 

Balaklava,  sketches  at,  457. 

Ballad  singing,  disappearance  of,  67. 

BALTIC  IN  1855,  the,  135— its  dangers,  ib. 
— its  general  character,  136 — sailing 
from  Kiel,  ib.— Revel,  137— Cronstadt, 
ib.  et  seq. — probabilities  as  to  attack  on 
it,  142  —Part  II.  description  and  bom- 
bardment of  Sveaborg,  427. 

Barbel  fishing  in  the  Lea,  467. 

Bashi-Bazouks,  the,  455. 

Basil,  bishop,  on  Simony,  666. 

Batoum,  visit  to,  530. 

Beatson,  general,  455. 

Beaux  arts,  the  Palais  de,  at  Paris,  600. 

Bekchit  Pasha,  sketches  of,  527,  531. 

Belgian  school  of  painting,  the,  611. 

Belgium,  the  productions  of,  at  the  Paris 
exhibition,  603. 

Bell's  Life  in  London,  notices  of,  362  et 
seq. 

Belley,  Leon,  painting  by,  610. 

Ben  Jonson,  sketch  of,  56. 

Benefices,  patronage  of,  in  England,  680 
note. 

Berdiansk,  bombardment  of,  267. 

Beste,  J.  R.,  the  Wabash  by,  595. 

Betel  as  a  narcotic,  558. 

Beverages,  variety  of,  551. 

Biren,  favourite  of  Anne  of  Russia,  186 — 
his  fall,  190. 

BLACK  SEA,  THE  EASTERN  SHORES  OF  THE, 
521. 

Black  Sea,  true  aim  of  Russia  in  the,  2. 

BLACKSTONE,  WARREN'S  ABRIDGMENT  OF, 
199. 

Blakesley,  Mr,  his  attack  on  Herodotus, 
686. 

Bonheur,  Rosa,  the  paintings  of,  607,  608. 

BOOKS  FOR  THE    HOLIDAYS,  No.    I.,  Bell's 
8    D 


760 


Index. 


Life  in  London,  362  —  No.  II.,  Any 
recent  work  on  Sporting,  463. 

Boris  Godounoff,  Russia  under,  12. 

Bosquet,  general,  at  the  assault  of  the 
Mamelou,  95. 

Botanists,  the  scientific  names  given  by, 
225. 

Bowling  saloon,  a,  in  St  Paul,  330. 

Boxer,  admiral,  death  of,  266. 

Braintree  case,  the,  59. 

Bribery,  universality  of,  in  Russia,  283. 

Bright,  Mr,  his  argument  against  the 
war,  261. 

Brown,  sir  George,  return  of,  to  England, 
267. 

Buckley,  the  printer  of  the  Spectator,  64. 

BUNBURY'S  GREAT  WAR  WITH  FRANCE, 
review  of,  378. 

Buol,  count,  and  the  Vienna  conferences, 
240. 

Burglar,  parallel  between  a,  and  Rus- 
sia, 1. 

Burton  and  his  Anatomy,  notices  of,  57. 

Burton's  Pilgrimage  to  El  Medinah,  590. 

Bustard,  extermination  of  the,  in  Eng- 
land, 473. 

Butler,  Dr,  anecdote  of,  64. 

Ca'ing  whale,  the,  in  Zetland,  470. 

Calhoun,  lake,  323. 

Calmucks,  emigration  of  the,  from  Russia, 
346. 

CALVERT'S  JOURNALS  AND  CORRESPON- 
DENCE, review  of,  378. 

Cambyses  and  his  sister,  story  of,  from 
Herodotus,  694. 

CAMPAIGN,  STORY  OF  THE,  see  STORY. 

Campbell,  sir  John,  death  of,  at  the 
Redan,  263. 

CANADA  AND  THE  NORTH- WEST  STATES 
OP  AMERICA,  NOTES  ON  THE,  Part  IV. 
Wisconsin,  39  —  Part  V.  The  Upper 
Mississippi,  165— Part  VI.  Minnesota, 
322. 

Canoe  voyaging,  sketches  of,  46  et  seq. 

Canon  law,  codification  of  the,  672. 

Canrobert,  general,  succeeded  by  Pelis- 
sier,  91. 

Caroline,  Queen  of  George  II.,  character, 
Ac.  of.  446. 

Caroline  of  Brunswick,  Queen,  447. 

Carriages,  the  exhibition  of,  at  Paris,  605. 

Cartismandua,  Queen,  443. 

Cass,  governor,  exploration  of  the  Missis- 
sippi by,  169. 

Caterpillars,  570. 

Catharine  L,  accession  of,  her  policy,  &c., 
183— her  will,  185. 

Catharine  II.,  accession  and  policy  of, 
193  et  seq.,  338  et  seq. 

Catlow,  A.,  Drops  of  water  by,  224. 

Cemetery  at  Sebastopol,  capture  of  the, 
91. 

Centipede,  the,  in  the  Crimea,  459. 

Central  Bastion,  repulse  of  the  French  at 
the,  621. 

CENTRALISATION,  a  Dialogue,  497. 


Chadwick,  Mr  E.,  on  the  Civil  Service, 

122,  123. 
Chalcedon,  the  Council  of,  on  Simony, 

665. 

Charles  XII.,  the  war  between,  and  Rus- 
sia, 14. 

Charlotte,  Queen,  446. 
Charlotte,  the  Princess,  447. 
CHEMISTRY  OF  COMMON  LIFE,  THE,  review 

of,  548. 
Chicago,  city  of,  337— railway  traffic  at, 

328. 
China,  the  productions  of,  at  the  Paris 

exhibition,  604. 
Chippeway  Indians,  the  war  between  the, 

and  the  Sioux,  166 — their  numbers,  &c., 

167. 

Chocolate  as  a  beverage,  551. 
Choiseul,  the  Due  de,  policy  of,  toward 

Russia,  198. 
Christopher  in  his  Sporting  Jacket  and 

on  Colonsay,  remarks  on,  399. 
Church,  the  legislation  of  the,  regarding 

Simony,  665. 
Church,   the   Russian,   as  organised   by 

Peter  the  Great,  16. 
Circassia,  sketches  in,  523  et  seq. 
Circassians,  sketches  of  the,  522  et  seq. 
CIVIL  SERVICE,  ADMINISTRATIVE  REFORM 

OF  THE,  117. 

Clarendon,   lord,   and  the   Vienna   con- 
ferences, 240. 

Classes,  artificial  distinctions  bet  ween,  499. 
Clisthenes,  change  in  the  constitution  of 

Athens  by,  689. 
Coaches,  the  first,  66. 
Coal-fields  of  the  United  States,  the,  335. 
Coalition  ministry,  revelations  regarding 

the,  99  et  seq. — review  of  their  policy, 

101. 
Coca  leaf,  use  of  the,  as  a  narcotic,  550, 

558. 

Cocoa,  early  use  of,  &c.  in  Mexico,  550. 
Coffee  as  a  beverage,  551,  554. 
Coffee  leaf,  beverage  from  the,  552,  553. 
Coleridge  on  opium-eating,  560,  561. 
Collins'  Rambles  beyond  railways,  593. 
Colquhoun's  Moor  and  the  Loch,  473. 
Columbus,  the  era  of,  587. 
Commons,  house  of,  present  aspect,  &c.  of 

the,  98. 
Conscription,  pressure  of  the,  in  Russia, 

250. 
Constantinople  the  views  of  Russia  on,  2 

— early  development  of  her  views  on,  9 

et  seq. — sketches  at,  455. 
Convicts,  treatment,   &c.  of,  in  Russia, 

281. 

Cornwall,  Collins'  Rambles  in,  593. 
Corporal  punishment,   prevalence  of,  in 

Russia,  273. 

Cossacks,  present  state  of  the,  274. 
Costello,  Miss,  Life  of  Anne  of  Brittany 

by,  448. 
COURTSHIP  UNDER  DIFFICULTIES,  from 

the  German  of  F.  Stolle,  718. 


Index. 


761 


Creature  comforts,  571. 

Cricket,  Bell's  Life  on,  370. 

Crimea,  conquest  of  the,  by  Russia,  343, 
347,  349— her  cruelties  there,  350 — 
Herodotus'  account  of  the,  696,  698. 

Crimean  rat,  the,  459. 

Cromwell,  anecdote  of,  64. 

Cron  castle  at  Cronstadt,  139. 

Cronslott,  fort  of,  139. 

Cronstadt,  island  of,  138 — description  of 
the  position  and  its  defences,  137  et  seq. 
— strength  of,  and  its  garrison,  427. 

Crow  Wing,  settlement  of,  173. 

Crown  peasants,  state  of  the,  in  Russia, 
276. 

Crown  surgeons,  the,  in  Russia,  271. 

Crystal  palace,  the,  498 — the  geological 
restorations  at  the,  226 — on  the  opening 
of  it  on  Sunday,  501. 

Cymbeline,  Mrs  Hall's  account  of,  443. 

Cypselus,  the  story  of,  from  Herodotus, 
694. 

Cyrus,  anecdote  of,  from  Herodotus,  691. 

Daendels,  general,  388. 

Dakotah  and  Algonquin  Indians,  war  be- 
tween the,  166. 

Damiani,  definition  of  Simony  by,  667. 

Debtor  and  Creditor,  changes  in  the  law 
of,  209. 

Decimal  coinage,  on,  503. 

Delaroche,  the  paintings  of,  608. 

Dempster,  Mr,  of  Skibo,  on  small  hold- 
ings, 739. 

Denham,  sir  John,  anecdote  of,  64. 

De  Quincey  on  opium-eating,  560,  561. 

Despotism,  origin  and  character  of,  in 
Russia,  4. 

Detroit,  town  of,  338. 

Diet,  essential  similarity  of.  throughout 
the  globe,  549. 

Dievitch,  general,  cruelties  of,  in  Poland, 
339. 

Disraeli,  Mr,  his  threatened  no-confi- 
dence motion,  99,  234— mode  of  cam- 
paign proposed  by,  260. 

Dissidents  of  Poland,  the,  197. 

Divorce,  on  the  law  of,  207. 

Dolgoroucki,  prince,  rise  of,  185  —  his 
fall,  186. 

Domestic  servants,  class,  &c.  of,  in  Rus- 
sia, 273. 

Doran's  Lives  of  the  Hanoverian  Queens, 
remarks  on,  444. 

Drinking,  prevalence  of,  in  Russia,  270, 
274. 

Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  M.,  at  the  Vienna  con- 
ferences, 241. 

Dryden  and  Milton,  interview  between. 
60. 

Dubuque,  town  of,  234. 

Dundas,  sir  David,  the  Eighteen  man- 
oeuvres of,  385. 

Dunkirk,  the  siege  of,  in  1794,  382. 

EAGLES,  REV.  JOHN,  DEATH  AND  CHAR- 
ACTER OF,  757. 

East  Svarto,  fort  of,  461. 


Easter,  observance  of,  in  Russia,  279. 

EASTEKN  SHORES  OF  THE  BLACK  SEA,  THE, 
521. 

Ecclesiastical  law,  history  of  the,  regard- 
ing Simony,  665. 

Edinburgh  Review,  the,  scheme  against 
Simony  proposed  by,  684. 

Education,  proposed  introduction  of  law 
into,  200. 

Egypt,  the  expedition  under  Abercromby 
to,  393 — the  productions  of,  at  the 
Paris  exhibition,  604. 

Eldon,  lord,  singular  decision  of,  199. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  sketches  of,  54  —  laws 
regarding  Simony  under,  674. 

Elizabeth,  empress  of  Russia,  accession 
&c.  of,  191. 

England  and  France,the  alliance  between, 
491 — the  struggle  regarding  investi- 
tures in,  671 — history  of  the  law  of 
Patronage  in,  ib. — present  state  of  the 
laws  regarding  Simony  in,  676 — state 
of  patronage  in,  680  note — decrease  of 
the  rural  population  in,  740. 

English  prisoners,  treatment  of,  in  Rus- 
sia, 257. 

English  school  of  painting,  the,  609. 

English  works  of  art  at  the  Paris  exhibi- 
tion, the,  602. 

Episodes  of  Insect  life,  notice  of,  227. 

Ettrick  Shepherd  of  the  Noctes,  the,  397. 

Europe,  beverages  used  in,  551. 

EUSEBIUS,  LETTER  TO—  ONCE  UPON  A  TlME, 

Part  II.,  54. 

Evidence,  the  law  of,  209. 

Exhibitions  of  London  and  Paris,  com- 
parison between  the,  599. 

Eyre,  general,  during  the  assault  of  the 
Redan,  264  et  seq. 

Fable,  admixture  of,  with  early  history, 
687. 

Fairs  in  Russia,  the,  278. 

Famine,  evils  from,  in  Russia,  272. 

Fedor  I.,  Czar  of  Russia,  reign  of,  12 — II., 
ib. 

Felony,  definition  of,  205. 

Ferrier,  professor,  as  editor  of  the  Noctes, 
397. 

Fielding,  picture  of  the  "  Fourth  estate  " 
by,  66. 

"  Fine  writing,"  568. 

Finland,  intrigues,  &c.  of  Catharine  in, 
353 — and  its  population,  sketches  of,428 

Finland,  the  gulf  of,  429. 

Fond  du  Lac,  advantages  of  position  of, 
42— Indian  village  of,  46. 

Food,  variety  of  animals  used  for,  561. 

Football,  former  playing  of,  in  London, 
65,  66. 

Fourth  Estate  of  Fielding,  the,  66. 

France,  origin  and  progress  of  the  alliance 
with,  100 — conduct  of,  on  the  Turkish 
question,  102 — treachery  of  the  Aber- 
deen ministry  toward,  105 — policy  of, 
toward  Catharine,  198  —  commence- 
ment, &c.  of  the  last  war  with,  379 — 


762 


Index. 


the  alliance  between  her  and  England, 
491 — provincialism  in,  502 — the  indus- 
trial works  of,  at  the  Paris  exhibition, 
602. 

Franklin,  sir  John,  the  loss  of,  589. 

Fredericksham,  town  of,  430 — attack  on, 
433. 

Free  peasants,  state  of  the,  in  Russia,  276. 

Freemasonry  among  the  Winnebagoes, 
177. 

French  school  of  painting,  the,  607. 

Fullom's  Marvels  of  Science,  remarks  on, 
229. 

Gallitzin,  prince,  cruelty  of  Anne  of  Rus- 
sia to,  186. 

Genghiz  Khan,  effects  of  the  conquest  of 
Russia  by,  4. 

Genitsch,  bombardment  and  destruction 
of,  92,  268. 

Geological  restorations  at  Sydenham,  the, 
226. 

German  powers,  present  position  of  the, 
231. 

Germans,  the  historical  scepticism  of  the, 
687. 

Germany,  past  policy  of  Russia  toward,  16. 

Ghelendjik,  visit  to,  526. 

Gibbon,  the  history  of,  437. 

Gibson,  Mr  Milner,  his  peace  motion, 
&c.,  99. 

Gladstone,  Mr,  character,  &c.  of,  114 — 
speech  of,  on  the  war,  234. 

Glasse,  captain,  at  the  bombardment  of 
Sveaborg,  434. 

Gobelins  tapestry,  the,  605. 

Goodhue,  colonel,  a  Yankee  editor,  325. 

Gortchakoff,  prince,  at  the  Vienna  con- 
ferences, 2. 

Gosse's  Aquarium,  review  of,  219. 

Graham,  sir  James,  recent  conduct  of,  113. 

Gratian,  codification  of  the  canon  law 
by,  672. 

Great  Britain,  policy  of,  toward  Catharine 
of  Russia,  198 — deficient  preparations 
of,  for  the  war,  231. 

Great  Savannah,  the,  51. 

Greek  Archipelago,  the,  453. 

Green,  Mrs,  Lives  of  the  Princesses  by, 
448. 

Gregory  XIII.,  codification  of  the  canon 
law  under,  672. 

Grey  ministry,  aristocratic  exclusiveness 
of  the,  117. 

Grimsby  burglar,  parallel  between  Rus- 
sia and  a,  1. 

Gudin,  the  paintings  of,  609. 

Guenever,  Queen,  444. 

Gunboats,  want  of,  in  the  Baltic,  142, 
231— the,  at  the  bombardment  of  Svea- 
borg, 434. 

Gustavsward,  fort  of,  460. 

Gustavus  III.,  policy  of  Catharine  of  Rus- 
sia toward,  194. 

Hall,  Mrs,  the  Queens  before  the  Con- 
quest by,  443. 

Hammercloth,  origin  of  the,  66. 


Hammett,  commander,  death  of,  514. 

Hassall,  Dr,  Food  and  its  adulterations 
by,  229. 

Hauteur  des  Terres,  the,  165. 

Haymaking,  season  of,  in  Russia,  274. 

Helsingfors,  city  of,  430. 

Hemp  as  a  narcotic,  558. 

Henry,  major,  wounded,  514. 

Herbillon,  general,  516. 

HERODOTUS,  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF,  685. 

Highlands,  decrease  of  the  rural  popula- 
tion in  the,  736  et  seq. 

Hildebrand,  the  usurpations,  &c.  of,  668. 

Historical  poem,  disappearance  of  the, 
438. 

History,  modern,  437. 

Hobart,  lieutenant,  at  the  bombardment 
of  Sveaborg,  433. 

HOLIDAYS,  see  BOOKS  FOR  THE  HOLIDAYS. 

Holland,  the  expedition  to,  in  1793,  380 
et  seq.— that  in  1797, 387  et  seq.— paint- 
ings from,  at  the  Paris  exhibition,  611. 

Hollar,  anecdote  of,  63. 

Hospitality,  prevalence  of,  in  Russia,  270. 

Hotel  dinner  in  the  Far  West,  a,  329. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  the  Old  Court  Suburb  by, 
449. 

Husband  and  wife,  on  the  law  of,  206. 

Hutchinson,  Lucy,  the  story  of,  61. 

Illinois  central  railway,  the,  329. 

Imitation,  Ruskin  on,  705. 

IMPERIAL  POLICY  OF  RUSSIA,  THE,  see 
RUSSIA. 

In  Memoriam,  remarks  on,  313. 

India,  the  productions  of,  at  the  Paris 
exhibition,  603. 

Indian  village,  an,  165. 

Infernal  machines,  the  Russian,  141. 

Infidelity,  character  of  modern,  73. 

Ingres,  the  paintings  of,  608. 

Iowa,  sketches  in,  335. 

IREN^EUS,  LETTER  TO — PARIS  AND  THE 
EXHIBITION,  599. 

Italy,  the  productions  of,  at  the  Paris 
exhibition,  603,  604. 

Itasca,  lake,  rise  of  the  Mississippi  in,  165. 

Intoxicating  drinks,  uses,  &c.  of,  556. 

Investitures,  the  contest  for,  668. 

Ivan  the  Superb,  the  Czar,  8. 

Ivan  the  Terrible,  reign,  &c.  of,  8. 

Ivan,  brother  of  Peter  the  Great,  13. 

Jacobi,  the  infernal  machines  of,  141. 

Jameson,  Mrs,  Sacred  and  Legendary 
Art  by,  708. 

Jadin,  the  paintings  of,  609. 

Jaroslav  the  Great,  reign  of,  in  Russia,  5, 

Jativa,  sketches  at,  452. 

Jermak,  conquest  of  Siberia  by,  11. 

Jews,  the,  in  Russia,  274. 

Jobbery,  prevalence  of,  121. 

JOHNSTON,  PROFESSOR,  THE  LAST  WORK 
OF,  548. 

Jones,  general,  at  the  assault  of  the  Re- 
dan, 264. 

Jonson,  Ben,  sketch  of  the  career  of,  56. 

Justice,  administration  of,  in  Russia,  285. 


Index. 


763 


Justinian  code,  legislation  regarding  pa- 
tronage by  the,  666. 

Kadukoi,  village  of,  457. 

Kainardji,  the  treaty  of,  346. 

Karamsin,  Histoire  de  Kussie,  1 — on  the 
ancient  Sclaves,  6. 

Karr,  Alphonse.  a  Tour  round  my  garden 
by,  507. 

Kertsch,  the  first  expedition  against,  and 
its  recall,  91 — the  second,  and  its  suc- 
cesses, 92 — destruction  of,  268 — past 
and  present  state  of,  521. 

Kharkoff,  roads  near,  273. 

Kiel,  sailing  of  the  fleet  from,  136. 

Kingsley's  Glaucus,  review  of,  216 — 
Westward  Ho  !  remarks  on,  588. 

KNIGHT'S  ONCE  UPON  A  TIME,  Part  II.,  54. 

Knout,  the,  in  Russia,  281. 

Labda,  the  story  of,  from  Herodotus,  694. 

Labonssiniere,  general,  death  of,  264. 

La  Marmora,  general  Alex.,  death  of  ,266. 

Lamartine's  History  of  the  Girondists,  re- 
marks on,  439. 

Land,  sale  of,  in  the  United  States,  331. 

Land  speculation,  prevalence  of,  in  Ame- 
rica, 42. 

Landed  proprietors,  state,  character,  &c. 
of  the,  in  Russia,  269— their  sufferings 
there  from  the  war,  249. 

Landed  property,  law  of  succession  of,  in 
Russia,  271. 

Lang-brn,  island,  &c.  of,  461. 

Law,  the  expense  of,  59 — on  ignorance  of, 
as  excusing  its  breach,  1 99 — importance 
of  the  study  of  the,  200— the  adminis- 
tration of  it  in  Russia,  285. 

Lawrence,  captain,  at  the  bombardment 
of  Sveaborg,  434. 

Lawyers,  Burton  on,  58. 

Lay  patronage,  see  SIMONY,  &c. 

Lea,  fishing  in  the,  467. 

Lead  mines  at  Dubuque,  the,  335. 

Leslie's  Hand-book  for  young  Painters, 
remarks  on,  712. 

Le  Sueur,  the  voyages,  &c.  of,  170. 

Liberum  veto,  origin  of  the,  in  Poland. 
195. 

LIGHT  LITERATURE  FOR  THE  HOLIDAYS, 
No.  I.,  Bell's  Life  in  London,  362— No. 
II.,  Any  recent  work  on  sporting,  463. 

Lilla,  fort  of,  461. 

Lindegren,  Amelie,  a  Swedish  painter, 
606. 

Lisi  Nos,  fort  of,  142. 

Little  Redan,  the,  513— repulse  of  the 
French  at  the,  619. 

Little  Russia,  the  population,  &c.  of,  277. 

Levy,  the  history  of,  687. 

Loggan  stone,  the,  593. 

London,  Burton  on,  58 — former  state  of 
the  streets  of,  60— picture  of,  483 — 
centralisation  of,  504. 

London  society,  sketch  of,  during  last 
century,  70. 

Long,  sir  James,  64. 

Louis  Napoleon,  policy  of,  in  the  war,  496. 


Lovisa,  town  of,  430— attack  on,  433. 

Luth,  the  sieur  de,  170. 

Lytton,   sir   E.   B.,  his  motion  on  lord 

John  Russell,  235. 
Machinery,  the  exhibition  of,  at  Paris, 

605. 
MacMahon,  general,  at  the  assault  of  the 

Malakhoff,  619. 

M'Nab,  Rory,  a  seal-hunter,  475. 
MADRID  TO  BALAKLAVA,  FROM,  452. 
Maiden's  Rock,  legend  of  the,  332. 
Malakhoff,  attempt  of  the  French  on  the, 

96— the  first  assault  of  the,   and   its 

repulse,  262 — progress  of  the  French 

works  against  the,  513 — description  of 

it,  and  its  assault  and  capture,  618 — 

errors  in  its  construction,  621. 
Malta,  visit  to,  453. 
Mamelon,  assault  and  capture  of  the,  95. 

— visittoit,515 — great  explosion  at,  ib. 
Maple  sugar,  Indian  manufacture  of,  172. 
March  winds  and  April  showers,  notice 

of,  227. 

Marechal,  painting  by,  610. 
Marriage,  Warren  on  the  law  of,  206. 
Marvel,  Andrew,  anecdote  of,  63. 
Mary  de  Medici,  Miss  Pardoe's  life  of, 

449. 
Masters  and  servants,  relations  between, 

in  Russia,  275. 
MAUD,  review  of,  311. 
Maud  v.  Cordelia,  569. 
Maule,  Mr  Justice,  on  ignorance  of  the 

law,  199. 

Maurice,  the  works  of,  74. 
May-day  in  the  old  time,  sketch  of,  54. 
May  fair,  origin  of,  62. 
May  flowers,  notice  of,  227. 
Mazeppa,  hatred  of,  in  Russia,  274. 
Men,  strength  of  Russia  in,  427. 
Mendota,  city  of,  324. 
Menschikoff,  the  rise  of  the  first,  183— his 

fall,  185. 
Menschikoff,  prince,  the  negotiations  of, 

103. 

Menschikoff,  fort,  139. 
Merchants,  the  class  of,  in  Russia,  282 — 

their  sufferings  from  the  war,  253. 
Michael,  prince,  a  Circassian  leader,  528. 
Midnight  alarm,  the,  566. 
Mikhail  Romanoff,  the  Tsar,  12. 
Military  education,  state  of,  in  Russia, 

255. 
Militia,  continued  neglect  of  the,  231 — 

the  Russian,  state  of,  256. 
Milner  Gibson,  the  motion  of,  on  the  war, 

234. 

Milton,  the  puritanism  of,  60. 
Minnesota,  notes  on,  322. 
Minnesota  river,  the,  323. 
Minnetonka,  lake,  323. 
Misdemeanour  in  law,  definition  of,  206. 
Misseri's  hotel  at  Pera,  455. 
Mississippi,  source  of  the,  165 — a  canoe 

voyage  down  the,  ib.  et  seq.  —the  falls 

of  the,  at  St  Anthony,  323. 


764 


Index. 


Mississippi  steamboat,  voyage  in  a,  331 
et  seq. 

MODERN  LIGHT  LITERATURE,  Theology 
— the  Broad  Church,  72— Science,  215 
—  History,  437— Travellers'  Tales, 
586— Art,  702. 

Moonlight  at  Sea,  484. 

Morning  at  Sea,  a,  485. 

Mountain,  meditation  on  a,  578. 

Moscow,  when  made  the  capital  of  Rus- 
sia, 8. 

Miiller,  the  frescoes  of,  714. 

Munich,  marshal,  186— his  accession  to 
power,  190 — his  fall,  191. 

Mycerinus,  the  story  of,  from  Herodotus, 
693. 

Napier,  sir  C.,  correspondence  of,  with 
sir  J.  Graham,  113. 

Napier's  Modern  Painting  at  Naples,  re- 
marks on,  712. 

Narcotics,  employment  of,  558. 

Nargen,  the  Baltic  fleet  at,  137. 

Narva,  bay  of,  429. 

Nations,  difficulty  of  tracing  the  origin 
of,  5. 

Navy  of  Eussia,  the,  14. 

Nebraska  territory,  the,  335. 

Newspapers,  ancient  and  modern,  64. 

Niagara,  visit  to,  338. 

Nicholas,  views,  &c.  of,  regarding  the 
Aberdeen  ministry,  101. 

Nile,  Herodotus  on  the  inundations  of  the, 
697. 

Nobility  of  Poland,  character,  &c.  of  the, 
195. 

Nobles,  state,  character,  &c.  of  the,  in 
Russia,  269. 

NOCTES  AMBROSIAN.E,  THE,  review  of, 
395. 

NORTH  AND  THE  NOCTES,  395. 

North  of  the  Noctes,  the,  399. 

North  American  Indians,  sketches  of  the, 
165. 

North- West  Company  of  Montreal,  the, 
170. 

NORTH-WEST  STATES  or  AMERICA,  see 
CANADA. 

Northern  Barbarians,  the  invasions  of 
the,  5. 

Officials,  bribery  among,  in  Russia,  283. 

OLD  CONTRIBUTOR  AT  THE  SEA-SIDE,  AN, 
Where  am  I  ?  478— What  I  got  out  of 
to  get  into  all  this,  ib. — How  I  got  out 
of  all  this,  483—1  am  getting  along, 
484 — I  am  getting  near  the  end  of  the 
voyage,  485— Eureka,  486— Bathing  at 

,  488 — Letters  and  newspapers — 

Fmperor  and  queen,  490— The  snake, 
491— A  little  event,  493 — A  day  of 
gloom,  494 — Couleur  de  rose,  495— A 
great  event,  ib.  —  Tickler,  butterfly, 
wasp,  and  myself,  562— Rosalind,  564— 
Alas,  poor  Rosalind!  ib. — The  midnight 
alarm,  566 — Tickler  missing,  567 — 
Fine  writing.  568 — Maud  <t.  Cordelia, 
569— Caterpillars,  570— A  deed  of  dark- 


ness, 571 — Creature-comforts,  ib. — 
Starlight,  572— Criticism,  573— Quite 
out  of  the  world,  ib. — The  storm,  574 — 
An  order  of  the  day.  576 — Mybag,i6. — 
Sabbath  morning,  577 — Meditation  on 
a  mountain,  578  —  Symptoms  of  the 
camp  breaking  up,  579 — A  debate  con- 
cerning Tickler,  ib. — Departure  of  the 
detachment,  581 — A  parting  word  or 
two  on  politics,  582 — The  day  before 
going  off,  584 — The  passage  home,  585. 

Old  Court  Suburb,  notice  of  the,  449. 

Oldfield,  captain,  death  of,  514. 

ONCE  UPON  A  TIME,  Part  II.,  54 — Queen 
Elizabeth  and  May-day,  54  — Shake- 
speare and  Bacon,  55 — Ben  Jonson,  56 
—  Shakespeare  in  Scotland,  57 — Bur- 
ton and  his  Anatomy,  ib. 

Opium  as  a  narcotic,  558— Coleridge  on, 
560. 

Opritchini,  the,  in  Russia,  10. 

Oranienbaum  spit  at  Cronstadt,  the,  1 38. 

Oster  Svarto,  fort  of,  461. 

OUR  BEGINNING  OF  THE  LAST  WAR, 
378. 

OUR  RURAL  POPULATION  AND  THE  WAR, 
734. 

Pacific  railway,  plan  of  the,  328. 

Paintings,  the,  at  the  Paris  exhibition, 
606. 

Palais  de  1'Industrie,  the,  at  Paris,  601. 

Palmerston,  lord,  conduct  of,  as  premier, 
232. 

Palmerston  ministry,  character  of  the, 
117 — review  of  their  proceedings,  &c. 
232  — ejection  of  lord  John  Russell, 
235. 

Papal  church,  claims  of  the,  regarding 
patronage,  668  et  seq. 

Paraguay  tea  as  a  beverage,  551. 

Pardoe,  Miss,  life  of  Mary  de  Medicis 
by,  449. 

PARIS  AND  THE  EXHIBITION,  599. 

Paris,  the  Queen's  reception  in,  615. 

Parliament,  the  debates  on  the  war  in, 
259. 

Patronage,  see  SIMONY. 

Paul,  fort,  destruction  of,  622. 

Peace  and  war,  comparative  benefits  of, 
116. 

Peace,  general  desire  for,  in  Russia,  257. 

Peasantry,  sufferings  of  the,  in  Russia 
from  the  war,  251. 

Peasants,  the  crown,  exactions  from  the, 
in  Russia,  251. 

Peculation,  universality  of,  in  Russia, 
286. 

Peelites,  treachery,  &c.  of  the,  98 — their 
conduct  with  regard  to  the  war,  233 
et  seq. 

Pelissier,  general,  accession  of,  to  the 
chief  command,  91 — at  the  assault  of 
the  Mamelon,  96. 

Peloponnesian  war,  analogy  between  the, 
and  the  present,  181. 

Pepin,  lake,  332. 


Index. 


765 


Pereira,  Dr,  Johnston  on  the  death  of,  549. 

Peter  the  Great,  reign,  &c.  of,  14 — cha- 
racter of  the  changes  introduced  by 
him,  15 — Cronstadt  founded  by  him, 
137 — designs  of,  as  to  the  succession, 
182. 

Peter  II.,  reign  and  policy  of,  185. 

Peter  III.,  accession  and  policy  of,  191 — 
his  murder,  &c.,  193. 

Peter,  fort,  at  Cronstadt,  139. 

Phoenicians,  the  circumnavigation  of  Africa 
by  the,  697. 

Phillimore,  R.  J.,  bill  for  the  amend- 
ment of  the  laws  relating  to  Simony 
by,  664. 

Physicians,  scarcity  of,  in  Russia,  273. 

Pillory,  the  abolition  of  the,  65. 

Poetry  and  science,  alleged  inconsistency 
of,  226. 

Poland,  state  of,  on  the  accession  of  Ca- 
tharine, 194  —  her  policy  toward  it, 
195  et  seq.,  339  et  seq.— the  first  parti- 
tion, 344— the  second,  354. 

Police,  exactions  of  the,  in  Russia,  280, 
282. 

Police  spies  in  Russia,  275. 

Popham,  chief-justice,  anecdotes  of,  64. 

Posting,  mode  of,  in  Kussia,  272. 

Prairies  of  the  United  States,  336. 

Preedy,  commander,  at  the  bombardment 
of  Sveaborg,  434. 

Priests,  character  of  the,  in  Russia,  279. 

Princess,  the,  remarks  on,  313. 

Prisoners  of  war,  treatment,  &c.  of,  in 
Russia,  256. 

Provincialism,  advantages  of,  502. 

Prussia,  war  between,  and  Russia,  191 — 
present  position  of,  231  —a  party  to  the 
partition  of  Poland,  340— her  share  in 
the  first  partition,  344 — and  in  the  se- 
cond, 354 — the  productions  of,  at  the 
Paris  exhibition,  603. 

Pruth,  the  passage  of  the,  by  the  Rus- 
sians, 103. 

Pugatscheff,  the  rebellion  of,  194. 

Pugilism,  Bell's  Life  on,  366. 

Puppet-shows,  disappearance  of,  62. 

Purple  tints  of  Paris,  review  of,  596. 

Pyramids,  Herodotus  on  the,  697. 

Quarries,  assault  and  capture  of  the,  95 
et  seq. 

Queen,  reception  of  the,  in  Paris,  615. 

R.  H.  P.,  Wagram,  or  Victory  in  death, 
by,  375. 

Racing,  Bell's  Life  on,  371. 

Raglan,  lord,  at  the  assault  of  the  Quar- 
ries, 97— at  the  assault  of  the  Redan 
and  Malakhoff,  263,  264— death  and 
funeral  of,  266  et  seq. 

Railways,  advantages  and  disadvantages 
of,  504 — in  the  United  States,  progress 
of,  327. 

Rampsinitus  and  his  treasure,  the  story 
of,  from  Herodotus,  692. 

Ramsay,  captain,  at  the  bombardment  of 
Sveaborg,  434. 


Rapids  of  the  Mississippi,  shooting  the, 
176, 179. 

Read,  general,  death  of,  at  the  Tcher- 
naya,  518. 

Recruits,  difficulty  of  finding,  734. 

Red  river,  rise  of  the,  165. 

Redan,  the  first  assault  of  the,  and  its 
repulse,  263  —  progress  of  the  works 
against,  513 — the  second  assault,  620 
— abandoned  by  the  Russians,  its  state, 
&c.,  622. 

Redoute  Kale,  visit  to,  529. 

Reformatio  Legum  ecclesiasticarum,  the, 
674. 

Religion,  state  of,  in  Russia,  278. 

Repnin,  prince,  proceedings  of,  in  Po- 
land, 197. 

Revel,  description  of,  137. 

Reviewers  and  authors,  463. 

Rifle-pits,  capture  of,  at  Sebastopol,  91. 

Ripley,  fort,  174. 

Risbank,  fort,  at  Cronstadt,  139. 

Roads,  state  of,  in  Russia,  272. 

Rocket-boats,  the,  at  the  bombardment  of 
Sveaborg,  434. 

Roman  Catholics,  policy  of  Russia  to- 
ward, 187. 

Romauzoff  dynasty,  rise  of  the,  in  Russia, 
12. 

RURAL  POPULATION,  OUR,  AND  THE  WAR, 
734. 

Ruskin's  Art  Criticism,  remarks  on,  703 — 
on  architecture,  714. 

Russell,  lord  John,  correspondence  of, 
with  Russia,  102 — his  conduct  at  the 
Vienna  conferences,  233  et  seq. — his 
ejection  from  the  ministry,  235. 

RUSSIA,  THE  IMPERIAL  POLICY  OF,  Part  I., 
1 — her  conduct  at  the  Vienna  confer- 
ences, 2— the  true  object  of  Sebastopol, 
ib. —  her  constitution,  4 — her  former 
condition,  5— the  Northern  barbarians, 
6 — the  Sclaves,  ib. — the  Tartar  supre- 
macy, ib. — Ivan  the  Terrible,  ib. — cha- 
racter of  the  people  under  him,  10 — 
the  conquest  of  Siberia,  11— the  Stre- 
litz,  ib. — subsequent  changes,  ib. — the 
reign  of  Sophia,  13— and  of  Peter  the 
Great,  14  et  seq. — his  policy  regarding 
Germany,  16— Part  II.  aspect  and  in- 
terest of  the  present,  181— order  of  the 
succession,  182— Catharine  I.,  383 — 
Peter  II.  and  Anne,  185 — her  policy 
and  that  of  Rome,  188 — intrigues  in 
Poland,  189— Elizabeth,  191— Peter 
III.,  192— character  of  the  court,  ib.— 
accession  of  Catharine  II.,  193 — her 
policy  towards  Sweden,  194— and  Po- 
land, 195— Part  III.  338  — policy  of 
Catharine  toward  Poland  and  Turkey, 
339  et  seq. — the  first  partition  of  Po- 
land, 344— the  treaty  of  Kainardji,  346 
— the  second  partition,  354. 

RUSSIA,  [INTERNAL  SUFFERINGS  OF,  FROM 
THE  WAR,  249. 

RUSSIA,  LIFE  IN  THE  INTERIOR  OF,  landed 


766 


Index. 


proprietors  and  nobles,  269 — the  rela- 
tion between  the  nobles  and  their 
serfs,  271 — the  crown  peasants,  276 — 
travelling,  280— Siberian  convicts,  281 
• — travelling  convicts,  282— merchants, 
ib.— the  bribery  of  the  officials,  283 — 
peculation,  286. 

Russia,  feeling  of  the  Aberdeen  ministry 
regarding,  101 — present  position  of, 
231 — conduct  of,  at  the  Vienna  con- 
ferences, 236 — her  error  in  rejecting 
the  terms  of  the  Allies  there,  259 — her 
boundless  resources  in  men,  427  — 
effects  of  the  war  on  her  commerce,  428. 

Russians,  servility  of  character  of  the, 
4,10. 

Russian  army,  abuses  in  the,  255. 

Russian  hut,  a,  277. 

Russian  soldiery,  character  of  the,  as 
shown  by  the  war,  427. 

Russie,  histoire  de,  1,  181,  338. 

Sabbath  morning,  a,  577. 

Sage  tea,  use  of,  553. 

St  Anthony,  town  of,  arrival  at,  180 — 
sketches  at,  322— falls  of,  323. 

St  Christopher,  the  legend  of,  711. 

St  Chrysostom  on  Simony,  666. 

St  Croix  river,  the,  331. 

St  Isidore,  Simony  denounced  by,  666. 

St  John  Bayle,  Purple  tints  of  Paris  by, 
596. 

St  Lawrence,  watershed  between,  and 
the  Mississippi,  165. 

St  Louis  river,  sketches  on  the,  46  et  seq. 

St  Paul,  journey  from  Superior  to,  46 — 
city  of,  324. 

St  Paul,  fortress  of,  521. 

St  Peter's  river,  323. 

St  Petersburg,  origin  of,  14. 

Sandy  lake,  165. 

Sardinians,  junction  of,  with  the  Allies, 
92 — their  conduct  at  the  Tchernaya, 
516,  517. 

Savannah  river,  the,  50. 

Scheffer,  the  paintings  of,  610. 

Schlosser's  History  of  the  18th  and  19th 
Centuries,  1,  181,  338. 

Schomberg,  captain,  at  the  bombardment 
of  Sveaborg,  434. 

Science,  present  state  of,  215 — and  poetry, 
alleged  inconsistency  of,  226. 

Sclaves,  origin  and  character  of  the,  6. 

Scotland,  supposed  visit  of  Shakespeare  to, 
57 — decrease  of  the  rural  population  in, 
735  et  seq. 

Sculpture,  exhibition  of,  at  the  Paris  ex- 
hibition, 612. 

Sea  anemones,  the,  224. 

Sea  fishing  for  trout,  469. 

Sea  weeds,  the  collection  of,  223. 

Seal  shooting  in  Scotland,  474. 

Sebastopol,  the  true  object  of,  2  —sketches 
in  the  camp  before,  457 — on  the  fall  of, 
495— the  last  hours  of,  622— visit  to  it 
after  its  fall,  625— CAMPAIGN  OF,  see 
STORY  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN, 


Sefer  Pasha,  sketch  of,  523. 

Serfdom,  dislike  to,  among  the  smaller 
Russian  nobility,  269. 

Serfs,  relations  between,  and  the  nobility 
in  Russia,  and  their  condition,  271. 

Servants,  condition  of,  in  Russia,  275. 

Seskar,  island  of,  429. 

Sevres,  the  porcelain  of,  605. 

Seymour,  admiral,  wounded  by  an  in- 
fernal machine,  141. 

Seymour,  sir  G.,  on  the  designs  of  Russia. 
101. 

Shakespeare,  interview,  &c.  of,  with  Bacon, 
55 — supposed  visit  of,  to  Scotland,  57. 

Shetland,  a  whale  hunt  in,  470. 

Shoeblacks,  the  ancient,  65. 

Shooting  rapids,  pictures  of,  176,  179. 

Siberia,  conquest  of,  by  Russia,  11. 

Siberian  convicts,  treatment,  &c.  of,  281. 

SIMONY  AND  LAY  PATRONAGE,  historically 
and  morally  considered,  664 — history  of 
the  laws  regarding  it,  665 — past  and 
present  state  of  the  English  law,  671. 

Simpson,  general,  succeeds  Lord  Raglan, 
267— at  the  assault  of  Sebastopol,  617. 

Sinope,  the  massacre  of,  and  its  effects,  2, 
104,  105. 

Sioux  Indians,  the,  166. 

Sketcher,  death  of  the,  757. 

Small  holdings,  value  of,  749. 

Soldiers,  levies  of,  in  Russia,  and  pressure 
of  these,  274. 

Soldiery,  the  Russian,  their  state,  &c.,  255. 

Sophia,  regent  of  Russia,  13. 

Sophia  of  Brunswick,  electress  of  Han- 
over, 445. 

Sophia  Dorothea  of  Zell,  Queen,  444. 

Souchoum  Kale,  sketches  at,  527. 

Soujouk  Kale,  evacuation  of,  by  the  Rus- 
sians, 268 — sketches  at,  525. 

Spanish  railway,  a,  452 — steamboats,  453. 

Spanish  modern  school  of  painting,  the,611. 

Specie,  scarcity  of,  in  Russia,  254. 

Spittler,  sketch  of  Russia  under  Catharine 
by,  196. 

Sporting,  recent  books  on,  463. 

Stanislaus  Augustus,  King  of  Poland,  cir- 
cumstances of  the  election  of,  196. 

Starlight,  572. 

Steamboat,  a  Mississippi,  331 — a  Spanish, 
453. 

Steam  voyage  from  Marseilles  to  Con- 
stantinople, a,  453  et  seq. 

Stephens,  sir  James,  on  the  civil  service, 
122. 

Steppes  of  Russia,  haymaking  in  the,  274. 

Stewart,  captain,  at  the  bombardment  of 
Sveaborg,  434. 

Stillwater,  town  of,  332. 

Stoddart's  Scottish  angler,  on,  468. 

Stolle,  F.,  courtship  under  difficulties, 
from,  718. 

Storm,  a,  574. 

STORY  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN,  THE,  Part  VIII. 
chap,  xxii.,  continued,  91 — chap,  xxiii., 
The  Position  Extended,92— chap.xxiv., 


Index. 


767 


Assault  of  the  Mamelon  and  Quarries, 
95  — Part  IX.  chap,  xxv.,  The  Con- 
ferences and  debates,  259 — chapl  xxvi., 
Attack  of  the  Malakhoff  and  Redan, 
262 — Part  X.  chap,  xxvii.,  Progress  of 
the  Siege,  513 — chap,  xxviii.,  Battle  of 
the  Traktir  Bridge,  516 — chap,  xxix., 
A  Crisis  in  the  Campaign,  519— Part 
XL  chap,  xxx.,  The  General  Assault, 
617 — chap,  xxxi.,  The  Last  Hours  of 
Sebastopol,  622— chap,  xxxii.,  a  Re- 
trospect, 627. 

Strawberry  hill,  69. 

Street  music,  former,  67. 

Street's  Brick  and  Marble  Architecture 
in  Italy,  remarks  on,  71 6. 

Strelitz,  organisation  of  the,  11— their  re- 
bellion, 12. 

Strickland,  Miss,  the  historical  works  of, 
439  et  seq. 

Succession,  law  of,  in  Russia,  271. 

Sugar  cane,  the,  555,  556. 

Sumatra,  use  of  coffee  tea  in,  553. 

Sunday,  on  the  opening  of  the  crystal 
palace  on,  501. 

Sunset  scene  at  Constantinople,  a,  514. 

Superior,  sketches  in  town  of,  39  et  seq. 

Surgeons,  deficiency  of,  in  the  Russian 
army,  256 — and  in  the  country,  273. 

Svartholm,  destruction  of,  433. 

Sveaborg,  the  acquisition  of,  by  Russia, 
428— description  of  its  defences,  430 — 
the  bombardment  of,  433  et  seq. 

Sweden,  acquisitions  of  Russia  from,  15. 

Swift,  Dean,  and  Partridge  the  almanac 
maker,  61. 

Sydenham,  the  geological  restorations  at, 
226— the  crystal  palace,  498— on  the 
opening  of  it  on  Sunday,  501. 

Table  d'hdte  in  the  Backwoods,  a,  44. 

Taganrog,  bombardment  of,  267. 

Tartar  population,  prevalence  of,  in  Rus- 
sia, 7. 

Tartars,  effects  of  the  conquest  of  Russia 
by  the,  4. 

Tartars  of  the  Crimea,  war  between  the, 
and  Russia,  339. 

Taxation,  pressure  of,  in  Russia,  250. 

Taylor,  John,  the  water  poet,  56. 

Tchatir  Dagh,  mount,  521. 

Tchergoum,  village  of,  93. 

Tchernaya,  occupation  of,  by  the  Allies, 
92— battle  of  the,  461,516. 

Tchesme,  the  naval  victory  of,  342. 

Tea,  early  use  of,  in  China,  550— where 
used,  551,  552. 

Teas,  various,  used  in  America,  651. 

TENNYSON'S  MAUD,  311. 

Thucydides,  sources  of  the  popularity  of, 
181 — character  of  the  history  of,  686. 

Ticket-of-leave  system,  the,  67. 

Tickler  of  the  Noctes,  the,  398. 

Tobacco,  early  use  of,  550— as  a  narcotic, 
558. 

Tobolsk,  society  in,  281. 

VOL.  LXXVIII. — NO.  CCCCLXXXII. 


Toledo,  council  of,  regulations  regarding 
Patronage  by  the,  666. 

Tourgueneff,  La  Russie  et  les  Russes  by, 
1 — on  the  Tartar  domination  in  Russia, 
4,  5. 

Tourists,  modern,  589. 

Tradesmen,  exactions  from  the,  in  Russia, 
253. 

Traktir  bridge,  battle  of  the,  516. 

Trans-sund,  bay  of,  429. 

Travellers,  modern,  586. 

Travelling,  modes  and  difficulties  of,  in 
Russia,  272,  280— ancient,  695. 

Trebizond,  sketches  at,  531. 

Troops,  march  of,  in  Russia,  280. 

Trout,  sea  fishing  for,  469. 

Truth,  Ruskin  on,  705. 

Tuapse,  scenery  of,  526. 

Tulbuken  fort  at  Cronstadt,  the,  139. 

Tunis,  the  productions  of,  at  the  Paris 
exhibition,  604. 

Turkey,  the  Russian  aggression  on,  2 — 
early  development  of  the  views  of  Rus- 
sia on,  9  et  seq. — views  of  Nicholas  re- 
garding, 101  et  seq. — policy  of  the  em- 
press Anne  toward,  190 — and  of  Catha- 
rine II.,  339  et  seq. — the  productions  of, 
at  the  Paris  exhibition,  604. 

Turks,  intrigues  of  the,  in  Circassia,  523. 

Turkish  family,  sketch  of  a,  454. 

Turkish  question,  review  of  the  conduct  of 
the  Aberdeen  ministry  on  the,  101  et 
seq. 

TWO  YEARS  OF  THE  CONDEMNED  CABINET, 
98. 

Ukraine,  conquest  of  the,  by  Russia,  12 — 
its  present  state,  274. 

United  States,  the  productions  of  the,  at 
the  Paris  exhibition,  603  —  paintings 
from  the,  there,  611. 

Universities,  provision  for  establishing, 
in  the  United  States,  322. 

Upper  Mississippi,  canoe  voyage  on  the, 
165. 

Urban  population,  increase  of,  over  rural, 
742  et  seq.— characters  of  the  two,  752. 

Valencia,  the  plain  of,  452— city  of,  453. 

Valenciennes,  the  artillery  at  the  siege  of, 
381. 

Vansittart,  captain,  at  the  bombardment 
of  Sveaborg,  434. 

Vargon,  fortress  of,  461. 

Verlat,  Charles,  painting  by,  611. 

Vermin  in  the  Crimea,  459. 

Vernet,  Horace,  the  paintings  of,  607. 

VERNIER,  86. 

Viborg,  town  of,  429— repulse  at,  433. 

Vienna  conferences,  the  proposals  of  Rus- 
sia at  the,  1 — conduct  of  lord  John 
Russell  at  the,  233  et  seq.— review  of 
them,  236  et  seq.,  259. 

Voltaire's  Pierre  le  Grand,  i.,  181 — char- 
acter of  Catharine  I.  by,  183. 

Voluntary  contributions,  pressure  of,  in 
Russia,  251. 

SE 


768 


Index. 


Voyageurs,  sketches  of,  46  et  seq. 

Wabash,  the,  by  J.  R.  Beste,  notice  of, 
595. 

Waddilove's  Church  patronage,  664. 

Wages,  rates  of,  in  Russia,  272. 

WAGRAM,  OR  VICTORY  IN  DEATH,  375. 

Walpole,  Horace,  the  letters,  &c.  of,  68. 

Walton's  angler,  467. 

WAR,  THE,  THE  CABINET,  AND  THE  CON- 
FERENCES, 231. 

WAR,  INTERNAL  SUFFERINGS  OF  RUSSIA 
FROM  THE,  249. 

WAR,  OUR  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  LAST,  378. 
WAR-POLITICS,  WHAT  ARE  WE  FIGHTING 

FOR?  631. 
War,  benefits  from,  116 — character  of  the 

present,  231— reflections  on  it,  583. 
WARREN'S  BLACKSTONE,  199. 
Watab,  Indian  village  of,  177. 
Werayss,  captain,  at  the  bombardment  of 

Sveaborg,  434. 
West  Svarto,  fort  of,  461. 
Whale-hunt  in  Shetland,  a,  470. 
WHEELER'S  HERODOTUS,  review  of,  685. 
Whigs,  aristocratic  exclusiveness  of  the, 

117. 
Wife,  legal  position  of  the,  206. 

WlLSON,    PROFESSOR,     THE    NOCTES     AM- 

BROSIAN-E  BY,  reviewed,  395. 

Winnebagoe  Indians,  the,  177. 

Winona,  Indian  legend  of,  332— village  of, 
334. 

Wisconsin,  notes  on,  39  et  seq. 

Wisconsin  river,  the,  334. 

Withers  the  poet,  anecdote  of,  64. 

Yelverton,  captain,  operations  under,  in 
the  Baltic,  433. 

Yenikale,  capture  of,  92,  268 — its  state, 
522. 

York,  the  duke  of,  the  expedition  to  Hol- 
land under,  380  et  seq. — improvements 
in  the  army  by,  385 — the  second  expe- 
dition to  Holland  under,  388. 

Yvon,  Adolphe,  painting  by,  607. 


ZAIDEE,  Part  VIII.  Book  II.  chap,  xxvii., 
Mrs  Williams'  room,  18 — chap,  xxviii., 
Grandfather  Vivian,  20— chap,  xxix., 
Recovery,  23— chap,  xxx.,  A  pair  of 
friends,  25— chap,  xxxi.,  The  Curate's 
wife,  27 — chap,  xxxii.,  The  Grange,  29 
— chap,  xxxiii.,  Mrs  Vivian's  journey, 
32 — chap,  xxxiv.,  Failure,  34— chap, 
xxxv.,  The  family  fortunes,  36— Part 
IX.  Book  III.  chap,  i.,  A  new  home, 
146 — chap,  ii.,  The  way  before  us,  148 
— chap,  iii.,  Maiden  meditations,  151 — 
chap,  iv.,  Sylvo,  153  — chap,  v.,  Dis- 
appointments, 156 — chap,  vi.,  A  change 
of  opinion,  159 — chap,  vii.,  The  troub- 
ling of  the  waters,  162— Part  X.  chap, 
viii.,  Visitors,  288— chap,  ix.,  The  evils 
of  knowing  an  author,  290 — chap,  x., 
The  great  author,  293— chap,  xi.,  Mis- 
understanding, 296 — chap,  xii.,  Eco- 
nomy, 299 — chap,  xiii.,  A  visit,  301 — 
chap,  xiv.,  Heaviness,  304 — chap,  xv., 
A  new  thought,  306 — chap,  xvi.,  Im- 
provement, 309 — Part  XI.  chap,  xvii., 
Wanderings,  409  —  chap,  xviii.,  Mal- 
vern,  411 — chap,  xix.,  The  beginning 
of  danger,  414— chap,  xx.,  Mary's  fate, 
416 — chap,  xxi.,  Consent,  419 — chap, 
xxii.,  Percy's  shortcomings,  421 — chap, 
xxiii.,  The  history  of  the  Vivians,  424 
—Part  XII.  chap,  xxiv.,  Another  effort, 
532— chap,  xxv.,  Return,  534  — chap, 
xxvi.,  In  peril,  537— chap,  xxvii.,  Au- 
other  hope,  540 — chap,  xxviii.,  Alarms, 
543 — chap,  xxix.,  Another  trial,  545 — 
Part  XIII.  chap,  xxx.,  Another  journey, 
647— chap,  xxxi.,  Home,  650 — chap, 
xxxii.,  Everybody's  story,  653 — chap, 
xxxiii.,  Sophy,  656 — chap,  xxxiv.,  The 
head  of  the  house,  658 — chap,  xxxv., 
Conclusion,  661. 

Zetland,  a  whale-hunt  in,  470. 

Zikinzir,  castle  of,  530. 

Zouaves,  the,  in  the  Crimea,  459. 


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