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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23240]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan O'Connor, Jonathan Ingram, Sam W. and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
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+
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+
+
+
+
+
+                  BLACKWOOD'S
+              EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     No. CCCXXXVI. OCTOBER, 1843. VOL. LIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    MILL'S LOGIC.
+    MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+    TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.
+    THE THIRTEENTH; A TALE OF DOOM.
+    REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.
+    THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.
+    MODERN PAINTERS.
+    A ROYAL SALUTE.
+    PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.
+    CHRONICLES OF PARIS. THE RUE ST DENIS.
+    THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+
+
+
+MILL'S LOGIC.[1]
+
+    [1] A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive;
+    being a connected view of the Principles of Evidence,
+    and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By John
+    Stuart Mill. In two volumes. London: Parker.
+
+
+These are _not_ degenerate days. We have still strong thinkers amongst
+us; men of untiring perseverance, who flinch before no difficulties,
+who never hide the knot which their readers are only too willing that
+they should let alone; men who dare write what the ninety-nine out of
+every hundred will pronounce a _dry_ book; who pledge themselves, not
+to the public, but to their subject, and will not desert it till their
+task is completed. One of this order is Mr John Stuart Mill. The work
+he has now presented to the public, we deem to be, after its kind, of
+the very highest character, every where displaying powers of clear,
+patient, indefatigable thinking. Abstract enough it must be allowed to
+be, calling for an unremitted attention, and yielding but little, even
+in the shape of illustration, of lighter and more amusing matter; he
+has taken no pains to bestow upon it any other interest than what
+searching thought and lucid views, aptly expressed, ought of
+themselves to create. His subject, indeed--the laws by which human
+belief and the inquisition of truth are to be governed and
+directed--is both of that extensive and fundamental character, that it
+would be treated with success only by one who knew how to resist the
+temptations to digress, as well as how to apply himself with vigour to
+the solution of the various questions that must rise before him.
+
+    "This book," the author says in his preface, "makes no
+    pretence of giving to the world a new theory of our
+    intellectual operations. Its claim to attention, if it
+    possess any, is grounded on the fact, that it is an
+    attempt not to supersede, but to embody and systematize,
+    the best ideas which have been either promulgated on its
+    subject by speculative writers, or conformed to by
+    accurate thinkers in their scientific enquiries.
+
+    "To cement together the detached fragments of a subject,
+    never yet treated as a whole; to harmonize the true
+    portions of discordant theories, by supplying the links
+    of thought necessary to connect them, and by
+    disentangling them from the errors with which they are
+    always more or less interwoven--must necessarily require
+    a considerable amount of original speculation. To other
+    originality than this, the present work lays no claim.
+    In the existing state of the cultivation of the
+    sciences, there would be a very strong presumption
+    against any one who should imagine that he had effected
+    a revolution in the theory of the investigation of
+    truth, or added any fundamentally new process to the
+    practice of it. The improvement which remains to be
+    effected in the methods of philosophizing, [and the
+    author believes that they have much need of
+    improvement,] can only consist in performing, more
+    systematically and accurately, operations with which, at
+    least in their elementary form, the human intellect, in
+    some one or other of its employments, is already
+    familiar."
+
+Such is the manly and modest estimate which the author makes of his
+own labours, and the work fully bears out the character here given of
+it. No one capable of receiving pleasure from the disentanglement of
+intricacies, or the clear exposition of an abstruse subject; no one
+seeking assistance in the acquisition of distinct and accurate views
+on the various and difficult topics which these volumes embrace--can
+fail to read them with satisfaction and with benefit.
+
+To give a full account--to give any account--of a work which traverses
+so wide a field of subject, would be here a futile attempt; we should,
+after all our efforts, merely produce a laboured and imperfect
+synopsis, which would in vain solicit the perusal of our readers. What
+we purpose doing, is to take up, in the order in which they occur,
+some of the topics on which Mr Mill has thrown a new light, or which
+he has at least invested with a novel interest by the view he has
+given of them. And as, in this selection of topics, we are not bound
+to choose those which are most austere and repulsive, we hope that
+such of our readers as are not deterred by the very name of logic,
+will follow us with some interest through the several points of view,
+and the various extracts we shall present to them.
+
+_The Syllogism._--The logic of _Induction_, as that to which attention
+has been least devoted, which has been least reduced to systematic
+form, and which lies at the basis of all other modes of reasoning,
+constitutes the prominent subject of these volumes. Nevertheless, the
+old topic of logic proper, or deductive reasoning, is not omitted, and
+the first passage to which we feel bound, on many accounts, to give
+our attention, is the disquisition on the syllogism.
+
+Fortunately for us it is not necessary, in order to convey the point
+of our author's observations upon this head, to afflict our readers
+with any dissertation upon _mode_ or _figure_, or other logical
+technicalities. The first form or _figure_ of the syllogism (to which
+those who have not utterly forgotten their scholastic discipline will
+remember that all others may be reduced) is familiar to every one, and
+to this alone we shall have occasion to refer.
+
+    "All men are mortal.
+    A king is a man;
+    Therefore a king is mortal."
+
+Who has not met--what young lady even, though but in her teens, has
+not encountered some such charming triplet as this, which looks so
+like verse at a distance, but, like some other compositions,
+approximates nothing the more on this account to poetry? Who has not
+learnt from such examples what is a _major_, what a _middle term_, and
+what the _minor_ or conclusion?
+
+As no one, in the present day, advises the adoption, in our
+controversies, of the syllogistic forms of reasoning, it is evident
+that the value of the syllogism must consist, not in its practical
+use, but in the accurate type which it affords of the process of
+reasoning, and in the analysis of that process which a full
+understanding of it renders necessary. Such an analysis supplies, it
+is said, an excellent discipline to the mind, whilst an occasional
+reference to the form of the syllogism, as a type or model of
+reasoning, insures a steadiness and pertinency of argument. But is the
+syllogism, it has been asked, this veritable type of our reasoning?
+Has the analysis which would explain it to be such, been accurately
+conducted?
+
+Several of our northern metaphysicians, it is well known--as, for
+example, Dr Campbell and Dugald Stewart--have laid rude hands upon the
+syllogism. They have pronounced it to be a vain invention. They have
+argued that no addition of knowledge, no advancement in the
+acquisition of truth, no new conviction, can possibly be obtained
+through its means, inasmuch as no syllogism can contain any thing in
+the conclusion which was not admitted, at the outset, in the first or
+major proposition. The syllogism always, say they, involves a _petitio
+principii_. Admit the major, and the business is palpably at an end;
+the rest is a mere circle, in which one cannot advance, but may get
+giddy by the revolution. According to the exposition of logicians
+themselves, we simply obtain by our syllogism, the privilege of saying
+that, in the _minor_, of some individual of a class, which we had
+said, in the _major_, already of the whole class.
+
+Archbishop Whately, our most distinguished expositor and defender of
+the Aristotelian logic, meets these antagonists with the resolute
+assertion, that their objection to the syllogism is equally valid
+against _all reasoning whatever_. He does not deny, but, on the
+contrary, in common with every logician, distinctly states, that
+whatever is concluded in the minor, must have been previously admitted
+in the major, for in this lies the very force and compulsion of the
+argument; but he maintains that the syllogism is the true type of all
+our reasoning, and that therefore to all our reasoning, the very same
+vice, the very same _petitio principii_, may be imputed. The
+syllogism, he contends, (and apparently with complete success,) is but
+a statement in full of what takes place mentally even in the most
+rapid acts of reasoning. We often suppress the major for the sake of
+brevity, but it is understood though not expressed; just as in the
+same manner as we sometimes content ourselves with merely implying the
+conclusion itself, because it is sufficiently evident without further
+words. If any one should so far depart from common sense as to
+question the mortality of some great king, we should think it
+sufficient to say for all argument--the king is a man!--virtually
+implying the whole triplet above mentioned:--
+
+    "All men are mortal.
+    The king is a man;
+    Therefore the king is mortal."
+
+"In pursuing the supposed investigation, (into the operation of
+reasoning,)" says Archbishop Whately, "it will be found that every
+conclusion is deduced, in reality, from two other propositions,
+(thence called _Premisses_;) for though one of these may be and
+commonly is suppressed, it must nevertheless be understood as
+admitted, as may easily be made evident by supposing the _denial_ of
+the suppressed premiss, which will at once invalidate the argument;
+_e.g._ if any one, from perceiving that 'the world exhibits marks of
+design,' infers that 'it must have had an intelligent author,' though
+he may not be aware in his own mind of the existence of any other
+premiss, he will readily understand, if it be _denied_ that 'whatever
+exhibits marks of design must have had an intelligent author,' that
+the affirmative of that proposition is necessary to the solidity of
+the argument. An argument thus stated regularly and at full length, is
+called a syllogism; which, therefore, is evidently not a peculiar
+_kind of argument_, but only a peculiar _form_ of expression, in which
+every argument may be stated."--_Whately's Logic_, p. 27.
+
+"It will be found," he continues, "that all valid arguments whatever
+may be easily reduced to such a form as that of the foregoing
+syllogisms; and that consequently the principle on which they are
+constructed is the UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE of reasoning. So elliptical,
+indeed, is the ordinary mode of expression, even of those who are
+considered as prolix writers,--_i.e._ so much is implied and left to
+be understood in the course of argument, in comparison of what is
+actually stated, (most men being impatient, even to excess, of any
+appearance of unnecessary and tedious formality of statement,) that a
+single sentence will often be found, though perhaps considered as a
+single argument, to contain, compressed into a short compass, a chain
+of several distinct arguments. But if each of these be fully
+developed, and the whole of what the author intended to imply be
+stated expressly, it will be found that all the steps, even of the
+longest and most complex train of reasoning, may be reduced into the
+above form."--P. 32.
+
+That it is not the office of the syllogism to discover _new_ truths,
+our logician fully admits, and takes some pains to establish. This is
+the office of "other operations of mind," not unaccompanied, however,
+with acts of reasoning. Reasoning, argument, inference, (words which
+he uses as synonymous,) have not for their object our advancement in
+knowledge, or the acquisition of new truths.
+
+"Much has been said," says Archbishop Whately, in another portion of
+his work, "by some writers, of the superiority of the inductive to the
+syllogistic methods of seeking truth, as if the two stood opposed to
+each other; and of the advantage of substituting the _Organon_ of
+Bacon for that of Aristotle, &c. &c., which indicates a total
+misconception of the nature of both. There is, however, the more
+excuse for the confusion of thought which prevails on this subject,
+because eminent logical writers have treated, or at least have
+appeared to treat, of induction as a kind of argument distinct from
+the syllogism; which, if it were, it certainly might be contrasted
+with the syllogism: or rather the whole syllogistic theory would fall
+to the ground, since one of the very first principles it establishes,
+is that _all_ reasoning, on whatever subject, is one and the same
+process, which may be clearly exhibited in the form of syllogisms.
+
+"This inaccuracy seems chiefly to have arisen from a vagueness in the
+use of the word induction; which is sometimes employed to designate
+the process of _investigation_ and of collecting facts, sometimes the
+deducing an inference _from_ those facts. The former of these
+processes (_viz._ that of observation and experiment) is undoubtedly
+_distinct_ from that which takes place in the syllogism; but then it
+is not a process of _argumentation_: the latter again _is_ an
+argumentative process; but then it is, like all other arguments,
+capable of being syllogistically expressed."--P. 263.
+
+"To prove, then, this point demonstratively, (namely, that it is not
+by a process of reasoning that new truths are brought to light,)
+becomes on these data perfectly easy; for since all reasoning (in the
+sense above defined) may be resolved into syllogisms; and since even
+the objectors to logic make it a subject of complaint, that in a
+syllogism the premises do virtually assert the conclusion, it follows
+at once that no new truth (as above defined) can be elicited by any
+process of reasoning.
+
+"It is on this ground, indeed, that the justly celebrated author of
+the _Philosophy of Rhetoric_ objects to the syllogism altogether, as
+necessarily involving a _petitio principii_; an objection which, of
+course, he would not have been disposed to bring forward, had he
+perceived that, whether well or ill founded, _it lies against all
+arguments whatever_. Had he been aware that the syllogism is no
+distinct kind of argument otherwise than in form, but is, in fact,
+_any_ argument whatever stated regularly and at full length, he would
+have obtained a more correct view of the object of all reasoning;
+_which is merely to expand and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it
+were, and implied in those with which we set out_, and to bring a
+person to perceive and acknowledge the full force of that which he has
+admitted; to contemplate it in various points of view; _to admit in
+one shape what he has already admitted in another_, and to give up and
+disallow whatever is inconsistent with it."--P. 273.
+
+Now, what the Archbishop here advances appears convincing; his
+position looks impregnable. The syllogism is not a peculiar mode of
+reasoning, (how could it be?)--if any thing at all, it must be a
+general formula for expressing the ordinary act of reasoning--and he
+shows that the objections made by those who would impugn it, may be
+levelled with equal justice against all ratiocination whatever. But
+then this method of defending the syllogism, (to those of us who have
+stood beside, in the character of modest enquirers, watching the
+encounter of keen wits,) does but aggravate the difficulty. Is it
+true, then, that in every act of reasoning, we do but conclude in one
+form, what, the moment before, we had stated in another? Are we to
+understand that such is the final result of the debate? If so, this
+act of reasoning appears very little deserving of that estimation in
+which it has been generally held. The great prerogative of intelligent
+beings (as it has been deemed,) grants them this only--to "admit in
+one shape what they had already admitted in another."
+
+From the dilemma in which we are here placed, the Archbishop by no
+means releases, or attempts to release us: he seems (something too
+much after the manner and disposition generally attributed to masters
+in logic-fence,) to have rested satisfied with foiling his opponents
+in their attack upon the exact position he had bound himself to
+defend. He saves the syllogism; what becomes, in the controversy, of
+poor human reason itself, is not his especial concern--it is as much
+their business as his. You do not, more than I, he virtually says to
+his opponents, intend to resign all reasoning whatever as a mere
+inanity; I prove, for my part, that all reasoning is capable of being
+put into a syllogistic form, and that your objection, if valid against
+the syllogism, is equally valid against all ratiocination. You must
+therefore either withdraw your objection altogether, or advance it at
+your peril; the difficulty is of your making, you must solve it as you
+can. Gentlemen, you must muzzle your own dog.
+
+In this posture of affairs the author of the present work comes to the
+rescue. He shall speak in his own words. But we must premise, that
+although we do not intend to stint him in our quotation--though we
+wish to give him all the sea-room possible; yet, for a _full_
+development of his views, we must refer the reader to his volumes
+themselves. There are some disquisitions which precede the part we are
+about to quote from, which, in order to do complete justice to the
+subject, ought to find a place here, as well as in the author's
+work--but it is impossible.
+
+    "It is universally allowed, that a syllogism is vicious,
+    if there be any thing more in the conclusion than was
+    assumed in the premisses. But this is, in fact, to say,
+    that nothing ever was, or can be, proved by syllogism,
+    which was not known, or assumed to be known, before. Is
+    ratiocination, then, not a process of inference? And is
+    the syllogism, to which the word reasoning has so often
+    been represented to be exclusively appropriate, not
+    really entitled to be called reasoning at all? This
+    seems an inevitable consequence of the doctrine,
+    admitted by all writers on the subject, that a syllogism
+    can prove no more than is involved in the premisses. Yet
+    the acknowledgment so explicitly made, has not prevented
+    one set of writers from continuing to represent the
+    syllogism as the correct analysis of what the mind
+    actually performs in discovering and proving the larger
+    half of the truths, whether of science or of daily life,
+    which we believe; while those who have avoided this
+    inconsistency, and followed out the general theorem
+    respecting the logical value of the syllogism to its
+    legitimate corollary, have been led to impute
+    uselessness and frivolity to the syllogistic theory
+    itself, on the ground of the _petitio principii_ which
+    they allege to be inherent in every syllogism. As I
+    believe both these opinions to be fundamentally
+    erroneous, I must request the attention of the reader to
+    certain considerations, without which any just
+    appreciation of the true character of the syllogism, and
+    the functions it performs in philosophy, appears to me
+    impossible; but which seem to me to have been overlooked
+    or insufficiently adverted to, both by the defenders of
+    the syllogistic theory, and by its assailants.
+
+    "It must be granted, that in every syllogism, considered
+    as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a
+    _petitio principii_. When we say--
+
+        'All men are mortal.
+        Socrates is a man;
+            THEREFORE
+        Socrates is mortal'--
+
+    it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the
+    syllogistic theory, that the proposition, Socrates is
+    mortal, is presupposed in the more general assumption,
+    All men are mortal; that we cannot be assured of the
+    mortality of all men, unless we were previously certain
+    of the mortality of every individual man; that if it be
+    still doubtful whether Socrates, or any other individual
+    you choose to name, be mortal or not, the same degree of
+    uncertainty must hang over the assertion, All men are
+    mortal; that the general principle, instead of being
+    given as evidence of the particular case, cannot itself
+    be taken for true without exception, until every shadow
+    of doubt which could affect any case comprised with it,
+    is dispelled by evidence _aliundè_, and then what
+    remains for the syllogism to prove? that, in short, no
+    reasoning from generals to particulars can, as such,
+    prove any thing; since from a general principle you
+    cannot infer any particulars, but those which the
+    principle itself assumes as foreknown.
+
+    "This doctrine is irrefragable; and if logicians, though
+    unable to dispute it, have usually exhibited a strong
+    disposition to explain it away, this was not because
+    they could discover any flaw in the argument itself, but
+    because the contrary opinion seemed to rest upon
+    arguments equally indisputable. In the syllogism last
+    referred to, for example, or in any of those which we
+    previously constructed, is it not evident that the
+    conclusion may, to the person to whom the syllogism is
+    presented, be actually and _bona fide_ a new truth? Is
+    it not matter of daily experience that truth previously
+    undreamt of, facts which have not been, and cannot be,
+    directly observed, are arrived at by way of general
+    reasoning? We believe that the Duke of Wellington is
+    mortal. We do not know this by direct observation, since
+    he is not yet dead. If we were asked how, this being the
+    case, we know the Duke to be mortal, we should probably
+    answer, because all men are so. Here, therefore, we
+    arrive at the knowledge of a truth not (as yet)
+    susceptible of observation, by a reasoning which admits
+    of being exhibited in the following syllogism--
+
+            'All men are mortal.
+        The Duke of Wellington is a man;
+                THEREFORE
+        The Duke of Wellington is mortal.'
+
+    "And since a large portion of our knowledge is thus
+    acquired, logicians have persisted in representing the
+    syllogism as a process of inference or proof; although
+    none of them has cleared up the difficulty which arises
+    from the inconsistency between that assertion and the
+    principle, that if there be any thing in the conclusion
+    which was not already asserted in the premisses, the
+    argument is vicious. For it is impossible to attach any
+    serious scientific value to such a mere salvo, as the
+    distinction drawn between being involved _by
+    implication_ in the premisses, and being directly
+    asserted in them. When Archbishop Whately, for example,
+    says that the object of reasoning is 'merely to expand
+    and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it were, and
+    implied in those with which we set out, and to bring a
+    person to perceive and acknowledge the full force of
+    that which he has admitted,' he does not, I think, meet
+    the real difficulty requiring to be explained; namely,
+    how it happens that a science like geometry _can_ be all
+    'wrapt up' in a few definitions and axioms. Nor does
+    this defence of the syllogism differ much from what its
+    assailants urge against it as an accusation, when they
+    charge it with being of no use except to those who seek
+    to press the consequence of an admission into which a
+    man has been entrapped, without having considered and
+    understood its full force. When you admitted the major
+    premiss, you asserted the conclusion, 'but,' says
+    Archbishop Whately, 'you asserted it by implication
+    merely; this, however, can here only mean that you
+    asserted it unconsciously--that you did not know you
+    were asserting it; but if so, the difficulty revives in
+    this shape. Ought you not to have known? Were you
+    warranted in asserting the general proposition without
+    having satisfied yourself of the truth of every thing
+    which it fairly includes? And if not, what, then, is the
+    syllogistic art but a contrivance for catching you in a
+    trap, and holding you fast in it?'
+
+    "From this difficulty there appears to be but one issue.
+    The proposition, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal,
+    is evidently an inference, it is got at as a conclusion
+    from something else; but do we, in reality, conclude it
+    from the proposition--All men are mortal? I answer, No.
+
+    "The error committed is, I conceive, that of overlooking
+    the distinction between the two parts of the process of
+    philosophizing--the inferring part and the registering
+    part; and ascribing to the latter the functions of the
+    former. The mistake is that of referring a man to his
+    own notes for the _origin_ of his knowledge. If a man is
+    asked a question, and is at the moment unable to answer
+    it, he may refresh his memory by turning to a memorandum
+    which he carries about with him. But if he were asked
+    how the fact came to his knowledge, he would scarcely
+    answer, because it was set down in his note-book.
+
+    "Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of Wellington
+    is mortal, is immediately an inference from the
+    proposition, All men are mortal, whence do we derive our
+    knowledge of that general truth? No supernatural aid
+    being supposed, the answer must be, from observation.
+    Now, all which men can observe are individual cases.
+    From these all general truths must be drawn, and into
+    these they may be again resolved; for a general truth is
+    but an aggregate of particular truths--a comprehensive
+    expression, by which an indefinite number of individual
+    facts are affirmed or denied at once. But a general
+    proposition is not merely a compendious form for
+    recording and preserving in the memory a number of
+    particular facts, all of which have been observed.
+    Generalization is not a process of mere naming, it is
+    also a process of inference. From instances which we
+    have observed, we feel warranted in concluding, that
+    what we found true in those instances holds in all
+    similar ones--past, present, and future, however
+    numerous they may be. We, then, by that valuable
+    contrivance of language, which enables us to speak of
+    many as if they were one, record all that we have
+    observed, together with all that we infer from our
+    observations, in one concise expression; and have thus
+    only one proposition, instead of an endless number, to
+    remember or to communicate. The results of many
+    observations and inferences, and instructions for making
+    innumerable inferences in unforeseen cases, are
+    compressed into one short sentence.
+
+    "When, therefore, we conclude, from the death of John
+    and Thomas, and every other person we ever heard of in
+    whose case the experiment had been fairly tried, that
+    the Duke of Wellington is mortal like the rest, we may,
+    indeed, pass through the generalization, All men are
+    mortal, as an intermediate stage; but it is not in the
+    latter half of the process--the descent from all men to
+    the Duke of Wellington--that the _inference_ resides.
+    The inference is finished when we have asserted that all
+    men are mortal. What remains to be performed afterwards
+    is merely deciphering our own notes.
+
+    "Archbishop Whately has contended, that syllogizing, or
+    reasoning from generals to particulars, is not,
+    agreeably to the vulgar idea, a peculiar mode of
+    reasoning, but the philosophical analysis of the mode in
+    which all men reason, and must do so if they reason at
+    all. With the deference due to so high an authority, I
+    cannot help thinking that the vulgar notion is, in this
+    case, the more correct. If, from our experience of John,
+    Thomas, &c. who once were living, but are now dead, we
+    are entitled to conclude that all human beings are
+    mortal, we might surely, without any logical
+    inconsequence, have concluded at once, from those
+    instances, that the Duke Wellington is mortal. The
+    mortality of John, Thomas, and Company, is, after all,
+    the whole evidence we have for the mortality of the Duke
+    of Wellington. Not one iota is added to the proof by
+    interpolating a general proposition. Since the
+    individual cases are all the evidence we can possess;
+    evidence which no logical form into which we choose to
+    throw it can make greater than it is; and since that
+    evidence is either sufficient in itself, or, if
+    insufficient for one purpose, cannot be sufficient for
+    the other; I am unable to see why we should be forbidden
+    to take the shortest cut from these sufficient premisses
+    to the conclusion, and constrained to travel the 'high
+    _priori_ road' by the arbitrary fiat of logicians. I
+    cannot perceive why it should be impossible to journey
+    from one place to another, unless 'we march up a hill
+    and then march down again.' It may be the safest road,
+    and there may be a resting-place at the top of the hill,
+    affording a commanding view of the surrounding country;
+    but for the mere purpose of arriving at our journey's
+    end, our taking that road is perfectly optional: it is a
+    question of time, trouble, and danger.
+
+    "Not only _may_ we reason from particulars to
+    particulars, without passing through generals, but we
+    perpetually do so reason. All our earliest inferences
+    are of this nature. From the first dawn of intelligence
+    we draw inferences; but years elapse before we learn the
+    use of general language. The child who, having burnt his
+    fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire, has
+    reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the
+    general maxim--fire burns. He knows from memory that he
+    has been burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he
+    sees a candle, that if he puts his finger into the flame
+    of it, he will be burnt again. He believes this in every
+    case which happens to arise; but without looking, in
+    each instance, beyond the present case. He is not
+    generalizing; he is inferring a particular from
+    particulars.--Vol. I. p. 244.
+
+    "From the considerations now adduced, the following
+    conclusions seem to be established:--All inference is
+    from particulars to particulars: General propositions
+    are merely registers of such inferences already made,
+    and short formulæ for making more: The major premiss of
+    a syllogism, consequently, is a formula of this
+    description; and the conclusion is not an inference
+    drawn _from_ the formula, but an inference drawn
+    _according to_ the formula: the real logical antecedent,
+    or premisses being _the particular facts from which the
+    general proposition was collected by induction_. * * *
+
+    "In the above observations, it has, I think, been
+    clearly shown, that although there is always a process
+    of reasoning or inference where a syllogism is used, the
+    syllogism is not a correct analysis of that process of
+    reasoning or inference; which is, on the contrary, (when
+    not a mere inference from testimony,) an inference from
+    particulars to particulars; authorized by a previous
+    inference from particulars to generals, and
+    substantially the same with it: of the nature,
+    therefore, of Induction. But while these conclusions
+    appear to me undeniable, I must yet enter a protest, as
+    strong as that of Archbishop Whately himself, against
+    the doctrine that the syllogistic art is useless for the
+    purposes of reasoning. The reasoning lies in the act of
+    generalisation, not in interpreting the record of that
+    act; but the syllogistic form is all indispensable
+    collateral security for the correctness of the
+    generalisation itself."--P. 259.
+
+By this explanation we are released from the dilemma into which the
+syllogistic and non-syllogistic party had together thrown us. We can
+acknowledge that the process of reason can be always exhibited in the
+form of a syllogism, and yet not be driven to the strange and
+perplexing conclusion that our reasoning can never conduct us to a new
+truth, never lead us further than to admit in one shape what we had
+already admitted in another. We have, or may have, it is true, a
+_major_ in all our ratiocination, implied, if not expressed, and are
+so far syllogistic; but then the real premiss from which we reason is
+the amount of experience on which that major was founded, to which
+amount of experience we, in fact, made an addition in our _minor_, or
+conclusion.
+
+But while we accept this explanation, and are grateful for the
+deliverance it works for us, we must also admit, (and we are not aware
+that Mr Mill would controvert this admission,) that there is a large
+class of cases in which our reasoning betrays no reference to this
+anterior experience, and where the usual explanation given by teachers
+of logic is perfectly applicable; cases where our object is, not the
+discovery of truth for ourselves, but to convince another of his
+error, by showing him that the proposition, which in his blindness or
+prejudice he has chosen to contradict, is part and parcel of some
+other proposition to which he has given, and is at all times ready to
+give, his acquiescence. In such cases, we frequently content ourselves
+with throwing before him this alternative--refuse your _major_, to
+which you have again and again assented, or accept, as involved in it,
+our _minor_ proposition, which you have persisted in controverting.
+
+It will have been gathered from the foregoing train of observation,
+that, in direct contradistinction to Archbishop Whately, who had
+represented induction (so far as it consisted of an act of
+ratiocination) as resolvable into deductive and syllogistic reasoning,
+our author has resolved the syllogism, and indeed all deductive
+reasoning whatever, ultimately into examples of induction. In doing
+this, he is encountered by a metaphysical notion very prevalent in the
+present day, which lies across his path, and which he has to remove.
+We allude to the distinction between contingent and necessary truths;
+it being held by many philosophical writers that all necessary and
+universal truths owe their origin, not to experience (except as
+_occasion_ of their development,) and not, consequently, to the
+ordinary process of induction, but flow from higher sources--flow
+immediately from some supreme faculty to which the name of reason has
+by some been exclusively appropriated, in order to distinguish it from
+the understanding, the faculty judging according to sense. We will
+pause a while upon this topic.
+
+
+_Contingent and Necessary Truths._--Those who have read Mr Whewell's
+treatise on the _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, will remember
+that there is no topic which that author labours more sedulously to
+inculcate than this same distinction between contingent and necessary
+truths; and it is against his statement of the doctrine in question,
+that Mr Mill directs his observations. Perhaps the controverted tenets
+would have sustained a more equal combat under the auspices of a more
+practised and more complete metaphysician than Mr Whewell; but a
+difficulty was probably experienced in finding a statement in any
+other well-known English author full and explicit. Referring ourselves
+to Mr Whewell's volumes for an extract, in order to give the
+distinction here contended against the advantage of an exposition in
+the words of one who upholds it, we are embarrassed by the number
+which offer themselves. From many we select the following statement:--
+
+"Experience," says Mr Whewell, "must always consist of a limited
+number of observations. And, however numerous these may be, they can
+show nothing with regard to the infinite number of cases in which the
+experiment has not been made. Experience, being thus unable to prove a
+fact to be universal, is, as will readily be seen, still more
+incapable of proving a fact to be necessary. Experience cannot,
+indeed, offer the smallest ground for the necessity of a proposition.
+She can observe and record what has happened; but she cannot find, in
+any case, or in any accumulation of cases, any reason for what _must_
+happen. She may see objects side by side, but she cannot see a reason
+why they must be ever side by side. She finds certain events to occur
+in succession; but the succession supplies, in its occurrence, no
+reason for its recurrence. She contemplates external objects; but she
+cannot detect any internal bond which indissolubly connects the future
+with the past, the possible with the real. To learn a proposition by
+experience, and to see it to be necessarily true, are two altogether
+different processes of thought.
+
+"But it may be said, that we do learn, by means of observation and
+experience, many universal truths; indeed, all the general truths of
+which science consists. Is not the doctrine of universal gravitation
+learned by experience? Are not the laws of motion, the properties of
+light, the general properties of chemistry, so learned? How, with
+these examples before us, can we say that experience teaches no
+universal truths?
+
+"To this we reply, that these truths can only be known to be
+_general_, not universal, if they depend upon experience alone.
+Experience cannot bestow that universality which she herself cannot
+have, and that necessity of which she has no comprehension. If these
+doctrines are universally true, this universality flows from the
+_ideas_ which we apply to our experience, and which are, as we have
+seen, the real sources of necessary truth. How far these ideas can
+communicate their universality and necessity to the results of
+experience, it will hereafter be our business to consider. It will
+then appear, that when the mind collects from observation truths of a
+wide and comprehensive kind, which approach to the simplicity and
+universality of the truths of pure science; she gives them this
+character by throwing upon them the light of her own fundamental
+ideas."--_Whewell_, Vol. I. p. 60.
+
+Accordingly, Mr Whewell no sooner arrives at any truth which admits of
+an unconditional positive statement--a statement defying all rational
+contradiction--than he abstracts it from amongst the acquisitions of
+experience, and throwing over it, we suppose, the light of these
+fundamental ideas, pronounces it enrolled in the higher class of
+universal and necessary truths. The first laws of motion, though
+established through great difficulties against the most obstinate
+preconceptions, and by the aid of repeated experiments, are, when
+surveyed in their present perfect form, proclaimed to be, not
+acquisitions of experience, but truths emanating from a higher and
+more mysterious origin.[2]
+
+    [2] Necessary truths multiply on us very fast. "We
+    maintain," says Mr Whewell, "that this equality of
+    _mechanical action and reaction_ is one of the
+    principles which do not flow from, but regulate, our
+    experience. A mechanical pressure, not accompanied by an
+    equal and opposite pressure, can no more be given by
+    experience than two unequal right angles. With the
+    supposition of such inequalities, space ceases to be
+    space, form ceases to be form, matter ceases to be
+    matter." And again he says, "_That the parallelogram of
+    forces is a necessary truth_;" a law of motion of which
+    we surely can _conceive_ its opposite to be true. In
+    some of these instances Mr Whewell appears, by a
+    confusion of thought, to have given to the _physical
+    fact_ the character of necessity which resides in the
+    mathematical formula employed for its expression.
+    Whether a moving body would communicate motion to
+    another body--whether it would lose its own motion by so
+    doing--or what would be the result if a body were struck
+    by two other bodies moving in different directions--are
+    questions which, if they could be asked us prior to
+    experience, we could give no answer whatever to--which
+    we can easily conceive to admit of a quite different
+    answer to that which experience has taught us to give.
+
+This distinction, which assigns a different mental origin to truths,
+simply because (from the nature of the subject-matter, as it seems to
+us) there is a difference with regard to the sort of certainty we feel
+of them, has always appeared to us most unphilosophical. It is
+admitted that we arrive at a general proposition through experience;
+there is no room, therefore, for quibbling as to the meaning of the
+term experience--it is understood that when we speak of a truth being
+derived from experience, we imply the usual exercise of our mental
+faculties; it is the step from a general to a universal proposition
+which alone occasions this perplexing distinction. The dogma is
+this--that experience can only teach us by a limited number of
+examples, and therefore can never establish a universal proposition.
+But if _all_ experience is in favour of a proposition--if no
+experience has occurred even to enable the imagination to conceive its
+opposite, what more can be required to convert the general into a
+universal proposition?
+
+Strange to say, the attribution of these characteristics of
+universality and necessity, becomes, amongst those who loudly insist
+upon the palpable nature of the distinction we are now examining, a
+matter of controversy; and there are a class of scientific truths, of
+which it is debated whether they are contingent or necessary. The
+only test that they belong to the latter order is, the impossibility
+of conceiving their opposites to be the truth; and it seems that men
+find a great difference in their powers of conception, and that what
+is impossible with one is possible with another. But (wisely, too)
+passing this over, and admitting that there is a distinction (though
+a very ill-defined one) between the several truths we entertain of
+this nature; namely, that some we find it impossible, even in
+imagination, to contradict, whilst of others we can suppose it
+possible that they should cease to be truths--does it follow that
+different faculties of the mind are engaged in the acquisition of
+them? Does nothing depend on the nature of the subject itself? "That
+two sides of a triangle," says Mr Whewell, "are greater than the
+third, is a universal and necessary geometrical truth; it is true of
+all triangles; it is true in such a way that the contrary cannot be
+conceived. _Experience could not prove such a proposition._"
+Experience is allowed to prove it of this or that triangle, but not
+as an inseparable property of a triangle. We are at a loss to
+perceive why the same faculties of the mind that can judge, say of
+the properties of animal life, of organized beings, cannot judge of
+the properties of a figure--properties which must immediately be
+conceived to exist the moment the figure is presented to the
+imagination. We say, for instance, of any animal, not because it is
+this or that animal, a sheep or an ox, but simply _as_ animal, that
+it must sustain itself by food, by the process of assimilation. This,
+however, is merely a contingent truth, because it is in our power to
+conceive of organized beings whose substance shall not wear away, and
+consequently shall not need perpetual restoration. But what faculty
+of the mind is unemployed here that is engaged in perceiving the
+property of a triangle, that _as_ triangle, it must have two sides
+greater than the third? The truths elicited in the two cases have a
+difference, inasmuch as a triangle differs from an animal in this,
+that it is impossible to conceive other triangles than those to which
+your truth is applicable, and therefore the proposition relating to
+the triangle is called a necessary truth. But surely this difference
+lies in the subject-matter, not in the nature of our mental
+faculties.
+
+But we had not intended to interpose our own lucubrations in the place
+of those of Mr Mill.
+
+    "Although Mr Whewell," says our author, "has naturally
+    and properly employed a variety of phrases to bring his
+    meaning more forcibly home, he will, I presume, allow
+    that they are all equivalent; and that what he means by
+    a necessary truth, would be sufficiently defined, a
+    proposition the negation of which is not only false, but
+    inconceivable. I am unable to find in any of Mr
+    Whewell's expressions, turn them what way you will, a
+    meaning beyond this, and I do not believe he would
+    contend that they mean any thing more.
+
+    "This, therefore, is the principle asserted: that
+    propositions, the negation of which is inconceivable, or
+    in other words, which we cannot figure to ourselves as
+    being false, must rest upon evidence of higher and more
+    cogent description than any which experience can afford.
+    And we have next to consider whether there is any ground
+    for this assertion.
+
+    "Now, I cannot but wonder that so much stress should be
+    laid upon the circumstance of inconceivableness, when
+    there is such ample experience to show that our capacity
+    or incapacity for conceiving a thing has very little to
+    do with the possibility of the thing in itself; but is
+    in truth very much an affair of accident, and depends
+    upon the past habits and history of our own minds. There
+    is no more generally acknowledged fact in human nature,
+    than the extreme difficulty at first felt in conceiving
+    any thing as possible, which is in contradiction to
+    long-established and familiar experience, or even to old
+    and familiar habits of thought. And this difficulty is a
+    necessary result of the fundamental laws of the human
+    mind. When we have often seen and thought of two things
+    together, and have never, in any one instance, either
+    seen or thought of them separately, there is by the
+    primary law of association an increasing difficulty,
+    which in the end becomes insuperable, of conceiving the
+    two things apart. This is most of all conspicuous in
+    uneducated persons, who are, in general, utterly unable
+    to separate any two ideas which have once become firmly
+    associated in their minds, and, if persons of cultivated
+    intellect have any advantage on the point, it is only
+    because, having seen and heard and read more, and being
+    more accustomed to exercise their imagination, they
+    have experienced their sensations and thoughts in more
+    varied combinations, and have been prevented from
+    forming many of these inseparable associations. But this
+    advantage has necessarily its limits. The man of the
+    most practised intellect is not exempt from the
+    universal laws of our conceptive faculty. If daily habit
+    presents to him for a long period two facts in
+    combination, and if he is not led, during that period,
+    either by accident or intention, to think of them apart,
+    he will in time become incapable of doing so, even by
+    the strongest effort; and the supposition, that the two
+    facts can be separated in nature, will at last present
+    itself to his mind with all the characters of an
+    inconceivable phenomenon. There are remarkable instances
+    of this in the history of science; instances in which
+    the wisest men rejected as impossible, because
+    inconceivable, things which their posterity, by earlier
+    practice, and longer perseverance in the attempt, found
+    it quite easy to conceive, and which every body now
+    knows to be true. There was a time when men of the most
+    cultivated intellects, and the most emancipated from the
+    dominion of early prejudice, could not credit the
+    existence of antipodes; were unable to conceive, in
+    opposition to old association, the force of gravity
+    acting upwards instead of downwards. The Cartesians long
+    rejected the Newtonian doctrine of the gravitation of
+    all bodies towards one another, on the faith of a
+    general proposition, the reverse of which seemed to them
+    to be inconceivable--the proposition, that a body cannot
+    act where it is not. All the cumbrous machinery of
+    imaginary vortices, assumed without the smallest
+    particle of evidence, appeared to these philosophers a
+    more rational mode of explaining the heavenly motions,
+    than one which involved what appeared to them so great
+    an absurdity. And they, no doubt, found it as impossible
+    to conceive that a body should act upon the earth at the
+    distance of the sun or moon, as we find it to conceive
+    an end to space or time, or two straight lines inclosing
+    a space. Newton himself had not been able to realize the
+    conception, or we should not have had his hypothesis of
+    a subtle ether, the occult cause of gravitation; and his
+    writings prove, that although he deemed the particular
+    nature of the intermediate agency a matter of
+    conjecture, the necessity of _some_ such agency appeared
+    to him indubitable. It would seem that, even now, the
+    majority of scientific men have not completely got over
+    this very difficulty; for though they have at last
+    learned to conceive the sun _attracting_ the earth
+    without any intervening fluid, they cannot yet conceive
+    the sun _illuminating_ the earth without some such
+    medium.
+
+    "If, then, it be so natural to the human mind, even in
+    its highest state of culture, to be incapable of
+    conceiving, and on that ground to believe impossible,
+    what is afterwards not only found to be conceivable, but
+    proved to be true; what wonder if, in cases where the
+    association is still older, more confirmed, and more
+    familiar, and in which nothing even occurs to shake our
+    conviction, or even to suggest to us any conception at
+    variance with the association, the acquired incapacity
+    should continue, and be mistaken for a natural
+    incapacity? It is true our experience of the varieties
+    in nature enables us, within certain limits, to conceive
+    other varieties analogous to them. We can conceive the
+    sun or moon falling, for although we never saw them
+    fall, nor ever perhaps imagined them falling, we have
+    seen so many other things fall, that we have innumerable
+    familiar analogies to assist the conception; which,
+    after all, we should probably have some difficulty in
+    framing, were we not well accustomed to see the sun and
+    moon move, (or appear to move,) so that we are only
+    called upon to conceive a slight change in the direction
+    of motion, a circumstance familiar to our experience.
+    But when experience affords no model on which to shape
+    the new conception, how is it possible for us to form
+    it? How, for example, can we imagine an end to space and
+    time? We never saw any object without something beyond
+    it, nor experienced any feeling without something
+    following it. When, therefore, we attempt to conceive
+    the last point of space, we have the idea irresistibly
+    raised of other points beyond it. When we try to imagine
+    the last instant of time, we cannot help conceiving
+    another instant after it. Nor is there any necessity to
+    assume, as is done by the school to which Mr Whewell
+    belongs, a peculiar fundamental law of the mind to
+    account for the feeling of infinity inherent in our
+    conception of space and time; that apparent infinity is
+    sufficiently accounted for by simple and universally
+    acknowledged laws."--Vol. I. p. 313.
+
+Mr Mill does not deny that there exists a distinction, as regards
+ourselves, between certain truths (namely, that of some, we cannot
+conceive them to be other than truths,) but he sets no value on this
+distinction, inasmuch as there is no proof that it has its counterpart
+in things themselves; the impossibility of a thing being by no means
+measured by our inability to conceive it. And we may observe, that Mr
+Whewell, in consistency with the metaphysical doctrine upon space and
+time which he has borrowed from Kant, ought, under another shape, to
+entertain a similar doubt as to whether this distinction represent any
+real distinction in the nature of things. He considers, with Kant,
+that space is only that _form_ with which the human mind invests
+things--that it has no other than this merely mental existence--is
+purely subjective. Presuming, therefore, that the mind is, from its
+constitution, utterly and for ever unable to conceive the opposite of
+certain truths, (those, for instance, of geometry;) yet as the
+existence of space itself is but a subjective truth, it must follow
+that all other truths relating to it are subjective also. The mind is
+not conversant with things in themselves, in the truths even of
+geometry; nor is there any positive objective truth in one department
+of science more than another. Mr Whewell, therefore, though he
+advocates this distinction between necessary and contingent truth with
+a zeal which would seem to imply that something momentous, or of
+peculiar interest, was connected with it, can advocate it only as a
+matter of abstract metaphysical science. He cannot participate in that
+feeling of exaltation and mystery which has led many to expatiate upon
+a necessary and absolute truth which the Divine Power itself cannot
+alter, which is equally irresistible, equally binding and compulsory,
+with God as with man. Of this spirit of philosophical enthusiasm Mr
+Whewell cannot partake. Space and Time, with all their properties and
+phenomena, are but recognized as the modes of thought of a human
+intelligence.
+
+We have marked a number of passages for annotation and extract--a far
+greater number than we can possibly find place for alluding to. One
+subject, however, which lies at the very basis of all our science, and
+which has received a proportionate attention from Mr Mill, must not be
+amongst those which are passed over. We mean the law of _Causation_.
+What should be described as the complete and adequate notion of a
+cause, we need not say is one of the moot points of philosophy.
+According to one school of metaphysicians, there is in our notion of
+cause an element not derived from experience, which, it is confessed
+on all hands, can teach us only the _succession_ of events. Cause,
+with them, is that invisible power, that mysterious bond, which this
+succession does but signify: with other philosophers this succession
+constitutes the whole of any intelligible notion we have of cause. The
+latter opinion is that of Mr Mill; at the same time the question is
+one which lies beyond or beside the scope of his volumes. He is
+concerned only with phenomena, not with the knowledge (if such there
+be) of "things in themselves;" that part, therefore, of our idea of
+cause which, according to all systems of philosophy, is won from
+experience, and concerns phenomena alone, is sufficient for his
+purpose. That every event has a cause, that is, a previous and
+uniformly previous event, and that whatever has happened will, in the
+like circumstances, happen again--these are the assumptions necessary
+to science, and these no one will dispute.
+
+Mr Mill has made a happy addition to the usual definition of cause
+given by that class of metaphysicians to which he himself belongs, and
+which obviates a plausible objection urged against it by Dr Reid and
+others. These have argued, that if cause be nothing more than
+invariable antecedence, then night may be said to be the cause of day,
+for the one invariably precedes the other. Day does succeed to night,
+but only on certain conditions--namely, that the sun rise. "The
+succession," observes Mr Mill, "which is equivalent and synonymous to
+cause, must be not only invariable but unconditional. We may define,
+therefore," says our author, "the cause of a phenomenon to be the
+antecedent, or the concurrence of antecedents, upon which it is
+invariably and _unconditionally_ consequent."--Vol. I. p. 411.
+
+A dilemma may be raised of this kind. The universality of the law of
+causation--in other words, the uniform course of nature--is the
+fundamental principle on which all induction proceeds, the great
+premise on which all our science is founded. But if this law itself be
+the result only of experience, itself only a great instance of
+induction, so long as nature presents cases requiring investigation,
+where the causes are unknown to us, so long the law itself is
+imperfectly established. How, then, can this law be a guide and a
+premiss in the investigations of science, when those investigations
+are necessary to complete the proof of the law itself? How can this
+principle accompany and authorise every step we take in science, which
+itself needs confirmation so long as a process of induction remains to
+be performed? Or how can this law be established by a series of
+inductions, in making which it has been taken for granted?
+
+Objections which wear the air of a quibble have often this
+advantage--they put our knowledge to the test. The obligation to find
+a complete answer clears up our own conceptions. The observations
+which Mr Mill makes on this point, we shall quote at length. They are
+taken from his chapter on the _Evidence of the Law of Universal
+Causation_; the views in which are as much distinguished for boldness
+as for precision.
+
+After having said, that in all the several methods of induction the
+universality of the law of causation is assumed, he continues:--
+
+    "But is this assumption warranted? Doubtless (it may be
+    said) _most_ phenomena are connected as effects with
+    some antecedent or cause--that is, are never produced
+    unless some assignable fact has preceded them; but the
+    very circumstance, that complicated processes of
+    induction are sometimes necessary, shows that cases
+    exist in which this regular order of succession is not
+    apparent to our first and simplest apprehension. If,
+    then, the processes which bring these cases within the
+    same category with the rest, require that we should
+    assume the universality of the very law which they do
+    not at first sight appear to exemplify, is not this a
+    real _petitio principii_? Can we prove a proposition by
+    an argument which takes it for granted? And, if not so
+    proved, on what evidence does it rest?
+
+    "For this difficulty, which I have purposely stated in
+    the strongest terms it would admit of, the school of
+    metaphysicians, who have long predominated in this
+    country, find a ready salvo. They affirm that the
+    universality of causation is a truth which we cannot
+    help believing; that the belief in it is an instinct,
+    one of the laws of our believing faculty. As the proof
+    of this they say, and they have nothing else to say,
+    that every body _does_ believe it; and they number it
+    among the propositions, rather numerous in their
+    catalogue, which may be logically argued against, and
+    perhaps cannot be logically proved, but which are of
+    higher authority than logic, and which even he who
+    denies in speculation, shows by his habitual practice
+    that his arguments make no impression on himself.
+
+    "I have no intention of entering into the merits of this
+    question, as a problem of transcendental metaphysics.
+    But I must renew my protest against adducing, as
+    evidence of the truth of a fact in external nature, any
+    necessity which the human mind may be conceived to be
+    under of believing it. It is the business of human
+    intellect to adapt itself to the realities of things,
+    and not to measure those realities by its own capacities
+    of comprehension. The same quality which fits mankind
+    for the offices and purposes of their own little life,
+    the tendency of their belief to follow their experience,
+    incapacitates them for judging of what lies beyond. Not
+    only what man can know, but what he can conceive,
+    depends upon what he has experienced. Whatever forms a
+    part of all his experience, forms a part also of all his
+    conceptions, and appears to him universal and necessary,
+    though really, for aught he knows, having no existence
+    beyond certain narrow limits. The habit, however, of
+    philosophical analysis, of which it is the surest effect
+    to enable the mind to command, instead of being
+    commanded by, the laws of the merely passive part of its
+    own nature, and which, by showing to us that things are
+    not necessarily connected in fact because their ideas
+    are connected in our minds, is able to loosen
+    innumerable associations which reign despotically over
+    the undisciplined mind; this habit is not without power
+    even over those associations which the philosophical
+    school, of which I have been speaking, regard as connate
+    and instinctive. I am convinced that any one accustomed
+    to abstraction and analysis, who will fairly exert his
+    faculties for the purpose, will, when his imagination
+    has once learned to entertain the notion, find no
+    difficulty in conceiving that in some one, for instance,
+    of the many firmaments into which sidereal astronomy now
+    divides the universe, events may succeed one another at
+    random, without any fixed law; nor can any thing in our
+    experience, or in our mental nature, constitute a
+    sufficient, or indeed any, reason for believing that
+    this is nowhere the case. The grounds, therefore, which
+    warrant us in rejecting such a supposition with respect
+    to any of the phenomena of which we have experience,
+    must be sought elsewhere than in any supposed necessity
+    of our intellectual faculties.
+
+    "As was observed in a former place, the belief we
+    entertain in the universality, throughout nature, of the
+    law of cause and effect, is itself an instance of
+    induction; and by no means one of the earliest which any
+    of us, or which mankind in general, can have made. We
+    arrive at this universal law by generalisation from many
+    laws of inferior generality. The generalising propensity
+    which, instinctive or not, is one of the most powerful
+    principles of our nature, does not indeed wait for the
+    period when such a generalisation becomes strictly
+    legitimate. The mere unreasoning propensity to expect
+    what has been often experienced, doubtless led men to
+    believe that every thing had a cause, before they could
+    have conclusive evidence of that truth. But even this
+    cannot be supposed to have happened until many cases of
+    causation, or, in other words, many partial uniformities
+    of sequence, had become familiar. The more obvious of
+    the particular uniformities suggest and prove the
+    general uniformity; and that general uniformity, once
+    established, enables us to prove the remainder of the
+    particular uniformities of which it is made up. * * *
+
+    "With respect to the general law of causation, it does
+    appear that there must have been a time when the
+    universal prevalence of that law throughout nature could
+    not have been affirmed in the same confident and
+    unqualified manner as at present. There was a time when
+    many of the phenomena of nature must have appeared
+    altogether capricious and irregular, not governed by any
+    laws, nor steadily consequent upon any causes. Such
+    phenomena, indeed, were commonly, in that early stage of
+    human knowledge, ascribed to the direct intervention of
+    the will of some supernatural being, and therefore still
+    to a cause. This shows the strong tendency of the human
+    mind to ascribe every phenomenon to some cause or other;
+    but it shows also that experience had not, at that time,
+    pointed out any regular order in the occurrence of those
+    particular phenomena, nor proved them to be, as we now
+    know that they are, dependent upon prior phenomena as
+    their proximate causes. There have been sects of
+    philosophers who have admitted what they termed Chance
+    as one of the agents in the order of nature by which
+    certain classes of events were entirely regulated; which
+    could only mean that those events did not occur in any
+    fixed order, or depend upon uniform laws of causation.
+    * * *
+
+    "The progress of experience, therefore, has dissipated
+    the doubt which must have rested upon the universality
+    of the law of causation, while there were phenomena
+    which seemed to be _sui generis_; not subject to the
+    same laws with any other class of phenomena, and not as
+    yet ascertained to have peculiar laws of their own. This
+    great generalisation, however, might reasonably have
+    been, as it in fact was by all great thinkers, acted
+    upon as a probability of the highest order, before there
+    were sufficient grounds for receiving it as a certainty.
+    For, whatever has been found true in innumerable
+    instances, and never found to be false after due
+    examination in any, we are safe in acting upon as
+    universal provisionally, until an undoubted exception
+    appears; provided the nature of the case be such that a
+    real exception could scarcely have escaped our notice.
+    When every phenomenon that we ever knew sufficiently
+    well to be able to answer the question, had a cause on
+    which it was invariably consequent, it was more rational
+    to suppose that our inability to assign the causes of
+    other phenomena arose from our ignorance, than that
+    there were phenomena which were uncaused, and which
+    happened accidentally to be exactly those which we had
+    hitherto had no sufficient opportunity of
+    studying."--Vol. II. p. 108.
+
+
+_Hypotheses._--Mr Mill's observations on the use of hypotheses in
+scientific investigation, except that they are characterized by his
+peculiar distinctness and accuracy of thought, do not differ from the
+views generally entertained by writers on the subject. We are induced
+to refer to the topic, to point out what seems to us a harsh measure
+dealt out to the undulatory theory of light--harsh when compared with
+the reception given to a theory of Laplace, having for its object to
+account for the origin of the planetary system.
+
+We had occasion to quote a passage from Mr Mill, in which he remarks
+that the majority of scientific men seem not yet to have completely
+got over the difficulty of conceiving matter to act (contrary to the
+old maxim) where it is not; "for though," he says, "they have at last
+learned to conceive the sun _attracting_ the earth without any
+intervening fluid, they cannot yet conceive the sun _illuminating_ the
+earth without some such medium." But it is not only this difficulty
+(which doubtless, however, is felt) of conceiving the sun illuminating
+the earth without any medium by which to communicate its influence,
+which leads to the construction of the hypothesis, either of an
+undulating ether, or of emitted particles. The analogy of the other
+senses conducts us almost irresistibly to the imagination of some such
+medium. The nerves of sense are, apparently, in all cases that we can
+satisfactorily investigate, affected by contact, by impulse. The nerve
+of sight itself, we know, when touched or pressed upon, gives out the
+sensation of light. These reasons, in the first place, conduct us to
+the supposition of some medium, having immediate communication with
+the eye; which medium, though we are far from saying that its
+existence is established, is rendered probable by the explanation it
+affords of optical phenomena. At the same time it is evident that the
+hypothesis of an undulating ether, assumes a fluid or some medium, the
+existence of which cannot be directly ascertained. Thus stands the
+hypothesis of a luminiferous ether--in what must be allowed to be a
+very unsatisfactory condition. But a condition, we think, very
+superior to the astronomical speculation of Laplace, which Mr Mill,
+after scrutinizing the preceding hypothesis with the utmost
+strictness, is disposed to treat with singular indulgence.
+
+    "The speculation is," we may as well quote throughout Mr
+    Mill's words, "that the atmosphere of the sun originally
+    extended to the present limits of the solar system: from
+    which, by the process of cooling, it has contracted to
+    its present dimensions; and since, by the general
+    principles of mechanics, the rotation of the sun and its
+    accompanying atmosphere must increase as rapidly as its
+    volume diminishes, the increased centrifugal force
+    generated by the more rapid rotation, overbalancing the
+    action of gravitation, would cause the sun to abandon
+    successive rings of vaporous matter, which are supposed
+    to have condensed by cooling, and to have become our
+    planets.
+
+    "There is in this theory," Mr Mill proceeds, "no unknown
+    substance introduced upon supposition, nor any unknown
+    property or law ascribed to a known substance. The known
+    laws of matter authorize us to suppose, that a body
+    which is constantly giving out so large an amount of
+    heat as the sun is, must be progressively cooling, and
+    that by the process of cooling it must contract; if,
+    therefore, we endeavour, from the present state of that
+    luminary, to infer its state in a time long past, we
+    must necessarily suppose that its atmosphere extended
+    much further than at present, and we are entitled to
+    suppose that it extended as far as we can trace those
+    effects which it would naturally leave behind it on
+    retiring; and such the planets are. These suppositions
+    being made, it follows from known laws that successive
+    zones of the solar atmosphere would be abandoned; that
+    these would continue to revolve round the sun with the
+    same velocity as when they formed part of his substance,
+    and that they would cool down, long before the sun
+    himself, to any given temperature, and consequently to
+    that at which the greater part of the vaporous matter of
+    which they consisted would become liquid or solid. The
+    known law of gravitation would then cause them to
+    agglomerate in masses, which would assume the shape our
+    planets actually exhibit; would acquire, each round its
+    own axis, a rotatory movement; and would in that state
+    revolve, as the planets actually do, about the sun, in
+    the same direction with the sun's rotation, but with
+    less velocity, and each of them in the same periodic
+    time which the sun's rotation occupied when his
+    atmosphere extended to that point; and this also M.
+    Comte has, by the necessary calculations, ascertained to
+    be true, within certain small limits of error. There is
+    thus in Laplace's theory nothing hypothetical; it is an
+    example of legitimate reasoning from a present effect to
+    its past cause, according to the known laws of that
+    case; it assumes nothing more than that objects which
+    really exist, obey the laws which are known to be obeyed
+    by all terrestrial objects resembling them."--Vol. II.
+    p. 27.
+
+Now, it seems to us that there is quite as much of hypothesis in this
+speculation of Laplace as in the undulatory theory of light. This
+atmosphere of the sun extending to the utmost limits of our planetary
+system! What proof have we that it ever existed? what possible
+grounds have we for believing, what motive even for imagining such a
+thing, but the very same description of proof given and rejected for
+the existence of a luminiferous ether--namely, that it enables us to
+explain certain events supposed to result from it? Nor is the thing
+here imagined any the less a novelty, because it bears the old name of
+an atmosphere. An atmosphere containing in itself all the various
+materials which compose our earth, and whatever else may enter into
+the composition of the other planets, is as violent a supposition as
+an ether, not perceptible to the senses except by its influence on the
+nerves of sight. And this cooling down of the sun! What fact in our
+experience enables us to advance such a supposition? We might as well
+say that the sun was getting hotter every year, or harder or softer,
+or larger or smaller. Surely Mr Mill could not have been serious when
+he says, that "the known laws of matter authorize us to suppose, that
+a body which is constantly _giving out so large an amount of heat_ as
+the sun is, must be progressively cooling"--knowing, as we do, as
+little how the sun occasions heat as how it produces light. Neither
+can it be contended that because no absolutely new substance, or new
+property of matter, is introduced, but a fantastic conception is
+framed out of known substances and known properties, that therefore
+there is less of rash conjecture in the supposition. In fine, it must
+be felt by every one who reads the account of this speculation of
+Laplace, that the only evidence which produces the least effect upon
+his mind, is the corroboration which it receives from the calculations
+of the mathematician--a species of proof which Mr Mill himself would
+not estimate very highly.
+
+Many are the topics which are made to reflect a new light as Mr Mill
+passes along his lengthened course; we might quote as instances, his
+chapters on _Analogy_ and the _Calculation of Chances_: and many are
+the grave and severe discussions that would await us were we to
+proceed to the close of his volumes, especially to that portion of his
+work where he applies the canons of science to investigations which
+relate to human nature and the characters of men. But enough for the
+present. We repeat, in concluding, the same sentiment that we
+expressed at the commencement, that such a work as this goes far to
+redeem the literature of our age from the charge of frivolity and
+superficiality. Those who have been trained in a different school of
+thinking, those who have adopted the metaphysics of the transcendental
+philosophy, will find much in these volumes to dissent from; but no
+man, be his pretensions or his tenets what they may, who has been
+accustomed to the study of philosophy, can fail to recognize and
+admire in this author that acute, patient, enlarged, and persevering
+thought, which gives to him who possesses it the claim and right to
+the title of philosopher. There are few men who--applying it to his
+own species of excellence--might more safely repeat the _Io sono
+anche!_ of the celebrated Florentine.
+
+
+
+
+MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+
+
+People are fond of talking of the hereditary feuds of Italy--the
+factions of the Capulets and Montagues, the Orsini and Colonne--and,
+more especially, of the memorable _Vendette_ of Corsica--as if hatred
+and revenge were solely endemic in the regions of
+
+    "The Pyrenean and the river Po!"
+
+Mere prejudice! There is as good hating going on in England as
+elsewhere. Independent of the personal antipathies generated by
+politics, the envy, hatred, and malice arising out of every election
+contest, not a country neighbourhood but has its raging factions; and
+Browns and Smiths often cherish and maintain an antagonism every whit
+as bitter as that of the sanguinary progenitors of Romeo and Juliet.
+
+I, for instance, who am but a country gentleman in a small way--an
+obscure bachelor, abiding from year's end to year's end on my
+insignificant farm--have witnessed things in my time, which, had they
+been said and done nearer the tropics, would have been cited far and
+near in evidence of the turbulence of human passions, and that "the
+heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Seeing
+that they chanced in a homely parish in Cheshire, no one has been at
+the trouble to note their strangeness; though, to own the truth, none
+but the actors in the drama (besides myself, a solitary spectator) are
+cognizant of its incidents and catastrophe. I might boast, indeed,
+that I alone am thoroughly in the secret; for it is the spectator only
+who competently judges the effects of a scene; and merely changing the
+names, for reasons easily conceivable, I ask leave to relate in the
+simplest manner a few facts in evidence of my assertion, that England
+has its Capuletti e Montecchi as well as Verona.
+
+In the first place, let me premise that I am neither of a condition of
+life, nor condition of mind, to mingle as a friend with those of whose
+affairs I am about to treat so familiarly, being far too crotchety a
+fellow not to prefer a saunter with my fishing-tackle on my back, or
+an evening tête-à-tête with my library of quaint old books, to all the
+good men's feasts ever eaten at the cost of a formal country visit.
+Nevertheless, I am not so cold of heart as to be utterly devoid of
+interest in the destinies of those whose turrets I see peering over
+the woods that encircle my corn-fields; and as the good old
+housekeeper, who for these thirty years past has presided over my
+household, happens to have grandchildren high in service in what are
+called the two great families in the neighbourhood, scarcely an event
+or incident passes within their walls that does not find an echo in
+mine. So much in attestation of my authority. But for such an
+introduction behind the scenes, much of the stage business of this
+curious drama would have escaped my notice, or remained
+incomprehensible.
+
+I am wrong to say the two great "families;" I should have said the two
+great "houses." At the close of the last century, indeed, our parish
+of Lexley contained but one; one which had stood there since the days
+of the first James, nay, even earlier--a fine old manorial hall of
+grand dimensions and stately architecture, of the species of mixed
+Gothic so false in taste, but so ornamental in effect, which is
+considered as betraying the first symptoms of Italian innovation.
+
+The gardens extending in the rear of the house were still more
+decidedly in the Italian taste, having clipped evergreens and avenues
+of pyramidal yews, which, combined with the intervening statues,
+imparted to them something of the air of a cemetery. There were
+fountains, too, which, in the memory of man, had been never known to
+play, the marble basins being, if possible, still greener than the
+grim visages of the fauns and dryads standing forlorn on their
+dilapidated pedestals amid the neglected alleys.
+
+The first thing I can remember of Lexley Hall, was peeping as a child
+through the stately iron gratings of the garden, that skirted a
+by-road leading from my grandfather's farm. The desolateness of the
+place overawed my young heart. In summer time the parterres were
+overgrown into a wilderness. The plants threw up their straggling arms
+so high, that the sunshine could hardly find its way to the quaint old
+dial that stood there telling its tale of time, though no man
+regarded; and the cordial fragrance of the strawberry-beds, mingling
+with entangled masses of honeysuckle in their exuberance of midsummer
+blossom, seemed to mock me, as I loitered in the dusk near the old
+gateway, with the tantalizing illusions of a fairy-tale--the
+Barmecide's feast, or Prince Desire surveying his princess through the
+impermeable walls of her crystal palace.
+
+But if the enjoyment of the melancholy old gardens of Lexley Hall were
+withheld from _me_, no one else seemed to find pleasure or profit
+therein. Sir Laurence Altham, the lord of the manor and manor-house,
+was seldom resident in the country. Though a man of mature years, (I
+speak of the close of the last century,) he was still a man of
+pleasure--the ruined hulk of the gallant vessel which, early in the
+reign of George III., had launched itself with unequalled brilliancy
+on the sparkling current of London life.
+
+At that time, I have heard my grandfather say there was not a mortgage
+on the Lexley estate! The timber was notoriously the finest in the
+county. A whole navy was comprised in one of its coppices; and the
+arching avenues were imposing as the aisles of our Gothic minsters.
+Alas! it needed the lapse of only half a dozen years to lay bare to
+the eye of every casual traveller the ancient mansion, so long
+
+    "Bosom'd high in tufted trees,"
+
+and only guessed at till you approached the confines of the
+court-yard.
+
+It was hazard that effected this. The dice-box swept those noble
+avenues from the face of the estate. Soon after Sir Laurence's coming
+of age, almost before the church-bells had ceased to announce the
+joyous event of the attainment of his majority, he was off to the
+Continent--Paris--Italy--I know not where, and was thenceforward only
+occasionally heard of in Cheshire as the ornament of the Sardinian or
+Austrian courts. But these tidings were usually accompanied by a
+shaking of the head from the old family steward. The timber was to be
+thinned anew--the tenants to be again amerced. Sir Laurence evidently
+looked upon the Lexley property as a mere hotbed for his vices. At
+last the old steward turned surly to our enquiries, and would answer
+no further questions concerning his master. My grandfather's small
+farm was the only plot of ground in the parish that did not belong to
+the estate; and from him the faithful old servant was as careful to
+conceal the family disgraces, as to maintain the honour of Sir
+Laurence's name in the ears of his grumbling tenants.
+
+The truth, however, could not long be withheld. Chaisefuls of
+suspicious-looking men in black arrived at the hall; loungers,
+surveyors, auctioneers--I know not what. There was talk in the parish
+about foreclosing a mortgage, no one exactly understood why, or by
+whom. But it was soon clear that Wightman, the old steward, was no
+longer the great man at Lexley. These strangers bade him come here and
+go there exactly as they chose, and, unhappily, they saw fit to make
+his comings and goings so frequent and so humiliating, that before the
+close of the summer the old servitor betook himself to his rest in a
+spot where all men cease from troubling. The leaves that dreary autumn
+fell upon his grave.
+
+According to my grandfather's account, however, few even of his
+village contemporaries grieved for old Wightman. They felt that
+Providence knew best; that the old man was happily spared the
+mortification of all that was likely to ensue. For before another year
+was out the ring fence, which had hitherto encircled the Lexley
+property, was divided within itself; a paltry distribution of about a
+hundred acres alone remaining attached to the old hall. The rest was
+gone! The rest was the property of the foreclosee of that hateful
+mortgage.
+
+Within view of the battlements of the old manor-house, nearly a
+hundred workmen were soon employed in digging the foundations of a
+modern mansion of the noblest proportions. The new owner of the
+estate, though only a manufacturer from Congleton, chose to dwell in a
+palace; and by the time his splendid Doric temple was complete, under
+the name of Lexley Park, the vain-glorious proprietor, Mr Sparks, had
+taken his seat in Parliament for a neighbouring borough.
+
+Little was known of him in the neighbourhood beyond his name and
+calling; yet already his new tenants were prepared to oppose and
+dislike him. Though they knew quite as little personally of the young
+baronet by whom they had been sold into bondage to the unpopular
+clothier--him, with the caprice of ignorance, they chose to prefer.
+They were proud of the old family--proud of the hereditary lords of
+the soil--proud of a name connecting itself with the glories of the
+reign of Elizabeth, and the loyalty shining, like a sepulchral lamp,
+through the gloomy records of the House of Stuart. The banners and
+escutcheons of the Althams were appended in their parish church. The
+family vault sounded hollow under their head whenever they approached
+its altar. Where was the burial-place of the manufacturer? In what
+obscure churchyard existed the mouldering heap that covered the
+remains of the sires of Mr Jonas Sparks? Certainly not at Lexley!
+Lexley knew not, and cared not to know, either him or his. It was no
+fault of the parish that its young baronet had proved a spendthrift
+and alienated the inheritance of his fathers; and, but that he had
+preserved the manor-house from desecration, they would perhaps have
+ostracized him altogether, as having lent his aid to disgrace their
+manor with so noble a structure as the porticoed façade of Lexley
+Park!
+
+Meanwhile the shrewd Jonas was fully aware of his unpopularity and its
+origin; and, during a period of three years, he allowed his
+ill-advised subjects to chew, unmolested, the cud of their discontent.
+Having a comfortable residence at the further extremity of the county,
+he visited Lexley only to overlook the works, or notice the placing of
+the costly new furniture; and the grumblers began to fancy they were
+to profit as little by their new masters as by their old. The steward
+who replaced the trusty Wightman, and had been instructed to legislate
+among the cottages with a lighter hand, and distribute Christmas
+benefaction in a double proportion, was careful to circulate in the
+parish an impression that Mr Sparks and his family did not care to
+inhabit the new house till the gardens were in perfect order, the
+succession houses in full bearing, and the mansion thoroughly
+seasoned. But the Lexleyans guessed the truth, that he had no mind to
+confront the first outbreak of their ill-will.
+
+Nearly four years elapsed before he took possession of the place; four
+years, during which Sir Laurence Altham had never set foot in the
+hall, and was heard of only through his follies and excesses; and when
+Mr Sparks at length made his appearance, with his handsome train of
+equipages, and surrounded by his still handsomer family, so far from
+meeting him with sullen silence, the tenantry began to regret that
+they had not erected a triumphal arch of evergreens for his entrance
+into the park, as had been proposed by the less eager of the
+Althamites.
+
+After all, their former prejudice in favour of the young baronet was
+based on very shallow foundations. What had he ever done for them
+except raise their rents, and prosecute their trespasses? It was
+nothing that his forefathers had endowed almshouses for their support,
+or served up banquets for their delectation--Sir Laurence was an
+absentee--Sir Laurence was as the son of the stranger. The fine old
+kennel stood cold and empty, reminding them that to preserve their
+foxes was no longer an article of Lexley religion; and if any of the
+old October, brewed at the birth of the present baronet, still filled
+the oaken hogsheads in the cellars of the hall, what mattered it to
+them? No chance of their being broached, unless to grace the funeral
+feast of the lord of the manor.
+
+To Jonas Sparks, Esq. M.P., accordingly, they dedicated their
+allegiance. A few additional chaldrons of coals and pairs of blankets,
+the first frosty winter, bound them his slaves for ever. Food, physic,
+and wine, were liberally distributed to the sick and aged whenever
+they repaired for relief to the Doric portico; and, with the usual
+convenient memory of the vulgar, the Lexleyans soon began to remember
+of the Altham family only their recent backslidings and ancient feudal
+oppressions: while of the Sparkses they chose to know only what was
+evident to all eyes--viz., that their hands were open and faces
+comely.
+
+Into their hearts--more especially into that of Jonas, the head of the
+house--they examined not at all; and were ill-qualified to surmise the
+intensity of bitterness with which, while contemplating the beauty and
+richness of his new domain, he beheld the turrets of the old hall
+rising like a statue of scorn above the intervening woods. There stood
+the everlasting monument of the ancient family--there the emblem of
+their pride, throwing its shadow, as it were, over his dawning
+prosperity! But for that force of contrast thus afforded, he would
+scarcely have perceived the newness of all the objects around him--the
+glare of the fresh freestone--the nakedness of the whited walls. A few
+stately old oaks and elms, apparently coeval with the ancient
+structure, which a sort of religious feeling had preserved from the
+axe, that they might afford congenial shade to the successor of its
+founder, seemed to impart meanness and vulgarity to the tapering
+verdure of _his_ plantations, his modern trees--his pert poplars and
+mean larches--his sycamores and planes. Even the incongruity between
+his solid new paling and the decayed and sun-bleached wood of the
+venerable fence to which it adjoined, with its hoary beard of silvery
+lichen, was an eyesore to him. Every passer-by might note the limit
+and circumscription dividing the new place from the ancient seat of
+the lords of the manor.
+
+Yet was the landscape of Lexley Park one of almost unequalled beauty.
+The Dee formed noble ornament to its sweeping valleys; while the noble
+acclivities were clothed with promising woods, opening by rich vistas
+to a wide extent of champaign country. A fine bridge of granite,
+erected by the late Sir Windsor Altham, formed a noble object from the
+windows of the new mansion; and but for the evidence of the venerable
+pile, that stood like an abdicated monarch surveying its lost
+dominions, there existed no external demonstration that Lexley Park
+had not from the beginning of time formed the estated seat of the
+Sparkses.
+
+The neighbouring families, if "neighbouring" could be called certain
+of the nobility and gentry who resided at ten miles' distance, were
+courteously careful to inspire the new settler with a belief that they
+at least had forgotten any antecedent state of things at Lexley; for
+they had even reason to congratulate themselves on the change. Jonas
+had long been strenuously active in the House of Commons in promoting
+county improvements. Jonas was useful as a magistrate, and invaluable
+as a liberal contributor to the local charities. During the first five
+years of his occupancy, he did more for Lexley and its inhabitants
+than the half-dozen previous baronets of the House of Altham.
+
+Of the man he had superseded, meanwhile, it was observed that Mr
+Sparks was judiciously careful to forbear all mention. It might have
+been supposed that he had purchased the estate of the Crown or the
+Court of Chancery, so utterly ignorant did he appear of the age,
+habits, and whereabout of his predecessor; and when informed by Sir
+John Wargrane, one of his wealthy neighbours, that young Altham was
+disgracing himself again--that at the public gaming-tables at Toplitz
+he had been a loser of thirty thousand pounds--the cunning _parvenu_
+listened with an air of as vague indifference as if he were not
+waiting with breathless anxiety the gradual dissipation of the funds,
+secured to the young spendthrift by the transfer of his estate, to
+grasp at the small remaining portion of his property. Unconsciously,
+when the tale of Sir Laurence's profligacy met his ear, he clenched
+his griping hand, as though it already recognized its hold upon the
+destined spoil, but not a word did he utter.
+
+Meanwhile, the family of the new squire of Lexley were winning golden
+opinions on all sides. "The boys were brave--the girls were fair," the
+mother virtuous, pious, and unpretending. It would have been
+scandalous, indeed, to sneer to shame the modest cheerfulness of such
+people, because their ancestors had not fought at the Crusades. By
+degrees, they assumed an honourable and even eminent position in the
+county; and the first time Sir Laurence Altham condescended to visit
+the county-palatine, he heard nothing but commendations and admiration
+of the charming family at Lexley Park.
+
+"Charming family!--a Jonas Sparks, and charming!" was his
+supercilious reply. "I rejoice to find that the _fumier_ I have been
+forced to fling on my worn-out ancestral estate is fertilizing its
+barrenness. The village is probably the better for the change. But, as
+regards the society, I must be permitted to mistrust the attractions
+of the brood of a Congleton manufacturer."
+
+The young baronet, who now, though still entitled to be called young,
+was disfigured by the premature defeatures of a vicious life,
+mistrusted it all the more, when, on visiting the old hall, he was
+forced to recognize the improvements effected in the neighbouring
+property (that he should be forced to call it "_neighbouring_!") by
+the judicious administration of the new owner. It was impossible to
+deny that Mr Sparks had doubled its value, while enhancing its
+beauties. The low grounds were drained, the high lands planted, the
+river widened, the forestry systematically organized. The estate
+appeared to have attained new strength and vigour when dissevered from
+the old manor-house; whose shadow might be supposed to have exercised
+a baleful influence on the lands wherever it presided.
+
+But it was not his recognition of this that was likely to animate the
+esteem of Sir Laurence Altham for Mr Jonas Sparks. On the contrary, he
+felt every accession of value to the Lexley property as so much
+subtracted from his belongings; and his detestation of the upstarts,
+whose fine mansion was perceptible from his lordly towers--like a blot
+upon the fairness of the landscape--increased with the increase of
+their prosperity.
+
+Without having expected to take delight in a sojourn at Lexley Hall--a
+spot where he had only resided for a few weeks now and then, from the
+period of his early boyhood--he was not prepared for the excess of
+irritation that arose in his heart on witnessing the total
+estrangement of the retainers of his family. For the mortification of
+seeing a fine new house, with gorgeous furniture, and a pompous
+establishment, he came armed to the teeth. But no presentiments had
+forewarned him, that at Lexley the living Althams were already as much
+forgotten as those who were sleeping in the family vault. The sudden
+glow that pervaded his whole frame when he chanced to encounter on the
+highroad the rich equipage of the Sparkses; or the imprecation that
+burst from his lips, when, on going to the window of a morning to
+examine the state of the weather for the day, the first objects that
+struck him was the fair mansion in the plain below, laughing as it
+were in the sunshine, the deer grouped under its fine old trees, and
+the river rippling past its lawns as if delighting in their
+verdure----Yes! there was decided animosity betwixt the hill and the
+valley.
+
+Every successive season served to quicken the pulses of this growing
+hatred. Whether on the spot or at a distance, a thousand aggravations
+sprang up betwixt the parties: disputes between gamekeepers, quarrels
+between labourers, encroachments by tenants. Every thing and nothing
+was made the groundwork of ill-will. To Sir Laurence Altham's
+embittered feelings, the very rooks of Lexley Park seemed evermore to
+infringe upon the privileges of the rookery at Lexley Hall; and when,
+in the parish church, the new squire (or rather his workmen, for he
+was absent at the time attending his duties in Parliament)
+inadvertently broke off the foot of a marble cherub, weeping its
+alabaster tears, at the angle of a monument to the memory of a certain
+Sir Wilfred Altham, of the time of James II., in raising the woodwork
+of a pew occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the rage of Sir Laurence was
+so excessive as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat.
+
+The enmity of the baronet was all the more painful to himself that he
+felt it to be harmless against its object. In every way, Lexley Park
+had the best of it. Jonas Sparks was not only rich in a noble income,
+but in a charming wife and promising family. Every thing prospered
+with him; and, as to mere inferiority of precedence, it was well known
+that he had refused a baronetcy; and many people even surmised that,
+so soon as he was able to purchase another borough, and give a seat in
+Parliament to his second son, as well as resign his own to the eldest,
+he would be promoted to the Upper House.
+
+The only means of vengeance, therefore, possessed by the vindictive
+man whose follies and vices had been the means of creating this
+perpetual scourge to his pride, was withholding from him the purchase
+of the remaining lands indispensable to the completion of his estate,
+more especially as regarded the water-courses, which, at Lexley Park,
+were commanded by the sluices of the higher grounds of the Hall; and
+mighty was the oath sworn by Sir Laurence, that come what might,
+however great his exigencies or threatening his poverty, nothing
+should induce him to dispose of another acre to Jonas Sparks. He was
+even at the trouble of executing a will, in order to introduce a
+clause imposing the same reservation upon the man to whom he devised
+his small remaining property--the heir-at-law, to whom, had he died
+intestate, it would have descended without conditions.
+
+"The Congleton shopkeepers," muttered he, (whenever, in his solitary
+evening rides, he caught sight of the rich plate-glass windows of the
+new mansion, burnished by the setting sun,) "shall never, never lord
+it under the roof of my forefathers! Wherever else he may set his
+plebeian foot, Lexley Hall shall be sacred. Rather see the old place
+burned to the ground--rather set fire to it with my own hands--than
+conceive that, when I am in my grave, it could possibly be subjected
+to the rule of such a barbarian!"
+
+For it had reached the ears of Sir Laurence--of course, with all the
+exaggeration derived from passing through the medium of village
+gossip--that a thousand local legends concerning the venerable
+mansion, sanctified by their antiquity in the ears of the family,
+afforded a fertile source of jesting to Jonas Sparks. The Hall
+abounded in concealed staircases and iron hiding-places, connected
+with a variety of marvellous traditions of the civil wars; besides a
+walled-up suite of chambers, haunted, as becomes a walled-up suite of
+chambers; and justice-rooms and tapestried-rooms, to which the long
+abandonment of the house, and the heated imaginations of the few
+menials left in charge of its desolate vastness, attributed romances
+likely enough to have provoked the laughter of a matter-of-fact man
+like the owner of Lexley Park. But neither Sir Laurence nor his old
+servants were likely to forgive this insult offered to the family
+legends of a house which had little else left to boast of. Even the
+neighbouring families were displeased to hear them derided; and my
+grandfather never liked to hear a joke on the subject of the
+coach-and-four which was said to have driven into the court-yard of
+the Hall on the eve of the execution of the rebel lords in 1745,
+having four headless inmates, who were duly welcomed as guests by old
+Sir Robert Altham. Nay, as a child, I had so often thrilled on my
+nurse's knees during the relation of this spectral visitation, that I
+own I felt indignant if any one presumed to laugh at a tale which had
+made me quake for fear.
+
+Among those who were known to resent the familiar tone in which Mr
+Sparks had been heard to criticise the pomps and vanities exhibited at
+Lexley Hall by the Althams of the olden time, was a certain General
+Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat of his own at about ten miles'
+distance, was fond of bringing over his visitors to visit the old
+Hall, as an interesting specimen of county antiquity. _He_ knew the
+peculiarities of the place, and could repeat the traditions connected
+with the hiding-places better than the housekeeper herself; and I have
+heard her say it was a pleasure to hear him relating these historical
+anecdotes with all the fire of an old soldier, and see his venerable
+grey hair blown about as he stood with his party on the battlements,
+pointing out to the ladies the fine range of territory formerly
+belonging to the Althams. The old lady protested that the general was
+nearly as much grieved as herself to behold the old mansion so shorn
+of its beams; and certain it is, that once when, on visiting the hall
+after Sir Laurence had been some years an absentee, he found the grass
+growing among the disjointed stones of the cloisters and justice-hall,
+he made a handsome present to one of the housekeeper's nephews, on
+condition of his keeping the purlieus of the venerable mansion free
+from such disgraceful evidences of neglect.
+
+All this eventually reached the ears of the baronet; but instead of
+making him angry, as might have been expected, from one so tetchy and
+susceptible, he never encountered General Stanley, either in town or
+country, without demonstrations of respect. Though too reserved and
+morose for conversation, Sir Laurence was observed to take off his hat
+to him with a respect he was never seen to show towards the king or
+queen.
+
+About this time I began to take personal interest in the affairs of
+the neighbourhood, though my own were now of a nature to engross my
+attention. By my grandfather's death, I had recently come into the
+enjoyment of the small inheritance which has sufficed to the happiness
+of my life; and, renouncing the profession for which I was educated,
+settled myself permanently at Lexley.
+
+Well do I remember the melancholy face with which the good old rector,
+the very first evening we spent together, related to me in confidence
+that he had three years' dues in arrear to him from Lexley Hall; but
+that so wretched was said to be the state of Sir Laurence's
+embarrassments, that, for more than a year, his dread of arrest had
+kept him a close prisoner in his house in London.
+
+"We have not seen him here these six years!" observed Dr Whittingham;
+"and I doubt whether he will ever again set foot in the county. Since
+an execution was put into the Hall, he has never crossed the
+threshold, and I suspect never will. Far better were he to dispose of
+the property at once! Dismembered as it is, what pleasure can it
+afford him? And, since he is unlikely to marry and have heirs, there
+is less call upon him to retain this remaining relic of family pride;
+yet I am assured--nay, have good reason to know, that he has refused a
+very liberal offer on the part of Mr Sparks. Malicious people do say,
+by the way, that it was by the advice of Sparks's favourite attorneys
+the execution was enforced, and that no means have been left
+unattempted to disgust him with the place. Yet he is firm, you see,
+and persists in disappointing his creditors, and depriving himself of
+the comforts of life, merely in order that he may die, as his fathers
+did before him--the lord of Lexley Hall!"
+
+"I don't wonder!" said I, with the dawning sentiments of a landed
+proprietor--"'Tis a splendid old house, even in its present state of
+degradation; and, by Jove! I honour his pertinacity."
+
+Thus put upon the scent, I sometimes fancied I could detect wistful
+looks on the part of my prosperous neighbour of the Park, when, in the
+course of Dr Whittingham's somewhat lengthy sermons, he directed his
+eyes towards the carved old Gothic tribune, containing the family-pew
+of the Althams, in the parish church; and, whenever I happened to
+encounter him in the neighbourhood of the Hall, his face was so
+pointedly averted from the house, as if the mere object were an
+offence. I could not but wonder at his vexation; being satisfied in my
+own mind, that sooner or later the remaining heritage of the
+spendthrift must fall to his share.
+
+Judge, therefore, of my surprise, when one fine morning, as I
+sauntered into the village, I found the whole population gathered in
+groups on the little market-place, and discovered from the incoherent
+exclamations of the crowd, that "the new proprietor of the Hall had
+just driven through in a chaise-and-four!"
+
+Yes--"the new proprietor!" The place was sold! The good doctor's
+prediction was verified. Sir Laurence was never more to return to
+Lexley Hall!
+
+The satisfaction of the villagers almost equalled their surprise on
+finding that General Stanley was their new landlord. It suited them
+much better that there should be two families settled on the property
+than one; and as it was pretty generally reported, that, in the event
+of Sparks becoming the purchaser, he intended to demolish the old
+house, and reconsolidate the estate around his own more commodious
+mansion, they were right glad to find it rescued from such a
+sentence--General Stanley, who was the father of a family, would
+probably settle the hall on one of his daughters, after placing it in
+the state of repair so much needed.
+
+When the chaise-and-four returned, therefore, a few hours afterwards,
+through the village, the General was loudly cheered by his subjects.
+His partiality for the place was so well known at Lexley, that already
+these people seemed to behold in him the guardian of a monument so
+long the object of their pride.
+
+For my own part, nothing surprised me so much in the business as that
+Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers.
+It was worth thrice as much to _him_ as to any body else. It was the
+keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render
+Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in
+learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood)
+that whatever _my_ surprise on finding that the old Hall had changed
+its master, that of Sparks was far more overwhelming; that he was
+literally frantic on finding himself frustrated in expectations which
+formed the leading interest of his declining years. For the progress
+of time which had made _me_ a man and a landed proprietor, had
+converted the stout active squire into an infirm old man; and it was
+his absorbing wish to die sole owner of the whole property to which
+the baronets of the Altham family were born.
+
+He even indulged in expressions of irritation, which nearly proved the
+means of commencing this new neighbourship by a duel; accusing General
+Stanley of having possessed himself by unfair means of Sir Laurence's
+confidence, and employed agents, underhand, to effect the purchase. In
+consequence of these groundless representations, it transpired in the
+country that the decayed baronet had actually volunteered the offer of
+the estate to the veteran proprietor of Stanley Manor; that he had
+_solicited_ him to become the proprietor, and even accommodated him
+with peculiar facilities of payment, on condition of his inserting in
+the title-deeds an express undertaking, never to dispose of the old
+Hall, or any portion of the property, to Jonas Sparks of Lexley Park,
+or his heirs for ever. The solicitor by whom, under Sir Laurence's
+direction, the deeds had been prepared, saw fit to divulge this
+singular specification, rather than that a hostile encounter should
+run the risk of embruing in blood the hands of two grey haired men.
+
+Excepting as regarded the disappointment of our wealthy neighbour, all
+was now established on the happiest footing at Lexley. The reparation
+instantly commenced by the General, gave employment throughout the
+winter to our workmen; and the evils arising from an absentee landlord
+began gradually to disappear. It was a great joy to me to perceive
+that the new proprietor of the Hall had the good taste to preserve the
+antique character of the place in the minutest portion of his
+alterations; and though the old gardens were no longer a wilderness,
+not a shrub was displaced--not a mutilated statue removed. The
+furniture had been sold off at the time of the execution; and that
+which came down in cart-loads from town to replace it, was rigidly in
+accordance with the semi-Gothic architecture of the lofty chambers.
+Poor Sparks must have been doubly mortified; for not only did he find
+his old eyesore converted into an irremediable evil by the restoration
+of the Hall, but the supremacy hitherto maintained in the
+neighbourhood by the modern elegance of his house and establishment,
+was thrown into the shade by the rich and tasteful arrangements of the
+Hall.
+
+From the contracted look of his forehead, and sudden alteration of his
+appearance, I have reason to think he was beginning to undergo all the
+moral martyrdom sustained for thirty years past by the unfortunate Sir
+Laurence Altham; and were I not by nature the most contented of men,
+it would have sufficiently reconciled me to the mediocrity of my
+fortunes, to see that these two great people of my neighbourhood--the
+nobly-descended baronet and rich _parvenu_--were miserable men; that,
+so long as I could remember, one or other of them had been given over
+to surliness and discontent.
+
+Before the close of the year the grand old Hall had become one of the
+noblest seats in the county. There was talk about it in all the
+country round, and even the newspapers took notice of its renovation,
+and of General Stanley's removal thither from Stanley Manor. Many
+people, of the species who love to detect spots in the sun, were
+careful to point out the insufficiency of the estate, as at present
+constituted, to maintain so fine a house. But, after all, what
+mattered this to General Stanley, who had a fine rent-roll elsewhere?
+
+The first thing he did, on taking possession, was to give a grand ball
+to the neighbourhood; nor was it till the whole house was lighted up
+for this festive occasion, that people were fully aware of the
+grandeur of its proportions. He was good enough to send me an
+invitation on so especial an occasion. But already I had imbibed the
+distaste which has pursued me through life for what is called society;
+and I accordingly contented myself with surveying from a distance the
+fine effect produced by the light streaming from the multitude of
+windows, and exhibiting to the whole country round the gorgeous nature
+of the decorations within. To own the truth, I could scarcely forbear
+regretting, as I surveyed them, the gloomy dilapidation of the
+venerable mansion. This modernized antiquity was a very different
+thing from the massy grandeur of its neglected years; and I am afraid
+I loved the old house better with the weeds springing from its
+crevices, than with all this carving and gilding, this ebony, and
+iron, and light.
+
+The people of Lexley imagined that nothing would induce the Sparks's
+family to be seen under General Stanley's roof. But we were mistaken.
+So much the contrary, that the squire of Lexley Park made a particular
+point of being the first and latest of the guests--not only because
+his reconciliation with his new neighbour was so recent, but from not
+choosing to authenticate, by his absence, the rumours of his grievous
+disappointment.
+
+For all the good he was likely to derive from his visit, the poor man
+had better have stayed away; for that unlucky night laid foundations
+of evil for him and his, far greater than any he had incurred from the
+animosity of Sir Laurence. Nay, when in the sequel these results
+became matter of public commentation, superstitious people were not
+wanting to hint that the evil spirit, traditionally said to haunt one
+of the wings of the old manor, and to have manifested itself on more
+than one occasion to members of the Altham family, (and more
+especially to the late worthless proprietor of the Hall,) had acquired
+a fatal power over the two supplanters of the ruined family the moment
+they crossed the threshold.
+
+General Stanley, after marrying late in life, had been some years a
+widower--a widower with two daughters, his co-heiresses. The elder of
+these young ladies was a hopeless invalid, slightly deformed, and so
+little attractive in person, or desirous to attract, that there was
+every prospect of the noble fortunes of the General centring in her
+sister. Yet this sister, this girl, had little need of such an
+accession to her charms; for she was one of those fortunate beings
+endowed not only with beauty and excellence, but with a power of
+pleasing not always united with even a combination of merit and
+loveliness.
+
+Every body agreed that Mary Stanley was charming. Old and young, rich
+and poor, all loved her, all delighted in her. It is true, the good
+rector's maiden sisters privately hinted to me their horror of the
+recklessness with which--sometimes with her sister, oftener without,
+but wholly unattended--she drove her little pony-chaise through the
+village, laughing like a madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland dog
+named Sergeant, the favourite of General Stanley, which, while
+escorting the young ladies, used to gambol into the cottages, overset
+furniture and children, and scamper out again amid a general uproar.
+For though Miss Mary was but sixteen, the starched spinsters decided
+that she was much too old for such folly; and that, if the General
+intended to present her at court, it was high time for her to lay
+aside the hoyden manners of childhood.
+
+But, as every one argued against them, why should this joyous, bright,
+and beautiful creature lay aside what became her so strangely? Mary
+Stanley was not made for the formalities of what is called
+high-breeding. Her light, easy, sinuous figure, did not lend itself to
+the rigid deportment of a prude; and her gay laughing eyes, and
+dimpled mouth, were ill calculated to grace a dignified position. The
+long ringlets of her profuse auburn hair were always out of
+order--either streaming in the wind, or straying over her white
+shoulders--her long lashes and beautifully defined eyebrows of the
+same rich tint, alone preserving any thing like uniformity--a
+uniformity which, combined with her almost Grecian regularity of
+features, gave her, on the rare occasions when her countenance and
+figure were at rest, the air of some nymph or dryad of ancient
+sculpture. But to compare Mary Stanley to any thing of marble is
+strangely out of place; for her real beauty consisted in the
+ever-varying play of her features, and a certain impetuosity of
+movement, that would have been a little characteristic of the romp,
+but that it was restrained by the spell of feminine sensibility. Heart
+was evidently the impulse of every look and every gesture.
+
+For a man of my years, methinks I am writing like a lover. And so I
+was! From the first moment I saw that girl, at an humble and
+unaspiring distance, I could dream of nothing else. Every thing and
+every body seemed fascinated by Mary Stanley. When she walked out into
+the fields with the General, her two hands clasping, like those of a
+child, her father's arm, his favourite colts used to come neighing
+playfully towards them; and not the fiercest dog of his extensive
+kennel but, even when unmanageable by the keeper, would creep fawning
+to her feet.
+
+It was strange enough, but still more fortunate, that all the
+adoration lavished upon this lovely creature by gentle and simple,
+Christian and brute, provoked no apparent jealousy on the part of her
+elder sister. Selina Stanley was afflicted with a cold, reserved,
+unhappy countenance, only too completely in unison with her
+disastrous position. But her heart was perhaps as genuine as her face
+was forbidding; for she loved the merry, laughing, handsome Mary,
+more as a mother her child, than as a sister nearly of her own
+years--that is, exultingly, but anxiously. Every one else foresaw
+nothing but prosperity, and joy, and love, in store for Mary. Selina
+prayed that it might prove so;--but she prayed with tears in her
+eyes, and trembling in her soul! For where are the destinies of
+persons thus exquisitely organized--thus full of love and
+loveliness--thus readily swayed to joy or sorrow, by the trivial
+incidents of life--characterised by what the world calls
+happiness--such happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed by the serene and
+the prudent, the unexcitable, the unaspiring! Miss Stanley foresaw
+only too truly, that the best days likely to be enjoyed by her
+sister, were those she was spending under her father's roof--a
+general idol--an object of deference and delight to all around.
+
+At the General's housewarming, though not previously introduced into
+society, Mary was the queen of the ball; and all present agreed, that
+one of the most pleasing circumstances of the evening was to watch the
+animated cordiality with which she flew from one to the other of those
+old neighbours of Stanley Manor, (whom she alone had managed to
+persuade that a dozen miles was no distance to prevent their accepting
+her father's invitation;) and not the most brilliant of her young
+friends received a more eager welcome, or more sustained attention
+throughout the evening, than the few homely elderly people, (such as
+my friends the Whittinghams,) who happened to share the hospitality of
+General Stanley. I daresay that even _I_, had I found courage to
+accept his invitation, should have received from the young beauty some
+gentle word, in addition to the kindly smiles with which she was sure
+to return my respectful obeisance whenever we met accidentally in the
+village.
+
+Mary was dressed in white, with a few natural flowers in her hair,
+which, owing to the impetuosity of her movements, soon fell out,
+leaving only a stray leaf or two, that would have looked ridiculous
+any where but among her rich, but dishevelled locks; and the pleasant
+anxieties of the evening imparted such a glow to her usually somewhat
+pale complexion, that her beauty is said to have been, that night,
+almost supernatural. She was more like the creature of a dream than
+one of those wooden puppets, who move mechanically through the world
+under the name of well brought-up young ladies.
+
+It will easily be conceived how much this ball, so rare an event in
+our quiet neighbourhood, was discussed, not only the following day,
+but for days and weeks to come. Even at the rectory I heard of nothing
+else; while by my good old housekeeper, who had a son in service at
+General Stanley's, and a daughter waiting-maid to Miss Sparks, I was
+let in to secrets concerning it of which even the rectory knew
+nothing.
+
+In the first place, though Mr Sparks had peremptorily signified from
+the first to his family, his desire that all should accompany him to
+Lexley Hall on this trying occasion, (and it was only natural he
+should wish to solace his wounded pride, by appearing before his noble
+neighbour surrounded by his handsome progeny,) two of his children
+had risen up in rebellion against the decree--and for the first
+time--for Sparks was happy in a dutiful and well-ordered family. But
+the youngest daughter, Kezia, a girl of high spirits and intelligence,
+who fancied she had been pointedly slighted by the Misses Stanley,
+when, in one of Mary's harum-scarum expeditions on her Shetland pony,
+she had passed without recognition the better-mounted young lady of
+Lexley Park; and the eldest son, who so positively refused to
+accompany his father to the house of a man by whom Mr Sparks had
+inconsiderately represented himself as aggrieved, that, for once, the
+kind parent was forced to play the tyrant, and insist on his
+obedience.
+
+It was, accordingly, with a very ill grace that these two, the
+prettiest of the daughters, and by far the handsomest of his three
+handsome sons, made their appearance at the _fête_. But no sooner were
+they welcomed by General Stanley and his daughters, than the brother
+and sister, who had mutually encouraged each other's disputes,
+hastened to recant their opinions.
+
+"How could you, dearest father, describe this courteous, high-bred old
+gentleman, as insolent and overbearing?"--whispered Kezia.
+
+"How could you possibly suppose that yonder lovely, gracious creature,
+intended to treat you with impertinence?"--was the rejoinder of her
+brother; and already the Stanleys had two enemies the less among their
+neighbours at Lexley Park.
+
+On the other hand, the General had been forced to have recourse to
+severe schooling to bring his daughters to a sense of what was due to
+_his guests_, as regarded the family of a man who was known to have
+spoken disparagingly of them all. Moreover, if the truth must be
+owned, Mary was not altogether free from the prejudices of her caste;
+and, proud of her father's noble extraction, was apt to pout her
+pretty lip on mention of "the people at Lexley Park;" for the General,
+who had no secrets from his girls, had foolishly permitted them to see
+certain letters addressed to him by the eccentric Sir Laurence Altham,
+justifying himself concerning the peculiar clause introduced into his
+deeds of conveyance of his Hall estate, on the grounds of the degraded
+origin of "the upstart" he was so malignantly intent on discomposing.
+
+"They will spoil our ball, dear papa--I _know_ these vulgar people
+will completely spoil our ball!" said she. "I think I hear them
+announced:--'Mr Jonas Sparks, Miss Basiliza and Miss Kezia
+Sparks!'--What names?"
+
+"The parents of Mr Sparks were dissenters," observed the General,
+trying to look severe. "Dissenters are apt to hold to scriptural
+names. But _name_ is not _nature_, Mary; and, to judge by appearances,
+this man's--this gentleman's--this Mr Sparks's daughters, have every
+qualification to be an ornament to society."
+
+"With all my heart, papa, but I wish it were not ours!" cried the
+wayward girl. "On the present occasion, especially, I could spare such
+an accession to our circle; for I know that Mr Sparks has presumed to
+speak of----"
+
+She was interrupted by a sterner reproof on the part of the General
+than he had ever before administered to his favourite daughter; and
+the consequence of this unusual severity was the distinguished
+reception bestowed, both by Selina and her sister, on the family from
+Lexley Park.
+
+Next day, however, General Stanley found a totally different cause for
+rebuke in the conduct of his dear Mary.
+
+"You talked to nobody last night, but those Sparks's!" said he. "Lord
+Dudley informed me he had asked you to dance three times in vain; and
+Lord Robert Stanley assured me _he_ could scarcely get a civil answer
+from you!--Yet you found time, Mary, to dance twice in the course of
+the evening with that son of Sparks's!"
+
+"That son of Sparks's, as you so despisingly call him, dearest papa,
+is a most charming partner; while Lord Dudley, and my cousin Robert,
+are little better than boors. Everard Sparks can talk and dance, as
+well as they ride across a country. Not but what he, too, passes for a
+tolerable sportsman; and do you know, papa, Mr Sparks is thinking
+seriously of setting up a pack of harriers at Lexley?"
+
+"At Lexley Park!" insisted her father, who chose to enforce the
+distinction instituted by Sir Laurence Altham. "I fancy he will have
+to ask my permission first. My land lies somewhat inconveniently, in
+case I choose to oppose his intentions."
+
+"But you won't oppose them!--No, no, dear papa, you sha'n't oppose
+them!"--cried Mary Stanley, throwing her arms coaxingly round her
+father's neck, and imprinting a kiss on his venerable forehead. "_Why_
+should we go on opposing and opposing, when it would be so much
+happier for all of us to live together as friends and neighbours?"
+
+The General surveyed her in silence for some moments as she looked up
+lovingly into his face; then gravely, and in silence, unclasped her
+arms from his neck. For the first time, he had gazed upon his
+favourite child without discerning beauty in her countenance, or
+finding favour for her supplications.
+
+"_My_ opinion of Mr Sparks and his family is not altered since
+yesterday," said he coldly, perceiving that she was about to renew her
+overtures for a pacification. "Your father's prejudices, Mary, are
+seldom so slightly grounded, that the adulation of a few gross
+compliments, such as were paid you last night by Mr Everard Sparks,
+may suffice for their obliteration. For the future, remember the less
+I hear of Lexley Park the better. In a few weeks we shall be in
+London, where our sphere is sufficiently removed, I am happy to say,
+from that of Mr Jonas Sparks, to secure me against the annoyance of
+familiarity with him or his."
+
+The partiality of his darling Mary for the handsomest and most
+agreeable young man who had ever sought to make himself agreeable to
+her, had sufficed to turn the arguments of General Stanley as
+decidedly _against_ his _parvenu_ neighbours, as, two days before, his
+eloquence had been exercised in their defence.
+
+And now commenced between the young people and their parents, one of
+those covert warfares certain to arise from similar interdictions. Mr
+Sparks--satisfied that he should have further insults to endure on the
+part of General Stanley, in the event of his son pretending to the
+hand of the proud old man's daughter--sought a serious explanation
+with Everard, on finding that he neglected no opportunity of meeting
+Mary Stanley in her drives, and walks, and errands of village
+benevolence; and by the remonstrances of one father, and
+peremptoriness of the other, the young couple were soon tempted to
+seek comforts in mutual confidences. Residing almost within view of
+each other, there was no great difficulty in finding occasion for an
+interview. They met, moreover, naturally, and without effort, in all
+the country houses in the neighbourhood; and so frequently, that I
+often wondered they should consider it worth while to hazard the
+General's displeasure by partaking a few moments' conversation, every
+now and then, among the old thorns by the water-side, just where the
+bend of the river secured them from observation; or in the green lane
+leading from Lexley Park to my farm, while Miss Stanley took charge of
+the pony-chaise during the hasty explanations of the imprudent couple.
+Having little to occupy my leisure during the intervals of my
+agricultural pursuits, I was constantly running against them, with my
+gun on my shoulder or my fishing-rod in my hand. I almost feared young
+Sparks might imagine that I was employed by the General as a spy upon
+their movements, so fierce a glance did he direct towards me one day
+when I was unlucky enough to vault over a hedge within a few yards of
+the spot where they were standing together--Miss Mary sobbing like a
+child. But, God knows! he was mistaken if he thought I was taking
+unfair heed of their proceedings, or likely to gossip indiscreetly
+concerning what fell accidentally under my notice.
+
+Not that a single soul in the neighbourhood approved General Stanley's
+opposition to the attachment. On the contrary, from the moment of the
+liking between the young people becoming apparent, the whole country
+decided that there could not be a more propitious mode of reuniting
+the dismembered Lexley estates; for though the General was expressly
+debarred from selling Lexley Hall to Sparks or his heirs, he could not
+be prevented bequeathing it to his daughters--the heirs of Jonas
+Sparks being the children of her body. And thus all objections would
+have been remedied.
+
+But such was not the proud old man's view of the case. He had set his
+heart on perpetuating his own name in his family. He had set his
+heart on the union of his dear Mary with her cousin Lord Robert
+Stanley; and Everard Sparks might have been twice the handsome, manly
+young fellow he was--twice the gentleman, and twice the scholar--it
+would have pleaded little in his favour against the predetermined
+projects of the positive General. There was certainly some excuse for
+his ambition on Miss Mary's account. Beauty, merit, fortune,
+connexion, every advantage was hers calculated to do honour to a noble
+alliance; and as her father often exclaimed, with a bitter sneer, in
+answer to the mild pleadings of Selina--"Such a girl as that--a girl
+born to be a duchess--to sacrifice herself to the son of a Congleton
+manufacturer!"
+
+Two years did the struggle continue--during the greater part of which
+I was a constant eyewitness of the sorrows which so sobered the
+impetuous deportment of the light-hearted Mary Stanley. Her father
+took her to London, with the project of separation he had haughtily
+announced; but only to find, to his amazement, that Eton and Oxford
+had placed the son of Mr Sparks of Lexley Park, a member of
+Parliament, on as good a footing as himself in nearly all the circles
+he frequented. Even when, in the desperation of his fears, he removed
+his family to the Continent, the young lover (as became the lover of
+so endearing and attractive a creature) followed her, at a distance,
+from place to place. At length, one angry day, the General provoked
+him to a duel. But Everard would not lift his hand against the father
+of his beloved Mary. An insult from General Stanley was not as an
+offence from any other man. The only revenge taken by the
+high-spirited young man, was to urge the ungenerous conduct of the
+father as an argument with the daughter to put an end, by an
+elopement, to a state of things too painful to be borne. After much
+hesitation, it seems, she most unhappily complied. They were
+married--at Naples I think, or Turin, or some other city of Italy,
+where we have a diplomatic resident; and after their marriage--poor,
+foolish young people!--they went touring it about gaily in the
+Archipelago and Levant, waiting a favourable moment to propose a
+reconciliation with their respective fathers--as if the wrath and
+malediction of parents was so mere a trifle to deal with.
+
+The first step taken by General Stanley, on learning the ungrateful
+rebellion of his favourite child, was to return to England. He seemed
+to want to be at home again, the better to enjoy and cultivate his
+abhorrence of every thing bearing the despised name of Sparks; for now
+began the genuine hatred between the families. Nothing would satisfy
+the obstinate old soldier, but that the elder Sparks had, from the
+first, secretly encouraged the views of his son upon the heiress of
+Lexley Hall; while Mr Sparks naturally resented with enraged spirit
+the overbearing tone assumed by his aristocratic neighbour towards
+those so nearly his equals. Every day produced some new grounds for
+offence; and never had Sir Laurence Altham, in the extremity of his
+poverty, regarded the thriving mansion in the valley with half the
+loathing which the view of Lexley Park produced in the mind of General
+Stanley. He was even at the trouble of trenching a plantation on the
+brow of the hill, with the intention of shutting out the detested
+object. But trees do not grow so hastily as antipathies; and the
+General had to endure the certainty, that, for the remainder of _his_
+life at least, that beautiful domain must be unrolled, map-like, at
+his feet. Nor is it to be supposed that the battlements of the old
+hall found greater favour in the sight of the _parvenu_ squire, than
+when in Sir Laurence's time the very sight of them was wormwood to his
+soul.
+
+Unhappily, while the Congleton manufacturer contented himself with
+angry words, the gentleman of thirty descents betook himself to
+action. General Stanley swore to be mightily revenged--and he was so.
+
+On the very day following his return to England, before he even
+visited his desolate country-house, he sent for Lord Robert Stanley,
+and made him the confidant of his indignation--avowed his former good
+intentions in his favour--betrayed all Mary's--all _Mr Everard
+Sparks's_ disparaging opposition; and ended by enquiring whether,
+since whichever of his daughters became Lady Robert Stanley would
+become sole heiress to his property, his lordship could make up his
+mind to accept Selina as a wife? Proud as he was, the General almost
+condescended to plead the cause of his deformed daughter: enlarging
+upon her excellences of character, and, still more, upon her aversion
+to society, which would secure the self-love of her husband against
+any public remarks on her want of personal attractions.
+
+Alas! all these arguments were thoroughly thrown away. Lord Robert
+was, as his cousin Mary had truly described him, little better than a
+boor. But he was also a spendthrift and a libertine; and had Miss
+Stanley been as deformed in mind as she was in person, he would have
+joyfully taken to wife the heiress of ten thousand a-year, and two of
+the finest seats in the county of Chester.
+
+To herself, meanwhile, no hint of these family negotiations was
+vouchsafed; and Selina Stanley had every reason to suppose--when her
+cousin became on a sudden an assiduous visitor at the house, and very
+shortly a declared lover--that their intimacy from childhood had
+accustomed his eye to her want of personal charms--she had become
+endeared to him by her mild and submissive temper. So little was she
+aware of her father's testamentary dispositions in her favour, that
+the interested nature of Lord Robert's views did not occur to her
+mind; and, little accustomed to protestations of attachment, Selina's
+heart was not _very_ difficult to soften towards the only man who had
+ever pretended to love her, and whose apparent attachment promised
+some consolation for the loss of her sister's society, as well as the
+chance of reunion with one whom her father had sworn should never,
+under any possible circumstances, again cross his threshold.
+
+Six months after General Stanley's pride had been wounded to the quick
+by the newspaper account of a marriage between his favourite child and
+"a man of the name of Sparks," balm was poured into the wound by
+another and more pompous paragraph, announcing the union, by special
+license, of the Right Hon. Lord Robert Stanley and the eldest daughter
+and heiress of Lieut.-Gen. Stanley, of Stanley Manor, only son of the
+late Lord Henry Stanley, followed by the usual list of noble relatives
+gracing the ceremony with their presence, and a flourishing account of
+the departure of the happy couple, in a travelling carriage and four,
+for their seat in Cheshire.
+
+This announcement, by the way, probably served to convey the
+intelligence to Mr and Mrs Everard Sparks; for the General having
+carefully intercepted every letter addressed by Mary to her sister,
+Lady Robert had not the slightest idea in what direction to
+communicate with one who possessed an undiminished share in her
+affections.
+
+On General Stanley's arrival in Cheshire, at the close of the
+honeymoon, the most casual observer might have noticed the alteration
+which had taken place in his appearance. Instead of the sadness I had
+expected to find in his countenance after so severe a stroke as the
+disobedience of his darling girl, I never saw him so exulting. Yet his
+smiles were not smiles of good-humour. There was bitterness at the
+bottom of every word he uttered; and a terrible sound of menace rung
+in his unnatural laughter. Consciousness never seemed a moment absent
+from his mind, that he had defeated the calculations of the designing
+family; that he had distanced them; that he was triumphing over them.
+Alas! none at present entertained the smallest suspicion to what
+extent!
+
+Preparatory to the settlements made by the General on Lord and Lady
+Robert Stanley, it had been found necessary to place in the hands of
+his lordship's solicitors the deeds of the Lexley Hall estate; when,
+lo! to the consternation of all parties, it appeared that the
+General's title was an unsound one; that by the general terms of this
+ancient property, rights of heirship could only be evaded by the
+payment of a certain fine, after intimation of sale in a certain form
+to the nearest-of-kin of the heir in possession, which form had been
+overlooked or wantonly neglected by Sir Laurence Altham!
+
+The discovery was indeed embarrassing. Fortunately, however, the sum
+of ten thousand pounds only had been paid by the General to satisfy
+the immediate funds of the unthrifty baronet; the remainder of the
+purchase-money having been left in the form of mortgage on the
+property. There was consequently the less difficulty, though
+considerable expense, in cancelling the existing deeds, going through
+the necessary forms, and, after paying the forfeiture to the heir, (to
+whom the very existence of his claims was unknown,) renewing the
+contract with Sir Laurence; to whom, so considerable a sum being still
+owing, it was as essential as to General Stanley that the covenant
+should be completed without delay. But all this occurred at so
+critical a moment, that the General had ample cause to be thankful for
+the promptitude with which he decided Selina's marriage; for only four
+days after the signature of the new deeds, Sir Laurence concluded his
+ill-spent life--his death being, it was thought, accelerated by the
+excitement consequent on this strange discovery, and the
+investigations on the part of the heir to which it was giving rise.
+
+For the clause in the original grant of the Lexley estate (which dated
+from the Reformation) affected the property purchased by Jonas Sparks
+as fully as that which had been assigned to the General; and the
+baronet being now deceased, there was no possibility of co-operation
+in rectifying the fatal error. It was more than probable, therefore,
+that Lexley Park, with all its improvements, was now the property of
+John Julius Altham, Esq.!--the only dilemma still to be decided by the
+law, being the extent to which, his kinsman having died insolvent and
+intestate, he was liable to the suit of Jonas Sparks for the return of
+the purchase money, amounting to L.145,000.
+
+Already the fatal intelligence had been communicated by the attorneys
+of John Julius Altham to those of the astonished man, who, though
+still convinced of the goodness of his cause, (which, on the strength
+of certain various statutes affecting such a case, he was advised to
+contest to the utmost,) foresaw a long, vexatious, and expensive
+lawsuit, that would certainly last his life, and prevent the
+possibility of one moment's enjoyment of the estate, from which he had
+received the usual notice of ejection. Fortunately for him, the
+present Mr Altham was not only a gentleman, and disposed to exercise
+his rights in the most decorous manner; but, of course, unbiassed by
+the personal prejudices so strongly felt by Sir Laurence, and so
+unfairly communicated by him to the General. Still, the question was
+proceeding at the snail's pace rate of Chancery suits at the
+commencement of the present century, and the unfortunate Congleton
+manufacturer had every reason to curse the day when he had become
+enamoured of the grassy glades and rich woodlands of Lexley; seeing
+that, at the close of an honourable and well-spent life, he was
+uncertain whether the sons and daughters to whom he had laboured to
+bequeath a handsome independence, might not be reduced to utter
+destitution.
+
+Such was the intelligence that saluted the ill-starred Mary and her
+husband on their return to England! Instead of the brilliant prospects
+in which she had been nurtured--disinheritance met her on the one
+side, and ruin on the other!
+
+Her vindictive father had even made it a condition of his bounties to
+Lord and Lady Robert, that all intercourse should cease between them
+and their sister; a condition which the former, in revenge for the
+early slights of his fairer cousin, took care should be punctually
+obeyed by his wife.
+
+Till the event of the trial, Mr Sparks retained, of course, possession
+of the Park; but so bitter was the mortification of the family, on
+discovering in the village precisely the same ungrateful feeling which
+had so embittered the soul of Sir Laurence, that they preferred
+remaining in London--where no one has leisure to dwell upon the
+mischances of his neighbours, and where sympathy is as little expected
+as conceded. But when Mary arrived--_poor_ Mary! who had now the
+prospect of becoming a mother--and who, though affectionately beloved
+by her husband's family, saw they regarded her as the innocent origin
+of their present reverses--she soon persuaded her husband to accompany
+her to her old haunts.
+
+"Do not imagine, dearest," said she, "that I have any project of
+debasing you and myself, by intruding into my father's presence. Had
+we been still prosperous, Everard, I would have gone to him--knelt to
+him--prayed to him--wept to him--_so_ earnestly, that his forgiveness
+could not have been long withheld from the child he loved so dearly. I
+would have described to him all you are to me--all your
+indulgences--all your devotion--and _you_, too, my own husband, would
+have been forgiven. But as it is, believe me, I have too proud a sense
+of what is due to ourselves, to combat the unnatural hostility in
+which my sister and her husband appear to take their share. O Everard!
+to think of Selina becoming the wife of that coarse and heartless man,
+of whom, in former times, she thought even more contemptuously than I;
+and who, with his dissolute habits, can only have made my poor
+afflicted sister his wife from the most mercenary motives! I dread to
+think of what may be her fate hereafter, when, having obtained at my
+father's death all the advantages to which he looks forward, he will
+show himself in his true colours."
+
+Thus, even with such terrible prospects awaiting herself, the good,
+generous Mary trembled only to contemplate those of her regardless
+sister; and it was chiefly for the delight of revisiting the spots
+where they had played together in childhood--the fondly-remembered
+environs of Stanley Manor--that she persuaded her husband to take up
+his abode in the deserted mansion at the Park, where, from prudential
+motives, Mr Sparks had broken up his establishment, and sold off his
+horses.
+
+Attended by a single servant, in addition to the old porter and his
+wife who were in charge of the house, Mary trusted that their arrival
+at Lexley would be unnoticed in the neighbourhood. Confining herself
+strictly within the boundaries of the Park, which neither her father
+nor the bride and bridegroom were likely to enter, she conceived that
+she might enjoy, on her husband's arm, those solitary rambles of which
+every day circumscribed the extent; without affording reason to the
+General to suppose, when, discerning every morning from his lofty
+terraces the mansion of his falling enemy, that, in place of the man
+he loathed, it contained his discarded child.
+
+The dispirited young woman, on the other hand, delighted in
+contemplating from the windows of her dressing-room the towers
+beneath, whose shelter she had abided in such perfect happiness with
+her doating father and apparently attached sister. They loved her no
+longer, it is true. Perhaps it was her fault--(she would not allow
+herself to conceive it could be a fault of _theirs_)--but at all
+events she loved _them_ dearly as ever; and it was comforting to her
+poor heart to catch a glimpse of their habitation, and know herself
+within reach, should sickness or evil betide.
+
+"If I should not survive my approaching time," thought Mary, often
+surveying for hours, through her tears, the heights of Lexley Hall,
+and fancying she could discern human figures moving from window to
+window, or from terrace to terrace; "if I should be fated never to
+behold this child, already loved--this child which is to be so dear a
+blessing to us both--in my last hours my father would not surely
+refuse to give me his blessing; nor would Selina persist in her
+present cruel alienation. It is, indeed, a comfort to be here."
+
+Her husband thought otherwise. To him nothing was more trying than
+this compulsory sojourn at Lexley; not that he required other society
+than that of his engaging and attached wife. At any other moment it
+would have been delightful to him to enjoy the country pleasures
+around them, with no officious intrusive world to interpose between
+their affection. But in his present uncertainty as to his future
+prospects, to be mocked by this empty show of proprietorship, and have
+constantly before his eyes the residence of the man who had heaped
+such contumely on his head, and inflicted such pain on the gentlest
+and sweetest of human hearts, was a state of moral torment.
+
+In the course of my fishing excursions--(for, thanks to Mr Sparks's
+neighbourly liberality, I had a card of general access to his
+parks)--I frequently met the young couple; and having no clue to their
+secret sentiments, noticed, with deep regret, the sadness of Mary's
+countenance and sinister looks of her husband. I feared--I greatly
+feared--that they were not happy together. The General's daughter
+repined, perhaps, after her former fortunes. The young husband sighed,
+doubtless, over the liberty he had renounced.
+
+It was spring time, and Lord Robert having satisfied his cravings
+after the pleasures of London, by occasional bachelor visits on
+pretence of business, the family were to remain at the Hall till after
+the Easter holidays, so that Mary had every expectation of the
+accomplishment of her hopes previous to their departure. Perhaps, in
+the bottom of her heart, she flattered herself that, on hearing of her
+safety, her obdurate relations might be moved, by a sudden burst of
+pity and kindliness, to make overtures of reconciliation--at all
+events to dispatch words of courteous enquiry; for she was ever
+dwelling on her good fortune that her father should, on this
+particular year, have so retarded the usual period of his departure.
+Yet when the report of these exulting exclamations on her part reached
+my ear, I was ungenerous enough to attribute them to a very different
+origin, fancying that the poor submissive creature was thankful for
+being within reach of protection from conjugal misusage.
+
+Meanwhile, she was so far justified in one portion of her premises,
+that no tidings of her residence at Lexley Park had as yet reached the
+ear of her father. The fact was, that not a soul had courage to do so
+much as mention, in his presence, the name of his once idolized child;
+and Lord Robert, having been apprized of the circumstance, instantly
+exacted a promise from his wife, that nothing should induce her to
+hazard her father's displeasure by communication with her sister, or
+by acquainting the General of the arrival of the offending pair. The
+consequence was, that in the dread of encountering her sister, (whom
+she felt ashamed to meet as the wife of the man they had so often
+decried together,) Lady Robert rarely quitted the house; and these two
+sisters, so long the affectionate inmates of the same chamber--the
+sisters who had wept together over their mother's deathbed--abided
+within sight of each other's windows, yet estranged as with the
+estrangement of strangers.
+
+And then, we pretend to talk with horror of the family feuds of
+southern nations; and, priding ourselves on our calm and passionless
+nature, feel convinced that all the domestic virtues extant on earth,
+have taken refuge in the British empire!
+
+Every day, meanwhile, I noticed that the handsome countenance of
+Everard Sparks grew gloomier and gloomier; and how was I to know that
+every day he received letters from his father, announcing the
+unfavourable aspect of their suit; and that (owing, as was supposed,
+to the suggestions of General Stanley's solicitors) even the conduct
+of the adverse party was becoming offensive. The elder Sparks wrote
+like a man overwhelmed with mortification, and stung by a sense of
+undeserved injury; and his appeals to the sympathy and support of his
+son, were such as to place the spirited young man in a most painful
+predicament as regarded the family of his wife.
+
+Unwilling to utter in her presence an injurious word concerning those
+who, persecute her as they might, were still her nearest and dearest
+by the indissoluble ties of nature, all he could do, in relief to his
+overcharged feelings, was to rush forth into the Park, and curse the
+day that he was born to behold all he loved in the world overwhelmed
+in one common ruin.
+
+On such occasions, while pretending to fix my attention on my float
+upon the river, I often watched him from afar, till I was terrified by
+the frantic vehemence of his gestures. There was almost reason to
+fancy that the evil influences of the old Hall were extending their
+power over the valley; and that this distracted young man was falling
+into the eccentricities of Sir Laurence Altham.
+
+After viewing with anxiety the wild deportment of poor Mary's husband,
+I happened one day to pass along the lane I have described as skirting
+the garden of the manor-house, on my way homewards to my farm; and on
+plunging my eyes, as usual, into the verdant depths of the clipped
+yew-walks, visible through the iron-palisades, was struck by the
+contrast afforded to the scene I had just witnessed, not only by its
+aristocratic tranquillity, but by the grave and subdued deportment of
+Lady Robert Stanley, who was sauntering in one of the alleys,
+accompanied by a favourite dog I had often seen following her sister
+in former days, and looking the very picture of contented egotism.
+
+I almost longed to call aloud to her, and confide all I knew and all
+that I supposed. But what right had I to create alarms in her sister's
+behalf? What right had I to incite her to disobedience against the
+father on whom she and her husband were dependent? Better leave things
+as they were--the common philosophy of selfish, timid people, afraid
+of exposing their own heads to a portion of the storm their
+interference may chance to bring down, while assisting the cause of
+the weak against the strong.
+
+I used often to go home and think of poor Mary till my heart ached.
+That young and beautiful creature--that creature till lately so
+beloved--to be thus cruelly abandoned, thus helpless, thus unhappy!
+Perhaps not a soul sympathizing with her but myself--an obscure,
+low-born, uninfluential man, of no more value as a protector than a
+willow-wand shivered from the Lexley plantations! Not so much as the
+merest trifle in which I could demonstrate my good-will. I thought and
+thought it over, and there was nothing I could do--nothing I could
+offer. When I _did_ hit upon some pretext of kindness, I only did
+amiss. The fruit season was not begun--nay, the orchards were only in
+blossom--and times were over for forcing-houses at Lexley Park!
+Thinking, therefore, that the invalid might be pleased with a basket
+of Jersey pears, of which a very fine kind grew in my orchard, I
+ventured to send some to her address. But the very next time I
+encountered Everard in the village, he cast a look at me as if he
+would have killed me for my officiousness, or, perhaps, for taking the
+liberty to suppose that Lexley Park was less luxuriously provisioned
+than in former years. Nor was it till long afterwards I discovered
+that my old housekeeper (who had taken upon herself to carry my humble
+offering to the park) had not only seen the poor young lady, but been
+foolish enough to talk of Lady Robert in a tone which appears to have
+exercised a cruel influence over her gentle heart; so that, when her
+husband returned home from rabbit-shooting, an hour afterwards, he
+found her recovering from a fainting fit, he visited upon _me_ the
+folly of my servant; and such was the cause of his angry looks.
+
+A few days afterwards, however, he had far more to reproach his
+conscience withal than poor Barbara. Having no concealments from his
+wife, to whom he was in the habit of avowing every emotion of his
+heart, he was rash enough to mention of having met the travelling
+carriage of Lord and Lady Robert on the London road. They had quitted
+the Hall ten days previous to the epoch originally fixed for their
+departure.
+
+"Gone--exactly gone!--already at two hundred miles' distance from me!"
+cried poor Mary, nothing doubting that her father had, as usual,
+accompanied them, and feeling herself now, for the first time, alone
+in the dreary seclusion to which she had condemned herself, only that
+she might breathe the same atmosphere with those she loved. "Yet they
+had certainly decided to remain at the Hall till after Easter! Perhaps
+they discovered my being here, and the discovery hastened their
+journey. Unhappy creature that I am, to have become thus hateful to
+those in whose veins my blood is flowing! Everard, Everard! O, what
+have I done that God should thus abandon me?"
+
+The soothing and affectionate remonstrances now addressed to her by
+her husband, had so far a good effect, that they softened her despair
+to tears. Long and unrestrainedly did she weep upon his shoulder;
+tried to comfort him by the assurance that _she_ was comforted, or at
+least that she would endeavour to _seek_ comfort from the protection
+and goodness whence it had been so often derived.
+
+A few minutes afterwards, having been persuaded by Everard to rest
+herself on the sofa, to recover the effects of the agitation his
+indiscreet communication had excited, she suddenly complained of cold,
+and begged him to close the windows. It was a balmy April day, with a
+genial sun shining fresh into the room. The air was as the air of
+midsummer--one of those days on which you almost see the small green
+leaves of spring bursting from their shelly covering, and the resinous
+buds of the chestnut-trees expanding into maturity. Poor Everard saw
+at once that the chilliness of which his wife complained must be the
+effect of illness. More cautious, however, on this occasion than
+before, he enquired, as her shivering increased, what preparations she
+had made for the events which still left her some weeks for execution.
+"None. His sisters had kindly undertaken to supply her with all she
+might require; and the services of the nurse accustomed to attend his
+married sister, were engaged on her behalf. At the end of the month
+this woman was to arrive at Lexley, bringing with her the wardrobe of
+the little treasure who was to accord renewed peace and happiness to
+its mother."
+
+Though careful to conceal his anxiety from his wife, Everard Sparks,
+disappointed and distressed, quitted the room in haste to send for the
+medical man who had long been the attendant of his family. But before
+he arrived, the shivering fit of the poor sufferer had increased to an
+alarming degree. A calming potion was administered, and orders issued
+that she was to be kept quiet; but in the consternation created in the
+little household by the communication Dr R. thought it necessary to
+make of the possibility of a premature confinement, poor Mrs Sparks's
+maid, a young inexperienced woman, dispatched a messenger to my house
+for her old kinswoman, and it was through Barbara I became acquainted
+with the melancholy incidents I am about to relate.
+
+The sedatives administered failed in their effect. A fatal shock had
+been already given; and while struggling through that direful night
+with the increasing pangs that verified the doctor's prognostications,
+the sympathizing women around the sufferer could scarcely restrain
+their tears at the courage with which she supported her anguish,
+rejoicing in it, as it were, in the prospect of embracing her
+child--when all present were aware that the compensation was about to
+be denied her, that the child was already dead. Just as the day
+dawned, her anxious husband was congratulated on her safety, and then
+the truth could no longer be concealed from Mary. She asked to see her
+babe. Her husband was employed to persuade her to defer seeing it for
+an hour or two, "till it was dressed--till she was more composed." But
+the truth rushed into her mind, and she uttered not another word, in
+the apprehension of increasing his disappointment and mortification.
+
+So long did her silence continue, that, trusting she had fallen
+asleep, old Barbara's granddaughter entreated poor Everard to withdraw
+and leave her to her rest. But the moment he quitted the room, she
+spoke, spoke resolutely, and in a firmer voice than her previous
+sufferings had given them reason to suppose possible.
+
+"Now, then, let me see my boy," said she. "I know that he is dead. But
+do not be afraid of shocking or distressing me. I have courage to look
+upon the poor little creature for whom I have suffered so much, and
+who, I trusted, would reward me for all."
+
+The women remonstrated, as it was their duty to remonstrate. But when
+they saw that opposition on this point only excited her, dreading an
+accession of fever, they brought the poor babe and laid it on the
+pillow beside its mother. That first embrace, to which she had looked
+forward with such intensity of delight, folded to her burning bosom
+only a clay-cold child!
+
+Even thus it was fair to look on--every promise in its little form,
+that its beauty would have equalled that of its handsome parents; and
+Mary, as she pressed her lips to its icy forehead, fancied she could
+trace on those tiny features a resemblance to its father. Old Barbara,
+perceiving how bitterly the tears of the sufferer were falling on the
+cheeks of her lost treasure, now interfered. But the mother had still
+a last request to make. A few downy curls were perceptible on the
+temples--in colour and fineness resembling her own. She wished to
+rescue from the grave this slight remembrance of her poor nameless
+offspring; and her wish having been complied with, she suffered the
+babe to be taken from her relaxed and moveless grasp.
+
+"Leave me the hair," said she, in a faint voice. "Thanks--thanks! I am
+happy now--I will try to sleep--I am happy--happy now!"
+
+She slept--and never woke again. At the close of an hour or two, her
+anxious husband, finding she had not stirred, gently and silently
+approached the bedside, and took into his own the fair hand lying on
+the coverlid, to ascertain whether fever had ensued. _Fever?_ It was
+already cold with the damps of death!
+
+Imagine, if you can, the agony and self-reproach of that bereaved man!
+Again and again did he revile himself as her murderer; accusing
+_himself_--her father--her _sister_--the whole world. At one moment,
+he fancied that her condition had not been properly treated by her
+attendants; at another, that the medical man ought not to have left
+the house. Nay, hours and hours after she was gone for ever--after
+the undertakers had commenced their hideous preparations--even while
+she lay stretched before him, white and cold as marble, he persisted
+that life might be still recalled; and, but for the better
+discrimination of those around him, would have insisted on attempts at
+resuscitation, calculated only to disturb, almost sacrilegiously, the
+sound peace of the dead!
+
+I was one of the first to learn the heart-rending news of this beloved
+being's untimely end; for my old woman having asked permission to
+remain with her through the night, (explaining the exigency of the
+case,) I could not forbear hurrying to the house as soon as it was
+day, in the hope of hearing she was a happy mother. Somehow or other,
+I had never contemplated an unfavourable result. The idea of death
+never presented itself to me in common with any thing so young and
+fair; and as I walked through the park, and crossed the bridge, with
+the white cheerful mansion before me, and the morning sun shining full
+upon its windows, I thought how gladsome it looked, but could not
+forbear feeling that, even with the prospect of losing it--even with
+the certainty of beggary, Everard, as a husband and father, was the
+fellow most to be envied upon earth!
+
+I reached the house, and the old man who answered my ring at the
+office entrance, was speechless from tears. Though usually hard as
+iron, he sobbed as if his heart would break. I asked to speak with
+Barbara--with my housekeeper. He told me I could not--that she was
+"busy laying out the body." I was answered. That dreadful word told me
+all--I had no more questions to ask. I cared not _who_ survived, or
+what became of the survivors. And as I turned sickening away, to bend
+my steps homewards, I remember wondering how that fair spring morning
+could shine so bright and auspiciously, when _she_ was gone from us.
+It seemed to triumph in our loss! Alas! it shone to welcome a new
+angel to the kingdom of our Father who is in heaven!
+
+Suddenly it struck me, that I, too, had a duty to perform. In that
+scanty household there was no one to take thought of the common forms
+of life; so I hastened to the rectory, to suggest to our good pastor a
+visit of consolation to the house of mourning, and acquaint his
+sisters with its forlorn condition. Like myself, they began
+exclaiming, "Alas! alas! It was but the other day that"----reverting
+to all the acts of charity and girlish graces of that dear departed
+Mary Stanley, who had been among us as the shadow of a dream.
+
+Before I left the rectory, Dr Whittingham had issued his orders; and
+lo! as I proceeded homewards, with a heavy step and a heavier heart,
+the sound of the passing bell from Lexley church pursued me with its
+measured toll, till I could scarcely refrain from sitting me down by
+the wayside, and weeping my very soul away.
+
+On reaching the lane I have so often described as skirting the gardens
+of the old Hall, I noticed, through the palisades, a person, probably
+one of the gardeners, sauntering along Lady Robert's favourite
+yew-walk. No! on a nearer approach, I saw, and almost shuddered to
+see, that it was General Stanley himself (who, I fancied, had
+accompanied his son-in-law to town) taking an early walk, to enjoy the
+sweetness of that delicious morning.
+
+As I drew nearer, I averted my head. At that moment I had not courage
+to look him in the face. I could scarcely suppose him ignorant of what
+had occurred; and, if aware of the sad event, his obduracy was unmanly
+to a degree that filled me with disgust. But just as I came opposite
+the iron gates, he hailed me by name--more familiarly and courteously
+than he was wont--to ask whether I came from the village, and for
+_whose_ death they were tolling?
+
+If worlds had depended on my answer, I could not have uttered a word!
+But I conclude that, catching sight of my troubled face and swollen
+eyelids, the General supposed I had lost some near and dear friend;
+for, instead of renewing his question, he merely touched his hat, and
+passed on, leaving me to proceed in my turn. But the spectacle of my
+profound affliction probably excited his curiosity; for I found
+afterwards, that, instead of pursuing his walk, he returned straight
+to the house, and addressed the enquiry which had so distressed _me_,
+to others having more courage to reveal the fatal truth. I believe it
+was the old family butler, who abruptly answered--"For my poor young
+lady, General--for the sweetest angel that ever trod the earth!"
+
+For my part, I wonder the announcement did not strike him to the
+earth! But he heard it without apparent emotion; like a man who,
+having already sustained the worst affliction this world can afford,
+has no sensibility for further trials. Still the intelligence was not
+ineffective. Without pausing an instant for reflection, or the
+indulgence of his feelings, he set forth on foot to Lexley Park. With
+his hat pulled over his eyes, and a determined air, rather as if about
+to execute an act of vengeance than offer a tardy tribute of
+tenderness to his victim, he hurried to the house--commanded the
+startled old servant to show him the way to _her_ room--entered
+it--and knelt down beside the bed on which she lay, with her dead
+infant on her arm, asking her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God,
+as humbly as though he were not the General Stanley proverbial for
+implacability and pride.
+
+Old Barbara, who had not quitted the room, assured me it was a
+heart-breaking sight to behold that white head bowed down in agony
+upon the cold feet of his child. For he felt himself unworthy to press
+her helpless hand to his lips, or remove the cambric from her face,
+but called, in broken accents, upon the name of Mary! his child! his
+darling! addressing her rather with the fondling terms bestowed upon
+girlhood than as a woman--a wife--a mother!
+
+"But a more affecting story still," said the old woman, "was to see
+that Mr Everard took no more heed of the General's sudden entrance
+than though it were a thing to be looked for. He seemed neither to
+hear his exclamations nor perceive his distress." Poor gentleman! His
+haggard eyes were fixed, his mind bewildered, his hopes blasted for
+ever, his life a blank. He neither answered when spoken to, nor even
+spoke, when the good rector, according to his promise, came to
+announce that he had dispatched the fatal intelligence by express to
+his family, beseeching his instructions concerning the steps to be
+taken for the burial of the dead.
+
+But why afflict you and myself by recurring to these melancholy
+details! Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected what nothing
+else on earth could have effected in the mind of General Stanley.
+Humbled to the dust, even the arrival of the once despised owner of
+Lexley Park did not drive him from the house. He asked his pity--he
+asked his pardon. Beside the coffin of his daughter he expressed all
+the compunction a generous-hearted and broken-hearted man could
+express; and all he asked in return, was leave to lay her poor head in
+the grave of her ancestors.
+
+No one opposed his desire. The young widower had not as much
+consciousness left as would have enabled him to utter the negative
+General Stanley seemed prepared to expect; and as to his father, about
+to abandon Lexley for ever, to what purpose erect a family vault in a
+church which neither he nor his were ever likely to see again?
+
+To the chapel at Stanley Manor, accordingly, were the mother and child
+removed. The General wrote expressly to forbid his son-in-law and
+Selina returning to the Hall, on pretence of sustaining him in his
+affliction. He _chose_ to give way to it; he _chose_ to be alone with
+his despair.
+
+Never shall I forget the day that mournful funeral procession passed
+through the village! Young and old came forth weeping to their doors
+to bid her a last farewell; even as they used to come and exchange
+smiles with her, in those happy days when life lay before her,
+bright--hopeful--without a care--without a responsibility. I had
+intended to pay him the same respect. I meant, indeed, to have
+followed the hearse, at an humble distance, to its final destination.
+But when I rose that morning a sudden weakness came upon me, and I was
+unable to quit my room. I, so strong, so hardy, who have passed
+through life without sickness or doctor, was as powerless that day as
+an infant.
+
+It was from the good rector, therefore, I heard how the General (on
+whom, in consequence of the precarious condition of the afflicted
+husband, devolved the task of chief mourner) sustained his carriage to
+perform with dignity and propriety his duty to the dead. As he
+followed the coffin through the churchyard, crowded by his old
+pensioners--many of them praying on their knees as it passed--his
+step was as firm and his brow as erect as though at the head of his
+regiment. It was not till all was over--the mournful ceremony done,
+the crowd dispersed, the funeral array departed--that having descended
+into the vault, ere the stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre,
+in order to point out the exact spot where he wished her remains to be
+deposited, so that hereafter his own might rest by her side, he
+renounced all self-restraint, and throwing himself upon the ground,
+gave himself up to his anguish, and refused to be comforted!
+
+That summer was as dreary a season at Lexley as the dreariest winter!
+Both the Park and the Hall were shut up; nor did General Stanley ever
+again resume his tenancy of the old manor. When the result of the
+Chancery suit left Mr Altham in possession of the former estate, the
+General literally preferred forfeiting the moiety of the
+purchase-money he had paid, and giving up the place to be re-united
+with the property, which the rigour of the law thus singularly
+restored to the last heirs of the Althams; and such was the cause of
+my neighbour, the present Sir Julius Altham, regaining possession of
+the Hall.
+
+It was not for many years, however, that the cause was ultimately
+decided. There was an appeal against the Chancellor's decree; and even
+after the decree was confirmed, came an endless number of legal forms,
+which so procrastinated the settlement, that not only the original
+unfortunate purchaser, but poor Everard himself, was in his grave when
+the mansion, in which they had so prided themselves, was pulled down,
+and all trace of their occupancy effaced.
+
+I sometimes ask myself, indeed, whether the whole of this "strange
+eventful history," with which the earliest feelings of my heart were
+painfully interwoven, really occurred? whether the manor ever passed
+for a time out of the possession of the ancient house of Altham?
+whether the domain, now one and indivisible, were literally
+partitioned off--a park paling interposing only between the patrician
+and plebeian. Often, after spending hour after hour by the river side,
+when the fly is on the water and the old thorns in bloom, I recur to
+the first day I came back into Lexley Park after the funeral had
+passed through, and recollect the soreness of heart with which I
+lifted my eyes towards the house, of which every trace has since
+disappeared. At that moment there seemed to rise before me, sporting
+among the gnarled branches of the old thorn-trees, the graceful form
+of Mary Stanley, followed by old Sergeant, bounding and barking
+through the fern; and the General looking on from a distance,
+pretending to be angry, and desiring her to come out of the covert and
+not disturb the game. Exactly thus, and there, I beheld them for the
+first time. What would I not give to realize once more, if only for a
+day, that happy, happy vision!
+
+Stanley Manor is let to strangers during the minority of Lord Robert's
+sickly son; the father being an absentee, the mother in an early
+grave. She lived long enough, however, to be a repining wife; and my
+neighbour, Sir Julius Altham, has more than once hinted to me, that,
+of the whole family, the portion of Selina most deserved compassion.
+
+To me, however, her callous conduct towards that gentle sister, always
+rendered her the least interesting of my COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.[3]
+
+    [3] Travels of Kerim Khan; being a narrative of his
+    Journey from Delhi to Calcutta, and thence by Sea to
+    England: containing his remarks upon the manners,
+    customs, laws, constitutions, literature, arts,
+    manufactures, &c., of the people of the British Isles.
+    Translated from the original Oordu--(MS.)
+
+
+Among the various signs of the times which mark the changes of manners
+in these latter days of the world, not the least remarkable is the
+increasing frequency of the visits paid by the natives of the East to
+the regions of Europe. Time was, within the memory of most of the
+present generation, when the sight of a genuine Oriental in a London
+drawing-room, except in the angel visits, "few and far between," of a
+Persian or Moorish ambassador, was a rarity beyond the reach of even
+the most determined lion-hunters; and if by any fortunate chance a
+stray Persian khan, or a "very magnificent three-tailed bashaw," was
+brought within the circle of the quidnuncs of the day, the sayings and
+doings of the illustrious stranger were chronicled with as much
+minuteness as if he had been the denizen of another planet. Every hair
+of his beard, every jewel in the hilt of his khanjar, was enumerated
+and criticised; while all oriental etiquette was violated by the
+constant enquiries addressed to him relative to the number of his
+wives, and the economy of his domestic arrangements. "_Mais à present
+on a changé tout cela._" The reforms of Sultan Mahmood, the invention
+of steam, and the re-opening of the overland route to India, have
+combined to effect a mighty revolution in all these points. Osmanlis,
+with shaven chins and tight trousers,[4] have long been as plenty as
+blackberries in the saloons of the West, eating the flesh of the
+unclean beast, quaffing champagne, and even (if we have been rightly
+informed) figuring in quadrilles with the moon-faced daughters of the
+Franks; and though the natives of the more distant regions of the East
+have not yet appeared among us in such number, yet the lamb-skin cap
+of the Persian, the _pugree_, or small Indian turban, and even the
+queer head-dress of the Parsee, is far from being a stranger in our
+assemblies. We doubt whether the name of Akhbar Khan himself,
+proclaimed at the foot of a staircase, would excite the same
+_sensation_ in the present day, as the announcement of the most
+undistinguished wearer of the turban some ten or twenty years ago; but
+of the "Tours" and "Narratives" which are usually the inevitable
+result of such an influx of pilgrims, our Oriental visitors have as
+yet produced hardly their due proportion. For many years, the travels
+of Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, a Hindustani[5] Moslem of rank and education,
+who visited Europe in the concluding years of the last century, stood
+alone as an example of the effect produced on an Asiatic by his
+observation of the manners and customs of the West; and even of late
+our stock has not been much increased. The journal of the Persian
+princes (a translation of which, by their Syrian mehmandar, Assaad
+Yakoob Khayat, has been printed in England for private circulation) is
+curious, as giving a picture of European ways and manners when viewed
+through a purely Asiatic medium; while the remarkably sensible and
+well-written narrative of the two Parsees who lately visited this
+country for the purpose of instruction in naval architecture,[6]
+differs little from the description of the same objects which would be
+given by an intelligent and well-educated European, if they could be
+presented to him in the aspect of utter novelty. The latest of these
+Oriental wanderers in the ungenial climes of Franguestan, is the one
+whose name appears at the head of this article, and who, with a rare
+and commendable modesty, has preferred introducing himself to the
+public under the protecting guidance of Maga, to venturing, alone and
+without a pilot, among the perilous rocks and shoals of the critics of
+_the Row_; him therefore we shall now introduce, without further
+comment, to the favourable notice of our readers.
+
+    [4] _Shalwarlek_--"tight trousers"--was a phrase used,
+    under the old Turkish régime, as equivalent to a
+    blackguard.
+
+    [5] The Moslems, and other natives of India descended
+    from foreign races, are properly called _Hindustanis_,
+    while the aborigines are the _Hindus_--a distinction not
+    well understood in Europe. The former take their name
+    from the country, as _natives of Hindustan_, which has
+    derived its own name from the latter, as being the
+    _country of the Hindus_.
+
+    [6] Journal of a Residence of Two Years and a Half in
+    Great Britain, by Jehangeer Nowrojee and Hirjeebhoy
+    Merwanjee of Bombay, Naval Architects. London: 1841.
+
+Of Kerim Khan himself, the writer of his narrative, and of his motives
+for daring the perils of the _kala-pani_, (or black water, the Hindi
+name for the ocean,) on a visit to Franguestan, we have little
+information beyond what can be gathered from the MS. itself. There can
+be no doubt, however, that he was a Mussulman gentleman of rank and
+consideration, and of information far superior to that of his
+countrymen in general; nor does it appear that he was driven, like
+Mirza Abu-Talib, by political misfortune, to seek in strange climes
+the security which his native land denied him. His narrative commences
+abruptly:--"On the 21st of Ramazan, in the year of the Hejra 1255,"
+(Dec. 1, A.D. 1839,) "between four and five in the afternoon, I took
+leave of the imperial city of Delhi, and proceeded to our boat, which
+was at anchor near the Derya Ganj." The voyage down the Jumna, to its
+junction with the Ganges at Allahabad, a distance of not more than 550
+miles by land, but which the endless windings of the stream increase
+to 2010 by water, presents few incidents worthy of notice: but our
+traveller observes _par parenthèse_, that "though it is said that the
+sources of this river have not been discovered, I have heard from
+those who have crossed the Himalaya from China, that it rises in that
+country on the other side of the mountains, and, forcing its way
+through them, arrives at Bighamber. They say that gold is found there
+in large quantities, and the reason they assign is this--the
+philosopher's stone is found in that country, and whatever touches it
+becomes gold, but the stone itself can never be found!" Near Muttra he
+encountered the splendid cortège of Lord Auckland, then returning to
+Calcutta after his famous interview with Runjeet Singh at Lahore, with
+such a _suwarree_ as must have recalled the pomp and _sultanut_ for
+which the memory of Warren Hastings is even yet celebrated among the
+natives of India: "his staff and escort, with the civil and military
+officers of government in attendance on him, amounted to about 4000
+persons, besides 300 elephants and 800 camels." The noble buildings of
+Akbarabad or Agra, the capital and residence of Akbar and Shalijehan,
+the mightiest and most magnificent of the Mogul emperors, detained the
+traveller for a day; and he notices with deserved eulogium the
+splendid mausoleum of Shalijehan and his queen, known as the
+Taj-Mahal. There is nothing that can be compared with it, and those
+who have visited the farthest parts of the globe, have seen nothing
+like it.[7] At Allahabad he launched on the broad stream of the
+Ganges; and after passing through part of the territory of _Awadh_ or
+Oude, the insecurity of life and property in which is strongly
+contrasted with the rigid police in the Company's dominions, arrived
+in due time at the holy city of Benares, the centre of Hindoo and
+Brahminical sanctity.
+
+    [7] Many of our readers must have seen the beautiful
+    ivory model of this far-famed edifice, lately exhibited
+    in Regent Street, and now, we believe, in the Cambridge
+    University museum. It is fortunate that so faithful a
+    miniature transcript of the beauties of the Taj is in
+    existence, since the original is doomed, as we are
+    informed, to inevitable ruin at no distant period, from
+    the ravages of the white ants on the woodwork.
+
+The shrines of Benares, with their swarms of sacred monkeys and
+Brahminy bulls, were objects of little interest to our Moslem
+wayfarer, who on the contrary recounts with visible satisfaction the
+destruction of several of these _But Khanas_, or idol-temples, by the
+intolerable bigotry of Aurungzib, and the erection of mosques on their
+sites. Among the objects of attraction in the environs of the city, he
+particularly notices a famous footprint[8] upon stone, called the
+_Kadmsherif_, or holy mark, deposited in a mosque near the serai of
+Aurungabad, and said to have been brought from Mekka by Sheik Mohammed
+Ali Hazin, whom the translator of his interesting autobiography
+(published in 1830 by the Oriental Society) has made known to the
+British public, up to the period when the tyranny of Nadir Shah drove
+him from Persia. "Here, during his lifetime, he used to go sometimes
+on a Thursday, and give alms to the poor in the name of God. He was a
+very learned and accomplished man; and his writings, both in prose and
+verse, were equal to those of Zahiri and Naziri. When he first came to
+India, he resided for some years at Delhi; but having had some dispute
+with the poet-laureate of the Emperor Mohammed Shah, he found himself
+under the necessity of retiring to Benares, where he lived in great
+privacy. As he was a stranger in the country, was engaged in no
+calling or profession, and received no allowance from the Emperor, it
+was never known whence, or how, he was supplied with the means of
+keeping up the establishment he did, which consisted of some hundred
+servants, palanquins, horses, &c. It is said that when the Nawab
+Shujah-ed-dowlah projected his attack on the English in Bengal, he
+consulted the Sheik on the subject, who strongly dissuaded him from
+the undertaking. He died shortly after the battle of Buxar in 1180,"
+(A.D. 1766.) The battle of Buxar was fought Oct. 23, 1764; but that
+Sheik Ali Hazin died somewhere about this time, seems more probable
+than that his life was extended (as stated by Sir Gore Ouseley) till
+1779; since he describes himself at the conclusion of his memoirs in
+1742, when only in his 53d year, as "leading the dullest course of
+existence in the dullest of all dull countries, and disabled by his
+increasing infirmities from any active exertion of either body or
+mind"--a state of things scarcely promising a prolongation of life to
+the age of ninety.
+
+    [8] These sacred footmarks are more numerous among the
+    Buddhists than the Moslems--the most celebrated is that
+    on the summit of Adam's Peak, in Ceylon.
+
+Resuming his voyage from Benares, the Khan notices with wonder the
+apparition of the steamers plying between Calcutta and Allahabad,
+several of which he met on his course, and regarded with the
+astonishment natural in one who had never before seen a ship impelled,
+apparently by smoke, against wind and tide:--"I need hardly say how
+intensely I watched every movement of this extraordinary, and to me
+incomprehensible machine, which in its passage created such a vast
+commotion in the waters, that my poor little _budjrow_ (pinnace) felt
+its effects for the space of full two _hos_," (nearly four miles.) The
+picturesque situation of the city of Azimabad or Patna,[9] extending
+for several miles along the right bank of the Ganges, with the villas
+and beautiful gardens of the resident English interspersed among the
+houses, is described in terms of high admiration; and the mosques,
+some of which were as old as the time of the Patan emperors, are not
+forgotten by our Moslem traveller in his enumeration of the marvels of
+the city. A few days' more boating brought him to Rajmahal; "on one
+side of which," says he, "the country is called Bengal, and on the
+other _Poorb_, or the East"--a name from which the independent dynasty
+of Moslem kings, who once ruled in Bengal, assumed the appellation of
+_Poorby-Shaby_. He was now among the rice-fields, the extent and
+luxuriance of which surprised him: "There are a great variety of
+sorts, and if a man were to take a grain of each sort he might soon
+fill a _lota_ (water-pot) with them--so innumerable are the different
+kinds. The cultivators who have measured the largest species, have
+declared them to exceed the length of fifty cubits; but I have never
+seen any of this length, though others may have." He now entered the
+Bhagirutti, or branch of the Ganges leading to Calcutta, and which
+bears in the lower part of its course the better known name of the
+Hoogly--while the main stream to the left is again subdivided into
+innumerable ramifications, the greater part of which lose themselves
+among the vast marshes of the Sunderbunds; but he complains, that
+"though by this branch large vessels and steamers pass up and down to
+and from the Presidency, the route is very bad, from the extensive
+jungles on both banks, which are haunted by Thugs and _Decoits_,
+(river pirates:)--indeed I have heard and read, that the shores of the
+Ganges have been infested by freebooters, pirates, and thieves of all
+sorts, from time immemorial." He escaped unharmed, however, through
+these manifold perils; and passing Murshidabad, the ancient capital of
+Bengal, and other places of less note, his remarks upon which we shall
+not stay to quote, reached the ghauts of Calcutta in safety.
+
+    [9] Most of the principal cities of India, in addition
+    to the ancient name by which they are popularly known,
+    have another imposed by the Moslems:--thus Agra is
+    Akbarabad, _the residence of Akbar_--Delhi,
+    Shahjehanabad; and Patna, Azimabad. In some instances,
+    as Dowlutabad in the Dekkan, the Hindu name of which is
+    Deogiri, the Mohammedan appellation has superseded the
+    ancient name; but, generally speaking, the latter is
+    that in common use.
+
+A place so often described as the "City of Palaces," presents little
+that is novel in the narrative of the khan; but he does full justice
+to the splendour of the architecture, which he says "exceeds that of
+_China or Ispahan_--a superiority which arises from the immense sums
+which every governor-general has laid out upon public works, and in
+improving and adorning the city: the Marquis Wellesley, in particular,
+expended lakhs of rupees in this way." The account which he gives,
+however, from a Mahommedan writer, of the disputes with the Mogul
+government which led to the transference of the British factory and
+commerce from its original seat at Hoogly to _Kali-kata_,[10] or
+Calcutta, differs considerably from that given by the British
+historians, if we are to suppose the events here alluded to (the date
+of which the khan does not mention) to be those which occurred in 1686
+and 1687, when Charnock defended the factory at Hoogly against the
+Imperial deputy, Shaista Khan. Our traveller's version of these
+occurrences is, that the factories of the English, which were then
+established on the Ghol Ghaut at Hoogly, having been overthrown by an
+earthquake, "Mr Charnock, the head officer of the factory, purchasing
+a garden called Banarasi, had the trees cut down, and commenced a new
+building. But while it was in progress, the principal Mogul merchants
+and inhabitants laid a complaint before Meer Nasir, the _foujdar_,
+(chief of police,) that their houses and harems would be overlooked,
+and great scandal occasioned, if the strangers should be allowed to
+erect such lofty buildings in the midst of the city.[11] The complaint
+was referred by the foujdar to the nawab, who forthwith issued orders
+for the discontinuance of the works, which were accordingly abandoned.
+The Company's agent, though highly offended at this arbitrary
+proceeding, was unable to resist it, having only one ship and a few
+sepoys; and, in spite of the efforts of the foujdar to dissuade him,
+he embarked with all his goods, and set sail for the peninsula," (qu.
+Indjeli?) "having first set fire to such houses as were near the
+river. At this time, however, the Emperor Aurungzib was in the
+Carnatic, beleaguered by the Mahrattas, who had cut off all supplies
+from his camp; and the Company's agent in that country, hearing of
+this, sent a large quantity of grain, which had been recently imported
+for their own use, for the relief of the army. Having thus gained the
+favour and protection of the Asylum of the World, the English were not
+only permitted to build factories in various parts of the country, but
+were exempted from the duties formerly laid on their goods. Charnock
+returned to Bengal with the emperor's firman; and the nawab, seeing
+how matters stood, withdrew his opposition to the erection of the
+factory at Hoogly. The English, however, preferred another situation,
+and chose Calcutta, where a building was soon erected, the same which
+is now called the old fort." This account, which is in fact more
+favourable to the English than that given by their own writers, is the
+only notice of these transactions we have ever found from a Mahommedan
+author; for so small was the importance attached by the Moguls to
+these obscure squabbles with a few Frank merchants, that even the
+historian Khafi-Khan, who acted as the emperor's representative for
+settling the differences which broke out about the same time in
+Bombay, makes no allusion to the simultaneous rupture in Bengal.
+
+    [10] "So called from _Kali_, the Hindu goddess, and
+    _kata_, laughter; because human victims were formerly
+    here sacrificed to her."
+
+    [11] From the sanctity attached by Oriental ideas to the
+    privacy of the harem, it is a high crime and
+    misdemeanour, punishable by law in all Moslem countries,
+    to erect buildings overlooking the residence of a
+    neighbour. At Constantinople, there is an officer called
+    the Minar Aga, or superintendent of edifices, whose
+    especial duty it is to prevent this.
+
+Our author, like Bishop Heber,[12] and other travellers on the same
+route, is struck by the contrast between the robust and well-fed
+peasantry of Hindustan Proper, and the puny rice-eaters of Bengal;
+"who eat fish, boiled rice, bitter oil; and an infinite variety of
+vegetables; but of wheaten or barley bread, and of pulse, they know
+not the taste, nor of mutton, fowl, or _ghee_, (clarified butter.) The
+author of the _Riaz-es-Selatin_, is indeed of opinion that such food
+does not suit their constitutions, and would make them ill if they
+were to eat it"--an invaluable doctrine to establish in dieting a
+pauper population! "As to their dress, they have barely enough to
+cover them--only a piece of cloth, called a _dhoti_, wrapped round
+their loins, while their head-dress consists of a dirty rag rolled two
+or three times round the temples, and leaving the crown bare. But the
+natives of Hindustan, and even their descendants to the second and
+third generation, always wear the _jamah_, or long muslin robe, out of
+doors, though in the house they adopt the Bengali custom. The author
+of the _Kholasat-al Towārikh_, (an historical work,) says that both
+men and women formerly went naked; and no doubt he is right, for they
+can hardly be said to do otherwise now." Such are the peasants of
+Bengal--a race differing from the natives of Hindustan in language,
+manners, food, dress, and personal appearance; but who, from their
+vicinity to the seat of the English Supreme Government, have served as
+models for the descriptions given by many superficial travellers, as
+applying to all the natives of British India, without distinction! The
+horrible Hindu custom of immersing the sick, when considered past
+recovery, in the Ganges, and holding their lower limbs under water
+till they expire,[13] excites, as may be expected, the disgust of the
+khan; but the reason which he assigns for it, "the belief of these
+people, that if a man die in his own house, he would cause the death
+of every member of the family by assuming the form of a _bhut_ or evil
+spirit," is new to us, and appears to be analogous to the
+superstitious dread entertained by the Greeks and Sclavonians, of a
+corpse reanimated into a _Vroucolochas_, or vampire. "But if a man
+escapes from their hands, and recovers after this treatment, he is
+shunned by every one; and there are many villages in Bengal, called
+_villages of the dead_, inhabited by men who have thus escaped death;
+they are considered dead to society, and no other persons will dwell
+in the same villages."
+
+    [12] "Almost immediately on leaving Allahabad," (on his
+    way from Calcutta to the Upper Provinces,) "I was struck
+    with the appearance of the men, as tall and muscular as
+    the largest stature of Europeans; and with the fields of
+    _wheat_, almost the only cultivation."--Heber's Journal,
+    vol. iii. "Some of our boatmen passing through a field
+    of Indian corn, plucked two or three ears, certainly not
+    enough to constitute a theft, or even a trespass. Two of
+    the men, however, who were watching, ran after them, not
+    as the Bengalis would have done, to complain with joined
+    hands, but with stout bamboos, prepared to do themselves
+    justice _par voye de faict_. The men saved themselves by
+    swimming off to the boat; but my servants called out to
+    them--'Ah! dandee folk, beware, you are now in
+    Hindustan; the people here know well how to fight, and
+    are not afraid.'"
+
+    [13] "I told his (Pertab Chund's) father, that it was
+    wrong to keep him where he then was, and he told me to
+    take him down to the river. He was lifted up on his
+    bedding; his speech was not very distinct at that time,
+    but sufficiently so to call on the name of his T'hakoor,
+    (spiritual guide,) which he did as desired; he then
+    began to shiver, and complained of being very cold. I
+    was one of those who went with the rajah to the river
+    side. Jago Mohun Dobee pressed his legs under the water,
+    and kept them so; and about 10 p.m. his soul quitted the
+    body. When he died, his knees were under water, but the
+    rest of his body above." Evidence of Radha Sircar and
+    Sham Chum Baboo, before the Mofussil Court of Hoogly,
+    September 1838, in the enquiry on the impostor
+    Kistololl, who personated the deceased Pertab.
+
+The stay of the khan in Calcutta was prolonged for more than a month,
+during which time he rented a house from a native proprietor in the
+quarter of Kolitolla. While removing his effects from his boat to
+this residence, he became involved in a dispute with the police, in
+consequence of the violation by his servants, through ignorance, of
+the regulation which forbids persons from the Upper Provinces to enter
+the city armed; but this unintentional infringement of orders was
+easily explained and arranged by the intervention of an European
+friend, and the arms, of which the police had taken possession, were
+restored. While engaged in preparing for his voyage, the khan made the
+best use of his time in visiting the public buildings, and other
+objects of interest, among which he particularly notices the _minar_
+or column erected in the _maidan_, (square,) near the viceregal palace
+of the Nawab Governor-General Bahadur, by a subscription among the
+officers of the army, native as well as English, to the memory of the
+late Sir David Ochterlony; but rates it, with truth, as greatly
+inferior, both in dimensions and beauty, to the famous pillar of the
+Kootb-Minar near Delhi. The colossal fortifications of Fort-William
+are also duly commemorated; "they resemble an embankment externally,
+but when viewed from within are exceedingly high--no foe could
+penetrate within them, much less reach the treasures and magazines in
+the interior." Our traveller also visited the English courts of
+justice, in the proceedings of which he seems to have taken great
+interest, and was apparently treated with much hospitality by many of
+the European functionaries and other residents, by whom he was
+furnished with numerous letters of introduction, as well as receiving
+much information respecting the manners and customs of _Ingilistan_,
+or England. The choice of a ship, and the selection of sea-stock, were
+of course matters of grave consideration, and the more so from the
+peculiar unfitness of the habits and religious scruples of an Indian
+Moslem for the privations unavoidable at sea; but a passage was at
+last taken for the khan and his two servants on board the Edinburgh of
+1400 tons, and it being agreed that he should find his own provisions,
+to obviate all mistakes on the score of forbidden food, and the
+captain promising moreover that his comforts should be carefully
+attended to, this weighty negotiation was at length concluded. It is
+due to the khan to say, that whether from being better equipped, or
+from being endued with more philosophy and forbearance than his
+compatriot, Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, (to whom we have above referred,) he
+seems to have reconciled himself to the hardships of the _kala-pani_,
+or ocean, with an exceedingly good grace; and we find none of the
+complaints which fill the pages of the Mirza against the impurity of
+his food, the impossibility of performing his ablutions in appointed
+time and manner, and sundry other abominations by which he was so
+grievously afflicted, that at a time of danger to the vessel, "though
+many of the passengers were much alarmed, I, for my own part, was so
+weary of life that I was perfectly indifferent to my fate." Abu-Talib,
+however, sailed in an ill-regulated Danish ship; and in summing up the
+horrors of the sea, he strongly recommends his countrymen, if
+compelled to brave its miseries, to embark in none but an English
+vessel.
+
+During the last days of the khan's sojourn in Calcutta, he witnessed
+the splendid celebration of the rites of the Mohurrum, when the
+slaughter of the brother Imams, Hassan and Hussein, the martyred
+grandsons of the Prophet, is lamented by all sects of the faithful,
+but more especially by the _Rafedhis_ or Sheahs, the followers of Ali,
+"of whom there are many in Calcutta, though they are less numerous
+than the orthodox sect or Sunnis, from whom they are distinguished, at
+this season, by wearing black as mourning. At the _Baitak-Khana_ (a
+quarter of Calcutta) we witnessed the splendid procession of the
+_Tazîya_,[14] with the banners and flags flying, and the wailers
+beating their breasts."... "It is the custom here, at this season, for
+all the natch-girls (dancers) to sit in the streets of the
+Chandnibazar, under canopies decorated with wreaths and flowers in
+the most fantastic manner, and sell sweetmeats, cardamums, betelnuts,
+&c., upon stalls, displaying their charms to the passers-by. I took a
+turn here one evening with five others, and found crowds of people
+collected, both strangers and residents: nor do they ordinarily
+disperse till long after midnight." On the second day after his visit
+to this scene of gaiety, he received notice that the ship was ready
+for sea; and on the 8th of Mohurrum 1256, (March 13, 1840,) he
+accordingly embarked with his baggage and servants on board the
+Edinburgh, which was towed in seven days, by a steamer, down the river
+to Saugor; and the pilot quitting her the next day at the floating
+light. "I now found myself," (says the khan,) "for the first time in
+my life, in the great ocean, where nothing was to be seen around but
+sky and water."
+
+    [14] _Tazîya_, literally _grief_, is an ornamental
+    shrine erected in Moslem houses during the Mohurrum, and
+    intended to represent the mausoleum of Hassan and
+    Hussein, at Kerbelah in Persia. On the 10th and last day
+    of the mourning, the tazîyas are carried in procession
+    to the outside of the city, and finally deposited with
+    funeral rites in the burying-grounds.--See _Mrs Meer
+    Hassan Ali's_ Observations on the Mussulmans of India.
+    Letter I.
+
+The account of a voyage at sea, as given by an Oriental, is usually
+the most deplorable of narratives--filled with exaggerated fears, the
+horrors of sea-sickness, and endless lamentations of the evil fate of
+the writer, in being exposed to such a complication of miseries. Of
+the wailing of Mirza Abu-Talib we have already given a specimen: and
+the Persian princes, even in the luxurious comfort of an English
+Mediterranean steamer, seem to have fared but little better, in their
+own estimation at least, than the Mirza in his dirty and disorderly
+Danish merchantman. "Our bones cried, 'Alas! for this evil there is no
+remedy.' We were vomiting all the time, and thus afflicted with
+incurable evils, in the midst of a sea which appears without end, the
+state of my health bad, the sufferings of my brothers very great, and
+no hope of being saved, we became most miserable." Such is the naïve
+exposition of his woes, by H. R. H. Najaf Kooli Mirza; but Kerim Khan
+appears, both physically and morally, to have been made of different
+metal. Ere he had been two days on board we find him remarking--"I had
+by this time made some acquaintance among the passengers, and began to
+find my situation less irksome and lonely;" shortly afterwards
+adding--"The annoyances inseparable from this situation were relieved,
+in some measure, by the music and dancing going on every day except
+Sundays, owing to the numerous party of passengers, both gentlemen and
+ladies, whom we had on board--seeing which, a man forgets his griefs
+and troubles in the general mirth around him." So popular, indeed,
+does the khan appear already to have become, that the captain, finding
+that he had hitherto abstained from the use of his pipe, that great
+ingredient in Oriental comfort, from an idea that smoking was
+prohibited on board, "instantly sent for my hookah, had it properly
+prepared for me, and insisted on my not relinquishing this luxury, the
+privation of which he knew would occasion me considerable
+inconvenience." In other respects, also, he seems to have been not
+less happily constituted; for though he says that "the rolling and
+rocking of the ship, when it entered the _dark waters_ or open sea,
+completely upset my two companions, who became extremely sick"--his
+remarks on the incidents of the voyage, and the novel phenomena which
+presented themselves to his view, are never interrupted by any of
+those pathetic lamentations on the instability of the human stomach,
+which form so important and doleful an episode in the relations of
+most landsmen, of whatever creed or nation.
+
+The commencement of the voyage was prosperous; and the ship ran to the
+south before a fair wind, interrupted only by a few days of partial
+calm, till it reached the latitude of Ceylon, where the appearance of
+the flying fish excited the special wonder of the khan, who was by
+this time beginning, under the tuition of his fellow passengers, to
+make some progress in the English language, and had even attempted to
+fathom some of the mysteries of the science of navigation; "but though
+I took the sextant which the captain handed me, and held it precisely
+as he had done, I could make nothing of it." The regular performance
+of the Church service on Sundays, and the cessation on that day from
+the ordinary amusements, is specially noticed on several occasions,
+and probably made a deeper impression on the mind of our Moslem
+friend, from the popular belief current in India that the _Feringhis_
+are men _of no caste_, without religious faith or ceremonies--a belief
+which the conduct and demeanour of the Anglo-Indians in past times
+tended, in too many instances, to confirm. Off the southern extremity
+of Ceylon, the ship was again becalmed for several days; but the
+tedium of this interval was relieved, not only by the ordinary sea
+incidents of the capture of a shark and the appearance of a whale,
+(the zoological distinctions between which and the true fishes are
+stated by the khan with great correctness,) but by the occurrence of a
+mutiny on board an English vessel in company, which was fortunately
+quelled by the exertions of the captain of the Edinburgh.
+
+"The spicy gales of Ceylon," blowing off the coast to the distance, as
+stated, of fifty miles, (an extremely moderate range when compared
+with the accounts of some other travellers,) at last brought on their
+wings the grateful announcement of the termination of the calm; but
+before quitting the vicinity of this famous island, (more celebrated
+in eastern story under the name of Serendib,) the khan gives some
+notices of the legends connected with its history, which show a more
+extended acquaintance with Hindu literature than the Moslems in India
+in general take the trouble of acquiring. Among the rest he alludes to
+the epic of the Ramayuna, and the bridge built by Rama (or as he calls
+him, Rajah Ram Chunder) for the passage of the monkey army and their
+redoubled general, Huniman, from the Indian continent into the island,
+in order to deliver from captivity Seeta, the wife of the hero. The
+wind still continuing favourable, the ship quickly passed the equator,
+and the pole-star was no longer visible--"a proof of the earth's
+sphericity which I was glad to have had an opportunity of seeing;" and
+they left, at a short distance to the right, the islands of Mauritius
+and Bourbon, "which are not far from the great island of Madagascar,
+where the faithful turn their faces to the north when they pray, as
+they turn them to the west in India," the _kiblah_, or point of
+direction, being in both cases the kaaba, or temple of Mekka. They
+were now approaching the latitude of the Cape; and our voyager was
+astonished by the countless multitudes of sea-birds which surrounded
+the ship, and particularly by the giant bulk of the albatrosses,
+"which I was told remained day and night on the ocean, repairing to
+the coast of Africa only at the period of incubation." The Cape of
+Storms, however, as it was originally named by Vasco de Gama, did not
+fail on this occasion to keep up its established character for bad
+weather. A severe gale set in from the east, which speedily increased
+to a storm. A sailor fell from "the third stage of the mainmast," (the
+main topgallant yard,) and was killed on the deck; and as the
+inhospitable shores of Africa were close under their lee, the ship
+appears for some time to have been in considerable danger. But in this
+(to him) novel scene of peril, the khan manifests a degree of
+self-possession, strongly contrasting with the timidity of the royal
+grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, the expression of whose fears during a
+gale is absolutely ludicrous. "We were so miserable that we gave up
+all hope; we gave up our souls, and began to beseech God for
+forgiveness; while the wind continued increasing, and all the waves of
+the western sea rose up in mountains, with never-ceasing noise, till
+they reached the planets." Even after the violence of the hurricane
+had in some measure abated, the sea continued to run so high that the
+ports were kept closed for several days. "At last, however, they were
+opened for the purpose of ventilating the interior; and the band,
+which had been silent for some days, began to play again." The
+appearance of a water-spout on the same afternoon is thus
+described:--"An object became visible in the distance, in the form of
+a minaret, and every one on board crowded on deck to look at it. On
+asking what it was, I was told that what appeared to be a minaret was
+only water, which was drawn up towards the heavens by the force of the
+wind, and when this ceased would fall again into the sea, and was what
+we should call a whirlwind. This is sometimes extremely dangerous to
+vessels, since, if it reaches them, it is so powerful as to draw them
+out of the sea in the same manner as it draws up the water; in
+consequence of which many ships have been lost when they have been
+overtaken by this wonderful phenomenon."
+
+The storm was succeeded by a calm, which detained the ship for two
+days within sight of the lofty mountains near the Cape. "It was
+bitterly cold, for the seasons are here reversed, and instead of
+summer, as we should have expected, it was now the depth of winter.
+At length, however, (on the 69th day after our leaving Calcutta,) a
+strong breeze sprung up, which enabled us to set all sail, and carried
+us away from this table-land." The run from the Cape to St Helena
+seems to have been barren of incident, except an accidental encounter
+with a vessel in distress, which proved to be a slaver which had been
+captured by an English cruiser, and had sustained serious damage in
+the late storm while proceeding to the Cape with a prize crew. On
+approaching St Helena, the captain "gave orders for the ship to be
+painted, both inside and out, that the people of the island might not
+say we came in a dirty ship; and as we neared the land, a white flag
+was hoisted to apprise those on shore that there was no one ill on
+board. In cases of sickness a yellow flag is displayed, and then no
+one is permitted to land from the ship for fear of contagion. The
+island is about twenty-six miles in circuit, and is constantly
+enveloped in fog and mist. It is said to have been formerly a volcano,
+but has now ceased to smoke. The vegetation is luxuriant, but few of
+the flowers are fragrant. I recognised some, however, both flowers and
+fruits, which seemed similar to those of India. I took the opportunity
+of landing with the captain to see the town, which is small, but
+extremely well fortified, the cannon being so numerous that one might
+suppose the whole island one immense iron-foundery. It is populous,
+the inhabitants being chiefly Jews and English; but as it was Sunday,
+and all the shops were shut, it had a dull appearance. After surveying
+the town, I ascended a hill in the country, leading to the tomb of
+Napoleon Bonaparte, which is on an elevated spot, four miles from the
+town.
+
+"This celebrated personage was a native of Corsica; and enjoying a
+fortunate horoscope, he entered the French army, and speedily rose to
+the rank of general; and afterwards, with the consent of the people
+and the soldiery, made himself emperor. After this he conquered
+several kingdoms, and the fame of his prowess and his victories filled
+all the European world. When he invaded Russia, he defeated the
+Muscovites in several great battles, and took their capital; but, in
+consequence of the intensity of the cold, several thousands of his
+army both men and horses, perished miserably. This catastrophe obliged
+him to return to France, where he undertook the conquest of another
+country. At this time George III. reigned in England; and having
+collected all the disposable forces of his kingdom, appointed Lord
+Wellington (the same general who was employed in the war against
+Tippoo Sultan in Mysore) to command them, and sent him to combat the
+French Emperor. He entered Spain, and forced the Emperor's brother,
+Yusuf, (Joseph,) who was king of that country, to fly--till after a
+variety of battles and incidents, too numerous to particularize, the
+two hostile armies met at a place called by the English Waterloo,
+where a bloody battle was fought, as famous as that of Pāshān,
+between Sohrab and the hero Rustan: and Napoleon was overthrown and
+made prisoner. He was then sent, though in a manner suitable to his
+rank, to this island of St Helena, where, after a few years, he
+finished his earthly career. His tomb is much visited by all who touch
+at the island, and has become a _durgah_ (shrine) for innumerable
+visitors from Europe. There are persons appointed to take care of it,
+who give to strangers, in consideration of a small present, the leaves
+and flowers of the trees which grow round the tomb. No other Emperor
+of the Europeans was ever so honoured as to have had his tomb made a
+shrine and place of pilgrimage: nor was ever one so great a conqueror,
+or so renowned for his valour and victories."
+
+The remainder of the voyage from St Helena to England was apparently
+marked by no incident worthy of mention, as the khan notices only the
+reappearance of the pole-star on their crossing the line, and
+re-entering the northern hemisphere, and their reaching once more the
+latitude of Delhi, "which we now passed many thousand miles to our
+right; after which nothing of importance occurred till we reached the
+British Channel, when we saw the Scilly Isles in the distance, and
+about noon caught a glimpse of the Lizard Point, and the south coast
+of England, together with the lighthouse: the country of the French
+lay on our right at the distance of about eighty miles. I was given
+to understand that the whole distance from St Helena to London, by the
+ship's reckoning, was 6328 miles, and 16,528 from Calcutta." In the
+Downs the pilot came on board, from whom they received the news of the
+attempt recently made by Oxford on the life of the Queen; and here the
+captain, anxious to lose no time in reaching London, quitted the
+vessel as it entered the Thames, "the sources of which famous river, I
+was informed, were near a place called Cirencester, eighty-eight miles
+from London, in the _zillah_ (county) of Gloucester." The ship was now
+taken in tow by a couple of steam-tugs, and passing Woolwich, "where
+are the war-ships and _top-khana_ (arsenal) of the English Padishah,
+at length reached Blackwall, where we anchored."
+
+"I now (continues the khan) returned thanks to God for having
+brought me safe through the wide ocean to this extraordinary
+country--bethinking myself of the answer once made by a man who had
+undertaken a voyage, on being asked by his friends what he had seen
+most wonderful--'The greatest wonder I have seen is seeing myself
+alive on land!'" The troubles of the khan, however, were far from
+being ended by his arrival on _terra firma_: for apparently from
+some mistake or inadvertence, (the cause of which does not very
+clearly appear,) on the part of the friends whom he had expected to
+meet him, he found himself, on landing at Blackwall and proceeding
+by the railway to London, left alone by the person who had thus far
+been his guide, in apartments near Cornhill, almost wholly
+unacquainted with the English language, separated from his baggage
+and servants, who were still on board the Edinburgh, and with no one
+in his company but another Hindustani, as little versed as himself
+in the ways and speech of Franguestan. In this "considerable
+unhandsome fix," as it would be called on the other side of the
+Atlantic, the perplexities of the khan are related with such
+inimitable naïveté and good-humour, that we cannot do better than
+give the account of them in his own words. "As I could neither ask
+for any thing, nor answer any question put to me, I passed the whole
+night without a morsel of food or a drop of water: till in the
+morning, feeling hungry, I requested my companion to go to some
+bazar and buy some fruit. He replied that it would be impossible for
+him either to find his way to a bazar through the crowds of people,
+or to find his way back again--as all the houses were so much alike.
+I then told him to go straight on in the street we were in, turning
+neither to the right nor the left till he met with some shop where
+we might get what we wanted: and, in order to direct him to the
+place on his return, I agreed to lean half out of the window, so
+that he could not fail to see me. No sooner, however, did he sally
+forth, than the people, men, women, and children, began to stare at
+him on all sides, as if he had dropped from the moon; some stopped
+and gazed, and numbers followed him as if he had been a criminal
+about being led to execution. Nor was I in a more enviable position:
+the people soon caught sight of me with my head and shoulders out of
+the window; and in a few minutes a mob had collected opposite the
+door. What was I to do? If I withdrew myself, my friend on returning
+would have no mark to find the house, while, if I remained where I
+was, the curiosity of the crowd would certainly increase. I kept my
+post, however, while every one that passed stopped and gazed like
+the rest, till there was actually no room for vehicles to pass; and
+in this unpleasant situation I remained fully an hour, when seeing
+my friend returning, I went down and opened the door for him. He
+told me he had gone straight on, till he came to a fruit-shop, at
+the corner of another street, when he went in, and laying two
+shillings on the counter, said in Oordu, (the polished dialect of
+Hindustani,) 'Give me some fruit.' The shopman, not understanding
+him, spoke to him in English; to which he replied again in Oordu, 'I
+want some fruit!' pointing at the same time to the money, to signify
+that he wanted two shillings' worth of fruit. The man, however,
+continued confounded; and my friend at last, not knowing of what
+sort the fruits were, whether sour or sweet, bitter or otherwise,
+ventured, after much hesitation and fruitless attempts to
+communicate with the shopman by signs and gestures, to take up four
+apples, and then made his retreat in the best manner he could,
+followed, as here, by the rabble. I at last caught a glimpse of him,
+as I have mentioned, and let him in; and we sat down together, and
+breakfasted on these four apples, my friend taking two of them, and
+I the others."
+
+It must be admitted that our khan's first meal in England, and the
+concomitant circumstances, were not calculated to impress him with a
+very high idea, either of the comforts of the country or the
+politeness of the inhabitants; but the unruffled philosophy with which
+he submitted to these untoward privations was, ere-long, rewarded by
+the arrival of the East India agent to whose care he had been
+recommended, and who, after putting him in the way of getting his
+servants and luggage on shore from the vessel, took him out in a
+carriage to show him the metropolis. "It was, indeed, wonderful in
+every point of view, whether I regarded the immense population, the
+dresses and faces of the men and women, the multitudes of houses,
+churches, &c., and the innumerable carriages running in streets paved
+with stone and wood, (the width and openness of which seem to expand
+the heart,) and confining themselves to the middle of the road,
+without overturning any of the foot-passengers." The cathedral of St
+Paul's is described with great minuteness of detail, and the expense
+of its erection stated at seventy-three lakhs of rupees, (about
+L.750,000;) "but I have heard that if a similar edifice were erected
+in the present day, it would cost four times as much, as the cost of
+every thing has increased in at least that proportion."
+
+The difficulties of the khan, from his ignorance of the language, and
+Moslem scruples at partaking of food not dressed by his own people,
+were not yet, however, at an end. For though, on returning to his
+lodging in the evening, he found that his friend had succeeded in
+procuring from the ship a dish of _kichiri_, (an Indian mess, composed
+of rice and _ghee_, or clarified butter,) his inability to communicate
+with his landlady still occasioned him considerable perplexity.
+"Having ventured to take some pickles, which I saw on the sideboard,
+and finding them palatable, I sent for the landlady, and tried to
+explain to her by signs, pointing to the bottles, that I wanted
+something like what they contained. Alas, for my ignorance! She
+thought I wished them taken out of the room, and so walked off with
+them, leaving me in the utmost astonishment. How was I to get it back
+again? it was the only thing I had to relish my _kichiri_. I had,
+therefore, recourse to this expedient--I got an apple and pared it,
+putting the parings in a bottle with water; and showing this to the
+landlady, intimated, by signs, that I wanted something like it to eat
+with my rice. She asked many questions in English, and talked a great
+deal, from which I inferred that she had at last discovered my
+meaning, but five minutes had hardly elapsed when she re-appeared,
+bearing in her hand a bottle of water, filled with apple-parings cut
+in the nicest manner imaginable! This she placed on the table in the
+most respectful manner, and then retired!"
+
+The good lady, however, conceiving that her guest was in danger of
+perishing with hunger, was benevolently importunate with him to
+partake of some nourishment, or at least of some tea and toast, "since
+it is the custom in this country for every one to eat five times
+a-day, and some among the wealthy are not satisfied even with this!"
+The arrival of an English acquaintance, who explained to the landlady
+the religious prejudices of her lodger, in some measure relieved him
+from his embarrassment; but he was again totally disconcerted, by
+finding it impossible, after a long search, to procure any _ghee_--an
+ingredient indispensable in the composition of every national dish of
+India, whether Moslem or Hindu. "How shall I express my astonishment
+at this extraordinary ignorance? What! do they not know what _ghee_
+is? Wonderful! This was a piece of news I never expected--that what
+abounds in every little wretched village in India, could not be
+purchased in this great city!" How this unforeseen deficiency was
+supplied does not appear; but probably the khan's never-failing
+philosophy enabled him to bear even this unparalleled privation with
+equanimity, as we hear no further complaints on the subject. He did
+not remain, however, many days in those quarters, finding that the
+incessant noise of the vehicles passing day and night deprived him of
+sleep; and, by the advice of his friends, he took a small house in St
+John's Wood, where he was at once at a distance from the intolerable
+clamour of the streets, and at liberty to live after the fashion of
+his own country.
+
+The first place of public resort to which he directed his steps,
+appears to have been the Pantheon bazar in Oxford Street, whither the
+familiar name perhaps attracted him--"for the term _bazar_ is in use
+also among the people of this country;" but he does not appear to have
+been particularly struck by any thing he saw there, except the
+richness and variety of the wares. On the contrary, he complains of
+the want of fragrance in the flowers in the conservatory, particularly
+the roses, as compared with those of his native land--"there was _one_
+plantain-tree which seemed to be regarded as a sort of wonder, though
+thousands grow in our gardens without any sort of culture." The
+presence of the female attendants at the stalls, a sight completely at
+variance with Asiatic ideas, is also noticed with marked
+disapprobation--"Most of them were young and handsome, and seemed
+perfect adepts in the art of selling their various wares; but I could
+not help reflecting, on seeing so many fine young women engaged in
+this degrading occupation, on the ease and comfort enjoyed by our
+females, compared to the drudgery and servile employment to which the
+sex are subjected in this country. Notwithstanding all the English say
+of the superior condition of their women, it is quite evident, from
+all I have seen since my arrival, that their social state is far below
+that of our females." This sentiment is often repeated in the course
+of the narrative, and any one who has read, in the curious work of Mrs
+Meer Hassan Ali, quoted above, an account of the strict domestic
+seclusion in which Moslem females having any pretensions to rank, or
+even respectability, are constantly retained in India, will not be
+surprised at the frequent expression of repugnance, whenever the
+writer sees women engaged in any public or out-of-doors occupation--a
+custom so abhorrent to Oriental, and, above all, to Indian ideas.
+
+We next find the khan in the Zoological Gardens, his matter-of-fact
+description of which affords an amusing contrast with that of those
+veracious scions of Persian royalty, who luxuriate in "elephant birds
+just like an elephant, but without the proboscis, and with wings
+fifteen yards long"--"an elephant twenty-four feet high, with a trunk
+forty feet long;" and who assure us that "the monkeys act like human
+beings, and play at chess with those who visit the gardens. On this
+day a Jew happened to be at this place, and went to play a game with
+the monkey. The monkey beat, and began to laugh loudly, all the people
+standing round him; and the Jew, exceedingly abashed, was obliged to
+leave the place." The khan, in common with ourselves, and the
+generality of visitors to the Regent's Park, was not fortunate enough
+to witness any of the wondrous feats which gladdened the royal eyes of
+the Shahzadehs--though he saw some of the apes, meaning the
+orang-outan, "drink tea and coffee, sit on chairs, and eat their food
+like human beings." * * *
+
+"There is no island or kingdom," (he continues,) "which has not
+contributed its specimens of the animal kingdom to these gardens: from
+the elephant and rhinoceros, to the fly and the mosquito, all are to
+be seen here"--but not even the giraffes, strange as their appearance
+must have been to him, attract any particular notice; though the sight
+of the exotics in the garden draws from him a repetition of his old
+complaint, relative to the want of fragrance in the flowers as
+compared with those produced under the genial sun of India. The
+ceremony of the prorogation of Parliament by the Queen in person was
+now at hand, and the khan determined to be present at this imposing
+scene. But as he takes this opportunity to introduce his observations
+and opinions on the laws and customs of this country, we shall
+postpone to our next Number the discussion of these weighty subjects.
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRTEENTH.
+
+A TALE OF DOOM.
+
+
+It was on a sultry July evening that a joyous party of young men were
+assembled in the principal room of a wine house, outside the Potsdam
+gate of Berlin. One of their number, a Saxon painter, by name Carl
+Solling, was about to take his departure for Italy. His place was
+taken in the Halle mail, his luggage sent to the office, and the coach
+was to call for him at midnight at the tavern, whither a number of his
+most intimate friends had accompanied him, to drink a parting glass of
+Rhenish wine to his prosperous journey.
+
+Supper was over, and some magnificent melons, and peaches, and plates
+of caviare, and other incentives to drinking, placed upon the table; a
+row of empty bottles already graced the sideboard, while full ones of
+that venerable cobweb-mantle appearance, so dear to the toper, were
+forthcoming as rapidly as the thirstiest throats could desire. The
+conviviality was at its height, and numerous toasts had been given,
+among which the health of the traveller, the prosperity of the art
+which he cultivated, and of the land of poetry and song to which he
+was proceeding, had not been forgotten. Indeed, it was becoming
+difficult to find any thing to toast, but the thirst of the party was
+still unquenched, and apparently unquenchable.
+
+Suddenly a young man started up, in dress and appearance the very
+model of a German student--in short frock coat and loose sacklike
+trousers, long curling hair hanging over his shoulders, pointed beard
+and mustache, and the scars of one or two sabre cuts on his handsome
+animated countenance.
+
+"You want a toast, my friends!" cried he. "An excuse to drink, as
+though drinking needed an excuse when the wine is good. I will give
+you one, and a right worthy one too. Our noble selves here assembled;
+all, so many as we are!" And he glanced round the table, counting the
+number of the guests. "One, two, three, four--thirteen. We are
+Thirteen. _Es lebe die Dreizehn!_"
+
+He raised his glass, in which the golden liquor flashed and sparkled,
+and set it down, drained to the last drop.
+
+"_Thirteen!_" exclaimed a pale-faced, dark-eyed youth named Raphael,
+starting from his seat, and in his turn counting the company. "'Tis
+true. My friends, ill luck will attend us. We are Thirteen, seated at
+a round table."
+
+There was evidently an unpleasant impression made upon the guests by
+this announcement. The toast-giver threw a scornful glance around
+him--
+
+"What!" cried he, "are we believers in such nursery tales and old
+wives' superstitions? Pshaw! The charm shall soon be broken. Halls!
+Franz! Winebutt! Thieving innkeeper! Rascally corkdrawer! where are
+you hidden? Come forth! Appear!"
+
+Thus invoked, there toddled into the room the master of the tavern--a
+round-bellied, short-legged individual, whose rosy gills and
+Bacchus-like appearance proved his devotion to the jolly god whose
+high-priest he was.
+
+"Sit down here!" cried the mad student, forcing him into a chair; "and
+now, Raphael and gentlemen all, be pleased to shorten your faces
+again, and drink your wine as if one with a three after it were an
+unknown combination of numerals."
+
+The conversation now took a direction naturally given to it by what
+had just occurred, and the origin and causes of the popular prejudice
+against the number Thirteen were discussed.
+
+"It cannot be denied that there is something mysterious in the
+connection and combination of numbers," observed a student in
+philosophy; "and Pythagoras was right enough when he sought the
+foundation of all human knowledge in the even and uneven. All over the
+world the idea of something complete and perfect is associated with
+even numbers, and of something imperfect and defective with uneven
+ones. The ancients, too, considered even numbers of good omen, and
+uneven ones as unpropitious."
+
+"It is really a pity," cried the mad student, "that you philosophers
+should not be allowed to invert and re-arrange history in the manner
+you deem fitting. You would soon torture the crooked stream of time
+into a straight line. I should like to know from what authors you
+derive your very original ideas in favour of even numbers. As far as
+my reading goes, I find that number three was considered a sacred and
+a fortunate number by nearly all the sects of antiquity, not excepting
+the Pythagoreans. And the early Romans had such a respect for the
+uneven numbers, that they never allowed a flock of sheep to be of any
+number divisible by two."
+
+The philosopher did not seem immediately prepared with a reply to this
+attack.
+
+"You are all of you looking too far back for the origin of the curse
+that attends the number Thirteen," interposed Raphael. "Think only of
+the Lord's Supper, which is rather nearer to our time than Pythagoras
+and the Roman shepherds. It is since then that Thirteen has been a
+stigmatized and fatal number. Judas Iscariot was the Thirteenth at
+that sacred table and believe me it is no childish superstition that
+makes men shun so unblest a number."
+
+"Here is Solling, who has not given his opinion yet," cried another of
+the party, "and yet I am sure he has something to say on the subject.
+How now, Carl, what ails thee, man? Why so sad and silent?"
+
+The painter who, at the commencement of the evening, had entered
+frankly and willingly into the joyous humour of his friends, had
+become totally changed since the commencement of this discussion on
+the number _Thirteen_. He sat silent and thoughtful in his chair, and
+left his glass untasted before him, while his thoughts were evidently
+occupied by some unpleasant subject. His companions pressed him for
+the cause of this change, and after for some time evading their
+questions, he at last confessed that the turn the conversation had
+taken had brought painful recollections to his mind.
+
+"It is a matter I love not to speak about," said he; "but it is no
+secret, and least of all could I have any wish to conceal it from you,
+my good and kind friends. We have yet an hour before the arrival of
+the mail, and if you are disposed to listen, I will relate to you the
+strange incidents, the recollection of which has saddened me."
+
+The painter's offer was eagerly accepted; the young men drew their
+chairs round the table, and Solling commenced as follows:--
+
+"I am a native of the small town of Geyer, in Saxony, of the tin mines
+of which place my father was inspector. I was the twelfth child of my
+parents and half an hour after I saw the light my mother give birth to
+a Thirteenth, also a boy. Death, however, was busy in this numerous
+family. Several had died while yet infants, and there now survive only
+three besides myself, and perhaps my twin brother.
+
+"The latter, who was christened Bernard, gave indications at a very
+early age of an eccentric and violent disposition. Precocious in
+growth and strength, wild as a young foal, headstrong and passionate,
+full of spiteful tricks and breakneck pranks, he was the terror of the
+family and the neighbours. In spite of his unamiable qualities, he was
+the pet of his father, who pardoned or laughed at all his mischief,
+and the consequence was, that he became an object of fear and hatred
+to his brothers and sisters. Our hatred, however, was unjust; for
+Bernard's heart was good, and he would have gone through fire and
+water for any of us. But he was rough and violent in whatever he did,
+and we dreaded the fits of affection he sometimes took for us, almost
+as much as his less amiable humours.
+
+"As far back as I can remember, Bernard received not only from his
+brothers, but also from all our playfellows, the nickname of the
+Thirteenth, in allusion, of course, to his being my mother's
+thirteenth child. At first this offended him grievously, and many were
+the sound thrashings he inflicted in his endeavours to get rid of the
+obnoxious title. Finally he succeeded, but scarcely had he done so
+when, from some strange perversity of character, he adopted as an
+honourable distinction the very name he had taken such pains to
+suppress.
+
+"We were playing one Sunday afternoon in the large court of our house;
+several of the neighbours' children were there, and it chanced that we
+were exactly twelve in number. We had wooden swords, and were having
+a sort of tournament, from which, however, we had managed to exclude
+Bernard, who, in such games, was accustomed to hit rather too hard.
+Suddenly he bounded over a wall, and fell amongst us like a
+thunderbolt. He had painted his face in red and black stripes, and
+made himself a pair of wings out of an old leathern apron; and thus
+equipped and armed with the largest broomstick he had been able to
+find, he showered his blows around him, driving us right and left, and
+shouting out, 'Room, room for the mad Thirteenth!'
+
+"Soon after this incident my father died. Bernard, who had been his
+favourite, was as violent in his grief as he had already shown himself
+to be in every thing else. He wept and screamed like a mad creature,
+tore his hair, bit his hands till they bled, and struck his head
+against the wall; raved and flew at every body who came near him, and
+was obliged to be shut up when his father's coffin was carried out of
+the house, or he would inevitably have done himself or somebody else a
+mischief.
+
+"My mother had an unmarried brother in the town of Marienberg, a
+wealthy man, and who was Bernard's godfather. On learning my father's
+death he came to Geyer, and invited his sister and her children to go
+and take up their abode with him. But the worthy man little knew the
+plague he was receiving into his house in the person of his godson.
+Himself of a mild, quiet disposition, he was greatly scandalized by
+the wild pranks of his nephew, and made vain attempts to restrain him
+within some bounds; but by so doing he became the aversion of my
+brother, who showed his dislike in every possible way. He gave him
+nicknames, broke his china cups and saucers, by which the old
+gentleman set great store, splashed his white silk stockings with mud
+as he went to church, put the house clock an hour forward or back, and
+tormented his kind godfather in every way he could devise.
+
+"Bernard had not forgotten his title of the Thirteenth; but it was
+probable he would soon have got tired of it, for it was not his custom
+to adhere long to any thing, had not my uncle, who was a little
+superstitious, strictly forbidden him to adopt it. This opposition was
+all that was wanting to make my brother bring forward the unlucky
+number upon every possible occasion. When any body mentioned the
+number twelve before him, or called any thing the twelfth, Bernard
+would immediately cry out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'
+
+"No matter when it was, or before whom; time, place, and persons were
+to him alike indifferent. For instance, one Sunday in church, when the
+clergyman in the course of the service said, 'Let us sing a portion of
+such a psalm, beginning at the twelfth verse,' Bernard immediately
+screamed out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'
+
+"This was a grievous scandal to my uncle, and Bernard was called that
+evening before a tribunal, composed of his godfather, my mother, and
+the old clergyman whom he had so gracelessly interrupted, and who was
+also teacher of Latin and theology at the school to which Bernard and
+I went. But all their reproaches and remonstrances were lost upon my
+brother, who had evidently much difficulty to keep himself from
+laughing in their faces. My mother wept, my uncle paced the room in
+great perplexity, and the worthy old dominie clasped his hands
+together, and exclaimed, 'My child! I fear me, God's chastisement will
+be needed to amend you.' The event proved that he was right.
+
+"It was on the Friday before Christmas-day, and we were assembled in
+school. The near approach of the holidays had made the boys somewhat
+turbulent, and the poor old dominie had had much to suffer during the
+whole day from their tricks and unruliness. My brother, of course, had
+contributed largely to the disorder, much to the delight of his bosom
+friend and companion, the only son of the master. This boy, whose name
+was Albert, was a blue-eyed, fair haired lad, gentle as a girl.
+Bernard had conceived a violent friendship for him, and had taken him
+under his protection. Albert's father, as may be supposed, was little
+pleased at this intimacy, but yet, out of consideration for my uncle,
+he did not entirely forbid it; and the more so as he perceived that
+his son in no respect imitated his wild playmate, but contented
+himself with admiring him beyond all created beings, and repaying with
+the warmest affection Bernard's watchful and jealous guardianship.
+
+"On the afternoon in question, my brother surpassed himself in wayward
+conceits and mischievous tricks, to the infinite delight of Albert,
+who rocked with laughter at each new prank. The good dominie, who was
+indulgence itself, was instructing us in Bible history, and had to
+interrupt himself every moment to repress the unruliness of his
+pupils, and especially of Bernard.
+
+"It seemed pre-ordained that the lesson should be an unlucky one.
+Every thing concurred to make it so. Our instructor had occasion to
+speak of the twelve tribes of Israel, of the twelve patriarchs, of the
+twelve gates of the holy city. Each of these served as a cue to my
+brother, who immediately shouted out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!' and
+each time Albert threw himself back shrieking with laughter, thus
+encouraging Bernard to give full scope to his mad humour. The poor
+dominie remonstrated, menaced, supplicated, but all in vain. I saw the
+blood rising into his pale face, and at last his bald head, in spite
+of the powder which sprinkled it, became red all over. He contained
+himself, however, and proceeded to the account of the Lord's Supper.
+He began, 'And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve
+apostles with him.'
+
+"'And I am the Thirteenth!' yelled Bernard.
+
+"Scarcely were the words uttered, when a Bible flew across the school,
+the noise of a blow, and a cry of anguish followed, and the old man
+fell senseless to the ground. The heavy Bible, the corners of which
+were bound with silver, and that he had hurled in a moment of
+uncontrollable passion at my brother, had missed its mark, and struck
+his own son on the head. Albert lay bleeding on the floor, while
+Bernard hung over him like one beside himself, weeping, and kissing
+his wounds.
+
+"The boys ran, one and all, out of the school-room, shrieking for
+assistance. Our cries soon brought the servants to the spot, who, on
+learning what had happened, hastened with us back to the school, and
+lifted up the old master, who was still lying on the ground near his
+desk. He had been struck with apoplexy, and survived but a few hours.
+Albert was wounded in two places, one of the sharp corners of the
+Bible having cut open his forehead, while another had injured his left
+eye. After much suffering he recovered, but the sight of the eye was
+gone.
+
+"Bernard, however, had disappeared. When we re-entered the
+school-room, a window which looked into the playground was open, and
+there were marks of footsteps on the snow without. A short distance
+further were traces of blood, where the fugitive had apparently washed
+his face and hands in the snow. We have never seen him since that
+day."
+
+The painter paused, and his friends remained some moments silent,
+musing on the tragical history they had heard.
+
+"And do you know nothing whatever of your brother's fate?" enquired
+Raphael at last.
+
+"Next to nothing. My uncle caused enquiries to be made in every
+direction, but without success. Once only a neighbour at Marienberg,
+who had been travelling on the Bohemian frontier, told us that he had
+met at a village inn a wandering clarinet-player, who bore so strong a
+resemblance to my brother that he accosted him by his name. The
+musician seemed confused, and muttering some unintelligible reply,
+left the house in haste. What renders it probable that this was
+Bernard is, that he had a great natural talent for music, and at the
+time he left home, had already attained considerable proficiency on
+the clarinet."
+
+"How old was your brother when he so strangely disappeared?" asked one
+of the party.
+
+"Fifteen, but he looked at least two years older, for he was stout and
+manly in person beyond his age."
+
+At this moment the rattling of wheels, and sound of a postilion's
+horn, was heard. The Halle mail drove up to the door, the guard
+bawling out for his passenger. The young painter took a hasty leave of
+his friends, and sprang into the vehicle, which the next instant
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+There was an overplus of travellers by the mail that night, and the
+carriage in which Solling had got, was not the mail itself, but a
+calèche, holding four persons, which was used as a sort of
+supplement, and followed close to the other carriage. Two of the
+places were occupied by a Jew horse-dealer and a sergeant of hussars,
+who were engaged in an animated, and to them most interesting
+conversation, on the subject of horse-flesh, to which the painter paid
+little attention; but leaning back in his corner, remained absorbed in
+the painful reflections which the incidents he had been narrating had
+called up in his mind. In spite of his brother's eccentricities, he
+was truly attached to him; and although eight years had elapsed since
+his disappearance, he had not yet given up hopes of finding him, if
+still alive. The enquiries that he and his uncle had unceasingly made
+after their lost relative, had put them, about three years previous to
+this time, upon the trace of a clarinet-player who had been seen at
+Venice and Trieste, and went by the name of Voltojo. This might have
+been a name adopted by Bernard, as being nearly the Italian equivalent
+of Geyer, or hawk, the name of his native town; and Solling was not
+without a faint hope, that in the course of his journey to Rome he
+might obtain some tidings of his brother.
+
+He was roused from his reverie by the postilion shouting out to the
+guard of the mail, which was just before them on the road, to know
+when they were to take up the passenger who was to occupy the
+remaining seat in the calèche.
+
+"Where will the Thirteenth meet us?" asked the man.
+
+"At the inn at Schoneber," replied the guard.
+
+_The Thirteenth!_ The word made the painter's blood run cold. The
+horse-dealer and the sergeant, who had begun to doze in their
+respective corners, were also disturbed by the ill-omened sound.
+
+"The Thirteenth! The Thirteenth!" muttered the Jew in his beard, still
+half asleep. "God forbid! Let's have no thirteenth!"
+
+A company of travelling comedians, who occupied the mail, took up the
+word. "The Thirteenth is coming," said one.
+
+"Somebody will die," cried another.
+
+"Or we shall be upset and break our necks," exclaimed a third.
+
+"No Thirteenth!" cried they all in chorus. "Drive on! drive on! he
+sha'n't get in!"
+
+This was addressed to the postilion, who just then pulled up at the
+door of a village inn, and giving a blast with his horn, shouted
+loudly for his remaining passenger to appear.
+
+The door of the public-house opened, and a tall figure, with a small
+knap-sack on his shoulder and a knotty stick in his hand, stepped out
+and approached the mail. But when he heard the cries of the comedians,
+who were still protesting against the admission of a Thirteenth
+traveller, he started suddenly back, swinging his cudgel in the air.
+
+"To the devil with you all, vagabonds that ye are!" vociferated he.
+"Drive on, postilion, with your cage of monkeys. I shall walk."
+
+At the sound of the stranger's voice, Solling sprang up in the
+carriage and seized the handle of the door. But as he did so, a strong
+arm grasped him by the collar, and pulled him back into his seat. At
+the same moment the carriage drove on.
+
+"The man is drunk," said the sergeant, who had misinterpreted his
+fellow-passenger's intentions. "It is not worth while dirtying your
+hands, and perhaps getting an ugly blow, in a scuffle with such a
+fellow."
+
+"Stop, postilion, stop!" shouted Solling. But the postilion either did
+not or would not hear, and some time elapsed before the painter could
+persuade his well-meaning companion of his peaceable intentions. At
+length he did so, and the carriage, which had meanwhile been going at
+full speed, was stopped.
+
+"You will leave my luggage at the first post-house," said Solling,
+jumping out and beginning to retrace his steps to the village, which
+they had now left some distance behind them.
+
+The night was pitch-dark, so dark that the painter was compelled to
+feel his way, and guide himself by the line of trees that bordered the
+road. He reached the village without meeting a living creature, and
+strode down the narrow street amid the baying of the dogs, disturbed
+by his footfall at that silent hour of the night. The inn door was
+shut, but there was a light glimmering in one of the casements. He
+knocked several times without any body answering. At length a woman's
+head was put out of an upper window.
+
+"Go your ways," cried a shrill voice, "and don't come disturbing
+honest folk at this time o' night. Do you think we have nought to do
+but to open the door for such raff as you? Be off with you, you
+vagabond, and blow your clarinet elsewhere."
+
+"You are mistaken, madam," said Solling; "I am no vagabond, but a
+passenger by the Halle mail, and"--
+
+"What brings you here, then?" interrupted the virago; "the Halle mail
+is far enough off by this."
+
+"My good madam," replied the painter in his softest tone, "for God's
+sake tell me who and where is the person who was waiting for the mail
+at your hotel."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed the hostess, considerably mollified by the _madam_
+and the _hotel_. "The mad Italian musician, the clarinet fellow? Why,
+I took you for him at first, and wondered what brought him back, for
+he started as soon as the mail left the door. He'd have done better to
+have got into it, with a dark night and a long road before him. Ha!
+ha! He's mad, to be sure."
+
+"His name! His name!" cried Solling, impatiently.
+
+"His name? How can I recollect his outlandish name? Fol--Vol----"
+
+"Voltojo!" cried the painter.
+
+"Voltojo! yes, that's it. Ha! ha! What a name!"
+
+"It is he!" cried Solling, and without another word dashed off full
+speed along the road he had just come. He kept in the middle of the
+causeway, straining his eyes to see into the darkness on either side
+of him, and wondering how it was he had not met the object of his
+search as he came to the village. He ran on, occasionally taking trees
+and fingerposts for men, and cursing his ill luck when he saw his
+mistake. The sweat poured down his face in streams, and his knees
+began to knock together with fatigue. Suddenly he struck his foot
+against a stone lying in the road, and fell, cutting his forehead
+severely upon some pebbles. The sharp pain drew a cry from him, and a
+man who had been lying on the grass at the roadside, sprang up and
+hastened to his assistance. At that moment a flash of summer lightning
+lit up the road.
+
+"Bernard! Bernard!" cried the painter, throwing his arms round the
+stranger's neck. It was his brother.
+
+Bernard started back with a cry of horror.
+
+"Albert!" he exclaimed in a hollow voice, "Cannot your spirit rest? Do
+you rise from the grave to persecute me?"
+
+"In God's name, my dear brother, what mean you? I am Carl--Carl, your
+twin brother."
+
+"Carl? No! Albert! I see that horrid wound on your brow. It still
+bleeds!"
+
+The painter grasped his brother's hand.
+
+"I am flesh and blood," said he, "and no spirit. Albert still lives."
+
+"He lives!" exclaimed Bernard, and clasped his brother in his arms.
+
+Explanations followed, and the brothers took the road to Berlin. When
+the painter had replied to Bernard's questions concerning their
+family, he in his turn begged his brother to relate his adventures
+since they parted, and above all to give his reasons for remaining so
+long severed from his friends and home.
+
+"Although I fully believed Albert killed by the blow he received,"
+replied Bernard, "it was no fear of punishment for my indirect share
+in his death, that induced me to fly. But when I saw the father
+senseless on the ground, and the son expiring before my eyes, I felt
+as if I was accursed, as if the brand of Cain were on my brow, and
+that it was my fate to roam through the world an isolated and
+wretched being. When you all ran out of the school to fetch
+assistance, it seemed to me as though each chair and bench and table
+in the room received the power of speech, and yelled and bellowed in
+my ears the fatal number which has been the cause of all my
+misfortunes--'Thirteen! Thirteen! Thou art the Thirteenth, the
+Accursed One!'
+
+"I fled, and since that day no rest or peace has been mine. Like my
+shadow has this unholy number clung to me. Wherever I went, in all the
+many lands I have wandered through, I carried with me the curse of my
+birth. At every turn it met me, aggravating my numerous hardships,
+embittering my rare moments of joy. If I entered a room where a
+cheerful party was assembled, all rose and shrunk from me as from one
+plague-tainted. They were twelve--I was the Thirteenth. If I sat down
+at a dinner-table, my neighbour left his chair, and the others would
+say, 'He fears to sit by you. You are the Thirteenth.' If I slept at
+an inn--there were sure to be twelve persons sleeping there; my bed
+was the Thirteenth, or my room would be number Thirteen, and I was
+told that the former landlord had shot or hung himself in it.
+
+"At length I left Germany, in the vain hope that the spell would not
+extend beyond the land of my birth. I took ship at Trieste for Venice.
+Scarcely were we out of port when a violent storm arose, and we were
+driven rapidly towards a rocky and dangerous coast. The steersman
+counted the seamen and passengers, and crossed himself. We were
+_thirteen_.
+
+"Lots were drawn who should be sacrificed for the salvation of the
+others. I drew number thirteen, and they put me ashore on a barren
+rock, where I passed a day and night half dead with cold and drenched
+with sea water. At length an Illyrian fisherman espied me, and took me
+off in his boat.
+
+"It is unnecessary to relate to you in detail my wanderings during the
+last eight years, or if I do, it shall be at some future time. My
+clarinet enables me to live in the humble manner I have always done.
+You remember, probably, that I had some skill in it, which I have
+since much improved. When travelling, my music was generally taken as
+payment for my bed and supper at the petty hostelries at which I put
+up; and when I came to a large town, I remained a few days, and
+usually gained more than my expenses.
+
+"About a year since, I made some stay at Copenhagen, and at last,
+getting wearied of that city, I put myself on board a ship, without
+enquiring whither it was bound. It took me to Stralsund.
+
+"The day of my arrival, there was a shooting-match in the suburb
+beyond the Knieper, and I hastened thither with my clarinet. It was a
+sort of fair, and I wandered from one booth to the other, playing the
+joyous mountain melodies which I had not once played since my
+departure from Marienberg. God knows what brought them into my head
+again; but it did my heart good to play them, and a feeling came over
+me, that I should like once more to have a home, and to leave the
+weary rambling life I had so long led.
+
+"I had great success that day, and the people thronged to hear the
+wandering Italian musician. Many were the jugs of beer and glasses of
+wine offered to me, and my plate was soon full of shillings. As I left
+off playing, an old greyheaded man pressed through the crowd, and
+gazed earnestly at me. His eyes filled with tears, and he was
+evidently much moved.
+
+"'What a likeness!' he exclaimed. 'He is the very picture of my
+Amadeus. I could fancy he had risen out of the sea. The same features,
+the sane voice and manner.'
+
+"He came up to me and took my hand. 'If you do not fear a high
+staircase,' said he with a kindly smile, 'come and visit me. I live on
+the tower of St Nicholas's Church. Your clarinet will sound well in
+the free fresh air, and you will find those there who will gladly
+listen.' So saying, he left me.
+
+"The old man's name was Elias Kranhelm, better known in Stralsund as
+the old Swede; he was the town musician, and had the care of the bells
+of St Nicholas. The next day was Sunday, and I hastened to visit him.
+His kind manner had touched me, unaccustomed as I was to kindness or
+sympathy from the strangers amongst whom I always lived. When I was
+halfway up the stairs leading to the tower, the organ began to play
+below me, and I recognised a psalm tune which we used often to sing
+for our old schoolmaster at Marienberg. I stopped a moment to listen,
+and thoughts of rest and home again came over me.
+
+"I was met at the tower door by old Kranhelm, in his Sunday suit of
+black; large silver buckles at his knees and shoes, and a round black
+velvet cap over his long white hair. His clear grey eyes smiled so
+kindly upon me, his voice was so mild, and his greeting so cordial,
+that I thought I had never seen a more pleasing old man. He welcomed
+me as though I had been an old friend, and without further preface,
+asked me if I should like to become his substitute, and perform the
+duties for which his great age had begun to unfit him. His only son,
+on whom he had reckoned to take his place, had left him some time
+previously, to become a sailor on board a Norwegian ship, and had been
+drowned in his very first voyage. It was my extraordinary likeness to
+this son that had made him notice me; and the good, simple-hearted old
+man seemed to think that resemblance a sufficient guarantee against
+any risk in admitting a perfect stranger into his house and intimacy.
+
+"'My post is a profitable one,' said he; 'and, in consideration of my
+long services, the worshipful burgomaster has given me leave to seek
+an assistant, now that I am getting too old for my office. Consider
+then, my son, if the offer suits you. You please me, and I mean you
+well. But here comes my Elizabeth, who will soon learn to like you if
+you are a good lad.'
+
+"As he spoke, a young girl entered the room, with a psalm-book in her
+hand, and attired in an old-fashioned dress, which was not able,
+however, to conceal the elegance of her figure, and the charms of her
+blooming countenance.
+
+"'How think you, Elizabeth?' said her father. 'Is he not as like our
+poor Amadeus as one egg is to another?'
+
+"'I do not see the likeness, my dear father,' replied Elizabeth,
+looking timidly at me, and then casting down her eyes, and blushing.
+
+"I accepted the old man's offer with joy, and took up my dwelling in
+the other turret of the church tower. My occupation was to keep the
+clock wound up, to play the evening hymn on the balcony of the tower,
+and to strike the hours upon the great bell with a heavy hammer.
+
+"I soon felt the good effect of repose, and of the happy, tranquil
+life I now led; my spirits improved, and I began to forget the curse
+which hung over me--to forget, in short, that I was the unlucky
+Thirteenth. Old Kranhelm's liking for me increased rapidly, and, in
+less than three months, I was Elizabeth's accepted lover. Time flew
+on; the wedding-day was fixed, and the bridal-chamber prepared.
+
+"It was on Friday evening, exactly eight days ago, that I went out
+with Elizabeth, and walked down to the port to look at a large Swedish
+ship that had just arrived. The passengers were landing, and one
+amongst them immediately attracted our attention.
+
+"This was a tall, lean, raw-boned woman, apparently about forty years
+of age, who held in her hand a long, smooth staff, which she waved
+about her, nodding her head, and muttering, as she went, in some
+strange, unintelligible dialect. Her dress consisted of a huge black
+fur cloak, and a cape of the same colour fringed with red. Her whole
+manner and appearance were so strange, that a crowd assembled round
+her as soon as she set foot on shore.
+
+"'Hallo! comrade,' cried one of the sailors of the vessel that had
+brought her, to a boatman who was passing. 'Hallo! comrade, do you
+want a job? Here's a witch to take to Hiddensee.'
+
+"We asked the sailor what he meant; and he told us that this strange
+woman was a Lapland witch, who every year, in the dog-days, made a
+journey to the island of Hiddensee, to gather an herb which only grew
+there, and was essential in her incantations.
+
+"Meantime, the witch was calling for a boat, but no one understood her
+language, or else they did not choose to come. My unfortunate
+propensity to all that is supernatural or fantastic impelled me, with
+irresistible force, towards her. In vain Elizabeth held me back. I
+pushed my way through the crowd, until we found ourselves close to the
+Lapland woman, who measured us from head to foot with her bright and
+glittering eyes. Slipping a florin into her hand, I gave her to
+understand, as well as I could, that we wished to have our fortunes
+told. She took my hand, and, after examining it, made a sign that she
+either could or would tell me nothing. She then took the hand of
+Elizabeth, who hung upon my arm, trembling like an aspen leaf, and
+gazing intently upon it, muttered a few words in broken Swedish. I did
+not understand them, but Elizabeth did, and, starting back, drew me
+hastily out of the crowd.
+
+"'What did she say?' enquired I, as soon as we were clear of the
+throng.
+
+"Elizabeth seemed much agitated, and had evidently to make a strong
+effort before she could reply.
+
+"'Nothing,' answered she, at last; 'nothing, at least, worth
+repeating. And yet 'tis strange; it tallies exactly with a prediction
+made to my mother when I was an infant, that I should one day be in
+peril from the number Thirteen. This strange woman cautioned me
+against the same number, and bade me beware of you, for that you were
+the Thirteenth!'
+
+"Had the earth opened under my feet, or the lightning from heaven
+fallen on my head, I could not have felt a greater shock than was
+communicated to me by these words. I know not what I said in reply, or
+how I got home. Elizabeth, doubtless, observed my agitation, but she
+made no remark on it. I felt her arm tremble upon mine as we walked
+along, and by a furtive glance at her face saw that she was pale as
+death. Not a word passed between us during our walk back to the tower,
+on reaching which she shut herself up in her room. I pleaded a severe
+headach and wish to lie down; and, begging the old man to strike the
+hours for me, retired to my chamber.
+
+"It would be impossible to give an idea of the agony of mind I
+suffered during that evening. I thought at times I was going mad, and
+there were moments when I felt disposed to put an end to my existence
+by a leap from the tower window. Again, then, this curse that hung
+over me was in full force. Again had that fatal number raised itself
+before me like an iron wall, interposed between me and all earthly
+happiness. Wearied out at length by the storm within me, I fell
+asleep.
+
+"As may be supposed, I was followed in my troubled slumbers by the
+recollection of my misery. Each hour that struck awoke me out of the
+most hideous dreams to a scarce less hideous reality. When midnight
+came, and the hammer clanged upon the great bell, a strange fancy took
+possession of my mind that it would this night strike Thirteen, and
+that at the thirteenth stroke the clock, the tower, the city, and the
+whole world, would crumble into atoms. Again I fell asleep and dreamt.
+I thought that my head was changed into a mighty bronze bell, and that
+I hung in the tower and heard the clock beside me strike Thirteen.
+Then came the old schoolmaster, who yet, at the same time, had the
+features of Elizabeth's father; and, as he drew near me, I saw that
+the hammer he held in his hand was no hammer, but a large silver-bound
+Bible. In my despair I made frightful efforts to cry out and to tell
+him that I was no bell, but a man, and that he should not strike me;
+but my voice refused its service and my tongue clove to my palate. The
+greyhaired old man came up to me, and struck thirteen times on my
+forehead, till my brains gushed out at my eyes.
+
+"By daybreak the next morning I was two leagues from Stralsund, having
+left a few hurried ill-written lines in my room, pleading I know not
+what urgent family affairs, and a dislike to leave-taking, as excuses
+for my sudden departure. Over field and meadow, through rivers and
+forests, on I went, as though hell were at my heels, flying from my
+destiny. But the further I got from Stralsund the more did I regret
+all I left there--my beautiful and affectionate mistress, her
+kind-hearted father, the peaceful happy life I led on the top of the
+old tower. The vow I had made to fly from the haunts of men, and seek
+in some desert the repose which my evil fate denied me among my
+fellows, that vow became daily more difficult to keep. And yet I went
+on, dreading to depart from my determination, lest I should encounter
+some of those bitter deceptions and cruel disappointments that had
+hitherto been my lot in life. Shame, too, at the manner in which I had
+left the tower, withheld me, or else I think I should already be on my
+road back to Stralsund. But now I have met you, brother, and that my
+mind is relieved by the knowledge that I have not, even indirectly,
+Albert's death to reproach myself with, I must hasten to my Elizabeth
+to relieve her anxiety, and dry the tears which I am well assured each
+moment of my absence causes her to shed. Come with me, dearest Carl,
+and you shall see her, my beautiful Elizabeth, and her good old
+father, and the tower and the bell. Ho! the bell, the jolly old bell!"
+
+The painter looked kindly but anxiously in his brother's face. There
+was a mildness in his manner that startled him, accustomed as he had
+been to his eccentricities when a boy.
+
+"You are tired, brother," said he. "You need repose after the emotions
+and fatigues of the last week. I, too, shall not be sorry to sleep.
+Let us to bed for a few hours, and then we will have post-horses and
+be off to Stralsund."
+
+"I have no need of rest," replied Bernard, "and each moment seems to
+me an eternity till I can again clasp my Elizabeth to my heart. Let us
+delay, then, as little as may be."
+
+As he spoke they entered the gates of Berlin. The sun was risen, and
+the hotels and taverns were beginning to open their doors. Seeing
+Bernard's anxiety to depart, the painter abandoned his intention of
+taking some repose, and after hasty breakfast, a post-chaise was
+brought to the door, and the brothers stepping in, were whirled off on
+their road northwards.
+
+The sun was about to set when the travellers came in sight of the
+spires of Stralsund, among which the church of St Nicholas reared its
+double-headed tower. Bernard had enlivened the journey by his wild
+sallies, and merry but extravagant humour. Now, however, that the goal
+was almost reached, he became silent and anxious. The hours appeared
+to go too slowly for him, and his restlessness was extreme.
+
+"Faster! postilion," cried Carl, observing his brother's impatience.
+"Faster! You shall be paid double."
+
+The man flogged his horses till they flew rather than galloped over
+the broad level road. Suddenly, however, a strap broke, and the
+postilion got off his seat to tie it up. Through the stillness of the
+evening, no longer broken by the rattle of the wheels and clatter of
+the horses' feet, a clock was heard striking the hour. Another
+repeated it, and a third, of deeper tone than the two preceding ones,
+took up the chime. Bernard started to his feet, and leaned so far out
+of the carriage that his brother seized hold of him, expecting him to
+lose his balance and fall out.
+
+"It is she!" exclaimed Bernard. "'Tis the bell of St Nicholas. Listen,
+Carl--my Elizabeth calls me. She strikes the bell. I come, dearest, I
+come!"
+
+And with these words he sprang out of the carriage, and set off at
+full speed towards the town, leaving his brother thunderstruck at his
+mad impatience and vehemence.
+
+Running at the top of his speed, Bernard soon reached the city gate,
+and proceeded rapidly through the streets in the direction of St
+Nicholas's church. It seemed to him as though he had been absent for
+years instead of a few days, and he felt quite surprised at finding no
+change in the city since his departure. All was as he had left it; all
+conspired to lull him into security. An old fruitwoman, of whom he had
+bought cherries the very day of his last walk with Elizabeth, was in
+her usual place, and, as he passed, extolled the beauty of her fruit,
+and asked him to buy. A large rose-tree, at the door of a
+silversmith's shop, which Elizabeth had often admired, was still in
+full bloom; through the window of a house in the market-place, he saw
+a young girl, Elizabeth's dearest friend, dressing her hair at a
+looking-glass, and as he passed the churchyard, the old dumb sexton,
+who appeared to be hunting about for a place for a grave, nodded his
+head in mute recognition.
+
+Bernard opened the tower door, and darted up the staircase. He was not
+far from the top when he heard the voices of two men above him. They
+were resting on one of the landing-places of the ladderlike stairs.
+
+"It is a singular case, doctor," said one; "a strange and
+incomprehensible case. It is evidently a disease more of the mind than
+the body."
+
+"Yes," replied the other, by his voice apparently an old man. "If we
+could only get a clue to the cause, any thing to go upon, something
+might be done, but at present it is a perfect riddle."
+
+Bernard heard no more, for the men continued their ascent.
+
+"The old father must be ill," said he to himself; but as he said it a
+feeling of dread and anxiety, a presentiment of evil, came over him,
+and he stood for a few moments unable to proceed. The door at the top
+of the stairs was now opened, and shut with evident care to avoid
+noise. "The old man must be very ill," said Bernard, as if trying to
+persuade himself of it. He reached the door, and his hand shook as he
+laid it upon the latch. At length he lifted it, and entered the room.
+It was empty; but, just then, the door of Elizabeth's chamber opened,
+and old Kranhelm stepped out. On beholding Bernard, he started back as
+though he had seen a ghost. He said a word or two in a low voice to
+somebody in the inner room, and then shutting the door, bolted it,
+and placed his back against it, as if to prevent Bernard from going
+in.
+
+"Begone!" cried he in a tremulous voice; "in the name of God, begone!
+thou evil spirit of my house;" and he stretched out his arms towards
+Bernard as though to prohibit his approach. No longer master of
+himself, the young man sprang towards him, and, grasping his arm,
+thundered in his ear the question--
+
+"Where is my Elizabeth?"
+
+The words rang through the old tower, and the confused murmuring of
+voices in the inner room was heard. Bernard listened, and thought he
+distinguished the voice of Elizabeth repeating, in tones of agony, the
+fatal number.
+
+One of the physicians knocked, and begged to be let out. The old
+tower-keeper opened the door cautiously, and, when the doctor had
+passed through, carefully shut and barred it. But during the moment
+that it had remained open, Bernard heard too plainly what his ears had
+at first been unwilling to believe.
+
+"Is that the man?" demanded the physician hastily. "In God's name, be
+silent. You will kill the patient. She recognized your voice, and fell
+immediately into the most fearful paroxysm. She has got back again to
+the infernal number with which her delirium began, and she shrieks it
+out perpetually. It is a frightful relapse. Begone! young man; yet
+stay--I will go with you. You can, doubtless, give us a key to this
+mystery."
+
+The old physician took Bernard's arm to lead him away; but at that
+very moment there was a shrill scream from the next room, and
+Elizabeth's voice was heard calling upon Bernard by name. The
+unfortunate young man could not restrain himself. Shaking off the
+grasp of the physician, he pushed old Kranhelm aside, tore back the
+bolts, and flung open the door. There lay Elizabeth on her deathbed,
+her arms stretched out towards him, her mild countenance ashy pale and
+frightfully distorted, her soft blue eyes straining from their orbits.
+She made a violent effort to speak, but death was too near at hand;
+the sound died away upon her lips, and her uplifted arms dropped
+powerless upon the bed; her head fell back--a convulsive shudder came
+over her: she was dead. Her unhappy lover fell senseless to the
+ground.
+
+When Bernard awoke out of a long and deathlike swoon, it was night,
+and all around him was still and dark. He was lying on the stone floor
+outside Kranhelm's dwelling. The physicians had removed him thither;
+and, being occupied with the old tower-keeper and his daughter, they
+had thought no more about him. On first recovering sensation, he had
+but an indistinct idea of where he was, or what had happened. By
+degrees his senses returned to a certain extent--he knew that
+something horrible had occurred, but without remembering exactly what
+it was.
+
+He felt about him, and touched a railing. It was the balustrade round
+the open turret where hung the great bell. He was lying under the bell
+itself, and, as he gazed up into its brazen throat, the recollection
+of the frightful dream which had persecuted him the night before his
+flight from Stralsund came vividly to his mind; he appeared to himself
+to be still dreaming, and yet his visions were mixed up with the
+realities of his everyday occupations.
+
+He had just stepped out, he thought, to strike the hour on the bell,
+and rising with some difficulty from the hard couch which had
+stiffened his limbs, he sought about for the hammer. He made no effort
+to shake off the sort of dreaming semi-consciousness which seemed to
+prevent him from feeling the horror and anguish of reality.
+
+"Thirteen strokes," thought he; "thirteen strokes, and at the
+Thirteenth the tower will fall, the city crumble to dust, the world be
+at an end." Such had been his dream, and the moment of its
+accomplishment was come.
+
+He found the hammer, and struck with all his force upon the bell. He
+repeated the blow; twelve times he struck, and each stroke rang with
+deafening violence through his brain; but at the Thirteenth, as he
+raised his arms high above his head, and leaning back against the
+railing, threw his whole strength and energy into the blow, the frail
+balustrade gave way under his weight, and he fell headlong from the
+tower. The last stroke tolled out, sad and hollow as a funereal knell,
+and the sound mingled with the death-cry of the luckless Thirteenth!
+
+
+
+
+REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.[15]
+
+    [15] Reminiscences of Syria. By Colonel E. Napier.
+
+
+Galloping, gossiping, flirting and fighting, feasting and starving,
+but always in high spirits and the best possible humour, Colonel
+Napier might answer an advertisement for "A Pleasant Companion in a
+Post-chaise," without the slightest chance of rejection. But it is
+difficult to imagine so dashing a traveller, boxed up in a civilized
+conveyance, rolling quietly along a macadamized road, with a diversity
+of milestones and an occasional turnpike gate, the only incidents by
+the way--no wild Maronite glimpsing at him over the hedge; no
+black-eyed houri peeping over the balustrades of the caravanserai,
+(called by vulgar men the Bricklayers' Arms)--no Saïces to help John
+Hostler to change horses; but dulness, uniformity, and most tiresome
+and unromantic safety. England, we are sorry to confess it, is not the
+land of stirring adventures or hair-breadth 'scapes--a railway coach
+occasionally blows up; a blind leader occasionally bolts into a ditch;
+a wheel comes occasionally into dangerous collision with one of
+Pickford's vans; but these are the utmost that can be hoped for in the
+way of peril, and other excitement there is positively none. We have
+treated life as the mathematician did Paradise Lost--we have struck
+out all its similes--obliterated its flights--expunged its glorious
+visions--we have made it prose. But fortunately for us--for Colonel
+Napier--for the reading public--there is a land where mathematicians
+are unknown, and where poetry continues to flourish in the full vigour
+of cimeters and turbans--the region of the sun--
+
+    "The first of Eastern lands he shines upon."
+
+It was in this very beautiful, but rather overdone portion of earth's
+surface, that the adventures occurred of which we are now to give some
+account; and as probably most of our readers have heard the name of
+Syria pretty often of late, we need not display much geographical
+erudition in pointing out where it lies. It would be pleasant to us if
+we could atone for brevity in this respect, by illuminating the reader
+on the causes that have brought Syria so prominently forward; but on
+this point we confess, with shame and confusion of face, that we know
+no more than Lord Ponsonby or M. Thiers. The truth seems to be, that
+some time, about two or three years ago, five or six people in
+influential stations went mad, and our Secretary for Foreign Affairs
+took the infection. He showed his teeth and raised his "birse," and
+barked in a most audacious manner, till the French kennel answered the
+challenge; an old dog in Egypt cocked his tail at the same time, and
+the world began to be afraid that hydrophobia would be universal. All
+parties were delighted to let the rival yelpers fight it out on so
+distant a field as Syria; and in that country of heat and dryness, of
+poverty, anarchy, cruelty, and superstition, there was a skrimmage
+that kept all Christendom on the tenter-hooks for half-a-year; and
+this we believe to be the policy of the Syrian campaign. Better for
+all parties concerned, that a few thousand turbaned and malignant
+Turks or Egyptians should bite the dust, than that there should be
+another Austerlitz or Waterloo. So the signal was accordingly given,
+and the work began.
+
+Wherever there is any fighting it is not to be doubted that the
+English hurra will be heard--and an apparition had been seen in the
+smoke of battle, which had sorely puzzled the wisest of the
+soothsayers of Egypt to explain. It was of a being apparently human,
+but dressed as if to represent Mars and Neptune at the same time,
+charging along the tops of houses, with the jolly cocked-hat of a
+captain of a British man-of-war on the point of his sword, and a
+variety of exclamations in his mouth, more complimentary to the
+enemy's speed than his courage. The muftis, we have said, were sorely
+puzzled, and at last set it down as an infallible truth that he must
+be none other than Old Harry, whereas there was not a sailor in the
+fleet that did not know that it was none other than Old Charley. And
+this identical Old Charley, in a style of communication almost as
+rapid as his military evolutions, had indited the following epistle to
+the author of the volumes before us:--
+
+    "Headquarters of the Army of Lebanon.--Djouni,
+        Sept. 1840.
+
+    "My dear Edward--I have hoisted my broad pendant on
+    Mount Lebanon, and mean to advance against the Egyptians
+    with a considerable force under my command; you may be
+    of use here; therefore go to Sir John M'Donald, and ask
+    him to get leave for you to join me without delay.
+
+        "Your affectionate father,
+            CHARLES NAPIER."
+
+And the dutiful son, who seems to have no inconsiderable portion of
+the paternal penchant for broken heads and other similar
+divertisements, in three weeks from the receipt of the letter found
+himself on board the Hydra, and rapidly approaching the classic shores
+of Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais; the scenes of scriptural records and deeds
+of chivalry--Palestine--the Holy Land. But the broad pendant in the
+mean time had been pulled down on Mount Lebanon, and once more
+fluttered to the sea breezes on board the Powerful. Sir Charles Smith
+had assumed the command of the land forces, and whether from
+ill-humour at finding half the work done during his absence by the
+amphibious commodore, or from some other cause, his reception of the
+author was, at first, far from cordial. Instead of being useful, as he
+had hoped, he found the sturdy old general blind to the value of his
+accession; and when the Powerful sailed he found himself without
+quarters appointed him, or even an invitation to join the officers'
+mess. But with the usual good-luck of people who bear disappointments
+well, all turned out for the best, as will be seen by the following
+extract:
+
+    "I had, on board the Powerful, a few days before, formed
+    the acquaintance of a young Syrian of the name of
+    Assaade el Khyat, who, brought up at one of our
+    universities, was at heart a true Englishman, spoke
+    fluently our own and several other European and Eastern
+    languages, and whom I found, on the whole, a sensible,
+    well-informed young man, and a most agreeable companion.
+    As I was sitting alone, after a solitary dinner, (in the
+    miserable hotel at Beyrout,) musing in a brown study
+    over a bottle of red Cyprus wine, my new acquaintance
+    was ushered into the apartment; I made no secret to him
+    of my extremely uncomfortable position, when he, with
+    great kindness and liberality, overcoming the usual
+    prejudices of his country, offered me an asylum in his
+    own family, which offer I most gladly accepted, and was
+    accordingly the next morning comfortably installed in my
+    new quarters, whereof I will endeavour to give the
+    reader a slight description.
+
+    "The house of which I had just so unexpectedly become an
+    inmate, was situated in one of the most retired and out
+    of the way parts of the town, (and it was not before
+    considerable time had elapsed, and then with difficulty,
+    that I became acquainted with the labyrinth of narrow
+    lanes, alleys, and dark passages which it was requisite
+    to thread in order to arrive at this desired haven,) the
+    property of a young man of the name of Giorgio Habbit
+    Jummal--brother-in-law of my friend Assaade, to whom one
+    of his sisters was married, and whom, as he spoke
+    Italian with fluency and ease, I at once engaged as my
+    dragoman or interpreter.
+
+    "By a strange coincidence, I, under the roof of Giorgio,
+    for the first time became acquainted with Mr Hunter, the
+    author of the _Expedition to Syria_, who, placed in
+    similar circumstances with myself, was likewise an
+    inmate of the same house, and of whom, as we were
+    subsequently much known together during our residence in
+    this country, I shall after have occasion to mention: at
+    present I will take the liberty of borrowing from his
+    amusing narrative the following account of the inmates
+    of our new domicile. 'We lived in the house of a
+    respectable Syrian family, that of Habbit Jummal, or
+    interpreted, the esteemed camel-driver. Our landlord,
+    Giorgius, the head of this family, was a young man
+    hardly out of his teens; and having some competency, and
+    being moreover _un beau garçon_, did not follow either
+    his ancestral, or any other avocation. The harem, or
+    woman's portion of the house, was composed of his
+    mother, a fair widow of forty, and her two daughters,
+    both Eastern beauties of their kind, Sarah and Nasarah
+    (meaning Victory or Victoria;) the first, a laughing
+    black eyed houri, with mischief in every dimple in her
+    pretty face; the other, a more portly damsel, of a
+    melancholy but not less pleasing expression. There were
+    besides these, three younger children with equally
+    poetic names, (Nassif, Iskunder, and Furkha,) and
+    included in the _coterie_ was a good-humoured negress,
+    the general handmaid, whose original cognomen of Saade,
+    was lost in the apposite soubriquet of
+    Snowball.'--Although the greater part of the
+    inhabitants of Beyrout are Christians, generally
+    speaking, of the Greek Church, to which persuasion
+    likewise belonged the family of our host Giorgio; still
+    in this land of bigotry and oppression--to such an
+    extent is carried suspicion and jealousy, and so far
+    have Mahommedan prejudices in this respect been adopted,
+    that all the women (those of the peasantry alone
+    excepted) lead nearly as secluded a life as the Osmanli
+    ladies of Constantinople or Smyrna. On venturing abroad,
+    which they seldom do, unless when the knessi or humaum
+    (church or bath) are the limits of their excursions,
+    they are so closely shrouded in the izar, or long white
+    garment, which, coming over the head and hiding the
+    face, falls in numerous folds to the ground, as to be
+    scarcely recognizable by their nearest friends or
+    relations. To allow, therefore, two unknown and
+    friendless strangers to become familiar inmates of an
+    Eastern family, exposing wives, daughters, and sisters,
+    to their unhallowed gaze, was a favour and mark of
+    confidence on the part of Assaade which we duly
+    appreciated, nor ever abused; it was, however, a
+    privilege to which no other stranger in the place was
+    admitted, and affording, as it did, such opportunities
+    of acquiring the Arabic language, I eagerly embraced it
+    without any feeling of regret at the inhospitality to
+    which I was originally indebted for my admission behind
+    the scenes of Oriental life.
+
+    "The bare, gloomy, and massive stone walls of the
+    exterior of our habitation had not prepared us for the
+    comforts we found inside; and as for the first time we
+    followed Giorgio and his brother-in-law up the rude and
+    narrow stone staircase, which appeared to be scarped out
+    of the very thickness of the wall--an open sesame from
+    the former causing a strong iron studded door to fly
+    back on its hinges, disclosed a handsome patis or court
+    paved with black and white marble, along the sides of
+    which were luxuriantly growing, and imparting a cooling
+    freshness to the scene, the perfumed orange-tree,
+    bearing at the same time both fruit and blossoms, and
+    flanked by green myrtles and flowering geraniums; whilst
+    an apartment opening on this garden terrace, and which
+    appeared from the carpets and cushions scattered around
+    the still smoking narghilis, (or water-pipe, in which is
+    smoked the tumbic or Persian tobacco,) and other sundry
+    traces of female industry, to be appropriated as the
+    common sitting-room of the family, was on our entrance
+    precipitately deserted by all its occupants, save one
+    fine-looking matronly lady, whom Giorgio introduced as
+    his mother; and while she was welcoming us with many
+    'Fāddālls,' and politely repeating, _Anna mugsond
+    shoufuk_, (be seated, I am delighted to see you,) with
+    innumerable other euphonious phrases, as we afterwards
+    found high-flown Eastern compliments, but which at the
+    time were sadly wasted on our Frankish ignorance, he,
+    following the fair fugitives, soon brought back in each
+    hand the blushing deserters, who have already been
+    introduced to the reader as Mesdemoiselles Sarah and
+    Nasarah. Pipes, narghilis, sherbet, and coffee followed
+    in quick succession; the young negress, Saade, acting as
+    Hebe on the occasion; and the ladies, at first timid as
+    gazelles of the desert, soon, like those pretty
+    creatures when reclaimed from the wilderness, became
+    quite domesticated, acquired confidence, and freely
+    joined in the conversation, which was with volubility
+    carried on through the medium of Giorgio and Assaade;
+    and ere an hour had elapsed, we were all on the friendly
+    and easy footing of old acquaintances; when, taking
+    leave for the time, we hastened to make the necessary
+    arrangements for the conveyance of our goods and
+    chattels to the capital billets we had had the good
+    fortune to stumble on."
+
+The colonel made good use of his opportunity, and, by a diligent
+perusal of Miss Sarah's eyes, and an attentive study of Miss Nasarah's
+dimple, managed to acquire a smattering of Arabic in a far shorter
+time than would have been required in the most assiduous turning over
+of dictionaries and grammars. But our school-boy days can't last for
+ever--and, ere a fortnight elapsed, an order arrived from England for
+the hopeful scholar to be placed on the returns of the Syrian army,
+and to draw his field allowance, rations, and forage, as assistant
+adjutant-general of the British force. Dictionaries and eyes, grammars
+and dimples, were now exchanged for less pleasing pursuits. Fifteen
+thousand troops were by this time assembled at Beyrout, and rumour
+kept perpetually blowing the charge against Ibrahim Pasha, who was
+still encamped at Zachli, with an army much superior to that of the
+allies. Booted and spurred--with a long sword, saddle, bridle, and all
+the other paraphernalia so captivating to an ancient fair, as recorded
+in one of the lays of Old England by some forgotten Macaulay of former
+times--the colonel is intent on some doughty deed, and already in
+imagination sees captive Egyptians following his triumphal car. When
+all of a sudden, the sad news gets spread abroad that the old
+commodore has concluded a convention with Mehemet Ali, and that all
+the pomp and circumstance of glorious war is at an end. One only
+chance remained, and that was, that as all the big-wigs protested with
+all their might against the convention; and the fleet, in the midst of
+protestation and repudiations of all sorts and kinds, was forced by a
+severe gale to up anchor and run for Marmorice Bay, Ibrahim Pasha
+might perhaps be tempted to protest also in a still more unpleasant
+manner, and pay a visit to Beyrout in the absence of the navy. The
+very thoughts of it, however the English auxiliaries may have felt on
+the subject, gave an attack of fever to the unfortunate inhabitants,
+who devoutly prayed for a speedy fall of _tubbish_, (or snow,) by
+which his dreaded approach might be impeded. "Had such a movement on
+his part taken place at this critical moment, it is not improbable
+that it might have proved successful; as amid the variety of religious
+and conflicting interests, by which the people of Beyrout were
+influenced, Ibrahim had no doubt many friends in the town; and it is
+certain that he was moreover regularly made acquainted with every
+occurrence which took place, through the medium, as was supposed, of
+French agency and espionage."
+
+Ibrahim, however, had had enough of red coats and blue jackets, and
+left the people of Beyrout to themselves--an example which was
+followed by the author, who, being foiled in his expectations of
+riding down the Egyptians on the noble Arab left to him by the
+commodore, determined to put that fiery animal (the Arab) to its paces
+in scouring the country in all directions. It is not often that an
+assistant adjutant-general sets out on a tour in search of the
+picturesque; but in this instance the search was completely
+successful. Rock, ravine, precipice, and dell--running waters and
+waving woods, come as naturally to his pen as returns of effective
+force and other professional details; and, whatever the writing of
+them may be, we are prepared to contend that the reading of them is
+infinitely pleasanter. But as travellers and poets have of late left
+few mountains or molehills unsung in Palestine, we prefer extracting a
+picturesque account of a venerable abbess, who threw the light of
+Christian goodness over that benighted land about a century ago, and
+must have impressed the heathens in the neighbourhood with an exalted
+notion of the virtues of a nunnery:--
+
+    "Héndia was a Maronite girl, possessing extraordinary
+    personal charms, who, in 1755, first brought herself
+    into notice by her pretended piety and attention to her
+    religious duties, till at last she was by this simple
+    and credulous people considered almost in the light of a
+    saint or prophetess. When she had thus established a
+    reputation for sanctity, she next thought of becoming
+    the head and chief of an extensive establishment of
+    monks and nuns, to receive whom, with the aid of large
+    contributions raised among her credulous admirers and
+    followers, she erected two spacious stone buildings,
+    which soon became filled with proselytes of both sexes.
+    The patriarch of Lebanon was named the director of this
+    establishment, and for twenty years Héndia reigned with
+    unbounded sway over the little community--performing
+    miracles, uttering prophecies, and giving other tokens
+    of being in the performance of a divine mission; and
+    though it was remarked that many deaths yearly occurred
+    among the nuns, the circumstance was generally
+    attributed to disease incident to the insalubrity of the
+    situation. At last, chance brought to light the cause of
+    this very great mortality, and disclosed all the secret
+    horrors which had so long remained covered by the veil
+    of mystery in this abode of monastic abominations. A
+    traveller, on his way from Damascus to the coast,
+    happened to arrive one fine summer night at a late hour
+    before the convent gates, which he found closed, and not
+    wishing to disturb its inmates, who had apparently
+    retired to rest, he spread his travelling rug under some
+    neighbouring trees, and laid himself down to sleep. His
+    slumbers were, however, shortly disturbed by a number of
+    persons, who, issuing from the convent, appeared to be
+    clandestinely bearing away what seemed to be a heavy
+    bundle. Prompted by curiosity, he cautiously followed
+    the party, who, after going a short distance, deposited
+    their burden, and commenced digging a deep hole, into
+    which having placed and covered with earth what was
+    evidently a dead body, they immediately took their
+    departure. Astonished, and rather dismayed, at an
+    occurrence of so mysterious a nature, the traveller lost
+    no time in mounting his mule, and on arriving at Beyrout
+    made known the extraordinary occurrence to which he had
+    been witness the night before. This account reached the
+    ears of a merchant who happened to have two daughters
+    undergoing their noviciate at El Kourket, and reports
+    had lately reached him of the illness of one of his
+    children; this, together with the numerous deaths which
+    had lately taken place at the convent, coupled with the
+    traveller's narrative, excited in his mind the most
+    serious apprehensions. He gave information on the
+    subject, and laid a complaint before the Grand Prince at
+    Dahr-el-Kamar, and, accompanied by his informant and a
+    troop of horsemen furnished by the Emir, hastened to the
+    spot of the alleged mysterious burial, when to his
+    horror, on opening the newly made grave, he discovered
+    it to contain the corpse of his youngest daughter!
+    Frantic at this sight, he desired instant admission, in
+    order to ascertain the safety of her sister. On this
+    being refused, the gates were forced open, and the
+    unfortunate girl was found closely confined in a
+    dungeon, on the point of death, but retaining still
+    strength enough to disclose horrors which led to an
+    investigation, implicating the patriarch, the abbess,
+    and several priests. This transaction, which happened in
+    1776, was submitted for the decision of the Papal See;
+    when it appeared that the pretended prophetess had, by
+    means of many ingenious mechanical devices, thus long
+    imposed on public credulity, whilst in the retirement of
+    the cloister the most licentious and profligate
+    occurrences nightly took place; and that when any
+    unfortunate nun gave offence, either by refusing to be
+    sacrificed at the shrine of infamy, or that it became
+    desirable to get rid of her, in order to appropriate for
+    the convent the amount of her property, she was immured
+    in a dungeon, left to perish by a lingering and
+    miserable death, and then privately buried in the night.
+    In consequence of these shocking discoveries, the
+    patriarch was deposed--the priests, his accomplices,
+    were severely punished, and the high priestess of this
+    temple of cruelty and debauchery was immured in
+    confinement, and survived for many years to repent of
+    all the atrocities she had previously committed."
+
+We should like to know the colonel's authority for this circumstantial
+account. It bears at present a startling resemblance to the confession
+of Maria Monk, and the villanies recorded of the nunnery at Montreal;
+and we will hope in the mean time, that the devil, even in the shape
+of a lady abbess, is not quite so black as he is painted. The present
+abbess of El Kourket is already as black as need be, for we are told
+she is an Ethiopian negress.
+
+The war carried on in Syria after the decisive battle of Boharsef,
+seems to have been on the model of those recorded by Major Sturgeon,
+and to have consisted of marching and counter-marching, without any
+definite object, except, perhaps, the somewhat Universal-Peace-Society
+one of getting out of the enemy's way. General Jochmus, we guess from
+his name, was a Scotch schoolmaster, with a Latin termination--there
+being no mistaking the Jock--and in his religious tenets we feel sure
+he was a Quaker. The English officers attached to the staff had
+immense difficulty in bringing the troops (if they deserve to be
+called so) to the scratch; and we trust that, in all future
+commentaries on the Art of War, the method adopted by Commodore
+Napier, of throwing stones at his gallant army to force them forward,
+will not be forgotten. The author before us had no sinecure, and after
+the news of Ibrahim's retreat, galloped hither and thither, like the
+wild huntsman of a German story, to discover by what route the
+vanquished lion was growling his way to his den. With a hundred
+irregular horse, furnished him by Osman Aga, he set out on a foray
+beyond Jordan; and we do not wonder his two friends, Captain Lane, a
+Prussian edition of Don Quixote, and Mr Hunter, who has written an
+excellent account of his expedition to Syria, besides his old Beyrout
+friend Giorgio, volunteered to accompany him.
+
+    "My motley troop, apparently composed of every tribe
+    from the Caspian to the Red Sea, displayed no less
+    variety in arms and accoutrements than in their personal
+    appearance, varying from the sturdy-looking Kourd,
+    mounted on his strong powerful steed, to the swarthy,
+    spare, and sinewy Arab, with his long reed-like spear,
+    his head encircled with the Kéfiah, or thick rope of
+    twisted camels' hair; whilst the flowing 'abbage' waved
+    gracefully down the shining flanks of the high-mettled
+    steed of the desert. In short, such an assemblage of
+    cut-throat looking ruffians was probably never before
+    seen; and whilst the Prussian military eye of old Lane
+    glanced down our wide-spread and irregular line, I could
+    see a curl of contempt on his grey mustaches, though his
+    weather-beaten countenance maintained all the gravity of
+    Frederick the Great. The troop appeared to be divided
+    into two distinct parties--one Arab, the other Turkish;
+    and, on directing the two chiefs to call the 'roll' of
+    their respective forces, I found that many were absent
+    without leave, and the party which should have amounted
+    to a hundred cavaliers only mustered between seventy and
+    eighty. However, on the assurance that the rest would
+    speedily follow--as there was no time to spare, after
+    making them a short harangue, in which I promised
+    abundance of _nehub_ (plunder) whenever we came across
+    the enemy, to which they responded by a wild yell of
+    approbation--I gave the signal to move off, which was
+    instantly obeyed, amidst joyous shouts, the brandishing
+    of spears, and promiscuous discharge of fire-arms.
+    Having thus got them under weigh, the next difficulty I
+    experienced was to keep them together. I tried to form a
+    rearguard to bring up the stragglers, but the guard
+    would not remain behind, nor the stragglers keep up with
+    the main body; and I soon, finding that something more
+    persuasive than mere words was requisite to maintain
+    them in order, took the first opportunity of getting a
+    stout cudgel, with which I soundly belaboured all those
+    whom I found guilty of thus disobeying my commands. The
+    Eastern does not understand the _suaviter in
+    modo_;--behave to him like a human being, he fancies you
+    fear him, and he sets you at defiance--kick him and cuff
+    him, treat him like a dog, and he crouches at your feet,
+    the humble slave of your slightest wishes."
+
+Discipline of so perfect a nature must have inspired the gallant
+colonel with the strongest hopes of success in case of an onslaught on
+the forces of Ibrahim Pasha, and in all probability his efforts, with
+those of Captain Lane, Hunter, and Giorgio, might have produced
+something like a skrimmage when they came near the tents of the
+Egyptians; but it would seem that the cudgels wielded by the Musree
+commanders were either not so strong or not so well applied, for on
+the first appearance of the hostile squadron, the heroes of Nezib
+evaporated as if by magic, but not before a similar feat of
+legerdemain had been performed by the rabble rout of Turks and Arabs;
+and on looking round, to inspire his followers with a speech after the
+manner of Thucydides, the colonel discovered the last of his escort
+disappearing at full speed on the other side of the plain, and the
+Europeans were left alone in their glory. As they had nobody to
+attack, (the enemy continuing still in a state of evaporation,) every
+thing ended well; and, if the trumpeter had not been among the
+fugitives, there might have been a triumphal blow performed although
+no blow had been struck. We do not believe in the courage of the
+Arabs. No amount of kicking and cuffing could cow a nation's spirit
+that had once been brave; and we therefore consider it the greatest
+marvel in history how the Arabians managed at one time to conquer half
+the world. They must have been very different fellows from the
+chicken-hearted children of the desert recorded in these volumes. One
+thing only is certain, that they have left their anti-fighting
+propensities to their mongrel descendants in Spain; for a series of
+_actions_--that is, jinking and skulking, and running up and down,
+hiding themselves as if they were the personages of a writ--more
+distinctly Arabian than the late campaign which ended in the overthrow
+of Espartero, could not have been performed under the shadows of Mount
+Ebal. All the nobility that we are so fond of picturing to ourselves
+in the deeds and thoughts of Saladin, has gone over to the horse. The
+wild steed retains its fire, though the miserable horseman would do
+for a Madrileno _aide-de-camp_. And yet this is the way they are
+treated:--
+
+    "It was a matter of surprise to us, how our horses stood
+    without injury all the exposure, severe work, and often
+    short commons, to which they were constantly subjected.
+    When we came to a place where barley was to be procured,
+    the grooms carried away as much as they could; when none
+    was to be had, we gave our nags peas and _tibbin_,
+    (chopped straw, the only forage used in the East,) or
+    any thing we could lay hands on; they had little or no
+    grooming, and frequently the saddles were not even
+    removed from their backs. But I believe that nothing
+    save the high mettle of the desert blood would carry an
+    animal through all this toil and privation; and as to
+    the much-extolled kindness of the Arab towards his
+    horse, although it may be the case in the far deserts of
+    the Hedged and Hedjar, I can avow that I never saw these
+    noble animals treated with more inhuman neglect than I
+    witnessed in the whole of my wanderings through Syria."
+
+The dreariness of a ride through the desolate plains and rugged rocks
+of Palestine, was diversified with startling adventures; and the fact
+of several of the powers of Europe and many of the tribes of Asia
+having chosen that sterile region for their battle-place, gave rise to
+some very odd coincidences. People from all the ends of the earth, who
+were lounging away their existence some three or four months before,
+without any anticipation of treading in the footsteps of the
+crusaders--some smoking strong tobacco in the coffeehouses of Berlin,
+or leaning gracefully (like the Chinese Admiral Kwang) against the
+pillars of the Junior United Service Club in London--or driving a
+heavy curricle in the Prado at Vienna--or reading powerfully for
+honours at the Great Go at Oxford--or climbing Albanian hills--or
+reclining in the silken recesses of a harem at Constantinople--all
+were thrown together in such unexpected groups, and found themselves
+so curiously banded together, that the tame realities of an ordinary
+campaign were thrown completely into the shade. The following
+introduces us to another member of the foray, whose character seems to
+have been such a combination of the gallant soldier and light-hearted
+troubadour, that we read of his after fate, in dying of the plague at
+Damascus, with great regret:--
+
+    "My troop had not yet cleared a difficult pass close to
+    the khan, running between an abrupt face of the hill and
+    the river, when the advanced guard came back at full
+    speed with the announcement that a body of the enemy's
+    infantry was near at hand. Closely jammed in a narrow
+    defile, between inaccessible cliffs and the precipitous
+    banks of the Jordan, with nothing but cavalry at my
+    disposal, I was placed in rather a disagreeable
+    position. There remained, however, no alternative but to
+    put spurs to our horses, push forward through the pass,
+    deploy on the level ground beyond it, and then trust to
+    the chances of war. Having explained these intentions to
+    the Sheikh and Aga, we lost no time in carrying them
+    into effect; and on taking extended order after clearing
+    the pass, saw immediately in front of us what we took to
+    be an advanced guard of the enemy, consisting of some
+    twenty or thirty soldiers, whom their white
+    foustanellis" (the foustanellis is that part of the
+    Albanian costume corresponding with the highland kilt)
+    "and tall active forms immediately marked as Arnouts, or
+    Albanians. Seeing, probably, that we had now the
+    advantage of the ground, they hastily retired,
+    recrossing a ravine which intersected the path, and
+    extending in capital light infantry style, were soon
+    sheltered behind the stones and rocks on the opposite
+    bank, over the brow of which nought was to be seen but
+    the protruding muzzles and long shining barrels of their
+    firelocks. All this was the work of a few seconds, and
+    passed in a much briefer space of time than it has taken
+    to relate. I had now the greatest difficulty in keeping
+    Mahommed Aga and his men from charging up to enemies
+    who, from their present position, could have picked them
+    easily off with perfect safety to themselves; and riding
+    rapidly forward with Captain Lane, to see if we could by
+    some means turn their flank, a few horsemen at this
+    moment suddenly appeared over the swell on the opposite
+    side of the ravine, the foremost of whom, whilst making
+    many friendly signals, galloped across the intervening
+    space, hailing us a friend, and at the same time waving
+    his hand, to prevent his own people from opening their
+    fire. Lane and myself were not backward in returning
+    this greeting; and on approaching we beheld a handsome
+    young man, dressed in the showy Austrian uniform, with a
+    black Tartar sheepskin cap on his head, who, coming up,
+    accosted us in French, and with all the frankness of a
+    soldier, introduced himself as Count Szechinge, a
+    captain of Austrian dragoons, then on his way from
+    Tiberias with a party composed of one or two Turkish
+    lancers, about twenty-five Albanian deserters, his
+    German servant, dragoman, and suite, to raise troops in
+    the Adjelloun hills--a mission very similar to the one I
+    was myself employed on at Naplouse."
+
+An acquaintance begun under such circumstances grows into friendship
+with amazing rapidity; and many are the joyous hours the foragers
+spend together, in spite of intolerable weather and storms of sleet
+and snow, which bear a far greater resemblance to the climate of
+Lochaber than to that of Syria, "land of roses." Reinforced with the
+count and his companions, Colonel Napier pushes on--gets into the
+vicinity of Ibrahim--his rabble rout turn tail, in case of being
+swallowed alive by the ferocious pasha, whose reputation for cruelty
+and all manner of iniquities seems well deserved, and having
+ascertained the movements of that formidable ruffian, he returned to
+Naplouse to take the command of 1500 half-tamed, undisciplined
+savages, with whom to oppose his retreat. Luckily, the ratification of
+the convention come in the nick of time; for it is very evident that
+the best cudgels that were ever cut in "the classic woods of
+Hawthornden," could not have awakened a spark of military ardour in
+the wretched riff-raff assemblage appointed for this service--and of
+all the abortive efforts at generalship we have ever read of, the
+attempt of the Turkish commanders was infinitely the worse--no
+foresight in providing for difficulties--no valour in fighting their
+way out of them; but, to compensate for these trifling deficiencies, a
+plentiful supply of pride and cruelty, with a due admixture of
+dishonesty. We heartily join, with Colonel Napier, in wondering where
+the deuce the "integrity of the Ottoman empire" is to be found, as,
+beyond all doubt, not a particle of it exists in any of its subjects.
+The pashas of Egypt, bad as they undoubtedly are, have redeeming
+points about them, which the Hassans, and Izzets, and Reschids of the
+Turks have no conception of; and, lively and sparkling as the gallant
+colonel's narrative is, we confess it leaves a sadder impression on
+our minds of the hopelessness and the degeneracy of the Moslems, than
+any book we have met with. Turk and Egyptian should equally be whipped
+back into the desert, and the fairest portions of the world be won
+over to civilization, wealth, and happiness. The present volumes close
+at the end of January 1841, and perhaps they are among the best
+results of the campaign. We shall be glad to see the proceedings at
+Alexandria sketched off in the same pleasant style.
+
+
+
+
+THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.--_Herod._ iii. 124-126.
+
+
+    "Oh! go not forth, my father dear--oh! I go not forth to-day,
+    And trust not thou that Satrap dark, for he fawns but to betray;
+    His courteous smiles are treacherous wiles, his foul designs to hide;
+    Then go not forth, my father dear--in thy own fair towers abide."
+
+    "Now, say not so, dear daughter mine--I pray thee, say not so!
+    Where glory calls, a monarch's feet should never fear to go;
+    And safe to-day will be my way through proud Magnesia's halls,
+    As if I stood 'mid my bowmen good beneath my Samian walls.
+
+    "The Satrap is my friend, sweet child--my trusty friend is he--
+    The ruddy gold his coffers hold he shares it all with me;
+    No more amid these clustering isles alone shall be my sway,
+    But Hellas wide, from side to side, thy empire shall obey!
+
+    "And of all the maids of Hellas, though they be rich and fair,
+    With the daughter of Polycrates, oh! who shall then compare?
+    Then dry thy tears--no idle fears should damp our joy to-day--
+    And let me see thee smile once more before I haste away!"
+
+    "Oh! false would be the smile, my sire, that I should wear this morn,
+    For of all my country's daughters I shall soon be most forlorn;
+    I know, I know,--ah, thought of woe!--I ne'er shall see again
+    My father's ship come sailing home across the Icarian main.
+
+    "Each gifted seer, with words of fear, forbids thee to depart,
+    And their warning strains an echo find in every faithful heart;
+    A maiden weak, e'en I must speak--ye gods, assist me now!
+    The characters of doom and death are graven on thy brow!
+
+    "Last night, my sire, a vision dire thy daughter's eyes did see,
+    Suspended in mid air there hung a form resembling thee;
+    Nay, frown not thus, my father dear; my tale will soon be done--
+    Methought that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the sun!"
+
+    "My child, my child, thy fancies wild I may not stay to hear.
+    A friend goes forth to meet a friend--then wherefore should'st
+        thou fear?
+    Though moonstruck seers with idle fears beguile a maiden weak,
+    They cannot stay thy father's hand, or blanch thy father's cheek.
+
+    "Let cowards keep within their holds, and on peril fear to run!
+    Such shame," quoth he, "is not for me, fair Fortune's favourite son!"
+    Yet still the maiden did repeat her melancholy strain--
+    "I ne'er shall see my father's fleet come sailing home again!"
+
+    The monarch call'd his seamen good, they muster'd on the shore,
+    Waved in the gale the snow-white sail, and dash'd the sparkling oar;
+    But by the flood that maiden stood--loud rose her piteous cry--
+    "Oh! go not forth, my dear, dear sire--oh, go not forth to die!"
+
+    A frown was on that monarch's brow, and he said as he turn'd away,
+    "Full soon shall Samos' lord return to Samos' lovely bay;
+    But thou shalt aye a maiden lone within my courts abide--
+    No chief of fame shall ever claim my daughter for his bride!
+
+    "A long, long maidenhood to thee thy prophet tongue hath given--"
+    "Oh would, my sire," that maid replied, "such were the will of Heaven!
+    Though I a loveless maiden lone must evermore remain,
+    Still let me hear that voice so dear in my native isle again!"
+
+    'Twas all in vain that warning strain--the king has crost the tide--
+    But never more off Samos shore his bark was seen to ride!
+    The Satrap false his life has ta'en, that monarch bold and free,
+    And his limbs are black'ning in the blast, nail'd to the gallows-tree!
+
+    That night the rain came down apace, and wash'd each gory stain,
+    But the sun's bright ray, the next noonday, glared fiercely on the
+        slain;
+    And the oozing gore began once more from his wounded sides to run;
+    Good-sooth, that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the Sun!
+
+
+
+
+MODERN PAINTERS.[16]
+
+    [16] Modern Painters--their Superiority in the Art of
+    Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters, &c. &c.
+    By a Graduate of Oxford.
+
+
+We read this title with some pain, not doubting but that our modern
+landscape painters were severely handled in an ironical satire; and we
+determined to defend them. "Their superiority to _all_ the ancient
+masters"--that was too hard a hit to come from any but an enemy! We
+must measure our man--a graduate of Oxford! The "scholar armed,"
+without doubt. He comes, too, vauntingly up to us, with his contempt
+for us and all critics that ever were, or will be; we are all little
+Davids in the eye of this Goliath. Nevertheless, we will put a pebble
+in our sling. We saw this contempt of us, in dipping at hap-hazard
+into the volume. But what was our astonishment to find, upon looking
+further, that we had altogether mistaken the intent of the author, and
+that we should probably have not one Goliath, but many, to encounter;
+while our own particular friends, to whom we might look for help,
+were, alas! all dead men. We found that there were not "giants" in
+those days, but in these days--that the author, in his most
+superlative praise, is not ironical at all, but a most serious
+panegyrist, who never laughs, but does sometimes make his readers
+laugh, when they see his very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the
+"old masters"--not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a
+laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there
+is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that
+he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This
+contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," in
+the next page he enlarges the scope of his enmity; "speaking generally
+of the old masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator
+Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers (in his
+landscapes,) P. Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van Somethings and
+Back Somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have
+libelled the sea." Self-convicted of malice, he has not the slightest
+suspicion of his ignorance; whereas he _knows_ nothing of these
+masters whom he maligns. Still is he ready to be their general
+accuser--has not the slightest respect for the accumulated opinions of
+the best judges for these two or three hundred years--he puts them by
+with the wave of his hand, very like the unfortunate gentleman in an
+establishment of "unsound opinions," who gravely said--"The world and
+I differed in opinion--I was right, the world wrong; but they were too
+many for me, and put me here." We daresay that, in such establishments
+may be found many similar opinions to those our author promulgates,
+though, as yet, none of our respectable publishers have been convicted
+of a congenial folly. We said, that he suspects not his ignorance of
+the masters he maligns. Let it not hence be inferred that it is the
+work of an ignorant man. He is only ignorant with a prejudice. We will
+not say that it is not the work of a man who thinks, who has been
+habituated to a sort of scholastic reasoning, which he brings to bear,
+with no little parade and display, upon technicalities and
+distinctions. He can tutor _secundum artem_, lacking only, in the
+first point, that he has not tutored himself. With all his
+arrangements and distinctions laid down, as the very grammar of art,
+he confuses himself with his "truths," forgetting that, in matters of
+art, truths of fact must be referable to truths of mind. It is not
+what things in all respects really are, but what they appear, and how
+they are convertible by the mind into what they are not in many ways,
+respects, and degrees, that we have to consider, before we can venture
+to draw rules from any truths whatever. For art is something besides
+nature; and taste and feeling are first--precede practical art; and
+though greatly enhanced by that practical cultivation, might exist
+without it--nay, often do; and true taste always walks a step in
+advance of what has been done, and ever desires to do, and from
+itself, more than it sees. We discover, therefore, a fallacy in the
+very proposal of his undertaking, when he says that he is prepared "to
+advance nothing which does not, at least in his own conviction, _rest
+on surer ground than mere feeling or taste_." Notwithstanding,
+however, that our graduate of Oxford puts his "demonstrations" upon an
+equality with "the demonstrations of Euclid," and "thinks it proper
+for the public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has
+been devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art,"
+and that he is "a graduate of Oxford;" we do not look upon him as a
+bit the better judge for all that, seeing that many have practised it
+too fondly and too ignorantly all their lives, and that Claude, and
+Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin must, according to him, have been in this
+predicament, and more especially do we decline from bowing down at his
+dictation, when we find him advocating _any_ "_surer ground than
+feeling or taste_." Now, considering that thus, _in initio_, he sets
+aside feeling and taste, the reader will not be astonished to find a
+very substantial reason given for his contempt of the afore-mentioned
+old masters; it is, he says, "because I look with the most devoted
+veneration upon Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, that I do not
+distrust the principles which induce me to look with contempt," &c. We
+do not exactly see how these great men, who were not landscape
+painters, can very well be compared with those who were, but from some
+general principles of art, in which the world have not as yet found
+any very extraordinary difference. But we do humbly suggest, that
+Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, are in their practice, and
+principles, if you please, quite as unlike Messrs David Cox, Copley
+Fielding, J. D. Harding, Clarkson Stanfield, and Turner--the very men
+whom our author brings forward as the excellent of the earth, in
+opposition _to all_ old masters whatever, excepting only Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, to whom nevertheless, by a perverse
+pertinacity of their respective geniuses, they bear no resemblance
+whatever--as they are to Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin. We do
+not by any means intend to speak disrespectfully of these our English
+artists, but we must either mistrust those principles which cause them
+to stand in opposition to the great Italians, or to conceive that our
+author has really discovered no such differing principles, and which
+possibly may not exist at all. Nor will we think so meanly of the
+taste, the good feeling, and the good sense of these men, as to
+believe that they think themselves at all flattered by any admiration
+founded on such an irrational contempt. They well know that Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, have been admired, together with
+Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin, and they do not themselves
+desire to be put upon a separate list. The author concludes his
+introduction with a very bad reason for his partiality to modern
+masters, and it is put in most ambitious language, very readily
+learned in the "Fudge School,"--a style of language with which our
+author is very apt to indulge himself; but the argument it so
+ostentatiously clothes, and which we hesitate not to call a bad one,
+is nothing more than this, (if we understand it,)--that the dead are
+dead, and cannot hear our praise; that the living are living, and
+therefore our love is not lost; in short, as a _non-sequitur_, "that
+if honour be for the dead, gratitude can only be for the living." This
+might have been simply said; but we are taken to the grave--with "He
+who has once stood beside the grave," &c. &c.; we have "wild
+love--keen sorrow--pleasure to pulseless hearts--debt to the heart--to
+be discharged to the dust--the garland--the tombstone--the crowned
+brow--the ashes and the spirit--heaven-toned voices and heaven-lighted
+lamps--the learning--sweetness by silence--and light by decay;" all
+which, we conceive, might have been very excusable in a young curate's
+sermon during his first year of probation, and might have won for him
+more nosegays and favours than golden opinions, but which we here feel
+inclined to put our pen across, as so we remember many similarly
+ambitious passages to have been served, before we were graduate of
+Oxford, with the insignificant signification from the pen of our
+informator of _nihil ad rem_. As the author threatens the public with
+another, or more volumes, we venture to throw out a recommendation,
+that at least one volume may serve the purpose and do the real work of
+two, if he will check this propensity to unnecessary redundancy. His
+numerous passages of this kind are for the most part extremely
+unintelligible; and when we have unraveled the several coatings, we
+too often find the ribs of the mummy are not human. We think it right
+to object, in this place, to an affectation in phraseology offensive
+to those who think seriously of breaking the third commandment--he
+scarcely speaks of mountains without taking the sacred name in vain;
+there is likewise a constant repetition of expressions of very
+doubtful meaning in the first use, for the most part quite devoid of
+meaning in their application. One of these is "palpitating." Light is
+"palpitating," darkness is "palpitating"--every conceivable thing is
+"palpitating." We must, however, in justice say, that by far the best
+part of the book, the laying down rules and the elucidating
+principles, is clearly and expressively written. In this part of the
+work there is greater expansion than the student will generally find
+in books on art. Not that we are aware of the advancement of any thing
+new; but the admitted maxims of art are, as it were, grammatically
+analysed, and in a manner to assist the beginner in thinking upon art.
+To those who have already _thought_, this very studied analysis and
+arrangement will be tedious enough.
+
+In the "Definition of Greatness in Art," we find--"If I say that the
+greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator
+the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definition which
+will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is
+capable of conveying." Now, there are great ideas which are so
+conflicting as to annul the force of each other. This is not enough;
+there must be a congruity of great ideas--nay, in some instances, we
+can conceive one idea to be so great, as in a work of art not to admit
+of the juxtaposition of others. This is the principle upon which the
+sonnet is built, and the sonnet illustrates the picture not unaptly.
+"Ideas of Power" are great ideas--not always are ideas of beauty
+great; yet is there a tempering the one with the other, which it is
+the special province of art to attain, and that for its highest and
+most moral purposes. In his "Ideas of Power," he distinguishes the
+term "excellent" from the terms "beautiful," "useful," "good," &c.;
+thus--"And we shall always, in future, use the word excellent, as
+signifying that the thing to which it is applied required a great
+power for its production." Is not this doubtful? Does it not limit the
+perception of excellence to artists who can alone from their practice,
+and, as it were, measurement of powers with their difficulties, learn
+and feel its existence in the sense to which it is limited. The
+inference would be, that none but artists can be critics, as none but
+artists can perceive excellence, and we think in more than one place
+some such assertion is made. This is startling--"Power is never
+wasted; whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in
+proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of
+perceiving this exertion, and approaching this dignity, is the faculty
+of perceiving excellence." "It is this faculty in which men, even of
+the most cultivated taste, must always be wanting, unless they have
+added practice to reflection; because none can estimate the power
+manifested in victory, unless they have personally measured the
+strength to be overcome." For the word strength use difficulty, and we
+should say that, to the unpractised, the difficulties must always
+appear greatest. He gives, as illustration, "Titian's flesh tint;" it
+may be possible that, by some felicitous invention, some new
+technicality of his art, Titian might have produced this excellence,
+and to him there would have been no such great measurement of the
+difficulty or strength to be overcome; while the admirer of the work,
+ignorant of the happy means, fancies the exertion of powers which were
+not exerted. In his chapter on "Ideas of Imitation," he imagines that
+Fuseli and Coleridge falsely apply the term imitation, making "a
+distinction between imitation and copying, representing the first as
+the legitimate function of art--the latter as its corruption." Yet we
+think he comes pretty much to the same conclusion. In like manner, he
+seems to disagree with Burke in a passage which he quotes, but in
+reality he agrees with him; for surely the "power of the imitation" is
+but a power of the "jugglery," to be sensible of which, if we
+understand him, is necessary to our sense of imitation. "When the
+object," says Burke, "represented in poetry or painting is such as we
+could have no desire of seeing in the reality, then we may be sure
+that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the power of
+_imitation_." "We may," says our author, "be sure of the contrary; for
+if the object be undesirable in itself, the closer the imitation the
+less will be the pleasure." Certainly not; for Burke of course
+implied, and included in his sense of imitation, that it should be
+consistent with a knowledge in the spectator, that a certain trick of
+art was put upon him. And our author says the same--"Whenever the work
+is seen to resemble something which we know it is not, we receive what
+I call an idea of imitation." Again--"Now, two things are requisite to
+our complete and most pleasurable perception of this: first, that the
+resemblance be so perfect as to amount to deception; secondly, that
+there be some means of proving at the same moment that it _is_ a
+deception." He justly considers "the pleasures resulting from
+imitation the most contemptible that can be received from art." He
+thus happily illustrates his meaning--"We may consider tears as a
+result of agony or of art, whichever we please, but not of both at the
+same moment. If we are surprised by them as an attainment of the one,
+it is impossible we can be moved by them as a sign of the other." This
+will explain why we are pleased with the exact imitation of the
+dewdrop on the peach, and why we are disgusted with the Magdalen's
+tears by Vanderwerf; and we further draw this inevitable conclusion,
+of very important consequence to artists, who have very erroneous
+notions upon the subject, that this sort of imitation, which, by the
+deception of its name, should be most like, is actually less like
+nature, because it takes from nature its impression by substituting a
+sense of the jugglery. This chapter on ideas of imitation is good and
+useful. We think, in the after part of his work, wherein is much
+criticism on pictures by the old masters and by moderns, our author
+must have lost the remembrance of what he has so well said on his
+ideas of imitation; and in the following chapter on "Ideas of Truth."
+"The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement,
+either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature." The reader will
+readily see how "ideas of truth" differ from "ideas of imitation." The
+latter relating only to material objects, the former taking in the
+conceptions of the mind--may be conveyed by signs or symbols,
+"themselves no image nor likeness of any thing." "An idea of truth
+exists in the statement of _one_ attribute of any thing; but an idea
+of imitation only in the resemblance of as many attributes as we are
+usually cognizant of in its real presence." Hence it follows that
+ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation; for, as we
+before said, ideas of imitation remove the impression by an
+ever-present sense of the deception or falsehood. This is put very
+conclusively--"so that the moment ideas of truth are grouped together,
+so as to give rise to an idea of imitation, they change their very
+nature--lose their essence as ideas of truth--and are corrupted and
+degraded, so as to share in the treachery of what they have produced.
+Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the foundation, and ideas of
+imitation the distinction, of all art. We shall be better able to
+appreciate their relative dignity after the investigation which we
+propose of functions of the former; but we may as well now express the
+conclusion to which we shall then be led--that no picture can be good
+which deceives by its imitation; for the very reason that nothing can
+be beautiful which is not true." This is perhaps rather too
+indiscriminate. It has been shown that ideas of imitation do give
+pleasure; by them, too, objects of beauty may be represented. We
+should not say that a picture by Gerard Dow or Van Eyck; even with the
+down on the peach and the dew on the leaf, were not good pictures.
+They are good if they please. It is true, they ought to do more, and
+even that in a higher degree; they cannot be works of greatness--and
+greatness was probably meant in the word good. In his chapter on
+"Ideas of Beauty," he considers that we derive, naturally and
+instinctively, pleasure from the contemplation of certain material
+objects; for which no other reason can be given than that it is our
+instinct--the will of our Maker--we enjoy them "instinctively and
+necessarily, as we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose."
+But we have instinctively aversion as well as desire; though he admits
+this, he seems to lose sight of it in the following--"And it would
+appear that we are intended by the Deity to be constantly under their
+influence, (ideas of beauty;) because there is not one single object
+in nature which is not capable of conveying them," &c. We are not
+satisfied; if the instinctive desire be the index to what is
+beautiful, so must the instinctive aversion be the index to its
+opposite. We have an instinctive dislike to many reptiles, to many
+beasts--as apes. These _may_ have in them some beauty; we only object
+to the author's want of clearness. If there be no ugliness there is no
+beauty, for every thing has its opposite; so that we think he has not
+yet discovered and clearly put before us what beauty consists in. He
+shows how it happens that we do admire it instinctively; but that does
+not tell us what it is, and possibly, after all that has been said
+about it, it yet remains to be told. Nor are we satisfied with his
+definition of taste--"Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the
+greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are
+attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection." This
+will not do; for taste will take material sources, unattractive in
+themselves, and by combination, or for their contrast, receive
+pleasure from them. All literature and all art show this. That taste,
+like life itself, is instinctive in its origin and first motion, we
+doubt not; but what it is by and in its cultivation, and in its
+application to art, is a thing not to be altogether so cursorily
+discussed and dismissed. The distinction is laid down between taste
+and judgment--judgment being the action of the intellect; taste "the
+instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another
+without any obvious reason," except that it is proper to human nature
+in its perfection so to do. But leaving this discussion of this
+original taste, taste in art is surely, as it is a thing cultivated,
+that for which a reason can be given, and in some measure, therefore,
+the result of judgment. For by the cultivation of taste we are
+actually led to love, admire, and desire many things of which we have
+no instinctive love at all; so that the taste for them arises from the
+intellect and the moral sense--our judgment. He proceeds to "Ideas of
+Relation," by which he means "to express all those sources of
+pleasure, which involve and require at the instant of their
+perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers." As this is to
+be more easily comprehended by an illustration, we have one in an
+incident of one of Turner's pictures, and, considering the object, it
+is surprising the author did not find one more important; but he
+herein shows that, in his eyes, every stroke of the brush by Mr Turner
+is important--indeed, is a considerable addition to our national
+wealth. In the picture of the "Building of Carthage," the foreground
+is occupied by a group of children sailing toy-boats, which he thinks
+to be an "exquisite choice of incident expressive of the ruling
+passion." He, with a whimsical extravagance in praise of Turner,
+which, commencing here, runs throughout all the rest of the volume,
+says--"Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is
+epic poetry of the highest order." Epic poetry of the highest order!
+Ungrateful will be our future epic poets if they do not learn from
+this--if such is done by boys sailing toy-boats, surely boys flying a
+kite will illustrate far better the great astronomical knowledge of
+our days. But he is rather unfortunate in this bit of criticism; for
+he compares this incident with one of Claude's, which we, however,
+think a far better and more poetical incident. "Claude, in subjects of
+_the same kind_," (not, by the by, a very fair statement,) "commonly
+introduces people carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and
+dwells, with infantine delight, on the lustre of the leather and the
+ornaments of the iron. The intellect can have no occupation here, we
+must look to the imitation or to nothing." As to the "_infantine
+delight_," we presume it is rather with the boys and their toy-boats;
+but let us look a little into these trunks--no, we may not--there is
+something more in them than our graduate imagines--the very iron
+locks and precious leather mean to tell you there is something still
+more precious within, worth all the cost of freightage; and you see, a
+little off, the great argosie that has brought the riches; and we
+humbly think that the ruling passion of a people whose "princes were
+merchants, and whose merchants princes," as happily expressed by the
+said "red trunks" as the rise of Carthage by the boys and boats; and
+in the fervour of this bit of "exquisite" epic choice, probably Claude
+did look with delight on the locks and the leather; and, whenever we
+look upon that picture again, we shall be ready to join in the
+delight, and say, in spite of our graduate's "contempt," there is
+nothing like leather. If the boys and boats express the beginning, the
+red trunks express the thing done--merchandise "brought home to every
+man's door;" so that the one serves for an "idea of relation," quite
+as well as the other. And here ends section the first.
+
+The study of ideas of imitation are thrown out of the consideration of
+ideas of power, as unworthy the pursuit of an artist, whose purpose is
+not to deceive, and because they are only the result of a particular
+association of ideas of truth. "There are two modes in which we receive
+the conception of power; one, the most just, when by a perfect
+knowledge of the difficulty to be overcome, and the means employed, we
+form a right estimate of the faculties exerted; the other, when without
+possessing such intimate and accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a
+sensation of power in visible action. If these two modes of receiving
+the impression agree in the result, and if the sensation be equal to
+the estimate, we receive the utmost possible idea of power. But this is
+the case perhaps with the works of only one man out of the whole circle
+of the fathers of art, of him to whom we have just referred--Michael
+Angelo. In others the estimate and the sensation are constantly
+unequal, and often contradictory." There is a distinction between the
+sensation of power and the intellectual perception of it. A slight
+sketch will give the sensation; the greater power is in the completion,
+not so manifest, but of which there is a more intellectual cognizance.
+He instances the drawings of Frederick Tayler for sensations of power,
+considering the apparent means; and those of John Lewis for more
+complete ideas of power, in reference to the greater difficulties
+overcome, and the more complicated means employed. We think him
+unfortunate in his selection, as the subjects of these artists are not
+such as, of themselves, justly to receive ideas of power, therefore not
+the best to illustrate them. He proceeds to "ideas of power, as they
+are dependent on execution." There are six legitimate sources of
+pleasure in execution--truth, simplicity, mystery, inadequacy,
+decision, velocity. "Decision" we should think involved in "truth;" as
+so involved, not necessarily different from velocity. Mystery and
+inadequacy require explanation. "Nature is always mysterious and secret
+in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most
+inexplicable." Execution, therefore, should be "incomprehensible."
+"Inadequacy" can hardly, we think, be said to be a quality of
+execution, as it has only reference to means employed. Insufficient
+means, according to him, give ideas of power. We otherwise
+conclude--namely, that if the inadequacy of the means is shown, we
+receive ideas of weakness. "Ars est celare artem"--so is it to conceal
+the means. Strangeness in execution, not a legitimate source of
+pleasure, is illustrated by the execution of a bull's head by Rubens,
+and of the same by Berghem. Of the six qualities of execution, the
+three first are the greatest, the three last the most attractive. He
+considers Berghem and Salvator to have carried their fondness for these
+lowest qualities to a vice. We can scarcely agree with him, as their
+execution seems most appropriate to the character of their subjects--to
+arise, in fact, out of their "ideas of truth." There is appended a good
+note on the execution of the "drawing-master," that, under the title of
+boldness, will admit of no touch less than the tenth of an inch broad,
+and on the tricks of engravers' handling.
+
+Our graduate dismisses the "sublime" in about two pages; in fact, he
+considers sublimity not to be a specific term, nor "descriptive of the
+effect of a particular class of ideas;" but as he immediately asserts
+that it is "greatness of any kind," and "the effect of greatness upon
+the feelings," we should have expected to have heard a little more
+about what constitutes this "greatness," this "sublime," which
+"elevates the mind," something more than that "Burke's theory of the
+nature of the sublime is incorrect." The sublime not being "distinct
+from what is beautiful," he confines his subject to "ideas of truth,
+beauty, and relation," and by these he proposes to test all artists.
+Truth of facts and truth of thoughts are here considered; the first
+necessary, but the latter the highest: we should say that it is the
+latter which alone constitutes art, and that here art begins where
+nature ends. Facts are the foundation necessary to the superstructure;
+the foundation of which must be there, though unseen, unnoticed in
+contemplation of the noble edifice. Very great stress is laid upon
+"the exceeding importance of truth;" which none will question,
+reminding us of the commencement of Bacon's essay, "What is truth?
+said laughing Pilate, and would not wait for an answer." "Nothing,"
+says our author, "can atone for the want of truth, not the most
+brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling
+(supposing that feeling _could_ be pure and false at the same time,)
+not the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of
+intellect, can make amends for the want of truth." Now, there is much
+parade in all this, surely truth, as such in reference to art, is _in_
+the brilliancy of imagination, _in_ the playfulness, without which is
+no fancy, _in_ the feeling, and _in_ the very exaltation of a
+conception; and intellect has no _grasp_ that does not grasp a truth.
+When he speaks of nature as "immeasurably superior to all that the
+human mind can conceive," and professes to "pay no regard whatsoever
+to what may be thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative," and to
+"look only for truth, bare, clear downright statement of facts," he
+seems to forget what nature is, as adopted by, as taken into art; it
+is not only external nature, but external nature in conjunction with
+the human mind. Nor does he, in fact, adhere in the subsequent part of
+his work to this his declaration; for he loses it in his "fervour of
+imagination," when he actually examines the works of "the great living
+painter, who is, I believe, imagined by the majority of the public to
+paint more falsehood and less fact than any other known master." Here
+our author jumps at once into his monomania--his adoration of the
+works of Turner, which he examines largely and microscopically, as it
+suits his whim, and imagines all the while he is describing and
+examining nature; and not unfrequently he tells you, that nature and
+Turner are the same, and that he "invites the same ceaseless study as
+the works of nature herself." This is "coming it pretty strong." We
+confess we are with the majority--not that we wish to depreciate
+Turner. He is, or has been, unquestionably, a man of genius, and that
+is a great admission. He has, perhaps, done in art what never has been
+done before. He has illuminated "Views," if not with local, with a
+splendid truth. His views of towns are the finest; he led the way to
+this walk of art, and is far superior to all in it. We speak of his
+works collectively. Some of his earlier, more imaginative, were
+unquestionably poetical, though not, perhaps, of a very high
+character. We believe he has been better acquainted with many of the
+truths of nature, particularly those which came within the compass of
+his line of views, than any other artist, ancient or modern; but we
+believe he has neglected others, and some important ones too, and to
+which the old masters paid the greatest attention, and devoted the
+utmost study. We have spoken frequently, unhesitatingly, of the late
+extraordinary productions of his pencil, as altogether unworthy his
+real genius; it is in these we see, with the majority of the public,
+"more falsehood and less fact" than in any other known master--a
+defiance of the "known truths" in drawing, colour, and composition,
+for which we can only account upon the supposition, that his eye
+misrepresents to him the work of his hands. We see, in the almost
+adoration of his few admirers, that if it be difficult, and not always
+dependent, on merit to attain to eminence in the world's estimation,
+it is nearly as difficult altogether to fall from it; and that nothing
+the artist can do, though they be the veriest "ægri somnia," will
+separate from him habitual followers, who, with a zeal in proportion
+to the extravagances he may perpetrate, will lose their relish for,
+and depreciate the great masters, whose very principles he seems
+capriciously in his age to set aside, and they will from followers
+become his worshippers, and in pertinacity exact entire compliance,
+and assent to every, the silliest, dictation of their monomania. We
+subjoin a specimen of this kind of worship, which will be found fully
+to justify our observations, and which, considering it speaks of
+mortal man, is somewhat blaspheming Divine attributes; we know not
+really whether we should pity the condition of the author, or
+reprehend the passage. After speaking of other modern painters, who
+are so superior to the old, he says: "and Turner--glorious in
+conception--unfathomable in knowledge--solitary in power--with the
+elements waiting upon his will, and the night and the morning obedient
+to his call, sent as a prophet of God to reveal to men the mysteries
+of his universe, standing, like the great angel of the Apocalypse,
+clothed with a cloud, and with a rainbow upon his head, and with the
+sun and stars given into his hand." Little as we are disposed to laugh
+at any such aberrations, we must, to remove from our minds the
+greater, the more serious offence, indulge in a small degree of
+justifiable ridicule; and ask what will sculptor or painter make of
+this description, should the reluctant public be convinced by the
+"graduate," and in their penitential reverence order statue or
+painting of Mr Turner for the Temple of Fame, which it is presumed
+Parliament, in their artistic zeal, mean to erect? How will they
+venture to represent Mr Turner looking like an angel--in that dress
+which would make any man look like a fool--his cloud nightcap tied
+with rainbow riband round his head, calling to night and morning, and
+little caring which comes, making "ducks and drakes" of the sun and
+the stars, put into his hand for that purpose? We will only suggest
+one addition, as it completes the grand idea, and is in some degree
+characteristic of Mr Turner's peculiar execution, that, with the sun
+and stars, there should be delivered into his hand a comet, whose tail
+should serve him for a brush, and supply itself with colour. We do not
+see, however, why the moon should have been omitted; sun, moon, and
+stars, generally go together. Is the author as jealous as the
+"majority of the public" may be suspicious of her influence? And let
+not the reader believe that Mr Turner is thus called a prophet in mere
+joke, or a fashion of words--his prophetic power is advanced in
+another passage, wherein it is asserted that Mr Turner not only tells
+us in his works what nature has done in hers, but what she will do.
+"In fact," says our author, "the great quality about Mr Turner's
+drawings, which more especially proves their transcendant truth, is
+the capability they afford us of reasoning on past and future
+phenomena." The book teems with extravagant bombastic praise like
+this. Mr Turner is more than the Magnus Apollo. Yet other English
+artists are brought forward, immediately preceding the above
+panegyric; we know not if we do them justice, by noticing what is said
+of them. There is a curious description of David Cos lying on the
+ground "to possess his spirit in humility and peace," of Copley
+Fielding, as an aeronaut, "casting his whole soul into space." We
+really cannot follow him, "exulting like the wild deer in the motion
+of the swift mists," and "flying with the wild wind and sifted spray
+along the white driving desolate sea, with the passion for nature's
+freedom burning in his heart;" for such a chase and such a heart-burn
+must have a frightful termination, unless it be mere nightmare. We see
+"J. D. Harding, brilliant and vigorous," &c., "following with his
+quick, keen dash the sunlight into the crannies of the rocks, and the
+wind into the tangling of the grass, and the bright colour into the
+fall of the sea-foam--various, universal in his aim;" after which very
+fatiguing pursuit, we are happy to find him "under the shade of some
+spreading elm;" yet his heart is oak--and he is "English, all English
+at his heart." But Mr Clarkson Stanfield is a man of men--"firm, and
+fearless, and unerring in his knowledge--stern and decisive in his
+truth--perfect and certain in composition--shunning nothing,
+concealing nothing, and falsifying nothing--never affected, never
+morbid, never failing--conscious of his strength, but never
+ostentatious of it--acquainted with every line and hue of the deep
+sea--chiseling his waves with unhesitating knowledge of every curve of
+their anatomy, and every moment of their motion--building his
+mountains rock by rock, with wind in every fissure, and weight in
+every stone--and modeling the masses of his sky with the strength of
+tempest in their every fold." It is curious--yet a searcher after
+nature's truths ought to know, as he is here told, that waves may be
+anatomized, and must be _chiseled_, and that mountains are and ought
+to be _built_ up rock by rock, as a wall brick by brick; no easy task
+considering that there is a disagreeable "wind in every fissure, and
+weight in every stone"--and that the aerial sky, incapable to touch,
+must be "modeled in masses." All this is given after an equally
+extravagant abuse of Claude, of Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. He finds
+fault with Claude, because his sea does not "upset the flower-pots on
+the wall," forgetting that they are put there because the sea could
+not--with Salvator, for his "contemptible fragment of splintery crag,
+which an Alpine snow-wreath" (which would have no business there)
+"would smother in its first swell, with a stunted bush or two growing
+out of it, and a Dudley or Halifax-like volume of smoke for a
+sky"--with Poussin, for that he treats foliage (whereof "every bough
+is a revelation!") as "a black round mass of impenetrable paint,
+diverging into feathers instead of leaves, and supported on a stick
+instead of a trunk." A page or two from this, our author sadly abuses
+poor Canaletti, as far as we can see, for not painting a tumbled-down
+wall, which perhaps, in his day, was not in a ruinous state at all; it
+is a curious passage--and shows how much may be made out of a wall.
+Pyramus's chink was nothing to this--behold a specimen of "fine
+writing!" "Well: take the next house. We remember that too; it was
+mouldering inch by inch into the canal, and the bricks had fallen away
+from its shattered marble shafts, and left them white and
+skeleton-like, yet with their fretwork of cold flowers wreathed about
+them still, untouched by time; and through the rents of the wall
+behind them there used to come long sunbeams gleamed by the weeds
+through which they pierced, which flitted, and fell one by one round
+those grey and quiet shafts, catching here a leaf and there a leaf,
+and gliding over the illumined edges and delicate fissures until they
+sank into the deep dark hollow between the marble blocks of the sunk
+foundation, lighting every other moment one isolated emerald lamp on
+the crest of the intermittent waves, when the wild sea-weeds and
+crimson lichens drifted and crawled with their thousand colours and
+fine branches over its decay, and the black, clogging, accumulated
+limpets hung in ropy clusters from the dripping and tinkling stone.
+What has Canaletti given us for this?" Alas, neither a _crawling_
+lichen, nor _clogging_ limpets, nor a _tinkling_ stone, but "one
+square, red mass, composed of--let me count--five-and-fifty--no,
+six-and-fifty--no, I was right at first, five-and-fifty bricks," &c.
+The picture, if it be painted by the graduate, must be a curiosity--we
+can make neither head nor tail of his words. But let us find another
+strange specimen--where he compares his own observations of nature
+with Poussin and Turner. Every one must remember a very pretty little
+picture of no great consequence by Gaspar Poussin--a view of some
+buildings of a town said to be Aricia, the modern La Riccia--just take
+it for what it is intended to be, a quiet, modest, agreeable
+scene--very true and sweetly painted. How unfit to be compared with an
+ambitious description of a combination of views from Rome to the Alban
+Mount, for that is the range of the description, though, perhaps, the
+description is taken from a poetical view of one of Turner's
+incomprehensibles, which may account for the conclusion, "Tell me who
+is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" Now, though Poussin never intended
+to be like this, let us see the graduate's description of it. We know
+the little town; it received us as well as our author, having left
+Rome to visit it.
+
+    "Egressum magnâ me accepit Aricia Roma."
+
+Our author, however, doubts if it be the place, though he
+unhesitatingly abuses Poussin, as if he had fully intended to have
+painted nothing else than what was seen by the travelling graduate.
+"At any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty
+bushes, of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of
+leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque
+brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and
+discover in one place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature
+have been cool and grey beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and
+which, therefore, being moreover completely in shade, is consistently
+and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick
+red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The foreground is a
+piece of road, which, in order to make allowance for its greater
+nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed,
+for the quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage roads, is
+given in a very cool green-grey, and the truthful colouring of the
+picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with
+a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown." We need not say how
+unlike is this description of the picture. We pass on to--"Not long
+ago, I was slowly _descending_ this very bit of carriage road, the
+first turn after you leave Albano;--it had been wild weather when I
+left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in
+sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of
+sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its
+arches like the bridge of Chaos. But as I _climbed_ the long slope of
+the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble
+outline of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex
+grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper
+sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in
+deep, palpitating azure, half æther half dew. The noonday sun came
+slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of
+entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the
+wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with
+rain. I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration. Purple, and
+crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the
+rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every
+separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it
+turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then
+an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas
+arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with
+the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and _silver_
+flakes of _orange_ spray tossed into the air around them, breaking
+over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and
+kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every
+glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in
+sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet
+lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark
+rock--dark though flushed with scarlet lichen--casting their quiet
+shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them
+filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over
+all--the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the _sacred_ clouds
+that have no _darkness_, and only exist to illumine, were seen in
+fathomless intervals between the solemn and _orbed_ repose of the
+stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding
+lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the
+blaze of the sea." In verity, this is no "Campana Supellex." It is a
+riddle! Is he going up or down hill--or both at once? No human being
+can tell. He did not like the "sulphur and treacle" of "our Scotch
+connoisseurs;" but what colours has he not added here to his
+sulphur--colours, too, that we fear for the "idea of truth" cannot
+coexist! And how, in the name of optics, could it be possible for any
+painter to take in all this, with the "_fathomless intervals_," into
+an angle of vision of forty-five degrees? It is quite superfluous to
+ask "who is likest this, Turner or Poussin?" There immediately follows
+a remark upon another picture in the National Gallery, the "Mercury
+and Woodman," by Salvator Rosa, than which nothing can be more untrue
+to the original. He asserts that Salvator painted the distant
+mountains, "throughout, without one instant of variation. But what is
+its colour? _Pure_ sky-blue, without one grain of grey, or any
+modifying hue whatsoever;--the same brush which had just given the
+bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part of the
+pallette, and the whole mountain throw in with unmitigated
+ultramarine." Now the fact is, that the picture has, in this part,
+been so injured, that it is hard to say what colour is under the dirty
+brown-asphaltum hue and texture that covers it. It is certainly not
+blue now, not "pure blue"--unless pictures change like the cameleon.
+We know the picture well, and have seen another of the same subject,
+where the mountains have variety, and yet are blue. We believe a great
+sum was given for this picture--far more than its condition justifies.
+We must return--we left the graduate discussing ideas of truth. There
+is a chapter to show that the truth of nature is not to be discerned
+by the uneducated senses. As we do not perceive all sounds that enter
+the ear, so do we not perceive all that is cognizable by the eye--we
+have, that is, a power of nullifying an impression; that this habit is
+so common, that from the abstraction of their minds to other subjects,
+there are probably persons who never saw any thing beautiful.
+Sensibility to the power of beauty is required--and to see rightly,
+there should be a perfect state of moral feeling. Even when we think
+we see with our eyes, our perception is often the result of memory, of
+previous knowledge; and it is in this way he accounts for the mistake
+painters and others make with respect to Italian skies. What will Mr
+Uwin and his followers in blue say to this, alas--Italian skies are
+not blue? "How many people are misled by what has been said and sung
+of the serenity of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more blue
+than the skies of the north, and think that they see them so; whereas
+the sky of Italy is far more dull and grey in colour than the skies of
+the north, and is distinguished only by its intense repose of light."
+Benevenuto Cellini speaks of the mist of Italy. "Repose of light" is
+rather a novelty--he is fond of it. But then Turner paints with pure
+white--for ourselves we are with the generality of mankind who prefer
+the "repose" of shade. "Ask a connoisseur, who has scampered over all
+Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to
+one that he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism
+on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid"--and why not? The
+chances are ninety to one that the merits of not a single picture
+shall depend upon this knowledge, and yet the pictures shall be good
+and the connoisseur right. One man sees what another does not see in
+portraits. Undoubtedly; but how any one is to find in a portrait the
+following, we are at a loss to conceive. "The third has caught the
+trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty, when all hypocrisy
+and all habit, and all petty and passing emotion--the _ice, and the
+bank, and the foam of the immortal river--were shivered and broken,
+and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward strength_," _&c._ How
+can a man with a pen in his hand let such stuff as this drop from his
+fingers' ends?
+
+In the chapter "on the relative importance of truths," there is a
+little needless display of logic--needless, for we find, after all, he
+does not dispute "the kind of truths proper to be represented by the
+painter or sculptor," though he combats the maxim that general truths
+are preferable to particular. His examples are quite out of art,
+whether one be spoken of as a man or as Sir Isaac Newton. Even
+logically speaking, Sir Isaac Newton may be the _whole_ of the
+subject, and as such a whole might require a generality. There may be
+many particulars that are best sunk. So, in a picture made up of many
+parts, it should have a generality totally independent of the
+particularities of the parts, which must be so represented as not to
+interfere with that general idea, and which may be altogether in the
+mind of the artist. This little discussion seems to arise from a sort
+of quibble on the word important. Sir Joshua and others, who abet the
+generality maxim, mean no more than that it is of importance to a
+picture that it contain, fully expressed, one general idea, with which
+no parts are to interfere, but that the parts will interfere if each
+part be represented with its most particular truth--and that,
+therefore, drapery should be drapery merely, not silk or satin, where
+high truths of the subject are to be impressed.
+
+"Colour is a secondary truth, therefore less important than form."
+"He, therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of
+colour, has neglected a greater truth for a less one." It is true
+with regard to any individual object--but we doubt if it be always so
+in picture. The character of the picture may not at all depend upon
+form--nay, it is possible that the painter may wish to draw away the
+mind altogether from the beauty, and even correctness of form, his
+subject being effect and colour, that shall be predominant, and to
+which form shall be quite subservient, and little more of it than
+such as chiaro-scuro shall give; and in such a case colour is the
+more important truth, because in it lies the sentiment of the
+picture. The mystery of Rembrandt would vanish were beauty of form
+introduced in many of his pictures. We remember a picture, the most
+impressive picture perhaps ever painted, and that by a modern too,
+Danby's "Opening of the Sixth Seal." Now, though there are fine parts
+in this picture, the real power of the picture is in its colour--it
+is awful. We are no enemy to modern painters; we think this a work of
+the highest genius--and as such, should be most proud to see it
+deposited in our National Gallery. We further say, that in some
+respects it carries the art beyond the old practice. But, then, we
+may say it is a new subject. "It is not certain whether any two
+people see the same colours in things." Though that does not affect
+the question of the importance of colour, for it must imply a defect
+in the individuals, for undoubtedly there is such a thing as nature's
+harmony of colour; yet it may be admitted, that things are not always
+known by their colour; nay, that the actual local colour of objects
+is mainly altered by effects of light, and we are accustomed to see
+the same things, _quoad_ colour, variously presented to us--and the
+inference that we think artists may draw from this fact is, that
+there will be allowed them a great licence in all cases of colour,
+and that naturalness may be preserved without exactness--and here
+will lie the value of a true theory of the harmony of colours, and
+the application of colouring to pictures, most suitable to the
+intended impression, not the most appropriate to the objects. We have
+often laid some stress upon this in the pages of _Maga_--and we think
+it has been too much omitted in the consideration of artists. Every
+one knows what is called a Claude glass. We see nature through a
+coloured medium--yet we do not doubt that we are looking at
+nature--at trees, at water, at skies--nay, we admire the colour--see
+its harmony and many beauties--yet we know them to be, if we may use
+the term, misrepresented. While speaking of the Claude glass, it will
+not be amiss to notice a peculiarity. It shows a picture--when the
+unaided eye will not; it heightens illumination--brings out the most
+delicate lights, scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and gives
+greater power to the shades, yet preserves their delicacy. It seems
+to annihilate all those rays of light, which, as it were, intercept
+the picture--that come between the eye and the object. But to return
+to colour--we say that it must, in the midst of its license, preserve
+its naturalness--which it will do if it have a meaning in itself. But
+when we are called upon to question what is the meaning of this or
+that colour, how does its effect agree with the subject? why is it
+outrageously yellow or white, or blue or red, or a jumble of all
+these?--which are questions, we confess, that we and the public have
+often asked, with regard to Turner's late pictures--we do not
+acknowledge a naturalness--the license has been abused--not "sumpta
+pudenter." It is not because the vividness of "a blade of grass or a
+scarlet flower" shall be beyond the power of pigment, that a general
+glare and obtrusion of such colours throughout a picture can be
+justified. We are astonished that any man with eyes should see the
+unnaturalness in colour of Salvator and Titian, and not see it in
+Turner's recent pictures, where it is offensive because more glaring.
+Those masters sacrificed, if it be a sacrifice, something to
+repose--repose is _the_ thing to be sacrificed according to the
+notions of too many of our modern schools. It is likewise singular,
+after all the falsehoods which he asserts the old masters to have
+painted, that he should speak of "imitation"--as their whole aim,
+their sole intention to deceive; and yet he describes their pictures
+as unlike nature in the detail and in the general as can be,
+strangely missing their object--deception. We fear the truths,
+particulars of which occupy the remainder of the volume--of earth,
+water, skies, &c.--are very minute truths, which, whether true or
+false, are of very little importance to art, unless it be to those
+branches of art which may treat the whole of each particular truth
+as the whole of a subject, a line of art that may produce a multitude
+of works, like certain scenes of dramatic effect, surprising to see
+once, but are soon powerless--can we hope to say of such, "decies
+repetita placebunt?" They will be the fascinations of the view
+schools, nay, may even delight the geologist and the herbalist, but
+utterly disgust the imaginative. This kind of "knowledge" is not
+"power" in art. We want not to see water anatomized; the Alps may be
+tomahawked and scalped by geologists, yet may they be sorry painters.
+And we can point to the general admiration of the world, learned and
+unlearned, that a "contemptible fragment of a splintery crag" has
+been found to answer all the purposes of an impression of the
+greatness of nature, her free, great, and awful forms, and that
+depth, shades, power of chiaro-scuro, are found in nature to be
+strongest in objects of no very great magnitude; for our vision
+requires nearness, and we want not the knowledge that a mountain is
+20,000 feet high, to be convinced that it is quite large enough to
+crush man and all his works; and that they, who, in their terror of a
+greater pressure, would call upon the mountains to cover them, and
+the holes of rocks to hide them, would think very little of the
+measurement of the mountains, or how the caverns of the earth are
+made. Greatness and sublimity are quite other things.
+
+We shall not very systematically carry our views, therefore, into the
+detail of these truths, but shall just pick here and there a passage
+or so, that may strike us either for its utility or its absurdity.
+
+With regard to truth of tone, he observes--that "the finely-toned
+pictures of the old masters are some of the notes of nature played two
+or three octaves below her key, the dark objects in the middle
+distance having precisely the same relation to the light of the sky
+which they have in nature, but the light being necessarily infinitely
+lowered, and the mass of the shadow deepened in the same degree. I
+have often been struck, when looking at a camera-obscura on a dark
+day, with the exact resemblance the image bore to one of the finest
+pictures of the old masters." We only ask if, when looking at the
+picture in the camera, he did not still recognize nature--and then, if
+it was beautiful, we might ask him if it was not _true_; and then when
+he asserts our highest light being white paper, and that not white
+enough for the light of nature--we would ask if, in the camera, he did
+not see the picture on white paper--and if the whiteness of paper be
+not the exact whiteness of nature, or white as ordinary nature? But
+there is a quality in the light of nature that mere whiteness will not
+give, and which, in fact, is scarcely ever seen in nature merely in
+what is quite white; we mean brilliancy--that glaze, as it were,
+between the object and the eye which makes it not so much light as
+bright. Now this quality of light was thought by the old masters to be
+the most important one of light, extending to the half tones and even
+in the shadows, where there is still light; and this by art and
+lowering the tone they were able to give, so that we see not the value
+of the praise when he says--
+
+"Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle.
+He boldly takes pure white--and justly, for it is the sign of the most
+intense sunbeams--for his highest light, and lamp-black for his
+deepest shade," &c. Now, if white be the sign of the most intense
+sunbeams, it is as we never wish to see them; what under a tropical
+sun may be white is not quite white with us; and we always find it
+disagreeable in proportion as it approaches to pure white. We never
+saw yet in nature a sky or a cloud pure white; so that here certainly
+is one of the "fallacies," we will not call them falsehoods. But as
+far as we can judge of nature's ideas of light and colour, it is her
+object to tone them down, and to give us very little, if any, of this
+raw white, and we would not say that the old masters did not follow
+her method of doing it. But we will say, that the object of art, at
+any rate, is to make all things look agreeable; and that human eyes
+cannot bear without pain those raw whites and too searching lights;
+and that nature has given to them an ever present power of glazing
+down and reducing them, when she added to the eye the sieve, our
+eyelashes, through which we look, which we employ for this purpose,
+and desire not to be dragged at any time--"Sub curru nimium propinqui
+solis."
+
+After this praise of white, one does not expect--"I think nature
+mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues;" but this is said
+merely in aversion to purple. "I think the first approach to
+viciousness of colour in any master, is commonly indicated chiefly by
+a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow." "I am equally
+certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colourists
+of the present day, by the foundation of all his tones being black,
+yellow, and intermediate greys, while the tendency of our common
+glare-seekers is invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples."
+
+    "Silent nymph, with curious eye,
+    Who the _purple_ evening lie,"
+
+saith Dyer, in his landscape of "Grongar Hill." The "glare-seekers" is
+curious enough, when we remember the graduate's description of
+landscapes, (of course Turner's,) and his excursions; but we think we
+have seen many purples in Turner, and that opposed to his flaming red
+in sunsets. He prefers warmth where most people feel cold--this is not
+surprising; but as to picture "is it true?" "My own feelings would
+guide me rather to the warm greys of such pictures as the
+'Snow-Storm,' or the glowing scarlet and gold of the 'Napoleon' and
+the 'Slave Ship.'" The two latter must be well remembered by all
+Exhibition visitors; they were the strangest things imaginable in
+colour as in every particle that should be art or nature. There is a
+whimsical quotation from Wordsworth, the "keenest-eyed," page 145. His
+object is to show the strength of shadow--how "the shadows on the
+trunk of the tree become darker and more conspicuous than any part of
+the boughs or limbs;" so, for this strength and blackness, we have--
+
+                      "At the root
+    Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
+    And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
+    Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,
+    Traced _faintly_ in the greensward."
+
+"Of the truth of space," he says that "in a real landscape, we can see
+the whole of what would be called the middle distance and distance
+together, with facility and clearness; but while we do so, we can see
+nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and indistinct arrangement of
+lines and colours; and that if, on the contrary, we look at any
+foreground object, so as to receive a distinct impression of it, the
+distance and middle distance become all disorder and mystery. And
+therefore, if in a painting our foreground is any thing, our distance
+must be nothing, and _vice versa_." "Now, to this fact and principle,
+no landscape painter of the old school, as far as I remember, ever
+paid the slightest attention. Finishing their foregrounds clearly and
+sharply, and with vigorous impression on the eye, giving even the
+leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge and shape, they
+proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what they could
+see of its details," &c. But he had blamed Claude for not having given
+the exactness and distinct shape and colour of leaves in foreground.
+The fact is, the picture should be as a piece of nature framed in.
+Within that frame, we should not see distinctly the foreground and
+distance at the same instant: but, as we have stated, the eye and mind
+are rapid, the one to see, the other to combine; and as a horse let
+loose into a field, runs to the extremity of it and around it, the
+first thing he does--so do we range over every part of the picture,
+but with wondrous rapidity, before our impression of the whole is
+perfect. We must not, therefore, slur over any thing; the difficulty
+in art is to give the necessary, and so made necessary, detail of
+foreground unostentatiously--to paint nothing, that which is to tell
+as nothing, but so as it shall satisfy upon examination; and we think
+so the old masters did paint the foregrounds, particularly Gaspar
+Poussin--so Titian, so Domenichino, and all of any merit. But this is
+merely an introduction, not to a palliation of, but the approbation
+and praise of a glaring defect in Turner. "Turner introduced a new era
+in landscape art, by showing that the foreground might be sunk for the
+distance, and that it was possible to express immediate proximity to
+the spectator, without giving any thing like completeness to the forms
+of the near objects." We are now, therefore, prepared for an absurd
+"justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures," thus
+contemptuously, with regard to all but himself, accounted for. "And
+now we see the reason for the singular, and, to the ignorant in art,
+the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert
+that there is any reason whatsoever for _bad_ drawing, (though in
+landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but there is both reason and
+necessity for that want of drawing which gives even the nearest
+figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and
+four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally
+impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding
+from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the
+distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and
+features of near figures than Turner gives." Yet what wonderful detail
+has he required from Canaletti and others?--But is there any reason
+why we should have "_pink_ spots?"--is there any reason why Turner's
+foreground figures should resemble penny German dolls?--and for the
+reason we have above given, there ought to be reason why the figures
+should be made out, at least as they are in a camera-obscura. We here
+speak of nature, of "truth," and with him ask, it may be all very
+well--but "is it true?" But we have another fault to find with
+Turner's figures; they are often bad in intention. What can be more
+absurd and incongruous, for instance, than in a picture of "elemental
+war"--a sea-coast--than to put a child and its nurse in foreground,
+the child crying because it has lost its hoop, or some such thing? It
+is according to his truth of space, that distances should have every
+"hair's-breadth" filled up, all its "infinity," with infinities of
+objects, but that whatever is near, if figures, may be "pink spots,"
+and "four dashes of the brush." While with Poussin--"masses which
+result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and painful;" and
+he thinks Poussin has but "meaningless tricks of clever
+execution"--forgetting that all art is but a trick--yet one of those
+tricks worth knowing, and yet which how few have acquired! Surely our
+author is not well acquainted with Hobbima's works; that painter had
+not a niggling execution. "A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is
+more truly expressive of the infinity of foliage, than the niggling of
+Hobbima could have rendered his canvass, if he had worked on it till
+doomsday." Our author seems to have studied skies, such as they are in
+Turner or in nature. He talks of them with no inconsiderable swagger
+of observation, while the old masters had no observation at
+all;--"their blunt and feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature;
+and their untaught imaginations were not likely to originate it in
+study." What is the _it_, will be asked--we believe it to be a
+"cirrus," and that a cirrus is the subject of a chapter to itself.
+This beard of the sky, however, instead of growing below, is quite
+above, "never formed below an elevation of at least 15,000 feet, are
+motionless, multitudinous lines of delicate vapour, with which the
+blue of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several
+days of fine weather. They are more commonly known as 'mare's tails.'"
+Having found this "mare's nest," he delights in it. It is the glory of
+modern masters. He becomes inflated, and lifts himself 15,000 feet
+above the level of the understanding of all old masters, and, as we
+think, of most modern readers, as thus:--"One alone has taken notice
+of the neglected upper sky; it is his peculiar and favourite field; he
+has watched its every modification, and given its every phase and
+feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has followed its passions
+and its changes, and has brought down and laid open to the world
+another apocalypse of heaven." Very well, considering that the cirrus
+never touches even the highest mountains of Europe, to follow its
+phase (query faces) and feature 15,000 feet high, and given pink dots,
+four pink dots for the faces and features of human beings within
+fifteen feet of his brush. We will not say whether the old masters
+painted this cirrus or not. We believe they painted what they and we
+see, at least so much as suited their pictures--but as they were not,
+generally speaking, exclusively sky-painters, but painters of subjects
+to which the skies were subordinate, they may be fairly held excused
+for this their lack of ballooning after the "cirrus;" and we thank
+them that they were not "glare-seekers," "threading" their way, with
+it before them, "among the then transparent clouds, while all around
+the sun is unshadowed fire." We lose him altogether in the "central
+cloud region," where he helps nature pretty considerably as she "melts
+even the unoccupied azure into palpitating shades," and hopelessly
+turns the corner of common observation, and escapes among the "fifty
+aisles penetrating through angelic chapels to the shechinah of the
+blue." We must expect him to descend a little vain of his exploit, and
+so he does--and wonders not that the form and colour of Turner should
+be misunderstood, for "they require for the full perception of their
+meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as not one in a
+thousand possesses, or can bestow." The inference is, that the
+graduate has graduated a successful phæton, driving Mr Turner's
+chariot through all the signs of the zodiac. So he sends all artists,
+ancient and modern, to Mr Turner's country, as "a magnificent
+statement, all truth"--that is, "impetuous clouds, twisted rain,
+flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and oppressed
+cattle"--yes, more, it wants repose, and there it is--"High and far
+above the dark volumes of the swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left,
+through their opening, the quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the
+highest cirrus, resting in the repose of the deep sky;" and there they
+are, "delicate, soft, passing vapours," and there is "the exquisite
+depth and _palpitating_ tenderness of the blue with which they are
+islanded." Thus _islanded in tenderness_, what wonder is it if Ixion
+embraced a cloud? Let not the modern lover of nature entertain such a
+thought; "Bright Phœbus" is no minor canon to smile complacently on
+the matter; he has a jealousy in him, and won't let any be in a
+melting mood with the clouds but himself; he tears aside your
+curtains, and steam-like rags of capricious vapour--"the mouldering
+sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you,
+and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and
+rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more,
+dyeing all the air about it with blood." This is no fanciful
+description, but among the comparative views of nature's and of
+Turner's skies, as seen, and verified upon his affidavit, by a
+graduate of Oxford; who may have an indisposition to boast of his
+exclusive privilege.
+
+    "Ἀεροβατῶ και περιφρονῶ τὸν ἥλιον."
+
+Accordingly, in "the effects of light rendered by modern art," our
+author is very particular indeed. His extraordinary knowledge of the
+sun's position, to a hair's-breadth in Mr Turner's pictures, and
+minute of the day, is quite surprising. He gives a table of two pages
+and a-half, of position and moment, "morning, noon, and afternoon,"
+"evening and night." In more than one instance, he is so close, as
+"five minutes before sunset."
+
+Having settled the matter of the sky, our author takes the earth in
+hand, and tosses it about like a Titan. "The spirit of the hills is
+action, that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to be
+found every variety of motion and of rest, from the inactive plain,
+sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks
+which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with clouds drifting
+like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to
+heaven saying, 'I live for ever.'" We learn, too, a wonderful power in
+the excited earth, far beyond that which other "naturalists" describe
+of the lobster, who only, _ad libitum_, casts off a claw or so. "But
+there is this difference between the action of the earth and that of a
+living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and
+tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh
+altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the
+bones of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of
+its anatomy, which in the plains lie buried under five-and-twenty
+thousand feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which
+spring up in the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging
+their garment of earth away from them on each side." If the gentle
+sketcher should happily escape a cuff from these cast-off clothes
+flung by excited earth from her extremities, he may be satisfied with
+repose in the lap of mother earth, who must be considerably fat and
+cushioned, though some may entertain a fear of being overlaid. What is
+the artist to do with an earth like this, body and bones? When he sits
+down to sketch some placid landscape, is he to think of poor nature
+with her bones sticking out from twenty-five thousand feet of her
+solid flesh! Mother of Gargantia--thou wert but a dwarf! Salvator Rosa
+could not paint rock; Gaspar Poussin could not paint rock. A rock, in
+short, is such a thing as nobody ought to paint, or can paint but
+Turner; and all that, after his description of rock, we believe; but
+were not prepared to learn that "the foreground of the 'Napoleon' in
+last year's Academy," is "one of the most exquisite pieces of rock
+truth ever put on canvass." In fact, we really, in ignorance to be
+ashamed of, did not know there was any rock there at all. We only
+remember Napoleon and his cocked-hat--now, this is extraordinary; for
+as _we_ only or chiefly remember the cocked-hat, so he sees the said
+cocked-hat in Salvator's rocks, where we never saw such a thing,
+though "he has succeeded in covering his foregrounds with forms which
+approximate to those of drapery, of ribands, of _crushed cocked-hats_,
+of locks of hair, of waves, of leaves, or any thing, in short,
+flexible or tough, but which, of course, are not only unlike, but
+directly contrary to the forms which nature has impressed on rocks."
+And the nature of rocks he must know, having the "Napoleon" before
+him. "In the 'Napoleon' I can illustrate by no better example, for I
+can reason as well from this as I could with my foot on the native
+rock." What rocks of Salvator's, besides the No. 220 of the Dulwich
+gallery, he has seen, we cannot pretend to say; we have, within these
+few days, seen one, and could not discover the "commas," the "Chinese
+for rocks," nor Sanscrit for rocks, but did read the language of
+nature, without the necessity of any writing under--"This is a rock."
+Poor Claude, he knew nothing of perspective, and his efforts
+"invariably ended in reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and
+making it look perpendicular;" but in one instance Claude luckily hits
+upon "a little bit of accidental truth;" he is circumstantial in its
+locality--"the little piece of ground above the cattle, between the
+head of the brown cow and the tail of the white one, is well
+articulated, just where it turns into shade."
+
+After the entire failure of all artists that ever lived before Turner
+in land and skies, we are prepared to find that they had not the least
+idea of water. When they thought they painted water, in fact, they
+were like "those happier children, sliding on dry ground," and had not
+the chance of wetting a foot. Water, too, is a thing to be anatomized,
+a sort of rib-fluidity. The moving, transparent water, in shallow and
+in depth, of Vandervelde and Backhuysen, is not the least like water;
+they are men who "libelled the sea." Many of our moderns--Stanfield in
+particular--seem naturally web-footed; but the real Triton of the sea,
+as he was Titan of the earth, is Turner. To our own eyes, in this
+respect, he stands indebted to the engraver; for we do not remember a
+single sea-piece by Turner, in water-colour or oil, in which the water
+is _liquid_. What it is like, in the picture of the Slave-ship, which
+is considered one of his very finest productions, we defy any one to
+tell. We are led to guess it is meant for water, by the strange fish
+that take their pastime. A year or two ago were exhibited two
+sea-pieces, of nearly equal size, at the British Institution, by
+Vandervelde and Turner. It was certainly one of Turner's best; but how
+inferior was the water and the sky to the water and sky in
+Vandervelde! In Turner they were both rocky. We say not this to the
+disparagement of Turner's genius. He had not studied these elements as
+did Vandervelde. The two painters ought not to be compared together;
+and we humbly think that any man who should pronounce of Vandervelde
+and Backhuysen, that they "libelled the sea," convicts himself of a
+wondrous lack of taste and feeling. Of their works he thus speaks--"As
+it is, I believe there is scarcely such another instance to be found
+in the history of man, of the epidemic aberration of mind into which
+multitudes fall by infection, as is furnished by the value set upon
+the works of these men." Of water, he says--"Nothing can hinder water
+from being a reflecting medium but dry dust or filth of some kind on
+its surface. Dirty water, if the foul matter be dissolved or suspended
+in the liquid, reflects just as clearly and sharply as pure water,
+only the image is coloured by the hue of the mixed matter, and becomes
+comparatively brown or dark." We entirely deny this, from constant
+observation. Within this week we have been studying a stream, which
+has alternated in its clearness and muddiness. We found the
+reflection not only less clear in the latter case, but instead of
+brown and dark, to have lost its brownness, and to have become
+lighter. To understand the "curves" of water being beyond the reach of
+most who are not graduates of Oxford; and painters and admirers of old
+masters being people without sense, at least in comparison with the
+graduate, he thus disposes of his learned difficulty:--"This is a
+point, however, on which it is impossible to argue without going into
+high mathematics, and even then the nature of particular curves, as
+given by the brush, would be scarcely demonstrable; and I am the less
+disposed to take much trouble about it, because I think that the
+persons who are really fond of these works are almost beyond the reach
+of argument." The celebrated Mrs Partington once endeavoured, at
+Sidmouth, to dispose of these "curves," and failed; and we suspect a
+stronger reason than the incapacity of his readers for our author's
+thus disposing of the subject. We believe the world would not give a
+pin's head for all the seas that ever might be painted upon these
+mathematical curves; and that, in painting, even a graduate's "high
+mathematics" are but a very low affair. But let us enliven the reader
+with something really high--and here is, in very high-flown prose,
+part of a description of a waterfall; and it will tell him a secret,
+that in the midst of these fine falls, nature keeps a furnace and
+steam-engine continually at work, and having the fire at hand, sends
+up rockets--if you doubt--read:--"And how all the hollows of that foam
+burn with green fire, like so much _shattering chrysoprase_; and how,
+ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray
+leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind,
+and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through
+the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue
+of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky
+through white rain-cloud, while the shuddering iris stoops in
+tremulous stillness over all, fading and flashing alternately through
+the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among
+the thick golden leaves, which toss to and fro in sympathy with the
+wild water, their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of
+loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again
+upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away." "Satque superque
+satis"--we cannot go on. There is nothing like calling things by their
+contraries--it is truly startling. Whenever you speak of water, treat
+it as fire--of fire, _vice versa_, as water; and be sure to send them
+all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look
+into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find
+to come from χρυσος gold, and πρασον a leek, and means a precious
+stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine"--the
+reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine. But there
+is a discovery--"I believe, when you have stood by this for half an
+hour, you will have discovered that there is something more in nature
+than has been given by Ruysdaël." You will indeed--if this be nature!
+But, alas, what have we not to undergo--to discover what water is, and
+to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that
+he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo
+any thing. Ariel was nothing in his ubiquity to him, though he put a
+span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for
+the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the
+opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have,
+cannot face it. To hold by a mast or rock, and watch it, is a
+prolonged endurance of drowning, which few people have courage to go
+through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons in
+nature." Very few people, indeed, and those few "involuntary
+experimentalists."
+
+We are glad to get on dry land again, "brown furze or any thing"--and
+here we must question one of his truths of vegetation: he asserts,
+that the stems of all trees, the "ordinary trees of Europe, do not
+taper, but grow up or out, in undiminished thickness, till they throw
+out branch and bud, and then go off again to the next of equal
+thickness." We have carefully examined many trees this last week, and
+find it is not the case; in almost all, the bulging at the bottom,
+nearest the root, is manifest. There is an early association in our
+minds, that the birch for instance is remarkably tapering in its
+twigs. We would rather refer our "sworn measurer" to the factor than
+the painter, and we very much question whether his "top and top" will
+meet the market. We are satisfied the fact is not as he states it, and
+surely nature works not by such measure rule. We suspect, for nature
+we should here read Turner, for his trees, certainly, are strange
+things; it is true, he generally shirks them. We do not remember one
+picture that has a good, true, _bona fide_, conspicuous tree in it.
+The reader will not be surprised to learn that the worst painter of
+trees was Gaspar Poussin! and that the perfection of trees is to be
+found in Turner's "Marley," where most people will think the trees
+look more like brooms than trees. The chapter on "the Truth of Turner"
+concludes with a quotation--we presume the extract from a letter from
+Mr Turner to the author. If so, Mr Turner has somewhat caught the
+author's style, and tells very simple truths in a very fine manner,
+thus:--"I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make
+_them_ tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this,
+and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the
+night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read
+this, and interpret this, and let us feel together." We must pause.
+Really we do not see the slightest necessity of an interpretation
+here. It is a simple fact. He cannot extract "sunbeams" from
+cucumbers--from the east, we should say. The only riddle seems to be,
+that they should, in one instance, remember together, and in the
+other, feel together; only we guess that, being night-gloom, people
+naturally feel about them in the dark. But he proceeds--"And if you
+have not that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not
+the sun in your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words
+may awaken, though they be indistinct and swift, leave me." We must
+pause again; here _is_ a riddle: what can be the meaning of having the
+sun in one's spirit?--is it any thing like having the moon in one's
+head? We give it up. The passion in the heart we suppose to be dead
+asleep, and the words and voice harsh and grating, and so it is
+awakened. But what that if, or if not, has to do with "leave me," we
+cannot conjecture; but this we do venture to conjecture, that to
+expect our graduate ever to _leave_ Mr Turner is one of the most
+hopeless of all Mr Turner's "Fallacies of Hope." But the writer
+proceeds with a _for_--that appears, nevertheless, a pretty
+considerable _non-sequitur_. "For I will give you no patient mockery,
+no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am and whom I
+serve." Here the graduate is treated as a servant, and the writer of
+the letter assumes the Pythian, the truly oracular vein. "Let other
+servants imitate the voice and the gesture of their master while they
+forget his message. Hear that message from me, but remember that the
+teaching of Divine Truth must still be a mystery." "Like master like
+man." Both are in the "Cambyses' vein."
+
+We do not think that landscape painters will either gain or lose much
+by the publication of this volume, unless it be some mortification to
+be so sillily lauded as some of our very respectable painters are. We
+do not think that the pictorial world, either in taste or practice,
+will be Turnerized by this palpably fulsome, nonsensical praise. In
+this our graduate is _semper idem_, and to keep up his idolatry to the
+sticking-point, terminates the volume with a prayer, and begs all the
+people of England to join in it--a prayer to Mr Turner!
+
+
+
+
+A ROYAL SALUTE.
+
+
+"Should you like to be a queen, Christina?"
+
+This question was addressed by an old man, whose head was bent
+carefully over a chess-board, to a young lady who was apparently
+rather tired of the lesson she had taken in that interesting game.
+
+"Queen of hearts, do you mean?" answered the girl, patting with the
+greatest appearance of fondness a dreadfully ugly little dog that lay
+in her lap.
+
+"Queen of hearts," replied the minister, with a smile; "you are that
+already, my dear. But have you no other ambition?" he added, tapping
+sagaciously the lid of a magnificently ornamented snuff-box, on which
+was depicted one of the ugliest monarchs that ever puzzled a
+court-painter to make him human.
+
+"Why should my ambition go further?" said Christina. "I have more
+subjects already than I know how to govern."
+
+"No doubt--no doubt--I knew very well that you could not avoid having
+subjects; but I hope and trust you have had too much sense to receive
+their allegiance."
+
+The old man was proud of carrying on the metaphor so well, and of
+asking the question so delicately. It was quite evident he had been in
+the diplomatic line.
+
+"How can I help it?" enquired the young beauty, passing her hand over
+the back of the disgusting little pet, which showed its teeth in a
+very uncouth fashion whenever the paternal voice was raised a little
+too high. "But, I assure you, I pay no attention to allegiance, which
+I consider my right. There is but one person's homage I care for"----
+
+The brow of the Prime Minister of Sweden grew very black, and his face
+had something of the benign expression of the growling pug on his
+daughter's knee.
+
+"Who is that person, Christina?"
+
+But Christina looked at her father with an alarmed glance, which she
+shortly after converted into a smile, and went on in her pleasing
+occupation of smoothing the raven down of her favourite, but did not
+say a word.
+
+The father, who seemed to be no great judge of pantomime, repeated his
+question.
+
+"Who is that person, Christina?"
+
+Christina disdained hypocrisy, and, moreover, was immensely spoiled.
+
+"Who _should_ it be, but your gallant nephew, Adolphus Hesse, dear
+father?"
+
+"You haven't had the impudence, I hope, to engage yourself to that
+boy?"
+
+"Boy--why he is twenty-one! He is my oldest friend--we learned all our
+lessons together. I can't recollect the time we were not engaged, it
+is so long since we loved each other!"
+
+"Nonsense! You were brought up together by his mother; it is nothing
+but sisterly affection."
+
+"Not at all--not at all!" cried Christina; "it would make me quite
+miserable if Adolphus were my brother."
+
+"It is all you must think him, nevertheless. He has no fortune; he has
+nothing but his commission; and my generosity is"----
+
+"Immense, my dear father; inexhaustible! And then Adolphus is so
+brave--so magnanimous; and, upon my word, when I saw how much he liked
+me, and heard him speak so much more delightfully than any body else,
+I never thought of asking if he was rich; and you know you love him
+yourself, dear father."
+
+Christina neglected the pug in her lap for a moment, and laid her hand
+coaxingly on the old man's shoulder.
+
+"But not enough to make him my heir," said the Count, gruffly.
+Christina renewed her attentions to the dog.
+
+"He would be your heir notwithstanding," she said, "if I were to die."
+
+There was something in the tone of her voice, or the idea suggested of
+her death, that softened the old man. He looked for a long time at the
+young and beautiful face of his child; and the shade of uneasiness her
+words had raised, disappeared from his brow.
+
+"There is nothing but life there," he said, gently tapping her on the
+forehead; "and therefore I must marry you, my girl!"
+
+"And you will make us the happiest couple in the world. Adolphus will
+be so grateful," said Christina, her bright eyes sparkling through
+tears.
+
+"Who the devil said a word about Adolphus?" said the father, looking
+angrily at Christina; but he added immediately in a softer tone, when
+he saw the real emotion of his daughter--"Poor girl, you have been
+sadly spoiled! You have had too much of your own way, and now you ask
+me to do what is impossible. Be a reasonable girl, there's a darling!
+and your aunt will present you at court. You will see such grand
+things--you will know our gallant young King--only be reasonable!"
+
+"The rude monster!" cried Christina, starting up as if tired of the
+conversation. "I have no wish to know him. They say he hates women."
+
+"A calumny, my dear girl; he is very fond of _one_ at all events."
+
+"Is she pretty?"
+
+"And mischievous as yourself."
+
+"As I?" enquired Christina, and fell into a long reverie, while the
+Count smiled as if he had made an excellent hit.
+
+"But I have never seen him, papa," she said, awakening all of a
+sudden.
+
+"He may have seen you though; and he says"----
+
+"Oh, what does he say? Do tell me what the King says?"
+
+"Poh! What do you want to know about what a rude monster says--that
+hates women?" answered the father with another smile of satisfaction.
+
+"But he is a king, papa! What does he say? I am quite anxious to
+know."
+
+But the minister of state had gained his object; he had excited
+curiosity, and determined not to gratify it. At last he said, as he
+rose to quit the apartment--"Let us turn the conversation, Christina;
+we have nothing to do with kings, and must content ourselves with
+humbler subjects. An officer will sup with us to-night, whom I wish
+you very much to please. He has influence with the King; and if you
+have any regard for my interest you will receive him well. I intend
+him for your husband."
+
+"I won't have him!" cried Christina, running after her father as he
+left the room. "I won't have him! If I don't marry Adolphus, I won't
+marry at all!"
+
+"Heaven grant it, sweet cousin!" said Adolphus Hesse in _propria
+persona_, emerging from behind the window-curtains, where, by some
+miraculous concatenation of events, he had found himself ensconced for
+the last hour. "'Tis delightful to act the spy, and hear an advocate
+so persuasive as you have been, Christina--but the cause is
+desperate."
+
+"Who told you, sir, the cause was desperate?" said Christina,
+pretending to look offended. "The battle is half gained--my father's
+anger disappears in a moment. Now, dear Adolphus, don't sigh--don't
+cross your arms--don't look up to the sky with that heroic frown--I
+can't bear to groan and be dismal--I want to be gay--to have a
+ball--to----We shall have _such_ a ball the day of our wedding,
+Adolphus!"
+
+"Your hopes deceive you, dearest Christina. I know your father better
+than you do. Ah!" he added, gazing sadly on the beautiful features of
+the young girl who looked on him so brightly, "you will never be able
+to resist the brilliant offer that will be made you in exchange for
+one faithful, loving heart."
+
+"Indeed!" replied Christina, feeling her eyes filling with tears, but
+endeavouring at the same time to conceal her emotion under an
+affectation of anger, "your opinion of me is not very flattering; and
+it is not in very good taste, methinks, to play the despairing lover,
+especially after the conversation you so honourably overheard."
+
+"Dry that tear, dear girl!" said Adolphus, "I will believe any thing
+you like."
+
+"Why do you make me cry then? Is it only to have the pleasure of
+telling me to dry my tears? Or did you think you had some rival; some
+splendid cavalier that it was impossible to resist--Count Ericson, for
+instance?"
+
+"Oh! as to Ericson I am not at all uneasy. I know you hate him; and
+besides he is not much richer than myself; but, dear Christina"----
+
+"Well--go on," said the girl, mocking the lugubrious tone of her
+cousin--"what are you sighing again for?"
+
+"Your father is going to bring you a new lover this evening, and poor
+Adolphus will be forgotten."
+
+"You deserve it for all your ridiculous suspicions: but you are my
+cousin, and I forgive you this once." She looked at him with so sunny
+a smile, and so clear and open-hearted a countenance, that it was
+impossible to entertain a doubt.
+
+"You love me really, then?" he said--"truly--faithfully?"
+
+"I have told you so a hundred times," replied his cousin. "I am
+astonished you are not tired of hearing the same thing over and over
+again."
+
+"'Tis so sweet, so new a thing for me," said Adolphus, "and I could
+listen to it for ever."
+
+"Well, then, we love each other--that's very clear," said Christina,
+with the solemnity of the foreman of a jury delivering a verdict on
+the clearest evidence; "but since my father won't let us marry, we
+must wait--that is almost as clear as the other."
+
+"And if he never consents?" enquired Adolphus.
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Christina, to whom such an idea seemed never to
+have occurred, "can it be possible he will _never_ consent?"
+
+"I fear it is too possible," replied Adolphus, and the shadow fell on
+his face again.
+
+"Well," said Christina, after a minute's pause, as if she had come to
+a resolution, "we must always stay as we are. Happiness is never
+increased by an act of disobedience."
+
+"I think as you do," said the young soldier, admiring her all the more
+for the death-blow to his hopes; "and are you happy, quite happy,
+Christina?"
+
+"What a question! Don't I see you every day? Isn't every body kind to
+me? Is there any thing I want?"
+
+A different answer would have pleased the lover more. He looked at her
+for some time in silence--at last, in an altered tone, he said--
+
+"I congratulate you on your prudence, Christina."
+
+"I cannot break my father's heart."
+
+"No, but mine, Christina!"
+
+"Adolphus," said the young beauty solemnly, "if I cannot be your wife
+with the consent of my father, I never will marry another. This is all
+you can ask; all I can promise."
+
+Filial affection was not quite so strong in Adolphus as in his cousin,
+and his face was by no means brightened on hearing this declaration.
+It was so uncommonly proper that it seemed nearly bordering on the
+cold and heartless. He tried to hate her; he walked up and down the
+room at a tremendous pace, stopping every now and then to take another
+glance at the tyrant who had pronounced his doom, and looked as
+beautiful as ever. He found it impossible to hate _her_, though we
+shall not enquire what were his sentiments towards her worthy
+progenitor, Count Ericson, the unknown lover, and even the young
+heroic King; for the sagacious reader must now be informed that this
+wonderful lovers' quarrel took place in the reign of Charles XII. Our
+fear is that he disliked all four. Christina found it very difficult
+to preserve the gravity essential to a heroine's appearance when she
+saw the long strides and bent brows of her lover. A smile was ready,
+on the slightest provocation, to make a dimple in her beautiful cheek,
+and all the biting she bestowed on her lips only made them redder and
+rosier. Adolphus had no inclination to smile, and could not believe
+that any body could see the least temptation to indulge in such a
+ridiculous occupation on such a momentous occasion. He was a regular
+lover, as Mr Weller would say, and no mistake. He saw in his fair
+cousin only a treasure of inestimable price, guarded by two monsters
+that made his approaches hopeless--avarice and ambition. How
+differently those two young people viewed the same event! Christina,
+knowing her power over her father, and unluckily not knowing that
+fathers (even though they are prime ministers, and are as
+courtier-like as Polonius) have flinty hearts when their interests are
+concerned, saw nothing in the present state of affairs to despair
+about; and in fact, as we have said already, was nearly committing the
+unpardonable crime of laughing at the grimaces of her cousin. He, poor
+fellow, knew the world a little better, and perceived in a moment that
+the new lover whom the ambitious father was going to present to his
+daughter, was some favourite of the king; and he was well aware, that
+any one backed by that impetuous monarch, was in a fair way to
+success. The king had seen Christina too--and though despising love
+himself, was in the habit of rewarding his favourite officers with the
+hand of the beauties or heiresses of his court; and when, as in this
+instance, the lady chosen was both--how could he doubt that the king
+had already resolved that she should be the bride of some lucky rival,
+against whose claims it would be impossible to contend? And Christina
+standing all the while before him, scarcely able to restrain a laugh!
+He was only twenty-one--and not half so steady as his grandfather
+would probably have shown himself in the same circumstances, and being
+unable to vent his rage on any body else, he poured it all forth upon
+himself.
+
+"What a fool I have been!--an ass--a dolt--to have been so blinded!
+But I see now--I deserve all I have got! To have been so deceived by
+an absurd fit of love--that has lasted all my life, too! But no!--I
+shall not repay my uncle's kindness to me by robbing him of his only
+child. I shall go at once to my regiment--I may be lucky enough to get
+into the way of a cannon--you will think kindly of me when I am gone,
+though you are so unk"----
+
+The word died away upon his lips. Large tears filled Christina's eyes,
+and all her inclination to smile had disappeared. There was something
+either in his looks or the tone of his voice, or the thought of his
+being killed, that banished all her gaiety; and in a few minutes the
+quarrel was made up--the tears dried in the usual manner--vows
+made--hands joined--and resolutions passed and carried with the utmost
+unanimity, that no power on earth should keep them from being married.
+And a very good resolution it was. The only pity was, that it was not
+very likely to be carried into effect. A father, an unknown lover, and
+a king, all joined against a poor boy and girl. The odds are very much
+against Adolphus and Christina.
+
+Now let us examine the real state of affairs as dispassionately as we
+can. The Count Gyllenborg was ambitious, as became a courtier with an
+only daughter who was acknowledged on all sides to be the most
+beautiful girl in Sweden; and as he was aware of the full value of red
+lips and sparkling eyes in the commerce of life, he was determined to
+make the most of these perishable commodities while they were at their
+best, and the particular make and colour of them were in fashion. The
+Count was rich--and with amply sufficient brains, according to the
+dictum of one of his predecessors, to govern a kingdom; but he was not
+warlike; and Charles, who had lately taken the power into his own
+hands, knew nothing of mankind further than that they were made to be
+drawn up in opposite lines, and make holes in each other as
+scientifically as they could. Count Gyllenborg had a decided objection
+to being made a receptacle for lead bullets or steel swords; and was
+by no means anxious to murder a single Russian or German, for the sake
+of the honour of the thing, or for the good of his country. His power
+resting only on his adroitness in civil affairs, was therefore not on
+the surest foundation; and a prop to it was accordingly wanted. Such a
+prop had never been seen before, with such sunny looks, and such a
+happy musical laugh. The looks and the laugh between them, converted
+the atmosphere of Stockholm into the climate of Italy; and the
+politician, almost without knowing it, began to be thawed into a
+father. But the fear of a rival in the King's favour--some gallant
+soldier--and dozens of them were reported every week--made him resolve
+once more to bring his daughter's beauties into play. The king had
+seen her, and, in his boorish way, had expressed his admiration; and
+Gyllenborg felt assured, that if he should marry his daughter
+according to the King's wishes, his influence would be greater than
+ever; and, in fact, that the premiership would be his for life.
+
+Great preparations accordingly were made for the reception of the
+powerful stranger, the announcement of whose appearance at supper had
+spread such dismay in the hearts of the two lovers. Christina knew
+almost instinctively her father's plan, and determined to counteract
+it. She felt sure that the officer for whom she was destined, and whom
+she had been ordered to receive so particularly, was one of the new
+favourites of the warlike king; some leader of a forlorn-hope, created
+colonel on the field of battle; some young general fresh from some
+heroic achievement, that had endeared him to his chief; but whoever it
+was, she was resolved to show him that the crown of Sweden was a very
+limited monarchy in regard to its female subjects, and that she would
+have nobody for her husband--neither count, nor colonel, nor
+general--but only her cousin Adolphus, lieutenant in the Dalecarlian
+hussars. Notwithstanding this resolution, it is astonishing what a
+time she stayed before the glass--how often she tried different
+coloured roses in her hair--how carefully she fitted on her new
+Parisian robes, and, in short, did every thing in her power to look
+her very best. What did all this arise from? She wished to show this
+young favourite, whoever he might be, that she was really as beautiful
+as people had told him; she wished to convince him that her smile was
+as sweet, her teeth as white, her eyes as captivating, her figure as
+superb, as he had heard them described--and then she wished to show
+him that all these--smiles--eyes--teeth--figure, were given, along
+with the heart that made them truly valuable, to another! and that
+other no favourite of a king--nor even of a minister, but only of a
+young girl of eighteen.
+
+Radiant with beauty, and conscious of the sensation she was certain to
+create, she entered the magnificent apartment where supper was
+prepared--a supper splendid and costly enough to have satisfied a
+whole army of epicures, though only intended for her father, the
+stranger, and herself; and if you, oh reader! had been there, you
+would have thought Christina lovely enough to have excited the
+admiration of a whole court instead of an old man--and that, too, her
+father--and a young one, and that none other, to Christina's infinite
+disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had
+already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He
+was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had
+furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since
+she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different
+from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than
+at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What
+can papa mean by asking such a horrid being to his house? I am certain
+I shall laugh outright if I look again at his silly grey eyes and long
+yellow hair, as ragged as a pony's mane."
+
+Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if
+possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And
+in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness
+of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure--large-boned and
+stiff-backed--that now stood before her--with a nose so absurdly
+aquiline that it would have done for a caricature--coarse-skinned
+cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly
+frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed.
+And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by
+the higher powers for her husband--was this night to be treated as her
+accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day
+with her father--settling all the preliminaries of course--for the last
+six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the
+triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him--that
+is, in the affirmative.
+
+But thoughts of affirmatives and negatives did not seem to enter
+Count Ericson's head--his grammatical education having probably been
+neglected. He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger may be supposed to
+cast insinuating looks upon a lamb, and made every now and then an
+attempt to conceal either his awkwardness, or satisfaction, or both,
+in immense fits of laughter, which formed the accompaniment of all
+the remarks--and they were nearly as heavy as himself--with which he
+favoured the company. Christina, on her part, if she had given way
+to the dictates of her indignation, would have also favoured the
+company with a few remarks, that in all probability would have put a
+stop to the laughter of the lover, and choked her old father by
+making a fish-bone stick in his throat. She was angry for twenty
+reasons, one of them was having wasted a moment over her toilette to
+receive such a visitor as Count Ericson; another was her father
+having dared to offer her hand to such an uncouth wooer and
+intolerable bore; and the principal one of all, was his having
+rejected his own nephew--undoubtedly the handsomest of Dalecarlian
+hussars--in favour of such a vulgar, ugly individual. The subject of
+these flattering considerations seemed to feel at last that he ought
+to say something to the young beauty, on whose pouting lip had
+gathered something which was very different indeed from a smile, and
+yet nearly as captivating. He accordingly turned his large light
+eyes from his plate for a moment, and with a mouth still filled with
+a leg and wing of a capercailzie, enquired--
+
+"What do you think of Alexander the Great, madam?"
+
+This was too much. Even her rage disappeared, and she burst into a
+loud laugh at the serious face of the querist.
+
+"I never think of Alexander the Great at all," she said. "I only
+recollect, that when I was reading his history, I could hardly make
+out whether he was most of a fool or a madman."
+
+Ericson swallowed the leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any
+further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of
+the most prodigious courage the world had ever seen.
+
+"If he had been as prodigiously wise," replied Christina, "as he was
+prodigiously courageous, he would have learned to govern himself
+before he attempted to govern the world."
+
+Ericson blushed from chin to forehead with vexation, and answered in
+an offended tone--
+
+"How can a woman enter into the fever of noble thoughts that impels a
+brave man to rush into the midst of dangers, and leads him to despise
+life and all its petty enjoyments to gain undying fame?"
+
+"No, indeed," she replied, "I have no fever, and have no sympathy with
+destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame, I should try to gain it by
+gathering round me the blessings of all who saw me! Yes, father," she
+went on, paying no regard to the signs and winks of the agonized Count
+Gyllenborg, "I would rather that countless thousands should live to
+bless me, than that they should die in heaping curses on my name!
+Men-killers--though you dignify them with the name of heroes--are
+atrocious. Let us speak of them, my lord, no more, unless to pray
+heaven to rid the earth of such monsters."
+
+A feather of the smallest of birds would have knocked down the Prime
+Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson appeared, from his stupefied
+look, to have gone through the process already--the difficulty was to
+lift him up again.
+
+"Come, Count," cried the Minister, filling up Ericson's glass with
+champagne, "to Alexander's glory!"
+
+"With all my heart," cried Ericson, moistening his rage with the
+delicious sparkler. "Come, fair savage," he added, addressing
+Christina, and touching her glass with such force that it fell in a
+thousand pieces on the table--"to Alexander's glory!"
+
+"I have no wish to drink to such a toast," replied Christina, more
+offended than ever; "I can't endure those scourges of human kind who
+hide the skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe."
+
+"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to
+begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst
+from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly
+thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she
+know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog.
+She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a
+hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"
+
+The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not
+in Sweden--nor probably in Denmark either--and the cunning old
+minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on
+the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually
+touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of
+the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little
+goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion
+on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I
+believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a
+good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if
+you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an
+infinite obligation on both of us."
+
+Saying this, he lifted with his own ministerial fingers a small table
+from a corner of the room, and placed it in front of the youthful
+couple, with the men all ready laid out. Ericson's eyes sparkled at
+the sight of his favourite game; and he determined to display his
+utmost skill, and teach his antagonist a few secrets of the art of
+(mimic) war. But determinations, as has been remarked by several
+sages, past and present, are sometimes vain. Nothing, one would think,
+could be so likely to restore a man's self-possession as a quiet game
+of chess--an occupation as efficacious in soothing the savage breast
+as music itself. But Ericson seemed still agitated from the
+contradictions he had encountered from the free-spoken Christina, and
+threw a little more politeness into his manner than he had hitherto
+vouchsafed to show, when he invited her to be his adversary in a game.
+
+"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously, holding up one of the fair
+fingers to which his attention had been so particularly called, and
+implying by the question, if you get angry when I only refuse your
+toast, won't you eat me if I am the winner at chess? "But, if I beat
+you?" she said.
+
+"That will not be the only occasion on which you will have triumphed
+over me, you--you"----He seemed greatly at a loss for a word, and
+concluded his speech with--"beauty!" This expression, which was, no
+doubt, intended for the most complimentary he could find, was
+accompanied with a look of admiration so long, so broad, and so
+impudent, that she blushed, and a squeeze of her hand so hard, so
+rough, and so continued, that she screamed. She threw a glance of
+inexpressible disdain on the insolent wooer, and looked for protection
+to her father; but that venerable individual was at that moment so
+sound asleep on one of the sofas at the other end of the room, that no
+noise whatever could have awakened him. Ericson seemed totally unmoved
+by all the contempt she could express in her looks, and probably
+thought he was in a thriving condition, from the fact (somewhat
+unusual) of his being looked at at all. She lost her temper
+altogether. She covered her cheek, which was flushed with anger, with
+the little hand that was reddened with pain, and resolved to play her
+worst to spite her ill-mannered antagonist. But all her attempts at
+bad play were useless. The board shook beneath the immense hands of
+Ericson, who was in a tremendous state of agitation, and hardly knew
+the pieces. He pushed then hither and thither--made his knights slide
+along with the episcopal propriety of bishops, and made his bishops
+caracole across the squares with the unseemly elasticity of knights.
+His game got into such confusion, that Christina could not avoid
+winning, and at last--enjoying the victory she had determined not to
+win--she cried out, with a voice of triumph, "Check to the king by the
+queen."
+
+"Cruel girl!" exclaimed the Count, dashing his hand among the pieces
+with an energy that scattered them all upon the floor. "Haven't you
+been anxious to make the king your prisoner?"
+
+"But there is nothing to hinder him from saving himself," answered
+Christina, looking round once more to her father, who, however,
+pursued his slumber with the utmost assiduity and had apparently a
+very agreeable dream, for a smile was evident at the corners of his
+mouth. "It is impossible to place the board as it was," she continued,
+trying to gather up the pieces, and place castles, knights, and pawns
+in their proper position again.
+
+"Don't try it--don't try it," cried Ericson, losing all command of
+himself, and pushing the board away from him, till it spun over with
+all its men on the carpet. "The game is over--you have given me check,
+and mated me!" And in a moment, as if ashamed of the influence
+exercised over him by so very unwarlike an individual as a little girl
+of eighteen, he hurried from the room, stumbling over his enormous
+sword, which got, somehow or other, between his legs, and cursing his
+awkwardness and the absurd excess of admiration which caused it.
+
+"That man will surely never come here again," said Christina to her
+father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the
+chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his
+rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had
+been the most fascinating of men.
+
+"Not come here again!" chuckled the father. "That's all you know about
+it. He is dying with impatience to return, and is angry with himself
+for having wasted the two precious hours of your society in the way he
+did. He never had two such happy hours in his life."
+
+"Happy! is that what he calls happiness?" answered Christina, opening
+her eyes in amazement. "I don't know what his notions may be--but
+mine----oh, father!" she cried, emboldened by the smile she saw on the
+old man's countenance, "you are only trying me; say you are only
+proving my constancy, by persuading me that such a being as that has
+any wish to please me. He is more in love with Alexander the Great
+than with me; and he is quite right, for he has a far better chance of
+a return."
+
+"An enthusiasm excusable, my dear, in a young warrior of twenty years
+of age, whose savage ambition it will be your delightful task to tame.
+He is in a terrible state of agitation--a most flattering thing, let
+me tell you, to a young gipsy like you--and you must humour him a
+little, and not break out quite so fiercely, you minx; and yet you
+managed very well, too. A fine fellow, Ericson, though a little wild;
+rich, powerful, nobly born--what can you wish for better?"
+
+"My cousin," answered Christina, with a bluntness that astonished the
+advocate of Ericson's claims; "my cousin Adolphus, and no other. He is
+braver than this savage; and as to nobility, he is as nobly born as my
+own right honourable papa, and that is high enough for me."
+
+"Go, go," said the courtier, a little puzzled by the openness of his
+daughter's confession, and kissing her forehead at the same time; "go
+to bed, my girl, and pray for your father's advancement."
+
+Christina, like a dutiful child, prayed as she was told for her
+father's success and happiness, and then added a petition of her own,
+shorter, perhaps, but quite as sincere, for her cousin Adolphus. If
+she added one for herself, it was a work of supererogation, for she
+felt that in praying for the happiness of her lover, she was not
+unmindful of her own.
+
+For some days after the supper recorded above, she was too happy
+tormenting the very object of all these aspirations, to trouble her
+head about the awkward and ill-mannered protégé of her father, whom
+she hated with as much cordiality as the most jealous of rivals could
+desire. But of course she was extremely careful to let no glimpse of
+this unchristian feeling towards Count Ericson be perceptible to the
+person who would have rejoiced in it so much. In fact, she carried her
+philanthropy to such a pitch, that she never mentioned any of the bad
+qualities of her new admirer, and Adolphus very naturally concluded
+that she felt as she spoke on the interesting subject. So, all of a
+sudden, Adolphus, who was prouder than Christina, perhaps because he
+was poorer, would not condescend to be made a fool of, as he
+magnanimously thought it, any longer. He had the immense satisfaction
+of staying away from the house for nearly half a week, and then, when
+he did pay a visit, he was almost as cold as the formal piece of
+diplomacy in the bag-wig and ruffles whom he called his uncle; and a
+great deal stiffer than the beautiful piece of pique, in silk gown and
+white satin corset, whom he called his cousin. Christina was dismayed
+at the sudden change--Adolphus never spoke to her, seldom looked at
+her, and evidently left the coast clear--so she thought--for the rich
+and powerful rival her father had so strongly supported. After much
+thinking, some sulkiness, and a good many fits of crying, Christina
+resolved, as the best way of recovering her own peace of mind, and the
+love of her cousin Adolphus, to put an end in a very decided manner to
+the pretensions of the Count. One day, accordingly, she watched her
+opportunity, and followed with anxious eyes her father's retreat from
+the room, under pretence of some important despatches to be sent off.
+She found herself alone with the object of her dislike--and only
+waited for a beginning to the conversation, that she might astonish
+his weak mind with the severity of her invectives. In fact, she had
+determined, according to the vulgar phrase, to tell him a bit of her
+mind--and a very small bit of it, she was well aware, would be
+sufficient to satisfy Count Ericson of the condition of all the rest.
+But the lover was in a contemplative mood, and stood as silent as a
+milestone, and looking almost as animated and profound. She sighed,
+she coughed, she drops her handkerchief. All wouldn't do--the
+milestone took no notice--Christina at last grew angry, and could
+contain herself no longer.
+
+"I dreamt of you last night," she said by way of a beginning. "I hope
+in future you will leave my sleep undisturbed by your presumptuous
+presence. It is bad enough to be forced to see you when one is awake."
+
+"And I, also, had a dream," replied Ericson, starting from his
+reverie, confused and only having heard the first part of the somewhat
+fierce attack. "I dreamt that you looked at me with a smile, a long,
+long look, so sweet, so winning. It was a happy dream!"
+
+"It was a false one," she said, with tremendous bitterness. "I know
+better where to direct my smiles, whether I am awake or asleep."
+
+"And how did I appear to you?" asked the Count, presenting a splendid
+specimen in his astonished look of the state of mind called "the
+dumfoundered" by some learned philosophers, and by others "the
+flabbergasted."
+
+"You appeared to me like the nightmare! frightful and unsupportable as
+you do to me now," was the answer, accompanied with the look and
+manner that showed she was a judge of nightmares, and thought him a
+very unfavourable specimen of the animal.
+
+"Ill-natured little tyrant!" cried Ericson, rushing to her, "teach me
+how you would have me love you, and I will do everything you ask!" In
+a moment he had seized her in his arms, and imprinted a kiss of
+prodigious violence on her cheek, which was redder than fire with rage
+and surprise!
+
+But the assault did not go unpunished. The might of Samson woke in
+that insulted bosom, and lent such incredible weight to the blow that
+fell on the aggressor's ear, that it took him a long time to believe
+that the thump proceeded from the beautiful little hand he had so
+often admired; or, in short, from any thing but a twenty-four pounder.
+He rubbed the wounded organ with astonishing assiduity for some time.
+At last he said, in a very calm and measured voice,
+
+"Your father has deceived me, young lady. He led me to believe you did
+not receive my visits with indifference."
+
+"My father knows nothing about things of that kind," replied
+Christina, still flaming with indignation, "or he never would have let
+such an ill-mannered monster into his house. But he was right in
+saying I did not receive your visits with indifference; your visits,
+Count Ericson, can never be indifferent to me, and"----
+
+What more she would have said, it is impossible to discover, for she
+was interrupted by the sudden entrance of her cousin, who only heard
+her last words, and started back at what he considered so open a
+declaration of her attachment.
+
+"Who are you, sir?" asked Ericson in an angry tone, and with such an
+assumption of superiority, that Christina's hand tingled to give him a
+mark of regard on his other ear.
+
+"A soldier," answered Adolphus, drawing his sword from its sheath and
+instead of directing it against his rival, laying it haughtily on the
+table. "A soldier who has bled for his country, and would be happy,"
+he added, "to die for it."
+
+"Say you so?" said Ericson, "then we are friends." He held out his
+hand.
+
+"We are rivals," replied Adolphus, drawing back.
+
+"Christina loves you, then?" enquired the Count.
+
+"She has told me so; and I was foolish enough to believe her. It is
+now your turn to trust to the truth of a heartless woman.--She has
+told you you are not an object of indifference to her, and I resign my
+pretensions in your favour."
+
+"In whose favour?" cried Christina, trembling; while tears sprang to
+her eyes.
+
+"The King's!" replied Adolphus, retiring sorrowfully.
+
+Christina sank on a seat, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Stay," cried Charles the Twelfth in a voice of thunder; "stay, I
+command you."
+
+The young man obeyed; biting his lip to conceal his emotion, till the
+blood came.
+
+"I have seen you," said the King, "but not in this house."
+
+"It was shut against me by my uncle when you were expected," said
+Adolphus.
+
+"And yet I have seen you somewhere. What is your name?"
+
+"Adolphus Hesse; the son of a brave officer who died fighting for you,
+and leaving me his misfortunes and the tears of his widow."
+
+"Who told you I was not Count Ericson?"
+
+"My eyes. I know you well."
+
+"And I recollect you also," said Charles, advancing to the young man
+with a manner very different from that which characterized him in his
+intercourse with the softer sex. "Where did you get that scar on the
+left temple?"
+
+"At Nerva, sire, where we tamed the pride of the Russians."
+
+"True, true!" cried Charles, his nostrils dilated as if he snuffed up
+the carnage of the battle. "You need but this as your passport," he
+continued, placing his finger on the wound, "to ask me any favour, ay,
+even to measure swords with you, as I daresay you would be delighted
+to do in so noble a quarrel as the present; for on the day of that
+glorious fight, I learned, like you, the duty of a soldier, and the
+true dignity of a brave man. By the balls that rattled about our heads
+so playfully, give me your hand, brother, for we were baptized
+together in fire!"
+
+Charles appeared to Christina, at this time, quite a different man
+addressing his fellow soldier, from what he had done upsetting the
+chess-board. Curiosity had dried her eyes, and she lost not a word of
+the conversation. The King turned to her with a smile.
+
+"By my sword, Christina! I am but a poor wooer; one movement of your
+hand," and he touched his ear playfully as he spoke, "has banished all
+the silly thoughts that in a most traitorous manner had taken my heart
+prisoner. Speak, then, as forcibly as you act. Do you love this brave
+soldier?"
+
+"Yes, sire."
+
+"Who hinders the marriage?"
+
+"The courtship of Count Ericson, with which my father perpetually
+threatens me."
+
+"O ho!" thought Charles, "I see how it is. The King must console
+himself with the kiss, and pass the blow on the ear to the minister.
+Christina," he added aloud, "your father refuses to give you to the
+man you love; but he'll do it now, for _it is my will_. You'll
+confess, I am sure that if I was your nightmare as a lover, I am not
+your enemy as king."
+
+"I confess it on my knees;" replied the humble beauty, taking her
+place beside her cousin, who knelt to his sovereign. While Charles
+joined the hands of the youthful pair, he imprinted a kiss on the fair
+brow of Christina; the last he ever bestowed on woman.
+
+"Your Majesty pardons me then?" enquired the trembling girl. "If I had
+known it was the King, I would not have hit so hard."
+
+That same evening Count Gyllenborg signed a contract of marriage, to
+which the name of Count Ericson was not appended, though it was
+witnessed by Charles the Twelfth; and in a few days afterwards, the
+old politician presided at the wedding dinner, and, by royal command,
+did the honours so nobly, and appeared so well pleased on the
+occasion, that nobody suspected that he had ever had higher dreams of
+ambition than to see his daughter happy; and if such had been his
+object, all Sweden knew that in bestowing her on her cousin he was
+eminently successful.
+
+
+
+
+PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+If Alexander and Archimedes, evoked from their long sleep, were to
+contemplate, with minds calmed by removal from contemporaneous
+interests, the state of mankind in the present year, with what
+different feelings would they regard the influence of their respective
+lives upon the existing human world of 1843! The Macedonian would find
+the empire which it was the labour of his life to aggrandize,
+frittered into parcels, modeled, remodeled, subjected to various
+dynasties; Turks, Greeks, Russians, still contending for portions of
+the territory which he had conjoined only to be dismembered; he would
+find in these little or no trace of his ever having existed; he would
+find that the unity of his vast political power had been severed
+before his body was yet entombed, and his prediction, that his funeral
+obsequies would be performed with bloody hands, verily fulfilled. In
+parts of the world which his living grasp had not seized, he would
+also see little to remind him of his past existence. Would not
+mortification darken the brow of the resuscitated conqueror on
+discovering, that when his name was mentioned in historic annals, it
+was less as a polar star to guide, than as a beacon to be avoided?
+
+What would the Syracusan see in this present epoch to remind him of
+himself? Would he see the man of 212 B.C., at all connected with the
+men of 1843 A.D.? Yes. In Prussia, Austria, France, England, America,
+in every city of every civilized nation, he would find the lever, the
+pulley, the mirror, the specific gravimeter, the geometric
+demonstration; he would trace the influence of his mind in the
+power-loom, the steam-engine, in the building of the Royal Exchange,
+in the Great Britain steam-ship; he would find an application of his
+well-known invention, the subject of a patent, an important auxiliary
+to navigation. Alexander _was_ a hero; Archimedes _is_ one.
+
+Are we guilty of exaggeration in this contrast of the hero of War with
+him of Science? We think not. It may undoubtedly be argued that
+Alexander's life was productive of ultimate good, that he did much to
+open Asia to European civilization; but would that consideration serve
+to soothe the gloomy Shade? To what does it amount but to the
+assertion that out of evil cometh good? It was through no aim of his
+mind that this resulted, nor are mankind indebted to him personally
+for a collateral effect of his existence.
+
+As an instance of men of a more modern era, let us take Napoleon
+Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and James Watt of Greenock, civil
+engineer.
+
+The former applied the energies of a sagacious and comprehensive
+intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his
+more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The
+former was and is, _par excellence_, a hero of history--we should
+scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name
+of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his name to occupy so
+prominent a position? He has been the cause, mediate or immediate, of
+sacrificing the lives of two millions of men.[17]
+
+    [17] From a rough calculation taken from the returns of
+    those left dead on the fields of battle in which
+    Napoleon commanded, from Montenotte to Waterloo, we make
+    the amount 1,811,500; and if we add those who died
+    subsequently of their wounds in the petty skirmishes,
+    the losses in which are not reported, and in the naval
+    fights, of which, though Napoleon was not present, he
+    was the cause, the number given in the text will be far
+    under the mark. A picture of the fathers, mothers,
+    wives, children, and relatives of these victims,
+    receiving the news of their death, would give a lively
+    idea of the benefits conferred upon the world by
+    Napoleon.
+
+Has the obscure Watt done nothing to merit a page in the records of
+mankind? Walk ten miles in any manufacturing district, enter any
+coal-mine, examine the bank of England, travel by the Great Western
+railway, or navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean, the Indian or the
+Atlantic Ocean--in each and all of these, that giant slave, the
+steam-engine, will be seen, an ever-living testimony to the services
+rendered to mankind by its subjugator.
+
+Attachment to a favourite pursuit is undoubtedly calculated to bias
+the judgment; but, however liable may be the obscure votary of science
+to override his hobby, Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of England,
+in ascribing to scientific discoverers a higher merit than to
+legislators, emperors, or patriots, cannot be open to the charge of
+egoistic partiality. What, then, says this illustrious witness?--"The
+introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most
+excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of
+antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred
+only heroical honours upon those who deserve well in civil affairs,
+such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deliverers of their
+country. And whoever rightly considers it, will find this a judicious
+custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend to
+all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats
+of men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few
+ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time.
+Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force
+and perturbation; whilst inventions spread their advantage without
+doing injury or causing disturbance."[18]
+
+    [18] Nov. Org. Aph. 29.
+
+The opinion of a man who had reached the highest point to which a
+civilian could aspire, cannot, when he estimates the honours of the
+Chancellor as inferior to those of the natural philosopher, be
+ascribed to misjudging enthusiasm or personal disappointment. Without,
+however, seeking, for the sake of antithetic contrast, to underrate
+the importance of political services, civil or military, or to
+exaggerate those of the man of science, few, we think, will be
+disposed to deny that, although the one may be temporarily more urgent
+and necessary to the well-being of an existing race, yet that the
+benefits of the other are more lasting and universal. If, then, the
+influence on mankind of the secluded inventor be more extensive and
+durable than that of the active politician--if there be any truth in
+the opinion of Bacon, that the greatest political changes are wrought
+by the peaceful under-current of science; why is it that those who
+occupy the highest place as permanent benefactors of mankind, are,
+during their lifetime, neglected and comparatively unknown;--that they
+obtain neither the tangible advantages of pecuniary emolument, nor the
+more suitable, but less lucrative, honours of grateful homage? It is
+the common cry to exclaim against the neglect of science in the
+present day. Alas! history does not show us that our predecessors were
+more just to their scientific contemporaries. The evil is to a great
+extent remediless, the complaint to some extent irrational, and
+unworthy the dignity of the cause. The labourer in the field of
+science works not for the present, but for succeeding generations; he
+plants oaks for posterity, and must not look for the gratitude of
+contemporaries. Men will remunerate less, and be less grateful for,
+prospective than for present good--for benefits secured to their
+posterity than to themselves; the realization of the advantages is so
+distant, that the amount of discount is coextensive with the debt: it
+is only as the applications of science become more immediate, that the
+cultivators of science can reasonably expect an adequate reward or
+appreciation.
+
+Even when practically applied, we too frequently see that the original
+discoveries of the physical philosopher are but little valued by those
+who make a daily, a most extensive, and a most lucrative use of their
+results. Men _talk_ of "a million;" how few have ever _counted_ one!
+Men walk along the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill; how few think
+of the multiplied passions and powers which flit by them on their
+way--of the separate world which surrounds each passer-by--of the
+separate history, external and internal, of each--each possessing
+feelings, motives of action, characters, differing from the others, as
+the stamp of nature on his brow differs from his fellows! Thus, also,
+men's ears ring with the advancement of science, men's beards wag
+with repetition of the novel powers which have been educed from
+material nature; and if, in our daily traffic, we traverse without
+attention countless sands of thought, how much more, in our hackneyed
+talk of science, do we neglect the debt we owe to thought--thought,
+not the mere normal impulse of humanity, but the carefully elaborated
+lucubration of minds, of which the term _thinking_ is emphatically
+predicable! Names which are met with but once in the annals of
+science, and there, dimly seen as a star of the least magnitude, have
+perhaps earned that remote and obscure corner by painful self-denial,
+by unwearied toil! And yet not only these, but others who have added
+to diligence high mental acumen or profundity, whose wells of thought
+are, compared with those of the general mass, unfathomable, earn but a
+careless, occasional notice--are known but to few of those who daily
+reap the harvest which they have sown, and who even boast of seeing
+further than they did, as the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant can
+see further than the giant. The first step of the unthinking is to
+deny the possibility of a given discovery, the next is to assert that
+any one could have foreseen such discovery.
+
+There are, however, points of higher import than gain or glory to
+which the philosopher must ever look, and the absence of which must be
+a source of bitter disappointment and ground of just complaint. The
+most important of these is, that, by national neglect, the _cause_ of
+science is injured, her progress retarded. Not only is she not
+honoured, she is dishonoured; and in no civilized nation is this
+contempt of physical science carried to a greater extent than in
+England, the country of commerce and of manufactures.
+
+In this country, should a father observe in his gifted son a tendency
+to physical philosophy, he anxiously endeavours to dissuade him from
+this career, knowing that not only will it tend to no worldly
+aggrandizement, but that it will have the inevitable effect of
+lowering his position in what is called, and justly called, good
+society--the society of the most highly educated classes. At one of
+our universities, physical science is utterly neglected; at the other,
+only certain branches of it are cultivated. There are, it is true,
+university professors of each branch of physics, some of whom are able
+to collect a moderate number of pupils; others are obliged to carry
+with them an assistant, to whom alone they lecture, as Dean Swift
+preached to his clerk. But what part of the regular academic education
+does the study of Natural Philosophy occupy? It forms no necessary
+part of the examinations for degrees; no credit is attached to those
+who excel in its pursuit; no prizes, no fellowships, no university
+distinction, conferred upon its most successful votaries. On the
+contrary, physical, or at all events experimental, science is tabooed;
+it is written down "snobbish," and its being so considered has much
+influence in making it so: the necessity of manipulation is a sad
+drawback to the gentlemanliness of a pursuit. Bacon rebuked this
+fastidiousness, but in vain. "We will, moreover, show those who, in
+love with contemplation, regard our frequent mention of experiments as
+something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the
+attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the
+construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same
+principles, and are brought to perfection in a similar manner."[19]
+
+    [19] Impetus Philosophici, p. 681.
+
+Unfortunately, the fact of experimental science being rejected by the
+educated classes and thrown in a great measure upon the artizans of a
+country, has conducted, among other evils, to one of a most
+detrimental character; viz. the want of accuracy in scientific
+language, and consequently the want of accuracy in ideas. Perfection
+in language, as in every thing else, is not to be attained, and
+doubtless there are few of the most highly educated who would not, in
+many cases, assign different meanings to the same word; but if some
+confusion on this subject is unavoidable, how much is that confusion
+increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs
+written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may
+be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that
+accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of
+style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas!
+Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the
+writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them
+any definite meaning, or attach one different from that which the
+authors intended to convey; whence arises a want of reciprocal
+intelligence, a want of unity of thought and purpose. Another defect
+arising from the circumstance that persons of a high order of
+education have not been generally the cultivators of experimental
+science in this country, is, that the path is thereby rendered more
+accessible to empiricism. Science, beautiful in herself, has thence a
+class of deformed disciples, who succeed in entangling their false
+pretensions with the claims of true merit. So much dust is puffed into
+the eyes of the public, that it can hardly distinguish between works
+of durable importance and the ephemeral productions of empirics; and
+those who would otherwise disdain the notoriety acquired by
+advertisement, end in adopting the system as the only means to avoid
+the mortification of seeing their own ideas appropriated and uttered
+in another form and in another's name.[20]
+
+    [20] In any thing we have above said, we trust it is
+    unnecessary to disclaim the slightest intention of
+    discouraging those whose want of conventional advantages
+    only renders their merit more conspicuous; we find fault
+    not with the uneducated for cultivating science, but
+    with the educated for neglecting it.
+
+While the evils to which science is exposed by the necessarily
+unfashionable character of experimental manipulation are neither few
+nor trivial, there are still evils which arise from the directly
+opposite cause--from excess of intellectual cultivation; as is shown
+in the exclusive love of mathematics by a great number of
+philosophers. Minds which, left to themselves, might have eliminated
+the most valuable results, have, dazzled by the lustre cast by fashion
+upon abstract mathematical speculations, lost themselves in a mazy
+labyrinth of transcendentals. The fashion of mathematics has ruined
+many who might be most useful experimentalists; but who, wishing to
+take a higher flight, seek to attain distinction in mathematical
+analysis, and having acquired a certain celebrity for experimental
+research, dissipate, in simple equations, the fame they had acquired
+in a field equally productive, but not so select. Like Claude, who in
+his later years said, "Buy my figures, and I will give you my
+landscapes for nothing;" they fall in love with their own weakness,
+and estimate their merit by the labour they have undergone, not by the
+results they have deduced. M. Comte expresses himself well on this
+subject. "Mathematicians, too frequently taking the means for the end,
+have embarrassed Natural Philosophy with a crowd of analytical
+labours, founded upon hypotheses extremely hazardous, or even upon
+conceptions purely visionary; and consequently sober-minded people can
+see in them really nothing more than simple mathematical exercises, of
+which the abstract value is sometimes very striking, without their
+influence, in the slightest degree, accelerating the natural progress
+of Physics."[21]
+
+    [21] Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 409.
+
+The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have,
+like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in
+number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized
+SOCIETIES, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much
+good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out
+their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries
+of similar branches of study--they do good by the more attainable
+communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will
+not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by
+the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to
+the public the fruits of their labour--they give an _esprit de corps_,
+which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral
+discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the
+collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus
+accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would
+have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their
+institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the
+other hand, they do harm, by becoming the channels of selfish
+speculation, their honorary offices being used as stepping-stones to
+lucrative ones, thereby causing their influential members to please
+the givers of "situations," and to publish the trash of the
+impertinently ambitious, the _Titmice of the Credulous Societies_! The
+ultra-ridiculous parade with which they have decked fair science,
+giving her a vest of unmeaning hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing her
+to the finger of scorn, is another prominent and unsightly feature of
+such societies; they do harm by the cliquerie which they generate,
+collecting little knots of little men, no individual of whom can stand
+his own ground, but a group of whom, by leaning hard together, can,
+and do, exercise a most pernicious influence; seeking petty gain and
+class celebrity, they exert their joint-stock brains to convert
+science into pounds, shillings, and pence; and, when they have managed
+to poke one foot upon the ladder of notoriety, use the other to kick
+furiously at the poor aspirants who attempt to follow them.
+
+It has been frequently and strenuously urged, that these societies, or
+some of them, should be supported by government, and not dependent
+upon the subscriptions of their members. The arguments in favour of
+such a measure are, that by thus being accessible only to merit, and
+not depending upon money, their position would be more honourable and
+advantageous to the progress of science. With regard to such societies
+generally, this proposition is incapable of realization; every year
+sees a new society of this description; to annex many of these to
+government, would involve difficulties which, in the present state of
+politics, would be insurmountable. Who, for instance, would pay taxes
+for them? Another, and more reasonable, proposition is, that the
+government should establish and support one academy as a head and
+front of the others, accessible only to men of high distinction, who
+would be thus constituted the oligarchs of science. Of the advantage
+of this we have some doubts. Politics are already too much mixed up
+with all government appointments in England: their influence is at
+present scarcely felt in science, and we would not willingly risk an
+introduction so fraught with danger. The want of such an academy
+certainly lessens the English in the eyes of the continental _savans_;
+but could not such a one be organized, and perhaps endowed, by
+government, without any permanent connexion with it?
+
+If we compare the proceedings, undoubtedly dignified and decorous, of
+our Royal Society with those of the French Academy, we fear the
+balance will be found to be in favour of the latter. At Somerset
+House, after the list of donations and abstract of former proceedings,
+a paper, or a portion of a paper, is read upon some abstruse
+scientific subject, and the meeting is adjourned in solemn silence, no
+observation can be made upon it, no question asked, or explanation
+given. The public is excluded,[22] and the greater part of the members
+generally exclude themselves, very few having resolution enough to
+leave a comfortable dinner-table to bear the solemn formalities of
+such an evening. The paper is next committed, it is not known to whom,
+reported on in private, and either published, or deposited in the
+_archives of the Society_, according to the judgment of the unknown
+irresponsible parties to whom it is committed. Let us now look at the
+proceedings of the French Academy; it is open to the public, and the
+public take so great an interest in it, that to secure a seat an early
+attendance is always requisite. Every scientific point of daily and
+passing interest is brought before it--comments, such as occur at the
+time, are made upon various points by the secretary, or any other
+member who likes to make an observation--the more elaborate memoirs
+are read by the authors themselves, and if any _quære_ or suggestion
+occurs to a member present, he has an opportunity of being answered.
+The memoir is then committed to parties whose names are publicly
+mentioned, who bring out their report in public, which report is read
+in public, and may be answered by the author if he object to it.
+Lastly, the whole proceedings are printed and published verbatim, and
+circulated at the next weekly meeting, while, in the mean time, the
+public press notices them freely. That, with all these advantages, the
+French Academy is not free from faults, we are far from asserting;
+that there is as much unseen manœuvring and petty tyranny in this
+as in most other institutions, is far from improbable;[23] but the
+effect upon the public, and the zest and vitality which its
+proceedings give to science, are undeniable, and it is also undeniable
+that we have no scientific institution approaching to it in interest
+or value.
+
+    [22] Each Fellow can, indeed, by express permission of
+    the Society, take with him two friends.
+
+    [23] An anonymous author, who has attracted some
+    attention in France, in commenting on the rejection of
+    Victor Hugo, and the election of a physician, says--that
+    nothing could be more natural or proper, as the senility
+    and feebleness of the Académie made it more in want of a
+    physician than a poet.
+
+The present perpetual secretary of the Academy, Arago, with much of
+prejudice, much of egotism, has talents most plastic, an energy of
+character, an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity of expression,
+which alone give to the sittings of the French Academy a peculiar and
+surpassing interest, but which, in the English Society, would be
+entirely lost.
+
+In quitting, for the present, the subject of scientific societies, we
+must advert to a consequence of the increased number of candidates for
+scientific distinction of late years; of which increase the number of
+these societies may be regarded as an exponent. This increase,
+although on the whole both a cause and a consequence of the
+advancement of science, yet has in some respects lowered the high
+character of her cultivators by the competition it has necessarily
+engendered. Books tell us that the cultivation of science must elevate
+and expand the mind, by keeping it apart from the jangling of worldly
+interests. This dogma has its false as well as its true side, more
+especially when in this, as in every other field of human activity,
+the number of competitors is rapidly increasing; great watchfulness is
+requisite to resist temptations which beset the aspirant to success on
+this arena, more perhaps than in any other. The difficulty which the
+most honest find to avoid treading in the footsteps of others--the
+different aspect in which the same phenomena present themselves to
+different minds--the unwillingness which the mind experiences in
+renouncing published but erroneous opinions--are points of human
+weakness which, not to mislead, must be watched with assiduous care.
+Again, the ease with which plagiarism is committed from the number of
+roads by which the same point may be reached, is a great temptation to
+the waverer, and a great trial of temper to the victim. The disputants
+on the arenæ of law, politics, or other pursuits, the ostensible aim
+of which is worldly aggrandizement, however animated in debate,
+unsparing in satire, reckless in their invective and recrimination,
+seldom fail in their private intercourse to throw off the armour of
+professional antagonism, and to extend to each other the ungloved hand
+of social cordiality. On the other hand, it is too frequent a
+spectacle in scientific circles to behold a careful wording of public
+controversy, a gentle, apologetic phraseology, a correspondence never
+going beyond the "retort courteous," or "quip modest," while there
+exists an under-current of the bitterest personal jealousy, the
+outward philosopher being strangely at variance with the inward man.
+
+Among the various circumstances which influence the progress of
+physical science in this country, one of the most prominent is the
+_Patent_ law--a law in its intention beneficent; but whether the
+practical working of it be useful, either to science or its
+cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt. Of the greater number of
+patents enrolled in that depot of practical science, Chancery Lane, by
+far the majority are beneficial only to the revenue; and on the
+question of public economy, whether or not the price paid by
+miscalculating ingenuity is a fair and politic source of revenue, we
+shall not enter; but on the reasons which lead so many to be dupes of
+their own self-esteem, a few words may not be misspent. The chief
+reason why a vast number of patents are unsuccessful, is, that it
+takes a long time (longer generally than fourteen years, the
+statutable limit of patent grants) to make the workmen of a country
+familiar with a new manufacture. A party, therefore, who proposes
+patenting an invention, and who sits down and calculates the value of
+the material, the time necessary for its manufacture, and other
+essential data; comparing these with the price at which it can be sold
+to obtain a remunerative profit, seldom takes into consideration the
+time necessary, first, to accustom the journeymen workers to its
+construction, and secondly, to make known to the public its real
+value. In the present universal competition, puffing is carried on to
+such an extent, that, to give a fair chance of success, not only must
+the first expense of a patent be incurred--no inconsiderable one
+either, even supposing the patentee fortunate enough to escape
+litigation--but a large sum of money must be invested in
+advertisements, with little immediate return; hence it is that the
+most valuable patents, viewed in relation to their scientific
+importance, their ultimate public benefit, and the merits of their
+inventors, are seldom the most lucrative, while a patent inkstand, a
+boot-heel, a shaving case, or a button, become rapidly a source of no
+inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial to inventors? Is it an
+encouragement of science, or a proper object of legislative provision,
+that the improver of the most trivial mechanical application should be
+carefully protected, while those who open the hidden sources of
+myriads of patents, are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating
+themselves? We seriously incline to think that, as the matter at
+present stands, an entire erasure from the statute-books of patent
+provision would be of service to science, and perhaps to the
+community; each tradesman would depend for success upon his own
+activity, and the perfection he could give his manufacture, and the
+scientific searcher after experimental truths would not find his path
+barred by prohibitions from speculative empirics.
+
+According to the present patent laws, it is more than questionable
+whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue
+his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the
+threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional
+England instead of despotic Russia, it is doubtful if he could work
+out his discovery of the electrotype--we say _doubtful_; for, as far
+as we can learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the
+mere use of a patent, not for sale or a lucrative object, is such a
+use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a
+patentee's rights. It appears to be settled, that a previous
+experimental and unpublished use by one party, does not prevent
+another subsequent inventor of the same process from patenting it;
+and, by parity of reasoning, we should say, that if a party have the
+advantage of patenting an invention which can be found to have been
+previously used, but not for sale, he should not have the additional
+privilege of prohibiting the same party, or others, from proceeding
+with their experiments. There are, however, not wanting arguments for
+the other view. The practice of a patented invention, for one's own
+benefit or pleasure, deprives the patentee of a possible source of
+profit; for it cannot be said that the party experimenting, if
+prohibited, might not apply for a license to the patentee. Take, for
+instance, the notorious and justly censured patent of Daguerre.
+Supposing, for argument's sake, this patent to be valid, can a private
+individual, under the existing patent laws, take photographic views or
+portraits for his own amusement, or in pursuance of scientific
+investigations? If he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful path of
+physics to be shut up for fourteen years; or if he can, then is the
+licensee, a purchaser for value, to be excluded from very many sources
+of pecuniary emolument? To us, the injury to the public, in this and
+similar cases, appears of incomparably greater consequence than that
+to the individual; but what the authorities at Westminster Hall may
+say is another question. Even could the patent laws be so modified,
+that the benefits derived from them could fall upon those scientific
+discoverers most justly entitled, we are still doubtful as to their
+utility, or whether they would contribute to the advancement of
+science, which is the point of view in which we here principally
+regard them. It would scarcely add to the dignity of philosophy, or
+to the reverence due to its votaries, to see them running with their
+various inventions to the patent office, and afterwards spending their
+time in the courts of law, defending their several claims. They would
+thus entirely lose the respect due to them from their contemporaries
+and posterity, and waste, in pecuniary speculation, time which might
+be more advantageously, and without doubt more agreeably, employed. If
+parties look to money as their reward, they have no right to look for
+fame; to those who sell the produce of their brains, the public owes
+no debt.
+
+We have observed recently a strong tendency in men of no mean
+scientific pretensions to patent the results of their labours. We
+blame them not: it is a matter of free election on their part, but we
+cannot praise them. A writer in a recent number of the _Edinburgh
+Review_, has the following remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's
+patented invention of the Calotype. "Nor does the fate of the Calotype
+redeem the treatment of her sister art, (the Daguerreotype.) The Royal
+Society, the philosophical organ of the nation, has refused to publish
+its processes in her transactions. * * * No representatives of the
+people unanimously recommended a national reward. * * * It gives us
+great pleasure to learn, that though none of his (Mr Talbot's)
+photographical discoveries adorn the transactions of the Royal
+Society, yet the president and the council have adjudged him the
+Rumford medals for the last biennial period."[24]
+
+    [24] _Edin. Rev._ No. 159.
+
+The notion of a "national reward" for the Calotype scarcely requires a
+remark. If, after a discovery is once made and published, every
+subsequent new process in the same art is to be nationally rewarded,
+the income-tax must be at least quadrupled. The complaint, however,
+against the Royal Society, is not altogether groundless. True it is
+that the first paper of Mr Talbot did not contain an account of the
+processes employed by him, and therefore should not have been even
+read to the Society; but the paper on the Calotype did contain such
+description, and we see no reason why a society for the advancement of
+knowledge should not give publicity to a valuable process, though made
+the subject of a patent--but it certainly should not bestow an
+honorary reward upon an inventor who has withheld from the Royal
+Society and the public the practice of the invention whose processes
+he communicates. Mr Talbot had a perfect right to patent his
+invention, but has on that account no claim in respect of the same
+invention to an honorary reward. The Royal Society did not publish his
+paper, but awarded him a medal. In our opinion, they should have
+published his paper and not awarded him a medal.
+
+Regarded as to her national encouragement of science, there are some
+features in which England differs not from other countries; there are
+others in which she may be strikingly contrasted with them; and, with
+all our love for her, we fear she will suffer by the contrast. A
+learned writer of the present day, has the following passage in
+reference to the state of science in England as contrasted with other
+countries:--"When the proud science of England pines in obscurity,
+blighted by the absence of the royal favour and the nation's sympathy;
+when her chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured, how can it sustain the
+conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign
+lands?"[25]
+
+    [25] Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 35.
+
+This, to be sure, is somewhat "_tumultuous_." We do not, however, cite
+it as a specimen of composition, but as an expression of a very
+prevalent feeling; the opinion involved in the concluding _quære_ is
+open to doubt--England does sustain the conflict, if any conflict
+there be to sustain; but we are bound to admit, that in no country are
+the soldiers of _science militant_ less honoured or rewarded. It is no
+uncommon remark, that despotic governments are the most favourable to
+the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general
+truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a
+republican or constitutional government, politics are the
+all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme
+of conversation;--in purely despotic states, such discussions are
+prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few
+restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of
+absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may
+divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as
+existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality
+of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in
+the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are
+rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most
+prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so
+gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual
+energies of a people.
+
+We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also
+transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the
+present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have
+influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient
+thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of
+our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate
+and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a
+promoter of physical science.
+
+In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to
+place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied
+mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the
+independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results;
+researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate,
+instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally
+estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than
+any other European nation; the æsthetical power which enables them to
+seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception
+and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators.
+The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have
+undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding
+the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of
+the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional--too much
+_selon les règles_; there are too many minutiæ; the reader is tempted
+to exclaim with Jacques--"I think of as many matters as he; but I give
+Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." Their accuracy frequently
+degenerates into affectation and parade. We have now before us a paper
+in the _Annales de Chimie_, containing some chemical researches, in
+which, though the difference of each experiment in a small number, put
+together for average, amounts to several units, the weights are given
+to the fifth place of decimals. England, which we should place next,
+is by no means exempt from these trappings of science. Many English
+scientific papers seem written as if with the resolute purpose of
+filling a certain number of pages, and many of their writers seem to
+think a _paper per annum_, good or bad, necessary to indicate their
+philosophical existence. They write, not because they have made a
+discovery, but because their period of hybernation has expired. Still,
+in England, there is a strong vein of original thought. Competition,
+if it lead to puffing and quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions;
+and, in England, competition has done its worst and its best; in
+original chemical discovery, England has latterly been unrivalled.
+
+Next to England we should place Sweden and Denmark--for their
+population they have done much, and done it well; then Italy--in Italy
+science is well organized, and the rulers of her petty states seem to
+feel a proper emulation in promoting scientific merit--in which
+laudable rivalry the Archduke of Tuscany deserves honourable mention;
+America and Russia come next--the former state is zealous, ready at
+practical application, and promises much for the future, but as yet
+has not done enough in original research to entitle her to be placed
+in the van. Russia at present possesses few, if any, native
+philosophers--her discoverers and discoveries are all imported; but
+the emperor's zeal and _patronage_ (a word which we scarcely like to
+apply to science) is doing much to organize her forces, and the
+mercenary troops may impart vigour, and induce discipline into the
+national body. In this short enumeration, we have considered each
+country, not according to the number of its very eminent men; for
+though far from denying the right which each undoubtedly possesses to
+shine by the reflected lustre of her stars, yet in looking, as it
+were, from an external point, it is more just to regard the general
+character of each people than to classify them according as they may
+happen to be the birthplace of those
+
+    "To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."
+
+A misunderstanding of the proper use of theory is among the prevalent
+scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of
+considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with
+physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This
+contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance
+of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of
+Mr Carlyle:--"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form,
+is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words: we call that fire
+of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about
+it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it?
+Whence comes it? Where goes it?"[26]
+
+    [26] Carlyle on Hero Worship.
+
+However the experienced philosopher may be convinced that _in
+themselves_ theories are nothing--that they are but collations of
+phenomena under a generic formula, which is useful only inasmuch as it
+groups these phenomena; yet it is difficult to see how, without these
+imperfect generalizations, any mind can retain the endless variety of
+facts and relations which every branch of science presents; still
+less, how these can be taught, learned, reasoned upon, or used. How
+could the facts of geology be recollected, or how, indeed, could they
+constitute a science without reference to some real or supposed bond
+of union, some aqueous or igneous theory? How could two chemists
+converse on chemistry without the use of the term affinity, and the
+theoretical conception it involves? How could a name be applied, or a
+nomenclature adopted, without that imperfect, or more or less perfect
+grouping of facts, which involves theory? As far as we can recollect,
+all the alterations of nomenclature which have been introduced, or
+attempted, proceed upon some alteration of theory.
+
+If not theory but hypothesis be objected to--not the imperfect
+generalization of phenomena, but a gratuitous assumption for the sake
+of collating them, this, although ground which should be trodden more
+cautiously, appears in certain cases unavoidable; in fact, is scarcely
+separable from theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly" about the two
+_fluids_ of electricity, we should not now possess many of the
+discoveries with which this science is enriched, although we do not,
+and probably never shall, know what electricity is.
+
+On the other hand, among professed physical philosophers, the great
+abuse of theories and hypotheses is, that their promulgators soon
+regard them, not as aids to science, to be changed if occasion should
+require, but as absolute natural truths; they look to that as an end,
+which is in fact but a means; their theories become part of their
+mental constitution, idiosyncrasies; and they themselves become
+partizans of a faction, and cease to be inductive philosophers.
+
+Another injury to science, in a great measure peculiar to the present
+day, arises from the number of speculations which are ushered into the
+world to account for the same phenomena; every one, like Sir Andrew
+Aguecheek, when he wished to cudgel a Puritan, has for his opinion "no
+exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science
+immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their
+career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of
+their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena,
+enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a
+comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with
+theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good--they do not
+always end with experiment.
+
+As, in the promulgation of theories, every aspirant is anxious to
+propound different news, so, in nomenclature, there is a strong
+tendency to promiscuous coining. The great commentator on the laws of
+England, Sir William Blackstone, observes, "As to the impression, the
+stamping of coin is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown, * * *
+the king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate foreign coin, and
+make it current here."[27]
+
+    [27] Commentaries, vol. i. p. 277.
+
+As coinage of money is the undoubted prerogative of the crown; so
+generally coinage of words has been the undoubted prerogative of the
+kings of science--those to whom mankind have bent as to unquestionable
+authority. But even these royal dignitaries have generally been
+sparing in the exercise of this prerogative, and used it only on rare
+occasions and when absolutely necessary, either from the discovery of
+new things requiring new names, or upon entire revolutions of theory.
+
+                        "Si forte necesse est
+    Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
+    Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegis
+    Continget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."
+
+But now there is no "pudor" in the matter. Every man has his own mint;
+and although their several coins do not pass current very generally,
+yet they are taken here and there by a few disciples, and throw some
+standard money out of the market. The want of consideration evinced in
+these novel vocabularies is remarkable. Whewell, whose scientific
+position and dialectic turn of mind may fairly qualify him to be a
+word-maker, seems peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as an instance,
+"_idiopts_," an uncomfortable word, barely necessary, as the persons
+to whom it applies are comparatively rare, and will scarcely thank the
+Master of Trinity College for approximating them in name to a more
+numerous and more unfortunate class--the word _physicists_, where four
+sibilant consonants fizz like a squib. In these, and we might add many
+from other sources, euphony is wantonly disregarded; by other authors
+of smaller calibre, classical associations are curiously violated. We
+may take, as an instance, _platinode_, Spanish-American joined to
+ancient Greek. In chemistry there is a profusion of new coin. Sulphate
+of ammonia--oxi-sulphion of ammonium--sulphat-oxide of ammonium--three
+names for one substance. This mania is by no means common to England.
+In Liebig's Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we have the following
+passage:--"It should be remarked that some chemists designate
+artificial camphor by the name of hydrochlorate of camphor. Deville
+calls it bihydrochlorate of térèbène, and Souberaine and Capelaine
+call it hydrochlorate of pencylène."
+
+So generally does this prevail, that in chemical treatises the names
+of substances are frequently given with a tail of synonymes. Numerous
+words might be cited which are names for non-existences--mere
+hypothetic groupings; and yet so rapidly are these increasing, that it
+seems not impossible, in process of time, there will be more names for
+things that are not than for things that are. If this work go on, the
+scientific public must elect a censor whose fiat shall be final;
+otherwise, as every small philosopher is encouraged or tolerated in
+framing _ad libitum_ a nomenclature of his own, the inevitable effect
+will be, that no man will be able to understand his brother, and a
+confusion of tongues will ensue, to be likened only to that which
+occasioned the memorable dispersion at Babel.
+
+Many of the defects to which we have alluded in the course of this
+paper, time alone can remedy. In spite of all drawbacks, the progress
+of science has been vast and rapidly increasing; the very rapidity of
+its progress brings with it difficulties. So many points, once
+considered impossible, have been proved possible, that to some minds
+the suggestion of impossibility seems an argument in favour of
+possibility. Because steam-travelling was once laughed at as visionary,
+aerial navigation is to be regarded as practicable--perhaps, indeed, it
+_will_ be so, give but the time _proportionably_ requisite to master
+its difficulties, as there was given to steam. What proportion this
+should be we will not venture to predict. There can be little doubt
+that the most effectual way to induce a more accurate public
+discrimination of scientific efforts is to turn somewhat more in that
+direction the current of national education. Prizes at the universities
+for efficiency in the physics of light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
+or chemistry, could, we conceive, do no harm. Why should not similar
+honours be conferred on those students who advance the progress of an
+infant science, as on those who work out with facility the formulæ of
+an exact one; and why should not acquirements in either, rank equally
+high with the critical knowledge of the _digamma_ or the _à priori_
+philosophy of Aristotle? Is not Bacon's Novum Organon as much entitled
+to be made a standard book for the schools as Aldrich's logic?
+Venerating English universities, we approve not the inconsiderate
+outcries against systematic and time-honoured educational discipline;
+but it would increase our love for these seminaries of sound learning,
+could we more frequently see such men as Davy emanate from Oxford,
+instead of from the pneumatic institution of Bristol.
+
+Provided science be kept separate from political excitement, we should
+like to see an English Academy, constituted of men having fair claims
+to scientific distinction, and not "deserving of that honour because
+they are attached to science."
+
+It is unnecessary here to touch upon the details of such an Academy.
+The proposition is by no means new. On the contrary, we believe a wish
+for some such change pretty generally exists. Iteration is sometimes
+more useful than originality. The more frequently the point is brought
+before the public, the more probable is it that steps will be taken by
+those who are qualified to move in such a matter. The more the present
+defective state of our scientific organization is commented on, the
+more likely is it to be remedied; for the patency of error is ever a
+sure prelude to its extirpation.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONICLES OF PARIS.
+
+THE RUE ST DENIS.
+
+
+One of the longest, the narrowest, the highest, the darkest, and the
+dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the
+Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north,
+it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a
+gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest
+barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide,
+straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of
+Sainct-Denys-en-France. This was, from time immemorial, the state-road
+for the monarchs of France to make their formal entries into, and exits
+from, their capital--whether they came from their coronation at Rheims,
+or went to their last resting-place beneath the tall spire of St Denis.
+This has always been the line by which travellers from the northern
+provinces have entered the good city of Paris; and for many a long year
+its echoes have never had rest from the cracking of the postilion's
+whip, the roll of the heavy diligence, and the perpetual jumbling of
+carts and waggons. It is, as it has ever been, one of the main arteries
+of the capital; and nowhere does the restless tide of Parisian life run
+more rapidly or more constantly than over its well-worn stones. In the
+pages of the venerable historians of the French capital, and in ancient
+maps, it is always called "_La Grande Rue de Sainct Denys_," being, no
+doubt, at one time the _ne plus ultra_ of all that was considered wide
+and commodious. Now its appellation is curtailed into the _Rue St
+D'nis_, and it is avoided by the polite inhabitants of Paris as
+containing nothing but the _bourgeoisie_ and the _canaille_. Once it was
+the Regent Street of Paris--a sort of Rue de la Paix--lounged along by
+the gallants of the days of Henri IV., and not unvisited by the
+red-heeled marquises of the Regent d'Orleans's time; now it sees nothing
+more _recherché_ than the cap of the grisette or the poissarde, as the
+case may be, nor any thing more august than the casquette of the
+_commis-voyageur_, or the indescribable shako and equipments of the
+National Guard. As its frequenters have been changed in character, so
+have its houses and public buildings; they have lost much of the
+picturesque appearance they possessed a hundred years ago--they are
+forced every year more and more into line, like a regiment of stone and
+mortar. Instead of showing their projecting, high-peaked gables to the
+street, they have now turned their fronts, as more polite; the roofs are
+accommodated with the luxury of pipes, and the midnight sound of "_Gare
+l'eau!_" which used to make the late-returning passenger start with all
+agility from beneath the opened window to avoid the odoriferous shower,
+is now but seldom heard. A Liliputian footway, some two feet wide, is
+laid down in flags at either side; the oscillating lamp, that used to
+hang on a rotten cord thrown across the roadway from house to house, and
+made darkness visible, has given place to the genius of gas--_enfin, la
+Révolution a passé par là_; and the Rue de St Denis is now a ghost only
+of what it was. Still it retains sufficient peculiarities of dimensions
+and outline to show that it is a child of the middle ages; and, like so
+many other children of the same kind, it contributes to make its mother
+Paris, as compared with the modern-built capitals of Europe, a town of
+former days. Long may it retain these oddities of appearance--long may
+it remain narrow, dark, and dirty; we rejoice that such streets still
+exist--they do one's eye good, if not one's nose. There is more of
+colour, of light and shade, of picturesque, fantastic outline, in a
+hundred yards of the Rue St Denis, than in all the line from Piccadilly
+to Whitechapel; a painter can pick up more food for his easel in this
+queer, old street--an antiquarian can find there more tales and crusts
+for his noddle, than in all Regent Street and Portland Place. We love a
+ramshackle place like this; it does one good to get out of the
+associations of the present century, and to retrograde a bit; it is
+pleasant to see how people used to pig together in ancient days, without
+any of the mathematical formalities of the present day; it keeps one's
+eye in tone to look back at works of the middle ages; and we may learn
+the more justly to criticize what we see arising about us, by refreshing
+our recollections of the mouldering past. Paris is a glorious place for
+things of this kind. Thank the stars, it never got burned out of its old
+clothes, as London did. Newfangled streets and quarters of every age
+have been added to it, but there still remains a mediæval nucleus--there
+is still an "old Paris"--a gloomy, filthy, old town, irregular and
+inconvenient as any town ever was yet; and a walk of twenty minutes will
+take you from the elegant uniformity of the Rue de Rivoli into the
+original chaos of buildings--into the Quartier des Halles and into the
+Rue St Denis. How often have we hurried down them on a cold winter's
+day--say the 31st of December--to buy bons-bons in the Rue des Lombards,
+once the abode of bankers, now the paradise of _confiseurs_, against the
+coming morrow--the grand day of visits and cadeaux--braving the snow
+some three feet deep in the midst of the street--or, if there happened
+to be no snow, the mud a foot and a half, splashing through it with our
+last new pair of boots from Legrand's, and the last _pantalon_ from
+Blondel's--for cabriolet or omnibus, none might pass that way; and
+there, amid onion-smelling crowds, in a long, low shop, with lamps
+lighted at two o'clock, have consummated our purchase, and floundered
+back triumphant! Away, ye gay, seducing vanities of the Palais Royal or
+the Boulevards; your light is too garish for our sober eyes--the sugar
+of your comfitures is too chalky for our discriminating tooth! Our
+appropriate latitude is that of the Quartier St Denis! One thing,
+however, we must confess, we never did in the Rue St Denis--we never
+dined there! _Oh non! il ne faut pas faire ça!_ 'Tis the headquarters of
+all the sausage-dealers, the _charcutiers_, and the _rotisseurs_ of
+Paris. Genuine meat and drink there is none; cats hold the murderous
+neighbourhood in traditional abhorrence, and the ruddiest wine of
+Burgundy would turn pale were the aqueous reputation of the street
+whispered near its cellar-door. Thank Heaven, we have a gastronomic
+instinct that saved us from acts of suicidal rashness! When in Paris,
+gentle reader, we always dine at the Trois Frères Provençaux; the little
+room in blue, remember--time, six P.M.; potage à la Julienne--bifteck au
+vin de Champagne--poulet à la Marengo--Chambertin, and St Péray rosé.
+The next time you visit the Palais-Royal, turn in there, and dine with
+us--we shall be delighted to see you!
+
+There are few gaping Englishmen who have been on the other side of the
+Channel but have found their way along the Boulevards to the Porte St
+Denis, and have stared first of all at that dingy monument of
+Ludovican pride, and then have stared down the Rue St Denis, and then
+have stared up the Rue du Faubourg St Denis; but very few are ever
+tempted to turn either to the right hand or to the left, and so they
+generally poke on to the Porte St Martin, or stroll back to the
+Madeleine, and rarely make acquaintance with the Dionysian mysteries
+of Paris. For the benefit, therefore, of such travellers as go to the
+French capital with their eyes in their pockets, and of such as stay
+at home and travel by their fireside, but still can relish the
+recollections and associations of olden times, we are going to rake
+together some of the many odd notes that pertain to the history of
+this street and its immediate vicinity.
+
+The readiest way into the Rue St Denis from the Isle de la Cité, the
+centre of Paris, has always been over the Pont-au-Change. This bridge,
+now the widest over the Seine, was once a narrow, ill-contrived
+structure of wood, covered with a row of houses on either side, that
+formed a dark and dirty street, so that you might pass through it a
+hundred times without once suspecting that you were crossing a river.
+These houses, built of stone and wood, overhung the edges of the
+bridge, and afforded their inhabitants an unsafe abode between the sky
+and the water. At times the river would rise in one of its periodical
+furies, and sweep away a pier or two with the superincumbent houses;
+at others the wooden supporters of the structure would catch fire by
+some untoward event, and the inhabitants had the choice of being fried
+or drowned, along with their penates and their supellectile property.
+Such a catastrophe happened in the reign of Louis XIII., when this and
+another wooden bridge, situated, oddly enough, close by its side, were
+set on fire by a squib, which some _gamins de Paris_ were letting off
+on his Majesty's highway; and in less than three hours 140 houses had
+disappeared. It was Louis VII., in the twelfth century, who gave it
+the name it has since borne; for he ordered all the money-changers of
+Paris to come and live on this bridge--no very secure place for
+keeping the precious metals; and about two hundred years ago the
+money-changers, fifty-four in number, occupied the houses on one side,
+while fifty goldsmiths lived in those on the other. In the open
+roadway between, was held a kind of market or fair for bird-sellers,
+who were allowed to keep their standings on the curious tenure of
+letting off two hundred dozens of small birds whenever a new king
+should pass over this bridge, on his solemn entry into the capital.
+The birds fluttered and whistled on these occasions, the _gamins_
+clapped their hands and shouted, the good citizens cried "Noel!" and
+"Vive le Roy!" and the courtiers were delighted at the joyous
+spectacle. Whether the birds flew away ready roasted to the royal
+table, history is silent; but it would have been a sensible
+improvement of this part of the triumphal ceremony, and we recommend
+it to the serious notice of all occupiers of the French throne.
+
+On arriving at the northern end of the bridge, the passenger had on
+his right a covered gallery of shops, stretching up the river side to
+the Pont Notre Dame, and called the Quai de Gesvres; here was a
+fashionable promenade for the beaux of Paris, for it was filled with
+the stalls of pretty milliners, like one of our bazars, and boasted of
+an occasional bookseller's shop or two, where the tender ballads of
+Ronsard, or the broad jokes of Rabelais, might be purchased and read
+for a few livres. To the left was a narrow street, known by the
+curious appellation of _Trop-va-qui-dure_, the etymology of which has
+puzzled the brains of all Parisian antiquaries; while just beyond it,
+and still by the river side, was the _Vieille Vallée de Misère_--words
+indicative of the opinion entertained of so _ineligible_ a residence.
+In front frowned, in all the grim stiffness of a feudal fortress, the
+_Grand Chastelet_, once the northern defence of Paris against the
+Normans and the English, but at last changed into the headquarters of
+the police--the Bow Street of the French capital. Two large towers,
+with conical tops over a portcullised gateway, admitted the prisoners
+into a small square court, round which were ranged the offices of the
+lieutenant of police, and the chambers of the law-officers of the
+crown. Part of the building served as a prison for the vulgar crew of
+offenders--a kind of Newgate, or Tolbooth; another was used as, and
+was called, the Morgue, where the dead bodies found in the Seine were
+often carried; there was a room in it called Cæsar's chamber, where
+the good citizens of Paris firmly believed that the great Julius once
+sat as provost of Paris, in a red robe and flowing wig; and there was
+many an out-of-the-way nook and corner full of dust and parchments,
+and rats and spiders. The lawyers of the Chastelet thought no small
+beer of themselves, it seems; for they claimed the right of walking in
+processions before the members of the Parliament, and immediately
+after the corporation of the capital. The unlucky wight who might
+chance to be put in durance vile within these walls, was commonly well
+trounced and fined ere he was allowed to depart; and next to the
+dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet used to be looked on with
+peculiar horror. At the Revolution it was one of the first feudal
+buildings demolished--not a stone of the old pile remains; the
+Pont-au-Change had long before had its wooden piers changed for noble
+stone ones, and on the site where this fortress stood is now the Place
+de Chatelet, with a Napoleonic monument in the midst--a column
+inscribed with names of bloody battle-fields, on its summit a golden
+wing-expanding Victory, and at its base four little impudent dolphins,
+snorting out water into the buckets of the Porteurs d'Eau.
+
+Behind the Chastelet stood the _Grande Boucherie_--the Leadenhall
+market of Paris an hundred years ago; and near it, up a dirty street
+or two, was one of the finest churches of the capital, dedicated to St
+Jacques. The lofty tower of this latter edifice (its body perished
+when the Boucherie and the Chastelet disappeared) still rises in
+gloomy majesty above all the surrounding buildings. It is as high as
+those of Notre Dame; and from its upper corners, enormous
+_gargouilles_--those fantastic water-spouts of the middle ages--gape
+with wide-stretched jaws, but no longer send down the washings of the
+roof on the innocent passengers. Hereabouts lived Nicholas Flamel, the
+old usurer, who made money so fast that it was said he used to sup
+nightly with his Satanic majesty, and who thereupon built part of the
+church to save his bacon. He was of opinion that it was well to have
+the "_mens sana in corpore sano_"--that it was no joke to be burnt;
+and so he stuck close to the church, taking care that himself and his
+wife, Pernelle, should have a comfortable resting-place for their
+bones within the walls of St Jacques. When this was a fashionable
+quarter of Paris, the court doctor and accoucheur did not disdain to
+reside in it; for Jean Fernel, the medical attendant of Catharine de
+Medicis, lived and died within the shade of this old tower. He was a
+fortunate fellow, a sort of Astley Cooper or Clarke in his way, and
+Catharine used to give him 10,000 crowns, or something like L.6000,
+every time she favoured France with an addition to the royal family.
+He and numerous other worthies mouldered into dust within the
+precincts of St Jacques; but their remains have long since been
+scattered to the winds; and where the church once stood is now an
+ignoble market for old clothes; the abode of Jews and thieves.
+
+After passing round the Grand Chastelet, and crossing the
+market-place, you might enter the Rue St Denis, the great street of
+Paris in the time of the good King Henry, and you might walk along
+under shelter of its houses, projecting story above story, till they
+nearly met at top, for more than a mile. Before it was paved, the
+roadway was an intolerable quagmire, winter and summer; and, after
+stones had been put down, there murmured along the middle a black
+gurgling stream, charged with all the outpourings and filth of
+unnumbered houses. Over, or through this, according as the fluid was
+low or high, you had to make your way, if you wanted to cross the
+street and greet a friend; if you lived in the street and wished to
+converse with your opposite neighbour, you had only to mount to the
+garret story, open the lattice window, and literally shake hands with
+him, so near did the gables approach. The fronts of the houses were
+ornamented with every device which the skilful carpenters of former
+times could invent: the beam-ends were sculptured into queer little
+crouching figures of monkeys or angels, and all sorts of _diableries_
+decorated the cornices that ran beneath the windows; there were no
+panes of glass, such as we boast of in these degenerate times, but
+narrow latticed lights to let in the day, and the wind, and the cold;
+while the roofs were covered commonly with shingles, or, in the houses
+of the wealthy, with sheets of lead. Between each gable came forth a
+long water-spout, and poured down a deluge into the gutter beneath;
+each gable-top was peaked into a fantastic spiry point or flower, and
+the chimneys congregated into goodly companies amidst the roofs,
+removed from the vulgar gaze or fastidious jests of the people below.
+So large were the fireplaces in those rooms that could own them, and
+so ample were the chimney flues, that smoky houses were unheard of:
+the staircases, it is true, enjoyed only a dubious ray, that served to
+prevent you from breaking your neck in a rapid descent; but the
+apartments were generally of commodious dimensions, and the tenements
+possessed many substantial comforts.
+
+Once out of doors, you might proceed in all weather fearless of rain;
+the projecting upper stories sheltered completely the sides of the
+street, and a stout cloth cloak was all that was needed to save either
+sex from the inclemency of the seasons. At frequent intervals there
+opened into the main street, side streets, and _ruelles_ or alleys,
+which showed in comparison like Gulliver in Brobdignag: up some of
+these ways a single horseman might be able to go; but along
+others--and some of them remain to the present day--two stout citizens
+could never have walked arm-in-arm. They looked like enormous cracks
+between a couple of buildings, rather than as ways made for the
+convenience of locomotion: they were pervious, perhaps, to donkeys,
+but not to the loaded packhorse--the great street was intended for
+that animal--coaches did not exist, and the long narrow carts of the
+French peasantry, whenever they came into the city, did not occupy
+much more space than the bags or packs of the universal carrier. To
+many of these streets the most eccentric appellations were given;
+there was the _Rue des Mauvaises Paroles_--people of ears polite had
+no business to go near it; the _Rue Tire Chappe_--a spot where those
+who objected to be plucked by the vests, or to have their clothes
+pulled off their backs by importunate accosters, need not present
+themselves; another in this quarter was called the _Rue Tire-boudin_.
+Marie Stuart, when Queen of France, was riding, it is said, through it
+one day, and struck, perhaps, by the looks of its inhabitants, asked
+what the street was called. The original appellation was so indecent
+that an officer of her guards, with courtly presence of mind, veiled
+it under its present title. One was known as the _Rue Brise-miche_,
+and the cleanliness of its inhabitants might instantly be judged of: a
+fifth was the _Rue Trousse-vache_, and one of the shops in it was
+adorned with an enormous sign of a red cow, with her tail sticking up
+in the air and her head reared in rampant sauciness. A notorious
+gambler, Thibault-au-dé, well known for his skill in loading dice,
+gave his name to one of these narrow veins of the town: Aubry, a
+wealthy butcher, is still immortalized in another: and the _Rue du
+Petit Hurleur_ probably commemorated some wicked youngster, whose
+shouts were a greater nuisance to the neighbours than those of any of
+his companions.
+
+A wider kind of street was the _Rue de la Ferronerie_, opening into
+the Rue St Denis, below the Church of the Innocents: it was the abode
+of all the tinkers and smiths of Paris, and had not Henri IV. been in
+a particular hurry that day, when he was posting off to old Sully in
+the Rue St Antoine, he had never gone this way, and Ravaillac,
+probably, had never been able to lean into the carriage and stab the
+king. Just over the spot where the murder was committed, the placid
+bust of the king still gazes on the busy scene beneath. The _Rue de la
+Grande Truanderie_, which was above the Innocents, must have been the
+rendez-vous of all the thieves and beggars of Paris, if there be any
+thing in a name: the old chronicles of the city relate, indeed, that
+it took a long time to respectabilize its neighbourhood; and they add
+that the herds of rogues and impostors who once lived in it took
+refuge, after their ejection, in the famous _Cour des Miracles_, a
+little higher up the Rue St Denis. We must not venture into this, the
+choicest preserve of Victor Hugo, whose graphic description of its
+wonders in his _Notre Dame_ needs hardly to be alluded to; but we may
+add, that there were several abodes of the same kind, all
+communicating with the Rue St Denis, and all equally infamous in their
+day, though now tenanted only by quiet button-makers and
+furniture-dealers. The real _Puits d'Amour_ stood at the corner of the
+Rue de la Grande Truanderie, and took its name in sad truth from a
+crossing of true love. In the days of Philip Augustus, more than six
+hundred years ago, a beautiful young lady of the court, Agnes
+Hellebik, whose father held an important post under the king, was
+inveigled into the toils of love. The object of her affections,
+whether of noble birth or not, made her but a sorry return for her
+confidence: he loved her a while, and her dreams of happiness were
+realized; but by degrees his passion cooled, and at length he
+abandoned her. Stung with indignation, and broken-hearted at this
+thwarting of her soul's desire, the unfortunate young creature fled
+from her father's house, and betaking herself on a dark and stormy
+night to the brink of the well, commended her spirit to her Maker, and
+ended her troubles beneath its waters. The name of the _Puits d'Amour_
+was then given to the well; and no young maiden ever dared to draw
+water from it after sunset, for fear of the spirit that dwelt
+unquietly within. The tradition was always current in people's mouths;
+and three centuries after, a young man of the neighbourhood, who had
+been jilted and mocked by an inconstant mistress, determined to bear
+his ills no longer, so he rushed to the _Puits_, and took the fatal
+leap. The result was not what he anticipated: he did not, it is true,
+jump into a courtly assembly of knights and gallants, but he could not
+find water enough in it to drown him; while his mistress, on hearing
+of the mishap, hastened to the well with a cord, and promising to
+compensate him for his former woes, drew him with her fair hands
+safely into the upper regions. An inscription, in Gothic letters, was
+then placed over the well:--
+
+    "L'amour m'a refaict
+    En 1525 tout-à-faict."
+
+The fate of Agnes Hellebik was far preferable to that of another young
+girl who lived in this quarter, indeed in the Rue Thibault-au-dé.
+Agnes du Rochier was the only daughter of one of the wealthiest
+merchants of Paris, and was admired by all the neighbourhood for her
+beauty and virtue. In 1403 her father died, leaving her the sole
+possessor of his wealth, and rumour immediately disposed of her hand
+to all the young gallants of the quarter; but whether it was that
+grief for the loss of her parent had turned her head, or that the
+gloomy fanaticism of that time had worked with too fatal effect on her
+pure and inexperienced imagination, she took not only marriage and the
+male sex into utter abomination, but resolved to quit the world for
+ever, and to make herself a perpetual prisoner for religion's sake.
+She determined, in short, to become what was then called a recluse,
+and as such to pass the remainder of her days in a narrow cell built
+within the wall of a church. On the 5th of October, accordingly, when
+the cell, only a few feet square, was finished in the wall of the
+church of St Opportune, Agnes entered her final abode, and the
+ceremony of her reclusion began. The walls and pillars of the sacred
+edifice had been hung with tapestry and costly cloths, tapers burned
+on every altar, the clergy of the capital and the several religious
+communities thronged the church. The Bishop of Paris, attended by his
+chaplains and the canons of Notre Dame, entered the choir, and
+celebrated a pontifical mass: he then approached the opening of the
+cell, sprinkled it with holy water, and after the poor young thing had
+bidden adieu to her friends and relations, ordered the masons to fill
+up the aperture. This was done as strongly as stone and mortar could
+make it; nor was any opening left, save only a small loophole through
+which Agnes might hear the offices of the church, and receive the
+aliments given her by the charitable. She was eighteen years old when
+she entered this living tomb, and she continued within it _eighty_
+years, till death terminated her sufferings! Alas, for mistaken piety!
+Her wealth, which she gave to the church, and her own personal
+exertions during so long a life, might have made her a blessing to all
+that quarter of the city, instead of remaining an useless object of
+compassion to the few, and of idle wonder to the many.
+
+Another entombment, almost as bad, occurred in the Rue St Denis, only
+five or six years ago. The cess-pools of modern Parisian houses are
+generally deep chambers, and sometimes wells, cut in the limestone
+rock on which the city stands: and in the absence of a good method of
+drainage, are cleaned out only once in every two or three years,
+according to their size. Meanwhile, they continue to receive all the
+filth of the building. One night, a large cess-pool had been emptied,
+and the aperture, which was in the common passage of the house on the
+ground floor, had been left open till the inspector appointed by the
+police should come round and see that the work had been properly
+executed. He came early in the morning, enquired carelessly of the
+porter if all was right, and ordered the stone covering to be fastened
+down. This was done amid the usual noise and talking of the workmen;
+and they went their way. That same afternoon, one of the lodgers in
+the house, a young man, was missed: days after days elapsed, and
+nothing was heard of him: his friends conjectured that he had drowned
+himself, but the tables of the Morgue never bore his body: and their
+despair was only equalled by their astonishment at the absence of
+every clue to his fate. On a particular evening, however, about three
+weeks after his disappearance, the porter was sitting at the door of
+his lodge, and the house as well as the street was unusually quiet,
+when he heard a faint groan somewhere beneath his feet. After a short
+interval he heard another; and being superstitious, got up, put his
+chair within the lodge, shut the door, and set about his work. At
+night he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, and going out with
+her into the passage, they had not stood there long before again a
+groan was heard. The good woman crossed herself and fell on her knees;
+but her husband, suspecting now that all was not right, and thinking
+that an attempt at infanticide had been made, by throwing a child's
+body down one of the passages leading to the cess-pool, (no uncommon
+occurrence in Paris,) resolved to call in the police. He did so
+without loss of time, the heavy stone covering was removed, and one of
+the attendants stooping down and lowering a lantern, as long as the
+stench would permit him, saw at the bottom, and at a considerable
+depth, something like a human form leaning against the side of the
+receptacle. Ropes and ladders were now immediately procured; two men
+went down, and in a few minutes brought up a body--it was that of the
+unfortunate young man who had been so long missing! Life was not quite
+extinct, for some motion of the limbs was perceptible, there was even
+one last low groan, but then all animation ceased for ever. The
+appearance of the body was most dreadful; the face was a livid green
+colour, the trunk looked like that of a man drowned, and kept long
+beneath the water, all brown and green--one of the feet had completely
+disappeared--the other was nearly half decomposed and gone; the hands
+were dreadfully lacerated, and told of a desperate struggle to escape:
+worms were crawling about; all was putrid and loathsome. How did this
+unfortunate young man come into so dreadful a position? was the
+question that immediately occurred; and the only answer that could be
+given was, that on the night of the cess-pool being emptied, the
+porter remembered this young man coming home very late, or rather
+early in the morning. He himself had forgotten to warn him of the
+aperture being uncovered, indeed he supposed that it would have been
+sufficiently seen by the lights left burning at its edge;--these had
+probably been blown out by the wind, and the young man had thus fallen
+in. That life should have been supported so long under such
+circumstances, seems almost incredible: but it is no less curious than
+true; for the porter was tried before the Correctional Tribunal for
+inadvertent homicide, the facts were adduced in evidence, and
+carelessness having been proved, he was sentenced to imprisonment for
+several weeks, and to a heavy fine.
+
+Of churches and religious establishments, there were plenty in and
+about the Rue St Denis. Besides the great church of St Jacques,
+mentioned before, there were in the street itself the churches of the
+Holy Sepulchre, of St Leu, and St Gilles; of the Innocents; of the
+Saviour; and of St Jacques de l'Hôpital: while of conventual
+institutions, there were the Hospitals of St Catharine; of the Holy
+Trinity; of the Filles de St Magloire; of the Filles Dieu; of the
+Community of St Chaumont; of the Sœurs de Charité; and of the great
+monastery of St Lazare. The fronts, or other considerable portions of
+those buildings, were all visible in the street, and added greatly to
+its antiquated appearance. The long irregular lines of gable roofs on
+either side, converging from points high above the spectator's head,
+until they met or crossed in a dim perspective, near the horizon, were
+broken here and there by the pointed front, or the tapering spire of a
+church or convent. A solemn gateway protruded itself at intervals into
+the street, and, with its flanking turrets and buttresses, gave broad
+masses of shade in perpendicular lines, strongly contrasted with the
+horizontal or diagonal patches of dark colour caused by the houses. At
+early morn and eve, a shrill tinkling of bells warned the neighbours
+of the sacred duties of many a secluded penitent, or admonished them
+that it was time to send up their own orisons to God. Before mid-day
+had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a
+_bourdon_, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens
+to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom
+the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to
+some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with
+often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at the side, with
+white-robed chanting acolyths, and reverend priests, in long line
+behind, came forth to take its way to some holy edifice. The zealous
+citizens would suspend their avocations for a while, would repeat a
+reverential prayer as the holy men went by, and then return to the
+absorbing calls of business, not unbenefited by the recollections just
+awakened in their minds. On the eves and on the mornings of holy
+festivals, business was totally suspended; the bells, great and small,
+rang forth their silvery sounds; the churches were crowded, the
+chapels glittered with blazing lights; the prayers of the priests and
+people rose with the incense before the high altar; the solemn organ
+swelled its full tones responsive to the loud-voiced choir; the
+curates thundered from the pulpits, to the edification of charitable
+congregations; and after all had been prostrated in solemn adoration
+of the Divine presence, the citizens would pour out into the street,
+and repair, some to their homes, some to the Palace of the Tournelles,
+with its towers and gardens guarded by the Bastille; others to the
+Louvre or to the Pré-aux-clercs, and the fields by the river side;
+others would stroll up the hill of Montmartre; and some in boats would
+brave the dangers of the Seine! On other and sadder occasions, the
+inhabitants of the Rue St Denis would quit their houses in earnestly
+talking groups, and would adjourn to the open space in front of the
+Halles. Here, on the top of an octagonal tower, some twenty feet high,
+and covered with a conical spire, between the openings of pointed
+arches, might be seen criminals with their heads and hands protruding
+through the wooden collar of the pillory. The guard of the provost, or
+the lieutenant of police, would keep off the noisy throng below, and
+the goodwives would discuss among themselves the enormities of the
+coin-clipper, the cut-purse, the incendiary, or the unjust dealer, who
+were exposed on those occasions for their delinquencies; while the
+offenders themselves, would--a few of them--hang down their heads, and
+close their eyes in the unsufferable agony of shame; but by far the
+greater number would shout forth words of bold defiance or indecent
+ribaldry, would protrude the mocking tongue, or spit forth curses with
+dire volubility. Then would rise the shouts of _gamins_, then would
+come the thick volley of eggs, fish-heads, butcher's-offal, and all
+the garbage of the market, aimed unerringly by many a strenuous arm at
+the heads of the culprits; and then the soldiers with their
+pertuisanes would make quick work among the legs of the retreating
+crowd, and the jailers would apply the ready lash to the backs of the
+hardened criminals aloft; and thus, the hour's exhibition ended, and
+the "king's justice" satisfied, away would the criminals be led, some
+on a hurdle to Montfauçon, and there hung on its ample gibbet, amid
+the rattling bones of other wretches; some would be hurried back to
+the Chastelet, or other prisons; and others would be sent off to work,
+chained to the oars of the royal galleys.
+
+This was a common amusement of the idlers of this quarter: but the
+passions of the mob, if they needed stronger excitement, had to find a
+scene of horrid gratification on the Place de Grève, opposite the
+Hotel de Ville, where at rare intervals a heretic would be burnt, a
+murderer hung, or a traitor quartered; but this spot of bloody memory
+lies far from the Rue St Denis, and we are not now called upon to
+reveal its terrible recollections: let us turn back to our good old
+street.
+
+One of the most curious objects in it was the Church of the Innocents,
+with its adjoining cemetery, once the main place of interment for all
+the capital. The church lay at the north-eastern end of what is now
+the Marché des Innocents, and against it was erected the fountain
+which now adorns the middle of the market, and which was the work of
+the celebrated sculptor, Jean Goujon, and his colleague, the
+architect, Pierre Lescot. The former is said to have been seated at
+it, giving some last touches to one of the tall and graceful nymphs
+that adorn its high arched sides, on the day of the Massacre of St
+Bartholomew, when he was killed by a random shot from a Catholic
+zealot. The simple inscription which it still bears, FONTIUM NYMPHIS,
+is in better taste than that of any other among the numerous fountains
+of the French capital. The church itself (of which not the slightest
+vestige now remains) was not a good specimen of mediæval architecture,
+although it was large and richly endowed. It was founded by Philip
+Augustus, when he ordered the Jews to be expelled from his dominions,
+and seized on their estates--one of the most nefarious actions
+committed by a monarch of France. The absurd accusation, that the Jews
+used periodically to crucify and torture Christian children, was one
+of the most plausible pretexts employed by the rapacious king on this
+occasion; and, as a kind of testimonial that such had been his excuse,
+he founded this church; dedicated it to the Holy Innocents; and
+transferred hither the remains of a boy, named Richard, said to have
+been sacrificed at Pontoise by some unfortunate Jews, who expiated the
+pretended crime by the most horrible torments. St Richard's remains,
+(for he was canonized,) worked numerous miracles in the Church of the
+Innocents, or rather in the churchyard, where a tomb was erected over
+them; and so great was their reputation, that tradition says, the
+English, on evacuating Paris in the 15th century, carried off with
+them all but the little saint's head. Certain it is, that nothing but
+the head remained amongst the relics of this parish; and equally
+certain is it, that no Christian innocents have been sacrificed by
+those "circumcised dogs" either before or since, whether in France or
+England, or any other part of the world. It remained for the dishonest
+credulity of the present century, to witness the disgraceful spectacle
+of a French consul at Damascus, assisting at the torturing of some
+Jewish merchants under a similar accusation, and assuring his
+government of his belief in the confessions extorted by these inhuman
+means; and of many a party journal in Paris accrediting and re-echoing
+the tale. Had not British humanity intervened in aid of British
+policy, France had made this visionary accusation the ground of an
+armed intervention in Syria. The false accusers of the Jews of
+Damascus have indeed been punished; but the French consul, the Count
+de Ratti-Menton, has since been rewarded by his government with a high
+promotion in the diplomatic department!
+
+Once more, "a truce to digression," let us see what the ancient
+cemetery of the Innocents was like. Round an irregular four-sided
+space, about five hundred feet by two, ran a low cloister-like
+building, called Les Charniers, or the Charnel Houses. It had
+originally been a cloister surrounding the churchyard; but, so
+convenient had this place of sepulture been found, from its situation
+in the heart of Paris, that the remains of mortality increased in most
+rapid proportion within its precincts, and it was continually found
+necessary to transfer the bones of long-interred, and long-forgotten
+bodies, to the shelter of the cloisters. Here, then, they were piled
+up in close order--the bones below and the skulls above; they reached
+in later times to the very rafters of these spacious cloisters all
+round, and heaps of skulls and bones lay in unseemly groups on the
+grass in the midst of the graveyard. At one corner of the church was a
+small grated window, where a recluse, like her of St Opportune, had
+worn away forty-six years of her life, after one year's confinement as
+a preparatory experiment; and within the church was a splendid brass
+tomb, commemorating this refinement of the monastic virtues. At
+various spots about the cemetery, were erected obelisks and crosses of
+different dates, while against the walls of the church and cloister
+were affixed, in motley and untidy confusion, unnumbered tablets and
+other memorials of the dead. The suppression of this cemetery, just at
+the commencement of the Revolution, was a real benefit to the capital;
+and when the contents of the yard and its charnel-houses were removed
+to the catacombs south of the city, it was calculated that the remains
+of two millions of human beings rattled down the deep shafts of the
+stone pits to their second interment. In place of the cemetery, we now
+find the wooden stalls of the Covent Garden of Paris; low, dirty,
+unpainted, ill-built, badly-drained, stinking, and noisy; and their
+tenants are not better than themselves. Like their neighbours, the
+famous Poissardes, the Dames de la Halle as they are styled, are the
+quintessence of all that is disgusting in Paris. Covent Garden is
+worth a thousand of such markets, and Père la Chaise is an admirable
+substitute for the Cemetery of the Innocents.
+
+High up in the Rue de Faubourg St Denis, which is only a continuation
+of the main street, just as Knightsbridge is of Piccadilly, stand the
+remains of the great convent and _maladrerie_ of St Lazarus. In this
+religious house, all persons attacked with leprosy were received in
+former days, and either kept for life, if incurable, or else
+maintained until they were freed from that loathsome disease. From
+what cause we know not, (except that the House of St Lazarus was the
+nearest of any religious establishment to the walls of the capital,)
+the kings of France always made a stay of three days within its walls
+on their solemn inauguratory entrance into Paris, and their bodies
+always lay in state here before they were conveyed to the Abbey Church
+of St Denis. There was no lack of stiff ceremonial on these occasions;
+and, doubtless, the good fathers of the convent did not receive all
+the court within their walls without rubbing a little gold off the
+rich habits of the nobles. The king, on arriving at the Convent of St
+Lazare, proceeded to a part of the house allotted for this purpose,
+and called _Le Logis du Roy_, where, in a chamber of state, he took
+his seat beneath a canopy, surrounded by the princes of the
+blood-royal. The chancellor of France stood behind his majesty, to
+furnish him with replies to the different deputations that used to
+come with congratulatory addresses, and the receptions then commenced.
+They used to last from seven in the morning, without intermission,
+till four or five in the afternoon; there were the lawyers of the
+Chastelet, the Court of Aids, the Court of Accounts, and the
+Parliament, to say nothing of the city authorities and other
+constituted bodies. The addresses were no short unmeaning things, like
+those uttered in our poor cold times, but good long-winded harangues,
+some in French, some in Latin, and they went on, one after the other,
+for three days consecutively. On the third day, when the royal
+patience must have been wellnigh exhausted, and the chancellor's
+talents at reply worn tolerably threadbare, the king would rise, and
+mounting on horseback, would proceed to the cathedral church of Notre
+Dame, down the Rue St Denis. One of the best recorded of these royal
+entries is that of Louis XI. On this occasion, the king, setting out
+from a suburban residence in the Faubourg St Honoré, got along the
+northern side of Paris to the Convent of St Lazare; and thence, after
+the delay and the harangues of the three days--the real original
+glorious three days of the French monarchy--proceeded to the Porte St
+Denis. Here a herald met the monarch, and after the keys of the city
+had been presented by the provost, with long speeches and replies, the
+former officer introduced to his majesty five young ladies, all richly
+clad, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, their housings bearing
+the arms of the city of Paris. Each young damsel represented an
+allegorical personage, and the initials of the names of their
+characters made up the word _Paris_. They each harangued the king, and
+their speeches, says an old chronicle, seemed "very agreeable" to the
+royal ears. Around the king, as he rode through the gateway, were the
+princes and highest nobles of the land--the Dukes of Orleans,
+Burgundy, Bourbon, and Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest son of
+the Duke of Burgundy; the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul, Dunois, and
+others; with, as a chronicle of the time relates, "autres comtes,
+barons, chevaliers, capitaines, et force noblesse, en très bel ordre
+et posture." All of these were mounted on horses of price, richly
+caparisoned, and covered with the finest housings; some were of cloth
+of gold furred with sable, others were of velvet or damask furred with
+ermine; all were enriched with precious stones, and to many were
+attached bells of silver gilt, with other "enjolivements." Over the
+gateway was a large ship, the armorial bearing of the city, and within
+it were a number of allegorical personages, with one who represented
+Louis XI. himself; in the street immediately within the gate was a
+party of savages and satyrs, who executed a mock-fight in honour of
+the approach of royalty. A little lower down came forth a troop of
+young women representing syrens; an old chronicle calls them,
+"Plusieurs belles filles accoustrées en syrenes, nues, lesquelles, en
+faisant voir leur beau sein, chantoient de petits motets de bergères
+fort doux et charmans." Near where these damsels stood was a fountain
+which had pipes running with milk, wine, and hypocras; at the side of
+the Church of the Holy Trinity was a _tableau-vivant_ of the Passion
+of our Saviour, including a crucified Christ and two thieves,
+represented, as the chronicle states, "par personnages sans parler." A
+little further on was a hunting party, with dogs and a hind, making a
+tremendous noise with hautboys and _cors-de-chasse_. The butchers on
+the open place near the Chastelet, had raised some lofty scaffolds,
+and on them had erected a representation of the Bastille or Chateau of
+Dieppe. Just as the king passed by, a desperate combat was going on
+between the French besieging this chateau and the English holding
+garrison within; "the latter," adds the chronicle, "having been taken
+prisoners, had all their throats cut." Before the gate of the
+Chastelet, there were the personifications of several illustrious
+heroes; and on the Pont-au-Change, which was carpeted below, hung with
+arms at the sides, and canopied above for the occasion, stood the
+fowlers with their two hundred dozens of birds, ready to fly them as
+soon as the royal charger should stamp on the first stone. Such was a
+royal entry in those days of iron rule.
+
+Before Louis XI.'s father, Charles VII., had any reasonable prospect
+of reigning in Paris as king, the English troops had to be driven out
+of the capital; and when the French forces had scaled the walls, and
+entered the city, A.D. 1436, the 1500 Englishmen who defended the
+place, had but little mercy shown them. Seeing that the game was lost,
+Sir H. Willoughby, captain of Paris, shut himself up with a part of
+the troops in the Bastille, accompanied by the Bishop of Therouenne,
+and Morhier, the provost of the city. The people rose to the cry of
+"Sainct Denys, Vive le noble Roy de France!" The constable of France,
+the Duke de Richemont, and the Bastard of Orleans, led them on; those
+troops that had been shut out of the Bastille, tried to make their way
+up the Rue St Denis, to the northern gateway, and so to escape on the
+road to Beauvais and England but the inhabitants stretched chains
+across the street, and men, women, and children, showered down upon
+them from the windows, chairs, tables, logs of wood, stones, and even
+boiling water; while others rushed in from behind and from the side
+streets, with arms in their hands, and the massacre of all the English
+fugitives ensued. A short time after, Sir H. Willoughby, and the
+garrison of the Bastille, not receiving succours from the commanders
+of the English forces, surrendered the fortress, and were allowed to
+retire to Rouen. As they marched out of Paris, the Bishop of
+Therouenne accompanied them, and the populace followed the troops,
+shouting out at the Bishop--"The fox! the fox!"--and at the English,
+"The tail! the tail!"
+
+Another departure of a foreign garrison from Paris, took place in
+1594, and this time in peaceable array, by the Rue St Denis. When
+Henry IV. had obtained possession of his capital, there remained in it
+a considerable body of Spanish troops, who had been sent into France
+to aid the chiefs of the League, and they were under the command of
+the Duke de Feria. The reaction in the minds of the Parisians, after
+the misery of their siege, had been too sudden and too complete, to
+give the Spaniards any hope of holding out against the king; a
+capitulation was therefore agreed upon, the foreign forces were
+allowed to march out with the honours of war, and they were escorted
+with their baggage as far as the frontier. The king and his principal
+officers took post within the rooms over the Porte St Denis--then a
+square turreted building, with a pointed and portcullised gate and
+drawbridge beneath--to see the troops march out, and he stationed
+himself at the window looking down the street. First came some
+companies of Neapolitan infantry, with drums beating, standards
+flying, arms on their shoulders, but without having their matches
+lighted. Then came the Spanish Guards, in the midst of whom were the
+Duke de Feria, Don Diego d'Ibara, and Don Juan Baptista Taxis, all
+mounted on spirited Spanish chargers; while behind them marched the
+battalions of the Lansquenets, and the Walloons. As each company came
+up to the gateway, the soldiers, marching by fours, raised their eyes
+to the king, took off their headpieces, and bowed; the officers did
+the same, and Henry returned the salutation with the greatest
+courtesy. He was particular in showing this politeness, in the most
+marked manner, to the Duke de Feria and his noble companions, and when
+they were within hearing, cried out aloud, "Recommend me to your
+master, but never show your faces here again!" Some of the more
+obnoxious members of the League were allowed to retire with the
+Spaniards; and in the evening, bonfires were lighted in all the
+streets, and the _Te Deum_ was sung on all the public places. The
+mediæval glory of the Porte St Denis vanished in the time of Louis
+XIV., where he unfortified the city, which one of his successors has
+taken such pains again to imprison within stone walls, and the present
+triumphal arch was erected upon its site. This modern edifice, it is
+well known, served for the entrance of Charles X. from Rheims, and,
+shortly after, for a post whence the trumpery patriots of 1830
+contrived to annoy some of the cavalry who were fighting in the cause
+of the legitimacy and the true liberties of France. Many a barricade
+and many a skirmish has the Rue St Denis since witnessed!
+
+All the churches have disappeared from the Rue St Denis except that of
+St Leu and St Gilles, a small building of the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries: all the convents have been rased to the ground
+except that of St Lazare. To this a far different destination has been
+given from what it formerly enjoyed: it is now the great female prison
+of the capital; and within its walls all the bread required for the
+prisons of Paris is baked, all the linen is made and mended. The
+prison consists of three distinct portions: one allotted for carrying
+on the bread and linen departments: a second for the detention of
+female criminals before conviction, or for short terms of
+imprisonment; and in this various light manufactures, such as the
+making of baskets, straw-plait, and the red phosphorus-match boxes,
+are carried on: the third is an hospital and house of detention for
+the prostitutes of the capital. We were once taken all through this
+immense establishment by the governor, who had the kindness to
+accompany us, and to explain every thing in person--a favour not often
+granted to foreigners--and a strong impression did the scenes we then
+saw leave. In the first two departments every thing was gloomy,
+orderly, and quiet: the prisoners were much fewer than we had
+expected--not above two hundred--many of them, however, were mere
+children; but the matrons were good kind of women and the work of
+reformation was going on rapidly to counteract the effects of early
+crime. In the third, though equal strictness of conduct on the part of
+the superiors prevailed, the behaviour of the inmates subjected to
+control was far different. The great majority had been confined there
+as hospital patients, not as offenders against the law, and they were
+divided into wards, according to their sanatory condition. Here they
+were very numerous; and a melancholy thing it was to see hundreds of
+wretched creatures wandering about their spacious rooms, or sitting up
+in their beds, with haggard looks, dishevelled hair, hardly any
+clothing, and a sort of reckless gaiety in their manner that spoke
+volumes as to their real condition. The _régime_ of this
+prison-hospital is found, however, to be on the whole most salutary:
+the seeds of good are sown with a few; the public health, as well as
+the public morals, has been notably improved; and from the time when a
+young painter employed in the prison was decoyed into this portion of
+it and killed within a few hours, the occurrence of deeds of violence
+within its walls has been very rare.
+
+From the top of the Faubourg St Denis, all through the suburb of La
+Chapelle, the long line of modern habitations extends, without
+offering any points of historical interest. It is, indeed, a very
+commonplace, everyday kind of road, which hardly any Englishman that
+has jumbled along in the Messageries Royales can fail of recollecting.
+Nothing poetical, nothing romantic, was ever known to take place
+between the Barrière de St Denis and the town where the abbey stands.
+We know, however, of an odd occurrence upon this ground, towards the
+end of the thirteenth century, (we were not alive then, gentle
+reader,) strikingly illustrative of the superstition of the times. In
+1274, the church of St Gervais, in Paris, was broken into one night by
+some sacrilegious dog, who ran off with the golden pix, containing the
+consecrated wafer or host. Not thinking himself safe within the city,
+away he went for St Denis--got without the city walls in safety, and
+made off as fast as he could for the abbatial town. Before arriving
+there, he thought he would have a look at the contents of the precious
+vessel, when, on his opening the lid, out jumped the holy wafer, up it
+flew into the air over his head, and there it kept dodging about, and
+bobbing up and down, behind the affrightened thief, and following him
+wherever he went. He rushed into the town of St Denis, but there was
+the wafer coming after him, and just above his head; whichever way he
+turned, there was the flying wafer. It was now broad daylight, and
+some of the inhabitants perceived the miracle. This was immediately
+reported by them to the abbot of the monastery. The holy father and
+his monks sallied forth; all saw the wafer as plain as they saw each
+others' shaven crowns. The man was immediately arrested; the pix was
+found on him, and the abbot, as a feudal seigneur, having the right of
+life and death within his own fief, had him hung up to the nearest
+tree within five minutes. The abbot then sent word to the Bishop of
+Paris of what had occurred; and the prelate, attended by the curates
+and clergy of the capital, went to St Denis to witness the miracle.
+But wonders were not to cease; there they found the abbot and monks
+looking up into the air; there was the wafer sticking up somewhere
+under the sun, and none of them could devise how they were to get it
+down again. The monks began singing canticles and litanies; the
+Parisian clergy did the same; still the wafer would not move a hair's
+breadth. At last they resolved to adjourn to the Abbey Church; and so
+they formed themselves into procession, and stepped forwards. The
+monks had reached the abbey door, the bishop and his clergy were
+following behind, and the clergy of St Gervais were just under the
+spot where the wafer was suspended, when, _presto_, down it popped
+into the hands of the little red-nosed curate. "Its mine!" cried the
+curate: "I'll have it!" shouted the bishop: "I wish you may get it,"
+roared the abbot--and a regular scramble took place. But the little
+curate held his prize fast; his vicars stuck to him like good men and
+true; and they carried off their prize triumphant. The bishop and the
+abbot drew up a solemn memorial and covenant on the spot, whereby the
+wafer was legally consigned to its original consecrator and owner, the
+curate of St Gervais; and it was agreed that every 1st of September,
+the day of the miracle, a solemn office and procession of the Holy
+Sacrament should be celebrated within his church. The reverend father
+Du Breul, the grave historian of Paris, adds: "L'histoire du dit
+miracle est naifvement depeinte en une vitre de la chapelle Sainct
+Pierre d'icelle église, où sont aussi quelques vers François,
+contenans partie d'icelle histoire."
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+
+In days of old it was the remark of more than one philosopher, that,
+if it were possible to exhibit virtue in a personal form, and clothed
+with attributes of sense, all men would unite in homage to her
+supremacy. The same thing is true of other abstractions, and
+especially of the powers which work by social change. Could these
+powers be revealed to us in any symbolic incarnation--were it possible
+that, but for one hour, the steadfast march of their tendencies, their
+promises, and their shadowy menaces, could be made apprehensible to
+the bodily eye--we should be startled, and oftentimes appalled, at the
+grandeur of the apparition. In particular, we may say that the advance
+of civilization, as it is carried forward for ever on the movement
+continually accelerated of England and France, were it less stealthy
+and inaudible than it is, would fix, in every stage, the attention of
+the inattentive and the anxieties of the careless. Like the fabulous
+music of the spheres, once allowed to break sonorously upon the human
+ear, it would render us deaf to all other sounds. Heard or not heard,
+however, marked or not marked, the rate of our advance is more and
+more portentous. Old things are passing away. Every year carries us
+round some obstructing angle, laying open suddenly before us vast
+reaches of fresh prospect, and bringing within our horizon new
+agencies by which civilization is henceforth to work, and new
+difficulties against which it is to work; other forces for
+co-operation, other resistances for trial. Meantime the velocity of
+these silent changes is incredibly aided by the revolutions, both
+moral and scientific, in the machinery of nations; revolutions by
+which knowledge is interchanged, power propagated, and the methods of
+communication multiplied. And the vast aerial arches by which these
+revolutions mount continually to the common zenith of Christendom, so
+as to force themselves equally upon the greatest of nations and the
+humblest, express the aspiring destiny by which, already and
+irresistibly, they are coming round upon all other tribes and families
+of men, however distant in position, or alien by system and
+organization. The nations of the planet, like ships of war
+manœuvring prelusively to some great engagement, are silently
+taking up their positions, as it were, for future action and reaction,
+reciprocally for doing and suffering. And, in this ceaseless work of
+preparation or of noiseless combination, France and England are seen
+for ever in the van. Whether for evil or for good, they _must_ be in
+advance. And if it were possible to see the relative positions of all
+Christendom, its several divisions, expressed as if on the monuments
+of Persepolis by endless evolutions of cities in procession or of
+armies advancing, we should be awakened to the full solemnity of our
+duties by seeing two symbols flying aloft for ever in the head of
+nations--two recognizances for hope or for fear--the roses of England
+and the lilies of France.
+
+Reflections such as these furnish matter for triumphal gratulation,
+but also for great depression: and in the enormity of our joint
+responsibilities, we French and English have reason to forget the
+grandeur of our separate stations. It is fit that we should keep alive
+these feelings, and continually refresh them, by watching the
+everlasting motions of society, by sweeping the moral heavens for ever
+with our glasses in vigilant detection of new phenomena, and by
+calling to a solemn audit, from time to time, the national acts which
+are undertaken, or the counsels which in high places are avowed.
+
+Amongst these acts and these counsels none justify a more anxious
+attention than such as come forward in the senate. It is true that
+great revolutions may brood over us for a long period without
+awakening any murmur or echo in Parliament; of which we have an
+instance in Puseyism, which is a power of more ominous capacities than
+the gentleness of its motions would lead men to suspect, and is well
+fitted (as hereafter we may show) to effect a volcanic explosion--such
+as may rend the Church of England by schisms more extensive and
+shattering than those which have recently afflicted the Church of
+Scotland. Generally, however, Parliament becomes, sooner or later, a
+mirror to the leading phenomena of the times. These phenomena, to be
+valued thoroughly, must be viewed, indeed, from different stations and
+angles. But one of these aspects is that which they assume under the
+legislative revision of the people. It is more than ever requisite
+that each session of Parliament should be searched and reviewed in the
+capital features of its legislation. Hereafter we may attempt this
+duty more elaborately. For the present we shall confine ourselves to a
+hasty survey of some few principal measures in the late session which
+seem important to our social progress.
+
+We shall commence our review by the fewest possible words on the
+paramount nuisance of the day--viz. the corn-law agitation. This is
+that question which all men have ceased to think sufferable. This is
+that "mammoth" nuisance of our times by which "the gaiety of nations
+is eclipsed." We are thankful that its "damnable iterations" have now
+placed it beyond the limits of public toleration. No man hearkens to
+such debates any longer--no man reads the reports of such debates: it
+is become criminal to quote them; and recent examples of torpor beyond
+all torpor, on occasion of Cobden meetings amongst the inflammable
+sections of our population, have shown--that not the poorest of the
+poor are any longer to be duped, or to be roused out of apathy, by
+this intolerable fraud. Full of "gifts and lies" is the false fleeting
+Association of these Lancashire Cottoneers. But its gifts are too
+windy, and its lies are too ponderous. To the Association is "given a
+mouth speaking great things and blasphemies;" and out of this mouth
+issues "fire," it is true, against all that is excellent in the land,
+but also "smoke"--as the consummation of its overtures. During many
+reigns of the Cæsars, a race of swindlers infested the Roman court,
+technically known as "sellers of smoke," and often punished under that
+name. They sold, for weighty considerations of gold, castles in the
+air, imaginary benefices, ideal reversions; and, in short, contracted
+wholesale or retail for the punctual delivery of unadulterated
+moonshine. Such a dealer, such a contractor, is the Anti-Corn-Law
+Association; and for such it has always been known amongst intelligent
+men. But its character has now diffused itself among the illiterate:
+and we believe it to be the simple truth at this moment, that every
+working man, whose attention has at any time been drawn to the
+question, is now ready to take his stand upon the following
+answer:--"We, that is our order, Mr Cobden, are not very strong in
+faith. Our faith in the Association is limited. So much, however, by
+all that reaches us, we are disposed to believe--viz. that ultimately
+you might succeed in reducing the price of a loaf, by three parts in
+forty-eight, which is one sixteenth; with what loss to our own landed
+order, and with what risk to the national security in times of war or
+famine, is no separate concern of ours. On the other hand, Mr Cobden,
+in _your_ order there are said to be knaves in ambush; and we take it,
+that the upshot of the change will be this: We shall save three
+farthings in a shilling's worth of flour; and the _honest_ men of your
+order--whom candour forbid that we should reckon at only twenty-five
+per cent on the whole--will diminish our wages simply by that same
+three farthings in a shilling; but the knaves (we are given to
+understand) will take an excuse out of that trivial change to deduct
+four, five, or six farthings; they will improve the occasion in
+evangelical proportions--some sixty-fold, some seventy, and some a
+hundred."
+
+This is the settled _practical_ faith of those hard-working men, who
+care not to waste their little leisure upon the theory of the
+corn-laws. It is this practical result only which concerns _us_; for
+as to the speculative logic of the case, as a question for economists,
+we, who have so often discussed it in this journal, (which journal, we
+take it upon us to say, has, from time to time, put forward or
+reviewed every conceivable argument on the corn question,) must really
+decline to re-enter the arena, and _actum agere_, upon any occasion
+ministered by Mr Cobden. Very frankly, we disdain to do so; and now,
+upon quitting the subject, we will briefly state why.
+
+Mr Cobden, as we hear and believe, is a decent man--that is to say,
+upon any ground not connected with politics; equal to six out of any
+ten manufacturers you will meet in the Queen's high road--whilst of
+the other four not more than three will be found conspicuously his
+superiors. He is certainly, in the senate, not what Lancashire rustics
+mean by a _hammil sconce_;[28] or, according to a saying often in the
+mouth of our French emigrant friends in former times, he "could not
+have invented the gun-powder, though perhaps he might have invented
+the hair-powder." Still, upon the whole, we repeat, that Mr Cobden is
+a decent man, wherever he is not very indecent. Is he therefore a
+decent man on this question of the corn-laws? So far from it, that we
+now challenge attention to one remarkable fact. All the world knows
+how much he has talked upon this particular topic; how he has
+itinerated on its behalf; how he has perspired under its business. Is
+there a fortunate county in England which has yet escaped his
+harangues? Does that happy province exist which has not reverberated
+his yells? Doubtless, not--and yet mark this: Not yet, not up to the
+present hour, (September 20, 1843,) has Mr Cobden delivered one
+argument properly and specially applicable to the corn question. He
+has uttered many things offensively upon the aristocracy; he has
+libelled the lawgivers; he has insulted the farmers; he has exhausted
+the artillery of _political_ abuse: but where is the _economic_
+artillery which he promised us, and which, (strange to say!) from the
+very dulness of his theme making it a natural impossibility to read
+him, most people are willing to suppose that he has, after one fashion
+or other, actually discharged. The Corn-League benefits by its own
+stupidity. Not being read, every leaguer has credit for having uttered
+the objections which, as yet, he never did utter. Hence comes the
+popular impression, that from Mr Cobden have emanated arguments, of
+some quality or other, against the existing system. True, there are
+arguments in plenty on the other side, and pretty notorious arguments;
+but, _pendente lite_, and until these opposite pleas are brought
+forward, it is supposed that the Cobden pleas have a brief provisional
+existence--they are good for the moment. Not at all. We repeat that,
+as to economic pleas, none of any kind, good or bad, have been placed
+on the record by any orator of that faction; whilst all other pleas,
+keen and personal as they may appear, are wholly irrelevant to any
+real point at issue. In illustration of what we say, one (and very
+much the most searching) of Mr Cobden's questions to the farmers, was
+this--"Was not the object," he demanded, "was not the very purpose of
+all corn-laws alike--simply to keep up the price of grain? Well; had
+the English corn-laws accomplished that object? Had they succeeded in
+that purpose? Notoriously they had not; confessedly they had failed;
+and every farmer in the corn districts would avouch that often he had
+been brought to the brink of ruin by prices ruinously low." Now, we
+pause not to ask, why, if the law already makes the prices of corn
+ruinously low, any association can be needed to make it lower? What we
+wish to fix attention upon, is this assumption of Mr Cobden's, many
+times repeated, that the known object and office of our corn-law,
+under all its modifications, has been to elevate the price of our
+corn; to sustain it at a price to which naturally it could not have
+ascended. Many sound speculators on this question we know to have been
+seriously perplexed by this assertion of Mr Cobden's; and others, we
+have heard, not generally disposed to view that gentleman's doctrines
+with favour, who insist upon it, that, in mere candour, we must grant
+this particular postulate. "Really," say they, "_that_ cannot be
+refused him; the law _was_ for the purpose he assigns; its final cause
+_was_, as he tells us, to keep up artificially the price of our
+domestic corn-markets. So far he is right. But his error commences in
+treating this design as an unfair one, and, secondly, in denying that
+it has been successful. It _has_ succeeded; and it ought to have
+succeeded. The protection sought for our agriculture was no more than
+it merited; and that protection has been faithfully realized."
+
+    [28] A _hammil sconce_, or light of the hamlet, is the
+    picturesque expression in secluded parts of Lancashire
+    for the local wise man, or village counsellor.
+
+We, however, vehemently deny Mr Cobden's postulate _in toto_. He is
+wrong, not merely as others are wrong in the principle of refusing
+this protection, not merely on the question of fact as to the reality
+of this protection, (to enter upon which points would be to adopt that
+hateful discussion which we have abjured;) but, above all, he is wrong
+in assigning to corn-laws, as their end and purpose, an absolute
+design of sustaining prices. To raise prices is an occasional means of
+the corn-laws, and no end at all. In one word, what _is_ the end of
+the corn-laws? It is, and ever has been, to equalize the prospects of
+the farmer from year to year, with the view, and generally with the
+effect, of drawing into the agricultural service of the nation, as
+nearly as possible, the same amount of land at one time as at another.
+This is the end; and this end is paramount. But the means to that end
+must lie, according to the accidents of the case, alternately through
+moderate increase of price, or moderate diminution of price. The
+besetting oversight, in this instance, is the neglect of the one great
+peculiarity affecting the manufacture of corn--viz. its inevitable
+oscillation as to quantity, consequently as to price, under the
+variations of the seasons. People talk, and encourage mobs to think,
+that Parliaments cause, and that Parliaments could heal if they
+pleased, the evil of fluctuation in grain. Alas! the evil is as
+ancient as the weather, and, like the disease of poverty, will cleave
+to society for ever. And the way in which a corn-law--that is, a
+restraint upon the free importation of corn--affects the case, is
+this:--Relieving the domestic farmer from that part of his anxiety
+which points to the competition of foreigners, it confines it to the
+one natural and indefeasible uncertainty lying in the contingencies of
+the weather. Releasing him from all jealousy of man, it throws him, in
+singleness of purpose, upon an effort which cannot be disappointed,
+except by a power to which, habitually, he bows and resigns himself.
+Secure, therefore, from all superfluous anxieties, the farmer enjoys,
+from year to year, a pretty equal encouragement in distributing the
+employments of his land. If, through the dispensations of Providence,
+the quantity of his return falls short, he knows that some rude
+indemnification will arise in the higher price. If, in the opposite
+direction, he fears a low price, it comforts him to know that this
+cannot arise for any length of time but through some commensurate
+excess in quantity. This, like other severities of a natural or
+general system, will not, and cannot, go beyond a bearable limit. The
+high price compensates grossly the defect of quantity; the overflowing
+quantity in turn compensates grossly the low price. And thus it
+happens that, upon any cycle of ten years, taken when you will, the
+manufacture of grain will turn out to have been moderately profitable.
+Now, on the other hand, under a system of free importation, whenever a
+redundant crop in England coincides (as often it does) with a similar
+redundancy in Poland, the discouragement cannot but become immoderate.
+An excess of one-seventh will cause a fall of price by three-sevenths.
+But the simultaneous excess on the Continent may raise the one-seventh
+to two-sevenths, and in a much greater proportion will these depress
+the price. The evil will then be enormous; the discouragement will be
+ruinous; much capital, much land, will be withdrawn from the culture
+of grain; and, supposing a two years' succession of such excessive
+crops, (which effect is more common than a single year's excess,) the
+result, for the third year, will be seen in a preternatural
+deficiency; for, by the supposition, the number of acres applied to
+corn is now very much less than usual, under the unusual
+discouragement; and according to the common oscillations of the season
+according to those irregularities that, in effect, are often found to
+be regular--this third year succeeding to redundant years may be
+expected to turn out a year of scarcity. Here, then, in the absence of
+a corn-law, comes a double deficiency--a deficiency of acres applied,
+from jealousy of foreign competition, and upon each separate acre a
+deficiency of crop, from the nature of the weather. What will be the
+consequence? A price ruinously high; higher beyond comparison than
+could ever have arisen under a temperate restriction of competition;
+that is, in other words, under a British corn-law.
+
+Many other cases might be presented to the reader, and especially
+under the action of a doctrine repeatedly pressed in this journal,
+but steadily neglected elsewhere--viz. the "_devolution_" of foreign
+agriculture upon lower qualities of land, (and consequently its
+_permanent_ exaltation in price,) in case of any certain demand on
+account of England. But this one illustration is sufficient. Here we
+see that, under a free trade in corn, and _in consequence_ of a free
+trade, ruinous enhancements of price would arise--such in magnitude as
+never could have arisen under a wise limitation of foreign
+competition. And further, we see that under our present system no
+enhancement is, or could be, _absolutely_ injurious; it might be so
+_relatively_--it might be so in relation to the poor consumer; but in
+the mean time, that guinea which might be lost to the consumer would
+be gained to the farmer. Now, in the case supposed, under a free corn
+trade the rise is commensurate to the previous injury sustained by the
+farmer; and much of the extra bonus reaped goes to a foreign interest.
+What we insist upon, however, is this one fact, that alternately the
+British corn-laws have raised the price of grain and have sunk it;
+they have raised the price in the case where else there would have
+been a ruinous depreciation--ruinous to the prospects of succeeding
+years; they have sunk it under the natural and usual oscillations of
+weather to be looked for in these succeeding years. And each way their
+action has been most moderate. For let not the reader forget, that on
+the system of a sliding-scale, this action cannot be otherwise than
+moderate. Does the price rise? Does it threaten to rise higher?
+Instantly the very evil redresses itself. As the evil, _i.e._ the
+price, increases, in that exact proportion does it open the gate to
+relief; for exactly so does the duty fall. Does the price fall
+ruinously?--(in which case it is true that the _instant_ sufferer is
+the farmer; but through him, as all but the short-sighted must see,
+the consumer will become the reversionary sufferer)--immediately the
+duty rises, and forbids an accessary evil from abroad to aggravate the
+evil at home. So gentle and so equable is the play of those weights
+which regulate our whole machinery, whilst the late correction applied
+even here by Sir Robert Peel, has made this gentle action still
+gentler; so that neither of the two parties--consumers who to live
+must buy, growers who to live must sell--can, by possibility, feel an
+incipient pressure before it is already tending to relieve itself. It
+is the very perfection of art to make a malady produce its own
+medicine--an evil its own relief. But that which here we insist on,
+is, that it never _was_ the object of our own corn-laws to increase
+the price of corn; secondly, that the real object was a condition of
+equipoise which abstractedly is quite unconnected with either rise of
+price or fall of price; and thirdly, that, as a matter of fact, our
+corn-laws have as often reacted to lower the price, as directly they
+have operated to raise it; whilst eventually, and traced through
+succeeding years, equally the raising and the lowering have
+co-operated to that steady temperature (or nearest approximation to it
+allowed by nature) which is best suited to a _comprehensive_ system of
+interests. Accursed is that man who, in speaking upon so great a
+question, will seek, or will consent, to detach the economic
+considerations of that question from the higher political
+considerations at issue. Accursed is that man who will forget the
+noble yeomanry we have formed through an agriculture chiefly domestic,
+were it even true that so mighty a benefit had been purchased by some
+pecuniary loss. But this it is which we are now denying. We affirm
+peremptorily, and as a fact kept out of sight only by the neglect of
+pursuing the case through a succession of years under the _natural_
+fluctuation of seasons, that, upon the series of the last seventy
+years, viewed as a whole, we have paid less for our corn by means of
+the corn-laws, than we should have done in the absence of such laws.
+It was, says Mr Cobden, the purpose of such laws to make corn dear; it
+is, says he, the effect, to make it cheap. Yes, in the last clause his
+very malice drove him into the truth. Speaking to farmers, he found it
+requisite to assert that they had been injured; and as he knew of no
+injury to them other than a low price, _that_ he postulated at the
+cost of his own logic, and quite forgetting that if the farmer had
+lost, the consumer must have gained in that very ratio. Rather than
+not assert a failure _quoad_ the intention of the corn-laws, he
+actually asserts a national benefit _quoad_ the result. And, in a
+rapture of malice to the lawgivers, he throws away for ever, at one
+victorious sling, the total principles of an opposition to the
+law.[29]
+
+    [29] Those who fancy a possible evasion of the case
+    supposed above, by saying, that if a failure, extensive
+    as to England, should coincide with a failure extensive
+    as to Poland, remedies might be found in importing from
+    many other countries combined, forget one objection,
+    which is decisive--these supplementary countries must be
+    many, and they must be distant. For no country could
+    singly supply a defect of great extent, unless it were a
+    defect annually and regularly anticipated. A surplus
+    never designed as a fixed surplus for England, but
+    called for only now and then, could never be more than
+    small. Therefore the surplus, which could not be yielded
+    by one country, must be yielded by many. In that
+    proportion increase the probabilities that a number will
+    have no surplus. And, secondly, from the widening
+    distances, in that proportion increases the extent of
+    shipping required. But now, even from Mr Porter, a most
+    prejudiced writer on this question, and not capable of
+    impartiality in speaking upon any measure which he
+    supposes hostile to the principle of free trade, the
+    reader may learn how certainly any great _hiatus_ in our
+    domestic growth of corn is placed beyond all hope of
+    relief. For how is this grain, this relief, to be
+    brought? In ships, you reply. Ay, but in what ships? Do
+    you imagine that an extra navy can lie rotting in docks,
+    and an extra fifty thousand of sailors can be held in
+    reserve, and borne upon the books of some colossal
+    establishment, waiting for the casual seventh, ninth, or
+    twelfth year in which they may be wanted--kept and paid
+    against an "_in case_," like the extra supper, so called
+    by Louis XIV., which waited all night on the chance that
+    it might be wanted? _That_, you say, is impossible. It
+    is so; and yet without such a reserve, all the navies of
+    Europe would not suffice to make up such a failure of
+    our home crops as is likely enough to follow redundant
+    years under the system of unlimited competition.--See
+    PORTER.
+
+But enough, and more than enough, of THE nuisance. It will be
+expected, however, that we should notice two collateral points, both
+wearing an air of the marvellous, which have grown out of the nuisance
+during the recent session. One is the relaxation of our laws with
+respect to Canadian corn; a matter of no great importance in itself,
+but furnishing some reasons for astonishment in regard to the
+disproportioned opposition which it has excited. Undoubtedly the
+astonishment is well justified, if we view the measure for what it was
+really designed by the minister--viz. as a momentary measure, suited
+merely to the _current_ circumstances of our relation to Canada. Long
+before any evil can arise from it, through changes in these
+circumstances, the law will have been modified. Else, and having,
+regard to the remote contingencies of the case (possible or probable)
+rather than to its instant certainties, we are disposed to think, that
+the irritation which this little anomalous law has roused amongst some
+of the landholders, is not quite so unaccountable, or so
+disproportionate, as the public have been taught to imagine. True it
+is, that for the present, _lis est de paupere regno_. Any surplus of
+grain which, at this moment, Canada could furnish, must be quite as
+powerless upon our home markets, as the cattle, living or salted which
+have been imported under the tariff in 1842 and 1843. But the fears of
+Canada potentially, were not therefore unreasonable, because the
+actual Canada is not in a condition for instantly using her new
+privileges. Corn, that hitherto had not been grown, both may be grown,
+and certainly will be grown, as soon as the new motive for growing it,
+the new encouragement, becomes operatively known. Corn, again, that
+from local difficulties did not find its way to eastern markets, will
+do so by continual accessions, swelling gradually into a powerful
+stream, as the many improvements of the land and water communication,
+now contemplated, or already undertaken, come into play. Another fear
+connects itself with possible evasions of the law by the United
+States. Cross an imaginary frontier line, and _that_ will become
+Canadian which was not Canadian by its origin. We are told, indeed,
+that merely by its bulk, grain will always present an obstacle to any
+extensive system of smuggling. But obstacles are not impossibilities.
+And these obstacles, it must be remembered, are not founded in the
+vigilance of revenue officers, but simply in the cost; an element of
+difficulty which is continually liable to change. So that upon the
+whole, and as applying to the reversions of the case, rather than to
+its present phenomena, undoubtedly there _are_ dangers a-head to our
+own landed interest from that quarter of the horizon. For the present,
+it should be enough to say, that these dangers are yet remote. And
+perhaps it _would_ have been enough under other circumstances. But it
+is the tendency of the bill which suggests alarm. All changes in our
+day tend to the consummation of free trade: and this measure,
+travelling in that direction, reasonably becomes suspicious by its
+principle, though innocent enough by its immediate operation.
+
+The other point connected with the corn question is personal. Among
+the many motions and notices growing out of the dispute, which we hold
+it a matter of duty to neglect, was one brought forward by Lord John
+Russell. Upon what principle, or with what object? Strange to say, he
+refused to explain. That it must be some modification applied to a
+fixed duty, every body knew; but of what nature Lord John declined to
+tell us, until he should reach a committee which he had no chance of
+obtaining. This affair, which surprised every body, is of little
+importance as regards the particular subject of the motion. But in a
+more general relation, it is worthy of attention. No man interested in
+the character and efficiency of Parliament, can fail to wish that
+there may always exist a strong opposition, vigilant, bold,
+unflinching, full of partizanship, if you will, but uniformly
+suspending the partizanship at the summons of paramount national
+interests, and acting harmoniously upon some systematic plan. How
+little the present unorganized opposition answers to this description,
+it is unnecessary to say. The nation is ashamed of a body so
+determinately below its functions. But Lord John Russell is
+individually superior to his party. He is a man of sense, of
+information, and of known official experience. Now, if he, so
+notoriously the wise man of "her Majesty's Opposition," is capable of
+descending to harlequin caprices of this extreme order, the nation
+sees with pain, that a constitutional function of control is extinct
+in our present senate, and that her Majesty's Ministers must now be
+looked to as their own controllers. With the levity of a child, Lord
+John makes a motion, which, if adopted, would have landed him in
+defeat; but through utter want of judgment and concert with his party,
+he does not get far enough to be defeated: he does not succeed in
+obtaining the prostration for which he manœuvres; but is saved from
+a final exposure of his little statesmanship by universal mockery of
+his miserable partizanship. Alas for the times in which Burke and Fox
+wielded the forces of Parliamentary opposition, and redoubled the
+energies of Government by the energies of their enlightened
+resistance!
+
+In quitting the subject of the corn agitation, (obstinately pursued
+through the session,) we may remark--and we do so with pain--that all
+laws whatsoever, strong or lax, upon this question are to be regarded
+as provisional. The temper of society being what it is, some small
+gang of cotton-dealers, moved by the rankest self-interest, finding
+themselves suffered to agitate almost without opposition, and the
+ancient landed interest of the country, if not silenced, being silent,
+it is felt by all parties that no law, in whatever direction, upon
+this great problem, can have a chance of permanence. The natural
+revenge which we may promise ourselves is--that the lunacies of the
+free-trader, when acted upon, as too surely they will be, may prove
+equally fugitive. Meantime, it is not by provisional acts, or acts of
+sudden emergency, that we estimate the service of a senate. It is the
+solemn and deliberate laws, those which are calculated for the wear
+and tear of centuries, which hold up a mirror to the legislative
+spirit of the times.
+
+Of laws bearing this character, if we except the inaugural essays at
+improving the law of libel, and at founding a system of national
+education, of which the latter has failed for the present in a way
+fitted to cause some despondency, the last session offers us no
+conspicuous example, beyond the one act of Lord Aberdeen for healing
+and tranquillizing the wounds of the Scottish church. Self-inflicted
+these wounds undeniably were; but they were not the less severe on
+that account, nor was the contagion of spontaneous martyrdom on that
+account the less likely to spread. In reality, the late astonishing
+schism in the Scottish church (astonishing because abrupt) is, in one
+respect, without precedent. Every body has heard of persecutions that
+were courted; but in such a case, at least, the spirit of persecution
+must have had a local existence, and to some extent must have uttered
+menaces--or how should those menaces have been defied? Now, the
+"persecutions," before which a large section of the Scottish church
+has fallen by an act of spontaneous martyrdom, were not merely
+needlessly defied, but were originally self-created; they were evoked,
+like phantoms and shadows, by the martyrs themselves, out of blank
+negations. Without provocation _ab extra_, without warning on their
+own part, suddenly they place themselves in an attitude of desperate
+defiance to the known law of the land. The law firmly and tranquilly
+vindicates itself; the whole series of appeals is threaded; the
+original judgment, as a matter of course, is finally re-affirmed--and
+this is the persecution insinuated; whilst the necessity of complying
+with that decision, which does not express any novelty even to the
+extent of a new law, but simply the ordinary enforcement of an old
+one, is the kind of martyrdom resulting. The least evil of this
+fantastic martyrdom, is the exit from the pastoral office of so many
+persons trained, by education and habit, to the effectual performance
+of the pastoral duties. That loss--though not without signal
+difficulty, from the abruptness of the summons--will be supplied. But
+there is a greater evil which cannot be healed--the breach of unity in
+the church. The scandal, the offence, the occasion of unhappy
+constructions upon the doctrinal soundness of the church, which have
+been thus ministered to the fickle amongst her own children--to the
+malicious amongst her enemies, are such as centuries do not easily
+furnish, and centuries do not remove. In all Christian churches alike,
+the conscientiousness which is the earliest product of heartfelt
+religion, has suggested this principle, that schism, for any cause, is
+a perilous approach to sin; and that, unless in behalf of the
+weightiest interests or of capital truths, it is inevitably criminal.
+And in connexion with this consideration, there arise two scruples to
+all intelligent men upon this crisis in the Scottish church, and they
+are scruples which at this moment, we are satisfied, must harass the
+minds of the best men amongst the seceders--viz. First, whether the
+new points contended for, waiving all controversy upon their abstract
+doctrinal truth, are really such, in _practical_ virtue, that it could
+be worth purchasing them at the cost of schism? Secondly, supposing a
+good man to have decided this question in the affirmative for a young
+society of Christians, for a church in its infancy, which, as yet,
+might not have much to lose in credit or authentic influence--whether
+the same free license of rupture and final secession _could_ belong to
+an ancient church, which had received eminent proofs of Divine favour
+through a long course of spiritual prosperity almost unexampled?
+Indeed, this last question might suggest another paramount to the
+other two--viz. not whether the points at issue were weighty enough to
+justify schism and hostile separation, but whether those points could
+even be safe as mere speculative _credenda_, which, through so long a
+period of trial, and by so memorable a harvest of national services,
+had been shown to be unnecessary?
+
+Very sure we are, that no eminent servant of the Scottish church could
+abandon, without anguish of mind, the multitude of means and channels,
+that great machinery for dispensing living truths, which the power and
+piety of the Scottish nation have matured through three centuries of
+pure Christianity militant. Solemn must have been the appeal, and
+searching, which would force its way to the conscience on occasion of
+taking the last step in so sad an _exodus_ from the Jerusalem of his
+fathers. Anger and irritation can do much to harden the obduracy of
+any party conviction, especially whilst in the centre of fiery
+partisans. But sorrow, in such a case, is a sentiment of deeper
+vitality than anger; and this sorrow for the result will co-operate
+with the original scruples on the casuistry of the questions, to
+reproduce the demur and the struggle many times over, in consciences
+of tender sensibility.
+
+Exactly for men in this state of painful collision with their own
+higher nature, is Lord Aberdeen's bill likely to furnish the bias
+which can give rest to their agitations, and firmness to their
+resolutions. The bill, according to some, is too early, and, according
+to others, too late. Why too early? Because, say they, it makes
+concessions to the church, which as yet are not proved to be called
+for. These concessions travel on the very line pursued by the
+seceders, and must give encouragement to that spirit of religious
+movement which it has been found absolutely requisite to rebuke by
+acts of the legislature. Why, on the other hand, is Lord Aberdeen's
+bill too late? Because, three years ago, it would, or it might, have
+prevented the secession. But is this true? Could this bill have
+prevented the secession? We believe not. Lord Aberdeen, undoubtedly,
+himself supposes that it might. But, granting that this were true,
+whose fault is it that a three years' delay has intercepted so happy a
+result? Lord Aberdeen assures us that the earlier success of the bill
+was defeated entirely by the resistance of the Government at that
+period, and chiefly by the personal resistance of Lord Melbourne. Let
+that minister be held responsible, if any ground has been lost that
+could have been peacefully pre-occupied against the schism. This,
+however, seems to us a chimera. For what is it that the bill concedes?
+Undoubtedly it restrains and modifies the right of patronage. It
+grants a larger discretion to the ecclesiastical courts than had
+formerly been exercised by the usage. Some contend, that in doing so
+the bill absolutely alters the law as it stood heretofore, and ought,
+therefore, to be viewed as enactory; whilst others maintain that is
+simply a declaratory bill, not altering the law at all, but merely
+expressing, in fuller or in clearer terms, what had always been law,
+though silently departed from by the usage, which, from the time of
+Queen Anne, had allowed a determinate preponderance to the rights of
+property in the person of the patron. Those, indeed, who take the
+former view, contending that it enacts a new principle of law, very
+much circumscribing the old right of patronage, insist upon it that
+the bill virtually revokes the decision of the Lords in the
+Auchterarder case. Technically and formally speaking, this is not
+true; for the presbytery, or other church court, is now tied up to a
+course of proceeding which at Auchterarder was violently evaded. The
+court cannot now peremptorily challenge the nominee in the arbitrary
+mode adopted in that instance. An examination must be instituted
+within certain prescribed limits. But undoubtedly the contingent power
+of the church court, in the case of the nominee not meeting the
+examination satisfactorily, is much larger now, under the new bill,
+than it was under the old practice; so that either this practice must
+formerly have swerved from the letter of the law, or else the new law,
+differing from the old, is really more than declaratory. Yet, however
+this may be, it is clear that the jurisdiction of the church in the
+matter of patronage, however ample it may seem as finally ascertained
+or created by the new bill, falls far within the extravagant outline
+marked out by the seceders. We argue, therefore, that it could not
+have prevented their secession even as regards that part of their
+pretensions; whilst, as regards the monstrous claim to decide in the
+last resort what shall be civil and what spiritual--that is, in a
+question of clashing jurisdiction, to settle on their own behalf where
+shall fall the boundary line--it may be supposed that Lord Aberdeen
+would no more countenance their claim in any point of practice, than
+all rational legislators would countenance it as a theory. How,
+therefore, could this bill have prevented the rent in the church, so
+far as it has yet extended? On the other hand, though apparently
+powerless for that effect, it is well calculated to prevent a second
+secession. Those who are at all disposed to follow the first seceders,
+stand in this situation. By the very act of adhering to the
+Establishment when the _ultra_ party went out, they made it abundantly
+manifest that they do not go to the same extreme in their
+requisitions. But, upon any principle which falls short of that
+extreme being at all applicable to this church question, it is certain
+that Lord Aberdeen's measure will be found to satisfy their wishes;
+for that measure, if it errs at all, errs by conceding too much rather
+than too little. It sustains all objections to a candidate on their
+own merit, without reference to the quarter from which they arise, so
+long as they are relevant to the proper qualifications of a parish
+clergyman. It gives effect to every argument that can reasonably be
+urged against a nominee--either generally, on the ground of his moral
+conduct, his orthodoxy, and his intellectual attainments; or
+specially, in relation to his fitness for any local varieties of the
+situation. A Presbyterian church has always been regarded as, in some
+degree, leaning to a republican character, but a republic may be
+either aristocratic or democratic: now, Lord Aberdeen has favoured the
+democratic tendency of the age by making the probationary examination
+of the candidate as much of a popular examination, and as open to the
+impression of objections arising with the body of the people, as could
+be done with any decent regard either to the rights yet recognised in
+the patron, or, still more, to the professional dignity of the
+clerical order.
+
+Upon the whole, therefore, we look upon Lord Aberdeen as a national
+benefactor, who has not only turned aside a current running headlong
+into a revolution, but in doing this exemplary service, has contrived
+to adjust the temperament very equitably between, 1st, the individual
+nominee, having often his livelihood at stake; 2dly, the patron,
+exercising a right of property interwoven with our social system, and
+not liable to any usurpation which would not speedily extend itself to
+other modes of property; 3dly, the church, considered as the trustee
+or responsible guardian of orthodoxy and sound learning; 4thly, the
+same church considered as a professional body, and, therefore, as
+interested in upholding the dignity of each individual clergyman, and
+his immunity from frivolous cavils, however much against him they are
+interested in detecting his insufficiency; and, 5thly, the body of the
+congregation, as undoubtedly entitled to have the qualifications of
+their future pastor rigorously investigated. All these separate
+claims, embodied in five distinct parties, Lord Aberdeen has
+delicately balanced and fixed in a temperate equipoise by the
+machinery of his bill. Whilst, if we enquire for the probable effects
+of this bill upon the interests of pure and spiritual religion, the
+promise seems every way satisfactory. The Jacobinical and precipitous
+assaults of the Non-intrusionists upon the rights of property are
+summarily put down. A great danger is surmounted. For if the rights of
+patrons were to be arbitrarily trampled under foot on a pretence of
+consulting for the service of religion; on the next day, with the same
+unprincipled levity, another party might have trampled on the
+patrimonial rights of hereditary descent, on primogeniture, or any
+institution whatever, opposed to the democratic fanaticism of our age.
+No patron can now thrust an incompetent or a vicious person upon the
+religious ministrations of the land. It must be through their own
+defect of energy, if any parish is henceforth burdened with an
+incumbent reasonably obnoxious. It must be the fault of the presbytery
+or other church court, if the orthodox standards of the church are not
+maintained in their purity. It must be through his own fault, or his
+own grievous defects, if any qualified candidate for the church
+ministry is henceforth vexatiously rejected. It must be through some
+scandalous oversight in the selection of presentees, if any patron is
+defeated of his right to present.
+
+Contrast with these great services the menaces and the tendencies of
+the Non-Intrusionists, on the assumption that they had kept their
+footing in the church. It may be that, during this generation, from
+the soundness of the individual partisans, the orthodox standards of
+the church would have been maintained as to doctrine. But all the
+other parties interested in the church, except the church herself, as
+a depositary of truth, would have been crushed at one blow. This is
+apparent, except only with regard to the congregation of each parish.
+That body, it may be thought, could not but have benefited by the
+change; for the very motive and the pretence of the movement arose on
+their behalf. But mark how names disguise facts, and to what extent a
+virtual hostility may lurk under an apparent protection. Lord
+Aberdeen, because he limits the right of the congregation, is supposed
+to destroy it; but in the mean time he secures to every parish in
+Scotland a true and effectual influence, so far as that body ought to
+have it, (that is, _negatively_,) upon the choice of its pastor. On
+the other hand, the whole storm of the Non-intrusionists was pointed
+at those who refused to make the choice of a pastor altogether
+popular. It was the people, considered as a congregation, who ought
+to appoint the teacher by whom they were to be edified. So far, the
+party of seceders come forward as martyrs to their democratic
+principles. And they drew a colourable sanction to their democracy
+from the great names of Calvin, Zuinglius, and John Knox. Unhappily
+for them, Sir William Hamilton has shown, by quotations the most
+express and absolute from these great authorities, that no such
+democratic appeal as the Non-intrusionists have presumed, was ever
+contemplated for an instant by any one amongst the founders of the
+Reformed churches. That Calvin, whose jealousy was so inexorable
+towards princes and the sons of princes--that John Knox, who never
+"feared the face of man that was born of woman"--were these great
+Christian champions likely to have flinched from installing a popular
+tribunal, had they believed it eligible for modern times, or warranted
+by ancient times? In the learning of the question, therefore,
+Non-intrusionists showed themselves grossly wrong. Meantime it is
+fancied that at least they were generously democratic, and that they
+manifested their disinterested love of justice by creating a popular
+control that must have operated chiefly against their own clerical
+order. What! is that indeed so? Now, finally, take another instance
+how names belie facts. The people _were_ to choose their ministers;
+the council for election of the pastor _was_ to be a popular council
+abstracted from the congregation: but how? but under what conditions?
+but by whom abstracted? Behold the subtle design:--This pretended
+congregation was a small faction; this counterfeit "people" was the
+petty gathering of COMMUNICANTS; and the communicants were in effect
+within the appointment of the clergyman. They formed indirectly a
+secret committee of the clergy. So that briefly, Lord Aberdeen, whilst
+restraining the popular courts, gives to them a true popular
+authority; and the Non-intrusionists, whilst seeming to set up a
+democratic idol, do in fact, by dexterous ventriloquism, throw their
+own all-potential voice into its passive organs.
+
+We may seem to owe some apology to our readers for the space which we
+have allowed to this great moral _émeute_ in Scotland. But we hardly
+think so ourselves. For in our own island, and in our own times,
+nothing has been witnessed so nearly bordering on a revolution.
+Indeed, it is painful to hear Dr Chalmers, since the secession,
+speaking of the Scottish aristocracy in a tone of scornful hatred, not
+surpassed by the most Jacobinical language of the French Revolution in
+the year 1792. And, if this movement had not been checked by
+Parliament, and subsequently by the executive Government, in its
+comprehensive provision for the future, by the measure we have been
+reviewing, we cannot doubt that the contagion of the shock would have
+spread immediately to England, which part of the island has been long
+prepared and manured, as we might say, for corresponding struggles, by
+the continued conspiracy against church-rates. In both cases, an
+attack on church property, once allowed to prosper or to gain any
+stationary footing, would have led to a final breach in the life and
+serviceable integrity of the church.
+
+Of the Factory bill, we are sorry that we are hardly entitled to
+speak. In the loss of the educational clauses, that bill lost all
+which could entitle it to a separate notice; and, where the Government
+itself desponds as to any future hope of succeeding, private parties
+may have leave to despair. One gleam of comfort, however, has shone
+out since the adjournment of Parliament. The only party to the bitter
+resistance under which this measure failed, whom we can sincerely
+compliment with full honesty of purpose--viz. the Wesleyan
+Methodists--have since expressed (about the middle of September)
+sentiments very like compunction and deep sorrow for the course they
+felt it right to pursue. They are fully aware of the malignity towards
+the Church of England, which governed all other parties to the
+opposition excepting themselves; and in the sorrowful result of that
+opposition, which has terminated in denying all extension of education
+to the labouring youth of the nation, they have learned (like the
+conscientious men that they are) to suspect the wisdom and the
+ultimate principle of the opposition itself. Fortunately, they are a
+most powerful body; to express regret for what they have done, and
+hesitation at the casuistry of those motives which reconciled them to
+their act at the moment is possibly but the next step to some change
+in their counsels; in which case this single body, in alliance with
+the Church of England, would be able to carry the great measure which
+has been crushed for the present by so unexampled a resistance. Much
+remains to be said, both upon the introductory statements of Lord
+Ashley, with which (in spite of our respect for that nobleman) we do
+not coincide, and still more upon the extensive changes, and the
+_principles_ of change, which must be brought to bear upon a national
+system of education, before it can operate with that large effect of
+benefit which so many anticipate from its adoption. But this is ample
+matter for a separate discussion.
+
+Lastly, let us notice the Irish Arms' bill; which, amongst the
+measures framed to meet the momentary exigence of the times, stands
+foremost in importance. This is one of those fugitive and casual
+precautions, which, by intense seasonableness, takes its rank amongst
+the permanent means of pacification. Bridling the instant spirit of
+uproar, carrying the Irish nation over that transitional state of
+temptation, which, being once gone by, cannot, we believe, be renewed
+for generations, this, with other acts in the same temper, will face
+whatever peril still lingers in the sullen rear of Mr O'Connell's
+dying efforts. For that gentleman, personally, we believe him to be
+nearly extinct. Two months ago we expressed our conviction, so much
+the stronger in itself for having been adopted after some hesitation,
+that Sir Robert Peel had taken the true course for eventually and
+finally disarming him. We are thankful that we have now nothing to
+recant. Progress has been made in that interval towards that
+consummation, quite equal to any thing we could have expected in so
+short a lapse of weeks. Mr O'Connell is now showing the strongest
+symptoms of distress, and of conscious approach to the condition of
+"check to the king." Of these symptoms we will indicate one or two. In
+January 1843, he declared solemnly that an Irish Parliament should
+instal itself at Dublin before the year closed. Early in May, he
+promised that on the anniversary of that day the great change should
+be solemnized. On a later day in May, he proclaimed that the event
+would come off (according to a known nautical mode of advertising the
+time of sailing) not upon a settled day of that month but "in all May"
+of 1844. Here the matter rested until August 12, when again he shifted
+his day to the corresponding day of 1844. But September arrived, and
+then "before those shoes were old" in which he had made his promise,
+he declares by letter, to some correspondent, that he must have
+_forty-three months_ for working out his plan. Anther symptom, yet
+more significant, is this: and strange to say it has been overlooked
+by the daily press. Originally he had advertised some pretended
+Parliament of 300 Irishmen, to which admission was to be had for each
+member by a fee of L.100. And several journals are now telling him
+that, under the Convention Act, he and his Parliament will be arrested
+on the day of assembling. Not at all. They do not attend to his
+harlequin motions. Already he has declared that this assembly, which
+was to have been a Parliament, is only to be a conciliatory committee,
+an old association under some new name, for deliberating on means
+_tending to_ a Parliament in some future year, as yet not even
+suggested.
+
+May we not say, after such facts, that the game is up? The agitation
+may continue, and it may propagate itself. But for any interest of Mr
+O'Connell's, it is now passing out of his hands.
+
+In the joy with which we survey that winding up of the affair, we can
+afford to forget the infamous display of faction during the discussion
+of the Arms' bill. Any thing like it, in pettiness of malignity, has
+not been witnessed during this century: any thing like it, in
+impotence of effect, probably will not be witnessed again during our
+times. Thirteen divisions in one night--all without hope, and without
+even a verbal gain! This conduct the nation will not forget at the
+next election. But in the mean time the peaceful friends of this yet
+peaceful empire rejoice to know, that without war, without rigour,
+without an effort that could disturb or agitate--by mere silent
+precautions, and the sublime magnanimity of simply fixing upon the
+guilty conspirator one steadfast eye of vigilant preparation, the
+conspiracy itself is melting into air, and the relics of it which
+remain will soon become fearful only to him who has evoked it.
+
+The game, therefore, is up, if we speak of the purposes originally
+contemplated. This appears equally from the circumstances of the case
+without needing the commentary of Mr O'Connell, and from the acts no
+less than the words of that conspirator. True it is--and this is the
+one thing to be feared--that the agitation, though extinct for the
+ends of its author, may propagate itself through the maddening
+passions of the people, now perhaps uncontrollably excited. Tumults
+may arise, at the moment when further excitement is impossible, simply
+through that which is already in operation. But that stage of
+rebellion is open at every turn to the coercion of the law: and it is
+not such a phasis of conspiracy that Mr O'Connell wishes to face, or
+_can_ face. Speaking, therefore, of the _real_ objects pursued in this
+memorable agitation, we cannot but think that as the roll of possible
+meetings is drawing nearer to exhaustion, as all other arts fail, and
+mere _written_ addresses are renewed, (wanting the inflammatory
+contagion of personal meetings, and not accessible to a scattered
+peasantry;) but above all, as the day of instant action is once again
+adjourned to a period both remote and indefinite, the agitation must
+be drooping, and virtually we may repeat that the game is up. But the
+last moves have been unusually interesting. Not unlike the fascination
+exercised over birds by the eye of the rattlesnake, has been the
+impression upon Mr O'Connell from the fixed attention turned upon him
+by Government. What they _did_ was silent and unostentatious; more,
+however, than perhaps the public is aware of in the way of preparation
+for an outbreak. But the capital resource of their policy was, to make
+Mr O'Connell deeply sensible that they were watching him. The eye that
+watched over Waterloo was upon him: for six months that eagle glance
+has searched him and nailed him: and the result, as it is now
+revealing itself, may at length be expressed in the two lines of
+Wordsworth otherwise applied--
+
+    "The vacillating bondsman of the Pope
+    Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."
+
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Minor typographic errors have been corrected. Please note there is
+some archaic spelling, which has been retained as printed. There are a
+few snippets of Greek, a few instances of the letter a with macron
+(straight line) over it, and some oe ligatures; you may need to adjust
+your settings for these to display correctly.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23240]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan O'Connor, Jonathan Ingram, Sam W. and
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+
+                  BLACKWOOD'S
+              EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     No. CCCXXXVI. OCTOBER, 1843. VOL. LIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    MILL'S LOGIC.
+    MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+    TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.
+    THE THIRTEENTH; A TALE OF DOOM.
+    REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.
+    THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.
+    MODERN PAINTERS.
+    A ROYAL SALUTE.
+    PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.
+    CHRONICLES OF PARIS. THE RUE ST DENIS.
+    THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+
+
+
+MILL'S LOGIC.[1]
+
+    [1] A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive;
+    being a connected view of the Principles of Evidence,
+    and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By John
+    Stuart Mill. In two volumes. London: Parker.
+
+
+These are _not_ degenerate days. We have still strong thinkers amongst
+us; men of untiring perseverance, who flinch before no difficulties,
+who never hide the knot which their readers are only too willing that
+they should let alone; men who dare write what the ninety-nine out of
+every hundred will pronounce a _dry_ book; who pledge themselves, not
+to the public, but to their subject, and will not desert it till their
+task is completed. One of this order is Mr John Stuart Mill. The work
+he has now presented to the public, we deem to be, after its kind, of
+the very highest character, every where displaying powers of clear,
+patient, indefatigable thinking. Abstract enough it must be allowed to
+be, calling for an unremitted attention, and yielding but little, even
+in the shape of illustration, of lighter and more amusing matter; he
+has taken no pains to bestow upon it any other interest than what
+searching thought and lucid views, aptly expressed, ought of
+themselves to create. His subject, indeed--the laws by which human
+belief and the inquisition of truth are to be governed and
+directed--is both of that extensive and fundamental character, that it
+would be treated with success only by one who knew how to resist the
+temptations to digress, as well as how to apply himself with vigour to
+the solution of the various questions that must rise before him.
+
+    "This book," the author says in his preface, "makes no
+    pretence of giving to the world a new theory of our
+    intellectual operations. Its claim to attention, if it
+    possess any, is grounded on the fact, that it is an
+    attempt not to supersede, but to embody and systematize,
+    the best ideas which have been either promulgated on its
+    subject by speculative writers, or conformed to by
+    accurate thinkers in their scientific enquiries.
+
+    "To cement together the detached fragments of a subject,
+    never yet treated as a whole; to harmonize the true
+    portions of discordant theories, by supplying the links
+    of thought necessary to connect them, and by
+    disentangling them from the errors with which they are
+    always more or less interwoven--must necessarily require
+    a considerable amount of original speculation. To other
+    originality than this, the present work lays no claim.
+    In the existing state of the cultivation of the
+    sciences, there would be a very strong presumption
+    against any one who should imagine that he had effected
+    a revolution in the theory of the investigation of
+    truth, or added any fundamentally new process to the
+    practice of it. The improvement which remains to be
+    effected in the methods of philosophizing, [and the
+    author believes that they have much need of
+    improvement,] can only consist in performing, more
+    systematically and accurately, operations with which, at
+    least in their elementary form, the human intellect, in
+    some one or other of its employments, is already
+    familiar."
+
+Such is the manly and modest estimate which the author makes of his
+own labours, and the work fully bears out the character here given of
+it. No one capable of receiving pleasure from the disentanglement of
+intricacies, or the clear exposition of an abstruse subject; no one
+seeking assistance in the acquisition of distinct and accurate views
+on the various and difficult topics which these volumes embrace--can
+fail to read them with satisfaction and with benefit.
+
+To give a full account--to give any account--of a work which traverses
+so wide a field of subject, would be here a futile attempt; we should,
+after all our efforts, merely produce a laboured and imperfect
+synopsis, which would in vain solicit the perusal of our readers. What
+we purpose doing, is to take up, in the order in which they occur,
+some of the topics on which Mr Mill has thrown a new light, or which
+he has at least invested with a novel interest by the view he has
+given of them. And as, in this selection of topics, we are not bound
+to choose those which are most austere and repulsive, we hope that
+such of our readers as are not deterred by the very name of logic,
+will follow us with some interest through the several points of view,
+and the various extracts we shall present to them.
+
+_The Syllogism._--The logic of _Induction_, as that to which attention
+has been least devoted, which has been least reduced to systematic
+form, and which lies at the basis of all other modes of reasoning,
+constitutes the prominent subject of these volumes. Nevertheless, the
+old topic of logic proper, or deductive reasoning, is not omitted, and
+the first passage to which we feel bound, on many accounts, to give
+our attention, is the disquisition on the syllogism.
+
+Fortunately for us it is not necessary, in order to convey the point
+of our author's observations upon this head, to afflict our readers
+with any dissertation upon _mode_ or _figure_, or other logical
+technicalities. The first form or _figure_ of the syllogism (to which
+those who have not utterly forgotten their scholastic discipline will
+remember that all others may be reduced) is familiar to every one, and
+to this alone we shall have occasion to refer.
+
+    "All men are mortal.
+    A king is a man;
+    Therefore a king is mortal."
+
+Who has not met--what young lady even, though but in her teens, has
+not encountered some such charming triplet as this, which looks so
+like verse at a distance, but, like some other compositions,
+approximates nothing the more on this account to poetry? Who has not
+learnt from such examples what is a _major_, what a _middle term_, and
+what the _minor_ or conclusion?
+
+As no one, in the present day, advises the adoption, in our
+controversies, of the syllogistic forms of reasoning, it is evident
+that the value of the syllogism must consist, not in its practical
+use, but in the accurate type which it affords of the process of
+reasoning, and in the analysis of that process which a full
+understanding of it renders necessary. Such an analysis supplies, it
+is said, an excellent discipline to the mind, whilst an occasional
+reference to the form of the syllogism, as a type or model of
+reasoning, insures a steadiness and pertinency of argument. But is the
+syllogism, it has been asked, this veritable type of our reasoning?
+Has the analysis which would explain it to be such, been accurately
+conducted?
+
+Several of our northern metaphysicians, it is well known--as, for
+example, Dr Campbell and Dugald Stewart--have laid rude hands upon the
+syllogism. They have pronounced it to be a vain invention. They have
+argued that no addition of knowledge, no advancement in the
+acquisition of truth, no new conviction, can possibly be obtained
+through its means, inasmuch as no syllogism can contain any thing in
+the conclusion which was not admitted, at the outset, in the first or
+major proposition. The syllogism always, say they, involves a _petitio
+principii_. Admit the major, and the business is palpably at an end;
+the rest is a mere circle, in which one cannot advance, but may get
+giddy by the revolution. According to the exposition of logicians
+themselves, we simply obtain by our syllogism, the privilege of saying
+that, in the _minor_, of some individual of a class, which we had
+said, in the _major_, already of the whole class.
+
+Archbishop Whately, our most distinguished expositor and defender of
+the Aristotelian logic, meets these antagonists with the resolute
+assertion, that their objection to the syllogism is equally valid
+against _all reasoning whatever_. He does not deny, but, on the
+contrary, in common with every logician, distinctly states, that
+whatever is concluded in the minor, must have been previously admitted
+in the major, for in this lies the very force and compulsion of the
+argument; but he maintains that the syllogism is the true type of all
+our reasoning, and that therefore to all our reasoning, the very same
+vice, the very same _petitio principii_, may be imputed. The
+syllogism, he contends, (and apparently with complete success,) is but
+a statement in full of what takes place mentally even in the most
+rapid acts of reasoning. We often suppress the major for the sake of
+brevity, but it is understood though not expressed; just as in the
+same manner as we sometimes content ourselves with merely implying the
+conclusion itself, because it is sufficiently evident without further
+words. If any one should so far depart from common sense as to
+question the mortality of some great king, we should think it
+sufficient to say for all argument--the king is a man!--virtually
+implying the whole triplet above mentioned:--
+
+    "All men are mortal.
+    The king is a man;
+    Therefore the king is mortal."
+
+"In pursuing the supposed investigation, (into the operation of
+reasoning,)" says Archbishop Whately, "it will be found that every
+conclusion is deduced, in reality, from two other propositions,
+(thence called _Premisses_;) for though one of these may be and
+commonly is suppressed, it must nevertheless be understood as
+admitted, as may easily be made evident by supposing the _denial_ of
+the suppressed premiss, which will at once invalidate the argument;
+_e.g._ if any one, from perceiving that 'the world exhibits marks of
+design,' infers that 'it must have had an intelligent author,' though
+he may not be aware in his own mind of the existence of any other
+premiss, he will readily understand, if it be _denied_ that 'whatever
+exhibits marks of design must have had an intelligent author,' that
+the affirmative of that proposition is necessary to the solidity of
+the argument. An argument thus stated regularly and at full length, is
+called a syllogism; which, therefore, is evidently not a peculiar
+_kind of argument_, but only a peculiar _form_ of expression, in which
+every argument may be stated."--_Whately's Logic_, p. 27.
+
+"It will be found," he continues, "that all valid arguments whatever
+may be easily reduced to such a form as that of the foregoing
+syllogisms; and that consequently the principle on which they are
+constructed is the UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE of reasoning. So elliptical,
+indeed, is the ordinary mode of expression, even of those who are
+considered as prolix writers,--_i.e._ so much is implied and left to
+be understood in the course of argument, in comparison of what is
+actually stated, (most men being impatient, even to excess, of any
+appearance of unnecessary and tedious formality of statement,) that a
+single sentence will often be found, though perhaps considered as a
+single argument, to contain, compressed into a short compass, a chain
+of several distinct arguments. But if each of these be fully
+developed, and the whole of what the author intended to imply be
+stated expressly, it will be found that all the steps, even of the
+longest and most complex train of reasoning, may be reduced into the
+above form."--P. 32.
+
+That it is not the office of the syllogism to discover _new_ truths,
+our logician fully admits, and takes some pains to establish. This is
+the office of "other operations of mind," not unaccompanied, however,
+with acts of reasoning. Reasoning, argument, inference, (words which
+he uses as synonymous,) have not for their object our advancement in
+knowledge, or the acquisition of new truths.
+
+"Much has been said," says Archbishop Whately, in another portion of
+his work, "by some writers, of the superiority of the inductive to the
+syllogistic methods of seeking truth, as if the two stood opposed to
+each other; and of the advantage of substituting the _Organon_ of
+Bacon for that of Aristotle, &c. &c., which indicates a total
+misconception of the nature of both. There is, however, the more
+excuse for the confusion of thought which prevails on this subject,
+because eminent logical writers have treated, or at least have
+appeared to treat, of induction as a kind of argument distinct from
+the syllogism; which, if it were, it certainly might be contrasted
+with the syllogism: or rather the whole syllogistic theory would fall
+to the ground, since one of the very first principles it establishes,
+is that _all_ reasoning, on whatever subject, is one and the same
+process, which may be clearly exhibited in the form of syllogisms.
+
+"This inaccuracy seems chiefly to have arisen from a vagueness in the
+use of the word induction; which is sometimes employed to designate
+the process of _investigation_ and of collecting facts, sometimes the
+deducing an inference _from_ those facts. The former of these
+processes (_viz._ that of observation and experiment) is undoubtedly
+_distinct_ from that which takes place in the syllogism; but then it
+is not a process of _argumentation_: the latter again _is_ an
+argumentative process; but then it is, like all other arguments,
+capable of being syllogistically expressed."--P. 263.
+
+"To prove, then, this point demonstratively, (namely, that it is not
+by a process of reasoning that new truths are brought to light,)
+becomes on these data perfectly easy; for since all reasoning (in the
+sense above defined) may be resolved into syllogisms; and since even
+the objectors to logic make it a subject of complaint, that in a
+syllogism the premises do virtually assert the conclusion, it follows
+at once that no new truth (as above defined) can be elicited by any
+process of reasoning.
+
+"It is on this ground, indeed, that the justly celebrated author of
+the _Philosophy of Rhetoric_ objects to the syllogism altogether, as
+necessarily involving a _petitio principii_; an objection which, of
+course, he would not have been disposed to bring forward, had he
+perceived that, whether well or ill founded, _it lies against all
+arguments whatever_. Had he been aware that the syllogism is no
+distinct kind of argument otherwise than in form, but is, in fact,
+_any_ argument whatever stated regularly and at full length, he would
+have obtained a more correct view of the object of all reasoning;
+_which is merely to expand and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it
+were, and implied in those with which we set out_, and to bring a
+person to perceive and acknowledge the full force of that which he has
+admitted; to contemplate it in various points of view; _to admit in
+one shape what he has already admitted in another_, and to give up and
+disallow whatever is inconsistent with it."--P. 273.
+
+Now, what the Archbishop here advances appears convincing; his
+position looks impregnable. The syllogism is not a peculiar mode of
+reasoning, (how could it be?)--if any thing at all, it must be a
+general formula for expressing the ordinary act of reasoning--and he
+shows that the objections made by those who would impugn it, may be
+levelled with equal justice against all ratiocination whatever. But
+then this method of defending the syllogism, (to those of us who have
+stood beside, in the character of modest enquirers, watching the
+encounter of keen wits,) does but aggravate the difficulty. Is it
+true, then, that in every act of reasoning, we do but conclude in one
+form, what, the moment before, we had stated in another? Are we to
+understand that such is the final result of the debate? If so, this
+act of reasoning appears very little deserving of that estimation in
+which it has been generally held. The great prerogative of intelligent
+beings (as it has been deemed,) grants them this only--to "admit in
+one shape what they had already admitted in another."
+
+From the dilemma in which we are here placed, the Archbishop by no
+means releases, or attempts to release us: he seems (something too
+much after the manner and disposition generally attributed to masters
+in logic-fence,) to have rested satisfied with foiling his opponents
+in their attack upon the exact position he had bound himself to
+defend. He saves the syllogism; what becomes, in the controversy, of
+poor human reason itself, is not his especial concern--it is as much
+their business as his. You do not, more than I, he virtually says to
+his opponents, intend to resign all reasoning whatever as a mere
+inanity; I prove, for my part, that all reasoning is capable of being
+put into a syllogistic form, and that your objection, if valid against
+the syllogism, is equally valid against all ratiocination. You must
+therefore either withdraw your objection altogether, or advance it at
+your peril; the difficulty is of your making, you must solve it as you
+can. Gentlemen, you must muzzle your own dog.
+
+In this posture of affairs the author of the present work comes to the
+rescue. He shall speak in his own words. But we must premise, that
+although we do not intend to stint him in our quotation--though we
+wish to give him all the sea-room possible; yet, for a _full_
+development of his views, we must refer the reader to his volumes
+themselves. There are some disquisitions which precede the part we are
+about to quote from, which, in order to do complete justice to the
+subject, ought to find a place here, as well as in the author's
+work--but it is impossible.
+
+    "It is universally allowed, that a syllogism is vicious,
+    if there be any thing more in the conclusion than was
+    assumed in the premisses. But this is, in fact, to say,
+    that nothing ever was, or can be, proved by syllogism,
+    which was not known, or assumed to be known, before. Is
+    ratiocination, then, not a process of inference? And is
+    the syllogism, to which the word reasoning has so often
+    been represented to be exclusively appropriate, not
+    really entitled to be called reasoning at all? This
+    seems an inevitable consequence of the doctrine,
+    admitted by all writers on the subject, that a syllogism
+    can prove no more than is involved in the premisses. Yet
+    the acknowledgment so explicitly made, has not prevented
+    one set of writers from continuing to represent the
+    syllogism as the correct analysis of what the mind
+    actually performs in discovering and proving the larger
+    half of the truths, whether of science or of daily life,
+    which we believe; while those who have avoided this
+    inconsistency, and followed out the general theorem
+    respecting the logical value of the syllogism to its
+    legitimate corollary, have been led to impute
+    uselessness and frivolity to the syllogistic theory
+    itself, on the ground of the _petitio principii_ which
+    they allege to be inherent in every syllogism. As I
+    believe both these opinions to be fundamentally
+    erroneous, I must request the attention of the reader to
+    certain considerations, without which any just
+    appreciation of the true character of the syllogism, and
+    the functions it performs in philosophy, appears to me
+    impossible; but which seem to me to have been overlooked
+    or insufficiently adverted to, both by the defenders of
+    the syllogistic theory, and by its assailants.
+
+    "It must be granted, that in every syllogism, considered
+    as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a
+    _petitio principii_. When we say--
+
+        'All men are mortal.
+        Socrates is a man;
+            THEREFORE
+        Socrates is mortal'--
+
+    it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the
+    syllogistic theory, that the proposition, Socrates is
+    mortal, is presupposed in the more general assumption,
+    All men are mortal; that we cannot be assured of the
+    mortality of all men, unless we were previously certain
+    of the mortality of every individual man; that if it be
+    still doubtful whether Socrates, or any other individual
+    you choose to name, be mortal or not, the same degree of
+    uncertainty must hang over the assertion, All men are
+    mortal; that the general principle, instead of being
+    given as evidence of the particular case, cannot itself
+    be taken for true without exception, until every shadow
+    of doubt which could affect any case comprised with it,
+    is dispelled by evidence _aliund�_, and then what
+    remains for the syllogism to prove? that, in short, no
+    reasoning from generals to particulars can, as such,
+    prove any thing; since from a general principle you
+    cannot infer any particulars, but those which the
+    principle itself assumes as foreknown.
+
+    "This doctrine is irrefragable; and if logicians, though
+    unable to dispute it, have usually exhibited a strong
+    disposition to explain it away, this was not because
+    they could discover any flaw in the argument itself, but
+    because the contrary opinion seemed to rest upon
+    arguments equally indisputable. In the syllogism last
+    referred to, for example, or in any of those which we
+    previously constructed, is it not evident that the
+    conclusion may, to the person to whom the syllogism is
+    presented, be actually and _bona fide_ a new truth? Is
+    it not matter of daily experience that truth previously
+    undreamt of, facts which have not been, and cannot be,
+    directly observed, are arrived at by way of general
+    reasoning? We believe that the Duke of Wellington is
+    mortal. We do not know this by direct observation, since
+    he is not yet dead. If we were asked how, this being the
+    case, we know the Duke to be mortal, we should probably
+    answer, because all men are so. Here, therefore, we
+    arrive at the knowledge of a truth not (as yet)
+    susceptible of observation, by a reasoning which admits
+    of being exhibited in the following syllogism--
+
+            'All men are mortal.
+        The Duke of Wellington is a man;
+                THEREFORE
+        The Duke of Wellington is mortal.'
+
+    "And since a large portion of our knowledge is thus
+    acquired, logicians have persisted in representing the
+    syllogism as a process of inference or proof; although
+    none of them has cleared up the difficulty which arises
+    from the inconsistency between that assertion and the
+    principle, that if there be any thing in the conclusion
+    which was not already asserted in the premisses, the
+    argument is vicious. For it is impossible to attach any
+    serious scientific value to such a mere salvo, as the
+    distinction drawn between being involved _by
+    implication_ in the premisses, and being directly
+    asserted in them. When Archbishop Whately, for example,
+    says that the object of reasoning is 'merely to expand
+    and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it were, and
+    implied in those with which we set out, and to bring a
+    person to perceive and acknowledge the full force of
+    that which he has admitted,' he does not, I think, meet
+    the real difficulty requiring to be explained; namely,
+    how it happens that a science like geometry _can_ be all
+    'wrapt up' in a few definitions and axioms. Nor does
+    this defence of the syllogism differ much from what its
+    assailants urge against it as an accusation, when they
+    charge it with being of no use except to those who seek
+    to press the consequence of an admission into which a
+    man has been entrapped, without having considered and
+    understood its full force. When you admitted the major
+    premiss, you asserted the conclusion, 'but,' says
+    Archbishop Whately, 'you asserted it by implication
+    merely; this, however, can here only mean that you
+    asserted it unconsciously--that you did not know you
+    were asserting it; but if so, the difficulty revives in
+    this shape. Ought you not to have known? Were you
+    warranted in asserting the general proposition without
+    having satisfied yourself of the truth of every thing
+    which it fairly includes? And if not, what, then, is the
+    syllogistic art but a contrivance for catching you in a
+    trap, and holding you fast in it?'
+
+    "From this difficulty there appears to be but one issue.
+    The proposition, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal,
+    is evidently an inference, it is got at as a conclusion
+    from something else; but do we, in reality, conclude it
+    from the proposition--All men are mortal? I answer, No.
+
+    "The error committed is, I conceive, that of overlooking
+    the distinction between the two parts of the process of
+    philosophizing--the inferring part and the registering
+    part; and ascribing to the latter the functions of the
+    former. The mistake is that of referring a man to his
+    own notes for the _origin_ of his knowledge. If a man is
+    asked a question, and is at the moment unable to answer
+    it, he may refresh his memory by turning to a memorandum
+    which he carries about with him. But if he were asked
+    how the fact came to his knowledge, he would scarcely
+    answer, because it was set down in his note-book.
+
+    "Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of Wellington
+    is mortal, is immediately an inference from the
+    proposition, All men are mortal, whence do we derive our
+    knowledge of that general truth? No supernatural aid
+    being supposed, the answer must be, from observation.
+    Now, all which men can observe are individual cases.
+    From these all general truths must be drawn, and into
+    these they may be again resolved; for a general truth is
+    but an aggregate of particular truths--a comprehensive
+    expression, by which an indefinite number of individual
+    facts are affirmed or denied at once. But a general
+    proposition is not merely a compendious form for
+    recording and preserving in the memory a number of
+    particular facts, all of which have been observed.
+    Generalization is not a process of mere naming, it is
+    also a process of inference. From instances which we
+    have observed, we feel warranted in concluding, that
+    what we found true in those instances holds in all
+    similar ones--past, present, and future, however
+    numerous they may be. We, then, by that valuable
+    contrivance of language, which enables us to speak of
+    many as if they were one, record all that we have
+    observed, together with all that we infer from our
+    observations, in one concise expression; and have thus
+    only one proposition, instead of an endless number, to
+    remember or to communicate. The results of many
+    observations and inferences, and instructions for making
+    innumerable inferences in unforeseen cases, are
+    compressed into one short sentence.
+
+    "When, therefore, we conclude, from the death of John
+    and Thomas, and every other person we ever heard of in
+    whose case the experiment had been fairly tried, that
+    the Duke of Wellington is mortal like the rest, we may,
+    indeed, pass through the generalization, All men are
+    mortal, as an intermediate stage; but it is not in the
+    latter half of the process--the descent from all men to
+    the Duke of Wellington--that the _inference_ resides.
+    The inference is finished when we have asserted that all
+    men are mortal. What remains to be performed afterwards
+    is merely deciphering our own notes.
+
+    "Archbishop Whately has contended, that syllogizing, or
+    reasoning from generals to particulars, is not,
+    agreeably to the vulgar idea, a peculiar mode of
+    reasoning, but the philosophical analysis of the mode in
+    which all men reason, and must do so if they reason at
+    all. With the deference due to so high an authority, I
+    cannot help thinking that the vulgar notion is, in this
+    case, the more correct. If, from our experience of John,
+    Thomas, &c. who once were living, but are now dead, we
+    are entitled to conclude that all human beings are
+    mortal, we might surely, without any logical
+    inconsequence, have concluded at once, from those
+    instances, that the Duke Wellington is mortal. The
+    mortality of John, Thomas, and Company, is, after all,
+    the whole evidence we have for the mortality of the Duke
+    of Wellington. Not one iota is added to the proof by
+    interpolating a general proposition. Since the
+    individual cases are all the evidence we can possess;
+    evidence which no logical form into which we choose to
+    throw it can make greater than it is; and since that
+    evidence is either sufficient in itself, or, if
+    insufficient for one purpose, cannot be sufficient for
+    the other; I am unable to see why we should be forbidden
+    to take the shortest cut from these sufficient premisses
+    to the conclusion, and constrained to travel the 'high
+    _priori_ road' by the arbitrary fiat of logicians. I
+    cannot perceive why it should be impossible to journey
+    from one place to another, unless 'we march up a hill
+    and then march down again.' It may be the safest road,
+    and there may be a resting-place at the top of the hill,
+    affording a commanding view of the surrounding country;
+    but for the mere purpose of arriving at our journey's
+    end, our taking that road is perfectly optional: it is a
+    question of time, trouble, and danger.
+
+    "Not only _may_ we reason from particulars to
+    particulars, without passing through generals, but we
+    perpetually do so reason. All our earliest inferences
+    are of this nature. From the first dawn of intelligence
+    we draw inferences; but years elapse before we learn the
+    use of general language. The child who, having burnt his
+    fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire, has
+    reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the
+    general maxim--fire burns. He knows from memory that he
+    has been burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he
+    sees a candle, that if he puts his finger into the flame
+    of it, he will be burnt again. He believes this in every
+    case which happens to arise; but without looking, in
+    each instance, beyond the present case. He is not
+    generalizing; he is inferring a particular from
+    particulars.--Vol. I. p. 244.
+
+    "From the considerations now adduced, the following
+    conclusions seem to be established:--All inference is
+    from particulars to particulars: General propositions
+    are merely registers of such inferences already made,
+    and short formul� for making more: The major premiss of
+    a syllogism, consequently, is a formula of this
+    description; and the conclusion is not an inference
+    drawn _from_ the formula, but an inference drawn
+    _according to_ the formula: the real logical antecedent,
+    or premisses being _the particular facts from which the
+    general proposition was collected by induction_. * * *
+
+    "In the above observations, it has, I think, been
+    clearly shown, that although there is always a process
+    of reasoning or inference where a syllogism is used, the
+    syllogism is not a correct analysis of that process of
+    reasoning or inference; which is, on the contrary, (when
+    not a mere inference from testimony,) an inference from
+    particulars to particulars; authorized by a previous
+    inference from particulars to generals, and
+    substantially the same with it: of the nature,
+    therefore, of Induction. But while these conclusions
+    appear to me undeniable, I must yet enter a protest, as
+    strong as that of Archbishop Whately himself, against
+    the doctrine that the syllogistic art is useless for the
+    purposes of reasoning. The reasoning lies in the act of
+    generalisation, not in interpreting the record of that
+    act; but the syllogistic form is all indispensable
+    collateral security for the correctness of the
+    generalisation itself."--P. 259.
+
+By this explanation we are released from the dilemma into which the
+syllogistic and non-syllogistic party had together thrown us. We can
+acknowledge that the process of reason can be always exhibited in the
+form of a syllogism, and yet not be driven to the strange and
+perplexing conclusion that our reasoning can never conduct us to a new
+truth, never lead us further than to admit in one shape what we had
+already admitted in another. We have, or may have, it is true, a
+_major_ in all our ratiocination, implied, if not expressed, and are
+so far syllogistic; but then the real premiss from which we reason is
+the amount of experience on which that major was founded, to which
+amount of experience we, in fact, made an addition in our _minor_, or
+conclusion.
+
+But while we accept this explanation, and are grateful for the
+deliverance it works for us, we must also admit, (and we are not aware
+that Mr Mill would controvert this admission,) that there is a large
+class of cases in which our reasoning betrays no reference to this
+anterior experience, and where the usual explanation given by teachers
+of logic is perfectly applicable; cases where our object is, not the
+discovery of truth for ourselves, but to convince another of his
+error, by showing him that the proposition, which in his blindness or
+prejudice he has chosen to contradict, is part and parcel of some
+other proposition to which he has given, and is at all times ready to
+give, his acquiescence. In such cases, we frequently content ourselves
+with throwing before him this alternative--refuse your _major_, to
+which you have again and again assented, or accept, as involved in it,
+our _minor_ proposition, which you have persisted in controverting.
+
+It will have been gathered from the foregoing train of observation,
+that, in direct contradistinction to Archbishop Whately, who had
+represented induction (so far as it consisted of an act of
+ratiocination) as resolvable into deductive and syllogistic reasoning,
+our author has resolved the syllogism, and indeed all deductive
+reasoning whatever, ultimately into examples of induction. In doing
+this, he is encountered by a metaphysical notion very prevalent in the
+present day, which lies across his path, and which he has to remove.
+We allude to the distinction between contingent and necessary truths;
+it being held by many philosophical writers that all necessary and
+universal truths owe their origin, not to experience (except as
+_occasion_ of their development,) and not, consequently, to the
+ordinary process of induction, but flow from higher sources--flow
+immediately from some supreme faculty to which the name of reason has
+by some been exclusively appropriated, in order to distinguish it from
+the understanding, the faculty judging according to sense. We will
+pause a while upon this topic.
+
+
+_Contingent and Necessary Truths._--Those who have read Mr Whewell's
+treatise on the _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, will remember
+that there is no topic which that author labours more sedulously to
+inculcate than this same distinction between contingent and necessary
+truths; and it is against his statement of the doctrine in question,
+that Mr Mill directs his observations. Perhaps the controverted tenets
+would have sustained a more equal combat under the auspices of a more
+practised and more complete metaphysician than Mr Whewell; but a
+difficulty was probably experienced in finding a statement in any
+other well-known English author full and explicit. Referring ourselves
+to Mr Whewell's volumes for an extract, in order to give the
+distinction here contended against the advantage of an exposition in
+the words of one who upholds it, we are embarrassed by the number
+which offer themselves. From many we select the following statement:--
+
+"Experience," says Mr Whewell, "must always consist of a limited
+number of observations. And, however numerous these may be, they can
+show nothing with regard to the infinite number of cases in which the
+experiment has not been made. Experience, being thus unable to prove a
+fact to be universal, is, as will readily be seen, still more
+incapable of proving a fact to be necessary. Experience cannot,
+indeed, offer the smallest ground for the necessity of a proposition.
+She can observe and record what has happened; but she cannot find, in
+any case, or in any accumulation of cases, any reason for what _must_
+happen. She may see objects side by side, but she cannot see a reason
+why they must be ever side by side. She finds certain events to occur
+in succession; but the succession supplies, in its occurrence, no
+reason for its recurrence. She contemplates external objects; but she
+cannot detect any internal bond which indissolubly connects the future
+with the past, the possible with the real. To learn a proposition by
+experience, and to see it to be necessarily true, are two altogether
+different processes of thought.
+
+"But it may be said, that we do learn, by means of observation and
+experience, many universal truths; indeed, all the general truths of
+which science consists. Is not the doctrine of universal gravitation
+learned by experience? Are not the laws of motion, the properties of
+light, the general properties of chemistry, so learned? How, with
+these examples before us, can we say that experience teaches no
+universal truths?
+
+"To this we reply, that these truths can only be known to be
+_general_, not universal, if they depend upon experience alone.
+Experience cannot bestow that universality which she herself cannot
+have, and that necessity of which she has no comprehension. If these
+doctrines are universally true, this universality flows from the
+_ideas_ which we apply to our experience, and which are, as we have
+seen, the real sources of necessary truth. How far these ideas can
+communicate their universality and necessity to the results of
+experience, it will hereafter be our business to consider. It will
+then appear, that when the mind collects from observation truths of a
+wide and comprehensive kind, which approach to the simplicity and
+universality of the truths of pure science; she gives them this
+character by throwing upon them the light of her own fundamental
+ideas."--_Whewell_, Vol. I. p. 60.
+
+Accordingly, Mr Whewell no sooner arrives at any truth which admits of
+an unconditional positive statement--a statement defying all rational
+contradiction--than he abstracts it from amongst the acquisitions of
+experience, and throwing over it, we suppose, the light of these
+fundamental ideas, pronounces it enrolled in the higher class of
+universal and necessary truths. The first laws of motion, though
+established through great difficulties against the most obstinate
+preconceptions, and by the aid of repeated experiments, are, when
+surveyed in their present perfect form, proclaimed to be, not
+acquisitions of experience, but truths emanating from a higher and
+more mysterious origin.[2]
+
+    [2] Necessary truths multiply on us very fast. "We
+    maintain," says Mr Whewell, "that this equality of
+    _mechanical action and reaction_ is one of the
+    principles which do not flow from, but regulate, our
+    experience. A mechanical pressure, not accompanied by an
+    equal and opposite pressure, can no more be given by
+    experience than two unequal right angles. With the
+    supposition of such inequalities, space ceases to be
+    space, form ceases to be form, matter ceases to be
+    matter." And again he says, "_That the parallelogram of
+    forces is a necessary truth_;" a law of motion of which
+    we surely can _conceive_ its opposite to be true. In
+    some of these instances Mr Whewell appears, by a
+    confusion of thought, to have given to the _physical
+    fact_ the character of necessity which resides in the
+    mathematical formula employed for its expression.
+    Whether a moving body would communicate motion to
+    another body--whether it would lose its own motion by so
+    doing--or what would be the result if a body were struck
+    by two other bodies moving in different directions--are
+    questions which, if they could be asked us prior to
+    experience, we could give no answer whatever to--which
+    we can easily conceive to admit of a quite different
+    answer to that which experience has taught us to give.
+
+This distinction, which assigns a different mental origin to truths,
+simply because (from the nature of the subject-matter, as it seems to
+us) there is a difference with regard to the sort of certainty we feel
+of them, has always appeared to us most unphilosophical. It is
+admitted that we arrive at a general proposition through experience;
+there is no room, therefore, for quibbling as to the meaning of the
+term experience--it is understood that when we speak of a truth being
+derived from experience, we imply the usual exercise of our mental
+faculties; it is the step from a general to a universal proposition
+which alone occasions this perplexing distinction. The dogma is
+this--that experience can only teach us by a limited number of
+examples, and therefore can never establish a universal proposition.
+But if _all_ experience is in favour of a proposition--if no
+experience has occurred even to enable the imagination to conceive its
+opposite, what more can be required to convert the general into a
+universal proposition?
+
+Strange to say, the attribution of these characteristics of
+universality and necessity, becomes, amongst those who loudly insist
+upon the palpable nature of the distinction we are now examining, a
+matter of controversy; and there are a class of scientific truths, of
+which it is debated whether they are contingent or necessary. The
+only test that they belong to the latter order is, the impossibility
+of conceiving their opposites to be the truth; and it seems that men
+find a great difference in their powers of conception, and that what
+is impossible with one is possible with another. But (wisely, too)
+passing this over, and admitting that there is a distinction (though
+a very ill-defined one) between the several truths we entertain of
+this nature; namely, that some we find it impossible, even in
+imagination, to contradict, whilst of others we can suppose it
+possible that they should cease to be truths--does it follow that
+different faculties of the mind are engaged in the acquisition of
+them? Does nothing depend on the nature of the subject itself? "That
+two sides of a triangle," says Mr Whewell, "are greater than the
+third, is a universal and necessary geometrical truth; it is true of
+all triangles; it is true in such a way that the contrary cannot be
+conceived. _Experience could not prove such a proposition._"
+Experience is allowed to prove it of this or that triangle, but not
+as an inseparable property of a triangle. We are at a loss to
+perceive why the same faculties of the mind that can judge, say of
+the properties of animal life, of organized beings, cannot judge of
+the properties of a figure--properties which must immediately be
+conceived to exist the moment the figure is presented to the
+imagination. We say, for instance, of any animal, not because it is
+this or that animal, a sheep or an ox, but simply _as_ animal, that
+it must sustain itself by food, by the process of assimilation. This,
+however, is merely a contingent truth, because it is in our power to
+conceive of organized beings whose substance shall not wear away, and
+consequently shall not need perpetual restoration. But what faculty
+of the mind is unemployed here that is engaged in perceiving the
+property of a triangle, that _as_ triangle, it must have two sides
+greater than the third? The truths elicited in the two cases have a
+difference, inasmuch as a triangle differs from an animal in this,
+that it is impossible to conceive other triangles than those to which
+your truth is applicable, and therefore the proposition relating to
+the triangle is called a necessary truth. But surely this difference
+lies in the subject-matter, not in the nature of our mental
+faculties.
+
+But we had not intended to interpose our own lucubrations in the place
+of those of Mr Mill.
+
+    "Although Mr Whewell," says our author, "has naturally
+    and properly employed a variety of phrases to bring his
+    meaning more forcibly home, he will, I presume, allow
+    that they are all equivalent; and that what he means by
+    a necessary truth, would be sufficiently defined, a
+    proposition the negation of which is not only false, but
+    inconceivable. I am unable to find in any of Mr
+    Whewell's expressions, turn them what way you will, a
+    meaning beyond this, and I do not believe he would
+    contend that they mean any thing more.
+
+    "This, therefore, is the principle asserted: that
+    propositions, the negation of which is inconceivable, or
+    in other words, which we cannot figure to ourselves as
+    being false, must rest upon evidence of higher and more
+    cogent description than any which experience can afford.
+    And we have next to consider whether there is any ground
+    for this assertion.
+
+    "Now, I cannot but wonder that so much stress should be
+    laid upon the circumstance of inconceivableness, when
+    there is such ample experience to show that our capacity
+    or incapacity for conceiving a thing has very little to
+    do with the possibility of the thing in itself; but is
+    in truth very much an affair of accident, and depends
+    upon the past habits and history of our own minds. There
+    is no more generally acknowledged fact in human nature,
+    than the extreme difficulty at first felt in conceiving
+    any thing as possible, which is in contradiction to
+    long-established and familiar experience, or even to old
+    and familiar habits of thought. And this difficulty is a
+    necessary result of the fundamental laws of the human
+    mind. When we have often seen and thought of two things
+    together, and have never, in any one instance, either
+    seen or thought of them separately, there is by the
+    primary law of association an increasing difficulty,
+    which in the end becomes insuperable, of conceiving the
+    two things apart. This is most of all conspicuous in
+    uneducated persons, who are, in general, utterly unable
+    to separate any two ideas which have once become firmly
+    associated in their minds, and, if persons of cultivated
+    intellect have any advantage on the point, it is only
+    because, having seen and heard and read more, and being
+    more accustomed to exercise their imagination, they
+    have experienced their sensations and thoughts in more
+    varied combinations, and have been prevented from
+    forming many of these inseparable associations. But this
+    advantage has necessarily its limits. The man of the
+    most practised intellect is not exempt from the
+    universal laws of our conceptive faculty. If daily habit
+    presents to him for a long period two facts in
+    combination, and if he is not led, during that period,
+    either by accident or intention, to think of them apart,
+    he will in time become incapable of doing so, even by
+    the strongest effort; and the supposition, that the two
+    facts can be separated in nature, will at last present
+    itself to his mind with all the characters of an
+    inconceivable phenomenon. There are remarkable instances
+    of this in the history of science; instances in which
+    the wisest men rejected as impossible, because
+    inconceivable, things which their posterity, by earlier
+    practice, and longer perseverance in the attempt, found
+    it quite easy to conceive, and which every body now
+    knows to be true. There was a time when men of the most
+    cultivated intellects, and the most emancipated from the
+    dominion of early prejudice, could not credit the
+    existence of antipodes; were unable to conceive, in
+    opposition to old association, the force of gravity
+    acting upwards instead of downwards. The Cartesians long
+    rejected the Newtonian doctrine of the gravitation of
+    all bodies towards one another, on the faith of a
+    general proposition, the reverse of which seemed to them
+    to be inconceivable--the proposition, that a body cannot
+    act where it is not. All the cumbrous machinery of
+    imaginary vortices, assumed without the smallest
+    particle of evidence, appeared to these philosophers a
+    more rational mode of explaining the heavenly motions,
+    than one which involved what appeared to them so great
+    an absurdity. And they, no doubt, found it as impossible
+    to conceive that a body should act upon the earth at the
+    distance of the sun or moon, as we find it to conceive
+    an end to space or time, or two straight lines inclosing
+    a space. Newton himself had not been able to realize the
+    conception, or we should not have had his hypothesis of
+    a subtle ether, the occult cause of gravitation; and his
+    writings prove, that although he deemed the particular
+    nature of the intermediate agency a matter of
+    conjecture, the necessity of _some_ such agency appeared
+    to him indubitable. It would seem that, even now, the
+    majority of scientific men have not completely got over
+    this very difficulty; for though they have at last
+    learned to conceive the sun _attracting_ the earth
+    without any intervening fluid, they cannot yet conceive
+    the sun _illuminating_ the earth without some such
+    medium.
+
+    "If, then, it be so natural to the human mind, even in
+    its highest state of culture, to be incapable of
+    conceiving, and on that ground to believe impossible,
+    what is afterwards not only found to be conceivable, but
+    proved to be true; what wonder if, in cases where the
+    association is still older, more confirmed, and more
+    familiar, and in which nothing even occurs to shake our
+    conviction, or even to suggest to us any conception at
+    variance with the association, the acquired incapacity
+    should continue, and be mistaken for a natural
+    incapacity? It is true our experience of the varieties
+    in nature enables us, within certain limits, to conceive
+    other varieties analogous to them. We can conceive the
+    sun or moon falling, for although we never saw them
+    fall, nor ever perhaps imagined them falling, we have
+    seen so many other things fall, that we have innumerable
+    familiar analogies to assist the conception; which,
+    after all, we should probably have some difficulty in
+    framing, were we not well accustomed to see the sun and
+    moon move, (or appear to move,) so that we are only
+    called upon to conceive a slight change in the direction
+    of motion, a circumstance familiar to our experience.
+    But when experience affords no model on which to shape
+    the new conception, how is it possible for us to form
+    it? How, for example, can we imagine an end to space and
+    time? We never saw any object without something beyond
+    it, nor experienced any feeling without something
+    following it. When, therefore, we attempt to conceive
+    the last point of space, we have the idea irresistibly
+    raised of other points beyond it. When we try to imagine
+    the last instant of time, we cannot help conceiving
+    another instant after it. Nor is there any necessity to
+    assume, as is done by the school to which Mr Whewell
+    belongs, a peculiar fundamental law of the mind to
+    account for the feeling of infinity inherent in our
+    conception of space and time; that apparent infinity is
+    sufficiently accounted for by simple and universally
+    acknowledged laws."--Vol. I. p. 313.
+
+Mr Mill does not deny that there exists a distinction, as regards
+ourselves, between certain truths (namely, that of some, we cannot
+conceive them to be other than truths,) but he sets no value on this
+distinction, inasmuch as there is no proof that it has its counterpart
+in things themselves; the impossibility of a thing being by no means
+measured by our inability to conceive it. And we may observe, that Mr
+Whewell, in consistency with the metaphysical doctrine upon space and
+time which he has borrowed from Kant, ought, under another shape, to
+entertain a similar doubt as to whether this distinction represent any
+real distinction in the nature of things. He considers, with Kant,
+that space is only that _form_ with which the human mind invests
+things--that it has no other than this merely mental existence--is
+purely subjective. Presuming, therefore, that the mind is, from its
+constitution, utterly and for ever unable to conceive the opposite of
+certain truths, (those, for instance, of geometry;) yet as the
+existence of space itself is but a subjective truth, it must follow
+that all other truths relating to it are subjective also. The mind is
+not conversant with things in themselves, in the truths even of
+geometry; nor is there any positive objective truth in one department
+of science more than another. Mr Whewell, therefore, though he
+advocates this distinction between necessary and contingent truth with
+a zeal which would seem to imply that something momentous, or of
+peculiar interest, was connected with it, can advocate it only as a
+matter of abstract metaphysical science. He cannot participate in that
+feeling of exaltation and mystery which has led many to expatiate upon
+a necessary and absolute truth which the Divine Power itself cannot
+alter, which is equally irresistible, equally binding and compulsory,
+with God as with man. Of this spirit of philosophical enthusiasm Mr
+Whewell cannot partake. Space and Time, with all their properties and
+phenomena, are but recognized as the modes of thought of a human
+intelligence.
+
+We have marked a number of passages for annotation and extract--a far
+greater number than we can possibly find place for alluding to. One
+subject, however, which lies at the very basis of all our science, and
+which has received a proportionate attention from Mr Mill, must not be
+amongst those which are passed over. We mean the law of _Causation_.
+What should be described as the complete and adequate notion of a
+cause, we need not say is one of the moot points of philosophy.
+According to one school of metaphysicians, there is in our notion of
+cause an element not derived from experience, which, it is confessed
+on all hands, can teach us only the _succession_ of events. Cause,
+with them, is that invisible power, that mysterious bond, which this
+succession does but signify: with other philosophers this succession
+constitutes the whole of any intelligible notion we have of cause. The
+latter opinion is that of Mr Mill; at the same time the question is
+one which lies beyond or beside the scope of his volumes. He is
+concerned only with phenomena, not with the knowledge (if such there
+be) of "things in themselves;" that part, therefore, of our idea of
+cause which, according to all systems of philosophy, is won from
+experience, and concerns phenomena alone, is sufficient for his
+purpose. That every event has a cause, that is, a previous and
+uniformly previous event, and that whatever has happened will, in the
+like circumstances, happen again--these are the assumptions necessary
+to science, and these no one will dispute.
+
+Mr Mill has made a happy addition to the usual definition of cause
+given by that class of metaphysicians to which he himself belongs, and
+which obviates a plausible objection urged against it by Dr Reid and
+others. These have argued, that if cause be nothing more than
+invariable antecedence, then night may be said to be the cause of day,
+for the one invariably precedes the other. Day does succeed to night,
+but only on certain conditions--namely, that the sun rise. "The
+succession," observes Mr Mill, "which is equivalent and synonymous to
+cause, must be not only invariable but unconditional. We may define,
+therefore," says our author, "the cause of a phenomenon to be the
+antecedent, or the concurrence of antecedents, upon which it is
+invariably and _unconditionally_ consequent."--Vol. I. p. 411.
+
+A dilemma may be raised of this kind. The universality of the law of
+causation--in other words, the uniform course of nature--is the
+fundamental principle on which all induction proceeds, the great
+premise on which all our science is founded. But if this law itself be
+the result only of experience, itself only a great instance of
+induction, so long as nature presents cases requiring investigation,
+where the causes are unknown to us, so long the law itself is
+imperfectly established. How, then, can this law be a guide and a
+premiss in the investigations of science, when those investigations
+are necessary to complete the proof of the law itself? How can this
+principle accompany and authorise every step we take in science, which
+itself needs confirmation so long as a process of induction remains to
+be performed? Or how can this law be established by a series of
+inductions, in making which it has been taken for granted?
+
+Objections which wear the air of a quibble have often this
+advantage--they put our knowledge to the test. The obligation to find
+a complete answer clears up our own conceptions. The observations
+which Mr Mill makes on this point, we shall quote at length. They are
+taken from his chapter on the _Evidence of the Law of Universal
+Causation_; the views in which are as much distinguished for boldness
+as for precision.
+
+After having said, that in all the several methods of induction the
+universality of the law of causation is assumed, he continues:--
+
+    "But is this assumption warranted? Doubtless (it may be
+    said) _most_ phenomena are connected as effects with
+    some antecedent or cause--that is, are never produced
+    unless some assignable fact has preceded them; but the
+    very circumstance, that complicated processes of
+    induction are sometimes necessary, shows that cases
+    exist in which this regular order of succession is not
+    apparent to our first and simplest apprehension. If,
+    then, the processes which bring these cases within the
+    same category with the rest, require that we should
+    assume the universality of the very law which they do
+    not at first sight appear to exemplify, is not this a
+    real _petitio principii_? Can we prove a proposition by
+    an argument which takes it for granted? And, if not so
+    proved, on what evidence does it rest?
+
+    "For this difficulty, which I have purposely stated in
+    the strongest terms it would admit of, the school of
+    metaphysicians, who have long predominated in this
+    country, find a ready salvo. They affirm that the
+    universality of causation is a truth which we cannot
+    help believing; that the belief in it is an instinct,
+    one of the laws of our believing faculty. As the proof
+    of this they say, and they have nothing else to say,
+    that every body _does_ believe it; and they number it
+    among the propositions, rather numerous in their
+    catalogue, which may be logically argued against, and
+    perhaps cannot be logically proved, but which are of
+    higher authority than logic, and which even he who
+    denies in speculation, shows by his habitual practice
+    that his arguments make no impression on himself.
+
+    "I have no intention of entering into the merits of this
+    question, as a problem of transcendental metaphysics.
+    But I must renew my protest against adducing, as
+    evidence of the truth of a fact in external nature, any
+    necessity which the human mind may be conceived to be
+    under of believing it. It is the business of human
+    intellect to adapt itself to the realities of things,
+    and not to measure those realities by its own capacities
+    of comprehension. The same quality which fits mankind
+    for the offices and purposes of their own little life,
+    the tendency of their belief to follow their experience,
+    incapacitates them for judging of what lies beyond. Not
+    only what man can know, but what he can conceive,
+    depends upon what he has experienced. Whatever forms a
+    part of all his experience, forms a part also of all his
+    conceptions, and appears to him universal and necessary,
+    though really, for aught he knows, having no existence
+    beyond certain narrow limits. The habit, however, of
+    philosophical analysis, of which it is the surest effect
+    to enable the mind to command, instead of being
+    commanded by, the laws of the merely passive part of its
+    own nature, and which, by showing to us that things are
+    not necessarily connected in fact because their ideas
+    are connected in our minds, is able to loosen
+    innumerable associations which reign despotically over
+    the undisciplined mind; this habit is not without power
+    even over those associations which the philosophical
+    school, of which I have been speaking, regard as connate
+    and instinctive. I am convinced that any one accustomed
+    to abstraction and analysis, who will fairly exert his
+    faculties for the purpose, will, when his imagination
+    has once learned to entertain the notion, find no
+    difficulty in conceiving that in some one, for instance,
+    of the many firmaments into which sidereal astronomy now
+    divides the universe, events may succeed one another at
+    random, without any fixed law; nor can any thing in our
+    experience, or in our mental nature, constitute a
+    sufficient, or indeed any, reason for believing that
+    this is nowhere the case. The grounds, therefore, which
+    warrant us in rejecting such a supposition with respect
+    to any of the phenomena of which we have experience,
+    must be sought elsewhere than in any supposed necessity
+    of our intellectual faculties.
+
+    "As was observed in a former place, the belief we
+    entertain in the universality, throughout nature, of the
+    law of cause and effect, is itself an instance of
+    induction; and by no means one of the earliest which any
+    of us, or which mankind in general, can have made. We
+    arrive at this universal law by generalisation from many
+    laws of inferior generality. The generalising propensity
+    which, instinctive or not, is one of the most powerful
+    principles of our nature, does not indeed wait for the
+    period when such a generalisation becomes strictly
+    legitimate. The mere unreasoning propensity to expect
+    what has been often experienced, doubtless led men to
+    believe that every thing had a cause, before they could
+    have conclusive evidence of that truth. But even this
+    cannot be supposed to have happened until many cases of
+    causation, or, in other words, many partial uniformities
+    of sequence, had become familiar. The more obvious of
+    the particular uniformities suggest and prove the
+    general uniformity; and that general uniformity, once
+    established, enables us to prove the remainder of the
+    particular uniformities of which it is made up. * * *
+
+    "With respect to the general law of causation, it does
+    appear that there must have been a time when the
+    universal prevalence of that law throughout nature could
+    not have been affirmed in the same confident and
+    unqualified manner as at present. There was a time when
+    many of the phenomena of nature must have appeared
+    altogether capricious and irregular, not governed by any
+    laws, nor steadily consequent upon any causes. Such
+    phenomena, indeed, were commonly, in that early stage of
+    human knowledge, ascribed to the direct intervention of
+    the will of some supernatural being, and therefore still
+    to a cause. This shows the strong tendency of the human
+    mind to ascribe every phenomenon to some cause or other;
+    but it shows also that experience had not, at that time,
+    pointed out any regular order in the occurrence of those
+    particular phenomena, nor proved them to be, as we now
+    know that they are, dependent upon prior phenomena as
+    their proximate causes. There have been sects of
+    philosophers who have admitted what they termed Chance
+    as one of the agents in the order of nature by which
+    certain classes of events were entirely regulated; which
+    could only mean that those events did not occur in any
+    fixed order, or depend upon uniform laws of causation.
+    * * *
+
+    "The progress of experience, therefore, has dissipated
+    the doubt which must have rested upon the universality
+    of the law of causation, while there were phenomena
+    which seemed to be _sui generis_; not subject to the
+    same laws with any other class of phenomena, and not as
+    yet ascertained to have peculiar laws of their own. This
+    great generalisation, however, might reasonably have
+    been, as it in fact was by all great thinkers, acted
+    upon as a probability of the highest order, before there
+    were sufficient grounds for receiving it as a certainty.
+    For, whatever has been found true in innumerable
+    instances, and never found to be false after due
+    examination in any, we are safe in acting upon as
+    universal provisionally, until an undoubted exception
+    appears; provided the nature of the case be such that a
+    real exception could scarcely have escaped our notice.
+    When every phenomenon that we ever knew sufficiently
+    well to be able to answer the question, had a cause on
+    which it was invariably consequent, it was more rational
+    to suppose that our inability to assign the causes of
+    other phenomena arose from our ignorance, than that
+    there were phenomena which were uncaused, and which
+    happened accidentally to be exactly those which we had
+    hitherto had no sufficient opportunity of
+    studying."--Vol. II. p. 108.
+
+
+_Hypotheses._--Mr Mill's observations on the use of hypotheses in
+scientific investigation, except that they are characterized by his
+peculiar distinctness and accuracy of thought, do not differ from the
+views generally entertained by writers on the subject. We are induced
+to refer to the topic, to point out what seems to us a harsh measure
+dealt out to the undulatory theory of light--harsh when compared with
+the reception given to a theory of Laplace, having for its object to
+account for the origin of the planetary system.
+
+We had occasion to quote a passage from Mr Mill, in which he remarks
+that the majority of scientific men seem not yet to have completely
+got over the difficulty of conceiving matter to act (contrary to the
+old maxim) where it is not; "for though," he says, "they have at last
+learned to conceive the sun _attracting_ the earth without any
+intervening fluid, they cannot yet conceive the sun _illuminating_ the
+earth without some such medium." But it is not only this difficulty
+(which doubtless, however, is felt) of conceiving the sun illuminating
+the earth without any medium by which to communicate its influence,
+which leads to the construction of the hypothesis, either of an
+undulating ether, or of emitted particles. The analogy of the other
+senses conducts us almost irresistibly to the imagination of some such
+medium. The nerves of sense are, apparently, in all cases that we can
+satisfactorily investigate, affected by contact, by impulse. The nerve
+of sight itself, we know, when touched or pressed upon, gives out the
+sensation of light. These reasons, in the first place, conduct us to
+the supposition of some medium, having immediate communication with
+the eye; which medium, though we are far from saying that its
+existence is established, is rendered probable by the explanation it
+affords of optical phenomena. At the same time it is evident that the
+hypothesis of an undulating ether, assumes a fluid or some medium, the
+existence of which cannot be directly ascertained. Thus stands the
+hypothesis of a luminiferous ether--in what must be allowed to be a
+very unsatisfactory condition. But a condition, we think, very
+superior to the astronomical speculation of Laplace, which Mr Mill,
+after scrutinizing the preceding hypothesis with the utmost
+strictness, is disposed to treat with singular indulgence.
+
+    "The speculation is," we may as well quote throughout Mr
+    Mill's words, "that the atmosphere of the sun originally
+    extended to the present limits of the solar system: from
+    which, by the process of cooling, it has contracted to
+    its present dimensions; and since, by the general
+    principles of mechanics, the rotation of the sun and its
+    accompanying atmosphere must increase as rapidly as its
+    volume diminishes, the increased centrifugal force
+    generated by the more rapid rotation, overbalancing the
+    action of gravitation, would cause the sun to abandon
+    successive rings of vaporous matter, which are supposed
+    to have condensed by cooling, and to have become our
+    planets.
+
+    "There is in this theory," Mr Mill proceeds, "no unknown
+    substance introduced upon supposition, nor any unknown
+    property or law ascribed to a known substance. The known
+    laws of matter authorize us to suppose, that a body
+    which is constantly giving out so large an amount of
+    heat as the sun is, must be progressively cooling, and
+    that by the process of cooling it must contract; if,
+    therefore, we endeavour, from the present state of that
+    luminary, to infer its state in a time long past, we
+    must necessarily suppose that its atmosphere extended
+    much further than at present, and we are entitled to
+    suppose that it extended as far as we can trace those
+    effects which it would naturally leave behind it on
+    retiring; and such the planets are. These suppositions
+    being made, it follows from known laws that successive
+    zones of the solar atmosphere would be abandoned; that
+    these would continue to revolve round the sun with the
+    same velocity as when they formed part of his substance,
+    and that they would cool down, long before the sun
+    himself, to any given temperature, and consequently to
+    that at which the greater part of the vaporous matter of
+    which they consisted would become liquid or solid. The
+    known law of gravitation would then cause them to
+    agglomerate in masses, which would assume the shape our
+    planets actually exhibit; would acquire, each round its
+    own axis, a rotatory movement; and would in that state
+    revolve, as the planets actually do, about the sun, in
+    the same direction with the sun's rotation, but with
+    less velocity, and each of them in the same periodic
+    time which the sun's rotation occupied when his
+    atmosphere extended to that point; and this also M.
+    Comte has, by the necessary calculations, ascertained to
+    be true, within certain small limits of error. There is
+    thus in Laplace's theory nothing hypothetical; it is an
+    example of legitimate reasoning from a present effect to
+    its past cause, according to the known laws of that
+    case; it assumes nothing more than that objects which
+    really exist, obey the laws which are known to be obeyed
+    by all terrestrial objects resembling them."--Vol. II.
+    p. 27.
+
+Now, it seems to us that there is quite as much of hypothesis in this
+speculation of Laplace as in the undulatory theory of light. This
+atmosphere of the sun extending to the utmost limits of our planetary
+system! What proof have we that it ever existed? what possible
+grounds have we for believing, what motive even for imagining such a
+thing, but the very same description of proof given and rejected for
+the existence of a luminiferous ether--namely, that it enables us to
+explain certain events supposed to result from it? Nor is the thing
+here imagined any the less a novelty, because it bears the old name of
+an atmosphere. An atmosphere containing in itself all the various
+materials which compose our earth, and whatever else may enter into
+the composition of the other planets, is as violent a supposition as
+an ether, not perceptible to the senses except by its influence on the
+nerves of sight. And this cooling down of the sun! What fact in our
+experience enables us to advance such a supposition? We might as well
+say that the sun was getting hotter every year, or harder or softer,
+or larger or smaller. Surely Mr Mill could not have been serious when
+he says, that "the known laws of matter authorize us to suppose, that
+a body which is constantly _giving out so large an amount of heat_ as
+the sun is, must be progressively cooling"--knowing, as we do, as
+little how the sun occasions heat as how it produces light. Neither
+can it be contended that because no absolutely new substance, or new
+property of matter, is introduced, but a fantastic conception is
+framed out of known substances and known properties, that therefore
+there is less of rash conjecture in the supposition. In fine, it must
+be felt by every one who reads the account of this speculation of
+Laplace, that the only evidence which produces the least effect upon
+his mind, is the corroboration which it receives from the calculations
+of the mathematician--a species of proof which Mr Mill himself would
+not estimate very highly.
+
+Many are the topics which are made to reflect a new light as Mr Mill
+passes along his lengthened course; we might quote as instances, his
+chapters on _Analogy_ and the _Calculation of Chances_: and many are
+the grave and severe discussions that would await us were we to
+proceed to the close of his volumes, especially to that portion of his
+work where he applies the canons of science to investigations which
+relate to human nature and the characters of men. But enough for the
+present. We repeat, in concluding, the same sentiment that we
+expressed at the commencement, that such a work as this goes far to
+redeem the literature of our age from the charge of frivolity and
+superficiality. Those who have been trained in a different school of
+thinking, those who have adopted the metaphysics of the transcendental
+philosophy, will find much in these volumes to dissent from; but no
+man, be his pretensions or his tenets what they may, who has been
+accustomed to the study of philosophy, can fail to recognize and
+admire in this author that acute, patient, enlarged, and persevering
+thought, which gives to him who possesses it the claim and right to
+the title of philosopher. There are few men who--applying it to his
+own species of excellence--might more safely repeat the _Io sono
+anche!_ of the celebrated Florentine.
+
+
+
+
+MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+
+
+People are fond of talking of the hereditary feuds of Italy--the
+factions of the Capulets and Montagues, the Orsini and Colonne--and,
+more especially, of the memorable _Vendette_ of Corsica--as if hatred
+and revenge were solely endemic in the regions of
+
+    "The Pyrenean and the river Po!"
+
+Mere prejudice! There is as good hating going on in England as
+elsewhere. Independent of the personal antipathies generated by
+politics, the envy, hatred, and malice arising out of every election
+contest, not a country neighbourhood but has its raging factions; and
+Browns and Smiths often cherish and maintain an antagonism every whit
+as bitter as that of the sanguinary progenitors of Romeo and Juliet.
+
+I, for instance, who am but a country gentleman in a small way--an
+obscure bachelor, abiding from year's end to year's end on my
+insignificant farm--have witnessed things in my time, which, had they
+been said and done nearer the tropics, would have been cited far and
+near in evidence of the turbulence of human passions, and that "the
+heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Seeing
+that they chanced in a homely parish in Cheshire, no one has been at
+the trouble to note their strangeness; though, to own the truth, none
+but the actors in the drama (besides myself, a solitary spectator) are
+cognizant of its incidents and catastrophe. I might boast, indeed,
+that I alone am thoroughly in the secret; for it is the spectator only
+who competently judges the effects of a scene; and merely changing the
+names, for reasons easily conceivable, I ask leave to relate in the
+simplest manner a few facts in evidence of my assertion, that England
+has its Capuletti e Montecchi as well as Verona.
+
+In the first place, let me premise that I am neither of a condition of
+life, nor condition of mind, to mingle as a friend with those of whose
+affairs I am about to treat so familiarly, being far too crotchety a
+fellow not to prefer a saunter with my fishing-tackle on my back, or
+an evening t�te-�-t�te with my library of quaint old books, to all the
+good men's feasts ever eaten at the cost of a formal country visit.
+Nevertheless, I am not so cold of heart as to be utterly devoid of
+interest in the destinies of those whose turrets I see peering over
+the woods that encircle my corn-fields; and as the good old
+housekeeper, who for these thirty years past has presided over my
+household, happens to have grandchildren high in service in what are
+called the two great families in the neighbourhood, scarcely an event
+or incident passes within their walls that does not find an echo in
+mine. So much in attestation of my authority. But for such an
+introduction behind the scenes, much of the stage business of this
+curious drama would have escaped my notice, or remained
+incomprehensible.
+
+I am wrong to say the two great "families;" I should have said the two
+great "houses." At the close of the last century, indeed, our parish
+of Lexley contained but one; one which had stood there since the days
+of the first James, nay, even earlier--a fine old manorial hall of
+grand dimensions and stately architecture, of the species of mixed
+Gothic so false in taste, but so ornamental in effect, which is
+considered as betraying the first symptoms of Italian innovation.
+
+The gardens extending in the rear of the house were still more
+decidedly in the Italian taste, having clipped evergreens and avenues
+of pyramidal yews, which, combined with the intervening statues,
+imparted to them something of the air of a cemetery. There were
+fountains, too, which, in the memory of man, had been never known to
+play, the marble basins being, if possible, still greener than the
+grim visages of the fauns and dryads standing forlorn on their
+dilapidated pedestals amid the neglected alleys.
+
+The first thing I can remember of Lexley Hall, was peeping as a child
+through the stately iron gratings of the garden, that skirted a
+by-road leading from my grandfather's farm. The desolateness of the
+place overawed my young heart. In summer time the parterres were
+overgrown into a wilderness. The plants threw up their straggling arms
+so high, that the sunshine could hardly find its way to the quaint old
+dial that stood there telling its tale of time, though no man
+regarded; and the cordial fragrance of the strawberry-beds, mingling
+with entangled masses of honeysuckle in their exuberance of midsummer
+blossom, seemed to mock me, as I loitered in the dusk near the old
+gateway, with the tantalizing illusions of a fairy-tale--the
+Barmecide's feast, or Prince Desire surveying his princess through the
+impermeable walls of her crystal palace.
+
+But if the enjoyment of the melancholy old gardens of Lexley Hall were
+withheld from _me_, no one else seemed to find pleasure or profit
+therein. Sir Laurence Altham, the lord of the manor and manor-house,
+was seldom resident in the country. Though a man of mature years, (I
+speak of the close of the last century,) he was still a man of
+pleasure--the ruined hulk of the gallant vessel which, early in the
+reign of George III., had launched itself with unequalled brilliancy
+on the sparkling current of London life.
+
+At that time, I have heard my grandfather say there was not a mortgage
+on the Lexley estate! The timber was notoriously the finest in the
+county. A whole navy was comprised in one of its coppices; and the
+arching avenues were imposing as the aisles of our Gothic minsters.
+Alas! it needed the lapse of only half a dozen years to lay bare to
+the eye of every casual traveller the ancient mansion, so long
+
+    "Bosom'd high in tufted trees,"
+
+and only guessed at till you approached the confines of the
+court-yard.
+
+It was hazard that effected this. The dice-box swept those noble
+avenues from the face of the estate. Soon after Sir Laurence's coming
+of age, almost before the church-bells had ceased to announce the
+joyous event of the attainment of his majority, he was off to the
+Continent--Paris--Italy--I know not where, and was thenceforward only
+occasionally heard of in Cheshire as the ornament of the Sardinian or
+Austrian courts. But these tidings were usually accompanied by a
+shaking of the head from the old family steward. The timber was to be
+thinned anew--the tenants to be again amerced. Sir Laurence evidently
+looked upon the Lexley property as a mere hotbed for his vices. At
+last the old steward turned surly to our enquiries, and would answer
+no further questions concerning his master. My grandfather's small
+farm was the only plot of ground in the parish that did not belong to
+the estate; and from him the faithful old servant was as careful to
+conceal the family disgraces, as to maintain the honour of Sir
+Laurence's name in the ears of his grumbling tenants.
+
+The truth, however, could not long be withheld. Chaisefuls of
+suspicious-looking men in black arrived at the hall; loungers,
+surveyors, auctioneers--I know not what. There was talk in the parish
+about foreclosing a mortgage, no one exactly understood why, or by
+whom. But it was soon clear that Wightman, the old steward, was no
+longer the great man at Lexley. These strangers bade him come here and
+go there exactly as they chose, and, unhappily, they saw fit to make
+his comings and goings so frequent and so humiliating, that before the
+close of the summer the old servitor betook himself to his rest in a
+spot where all men cease from troubling. The leaves that dreary autumn
+fell upon his grave.
+
+According to my grandfather's account, however, few even of his
+village contemporaries grieved for old Wightman. They felt that
+Providence knew best; that the old man was happily spared the
+mortification of all that was likely to ensue. For before another year
+was out the ring fence, which had hitherto encircled the Lexley
+property, was divided within itself; a paltry distribution of about a
+hundred acres alone remaining attached to the old hall. The rest was
+gone! The rest was the property of the foreclosee of that hateful
+mortgage.
+
+Within view of the battlements of the old manor-house, nearly a
+hundred workmen were soon employed in digging the foundations of a
+modern mansion of the noblest proportions. The new owner of the
+estate, though only a manufacturer from Congleton, chose to dwell in a
+palace; and by the time his splendid Doric temple was complete, under
+the name of Lexley Park, the vain-glorious proprietor, Mr Sparks, had
+taken his seat in Parliament for a neighbouring borough.
+
+Little was known of him in the neighbourhood beyond his name and
+calling; yet already his new tenants were prepared to oppose and
+dislike him. Though they knew quite as little personally of the young
+baronet by whom they had been sold into bondage to the unpopular
+clothier--him, with the caprice of ignorance, they chose to prefer.
+They were proud of the old family--proud of the hereditary lords of
+the soil--proud of a name connecting itself with the glories of the
+reign of Elizabeth, and the loyalty shining, like a sepulchral lamp,
+through the gloomy records of the House of Stuart. The banners and
+escutcheons of the Althams were appended in their parish church. The
+family vault sounded hollow under their head whenever they approached
+its altar. Where was the burial-place of the manufacturer? In what
+obscure churchyard existed the mouldering heap that covered the
+remains of the sires of Mr Jonas Sparks? Certainly not at Lexley!
+Lexley knew not, and cared not to know, either him or his. It was no
+fault of the parish that its young baronet had proved a spendthrift
+and alienated the inheritance of his fathers; and, but that he had
+preserved the manor-house from desecration, they would perhaps have
+ostracized him altogether, as having lent his aid to disgrace their
+manor with so noble a structure as the porticoed fa�ade of Lexley
+Park!
+
+Meanwhile the shrewd Jonas was fully aware of his unpopularity and its
+origin; and, during a period of three years, he allowed his
+ill-advised subjects to chew, unmolested, the cud of their discontent.
+Having a comfortable residence at the further extremity of the county,
+he visited Lexley only to overlook the works, or notice the placing of
+the costly new furniture; and the grumblers began to fancy they were
+to profit as little by their new masters as by their old. The steward
+who replaced the trusty Wightman, and had been instructed to legislate
+among the cottages with a lighter hand, and distribute Christmas
+benefaction in a double proportion, was careful to circulate in the
+parish an impression that Mr Sparks and his family did not care to
+inhabit the new house till the gardens were in perfect order, the
+succession houses in full bearing, and the mansion thoroughly
+seasoned. But the Lexleyans guessed the truth, that he had no mind to
+confront the first outbreak of their ill-will.
+
+Nearly four years elapsed before he took possession of the place; four
+years, during which Sir Laurence Altham had never set foot in the
+hall, and was heard of only through his follies and excesses; and when
+Mr Sparks at length made his appearance, with his handsome train of
+equipages, and surrounded by his still handsomer family, so far from
+meeting him with sullen silence, the tenantry began to regret that
+they had not erected a triumphal arch of evergreens for his entrance
+into the park, as had been proposed by the less eager of the
+Althamites.
+
+After all, their former prejudice in favour of the young baronet was
+based on very shallow foundations. What had he ever done for them
+except raise their rents, and prosecute their trespasses? It was
+nothing that his forefathers had endowed almshouses for their support,
+or served up banquets for their delectation--Sir Laurence was an
+absentee--Sir Laurence was as the son of the stranger. The fine old
+kennel stood cold and empty, reminding them that to preserve their
+foxes was no longer an article of Lexley religion; and if any of the
+old October, brewed at the birth of the present baronet, still filled
+the oaken hogsheads in the cellars of the hall, what mattered it to
+them? No chance of their being broached, unless to grace the funeral
+feast of the lord of the manor.
+
+To Jonas Sparks, Esq. M.P., accordingly, they dedicated their
+allegiance. A few additional chaldrons of coals and pairs of blankets,
+the first frosty winter, bound them his slaves for ever. Food, physic,
+and wine, were liberally distributed to the sick and aged whenever
+they repaired for relief to the Doric portico; and, with the usual
+convenient memory of the vulgar, the Lexleyans soon began to remember
+of the Altham family only their recent backslidings and ancient feudal
+oppressions: while of the Sparkses they chose to know only what was
+evident to all eyes--viz., that their hands were open and faces
+comely.
+
+Into their hearts--more especially into that of Jonas, the head of the
+house--they examined not at all; and were ill-qualified to surmise the
+intensity of bitterness with which, while contemplating the beauty and
+richness of his new domain, he beheld the turrets of the old hall
+rising like a statue of scorn above the intervening woods. There stood
+the everlasting monument of the ancient family--there the emblem of
+their pride, throwing its shadow, as it were, over his dawning
+prosperity! But for that force of contrast thus afforded, he would
+scarcely have perceived the newness of all the objects around him--the
+glare of the fresh freestone--the nakedness of the whited walls. A few
+stately old oaks and elms, apparently coeval with the ancient
+structure, which a sort of religious feeling had preserved from the
+axe, that they might afford congenial shade to the successor of its
+founder, seemed to impart meanness and vulgarity to the tapering
+verdure of _his_ plantations, his modern trees--his pert poplars and
+mean larches--his sycamores and planes. Even the incongruity between
+his solid new paling and the decayed and sun-bleached wood of the
+venerable fence to which it adjoined, with its hoary beard of silvery
+lichen, was an eyesore to him. Every passer-by might note the limit
+and circumscription dividing the new place from the ancient seat of
+the lords of the manor.
+
+Yet was the landscape of Lexley Park one of almost unequalled beauty.
+The Dee formed noble ornament to its sweeping valleys; while the noble
+acclivities were clothed with promising woods, opening by rich vistas
+to a wide extent of champaign country. A fine bridge of granite,
+erected by the late Sir Windsor Altham, formed a noble object from the
+windows of the new mansion; and but for the evidence of the venerable
+pile, that stood like an abdicated monarch surveying its lost
+dominions, there existed no external demonstration that Lexley Park
+had not from the beginning of time formed the estated seat of the
+Sparkses.
+
+The neighbouring families, if "neighbouring" could be called certain
+of the nobility and gentry who resided at ten miles' distance, were
+courteously careful to inspire the new settler with a belief that they
+at least had forgotten any antecedent state of things at Lexley; for
+they had even reason to congratulate themselves on the change. Jonas
+had long been strenuously active in the House of Commons in promoting
+county improvements. Jonas was useful as a magistrate, and invaluable
+as a liberal contributor to the local charities. During the first five
+years of his occupancy, he did more for Lexley and its inhabitants
+than the half-dozen previous baronets of the House of Altham.
+
+Of the man he had superseded, meanwhile, it was observed that Mr
+Sparks was judiciously careful to forbear all mention. It might have
+been supposed that he had purchased the estate of the Crown or the
+Court of Chancery, so utterly ignorant did he appear of the age,
+habits, and whereabout of his predecessor; and when informed by Sir
+John Wargrane, one of his wealthy neighbours, that young Altham was
+disgracing himself again--that at the public gaming-tables at Toplitz
+he had been a loser of thirty thousand pounds--the cunning _parvenu_
+listened with an air of as vague indifference as if he were not
+waiting with breathless anxiety the gradual dissipation of the funds,
+secured to the young spendthrift by the transfer of his estate, to
+grasp at the small remaining portion of his property. Unconsciously,
+when the tale of Sir Laurence's profligacy met his ear, he clenched
+his griping hand, as though it already recognized its hold upon the
+destined spoil, but not a word did he utter.
+
+Meanwhile, the family of the new squire of Lexley were winning golden
+opinions on all sides. "The boys were brave--the girls were fair," the
+mother virtuous, pious, and unpretending. It would have been
+scandalous, indeed, to sneer to shame the modest cheerfulness of such
+people, because their ancestors had not fought at the Crusades. By
+degrees, they assumed an honourable and even eminent position in the
+county; and the first time Sir Laurence Altham condescended to visit
+the county-palatine, he heard nothing but commendations and admiration
+of the charming family at Lexley Park.
+
+"Charming family!--a Jonas Sparks, and charming!" was his
+supercilious reply. "I rejoice to find that the _fumier_ I have been
+forced to fling on my worn-out ancestral estate is fertilizing its
+barrenness. The village is probably the better for the change. But, as
+regards the society, I must be permitted to mistrust the attractions
+of the brood of a Congleton manufacturer."
+
+The young baronet, who now, though still entitled to be called young,
+was disfigured by the premature defeatures of a vicious life,
+mistrusted it all the more, when, on visiting the old hall, he was
+forced to recognize the improvements effected in the neighbouring
+property (that he should be forced to call it "_neighbouring_!") by
+the judicious administration of the new owner. It was impossible to
+deny that Mr Sparks had doubled its value, while enhancing its
+beauties. The low grounds were drained, the high lands planted, the
+river widened, the forestry systematically organized. The estate
+appeared to have attained new strength and vigour when dissevered from
+the old manor-house; whose shadow might be supposed to have exercised
+a baleful influence on the lands wherever it presided.
+
+But it was not his recognition of this that was likely to animate the
+esteem of Sir Laurence Altham for Mr Jonas Sparks. On the contrary, he
+felt every accession of value to the Lexley property as so much
+subtracted from his belongings; and his detestation of the upstarts,
+whose fine mansion was perceptible from his lordly towers--like a blot
+upon the fairness of the landscape--increased with the increase of
+their prosperity.
+
+Without having expected to take delight in a sojourn at Lexley Hall--a
+spot where he had only resided for a few weeks now and then, from the
+period of his early boyhood--he was not prepared for the excess of
+irritation that arose in his heart on witnessing the total
+estrangement of the retainers of his family. For the mortification of
+seeing a fine new house, with gorgeous furniture, and a pompous
+establishment, he came armed to the teeth. But no presentiments had
+forewarned him, that at Lexley the living Althams were already as much
+forgotten as those who were sleeping in the family vault. The sudden
+glow that pervaded his whole frame when he chanced to encounter on the
+highroad the rich equipage of the Sparkses; or the imprecation that
+burst from his lips, when, on going to the window of a morning to
+examine the state of the weather for the day, the first objects that
+struck him was the fair mansion in the plain below, laughing as it
+were in the sunshine, the deer grouped under its fine old trees, and
+the river rippling past its lawns as if delighting in their
+verdure----Yes! there was decided animosity betwixt the hill and the
+valley.
+
+Every successive season served to quicken the pulses of this growing
+hatred. Whether on the spot or at a distance, a thousand aggravations
+sprang up betwixt the parties: disputes between gamekeepers, quarrels
+between labourers, encroachments by tenants. Every thing and nothing
+was made the groundwork of ill-will. To Sir Laurence Altham's
+embittered feelings, the very rooks of Lexley Park seemed evermore to
+infringe upon the privileges of the rookery at Lexley Hall; and when,
+in the parish church, the new squire (or rather his workmen, for he
+was absent at the time attending his duties in Parliament)
+inadvertently broke off the foot of a marble cherub, weeping its
+alabaster tears, at the angle of a monument to the memory of a certain
+Sir Wilfred Altham, of the time of James II., in raising the woodwork
+of a pew occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the rage of Sir Laurence was
+so excessive as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat.
+
+The enmity of the baronet was all the more painful to himself that he
+felt it to be harmless against its object. In every way, Lexley Park
+had the best of it. Jonas Sparks was not only rich in a noble income,
+but in a charming wife and promising family. Every thing prospered
+with him; and, as to mere inferiority of precedence, it was well known
+that he had refused a baronetcy; and many people even surmised that,
+so soon as he was able to purchase another borough, and give a seat in
+Parliament to his second son, as well as resign his own to the eldest,
+he would be promoted to the Upper House.
+
+The only means of vengeance, therefore, possessed by the vindictive
+man whose follies and vices had been the means of creating this
+perpetual scourge to his pride, was withholding from him the purchase
+of the remaining lands indispensable to the completion of his estate,
+more especially as regarded the water-courses, which, at Lexley Park,
+were commanded by the sluices of the higher grounds of the Hall; and
+mighty was the oath sworn by Sir Laurence, that come what might,
+however great his exigencies or threatening his poverty, nothing
+should induce him to dispose of another acre to Jonas Sparks. He was
+even at the trouble of executing a will, in order to introduce a
+clause imposing the same reservation upon the man to whom he devised
+his small remaining property--the heir-at-law, to whom, had he died
+intestate, it would have descended without conditions.
+
+"The Congleton shopkeepers," muttered he, (whenever, in his solitary
+evening rides, he caught sight of the rich plate-glass windows of the
+new mansion, burnished by the setting sun,) "shall never, never lord
+it under the roof of my forefathers! Wherever else he may set his
+plebeian foot, Lexley Hall shall be sacred. Rather see the old place
+burned to the ground--rather set fire to it with my own hands--than
+conceive that, when I am in my grave, it could possibly be subjected
+to the rule of such a barbarian!"
+
+For it had reached the ears of Sir Laurence--of course, with all the
+exaggeration derived from passing through the medium of village
+gossip--that a thousand local legends concerning the venerable
+mansion, sanctified by their antiquity in the ears of the family,
+afforded a fertile source of jesting to Jonas Sparks. The Hall
+abounded in concealed staircases and iron hiding-places, connected
+with a variety of marvellous traditions of the civil wars; besides a
+walled-up suite of chambers, haunted, as becomes a walled-up suite of
+chambers; and justice-rooms and tapestried-rooms, to which the long
+abandonment of the house, and the heated imaginations of the few
+menials left in charge of its desolate vastness, attributed romances
+likely enough to have provoked the laughter of a matter-of-fact man
+like the owner of Lexley Park. But neither Sir Laurence nor his old
+servants were likely to forgive this insult offered to the family
+legends of a house which had little else left to boast of. Even the
+neighbouring families were displeased to hear them derided; and my
+grandfather never liked to hear a joke on the subject of the
+coach-and-four which was said to have driven into the court-yard of
+the Hall on the eve of the execution of the rebel lords in 1745,
+having four headless inmates, who were duly welcomed as guests by old
+Sir Robert Altham. Nay, as a child, I had so often thrilled on my
+nurse's knees during the relation of this spectral visitation, that I
+own I felt indignant if any one presumed to laugh at a tale which had
+made me quake for fear.
+
+Among those who were known to resent the familiar tone in which Mr
+Sparks had been heard to criticise the pomps and vanities exhibited at
+Lexley Hall by the Althams of the olden time, was a certain General
+Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat of his own at about ten miles'
+distance, was fond of bringing over his visitors to visit the old
+Hall, as an interesting specimen of county antiquity. _He_ knew the
+peculiarities of the place, and could repeat the traditions connected
+with the hiding-places better than the housekeeper herself; and I have
+heard her say it was a pleasure to hear him relating these historical
+anecdotes with all the fire of an old soldier, and see his venerable
+grey hair blown about as he stood with his party on the battlements,
+pointing out to the ladies the fine range of territory formerly
+belonging to the Althams. The old lady protested that the general was
+nearly as much grieved as herself to behold the old mansion so shorn
+of its beams; and certain it is, that once when, on visiting the hall
+after Sir Laurence had been some years an absentee, he found the grass
+growing among the disjointed stones of the cloisters and justice-hall,
+he made a handsome present to one of the housekeeper's nephews, on
+condition of his keeping the purlieus of the venerable mansion free
+from such disgraceful evidences of neglect.
+
+All this eventually reached the ears of the baronet; but instead of
+making him angry, as might have been expected, from one so tetchy and
+susceptible, he never encountered General Stanley, either in town or
+country, without demonstrations of respect. Though too reserved and
+morose for conversation, Sir Laurence was observed to take off his hat
+to him with a respect he was never seen to show towards the king or
+queen.
+
+About this time I began to take personal interest in the affairs of
+the neighbourhood, though my own were now of a nature to engross my
+attention. By my grandfather's death, I had recently come into the
+enjoyment of the small inheritance which has sufficed to the happiness
+of my life; and, renouncing the profession for which I was educated,
+settled myself permanently at Lexley.
+
+Well do I remember the melancholy face with which the good old rector,
+the very first evening we spent together, related to me in confidence
+that he had three years' dues in arrear to him from Lexley Hall; but
+that so wretched was said to be the state of Sir Laurence's
+embarrassments, that, for more than a year, his dread of arrest had
+kept him a close prisoner in his house in London.
+
+"We have not seen him here these six years!" observed Dr Whittingham;
+"and I doubt whether he will ever again set foot in the county. Since
+an execution was put into the Hall, he has never crossed the
+threshold, and I suspect never will. Far better were he to dispose of
+the property at once! Dismembered as it is, what pleasure can it
+afford him? And, since he is unlikely to marry and have heirs, there
+is less call upon him to retain this remaining relic of family pride;
+yet I am assured--nay, have good reason to know, that he has refused a
+very liberal offer on the part of Mr Sparks. Malicious people do say,
+by the way, that it was by the advice of Sparks's favourite attorneys
+the execution was enforced, and that no means have been left
+unattempted to disgust him with the place. Yet he is firm, you see,
+and persists in disappointing his creditors, and depriving himself of
+the comforts of life, merely in order that he may die, as his fathers
+did before him--the lord of Lexley Hall!"
+
+"I don't wonder!" said I, with the dawning sentiments of a landed
+proprietor--"'Tis a splendid old house, even in its present state of
+degradation; and, by Jove! I honour his pertinacity."
+
+Thus put upon the scent, I sometimes fancied I could detect wistful
+looks on the part of my prosperous neighbour of the Park, when, in the
+course of Dr Whittingham's somewhat lengthy sermons, he directed his
+eyes towards the carved old Gothic tribune, containing the family-pew
+of the Althams, in the parish church; and, whenever I happened to
+encounter him in the neighbourhood of the Hall, his face was so
+pointedly averted from the house, as if the mere object were an
+offence. I could not but wonder at his vexation; being satisfied in my
+own mind, that sooner or later the remaining heritage of the
+spendthrift must fall to his share.
+
+Judge, therefore, of my surprise, when one fine morning, as I
+sauntered into the village, I found the whole population gathered in
+groups on the little market-place, and discovered from the incoherent
+exclamations of the crowd, that "the new proprietor of the Hall had
+just driven through in a chaise-and-four!"
+
+Yes--"the new proprietor!" The place was sold! The good doctor's
+prediction was verified. Sir Laurence was never more to return to
+Lexley Hall!
+
+The satisfaction of the villagers almost equalled their surprise on
+finding that General Stanley was their new landlord. It suited them
+much better that there should be two families settled on the property
+than one; and as it was pretty generally reported, that, in the event
+of Sparks becoming the purchaser, he intended to demolish the old
+house, and reconsolidate the estate around his own more commodious
+mansion, they were right glad to find it rescued from such a
+sentence--General Stanley, who was the father of a family, would
+probably settle the hall on one of his daughters, after placing it in
+the state of repair so much needed.
+
+When the chaise-and-four returned, therefore, a few hours afterwards,
+through the village, the General was loudly cheered by his subjects.
+His partiality for the place was so well known at Lexley, that already
+these people seemed to behold in him the guardian of a monument so
+long the object of their pride.
+
+For my own part, nothing surprised me so much in the business as that
+Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers.
+It was worth thrice as much to _him_ as to any body else. It was the
+keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render
+Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in
+learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood)
+that whatever _my_ surprise on finding that the old Hall had changed
+its master, that of Sparks was far more overwhelming; that he was
+literally frantic on finding himself frustrated in expectations which
+formed the leading interest of his declining years. For the progress
+of time which had made _me_ a man and a landed proprietor, had
+converted the stout active squire into an infirm old man; and it was
+his absorbing wish to die sole owner of the whole property to which
+the baronets of the Altham family were born.
+
+He even indulged in expressions of irritation, which nearly proved the
+means of commencing this new neighbourship by a duel; accusing General
+Stanley of having possessed himself by unfair means of Sir Laurence's
+confidence, and employed agents, underhand, to effect the purchase. In
+consequence of these groundless representations, it transpired in the
+country that the decayed baronet had actually volunteered the offer of
+the estate to the veteran proprietor of Stanley Manor; that he had
+_solicited_ him to become the proprietor, and even accommodated him
+with peculiar facilities of payment, on condition of his inserting in
+the title-deeds an express undertaking, never to dispose of the old
+Hall, or any portion of the property, to Jonas Sparks of Lexley Park,
+or his heirs for ever. The solicitor by whom, under Sir Laurence's
+direction, the deeds had been prepared, saw fit to divulge this
+singular specification, rather than that a hostile encounter should
+run the risk of embruing in blood the hands of two grey haired men.
+
+Excepting as regarded the disappointment of our wealthy neighbour, all
+was now established on the happiest footing at Lexley. The reparation
+instantly commenced by the General, gave employment throughout the
+winter to our workmen; and the evils arising from an absentee landlord
+began gradually to disappear. It was a great joy to me to perceive
+that the new proprietor of the Hall had the good taste to preserve the
+antique character of the place in the minutest portion of his
+alterations; and though the old gardens were no longer a wilderness,
+not a shrub was displaced--not a mutilated statue removed. The
+furniture had been sold off at the time of the execution; and that
+which came down in cart-loads from town to replace it, was rigidly in
+accordance with the semi-Gothic architecture of the lofty chambers.
+Poor Sparks must have been doubly mortified; for not only did he find
+his old eyesore converted into an irremediable evil by the restoration
+of the Hall, but the supremacy hitherto maintained in the
+neighbourhood by the modern elegance of his house and establishment,
+was thrown into the shade by the rich and tasteful arrangements of the
+Hall.
+
+From the contracted look of his forehead, and sudden alteration of his
+appearance, I have reason to think he was beginning to undergo all the
+moral martyrdom sustained for thirty years past by the unfortunate Sir
+Laurence Altham; and were I not by nature the most contented of men,
+it would have sufficiently reconciled me to the mediocrity of my
+fortunes, to see that these two great people of my neighbourhood--the
+nobly-descended baronet and rich _parvenu_--were miserable men; that,
+so long as I could remember, one or other of them had been given over
+to surliness and discontent.
+
+Before the close of the year the grand old Hall had become one of the
+noblest seats in the county. There was talk about it in all the
+country round, and even the newspapers took notice of its renovation,
+and of General Stanley's removal thither from Stanley Manor. Many
+people, of the species who love to detect spots in the sun, were
+careful to point out the insufficiency of the estate, as at present
+constituted, to maintain so fine a house. But, after all, what
+mattered this to General Stanley, who had a fine rent-roll elsewhere?
+
+The first thing he did, on taking possession, was to give a grand ball
+to the neighbourhood; nor was it till the whole house was lighted up
+for this festive occasion, that people were fully aware of the
+grandeur of its proportions. He was good enough to send me an
+invitation on so especial an occasion. But already I had imbibed the
+distaste which has pursued me through life for what is called society;
+and I accordingly contented myself with surveying from a distance the
+fine effect produced by the light streaming from the multitude of
+windows, and exhibiting to the whole country round the gorgeous nature
+of the decorations within. To own the truth, I could scarcely forbear
+regretting, as I surveyed them, the gloomy dilapidation of the
+venerable mansion. This modernized antiquity was a very different
+thing from the massy grandeur of its neglected years; and I am afraid
+I loved the old house better with the weeds springing from its
+crevices, than with all this carving and gilding, this ebony, and
+iron, and light.
+
+The people of Lexley imagined that nothing would induce the Sparks's
+family to be seen under General Stanley's roof. But we were mistaken.
+So much the contrary, that the squire of Lexley Park made a particular
+point of being the first and latest of the guests--not only because
+his reconciliation with his new neighbour was so recent, but from not
+choosing to authenticate, by his absence, the rumours of his grievous
+disappointment.
+
+For all the good he was likely to derive from his visit, the poor man
+had better have stayed away; for that unlucky night laid foundations
+of evil for him and his, far greater than any he had incurred from the
+animosity of Sir Laurence. Nay, when in the sequel these results
+became matter of public commentation, superstitious people were not
+wanting to hint that the evil spirit, traditionally said to haunt one
+of the wings of the old manor, and to have manifested itself on more
+than one occasion to members of the Altham family, (and more
+especially to the late worthless proprietor of the Hall,) had acquired
+a fatal power over the two supplanters of the ruined family the moment
+they crossed the threshold.
+
+General Stanley, after marrying late in life, had been some years a
+widower--a widower with two daughters, his co-heiresses. The elder of
+these young ladies was a hopeless invalid, slightly deformed, and so
+little attractive in person, or desirous to attract, that there was
+every prospect of the noble fortunes of the General centring in her
+sister. Yet this sister, this girl, had little need of such an
+accession to her charms; for she was one of those fortunate beings
+endowed not only with beauty and excellence, but with a power of
+pleasing not always united with even a combination of merit and
+loveliness.
+
+Every body agreed that Mary Stanley was charming. Old and young, rich
+and poor, all loved her, all delighted in her. It is true, the good
+rector's maiden sisters privately hinted to me their horror of the
+recklessness with which--sometimes with her sister, oftener without,
+but wholly unattended--she drove her little pony-chaise through the
+village, laughing like a madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland dog
+named Sergeant, the favourite of General Stanley, which, while
+escorting the young ladies, used to gambol into the cottages, overset
+furniture and children, and scamper out again amid a general uproar.
+For though Miss Mary was but sixteen, the starched spinsters decided
+that she was much too old for such folly; and that, if the General
+intended to present her at court, it was high time for her to lay
+aside the hoyden manners of childhood.
+
+But, as every one argued against them, why should this joyous, bright,
+and beautiful creature lay aside what became her so strangely? Mary
+Stanley was not made for the formalities of what is called
+high-breeding. Her light, easy, sinuous figure, did not lend itself to
+the rigid deportment of a prude; and her gay laughing eyes, and
+dimpled mouth, were ill calculated to grace a dignified position. The
+long ringlets of her profuse auburn hair were always out of
+order--either streaming in the wind, or straying over her white
+shoulders--her long lashes and beautifully defined eyebrows of the
+same rich tint, alone preserving any thing like uniformity--a
+uniformity which, combined with her almost Grecian regularity of
+features, gave her, on the rare occasions when her countenance and
+figure were at rest, the air of some nymph or dryad of ancient
+sculpture. But to compare Mary Stanley to any thing of marble is
+strangely out of place; for her real beauty consisted in the
+ever-varying play of her features, and a certain impetuosity of
+movement, that would have been a little characteristic of the romp,
+but that it was restrained by the spell of feminine sensibility. Heart
+was evidently the impulse of every look and every gesture.
+
+For a man of my years, methinks I am writing like a lover. And so I
+was! From the first moment I saw that girl, at an humble and
+unaspiring distance, I could dream of nothing else. Every thing and
+every body seemed fascinated by Mary Stanley. When she walked out into
+the fields with the General, her two hands clasping, like those of a
+child, her father's arm, his favourite colts used to come neighing
+playfully towards them; and not the fiercest dog of his extensive
+kennel but, even when unmanageable by the keeper, would creep fawning
+to her feet.
+
+It was strange enough, but still more fortunate, that all the
+adoration lavished upon this lovely creature by gentle and simple,
+Christian and brute, provoked no apparent jealousy on the part of her
+elder sister. Selina Stanley was afflicted with a cold, reserved,
+unhappy countenance, only too completely in unison with her
+disastrous position. But her heart was perhaps as genuine as her face
+was forbidding; for she loved the merry, laughing, handsome Mary,
+more as a mother her child, than as a sister nearly of her own
+years--that is, exultingly, but anxiously. Every one else foresaw
+nothing but prosperity, and joy, and love, in store for Mary. Selina
+prayed that it might prove so;--but she prayed with tears in her
+eyes, and trembling in her soul! For where are the destinies of
+persons thus exquisitely organized--thus full of love and
+loveliness--thus readily swayed to joy or sorrow, by the trivial
+incidents of life--characterised by what the world calls
+happiness--such happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed by the serene and
+the prudent, the unexcitable, the unaspiring! Miss Stanley foresaw
+only too truly, that the best days likely to be enjoyed by her
+sister, were those she was spending under her father's roof--a
+general idol--an object of deference and delight to all around.
+
+At the General's housewarming, though not previously introduced into
+society, Mary was the queen of the ball; and all present agreed, that
+one of the most pleasing circumstances of the evening was to watch the
+animated cordiality with which she flew from one to the other of those
+old neighbours of Stanley Manor, (whom she alone had managed to
+persuade that a dozen miles was no distance to prevent their accepting
+her father's invitation;) and not the most brilliant of her young
+friends received a more eager welcome, or more sustained attention
+throughout the evening, than the few homely elderly people, (such as
+my friends the Whittinghams,) who happened to share the hospitality of
+General Stanley. I daresay that even _I_, had I found courage to
+accept his invitation, should have received from the young beauty some
+gentle word, in addition to the kindly smiles with which she was sure
+to return my respectful obeisance whenever we met accidentally in the
+village.
+
+Mary was dressed in white, with a few natural flowers in her hair,
+which, owing to the impetuosity of her movements, soon fell out,
+leaving only a stray leaf or two, that would have looked ridiculous
+any where but among her rich, but dishevelled locks; and the pleasant
+anxieties of the evening imparted such a glow to her usually somewhat
+pale complexion, that her beauty is said to have been, that night,
+almost supernatural. She was more like the creature of a dream than
+one of those wooden puppets, who move mechanically through the world
+under the name of well brought-up young ladies.
+
+It will easily be conceived how much this ball, so rare an event in
+our quiet neighbourhood, was discussed, not only the following day,
+but for days and weeks to come. Even at the rectory I heard of nothing
+else; while by my good old housekeeper, who had a son in service at
+General Stanley's, and a daughter waiting-maid to Miss Sparks, I was
+let in to secrets concerning it of which even the rectory knew
+nothing.
+
+In the first place, though Mr Sparks had peremptorily signified from
+the first to his family, his desire that all should accompany him to
+Lexley Hall on this trying occasion, (and it was only natural he
+should wish to solace his wounded pride, by appearing before his noble
+neighbour surrounded by his handsome progeny,) two of his children
+had risen up in rebellion against the decree--and for the first
+time--for Sparks was happy in a dutiful and well-ordered family. But
+the youngest daughter, Kezia, a girl of high spirits and intelligence,
+who fancied she had been pointedly slighted by the Misses Stanley,
+when, in one of Mary's harum-scarum expeditions on her Shetland pony,
+she had passed without recognition the better-mounted young lady of
+Lexley Park; and the eldest son, who so positively refused to
+accompany his father to the house of a man by whom Mr Sparks had
+inconsiderately represented himself as aggrieved, that, for once, the
+kind parent was forced to play the tyrant, and insist on his
+obedience.
+
+It was, accordingly, with a very ill grace that these two, the
+prettiest of the daughters, and by far the handsomest of his three
+handsome sons, made their appearance at the _f�te_. But no sooner were
+they welcomed by General Stanley and his daughters, than the brother
+and sister, who had mutually encouraged each other's disputes,
+hastened to recant their opinions.
+
+"How could you, dearest father, describe this courteous, high-bred old
+gentleman, as insolent and overbearing?"--whispered Kezia.
+
+"How could you possibly suppose that yonder lovely, gracious creature,
+intended to treat you with impertinence?"--was the rejoinder of her
+brother; and already the Stanleys had two enemies the less among their
+neighbours at Lexley Park.
+
+On the other hand, the General had been forced to have recourse to
+severe schooling to bring his daughters to a sense of what was due to
+_his guests_, as regarded the family of a man who was known to have
+spoken disparagingly of them all. Moreover, if the truth must be
+owned, Mary was not altogether free from the prejudices of her caste;
+and, proud of her father's noble extraction, was apt to pout her
+pretty lip on mention of "the people at Lexley Park;" for the General,
+who had no secrets from his girls, had foolishly permitted them to see
+certain letters addressed to him by the eccentric Sir Laurence Altham,
+justifying himself concerning the peculiar clause introduced into his
+deeds of conveyance of his Hall estate, on the grounds of the degraded
+origin of "the upstart" he was so malignantly intent on discomposing.
+
+"They will spoil our ball, dear papa--I _know_ these vulgar people
+will completely spoil our ball!" said she. "I think I hear them
+announced:--'Mr Jonas Sparks, Miss Basiliza and Miss Kezia
+Sparks!'--What names?"
+
+"The parents of Mr Sparks were dissenters," observed the General,
+trying to look severe. "Dissenters are apt to hold to scriptural
+names. But _name_ is not _nature_, Mary; and, to judge by appearances,
+this man's--this gentleman's--this Mr Sparks's daughters, have every
+qualification to be an ornament to society."
+
+"With all my heart, papa, but I wish it were not ours!" cried the
+wayward girl. "On the present occasion, especially, I could spare such
+an accession to our circle; for I know that Mr Sparks has presumed to
+speak of----"
+
+She was interrupted by a sterner reproof on the part of the General
+than he had ever before administered to his favourite daughter; and
+the consequence of this unusual severity was the distinguished
+reception bestowed, both by Selina and her sister, on the family from
+Lexley Park.
+
+Next day, however, General Stanley found a totally different cause for
+rebuke in the conduct of his dear Mary.
+
+"You talked to nobody last night, but those Sparks's!" said he. "Lord
+Dudley informed me he had asked you to dance three times in vain; and
+Lord Robert Stanley assured me _he_ could scarcely get a civil answer
+from you!--Yet you found time, Mary, to dance twice in the course of
+the evening with that son of Sparks's!"
+
+"That son of Sparks's, as you so despisingly call him, dearest papa,
+is a most charming partner; while Lord Dudley, and my cousin Robert,
+are little better than boors. Everard Sparks can talk and dance, as
+well as they ride across a country. Not but what he, too, passes for a
+tolerable sportsman; and do you know, papa, Mr Sparks is thinking
+seriously of setting up a pack of harriers at Lexley?"
+
+"At Lexley Park!" insisted her father, who chose to enforce the
+distinction instituted by Sir Laurence Altham. "I fancy he will have
+to ask my permission first. My land lies somewhat inconveniently, in
+case I choose to oppose his intentions."
+
+"But you won't oppose them!--No, no, dear papa, you sha'n't oppose
+them!"--cried Mary Stanley, throwing her arms coaxingly round her
+father's neck, and imprinting a kiss on his venerable forehead. "_Why_
+should we go on opposing and opposing, when it would be so much
+happier for all of us to live together as friends and neighbours?"
+
+The General surveyed her in silence for some moments as she looked up
+lovingly into his face; then gravely, and in silence, unclasped her
+arms from his neck. For the first time, he had gazed upon his
+favourite child without discerning beauty in her countenance, or
+finding favour for her supplications.
+
+"_My_ opinion of Mr Sparks and his family is not altered since
+yesterday," said he coldly, perceiving that she was about to renew her
+overtures for a pacification. "Your father's prejudices, Mary, are
+seldom so slightly grounded, that the adulation of a few gross
+compliments, such as were paid you last night by Mr Everard Sparks,
+may suffice for their obliteration. For the future, remember the less
+I hear of Lexley Park the better. In a few weeks we shall be in
+London, where our sphere is sufficiently removed, I am happy to say,
+from that of Mr Jonas Sparks, to secure me against the annoyance of
+familiarity with him or his."
+
+The partiality of his darling Mary for the handsomest and most
+agreeable young man who had ever sought to make himself agreeable to
+her, had sufficed to turn the arguments of General Stanley as
+decidedly _against_ his _parvenu_ neighbours, as, two days before, his
+eloquence had been exercised in their defence.
+
+And now commenced between the young people and their parents, one of
+those covert warfares certain to arise from similar interdictions. Mr
+Sparks--satisfied that he should have further insults to endure on the
+part of General Stanley, in the event of his son pretending to the
+hand of the proud old man's daughter--sought a serious explanation
+with Everard, on finding that he neglected no opportunity of meeting
+Mary Stanley in her drives, and walks, and errands of village
+benevolence; and by the remonstrances of one father, and
+peremptoriness of the other, the young couple were soon tempted to
+seek comforts in mutual confidences. Residing almost within view of
+each other, there was no great difficulty in finding occasion for an
+interview. They met, moreover, naturally, and without effort, in all
+the country houses in the neighbourhood; and so frequently, that I
+often wondered they should consider it worth while to hazard the
+General's displeasure by partaking a few moments' conversation, every
+now and then, among the old thorns by the water-side, just where the
+bend of the river secured them from observation; or in the green lane
+leading from Lexley Park to my farm, while Miss Stanley took charge of
+the pony-chaise during the hasty explanations of the imprudent couple.
+Having little to occupy my leisure during the intervals of my
+agricultural pursuits, I was constantly running against them, with my
+gun on my shoulder or my fishing-rod in my hand. I almost feared young
+Sparks might imagine that I was employed by the General as a spy upon
+their movements, so fierce a glance did he direct towards me one day
+when I was unlucky enough to vault over a hedge within a few yards of
+the spot where they were standing together--Miss Mary sobbing like a
+child. But, God knows! he was mistaken if he thought I was taking
+unfair heed of their proceedings, or likely to gossip indiscreetly
+concerning what fell accidentally under my notice.
+
+Not that a single soul in the neighbourhood approved General Stanley's
+opposition to the attachment. On the contrary, from the moment of the
+liking between the young people becoming apparent, the whole country
+decided that there could not be a more propitious mode of reuniting
+the dismembered Lexley estates; for though the General was expressly
+debarred from selling Lexley Hall to Sparks or his heirs, he could not
+be prevented bequeathing it to his daughters--the heirs of Jonas
+Sparks being the children of her body. And thus all objections would
+have been remedied.
+
+But such was not the proud old man's view of the case. He had set his
+heart on perpetuating his own name in his family. He had set his
+heart on the union of his dear Mary with her cousin Lord Robert
+Stanley; and Everard Sparks might have been twice the handsome, manly
+young fellow he was--twice the gentleman, and twice the scholar--it
+would have pleaded little in his favour against the predetermined
+projects of the positive General. There was certainly some excuse for
+his ambition on Miss Mary's account. Beauty, merit, fortune,
+connexion, every advantage was hers calculated to do honour to a noble
+alliance; and as her father often exclaimed, with a bitter sneer, in
+answer to the mild pleadings of Selina--"Such a girl as that--a girl
+born to be a duchess--to sacrifice herself to the son of a Congleton
+manufacturer!"
+
+Two years did the struggle continue--during the greater part of which
+I was a constant eyewitness of the sorrows which so sobered the
+impetuous deportment of the light-hearted Mary Stanley. Her father
+took her to London, with the project of separation he had haughtily
+announced; but only to find, to his amazement, that Eton and Oxford
+had placed the son of Mr Sparks of Lexley Park, a member of
+Parliament, on as good a footing as himself in nearly all the circles
+he frequented. Even when, in the desperation of his fears, he removed
+his family to the Continent, the young lover (as became the lover of
+so endearing and attractive a creature) followed her, at a distance,
+from place to place. At length, one angry day, the General provoked
+him to a duel. But Everard would not lift his hand against the father
+of his beloved Mary. An insult from General Stanley was not as an
+offence from any other man. The only revenge taken by the
+high-spirited young man, was to urge the ungenerous conduct of the
+father as an argument with the daughter to put an end, by an
+elopement, to a state of things too painful to be borne. After much
+hesitation, it seems, she most unhappily complied. They were
+married--at Naples I think, or Turin, or some other city of Italy,
+where we have a diplomatic resident; and after their marriage--poor,
+foolish young people!--they went touring it about gaily in the
+Archipelago and Levant, waiting a favourable moment to propose a
+reconciliation with their respective fathers--as if the wrath and
+malediction of parents was so mere a trifle to deal with.
+
+The first step taken by General Stanley, on learning the ungrateful
+rebellion of his favourite child, was to return to England. He seemed
+to want to be at home again, the better to enjoy and cultivate his
+abhorrence of every thing bearing the despised name of Sparks; for now
+began the genuine hatred between the families. Nothing would satisfy
+the obstinate old soldier, but that the elder Sparks had, from the
+first, secretly encouraged the views of his son upon the heiress of
+Lexley Hall; while Mr Sparks naturally resented with enraged spirit
+the overbearing tone assumed by his aristocratic neighbour towards
+those so nearly his equals. Every day produced some new grounds for
+offence; and never had Sir Laurence Altham, in the extremity of his
+poverty, regarded the thriving mansion in the valley with half the
+loathing which the view of Lexley Park produced in the mind of General
+Stanley. He was even at the trouble of trenching a plantation on the
+brow of the hill, with the intention of shutting out the detested
+object. But trees do not grow so hastily as antipathies; and the
+General had to endure the certainty, that, for the remainder of _his_
+life at least, that beautiful domain must be unrolled, map-like, at
+his feet. Nor is it to be supposed that the battlements of the old
+hall found greater favour in the sight of the _parvenu_ squire, than
+when in Sir Laurence's time the very sight of them was wormwood to his
+soul.
+
+Unhappily, while the Congleton manufacturer contented himself with
+angry words, the gentleman of thirty descents betook himself to
+action. General Stanley swore to be mightily revenged--and he was so.
+
+On the very day following his return to England, before he even
+visited his desolate country-house, he sent for Lord Robert Stanley,
+and made him the confidant of his indignation--avowed his former good
+intentions in his favour--betrayed all Mary's--all _Mr Everard
+Sparks's_ disparaging opposition; and ended by enquiring whether,
+since whichever of his daughters became Lady Robert Stanley would
+become sole heiress to his property, his lordship could make up his
+mind to accept Selina as a wife? Proud as he was, the General almost
+condescended to plead the cause of his deformed daughter: enlarging
+upon her excellences of character, and, still more, upon her aversion
+to society, which would secure the self-love of her husband against
+any public remarks on her want of personal attractions.
+
+Alas! all these arguments were thoroughly thrown away. Lord Robert
+was, as his cousin Mary had truly described him, little better than a
+boor. But he was also a spendthrift and a libertine; and had Miss
+Stanley been as deformed in mind as she was in person, he would have
+joyfully taken to wife the heiress of ten thousand a-year, and two of
+the finest seats in the county of Chester.
+
+To herself, meanwhile, no hint of these family negotiations was
+vouchsafed; and Selina Stanley had every reason to suppose--when her
+cousin became on a sudden an assiduous visitor at the house, and very
+shortly a declared lover--that their intimacy from childhood had
+accustomed his eye to her want of personal charms--she had become
+endeared to him by her mild and submissive temper. So little was she
+aware of her father's testamentary dispositions in her favour, that
+the interested nature of Lord Robert's views did not occur to her
+mind; and, little accustomed to protestations of attachment, Selina's
+heart was not _very_ difficult to soften towards the only man who had
+ever pretended to love her, and whose apparent attachment promised
+some consolation for the loss of her sister's society, as well as the
+chance of reunion with one whom her father had sworn should never,
+under any possible circumstances, again cross his threshold.
+
+Six months after General Stanley's pride had been wounded to the quick
+by the newspaper account of a marriage between his favourite child and
+"a man of the name of Sparks," balm was poured into the wound by
+another and more pompous paragraph, announcing the union, by special
+license, of the Right Hon. Lord Robert Stanley and the eldest daughter
+and heiress of Lieut.-Gen. Stanley, of Stanley Manor, only son of the
+late Lord Henry Stanley, followed by the usual list of noble relatives
+gracing the ceremony with their presence, and a flourishing account of
+the departure of the happy couple, in a travelling carriage and four,
+for their seat in Cheshire.
+
+This announcement, by the way, probably served to convey the
+intelligence to Mr and Mrs Everard Sparks; for the General having
+carefully intercepted every letter addressed by Mary to her sister,
+Lady Robert had not the slightest idea in what direction to
+communicate with one who possessed an undiminished share in her
+affections.
+
+On General Stanley's arrival in Cheshire, at the close of the
+honeymoon, the most casual observer might have noticed the alteration
+which had taken place in his appearance. Instead of the sadness I had
+expected to find in his countenance after so severe a stroke as the
+disobedience of his darling girl, I never saw him so exulting. Yet his
+smiles were not smiles of good-humour. There was bitterness at the
+bottom of every word he uttered; and a terrible sound of menace rung
+in his unnatural laughter. Consciousness never seemed a moment absent
+from his mind, that he had defeated the calculations of the designing
+family; that he had distanced them; that he was triumphing over them.
+Alas! none at present entertained the smallest suspicion to what
+extent!
+
+Preparatory to the settlements made by the General on Lord and Lady
+Robert Stanley, it had been found necessary to place in the hands of
+his lordship's solicitors the deeds of the Lexley Hall estate; when,
+lo! to the consternation of all parties, it appeared that the
+General's title was an unsound one; that by the general terms of this
+ancient property, rights of heirship could only be evaded by the
+payment of a certain fine, after intimation of sale in a certain form
+to the nearest-of-kin of the heir in possession, which form had been
+overlooked or wantonly neglected by Sir Laurence Altham!
+
+The discovery was indeed embarrassing. Fortunately, however, the sum
+of ten thousand pounds only had been paid by the General to satisfy
+the immediate funds of the unthrifty baronet; the remainder of the
+purchase-money having been left in the form of mortgage on the
+property. There was consequently the less difficulty, though
+considerable expense, in cancelling the existing deeds, going through
+the necessary forms, and, after paying the forfeiture to the heir, (to
+whom the very existence of his claims was unknown,) renewing the
+contract with Sir Laurence; to whom, so considerable a sum being still
+owing, it was as essential as to General Stanley that the covenant
+should be completed without delay. But all this occurred at so
+critical a moment, that the General had ample cause to be thankful for
+the promptitude with which he decided Selina's marriage; for only four
+days after the signature of the new deeds, Sir Laurence concluded his
+ill-spent life--his death being, it was thought, accelerated by the
+excitement consequent on this strange discovery, and the
+investigations on the part of the heir to which it was giving rise.
+
+For the clause in the original grant of the Lexley estate (which dated
+from the Reformation) affected the property purchased by Jonas Sparks
+as fully as that which had been assigned to the General; and the
+baronet being now deceased, there was no possibility of co-operation
+in rectifying the fatal error. It was more than probable, therefore,
+that Lexley Park, with all its improvements, was now the property of
+John Julius Altham, Esq.!--the only dilemma still to be decided by the
+law, being the extent to which, his kinsman having died insolvent and
+intestate, he was liable to the suit of Jonas Sparks for the return of
+the purchase money, amounting to L.145,000.
+
+Already the fatal intelligence had been communicated by the attorneys
+of John Julius Altham to those of the astonished man, who, though
+still convinced of the goodness of his cause, (which, on the strength
+of certain various statutes affecting such a case, he was advised to
+contest to the utmost,) foresaw a long, vexatious, and expensive
+lawsuit, that would certainly last his life, and prevent the
+possibility of one moment's enjoyment of the estate, from which he had
+received the usual notice of ejection. Fortunately for him, the
+present Mr Altham was not only a gentleman, and disposed to exercise
+his rights in the most decorous manner; but, of course, unbiassed by
+the personal prejudices so strongly felt by Sir Laurence, and so
+unfairly communicated by him to the General. Still, the question was
+proceeding at the snail's pace rate of Chancery suits at the
+commencement of the present century, and the unfortunate Congleton
+manufacturer had every reason to curse the day when he had become
+enamoured of the grassy glades and rich woodlands of Lexley; seeing
+that, at the close of an honourable and well-spent life, he was
+uncertain whether the sons and daughters to whom he had laboured to
+bequeath a handsome independence, might not be reduced to utter
+destitution.
+
+Such was the intelligence that saluted the ill-starred Mary and her
+husband on their return to England! Instead of the brilliant prospects
+in which she had been nurtured--disinheritance met her on the one
+side, and ruin on the other!
+
+Her vindictive father had even made it a condition of his bounties to
+Lord and Lady Robert, that all intercourse should cease between them
+and their sister; a condition which the former, in revenge for the
+early slights of his fairer cousin, took care should be punctually
+obeyed by his wife.
+
+Till the event of the trial, Mr Sparks retained, of course, possession
+of the Park; but so bitter was the mortification of the family, on
+discovering in the village precisely the same ungrateful feeling which
+had so embittered the soul of Sir Laurence, that they preferred
+remaining in London--where no one has leisure to dwell upon the
+mischances of his neighbours, and where sympathy is as little expected
+as conceded. But when Mary arrived--_poor_ Mary! who had now the
+prospect of becoming a mother--and who, though affectionately beloved
+by her husband's family, saw they regarded her as the innocent origin
+of their present reverses--she soon persuaded her husband to accompany
+her to her old haunts.
+
+"Do not imagine, dearest," said she, "that I have any project of
+debasing you and myself, by intruding into my father's presence. Had
+we been still prosperous, Everard, I would have gone to him--knelt to
+him--prayed to him--wept to him--_so_ earnestly, that his forgiveness
+could not have been long withheld from the child he loved so dearly. I
+would have described to him all you are to me--all your
+indulgences--all your devotion--and _you_, too, my own husband, would
+have been forgiven. But as it is, believe me, I have too proud a sense
+of what is due to ourselves, to combat the unnatural hostility in
+which my sister and her husband appear to take their share. O Everard!
+to think of Selina becoming the wife of that coarse and heartless man,
+of whom, in former times, she thought even more contemptuously than I;
+and who, with his dissolute habits, can only have made my poor
+afflicted sister his wife from the most mercenary motives! I dread to
+think of what may be her fate hereafter, when, having obtained at my
+father's death all the advantages to which he looks forward, he will
+show himself in his true colours."
+
+Thus, even with such terrible prospects awaiting herself, the good,
+generous Mary trembled only to contemplate those of her regardless
+sister; and it was chiefly for the delight of revisiting the spots
+where they had played together in childhood--the fondly-remembered
+environs of Stanley Manor--that she persuaded her husband to take up
+his abode in the deserted mansion at the Park, where, from prudential
+motives, Mr Sparks had broken up his establishment, and sold off his
+horses.
+
+Attended by a single servant, in addition to the old porter and his
+wife who were in charge of the house, Mary trusted that their arrival
+at Lexley would be unnoticed in the neighbourhood. Confining herself
+strictly within the boundaries of the Park, which neither her father
+nor the bride and bridegroom were likely to enter, she conceived that
+she might enjoy, on her husband's arm, those solitary rambles of which
+every day circumscribed the extent; without affording reason to the
+General to suppose, when, discerning every morning from his lofty
+terraces the mansion of his falling enemy, that, in place of the man
+he loathed, it contained his discarded child.
+
+The dispirited young woman, on the other hand, delighted in
+contemplating from the windows of her dressing-room the towers
+beneath, whose shelter she had abided in such perfect happiness with
+her doating father and apparently attached sister. They loved her no
+longer, it is true. Perhaps it was her fault--(she would not allow
+herself to conceive it could be a fault of _theirs_)--but at all
+events she loved _them_ dearly as ever; and it was comforting to her
+poor heart to catch a glimpse of their habitation, and know herself
+within reach, should sickness or evil betide.
+
+"If I should not survive my approaching time," thought Mary, often
+surveying for hours, through her tears, the heights of Lexley Hall,
+and fancying she could discern human figures moving from window to
+window, or from terrace to terrace; "if I should be fated never to
+behold this child, already loved--this child which is to be so dear a
+blessing to us both--in my last hours my father would not surely
+refuse to give me his blessing; nor would Selina persist in her
+present cruel alienation. It is, indeed, a comfort to be here."
+
+Her husband thought otherwise. To him nothing was more trying than
+this compulsory sojourn at Lexley; not that he required other society
+than that of his engaging and attached wife. At any other moment it
+would have been delightful to him to enjoy the country pleasures
+around them, with no officious intrusive world to interpose between
+their affection. But in his present uncertainty as to his future
+prospects, to be mocked by this empty show of proprietorship, and have
+constantly before his eyes the residence of the man who had heaped
+such contumely on his head, and inflicted such pain on the gentlest
+and sweetest of human hearts, was a state of moral torment.
+
+In the course of my fishing excursions--(for, thanks to Mr Sparks's
+neighbourly liberality, I had a card of general access to his
+parks)--I frequently met the young couple; and having no clue to their
+secret sentiments, noticed, with deep regret, the sadness of Mary's
+countenance and sinister looks of her husband. I feared--I greatly
+feared--that they were not happy together. The General's daughter
+repined, perhaps, after her former fortunes. The young husband sighed,
+doubtless, over the liberty he had renounced.
+
+It was spring time, and Lord Robert having satisfied his cravings
+after the pleasures of London, by occasional bachelor visits on
+pretence of business, the family were to remain at the Hall till after
+the Easter holidays, so that Mary had every expectation of the
+accomplishment of her hopes previous to their departure. Perhaps, in
+the bottom of her heart, she flattered herself that, on hearing of her
+safety, her obdurate relations might be moved, by a sudden burst of
+pity and kindliness, to make overtures of reconciliation--at all
+events to dispatch words of courteous enquiry; for she was ever
+dwelling on her good fortune that her father should, on this
+particular year, have so retarded the usual period of his departure.
+Yet when the report of these exulting exclamations on her part reached
+my ear, I was ungenerous enough to attribute them to a very different
+origin, fancying that the poor submissive creature was thankful for
+being within reach of protection from conjugal misusage.
+
+Meanwhile, she was so far justified in one portion of her premises,
+that no tidings of her residence at Lexley Park had as yet reached the
+ear of her father. The fact was, that not a soul had courage to do so
+much as mention, in his presence, the name of his once idolized child;
+and Lord Robert, having been apprized of the circumstance, instantly
+exacted a promise from his wife, that nothing should induce her to
+hazard her father's displeasure by communication with her sister, or
+by acquainting the General of the arrival of the offending pair. The
+consequence was, that in the dread of encountering her sister, (whom
+she felt ashamed to meet as the wife of the man they had so often
+decried together,) Lady Robert rarely quitted the house; and these two
+sisters, so long the affectionate inmates of the same chamber--the
+sisters who had wept together over their mother's deathbed--abided
+within sight of each other's windows, yet estranged as with the
+estrangement of strangers.
+
+And then, we pretend to talk with horror of the family feuds of
+southern nations; and, priding ourselves on our calm and passionless
+nature, feel convinced that all the domestic virtues extant on earth,
+have taken refuge in the British empire!
+
+Every day, meanwhile, I noticed that the handsome countenance of
+Everard Sparks grew gloomier and gloomier; and how was I to know that
+every day he received letters from his father, announcing the
+unfavourable aspect of their suit; and that (owing, as was supposed,
+to the suggestions of General Stanley's solicitors) even the conduct
+of the adverse party was becoming offensive. The elder Sparks wrote
+like a man overwhelmed with mortification, and stung by a sense of
+undeserved injury; and his appeals to the sympathy and support of his
+son, were such as to place the spirited young man in a most painful
+predicament as regarded the family of his wife.
+
+Unwilling to utter in her presence an injurious word concerning those
+who, persecute her as they might, were still her nearest and dearest
+by the indissoluble ties of nature, all he could do, in relief to his
+overcharged feelings, was to rush forth into the Park, and curse the
+day that he was born to behold all he loved in the world overwhelmed
+in one common ruin.
+
+On such occasions, while pretending to fix my attention on my float
+upon the river, I often watched him from afar, till I was terrified by
+the frantic vehemence of his gestures. There was almost reason to
+fancy that the evil influences of the old Hall were extending their
+power over the valley; and that this distracted young man was falling
+into the eccentricities of Sir Laurence Altham.
+
+After viewing with anxiety the wild deportment of poor Mary's husband,
+I happened one day to pass along the lane I have described as skirting
+the garden of the manor-house, on my way homewards to my farm; and on
+plunging my eyes, as usual, into the verdant depths of the clipped
+yew-walks, visible through the iron-palisades, was struck by the
+contrast afforded to the scene I had just witnessed, not only by its
+aristocratic tranquillity, but by the grave and subdued deportment of
+Lady Robert Stanley, who was sauntering in one of the alleys,
+accompanied by a favourite dog I had often seen following her sister
+in former days, and looking the very picture of contented egotism.
+
+I almost longed to call aloud to her, and confide all I knew and all
+that I supposed. But what right had I to create alarms in her sister's
+behalf? What right had I to incite her to disobedience against the
+father on whom she and her husband were dependent? Better leave things
+as they were--the common philosophy of selfish, timid people, afraid
+of exposing their own heads to a portion of the storm their
+interference may chance to bring down, while assisting the cause of
+the weak against the strong.
+
+I used often to go home and think of poor Mary till my heart ached.
+That young and beautiful creature--that creature till lately so
+beloved--to be thus cruelly abandoned, thus helpless, thus unhappy!
+Perhaps not a soul sympathizing with her but myself--an obscure,
+low-born, uninfluential man, of no more value as a protector than a
+willow-wand shivered from the Lexley plantations! Not so much as the
+merest trifle in which I could demonstrate my good-will. I thought and
+thought it over, and there was nothing I could do--nothing I could
+offer. When I _did_ hit upon some pretext of kindness, I only did
+amiss. The fruit season was not begun--nay, the orchards were only in
+blossom--and times were over for forcing-houses at Lexley Park!
+Thinking, therefore, that the invalid might be pleased with a basket
+of Jersey pears, of which a very fine kind grew in my orchard, I
+ventured to send some to her address. But the very next time I
+encountered Everard in the village, he cast a look at me as if he
+would have killed me for my officiousness, or, perhaps, for taking the
+liberty to suppose that Lexley Park was less luxuriously provisioned
+than in former years. Nor was it till long afterwards I discovered
+that my old housekeeper (who had taken upon herself to carry my humble
+offering to the park) had not only seen the poor young lady, but been
+foolish enough to talk of Lady Robert in a tone which appears to have
+exercised a cruel influence over her gentle heart; so that, when her
+husband returned home from rabbit-shooting, an hour afterwards, he
+found her recovering from a fainting fit, he visited upon _me_ the
+folly of my servant; and such was the cause of his angry looks.
+
+A few days afterwards, however, he had far more to reproach his
+conscience withal than poor Barbara. Having no concealments from his
+wife, to whom he was in the habit of avowing every emotion of his
+heart, he was rash enough to mention of having met the travelling
+carriage of Lord and Lady Robert on the London road. They had quitted
+the Hall ten days previous to the epoch originally fixed for their
+departure.
+
+"Gone--exactly gone!--already at two hundred miles' distance from me!"
+cried poor Mary, nothing doubting that her father had, as usual,
+accompanied them, and feeling herself now, for the first time, alone
+in the dreary seclusion to which she had condemned herself, only that
+she might breathe the same atmosphere with those she loved. "Yet they
+had certainly decided to remain at the Hall till after Easter! Perhaps
+they discovered my being here, and the discovery hastened their
+journey. Unhappy creature that I am, to have become thus hateful to
+those in whose veins my blood is flowing! Everard, Everard! O, what
+have I done that God should thus abandon me?"
+
+The soothing and affectionate remonstrances now addressed to her by
+her husband, had so far a good effect, that they softened her despair
+to tears. Long and unrestrainedly did she weep upon his shoulder;
+tried to comfort him by the assurance that _she_ was comforted, or at
+least that she would endeavour to _seek_ comfort from the protection
+and goodness whence it had been so often derived.
+
+A few minutes afterwards, having been persuaded by Everard to rest
+herself on the sofa, to recover the effects of the agitation his
+indiscreet communication had excited, she suddenly complained of cold,
+and begged him to close the windows. It was a balmy April day, with a
+genial sun shining fresh into the room. The air was as the air of
+midsummer--one of those days on which you almost see the small green
+leaves of spring bursting from their shelly covering, and the resinous
+buds of the chestnut-trees expanding into maturity. Poor Everard saw
+at once that the chilliness of which his wife complained must be the
+effect of illness. More cautious, however, on this occasion than
+before, he enquired, as her shivering increased, what preparations she
+had made for the events which still left her some weeks for execution.
+"None. His sisters had kindly undertaken to supply her with all she
+might require; and the services of the nurse accustomed to attend his
+married sister, were engaged on her behalf. At the end of the month
+this woman was to arrive at Lexley, bringing with her the wardrobe of
+the little treasure who was to accord renewed peace and happiness to
+its mother."
+
+Though careful to conceal his anxiety from his wife, Everard Sparks,
+disappointed and distressed, quitted the room in haste to send for the
+medical man who had long been the attendant of his family. But before
+he arrived, the shivering fit of the poor sufferer had increased to an
+alarming degree. A calming potion was administered, and orders issued
+that she was to be kept quiet; but in the consternation created in the
+little household by the communication Dr R. thought it necessary to
+make of the possibility of a premature confinement, poor Mrs Sparks's
+maid, a young inexperienced woman, dispatched a messenger to my house
+for her old kinswoman, and it was through Barbara I became acquainted
+with the melancholy incidents I am about to relate.
+
+The sedatives administered failed in their effect. A fatal shock had
+been already given; and while struggling through that direful night
+with the increasing pangs that verified the doctor's prognostications,
+the sympathizing women around the sufferer could scarcely restrain
+their tears at the courage with which she supported her anguish,
+rejoicing in it, as it were, in the prospect of embracing her
+child--when all present were aware that the compensation was about to
+be denied her, that the child was already dead. Just as the day
+dawned, her anxious husband was congratulated on her safety, and then
+the truth could no longer be concealed from Mary. She asked to see her
+babe. Her husband was employed to persuade her to defer seeing it for
+an hour or two, "till it was dressed--till she was more composed." But
+the truth rushed into her mind, and she uttered not another word, in
+the apprehension of increasing his disappointment and mortification.
+
+So long did her silence continue, that, trusting she had fallen
+asleep, old Barbara's granddaughter entreated poor Everard to withdraw
+and leave her to her rest. But the moment he quitted the room, she
+spoke, spoke resolutely, and in a firmer voice than her previous
+sufferings had given them reason to suppose possible.
+
+"Now, then, let me see my boy," said she. "I know that he is dead. But
+do not be afraid of shocking or distressing me. I have courage to look
+upon the poor little creature for whom I have suffered so much, and
+who, I trusted, would reward me for all."
+
+The women remonstrated, as it was their duty to remonstrate. But when
+they saw that opposition on this point only excited her, dreading an
+accession of fever, they brought the poor babe and laid it on the
+pillow beside its mother. That first embrace, to which she had looked
+forward with such intensity of delight, folded to her burning bosom
+only a clay-cold child!
+
+Even thus it was fair to look on--every promise in its little form,
+that its beauty would have equalled that of its handsome parents; and
+Mary, as she pressed her lips to its icy forehead, fancied she could
+trace on those tiny features a resemblance to its father. Old Barbara,
+perceiving how bitterly the tears of the sufferer were falling on the
+cheeks of her lost treasure, now interfered. But the mother had still
+a last request to make. A few downy curls were perceptible on the
+temples--in colour and fineness resembling her own. She wished to
+rescue from the grave this slight remembrance of her poor nameless
+offspring; and her wish having been complied with, she suffered the
+babe to be taken from her relaxed and moveless grasp.
+
+"Leave me the hair," said she, in a faint voice. "Thanks--thanks! I am
+happy now--I will try to sleep--I am happy--happy now!"
+
+She slept--and never woke again. At the close of an hour or two, her
+anxious husband, finding she had not stirred, gently and silently
+approached the bedside, and took into his own the fair hand lying on
+the coverlid, to ascertain whether fever had ensued. _Fever?_ It was
+already cold with the damps of death!
+
+Imagine, if you can, the agony and self-reproach of that bereaved man!
+Again and again did he revile himself as her murderer; accusing
+_himself_--her father--her _sister_--the whole world. At one moment,
+he fancied that her condition had not been properly treated by her
+attendants; at another, that the medical man ought not to have left
+the house. Nay, hours and hours after she was gone for ever--after
+the undertakers had commenced their hideous preparations--even while
+she lay stretched before him, white and cold as marble, he persisted
+that life might be still recalled; and, but for the better
+discrimination of those around him, would have insisted on attempts at
+resuscitation, calculated only to disturb, almost sacrilegiously, the
+sound peace of the dead!
+
+I was one of the first to learn the heart-rending news of this beloved
+being's untimely end; for my old woman having asked permission to
+remain with her through the night, (explaining the exigency of the
+case,) I could not forbear hurrying to the house as soon as it was
+day, in the hope of hearing she was a happy mother. Somehow or other,
+I had never contemplated an unfavourable result. The idea of death
+never presented itself to me in common with any thing so young and
+fair; and as I walked through the park, and crossed the bridge, with
+the white cheerful mansion before me, and the morning sun shining full
+upon its windows, I thought how gladsome it looked, but could not
+forbear feeling that, even with the prospect of losing it--even with
+the certainty of beggary, Everard, as a husband and father, was the
+fellow most to be envied upon earth!
+
+I reached the house, and the old man who answered my ring at the
+office entrance, was speechless from tears. Though usually hard as
+iron, he sobbed as if his heart would break. I asked to speak with
+Barbara--with my housekeeper. He told me I could not--that she was
+"busy laying out the body." I was answered. That dreadful word told me
+all--I had no more questions to ask. I cared not _who_ survived, or
+what became of the survivors. And as I turned sickening away, to bend
+my steps homewards, I remember wondering how that fair spring morning
+could shine so bright and auspiciously, when _she_ was gone from us.
+It seemed to triumph in our loss! Alas! it shone to welcome a new
+angel to the kingdom of our Father who is in heaven!
+
+Suddenly it struck me, that I, too, had a duty to perform. In that
+scanty household there was no one to take thought of the common forms
+of life; so I hastened to the rectory, to suggest to our good pastor a
+visit of consolation to the house of mourning, and acquaint his
+sisters with its forlorn condition. Like myself, they began
+exclaiming, "Alas! alas! It was but the other day that"----reverting
+to all the acts of charity and girlish graces of that dear departed
+Mary Stanley, who had been among us as the shadow of a dream.
+
+Before I left the rectory, Dr Whittingham had issued his orders; and
+lo! as I proceeded homewards, with a heavy step and a heavier heart,
+the sound of the passing bell from Lexley church pursued me with its
+measured toll, till I could scarcely refrain from sitting me down by
+the wayside, and weeping my very soul away.
+
+On reaching the lane I have so often described as skirting the gardens
+of the old Hall, I noticed, through the palisades, a person, probably
+one of the gardeners, sauntering along Lady Robert's favourite
+yew-walk. No! on a nearer approach, I saw, and almost shuddered to
+see, that it was General Stanley himself (who, I fancied, had
+accompanied his son-in-law to town) taking an early walk, to enjoy the
+sweetness of that delicious morning.
+
+As I drew nearer, I averted my head. At that moment I had not courage
+to look him in the face. I could scarcely suppose him ignorant of what
+had occurred; and, if aware of the sad event, his obduracy was unmanly
+to a degree that filled me with disgust. But just as I came opposite
+the iron gates, he hailed me by name--more familiarly and courteously
+than he was wont--to ask whether I came from the village, and for
+_whose_ death they were tolling?
+
+If worlds had depended on my answer, I could not have uttered a word!
+But I conclude that, catching sight of my troubled face and swollen
+eyelids, the General supposed I had lost some near and dear friend;
+for, instead of renewing his question, he merely touched his hat, and
+passed on, leaving me to proceed in my turn. But the spectacle of my
+profound affliction probably excited his curiosity; for I found
+afterwards, that, instead of pursuing his walk, he returned straight
+to the house, and addressed the enquiry which had so distressed _me_,
+to others having more courage to reveal the fatal truth. I believe it
+was the old family butler, who abruptly answered--"For my poor young
+lady, General--for the sweetest angel that ever trod the earth!"
+
+For my part, I wonder the announcement did not strike him to the
+earth! But he heard it without apparent emotion; like a man who,
+having already sustained the worst affliction this world can afford,
+has no sensibility for further trials. Still the intelligence was not
+ineffective. Without pausing an instant for reflection, or the
+indulgence of his feelings, he set forth on foot to Lexley Park. With
+his hat pulled over his eyes, and a determined air, rather as if about
+to execute an act of vengeance than offer a tardy tribute of
+tenderness to his victim, he hurried to the house--commanded the
+startled old servant to show him the way to _her_ room--entered
+it--and knelt down beside the bed on which she lay, with her dead
+infant on her arm, asking her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God,
+as humbly as though he were not the General Stanley proverbial for
+implacability and pride.
+
+Old Barbara, who had not quitted the room, assured me it was a
+heart-breaking sight to behold that white head bowed down in agony
+upon the cold feet of his child. For he felt himself unworthy to press
+her helpless hand to his lips, or remove the cambric from her face,
+but called, in broken accents, upon the name of Mary! his child! his
+darling! addressing her rather with the fondling terms bestowed upon
+girlhood than as a woman--a wife--a mother!
+
+"But a more affecting story still," said the old woman, "was to see
+that Mr Everard took no more heed of the General's sudden entrance
+than though it were a thing to be looked for. He seemed neither to
+hear his exclamations nor perceive his distress." Poor gentleman! His
+haggard eyes were fixed, his mind bewildered, his hopes blasted for
+ever, his life a blank. He neither answered when spoken to, nor even
+spoke, when the good rector, according to his promise, came to
+announce that he had dispatched the fatal intelligence by express to
+his family, beseeching his instructions concerning the steps to be
+taken for the burial of the dead.
+
+But why afflict you and myself by recurring to these melancholy
+details! Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected what nothing
+else on earth could have effected in the mind of General Stanley.
+Humbled to the dust, even the arrival of the once despised owner of
+Lexley Park did not drive him from the house. He asked his pity--he
+asked his pardon. Beside the coffin of his daughter he expressed all
+the compunction a generous-hearted and broken-hearted man could
+express; and all he asked in return, was leave to lay her poor head in
+the grave of her ancestors.
+
+No one opposed his desire. The young widower had not as much
+consciousness left as would have enabled him to utter the negative
+General Stanley seemed prepared to expect; and as to his father, about
+to abandon Lexley for ever, to what purpose erect a family vault in a
+church which neither he nor his were ever likely to see again?
+
+To the chapel at Stanley Manor, accordingly, were the mother and child
+removed. The General wrote expressly to forbid his son-in-law and
+Selina returning to the Hall, on pretence of sustaining him in his
+affliction. He _chose_ to give way to it; he _chose_ to be alone with
+his despair.
+
+Never shall I forget the day that mournful funeral procession passed
+through the village! Young and old came forth weeping to their doors
+to bid her a last farewell; even as they used to come and exchange
+smiles with her, in those happy days when life lay before her,
+bright--hopeful--without a care--without a responsibility. I had
+intended to pay him the same respect. I meant, indeed, to have
+followed the hearse, at an humble distance, to its final destination.
+But when I rose that morning a sudden weakness came upon me, and I was
+unable to quit my room. I, so strong, so hardy, who have passed
+through life without sickness or doctor, was as powerless that day as
+an infant.
+
+It was from the good rector, therefore, I heard how the General (on
+whom, in consequence of the precarious condition of the afflicted
+husband, devolved the task of chief mourner) sustained his carriage to
+perform with dignity and propriety his duty to the dead. As he
+followed the coffin through the churchyard, crowded by his old
+pensioners--many of them praying on their knees as it passed--his
+step was as firm and his brow as erect as though at the head of his
+regiment. It was not till all was over--the mournful ceremony done,
+the crowd dispersed, the funeral array departed--that having descended
+into the vault, ere the stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre,
+in order to point out the exact spot where he wished her remains to be
+deposited, so that hereafter his own might rest by her side, he
+renounced all self-restraint, and throwing himself upon the ground,
+gave himself up to his anguish, and refused to be comforted!
+
+That summer was as dreary a season at Lexley as the dreariest winter!
+Both the Park and the Hall were shut up; nor did General Stanley ever
+again resume his tenancy of the old manor. When the result of the
+Chancery suit left Mr Altham in possession of the former estate, the
+General literally preferred forfeiting the moiety of the
+purchase-money he had paid, and giving up the place to be re-united
+with the property, which the rigour of the law thus singularly
+restored to the last heirs of the Althams; and such was the cause of
+my neighbour, the present Sir Julius Altham, regaining possession of
+the Hall.
+
+It was not for many years, however, that the cause was ultimately
+decided. There was an appeal against the Chancellor's decree; and even
+after the decree was confirmed, came an endless number of legal forms,
+which so procrastinated the settlement, that not only the original
+unfortunate purchaser, but poor Everard himself, was in his grave when
+the mansion, in which they had so prided themselves, was pulled down,
+and all trace of their occupancy effaced.
+
+I sometimes ask myself, indeed, whether the whole of this "strange
+eventful history," with which the earliest feelings of my heart were
+painfully interwoven, really occurred? whether the manor ever passed
+for a time out of the possession of the ancient house of Altham?
+whether the domain, now one and indivisible, were literally
+partitioned off--a park paling interposing only between the patrician
+and plebeian. Often, after spending hour after hour by the river side,
+when the fly is on the water and the old thorns in bloom, I recur to
+the first day I came back into Lexley Park after the funeral had
+passed through, and recollect the soreness of heart with which I
+lifted my eyes towards the house, of which every trace has since
+disappeared. At that moment there seemed to rise before me, sporting
+among the gnarled branches of the old thorn-trees, the graceful form
+of Mary Stanley, followed by old Sergeant, bounding and barking
+through the fern; and the General looking on from a distance,
+pretending to be angry, and desiring her to come out of the covert and
+not disturb the game. Exactly thus, and there, I beheld them for the
+first time. What would I not give to realize once more, if only for a
+day, that happy, happy vision!
+
+Stanley Manor is let to strangers during the minority of Lord Robert's
+sickly son; the father being an absentee, the mother in an early
+grave. She lived long enough, however, to be a repining wife; and my
+neighbour, Sir Julius Altham, has more than once hinted to me, that,
+of the whole family, the portion of Selina most deserved compassion.
+
+To me, however, her callous conduct towards that gentle sister, always
+rendered her the least interesting of my COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.[3]
+
+    [3] Travels of Kerim Khan; being a narrative of his
+    Journey from Delhi to Calcutta, and thence by Sea to
+    England: containing his remarks upon the manners,
+    customs, laws, constitutions, literature, arts,
+    manufactures, &c., of the people of the British Isles.
+    Translated from the original Oordu--(MS.)
+
+
+Among the various signs of the times which mark the changes of manners
+in these latter days of the world, not the least remarkable is the
+increasing frequency of the visits paid by the natives of the East to
+the regions of Europe. Time was, within the memory of most of the
+present generation, when the sight of a genuine Oriental in a London
+drawing-room, except in the angel visits, "few and far between," of a
+Persian or Moorish ambassador, was a rarity beyond the reach of even
+the most determined lion-hunters; and if by any fortunate chance a
+stray Persian khan, or a "very magnificent three-tailed bashaw," was
+brought within the circle of the quidnuncs of the day, the sayings and
+doings of the illustrious stranger were chronicled with as much
+minuteness as if he had been the denizen of another planet. Every hair
+of his beard, every jewel in the hilt of his khanjar, was enumerated
+and criticised; while all oriental etiquette was violated by the
+constant enquiries addressed to him relative to the number of his
+wives, and the economy of his domestic arrangements. "_Mais � present
+on a chang� tout cela._" The reforms of Sultan Mahmood, the invention
+of steam, and the re-opening of the overland route to India, have
+combined to effect a mighty revolution in all these points. Osmanlis,
+with shaven chins and tight trousers,[4] have long been as plenty as
+blackberries in the saloons of the West, eating the flesh of the
+unclean beast, quaffing champagne, and even (if we have been rightly
+informed) figuring in quadrilles with the moon-faced daughters of the
+Franks; and though the natives of the more distant regions of the East
+have not yet appeared among us in such number, yet the lamb-skin cap
+of the Persian, the _pugree_, or small Indian turban, and even the
+queer head-dress of the Parsee, is far from being a stranger in our
+assemblies. We doubt whether the name of Akhbar Khan himself,
+proclaimed at the foot of a staircase, would excite the same
+_sensation_ in the present day, as the announcement of the most
+undistinguished wearer of the turban some ten or twenty years ago; but
+of the "Tours" and "Narratives" which are usually the inevitable
+result of such an influx of pilgrims, our Oriental visitors have as
+yet produced hardly their due proportion. For many years, the travels
+of Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, a Hindustani[5] Moslem of rank and education,
+who visited Europe in the concluding years of the last century, stood
+alone as an example of the effect produced on an Asiatic by his
+observation of the manners and customs of the West; and even of late
+our stock has not been much increased. The journal of the Persian
+princes (a translation of which, by their Syrian mehmandar, Assaad
+Yakoob Khayat, has been printed in England for private circulation) is
+curious, as giving a picture of European ways and manners when viewed
+through a purely Asiatic medium; while the remarkably sensible and
+well-written narrative of the two Parsees who lately visited this
+country for the purpose of instruction in naval architecture,[6]
+differs little from the description of the same objects which would be
+given by an intelligent and well-educated European, if they could be
+presented to him in the aspect of utter novelty. The latest of these
+Oriental wanderers in the ungenial climes of Franguestan, is the one
+whose name appears at the head of this article, and who, with a rare
+and commendable modesty, has preferred introducing himself to the
+public under the protecting guidance of Maga, to venturing, alone and
+without a pilot, among the perilous rocks and shoals of the critics of
+_the Row_; him therefore we shall now introduce, without further
+comment, to the favourable notice of our readers.
+
+    [4] _Shalwarlek_--"tight trousers"--was a phrase used,
+    under the old Turkish r�gime, as equivalent to a
+    blackguard.
+
+    [5] The Moslems, and other natives of India descended
+    from foreign races, are properly called _Hindustanis_,
+    while the aborigines are the _Hindus_--a distinction not
+    well understood in Europe. The former take their name
+    from the country, as _natives of Hindustan_, which has
+    derived its own name from the latter, as being the
+    _country of the Hindus_.
+
+    [6] Journal of a Residence of Two Years and a Half in
+    Great Britain, by Jehangeer Nowrojee and Hirjeebhoy
+    Merwanjee of Bombay, Naval Architects. London: 1841.
+
+Of Kerim Khan himself, the writer of his narrative, and of his motives
+for daring the perils of the _kala-pani_, (or black water, the Hindi
+name for the ocean,) on a visit to Franguestan, we have little
+information beyond what can be gathered from the MS. itself. There can
+be no doubt, however, that he was a Mussulman gentleman of rank and
+consideration, and of information far superior to that of his
+countrymen in general; nor does it appear that he was driven, like
+Mirza Abu-Talib, by political misfortune, to seek in strange climes
+the security which his native land denied him. His narrative commences
+abruptly:--"On the 21st of Ramazan, in the year of the Hejra 1255,"
+(Dec. 1, A.D. 1839,) "between four and five in the afternoon, I took
+leave of the imperial city of Delhi, and proceeded to our boat, which
+was at anchor near the Derya Ganj." The voyage down the Jumna, to its
+junction with the Ganges at Allahabad, a distance of not more than 550
+miles by land, but which the endless windings of the stream increase
+to 2010 by water, presents few incidents worthy of notice: but our
+traveller observes _par parenth�se_, that "though it is said that the
+sources of this river have not been discovered, I have heard from
+those who have crossed the Himalaya from China, that it rises in that
+country on the other side of the mountains, and, forcing its way
+through them, arrives at Bighamber. They say that gold is found there
+in large quantities, and the reason they assign is this--the
+philosopher's stone is found in that country, and whatever touches it
+becomes gold, but the stone itself can never be found!" Near Muttra he
+encountered the splendid cort�ge of Lord Auckland, then returning to
+Calcutta after his famous interview with Runjeet Singh at Lahore, with
+such a _suwarree_ as must have recalled the pomp and _sultanut_ for
+which the memory of Warren Hastings is even yet celebrated among the
+natives of India: "his staff and escort, with the civil and military
+officers of government in attendance on him, amounted to about 4000
+persons, besides 300 elephants and 800 camels." The noble buildings of
+Akbarabad or Agra, the capital and residence of Akbar and Shalijehan,
+the mightiest and most magnificent of the Mogul emperors, detained the
+traveller for a day; and he notices with deserved eulogium the
+splendid mausoleum of Shalijehan and his queen, known as the
+Taj-Mahal. There is nothing that can be compared with it, and those
+who have visited the farthest parts of the globe, have seen nothing
+like it.[7] At Allahabad he launched on the broad stream of the
+Ganges; and after passing through part of the territory of _Awadh_ or
+Oude, the insecurity of life and property in which is strongly
+contrasted with the rigid police in the Company's dominions, arrived
+in due time at the holy city of Benares, the centre of Hindoo and
+Brahminical sanctity.
+
+    [7] Many of our readers must have seen the beautiful
+    ivory model of this far-famed edifice, lately exhibited
+    in Regent Street, and now, we believe, in the Cambridge
+    University museum. It is fortunate that so faithful a
+    miniature transcript of the beauties of the Taj is in
+    existence, since the original is doomed, as we are
+    informed, to inevitable ruin at no distant period, from
+    the ravages of the white ants on the woodwork.
+
+The shrines of Benares, with their swarms of sacred monkeys and
+Brahminy bulls, were objects of little interest to our Moslem
+wayfarer, who on the contrary recounts with visible satisfaction the
+destruction of several of these _But Khanas_, or idol-temples, by the
+intolerable bigotry of Aurungzib, and the erection of mosques on their
+sites. Among the objects of attraction in the environs of the city, he
+particularly notices a famous footprint[8] upon stone, called the
+_Kadmsherif_, or holy mark, deposited in a mosque near the serai of
+Aurungabad, and said to have been brought from Mekka by Sheik Mohammed
+Ali Hazin, whom the translator of his interesting autobiography
+(published in 1830 by the Oriental Society) has made known to the
+British public, up to the period when the tyranny of Nadir Shah drove
+him from Persia. "Here, during his lifetime, he used to go sometimes
+on a Thursday, and give alms to the poor in the name of God. He was a
+very learned and accomplished man; and his writings, both in prose and
+verse, were equal to those of Zahiri and Naziri. When he first came to
+India, he resided for some years at Delhi; but having had some dispute
+with the poet-laureate of the Emperor Mohammed Shah, he found himself
+under the necessity of retiring to Benares, where he lived in great
+privacy. As he was a stranger in the country, was engaged in no
+calling or profession, and received no allowance from the Emperor, it
+was never known whence, or how, he was supplied with the means of
+keeping up the establishment he did, which consisted of some hundred
+servants, palanquins, horses, &c. It is said that when the Nawab
+Shujah-ed-dowlah projected his attack on the English in Bengal, he
+consulted the Sheik on the subject, who strongly dissuaded him from
+the undertaking. He died shortly after the battle of Buxar in 1180,"
+(A.D. 1766.) The battle of Buxar was fought Oct. 23, 1764; but that
+Sheik Ali Hazin died somewhere about this time, seems more probable
+than that his life was extended (as stated by Sir Gore Ouseley) till
+1779; since he describes himself at the conclusion of his memoirs in
+1742, when only in his 53d year, as "leading the dullest course of
+existence in the dullest of all dull countries, and disabled by his
+increasing infirmities from any active exertion of either body or
+mind"--a state of things scarcely promising a prolongation of life to
+the age of ninety.
+
+    [8] These sacred footmarks are more numerous among the
+    Buddhists than the Moslems--the most celebrated is that
+    on the summit of Adam's Peak, in Ceylon.
+
+Resuming his voyage from Benares, the Khan notices with wonder the
+apparition of the steamers plying between Calcutta and Allahabad,
+several of which he met on his course, and regarded with the
+astonishment natural in one who had never before seen a ship impelled,
+apparently by smoke, against wind and tide:--"I need hardly say how
+intensely I watched every movement of this extraordinary, and to me
+incomprehensible machine, which in its passage created such a vast
+commotion in the waters, that my poor little _budjrow_ (pinnace) felt
+its effects for the space of full two _hos_," (nearly four miles.) The
+picturesque situation of the city of Azimabad or Patna,[9] extending
+for several miles along the right bank of the Ganges, with the villas
+and beautiful gardens of the resident English interspersed among the
+houses, is described in terms of high admiration; and the mosques,
+some of which were as old as the time of the Patan emperors, are not
+forgotten by our Moslem traveller in his enumeration of the marvels of
+the city. A few days' more boating brought him to Rajmahal; "on one
+side of which," says he, "the country is called Bengal, and on the
+other _Poorb_, or the East"--a name from which the independent dynasty
+of Moslem kings, who once ruled in Bengal, assumed the appellation of
+_Poorby-Shaby_. He was now among the rice-fields, the extent and
+luxuriance of which surprised him: "There are a great variety of
+sorts, and if a man were to take a grain of each sort he might soon
+fill a _lota_ (water-pot) with them--so innumerable are the different
+kinds. The cultivators who have measured the largest species, have
+declared them to exceed the length of fifty cubits; but I have never
+seen any of this length, though others may have." He now entered the
+Bhagirutti, or branch of the Ganges leading to Calcutta, and which
+bears in the lower part of its course the better known name of the
+Hoogly--while the main stream to the left is again subdivided into
+innumerable ramifications, the greater part of which lose themselves
+among the vast marshes of the Sunderbunds; but he complains, that
+"though by this branch large vessels and steamers pass up and down to
+and from the Presidency, the route is very bad, from the extensive
+jungles on both banks, which are haunted by Thugs and _Decoits_,
+(river pirates:)--indeed I have heard and read, that the shores of the
+Ganges have been infested by freebooters, pirates, and thieves of all
+sorts, from time immemorial." He escaped unharmed, however, through
+these manifold perils; and passing Murshidabad, the ancient capital of
+Bengal, and other places of less note, his remarks upon which we shall
+not stay to quote, reached the ghauts of Calcutta in safety.
+
+    [9] Most of the principal cities of India, in addition
+    to the ancient name by which they are popularly known,
+    have another imposed by the Moslems:--thus Agra is
+    Akbarabad, _the residence of Akbar_--Delhi,
+    Shahjehanabad; and Patna, Azimabad. In some instances,
+    as Dowlutabad in the Dekkan, the Hindu name of which is
+    Deogiri, the Mohammedan appellation has superseded the
+    ancient name; but, generally speaking, the latter is
+    that in common use.
+
+A place so often described as the "City of Palaces," presents little
+that is novel in the narrative of the khan; but he does full justice
+to the splendour of the architecture, which he says "exceeds that of
+_China or Ispahan_--a superiority which arises from the immense sums
+which every governor-general has laid out upon public works, and in
+improving and adorning the city: the Marquis Wellesley, in particular,
+expended lakhs of rupees in this way." The account which he gives,
+however, from a Mahommedan writer, of the disputes with the Mogul
+government which led to the transference of the British factory and
+commerce from its original seat at Hoogly to _Kali-kata_,[10] or
+Calcutta, differs considerably from that given by the British
+historians, if we are to suppose the events here alluded to (the date
+of which the khan does not mention) to be those which occurred in 1686
+and 1687, when Charnock defended the factory at Hoogly against the
+Imperial deputy, Shaista Khan. Our traveller's version of these
+occurrences is, that the factories of the English, which were then
+established on the Ghol Ghaut at Hoogly, having been overthrown by an
+earthquake, "Mr Charnock, the head officer of the factory, purchasing
+a garden called Banarasi, had the trees cut down, and commenced a new
+building. But while it was in progress, the principal Mogul merchants
+and inhabitants laid a complaint before Meer Nasir, the _foujdar_,
+(chief of police,) that their houses and harems would be overlooked,
+and great scandal occasioned, if the strangers should be allowed to
+erect such lofty buildings in the midst of the city.[11] The complaint
+was referred by the foujdar to the nawab, who forthwith issued orders
+for the discontinuance of the works, which were accordingly abandoned.
+The Company's agent, though highly offended at this arbitrary
+proceeding, was unable to resist it, having only one ship and a few
+sepoys; and, in spite of the efforts of the foujdar to dissuade him,
+he embarked with all his goods, and set sail for the peninsula," (qu.
+Indjeli?) "having first set fire to such houses as were near the
+river. At this time, however, the Emperor Aurungzib was in the
+Carnatic, beleaguered by the Mahrattas, who had cut off all supplies
+from his camp; and the Company's agent in that country, hearing of
+this, sent a large quantity of grain, which had been recently imported
+for their own use, for the relief of the army. Having thus gained the
+favour and protection of the Asylum of the World, the English were not
+only permitted to build factories in various parts of the country, but
+were exempted from the duties formerly laid on their goods. Charnock
+returned to Bengal with the emperor's firman; and the nawab, seeing
+how matters stood, withdrew his opposition to the erection of the
+factory at Hoogly. The English, however, preferred another situation,
+and chose Calcutta, where a building was soon erected, the same which
+is now called the old fort." This account, which is in fact more
+favourable to the English than that given by their own writers, is the
+only notice of these transactions we have ever found from a Mahommedan
+author; for so small was the importance attached by the Moguls to
+these obscure squabbles with a few Frank merchants, that even the
+historian Khafi-Khan, who acted as the emperor's representative for
+settling the differences which broke out about the same time in
+Bombay, makes no allusion to the simultaneous rupture in Bengal.
+
+    [10] "So called from _Kali_, the Hindu goddess, and
+    _kata_, laughter; because human victims were formerly
+    here sacrificed to her."
+
+    [11] From the sanctity attached by Oriental ideas to the
+    privacy of the harem, it is a high crime and
+    misdemeanour, punishable by law in all Moslem countries,
+    to erect buildings overlooking the residence of a
+    neighbour. At Constantinople, there is an officer called
+    the Minar Aga, or superintendent of edifices, whose
+    especial duty it is to prevent this.
+
+Our author, like Bishop Heber,[12] and other travellers on the same
+route, is struck by the contrast between the robust and well-fed
+peasantry of Hindustan Proper, and the puny rice-eaters of Bengal;
+"who eat fish, boiled rice, bitter oil; and an infinite variety of
+vegetables; but of wheaten or barley bread, and of pulse, they know
+not the taste, nor of mutton, fowl, or _ghee_, (clarified butter.) The
+author of the _Riaz-es-Selatin_, is indeed of opinion that such food
+does not suit their constitutions, and would make them ill if they
+were to eat it"--an invaluable doctrine to establish in dieting a
+pauper population! "As to their dress, they have barely enough to
+cover them--only a piece of cloth, called a _dhoti_, wrapped round
+their loins, while their head-dress consists of a dirty rag rolled two
+or three times round the temples, and leaving the crown bare. But the
+natives of Hindustan, and even their descendants to the second and
+third generation, always wear the _jamah_, or long muslin robe, out of
+doors, though in the house they adopt the Bengali custom. The author
+of the _Kholasat-al Tow[=a]rikh_, (an historical work,) says that both
+men and women formerly went naked; and no doubt he is right, for they
+can hardly be said to do otherwise now." Such are the peasants of
+Bengal--a race differing from the natives of Hindustan in language,
+manners, food, dress, and personal appearance; but who, from their
+vicinity to the seat of the English Supreme Government, have served as
+models for the descriptions given by many superficial travellers, as
+applying to all the natives of British India, without distinction! The
+horrible Hindu custom of immersing the sick, when considered past
+recovery, in the Ganges, and holding their lower limbs under water
+till they expire,[13] excites, as may be expected, the disgust of the
+khan; but the reason which he assigns for it, "the belief of these
+people, that if a man die in his own house, he would cause the death
+of every member of the family by assuming the form of a _bhut_ or evil
+spirit," is new to us, and appears to be analogous to the
+superstitious dread entertained by the Greeks and Sclavonians, of a
+corpse reanimated into a _Vroucolochas_, or vampire. "But if a man
+escapes from their hands, and recovers after this treatment, he is
+shunned by every one; and there are many villages in Bengal, called
+_villages of the dead_, inhabited by men who have thus escaped death;
+they are considered dead to society, and no other persons will dwell
+in the same villages."
+
+    [12] "Almost immediately on leaving Allahabad," (on his
+    way from Calcutta to the Upper Provinces,) "I was struck
+    with the appearance of the men, as tall and muscular as
+    the largest stature of Europeans; and with the fields of
+    _wheat_, almost the only cultivation."--Heber's Journal,
+    vol. iii. "Some of our boatmen passing through a field
+    of Indian corn, plucked two or three ears, certainly not
+    enough to constitute a theft, or even a trespass. Two of
+    the men, however, who were watching, ran after them, not
+    as the Bengalis would have done, to complain with joined
+    hands, but with stout bamboos, prepared to do themselves
+    justice _par voye de faict_. The men saved themselves by
+    swimming off to the boat; but my servants called out to
+    them--'Ah! dandee folk, beware, you are now in
+    Hindustan; the people here know well how to fight, and
+    are not afraid.'"
+
+    [13] "I told his (Pertab Chund's) father, that it was
+    wrong to keep him where he then was, and he told me to
+    take him down to the river. He was lifted up on his
+    bedding; his speech was not very distinct at that time,
+    but sufficiently so to call on the name of his T'hakoor,
+    (spiritual guide,) which he did as desired; he then
+    began to shiver, and complained of being very cold. I
+    was one of those who went with the rajah to the river
+    side. Jago Mohun Dobee pressed his legs under the water,
+    and kept them so; and about 10 p.m. his soul quitted the
+    body. When he died, his knees were under water, but the
+    rest of his body above." Evidence of Radha Sircar and
+    Sham Chum Baboo, before the Mofussil Court of Hoogly,
+    September 1838, in the enquiry on the impostor
+    Kistololl, who personated the deceased Pertab.
+
+The stay of the khan in Calcutta was prolonged for more than a month,
+during which time he rented a house from a native proprietor in the
+quarter of Kolitolla. While removing his effects from his boat to
+this residence, he became involved in a dispute with the police, in
+consequence of the violation by his servants, through ignorance, of
+the regulation which forbids persons from the Upper Provinces to enter
+the city armed; but this unintentional infringement of orders was
+easily explained and arranged by the intervention of an European
+friend, and the arms, of which the police had taken possession, were
+restored. While engaged in preparing for his voyage, the khan made the
+best use of his time in visiting the public buildings, and other
+objects of interest, among which he particularly notices the _minar_
+or column erected in the _maidan_, (square,) near the viceregal palace
+of the Nawab Governor-General Bahadur, by a subscription among the
+officers of the army, native as well as English, to the memory of the
+late Sir David Ochterlony; but rates it, with truth, as greatly
+inferior, both in dimensions and beauty, to the famous pillar of the
+Kootb-Minar near Delhi. The colossal fortifications of Fort-William
+are also duly commemorated; "they resemble an embankment externally,
+but when viewed from within are exceedingly high--no foe could
+penetrate within them, much less reach the treasures and magazines in
+the interior." Our traveller also visited the English courts of
+justice, in the proceedings of which he seems to have taken great
+interest, and was apparently treated with much hospitality by many of
+the European functionaries and other residents, by whom he was
+furnished with numerous letters of introduction, as well as receiving
+much information respecting the manners and customs of _Ingilistan_,
+or England. The choice of a ship, and the selection of sea-stock, were
+of course matters of grave consideration, and the more so from the
+peculiar unfitness of the habits and religious scruples of an Indian
+Moslem for the privations unavoidable at sea; but a passage was at
+last taken for the khan and his two servants on board the Edinburgh of
+1400 tons, and it being agreed that he should find his own provisions,
+to obviate all mistakes on the score of forbidden food, and the
+captain promising moreover that his comforts should be carefully
+attended to, this weighty negotiation was at length concluded. It is
+due to the khan to say, that whether from being better equipped, or
+from being endued with more philosophy and forbearance than his
+compatriot, Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, (to whom we have above referred,) he
+seems to have reconciled himself to the hardships of the _kala-pani_,
+or ocean, with an exceedingly good grace; and we find none of the
+complaints which fill the pages of the Mirza against the impurity of
+his food, the impossibility of performing his ablutions in appointed
+time and manner, and sundry other abominations by which he was so
+grievously afflicted, that at a time of danger to the vessel, "though
+many of the passengers were much alarmed, I, for my own part, was so
+weary of life that I was perfectly indifferent to my fate." Abu-Talib,
+however, sailed in an ill-regulated Danish ship; and in summing up the
+horrors of the sea, he strongly recommends his countrymen, if
+compelled to brave its miseries, to embark in none but an English
+vessel.
+
+During the last days of the khan's sojourn in Calcutta, he witnessed
+the splendid celebration of the rites of the Mohurrum, when the
+slaughter of the brother Imams, Hassan and Hussein, the martyred
+grandsons of the Prophet, is lamented by all sects of the faithful,
+but more especially by the _Rafedhis_ or Sheahs, the followers of Ali,
+"of whom there are many in Calcutta, though they are less numerous
+than the orthodox sect or Sunnis, from whom they are distinguished, at
+this season, by wearing black as mourning. At the _Baitak-Khana_ (a
+quarter of Calcutta) we witnessed the splendid procession of the
+_Taz�ya_,[14] with the banners and flags flying, and the wailers
+beating their breasts."... "It is the custom here, at this season, for
+all the natch-girls (dancers) to sit in the streets of the
+Chandnibazar, under canopies decorated with wreaths and flowers in
+the most fantastic manner, and sell sweetmeats, cardamums, betelnuts,
+&c., upon stalls, displaying their charms to the passers-by. I took a
+turn here one evening with five others, and found crowds of people
+collected, both strangers and residents: nor do they ordinarily
+disperse till long after midnight." On the second day after his visit
+to this scene of gaiety, he received notice that the ship was ready
+for sea; and on the 8th of Mohurrum 1256, (March 13, 1840,) he
+accordingly embarked with his baggage and servants on board the
+Edinburgh, which was towed in seven days, by a steamer, down the river
+to Saugor; and the pilot quitting her the next day at the floating
+light. "I now found myself," (says the khan,) "for the first time in
+my life, in the great ocean, where nothing was to be seen around but
+sky and water."
+
+    [14] _Taz�ya_, literally _grief_, is an ornamental
+    shrine erected in Moslem houses during the Mohurrum, and
+    intended to represent the mausoleum of Hassan and
+    Hussein, at Kerbelah in Persia. On the 10th and last day
+    of the mourning, the taz�yas are carried in procession
+    to the outside of the city, and finally deposited with
+    funeral rites in the burying-grounds.--See _Mrs Meer
+    Hassan Ali's_ Observations on the Mussulmans of India.
+    Letter I.
+
+The account of a voyage at sea, as given by an Oriental, is usually
+the most deplorable of narratives--filled with exaggerated fears, the
+horrors of sea-sickness, and endless lamentations of the evil fate of
+the writer, in being exposed to such a complication of miseries. Of
+the wailing of Mirza Abu-Talib we have already given a specimen: and
+the Persian princes, even in the luxurious comfort of an English
+Mediterranean steamer, seem to have fared but little better, in their
+own estimation at least, than the Mirza in his dirty and disorderly
+Danish merchantman. "Our bones cried, 'Alas! for this evil there is no
+remedy.' We were vomiting all the time, and thus afflicted with
+incurable evils, in the midst of a sea which appears without end, the
+state of my health bad, the sufferings of my brothers very great, and
+no hope of being saved, we became most miserable." Such is the na�ve
+exposition of his woes, by H. R. H. Najaf Kooli Mirza; but Kerim Khan
+appears, both physically and morally, to have been made of different
+metal. Ere he had been two days on board we find him remarking--"I had
+by this time made some acquaintance among the passengers, and began to
+find my situation less irksome and lonely;" shortly afterwards
+adding--"The annoyances inseparable from this situation were relieved,
+in some measure, by the music and dancing going on every day except
+Sundays, owing to the numerous party of passengers, both gentlemen and
+ladies, whom we had on board--seeing which, a man forgets his griefs
+and troubles in the general mirth around him." So popular, indeed,
+does the khan appear already to have become, that the captain, finding
+that he had hitherto abstained from the use of his pipe, that great
+ingredient in Oriental comfort, from an idea that smoking was
+prohibited on board, "instantly sent for my hookah, had it properly
+prepared for me, and insisted on my not relinquishing this luxury, the
+privation of which he knew would occasion me considerable
+inconvenience." In other respects, also, he seems to have been not
+less happily constituted; for though he says that "the rolling and
+rocking of the ship, when it entered the _dark waters_ or open sea,
+completely upset my two companions, who became extremely sick"--his
+remarks on the incidents of the voyage, and the novel phenomena which
+presented themselves to his view, are never interrupted by any of
+those pathetic lamentations on the instability of the human stomach,
+which form so important and doleful an episode in the relations of
+most landsmen, of whatever creed or nation.
+
+The commencement of the voyage was prosperous; and the ship ran to the
+south before a fair wind, interrupted only by a few days of partial
+calm, till it reached the latitude of Ceylon, where the appearance of
+the flying fish excited the special wonder of the khan, who was by
+this time beginning, under the tuition of his fellow passengers, to
+make some progress in the English language, and had even attempted to
+fathom some of the mysteries of the science of navigation; "but though
+I took the sextant which the captain handed me, and held it precisely
+as he had done, I could make nothing of it." The regular performance
+of the Church service on Sundays, and the cessation on that day from
+the ordinary amusements, is specially noticed on several occasions,
+and probably made a deeper impression on the mind of our Moslem
+friend, from the popular belief current in India that the _Feringhis_
+are men _of no caste_, without religious faith or ceremonies--a belief
+which the conduct and demeanour of the Anglo-Indians in past times
+tended, in too many instances, to confirm. Off the southern extremity
+of Ceylon, the ship was again becalmed for several days; but the
+tedium of this interval was relieved, not only by the ordinary sea
+incidents of the capture of a shark and the appearance of a whale,
+(the zoological distinctions between which and the true fishes are
+stated by the khan with great correctness,) but by the occurrence of a
+mutiny on board an English vessel in company, which was fortunately
+quelled by the exertions of the captain of the Edinburgh.
+
+"The spicy gales of Ceylon," blowing off the coast to the distance, as
+stated, of fifty miles, (an extremely moderate range when compared
+with the accounts of some other travellers,) at last brought on their
+wings the grateful announcement of the termination of the calm; but
+before quitting the vicinity of this famous island, (more celebrated
+in eastern story under the name of Serendib,) the khan gives some
+notices of the legends connected with its history, which show a more
+extended acquaintance with Hindu literature than the Moslems in India
+in general take the trouble of acquiring. Among the rest he alludes to
+the epic of the Ramayuna, and the bridge built by Rama (or as he calls
+him, Rajah Ram Chunder) for the passage of the monkey army and their
+redoubled general, Huniman, from the Indian continent into the island,
+in order to deliver from captivity Seeta, the wife of the hero. The
+wind still continuing favourable, the ship quickly passed the equator,
+and the pole-star was no longer visible--"a proof of the earth's
+sphericity which I was glad to have had an opportunity of seeing;" and
+they left, at a short distance to the right, the islands of Mauritius
+and Bourbon, "which are not far from the great island of Madagascar,
+where the faithful turn their faces to the north when they pray, as
+they turn them to the west in India," the _kiblah_, or point of
+direction, being in both cases the kaaba, or temple of Mekka. They
+were now approaching the latitude of the Cape; and our voyager was
+astonished by the countless multitudes of sea-birds which surrounded
+the ship, and particularly by the giant bulk of the albatrosses,
+"which I was told remained day and night on the ocean, repairing to
+the coast of Africa only at the period of incubation." The Cape of
+Storms, however, as it was originally named by Vasco de Gama, did not
+fail on this occasion to keep up its established character for bad
+weather. A severe gale set in from the east, which speedily increased
+to a storm. A sailor fell from "the third stage of the mainmast," (the
+main topgallant yard,) and was killed on the deck; and as the
+inhospitable shores of Africa were close under their lee, the ship
+appears for some time to have been in considerable danger. But in this
+(to him) novel scene of peril, the khan manifests a degree of
+self-possession, strongly contrasting with the timidity of the royal
+grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, the expression of whose fears during a
+gale is absolutely ludicrous. "We were so miserable that we gave up
+all hope; we gave up our souls, and began to beseech God for
+forgiveness; while the wind continued increasing, and all the waves of
+the western sea rose up in mountains, with never-ceasing noise, till
+they reached the planets." Even after the violence of the hurricane
+had in some measure abated, the sea continued to run so high that the
+ports were kept closed for several days. "At last, however, they were
+opened for the purpose of ventilating the interior; and the band,
+which had been silent for some days, began to play again." The
+appearance of a water-spout on the same afternoon is thus
+described:--"An object became visible in the distance, in the form of
+a minaret, and every one on board crowded on deck to look at it. On
+asking what it was, I was told that what appeared to be a minaret was
+only water, which was drawn up towards the heavens by the force of the
+wind, and when this ceased would fall again into the sea, and was what
+we should call a whirlwind. This is sometimes extremely dangerous to
+vessels, since, if it reaches them, it is so powerful as to draw them
+out of the sea in the same manner as it draws up the water; in
+consequence of which many ships have been lost when they have been
+overtaken by this wonderful phenomenon."
+
+The storm was succeeded by a calm, which detained the ship for two
+days within sight of the lofty mountains near the Cape. "It was
+bitterly cold, for the seasons are here reversed, and instead of
+summer, as we should have expected, it was now the depth of winter.
+At length, however, (on the 69th day after our leaving Calcutta,) a
+strong breeze sprung up, which enabled us to set all sail, and carried
+us away from this table-land." The run from the Cape to St Helena
+seems to have been barren of incident, except an accidental encounter
+with a vessel in distress, which proved to be a slaver which had been
+captured by an English cruiser, and had sustained serious damage in
+the late storm while proceeding to the Cape with a prize crew. On
+approaching St Helena, the captain "gave orders for the ship to be
+painted, both inside and out, that the people of the island might not
+say we came in a dirty ship; and as we neared the land, a white flag
+was hoisted to apprise those on shore that there was no one ill on
+board. In cases of sickness a yellow flag is displayed, and then no
+one is permitted to land from the ship for fear of contagion. The
+island is about twenty-six miles in circuit, and is constantly
+enveloped in fog and mist. It is said to have been formerly a volcano,
+but has now ceased to smoke. The vegetation is luxuriant, but few of
+the flowers are fragrant. I recognised some, however, both flowers and
+fruits, which seemed similar to those of India. I took the opportunity
+of landing with the captain to see the town, which is small, but
+extremely well fortified, the cannon being so numerous that one might
+suppose the whole island one immense iron-foundery. It is populous,
+the inhabitants being chiefly Jews and English; but as it was Sunday,
+and all the shops were shut, it had a dull appearance. After surveying
+the town, I ascended a hill in the country, leading to the tomb of
+Napoleon Bonaparte, which is on an elevated spot, four miles from the
+town.
+
+"This celebrated personage was a native of Corsica; and enjoying a
+fortunate horoscope, he entered the French army, and speedily rose to
+the rank of general; and afterwards, with the consent of the people
+and the soldiery, made himself emperor. After this he conquered
+several kingdoms, and the fame of his prowess and his victories filled
+all the European world. When he invaded Russia, he defeated the
+Muscovites in several great battles, and took their capital; but, in
+consequence of the intensity of the cold, several thousands of his
+army both men and horses, perished miserably. This catastrophe obliged
+him to return to France, where he undertook the conquest of another
+country. At this time George III. reigned in England; and having
+collected all the disposable forces of his kingdom, appointed Lord
+Wellington (the same general who was employed in the war against
+Tippoo Sultan in Mysore) to command them, and sent him to combat the
+French Emperor. He entered Spain, and forced the Emperor's brother,
+Yusuf, (Joseph,) who was king of that country, to fly--till after a
+variety of battles and incidents, too numerous to particularize, the
+two hostile armies met at a place called by the English Waterloo,
+where a bloody battle was fought, as famous as that of P[=a]sh[=a]n,
+between Sohrab and the hero Rustan: and Napoleon was overthrown and
+made prisoner. He was then sent, though in a manner suitable to his
+rank, to this island of St Helena, where, after a few years, he
+finished his earthly career. His tomb is much visited by all who touch
+at the island, and has become a _durgah_ (shrine) for innumerable
+visitors from Europe. There are persons appointed to take care of it,
+who give to strangers, in consideration of a small present, the leaves
+and flowers of the trees which grow round the tomb. No other Emperor
+of the Europeans was ever so honoured as to have had his tomb made a
+shrine and place of pilgrimage: nor was ever one so great a conqueror,
+or so renowned for his valour and victories."
+
+The remainder of the voyage from St Helena to England was apparently
+marked by no incident worthy of mention, as the khan notices only the
+reappearance of the pole-star on their crossing the line, and
+re-entering the northern hemisphere, and their reaching once more the
+latitude of Delhi, "which we now passed many thousand miles to our
+right; after which nothing of importance occurred till we reached the
+British Channel, when we saw the Scilly Isles in the distance, and
+about noon caught a glimpse of the Lizard Point, and the south coast
+of England, together with the lighthouse: the country of the French
+lay on our right at the distance of about eighty miles. I was given
+to understand that the whole distance from St Helena to London, by the
+ship's reckoning, was 6328 miles, and 16,528 from Calcutta." In the
+Downs the pilot came on board, from whom they received the news of the
+attempt recently made by Oxford on the life of the Queen; and here the
+captain, anxious to lose no time in reaching London, quitted the
+vessel as it entered the Thames, "the sources of which famous river, I
+was informed, were near a place called Cirencester, eighty-eight miles
+from London, in the _zillah_ (county) of Gloucester." The ship was now
+taken in tow by a couple of steam-tugs, and passing Woolwich, "where
+are the war-ships and _top-khana_ (arsenal) of the English Padishah,
+at length reached Blackwall, where we anchored."
+
+"I now (continues the khan) returned thanks to God for having
+brought me safe through the wide ocean to this extraordinary
+country--bethinking myself of the answer once made by a man who had
+undertaken a voyage, on being asked by his friends what he had seen
+most wonderful--'The greatest wonder I have seen is seeing myself
+alive on land!'" The troubles of the khan, however, were far from
+being ended by his arrival on _terra firma_: for apparently from
+some mistake or inadvertence, (the cause of which does not very
+clearly appear,) on the part of the friends whom he had expected to
+meet him, he found himself, on landing at Blackwall and proceeding
+by the railway to London, left alone by the person who had thus far
+been his guide, in apartments near Cornhill, almost wholly
+unacquainted with the English language, separated from his baggage
+and servants, who were still on board the Edinburgh, and with no one
+in his company but another Hindustani, as little versed as himself
+in the ways and speech of Franguestan. In this "considerable
+unhandsome fix," as it would be called on the other side of the
+Atlantic, the perplexities of the khan are related with such
+inimitable na�vet� and good-humour, that we cannot do better than
+give the account of them in his own words. "As I could neither ask
+for any thing, nor answer any question put to me, I passed the whole
+night without a morsel of food or a drop of water: till in the
+morning, feeling hungry, I requested my companion to go to some
+bazar and buy some fruit. He replied that it would be impossible for
+him either to find his way to a bazar through the crowds of people,
+or to find his way back again--as all the houses were so much alike.
+I then told him to go straight on in the street we were in, turning
+neither to the right nor the left till he met with some shop where
+we might get what we wanted: and, in order to direct him to the
+place on his return, I agreed to lean half out of the window, so
+that he could not fail to see me. No sooner, however, did he sally
+forth, than the people, men, women, and children, began to stare at
+him on all sides, as if he had dropped from the moon; some stopped
+and gazed, and numbers followed him as if he had been a criminal
+about being led to execution. Nor was I in a more enviable position:
+the people soon caught sight of me with my head and shoulders out of
+the window; and in a few minutes a mob had collected opposite the
+door. What was I to do? If I withdrew myself, my friend on returning
+would have no mark to find the house, while, if I remained where I
+was, the curiosity of the crowd would certainly increase. I kept my
+post, however, while every one that passed stopped and gazed like
+the rest, till there was actually no room for vehicles to pass; and
+in this unpleasant situation I remained fully an hour, when seeing
+my friend returning, I went down and opened the door for him. He
+told me he had gone straight on, till he came to a fruit-shop, at
+the corner of another street, when he went in, and laying two
+shillings on the counter, said in Oordu, (the polished dialect of
+Hindustani,) 'Give me some fruit.' The shopman, not understanding
+him, spoke to him in English; to which he replied again in Oordu, 'I
+want some fruit!' pointing at the same time to the money, to signify
+that he wanted two shillings' worth of fruit. The man, however,
+continued confounded; and my friend at last, not knowing of what
+sort the fruits were, whether sour or sweet, bitter or otherwise,
+ventured, after much hesitation and fruitless attempts to
+communicate with the shopman by signs and gestures, to take up four
+apples, and then made his retreat in the best manner he could,
+followed, as here, by the rabble. I at last caught a glimpse of him,
+as I have mentioned, and let him in; and we sat down together, and
+breakfasted on these four apples, my friend taking two of them, and
+I the others."
+
+It must be admitted that our khan's first meal in England, and the
+concomitant circumstances, were not calculated to impress him with a
+very high idea, either of the comforts of the country or the
+politeness of the inhabitants; but the unruffled philosophy with which
+he submitted to these untoward privations was, ere-long, rewarded by
+the arrival of the East India agent to whose care he had been
+recommended, and who, after putting him in the way of getting his
+servants and luggage on shore from the vessel, took him out in a
+carriage to show him the metropolis. "It was, indeed, wonderful in
+every point of view, whether I regarded the immense population, the
+dresses and faces of the men and women, the multitudes of houses,
+churches, &c., and the innumerable carriages running in streets paved
+with stone and wood, (the width and openness of which seem to expand
+the heart,) and confining themselves to the middle of the road,
+without overturning any of the foot-passengers." The cathedral of St
+Paul's is described with great minuteness of detail, and the expense
+of its erection stated at seventy-three lakhs of rupees, (about
+L.750,000;) "but I have heard that if a similar edifice were erected
+in the present day, it would cost four times as much, as the cost of
+every thing has increased in at least that proportion."
+
+The difficulties of the khan, from his ignorance of the language, and
+Moslem scruples at partaking of food not dressed by his own people,
+were not yet, however, at an end. For though, on returning to his
+lodging in the evening, he found that his friend had succeeded in
+procuring from the ship a dish of _kichiri_, (an Indian mess, composed
+of rice and _ghee_, or clarified butter,) his inability to communicate
+with his landlady still occasioned him considerable perplexity.
+"Having ventured to take some pickles, which I saw on the sideboard,
+and finding them palatable, I sent for the landlady, and tried to
+explain to her by signs, pointing to the bottles, that I wanted
+something like what they contained. Alas, for my ignorance! She
+thought I wished them taken out of the room, and so walked off with
+them, leaving me in the utmost astonishment. How was I to get it back
+again? it was the only thing I had to relish my _kichiri_. I had,
+therefore, recourse to this expedient--I got an apple and pared it,
+putting the parings in a bottle with water; and showing this to the
+landlady, intimated, by signs, that I wanted something like it to eat
+with my rice. She asked many questions in English, and talked a great
+deal, from which I inferred that she had at last discovered my
+meaning, but five minutes had hardly elapsed when she re-appeared,
+bearing in her hand a bottle of water, filled with apple-parings cut
+in the nicest manner imaginable! This she placed on the table in the
+most respectful manner, and then retired!"
+
+The good lady, however, conceiving that her guest was in danger of
+perishing with hunger, was benevolently importunate with him to
+partake of some nourishment, or at least of some tea and toast, "since
+it is the custom in this country for every one to eat five times
+a-day, and some among the wealthy are not satisfied even with this!"
+The arrival of an English acquaintance, who explained to the landlady
+the religious prejudices of her lodger, in some measure relieved him
+from his embarrassment; but he was again totally disconcerted, by
+finding it impossible, after a long search, to procure any _ghee_--an
+ingredient indispensable in the composition of every national dish of
+India, whether Moslem or Hindu. "How shall I express my astonishment
+at this extraordinary ignorance? What! do they not know what _ghee_
+is? Wonderful! This was a piece of news I never expected--that what
+abounds in every little wretched village in India, could not be
+purchased in this great city!" How this unforeseen deficiency was
+supplied does not appear; but probably the khan's never-failing
+philosophy enabled him to bear even this unparalleled privation with
+equanimity, as we hear no further complaints on the subject. He did
+not remain, however, many days in those quarters, finding that the
+incessant noise of the vehicles passing day and night deprived him of
+sleep; and, by the advice of his friends, he took a small house in St
+John's Wood, where he was at once at a distance from the intolerable
+clamour of the streets, and at liberty to live after the fashion of
+his own country.
+
+The first place of public resort to which he directed his steps,
+appears to have been the Pantheon bazar in Oxford Street, whither the
+familiar name perhaps attracted him--"for the term _bazar_ is in use
+also among the people of this country;" but he does not appear to have
+been particularly struck by any thing he saw there, except the
+richness and variety of the wares. On the contrary, he complains of
+the want of fragrance in the flowers in the conservatory, particularly
+the roses, as compared with those of his native land--"there was _one_
+plantain-tree which seemed to be regarded as a sort of wonder, though
+thousands grow in our gardens without any sort of culture." The
+presence of the female attendants at the stalls, a sight completely at
+variance with Asiatic ideas, is also noticed with marked
+disapprobation--"Most of them were young and handsome, and seemed
+perfect adepts in the art of selling their various wares; but I could
+not help reflecting, on seeing so many fine young women engaged in
+this degrading occupation, on the ease and comfort enjoyed by our
+females, compared to the drudgery and servile employment to which the
+sex are subjected in this country. Notwithstanding all the English say
+of the superior condition of their women, it is quite evident, from
+all I have seen since my arrival, that their social state is far below
+that of our females." This sentiment is often repeated in the course
+of the narrative, and any one who has read, in the curious work of Mrs
+Meer Hassan Ali, quoted above, an account of the strict domestic
+seclusion in which Moslem females having any pretensions to rank, or
+even respectability, are constantly retained in India, will not be
+surprised at the frequent expression of repugnance, whenever the
+writer sees women engaged in any public or out-of-doors occupation--a
+custom so abhorrent to Oriental, and, above all, to Indian ideas.
+
+We next find the khan in the Zoological Gardens, his matter-of-fact
+description of which affords an amusing contrast with that of those
+veracious scions of Persian royalty, who luxuriate in "elephant birds
+just like an elephant, but without the proboscis, and with wings
+fifteen yards long"--"an elephant twenty-four feet high, with a trunk
+forty feet long;" and who assure us that "the monkeys act like human
+beings, and play at chess with those who visit the gardens. On this
+day a Jew happened to be at this place, and went to play a game with
+the monkey. The monkey beat, and began to laugh loudly, all the people
+standing round him; and the Jew, exceedingly abashed, was obliged to
+leave the place." The khan, in common with ourselves, and the
+generality of visitors to the Regent's Park, was not fortunate enough
+to witness any of the wondrous feats which gladdened the royal eyes of
+the Shahzadehs--though he saw some of the apes, meaning the
+orang-outan, "drink tea and coffee, sit on chairs, and eat their food
+like human beings." * * *
+
+"There is no island or kingdom," (he continues,) "which has not
+contributed its specimens of the animal kingdom to these gardens: from
+the elephant and rhinoceros, to the fly and the mosquito, all are to
+be seen here"--but not even the giraffes, strange as their appearance
+must have been to him, attract any particular notice; though the sight
+of the exotics in the garden draws from him a repetition of his old
+complaint, relative to the want of fragrance in the flowers as
+compared with those produced under the genial sun of India. The
+ceremony of the prorogation of Parliament by the Queen in person was
+now at hand, and the khan determined to be present at this imposing
+scene. But as he takes this opportunity to introduce his observations
+and opinions on the laws and customs of this country, we shall
+postpone to our next Number the discussion of these weighty subjects.
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRTEENTH.
+
+A TALE OF DOOM.
+
+
+It was on a sultry July evening that a joyous party of young men were
+assembled in the principal room of a wine house, outside the Potsdam
+gate of Berlin. One of their number, a Saxon painter, by name Carl
+Solling, was about to take his departure for Italy. His place was
+taken in the Halle mail, his luggage sent to the office, and the coach
+was to call for him at midnight at the tavern, whither a number of his
+most intimate friends had accompanied him, to drink a parting glass of
+Rhenish wine to his prosperous journey.
+
+Supper was over, and some magnificent melons, and peaches, and plates
+of caviare, and other incentives to drinking, placed upon the table; a
+row of empty bottles already graced the sideboard, while full ones of
+that venerable cobweb-mantle appearance, so dear to the toper, were
+forthcoming as rapidly as the thirstiest throats could desire. The
+conviviality was at its height, and numerous toasts had been given,
+among which the health of the traveller, the prosperity of the art
+which he cultivated, and of the land of poetry and song to which he
+was proceeding, had not been forgotten. Indeed, it was becoming
+difficult to find any thing to toast, but the thirst of the party was
+still unquenched, and apparently unquenchable.
+
+Suddenly a young man started up, in dress and appearance the very
+model of a German student--in short frock coat and loose sacklike
+trousers, long curling hair hanging over his shoulders, pointed beard
+and mustache, and the scars of one or two sabre cuts on his handsome
+animated countenance.
+
+"You want a toast, my friends!" cried he. "An excuse to drink, as
+though drinking needed an excuse when the wine is good. I will give
+you one, and a right worthy one too. Our noble selves here assembled;
+all, so many as we are!" And he glanced round the table, counting the
+number of the guests. "One, two, three, four--thirteen. We are
+Thirteen. _Es lebe die Dreizehn!_"
+
+He raised his glass, in which the golden liquor flashed and sparkled,
+and set it down, drained to the last drop.
+
+"_Thirteen!_" exclaimed a pale-faced, dark-eyed youth named Raphael,
+starting from his seat, and in his turn counting the company. "'Tis
+true. My friends, ill luck will attend us. We are Thirteen, seated at
+a round table."
+
+There was evidently an unpleasant impression made upon the guests by
+this announcement. The toast-giver threw a scornful glance around
+him--
+
+"What!" cried he, "are we believers in such nursery tales and old
+wives' superstitions? Pshaw! The charm shall soon be broken. Halls!
+Franz! Winebutt! Thieving innkeeper! Rascally corkdrawer! where are
+you hidden? Come forth! Appear!"
+
+Thus invoked, there toddled into the room the master of the tavern--a
+round-bellied, short-legged individual, whose rosy gills and
+Bacchus-like appearance proved his devotion to the jolly god whose
+high-priest he was.
+
+"Sit down here!" cried the mad student, forcing him into a chair; "and
+now, Raphael and gentlemen all, be pleased to shorten your faces
+again, and drink your wine as if one with a three after it were an
+unknown combination of numerals."
+
+The conversation now took a direction naturally given to it by what
+had just occurred, and the origin and causes of the popular prejudice
+against the number Thirteen were discussed.
+
+"It cannot be denied that there is something mysterious in the
+connection and combination of numbers," observed a student in
+philosophy; "and Pythagoras was right enough when he sought the
+foundation of all human knowledge in the even and uneven. All over the
+world the idea of something complete and perfect is associated with
+even numbers, and of something imperfect and defective with uneven
+ones. The ancients, too, considered even numbers of good omen, and
+uneven ones as unpropitious."
+
+"It is really a pity," cried the mad student, "that you philosophers
+should not be allowed to invert and re-arrange history in the manner
+you deem fitting. You would soon torture the crooked stream of time
+into a straight line. I should like to know from what authors you
+derive your very original ideas in favour of even numbers. As far as
+my reading goes, I find that number three was considered a sacred and
+a fortunate number by nearly all the sects of antiquity, not excepting
+the Pythagoreans. And the early Romans had such a respect for the
+uneven numbers, that they never allowed a flock of sheep to be of any
+number divisible by two."
+
+The philosopher did not seem immediately prepared with a reply to this
+attack.
+
+"You are all of you looking too far back for the origin of the curse
+that attends the number Thirteen," interposed Raphael. "Think only of
+the Lord's Supper, which is rather nearer to our time than Pythagoras
+and the Roman shepherds. It is since then that Thirteen has been a
+stigmatized and fatal number. Judas Iscariot was the Thirteenth at
+that sacred table and believe me it is no childish superstition that
+makes men shun so unblest a number."
+
+"Here is Solling, who has not given his opinion yet," cried another of
+the party, "and yet I am sure he has something to say on the subject.
+How now, Carl, what ails thee, man? Why so sad and silent?"
+
+The painter who, at the commencement of the evening, had entered
+frankly and willingly into the joyous humour of his friends, had
+become totally changed since the commencement of this discussion on
+the number _Thirteen_. He sat silent and thoughtful in his chair, and
+left his glass untasted before him, while his thoughts were evidently
+occupied by some unpleasant subject. His companions pressed him for
+the cause of this change, and after for some time evading their
+questions, he at last confessed that the turn the conversation had
+taken had brought painful recollections to his mind.
+
+"It is a matter I love not to speak about," said he; "but it is no
+secret, and least of all could I have any wish to conceal it from you,
+my good and kind friends. We have yet an hour before the arrival of
+the mail, and if you are disposed to listen, I will relate to you the
+strange incidents, the recollection of which has saddened me."
+
+The painter's offer was eagerly accepted; the young men drew their
+chairs round the table, and Solling commenced as follows:--
+
+"I am a native of the small town of Geyer, in Saxony, of the tin mines
+of which place my father was inspector. I was the twelfth child of my
+parents and half an hour after I saw the light my mother give birth to
+a Thirteenth, also a boy. Death, however, was busy in this numerous
+family. Several had died while yet infants, and there now survive only
+three besides myself, and perhaps my twin brother.
+
+"The latter, who was christened Bernard, gave indications at a very
+early age of an eccentric and violent disposition. Precocious in
+growth and strength, wild as a young foal, headstrong and passionate,
+full of spiteful tricks and breakneck pranks, he was the terror of the
+family and the neighbours. In spite of his unamiable qualities, he was
+the pet of his father, who pardoned or laughed at all his mischief,
+and the consequence was, that he became an object of fear and hatred
+to his brothers and sisters. Our hatred, however, was unjust; for
+Bernard's heart was good, and he would have gone through fire and
+water for any of us. But he was rough and violent in whatever he did,
+and we dreaded the fits of affection he sometimes took for us, almost
+as much as his less amiable humours.
+
+"As far back as I can remember, Bernard received not only from his
+brothers, but also from all our playfellows, the nickname of the
+Thirteenth, in allusion, of course, to his being my mother's
+thirteenth child. At first this offended him grievously, and many were
+the sound thrashings he inflicted in his endeavours to get rid of the
+obnoxious title. Finally he succeeded, but scarcely had he done so
+when, from some strange perversity of character, he adopted as an
+honourable distinction the very name he had taken such pains to
+suppress.
+
+"We were playing one Sunday afternoon in the large court of our house;
+several of the neighbours' children were there, and it chanced that we
+were exactly twelve in number. We had wooden swords, and were having
+a sort of tournament, from which, however, we had managed to exclude
+Bernard, who, in such games, was accustomed to hit rather too hard.
+Suddenly he bounded over a wall, and fell amongst us like a
+thunderbolt. He had painted his face in red and black stripes, and
+made himself a pair of wings out of an old leathern apron; and thus
+equipped and armed with the largest broomstick he had been able to
+find, he showered his blows around him, driving us right and left, and
+shouting out, 'Room, room for the mad Thirteenth!'
+
+"Soon after this incident my father died. Bernard, who had been his
+favourite, was as violent in his grief as he had already shown himself
+to be in every thing else. He wept and screamed like a mad creature,
+tore his hair, bit his hands till they bled, and struck his head
+against the wall; raved and flew at every body who came near him, and
+was obliged to be shut up when his father's coffin was carried out of
+the house, or he would inevitably have done himself or somebody else a
+mischief.
+
+"My mother had an unmarried brother in the town of Marienberg, a
+wealthy man, and who was Bernard's godfather. On learning my father's
+death he came to Geyer, and invited his sister and her children to go
+and take up their abode with him. But the worthy man little knew the
+plague he was receiving into his house in the person of his godson.
+Himself of a mild, quiet disposition, he was greatly scandalized by
+the wild pranks of his nephew, and made vain attempts to restrain him
+within some bounds; but by so doing he became the aversion of my
+brother, who showed his dislike in every possible way. He gave him
+nicknames, broke his china cups and saucers, by which the old
+gentleman set great store, splashed his white silk stockings with mud
+as he went to church, put the house clock an hour forward or back, and
+tormented his kind godfather in every way he could devise.
+
+"Bernard had not forgotten his title of the Thirteenth; but it was
+probable he would soon have got tired of it, for it was not his custom
+to adhere long to any thing, had not my uncle, who was a little
+superstitious, strictly forbidden him to adopt it. This opposition was
+all that was wanting to make my brother bring forward the unlucky
+number upon every possible occasion. When any body mentioned the
+number twelve before him, or called any thing the twelfth, Bernard
+would immediately cry out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'
+
+"No matter when it was, or before whom; time, place, and persons were
+to him alike indifferent. For instance, one Sunday in church, when the
+clergyman in the course of the service said, 'Let us sing a portion of
+such a psalm, beginning at the twelfth verse,' Bernard immediately
+screamed out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'
+
+"This was a grievous scandal to my uncle, and Bernard was called that
+evening before a tribunal, composed of his godfather, my mother, and
+the old clergyman whom he had so gracelessly interrupted, and who was
+also teacher of Latin and theology at the school to which Bernard and
+I went. But all their reproaches and remonstrances were lost upon my
+brother, who had evidently much difficulty to keep himself from
+laughing in their faces. My mother wept, my uncle paced the room in
+great perplexity, and the worthy old dominie clasped his hands
+together, and exclaimed, 'My child! I fear me, God's chastisement will
+be needed to amend you.' The event proved that he was right.
+
+"It was on the Friday before Christmas-day, and we were assembled in
+school. The near approach of the holidays had made the boys somewhat
+turbulent, and the poor old dominie had had much to suffer during the
+whole day from their tricks and unruliness. My brother, of course, had
+contributed largely to the disorder, much to the delight of his bosom
+friend and companion, the only son of the master. This boy, whose name
+was Albert, was a blue-eyed, fair haired lad, gentle as a girl.
+Bernard had conceived a violent friendship for him, and had taken him
+under his protection. Albert's father, as may be supposed, was little
+pleased at this intimacy, but yet, out of consideration for my uncle,
+he did not entirely forbid it; and the more so as he perceived that
+his son in no respect imitated his wild playmate, but contented
+himself with admiring him beyond all created beings, and repaying with
+the warmest affection Bernard's watchful and jealous guardianship.
+
+"On the afternoon in question, my brother surpassed himself in wayward
+conceits and mischievous tricks, to the infinite delight of Albert,
+who rocked with laughter at each new prank. The good dominie, who was
+indulgence itself, was instructing us in Bible history, and had to
+interrupt himself every moment to repress the unruliness of his
+pupils, and especially of Bernard.
+
+"It seemed pre-ordained that the lesson should be an unlucky one.
+Every thing concurred to make it so. Our instructor had occasion to
+speak of the twelve tribes of Israel, of the twelve patriarchs, of the
+twelve gates of the holy city. Each of these served as a cue to my
+brother, who immediately shouted out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!' and
+each time Albert threw himself back shrieking with laughter, thus
+encouraging Bernard to give full scope to his mad humour. The poor
+dominie remonstrated, menaced, supplicated, but all in vain. I saw the
+blood rising into his pale face, and at last his bald head, in spite
+of the powder which sprinkled it, became red all over. He contained
+himself, however, and proceeded to the account of the Lord's Supper.
+He began, 'And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve
+apostles with him.'
+
+"'And I am the Thirteenth!' yelled Bernard.
+
+"Scarcely were the words uttered, when a Bible flew across the school,
+the noise of a blow, and a cry of anguish followed, and the old man
+fell senseless to the ground. The heavy Bible, the corners of which
+were bound with silver, and that he had hurled in a moment of
+uncontrollable passion at my brother, had missed its mark, and struck
+his own son on the head. Albert lay bleeding on the floor, while
+Bernard hung over him like one beside himself, weeping, and kissing
+his wounds.
+
+"The boys ran, one and all, out of the school-room, shrieking for
+assistance. Our cries soon brought the servants to the spot, who, on
+learning what had happened, hastened with us back to the school, and
+lifted up the old master, who was still lying on the ground near his
+desk. He had been struck with apoplexy, and survived but a few hours.
+Albert was wounded in two places, one of the sharp corners of the
+Bible having cut open his forehead, while another had injured his left
+eye. After much suffering he recovered, but the sight of the eye was
+gone.
+
+"Bernard, however, had disappeared. When we re-entered the
+school-room, a window which looked into the playground was open, and
+there were marks of footsteps on the snow without. A short distance
+further were traces of blood, where the fugitive had apparently washed
+his face and hands in the snow. We have never seen him since that
+day."
+
+The painter paused, and his friends remained some moments silent,
+musing on the tragical history they had heard.
+
+"And do you know nothing whatever of your brother's fate?" enquired
+Raphael at last.
+
+"Next to nothing. My uncle caused enquiries to be made in every
+direction, but without success. Once only a neighbour at Marienberg,
+who had been travelling on the Bohemian frontier, told us that he had
+met at a village inn a wandering clarinet-player, who bore so strong a
+resemblance to my brother that he accosted him by his name. The
+musician seemed confused, and muttering some unintelligible reply,
+left the house in haste. What renders it probable that this was
+Bernard is, that he had a great natural talent for music, and at the
+time he left home, had already attained considerable proficiency on
+the clarinet."
+
+"How old was your brother when he so strangely disappeared?" asked one
+of the party.
+
+"Fifteen, but he looked at least two years older, for he was stout and
+manly in person beyond his age."
+
+At this moment the rattling of wheels, and sound of a postilion's
+horn, was heard. The Halle mail drove up to the door, the guard
+bawling out for his passenger. The young painter took a hasty leave of
+his friends, and sprang into the vehicle, which the next instant
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+There was an overplus of travellers by the mail that night, and the
+carriage in which Solling had got, was not the mail itself, but a
+cal�che, holding four persons, which was used as a sort of
+supplement, and followed close to the other carriage. Two of the
+places were occupied by a Jew horse-dealer and a sergeant of hussars,
+who were engaged in an animated, and to them most interesting
+conversation, on the subject of horse-flesh, to which the painter paid
+little attention; but leaning back in his corner, remained absorbed in
+the painful reflections which the incidents he had been narrating had
+called up in his mind. In spite of his brother's eccentricities, he
+was truly attached to him; and although eight years had elapsed since
+his disappearance, he had not yet given up hopes of finding him, if
+still alive. The enquiries that he and his uncle had unceasingly made
+after their lost relative, had put them, about three years previous to
+this time, upon the trace of a clarinet-player who had been seen at
+Venice and Trieste, and went by the name of Voltojo. This might have
+been a name adopted by Bernard, as being nearly the Italian equivalent
+of Geyer, or hawk, the name of his native town; and Solling was not
+without a faint hope, that in the course of his journey to Rome he
+might obtain some tidings of his brother.
+
+He was roused from his reverie by the postilion shouting out to the
+guard of the mail, which was just before them on the road, to know
+when they were to take up the passenger who was to occupy the
+remaining seat in the cal�che.
+
+"Where will the Thirteenth meet us?" asked the man.
+
+"At the inn at Schoneber," replied the guard.
+
+_The Thirteenth!_ The word made the painter's blood run cold. The
+horse-dealer and the sergeant, who had begun to doze in their
+respective corners, were also disturbed by the ill-omened sound.
+
+"The Thirteenth! The Thirteenth!" muttered the Jew in his beard, still
+half asleep. "God forbid! Let's have no thirteenth!"
+
+A company of travelling comedians, who occupied the mail, took up the
+word. "The Thirteenth is coming," said one.
+
+"Somebody will die," cried another.
+
+"Or we shall be upset and break our necks," exclaimed a third.
+
+"No Thirteenth!" cried they all in chorus. "Drive on! drive on! he
+sha'n't get in!"
+
+This was addressed to the postilion, who just then pulled up at the
+door of a village inn, and giving a blast with his horn, shouted
+loudly for his remaining passenger to appear.
+
+The door of the public-house opened, and a tall figure, with a small
+knap-sack on his shoulder and a knotty stick in his hand, stepped out
+and approached the mail. But when he heard the cries of the comedians,
+who were still protesting against the admission of a Thirteenth
+traveller, he started suddenly back, swinging his cudgel in the air.
+
+"To the devil with you all, vagabonds that ye are!" vociferated he.
+"Drive on, postilion, with your cage of monkeys. I shall walk."
+
+At the sound of the stranger's voice, Solling sprang up in the
+carriage and seized the handle of the door. But as he did so, a strong
+arm grasped him by the collar, and pulled him back into his seat. At
+the same moment the carriage drove on.
+
+"The man is drunk," said the sergeant, who had misinterpreted his
+fellow-passenger's intentions. "It is not worth while dirtying your
+hands, and perhaps getting an ugly blow, in a scuffle with such a
+fellow."
+
+"Stop, postilion, stop!" shouted Solling. But the postilion either did
+not or would not hear, and some time elapsed before the painter could
+persuade his well-meaning companion of his peaceable intentions. At
+length he did so, and the carriage, which had meanwhile been going at
+full speed, was stopped.
+
+"You will leave my luggage at the first post-house," said Solling,
+jumping out and beginning to retrace his steps to the village, which
+they had now left some distance behind them.
+
+The night was pitch-dark, so dark that the painter was compelled to
+feel his way, and guide himself by the line of trees that bordered the
+road. He reached the village without meeting a living creature, and
+strode down the narrow street amid the baying of the dogs, disturbed
+by his footfall at that silent hour of the night. The inn door was
+shut, but there was a light glimmering in one of the casements. He
+knocked several times without any body answering. At length a woman's
+head was put out of an upper window.
+
+"Go your ways," cried a shrill voice, "and don't come disturbing
+honest folk at this time o' night. Do you think we have nought to do
+but to open the door for such raff as you? Be off with you, you
+vagabond, and blow your clarinet elsewhere."
+
+"You are mistaken, madam," said Solling; "I am no vagabond, but a
+passenger by the Halle mail, and"--
+
+"What brings you here, then?" interrupted the virago; "the Halle mail
+is far enough off by this."
+
+"My good madam," replied the painter in his softest tone, "for God's
+sake tell me who and where is the person who was waiting for the mail
+at your hotel."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed the hostess, considerably mollified by the _madam_
+and the _hotel_. "The mad Italian musician, the clarinet fellow? Why,
+I took you for him at first, and wondered what brought him back, for
+he started as soon as the mail left the door. He'd have done better to
+have got into it, with a dark night and a long road before him. Ha!
+ha! He's mad, to be sure."
+
+"His name! His name!" cried Solling, impatiently.
+
+"His name? How can I recollect his outlandish name? Fol--Vol----"
+
+"Voltojo!" cried the painter.
+
+"Voltojo! yes, that's it. Ha! ha! What a name!"
+
+"It is he!" cried Solling, and without another word dashed off full
+speed along the road he had just come. He kept in the middle of the
+causeway, straining his eyes to see into the darkness on either side
+of him, and wondering how it was he had not met the object of his
+search as he came to the village. He ran on, occasionally taking trees
+and fingerposts for men, and cursing his ill luck when he saw his
+mistake. The sweat poured down his face in streams, and his knees
+began to knock together with fatigue. Suddenly he struck his foot
+against a stone lying in the road, and fell, cutting his forehead
+severely upon some pebbles. The sharp pain drew a cry from him, and a
+man who had been lying on the grass at the roadside, sprang up and
+hastened to his assistance. At that moment a flash of summer lightning
+lit up the road.
+
+"Bernard! Bernard!" cried the painter, throwing his arms round the
+stranger's neck. It was his brother.
+
+Bernard started back with a cry of horror.
+
+"Albert!" he exclaimed in a hollow voice, "Cannot your spirit rest? Do
+you rise from the grave to persecute me?"
+
+"In God's name, my dear brother, what mean you? I am Carl--Carl, your
+twin brother."
+
+"Carl? No! Albert! I see that horrid wound on your brow. It still
+bleeds!"
+
+The painter grasped his brother's hand.
+
+"I am flesh and blood," said he, "and no spirit. Albert still lives."
+
+"He lives!" exclaimed Bernard, and clasped his brother in his arms.
+
+Explanations followed, and the brothers took the road to Berlin. When
+the painter had replied to Bernard's questions concerning their
+family, he in his turn begged his brother to relate his adventures
+since they parted, and above all to give his reasons for remaining so
+long severed from his friends and home.
+
+"Although I fully believed Albert killed by the blow he received,"
+replied Bernard, "it was no fear of punishment for my indirect share
+in his death, that induced me to fly. But when I saw the father
+senseless on the ground, and the son expiring before my eyes, I felt
+as if I was accursed, as if the brand of Cain were on my brow, and
+that it was my fate to roam through the world an isolated and
+wretched being. When you all ran out of the school to fetch
+assistance, it seemed to me as though each chair and bench and table
+in the room received the power of speech, and yelled and bellowed in
+my ears the fatal number which has been the cause of all my
+misfortunes--'Thirteen! Thirteen! Thou art the Thirteenth, the
+Accursed One!'
+
+"I fled, and since that day no rest or peace has been mine. Like my
+shadow has this unholy number clung to me. Wherever I went, in all the
+many lands I have wandered through, I carried with me the curse of my
+birth. At every turn it met me, aggravating my numerous hardships,
+embittering my rare moments of joy. If I entered a room where a
+cheerful party was assembled, all rose and shrunk from me as from one
+plague-tainted. They were twelve--I was the Thirteenth. If I sat down
+at a dinner-table, my neighbour left his chair, and the others would
+say, 'He fears to sit by you. You are the Thirteenth.' If I slept at
+an inn--there were sure to be twelve persons sleeping there; my bed
+was the Thirteenth, or my room would be number Thirteen, and I was
+told that the former landlord had shot or hung himself in it.
+
+"At length I left Germany, in the vain hope that the spell would not
+extend beyond the land of my birth. I took ship at Trieste for Venice.
+Scarcely were we out of port when a violent storm arose, and we were
+driven rapidly towards a rocky and dangerous coast. The steersman
+counted the seamen and passengers, and crossed himself. We were
+_thirteen_.
+
+"Lots were drawn who should be sacrificed for the salvation of the
+others. I drew number thirteen, and they put me ashore on a barren
+rock, where I passed a day and night half dead with cold and drenched
+with sea water. At length an Illyrian fisherman espied me, and took me
+off in his boat.
+
+"It is unnecessary to relate to you in detail my wanderings during the
+last eight years, or if I do, it shall be at some future time. My
+clarinet enables me to live in the humble manner I have always done.
+You remember, probably, that I had some skill in it, which I have
+since much improved. When travelling, my music was generally taken as
+payment for my bed and supper at the petty hostelries at which I put
+up; and when I came to a large town, I remained a few days, and
+usually gained more than my expenses.
+
+"About a year since, I made some stay at Copenhagen, and at last,
+getting wearied of that city, I put myself on board a ship, without
+enquiring whither it was bound. It took me to Stralsund.
+
+"The day of my arrival, there was a shooting-match in the suburb
+beyond the Knieper, and I hastened thither with my clarinet. It was a
+sort of fair, and I wandered from one booth to the other, playing the
+joyous mountain melodies which I had not once played since my
+departure from Marienberg. God knows what brought them into my head
+again; but it did my heart good to play them, and a feeling came over
+me, that I should like once more to have a home, and to leave the
+weary rambling life I had so long led.
+
+"I had great success that day, and the people thronged to hear the
+wandering Italian musician. Many were the jugs of beer and glasses of
+wine offered to me, and my plate was soon full of shillings. As I left
+off playing, an old greyheaded man pressed through the crowd, and
+gazed earnestly at me. His eyes filled with tears, and he was
+evidently much moved.
+
+"'What a likeness!' he exclaimed. 'He is the very picture of my
+Amadeus. I could fancy he had risen out of the sea. The same features,
+the sane voice and manner.'
+
+"He came up to me and took my hand. 'If you do not fear a high
+staircase,' said he with a kindly smile, 'come and visit me. I live on
+the tower of St Nicholas's Church. Your clarinet will sound well in
+the free fresh air, and you will find those there who will gladly
+listen.' So saying, he left me.
+
+"The old man's name was Elias Kranhelm, better known in Stralsund as
+the old Swede; he was the town musician, and had the care of the bells
+of St Nicholas. The next day was Sunday, and I hastened to visit him.
+His kind manner had touched me, unaccustomed as I was to kindness or
+sympathy from the strangers amongst whom I always lived. When I was
+halfway up the stairs leading to the tower, the organ began to play
+below me, and I recognised a psalm tune which we used often to sing
+for our old schoolmaster at Marienberg. I stopped a moment to listen,
+and thoughts of rest and home again came over me.
+
+"I was met at the tower door by old Kranhelm, in his Sunday suit of
+black; large silver buckles at his knees and shoes, and a round black
+velvet cap over his long white hair. His clear grey eyes smiled so
+kindly upon me, his voice was so mild, and his greeting so cordial,
+that I thought I had never seen a more pleasing old man. He welcomed
+me as though I had been an old friend, and without further preface,
+asked me if I should like to become his substitute, and perform the
+duties for which his great age had begun to unfit him. His only son,
+on whom he had reckoned to take his place, had left him some time
+previously, to become a sailor on board a Norwegian ship, and had been
+drowned in his very first voyage. It was my extraordinary likeness to
+this son that had made him notice me; and the good, simple-hearted old
+man seemed to think that resemblance a sufficient guarantee against
+any risk in admitting a perfect stranger into his house and intimacy.
+
+"'My post is a profitable one,' said he; 'and, in consideration of my
+long services, the worshipful burgomaster has given me leave to seek
+an assistant, now that I am getting too old for my office. Consider
+then, my son, if the offer suits you. You please me, and I mean you
+well. But here comes my Elizabeth, who will soon learn to like you if
+you are a good lad.'
+
+"As he spoke, a young girl entered the room, with a psalm-book in her
+hand, and attired in an old-fashioned dress, which was not able,
+however, to conceal the elegance of her figure, and the charms of her
+blooming countenance.
+
+"'How think you, Elizabeth?' said her father. 'Is he not as like our
+poor Amadeus as one egg is to another?'
+
+"'I do not see the likeness, my dear father,' replied Elizabeth,
+looking timidly at me, and then casting down her eyes, and blushing.
+
+"I accepted the old man's offer with joy, and took up my dwelling in
+the other turret of the church tower. My occupation was to keep the
+clock wound up, to play the evening hymn on the balcony of the tower,
+and to strike the hours upon the great bell with a heavy hammer.
+
+"I soon felt the good effect of repose, and of the happy, tranquil
+life I now led; my spirits improved, and I began to forget the curse
+which hung over me--to forget, in short, that I was the unlucky
+Thirteenth. Old Kranhelm's liking for me increased rapidly, and, in
+less than three months, I was Elizabeth's accepted lover. Time flew
+on; the wedding-day was fixed, and the bridal-chamber prepared.
+
+"It was on Friday evening, exactly eight days ago, that I went out
+with Elizabeth, and walked down to the port to look at a large Swedish
+ship that had just arrived. The passengers were landing, and one
+amongst them immediately attracted our attention.
+
+"This was a tall, lean, raw-boned woman, apparently about forty years
+of age, who held in her hand a long, smooth staff, which she waved
+about her, nodding her head, and muttering, as she went, in some
+strange, unintelligible dialect. Her dress consisted of a huge black
+fur cloak, and a cape of the same colour fringed with red. Her whole
+manner and appearance were so strange, that a crowd assembled round
+her as soon as she set foot on shore.
+
+"'Hallo! comrade,' cried one of the sailors of the vessel that had
+brought her, to a boatman who was passing. 'Hallo! comrade, do you
+want a job? Here's a witch to take to Hiddensee.'
+
+"We asked the sailor what he meant; and he told us that this strange
+woman was a Lapland witch, who every year, in the dog-days, made a
+journey to the island of Hiddensee, to gather an herb which only grew
+there, and was essential in her incantations.
+
+"Meantime, the witch was calling for a boat, but no one understood her
+language, or else they did not choose to come. My unfortunate
+propensity to all that is supernatural or fantastic impelled me, with
+irresistible force, towards her. In vain Elizabeth held me back. I
+pushed my way through the crowd, until we found ourselves close to the
+Lapland woman, who measured us from head to foot with her bright and
+glittering eyes. Slipping a florin into her hand, I gave her to
+understand, as well as I could, that we wished to have our fortunes
+told. She took my hand, and, after examining it, made a sign that she
+either could or would tell me nothing. She then took the hand of
+Elizabeth, who hung upon my arm, trembling like an aspen leaf, and
+gazing intently upon it, muttered a few words in broken Swedish. I did
+not understand them, but Elizabeth did, and, starting back, drew me
+hastily out of the crowd.
+
+"'What did she say?' enquired I, as soon as we were clear of the
+throng.
+
+"Elizabeth seemed much agitated, and had evidently to make a strong
+effort before she could reply.
+
+"'Nothing,' answered she, at last; 'nothing, at least, worth
+repeating. And yet 'tis strange; it tallies exactly with a prediction
+made to my mother when I was an infant, that I should one day be in
+peril from the number Thirteen. This strange woman cautioned me
+against the same number, and bade me beware of you, for that you were
+the Thirteenth!'
+
+"Had the earth opened under my feet, or the lightning from heaven
+fallen on my head, I could not have felt a greater shock than was
+communicated to me by these words. I know not what I said in reply, or
+how I got home. Elizabeth, doubtless, observed my agitation, but she
+made no remark on it. I felt her arm tremble upon mine as we walked
+along, and by a furtive glance at her face saw that she was pale as
+death. Not a word passed between us during our walk back to the tower,
+on reaching which she shut herself up in her room. I pleaded a severe
+headach and wish to lie down; and, begging the old man to strike the
+hours for me, retired to my chamber.
+
+"It would be impossible to give an idea of the agony of mind I
+suffered during that evening. I thought at times I was going mad, and
+there were moments when I felt disposed to put an end to my existence
+by a leap from the tower window. Again, then, this curse that hung
+over me was in full force. Again had that fatal number raised itself
+before me like an iron wall, interposed between me and all earthly
+happiness. Wearied out at length by the storm within me, I fell
+asleep.
+
+"As may be supposed, I was followed in my troubled slumbers by the
+recollection of my misery. Each hour that struck awoke me out of the
+most hideous dreams to a scarce less hideous reality. When midnight
+came, and the hammer clanged upon the great bell, a strange fancy took
+possession of my mind that it would this night strike Thirteen, and
+that at the thirteenth stroke the clock, the tower, the city, and the
+whole world, would crumble into atoms. Again I fell asleep and dreamt.
+I thought that my head was changed into a mighty bronze bell, and that
+I hung in the tower and heard the clock beside me strike Thirteen.
+Then came the old schoolmaster, who yet, at the same time, had the
+features of Elizabeth's father; and, as he drew near me, I saw that
+the hammer he held in his hand was no hammer, but a large silver-bound
+Bible. In my despair I made frightful efforts to cry out and to tell
+him that I was no bell, but a man, and that he should not strike me;
+but my voice refused its service and my tongue clove to my palate. The
+greyhaired old man came up to me, and struck thirteen times on my
+forehead, till my brains gushed out at my eyes.
+
+"By daybreak the next morning I was two leagues from Stralsund, having
+left a few hurried ill-written lines in my room, pleading I know not
+what urgent family affairs, and a dislike to leave-taking, as excuses
+for my sudden departure. Over field and meadow, through rivers and
+forests, on I went, as though hell were at my heels, flying from my
+destiny. But the further I got from Stralsund the more did I regret
+all I left there--my beautiful and affectionate mistress, her
+kind-hearted father, the peaceful happy life I led on the top of the
+old tower. The vow I had made to fly from the haunts of men, and seek
+in some desert the repose which my evil fate denied me among my
+fellows, that vow became daily more difficult to keep. And yet I went
+on, dreading to depart from my determination, lest I should encounter
+some of those bitter deceptions and cruel disappointments that had
+hitherto been my lot in life. Shame, too, at the manner in which I had
+left the tower, withheld me, or else I think I should already be on my
+road back to Stralsund. But now I have met you, brother, and that my
+mind is relieved by the knowledge that I have not, even indirectly,
+Albert's death to reproach myself with, I must hasten to my Elizabeth
+to relieve her anxiety, and dry the tears which I am well assured each
+moment of my absence causes her to shed. Come with me, dearest Carl,
+and you shall see her, my beautiful Elizabeth, and her good old
+father, and the tower and the bell. Ho! the bell, the jolly old bell!"
+
+The painter looked kindly but anxiously in his brother's face. There
+was a mildness in his manner that startled him, accustomed as he had
+been to his eccentricities when a boy.
+
+"You are tired, brother," said he. "You need repose after the emotions
+and fatigues of the last week. I, too, shall not be sorry to sleep.
+Let us to bed for a few hours, and then we will have post-horses and
+be off to Stralsund."
+
+"I have no need of rest," replied Bernard, "and each moment seems to
+me an eternity till I can again clasp my Elizabeth to my heart. Let us
+delay, then, as little as may be."
+
+As he spoke they entered the gates of Berlin. The sun was risen, and
+the hotels and taverns were beginning to open their doors. Seeing
+Bernard's anxiety to depart, the painter abandoned his intention of
+taking some repose, and after hasty breakfast, a post-chaise was
+brought to the door, and the brothers stepping in, were whirled off on
+their road northwards.
+
+The sun was about to set when the travellers came in sight of the
+spires of Stralsund, among which the church of St Nicholas reared its
+double-headed tower. Bernard had enlivened the journey by his wild
+sallies, and merry but extravagant humour. Now, however, that the goal
+was almost reached, he became silent and anxious. The hours appeared
+to go too slowly for him, and his restlessness was extreme.
+
+"Faster! postilion," cried Carl, observing his brother's impatience.
+"Faster! You shall be paid double."
+
+The man flogged his horses till they flew rather than galloped over
+the broad level road. Suddenly, however, a strap broke, and the
+postilion got off his seat to tie it up. Through the stillness of the
+evening, no longer broken by the rattle of the wheels and clatter of
+the horses' feet, a clock was heard striking the hour. Another
+repeated it, and a third, of deeper tone than the two preceding ones,
+took up the chime. Bernard started to his feet, and leaned so far out
+of the carriage that his brother seized hold of him, expecting him to
+lose his balance and fall out.
+
+"It is she!" exclaimed Bernard. "'Tis the bell of St Nicholas. Listen,
+Carl--my Elizabeth calls me. She strikes the bell. I come, dearest, I
+come!"
+
+And with these words he sprang out of the carriage, and set off at
+full speed towards the town, leaving his brother thunderstruck at his
+mad impatience and vehemence.
+
+Running at the top of his speed, Bernard soon reached the city gate,
+and proceeded rapidly through the streets in the direction of St
+Nicholas's church. It seemed to him as though he had been absent for
+years instead of a few days, and he felt quite surprised at finding no
+change in the city since his departure. All was as he had left it; all
+conspired to lull him into security. An old fruitwoman, of whom he had
+bought cherries the very day of his last walk with Elizabeth, was in
+her usual place, and, as he passed, extolled the beauty of her fruit,
+and asked him to buy. A large rose-tree, at the door of a
+silversmith's shop, which Elizabeth had often admired, was still in
+full bloom; through the window of a house in the market-place, he saw
+a young girl, Elizabeth's dearest friend, dressing her hair at a
+looking-glass, and as he passed the churchyard, the old dumb sexton,
+who appeared to be hunting about for a place for a grave, nodded his
+head in mute recognition.
+
+Bernard opened the tower door, and darted up the staircase. He was not
+far from the top when he heard the voices of two men above him. They
+were resting on one of the landing-places of the ladderlike stairs.
+
+"It is a singular case, doctor," said one; "a strange and
+incomprehensible case. It is evidently a disease more of the mind than
+the body."
+
+"Yes," replied the other, by his voice apparently an old man. "If we
+could only get a clue to the cause, any thing to go upon, something
+might be done, but at present it is a perfect riddle."
+
+Bernard heard no more, for the men continued their ascent.
+
+"The old father must be ill," said he to himself; but as he said it a
+feeling of dread and anxiety, a presentiment of evil, came over him,
+and he stood for a few moments unable to proceed. The door at the top
+of the stairs was now opened, and shut with evident care to avoid
+noise. "The old man must be very ill," said Bernard, as if trying to
+persuade himself of it. He reached the door, and his hand shook as he
+laid it upon the latch. At length he lifted it, and entered the room.
+It was empty; but, just then, the door of Elizabeth's chamber opened,
+and old Kranhelm stepped out. On beholding Bernard, he started back as
+though he had seen a ghost. He said a word or two in a low voice to
+somebody in the inner room, and then shutting the door, bolted it,
+and placed his back against it, as if to prevent Bernard from going
+in.
+
+"Begone!" cried he in a tremulous voice; "in the name of God, begone!
+thou evil spirit of my house;" and he stretched out his arms towards
+Bernard as though to prohibit his approach. No longer master of
+himself, the young man sprang towards him, and, grasping his arm,
+thundered in his ear the question--
+
+"Where is my Elizabeth?"
+
+The words rang through the old tower, and the confused murmuring of
+voices in the inner room was heard. Bernard listened, and thought he
+distinguished the voice of Elizabeth repeating, in tones of agony, the
+fatal number.
+
+One of the physicians knocked, and begged to be let out. The old
+tower-keeper opened the door cautiously, and, when the doctor had
+passed through, carefully shut and barred it. But during the moment
+that it had remained open, Bernard heard too plainly what his ears had
+at first been unwilling to believe.
+
+"Is that the man?" demanded the physician hastily. "In God's name, be
+silent. You will kill the patient. She recognized your voice, and fell
+immediately into the most fearful paroxysm. She has got back again to
+the infernal number with which her delirium began, and she shrieks it
+out perpetually. It is a frightful relapse. Begone! young man; yet
+stay--I will go with you. You can, doubtless, give us a key to this
+mystery."
+
+The old physician took Bernard's arm to lead him away; but at that
+very moment there was a shrill scream from the next room, and
+Elizabeth's voice was heard calling upon Bernard by name. The
+unfortunate young man could not restrain himself. Shaking off the
+grasp of the physician, he pushed old Kranhelm aside, tore back the
+bolts, and flung open the door. There lay Elizabeth on her deathbed,
+her arms stretched out towards him, her mild countenance ashy pale and
+frightfully distorted, her soft blue eyes straining from their orbits.
+She made a violent effort to speak, but death was too near at hand;
+the sound died away upon her lips, and her uplifted arms dropped
+powerless upon the bed; her head fell back--a convulsive shudder came
+over her: she was dead. Her unhappy lover fell senseless to the
+ground.
+
+When Bernard awoke out of a long and deathlike swoon, it was night,
+and all around him was still and dark. He was lying on the stone floor
+outside Kranhelm's dwelling. The physicians had removed him thither;
+and, being occupied with the old tower-keeper and his daughter, they
+had thought no more about him. On first recovering sensation, he had
+but an indistinct idea of where he was, or what had happened. By
+degrees his senses returned to a certain extent--he knew that
+something horrible had occurred, but without remembering exactly what
+it was.
+
+He felt about him, and touched a railing. It was the balustrade round
+the open turret where hung the great bell. He was lying under the bell
+itself, and, as he gazed up into its brazen throat, the recollection
+of the frightful dream which had persecuted him the night before his
+flight from Stralsund came vividly to his mind; he appeared to himself
+to be still dreaming, and yet his visions were mixed up with the
+realities of his everyday occupations.
+
+He had just stepped out, he thought, to strike the hour on the bell,
+and rising with some difficulty from the hard couch which had
+stiffened his limbs, he sought about for the hammer. He made no effort
+to shake off the sort of dreaming semi-consciousness which seemed to
+prevent him from feeling the horror and anguish of reality.
+
+"Thirteen strokes," thought he; "thirteen strokes, and at the
+Thirteenth the tower will fall, the city crumble to dust, the world be
+at an end." Such had been his dream, and the moment of its
+accomplishment was come.
+
+He found the hammer, and struck with all his force upon the bell. He
+repeated the blow; twelve times he struck, and each stroke rang with
+deafening violence through his brain; but at the Thirteenth, as he
+raised his arms high above his head, and leaning back against the
+railing, threw his whole strength and energy into the blow, the frail
+balustrade gave way under his weight, and he fell headlong from the
+tower. The last stroke tolled out, sad and hollow as a funereal knell,
+and the sound mingled with the death-cry of the luckless Thirteenth!
+
+
+
+
+REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.[15]
+
+    [15] Reminiscences of Syria. By Colonel E. Napier.
+
+
+Galloping, gossiping, flirting and fighting, feasting and starving,
+but always in high spirits and the best possible humour, Colonel
+Napier might answer an advertisement for "A Pleasant Companion in a
+Post-chaise," without the slightest chance of rejection. But it is
+difficult to imagine so dashing a traveller, boxed up in a civilized
+conveyance, rolling quietly along a macadamized road, with a diversity
+of milestones and an occasional turnpike gate, the only incidents by
+the way--no wild Maronite glimpsing at him over the hedge; no
+black-eyed houri peeping over the balustrades of the caravanserai,
+(called by vulgar men the Bricklayers' Arms)--no Sa�ces to help John
+Hostler to change horses; but dulness, uniformity, and most tiresome
+and unromantic safety. England, we are sorry to confess it, is not the
+land of stirring adventures or hair-breadth 'scapes--a railway coach
+occasionally blows up; a blind leader occasionally bolts into a ditch;
+a wheel comes occasionally into dangerous collision with one of
+Pickford's vans; but these are the utmost that can be hoped for in the
+way of peril, and other excitement there is positively none. We have
+treated life as the mathematician did Paradise Lost--we have struck
+out all its similes--obliterated its flights--expunged its glorious
+visions--we have made it prose. But fortunately for us--for Colonel
+Napier--for the reading public--there is a land where mathematicians
+are unknown, and where poetry continues to flourish in the full vigour
+of cimeters and turbans--the region of the sun--
+
+    "The first of Eastern lands he shines upon."
+
+It was in this very beautiful, but rather overdone portion of earth's
+surface, that the adventures occurred of which we are now to give some
+account; and as probably most of our readers have heard the name of
+Syria pretty often of late, we need not display much geographical
+erudition in pointing out where it lies. It would be pleasant to us if
+we could atone for brevity in this respect, by illuminating the reader
+on the causes that have brought Syria so prominently forward; but on
+this point we confess, with shame and confusion of face, that we know
+no more than Lord Ponsonby or M. Thiers. The truth seems to be, that
+some time, about two or three years ago, five or six people in
+influential stations went mad, and our Secretary for Foreign Affairs
+took the infection. He showed his teeth and raised his "birse," and
+barked in a most audacious manner, till the French kennel answered the
+challenge; an old dog in Egypt cocked his tail at the same time, and
+the world began to be afraid that hydrophobia would be universal. All
+parties were delighted to let the rival yelpers fight it out on so
+distant a field as Syria; and in that country of heat and dryness, of
+poverty, anarchy, cruelty, and superstition, there was a skrimmage
+that kept all Christendom on the tenter-hooks for half-a-year; and
+this we believe to be the policy of the Syrian campaign. Better for
+all parties concerned, that a few thousand turbaned and malignant
+Turks or Egyptians should bite the dust, than that there should be
+another Austerlitz or Waterloo. So the signal was accordingly given,
+and the work began.
+
+Wherever there is any fighting it is not to be doubted that the
+English hurra will be heard--and an apparition had been seen in the
+smoke of battle, which had sorely puzzled the wisest of the
+soothsayers of Egypt to explain. It was of a being apparently human,
+but dressed as if to represent Mars and Neptune at the same time,
+charging along the tops of houses, with the jolly cocked-hat of a
+captain of a British man-of-war on the point of his sword, and a
+variety of exclamations in his mouth, more complimentary to the
+enemy's speed than his courage. The muftis, we have said, were sorely
+puzzled, and at last set it down as an infallible truth that he must
+be none other than Old Harry, whereas there was not a sailor in the
+fleet that did not know that it was none other than Old Charley. And
+this identical Old Charley, in a style of communication almost as
+rapid as his military evolutions, had indited the following epistle to
+the author of the volumes before us:--
+
+    "Headquarters of the Army of Lebanon.--Djouni,
+        Sept. 1840.
+
+    "My dear Edward--I have hoisted my broad pendant on
+    Mount Lebanon, and mean to advance against the Egyptians
+    with a considerable force under my command; you may be
+    of use here; therefore go to Sir John M'Donald, and ask
+    him to get leave for you to join me without delay.
+
+        "Your affectionate father,
+            CHARLES NAPIER."
+
+And the dutiful son, who seems to have no inconsiderable portion of
+the paternal penchant for broken heads and other similar
+divertisements, in three weeks from the receipt of the letter found
+himself on board the Hydra, and rapidly approaching the classic shores
+of Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais; the scenes of scriptural records and deeds
+of chivalry--Palestine--the Holy Land. But the broad pendant in the
+mean time had been pulled down on Mount Lebanon, and once more
+fluttered to the sea breezes on board the Powerful. Sir Charles Smith
+had assumed the command of the land forces, and whether from
+ill-humour at finding half the work done during his absence by the
+amphibious commodore, or from some other cause, his reception of the
+author was, at first, far from cordial. Instead of being useful, as he
+had hoped, he found the sturdy old general blind to the value of his
+accession; and when the Powerful sailed he found himself without
+quarters appointed him, or even an invitation to join the officers'
+mess. But with the usual good-luck of people who bear disappointments
+well, all turned out for the best, as will be seen by the following
+extract:
+
+    "I had, on board the Powerful, a few days before, formed
+    the acquaintance of a young Syrian of the name of
+    Assaade el Khyat, who, brought up at one of our
+    universities, was at heart a true Englishman, spoke
+    fluently our own and several other European and Eastern
+    languages, and whom I found, on the whole, a sensible,
+    well-informed young man, and a most agreeable companion.
+    As I was sitting alone, after a solitary dinner, (in the
+    miserable hotel at Beyrout,) musing in a brown study
+    over a bottle of red Cyprus wine, my new acquaintance
+    was ushered into the apartment; I made no secret to him
+    of my extremely uncomfortable position, when he, with
+    great kindness and liberality, overcoming the usual
+    prejudices of his country, offered me an asylum in his
+    own family, which offer I most gladly accepted, and was
+    accordingly the next morning comfortably installed in my
+    new quarters, whereof I will endeavour to give the
+    reader a slight description.
+
+    "The house of which I had just so unexpectedly become an
+    inmate, was situated in one of the most retired and out
+    of the way parts of the town, (and it was not before
+    considerable time had elapsed, and then with difficulty,
+    that I became acquainted with the labyrinth of narrow
+    lanes, alleys, and dark passages which it was requisite
+    to thread in order to arrive at this desired haven,) the
+    property of a young man of the name of Giorgio Habbit
+    Jummal--brother-in-law of my friend Assaade, to whom one
+    of his sisters was married, and whom, as he spoke
+    Italian with fluency and ease, I at once engaged as my
+    dragoman or interpreter.
+
+    "By a strange coincidence, I, under the roof of Giorgio,
+    for the first time became acquainted with Mr Hunter, the
+    author of the _Expedition to Syria_, who, placed in
+    similar circumstances with myself, was likewise an
+    inmate of the same house, and of whom, as we were
+    subsequently much known together during our residence in
+    this country, I shall after have occasion to mention: at
+    present I will take the liberty of borrowing from his
+    amusing narrative the following account of the inmates
+    of our new domicile. 'We lived in the house of a
+    respectable Syrian family, that of Habbit Jummal, or
+    interpreted, the esteemed camel-driver. Our landlord,
+    Giorgius, the head of this family, was a young man
+    hardly out of his teens; and having some competency, and
+    being moreover _un beau gar�on_, did not follow either
+    his ancestral, or any other avocation. The harem, or
+    woman's portion of the house, was composed of his
+    mother, a fair widow of forty, and her two daughters,
+    both Eastern beauties of their kind, Sarah and Nasarah
+    (meaning Victory or Victoria;) the first, a laughing
+    black eyed houri, with mischief in every dimple in her
+    pretty face; the other, a more portly damsel, of a
+    melancholy but not less pleasing expression. There were
+    besides these, three younger children with equally
+    poetic names, (Nassif, Iskunder, and Furkha,) and
+    included in the _coterie_ was a good-humoured negress,
+    the general handmaid, whose original cognomen of Saade,
+    was lost in the apposite soubriquet of
+    Snowball.'--Although the greater part of the
+    inhabitants of Beyrout are Christians, generally
+    speaking, of the Greek Church, to which persuasion
+    likewise belonged the family of our host Giorgio; still
+    in this land of bigotry and oppression--to such an
+    extent is carried suspicion and jealousy, and so far
+    have Mahommedan prejudices in this respect been adopted,
+    that all the women (those of the peasantry alone
+    excepted) lead nearly as secluded a life as the Osmanli
+    ladies of Constantinople or Smyrna. On venturing abroad,
+    which they seldom do, unless when the knessi or humaum
+    (church or bath) are the limits of their excursions,
+    they are so closely shrouded in the izar, or long white
+    garment, which, coming over the head and hiding the
+    face, falls in numerous folds to the ground, as to be
+    scarcely recognizable by their nearest friends or
+    relations. To allow, therefore, two unknown and
+    friendless strangers to become familiar inmates of an
+    Eastern family, exposing wives, daughters, and sisters,
+    to their unhallowed gaze, was a favour and mark of
+    confidence on the part of Assaade which we duly
+    appreciated, nor ever abused; it was, however, a
+    privilege to which no other stranger in the place was
+    admitted, and affording, as it did, such opportunities
+    of acquiring the Arabic language, I eagerly embraced it
+    without any feeling of regret at the inhospitality to
+    which I was originally indebted for my admission behind
+    the scenes of Oriental life.
+
+    "The bare, gloomy, and massive stone walls of the
+    exterior of our habitation had not prepared us for the
+    comforts we found inside; and as for the first time we
+    followed Giorgio and his brother-in-law up the rude and
+    narrow stone staircase, which appeared to be scarped out
+    of the very thickness of the wall--an open sesame from
+    the former causing a strong iron studded door to fly
+    back on its hinges, disclosed a handsome patis or court
+    paved with black and white marble, along the sides of
+    which were luxuriantly growing, and imparting a cooling
+    freshness to the scene, the perfumed orange-tree,
+    bearing at the same time both fruit and blossoms, and
+    flanked by green myrtles and flowering geraniums; whilst
+    an apartment opening on this garden terrace, and which
+    appeared from the carpets and cushions scattered around
+    the still smoking narghilis, (or water-pipe, in which is
+    smoked the tumbic or Persian tobacco,) and other sundry
+    traces of female industry, to be appropriated as the
+    common sitting-room of the family, was on our entrance
+    precipitately deserted by all its occupants, save one
+    fine-looking matronly lady, whom Giorgio introduced as
+    his mother; and while she was welcoming us with many
+    'F[=a]dd[=a]lls,' and politely repeating, _Anna mugsond
+    shoufuk_, (be seated, I am delighted to see you,) with
+    innumerable other euphonious phrases, as we afterwards
+    found high-flown Eastern compliments, but which at the
+    time were sadly wasted on our Frankish ignorance, he,
+    following the fair fugitives, soon brought back in each
+    hand the blushing deserters, who have already been
+    introduced to the reader as Mesdemoiselles Sarah and
+    Nasarah. Pipes, narghilis, sherbet, and coffee followed
+    in quick succession; the young negress, Saade, acting as
+    Hebe on the occasion; and the ladies, at first timid as
+    gazelles of the desert, soon, like those pretty
+    creatures when reclaimed from the wilderness, became
+    quite domesticated, acquired confidence, and freely
+    joined in the conversation, which was with volubility
+    carried on through the medium of Giorgio and Assaade;
+    and ere an hour had elapsed, we were all on the friendly
+    and easy footing of old acquaintances; when, taking
+    leave for the time, we hastened to make the necessary
+    arrangements for the conveyance of our goods and
+    chattels to the capital billets we had had the good
+    fortune to stumble on."
+
+The colonel made good use of his opportunity, and, by a diligent
+perusal of Miss Sarah's eyes, and an attentive study of Miss Nasarah's
+dimple, managed to acquire a smattering of Arabic in a far shorter
+time than would have been required in the most assiduous turning over
+of dictionaries and grammars. But our school-boy days can't last for
+ever--and, ere a fortnight elapsed, an order arrived from England for
+the hopeful scholar to be placed on the returns of the Syrian army,
+and to draw his field allowance, rations, and forage, as assistant
+adjutant-general of the British force. Dictionaries and eyes, grammars
+and dimples, were now exchanged for less pleasing pursuits. Fifteen
+thousand troops were by this time assembled at Beyrout, and rumour
+kept perpetually blowing the charge against Ibrahim Pasha, who was
+still encamped at Zachli, with an army much superior to that of the
+allies. Booted and spurred--with a long sword, saddle, bridle, and all
+the other paraphernalia so captivating to an ancient fair, as recorded
+in one of the lays of Old England by some forgotten Macaulay of former
+times--the colonel is intent on some doughty deed, and already in
+imagination sees captive Egyptians following his triumphal car. When
+all of a sudden, the sad news gets spread abroad that the old
+commodore has concluded a convention with Mehemet Ali, and that all
+the pomp and circumstance of glorious war is at an end. One only
+chance remained, and that was, that as all the big-wigs protested with
+all their might against the convention; and the fleet, in the midst of
+protestation and repudiations of all sorts and kinds, was forced by a
+severe gale to up anchor and run for Marmorice Bay, Ibrahim Pasha
+might perhaps be tempted to protest also in a still more unpleasant
+manner, and pay a visit to Beyrout in the absence of the navy. The
+very thoughts of it, however the English auxiliaries may have felt on
+the subject, gave an attack of fever to the unfortunate inhabitants,
+who devoutly prayed for a speedy fall of _tubbish_, (or snow,) by
+which his dreaded approach might be impeded. "Had such a movement on
+his part taken place at this critical moment, it is not improbable
+that it might have proved successful; as amid the variety of religious
+and conflicting interests, by which the people of Beyrout were
+influenced, Ibrahim had no doubt many friends in the town; and it is
+certain that he was moreover regularly made acquainted with every
+occurrence which took place, through the medium, as was supposed, of
+French agency and espionage."
+
+Ibrahim, however, had had enough of red coats and blue jackets, and
+left the people of Beyrout to themselves--an example which was
+followed by the author, who, being foiled in his expectations of
+riding down the Egyptians on the noble Arab left to him by the
+commodore, determined to put that fiery animal (the Arab) to its paces
+in scouring the country in all directions. It is not often that an
+assistant adjutant-general sets out on a tour in search of the
+picturesque; but in this instance the search was completely
+successful. Rock, ravine, precipice, and dell--running waters and
+waving woods, come as naturally to his pen as returns of effective
+force and other professional details; and, whatever the writing of
+them may be, we are prepared to contend that the reading of them is
+infinitely pleasanter. But as travellers and poets have of late left
+few mountains or molehills unsung in Palestine, we prefer extracting a
+picturesque account of a venerable abbess, who threw the light of
+Christian goodness over that benighted land about a century ago, and
+must have impressed the heathens in the neighbourhood with an exalted
+notion of the virtues of a nunnery:--
+
+    "H�ndia was a Maronite girl, possessing extraordinary
+    personal charms, who, in 1755, first brought herself
+    into notice by her pretended piety and attention to her
+    religious duties, till at last she was by this simple
+    and credulous people considered almost in the light of a
+    saint or prophetess. When she had thus established a
+    reputation for sanctity, she next thought of becoming
+    the head and chief of an extensive establishment of
+    monks and nuns, to receive whom, with the aid of large
+    contributions raised among her credulous admirers and
+    followers, she erected two spacious stone buildings,
+    which soon became filled with proselytes of both sexes.
+    The patriarch of Lebanon was named the director of this
+    establishment, and for twenty years H�ndia reigned with
+    unbounded sway over the little community--performing
+    miracles, uttering prophecies, and giving other tokens
+    of being in the performance of a divine mission; and
+    though it was remarked that many deaths yearly occurred
+    among the nuns, the circumstance was generally
+    attributed to disease incident to the insalubrity of the
+    situation. At last, chance brought to light the cause of
+    this very great mortality, and disclosed all the secret
+    horrors which had so long remained covered by the veil
+    of mystery in this abode of monastic abominations. A
+    traveller, on his way from Damascus to the coast,
+    happened to arrive one fine summer night at a late hour
+    before the convent gates, which he found closed, and not
+    wishing to disturb its inmates, who had apparently
+    retired to rest, he spread his travelling rug under some
+    neighbouring trees, and laid himself down to sleep. His
+    slumbers were, however, shortly disturbed by a number of
+    persons, who, issuing from the convent, appeared to be
+    clandestinely bearing away what seemed to be a heavy
+    bundle. Prompted by curiosity, he cautiously followed
+    the party, who, after going a short distance, deposited
+    their burden, and commenced digging a deep hole, into
+    which having placed and covered with earth what was
+    evidently a dead body, they immediately took their
+    departure. Astonished, and rather dismayed, at an
+    occurrence of so mysterious a nature, the traveller lost
+    no time in mounting his mule, and on arriving at Beyrout
+    made known the extraordinary occurrence to which he had
+    been witness the night before. This account reached the
+    ears of a merchant who happened to have two daughters
+    undergoing their noviciate at El Kourket, and reports
+    had lately reached him of the illness of one of his
+    children; this, together with the numerous deaths which
+    had lately taken place at the convent, coupled with the
+    traveller's narrative, excited in his mind the most
+    serious apprehensions. He gave information on the
+    subject, and laid a complaint before the Grand Prince at
+    Dahr-el-Kamar, and, accompanied by his informant and a
+    troop of horsemen furnished by the Emir, hastened to the
+    spot of the alleged mysterious burial, when to his
+    horror, on opening the newly made grave, he discovered
+    it to contain the corpse of his youngest daughter!
+    Frantic at this sight, he desired instant admission, in
+    order to ascertain the safety of her sister. On this
+    being refused, the gates were forced open, and the
+    unfortunate girl was found closely confined in a
+    dungeon, on the point of death, but retaining still
+    strength enough to disclose horrors which led to an
+    investigation, implicating the patriarch, the abbess,
+    and several priests. This transaction, which happened in
+    1776, was submitted for the decision of the Papal See;
+    when it appeared that the pretended prophetess had, by
+    means of many ingenious mechanical devices, thus long
+    imposed on public credulity, whilst in the retirement of
+    the cloister the most licentious and profligate
+    occurrences nightly took place; and that when any
+    unfortunate nun gave offence, either by refusing to be
+    sacrificed at the shrine of infamy, or that it became
+    desirable to get rid of her, in order to appropriate for
+    the convent the amount of her property, she was immured
+    in a dungeon, left to perish by a lingering and
+    miserable death, and then privately buried in the night.
+    In consequence of these shocking discoveries, the
+    patriarch was deposed--the priests, his accomplices,
+    were severely punished, and the high priestess of this
+    temple of cruelty and debauchery was immured in
+    confinement, and survived for many years to repent of
+    all the atrocities she had previously committed."
+
+We should like to know the colonel's authority for this circumstantial
+account. It bears at present a startling resemblance to the confession
+of Maria Monk, and the villanies recorded of the nunnery at Montreal;
+and we will hope in the mean time, that the devil, even in the shape
+of a lady abbess, is not quite so black as he is painted. The present
+abbess of El Kourket is already as black as need be, for we are told
+she is an Ethiopian negress.
+
+The war carried on in Syria after the decisive battle of Boharsef,
+seems to have been on the model of those recorded by Major Sturgeon,
+and to have consisted of marching and counter-marching, without any
+definite object, except, perhaps, the somewhat Universal-Peace-Society
+one of getting out of the enemy's way. General Jochmus, we guess from
+his name, was a Scotch schoolmaster, with a Latin termination--there
+being no mistaking the Jock--and in his religious tenets we feel sure
+he was a Quaker. The English officers attached to the staff had
+immense difficulty in bringing the troops (if they deserve to be
+called so) to the scratch; and we trust that, in all future
+commentaries on the Art of War, the method adopted by Commodore
+Napier, of throwing stones at his gallant army to force them forward,
+will not be forgotten. The author before us had no sinecure, and after
+the news of Ibrahim's retreat, galloped hither and thither, like the
+wild huntsman of a German story, to discover by what route the
+vanquished lion was growling his way to his den. With a hundred
+irregular horse, furnished him by Osman Aga, he set out on a foray
+beyond Jordan; and we do not wonder his two friends, Captain Lane, a
+Prussian edition of Don Quixote, and Mr Hunter, who has written an
+excellent account of his expedition to Syria, besides his old Beyrout
+friend Giorgio, volunteered to accompany him.
+
+    "My motley troop, apparently composed of every tribe
+    from the Caspian to the Red Sea, displayed no less
+    variety in arms and accoutrements than in their personal
+    appearance, varying from the sturdy-looking Kourd,
+    mounted on his strong powerful steed, to the swarthy,
+    spare, and sinewy Arab, with his long reed-like spear,
+    his head encircled with the K�fiah, or thick rope of
+    twisted camels' hair; whilst the flowing 'abbage' waved
+    gracefully down the shining flanks of the high-mettled
+    steed of the desert. In short, such an assemblage of
+    cut-throat looking ruffians was probably never before
+    seen; and whilst the Prussian military eye of old Lane
+    glanced down our wide-spread and irregular line, I could
+    see a curl of contempt on his grey mustaches, though his
+    weather-beaten countenance maintained all the gravity of
+    Frederick the Great. The troop appeared to be divided
+    into two distinct parties--one Arab, the other Turkish;
+    and, on directing the two chiefs to call the 'roll' of
+    their respective forces, I found that many were absent
+    without leave, and the party which should have amounted
+    to a hundred cavaliers only mustered between seventy and
+    eighty. However, on the assurance that the rest would
+    speedily follow--as there was no time to spare, after
+    making them a short harangue, in which I promised
+    abundance of _nehub_ (plunder) whenever we came across
+    the enemy, to which they responded by a wild yell of
+    approbation--I gave the signal to move off, which was
+    instantly obeyed, amidst joyous shouts, the brandishing
+    of spears, and promiscuous discharge of fire-arms.
+    Having thus got them under weigh, the next difficulty I
+    experienced was to keep them together. I tried to form a
+    rearguard to bring up the stragglers, but the guard
+    would not remain behind, nor the stragglers keep up with
+    the main body; and I soon, finding that something more
+    persuasive than mere words was requisite to maintain
+    them in order, took the first opportunity of getting a
+    stout cudgel, with which I soundly belaboured all those
+    whom I found guilty of thus disobeying my commands. The
+    Eastern does not understand the _suaviter in
+    modo_;--behave to him like a human being, he fancies you
+    fear him, and he sets you at defiance--kick him and cuff
+    him, treat him like a dog, and he crouches at your feet,
+    the humble slave of your slightest wishes."
+
+Discipline of so perfect a nature must have inspired the gallant
+colonel with the strongest hopes of success in case of an onslaught on
+the forces of Ibrahim Pasha, and in all probability his efforts, with
+those of Captain Lane, Hunter, and Giorgio, might have produced
+something like a skrimmage when they came near the tents of the
+Egyptians; but it would seem that the cudgels wielded by the Musree
+commanders were either not so strong or not so well applied, for on
+the first appearance of the hostile squadron, the heroes of Nezib
+evaporated as if by magic, but not before a similar feat of
+legerdemain had been performed by the rabble rout of Turks and Arabs;
+and on looking round, to inspire his followers with a speech after the
+manner of Thucydides, the colonel discovered the last of his escort
+disappearing at full speed on the other side of the plain, and the
+Europeans were left alone in their glory. As they had nobody to
+attack, (the enemy continuing still in a state of evaporation,) every
+thing ended well; and, if the trumpeter had not been among the
+fugitives, there might have been a triumphal blow performed although
+no blow had been struck. We do not believe in the courage of the
+Arabs. No amount of kicking and cuffing could cow a nation's spirit
+that had once been brave; and we therefore consider it the greatest
+marvel in history how the Arabians managed at one time to conquer half
+the world. They must have been very different fellows from the
+chicken-hearted children of the desert recorded in these volumes. One
+thing only is certain, that they have left their anti-fighting
+propensities to their mongrel descendants in Spain; for a series of
+_actions_--that is, jinking and skulking, and running up and down,
+hiding themselves as if they were the personages of a writ--more
+distinctly Arabian than the late campaign which ended in the overthrow
+of Espartero, could not have been performed under the shadows of Mount
+Ebal. All the nobility that we are so fond of picturing to ourselves
+in the deeds and thoughts of Saladin, has gone over to the horse. The
+wild steed retains its fire, though the miserable horseman would do
+for a Madrileno _aide-de-camp_. And yet this is the way they are
+treated:--
+
+    "It was a matter of surprise to us, how our horses stood
+    without injury all the exposure, severe work, and often
+    short commons, to which they were constantly subjected.
+    When we came to a place where barley was to be procured,
+    the grooms carried away as much as they could; when none
+    was to be had, we gave our nags peas and _tibbin_,
+    (chopped straw, the only forage used in the East,) or
+    any thing we could lay hands on; they had little or no
+    grooming, and frequently the saddles were not even
+    removed from their backs. But I believe that nothing
+    save the high mettle of the desert blood would carry an
+    animal through all this toil and privation; and as to
+    the much-extolled kindness of the Arab towards his
+    horse, although it may be the case in the far deserts of
+    the Hedged and Hedjar, I can avow that I never saw these
+    noble animals treated with more inhuman neglect than I
+    witnessed in the whole of my wanderings through Syria."
+
+The dreariness of a ride through the desolate plains and rugged rocks
+of Palestine, was diversified with startling adventures; and the fact
+of several of the powers of Europe and many of the tribes of Asia
+having chosen that sterile region for their battle-place, gave rise to
+some very odd coincidences. People from all the ends of the earth, who
+were lounging away their existence some three or four months before,
+without any anticipation of treading in the footsteps of the
+crusaders--some smoking strong tobacco in the coffeehouses of Berlin,
+or leaning gracefully (like the Chinese Admiral Kwang) against the
+pillars of the Junior United Service Club in London--or driving a
+heavy curricle in the Prado at Vienna--or reading powerfully for
+honours at the Great Go at Oxford--or climbing Albanian hills--or
+reclining in the silken recesses of a harem at Constantinople--all
+were thrown together in such unexpected groups, and found themselves
+so curiously banded together, that the tame realities of an ordinary
+campaign were thrown completely into the shade. The following
+introduces us to another member of the foray, whose character seems to
+have been such a combination of the gallant soldier and light-hearted
+troubadour, that we read of his after fate, in dying of the plague at
+Damascus, with great regret:--
+
+    "My troop had not yet cleared a difficult pass close to
+    the khan, running between an abrupt face of the hill and
+    the river, when the advanced guard came back at full
+    speed with the announcement that a body of the enemy's
+    infantry was near at hand. Closely jammed in a narrow
+    defile, between inaccessible cliffs and the precipitous
+    banks of the Jordan, with nothing but cavalry at my
+    disposal, I was placed in rather a disagreeable
+    position. There remained, however, no alternative but to
+    put spurs to our horses, push forward through the pass,
+    deploy on the level ground beyond it, and then trust to
+    the chances of war. Having explained these intentions to
+    the Sheikh and Aga, we lost no time in carrying them
+    into effect; and on taking extended order after clearing
+    the pass, saw immediately in front of us what we took to
+    be an advanced guard of the enemy, consisting of some
+    twenty or thirty soldiers, whom their white
+    foustanellis" (the foustanellis is that part of the
+    Albanian costume corresponding with the highland kilt)
+    "and tall active forms immediately marked as Arnouts, or
+    Albanians. Seeing, probably, that we had now the
+    advantage of the ground, they hastily retired,
+    recrossing a ravine which intersected the path, and
+    extending in capital light infantry style, were soon
+    sheltered behind the stones and rocks on the opposite
+    bank, over the brow of which nought was to be seen but
+    the protruding muzzles and long shining barrels of their
+    firelocks. All this was the work of a few seconds, and
+    passed in a much briefer space of time than it has taken
+    to relate. I had now the greatest difficulty in keeping
+    Mahommed Aga and his men from charging up to enemies
+    who, from their present position, could have picked them
+    easily off with perfect safety to themselves; and riding
+    rapidly forward with Captain Lane, to see if we could by
+    some means turn their flank, a few horsemen at this
+    moment suddenly appeared over the swell on the opposite
+    side of the ravine, the foremost of whom, whilst making
+    many friendly signals, galloped across the intervening
+    space, hailing us a friend, and at the same time waving
+    his hand, to prevent his own people from opening their
+    fire. Lane and myself were not backward in returning
+    this greeting; and on approaching we beheld a handsome
+    young man, dressed in the showy Austrian uniform, with a
+    black Tartar sheepskin cap on his head, who, coming up,
+    accosted us in French, and with all the frankness of a
+    soldier, introduced himself as Count Szechinge, a
+    captain of Austrian dragoons, then on his way from
+    Tiberias with a party composed of one or two Turkish
+    lancers, about twenty-five Albanian deserters, his
+    German servant, dragoman, and suite, to raise troops in
+    the Adjelloun hills--a mission very similar to the one I
+    was myself employed on at Naplouse."
+
+An acquaintance begun under such circumstances grows into friendship
+with amazing rapidity; and many are the joyous hours the foragers
+spend together, in spite of intolerable weather and storms of sleet
+and snow, which bear a far greater resemblance to the climate of
+Lochaber than to that of Syria, "land of roses." Reinforced with the
+count and his companions, Colonel Napier pushes on--gets into the
+vicinity of Ibrahim--his rabble rout turn tail, in case of being
+swallowed alive by the ferocious pasha, whose reputation for cruelty
+and all manner of iniquities seems well deserved, and having
+ascertained the movements of that formidable ruffian, he returned to
+Naplouse to take the command of 1500 half-tamed, undisciplined
+savages, with whom to oppose his retreat. Luckily, the ratification of
+the convention come in the nick of time; for it is very evident that
+the best cudgels that were ever cut in "the classic woods of
+Hawthornden," could not have awakened a spark of military ardour in
+the wretched riff-raff assemblage appointed for this service--and of
+all the abortive efforts at generalship we have ever read of, the
+attempt of the Turkish commanders was infinitely the worse--no
+foresight in providing for difficulties--no valour in fighting their
+way out of them; but, to compensate for these trifling deficiencies, a
+plentiful supply of pride and cruelty, with a due admixture of
+dishonesty. We heartily join, with Colonel Napier, in wondering where
+the deuce the "integrity of the Ottoman empire" is to be found, as,
+beyond all doubt, not a particle of it exists in any of its subjects.
+The pashas of Egypt, bad as they undoubtedly are, have redeeming
+points about them, which the Hassans, and Izzets, and Reschids of the
+Turks have no conception of; and, lively and sparkling as the gallant
+colonel's narrative is, we confess it leaves a sadder impression on
+our minds of the hopelessness and the degeneracy of the Moslems, than
+any book we have met with. Turk and Egyptian should equally be whipped
+back into the desert, and the fairest portions of the world be won
+over to civilization, wealth, and happiness. The present volumes close
+at the end of January 1841, and perhaps they are among the best
+results of the campaign. We shall be glad to see the proceedings at
+Alexandria sketched off in the same pleasant style.
+
+
+
+
+THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.--_Herod._ iii. 124-126.
+
+
+    "Oh! go not forth, my father dear--oh! I go not forth to-day,
+    And trust not thou that Satrap dark, for he fawns but to betray;
+    His courteous smiles are treacherous wiles, his foul designs to hide;
+    Then go not forth, my father dear--in thy own fair towers abide."
+
+    "Now, say not so, dear daughter mine--I pray thee, say not so!
+    Where glory calls, a monarch's feet should never fear to go;
+    And safe to-day will be my way through proud Magnesia's halls,
+    As if I stood 'mid my bowmen good beneath my Samian walls.
+
+    "The Satrap is my friend, sweet child--my trusty friend is he--
+    The ruddy gold his coffers hold he shares it all with me;
+    No more amid these clustering isles alone shall be my sway,
+    But Hellas wide, from side to side, thy empire shall obey!
+
+    "And of all the maids of Hellas, though they be rich and fair,
+    With the daughter of Polycrates, oh! who shall then compare?
+    Then dry thy tears--no idle fears should damp our joy to-day--
+    And let me see thee smile once more before I haste away!"
+
+    "Oh! false would be the smile, my sire, that I should wear this morn,
+    For of all my country's daughters I shall soon be most forlorn;
+    I know, I know,--ah, thought of woe!--I ne'er shall see again
+    My father's ship come sailing home across the Icarian main.
+
+    "Each gifted seer, with words of fear, forbids thee to depart,
+    And their warning strains an echo find in every faithful heart;
+    A maiden weak, e'en I must speak--ye gods, assist me now!
+    The characters of doom and death are graven on thy brow!
+
+    "Last night, my sire, a vision dire thy daughter's eyes did see,
+    Suspended in mid air there hung a form resembling thee;
+    Nay, frown not thus, my father dear; my tale will soon be done--
+    Methought that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the sun!"
+
+    "My child, my child, thy fancies wild I may not stay to hear.
+    A friend goes forth to meet a friend--then wherefore should'st
+        thou fear?
+    Though moonstruck seers with idle fears beguile a maiden weak,
+    They cannot stay thy father's hand, or blanch thy father's cheek.
+
+    "Let cowards keep within their holds, and on peril fear to run!
+    Such shame," quoth he, "is not for me, fair Fortune's favourite son!"
+    Yet still the maiden did repeat her melancholy strain--
+    "I ne'er shall see my father's fleet come sailing home again!"
+
+    The monarch call'd his seamen good, they muster'd on the shore,
+    Waved in the gale the snow-white sail, and dash'd the sparkling oar;
+    But by the flood that maiden stood--loud rose her piteous cry--
+    "Oh! go not forth, my dear, dear sire--oh, go not forth to die!"
+
+    A frown was on that monarch's brow, and he said as he turn'd away,
+    "Full soon shall Samos' lord return to Samos' lovely bay;
+    But thou shalt aye a maiden lone within my courts abide--
+    No chief of fame shall ever claim my daughter for his bride!
+
+    "A long, long maidenhood to thee thy prophet tongue hath given--"
+    "Oh would, my sire," that maid replied, "such were the will of Heaven!
+    Though I a loveless maiden lone must evermore remain,
+    Still let me hear that voice so dear in my native isle again!"
+
+    'Twas all in vain that warning strain--the king has crost the tide--
+    But never more off Samos shore his bark was seen to ride!
+    The Satrap false his life has ta'en, that monarch bold and free,
+    And his limbs are black'ning in the blast, nail'd to the gallows-tree!
+
+    That night the rain came down apace, and wash'd each gory stain,
+    But the sun's bright ray, the next noonday, glared fiercely on the
+        slain;
+    And the oozing gore began once more from his wounded sides to run;
+    Good-sooth, that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the Sun!
+
+
+
+
+MODERN PAINTERS.[16]
+
+    [16] Modern Painters--their Superiority in the Art of
+    Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters, &c. &c.
+    By a Graduate of Oxford.
+
+
+We read this title with some pain, not doubting but that our modern
+landscape painters were severely handled in an ironical satire; and we
+determined to defend them. "Their superiority to _all_ the ancient
+masters"--that was too hard a hit to come from any but an enemy! We
+must measure our man--a graduate of Oxford! The "scholar armed,"
+without doubt. He comes, too, vauntingly up to us, with his contempt
+for us and all critics that ever were, or will be; we are all little
+Davids in the eye of this Goliath. Nevertheless, we will put a pebble
+in our sling. We saw this contempt of us, in dipping at hap-hazard
+into the volume. But what was our astonishment to find, upon looking
+further, that we had altogether mistaken the intent of the author, and
+that we should probably have not one Goliath, but many, to encounter;
+while our own particular friends, to whom we might look for help,
+were, alas! all dead men. We found that there were not "giants" in
+those days, but in these days--that the author, in his most
+superlative praise, is not ironical at all, but a most serious
+panegyrist, who never laughs, but does sometimes make his readers
+laugh, when they see his very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the
+"old masters"--not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a
+laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there
+is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that
+he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This
+contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," in
+the next page he enlarges the scope of his enmity; "speaking generally
+of the old masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator
+Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers (in his
+landscapes,) P. Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van Somethings and
+Back Somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have
+libelled the sea." Self-convicted of malice, he has not the slightest
+suspicion of his ignorance; whereas he _knows_ nothing of these
+masters whom he maligns. Still is he ready to be their general
+accuser--has not the slightest respect for the accumulated opinions of
+the best judges for these two or three hundred years--he puts them by
+with the wave of his hand, very like the unfortunate gentleman in an
+establishment of "unsound opinions," who gravely said--"The world and
+I differed in opinion--I was right, the world wrong; but they were too
+many for me, and put me here." We daresay that, in such establishments
+may be found many similar opinions to those our author promulgates,
+though, as yet, none of our respectable publishers have been convicted
+of a congenial folly. We said, that he suspects not his ignorance of
+the masters he maligns. Let it not hence be inferred that it is the
+work of an ignorant man. He is only ignorant with a prejudice. We will
+not say that it is not the work of a man who thinks, who has been
+habituated to a sort of scholastic reasoning, which he brings to bear,
+with no little parade and display, upon technicalities and
+distinctions. He can tutor _secundum artem_, lacking only, in the
+first point, that he has not tutored himself. With all his
+arrangements and distinctions laid down, as the very grammar of art,
+he confuses himself with his "truths," forgetting that, in matters of
+art, truths of fact must be referable to truths of mind. It is not
+what things in all respects really are, but what they appear, and how
+they are convertible by the mind into what they are not in many ways,
+respects, and degrees, that we have to consider, before we can venture
+to draw rules from any truths whatever. For art is something besides
+nature; and taste and feeling are first--precede practical art; and
+though greatly enhanced by that practical cultivation, might exist
+without it--nay, often do; and true taste always walks a step in
+advance of what has been done, and ever desires to do, and from
+itself, more than it sees. We discover, therefore, a fallacy in the
+very proposal of his undertaking, when he says that he is prepared "to
+advance nothing which does not, at least in his own conviction, _rest
+on surer ground than mere feeling or taste_." Notwithstanding,
+however, that our graduate of Oxford puts his "demonstrations" upon an
+equality with "the demonstrations of Euclid," and "thinks it proper
+for the public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has
+been devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art,"
+and that he is "a graduate of Oxford;" we do not look upon him as a
+bit the better judge for all that, seeing that many have practised it
+too fondly and too ignorantly all their lives, and that Claude, and
+Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin must, according to him, have been in this
+predicament, and more especially do we decline from bowing down at his
+dictation, when we find him advocating _any_ "_surer ground than
+feeling or taste_." Now, considering that thus, _in initio_, he sets
+aside feeling and taste, the reader will not be astonished to find a
+very substantial reason given for his contempt of the afore-mentioned
+old masters; it is, he says, "because I look with the most devoted
+veneration upon Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, that I do not
+distrust the principles which induce me to look with contempt," &c. We
+do not exactly see how these great men, who were not landscape
+painters, can very well be compared with those who were, but from some
+general principles of art, in which the world have not as yet found
+any very extraordinary difference. But we do humbly suggest, that
+Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, are in their practice, and
+principles, if you please, quite as unlike Messrs David Cox, Copley
+Fielding, J. D. Harding, Clarkson Stanfield, and Turner--the very men
+whom our author brings forward as the excellent of the earth, in
+opposition _to all_ old masters whatever, excepting only Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, to whom nevertheless, by a perverse
+pertinacity of their respective geniuses, they bear no resemblance
+whatever--as they are to Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin. We do
+not by any means intend to speak disrespectfully of these our English
+artists, but we must either mistrust those principles which cause them
+to stand in opposition to the great Italians, or to conceive that our
+author has really discovered no such differing principles, and which
+possibly may not exist at all. Nor will we think so meanly of the
+taste, the good feeling, and the good sense of these men, as to
+believe that they think themselves at all flattered by any admiration
+founded on such an irrational contempt. They well know that Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, have been admired, together with
+Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin, and they do not themselves
+desire to be put upon a separate list. The author concludes his
+introduction with a very bad reason for his partiality to modern
+masters, and it is put in most ambitious language, very readily
+learned in the "Fudge School,"--a style of language with which our
+author is very apt to indulge himself; but the argument it so
+ostentatiously clothes, and which we hesitate not to call a bad one,
+is nothing more than this, (if we understand it,)--that the dead are
+dead, and cannot hear our praise; that the living are living, and
+therefore our love is not lost; in short, as a _non-sequitur_, "that
+if honour be for the dead, gratitude can only be for the living." This
+might have been simply said; but we are taken to the grave--with "He
+who has once stood beside the grave," &c. &c.; we have "wild
+love--keen sorrow--pleasure to pulseless hearts--debt to the heart--to
+be discharged to the dust--the garland--the tombstone--the crowned
+brow--the ashes and the spirit--heaven-toned voices and heaven-lighted
+lamps--the learning--sweetness by silence--and light by decay;" all
+which, we conceive, might have been very excusable in a young curate's
+sermon during his first year of probation, and might have won for him
+more nosegays and favours than golden opinions, but which we here feel
+inclined to put our pen across, as so we remember many similarly
+ambitious passages to have been served, before we were graduate of
+Oxford, with the insignificant signification from the pen of our
+informator of _nihil ad rem_. As the author threatens the public with
+another, or more volumes, we venture to throw out a recommendation,
+that at least one volume may serve the purpose and do the real work of
+two, if he will check this propensity to unnecessary redundancy. His
+numerous passages of this kind are for the most part extremely
+unintelligible; and when we have unraveled the several coatings, we
+too often find the ribs of the mummy are not human. We think it right
+to object, in this place, to an affectation in phraseology offensive
+to those who think seriously of breaking the third commandment--he
+scarcely speaks of mountains without taking the sacred name in vain;
+there is likewise a constant repetition of expressions of very
+doubtful meaning in the first use, for the most part quite devoid of
+meaning in their application. One of these is "palpitating." Light is
+"palpitating," darkness is "palpitating"--every conceivable thing is
+"palpitating." We must, however, in justice say, that by far the best
+part of the book, the laying down rules and the elucidating
+principles, is clearly and expressively written. In this part of the
+work there is greater expansion than the student will generally find
+in books on art. Not that we are aware of the advancement of any thing
+new; but the admitted maxims of art are, as it were, grammatically
+analysed, and in a manner to assist the beginner in thinking upon art.
+To those who have already _thought_, this very studied analysis and
+arrangement will be tedious enough.
+
+In the "Definition of Greatness in Art," we find--"If I say that the
+greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator
+the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definition which
+will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is
+capable of conveying." Now, there are great ideas which are so
+conflicting as to annul the force of each other. This is not enough;
+there must be a congruity of great ideas--nay, in some instances, we
+can conceive one idea to be so great, as in a work of art not to admit
+of the juxtaposition of others. This is the principle upon which the
+sonnet is built, and the sonnet illustrates the picture not unaptly.
+"Ideas of Power" are great ideas--not always are ideas of beauty
+great; yet is there a tempering the one with the other, which it is
+the special province of art to attain, and that for its highest and
+most moral purposes. In his "Ideas of Power," he distinguishes the
+term "excellent" from the terms "beautiful," "useful," "good," &c.;
+thus--"And we shall always, in future, use the word excellent, as
+signifying that the thing to which it is applied required a great
+power for its production." Is not this doubtful? Does it not limit the
+perception of excellence to artists who can alone from their practice,
+and, as it were, measurement of powers with their difficulties, learn
+and feel its existence in the sense to which it is limited. The
+inference would be, that none but artists can be critics, as none but
+artists can perceive excellence, and we think in more than one place
+some such assertion is made. This is startling--"Power is never
+wasted; whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in
+proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of
+perceiving this exertion, and approaching this dignity, is the faculty
+of perceiving excellence." "It is this faculty in which men, even of
+the most cultivated taste, must always be wanting, unless they have
+added practice to reflection; because none can estimate the power
+manifested in victory, unless they have personally measured the
+strength to be overcome." For the word strength use difficulty, and we
+should say that, to the unpractised, the difficulties must always
+appear greatest. He gives, as illustration, "Titian's flesh tint;" it
+may be possible that, by some felicitous invention, some new
+technicality of his art, Titian might have produced this excellence,
+and to him there would have been no such great measurement of the
+difficulty or strength to be overcome; while the admirer of the work,
+ignorant of the happy means, fancies the exertion of powers which were
+not exerted. In his chapter on "Ideas of Imitation," he imagines that
+Fuseli and Coleridge falsely apply the term imitation, making "a
+distinction between imitation and copying, representing the first as
+the legitimate function of art--the latter as its corruption." Yet we
+think he comes pretty much to the same conclusion. In like manner, he
+seems to disagree with Burke in a passage which he quotes, but in
+reality he agrees with him; for surely the "power of the imitation" is
+but a power of the "jugglery," to be sensible of which, if we
+understand him, is necessary to our sense of imitation. "When the
+object," says Burke, "represented in poetry or painting is such as we
+could have no desire of seeing in the reality, then we may be sure
+that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the power of
+_imitation_." "We may," says our author, "be sure of the contrary; for
+if the object be undesirable in itself, the closer the imitation the
+less will be the pleasure." Certainly not; for Burke of course
+implied, and included in his sense of imitation, that it should be
+consistent with a knowledge in the spectator, that a certain trick of
+art was put upon him. And our author says the same--"Whenever the work
+is seen to resemble something which we know it is not, we receive what
+I call an idea of imitation." Again--"Now, two things are requisite to
+our complete and most pleasurable perception of this: first, that the
+resemblance be so perfect as to amount to deception; secondly, that
+there be some means of proving at the same moment that it _is_ a
+deception." He justly considers "the pleasures resulting from
+imitation the most contemptible that can be received from art." He
+thus happily illustrates his meaning--"We may consider tears as a
+result of agony or of art, whichever we please, but not of both at the
+same moment. If we are surprised by them as an attainment of the one,
+it is impossible we can be moved by them as a sign of the other." This
+will explain why we are pleased with the exact imitation of the
+dewdrop on the peach, and why we are disgusted with the Magdalen's
+tears by Vanderwerf; and we further draw this inevitable conclusion,
+of very important consequence to artists, who have very erroneous
+notions upon the subject, that this sort of imitation, which, by the
+deception of its name, should be most like, is actually less like
+nature, because it takes from nature its impression by substituting a
+sense of the jugglery. This chapter on ideas of imitation is good and
+useful. We think, in the after part of his work, wherein is much
+criticism on pictures by the old masters and by moderns, our author
+must have lost the remembrance of what he has so well said on his
+ideas of imitation; and in the following chapter on "Ideas of Truth."
+"The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement,
+either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature." The reader will
+readily see how "ideas of truth" differ from "ideas of imitation." The
+latter relating only to material objects, the former taking in the
+conceptions of the mind--may be conveyed by signs or symbols,
+"themselves no image nor likeness of any thing." "An idea of truth
+exists in the statement of _one_ attribute of any thing; but an idea
+of imitation only in the resemblance of as many attributes as we are
+usually cognizant of in its real presence." Hence it follows that
+ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation; for, as we
+before said, ideas of imitation remove the impression by an
+ever-present sense of the deception or falsehood. This is put very
+conclusively--"so that the moment ideas of truth are grouped together,
+so as to give rise to an idea of imitation, they change their very
+nature--lose their essence as ideas of truth--and are corrupted and
+degraded, so as to share in the treachery of what they have produced.
+Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the foundation, and ideas of
+imitation the distinction, of all art. We shall be better able to
+appreciate their relative dignity after the investigation which we
+propose of functions of the former; but we may as well now express the
+conclusion to which we shall then be led--that no picture can be good
+which deceives by its imitation; for the very reason that nothing can
+be beautiful which is not true." This is perhaps rather too
+indiscriminate. It has been shown that ideas of imitation do give
+pleasure; by them, too, objects of beauty may be represented. We
+should not say that a picture by Gerard Dow or Van Eyck; even with the
+down on the peach and the dew on the leaf, were not good pictures.
+They are good if they please. It is true, they ought to do more, and
+even that in a higher degree; they cannot be works of greatness--and
+greatness was probably meant in the word good. In his chapter on
+"Ideas of Beauty," he considers that we derive, naturally and
+instinctively, pleasure from the contemplation of certain material
+objects; for which no other reason can be given than that it is our
+instinct--the will of our Maker--we enjoy them "instinctively and
+necessarily, as we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose."
+But we have instinctively aversion as well as desire; though he admits
+this, he seems to lose sight of it in the following--"And it would
+appear that we are intended by the Deity to be constantly under their
+influence, (ideas of beauty;) because there is not one single object
+in nature which is not capable of conveying them," &c. We are not
+satisfied; if the instinctive desire be the index to what is
+beautiful, so must the instinctive aversion be the index to its
+opposite. We have an instinctive dislike to many reptiles, to many
+beasts--as apes. These _may_ have in them some beauty; we only object
+to the author's want of clearness. If there be no ugliness there is no
+beauty, for every thing has its opposite; so that we think he has not
+yet discovered and clearly put before us what beauty consists in. He
+shows how it happens that we do admire it instinctively; but that does
+not tell us what it is, and possibly, after all that has been said
+about it, it yet remains to be told. Nor are we satisfied with his
+definition of taste--"Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the
+greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are
+attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection." This
+will not do; for taste will take material sources, unattractive in
+themselves, and by combination, or for their contrast, receive
+pleasure from them. All literature and all art show this. That taste,
+like life itself, is instinctive in its origin and first motion, we
+doubt not; but what it is by and in its cultivation, and in its
+application to art, is a thing not to be altogether so cursorily
+discussed and dismissed. The distinction is laid down between taste
+and judgment--judgment being the action of the intellect; taste "the
+instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another
+without any obvious reason," except that it is proper to human nature
+in its perfection so to do. But leaving this discussion of this
+original taste, taste in art is surely, as it is a thing cultivated,
+that for which a reason can be given, and in some measure, therefore,
+the result of judgment. For by the cultivation of taste we are
+actually led to love, admire, and desire many things of which we have
+no instinctive love at all; so that the taste for them arises from the
+intellect and the moral sense--our judgment. He proceeds to "Ideas of
+Relation," by which he means "to express all those sources of
+pleasure, which involve and require at the instant of their
+perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers." As this is to
+be more easily comprehended by an illustration, we have one in an
+incident of one of Turner's pictures, and, considering the object, it
+is surprising the author did not find one more important; but he
+herein shows that, in his eyes, every stroke of the brush by Mr Turner
+is important--indeed, is a considerable addition to our national
+wealth. In the picture of the "Building of Carthage," the foreground
+is occupied by a group of children sailing toy-boats, which he thinks
+to be an "exquisite choice of incident expressive of the ruling
+passion." He, with a whimsical extravagance in praise of Turner,
+which, commencing here, runs throughout all the rest of the volume,
+says--"Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is
+epic poetry of the highest order." Epic poetry of the highest order!
+Ungrateful will be our future epic poets if they do not learn from
+this--if such is done by boys sailing toy-boats, surely boys flying a
+kite will illustrate far better the great astronomical knowledge of
+our days. But he is rather unfortunate in this bit of criticism; for
+he compares this incident with one of Claude's, which we, however,
+think a far better and more poetical incident. "Claude, in subjects of
+_the same kind_," (not, by the by, a very fair statement,) "commonly
+introduces people carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and
+dwells, with infantine delight, on the lustre of the leather and the
+ornaments of the iron. The intellect can have no occupation here, we
+must look to the imitation or to nothing." As to the "_infantine
+delight_," we presume it is rather with the boys and their toy-boats;
+but let us look a little into these trunks--no, we may not--there is
+something more in them than our graduate imagines--the very iron
+locks and precious leather mean to tell you there is something still
+more precious within, worth all the cost of freightage; and you see, a
+little off, the great argosie that has brought the riches; and we
+humbly think that the ruling passion of a people whose "princes were
+merchants, and whose merchants princes," as happily expressed by the
+said "red trunks" as the rise of Carthage by the boys and boats; and
+in the fervour of this bit of "exquisite" epic choice, probably Claude
+did look with delight on the locks and the leather; and, whenever we
+look upon that picture again, we shall be ready to join in the
+delight, and say, in spite of our graduate's "contempt," there is
+nothing like leather. If the boys and boats express the beginning, the
+red trunks express the thing done--merchandise "brought home to every
+man's door;" so that the one serves for an "idea of relation," quite
+as well as the other. And here ends section the first.
+
+The study of ideas of imitation are thrown out of the consideration of
+ideas of power, as unworthy the pursuit of an artist, whose purpose is
+not to deceive, and because they are only the result of a particular
+association of ideas of truth. "There are two modes in which we receive
+the conception of power; one, the most just, when by a perfect
+knowledge of the difficulty to be overcome, and the means employed, we
+form a right estimate of the faculties exerted; the other, when without
+possessing such intimate and accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a
+sensation of power in visible action. If these two modes of receiving
+the impression agree in the result, and if the sensation be equal to
+the estimate, we receive the utmost possible idea of power. But this is
+the case perhaps with the works of only one man out of the whole circle
+of the fathers of art, of him to whom we have just referred--Michael
+Angelo. In others the estimate and the sensation are constantly
+unequal, and often contradictory." There is a distinction between the
+sensation of power and the intellectual perception of it. A slight
+sketch will give the sensation; the greater power is in the completion,
+not so manifest, but of which there is a more intellectual cognizance.
+He instances the drawings of Frederick Tayler for sensations of power,
+considering the apparent means; and those of John Lewis for more
+complete ideas of power, in reference to the greater difficulties
+overcome, and the more complicated means employed. We think him
+unfortunate in his selection, as the subjects of these artists are not
+such as, of themselves, justly to receive ideas of power, therefore not
+the best to illustrate them. He proceeds to "ideas of power, as they
+are dependent on execution." There are six legitimate sources of
+pleasure in execution--truth, simplicity, mystery, inadequacy,
+decision, velocity. "Decision" we should think involved in "truth;" as
+so involved, not necessarily different from velocity. Mystery and
+inadequacy require explanation. "Nature is always mysterious and secret
+in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most
+inexplicable." Execution, therefore, should be "incomprehensible."
+"Inadequacy" can hardly, we think, be said to be a quality of
+execution, as it has only reference to means employed. Insufficient
+means, according to him, give ideas of power. We otherwise
+conclude--namely, that if the inadequacy of the means is shown, we
+receive ideas of weakness. "Ars est celare artem"--so is it to conceal
+the means. Strangeness in execution, not a legitimate source of
+pleasure, is illustrated by the execution of a bull's head by Rubens,
+and of the same by Berghem. Of the six qualities of execution, the
+three first are the greatest, the three last the most attractive. He
+considers Berghem and Salvator to have carried their fondness for these
+lowest qualities to a vice. We can scarcely agree with him, as their
+execution seems most appropriate to the character of their subjects--to
+arise, in fact, out of their "ideas of truth." There is appended a good
+note on the execution of the "drawing-master," that, under the title of
+boldness, will admit of no touch less than the tenth of an inch broad,
+and on the tricks of engravers' handling.
+
+Our graduate dismisses the "sublime" in about two pages; in fact, he
+considers sublimity not to be a specific term, nor "descriptive of the
+effect of a particular class of ideas;" but as he immediately asserts
+that it is "greatness of any kind," and "the effect of greatness upon
+the feelings," we should have expected to have heard a little more
+about what constitutes this "greatness," this "sublime," which
+"elevates the mind," something more than that "Burke's theory of the
+nature of the sublime is incorrect." The sublime not being "distinct
+from what is beautiful," he confines his subject to "ideas of truth,
+beauty, and relation," and by these he proposes to test all artists.
+Truth of facts and truth of thoughts are here considered; the first
+necessary, but the latter the highest: we should say that it is the
+latter which alone constitutes art, and that here art begins where
+nature ends. Facts are the foundation necessary to the superstructure;
+the foundation of which must be there, though unseen, unnoticed in
+contemplation of the noble edifice. Very great stress is laid upon
+"the exceeding importance of truth;" which none will question,
+reminding us of the commencement of Bacon's essay, "What is truth?
+said laughing Pilate, and would not wait for an answer." "Nothing,"
+says our author, "can atone for the want of truth, not the most
+brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling
+(supposing that feeling _could_ be pure and false at the same time,)
+not the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of
+intellect, can make amends for the want of truth." Now, there is much
+parade in all this, surely truth, as such in reference to art, is _in_
+the brilliancy of imagination, _in_ the playfulness, without which is
+no fancy, _in_ the feeling, and _in_ the very exaltation of a
+conception; and intellect has no _grasp_ that does not grasp a truth.
+When he speaks of nature as "immeasurably superior to all that the
+human mind can conceive," and professes to "pay no regard whatsoever
+to what may be thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative," and to
+"look only for truth, bare, clear downright statement of facts," he
+seems to forget what nature is, as adopted by, as taken into art; it
+is not only external nature, but external nature in conjunction with
+the human mind. Nor does he, in fact, adhere in the subsequent part of
+his work to this his declaration; for he loses it in his "fervour of
+imagination," when he actually examines the works of "the great living
+painter, who is, I believe, imagined by the majority of the public to
+paint more falsehood and less fact than any other known master." Here
+our author jumps at once into his monomania--his adoration of the
+works of Turner, which he examines largely and microscopically, as it
+suits his whim, and imagines all the while he is describing and
+examining nature; and not unfrequently he tells you, that nature and
+Turner are the same, and that he "invites the same ceaseless study as
+the works of nature herself." This is "coming it pretty strong." We
+confess we are with the majority--not that we wish to depreciate
+Turner. He is, or has been, unquestionably, a man of genius, and that
+is a great admission. He has, perhaps, done in art what never has been
+done before. He has illuminated "Views," if not with local, with a
+splendid truth. His views of towns are the finest; he led the way to
+this walk of art, and is far superior to all in it. We speak of his
+works collectively. Some of his earlier, more imaginative, were
+unquestionably poetical, though not, perhaps, of a very high
+character. We believe he has been better acquainted with many of the
+truths of nature, particularly those which came within the compass of
+his line of views, than any other artist, ancient or modern; but we
+believe he has neglected others, and some important ones too, and to
+which the old masters paid the greatest attention, and devoted the
+utmost study. We have spoken frequently, unhesitatingly, of the late
+extraordinary productions of his pencil, as altogether unworthy his
+real genius; it is in these we see, with the majority of the public,
+"more falsehood and less fact" than in any other known master--a
+defiance of the "known truths" in drawing, colour, and composition,
+for which we can only account upon the supposition, that his eye
+misrepresents to him the work of his hands. We see, in the almost
+adoration of his few admirers, that if it be difficult, and not always
+dependent, on merit to attain to eminence in the world's estimation,
+it is nearly as difficult altogether to fall from it; and that nothing
+the artist can do, though they be the veriest "�gri somnia," will
+separate from him habitual followers, who, with a zeal in proportion
+to the extravagances he may perpetrate, will lose their relish for,
+and depreciate the great masters, whose very principles he seems
+capriciously in his age to set aside, and they will from followers
+become his worshippers, and in pertinacity exact entire compliance,
+and assent to every, the silliest, dictation of their monomania. We
+subjoin a specimen of this kind of worship, which will be found fully
+to justify our observations, and which, considering it speaks of
+mortal man, is somewhat blaspheming Divine attributes; we know not
+really whether we should pity the condition of the author, or
+reprehend the passage. After speaking of other modern painters, who
+are so superior to the old, he says: "and Turner--glorious in
+conception--unfathomable in knowledge--solitary in power--with the
+elements waiting upon his will, and the night and the morning obedient
+to his call, sent as a prophet of God to reveal to men the mysteries
+of his universe, standing, like the great angel of the Apocalypse,
+clothed with a cloud, and with a rainbow upon his head, and with the
+sun and stars given into his hand." Little as we are disposed to laugh
+at any such aberrations, we must, to remove from our minds the
+greater, the more serious offence, indulge in a small degree of
+justifiable ridicule; and ask what will sculptor or painter make of
+this description, should the reluctant public be convinced by the
+"graduate," and in their penitential reverence order statue or
+painting of Mr Turner for the Temple of Fame, which it is presumed
+Parliament, in their artistic zeal, mean to erect? How will they
+venture to represent Mr Turner looking like an angel--in that dress
+which would make any man look like a fool--his cloud nightcap tied
+with rainbow riband round his head, calling to night and morning, and
+little caring which comes, making "ducks and drakes" of the sun and
+the stars, put into his hand for that purpose? We will only suggest
+one addition, as it completes the grand idea, and is in some degree
+characteristic of Mr Turner's peculiar execution, that, with the sun
+and stars, there should be delivered into his hand a comet, whose tail
+should serve him for a brush, and supply itself with colour. We do not
+see, however, why the moon should have been omitted; sun, moon, and
+stars, generally go together. Is the author as jealous as the
+"majority of the public" may be suspicious of her influence? And let
+not the reader believe that Mr Turner is thus called a prophet in mere
+joke, or a fashion of words--his prophetic power is advanced in
+another passage, wherein it is asserted that Mr Turner not only tells
+us in his works what nature has done in hers, but what she will do.
+"In fact," says our author, "the great quality about Mr Turner's
+drawings, which more especially proves their transcendant truth, is
+the capability they afford us of reasoning on past and future
+phenomena." The book teems with extravagant bombastic praise like
+this. Mr Turner is more than the Magnus Apollo. Yet other English
+artists are brought forward, immediately preceding the above
+panegyric; we know not if we do them justice, by noticing what is said
+of them. There is a curious description of David Cos lying on the
+ground "to possess his spirit in humility and peace," of Copley
+Fielding, as an aeronaut, "casting his whole soul into space." We
+really cannot follow him, "exulting like the wild deer in the motion
+of the swift mists," and "flying with the wild wind and sifted spray
+along the white driving desolate sea, with the passion for nature's
+freedom burning in his heart;" for such a chase and such a heart-burn
+must have a frightful termination, unless it be mere nightmare. We see
+"J. D. Harding, brilliant and vigorous," &c., "following with his
+quick, keen dash the sunlight into the crannies of the rocks, and the
+wind into the tangling of the grass, and the bright colour into the
+fall of the sea-foam--various, universal in his aim;" after which very
+fatiguing pursuit, we are happy to find him "under the shade of some
+spreading elm;" yet his heart is oak--and he is "English, all English
+at his heart." But Mr Clarkson Stanfield is a man of men--"firm, and
+fearless, and unerring in his knowledge--stern and decisive in his
+truth--perfect and certain in composition--shunning nothing,
+concealing nothing, and falsifying nothing--never affected, never
+morbid, never failing--conscious of his strength, but never
+ostentatious of it--acquainted with every line and hue of the deep
+sea--chiseling his waves with unhesitating knowledge of every curve of
+their anatomy, and every moment of their motion--building his
+mountains rock by rock, with wind in every fissure, and weight in
+every stone--and modeling the masses of his sky with the strength of
+tempest in their every fold." It is curious--yet a searcher after
+nature's truths ought to know, as he is here told, that waves may be
+anatomized, and must be _chiseled_, and that mountains are and ought
+to be _built_ up rock by rock, as a wall brick by brick; no easy task
+considering that there is a disagreeable "wind in every fissure, and
+weight in every stone"--and that the aerial sky, incapable to touch,
+must be "modeled in masses." All this is given after an equally
+extravagant abuse of Claude, of Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. He finds
+fault with Claude, because his sea does not "upset the flower-pots on
+the wall," forgetting that they are put there because the sea could
+not--with Salvator, for his "contemptible fragment of splintery crag,
+which an Alpine snow-wreath" (which would have no business there)
+"would smother in its first swell, with a stunted bush or two growing
+out of it, and a Dudley or Halifax-like volume of smoke for a
+sky"--with Poussin, for that he treats foliage (whereof "every bough
+is a revelation!") as "a black round mass of impenetrable paint,
+diverging into feathers instead of leaves, and supported on a stick
+instead of a trunk." A page or two from this, our author sadly abuses
+poor Canaletti, as far as we can see, for not painting a tumbled-down
+wall, which perhaps, in his day, was not in a ruinous state at all; it
+is a curious passage--and shows how much may be made out of a wall.
+Pyramus's chink was nothing to this--behold a specimen of "fine
+writing!" "Well: take the next house. We remember that too; it was
+mouldering inch by inch into the canal, and the bricks had fallen away
+from its shattered marble shafts, and left them white and
+skeleton-like, yet with their fretwork of cold flowers wreathed about
+them still, untouched by time; and through the rents of the wall
+behind them there used to come long sunbeams gleamed by the weeds
+through which they pierced, which flitted, and fell one by one round
+those grey and quiet shafts, catching here a leaf and there a leaf,
+and gliding over the illumined edges and delicate fissures until they
+sank into the deep dark hollow between the marble blocks of the sunk
+foundation, lighting every other moment one isolated emerald lamp on
+the crest of the intermittent waves, when the wild sea-weeds and
+crimson lichens drifted and crawled with their thousand colours and
+fine branches over its decay, and the black, clogging, accumulated
+limpets hung in ropy clusters from the dripping and tinkling stone.
+What has Canaletti given us for this?" Alas, neither a _crawling_
+lichen, nor _clogging_ limpets, nor a _tinkling_ stone, but "one
+square, red mass, composed of--let me count--five-and-fifty--no,
+six-and-fifty--no, I was right at first, five-and-fifty bricks," &c.
+The picture, if it be painted by the graduate, must be a curiosity--we
+can make neither head nor tail of his words. But let us find another
+strange specimen--where he compares his own observations of nature
+with Poussin and Turner. Every one must remember a very pretty little
+picture of no great consequence by Gaspar Poussin--a view of some
+buildings of a town said to be Aricia, the modern La Riccia--just take
+it for what it is intended to be, a quiet, modest, agreeable
+scene--very true and sweetly painted. How unfit to be compared with an
+ambitious description of a combination of views from Rome to the Alban
+Mount, for that is the range of the description, though, perhaps, the
+description is taken from a poetical view of one of Turner's
+incomprehensibles, which may account for the conclusion, "Tell me who
+is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" Now, though Poussin never intended
+to be like this, let us see the graduate's description of it. We know
+the little town; it received us as well as our author, having left
+Rome to visit it.
+
+    "Egressum magn� me accepit Aricia Roma."
+
+Our author, however, doubts if it be the place, though he
+unhesitatingly abuses Poussin, as if he had fully intended to have
+painted nothing else than what was seen by the travelling graduate.
+"At any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty
+bushes, of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of
+leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque
+brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and
+discover in one place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature
+have been cool and grey beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and
+which, therefore, being moreover completely in shade, is consistently
+and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick
+red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The foreground is a
+piece of road, which, in order to make allowance for its greater
+nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed,
+for the quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage roads, is
+given in a very cool green-grey, and the truthful colouring of the
+picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with
+a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown." We need not say how
+unlike is this description of the picture. We pass on to--"Not long
+ago, I was slowly _descending_ this very bit of carriage road, the
+first turn after you leave Albano;--it had been wild weather when I
+left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in
+sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of
+sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its
+arches like the bridge of Chaos. But as I _climbed_ the long slope of
+the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble
+outline of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex
+grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper
+sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in
+deep, palpitating azure, half �ther half dew. The noonday sun came
+slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of
+entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the
+wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with
+rain. I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration. Purple, and
+crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the
+rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every
+separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it
+turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then
+an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas
+arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with
+the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and _silver_
+flakes of _orange_ spray tossed into the air around them, breaking
+over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and
+kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every
+glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in
+sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet
+lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark
+rock--dark though flushed with scarlet lichen--casting their quiet
+shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them
+filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over
+all--the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the _sacred_ clouds
+that have no _darkness_, and only exist to illumine, were seen in
+fathomless intervals between the solemn and _orbed_ repose of the
+stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding
+lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the
+blaze of the sea." In verity, this is no "Campana Supellex." It is a
+riddle! Is he going up or down hill--or both at once? No human being
+can tell. He did not like the "sulphur and treacle" of "our Scotch
+connoisseurs;" but what colours has he not added here to his
+sulphur--colours, too, that we fear for the "idea of truth" cannot
+coexist! And how, in the name of optics, could it be possible for any
+painter to take in all this, with the "_fathomless intervals_," into
+an angle of vision of forty-five degrees? It is quite superfluous to
+ask "who is likest this, Turner or Poussin?" There immediately follows
+a remark upon another picture in the National Gallery, the "Mercury
+and Woodman," by Salvator Rosa, than which nothing can be more untrue
+to the original. He asserts that Salvator painted the distant
+mountains, "throughout, without one instant of variation. But what is
+its colour? _Pure_ sky-blue, without one grain of grey, or any
+modifying hue whatsoever;--the same brush which had just given the
+bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part of the
+pallette, and the whole mountain throw in with unmitigated
+ultramarine." Now the fact is, that the picture has, in this part,
+been so injured, that it is hard to say what colour is under the dirty
+brown-asphaltum hue and texture that covers it. It is certainly not
+blue now, not "pure blue"--unless pictures change like the cameleon.
+We know the picture well, and have seen another of the same subject,
+where the mountains have variety, and yet are blue. We believe a great
+sum was given for this picture--far more than its condition justifies.
+We must return--we left the graduate discussing ideas of truth. There
+is a chapter to show that the truth of nature is not to be discerned
+by the uneducated senses. As we do not perceive all sounds that enter
+the ear, so do we not perceive all that is cognizable by the eye--we
+have, that is, a power of nullifying an impression; that this habit is
+so common, that from the abstraction of their minds to other subjects,
+there are probably persons who never saw any thing beautiful.
+Sensibility to the power of beauty is required--and to see rightly,
+there should be a perfect state of moral feeling. Even when we think
+we see with our eyes, our perception is often the result of memory, of
+previous knowledge; and it is in this way he accounts for the mistake
+painters and others make with respect to Italian skies. What will Mr
+Uwin and his followers in blue say to this, alas--Italian skies are
+not blue? "How many people are misled by what has been said and sung
+of the serenity of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more blue
+than the skies of the north, and think that they see them so; whereas
+the sky of Italy is far more dull and grey in colour than the skies of
+the north, and is distinguished only by its intense repose of light."
+Benevenuto Cellini speaks of the mist of Italy. "Repose of light" is
+rather a novelty--he is fond of it. But then Turner paints with pure
+white--for ourselves we are with the generality of mankind who prefer
+the "repose" of shade. "Ask a connoisseur, who has scampered over all
+Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to
+one that he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism
+on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid"--and why not? The
+chances are ninety to one that the merits of not a single picture
+shall depend upon this knowledge, and yet the pictures shall be good
+and the connoisseur right. One man sees what another does not see in
+portraits. Undoubtedly; but how any one is to find in a portrait the
+following, we are at a loss to conceive. "The third has caught the
+trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty, when all hypocrisy
+and all habit, and all petty and passing emotion--the _ice, and the
+bank, and the foam of the immortal river--were shivered and broken,
+and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward strength_," _&c._ How
+can a man with a pen in his hand let such stuff as this drop from his
+fingers' ends?
+
+In the chapter "on the relative importance of truths," there is a
+little needless display of logic--needless, for we find, after all, he
+does not dispute "the kind of truths proper to be represented by the
+painter or sculptor," though he combats the maxim that general truths
+are preferable to particular. His examples are quite out of art,
+whether one be spoken of as a man or as Sir Isaac Newton. Even
+logically speaking, Sir Isaac Newton may be the _whole_ of the
+subject, and as such a whole might require a generality. There may be
+many particulars that are best sunk. So, in a picture made up of many
+parts, it should have a generality totally independent of the
+particularities of the parts, which must be so represented as not to
+interfere with that general idea, and which may be altogether in the
+mind of the artist. This little discussion seems to arise from a sort
+of quibble on the word important. Sir Joshua and others, who abet the
+generality maxim, mean no more than that it is of importance to a
+picture that it contain, fully expressed, one general idea, with which
+no parts are to interfere, but that the parts will interfere if each
+part be represented with its most particular truth--and that,
+therefore, drapery should be drapery merely, not silk or satin, where
+high truths of the subject are to be impressed.
+
+"Colour is a secondary truth, therefore less important than form."
+"He, therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of
+colour, has neglected a greater truth for a less one." It is true
+with regard to any individual object--but we doubt if it be always so
+in picture. The character of the picture may not at all depend upon
+form--nay, it is possible that the painter may wish to draw away the
+mind altogether from the beauty, and even correctness of form, his
+subject being effect and colour, that shall be predominant, and to
+which form shall be quite subservient, and little more of it than
+such as chiaro-scuro shall give; and in such a case colour is the
+more important truth, because in it lies the sentiment of the
+picture. The mystery of Rembrandt would vanish were beauty of form
+introduced in many of his pictures. We remember a picture, the most
+impressive picture perhaps ever painted, and that by a modern too,
+Danby's "Opening of the Sixth Seal." Now, though there are fine parts
+in this picture, the real power of the picture is in its colour--it
+is awful. We are no enemy to modern painters; we think this a work of
+the highest genius--and as such, should be most proud to see it
+deposited in our National Gallery. We further say, that in some
+respects it carries the art beyond the old practice. But, then, we
+may say it is a new subject. "It is not certain whether any two
+people see the same colours in things." Though that does not affect
+the question of the importance of colour, for it must imply a defect
+in the individuals, for undoubtedly there is such a thing as nature's
+harmony of colour; yet it may be admitted, that things are not always
+known by their colour; nay, that the actual local colour of objects
+is mainly altered by effects of light, and we are accustomed to see
+the same things, _quoad_ colour, variously presented to us--and the
+inference that we think artists may draw from this fact is, that
+there will be allowed them a great licence in all cases of colour,
+and that naturalness may be preserved without exactness--and here
+will lie the value of a true theory of the harmony of colours, and
+the application of colouring to pictures, most suitable to the
+intended impression, not the most appropriate to the objects. We have
+often laid some stress upon this in the pages of _Maga_--and we think
+it has been too much omitted in the consideration of artists. Every
+one knows what is called a Claude glass. We see nature through a
+coloured medium--yet we do not doubt that we are looking at
+nature--at trees, at water, at skies--nay, we admire the colour--see
+its harmony and many beauties--yet we know them to be, if we may use
+the term, misrepresented. While speaking of the Claude glass, it will
+not be amiss to notice a peculiarity. It shows a picture--when the
+unaided eye will not; it heightens illumination--brings out the most
+delicate lights, scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and gives
+greater power to the shades, yet preserves their delicacy. It seems
+to annihilate all those rays of light, which, as it were, intercept
+the picture--that come between the eye and the object. But to return
+to colour--we say that it must, in the midst of its license, preserve
+its naturalness--which it will do if it have a meaning in itself. But
+when we are called upon to question what is the meaning of this or
+that colour, how does its effect agree with the subject? why is it
+outrageously yellow or white, or blue or red, or a jumble of all
+these?--which are questions, we confess, that we and the public have
+often asked, with regard to Turner's late pictures--we do not
+acknowledge a naturalness--the license has been abused--not "sumpta
+pudenter." It is not because the vividness of "a blade of grass or a
+scarlet flower" shall be beyond the power of pigment, that a general
+glare and obtrusion of such colours throughout a picture can be
+justified. We are astonished that any man with eyes should see the
+unnaturalness in colour of Salvator and Titian, and not see it in
+Turner's recent pictures, where it is offensive because more glaring.
+Those masters sacrificed, if it be a sacrifice, something to
+repose--repose is _the_ thing to be sacrificed according to the
+notions of too many of our modern schools. It is likewise singular,
+after all the falsehoods which he asserts the old masters to have
+painted, that he should speak of "imitation"--as their whole aim,
+their sole intention to deceive; and yet he describes their pictures
+as unlike nature in the detail and in the general as can be,
+strangely missing their object--deception. We fear the truths,
+particulars of which occupy the remainder of the volume--of earth,
+water, skies, &c.--are very minute truths, which, whether true or
+false, are of very little importance to art, unless it be to those
+branches of art which may treat the whole of each particular truth
+as the whole of a subject, a line of art that may produce a multitude
+of works, like certain scenes of dramatic effect, surprising to see
+once, but are soon powerless--can we hope to say of such, "decies
+repetita placebunt?" They will be the fascinations of the view
+schools, nay, may even delight the geologist and the herbalist, but
+utterly disgust the imaginative. This kind of "knowledge" is not
+"power" in art. We want not to see water anatomized; the Alps may be
+tomahawked and scalped by geologists, yet may they be sorry painters.
+And we can point to the general admiration of the world, learned and
+unlearned, that a "contemptible fragment of a splintery crag" has
+been found to answer all the purposes of an impression of the
+greatness of nature, her free, great, and awful forms, and that
+depth, shades, power of chiaro-scuro, are found in nature to be
+strongest in objects of no very great magnitude; for our vision
+requires nearness, and we want not the knowledge that a mountain is
+20,000 feet high, to be convinced that it is quite large enough to
+crush man and all his works; and that they, who, in their terror of a
+greater pressure, would call upon the mountains to cover them, and
+the holes of rocks to hide them, would think very little of the
+measurement of the mountains, or how the caverns of the earth are
+made. Greatness and sublimity are quite other things.
+
+We shall not very systematically carry our views, therefore, into the
+detail of these truths, but shall just pick here and there a passage
+or so, that may strike us either for its utility or its absurdity.
+
+With regard to truth of tone, he observes--that "the finely-toned
+pictures of the old masters are some of the notes of nature played two
+or three octaves below her key, the dark objects in the middle
+distance having precisely the same relation to the light of the sky
+which they have in nature, but the light being necessarily infinitely
+lowered, and the mass of the shadow deepened in the same degree. I
+have often been struck, when looking at a camera-obscura on a dark
+day, with the exact resemblance the image bore to one of the finest
+pictures of the old masters." We only ask if, when looking at the
+picture in the camera, he did not still recognize nature--and then, if
+it was beautiful, we might ask him if it was not _true_; and then when
+he asserts our highest light being white paper, and that not white
+enough for the light of nature--we would ask if, in the camera, he did
+not see the picture on white paper--and if the whiteness of paper be
+not the exact whiteness of nature, or white as ordinary nature? But
+there is a quality in the light of nature that mere whiteness will not
+give, and which, in fact, is scarcely ever seen in nature merely in
+what is quite white; we mean brilliancy--that glaze, as it were,
+between the object and the eye which makes it not so much light as
+bright. Now this quality of light was thought by the old masters to be
+the most important one of light, extending to the half tones and even
+in the shadows, where there is still light; and this by art and
+lowering the tone they were able to give, so that we see not the value
+of the praise when he says--
+
+"Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle.
+He boldly takes pure white--and justly, for it is the sign of the most
+intense sunbeams--for his highest light, and lamp-black for his
+deepest shade," &c. Now, if white be the sign of the most intense
+sunbeams, it is as we never wish to see them; what under a tropical
+sun may be white is not quite white with us; and we always find it
+disagreeable in proportion as it approaches to pure white. We never
+saw yet in nature a sky or a cloud pure white; so that here certainly
+is one of the "fallacies," we will not call them falsehoods. But as
+far as we can judge of nature's ideas of light and colour, it is her
+object to tone them down, and to give us very little, if any, of this
+raw white, and we would not say that the old masters did not follow
+her method of doing it. But we will say, that the object of art, at
+any rate, is to make all things look agreeable; and that human eyes
+cannot bear without pain those raw whites and too searching lights;
+and that nature has given to them an ever present power of glazing
+down and reducing them, when she added to the eye the sieve, our
+eyelashes, through which we look, which we employ for this purpose,
+and desire not to be dragged at any time--"Sub curru nimium propinqui
+solis."
+
+After this praise of white, one does not expect--"I think nature
+mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues;" but this is said
+merely in aversion to purple. "I think the first approach to
+viciousness of colour in any master, is commonly indicated chiefly by
+a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow." "I am equally
+certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colourists
+of the present day, by the foundation of all his tones being black,
+yellow, and intermediate greys, while the tendency of our common
+glare-seekers is invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples."
+
+    "Silent nymph, with curious eye,
+    Who the _purple_ evening lie,"
+
+saith Dyer, in his landscape of "Grongar Hill." The "glare-seekers" is
+curious enough, when we remember the graduate's description of
+landscapes, (of course Turner's,) and his excursions; but we think we
+have seen many purples in Turner, and that opposed to his flaming red
+in sunsets. He prefers warmth where most people feel cold--this is not
+surprising; but as to picture "is it true?" "My own feelings would
+guide me rather to the warm greys of such pictures as the
+'Snow-Storm,' or the glowing scarlet and gold of the 'Napoleon' and
+the 'Slave Ship.'" The two latter must be well remembered by all
+Exhibition visitors; they were the strangest things imaginable in
+colour as in every particle that should be art or nature. There is a
+whimsical quotation from Wordsworth, the "keenest-eyed," page 145. His
+object is to show the strength of shadow--how "the shadows on the
+trunk of the tree become darker and more conspicuous than any part of
+the boughs or limbs;" so, for this strength and blackness, we have--
+
+                      "At the root
+    Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
+    And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
+    Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,
+    Traced _faintly_ in the greensward."
+
+"Of the truth of space," he says that "in a real landscape, we can see
+the whole of what would be called the middle distance and distance
+together, with facility and clearness; but while we do so, we can see
+nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and indistinct arrangement of
+lines and colours; and that if, on the contrary, we look at any
+foreground object, so as to receive a distinct impression of it, the
+distance and middle distance become all disorder and mystery. And
+therefore, if in a painting our foreground is any thing, our distance
+must be nothing, and _vice versa_." "Now, to this fact and principle,
+no landscape painter of the old school, as far as I remember, ever
+paid the slightest attention. Finishing their foregrounds clearly and
+sharply, and with vigorous impression on the eye, giving even the
+leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge and shape, they
+proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what they could
+see of its details," &c. But he had blamed Claude for not having given
+the exactness and distinct shape and colour of leaves in foreground.
+The fact is, the picture should be as a piece of nature framed in.
+Within that frame, we should not see distinctly the foreground and
+distance at the same instant: but, as we have stated, the eye and mind
+are rapid, the one to see, the other to combine; and as a horse let
+loose into a field, runs to the extremity of it and around it, the
+first thing he does--so do we range over every part of the picture,
+but with wondrous rapidity, before our impression of the whole is
+perfect. We must not, therefore, slur over any thing; the difficulty
+in art is to give the necessary, and so made necessary, detail of
+foreground unostentatiously--to paint nothing, that which is to tell
+as nothing, but so as it shall satisfy upon examination; and we think
+so the old masters did paint the foregrounds, particularly Gaspar
+Poussin--so Titian, so Domenichino, and all of any merit. But this is
+merely an introduction, not to a palliation of, but the approbation
+and praise of a glaring defect in Turner. "Turner introduced a new era
+in landscape art, by showing that the foreground might be sunk for the
+distance, and that it was possible to express immediate proximity to
+the spectator, without giving any thing like completeness to the forms
+of the near objects." We are now, therefore, prepared for an absurd
+"justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures," thus
+contemptuously, with regard to all but himself, accounted for. "And
+now we see the reason for the singular, and, to the ignorant in art,
+the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert
+that there is any reason whatsoever for _bad_ drawing, (though in
+landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but there is both reason and
+necessity for that want of drawing which gives even the nearest
+figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and
+four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally
+impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding
+from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the
+distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and
+features of near figures than Turner gives." Yet what wonderful detail
+has he required from Canaletti and others?--But is there any reason
+why we should have "_pink_ spots?"--is there any reason why Turner's
+foreground figures should resemble penny German dolls?--and for the
+reason we have above given, there ought to be reason why the figures
+should be made out, at least as they are in a camera-obscura. We here
+speak of nature, of "truth," and with him ask, it may be all very
+well--but "is it true?" But we have another fault to find with
+Turner's figures; they are often bad in intention. What can be more
+absurd and incongruous, for instance, than in a picture of "elemental
+war"--a sea-coast--than to put a child and its nurse in foreground,
+the child crying because it has lost its hoop, or some such thing? It
+is according to his truth of space, that distances should have every
+"hair's-breadth" filled up, all its "infinity," with infinities of
+objects, but that whatever is near, if figures, may be "pink spots,"
+and "four dashes of the brush." While with Poussin--"masses which
+result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and painful;" and
+he thinks Poussin has but "meaningless tricks of clever
+execution"--forgetting that all art is but a trick--yet one of those
+tricks worth knowing, and yet which how few have acquired! Surely our
+author is not well acquainted with Hobbima's works; that painter had
+not a niggling execution. "A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is
+more truly expressive of the infinity of foliage, than the niggling of
+Hobbima could have rendered his canvass, if he had worked on it till
+doomsday." Our author seems to have studied skies, such as they are in
+Turner or in nature. He talks of them with no inconsiderable swagger
+of observation, while the old masters had no observation at
+all;--"their blunt and feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature;
+and their untaught imaginations were not likely to originate it in
+study." What is the _it_, will be asked--we believe it to be a
+"cirrus," and that a cirrus is the subject of a chapter to itself.
+This beard of the sky, however, instead of growing below, is quite
+above, "never formed below an elevation of at least 15,000 feet, are
+motionless, multitudinous lines of delicate vapour, with which the
+blue of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several
+days of fine weather. They are more commonly known as 'mare's tails.'"
+Having found this "mare's nest," he delights in it. It is the glory of
+modern masters. He becomes inflated, and lifts himself 15,000 feet
+above the level of the understanding of all old masters, and, as we
+think, of most modern readers, as thus:--"One alone has taken notice
+of the neglected upper sky; it is his peculiar and favourite field; he
+has watched its every modification, and given its every phase and
+feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has followed its passions
+and its changes, and has brought down and laid open to the world
+another apocalypse of heaven." Very well, considering that the cirrus
+never touches even the highest mountains of Europe, to follow its
+phase (query faces) and feature 15,000 feet high, and given pink dots,
+four pink dots for the faces and features of human beings within
+fifteen feet of his brush. We will not say whether the old masters
+painted this cirrus or not. We believe they painted what they and we
+see, at least so much as suited their pictures--but as they were not,
+generally speaking, exclusively sky-painters, but painters of subjects
+to which the skies were subordinate, they may be fairly held excused
+for this their lack of ballooning after the "cirrus;" and we thank
+them that they were not "glare-seekers," "threading" their way, with
+it before them, "among the then transparent clouds, while all around
+the sun is unshadowed fire." We lose him altogether in the "central
+cloud region," where he helps nature pretty considerably as she "melts
+even the unoccupied azure into palpitating shades," and hopelessly
+turns the corner of common observation, and escapes among the "fifty
+aisles penetrating through angelic chapels to the shechinah of the
+blue." We must expect him to descend a little vain of his exploit, and
+so he does--and wonders not that the form and colour of Turner should
+be misunderstood, for "they require for the full perception of their
+meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as not one in a
+thousand possesses, or can bestow." The inference is, that the
+graduate has graduated a successful ph�ton, driving Mr Turner's
+chariot through all the signs of the zodiac. So he sends all artists,
+ancient and modern, to Mr Turner's country, as "a magnificent
+statement, all truth"--that is, "impetuous clouds, twisted rain,
+flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and oppressed
+cattle"--yes, more, it wants repose, and there it is--"High and far
+above the dark volumes of the swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left,
+through their opening, the quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the
+highest cirrus, resting in the repose of the deep sky;" and there they
+are, "delicate, soft, passing vapours," and there is "the exquisite
+depth and _palpitating_ tenderness of the blue with which they are
+islanded." Thus _islanded in tenderness_, what wonder is it if Ixion
+embraced a cloud? Let not the modern lover of nature entertain such a
+thought; "Bright Ph[oe]bus" is no minor canon to smile complacently on
+the matter; he has a jealousy in him, and won't let any be in a
+melting mood with the clouds but himself; he tears aside your
+curtains, and steam-like rags of capricious vapour--"the mouldering
+sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you,
+and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and
+rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more,
+dyeing all the air about it with blood." This is no fanciful
+description, but among the comparative views of nature's and of
+Turner's skies, as seen, and verified upon his affidavit, by a
+graduate of Oxford; who may have an indisposition to boast of his
+exclusive privilege.
+
+    "+Aerobat� kai periphron� ton h�lion.+"
+
+Accordingly, in "the effects of light rendered by modern art," our
+author is very particular indeed. His extraordinary knowledge of the
+sun's position, to a hair's-breadth in Mr Turner's pictures, and
+minute of the day, is quite surprising. He gives a table of two pages
+and a-half, of position and moment, "morning, noon, and afternoon,"
+"evening and night." In more than one instance, he is so close, as
+"five minutes before sunset."
+
+Having settled the matter of the sky, our author takes the earth in
+hand, and tosses it about like a Titan. "The spirit of the hills is
+action, that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to be
+found every variety of motion and of rest, from the inactive plain,
+sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks
+which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with clouds drifting
+like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to
+heaven saying, 'I live for ever.'" We learn, too, a wonderful power in
+the excited earth, far beyond that which other "naturalists" describe
+of the lobster, who only, _ad libitum_, casts off a claw or so. "But
+there is this difference between the action of the earth and that of a
+living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and
+tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh
+altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the
+bones of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of
+its anatomy, which in the plains lie buried under five-and-twenty
+thousand feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which
+spring up in the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging
+their garment of earth away from them on each side." If the gentle
+sketcher should happily escape a cuff from these cast-off clothes
+flung by excited earth from her extremities, he may be satisfied with
+repose in the lap of mother earth, who must be considerably fat and
+cushioned, though some may entertain a fear of being overlaid. What is
+the artist to do with an earth like this, body and bones? When he sits
+down to sketch some placid landscape, is he to think of poor nature
+with her bones sticking out from twenty-five thousand feet of her
+solid flesh! Mother of Gargantia--thou wert but a dwarf! Salvator Rosa
+could not paint rock; Gaspar Poussin could not paint rock. A rock, in
+short, is such a thing as nobody ought to paint, or can paint but
+Turner; and all that, after his description of rock, we believe; but
+were not prepared to learn that "the foreground of the 'Napoleon' in
+last year's Academy," is "one of the most exquisite pieces of rock
+truth ever put on canvass." In fact, we really, in ignorance to be
+ashamed of, did not know there was any rock there at all. We only
+remember Napoleon and his cocked-hat--now, this is extraordinary; for
+as _we_ only or chiefly remember the cocked-hat, so he sees the said
+cocked-hat in Salvator's rocks, where we never saw such a thing,
+though "he has succeeded in covering his foregrounds with forms which
+approximate to those of drapery, of ribands, of _crushed cocked-hats_,
+of locks of hair, of waves, of leaves, or any thing, in short,
+flexible or tough, but which, of course, are not only unlike, but
+directly contrary to the forms which nature has impressed on rocks."
+And the nature of rocks he must know, having the "Napoleon" before
+him. "In the 'Napoleon' I can illustrate by no better example, for I
+can reason as well from this as I could with my foot on the native
+rock." What rocks of Salvator's, besides the No. 220 of the Dulwich
+gallery, he has seen, we cannot pretend to say; we have, within these
+few days, seen one, and could not discover the "commas," the "Chinese
+for rocks," nor Sanscrit for rocks, but did read the language of
+nature, without the necessity of any writing under--"This is a rock."
+Poor Claude, he knew nothing of perspective, and his efforts
+"invariably ended in reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and
+making it look perpendicular;" but in one instance Claude luckily hits
+upon "a little bit of accidental truth;" he is circumstantial in its
+locality--"the little piece of ground above the cattle, between the
+head of the brown cow and the tail of the white one, is well
+articulated, just where it turns into shade."
+
+After the entire failure of all artists that ever lived before Turner
+in land and skies, we are prepared to find that they had not the least
+idea of water. When they thought they painted water, in fact, they
+were like "those happier children, sliding on dry ground," and had not
+the chance of wetting a foot. Water, too, is a thing to be anatomized,
+a sort of rib-fluidity. The moving, transparent water, in shallow and
+in depth, of Vandervelde and Backhuysen, is not the least like water;
+they are men who "libelled the sea." Many of our moderns--Stanfield in
+particular--seem naturally web-footed; but the real Triton of the sea,
+as he was Titan of the earth, is Turner. To our own eyes, in this
+respect, he stands indebted to the engraver; for we do not remember a
+single sea-piece by Turner, in water-colour or oil, in which the water
+is _liquid_. What it is like, in the picture of the Slave-ship, which
+is considered one of his very finest productions, we defy any one to
+tell. We are led to guess it is meant for water, by the strange fish
+that take their pastime. A year or two ago were exhibited two
+sea-pieces, of nearly equal size, at the British Institution, by
+Vandervelde and Turner. It was certainly one of Turner's best; but how
+inferior was the water and the sky to the water and sky in
+Vandervelde! In Turner they were both rocky. We say not this to the
+disparagement of Turner's genius. He had not studied these elements as
+did Vandervelde. The two painters ought not to be compared together;
+and we humbly think that any man who should pronounce of Vandervelde
+and Backhuysen, that they "libelled the sea," convicts himself of a
+wondrous lack of taste and feeling. Of their works he thus speaks--"As
+it is, I believe there is scarcely such another instance to be found
+in the history of man, of the epidemic aberration of mind into which
+multitudes fall by infection, as is furnished by the value set upon
+the works of these men." Of water, he says--"Nothing can hinder water
+from being a reflecting medium but dry dust or filth of some kind on
+its surface. Dirty water, if the foul matter be dissolved or suspended
+in the liquid, reflects just as clearly and sharply as pure water,
+only the image is coloured by the hue of the mixed matter, and becomes
+comparatively brown or dark." We entirely deny this, from constant
+observation. Within this week we have been studying a stream, which
+has alternated in its clearness and muddiness. We found the
+reflection not only less clear in the latter case, but instead of
+brown and dark, to have lost its brownness, and to have become
+lighter. To understand the "curves" of water being beyond the reach of
+most who are not graduates of Oxford; and painters and admirers of old
+masters being people without sense, at least in comparison with the
+graduate, he thus disposes of his learned difficulty:--"This is a
+point, however, on which it is impossible to argue without going into
+high mathematics, and even then the nature of particular curves, as
+given by the brush, would be scarcely demonstrable; and I am the less
+disposed to take much trouble about it, because I think that the
+persons who are really fond of these works are almost beyond the reach
+of argument." The celebrated Mrs Partington once endeavoured, at
+Sidmouth, to dispose of these "curves," and failed; and we suspect a
+stronger reason than the incapacity of his readers for our author's
+thus disposing of the subject. We believe the world would not give a
+pin's head for all the seas that ever might be painted upon these
+mathematical curves; and that, in painting, even a graduate's "high
+mathematics" are but a very low affair. But let us enliven the reader
+with something really high--and here is, in very high-flown prose,
+part of a description of a waterfall; and it will tell him a secret,
+that in the midst of these fine falls, nature keeps a furnace and
+steam-engine continually at work, and having the fire at hand, sends
+up rockets--if you doubt--read:--"And how all the hollows of that foam
+burn with green fire, like so much _shattering chrysoprase_; and how,
+ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray
+leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind,
+and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through
+the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue
+of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky
+through white rain-cloud, while the shuddering iris stoops in
+tremulous stillness over all, fading and flashing alternately through
+the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among
+the thick golden leaves, which toss to and fro in sympathy with the
+wild water, their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of
+loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again
+upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away." "Satque superque
+satis"--we cannot go on. There is nothing like calling things by their
+contraries--it is truly startling. Whenever you speak of water, treat
+it as fire--of fire, _vice versa_, as water; and be sure to send them
+all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look
+into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find
+to come from +chrysos+ gold, and +prason+ a leek, and means a precious
+stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine"--the
+reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine. But there
+is a discovery--"I believe, when you have stood by this for half an
+hour, you will have discovered that there is something more in nature
+than has been given by Ruysda�l." You will indeed--if this be nature!
+But, alas, what have we not to undergo--to discover what water is, and
+to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that
+he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo
+any thing. Ariel was nothing in his ubiquity to him, though he put a
+span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for
+the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the
+opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have,
+cannot face it. To hold by a mast or rock, and watch it, is a
+prolonged endurance of drowning, which few people have courage to go
+through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons in
+nature." Very few people, indeed, and those few "involuntary
+experimentalists."
+
+We are glad to get on dry land again, "brown furze or any thing"--and
+here we must question one of his truths of vegetation: he asserts,
+that the stems of all trees, the "ordinary trees of Europe, do not
+taper, but grow up or out, in undiminished thickness, till they throw
+out branch and bud, and then go off again to the next of equal
+thickness." We have carefully examined many trees this last week, and
+find it is not the case; in almost all, the bulging at the bottom,
+nearest the root, is manifest. There is an early association in our
+minds, that the birch for instance is remarkably tapering in its
+twigs. We would rather refer our "sworn measurer" to the factor than
+the painter, and we very much question whether his "top and top" will
+meet the market. We are satisfied the fact is not as he states it, and
+surely nature works not by such measure rule. We suspect, for nature
+we should here read Turner, for his trees, certainly, are strange
+things; it is true, he generally shirks them. We do not remember one
+picture that has a good, true, _bona fide_, conspicuous tree in it.
+The reader will not be surprised to learn that the worst painter of
+trees was Gaspar Poussin! and that the perfection of trees is to be
+found in Turner's "Marley," where most people will think the trees
+look more like brooms than trees. The chapter on "the Truth of Turner"
+concludes with a quotation--we presume the extract from a letter from
+Mr Turner to the author. If so, Mr Turner has somewhat caught the
+author's style, and tells very simple truths in a very fine manner,
+thus:--"I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make
+_them_ tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this,
+and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the
+night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read
+this, and interpret this, and let us feel together." We must pause.
+Really we do not see the slightest necessity of an interpretation
+here. It is a simple fact. He cannot extract "sunbeams" from
+cucumbers--from the east, we should say. The only riddle seems to be,
+that they should, in one instance, remember together, and in the
+other, feel together; only we guess that, being night-gloom, people
+naturally feel about them in the dark. But he proceeds--"And if you
+have not that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not
+the sun in your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words
+may awaken, though they be indistinct and swift, leave me." We must
+pause again; here _is_ a riddle: what can be the meaning of having the
+sun in one's spirit?--is it any thing like having the moon in one's
+head? We give it up. The passion in the heart we suppose to be dead
+asleep, and the words and voice harsh and grating, and so it is
+awakened. But what that if, or if not, has to do with "leave me," we
+cannot conjecture; but this we do venture to conjecture, that to
+expect our graduate ever to _leave_ Mr Turner is one of the most
+hopeless of all Mr Turner's "Fallacies of Hope." But the writer
+proceeds with a _for_--that appears, nevertheless, a pretty
+considerable _non-sequitur_. "For I will give you no patient mockery,
+no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am and whom I
+serve." Here the graduate is treated as a servant, and the writer of
+the letter assumes the Pythian, the truly oracular vein. "Let other
+servants imitate the voice and the gesture of their master while they
+forget his message. Hear that message from me, but remember that the
+teaching of Divine Truth must still be a mystery." "Like master like
+man." Both are in the "Cambyses' vein."
+
+We do not think that landscape painters will either gain or lose much
+by the publication of this volume, unless it be some mortification to
+be so sillily lauded as some of our very respectable painters are. We
+do not think that the pictorial world, either in taste or practice,
+will be Turnerized by this palpably fulsome, nonsensical praise. In
+this our graduate is _semper idem_, and to keep up his idolatry to the
+sticking-point, terminates the volume with a prayer, and begs all the
+people of England to join in it--a prayer to Mr Turner!
+
+
+
+
+A ROYAL SALUTE.
+
+
+"Should you like to be a queen, Christina?"
+
+This question was addressed by an old man, whose head was bent
+carefully over a chess-board, to a young lady who was apparently
+rather tired of the lesson she had taken in that interesting game.
+
+"Queen of hearts, do you mean?" answered the girl, patting with the
+greatest appearance of fondness a dreadfully ugly little dog that lay
+in her lap.
+
+"Queen of hearts," replied the minister, with a smile; "you are that
+already, my dear. But have you no other ambition?" he added, tapping
+sagaciously the lid of a magnificently ornamented snuff-box, on which
+was depicted one of the ugliest monarchs that ever puzzled a
+court-painter to make him human.
+
+"Why should my ambition go further?" said Christina. "I have more
+subjects already than I know how to govern."
+
+"No doubt--no doubt--I knew very well that you could not avoid having
+subjects; but I hope and trust you have had too much sense to receive
+their allegiance."
+
+The old man was proud of carrying on the metaphor so well, and of
+asking the question so delicately. It was quite evident he had been in
+the diplomatic line.
+
+"How can I help it?" enquired the young beauty, passing her hand over
+the back of the disgusting little pet, which showed its teeth in a
+very uncouth fashion whenever the paternal voice was raised a little
+too high. "But, I assure you, I pay no attention to allegiance, which
+I consider my right. There is but one person's homage I care for"----
+
+The brow of the Prime Minister of Sweden grew very black, and his face
+had something of the benign expression of the growling pug on his
+daughter's knee.
+
+"Who is that person, Christina?"
+
+But Christina looked at her father with an alarmed glance, which she
+shortly after converted into a smile, and went on in her pleasing
+occupation of smoothing the raven down of her favourite, but did not
+say a word.
+
+The father, who seemed to be no great judge of pantomime, repeated his
+question.
+
+"Who is that person, Christina?"
+
+Christina disdained hypocrisy, and, moreover, was immensely spoiled.
+
+"Who _should_ it be, but your gallant nephew, Adolphus Hesse, dear
+father?"
+
+"You haven't had the impudence, I hope, to engage yourself to that
+boy?"
+
+"Boy--why he is twenty-one! He is my oldest friend--we learned all our
+lessons together. I can't recollect the time we were not engaged, it
+is so long since we loved each other!"
+
+"Nonsense! You were brought up together by his mother; it is nothing
+but sisterly affection."
+
+"Not at all--not at all!" cried Christina; "it would make me quite
+miserable if Adolphus were my brother."
+
+"It is all you must think him, nevertheless. He has no fortune; he has
+nothing but his commission; and my generosity is"----
+
+"Immense, my dear father; inexhaustible! And then Adolphus is so
+brave--so magnanimous; and, upon my word, when I saw how much he liked
+me, and heard him speak so much more delightfully than any body else,
+I never thought of asking if he was rich; and you know you love him
+yourself, dear father."
+
+Christina neglected the pug in her lap for a moment, and laid her hand
+coaxingly on the old man's shoulder.
+
+"But not enough to make him my heir," said the Count, gruffly.
+Christina renewed her attentions to the dog.
+
+"He would be your heir notwithstanding," she said, "if I were to die."
+
+There was something in the tone of her voice, or the idea suggested of
+her death, that softened the old man. He looked for a long time at the
+young and beautiful face of his child; and the shade of uneasiness her
+words had raised, disappeared from his brow.
+
+"There is nothing but life there," he said, gently tapping her on the
+forehead; "and therefore I must marry you, my girl!"
+
+"And you will make us the happiest couple in the world. Adolphus will
+be so grateful," said Christina, her bright eyes sparkling through
+tears.
+
+"Who the devil said a word about Adolphus?" said the father, looking
+angrily at Christina; but he added immediately in a softer tone, when
+he saw the real emotion of his daughter--"Poor girl, you have been
+sadly spoiled! You have had too much of your own way, and now you ask
+me to do what is impossible. Be a reasonable girl, there's a darling!
+and your aunt will present you at court. You will see such grand
+things--you will know our gallant young King--only be reasonable!"
+
+"The rude monster!" cried Christina, starting up as if tired of the
+conversation. "I have no wish to know him. They say he hates women."
+
+"A calumny, my dear girl; he is very fond of _one_ at all events."
+
+"Is she pretty?"
+
+"And mischievous as yourself."
+
+"As I?" enquired Christina, and fell into a long reverie, while the
+Count smiled as if he had made an excellent hit.
+
+"But I have never seen him, papa," she said, awakening all of a
+sudden.
+
+"He may have seen you though; and he says"----
+
+"Oh, what does he say? Do tell me what the King says?"
+
+"Poh! What do you want to know about what a rude monster says--that
+hates women?" answered the father with another smile of satisfaction.
+
+"But he is a king, papa! What does he say? I am quite anxious to
+know."
+
+But the minister of state had gained his object; he had excited
+curiosity, and determined not to gratify it. At last he said, as he
+rose to quit the apartment--"Let us turn the conversation, Christina;
+we have nothing to do with kings, and must content ourselves with
+humbler subjects. An officer will sup with us to-night, whom I wish
+you very much to please. He has influence with the King; and if you
+have any regard for my interest you will receive him well. I intend
+him for your husband."
+
+"I won't have him!" cried Christina, running after her father as he
+left the room. "I won't have him! If I don't marry Adolphus, I won't
+marry at all!"
+
+"Heaven grant it, sweet cousin!" said Adolphus Hesse in _propria
+persona_, emerging from behind the window-curtains, where, by some
+miraculous concatenation of events, he had found himself ensconced for
+the last hour. "'Tis delightful to act the spy, and hear an advocate
+so persuasive as you have been, Christina--but the cause is
+desperate."
+
+"Who told you, sir, the cause was desperate?" said Christina,
+pretending to look offended. "The battle is half gained--my father's
+anger disappears in a moment. Now, dear Adolphus, don't sigh--don't
+cross your arms--don't look up to the sky with that heroic frown--I
+can't bear to groan and be dismal--I want to be gay--to have a
+ball--to----We shall have _such_ a ball the day of our wedding,
+Adolphus!"
+
+"Your hopes deceive you, dearest Christina. I know your father better
+than you do. Ah!" he added, gazing sadly on the beautiful features of
+the young girl who looked on him so brightly, "you will never be able
+to resist the brilliant offer that will be made you in exchange for
+one faithful, loving heart."
+
+"Indeed!" replied Christina, feeling her eyes filling with tears, but
+endeavouring at the same time to conceal her emotion under an
+affectation of anger, "your opinion of me is not very flattering; and
+it is not in very good taste, methinks, to play the despairing lover,
+especially after the conversation you so honourably overheard."
+
+"Dry that tear, dear girl!" said Adolphus, "I will believe any thing
+you like."
+
+"Why do you make me cry then? Is it only to have the pleasure of
+telling me to dry my tears? Or did you think you had some rival; some
+splendid cavalier that it was impossible to resist--Count Ericson, for
+instance?"
+
+"Oh! as to Ericson I am not at all uneasy. I know you hate him; and
+besides he is not much richer than myself; but, dear Christina"----
+
+"Well--go on," said the girl, mocking the lugubrious tone of her
+cousin--"what are you sighing again for?"
+
+"Your father is going to bring you a new lover this evening, and poor
+Adolphus will be forgotten."
+
+"You deserve it for all your ridiculous suspicions: but you are my
+cousin, and I forgive you this once." She looked at him with so sunny
+a smile, and so clear and open-hearted a countenance, that it was
+impossible to entertain a doubt.
+
+"You love me really, then?" he said--"truly--faithfully?"
+
+"I have told you so a hundred times," replied his cousin. "I am
+astonished you are not tired of hearing the same thing over and over
+again."
+
+"'Tis so sweet, so new a thing for me," said Adolphus, "and I could
+listen to it for ever."
+
+"Well, then, we love each other--that's very clear," said Christina,
+with the solemnity of the foreman of a jury delivering a verdict on
+the clearest evidence; "but since my father won't let us marry, we
+must wait--that is almost as clear as the other."
+
+"And if he never consents?" enquired Adolphus.
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Christina, to whom such an idea seemed never to
+have occurred, "can it be possible he will _never_ consent?"
+
+"I fear it is too possible," replied Adolphus, and the shadow fell on
+his face again.
+
+"Well," said Christina, after a minute's pause, as if she had come to
+a resolution, "we must always stay as we are. Happiness is never
+increased by an act of disobedience."
+
+"I think as you do," said the young soldier, admiring her all the more
+for the death-blow to his hopes; "and are you happy, quite happy,
+Christina?"
+
+"What a question! Don't I see you every day? Isn't every body kind to
+me? Is there any thing I want?"
+
+A different answer would have pleased the lover more. He looked at her
+for some time in silence--at last, in an altered tone, he said--
+
+"I congratulate you on your prudence, Christina."
+
+"I cannot break my father's heart."
+
+"No, but mine, Christina!"
+
+"Adolphus," said the young beauty solemnly, "if I cannot be your wife
+with the consent of my father, I never will marry another. This is all
+you can ask; all I can promise."
+
+Filial affection was not quite so strong in Adolphus as in his cousin,
+and his face was by no means brightened on hearing this declaration.
+It was so uncommonly proper that it seemed nearly bordering on the
+cold and heartless. He tried to hate her; he walked up and down the
+room at a tremendous pace, stopping every now and then to take another
+glance at the tyrant who had pronounced his doom, and looked as
+beautiful as ever. He found it impossible to hate _her_, though we
+shall not enquire what were his sentiments towards her worthy
+progenitor, Count Ericson, the unknown lover, and even the young
+heroic King; for the sagacious reader must now be informed that this
+wonderful lovers' quarrel took place in the reign of Charles XII. Our
+fear is that he disliked all four. Christina found it very difficult
+to preserve the gravity essential to a heroine's appearance when she
+saw the long strides and bent brows of her lover. A smile was ready,
+on the slightest provocation, to make a dimple in her beautiful cheek,
+and all the biting she bestowed on her lips only made them redder and
+rosier. Adolphus had no inclination to smile, and could not believe
+that any body could see the least temptation to indulge in such a
+ridiculous occupation on such a momentous occasion. He was a regular
+lover, as Mr Weller would say, and no mistake. He saw in his fair
+cousin only a treasure of inestimable price, guarded by two monsters
+that made his approaches hopeless--avarice and ambition. How
+differently those two young people viewed the same event! Christina,
+knowing her power over her father, and unluckily not knowing that
+fathers (even though they are prime ministers, and are as
+courtier-like as Polonius) have flinty hearts when their interests are
+concerned, saw nothing in the present state of affairs to despair
+about; and in fact, as we have said already, was nearly committing the
+unpardonable crime of laughing at the grimaces of her cousin. He, poor
+fellow, knew the world a little better, and perceived in a moment that
+the new lover whom the ambitious father was going to present to his
+daughter, was some favourite of the king; and he was well aware, that
+any one backed by that impetuous monarch, was in a fair way to
+success. The king had seen Christina too--and though despising love
+himself, was in the habit of rewarding his favourite officers with the
+hand of the beauties or heiresses of his court; and when, as in this
+instance, the lady chosen was both--how could he doubt that the king
+had already resolved that she should be the bride of some lucky rival,
+against whose claims it would be impossible to contend? And Christina
+standing all the while before him, scarcely able to restrain a laugh!
+He was only twenty-one--and not half so steady as his grandfather
+would probably have shown himself in the same circumstances, and being
+unable to vent his rage on any body else, he poured it all forth upon
+himself.
+
+"What a fool I have been!--an ass--a dolt--to have been so blinded!
+But I see now--I deserve all I have got! To have been so deceived by
+an absurd fit of love--that has lasted all my life, too! But no!--I
+shall not repay my uncle's kindness to me by robbing him of his only
+child. I shall go at once to my regiment--I may be lucky enough to get
+into the way of a cannon--you will think kindly of me when I am gone,
+though you are so unk"----
+
+The word died away upon his lips. Large tears filled Christina's eyes,
+and all her inclination to smile had disappeared. There was something
+either in his looks or the tone of his voice, or the thought of his
+being killed, that banished all her gaiety; and in a few minutes the
+quarrel was made up--the tears dried in the usual manner--vows
+made--hands joined--and resolutions passed and carried with the utmost
+unanimity, that no power on earth should keep them from being married.
+And a very good resolution it was. The only pity was, that it was not
+very likely to be carried into effect. A father, an unknown lover, and
+a king, all joined against a poor boy and girl. The odds are very much
+against Adolphus and Christina.
+
+Now let us examine the real state of affairs as dispassionately as we
+can. The Count Gyllenborg was ambitious, as became a courtier with an
+only daughter who was acknowledged on all sides to be the most
+beautiful girl in Sweden; and as he was aware of the full value of red
+lips and sparkling eyes in the commerce of life, he was determined to
+make the most of these perishable commodities while they were at their
+best, and the particular make and colour of them were in fashion. The
+Count was rich--and with amply sufficient brains, according to the
+dictum of one of his predecessors, to govern a kingdom; but he was not
+warlike; and Charles, who had lately taken the power into his own
+hands, knew nothing of mankind further than that they were made to be
+drawn up in opposite lines, and make holes in each other as
+scientifically as they could. Count Gyllenborg had a decided objection
+to being made a receptacle for lead bullets or steel swords; and was
+by no means anxious to murder a single Russian or German, for the sake
+of the honour of the thing, or for the good of his country. His power
+resting only on his adroitness in civil affairs, was therefore not on
+the surest foundation; and a prop to it was accordingly wanted. Such a
+prop had never been seen before, with such sunny looks, and such a
+happy musical laugh. The looks and the laugh between them, converted
+the atmosphere of Stockholm into the climate of Italy; and the
+politician, almost without knowing it, began to be thawed into a
+father. But the fear of a rival in the King's favour--some gallant
+soldier--and dozens of them were reported every week--made him resolve
+once more to bring his daughter's beauties into play. The king had
+seen her, and, in his boorish way, had expressed his admiration; and
+Gyllenborg felt assured, that if he should marry his daughter
+according to the King's wishes, his influence would be greater than
+ever; and, in fact, that the premiership would be his for life.
+
+Great preparations accordingly were made for the reception of the
+powerful stranger, the announcement of whose appearance at supper had
+spread such dismay in the hearts of the two lovers. Christina knew
+almost instinctively her father's plan, and determined to counteract
+it. She felt sure that the officer for whom she was destined, and whom
+she had been ordered to receive so particularly, was one of the new
+favourites of the warlike king; some leader of a forlorn-hope, created
+colonel on the field of battle; some young general fresh from some
+heroic achievement, that had endeared him to his chief; but whoever it
+was, she was resolved to show him that the crown of Sweden was a very
+limited monarchy in regard to its female subjects, and that she would
+have nobody for her husband--neither count, nor colonel, nor
+general--but only her cousin Adolphus, lieutenant in the Dalecarlian
+hussars. Notwithstanding this resolution, it is astonishing what a
+time she stayed before the glass--how often she tried different
+coloured roses in her hair--how carefully she fitted on her new
+Parisian robes, and, in short, did every thing in her power to look
+her very best. What did all this arise from? She wished to show this
+young favourite, whoever he might be, that she was really as beautiful
+as people had told him; she wished to convince him that her smile was
+as sweet, her teeth as white, her eyes as captivating, her figure as
+superb, as he had heard them described--and then she wished to show
+him that all these--smiles--eyes--teeth--figure, were given, along
+with the heart that made them truly valuable, to another! and that
+other no favourite of a king--nor even of a minister, but only of a
+young girl of eighteen.
+
+Radiant with beauty, and conscious of the sensation she was certain to
+create, she entered the magnificent apartment where supper was
+prepared--a supper splendid and costly enough to have satisfied a
+whole army of epicures, though only intended for her father, the
+stranger, and herself; and if you, oh reader! had been there, you
+would have thought Christina lovely enough to have excited the
+admiration of a whole court instead of an old man--and that, too, her
+father--and a young one, and that none other, to Christina's infinite
+disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had
+already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He
+was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had
+furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since
+she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different
+from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than
+at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What
+can papa mean by asking such a horrid being to his house? I am certain
+I shall laugh outright if I look again at his silly grey eyes and long
+yellow hair, as ragged as a pony's mane."
+
+Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if
+possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And
+in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness
+of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure--large-boned and
+stiff-backed--that now stood before her--with a nose so absurdly
+aquiline that it would have done for a caricature--coarse-skinned
+cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly
+frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed.
+And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by
+the higher powers for her husband--was this night to be treated as her
+accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day
+with her father--settling all the preliminaries of course--for the last
+six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the
+triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him--that
+is, in the affirmative.
+
+But thoughts of affirmatives and negatives did not seem to enter
+Count Ericson's head--his grammatical education having probably been
+neglected. He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger may be supposed to
+cast insinuating looks upon a lamb, and made every now and then an
+attempt to conceal either his awkwardness, or satisfaction, or both,
+in immense fits of laughter, which formed the accompaniment of all
+the remarks--and they were nearly as heavy as himself--with which he
+favoured the company. Christina, on her part, if she had given way
+to the dictates of her indignation, would have also favoured the
+company with a few remarks, that in all probability would have put a
+stop to the laughter of the lover, and choked her old father by
+making a fish-bone stick in his throat. She was angry for twenty
+reasons, one of them was having wasted a moment over her toilette to
+receive such a visitor as Count Ericson; another was her father
+having dared to offer her hand to such an uncouth wooer and
+intolerable bore; and the principal one of all, was his having
+rejected his own nephew--undoubtedly the handsomest of Dalecarlian
+hussars--in favour of such a vulgar, ugly individual. The subject of
+these flattering considerations seemed to feel at last that he ought
+to say something to the young beauty, on whose pouting lip had
+gathered something which was very different indeed from a smile, and
+yet nearly as captivating. He accordingly turned his large light
+eyes from his plate for a moment, and with a mouth still filled with
+a leg and wing of a capercailzie, enquired--
+
+"What do you think of Alexander the Great, madam?"
+
+This was too much. Even her rage disappeared, and she burst into a
+loud laugh at the serious face of the querist.
+
+"I never think of Alexander the Great at all," she said. "I only
+recollect, that when I was reading his history, I could hardly make
+out whether he was most of a fool or a madman."
+
+Ericson swallowed the leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any
+further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of
+the most prodigious courage the world had ever seen.
+
+"If he had been as prodigiously wise," replied Christina, "as he was
+prodigiously courageous, he would have learned to govern himself
+before he attempted to govern the world."
+
+Ericson blushed from chin to forehead with vexation, and answered in
+an offended tone--
+
+"How can a woman enter into the fever of noble thoughts that impels a
+brave man to rush into the midst of dangers, and leads him to despise
+life and all its petty enjoyments to gain undying fame?"
+
+"No, indeed," she replied, "I have no fever, and have no sympathy with
+destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame, I should try to gain it by
+gathering round me the blessings of all who saw me! Yes, father," she
+went on, paying no regard to the signs and winks of the agonized Count
+Gyllenborg, "I would rather that countless thousands should live to
+bless me, than that they should die in heaping curses on my name!
+Men-killers--though you dignify them with the name of heroes--are
+atrocious. Let us speak of them, my lord, no more, unless to pray
+heaven to rid the earth of such monsters."
+
+A feather of the smallest of birds would have knocked down the Prime
+Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson appeared, from his stupefied
+look, to have gone through the process already--the difficulty was to
+lift him up again.
+
+"Come, Count," cried the Minister, filling up Ericson's glass with
+champagne, "to Alexander's glory!"
+
+"With all my heart," cried Ericson, moistening his rage with the
+delicious sparkler. "Come, fair savage," he added, addressing
+Christina, and touching her glass with such force that it fell in a
+thousand pieces on the table--"to Alexander's glory!"
+
+"I have no wish to drink to such a toast," replied Christina, more
+offended than ever; "I can't endure those scourges of human kind who
+hide the skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe."
+
+"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to
+begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst
+from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly
+thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she
+know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog.
+She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a
+hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"
+
+The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not
+in Sweden--nor probably in Denmark either--and the cunning old
+minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on
+the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually
+touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of
+the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little
+goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion
+on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I
+believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a
+good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if
+you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an
+infinite obligation on both of us."
+
+Saying this, he lifted with his own ministerial fingers a small table
+from a corner of the room, and placed it in front of the youthful
+couple, with the men all ready laid out. Ericson's eyes sparkled at
+the sight of his favourite game; and he determined to display his
+utmost skill, and teach his antagonist a few secrets of the art of
+(mimic) war. But determinations, as has been remarked by several
+sages, past and present, are sometimes vain. Nothing, one would think,
+could be so likely to restore a man's self-possession as a quiet game
+of chess--an occupation as efficacious in soothing the savage breast
+as music itself. But Ericson seemed still agitated from the
+contradictions he had encountered from the free-spoken Christina, and
+threw a little more politeness into his manner than he had hitherto
+vouchsafed to show, when he invited her to be his adversary in a game.
+
+"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously, holding up one of the fair
+fingers to which his attention had been so particularly called, and
+implying by the question, if you get angry when I only refuse your
+toast, won't you eat me if I am the winner at chess? "But, if I beat
+you?" she said.
+
+"That will not be the only occasion on which you will have triumphed
+over me, you--you"----He seemed greatly at a loss for a word, and
+concluded his speech with--"beauty!" This expression, which was, no
+doubt, intended for the most complimentary he could find, was
+accompanied with a look of admiration so long, so broad, and so
+impudent, that she blushed, and a squeeze of her hand so hard, so
+rough, and so continued, that she screamed. She threw a glance of
+inexpressible disdain on the insolent wooer, and looked for protection
+to her father; but that venerable individual was at that moment so
+sound asleep on one of the sofas at the other end of the room, that no
+noise whatever could have awakened him. Ericson seemed totally unmoved
+by all the contempt she could express in her looks, and probably
+thought he was in a thriving condition, from the fact (somewhat
+unusual) of his being looked at at all. She lost her temper
+altogether. She covered her cheek, which was flushed with anger, with
+the little hand that was reddened with pain, and resolved to play her
+worst to spite her ill-mannered antagonist. But all her attempts at
+bad play were useless. The board shook beneath the immense hands of
+Ericson, who was in a tremendous state of agitation, and hardly knew
+the pieces. He pushed then hither and thither--made his knights slide
+along with the episcopal propriety of bishops, and made his bishops
+caracole across the squares with the unseemly elasticity of knights.
+His game got into such confusion, that Christina could not avoid
+winning, and at last--enjoying the victory she had determined not to
+win--she cried out, with a voice of triumph, "Check to the king by the
+queen."
+
+"Cruel girl!" exclaimed the Count, dashing his hand among the pieces
+with an energy that scattered them all upon the floor. "Haven't you
+been anxious to make the king your prisoner?"
+
+"But there is nothing to hinder him from saving himself," answered
+Christina, looking round once more to her father, who, however,
+pursued his slumber with the utmost assiduity and had apparently a
+very agreeable dream, for a smile was evident at the corners of his
+mouth. "It is impossible to place the board as it was," she continued,
+trying to gather up the pieces, and place castles, knights, and pawns
+in their proper position again.
+
+"Don't try it--don't try it," cried Ericson, losing all command of
+himself, and pushing the board away from him, till it spun over with
+all its men on the carpet. "The game is over--you have given me check,
+and mated me!" And in a moment, as if ashamed of the influence
+exercised over him by so very unwarlike an individual as a little girl
+of eighteen, he hurried from the room, stumbling over his enormous
+sword, which got, somehow or other, between his legs, and cursing his
+awkwardness and the absurd excess of admiration which caused it.
+
+"That man will surely never come here again," said Christina to her
+father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the
+chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his
+rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had
+been the most fascinating of men.
+
+"Not come here again!" chuckled the father. "That's all you know about
+it. He is dying with impatience to return, and is angry with himself
+for having wasted the two precious hours of your society in the way he
+did. He never had two such happy hours in his life."
+
+"Happy! is that what he calls happiness?" answered Christina, opening
+her eyes in amazement. "I don't know what his notions may be--but
+mine----oh, father!" she cried, emboldened by the smile she saw on the
+old man's countenance, "you are only trying me; say you are only
+proving my constancy, by persuading me that such a being as that has
+any wish to please me. He is more in love with Alexander the Great
+than with me; and he is quite right, for he has a far better chance of
+a return."
+
+"An enthusiasm excusable, my dear, in a young warrior of twenty years
+of age, whose savage ambition it will be your delightful task to tame.
+He is in a terrible state of agitation--a most flattering thing, let
+me tell you, to a young gipsy like you--and you must humour him a
+little, and not break out quite so fiercely, you minx; and yet you
+managed very well, too. A fine fellow, Ericson, though a little wild;
+rich, powerful, nobly born--what can you wish for better?"
+
+"My cousin," answered Christina, with a bluntness that astonished the
+advocate of Ericson's claims; "my cousin Adolphus, and no other. He is
+braver than this savage; and as to nobility, he is as nobly born as my
+own right honourable papa, and that is high enough for me."
+
+"Go, go," said the courtier, a little puzzled by the openness of his
+daughter's confession, and kissing her forehead at the same time; "go
+to bed, my girl, and pray for your father's advancement."
+
+Christina, like a dutiful child, prayed as she was told for her
+father's success and happiness, and then added a petition of her own,
+shorter, perhaps, but quite as sincere, for her cousin Adolphus. If
+she added one for herself, it was a work of supererogation, for she
+felt that in praying for the happiness of her lover, she was not
+unmindful of her own.
+
+For some days after the supper recorded above, she was too happy
+tormenting the very object of all these aspirations, to trouble her
+head about the awkward and ill-mannered prot�g� of her father, whom
+she hated with as much cordiality as the most jealous of rivals could
+desire. But of course she was extremely careful to let no glimpse of
+this unchristian feeling towards Count Ericson be perceptible to the
+person who would have rejoiced in it so much. In fact, she carried her
+philanthropy to such a pitch, that she never mentioned any of the bad
+qualities of her new admirer, and Adolphus very naturally concluded
+that she felt as she spoke on the interesting subject. So, all of a
+sudden, Adolphus, who was prouder than Christina, perhaps because he
+was poorer, would not condescend to be made a fool of, as he
+magnanimously thought it, any longer. He had the immense satisfaction
+of staying away from the house for nearly half a week, and then, when
+he did pay a visit, he was almost as cold as the formal piece of
+diplomacy in the bag-wig and ruffles whom he called his uncle; and a
+great deal stiffer than the beautiful piece of pique, in silk gown and
+white satin corset, whom he called his cousin. Christina was dismayed
+at the sudden change--Adolphus never spoke to her, seldom looked at
+her, and evidently left the coast clear--so she thought--for the rich
+and powerful rival her father had so strongly supported. After much
+thinking, some sulkiness, and a good many fits of crying, Christina
+resolved, as the best way of recovering her own peace of mind, and the
+love of her cousin Adolphus, to put an end in a very decided manner to
+the pretensions of the Count. One day, accordingly, she watched her
+opportunity, and followed with anxious eyes her father's retreat from
+the room, under pretence of some important despatches to be sent off.
+She found herself alone with the object of her dislike--and only
+waited for a beginning to the conversation, that she might astonish
+his weak mind with the severity of her invectives. In fact, she had
+determined, according to the vulgar phrase, to tell him a bit of her
+mind--and a very small bit of it, she was well aware, would be
+sufficient to satisfy Count Ericson of the condition of all the rest.
+But the lover was in a contemplative mood, and stood as silent as a
+milestone, and looking almost as animated and profound. She sighed,
+she coughed, she drops her handkerchief. All wouldn't do--the
+milestone took no notice--Christina at last grew angry, and could
+contain herself no longer.
+
+"I dreamt of you last night," she said by way of a beginning. "I hope
+in future you will leave my sleep undisturbed by your presumptuous
+presence. It is bad enough to be forced to see you when one is awake."
+
+"And I, also, had a dream," replied Ericson, starting from his
+reverie, confused and only having heard the first part of the somewhat
+fierce attack. "I dreamt that you looked at me with a smile, a long,
+long look, so sweet, so winning. It was a happy dream!"
+
+"It was a false one," she said, with tremendous bitterness. "I know
+better where to direct my smiles, whether I am awake or asleep."
+
+"And how did I appear to you?" asked the Count, presenting a splendid
+specimen in his astonished look of the state of mind called "the
+dumfoundered" by some learned philosophers, and by others "the
+flabbergasted."
+
+"You appeared to me like the nightmare! frightful and unsupportable as
+you do to me now," was the answer, accompanied with the look and
+manner that showed she was a judge of nightmares, and thought him a
+very unfavourable specimen of the animal.
+
+"Ill-natured little tyrant!" cried Ericson, rushing to her, "teach me
+how you would have me love you, and I will do everything you ask!" In
+a moment he had seized her in his arms, and imprinted a kiss of
+prodigious violence on her cheek, which was redder than fire with rage
+and surprise!
+
+But the assault did not go unpunished. The might of Samson woke in
+that insulted bosom, and lent such incredible weight to the blow that
+fell on the aggressor's ear, that it took him a long time to believe
+that the thump proceeded from the beautiful little hand he had so
+often admired; or, in short, from any thing but a twenty-four pounder.
+He rubbed the wounded organ with astonishing assiduity for some time.
+At last he said, in a very calm and measured voice,
+
+"Your father has deceived me, young lady. He led me to believe you did
+not receive my visits with indifference."
+
+"My father knows nothing about things of that kind," replied
+Christina, still flaming with indignation, "or he never would have let
+such an ill-mannered monster into his house. But he was right in
+saying I did not receive your visits with indifference; your visits,
+Count Ericson, can never be indifferent to me, and"----
+
+What more she would have said, it is impossible to discover, for she
+was interrupted by the sudden entrance of her cousin, who only heard
+her last words, and started back at what he considered so open a
+declaration of her attachment.
+
+"Who are you, sir?" asked Ericson in an angry tone, and with such an
+assumption of superiority, that Christina's hand tingled to give him a
+mark of regard on his other ear.
+
+"A soldier," answered Adolphus, drawing his sword from its sheath and
+instead of directing it against his rival, laying it haughtily on the
+table. "A soldier who has bled for his country, and would be happy,"
+he added, "to die for it."
+
+"Say you so?" said Ericson, "then we are friends." He held out his
+hand.
+
+"We are rivals," replied Adolphus, drawing back.
+
+"Christina loves you, then?" enquired the Count.
+
+"She has told me so; and I was foolish enough to believe her. It is
+now your turn to trust to the truth of a heartless woman.--She has
+told you you are not an object of indifference to her, and I resign my
+pretensions in your favour."
+
+"In whose favour?" cried Christina, trembling; while tears sprang to
+her eyes.
+
+"The King's!" replied Adolphus, retiring sorrowfully.
+
+Christina sank on a seat, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Stay," cried Charles the Twelfth in a voice of thunder; "stay, I
+command you."
+
+The young man obeyed; biting his lip to conceal his emotion, till the
+blood came.
+
+"I have seen you," said the King, "but not in this house."
+
+"It was shut against me by my uncle when you were expected," said
+Adolphus.
+
+"And yet I have seen you somewhere. What is your name?"
+
+"Adolphus Hesse; the son of a brave officer who died fighting for you,
+and leaving me his misfortunes and the tears of his widow."
+
+"Who told you I was not Count Ericson?"
+
+"My eyes. I know you well."
+
+"And I recollect you also," said Charles, advancing to the young man
+with a manner very different from that which characterized him in his
+intercourse with the softer sex. "Where did you get that scar on the
+left temple?"
+
+"At Nerva, sire, where we tamed the pride of the Russians."
+
+"True, true!" cried Charles, his nostrils dilated as if he snuffed up
+the carnage of the battle. "You need but this as your passport," he
+continued, placing his finger on the wound, "to ask me any favour, ay,
+even to measure swords with you, as I daresay you would be delighted
+to do in so noble a quarrel as the present; for on the day of that
+glorious fight, I learned, like you, the duty of a soldier, and the
+true dignity of a brave man. By the balls that rattled about our heads
+so playfully, give me your hand, brother, for we were baptized
+together in fire!"
+
+Charles appeared to Christina, at this time, quite a different man
+addressing his fellow soldier, from what he had done upsetting the
+chess-board. Curiosity had dried her eyes, and she lost not a word of
+the conversation. The King turned to her with a smile.
+
+"By my sword, Christina! I am but a poor wooer; one movement of your
+hand," and he touched his ear playfully as he spoke, "has banished all
+the silly thoughts that in a most traitorous manner had taken my heart
+prisoner. Speak, then, as forcibly as you act. Do you love this brave
+soldier?"
+
+"Yes, sire."
+
+"Who hinders the marriage?"
+
+"The courtship of Count Ericson, with which my father perpetually
+threatens me."
+
+"O ho!" thought Charles, "I see how it is. The King must console
+himself with the kiss, and pass the blow on the ear to the minister.
+Christina," he added aloud, "your father refuses to give you to the
+man you love; but he'll do it now, for _it is my will_. You'll
+confess, I am sure that if I was your nightmare as a lover, I am not
+your enemy as king."
+
+"I confess it on my knees;" replied the humble beauty, taking her
+place beside her cousin, who knelt to his sovereign. While Charles
+joined the hands of the youthful pair, he imprinted a kiss on the fair
+brow of Christina; the last he ever bestowed on woman.
+
+"Your Majesty pardons me then?" enquired the trembling girl. "If I had
+known it was the King, I would not have hit so hard."
+
+That same evening Count Gyllenborg signed a contract of marriage, to
+which the name of Count Ericson was not appended, though it was
+witnessed by Charles the Twelfth; and in a few days afterwards, the
+old politician presided at the wedding dinner, and, by royal command,
+did the honours so nobly, and appeared so well pleased on the
+occasion, that nobody suspected that he had ever had higher dreams of
+ambition than to see his daughter happy; and if such had been his
+object, all Sweden knew that in bestowing her on her cousin he was
+eminently successful.
+
+
+
+
+PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+If Alexander and Archimedes, evoked from their long sleep, were to
+contemplate, with minds calmed by removal from contemporaneous
+interests, the state of mankind in the present year, with what
+different feelings would they regard the influence of their respective
+lives upon the existing human world of 1843! The Macedonian would find
+the empire which it was the labour of his life to aggrandize,
+frittered into parcels, modeled, remodeled, subjected to various
+dynasties; Turks, Greeks, Russians, still contending for portions of
+the territory which he had conjoined only to be dismembered; he would
+find in these little or no trace of his ever having existed; he would
+find that the unity of his vast political power had been severed
+before his body was yet entombed, and his prediction, that his funeral
+obsequies would be performed with bloody hands, verily fulfilled. In
+parts of the world which his living grasp had not seized, he would
+also see little to remind him of his past existence. Would not
+mortification darken the brow of the resuscitated conqueror on
+discovering, that when his name was mentioned in historic annals, it
+was less as a polar star to guide, than as a beacon to be avoided?
+
+What would the Syracusan see in this present epoch to remind him of
+himself? Would he see the man of 212 B.C., at all connected with the
+men of 1843 A.D.? Yes. In Prussia, Austria, France, England, America,
+in every city of every civilized nation, he would find the lever, the
+pulley, the mirror, the specific gravimeter, the geometric
+demonstration; he would trace the influence of his mind in the
+power-loom, the steam-engine, in the building of the Royal Exchange,
+in the Great Britain steam-ship; he would find an application of his
+well-known invention, the subject of a patent, an important auxiliary
+to navigation. Alexander _was_ a hero; Archimedes _is_ one.
+
+Are we guilty of exaggeration in this contrast of the hero of War with
+him of Science? We think not. It may undoubtedly be argued that
+Alexander's life was productive of ultimate good, that he did much to
+open Asia to European civilization; but would that consideration serve
+to soothe the gloomy Shade? To what does it amount but to the
+assertion that out of evil cometh good? It was through no aim of his
+mind that this resulted, nor are mankind indebted to him personally
+for a collateral effect of his existence.
+
+As an instance of men of a more modern era, let us take Napoleon
+Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and James Watt of Greenock, civil
+engineer.
+
+The former applied the energies of a sagacious and comprehensive
+intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his
+more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The
+former was and is, _par excellence_, a hero of history--we should
+scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name
+of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his name to occupy so
+prominent a position? He has been the cause, mediate or immediate, of
+sacrificing the lives of two millions of men.[17]
+
+    [17] From a rough calculation taken from the returns of
+    those left dead on the fields of battle in which
+    Napoleon commanded, from Montenotte to Waterloo, we make
+    the amount 1,811,500; and if we add those who died
+    subsequently of their wounds in the petty skirmishes,
+    the losses in which are not reported, and in the naval
+    fights, of which, though Napoleon was not present, he
+    was the cause, the number given in the text will be far
+    under the mark. A picture of the fathers, mothers,
+    wives, children, and relatives of these victims,
+    receiving the news of their death, would give a lively
+    idea of the benefits conferred upon the world by
+    Napoleon.
+
+Has the obscure Watt done nothing to merit a page in the records of
+mankind? Walk ten miles in any manufacturing district, enter any
+coal-mine, examine the bank of England, travel by the Great Western
+railway, or navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean, the Indian or the
+Atlantic Ocean--in each and all of these, that giant slave, the
+steam-engine, will be seen, an ever-living testimony to the services
+rendered to mankind by its subjugator.
+
+Attachment to a favourite pursuit is undoubtedly calculated to bias
+the judgment; but, however liable may be the obscure votary of science
+to override his hobby, Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of England,
+in ascribing to scientific discoverers a higher merit than to
+legislators, emperors, or patriots, cannot be open to the charge of
+egoistic partiality. What, then, says this illustrious witness?--"The
+introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most
+excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of
+antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred
+only heroical honours upon those who deserve well in civil affairs,
+such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deliverers of their
+country. And whoever rightly considers it, will find this a judicious
+custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend to
+all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats
+of men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few
+ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time.
+Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force
+and perturbation; whilst inventions spread their advantage without
+doing injury or causing disturbance."[18]
+
+    [18] Nov. Org. Aph. 29.
+
+The opinion of a man who had reached the highest point to which a
+civilian could aspire, cannot, when he estimates the honours of the
+Chancellor as inferior to those of the natural philosopher, be
+ascribed to misjudging enthusiasm or personal disappointment. Without,
+however, seeking, for the sake of antithetic contrast, to underrate
+the importance of political services, civil or military, or to
+exaggerate those of the man of science, few, we think, will be
+disposed to deny that, although the one may be temporarily more urgent
+and necessary to the well-being of an existing race, yet that the
+benefits of the other are more lasting and universal. If, then, the
+influence on mankind of the secluded inventor be more extensive and
+durable than that of the active politician--if there be any truth in
+the opinion of Bacon, that the greatest political changes are wrought
+by the peaceful under-current of science; why is it that those who
+occupy the highest place as permanent benefactors of mankind, are,
+during their lifetime, neglected and comparatively unknown;--that they
+obtain neither the tangible advantages of pecuniary emolument, nor the
+more suitable, but less lucrative, honours of grateful homage? It is
+the common cry to exclaim against the neglect of science in the
+present day. Alas! history does not show us that our predecessors were
+more just to their scientific contemporaries. The evil is to a great
+extent remediless, the complaint to some extent irrational, and
+unworthy the dignity of the cause. The labourer in the field of
+science works not for the present, but for succeeding generations; he
+plants oaks for posterity, and must not look for the gratitude of
+contemporaries. Men will remunerate less, and be less grateful for,
+prospective than for present good--for benefits secured to their
+posterity than to themselves; the realization of the advantages is so
+distant, that the amount of discount is coextensive with the debt: it
+is only as the applications of science become more immediate, that the
+cultivators of science can reasonably expect an adequate reward or
+appreciation.
+
+Even when practically applied, we too frequently see that the original
+discoveries of the physical philosopher are but little valued by those
+who make a daily, a most extensive, and a most lucrative use of their
+results. Men _talk_ of "a million;" how few have ever _counted_ one!
+Men walk along the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill; how few think
+of the multiplied passions and powers which flit by them on their
+way--of the separate world which surrounds each passer-by--of the
+separate history, external and internal, of each--each possessing
+feelings, motives of action, characters, differing from the others, as
+the stamp of nature on his brow differs from his fellows! Thus, also,
+men's ears ring with the advancement of science, men's beards wag
+with repetition of the novel powers which have been educed from
+material nature; and if, in our daily traffic, we traverse without
+attention countless sands of thought, how much more, in our hackneyed
+talk of science, do we neglect the debt we owe to thought--thought,
+not the mere normal impulse of humanity, but the carefully elaborated
+lucubration of minds, of which the term _thinking_ is emphatically
+predicable! Names which are met with but once in the annals of
+science, and there, dimly seen as a star of the least magnitude, have
+perhaps earned that remote and obscure corner by painful self-denial,
+by unwearied toil! And yet not only these, but others who have added
+to diligence high mental acumen or profundity, whose wells of thought
+are, compared with those of the general mass, unfathomable, earn but a
+careless, occasional notice--are known but to few of those who daily
+reap the harvest which they have sown, and who even boast of seeing
+further than they did, as the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant can
+see further than the giant. The first step of the unthinking is to
+deny the possibility of a given discovery, the next is to assert that
+any one could have foreseen such discovery.
+
+There are, however, points of higher import than gain or glory to
+which the philosopher must ever look, and the absence of which must be
+a source of bitter disappointment and ground of just complaint. The
+most important of these is, that, by national neglect, the _cause_ of
+science is injured, her progress retarded. Not only is she not
+honoured, she is dishonoured; and in no civilized nation is this
+contempt of physical science carried to a greater extent than in
+England, the country of commerce and of manufactures.
+
+In this country, should a father observe in his gifted son a tendency
+to physical philosophy, he anxiously endeavours to dissuade him from
+this career, knowing that not only will it tend to no worldly
+aggrandizement, but that it will have the inevitable effect of
+lowering his position in what is called, and justly called, good
+society--the society of the most highly educated classes. At one of
+our universities, physical science is utterly neglected; at the other,
+only certain branches of it are cultivated. There are, it is true,
+university professors of each branch of physics, some of whom are able
+to collect a moderate number of pupils; others are obliged to carry
+with them an assistant, to whom alone they lecture, as Dean Swift
+preached to his clerk. But what part of the regular academic education
+does the study of Natural Philosophy occupy? It forms no necessary
+part of the examinations for degrees; no credit is attached to those
+who excel in its pursuit; no prizes, no fellowships, no university
+distinction, conferred upon its most successful votaries. On the
+contrary, physical, or at all events experimental, science is tabooed;
+it is written down "snobbish," and its being so considered has much
+influence in making it so: the necessity of manipulation is a sad
+drawback to the gentlemanliness of a pursuit. Bacon rebuked this
+fastidiousness, but in vain. "We will, moreover, show those who, in
+love with contemplation, regard our frequent mention of experiments as
+something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the
+attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the
+construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same
+principles, and are brought to perfection in a similar manner."[19]
+
+    [19] Impetus Philosophici, p. 681.
+
+Unfortunately, the fact of experimental science being rejected by the
+educated classes and thrown in a great measure upon the artizans of a
+country, has conducted, among other evils, to one of a most
+detrimental character; viz. the want of accuracy in scientific
+language, and consequently the want of accuracy in ideas. Perfection
+in language, as in every thing else, is not to be attained, and
+doubtless there are few of the most highly educated who would not, in
+many cases, assign different meanings to the same word; but if some
+confusion on this subject is unavoidable, how much is that confusion
+increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs
+written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may
+be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that
+accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of
+style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas!
+Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the
+writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them
+any definite meaning, or attach one different from that which the
+authors intended to convey; whence arises a want of reciprocal
+intelligence, a want of unity of thought and purpose. Another defect
+arising from the circumstance that persons of a high order of
+education have not been generally the cultivators of experimental
+science in this country, is, that the path is thereby rendered more
+accessible to empiricism. Science, beautiful in herself, has thence a
+class of deformed disciples, who succeed in entangling their false
+pretensions with the claims of true merit. So much dust is puffed into
+the eyes of the public, that it can hardly distinguish between works
+of durable importance and the ephemeral productions of empirics; and
+those who would otherwise disdain the notoriety acquired by
+advertisement, end in adopting the system as the only means to avoid
+the mortification of seeing their own ideas appropriated and uttered
+in another form and in another's name.[20]
+
+    [20] In any thing we have above said, we trust it is
+    unnecessary to disclaim the slightest intention of
+    discouraging those whose want of conventional advantages
+    only renders their merit more conspicuous; we find fault
+    not with the uneducated for cultivating science, but
+    with the educated for neglecting it.
+
+While the evils to which science is exposed by the necessarily
+unfashionable character of experimental manipulation are neither few
+nor trivial, there are still evils which arise from the directly
+opposite cause--from excess of intellectual cultivation; as is shown
+in the exclusive love of mathematics by a great number of
+philosophers. Minds which, left to themselves, might have eliminated
+the most valuable results, have, dazzled by the lustre cast by fashion
+upon abstract mathematical speculations, lost themselves in a mazy
+labyrinth of transcendentals. The fashion of mathematics has ruined
+many who might be most useful experimentalists; but who, wishing to
+take a higher flight, seek to attain distinction in mathematical
+analysis, and having acquired a certain celebrity for experimental
+research, dissipate, in simple equations, the fame they had acquired
+in a field equally productive, but not so select. Like Claude, who in
+his later years said, "Buy my figures, and I will give you my
+landscapes for nothing;" they fall in love with their own weakness,
+and estimate their merit by the labour they have undergone, not by the
+results they have deduced. M. Comte expresses himself well on this
+subject. "Mathematicians, too frequently taking the means for the end,
+have embarrassed Natural Philosophy with a crowd of analytical
+labours, founded upon hypotheses extremely hazardous, or even upon
+conceptions purely visionary; and consequently sober-minded people can
+see in them really nothing more than simple mathematical exercises, of
+which the abstract value is sometimes very striking, without their
+influence, in the slightest degree, accelerating the natural progress
+of Physics."[21]
+
+    [21] Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 409.
+
+The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have,
+like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in
+number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized
+SOCIETIES, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much
+good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out
+their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries
+of similar branches of study--they do good by the more attainable
+communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will
+not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by
+the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to
+the public the fruits of their labour--they give an _esprit de corps_,
+which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral
+discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the
+collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus
+accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would
+have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their
+institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the
+other hand, they do harm, by becoming the channels of selfish
+speculation, their honorary offices being used as stepping-stones to
+lucrative ones, thereby causing their influential members to please
+the givers of "situations," and to publish the trash of the
+impertinently ambitious, the _Titmice of the Credulous Societies_! The
+ultra-ridiculous parade with which they have decked fair science,
+giving her a vest of unmeaning hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing her
+to the finger of scorn, is another prominent and unsightly feature of
+such societies; they do harm by the cliquerie which they generate,
+collecting little knots of little men, no individual of whom can stand
+his own ground, but a group of whom, by leaning hard together, can,
+and do, exercise a most pernicious influence; seeking petty gain and
+class celebrity, they exert their joint-stock brains to convert
+science into pounds, shillings, and pence; and, when they have managed
+to poke one foot upon the ladder of notoriety, use the other to kick
+furiously at the poor aspirants who attempt to follow them.
+
+It has been frequently and strenuously urged, that these societies, or
+some of them, should be supported by government, and not dependent
+upon the subscriptions of their members. The arguments in favour of
+such a measure are, that by thus being accessible only to merit, and
+not depending upon money, their position would be more honourable and
+advantageous to the progress of science. With regard to such societies
+generally, this proposition is incapable of realization; every year
+sees a new society of this description; to annex many of these to
+government, would involve difficulties which, in the present state of
+politics, would be insurmountable. Who, for instance, would pay taxes
+for them? Another, and more reasonable, proposition is, that the
+government should establish and support one academy as a head and
+front of the others, accessible only to men of high distinction, who
+would be thus constituted the oligarchs of science. Of the advantage
+of this we have some doubts. Politics are already too much mixed up
+with all government appointments in England: their influence is at
+present scarcely felt in science, and we would not willingly risk an
+introduction so fraught with danger. The want of such an academy
+certainly lessens the English in the eyes of the continental _savans_;
+but could not such a one be organized, and perhaps endowed, by
+government, without any permanent connexion with it?
+
+If we compare the proceedings, undoubtedly dignified and decorous, of
+our Royal Society with those of the French Academy, we fear the
+balance will be found to be in favour of the latter. At Somerset
+House, after the list of donations and abstract of former proceedings,
+a paper, or a portion of a paper, is read upon some abstruse
+scientific subject, and the meeting is adjourned in solemn silence, no
+observation can be made upon it, no question asked, or explanation
+given. The public is excluded,[22] and the greater part of the members
+generally exclude themselves, very few having resolution enough to
+leave a comfortable dinner-table to bear the solemn formalities of
+such an evening. The paper is next committed, it is not known to whom,
+reported on in private, and either published, or deposited in the
+_archives of the Society_, according to the judgment of the unknown
+irresponsible parties to whom it is committed. Let us now look at the
+proceedings of the French Academy; it is open to the public, and the
+public take so great an interest in it, that to secure a seat an early
+attendance is always requisite. Every scientific point of daily and
+passing interest is brought before it--comments, such as occur at the
+time, are made upon various points by the secretary, or any other
+member who likes to make an observation--the more elaborate memoirs
+are read by the authors themselves, and if any _qu�re_ or suggestion
+occurs to a member present, he has an opportunity of being answered.
+The memoir is then committed to parties whose names are publicly
+mentioned, who bring out their report in public, which report is read
+in public, and may be answered by the author if he object to it.
+Lastly, the whole proceedings are printed and published verbatim, and
+circulated at the next weekly meeting, while, in the mean time, the
+public press notices them freely. That, with all these advantages, the
+French Academy is not free from faults, we are far from asserting;
+that there is as much unseen man[oe]uvring and petty tyranny in this
+as in most other institutions, is far from improbable;[23] but the
+effect upon the public, and the zest and vitality which its
+proceedings give to science, are undeniable, and it is also undeniable
+that we have no scientific institution approaching to it in interest
+or value.
+
+    [22] Each Fellow can, indeed, by express permission of
+    the Society, take with him two friends.
+
+    [23] An anonymous author, who has attracted some
+    attention in France, in commenting on the rejection of
+    Victor Hugo, and the election of a physician, says--that
+    nothing could be more natural or proper, as the senility
+    and feebleness of the Acad�mie made it more in want of a
+    physician than a poet.
+
+The present perpetual secretary of the Academy, Arago, with much of
+prejudice, much of egotism, has talents most plastic, an energy of
+character, an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity of expression,
+which alone give to the sittings of the French Academy a peculiar and
+surpassing interest, but which, in the English Society, would be
+entirely lost.
+
+In quitting, for the present, the subject of scientific societies, we
+must advert to a consequence of the increased number of candidates for
+scientific distinction of late years; of which increase the number of
+these societies may be regarded as an exponent. This increase,
+although on the whole both a cause and a consequence of the
+advancement of science, yet has in some respects lowered the high
+character of her cultivators by the competition it has necessarily
+engendered. Books tell us that the cultivation of science must elevate
+and expand the mind, by keeping it apart from the jangling of worldly
+interests. This dogma has its false as well as its true side, more
+especially when in this, as in every other field of human activity,
+the number of competitors is rapidly increasing; great watchfulness is
+requisite to resist temptations which beset the aspirant to success on
+this arena, more perhaps than in any other. The difficulty which the
+most honest find to avoid treading in the footsteps of others--the
+different aspect in which the same phenomena present themselves to
+different minds--the unwillingness which the mind experiences in
+renouncing published but erroneous opinions--are points of human
+weakness which, not to mislead, must be watched with assiduous care.
+Again, the ease with which plagiarism is committed from the number of
+roads by which the same point may be reached, is a great temptation to
+the waverer, and a great trial of temper to the victim. The disputants
+on the aren� of law, politics, or other pursuits, the ostensible aim
+of which is worldly aggrandizement, however animated in debate,
+unsparing in satire, reckless in their invective and recrimination,
+seldom fail in their private intercourse to throw off the armour of
+professional antagonism, and to extend to each other the ungloved hand
+of social cordiality. On the other hand, it is too frequent a
+spectacle in scientific circles to behold a careful wording of public
+controversy, a gentle, apologetic phraseology, a correspondence never
+going beyond the "retort courteous," or "quip modest," while there
+exists an under-current of the bitterest personal jealousy, the
+outward philosopher being strangely at variance with the inward man.
+
+Among the various circumstances which influence the progress of
+physical science in this country, one of the most prominent is the
+_Patent_ law--a law in its intention beneficent; but whether the
+practical working of it be useful, either to science or its
+cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt. Of the greater number of
+patents enrolled in that depot of practical science, Chancery Lane, by
+far the majority are beneficial only to the revenue; and on the
+question of public economy, whether or not the price paid by
+miscalculating ingenuity is a fair and politic source of revenue, we
+shall not enter; but on the reasons which lead so many to be dupes of
+their own self-esteem, a few words may not be misspent. The chief
+reason why a vast number of patents are unsuccessful, is, that it
+takes a long time (longer generally than fourteen years, the
+statutable limit of patent grants) to make the workmen of a country
+familiar with a new manufacture. A party, therefore, who proposes
+patenting an invention, and who sits down and calculates the value of
+the material, the time necessary for its manufacture, and other
+essential data; comparing these with the price at which it can be sold
+to obtain a remunerative profit, seldom takes into consideration the
+time necessary, first, to accustom the journeymen workers to its
+construction, and secondly, to make known to the public its real
+value. In the present universal competition, puffing is carried on to
+such an extent, that, to give a fair chance of success, not only must
+the first expense of a patent be incurred--no inconsiderable one
+either, even supposing the patentee fortunate enough to escape
+litigation--but a large sum of money must be invested in
+advertisements, with little immediate return; hence it is that the
+most valuable patents, viewed in relation to their scientific
+importance, their ultimate public benefit, and the merits of their
+inventors, are seldom the most lucrative, while a patent inkstand, a
+boot-heel, a shaving case, or a button, become rapidly a source of no
+inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial to inventors? Is it an
+encouragement of science, or a proper object of legislative provision,
+that the improver of the most trivial mechanical application should be
+carefully protected, while those who open the hidden sources of
+myriads of patents, are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating
+themselves? We seriously incline to think that, as the matter at
+present stands, an entire erasure from the statute-books of patent
+provision would be of service to science, and perhaps to the
+community; each tradesman would depend for success upon his own
+activity, and the perfection he could give his manufacture, and the
+scientific searcher after experimental truths would not find his path
+barred by prohibitions from speculative empirics.
+
+According to the present patent laws, it is more than questionable
+whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue
+his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the
+threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional
+England instead of despotic Russia, it is doubtful if he could work
+out his discovery of the electrotype--we say _doubtful_; for, as far
+as we can learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the
+mere use of a patent, not for sale or a lucrative object, is such a
+use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a
+patentee's rights. It appears to be settled, that a previous
+experimental and unpublished use by one party, does not prevent
+another subsequent inventor of the same process from patenting it;
+and, by parity of reasoning, we should say, that if a party have the
+advantage of patenting an invention which can be found to have been
+previously used, but not for sale, he should not have the additional
+privilege of prohibiting the same party, or others, from proceeding
+with their experiments. There are, however, not wanting arguments for
+the other view. The practice of a patented invention, for one's own
+benefit or pleasure, deprives the patentee of a possible source of
+profit; for it cannot be said that the party experimenting, if
+prohibited, might not apply for a license to the patentee. Take, for
+instance, the notorious and justly censured patent of Daguerre.
+Supposing, for argument's sake, this patent to be valid, can a private
+individual, under the existing patent laws, take photographic views or
+portraits for his own amusement, or in pursuance of scientific
+investigations? If he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful path of
+physics to be shut up for fourteen years; or if he can, then is the
+licensee, a purchaser for value, to be excluded from very many sources
+of pecuniary emolument? To us, the injury to the public, in this and
+similar cases, appears of incomparably greater consequence than that
+to the individual; but what the authorities at Westminster Hall may
+say is another question. Even could the patent laws be so modified,
+that the benefits derived from them could fall upon those scientific
+discoverers most justly entitled, we are still doubtful as to their
+utility, or whether they would contribute to the advancement of
+science, which is the point of view in which we here principally
+regard them. It would scarcely add to the dignity of philosophy, or
+to the reverence due to its votaries, to see them running with their
+various inventions to the patent office, and afterwards spending their
+time in the courts of law, defending their several claims. They would
+thus entirely lose the respect due to them from their contemporaries
+and posterity, and waste, in pecuniary speculation, time which might
+be more advantageously, and without doubt more agreeably, employed. If
+parties look to money as their reward, they have no right to look for
+fame; to those who sell the produce of their brains, the public owes
+no debt.
+
+We have observed recently a strong tendency in men of no mean
+scientific pretensions to patent the results of their labours. We
+blame them not: it is a matter of free election on their part, but we
+cannot praise them. A writer in a recent number of the _Edinburgh
+Review_, has the following remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's
+patented invention of the Calotype. "Nor does the fate of the Calotype
+redeem the treatment of her sister art, (the Daguerreotype.) The Royal
+Society, the philosophical organ of the nation, has refused to publish
+its processes in her transactions. * * * No representatives of the
+people unanimously recommended a national reward. * * * It gives us
+great pleasure to learn, that though none of his (Mr Talbot's)
+photographical discoveries adorn the transactions of the Royal
+Society, yet the president and the council have adjudged him the
+Rumford medals for the last biennial period."[24]
+
+    [24] _Edin. Rev._ No. 159.
+
+The notion of a "national reward" for the Calotype scarcely requires a
+remark. If, after a discovery is once made and published, every
+subsequent new process in the same art is to be nationally rewarded,
+the income-tax must be at least quadrupled. The complaint, however,
+against the Royal Society, is not altogether groundless. True it is
+that the first paper of Mr Talbot did not contain an account of the
+processes employed by him, and therefore should not have been even
+read to the Society; but the paper on the Calotype did contain such
+description, and we see no reason why a society for the advancement of
+knowledge should not give publicity to a valuable process, though made
+the subject of a patent--but it certainly should not bestow an
+honorary reward upon an inventor who has withheld from the Royal
+Society and the public the practice of the invention whose processes
+he communicates. Mr Talbot had a perfect right to patent his
+invention, but has on that account no claim in respect of the same
+invention to an honorary reward. The Royal Society did not publish his
+paper, but awarded him a medal. In our opinion, they should have
+published his paper and not awarded him a medal.
+
+Regarded as to her national encouragement of science, there are some
+features in which England differs not from other countries; there are
+others in which she may be strikingly contrasted with them; and, with
+all our love for her, we fear she will suffer by the contrast. A
+learned writer of the present day, has the following passage in
+reference to the state of science in England as contrasted with other
+countries:--"When the proud science of England pines in obscurity,
+blighted by the absence of the royal favour and the nation's sympathy;
+when her chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured, how can it sustain the
+conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign
+lands?"[25]
+
+    [25] Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 35.
+
+This, to be sure, is somewhat "_tumultuous_." We do not, however, cite
+it as a specimen of composition, but as an expression of a very
+prevalent feeling; the opinion involved in the concluding _qu�re_ is
+open to doubt--England does sustain the conflict, if any conflict
+there be to sustain; but we are bound to admit, that in no country are
+the soldiers of _science militant_ less honoured or rewarded. It is no
+uncommon remark, that despotic governments are the most favourable to
+the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general
+truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a
+republican or constitutional government, politics are the
+all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme
+of conversation;--in purely despotic states, such discussions are
+prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few
+restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of
+absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may
+divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as
+existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality
+of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in
+the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are
+rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most
+prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so
+gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual
+energies of a people.
+
+We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also
+transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the
+present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have
+influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient
+thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of
+our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate
+and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a
+promoter of physical science.
+
+In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to
+place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied
+mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the
+independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results;
+researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate,
+instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally
+estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than
+any other European nation; the �sthetical power which enables them to
+seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception
+and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators.
+The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have
+undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding
+the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of
+the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional--too much
+_selon les r�gles_; there are too many minuti�; the reader is tempted
+to exclaim with Jacques--"I think of as many matters as he; but I give
+Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." Their accuracy frequently
+degenerates into affectation and parade. We have now before us a paper
+in the _Annales de Chimie_, containing some chemical researches, in
+which, though the difference of each experiment in a small number, put
+together for average, amounts to several units, the weights are given
+to the fifth place of decimals. England, which we should place next,
+is by no means exempt from these trappings of science. Many English
+scientific papers seem written as if with the resolute purpose of
+filling a certain number of pages, and many of their writers seem to
+think a _paper per annum_, good or bad, necessary to indicate their
+philosophical existence. They write, not because they have made a
+discovery, but because their period of hybernation has expired. Still,
+in England, there is a strong vein of original thought. Competition,
+if it lead to puffing and quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions;
+and, in England, competition has done its worst and its best; in
+original chemical discovery, England has latterly been unrivalled.
+
+Next to England we should place Sweden and Denmark--for their
+population they have done much, and done it well; then Italy--in Italy
+science is well organized, and the rulers of her petty states seem to
+feel a proper emulation in promoting scientific merit--in which
+laudable rivalry the Archduke of Tuscany deserves honourable mention;
+America and Russia come next--the former state is zealous, ready at
+practical application, and promises much for the future, but as yet
+has not done enough in original research to entitle her to be placed
+in the van. Russia at present possesses few, if any, native
+philosophers--her discoverers and discoveries are all imported; but
+the emperor's zeal and _patronage_ (a word which we scarcely like to
+apply to science) is doing much to organize her forces, and the
+mercenary troops may impart vigour, and induce discipline into the
+national body. In this short enumeration, we have considered each
+country, not according to the number of its very eminent men; for
+though far from denying the right which each undoubtedly possesses to
+shine by the reflected lustre of her stars, yet in looking, as it
+were, from an external point, it is more just to regard the general
+character of each people than to classify them according as they may
+happen to be the birthplace of those
+
+    "To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."
+
+A misunderstanding of the proper use of theory is among the prevalent
+scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of
+considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with
+physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This
+contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance
+of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of
+Mr Carlyle:--"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form,
+is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words: we call that fire
+of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about
+it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it?
+Whence comes it? Where goes it?"[26]
+
+    [26] Carlyle on Hero Worship.
+
+However the experienced philosopher may be convinced that _in
+themselves_ theories are nothing--that they are but collations of
+phenomena under a generic formula, which is useful only inasmuch as it
+groups these phenomena; yet it is difficult to see how, without these
+imperfect generalizations, any mind can retain the endless variety of
+facts and relations which every branch of science presents; still
+less, how these can be taught, learned, reasoned upon, or used. How
+could the facts of geology be recollected, or how, indeed, could they
+constitute a science without reference to some real or supposed bond
+of union, some aqueous or igneous theory? How could two chemists
+converse on chemistry without the use of the term affinity, and the
+theoretical conception it involves? How could a name be applied, or a
+nomenclature adopted, without that imperfect, or more or less perfect
+grouping of facts, which involves theory? As far as we can recollect,
+all the alterations of nomenclature which have been introduced, or
+attempted, proceed upon some alteration of theory.
+
+If not theory but hypothesis be objected to--not the imperfect
+generalization of phenomena, but a gratuitous assumption for the sake
+of collating them, this, although ground which should be trodden more
+cautiously, appears in certain cases unavoidable; in fact, is scarcely
+separable from theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly" about the two
+_fluids_ of electricity, we should not now possess many of the
+discoveries with which this science is enriched, although we do not,
+and probably never shall, know what electricity is.
+
+On the other hand, among professed physical philosophers, the great
+abuse of theories and hypotheses is, that their promulgators soon
+regard them, not as aids to science, to be changed if occasion should
+require, but as absolute natural truths; they look to that as an end,
+which is in fact but a means; their theories become part of their
+mental constitution, idiosyncrasies; and they themselves become
+partizans of a faction, and cease to be inductive philosophers.
+
+Another injury to science, in a great measure peculiar to the present
+day, arises from the number of speculations which are ushered into the
+world to account for the same phenomena; every one, like Sir Andrew
+Aguecheek, when he wished to cudgel a Puritan, has for his opinion "no
+exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science
+immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their
+career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of
+their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena,
+enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a
+comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with
+theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good--they do not
+always end with experiment.
+
+As, in the promulgation of theories, every aspirant is anxious to
+propound different news, so, in nomenclature, there is a strong
+tendency to promiscuous coining. The great commentator on the laws of
+England, Sir William Blackstone, observes, "As to the impression, the
+stamping of coin is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown, * * *
+the king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate foreign coin, and
+make it current here."[27]
+
+    [27] Commentaries, vol. i. p. 277.
+
+As coinage of money is the undoubted prerogative of the crown; so
+generally coinage of words has been the undoubted prerogative of the
+kings of science--those to whom mankind have bent as to unquestionable
+authority. But even these royal dignitaries have generally been
+sparing in the exercise of this prerogative, and used it only on rare
+occasions and when absolutely necessary, either from the discovery of
+new things requiring new names, or upon entire revolutions of theory.
+
+                        "Si forte necesse est
+    Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
+    Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegis
+    Continget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."
+
+But now there is no "pudor" in the matter. Every man has his own mint;
+and although their several coins do not pass current very generally,
+yet they are taken here and there by a few disciples, and throw some
+standard money out of the market. The want of consideration evinced in
+these novel vocabularies is remarkable. Whewell, whose scientific
+position and dialectic turn of mind may fairly qualify him to be a
+word-maker, seems peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as an instance,
+"_idiopts_," an uncomfortable word, barely necessary, as the persons
+to whom it applies are comparatively rare, and will scarcely thank the
+Master of Trinity College for approximating them in name to a more
+numerous and more unfortunate class--the word _physicists_, where four
+sibilant consonants fizz like a squib. In these, and we might add many
+from other sources, euphony is wantonly disregarded; by other authors
+of smaller calibre, classical associations are curiously violated. We
+may take, as an instance, _platinode_, Spanish-American joined to
+ancient Greek. In chemistry there is a profusion of new coin. Sulphate
+of ammonia--oxi-sulphion of ammonium--sulphat-oxide of ammonium--three
+names for one substance. This mania is by no means common to England.
+In Liebig's Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we have the following
+passage:--"It should be remarked that some chemists designate
+artificial camphor by the name of hydrochlorate of camphor. Deville
+calls it bihydrochlorate of t�r�b�ne, and Souberaine and Capelaine
+call it hydrochlorate of pencyl�ne."
+
+So generally does this prevail, that in chemical treatises the names
+of substances are frequently given with a tail of synonymes. Numerous
+words might be cited which are names for non-existences--mere
+hypothetic groupings; and yet so rapidly are these increasing, that it
+seems not impossible, in process of time, there will be more names for
+things that are not than for things that are. If this work go on, the
+scientific public must elect a censor whose fiat shall be final;
+otherwise, as every small philosopher is encouraged or tolerated in
+framing _ad libitum_ a nomenclature of his own, the inevitable effect
+will be, that no man will be able to understand his brother, and a
+confusion of tongues will ensue, to be likened only to that which
+occasioned the memorable dispersion at Babel.
+
+Many of the defects to which we have alluded in the course of this
+paper, time alone can remedy. In spite of all drawbacks, the progress
+of science has been vast and rapidly increasing; the very rapidity of
+its progress brings with it difficulties. So many points, once
+considered impossible, have been proved possible, that to some minds
+the suggestion of impossibility seems an argument in favour of
+possibility. Because steam-travelling was once laughed at as visionary,
+aerial navigation is to be regarded as practicable--perhaps, indeed, it
+_will_ be so, give but the time _proportionably_ requisite to master
+its difficulties, as there was given to steam. What proportion this
+should be we will not venture to predict. There can be little doubt
+that the most effectual way to induce a more accurate public
+discrimination of scientific efforts is to turn somewhat more in that
+direction the current of national education. Prizes at the universities
+for efficiency in the physics of light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
+or chemistry, could, we conceive, do no harm. Why should not similar
+honours be conferred on those students who advance the progress of an
+infant science, as on those who work out with facility the formul� of
+an exact one; and why should not acquirements in either, rank equally
+high with the critical knowledge of the _digamma_ or the _� priori_
+philosophy of Aristotle? Is not Bacon's Novum Organon as much entitled
+to be made a standard book for the schools as Aldrich's logic?
+Venerating English universities, we approve not the inconsiderate
+outcries against systematic and time-honoured educational discipline;
+but it would increase our love for these seminaries of sound learning,
+could we more frequently see such men as Davy emanate from Oxford,
+instead of from the pneumatic institution of Bristol.
+
+Provided science be kept separate from political excitement, we should
+like to see an English Academy, constituted of men having fair claims
+to scientific distinction, and not "deserving of that honour because
+they are attached to science."
+
+It is unnecessary here to touch upon the details of such an Academy.
+The proposition is by no means new. On the contrary, we believe a wish
+for some such change pretty generally exists. Iteration is sometimes
+more useful than originality. The more frequently the point is brought
+before the public, the more probable is it that steps will be taken by
+those who are qualified to move in such a matter. The more the present
+defective state of our scientific organization is commented on, the
+more likely is it to be remedied; for the patency of error is ever a
+sure prelude to its extirpation.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONICLES OF PARIS.
+
+THE RUE ST DENIS.
+
+
+One of the longest, the narrowest, the highest, the darkest, and the
+dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the
+Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north,
+it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a
+gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest
+barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide,
+straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of
+Sainct-Denys-en-France. This was, from time immemorial, the state-road
+for the monarchs of France to make their formal entries into, and exits
+from, their capital--whether they came from their coronation at Rheims,
+or went to their last resting-place beneath the tall spire of St Denis.
+This has always been the line by which travellers from the northern
+provinces have entered the good city of Paris; and for many a long year
+its echoes have never had rest from the cracking of the postilion's
+whip, the roll of the heavy diligence, and the perpetual jumbling of
+carts and waggons. It is, as it has ever been, one of the main arteries
+of the capital; and nowhere does the restless tide of Parisian life run
+more rapidly or more constantly than over its well-worn stones. In the
+pages of the venerable historians of the French capital, and in ancient
+maps, it is always called "_La Grande Rue de Sainct Denys_," being, no
+doubt, at one time the _ne plus ultra_ of all that was considered wide
+and commodious. Now its appellation is curtailed into the _Rue St
+D'nis_, and it is avoided by the polite inhabitants of Paris as
+containing nothing but the _bourgeoisie_ and the _canaille_. Once it was
+the Regent Street of Paris--a sort of Rue de la Paix--lounged along by
+the gallants of the days of Henri IV., and not unvisited by the
+red-heeled marquises of the Regent d'Orleans's time; now it sees nothing
+more _recherch�_ than the cap of the grisette or the poissarde, as the
+case may be, nor any thing more august than the casquette of the
+_commis-voyageur_, or the indescribable shako and equipments of the
+National Guard. As its frequenters have been changed in character, so
+have its houses and public buildings; they have lost much of the
+picturesque appearance they possessed a hundred years ago--they are
+forced every year more and more into line, like a regiment of stone and
+mortar. Instead of showing their projecting, high-peaked gables to the
+street, they have now turned their fronts, as more polite; the roofs are
+accommodated with the luxury of pipes, and the midnight sound of "_Gare
+l'eau!_" which used to make the late-returning passenger start with all
+agility from beneath the opened window to avoid the odoriferous shower,
+is now but seldom heard. A Liliputian footway, some two feet wide, is
+laid down in flags at either side; the oscillating lamp, that used to
+hang on a rotten cord thrown across the roadway from house to house, and
+made darkness visible, has given place to the genius of gas--_enfin, la
+R�volution a pass� par l�_; and the Rue de St Denis is now a ghost only
+of what it was. Still it retains sufficient peculiarities of dimensions
+and outline to show that it is a child of the middle ages; and, like so
+many other children of the same kind, it contributes to make its mother
+Paris, as compared with the modern-built capitals of Europe, a town of
+former days. Long may it retain these oddities of appearance--long may
+it remain narrow, dark, and dirty; we rejoice that such streets still
+exist--they do one's eye good, if not one's nose. There is more of
+colour, of light and shade, of picturesque, fantastic outline, in a
+hundred yards of the Rue St Denis, than in all the line from Piccadilly
+to Whitechapel; a painter can pick up more food for his easel in this
+queer, old street--an antiquarian can find there more tales and crusts
+for his noddle, than in all Regent Street and Portland Place. We love a
+ramshackle place like this; it does one good to get out of the
+associations of the present century, and to retrograde a bit; it is
+pleasant to see how people used to pig together in ancient days, without
+any of the mathematical formalities of the present day; it keeps one's
+eye in tone to look back at works of the middle ages; and we may learn
+the more justly to criticize what we see arising about us, by refreshing
+our recollections of the mouldering past. Paris is a glorious place for
+things of this kind. Thank the stars, it never got burned out of its old
+clothes, as London did. Newfangled streets and quarters of every age
+have been added to it, but there still remains a medi�val nucleus--there
+is still an "old Paris"--a gloomy, filthy, old town, irregular and
+inconvenient as any town ever was yet; and a walk of twenty minutes will
+take you from the elegant uniformity of the Rue de Rivoli into the
+original chaos of buildings--into the Quartier des Halles and into the
+Rue St Denis. How often have we hurried down them on a cold winter's
+day--say the 31st of December--to buy bons-bons in the Rue des Lombards,
+once the abode of bankers, now the paradise of _confiseurs_, against the
+coming morrow--the grand day of visits and cadeaux--braving the snow
+some three feet deep in the midst of the street--or, if there happened
+to be no snow, the mud a foot and a half, splashing through it with our
+last new pair of boots from Legrand's, and the last _pantalon_ from
+Blondel's--for cabriolet or omnibus, none might pass that way; and
+there, amid onion-smelling crowds, in a long, low shop, with lamps
+lighted at two o'clock, have consummated our purchase, and floundered
+back triumphant! Away, ye gay, seducing vanities of the Palais Royal or
+the Boulevards; your light is too garish for our sober eyes--the sugar
+of your comfitures is too chalky for our discriminating tooth! Our
+appropriate latitude is that of the Quartier St Denis! One thing,
+however, we must confess, we never did in the Rue St Denis--we never
+dined there! _Oh non! il ne faut pas faire �a!_ 'Tis the headquarters of
+all the sausage-dealers, the _charcutiers_, and the _rotisseurs_ of
+Paris. Genuine meat and drink there is none; cats hold the murderous
+neighbourhood in traditional abhorrence, and the ruddiest wine of
+Burgundy would turn pale were the aqueous reputation of the street
+whispered near its cellar-door. Thank Heaven, we have a gastronomic
+instinct that saved us from acts of suicidal rashness! When in Paris,
+gentle reader, we always dine at the Trois Fr�res Proven�aux; the little
+room in blue, remember--time, six P.M.; potage � la Julienne--bifteck au
+vin de Champagne--poulet � la Marengo--Chambertin, and St P�ray ros�.
+The next time you visit the Palais-Royal, turn in there, and dine with
+us--we shall be delighted to see you!
+
+There are few gaping Englishmen who have been on the other side of the
+Channel but have found their way along the Boulevards to the Porte St
+Denis, and have stared first of all at that dingy monument of
+Ludovican pride, and then have stared down the Rue St Denis, and then
+have stared up the Rue du Faubourg St Denis; but very few are ever
+tempted to turn either to the right hand or to the left, and so they
+generally poke on to the Porte St Martin, or stroll back to the
+Madeleine, and rarely make acquaintance with the Dionysian mysteries
+of Paris. For the benefit, therefore, of such travellers as go to the
+French capital with their eyes in their pockets, and of such as stay
+at home and travel by their fireside, but still can relish the
+recollections and associations of olden times, we are going to rake
+together some of the many odd notes that pertain to the history of
+this street and its immediate vicinity.
+
+The readiest way into the Rue St Denis from the Isle de la Cit�, the
+centre of Paris, has always been over the Pont-au-Change. This bridge,
+now the widest over the Seine, was once a narrow, ill-contrived
+structure of wood, covered with a row of houses on either side, that
+formed a dark and dirty street, so that you might pass through it a
+hundred times without once suspecting that you were crossing a river.
+These houses, built of stone and wood, overhung the edges of the
+bridge, and afforded their inhabitants an unsafe abode between the sky
+and the water. At times the river would rise in one of its periodical
+furies, and sweep away a pier or two with the superincumbent houses;
+at others the wooden supporters of the structure would catch fire by
+some untoward event, and the inhabitants had the choice of being fried
+or drowned, along with their penates and their supellectile property.
+Such a catastrophe happened in the reign of Louis XIII., when this and
+another wooden bridge, situated, oddly enough, close by its side, were
+set on fire by a squib, which some _gamins de Paris_ were letting off
+on his Majesty's highway; and in less than three hours 140 houses had
+disappeared. It was Louis VII., in the twelfth century, who gave it
+the name it has since borne; for he ordered all the money-changers of
+Paris to come and live on this bridge--no very secure place for
+keeping the precious metals; and about two hundred years ago the
+money-changers, fifty-four in number, occupied the houses on one side,
+while fifty goldsmiths lived in those on the other. In the open
+roadway between, was held a kind of market or fair for bird-sellers,
+who were allowed to keep their standings on the curious tenure of
+letting off two hundred dozens of small birds whenever a new king
+should pass over this bridge, on his solemn entry into the capital.
+The birds fluttered and whistled on these occasions, the _gamins_
+clapped their hands and shouted, the good citizens cried "Noel!" and
+"Vive le Roy!" and the courtiers were delighted at the joyous
+spectacle. Whether the birds flew away ready roasted to the royal
+table, history is silent; but it would have been a sensible
+improvement of this part of the triumphal ceremony, and we recommend
+it to the serious notice of all occupiers of the French throne.
+
+On arriving at the northern end of the bridge, the passenger had on
+his right a covered gallery of shops, stretching up the river side to
+the Pont Notre Dame, and called the Quai de Gesvres; here was a
+fashionable promenade for the beaux of Paris, for it was filled with
+the stalls of pretty milliners, like one of our bazars, and boasted of
+an occasional bookseller's shop or two, where the tender ballads of
+Ronsard, or the broad jokes of Rabelais, might be purchased and read
+for a few livres. To the left was a narrow street, known by the
+curious appellation of _Trop-va-qui-dure_, the etymology of which has
+puzzled the brains of all Parisian antiquaries; while just beyond it,
+and still by the river side, was the _Vieille Vall�e de Mis�re_--words
+indicative of the opinion entertained of so _ineligible_ a residence.
+In front frowned, in all the grim stiffness of a feudal fortress, the
+_Grand Chastelet_, once the northern defence of Paris against the
+Normans and the English, but at last changed into the headquarters of
+the police--the Bow Street of the French capital. Two large towers,
+with conical tops over a portcullised gateway, admitted the prisoners
+into a small square court, round which were ranged the offices of the
+lieutenant of police, and the chambers of the law-officers of the
+crown. Part of the building served as a prison for the vulgar crew of
+offenders--a kind of Newgate, or Tolbooth; another was used as, and
+was called, the Morgue, where the dead bodies found in the Seine were
+often carried; there was a room in it called C�sar's chamber, where
+the good citizens of Paris firmly believed that the great Julius once
+sat as provost of Paris, in a red robe and flowing wig; and there was
+many an out-of-the-way nook and corner full of dust and parchments,
+and rats and spiders. The lawyers of the Chastelet thought no small
+beer of themselves, it seems; for they claimed the right of walking in
+processions before the members of the Parliament, and immediately
+after the corporation of the capital. The unlucky wight who might
+chance to be put in durance vile within these walls, was commonly well
+trounced and fined ere he was allowed to depart; and next to the
+dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet used to be looked on with
+peculiar horror. At the Revolution it was one of the first feudal
+buildings demolished--not a stone of the old pile remains; the
+Pont-au-Change had long before had its wooden piers changed for noble
+stone ones, and on the site where this fortress stood is now the Place
+de Chatelet, with a Napoleonic monument in the midst--a column
+inscribed with names of bloody battle-fields, on its summit a golden
+wing-expanding Victory, and at its base four little impudent dolphins,
+snorting out water into the buckets of the Porteurs d'Eau.
+
+Behind the Chastelet stood the _Grande Boucherie_--the Leadenhall
+market of Paris an hundred years ago; and near it, up a dirty street
+or two, was one of the finest churches of the capital, dedicated to St
+Jacques. The lofty tower of this latter edifice (its body perished
+when the Boucherie and the Chastelet disappeared) still rises in
+gloomy majesty above all the surrounding buildings. It is as high as
+those of Notre Dame; and from its upper corners, enormous
+_gargouilles_--those fantastic water-spouts of the middle ages--gape
+with wide-stretched jaws, but no longer send down the washings of the
+roof on the innocent passengers. Hereabouts lived Nicholas Flamel, the
+old usurer, who made money so fast that it was said he used to sup
+nightly with his Satanic majesty, and who thereupon built part of the
+church to save his bacon. He was of opinion that it was well to have
+the "_mens sana in corpore sano_"--that it was no joke to be burnt;
+and so he stuck close to the church, taking care that himself and his
+wife, Pernelle, should have a comfortable resting-place for their
+bones within the walls of St Jacques. When this was a fashionable
+quarter of Paris, the court doctor and accoucheur did not disdain to
+reside in it; for Jean Fernel, the medical attendant of Catharine de
+Medicis, lived and died within the shade of this old tower. He was a
+fortunate fellow, a sort of Astley Cooper or Clarke in his way, and
+Catharine used to give him 10,000 crowns, or something like L.6000,
+every time she favoured France with an addition to the royal family.
+He and numerous other worthies mouldered into dust within the
+precincts of St Jacques; but their remains have long since been
+scattered to the winds; and where the church once stood is now an
+ignoble market for old clothes; the abode of Jews and thieves.
+
+After passing round the Grand Chastelet, and crossing the
+market-place, you might enter the Rue St Denis, the great street of
+Paris in the time of the good King Henry, and you might walk along
+under shelter of its houses, projecting story above story, till they
+nearly met at top, for more than a mile. Before it was paved, the
+roadway was an intolerable quagmire, winter and summer; and, after
+stones had been put down, there murmured along the middle a black
+gurgling stream, charged with all the outpourings and filth of
+unnumbered houses. Over, or through this, according as the fluid was
+low or high, you had to make your way, if you wanted to cross the
+street and greet a friend; if you lived in the street and wished to
+converse with your opposite neighbour, you had only to mount to the
+garret story, open the lattice window, and literally shake hands with
+him, so near did the gables approach. The fronts of the houses were
+ornamented with every device which the skilful carpenters of former
+times could invent: the beam-ends were sculptured into queer little
+crouching figures of monkeys or angels, and all sorts of _diableries_
+decorated the cornices that ran beneath the windows; there were no
+panes of glass, such as we boast of in these degenerate times, but
+narrow latticed lights to let in the day, and the wind, and the cold;
+while the roofs were covered commonly with shingles, or, in the houses
+of the wealthy, with sheets of lead. Between each gable came forth a
+long water-spout, and poured down a deluge into the gutter beneath;
+each gable-top was peaked into a fantastic spiry point or flower, and
+the chimneys congregated into goodly companies amidst the roofs,
+removed from the vulgar gaze or fastidious jests of the people below.
+So large were the fireplaces in those rooms that could own them, and
+so ample were the chimney flues, that smoky houses were unheard of:
+the staircases, it is true, enjoyed only a dubious ray, that served to
+prevent you from breaking your neck in a rapid descent; but the
+apartments were generally of commodious dimensions, and the tenements
+possessed many substantial comforts.
+
+Once out of doors, you might proceed in all weather fearless of rain;
+the projecting upper stories sheltered completely the sides of the
+street, and a stout cloth cloak was all that was needed to save either
+sex from the inclemency of the seasons. At frequent intervals there
+opened into the main street, side streets, and _ruelles_ or alleys,
+which showed in comparison like Gulliver in Brobdignag: up some of
+these ways a single horseman might be able to go; but along
+others--and some of them remain to the present day--two stout citizens
+could never have walked arm-in-arm. They looked like enormous cracks
+between a couple of buildings, rather than as ways made for the
+convenience of locomotion: they were pervious, perhaps, to donkeys,
+but not to the loaded packhorse--the great street was intended for
+that animal--coaches did not exist, and the long narrow carts of the
+French peasantry, whenever they came into the city, did not occupy
+much more space than the bags or packs of the universal carrier. To
+many of these streets the most eccentric appellations were given;
+there was the _Rue des Mauvaises Paroles_--people of ears polite had
+no business to go near it; the _Rue Tire Chappe_--a spot where those
+who objected to be plucked by the vests, or to have their clothes
+pulled off their backs by importunate accosters, need not present
+themselves; another in this quarter was called the _Rue Tire-boudin_.
+Marie Stuart, when Queen of France, was riding, it is said, through it
+one day, and struck, perhaps, by the looks of its inhabitants, asked
+what the street was called. The original appellation was so indecent
+that an officer of her guards, with courtly presence of mind, veiled
+it under its present title. One was known as the _Rue Brise-miche_,
+and the cleanliness of its inhabitants might instantly be judged of: a
+fifth was the _Rue Trousse-vache_, and one of the shops in it was
+adorned with an enormous sign of a red cow, with her tail sticking up
+in the air and her head reared in rampant sauciness. A notorious
+gambler, Thibault-au-d�, well known for his skill in loading dice,
+gave his name to one of these narrow veins of the town: Aubry, a
+wealthy butcher, is still immortalized in another: and the _Rue du
+Petit Hurleur_ probably commemorated some wicked youngster, whose
+shouts were a greater nuisance to the neighbours than those of any of
+his companions.
+
+A wider kind of street was the _Rue de la Ferronerie_, opening into
+the Rue St Denis, below the Church of the Innocents: it was the abode
+of all the tinkers and smiths of Paris, and had not Henri IV. been in
+a particular hurry that day, when he was posting off to old Sully in
+the Rue St Antoine, he had never gone this way, and Ravaillac,
+probably, had never been able to lean into the carriage and stab the
+king. Just over the spot where the murder was committed, the placid
+bust of the king still gazes on the busy scene beneath. The _Rue de la
+Grande Truanderie_, which was above the Innocents, must have been the
+rendez-vous of all the thieves and beggars of Paris, if there be any
+thing in a name: the old chronicles of the city relate, indeed, that
+it took a long time to respectabilize its neighbourhood; and they add
+that the herds of rogues and impostors who once lived in it took
+refuge, after their ejection, in the famous _Cour des Miracles_, a
+little higher up the Rue St Denis. We must not venture into this, the
+choicest preserve of Victor Hugo, whose graphic description of its
+wonders in his _Notre Dame_ needs hardly to be alluded to; but we may
+add, that there were several abodes of the same kind, all
+communicating with the Rue St Denis, and all equally infamous in their
+day, though now tenanted only by quiet button-makers and
+furniture-dealers. The real _Puits d'Amour_ stood at the corner of the
+Rue de la Grande Truanderie, and took its name in sad truth from a
+crossing of true love. In the days of Philip Augustus, more than six
+hundred years ago, a beautiful young lady of the court, Agnes
+Hellebik, whose father held an important post under the king, was
+inveigled into the toils of love. The object of her affections,
+whether of noble birth or not, made her but a sorry return for her
+confidence: he loved her a while, and her dreams of happiness were
+realized; but by degrees his passion cooled, and at length he
+abandoned her. Stung with indignation, and broken-hearted at this
+thwarting of her soul's desire, the unfortunate young creature fled
+from her father's house, and betaking herself on a dark and stormy
+night to the brink of the well, commended her spirit to her Maker, and
+ended her troubles beneath its waters. The name of the _Puits d'Amour_
+was then given to the well; and no young maiden ever dared to draw
+water from it after sunset, for fear of the spirit that dwelt
+unquietly within. The tradition was always current in people's mouths;
+and three centuries after, a young man of the neighbourhood, who had
+been jilted and mocked by an inconstant mistress, determined to bear
+his ills no longer, so he rushed to the _Puits_, and took the fatal
+leap. The result was not what he anticipated: he did not, it is true,
+jump into a courtly assembly of knights and gallants, but he could not
+find water enough in it to drown him; while his mistress, on hearing
+of the mishap, hastened to the well with a cord, and promising to
+compensate him for his former woes, drew him with her fair hands
+safely into the upper regions. An inscription, in Gothic letters, was
+then placed over the well:--
+
+    "L'amour m'a refaict
+    En 1525 tout-�-faict."
+
+The fate of Agnes Hellebik was far preferable to that of another young
+girl who lived in this quarter, indeed in the Rue Thibault-au-d�.
+Agnes du Rochier was the only daughter of one of the wealthiest
+merchants of Paris, and was admired by all the neighbourhood for her
+beauty and virtue. In 1403 her father died, leaving her the sole
+possessor of his wealth, and rumour immediately disposed of her hand
+to all the young gallants of the quarter; but whether it was that
+grief for the loss of her parent had turned her head, or that the
+gloomy fanaticism of that time had worked with too fatal effect on her
+pure and inexperienced imagination, she took not only marriage and the
+male sex into utter abomination, but resolved to quit the world for
+ever, and to make herself a perpetual prisoner for religion's sake.
+She determined, in short, to become what was then called a recluse,
+and as such to pass the remainder of her days in a narrow cell built
+within the wall of a church. On the 5th of October, accordingly, when
+the cell, only a few feet square, was finished in the wall of the
+church of St Opportune, Agnes entered her final abode, and the
+ceremony of her reclusion began. The walls and pillars of the sacred
+edifice had been hung with tapestry and costly cloths, tapers burned
+on every altar, the clergy of the capital and the several religious
+communities thronged the church. The Bishop of Paris, attended by his
+chaplains and the canons of Notre Dame, entered the choir, and
+celebrated a pontifical mass: he then approached the opening of the
+cell, sprinkled it with holy water, and after the poor young thing had
+bidden adieu to her friends and relations, ordered the masons to fill
+up the aperture. This was done as strongly as stone and mortar could
+make it; nor was any opening left, save only a small loophole through
+which Agnes might hear the offices of the church, and receive the
+aliments given her by the charitable. She was eighteen years old when
+she entered this living tomb, and she continued within it _eighty_
+years, till death terminated her sufferings! Alas, for mistaken piety!
+Her wealth, which she gave to the church, and her own personal
+exertions during so long a life, might have made her a blessing to all
+that quarter of the city, instead of remaining an useless object of
+compassion to the few, and of idle wonder to the many.
+
+Another entombment, almost as bad, occurred in the Rue St Denis, only
+five or six years ago. The cess-pools of modern Parisian houses are
+generally deep chambers, and sometimes wells, cut in the limestone
+rock on which the city stands: and in the absence of a good method of
+drainage, are cleaned out only once in every two or three years,
+according to their size. Meanwhile, they continue to receive all the
+filth of the building. One night, a large cess-pool had been emptied,
+and the aperture, which was in the common passage of the house on the
+ground floor, had been left open till the inspector appointed by the
+police should come round and see that the work had been properly
+executed. He came early in the morning, enquired carelessly of the
+porter if all was right, and ordered the stone covering to be fastened
+down. This was done amid the usual noise and talking of the workmen;
+and they went their way. That same afternoon, one of the lodgers in
+the house, a young man, was missed: days after days elapsed, and
+nothing was heard of him: his friends conjectured that he had drowned
+himself, but the tables of the Morgue never bore his body: and their
+despair was only equalled by their astonishment at the absence of
+every clue to his fate. On a particular evening, however, about three
+weeks after his disappearance, the porter was sitting at the door of
+his lodge, and the house as well as the street was unusually quiet,
+when he heard a faint groan somewhere beneath his feet. After a short
+interval he heard another; and being superstitious, got up, put his
+chair within the lodge, shut the door, and set about his work. At
+night he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, and going out with
+her into the passage, they had not stood there long before again a
+groan was heard. The good woman crossed herself and fell on her knees;
+but her husband, suspecting now that all was not right, and thinking
+that an attempt at infanticide had been made, by throwing a child's
+body down one of the passages leading to the cess-pool, (no uncommon
+occurrence in Paris,) resolved to call in the police. He did so
+without loss of time, the heavy stone covering was removed, and one of
+the attendants stooping down and lowering a lantern, as long as the
+stench would permit him, saw at the bottom, and at a considerable
+depth, something like a human form leaning against the side of the
+receptacle. Ropes and ladders were now immediately procured; two men
+went down, and in a few minutes brought up a body--it was that of the
+unfortunate young man who had been so long missing! Life was not quite
+extinct, for some motion of the limbs was perceptible, there was even
+one last low groan, but then all animation ceased for ever. The
+appearance of the body was most dreadful; the face was a livid green
+colour, the trunk looked like that of a man drowned, and kept long
+beneath the water, all brown and green--one of the feet had completely
+disappeared--the other was nearly half decomposed and gone; the hands
+were dreadfully lacerated, and told of a desperate struggle to escape:
+worms were crawling about; all was putrid and loathsome. How did this
+unfortunate young man come into so dreadful a position? was the
+question that immediately occurred; and the only answer that could be
+given was, that on the night of the cess-pool being emptied, the
+porter remembered this young man coming home very late, or rather
+early in the morning. He himself had forgotten to warn him of the
+aperture being uncovered, indeed he supposed that it would have been
+sufficiently seen by the lights left burning at its edge;--these had
+probably been blown out by the wind, and the young man had thus fallen
+in. That life should have been supported so long under such
+circumstances, seems almost incredible: but it is no less curious than
+true; for the porter was tried before the Correctional Tribunal for
+inadvertent homicide, the facts were adduced in evidence, and
+carelessness having been proved, he was sentenced to imprisonment for
+several weeks, and to a heavy fine.
+
+Of churches and religious establishments, there were plenty in and
+about the Rue St Denis. Besides the great church of St Jacques,
+mentioned before, there were in the street itself the churches of the
+Holy Sepulchre, of St Leu, and St Gilles; of the Innocents; of the
+Saviour; and of St Jacques de l'H�pital: while of conventual
+institutions, there were the Hospitals of St Catharine; of the Holy
+Trinity; of the Filles de St Magloire; of the Filles Dieu; of the
+Community of St Chaumont; of the S[oe]urs de Charit�; and of the great
+monastery of St Lazare. The fronts, or other considerable portions of
+those buildings, were all visible in the street, and added greatly to
+its antiquated appearance. The long irregular lines of gable roofs on
+either side, converging from points high above the spectator's head,
+until they met or crossed in a dim perspective, near the horizon, were
+broken here and there by the pointed front, or the tapering spire of a
+church or convent. A solemn gateway protruded itself at intervals into
+the street, and, with its flanking turrets and buttresses, gave broad
+masses of shade in perpendicular lines, strongly contrasted with the
+horizontal or diagonal patches of dark colour caused by the houses. At
+early morn and eve, a shrill tinkling of bells warned the neighbours
+of the sacred duties of many a secluded penitent, or admonished them
+that it was time to send up their own orisons to God. Before mid-day
+had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a
+_bourdon_, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens
+to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom
+the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to
+some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with
+often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at the side, with
+white-robed chanting acolyths, and reverend priests, in long line
+behind, came forth to take its way to some holy edifice. The zealous
+citizens would suspend their avocations for a while, would repeat a
+reverential prayer as the holy men went by, and then return to the
+absorbing calls of business, not unbenefited by the recollections just
+awakened in their minds. On the eves and on the mornings of holy
+festivals, business was totally suspended; the bells, great and small,
+rang forth their silvery sounds; the churches were crowded, the
+chapels glittered with blazing lights; the prayers of the priests and
+people rose with the incense before the high altar; the solemn organ
+swelled its full tones responsive to the loud-voiced choir; the
+curates thundered from the pulpits, to the edification of charitable
+congregations; and after all had been prostrated in solemn adoration
+of the Divine presence, the citizens would pour out into the street,
+and repair, some to their homes, some to the Palace of the Tournelles,
+with its towers and gardens guarded by the Bastille; others to the
+Louvre or to the Pr�-aux-clercs, and the fields by the river side;
+others would stroll up the hill of Montmartre; and some in boats would
+brave the dangers of the Seine! On other and sadder occasions, the
+inhabitants of the Rue St Denis would quit their houses in earnestly
+talking groups, and would adjourn to the open space in front of the
+Halles. Here, on the top of an octagonal tower, some twenty feet high,
+and covered with a conical spire, between the openings of pointed
+arches, might be seen criminals with their heads and hands protruding
+through the wooden collar of the pillory. The guard of the provost, or
+the lieutenant of police, would keep off the noisy throng below, and
+the goodwives would discuss among themselves the enormities of the
+coin-clipper, the cut-purse, the incendiary, or the unjust dealer, who
+were exposed on those occasions for their delinquencies; while the
+offenders themselves, would--a few of them--hang down their heads, and
+close their eyes in the unsufferable agony of shame; but by far the
+greater number would shout forth words of bold defiance or indecent
+ribaldry, would protrude the mocking tongue, or spit forth curses with
+dire volubility. Then would rise the shouts of _gamins_, then would
+come the thick volley of eggs, fish-heads, butcher's-offal, and all
+the garbage of the market, aimed unerringly by many a strenuous arm at
+the heads of the culprits; and then the soldiers with their
+pertuisanes would make quick work among the legs of the retreating
+crowd, and the jailers would apply the ready lash to the backs of the
+hardened criminals aloft; and thus, the hour's exhibition ended, and
+the "king's justice" satisfied, away would the criminals be led, some
+on a hurdle to Montfau�on, and there hung on its ample gibbet, amid
+the rattling bones of other wretches; some would be hurried back to
+the Chastelet, or other prisons; and others would be sent off to work,
+chained to the oars of the royal galleys.
+
+This was a common amusement of the idlers of this quarter: but the
+passions of the mob, if they needed stronger excitement, had to find a
+scene of horrid gratification on the Place de Gr�ve, opposite the
+Hotel de Ville, where at rare intervals a heretic would be burnt, a
+murderer hung, or a traitor quartered; but this spot of bloody memory
+lies far from the Rue St Denis, and we are not now called upon to
+reveal its terrible recollections: let us turn back to our good old
+street.
+
+One of the most curious objects in it was the Church of the Innocents,
+with its adjoining cemetery, once the main place of interment for all
+the capital. The church lay at the north-eastern end of what is now
+the March� des Innocents, and against it was erected the fountain
+which now adorns the middle of the market, and which was the work of
+the celebrated sculptor, Jean Goujon, and his colleague, the
+architect, Pierre Lescot. The former is said to have been seated at
+it, giving some last touches to one of the tall and graceful nymphs
+that adorn its high arched sides, on the day of the Massacre of St
+Bartholomew, when he was killed by a random shot from a Catholic
+zealot. The simple inscription which it still bears, FONTIUM NYMPHIS,
+is in better taste than that of any other among the numerous fountains
+of the French capital. The church itself (of which not the slightest
+vestige now remains) was not a good specimen of medi�val architecture,
+although it was large and richly endowed. It was founded by Philip
+Augustus, when he ordered the Jews to be expelled from his dominions,
+and seized on their estates--one of the most nefarious actions
+committed by a monarch of France. The absurd accusation, that the Jews
+used periodically to crucify and torture Christian children, was one
+of the most plausible pretexts employed by the rapacious king on this
+occasion; and, as a kind of testimonial that such had been his excuse,
+he founded this church; dedicated it to the Holy Innocents; and
+transferred hither the remains of a boy, named Richard, said to have
+been sacrificed at Pontoise by some unfortunate Jews, who expiated the
+pretended crime by the most horrible torments. St Richard's remains,
+(for he was canonized,) worked numerous miracles in the Church of the
+Innocents, or rather in the churchyard, where a tomb was erected over
+them; and so great was their reputation, that tradition says, the
+English, on evacuating Paris in the 15th century, carried off with
+them all but the little saint's head. Certain it is, that nothing but
+the head remained amongst the relics of this parish; and equally
+certain is it, that no Christian innocents have been sacrificed by
+those "circumcised dogs" either before or since, whether in France or
+England, or any other part of the world. It remained for the dishonest
+credulity of the present century, to witness the disgraceful spectacle
+of a French consul at Damascus, assisting at the torturing of some
+Jewish merchants under a similar accusation, and assuring his
+government of his belief in the confessions extorted by these inhuman
+means; and of many a party journal in Paris accrediting and re-echoing
+the tale. Had not British humanity intervened in aid of British
+policy, France had made this visionary accusation the ground of an
+armed intervention in Syria. The false accusers of the Jews of
+Damascus have indeed been punished; but the French consul, the Count
+de Ratti-Menton, has since been rewarded by his government with a high
+promotion in the diplomatic department!
+
+Once more, "a truce to digression," let us see what the ancient
+cemetery of the Innocents was like. Round an irregular four-sided
+space, about five hundred feet by two, ran a low cloister-like
+building, called Les Charniers, or the Charnel Houses. It had
+originally been a cloister surrounding the churchyard; but, so
+convenient had this place of sepulture been found, from its situation
+in the heart of Paris, that the remains of mortality increased in most
+rapid proportion within its precincts, and it was continually found
+necessary to transfer the bones of long-interred, and long-forgotten
+bodies, to the shelter of the cloisters. Here, then, they were piled
+up in close order--the bones below and the skulls above; they reached
+in later times to the very rafters of these spacious cloisters all
+round, and heaps of skulls and bones lay in unseemly groups on the
+grass in the midst of the graveyard. At one corner of the church was a
+small grated window, where a recluse, like her of St Opportune, had
+worn away forty-six years of her life, after one year's confinement as
+a preparatory experiment; and within the church was a splendid brass
+tomb, commemorating this refinement of the monastic virtues. At
+various spots about the cemetery, were erected obelisks and crosses of
+different dates, while against the walls of the church and cloister
+were affixed, in motley and untidy confusion, unnumbered tablets and
+other memorials of the dead. The suppression of this cemetery, just at
+the commencement of the Revolution, was a real benefit to the capital;
+and when the contents of the yard and its charnel-houses were removed
+to the catacombs south of the city, it was calculated that the remains
+of two millions of human beings rattled down the deep shafts of the
+stone pits to their second interment. In place of the cemetery, we now
+find the wooden stalls of the Covent Garden of Paris; low, dirty,
+unpainted, ill-built, badly-drained, stinking, and noisy; and their
+tenants are not better than themselves. Like their neighbours, the
+famous Poissardes, the Dames de la Halle as they are styled, are the
+quintessence of all that is disgusting in Paris. Covent Garden is
+worth a thousand of such markets, and P�re la Chaise is an admirable
+substitute for the Cemetery of the Innocents.
+
+High up in the Rue de Faubourg St Denis, which is only a continuation
+of the main street, just as Knightsbridge is of Piccadilly, stand the
+remains of the great convent and _maladrerie_ of St Lazarus. In this
+religious house, all persons attacked with leprosy were received in
+former days, and either kept for life, if incurable, or else
+maintained until they were freed from that loathsome disease. From
+what cause we know not, (except that the House of St Lazarus was the
+nearest of any religious establishment to the walls of the capital,)
+the kings of France always made a stay of three days within its walls
+on their solemn inauguratory entrance into Paris, and their bodies
+always lay in state here before they were conveyed to the Abbey Church
+of St Denis. There was no lack of stiff ceremonial on these occasions;
+and, doubtless, the good fathers of the convent did not receive all
+the court within their walls without rubbing a little gold off the
+rich habits of the nobles. The king, on arriving at the Convent of St
+Lazare, proceeded to a part of the house allotted for this purpose,
+and called _Le Logis du Roy_, where, in a chamber of state, he took
+his seat beneath a canopy, surrounded by the princes of the
+blood-royal. The chancellor of France stood behind his majesty, to
+furnish him with replies to the different deputations that used to
+come with congratulatory addresses, and the receptions then commenced.
+They used to last from seven in the morning, without intermission,
+till four or five in the afternoon; there were the lawyers of the
+Chastelet, the Court of Aids, the Court of Accounts, and the
+Parliament, to say nothing of the city authorities and other
+constituted bodies. The addresses were no short unmeaning things, like
+those uttered in our poor cold times, but good long-winded harangues,
+some in French, some in Latin, and they went on, one after the other,
+for three days consecutively. On the third day, when the royal
+patience must have been wellnigh exhausted, and the chancellor's
+talents at reply worn tolerably threadbare, the king would rise, and
+mounting on horseback, would proceed to the cathedral church of Notre
+Dame, down the Rue St Denis. One of the best recorded of these royal
+entries is that of Louis XI. On this occasion, the king, setting out
+from a suburban residence in the Faubourg St Honor�, got along the
+northern side of Paris to the Convent of St Lazare; and thence, after
+the delay and the harangues of the three days--the real original
+glorious three days of the French monarchy--proceeded to the Porte St
+Denis. Here a herald met the monarch, and after the keys of the city
+had been presented by the provost, with long speeches and replies, the
+former officer introduced to his majesty five young ladies, all richly
+clad, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, their housings bearing
+the arms of the city of Paris. Each young damsel represented an
+allegorical personage, and the initials of the names of their
+characters made up the word _Paris_. They each harangued the king, and
+their speeches, says an old chronicle, seemed "very agreeable" to the
+royal ears. Around the king, as he rode through the gateway, were the
+princes and highest nobles of the land--the Dukes of Orleans,
+Burgundy, Bourbon, and Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest son of
+the Duke of Burgundy; the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul, Dunois, and
+others; with, as a chronicle of the time relates, "autres comtes,
+barons, chevaliers, capitaines, et force noblesse, en tr�s bel ordre
+et posture." All of these were mounted on horses of price, richly
+caparisoned, and covered with the finest housings; some were of cloth
+of gold furred with sable, others were of velvet or damask furred with
+ermine; all were enriched with precious stones, and to many were
+attached bells of silver gilt, with other "enjolivements." Over the
+gateway was a large ship, the armorial bearing of the city, and within
+it were a number of allegorical personages, with one who represented
+Louis XI. himself; in the street immediately within the gate was a
+party of savages and satyrs, who executed a mock-fight in honour of
+the approach of royalty. A little lower down came forth a troop of
+young women representing syrens; an old chronicle calls them,
+"Plusieurs belles filles accoustr�es en syrenes, nues, lesquelles, en
+faisant voir leur beau sein, chantoient de petits motets de berg�res
+fort doux et charmans." Near where these damsels stood was a fountain
+which had pipes running with milk, wine, and hypocras; at the side of
+the Church of the Holy Trinity was a _tableau-vivant_ of the Passion
+of our Saviour, including a crucified Christ and two thieves,
+represented, as the chronicle states, "par personnages sans parler." A
+little further on was a hunting party, with dogs and a hind, making a
+tremendous noise with hautboys and _cors-de-chasse_. The butchers on
+the open place near the Chastelet, had raised some lofty scaffolds,
+and on them had erected a representation of the Bastille or Chateau of
+Dieppe. Just as the king passed by, a desperate combat was going on
+between the French besieging this chateau and the English holding
+garrison within; "the latter," adds the chronicle, "having been taken
+prisoners, had all their throats cut." Before the gate of the
+Chastelet, there were the personifications of several illustrious
+heroes; and on the Pont-au-Change, which was carpeted below, hung with
+arms at the sides, and canopied above for the occasion, stood the
+fowlers with their two hundred dozens of birds, ready to fly them as
+soon as the royal charger should stamp on the first stone. Such was a
+royal entry in those days of iron rule.
+
+Before Louis XI.'s father, Charles VII., had any reasonable prospect
+of reigning in Paris as king, the English troops had to be driven out
+of the capital; and when the French forces had scaled the walls, and
+entered the city, A.D. 1436, the 1500 Englishmen who defended the
+place, had but little mercy shown them. Seeing that the game was lost,
+Sir H. Willoughby, captain of Paris, shut himself up with a part of
+the troops in the Bastille, accompanied by the Bishop of Therouenne,
+and Morhier, the provost of the city. The people rose to the cry of
+"Sainct Denys, Vive le noble Roy de France!" The constable of France,
+the Duke de Richemont, and the Bastard of Orleans, led them on; those
+troops that had been shut out of the Bastille, tried to make their way
+up the Rue St Denis, to the northern gateway, and so to escape on the
+road to Beauvais and England but the inhabitants stretched chains
+across the street, and men, women, and children, showered down upon
+them from the windows, chairs, tables, logs of wood, stones, and even
+boiling water; while others rushed in from behind and from the side
+streets, with arms in their hands, and the massacre of all the English
+fugitives ensued. A short time after, Sir H. Willoughby, and the
+garrison of the Bastille, not receiving succours from the commanders
+of the English forces, surrendered the fortress, and were allowed to
+retire to Rouen. As they marched out of Paris, the Bishop of
+Therouenne accompanied them, and the populace followed the troops,
+shouting out at the Bishop--"The fox! the fox!"--and at the English,
+"The tail! the tail!"
+
+Another departure of a foreign garrison from Paris, took place in
+1594, and this time in peaceable array, by the Rue St Denis. When
+Henry IV. had obtained possession of his capital, there remained in it
+a considerable body of Spanish troops, who had been sent into France
+to aid the chiefs of the League, and they were under the command of
+the Duke de Feria. The reaction in the minds of the Parisians, after
+the misery of their siege, had been too sudden and too complete, to
+give the Spaniards any hope of holding out against the king; a
+capitulation was therefore agreed upon, the foreign forces were
+allowed to march out with the honours of war, and they were escorted
+with their baggage as far as the frontier. The king and his principal
+officers took post within the rooms over the Porte St Denis--then a
+square turreted building, with a pointed and portcullised gate and
+drawbridge beneath--to see the troops march out, and he stationed
+himself at the window looking down the street. First came some
+companies of Neapolitan infantry, with drums beating, standards
+flying, arms on their shoulders, but without having their matches
+lighted. Then came the Spanish Guards, in the midst of whom were the
+Duke de Feria, Don Diego d'Ibara, and Don Juan Baptista Taxis, all
+mounted on spirited Spanish chargers; while behind them marched the
+battalions of the Lansquenets, and the Walloons. As each company came
+up to the gateway, the soldiers, marching by fours, raised their eyes
+to the king, took off their headpieces, and bowed; the officers did
+the same, and Henry returned the salutation with the greatest
+courtesy. He was particular in showing this politeness, in the most
+marked manner, to the Duke de Feria and his noble companions, and when
+they were within hearing, cried out aloud, "Recommend me to your
+master, but never show your faces here again!" Some of the more
+obnoxious members of the League were allowed to retire with the
+Spaniards; and in the evening, bonfires were lighted in all the
+streets, and the _Te Deum_ was sung on all the public places. The
+medi�val glory of the Porte St Denis vanished in the time of Louis
+XIV., where he unfortified the city, which one of his successors has
+taken such pains again to imprison within stone walls, and the present
+triumphal arch was erected upon its site. This modern edifice, it is
+well known, served for the entrance of Charles X. from Rheims, and,
+shortly after, for a post whence the trumpery patriots of 1830
+contrived to annoy some of the cavalry who were fighting in the cause
+of the legitimacy and the true liberties of France. Many a barricade
+and many a skirmish has the Rue St Denis since witnessed!
+
+All the churches have disappeared from the Rue St Denis except that of
+St Leu and St Gilles, a small building of the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries: all the convents have been rased to the ground
+except that of St Lazare. To this a far different destination has been
+given from what it formerly enjoyed: it is now the great female prison
+of the capital; and within its walls all the bread required for the
+prisons of Paris is baked, all the linen is made and mended. The
+prison consists of three distinct portions: one allotted for carrying
+on the bread and linen departments: a second for the detention of
+female criminals before conviction, or for short terms of
+imprisonment; and in this various light manufactures, such as the
+making of baskets, straw-plait, and the red phosphorus-match boxes,
+are carried on: the third is an hospital and house of detention for
+the prostitutes of the capital. We were once taken all through this
+immense establishment by the governor, who had the kindness to
+accompany us, and to explain every thing in person--a favour not often
+granted to foreigners--and a strong impression did the scenes we then
+saw leave. In the first two departments every thing was gloomy,
+orderly, and quiet: the prisoners were much fewer than we had
+expected--not above two hundred--many of them, however, were mere
+children; but the matrons were good kind of women and the work of
+reformation was going on rapidly to counteract the effects of early
+crime. In the third, though equal strictness of conduct on the part of
+the superiors prevailed, the behaviour of the inmates subjected to
+control was far different. The great majority had been confined there
+as hospital patients, not as offenders against the law, and they were
+divided into wards, according to their sanatory condition. Here they
+were very numerous; and a melancholy thing it was to see hundreds of
+wretched creatures wandering about their spacious rooms, or sitting up
+in their beds, with haggard looks, dishevelled hair, hardly any
+clothing, and a sort of reckless gaiety in their manner that spoke
+volumes as to their real condition. The _r�gime_ of this
+prison-hospital is found, however, to be on the whole most salutary:
+the seeds of good are sown with a few; the public health, as well as
+the public morals, has been notably improved; and from the time when a
+young painter employed in the prison was decoyed into this portion of
+it and killed within a few hours, the occurrence of deeds of violence
+within its walls has been very rare.
+
+From the top of the Faubourg St Denis, all through the suburb of La
+Chapelle, the long line of modern habitations extends, without
+offering any points of historical interest. It is, indeed, a very
+commonplace, everyday kind of road, which hardly any Englishman that
+has jumbled along in the Messageries Royales can fail of recollecting.
+Nothing poetical, nothing romantic, was ever known to take place
+between the Barri�re de St Denis and the town where the abbey stands.
+We know, however, of an odd occurrence upon this ground, towards the
+end of the thirteenth century, (we were not alive then, gentle
+reader,) strikingly illustrative of the superstition of the times. In
+1274, the church of St Gervais, in Paris, was broken into one night by
+some sacrilegious dog, who ran off with the golden pix, containing the
+consecrated wafer or host. Not thinking himself safe within the city,
+away he went for St Denis--got without the city walls in safety, and
+made off as fast as he could for the abbatial town. Before arriving
+there, he thought he would have a look at the contents of the precious
+vessel, when, on his opening the lid, out jumped the holy wafer, up it
+flew into the air over his head, and there it kept dodging about, and
+bobbing up and down, behind the affrightened thief, and following him
+wherever he went. He rushed into the town of St Denis, but there was
+the wafer coming after him, and just above his head; whichever way he
+turned, there was the flying wafer. It was now broad daylight, and
+some of the inhabitants perceived the miracle. This was immediately
+reported by them to the abbot of the monastery. The holy father and
+his monks sallied forth; all saw the wafer as plain as they saw each
+others' shaven crowns. The man was immediately arrested; the pix was
+found on him, and the abbot, as a feudal seigneur, having the right of
+life and death within his own fief, had him hung up to the nearest
+tree within five minutes. The abbot then sent word to the Bishop of
+Paris of what had occurred; and the prelate, attended by the curates
+and clergy of the capital, went to St Denis to witness the miracle.
+But wonders were not to cease; there they found the abbot and monks
+looking up into the air; there was the wafer sticking up somewhere
+under the sun, and none of them could devise how they were to get it
+down again. The monks began singing canticles and litanies; the
+Parisian clergy did the same; still the wafer would not move a hair's
+breadth. At last they resolved to adjourn to the Abbey Church; and so
+they formed themselves into procession, and stepped forwards. The
+monks had reached the abbey door, the bishop and his clergy were
+following behind, and the clergy of St Gervais were just under the
+spot where the wafer was suspended, when, _presto_, down it popped
+into the hands of the little red-nosed curate. "Its mine!" cried the
+curate: "I'll have it!" shouted the bishop: "I wish you may get it,"
+roared the abbot--and a regular scramble took place. But the little
+curate held his prize fast; his vicars stuck to him like good men and
+true; and they carried off their prize triumphant. The bishop and the
+abbot drew up a solemn memorial and covenant on the spot, whereby the
+wafer was legally consigned to its original consecrator and owner, the
+curate of St Gervais; and it was agreed that every 1st of September,
+the day of the miracle, a solemn office and procession of the Holy
+Sacrament should be celebrated within his church. The reverend father
+Du Breul, the grave historian of Paris, adds: "L'histoire du dit
+miracle est naifvement depeinte en une vitre de la chapelle Sainct
+Pierre d'icelle �glise, o� sont aussi quelques vers Fran�ois,
+contenans partie d'icelle histoire."
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+
+In days of old it was the remark of more than one philosopher, that,
+if it were possible to exhibit virtue in a personal form, and clothed
+with attributes of sense, all men would unite in homage to her
+supremacy. The same thing is true of other abstractions, and
+especially of the powers which work by social change. Could these
+powers be revealed to us in any symbolic incarnation--were it possible
+that, but for one hour, the steadfast march of their tendencies, their
+promises, and their shadowy menaces, could be made apprehensible to
+the bodily eye--we should be startled, and oftentimes appalled, at the
+grandeur of the apparition. In particular, we may say that the advance
+of civilization, as it is carried forward for ever on the movement
+continually accelerated of England and France, were it less stealthy
+and inaudible than it is, would fix, in every stage, the attention of
+the inattentive and the anxieties of the careless. Like the fabulous
+music of the spheres, once allowed to break sonorously upon the human
+ear, it would render us deaf to all other sounds. Heard or not heard,
+however, marked or not marked, the rate of our advance is more and
+more portentous. Old things are passing away. Every year carries us
+round some obstructing angle, laying open suddenly before us vast
+reaches of fresh prospect, and bringing within our horizon new
+agencies by which civilization is henceforth to work, and new
+difficulties against which it is to work; other forces for
+co-operation, other resistances for trial. Meantime the velocity of
+these silent changes is incredibly aided by the revolutions, both
+moral and scientific, in the machinery of nations; revolutions by
+which knowledge is interchanged, power propagated, and the methods of
+communication multiplied. And the vast aerial arches by which these
+revolutions mount continually to the common zenith of Christendom, so
+as to force themselves equally upon the greatest of nations and the
+humblest, express the aspiring destiny by which, already and
+irresistibly, they are coming round upon all other tribes and families
+of men, however distant in position, or alien by system and
+organization. The nations of the planet, like ships of war
+man[oe]uvring prelusively to some great engagement, are silently
+taking up their positions, as it were, for future action and reaction,
+reciprocally for doing and suffering. And, in this ceaseless work of
+preparation or of noiseless combination, France and England are seen
+for ever in the van. Whether for evil or for good, they _must_ be in
+advance. And if it were possible to see the relative positions of all
+Christendom, its several divisions, expressed as if on the monuments
+of Persepolis by endless evolutions of cities in procession or of
+armies advancing, we should be awakened to the full solemnity of our
+duties by seeing two symbols flying aloft for ever in the head of
+nations--two recognizances for hope or for fear--the roses of England
+and the lilies of France.
+
+Reflections such as these furnish matter for triumphal gratulation,
+but also for great depression: and in the enormity of our joint
+responsibilities, we French and English have reason to forget the
+grandeur of our separate stations. It is fit that we should keep alive
+these feelings, and continually refresh them, by watching the
+everlasting motions of society, by sweeping the moral heavens for ever
+with our glasses in vigilant detection of new phenomena, and by
+calling to a solemn audit, from time to time, the national acts which
+are undertaken, or the counsels which in high places are avowed.
+
+Amongst these acts and these counsels none justify a more anxious
+attention than such as come forward in the senate. It is true that
+great revolutions may brood over us for a long period without
+awakening any murmur or echo in Parliament; of which we have an
+instance in Puseyism, which is a power of more ominous capacities than
+the gentleness of its motions would lead men to suspect, and is well
+fitted (as hereafter we may show) to effect a volcanic explosion--such
+as may rend the Church of England by schisms more extensive and
+shattering than those which have recently afflicted the Church of
+Scotland. Generally, however, Parliament becomes, sooner or later, a
+mirror to the leading phenomena of the times. These phenomena, to be
+valued thoroughly, must be viewed, indeed, from different stations and
+angles. But one of these aspects is that which they assume under the
+legislative revision of the people. It is more than ever requisite
+that each session of Parliament should be searched and reviewed in the
+capital features of its legislation. Hereafter we may attempt this
+duty more elaborately. For the present we shall confine ourselves to a
+hasty survey of some few principal measures in the late session which
+seem important to our social progress.
+
+We shall commence our review by the fewest possible words on the
+paramount nuisance of the day--viz. the corn-law agitation. This is
+that question which all men have ceased to think sufferable. This is
+that "mammoth" nuisance of our times by which "the gaiety of nations
+is eclipsed." We are thankful that its "damnable iterations" have now
+placed it beyond the limits of public toleration. No man hearkens to
+such debates any longer--no man reads the reports of such debates: it
+is become criminal to quote them; and recent examples of torpor beyond
+all torpor, on occasion of Cobden meetings amongst the inflammable
+sections of our population, have shown--that not the poorest of the
+poor are any longer to be duped, or to be roused out of apathy, by
+this intolerable fraud. Full of "gifts and lies" is the false fleeting
+Association of these Lancashire Cottoneers. But its gifts are too
+windy, and its lies are too ponderous. To the Association is "given a
+mouth speaking great things and blasphemies;" and out of this mouth
+issues "fire," it is true, against all that is excellent in the land,
+but also "smoke"--as the consummation of its overtures. During many
+reigns of the C�sars, a race of swindlers infested the Roman court,
+technically known as "sellers of smoke," and often punished under that
+name. They sold, for weighty considerations of gold, castles in the
+air, imaginary benefices, ideal reversions; and, in short, contracted
+wholesale or retail for the punctual delivery of unadulterated
+moonshine. Such a dealer, such a contractor, is the Anti-Corn-Law
+Association; and for such it has always been known amongst intelligent
+men. But its character has now diffused itself among the illiterate:
+and we believe it to be the simple truth at this moment, that every
+working man, whose attention has at any time been drawn to the
+question, is now ready to take his stand upon the following
+answer:--"We, that is our order, Mr Cobden, are not very strong in
+faith. Our faith in the Association is limited. So much, however, by
+all that reaches us, we are disposed to believe--viz. that ultimately
+you might succeed in reducing the price of a loaf, by three parts in
+forty-eight, which is one sixteenth; with what loss to our own landed
+order, and with what risk to the national security in times of war or
+famine, is no separate concern of ours. On the other hand, Mr Cobden,
+in _your_ order there are said to be knaves in ambush; and we take it,
+that the upshot of the change will be this: We shall save three
+farthings in a shilling's worth of flour; and the _honest_ men of your
+order--whom candour forbid that we should reckon at only twenty-five
+per cent on the whole--will diminish our wages simply by that same
+three farthings in a shilling; but the knaves (we are given to
+understand) will take an excuse out of that trivial change to deduct
+four, five, or six farthings; they will improve the occasion in
+evangelical proportions--some sixty-fold, some seventy, and some a
+hundred."
+
+This is the settled _practical_ faith of those hard-working men, who
+care not to waste their little leisure upon the theory of the
+corn-laws. It is this practical result only which concerns _us_; for
+as to the speculative logic of the case, as a question for economists,
+we, who have so often discussed it in this journal, (which journal, we
+take it upon us to say, has, from time to time, put forward or
+reviewed every conceivable argument on the corn question,) must really
+decline to re-enter the arena, and _actum agere_, upon any occasion
+ministered by Mr Cobden. Very frankly, we disdain to do so; and now,
+upon quitting the subject, we will briefly state why.
+
+Mr Cobden, as we hear and believe, is a decent man--that is to say,
+upon any ground not connected with politics; equal to six out of any
+ten manufacturers you will meet in the Queen's high road--whilst of
+the other four not more than three will be found conspicuously his
+superiors. He is certainly, in the senate, not what Lancashire rustics
+mean by a _hammil sconce_;[28] or, according to a saying often in the
+mouth of our French emigrant friends in former times, he "could not
+have invented the gun-powder, though perhaps he might have invented
+the hair-powder." Still, upon the whole, we repeat, that Mr Cobden is
+a decent man, wherever he is not very indecent. Is he therefore a
+decent man on this question of the corn-laws? So far from it, that we
+now challenge attention to one remarkable fact. All the world knows
+how much he has talked upon this particular topic; how he has
+itinerated on its behalf; how he has perspired under its business. Is
+there a fortunate county in England which has yet escaped his
+harangues? Does that happy province exist which has not reverberated
+his yells? Doubtless, not--and yet mark this: Not yet, not up to the
+present hour, (September 20, 1843,) has Mr Cobden delivered one
+argument properly and specially applicable to the corn question. He
+has uttered many things offensively upon the aristocracy; he has
+libelled the lawgivers; he has insulted the farmers; he has exhausted
+the artillery of _political_ abuse: but where is the _economic_
+artillery which he promised us, and which, (strange to say!) from the
+very dulness of his theme making it a natural impossibility to read
+him, most people are willing to suppose that he has, after one fashion
+or other, actually discharged. The Corn-League benefits by its own
+stupidity. Not being read, every leaguer has credit for having uttered
+the objections which, as yet, he never did utter. Hence comes the
+popular impression, that from Mr Cobden have emanated arguments, of
+some quality or other, against the existing system. True, there are
+arguments in plenty on the other side, and pretty notorious arguments;
+but, _pendente lite_, and until these opposite pleas are brought
+forward, it is supposed that the Cobden pleas have a brief provisional
+existence--they are good for the moment. Not at all. We repeat that,
+as to economic pleas, none of any kind, good or bad, have been placed
+on the record by any orator of that faction; whilst all other pleas,
+keen and personal as they may appear, are wholly irrelevant to any
+real point at issue. In illustration of what we say, one (and very
+much the most searching) of Mr Cobden's questions to the farmers, was
+this--"Was not the object," he demanded, "was not the very purpose of
+all corn-laws alike--simply to keep up the price of grain? Well; had
+the English corn-laws accomplished that object? Had they succeeded in
+that purpose? Notoriously they had not; confessedly they had failed;
+and every farmer in the corn districts would avouch that often he had
+been brought to the brink of ruin by prices ruinously low." Now, we
+pause not to ask, why, if the law already makes the prices of corn
+ruinously low, any association can be needed to make it lower? What we
+wish to fix attention upon, is this assumption of Mr Cobden's, many
+times repeated, that the known object and office of our corn-law,
+under all its modifications, has been to elevate the price of our
+corn; to sustain it at a price to which naturally it could not have
+ascended. Many sound speculators on this question we know to have been
+seriously perplexed by this assertion of Mr Cobden's; and others, we
+have heard, not generally disposed to view that gentleman's doctrines
+with favour, who insist upon it, that, in mere candour, we must grant
+this particular postulate. "Really," say they, "_that_ cannot be
+refused him; the law _was_ for the purpose he assigns; its final cause
+_was_, as he tells us, to keep up artificially the price of our
+domestic corn-markets. So far he is right. But his error commences in
+treating this design as an unfair one, and, secondly, in denying that
+it has been successful. It _has_ succeeded; and it ought to have
+succeeded. The protection sought for our agriculture was no more than
+it merited; and that protection has been faithfully realized."
+
+    [28] A _hammil sconce_, or light of the hamlet, is the
+    picturesque expression in secluded parts of Lancashire
+    for the local wise man, or village counsellor.
+
+We, however, vehemently deny Mr Cobden's postulate _in toto_. He is
+wrong, not merely as others are wrong in the principle of refusing
+this protection, not merely on the question of fact as to the reality
+of this protection, (to enter upon which points would be to adopt that
+hateful discussion which we have abjured;) but, above all, he is wrong
+in assigning to corn-laws, as their end and purpose, an absolute
+design of sustaining prices. To raise prices is an occasional means of
+the corn-laws, and no end at all. In one word, what _is_ the end of
+the corn-laws? It is, and ever has been, to equalize the prospects of
+the farmer from year to year, with the view, and generally with the
+effect, of drawing into the agricultural service of the nation, as
+nearly as possible, the same amount of land at one time as at another.
+This is the end; and this end is paramount. But the means to that end
+must lie, according to the accidents of the case, alternately through
+moderate increase of price, or moderate diminution of price. The
+besetting oversight, in this instance, is the neglect of the one great
+peculiarity affecting the manufacture of corn--viz. its inevitable
+oscillation as to quantity, consequently as to price, under the
+variations of the seasons. People talk, and encourage mobs to think,
+that Parliaments cause, and that Parliaments could heal if they
+pleased, the evil of fluctuation in grain. Alas! the evil is as
+ancient as the weather, and, like the disease of poverty, will cleave
+to society for ever. And the way in which a corn-law--that is, a
+restraint upon the free importation of corn--affects the case, is
+this:--Relieving the domestic farmer from that part of his anxiety
+which points to the competition of foreigners, it confines it to the
+one natural and indefeasible uncertainty lying in the contingencies of
+the weather. Releasing him from all jealousy of man, it throws him, in
+singleness of purpose, upon an effort which cannot be disappointed,
+except by a power to which, habitually, he bows and resigns himself.
+Secure, therefore, from all superfluous anxieties, the farmer enjoys,
+from year to year, a pretty equal encouragement in distributing the
+employments of his land. If, through the dispensations of Providence,
+the quantity of his return falls short, he knows that some rude
+indemnification will arise in the higher price. If, in the opposite
+direction, he fears a low price, it comforts him to know that this
+cannot arise for any length of time but through some commensurate
+excess in quantity. This, like other severities of a natural or
+general system, will not, and cannot, go beyond a bearable limit. The
+high price compensates grossly the defect of quantity; the overflowing
+quantity in turn compensates grossly the low price. And thus it
+happens that, upon any cycle of ten years, taken when you will, the
+manufacture of grain will turn out to have been moderately profitable.
+Now, on the other hand, under a system of free importation, whenever a
+redundant crop in England coincides (as often it does) with a similar
+redundancy in Poland, the discouragement cannot but become immoderate.
+An excess of one-seventh will cause a fall of price by three-sevenths.
+But the simultaneous excess on the Continent may raise the one-seventh
+to two-sevenths, and in a much greater proportion will these depress
+the price. The evil will then be enormous; the discouragement will be
+ruinous; much capital, much land, will be withdrawn from the culture
+of grain; and, supposing a two years' succession of such excessive
+crops, (which effect is more common than a single year's excess,) the
+result, for the third year, will be seen in a preternatural
+deficiency; for, by the supposition, the number of acres applied to
+corn is now very much less than usual, under the unusual
+discouragement; and according to the common oscillations of the season
+according to those irregularities that, in effect, are often found to
+be regular--this third year succeeding to redundant years may be
+expected to turn out a year of scarcity. Here, then, in the absence of
+a corn-law, comes a double deficiency--a deficiency of acres applied,
+from jealousy of foreign competition, and upon each separate acre a
+deficiency of crop, from the nature of the weather. What will be the
+consequence? A price ruinously high; higher beyond comparison than
+could ever have arisen under a temperate restriction of competition;
+that is, in other words, under a British corn-law.
+
+Many other cases might be presented to the reader, and especially
+under the action of a doctrine repeatedly pressed in this journal,
+but steadily neglected elsewhere--viz. the "_devolution_" of foreign
+agriculture upon lower qualities of land, (and consequently its
+_permanent_ exaltation in price,) in case of any certain demand on
+account of England. But this one illustration is sufficient. Here we
+see that, under a free trade in corn, and _in consequence_ of a free
+trade, ruinous enhancements of price would arise--such in magnitude as
+never could have arisen under a wise limitation of foreign
+competition. And further, we see that under our present system no
+enhancement is, or could be, _absolutely_ injurious; it might be so
+_relatively_--it might be so in relation to the poor consumer; but in
+the mean time, that guinea which might be lost to the consumer would
+be gained to the farmer. Now, in the case supposed, under a free corn
+trade the rise is commensurate to the previous injury sustained by the
+farmer; and much of the extra bonus reaped goes to a foreign interest.
+What we insist upon, however, is this one fact, that alternately the
+British corn-laws have raised the price of grain and have sunk it;
+they have raised the price in the case where else there would have
+been a ruinous depreciation--ruinous to the prospects of succeeding
+years; they have sunk it under the natural and usual oscillations of
+weather to be looked for in these succeeding years. And each way their
+action has been most moderate. For let not the reader forget, that on
+the system of a sliding-scale, this action cannot be otherwise than
+moderate. Does the price rise? Does it threaten to rise higher?
+Instantly the very evil redresses itself. As the evil, _i.e._ the
+price, increases, in that exact proportion does it open the gate to
+relief; for exactly so does the duty fall. Does the price fall
+ruinously?--(in which case it is true that the _instant_ sufferer is
+the farmer; but through him, as all but the short-sighted must see,
+the consumer will become the reversionary sufferer)--immediately the
+duty rises, and forbids an accessary evil from abroad to aggravate the
+evil at home. So gentle and so equable is the play of those weights
+which regulate our whole machinery, whilst the late correction applied
+even here by Sir Robert Peel, has made this gentle action still
+gentler; so that neither of the two parties--consumers who to live
+must buy, growers who to live must sell--can, by possibility, feel an
+incipient pressure before it is already tending to relieve itself. It
+is the very perfection of art to make a malady produce its own
+medicine--an evil its own relief. But that which here we insist on,
+is, that it never _was_ the object of our own corn-laws to increase
+the price of corn; secondly, that the real object was a condition of
+equipoise which abstractedly is quite unconnected with either rise of
+price or fall of price; and thirdly, that, as a matter of fact, our
+corn-laws have as often reacted to lower the price, as directly they
+have operated to raise it; whilst eventually, and traced through
+succeeding years, equally the raising and the lowering have
+co-operated to that steady temperature (or nearest approximation to it
+allowed by nature) which is best suited to a _comprehensive_ system of
+interests. Accursed is that man who, in speaking upon so great a
+question, will seek, or will consent, to detach the economic
+considerations of that question from the higher political
+considerations at issue. Accursed is that man who will forget the
+noble yeomanry we have formed through an agriculture chiefly domestic,
+were it even true that so mighty a benefit had been purchased by some
+pecuniary loss. But this it is which we are now denying. We affirm
+peremptorily, and as a fact kept out of sight only by the neglect of
+pursuing the case through a succession of years under the _natural_
+fluctuation of seasons, that, upon the series of the last seventy
+years, viewed as a whole, we have paid less for our corn by means of
+the corn-laws, than we should have done in the absence of such laws.
+It was, says Mr Cobden, the purpose of such laws to make corn dear; it
+is, says he, the effect, to make it cheap. Yes, in the last clause his
+very malice drove him into the truth. Speaking to farmers, he found it
+requisite to assert that they had been injured; and as he knew of no
+injury to them other than a low price, _that_ he postulated at the
+cost of his own logic, and quite forgetting that if the farmer had
+lost, the consumer must have gained in that very ratio. Rather than
+not assert a failure _quoad_ the intention of the corn-laws, he
+actually asserts a national benefit _quoad_ the result. And, in a
+rapture of malice to the lawgivers, he throws away for ever, at one
+victorious sling, the total principles of an opposition to the
+law.[29]
+
+    [29] Those who fancy a possible evasion of the case
+    supposed above, by saying, that if a failure, extensive
+    as to England, should coincide with a failure extensive
+    as to Poland, remedies might be found in importing from
+    many other countries combined, forget one objection,
+    which is decisive--these supplementary countries must be
+    many, and they must be distant. For no country could
+    singly supply a defect of great extent, unless it were a
+    defect annually and regularly anticipated. A surplus
+    never designed as a fixed surplus for England, but
+    called for only now and then, could never be more than
+    small. Therefore the surplus, which could not be yielded
+    by one country, must be yielded by many. In that
+    proportion increase the probabilities that a number will
+    have no surplus. And, secondly, from the widening
+    distances, in that proportion increases the extent of
+    shipping required. But now, even from Mr Porter, a most
+    prejudiced writer on this question, and not capable of
+    impartiality in speaking upon any measure which he
+    supposes hostile to the principle of free trade, the
+    reader may learn how certainly any great _hiatus_ in our
+    domestic growth of corn is placed beyond all hope of
+    relief. For how is this grain, this relief, to be
+    brought? In ships, you reply. Ay, but in what ships? Do
+    you imagine that an extra navy can lie rotting in docks,
+    and an extra fifty thousand of sailors can be held in
+    reserve, and borne upon the books of some colossal
+    establishment, waiting for the casual seventh, ninth, or
+    twelfth year in which they may be wanted--kept and paid
+    against an "_in case_," like the extra supper, so called
+    by Louis XIV., which waited all night on the chance that
+    it might be wanted? _That_, you say, is impossible. It
+    is so; and yet without such a reserve, all the navies of
+    Europe would not suffice to make up such a failure of
+    our home crops as is likely enough to follow redundant
+    years under the system of unlimited competition.--See
+    PORTER.
+
+But enough, and more than enough, of THE nuisance. It will be
+expected, however, that we should notice two collateral points, both
+wearing an air of the marvellous, which have grown out of the nuisance
+during the recent session. One is the relaxation of our laws with
+respect to Canadian corn; a matter of no great importance in itself,
+but furnishing some reasons for astonishment in regard to the
+disproportioned opposition which it has excited. Undoubtedly the
+astonishment is well justified, if we view the measure for what it was
+really designed by the minister--viz. as a momentary measure, suited
+merely to the _current_ circumstances of our relation to Canada. Long
+before any evil can arise from it, through changes in these
+circumstances, the law will have been modified. Else, and having,
+regard to the remote contingencies of the case (possible or probable)
+rather than to its instant certainties, we are disposed to think, that
+the irritation which this little anomalous law has roused amongst some
+of the landholders, is not quite so unaccountable, or so
+disproportionate, as the public have been taught to imagine. True it
+is, that for the present, _lis est de paupere regno_. Any surplus of
+grain which, at this moment, Canada could furnish, must be quite as
+powerless upon our home markets, as the cattle, living or salted which
+have been imported under the tariff in 1842 and 1843. But the fears of
+Canada potentially, were not therefore unreasonable, because the
+actual Canada is not in a condition for instantly using her new
+privileges. Corn, that hitherto had not been grown, both may be grown,
+and certainly will be grown, as soon as the new motive for growing it,
+the new encouragement, becomes operatively known. Corn, again, that
+from local difficulties did not find its way to eastern markets, will
+do so by continual accessions, swelling gradually into a powerful
+stream, as the many improvements of the land and water communication,
+now contemplated, or already undertaken, come into play. Another fear
+connects itself with possible evasions of the law by the United
+States. Cross an imaginary frontier line, and _that_ will become
+Canadian which was not Canadian by its origin. We are told, indeed,
+that merely by its bulk, grain will always present an obstacle to any
+extensive system of smuggling. But obstacles are not impossibilities.
+And these obstacles, it must be remembered, are not founded in the
+vigilance of revenue officers, but simply in the cost; an element of
+difficulty which is continually liable to change. So that upon the
+whole, and as applying to the reversions of the case, rather than to
+its present phenomena, undoubtedly there _are_ dangers a-head to our
+own landed interest from that quarter of the horizon. For the present,
+it should be enough to say, that these dangers are yet remote. And
+perhaps it _would_ have been enough under other circumstances. But it
+is the tendency of the bill which suggests alarm. All changes in our
+day tend to the consummation of free trade: and this measure,
+travelling in that direction, reasonably becomes suspicious by its
+principle, though innocent enough by its immediate operation.
+
+The other point connected with the corn question is personal. Among
+the many motions and notices growing out of the dispute, which we hold
+it a matter of duty to neglect, was one brought forward by Lord John
+Russell. Upon what principle, or with what object? Strange to say, he
+refused to explain. That it must be some modification applied to a
+fixed duty, every body knew; but of what nature Lord John declined to
+tell us, until he should reach a committee which he had no chance of
+obtaining. This affair, which surprised every body, is of little
+importance as regards the particular subject of the motion. But in a
+more general relation, it is worthy of attention. No man interested in
+the character and efficiency of Parliament, can fail to wish that
+there may always exist a strong opposition, vigilant, bold,
+unflinching, full of partizanship, if you will, but uniformly
+suspending the partizanship at the summons of paramount national
+interests, and acting harmoniously upon some systematic plan. How
+little the present unorganized opposition answers to this description,
+it is unnecessary to say. The nation is ashamed of a body so
+determinately below its functions. But Lord John Russell is
+individually superior to his party. He is a man of sense, of
+information, and of known official experience. Now, if he, so
+notoriously the wise man of "her Majesty's Opposition," is capable of
+descending to harlequin caprices of this extreme order, the nation
+sees with pain, that a constitutional function of control is extinct
+in our present senate, and that her Majesty's Ministers must now be
+looked to as their own controllers. With the levity of a child, Lord
+John makes a motion, which, if adopted, would have landed him in
+defeat; but through utter want of judgment and concert with his party,
+he does not get far enough to be defeated: he does not succeed in
+obtaining the prostration for which he man[oe]uvres; but is saved from
+a final exposure of his little statesmanship by universal mockery of
+his miserable partizanship. Alas for the times in which Burke and Fox
+wielded the forces of Parliamentary opposition, and redoubled the
+energies of Government by the energies of their enlightened
+resistance!
+
+In quitting the subject of the corn agitation, (obstinately pursued
+through the session,) we may remark--and we do so with pain--that all
+laws whatsoever, strong or lax, upon this question are to be regarded
+as provisional. The temper of society being what it is, some small
+gang of cotton-dealers, moved by the rankest self-interest, finding
+themselves suffered to agitate almost without opposition, and the
+ancient landed interest of the country, if not silenced, being silent,
+it is felt by all parties that no law, in whatever direction, upon
+this great problem, can have a chance of permanence. The natural
+revenge which we may promise ourselves is--that the lunacies of the
+free-trader, when acted upon, as too surely they will be, may prove
+equally fugitive. Meantime, it is not by provisional acts, or acts of
+sudden emergency, that we estimate the service of a senate. It is the
+solemn and deliberate laws, those which are calculated for the wear
+and tear of centuries, which hold up a mirror to the legislative
+spirit of the times.
+
+Of laws bearing this character, if we except the inaugural essays at
+improving the law of libel, and at founding a system of national
+education, of which the latter has failed for the present in a way
+fitted to cause some despondency, the last session offers us no
+conspicuous example, beyond the one act of Lord Aberdeen for healing
+and tranquillizing the wounds of the Scottish church. Self-inflicted
+these wounds undeniably were; but they were not the less severe on
+that account, nor was the contagion of spontaneous martyrdom on that
+account the less likely to spread. In reality, the late astonishing
+schism in the Scottish church (astonishing because abrupt) is, in one
+respect, without precedent. Every body has heard of persecutions that
+were courted; but in such a case, at least, the spirit of persecution
+must have had a local existence, and to some extent must have uttered
+menaces--or how should those menaces have been defied? Now, the
+"persecutions," before which a large section of the Scottish church
+has fallen by an act of spontaneous martyrdom, were not merely
+needlessly defied, but were originally self-created; they were evoked,
+like phantoms and shadows, by the martyrs themselves, out of blank
+negations. Without provocation _ab extra_, without warning on their
+own part, suddenly they place themselves in an attitude of desperate
+defiance to the known law of the land. The law firmly and tranquilly
+vindicates itself; the whole series of appeals is threaded; the
+original judgment, as a matter of course, is finally re-affirmed--and
+this is the persecution insinuated; whilst the necessity of complying
+with that decision, which does not express any novelty even to the
+extent of a new law, but simply the ordinary enforcement of an old
+one, is the kind of martyrdom resulting. The least evil of this
+fantastic martyrdom, is the exit from the pastoral office of so many
+persons trained, by education and habit, to the effectual performance
+of the pastoral duties. That loss--though not without signal
+difficulty, from the abruptness of the summons--will be supplied. But
+there is a greater evil which cannot be healed--the breach of unity in
+the church. The scandal, the offence, the occasion of unhappy
+constructions upon the doctrinal soundness of the church, which have
+been thus ministered to the fickle amongst her own children--to the
+malicious amongst her enemies, are such as centuries do not easily
+furnish, and centuries do not remove. In all Christian churches alike,
+the conscientiousness which is the earliest product of heartfelt
+religion, has suggested this principle, that schism, for any cause, is
+a perilous approach to sin; and that, unless in behalf of the
+weightiest interests or of capital truths, it is inevitably criminal.
+And in connexion with this consideration, there arise two scruples to
+all intelligent men upon this crisis in the Scottish church, and they
+are scruples which at this moment, we are satisfied, must harass the
+minds of the best men amongst the seceders--viz. First, whether the
+new points contended for, waiving all controversy upon their abstract
+doctrinal truth, are really such, in _practical_ virtue, that it could
+be worth purchasing them at the cost of schism? Secondly, supposing a
+good man to have decided this question in the affirmative for a young
+society of Christians, for a church in its infancy, which, as yet,
+might not have much to lose in credit or authentic influence--whether
+the same free license of rupture and final secession _could_ belong to
+an ancient church, which had received eminent proofs of Divine favour
+through a long course of spiritual prosperity almost unexampled?
+Indeed, this last question might suggest another paramount to the
+other two--viz. not whether the points at issue were weighty enough to
+justify schism and hostile separation, but whether those points could
+even be safe as mere speculative _credenda_, which, through so long a
+period of trial, and by so memorable a harvest of national services,
+had been shown to be unnecessary?
+
+Very sure we are, that no eminent servant of the Scottish church could
+abandon, without anguish of mind, the multitude of means and channels,
+that great machinery for dispensing living truths, which the power and
+piety of the Scottish nation have matured through three centuries of
+pure Christianity militant. Solemn must have been the appeal, and
+searching, which would force its way to the conscience on occasion of
+taking the last step in so sad an _exodus_ from the Jerusalem of his
+fathers. Anger and irritation can do much to harden the obduracy of
+any party conviction, especially whilst in the centre of fiery
+partisans. But sorrow, in such a case, is a sentiment of deeper
+vitality than anger; and this sorrow for the result will co-operate
+with the original scruples on the casuistry of the questions, to
+reproduce the demur and the struggle many times over, in consciences
+of tender sensibility.
+
+Exactly for men in this state of painful collision with their own
+higher nature, is Lord Aberdeen's bill likely to furnish the bias
+which can give rest to their agitations, and firmness to their
+resolutions. The bill, according to some, is too early, and, according
+to others, too late. Why too early? Because, say they, it makes
+concessions to the church, which as yet are not proved to be called
+for. These concessions travel on the very line pursued by the
+seceders, and must give encouragement to that spirit of religious
+movement which it has been found absolutely requisite to rebuke by
+acts of the legislature. Why, on the other hand, is Lord Aberdeen's
+bill too late? Because, three years ago, it would, or it might, have
+prevented the secession. But is this true? Could this bill have
+prevented the secession? We believe not. Lord Aberdeen, undoubtedly,
+himself supposes that it might. But, granting that this were true,
+whose fault is it that a three years' delay has intercepted so happy a
+result? Lord Aberdeen assures us that the earlier success of the bill
+was defeated entirely by the resistance of the Government at that
+period, and chiefly by the personal resistance of Lord Melbourne. Let
+that minister be held responsible, if any ground has been lost that
+could have been peacefully pre-occupied against the schism. This,
+however, seems to us a chimera. For what is it that the bill concedes?
+Undoubtedly it restrains and modifies the right of patronage. It
+grants a larger discretion to the ecclesiastical courts than had
+formerly been exercised by the usage. Some contend, that in doing so
+the bill absolutely alters the law as it stood heretofore, and ought,
+therefore, to be viewed as enactory; whilst others maintain that is
+simply a declaratory bill, not altering the law at all, but merely
+expressing, in fuller or in clearer terms, what had always been law,
+though silently departed from by the usage, which, from the time of
+Queen Anne, had allowed a determinate preponderance to the rights of
+property in the person of the patron. Those, indeed, who take the
+former view, contending that it enacts a new principle of law, very
+much circumscribing the old right of patronage, insist upon it that
+the bill virtually revokes the decision of the Lords in the
+Auchterarder case. Technically and formally speaking, this is not
+true; for the presbytery, or other church court, is now tied up to a
+course of proceeding which at Auchterarder was violently evaded. The
+court cannot now peremptorily challenge the nominee in the arbitrary
+mode adopted in that instance. An examination must be instituted
+within certain prescribed limits. But undoubtedly the contingent power
+of the church court, in the case of the nominee not meeting the
+examination satisfactorily, is much larger now, under the new bill,
+than it was under the old practice; so that either this practice must
+formerly have swerved from the letter of the law, or else the new law,
+differing from the old, is really more than declaratory. Yet, however
+this may be, it is clear that the jurisdiction of the church in the
+matter of patronage, however ample it may seem as finally ascertained
+or created by the new bill, falls far within the extravagant outline
+marked out by the seceders. We argue, therefore, that it could not
+have prevented their secession even as regards that part of their
+pretensions; whilst, as regards the monstrous claim to decide in the
+last resort what shall be civil and what spiritual--that is, in a
+question of clashing jurisdiction, to settle on their own behalf where
+shall fall the boundary line--it may be supposed that Lord Aberdeen
+would no more countenance their claim in any point of practice, than
+all rational legislators would countenance it as a theory. How,
+therefore, could this bill have prevented the rent in the church, so
+far as it has yet extended? On the other hand, though apparently
+powerless for that effect, it is well calculated to prevent a second
+secession. Those who are at all disposed to follow the first seceders,
+stand in this situation. By the very act of adhering to the
+Establishment when the _ultra_ party went out, they made it abundantly
+manifest that they do not go to the same extreme in their
+requisitions. But, upon any principle which falls short of that
+extreme being at all applicable to this church question, it is certain
+that Lord Aberdeen's measure will be found to satisfy their wishes;
+for that measure, if it errs at all, errs by conceding too much rather
+than too little. It sustains all objections to a candidate on their
+own merit, without reference to the quarter from which they arise, so
+long as they are relevant to the proper qualifications of a parish
+clergyman. It gives effect to every argument that can reasonably be
+urged against a nominee--either generally, on the ground of his moral
+conduct, his orthodoxy, and his intellectual attainments; or
+specially, in relation to his fitness for any local varieties of the
+situation. A Presbyterian church has always been regarded as, in some
+degree, leaning to a republican character, but a republic may be
+either aristocratic or democratic: now, Lord Aberdeen has favoured the
+democratic tendency of the age by making the probationary examination
+of the candidate as much of a popular examination, and as open to the
+impression of objections arising with the body of the people, as could
+be done with any decent regard either to the rights yet recognised in
+the patron, or, still more, to the professional dignity of the
+clerical order.
+
+Upon the whole, therefore, we look upon Lord Aberdeen as a national
+benefactor, who has not only turned aside a current running headlong
+into a revolution, but in doing this exemplary service, has contrived
+to adjust the temperament very equitably between, 1st, the individual
+nominee, having often his livelihood at stake; 2dly, the patron,
+exercising a right of property interwoven with our social system, and
+not liable to any usurpation which would not speedily extend itself to
+other modes of property; 3dly, the church, considered as the trustee
+or responsible guardian of orthodoxy and sound learning; 4thly, the
+same church considered as a professional body, and, therefore, as
+interested in upholding the dignity of each individual clergyman, and
+his immunity from frivolous cavils, however much against him they are
+interested in detecting his insufficiency; and, 5thly, the body of the
+congregation, as undoubtedly entitled to have the qualifications of
+their future pastor rigorously investigated. All these separate
+claims, embodied in five distinct parties, Lord Aberdeen has
+delicately balanced and fixed in a temperate equipoise by the
+machinery of his bill. Whilst, if we enquire for the probable effects
+of this bill upon the interests of pure and spiritual religion, the
+promise seems every way satisfactory. The Jacobinical and precipitous
+assaults of the Non-intrusionists upon the rights of property are
+summarily put down. A great danger is surmounted. For if the rights of
+patrons were to be arbitrarily trampled under foot on a pretence of
+consulting for the service of religion; on the next day, with the same
+unprincipled levity, another party might have trampled on the
+patrimonial rights of hereditary descent, on primogeniture, or any
+institution whatever, opposed to the democratic fanaticism of our age.
+No patron can now thrust an incompetent or a vicious person upon the
+religious ministrations of the land. It must be through their own
+defect of energy, if any parish is henceforth burdened with an
+incumbent reasonably obnoxious. It must be the fault of the presbytery
+or other church court, if the orthodox standards of the church are not
+maintained in their purity. It must be through his own fault, or his
+own grievous defects, if any qualified candidate for the church
+ministry is henceforth vexatiously rejected. It must be through some
+scandalous oversight in the selection of presentees, if any patron is
+defeated of his right to present.
+
+Contrast with these great services the menaces and the tendencies of
+the Non-Intrusionists, on the assumption that they had kept their
+footing in the church. It may be that, during this generation, from
+the soundness of the individual partisans, the orthodox standards of
+the church would have been maintained as to doctrine. But all the
+other parties interested in the church, except the church herself, as
+a depositary of truth, would have been crushed at one blow. This is
+apparent, except only with regard to the congregation of each parish.
+That body, it may be thought, could not but have benefited by the
+change; for the very motive and the pretence of the movement arose on
+their behalf. But mark how names disguise facts, and to what extent a
+virtual hostility may lurk under an apparent protection. Lord
+Aberdeen, because he limits the right of the congregation, is supposed
+to destroy it; but in the mean time he secures to every parish in
+Scotland a true and effectual influence, so far as that body ought to
+have it, (that is, _negatively_,) upon the choice of its pastor. On
+the other hand, the whole storm of the Non-intrusionists was pointed
+at those who refused to make the choice of a pastor altogether
+popular. It was the people, considered as a congregation, who ought
+to appoint the teacher by whom they were to be edified. So far, the
+party of seceders come forward as martyrs to their democratic
+principles. And they drew a colourable sanction to their democracy
+from the great names of Calvin, Zuinglius, and John Knox. Unhappily
+for them, Sir William Hamilton has shown, by quotations the most
+express and absolute from these great authorities, that no such
+democratic appeal as the Non-intrusionists have presumed, was ever
+contemplated for an instant by any one amongst the founders of the
+Reformed churches. That Calvin, whose jealousy was so inexorable
+towards princes and the sons of princes--that John Knox, who never
+"feared the face of man that was born of woman"--were these great
+Christian champions likely to have flinched from installing a popular
+tribunal, had they believed it eligible for modern times, or warranted
+by ancient times? In the learning of the question, therefore,
+Non-intrusionists showed themselves grossly wrong. Meantime it is
+fancied that at least they were generously democratic, and that they
+manifested their disinterested love of justice by creating a popular
+control that must have operated chiefly against their own clerical
+order. What! is that indeed so? Now, finally, take another instance
+how names belie facts. The people _were_ to choose their ministers;
+the council for election of the pastor _was_ to be a popular council
+abstracted from the congregation: but how? but under what conditions?
+but by whom abstracted? Behold the subtle design:--This pretended
+congregation was a small faction; this counterfeit "people" was the
+petty gathering of COMMUNICANTS; and the communicants were in effect
+within the appointment of the clergyman. They formed indirectly a
+secret committee of the clergy. So that briefly, Lord Aberdeen, whilst
+restraining the popular courts, gives to them a true popular
+authority; and the Non-intrusionists, whilst seeming to set up a
+democratic idol, do in fact, by dexterous ventriloquism, throw their
+own all-potential voice into its passive organs.
+
+We may seem to owe some apology to our readers for the space which we
+have allowed to this great moral _�meute_ in Scotland. But we hardly
+think so ourselves. For in our own island, and in our own times,
+nothing has been witnessed so nearly bordering on a revolution.
+Indeed, it is painful to hear Dr Chalmers, since the secession,
+speaking of the Scottish aristocracy in a tone of scornful hatred, not
+surpassed by the most Jacobinical language of the French Revolution in
+the year 1792. And, if this movement had not been checked by
+Parliament, and subsequently by the executive Government, in its
+comprehensive provision for the future, by the measure we have been
+reviewing, we cannot doubt that the contagion of the shock would have
+spread immediately to England, which part of the island has been long
+prepared and manured, as we might say, for corresponding struggles, by
+the continued conspiracy against church-rates. In both cases, an
+attack on church property, once allowed to prosper or to gain any
+stationary footing, would have led to a final breach in the life and
+serviceable integrity of the church.
+
+Of the Factory bill, we are sorry that we are hardly entitled to
+speak. In the loss of the educational clauses, that bill lost all
+which could entitle it to a separate notice; and, where the Government
+itself desponds as to any future hope of succeeding, private parties
+may have leave to despair. One gleam of comfort, however, has shone
+out since the adjournment of Parliament. The only party to the bitter
+resistance under which this measure failed, whom we can sincerely
+compliment with full honesty of purpose--viz. the Wesleyan
+Methodists--have since expressed (about the middle of September)
+sentiments very like compunction and deep sorrow for the course they
+felt it right to pursue. They are fully aware of the malignity towards
+the Church of England, which governed all other parties to the
+opposition excepting themselves; and in the sorrowful result of that
+opposition, which has terminated in denying all extension of education
+to the labouring youth of the nation, they have learned (like the
+conscientious men that they are) to suspect the wisdom and the
+ultimate principle of the opposition itself. Fortunately, they are a
+most powerful body; to express regret for what they have done, and
+hesitation at the casuistry of those motives which reconciled them to
+their act at the moment is possibly but the next step to some change
+in their counsels; in which case this single body, in alliance with
+the Church of England, would be able to carry the great measure which
+has been crushed for the present by so unexampled a resistance. Much
+remains to be said, both upon the introductory statements of Lord
+Ashley, with which (in spite of our respect for that nobleman) we do
+not coincide, and still more upon the extensive changes, and the
+_principles_ of change, which must be brought to bear upon a national
+system of education, before it can operate with that large effect of
+benefit which so many anticipate from its adoption. But this is ample
+matter for a separate discussion.
+
+Lastly, let us notice the Irish Arms' bill; which, amongst the
+measures framed to meet the momentary exigence of the times, stands
+foremost in importance. This is one of those fugitive and casual
+precautions, which, by intense seasonableness, takes its rank amongst
+the permanent means of pacification. Bridling the instant spirit of
+uproar, carrying the Irish nation over that transitional state of
+temptation, which, being once gone by, cannot, we believe, be renewed
+for generations, this, with other acts in the same temper, will face
+whatever peril still lingers in the sullen rear of Mr O'Connell's
+dying efforts. For that gentleman, personally, we believe him to be
+nearly extinct. Two months ago we expressed our conviction, so much
+the stronger in itself for having been adopted after some hesitation,
+that Sir Robert Peel had taken the true course for eventually and
+finally disarming him. We are thankful that we have now nothing to
+recant. Progress has been made in that interval towards that
+consummation, quite equal to any thing we could have expected in so
+short a lapse of weeks. Mr O'Connell is now showing the strongest
+symptoms of distress, and of conscious approach to the condition of
+"check to the king." Of these symptoms we will indicate one or two. In
+January 1843, he declared solemnly that an Irish Parliament should
+instal itself at Dublin before the year closed. Early in May, he
+promised that on the anniversary of that day the great change should
+be solemnized. On a later day in May, he proclaimed that the event
+would come off (according to a known nautical mode of advertising the
+time of sailing) not upon a settled day of that month but "in all May"
+of 1844. Here the matter rested until August 12, when again he shifted
+his day to the corresponding day of 1844. But September arrived, and
+then "before those shoes were old" in which he had made his promise,
+he declares by letter, to some correspondent, that he must have
+_forty-three months_ for working out his plan. Anther symptom, yet
+more significant, is this: and strange to say it has been overlooked
+by the daily press. Originally he had advertised some pretended
+Parliament of 300 Irishmen, to which admission was to be had for each
+member by a fee of L.100. And several journals are now telling him
+that, under the Convention Act, he and his Parliament will be arrested
+on the day of assembling. Not at all. They do not attend to his
+harlequin motions. Already he has declared that this assembly, which
+was to have been a Parliament, is only to be a conciliatory committee,
+an old association under some new name, for deliberating on means
+_tending to_ a Parliament in some future year, as yet not even
+suggested.
+
+May we not say, after such facts, that the game is up? The agitation
+may continue, and it may propagate itself. But for any interest of Mr
+O'Connell's, it is now passing out of his hands.
+
+In the joy with which we survey that winding up of the affair, we can
+afford to forget the infamous display of faction during the discussion
+of the Arms' bill. Any thing like it, in pettiness of malignity, has
+not been witnessed during this century: any thing like it, in
+impotence of effect, probably will not be witnessed again during our
+times. Thirteen divisions in one night--all without hope, and without
+even a verbal gain! This conduct the nation will not forget at the
+next election. But in the mean time the peaceful friends of this yet
+peaceful empire rejoice to know, that without war, without rigour,
+without an effort that could disturb or agitate--by mere silent
+precautions, and the sublime magnanimity of simply fixing upon the
+guilty conspirator one steadfast eye of vigilant preparation, the
+conspiracy itself is melting into air, and the relics of it which
+remain will soon become fearful only to him who has evoked it.
+
+The game, therefore, is up, if we speak of the purposes originally
+contemplated. This appears equally from the circumstances of the case
+without needing the commentary of Mr O'Connell, and from the acts no
+less than the words of that conspirator. True it is--and this is the
+one thing to be feared--that the agitation, though extinct for the
+ends of its author, may propagate itself through the maddening
+passions of the people, now perhaps uncontrollably excited. Tumults
+may arise, at the moment when further excitement is impossible, simply
+through that which is already in operation. But that stage of
+rebellion is open at every turn to the coercion of the law: and it is
+not such a phasis of conspiracy that Mr O'Connell wishes to face, or
+_can_ face. Speaking, therefore, of the _real_ objects pursued in this
+memorable agitation, we cannot but think that as the roll of possible
+meetings is drawing nearer to exhaustion, as all other arts fail, and
+mere _written_ addresses are renewed, (wanting the inflammatory
+contagion of personal meetings, and not accessible to a scattered
+peasantry;) but above all, as the day of instant action is once again
+adjourned to a period both remote and indefinite, the agitation must
+be drooping, and virtually we may repeat that the game is up. But the
+last moves have been unusually interesting. Not unlike the fascination
+exercised over birds by the eye of the rattlesnake, has been the
+impression upon Mr O'Connell from the fixed attention turned upon him
+by Government. What they _did_ was silent and unostentatious; more,
+however, than perhaps the public is aware of in the way of preparation
+for an outbreak. But the capital resource of their policy was, to make
+Mr O'Connell deeply sensible that they were watching him. The eye that
+watched over Waterloo was upon him: for six months that eagle glance
+has searched him and nailed him: and the result, as it is now
+revealing itself, may at length be expressed in the two lines of
+Wordsworth otherwise applied--
+
+    "The vacillating bondsman of the Pope
+    Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."
+
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Minor typographic errors have been corrected. Please note there is
+some archaic spelling, which has been retained as printed. There are a
+few snippets of Greek; this has been transliterated and is surrounded
+by + signs. There are also a few instances of the letter a with macron
+(straight line) over it. These are indicated by [=a]. The few oe
+ligatures have not been retained in this version.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23240]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan O'Connor, Jonathan Ingram, Sam W. and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h1>BLACKWOOD'S<br />
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</h1>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>No. CCCXXXVI.<span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>OCTOBER, 1843.<span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span><span class="smcap">Vol.</span> LIV.</h2>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<ul class="toc">
+  <li><a href="#MILLS_LOGIC">MILL'S LOGIC.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#MY_COUNTRY_NEIGHBOURS">MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_431">431</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#TRAVELS_OF_KERIM_KHAN">TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_453">453</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#THE_THIRTEENTH">THE THIRTEENTH; A TALE OF DOOM.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_465">465</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#REMINISCENCES_OF_SYRIA">REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_476">476</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#THE_FATE_OF_POLYCRATES">THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_483">483</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#MODERN_PAINTERS">MODERN PAINTERS.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_485">485</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#A_ROYAL_SALUTE">A ROYAL SALUTE.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_504">504</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#PHYSICAL_SCIENCE_IN_ENGLAND">PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_514">514</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#CHRONICLES_OF_PARIS">CHRONICLES OF PARIS. THE RUE ST DENIS.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_525">525</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#THE_LAST_SESSION_OF_PARLIAMENT">THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.</a>
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_538">538</a></span></li>
+  <li><a href="#FOOTNOTES">[FOOTNOTES]</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg&nbsp;415]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MILLS_LOGIC" id="MILLS_LOGIC"></a>MILL'S LOGIC.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>These are <em>not</em> degenerate days.
+We have still strong thinkers amongst
+us; men of untiring perseverance, who
+flinch before no difficulties, who never
+hide the knot which their readers are
+only too willing that they should let
+alone; men who dare write what the
+ninety-nine out of every hundred will
+pronounce a <em>dry</em> book; who pledge
+themselves, not to the public, but to
+their subject, and will not desert it
+till their task is completed. One of
+this order is Mr John Stuart Mill.
+The work he has now presented to
+the public, we deem to be, after its
+kind, of the very highest character,
+every where displaying powers of
+clear, patient, indefatigable thinking.
+Abstract enough it must be allowed
+to be, calling for an unremitted attention,
+and yielding but little, even
+in the shape of illustration, of lighter
+and more amusing matter; he has
+taken no pains to bestow upon it any
+other interest than what searching
+thought and lucid views, aptly expressed,
+ought of themselves to create.
+His subject, indeed&mdash;the laws by
+which human belief and the inquisition
+of truth are to be governed and
+directed&mdash;is both of that extensive
+and fundamental character, that it
+would be treated with success only
+by one who knew how to resist the
+temptations to digress, as well as how
+to apply himself with vigour to the
+solution of the various questions that
+must rise before him.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"This book," the author says in his
+preface, "makes no pretence of giving
+to the world a new theory of our intellectual
+operations. Its claim to attention,
+if it possess any, is grounded on
+the fact, that it is an attempt not to supersede,
+but to embody and systematize,
+the best ideas which have been either
+promulgated on its subject by speculative
+writers, or conformed to by accurate
+thinkers in their scientific enquiries.</p>
+
+<p>"To cement together the detached
+fragments of a subject, never yet treated
+as a whole; to harmonize the true
+portions of discordant theories, by supplying
+the links of thought necessary to
+connect them, and by disentangling
+them from the errors with which they
+are always more or less interwoven&mdash;must
+necessarily require a considerable
+amount of original speculation. To
+other originality than this, the present
+work lays no claim. In the existing
+state of the cultivation of the sciences,
+there would be a very strong presumption
+against any one who should imagine
+that he had effected a revolution in the
+theory of the investigation of truth, or
+added any fundamentally new process to
+the practice of it. The improvement
+which remains to be effected in the methods
+of philosophizing, [and the author
+believes that they have much need of
+improvement,] can only consist in performing,
+more systematically and accurately,
+operations with which, at least
+in their elementary form, the human intellect,
+in some one or other of its employments,
+is already familiar."</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg&nbsp;416]</a></span>
+Such is the manly and modest estimate
+which the author makes of his
+own labours, and the work fully bears
+out the character here given of it.
+No one capable of receiving pleasure
+from the disentanglement of intricacies,
+or the clear exposition of an abstruse
+subject; no one seeking assistance
+in the acquisition of distinct and
+accurate views on the various and
+difficult topics which these volumes
+embrace&mdash;can fail to read them with
+satisfaction and with benefit.</p>
+
+<p>To give a full account&mdash;to give any
+account&mdash;of a work which traverses so
+wide a field of subject, would be here
+a futile attempt; we should, after all
+our efforts, merely produce a laboured
+and imperfect synopsis, which would
+in vain solicit the perusal of our readers.
+What we purpose doing, is to
+take up, in the order in which they
+occur, some of the topics on which
+Mr Mill has thrown a new light, or
+which he has at least invested with a
+novel interest by the view he has given
+of them. And as, in this selection of
+topics, we are not bound to choose
+those which are most austere and
+repulsive, we hope that such of our
+readers as are not deterred by the
+very name of logic, will follow us with
+some interest through the several
+points of view, and the various extracts
+we shall present to them.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Syllogism.</i>&mdash;The logic of <em>Induction</em>,
+as that to which attention
+has been least devoted, which has
+been least reduced to systematic form,
+and which lies at the basis of all other
+modes of reasoning, constitutes the
+prominent subject of these volumes.
+Nevertheless, the old topic of logic
+proper, or deductive reasoning, is not
+omitted, and the first passage to which
+we feel bound, on many accounts, to
+give our attention, is the disquisition
+on the syllogism.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for us it is not necessary,
+in order to convey the point of
+our author's observations upon this
+head, to afflict our readers with any
+dissertation upon <em>mode</em> or <em>figure</em>, or
+other logical technicalities. The first
+form or <em>figure</em> of the syllogism (to
+which those who have not utterly
+forgotten their scholastic discipline will
+remember that all others may be reduced)
+is familiar to every one, and to this
+alone we shall have occasion to refer.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"All men are mortal.<br />
+A king is a man;<br />
+Therefore a king is mortal."<br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Who has not met&mdash;what young lady
+even, though but in her teens, has not
+encountered some such charming triplet
+as this, which looks so like verse
+at a distance, but, like some other
+compositions, approximates nothing
+the more on this account to poetry?
+Who has not learnt from such examples
+what is a <em>major</em>, what a <em>middle
+term</em>, and what the <em>minor</em> or conclusion?</p>
+
+<p>As no one, in the present day, advises
+the adoption, in our controversies,
+of the syllogistic forms of reasoning,
+it is evident that the value of the
+syllogism must consist, not in its
+practical use, but in the accurate type
+which it affords of the process of reasoning,
+and in the analysis of that process
+which a full understanding of it
+renders necessary. Such an analysis
+supplies, it is said, an excellent discipline
+to the mind, whilst an occasional
+reference to the form of the syllogism,
+as a type or model of reasoning,
+insures a steadiness and pertinency of
+argument. But is the syllogism, it
+has been asked, this veritable type of
+our reasoning? Has the analysis which
+would explain it to be such, been accurately
+conducted?</p>
+
+<p>Several of our northern metaphysicians,
+it is well known&mdash;as, for example,
+Dr Campbell and Dugald Stewart&mdash;have
+laid rude hands upon the
+syllogism. They have pronounced it
+to be a vain invention. They have
+argued that no addition of knowledge,
+no advancement in the acquisition of
+truth, no new conviction, can possibly
+be obtained through its means, inasmuch
+as no syllogism can contain any
+thing in the conclusion which was not
+admitted, at the outset, in the first or
+major proposition. The syllogism
+always, say they, involves a <i>petitio
+principii</i>. Admit the major, and the
+business is palpably at an end; the rest
+is a mere circle, in which one cannot
+advance, but may get giddy by the
+revolution. According to the exposition
+of logicians themselves, we simply
+obtain by our syllogism, the privilege
+of saying that, in the <em>minor</em>, of
+some individual of a class, which we
+had said, in the <em>major</em>, already of the
+whole class.</p>
+
+<p>Archbishop Whately, our most distinguished
+expositor and defender of
+the Aristotelian logic, meets these antagonists
+with the resolute assertion,
+that their objection to the syllogism is
+equally valid against <em>all reasoning
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg&nbsp;417]</a></span>
+whatever</em>. He does not deny, but, on
+the contrary, in common with every
+logician, distinctly states, that whatever
+is concluded in the minor, must
+have been previously admitted in the
+major, for in this lies the very force
+and compulsion of the argument; but
+he maintains that the syllogism is the
+true type of all our reasoning, and
+that therefore to all our reasoning,
+the very same vice, the very same
+<i>petitio principii</i>, may be imputed. The
+syllogism, he contends, (and apparently
+with complete success,) is but a statement
+in full of what takes place mentally
+even in the most rapid acts of
+reasoning. We often suppress the
+major for the sake of brevity, but it
+is understood though not expressed;
+just as in the same manner as we
+sometimes content ourselves with
+merely implying the conclusion itself,
+because it is sufficiently evident without
+further words. If any one should
+so far depart from common sense as to
+question the mortality of some great
+king, we should think it sufficient to
+say for all argument&mdash;the king is a
+man!&mdash;virtually implying the whole
+triplet above mentioned:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"All men are mortal.<br />
+The king is a man;<br />
+Therefore the king is mortal."<br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"In pursuing the supposed investigation,
+(into the operation of reasoning,)"
+says Archbishop Whately,
+"it will be found that every conclusion
+is deduced, in reality, from two
+other propositions, (thence called
+<em>Premisses</em>;) for though one of these
+may be and commonly is suppressed,
+it must nevertheless be understood as
+admitted, as may easily be made evident
+by supposing the <em>denial</em> of the
+suppressed premiss, which will at
+once invalidate the argument; <i>e.g.</i>
+if any one, from perceiving that 'the
+world exhibits marks of design,' infers
+that 'it must have had an intelligent
+author,' though he may not be
+aware in his own mind of the existence
+of any other premiss, he will
+readily understand, if it be <em>denied</em> that
+'whatever exhibits marks of design
+must have had an intelligent author,'
+that the affirmative of that proposition
+is necessary to the solidity of the argument.
+An argument thus stated
+regularly and at full length, is called
+a syllogism; which, therefore, is evidently
+not a peculiar <em>kind of argument</em>,
+but only a peculiar <em>form</em> of expression,
+in which every argument may be
+stated."&mdash;<i>Whately's Logic</i>, p. 27.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be found," he continues,
+"that all valid arguments whatever
+may be easily reduced to such a form
+as that of the foregoing syllogisms;
+and that consequently the principle on
+which they are constructed is the
+<span class="smcap">Universal Principle</span> of reasoning.
+So elliptical, indeed, is the ordinary
+mode of expression, even of those who
+are considered as prolix writers,&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+so much is implied and left to be understood
+in the course of argument,
+in comparison of what is actually stated,
+(most men being impatient, even to
+excess, of any appearance of unnecessary
+and tedious formality of statement,)
+that a single sentence will often
+be found, though perhaps considered
+as a single argument, to contain, compressed
+into a short compass, a chain
+of several distinct arguments. But if
+each of these be fully developed, and
+the whole of what the author intended
+to imply be stated expressly, it will
+be found that all the steps, even of the
+longest and most complex train of
+reasoning, may be reduced into the
+above form."&mdash;P. 32.</p>
+
+<p>That it is not the office of the syllogism
+to discover <em>new</em> truths, our logician
+fully admits, and takes some pains
+to establish. This is the office of
+"other operations of mind," not unaccompanied,
+however, with acts of
+reasoning. Reasoning, argument, inference,
+(words which he uses as synonymous,)
+have not for their object
+our advancement in knowledge, or the
+acquisition of new truths.</p>
+
+<p>"Much has been said," says Archbishop
+Whately, in another portion
+of his work, "by some writers, of the
+superiority of the inductive to the syllogistic
+methods of seeking truth, as
+if the two stood opposed to each other;
+and of the advantage of substituting
+the <i>Organon</i> of Bacon for that of Aristotle,
+&amp;c. &amp;c., which indicates a total
+misconception of the nature of both.
+There is, however, the more excuse
+for the confusion of thought which
+prevails on this subject, because eminent
+logical writers have treated, or
+at least have appeared to treat, of induction
+as a kind of argument distinct
+from the syllogism; which, if it were,
+it certainly might be contrasted with
+the syllogism: or rather the whole
+syllogistic theory would fall to the
+ground, since one of the very first
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg&nbsp;418]</a></span>
+principles it establishes, is that <em>all</em>
+reasoning, on whatever subject, is one
+and the same process, which may be
+clearly exhibited in the form of syllogisms.</p>
+
+<p>"This inaccuracy seems chiefly to
+have arisen from a vagueness in the
+use of the word induction; which is
+sometimes employed to designate the
+process of <em>investigation</em> and of collecting
+facts, sometimes the deducing an
+inference <em>from</em> those facts. The former
+of these processes (<i>viz.</i> that of
+observation and experiment) is undoubtedly
+<em>distinct</em> from that which
+takes place in the syllogism; but then
+it is not a process of <em>argumentation</em>:
+the latter again <em>is</em> an argumentative
+process; but then it is, like all other
+arguments, capable of being syllogistically
+expressed."&mdash;P. 263.</p>
+
+<p>"To prove, then, this point demonstratively,
+(namely, that it is not by a
+process of reasoning that new truths
+are brought to light,) becomes on these
+data perfectly easy; for since all reasoning
+(in the sense above defined) may
+be resolved into syllogisms; and since
+even the objectors to logic make it a
+subject of complaint, that in a syllogism
+the premises do virtually assert
+the conclusion, it follows at once that
+no new truth (as above defined) can
+be elicited by any process of reasoning.</p>
+
+<p>"It is on this ground, indeed, that
+the justly celebrated author of the
+<i>Philosophy of Rhetoric</i> objects to the
+syllogism altogether, as necessarily involving
+a <i>petitio principii</i>; an objection
+which, of course, he would not
+have been disposed to bring forward,
+had he perceived that, whether well or
+ill founded, <em>it lies against all arguments
+whatever</em>. Had he been aware that
+the syllogism is no distinct kind of
+argument otherwise than in form, but
+is, in fact, <em>any</em> argument whatever
+stated regularly and at full length, he
+would have obtained a more correct
+view of the object of all reasoning;
+<em>which is merely to expand and unfold the
+assertions wrapt up, as it were, and implied
+in those with which we set out</em>, and
+to bring a person to perceive and acknowledge
+the full force of that which
+he has admitted; to contemplate it
+in various points of view; <em>to admit in
+one shape what he has already admitted
+in another</em>, and to give up and disallow
+whatever is inconsistent with it."&mdash;P.
+273.</p>
+
+<p>Now, what the Archbishop here advances
+appears convincing; his position
+looks impregnable. The syllogism
+is not a peculiar mode of reasoning,
+(how could it be?)&mdash;if any thing
+at all, it must be a general formula
+for expressing the ordinary act of
+reasoning&mdash;and he shows that the objections
+made by those who would
+impugn it, may be levelled with equal
+justice against all ratiocination whatever.
+But then this method of defending
+the syllogism, (to those of us
+who have stood beside, in the character
+of modest enquirers, watching the
+encounter of keen wits,) does but aggravate
+the difficulty. Is it true, then,
+that in every act of reasoning, we do
+but conclude in one form, what, the
+moment before, we had stated in another?
+Are we to understand that such
+is the final result of the debate? If so,
+this act of reasoning appears very little
+deserving of that estimation in
+which it has been generally held. The
+great prerogative of intelligent beings
+(as it has been deemed,) grants them
+this only&mdash;to "admit in one shape
+what they had already admitted in
+another."</p>
+
+<p>From the dilemma in which we are
+here placed, the Archbishop by no
+means releases, or attempts to release
+us: he seems (something too much
+after the manner and disposition generally
+attributed to masters in logic-fence,)
+to have rested satisfied with
+foiling his opponents in their attack
+upon the exact position he had bound
+himself to defend. He saves the syllogism;
+what becomes, in the controversy,
+of poor human reason itself, is
+not his especial concern&mdash;it is as much
+their business as his. You do not,
+more than I, he virtually says to his
+opponents, intend to resign all reasoning
+whatever as a mere inanity; I
+prove, for my part, that all reasoning
+is capable of being put into a syllogistic
+form, and that your objection, if
+valid against the syllogism, is equally
+valid against all ratiocination. You
+must therefore either withdraw your
+objection altogether, or advance it at
+your peril; the difficulty is of your
+making, you must solve it as you can.
+Gentlemen, you must muzzle your
+own dog.</p>
+
+<p>In this posture of affairs the author
+of the present work comes to the rescue.
+He shall speak in his own words.
+But we must premise, that although
+we do not intend to stint him in our
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg&nbsp;419]</a></span>
+quotation&mdash;though we wish to give
+him all the sea-room possible; yet, for
+a <em>full</em> development of his views, we
+must refer the reader to his volumes
+themselves. There are some disquisitions
+which precede the part we are
+about to quote from, which, in order to
+do complete justice to the subject, ought
+to find a place here, as well as in the
+author's work&mdash;but it is impossible.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is universally allowed, that a
+syllogism is vicious, if there be any thing
+more in the conclusion than was assumed
+in the premisses. But this is, in fact,
+to say, that nothing ever was, or can be,
+proved by syllogism, which was not
+known, or assumed to be known, before.
+Is ratiocination, then, not a process of inference?
+And is the syllogism, to which
+the word reasoning has so often been
+represented to be exclusively appropriate,
+not really entitled to be called
+reasoning at all? This seems an inevitable
+consequence of the doctrine, admitted
+by all writers on the subject,
+that a syllogism can prove no more than
+is involved in the premisses. Yet the
+acknowledgment so explicitly made, has
+not prevented one set of writers from
+continuing to represent the syllogism
+as the correct analysis of what the mind
+actually performs in discovering and
+proving the larger half of the truths,
+whether of science or of daily life, which
+we believe; while those who have avoided
+this inconsistency, and followed out
+the general theorem respecting the logical
+value of the syllogism to its legitimate
+corollary, have been led to impute
+uselessness and frivolity to the
+syllogistic theory itself, on the ground
+of the <i>petitio principii</i> which they allege
+to be inherent in every syllogism. As
+I believe both these opinions to be fundamentally
+erroneous, I must request the
+attention of the reader to certain considerations,
+without which any just
+appreciation of the true character of the
+syllogism, and the functions it performs
+in philosophy, appears to me impossible;
+but which seem to me to have been
+overlooked or insufficiently adverted to,
+both by the defenders of the syllogistic
+theory, and by its assailants.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be granted, that in every
+syllogism, considered as an argument to
+prove the conclusion, there is a <i>petitio
+principii</i>. When we say&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">'All men are mortal.<br />
+Socrates is a man;<br />
+<span class="smcap lowercase">THEREFORE</span><br />
+Socrates is mortal'&mdash;<br /></p>
+
+<p>it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries
+of the syllogistic theory, that the
+proposition, Socrates is mortal, is presupposed
+in the more general assumption,
+All men are mortal; that we cannot
+be assured of the mortality of all
+men, unless we were previously certain
+of the mortality of every individual
+man; that if it be still doubtful whether
+Socrates, or any other individual you
+choose to name, be mortal or not, the
+same degree of uncertainty must hang
+over the assertion, All men are mortal;
+that the general principle, instead of
+being given as evidence of the particular
+case, cannot itself be taken for true
+without exception, until every shadow
+of doubt which could affect any case
+comprised with it, is dispelled by evidence
+<i>aliund&egrave;</i>, and then what remains
+for the syllogism to prove? that, in
+short, no reasoning from generals to
+particulars can, as such, prove any
+thing; since from a general principle
+you cannot infer any particulars, but
+those which the principle itself assumes
+as foreknown.</p>
+
+<p>"This doctrine is irrefragable; and
+if logicians, though unable to dispute it,
+have usually exhibited a strong disposition
+to explain it away, this was not
+because they could discover any flaw in
+the argument itself, but because the
+contrary opinion seemed to rest upon
+arguments equally indisputable. In the
+syllogism last referred to, for example,
+or in any of those which we previously
+constructed, is it not evident that the
+conclusion may, to the person to whom
+the syllogism is presented, be actually
+and <i>bona fide</i> a new truth? Is it not
+matter of daily experience that truth
+previously undreamt of, facts which
+have not been, and cannot be, directly
+observed, are arrived at by way of general
+reasoning? We believe that the
+Duke of Wellington is mortal. We do
+not know this by direct observation,
+since he is not yet dead. If we were
+asked how, this being the case, we know
+the Duke to be mortal, we should probably
+answer, because all men are so.
+Here, therefore, we arrive at the knowledge
+of a truth not (as yet) susceptible
+of observation, by a reasoning which admits
+of being exhibited in the following
+syllogism&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">'All men are mortal.<br />
+The Duke of Wellington is a man;<br />
+<span class="smcap lowercase">THEREFORE</span><br />
+The Duke of Wellington is mortal.'<br /></p>
+
+<p>"And since a large portion of our
+knowledge is thus acquired, logicians
+have persisted in representing the syllogism
+as a process of inference or
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg&nbsp;420]</a></span>
+proof; although none of them has cleared
+up the difficulty which arises from the
+inconsistency between that assertion and
+the principle, that if there be any thing
+in the conclusion which was not already
+asserted in the premisses, the argument
+is vicious. For it is impossible to attach
+any serious scientific value to such a
+mere salvo, as the distinction drawn between
+being involved <em>by implication</em> in
+the premisses, and being directly asserted
+in them. When Archbishop Whately,
+for example, says that the object of reasoning
+is 'merely to expand and unfold
+the assertions wrapt up, as it were, and
+implied in those with which we set out,
+and to bring a person to perceive and
+acknowledge the full force of that which
+he has admitted,' he does not, I think,
+meet the real difficulty requiring to be
+explained; namely, how it happens that
+a science like geometry <em>can</em> be all
+'wrapt up' in a few definitions and
+axioms. Nor does this defence of the
+syllogism differ much from what its
+assailants urge against it as an accusation,
+when they charge it with being of
+no use except to those who seek to press
+the consequence of an admission into
+which a man has been entrapped, without
+having considered and understood its
+full force. When you admitted the
+major premiss, you asserted the conclusion,
+'but,' says Archbishop Whately,
+'you asserted it by implication merely;
+this, however, can here only mean that
+you asserted it unconsciously&mdash;that you
+did not know you were asserting it; but
+if so, the difficulty revives in this shape.
+Ought you not to have known? Were
+you warranted in asserting the general
+proposition without having satisfied yourself
+of the truth of every thing which it
+fairly includes? And if not, what, then,
+is the syllogistic art but a contrivance
+for catching you in a trap, and holding
+you fast in it?'</p>
+
+<p>"From this difficulty there appears to
+be but one issue. The proposition, that
+the Duke of Wellington is mortal, is
+evidently an inference, it is got at as a
+conclusion from something else; but do
+we, in reality, conclude it from the proposition&mdash;All
+men are mortal? I answer,
+No.</p>
+
+<p>"The error committed is, I conceive,
+that of overlooking the distinction between
+the two parts of the process of
+philosophizing&mdash;the inferring part and
+the registering part; and ascribing to
+the latter the functions of the former.
+The mistake is that of referring a man
+to his own notes for the <em>origin</em> of his
+knowledge. If a man is asked a question,
+and is at the moment unable to
+answer it, he may refresh his memory
+by turning to a memorandum which he
+carries about with him. But if he were
+asked how the fact came to his knowledge,
+he would scarcely answer, because
+it was set down in his note-book.</p>
+
+<p>"Assuming that the proposition, The
+Duke of Wellington is mortal, is immediately
+an inference from the proposition,
+All men are mortal, whence do we
+derive our knowledge of that general
+truth? No supernatural aid being supposed,
+the answer must be, from observation.
+Now, all which men can
+observe are individual cases. From
+these all general truths must be drawn,
+and into these they may be again resolved;
+for a general truth is but an
+aggregate of particular truths&mdash;a comprehensive
+expression, by which an indefinite
+number of individual facts are
+affirmed or denied at once. But a general
+proposition is not merely a compendious
+form for recording and preserving
+in the memory a number of
+particular facts, all of which have been
+observed. Generalization is not a process
+of mere naming, it is also a process
+of inference. From instances which we
+have observed, we feel warranted in
+concluding, that what we found true in
+those instances holds in all similar ones&mdash;past,
+present, and future, however
+numerous they may be. We, then, by
+that valuable contrivance of language,
+which enables us to speak of many as if
+they were one, record all that we have
+observed, together with all that we infer
+from our observations, in one concise
+expression; and have thus only one
+proposition, instead of an endless number,
+to remember or to communicate.
+The results of many observations and
+inferences, and instructions for making
+innumerable inferences in unforeseen
+cases, are compressed into one short
+sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"When, therefore, we conclude, from
+the death of John and Thomas, and
+every other person we ever heard of in
+whose case the experiment had been
+fairly tried, that the Duke of Wellington
+is mortal like the rest, we may,
+indeed, pass through the generalization,
+All men are mortal, as an intermediate
+stage; but it is not in the latter half of
+the process&mdash;the descent from all men
+to the Duke of Wellington&mdash;that the
+<em>inference</em> resides. The inference is
+finished when we have asserted that all
+men are mortal. What remains to be
+performed afterwards is merely deciphering
+our own notes.</p>
+
+<p>"Archbishop Whately has contended,
+that syllogizing, or reasoning from
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg&nbsp;421]</a></span>
+generals to particulars, is not, agreeably
+to the vulgar idea, a peculiar mode of
+reasoning, but the philosophical analysis
+of the mode in which all men reason,
+and must do so if they reason at
+all. With the deference due to so high
+an authority, I cannot help thinking
+that the vulgar notion is, in this case,
+the more correct. If, from our experience
+of John, Thomas, &amp;c. who once
+were living, but are now dead, we are
+entitled to conclude that all human
+beings are mortal, we might surely,
+without any logical inconsequence,
+have concluded at once, from those
+instances, that the Duke Wellington is
+mortal. The mortality of John, Thomas,
+and Company, is, after all, the whole
+evidence we have for the mortality of
+the Duke of Wellington. Not one
+iota is added to the proof by interpolating
+a general proposition. Since the
+individual cases are all the evidence we
+can possess; evidence which no logical
+form into which we choose to throw
+it can make greater than it is; and
+since that evidence is either sufficient in
+itself, or, if insufficient for one purpose,
+cannot be sufficient for the other; I am
+unable to see why we should be forbidden
+to take the shortest cut from these
+sufficient premisses to the conclusion, and
+constrained to travel the 'high <i>priori</i>
+road' by the arbitrary fiat of logicians.
+I cannot perceive why it should be impossible
+to journey from one place to
+another, unless 'we march up a hill and
+then march down again.' It may be
+the safest road, and there may be a resting-place
+at the top of the hill, affording
+a commanding view of the surrounding
+country; but for the mere purpose
+of arriving at our journey's end, our
+taking that road is perfectly optional:
+it is a question of time, trouble, and
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>"Not only <em>may</em> we reason from particulars
+to particulars, without passing
+through generals, but we perpetually do
+so reason. All our earliest inferences
+are of this nature. From the first dawn
+of intelligence we draw inferences; but
+years elapse before we learn the use of
+general language. The child who, having
+burnt his fingers, avoids to thrust
+them again into the fire, has reasoned
+or inferred, though he has never thought
+of the general maxim&mdash;fire burns. He
+knows from memory that he has been
+burnt, and on this evidence believes,
+when he sees a candle, that if he puts
+his finger into the flame of it, he will be
+burnt again. He believes this in every
+case which happens to arise; but without
+looking, in each instance, beyond
+the present case. He is not generalizing;
+he is inferring a particular from
+particulars.&mdash;Vol. I. p. 244.</p>
+
+<p>"From the considerations now adduced,
+the following conclusions seem
+to be established:&mdash;All inference is from
+particulars to particulars: General propositions
+are merely registers of such
+inferences already made, and short formul&aelig;
+for making more: The major
+premiss of a syllogism, consequently, is
+a formula of this description; and the
+conclusion is not an inference drawn
+<em>from</em> the formula, but an inference
+drawn <em>according to</em> the formula: the
+real logical antecedent, or premisses
+being <em>the particular facts from which
+the general proposition was collected by
+induction</em>.&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>"In the above observations, it has, I
+think, been clearly shown, that although
+there is always a process of reasoning
+or inference where a syllogism is used,
+the syllogism is not a correct analysis of
+that process of reasoning or inference;
+which is, on the contrary, (when not a
+mere inference from testimony,) an inference
+from particulars to particulars;
+authorized by a previous inference from
+particulars to generals, and substantially
+the same with it: of the nature, therefore,
+of Induction. But while these
+conclusions appear to me undeniable, I
+must yet enter a protest, as strong as
+that of Archbishop Whately himself,
+against the doctrine that the syllogistic
+art is useless for the purposes
+of reasoning. The reasoning lies in the
+act of generalisation, not in interpreting
+the record of that act; but the
+syllogistic form is all indispensable collateral
+security for the correctness of the
+generalisation itself."&mdash;P. 259.</p></div>
+
+<p>By this explanation we are released
+from the dilemma into which the syllogistic
+and non-syllogistic party had
+together thrown us. We can acknowledge
+that the process of reason can
+be always exhibited in the form of a
+syllogism, and yet not be driven to
+the strange and perplexing conclusion
+that our reasoning can never conduct
+us to a new truth, never lead us further
+than to admit in one shape what
+we had already admitted in another.
+We have, or may have, it is true, a
+<em>major</em> in all our ratiocination, implied,
+if not expressed, and are so far syllogistic;
+but then the real premiss from
+which we reason is the amount of experience
+on which that major was
+founded, to which amount of experience
+we, in fact, made an addition
+in our <em>minor</em>, or conclusion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg&nbsp;422]</a></span>
+But while we accept this explanation,
+and are grateful for the deliverance
+it works for us, we must also
+admit, (and we are not aware that Mr
+Mill would controvert this admission,)
+that there is a large class of cases in
+which our reasoning betrays no reference
+to this anterior experience, and
+where the usual explanation given by
+teachers of logic is perfectly applicable;
+cases where our object is, not
+the discovery of truth for ourselves,
+but to convince another of his error,
+by showing him that the proposition,
+which in his blindness or prejudice he
+has chosen to contradict, is part and
+parcel of some other proposition to
+which he has given, and is at all times
+ready to give, his acquiescence. In
+such cases, we frequently content ourselves
+with throwing before him this
+alternative&mdash;refuse your <em>major</em>, to
+which you have again and again assented,
+or accept, as involved in it,
+our <em>minor</em> proposition, which you have
+persisted in controverting.</p>
+
+<p>It will have been gathered from the
+foregoing train of observation, that,
+in direct contradistinction to Archbishop
+Whately, who had represented
+induction (so far as it consisted of an
+act of ratiocination) as resolvable into
+deductive and syllogistic reasoning, our
+author has resolved the syllogism, and
+indeed all deductive reasoning whatever,
+ultimately into examples of induction.
+In doing this, he is encountered
+by a metaphysical notion very
+prevalent in the present day, which
+lies across his path, and which he has
+to remove. We allude to the distinction
+between contingent and necessary
+truths; it being held by many philosophical
+writers that all necessary and
+universal truths owe their origin, not
+to experience (except as <em>occasion</em> of
+their development,) and not, consequently,
+to the ordinary process of induction,
+but flow from higher sources&mdash;flow
+immediately from some supreme
+faculty to which the name of reason
+has by some been exclusively appropriated,
+in order to distinguish it from
+the understanding, the faculty judging
+according to sense. We will pause a
+while upon this topic.</p>
+
+
+<p style="padding-top: 2em;"><i>Contingent and Necessary Truths.</i>&mdash;Those
+who have read Mr Whewell's
+treatise on the <i>Philosophy of the Inductive
+Sciences</i>, will remember that there
+is no topic which that author labours
+more sedulously to inculcate than this
+same distinction between contingent
+and necessary truths; and it is against
+his statement of the doctrine in question,
+that Mr Mill directs his observations.
+Perhaps the controverted tenets would
+have sustained a more equal combat
+under the auspices of a more practised
+and more complete metaphysician
+than Mr Whewell; but a difficulty
+was probably experienced in finding
+a statement in any other well-known
+English author full and explicit. Referring
+ourselves to Mr Whewell's
+volumes for an extract, in order to
+give the distinction here contended
+against the advantage of an exposition
+in the words of one who upholds it,
+we are embarrassed by the number
+which offer themselves. From many
+we select the following statement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Experience," says Mr Whewell,
+"must always consist of a limited
+number of observations. And, however
+numerous these may be, they
+can show nothing with regard to the
+infinite number of cases in which the
+experiment has not been made. Experience,
+being thus unable to prove
+a fact to be universal, is, as will readily
+be seen, still more incapable of
+proving a fact to be necessary. Experience
+cannot, indeed, offer the
+smallest ground for the necessity of
+a proposition. She can observe and
+record what has happened; but she
+cannot find, in any case, or in any
+accumulation of cases, any reason for
+what <em>must</em> happen. She may see objects
+side by side, but she cannot see
+a reason why they must be ever side
+by side. She finds certain events to
+occur in succession; but the succession
+supplies, in its occurrence, no
+reason for its recurrence. She contemplates
+external objects; but she
+cannot detect any internal bond which
+indissolubly connects the future with
+the past, the possible with the real.
+To learn a proposition by experience,
+and to see it to be necessarily true,
+are two altogether different processes
+of thought.</p>
+
+<p>"But it may be said, that we do
+learn, by means of observation and
+experience, many universal truths;
+indeed, all the general truths of which
+science consists. Is not the doctrine
+of universal gravitation learned by
+experience? Are not the laws of
+motion, the properties of light, the
+general properties of chemistry, so
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg&nbsp;423]</a></span>
+learned? How, with these examples
+before us, can we say that experience
+teaches no universal truths?</p>
+
+<p>"To this we reply, that these truths
+can only be known to be <em>general</em>, not
+universal, if they depend upon experience
+alone. Experience cannot bestow
+that universality which she herself
+cannot have, and that necessity
+of which she has no comprehension.
+If these doctrines are universally true,
+this universality flows from the <em>ideas</em>
+which we apply to our experience,
+and which are, as we have seen, the
+real sources of necessary truth. How
+far these ideas can communicate their
+universality and necessity to the results
+of experience, it will hereafter
+be our business to consider. It will
+then appear, that when the mind
+collects from observation truths of a
+wide and comprehensive kind, which
+approach to the simplicity and universality
+of the truths of pure science;
+she gives them this character by
+throwing upon them the light of her
+own fundamental ideas."&mdash;<i>Whewell</i>,
+Vol. I. p. 60.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, Mr Whewell no sooner
+arrives at any truth which admits of
+an unconditional positive statement&mdash;a
+statement defying all rational contradiction&mdash;than
+he abstracts it from
+amongst the acquisitions of experience,
+and throwing over it, we suppose,
+the light of these fundamental
+ideas, pronounces it enrolled in the
+higher class of universal and necessary
+truths. The first laws of motion,
+though established through great difficulties
+against the most obstinate
+preconceptions, and by the aid of repeated
+experiments, are, when surveyed
+in their present perfect form,
+proclaimed to be, not acquisitions of
+experience, but truths emanating from
+a higher and more mysterious origin.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>This distinction, which assigns a
+different mental origin to truths,
+simply because (from the nature of
+the subject-matter, as it seems to us)
+there is a difference with regard to the
+sort of certainty we feel of them, has
+always appeared to us most unphilosophical.
+It is admitted that we arrive
+at a general proposition through
+experience; there is no room, therefore,
+for quibbling as to the meaning
+of the term experience&mdash;it is understood
+that when we speak of a truth
+being derived from experience, we
+imply the usual exercise of our mental
+faculties; it is the step from a
+general to a universal proposition
+which alone occasions this perplexing
+distinction. The dogma is this&mdash;that
+experience can only teach us by a
+limited number of examples, and therefore
+can never establish a universal
+proposition. But if <em>all</em> experience is
+in favour of a proposition&mdash;if no experience
+has occurred even to enable the
+imagination to conceive its opposite,
+what more can be required to convert
+the general into a universal proposition?</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, the attribution of
+these characteristics of universality
+and necessity, becomes, amongst those
+who loudly insist upon the palpable
+nature of the distinction we are now
+examining, a matter of controversy;
+and there are a class of scientific
+truths, of which it is debated whether
+they are contingent or necessary.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg&nbsp;424]</a></span>
+The only test that they belong to the
+latter order is, the impossibility of
+conceiving their opposites to be the
+truth; and it seems that men find a
+great difference in their powers of
+conception, and that what is impossible
+with one is possible with another.
+But (wisely, too) passing this over, and
+admitting that there is a distinction
+(though a very ill-defined one) between
+the several truths we entertain
+of this nature; namely, that some we
+find it impossible, even in imagination,
+to contradict, whilst of others we can
+suppose it possible that they should
+cease to be truths&mdash;does it follow
+that different faculties of the mind are
+engaged in the acquisition of them?
+Does nothing depend on the nature of
+the subject itself? "That two sides
+of a triangle," says Mr Whewell,
+"are greater than the third, is a universal
+and necessary geometrical
+truth; it is true of all triangles; it is
+true in such a way that the contrary
+cannot be conceived. <em>Experience
+could not prove such a proposition.</em>"
+Experience is allowed to prove it of
+this or that triangle, but not as an inseparable
+property of a triangle. We
+are at a loss to perceive why the same
+faculties of the mind that can judge,
+say of the properties of animal life, of
+organized beings, cannot judge of the
+properties of a figure&mdash;properties
+which must immediately be conceived
+to exist the moment the figure is presented
+to the imagination. We say,
+for instance, of any animal, not because
+it is this or that animal, a sheep
+or an ox, but simply <em>as</em> animal, that
+it must sustain itself by food, by the
+process of assimilation. This, however,
+is merely a contingent truth,
+because it is in our power to conceive
+of organized beings whose substance
+shall not wear away, and consequently
+shall not need perpetual restoration.
+But what faculty of the mind is unemployed
+here that is engaged in
+perceiving the property of a triangle,
+that <em>as</em> triangle, it must have two sides
+greater than the third? The truths
+elicited in the two cases have a difference,
+inasmuch as a triangle differs
+from an animal in this, that it is impossible
+to conceive other triangles
+than those to which your truth is
+applicable, and therefore the proposition
+relating to the triangle is called a
+necessary truth. But surely this
+difference lies in the subject-matter,
+not in the nature of our mental faculties.</p>
+
+<p>But we had not intended to interpose
+our own lucubrations in the
+place of those of Mr Mill.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Although Mr Whewell," says our
+author, "has naturally and properly
+employed a variety of phrases to bring
+his meaning more forcibly home, he
+will, I presume, allow that they are all
+equivalent; and that what he means by
+a necessary truth, would be sufficiently
+defined, a proposition the negation of
+which is not only false, but inconceivable.
+I am unable to find in any of Mr
+Whewell's expressions, turn them what
+way you will, a meaning beyond this,
+and I do not believe he would contend
+that they mean any thing more.</p>
+
+<p>"This, therefore, is the principle asserted:
+that propositions, the negation
+of which is inconceivable, or in other
+words, which we cannot figure to ourselves
+as being false, must rest upon
+evidence of higher and more cogent
+description than any which experience
+can afford. And we have next to consider
+whether there is any ground for
+this assertion.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I cannot but wonder that so
+much stress should be laid upon the circumstance
+of inconceivableness, when
+there is such ample experience to show
+that our capacity or incapacity for conceiving
+a thing has very little to do with
+the possibility of the thing in itself; but is
+in truth very much an affair of accident,
+and depends upon the past habits and
+history of our own minds. There is no
+more generally acknowledged fact in
+human nature, than the extreme difficulty
+at first felt in conceiving any
+thing as possible, which is in contradiction
+to long-established and familiar
+experience, or even to old and familiar
+habits of thought. And this difficulty
+is a necessary result of the fundamental
+laws of the human mind. When we
+have often seen and thought of two
+things together, and have never, in any
+one instance, either seen or thought of
+them separately, there is by the primary
+law of association an increasing
+difficulty, which in the end becomes
+insuperable, of conceiving the two things
+apart. This is most of all conspicuous
+in uneducated persons, who are, in general,
+utterly unable to separate any
+two ideas which have once become firmly
+associated in their minds, and, if persons
+of cultivated intellect have any
+advantage on the point, it is only because,
+having seen and heard and read
+more, and being more accustomed to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg&nbsp;425]</a></span>
+exercise their imagination, they have experienced
+their sensations and thoughts
+in more varied combinations, and have
+been prevented from forming many of
+these inseparable associations. But this
+advantage has necessarily its limits.
+The man of the most practised intellect
+is not exempt from the universal laws of
+our conceptive faculty. If daily habit
+presents to him for a long period two
+facts in combination, and if he is not led,
+during that period, either by accident
+or intention, to think of them apart, he
+will in time become incapable of doing
+so, even by the strongest effort; and
+the supposition, that the two facts can
+be separated in nature, will at last present
+itself to his mind with all the characters
+of an inconceivable phenomenon.
+There are remarkable instances of this
+in the history of science; instances in
+which the wisest men rejected as impossible,
+because inconceivable, things
+which their posterity, by earlier practice,
+and longer perseverance in the
+attempt, found it quite easy to conceive,
+and which every body now knows to be
+true. There was a time when men of
+the most cultivated intellects, and the
+most emancipated from the dominion of
+early prejudice, could not credit the
+existence of antipodes; were unable to
+conceive, in opposition to old association,
+the force of gravity acting upwards
+instead of downwards. The
+Cartesians long rejected the Newtonian
+doctrine of the gravitation of all bodies
+towards one another, on the faith of a
+general proposition, the reverse of
+which seemed to them to be inconceivable&mdash;the
+proposition, that a body cannot
+act where it is not. All the cumbrous
+machinery of imaginary vortices,
+assumed without the smallest particle of
+evidence, appeared to these philosophers
+a more rational mode of explaining the
+heavenly motions, than one which involved
+what appeared to them so great
+an absurdity. And they, no doubt,
+found it as impossible to conceive that a
+body should act upon the earth at the
+distance of the sun or moon, as we find
+it to conceive an end to space or time,
+or two straight lines inclosing a space.
+Newton himself had not been able to
+realize the conception, or we should not
+have had his hypothesis of a subtle
+ether, the occult cause of gravitation;
+and his writings prove, that although
+he deemed the particular nature of the
+intermediate agency a matter of conjecture,
+the necessity of <em>some</em> such
+agency appeared to him indubitable.
+It would seem that, even now, the majority
+of scientific men have not completely
+got over this very difficulty; for
+though they have at last learned to conceive
+the sun <em>attracting</em> the earth without
+any intervening fluid, they cannot yet
+conceive the sun <em>illuminating</em> the earth
+without some such medium.</p>
+
+<p>"If, then, it be so natural to the human
+mind, even in its highest state of
+culture, to be incapable of conceiving,
+and on that ground to believe impossible,
+what is afterwards not only found
+to be conceivable, but proved to be
+true; what wonder if, in cases where
+the association is still older, more confirmed,
+and more familiar, and in which
+nothing even occurs to shake our conviction,
+or even to suggest to us any
+conception at variance with the association,
+the acquired incapacity should continue,
+and be mistaken for a natural incapacity?
+It is true our experience of
+the varieties in nature enables us, within
+certain limits, to conceive other varieties
+analogous to them. We can conceive
+the sun or moon falling, for although
+we never saw them fall, nor ever perhaps
+imagined them falling, we have
+seen so many other things fall, that we
+have innumerable familiar analogies to
+assist the conception; which, after all,
+we should probably have some difficulty
+in framing, were we not well accustomed
+to see the sun and moon move, (or
+appear to move,) so that we are only
+called upon to conceive a slight change
+in the direction of motion, a circumstance
+familiar to our experience. But
+when experience affords no model on
+which to shape the new conception, how
+is it possible for us to form it? How,
+for example, can we imagine an end to
+space and time? We never saw any
+object without something beyond it,
+nor experienced any feeling without
+something following it. When, therefore,
+we attempt to conceive the last
+point of space, we have the idea irresistibly
+raised of other points beyond
+it. When we try to imagine the last
+instant of time, we cannot help conceiving
+another instant after it. Nor
+is there any necessity to assume, as is
+done by the school to which Mr Whewell
+belongs, a peculiar fundamental law
+of the mind to account for the feeling
+of infinity inherent in our conception
+of space and time; that apparent infinity
+is sufficiently accounted for by
+simple and universally acknowledged
+laws."&mdash;Vol. I. p. 313.</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr Mill does not deny that there
+exists a distinction, as regards ourselves,
+between certain truths (namely,
+that of some, we cannot conceive
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg&nbsp;426]</a></span>
+them to be other than truths,) but he
+sets no value on this distinction, inasmuch
+as there is no proof that it has
+its counterpart in things themselves;
+the impossibility of a thing being by
+no means measured by our inability
+to conceive it. And we may observe,
+that Mr Whewell, in consistency
+with the metaphysical doctrine
+upon space and time which he has
+borrowed from Kant, ought, under
+another shape, to entertain a similar
+doubt as to whether this distinction
+represent any real distinction in the
+nature of things. He considers, with
+Kant, that space is only that <em>form</em>
+with which the human mind invests
+things&mdash;that it has no other than this
+merely mental existence&mdash;is purely
+subjective. Presuming, therefore,
+that the mind is, from its constitution,
+utterly and for ever unable to conceive
+the opposite of certain truths, (those,
+for instance, of geometry;) yet as the
+existence of space itself is but a subjective
+truth, it must follow that all
+other truths relating to it are subjective
+also. The mind is not conversant
+with things in themselves, in the
+truths even of geometry; nor is there
+any positive objective truth in one
+department of science more than
+another. Mr Whewell, therefore,
+though he advocates this distinction
+between necessary and contingent
+truth with a zeal which would seem
+to imply that something momentous,
+or of peculiar interest, was connected
+with it, can advocate it only as a
+matter of abstract metaphysical
+science. He cannot participate in
+that feeling of exaltation and mystery
+which has led many to expatiate upon
+a necessary and absolute truth which
+the Divine Power itself cannot alter,
+which is equally irresistible, equally
+binding and compulsory, with God as
+with man. Of this spirit of philosophical
+enthusiasm Mr Whewell cannot
+partake. Space and Time, with
+all their properties and phenomena,
+are but recognized as the modes of
+thought of a human intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>We have marked a number of passages
+for annotation and extract&mdash;a
+far greater number than we can possibly
+find place for alluding to. One
+subject, however, which lies at the
+very basis of all our science, and
+which has received a proportionate
+attention from Mr Mill, must not be
+amongst those which are passed over.
+We mean the law of <em>Causation</em>. What
+should be described as the complete
+and adequate notion of a cause, we
+need not say is one of the moot points
+of philosophy. According to one
+school of metaphysicians, there is in
+our notion of cause an element not
+derived from experience, which, it is
+confessed on all hands, can teach us
+only the <em>succession</em> of events. Cause,
+with them, is that invisible power,
+that mysterious bond, which this succession
+does but signify: with other
+philosophers this succession constitutes
+the whole of any intelligible notion
+we have of cause. The latter opinion
+is that of Mr Mill; at the same time
+the question is one which lies beyond
+or beside the scope of his volumes.
+He is concerned only with phenomena,
+not with the knowledge (if
+such there be) of "things in themselves;"
+that part, therefore, of our
+idea of cause which, according to all
+systems of philosophy, is won from
+experience, and concerns phenomena
+alone, is sufficient for his purpose.
+That every event has a cause, that is,
+a previous and uniformly previous
+event, and that whatever has happened
+will, in the like circumstances,
+happen again&mdash;these are the assumptions
+necessary to science, and these
+no one will dispute.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Mill has made a happy addition
+to the usual definition of cause given
+by that class of metaphysicians to
+which he himself belongs, and which
+obviates a plausible objection urged
+against it by Dr Reid and others.
+These have argued, that if cause be
+nothing more than invariable antecedence,
+then night may be said to be
+the cause of day, for the one invariably
+precedes the other. Day does succeed
+to night, but only on certain conditions&mdash;namely,
+that the sun rise.
+"The succession," observes Mr Mill,
+"which is equivalent and synonymous
+to cause, must be not only invariable
+but unconditional. We may define,
+therefore," says our author, "the cause
+of a phenomenon to be the antecedent,
+or the concurrence of antecedents,
+upon which it is invariably and
+<em>unconditionally</em> consequent."&mdash;Vol. I.
+p. 411.</p>
+
+<p>A dilemma may be raised of this
+kind. The universality of the law of
+causation&mdash;in other words, the uniform
+course of nature&mdash;is the fundamental
+principle on which all induction
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg&nbsp;427]</a></span>
+proceeds, the great premise on which all
+our science is founded. But if this
+law itself be the result only of experience,
+itself only a great instance of
+induction, so long as nature presents
+cases requiring investigation, where
+the causes are unknown to us, so long
+the law itself is imperfectly established.
+How, then, can this law be a guide and
+a premiss in the investigations of science,
+when those investigations are
+necessary to complete the proof of the
+law itself? How can this principle
+accompany and authorise every step
+we take in science, which itself needs
+confirmation so long as a process of
+induction remains to be performed?
+Or how can this law be established by
+a series of inductions, in making which
+it has been taken for granted?</p>
+
+<p>Objections which wear the air of a
+quibble have often this advantage&mdash;they
+put our knowledge to the test.
+The obligation to find a complete answer
+clears up our own conceptions.
+The observations which Mr Mill
+makes on this point, we shall quote at
+length. They are taken from his
+chapter on the <i>Evidence of the Law of
+Universal Causation</i>; the views in
+which are as much distinguished for
+boldness as for precision.</p>
+
+<p>After having said, that in all the
+several methods of induction the universality
+of the law of causation is
+assumed, he continues:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"But is this assumption warranted?
+Doubtless (it may be said) <em>most</em> phenomena
+are connected as effects with some
+antecedent or cause&mdash;that is, are never
+produced unless some assignable fact has
+preceded them; but the very circumstance,
+that complicated processes of
+induction are sometimes necessary, shows
+that cases exist in which this regular
+order of succession is not apparent to
+our first and simplest apprehension. If,
+then, the processes which bring these
+cases within the same category with the
+rest, require that we should assume the
+universality of the very law which they
+do not at first sight appear to exemplify,
+is not this a real <i>petitio principii</i>? Can
+we prove a proposition by an argument
+which takes it for granted? And, if not
+so proved, on what evidence does it
+rest?</p>
+
+<p>"For this difficulty, which I have purposely
+stated in the strongest terms it
+would admit of, the school of metaphysicians,
+who have long predominated in
+this country, find a ready salvo. They
+affirm that the universality of causation
+is a truth which we cannot help believing;
+that the belief in it is an instinct,
+one of the laws of our believing faculty.
+As the proof of this they say, and they
+have nothing else to say, that every body
+<em>does</em> believe it; and they number it
+among the propositions, rather numerous
+in their catalogue, which may be
+logically argued against, and perhaps
+cannot be logically proved, but which
+are of higher authority than logic, and
+which even he who denies in speculation,
+shows by his habitual practice that his
+arguments make no impression on himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no intention of entering into
+the merits of this question, as a problem
+of transcendental metaphysics. But I
+must renew my protest against adducing,
+as evidence of the truth of a fact in external
+nature, any necessity which the
+human mind may be conceived to be
+under of believing it. It is the business
+of human intellect to adapt itself to the
+realities of things, and not to measure
+those realities by its own capacities of
+comprehension. The same quality which
+fits mankind for the offices and purposes
+of their own little life, the tendency of
+their belief to follow their experience,
+incapacitates them for judging of what
+lies beyond. Not only what man can
+know, but what he can conceive, depends
+upon what he has experienced. Whatever
+forms a part of all his experience,
+forms a part also of all his conceptions,
+and appears to him universal and necessary,
+though really, for aught he knows,
+having no existence beyond certain narrow
+limits. The habit, however, of
+philosophical analysis, of which it is the
+surest effect to enable the mind to command,
+instead of being commanded by,
+the laws of the merely passive part of
+its own nature, and which, by showing to
+us that things are not necessarily connected
+in fact because their ideas are
+connected in our minds, is able to loosen
+innumerable associations which reign
+despotically over the undisciplined mind;
+this habit is not without power even over
+those associations which the philosophical
+school, of which I have been speaking,
+regard as connate and instinctive.
+I am convinced that any one accustomed
+to abstraction and analysis, who will
+fairly exert his faculties for the purpose,
+will, when his imagination has once
+learned to entertain the notion, find no
+difficulty in conceiving that in some one,
+for instance, of the many firmaments
+into which sidereal astronomy now divides
+the universe, events may succeed
+one another at random, without any
+fixed law; nor can any thing in our
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg&nbsp;428]</a></span>
+experience, or in our mental nature, constitute
+a sufficient, or indeed any, reason
+for believing that this is nowhere the
+case. The grounds, therefore, which
+warrant us in rejecting such a supposition
+with respect to any of the phenomena
+of which we have experience, must
+be sought elsewhere than in any supposed
+necessity of our intellectual faculties.</p>
+
+<p>"As was observed in a former place,
+the belief we entertain in the universality,
+throughout nature, of the law of
+cause and effect, is itself an instance of
+induction; and by no means one of the
+earliest which any of us, or which mankind
+in general, can have made. We
+arrive at this universal law by generalisation
+from many laws of inferior generality.
+The generalising propensity
+which, instinctive or not, is one of the
+most powerful principles of our nature,
+does not indeed wait for the period
+when such a generalisation becomes
+strictly legitimate. The mere unreasoning
+propensity to expect what has
+been often experienced, doubtless led
+men to believe that every thing had a
+cause, before they could have conclusive
+evidence of that truth. But even this
+cannot be supposed to have happened
+until many cases of causation, or, in
+other words, many partial uniformities
+of sequence, had become familiar. The
+more obvious of the particular uniformities
+suggest and prove the general
+uniformity; and that general uniformity,
+once established, enables us to prove
+the remainder of the particular uniformities
+of which it is made up.&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>"With respect to the general law of
+causation, it does appear that there must
+have been a time when the universal
+prevalence of that law throughout nature
+could not have been affirmed in the
+same confident and unqualified manner
+as at present. There was a time when
+many of the phenomena of nature must
+have appeared altogether capricious and
+irregular, not governed by any laws,
+nor steadily consequent upon any causes.
+Such phenomena, indeed, were commonly,
+in that early stage of human
+knowledge, ascribed to the direct intervention
+of the will of some supernatural
+being, and therefore still to a cause.
+This shows the strong tendency of the
+human mind to ascribe every phenomenon
+to some cause or other; but it
+shows also that experience had not, at
+that time, pointed out any regular order
+in the occurrence of those particular
+phenomena, nor proved them to be, as
+we now know that they are, dependent
+upon prior phenomena as their proximate
+causes. There have been sects of
+philosophers who have admitted what
+they termed Chance as one of the agents
+in the order of nature by which certain
+classes of events were entirely regulated;
+which could only mean that those
+events did not occur in any fixed order,
+or depend upon uniform laws of causation.&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>"The progress of experience, therefore,
+has dissipated the doubt which
+must have rested upon the universality
+of the law of causation, while there were
+phenomena which seemed to be <i>sui generis</i>;
+not subject to the same laws with
+any other class of phenomena, and not
+as yet ascertained to have peculiar laws
+of their own. This great generalisation,
+however, might reasonably have been,
+as it in fact was by all great thinkers,
+acted upon as a probability of the highest
+order, before there were sufficient
+grounds for receiving it as a certainty.
+For, whatever has been found true in
+innumerable instances, and never found
+to be false after due examination in any,
+we are safe in acting upon as universal
+provisionally, until an undoubted exception
+appears; provided the nature
+of the case be such that a real exception
+could scarcely have escaped our notice.
+When every phenomenon that we ever
+knew sufficiently well to be able to answer
+the question, had a cause on which
+it was invariably consequent, it was
+more rational to suppose that our inability
+to assign the causes of other phenomena
+arose from our ignorance, than
+that there were phenomena which were
+uncaused, and which happened accidentally
+to be exactly those which we had
+hitherto had no sufficient opportunity
+of studying."&mdash;Vol. II. p. 108.</p></div>
+
+
+<p style="padding-top: 2em;"><i>Hypotheses.</i>&mdash;Mr Mill's observations
+on the use of hypotheses in scientific
+investigation, except that they
+are characterized by his peculiar distinctness
+and accuracy of thought, do
+not differ from the views generally entertained
+by writers on the subject.
+We are induced to refer to the topic,
+to point out what seems to us a harsh
+measure dealt out to the undulatory
+theory of light&mdash;harsh when compared
+with the reception given to a theory
+of Laplace, having for its object to
+account for the origin of the planetary
+system.</p>
+
+<p>We had occasion to quote a passage
+from Mr Mill, in which he remarks
+that the majority of scientific men
+seem not yet to have completely got
+over the difficulty of conceiving matter
+to act (contrary to the old maxim)
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg&nbsp;429]</a></span>
+where it is not; "for though," he
+says, "they have at last learned to
+conceive the sun <em>attracting</em> the earth
+without any intervening fluid, they
+cannot yet conceive the sun <em>illuminating</em>
+the earth without some such medium."
+But it is not only this difficulty
+(which doubtless, however, is
+felt) of conceiving the sun illuminating
+the earth without any medium by
+which to communicate its influence,
+which leads to the construction of the
+hypothesis, either of an undulating
+ether, or of emitted particles. The
+analogy of the other senses conducts
+us almost irresistibly to the imagination
+of some such medium. The
+nerves of sense are, apparently, in all
+cases that we can satisfactorily investigate,
+affected by contact, by impulse.
+The nerve of sight itself, we know,
+when touched or pressed upon, gives
+out the sensation of light. These
+reasons, in the first place, conduct us
+to the supposition of some medium,
+having immediate communication with
+the eye; which medium, though we
+are far from saying that its existence
+is established, is rendered probable by
+the explanation it affords of optical
+phenomena. At the same time it is
+evident that the hypothesis of an
+undulating ether, assumes a fluid or
+some medium, the existence of which
+cannot be directly ascertained. Thus
+stands the hypothesis of a luminiferous
+ether&mdash;in what must be allowed
+to be a very unsatisfactory condition.
+But a condition, we think, very superior
+to the astronomical speculation of
+Laplace, which Mr Mill, after scrutinizing
+the preceding hypothesis with
+the utmost strictness, is disposed to
+treat with singular indulgence.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The speculation is," we may as well
+quote throughout Mr Mill's words,
+"that the atmosphere of the sun originally
+extended to the present limits of
+the solar system: from which, by the
+process of cooling, it has contracted to
+its present dimensions; and since, by
+the general principles of mechanics, the
+rotation of the sun and its accompanying
+atmosphere must increase as rapidly
+as its volume diminishes, the increased
+centrifugal force generated by the more
+rapid rotation, overbalancing the action
+of gravitation, would cause the sun to
+abandon successive rings of vaporous
+matter, which are supposed to have condensed
+by cooling, and to have become
+our planets.</p>
+
+<p>"There is in this theory," Mr Mill
+proceeds, "no unknown substance introduced
+upon supposition, nor any unknown
+property or law ascribed to a
+known substance. The known laws of
+matter authorize us to suppose, that a
+body which is constantly giving out so
+large an amount of heat as the sun is,
+must be progressively cooling, and that
+by the process of cooling it must contract;
+if, therefore, we endeavour, from
+the present state of that luminary, to
+infer its state in a time long past, we
+must necessarily suppose that its atmosphere
+extended much further than at
+present, and we are entitled to suppose
+that it extended as far as we can trace
+those effects which it would naturally
+leave behind it on retiring; and such
+the planets are. These suppositions
+being made, it follows from known laws
+that successive zones of the solar atmosphere
+would be abandoned; that
+these would continue to revolve round
+the sun with the same velocity as when
+they formed part of his substance, and
+that they would cool down, long before
+the sun himself, to any given temperature,
+and consequently to that at which
+the greater part of the vaporous matter
+of which they consisted would become
+liquid or solid. The known law of gravitation
+would then cause them to agglomerate
+in masses, which would assume
+the shape our planets actually
+exhibit; would acquire, each round its
+own axis, a rotatory movement; and
+would in that state revolve, as the
+planets actually do, about the sun, in
+the same direction with the sun's rotation,
+but with less velocity, and each of
+them in the same periodic time which
+the sun's rotation occupied when his
+atmosphere extended to that point; and
+this also M. Comte has, by the necessary
+calculations, ascertained to be true,
+within certain small limits of error.
+There is thus in Laplace's theory nothing
+hypothetical; it is an example of
+legitimate reasoning from a present
+effect to its past cause, according to the
+known laws of that case; it assumes
+nothing more than that objects which
+really exist, obey the laws which are
+known to be obeyed by all terrestrial
+objects resembling them."&mdash;Vol. II. p.
+27.</p></div>
+
+<p>Now, it seems to us that there is
+quite as much of hypothesis in this
+speculation of Laplace as in the undulatory
+theory of light. This atmosphere
+of the sun extending to the utmost
+limits of our planetary system!
+What proof have we that it ever existed?
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg&nbsp;430]</a></span>
+what possible grounds have we for
+believing, what motive even for imagining
+such a thing, but the very same
+description of proof given and rejected
+for the existence of a luminiferous
+ether&mdash;namely, that it enables us to
+explain certain events supposed to result
+from it? Nor is the thing here
+imagined any the less a novelty, because
+it bears the old name of an atmosphere.
+An atmosphere containing
+in itself all the various materials
+which compose our earth, and whatever
+else may enter into the composition
+of the other planets, is as violent
+a supposition as an ether, not perceptible
+to the senses except by its influence
+on the nerves of sight. And
+this cooling down of the sun! What
+fact in our experience enables us to
+advance such a supposition? We
+might as well say that the sun was
+getting hotter every year, or harder or
+softer, or larger or smaller. Surely
+Mr Mill could not have been serious
+when he says, that "the known laws
+of matter authorize us to suppose, that
+a body which is constantly <em>giving out
+so large an amount of heat</em> as the sun
+is, must be progressively cooling"&mdash;knowing,
+as we do, as little how the
+sun occasions heat as how it produces
+light. Neither can it be contended
+that because no absolutely new substance,
+or new property of matter, is
+introduced, but a fantastic conception
+is framed out of known substances and
+known properties, that therefore there
+is less of rash conjecture in the supposition.
+In fine, it must be felt by
+every one who reads the account of
+this speculation of Laplace, that the
+only evidence which produces the
+least effect upon his mind, is the corroboration
+which it receives from the
+calculations of the mathematician&mdash;a
+species of proof which Mr Mill himself
+would not estimate very highly.</p>
+
+<p>Many are the topics which are
+made to reflect a new light as Mr Mill
+passes along his lengthened course;
+we might quote as instances, his chapters
+on <i>Analogy</i> and the <i>Calculation of
+Chances</i>: and many are the grave and
+severe discussions that would await
+us were we to proceed to the close of
+his volumes, especially to that portion
+of his work where he applies the
+canons of science to investigations
+which relate to human nature and the
+characters of men. But enough for
+the present. We repeat, in concluding,
+the same sentiment that we expressed
+at the commencement, that
+such a work as this goes far to redeem
+the literature of our age from
+the charge of frivolity and superficiality.
+Those who have been trained in
+a different school of thinking, those
+who have adopted the metaphysics of
+the transcendental philosophy, will
+find much in these volumes to dissent
+from; but no man, be his pretensions
+or his tenets what they may, who has
+been accustomed to the study of philosophy,
+can fail to recognize and admire
+in this author that acute, patient,
+enlarged, and persevering thought,
+which gives to him who possesses it
+the claim and right to the title of
+philosopher. There are few men who&mdash;applying
+it to his own species of
+excellence&mdash;might more safely repeat
+the <i>Io sono anche!</i> of the celebrated
+Florentine.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg&nbsp;431]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MY_COUNTRY_NEIGHBOURS" id="MY_COUNTRY_NEIGHBOURS"></a>MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>People are fond of talking of the
+hereditary feuds of Italy&mdash;the factions
+of the Capulets and Montagues, the
+Orsini and Colonne&mdash;and, more especially,
+of the memorable <i>Vendette</i> of
+Corsica&mdash;as if hatred and revenge
+were solely endemic in the regions of</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The Pyrenean and the river Po!"<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mere prejudice! There is as good
+hating going on in England as elsewhere.
+Independent of the personal
+antipathies generated by politics, the
+envy, hatred, and malice arising out
+of every election contest, not a country
+neighbourhood but has its raging
+factions; and Browns and Smiths
+often cherish and maintain an antagonism
+every whit as bitter as that of
+the sanguinary progenitors of Romeo
+and Juliet.</p>
+
+<p>I, for instance, who am but a country
+gentleman in a small way&mdash;an
+obscure bachelor, abiding from year's
+end to year's end on my insignificant
+farm&mdash;have witnessed things in my
+time, which, had they been said and
+done nearer the tropics, would have
+been cited far and near in evidence of
+the turbulence of human passions,
+and that "the heart is deceitful above
+all things, and desperately wicked."
+Seeing that they chanced in a homely
+parish in Cheshire, no one has been at
+the trouble to note their strangeness;
+though, to own the truth, none but
+the actors in the drama (besides myself,
+a solitary spectator) are cognizant
+of its incidents and catastrophe.
+I might boast, indeed, that I alone
+am thoroughly in the secret; for it is
+the spectator only who competently
+judges the effects of a scene; and
+merely changing the names, for reasons
+easily conceivable, I ask leave to
+relate in the simplest manner a few
+facts in evidence of my assertion, that
+England has its Capuletti e Montecchi
+as well as Verona.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, let me premise
+that I am neither of a condition of
+life, nor condition of mind, to mingle
+as a friend with those of whose affairs
+I am about to treat so familiarly, being
+far too crotchety a fellow not to
+prefer a saunter with my fishing-tackle
+on my back, or an evening
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te with my library of quaint
+old books, to all the good men's feasts
+ever eaten at the cost of a formal
+country visit. Nevertheless, I am
+not so cold of heart as to be utterly
+devoid of interest in the destinies of
+those whose turrets I see peering over
+the woods that encircle my corn-fields;
+and as the good old housekeeper, who
+for these thirty years past has presided
+over my household, happens to
+have grandchildren high in service in
+what are called the two great families
+in the neighbourhood, scarcely an
+event or incident passes within their
+walls that does not find an echo in
+mine. So much in attestation of my
+authority. But for such an introduction
+behind the scenes, much of the
+stage business of this curious drama
+would have escaped my notice, or
+remained incomprehensible.</p>
+
+<p>I am wrong to say the two great
+"families;" I should have said the
+two great "houses." At the close
+of the last century, indeed, our parish
+of Lexley contained but one; one
+which had stood there since the days
+of the first James, nay, even earlier&mdash;a
+fine old manorial hall of grand dimensions
+and stately architecture, of
+the species of mixed Gothic so false
+in taste, but so ornamental in effect,
+which is considered as betraying the
+first symptoms of Italian innovation.</p>
+
+<p>The gardens extending in the rear
+of the house were still more decidedly
+in the Italian taste, having clipped
+evergreens and avenues of pyramidal
+yews, which, combined with the intervening
+statues, imparted to them
+something of the air of a cemetery.
+There were fountains, too, which, in
+the memory of man, had been never
+known to play, the marble basins
+being, if possible, still greener than
+the grim visages of the fauns and dryads
+standing forlorn on their dilapidated
+pedestals amid the neglected
+alleys.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing I can remember of
+Lexley Hall, was peeping as a child
+through the stately iron gratings of
+the garden, that skirted a by-road
+leading from my grandfather's farm.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg&nbsp;432]</a></span>
+The desolateness of the place overawed
+my young heart. In summer
+time the parterres were overgrown
+into a wilderness. The plants threw
+up their straggling arms so high, that
+the sunshine could hardly find its way
+to the quaint old dial that stood there
+telling its tale of time, though no man
+regarded; and the cordial fragrance
+of the strawberry-beds, mingling with
+entangled masses of honeysuckle in
+their exuberance of midsummer blossom,
+seemed to mock me, as I loitered
+in the dusk near the old gateway,
+with the tantalizing illusions of a
+fairy-tale&mdash;the Barmecide's feast, or
+Prince Desire surveying his princess
+through the impermeable walls of her
+crystal palace.</p>
+
+<p>But if the enjoyment of the melancholy
+old gardens of Lexley Hall
+were withheld from <em>me</em>, no one else
+seemed to find pleasure or profit therein.
+Sir Laurence Altham, the lord
+of the manor and manor-house, was
+seldom resident in the country.
+Though a man of mature years, (I
+speak of the close of the last century,)
+he was still a man of pleasure&mdash;the
+ruined hulk of the gallant vessel
+which, early in the reign of George
+III., had launched itself with unequalled
+brilliancy on the sparkling
+current of London life.</p>
+
+<p>At that time, I have heard my
+grandfather say there was not a mortgage
+on the Lexley estate! The timber
+was notoriously the finest in the
+county. A whole navy was comprised
+in one of its coppices; and the
+arching avenues were imposing as the
+aisles of our Gothic minsters. Alas!
+it needed the lapse of only half a
+dozen years to lay bare to the eye of
+every casual traveller the ancient
+mansion, so long</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Bosom'd high in tufted trees,"<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>and only guessed at till you approached
+the confines of the court-yard.</p>
+
+<p>It was hazard that effected this.
+The dice-box swept those noble avenues
+from the face of the estate. Soon
+after Sir Laurence's coming of age,
+almost before the church-bells had
+ceased to announce the joyous event
+of the attainment of his majority, he
+was off to the Continent&mdash;Paris&mdash;Italy&mdash;I
+know not where, and was
+thenceforward only occasionally heard
+of in Cheshire as the ornament of the
+Sardinian or Austrian courts. But these
+tidings were usually accompanied by a
+shaking of the head from the old
+family steward. The timber was to
+be thinned anew&mdash;the tenants to be
+again amerced. Sir Laurence evidently
+looked upon the Lexley property
+as a mere hotbed for his vices.
+At last the old steward turned surly
+to our enquiries, and would answer
+no further questions concerning his
+master. My grandfather's small farm
+was the only plot of ground in the
+parish that did not belong to the
+estate; and from him the faithful old
+servant was as careful to conceal the
+family disgraces, as to maintain the
+honour of Sir Laurence's name in
+the ears of his grumbling tenants.</p>
+
+<p>The truth, however, could not long
+be withheld. Chaisefuls of suspicious-looking
+men in black arrived at
+the hall; loungers, surveyors, auctioneers&mdash;I
+know not what. There
+was talk in the parish about foreclosing
+a mortgage, no one exactly understood
+why, or by whom. But it
+was soon clear that Wightman, the
+old steward, was no longer the great
+man at Lexley. These strangers bade
+him come here and go there exactly
+as they chose, and, unhappily, they
+saw fit to make his comings and goings
+so frequent and so humiliating, that
+before the close of the summer the
+old servitor betook himself to his rest
+in a spot where all men cease from
+troubling. The leaves that dreary
+autumn fell upon his grave.</p>
+
+<p>According to my grandfather's account,
+however, few even of his village
+contemporaries grieved for old
+Wightman. They felt that Providence
+knew best; that the old man
+was happily spared the mortification
+of all that was likely to ensue. For
+before another year was out the ring
+fence, which had hitherto encircled the
+Lexley property, was divided within
+itself; a paltry distribution of about
+a hundred acres alone remaining attached
+to the old hall. The rest was
+gone! The rest was the property of
+the foreclosee of that hateful mortgage.</p>
+
+<p>Within view of the battlements of
+the old manor-house, nearly a hundred
+workmen were soon employed in digging
+the foundations of a modern
+mansion of the noblest proportions.
+The new owner of the estate, though
+only a manufacturer from Congleton,
+chose to dwell in a palace; and by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg&nbsp;433]</a></span>
+the time his splendid Doric temple
+was complete, under the name of Lexley
+Park, the vain-glorious proprietor,
+Mr Sparks, had taken his seat in Parliament
+for a neighbouring borough.</p>
+
+<p>Little was known of him in the
+neighbourhood beyond his name and
+calling; yet already his new tenants
+were prepared to oppose and dislike
+him. Though they knew quite as
+little personally of the young baronet
+by whom they had been sold into
+bondage to the unpopular clothier&mdash;him,
+with the caprice of ignorance,
+they chose to prefer. They were
+proud of the old family&mdash;proud of the
+hereditary lords of the soil&mdash;proud of
+a name connecting itself with the
+glories of the reign of Elizabeth, and
+the loyalty shining, like a sepulchral
+lamp, through the gloomy records of
+the House of Stuart. The banners
+and escutcheons of the Althams were
+appended in their parish church. The
+family vault sounded hollow under
+their head whenever they approached
+its altar. Where was the burial-place
+of the manufacturer? In what obscure
+churchyard existed the mouldering
+heap that covered the remains of the
+sires of Mr Jonas Sparks? Certainly
+not at Lexley! Lexley knew not, and
+cared not to know, either him or his.
+It was no fault of the parish that its
+young baronet had proved a spendthrift
+and alienated the inheritance of
+his fathers; and, but that he had preserved
+the manor-house from desecration,
+they would perhaps have ostracized
+him altogether, as having lent
+his aid to disgrace their manor with
+so noble a structure as the porticoed
+fa&ccedil;ade of Lexley Park!</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the shrewd Jonas was
+fully aware of his unpopularity and
+its origin; and, during a period of
+three years, he allowed his ill-advised
+subjects to chew, unmolested, the cud
+of their discontent. Having a comfortable
+residence at the further extremity
+of the county, he visited
+Lexley only to overlook the works,
+or notice the placing of the costly new
+furniture; and the grumblers began
+to fancy they were to profit as little
+by their new masters as by their old.
+The steward who replaced the trusty
+Wightman, and had been instructed
+to legislate among the cottages with
+a lighter hand, and distribute Christmas
+benefaction in a double proportion,
+was careful to circulate in the
+parish an impression that Mr Sparks
+and his family did not care to inhabit
+the new house till the gardens were
+in perfect order, the succession houses
+in full bearing, and the mansion thoroughly
+seasoned. But the Lexleyans
+guessed the truth, that he had no
+mind to confront the first outbreak of
+their ill-will.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly four years elapsed before
+he took possession of the place; four
+years, during which Sir Laurence
+Altham had never set foot in the hall,
+and was heard of only through his
+follies and excesses; and when Mr
+Sparks at length made his appearance,
+with his handsome train of equipages,
+and surrounded by his still
+handsomer family, so far from meeting
+him with sullen silence, the tenantry
+began to regret that they had
+not erected a triumphal arch of evergreens
+for his entrance into the park,
+as had been proposed by the less eager
+of the Althamites.</p>
+
+<p>After all, their former prejudice in favour
+of the young baronet was based on
+very shallow foundations. What had
+he ever done for them except raise
+their rents, and prosecute their trespasses?
+It was nothing that his forefathers
+had endowed almshouses for
+their support, or served up banquets
+for their delectation&mdash;Sir Laurence
+was an absentee&mdash;Sir Laurence was
+as the son of the stranger. The fine
+old kennel stood cold and empty, reminding
+them that to preserve their
+foxes was no longer an article of Lexley
+religion; and if any of the old
+October, brewed at the birth of the
+present baronet, still filled the oaken
+hogsheads in the cellars of the hall,
+what mattered it to them? No chance
+of their being broached, unless to
+grace the funeral feast of the lord of
+the manor.</p>
+
+<p>To Jonas Sparks, Esq. M.P., accordingly,
+they dedicated their allegiance.
+A few additional chaldrons
+of coals and pairs of blankets, the first
+frosty winter, bound them his slaves
+for ever. Food, physic, and wine,
+were liberally distributed to the sick
+and aged whenever they repaired for
+relief to the Doric portico; and, with
+the usual convenient memory of the
+vulgar, the Lexleyans soon began to
+remember of the Altham family only
+their recent backslidings and ancient
+feudal oppressions: while of the
+Sparkses they chose to know only
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg&nbsp;434]</a></span>
+what was evident to all eyes&mdash;viz.,
+that their hands were open and faces
+comely.</p>
+
+<p>Into their hearts&mdash;more especially
+into that of Jonas, the head of the
+house&mdash;they examined not at all; and
+were ill-qualified to surmise the intensity
+of bitterness with which, while
+contemplating the beauty and richness
+of his new domain, he beheld the
+turrets of the old hall rising like a
+statue of scorn above the intervening
+woods. There stood the everlasting
+monument of the ancient family&mdash;there
+the emblem of their pride,
+throwing its shadow, as it were, over
+his dawning prosperity! But for that
+force of contrast thus afforded, he
+would scarcely have perceived the
+newness of all the objects around him&mdash;the
+glare of the fresh freestone&mdash;the
+nakedness of the whited walls. A
+few stately old oaks and elms, apparently
+coeval with the ancient structure,
+which a sort of religious feeling
+had preserved from the axe, that they
+might afford congenial shade to the
+successor of its founder, seemed to
+impart meanness and vulgarity to the
+tapering verdure of <em>his</em> plantations,
+his modern trees&mdash;his pert poplars and
+mean larches&mdash;his sycamores and
+planes. Even the incongruity between
+his solid new paling and the decayed
+and sun-bleached wood of the
+venerable fence to which it adjoined,
+with its hoary beard of silvery lichen,
+was an eyesore to him. Every passer-by
+might note the limit and circumscription
+dividing the new place from
+the ancient seat of the lords of the
+manor.</p>
+
+<p>Yet was the landscape of Lexley
+Park one of almost unequalled beauty.
+The Dee formed noble ornament
+to its sweeping valleys; while
+the noble acclivities were clothed with
+promising woods, opening by rich
+vistas to a wide extent of champaign
+country. A fine bridge of granite,
+erected by the late Sir Windsor Altham,
+formed a noble object from the
+windows of the new mansion; and
+but for the evidence of the venerable
+pile, that stood like an abdicated
+monarch surveying its lost dominions,
+there existed no external demonstration
+that Lexley Park had not from the
+beginning of time formed the estated
+seat of the Sparkses.</p>
+
+<p>The neighbouring families, if
+"neighbouring" could be called certain
+of the nobility and gentry who
+resided at ten miles' distance, were
+courteously careful to inspire the new
+settler with a belief that they at least
+had forgotten any antecedent state of
+things at Lexley; for they had even
+reason to congratulate themselves on
+the change. Jonas had long been
+strenuously active in the House of
+Commons in promoting county improvements.
+Jonas was useful as a
+magistrate, and invaluable as a liberal
+contributor to the local charities.
+During the first five years of his occupancy,
+he did more for Lexley and its
+inhabitants than the half-dozen previous
+baronets of the House of Altham.</p>
+
+<p>Of the man he had superseded,
+meanwhile, it was observed that Mr
+Sparks was judiciously careful to
+forbear all mention. It might have
+been supposed that he had purchased
+the estate of the Crown or the Court
+of Chancery, so utterly ignorant did
+he appear of the age, habits, and
+whereabout of his predecessor; and
+when informed by Sir John Wargrane,
+one of his wealthy neighbours,
+that young Altham was disgracing
+himself again&mdash;that at the public gaming-tables
+at Toplitz he had been a
+loser of thirty thousand pounds&mdash;the
+cunning <i>parvenu</i> listened with an air
+of as vague indifference as if he were
+not waiting with breathless anxiety
+the gradual dissipation of the funds,
+secured to the young spendthrift by
+the transfer of his estate, to grasp at
+the small remaining portion of his
+property. Unconsciously, when the
+tale of Sir Laurence's profligacy met
+his ear, he clenched his griping hand,
+as though it already recognized its
+hold upon the destined spoil, but not
+a word did he utter.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the family of the new
+squire of Lexley were winning golden
+opinions on all sides. "The boys
+were brave&mdash;the girls were fair," the
+mother virtuous, pious, and unpretending.
+It would have been scandalous,
+indeed, to sneer to shame the
+modest cheerfulness of such people,
+because their ancestors had not fought
+at the Crusades. By degrees, they
+assumed an honourable and even eminent
+position in the county; and the
+first time Sir Laurence Altham condescended
+to visit the county-palatine,
+he heard nothing but commendations
+and admiration of the charming
+family at Lexley Park.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg&nbsp;435]</a></span>
+"Charming family!&mdash;a Jonas
+Sparks, and charming!" was his supercilious
+reply. "I rejoice to find
+that the <i>fumier</i> I have been forced
+to fling on my worn-out ancestral estate
+is fertilizing its barrenness. The
+village is probably the better for the
+change. But, as regards the society,
+I must be permitted to mistrust the
+attractions of the brood of a Congleton
+manufacturer."</p>
+
+<p>The young baronet, who now,
+though still entitled to be called young,
+was disfigured by the premature defeatures
+of a vicious life, mistrusted it
+all the more, when, on visiting the old
+hall, he was forced to recognize the
+improvements effected in the neighbouring
+property (that he should be
+forced to call it "<em>neighbouring</em>!") by
+the judicious administration of the
+new owner. It was impossible to
+deny that Mr Sparks had doubled its
+value, while enhancing its beauties.
+The low grounds were drained, the
+high lands planted, the river widened,
+the forestry systematically organized.
+The estate appeared to have attained
+new strength and vigour when dissevered
+from the old manor-house;
+whose shadow might be supposed to
+have exercised a baleful influence on
+the lands wherever it presided.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not his recognition of
+this that was likely to animate the
+esteem of Sir Laurence Altham for
+Mr Jonas Sparks. On the contrary,
+he felt every accession of value to the
+Lexley property as so much subtracted
+from his belongings; and his detestation
+of the upstarts, whose fine mansion
+was perceptible from his lordly
+towers&mdash;like a blot upon the fairness
+of the landscape&mdash;increased with the
+increase of their prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>Without having expected to take
+delight in a sojourn at Lexley Hall&mdash;a
+spot where he had only resided for
+a few weeks now and then, from the
+period of his early boyhood&mdash;he was
+not prepared for the excess of irritation
+that arose in his heart on witnessing
+the total estrangement of the retainers
+of his family. For the mortification
+of seeing a fine new house,
+with gorgeous furniture, and a pompous
+establishment, he came armed to
+the teeth. But no presentiments had
+forewarned him, that at Lexley the
+living Althams were already as much
+forgotten as those who were sleeping
+in the family vault. The sudden glow
+that pervaded his whole frame when
+he chanced to encounter on the highroad
+the rich equipage of the Sparkses;
+or the imprecation that burst from his
+lips, when, on going to the window of a
+morning to examine the state of the
+weather for the day, the first objects
+that struck him was the fair mansion
+in the plain below, laughing as it were
+in the sunshine, the deer grouped
+under its fine old trees, and the river
+rippling past its lawns as if delighting
+in their verdure&mdash;&mdash;Yes! there was
+decided animosity betwixt the hill and
+the valley.</p>
+
+<p>Every successive season served to
+quicken the pulses of this growing
+hatred. Whether on the spot or at a
+distance, a thousand aggravations
+sprang up betwixt the parties: disputes
+between gamekeepers, quarrels
+between labourers, encroachments by
+tenants. Every thing and nothing
+was made the groundwork of ill-will.
+To Sir Laurence Altham's embittered
+feelings, the very rooks of Lexley
+Park seemed evermore to infringe
+upon the privileges of the rookery at
+Lexley Hall; and when, in the parish
+church, the new squire (or rather his
+workmen, for he was absent at the
+time attending his duties in Parliament)
+inadvertently broke off the foot
+of a marble cherub, weeping its alabaster
+tears, at the angle of a monument
+to the memory of a certain Sir
+Wilfred Altham, of the time of James
+II., in raising the woodwork of a pew
+occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the
+rage of Sir Laurence was so excessive
+as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p>The enmity of the baronet was all
+the more painful to himself that he
+felt it to be harmless against its object.
+In every way, Lexley Park had
+the best of it. Jonas Sparks was not
+only rich in a noble income, but in a
+charming wife and promising family.
+Every thing prospered with him; and,
+as to mere inferiority of precedence,
+it was well known that he had refused
+a baronetcy; and many people even
+surmised that, so soon as he was able
+to purchase another borough, and give
+a seat in Parliament to his second son,
+as well as resign his own to the eldest,
+he would be promoted to the Upper
+House.</p>
+
+<p>The only means of vengeance,
+therefore, possessed by the vindictive
+man whose follies and vices had been
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg&nbsp;436]</a></span>
+the means of creating this perpetual
+scourge to his pride, was withholding
+from him the purchase of the remaining
+lands indispensable to the completion
+of his estate, more especially
+as regarded the water-courses, which,
+at Lexley Park, were commanded by
+the sluices of the higher grounds of
+the Hall; and mighty was the oath
+sworn by Sir Laurence, that come
+what might, however great his exigencies
+or threatening his poverty,
+nothing should induce him to dispose
+of another acre to Jonas Sparks. He
+was even at the trouble of executing
+a will, in order to introduce a clause
+imposing the same reservation upon
+the man to whom he devised his small
+remaining property&mdash;the heir-at-law,
+to whom, had he died intestate, it
+would have descended without conditions.</p>
+
+<p>"The Congleton shopkeepers,"
+muttered he, (whenever, in his solitary
+evening rides, he caught sight of
+the rich plate-glass windows of the
+new mansion, burnished by the setting
+sun,) "shall never, never lord it
+under the roof of my forefathers!
+Wherever else he may set his plebeian
+foot, Lexley Hall shall be sacred.
+Rather see the old place burned
+to the ground&mdash;rather set fire to it
+with my own hands&mdash;than conceive
+that, when I am in my grave, it could
+possibly be subjected to the rule of
+such a barbarian!"</p>
+
+<p>For it had reached the ears of Sir
+Laurence&mdash;of course, with all the
+exaggeration derived from passing
+through the medium of village gossip&mdash;that
+a thousand local legends
+concerning the venerable mansion,
+sanctified by their antiquity in the
+ears of the family, afforded a fertile
+source of jesting to Jonas Sparks.
+The Hall abounded in concealed staircases
+and iron hiding-places, connected
+with a variety of marvellous traditions
+of the civil wars; besides a
+walled-up suite of chambers, haunted,
+as becomes a walled-up suite of chambers;
+and justice-rooms and tapestried-rooms,
+to which the long abandonment
+of the house, and the heated
+imaginations of the few menials left
+in charge of its desolate vastness, attributed
+romances likely enough to
+have provoked the laughter of a matter-of-fact
+man like the owner of Lexley
+Park. But neither Sir Laurence
+nor his old servants were likely to
+forgive this insult offered to the family
+legends of a house which had little
+else left to boast of. Even the neighbouring
+families were displeased to
+hear them derided; and my grandfather
+never liked to hear a joke on
+the subject of the coach-and-four
+which was said to have driven into
+the court-yard of the Hall on the eve
+of the execution of the rebel lords in
+1745, having four headless inmates,
+who were duly welcomed as guests
+by old Sir Robert Altham. Nay, as
+a child, I had so often thrilled on my
+nurse's knees during the relation of
+this spectral visitation, that I own I
+felt indignant if any one presumed to
+laugh at a tale which had made me
+quake for fear.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who were known to
+resent the familiar tone in which Mr
+Sparks had been heard to criticise
+the pomps and vanities exhibited at
+Lexley Hall by the Althams of the
+olden time, was a certain General
+Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat
+of his own at about ten miles' distance,
+was fond of bringing over his
+visitors to visit the old Hall, as an interesting
+specimen of county antiquity.
+<em>He</em> knew the peculiarities of
+the place, and could repeat the traditions
+connected with the hiding-places
+better than the housekeeper herself;
+and I have heard her say it was a
+pleasure to hear him relating these
+historical anecdotes with all the fire
+of an old soldier, and see his venerable
+grey hair blown about as he
+stood with his party on the battlements,
+pointing out to the ladies the
+fine range of territory formerly belonging
+to the Althams. The old
+lady protested that the general was
+nearly as much grieved as herself to
+behold the old mansion so shorn of its
+beams; and certain it is, that once
+when, on visiting the hall after Sir
+Laurence had been some years an absentee,
+he found the grass growing
+among the disjointed stones of the
+cloisters and justice-hall, he made a
+handsome present to one of the housekeeper's
+nephews, on condition of his
+keeping the purlieus of the venerable
+mansion free from such disgraceful
+evidences of neglect.</p>
+
+<p>All this eventually reached the ears
+of the baronet; but instead of making
+him angry, as might have been expected,
+from one so tetchy and susceptible,
+he never encountered General
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg&nbsp;437]</a></span>
+Stanley, either in town or country,
+without demonstrations of respect.
+Though too reserved and morose for
+conversation, Sir Laurence was observed
+to take off his hat to him with
+a respect he was never seen to show
+towards the king or queen.</p>
+
+<p>About this time I began to take
+personal interest in the affairs of the
+neighbourhood, though my own were
+now of a nature to engross my attention.
+By my grandfather's death, I
+had recently come into the enjoyment
+of the small inheritance which has
+sufficed to the happiness of my life;
+and, renouncing the profession for
+which I was educated, settled myself
+permanently at Lexley.</p>
+
+<p>Well do I remember the melancholy
+face with which the good old
+rector, the very first evening we spent
+together, related to me in confidence
+that he had three years' dues in arrear
+to him from Lexley Hall; but that so
+wretched was said to be the state of Sir
+Laurence's embarrassments, that, for
+more than a year, his dread of arrest
+had kept him a close prisoner in his
+house in London.</p>
+
+<p>"We have not seen him here these
+six years!" observed Dr Whittingham;
+"and I doubt whether he will ever
+again set foot in the county. Since
+an execution was put into the Hall, he
+has never crossed the threshold, and
+I suspect never will. Far better were
+he to dispose of the property at once!
+Dismembered as it is, what pleasure can
+it afford him? And, since he is unlikely
+to marry and have heirs, there is less
+call upon him to retain this remaining
+relic of family pride; yet I am assured&mdash;nay,
+have good reason to
+know, that he has refused a very liberal
+offer on the part of Mr Sparks.
+Malicious people do say, by the way,
+that it was by the advice of Sparks's
+favourite attorneys the execution was
+enforced, and that no means have been
+left unattempted to disgust him with
+the place. Yet he is firm, you see,
+and persists in disappointing his creditors,
+and depriving himself of the comforts
+of life, merely in order that he
+may die, as his fathers did before him&mdash;the
+lord of Lexley Hall!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder!" said I, with the
+dawning sentiments of a landed proprietor&mdash;"'Tis
+a splendid old house,
+even in its present state of degradation;
+and, by Jove! I honour his pertinacity."</p>
+
+<p>Thus put upon the scent, I sometimes
+fancied I could detect wistful
+looks on the part of my prosperous
+neighbour of the Park, when, in the
+course of Dr Whittingham's somewhat
+lengthy sermons, he directed his
+eyes towards the carved old Gothic
+tribune, containing the family-pew of
+the Althams, in the parish church;
+and, whenever I happened to encounter
+him in the neighbourhood of the
+Hall, his face was so pointedly averted
+from the house, as if the mere object
+were an offence. I could not but
+wonder at his vexation; being satisfied
+in my own mind, that sooner or
+later the remaining heritage of the
+spendthrift must fall to his share.</p>
+
+<p>Judge, therefore, of my surprise,
+when one fine morning, as I sauntered
+into the village, I found the whole
+population gathered in groups on the
+little market-place, and discovered
+from the incoherent exclamations of
+the crowd, that "the new proprietor
+of the Hall had just driven through in
+a chaise-and-four!"</p>
+
+<p>Yes&mdash;"the new proprietor!" The
+place was sold! The good doctor's
+prediction was verified. Sir Laurence
+was never more to return to
+Lexley Hall!</p>
+
+<p>The satisfaction of the villagers almost
+equalled their surprise on finding
+that General Stanley was their new
+landlord. It suited them much better
+that there should be two families settled
+on the property than one; and
+as it was pretty generally reported,
+that, in the event of Sparks becoming
+the purchaser, he intended to demolish
+the old house, and reconsolidate the
+estate around his own more commodious
+mansion, they were right glad
+to find it rescued from such a sentence&mdash;General
+Stanley, who was the father
+of a family, would probably settle
+the hall on one of his daughters,
+after placing it in the state of repair
+so much needed.</p>
+
+<p>When the chaise-and-four returned,
+therefore, a few hours afterwards,
+through the village, the General was
+loudly cheered by his subjects. His
+partiality for the place was so well
+known at Lexley, that already these
+people seemed to behold in him the
+guardian of a monument so long the
+object of their pride.</p>
+
+<p>For my own part, nothing surprised
+me so much in the business as that
+Sparks should have allowed the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg&nbsp;438]</a></span>
+purchase to slip through his fingers. It
+was worth thrice as much to <em>him</em> as
+to any body else. It was the keystone
+of his property. It was the one thing
+needful to render Lexley Park the
+most perfect seat in the county. But
+I was not slow in learning (for every
+thing transpires in a small country
+neighbourhood) that whatever <em>my</em>
+surprise on finding that the old Hall
+had changed its master, that of Sparks
+was far more overwhelming; that he
+was literally frantic on finding himself
+frustrated in expectations which formed
+the leading interest of his declining
+years. For the progress of time
+which had made <em>me</em> a man and a landed
+proprietor, had converted the stout
+active squire into an infirm old man;
+and it was his absorbing wish to die
+sole owner of the whole property to
+which the baronets of the Altham
+family were born.</p>
+
+<p>He even indulged in expressions of
+irritation, which nearly proved the
+means of commencing this new neighbourship
+by a duel; accusing General
+Stanley of having possessed himself
+by unfair means of Sir Laurence's
+confidence, and employed agents,
+underhand, to effect the purchase. In
+consequence of these groundless representations,
+it transpired in the
+country that the decayed baronet had
+actually volunteered the offer of the
+estate to the veteran proprietor of
+Stanley Manor; that he had <em>solicited</em>
+him to become the proprietor, and
+even accommodated him with peculiar
+facilities of payment, on condition of
+his inserting in the title-deeds an express
+undertaking, never to dispose of
+the old Hall, or any portion of the property,
+to Jonas Sparks of Lexley
+Park, or his heirs for ever. The solicitor
+by whom, under Sir Laurence's
+direction, the deeds had been prepared,
+saw fit to divulge this singular
+specification, rather than that a hostile
+encounter should run the risk of embruing
+in blood the hands of two
+grey haired men.</p>
+
+<p>Excepting as regarded the disappointment
+of our wealthy neighbour,
+all was now established on the happiest
+footing at Lexley. The reparation
+instantly commenced by the General,
+gave employment throughout
+the winter to our workmen; and the
+evils arising from an absentee landlord
+began gradually to disappear.
+It was a great joy to me to perceive
+that the new proprietor of the Hall
+had the good taste to preserve the
+antique character of the place in the
+minutest portion of his alterations;
+and though the old gardens were no
+longer a wilderness, not a shrub was
+displaced&mdash;not a mutilated statue removed.
+The furniture had been sold
+off at the time of the execution; and
+that which came down in cart-loads from
+town to replace it, was rigidly in accordance
+with the semi-Gothic architecture
+of the lofty chambers. Poor
+Sparks must have been doubly mortified;
+for not only did he find his old
+eyesore converted into an irremediable
+evil by the restoration of the Hall,
+but the supremacy hitherto maintained
+in the neighbourhood by the modern
+elegance of his house and establishment,
+was thrown into the shade
+by the rich and tasteful arrangements
+of the Hall.</p>
+
+<p>From the contracted look of his
+forehead, and sudden alteration of his
+appearance, I have reason to think he
+was beginning to undergo all the
+moral martyrdom sustained for thirty
+years past by the unfortunate Sir
+Laurence Altham; and were I not by
+nature the most contented of men, it
+would have sufficiently reconciled me
+to the mediocrity of my fortunes, to
+see that these two great people of my
+neighbourhood&mdash;the nobly-descended
+baronet and rich <i>parvenu</i>&mdash;were miserable
+men; that, so long as I could
+remember, one or other of them had
+been given over to surliness and discontent.</p>
+
+<p>Before the close of the year the
+grand old Hall had become one of the
+noblest seats in the county. There was
+talk about it in all the country round,
+and even the newspapers took notice
+of its renovation, and of General Stanley's
+removal thither from Stanley
+Manor. Many people, of the species
+who love to detect spots in the sun,
+were careful to point out the insufficiency
+of the estate, as at present constituted,
+to maintain so fine a house.
+But, after all, what mattered this to
+General Stanley, who had a fine rent-roll
+elsewhere?</p>
+
+<p>The first thing he did, on taking
+possession, was to give a grand ball to
+the neighbourhood; nor was it till
+the whole house was lighted up for
+this festive occasion, that people were
+fully aware of the grandeur of its proportions.
+He was good enough to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg&nbsp;439]</a></span>
+send me an invitation on so especial
+an occasion. But already I had imbibed
+the distaste which has pursued
+me through life for what is called
+society; and I accordingly contented
+myself with surveying from a distance
+the fine effect produced by the light
+streaming from the multitude of windows,
+and exhibiting to the whole
+country round the gorgeous nature of
+the decorations within. To own the
+truth, I could scarcely forbear regretting,
+as I surveyed them, the gloomy
+dilapidation of the venerable mansion.
+This modernized antiquity was a very
+different thing from the massy grandeur
+of its neglected years; and I am
+afraid I loved the old house better
+with the weeds springing from its
+crevices, than with all this carving
+and gilding, this ebony, and iron, and
+light.</p>
+
+<p>The people of Lexley imagined that
+nothing would induce the Sparks's family
+to be seen under General Stanley's
+roof. But we were mistaken.
+So much the contrary, that the squire
+of Lexley Park made a particular
+point of being the first and latest of
+the guests&mdash;not only because his reconciliation
+with his new neighbour
+was so recent, but from not choosing
+to authenticate, by his absence, the
+rumours of his grievous disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>For all the good he was likely to
+derive from his visit, the poor man
+had better have stayed away; for that
+unlucky night laid foundations of evil
+for him and his, far greater than any
+he had incurred from the animosity of
+Sir Laurence. Nay, when in the
+sequel these results became matter of
+public commentation, superstitious
+people were not wanting to hint that
+the evil spirit, traditionally said to
+haunt one of the wings of the old
+manor, and to have manifested itself
+on more than one occasion to members
+of the Altham family, (and more
+especially to the late worthless proprietor
+of the Hall,) had acquired a
+fatal power over the two supplanters
+of the ruined family the moment they
+crossed the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>General Stanley, after marrying
+late in life, had been some years a
+widower&mdash;a widower with two daughters,
+his co-heiresses. The elder of
+these young ladies was a hopeless invalid,
+slightly deformed, and so little
+attractive in person, or desirous to
+attract, that there was every prospect
+of the noble fortunes of the General
+centring in her sister. Yet this sister,
+this girl, had little need of such an
+accession to her charms; for she was
+one of those fortunate beings endowed
+not only with beauty and excellence,
+but with a power of pleasing not
+always united with even a combination
+of merit and loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>Every body agreed that Mary Stanley
+was charming. Old and young,
+rich and poor, all loved her, all delighted
+in her. It is true, the good
+rector's maiden sisters privately hinted
+to me their horror of the recklessness
+with which&mdash;sometimes with her sister,
+oftener without, but wholly unattended&mdash;she
+drove her little pony-chaise
+through the village, laughing like a
+madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland
+dog named Sergeant, the
+favourite of General Stanley, which,
+while escorting the young ladies, used
+to gambol into the cottages, overset
+furniture and children, and scamper
+out again amid a general uproar. For
+though Miss Mary was but sixteen,
+the starched spinsters decided that
+she was much too old for such folly;
+and that, if the General intended to
+present her at court, it was high time
+for her to lay aside the hoyden manners
+of childhood.</p>
+
+<p>But, as every one argued against
+them, why should this joyous, bright,
+and beautiful creature lay aside what
+became her so strangely? Mary
+Stanley was not made for the formalities
+of what is called high-breeding.
+Her light, easy, sinuous figure, did not
+lend itself to the rigid deportment
+of a prude; and her gay laughing
+eyes, and dimpled mouth, were ill calculated
+to grace a dignified position.
+The long ringlets of her profuse auburn
+hair were always out of order&mdash;either
+streaming in the wind, or straying
+over her white shoulders&mdash;her
+long lashes and beautifully defined eyebrows
+of the same rich tint, alone preserving
+any thing like uniformity&mdash;a
+uniformity which, combined with her
+almost Grecian regularity of features,
+gave her, on the rare occasions when
+her countenance and figure were at
+rest, the air of some nymph or dryad
+of ancient sculpture. But to compare
+Mary Stanley to any thing of marble
+is strangely out of place; for her real
+beauty consisted in the ever-varying
+play of her features, and a certain
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg&nbsp;440]</a></span>
+impetuosity of movement, that would
+have been a little characteristic of the
+romp, but that it was restrained by
+the spell of feminine sensibility. Heart
+was evidently the impulse of every
+look and every gesture.</p>
+
+<p>For a man of my years, methinks I
+am writing like a lover. And so I
+was! From the first moment I saw
+that girl, at an humble and unaspiring
+distance, I could dream of nothing
+else. Every thing and every body
+seemed fascinated by Mary Stanley.
+When she walked out into the fields
+with the General, her two hands clasping,
+like those of a child, her father's
+arm, his favourite colts used to come
+neighing playfully towards them; and
+not the fiercest dog of his extensive
+kennel but, even when unmanageable
+by the keeper, would creep fawning to
+her feet.</p>
+
+<p>It was strange enough, but still
+more fortunate, that all the adoration
+lavished upon this lovely creature by
+gentle and simple, Christian and
+brute, provoked no apparent jealousy
+on the part of her elder sister. Selina
+Stanley was afflicted with a cold,
+reserved, unhappy countenance, only
+too completely in unison with her disastrous
+position. But her heart was
+perhaps as genuine as her face was
+forbidding; for she loved the merry,
+laughing, handsome Mary, more as a
+mother her child, than as a sister
+nearly of her own years&mdash;that is, exultingly,
+but anxiously. Every one
+else foresaw nothing but prosperity,
+and joy, and love, in store for Mary.
+Selina prayed that it might prove
+so;&mdash;but she prayed with tears in
+her eyes, and trembling in her soul!
+For where are the destinies of persons
+thus exquisitely organized&mdash;thus
+full of love and loveliness&mdash;thus readily
+swayed to joy or sorrow, by the
+trivial incidents of life&mdash;characterised
+by what the world calls happiness&mdash;such
+happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed
+by the serene and the prudent, the
+unexcitable, the unaspiring! Miss
+Stanley foresaw only too truly, that
+the best days likely to be enjoyed by
+her sister, were those she was spending
+under her father's roof&mdash;a general
+idol&mdash;an object of deference and delight
+to all around.</p>
+
+<p>At the General's housewarming,
+though not previously introduced into
+society, Mary was the queen of the
+ball; and all present agreed, that one
+of the most pleasing circumstances of
+the evening was to watch the animated
+cordiality with which she flew
+from one to the other of those old
+neighbours of Stanley Manor, (whom
+she alone had managed to persuade
+that a dozen miles was no distance to
+prevent their accepting her father's
+invitation;) and not the most brilliant
+of her young friends received a more
+eager welcome, or more sustained attention
+throughout the evening, than
+the few homely elderly people, (such
+as my friends the Whittinghams,) who
+happened to share the hospitality of
+General Stanley. I daresay that even
+<em>I</em>, had I found courage to accept his
+invitation, should have received from
+the young beauty some gentle word,
+in addition to the kindly smiles with
+which she was sure to return my respectful
+obeisance whenever we met
+accidentally in the village.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was dressed in white, with a
+few natural flowers in her hair, which,
+owing to the impetuosity of her movements,
+soon fell out, leaving only a
+stray leaf or two, that would have
+looked ridiculous any where but
+among her rich, but dishevelled
+locks; and the pleasant anxieties of
+the evening imparted such a glow to
+her usually somewhat pale complexion,
+that her beauty is said to
+have been, that night, almost supernatural.
+She was more like the creature
+of a dream than one of those
+wooden puppets, who move mechanically
+through the world under the
+name of well brought-up young ladies.</p>
+
+<p>It will easily be conceived how
+much this ball, so rare an event in our
+quiet neighbourhood, was discussed,
+not only the following day, but for
+days and weeks to come. Even at
+the rectory I heard of nothing else;
+while by my good old housekeeper,
+who had a son in service at General
+Stanley's, and a daughter waiting-maid
+to Miss Sparks, I was let in to
+secrets concerning it of which even
+the rectory knew nothing.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, though Mr Sparks
+had peremptorily signified from the
+first to his family, his desire that all
+should accompany him to Lexley Hall
+on this trying occasion, (and it was
+only natural he should wish to solace
+his wounded pride, by appearing before
+his noble neighbour surrounded
+by his handsome progeny,) two of his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg&nbsp;441]</a></span>
+children had risen up in rebellion
+against the decree&mdash;and for the first
+time&mdash;for Sparks was happy in a dutiful
+and well-ordered family. But the
+youngest daughter, Kezia, a girl of
+high spirits and intelligence, who fancied
+she had been pointedly slighted
+by the Misses Stanley, when, in one of
+Mary's harum-scarum expeditions on
+her Shetland pony, she had passed
+without recognition the better-mounted
+young lady of Lexley Park; and
+the eldest son, who so positively refused
+to accompany his father to the
+house of a man by whom Mr Sparks
+had inconsiderately represented himself
+as aggrieved, that, for once, the
+kind parent was forced to play the
+tyrant, and insist on his obedience.</p>
+
+<p>It was, accordingly, with a very ill
+grace that these two, the prettiest of
+the daughters, and by far the handsomest
+of his three handsome sons,
+made their appearance at the <i>f&ecirc;te</i>.
+But no sooner were they welcomed
+by General Stanley and his daughters,
+than the brother and sister, who
+had mutually encouraged each other's
+disputes, hastened to recant their
+opinions.</p>
+
+<p>"How could you, dearest father,
+describe this courteous, high-bred
+old gentleman, as insolent and overbearing?"&mdash;whispered
+Kezia.</p>
+
+<p>"How could you possibly suppose
+that yonder lovely, gracious creature,
+intended to treat you with impertinence?"&mdash;was
+the rejoinder of her
+brother; and already the Stanleys
+had two enemies the less among their
+neighbours at Lexley Park.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the General had
+been forced to have recourse to severe
+schooling to bring his daughters to a
+sense of what was due to <em>his guests</em>,
+as regarded the family of a man who
+was known to have spoken disparagingly
+of them all. Moreover, if the
+truth must be owned, Mary was not
+altogether free from the prejudices of
+her caste; and, proud of her father's
+noble extraction, was apt to pout her
+pretty lip on mention of "the people
+at Lexley Park;" for the General, who
+had no secrets from his girls, had
+foolishly permitted them to see certain
+letters addressed to him by the eccentric
+Sir Laurence Altham, justifying
+himself concerning the peculiar clause
+introduced into his deeds of conveyance
+of his Hall estate, on the grounds
+of the degraded origin of "the upstart"
+he was so malignantly intent
+on discomposing.</p>
+
+<p>"They will spoil our ball, dear
+papa&mdash;I <em>know</em> these vulgar people will
+completely spoil our ball!" said she.
+"I think I hear them announced:&mdash;'Mr
+Jonas Sparks, Miss Basiliza
+and Miss Kezia Sparks!'&mdash;What
+names?"</p>
+
+<p>"The parents of Mr Sparks were
+dissenters," observed the General,
+trying to look severe. "Dissenters
+are apt to hold to scriptural names.
+But <em>name</em> is not <em>nature</em>, Mary; and,
+to judge by appearances, this man's&mdash;this
+gentleman's&mdash;this Mr Sparks's
+daughters, have every qualification to
+be an ornament to society."</p>
+
+<p>"With all my heart, papa, but I
+wish it were not ours!" cried the
+wayward girl. "On the present occasion,
+especially, I could spare such
+an accession to our circle; for I know
+that Mr Sparks has presumed to speak
+of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She was interrupted by a sterner
+reproof on the part of the General
+than he had ever before administered
+to his favourite daughter; and the
+consequence of this unusual severity
+was the distinguished reception bestowed,
+both by Selina and her sister,
+on the family from Lexley Park.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, however, General Stanley
+found a totally different cause for
+rebuke in the conduct of his dear
+Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"You talked to nobody last night,
+but those Sparks's!" said he. "Lord
+Dudley informed me he had asked
+you to dance three times in vain; and
+Lord Robert Stanley assured me <em>he</em>
+could scarcely get a civil answer from
+you!&mdash;Yet you found time, Mary, to
+dance twice in the course of the evening
+with that son of Sparks's!"</p>
+
+<p>"That son of Sparks's, as you so
+despisingly call him, dearest papa, is
+a most charming partner; while Lord
+Dudley, and my cousin Robert, are
+little better than boors. Everard
+Sparks can talk and dance, as well as
+they ride across a country. Not but
+what he, too, passes for a tolerable
+sportsman; and do you know, papa,
+Mr Sparks is thinking seriously of
+setting up a pack of harriers at Lexley?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Lexley Park!" insisted her
+father, who chose to enforce the distinction
+instituted by Sir Laurence
+Altham. "I fancy he will have to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg&nbsp;442]</a></span>
+ask my permission first. My land
+lies somewhat inconveniently, in case
+I choose to oppose his intentions."</p>
+
+<p>"But you won't oppose them!&mdash;No,
+no, dear papa, you sha'n't oppose
+them!"&mdash;cried Mary Stanley, throwing
+her arms coaxingly round her father's
+neck, and imprinting a kiss on his
+venerable forehead. "<em>Why</em> should
+we go on opposing and opposing,
+when it would be so much happier for
+all of us to live together as friends
+and neighbours?"</p>
+
+<p>The General surveyed her in silence
+for some moments as she looked up
+lovingly into his face; then gravely,
+and in silence, unclasped her arms
+from his neck. For the first time,
+he had gazed upon his favourite child
+without discerning beauty in her countenance,
+or finding favour for her supplications.</p>
+
+<p>"<em>My</em> opinion of Mr Sparks and his
+family is not altered since yesterday,"
+said he coldly, perceiving that she
+was about to renew her overtures for
+a pacification. "Your father's prejudices,
+Mary, are seldom so slightly
+grounded, that the adulation of a few
+gross compliments, such as were paid
+you last night by Mr Everard Sparks,
+may suffice for their obliteration.
+For the future, remember the less I
+hear of Lexley Park the better. In
+a few weeks we shall be in London,
+where our sphere is sufficiently removed,
+I am happy to say, from that of
+Mr Jonas Sparks, to secure me against
+the annoyance of familiarity with him
+or his."</p>
+
+<p>The partiality of his darling Mary
+for the handsomest and most agreeable
+young man who had ever sought
+to make himself agreeable to her, had
+sufficed to turn the arguments of General
+Stanley as decidedly <em>against</em>
+his <i>parvenu</i> neighbours, as, two days
+before, his eloquence had been exercised
+in their defence.</p>
+
+<p>And now commenced between the
+young people and their parents, one
+of those covert warfares certain to
+arise from similar interdictions. Mr
+Sparks&mdash;satisfied that he should have
+further insults to endure on the part
+of General Stanley, in the event of
+his son pretending to the hand of the
+proud old man's daughter&mdash;sought a
+serious explanation with Everard, on
+finding that he neglected no opportunity
+of meeting Mary Stanley in her
+drives, and walks, and errands of village
+benevolence; and by the remonstrances
+of one father, and peremptoriness
+of the other, the young couple
+were soon tempted to seek comforts in
+mutual confidences. Residing almost
+within view of each other, there was
+no great difficulty in finding occasion
+for an interview. They met, moreover,
+naturally, and without effort, in
+all the country houses in the neighbourhood;
+and so frequently, that I
+often wondered they should consider
+it worth while to hazard the General's
+displeasure by partaking a few moments'
+conversation, every now and
+then, among the old thorns by the
+water-side, just where the bend of
+the river secured them from observation;
+or in the green lane leading
+from Lexley Park to my farm,
+while Miss Stanley took charge of the
+pony-chaise during the hasty explanations
+of the imprudent couple. Having
+little to occupy my leisure during
+the intervals of my agricultural pursuits,
+I was constantly running against
+them, with my gun on my shoulder
+or my fishing-rod in my hand. I
+almost feared young Sparks might
+imagine that I was employed by the
+General as a spy upon their movements,
+so fierce a glance did he direct
+towards me one day when I was unlucky
+enough to vault over a hedge
+within a few yards of the spot where
+they were standing together&mdash;Miss
+Mary sobbing like a child. But, God
+knows! he was mistaken if he thought
+I was taking unfair heed of their proceedings,
+or likely to gossip indiscreetly
+concerning what fell accidentally
+under my notice.</p>
+
+<p>Not that a single soul in the neighbourhood
+approved General Stanley's
+opposition to the attachment. On the
+contrary, from the moment of the
+liking between the young people becoming
+apparent, the whole country
+decided that there could not be a
+more propitious mode of reuniting
+the dismembered Lexley estates; for
+though the General was expressly debarred
+from selling Lexley Hall to
+Sparks or his heirs, he could not be
+prevented bequeathing it to his daughters&mdash;the
+heirs of Jonas Sparks being
+the children of her body. And thus all
+objections would have been remedied.</p>
+
+<p>But such was not the proud old
+man's view of the case. He had set
+his heart on perpetuating his own
+name in his family. He had set his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg&nbsp;443]</a></span>
+heart on the union of his dear Mary
+with her cousin Lord Robert Stanley;
+and Everard Sparks might have
+been twice the handsome, manly
+young fellow he was&mdash;twice the gentleman,
+and twice the scholar&mdash;it
+would have pleaded little in his favour
+against the predetermined projects of
+the positive General. There was certainly
+some excuse for his ambition
+on Miss Mary's account. Beauty,
+merit, fortune, connexion, every advantage
+was hers calculated to do honour
+to a noble alliance; and as her
+father often exclaimed, with a bitter
+sneer, in answer to the mild pleadings
+of Selina&mdash;"Such a girl as that&mdash;a
+girl born to be a duchess&mdash;to sacrifice
+herself to the son of a Congleton manufacturer!"</p>
+
+<p>Two years did the struggle continue&mdash;during
+the greater part of
+which I was a constant eyewitness
+of the sorrows which so sobered the
+impetuous deportment of the light-hearted
+Mary Stanley. Her father
+took her to London, with the project
+of separation he had haughtily announced;
+but only to find, to his
+amazement, that Eton and Oxford
+had placed the son of Mr Sparks of
+Lexley Park, a member of Parliament,
+on as good a footing as himself
+in nearly all the circles he frequented.
+Even when, in the desperation of his
+fears, he removed his family to the
+Continent, the young lover (as became
+the lover of so endearing and
+attractive a creature) followed her, at
+a distance, from place to place. At
+length, one angry day, the General
+provoked him to a duel. But Everard
+would not lift his hand against
+the father of his beloved Mary. An
+insult from General Stanley was not
+as an offence from any other man.
+The only revenge taken by the high-spirited
+young man, was to urge the
+ungenerous conduct of the father as
+an argument with the daughter to
+put an end, by an elopement, to a
+state of things too painful to be borne.
+After much hesitation, it seems, she
+most unhappily complied. They were
+married&mdash;at Naples I think, or Turin,
+or some other city of Italy, where we
+have a diplomatic resident; and after
+their marriage&mdash;poor, foolish young
+people!&mdash;they went touring it about
+gaily in the Archipelago and Levant,
+waiting a favourable moment to propose
+a reconciliation with their respective
+fathers&mdash;as if the wrath and
+malediction of parents was so mere a
+trifle to deal with.</p>
+
+<p>The first step taken by General
+Stanley, on learning the ungrateful
+rebellion of his favourite child, was to
+return to England. He seemed to
+want to be at home again, the better
+to enjoy and cultivate his abhorrence
+of every thing bearing the despised
+name of Sparks; for now began the
+genuine hatred between the families.
+Nothing would satisfy the obstinate
+old soldier, but that the elder Sparks
+had, from the first, secretly encouraged
+the views of his son upon the
+heiress of Lexley Hall; while Mr
+Sparks naturally resented with enraged
+spirit the overbearing tone assumed
+by his aristocratic neighbour towards
+those so nearly his equals.
+Every day produced some new grounds
+for offence; and never had Sir Laurence
+Altham, in the extremity of his
+poverty, regarded the thriving mansion
+in the valley with half the loathing
+which the view of Lexley Park
+produced in the mind of General Stanley.
+He was even at the trouble of
+trenching a plantation on the brow of
+the hill, with the intention of shutting
+out the detested object. But trees
+do not grow so hastily as antipathies;
+and the General had to endure the
+certainty, that, for the remainder of
+<em>his</em> life at least, that beautiful domain
+must be unrolled, map-like, at his feet.
+Nor is it to be supposed that the battlements
+of the old hall found greater
+favour in the sight of the <i>parvenu</i>
+squire, than when in Sir Laurence's
+time the very sight of them was
+wormwood to his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, while the Congleton
+manufacturer contented himself with
+angry words, the gentleman of thirty
+descents betook himself to action.
+General Stanley swore to be mightily
+revenged&mdash;and he was so.</p>
+
+<p>On the very day following his return
+to England, before he even
+visited his desolate country-house, he
+sent for Lord Robert Stanley, and
+made him the confidant of his indignation&mdash;avowed
+his former good intentions
+in his favour&mdash;betrayed all
+Mary's&mdash;all <em>Mr Everard Sparks's</em> disparaging
+opposition; and ended by
+enquiring whether, since whichever of
+his daughters became Lady Robert
+Stanley would become sole heiress to
+his property, his lordship could make
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg&nbsp;444]</a></span>
+up his mind to accept Selina as a wife?
+Proud as he was, the General almost
+condescended to plead the cause of his
+deformed daughter: enlarging upon her
+excellences of character, and, still more,
+upon her aversion to society, which
+would secure the self-love of her husband
+against any public remarks on
+her want of personal attractions.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! all these arguments were
+thoroughly thrown away. Lord Robert
+was, as his cousin Mary had
+truly described him, little better than
+a boor. But he was also a spendthrift
+and a libertine; and had Miss Stanley
+been as deformed in mind as she
+was in person, he would have joyfully
+taken to wife the heiress of ten thousand
+a-year, and two of the finest
+seats in the county of Chester.</p>
+
+<p>To herself, meanwhile, no hint of
+these family negotiations was vouchsafed;
+and Selina Stanley had every
+reason to suppose&mdash;when her cousin
+became on a sudden an assiduous visitor
+at the house, and very shortly a
+declared lover&mdash;that their intimacy
+from childhood had accustomed his
+eye to her want of personal charms&mdash;she
+had become endeared to him by
+her mild and submissive temper. So
+little was she aware of her father's
+testamentary dispositions in her favour,
+that the interested nature of
+Lord Robert's views did not occur to
+her mind; and, little accustomed to
+protestations of attachment, Selina's
+heart was not <em>very</em> difficult to soften
+towards the only man who had ever
+pretended to love her, and whose apparent
+attachment promised some
+consolation for the loss of her sister's
+society, as well as the chance of reunion
+with one whom her father had
+sworn should never, under any possible
+circumstances, again cross his
+threshold.</p>
+
+<p>Six months after General Stanley's
+pride had been wounded to the
+quick by the newspaper account of a
+marriage between his favourite child
+and "a man of the name of Sparks,"
+balm was poured into the wound by
+another and more pompous paragraph,
+announcing the union, by special license,
+of the Right Hon. Lord Robert
+Stanley and the eldest daughter and
+heiress of Lieut.-Gen. Stanley, of
+Stanley Manor, only son of the late
+Lord Henry Stanley, followed by
+the usual list of noble relatives gracing
+the ceremony with their presence,
+and a flourishing account of the departure
+of the happy couple, in a travelling
+carriage and four, for their
+seat in Cheshire.</p>
+
+<p>This announcement, by the way,
+probably served to convey the intelligence
+to Mr and Mrs Everard
+Sparks; for the General having carefully
+intercepted every letter addressed
+by Mary to her sister, Lady Robert
+had not the slightest idea in what direction
+to communicate with one who
+possessed an undiminished share in
+her affections.</p>
+
+<p>On General Stanley's arrival in Cheshire,
+at the close of the honeymoon,
+the most casual observer might have
+noticed the alteration which had taken
+place in his appearance. Instead of
+the sadness I had expected to find in
+his countenance after so severe a
+stroke as the disobedience of his darling
+girl, I never saw him so exulting.
+Yet his smiles were not smiles of good-humour.
+There was bitterness at
+the bottom of every word he uttered;
+and a terrible sound of menace rung
+in his unnatural laughter. Consciousness
+never seemed a moment absent
+from his mind, that he had defeated
+the calculations of the designing family;
+that he had distanced them;
+that he was triumphing over them.
+Alas! none at present entertained the
+smallest suspicion to what extent!</p>
+
+<p>Preparatory to the settlements made
+by the General on Lord and Lady
+Robert Stanley, it had been found necessary
+to place in the hands of his
+lordship's solicitors the deeds of the
+Lexley Hall estate; when, lo! to the
+consternation of all parties, it appeared
+that the General's title was an unsound
+one; that by the general terms
+of this ancient property, rights of
+heirship could only be evaded by the
+payment of a certain fine, after intimation
+of sale in a certain form to
+the nearest-of-kin of the heir in possession,
+which form had been overlooked
+or wantonly neglected by Sir
+Laurence Altham!</p>
+
+<p>The discovery was indeed embarrassing.
+Fortunately, however, the
+sum of ten thousand pounds only had
+been paid by the General to satisfy the
+immediate funds of the unthrifty
+baronet; the remainder of the purchase-money
+having been left in the
+form of mortgage on the property.
+There was consequently the less difficulty,
+though considerable expense,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg&nbsp;445]</a></span>
+in cancelling the existing deeds, going
+through the necessary forms, and,
+after paying the forfeiture to the heir,
+(to whom the very existence of his
+claims was unknown,) renewing the
+contract with Sir Laurence; to whom,
+so considerable a sum being still owing,
+it was as essential as to General
+Stanley that the covenant should be
+completed without delay. But all
+this occurred at so critical a moment,
+that the General had ample cause to
+be thankful for the promptitude with
+which he decided Selina's marriage;
+for only four days after the signature
+of the new deeds, Sir Laurence concluded
+his ill-spent life&mdash;his death
+being, it was thought, accelerated by
+the excitement consequent on this
+strange discovery, and the investigations
+on the part of the heir to which
+it was giving rise.</p>
+
+<p>For the clause in the original grant
+of the Lexley estate (which dated
+from the Reformation) affected the
+property purchased by Jonas Sparks
+as fully as that which had been assigned
+to the General; and the baronet
+being now deceased, there was no
+possibility of co-operation in rectifying
+the fatal error. It was more than
+probable, therefore, that Lexley Park,
+with all its improvements, was now
+the property of John Julius Altham,
+Esq.!&mdash;the only dilemma still to be
+decided by the law, being the extent
+to which, his kinsman having died
+insolvent and intestate, he was liable
+to the suit of Jonas Sparks for the
+return of the purchase money, amounting
+to L.145,000.</p>
+
+<p>Already the fatal intelligence had
+been communicated by the attorneys
+of John Julius Altham to those of
+the astonished man, who, though still
+convinced of the goodness of his cause,
+(which, on the strength of certain
+various statutes affecting such a case,
+he was advised to contest to the utmost,)
+foresaw a long, vexatious, and
+expensive lawsuit, that would certainly
+last his life, and prevent the possibility
+of one moment's enjoyment of
+the estate, from which he had received
+the usual notice of ejection. Fortunately
+for him, the present Mr Altham
+was not only a gentleman, and
+disposed to exercise his rights in the
+most decorous manner; but, of course,
+unbiassed by the personal prejudices
+so strongly felt by Sir Laurence, and
+so unfairly communicated by him to
+the General. Still, the question was
+proceeding at the snail's pace rate of
+Chancery suits at the commencement
+of the present century, and the unfortunate
+Congleton manufacturer had
+every reason to curse the day when
+he had become enamoured of the
+grassy glades and rich woodlands of
+Lexley; seeing that, at the close of
+an honourable and well-spent life, he
+was uncertain whether the sons and
+daughters to whom he had laboured
+to bequeath a handsome independence,
+might not be reduced to utter destitution.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the intelligence that saluted
+the ill-starred Mary and her
+husband on their return to England!
+Instead of the brilliant prospects in
+which she had been nurtured&mdash;disinheritance
+met her on the one side, and
+ruin on the other!</p>
+
+<p>Her vindictive father had even made
+it a condition of his bounties to Lord
+and Lady Robert, that all intercourse
+should cease between them and their
+sister; a condition which the former,
+in revenge for the early slights of his
+fairer cousin, took care should be
+punctually obeyed by his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Till the event of the trial, Mr
+Sparks retained, of course, possession
+of the Park; but so bitter was the
+mortification of the family, on discovering
+in the village precisely the same
+ungrateful feeling which had so embittered
+the soul of Sir Laurence, that
+they preferred remaining in London&mdash;where
+no one has leisure to dwell
+upon the mischances of his neighbours,
+and where sympathy is as little expected
+as conceded. But when Mary
+arrived&mdash;<em>poor</em> Mary! who had now
+the prospect of becoming a mother&mdash;and
+who, though affectionately beloved
+by her husband's family, saw
+they regarded her as the innocent
+origin of their present reverses&mdash;she
+soon persuaded her husband to accompany
+her to her old haunts.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not imagine, dearest," said she,
+"that I have any project of debasing
+you and myself, by intruding into my
+father's presence. Had we been still
+prosperous, Everard, I would have
+gone to him&mdash;knelt to him&mdash;prayed
+to him&mdash;wept to him&mdash;<em>so</em> earnestly,
+that his forgiveness could not have
+been long withheld from the child he
+loved so dearly. I would have described
+to him all you are to me&mdash;all
+your indulgences&mdash;all your devotion&mdash;and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg&nbsp;446]</a></span>
+<em>you</em>, too, my own husband,
+would have been forgiven. But as it
+is, believe me, I have too proud a
+sense of what is due to ourselves,
+to combat the unnatural hostility in
+which my sister and her husband appear
+to take their share. O Everard!
+to think of Selina becoming the wife
+of that coarse and heartless man, of
+whom, in former times, she thought
+even more contemptuously than I;
+and who, with his dissolute habits,
+can only have made my poor afflicted
+sister his wife from the most mercenary
+motives! I dread to think of
+what may be her fate hereafter, when,
+having obtained at my father's death
+all the advantages to which he looks
+forward, he will show himself in his
+true colours."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, even with such terrible prospects
+awaiting herself, the good, generous
+Mary trembled only to contemplate
+those of her regardless sister;
+and it was chiefly for the delight
+of revisiting the spots where they had
+played together in childhood&mdash;the
+fondly-remembered environs of Stanley
+Manor&mdash;that she persuaded her husband
+to take up his abode in the deserted
+mansion at the Park, where,
+from prudential motives, Mr Sparks
+had broken up his establishment, and
+sold off his horses.</p>
+
+<p>Attended by a single servant, in
+addition to the old porter and his wife
+who were in charge of the house,
+Mary trusted that their arrival at
+Lexley would be unnoticed in the
+neighbourhood. Confining herself
+strictly within the boundaries of the
+Park, which neither her father nor
+the bride and bridegroom were likely
+to enter, she conceived that she might
+enjoy, on her husband's arm, those
+solitary rambles of which every day
+circumscribed the extent; without
+affording reason to the General to suppose,
+when, discerning every morning
+from his lofty terraces the mansion
+of his falling enemy, that, in place of
+the man he loathed, it contained his
+discarded child.</p>
+
+<p>The dispirited young woman, on
+the other hand, delighted in contemplating
+from the windows of her dressing-room
+the towers beneath, whose
+shelter she had abided in such perfect
+happiness with her doating father and
+apparently attached sister. They
+loved her no longer, it is true. Perhaps
+it was her fault&mdash;(she would not
+allow herself to conceive it could be a
+fault of <em>theirs</em>)&mdash;but at all events she
+loved <em>them</em> dearly as ever; and it was
+comforting to her poor heart to catch
+a glimpse of their habitation, and know
+herself within reach, should sickness
+or evil betide.</p>
+
+<p>"If I should not survive my approaching
+time," thought Mary, often
+surveying for hours, through her tears,
+the heights of Lexley Hall, and fancying
+she could discern human figures
+moving from window to window, or
+from terrace to terrace; "if I should
+be fated never to behold this child,
+already loved&mdash;this child which is to
+be so dear a blessing to us both&mdash;in
+my last hours my father would not
+surely refuse to give me his blessing;
+nor would Selina persist in her present
+cruel alienation. It is, indeed, a
+comfort to be here."</p>
+
+<p>Her husband thought otherwise.
+To him nothing was more trying than
+this compulsory sojourn at Lexley;
+not that he required other society than
+that of his engaging and attached
+wife. At any other moment it would
+have been delightful to him to enjoy
+the country pleasures around them,
+with no officious intrusive world to
+interpose between their affection. But
+in his present uncertainty as to his
+future prospects, to be mocked by this
+empty show of proprietorship, and
+have constantly before his eyes the
+residence of the man who had heaped
+such contumely on his head, and inflicted
+such pain on the gentlest and
+sweetest of human hearts, was a state
+of moral torment.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of my fishing excursions&mdash;(for,
+thanks to Mr Sparks's
+neighbourly liberality, I had a card of
+general access to his parks)&mdash;I frequently
+met the young couple; and
+having no clue to their secret sentiments,
+noticed, with deep regret, the
+sadness of Mary's countenance and
+sinister looks of her husband. I feared&mdash;I
+greatly feared&mdash;that they were
+not happy together. The General's
+daughter repined, perhaps, after her
+former fortunes. The young husband
+sighed, doubtless, over the liberty he
+had renounced.</p>
+
+<p>It was spring time, and Lord Robert
+having satisfied his cravings after the
+pleasures of London, by occasional
+bachelor visits on pretence of business,
+the family were to remain at the Hall
+till after the Easter holidays, so that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg&nbsp;447]</a></span>
+Mary had every expectation of the
+accomplishment of her hopes previous
+to their departure. Perhaps, in the
+bottom of her heart, she flattered herself
+that, on hearing of her safety, her
+obdurate relations might be moved, by
+a sudden burst of pity and kindliness,
+to make overtures of reconciliation&mdash;at
+all events to dispatch words of courteous
+enquiry; for she was ever dwelling
+on her good fortune that her
+father should, on this particular year,
+have so retarded the usual period of
+his departure. Yet when the report
+of these exulting exclamations on her
+part reached my ear, I was ungenerous
+enough to attribute them to a
+very different origin, fancying that the
+poor submissive creature was thankful
+for being within reach of protection
+from conjugal misusage.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, she was so far justified
+in one portion of her premises, that no
+tidings of her residence at Lexley
+Park had as yet reached the ear of her
+father. The fact was, that not a soul
+had courage to do so much as mention,
+in his presence, the name of his once
+idolized child; and Lord Robert, having
+been apprized of the circumstance,
+instantly exacted a promise from his
+wife, that nothing should induce her
+to hazard her father's displeasure by
+communication with her sister, or by
+acquainting the General of the arrival
+of the offending pair. The consequence
+was, that in the dread of
+encountering her sister, (whom she
+felt ashamed to meet as the wife of the
+man they had so often decried together,)
+Lady Robert rarely quitted the
+house; and these two sisters, so long
+the affectionate inmates of the same
+chamber&mdash;the sisters who had wept
+together over their mother's deathbed&mdash;abided
+within sight of each other's
+windows, yet estranged as with the
+estrangement of strangers.</p>
+
+<p>And then, we pretend to talk with
+horror of the family feuds of southern
+nations; and, priding ourselves on our
+calm and passionless nature, feel convinced
+that all the domestic virtues
+extant on earth, have taken refuge in
+the British empire!</p>
+
+<p>Every day, meanwhile, I noticed
+that the handsome countenance of
+Everard Sparks grew gloomier and
+gloomier; and how was I to know
+that every day he received letters from
+his father, announcing the unfavourable
+aspect of their suit; and that
+(owing, as was supposed, to the suggestions
+of General Stanley's solicitors)
+even the conduct of the adverse
+party was becoming offensive. The
+elder Sparks wrote like a man overwhelmed
+with mortification, and stung
+by a sense of undeserved injury; and
+his appeals to the sympathy and support
+of his son, were such as to place
+the spirited young man in a most painful
+predicament as regarded the family
+of his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Unwilling to utter in her presence
+an injurious word concerning those
+who, persecute her as they might,
+were still her nearest and dearest by
+the indissoluble ties of nature, all he
+could do, in relief to his overcharged
+feelings, was to rush forth into the
+Park, and curse the day that he was
+born to behold all he loved in the
+world overwhelmed in one common
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>On such occasions, while pretending
+to fix my attention on my float
+upon the river, I often watched him
+from afar, till I was terrified by the
+frantic vehemence of his gestures.
+There was almost reason to fancy that
+the evil influences of the old Hall were
+extending their power over the valley;
+and that this distracted young man
+was falling into the eccentricities of
+Sir Laurence Altham.</p>
+
+<p>After viewing with anxiety the wild
+deportment of poor Mary's husband, I
+happened one day to pass along the
+lane I have described as skirting the
+garden of the manor-house, on my
+way homewards to my farm; and on
+plunging my eyes, as usual, into the
+verdant depths of the clipped yew-walks,
+visible through the iron-palisades,
+was struck by the contrast
+afforded to the scene I had just witnessed,
+not only by its aristocratic
+tranquillity, but by the grave and subdued
+deportment of Lady Robert
+Stanley, who was sauntering in one
+of the alleys, accompanied by a favourite
+dog I had often seen following her
+sister in former days, and looking the
+very picture of contented egotism.</p>
+
+<p>I almost longed to call aloud to her,
+and confide all I knew and all that I
+supposed. But what right had I to
+create alarms in her sister's behalf?
+What right had I to incite her to disobedience
+against the father on whom
+she and her husband were dependent?
+Better leave things as they were&mdash;the
+common philosophy of selfish, timid
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg&nbsp;448]</a></span>
+people, afraid of exposing their own
+heads to a portion of the storm their
+interference may chance to bring
+down, while assisting the cause of the
+weak against the strong.</p>
+
+<p>I used often to go home and think
+of poor Mary till my heart ached.
+That young and beautiful creature&mdash;that
+creature till lately so beloved&mdash;to
+be thus cruelly abandoned, thus
+helpless, thus unhappy! Perhaps not
+a soul sympathizing with her but myself&mdash;an
+obscure, low-born, uninfluential
+man, of no more value as a protector
+than a willow-wand shivered
+from the Lexley plantations! Not so
+much as the merest trifle in which I
+could demonstrate my good-will. I
+thought and thought it over, and
+there was nothing I could do&mdash;nothing
+I could offer. When I <em>did</em> hit upon
+some pretext of kindness, I only did
+amiss. The fruit season was not begun&mdash;nay,
+the orchards were only in
+blossom&mdash;and times were over for
+forcing-houses at Lexley Park!
+Thinking, therefore, that the invalid
+might be pleased with a basket of
+Jersey pears, of which a very fine
+kind grew in my orchard, I ventured
+to send some to her address. But the
+very next time I encountered Everard
+in the village, he cast a look at
+me as if he would have killed me for
+my officiousness, or, perhaps, for taking
+the liberty to suppose that Lexley
+Park was less luxuriously provisioned
+than in former years. Nor was it till
+long afterwards I discovered that my
+old housekeeper (who had taken upon
+herself to carry my humble offering
+to the park) had not only seen the
+poor young lady, but been foolish
+enough to talk of Lady Robert in a
+tone which appears to have exercised
+a cruel influence over her gentle
+heart; so that, when her husband returned
+home from rabbit-shooting, an
+hour afterwards, he found her recovering
+from a fainting fit, he visited
+upon <em>me</em> the folly of my servant; and
+such was the cause of his angry looks.</p>
+
+<p>A few days afterwards, however,
+he had far more to reproach his conscience
+withal than poor Barbara.
+Having no concealments from his
+wife, to whom he was in the habit of
+avowing every emotion of his heart, he
+was rash enough to mention of having
+met the travelling carriage of Lord
+and Lady Robert on the London
+road. They had quitted the Hall ten
+days previous to the epoch originally
+fixed for their departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone&mdash;exactly gone!&mdash;already at
+two hundred miles' distance from me!"
+cried poor Mary, nothing doubting
+that her father had, as usual, accompanied
+them, and feeling herself now,
+for the first time, alone in the dreary
+seclusion to which she had condemned
+herself, only that she might breathe
+the same atmosphere with those she
+loved. "Yet they had certainly decided
+to remain at the Hall till after
+Easter! Perhaps they discovered my
+being here, and the discovery hastened
+their journey. Unhappy creature
+that I am, to have become thus hateful
+to those in whose veins my blood
+is flowing! Everard, Everard! O,
+what have I done that God should
+thus abandon me?"</p>
+
+<p>The soothing and affectionate remonstrances
+now addressed to her by
+her husband, had so far a good effect,
+that they softened her despair to
+tears. Long and unrestrainedly did
+she weep upon his shoulder; tried to
+comfort him by the assurance that
+<em>she</em> was comforted, or at least that
+she would endeavour to <em>seek</em> comfort
+from the protection and goodness
+whence it had been so often derived.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes afterwards, having
+been persuaded by Everard to rest
+herself on the sofa, to recover the effects
+of the agitation his indiscreet
+communication had excited, she suddenly
+complained of cold, and begged
+him to close the windows. It was a
+balmy April day, with a genial sun
+shining fresh into the room. The air
+was as the air of midsummer&mdash;one of
+those days on which you almost see
+the small green leaves of spring bursting
+from their shelly covering, and
+the resinous buds of the chestnut-trees
+expanding into maturity. Poor Everard
+saw at once that the chilliness of
+which his wife complained must be
+the effect of illness. More cautious,
+however, on this occasion than before,
+he enquired, as her shivering increased,
+what preparations she had made
+for the events which still left her some
+weeks for execution. "None. His
+sisters had kindly undertaken to supply
+her with all she might require;
+and the services of the nurse accustomed
+to attend his married sister,
+were engaged on her behalf. At the
+end of the month this woman was to
+arrive at Lexley, bringing with her
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg&nbsp;449]</a></span>
+the wardrobe of the little treasure
+who was to accord renewed peace and
+happiness to its mother."</p>
+
+<p>Though careful to conceal his anxiety
+from his wife, Everard Sparks,
+disappointed and distressed, quitted
+the room in haste to send for the medical
+man who had long been the attendant
+of his family. But before he
+arrived, the shivering fit of the poor
+sufferer had increased to an alarming
+degree. A calming potion was administered,
+and orders issued that she
+was to be kept quiet; but in the consternation
+created in the little household
+by the communication Dr R.
+thought it necessary to make of the
+possibility of a premature confinement,
+poor Mrs Sparks's maid, a young inexperienced
+woman, dispatched a
+messenger to my house for her old
+kinswoman, and it was through Barbara
+I became acquainted with the
+melancholy incidents I am about to
+relate.</p>
+
+<p>The sedatives administered failed
+in their effect. A fatal shock had
+been already given; and while struggling
+through that direful night with
+the increasing pangs that verified the
+doctor's prognostications, the sympathizing
+women around the sufferer
+could scarcely restrain their tears at
+the courage with which she supported
+her anguish, rejoicing in it, as it were,
+in the prospect of embracing her
+child&mdash;when all present were aware
+that the compensation was about to
+be denied her, that the child was already
+dead. Just as the day dawned,
+her anxious husband was congratulated
+on her safety, and then the truth
+could no longer be concealed from
+Mary. She asked to see her babe.
+Her husband was employed to persuade
+her to defer seeing it for an
+hour or two, "till it was dressed&mdash;till
+she was more composed." But
+the truth rushed into her mind, and
+she uttered not another word, in the
+apprehension of increasing his disappointment
+and mortification.</p>
+
+<p>So long did her silence continue,
+that, trusting she had fallen asleep,
+old Barbara's granddaughter entreated
+poor Everard to withdraw and
+leave her to her rest. But the moment
+he quitted the room, she spoke, spoke
+resolutely, and in a firmer voice than
+her previous sufferings had given them
+reason to suppose possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then, let me see my boy,"
+said she. "I know that he is dead.
+But do not be afraid of shocking or
+distressing me. I have courage to
+look upon the poor little creature for
+whom I have suffered so much, and
+who, I trusted, would reward me for
+all."</p>
+
+<p>The women remonstrated, as it was
+their duty to remonstrate. But when
+they saw that opposition on this point
+only excited her, dreading an accession
+of fever, they brought the poor
+babe and laid it on the pillow beside
+its mother. That first embrace, to
+which she had looked forward with
+such intensity of delight, folded to
+her burning bosom only a clay-cold
+child!</p>
+
+<p>Even thus it was fair to look on&mdash;every
+promise in its little form, that
+its beauty would have equalled that
+of its handsome parents; and Mary,
+as she pressed her lips to its icy forehead,
+fancied she could trace on those
+tiny features a resemblance to its
+father. Old Barbara, perceiving how
+bitterly the tears of the sufferer were
+falling on the cheeks of her lost treasure,
+now interfered. But the mother
+had still a last request to make. A
+few downy curls were perceptible on
+the temples&mdash;in colour and fineness
+resembling her own. She wished to
+rescue from the grave this slight
+remembrance of her poor nameless
+offspring; and her wish having been
+complied with, she suffered the babe
+to be taken from her relaxed and
+moveless grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me the hair," said she, in
+a faint voice. "Thanks&mdash;thanks!
+I am happy now&mdash;I will try to sleep&mdash;I
+am happy&mdash;happy now!"</p>
+
+<p>She slept&mdash;and never woke again.
+At the close of an hour or two, her
+anxious husband, finding she had not
+stirred, gently and silently approached
+the bedside, and took into his own
+the fair hand lying on the coverlid,
+to ascertain whether fever had ensued.
+<em>Fever?</em> It was already cold
+with the damps of death!</p>
+
+<p>Imagine, if you can, the agony and
+self-reproach of that bereaved man!
+Again and again did he revile himself
+as her murderer; accusing <em>himself</em>&mdash;her
+father&mdash;her <em>sister</em>&mdash;the whole world.
+At one moment, he fancied that her
+condition had not been properly
+treated by her attendants; at another,
+that the medical man ought not to
+have left the house. Nay, hours and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg&nbsp;450]</a></span>
+hours after she was gone for ever&mdash;after
+the undertakers had commenced
+their hideous preparations&mdash;even while
+she lay stretched before him, white
+and cold as marble, he persisted that
+life might be still recalled; and, but
+for the better discrimination of those
+around him, would have insisted on
+attempts at resuscitation, calculated
+only to disturb, almost sacrilegiously,
+the sound peace of the dead!</p>
+
+<p>I was one of the first to learn the
+heart-rending news of this beloved being's
+untimely end; for my old woman
+having asked permission to
+remain with her through the night,
+(explaining the exigency of the case,)
+I could not forbear hurrying to the
+house as soon as it was day, in the
+hope of hearing she was a happy mother.
+Somehow or other, I had never
+contemplated an unfavourable result.
+The idea of death never presented
+itself to me in common with any thing
+so young and fair; and as I walked
+through the park, and crossed the
+bridge, with the white cheerful mansion
+before me, and the morning sun
+shining full upon its windows, I
+thought how gladsome it looked, but
+could not forbear feeling that, even
+with the prospect of losing it&mdash;even
+with the certainty of beggary, Everard,
+as a husband and father, was
+the fellow most to be envied upon
+earth!</p>
+
+<p>I reached the house, and the old
+man who answered my ring at the
+office entrance, was speechless from
+tears. Though usually hard as iron,
+he sobbed as if his heart would break.
+I asked to speak with Barbara&mdash;with
+my housekeeper. He told me I could
+not&mdash;that she was "busy laying out
+the body." I was answered. That
+dreadful word told me all&mdash;I had no
+more questions to ask. I cared not
+<em>who</em> survived, or what became of the
+survivors. And as I turned sickening
+away, to bend my steps homewards,
+I remember wondering how that fair
+spring morning could shine so bright
+and auspiciously, when <em>she</em> was gone
+from us. It seemed to triumph in
+our loss! Alas! it shone to welcome
+a new angel to the kingdom of our
+Father who is in heaven!</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly it struck me, that I, too,
+had a duty to perform. In that scanty
+household there was no one to take
+thought of the common forms of life;
+so I hastened to the rectory, to suggest
+to our good pastor a visit of consolation
+to the house of mourning, and
+acquaint his sisters with its forlorn
+condition. Like myself, they began
+exclaiming, "Alas! alas! It was but
+the other day that"&mdash;&mdash;reverting to
+all the acts of charity and girlish
+graces of that dear departed Mary
+Stanley, who had been among us as
+the shadow of a dream.</p>
+
+<p>Before I left the rectory, Dr Whittingham
+had issued his orders; and
+lo! as I proceeded homewards, with
+a heavy step and a heavier heart, the
+sound of the passing bell from Lexley
+church pursued me with its measured
+toll, till I could scarcely refrain from
+sitting me down by the wayside, and
+weeping my very soul away.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the lane I have so
+often described as skirting the gardens
+of the old Hall, I noticed, through the
+palisades, a person, probably one of
+the gardeners, sauntering along Lady
+Robert's favourite yew-walk. No!
+on a nearer approach, I saw, and almost
+shuddered to see, that it was
+General Stanley himself (who, I fancied,
+had accompanied his son-in-law
+to town) taking an early walk, to
+enjoy the sweetness of that delicious
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>As I drew nearer, I averted my
+head. At that moment I had not
+courage to look him in the face. I
+could scarcely suppose him ignorant
+of what had occurred; and, if aware
+of the sad event, his obduracy was
+unmanly to a degree that filled me
+with disgust. But just as I came opposite
+the iron gates, he hailed me by
+name&mdash;more familiarly and courteously
+than he was wont&mdash;to ask whether
+I came from the village, and for
+<em>whose</em> death they were tolling?</p>
+
+<p>If worlds had depended on my answer,
+I could not have uttered a word!
+But I conclude that, catching sight of
+my troubled face and swollen eyelids,
+the General supposed I had lost some
+near and dear friend; for, instead of
+renewing his question, he merely
+touched his hat, and passed on, leaving
+me to proceed in my turn. But the
+spectacle of my profound affliction
+probably excited his curiosity; for I
+found afterwards, that, instead of pursuing
+his walk, he returned straight to
+the house, and addressed the enquiry
+which had so distressed <em>me</em>, to others
+having more courage to reveal the
+fatal truth. I believe it was the old
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg&nbsp;451]</a></span>
+family butler, who abruptly answered&mdash;"For
+my poor young lady, General&mdash;for
+the sweetest angel that ever
+trod the earth!"</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I wonder the announcement
+did not strike him to
+the earth! But he heard it without
+apparent emotion; like a man who,
+having already sustained the worst
+affliction this world can afford, has no
+sensibility for further trials. Still the
+intelligence was not ineffective. Without
+pausing an instant for reflection,
+or the indulgence of his feelings, he
+set forth on foot to Lexley Park.
+With his hat pulled over his eyes,
+and a determined air, rather as if
+about to execute an act of vengeance
+than offer a tardy tribute of tenderness
+to his victim, he hurried to the
+house&mdash;commanded the startled old
+servant to show him the way to <em>her</em>
+room&mdash;entered it&mdash;and knelt down
+beside the bed on which she lay, with
+her dead infant on her arm, asking
+her forgiveness, and the forgiveness
+of God, as humbly as though he were
+not the General Stanley proverbial
+for implacability and pride.</p>
+
+<p>Old Barbara, who had not quitted
+the room, assured me it was a heart-breaking
+sight to behold that white
+head bowed down in agony upon the
+cold feet of his child. For he felt
+himself unworthy to press her helpless
+hand to his lips, or remove the cambric
+from her face, but called, in broken
+accents, upon the name of Mary!
+his child! his darling! addressing her
+rather with the fondling terms bestowed
+upon girlhood than as a woman&mdash;a
+wife&mdash;a mother!</p>
+
+<p>"But a more affecting story still,"
+said the old woman, "was to see that
+Mr Everard took no more heed of the
+General's sudden entrance than though
+it were a thing to be looked for. He
+seemed neither to hear his exclamations
+nor perceive his distress." Poor
+gentleman! His haggard eyes were
+fixed, his mind bewildered, his hopes
+blasted for ever, his life a blank. He
+neither answered when spoken to, nor
+even spoke, when the good rector, according
+to his promise, came to announce
+that he had dispatched the
+fatal intelligence by express to his
+family, beseeching his instructions
+concerning the steps to be taken for
+the burial of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>But why afflict you and myself by
+recurring to these melancholy details!
+Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected
+what nothing else on earth
+could have effected in the mind of
+General Stanley. Humbled to the
+dust, even the arrival of the once
+despised owner of Lexley Park did
+not drive him from the house. He
+asked his pity&mdash;he asked his pardon.
+Beside the coffin of his daughter he
+expressed all the compunction a generous-hearted
+and broken-hearted
+man could express; and all he asked
+in return, was leave to lay her poor
+head in the grave of her ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>No one opposed his desire. The
+young widower had not as much consciousness
+left as would have enabled
+him to utter the negative General
+Stanley seemed prepared to expect;
+and as to his father, about to abandon
+Lexley for ever, to what purpose erect
+a family vault in a church which
+neither he nor his were ever likely to
+see again?</p>
+
+<p>To the chapel at Stanley Manor,
+accordingly, were the mother and
+child removed. The General wrote
+expressly to forbid his son-in-law and
+Selina returning to the Hall, on pretence
+of sustaining him in his affliction.
+He <em>chose</em> to give way to it; he
+<em>chose</em> to be alone with his despair.</p>
+
+<p>Never shall I forget the day that
+mournful funeral procession passed
+through the village! Young and old
+came forth weeping to their doors to
+bid her a last farewell; even as they
+used to come and exchange smiles
+with her, in those happy days when
+life lay before her, bright&mdash;hopeful&mdash;without
+a care&mdash;without a responsibility.
+I had intended to pay him the
+same respect. I meant, indeed, to
+have followed the hearse, at an humble
+distance, to its final destination.
+But when I rose that morning a sudden
+weakness came upon me, and I
+was unable to quit my room. I, so
+strong, so hardy, who have passed
+through life without sickness or doctor,
+was as powerless that day as an
+infant.</p>
+
+<p>It was from the good rector, therefore,
+I heard how the General (on
+whom, in consequence of the precarious
+condition of the afflicted husband,
+devolved the task of chief mourner) sustained
+his carriage to perform with dignity
+and propriety his duty to the dead.
+As he followed the coffin through the
+churchyard, crowded by his old pensioners&mdash;many
+of them praying on
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg&nbsp;452]</a></span>
+their knees as it passed&mdash;his step was
+as firm and his brow as erect as
+though at the head of his regiment.
+It was not till all was over&mdash;the
+mournful ceremony done, the crowd
+dispersed, the funeral array departed&mdash;that
+having descended into the
+vault, ere the stone was rolled to the
+door of the sepulchre, in order to point
+out the exact spot where he wished
+her remains to be deposited, so that
+hereafter his own might rest by her
+side, he renounced all self-restraint,
+and throwing himself upon the ground,
+gave himself up to his anguish, and
+refused to be comforted!</p>
+
+<p>That summer was as dreary a season
+at Lexley as the dreariest winter!
+Both the Park and the Hall were shut
+up; nor did General Stanley ever
+again resume his tenancy of the old
+manor. When the result of the Chancery
+suit left Mr Altham in possession
+of the former estate, the General literally
+preferred forfeiting the moiety of
+the purchase-money he had paid, and
+giving up the place to be re-united
+with the property, which the rigour
+of the law thus singularly restored to
+the last heirs of the Althams; and
+such was the cause of my neighbour,
+the present Sir Julius Altham, regaining
+possession of the Hall.</p>
+
+<p>It was not for many years, however,
+that the cause was ultimately decided.
+There was an appeal against the
+Chancellor's decree; and even after the
+decree was confirmed, came an endless
+number of legal forms, which so procrastinated
+the settlement, that not
+only the original unfortunate purchaser,
+but poor Everard himself, was
+in his grave when the mansion, in
+which they had so prided themselves,
+was pulled down, and all trace of their
+occupancy effaced.</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes ask myself, indeed,
+whether the whole of this "strange
+eventful history," with which the
+earliest feelings of my heart were
+painfully interwoven, really occurred?
+whether the manor ever passed for a
+time out of the possession of the
+ancient house of Altham? whether
+the domain, now one and indivisible,
+were literally partitioned off&mdash;a park
+paling interposing only between the
+patrician and plebeian. Often, after
+spending hour after hour by the river
+side, when the fly is on the water and
+the old thorns in bloom, I recur to
+the first day I came back into Lexley
+Park after the funeral had passed
+through, and recollect the soreness of
+heart with which I lifted my eyes towards
+the house, of which every trace
+has since disappeared. At that moment
+there seemed to rise before me,
+sporting among the gnarled branches
+of the old thorn-trees, the graceful
+form of Mary Stanley, followed by
+old Sergeant, bounding and barking
+through the fern; and the General
+looking on from a distance, pretending
+to be angry, and desiring her to come
+out of the covert and not disturb the
+game. Exactly thus, and there, I
+beheld them for the first time. What
+would I not give to realize once more,
+if only for a day, that happy, happy
+vision!</p>
+
+<p>Stanley Manor is let to strangers
+during the minority of Lord Robert's
+sickly son; the father being an absentee,
+the mother in an early grave.
+She lived long enough, however, to
+be a repining wife; and my neighbour,
+Sir Julius Altham, has more
+than once hinted to me, that, of the
+whole family, the portion of Selina
+most deserved compassion.</p>
+
+<p>To me, however, her callous conduct
+towards that gentle sister, always
+rendered her the least interesting of
+my <span class="smcap">Country Neighbours</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg&nbsp;453]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="TRAVELS_OF_KERIM_KHAN" id="TRAVELS_OF_KERIM_KHAN"></a>TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>Among the various signs of the
+times which mark the changes of
+manners in these latter days of the
+world, not the least remarkable is the
+increasing frequency of the visits paid
+by the natives of the East to the regions
+of Europe. Time was, within
+the memory of most of the present
+generation, when the sight of a genuine
+Oriental in a London drawing-room,
+except in the angel visits, "few
+and far between," of a Persian or
+Moorish ambassador, was a rarity beyond
+the reach of even the most determined
+lion-hunters; and if by any
+fortunate chance a stray Persian khan,
+or a "very magnificent three-tailed
+bashaw," was brought within the
+circle of the quidnuncs of the day,
+the sayings and doings of the illustrious
+stranger were chronicled with
+as much minuteness as if he had been
+the denizen of another planet. Every
+hair of his beard, every jewel in the
+hilt of his khanjar, was enumerated
+and criticised; while all oriental etiquette
+was violated by the constant
+enquiries addressed to him relative to
+the number of his wives, and the economy
+of his domestic arrangements.
+"<i>Mais &agrave; present on a chang&eacute; tout
+cela.</i>" The reforms of Sultan Mahmood,
+the invention of steam, and
+the re-opening of the overland route
+to India, have combined to effect a
+mighty revolution in all these points.
+Osmanlis, with shaven chins and tight
+trousers,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> have long been as plenty
+as blackberries in the saloons of the
+West, eating the flesh of the unclean
+beast, quaffing champagne, and even
+(if we have been rightly informed)
+figuring in quadrilles with the moon-faced
+daughters of the Franks; and
+though the natives of the more distant
+regions of the East have not yet appeared
+among us in such number,
+yet the lamb-skin cap of the Persian,
+the <i>pugree</i>, or small Indian turban, and
+even the queer head-dress of the Parsee,
+is far from being a stranger in
+our assemblies. We doubt whether
+the name of Akhbar Khan himself,
+proclaimed at the foot of a staircase,
+would excite the same <em>sensation</em> in the
+present day, as the announcement of
+the most undistinguished wearer of
+the turban some ten or twenty years
+ago; but of the "Tours" and "Narratives"
+which are usually the inevitable
+result of such an influx of pilgrims,
+our Oriental visitors have as
+yet produced hardly their due proportion.
+For many years, the travels of
+Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, a Hindustani<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>
+Moslem of rank and education,
+who visited Europe in the concluding
+years of the last century, stood alone
+as an example of the effect produced
+on an Asiatic by his observation of
+the manners and customs of the West;
+and even of late our stock has not
+been much increased. The journal
+of the Persian princes (a translation
+of which, by their Syrian mehmandar,
+Assaad Yakoob Khayat, has been
+printed in England for private circulation)
+is curious, as giving a picture
+of European ways and manners when
+viewed through a purely Asiatic medium;
+while the remarkably sensible
+and well-written narrative of the two
+Parsees who lately visited this country
+for the purpose of instruction in
+naval architecture,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> differs little from
+the description of the same objects
+which would be given by an intelligent
+and well-educated European, if
+they could be presented to him in the
+aspect of utter novelty. The latest
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg&nbsp;454]</a></span>
+of these Oriental wanderers in the ungenial
+climes of Franguestan, is the
+one whose name appears at the head
+of this article, and who, with a rare
+and commendable modesty, has preferred
+introducing himself to the public
+under the protecting guidance of
+Maga, to venturing, alone and without
+a pilot, among the perilous rocks
+and shoals of the critics of <em>the Row</em>;
+him therefore we shall now introduce,
+without further comment, to the favourable
+notice of our readers.</p>
+
+<p>Of Kerim Khan himself, the writer
+of his narrative, and of his motives
+for daring the perils of the <i>kala-pani</i>,
+(or black water, the Hindi name for
+the ocean,) on a visit to Franguestan,
+we have little information beyond
+what can be gathered from the MS.
+itself. There can be no doubt, however,
+that he was a Mussulman gentleman
+of rank and consideration, and
+of information far superior to that of
+his countrymen in general; nor does
+it appear that he was driven, like
+Mirza Abu-Talib, by political misfortune,
+to seek in strange climes the
+security which his native land denied
+him. His narrative commences abruptly:&mdash;"On
+the 21st of Ramazan, in
+the year of the Hejra 1255," (Dec. 1,
+A.D. 1839,) "between four and five
+in the afternoon, I took leave of the
+imperial city of Delhi, and proceeded
+to our boat, which was at anchor near
+the Derya Ganj." The voyage down
+the Jumna, to its junction with the
+Ganges at Allahabad, a distance of
+not more than 550 miles by land, but
+which the endless windings of the
+stream increase to 2010 by water,
+presents few incidents worthy of notice:
+but our traveller observes <i>par
+parenth&egrave;se</i>, that "though it is said that
+the sources of this river have not been
+discovered, I have heard from those
+who have crossed the Himalaya from
+China, that it rises in that country on
+the other side of the mountains, and,
+forcing its way through them, arrives
+at Bighamber. They say that gold is
+found there in large quantities, and
+the reason they assign is this&mdash;the
+philosopher's stone is found in that
+country, and whatever touches it becomes
+gold, but the stone itself can
+never be found!" Near Muttra he
+encountered the splendid cort&egrave;ge of
+Lord Auckland, then returning to Calcutta
+after his famous interview with
+Runjeet Singh at Lahore, with such
+a <i>suwarree</i> as must have recalled the
+pomp and <i>sultanut</i> for which the memory
+of Warren Hastings is even yet
+celebrated among the natives of India:
+"his staff and escort, with the civil
+and military officers of government in
+attendance on him, amounted to about
+4000 persons, besides 300 elephants
+and 800 camels." The noble buildings
+of Akbarabad or Agra, the capital
+and residence of Akbar and
+Shalijehan, the mightiest and most
+magnificent of the Mogul emperors,
+detained the traveller for a day; and
+he notices with deserved eulogium the
+splendid mausoleum of Shalijehan and
+his queen, known as the Taj-Mahal.
+There is nothing that can be compared
+with it, and those who have visited the
+farthest parts of the globe, have seen
+nothing like it.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> At Allahabad he
+launched on the broad stream of the
+Ganges; and after passing through
+part of the territory of <i>Awadh</i> or
+Oude, the insecurity of life and property
+in which is strongly contrasted
+with the rigid police in the Company's
+dominions, arrived in due time at the
+holy city of Benares, the centre of
+Hindoo and Brahminical sanctity.</p>
+
+<p>The shrines of Benares, with their
+swarms of sacred monkeys and Brahminy
+bulls, were objects of little interest
+to our Moslem wayfarer, who
+on the contrary recounts with visible
+satisfaction the destruction of several
+of these <i>But Khanas</i>, or idol-temples, by
+the intolerable bigotry of Aurungzib,
+and the erection of mosques on their
+sites. Among the objects of attraction
+in the environs of the city, he
+particularly notices a famous footprint<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>
+upon stone, called the <i>Kadmsherif</i>,
+or holy mark, deposited in a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg&nbsp;455]</a></span>
+mosque near the serai of Aurungabad,
+and said to have been brought from
+Mekka by Sheik Mohammed Ali
+Hazin, whom the translator of his
+interesting autobiography (published
+in 1830 by the Oriental Society) has
+made known to the British public, up
+to the period when the tyranny of
+Nadir Shah drove him from Persia.
+"Here, during his lifetime, he used
+to go sometimes on a Thursday, and
+give alms to the poor in the name of
+God. He was a very learned and
+accomplished man; and his writings,
+both in prose and verse, were equal
+to those of Zahiri and Naziri. When
+he first came to India, he resided for
+some years at Delhi; but having had
+some dispute with the poet-laureate of
+the Emperor Mohammed Shah, he
+found himself under the necessity of
+retiring to Benares, where he lived
+in great privacy. As he was a stranger
+in the country, was engaged in no
+calling or profession, and received no
+allowance from the Emperor, it was
+never known whence, or how, he was
+supplied with the means of keeping
+up the establishment he did, which
+consisted of some hundred servants,
+palanquins, horses, &amp;c. It is said that
+when the Nawab Shujah-ed-dowlah
+projected his attack on the English in
+Bengal, he consulted the Sheik on the
+subject, who strongly dissuaded him
+from the undertaking. He died
+shortly after the battle of Buxar in
+1180," (A.D. 1766.) The battle of
+Buxar was fought Oct. 23, 1764; but
+that Sheik Ali Hazin died somewhere
+about this time, seems more probable
+than that his life was extended (as
+stated by Sir Gore Ouseley) till
+1779; since he describes himself at
+the conclusion of his memoirs in 1742,
+when only in his 53d year, as "leading
+the dullest course of existence in
+the dullest of all dull countries, and
+disabled by his increasing infirmities
+from any active exertion of either body
+or mind"&mdash;a state of things scarcely
+promising a prolongation of life to
+the age of ninety.</p>
+
+<p>Resuming his voyage from Benares,
+the Khan notices with wonder the
+apparition of the steamers plying between
+Calcutta and Allahabad, several
+of which he met on his course, and
+regarded with the astonishment natural
+in one who had never before
+seen a ship impelled, apparently by
+smoke, against wind and tide:&mdash;"I
+need hardly say how intensely I
+watched every movement of this extraordinary,
+and to me incomprehensible
+machine, which in its passage
+created such a vast commotion in the
+waters, that my poor little <i>budjrow</i>
+(pinnace) felt its effects for the space
+of full two <i>hos</i>," (nearly four miles.)
+The picturesque situation of the city
+of Azimabad or Patna,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> extending for
+several miles along the right bank of
+the Ganges, with the villas and beautiful
+gardens of the resident English
+interspersed among the houses, is described
+in terms of high admiration;
+and the mosques, some of which were
+as old as the time of the Patan emperors,
+are not forgotten by our Moslem traveller
+in his enumeration of the marvels
+of the city. A few days' more boating
+brought him to Rajmahal; "on one
+side of which," says he, "the country
+is called Bengal, and on the other
+<i>Poorb</i>, or the East"&mdash;a name from which
+the independent dynasty of Moslem
+kings, who once ruled in Bengal, assumed
+the appellation of <i>Poorby-Shaby</i>.
+He was now among the rice-fields, the
+extent and luxuriance of which surprised
+him: "There are a great variety
+of sorts, and if a man were to
+take a grain of each sort he might
+soon fill a <i>lota</i> (water-pot) with them&mdash;so
+innumerable are the different
+kinds. The cultivators who have
+measured the largest species, have declared
+them to exceed the length of
+fifty cubits; but I have never seen
+any of this length, though others may
+have." He now entered the Bhagirutti,
+or branch of the Ganges leading
+to Calcutta, and which bears in the
+lower part of its course the better
+known name of the Hoogly&mdash;while
+the main stream to the left is again
+subdivided into innumerable ramifications,
+the greater part of which lose
+themselves among the vast marshes
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg&nbsp;456]</a></span>
+of the Sunderbunds; but he complains,
+that "though by this branch large
+vessels and steamers pass up and
+down to and from the Presidency, the
+route is very bad, from the extensive
+jungles on both banks, which are
+haunted by Thugs and <i>Decoits</i>, (river
+pirates:)&mdash;indeed I have heard and
+read, that the shores of the Ganges
+have been infested by freebooters,
+pirates, and thieves of all sorts, from
+time immemorial." He escaped unharmed,
+however, through these manifold
+perils; and passing Murshidabad,
+the ancient capital of Bengal, and
+other places of less note, his remarks
+upon which we shall not stay to quote,
+reached the ghauts of Calcutta in
+safety.</p>
+
+<p>A place so often described as the
+"City of Palaces," presents little that
+is novel in the narrative of the khan;
+but he does full justice to the splendour
+of the architecture, which he says
+"exceeds that of <em>China or Ispahan</em>&mdash;a
+superiority which arises from the immense
+sums which every governor-general
+has laid out upon public
+works, and in improving and adorning
+the city: the Marquis Wellesley,
+in particular, expended lakhs of rupees
+in this way." The account which
+he gives, however, from a Mahommedan
+writer, of the disputes with the
+Mogul government which led to the
+transference of the British factory and
+commerce from its original seat at
+Hoogly to <i>Kali-kata</i>,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> or Calcutta,
+differs considerably from that given
+by the British historians, if we are to
+suppose the events here alluded to
+(the date of which the khan does not
+mention) to be those which occurred
+in 1686 and 1687, when Charnock
+defended the factory at Hoogly against
+the Imperial deputy, Shaista Khan.
+Our traveller's version of these occurrences
+is, that the factories of the
+English, which were then established
+on the Ghol Ghaut at Hoogly, having
+been overthrown by an earthquake,
+"Mr Charnock, the head officer of the
+factory, purchasing a garden called
+Banarasi, had the trees cut down, and
+commenced a new building. But
+while it was in progress, the principal
+Mogul merchants and inhabitants laid
+a complaint before Meer Nasir, the
+<i>foujdar</i>, (chief of police,) that their
+houses and harems would be overlooked,
+and great scandal occasioned,
+if the strangers should be allowed to
+erect such lofty buildings in the midst
+of the city.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The complaint was referred
+by the foujdar to the nawab,
+who forthwith issued orders for the
+discontinuance of the works, which
+were accordingly abandoned. The
+Company's agent, though highly offended
+at this arbitrary proceeding,
+was unable to resist it, having only
+one ship and a few sepoys; and, in
+spite of the efforts of the foujdar to
+dissuade him, he embarked with all
+his goods, and set sail for the peninsula,"
+(qu. Indjeli?) "having first
+set fire to such houses as were near
+the river. At this time, however, the
+Emperor Aurungzib was in the Carnatic,
+beleaguered by the Mahrattas,
+who had cut off all supplies from his
+camp; and the Company's agent in
+that country, hearing of this, sent a
+large quantity of grain, which had
+been recently imported for their own
+use, for the relief of the army. Having
+thus gained the favour and protection
+of the Asylum of the World,
+the English were not only permitted
+to build factories in various parts of
+the country, but were exempted from
+the duties formerly laid on their
+goods. Charnock returned to Bengal
+with the emperor's firman; and the
+nawab, seeing how matters stood,
+withdrew his opposition to the erection
+of the factory at Hoogly. The
+English, however, preferred another
+situation, and chose Calcutta, where
+a building was soon erected, the same
+which is now called the old fort."
+This account, which is in fact more
+favourable to the English than that
+given by their own writers, is the only
+notice of these transactions we have
+ever found from a Mahommedan author;
+for so small was the importance
+attached by the Moguls to these
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg&nbsp;457]</a></span>
+obscure squabbles with a few Frank
+merchants, that even the historian
+Khafi-Khan, who acted as the emperor's
+representative for settling the
+differences which broke out about the
+same time in Bombay, makes no allusion
+to the simultaneous rupture in
+Bengal.</p>
+
+<p>Our author, like Bishop Heber,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>
+and other travellers on the same route,
+is struck by the contrast between the
+robust and well-fed peasantry of Hindustan
+Proper, and the puny rice-eaters
+of Bengal; "who eat fish,
+boiled rice, bitter oil; and an infinite
+variety of vegetables; but of wheaten
+or barley bread, and of pulse, they
+know not the taste, nor of mutton,
+fowl, or <i>ghee</i>, (clarified butter.) The
+author of the <i>Riaz-es-Selatin</i>, is indeed
+of opinion that such food does
+not suit their constitutions, and would
+make them ill if they were to eat it"&mdash;an
+invaluable doctrine to establish
+in dieting a pauper population! "As
+to their dress, they have barely enough
+to cover them&mdash;only a piece of cloth,
+called a <i>dhoti</i>, wrapped round their
+loins, while their head-dress consists
+of a dirty rag rolled two or three
+times round the temples, and leaving
+the crown bare. But the natives of
+Hindustan, and even their descendants
+to the second and third generation,
+always wear the <i>jamah</i>, or long
+muslin robe, out of doors, though in
+the house they adopt the Bengali custom.
+The author of the <i>Kholasat-al
+Tow&#257;rikh</i>, (an historical work,) says
+that both men and women formerly
+went naked; and no doubt he is right,
+for they can hardly be said to do
+otherwise now." Such are the peasants
+of Bengal&mdash;a race differing from
+the natives of Hindustan in language,
+manners, food, dress, and personal
+appearance; but who, from their vicinity
+to the seat of the English Supreme
+Government, have served as
+models for the descriptions given by
+many superficial travellers, as applying
+to all the natives of British India,
+without distinction! The horrible
+Hindu custom of immersing the sick,
+when considered past recovery, in the
+Ganges, and holding their lower limbs
+under water till they expire,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> excites,
+as may be expected, the disgust of the
+khan; but the reason which he assigns
+for it, "the belief of these people,
+that if a man die in his own
+house, he would cause the death of
+every member of the family by assuming
+the form of a <i>bhut</i> or evil spirit,"
+is new to us, and appears to be analogous
+to the superstitious dread entertained
+by the Greeks and Sclavonians,
+of a corpse reanimated into a <i>Vroucolochas</i>,
+or vampire. "But if a man
+escapes from their hands, and recovers
+after this treatment, he is shunned by
+every one; and there are many villages
+in Bengal, called <em>villages of the
+dead</em>, inhabited by men who have thus
+escaped death; they are considered
+dead to society, and no other persons
+will dwell in the same villages."</p>
+
+<p>The stay of the khan in Calcutta
+was prolonged for more than a month,
+during which time he rented a house
+from a native proprietor in the quarter
+of Kolitolla. While removing his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg&nbsp;458]</a></span>
+effects from his boat to this residence,
+he became involved in a dispute with
+the police, in consequence of the violation
+by his servants, through ignorance,
+of the regulation which forbids
+persons from the Upper Provinces to
+enter the city armed; but this unintentional
+infringement of orders was
+easily explained and arranged by the
+intervention of an European friend,
+and the arms, of which the police
+had taken possession, were restored.
+While engaged in preparing for his
+voyage, the khan made the best use
+of his time in visiting the public buildings,
+and other objects of interest,
+among which he particularly notices
+the <i>minar</i> or column erected in the
+<i>maidan</i>, (square,) near the viceregal
+palace of the Nawab Governor-General
+Bahadur, by a subscription
+among the officers of the army, native
+as well as English, to the memory
+of the late Sir David Ochterlony; but
+rates it, with truth, as greatly inferior,
+both in dimensions and beauty, to the
+famous pillar of the Kootb-Minar near
+Delhi. The colossal fortifications of
+Fort-William are also duly commemorated;
+"they resemble an embankment
+externally, but when viewed
+from within are exceedingly high&mdash;no
+foe could penetrate within them, much
+less reach the treasures and magazines
+in the interior." Our traveller also
+visited the English courts of justice,
+in the proceedings of which he seems
+to have taken great interest, and was
+apparently treated with much hospitality
+by many of the European
+functionaries and other residents, by
+whom he was furnished with numerous
+letters of introduction, as well as
+receiving much information respecting
+the manners and customs of <i>Ingilistan</i>,
+or England. The choice of a
+ship, and the selection of sea-stock,
+were of course matters of grave consideration,
+and the more so from the
+peculiar unfitness of the habits and
+religious scruples of an Indian Moslem
+for the privations unavoidable at
+sea; but a passage was at last taken
+for the khan and his two servants on
+board the Edinburgh of 1400 tons,
+and it being agreed that he should
+find his own provisions, to obviate all
+mistakes on the score of forbidden
+food, and the captain promising moreover
+that his comforts should be carefully
+attended to, this weighty negotiation
+was at length concluded. It is
+due to the khan to say, that whether
+from being better equipped, or from
+being endued with more philosophy
+and forbearance than his compatriot,
+Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, (to whom we
+have above referred,) he seems to have
+reconciled himself to the hardships of
+the <i>kala-pani</i>, or ocean, with an exceedingly
+good grace; and we find
+none of the complaints which fill the
+pages of the Mirza against the impurity
+of his food, the impossibility of
+performing his ablutions in appointed
+time and manner, and sundry other
+abominations by which he was so grievously
+afflicted, that at a time of danger
+to the vessel, "though many of
+the passengers were much alarmed, I,
+for my own part, was so weary of life
+that I was perfectly indifferent to my
+fate." Abu-Talib, however, sailed in
+an ill-regulated Danish ship; and in
+summing up the horrors of the sea, he
+strongly recommends his countrymen,
+if compelled to brave its miseries, to
+embark in none but an English vessel.</p>
+
+<p>During the last days of the khan's
+sojourn in Calcutta, he witnessed the
+splendid celebration of the rites of the
+Mohurrum, when the slaughter of the
+brother Imams, Hassan and Hussein,
+the martyred grandsons of the Prophet,
+is lamented by all sects of the
+faithful, but more especially by the
+<i>Rafedhis</i> or Sheahs, the followers of
+Ali, "of whom there are many in
+Calcutta, though they are less numerous
+than the orthodox sect or Sunnis,
+from whom they are distinguished,
+at this season, by wearing black as
+mourning. At the <i>Baitak-Khana</i> (a
+quarter of Calcutta) we witnessed the
+splendid procession of the <i>Taz&icirc;ya</i>,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+with the banners and flags flying, and
+the wailers beating their breasts."...
+"It is the custom here, at this season,
+for all the natch-girls (dancers) to sit in
+the streets of the Chandnibazar, under
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg&nbsp;459]</a></span>
+canopies decorated with wreaths and
+flowers in the most fantastic manner,
+and sell sweetmeats, cardamums, betelnuts,
+&amp;c., upon stalls, displaying their
+charms to the passers-by. I took
+a turn here one evening with five
+others, and found crowds of people
+collected, both strangers and residents:
+nor do they ordinarily disperse
+till long after midnight." On the second
+day after his visit to this scene
+of gaiety, he received notice that the
+ship was ready for sea; and on the
+8th of Mohurrum 1256, (March 13,
+1840,) he accordingly embarked with
+his baggage and servants on board the
+Edinburgh, which was towed in seven
+days, by a steamer, down the river to
+Saugor; and the pilot quitting her
+the next day at the floating light. "I
+now found myself," (says the khan,)
+"for the first time in my life, in the
+great ocean, where nothing was to be
+seen around but sky and water."</p>
+
+<p>The account of a voyage at sea, as
+given by an Oriental, is usually the
+most deplorable of narratives&mdash;filled
+with exaggerated fears, the horrors of
+sea-sickness, and endless lamentations
+of the evil fate of the writer, in being
+exposed to such a complication of miseries.
+Of the wailing of Mirza
+Abu-Talib we have already given a
+specimen: and the Persian princes,
+even in the luxurious comfort of an
+English Mediterranean steamer, seem
+to have fared but little better, in their
+own estimation at least, than the Mirza
+in his dirty and disorderly Danish
+merchantman. "Our bones cried,
+'Alas! for this evil there is no remedy.'
+We were vomiting all the time, and
+thus afflicted with incurable evils, in
+the midst of a sea which appears
+without end, the state of my health
+bad, the sufferings of my brothers
+very great, and no hope of being
+saved, we became most miserable."
+Such is the na&iuml;ve exposition of his
+woes, by H. R. H. Najaf Kooli Mirza;
+but Kerim Khan appears, both
+physically and morally, to have been
+made of different metal. Ere he had
+been two days on board we find him
+remarking&mdash;"I had by this time made
+some acquaintance among the passengers,
+and began to find my situation
+less irksome and lonely;" shortly afterwards
+adding&mdash;"The annoyances
+inseparable from this situation were
+relieved, in some measure, by the music
+and dancing going on every day except
+Sundays, owing to the numerous party
+of passengers, both gentlemen and
+ladies, whom we had on board&mdash;seeing
+which, a man forgets his griefs and
+troubles in the general mirth around
+him." So popular, indeed, does the
+khan appear already to have become,
+that the captain, finding that he had
+hitherto abstained from the use of his
+pipe, that great ingredient in Oriental
+comfort, from an idea that smoking
+was prohibited on board, "instantly
+sent for my hookah, had it properly
+prepared for me, and insisted on my
+not relinquishing this luxury, the privation
+of which he knew would occasion
+me considerable inconvenience."
+In other respects, also, he seems to
+have been not less happily constituted;
+for though he says that "the rolling
+and rocking of the ship, when it entered
+the <em>dark waters</em> or open sea,
+completely upset my two companions,
+who became extremely sick"&mdash;his
+remarks on the incidents of the voyage,
+and the novel phenomena which
+presented themselves to his view, are
+never interrupted by any of those pathetic
+lamentations on the instability
+of the human stomach, which form so
+important and doleful an episode in
+the relations of most landsmen, of
+whatever creed or nation.</p>
+
+<p>The commencement of the voyage
+was prosperous; and the ship ran to
+the south before a fair wind, interrupted
+only by a few days of partial
+calm, till it reached the latitude of
+Ceylon, where the appearance of the
+flying fish excited the special wonder
+of the khan, who was by this time
+beginning, under the tuition of his
+fellow passengers, to make some progress
+in the English language, and had
+even attempted to fathom some of the
+mysteries of the science of navigation;
+"but though I took the sextant which
+the captain handed me, and held it precisely
+as he had done, I could make
+nothing of it." The regular performance
+of the Church service on Sundays,
+and the cessation on that day
+from the ordinary amusements, is specially
+noticed on several occasions,
+and probably made a deeper impression
+on the mind of our Moslem
+friend, from the popular belief current
+in India that the <i>Feringhis</i> are men <em>of
+no caste</em>, without religious faith or ceremonies&mdash;a
+belief which the conduct
+and demeanour of the Anglo-Indians
+in past times tended, in too many
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg&nbsp;460]</a></span>
+instances, to confirm. Off the southern
+extremity of Ceylon, the ship was
+again becalmed for several days; but
+the tedium of this interval was relieved,
+not only by the ordinary sea
+incidents of the capture of a shark and
+the appearance of a whale, (the zoological
+distinctions between which and
+the true fishes are stated by the khan
+with great correctness,) but by the
+occurrence of a mutiny on board an
+English vessel in company, which was
+fortunately quelled by the exertions
+of the captain of the Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>"The spicy gales of Ceylon,"
+blowing off the coast to the distance,
+as stated, of fifty miles, (an extremely
+moderate range when compared with
+the accounts of some other travellers,)
+at last brought on their wings the
+grateful announcement of the termination
+of the calm; but before quitting
+the vicinity of this famous island,
+(more celebrated in eastern story under
+the name of Serendib,) the khan
+gives some notices of the legends connected
+with its history, which show a
+more extended acquaintance with Hindu
+literature than the Moslems in
+India in general take the trouble of
+acquiring. Among the rest he alludes
+to the epic of the Ramayuna, and the
+bridge built by Rama (or as he calls
+him, Rajah Ram Chunder) for the
+passage of the monkey army and their
+redoubled general, Huniman, from the
+Indian continent into the island, in
+order to deliver from captivity Seeta,
+the wife of the hero. The wind still
+continuing favourable, the ship quickly
+passed the equator, and the pole-star
+was no longer visible&mdash;"a proof
+of the earth's sphericity which I was
+glad to have had an opportunity of
+seeing;" and they left, at a short distance
+to the right, the islands of Mauritius
+and Bourbon, "which are not
+far from the great island of Madagascar,
+where the faithful turn their faces
+to the north when they pray, as they
+turn them to the west in India," the
+<i>kiblah</i>, or point of direction, being in
+both cases the kaaba, or temple of
+Mekka. They were now approaching
+the latitude of the Cape; and our
+voyager was astonished by the countless
+multitudes of sea-birds which surrounded
+the ship, and particularly by
+the giant bulk of the albatrosses,
+"which I was told remained day and
+night on the ocean, repairing to the
+coast of Africa only at the period of
+incubation." The Cape of Storms,
+however, as it was originally named by
+Vasco de Gama, did not fail on this
+occasion to keep up its established
+character for bad weather. A severe
+gale set in from the east, which
+speedily increased to a storm. A
+sailor fell from "the third stage of the
+mainmast," (the main topgallant yard,)
+and was killed on the deck; and as
+the inhospitable shores of Africa were
+close under their lee, the ship appears
+for some time to have been in considerable
+danger. But in this (to him)
+novel scene of peril, the khan manifests
+a degree of self-possession,
+strongly contrasting with the timidity
+of the royal grandsons of Futteh Ali
+Shah, the expression of whose fears
+during a gale is absolutely ludicrous.
+"We were so miserable that we gave
+up all hope; we gave up our souls,
+and began to beseech God for forgiveness;
+while the wind continued increasing,
+and all the waves of the
+western sea rose up in mountains, with
+never-ceasing noise, till they reached
+the planets." Even after the violence
+of the hurricane had in some measure
+abated, the sea continued to run so
+high that the ports were kept closed
+for several days. "At last, however,
+they were opened for the purpose of
+ventilating the interior; and the band,
+which had been silent for some days,
+began to play again." The appearance
+of a water-spout on the same afternoon
+is thus described:&mdash;"An object
+became visible in the distance, in
+the form of a minaret, and every one
+on board crowded on deck to look at
+it. On asking what it was, I was told
+that what appeared to be a minaret
+was only water, which was drawn
+up towards the heavens by the force
+of the wind, and when this ceased
+would fall again into the sea, and was
+what we should call a whirlwind. This
+is sometimes extremely dangerous to
+vessels, since, if it reaches them, it is
+so powerful as to draw them out of
+the sea in the same manner as it draws
+up the water; in consequence of
+which many ships have been lost when
+they have been overtaken by this wonderful
+phenomenon."</p>
+
+<p>The storm was succeeded by a calm,
+which detained the ship for two days
+within sight of the lofty mountains
+near the Cape. "It was bitterly
+cold, for the seasons are here reversed,
+and instead of summer, as we should
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg&nbsp;461]</a></span>
+have expected, it was now the depth
+of winter. At length, however, (on
+the 69th day after our leaving Calcutta,)
+a strong breeze sprung up,
+which enabled us to set all sail, and
+carried us away from this table-land."
+The run from the Cape to St Helena
+seems to have been barren of incident,
+except an accidental encounter with a
+vessel in distress, which proved to be
+a slaver which had been captured by
+an English cruiser, and had sustained
+serious damage in the late storm while
+proceeding to the Cape with a prize
+crew. On approaching St Helena,
+the captain "gave orders for the ship
+to be painted, both inside and out, that
+the people of the island might not say
+we came in a dirty ship; and as we
+neared the land, a white flag was
+hoisted to apprise those on shore that
+there was no one ill on board. In
+cases of sickness a yellow flag is displayed,
+and then no one is permitted
+to land from the ship for fear of contagion.
+The island is about twenty-six
+miles in circuit, and is constantly
+enveloped in fog and mist. It is
+said to have been formerly a volcano,
+but has now ceased to smoke. The
+vegetation is luxuriant, but few of the
+flowers are fragrant. I recognised
+some, however, both flowers and fruits,
+which seemed similar to those of India.
+I took the opportunity of landing
+with the captain to see the town,
+which is small, but extremely well
+fortified, the cannon being so numerous
+that one might suppose the whole
+island one immense iron-foundery. It
+is populous, the inhabitants being
+chiefly Jews and English; but as it
+was Sunday, and all the shops were
+shut, it had a dull appearance. After
+surveying the town, I ascended a hill
+in the country, leading to the tomb of
+Napoleon Bonaparte, which is on an
+elevated spot, four miles from the
+town.</p>
+
+<p>"This celebrated personage was a
+native of Corsica; and enjoying a fortunate
+horoscope, he entered the
+French army, and speedily rose to the
+rank of general; and afterwards, with
+the consent of the people and the soldiery,
+made himself emperor. After
+this he conquered several kingdoms,
+and the fame of his prowess and his
+victories filled all the European world.
+When he invaded Russia, he defeated
+the Muscovites in several great battles,
+and took their capital; but, in
+consequence of the intensity of the
+cold, several thousands of his army
+both men and horses, perished miserably.
+This catastrophe obliged him
+to return to France, where he undertook
+the conquest of another country.
+At this time George III. reigned in
+England; and having collected all
+the disposable forces of his kingdom,
+appointed Lord Wellington (the same
+general who was employed in the
+war against Tippoo Sultan in Mysore)
+to command them, and sent
+him to combat the French Emperor.
+He entered Spain, and forced
+the Emperor's brother, Yusuf, (Joseph,)
+who was king of that country,
+to fly&mdash;till after a variety of battles
+and incidents, too numerous to
+particularize, the two hostile armies
+met at a place called by the English
+Waterloo, where a bloody battle was
+fought, as famous as that of P&#257;sh&#257;n,
+between Sohrab and the hero Rustan:
+and Napoleon was overthrown and
+made prisoner. He was then sent,
+though in a manner suitable to his
+rank, to this island of St Helena,
+where, after a few years, he finished
+his earthly career. His tomb is much
+visited by all who touch at the island,
+and has become a <i>durgah</i> (shrine) for
+innumerable visitors from Europe.
+There are persons appointed to take
+care of it, who give to strangers, in
+consideration of a small present, the
+leaves and flowers of the trees which
+grow round the tomb. No other
+Emperor of the Europeans was ever
+so honoured as to have had his tomb
+made a shrine and place of pilgrimage:
+nor was ever one so great a
+conqueror, or so renowned for his
+valour and victories."</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the voyage from
+St Helena to England was apparently
+marked by no incident worthy of
+mention, as the khan notices only the
+reappearance of the pole-star on their
+crossing the line, and re-entering the
+northern hemisphere, and their reaching
+once more the latitude of Delhi,
+"which we now passed many thousand
+miles to our right; after which
+nothing of importance occurred till
+we reached the British Channel, when
+we saw the Scilly Isles in the distance,
+and about noon caught a
+glimpse of the Lizard Point, and the
+south coast of England, together with
+the lighthouse: the country of the
+French lay on our right at the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg&nbsp;462]</a></span>
+distance of about eighty miles. I was
+given to understand that the whole
+distance from St Helena to London,
+by the ship's reckoning, was 6328
+miles, and 16,528 from Calcutta."
+In the Downs the pilot came on board,
+from whom they received the news
+of the attempt recently made by Oxford
+on the life of the Queen; and
+here the captain, anxious to lose no
+time in reaching London, quitted the
+vessel as it entered the Thames, "the
+sources of which famous river, I was
+informed, were near a place called
+Cirencester, eighty-eight miles from
+London, in the <i>zillah</i> (county) of
+Gloucester." The ship was now
+taken in tow by a couple of steam-tugs,
+and passing Woolwich, "where
+are the war-ships and <i>top-khana</i> (arsenal)
+of the English Padishah, at
+length reached Blackwall, where we
+anchored."</p>
+
+<p>"I now (continues the khan) returned
+thanks to God for having
+brought me safe through the wide
+ocean to this extraordinary country&mdash;bethinking
+myself of the answer once
+made by a man who had undertaken
+a voyage, on being asked by his
+friends what he had seen most wonderful&mdash;'The
+greatest wonder I have
+seen is seeing myself alive on land!'"
+The troubles of the khan, however,
+were far from being ended by his arrival
+on <i>terra firma</i>: for apparently
+from some mistake or inadvertence,
+(the cause of which does not very
+clearly appear,) on the part of the
+friends whom he had expected to meet
+him, he found himself, on landing at
+Blackwall and proceeding by the
+railway to London, left alone by the
+person who had thus far been his
+guide, in apartments near Cornhill,
+almost wholly unacquainted with the
+English language, separated from his
+baggage and servants, who were still
+on board the Edinburgh, and with no
+one in his company but another Hindustani,
+as little versed as himself in
+the ways and speech of Franguestan.
+In this "considerable unhandsome
+fix," as it would be called on the other
+side of the Atlantic, the perplexities
+of the khan are related with such inimitable
+na&iuml;vet&eacute; and good-humour,
+that we cannot do better than give
+the account of them in his own words.
+"As I could neither ask for any
+thing, nor answer any question put to
+me, I passed the whole night without
+a morsel of food or a drop of water:
+till in the morning, feeling hungry, I
+requested my companion to go to some
+bazar and buy some fruit. He replied
+that it would be impossible for
+him either to find his way to a bazar
+through the crowds of people, or to
+find his way back again&mdash;as all the
+houses were so much alike. I then
+told him to go straight on in the
+street we were in, turning neither to
+the right nor the left till he met with
+some shop where we might get what
+we wanted: and, in order to direct
+him to the place on his return, I
+agreed to lean half out of the window,
+so that he could not fail to see me.
+No sooner, however, did he sally
+forth, than the people, men, women,
+and children, began to stare at him
+on all sides, as if he had dropped from
+the moon; some stopped and gazed,
+and numbers followed him as if he
+had been a criminal about being led
+to execution. Nor was I in a more
+enviable position: the people soon
+caught sight of me with my head and
+shoulders out of the window; and in
+a few minutes a mob had collected
+opposite the door. What was I to
+do? If I withdrew myself, my friend
+on returning would have no mark to
+find the house, while, if I remained
+where I was, the curiosity of the
+crowd would certainly increase. I kept
+my post, however, while every one that
+passed stopped and gazed like the rest,
+till there was actually no room for
+vehicles to pass; and in this unpleasant
+situation I remained fully an hour,
+when seeing my friend returning, I
+went down and opened the door for
+him. He told me he had gone straight
+on, till he came to a fruit-shop, at the
+corner of another street, when he
+went in, and laying two shillings on
+the counter, said in Oordu, (the polished
+dialect of Hindustani,) 'Give
+me some fruit.' The shopman, not
+understanding him, spoke to him in
+English; to which he replied again
+in Oordu, 'I want some fruit!'
+pointing at the same time to the
+money, to signify that he wanted two
+shillings' worth of fruit. The man,
+however, continued confounded; and
+my friend at last, not knowing of
+what sort the fruits were, whether
+sour or sweet, bitter or otherwise,
+ventured, after much hesitation and
+fruitless attempts to communicate
+with the shopman by signs and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg&nbsp;463]</a></span>
+gestures, to take up four apples, and then
+made his retreat in the best manner
+he could, followed, as here, by the
+rabble. I at last caught a glimpse of
+him, as I have mentioned, and let him
+in; and we sat down together, and
+breakfasted on these four apples, my
+friend taking two of them, and I the
+others."</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that our khan's
+first meal in England, and the concomitant
+circumstances, were not calculated
+to impress him with a very
+high idea, either of the comforts of
+the country or the politeness of the
+inhabitants; but the unruffled philosophy
+with which he submitted to
+these untoward privations was, ere-long,
+rewarded by the arrival of the
+East India agent to whose care he had
+been recommended, and who, after
+putting him in the way of getting his
+servants and luggage on shore from
+the vessel, took him out in a carriage
+to show him the metropolis. "It was,
+indeed, wonderful in every point of
+view, whether I regarded the immense
+population, the dresses and
+faces of the men and women, the multitudes
+of houses, churches, &amp;c., and
+the innumerable carriages running in
+streets paved with stone and wood,
+(the width and openness of which
+seem to expand the heart,) and confining
+themselves to the middle of the
+road, without overturning any of the
+foot-passengers." The cathedral of
+St Paul's is described with great minuteness
+of detail, and the expense of
+its erection stated at seventy-three
+lakhs of rupees, (about L.750,000;)
+"but I have heard that if a similar
+edifice were erected in the present
+day, it would cost four times as much,
+as the cost of every thing has increased
+in at least that proportion."</p>
+
+<p>The difficulties of the khan, from
+his ignorance of the language, and
+Moslem scruples at partaking of food
+not dressed by his own people, were
+not yet, however, at an end. For
+though, on returning to his lodging
+in the evening, he found that his
+friend had succeeded in procuring
+from the ship a dish of <i>kichiri</i>, (an
+Indian mess, composed of rice and
+<i>ghee</i>, or clarified butter,) his inability
+to communicate with his landlady still
+occasioned him considerable perplexity.
+"Having ventured to take some
+pickles, which I saw on the sideboard,
+and finding them palatable, I sent for
+the landlady, and tried to explain to
+her by signs, pointing to the bottles,
+that I wanted something like what
+they contained. Alas, for my ignorance!
+She thought I wished them
+taken out of the room, and so walked
+off with them, leaving me in the utmost
+astonishment. How was I to
+get it back again? it was the only
+thing I had to relish my <i>kichiri</i>. I
+had, therefore, recourse to this expedient&mdash;I
+got an apple and pared it,
+putting the parings in a bottle with
+water; and showing this to the landlady,
+intimated, by signs, that I wanted
+something like it to eat with my
+rice. She asked many questions in
+English, and talked a great deal, from
+which I inferred that she had at last
+discovered my meaning, but five minutes
+had hardly elapsed when she
+re-appeared, bearing in her hand a
+bottle of water, filled with apple-parings
+cut in the nicest manner imaginable!
+This she placed on the
+table in the most respectful manner,
+and then retired!"</p>
+
+<p>The good lady, however, conceiving
+that her guest was in danger of
+perishing with hunger, was benevolently
+importunate with him to partake
+of some nourishment, or at least
+of some tea and toast, "since it is the
+custom in this country for every one to
+eat five times a-day, and some among
+the wealthy are not satisfied even with
+this!" The arrival of an English acquaintance,
+who explained to the landlady
+the religious prejudices of her
+lodger, in some measure relieved him
+from his embarrassment; but he was
+again totally disconcerted, by finding
+it impossible, after a long search, to
+procure any <i>ghee</i>&mdash;an ingredient indispensable
+in the composition of every
+national dish of India, whether Moslem
+or Hindu. "How shall I express
+my astonishment at this extraordinary
+ignorance? What! do they
+not know what <i>ghee</i> is? Wonderful!
+This was a piece of news I never expected&mdash;that
+what abounds in every
+little wretched village in India, could
+not be purchased in this great city!"
+How this unforeseen deficiency was
+supplied does not appear; but probably
+the khan's never-failing philosophy
+enabled him to bear even
+this unparalleled privation with equanimity,
+as we hear no further complaints
+on the subject. He did not
+remain, however, many days in those
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg&nbsp;464]</a></span>
+quarters, finding that the incessant
+noise of the vehicles passing day and
+night deprived him of sleep; and, by
+the advice of his friends, he took a
+small house in St John's Wood, where
+he was at once at a distance from the
+intolerable clamour of the streets, and
+at liberty to live after the fashion of
+his own country.</p>
+
+<p>The first place of public resort to
+which he directed his steps, appears
+to have been the Pantheon bazar in
+Oxford Street, whither the familiar
+name perhaps attracted him&mdash;"for
+the term <i>bazar</i> is in use also among
+the people of this country;" but he
+does not appear to have been particularly
+struck by any thing he saw there,
+except the richness and variety of the
+wares. On the contrary, he complains
+of the want of fragrance in the flowers
+in the conservatory, particularly the
+roses, as compared with those of his
+native land&mdash;"there was <em>one</em> plantain-tree
+which seemed to be regarded as
+a sort of wonder, though thousands
+grow in our gardens without any sort
+of culture." The presence of the
+female attendants at the stalls, a sight
+completely at variance with Asiatic
+ideas, is also noticed with marked
+disapprobation&mdash;"Most of them were
+young and handsome, and seemed perfect
+adepts in the art of selling their
+various wares; but I could not help
+reflecting, on seeing so many fine
+young women engaged in this degrading
+occupation, on the ease and comfort
+enjoyed by our females, compared
+to the drudgery and servile employment
+to which the sex are subjected
+in this country. Notwithstanding all
+the English say of the superior condition
+of their women, it is quite evident,
+from all I have seen since my
+arrival, that their social state is far
+below that of our females." This
+sentiment is often repeated in the
+course of the narrative, and any one
+who has read, in the curious work of
+Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, quoted above,
+an account of the strict domestic seclusion
+in which Moslem females
+having any pretensions to rank, or
+even respectability, are constantly retained
+in India, will not be surprised
+at the frequent expression of repugnance,
+whenever the writer sees women
+engaged in any public or out-of-doors
+occupation&mdash;a custom so abhorrent
+to Oriental, and, above all, to Indian
+ideas.</p>
+
+<p>We next find the khan in the Zoological
+Gardens, his matter-of-fact
+description of which affords an amusing
+contrast with that of those veracious
+scions of Persian royalty, who
+luxuriate in "elephant birds just like
+an elephant, but without the proboscis,
+and with wings fifteen yards long"&mdash;"an
+elephant twenty-four feet high,
+with a trunk forty feet long;" and
+who assure us that "the monkeys act
+like human beings, and play at chess
+with those who visit the gardens. On
+this day a Jew happened to be at this
+place, and went to play a game with
+the monkey. The monkey beat, and
+began to laugh loudly, all the people
+standing round him; and the Jew,
+exceedingly abashed, was obliged to
+leave the place." The khan, in common
+with ourselves, and the generality
+of visitors to the Regent's Park, was
+not fortunate enough to witness any
+of the wondrous feats which gladdened
+the royal eyes of the Shahzadehs&mdash;though
+he saw some of the apes,
+meaning the orang-outan, "drink tea
+and coffee, sit on chairs, and eat their
+food like human beings."&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>"There is no island or kingdom," (he
+continues,) "which has not contributed
+its specimens of the animal kingdom
+to these gardens: from the elephant
+and rhinoceros, to the fly and the
+mosquito, all are to be seen here"&mdash;but
+not even the giraffes, strange as
+their appearance must have been to
+him, attract any particular notice;
+though the sight of the exotics in the
+garden draws from him a repetition
+of his old complaint, relative to the
+want of fragrance in the flowers as
+compared with those produced under
+the genial sun of India. The ceremony
+of the prorogation of Parliament
+by the Queen in person was now at
+hand, and the khan determined to be
+present at this imposing scene. But as
+he takes this opportunity to introduce
+his observations and opinions on the
+laws and customs of this country, we
+shall postpone to our next Number the
+discussion of these weighty subjects.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg&nbsp;465]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_THIRTEENTH" id="THE_THIRTEENTH"></a>THE THIRTEENTH.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Tale of Doom.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>It was on a sultry July evening that
+a joyous party of young men were
+assembled in the principal room of a
+wine house, outside the Potsdam gate
+of Berlin. One of their number, a
+Saxon painter, by name Carl Solling,
+was about to take his departure for
+Italy. His place was taken in the
+Halle mail, his luggage sent to the
+office, and the coach was to call for
+him at midnight at the tavern, whither
+a number of his most intimate friends
+had accompanied him, to drink a
+parting glass of Rhenish wine to his
+prosperous journey.</p>
+
+<p>Supper was over, and some magnificent
+melons, and peaches, and plates of
+caviare, and other incentives to drinking,
+placed upon the table; a row of
+empty bottles already graced the sideboard,
+while full ones of that venerable
+cobweb-mantle appearance, so
+dear to the toper, were forthcoming
+as rapidly as the thirstiest throats
+could desire. The conviviality was
+at its height, and numerous toasts had
+been given, among which the health
+of the traveller, the prosperity of the
+art which he cultivated, and of the
+land of poetry and song to which he
+was proceeding, had not been forgotten.
+Indeed, it was becoming difficult
+to find any thing to toast, but the
+thirst of the party was still unquenched,
+and apparently unquenchable.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a young man started up,
+in dress and appearance the very model
+of a German student&mdash;in short
+frock coat and loose sacklike trousers,
+long curling hair hanging over his
+shoulders, pointed beard and mustache,
+and the scars of one or two sabre
+cuts on his handsome animated countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"You want a toast, my friends!"
+cried he. "An excuse to drink, as
+though drinking needed an excuse
+when the wine is good. I will give
+you one, and a right worthy one too.
+Our noble selves here assembled; all,
+so many as we are!" And he glanced
+round the table, counting the number
+of the guests. "One, two, three,
+four&mdash;thirteen. We are Thirteen. <em>Es
+lebe die Dreizehn!</em>"</p>
+
+<p>He raised his glass, in which the
+golden liquor flashed and sparkled,
+and set it down, drained to the last
+drop.</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Thirteen!</em>" exclaimed a pale-faced,
+dark-eyed youth named Raphael,
+starting from his seat, and in
+his turn counting the company. "'Tis
+true. My friends, ill luck will attend
+us. We are Thirteen, seated at a
+round table."</p>
+
+<p>There was evidently an unpleasant
+impression made upon the guests by
+this announcement. The toast-giver
+threw a scornful glance around him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried he, "are we believers
+in such nursery tales and old
+wives' superstitions? Pshaw! The
+charm shall soon be broken. Halls!
+Franz! Winebutt! Thieving innkeeper!
+Rascally corkdrawer! where
+are you hidden? Come forth! Appear!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus invoked, there toddled into
+the room the master of the tavern&mdash;a
+round-bellied, short-legged individual,
+whose rosy gills and Bacchus-like appearance
+proved his devotion to the
+jolly god whose high-priest he was.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down here!" cried the mad
+student, forcing him into a chair;
+"and now, Raphael and gentlemen
+all, be pleased to shorten your faces
+again, and drink your wine as if one
+with a three after it were an unknown
+combination of numerals."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation now took a direction
+naturally given to it by what
+had just occurred, and the origin and
+causes of the popular prejudice against
+the number Thirteen were discussed.</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot be denied that there is
+something mysterious in the connection
+and combination of numbers,"
+observed a student in philosophy;
+"and Pythagoras was right enough
+when he sought the foundation of all
+human knowledge in the even and
+uneven. All over the world the idea
+of something complete and perfect is
+associated with even numbers, and of
+something imperfect and defective
+with uneven ones. The ancients, too,
+considered even numbers of good omen,
+and uneven ones as unpropitious."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg&nbsp;466]</a></span>
+"It is really a pity," cried the mad
+student, "that you philosophers should
+not be allowed to invert and re-arrange
+history in the manner you deem
+fitting. You would soon torture the
+crooked stream of time into a straight
+line. I should like to know from what
+authors you derive your very original
+ideas in favour of even numbers. As
+far as my reading goes, I find that
+number three was considered a sacred
+and a fortunate number by nearly all
+the sects of antiquity, not excepting
+the Pythagoreans. And the early
+Romans had such a respect for the
+uneven numbers, that they never allowed
+a flock of sheep to be of any
+number divisible by two."</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher did not seem immediately
+prepared with a reply to
+this attack.</p>
+
+<p>"You are all of you looking too far
+back for the origin of the curse that
+attends the number Thirteen," interposed
+Raphael. "Think only of the
+Lord's Supper, which is rather nearer
+to our time than Pythagoras and the
+Roman shepherds. It is since then
+that Thirteen has been a stigmatized
+and fatal number. Judas Iscariot was
+the Thirteenth at that sacred table and
+believe me it is no childish superstition
+that makes men shun so unblest a
+number."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is Solling, who has not given
+his opinion yet," cried another of the
+party, "and yet I am sure he has
+something to say on the subject. How
+now, Carl, what ails thee, man? Why
+so sad and silent?"</p>
+
+<p>The painter who, at the commencement
+of the evening, had entered
+frankly and willingly into the joyous
+humour of his friends, had become
+totally changed since the commencement
+of this discussion on the number
+<em>Thirteen</em>. He sat silent and thoughtful
+in his chair, and left his glass
+untasted before him, while his thoughts
+were evidently occupied by some unpleasant
+subject. His companions
+pressed him for the cause of this
+change, and after for some time evading
+their questions, he at last confessed
+that the turn the conversation had
+taken had brought painful recollections
+to his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a matter I love not to speak
+about," said he; "but it is no secret,
+and least of all could I have any wish
+to conceal it from you, my good and
+kind friends. We have yet an hour
+before the arrival of the mail, and if
+you are disposed to listen, I will relate
+to you the strange incidents, the recollection
+of which has saddened me."</p>
+
+<p>The painter's offer was eagerly accepted;
+the young men drew their
+chairs round the table, and Solling
+commenced as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am a native of the small town of
+Geyer, in Saxony, of the tin mines of
+which place my father was inspector.
+I was the twelfth child of my parents
+and half an hour after I saw the light
+my mother give birth to a Thirteenth,
+also a boy. Death, however, was
+busy in this numerous family. Several
+had died while yet infants, and
+there now survive only three besides
+myself, and perhaps my twin brother.</p>
+
+<p>"The latter, who was christened Bernard,
+gave indications at a very early
+age of an eccentric and violent disposition.
+Precocious in growth and
+strength, wild as a young foal, headstrong
+and passionate, full of spiteful
+tricks and breakneck pranks, he was
+the terror of the family and the neighbours.
+In spite of his unamiable qualities,
+he was the pet of his father, who
+pardoned or laughed at all his mischief,
+and the consequence was, that
+he became an object of fear and hatred
+to his brothers and sisters. Our hatred,
+however, was unjust; for Bernard's
+heart was good, and he would have
+gone through fire and water for any
+of us. But he was rough and violent
+in whatever he did, and we dreaded
+the fits of affection he sometimes took
+for us, almost as much as his less
+amiable humours.</p>
+
+<p>"As far back as I can remember,
+Bernard received not only from his
+brothers, but also from all our playfellows,
+the nickname of the Thirteenth,
+in allusion, of course, to his
+being my mother's thirteenth child.
+At first this offended him grievously,
+and many were the sound thrashings
+he inflicted in his endeavours to get
+rid of the obnoxious title. Finally he
+succeeded, but scarcely had he done
+so when, from some strange perversity
+of character, he adopted as an honourable
+distinction the very name he had
+taken such pains to suppress.</p>
+
+<p>"We were playing one Sunday afternoon
+in the large court of our house;
+several of the neighbours' children
+were there, and it chanced that we
+were exactly twelve in number. We
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg&nbsp;467]</a></span>
+had wooden swords, and were having
+a sort of tournament, from which,
+however, we had managed to exclude
+Bernard, who, in such games, was
+accustomed to hit rather too hard.
+Suddenly he bounded over a wall, and
+fell amongst us like a thunderbolt.
+He had painted his face in red and
+black stripes, and made himself a pair
+of wings out of an old leathern apron;
+and thus equipped and armed with the
+largest broomstick he had been able
+to find, he showered his blows around
+him, driving us right and left, and
+shouting out, 'Room, room for the
+mad Thirteenth!'</p>
+
+<p>"Soon after this incident my father
+died. Bernard, who had been his
+favourite, was as violent in his grief
+as he had already shown himself to be
+in every thing else. He wept and
+screamed like a mad creature, tore his
+hair, bit his hands till they bled, and
+struck his head against the wall; raved
+and flew at every body who came near
+him, and was obliged to be shut up
+when his father's coffin was carried out
+of the house, or he would inevitably
+have done himself or somebody else a
+mischief.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother had an unmarried brother
+in the town of Marienberg, a
+wealthy man, and who was Bernard's
+godfather. On learning my father's
+death he came to Geyer, and invited
+his sister and her children to go and
+take up their abode with him. But
+the worthy man little knew the plague
+he was receiving into his house in the
+person of his godson. Himself of a
+mild, quiet disposition, he was greatly
+scandalized by the wild pranks of his
+nephew, and made vain attempts to
+restrain him within some bounds; but
+by so doing he became the aversion
+of my brother, who showed his dislike
+in every possible way. He gave him
+nicknames, broke his china cups and
+saucers, by which the old gentleman
+set great store, splashed his white silk
+stockings with mud as he went to
+church, put the house clock an hour
+forward or back, and tormented his
+kind godfather in every way he could
+devise.</p>
+
+<p>"Bernard had not forgotten his title
+of the Thirteenth; but it was probable
+he would soon have got tired of it,
+for it was not his custom to adhere
+long to any thing, had not my uncle,
+who was a little superstitious, strictly
+forbidden him to adopt it. This opposition
+was all that was wanting to
+make my brother bring forward the
+unlucky number upon every possible
+occasion. When any body mentioned
+the number twelve before him, or
+called any thing the twelfth, Bernard
+would immediately cry out, 'And
+I am the Thirteenth!'</p>
+
+<p>"No matter when it was, or before
+whom; time, place, and persons were
+to him alike indifferent. For instance,
+one Sunday in church, when the
+clergyman in the course of the service
+said, 'Let us sing a portion of
+such a psalm, beginning at the twelfth
+verse,' Bernard immediately screamed
+out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'</p>
+
+<p>"This was a grievous scandal to my
+uncle, and Bernard was called that
+evening before a tribunal, composed
+of his godfather, my mother, and the
+old clergyman whom he had so gracelessly
+interrupted, and who was also
+teacher of Latin and theology at the
+school to which Bernard and I went.
+But all their reproaches and remonstrances
+were lost upon my brother,
+who had evidently much difficulty to
+keep himself from laughing in their
+faces. My mother wept, my uncle
+paced the room in great perplexity,
+and the worthy old dominie clasped
+his hands together, and exclaimed,
+'My child! I fear me, God's chastisement
+will be needed to amend
+you.' The event proved that he was
+right.</p>
+
+<p>"It was on the Friday before Christmas-day,
+and we were assembled in
+school. The near approach of the holidays
+had made the boys somewhat
+turbulent, and the poor old dominie
+had had much to suffer during the whole
+day from their tricks and unruliness.
+My brother, of course, had contributed
+largely to the disorder, much
+to the delight of his bosom friend
+and companion, the only son of the
+master. This boy, whose name was
+Albert, was a blue-eyed, fair haired
+lad, gentle as a girl. Bernard had
+conceived a violent friendship for him,
+and had taken him under his protection.
+Albert's father, as may be supposed,
+was little pleased at this intimacy,
+but yet, out of consideration
+for my uncle, he did not entirely forbid
+it; and the more so as he perceived
+that his son in no respect imitated his
+wild playmate, but contented himself
+with admiring him beyond all created
+beings, and repaying with the warmest
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg&nbsp;468]</a></span>
+affection Bernard's watchful and jealous
+guardianship.</p>
+
+<p>"On the afternoon in question, my
+brother surpassed himself in wayward
+conceits and mischievous tricks, to the
+infinite delight of Albert, who rocked
+with laughter at each new prank.
+The good dominie, who was indulgence
+itself, was instructing us in
+Bible history, and had to interrupt
+himself every moment to repress the
+unruliness of his pupils, and especially
+of Bernard.</p>
+
+<p>"It seemed pre-ordained that the lesson
+should be an unlucky one. Every
+thing concurred to make it so. Our
+instructor had occasion to speak of
+the twelve tribes of Israel, of the
+twelve patriarchs, of the twelve gates
+of the holy city. Each of these served
+as a cue to my brother, who immediately
+shouted out, 'And I am the
+Thirteenth!' and each time Albert
+threw himself back shrieking with
+laughter, thus encouraging Bernard
+to give full scope to his mad humour.
+The poor dominie remonstrated, menaced,
+supplicated, but all in vain. I
+saw the blood rising into his pale face,
+and at last his bald head, in spite of
+the powder which sprinkled it, became
+red all over. He contained himself,
+however, and proceeded to the account
+of the Lord's Supper. He began,
+'And when the hour was come, he
+sat down, and the twelve apostles with
+him.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And I am the Thirteenth!' yelled
+Bernard.</p>
+
+<p>"Scarcely were the words uttered,
+when a Bible flew across the school,
+the noise of a blow, and a cry of anguish
+followed, and the old man fell
+senseless to the ground. The heavy
+Bible, the corners of which were
+bound with silver, and that he had
+hurled in a moment of uncontrollable
+passion at my brother, had missed its
+mark, and struck his own son on the
+head. Albert lay bleeding on the
+floor, while Bernard hung over him
+like one beside himself, weeping, and
+kissing his wounds.</p>
+
+<p>"The boys ran, one and all, out of
+the school-room, shrieking for assistance.
+Our cries soon brought the
+servants to the spot, who, on learning
+what had happened, hastened with us
+back to the school, and lifted up the
+old master, who was still lying on the
+ground near his desk. He had been
+struck with apoplexy, and survived
+but a few hours. Albert was wounded
+in two places, one of the sharp corners
+of the Bible having cut open his forehead,
+while another had injured his
+left eye. After much suffering he
+recovered, but the sight of the eye
+was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Bernard, however, had disappeared.
+When we re-entered the school-room,
+a window which looked into the playground
+was open, and there were marks
+of footsteps on the snow without. A
+short distance further were traces of
+blood, where the fugitive had apparently
+washed his face and hands in
+the snow. We have never seen him
+since that day."</p>
+
+<p>The painter paused, and his friends
+remained some moments silent, musing
+on the tragical history they had
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know nothing whatever
+of your brother's fate?" enquired
+Raphael at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Next to nothing. My uncle
+caused enquiries to be made in every
+direction, but without success. Once
+only a neighbour at Marienberg, who
+had been travelling on the Bohemian
+frontier, told us that he had met at a
+village inn a wandering clarinet-player,
+who bore so strong a resemblance
+to my brother that he accosted him
+by his name. The musician seemed
+confused, and muttering some unintelligible
+reply, left the house in haste.
+What renders it probable that this
+was Bernard is, that he had a great
+natural talent for music, and at the
+time he left home, had already attained
+considerable proficiency on the
+clarinet."</p>
+
+<p>"How old was your brother when
+he so strangely disappeared?" asked
+one of the party.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifteen, but he looked at least
+two years older, for he was stout and
+manly in person beyond his age."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the rattling of
+wheels, and sound of a postilion's
+horn, was heard. The Halle mail
+drove up to the door, the guard bawling
+out for his passenger. The
+young painter took a hasty leave of
+his friends, and sprang into the vehicle,
+which the next instant disappeared
+in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>There was an overplus of travellers
+by the mail that night, and the carriage
+in which Solling had got, was
+not the mail itself, but a cal&egrave;che, holding
+four persons, which was used as a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg&nbsp;469]</a></span>
+sort of supplement, and followed close
+to the other carriage. Two of the
+places were occupied by a Jew horse-dealer
+and a sergeant of hussars, who
+were engaged in an animated, and to
+them most interesting conversation,
+on the subject of horse-flesh, to which
+the painter paid little attention; but
+leaning back in his corner, remained
+absorbed in the painful reflections
+which the incidents he had been narrating
+had called up in his mind. In
+spite of his brother's eccentricities, he
+was truly attached to him; and although
+eight years had elapsed since
+his disappearance, he had not yet
+given up hopes of finding him, if still
+alive. The enquiries that he and his
+uncle had unceasingly made after their
+lost relative, had put them, about three
+years previous to this time, upon the
+trace of a clarinet-player who had
+been seen at Venice and Trieste, and
+went by the name of Voltojo. This
+might have been a name adopted by
+Bernard, as being nearly the Italian
+equivalent of Geyer, or hawk, the
+name of his native town; and Solling
+was not without a faint hope, that in
+the course of his journey to Rome he
+might obtain some tidings of his
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>He was roused from his reverie by
+the postilion shouting out to the guard
+of the mail, which was just before
+them on the road, to know when they
+were to take up the passenger who
+was to occupy the remaining seat in
+the cal&egrave;che.</p>
+
+<p>"Where will the Thirteenth meet
+us?" asked the man.</p>
+
+<p>"At the inn at Schoneber," replied
+the guard.</p>
+
+<p><em>The Thirteenth!</em> The word made
+the painter's blood run cold. The
+horse-dealer and the sergeant, who
+had begun to doze in their respective
+corners, were also disturbed by the
+ill-omened sound.</p>
+
+<p>"The Thirteenth! The Thirteenth!"
+muttered the Jew in his beard, still
+half asleep. "God forbid! Let's have
+no thirteenth!"</p>
+
+<p>A company of travelling comedians,
+who occupied the mail, took up the
+word. "The Thirteenth is coming,"
+said one.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody will die," cried another.</p>
+
+<p>"Or we shall be upset and break
+our necks," exclaimed a third.</p>
+
+<p>"No Thirteenth!" cried they all in
+chorus. "Drive on! drive on! he
+sha'n't get in!"</p>
+
+<p>This was addressed to the postilion,
+who just then pulled up at the door of
+a village inn, and giving a blast with
+his horn, shouted loudly for his remaining
+passenger to appear.</p>
+
+<p>The door of the public-house opened,
+and a tall figure, with a small knap-sack
+on his shoulder and a knotty
+stick in his hand, stepped out and approached
+the mail. But when he
+heard the cries of the comedians, who
+were still protesting against the admission
+of a Thirteenth traveller, he
+started suddenly back, swinging his
+cudgel in the air.</p>
+
+<p>"To the devil with you all, vagabonds
+that ye are!" vociferated he.
+"Drive on, postilion, with your cage
+of monkeys. I shall walk."</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of the stranger's
+voice, Solling sprang up in the carriage
+and seized the handle of the
+door. But as he did so, a strong arm
+grasped him by the collar, and pulled
+him back into his seat. At the same
+moment the carriage drove on.</p>
+
+<p>"The man is drunk," said the sergeant,
+who had misinterpreted his fellow-passenger's
+intentions. "It is
+not worth while dirtying your hands,
+and perhaps getting an ugly blow, in
+a scuffle with such a fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, postilion, stop!" shouted
+Solling. But the postilion either did
+not or would not hear, and some time
+elapsed before the painter could persuade
+his well-meaning companion of
+his peaceable intentions. At length
+he did so, and the carriage, which had
+meanwhile been going at full speed,
+was stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"You will leave my luggage at the
+first post-house," said Solling, jumping
+out and beginning to retrace his
+steps to the village, which they had
+now left some distance behind them.</p>
+
+<p>The night was pitch-dark, so dark
+that the painter was compelled to feel
+his way, and guide himself by the line
+of trees that bordered the road. He
+reached the village without meeting a
+living creature, and strode down the
+narrow street amid the baying of the
+dogs, disturbed by his footfall at that
+silent hour of the night. The inn
+door was shut, but there was a light
+glimmering in one of the casements.
+He knocked several times without any
+body answering. At length a woman's
+head was put out of an upper window.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg&nbsp;470]</a></span>
+"Go your ways," cried a shrill
+voice, "and don't come disturbing honest
+folk at this time o' night. Do
+you think we have nought to do but
+to open the door for such raff as you?
+Be off with you, you vagabond, and
+blow your clarinet elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, madam," said
+Solling; "I am no vagabond, but a
+passenger by the Halle mail, and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What brings you here, then?"
+interrupted the virago; "the Halle
+mail is far enough off by this."</p>
+
+<p>"My good madam," replied the
+painter in his softest tone, "for God's
+sake tell me who and where is the
+person who was waiting for the mail
+at your hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed the hostess,
+considerably mollified by the <em>madam</em>
+and the <em>hotel</em>. "The mad Italian
+musician, the clarinet fellow? Why, I
+took you for him at first, and wondered
+what brought him back, for he
+started as soon as the mail left the
+door. He'd have done better to have
+got into it, with a dark night and a
+long road before him. Ha! ha! He's
+mad, to be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"His name! His name!" cried
+Solling, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"His name? How can I recollect
+his outlandish name? Fol&mdash;Vol&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Voltojo!" cried the painter.</p>
+
+<p>"Voltojo! yes, that's it. Ha! ha!
+What a name!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is he!" cried Solling, and without
+another word dashed off full speed
+along the road he had just come. He
+kept in the middle of the causeway,
+straining his eyes to see into the darkness
+on either side of him, and wondering
+how it was he had not met
+the object of his search as he came to
+the village. He ran on, occasionally
+taking trees and fingerposts for men,
+and cursing his ill luck when he saw
+his mistake. The sweat poured down
+his face in streams, and his knees began
+to knock together with fatigue.
+Suddenly he struck his foot against a
+stone lying in the road, and fell, cutting
+his forehead severely upon some pebbles.
+The sharp pain drew a cry
+from him, and a man who had been
+lying on the grass at the roadside,
+sprang up and hastened to
+his assistance. At that moment a
+flash of summer lightning lit up the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>"Bernard! Bernard!" cried the
+painter, throwing his arms round
+the stranger's neck. It was his
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>Bernard started back with a cry of
+horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Albert!" he exclaimed in a hollow
+voice, "Cannot your spirit rest?
+Do you rise from the grave to persecute
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"In God's name, my dear brother,
+what mean you? I am Carl&mdash;Carl,
+your twin brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Carl? No! Albert! I see that horrid
+wound on your brow. It still bleeds!"</p>
+
+<p>The painter grasped his brother's
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I am flesh and blood," said he,
+"and no spirit. Albert still lives."</p>
+
+<p>"He lives!" exclaimed Bernard,
+and clasped his brother in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Explanations followed, and the
+brothers took the road to Berlin.
+When the painter had replied to Bernard's
+questions concerning their family,
+he in his turn begged his brother
+to relate his adventures since
+they parted, and above all to give his
+reasons for remaining so long severed
+from his friends and home.</p>
+
+<p>"Although I fully believed Albert
+killed by the blow he received," replied
+Bernard, "it was no fear of
+punishment for my indirect share in
+his death, that induced me to fly.
+But when I saw the father senseless
+on the ground, and the son expiring
+before my eyes, I felt as if I was accursed,
+as if the brand of Cain were
+on my brow, and that it was my fate
+to roam through the world an isolated
+and wretched being. When you all
+ran out of the school to fetch assistance,
+it seemed to me as though each
+chair and bench and table in the room
+received the power of speech, and
+yelled and bellowed in my ears the
+fatal number which has been the
+cause of all my misfortunes&mdash;'Thirteen!
+Thirteen! Thou art the Thirteenth,
+the Accursed One!'</p>
+
+<p>"I fled, and since that day no rest
+or peace has been mine. Like my
+shadow has this unholy number
+clung to me. Wherever I went, in
+all the many lands I have wandered
+through, I carried with me the
+curse of my birth. At every turn it
+met me, aggravating my numerous
+hardships, embittering my rare moments
+of joy. If I entered a room
+where a cheerful party was assembled,
+all rose and shrunk from me as from
+one plague-tainted. They were twelve&mdash;I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg&nbsp;471]</a></span>
+was the Thirteenth. If I sat down
+at a dinner-table, my neighbour left
+his chair, and the others would say,
+'He fears to sit by you. You are
+the Thirteenth.' If I slept at an inn&mdash;there
+were sure to be twelve persons
+sleeping there; my bed was the
+Thirteenth, or my room would be number
+Thirteen, and I was told that the
+former landlord had shot or hung
+himself in it.</p>
+
+<p>"At length I left Germany, in the
+vain hope that the spell would not
+extend beyond the land of my birth.
+I took ship at Trieste for Venice.
+Scarcely were we out of port when a
+violent storm arose, and we were
+driven rapidly towards a rocky and
+dangerous coast. The steersman
+counted the seamen and passengers, and
+crossed himself. We were <em>thirteen</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots were drawn who should be
+sacrificed for the salvation of the
+others. I drew number thirteen, and
+they put me ashore on a barren rock,
+where I passed a day and night half
+dead with cold and drenched with sea
+water. At length an Illyrian fisherman
+espied me, and took me off in his boat.</p>
+
+<p>"It is unnecessary to relate to you in
+detail my wanderings during the last
+eight years, or if I do, it shall be at
+some future time. My clarinet enables
+me to live in the humble manner
+I have always done. You remember,
+probably, that I had some
+skill in it, which I have since much
+improved. When travelling, my
+music was generally taken as payment
+for my bed and supper at the
+petty hostelries at which I put up;
+and when I came to a large town, I
+remained a few days, and usually
+gained more than my expenses.</p>
+
+<p>"About a year since, I made some
+stay at Copenhagen, and at last, getting
+wearied of that city, I put myself
+on board a ship, without enquiring
+whither it was bound. It took me to
+Stralsund.</p>
+
+<p>"The day of my arrival, there was a
+shooting-match in the suburb beyond
+the Knieper, and I hastened thither
+with my clarinet. It was a sort of
+fair, and I wandered from one booth
+to the other, playing the joyous mountain
+melodies which I had not once
+played since my departure from Marienberg.
+God knows what brought
+them into my head again; but it did
+my heart good to play them, and a
+feeling came over me, that I should
+like once more to have a home, and
+to leave the weary rambling life I had
+so long led.</p>
+
+<p>"I had great success that day, and
+the people thronged to hear the wandering
+Italian musician. Many were
+the jugs of beer and glasses of wine
+offered to me, and my plate was soon
+full of shillings. As I left off playing,
+an old greyheaded man pressed
+through the crowd, and gazed earnestly
+at me. His eyes filled with
+tears, and he was evidently much
+moved.</p>
+
+<p>"'What a likeness!' he exclaimed.
+'He is the very picture of my Amadeus.
+I could fancy he had risen out
+of the sea. The same features, the
+sane voice and manner.'</p>
+
+<p>"He came up to me and took my
+hand. 'If you do not fear a high
+staircase,' said he with a kindly smile,
+'come and visit me. I live on the
+tower of St Nicholas's Church. Your
+clarinet will sound well in the free
+fresh air, and you will find those there
+who will gladly listen.' So saying,
+he left me.</p>
+
+<p>"The old man's name was Elias
+Kranhelm, better known in Stralsund
+as the old Swede; he was the town
+musician, and had the care of the
+bells of St Nicholas. The next day
+was Sunday, and I hastened to visit
+him. His kind manner had touched
+me, unaccustomed as I was to kindness
+or sympathy from the strangers
+amongst whom I always lived. When
+I was halfway up the stairs leading
+to the tower, the organ began to play
+below me, and I recognised a psalm
+tune which we used often to sing for
+our old schoolmaster at Marienberg.
+I stopped a moment to listen, and
+thoughts of rest and home again came
+over me.</p>
+
+<p>"I was met at the tower door by
+old Kranhelm, in his Sunday suit
+of black; large silver buckles at his
+knees and shoes, and a round black
+velvet cap over his long white hair.
+His clear grey eyes smiled so kindly
+upon me, his voice was so mild, and
+his greeting so cordial, that I thought
+I had never seen a more pleasing
+old man. He welcomed me as though
+I had been an old friend, and without
+further preface, asked me if I
+should like to become his substitute,
+and perform the duties for which
+his great age had begun to unfit him.
+His only son, on whom he had reckoned
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg&nbsp;472]</a></span>
+to take his place, had left him
+some time previously, to become a
+sailor on board a Norwegian ship,
+and had been drowned in his very
+first voyage. It was my extraordinary
+likeness to this son that had made
+him notice me; and the good, simple-hearted
+old man seemed to think that
+resemblance a sufficient guarantee
+against any risk in admitting a perfect
+stranger into his house and intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>"'My post is a profitable one,' said
+he; 'and, in consideration of my long
+services, the worshipful burgomaster
+has given me leave to seek an assistant,
+now that I am getting too old for
+my office. Consider then, my son,
+if the offer suits you. You please me,
+and I mean you well. But here comes
+my Elizabeth, who will soon learn to
+like you if you are a good lad.'</p>
+
+<p>"As he spoke, a young girl entered
+the room, with a psalm-book in her
+hand, and attired in an old-fashioned
+dress, which was not able, however,
+to conceal the elegance of her figure,
+and the charms of her blooming countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"'How think you, Elizabeth?' said
+her father. 'Is he not as like our
+poor Amadeus as one egg is to another?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not see the likeness, my dear
+father,' replied Elizabeth, looking
+timidly at me, and then casting down
+her eyes, and blushing.</p>
+
+<p>"I accepted the old man's offer with
+joy, and took up my dwelling in the
+other turret of the church tower. My
+occupation was to keep the clock
+wound up, to play the evening hymn
+on the balcony of the tower, and to
+strike the hours upon the great bell
+with a heavy hammer.</p>
+
+<p>"I soon felt the good effect of repose,
+and of the happy, tranquil life I now
+led; my spirits improved, and I began
+to forget the curse which hung
+over me&mdash;to forget, in short, that I
+was the unlucky Thirteenth. Old
+Kranhelm's liking for me increased
+rapidly, and, in less than three months,
+I was Elizabeth's accepted lover.
+Time flew on; the wedding-day was
+fixed, and the bridal-chamber prepared.</p>
+
+<p>"It was on Friday evening, exactly
+eight days ago, that I went out with
+Elizabeth, and walked down to the
+port to look at a large Swedish ship
+that had just arrived. The passengers
+were landing, and one amongst
+them immediately attracted our attention.</p>
+
+<p>"This was a tall, lean, raw-boned
+woman, apparently about forty years
+of age, who held in her hand a long,
+smooth staff, which she waved about
+her, nodding her head, and muttering,
+as she went, in some strange, unintelligible
+dialect. Her dress consisted
+of a huge black fur cloak, and a cape
+of the same colour fringed with red.
+Her whole manner and appearance
+were so strange, that a crowd assembled
+round her as soon as she set foot
+on shore.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hallo! comrade,' cried one of
+the sailors of the vessel that had
+brought her, to a boatman who was
+passing. 'Hallo! comrade, do you
+want a job? Here's a witch to take
+to Hiddensee.'</p>
+
+<p>"We asked the sailor what he meant;
+and he told us that this strange woman
+was a Lapland witch, who every
+year, in the dog-days, made a journey
+to the island of Hiddensee, to gather
+an herb which only grew there, and
+was essential in her incantations.</p>
+
+<p>"Meantime, the witch was calling
+for a boat, but no one understood her
+language, or else they did not choose
+to come. My unfortunate propensity
+to all that is supernatural or fantastic
+impelled me, with irresistible force, towards
+her. In vain Elizabeth held
+me back. I pushed my way through
+the crowd, until we found ourselves
+close to the Lapland woman, who
+measured us from head to foot with
+her bright and glittering eyes. Slipping
+a florin into her hand, I gave her
+to understand, as well as I could, that
+we wished to have our fortunes told.
+She took my hand, and, after examining
+it, made a sign that she either
+could or would tell me nothing. She
+then took the hand of Elizabeth, who
+hung upon my arm, trembling like an
+aspen leaf, and gazing intently upon
+it, muttered a few words in broken
+Swedish. I did not understand them,
+but Elizabeth did, and, starting back,
+drew me hastily out of the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"'What did she say?' enquired I,
+as soon as we were clear of the
+throng.</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth seemed much agitated,
+and had evidently to make a strong
+effort before she could reply.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing,' answered she, at last;
+'nothing, at least, worth repeating.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg&nbsp;473]</a></span>
+And yet 'tis strange; it tallies exactly
+with a prediction made to my mother
+when I was an infant, that I should
+one day be in peril from the number
+Thirteen. This strange woman cautioned
+me against the same number,
+and bade me beware of you, for that
+you were the Thirteenth!'</p>
+
+<p>"Had the earth opened under my feet,
+or the lightning from heaven fallen on
+my head, I could not have felt a greater
+shock than was communicated to
+me by these words. I know not what
+I said in reply, or how I got home.
+Elizabeth, doubtless, observed my
+agitation, but she made no remark
+on it. I felt her arm tremble upon
+mine as we walked along, and by a
+furtive glance at her face saw that she
+was pale as death. Not a word passed
+between us during our walk back to
+the tower, on reaching which she
+shut herself up in her room. I pleaded
+a severe headach and wish to lie
+down; and, begging the old man to
+strike the hours for me, retired to my
+chamber.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be impossible to give an
+idea of the agony of mind I suffered
+during that evening. I thought at
+times I was going mad, and there were
+moments when I felt disposed to put
+an end to my existence by a leap from
+the tower window. Again, then, this
+curse that hung over me was in full
+force. Again had that fatal number
+raised itself before me like an iron
+wall, interposed between me and all
+earthly happiness. Wearied out at
+length by the storm within me, I fell
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"As may be supposed, I was followed
+in my troubled slumbers by the recollection
+of my misery. Each hour
+that struck awoke me out of the most
+hideous dreams to a scarce less hideous
+reality. When midnight came,
+and the hammer clanged upon the
+great bell, a strange fancy took possession
+of my mind that it would this
+night strike Thirteen, and that at the
+thirteenth stroke the clock, the tower,
+the city, and the whole world, would
+crumble into atoms. Again I fell
+asleep and dreamt. I thought that
+my head was changed into a mighty
+bronze bell, and that I hung in the
+tower and heard the clock beside me
+strike Thirteen. Then came the old
+schoolmaster, who yet, at the same
+time, had the features of Elizabeth's
+father; and, as he drew near me, I
+saw that the hammer he held in his
+hand was no hammer, but a large silver-bound
+Bible. In my despair I
+made frightful efforts to cry out and
+to tell him that I was no bell, but a
+man, and that he should not strike me;
+but my voice refused its service and
+my tongue clove to my palate. The
+greyhaired old man came up to me,
+and struck thirteen times on my forehead,
+till my brains gushed out at my
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"By daybreak the next morning I
+was two leagues from Stralsund, having
+left a few hurried ill-written lines
+in my room, pleading I know not what
+urgent family affairs, and a dislike to
+leave-taking, as excuses for my sudden
+departure. Over field and meadow,
+through rivers and forests, on I went,
+as though hell were at my heels, flying
+from my destiny. But the further
+I got from Stralsund the more
+did I regret all I left there&mdash;my beautiful
+and affectionate mistress, her
+kind-hearted father, the peaceful happy
+life I led on the top of the old
+tower. The vow I had made to fly
+from the haunts of men, and seek in
+some desert the repose which my evil
+fate denied me among my fellows, that
+vow became daily more difficult to
+keep. And yet I went on, dreading
+to depart from my determination, lest
+I should encounter some of those bitter
+deceptions and cruel disappointments
+that had hitherto been my lot
+in life. Shame, too, at the manner in
+which I had left the tower, withheld
+me, or else I think I should already be
+on my road back to Stralsund. But
+now I have met you, brother, and that
+my mind is relieved by the knowledge
+that I have not, even indirectly, Albert's
+death to reproach myself with,
+I must hasten to my Elizabeth to relieve
+her anxiety, and dry the tears
+which I am well assured each moment
+of my absence causes her to shed. Come
+with me, dearest Carl, and you shall
+see her, my beautiful Elizabeth, and
+her good old father, and the tower
+and the bell. Ho! the bell, the jolly
+old bell!"</p>
+
+<p>The painter looked kindly but
+anxiously in his brother's face. There
+was a mildness in his manner that
+startled him, accustomed as he had
+been to his eccentricities when a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"You are tired, brother," said he.
+"You need repose after the emotions
+and fatigues of the last week. I, too,
+shall not be sorry to sleep. Let us to
+bed for a few hours, and then we will
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg&nbsp;474]</a></span>
+have post-horses and be off to Stralsund."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no need of rest," replied
+Bernard, "and each moment seems
+to me an eternity till I can again
+clasp my Elizabeth to my heart.
+Let us delay, then, as little as may
+be."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke they entered the gates
+of Berlin. The sun was risen, and
+the hotels and taverns were beginning
+to open their doors. Seeing Bernard's
+anxiety to depart, the painter
+abandoned his intention of taking
+some repose, and after hasty breakfast,
+a post-chaise was brought to the
+door, and the brothers stepping in,
+were whirled off on their road northwards.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was about to set when
+the travellers came in sight of the
+spires of Stralsund, among which the
+church of St Nicholas reared its
+double-headed tower. Bernard had
+enlivened the journey by his wild sallies,
+and merry but extravagant humour.
+Now, however, that the goal
+was almost reached, he became silent
+and anxious. The hours appeared to
+go too slowly for him, and his restlessness
+was extreme.</p>
+
+<p>"Faster! postilion," cried Carl,
+observing his brother's impatience.
+"Faster! You shall be paid double."</p>
+
+<p>The man flogged his horses till
+they flew rather than galloped over
+the broad level road. Suddenly,
+however, a strap broke, and the postilion
+got off his seat to tie it up.
+Through the stillness of the evening,
+no longer broken by the rattle of the
+wheels and clatter of the horses' feet,
+a clock was heard striking the hour.
+Another repeated it, and a third, of
+deeper tone than the two preceding
+ones, took up the chime. Bernard
+started to his feet, and leaned so far
+out of the carriage that his brother
+seized hold of him, expecting him to
+lose his balance and fall out.</p>
+
+<p>"It is she!" exclaimed Bernard.
+"'Tis the bell of St Nicholas. Listen,
+Carl&mdash;my Elizabeth calls me.
+She strikes the bell. I come, dearest,
+I come!"</p>
+
+<p>And with these words he sprang
+out of the carriage, and set off at full
+speed towards the town, leaving his
+brother thunderstruck at his mad impatience
+and vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>Running at the top of his speed,
+Bernard soon reached the city gate,
+and proceeded rapidly through the
+streets in the direction of St Nicholas's
+church. It seemed to him as though
+he had been absent for years instead
+of a few days, and he felt quite surprised
+at finding no change in the city
+since his departure. All was as he
+had left it; all conspired to lull him
+into security. An old fruitwoman, of
+whom he had bought cherries the
+very day of his last walk with Elizabeth,
+was in her usual place, and, as
+he passed, extolled the beauty of her
+fruit, and asked him to buy. A large
+rose-tree, at the door of a silversmith's
+shop, which Elizabeth had often admired,
+was still in full bloom; through
+the window of a house in the market-place,
+he saw a young girl, Elizabeth's
+dearest friend, dressing her hair at a
+looking-glass, and as he passed the
+churchyard, the old dumb sexton, who
+appeared to be hunting about for a
+place for a grave, nodded his head in
+mute recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Bernard opened the tower door, and
+darted up the staircase. He was not
+far from the top when he heard the
+voices of two men above him. They
+were resting on one of the landing-places
+of the ladderlike stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a singular case, doctor," said
+one; "a strange and incomprehensible
+case. It is evidently a disease
+more of the mind than the body."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the other, by his
+voice apparently an old man. "If
+we could only get a clue to the cause,
+any thing to go upon, something might
+be done, but at present it is a perfect
+riddle."</p>
+
+<p>Bernard heard no more, for the men
+continued their ascent.</p>
+
+<p>"The old father must be ill," said
+he to himself; but as he said it a feeling
+of dread and anxiety, a presentiment
+of evil, came over him, and he
+stood for a few moments unable to
+proceed. The door at the top of
+the stairs was now opened, and shut
+with evident care to avoid noise.
+"The old man must be very ill,"
+said Bernard, as if trying to persuade
+himself of it. He reached the door,
+and his hand shook as he laid it upon
+the latch. At length he lifted it, and
+entered the room. It was empty;
+but, just then, the door of Elizabeth's
+chamber opened, and old Kranhelm
+stepped out. On beholding Bernard,
+he started back as though he had seen
+a ghost. He said a word or two in a
+low voice to somebody in the inner
+room, and then shutting the door,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg&nbsp;475]</a></span>
+bolted it, and placed his back against
+it, as if to prevent Bernard from going
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"Begone!" cried he in a tremulous
+voice; "in the name of God,
+begone! thou evil spirit of my house;"
+and he stretched out his arms towards
+Bernard as though to prohibit his approach.
+No longer master of himself,
+the young man sprang towards him,
+and, grasping his arm, thundered in
+his ear the question&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my Elizabeth?"</p>
+
+<p>The words rang through the old
+tower, and the confused murmuring
+of voices in the inner room was heard.
+Bernard listened, and thought he distinguished
+the voice of Elizabeth repeating,
+in tones of agony, the fatal
+number.</p>
+
+<p>One of the physicians knocked, and
+begged to be let out. The old tower-keeper
+opened the door cautiously,
+and, when the doctor had passed
+through, carefully shut and barred it.
+But during the moment that it had
+remained open, Bernard heard too
+plainly what his ears had at first been
+unwilling to believe.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the man?" demanded the
+physician hastily. "In God's name,
+be silent. You will kill the patient.
+She recognized your voice, and fell
+immediately into the most fearful
+paroxysm. She has got back again
+to the infernal number with which her
+delirium began, and she shrieks it out
+perpetually. It is a frightful relapse.
+Begone! young man; yet stay&mdash;I
+will go with you. You can, doubtless,
+give us a key to this mystery."</p>
+
+<p>The old physician took Bernard's
+arm to lead him away; but at that
+very moment there was a shrill scream
+from the next room, and Elizabeth's
+voice was heard calling upon Bernard
+by name. The unfortunate young man
+could not restrain himself. Shaking
+off the grasp of the physician, he
+pushed old Kranhelm aside, tore back
+the bolts, and flung open the door.
+There lay Elizabeth on her deathbed,
+her arms stretched out towards him,
+her mild countenance ashy pale and
+frightfully distorted, her soft blue eyes
+straining from their orbits. She made
+a violent effort to speak, but death
+was too near at hand; the sound died
+away upon her lips, and her uplifted
+arms dropped powerless upon the bed;
+her head fell back&mdash;a convulsive shudder
+came over her: she was dead.
+Her unhappy lover fell senseless to
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>When Bernard awoke out of a long
+and deathlike swoon, it was night, and
+all around him was still and dark. He
+was lying on the stone floor outside
+Kranhelm's dwelling. The physicians
+had removed him thither; and, being
+occupied with the old tower-keeper
+and his daughter, they had thought no
+more about him. On first recovering
+sensation, he had but an indistinct
+idea of where he was, or what had
+happened. By degrees his senses returned
+to a certain extent&mdash;he knew
+that something horrible had occurred,
+but without remembering exactly what
+it was.</p>
+
+<p>He felt about him, and touched a
+railing. It was the balustrade round
+the open turret where hung the great
+bell. He was lying under the bell
+itself, and, as he gazed up into its brazen
+throat, the recollection of the
+frightful dream which had persecuted
+him the night before his flight from
+Stralsund came vividly to his mind;
+he appeared to himself to be still dreaming,
+and yet his visions were mixed
+up with the realities of his everyday
+occupations.</p>
+
+<p>He had just stepped out, he thought,
+to strike the hour on the bell, and
+rising with some difficulty from the
+hard couch which had stiffened his
+limbs, he sought about for the hammer.
+He made no effort to shake off the sort
+of dreaming semi-consciousness which
+seemed to prevent him from feeling
+the horror and anguish of reality.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirteen strokes," thought he;
+"thirteen strokes, and at the Thirteenth
+the tower will fall, the city crumble
+to dust, the world be at an end."
+Such had been his dream, and the
+moment of its accomplishment was
+come.</p>
+
+<p>He found the hammer, and struck
+with all his force upon the bell. He
+repeated the blow; twelve times he
+struck, and each stroke rang with
+deafening violence through his brain;
+but at the Thirteenth, as he raised his
+arms high above his head, and leaning
+back against the railing, threw his
+whole strength and energy into the
+blow, the frail balustrade gave way
+under his weight, and he fell headlong
+from the tower. The last stroke tolled
+out, sad and hollow as a funereal
+knell, and the sound mingled with the
+death-cry of the luckless Thirteenth!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg&nbsp;476]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="REMINISCENCES_OF_SYRIA" id="REMINISCENCES_OF_SYRIA"></a>REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>Galloping, gossiping, flirting and
+fighting, feasting and starving, but
+always in high spirits and the best
+possible humour, Colonel Napier
+might answer an advertisement for
+"A Pleasant Companion in a Post-chaise,"
+without the slightest chance
+of rejection. But it is difficult to
+imagine so dashing a traveller, boxed
+up in a civilized conveyance, rolling
+quietly along a macadamized road,
+with a diversity of milestones and an
+occasional turnpike gate, the only incidents
+by the way&mdash;no wild Maronite
+glimpsing at him over the hedge; no
+black-eyed houri peeping over the balustrades
+of the caravanserai, (called
+by vulgar men the Bricklayers' Arms)&mdash;no
+Sa&iuml;ces to help John Hostler to
+change horses; but dulness, uniformity,
+and most tiresome and unromantic
+safety. England, we are sorry to
+confess it, is not the land of stirring
+adventures or hair-breadth 'scapes&mdash;a
+railway coach occasionally blows up;
+a blind leader occasionally bolts into a
+ditch; a wheel comes occasionally into
+dangerous collision with one of
+Pickford's vans; but these are the utmost
+that can be hoped for in the way
+of peril, and other excitement there is
+positively none. We have treated
+life as the mathematician did Paradise
+Lost&mdash;we have struck out all its
+similes&mdash;obliterated its flights&mdash;expunged
+its glorious visions&mdash;we have
+made it prose. But fortunately for
+us&mdash;for Colonel Napier&mdash;for the reading
+public&mdash;there is a land where mathematicians
+are unknown, and where
+poetry continues to flourish in the full
+vigour of cimeters and turbans&mdash;the
+region of the sun&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The first of Eastern lands he shines upon."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was in this very beautiful, but
+rather overdone portion of earth's surface,
+that the adventures occurred of
+which we are now to give some account;
+and as probably most of our
+readers have heard the name of Syria
+pretty often of late, we need not display
+much geographical erudition in
+pointing out where it lies. It would
+be pleasant to us if we could atone for
+brevity in this respect, by illuminating
+the reader on the causes that have
+brought Syria so prominently forward;
+but on this point we confess, with
+shame and confusion of face, that we
+know no more than Lord Ponsonby
+or M. Thiers. The truth seems to be,
+that some time, about two or three
+years ago, five or six people in influential
+stations went mad, and our Secretary
+for Foreign Affairs took the
+infection. He showed his teeth and
+raised his "birse," and barked in a
+most audacious manner, till the French
+kennel answered the challenge; an
+old dog in Egypt cocked his tail at
+the same time, and the world began to
+be afraid that hydrophobia would be
+universal. All parties were delighted
+to let the rival yelpers fight it out on
+so distant a field as Syria; and in that
+country of heat and dryness, of poverty,
+anarchy, cruelty, and superstition,
+there was a skrimmage that kept
+all Christendom on the tenter-hooks
+for half-a-year; and this we believe
+to be the policy of the Syrian campaign.
+Better for all parties concerned,
+that a few thousand turbaned
+and malignant Turks or Egyptians
+should bite the dust, than that there
+should be another Austerlitz or Waterloo.
+So the signal was accordingly
+given, and the work began.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever there is any fighting it is
+not to be doubted that the English
+hurra will be heard&mdash;and an apparition
+had been seen in the smoke of
+battle, which had sorely puzzled the
+wisest of the soothsayers of Egypt to
+explain. It was of a being apparently
+human, but dressed as if to represent
+Mars and Neptune at the same time,
+charging along the tops of houses,
+with the jolly cocked-hat of a captain
+of a British man-of-war on the point
+of his sword, and a variety of exclamations
+in his mouth, more complimentary
+to the enemy's speed than his
+courage. The muftis, we have said,
+were sorely puzzled, and at last set it
+down as an infallible truth that he
+must be none other than Old Harry,
+whereas there was not a sailor in the
+fleet that did not know that it was
+none other than Old Charley. And
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg&nbsp;477]</a></span>
+this identical Old Charley, in a style
+of communication almost as rapid as
+his military evolutions, had indited the
+following epistle to the author of the
+volumes before us:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="address">
+"Headquarters of the Army of Lebanon.&mdash;Djouni,
+Sept. 1840.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My dear Edward&mdash;I have hoisted my
+broad pendant on Mount Lebanon, and
+mean to advance against the Egyptians with
+a considerable force under my command;
+you may be of use here; therefore go to
+Sir John M'Donald, and ask him to get
+leave for you to join me without delay.</p></div>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"Your affectionate father,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Charles Napier</span>."<br /></p>
+
+<p>And the dutiful son, who seems to
+have no inconsiderable portion of the
+paternal penchant for broken heads
+and other similar divertisements, in
+three weeks from the receipt of the
+letter found himself on board the Hydra,
+and rapidly approaching the classic
+shores of Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais;
+the scenes of scriptural records and
+deeds of chivalry&mdash;Palestine&mdash;the Holy
+Land. But the broad pendant in
+the mean time had been pulled down
+on Mount Lebanon, and once more
+fluttered to the sea breezes on board
+the Powerful. Sir Charles Smith had
+assumed the command of the land
+forces, and whether from ill-humour
+at finding half the work done during
+his absence by the amphibious commodore,
+or from some other cause,
+his reception of the author was, at
+first, far from cordial. Instead of
+being useful, as he had hoped, he
+found the sturdy old general blind to
+the value of his accession; and when
+the Powerful sailed he found himself
+without quarters appointed him, or
+even an invitation to join the officers'
+mess. But with the usual good-luck
+of people who bear disappointments
+well, all turned out for the best, as
+will be seen by the following extract:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I had, on board the Powerful, a few
+days before, formed the acquaintance of a
+young Syrian of the name of Assaade el
+Khyat, who, brought up at one of our universities,
+was at heart a true Englishman,
+spoke fluently our own and several other
+European and Eastern languages, and
+whom I found, on the whole, a sensible,
+well-informed young man, and a most
+agreeable companion. As I was sitting
+alone, after a solitary dinner, (in the miserable
+hotel at Beyrout,) musing in a
+brown study over a bottle of red Cyprus
+wine, my new acquaintance was ushered
+into the apartment; I made no secret to
+him of my extremely uncomfortable position,
+when he, with great kindness and
+liberality, overcoming the usual prejudices
+of his country, offered me an asylum in his
+own family, which offer I most gladly accepted,
+and was accordingly the next
+morning comfortably installed in my new
+quarters, whereof I will endeavour to give
+the reader a slight description.</p>
+
+<p>"The house of which I had just so
+unexpectedly become an inmate, was situated
+in one of the most retired and out
+of the way parts of the town, (and it was
+not before considerable time had elapsed,
+and then with difficulty, that I became
+acquainted with the labyrinth of narrow
+lanes, alleys, and dark passages which it
+was requisite to thread in order to arrive
+at this desired haven,) the property of a
+young man of the name of Giorgio Habbit
+Jummal&mdash;brother-in-law of my friend
+Assaade, to whom one of his sisters was
+married, and whom, as he spoke Italian
+with fluency and ease, I at once engaged
+as my dragoman or interpreter.</p>
+
+<p>"By a strange coincidence, I, under the
+roof of Giorgio, for the first time became
+acquainted with Mr Hunter, the author
+of the <i>Expedition to Syria</i>, who, placed
+in similar circumstances with myself, was
+likewise an inmate of the same house,
+and of whom, as we were subsequently
+much known together during our residence
+in this country, I shall after have
+occasion to mention: at present I will
+take the liberty of borrowing from his
+amusing narrative the following account
+of the inmates of our new domicile.
+'We lived in the house of a respectable
+Syrian family, that of Habbit Jummal,
+or interpreted, the esteemed camel-driver.
+Our landlord, Giorgius, the head
+of this family, was a young man hardly
+out of his teens; and having some competency,
+and being moreover <i>un beau
+gar&ccedil;on</i>, did not follow either his ancestral,
+or any other avocation. The harem, or
+woman's portion of the house, was composed
+of his mother, a fair widow of
+forty, and her two daughters, both Eastern
+beauties of their kind, Sarah and Nasarah
+(meaning Victory or Victoria;) the first,
+a laughing black eyed houri, with mischief
+in every dimple in her pretty face;
+the other, a more portly damsel, of a
+melancholy but not less pleasing expression.
+There were besides these, three
+younger children with equally poetic
+names, (Nassif, Iskunder, and Furkha,)
+and included in the <i>coterie</i> was a good-humoured
+negress, the general handmaid,
+whose original cognomen of Saade, was
+lost in the apposite soubriquet of Snowball.'&mdash;Although
+the greater part of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg&nbsp;478]</a></span>
+inhabitants of Beyrout are Christians, generally
+speaking, of the Greek Church, to
+which persuasion likewise belonged the
+family of our host Giorgio; still in this
+land of bigotry and oppression&mdash;to such
+an extent is carried suspicion and jealousy,
+and so far have Mahommedan prejudices
+in this respect been adopted, that all the
+women (those of the peasantry alone excepted)
+lead nearly as secluded a life as
+the Osmanli ladies of Constantinople or
+Smyrna. On venturing abroad, which
+they seldom do, unless when the knessi
+or humaum (church or bath) are the
+limits of their excursions, they are so
+closely shrouded in the izar, or long white
+garment, which, coming over the head and
+hiding the face, falls in numerous folds
+to the ground, as to be scarcely recognizable
+by their nearest friends or relations.
+To allow, therefore, two unknown and
+friendless strangers to become familiar inmates
+of an Eastern family, exposing
+wives, daughters, and sisters, to their unhallowed
+gaze, was a favour and mark of
+confidence on the part of Assaade which
+we duly appreciated, nor ever abused; it
+was, however, a privilege to which no
+other stranger in the place was admitted,
+and affording, as it did, such opportunities
+of acquiring the Arabic language, I
+eagerly embraced it without any feeling of
+regret at the inhospitality to which I was
+originally indebted for my admission behind
+the scenes of Oriental life.</p>
+
+<p>"The bare, gloomy, and massive stone
+walls of the exterior of our habitation
+had not prepared us for the comforts we
+found inside; and as for the first time we
+followed Giorgio and his brother-in-law
+up the rude and narrow stone staircase,
+which appeared to be scarped out of the
+very thickness of the wall&mdash;an open sesame
+from the former causing a strong
+iron studded door to fly back on its hinges,
+disclosed a handsome patis or court paved
+with black and white marble, along the
+sides of which were luxuriantly growing,
+and imparting a cooling freshness to the
+scene, the perfumed orange-tree, bearing
+at the same time both fruit and blossoms,
+and flanked by green myrtles and flowering
+geraniums; whilst an apartment opening
+on this garden terrace, and which
+appeared from the carpets and cushions
+scattered around the still smoking narghilis,
+(or water-pipe, in which is smoked
+the tumbic or Persian tobacco,) and other
+sundry traces of female industry, to be appropriated
+as the common sitting-room of
+the family, was on our entrance precipitately
+deserted by all its occupants, save
+one fine-looking matronly lady, whom
+Giorgio introduced as his mother; and
+while she was welcoming us with many
+'F&#257;dd&#257;lls,' and politely repeating, <i>Anna
+mugsond shoufuk</i>, (be seated, I am delighted
+to see you,) with innumerable other euphonious
+phrases, as we afterwards found
+high-flown Eastern compliments, but which
+at the time were sadly wasted on our
+Frankish ignorance, he, following the fair
+fugitives, soon brought back in each hand
+the blushing deserters, who have already
+been introduced to the reader as Mesdemoiselles
+Sarah and Nasarah. Pipes,
+narghilis, sherbet, and coffee followed in
+quick succession; the young negress,
+Saade, acting as Hebe on the occasion;
+and the ladies, at first timid as gazelles of
+the desert, soon, like those pretty creatures
+when reclaimed from the wilderness,
+became quite domesticated, acquired confidence,
+and freely joined in the conversation,
+which was with volubility carried
+on through the medium of Giorgio and
+Assaade; and ere an hour had elapsed,
+we were all on the friendly and easy footing
+of old acquaintances; when, taking
+leave for the time, we hastened to make
+the necessary arrangements for the conveyance
+of our goods and chattels to the
+capital billets we had had the good fortune
+to stumble on."</p></div>
+
+<p>The colonel made good use of his
+opportunity, and, by a diligent perusal
+of Miss Sarah's eyes, and an attentive
+study of Miss Nasarah's dimple,
+managed to acquire a smattering of
+Arabic in a far shorter time than
+would have been required in the most
+assiduous turning over of dictionaries
+and grammars. But our school-boy
+days can't last for ever&mdash;and, ere a
+fortnight elapsed, an order arrived
+from England for the hopeful scholar
+to be placed on the returns of the
+Syrian army, and to draw his field
+allowance, rations, and forage, as assistant
+adjutant-general of the British
+force. Dictionaries and eyes, grammars
+and dimples, were now exchanged
+for less pleasing pursuits. Fifteen
+thousand troops were by this
+time assembled at Beyrout, and rumour
+kept perpetually blowing the
+charge against Ibrahim Pasha, who
+was still encamped at Zachli, with an
+army much superior to that of the
+allies. Booted and spurred&mdash;with a
+long sword, saddle, bridle, and all the
+other paraphernalia so captivating to
+an ancient fair, as recorded in one of
+the lays of Old England by some forgotten
+Macaulay of former times&mdash;the
+colonel is intent on some doughty
+deed, and already in imagination sees
+captive Egyptians following his triumphal
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg&nbsp;479]</a></span>
+car. When all of a sudden, the
+sad news gets spread abroad that the
+old commodore has concluded a convention
+with Mehemet Ali, and that
+all the pomp and circumstance of glorious
+war is at an end. One only
+chance remained, and that was, that
+as all the big-wigs protested with all
+their might against the convention;
+and the fleet, in the midst of protestation
+and repudiations of all sorts and
+kinds, was forced by a severe gale to
+up anchor and run for Marmorice
+Bay, Ibrahim Pasha might perhaps
+be tempted to protest also in a still
+more unpleasant manner, and pay a
+visit to Beyrout in the absence of the
+navy. The very thoughts of it, however
+the English auxiliaries may have
+felt on the subject, gave an attack
+of fever to the unfortunate inhabitants,
+who devoutly prayed for a
+speedy fall of <i>tubbish</i>, (or snow,) by
+which his dreaded approach might be
+impeded. "Had such a movement
+on his part taken place at this critical
+moment, it is not improbable that it
+might have proved successful; as amid
+the variety of religious and conflicting
+interests, by which the people of
+Beyrout were influenced, Ibrahim had
+no doubt many friends in the town;
+and it is certain that he was moreover
+regularly made acquainted with every
+occurrence which took place, through
+the medium, as was supposed, of
+French agency and espionage."</p>
+
+<p>Ibrahim, however, had had enough
+of red coats and blue jackets, and left
+the people of Beyrout to themselves&mdash;an
+example which was followed by the
+author, who, being foiled in his expectations
+of riding down the Egyptians on
+the noble Arab left to him by the commodore,
+determined to put that fiery animal
+(the Arab) to its paces in scouring
+the country in all directions. It
+is not often that an assistant adjutant-general
+sets out on a tour in search of
+the picturesque; but in this instance
+the search was completely successful.
+Rock, ravine, precipice, and dell&mdash;running
+waters and waving woods,
+come as naturally to his pen as returns
+of effective force and other professional
+details; and, whatever the writing
+of them may be, we are prepared to
+contend that the reading of them is
+infinitely pleasanter. But as travellers
+and poets have of late left few
+mountains or molehills unsung in Palestine,
+we prefer extracting a picturesque
+account of a venerable abbess,
+who threw the light of Christian goodness
+over that benighted land about a
+century ago, and must have impressed
+the heathens in the neighbourhood
+with an exalted notion of the virtues
+of a nunnery:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"H&eacute;ndia was a Maronite girl, possessing
+extraordinary personal charms, who,
+in 1755, first brought herself into notice
+by her pretended piety and attention to
+her religious duties, till at last she was by
+this simple and credulous people considered
+almost in the light of a saint or
+prophetess. When she had thus established
+a reputation for sanctity, she next
+thought of becoming the head and chief
+of an extensive establishment of monks
+and nuns, to receive whom, with the aid
+of large contributions raised among her
+credulous admirers and followers, she
+erected two spacious stone buildings, which
+soon became filled with proselytes of both
+sexes. The patriarch of Lebanon was
+named the director of this establishment,
+and for twenty years H&eacute;ndia reigned with unbounded
+sway over the little community&mdash;performing
+miracles, uttering prophecies,
+and giving other tokens of being in the
+performance of a divine mission; and
+though it was remarked that many deaths
+yearly occurred among the nuns, the circumstance
+was generally attributed to
+disease incident to the insalubrity of the
+situation. At last, chance brought to
+light the cause of this very great mortality,
+and disclosed all the secret horrors which
+had so long remained covered by the veil
+of mystery in this abode of monastic abominations.
+A traveller, on his way from
+Damascus to the coast, happened to arrive
+one fine summer night at a late hour before
+the convent gates, which he found
+closed, and not wishing to disturb its
+inmates, who had apparently retired to
+rest, he spread his travelling rug under
+some neighbouring trees, and laid himself
+down to sleep. His slumbers
+were, however, shortly disturbed by a
+number of persons, who, issuing from
+the convent, appeared to be clandestinely
+bearing away what seemed to be a heavy
+bundle. Prompted by curiosity, he cautiously
+followed the party, who, after
+going a short distance, deposited their burden,
+and commenced digging a deep hole,
+into which having placed and covered
+with earth what was evidently a dead
+body, they immediately took their departure.
+Astonished, and rather dismayed, at
+an occurrence of so mysterious a nature,
+the traveller lost no time in mounting his
+mule, and on arriving at Beyrout made
+known the extraordinary occurrence to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg&nbsp;480]</a></span>
+which he had been witness the night before.
+This account reached the ears of
+a merchant who happened to have two
+daughters undergoing their noviciate at
+El Kourket, and reports had lately reached
+him of the illness of one of his children;
+this, together with the numerous
+deaths which had lately taken place at
+the convent, coupled with the traveller's
+narrative, excited in his mind the most
+serious apprehensions. He gave information
+on the subject, and laid a complaint
+before the Grand Prince at Dahr-el-Kamar,
+and, accompanied by his informant
+and a troop of horsemen furnished by the
+Emir, hastened to the spot of the alleged
+mysterious burial, when to his horror, on
+opening the newly made grave, he discovered
+it to contain the corpse of his youngest
+daughter! Frantic at this sight, he desired
+instant admission, in order to ascertain the
+safety of her sister. On this being refused,
+the gates were forced open, and the unfortunate
+girl was found closely confined in
+a dungeon, on the point of death, but retaining
+still strength enough to disclose
+horrors which led to an investigation,
+implicating the patriarch, the abbess, and
+several priests. This transaction, which
+happened in 1776, was submitted for the
+decision of the Papal See; when it appeared
+that the pretended prophetess had,
+by means of many ingenious mechanical
+devices, thus long imposed on public credulity,
+whilst in the retirement of the
+cloister the most licentious and profligate
+occurrences nightly took place; and that
+when any unfortunate nun gave offence,
+either by refusing to be sacrificed at the
+shrine of infamy, or that it became desirable
+to get rid of her, in order to appropriate
+for the convent the amount of her
+property, she was immured in a dungeon,
+left to perish by a lingering and
+miserable death, and then privately buried
+in the night. In consequence of these
+shocking discoveries, the patriarch was
+deposed&mdash;the priests, his accomplices, were
+severely punished, and the high priestess
+of this temple of cruelty and debauchery
+was immured in confinement, and survived
+for many years to repent of all the atrocities
+she had previously committed."</p></div>
+
+<p>We should like to know the colonel's
+authority for this circumstantial
+account. It bears at present a
+startling resemblance to the confession
+of Maria Monk, and the villanies
+recorded of the nunnery at Montreal;
+and we will hope in the mean time,
+that the devil, even in the shape of a
+lady abbess, is not quite so black as
+he is painted. The present abbess of
+El Kourket is already as black as
+need be, for we are told she is an
+Ethiopian negress.</p>
+
+<p>The war carried on in Syria after
+the decisive battle of Boharsef, seems
+to have been on the model of those
+recorded by Major Sturgeon, and to
+have consisted of marching and counter-marching,
+without any definite
+object, except, perhaps, the somewhat
+Universal-Peace-Society one of getting
+out of the enemy's way. General
+Jochmus, we guess from his name,
+was a Scotch schoolmaster, with a
+Latin termination&mdash;there being no
+mistaking the Jock&mdash;and in his religious
+tenets we feel sure he was a
+Quaker. The English officers attached
+to the staff had immense difficulty
+in bringing the troops (if they deserve
+to be called so) to the scratch; and
+we trust that, in all future commentaries
+on the Art of War, the method
+adopted by Commodore Napier, of
+throwing stones at his gallant army
+to force them forward, will not be
+forgotten. The author before us had
+no sinecure, and after the news of
+Ibrahim's retreat, galloped hither and
+thither, like the wild huntsman of a
+German story, to discover by what
+route the vanquished lion was growling
+his way to his den. With a hundred
+irregular horse, furnished him by
+Osman Aga, he set out on a foray
+beyond Jordan; and we do not wonder
+his two friends, Captain Lane, a Prussian
+edition of Don Quixote, and Mr
+Hunter, who has written an excellent
+account of his expedition to
+Syria, besides his old Beyrout friend
+Giorgio, volunteered to accompany
+him.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My motley troop, apparently composed
+of every tribe from the Caspian to the
+Red Sea, displayed no less variety in arms
+and accoutrements than in their personal
+appearance, varying from the sturdy-looking
+Kourd, mounted on his strong powerful
+steed, to the swarthy, spare, and sinewy
+Arab, with his long reed-like spear, his
+head encircled with the K&eacute;fiah, or thick
+rope of twisted camels' hair; whilst the
+flowing 'abbage' waved gracefully down
+the shining flanks of the high-mettled steed
+of the desert. In short, such an assemblage
+of cut-throat looking ruffians was
+probably never before seen; and whilst
+the Prussian military eye of old Lane
+glanced down our wide-spread and irregular
+line, I could see a curl of contempt
+on his grey mustaches, though his weather-beaten
+countenance maintained all the
+gravity of Frederick the Great. The troop
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg&nbsp;481]</a></span>
+appeared to be divided into two distinct
+parties&mdash;one Arab, the other Turkish;
+and, on directing the two chiefs to call the
+'roll' of their respective forces, I found
+that many were absent without leave, and
+the party which should have amounted to
+a hundred cavaliers only mustered between
+seventy and eighty. However, on the
+assurance that the rest would speedily
+follow&mdash;as there was no time to spare,
+after making them a short harangue, in
+which I promised abundance of <i>nehub</i>
+(plunder) whenever we came across the
+enemy, to which they responded by a wild
+yell of approbation&mdash;I gave the signal to
+move off, which was instantly obeyed, amidst
+joyous shouts, the brandishing of spears,
+and promiscuous discharge of fire-arms.
+Having thus got them under weigh, the
+next difficulty I experienced was to keep
+them together. I tried to form a rearguard
+to bring up the stragglers, but the
+guard would not remain behind, nor the
+stragglers keep up with the main body;
+and I soon, finding that something more
+persuasive than mere words was requisite
+to maintain them in order, took the first
+opportunity of getting a stout cudgel, with
+which I soundly belaboured all those whom
+I found guilty of thus disobeying my commands.
+The Eastern does not understand
+the <i>suaviter in modo</i>;&mdash;behave to him like
+a human being, he fancies you fear him,
+and he sets you at defiance&mdash;kick him
+and cuff him, treat him like a dog, and he
+crouches at your feet, the humble slave of
+your slightest wishes."</p></div>
+
+<p>Discipline of so perfect a nature
+must have inspired the gallant colonel
+with the strongest hopes of success in
+case of an onslaught on the forces of
+Ibrahim Pasha, and in all probability
+his efforts, with those of Captain
+Lane, Hunter, and Giorgio, might
+have produced something like a skrimmage
+when they came near the tents
+of the Egyptians; but it would seem
+that the cudgels wielded by the Musree
+commanders were either not so
+strong or not so well applied, for on
+the first appearance of the hostile
+squadron, the heroes of Nezib evaporated
+as if by magic, but not before
+a similar feat of legerdemain had been
+performed by the rabble rout of Turks
+and Arabs; and on looking round, to
+inspire his followers with a speech
+after the manner of Thucydides, the
+colonel discovered the last of his escort
+disappearing at full speed on the other
+side of the plain, and the Europeans
+were left alone in their glory. As
+they had nobody to attack, (the enemy
+continuing still in a state of evaporation,)
+every thing ended well; and, if
+the trumpeter had not been among
+the fugitives, there might have been
+a triumphal blow performed although
+no blow had been struck. We do not
+believe in the courage of the Arabs.
+No amount of kicking and cuffing
+could cow a nation's spirit that had
+once been brave; and we therefore
+consider it the greatest marvel in history
+how the Arabians managed at
+one time to conquer half the world.
+They must have been very different
+fellows from the chicken-hearted children
+of the desert recorded in these
+volumes. One thing only is certain,
+that they have left their anti-fighting
+propensities to their mongrel descendants
+in Spain; for a series of <em>actions</em>&mdash;that
+is, jinking and skulking, and
+running up and down, hiding themselves
+as if they were the personages
+of a writ&mdash;more distinctly Arabian
+than the late campaign which ended
+in the overthrow of Espartero, could
+not have been performed under the
+shadows of Mount Ebal. All the
+nobility that we are so fond of picturing
+to ourselves in the deeds and
+thoughts of Saladin, has gone over to
+the horse. The wild steed retains its
+fire, though the miserable horseman
+would do for a Madrileno <i>aide-de-camp</i>.
+And yet this is the way they
+are treated:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was a matter of surprise to us, how
+our horses stood without injury all the
+exposure, severe work, and often short
+commons, to which they were constantly
+subjected. When we came to a place where
+barley was to be procured, the grooms carried
+away as much as they could; when
+none was to be had, we gave our nags
+peas and <i>tibbin</i>, (chopped straw, the only
+forage used in the East,) or any thing we
+could lay hands on; they had little or no
+grooming, and frequently the saddles were
+not even removed from their backs. But
+I believe that nothing save the high mettle
+of the desert blood would carry an animal
+through all this toil and privation; and as
+to the much-extolled kindness of the Arab
+towards his horse, although it may be the
+case in the far deserts of the Hedged and
+Hedjar, I can avow that I never saw these
+noble animals treated with more inhuman
+neglect than I witnessed in the whole of
+my wanderings through Syria."</p></div>
+
+<p>The dreariness of a ride through
+the desolate plains and rugged rocks
+of Palestine, was diversified with startling
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg&nbsp;482]</a></span>
+adventures; and the fact of several
+of the powers of Europe and many of
+the tribes of Asia having chosen that
+sterile region for their battle-place,
+gave rise to some very odd coincidences.
+People from all the ends of
+the earth, who were lounging away
+their existence some three or four
+months before, without any anticipation
+of treading in the footsteps of the
+crusaders&mdash;some smoking strong tobacco
+in the coffeehouses of Berlin,
+or leaning gracefully (like the Chinese
+Admiral Kwang) against the
+pillars of the Junior United Service
+Club in London&mdash;or driving a heavy
+curricle in the Prado at Vienna&mdash;or
+reading powerfully for honours at the
+Great Go at Oxford&mdash;or climbing
+Albanian hills&mdash;or reclining in the
+silken recesses of a harem at Constantinople&mdash;all
+were thrown together in
+such unexpected groups, and found
+themselves so curiously banded together,
+that the tame realities of an
+ordinary campaign were thrown completely
+into the shade. The following
+introduces us to another member
+of the foray, whose character seems
+to have been such a combination of
+the gallant soldier and light-hearted
+troubadour, that we read of his after
+fate, in dying of the plague at Damascus,
+with great regret:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My troop had not yet cleared a difficult
+pass close to the khan, running between
+an abrupt face of the hill and the
+river, when the advanced guard came back
+at full speed with the announcement that
+a body of the enemy's infantry was near at
+hand. Closely jammed in a narrow defile,
+between inaccessible cliffs and the precipitous
+banks of the Jordan, with nothing but
+cavalry at my disposal, I was placed in
+rather a disagreeable position. There
+remained, however, no alternative but to
+put spurs to our horses, push forward
+through the pass, deploy on the level
+ground beyond it, and then trust to the
+chances of war. Having explained these
+intentions to the Sheikh and Aga, we lost
+no time in carrying them into effect; and
+on taking extended order after clearing
+the pass, saw immediately in front of us
+what we took to be an advanced guard of
+the enemy, consisting of some twenty or
+thirty soldiers, whom their white foustanellis"
+(the foustanellis is that part of the
+Albanian costume corresponding with the
+highland kilt) "and tall active forms
+immediately marked as Arnouts, or Albanians.
+Seeing, probably, that we had now
+the advantage of the ground, they hastily
+retired, recrossing a ravine which intersected
+the path, and extending in capital
+light infantry style, were soon sheltered
+behind the stones and rocks on the opposite
+bank, over the brow of which nought was
+to be seen but the protruding muzzles and
+long shining barrels of their firelocks. All
+this was the work of a few seconds, and
+passed in a much briefer space of time
+than it has taken to relate. I had now the
+greatest difficulty in keeping Mahommed
+Aga and his men from charging up to
+enemies who, from their present position,
+could have picked them easily off with
+perfect safety to themselves; and riding
+rapidly forward with Captain Lane, to see
+if we could by some means turn their
+flank, a few horsemen at this moment
+suddenly appeared over the swell on the
+opposite side of the ravine, the foremost
+of whom, whilst making many friendly
+signals, galloped across the intervening
+space, hailing us a friend, and at the same
+time waving his hand, to prevent his own
+people from opening their fire. Lane and
+myself were not backward in returning this
+greeting; and on approaching we beheld a
+handsome young man, dressed in the showy
+Austrian uniform, with a black Tartar
+sheepskin cap on his head, who, coming
+up, accosted us in French, and with all the
+frankness of a soldier, introduced himself
+as Count Szechinge, a captain of Austrian
+dragoons, then on his way from Tiberias
+with a party composed of one or two
+Turkish lancers, about twenty-five Albanian
+deserters, his German servant, dragoman,
+and suite, to raise troops in the
+Adjelloun hills&mdash;a mission very similar to
+the one I was myself employed on at Naplouse."</p></div>
+
+<p>An acquaintance begun under such
+circumstances grows into friendship
+with amazing rapidity; and many are
+the joyous hours the foragers spend
+together, in spite of intolerable weather
+and storms of sleet and snow,
+which bear a far greater resemblance
+to the climate of Lochaber than to that
+of Syria, "land of roses." Reinforced
+with the count and his companions,
+Colonel Napier pushes on&mdash;gets into
+the vicinity of Ibrahim&mdash;his rabble
+rout turn tail, in case of being swallowed
+alive by the ferocious pasha,
+whose reputation for cruelty and all
+manner of iniquities seems well deserved,
+and having ascertained the
+movements of that formidable ruffian,
+he returned to Naplouse to take the
+command of 1500 half-tamed, undisciplined
+savages, with whom to oppose
+his retreat. Luckily, the ratification
+of the convention come in the nick
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg&nbsp;483]</a></span>
+of time; for it is very evident that the
+best cudgels that were ever cut in
+"the classic woods of Hawthornden,"
+could not have awakened a spark of
+military ardour in the wretched riff-raff
+assemblage appointed for this service&mdash;and
+of all the abortive efforts at
+generalship we have ever read of, the
+attempt of the Turkish commanders
+was infinitely the worse&mdash;no foresight
+in providing for difficulties&mdash;no
+valour in fighting their way out of
+them; but, to compensate for these
+trifling deficiencies, a plentiful supply
+of pride and cruelty, with a due admixture
+of dishonesty. We heartily join,
+with Colonel Napier, in wondering
+where the deuce the "integrity of the
+Ottoman empire" is to be found, as,
+beyond all doubt, not a particle of it
+exists in any of its subjects. The
+pashas of Egypt, bad as they undoubtedly
+are, have redeeming points about
+them, which the Hassans, and Izzets,
+and Reschids of the Turks have no
+conception of; and, lively and sparkling
+as the gallant colonel's narrative
+is, we confess it leaves a sadder impression
+on our minds of the hopelessness
+and the degeneracy of the Moslems,
+than any book we have met with.
+Turk and Egyptian should equally be
+whipped back into the desert, and the
+fairest portions of the world be won
+over to civilization, wealth, and happiness.
+The present volumes close
+at the end of January 1841, and perhaps
+they are among the best results
+of the campaign. We shall be glad
+to see the proceedings at Alexandria
+sketched off in the same pleasant style.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_FATE_OF_POLYCRATES" id="THE_FATE_OF_POLYCRATES"></a>THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.&mdash;<i>Herod.</i> iii. 124-126.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh! go not forth, my father dear&mdash;oh! I go not forth to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And trust not thou that Satrap dark, for he fawns but to betray;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His courteous smiles are treacherous wiles, his foul designs to hide;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then go not forth, my father dear&mdash;in thy own fair towers abide."<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now, say not so, dear daughter mine&mdash;I pray thee, say not so!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where glory calls, a monarch's feet should never fear to go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And safe to-day will be my way through proud Magnesia's halls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if I stood 'mid my bowmen good beneath my Samian walls.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The Satrap is my friend, sweet child&mdash;my trusty friend is he&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ruddy gold his coffers hold he shares it all with me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more amid these clustering isles alone shall be my sway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Hellas wide, from side to side, thy empire shall obey!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And of all the maids of Hellas, though they be rich and fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the daughter of Polycrates, oh! who shall then compare?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then dry thy tears&mdash;no idle fears should damp our joy to-day&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And let me see thee smile once more before I haste away!"<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh! false would be the smile, my sire, that I should wear this morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For of all my country's daughters I shall soon be most forlorn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I know, I know,&mdash;ah, thought of woe!&mdash;I ne'er shall see again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My father's ship come sailing home across the Icarian main.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Each gifted seer, with words of fear, forbids thee to depart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And their warning strains an echo find in every faithful heart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A maiden weak, e'en I must speak&mdash;ye gods, assist me now!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The characters of doom and death are graven on thy brow!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Last night, my sire, a vision dire thy daughter's eyes did see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Suspended in mid air there hung a form resembling thee;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg&nbsp;484]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Nay, frown not thus, my father dear; my tale will soon be done&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Methought that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the sun!"<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My child, my child, thy fancies wild I may not stay to hear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A friend goes forth to meet a friend&mdash;then wherefore should'st thou fear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though moonstruck seers with idle fears beguile a maiden weak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They cannot stay thy father's hand, or blanch thy father's cheek.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Let cowards keep within their holds, and on peril fear to run!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such shame," quoth he, "is not for me, fair Fortune's favourite son!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet still the maiden did repeat her melancholy strain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I ne'er shall see my father's fleet come sailing home again!"<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The monarch call'd his seamen good, they muster'd on the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Waved in the gale the snow-white sail, and dash'd the sparkling oar;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But by the flood that maiden stood&mdash;loud rose her piteous cry&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Oh! go not forth, my dear, dear sire&mdash;oh, go not forth to die!"<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A frown was on that monarch's brow, and he said as he turn'd away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Full soon shall Samos' lord return to Samos' lovely bay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But thou shalt aye a maiden lone within my courts abide&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No chief of fame shall ever claim my daughter for his bride!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A long, long maidenhood to thee thy prophet tongue hath given&mdash;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Oh would, my sire," that maid replied, "such were the will of Heaven!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though I a loveless maiden lone must evermore remain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still let me hear that voice so dear in my native isle again!"<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas all in vain that warning strain&mdash;the king has crost the tide&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But never more off Samos shore his bark was seen to ride!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Satrap false his life has ta'en, that monarch bold and free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his limbs are black'ning in the blast, nail'd to the gallows-tree!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That night the rain came down apace, and wash'd each gory stain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the sun's bright ray, the next noonday, glared fiercely on the slain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the oozing gore began once more from his wounded sides to run;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Good-sooth, that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the Sun!<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg&nbsp;485]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MODERN_PAINTERS" id="MODERN_PAINTERS"></a>MODERN PAINTERS.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>We read this title with some pain,
+not doubting but that our modern landscape
+painters were severely handled
+in an ironical satire; and we determined
+to defend them. "Their superiority
+to <em>all</em> the ancient masters"&mdash;that
+was too hard a hit to come
+from any but an enemy! We must
+measure our man&mdash;a graduate of Oxford!
+The "scholar armed," without
+doubt. He comes, too, vauntingly
+up to us, with his contempt for
+us and all critics that ever were, or
+will be; we are all little Davids in
+the eye of this Goliath. Nevertheless,
+we will put a pebble in our sling.
+We saw this contempt of us, in dipping
+at hap-hazard into the volume.
+But what was our astonishment to
+find, upon looking further, that we
+had altogether mistaken the intent of
+the author, and that we should probably
+have not one Goliath, but many,
+to encounter; while our own particular
+friends, to whom we might look
+for help, were, alas! all dead men.
+We found that there were not
+"giants" in those days, but in these
+days&mdash;that the author, in his most
+superlative praise, is not ironical at
+all, but a most serious panegyrist,
+who never laughs, but does sometimes
+make his readers laugh, when
+they see his very unbecoming, mocking
+grimaces against the "old masters"&mdash;not
+that it can be fairly asserted
+that it is a laughable book. It
+has much conceit, and but little merriment;
+there is nothing really funny
+after you have got over, (vide page 6,)
+that he "looks with contempt on
+Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin."
+This contempt, however, being
+too limited for the "graduate of Oxford,"
+in the next page he enlarges
+the scope of his enmity; "speaking
+generally of the old masters, I refer
+only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator
+Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both,
+Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers (in his
+landscapes,) P. Potter, Canaletti, and
+the various Van Somethings and
+Back Somethings, more especially and
+malignantly those who have libelled
+the sea." Self-convicted of malice,
+he has not the slightest suspicion of
+his ignorance; whereas he <em>knows</em> nothing
+of these masters whom he maligns.
+Still is he ready to be their
+general accuser&mdash;has not the slightest
+respect for the accumulated opinions
+of the best judges for these two or
+three hundred years&mdash;he puts them
+by with the wave of his hand, very
+like the unfortunate gentleman in an
+establishment of "unsound opinions,"
+who gravely said&mdash;"The world and
+I differed in opinion&mdash;I was right,
+the world wrong; but they were too
+many for me, and put me here." We
+daresay that, in such establishments
+may be found many similar opinions
+to those our author promulgates,
+though, as yet, none of our respectable
+publishers have been convicted
+of a congenial folly. We said, that
+he suspects not his ignorance of
+the masters he maligns. Let it
+not hence be inferred that it is the
+work of an ignorant man. He is only
+ignorant with a prejudice. We will
+not say that it is not the work of a
+man who thinks, who has been habituated
+to a sort of scholastic reasoning,
+which he brings to bear, with no
+little parade and display, upon technicalities
+and distinctions. He can
+tutor <i>secundum artem</i>, lacking only,
+in the first point, that he has not tutored
+himself. With all his arrangements
+and distinctions laid down, as
+the very grammar of art, he confuses
+himself with his "truths," forgetting
+that, in matters of art, truths of
+fact must be referable to truths of
+mind. It is not what things in all
+respects really are, but what they appear,
+and how they are convertible
+by the mind into what they are not in
+many ways, respects, and degrees,
+that we have to consider, before we
+can venture to draw rules from any
+truths whatever. For art is something
+besides nature; and taste and
+feeling are first&mdash;precede practical
+art; and though greatly enhanced by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg&nbsp;486]</a></span>
+that practical cultivation, might exist
+without it&mdash;nay, often do; and true
+taste always walks a step in advance
+of what has been done, and ever desires
+to do, and from itself, more
+than it sees. We discover, therefore,
+a fallacy in the very proposal of his
+undertaking, when he says that he is
+prepared "to advance nothing which
+does not, at least in his own conviction,
+<em>rest on surer ground than mere feeling
+or taste</em>." Notwithstanding, however,
+that our graduate of Oxford puts
+his "demonstrations" upon an equality
+with "the demonstrations of Euclid,"
+and "thinks it proper for the
+public to know, that the writer is no
+mere theorist, but has been devoted
+from his youth to the laborious study
+of practical art," and that he is "a
+graduate of Oxford;" we do not look
+upon him as a bit the better judge for
+all that, seeing that many have practised
+it too fondly and too ignorantly
+all their lives, and that Claude, and
+Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin must,
+according to him, have been in this
+predicament, and more especially do
+we decline from bowing down at his
+dictation, when we find him advocating
+<em>any</em> "<em>surer ground than feeling
+or taste</em>." Now, considering that
+thus, <i>in initio</i>, he sets aside feeling
+and taste, the reader will not be astonished
+to find a very substantial
+reason given for his contempt of the
+afore-mentioned old masters; it is, he
+says, "because I look with the most
+devoted veneration upon Michael Angelo,
+Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, that I
+do not distrust the principles which
+induce me to look with contempt,"
+&amp;c. We do not exactly see how
+these great men, who were not landscape
+painters, can very well be compared
+with those who were, but from
+some general principles of art, in
+which the world have not as yet found
+any very extraordinary difference.
+But we do humbly suggest, that Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci,
+are in their practice, and principles,
+if you please, quite as unlike Messrs
+David Cox, Copley Fielding, J. D.
+Harding, Clarkson Stanfield, and
+Turner&mdash;the very men whom our author
+brings forward as the excellent
+of the earth, in opposition <em>to all</em> old
+masters whatever, excepting only Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci,
+to whom nevertheless, by a perverse
+pertinacity of their respective geniuses,
+they bear no resemblance whatever&mdash;as
+they are to Claude, Salvator, and
+Gaspar Poussin. We do not by any
+means intend to speak disrespectfully
+of these our English artists, but we
+must either mistrust those principles
+which cause them to stand in opposition
+to the great Italians, or to conceive
+that our author has really discovered
+no such differing principles,
+and which possibly may not exist at
+all. Nor will we think so meanly of
+the taste, the good feeling, and the
+good sense of these men, as to believe
+that they think themselves at all flattered
+by any admiration founded on
+such an irrational contempt. They
+well know that Michael Angelo, Raffaelle,
+and Da Vinci, have been admired,
+together with Claude, Salvator,
+and Gaspar Poussin, and they do not
+themselves desire to be put upon a
+separate list. The author concludes
+his introduction with a very bad reason
+for his partiality to modern masters,
+and it is put in most ambitious
+language, very readily learned in the
+"Fudge School,"&mdash;a style of language
+with which our author is very apt to
+indulge himself; but the argument it
+so ostentatiously clothes, and which
+we hesitate not to call a bad one, is
+nothing more than this, (if we understand
+it,)&mdash;that the dead are dead, and
+cannot hear our praise; that the living
+are living, and therefore our love is
+not lost; in short, as a <i>non-sequitur</i>,
+"that if honour be for the dead, gratitude
+can only be for the living."
+This might have been simply said;
+but we are taken to the grave&mdash;with
+"He who has once stood beside the
+grave," &amp;c. &amp;c.; we have "wild
+love&mdash;keen sorrow&mdash;pleasure to pulseless
+hearts&mdash;debt to the heart&mdash;to be
+discharged to the dust&mdash;the garland&mdash;the
+tombstone&mdash;the crowned brow&mdash;the
+ashes and the spirit&mdash;heaven-toned
+voices and heaven-lighted lamps&mdash;the
+learning&mdash;sweetness by silence&mdash;and
+light by decay;" all which,
+we conceive, might have been very
+excusable in a young curate's sermon
+during his first year of probation, and
+might have won for him more nosegays
+and favours than golden opinions,
+but which we here feel inclined to
+put our pen across, as so we remember
+many similarly ambitious passages
+to have been served, before we were
+graduate of Oxford, with the insignificant
+signification from the pen of our
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg&nbsp;487]</a></span>
+informator of <i>nihil ad rem</i>. As the
+author threatens the public with another,
+or more volumes, we venture
+to throw out a recommendation, that at
+least one volume may serve the purpose
+and do the real work of two, if he will
+check this propensity to unnecessary
+redundancy. His numerous passages
+of this kind are for the most part extremely
+unintelligible; and when we
+have unraveled the several coatings,
+we too often find the ribs of the
+mummy are not human. We think
+it right to object, in this place, to an
+affectation in phraseology offensive to
+those who think seriously of breaking
+the third commandment&mdash;he scarcely
+speaks of mountains without taking
+the sacred name in vain; there is likewise
+a constant repetition of expressions
+of very doubtful meaning in the
+first use, for the most part quite devoid
+of meaning in their application. One
+of these is "palpitating." Light is
+"palpitating," darkness is "palpitating"&mdash;every
+conceivable thing is
+"palpitating." We must, however, in
+justice say, that by far the best part
+of the book, the laying down rules and
+the elucidating principles, is clearly
+and expressively written. In this part
+of the work there is greater expansion
+than the student will generally find in
+books on art. Not that we are aware
+of the advancement of any thing new;
+but the admitted maxims of art are, as
+it were, grammatically analysed, and
+in a manner to assist the beginner in
+thinking upon art. To those who
+have already <em>thought</em>, this very studied
+analysis and arrangement will be tedious
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>In the "Definition of Greatness
+in Art," we find&mdash;"If I say that the
+greatest picture is that which conveys
+to the mind of the spectator the greatest
+number of the greatest ideas, I
+have a definition which will include
+as subjects of comparison every pleasure
+which art is capable of conveying."
+Now, there are great ideas
+which are so conflicting as to annul
+the force of each other. This is not
+enough; there must be a congruity of
+great ideas&mdash;nay, in some instances,
+we can conceive one idea to be so
+great, as in a work of art not to admit
+of the juxtaposition of others. This
+is the principle upon which the sonnet
+is built, and the sonnet illustrates the
+picture not unaptly. "Ideas of
+Power" are great ideas&mdash;not always
+are ideas of beauty great; yet is there
+a tempering the one with the other,
+which it is the special province of art
+to attain, and that for its highest and
+most moral purposes. In his "Ideas
+of Power," he distinguishes the term
+"excellent" from the terms "beautiful,"
+"useful," "good," &amp;c.; thus&mdash;"And
+we shall always, in future, use
+the word excellent, as signifying that
+the thing to which it is applied required
+a great power for its production."
+Is not this doubtful? Does it
+not limit the perception of excellence
+to artists who can alone from their
+practice, and, as it were, measurement
+of powers with their difficulties, learn
+and feel its existence in the sense to
+which it is limited. The inference
+would be, that none but artists can be
+critics, as none but artists can perceive
+excellence, and we think in more than
+one place some such assertion is made.
+This is startling&mdash;"Power is never
+wasted; whatever power has been
+employed, produces excellence in proportion
+to its own dignity and exertion;
+and the faculty of perceiving
+this exertion, and approaching this
+dignity, is the faculty of perceiving
+excellence." "It is this faculty in
+which men, even of the most cultivated
+taste, must always be wanting,
+unless they have added practice to
+reflection; because none can estimate
+the power manifested in victory, unless
+they have personally measured the
+strength to be overcome." For the
+word strength use difficulty, and we
+should say that, to the unpractised,
+the difficulties must always appear
+greatest. He gives, as illustration,
+"Titian's flesh tint;" it may be possible
+that, by some felicitous invention,
+some new technicality of his art,
+Titian might have produced this excellence,
+and to him there would have
+been no such great measurement of
+the difficulty or strength to be overcome;
+while the admirer of the work,
+ignorant of the happy means, fancies
+the exertion of powers which were not
+exerted. In his chapter on "Ideas
+of Imitation," he imagines that Fuseli
+and Coleridge falsely apply the term
+imitation, making "a distinction between
+imitation and copying, representing
+the first as the legitimate function
+of art&mdash;the latter as its corruption."
+Yet we think he comes pretty
+much to the same conclusion. In like
+manner, he seems to disagree with
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg&nbsp;488]</a></span>
+Burke in a passage which he quotes,
+but in reality he agrees with him; for
+surely the "power of the imitation"
+is but a power of the "jugglery," to
+be sensible of which, if we understand
+him, is necessary to our sense of imitation.
+"When the object," says
+Burke, "represented in poetry or
+painting is such as we could have no
+desire of seeing in the reality, then we
+may be sure that its power in poetry
+or painting is owing to the power of
+<em>imitation</em>." "We may," says our
+author, "be sure of the contrary; for
+if the object be undesirable in itself,
+the closer the imitation the less will
+be the pleasure." Certainly not; for
+Burke of course implied, and included
+in his sense of imitation, that it should
+be consistent with a knowledge in the
+spectator, that a certain trick of art
+was put upon him. And our author
+says the same&mdash;"Whenever the work
+is seen to resemble something which we
+know it is not, we receive what I call
+an idea of imitation." Again&mdash;"Now,
+two things are requisite to our complete
+and most pleasurable perception
+of this: first, that the resemblance be
+so perfect as to amount to deception;
+secondly, that there be some
+means of proving at the same moment
+that it <em>is</em> a deception." He
+justly considers "the pleasures resulting
+from imitation the most contemptible
+that can be received from
+art." He thus happily illustrates his
+meaning&mdash;"We may consider tears
+as a result of agony or of art, whichever
+we please, but not of both at the
+same moment. If we are surprised
+by them as an attainment of the one,
+it is impossible we can be moved by
+them as a sign of the other." This
+will explain why we are pleased with
+the exact imitation of the dewdrop
+on the peach, and why we are disgusted
+with the Magdalen's tears by
+Vanderwerf; and we further draw
+this inevitable conclusion, of very important
+consequence to artists, who
+have very erroneous notions upon the
+subject, that this sort of imitation,
+which, by the deception of its name,
+should be most like, is actually less
+like nature, because it takes from nature
+its impression by substituting a
+sense of the jugglery. This chapter on
+ideas of imitation is good and useful.
+We think, in the after part of his work,
+wherein is much criticism on pictures
+by the old masters and by moderns,
+our author must have lost the remembrance
+of what he has so well said on
+his ideas of imitation; and in the following
+chapter on "Ideas of Truth."
+"The word truth, as applied to art,
+signifies the faithful statement, either
+to the mind or senses, of any fact of
+nature." The reader will readily see
+how "ideas of truth" differ from
+"ideas of imitation." The latter relating
+only to material objects, the former
+taking in the conceptions of the
+mind&mdash;may be conveyed by signs or
+symbols, "themselves no image nor
+likeness of any thing." "An idea of
+truth exists in the statement of <em>one</em>
+attribute of any thing; but an idea of
+imitation only in the resemblance of
+as many attributes as we are usually
+cognizant of in its real presence."
+Hence it follows that ideas of truth
+are inconsistent with ideas of imitation;
+for, as we before said, ideas of
+imitation remove the impression by
+an ever-present sense of the deception
+or falsehood. This is put very
+conclusively&mdash;"so that the moment
+ideas of truth are grouped together, so
+as to give rise to an idea of imitation,
+they change their very nature&mdash;lose
+their essence as ideas of truth&mdash;and are
+corrupted and degraded, so as to share
+in the treachery of what they have
+produced. Hence, finally, ideas of
+truth are the foundation, and ideas
+of imitation the distinction, of all
+art. We shall be better able to
+appreciate their relative dignity after
+the investigation which we propose of
+functions of the former; but we
+may as well now express the conclusion
+to which we shall then be led&mdash;that
+no picture can be good which
+deceives by its imitation; for the very
+reason that nothing can be beautiful
+which is not true." This is perhaps
+rather too indiscriminate. It has been
+shown that ideas of imitation do give
+pleasure; by them, too, objects of
+beauty may be represented. We
+should not say that a picture by Gerard
+Dow or Van Eyck; even with the
+down on the peach and the dew on
+the leaf, were not good pictures.
+They are good if they please. It is
+true, they ought to do more, and even
+that in a higher degree; they cannot
+be works of greatness&mdash;and greatness
+was probably meant in the word good.
+In his chapter on "Ideas of Beauty,"
+he considers that we derive, naturally
+and instinctively, pleasure from the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg&nbsp;489]</a></span>
+contemplation of certain material objects;
+for which no other reason can
+be given than that it is our instinct&mdash;the
+will of our Maker&mdash;we enjoy them
+"instinctively and necessarily, as we
+derive sensual pleasure from the scent
+of a rose." But we have instinctively
+aversion as well as desire; though he
+admits this, he seems to lose sight of
+it in the following&mdash;"And it would
+appear that we are intended by the
+Deity to be constantly under their
+influence, (ideas of beauty;) because
+there is not one single object in nature
+which is not capable of conveying
+them," &amp;c. We are not satisfied; if
+the instinctive desire be the index to
+what is beautiful, so must the instinctive
+aversion be the index to its opposite.
+We have an instinctive dislike
+to many reptiles, to many beasts&mdash;as
+apes. These <em>may</em> have in them some
+beauty; we only object to the author's
+want of clearness. If there be no
+ugliness there is no beauty, for every
+thing has its opposite; so that we
+think he has not yet discovered and
+clearly put before us what beauty
+consists in. He shows how it happens
+that we do admire it instinctively;
+but that does not tell us what it is,
+and possibly, after all that has been
+said about it, it yet remains to be told.
+Nor are we satisfied with his definition
+of taste&mdash;"Perfect taste is the
+faculty of receiving the greatest possible
+pleasure from those material
+sources which are attractive to our
+moral nature in its purity and perfection."
+This will not do; for
+taste will take material sources, unattractive
+in themselves, and by combination,
+or for their contrast, receive
+pleasure from them. All literature
+and all art show this. That
+taste, like life itself, is instinctive
+in its origin and first motion, we doubt
+not; but what it is by and in its cultivation,
+and in its application to art,
+is a thing not to be altogether so cursorily
+discussed and dismissed. The
+distinction is laid down between taste
+and judgment&mdash;judgment being the
+action of the intellect; taste "the instinctive
+and instant preferring of one
+material object to another without any
+obvious reason," except that it is proper
+to human nature in its perfection
+so to do. But leaving this discussion
+of this original taste, taste in art is
+surely, as it is a thing cultivated, that
+for which a reason can be given, and
+in some measure, therefore, the result
+of judgment. For by the cultivation
+of taste we are actually led to love,
+admire, and desire many things of
+which we have no instinctive love at
+all; so that the taste for them arises
+from the intellect and the moral sense&mdash;our
+judgment. He proceeds to
+"Ideas of Relation," by which he
+means "to express all those sources
+of pleasure, which involve and require
+at the instant of their perception, active
+exertion of the intellectual powers."
+As this is to be more easily
+comprehended by an illustration, we
+have one in an incident of one of
+Turner's pictures, and, considering
+the object, it is surprising the author
+did not find one more important; but
+he herein shows that, in his eyes,
+every stroke of the brush by Mr
+Turner is important&mdash;indeed, is a
+considerable addition to our national
+wealth. In the picture of the "Building
+of Carthage," the foreground is
+occupied by a group of children sailing
+toy-boats, which he thinks to be
+an "exquisite choice of incident expressive
+of the ruling passion." He,
+with a whimsical extravagance in
+praise of Turner, which, commencing
+here, runs throughout all the rest of
+the volume, says&mdash;"Such a thought
+as this is something far above all art;
+it is epic poetry of the highest order."
+Epic poetry of the highest order!
+Ungrateful will be our future epic
+poets if they do not learn from this&mdash;if
+such is done by boys sailing toy-boats,
+surely boys flying a kite will
+illustrate far better the great astronomical
+knowledge of our days.
+But he is rather unfortunate in this
+bit of criticism; for he compares this
+incident with one of Claude's, which
+we, however, think a far better and
+more poetical incident. "Claude, in
+subjects of <em>the same kind</em>," (not, by
+the by, a very fair statement,)
+"commonly introduces people carrying
+red trunks with iron locks about,
+and dwells, with infantine delight, on
+the lustre of the leather and the ornaments
+of the iron. The intellect can
+have no occupation here, we must
+look to the imitation or to nothing."
+As to the "<em>infantine delight</em>," we
+presume it is rather with the boys
+and their toy-boats; but let us look a
+little into these trunks&mdash;no, we may
+not&mdash;there is something more in them
+than our graduate imagines&mdash;the very
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg&nbsp;490]</a></span>
+iron locks and precious leather mean
+to tell you there is something still
+more precious within, worth all the
+cost of freightage; and you see, a little
+off, the great argosie that has
+brought the riches; and we humbly
+think that the ruling passion of a
+people whose "princes were merchants,
+and whose merchants princes,"
+as happily expressed by the said "red
+trunks" as the rise of Carthage by
+the boys and boats; and in the fervour
+of this bit of "exquisite" epic
+choice, probably Claude did look with
+delight on the locks and the leather;
+and, whenever we look upon that picture
+again, we shall be ready to join
+in the delight, and say, in spite of our
+graduate's "contempt," there is nothing
+like leather. If the boys and
+boats express the beginning, the red
+trunks express the thing done&mdash;merchandise
+"brought home to every
+man's door;" so that the one serves
+for an "idea of relation," quite as well
+as the other. And here ends section
+the first.</p>
+
+<p>The study of ideas of imitation are
+thrown out of the consideration of
+ideas of power, as unworthy the pursuit
+of an artist, whose purpose is not
+to deceive, and because they are only
+the result of a particular association
+of ideas of truth. "There are two
+modes in which we receive the conception
+of power; one, the most just,
+when by a perfect knowledge of the
+difficulty to be overcome, and the
+means employed, we form a right estimate
+of the faculties exerted; the other,
+when without possessing such intimate
+and accurate knowledge, we are impressed
+by a sensation of power in
+visible action. If these two modes of
+receiving the impression agree in the
+result, and if the sensation be equal
+to the estimate, we receive the utmost
+possible idea of power. But this is
+the case perhaps with the works of
+only one man out of the whole circle
+of the fathers of art, of him to whom
+we have just referred&mdash;Michael Angelo.
+In others the estimate and the
+sensation are constantly unequal, and
+often contradictory." There is a distinction
+between the sensation of
+power and the intellectual perception
+of it. A slight sketch will give the
+sensation; the greater power is in the
+completion, not so manifest, but of
+which there is a more intellectual
+cognizance. He instances the drawings
+of Frederick Tayler for sensations
+of power, considering the apparent
+means; and those of John Lewis
+for more complete ideas of power, in
+reference to the greater difficulties
+overcome, and the more complicated
+means employed. We think him unfortunate
+in his selection, as the subjects
+of these artists are not such as,
+of themselves, justly to receive ideas
+of power, therefore not the best to
+illustrate them. He proceeds to
+"ideas of power, as they are dependent
+on execution." There are six
+legitimate sources of pleasure in execution&mdash;truth,
+simplicity, mystery,
+inadequacy, decision, velocity. "Decision"
+we should think involved in
+"truth;" as so involved, not necessarily
+different from velocity. Mystery
+and inadequacy require explanation.
+"Nature is always mysterious
+and secret in her use of means; and
+art is always likest her when it is
+most inexplicable." Execution, therefore,
+should be "incomprehensible."
+"Inadequacy" can hardly, we think,
+be said to be a quality of execution,
+as it has only reference to means employed.
+Insufficient means, according
+to him, give ideas of power. We
+otherwise conclude&mdash;namely, that if
+the inadequacy of the means is shown,
+we receive ideas of weakness. "Ars
+est celare artem"&mdash;so is it to conceal
+the means. Strangeness in execution,
+not a legitimate source of pleasure, is
+illustrated by the execution of a bull's
+head by Rubens, and of the same by
+Berghem. Of the six qualities of
+execution, the three first are the greatest,
+the three last the most attractive.
+He considers Berghem and Salvator
+to have carried their fondness for
+these lowest qualities to a vice. We
+can scarcely agree with him, as their
+execution seems most appropriate to
+the character of their subjects&mdash;to
+arise, in fact, out of their "ideas of
+truth." There is appended a good
+note on the execution of the "drawing-master,"
+that, under the title of
+boldness, will admit of no touch less
+than the tenth of an inch broad, and
+on the tricks of engravers' handling.</p>
+
+<p>Our graduate dismisses the "sublime"
+in about two pages; in fact,
+he considers sublimity not to be a
+specific term, nor "descriptive of the
+effect of a particular class of ideas;"
+but as he immediately asserts that it
+is "greatness of any kind," and "the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg&nbsp;491]</a></span>
+effect of greatness upon the feelings,"
+we should have expected to have
+heard a little more about what constitutes
+this "greatness," this "sublime,"
+which "elevates the mind,"
+something more than that "Burke's
+theory of the nature of the sublime is
+incorrect." The sublime not being
+"distinct from what is beautiful," he
+confines his subject to "ideas of truth,
+beauty, and relation," and by these
+he proposes to test all artists. Truth
+of facts and truth of thoughts are
+here considered; the first necessary,
+but the latter the highest: we should say
+that it is the latter which alone constitutes
+art, and that here art begins
+where nature ends. Facts are the
+foundation necessary to the superstructure;
+the foundation of which
+must be there, though unseen, unnoticed
+in contemplation of the noble
+edifice. Very great stress is laid upon
+"the exceeding importance of truth;"
+which none will question, reminding
+us of the commencement of Bacon's
+essay, "What is truth? said laughing
+Pilate, and would not wait for an answer."
+"Nothing," says our author,
+"can atone for the want of truth, not
+the most brilliant imagination, the
+most playful fancy, the most pure
+feeling (supposing that feeling <em>could</em>
+be pure and false at the same time,)
+not the most exalted conception, nor
+the most comprehensive grasp of intellect,
+can make amends for the want
+of truth." Now, there is much parade
+in all this, surely truth, as such in
+reference to art, is <em>in</em> the brilliancy of
+imagination, <em>in</em> the playfulness, without
+which is no fancy, <em>in</em> the feeling,
+and <em>in</em> the very exaltation of a conception;
+and intellect has no <em>grasp</em> that
+does not grasp a truth. When he
+speaks of nature as "immeasurably
+superior to all that the human mind
+can conceive," and professes to "pay
+no regard whatsoever to what may be
+thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative,"
+and to "look only for
+truth, bare, clear downright statement
+of facts," he seems to forget what nature
+is, as adopted by, as taken into
+art; it is not only external nature,
+but external nature in conjunction
+with the human mind. Nor does he,
+in fact, adhere in the subsequent part
+of his work to this his declaration; for
+he loses it in his "fervour of imagination,"
+when he actually examines the
+works of "the great living painter,
+who is, I believe, imagined by the
+majority of the public to paint more
+falsehood and less fact than any other
+known master." Here our author
+jumps at once into his monomania&mdash;his
+adoration of the works of Turner,
+which he examines largely and microscopically,
+as it suits his whim, and
+imagines all the while he is describing
+and examining nature; and not unfrequently
+he tells you, that nature and
+Turner are the same, and that he
+"invites the same ceaseless study as
+the works of nature herself." This is
+"coming it pretty strong." We confess
+we are with the majority&mdash;not
+that we wish to depreciate Turner.
+He is, or has been, unquestionably, a
+man of genius, and that is a great
+admission. He has, perhaps, done in
+art what never has been done before.
+He has illuminated "Views," if not
+with local, with a splendid truth. His
+views of towns are the finest; he led
+the way to this walk of art, and is
+far superior to all in it. We speak
+of his works collectively. Some of
+his earlier, more imaginative, were
+unquestionably poetical, though not,
+perhaps, of a very high character. We
+believe he has been better acquainted
+with many of the truths of nature,
+particularly those which came within
+the compass of his line of views, than
+any other artist, ancient or modern;
+but we believe he has neglected others,
+and some important ones too, and to
+which the old masters paid the greatest
+attention, and devoted the utmost
+study. We have spoken frequently,
+unhesitatingly, of the late extraordinary
+productions of his pencil, as altogether
+unworthy his real genius; it
+is in these we see, with the majority
+of the public, "more falsehood and
+less fact" than in any other known
+master&mdash;a defiance of the "known
+truths" in drawing, colour, and composition,
+for which we can only account
+upon the supposition, that his
+eye misrepresents to him the work of
+his hands. We see, in the almost
+adoration of his few admirers, that if
+it be difficult, and not always dependent,
+on merit to attain to eminence
+in the world's estimation, it is nearly
+as difficult altogether to fall from it;
+and that nothing the artist can do,
+though they be the veriest "&aelig;gri
+somnia," will separate from him habitual
+followers, who, with a zeal in
+proportion to the extravagances he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg&nbsp;492]</a></span>
+may perpetrate, will lose their relish
+for, and depreciate the great masters,
+whose very principles he seems capriciously
+in his age to set aside, and
+they will from followers become his
+worshippers, and in pertinacity exact
+entire compliance, and assent to every,
+the silliest, dictation of their monomania.
+We subjoin a specimen of
+this kind of worship, which will be
+found fully to justify our observations,
+and which, considering it speaks of
+mortal man, is somewhat blaspheming
+Divine attributes; we know not really
+whether we should pity the condition
+of the author, or reprehend the passage.
+After speaking of other modern
+painters, who are so superior to the
+old, he says: "and Turner&mdash;glorious
+in conception&mdash;unfathomable in knowledge&mdash;solitary
+in power&mdash;with the
+elements waiting upon his will, and
+the night and the morning obedient
+to his call, sent as a prophet of God
+to reveal to men the mysteries of his
+universe, standing, like the great angel
+of the Apocalypse, clothed with a
+cloud, and with a rainbow upon his
+head, and with the sun and stars
+given into his hand." Little as we
+are disposed to laugh at any such
+aberrations, we must, to remove from
+our minds the greater, the more serious
+offence, indulge in a small degree
+of justifiable ridicule; and ask
+what will sculptor or painter make of
+this description, should the reluctant
+public be convinced by the "graduate,"
+and in their penitential reverence
+order statue or painting of Mr
+Turner for the Temple of Fame,
+which it is presumed Parliament, in
+their artistic zeal, mean to erect?
+How will they venture to represent
+Mr Turner looking like an angel&mdash;in
+that dress which would make any
+man look like a fool&mdash;his cloud nightcap
+tied with rainbow riband round
+his head, calling to night and morning,
+and little caring which comes,
+making "ducks and drakes" of the
+sun and the stars, put into his hand
+for that purpose? We will only suggest
+one addition, as it completes the
+grand idea, and is in some degree
+characteristic of Mr Turner's peculiar
+execution, that, with the sun and
+stars, there should be delivered into
+his hand a comet, whose tail should
+serve him for a brush, and supply itself
+with colour. We do not see,
+however, why the moon should have
+been omitted; sun, moon, and stars,
+generally go together. Is the author
+as jealous as the "majority of the
+public" may be suspicious of her influence?
+And let not the reader believe
+that Mr Turner is thus called a
+prophet in mere joke, or a fashion of
+words&mdash;his prophetic power is advanced
+in another passage, wherein it is
+asserted that Mr Turner not only tells
+us in his works what nature has done
+in hers, but what she will do. "In fact,"
+says our author, "the great quality
+about Mr Turner's drawings, which
+more especially proves their transcendant
+truth, is the capability they
+afford us of reasoning on past and
+future phenomena." The book teems
+with extravagant bombastic praise
+like this. Mr Turner is more than
+the Magnus Apollo. Yet other English
+artists are brought forward, immediately
+preceding the above panegyric;
+we know not if we do them justice,
+by noticing what is said of them.
+There is a curious description of David
+Cos lying on the ground "to possess
+his spirit in humility and peace,"
+of Copley Fielding, as an aeronaut,
+"casting his whole soul into space."
+We really cannot follow him, "exulting
+like the wild deer in the motion of
+the swift mists," and "flying with the
+wild wind and sifted spray along the
+white driving desolate sea, with the
+passion for nature's freedom burning
+in his heart;" for such a chase and
+such a heart-burn must have a frightful
+termination, unless it be mere
+nightmare. We see "J. D. Harding,
+brilliant and vigorous," &amp;c., "following
+with his quick, keen dash the
+sunlight into the crannies of the
+rocks, and the wind into the tangling
+of the grass, and the bright colour into
+the fall of the sea-foam&mdash;various,
+universal in his aim;" after which very
+fatiguing pursuit, we are happy to
+find him "under the shade of some
+spreading elm;" yet his heart is oak&mdash;and
+he is "English, all English at
+his heart." But Mr Clarkson Stanfield
+is a man of men&mdash;"firm, and
+fearless, and unerring in his knowledge&mdash;stern
+and decisive in his truth&mdash;perfect
+and certain in composition&mdash;shunning
+nothing, concealing nothing,
+and falsifying nothing&mdash;never
+affected, never morbid, never failing&mdash;conscious
+of his strength, but never
+ostentatious of it&mdash;acquainted with
+every line and hue of the deep
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg&nbsp;493]</a></span>
+sea&mdash;chiseling his waves with unhesitating
+knowledge of every curve of their
+anatomy, and every moment of their
+motion&mdash;building his mountains rock
+by rock, with wind in every fissure,
+and weight in every stone&mdash;and modeling
+the masses of his sky with the
+strength of tempest in their every
+fold." It is curious&mdash;yet a searcher
+after nature's truths ought to know,
+as he is here told, that waves may be
+anatomized, and must be <em>chiseled</em>,
+and that mountains are and ought to
+be <em>built</em> up rock by rock, as a wall
+brick by brick; no easy task considering
+that there is a disagreeable
+"wind in every fissure, and weight in
+every stone"&mdash;and that the aerial sky,
+incapable to touch, must be "modeled
+in masses." All this is given after an
+equally extravagant abuse of Claude,
+of Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. He
+finds fault with Claude, because his
+sea does not "upset the flower-pots
+on the wall," forgetting that they are
+put there because the sea could not&mdash;with
+Salvator, for his "contemptible
+fragment of splintery crag, which an
+Alpine snow-wreath" (which would
+have no business there) "would smother
+in its first swell, with a stunted
+bush or two growing out of it, and a
+Dudley or Halifax-like volume of
+smoke for a sky"&mdash;with Poussin, for
+that he treats foliage (whereof "every
+bough is a revelation!") as "a black
+round mass of impenetrable paint, diverging
+into feathers instead of leaves,
+and supported on a stick instead of a
+trunk." A page or two from this, our
+author sadly abuses poor Canaletti,
+as far as we can see, for not painting
+a tumbled-down wall, which perhaps,
+in his day, was not in a ruinous state
+at all; it is a curious passage&mdash;and
+shows how much may be made out
+of a wall. Pyramus's chink was nothing
+to this&mdash;behold a specimen of
+"fine writing!" "Well: take the next
+house. We remember that too; it
+was mouldering inch by inch into the
+canal, and the bricks had fallen away
+from its shattered marble shafts, and
+left them white and skeleton-like, yet
+with their fretwork of cold flowers
+wreathed about them still, untouched
+by time; and through the rents of
+the wall behind them there used to
+come long sunbeams gleamed by the
+weeds through which they pierced,
+which flitted, and fell one by one
+round those grey and quiet shafts,
+catching here a leaf and there a leaf,
+and gliding over the illumined edges
+and delicate fissures until they sank
+into the deep dark hollow between
+the marble blocks of the sunk foundation,
+lighting every other moment one
+isolated emerald lamp on the crest of
+the intermittent waves, when the wild
+sea-weeds and crimson lichens drifted
+and crawled with their thousand colours
+and fine branches over its decay,
+and the black, clogging, accumulated
+limpets hung in ropy clusters
+from the dripping and tinkling
+stone. What has Canaletti given us
+for this?" Alas, neither a <em>crawling</em>
+lichen, nor <em>clogging</em> limpets, nor a
+<em>tinkling</em> stone, but "one square, red
+mass, composed of&mdash;let me count&mdash;five-and-fifty&mdash;no,
+six-and-fifty&mdash;no, I
+was right at first, five-and-fifty bricks,"
+&amp;c. The picture, if it be painted by
+the graduate, must be a curiosity&mdash;we
+can make neither head nor tail of
+his words. But let us find another
+strange specimen&mdash;where he compares
+his own observations of nature with
+Poussin and Turner. Every one
+must remember a very pretty little
+picture of no great consequence by
+Gaspar Poussin&mdash;a view of some buildings
+of a town said to be Aricia, the
+modern La Riccia&mdash;just take it for what
+it is intended to be, a quiet, modest,
+agreeable scene&mdash;very true and sweetly
+painted. How unfit to be compared
+with an ambitious description of a
+combination of views from Rome to
+the Alban Mount, for that is the
+range of the description, though, perhaps,
+the description is taken from a
+poetical view of one of Turner's incomprehensibles,
+which may account
+for the conclusion, "Tell me who is
+likest this, Poussin or Turner?" Now,
+though Poussin never intended to be
+like this, let us see the graduate's
+description of it. We know the
+little town; it received us as well
+as our author, having left Rome to
+visit it.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Egressum magn&acirc; me accepit Aricia Roma."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Our author, however, doubts if it
+be the place, though he unhesitatingly
+abuses Poussin, as if he had fully intended
+to have painted nothing else
+than what was seen by the travelling
+graduate. "At any rate, it is a town
+on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty
+bushes, of very uniform size, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg&nbsp;494]</a></span>
+possessing about the same number of
+leaves each. These bushes are all
+painted in with one dull opaque brown,
+becoming very slightly greenish towards
+the lights, and discover in one
+place a bit of rock, which of course
+would in nature have been cool and
+grey beside the lustrous hues of
+foliage, and which, therefore, being
+moreover completely in shade, is
+consistently and scientifically painted
+of a very clear, pretty, and positive
+brick red, the only thing like colour
+in the picture. The foreground is a
+piece of road, which, in order to make
+allowance for its greater nearness, for
+its being completely in light, and, it
+may be presumed, for the quantity of
+vegetation usually present on carriage
+roads, is given in a very cool green-grey,
+and the truthful colouring of the
+picture is completed by a number of
+dots in the sky on the right, with a
+stalk to them, of a sober and similar
+brown." We need not say how unlike
+is this description of the picture.
+We pass on to&mdash;"Not long ago, I was
+slowly <em>descending</em> this very bit of carriage
+road, the first turn after you
+leave Albano;&mdash;it had been wild
+weather when I left Rome, and all
+across the Campagna the clouds were
+sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a
+clap of thunder or two, and breaking
+gleams of sun along the Claudian
+aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of
+its arches like the bridge of Chaos.
+But as I <em>climbed</em> the long slope of the
+Alban mount, the storm swept finally
+to the north, and the noble outline of
+the domes of Albano, and graceful
+darkness of its ilex grove rose against
+pure streaks of alternate blue and
+amber, the upper sky gradually flushing
+through the last fragments of
+rain-cloud in deep, palpitating azure,
+half &aelig;ther half dew. The noonday
+sun came slanting down the rocky
+slopes of La Riccia, and its masses
+of entangled and tall foliage, whose
+autumnal tints were mixed with the
+wet verdure of a thousand evergreens,
+were penetrated with it as with rain.
+I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration.
+Purple, and crimson, and
+scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle,
+the rejoicing trees sank into
+the valley in showers of light, every
+separate leaf quivering with buoyant
+and burning life; each, as it turned
+to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam,
+first a torch and then an emerald. Far
+up into the recesses of the valley, the
+green vistas arched like the hollows
+of mighty waves of some crystalline
+sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed
+along their flanks for foam, and <em>silver</em>
+flakes of <em>orange</em> spray tossed into the
+air around them, breaking over the
+grey walls of rock into a thousand
+separate stars, fading and kindling
+alternately as the weak wind lifted
+and let them fall. Every glade of
+grass burned like the golden floor of
+heaven, opening in sudden gleams as
+the foliage broke and closed above it,
+as sheet lightning opens in a cloud at
+sunset; the motionless masses of dark
+rock&mdash;dark though flushed with scarlet
+lichen&mdash;casting their quiet shadows
+across its restless radiance, the fountain
+underneath them filling its marble
+hollow with blue mist and fitful
+sound, and over all&mdash;the multitudinous
+bars of amber and rose, the <em>sacred</em>
+clouds that have no <em>darkness</em>, and only
+exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless
+intervals between the solemn and
+<em>orbed</em> repose of the stone pines, passing
+to lose themselves in the last, white,
+blinding lustre of the measureless
+line where the Campagna melted into
+the blaze of the sea." In verity, this
+is no "Campana Supellex." It is a
+riddle! Is he going up or down hill&mdash;or
+both at once? No human being
+can tell. He did not like the "sulphur
+and treacle" of "our Scotch connoisseurs;"
+but what colours has he
+not added here to his sulphur&mdash;colours,
+too, that we fear for the "idea of
+truth" cannot coexist! And how, in
+the name of optics, could it be possible
+for any painter to take in all this,
+with the "<em>fathomless intervals</em>," into
+an angle of vision of forty-five degrees?
+It is quite superfluous to ask
+"who is likest this, Turner or Poussin?"
+There immediately follows a
+remark upon another picture in the
+National Gallery, the "Mercury and
+Woodman," by Salvator Rosa, than
+which nothing can be more untrue to
+the original. He asserts that Salvator
+painted the distant mountains,
+"throughout, without one instant of
+variation. But what is its colour?
+<em>Pure</em> sky-blue, without one grain of
+grey, or any modifying hue whatsoever;&mdash;the
+same brush which had just
+given the bluest parts of the sky, has
+been more loaded at the same part of
+the pallette, and the whole mountain
+throw in with unmitigated ultramarine."
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg&nbsp;495]</a></span>
+Now the fact is, that the picture
+has, in this part, been so injured,
+that it is hard to say what colour is
+under the dirty brown-asphaltum hue
+and texture that covers it. It is certainly
+not blue now, not "pure blue"&mdash;unless
+pictures change like the cameleon.
+We know the picture well, and
+have seen another of the same subject,
+where the mountains have variety, and
+yet are blue. We believe a great sum
+was given for this picture&mdash;far more
+than its condition justifies. We must
+return&mdash;we left the graduate discussing
+ideas of truth. There is a chapter
+to show that the truth of nature is
+not to be discerned by the uneducated
+senses. As we do not perceive all
+sounds that enter the ear, so do we
+not perceive all that is cognizable by
+the eye&mdash;we have, that is, a power of
+nullifying an impression; that this
+habit is so common, that from the abstraction
+of their minds to other subjects,
+there are probably persons who
+never saw any thing beautiful. Sensibility
+to the power of beauty is required&mdash;and
+to see rightly, there should
+be a perfect state of moral feeling.
+Even when we think we see with our
+eyes, our perception is often the result
+of memory, of previous knowledge;
+and it is in this way he accounts for
+the mistake painters and others make
+with respect to Italian skies. What
+will Mr Uwin and his followers in
+blue say to this, alas&mdash;Italian skies are
+not blue? "How many people are
+misled by what has been said and
+sung of the serenity of Italian skies,
+to suppose they must be more blue than
+the skies of the north, and think that
+they see them so; whereas the sky of
+Italy is far more dull and grey in colour
+than the skies of the north, and
+is distinguished only by its intense repose
+of light." Benevenuto Cellini
+speaks of the mist of Italy. "Repose
+of light" is rather a novelty&mdash;he is fond
+of it. But then Turner paints with
+pure white&mdash;for ourselves we are with
+the generality of mankind who prefer
+the "repose" of shade. "Ask a connoisseur,
+who has scampered over all
+Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm,
+and the chances are ninety to one that
+he cannot tell you; and yet he will
+be voluble of criticism on every painted
+landscape from Dresden to Madrid"&mdash;and
+why not? The chances are
+ninety to one that the merits of not a
+single picture shall depend upon this
+knowledge, and yet the pictures shall
+be good and the connoisseur right.
+One man sees what another does
+not see in portraits. Undoubtedly;
+but how any one is to find in a portrait
+the following, we are at a loss to
+conceive. "The third has caught the
+trace of all that was most hidden and
+most mighty, when all hypocrisy and
+all habit, and all petty and passing
+emotion&mdash;the <em>ice, and the bank, and
+the foam of the immortal river&mdash;were
+shivered and broken, and swallowed up
+in the awakening of its inward strength</em>,"
+<em>&amp;c.</em> How can a man with a pen in
+his hand let such stuff as this drop
+from his fingers' ends?</p>
+
+<p>In the chapter "on the relative importance
+of truths," there is a little
+needless display of logic&mdash;needless, for
+we find, after all, he does not dispute
+"the kind of truths proper to be represented
+by the painter or sculptor,"
+though he combats the maxim that
+general truths are preferable to particular.
+His examples are quite out of art,
+whether one be spoken of as a man or
+as Sir Isaac Newton. Even logically
+speaking, Sir Isaac Newton may be
+the <em>whole</em> of the subject, and as such
+a whole might require a generality.
+There may be many particulars
+that are best sunk. So, in a picture
+made up of many parts, it should
+have a generality totally independent
+of the particularities of the parts,
+which must be so represented as not
+to interfere with that general idea,
+and which may be altogether in the
+mind of the artist. This little discussion
+seems to arise from a sort of
+quibble on the word important. Sir
+Joshua and others, who abet the
+generality maxim, mean no more than
+that it is of importance to a picture
+that it contain, fully expressed, one
+general idea, with which no parts are
+to interfere, but that the parts will
+interfere if each part be represented
+with its most particular truth&mdash;and
+that, therefore, drapery should be drapery
+merely, not silk or satin, where
+high truths of the subject are to be
+impressed.</p>
+
+<p>"Colour is a secondary truth, therefore
+less important than form." "He,
+therefore, who has neglected a truth
+of form for a truth of colour, has neglected
+a greater truth for a less one."
+It is true with regard to any individual
+object&mdash;but we doubt if it be
+always so in picture. The character
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg&nbsp;496]</a></span>
+of the picture may not at all depend
+upon form&mdash;nay, it is possible that the
+painter may wish to draw away the
+mind altogether from the beauty, and
+even correctness of form, his subject
+being effect and colour, that shall be
+predominant, and to which form shall
+be quite subservient, and little more
+of it than such as chiaro-scuro shall
+give; and in such a case colour is the
+more important truth, because in it
+lies the sentiment of the picture. The
+mystery of Rembrandt would vanish
+were beauty of form introduced in
+many of his pictures. We remember
+a picture, the most impressive picture
+perhaps ever painted, and that by a
+modern too, Danby's "Opening of
+the Sixth Seal." Now, though there
+are fine parts in this picture, the real
+power of the picture is in its colour&mdash;it
+is awful. We are no enemy to
+modern painters; we think this a work
+of the highest genius&mdash;and as such,
+should be most proud to see it deposited
+in our National Gallery. We
+further say, that in some respects it
+carries the art beyond the old practice.
+But, then, we may say it is a
+new subject. "It is not certain whether
+any two people see the same colours
+in things." Though that does
+not affect the question of the importance
+of colour, for it must imply a defect
+in the individuals, for undoubtedly
+there is such a thing as nature's
+harmony of colour; yet it may be
+admitted, that things are not always
+known by their colour; nay, that the
+actual local colour of objects is mainly
+altered by effects of light, and we
+are accustomed to see the same things,
+<i>quoad</i> colour, variously presented to
+us&mdash;and the inference that we think
+artists may draw from this fact is,
+that there will be allowed them a great
+licence in all cases of colour, and that
+naturalness may be preserved without
+exactness&mdash;and here will lie the value
+of a true theory of the harmony of colours,
+and the application of colouring
+to pictures, most suitable to the intended
+impression, not the most appropriate
+to the objects. We have often
+laid some stress upon this in the pages
+of <i>Maga</i>&mdash;and we think it has been too
+much omitted in the consideration of
+artists. Every one knows what is
+called a Claude glass. We see nature
+through a coloured medium&mdash;yet
+we do not doubt that we are looking
+at nature&mdash;at trees, at water, at skies&mdash;nay,
+we admire the colour&mdash;see its
+harmony and many beauties&mdash;yet we
+know them to be, if we may use the
+term, misrepresented. While speaking
+of the Claude glass, it will not be
+amiss to notice a peculiarity. It
+shows a picture&mdash;when the unaided
+eye will not; it heightens illumination&mdash;brings
+out the most delicate lights,
+scarcely perceptible to the naked eye,
+and gives greater power to the shades,
+yet preserves their delicacy. It seems
+to annihilate all those rays of light,
+which, as it were, intercept the picture&mdash;that
+come between the eye and
+the object. But to return to colour&mdash;we
+say that it must, in the midst of
+its license, preserve its naturalness&mdash;which
+it will do if it have a meaning
+in itself. But when we are called
+upon to question what is the meaning
+of this or that colour, how does its
+effect agree with the subject? why is
+it outrageously yellow or white, or
+blue or red, or a jumble of all these?&mdash;which
+are questions, we confess, that
+we and the public have often asked,
+with regard to Turner's late pictures&mdash;we
+do not acknowledge a naturalness&mdash;the
+license has been abused&mdash;not
+"sumpta pudenter." It is not
+because the vividness of "a blade of
+grass or a scarlet flower" shall be beyond
+the power of pigment, that a
+general glare and obtrusion of such
+colours throughout a picture can be
+justified. We are astonished that any
+man with eyes should see the unnaturalness
+in colour of Salvator and Titian,
+and not see it in Turner's recent
+pictures, where it is offensive because
+more glaring. Those masters sacrificed,
+if it be a sacrifice, something to
+repose&mdash;repose is <em>the</em> thing to be sacrificed
+according to the notions of too
+many of our modern schools. It is
+likewise singular, after all the falsehoods
+which he asserts the old masters
+to have painted, that he should speak
+of "imitation"&mdash;as their whole aim,
+their sole intention to deceive; and yet
+he describes their pictures as unlike
+nature in the detail and in the general
+as can be, strangely missing their object&mdash;deception.
+We fear the truths,
+particulars of which occupy the remainder
+of the volume&mdash;of earth, water,
+skies, &amp;c.&mdash;are very minute truths,
+which, whether true or false, are of
+very little importance to art, unless it
+be to those branches of art which may
+treat the whole of each particular
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg&nbsp;497]</a></span>
+truth as the whole of a subject, a line
+of art that may produce a multitude
+of works, like certain scenes of dramatic
+effect, surprising to see once, but
+are soon powerless&mdash;can we hope to
+say of such, "decies repetita placebunt?"
+They will be the fascinations
+of the view schools, nay, may even delight
+the geologist and the herbalist,
+but utterly disgust the imaginative.
+This kind of "knowledge" is not
+"power" in art. We want not to see
+water anatomized; the Alps may be
+tomahawked and scalped by geologists,
+yet may they be sorry painters. And
+we can point to the general admiration
+of the world, learned and unlearned,
+that a "contemptible fragment
+of a splintery crag" has been
+found to answer all the purposes of an
+impression of the greatness of nature,
+her free, great, and awful forms, and
+that depth, shades, power of chiaro-scuro,
+are found in nature to be strongest
+in objects of no very great magnitude;
+for our vision requires nearness,
+and we want not the knowledge
+that a mountain is 20,000 feet high, to
+be convinced that it is quite large
+enough to crush man and all his works;
+and that they, who, in their terror of
+a greater pressure, would call upon
+the mountains to cover them, and the
+holes of rocks to hide them, would
+think very little of the measurement
+of the mountains, or how the caverns
+of the earth are made. Greatness and
+sublimity are quite other things.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not very systematically
+carry our views, therefore, into the
+detail of these truths, but shall just
+pick here and there a passage or so,
+that may strike us either for its utility
+or its absurdity.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to truth of tone, he
+observes&mdash;that "the finely-toned pictures
+of the old masters are some of
+the notes of nature played two or
+three octaves below her key, the dark
+objects in the middle distance having
+precisely the same relation to the light
+of the sky which they have in nature,
+but the light being necessarily infinitely
+lowered, and the mass of the shadow
+deepened in the same degree. I
+have often been struck, when looking
+at a camera-obscura on a dark day,
+with the exact resemblance the image
+bore to one of the finest pictures of
+the old masters." We only ask if,
+when looking at the picture in the
+camera, he did not still recognize nature&mdash;and
+then, if it was beautiful,
+we might ask him if it was not <em>true</em>;
+and then when he asserts our highest
+light being white paper, and that not
+white enough for the light of nature&mdash;we
+would ask if, in the camera, he
+did not see the picture on white paper&mdash;and
+if the whiteness of paper be not
+the exact whiteness of nature, or white
+as ordinary nature? But there is a
+quality in the light of nature that
+mere whiteness will not give, and
+which, in fact, is scarcely ever seen in
+nature merely in what is quite white;
+we mean brilliancy&mdash;that glaze, as it
+were, between the object and the eye
+which makes it not so much light as
+bright. Now this quality of light was
+thought by the old masters to be the
+most important one of light, extending
+to the half tones and even in the
+shadows, where there is still light;
+and this by art and lowering the tone
+they were able to give, so that we see
+not the value of the praise when he
+says&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Turner starts from the beginning
+with a totally different principle. He
+boldly takes pure white&mdash;and justly,
+for it is the sign of the most intense
+sunbeams&mdash;for his highest light, and
+lamp-black for his deepest shade," &amp;c.
+Now, if white be the sign of the most
+intense sunbeams, it is as we never
+wish to see them; what under a tropical
+sun may be white is not quite
+white with us; and we always find it
+disagreeable in proportion as it approaches
+to pure white. We never
+saw yet in nature a sky or a cloud
+pure white; so that here certainly is
+one of the "fallacies," we will not
+call them falsehoods. But as far as
+we can judge of nature's ideas of light
+and colour, it is her object to tone
+them down, and to give us very little,
+if any, of this raw white, and we would
+not say that the old masters did not
+follow her method of doing it. But
+we will say, that the object of art, at
+any rate, is to make all things look
+agreeable; and that human eyes cannot
+bear without pain those raw whites
+and too searching lights; and that
+nature has given to them an ever present
+power of glazing down and reducing
+them, when she added to the eye
+the sieve, our eyelashes, through which
+we look, which we employ for this
+purpose, and desire not to be dragged
+at any time&mdash;"Sub curru nimium
+propinqui solis."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg&nbsp;498]</a></span>
+After this praise of white, one does
+not expect&mdash;"I think nature mixes
+yellow with almost every one of her
+hues;" but this is said merely in
+aversion to purple. "I think the first
+approach to viciousness of colour in
+any master, is commonly indicated
+chiefly by a prevalence of purple and
+an absence of yellow." "I am equally
+certain that Turner is distinguished
+from all the vicious colourists of the
+present day, by the foundation of all
+his tones being black, yellow, and intermediate
+greys, while the tendency
+of our common glare-seekers is invariably
+to pure, cold, impossible purples."</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Silent nymph, with curious eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who the <em>purple</em> evening lie,"<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>saith Dyer, in his landscape of "Grongar
+Hill." The "glare-seekers" is
+curious enough, when we remember
+the graduate's description of landscapes,
+(of course Turner's,) and his
+excursions; but we think we have
+seen many purples in Turner, and
+that opposed to his flaming red in
+sunsets. He prefers warmth where
+most people feel cold&mdash;this is not surprising;
+but as to picture "is it true?"
+"My own feelings would guide me
+rather to the warm greys of such pictures
+as the 'Snow-Storm,' or the
+glowing scarlet and gold of the 'Napoleon'
+and the 'Slave Ship.'" The
+two latter must be well remembered
+by all Exhibition visitors; they were
+the strangest things imaginable in
+colour as in every particle that should
+be art or nature. There is a whimsical
+quotation from Wordsworth, the
+"keenest-eyed," page 145. His object
+is to show the strength of shadow&mdash;how
+"the shadows on the trunk of
+the tree become darker and more conspicuous
+than any part of the boughs
+or limbs;" so, for this strength and
+blackness, we have&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"At the root<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Traced <em>faintly</em> in the greensward."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Of the truth of space," he says
+that "in a real landscape, we can see
+the whole of what would be called the
+middle distance and distance together,
+with facility and clearness; but while
+we do so, we can see nothing in the
+foreground beyond a vague and indistinct
+arrangement of lines and colours;
+and that if, on the contrary, we look at
+any foreground object, so as to receive
+a distinct impression of it, the distance
+and middle distance become all disorder
+and mystery. And therefore, if
+in a painting our foreground is any
+thing, our distance must be nothing,
+and <i>vice versa</i>." "Now, to this fact
+and principle, no landscape painter of
+the old school, as far as I remember,
+ever paid the slightest attention. Finishing
+their foregrounds clearly and
+sharply, and with vigorous impression
+on the eye, giving even the leaves
+of their bushes and grass with perfect
+edge and shape, they proceeded into the
+distance with equal attention to what
+they could see of its details," &amp;c. But
+he had blamed Claude for not having
+given the exactness and distinct shape
+and colour of leaves in foreground.
+The fact is, the picture should be as a
+piece of nature framed in. Within that
+frame, we should not see distinctly the
+foreground and distance at the same
+instant: but, as we have stated, the
+eye and mind are rapid, the one to see,
+the other to combine; and as a horse let
+loose into a field, runs to the extremity
+of it and around it, the first thing
+he does&mdash;so do we range over every
+part of the picture, but with wondrous
+rapidity, before our impression of the
+whole is perfect. We must not, therefore,
+slur over any thing; the difficulty
+in art is to give the necessary,
+and so made necessary, detail of foreground
+unostentatiously&mdash;to paint nothing,
+that which is to tell as nothing,
+but so as it shall satisfy upon examination;
+and we think so the old masters
+did paint the foregrounds, particularly
+Gaspar Poussin&mdash;so Titian, so
+Domenichino, and all of any merit.
+But this is merely an introduction, not
+to a palliation of, but the approbation
+and praise of a glaring defect in Turner.
+"Turner introduced a new era
+in landscape art, by showing that the
+foreground might be sunk for the distance,
+and that it was possible to express
+immediate proximity to the spectator,
+without giving any thing like
+completeness to the forms of the near
+objects." We are now, therefore, prepared
+for an absurd "justification of
+the want of drawing in Turner's
+figures," thus contemptuously, with regard
+to all but himself, accounted for.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg&nbsp;499]</a></span>
+"And now we see the reason for the
+singular, and, to the ignorant in art,
+the offensive execution of Turner's
+figures. I do not mean to assert that
+there is any reason whatsoever for <em>bad</em>
+drawing, (though in landscape it matters
+exceedingly little;) but there is
+both reason and necessity for that want
+of drawing which gives even the nearest
+figures round balls with four pink
+spots in them instead of faces, and four
+dashes of the brush instead of hands
+and feet; for it is totally impossible
+that if the eye be adapted to receive
+the rays proceeding from the utmost
+distance, and some partial impression
+from all the distances, it should be capable
+of perceiving more of the forms
+and features of near figures than Turner
+gives." Yet what wonderful detail
+has he required from Canaletti
+and others?&mdash;But is there any reason
+why we should have "<em>pink</em> spots?"&mdash;is
+there any reason why Turner's foreground
+figures should resemble penny
+German dolls?&mdash;and for the reason we
+have above given, there ought to be
+reason why the figures should be
+made out, at least as they are in a
+camera-obscura. We here speak of
+nature, of "truth," and with him ask,
+it may be all very well&mdash;but "is it
+true?" But we have another fault to
+find with Turner's figures; they are
+often bad in intention. What can be
+more absurd and incongruous, for instance,
+than in a picture of "elemental
+war"&mdash;a sea-coast&mdash;than to put a
+child and its nurse in foreground,
+the child crying because it has lost
+its hoop, or some such thing? It is according
+to his truth of space, that
+distances should have every "hair's-breadth"
+filled up, all its "infinity,"
+with infinities of objects, but that
+whatever is near, if figures, may be
+"pink spots," and "four dashes of the
+brush." While with Poussin&mdash;"masses
+which result from the eclipse of details
+are contemptible and painful;"
+and he thinks Poussin has but "meaningless
+tricks of clever execution"&mdash;forgetting
+that all art is but a trick&mdash;yet
+one of those tricks worth knowing,
+and yet which how few have
+acquired! Surely our author is not
+well acquainted with Hobbima's works;
+that painter had not a niggling execution.
+"A single dusty roll of Turner's
+brush is more truly expressive of
+the infinity of foliage, than the niggling
+of Hobbima could have rendered
+his canvass, if he had worked on it
+till doomsday." Our author seems to
+have studied skies, such as they are
+in Turner or in nature. He talks of
+them with no inconsiderable swagger
+of observation, while the old masters
+had no observation at all;&mdash;"their
+blunt and feelingless eyes never perceived
+it in nature; and their untaught
+imaginations were not likely to
+originate it in study." What is the
+<em>it</em>, will be asked&mdash;we believe it to be
+a "cirrus," and that a cirrus is the
+subject of a chapter to itself. This
+beard of the sky, however, instead of
+growing below, is quite above, "never
+formed below an elevation of at least
+15,000 feet, are motionless, multitudinous
+lines of delicate vapour, with
+which the blue of the open sky is
+commonly streaked or speckled after
+several days of fine weather. They
+are more commonly known as 'mare's
+tails.'" Having found this "mare's
+nest," he delights in it. It is the
+glory of modern masters. He becomes
+inflated, and lifts himself
+15,000 feet above the level of the understanding
+of all old masters, and, as
+we think, of most modern readers, as
+thus:&mdash;"One alone has taken notice
+of the neglected upper sky; it is his
+peculiar and favourite field; he has
+watched its every modification, and
+given its every phase and feature; at
+all hours, in all seasons, he has followed
+its passions and its changes,
+and has brought down and laid open
+to the world another apocalypse of
+heaven." Very well, considering that
+the cirrus never touches even the
+highest mountains of Europe, to follow
+its phase (query faces) and feature
+15,000 feet high, and given pink
+dots, four pink dots for the faces and
+features of human beings within fifteen
+feet of his brush. We will not
+say whether the old masters painted
+this cirrus or not. We believe they
+painted what they and we see, at least
+so much as suited their pictures&mdash;but
+as they were not, generally speaking,
+exclusively sky-painters, but painters
+of subjects to which the skies were
+subordinate, they may be fairly held
+excused for this their lack of ballooning
+after the "cirrus;" and we thank
+them that they were not "glare-seekers,"
+"threading" their way, with
+it before them, "among the then
+transparent clouds, while all around
+the sun is unshadowed fire." We lose
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg&nbsp;500]</a></span>
+him altogether in the "central cloud
+region," where he helps nature pretty
+considerably as she "melts even the
+unoccupied azure into palpitating
+shades," and hopelessly turns the
+corner of common observation, and
+escapes among the "fifty aisles penetrating
+through angelic chapels to the
+shechinah of the blue." We must
+expect him to descend a little vain of
+his exploit, and so he does&mdash;and wonders
+not that the form and colour of
+Turner should be misunderstood, for
+"they require for the full perception
+of their meaning and truth, such
+knowledge and such time as not one
+in a thousand possesses, or can bestow."
+The inference is, that the
+graduate has graduated a successful
+ph&aelig;ton, driving Mr Turner's chariot
+through all the signs of the zodiac.
+So he sends all artists, ancient
+and modern, to Mr Turner's country,
+as "a magnificent statement, all
+truth"&mdash;that is, "impetuous clouds,
+twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting
+shadow, gushing water, and oppressed
+cattle"&mdash;yes, more, it wants
+repose, and there it is&mdash;"High and
+far above the dark volumes of the
+swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left,
+through their opening, the quiet, horizontal,
+silent flakes of the highest cirrus,
+resting in the repose of the deep
+sky;" and there they are, "delicate,
+soft, passing vapours," and there is
+"the exquisite depth and <em>palpitating</em>
+tenderness of the blue with which they
+are islanded." Thus <em>islanded in tenderness</em>,
+what wonder is it if Ixion embraced
+a cloud? Let not the modern lover
+of nature entertain such a thought;
+"Bright Ph&oelig;bus" is no minor canon
+to smile complacently on the matter;
+he has a jealousy in him, and won't let
+any be in a melting mood with the
+clouds but himself; he tears aside your
+curtains, and steam-like rags of capricious
+vapour&mdash;"the mouldering
+sun, seeming not far away, but burning
+like a red-hot ball beside you, and
+as if you could reach it, plunges
+through the rushing wind and rolling
+cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant
+to rise no more, dyeing all the air about
+it with blood." This is no fanciful
+description, but among the comparative
+views of nature's and of Turner's
+skies, as seen, and verified upon his
+affidavit, by a graduate of Oxford;
+who may have an indisposition to
+boast of his exclusive privilege.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<ins class="greek" title="Aerobat&ocirc; kai periphron&ocirc; ton helion">&#7944;&#949;&#961;&#959;&#946;&#945;&#964;&#8182; &#954;&#945;&#953;
+&#960;&#949;&#961;&#953;&#966;&#961;&#959;&#957;&#8182; &#964;&#8056;&#957;
+&#7973;&#955;&#953;&#959;&#957;.</ins>"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Accordingly, in "the effects of
+light rendered by modern art," our
+author is very particular indeed. His
+extraordinary knowledge of the sun's
+position, to a hair's-breadth in Mr
+Turner's pictures, and minute of the
+day, is quite surprising. He gives a
+table of two pages and a-half, of position
+and moment, "morning, noon,
+and afternoon," "evening and night."
+In more than one instance, he is so
+close, as "five minutes before sunset."</p>
+
+<p>Having settled the matter of the
+sky, our author takes the earth in
+hand, and tosses it about like a Titan.
+"The spirit of the hills is action,
+that of the lowlands, repose; and between
+these there is to be found every
+variety of motion and of rest, from
+the inactive plain, sleeping like the
+firmament, with cities for stars, to the
+fiery peaks which, with heaving bosoms
+and exulting limbs, with clouds drifting
+like hair from their bright foreheads,
+lift up their Titan hands to heaven
+saying, 'I live for ever.'" We learn,
+too, a wonderful power in the excited
+earth, far beyond that which other
+"naturalists" describe of the lobster,
+who only, <i>ad libitum</i>, casts off a claw
+or so. "But there is this difference
+between the action of the earth and
+that of a living creature, that while
+the exerted limb marks its bones and
+tendons through the flesh, the excited
+earth casts off the flesh altogether,
+and its bones come out from beneath.
+Mountains are the bones of the earth,
+their highest peaks are invariably
+those parts of its anatomy, which in
+the plains lie buried under five-and-twenty
+thousand feet of solid thickness
+of superincumbent soil, and which
+spring up in the mountain ranges in
+vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their
+garment of earth away from them on
+each side." If the gentle sketcher
+should happily escape a cuff from these
+cast-off clothes flung by excited earth
+from her extremities, he may be satisfied
+with repose in the lap of mother
+earth, who must be considerably fat
+and cushioned, though some may entertain
+a fear of being overlaid. What
+is the artist to do with an earth like
+this, body and bones? When he sits
+down to sketch some placid landscape,
+is he to think of poor nature with her
+bones sticking out from twenty-five
+thousand feet of her solid flesh!
+Mother of Gargantia&mdash;thou wert but
+a dwarf! Salvator Rosa could not
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg&nbsp;501]</a></span>
+paint rock; Gaspar Poussin could not
+paint rock. A rock, in short, is such
+a thing as nobody ought to paint, or
+can paint but Turner; and all that,
+after his description of rock, we believe;
+but were not prepared to learn
+that "the foreground of the 'Napoleon'
+in last year's Academy," is "one
+of the most exquisite pieces of rock
+truth ever put on canvass." In fact,
+we really, in ignorance to be ashamed
+of, did not know there was any rock
+there at all. We only remember
+Napoleon and his cocked-hat&mdash;now,
+this is extraordinary; for as <em>we</em> only
+or chiefly remember the cocked-hat,
+so he sees the said cocked-hat in
+Salvator's rocks, where we never saw
+such a thing, though "he has succeeded
+in covering his foregrounds
+with forms which approximate to those
+of drapery, of ribands, of <em>crushed
+cocked-hats</em>, of locks of hair, of waves,
+of leaves, or any thing, in short, flexible
+or tough, but which, of course,
+are not only unlike, but directly contrary
+to the forms which nature has
+impressed on rocks." And the nature
+of rocks he must know, having the
+"Napoleon" before him. "In the
+'Napoleon' I can illustrate by no better
+example, for I can reason as well
+from this as I could with my foot on
+the native rock." What rocks of Salvator's,
+besides the No. 220 of the
+Dulwich gallery, he has seen, we
+cannot pretend to say; we have,
+within these few days, seen one, and
+could not discover the "commas,"
+the "Chinese for rocks," nor Sanscrit
+for rocks, but did read the language
+of nature, without the necessity of any
+writing under&mdash;"This is a rock."
+Poor Claude, he knew nothing of perspective,
+and his efforts "invariably
+ended in reducing his pond to the form
+of a round O, and making it look
+perpendicular;" but in one instance
+Claude luckily hits upon "a little bit
+of accidental truth;" he is circumstantial
+in its locality&mdash;"the little
+piece of ground above the cattle, between
+the head of the brown cow and
+the tail of the white one, is well articulated,
+just where it turns into
+shade."</p>
+
+<p>After the entire failure of all artists
+that ever lived before Turner in land
+and skies, we are prepared to find
+that they had not the least idea of
+water. When they thought they
+painted water, in fact, they were like
+"those happier children, sliding on
+dry ground," and had not the chance
+of wetting a foot. Water, too, is a
+thing to be anatomized, a sort of rib-fluidity.
+The moving, transparent
+water, in shallow and in depth, of
+Vandervelde and Backhuysen, is not
+the least like water; they are men
+who "libelled the sea." Many of
+our moderns&mdash;Stanfield in particular&mdash;seem
+naturally web-footed; but the
+real Triton of the sea, as he was Titan
+of the earth, is Turner. To our
+own eyes, in this respect, he stands
+indebted to the engraver; for we do
+not remember a single sea-piece by
+Turner, in water-colour or oil, in
+which the water is <em>liquid</em>. What it
+is like, in the picture of the Slave-ship,
+which is considered one of his
+very finest productions, we defy any
+one to tell. We are led to guess it is
+meant for water, by the strange fish
+that take their pastime. A year or
+two ago were exhibited two sea-pieces,
+of nearly equal size, at the
+British Institution, by Vandervelde
+and Turner. It was certainly one of
+Turner's best; but how inferior was
+the water and the sky to the water
+and sky in Vandervelde! In Turner
+they were both rocky. We say not
+this to the disparagement of Turner's
+genius. He had not studied these
+elements as did Vandervelde. The
+two painters ought not to be compared
+together; and we humbly think that
+any man who should pronounce of
+Vandervelde and Backhuysen, that
+they "libelled the sea," convicts himself
+of a wondrous lack of taste and
+feeling. Of their works he thus speaks&mdash;"As
+it is, I believe there is scarcely
+such another instance to be found in the
+history of man, of the epidemic aberration
+of mind into which multitudes
+fall by infection, as is furnished by
+the value set upon the works of these
+men." Of water, he says&mdash;"Nothing
+can hinder water from being a reflecting
+medium but dry dust or filth of
+some kind on its surface. Dirty water,
+if the foul matter be dissolved or
+suspended in the liquid, reflects just
+as clearly and sharply as pure water,
+only the image is coloured by the hue
+of the mixed matter, and becomes
+comparatively brown or dark." We
+entirely deny this, from constant observation.
+Within this week we have
+been studying a stream, which has
+alternated in its clearness and muddiness.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg&nbsp;502]</a></span>
+We found the reflection not
+only less clear in the latter case, but
+instead of brown and dark, to have
+lost its brownness, and to have become
+lighter. To understand the "curves"
+of water being beyond the reach of
+most who are not graduates of Oxford;
+and painters and admirers of
+old masters being people without
+sense, at least in comparison with the
+graduate, he thus disposes of his
+learned difficulty:&mdash;"This is a point,
+however, on which it is impossible to
+argue without going into high mathematics,
+and even then the nature of
+particular curves, as given by the
+brush, would be scarcely demonstrable;
+and I am the less disposed to
+take much trouble about it, because I
+think that the persons who are really
+fond of these works are almost beyond
+the reach of argument." The celebrated
+Mrs Partington once endeavoured,
+at Sidmouth, to dispose of
+these "curves," and failed; and we
+suspect a stronger reason than the
+incapacity of his readers for our author's
+thus disposing of the subject.
+We believe the world would not give
+a pin's head for all the seas that ever
+might be painted upon these mathematical
+curves; and that, in painting,
+even a graduate's "high mathematics"
+are but a very low affair. But let us
+enliven the reader with something
+really high&mdash;and here is, in very high-flown
+prose, part of a description of a
+waterfall; and it will tell him a secret,
+that in the midst of these fine falls,
+nature keeps a furnace and steam-engine
+continually at work, and having
+the fire at hand, sends up rockets&mdash;if
+you doubt&mdash;read:&mdash;"And how all
+the hollows of that foam burn with
+green fire, like so much <em>shattering
+chrysoprase</em>; and how, ever and anon,
+startling you with its white flash, a
+jet of spray leaps hissing out of the
+fall, like a rocket, bursting in the
+wind, and driven away in dust, filling
+the air with light; and how, through
+the curdling wreaths of the restless,
+crashing abyss below, the blue of the
+water, paled by the foam in its body,
+shows purer than the sky through
+white rain-cloud, while the shuddering
+iris stoops in tremulous stillness
+over all, fading and flashing alternately
+through the choking spray and
+shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last
+among the thick golden leaves, which
+toss to and fro in sympathy with the
+wild water, their dripping masses
+lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded
+corn, by some stronger gush from
+the cataract, and bowed again upon
+the mossy rocks as its roar dies away."
+"Satque superque satis"&mdash;we cannot
+go on. There is nothing like calling
+things by their contraries&mdash;it is truly
+startling. Whenever you speak of
+water, treat it as fire&mdash;of fire, <i>vice versa</i>,
+as water; and be sure to send them all
+shattering out of reach and discrimination
+of all sense; and look into a
+dictionary for some such word as
+"chrysoprase," which we find to
+come from <ins class="greek" title="chrysos">&#967;&#961;&#965;&#963;&#959;&#962;</ins> gold, and <ins class="greek" title="prason">&#960;&#961;&#945;&#963;&#959;&#957;</ins> a
+leek, and means a precious stone; it
+is capable of being shattered, together
+with "sunshine"&mdash;the reader will
+think the whole passage a "flash" of
+moonshine. But there is a discovery&mdash;"I
+believe, when you have stood by
+this for half an hour, you will have
+discovered that there is something
+more in nature than has been given
+by Ruysda&euml;l." You will indeed&mdash;if
+this be nature! But, alas, what have
+we not to undergo&mdash;to discover what
+water is, and to become capable of
+judging of Turner! It is a comfort,
+however, that he is likely to have but
+few judges. Graduate has courage to
+undergo any thing. Ariel was nothing
+in his ubiquity to him, though he put
+a span about the world in forty minutes;
+"but there was some apology
+for the public's not understanding
+this, for few people have had the opportunity
+of seeing the sea at such a
+time, and when they have, cannot
+face it. To hold by a mast or rock,
+and watch it, is a prolonged endurance
+of drowning, which few people
+have courage to go through. To
+those who have, it is one of the noblest
+lessons in nature." Very few
+people, indeed, and those few "involuntary
+experimentalists."</p>
+
+<p>We are glad to get on dry land again,
+"brown furze or any thing"&mdash;and here
+we must question one of his truths of
+vegetation: he asserts, that the stems
+of all trees, the "ordinary trees of
+Europe, do not taper, but grow up or
+out, in undiminished thickness, till
+they throw out branch and bud, and
+then go off again to the next of equal
+thickness." We have carefully examined
+many trees this last week, and
+find it is not the case; in almost all, the
+bulging at the bottom, nearest the
+root, is manifest. There is an early
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg&nbsp;503]</a></span>
+association in our minds, that the
+birch for instance is remarkably tapering
+in its twigs. We would rather
+refer our "sworn measurer" to the
+factor than the painter, and we very
+much question whether his "top and
+top" will meet the market. We are
+satisfied the fact is not as he states it,
+and surely nature works not by such
+measure rule. We suspect, for nature
+we should here read Turner, for
+his trees, certainly, are strange things;
+it is true, he generally shirks them.
+We do not remember one picture that
+has a good, true, <i>bona fide</i>, conspicuous
+tree in it. The reader will not be
+surprised to learn that the worst
+painter of trees was Gaspar Poussin!
+and that the perfection of trees is to
+be found in Turner's "Marley,"
+where most people will think the trees
+look more like brooms than trees.
+The chapter on "the Truth of Turner"
+concludes with a quotation&mdash;we
+presume the extract from a letter
+from Mr Turner to the author. If
+so, Mr Turner has somewhat caught
+the author's style, and tells very simple
+truths in a very fine manner, thus:&mdash;"I
+cannot gather the sunbeams out
+of the east, or I would make <em>them</em> tell
+you what I have seen; but read this,
+and interpret this, and let us remember
+together. I cannot gather the
+gloom out of the night-sky, or I
+would make that teach you what I
+have seen; but read this, and interpret
+this, and let us feel together."
+We must pause. Really we do not
+see the slightest necessity of an interpretation
+here. It is a simple
+fact. He cannot extract "sunbeams"
+from cucumbers&mdash;from the
+east, we should say. The only riddle
+seems to be, that they should, in one
+instance, remember together, and in
+the other, feel together; only we
+guess that, being night-gloom, people
+naturally feel about them in the dark.
+But he proceeds&mdash;"And if you have
+not that within you which I can summon
+to my aid, if you have not the
+sun in your spirit, and the passion in
+your heart, which my words may
+awaken, though they be indistinct
+and swift, leave me." We must
+pause again; here <em>is</em> a riddle: what
+can be the meaning of having the sun
+in one's spirit?&mdash;is it any thing like
+having the moon in one's head? We
+give it up. The passion in the heart
+we suppose to be dead asleep, and the
+words and voice harsh and grating,
+and so it is awakened. But what that
+if, or if not, has to do with "leave
+me," we cannot conjecture; but this
+we do venture to conjecture, that to
+expect our graduate ever to <em>leave</em> Mr
+Turner is one of the most hopeless of
+all Mr Turner's "Fallacies of Hope."
+But the writer proceeds with a <em>for</em>&mdash;that
+appears, nevertheless, a pretty
+considerable <i>non-sequitur</i>. "For I
+will give you no patient mockery, no
+laborious insult of that glorious nature,
+whose I am and whom I serve." Here
+the graduate is treated as a servant,
+and the writer of the letter assumes
+the Pythian, the truly oracular vein.
+"Let other servants imitate the voice
+and the gesture of their master while
+they forget his message. Hear that message
+from me, but remember that the
+teaching of Divine Truth must still
+be a mystery." "Like master like
+man." Both are in the "Cambyses'
+vein."</p>
+
+<p>We do not think that landscape
+painters will either gain or lose much
+by the publication of this volume, unless
+it be some mortification to be so
+sillily lauded as some of our very respectable
+painters are. We do not
+think that the pictorial world, either
+in taste or practice, will be Turnerized
+by this palpably fulsome, nonsensical
+praise. In this our graduate
+is <i>semper idem</i>, and to keep up his
+idolatry to the sticking-point, terminates
+the volume with a prayer, and
+begs all the people of England to join
+in it&mdash;a prayer to Mr Turner!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg&nbsp;504]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="A_ROYAL_SALUTE" id="A_ROYAL_SALUTE"></a>A ROYAL SALUTE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Should you like to be a queen,
+Christina?"</p>
+
+<p>This question was addressed by an
+old man, whose head was bent carefully
+over a chess-board, to a young
+lady who was apparently rather tired
+of the lesson she had taken in that interesting
+game.</p>
+
+<p>"Queen of hearts, do you mean?"
+answered the girl, patting with the
+greatest appearance of fondness a
+dreadfully ugly little dog that lay in
+her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Queen of hearts," replied the minister,
+with a smile; "you are that
+already, my dear. But have you no
+other ambition?" he added, tapping
+sagaciously the lid of a magnificently
+ornamented snuff-box, on which was
+depicted one of the ugliest monarchs
+that ever puzzled a court-painter to
+make him human.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should my ambition go further?"
+said Christina. "I have more
+subjects already than I know how to
+govern."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt&mdash;no doubt&mdash;I knew
+very well that you could not avoid
+having subjects; but I hope and trust
+you have had too much sense to receive
+their allegiance."</p>
+
+<p>The old man was proud of carrying
+on the metaphor so well, and of
+asking the question so delicately. It
+was quite evident he had been in the
+diplomatic line.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I help it?" enquired the
+young beauty, passing her hand over
+the back of the disgusting little pet,
+which showed its teeth in a very uncouth
+fashion whenever the paternal
+voice was raised a little too high.
+"But, I assure you, I pay no attention
+to allegiance, which I consider my
+right. There is but one person's homage
+I care for"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The brow of the Prime Minister of
+Sweden grew very black, and his face
+had something of the benign expression
+of the growling pug on his
+daughter's knee.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that person, Christina?"</p>
+
+<p>But Christina looked at her father
+with an alarmed glance, which she
+shortly after converted into a smile,
+and went on in her pleasing occupation
+of smoothing the raven down of
+her favourite, but did not say a word.</p>
+
+<p>The father, who seemed to be no
+great judge of pantomime, repeated
+his question.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that person, Christina?"</p>
+
+<p>Christina disdained hypocrisy, and,
+moreover, was immensely spoiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Who <em>should</em> it be, but your gallant
+nephew, Adolphus Hesse, dear
+father?"</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't had the impudence,
+I hope, to engage yourself to that
+boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Boy&mdash;why he is twenty-one! He
+is my oldest friend&mdash;we learned all
+our lessons together. I can't recollect
+the time we were not engaged,
+it is so long since we loved each
+other!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! You were brought
+up together by his mother; it is nothing
+but sisterly affection."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all&mdash;not at all!" cried
+Christina; "it would make me quite
+miserable if Adolphus were my brother."</p>
+
+<p>"It is all you must think him,
+nevertheless. He has no fortune; he
+has nothing but his commission; and
+my generosity is"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Immense, my dear father; inexhaustible!
+And then Adolphus is so
+brave&mdash;so magnanimous; and, upon
+my word, when I saw how much he
+liked me, and heard him speak so
+much more delightfully than any body
+else, I never thought of asking if he
+was rich; and you know you love him
+yourself, dear father."</p>
+
+<p>Christina neglected the pug in her
+lap for a moment, and laid her hand
+coaxingly on the old man's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"But not enough to make him my
+heir," said the Count, gruffly. Christina
+renewed her attentions to the
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>"He would be your heir notwithstanding,"
+she said, "if I were to
+die."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the tone of
+her voice, or the idea suggested of
+her death, that softened the old man.
+He looked for a long time at the
+young and beautiful face of his child;
+and the shade of uneasiness her words
+had raised, disappeared from his
+brow.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing but life there,"
+he said, gently tapping her on the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg&nbsp;505]</a></span>
+forehead; "and therefore I must
+marry you, my girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you will make us the happiest
+couple in the world. Adolphus
+will be so grateful," said Christina,
+her bright eyes sparkling through tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Who the devil said a word about
+Adolphus?" said the father, looking
+angrily at Christina; but he added
+immediately in a softer tone, when he
+saw the real emotion of his daughter&mdash;"Poor
+girl, you have been sadly
+spoiled! You have had too much of
+your own way, and now you ask me
+to do what is impossible. Be a reasonable
+girl, there's a darling! and
+your aunt will present you at court.
+You will see such grand things&mdash;you
+will know our gallant young King&mdash;only
+be reasonable!"</p>
+
+<p>"The rude monster!" cried Christina,
+starting up as if tired of the
+conversation. "I have no wish to
+know him. They say he hates women."</p>
+
+<p>"A calumny, my dear girl; he is
+very fond of <em>one</em> at all events."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"And mischievous as yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"As I?" enquired Christina, and
+fell into a long reverie, while the
+Count smiled as if he had made an
+excellent hit.</p>
+
+<p>"But I have never seen him, papa,"
+she said, awakening all of a sudden.</p>
+
+<p>"He may have seen you though;
+and he says"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what does he say? Do tell
+me what the King says?"</p>
+
+<p>"Poh! What do you want to know
+about what a rude monster says&mdash;that
+hates women?" answered the father
+with another smile of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is a king, papa! What
+does he say? I am quite anxious to
+know."</p>
+
+<p>But the minister of state had
+gained his object; he had excited
+curiosity, and determined not to gratify
+it. At last he said, as he rose to
+quit the apartment&mdash;"Let us turn
+the conversation, Christina; we have
+nothing to do with kings, and must
+content ourselves with humbler subjects.
+An officer will sup with us to-night,
+whom I wish you very much to
+please. He has influence with the
+King; and if you have any regard for
+my interest you will receive him well.
+I intend him for your husband."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't have him!" cried Christina,
+running after her father as he left
+the room. "I won't have him! If I
+don't marry Adolphus, I won't marry
+at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven grant it, sweet cousin!"
+said Adolphus Hesse in <i>propria persona</i>,
+emerging from behind the window-curtains,
+where, by some miraculous
+concatenation of events, he had
+found himself ensconced for the last
+hour. "'Tis delightful to act the spy,
+and hear an advocate so persuasive as
+you have been, Christina&mdash;but the
+cause is desperate."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you, sir, the cause was
+desperate?" said Christina, pretending
+to look offended. "The battle is
+half gained&mdash;my father's anger disappears
+in a moment. Now, dear
+Adolphus, don't sigh&mdash;don't cross
+your arms&mdash;don't look up to the sky
+with that heroic frown&mdash;I can't bear
+to groan and be dismal&mdash;I want to
+be gay&mdash;to have a ball&mdash;to&mdash;&mdash;We
+shall have <em>such</em> a ball the day of our
+wedding, Adolphus!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your hopes deceive you, dearest
+Christina. I know your father better
+than you do. Ah!" he added, gazing
+sadly on the beautiful features of the
+young girl who looked on him so
+brightly, "you will never be able to
+resist the brilliant offer that will be
+made you in exchange for one faithful,
+loving heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" replied Christina, feeling
+her eyes filling with tears, but endeavouring
+at the same time to conceal
+her emotion under an affectation
+of anger, "your opinion of me is not
+very flattering; and it is not in very
+good taste, methinks, to play the despairing
+lover, especially after the conversation
+you so honourably overheard."</p>
+
+<p>"Dry that tear, dear girl!" said
+Adolphus, "I will believe any thing
+you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you make me cry then?
+Is it only to have the pleasure of telling
+me to dry my tears? Or did you
+think you had some rival; some splendid
+cavalier that it was impossible to
+resist&mdash;Count Ericson, for instance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! as to Ericson I am not at
+all uneasy. I know you hate him;
+and besides he is not much richer than
+myself; but, dear Christina"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;go on," said the girl, mocking
+the lugubrious tone of her cousin&mdash;"what
+are you sighing again for?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg&nbsp;506]</a></span>
+"Your father is going to bring you
+a new lover this evening, and poor
+Adolphus will be forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"You deserve it for all your ridiculous
+suspicions: but you are my
+cousin, and I forgive you this once."
+She looked at him with so sunny a
+smile, and so clear and open-hearted a
+countenance, that it was impossible to
+entertain a doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"You love me really, then?" he
+said&mdash;"truly&mdash;faithfully?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you so a hundred
+times," replied his cousin. "I am
+astonished you are not tired of hearing
+the same thing over and over again."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis so sweet, so new a thing for
+me," said Adolphus, "and I could
+listen to it for ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, we love each other&mdash;that's
+very clear," said Christina, with
+the solemnity of the foreman of a jury
+delivering a verdict on the clearest
+evidence; "but since my father won't
+let us marry, we must wait&mdash;that is
+almost as clear as the other."</p>
+
+<p>"And if he never consents?" enquired
+Adolphus.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" exclaimed Christina, to
+whom such an idea seemed never to
+have occurred, "can it be possible he
+will <em>never</em> consent?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear it is too possible," replied
+Adolphus, and the shadow fell on his
+face again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Christina, after a
+minute's pause, as if she had come to
+a resolution, "we must always stay as
+we are. Happiness is never increased
+by an act of disobedience."</p>
+
+<p>"I think as you do," said the young
+soldier, admiring her all the more for
+the death-blow to his hopes; "and are
+you happy, quite happy, Christina?"</p>
+
+<p>"What a question! Don't I see
+you every day? Isn't every body
+kind to me? Is there any thing I
+want?"</p>
+
+<p>A different answer would have
+pleased the lover more. He looked at
+her for some time in silence&mdash;at last,
+in an altered tone, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you on your prudence,
+Christina."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot break my father's heart."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but mine, Christina!"</p>
+
+<p>"Adolphus," said the young beauty
+solemnly, "if I cannot be your wife
+with the consent of my father, I never
+will marry another. This is all you
+can ask; all I can promise."</p>
+
+<p>Filial affection was not quite so
+strong in Adolphus as in his cousin,
+and his face was by no means brightened
+on hearing this declaration. It
+was so uncommonly proper that it
+seemed nearly bordering on the cold
+and heartless. He tried to hate her;
+he walked up and down the room at
+a tremendous pace, stopping every
+now and then to take another glance
+at the tyrant who had pronounced his
+doom, and looked as beautiful as ever.
+He found it impossible to hate <em>her</em>,
+though we shall not enquire what
+were his sentiments towards her worthy
+progenitor, Count Ericson, the
+unknown lover, and even the young
+heroic King; for the sagacious reader
+must now be informed that this wonderful
+lovers' quarrel took place in
+the reign of Charles XII. Our fear
+is that he disliked all four. Christina
+found it very difficult to preserve
+the gravity essential to a heroine's
+appearance when she saw the long
+strides and bent brows of her lover.
+A smile was ready, on the slightest
+provocation, to make a dimple in her
+beautiful cheek, and all the biting she
+bestowed on her lips only made them
+redder and rosier. Adolphus had no
+inclination to smile, and could not
+believe that any body could see the
+least temptation to indulge in such
+a ridiculous occupation on such a momentous
+occasion. He was a regular
+lover, as Mr Weller would say, and
+no mistake. He saw in his fair cousin
+only a treasure of inestimable price,
+guarded by two monsters that made
+his approaches hopeless&mdash;avarice and
+ambition. How differently those two
+young people viewed the same event!
+Christina, knowing her power over
+her father, and unluckily not knowing
+that fathers (even though they are
+prime ministers, and are as courtier-like
+as Polonius) have flinty hearts
+when their interests are concerned,
+saw nothing in the present state of
+affairs to despair about; and in fact,
+as we have said already, was nearly
+committing the unpardonable crime
+of laughing at the grimaces of her
+cousin. He, poor fellow, knew the
+world a little better, and perceived
+in a moment that the new lover
+whom the ambitious father was going
+to present to his daughter, was some
+favourite of the king; and he was
+well aware, that any one backed by
+that impetuous monarch, was in a fair
+way to success. The king had seen
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg&nbsp;507]</a></span>
+Christina too&mdash;and though despising
+love himself, was in the habit of rewarding
+his favourite officers with the
+hand of the beauties or heiresses of
+his court; and when, as in this instance,
+the lady chosen was both&mdash;how
+could he doubt that the king had
+already resolved that she should be
+the bride of some lucky rival, against
+whose claims it would be impossible
+to contend? And Christina standing
+all the while before him, scarcely able
+to restrain a laugh! He was only
+twenty-one&mdash;and not half so steady as
+his grandfather would probably have
+shown himself in the same circumstances,
+and being unable to vent his
+rage on any body else, he poured it
+all forth upon himself.</p>
+
+<p>"What a fool I have been!&mdash;an
+ass&mdash;a dolt&mdash;to have been so blinded!
+But I see now&mdash;I deserve all I have
+got! To have been so deceived by an
+absurd fit of love&mdash;that has lasted all
+my life, too! But no!&mdash;I shall not repay
+my uncle's kindness to me by
+robbing him of his only child. I shall
+go at once to my regiment&mdash;I may be
+lucky enough to get into the way of
+a cannon&mdash;you will think kindly of
+me when I am gone, though you are
+so unk"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The word died away upon his lips.
+Large tears filled Christina's eyes,
+and all her inclination to smile had
+disappeared. There was something
+either in his looks or the tone of his
+voice, or the thought of his being killed,
+that banished all her gaiety; and
+in a few minutes the quarrel was made
+up&mdash;the tears dried in the usual manner&mdash;vows
+made&mdash;hands joined&mdash;and
+resolutions passed and carried with
+the utmost unanimity, that no power
+on earth should keep them from being
+married. And a very good resolution
+it was. The only pity was, that
+it was not very likely to be carried
+into effect. A father, an unknown
+lover, and a king, all joined against a
+poor boy and girl. The odds are
+very much against Adolphus and
+Christina.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us examine the real state
+of affairs as dispassionately as we can.
+The Count Gyllenborg was ambitious,
+as became a courtier with an only
+daughter who was acknowledged on
+all sides to be the most beautiful girl
+in Sweden; and as he was aware of
+the full value of red lips and sparkling
+eyes in the commerce of life, he
+was determined to make the most of
+these perishable commodities while
+they were at their best, and the particular
+make and colour of them were
+in fashion. The Count was rich&mdash;and
+with amply sufficient brains, according
+to the dictum of one of his
+predecessors, to govern a kingdom;
+but he was not warlike; and Charles,
+who had lately taken the power into
+his own hands, knew nothing of mankind
+further than that they were made
+to be drawn up in opposite lines, and
+make holes in each other as scientifically
+as they could. Count Gyllenborg
+had a decided objection to being
+made a receptacle for lead bullets or
+steel swords; and was by no means
+anxious to murder a single Russian or
+German, for the sake of the honour
+of the thing, or for the good of his
+country. His power resting only on
+his adroitness in civil affairs, was
+therefore not on the surest foundation;
+and a prop to it was accordingly
+wanted. Such a prop had never
+been seen before, with such sunny
+looks, and such a happy musical
+laugh. The looks and the laugh between
+them, converted the atmosphere
+of Stockholm into the climate of
+Italy; and the politician, almost without
+knowing it, began to be thawed
+into a father. But the fear of a rival
+in the King's favour&mdash;some gallant
+soldier&mdash;and dozens of them were
+reported every week&mdash;made him resolve
+once more to bring his daughter's
+beauties into play. The king
+had seen her, and, in his boorish way,
+had expressed his admiration; and
+Gyllenborg felt assured, that if he
+should marry his daughter according
+to the King's wishes, his influence
+would be greater than ever; and, in
+fact, that the premiership would be
+his for life.</p>
+
+<p>Great preparations accordingly
+were made for the reception of the
+powerful stranger, the announcement
+of whose appearance at supper had
+spread such dismay in the hearts of
+the two lovers. Christina knew almost
+instinctively her father's plan,
+and determined to counteract it. She
+felt sure that the officer for whom she
+was destined, and whom she had been
+ordered to receive so particularly, was
+one of the new favourites of the warlike
+king; some leader of a forlorn-hope,
+created colonel on the field of
+battle; some young general fresh
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg&nbsp;508]</a></span>
+from some heroic achievement, that
+had endeared him to his chief; but
+whoever it was, she was resolved to
+show him that the crown of Sweden
+was a very limited monarchy in regard
+to its female subjects, and that
+she would have nobody for her husband&mdash;neither
+count, nor colonel, nor
+general&mdash;but only her cousin Adolphus,
+lieutenant in the Dalecarlian
+hussars. Notwithstanding this resolution,
+it is astonishing what a time
+she stayed before the glass&mdash;how often
+she tried different coloured roses in
+her hair&mdash;how carefully she fitted on
+her new Parisian robes, and, in short,
+did every thing in her power to look
+her very best. What did all this arise
+from? She wished to show this young
+favourite, whoever he might be, that
+she was really as beautiful as people
+had told him; she wished to convince
+him that her smile was as sweet, her
+teeth as white, her eyes as captivating,
+her figure as superb, as he had
+heard them described&mdash;and then she
+wished to show him that all
+these&mdash;smiles&mdash;eyes&mdash;teeth&mdash;figure, were
+given, along with the heart that made
+them truly valuable, to another! and
+that other no favourite of a king&mdash;nor
+even of a minister, but only of a young
+girl of eighteen.</p>
+
+<p>Radiant with beauty, and conscious
+of the sensation she was certain to
+create, she entered the magnificent
+apartment where supper was prepared&mdash;a
+supper splendid and costly enough
+to have satisfied a whole army of epicures,
+though only intended for her
+father, the stranger, and herself; and
+if you, oh reader! had been there,
+you would have thought Christina
+lovely enough to have excited the
+admiration of a whole court instead
+of an old man&mdash;and that, too, her
+father&mdash;and a young one, and that
+none other, to Christina's infinite disgust,
+than the very Count Ericson
+whose acquaintance she had already
+made, and whom she infinitely and
+unappeasably disliked. He was the
+most awkward, stupid-looking young
+man she ever saw, and had furnished
+her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries
+ever since she had known
+him. He rose to lead her to her seat.
+"How different from Adolphus! If
+he is no better performer in the battle-field
+than at the supper-table, the King
+must be very ill off for soldiers. What
+can papa mean by asking such a horrid
+being to his house? I am certain
+I shall laugh outright if I look again
+at his silly grey eyes and long yellow
+hair, as ragged as a pony's mane."</p>
+
+<p>Such were Christina's thoughts,
+while she bit her lips to hide if possible
+her inclination to be angry, and
+to laugh at the same time. And in
+truth her dislike of the Count did not
+exaggerate the ridiculousness of the
+appearance of the tall ungainly figure&mdash;large-boned
+and stiff-backed&mdash;that
+now stood before her&mdash;with a nose so
+absurdly aquiline that it would have
+done for a caricature&mdash;coarse-skinned
+cheeks, and a stare of military impudence
+that shocked and nearly frightened
+the high-bred, elegant-looking
+beauty on whom it was fixed. And
+yet this individual, such as we have
+described, had been fixed on by the
+higher powers for her husband&mdash;was
+this night to be treated as her accepted
+lover, and, in short, had been closeted
+for hours every day with her father&mdash;settling
+all the preliminaries of course&mdash;for
+the last six weeks. Christina looked
+once more at the insolent stare of the
+triumphant soldier, and made a vow to
+die rather than speak to him&mdash;that is,
+in the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>But thoughts of affirmatives and
+negatives did not seem to enter Count
+Ericson's head&mdash;his grammatical education
+having probably been neglected.
+He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger
+may be supposed to cast insinuating
+looks upon a lamb, and made every
+now and then an attempt to conceal
+either his awkwardness, or satisfaction,
+or both, in immense fits of
+laughter, which formed the accompaniment
+of all the remarks&mdash;and they
+were nearly as heavy as himself&mdash;with
+which he favoured the company.
+Christina, on her part, if she had given
+way to the dictates of her indignation,
+would have also favoured the company
+with a few remarks, that in all probability
+would have put a stop to the
+laughter of the lover, and choked her
+old father by making a fish-bone stick
+in his throat. She was angry for
+twenty reasons, one of them was having
+wasted a moment over her toilette
+to receive such a visitor as Count
+Ericson; another was her father having
+dared to offer her hand to such an
+uncouth wooer and intolerable bore;
+and the principal one of all, was his
+having rejected his own nephew&mdash;undoubtedly
+the handsomest of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg&nbsp;509]</a></span>
+Dalecarlian hussars&mdash;in favour of such a
+vulgar, ugly individual. The subject
+of these flattering considerations seemed
+to feel at last that he ought to say
+something to the young beauty, on
+whose pouting lip had gathered something
+which was very different indeed
+from a smile, and yet nearly as captivating.
+He accordingly turned his
+large light eyes from his plate for a
+moment, and with a mouth still filled
+with a leg and wing of a capercailzie,
+enquired&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of Alexander
+the Great, madam?"</p>
+
+<p>This was too much. Even her rage
+disappeared, and she burst into a loud
+laugh at the serious face of the querist.</p>
+
+<p>"I never think of Alexander the
+Great at all," she said. "I only recollect,
+that when I was reading his
+history, I could hardly make out whether
+he was most of a fool or a madman."</p>
+
+<p>Ericson swallowed the leg and the
+wing of the capercailzie without any
+further mastication, and launched out
+in a torrent of admiration of the most
+prodigious courage the world had ever
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>"If he had been as prodigiously
+wise," replied Christina, "as he was
+prodigiously courageous, he would
+have learned to govern himself before
+he attempted to govern the world."</p>
+
+<p>Ericson blushed from chin to forehead
+with vexation, and answered in
+an offended tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How can a woman enter into the
+fever of noble thoughts that impels a
+brave man to rush into the midst of
+dangers, and leads him to despise life
+and all its petty enjoyments to gain
+undying fame?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," she replied, "I have
+no fever, and have no sympathy with
+destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame,
+I should try to gain it by gathering
+round me the blessings of all who saw
+me! Yes, father," she went on, paying
+no regard to the signs and winks
+of the agonized Count Gyllenborg,
+"I would rather that countless thousands
+should live to bless me, than
+that they should die in heaping curses
+on my name! Men-killers&mdash;though
+you dignify them with the name of
+heroes&mdash;are atrocious. Let us speak
+of them, my lord, no more, unless to
+pray heaven to rid the earth of such
+monsters."</p>
+
+<p>A feather of the smallest of birds
+would have knocked down the Prime
+Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson
+appeared, from his stupefied look,
+to have gone through the process already&mdash;the
+difficulty was to lift him
+up again.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Count," cried the Minister,
+filling up Ericson's glass with
+champagne, "to Alexander's glory!"</p>
+
+<p>"With all my heart," cried Ericson,
+moistening his rage with the delicious
+sparkler. "Come, fair savage,"
+he added, addressing Christina, and
+touching her glass with such force
+that it fell in a thousand pieces on the
+table&mdash;"to Alexander's glory!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no wish to drink to such
+a toast," replied Christina, more offended
+than ever; "I can't endure
+those scourges of human kind who
+hide the skin of the tiger beneath the
+royal robe."</p>
+
+<p>"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the
+astonished father, who seemed to begin
+to be slightly alarmed at the
+flashes of indignation that burst from
+Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes.
+"Don't mind what such a silly thing
+says; she does it only to show her
+cleverness. What does she know of
+war or warriors? She cares for nothing
+yet but her puppy-dog. She
+pats it all day, and lets it bite her
+pretty little hand. Such a hand it is
+to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"</p>
+
+<p>The politician was on the right
+track; for such a pretty hand was not
+in Sweden&mdash;nor probably in Denmark
+either&mdash;and the cunning old minister
+took it between his finger and thumb,
+and placed it almost on the lip of the
+irate young worshipper of glory; if
+it did not actually touch the lip it
+went very near it, and distinctly
+moved one or two of the most prominent
+tufts of the stout yellow mustache.
+"The little goose," pursued
+the respectable sire, "to pretend to
+have an opinion on any subject except
+the colour of a riband. Upon
+my honour, I believe she presumes to
+be a critic of warriors, because she
+plays a good game of chess. It is
+one of her accomplishments, Count;
+and if you will take a little of the
+conceit out of her, you will confer an
+infinite obligation on both of us."</p>
+
+<p>Saying this, he lifted with his own
+ministerial fingers a small table from
+a corner of the room, and placed it in
+front of the youthful couple, with the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg&nbsp;510]</a></span>
+men all ready laid out. Ericson's
+eyes sparkled at the sight of his favourite
+game; and he determined to
+display his utmost skill, and teach his
+antagonist a few secrets of the art of
+(mimic) war. But determinations, as
+has been remarked by several sages,
+past and present, are sometimes vain.
+Nothing, one would think, could be
+so likely to restore a man's self-possession
+as a quiet game of chess&mdash;an
+occupation as efficacious in soothing
+the savage breast as music itself.
+But Ericson seemed still agitated
+from the contradictions he had encountered
+from the free-spoken Christina,
+and threw a little more politeness
+into his manner than he had
+hitherto vouchsafed to show, when he
+invited her to be his adversary in a
+game.</p>
+
+<p>"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously,
+holding up one of the fair
+fingers to which his attention had
+been so particularly called, and implying
+by the question, if you get
+angry when I only refuse your toast,
+won't you eat me if I am the winner
+at chess? "But, if I beat you?" she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"That will not be the only occasion
+on which you will have triumphed
+over me, you&mdash;you"&mdash;&mdash;He
+seemed greatly at a loss for a word,
+and concluded his speech with&mdash;"beauty!"
+This expression, which
+was, no doubt, intended for the most
+complimentary he could find, was accompanied
+with a look of admiration
+so long, so broad, and so impudent,
+that she blushed, and a squeeze of her
+hand so hard, so rough, and so continued,
+that she screamed. She threw
+a glance of inexpressible disdain on
+the insolent wooer, and looked for
+protection to her father; but that venerable
+individual was at that moment
+so sound asleep on one of the
+sofas at the other end of the room,
+that no noise whatever could have
+awakened him. Ericson seemed totally
+unmoved by all the contempt
+she could express in her looks, and
+probably thought he was in a thriving
+condition, from the fact (somewhat
+unusual) of his being looked at at all.
+She lost her temper altogether. She
+covered her cheek, which was flushed
+with anger, with the little hand that
+was reddened with pain, and resolved
+to play her worst to spite her ill-mannered
+antagonist. But all her
+attempts at bad play were useless.
+The board shook beneath the immense
+hands of Ericson, who was in
+a tremendous state of agitation, and
+hardly knew the pieces. He pushed
+then hither and thither&mdash;made his
+knights slide along with the episcopal
+propriety of bishops, and made his bishops
+caracole across the squares with
+the unseemly elasticity of knights.
+His game got into such confusion,
+that Christina could not avoid winning,
+and at last&mdash;enjoying the victory
+she had determined not to win&mdash;she
+cried out, with a voice of triumph,
+"Check to the king by the queen."</p>
+
+<p>"Cruel girl!" exclaimed the
+Count, dashing his hand among the
+pieces with an energy that scattered
+them all upon the floor. "Haven't
+you been anxious to make the king
+your prisoner?"</p>
+
+<p>"But there is nothing to hinder
+him from saving himself," answered
+Christina, looking round once more
+to her father, who, however, pursued
+his slumber with the utmost assiduity
+and had apparently a very agreeable
+dream, for a smile was evident at the
+corners of his mouth. "It is impossible
+to place the board as it was,"
+she continued, trying to gather up the
+pieces, and place castles, knights, and
+pawns in their proper position again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't try it&mdash;don't try it," cried
+Ericson, losing all command of himself,
+and pushing the board away
+from him, till it spun over with all its
+men on the carpet. "The game is
+over&mdash;you have given me check, and
+mated me!" And in a moment, as
+if ashamed of the influence exercised
+over him by so very unwarlike an individual
+as a little girl of eighteen, he
+hurried from the room, stumbling
+over his enormous sword, which got,
+somehow or other, between his legs,
+and cursing his awkwardness and the
+absurd excess of admiration which
+caused it.</p>
+
+<p>"That man will surely never come
+here again," said Christina to her
+father, as he entered the room an hour
+after the incidents of the chess-board;
+for the obsequious minister had followed
+Ericson in his rapid retreat,
+and now returned radiant with joy, as
+if his guest had been the most fascinating
+of men.</p>
+
+<p>"Not come here again!" chuckled
+the father. "That's all you know
+about it. He is dying with
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg&nbsp;511]</a></span>
+impatience to return, and is angry with
+himself for having wasted the two
+precious hours of your society in the
+way he did. He never had two such
+happy hours in his life."</p>
+
+<p>"Happy! is that what he calls
+happiness?" answered Christina, opening
+her eyes in amazement. "I don't
+know what his notions may be&mdash;but
+mine&mdash;&mdash;oh, father!" she cried, emboldened
+by the smile she saw on the
+old man's countenance, "you are only
+trying me; say you are only proving
+my constancy, by persuading me that
+such a being as that has any wish to
+please me. He is more in love with
+Alexander the Great than with me;
+and he is quite right, for he has a far
+better chance of a return."</p>
+
+<p>"An enthusiasm excusable, my
+dear, in a young warrior of twenty
+years of age, whose savage ambition
+it will be your delightful task to tame.
+He is in a terrible state of agitation&mdash;a
+most flattering thing, let me tell
+you, to a young gipsy like you&mdash;and
+you must humour him a little, and
+not break out quite so fiercely, you
+minx; and yet you managed very
+well, too. A fine fellow, Ericson,
+though a little wild; rich, powerful,
+nobly born&mdash;what can you wish for
+better?"</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin," answered Christina,
+with a bluntness that astonished the
+advocate of Ericson's claims; "my
+cousin Adolphus, and no other. He
+is braver than this savage; and as to
+nobility, he is as nobly born as my
+own right honourable papa, and that
+is high enough for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Go, go," said the courtier, a little
+puzzled by the openness of his daughter's
+confession, and kissing her forehead
+at the same time; "go to bed,
+my girl, and pray for your father's
+advancement."</p>
+
+<p>Christina, like a dutiful child, prayed
+as she was told for her father's
+success and happiness, and then added
+a petition of her own, shorter, perhaps,
+but quite as sincere, for her
+cousin Adolphus. If she added one
+for herself, it was a work of supererogation,
+for she felt that in praying
+for the happiness of her lover, she
+was not unmindful of her own.</p>
+
+<p>For some days after the supper recorded
+above, she was too happy tormenting
+the very object of all these
+aspirations, to trouble her head about
+the awkward and ill-mannered prot&eacute;g&eacute;
+of her father, whom she hated with
+as much cordiality as the most jealous
+of rivals could desire. But of
+course she was extremely careful to
+let no glimpse of this unchristian
+feeling towards Count Ericson be
+perceptible to the person who would
+have rejoiced in it so much. In fact,
+she carried her philanthropy to such
+a pitch, that she never mentioned any
+of the bad qualities of her new admirer,
+and Adolphus very naturally
+concluded that she felt as she spoke
+on the interesting subject. So, all of
+a sudden, Adolphus, who was prouder
+than Christina, perhaps because he
+was poorer, would not condescend to
+be made a fool of, as he magnanimously
+thought it, any longer. He
+had the immense satisfaction of staying
+away from the house for nearly
+half a week, and then, when he did
+pay a visit, he was almost as cold as
+the formal piece of diplomacy in the
+bag-wig and ruffles whom he called
+his uncle; and a great deal stiffer than
+the beautiful piece of pique, in silk gown
+and white satin corset, whom he called
+his cousin. Christina was dismayed
+at the sudden change&mdash;Adolphus
+never spoke to her, seldom looked at
+her, and evidently left the coast clear&mdash;so
+she thought&mdash;for the rich and
+powerful rival her father had so
+strongly supported. After much
+thinking, some sulkiness, and a good
+many fits of crying, Christina resolved,
+as the best way of recovering her
+own peace of mind, and the love of
+her cousin Adolphus, to put an end in
+a very decided manner to the pretensions
+of the Count. One day, accordingly,
+she watched her opportunity, and
+followed with anxious eyes her father's
+retreat from the room, under pretence
+of some important despatches to be
+sent off. She found herself alone with
+the object of her dislike&mdash;and only
+waited for a beginning to the conversation,
+that she might astonish his
+weak mind with the severity of her
+invectives. In fact, she had determined,
+according to the vulgar phrase,
+to tell him a bit of her mind&mdash;and a
+very small bit of it, she was well
+aware, would be sufficient to satisfy
+Count Ericson of the condition of all
+the rest. But the lover was in a
+contemplative mood, and stood as silent
+as a milestone, and looking
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg&nbsp;512]</a></span>
+almost as animated and profound. She
+sighed, she coughed, she drops her
+handkerchief. All wouldn't do&mdash;the
+milestone took no notice&mdash;Christina
+at last grew angry, and could contain
+herself no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"I dreamt of you last night," she
+said by way of a beginning. "I hope
+in future you will leave my sleep undisturbed
+by your presumptuous presence.
+It is bad enough to be forced
+to see you when one is awake."</p>
+
+<p>"And I, also, had a dream," replied
+Ericson, starting from his reverie,
+confused and only having heard the
+first part of the somewhat fierce attack.
+"I dreamt that you looked at
+me with a smile, a long, long look, so
+sweet, so winning. It was a happy
+dream!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a false one," she said, with
+tremendous bitterness. "I know
+better where to direct my smiles, whether
+I am awake or asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"And how did I appear to you?"
+asked the Count, presenting a splendid
+specimen in his astonished look of
+the state of mind called "the dumfoundered"
+by some learned philosophers,
+and by others "the flabbergasted."</p>
+
+<p>"You appeared to me like the nightmare!
+frightful and unsupportable as
+you do to me now," was the answer,
+accompanied with the look and manner
+that showed she was a judge of
+nightmares, and thought him a very
+unfavourable specimen of the animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Ill-natured little tyrant!" cried
+Ericson, rushing to her, "teach me
+how you would have me love you, and
+I will do everything you ask!" In a
+moment he had seized her in his arms,
+and imprinted a kiss of prodigious
+violence on her cheek, which was redder
+than fire with rage and surprise!</p>
+
+<p>But the assault did not go unpunished.
+The might of Samson woke
+in that insulted bosom, and lent such
+incredible weight to the blow that fell
+on the aggressor's ear, that it took
+him a long time to believe that the
+thump proceeded from the beautiful
+little hand he had so often admired;
+or, in short, from any thing but a
+twenty-four pounder. He rubbed
+the wounded organ with astonishing
+assiduity for some time. At last he
+said, in a very calm and measured
+voice,</p>
+
+<p>"Your father has deceived me,
+young lady. He led me to believe
+you did not receive my visits with indifference."</p>
+
+<p>"My father knows nothing about
+things of that kind," replied Christina,
+still flaming with indignation, "or
+he never would have let such an ill-mannered
+monster into his house.
+But he was right in saying I did not
+receive your visits with indifference;
+your visits, Count Ericson, can never
+be indifferent to me, and"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>What more she would have said, it
+is impossible to discover, for she was
+interrupted by the sudden entrance of
+her cousin, who only heard her last
+words, and started back at what he
+considered so open a declaration of
+her attachment.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you, sir?" asked Ericson
+in an angry tone, and with such an
+assumption of superiority, that Christina's
+hand tingled to give him a mark
+of regard on his other ear.</p>
+
+<p>"A soldier," answered Adolphus,
+drawing his sword from its sheath
+and instead of directing it against his
+rival, laying it haughtily on the table.
+"A soldier who has bled for his
+country, and would be happy," he
+added, "to die for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you so?" said Ericson, "then
+we are friends." He held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"We are rivals," replied Adolphus,
+drawing back.</p>
+
+<p>"Christina loves you, then?" enquired
+the Count.</p>
+
+<p>"She has told me so; and I was
+foolish enough to believe her. It is
+now your turn to trust to the truth
+of a heartless woman.&mdash;She has told
+you you are not an object of indifference
+to her, and I resign my pretensions
+in your favour."</p>
+
+<p>"In whose favour?" cried Christina,
+trembling; while tears sprang to her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"The King's!" replied Adolphus,
+retiring sorrowfully.</p>
+
+<p>Christina sank on a seat, and covered
+her face with her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay," cried Charles the Twelfth
+in a voice of thunder; "stay, I command
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The young man obeyed; biting his
+lip to conceal his emotion, till the
+blood came.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen you," said the King,
+"but not in this house."</p>
+
+<p>"It was shut against me by my
+uncle when you were expected," said
+Adolphus.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg&nbsp;513]</a></span>
+"And yet I have seen you somewhere.
+What is your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Adolphus Hesse; the son of a
+brave officer who died fighting for
+you, and leaving me his misfortunes
+and the tears of his widow."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you I was not Count
+Ericson?"</p>
+
+<p>"My eyes. I know you well."</p>
+
+<p>"And I recollect you also," said
+Charles, advancing to the young man
+with a manner very different from that
+which characterized him in his intercourse
+with the softer sex. "Where
+did you get that scar on the left
+temple?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Nerva, sire, where we tamed
+the pride of the Russians."</p>
+
+<p>"True, true!" cried Charles, his
+nostrils dilated as if he snuffed up
+the carnage of the battle. "You
+need but this as your passport," he
+continued, placing his finger on the
+wound, "to ask me any favour, ay,
+even to measure swords with you, as
+I daresay you would be delighted to
+do in so noble a quarrel as the present;
+for on the day of that glorious fight,
+I learned, like you, the duty of a soldier,
+and the true dignity of a brave
+man. By the balls that rattled about
+our heads so playfully, give me your
+hand, brother, for we were baptized
+together in fire!"</p>
+
+<p>Charles appeared to Christina, at
+this time, quite a different man addressing
+his fellow soldier, from what
+he had done upsetting the chess-board.
+Curiosity had dried her eyes, and she
+lost not a word of the conversation.
+The King turned to her with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"By my sword, Christina! I am
+but a poor wooer; one movement of
+your hand," and he touched his ear
+playfully as he spoke, "has banished
+all the silly thoughts that in a most
+traitorous manner had taken my heart
+prisoner. Speak, then, as forcibly as
+you act. Do you love this brave
+soldier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sire."</p>
+
+<p>"Who hinders the marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"The courtship of Count Ericson,
+with which my father perpetually
+threatens me."</p>
+
+<p>"O ho!" thought Charles, "I see
+how it is. The King must console
+himself with the kiss, and pass the
+blow on the ear to the minister.
+Christina," he added aloud, "your
+father refuses to give you to the man
+you love; but he'll do it now, for <em>it is
+my will</em>. You'll confess, I am sure
+that if I was your nightmare as a
+lover, I am not your enemy as king."</p>
+
+<p>"I confess it on my knees;" replied
+the humble beauty, taking her
+place beside her cousin, who knelt to
+his sovereign. While Charles joined
+the hands of the youthful pair, he
+imprinted a kiss on the fair brow of
+Christina; the last he ever bestowed
+on woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Majesty pardons me then?"
+enquired the trembling girl. "If I
+had known it was the King, I would
+not have hit so hard."</p>
+
+<p>That same evening Count Gyllenborg
+signed a contract of marriage, to
+which the name of Count Ericson was
+not appended, though it was witnessed
+by Charles the Twelfth; and in a few
+days afterwards, the old politician presided
+at the wedding dinner, and, by
+royal command, did the honours so
+nobly, and appeared so well pleased
+on the occasion, that nobody suspected
+that he had ever had higher dreams
+of ambition than to see his daughter
+happy; and if such had been his object,
+all Sweden knew that in bestowing
+her on her cousin he was eminently
+successful.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg&nbsp;514]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PHYSICAL_SCIENCE_IN_ENGLAND" id="PHYSICAL_SCIENCE_IN_ENGLAND"></a>PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If Alexander and Archimedes,
+evoked from their long sleep, were to
+contemplate, with minds calmed by
+removal from contemporaneous interests,
+the state of mankind in the
+present year, with what different
+feelings would they regard the influence
+of their respective lives upon
+the existing human world of 1843!
+The Macedonian would find the empire
+which it was the labour of his
+life to aggrandize, frittered into parcels,
+modeled, remodeled, subjected
+to various dynasties; Turks, Greeks,
+Russians, still contending for portions
+of the territory which he had
+conjoined only to be dismembered; he
+would find in these little or no trace
+of his ever having existed; he would
+find that the unity of his vast political
+power had been severed before his
+body was yet entombed, and his prediction,
+that his funeral obsequies
+would be performed with bloody
+hands, verily fulfilled. In parts of
+the world which his living grasp had
+not seized, he would also see little to
+remind him of his past existence.
+Would not mortification darken the
+brow of the resuscitated conqueror on
+discovering, that when his name was
+mentioned in historic annals, it was
+less as a polar star to guide, than as
+a beacon to be avoided?</p>
+
+<p>What would the Syracusan see in
+this present epoch to remind him of
+himself? Would he see the man of
+212 <span class="smcap lowercase">B.C.</span>, at all connected with the men
+of 1843 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span>? Yes. In Prussia,
+Austria, France, England, America,
+in every city of every civilized nation,
+he would find the lever, the pulley,
+the mirror, the specific gravimeter,
+the geometric demonstration; he
+would trace the influence of his mind
+in the power-loom, the steam-engine,
+in the building of the Royal Exchange,
+in the Great Britain steam-ship; he
+would find an application of his well-known
+invention, the subject of a patent,
+an important auxiliary to navigation.
+Alexander <em>was</em> a hero;
+Archimedes <em>is</em> one.</p>
+
+<p>Are we guilty of exaggeration in
+this contrast of the hero of War with
+him of Science? We think not. It
+may undoubtedly be argued that
+Alexander's life was productive of ultimate
+good, that he did much to open
+Asia to European civilization; but
+would that consideration serve to
+soothe the gloomy Shade? To what
+does it amount but to the assertion that
+out of evil cometh good? It was
+through no aim of his mind that this
+resulted, nor are mankind indebted to
+him personally for a collateral effect
+of his existence.</p>
+
+<p>As an instance of men of a more
+modern era, let us take Napoleon
+Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and
+James Watt of Greenock, civil engineer.</p>
+
+<p>The former applied the energies of
+a sagacious and comprehensive intellect
+to his own political aggrandizement;
+the latter devoted his more
+modest talents to the improvement of
+a mechanical engine. The former
+was and is, <i>par excellence</i>, a hero of
+history&mdash;we should scarcely find in the
+works of the most voluminous annalists
+the name of the latter. What
+has Napoleon done to entitle his name
+to occupy so prominent a position?
+He has been the cause, mediate or
+immediate, of sacrificing the lives of
+two millions of men.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>Has the obscure Watt done nothing
+to merit a page in the records of mankind?
+Walk ten miles in any manufacturing
+district, enter any coal-mine,
+examine the bank of England, travel
+by the Great Western railway, or
+navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean,
+the Indian or the Atlantic
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg&nbsp;515]</a></span>
+Ocean&mdash;in each and all of these, that
+giant slave, the steam-engine, will be
+seen, an ever-living testimony to the
+services rendered to mankind by its
+subjugator.</p>
+
+<p>Attachment to a favourite pursuit
+is undoubtedly calculated to bias the
+judgment; but, however liable may
+be the obscure votary of science to
+override his hobby, Francis Bacon,
+Lord High Chancellor of England, in
+ascribing to scientific discoverers a
+higher merit than to legislators, emperors,
+or patriots, cannot be open
+to the charge of egoistic partiality.
+What, then, says this illustrious witness?&mdash;"The
+introduction of noble
+inventions seems to hold by far the
+most excellent place among all human
+actions. And this was the judgment
+of antiquity, which attributed
+divine honours to inventors, but conferred
+only heroical honours upon
+those who deserve well in civil affairs,
+such as the founders of empires, legislators,
+and deliverers of their country.
+And whoever rightly considers it,
+will find this a judicious custom in
+former ages, since the benefits of inventors
+may extend to all mankind,
+but civil benefits only to particular
+countries or seats of men; and these
+civil benefits seldom descend to more
+than a few ages, whereas inventions
+are perpetuated through the course of
+time. Besides, a state is seldom
+amended in its civil affairs without
+force and perturbation; whilst inventions
+spread their advantage without
+doing injury or causing disturbance."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>The opinion of a man who had
+reached the highest point to which a
+civilian could aspire, cannot, when he
+estimates the honours of the Chancellor
+as inferior to those of the natural
+philosopher, be ascribed to misjudging
+enthusiasm or personal disappointment.
+Without, however, seeking,
+for the sake of antithetic contrast, to
+underrate the importance of political
+services, civil or military, or to exaggerate
+those of the man of science,
+few, we think, will be disposed to
+deny that, although the one may be
+temporarily more urgent and necessary
+to the well-being of an existing
+race, yet that the benefits of the other
+are more lasting and universal. If,
+then, the influence on mankind of the
+secluded inventor be more extensive
+and durable than that of the active
+politician&mdash;if there be any truth in
+the opinion of Bacon, that the greatest
+political changes are wrought by
+the peaceful under-current of science;
+why is it that those who occupy the
+highest place as permanent benefactors
+of mankind, are, during their lifetime,
+neglected and comparatively unknown;&mdash;that
+they obtain neither the
+tangible advantages of pecuniary
+emolument, nor the more suitable, but
+less lucrative, honours of grateful
+homage? It is the common cry to
+exclaim against the neglect of science
+in the present day. Alas! history
+does not show us that our predecessors
+were more just to their scientific
+contemporaries. The evil is to a great
+extent remediless, the complaint to
+some extent irrational, and unworthy
+the dignity of the cause. The labourer
+in the field of science works not for
+the present, but for succeeding generations;
+he plants oaks for posterity,
+and must not look for the gratitude of
+contemporaries. Men will remunerate
+less, and be less grateful for, prospective
+than for present good&mdash;for
+benefits secured to their posterity than
+to themselves; the realization of the
+advantages is so distant, that the
+amount of discount is coextensive with
+the debt: it is only as the applications
+of science become more immediate,
+that the cultivators of science can reasonably
+expect an adequate reward or
+appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Even when practically applied, we
+too frequently see that the original discoveries
+of the physical philosopher are
+but little valued by those who make a
+daily, a most extensive, and a most
+lucrative use of their results. Men
+<em>talk</em> of "a million;" how few have
+ever <em>counted</em> one! Men walk along
+the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate
+Hill; how few think of the multiplied
+passions and powers which flit by
+them on their way&mdash;of the separate
+world which surrounds each passer-by&mdash;of
+the separate history, external
+and internal, of each&mdash;each possessing
+feelings, motives of action, characters,
+differing from the others, as the stamp
+of nature on his brow differs from his
+fellows! Thus, also, men's ears ring
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg&nbsp;516]</a></span>
+with the advancement of science,
+men's beards wag with repetition of
+the novel powers which have been
+educed from material nature; and if,
+in our daily traffic, we traverse without
+attention countless sands of
+thought, how much more, in our hackneyed
+talk of science, do we neglect
+the debt we owe to thought&mdash;thought,
+not the mere normal impulse of humanity,
+but the carefully elaborated
+lucubration of minds, of which the
+term <em>thinking</em> is emphatically predicable!
+Names which are met with but
+once in the annals of science, and
+there, dimly seen as a star of the least
+magnitude, have perhaps earned that
+remote and obscure corner by painful
+self-denial, by unwearied toil! And
+yet not only these, but others who
+have added to diligence high mental
+acumen or profundity, whose wells of
+thought are, compared with those of the
+general mass, unfathomable, earn but a
+careless, occasional notice&mdash;are known
+but to few of those who daily reap the
+harvest which they have sown, and
+who even boast of seeing further than
+they did, as the dwarf on the shoulders
+of a giant can see further than
+the giant. The first step of the unthinking
+is to deny the possibility of a
+given discovery, the next is to assert
+that any one could have foreseen such
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>There are, however, points of higher
+import than gain or glory to which
+the philosopher must ever look, and
+the absence of which must be a source
+of bitter disappointment and ground
+of just complaint. The most important
+of these is, that, by national neglect,
+the <em>cause</em> of science is injured,
+her progress retarded. Not only is
+she not honoured, she is dishonoured;
+and in no civilized nation is this contempt
+of physical science carried to a
+greater extent than in England, the
+country of commerce and of manufactures.</p>
+
+<p>In this country, should a father observe
+in his gifted son a tendency to
+physical philosophy, he anxiously endeavours
+to dissuade him from this
+career, knowing that not only will it
+tend to no worldly aggrandizement,
+but that it will have the inevitable
+effect of lowering his position in what
+is called, and justly called, good society&mdash;the
+society of the most highly
+educated classes. At one of our universities,
+physical science is utterly
+neglected; at the other, only certain
+branches of it are cultivated. There
+are, it is true, university professors of
+each branch of physics, some of whom
+are able to collect a moderate number
+of pupils; others are obliged to carry
+with them an assistant, to whom alone
+they lecture, as Dean Swift preached
+to his clerk. But what part of the
+regular academic education does the
+study of Natural Philosophy occupy?
+It forms no necessary part of the examinations
+for degrees; no credit is
+attached to those who excel in its
+pursuit; no prizes, no fellowships, no
+university distinction, conferred upon
+its most successful votaries. On the
+contrary, physical, or at all events
+experimental, science is tabooed; it is
+written down "snobbish," and its
+being so considered has much influence
+in making it so: the necessity
+of manipulation is a sad drawback to
+the gentlemanliness of a pursuit. Bacon
+rebuked this fastidiousness, but in
+vain. "We will, moreover, show
+those who, in love with contemplation,
+regard our frequent mention of
+experiments as something harsh, unworthy,
+and mechanical, how they
+oppose the attainment of their own
+wishes, since abstract contemplation,
+and the construction and invention of
+experiments, rest upon the same principles,
+and are brought to perfection
+in a similar manner."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the fact of experimental
+science being rejected by the
+educated classes and thrown in a
+great measure upon the artizans of a
+country, has conducted, among other
+evils, to one of a most detrimental
+character; viz. the want of accuracy
+in scientific language, and consequently
+the want of accuracy in ideas. Perfection
+in language, as in every thing
+else, is not to be attained, and doubtless
+there are few of the most highly
+educated who would not, in many
+cases, assign different meanings to
+the same word; but if some confusion
+on this subject is unavoidable, how
+much is that confusion increased, as
+regards scientific subjects, by the mass
+of memoirs written by parties, who,
+however acute their mental perceptions
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg&nbsp;517]</a></span>
+may be, yet, from want of early
+education, do not assign to words that
+accuracy of signification, and do not
+possess that perspicuity of style, which
+is absolutely necessary for the communication
+of ideas! Those, therefore,
+who, with different notions of
+language, read the writings of such
+as we are alluding to, either fail to
+attach to them any definite meaning,
+or attach one different from that which
+the authors intended to convey; whence
+arises a want of reciprocal intelligence,
+a want of unity of thought and
+purpose. Another defect arising from
+the circumstance that persons of a
+high order of education have not been
+generally the cultivators of experimental
+science in this country, is, that
+the path is thereby rendered more
+accessible to empiricism. Science,
+beautiful in herself, has thence a class
+of deformed disciples, who succeed in
+entangling their false pretensions with
+the claims of true merit. So much
+dust is puffed into the eyes of the
+public, that it can hardly distinguish
+between works of durable importance
+and the ephemeral productions of
+empirics; and those who would otherwise
+disdain the notoriety acquired
+by advertisement, end in adopting
+the system as the only means to avoid
+the mortification of seeing their own
+ideas appropriated and uttered in another
+form and in another's name.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p>While the evils to which science is
+exposed by the necessarily unfashionable
+character of experimental manipulation
+are neither few nor trivial,
+there are still evils which arise from
+the directly opposite cause&mdash;from excess
+of intellectual cultivation; as is
+shown in the exclusive love of mathematics
+by a great number of philosophers.
+Minds which, left to themselves,
+might have eliminated the
+most valuable results, have, dazzled
+by the lustre cast by fashion upon
+abstract mathematical speculations,
+lost themselves in a mazy labyrinth
+of transcendentals. The fashion of
+mathematics has ruined many who
+might be most useful experimentalists;
+but who, wishing to take a higher flight,
+seek to attain distinction in mathematical
+analysis, and having acquired
+a certain celebrity for experimental
+research, dissipate, in simple equations,
+the fame they had acquired in
+a field equally productive, but not so
+select. Like Claude, who in his later
+years said, "Buy my figures, and
+I will give you my landscapes for
+nothing;" they fall in love with their
+own weakness, and estimate their
+merit by the labour they have undergone,
+not by the results they have
+deduced. M. Comte expresses himself
+well on this subject. "Mathematicians,
+too frequently taking the
+means for the end, have embarrassed
+Natural Philosophy with a crowd of
+analytical labours, founded upon hypotheses
+extremely hazardous, or even
+upon conceptions purely visionary;
+and consequently sober-minded people
+can see in them really nothing more
+than simple mathematical exercises,
+of which the abstract value is sometimes
+very striking, without their influence,
+in the slightest degree, accelerating
+the natural progress of Physics."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>The cultivators of science, despite
+the want of encouragement, have, like
+every other branch of the population,
+increased rapidly in number, and, being
+thrown upon their own resources, have
+organized <span class="smcap">Societies</span>, the number of
+which is daily increasing, which do
+much good, which do much harm.
+They do good, in so far as they carry
+out their professed objects of facilitating
+intercourse between votaries of
+similar branches of study&mdash;they do
+good by the more attainable communication
+of the researches of those who
+cannot afford, or will not dare, the
+ordinary channels of publication; but
+who, sanctioned by the judgment of a
+select tribunal, are glad to work and
+to impart to the public the fruits of
+their labour&mdash;they give an <i>esprit de
+corps</i>, which forms a bond of union to
+each section, and induces a moral discipline
+in its ranks. The investment of
+their funds in the collection of libraries
+or of apparatus, the use of which
+becomes thus accessible to individuals,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg&nbsp;518]</a></span>
+to whom otherwise such acquisitions
+would have been hopeless, is another
+meritorious object of their institution;
+an object in many cases successfully
+carried out. On the other hand, they
+do harm, by becoming the channels
+of selfish speculation, their honorary
+offices being used as stepping-stones
+to lucrative ones, thereby causing
+their influential members to please
+the givers of "situations," and to publish
+the trash of the impertinently
+ambitious, the <em>Titmice of the Credulous
+Societies</em>! The ultra-ridiculous parade
+with which they have decked fair science,
+giving her a vest of unmeaning
+hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing
+her to the finger of scorn, is another
+prominent and unsightly feature of
+such societies; they do harm by the
+cliquerie which they generate, collecting
+little knots of little men, no individual
+of whom can stand his own
+ground, but a group of whom, by
+leaning hard together, can, and do,
+exercise a most pernicious influence;
+seeking petty gain and class celebrity,
+they exert their joint-stock brains to
+convert science into pounds, shillings,
+and pence; and, when they have managed
+to poke one foot upon the ladder
+of notoriety, use the other to kick
+furiously at the poor aspirants who
+attempt to follow them.</p>
+
+<p>It has been frequently and strenuously
+urged, that these societies, or
+some of them, should be supported by
+government, and not dependent upon
+the subscriptions of their members.
+The arguments in favour of such a measure
+are, that by thus being accessible
+only to merit, and not depending upon
+money, their position would be more
+honourable and advantageous to the
+progress of science. With regard to
+such societies generally, this proposition
+is incapable of realization; every
+year sees a new society of this description;
+to annex many of these to
+government, would involve difficulties
+which, in the present state of politics,
+would be insurmountable. Who, for
+instance, would pay taxes for them?
+Another, and more reasonable, proposition
+is, that the government should
+establish and support one academy as
+a head and front of the others, accessible
+only to men of high distinction,
+who would be thus constituted the
+oligarchs of science. Of the advantage
+of this we have some doubts.
+Politics are already too much mixed
+up with all government appointments
+in England: their influence is at present
+scarcely felt in science, and we
+would not willingly risk an introduction
+so fraught with danger. The want of
+such an academy certainly lessens the
+English in the eyes of the continental
+<i>savans</i>; but could not such a one be
+organized, and perhaps endowed, by
+government, without any permanent
+connexion with it?</p>
+
+<p>If we compare the proceedings, undoubtedly
+dignified and decorous, of
+our Royal Society with those of the
+French Academy, we fear the balance
+will be found to be in favour of the
+latter. At Somerset House, after the
+list of donations and abstract of former
+proceedings, a paper, or a portion of
+a paper, is read upon some abstruse
+scientific subject, and the meeting is
+adjourned in solemn silence, no observation
+can be made upon it, no
+question asked, or explanation given.
+The public is excluded,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> and the
+greater part of the members generally
+exclude themselves, very few having
+resolution enough to leave a comfortable
+dinner-table to bear the solemn
+formalities of such an evening. The
+paper is next committed, it is not known
+to whom, reported on in private, and
+either published, or deposited in the
+<em>archives of the Society</em>, according to
+the judgment of the unknown irresponsible
+parties to whom it is committed.
+Let us now look at the
+proceedings of the French Academy;
+it is open to the public, and the public
+take so great an interest in it, that
+to secure a seat an early attendance is
+always requisite. Every scientific
+point of daily and passing interest is
+brought before it&mdash;comments, such as
+occur at the time, are made upon
+various points by the secretary, or
+any other member who likes to make
+an observation&mdash;the more elaborate
+memoirs are read by the authors themselves,
+and if any <i>qu&aelig;re</i> or suggestion
+occurs to a member present, he has
+an opportunity of being answered.
+The memoir is then committed to parties
+whose names are publicly
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg&nbsp;519]</a></span>
+mentioned, who bring out their report in
+public, which report is read in public,
+and may be answered by the author
+if he object to it. Lastly, the whole
+proceedings are printed and published
+verbatim, and circulated at the next
+weekly meeting, while, in the mean
+time, the public press notices them
+freely. That, with all these advantages,
+the French Academy is not
+free from faults, we are far from asserting;
+that there is as much unseen
+man&oelig;uvring and petty tyranny in this
+as in most other institutions, is far
+from improbable;<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> but the effect upon
+the public, and the zest and vitality
+which its proceedings give to science,
+are undeniable, and it is also undeniable
+that we have no scientific institution
+approaching to it in interest or
+value.</p>
+
+<p>The present perpetual secretary of
+the Academy, Arago, with much of
+prejudice, much of egotism, has talents
+most plastic, an energy of character,
+an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity
+of expression, which alone
+give to the sittings of the French Academy
+a peculiar and surpassing interest,
+but which, in the English Society,
+would be entirely lost.</p>
+
+<p>In quitting, for the present, the
+subject of scientific societies, we must
+advert to a consequence of the increased
+number of candidates for scientific
+distinction of late years; of which increase
+the number of these societies
+may be regarded as an exponent.
+This increase, although on the whole
+both a cause and a consequence of the
+advancement of science, yet has in
+some respects lowered the high character
+of her cultivators by the competition
+it has necessarily engendered.
+Books tell us that the cultivation of
+science must elevate and expand the
+mind, by keeping it apart from the
+jangling of worldly interests. This
+dogma has its false as well as its true
+side, more especially when in this, as
+in every other field of human activity,
+the number of competitors is rapidly
+increasing; great watchfulness is requisite
+to resist temptations which
+beset the aspirant to success on this
+arena, more perhaps than in any other.
+The difficulty which the most honest
+find to avoid treading in the footsteps
+of others&mdash;the different aspect in which
+the same phenomena present themselves
+to different minds&mdash;the unwillingness
+which the mind experiences
+in renouncing published but erroneous
+opinions&mdash;are points of human weakness
+which, not to mislead, must be
+watched with assiduous care. Again,
+the ease with which plagiarism is
+committed from the number of roads
+by which the same point may be
+reached, is a great temptation to the
+waverer, and a great trial of temper
+to the victim. The disputants on the
+aren&aelig; of law, politics, or other pursuits,
+the ostensible aim of which is
+worldly aggrandizement, however animated
+in debate, unsparing in satire,
+reckless in their invective and recrimination,
+seldom fail in their private intercourse
+to throw off the armour of
+professional antagonism, and to extend
+to each other the ungloved hand
+of social cordiality. On the other
+hand, it is too frequent a spectacle in
+scientific circles to behold a careful
+wording of public controversy, a gentle,
+apologetic phraseology, a correspondence
+never going beyond the "retort
+courteous," or "quip modest," while
+there exists an under-current of the
+bitterest personal jealousy, the outward
+philosopher being strangely at
+variance with the inward man.</p>
+
+<p>Among the various circumstances
+which influence the progress of physical
+science in this country, one of
+the most prominent is the <em>Patent</em> law&mdash;a
+law in its intention beneficent;
+but whether the practical working of
+it be useful, either to science or its
+cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt.
+Of the greater number of patents enrolled
+in that depot of practical
+science, Chancery Lane, by far the
+majority are beneficial only to the revenue;
+and on the question of public
+economy, whether or not the price
+paid by miscalculating ingenuity is a
+fair and politic source of revenue, we
+shall not enter; but on the reasons
+which lead so many to be dupes of
+their own self-esteem, a few words
+may not be misspent. The chief reason
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg&nbsp;520]</a></span>
+why a vast number of patents are
+unsuccessful, is, that it takes a long
+time (longer generally than fourteen
+years, the statutable limit of patent
+grants) to make the workmen of a
+country familiar with a new manufacture.
+A party, therefore, who
+proposes patenting an invention, and
+who sits down and calculates the value
+of the material, the time necessary
+for its manufacture, and other essential
+data; comparing these with the
+price at which it can be sold to obtain
+a remunerative profit, seldom
+takes into consideration the time necessary,
+first, to accustom the journeymen
+workers to its construction,
+and secondly, to make known to the
+public its real value. In the present
+universal competition, puffing is carried
+on to such an extent, that, to
+give a fair chance of success, not only
+must the first expense of a patent be incurred&mdash;no
+inconsiderable one either,
+even supposing the patentee fortunate
+enough to escape litigation&mdash;but a
+large sum of money must be invested
+in advertisements, with little immediate
+return; hence it is that the most
+valuable patents, viewed in relation
+to their scientific importance, their
+ultimate public benefit, and the merits
+of their inventors, are seldom the
+most lucrative, while a patent inkstand,
+a boot-heel, a shaving case, or
+a button, become rapidly a source of
+no inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial
+to inventors? Is it an encouragement
+of science, or a proper object
+of legislative provision, that the
+improver of the most trivial mechanical
+application should be carefully
+protected, while those who open the
+hidden sources of myriads of patents,
+are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating
+themselves? We seriously
+incline to think that, as the matter at
+present stands, an entire erasure from
+the statute-books of patent provision
+would be of service to science, and
+perhaps to the community; each
+tradesman would depend for success
+upon his own activity, and the perfection
+he could give his manufacture,
+and the scientific searcher after experimental
+truths would not find his path
+barred by prohibitions from speculative
+empirics.</p>
+
+<p>According to the present patent
+laws, it is more than questionable
+whether the discoverer of a great scientific
+principle could pursue his own
+discovery, or whether he would not be
+arrested on the threshold by a subsequent
+patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional
+England instead of despotic
+Russia, it is doubtful if he could work
+out his discovery of the electrotype&mdash;we
+say <em>doubtful</em>; for, as far as we can
+learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided
+whether the mere use of a
+patent, not for sale or a lucrative object,
+is such a use within the statute
+of James as would be an infringement
+of a patentee's rights. It appears
+to be settled, that a previous experimental
+and unpublished use by one
+party, does not prevent another subsequent
+inventor of the same process
+from patenting it; and, by parity of
+reasoning, we should say, that if a
+party have the advantage of patenting
+an invention which can be found to
+have been previously used, but not for
+sale, he should not have the additional
+privilege of prohibiting the same
+party, or others, from proceeding
+with their experiments. There are,
+however, not wanting arguments for
+the other view. The practice of a patented
+invention, for one's own benefit
+or pleasure, deprives the patentee
+of a possible source of profit; for it
+cannot be said that the party experimenting,
+if prohibited, might not apply
+for a license to the patentee.
+Take, for instance, the notorious and
+justly censured patent of Daguerre.
+Supposing, for argument's sake, this
+patent to be valid, can a private
+individual, under the existing patent laws,
+take photographic views or portraits
+for his own amusement, or in pursuance
+of scientific investigations? If
+he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful
+path of physics to be shut up for
+fourteen years; or if he can, then is
+the licensee, a purchaser for value, to
+be excluded from very many sources
+of pecuniary emolument? To us, the
+injury to the public, in this and similar
+cases, appears of incomparably
+greater consequence than that to the
+individual; but what the authorities
+at Westminster Hall may say is another
+question. Even could the patent
+laws be so modified, that the
+benefits derived from them could fall
+upon those scientific discoverers most
+justly entitled, we are still doubtful
+as to their utility, or whether they
+would contribute to the advancement
+of science, which is the point of view in
+which we here principally regard
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg&nbsp;521]</a></span>
+them. It would scarcely add to the
+dignity of philosophy, or to the reverence
+due to its votaries, to see them
+running with their various inventions
+to the patent office, and afterwards
+spending their time in the courts of
+law, defending their several claims.
+They would thus entirely lose the respect
+due to them from their contemporaries
+and posterity, and waste, in
+pecuniary speculation, time which
+might be more advantageously, and
+without doubt more agreeably, employed.
+If parties look to money as
+their reward, they have no right to
+look for fame; to those who sell the
+produce of their brains, the public
+owes no debt.</p>
+
+<p>We have observed recently a strong
+tendency in men of no mean scientific
+pretensions to patent the results of
+their labours. We blame them not:
+it is a matter of free election on their
+part, but we cannot praise them.
+A writer in a recent number of the
+<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, has the following
+remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's
+patented invention of the Calotype.
+"Nor does the fate of the Calotype
+redeem the treatment of her sister art,
+(the Daguerreotype.) The Royal Society,
+the philosophical organ of the
+nation, has refused to publish its processes
+in her transactions.&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;No
+representatives of the people unanimously
+recommended a national reward.
+* * * It gives us great pleasure
+to learn, that though none of his (Mr
+Talbot's) photographical discoveries
+adorn the transactions of the Royal
+Society, yet the president and the
+council have adjudged him the Rumford
+medals for the last biennial
+period."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>The notion of a "national reward"
+for the Calotype scarcely requires a remark.
+If, after a discovery is once made
+and published, every subsequent new
+process in the same art is to be nationally
+rewarded, the income-tax
+must be at least quadrupled. The
+complaint, however, against the Royal
+Society, is not altogether groundless.
+True it is that the first paper of Mr
+Talbot did not contain an account
+of the processes employed by him,
+and therefore should not have been
+even read to the Society; but the paper
+on the Calotype did contain such description,
+and we see no reason why
+a society for the advancement of
+knowledge should not give publicity
+to a valuable process, though made
+the subject of a patent&mdash;but it certainly
+should not bestow an honorary
+reward upon an inventor who has
+withheld from the Royal Society and
+the public the practice of the invention
+whose processes he communicates.
+Mr Talbot had a perfect right to
+patent his invention, but has on that
+account no claim in respect of the
+same invention to an honorary reward.
+The Royal Society did not
+publish his paper, but awarded him a
+medal. In our opinion, they should
+have published his paper and not
+awarded him a medal.</p>
+
+<p>Regarded as to her national encouragement
+of science, there are some
+features in which England differs not
+from other countries; there are others
+in which she may be strikingly contrasted
+with them; and, with all our
+love for her, we fear she will suffer
+by the contrast. A learned writer
+of the present day, has the following
+passage in reference to the state of
+science in England as contrasted
+with other countries:&mdash;"When the
+proud science of England pines in
+obscurity, blighted by the absence of
+the royal favour and the nation's
+sympathy; when her chivalry fall unwept
+and unhonoured, how can it
+sustain the conflict against the honoured
+and marshalled genius of foreign
+lands?"<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>This, to be sure, is somewhat "<em>tumultuous</em>."
+We do not, however, cite
+it as a specimen of composition, but
+as an expression of a very prevalent
+feeling; the opinion involved in the
+concluding <i>qu&aelig;re</i> is open to doubt&mdash;England
+does sustain the conflict, if
+any conflict there be to sustain; but
+we are bound to admit, that in no
+country are the soldiers of <em>science
+militant</em> less honoured or rewarded.
+It is no uncommon remark, that despotic
+governments are the most favourable
+to the cultivation of the arts
+and sciences. There is, perhaps, a
+general truth in this, and the causes
+are not difficult of recognition. In a
+republican or constitutional government,
+politics are the all-engrossing
+topics of a people's thought, the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg&nbsp;522]</a></span>
+never-ending theme of conversation;&mdash;in
+purely despotic states, such discussions
+are prohibited, and the contemplation
+of such subjects confined to a
+few restless or patriotic spirits. It
+must also be ever the policy of absolute
+monarchs to open channels for
+the public mind, which may divert it
+from political considerations. Take
+America and Austria as existing instances
+of this contrast: in the former,
+the universality of political conversation
+is an object of remark to all travellers;
+in the latter, even books which
+touch at all on political matters are
+rigidly excluded. These are among
+the causes which strike us as most
+prominent, but whose effects obtain
+only when despotism is not so gross
+as to be an incubus upon the whole
+moral and intellectual energies of a
+people.</p>
+
+<p>We should lose sight of the objects
+proposed in these pages, and also
+transgress our assigned limits, were
+we to enter into detail upon the present
+state of science in Europe, or
+trace the causes which have influenced
+her progress in each state. This would
+form a sufficient thesis for a separate
+essay; but we will not pass over this
+branch of our subject, without venturing
+to express an opinion on the
+delicate and embarrassing question as
+to what rank each nation holds as a
+promoter of physical science.</p>
+
+<p>In experimental and theoretical
+Physics, we should be inclined to
+place the German nations in the first
+rank; in pure and applied mathematics,
+France. The former nations
+far excel all others in the independence
+and impartiality with which they
+view scientific results; researches of
+any value, from whatever part of the
+world they emanate, instantly find a
+place in their periodicals; and they generally
+estimate more justly the relative
+value of different discoveries than any
+other European nation; the &aelig;sthetical
+power which enables them to seize
+and appreciate what is beautiful in art,
+gives them perception and discrimination
+in science; but they are not great
+as originators. The French, notwithstanding
+the high pitch at which they
+have undoubtedly arrived in mathematical
+investigation, not withstanding
+the general accuracy of their experimental
+researches, have more of the
+pedantry of science; their papers are
+too professional&mdash;too much <i>selon les
+r&egrave;gles</i>; there are too many minuti&aelig;;
+the reader is tempted to exclaim with
+Jacques&mdash;"I think of as many matters
+as he; but I give Heaven thanks, and
+make no boast of them." Their accuracy
+frequently degenerates into affectation
+and parade. We have now
+before us a paper in the <i>Annales de
+Chimie</i>, containing some chemical researches,
+in which, though the difference
+of each experiment in a small
+number, put together for average,
+amounts to several units, the weights
+are given to the fifth place of decimals.
+England, which we should
+place next, is by no means exempt
+from these trappings of science. Many
+English scientific papers seem written
+as if with the resolute purpose of filling
+a certain number of pages, and
+many of their writers seem to think a
+<em>paper per annum</em>, good or bad, necessary
+to indicate their philosophical
+existence. They write, not because
+they have made a discovery, but because
+their period of hybernation has
+expired. Still, in England, there is a
+strong vein of original thought. Competition,
+if it lead to puffing and
+quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions;
+and, in England, competition
+has done its worst and its best; in
+original chemical discovery, England
+has latterly been unrivalled.</p>
+
+<p>Next to England we should place
+Sweden and Denmark&mdash;for their population
+they have done much, and
+done it well; then Italy&mdash;in Italy
+science is well organized, and the
+rulers of her petty states seem to feel
+a proper emulation in promoting scientific
+merit&mdash;in which laudable rivalry
+the Archduke of Tuscany deserves
+honourable mention; America and
+Russia come next&mdash;the former state is
+zealous, ready at practical application,
+and promises much for the future,
+but as yet has not done enough in
+original research to entitle her to be
+placed in the van. Russia at present
+possesses few, if any, native philosophers&mdash;her
+discoverers and discoveries
+are all imported; but the emperor's
+zeal and <em>patronage</em> (a word which we
+scarcely like to apply to science) is
+doing much to organize her forces, and
+the mercenary troops may impart vigour,
+and induce discipline into the
+national body. In this short enumeration,
+we have considered each country,
+not according to the number of
+its very eminent men; for though far
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg&nbsp;523]</a></span>
+from denying the right which each
+undoubtedly possesses to shine by the
+reflected lustre of her stars, yet in
+looking, as it were, from an external
+point, it is more just to regard the
+general character of each people than
+to classify them according as they
+may happen to be the birthplace of
+those</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>A misunderstanding of the proper
+use of theory is among the prevalent
+scientific errors of the present day.
+Among one set of men of considerable
+intelligence, but who are not habitually
+conversant with physical science,
+there is a general tendency to despise
+theory. This contempt appears
+to rest on somewhat plausible grounds;
+as an instance of it, we may take the
+following passage from the fitful writings
+of Mr Carlyle:&mdash;"Hardened
+round us, encasing wholly every notion
+we form, is a wrappage of traditions,
+hearsays, mere words: we call that
+fire of the black thunder-cloud electricity,
+and lecture learnedly about it,
+and grind the like of it out of glass
+and silk, but what is it? Whence
+comes it? Where goes it?"<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>However the experienced philosopher
+may be convinced that <em>in themselves</em>
+theories are nothing&mdash;that they
+are but collations of phenomena under
+a generic formula, which is useful only
+inasmuch as it groups these phenomena;
+yet it is difficult to see how,
+without these imperfect generalizations,
+any mind can retain the endless
+variety of facts and relations which
+every branch of science presents;
+still less, how these can be taught,
+learned, reasoned upon, or used. How
+could the facts of geology be recollected,
+or how, indeed, could they constitute
+a science without reference to
+some real or supposed bond of union,
+some aqueous or igneous theory?
+How could two chemists converse on
+chemistry without the use of the term
+affinity, and the theoretical conception
+it involves? How could a name be
+applied, or a nomenclature adopted,
+without that imperfect, or more or
+less perfect grouping of facts, which
+involves theory? As far as we can
+recollect, all the alterations of nomenclature
+which have been introduced,
+or attempted, proceed upon some alteration
+of theory.</p>
+
+<p>If not theory but hypothesis be objected
+to&mdash;not the imperfect generalization
+of phenomena, but a gratuitous
+assumption for the sake of collating
+them, this, although ground which
+should be trodden more cautiously,
+appears in certain cases unavoidable;
+in fact, is scarcely separable from
+theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly"
+about the two <em>fluids</em> of electricity,
+we should not now possess many
+of the discoveries with which this
+science is enriched, although we do
+not, and probably never shall, know
+what electricity is.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, among professed
+physical philosophers, the great
+abuse of theories and hypotheses is,
+that their promulgators soon regard
+them, not as aids to science, to be
+changed if occasion should require,
+but as absolute natural truths; they
+look to that as an end, which is in
+fact but a means; their theories become
+part of their mental constitution, idiosyncrasies;
+and they themselves become
+partizans of a faction, and cease
+to be inductive philosophers.</p>
+
+<p>Another injury to science, in a great
+measure peculiar to the present day,
+arises from the number of speculations
+which are ushered into the world to
+account for the same phenomena;
+every one, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek,
+when he wished to cudgel a
+Puritan, has for his opinion "no exquisite
+reasons, but reasons good enough."
+In the periods of science immediately
+subsequent to the time of Bacon, men
+commenced their career by successful
+experiment; and having convinced the
+world of their aptitude for perceiving
+the relations of natural phenomena,
+enounced theories which they believed
+the most efficient to give a comprehensive
+generality to the whole. Men
+now, however, commence with theories,
+though, alas! the converse does
+not hold good&mdash;they do not always
+end with experiment.</p>
+
+<p>As, in the promulgation of theories,
+every aspirant is anxious to propound
+different news, so, in nomenclature,
+there is a strong tendency to promiscuous
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg&nbsp;524]</a></span>
+coining. The great commentator
+on the laws of England, Sir
+William Blackstone, observes, "As
+to the impression, the stamping of
+coin is the unquestionable prerogative
+of the crown,&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;the king may
+also, by his proclamation, legitimate
+foreign coin, and make it current
+here."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>As coinage of money is the undoubted
+prerogative of the crown; so generally
+coinage of words has been the
+undoubted prerogative of the kings of
+science&mdash;those to whom mankind have
+bent as to unquestionable authority.
+But even these royal dignitaries have
+generally been sparing in the exercise
+of this prerogative, and used it only
+on rare occasions and when absolutely
+necessary, either from the discovery
+of new things requiring new names, or
+upon entire revolutions of theory.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7">"Si forte necesse est<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Continget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But now there is no "pudor" in the
+matter. Every man has his own
+mint; and although their several coins
+do not pass current very generally,
+yet they are taken here and there by
+a few disciples, and throw some standard
+money out of the market. The
+want of consideration evinced in these
+novel vocabularies is remarkable.
+Whewell, whose scientific position
+and dialectic turn of mind may fairly
+qualify him to be a word-maker, seems
+peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as
+an instance, "<em>idiopts</em>," an uncomfortable
+word, barely necessary, as
+the persons to whom it applies are
+comparatively rare, and will scarcely
+thank the Master of Trinity College
+for approximating them in name to a
+more numerous and more unfortunate
+class&mdash;the word <em>physicists</em>, where four
+sibilant consonants fizz like a squib.
+In these, and we might add many
+from other sources, euphony is wantonly
+disregarded; by other authors of
+smaller calibre, classical associations
+are curiously violated. We may take,
+as an instance, <em>platinode</em>, Spanish-American
+joined to ancient Greek.
+In chemistry there is a profusion of
+new coin. Sulphate of ammonia&mdash;oxi-sulphion
+of ammonium&mdash;sulphat-oxide
+of ammonium&mdash;three names for
+one substance. This mania is by no
+means common to England. In Liebig's
+Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we
+have the following passage:&mdash;"It
+should be remarked that some chemists
+designate artificial camphor by
+the name of hydrochlorate of camphor.
+Deville calls it bihydrochlorate
+of t&eacute;r&egrave;b&egrave;ne, and Souberaine and
+Capelaine call it hydrochlorate of
+pencyl&egrave;ne."</p>
+
+<p>So generally does this prevail, that
+in chemical treatises the names of substances
+are frequently given with a
+tail of synonymes. Numerous words
+might be cited which are names for non-existences&mdash;mere
+hypothetic groupings;
+and yet so rapidly are these increasing,
+that it seems not impossible,
+in process of time, there will be more
+names for things that are not than for
+things that are. If this work go on,
+the scientific public must elect a censor
+whose fiat shall be final; otherwise,
+as every small philosopher is encouraged
+or tolerated in framing <i>ad
+libitum</i> a nomenclature of his own, the
+inevitable effect will be, that no man
+will be able to understand his brother,
+and a confusion of tongues will ensue,
+to be likened only to that which occasioned
+the memorable dispersion at
+Babel.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the defects to which we
+have alluded in the course of this paper,
+time alone can remedy. In spite
+of all drawbacks, the progress of science
+has been vast and rapidly increasing;
+the very rapidity of its progress
+brings with it difficulties. So
+many points, once considered impossible,
+have been proved possible, that
+to some minds the suggestion of impossibility
+seems an argument in favour
+of possibility. Because steam-travelling
+was once laughed at as
+visionary, aerial navigation is to be
+regarded as practicable&mdash;perhaps, indeed,
+it <em>will</em> be so, give but the time
+<em>proportionably</em> requisite to master its
+difficulties, as there was given to steam.
+What proportion this should be we
+will not venture to predict. There can
+be little doubt that the most effectual
+way to induce a more accurate public
+discrimination of scientific efforts is to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg&nbsp;525]</a></span>
+turn somewhat more in that direction
+the current of national education.
+Prizes at the universities for efficiency
+in the physics of light, heat, electricity,
+magnetism, or chemistry, could,
+we conceive, do no harm. Why
+should not similar honours be conferred
+on those students who advance
+the progress of an infant science, as
+on those who work out with facility
+the formul&aelig; of an exact one; and
+why should not acquirements in either,
+rank equally high with the critical
+knowledge of the <i>digamma</i> or the <i>&agrave;
+priori</i> philosophy of Aristotle? Is not
+Bacon's Novum Organon as much
+entitled to be made a standard book
+for the schools as Aldrich's logic?
+Venerating English universities, we
+approve not the inconsiderate outcries
+against systematic and time-honoured
+educational discipline; but it would
+increase our love for these seminaries
+of sound learning, could we more frequently
+see such men as Davy emanate
+from Oxford, instead of from the
+pneumatic institution of Bristol.</p>
+
+<p>Provided science be kept separate
+from political excitement, we should
+like to see an English Academy, constituted
+of men having fair claims to
+scientific distinction, and not "deserving
+of that honour because they are
+attached to science."</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary here to touch upon
+the details of such an Academy. The
+proposition is by no means new. On
+the contrary, we believe a wish for
+some such change pretty generally
+exists. Iteration is sometimes more
+useful than originality. The more
+frequently the point is brought before
+the public, the more probable is it that
+steps will be taken by those who are
+qualified to move in such a matter.
+The more the present defective state
+of our scientific organization is commented
+on, the more likely is it to be
+remedied; for the patency of error is
+ever a sure prelude to its extirpation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHRONICLES_OF_PARIS" id="CHRONICLES_OF_PARIS"></a>CHRONICLES OF PARIS.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RUE ST DENIS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>One of the longest, the narrowest,
+the highest, the darkest, and the
+dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is,
+and probably will long be, the Rue
+St Denis. Beginning at the bank of
+the Seine, and running due north, it
+spins out its length like a tape-worm,
+with every now and then a gentle
+wriggle, right across the capital, till
+it reaches the furthest barrier, and
+thence has a kind of suburban tail
+prolonged into the wide, straight road,
+a league in length, that stretches to
+the town of Sainct-Denys-en-France.
+This was, from time immemorial, the
+state-road for the monarchs of France
+to make their formal entries into, and
+exits from, their capital&mdash;whether
+they came from their coronation at
+Rheims, or went to their last resting-place
+beneath the tall spire of St
+Denis. This has always been the
+line by which travellers from the
+northern provinces have entered the
+good city of Paris; and for many a
+long year its echoes have never had
+rest from the cracking of the postilion's
+whip, the roll of the heavy diligence,
+and the perpetual jumbling of carts
+and waggons. It is, as it has ever
+been, one of the main arteries of the
+capital; and nowhere does the restless
+tide of Parisian life run more
+rapidly or more constantly than over
+its well-worn stones. In the pages
+of the venerable historians of the
+French capital, and in ancient maps,
+it is always called "<i>La Grande Rue
+de Sainct Denys</i>," being, no doubt,
+at one time the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of all
+that was considered wide and commodious.
+Now its appellation is curtailed
+into the <i>Rue St D'nis</i>, and it
+is avoided by the polite inhabitants
+of Paris as containing nothing but
+the <i>bourgeoisie</i> and the <i>canaille</i>. Once
+it was the Regent Street of Paris&mdash;a
+sort of Rue de la Paix&mdash;lounged along
+by the gallants of the days of Henri
+IV., and not unvisited by the red-heeled
+marquises of the Regent
+d'Orleans's time; now it sees nothing
+more <i>recherch&eacute;</i> than the cap of the
+grisette or the poissarde, as the case
+may be, nor any thing more august
+than the casquette of the <i>commis-voyageur</i>,
+or the indescribable shako
+and equipments of the National
+Guard. As its frequenters have been
+changed in character, so have its
+houses and public buildings; they
+have lost much of the picturesque
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg&nbsp;526]</a></span>
+appearance they possessed a hundred
+years ago&mdash;they are forced every
+year more and more into line, like a
+regiment of stone and mortar. Instead
+of showing their projecting,
+high-peaked gables to the street, they
+have now turned their fronts, as more
+polite; the roofs are accommodated
+with the luxury of pipes, and the
+midnight sound of "<i>Gare l'eau!</i>"
+which used to make the late-returning
+passenger start with all agility
+from beneath the opened window to
+avoid the odoriferous shower, is now
+but seldom heard. A Liliputian
+footway, some two feet wide, is laid
+down in flags at either side; the
+oscillating lamp, that used to hang on
+a rotten cord thrown across the roadway
+from house to house, and made
+darkness visible, has given place to
+the genius of gas&mdash;<i>enfin, la R&eacute;volution
+a pass&eacute; par l&agrave;</i>; and the Rue de
+St Denis is now a ghost only of what
+it was. Still it retains sufficient peculiarities
+of dimensions and outline
+to show that it is a child of the middle
+ages; and, like so many other children
+of the same kind, it contributes
+to make its mother Paris, as compared
+with the modern-built capitals of
+Europe, a town of former days. Long
+may it retain these oddities of appearance&mdash;long
+may it remain narrow,
+dark, and dirty; we rejoice that
+such streets still exist&mdash;they do one's
+eye good, if not one's nose. There
+is more of colour, of light and shade,
+of picturesque, fantastic outline, in a
+hundred yards of the Rue St Denis,
+than in all the line from Piccadilly
+to Whitechapel; a painter can
+pick up more food for his easel in
+this queer, old street&mdash;an antiquarian
+can find there more tales and crusts
+for his noddle, than in all Regent
+Street and Portland Place. We love
+a ramshackle place like this; it does
+one good to get out of the associations
+of the present century, and to
+retrograde a bit; it is pleasant to see
+how people used to pig together in
+ancient days, without any of the mathematical
+formalities of the present
+day; it keeps one's eye in tone to
+look back at works of the middle
+ages; and we may learn the more
+justly to criticize what we see arising
+about us, by refreshing our recollections
+of the mouldering past. Paris is
+a glorious place for things of this kind.
+Thank the stars, it never got burned
+out of its old clothes, as London
+did. Newfangled streets and quarters
+of every age have been added to
+it, but there still remains a medi&aelig;val
+nucleus&mdash;there is still an "old Paris"&mdash;a
+gloomy, filthy, old town, irregular
+and inconvenient as any town
+ever was yet; and a walk of twenty
+minutes will take you from the elegant
+uniformity of the Rue de Rivoli
+into the original chaos of buildings&mdash;into
+the Quartier des Halles and into
+the Rue St Denis. How often have
+we hurried down them on a cold winter's
+day&mdash;say the 31st of December&mdash;to
+buy bons-bons in the Rue des
+Lombards, once the abode of bankers,
+now the paradise of <i>confiseurs</i>, against
+the coming morrow&mdash;the grand day
+of visits and cadeaux&mdash;braving the
+snow some three feet deep in the
+midst of the street&mdash;or, if there happened
+to be no snow, the mud a foot
+and a half, splashing through it with
+our last new pair of boots from Legrand's,
+and the last <i>pantalon</i> from
+Blondel's&mdash;for cabriolet or omnibus,
+none might pass that way; and there,
+amid onion-smelling crowds, in a long,
+low shop, with lamps lighted at two
+o'clock, have consummated our purchase,
+and floundered back triumphant!
+Away, ye gay, seducing vanities
+of the Palais Royal or the Boulevards;
+your light is too garish for
+our sober eyes&mdash;the sugar of your
+comfitures is too chalky for our discriminating
+tooth! Our appropriate
+latitude is that of the Quartier St
+Denis! One thing, however, we
+must confess, we never did in the
+Rue St Denis&mdash;we never dined there!
+<i>Oh non! il ne faut pas faire &ccedil;a!</i> 'Tis
+the headquarters of all the sausage-dealers,
+the <i>charcutiers</i>, and the <i>rotisseurs</i>
+of Paris. Genuine meat and
+drink there is none; cats hold the
+murderous neighbourhood in traditional
+abhorrence, and the ruddiest
+wine of Burgundy would turn pale
+were the aqueous reputation of the
+street whispered near its cellar-door.
+Thank Heaven, we have a gastronomic
+instinct that saved us from acts
+of suicidal rashness! When in Paris,
+gentle reader, we always dine at the
+Trois Fr&egrave;res Proven&ccedil;aux; the little
+room in blue, remember&mdash;time, six
+<span class="smcap lowercase">P.M.</span>; potage &agrave; la Julienne&mdash;bifteck
+au vin de Champagne&mdash;poulet &agrave; la
+Marengo&mdash;Chambertin, and St P&eacute;ray
+ros&eacute;. The next time you visit the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg&nbsp;527]</a></span>
+Palais-Royal, turn in there, and dine
+with us&mdash;we shall be delighted to see
+you!</p>
+
+<p>There are few gaping Englishmen
+who have been on the other side of
+the Channel but have found their
+way along the Boulevards to the
+Porte St Denis, and have stared first
+of all at that dingy monument of Ludovican
+pride, and then have stared
+down the Rue St Denis, and then
+have stared up the Rue du Faubourg
+St Denis; but very few are ever
+tempted to turn either to the right
+hand or to the left, and so they generally
+poke on to the Porte St Martin,
+or stroll back to the Madeleine, and
+rarely make acquaintance with the
+Dionysian mysteries of Paris. For
+the benefit, therefore, of such travellers
+as go to the French capital with
+their eyes in their pockets, and of
+such as stay at home and travel by
+their fireside, but still can relish the
+recollections and associations of olden
+times, we are going to rake together
+some of the many odd notes that pertain
+to the history of this street and
+its immediate vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>The readiest way into the Rue St
+Denis from the Isle de la Cit&eacute;, the
+centre of Paris, has always been over
+the Pont-au-Change. This bridge,
+now the widest over the Seine, was
+once a narrow, ill-contrived structure
+of wood, covered with a row of houses
+on either side, that formed a dark and
+dirty street, so that you might pass
+through it a hundred times without
+once suspecting that you were crossing
+a river. These houses, built of
+stone and wood, overhung the edges
+of the bridge, and afforded their inhabitants
+an unsafe abode between the
+sky and the water. At times the
+river would rise in one of its periodical
+furies, and sweep away a pier or
+two with the superincumbent houses;
+at others the wooden supporters of the
+structure would catch fire by some
+untoward event, and the inhabitants
+had the choice of being fried or
+drowned, along with their penates and
+their supellectile property. Such a
+catastrophe happened in the reign of
+Louis XIII., when this and another
+wooden bridge, situated, oddly enough,
+close by its side, were set on fire by a
+squib, which some <i>gamins de Paris</i>
+were letting off on his Majesty's highway;
+and in less than three hours 140
+houses had disappeared. It was Louis
+VII., in the twelfth century, who gave
+it the name it has since borne; for he
+ordered all the money-changers of
+Paris to come and live on this bridge&mdash;no
+very secure place for keeping the
+precious metals; and about two hundred
+years ago the money-changers,
+fifty-four in number, occupied the
+houses on one side, while fifty goldsmiths
+lived in those on the other. In
+the open roadway between, was held a
+kind of market or fair for bird-sellers,
+who were allowed to keep their standings
+on the curious tenure of letting
+off two hundred dozens of small birds
+whenever a new king should pass over
+this bridge, on his solemn entry into
+the capital. The birds fluttered and
+whistled on these occasions, the <i>gamins</i>
+clapped their hands and shouted, the
+good citizens cried "Noel!" and
+"Vive le Roy!" and the courtiers
+were delighted at the joyous spectacle.
+Whether the birds flew away ready
+roasted to the royal table, history is
+silent; but it would have been a sensible
+improvement of this part of the
+triumphal ceremony, and we recommend
+it to the serious notice of all
+occupiers of the French throne.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at the northern end of
+the bridge, the passenger had on his
+right a covered gallery of shops,
+stretching up the river side to the Pont
+Notre Dame, and called the Quai de
+Gesvres; here was a fashionable promenade
+for the beaux of Paris, for it
+was filled with the stalls of pretty milliners,
+like one of our bazars, and
+boasted of an occasional bookseller's
+shop or two, where the tender ballads
+of Ronsard, or the broad jokes of Rabelais,
+might be purchased and read
+for a few livres. To the left was a
+narrow street, known by the curious
+appellation of <i>Trop-va-qui-dure</i>, the
+etymology of which has puzzled the
+brains of all Parisian antiquaries;
+while just beyond it, and still by the
+river side, was the <i>Vieille Vall&eacute;e de
+Mis&egrave;re</i>&mdash;words indicative of the opinion
+entertained of so <em>ineligible</em> a residence.
+In front frowned, in all the
+grim stiffness of a feudal fortress, the
+<i>Grand Chastelet</i>, once the northern
+defence of Paris against the Normans
+and the English, but at last changed
+into the headquarters of the police&mdash;the
+Bow Street of the French capital.
+Two large towers, with conical tops
+over a portcullised gateway, admitted
+the prisoners into a small square court,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg&nbsp;528]</a></span>
+round which were ranged the offices of
+the lieutenant of police, and the chambers
+of the law-officers of the crown.
+Part of the building served as a prison
+for the vulgar crew of offenders&mdash;a
+kind of Newgate, or Tolbooth; another
+was used as, and was called, the
+Morgue, where the dead bodies found
+in the Seine were often carried; there
+was a room in it called C&aelig;sar's chamber,
+where the good citizens of Paris
+firmly believed that the great Julius
+once sat as provost of Paris, in a red
+robe and flowing wig; and there was
+many an out-of-the-way nook and corner
+full of dust and parchments, and
+rats and spiders. The lawyers of the
+Chastelet thought no small beer of
+themselves, it seems; for they claimed
+the right of walking in processions
+before the members of the Parliament,
+and immediately after the corporation
+of the capital. The unlucky wight
+who might chance to be put in durance
+vile within these walls, was commonly
+well trounced and fined ere he
+was allowed to depart; and next to
+the dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet
+used to be looked on with peculiar
+horror. At the Revolution it was
+one of the first feudal buildings demolished&mdash;not
+a stone of the old pile
+remains; the Pont-au-Change had
+long before had its wooden piers
+changed for noble stone ones, and on
+the site where this fortress stood is
+now the Place de Chatelet, with a
+Napoleonic monument in the midst&mdash;a
+column inscribed with names of
+bloody battle-fields, on its summit a
+golden wing-expanding Victory, and
+at its base four little impudent dolphins,
+snorting out water into the
+buckets of the Porteurs d'Eau.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the Chastelet stood the
+<i>Grande Boucherie</i>&mdash;the Leadenhall
+market of Paris an hundred years ago;
+and near it, up a dirty street or two,
+was one of the finest churches of the
+capital, dedicated to St Jacques. The
+lofty tower of this latter edifice (its
+body perished when the Boucherie and
+the Chastelet disappeared) still rises
+in gloomy majesty above all the surrounding
+buildings. It is as high as
+those of Notre Dame; and from its
+upper corners, enormous <i>gargouilles</i>&mdash;those
+fantastic water-spouts of the
+middle ages&mdash;gape with wide-stretched
+jaws, but no longer send down the
+washings of the roof on the innocent
+passengers. Hereabouts lived Nicholas
+Flamel, the old usurer, who made
+money so fast that it was said he used
+to sup nightly with his Satanic majesty,
+and who thereupon built part of the
+church to save his bacon. He was of
+opinion that it was well to have the
+"<i>mens sana in corpore sano</i>"&mdash;that it
+was no joke to be burnt; and so he stuck
+close to the church, taking care that
+himself and his wife, Pernelle, should
+have a comfortable resting-place for
+their bones within the walls of St
+Jacques. When this was a fashionable
+quarter of Paris, the court doctor
+and accoucheur did not disdain to reside
+in it; for Jean Fernel, the medical
+attendant of Catharine de Medicis, lived
+and died within the shade of this old
+tower. He was a fortunate fellow, a
+sort of Astley Cooper or Clarke in his
+way, and Catharine used to give him
+10,000 crowns, or something like
+L.6000, every time she favoured
+France with an addition to the royal
+family. He and numerous other worthies
+mouldered into dust within the
+precincts of St Jacques; but their
+remains have long since been scattered
+to the winds; and where the church
+once stood is now an ignoble market
+for old clothes; the abode of Jews and
+thieves.</p>
+
+<p>After passing round the Grand
+Chastelet, and crossing the market-place,
+you might enter the Rue St
+Denis, the great street of Paris in the
+time of the good King Henry, and you
+might walk along under shelter of its
+houses, projecting story above story,
+till they nearly met at top, for more
+than a mile. Before it was paved, the
+roadway was an intolerable quagmire,
+winter and summer; and, after stones
+had been put down, there murmured
+along the middle a black gurgling
+stream, charged with all the outpourings
+and filth of unnumbered houses.
+Over, or through this, according as
+the fluid was low or high, you had to
+make your way, if you wanted to cross
+the street and greet a friend; if you
+lived in the street and wished to converse
+with your opposite neighbour,
+you had only to mount to the garret
+story, open the lattice window, and
+literally shake hands with him, so near
+did the gables approach. The fronts
+of the houses were ornamented with
+every device which the skilful carpenters
+of former times could invent: the
+beam-ends were sculptured into queer
+little crouching figures of monkeys or
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg&nbsp;529]</a></span>
+angels, and all sorts of <i>diableries</i> decorated
+the cornices that ran beneath
+the windows; there were no panes of
+glass, such as we boast of in these degenerate
+times, but narrow latticed
+lights to let in the day, and the wind,
+and the cold; while the roofs were
+covered commonly with shingles, or,
+in the houses of the wealthy, with
+sheets of lead. Between each gable
+came forth a long water-spout, and
+poured down a deluge into the gutter
+beneath; each gable-top was
+peaked into a fantastic spiry point or
+flower, and the chimneys congregated
+into goodly companies amidst the
+roofs, removed from the vulgar gaze
+or fastidious jests of the people below.
+So large were the fireplaces in those
+rooms that could own them, and so
+ample were the chimney flues, that
+smoky houses were unheard of: the
+staircases, it is true, enjoyed only a
+dubious ray, that served to prevent
+you from breaking your neck in a
+rapid descent; but the apartments
+were generally of commodious dimensions,
+and the tenements possessed
+many substantial comforts.</p>
+
+<p>Once out of doors, you might proceed
+in all weather fearless of rain;
+the projecting upper stories sheltered
+completely the sides of the street,
+and a stout cloth cloak was all that
+was needed to save either sex from
+the inclemency of the seasons. At
+frequent intervals there opened into
+the main street, side streets, and <i>ruelles</i>
+or alleys, which showed in comparison
+like Gulliver in Brobdignag:
+up some of these ways a single horseman
+might be able to go; but along
+others&mdash;and some of them remain to
+the present day&mdash;two stout citizens
+could never have walked arm-in-arm.
+They looked like enormous cracks
+between a couple of buildings, rather
+than as ways made for the convenience
+of locomotion: they were pervious,
+perhaps, to donkeys, but not to
+the loaded packhorse&mdash;the great street
+was intended for that animal&mdash;coaches
+did not exist, and the long narrow
+carts of the French peasantry, whenever
+they came into the city, did not
+occupy much more space than the
+bags or packs of the universal carrier.
+To many of these streets the most
+eccentric appellations were given;
+there was the <i>Rue des Mauvaises Paroles</i>&mdash;people
+of ears polite had no
+business to go near it; the <i>Rue Tire
+Chappe</i>&mdash;a spot where those who objected
+to be plucked by the vests, or
+to have their clothes pulled off their
+backs by importunate accosters, need
+not present themselves; another in
+this quarter was called the <i>Rue Tire-boudin</i>.
+Marie Stuart, when Queen
+of France, was riding, it is said,
+through it one day, and struck, perhaps,
+by the looks of its inhabitants,
+asked what the street was called.
+The original appellation was so indecent
+that an officer of her guards,
+with courtly presence of mind, veiled
+it under its present title. One was
+known as the <i>Rue Brise-miche</i>, and
+the cleanliness of its inhabitants might
+instantly be judged of: a fifth was the
+<i>Rue Trousse-vache</i>, and one of the
+shops in it was adorned with an enormous
+sign of a red cow, with her tail
+sticking up in the air and her head
+reared in rampant sauciness. A notorious
+gambler, Thibault-au-d&eacute;, well
+known for his skill in loading dice,
+gave his name to one of these narrow
+veins of the town: Aubry, a wealthy
+butcher, is still immortalized in
+another: and the <i>Rue du Petit Hurleur</i>
+probably commemorated some
+wicked youngster, whose shouts were
+a greater nuisance to the neighbours
+than those of any of his companions.</p>
+
+<p>A wider kind of street was the <i>Rue
+de la Ferronerie</i>, opening into the Rue
+St Denis, below the Church of the
+Innocents: it was the abode of all the
+tinkers and smiths of Paris, and had
+not Henri IV. been in a particular
+hurry that day, when he was posting
+off to old Sully in the Rue St Antoine,
+he had never gone this way, and Ravaillac,
+probably, had never been able
+to lean into the carriage and stab the
+king. Just over the spot where the
+murder was committed, the placid
+bust of the king still gazes on the busy
+scene beneath. The <i>Rue de la Grande
+Truanderie</i>, which was above the Innocents,
+must have been the rendez-vous
+of all the thieves and beggars of
+Paris, if there be any thing in a name:
+the old chronicles of the city relate,
+indeed, that it took a long time to
+respectabilize its neighbourhood; and
+they add that the herds of rogues and
+impostors who once lived in it took
+refuge, after their ejection, in the famous
+<i>Cour des Miracles</i>, a little
+higher up the Rue St Denis. We
+must not venture into this, the choicest
+preserve of Victor Hugo, whose
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg&nbsp;530]</a></span>
+graphic description of its wonders in his
+<i>Notre Dame</i> needs hardly to be alluded
+to; but we may add, that there
+were several abodes of the same kind,
+all communicating with the Rue St
+Denis, and all equally infamous in
+their day, though now tenanted only
+by quiet button-makers and furniture-dealers.
+The real <i>Puits d'Amour</i> stood
+at the corner of the Rue de la Grande
+Truanderie, and took its name in sad
+truth from a crossing of true love. In
+the days of Philip Augustus, more
+than six hundred years ago, a beautiful
+young lady of the court, Agnes
+Hellebik, whose father held an important
+post under the king, was inveigled
+into the toils of love. The
+object of her affections, whether of
+noble birth or not, made her but a
+sorry return for her confidence: he
+loved her a while, and her dreams of
+happiness were realized; but by degrees
+his passion cooled, and at length
+he abandoned her. Stung with indignation,
+and broken-hearted at this
+thwarting of her soul's desire, the
+unfortunate young creature fled from
+her father's house, and betaking herself
+on a dark and stormy night to the
+brink of the well, commended her
+spirit to her Maker, and ended her
+troubles beneath its waters. The name
+of the <i>Puits d'Amour</i> was then given
+to the well; and no young maiden ever
+dared to draw water from it after sunset,
+for fear of the spirit that dwelt
+unquietly within. The tradition was
+always current in people's mouths;
+and three centuries after, a young man
+of the neighbourhood, who had been
+jilted and mocked by an inconstant
+mistress, determined to bear his ills
+no longer, so he rushed to the <i>Puits</i>,
+and took the fatal leap. The result
+was not what he anticipated: he did
+not, it is true, jump into a courtly assembly
+of knights and gallants, but
+he could not find water enough in it
+to drown him; while his mistress, on
+hearing of the mishap, hastened to the
+well with a cord, and promising to
+compensate him for his former woes,
+drew him with her fair hands safely
+into the upper regions. An inscription,
+in Gothic letters, was then placed
+over the well:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"L'amour m'a refaict<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">En 1525 tout-&agrave;-faict."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The fate of Agnes Hellebik was far
+preferable to that of another young
+girl who lived in this quarter, indeed
+in the Rue Thibault-au-d&eacute;. Agnes
+du Rochier was the only daughter of
+one of the wealthiest merchants of
+Paris, and was admired by all the
+neighbourhood for her beauty and virtue.
+In 1403 her father died, leaving
+her the sole possessor of his wealth,
+and rumour immediately disposed of
+her hand to all the young gallants of
+the quarter; but whether it was that
+grief for the loss of her parent had
+turned her head, or that the gloomy
+fanaticism of that time had worked
+with too fatal effect on her pure and inexperienced
+imagination, she took not
+only marriage and the male sex into utter
+abomination, but resolved to quit
+the world for ever, and to make herself a
+perpetual prisoner for religion's sake.
+She determined, in short, to become
+what was then called a recluse, and as
+such to pass the remainder of her days
+in a narrow cell built within the wall of
+a church. On the 5th of October, accordingly,
+when the cell, only a few feet
+square, was finished in the wall of the
+church of St Opportune, Agnes entered
+her final abode, and the ceremony
+of her reclusion began. The walls and
+pillars of the sacred edifice had been
+hung with tapestry and costly cloths,
+tapers burned on every altar, the clergy
+of the capital and the several religious
+communities thronged the church.
+The Bishop of Paris, attended by his
+chaplains and the canons of Notre
+Dame, entered the choir, and celebrated
+a pontifical mass: he then approached
+the opening of the cell,
+sprinkled it with holy water, and after
+the poor young thing had bidden adieu
+to her friends and relations, ordered
+the masons to fill up the aperture.
+This was done as strongly as stone
+and mortar could make it; nor was
+any opening left, save only a small
+loophole through which Agnes might
+hear the offices of the church, and receive
+the aliments given her by the charitable.
+She was eighteen years old
+when she entered this living tomb, and
+she continued within it <em>eighty</em> years, till
+death terminated her sufferings! Alas,
+for mistaken piety! Her wealth, which
+she gave to the church, and her own
+personal exertions during so long a
+life, might have made her a blessing
+to all that quarter of the city, instead
+of remaining an useless object of compassion
+to the few, and of idle wonder
+to the many.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg&nbsp;531]</a></span>
+Another entombment, almost as bad,
+occurred in the Rue St Denis, only
+five or six years ago. The cess-pools
+of modern Parisian houses are generally
+deep chambers, and sometimes
+wells, cut in the limestone rock on which
+the city stands: and in the absence of
+a good method of drainage, are cleaned
+out only once in every two or three
+years, according to their size. Meanwhile,
+they continue to receive all the
+filth of the building. One night, a
+large cess-pool had been emptied, and
+the aperture, which was in the common
+passage of the house on the
+ground floor, had been left open till
+the inspector appointed by the police
+should come round and see that the
+work had been properly executed.
+He came early in the morning, enquired
+carelessly of the porter if all
+was right, and ordered the stone covering
+to be fastened down. This
+was done amid the usual noise and
+talking of the workmen; and they
+went their way. That same afternoon,
+one of the lodgers in the house, a
+young man, was missed: days after
+days elapsed, and nothing was heard
+of him: his friends conjectured that
+he had drowned himself, but the
+tables of the Morgue never bore
+his body: and their despair was only
+equalled by their astonishment at the
+absence of every clue to his fate. On
+a particular evening, however, about
+three weeks after his disappearance,
+the porter was sitting at the door of
+his lodge, and the house as well as the
+street was unusually quiet, when he
+heard a faint groan somewhere beneath
+his feet. After a short interval
+he heard another; and being superstitious,
+got up, put his chair within
+the lodge, shut the door, and set about
+his work. At night he mentioned
+the circumstance to his wife, and going
+out with her into the passage, they
+had not stood there long before again
+a groan was heard. The good woman
+crossed herself and fell on her knees;
+but her husband, suspecting now that
+all was not right, and thinking that an
+attempt at infanticide had been made,
+by throwing a child's body down one
+of the passages leading to the cess-pool,
+(no uncommon occurrence in
+Paris,) resolved to call in the police.
+He did so without loss of time, the
+heavy stone covering was removed,
+and one of the attendants stooping
+down and lowering a lantern, as long
+as the stench would permit him, saw
+at the bottom, and at a considerable
+depth, something like a human form
+leaning against the side of the receptacle.
+Ropes and ladders were now
+immediately procured; two men went
+down, and in a few minutes brought
+up a body&mdash;it was that of the unfortunate
+young man who had been so
+long missing! Life was not quite extinct,
+for some motion of the limbs
+was perceptible, there was even one
+last low groan, but then all animation
+ceased for ever. The appearance of
+the body was most dreadful; the face
+was a livid green colour, the trunk
+looked like that of a man drowned,
+and kept long beneath the water, all
+brown and green&mdash;one of the feet had
+completely disappeared&mdash;the other was
+nearly half decomposed and gone;
+the hands were dreadfully lacerated,
+and told of a desperate struggle to escape:
+worms were crawling about;
+all was putrid and loathsome. How
+did this unfortunate young man come
+into so dreadful a position? was the
+question that immediately occurred;
+and the only answer that could be
+given was, that on the night of the
+cess-pool being emptied, the porter
+remembered this young man coming
+home very late, or rather early in the
+morning. He himself had forgotten
+to warn him of the aperture being uncovered,
+indeed he supposed that it
+would have been sufficiently seen by
+the lights left burning at its edge;&mdash;these
+had probably been blown out by
+the wind, and the young man had thus
+fallen in. That life should have been
+supported so long under such circumstances,
+seems almost incredible: but
+it is no less curious than true; for the
+porter was tried before the Correctional
+Tribunal for inadvertent homicide,
+the facts were adduced in evidence,
+and carelessness having been
+proved, he was sentenced to imprisonment
+for several weeks, and to a heavy
+fine.</p>
+
+<p>Of churches and religious establishments,
+there were plenty in and
+about the Rue St Denis. Besides the
+great church of St Jacques, mentioned
+before, there were in the street itself
+the churches of the Holy Sepulchre,
+of St Leu, and St Gilles; of the Innocents;
+of the Saviour; and of St
+Jacques de l'H&ocirc;pital: while of conventual
+institutions, there were the
+Hospitals of St Catharine; of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg&nbsp;532]</a></span>
+Holy Trinity; of the Filles de St
+Magloire; of the Filles Dieu; of the
+Community of St Chaumont; of the
+S&oelig;urs de Charit&eacute;; and of the great
+monastery of St Lazare. The fronts,
+or other considerable portions of those
+buildings, were all visible in the street,
+and added greatly to its antiquated
+appearance. The long irregular lines
+of gable roofs on either side, converging
+from points high above the spectator's
+head, until they met or crossed
+in a dim perspective, near the horizon,
+were broken here and there by the
+pointed front, or the tapering spire of
+a church or convent. A solemn gateway
+protruded itself at intervals into
+the street, and, with its flanking turrets
+and buttresses, gave broad masses
+of shade in perpendicular lines, strongly
+contrasted with the horizontal or
+diagonal patches of dark colour caused
+by the houses. At early morn and
+eve, a shrill tinkling of bells warned
+the neighbours of the sacred duties of
+many a secluded penitent, or admonished
+them that it was time to send up
+their own orisons to God. Before
+mid-day had arrived, and soon after
+it had passed, the deeper tones of a
+<i>bourdon</i>, from some of the parochial
+churches, invited the citizens to the
+sacrifice of the mass or the canticles
+of vespers. Not seldom the throngs
+of busy wordlings were forced to separate
+and give room to some holy
+procession, which, with glittering cross
+at the head, with often tossed and
+sweetly smelling censers at the side,
+with white-robed chanting acolyths,
+and reverend priests, in long line behind,
+came forth to take its way to
+some holy edifice. The zealous citizens
+would suspend their avocations
+for a while, would repeat a reverential
+prayer as the holy men went by, and
+then return to the absorbing calls of
+business, not unbenefited by the recollections
+just awakened in their minds.
+On the eves and on the mornings of
+holy festivals, business was totally suspended;
+the bells, great and small,
+rang forth their silvery sounds; the
+churches were crowded, the chapels
+glittered with blazing lights; the
+prayers of the priests and people rose
+with the incense before the high altar;
+the solemn organ swelled its full
+tones responsive to the loud-voiced
+choir; the curates thundered from the
+pulpits, to the edification of charitable
+congregations; and after all had been
+prostrated in solemn adoration of the
+Divine presence, the citizens would
+pour out into the street, and repair,
+some to their homes, some to the Palace
+of the Tournelles, with its towers
+and gardens guarded by the Bastille;
+others to the Louvre or to the Pr&eacute;-aux-clercs,
+and the fields by the river
+side; others would stroll up the hill
+of Montmartre; and some in boats
+would brave the dangers of the Seine!
+On other and sadder occasions, the inhabitants
+of the Rue St Denis would
+quit their houses in earnestly talking
+groups, and would adjourn to the open
+space in front of the Halles. Here,
+on the top of an octagonal tower, some
+twenty feet high, and covered with a
+conical spire, between the openings
+of pointed arches, might be seen criminals
+with their heads and hands
+protruding through the wooden collar
+of the pillory. The guard of the
+provost, or the lieutenant of police,
+would keep off the noisy throng
+below, and the goodwives would
+discuss among themselves the enormities
+of the coin-clipper, the cut-purse,
+the incendiary, or the unjust
+dealer, who were exposed on those
+occasions for their delinquencies;
+while the offenders themselves, would&mdash;a
+few of them&mdash;hang down their
+heads, and close their eyes in the unsufferable
+agony of shame; but by
+far the greater number would shout
+forth words of bold defiance or indecent
+ribaldry, would protrude the
+mocking tongue, or spit forth curses
+with dire volubility. Then would
+rise the shouts of <i>gamins</i>, then would
+come the thick volley of eggs, fish-heads,
+butcher's-offal, and all the garbage
+of the market, aimed unerringly
+by many a strenuous arm at the heads
+of the culprits; and then the soldiers
+with their pertuisanes would make
+quick work among the legs of the
+retreating crowd, and the jailers
+would apply the ready lash to the
+backs of the hardened criminals aloft;
+and thus, the hour's exhibition ended,
+and the "king's justice" satisfied, away
+would the criminals be led, some on a
+hurdle to Montfau&ccedil;on, and there hung
+on its ample gibbet, amid the rattling
+bones of other wretches; some would
+be hurried back to the Chastelet, or
+other prisons; and others would be
+sent off to work, chained to the oars
+of the royal galleys.</p>
+
+<p>This was a common amusement of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg&nbsp;533]</a></span>
+the idlers of this quarter: but the
+passions of the mob, if they needed
+stronger excitement, had to find a
+scene of horrid gratification on the
+Place de Gr&egrave;ve, opposite the Hotel
+de Ville, where at rare intervals a
+heretic would be burnt, a murderer
+hung, or a traitor quartered; but this
+spot of bloody memory lies far from
+the Rue St Denis, and we are not
+now called upon to reveal its terrible
+recollections: let us turn back to our
+good old street.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most curious objects in
+it was the Church of the Innocents,
+with its adjoining cemetery, once the
+main place of interment for all the
+capital. The church lay at the north-eastern
+end of what is now the March&eacute;
+des Innocents, and against it was
+erected the fountain which now
+adorns the middle of the market, and
+which was the work of the celebrated
+sculptor, Jean Goujon, and his colleague,
+the architect, Pierre Lescot.
+The former is said to have been seated
+at it, giving some last touches to
+one of the tall and graceful nymphs
+that adorn its high arched sides, on
+the day of the Massacre of St Bartholomew,
+when he was killed by a
+random shot from a Catholic zealot.
+The simple inscription which it still
+bears, <span class="smcap">Fontium Nymphis</span>, is in better
+taste than that of any other among
+the numerous fountains of the French
+capital. The church itself (of which
+not the slightest vestige now remains)
+was not a good specimen of medi&aelig;val
+architecture, although it was large
+and richly endowed. It was founded
+by Philip Augustus, when he ordered
+the Jews to be expelled from his dominions,
+and seized on their estates&mdash;one
+of the most nefarious actions committed
+by a monarch of France. The
+absurd accusation, that the Jews used
+periodically to crucify and torture
+Christian children, was one of the
+most plausible pretexts employed by
+the rapacious king on this occasion;
+and, as a kind of testimonial that such
+had been his excuse, he founded this
+church; dedicated it to the Holy Innocents;
+and transferred hither the remains
+of a boy, named Richard, said
+to have been sacrificed at Pontoise by
+some unfortunate Jews, who expiated
+the pretended crime by the most horrible
+torments. St Richard's remains,
+(for he was canonized,) worked numerous
+miracles in the Church of the Innocents,
+or rather in the churchyard,
+where a tomb was erected over them;
+and so great was their reputation, that
+tradition says, the English, on evacuating
+Paris in the 15th century, carried
+off with them all but the little saint's
+head. Certain it is, that nothing but
+the head remained amongst the relics
+of this parish; and equally certain is
+it, that no Christian innocents have
+been sacrificed by those "circumcised
+dogs" either before or since, whether
+in France or England, or any other
+part of the world. It remained for
+the dishonest credulity of the present
+century, to witness the disgraceful
+spectacle of a French consul at Damascus,
+assisting at the torturing of
+some Jewish merchants under a similar
+accusation, and assuring his government
+of his belief in the confessions
+extorted by these inhuman means;
+and of many a party journal in Paris
+accrediting and re-echoing the tale.
+Had not British humanity intervened
+in aid of British policy, France had
+made this visionary accusation the
+ground of an armed intervention in
+Syria. The false accusers of the Jews
+of Damascus have indeed been punished;
+but the French consul, the Count
+de Ratti-Menton, has since been rewarded
+by his government with a
+high promotion in the diplomatic department!</p>
+
+<p>Once more, "a truce to digression,"
+let us see what the ancient cemetery
+of the Innocents was like. Round
+an irregular four-sided space, about
+five hundred feet by two, ran a low
+cloister-like building, called Les Charniers,
+or the Charnel Houses. It had
+originally been a cloister surrounding
+the churchyard; but, so convenient
+had this place of sepulture been
+found, from its situation in the heart
+of Paris, that the remains of mortality
+increased in most rapid proportion
+within its precincts, and it was continually
+found necessary to transfer the
+bones of long-interred, and long-forgotten
+bodies, to the shelter of the
+cloisters. Here, then, they were piled
+up in close order&mdash;the bones below
+and the skulls above; they reached
+in later times to the very rafters of
+these spacious cloisters all round, and
+heaps of skulls and bones lay in unseemly
+groups on the grass in the
+midst of the graveyard. At one corner
+of the church was a small grated
+window, where a recluse, like her of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg&nbsp;534]</a></span>
+St Opportune, had worn away forty-six
+years of her life, after one year's
+confinement as a preparatory experiment;
+and within the church was a
+splendid brass tomb, commemorating
+this refinement of the monastic virtues.
+At various spots about the cemetery,
+were erected obelisks and crosses of
+different dates, while against the walls
+of the church and cloister were affixed,
+in motley and untidy confusion, unnumbered
+tablets and other memorials
+of the dead. The suppression of this
+cemetery, just at the commencement
+of the Revolution, was a real benefit
+to the capital; and when the contents
+of the yard and its charnel-houses
+were removed to the catacombs south
+of the city, it was calculated that the
+remains of two millions of human
+beings rattled down the deep shafts
+of the stone pits to their second interment.
+In place of the cemetery,
+we now find the wooden stalls of the
+Covent Garden of Paris; low, dirty,
+unpainted, ill-built, badly-drained,
+stinking, and noisy; and their tenants
+are not better than themselves. Like
+their neighbours, the famous Poissardes,
+the Dames de la Halle as they
+are styled, are the quintessence of all
+that is disgusting in Paris. Covent
+Garden is worth a thousand of such
+markets, and P&egrave;re la Chaise is an admirable
+substitute for the Cemetery
+of the Innocents.</p>
+
+<p>High up in the Rue de Faubourg
+St Denis, which is only a continuation
+of the main street, just as Knightsbridge
+is of Piccadilly, stand the remains
+of the great convent and <i>maladrerie</i>
+of St Lazarus. In this religious
+house, all persons attacked with leprosy
+were received in former days,
+and either kept for life, if incurable,
+or else maintained until they were
+freed from that loathsome disease.
+From what cause we know not,
+(except that the House of St Lazarus
+was the nearest of any religious establishment
+to the walls of the capital,)
+the kings of France always made a
+stay of three days within its walls on
+their solemn inauguratory entrance
+into Paris, and their bodies always
+lay in state here before they were
+conveyed to the Abbey Church of St
+Denis. There was no lack of stiff
+ceremonial on these occasions; and,
+doubtless, the good fathers of the
+convent did not receive all the court
+within their walls without rubbing a
+little gold off the rich habits of the
+nobles. The king, on arriving at the
+Convent of St Lazare, proceeded to
+a part of the house allotted for this
+purpose, and called <i>Le Logis du Roy</i>,
+where, in a chamber of state, he took
+his seat beneath a canopy, surrounded
+by the princes of the blood-royal.
+The chancellor of France stood behind
+his majesty, to furnish him with
+replies to the different deputations
+that used to come with congratulatory
+addresses, and the receptions then
+commenced. They used to last from
+seven in the morning, without intermission,
+till four or five in the afternoon;
+there were the lawyers of the
+Chastelet, the Court of Aids, the
+Court of Accounts, and the Parliament,
+to say nothing of the city authorities
+and other constituted bodies.
+The addresses were no short unmeaning
+things, like those uttered in our
+poor cold times, but good long-winded
+harangues, some in French, some
+in Latin, and they went on, one after
+the other, for three days consecutively.
+On the third day, when the royal
+patience must have been wellnigh
+exhausted, and the chancellor's talents
+at reply worn tolerably threadbare,
+the king would rise, and mounting on
+horseback, would proceed to the cathedral
+church of Notre Dame, down
+the Rue St Denis. One of the best
+recorded of these royal entries is that
+of Louis XI. On this occasion, the
+king, setting out from a suburban residence
+in the Faubourg St Honor&eacute;,
+got along the northern side of Paris
+to the Convent of St Lazare; and
+thence, after the delay and the harangues
+of the three days&mdash;the real
+original glorious three days of the
+French monarchy&mdash;proceeded to the
+Porte St Denis. Here a herald met
+the monarch, and after the keys of
+the city had been presented by the
+provost, with long speeches and replies,
+the former officer introduced to
+his majesty five young ladies, all richly
+clad, and mounted on horses richly
+caparisoned, their housings bearing
+the arms of the city of Paris. Each
+young damsel represented an allegorical
+personage, and the initials of the
+names of their characters made up the
+word <em>Paris</em>. They each harangued
+the king, and their speeches, says an
+old chronicle, seemed "very agreeable"
+to the royal ears. Around the
+king, as he rode through the gateway,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg&nbsp;535]</a></span>
+were the princes and highest
+nobles of the land&mdash;the Dukes of
+Orleans, Burgundy, Bourbon, and
+Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest
+son of the Duke of Burgundy;
+the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul,
+Dunois, and others; with, as a chronicle
+of the time relates, "autres
+comtes, barons, chevaliers, capitaines,
+et force noblesse, en tr&egrave;s bel ordre et
+posture." All of these were mounted
+on horses of price, richly caparisoned,
+and covered with the finest housings;
+some were of cloth of gold furred
+with sable, others were of velvet or
+damask furred with ermine; all were
+enriched with precious stones, and to
+many were attached bells of silver
+gilt, with other "enjolivements."
+Over the gateway was a large ship,
+the armorial bearing of the city, and
+within it were a number of allegorical
+personages, with one who represented
+Louis XI. himself; in the street immediately
+within the gate was a party
+of savages and satyrs, who executed
+a mock-fight in honour of the approach
+of royalty. A little lower down came
+forth a troop of young women representing
+syrens; an old chronicle calls
+them, "Plusieurs belles filles accoustr&eacute;es
+en syrenes, nues, lesquelles, en
+faisant voir leur beau sein, chantoient
+de petits motets de berg&egrave;res fort doux
+et charmans." Near where these
+damsels stood was a fountain which
+had pipes running with milk, wine,
+and hypocras; at the side of the
+Church of the Holy Trinity was a
+<i>tableau-vivant</i> of the Passion of our
+Saviour, including a crucified Christ
+and two thieves, represented, as the
+chronicle states, "par personnages
+sans parler." A little further on was
+a hunting party, with dogs and a
+hind, making a tremendous noise with
+hautboys and <i>cors-de-chasse</i>. The
+butchers on the open place near the
+Chastelet, had raised some lofty scaffolds,
+and on them had erected a representation
+of the Bastille or Chateau
+of Dieppe. Just as the king
+passed by, a desperate combat was
+going on between the French besieging
+this chateau and the English
+holding garrison within; "the latter,"
+adds the chronicle, "having been
+taken prisoners, had all their throats
+cut." Before the gate of the Chastelet,
+there were the personifications
+of several illustrious heroes; and on
+the Pont-au-Change, which was carpeted
+below, hung with arms at the
+sides, and canopied above for the occasion,
+stood the fowlers with their
+two hundred dozens of birds, ready to
+fly them as soon as the royal charger
+should stamp on the first stone. Such
+was a royal entry in those days of iron
+rule.</p>
+
+<p>Before Louis XI.'s father, Charles
+VII., had any reasonable prospect of
+reigning in Paris as king, the English
+troops had to be driven out of the capital;
+and when the French forces
+had scaled the walls, and entered the
+city, <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 1436, the 1500 Englishmen
+who defended the place, had but
+little mercy shown them. Seeing that
+the game was lost, Sir H. Willoughby,
+captain of Paris, shut himself up
+with a part of the troops in the Bastille,
+accompanied by the Bishop of
+Therouenne, and Morhier, the provost
+of the city. The people rose to
+the cry of "Sainct Denys, Vive le
+noble Roy de France!" The constable
+of France, the Duke de Richemont,
+and the Bastard of Orleans, led them
+on; those troops that had been shut
+out of the Bastille, tried to make their
+way up the Rue St Denis, to the
+northern gateway, and so to escape
+on the road to Beauvais and England
+but the inhabitants stretched chains
+across the street, and men, women,
+and children, showered down upon
+them from the windows, chairs, tables,
+logs of wood, stones, and even boiling
+water; while others rushed in from
+behind and from the side streets, with
+arms in their hands, and the massacre
+of all the English fugitives ensued.
+A short time after, Sir H. Willoughby,
+and the garrison of the Bastille,
+not receiving succours from the commanders
+of the English forces, surrendered
+the fortress, and were allowed
+to retire to Rouen. As they
+marched out of Paris, the Bishop of
+Therouenne accompanied them, and
+the populace followed the troops,
+shouting out at the Bishop&mdash;"The
+fox! the fox!"&mdash;and at the English,
+"The tail! the tail!"</p>
+
+<p>Another departure of a foreign garrison
+from Paris, took place in 1594,
+and this time in peaceable array, by
+the Rue St Denis. When Henry
+IV. had obtained possession of his capital,
+there remained in it a considerable
+body of Spanish troops, who had
+been sent into France to aid the chiefs
+of the League, and they were under
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg&nbsp;536]</a></span>
+the command of the Duke de Feria.
+The reaction in the minds of the Parisians,
+after the misery of their siege,
+had been too sudden and too complete,
+to give the Spaniards any hope of
+holding out against the king; a capitulation
+was therefore agreed upon,
+the foreign forces were allowed to
+march out with the honours of war,
+and they were escorted with their
+baggage as far as the frontier. The
+king and his principal officers took
+post within the rooms over the Porte
+St Denis&mdash;then a square turreted
+building, with a pointed and portcullised
+gate and drawbridge beneath&mdash;to
+see the troops march out, and he stationed
+himself at the window looking
+down the street. First came some
+companies of Neapolitan infantry,
+with drums beating, standards flying,
+arms on their shoulders, but without
+having their matches lighted. Then
+came the Spanish Guards, in the midst
+of whom were the Duke de Feria,
+Don Diego d'Ibara, and Don Juan
+Baptista Taxis, all mounted on spirited
+Spanish chargers; while behind
+them marched the battalions of the
+Lansquenets, and the Walloons. As
+each company came up to the gateway,
+the soldiers, marching by fours,
+raised their eyes to the king, took off
+their headpieces, and bowed; the
+officers did the same, and Henry returned
+the salutation with the greatest
+courtesy. He was particular in showing
+this politeness, in the most marked
+manner, to the Duke de Feria and his
+noble companions, and when they
+were within hearing, cried out aloud,
+"Recommend me to your master,
+but never show your faces here
+again!" Some of the more obnoxious
+members of the League were allowed
+to retire with the Spaniards;
+and in the evening, bonfires were lighted
+in all the streets, and the <i>Te Deum</i>
+was sung on all the public places.
+The medi&aelig;val glory of the Porte St
+Denis vanished in the time of Louis
+XIV., where he unfortified the city,
+which one of his successors has taken
+such pains again to imprison within
+stone walls, and the present triumphal
+arch was erected upon its site. This
+modern edifice, it is well known, served
+for the entrance of Charles X.
+from Rheims, and, shortly after, for a
+post whence the trumpery patriots of
+1830 contrived to annoy some of the
+cavalry who were fighting in the
+cause of the legitimacy and the true
+liberties of France. Many a barricade
+and many a skirmish has the Rue
+St Denis since witnessed!</p>
+
+<p>All the churches have disappeared
+from the Rue St Denis except that of
+St Leu and St Gilles, a small building
+of the thirteenth and fourteenth
+centuries: all the convents have been
+rased to the ground except that of
+St Lazare. To this a far different
+destination has been given from what
+it formerly enjoyed: it is now the
+great female prison of the capital; and
+within its walls all the bread required
+for the prisons of Paris is baked, all
+the linen is made and mended. The
+prison consists of three distinct
+portions: one allotted for carrying on
+the bread and linen departments: a
+second for the detention of female
+criminals before conviction, or for
+short terms of imprisonment; and in
+this various light manufactures, such
+as the making of baskets, straw-plait,
+and the red phosphorus-match boxes,
+are carried on: the third is an hospital
+and house of detention for the prostitutes
+of the capital. We were once
+taken all through this immense establishment
+by the governor, who had
+the kindness to accompany us, and to
+explain every thing in person&mdash;a favour
+not often granted to foreigners&mdash;and
+a strong impression did the scenes
+we then saw leave. In the first two
+departments every thing was gloomy,
+orderly, and quiet: the prisoners were
+much fewer than we had expected&mdash;not
+above two hundred&mdash;many of them,
+however, were mere children; but the
+matrons were good kind of women
+and the work of reformation was going
+on rapidly to counteract the effects of
+early crime. In the third, though
+equal strictness of conduct on the part
+of the superiors prevailed, the behaviour
+of the inmates subjected to control
+was far different. The great
+majority had been confined there as
+hospital patients, not as offenders
+against the law, and they were divided
+into wards, according to their sanatory
+condition. Here they were very numerous;
+and a melancholy thing it was
+to see hundreds of wretched creatures
+wandering about their spacious rooms,
+or sitting up in their beds, with haggard
+looks, dishevelled hair, hardly
+any clothing, and a sort of reckless
+gaiety in their manner that spoke volumes
+as to their real condition. The
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg&nbsp;537]</a></span>
+<i>r&eacute;gime</i> of this prison-hospital is found,
+however, to be on the whole most salutary:
+the seeds of good are sown
+with a few; the public health, as well
+as the public morals, has been notably
+improved; and from the time when a
+young painter employed in the prison
+was decoyed into this portion of it and
+killed within a few hours, the occurrence
+of deeds of violence within its
+walls has been very rare.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of the Faubourg St
+Denis, all through the suburb of La
+Chapelle, the long line of modern habitations
+extends, without offering
+any points of historical interest. It
+is, indeed, a very commonplace, everyday
+kind of road, which hardly any
+Englishman that has jumbled along
+in the Messageries Royales can fail
+of recollecting. Nothing poetical,
+nothing romantic, was ever known to
+take place between the Barri&egrave;re de
+St Denis and the town where the
+abbey stands. We know, however, of
+an odd occurrence upon this ground,
+towards the end of the thirteenth
+century, (we were not alive then,
+gentle reader,) strikingly illustrative
+of the superstition of the times. In
+1274, the church of St Gervais, in
+Paris, was broken into one night by
+some sacrilegious dog, who ran off
+with the golden pix, containing the
+consecrated wafer or host. Not
+thinking himself safe within the city,
+away he went for St Denis&mdash;got
+without the city walls in safety, and
+made off as fast as he could for the
+abbatial town. Before arriving there,
+he thought he would have a look at
+the contents of the precious vessel,
+when, on his opening the lid, out
+jumped the holy wafer, up it flew
+into the air over his head, and there
+it kept dodging about, and bobbing up
+and down, behind the affrightened thief,
+and following him wherever he went.
+He rushed into the town of St Denis,
+but there was the wafer coming after
+him, and just above his head; whichever
+way he turned, there was the
+flying wafer. It was now broad daylight,
+and some of the inhabitants
+perceived the miracle. This was immediately
+reported by them to the
+abbot of the monastery. The holy
+father and his monks sallied forth;
+all saw the wafer as plain as they saw
+each others' shaven crowns. The man
+was immediately arrested; the pix
+was found on him, and the abbot, as
+a feudal seigneur, having the right of
+life and death within his own fief, had
+him hung up to the nearest tree within
+five minutes. The abbot then sent
+word to the Bishop of Paris of what
+had occurred; and the prelate, attended
+by the curates and clergy of the
+capital, went to St Denis to witness
+the miracle. But wonders were not
+to cease; there they found the abbot
+and monks looking up into the air;
+there was the wafer sticking up somewhere
+under the sun, and none of
+them could devise how they were to
+get it down again. The monks began
+singing canticles and litanies; the
+Parisian clergy did the same; still
+the wafer would not move a hair's
+breadth. At last they resolved to adjourn
+to the Abbey Church; and so
+they formed themselves into procession,
+and stepped forwards. The
+monks had reached the abbey door,
+the bishop and his clergy were following
+behind, and the clergy of St
+Gervais were just under the spot where
+the wafer was suspended, when, <em>presto</em>,
+down it popped into the hands of the
+little red-nosed curate. "Its mine!"
+cried the curate: "I'll have it!"
+shouted the bishop: "I wish you
+may get it," roared the abbot&mdash;and a
+regular scramble took place. But the
+little curate held his prize fast; his
+vicars stuck to him like good men and
+true; and they carried off their prize
+triumphant. The bishop and the
+abbot drew up a solemn memorial and
+covenant on the spot, whereby the
+wafer was legally consigned to its
+original consecrator and owner, the
+curate of St Gervais; and it was agreed
+that every 1st of September, the day
+of the miracle, a solemn office and procession
+of the Holy Sacrament should
+be celebrated within his church. The
+reverend father Du Breul, the grave
+historian of Paris, adds: "L'histoire
+du dit miracle est naifvement depeinte
+en une vitre de la chapelle Sainct
+Pierre d'icelle &eacute;glise, o&ugrave; sont aussi
+quelques vers Fran&ccedil;ois, contenans partie
+d'icelle histoire."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg&nbsp;538]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_LAST_SESSION_OF_PARLIAMENT" id="THE_LAST_SESSION_OF_PARLIAMENT"></a>THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In days of old it was the remark of
+more than one philosopher, that, if it
+were possible to exhibit virtue in a
+personal form, and clothed with attributes
+of sense, all men would unite in
+homage to her supremacy. The same
+thing is true of other abstractions,
+and especially of the powers which
+work by social change. Could these
+powers be revealed to us in any symbolic
+incarnation&mdash;were it possible
+that, but for one hour, the steadfast
+march of their tendencies, their promises,
+and their shadowy menaces,
+could be made apprehensible to the
+bodily eye&mdash;we should be startled,
+and oftentimes appalled, at the grandeur
+of the apparition. In particular,
+we may say that the advance of civilization,
+as it is carried forward for
+ever on the movement continually
+accelerated of England and France,
+were it less stealthy and inaudible
+than it is, would fix, in every stage,
+the attention of the inattentive and
+the anxieties of the careless. Like
+the fabulous music of the spheres,
+once allowed to break sonorously upon
+the human ear, it would render us
+deaf to all other sounds. Heard or
+not heard, however, marked or not
+marked, the rate of our advance is
+more and more portentous. Old
+things are passing away. Every year
+carries us round some obstructing
+angle, laying open suddenly before
+us vast reaches of fresh prospect, and
+bringing within our horizon new
+agencies by which civilization is
+henceforth to work, and new difficulties
+against which it is to work; other
+forces for co-operation, other resistances
+for trial. Meantime the velocity
+of these silent changes is incredibly
+aided by the revolutions, both
+moral and scientific, in the machinery
+of nations; revolutions by which
+knowledge is interchanged, power
+propagated, and the methods of communication
+multiplied. And the vast
+aerial arches by which these revolutions
+mount continually to the common
+zenith of Christendom, so as to
+force themselves equally upon the
+greatest of nations and the humblest,
+express the aspiring destiny by which,
+already and irresistibly, they are coming
+round upon all other tribes and
+families of men, however distant in
+position, or alien by system and organization.
+The nations of the planet,
+like ships of war man&oelig;uvring prelusively
+to some great engagement, are
+silently taking up their positions, as
+it were, for future action and reaction,
+reciprocally for doing and suffering.
+And, in this ceaseless work
+of preparation or of noiseless combination,
+France and England are seen
+for ever in the van. Whether for
+evil or for good, they <em>must</em> be in advance.
+And if it were possible to see
+the relative positions of all Christendom,
+its several divisions, expressed
+as if on the monuments of Persepolis
+by endless evolutions of cities in procession
+or of armies advancing, we
+should be awakened to the full solemnity
+of our duties by seeing two symbols
+flying aloft for ever in the head
+of nations&mdash;two recognizances for
+hope or for fear&mdash;the roses of England
+and the lilies of France.</p>
+
+<p>Reflections such as these furnish
+matter for triumphal gratulation, but
+also for great depression: and in the
+enormity of our joint responsibilities,
+we French and English have reason
+to forget the grandeur of our separate
+stations. It is fit that we should keep
+alive these feelings, and continually
+refresh them, by watching the everlasting
+motions of society, by sweeping
+the moral heavens for ever with
+our glasses in vigilant detection of new
+phenomena, and by calling to a solemn
+audit, from time to time, the
+national acts which are undertaken, or
+the counsels which in high places are
+avowed.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst these acts and these counsels
+none justify a more anxious attention
+than such as come forward in
+the senate. It is true that great revolutions
+may brood over us for a long
+period without awakening any murmur
+or echo in Parliament; of which we
+have an instance in Puseyism, which
+is a power of more ominous capacities
+than the gentleness of its motions
+would lead men to suspect, and is
+well fitted (as hereafter we may show)
+to effect a volcanic explosion&mdash;such as
+may rend the Church of England by
+schisms more extensive and shattering
+than those which have recently
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg&nbsp;539]</a></span>
+afflicted the Church of Scotland. Generally,
+however, Parliament becomes,
+sooner or later, a mirror to the leading
+phenomena of the times. These phenomena,
+to be valued thoroughly, must
+be viewed, indeed, from different stations
+and angles. But one of these
+aspects is that which they assume
+under the legislative revision of the
+people. It is more than ever requisite
+that each session of Parliament should
+be searched and reviewed in the capital
+features of its legislation. Hereafter
+we may attempt this duty more
+elaborately. For the present we shall
+confine ourselves to a hasty survey of
+some few principal measures in the
+late session which seem important to
+our social progress.</p>
+
+<p>We shall commence our review by
+the fewest possible words on the paramount
+nuisance of the day&mdash;viz. the
+corn-law agitation. This is that
+question which all men have ceased
+to think sufferable. This is that "mammoth"
+nuisance of our times by which
+"the gaiety of nations is eclipsed."
+We are thankful that its "damnable
+iterations" have now placed it beyond
+the limits of public toleration. No
+man hearkens to such debates any
+longer&mdash;no man reads the reports of
+such debates: it is become criminal to
+quote them; and recent examples of
+torpor beyond all torpor, on occasion
+of Cobden meetings amongst the inflammable
+sections of our population,
+have shown&mdash;that not the poorest of
+the poor are any longer to be duped,
+or to be roused out of apathy, by this
+intolerable fraud. Full of "gifts and
+lies" is the false fleeting Association
+of these Lancashire Cottoneers. But
+its gifts are too windy, and its lies are
+too ponderous. To the Association is
+"given a mouth speaking great things
+and blasphemies;" and out of this
+mouth issues "fire," it is true, against
+all that is excellent in the land, but
+also "smoke"&mdash;as the consummation
+of its overtures. During many reigns
+of the C&aelig;sars, a race of swindlers infested
+the Roman court, technically
+known as "sellers of smoke," and
+often punished under that name. They
+sold, for weighty considerations of
+gold, castles in the air, imaginary benefices,
+ideal reversions; and, in short,
+contracted wholesale or retail for the
+punctual delivery of unadulterated
+moonshine. Such a dealer, such a
+contractor, is the Anti-Corn-Law Association;
+and for such it has always
+been known amongst intelligent men.
+But its character has now diffused itself
+among the illiterate: and we believe
+it to be the simple truth at this
+moment, that every working man, whose
+attention has at any time been drawn to
+the question, is now ready to take his
+stand upon the following answer:&mdash;"We,
+that is our order, Mr Cobden,
+are not very strong in faith. Our
+faith in the Association is limited. So
+much, however, by all that reaches
+us, we are disposed to believe&mdash;viz.
+that ultimately you might succeed in
+reducing the price of a loaf, by three
+parts in forty-eight, which is one sixteenth;
+with what loss to our own
+landed order, and with what risk to
+the national security in times of war
+or famine, is no separate concern of
+ours. On the other hand, Mr Cobden,
+in <em>your</em> order there are said to
+be knaves in ambush; and we take it,
+that the upshot of the change will be
+this: We shall save three farthings in
+a shilling's worth of flour; and the
+<em>honest</em> men of your order&mdash;whom candour
+forbid that we should reckon at
+only twenty-five per cent on the whole&mdash;will
+diminish our wages simply by
+that same three farthings in a shilling;
+but the knaves (we are given to
+understand) will take an excuse out
+of that trivial change to deduct four,
+five, or six farthings; they will improve
+the occasion in evangelical proportions&mdash;some
+sixty-fold, some seventy,
+and some a hundred."</p>
+
+<p>This is the settled <em>practical</em> faith of
+those hard-working men, who care not
+to waste their little leisure upon the
+theory of the corn-laws. It is this
+practical result only which concerns
+<em>us</em>; for as to the speculative logic of
+the case, as a question for economists,
+we, who have so often discussed it in
+this journal, (which journal, we take it
+upon us to say, has, from time to time,
+put forward or reviewed every conceivable
+argument on the corn question,)
+must really decline to re-enter
+the arena, and <i>actum agere</i>, upon any
+occasion ministered by Mr Cobden.
+Very frankly, we disdain to do so;
+and now, upon quitting the subject, we
+will briefly state why.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Cobden, as we hear and believe,
+is a decent man&mdash;that is to say, upon
+any ground not connected with politics;
+equal to six out of any ten manufacturers
+you will meet in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg&nbsp;540]</a></span>
+Queen's high road&mdash;whilst of the other
+four not more than three will be found
+conspicuously his superiors. He is
+certainly, in the senate, not what Lancashire
+rustics mean by a <i>hammil
+sconce</i>;<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> or, according to a saying
+often in the mouth of our French emigrant
+friends in former times, he
+"could not have invented the gun-powder,
+though perhaps he might
+have invented the hair-powder." Still,
+upon the whole, we repeat, that Mr
+Cobden is a decent man, wherever he
+is not very indecent. Is he therefore
+a decent man on this question of the
+corn-laws? So far from it, that we
+now challenge attention to one remarkable
+fact. All the world knows
+how much he has talked upon this
+particular topic; how he has itinerated
+on its behalf; how he has perspired
+under its business. Is there a fortunate
+county in England which has
+yet escaped his harangues? Does that
+happy province exist which has not
+reverberated his yells? Doubtless,
+not&mdash;and yet mark this: Not yet, not
+up to the present hour, (September
+20, 1843,) has Mr Cobden delivered
+one argument properly and specially
+applicable to the corn question. He
+has uttered many things offensively
+upon the aristocracy; he has libelled
+the lawgivers; he has insulted the
+farmers; he has exhausted the artillery
+of <em>political</em> abuse: but where is the
+<em>economic</em> artillery which he promised
+us, and which, (strange to say!) from
+the very dulness of his theme making
+it a natural impossibility to read him,
+most people are willing to suppose
+that he has, after one fashion or other,
+actually discharged. The Corn-League
+benefits by its own stupidity.
+Not being read, every leaguer has
+credit for having uttered the objections
+which, as yet, he never did utter.
+Hence comes the popular impression,
+that from Mr Cobden have
+emanated arguments, of some quality
+or other, against the existing system.
+True, there are arguments in plenty
+on the other side, and pretty notorious
+arguments; but, <i>pendente lite</i>,
+and until these opposite pleas are
+brought forward, it is supposed that
+the Cobden pleas have a brief provisional
+existence&mdash;they are good for
+the moment. Not at all. We repeat
+that, as to economic pleas, none
+of any kind, good or bad, have been
+placed on the record by any orator of
+that faction; whilst all other pleas,
+keen and personal as they may appear,
+are wholly irrelevant to any
+real point at issue. In illustration of
+what we say, one (and very much
+the most searching) of Mr Cobden's
+questions to the farmers, was this&mdash;"Was
+not the object," he demanded,
+"was not the very purpose of all corn-laws
+alike&mdash;simply to keep up the
+price of grain? Well; had the English
+corn-laws accomplished that object?
+Had they succeeded in that
+purpose? Notoriously they had not;
+confessedly they had failed; and every
+farmer in the corn districts would
+avouch that often he had been brought
+to the brink of ruin by prices ruinously
+low." Now, we pause not to
+ask, why, if the law already makes
+the prices of corn ruinously low, any
+association can be needed to make it
+lower? What we wish to fix attention
+upon, is this assumption of Mr
+Cobden's, many times repeated, that
+the known object and office of our
+corn-law, under all its modifications,
+has been to elevate the price of our
+corn; to sustain it at a price to which
+naturally it could not have ascended.
+Many sound speculators on this question
+we know to have been seriously
+perplexed by this assertion of Mr
+Cobden's; and others, we have heard,
+not generally disposed to view that
+gentleman's doctrines with favour,
+who insist upon it, that, in mere candour,
+we must grant this particular
+postulate. "Really," say they, "<em>that</em>
+cannot be refused him; the law <em>was</em>
+for the purpose he assigns; its final
+cause <em>was</em>, as he tells us, to keep up
+artificially the price of our domestic
+corn-markets. So far he is right.
+But his error commences in treating
+this design as an unfair one, and,
+secondly, in denying that it has been
+successful. It <em>has</em> succeeded; and it
+ought to have succeeded. The protection
+sought for our agriculture was
+no more than it merited; and that
+protection has been faithfully realized."</p>
+
+<p>We, however, vehemently deny
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg&nbsp;541]</a></span>
+Mr Cobden's postulate <i>in toto</i>. He
+is wrong, not merely as others are
+wrong in the principle of refusing
+this protection, not merely on the
+question of fact as to the reality of
+this protection, (to enter upon which
+points would be to adopt that hateful
+discussion which we have abjured;)
+but, above all, he is wrong in assigning
+to corn-laws, as their end and purpose,
+an absolute design of sustaining prices.
+To raise prices is an occasional means
+of the corn-laws, and no end at all.
+In one word, what <em>is</em> the end of the
+corn-laws? It is, and ever has been,
+to equalize the prospects of the farmer
+from year to year, with the view, and
+generally with the effect, of drawing
+into the agricultural service of the
+nation, as nearly as possible, the same
+amount of land at one time as at another.
+This is the end; and this end
+is paramount. But the means to that
+end must lie, according to the accidents
+of the case, alternately through
+moderate increase of price, or moderate
+diminution of price. The besetting
+oversight, in this instance, is
+the neglect of the one great peculiarity
+affecting the manufacture of corn&mdash;viz.
+its inevitable oscillation as to
+quantity, consequently as to price,
+under the variations of the seasons.
+People talk, and encourage mobs to
+think, that Parliaments cause, and that
+Parliaments could heal if they pleased,
+the evil of fluctuation in grain. Alas!
+the evil is as ancient as the weather,
+and, like the disease of poverty, will
+cleave to society for ever. And the
+way in which a corn-law&mdash;that is, a
+restraint upon the free importation of
+corn&mdash;affects the case, is this:&mdash;Relieving
+the domestic farmer from that
+part of his anxiety which points to the
+competition of foreigners, it confines
+it to the one natural and indefeasible
+uncertainty lying in the contingencies
+of the weather. Releasing him from
+all jealousy of man, it throws him, in
+singleness of purpose, upon an effort
+which cannot be disappointed, except
+by a power to which, habitually, he
+bows and resigns himself. Secure,
+therefore, from all superfluous anxieties,
+the farmer enjoys, from year to
+year, a pretty equal encouragement
+in distributing the employments of his
+land. If, through the dispensations
+of Providence, the quantity of his
+return falls short, he knows that some
+rude indemnification will arise in the
+higher price. If, in the opposite
+direction, he fears a low price, it comforts
+him to know that this cannot
+arise for any length of time but through
+some commensurate excess in quantity.
+This, like other severities of a
+natural or general system, will not,
+and cannot, go beyond a bearable
+limit. The high price compensates
+grossly the defect of quantity; the
+overflowing quantity in turn compensates
+grossly the low price. And thus
+it happens that, upon any cycle of ten
+years, taken when you will, the manufacture
+of grain will turn out to have
+been moderately profitable. Now, on
+the other hand, under a system of free
+importation, whenever a redundant
+crop in England coincides (as often it
+does) with a similar redundancy in
+Poland, the discouragement cannot
+but become immoderate. An excess
+of one-seventh will cause a fall of
+price by three-sevenths. But the simultaneous
+excess on the Continent
+may raise the one-seventh to two-sevenths,
+and in a much greater proportion
+will these depress the price.
+The evil will then be enormous; the
+discouragement will be ruinous; much
+capital, much land, will be withdrawn
+from the culture of grain; and, supposing
+a two years' succession of such
+excessive crops, (which effect is more
+common than a single year's excess,)
+the result, for the third year, will be
+seen in a preternatural deficiency; for,
+by the supposition, the number of acres
+applied to corn is now very much less
+than usual, under the unusual discouragement;
+and according to the common
+oscillations of the season according
+to those irregularities that, in
+effect, are often found to be regular&mdash;this
+third year succeeding to redundant
+years may be expected to turn out a
+year of scarcity. Here, then, in the
+absence of a corn-law, comes a double
+deficiency&mdash;a deficiency of acres applied,
+from jealousy of foreign competition,
+and upon each separate acre a
+deficiency of crop, from the nature of
+the weather. What will be the consequence?
+A price ruinously high;
+higher beyond comparison than could
+ever have arisen under a temperate
+restriction of competition; that is, in
+other words, under a British corn-law.</p>
+
+<p>Many other cases might be presented
+to the reader, and especially
+under the action of a doctrine repeatedly
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg&nbsp;542]</a></span>
+pressed in this journal, but steadily
+neglected elsewhere&mdash;viz. the
+"<em>devolution</em>" of foreign agriculture
+upon lower qualities of land, (and
+consequently its <em>permanent</em> exaltation
+in price,) in case of any certain demand
+on account of England. But
+this one illustration is sufficient. Here
+we see that, under a free trade in corn,
+and <em>in consequence</em> of a free trade,
+ruinous enhancements of price would
+arise&mdash;such in magnitude as never
+could have arisen under a wise limitation
+of foreign competition. And
+further, we see that under our present
+system no enhancement is, or could
+be, <em>absolutely</em> injurious; it might be
+so <em>relatively</em>&mdash;it might be so in relation
+to the poor consumer; but in the mean
+time, that guinea which might be lost
+to the consumer would be gained to
+the farmer. Now, in the case supposed,
+under a free corn trade the rise
+is commensurate to the previous injury
+sustained by the farmer; and
+much of the extra bonus reaped goes
+to a foreign interest. What we insist
+upon, however, is this one fact, that
+alternately the British corn-laws
+have raised the price of grain and have
+sunk it; they have raised the price in
+the case where else there would have
+been a ruinous depreciation&mdash;ruinous
+to the prospects of succeeding years;
+they have sunk it under the natural
+and usual oscillations of weather to be
+looked for in these succeeding years.
+And each way their action has been
+most moderate. For let not the reader
+forget, that on the system of a sliding-scale,
+this action cannot be otherwise
+than moderate. Does the price rise?
+Does it threaten to rise higher? Instantly
+the very evil redresses itself.
+As the evil, <i>i.e.</i> the price, increases,
+in that exact proportion does it open
+the gate to relief; for exactly so does
+the duty fall. Does the price fall
+ruinously?&mdash;(in which case it is true
+that the <em>instant</em> sufferer is the farmer;
+but through him, as all but the short-sighted
+must see, the consumer will
+become the reversionary sufferer)&mdash;immediately
+the duty rises, and forbids
+an accessary evil from abroad to
+aggravate the evil at home. So gentle
+and so equable is the play of those
+weights which regulate our whole machinery,
+whilst the late correction
+applied even here by Sir Robert Peel,
+has made this gentle action still gentler;
+so that neither of the two parties&mdash;consumers
+who to live must buy, growers
+who to live must sell&mdash;can, by possibility,
+feel an incipient pressure before
+it is already tending to relieve itself.
+It is the very perfection of art to make
+a malady produce its own medicine&mdash;an
+evil its own relief. But that
+which here we insist on, is, that it
+never <em>was</em> the object of our own corn-laws
+to increase the price of corn;
+secondly, that the real object was
+a condition of equipoise which abstractedly
+is quite unconnected with
+either rise of price or fall of price;
+and thirdly, that, as a matter of fact,
+our corn-laws have as often reacted
+to lower the price, as directly they
+have operated to raise it; whilst
+eventually, and traced through succeeding
+years, equally the raising
+and the lowering have co-operated to
+that steady temperature (or nearest
+approximation to it allowed by nature)
+which is best suited to a <em>comprehensive</em>
+system of interests. Accursed
+is that man who, in speaking
+upon so great a question, will seek,
+or will consent, to detach the economic
+considerations of that question
+from the higher political considerations
+at issue. Accursed is that man
+who will forget the noble yeomanry
+we have formed through an agriculture
+chiefly domestic, were it even
+true that so mighty a benefit had
+been purchased by some pecuniary
+loss. But this it is which we are now
+denying. We affirm peremptorily,
+and as a fact kept out of sight only
+by the neglect of pursuing the case
+through a succession of years under
+the <em>natural</em> fluctuation of seasons,
+that, upon the series of the last seventy
+years, viewed as a whole, we have
+paid less for our corn by means of
+the corn-laws, than we should have
+done in the absence of such laws.
+It was, says Mr Cobden, the purpose
+of such laws to make corn
+dear; it is, says he, the effect, to make
+it cheap. Yes, in the last clause
+his very malice drove him into the
+truth. Speaking to farmers, he
+found it requisite to assert that they
+had been injured; and as he knew of
+no injury to them other than a low
+price, <em>that</em> he postulated at the cost
+of his own logic, and quite forgetting
+that if the farmer had lost, the consumer
+must have gained in that very
+ratio. Rather than not assert a failure
+<i>quoad</i> the intention of the corn-laws,
+he actually asserts a national
+benefit <i>quoad</i> the result. And, in a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg&nbsp;543]</a></span>
+rapture of malice to the lawgivers, he
+throws away for ever, at one victorious
+sling, the total principles of an
+opposition to the law.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p>But enough, and more than enough,
+of <span class="smcap lowercase">THE</span> nuisance. It will be expected,
+however, that we should notice two
+collateral points, both wearing an air
+of the marvellous, which have grown
+out of the nuisance during the recent
+session. One is the relaxation of our
+laws with respect to Canadian corn;
+a matter of no great importance in
+itself, but furnishing some reasons for
+astonishment in regard to the disproportioned
+opposition which it has excited.
+Undoubtedly the astonishment
+is well justified, if we view the measure
+for what it was really designed by
+the minister&mdash;viz. as a momentary measure,
+suited merely to the <em>current</em> circumstances
+of our relation to Canada.
+Long before any evil can arise from it,
+through changes in these circumstances,
+the law will have been modified.
+Else, and having, regard to the remote
+contingencies of the case (possible
+or probable) rather than to its
+instant certainties, we are disposed to
+think, that the irritation which this
+little anomalous law has roused
+amongst some of the landholders, is
+not quite so unaccountable, or so disproportionate,
+as the public have been
+taught to imagine. True it is, that
+for the present, <i>lis est de paupere regno</i>.
+Any surplus of grain which, at this
+moment, Canada could furnish, must
+be quite as powerless upon our home
+markets, as the cattle, living or salted
+which have been imported under the
+tariff in 1842 and 1843. But the fears
+of Canada potentially, were not therefore
+unreasonable, because the actual
+Canada is not in a condition for instantly
+using her new privileges.
+Corn, that hitherto had not been
+grown, both may be grown, and certainly
+will be grown, as soon as the
+new motive for growing it, the new
+encouragement, becomes operatively
+known. Corn, again, that from local
+difficulties did not find its way to
+eastern markets, will do so by continual
+accessions, swelling gradually
+into a powerful stream, as the many
+improvements of the land and water
+communication, now contemplated, or
+already undertaken, come into play.
+Another fear connects itself with possible
+evasions of the law by the United
+States. Cross an imaginary frontier
+line, and <em>that</em> will become Canadian
+which was not Canadian by its origin.
+We are told, indeed, that merely by
+its bulk, grain will always present an
+obstacle to any extensive system of
+smuggling. But obstacles are not
+impossibilities. And these obstacles,
+it must be remembered, are not
+founded in the vigilance of revenue
+officers, but simply in the cost; an
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg&nbsp;544]</a></span>
+element of difficulty which is continually
+liable to change. So that upon
+the whole, and as applying to the reversions
+of the case, rather than to
+its present phenomena, undoubtedly
+there <em>are</em> dangers a-head to our own
+landed interest from that quarter of
+the horizon. For the present, it should
+be enough to say, that these dangers
+are yet remote. And perhaps it <em>would</em>
+have been enough under other circumstances.
+But it is the tendency of
+the bill which suggests alarm. All
+changes in our day tend to the consummation
+of free trade: and this
+measure, travelling in that direction,
+reasonably becomes suspicious by its
+principle, though innocent enough by
+its immediate operation.</p>
+
+<p>The other point connected with the
+corn question is personal. Among
+the many motions and notices growing
+out of the dispute, which we hold
+it a matter of duty to neglect, was
+one brought forward by Lord John
+Russell. Upon what principle, or
+with what object? Strange to say, he
+refused to explain. That it must be
+some modification applied to a fixed
+duty, every body knew; but of what
+nature Lord John declined to tell us,
+until he should reach a committee
+which he had no chance of obtaining.
+This affair, which surprised every
+body, is of little importance as regards
+the particular subject of the motion.
+But in a more general relation, it is
+worthy of attention. No man interested
+in the character and efficiency
+of Parliament, can fail to wish that
+there may always exist a strong opposition,
+vigilant, bold, unflinching, full
+of partizanship, if you will, but uniformly
+suspending the partizanship at
+the summons of paramount national
+interests, and acting harmoniously
+upon some systematic plan. How
+little the present unorganized opposition
+answers to this description, it is
+unnecessary to say. The nation is
+ashamed of a body so determinately
+below its functions. But Lord John
+Russell is individually superior to his
+party. He is a man of sense, of information,
+and of known official experience.
+Now, if he, so notoriously
+the wise man of "her Majesty's Opposition,"
+is capable of descending to
+harlequin caprices of this extreme order,
+the nation sees with pain, that a
+constitutional function of control is
+extinct in our present senate, and that
+her Majesty's Ministers must now be
+looked to as their own controllers.
+With the levity of a child, Lord John
+makes a motion, which, if adopted,
+would have landed him in defeat;
+but through utter want of judgment
+and concert with his party, he does
+not get far enough to be defeated: he
+does not succeed in obtaining the prostration
+for which he man&oelig;uvres; but
+is saved from a final exposure of his
+little statesmanship by universal mockery
+of his miserable partizanship.
+Alas for the times in which Burke
+and Fox wielded the forces of Parliamentary
+opposition, and redoubled the
+energies of Government by the energies
+of their enlightened resistance!</p>
+
+<p>In quitting the subject of the corn
+agitation, (obstinately pursued through
+the session,) we may remark&mdash;and we
+do so with pain&mdash;that all laws whatsoever,
+strong or lax, upon this question
+are to be regarded as provisional.
+The temper of society being what it
+is, some small gang of cotton-dealers,
+moved by the rankest self-interest,
+finding themselves suffered to agitate
+almost without opposition, and the ancient
+landed interest of the country,
+if not silenced, being silent, it is felt
+by all parties that no law, in whatever
+direction, upon this great problem,
+can have a chance of permanence.
+The natural revenge which we may
+promise ourselves is&mdash;that the lunacies
+of the free-trader, when acted
+upon, as too surely they will be, may
+prove equally fugitive. Meantime, it
+is not by provisional acts, or acts of
+sudden emergency, that we estimate
+the service of a senate. It is the solemn
+and deliberate laws, those which
+are calculated for the wear and tear
+of centuries, which hold up a mirror
+to the legislative spirit of the times.</p>
+
+<p>Of laws bearing this character, if
+we except the inaugural essays at
+improving the law of libel, and at
+founding a system of national education,
+of which the latter has failed
+for the present in a way fitted to cause
+some despondency, the last session
+offers us no conspicuous example, beyond
+the one act of Lord Aberdeen
+for healing and tranquillizing the
+wounds of the Scottish church. Self-inflicted
+these wounds undeniably
+were; but they were not the less
+severe on that account, nor was the
+contagion of spontaneous martyrdom
+on that account the less likely to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg&nbsp;545]</a></span>
+spread. In reality, the late astonishing
+schism in the Scottish church
+(astonishing because abrupt) is, in one
+respect, without precedent. Every
+body has heard of persecutions that
+were courted; but in such a case, at
+least, the spirit of persecution must
+have had a local existence, and to some
+extent must have uttered menaces&mdash;or
+how should those menaces have been
+defied? Now, the "persecutions," before
+which a large section of the Scottish
+church has fallen by an act of spontaneous
+martyrdom, were not merely needlessly
+defied, but were originally self-created;
+they were evoked, like phantoms
+and shadows, by the martyrs
+themselves, out of blank negations.
+Without provocation <i>ab extra</i>, without
+warning on their own part, suddenly
+they place themselves in an attitude of
+desperate defiance to the known law of
+the land. The law firmly and tranquilly
+vindicates itself; the whole series of
+appeals is threaded; the original judgment,
+as a matter of course, is finally
+re-affirmed&mdash;and this is the persecution
+insinuated; whilst the necessity
+of complying with that decision, which
+does not express any novelty even to
+the extent of a new law, but simply
+the ordinary enforcement of an old
+one, is the kind of martyrdom resulting.
+The least evil of this fantastic
+martyrdom, is the exit from the pastoral
+office of so many persons trained,
+by education and habit, to the effectual
+performance of the pastoral duties.
+That loss&mdash;though not without
+signal difficulty, from the abruptness
+of the summons&mdash;will be supplied.
+But there is a greater evil which cannot
+be healed&mdash;the breach of unity in
+the church. The scandal, the offence,
+the occasion of unhappy constructions
+upon the doctrinal soundness of the
+church, which have been thus ministered
+to the fickle amongst her own
+children&mdash;to the malicious amongst her
+enemies, are such as centuries do not
+easily furnish, and centuries do not
+remove. In all Christian churches
+alike, the conscientiousness which is
+the earliest product of heartfelt religion,
+has suggested this principle,
+that schism, for any cause, is a perilous
+approach to sin; and that, unless
+in behalf of the weightiest interests or
+of capital truths, it is inevitably criminal.
+And in connexion with this consideration,
+there arise two scruples to
+all intelligent men upon this crisis in
+the Scottish church, and they are scruples
+which at this moment, we are
+satisfied, must harass the minds of the
+best men amongst the seceders&mdash;viz.
+First, whether the new points contended
+for, waiving all controversy
+upon their abstract doctrinal truth,
+are really such, in <em>practical</em> virtue,
+that it could be worth purchasing them
+at the cost of schism? Secondly, supposing
+a good man to have decided
+this question in the affirmative for a
+young society of Christians, for a
+church in its infancy, which, as yet,
+might not have much to lose in credit
+or authentic influence&mdash;whether the
+same free license of rupture and final
+secession <em>could</em> belong to an ancient
+church, which had received eminent
+proofs of Divine favour through a long
+course of spiritual prosperity almost
+unexampled? Indeed, this last question
+might suggest another paramount
+to the other two&mdash;viz. not whether
+the points at issue were weighty
+enough to justify schism and hostile
+separation, but whether those points
+could even be safe as mere speculative
+<i>credenda</i>, which, through so long a
+period of trial, and by so memorable
+a harvest of national services, had
+been shown to be unnecessary?</p>
+
+<p>Very sure we are, that no eminent
+servant of the Scottish church could
+abandon, without anguish of mind,
+the multitude of means and channels,
+that great machinery for dispensing
+living truths, which the power and
+piety of the Scottish nation have matured
+through three centuries of pure
+Christianity militant. Solemn must
+have been the appeal, and searching,
+which would force its way to the conscience
+on occasion of taking the last
+step in so sad an <em>exodus</em> from the Jerusalem
+of his fathers. Anger and
+irritation can do much to harden the
+obduracy of any party conviction, especially
+whilst in the centre of fiery
+partisans. But sorrow, in such a case,
+is a sentiment of deeper vitality than
+anger; and this sorrow for the result
+will co-operate with the original
+scruples on the casuistry of the questions,
+to reproduce the demur and the
+struggle many times over, in consciences
+of tender sensibility.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly for men in this state of
+painful collision with their own higher
+nature, is Lord Aberdeen's bill likely
+to furnish the bias which can give rest
+to their agitations, and firmness to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg&nbsp;546]</a></span>
+their resolutions. The bill, according
+to some, is too early, and, according
+to others, too late. Why too early? Because,
+say they, it makes concessions to
+the church, which as yet are not proved
+to be called for. These concessions
+travel on the very line pursued by the
+seceders, and must give encouragement
+to that spirit of religious movement
+which it has been found absolutely
+requisite to rebuke by acts of
+the legislature. Why, on the other
+hand, is Lord Aberdeen's bill too
+late? Because, three years ago, it
+would, or it might, have prevented
+the secession. But is this true? Could
+this bill have prevented the secession?
+We believe not. Lord Aberdeen, undoubtedly,
+himself supposes that it
+might. But, granting that this were
+true, whose fault is it that a three
+years' delay has intercepted so happy
+a result? Lord Aberdeen assures us
+that the earlier success of the bill was
+defeated entirely by the resistance of
+the Government at that period, and
+chiefly by the personal resistance of
+Lord Melbourne. Let that minister
+be held responsible, if any ground has
+been lost that could have been peacefully
+pre-occupied against the schism.
+This, however, seems to us a chimera.
+For what is it that the bill concedes?
+Undoubtedly it restrains and modifies
+the right of patronage. It grants a
+larger discretion to the ecclesiastical
+courts than had formerly been exercised
+by the usage. Some contend,
+that in doing so the bill absolutely alters
+the law as it stood heretofore, and
+ought, therefore, to be viewed as
+enactory; whilst others maintain that
+is simply a declaratory bill, not altering
+the law at all, but merely expressing,
+in fuller or in clearer terms,
+what had always been law, though silently
+departed from by the usage,
+which, from the time of Queen Anne,
+had allowed a determinate preponderance
+to the rights of property in the
+person of the patron. Those, indeed,
+who take the former view, contending
+that it enacts a new principle of law,
+very much circumscribing the old
+right of patronage, insist upon it that
+the bill virtually revokes the decision
+of the Lords in the Auchterarder case.
+Technically and formally speaking,
+this is not true; for the presbytery, or
+other church court, is now tied up to
+a course of proceeding which at Auchterarder
+was violently evaded. The
+court cannot now peremptorily challenge
+the nominee in the arbitrary
+mode adopted in that instance. An
+examination must be instituted within
+certain prescribed limits. But undoubtedly
+the contingent power of the
+church court, in the case of the nominee
+not meeting the examination satisfactorily,
+is much larger now, under
+the new bill, than it was under the old
+practice; so that either this practice
+must formerly have swerved from the
+letter of the law, or else the new law,
+differing from the old, is really more
+than declaratory. Yet, however this
+may be, it is clear that the jurisdiction
+of the church in the matter of patronage,
+however ample it may seem as
+finally ascertained or created by the
+new bill, falls far within the extravagant
+outline marked out by the seceders.
+We argue, therefore, that it
+could not have prevented their secession
+even as regards that part of their
+pretensions; whilst, as regards the
+monstrous claim to decide in the last
+resort what shall be civil and what spiritual&mdash;that
+is, in a question of clashing
+jurisdiction, to settle on their own
+behalf where shall fall the boundary
+line&mdash;it may be supposed that Lord
+Aberdeen would no more countenance
+their claim in any point of practice,
+than all rational legislators would
+countenance it as a theory. How,
+therefore, could this bill have prevented
+the rent in the church, so
+far as it has yet extended? On
+the other hand, though apparently
+powerless for that effect, it is well calculated
+to prevent a second secession.
+Those who are at all disposed to follow
+the first seceders, stand in this
+situation. By the very act of adhering
+to the Establishment when the
+<i>ultra</i> party went out, they made it
+abundantly manifest that they do not
+go to the same extreme in their requisitions.
+But, upon any principle
+which falls short of that extreme being
+at all applicable to this church
+question, it is certain that Lord Aberdeen's
+measure will be found to satisfy
+their wishes; for that measure, if it
+errs at all, errs by conceding too much
+rather than too little. It sustains all
+objections to a candidate on their own
+merit, without reference to the quarter
+from which they arise, so long as they
+are relevant to the proper qualifications
+of a parish clergyman. It gives
+effect to every argument that can
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg&nbsp;547]</a></span>
+reasonably be urged against a nominee&mdash;either
+generally, on the ground of his
+moral conduct, his orthodoxy, and his
+intellectual attainments; or specially,
+in relation to his fitness for any local
+varieties of the situation. A Presbyterian
+church has always been regarded
+as, in some degree, leaning to a
+republican character, but a republic
+may be either aristocratic or democratic:
+now, Lord Aberdeen has favoured
+the democratic tendency of the
+age by making the probationary examination
+of the candidate as much
+of a popular examination, and as open
+to the impression of objections arising
+with the body of the people, as could
+be done with any decent regard either
+to the rights yet recognised in the
+patron, or, still more, to the professional
+dignity of the clerical order.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, therefore, we
+look upon Lord Aberdeen as a national
+benefactor, who has not only
+turned aside a current running headlong
+into a revolution, but in doing
+this exemplary service, has contrived
+to adjust the temperament very equitably
+between, 1st, the individual
+nominee, having often his livelihood
+at stake; 2dly, the patron, exercising
+a right of property interwoven with
+our social system, and not liable to
+any usurpation which would not
+speedily extend itself to other modes
+of property; 3dly, the church, considered
+as the trustee or responsible
+guardian of orthodoxy and sound learning;
+4thly, the same church considered
+as a professional body, and, therefore,
+as interested in upholding the
+dignity of each individual clergyman,
+and his immunity from frivolous cavils,
+however much against him they
+are interested in detecting his insufficiency;
+and, 5thly, the body of the
+congregation, as undoubtedly entitled
+to have the qualifications of their future
+pastor rigorously investigated.
+All these separate claims, embodied
+in five distinct parties, Lord Aberdeen
+has delicately balanced and fixed in a
+temperate equipoise by the machinery
+of his bill. Whilst, if we enquire for
+the probable effects of this bill upon
+the interests of pure and spiritual religion,
+the promise seems every way
+satisfactory. The Jacobinical and
+precipitous assaults of the Non-intrusionists
+upon the rights of property
+are summarily put down. A great
+danger is surmounted. For if the
+rights of patrons were to be arbitrarily
+trampled under foot on a pretence
+of consulting for the service of religion;
+on the next day, with the same
+unprincipled levity, another party
+might have trampled on the patrimonial
+rights of hereditary descent, on
+primogeniture, or any institution
+whatever, opposed to the democratic
+fanaticism of our age. No patron
+can now thrust an incompetent or
+a vicious person upon the religious
+ministrations of the land. It must be
+through their own defect of energy,
+if any parish is henceforth burdened
+with an incumbent reasonably obnoxious.
+It must be the fault of the
+presbytery or other church court, if
+the orthodox standards of the church
+are not maintained in their purity.
+It must be through his own fault, or
+his own grievous defects, if any qualified
+candidate for the church ministry
+is henceforth vexatiously rejected.
+It must be through some scandalous
+oversight in the selection of presentees,
+if any patron is defeated of his
+right to present.</p>
+
+<p>Contrast with these great services
+the menaces and the tendencies of the
+Non-Intrusionists, on the assumption
+that they had kept their footing in
+the church. It may be that, during
+this generation, from the soundness
+of the individual partisans, the orthodox
+standards of the church would
+have been maintained as to doctrine.
+But all the other parties interested in
+the church, except the church herself,
+as a depositary of truth, would
+have been crushed at one blow. This
+is apparent, except only with regard
+to the congregation of each parish.
+That body, it may be thought, could
+not but have benefited by the change;
+for the very motive and the pretence
+of the movement arose on their behalf.
+But mark how names disguise
+facts, and to what extent a virtual
+hostility may lurk under an apparent
+protection. Lord Aberdeen, because
+he limits the right of the congregation,
+is supposed to destroy it; but in the
+mean time he secures to every parish
+in Scotland a true and effectual influence,
+so far as that body ought to
+have it, (that is, <em>negatively</em>,) upon the
+choice of its pastor. On the other
+hand, the whole storm of the Non-intrusionists
+was pointed at those who
+refused to make the choice of a pastor
+altogether popular. It was the people,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg&nbsp;548]</a></span>
+considered as a congregation, who
+ought to appoint the teacher by whom
+they were to be edified. So far, the
+party of seceders come forward as
+martyrs to their democratic principles.
+And they drew a colourable sanction
+to their democracy from the great
+names of Calvin, Zuinglius, and John
+Knox. Unhappily for them, Sir William
+Hamilton has shown, by quotations
+the most express and absolute
+from these great authorities, that no
+such democratic appeal as the Non-intrusionists
+have presumed, was ever
+contemplated for an instant by any
+one amongst the founders of the Reformed
+churches. That Calvin, whose
+jealousy was so inexorable towards
+princes and the sons of princes&mdash;that
+John Knox, who never "feared the
+face of man that was born of woman"&mdash;were
+these great Christian champions
+likely to have flinched from installing
+a popular tribunal, had they believed
+it eligible for modern times, or warranted
+by ancient times? In the learning
+of the question, therefore, Non-intrusionists
+showed themselves grossly
+wrong. Meantime it is fancied that
+at least they were generously democratic,
+and that they manifested their
+disinterested love of justice by creating
+a popular control that must have
+operated chiefly against their own
+clerical order. What! is that indeed
+so? Now, finally, take another instance
+how names belie facts. The
+people <em>were</em> to choose their ministers;
+the council for election of the pastor
+<em>was</em> to be a popular council abstracted
+from the congregation: but how? but
+under what conditions? but by whom
+abstracted? Behold the subtle design:&mdash;This
+pretended congregation
+was a small faction; this counterfeit
+"people" was the petty gathering of
+<span class="smcap lowercase">COMMUNICANTS</span>; and the communicants
+were in effect within the appointment
+of the clergyman. They
+formed indirectly a secret committee
+of the clergy. So that briefly, Lord
+Aberdeen, whilst restraining the popular
+courts, gives to them a true popular
+authority; and the Non-intrusionists,
+whilst seeming to set up a
+democratic idol, do in fact, by dexterous
+ventriloquism, throw their own
+all-potential voice into its passive
+organs.</p>
+
+<p>We may seem to owe some apology
+to our readers for the space which we
+have allowed to this great moral
+<i>&eacute;meute</i> in Scotland. But we hardly
+think so ourselves. For in our own
+island, and in our own times, nothing
+has been witnessed so nearly bordering
+on a revolution. Indeed, it is
+painful to hear Dr Chalmers, since
+the secession, speaking of the Scottish
+aristocracy in a tone of scornful
+hatred, not surpassed by the most
+Jacobinical language of the French
+Revolution in the year 1792. And,
+if this movement had not been checked
+by Parliament, and subsequently
+by the executive Government, in its
+comprehensive provision for the future,
+by the measure we have been
+reviewing, we cannot doubt that the
+contagion of the shock would have
+spread immediately to England, which
+part of the island has been long prepared
+and manured, as we might say,
+for corresponding struggles, by the
+continued conspiracy against church-rates.
+In both cases, an attack on
+church property, once allowed to
+prosper or to gain any stationary footing,
+would have led to a final breach
+in the life and serviceable integrity of
+the church.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Factory bill, we are sorry
+that we are hardly entitled to speak.
+In the loss of the educational clauses,
+that bill lost all which could entitle it
+to a separate notice; and, where the
+Government itself desponds as to any
+future hope of succeeding, private
+parties may have leave to despair.
+One gleam of comfort, however, has
+shone out since the adjournment of
+Parliament. The only party to the
+bitter resistance under which this
+measure failed, whom we can sincerely
+compliment with full honesty of
+purpose&mdash;viz. the Wesleyan Methodists&mdash;have
+since expressed (about the
+middle of September) sentiments very
+like compunction and deep sorrow
+for the course they felt it right to pursue.
+They are fully aware of the
+malignity towards the Church of England,
+which governed all other parties
+to the opposition excepting themselves;
+and in the sorrowful result of
+that opposition, which has terminated
+in denying all extension of education
+to the labouring youth of the nation,
+they have learned (like the conscientious
+men that they are) to suspect
+the wisdom and the ultimate principle
+of the opposition itself. Fortunately,
+they are a most powerful body; to
+express regret for what they have done,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg&nbsp;549]</a></span>
+and hesitation at the casuistry of those
+motives which reconciled them to their
+act at the moment is possibly but the
+next step to some change in their counsels;
+in which case this single body,
+in alliance with the Church of England,
+would be able to carry the great
+measure which has been crushed for
+the present by so unexampled a resistance.
+Much remains to be said, both
+upon the introductory statements of
+Lord Ashley, with which (in spite of
+our respect for that nobleman) we do
+not coincide, and still more upon the
+extensive changes, and the <em>principles</em>
+of change, which must be brought to
+bear upon a national system of education,
+before it can operate with that
+large effect of benefit which so many
+anticipate from its adoption. But this
+is ample matter for a separate discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, let us notice the Irish Arms'
+bill; which, amongst the measures
+framed to meet the momentary exigence
+of the times, stands foremost in
+importance. This is one of those fugitive
+and casual precautions, which, by
+intense seasonableness, takes its rank
+amongst the permanent means of pacification.
+Bridling the instant spirit
+of uproar, carrying the Irish nation
+over that transitional state of temptation,
+which, being once gone by, cannot,
+we believe, be renewed for generations,
+this, with other acts in the same
+temper, will face whatever peril still
+lingers in the sullen rear of Mr
+O'Connell's dying efforts. For that
+gentleman, personally, we believe
+him to be nearly extinct. Two months
+ago we expressed our conviction, so
+much the stronger in itself for having
+been adopted after some hesitation,
+that Sir Robert Peel had taken the
+true course for eventually and finally
+disarming him. We are thankful that
+we have now nothing to recant. Progress
+has been made in that interval
+towards that consummation, quite equal
+to any thing we could have expected
+in so short a lapse of weeks. Mr
+O'Connell is now showing the strongest
+symptoms of distress, and of conscious
+approach to the condition of
+"check to the king." Of these symptoms
+we will indicate one or two. In
+January 1843, he declared solemnly
+that an Irish Parliament should instal
+itself at Dublin before the year closed.
+Early in May, he promised that on the
+anniversary of that day the great
+change should be solemnized. On a
+later day in May, he proclaimed that
+the event would come off (according
+to a known nautical mode of advertising
+the time of sailing) not upon a
+settled day of that month but "in all
+May" of 1844. Here the matter
+rested until August 12, when again he
+shifted his day to the corresponding
+day of 1844. But September arrived,
+and then "before those shoes were
+old" in which he had made his
+promise, he declares by letter, to some
+correspondent, that he must have <em>forty-three
+months</em> for working out his plan.
+Anther symptom, yet more significant,
+is this: and strange to say it has
+been overlooked by the daily press.
+Originally he had advertised some
+pretended Parliament of 300 Irishmen,
+to which admission was to be
+had for each member by a fee of
+L.100. And several journals are
+now telling him that, under the Convention
+Act, he and his Parliament
+will be arrested on the day of assembling.
+Not at all. They do not attend
+to his harlequin motions. Already
+he has declared that this assembly,
+which was to have been a Parliament,
+is only to be a conciliatory committee,
+an old association under some
+new name, for deliberating on means
+<em>tending to</em> a Parliament in some future
+year, as yet not even suggested.</p>
+
+<p>May we not say, after such facts,
+that the game is up? The agitation
+may continue, and it may propagate
+itself. But for any interest of Mr
+O'Connell's, it is now passing out of
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>In the joy with which we survey
+that winding up of the affair, we can
+afford to forget the infamous display
+of faction during the discussion of the
+Arms' bill. Any thing like it, in pettiness
+of malignity, has not been witnessed
+during this century: any thing
+like it, in impotence of effect, probably
+will not be witnessed again during our
+times. Thirteen divisions in one
+night&mdash;all without hope, and without
+even a verbal gain! This conduct
+the nation will not forget at the next
+election. But in the mean time the
+peaceful friends of this yet peaceful
+empire rejoice to know, that without
+war, without rigour, without an effort
+that could disturb or agitate&mdash;by mere
+silent precautions, and the sublime
+magnanimity of simply fixing upon the
+guilty conspirator one steadfast eye
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg&nbsp;550]</a></span>
+of vigilant preparation, the conspiracy
+itself is melting into air, and the relics
+of it which remain will soon
+become fearful only to him who has
+evoked it.</p>
+
+<p>The game, therefore, is up, if we
+speak of the purposes originally contemplated.
+This appears equally from
+the circumstances of the case without
+needing the commentary of Mr O'Connell,
+and from the acts no less than
+the words of that conspirator. True
+it is&mdash;and this is the one thing to be
+feared&mdash;that the agitation, though extinct
+for the ends of its author, may
+propagate itself through the maddening
+passions of the people, now perhaps
+uncontrollably excited. Tumults
+may arise, at the moment when further
+excitement is impossible, simply
+through that which is already in operation.
+But that stage of rebellion is
+open at every turn to the coercion of
+the law: and it is not such a phasis
+of conspiracy that Mr O'Connell
+wishes to face, or <em>can</em> face. Speaking,
+therefore, of the <em>real</em> objects pursued
+in this memorable agitation, we cannot
+but think that as the roll of possible
+meetings is drawing nearer to
+exhaustion, as all other arts fail, and
+mere <em>written</em> addresses are renewed,
+(wanting the inflammatory contagion
+of personal meetings, and not accessible
+to a scattered peasantry;) but above
+all, as the day of instant action is once
+again adjourned to a period both remote
+and indefinite, the agitation must
+be drooping, and virtually we may
+repeat that the game is up. But
+the last moves have been unusually
+interesting. Not unlike the fascination
+exercised over birds by the eye of
+the rattlesnake, has been the impression
+upon Mr O'Connell from the
+fixed attention turned upon him by
+Government. What they <em>did</em> was silent
+and unostentatious; more, however,
+than perhaps the public is aware
+of in the way of preparation for an
+outbreak. But the capital resource
+of their policy was, to make Mr O'Connell
+deeply sensible that they were
+watching him. The eye that watched
+over Waterloo was upon him: for
+six months that eagle glance has
+searched him and nailed him: and the
+result, as it is now revealing itself,
+may at length be expressed in the two
+lines of Wordsworth otherwise applied&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The vacillating bondsman of the Pope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+
+<p class="center" style="padding-bottom: 3em;"><i>Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive; being a connected view of the
+Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By John
+Stuart Mill. In two volumes. London: Parker.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Necessary truths multiply on us very fast. "We maintain," says Mr Whewell,
+"that this equality of <em>mechanical action and reaction</em> is one of the principles
+which do not flow from, but regulate, our experience. A mechanical pressure,
+not accompanied by an equal and opposite pressure, can no more be given by experience
+than two unequal right angles. With the supposition of such inequalities,
+space ceases to be space, form ceases to be form, matter ceases to be matter."
+And again he says, "<em>That the parallelogram of forces is a necessary truth</em>;" a law
+of motion of which we surely can <em>conceive</em> its opposite to be true. In some of
+these instances Mr Whewell appears, by a confusion of thought, to have given to
+the <em>physical fact</em> the character of necessity which resides in the mathematical formula
+employed for its expression. Whether a moving body would communicate
+motion to another body&mdash;whether it would lose its own motion by so doing&mdash;or
+what would be the result if a body were struck by two other bodies moving in
+different directions&mdash;are questions which, if they could be asked us prior to experience,
+we could give no answer whatever to&mdash;which we can easily conceive
+to admit of a quite different answer to that which experience has taught us
+to give.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Travels of Kerim Khan; being a narrative of his Journey from Delhi to Calcutta,
+and thence by Sea to England: containing his remarks upon the manners, customs,
+laws, constitutions, literature, arts, manufactures, &amp;c., of the people of the British
+Isles. Translated from the original Oordu&mdash;(MS.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Shalwarlek</i>&mdash;"tight trousers"&mdash;was a phrase used, under the old Turkish r&eacute;gime,
+as equivalent to a blackguard.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The Moslems, and other natives of India descended from foreign races, are properly
+called <em>Hindustanis</em>, while the aborigines are the <em>Hindus</em>&mdash;a distinction not well
+understood in Europe. The former take their name from the country, as <em>natives of
+Hindustan</em>, which has derived its own name from the latter, as being the <em>country of
+the Hindus</em>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Journal of a Residence of Two Years and a Half in Great Britain, by Jehangeer
+Nowrojee and Hirjeebhoy Merwanjee of Bombay, Naval Architects. London: 1841.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Many of our readers must have seen the beautiful ivory model of this far-famed
+edifice, lately exhibited in Regent Street, and now, we believe, in the Cambridge University
+museum. It is fortunate that so faithful a miniature transcript of the beauties
+of the Taj is in existence, since the original is doomed, as we are informed, to
+inevitable ruin at no distant period, from the ravages of the white ants on the woodwork.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> These sacred footmarks are more numerous among the Buddhists than the Moslems&mdash;the
+most celebrated is that on the summit of Adam's Peak, in Ceylon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Most of the principal cities of India, in addition to the ancient name by which
+they are popularly known, have another imposed by the Moslems:&mdash;thus Agra is
+Akbarabad, <em>the residence of Akbar</em>&mdash;Delhi, Shahjehanabad; and Patna, Azimabad.
+In some instances, as Dowlutabad in the Dekkan, the Hindu name of which is
+Deogiri, the Mohammedan appellation has superseded the ancient name; but, generally
+speaking, the latter is that in common use.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> "So called from <em>Kali</em>, the Hindu goddess, and <em>kata</em>, laughter; because human
+victims were formerly here sacrificed to her."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> From the sanctity attached by Oriental ideas to the privacy of the harem, it is a
+high crime and misdemeanour, punishable by law in all Moslem countries, to erect
+buildings overlooking the residence of a neighbour. At Constantinople, there is an
+officer called the Minar Aga, or superintendent of edifices, whose especial duty it is to
+prevent this.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> "Almost immediately on leaving Allahabad," (on his way from Calcutta to the
+Upper Provinces,) "I was struck with the appearance of the men, as tall and muscular
+as the largest stature of Europeans; and with the fields of <em>wheat</em>, almost the only
+cultivation."&mdash;Heber's Journal, vol. iii. "Some of our boatmen passing through a
+field of Indian corn, plucked two or three ears, certainly not enough to constitute a
+theft, or even a trespass. Two of the men, however, who were watching, ran after
+them, not as the Bengalis would have done, to complain with joined hands, but with
+stout bamboos, prepared to do themselves justice <i>par voye de faict</i>. The men saved
+themselves by swimming off to the boat; but my servants called out to them&mdash;'Ah!
+dandee folk, beware, you are now in Hindustan; the people here know well how to
+fight, and are not afraid.'"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> "I told his (Pertab Chund's) father, that it was wrong to keep him where he
+then was, and he told me to take him down to the river. He was lifted up on his bedding;
+his speech was not very distinct at that time, but sufficiently so to call on the
+name of his T'hakoor, (spiritual guide,) which he did as desired; he then began to
+shiver, and complained of being very cold. I was one of those who went with the
+rajah to the river side. Jago Mohun Dobee pressed his legs under the water, and
+kept them so; and about 10 p.m. his soul quitted the body. When he died, his
+knees were under water, but the rest of his body above." Evidence of Radha Sircar
+and Sham Chum Baboo, before the Mofussil Court of Hoogly, September 1838, in the
+enquiry on the impostor Kistololl, who personated the deceased Pertab.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <em>Taz&icirc;ya</em>, literally <em>grief</em>, is an ornamental shrine erected in Moslem houses during
+the Mohurrum, and intended to represent the mausoleum of Hassan and Hussein, at
+Kerbelah in Persia. On the 10th and last day of the mourning, the taz&icirc;yas are carried
+in procession to the outside of the city, and finally deposited with funeral rites in the
+burying-grounds.&mdash;See <i>Mrs Meer Hassan Ali's</i> Observations on the Mussulmans of
+India. Letter I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Reminiscences of Syria. By Colonel E. Napier.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Modern Painters&mdash;their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the
+Ancient Masters, &amp;c. &amp;c. By a Graduate of Oxford.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> From a rough calculation taken from the returns of those left dead on the fields
+of battle in which Napoleon commanded, from Montenotte to Waterloo, we make
+the amount 1,811,500; and if we add those who died subsequently of their wounds in
+the petty skirmishes, the losses in which are not reported, and in the naval fights, of
+which, though Napoleon was not present, he was the cause, the number given in the
+text will be far under the mark. A picture of the fathers, mothers, wives, children,
+and relatives of these victims, receiving the news of their death, would give a lively
+idea of the benefits conferred upon the world by Napoleon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Nov. Org. Aph. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Impetus Philosophici, p. 681.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> In any thing we have above said, we trust it is unnecessary to disclaim the
+slightest intention of discouraging those whose want of conventional advantages only
+renders their merit more conspicuous; we find fault not with the uneducated for cultivating
+science, but with the educated for neglecting it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 409.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Each Fellow can, indeed, by express permission of the Society, take with him two
+friends.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> An anonymous author, who has attracted some attention in France, in commenting
+on the rejection of Victor Hugo, and the election of a physician, says&mdash;that nothing
+could be more natural or proper, as the senility and feebleness of the Acad&eacute;mie made
+it more in want of a physician than a poet.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Edin. Rev.</i> No. 159.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Carlyle on Hero Worship.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Commentaries, vol. i. p. 277.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> A <em>hammil sconce</em>, or light of the hamlet, is the picturesque expression in secluded
+parts of Lancashire for the local wise man, or village counsellor.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Those who fancy a possible evasion of the case supposed above, by saying, that if
+a failure, extensive as to England, should coincide with a failure extensive as to Poland,
+remedies might be found in importing from many other countries combined, forget
+one objection, which is decisive&mdash;these supplementary countries must be many,
+and they must be distant. For no country could singly supply a defect of great extent,
+unless it were a defect annually and regularly anticipated. A surplus never designed
+as a fixed surplus for England, but called for only now and then, could never be more
+than small. Therefore the surplus, which could not be yielded by one country, must
+be yielded by many. In that proportion increase the probabilities that a number will
+have no surplus. And, secondly, from the widening distances, in that proportion
+increases the extent of shipping required. But now, even from Mr Porter, a most prejudiced
+writer on this question, and not capable of impartiality in speaking upon any
+measure which he supposes hostile to the principle of free trade, the reader may learn
+how certainly any great <em>hiatus</em> in our domestic growth of corn is placed beyond all
+hope of relief. For how is this grain, this relief, to be brought? In ships, you reply.
+Ay, but in what ships? Do you imagine that an extra navy can lie rotting in docks,
+and an extra fifty thousand of sailors can be held in reserve, and borne upon the books
+of some colossal establishment, waiting for the casual seventh, ninth, or twelfth year
+in which they may be wanted&mdash;kept and paid against an "<em>in case</em>," like the extra
+supper, so called by Louis XIV., which waited all night on the chance that it might
+be wanted? <em>That</em>, you say, is impossible. It is so; and yet without such a reserve,
+all the navies of Europe would not suffice to make up such a failure of our home crops
+as is likely enough to follow redundant years under the system of unlimited competition.&mdash;See
+<span class="smcap">Porter</span>.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+<p style="padding-top: 3em;"><b>Transcriber's Note</b></p>
+
+<p style="padding-bottom: 5em;">Minor typographic errors have been corrected. Please note there is
+some archaic spelling, which has been retained as printed. There are a
+few snippets of Greek, a few instances of the letter a with macron
+(straight line) over it, and some oe ligatures; you may need to adjust
+your settings for these to display correctly.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23240]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
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+
+Produced by Brendan O'Connor, Jonathan Ingram, Sam W. and
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+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
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+
+                  BLACKWOOD'S
+              EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     No. CCCXXXVI. OCTOBER, 1843. VOL. LIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    MILL'S LOGIC.
+    MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+    TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.
+    THE THIRTEENTH; A TALE OF DOOM.
+    REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.
+    THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.
+    MODERN PAINTERS.
+    A ROYAL SALUTE.
+    PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.
+    CHRONICLES OF PARIS. THE RUE ST DENIS.
+    THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+
+
+
+MILL'S LOGIC.[1]
+
+    [1] A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive;
+    being a connected view of the Principles of Evidence,
+    and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By John
+    Stuart Mill. In two volumes. London: Parker.
+
+
+These are _not_ degenerate days. We have still strong thinkers amongst
+us; men of untiring perseverance, who flinch before no difficulties,
+who never hide the knot which their readers are only too willing that
+they should let alone; men who dare write what the ninety-nine out of
+every hundred will pronounce a _dry_ book; who pledge themselves, not
+to the public, but to their subject, and will not desert it till their
+task is completed. One of this order is Mr John Stuart Mill. The work
+he has now presented to the public, we deem to be, after its kind, of
+the very highest character, every where displaying powers of clear,
+patient, indefatigable thinking. Abstract enough it must be allowed to
+be, calling for an unremitted attention, and yielding but little, even
+in the shape of illustration, of lighter and more amusing matter; he
+has taken no pains to bestow upon it any other interest than what
+searching thought and lucid views, aptly expressed, ought of
+themselves to create. His subject, indeed--the laws by which human
+belief and the inquisition of truth are to be governed and
+directed--is both of that extensive and fundamental character, that it
+would be treated with success only by one who knew how to resist the
+temptations to digress, as well as how to apply himself with vigour to
+the solution of the various questions that must rise before him.
+
+    "This book," the author says in his preface, "makes no
+    pretence of giving to the world a new theory of our
+    intellectual operations. Its claim to attention, if it
+    possess any, is grounded on the fact, that it is an
+    attempt not to supersede, but to embody and systematize,
+    the best ideas which have been either promulgated on its
+    subject by speculative writers, or conformed to by
+    accurate thinkers in their scientific enquiries.
+
+    "To cement together the detached fragments of a subject,
+    never yet treated as a whole; to harmonize the true
+    portions of discordant theories, by supplying the links
+    of thought necessary to connect them, and by
+    disentangling them from the errors with which they are
+    always more or less interwoven--must necessarily require
+    a considerable amount of original speculation. To other
+    originality than this, the present work lays no claim.
+    In the existing state of the cultivation of the
+    sciences, there would be a very strong presumption
+    against any one who should imagine that he had effected
+    a revolution in the theory of the investigation of
+    truth, or added any fundamentally new process to the
+    practice of it. The improvement which remains to be
+    effected in the methods of philosophizing, [and the
+    author believes that they have much need of
+    improvement,] can only consist in performing, more
+    systematically and accurately, operations with which, at
+    least in their elementary form, the human intellect, in
+    some one or other of its employments, is already
+    familiar."
+
+Such is the manly and modest estimate which the author makes of his
+own labours, and the work fully bears out the character here given of
+it. No one capable of receiving pleasure from the disentanglement of
+intricacies, or the clear exposition of an abstruse subject; no one
+seeking assistance in the acquisition of distinct and accurate views
+on the various and difficult topics which these volumes embrace--can
+fail to read them with satisfaction and with benefit.
+
+To give a full account--to give any account--of a work which traverses
+so wide a field of subject, would be here a futile attempt; we should,
+after all our efforts, merely produce a laboured and imperfect
+synopsis, which would in vain solicit the perusal of our readers. What
+we purpose doing, is to take up, in the order in which they occur,
+some of the topics on which Mr Mill has thrown a new light, or which
+he has at least invested with a novel interest by the view he has
+given of them. And as, in this selection of topics, we are not bound
+to choose those which are most austere and repulsive, we hope that
+such of our readers as are not deterred by the very name of logic,
+will follow us with some interest through the several points of view,
+and the various extracts we shall present to them.
+
+_The Syllogism._--The logic of _Induction_, as that to which attention
+has been least devoted, which has been least reduced to systematic
+form, and which lies at the basis of all other modes of reasoning,
+constitutes the prominent subject of these volumes. Nevertheless, the
+old topic of logic proper, or deductive reasoning, is not omitted, and
+the first passage to which we feel bound, on many accounts, to give
+our attention, is the disquisition on the syllogism.
+
+Fortunately for us it is not necessary, in order to convey the point
+of our author's observations upon this head, to afflict our readers
+with any dissertation upon _mode_ or _figure_, or other logical
+technicalities. The first form or _figure_ of the syllogism (to which
+those who have not utterly forgotten their scholastic discipline will
+remember that all others may be reduced) is familiar to every one, and
+to this alone we shall have occasion to refer.
+
+    "All men are mortal.
+    A king is a man;
+    Therefore a king is mortal."
+
+Who has not met--what young lady even, though but in her teens, has
+not encountered some such charming triplet as this, which looks so
+like verse at a distance, but, like some other compositions,
+approximates nothing the more on this account to poetry? Who has not
+learnt from such examples what is a _major_, what a _middle term_, and
+what the _minor_ or conclusion?
+
+As no one, in the present day, advises the adoption, in our
+controversies, of the syllogistic forms of reasoning, it is evident
+that the value of the syllogism must consist, not in its practical
+use, but in the accurate type which it affords of the process of
+reasoning, and in the analysis of that process which a full
+understanding of it renders necessary. Such an analysis supplies, it
+is said, an excellent discipline to the mind, whilst an occasional
+reference to the form of the syllogism, as a type or model of
+reasoning, insures a steadiness and pertinency of argument. But is the
+syllogism, it has been asked, this veritable type of our reasoning?
+Has the analysis which would explain it to be such, been accurately
+conducted?
+
+Several of our northern metaphysicians, it is well known--as, for
+example, Dr Campbell and Dugald Stewart--have laid rude hands upon the
+syllogism. They have pronounced it to be a vain invention. They have
+argued that no addition of knowledge, no advancement in the
+acquisition of truth, no new conviction, can possibly be obtained
+through its means, inasmuch as no syllogism can contain any thing in
+the conclusion which was not admitted, at the outset, in the first or
+major proposition. The syllogism always, say they, involves a _petitio
+principii_. Admit the major, and the business is palpably at an end;
+the rest is a mere circle, in which one cannot advance, but may get
+giddy by the revolution. According to the exposition of logicians
+themselves, we simply obtain by our syllogism, the privilege of saying
+that, in the _minor_, of some individual of a class, which we had
+said, in the _major_, already of the whole class.
+
+Archbishop Whately, our most distinguished expositor and defender of
+the Aristotelian logic, meets these antagonists with the resolute
+assertion, that their objection to the syllogism is equally valid
+against _all reasoning whatever_. He does not deny, but, on the
+contrary, in common with every logician, distinctly states, that
+whatever is concluded in the minor, must have been previously admitted
+in the major, for in this lies the very force and compulsion of the
+argument; but he maintains that the syllogism is the true type of all
+our reasoning, and that therefore to all our reasoning, the very same
+vice, the very same _petitio principii_, may be imputed. The
+syllogism, he contends, (and apparently with complete success,) is but
+a statement in full of what takes place mentally even in the most
+rapid acts of reasoning. We often suppress the major for the sake of
+brevity, but it is understood though not expressed; just as in the
+same manner as we sometimes content ourselves with merely implying the
+conclusion itself, because it is sufficiently evident without further
+words. If any one should so far depart from common sense as to
+question the mortality of some great king, we should think it
+sufficient to say for all argument--the king is a man!--virtually
+implying the whole triplet above mentioned:--
+
+    "All men are mortal.
+    The king is a man;
+    Therefore the king is mortal."
+
+"In pursuing the supposed investigation, (into the operation of
+reasoning,)" says Archbishop Whately, "it will be found that every
+conclusion is deduced, in reality, from two other propositions,
+(thence called _Premisses_;) for though one of these may be and
+commonly is suppressed, it must nevertheless be understood as
+admitted, as may easily be made evident by supposing the _denial_ of
+the suppressed premiss, which will at once invalidate the argument;
+_e.g._ if any one, from perceiving that 'the world exhibits marks of
+design,' infers that 'it must have had an intelligent author,' though
+he may not be aware in his own mind of the existence of any other
+premiss, he will readily understand, if it be _denied_ that 'whatever
+exhibits marks of design must have had an intelligent author,' that
+the affirmative of that proposition is necessary to the solidity of
+the argument. An argument thus stated regularly and at full length, is
+called a syllogism; which, therefore, is evidently not a peculiar
+_kind of argument_, but only a peculiar _form_ of expression, in which
+every argument may be stated."--_Whately's Logic_, p. 27.
+
+"It will be found," he continues, "that all valid arguments whatever
+may be easily reduced to such a form as that of the foregoing
+syllogisms; and that consequently the principle on which they are
+constructed is the UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE of reasoning. So elliptical,
+indeed, is the ordinary mode of expression, even of those who are
+considered as prolix writers,--_i.e._ so much is implied and left to
+be understood in the course of argument, in comparison of what is
+actually stated, (most men being impatient, even to excess, of any
+appearance of unnecessary and tedious formality of statement,) that a
+single sentence will often be found, though perhaps considered as a
+single argument, to contain, compressed into a short compass, a chain
+of several distinct arguments. But if each of these be fully
+developed, and the whole of what the author intended to imply be
+stated expressly, it will be found that all the steps, even of the
+longest and most complex train of reasoning, may be reduced into the
+above form."--P. 32.
+
+That it is not the office of the syllogism to discover _new_ truths,
+our logician fully admits, and takes some pains to establish. This is
+the office of "other operations of mind," not unaccompanied, however,
+with acts of reasoning. Reasoning, argument, inference, (words which
+he uses as synonymous,) have not for their object our advancement in
+knowledge, or the acquisition of new truths.
+
+"Much has been said," says Archbishop Whately, in another portion of
+his work, "by some writers, of the superiority of the inductive to the
+syllogistic methods of seeking truth, as if the two stood opposed to
+each other; and of the advantage of substituting the _Organon_ of
+Bacon for that of Aristotle, &c. &c., which indicates a total
+misconception of the nature of both. There is, however, the more
+excuse for the confusion of thought which prevails on this subject,
+because eminent logical writers have treated, or at least have
+appeared to treat, of induction as a kind of argument distinct from
+the syllogism; which, if it were, it certainly might be contrasted
+with the syllogism: or rather the whole syllogistic theory would fall
+to the ground, since one of the very first principles it establishes,
+is that _all_ reasoning, on whatever subject, is one and the same
+process, which may be clearly exhibited in the form of syllogisms.
+
+"This inaccuracy seems chiefly to have arisen from a vagueness in the
+use of the word induction; which is sometimes employed to designate
+the process of _investigation_ and of collecting facts, sometimes the
+deducing an inference _from_ those facts. The former of these
+processes (_viz._ that of observation and experiment) is undoubtedly
+_distinct_ from that which takes place in the syllogism; but then it
+is not a process of _argumentation_: the latter again _is_ an
+argumentative process; but then it is, like all other arguments,
+capable of being syllogistically expressed."--P. 263.
+
+"To prove, then, this point demonstratively, (namely, that it is not
+by a process of reasoning that new truths are brought to light,)
+becomes on these data perfectly easy; for since all reasoning (in the
+sense above defined) may be resolved into syllogisms; and since even
+the objectors to logic make it a subject of complaint, that in a
+syllogism the premises do virtually assert the conclusion, it follows
+at once that no new truth (as above defined) can be elicited by any
+process of reasoning.
+
+"It is on this ground, indeed, that the justly celebrated author of
+the _Philosophy of Rhetoric_ objects to the syllogism altogether, as
+necessarily involving a _petitio principii_; an objection which, of
+course, he would not have been disposed to bring forward, had he
+perceived that, whether well or ill founded, _it lies against all
+arguments whatever_. Had he been aware that the syllogism is no
+distinct kind of argument otherwise than in form, but is, in fact,
+_any_ argument whatever stated regularly and at full length, he would
+have obtained a more correct view of the object of all reasoning;
+_which is merely to expand and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it
+were, and implied in those with which we set out_, and to bring a
+person to perceive and acknowledge the full force of that which he has
+admitted; to contemplate it in various points of view; _to admit in
+one shape what he has already admitted in another_, and to give up and
+disallow whatever is inconsistent with it."--P. 273.
+
+Now, what the Archbishop here advances appears convincing; his
+position looks impregnable. The syllogism is not a peculiar mode of
+reasoning, (how could it be?)--if any thing at all, it must be a
+general formula for expressing the ordinary act of reasoning--and he
+shows that the objections made by those who would impugn it, may be
+levelled with equal justice against all ratiocination whatever. But
+then this method of defending the syllogism, (to those of us who have
+stood beside, in the character of modest enquirers, watching the
+encounter of keen wits,) does but aggravate the difficulty. Is it
+true, then, that in every act of reasoning, we do but conclude in one
+form, what, the moment before, we had stated in another? Are we to
+understand that such is the final result of the debate? If so, this
+act of reasoning appears very little deserving of that estimation in
+which it has been generally held. The great prerogative of intelligent
+beings (as it has been deemed,) grants them this only--to "admit in
+one shape what they had already admitted in another."
+
+From the dilemma in which we are here placed, the Archbishop by no
+means releases, or attempts to release us: he seems (something too
+much after the manner and disposition generally attributed to masters
+in logic-fence,) to have rested satisfied with foiling his opponents
+in their attack upon the exact position he had bound himself to
+defend. He saves the syllogism; what becomes, in the controversy, of
+poor human reason itself, is not his especial concern--it is as much
+their business as his. You do not, more than I, he virtually says to
+his opponents, intend to resign all reasoning whatever as a mere
+inanity; I prove, for my part, that all reasoning is capable of being
+put into a syllogistic form, and that your objection, if valid against
+the syllogism, is equally valid against all ratiocination. You must
+therefore either withdraw your objection altogether, or advance it at
+your peril; the difficulty is of your making, you must solve it as you
+can. Gentlemen, you must muzzle your own dog.
+
+In this posture of affairs the author of the present work comes to the
+rescue. He shall speak in his own words. But we must premise, that
+although we do not intend to stint him in our quotation--though we
+wish to give him all the sea-room possible; yet, for a _full_
+development of his views, we must refer the reader to his volumes
+themselves. There are some disquisitions which precede the part we are
+about to quote from, which, in order to do complete justice to the
+subject, ought to find a place here, as well as in the author's
+work--but it is impossible.
+
+    "It is universally allowed, that a syllogism is vicious,
+    if there be any thing more in the conclusion than was
+    assumed in the premisses. But this is, in fact, to say,
+    that nothing ever was, or can be, proved by syllogism,
+    which was not known, or assumed to be known, before. Is
+    ratiocination, then, not a process of inference? And is
+    the syllogism, to which the word reasoning has so often
+    been represented to be exclusively appropriate, not
+    really entitled to be called reasoning at all? This
+    seems an inevitable consequence of the doctrine,
+    admitted by all writers on the subject, that a syllogism
+    can prove no more than is involved in the premisses. Yet
+    the acknowledgment so explicitly made, has not prevented
+    one set of writers from continuing to represent the
+    syllogism as the correct analysis of what the mind
+    actually performs in discovering and proving the larger
+    half of the truths, whether of science or of daily life,
+    which we believe; while those who have avoided this
+    inconsistency, and followed out the general theorem
+    respecting the logical value of the syllogism to its
+    legitimate corollary, have been led to impute
+    uselessness and frivolity to the syllogistic theory
+    itself, on the ground of the _petitio principii_ which
+    they allege to be inherent in every syllogism. As I
+    believe both these opinions to be fundamentally
+    erroneous, I must request the attention of the reader to
+    certain considerations, without which any just
+    appreciation of the true character of the syllogism, and
+    the functions it performs in philosophy, appears to me
+    impossible; but which seem to me to have been overlooked
+    or insufficiently adverted to, both by the defenders of
+    the syllogistic theory, and by its assailants.
+
+    "It must be granted, that in every syllogism, considered
+    as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a
+    _petitio principii_. When we say--
+
+        'All men are mortal.
+        Socrates is a man;
+            THEREFORE
+        Socrates is mortal'--
+
+    it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the
+    syllogistic theory, that the proposition, Socrates is
+    mortal, is presupposed in the more general assumption,
+    All men are mortal; that we cannot be assured of the
+    mortality of all men, unless we were previously certain
+    of the mortality of every individual man; that if it be
+    still doubtful whether Socrates, or any other individual
+    you choose to name, be mortal or not, the same degree of
+    uncertainty must hang over the assertion, All men are
+    mortal; that the general principle, instead of being
+    given as evidence of the particular case, cannot itself
+    be taken for true without exception, until every shadow
+    of doubt which could affect any case comprised with it,
+    is dispelled by evidence _aliunde_, and then what
+    remains for the syllogism to prove? that, in short, no
+    reasoning from generals to particulars can, as such,
+    prove any thing; since from a general principle you
+    cannot infer any particulars, but those which the
+    principle itself assumes as foreknown.
+
+    "This doctrine is irrefragable; and if logicians, though
+    unable to dispute it, have usually exhibited a strong
+    disposition to explain it away, this was not because
+    they could discover any flaw in the argument itself, but
+    because the contrary opinion seemed to rest upon
+    arguments equally indisputable. In the syllogism last
+    referred to, for example, or in any of those which we
+    previously constructed, is it not evident that the
+    conclusion may, to the person to whom the syllogism is
+    presented, be actually and _bona fide_ a new truth? Is
+    it not matter of daily experience that truth previously
+    undreamt of, facts which have not been, and cannot be,
+    directly observed, are arrived at by way of general
+    reasoning? We believe that the Duke of Wellington is
+    mortal. We do not know this by direct observation, since
+    he is not yet dead. If we were asked how, this being the
+    case, we know the Duke to be mortal, we should probably
+    answer, because all men are so. Here, therefore, we
+    arrive at the knowledge of a truth not (as yet)
+    susceptible of observation, by a reasoning which admits
+    of being exhibited in the following syllogism--
+
+            'All men are mortal.
+        The Duke of Wellington is a man;
+                THEREFORE
+        The Duke of Wellington is mortal.'
+
+    "And since a large portion of our knowledge is thus
+    acquired, logicians have persisted in representing the
+    syllogism as a process of inference or proof; although
+    none of them has cleared up the difficulty which arises
+    from the inconsistency between that assertion and the
+    principle, that if there be any thing in the conclusion
+    which was not already asserted in the premisses, the
+    argument is vicious. For it is impossible to attach any
+    serious scientific value to such a mere salvo, as the
+    distinction drawn between being involved _by
+    implication_ in the premisses, and being directly
+    asserted in them. When Archbishop Whately, for example,
+    says that the object of reasoning is 'merely to expand
+    and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it were, and
+    implied in those with which we set out, and to bring a
+    person to perceive and acknowledge the full force of
+    that which he has admitted,' he does not, I think, meet
+    the real difficulty requiring to be explained; namely,
+    how it happens that a science like geometry _can_ be all
+    'wrapt up' in a few definitions and axioms. Nor does
+    this defence of the syllogism differ much from what its
+    assailants urge against it as an accusation, when they
+    charge it with being of no use except to those who seek
+    to press the consequence of an admission into which a
+    man has been entrapped, without having considered and
+    understood its full force. When you admitted the major
+    premiss, you asserted the conclusion, 'but,' says
+    Archbishop Whately, 'you asserted it by implication
+    merely; this, however, can here only mean that you
+    asserted it unconsciously--that you did not know you
+    were asserting it; but if so, the difficulty revives in
+    this shape. Ought you not to have known? Were you
+    warranted in asserting the general proposition without
+    having satisfied yourself of the truth of every thing
+    which it fairly includes? And if not, what, then, is the
+    syllogistic art but a contrivance for catching you in a
+    trap, and holding you fast in it?'
+
+    "From this difficulty there appears to be but one issue.
+    The proposition, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal,
+    is evidently an inference, it is got at as a conclusion
+    from something else; but do we, in reality, conclude it
+    from the proposition--All men are mortal? I answer, No.
+
+    "The error committed is, I conceive, that of overlooking
+    the distinction between the two parts of the process of
+    philosophizing--the inferring part and the registering
+    part; and ascribing to the latter the functions of the
+    former. The mistake is that of referring a man to his
+    own notes for the _origin_ of his knowledge. If a man is
+    asked a question, and is at the moment unable to answer
+    it, he may refresh his memory by turning to a memorandum
+    which he carries about with him. But if he were asked
+    how the fact came to his knowledge, he would scarcely
+    answer, because it was set down in his note-book.
+
+    "Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of Wellington
+    is mortal, is immediately an inference from the
+    proposition, All men are mortal, whence do we derive our
+    knowledge of that general truth? No supernatural aid
+    being supposed, the answer must be, from observation.
+    Now, all which men can observe are individual cases.
+    From these all general truths must be drawn, and into
+    these they may be again resolved; for a general truth is
+    but an aggregate of particular truths--a comprehensive
+    expression, by which an indefinite number of individual
+    facts are affirmed or denied at once. But a general
+    proposition is not merely a compendious form for
+    recording and preserving in the memory a number of
+    particular facts, all of which have been observed.
+    Generalization is not a process of mere naming, it is
+    also a process of inference. From instances which we
+    have observed, we feel warranted in concluding, that
+    what we found true in those instances holds in all
+    similar ones--past, present, and future, however
+    numerous they may be. We, then, by that valuable
+    contrivance of language, which enables us to speak of
+    many as if they were one, record all that we have
+    observed, together with all that we infer from our
+    observations, in one concise expression; and have thus
+    only one proposition, instead of an endless number, to
+    remember or to communicate. The results of many
+    observations and inferences, and instructions for making
+    innumerable inferences in unforeseen cases, are
+    compressed into one short sentence.
+
+    "When, therefore, we conclude, from the death of John
+    and Thomas, and every other person we ever heard of in
+    whose case the experiment had been fairly tried, that
+    the Duke of Wellington is mortal like the rest, we may,
+    indeed, pass through the generalization, All men are
+    mortal, as an intermediate stage; but it is not in the
+    latter half of the process--the descent from all men to
+    the Duke of Wellington--that the _inference_ resides.
+    The inference is finished when we have asserted that all
+    men are mortal. What remains to be performed afterwards
+    is merely deciphering our own notes.
+
+    "Archbishop Whately has contended, that syllogizing, or
+    reasoning from generals to particulars, is not,
+    agreeably to the vulgar idea, a peculiar mode of
+    reasoning, but the philosophical analysis of the mode in
+    which all men reason, and must do so if they reason at
+    all. With the deference due to so high an authority, I
+    cannot help thinking that the vulgar notion is, in this
+    case, the more correct. If, from our experience of John,
+    Thomas, &c. who once were living, but are now dead, we
+    are entitled to conclude that all human beings are
+    mortal, we might surely, without any logical
+    inconsequence, have concluded at once, from those
+    instances, that the Duke Wellington is mortal. The
+    mortality of John, Thomas, and Company, is, after all,
+    the whole evidence we have for the mortality of the Duke
+    of Wellington. Not one iota is added to the proof by
+    interpolating a general proposition. Since the
+    individual cases are all the evidence we can possess;
+    evidence which no logical form into which we choose to
+    throw it can make greater than it is; and since that
+    evidence is either sufficient in itself, or, if
+    insufficient for one purpose, cannot be sufficient for
+    the other; I am unable to see why we should be forbidden
+    to take the shortest cut from these sufficient premisses
+    to the conclusion, and constrained to travel the 'high
+    _priori_ road' by the arbitrary fiat of logicians. I
+    cannot perceive why it should be impossible to journey
+    from one place to another, unless 'we march up a hill
+    and then march down again.' It may be the safest road,
+    and there may be a resting-place at the top of the hill,
+    affording a commanding view of the surrounding country;
+    but for the mere purpose of arriving at our journey's
+    end, our taking that road is perfectly optional: it is a
+    question of time, trouble, and danger.
+
+    "Not only _may_ we reason from particulars to
+    particulars, without passing through generals, but we
+    perpetually do so reason. All our earliest inferences
+    are of this nature. From the first dawn of intelligence
+    we draw inferences; but years elapse before we learn the
+    use of general language. The child who, having burnt his
+    fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire, has
+    reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the
+    general maxim--fire burns. He knows from memory that he
+    has been burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he
+    sees a candle, that if he puts his finger into the flame
+    of it, he will be burnt again. He believes this in every
+    case which happens to arise; but without looking, in
+    each instance, beyond the present case. He is not
+    generalizing; he is inferring a particular from
+    particulars.--Vol. I. p. 244.
+
+    "From the considerations now adduced, the following
+    conclusions seem to be established:--All inference is
+    from particulars to particulars: General propositions
+    are merely registers of such inferences already made,
+    and short formulae for making more: The major premiss of
+    a syllogism, consequently, is a formula of this
+    description; and the conclusion is not an inference
+    drawn _from_ the formula, but an inference drawn
+    _according to_ the formula: the real logical antecedent,
+    or premisses being _the particular facts from which the
+    general proposition was collected by induction_. * * *
+
+    "In the above observations, it has, I think, been
+    clearly shown, that although there is always a process
+    of reasoning or inference where a syllogism is used, the
+    syllogism is not a correct analysis of that process of
+    reasoning or inference; which is, on the contrary, (when
+    not a mere inference from testimony,) an inference from
+    particulars to particulars; authorized by a previous
+    inference from particulars to generals, and
+    substantially the same with it: of the nature,
+    therefore, of Induction. But while these conclusions
+    appear to me undeniable, I must yet enter a protest, as
+    strong as that of Archbishop Whately himself, against
+    the doctrine that the syllogistic art is useless for the
+    purposes of reasoning. The reasoning lies in the act of
+    generalisation, not in interpreting the record of that
+    act; but the syllogistic form is all indispensable
+    collateral security for the correctness of the
+    generalisation itself."--P. 259.
+
+By this explanation we are released from the dilemma into which the
+syllogistic and non-syllogistic party had together thrown us. We can
+acknowledge that the process of reason can be always exhibited in the
+form of a syllogism, and yet not be driven to the strange and
+perplexing conclusion that our reasoning can never conduct us to a new
+truth, never lead us further than to admit in one shape what we had
+already admitted in another. We have, or may have, it is true, a
+_major_ in all our ratiocination, implied, if not expressed, and are
+so far syllogistic; but then the real premiss from which we reason is
+the amount of experience on which that major was founded, to which
+amount of experience we, in fact, made an addition in our _minor_, or
+conclusion.
+
+But while we accept this explanation, and are grateful for the
+deliverance it works for us, we must also admit, (and we are not aware
+that Mr Mill would controvert this admission,) that there is a large
+class of cases in which our reasoning betrays no reference to this
+anterior experience, and where the usual explanation given by teachers
+of logic is perfectly applicable; cases where our object is, not the
+discovery of truth for ourselves, but to convince another of his
+error, by showing him that the proposition, which in his blindness or
+prejudice he has chosen to contradict, is part and parcel of some
+other proposition to which he has given, and is at all times ready to
+give, his acquiescence. In such cases, we frequently content ourselves
+with throwing before him this alternative--refuse your _major_, to
+which you have again and again assented, or accept, as involved in it,
+our _minor_ proposition, which you have persisted in controverting.
+
+It will have been gathered from the foregoing train of observation,
+that, in direct contradistinction to Archbishop Whately, who had
+represented induction (so far as it consisted of an act of
+ratiocination) as resolvable into deductive and syllogistic reasoning,
+our author has resolved the syllogism, and indeed all deductive
+reasoning whatever, ultimately into examples of induction. In doing
+this, he is encountered by a metaphysical notion very prevalent in the
+present day, which lies across his path, and which he has to remove.
+We allude to the distinction between contingent and necessary truths;
+it being held by many philosophical writers that all necessary and
+universal truths owe their origin, not to experience (except as
+_occasion_ of their development,) and not, consequently, to the
+ordinary process of induction, but flow from higher sources--flow
+immediately from some supreme faculty to which the name of reason has
+by some been exclusively appropriated, in order to distinguish it from
+the understanding, the faculty judging according to sense. We will
+pause a while upon this topic.
+
+
+_Contingent and Necessary Truths._--Those who have read Mr Whewell's
+treatise on the _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, will remember
+that there is no topic which that author labours more sedulously to
+inculcate than this same distinction between contingent and necessary
+truths; and it is against his statement of the doctrine in question,
+that Mr Mill directs his observations. Perhaps the controverted tenets
+would have sustained a more equal combat under the auspices of a more
+practised and more complete metaphysician than Mr Whewell; but a
+difficulty was probably experienced in finding a statement in any
+other well-known English author full and explicit. Referring ourselves
+to Mr Whewell's volumes for an extract, in order to give the
+distinction here contended against the advantage of an exposition in
+the words of one who upholds it, we are embarrassed by the number
+which offer themselves. From many we select the following statement:--
+
+"Experience," says Mr Whewell, "must always consist of a limited
+number of observations. And, however numerous these may be, they can
+show nothing with regard to the infinite number of cases in which the
+experiment has not been made. Experience, being thus unable to prove a
+fact to be universal, is, as will readily be seen, still more
+incapable of proving a fact to be necessary. Experience cannot,
+indeed, offer the smallest ground for the necessity of a proposition.
+She can observe and record what has happened; but she cannot find, in
+any case, or in any accumulation of cases, any reason for what _must_
+happen. She may see objects side by side, but she cannot see a reason
+why they must be ever side by side. She finds certain events to occur
+in succession; but the succession supplies, in its occurrence, no
+reason for its recurrence. She contemplates external objects; but she
+cannot detect any internal bond which indissolubly connects the future
+with the past, the possible with the real. To learn a proposition by
+experience, and to see it to be necessarily true, are two altogether
+different processes of thought.
+
+"But it may be said, that we do learn, by means of observation and
+experience, many universal truths; indeed, all the general truths of
+which science consists. Is not the doctrine of universal gravitation
+learned by experience? Are not the laws of motion, the properties of
+light, the general properties of chemistry, so learned? How, with
+these examples before us, can we say that experience teaches no
+universal truths?
+
+"To this we reply, that these truths can only be known to be
+_general_, not universal, if they depend upon experience alone.
+Experience cannot bestow that universality which she herself cannot
+have, and that necessity of which she has no comprehension. If these
+doctrines are universally true, this universality flows from the
+_ideas_ which we apply to our experience, and which are, as we have
+seen, the real sources of necessary truth. How far these ideas can
+communicate their universality and necessity to the results of
+experience, it will hereafter be our business to consider. It will
+then appear, that when the mind collects from observation truths of a
+wide and comprehensive kind, which approach to the simplicity and
+universality of the truths of pure science; she gives them this
+character by throwing upon them the light of her own fundamental
+ideas."--_Whewell_, Vol. I. p. 60.
+
+Accordingly, Mr Whewell no sooner arrives at any truth which admits of
+an unconditional positive statement--a statement defying all rational
+contradiction--than he abstracts it from amongst the acquisitions of
+experience, and throwing over it, we suppose, the light of these
+fundamental ideas, pronounces it enrolled in the higher class of
+universal and necessary truths. The first laws of motion, though
+established through great difficulties against the most obstinate
+preconceptions, and by the aid of repeated experiments, are, when
+surveyed in their present perfect form, proclaimed to be, not
+acquisitions of experience, but truths emanating from a higher and
+more mysterious origin.[2]
+
+    [2] Necessary truths multiply on us very fast. "We
+    maintain," says Mr Whewell, "that this equality of
+    _mechanical action and reaction_ is one of the
+    principles which do not flow from, but regulate, our
+    experience. A mechanical pressure, not accompanied by an
+    equal and opposite pressure, can no more be given by
+    experience than two unequal right angles. With the
+    supposition of such inequalities, space ceases to be
+    space, form ceases to be form, matter ceases to be
+    matter." And again he says, "_That the parallelogram of
+    forces is a necessary truth_;" a law of motion of which
+    we surely can _conceive_ its opposite to be true. In
+    some of these instances Mr Whewell appears, by a
+    confusion of thought, to have given to the _physical
+    fact_ the character of necessity which resides in the
+    mathematical formula employed for its expression.
+    Whether a moving body would communicate motion to
+    another body--whether it would lose its own motion by so
+    doing--or what would be the result if a body were struck
+    by two other bodies moving in different directions--are
+    questions which, if they could be asked us prior to
+    experience, we could give no answer whatever to--which
+    we can easily conceive to admit of a quite different
+    answer to that which experience has taught us to give.
+
+This distinction, which assigns a different mental origin to truths,
+simply because (from the nature of the subject-matter, as it seems to
+us) there is a difference with regard to the sort of certainty we feel
+of them, has always appeared to us most unphilosophical. It is
+admitted that we arrive at a general proposition through experience;
+there is no room, therefore, for quibbling as to the meaning of the
+term experience--it is understood that when we speak of a truth being
+derived from experience, we imply the usual exercise of our mental
+faculties; it is the step from a general to a universal proposition
+which alone occasions this perplexing distinction. The dogma is
+this--that experience can only teach us by a limited number of
+examples, and therefore can never establish a universal proposition.
+But if _all_ experience is in favour of a proposition--if no
+experience has occurred even to enable the imagination to conceive its
+opposite, what more can be required to convert the general into a
+universal proposition?
+
+Strange to say, the attribution of these characteristics of
+universality and necessity, becomes, amongst those who loudly insist
+upon the palpable nature of the distinction we are now examining, a
+matter of controversy; and there are a class of scientific truths, of
+which it is debated whether they are contingent or necessary. The
+only test that they belong to the latter order is, the impossibility
+of conceiving their opposites to be the truth; and it seems that men
+find a great difference in their powers of conception, and that what
+is impossible with one is possible with another. But (wisely, too)
+passing this over, and admitting that there is a distinction (though
+a very ill-defined one) between the several truths we entertain of
+this nature; namely, that some we find it impossible, even in
+imagination, to contradict, whilst of others we can suppose it
+possible that they should cease to be truths--does it follow that
+different faculties of the mind are engaged in the acquisition of
+them? Does nothing depend on the nature of the subject itself? "That
+two sides of a triangle," says Mr Whewell, "are greater than the
+third, is a universal and necessary geometrical truth; it is true of
+all triangles; it is true in such a way that the contrary cannot be
+conceived. _Experience could not prove such a proposition._"
+Experience is allowed to prove it of this or that triangle, but not
+as an inseparable property of a triangle. We are at a loss to
+perceive why the same faculties of the mind that can judge, say of
+the properties of animal life, of organized beings, cannot judge of
+the properties of a figure--properties which must immediately be
+conceived to exist the moment the figure is presented to the
+imagination. We say, for instance, of any animal, not because it is
+this or that animal, a sheep or an ox, but simply _as_ animal, that
+it must sustain itself by food, by the process of assimilation. This,
+however, is merely a contingent truth, because it is in our power to
+conceive of organized beings whose substance shall not wear away, and
+consequently shall not need perpetual restoration. But what faculty
+of the mind is unemployed here that is engaged in perceiving the
+property of a triangle, that _as_ triangle, it must have two sides
+greater than the third? The truths elicited in the two cases have a
+difference, inasmuch as a triangle differs from an animal in this,
+that it is impossible to conceive other triangles than those to which
+your truth is applicable, and therefore the proposition relating to
+the triangle is called a necessary truth. But surely this difference
+lies in the subject-matter, not in the nature of our mental
+faculties.
+
+But we had not intended to interpose our own lucubrations in the place
+of those of Mr Mill.
+
+    "Although Mr Whewell," says our author, "has naturally
+    and properly employed a variety of phrases to bring his
+    meaning more forcibly home, he will, I presume, allow
+    that they are all equivalent; and that what he means by
+    a necessary truth, would be sufficiently defined, a
+    proposition the negation of which is not only false, but
+    inconceivable. I am unable to find in any of Mr
+    Whewell's expressions, turn them what way you will, a
+    meaning beyond this, and I do not believe he would
+    contend that they mean any thing more.
+
+    "This, therefore, is the principle asserted: that
+    propositions, the negation of which is inconceivable, or
+    in other words, which we cannot figure to ourselves as
+    being false, must rest upon evidence of higher and more
+    cogent description than any which experience can afford.
+    And we have next to consider whether there is any ground
+    for this assertion.
+
+    "Now, I cannot but wonder that so much stress should be
+    laid upon the circumstance of inconceivableness, when
+    there is such ample experience to show that our capacity
+    or incapacity for conceiving a thing has very little to
+    do with the possibility of the thing in itself; but is
+    in truth very much an affair of accident, and depends
+    upon the past habits and history of our own minds. There
+    is no more generally acknowledged fact in human nature,
+    than the extreme difficulty at first felt in conceiving
+    any thing as possible, which is in contradiction to
+    long-established and familiar experience, or even to old
+    and familiar habits of thought. And this difficulty is a
+    necessary result of the fundamental laws of the human
+    mind. When we have often seen and thought of two things
+    together, and have never, in any one instance, either
+    seen or thought of them separately, there is by the
+    primary law of association an increasing difficulty,
+    which in the end becomes insuperable, of conceiving the
+    two things apart. This is most of all conspicuous in
+    uneducated persons, who are, in general, utterly unable
+    to separate any two ideas which have once become firmly
+    associated in their minds, and, if persons of cultivated
+    intellect have any advantage on the point, it is only
+    because, having seen and heard and read more, and being
+    more accustomed to exercise their imagination, they
+    have experienced their sensations and thoughts in more
+    varied combinations, and have been prevented from
+    forming many of these inseparable associations. But this
+    advantage has necessarily its limits. The man of the
+    most practised intellect is not exempt from the
+    universal laws of our conceptive faculty. If daily habit
+    presents to him for a long period two facts in
+    combination, and if he is not led, during that period,
+    either by accident or intention, to think of them apart,
+    he will in time become incapable of doing so, even by
+    the strongest effort; and the supposition, that the two
+    facts can be separated in nature, will at last present
+    itself to his mind with all the characters of an
+    inconceivable phenomenon. There are remarkable instances
+    of this in the history of science; instances in which
+    the wisest men rejected as impossible, because
+    inconceivable, things which their posterity, by earlier
+    practice, and longer perseverance in the attempt, found
+    it quite easy to conceive, and which every body now
+    knows to be true. There was a time when men of the most
+    cultivated intellects, and the most emancipated from the
+    dominion of early prejudice, could not credit the
+    existence of antipodes; were unable to conceive, in
+    opposition to old association, the force of gravity
+    acting upwards instead of downwards. The Cartesians long
+    rejected the Newtonian doctrine of the gravitation of
+    all bodies towards one another, on the faith of a
+    general proposition, the reverse of which seemed to them
+    to be inconceivable--the proposition, that a body cannot
+    act where it is not. All the cumbrous machinery of
+    imaginary vortices, assumed without the smallest
+    particle of evidence, appeared to these philosophers a
+    more rational mode of explaining the heavenly motions,
+    than one which involved what appeared to them so great
+    an absurdity. And they, no doubt, found it as impossible
+    to conceive that a body should act upon the earth at the
+    distance of the sun or moon, as we find it to conceive
+    an end to space or time, or two straight lines inclosing
+    a space. Newton himself had not been able to realize the
+    conception, or we should not have had his hypothesis of
+    a subtle ether, the occult cause of gravitation; and his
+    writings prove, that although he deemed the particular
+    nature of the intermediate agency a matter of
+    conjecture, the necessity of _some_ such agency appeared
+    to him indubitable. It would seem that, even now, the
+    majority of scientific men have not completely got over
+    this very difficulty; for though they have at last
+    learned to conceive the sun _attracting_ the earth
+    without any intervening fluid, they cannot yet conceive
+    the sun _illuminating_ the earth without some such
+    medium.
+
+    "If, then, it be so natural to the human mind, even in
+    its highest state of culture, to be incapable of
+    conceiving, and on that ground to believe impossible,
+    what is afterwards not only found to be conceivable, but
+    proved to be true; what wonder if, in cases where the
+    association is still older, more confirmed, and more
+    familiar, and in which nothing even occurs to shake our
+    conviction, or even to suggest to us any conception at
+    variance with the association, the acquired incapacity
+    should continue, and be mistaken for a natural
+    incapacity? It is true our experience of the varieties
+    in nature enables us, within certain limits, to conceive
+    other varieties analogous to them. We can conceive the
+    sun or moon falling, for although we never saw them
+    fall, nor ever perhaps imagined them falling, we have
+    seen so many other things fall, that we have innumerable
+    familiar analogies to assist the conception; which,
+    after all, we should probably have some difficulty in
+    framing, were we not well accustomed to see the sun and
+    moon move, (or appear to move,) so that we are only
+    called upon to conceive a slight change in the direction
+    of motion, a circumstance familiar to our experience.
+    But when experience affords no model on which to shape
+    the new conception, how is it possible for us to form
+    it? How, for example, can we imagine an end to space and
+    time? We never saw any object without something beyond
+    it, nor experienced any feeling without something
+    following it. When, therefore, we attempt to conceive
+    the last point of space, we have the idea irresistibly
+    raised of other points beyond it. When we try to imagine
+    the last instant of time, we cannot help conceiving
+    another instant after it. Nor is there any necessity to
+    assume, as is done by the school to which Mr Whewell
+    belongs, a peculiar fundamental law of the mind to
+    account for the feeling of infinity inherent in our
+    conception of space and time; that apparent infinity is
+    sufficiently accounted for by simple and universally
+    acknowledged laws."--Vol. I. p. 313.
+
+Mr Mill does not deny that there exists a distinction, as regards
+ourselves, between certain truths (namely, that of some, we cannot
+conceive them to be other than truths,) but he sets no value on this
+distinction, inasmuch as there is no proof that it has its counterpart
+in things themselves; the impossibility of a thing being by no means
+measured by our inability to conceive it. And we may observe, that Mr
+Whewell, in consistency with the metaphysical doctrine upon space and
+time which he has borrowed from Kant, ought, under another shape, to
+entertain a similar doubt as to whether this distinction represent any
+real distinction in the nature of things. He considers, with Kant,
+that space is only that _form_ with which the human mind invests
+things--that it has no other than this merely mental existence--is
+purely subjective. Presuming, therefore, that the mind is, from its
+constitution, utterly and for ever unable to conceive the opposite of
+certain truths, (those, for instance, of geometry;) yet as the
+existence of space itself is but a subjective truth, it must follow
+that all other truths relating to it are subjective also. The mind is
+not conversant with things in themselves, in the truths even of
+geometry; nor is there any positive objective truth in one department
+of science more than another. Mr Whewell, therefore, though he
+advocates this distinction between necessary and contingent truth with
+a zeal which would seem to imply that something momentous, or of
+peculiar interest, was connected with it, can advocate it only as a
+matter of abstract metaphysical science. He cannot participate in that
+feeling of exaltation and mystery which has led many to expatiate upon
+a necessary and absolute truth which the Divine Power itself cannot
+alter, which is equally irresistible, equally binding and compulsory,
+with God as with man. Of this spirit of philosophical enthusiasm Mr
+Whewell cannot partake. Space and Time, with all their properties and
+phenomena, are but recognized as the modes of thought of a human
+intelligence.
+
+We have marked a number of passages for annotation and extract--a far
+greater number than we can possibly find place for alluding to. One
+subject, however, which lies at the very basis of all our science, and
+which has received a proportionate attention from Mr Mill, must not be
+amongst those which are passed over. We mean the law of _Causation_.
+What should be described as the complete and adequate notion of a
+cause, we need not say is one of the moot points of philosophy.
+According to one school of metaphysicians, there is in our notion of
+cause an element not derived from experience, which, it is confessed
+on all hands, can teach us only the _succession_ of events. Cause,
+with them, is that invisible power, that mysterious bond, which this
+succession does but signify: with other philosophers this succession
+constitutes the whole of any intelligible notion we have of cause. The
+latter opinion is that of Mr Mill; at the same time the question is
+one which lies beyond or beside the scope of his volumes. He is
+concerned only with phenomena, not with the knowledge (if such there
+be) of "things in themselves;" that part, therefore, of our idea of
+cause which, according to all systems of philosophy, is won from
+experience, and concerns phenomena alone, is sufficient for his
+purpose. That every event has a cause, that is, a previous and
+uniformly previous event, and that whatever has happened will, in the
+like circumstances, happen again--these are the assumptions necessary
+to science, and these no one will dispute.
+
+Mr Mill has made a happy addition to the usual definition of cause
+given by that class of metaphysicians to which he himself belongs, and
+which obviates a plausible objection urged against it by Dr Reid and
+others. These have argued, that if cause be nothing more than
+invariable antecedence, then night may be said to be the cause of day,
+for the one invariably precedes the other. Day does succeed to night,
+but only on certain conditions--namely, that the sun rise. "The
+succession," observes Mr Mill, "which is equivalent and synonymous to
+cause, must be not only invariable but unconditional. We may define,
+therefore," says our author, "the cause of a phenomenon to be the
+antecedent, or the concurrence of antecedents, upon which it is
+invariably and _unconditionally_ consequent."--Vol. I. p. 411.
+
+A dilemma may be raised of this kind. The universality of the law of
+causation--in other words, the uniform course of nature--is the
+fundamental principle on which all induction proceeds, the great
+premise on which all our science is founded. But if this law itself be
+the result only of experience, itself only a great instance of
+induction, so long as nature presents cases requiring investigation,
+where the causes are unknown to us, so long the law itself is
+imperfectly established. How, then, can this law be a guide and a
+premiss in the investigations of science, when those investigations
+are necessary to complete the proof of the law itself? How can this
+principle accompany and authorise every step we take in science, which
+itself needs confirmation so long as a process of induction remains to
+be performed? Or how can this law be established by a series of
+inductions, in making which it has been taken for granted?
+
+Objections which wear the air of a quibble have often this
+advantage--they put our knowledge to the test. The obligation to find
+a complete answer clears up our own conceptions. The observations
+which Mr Mill makes on this point, we shall quote at length. They are
+taken from his chapter on the _Evidence of the Law of Universal
+Causation_; the views in which are as much distinguished for boldness
+as for precision.
+
+After having said, that in all the several methods of induction the
+universality of the law of causation is assumed, he continues:--
+
+    "But is this assumption warranted? Doubtless (it may be
+    said) _most_ phenomena are connected as effects with
+    some antecedent or cause--that is, are never produced
+    unless some assignable fact has preceded them; but the
+    very circumstance, that complicated processes of
+    induction are sometimes necessary, shows that cases
+    exist in which this regular order of succession is not
+    apparent to our first and simplest apprehension. If,
+    then, the processes which bring these cases within the
+    same category with the rest, require that we should
+    assume the universality of the very law which they do
+    not at first sight appear to exemplify, is not this a
+    real _petitio principii_? Can we prove a proposition by
+    an argument which takes it for granted? And, if not so
+    proved, on what evidence does it rest?
+
+    "For this difficulty, which I have purposely stated in
+    the strongest terms it would admit of, the school of
+    metaphysicians, who have long predominated in this
+    country, find a ready salvo. They affirm that the
+    universality of causation is a truth which we cannot
+    help believing; that the belief in it is an instinct,
+    one of the laws of our believing faculty. As the proof
+    of this they say, and they have nothing else to say,
+    that every body _does_ believe it; and they number it
+    among the propositions, rather numerous in their
+    catalogue, which may be logically argued against, and
+    perhaps cannot be logically proved, but which are of
+    higher authority than logic, and which even he who
+    denies in speculation, shows by his habitual practice
+    that his arguments make no impression on himself.
+
+    "I have no intention of entering into the merits of this
+    question, as a problem of transcendental metaphysics.
+    But I must renew my protest against adducing, as
+    evidence of the truth of a fact in external nature, any
+    necessity which the human mind may be conceived to be
+    under of believing it. It is the business of human
+    intellect to adapt itself to the realities of things,
+    and not to measure those realities by its own capacities
+    of comprehension. The same quality which fits mankind
+    for the offices and purposes of their own little life,
+    the tendency of their belief to follow their experience,
+    incapacitates them for judging of what lies beyond. Not
+    only what man can know, but what he can conceive,
+    depends upon what he has experienced. Whatever forms a
+    part of all his experience, forms a part also of all his
+    conceptions, and appears to him universal and necessary,
+    though really, for aught he knows, having no existence
+    beyond certain narrow limits. The habit, however, of
+    philosophical analysis, of which it is the surest effect
+    to enable the mind to command, instead of being
+    commanded by, the laws of the merely passive part of its
+    own nature, and which, by showing to us that things are
+    not necessarily connected in fact because their ideas
+    are connected in our minds, is able to loosen
+    innumerable associations which reign despotically over
+    the undisciplined mind; this habit is not without power
+    even over those associations which the philosophical
+    school, of which I have been speaking, regard as connate
+    and instinctive. I am convinced that any one accustomed
+    to abstraction and analysis, who will fairly exert his
+    faculties for the purpose, will, when his imagination
+    has once learned to entertain the notion, find no
+    difficulty in conceiving that in some one, for instance,
+    of the many firmaments into which sidereal astronomy now
+    divides the universe, events may succeed one another at
+    random, without any fixed law; nor can any thing in our
+    experience, or in our mental nature, constitute a
+    sufficient, or indeed any, reason for believing that
+    this is nowhere the case. The grounds, therefore, which
+    warrant us in rejecting such a supposition with respect
+    to any of the phenomena of which we have experience,
+    must be sought elsewhere than in any supposed necessity
+    of our intellectual faculties.
+
+    "As was observed in a former place, the belief we
+    entertain in the universality, throughout nature, of the
+    law of cause and effect, is itself an instance of
+    induction; and by no means one of the earliest which any
+    of us, or which mankind in general, can have made. We
+    arrive at this universal law by generalisation from many
+    laws of inferior generality. The generalising propensity
+    which, instinctive or not, is one of the most powerful
+    principles of our nature, does not indeed wait for the
+    period when such a generalisation becomes strictly
+    legitimate. The mere unreasoning propensity to expect
+    what has been often experienced, doubtless led men to
+    believe that every thing had a cause, before they could
+    have conclusive evidence of that truth. But even this
+    cannot be supposed to have happened until many cases of
+    causation, or, in other words, many partial uniformities
+    of sequence, had become familiar. The more obvious of
+    the particular uniformities suggest and prove the
+    general uniformity; and that general uniformity, once
+    established, enables us to prove the remainder of the
+    particular uniformities of which it is made up. * * *
+
+    "With respect to the general law of causation, it does
+    appear that there must have been a time when the
+    universal prevalence of that law throughout nature could
+    not have been affirmed in the same confident and
+    unqualified manner as at present. There was a time when
+    many of the phenomena of nature must have appeared
+    altogether capricious and irregular, not governed by any
+    laws, nor steadily consequent upon any causes. Such
+    phenomena, indeed, were commonly, in that early stage of
+    human knowledge, ascribed to the direct intervention of
+    the will of some supernatural being, and therefore still
+    to a cause. This shows the strong tendency of the human
+    mind to ascribe every phenomenon to some cause or other;
+    but it shows also that experience had not, at that time,
+    pointed out any regular order in the occurrence of those
+    particular phenomena, nor proved them to be, as we now
+    know that they are, dependent upon prior phenomena as
+    their proximate causes. There have been sects of
+    philosophers who have admitted what they termed Chance
+    as one of the agents in the order of nature by which
+    certain classes of events were entirely regulated; which
+    could only mean that those events did not occur in any
+    fixed order, or depend upon uniform laws of causation.
+    * * *
+
+    "The progress of experience, therefore, has dissipated
+    the doubt which must have rested upon the universality
+    of the law of causation, while there were phenomena
+    which seemed to be _sui generis_; not subject to the
+    same laws with any other class of phenomena, and not as
+    yet ascertained to have peculiar laws of their own. This
+    great generalisation, however, might reasonably have
+    been, as it in fact was by all great thinkers, acted
+    upon as a probability of the highest order, before there
+    were sufficient grounds for receiving it as a certainty.
+    For, whatever has been found true in innumerable
+    instances, and never found to be false after due
+    examination in any, we are safe in acting upon as
+    universal provisionally, until an undoubted exception
+    appears; provided the nature of the case be such that a
+    real exception could scarcely have escaped our notice.
+    When every phenomenon that we ever knew sufficiently
+    well to be able to answer the question, had a cause on
+    which it was invariably consequent, it was more rational
+    to suppose that our inability to assign the causes of
+    other phenomena arose from our ignorance, than that
+    there were phenomena which were uncaused, and which
+    happened accidentally to be exactly those which we had
+    hitherto had no sufficient opportunity of
+    studying."--Vol. II. p. 108.
+
+
+_Hypotheses._--Mr Mill's observations on the use of hypotheses in
+scientific investigation, except that they are characterized by his
+peculiar distinctness and accuracy of thought, do not differ from the
+views generally entertained by writers on the subject. We are induced
+to refer to the topic, to point out what seems to us a harsh measure
+dealt out to the undulatory theory of light--harsh when compared with
+the reception given to a theory of Laplace, having for its object to
+account for the origin of the planetary system.
+
+We had occasion to quote a passage from Mr Mill, in which he remarks
+that the majority of scientific men seem not yet to have completely
+got over the difficulty of conceiving matter to act (contrary to the
+old maxim) where it is not; "for though," he says, "they have at last
+learned to conceive the sun _attracting_ the earth without any
+intervening fluid, they cannot yet conceive the sun _illuminating_ the
+earth without some such medium." But it is not only this difficulty
+(which doubtless, however, is felt) of conceiving the sun illuminating
+the earth without any medium by which to communicate its influence,
+which leads to the construction of the hypothesis, either of an
+undulating ether, or of emitted particles. The analogy of the other
+senses conducts us almost irresistibly to the imagination of some such
+medium. The nerves of sense are, apparently, in all cases that we can
+satisfactorily investigate, affected by contact, by impulse. The nerve
+of sight itself, we know, when touched or pressed upon, gives out the
+sensation of light. These reasons, in the first place, conduct us to
+the supposition of some medium, having immediate communication with
+the eye; which medium, though we are far from saying that its
+existence is established, is rendered probable by the explanation it
+affords of optical phenomena. At the same time it is evident that the
+hypothesis of an undulating ether, assumes a fluid or some medium, the
+existence of which cannot be directly ascertained. Thus stands the
+hypothesis of a luminiferous ether--in what must be allowed to be a
+very unsatisfactory condition. But a condition, we think, very
+superior to the astronomical speculation of Laplace, which Mr Mill,
+after scrutinizing the preceding hypothesis with the utmost
+strictness, is disposed to treat with singular indulgence.
+
+    "The speculation is," we may as well quote throughout Mr
+    Mill's words, "that the atmosphere of the sun originally
+    extended to the present limits of the solar system: from
+    which, by the process of cooling, it has contracted to
+    its present dimensions; and since, by the general
+    principles of mechanics, the rotation of the sun and its
+    accompanying atmosphere must increase as rapidly as its
+    volume diminishes, the increased centrifugal force
+    generated by the more rapid rotation, overbalancing the
+    action of gravitation, would cause the sun to abandon
+    successive rings of vaporous matter, which are supposed
+    to have condensed by cooling, and to have become our
+    planets.
+
+    "There is in this theory," Mr Mill proceeds, "no unknown
+    substance introduced upon supposition, nor any unknown
+    property or law ascribed to a known substance. The known
+    laws of matter authorize us to suppose, that a body
+    which is constantly giving out so large an amount of
+    heat as the sun is, must be progressively cooling, and
+    that by the process of cooling it must contract; if,
+    therefore, we endeavour, from the present state of that
+    luminary, to infer its state in a time long past, we
+    must necessarily suppose that its atmosphere extended
+    much further than at present, and we are entitled to
+    suppose that it extended as far as we can trace those
+    effects which it would naturally leave behind it on
+    retiring; and such the planets are. These suppositions
+    being made, it follows from known laws that successive
+    zones of the solar atmosphere would be abandoned; that
+    these would continue to revolve round the sun with the
+    same velocity as when they formed part of his substance,
+    and that they would cool down, long before the sun
+    himself, to any given temperature, and consequently to
+    that at which the greater part of the vaporous matter of
+    which they consisted would become liquid or solid. The
+    known law of gravitation would then cause them to
+    agglomerate in masses, which would assume the shape our
+    planets actually exhibit; would acquire, each round its
+    own axis, a rotatory movement; and would in that state
+    revolve, as the planets actually do, about the sun, in
+    the same direction with the sun's rotation, but with
+    less velocity, and each of them in the same periodic
+    time which the sun's rotation occupied when his
+    atmosphere extended to that point; and this also M.
+    Comte has, by the necessary calculations, ascertained to
+    be true, within certain small limits of error. There is
+    thus in Laplace's theory nothing hypothetical; it is an
+    example of legitimate reasoning from a present effect to
+    its past cause, according to the known laws of that
+    case; it assumes nothing more than that objects which
+    really exist, obey the laws which are known to be obeyed
+    by all terrestrial objects resembling them."--Vol. II.
+    p. 27.
+
+Now, it seems to us that there is quite as much of hypothesis in this
+speculation of Laplace as in the undulatory theory of light. This
+atmosphere of the sun extending to the utmost limits of our planetary
+system! What proof have we that it ever existed? what possible
+grounds have we for believing, what motive even for imagining such a
+thing, but the very same description of proof given and rejected for
+the existence of a luminiferous ether--namely, that it enables us to
+explain certain events supposed to result from it? Nor is the thing
+here imagined any the less a novelty, because it bears the old name of
+an atmosphere. An atmosphere containing in itself all the various
+materials which compose our earth, and whatever else may enter into
+the composition of the other planets, is as violent a supposition as
+an ether, not perceptible to the senses except by its influence on the
+nerves of sight. And this cooling down of the sun! What fact in our
+experience enables us to advance such a supposition? We might as well
+say that the sun was getting hotter every year, or harder or softer,
+or larger or smaller. Surely Mr Mill could not have been serious when
+he says, that "the known laws of matter authorize us to suppose, that
+a body which is constantly _giving out so large an amount of heat_ as
+the sun is, must be progressively cooling"--knowing, as we do, as
+little how the sun occasions heat as how it produces light. Neither
+can it be contended that because no absolutely new substance, or new
+property of matter, is introduced, but a fantastic conception is
+framed out of known substances and known properties, that therefore
+there is less of rash conjecture in the supposition. In fine, it must
+be felt by every one who reads the account of this speculation of
+Laplace, that the only evidence which produces the least effect upon
+his mind, is the corroboration which it receives from the calculations
+of the mathematician--a species of proof which Mr Mill himself would
+not estimate very highly.
+
+Many are the topics which are made to reflect a new light as Mr Mill
+passes along his lengthened course; we might quote as instances, his
+chapters on _Analogy_ and the _Calculation of Chances_: and many are
+the grave and severe discussions that would await us were we to
+proceed to the close of his volumes, especially to that portion of his
+work where he applies the canons of science to investigations which
+relate to human nature and the characters of men. But enough for the
+present. We repeat, in concluding, the same sentiment that we
+expressed at the commencement, that such a work as this goes far to
+redeem the literature of our age from the charge of frivolity and
+superficiality. Those who have been trained in a different school of
+thinking, those who have adopted the metaphysics of the transcendental
+philosophy, will find much in these volumes to dissent from; but no
+man, be his pretensions or his tenets what they may, who has been
+accustomed to the study of philosophy, can fail to recognize and
+admire in this author that acute, patient, enlarged, and persevering
+thought, which gives to him who possesses it the claim and right to
+the title of philosopher. There are few men who--applying it to his
+own species of excellence--might more safely repeat the _Io sono
+anche!_ of the celebrated Florentine.
+
+
+
+
+MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+
+
+People are fond of talking of the hereditary feuds of Italy--the
+factions of the Capulets and Montagues, the Orsini and Colonne--and,
+more especially, of the memorable _Vendette_ of Corsica--as if hatred
+and revenge were solely endemic in the regions of
+
+    "The Pyrenean and the river Po!"
+
+Mere prejudice! There is as good hating going on in England as
+elsewhere. Independent of the personal antipathies generated by
+politics, the envy, hatred, and malice arising out of every election
+contest, not a country neighbourhood but has its raging factions; and
+Browns and Smiths often cherish and maintain an antagonism every whit
+as bitter as that of the sanguinary progenitors of Romeo and Juliet.
+
+I, for instance, who am but a country gentleman in a small way--an
+obscure bachelor, abiding from year's end to year's end on my
+insignificant farm--have witnessed things in my time, which, had they
+been said and done nearer the tropics, would have been cited far and
+near in evidence of the turbulence of human passions, and that "the
+heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Seeing
+that they chanced in a homely parish in Cheshire, no one has been at
+the trouble to note their strangeness; though, to own the truth, none
+but the actors in the drama (besides myself, a solitary spectator) are
+cognizant of its incidents and catastrophe. I might boast, indeed,
+that I alone am thoroughly in the secret; for it is the spectator only
+who competently judges the effects of a scene; and merely changing the
+names, for reasons easily conceivable, I ask leave to relate in the
+simplest manner a few facts in evidence of my assertion, that England
+has its Capuletti e Montecchi as well as Verona.
+
+In the first place, let me premise that I am neither of a condition of
+life, nor condition of mind, to mingle as a friend with those of whose
+affairs I am about to treat so familiarly, being far too crotchety a
+fellow not to prefer a saunter with my fishing-tackle on my back, or
+an evening tete-a-tete with my library of quaint old books, to all the
+good men's feasts ever eaten at the cost of a formal country visit.
+Nevertheless, I am not so cold of heart as to be utterly devoid of
+interest in the destinies of those whose turrets I see peering over
+the woods that encircle my corn-fields; and as the good old
+housekeeper, who for these thirty years past has presided over my
+household, happens to have grandchildren high in service in what are
+called the two great families in the neighbourhood, scarcely an event
+or incident passes within their walls that does not find an echo in
+mine. So much in attestation of my authority. But for such an
+introduction behind the scenes, much of the stage business of this
+curious drama would have escaped my notice, or remained
+incomprehensible.
+
+I am wrong to say the two great "families;" I should have said the two
+great "houses." At the close of the last century, indeed, our parish
+of Lexley contained but one; one which had stood there since the days
+of the first James, nay, even earlier--a fine old manorial hall of
+grand dimensions and stately architecture, of the species of mixed
+Gothic so false in taste, but so ornamental in effect, which is
+considered as betraying the first symptoms of Italian innovation.
+
+The gardens extending in the rear of the house were still more
+decidedly in the Italian taste, having clipped evergreens and avenues
+of pyramidal yews, which, combined with the intervening statues,
+imparted to them something of the air of a cemetery. There were
+fountains, too, which, in the memory of man, had been never known to
+play, the marble basins being, if possible, still greener than the
+grim visages of the fauns and dryads standing forlorn on their
+dilapidated pedestals amid the neglected alleys.
+
+The first thing I can remember of Lexley Hall, was peeping as a child
+through the stately iron gratings of the garden, that skirted a
+by-road leading from my grandfather's farm. The desolateness of the
+place overawed my young heart. In summer time the parterres were
+overgrown into a wilderness. The plants threw up their straggling arms
+so high, that the sunshine could hardly find its way to the quaint old
+dial that stood there telling its tale of time, though no man
+regarded; and the cordial fragrance of the strawberry-beds, mingling
+with entangled masses of honeysuckle in their exuberance of midsummer
+blossom, seemed to mock me, as I loitered in the dusk near the old
+gateway, with the tantalizing illusions of a fairy-tale--the
+Barmecide's feast, or Prince Desire surveying his princess through the
+impermeable walls of her crystal palace.
+
+But if the enjoyment of the melancholy old gardens of Lexley Hall were
+withheld from _me_, no one else seemed to find pleasure or profit
+therein. Sir Laurence Altham, the lord of the manor and manor-house,
+was seldom resident in the country. Though a man of mature years, (I
+speak of the close of the last century,) he was still a man of
+pleasure--the ruined hulk of the gallant vessel which, early in the
+reign of George III., had launched itself with unequalled brilliancy
+on the sparkling current of London life.
+
+At that time, I have heard my grandfather say there was not a mortgage
+on the Lexley estate! The timber was notoriously the finest in the
+county. A whole navy was comprised in one of its coppices; and the
+arching avenues were imposing as the aisles of our Gothic minsters.
+Alas! it needed the lapse of only half a dozen years to lay bare to
+the eye of every casual traveller the ancient mansion, so long
+
+    "Bosom'd high in tufted trees,"
+
+and only guessed at till you approached the confines of the
+court-yard.
+
+It was hazard that effected this. The dice-box swept those noble
+avenues from the face of the estate. Soon after Sir Laurence's coming
+of age, almost before the church-bells had ceased to announce the
+joyous event of the attainment of his majority, he was off to the
+Continent--Paris--Italy--I know not where, and was thenceforward only
+occasionally heard of in Cheshire as the ornament of the Sardinian or
+Austrian courts. But these tidings were usually accompanied by a
+shaking of the head from the old family steward. The timber was to be
+thinned anew--the tenants to be again amerced. Sir Laurence evidently
+looked upon the Lexley property as a mere hotbed for his vices. At
+last the old steward turned surly to our enquiries, and would answer
+no further questions concerning his master. My grandfather's small
+farm was the only plot of ground in the parish that did not belong to
+the estate; and from him the faithful old servant was as careful to
+conceal the family disgraces, as to maintain the honour of Sir
+Laurence's name in the ears of his grumbling tenants.
+
+The truth, however, could not long be withheld. Chaisefuls of
+suspicious-looking men in black arrived at the hall; loungers,
+surveyors, auctioneers--I know not what. There was talk in the parish
+about foreclosing a mortgage, no one exactly understood why, or by
+whom. But it was soon clear that Wightman, the old steward, was no
+longer the great man at Lexley. These strangers bade him come here and
+go there exactly as they chose, and, unhappily, they saw fit to make
+his comings and goings so frequent and so humiliating, that before the
+close of the summer the old servitor betook himself to his rest in a
+spot where all men cease from troubling. The leaves that dreary autumn
+fell upon his grave.
+
+According to my grandfather's account, however, few even of his
+village contemporaries grieved for old Wightman. They felt that
+Providence knew best; that the old man was happily spared the
+mortification of all that was likely to ensue. For before another year
+was out the ring fence, which had hitherto encircled the Lexley
+property, was divided within itself; a paltry distribution of about a
+hundred acres alone remaining attached to the old hall. The rest was
+gone! The rest was the property of the foreclosee of that hateful
+mortgage.
+
+Within view of the battlements of the old manor-house, nearly a
+hundred workmen were soon employed in digging the foundations of a
+modern mansion of the noblest proportions. The new owner of the
+estate, though only a manufacturer from Congleton, chose to dwell in a
+palace; and by the time his splendid Doric temple was complete, under
+the name of Lexley Park, the vain-glorious proprietor, Mr Sparks, had
+taken his seat in Parliament for a neighbouring borough.
+
+Little was known of him in the neighbourhood beyond his name and
+calling; yet already his new tenants were prepared to oppose and
+dislike him. Though they knew quite as little personally of the young
+baronet by whom they had been sold into bondage to the unpopular
+clothier--him, with the caprice of ignorance, they chose to prefer.
+They were proud of the old family--proud of the hereditary lords of
+the soil--proud of a name connecting itself with the glories of the
+reign of Elizabeth, and the loyalty shining, like a sepulchral lamp,
+through the gloomy records of the House of Stuart. The banners and
+escutcheons of the Althams were appended in their parish church. The
+family vault sounded hollow under their head whenever they approached
+its altar. Where was the burial-place of the manufacturer? In what
+obscure churchyard existed the mouldering heap that covered the
+remains of the sires of Mr Jonas Sparks? Certainly not at Lexley!
+Lexley knew not, and cared not to know, either him or his. It was no
+fault of the parish that its young baronet had proved a spendthrift
+and alienated the inheritance of his fathers; and, but that he had
+preserved the manor-house from desecration, they would perhaps have
+ostracized him altogether, as having lent his aid to disgrace their
+manor with so noble a structure as the porticoed facade of Lexley
+Park!
+
+Meanwhile the shrewd Jonas was fully aware of his unpopularity and its
+origin; and, during a period of three years, he allowed his
+ill-advised subjects to chew, unmolested, the cud of their discontent.
+Having a comfortable residence at the further extremity of the county,
+he visited Lexley only to overlook the works, or notice the placing of
+the costly new furniture; and the grumblers began to fancy they were
+to profit as little by their new masters as by their old. The steward
+who replaced the trusty Wightman, and had been instructed to legislate
+among the cottages with a lighter hand, and distribute Christmas
+benefaction in a double proportion, was careful to circulate in the
+parish an impression that Mr Sparks and his family did not care to
+inhabit the new house till the gardens were in perfect order, the
+succession houses in full bearing, and the mansion thoroughly
+seasoned. But the Lexleyans guessed the truth, that he had no mind to
+confront the first outbreak of their ill-will.
+
+Nearly four years elapsed before he took possession of the place; four
+years, during which Sir Laurence Altham had never set foot in the
+hall, and was heard of only through his follies and excesses; and when
+Mr Sparks at length made his appearance, with his handsome train of
+equipages, and surrounded by his still handsomer family, so far from
+meeting him with sullen silence, the tenantry began to regret that
+they had not erected a triumphal arch of evergreens for his entrance
+into the park, as had been proposed by the less eager of the
+Althamites.
+
+After all, their former prejudice in favour of the young baronet was
+based on very shallow foundations. What had he ever done for them
+except raise their rents, and prosecute their trespasses? It was
+nothing that his forefathers had endowed almshouses for their support,
+or served up banquets for their delectation--Sir Laurence was an
+absentee--Sir Laurence was as the son of the stranger. The fine old
+kennel stood cold and empty, reminding them that to preserve their
+foxes was no longer an article of Lexley religion; and if any of the
+old October, brewed at the birth of the present baronet, still filled
+the oaken hogsheads in the cellars of the hall, what mattered it to
+them? No chance of their being broached, unless to grace the funeral
+feast of the lord of the manor.
+
+To Jonas Sparks, Esq. M.P., accordingly, they dedicated their
+allegiance. A few additional chaldrons of coals and pairs of blankets,
+the first frosty winter, bound them his slaves for ever. Food, physic,
+and wine, were liberally distributed to the sick and aged whenever
+they repaired for relief to the Doric portico; and, with the usual
+convenient memory of the vulgar, the Lexleyans soon began to remember
+of the Altham family only their recent backslidings and ancient feudal
+oppressions: while of the Sparkses they chose to know only what was
+evident to all eyes--viz., that their hands were open and faces
+comely.
+
+Into their hearts--more especially into that of Jonas, the head of the
+house--they examined not at all; and were ill-qualified to surmise the
+intensity of bitterness with which, while contemplating the beauty and
+richness of his new domain, he beheld the turrets of the old hall
+rising like a statue of scorn above the intervening woods. There stood
+the everlasting monument of the ancient family--there the emblem of
+their pride, throwing its shadow, as it were, over his dawning
+prosperity! But for that force of contrast thus afforded, he would
+scarcely have perceived the newness of all the objects around him--the
+glare of the fresh freestone--the nakedness of the whited walls. A few
+stately old oaks and elms, apparently coeval with the ancient
+structure, which a sort of religious feeling had preserved from the
+axe, that they might afford congenial shade to the successor of its
+founder, seemed to impart meanness and vulgarity to the tapering
+verdure of _his_ plantations, his modern trees--his pert poplars and
+mean larches--his sycamores and planes. Even the incongruity between
+his solid new paling and the decayed and sun-bleached wood of the
+venerable fence to which it adjoined, with its hoary beard of silvery
+lichen, was an eyesore to him. Every passer-by might note the limit
+and circumscription dividing the new place from the ancient seat of
+the lords of the manor.
+
+Yet was the landscape of Lexley Park one of almost unequalled beauty.
+The Dee formed noble ornament to its sweeping valleys; while the noble
+acclivities were clothed with promising woods, opening by rich vistas
+to a wide extent of champaign country. A fine bridge of granite,
+erected by the late Sir Windsor Altham, formed a noble object from the
+windows of the new mansion; and but for the evidence of the venerable
+pile, that stood like an abdicated monarch surveying its lost
+dominions, there existed no external demonstration that Lexley Park
+had not from the beginning of time formed the estated seat of the
+Sparkses.
+
+The neighbouring families, if "neighbouring" could be called certain
+of the nobility and gentry who resided at ten miles' distance, were
+courteously careful to inspire the new settler with a belief that they
+at least had forgotten any antecedent state of things at Lexley; for
+they had even reason to congratulate themselves on the change. Jonas
+had long been strenuously active in the House of Commons in promoting
+county improvements. Jonas was useful as a magistrate, and invaluable
+as a liberal contributor to the local charities. During the first five
+years of his occupancy, he did more for Lexley and its inhabitants
+than the half-dozen previous baronets of the House of Altham.
+
+Of the man he had superseded, meanwhile, it was observed that Mr
+Sparks was judiciously careful to forbear all mention. It might have
+been supposed that he had purchased the estate of the Crown or the
+Court of Chancery, so utterly ignorant did he appear of the age,
+habits, and whereabout of his predecessor; and when informed by Sir
+John Wargrane, one of his wealthy neighbours, that young Altham was
+disgracing himself again--that at the public gaming-tables at Toplitz
+he had been a loser of thirty thousand pounds--the cunning _parvenu_
+listened with an air of as vague indifference as if he were not
+waiting with breathless anxiety the gradual dissipation of the funds,
+secured to the young spendthrift by the transfer of his estate, to
+grasp at the small remaining portion of his property. Unconsciously,
+when the tale of Sir Laurence's profligacy met his ear, he clenched
+his griping hand, as though it already recognized its hold upon the
+destined spoil, but not a word did he utter.
+
+Meanwhile, the family of the new squire of Lexley were winning golden
+opinions on all sides. "The boys were brave--the girls were fair," the
+mother virtuous, pious, and unpretending. It would have been
+scandalous, indeed, to sneer to shame the modest cheerfulness of such
+people, because their ancestors had not fought at the Crusades. By
+degrees, they assumed an honourable and even eminent position in the
+county; and the first time Sir Laurence Altham condescended to visit
+the county-palatine, he heard nothing but commendations and admiration
+of the charming family at Lexley Park.
+
+"Charming family!--a Jonas Sparks, and charming!" was his
+supercilious reply. "I rejoice to find that the _fumier_ I have been
+forced to fling on my worn-out ancestral estate is fertilizing its
+barrenness. The village is probably the better for the change. But, as
+regards the society, I must be permitted to mistrust the attractions
+of the brood of a Congleton manufacturer."
+
+The young baronet, who now, though still entitled to be called young,
+was disfigured by the premature defeatures of a vicious life,
+mistrusted it all the more, when, on visiting the old hall, he was
+forced to recognize the improvements effected in the neighbouring
+property (that he should be forced to call it "_neighbouring_!") by
+the judicious administration of the new owner. It was impossible to
+deny that Mr Sparks had doubled its value, while enhancing its
+beauties. The low grounds were drained, the high lands planted, the
+river widened, the forestry systematically organized. The estate
+appeared to have attained new strength and vigour when dissevered from
+the old manor-house; whose shadow might be supposed to have exercised
+a baleful influence on the lands wherever it presided.
+
+But it was not his recognition of this that was likely to animate the
+esteem of Sir Laurence Altham for Mr Jonas Sparks. On the contrary, he
+felt every accession of value to the Lexley property as so much
+subtracted from his belongings; and his detestation of the upstarts,
+whose fine mansion was perceptible from his lordly towers--like a blot
+upon the fairness of the landscape--increased with the increase of
+their prosperity.
+
+Without having expected to take delight in a sojourn at Lexley Hall--a
+spot where he had only resided for a few weeks now and then, from the
+period of his early boyhood--he was not prepared for the excess of
+irritation that arose in his heart on witnessing the total
+estrangement of the retainers of his family. For the mortification of
+seeing a fine new house, with gorgeous furniture, and a pompous
+establishment, he came armed to the teeth. But no presentiments had
+forewarned him, that at Lexley the living Althams were already as much
+forgotten as those who were sleeping in the family vault. The sudden
+glow that pervaded his whole frame when he chanced to encounter on the
+highroad the rich equipage of the Sparkses; or the imprecation that
+burst from his lips, when, on going to the window of a morning to
+examine the state of the weather for the day, the first objects that
+struck him was the fair mansion in the plain below, laughing as it
+were in the sunshine, the deer grouped under its fine old trees, and
+the river rippling past its lawns as if delighting in their
+verdure----Yes! there was decided animosity betwixt the hill and the
+valley.
+
+Every successive season served to quicken the pulses of this growing
+hatred. Whether on the spot or at a distance, a thousand aggravations
+sprang up betwixt the parties: disputes between gamekeepers, quarrels
+between labourers, encroachments by tenants. Every thing and nothing
+was made the groundwork of ill-will. To Sir Laurence Altham's
+embittered feelings, the very rooks of Lexley Park seemed evermore to
+infringe upon the privileges of the rookery at Lexley Hall; and when,
+in the parish church, the new squire (or rather his workmen, for he
+was absent at the time attending his duties in Parliament)
+inadvertently broke off the foot of a marble cherub, weeping its
+alabaster tears, at the angle of a monument to the memory of a certain
+Sir Wilfred Altham, of the time of James II., in raising the woodwork
+of a pew occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the rage of Sir Laurence was
+so excessive as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat.
+
+The enmity of the baronet was all the more painful to himself that he
+felt it to be harmless against its object. In every way, Lexley Park
+had the best of it. Jonas Sparks was not only rich in a noble income,
+but in a charming wife and promising family. Every thing prospered
+with him; and, as to mere inferiority of precedence, it was well known
+that he had refused a baronetcy; and many people even surmised that,
+so soon as he was able to purchase another borough, and give a seat in
+Parliament to his second son, as well as resign his own to the eldest,
+he would be promoted to the Upper House.
+
+The only means of vengeance, therefore, possessed by the vindictive
+man whose follies and vices had been the means of creating this
+perpetual scourge to his pride, was withholding from him the purchase
+of the remaining lands indispensable to the completion of his estate,
+more especially as regarded the water-courses, which, at Lexley Park,
+were commanded by the sluices of the higher grounds of the Hall; and
+mighty was the oath sworn by Sir Laurence, that come what might,
+however great his exigencies or threatening his poverty, nothing
+should induce him to dispose of another acre to Jonas Sparks. He was
+even at the trouble of executing a will, in order to introduce a
+clause imposing the same reservation upon the man to whom he devised
+his small remaining property--the heir-at-law, to whom, had he died
+intestate, it would have descended without conditions.
+
+"The Congleton shopkeepers," muttered he, (whenever, in his solitary
+evening rides, he caught sight of the rich plate-glass windows of the
+new mansion, burnished by the setting sun,) "shall never, never lord
+it under the roof of my forefathers! Wherever else he may set his
+plebeian foot, Lexley Hall shall be sacred. Rather see the old place
+burned to the ground--rather set fire to it with my own hands--than
+conceive that, when I am in my grave, it could possibly be subjected
+to the rule of such a barbarian!"
+
+For it had reached the ears of Sir Laurence--of course, with all the
+exaggeration derived from passing through the medium of village
+gossip--that a thousand local legends concerning the venerable
+mansion, sanctified by their antiquity in the ears of the family,
+afforded a fertile source of jesting to Jonas Sparks. The Hall
+abounded in concealed staircases and iron hiding-places, connected
+with a variety of marvellous traditions of the civil wars; besides a
+walled-up suite of chambers, haunted, as becomes a walled-up suite of
+chambers; and justice-rooms and tapestried-rooms, to which the long
+abandonment of the house, and the heated imaginations of the few
+menials left in charge of its desolate vastness, attributed romances
+likely enough to have provoked the laughter of a matter-of-fact man
+like the owner of Lexley Park. But neither Sir Laurence nor his old
+servants were likely to forgive this insult offered to the family
+legends of a house which had little else left to boast of. Even the
+neighbouring families were displeased to hear them derided; and my
+grandfather never liked to hear a joke on the subject of the
+coach-and-four which was said to have driven into the court-yard of
+the Hall on the eve of the execution of the rebel lords in 1745,
+having four headless inmates, who were duly welcomed as guests by old
+Sir Robert Altham. Nay, as a child, I had so often thrilled on my
+nurse's knees during the relation of this spectral visitation, that I
+own I felt indignant if any one presumed to laugh at a tale which had
+made me quake for fear.
+
+Among those who were known to resent the familiar tone in which Mr
+Sparks had been heard to criticise the pomps and vanities exhibited at
+Lexley Hall by the Althams of the olden time, was a certain General
+Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat of his own at about ten miles'
+distance, was fond of bringing over his visitors to visit the old
+Hall, as an interesting specimen of county antiquity. _He_ knew the
+peculiarities of the place, and could repeat the traditions connected
+with the hiding-places better than the housekeeper herself; and I have
+heard her say it was a pleasure to hear him relating these historical
+anecdotes with all the fire of an old soldier, and see his venerable
+grey hair blown about as he stood with his party on the battlements,
+pointing out to the ladies the fine range of territory formerly
+belonging to the Althams. The old lady protested that the general was
+nearly as much grieved as herself to behold the old mansion so shorn
+of its beams; and certain it is, that once when, on visiting the hall
+after Sir Laurence had been some years an absentee, he found the grass
+growing among the disjointed stones of the cloisters and justice-hall,
+he made a handsome present to one of the housekeeper's nephews, on
+condition of his keeping the purlieus of the venerable mansion free
+from such disgraceful evidences of neglect.
+
+All this eventually reached the ears of the baronet; but instead of
+making him angry, as might have been expected, from one so tetchy and
+susceptible, he never encountered General Stanley, either in town or
+country, without demonstrations of respect. Though too reserved and
+morose for conversation, Sir Laurence was observed to take off his hat
+to him with a respect he was never seen to show towards the king or
+queen.
+
+About this time I began to take personal interest in the affairs of
+the neighbourhood, though my own were now of a nature to engross my
+attention. By my grandfather's death, I had recently come into the
+enjoyment of the small inheritance which has sufficed to the happiness
+of my life; and, renouncing the profession for which I was educated,
+settled myself permanently at Lexley.
+
+Well do I remember the melancholy face with which the good old rector,
+the very first evening we spent together, related to me in confidence
+that he had three years' dues in arrear to him from Lexley Hall; but
+that so wretched was said to be the state of Sir Laurence's
+embarrassments, that, for more than a year, his dread of arrest had
+kept him a close prisoner in his house in London.
+
+"We have not seen him here these six years!" observed Dr Whittingham;
+"and I doubt whether he will ever again set foot in the county. Since
+an execution was put into the Hall, he has never crossed the
+threshold, and I suspect never will. Far better were he to dispose of
+the property at once! Dismembered as it is, what pleasure can it
+afford him? And, since he is unlikely to marry and have heirs, there
+is less call upon him to retain this remaining relic of family pride;
+yet I am assured--nay, have good reason to know, that he has refused a
+very liberal offer on the part of Mr Sparks. Malicious people do say,
+by the way, that it was by the advice of Sparks's favourite attorneys
+the execution was enforced, and that no means have been left
+unattempted to disgust him with the place. Yet he is firm, you see,
+and persists in disappointing his creditors, and depriving himself of
+the comforts of life, merely in order that he may die, as his fathers
+did before him--the lord of Lexley Hall!"
+
+"I don't wonder!" said I, with the dawning sentiments of a landed
+proprietor--"'Tis a splendid old house, even in its present state of
+degradation; and, by Jove! I honour his pertinacity."
+
+Thus put upon the scent, I sometimes fancied I could detect wistful
+looks on the part of my prosperous neighbour of the Park, when, in the
+course of Dr Whittingham's somewhat lengthy sermons, he directed his
+eyes towards the carved old Gothic tribune, containing the family-pew
+of the Althams, in the parish church; and, whenever I happened to
+encounter him in the neighbourhood of the Hall, his face was so
+pointedly averted from the house, as if the mere object were an
+offence. I could not but wonder at his vexation; being satisfied in my
+own mind, that sooner or later the remaining heritage of the
+spendthrift must fall to his share.
+
+Judge, therefore, of my surprise, when one fine morning, as I
+sauntered into the village, I found the whole population gathered in
+groups on the little market-place, and discovered from the incoherent
+exclamations of the crowd, that "the new proprietor of the Hall had
+just driven through in a chaise-and-four!"
+
+Yes--"the new proprietor!" The place was sold! The good doctor's
+prediction was verified. Sir Laurence was never more to return to
+Lexley Hall!
+
+The satisfaction of the villagers almost equalled their surprise on
+finding that General Stanley was their new landlord. It suited them
+much better that there should be two families settled on the property
+than one; and as it was pretty generally reported, that, in the event
+of Sparks becoming the purchaser, he intended to demolish the old
+house, and reconsolidate the estate around his own more commodious
+mansion, they were right glad to find it rescued from such a
+sentence--General Stanley, who was the father of a family, would
+probably settle the hall on one of his daughters, after placing it in
+the state of repair so much needed.
+
+When the chaise-and-four returned, therefore, a few hours afterwards,
+through the village, the General was loudly cheered by his subjects.
+His partiality for the place was so well known at Lexley, that already
+these people seemed to behold in him the guardian of a monument so
+long the object of their pride.
+
+For my own part, nothing surprised me so much in the business as that
+Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers.
+It was worth thrice as much to _him_ as to any body else. It was the
+keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render
+Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in
+learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood)
+that whatever _my_ surprise on finding that the old Hall had changed
+its master, that of Sparks was far more overwhelming; that he was
+literally frantic on finding himself frustrated in expectations which
+formed the leading interest of his declining years. For the progress
+of time which had made _me_ a man and a landed proprietor, had
+converted the stout active squire into an infirm old man; and it was
+his absorbing wish to die sole owner of the whole property to which
+the baronets of the Altham family were born.
+
+He even indulged in expressions of irritation, which nearly proved the
+means of commencing this new neighbourship by a duel; accusing General
+Stanley of having possessed himself by unfair means of Sir Laurence's
+confidence, and employed agents, underhand, to effect the purchase. In
+consequence of these groundless representations, it transpired in the
+country that the decayed baronet had actually volunteered the offer of
+the estate to the veteran proprietor of Stanley Manor; that he had
+_solicited_ him to become the proprietor, and even accommodated him
+with peculiar facilities of payment, on condition of his inserting in
+the title-deeds an express undertaking, never to dispose of the old
+Hall, or any portion of the property, to Jonas Sparks of Lexley Park,
+or his heirs for ever. The solicitor by whom, under Sir Laurence's
+direction, the deeds had been prepared, saw fit to divulge this
+singular specification, rather than that a hostile encounter should
+run the risk of embruing in blood the hands of two grey haired men.
+
+Excepting as regarded the disappointment of our wealthy neighbour, all
+was now established on the happiest footing at Lexley. The reparation
+instantly commenced by the General, gave employment throughout the
+winter to our workmen; and the evils arising from an absentee landlord
+began gradually to disappear. It was a great joy to me to perceive
+that the new proprietor of the Hall had the good taste to preserve the
+antique character of the place in the minutest portion of his
+alterations; and though the old gardens were no longer a wilderness,
+not a shrub was displaced--not a mutilated statue removed. The
+furniture had been sold off at the time of the execution; and that
+which came down in cart-loads from town to replace it, was rigidly in
+accordance with the semi-Gothic architecture of the lofty chambers.
+Poor Sparks must have been doubly mortified; for not only did he find
+his old eyesore converted into an irremediable evil by the restoration
+of the Hall, but the supremacy hitherto maintained in the
+neighbourhood by the modern elegance of his house and establishment,
+was thrown into the shade by the rich and tasteful arrangements of the
+Hall.
+
+From the contracted look of his forehead, and sudden alteration of his
+appearance, I have reason to think he was beginning to undergo all the
+moral martyrdom sustained for thirty years past by the unfortunate Sir
+Laurence Altham; and were I not by nature the most contented of men,
+it would have sufficiently reconciled me to the mediocrity of my
+fortunes, to see that these two great people of my neighbourhood--the
+nobly-descended baronet and rich _parvenu_--were miserable men; that,
+so long as I could remember, one or other of them had been given over
+to surliness and discontent.
+
+Before the close of the year the grand old Hall had become one of the
+noblest seats in the county. There was talk about it in all the
+country round, and even the newspapers took notice of its renovation,
+and of General Stanley's removal thither from Stanley Manor. Many
+people, of the species who love to detect spots in the sun, were
+careful to point out the insufficiency of the estate, as at present
+constituted, to maintain so fine a house. But, after all, what
+mattered this to General Stanley, who had a fine rent-roll elsewhere?
+
+The first thing he did, on taking possession, was to give a grand ball
+to the neighbourhood; nor was it till the whole house was lighted up
+for this festive occasion, that people were fully aware of the
+grandeur of its proportions. He was good enough to send me an
+invitation on so especial an occasion. But already I had imbibed the
+distaste which has pursued me through life for what is called society;
+and I accordingly contented myself with surveying from a distance the
+fine effect produced by the light streaming from the multitude of
+windows, and exhibiting to the whole country round the gorgeous nature
+of the decorations within. To own the truth, I could scarcely forbear
+regretting, as I surveyed them, the gloomy dilapidation of the
+venerable mansion. This modernized antiquity was a very different
+thing from the massy grandeur of its neglected years; and I am afraid
+I loved the old house better with the weeds springing from its
+crevices, than with all this carving and gilding, this ebony, and
+iron, and light.
+
+The people of Lexley imagined that nothing would induce the Sparks's
+family to be seen under General Stanley's roof. But we were mistaken.
+So much the contrary, that the squire of Lexley Park made a particular
+point of being the first and latest of the guests--not only because
+his reconciliation with his new neighbour was so recent, but from not
+choosing to authenticate, by his absence, the rumours of his grievous
+disappointment.
+
+For all the good he was likely to derive from his visit, the poor man
+had better have stayed away; for that unlucky night laid foundations
+of evil for him and his, far greater than any he had incurred from the
+animosity of Sir Laurence. Nay, when in the sequel these results
+became matter of public commentation, superstitious people were not
+wanting to hint that the evil spirit, traditionally said to haunt one
+of the wings of the old manor, and to have manifested itself on more
+than one occasion to members of the Altham family, (and more
+especially to the late worthless proprietor of the Hall,) had acquired
+a fatal power over the two supplanters of the ruined family the moment
+they crossed the threshold.
+
+General Stanley, after marrying late in life, had been some years a
+widower--a widower with two daughters, his co-heiresses. The elder of
+these young ladies was a hopeless invalid, slightly deformed, and so
+little attractive in person, or desirous to attract, that there was
+every prospect of the noble fortunes of the General centring in her
+sister. Yet this sister, this girl, had little need of such an
+accession to her charms; for she was one of those fortunate beings
+endowed not only with beauty and excellence, but with a power of
+pleasing not always united with even a combination of merit and
+loveliness.
+
+Every body agreed that Mary Stanley was charming. Old and young, rich
+and poor, all loved her, all delighted in her. It is true, the good
+rector's maiden sisters privately hinted to me their horror of the
+recklessness with which--sometimes with her sister, oftener without,
+but wholly unattended--she drove her little pony-chaise through the
+village, laughing like a madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland dog
+named Sergeant, the favourite of General Stanley, which, while
+escorting the young ladies, used to gambol into the cottages, overset
+furniture and children, and scamper out again amid a general uproar.
+For though Miss Mary was but sixteen, the starched spinsters decided
+that she was much too old for such folly; and that, if the General
+intended to present her at court, it was high time for her to lay
+aside the hoyden manners of childhood.
+
+But, as every one argued against them, why should this joyous, bright,
+and beautiful creature lay aside what became her so strangely? Mary
+Stanley was not made for the formalities of what is called
+high-breeding. Her light, easy, sinuous figure, did not lend itself to
+the rigid deportment of a prude; and her gay laughing eyes, and
+dimpled mouth, were ill calculated to grace a dignified position. The
+long ringlets of her profuse auburn hair were always out of
+order--either streaming in the wind, or straying over her white
+shoulders--her long lashes and beautifully defined eyebrows of the
+same rich tint, alone preserving any thing like uniformity--a
+uniformity which, combined with her almost Grecian regularity of
+features, gave her, on the rare occasions when her countenance and
+figure were at rest, the air of some nymph or dryad of ancient
+sculpture. But to compare Mary Stanley to any thing of marble is
+strangely out of place; for her real beauty consisted in the
+ever-varying play of her features, and a certain impetuosity of
+movement, that would have been a little characteristic of the romp,
+but that it was restrained by the spell of feminine sensibility. Heart
+was evidently the impulse of every look and every gesture.
+
+For a man of my years, methinks I am writing like a lover. And so I
+was! From the first moment I saw that girl, at an humble and
+unaspiring distance, I could dream of nothing else. Every thing and
+every body seemed fascinated by Mary Stanley. When she walked out into
+the fields with the General, her two hands clasping, like those of a
+child, her father's arm, his favourite colts used to come neighing
+playfully towards them; and not the fiercest dog of his extensive
+kennel but, even when unmanageable by the keeper, would creep fawning
+to her feet.
+
+It was strange enough, but still more fortunate, that all the
+adoration lavished upon this lovely creature by gentle and simple,
+Christian and brute, provoked no apparent jealousy on the part of her
+elder sister. Selina Stanley was afflicted with a cold, reserved,
+unhappy countenance, only too completely in unison with her
+disastrous position. But her heart was perhaps as genuine as her face
+was forbidding; for she loved the merry, laughing, handsome Mary,
+more as a mother her child, than as a sister nearly of her own
+years--that is, exultingly, but anxiously. Every one else foresaw
+nothing but prosperity, and joy, and love, in store for Mary. Selina
+prayed that it might prove so;--but she prayed with tears in her
+eyes, and trembling in her soul! For where are the destinies of
+persons thus exquisitely organized--thus full of love and
+loveliness--thus readily swayed to joy or sorrow, by the trivial
+incidents of life--characterised by what the world calls
+happiness--such happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed by the serene and
+the prudent, the unexcitable, the unaspiring! Miss Stanley foresaw
+only too truly, that the best days likely to be enjoyed by her
+sister, were those she was spending under her father's roof--a
+general idol--an object of deference and delight to all around.
+
+At the General's housewarming, though not previously introduced into
+society, Mary was the queen of the ball; and all present agreed, that
+one of the most pleasing circumstances of the evening was to watch the
+animated cordiality with which she flew from one to the other of those
+old neighbours of Stanley Manor, (whom she alone had managed to
+persuade that a dozen miles was no distance to prevent their accepting
+her father's invitation;) and not the most brilliant of her young
+friends received a more eager welcome, or more sustained attention
+throughout the evening, than the few homely elderly people, (such as
+my friends the Whittinghams,) who happened to share the hospitality of
+General Stanley. I daresay that even _I_, had I found courage to
+accept his invitation, should have received from the young beauty some
+gentle word, in addition to the kindly smiles with which she was sure
+to return my respectful obeisance whenever we met accidentally in the
+village.
+
+Mary was dressed in white, with a few natural flowers in her hair,
+which, owing to the impetuosity of her movements, soon fell out,
+leaving only a stray leaf or two, that would have looked ridiculous
+any where but among her rich, but dishevelled locks; and the pleasant
+anxieties of the evening imparted such a glow to her usually somewhat
+pale complexion, that her beauty is said to have been, that night,
+almost supernatural. She was more like the creature of a dream than
+one of those wooden puppets, who move mechanically through the world
+under the name of well brought-up young ladies.
+
+It will easily be conceived how much this ball, so rare an event in
+our quiet neighbourhood, was discussed, not only the following day,
+but for days and weeks to come. Even at the rectory I heard of nothing
+else; while by my good old housekeeper, who had a son in service at
+General Stanley's, and a daughter waiting-maid to Miss Sparks, I was
+let in to secrets concerning it of which even the rectory knew
+nothing.
+
+In the first place, though Mr Sparks had peremptorily signified from
+the first to his family, his desire that all should accompany him to
+Lexley Hall on this trying occasion, (and it was only natural he
+should wish to solace his wounded pride, by appearing before his noble
+neighbour surrounded by his handsome progeny,) two of his children
+had risen up in rebellion against the decree--and for the first
+time--for Sparks was happy in a dutiful and well-ordered family. But
+the youngest daughter, Kezia, a girl of high spirits and intelligence,
+who fancied she had been pointedly slighted by the Misses Stanley,
+when, in one of Mary's harum-scarum expeditions on her Shetland pony,
+she had passed without recognition the better-mounted young lady of
+Lexley Park; and the eldest son, who so positively refused to
+accompany his father to the house of a man by whom Mr Sparks had
+inconsiderately represented himself as aggrieved, that, for once, the
+kind parent was forced to play the tyrant, and insist on his
+obedience.
+
+It was, accordingly, with a very ill grace that these two, the
+prettiest of the daughters, and by far the handsomest of his three
+handsome sons, made their appearance at the _fete_. But no sooner were
+they welcomed by General Stanley and his daughters, than the brother
+and sister, who had mutually encouraged each other's disputes,
+hastened to recant their opinions.
+
+"How could you, dearest father, describe this courteous, high-bred old
+gentleman, as insolent and overbearing?"--whispered Kezia.
+
+"How could you possibly suppose that yonder lovely, gracious creature,
+intended to treat you with impertinence?"--was the rejoinder of her
+brother; and already the Stanleys had two enemies the less among their
+neighbours at Lexley Park.
+
+On the other hand, the General had been forced to have recourse to
+severe schooling to bring his daughters to a sense of what was due to
+_his guests_, as regarded the family of a man who was known to have
+spoken disparagingly of them all. Moreover, if the truth must be
+owned, Mary was not altogether free from the prejudices of her caste;
+and, proud of her father's noble extraction, was apt to pout her
+pretty lip on mention of "the people at Lexley Park;" for the General,
+who had no secrets from his girls, had foolishly permitted them to see
+certain letters addressed to him by the eccentric Sir Laurence Altham,
+justifying himself concerning the peculiar clause introduced into his
+deeds of conveyance of his Hall estate, on the grounds of the degraded
+origin of "the upstart" he was so malignantly intent on discomposing.
+
+"They will spoil our ball, dear papa--I _know_ these vulgar people
+will completely spoil our ball!" said she. "I think I hear them
+announced:--'Mr Jonas Sparks, Miss Basiliza and Miss Kezia
+Sparks!'--What names?"
+
+"The parents of Mr Sparks were dissenters," observed the General,
+trying to look severe. "Dissenters are apt to hold to scriptural
+names. But _name_ is not _nature_, Mary; and, to judge by appearances,
+this man's--this gentleman's--this Mr Sparks's daughters, have every
+qualification to be an ornament to society."
+
+"With all my heart, papa, but I wish it were not ours!" cried the
+wayward girl. "On the present occasion, especially, I could spare such
+an accession to our circle; for I know that Mr Sparks has presumed to
+speak of----"
+
+She was interrupted by a sterner reproof on the part of the General
+than he had ever before administered to his favourite daughter; and
+the consequence of this unusual severity was the distinguished
+reception bestowed, both by Selina and her sister, on the family from
+Lexley Park.
+
+Next day, however, General Stanley found a totally different cause for
+rebuke in the conduct of his dear Mary.
+
+"You talked to nobody last night, but those Sparks's!" said he. "Lord
+Dudley informed me he had asked you to dance three times in vain; and
+Lord Robert Stanley assured me _he_ could scarcely get a civil answer
+from you!--Yet you found time, Mary, to dance twice in the course of
+the evening with that son of Sparks's!"
+
+"That son of Sparks's, as you so despisingly call him, dearest papa,
+is a most charming partner; while Lord Dudley, and my cousin Robert,
+are little better than boors. Everard Sparks can talk and dance, as
+well as they ride across a country. Not but what he, too, passes for a
+tolerable sportsman; and do you know, papa, Mr Sparks is thinking
+seriously of setting up a pack of harriers at Lexley?"
+
+"At Lexley Park!" insisted her father, who chose to enforce the
+distinction instituted by Sir Laurence Altham. "I fancy he will have
+to ask my permission first. My land lies somewhat inconveniently, in
+case I choose to oppose his intentions."
+
+"But you won't oppose them!--No, no, dear papa, you sha'n't oppose
+them!"--cried Mary Stanley, throwing her arms coaxingly round her
+father's neck, and imprinting a kiss on his venerable forehead. "_Why_
+should we go on opposing and opposing, when it would be so much
+happier for all of us to live together as friends and neighbours?"
+
+The General surveyed her in silence for some moments as she looked up
+lovingly into his face; then gravely, and in silence, unclasped her
+arms from his neck. For the first time, he had gazed upon his
+favourite child without discerning beauty in her countenance, or
+finding favour for her supplications.
+
+"_My_ opinion of Mr Sparks and his family is not altered since
+yesterday," said he coldly, perceiving that she was about to renew her
+overtures for a pacification. "Your father's prejudices, Mary, are
+seldom so slightly grounded, that the adulation of a few gross
+compliments, such as were paid you last night by Mr Everard Sparks,
+may suffice for their obliteration. For the future, remember the less
+I hear of Lexley Park the better. In a few weeks we shall be in
+London, where our sphere is sufficiently removed, I am happy to say,
+from that of Mr Jonas Sparks, to secure me against the annoyance of
+familiarity with him or his."
+
+The partiality of his darling Mary for the handsomest and most
+agreeable young man who had ever sought to make himself agreeable to
+her, had sufficed to turn the arguments of General Stanley as
+decidedly _against_ his _parvenu_ neighbours, as, two days before, his
+eloquence had been exercised in their defence.
+
+And now commenced between the young people and their parents, one of
+those covert warfares certain to arise from similar interdictions. Mr
+Sparks--satisfied that he should have further insults to endure on the
+part of General Stanley, in the event of his son pretending to the
+hand of the proud old man's daughter--sought a serious explanation
+with Everard, on finding that he neglected no opportunity of meeting
+Mary Stanley in her drives, and walks, and errands of village
+benevolence; and by the remonstrances of one father, and
+peremptoriness of the other, the young couple were soon tempted to
+seek comforts in mutual confidences. Residing almost within view of
+each other, there was no great difficulty in finding occasion for an
+interview. They met, moreover, naturally, and without effort, in all
+the country houses in the neighbourhood; and so frequently, that I
+often wondered they should consider it worth while to hazard the
+General's displeasure by partaking a few moments' conversation, every
+now and then, among the old thorns by the water-side, just where the
+bend of the river secured them from observation; or in the green lane
+leading from Lexley Park to my farm, while Miss Stanley took charge of
+the pony-chaise during the hasty explanations of the imprudent couple.
+Having little to occupy my leisure during the intervals of my
+agricultural pursuits, I was constantly running against them, with my
+gun on my shoulder or my fishing-rod in my hand. I almost feared young
+Sparks might imagine that I was employed by the General as a spy upon
+their movements, so fierce a glance did he direct towards me one day
+when I was unlucky enough to vault over a hedge within a few yards of
+the spot where they were standing together--Miss Mary sobbing like a
+child. But, God knows! he was mistaken if he thought I was taking
+unfair heed of their proceedings, or likely to gossip indiscreetly
+concerning what fell accidentally under my notice.
+
+Not that a single soul in the neighbourhood approved General Stanley's
+opposition to the attachment. On the contrary, from the moment of the
+liking between the young people becoming apparent, the whole country
+decided that there could not be a more propitious mode of reuniting
+the dismembered Lexley estates; for though the General was expressly
+debarred from selling Lexley Hall to Sparks or his heirs, he could not
+be prevented bequeathing it to his daughters--the heirs of Jonas
+Sparks being the children of her body. And thus all objections would
+have been remedied.
+
+But such was not the proud old man's view of the case. He had set his
+heart on perpetuating his own name in his family. He had set his
+heart on the union of his dear Mary with her cousin Lord Robert
+Stanley; and Everard Sparks might have been twice the handsome, manly
+young fellow he was--twice the gentleman, and twice the scholar--it
+would have pleaded little in his favour against the predetermined
+projects of the positive General. There was certainly some excuse for
+his ambition on Miss Mary's account. Beauty, merit, fortune,
+connexion, every advantage was hers calculated to do honour to a noble
+alliance; and as her father often exclaimed, with a bitter sneer, in
+answer to the mild pleadings of Selina--"Such a girl as that--a girl
+born to be a duchess--to sacrifice herself to the son of a Congleton
+manufacturer!"
+
+Two years did the struggle continue--during the greater part of which
+I was a constant eyewitness of the sorrows which so sobered the
+impetuous deportment of the light-hearted Mary Stanley. Her father
+took her to London, with the project of separation he had haughtily
+announced; but only to find, to his amazement, that Eton and Oxford
+had placed the son of Mr Sparks of Lexley Park, a member of
+Parliament, on as good a footing as himself in nearly all the circles
+he frequented. Even when, in the desperation of his fears, he removed
+his family to the Continent, the young lover (as became the lover of
+so endearing and attractive a creature) followed her, at a distance,
+from place to place. At length, one angry day, the General provoked
+him to a duel. But Everard would not lift his hand against the father
+of his beloved Mary. An insult from General Stanley was not as an
+offence from any other man. The only revenge taken by the
+high-spirited young man, was to urge the ungenerous conduct of the
+father as an argument with the daughter to put an end, by an
+elopement, to a state of things too painful to be borne. After much
+hesitation, it seems, she most unhappily complied. They were
+married--at Naples I think, or Turin, or some other city of Italy,
+where we have a diplomatic resident; and after their marriage--poor,
+foolish young people!--they went touring it about gaily in the
+Archipelago and Levant, waiting a favourable moment to propose a
+reconciliation with their respective fathers--as if the wrath and
+malediction of parents was so mere a trifle to deal with.
+
+The first step taken by General Stanley, on learning the ungrateful
+rebellion of his favourite child, was to return to England. He seemed
+to want to be at home again, the better to enjoy and cultivate his
+abhorrence of every thing bearing the despised name of Sparks; for now
+began the genuine hatred between the families. Nothing would satisfy
+the obstinate old soldier, but that the elder Sparks had, from the
+first, secretly encouraged the views of his son upon the heiress of
+Lexley Hall; while Mr Sparks naturally resented with enraged spirit
+the overbearing tone assumed by his aristocratic neighbour towards
+those so nearly his equals. Every day produced some new grounds for
+offence; and never had Sir Laurence Altham, in the extremity of his
+poverty, regarded the thriving mansion in the valley with half the
+loathing which the view of Lexley Park produced in the mind of General
+Stanley. He was even at the trouble of trenching a plantation on the
+brow of the hill, with the intention of shutting out the detested
+object. But trees do not grow so hastily as antipathies; and the
+General had to endure the certainty, that, for the remainder of _his_
+life at least, that beautiful domain must be unrolled, map-like, at
+his feet. Nor is it to be supposed that the battlements of the old
+hall found greater favour in the sight of the _parvenu_ squire, than
+when in Sir Laurence's time the very sight of them was wormwood to his
+soul.
+
+Unhappily, while the Congleton manufacturer contented himself with
+angry words, the gentleman of thirty descents betook himself to
+action. General Stanley swore to be mightily revenged--and he was so.
+
+On the very day following his return to England, before he even
+visited his desolate country-house, he sent for Lord Robert Stanley,
+and made him the confidant of his indignation--avowed his former good
+intentions in his favour--betrayed all Mary's--all _Mr Everard
+Sparks's_ disparaging opposition; and ended by enquiring whether,
+since whichever of his daughters became Lady Robert Stanley would
+become sole heiress to his property, his lordship could make up his
+mind to accept Selina as a wife? Proud as he was, the General almost
+condescended to plead the cause of his deformed daughter: enlarging
+upon her excellences of character, and, still more, upon her aversion
+to society, which would secure the self-love of her husband against
+any public remarks on her want of personal attractions.
+
+Alas! all these arguments were thoroughly thrown away. Lord Robert
+was, as his cousin Mary had truly described him, little better than a
+boor. But he was also a spendthrift and a libertine; and had Miss
+Stanley been as deformed in mind as she was in person, he would have
+joyfully taken to wife the heiress of ten thousand a-year, and two of
+the finest seats in the county of Chester.
+
+To herself, meanwhile, no hint of these family negotiations was
+vouchsafed; and Selina Stanley had every reason to suppose--when her
+cousin became on a sudden an assiduous visitor at the house, and very
+shortly a declared lover--that their intimacy from childhood had
+accustomed his eye to her want of personal charms--she had become
+endeared to him by her mild and submissive temper. So little was she
+aware of her father's testamentary dispositions in her favour, that
+the interested nature of Lord Robert's views did not occur to her
+mind; and, little accustomed to protestations of attachment, Selina's
+heart was not _very_ difficult to soften towards the only man who had
+ever pretended to love her, and whose apparent attachment promised
+some consolation for the loss of her sister's society, as well as the
+chance of reunion with one whom her father had sworn should never,
+under any possible circumstances, again cross his threshold.
+
+Six months after General Stanley's pride had been wounded to the quick
+by the newspaper account of a marriage between his favourite child and
+"a man of the name of Sparks," balm was poured into the wound by
+another and more pompous paragraph, announcing the union, by special
+license, of the Right Hon. Lord Robert Stanley and the eldest daughter
+and heiress of Lieut.-Gen. Stanley, of Stanley Manor, only son of the
+late Lord Henry Stanley, followed by the usual list of noble relatives
+gracing the ceremony with their presence, and a flourishing account of
+the departure of the happy couple, in a travelling carriage and four,
+for their seat in Cheshire.
+
+This announcement, by the way, probably served to convey the
+intelligence to Mr and Mrs Everard Sparks; for the General having
+carefully intercepted every letter addressed by Mary to her sister,
+Lady Robert had not the slightest idea in what direction to
+communicate with one who possessed an undiminished share in her
+affections.
+
+On General Stanley's arrival in Cheshire, at the close of the
+honeymoon, the most casual observer might have noticed the alteration
+which had taken place in his appearance. Instead of the sadness I had
+expected to find in his countenance after so severe a stroke as the
+disobedience of his darling girl, I never saw him so exulting. Yet his
+smiles were not smiles of good-humour. There was bitterness at the
+bottom of every word he uttered; and a terrible sound of menace rung
+in his unnatural laughter. Consciousness never seemed a moment absent
+from his mind, that he had defeated the calculations of the designing
+family; that he had distanced them; that he was triumphing over them.
+Alas! none at present entertained the smallest suspicion to what
+extent!
+
+Preparatory to the settlements made by the General on Lord and Lady
+Robert Stanley, it had been found necessary to place in the hands of
+his lordship's solicitors the deeds of the Lexley Hall estate; when,
+lo! to the consternation of all parties, it appeared that the
+General's title was an unsound one; that by the general terms of this
+ancient property, rights of heirship could only be evaded by the
+payment of a certain fine, after intimation of sale in a certain form
+to the nearest-of-kin of the heir in possession, which form had been
+overlooked or wantonly neglected by Sir Laurence Altham!
+
+The discovery was indeed embarrassing. Fortunately, however, the sum
+of ten thousand pounds only had been paid by the General to satisfy
+the immediate funds of the unthrifty baronet; the remainder of the
+purchase-money having been left in the form of mortgage on the
+property. There was consequently the less difficulty, though
+considerable expense, in cancelling the existing deeds, going through
+the necessary forms, and, after paying the forfeiture to the heir, (to
+whom the very existence of his claims was unknown,) renewing the
+contract with Sir Laurence; to whom, so considerable a sum being still
+owing, it was as essential as to General Stanley that the covenant
+should be completed without delay. But all this occurred at so
+critical a moment, that the General had ample cause to be thankful for
+the promptitude with which he decided Selina's marriage; for only four
+days after the signature of the new deeds, Sir Laurence concluded his
+ill-spent life--his death being, it was thought, accelerated by the
+excitement consequent on this strange discovery, and the
+investigations on the part of the heir to which it was giving rise.
+
+For the clause in the original grant of the Lexley estate (which dated
+from the Reformation) affected the property purchased by Jonas Sparks
+as fully as that which had been assigned to the General; and the
+baronet being now deceased, there was no possibility of co-operation
+in rectifying the fatal error. It was more than probable, therefore,
+that Lexley Park, with all its improvements, was now the property of
+John Julius Altham, Esq.!--the only dilemma still to be decided by the
+law, being the extent to which, his kinsman having died insolvent and
+intestate, he was liable to the suit of Jonas Sparks for the return of
+the purchase money, amounting to L.145,000.
+
+Already the fatal intelligence had been communicated by the attorneys
+of John Julius Altham to those of the astonished man, who, though
+still convinced of the goodness of his cause, (which, on the strength
+of certain various statutes affecting such a case, he was advised to
+contest to the utmost,) foresaw a long, vexatious, and expensive
+lawsuit, that would certainly last his life, and prevent the
+possibility of one moment's enjoyment of the estate, from which he had
+received the usual notice of ejection. Fortunately for him, the
+present Mr Altham was not only a gentleman, and disposed to exercise
+his rights in the most decorous manner; but, of course, unbiassed by
+the personal prejudices so strongly felt by Sir Laurence, and so
+unfairly communicated by him to the General. Still, the question was
+proceeding at the snail's pace rate of Chancery suits at the
+commencement of the present century, and the unfortunate Congleton
+manufacturer had every reason to curse the day when he had become
+enamoured of the grassy glades and rich woodlands of Lexley; seeing
+that, at the close of an honourable and well-spent life, he was
+uncertain whether the sons and daughters to whom he had laboured to
+bequeath a handsome independence, might not be reduced to utter
+destitution.
+
+Such was the intelligence that saluted the ill-starred Mary and her
+husband on their return to England! Instead of the brilliant prospects
+in which she had been nurtured--disinheritance met her on the one
+side, and ruin on the other!
+
+Her vindictive father had even made it a condition of his bounties to
+Lord and Lady Robert, that all intercourse should cease between them
+and their sister; a condition which the former, in revenge for the
+early slights of his fairer cousin, took care should be punctually
+obeyed by his wife.
+
+Till the event of the trial, Mr Sparks retained, of course, possession
+of the Park; but so bitter was the mortification of the family, on
+discovering in the village precisely the same ungrateful feeling which
+had so embittered the soul of Sir Laurence, that they preferred
+remaining in London--where no one has leisure to dwell upon the
+mischances of his neighbours, and where sympathy is as little expected
+as conceded. But when Mary arrived--_poor_ Mary! who had now the
+prospect of becoming a mother--and who, though affectionately beloved
+by her husband's family, saw they regarded her as the innocent origin
+of their present reverses--she soon persuaded her husband to accompany
+her to her old haunts.
+
+"Do not imagine, dearest," said she, "that I have any project of
+debasing you and myself, by intruding into my father's presence. Had
+we been still prosperous, Everard, I would have gone to him--knelt to
+him--prayed to him--wept to him--_so_ earnestly, that his forgiveness
+could not have been long withheld from the child he loved so dearly. I
+would have described to him all you are to me--all your
+indulgences--all your devotion--and _you_, too, my own husband, would
+have been forgiven. But as it is, believe me, I have too proud a sense
+of what is due to ourselves, to combat the unnatural hostility in
+which my sister and her husband appear to take their share. O Everard!
+to think of Selina becoming the wife of that coarse and heartless man,
+of whom, in former times, she thought even more contemptuously than I;
+and who, with his dissolute habits, can only have made my poor
+afflicted sister his wife from the most mercenary motives! I dread to
+think of what may be her fate hereafter, when, having obtained at my
+father's death all the advantages to which he looks forward, he will
+show himself in his true colours."
+
+Thus, even with such terrible prospects awaiting herself, the good,
+generous Mary trembled only to contemplate those of her regardless
+sister; and it was chiefly for the delight of revisiting the spots
+where they had played together in childhood--the fondly-remembered
+environs of Stanley Manor--that she persuaded her husband to take up
+his abode in the deserted mansion at the Park, where, from prudential
+motives, Mr Sparks had broken up his establishment, and sold off his
+horses.
+
+Attended by a single servant, in addition to the old porter and his
+wife who were in charge of the house, Mary trusted that their arrival
+at Lexley would be unnoticed in the neighbourhood. Confining herself
+strictly within the boundaries of the Park, which neither her father
+nor the bride and bridegroom were likely to enter, she conceived that
+she might enjoy, on her husband's arm, those solitary rambles of which
+every day circumscribed the extent; without affording reason to the
+General to suppose, when, discerning every morning from his lofty
+terraces the mansion of his falling enemy, that, in place of the man
+he loathed, it contained his discarded child.
+
+The dispirited young woman, on the other hand, delighted in
+contemplating from the windows of her dressing-room the towers
+beneath, whose shelter she had abided in such perfect happiness with
+her doating father and apparently attached sister. They loved her no
+longer, it is true. Perhaps it was her fault--(she would not allow
+herself to conceive it could be a fault of _theirs_)--but at all
+events she loved _them_ dearly as ever; and it was comforting to her
+poor heart to catch a glimpse of their habitation, and know herself
+within reach, should sickness or evil betide.
+
+"If I should not survive my approaching time," thought Mary, often
+surveying for hours, through her tears, the heights of Lexley Hall,
+and fancying she could discern human figures moving from window to
+window, or from terrace to terrace; "if I should be fated never to
+behold this child, already loved--this child which is to be so dear a
+blessing to us both--in my last hours my father would not surely
+refuse to give me his blessing; nor would Selina persist in her
+present cruel alienation. It is, indeed, a comfort to be here."
+
+Her husband thought otherwise. To him nothing was more trying than
+this compulsory sojourn at Lexley; not that he required other society
+than that of his engaging and attached wife. At any other moment it
+would have been delightful to him to enjoy the country pleasures
+around them, with no officious intrusive world to interpose between
+their affection. But in his present uncertainty as to his future
+prospects, to be mocked by this empty show of proprietorship, and have
+constantly before his eyes the residence of the man who had heaped
+such contumely on his head, and inflicted such pain on the gentlest
+and sweetest of human hearts, was a state of moral torment.
+
+In the course of my fishing excursions--(for, thanks to Mr Sparks's
+neighbourly liberality, I had a card of general access to his
+parks)--I frequently met the young couple; and having no clue to their
+secret sentiments, noticed, with deep regret, the sadness of Mary's
+countenance and sinister looks of her husband. I feared--I greatly
+feared--that they were not happy together. The General's daughter
+repined, perhaps, after her former fortunes. The young husband sighed,
+doubtless, over the liberty he had renounced.
+
+It was spring time, and Lord Robert having satisfied his cravings
+after the pleasures of London, by occasional bachelor visits on
+pretence of business, the family were to remain at the Hall till after
+the Easter holidays, so that Mary had every expectation of the
+accomplishment of her hopes previous to their departure. Perhaps, in
+the bottom of her heart, she flattered herself that, on hearing of her
+safety, her obdurate relations might be moved, by a sudden burst of
+pity and kindliness, to make overtures of reconciliation--at all
+events to dispatch words of courteous enquiry; for she was ever
+dwelling on her good fortune that her father should, on this
+particular year, have so retarded the usual period of his departure.
+Yet when the report of these exulting exclamations on her part reached
+my ear, I was ungenerous enough to attribute them to a very different
+origin, fancying that the poor submissive creature was thankful for
+being within reach of protection from conjugal misusage.
+
+Meanwhile, she was so far justified in one portion of her premises,
+that no tidings of her residence at Lexley Park had as yet reached the
+ear of her father. The fact was, that not a soul had courage to do so
+much as mention, in his presence, the name of his once idolized child;
+and Lord Robert, having been apprized of the circumstance, instantly
+exacted a promise from his wife, that nothing should induce her to
+hazard her father's displeasure by communication with her sister, or
+by acquainting the General of the arrival of the offending pair. The
+consequence was, that in the dread of encountering her sister, (whom
+she felt ashamed to meet as the wife of the man they had so often
+decried together,) Lady Robert rarely quitted the house; and these two
+sisters, so long the affectionate inmates of the same chamber--the
+sisters who had wept together over their mother's deathbed--abided
+within sight of each other's windows, yet estranged as with the
+estrangement of strangers.
+
+And then, we pretend to talk with horror of the family feuds of
+southern nations; and, priding ourselves on our calm and passionless
+nature, feel convinced that all the domestic virtues extant on earth,
+have taken refuge in the British empire!
+
+Every day, meanwhile, I noticed that the handsome countenance of
+Everard Sparks grew gloomier and gloomier; and how was I to know that
+every day he received letters from his father, announcing the
+unfavourable aspect of their suit; and that (owing, as was supposed,
+to the suggestions of General Stanley's solicitors) even the conduct
+of the adverse party was becoming offensive. The elder Sparks wrote
+like a man overwhelmed with mortification, and stung by a sense of
+undeserved injury; and his appeals to the sympathy and support of his
+son, were such as to place the spirited young man in a most painful
+predicament as regarded the family of his wife.
+
+Unwilling to utter in her presence an injurious word concerning those
+who, persecute her as they might, were still her nearest and dearest
+by the indissoluble ties of nature, all he could do, in relief to his
+overcharged feelings, was to rush forth into the Park, and curse the
+day that he was born to behold all he loved in the world overwhelmed
+in one common ruin.
+
+On such occasions, while pretending to fix my attention on my float
+upon the river, I often watched him from afar, till I was terrified by
+the frantic vehemence of his gestures. There was almost reason to
+fancy that the evil influences of the old Hall were extending their
+power over the valley; and that this distracted young man was falling
+into the eccentricities of Sir Laurence Altham.
+
+After viewing with anxiety the wild deportment of poor Mary's husband,
+I happened one day to pass along the lane I have described as skirting
+the garden of the manor-house, on my way homewards to my farm; and on
+plunging my eyes, as usual, into the verdant depths of the clipped
+yew-walks, visible through the iron-palisades, was struck by the
+contrast afforded to the scene I had just witnessed, not only by its
+aristocratic tranquillity, but by the grave and subdued deportment of
+Lady Robert Stanley, who was sauntering in one of the alleys,
+accompanied by a favourite dog I had often seen following her sister
+in former days, and looking the very picture of contented egotism.
+
+I almost longed to call aloud to her, and confide all I knew and all
+that I supposed. But what right had I to create alarms in her sister's
+behalf? What right had I to incite her to disobedience against the
+father on whom she and her husband were dependent? Better leave things
+as they were--the common philosophy of selfish, timid people, afraid
+of exposing their own heads to a portion of the storm their
+interference may chance to bring down, while assisting the cause of
+the weak against the strong.
+
+I used often to go home and think of poor Mary till my heart ached.
+That young and beautiful creature--that creature till lately so
+beloved--to be thus cruelly abandoned, thus helpless, thus unhappy!
+Perhaps not a soul sympathizing with her but myself--an obscure,
+low-born, uninfluential man, of no more value as a protector than a
+willow-wand shivered from the Lexley plantations! Not so much as the
+merest trifle in which I could demonstrate my good-will. I thought and
+thought it over, and there was nothing I could do--nothing I could
+offer. When I _did_ hit upon some pretext of kindness, I only did
+amiss. The fruit season was not begun--nay, the orchards were only in
+blossom--and times were over for forcing-houses at Lexley Park!
+Thinking, therefore, that the invalid might be pleased with a basket
+of Jersey pears, of which a very fine kind grew in my orchard, I
+ventured to send some to her address. But the very next time I
+encountered Everard in the village, he cast a look at me as if he
+would have killed me for my officiousness, or, perhaps, for taking the
+liberty to suppose that Lexley Park was less luxuriously provisioned
+than in former years. Nor was it till long afterwards I discovered
+that my old housekeeper (who had taken upon herself to carry my humble
+offering to the park) had not only seen the poor young lady, but been
+foolish enough to talk of Lady Robert in a tone which appears to have
+exercised a cruel influence over her gentle heart; so that, when her
+husband returned home from rabbit-shooting, an hour afterwards, he
+found her recovering from a fainting fit, he visited upon _me_ the
+folly of my servant; and such was the cause of his angry looks.
+
+A few days afterwards, however, he had far more to reproach his
+conscience withal than poor Barbara. Having no concealments from his
+wife, to whom he was in the habit of avowing every emotion of his
+heart, he was rash enough to mention of having met the travelling
+carriage of Lord and Lady Robert on the London road. They had quitted
+the Hall ten days previous to the epoch originally fixed for their
+departure.
+
+"Gone--exactly gone!--already at two hundred miles' distance from me!"
+cried poor Mary, nothing doubting that her father had, as usual,
+accompanied them, and feeling herself now, for the first time, alone
+in the dreary seclusion to which she had condemned herself, only that
+she might breathe the same atmosphere with those she loved. "Yet they
+had certainly decided to remain at the Hall till after Easter! Perhaps
+they discovered my being here, and the discovery hastened their
+journey. Unhappy creature that I am, to have become thus hateful to
+those in whose veins my blood is flowing! Everard, Everard! O, what
+have I done that God should thus abandon me?"
+
+The soothing and affectionate remonstrances now addressed to her by
+her husband, had so far a good effect, that they softened her despair
+to tears. Long and unrestrainedly did she weep upon his shoulder;
+tried to comfort him by the assurance that _she_ was comforted, or at
+least that she would endeavour to _seek_ comfort from the protection
+and goodness whence it had been so often derived.
+
+A few minutes afterwards, having been persuaded by Everard to rest
+herself on the sofa, to recover the effects of the agitation his
+indiscreet communication had excited, she suddenly complained of cold,
+and begged him to close the windows. It was a balmy April day, with a
+genial sun shining fresh into the room. The air was as the air of
+midsummer--one of those days on which you almost see the small green
+leaves of spring bursting from their shelly covering, and the resinous
+buds of the chestnut-trees expanding into maturity. Poor Everard saw
+at once that the chilliness of which his wife complained must be the
+effect of illness. More cautious, however, on this occasion than
+before, he enquired, as her shivering increased, what preparations she
+had made for the events which still left her some weeks for execution.
+"None. His sisters had kindly undertaken to supply her with all she
+might require; and the services of the nurse accustomed to attend his
+married sister, were engaged on her behalf. At the end of the month
+this woman was to arrive at Lexley, bringing with her the wardrobe of
+the little treasure who was to accord renewed peace and happiness to
+its mother."
+
+Though careful to conceal his anxiety from his wife, Everard Sparks,
+disappointed and distressed, quitted the room in haste to send for the
+medical man who had long been the attendant of his family. But before
+he arrived, the shivering fit of the poor sufferer had increased to an
+alarming degree. A calming potion was administered, and orders issued
+that she was to be kept quiet; but in the consternation created in the
+little household by the communication Dr R. thought it necessary to
+make of the possibility of a premature confinement, poor Mrs Sparks's
+maid, a young inexperienced woman, dispatched a messenger to my house
+for her old kinswoman, and it was through Barbara I became acquainted
+with the melancholy incidents I am about to relate.
+
+The sedatives administered failed in their effect. A fatal shock had
+been already given; and while struggling through that direful night
+with the increasing pangs that verified the doctor's prognostications,
+the sympathizing women around the sufferer could scarcely restrain
+their tears at the courage with which she supported her anguish,
+rejoicing in it, as it were, in the prospect of embracing her
+child--when all present were aware that the compensation was about to
+be denied her, that the child was already dead. Just as the day
+dawned, her anxious husband was congratulated on her safety, and then
+the truth could no longer be concealed from Mary. She asked to see her
+babe. Her husband was employed to persuade her to defer seeing it for
+an hour or two, "till it was dressed--till she was more composed." But
+the truth rushed into her mind, and she uttered not another word, in
+the apprehension of increasing his disappointment and mortification.
+
+So long did her silence continue, that, trusting she had fallen
+asleep, old Barbara's granddaughter entreated poor Everard to withdraw
+and leave her to her rest. But the moment he quitted the room, she
+spoke, spoke resolutely, and in a firmer voice than her previous
+sufferings had given them reason to suppose possible.
+
+"Now, then, let me see my boy," said she. "I know that he is dead. But
+do not be afraid of shocking or distressing me. I have courage to look
+upon the poor little creature for whom I have suffered so much, and
+who, I trusted, would reward me for all."
+
+The women remonstrated, as it was their duty to remonstrate. But when
+they saw that opposition on this point only excited her, dreading an
+accession of fever, they brought the poor babe and laid it on the
+pillow beside its mother. That first embrace, to which she had looked
+forward with such intensity of delight, folded to her burning bosom
+only a clay-cold child!
+
+Even thus it was fair to look on--every promise in its little form,
+that its beauty would have equalled that of its handsome parents; and
+Mary, as she pressed her lips to its icy forehead, fancied she could
+trace on those tiny features a resemblance to its father. Old Barbara,
+perceiving how bitterly the tears of the sufferer were falling on the
+cheeks of her lost treasure, now interfered. But the mother had still
+a last request to make. A few downy curls were perceptible on the
+temples--in colour and fineness resembling her own. She wished to
+rescue from the grave this slight remembrance of her poor nameless
+offspring; and her wish having been complied with, she suffered the
+babe to be taken from her relaxed and moveless grasp.
+
+"Leave me the hair," said she, in a faint voice. "Thanks--thanks! I am
+happy now--I will try to sleep--I am happy--happy now!"
+
+She slept--and never woke again. At the close of an hour or two, her
+anxious husband, finding she had not stirred, gently and silently
+approached the bedside, and took into his own the fair hand lying on
+the coverlid, to ascertain whether fever had ensued. _Fever?_ It was
+already cold with the damps of death!
+
+Imagine, if you can, the agony and self-reproach of that bereaved man!
+Again and again did he revile himself as her murderer; accusing
+_himself_--her father--her _sister_--the whole world. At one moment,
+he fancied that her condition had not been properly treated by her
+attendants; at another, that the medical man ought not to have left
+the house. Nay, hours and hours after she was gone for ever--after
+the undertakers had commenced their hideous preparations--even while
+she lay stretched before him, white and cold as marble, he persisted
+that life might be still recalled; and, but for the better
+discrimination of those around him, would have insisted on attempts at
+resuscitation, calculated only to disturb, almost sacrilegiously, the
+sound peace of the dead!
+
+I was one of the first to learn the heart-rending news of this beloved
+being's untimely end; for my old woman having asked permission to
+remain with her through the night, (explaining the exigency of the
+case,) I could not forbear hurrying to the house as soon as it was
+day, in the hope of hearing she was a happy mother. Somehow or other,
+I had never contemplated an unfavourable result. The idea of death
+never presented itself to me in common with any thing so young and
+fair; and as I walked through the park, and crossed the bridge, with
+the white cheerful mansion before me, and the morning sun shining full
+upon its windows, I thought how gladsome it looked, but could not
+forbear feeling that, even with the prospect of losing it--even with
+the certainty of beggary, Everard, as a husband and father, was the
+fellow most to be envied upon earth!
+
+I reached the house, and the old man who answered my ring at the
+office entrance, was speechless from tears. Though usually hard as
+iron, he sobbed as if his heart would break. I asked to speak with
+Barbara--with my housekeeper. He told me I could not--that she was
+"busy laying out the body." I was answered. That dreadful word told me
+all--I had no more questions to ask. I cared not _who_ survived, or
+what became of the survivors. And as I turned sickening away, to bend
+my steps homewards, I remember wondering how that fair spring morning
+could shine so bright and auspiciously, when _she_ was gone from us.
+It seemed to triumph in our loss! Alas! it shone to welcome a new
+angel to the kingdom of our Father who is in heaven!
+
+Suddenly it struck me, that I, too, had a duty to perform. In that
+scanty household there was no one to take thought of the common forms
+of life; so I hastened to the rectory, to suggest to our good pastor a
+visit of consolation to the house of mourning, and acquaint his
+sisters with its forlorn condition. Like myself, they began
+exclaiming, "Alas! alas! It was but the other day that"----reverting
+to all the acts of charity and girlish graces of that dear departed
+Mary Stanley, who had been among us as the shadow of a dream.
+
+Before I left the rectory, Dr Whittingham had issued his orders; and
+lo! as I proceeded homewards, with a heavy step and a heavier heart,
+the sound of the passing bell from Lexley church pursued me with its
+measured toll, till I could scarcely refrain from sitting me down by
+the wayside, and weeping my very soul away.
+
+On reaching the lane I have so often described as skirting the gardens
+of the old Hall, I noticed, through the palisades, a person, probably
+one of the gardeners, sauntering along Lady Robert's favourite
+yew-walk. No! on a nearer approach, I saw, and almost shuddered to
+see, that it was General Stanley himself (who, I fancied, had
+accompanied his son-in-law to town) taking an early walk, to enjoy the
+sweetness of that delicious morning.
+
+As I drew nearer, I averted my head. At that moment I had not courage
+to look him in the face. I could scarcely suppose him ignorant of what
+had occurred; and, if aware of the sad event, his obduracy was unmanly
+to a degree that filled me with disgust. But just as I came opposite
+the iron gates, he hailed me by name--more familiarly and courteously
+than he was wont--to ask whether I came from the village, and for
+_whose_ death they were tolling?
+
+If worlds had depended on my answer, I could not have uttered a word!
+But I conclude that, catching sight of my troubled face and swollen
+eyelids, the General supposed I had lost some near and dear friend;
+for, instead of renewing his question, he merely touched his hat, and
+passed on, leaving me to proceed in my turn. But the spectacle of my
+profound affliction probably excited his curiosity; for I found
+afterwards, that, instead of pursuing his walk, he returned straight
+to the house, and addressed the enquiry which had so distressed _me_,
+to others having more courage to reveal the fatal truth. I believe it
+was the old family butler, who abruptly answered--"For my poor young
+lady, General--for the sweetest angel that ever trod the earth!"
+
+For my part, I wonder the announcement did not strike him to the
+earth! But he heard it without apparent emotion; like a man who,
+having already sustained the worst affliction this world can afford,
+has no sensibility for further trials. Still the intelligence was not
+ineffective. Without pausing an instant for reflection, or the
+indulgence of his feelings, he set forth on foot to Lexley Park. With
+his hat pulled over his eyes, and a determined air, rather as if about
+to execute an act of vengeance than offer a tardy tribute of
+tenderness to his victim, he hurried to the house--commanded the
+startled old servant to show him the way to _her_ room--entered
+it--and knelt down beside the bed on which she lay, with her dead
+infant on her arm, asking her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God,
+as humbly as though he were not the General Stanley proverbial for
+implacability and pride.
+
+Old Barbara, who had not quitted the room, assured me it was a
+heart-breaking sight to behold that white head bowed down in agony
+upon the cold feet of his child. For he felt himself unworthy to press
+her helpless hand to his lips, or remove the cambric from her face,
+but called, in broken accents, upon the name of Mary! his child! his
+darling! addressing her rather with the fondling terms bestowed upon
+girlhood than as a woman--a wife--a mother!
+
+"But a more affecting story still," said the old woman, "was to see
+that Mr Everard took no more heed of the General's sudden entrance
+than though it were a thing to be looked for. He seemed neither to
+hear his exclamations nor perceive his distress." Poor gentleman! His
+haggard eyes were fixed, his mind bewildered, his hopes blasted for
+ever, his life a blank. He neither answered when spoken to, nor even
+spoke, when the good rector, according to his promise, came to
+announce that he had dispatched the fatal intelligence by express to
+his family, beseeching his instructions concerning the steps to be
+taken for the burial of the dead.
+
+But why afflict you and myself by recurring to these melancholy
+details! Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected what nothing
+else on earth could have effected in the mind of General Stanley.
+Humbled to the dust, even the arrival of the once despised owner of
+Lexley Park did not drive him from the house. He asked his pity--he
+asked his pardon. Beside the coffin of his daughter he expressed all
+the compunction a generous-hearted and broken-hearted man could
+express; and all he asked in return, was leave to lay her poor head in
+the grave of her ancestors.
+
+No one opposed his desire. The young widower had not as much
+consciousness left as would have enabled him to utter the negative
+General Stanley seemed prepared to expect; and as to his father, about
+to abandon Lexley for ever, to what purpose erect a family vault in a
+church which neither he nor his were ever likely to see again?
+
+To the chapel at Stanley Manor, accordingly, were the mother and child
+removed. The General wrote expressly to forbid his son-in-law and
+Selina returning to the Hall, on pretence of sustaining him in his
+affliction. He _chose_ to give way to it; he _chose_ to be alone with
+his despair.
+
+Never shall I forget the day that mournful funeral procession passed
+through the village! Young and old came forth weeping to their doors
+to bid her a last farewell; even as they used to come and exchange
+smiles with her, in those happy days when life lay before her,
+bright--hopeful--without a care--without a responsibility. I had
+intended to pay him the same respect. I meant, indeed, to have
+followed the hearse, at an humble distance, to its final destination.
+But when I rose that morning a sudden weakness came upon me, and I was
+unable to quit my room. I, so strong, so hardy, who have passed
+through life without sickness or doctor, was as powerless that day as
+an infant.
+
+It was from the good rector, therefore, I heard how the General (on
+whom, in consequence of the precarious condition of the afflicted
+husband, devolved the task of chief mourner) sustained his carriage to
+perform with dignity and propriety his duty to the dead. As he
+followed the coffin through the churchyard, crowded by his old
+pensioners--many of them praying on their knees as it passed--his
+step was as firm and his brow as erect as though at the head of his
+regiment. It was not till all was over--the mournful ceremony done,
+the crowd dispersed, the funeral array departed--that having descended
+into the vault, ere the stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre,
+in order to point out the exact spot where he wished her remains to be
+deposited, so that hereafter his own might rest by her side, he
+renounced all self-restraint, and throwing himself upon the ground,
+gave himself up to his anguish, and refused to be comforted!
+
+That summer was as dreary a season at Lexley as the dreariest winter!
+Both the Park and the Hall were shut up; nor did General Stanley ever
+again resume his tenancy of the old manor. When the result of the
+Chancery suit left Mr Altham in possession of the former estate, the
+General literally preferred forfeiting the moiety of the
+purchase-money he had paid, and giving up the place to be re-united
+with the property, which the rigour of the law thus singularly
+restored to the last heirs of the Althams; and such was the cause of
+my neighbour, the present Sir Julius Altham, regaining possession of
+the Hall.
+
+It was not for many years, however, that the cause was ultimately
+decided. There was an appeal against the Chancellor's decree; and even
+after the decree was confirmed, came an endless number of legal forms,
+which so procrastinated the settlement, that not only the original
+unfortunate purchaser, but poor Everard himself, was in his grave when
+the mansion, in which they had so prided themselves, was pulled down,
+and all trace of their occupancy effaced.
+
+I sometimes ask myself, indeed, whether the whole of this "strange
+eventful history," with which the earliest feelings of my heart were
+painfully interwoven, really occurred? whether the manor ever passed
+for a time out of the possession of the ancient house of Altham?
+whether the domain, now one and indivisible, were literally
+partitioned off--a park paling interposing only between the patrician
+and plebeian. Often, after spending hour after hour by the river side,
+when the fly is on the water and the old thorns in bloom, I recur to
+the first day I came back into Lexley Park after the funeral had
+passed through, and recollect the soreness of heart with which I
+lifted my eyes towards the house, of which every trace has since
+disappeared. At that moment there seemed to rise before me, sporting
+among the gnarled branches of the old thorn-trees, the graceful form
+of Mary Stanley, followed by old Sergeant, bounding and barking
+through the fern; and the General looking on from a distance,
+pretending to be angry, and desiring her to come out of the covert and
+not disturb the game. Exactly thus, and there, I beheld them for the
+first time. What would I not give to realize once more, if only for a
+day, that happy, happy vision!
+
+Stanley Manor is let to strangers during the minority of Lord Robert's
+sickly son; the father being an absentee, the mother in an early
+grave. She lived long enough, however, to be a repining wife; and my
+neighbour, Sir Julius Altham, has more than once hinted to me, that,
+of the whole family, the portion of Selina most deserved compassion.
+
+To me, however, her callous conduct towards that gentle sister, always
+rendered her the least interesting of my COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.[3]
+
+    [3] Travels of Kerim Khan; being a narrative of his
+    Journey from Delhi to Calcutta, and thence by Sea to
+    England: containing his remarks upon the manners,
+    customs, laws, constitutions, literature, arts,
+    manufactures, &c., of the people of the British Isles.
+    Translated from the original Oordu--(MS.)
+
+
+Among the various signs of the times which mark the changes of manners
+in these latter days of the world, not the least remarkable is the
+increasing frequency of the visits paid by the natives of the East to
+the regions of Europe. Time was, within the memory of most of the
+present generation, when the sight of a genuine Oriental in a London
+drawing-room, except in the angel visits, "few and far between," of a
+Persian or Moorish ambassador, was a rarity beyond the reach of even
+the most determined lion-hunters; and if by any fortunate chance a
+stray Persian khan, or a "very magnificent three-tailed bashaw," was
+brought within the circle of the quidnuncs of the day, the sayings and
+doings of the illustrious stranger were chronicled with as much
+minuteness as if he had been the denizen of another planet. Every hair
+of his beard, every jewel in the hilt of his khanjar, was enumerated
+and criticised; while all oriental etiquette was violated by the
+constant enquiries addressed to him relative to the number of his
+wives, and the economy of his domestic arrangements. "_Mais a present
+on a change tout cela._" The reforms of Sultan Mahmood, the invention
+of steam, and the re-opening of the overland route to India, have
+combined to effect a mighty revolution in all these points. Osmanlis,
+with shaven chins and tight trousers,[4] have long been as plenty as
+blackberries in the saloons of the West, eating the flesh of the
+unclean beast, quaffing champagne, and even (if we have been rightly
+informed) figuring in quadrilles with the moon-faced daughters of the
+Franks; and though the natives of the more distant regions of the East
+have not yet appeared among us in such number, yet the lamb-skin cap
+of the Persian, the _pugree_, or small Indian turban, and even the
+queer head-dress of the Parsee, is far from being a stranger in our
+assemblies. We doubt whether the name of Akhbar Khan himself,
+proclaimed at the foot of a staircase, would excite the same
+_sensation_ in the present day, as the announcement of the most
+undistinguished wearer of the turban some ten or twenty years ago; but
+of the "Tours" and "Narratives" which are usually the inevitable
+result of such an influx of pilgrims, our Oriental visitors have as
+yet produced hardly their due proportion. For many years, the travels
+of Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, a Hindustani[5] Moslem of rank and education,
+who visited Europe in the concluding years of the last century, stood
+alone as an example of the effect produced on an Asiatic by his
+observation of the manners and customs of the West; and even of late
+our stock has not been much increased. The journal of the Persian
+princes (a translation of which, by their Syrian mehmandar, Assaad
+Yakoob Khayat, has been printed in England for private circulation) is
+curious, as giving a picture of European ways and manners when viewed
+through a purely Asiatic medium; while the remarkably sensible and
+well-written narrative of the two Parsees who lately visited this
+country for the purpose of instruction in naval architecture,[6]
+differs little from the description of the same objects which would be
+given by an intelligent and well-educated European, if they could be
+presented to him in the aspect of utter novelty. The latest of these
+Oriental wanderers in the ungenial climes of Franguestan, is the one
+whose name appears at the head of this article, and who, with a rare
+and commendable modesty, has preferred introducing himself to the
+public under the protecting guidance of Maga, to venturing, alone and
+without a pilot, among the perilous rocks and shoals of the critics of
+_the Row_; him therefore we shall now introduce, without further
+comment, to the favourable notice of our readers.
+
+    [4] _Shalwarlek_--"tight trousers"--was a phrase used,
+    under the old Turkish regime, as equivalent to a
+    blackguard.
+
+    [5] The Moslems, and other natives of India descended
+    from foreign races, are properly called _Hindustanis_,
+    while the aborigines are the _Hindus_--a distinction not
+    well understood in Europe. The former take their name
+    from the country, as _natives of Hindustan_, which has
+    derived its own name from the latter, as being the
+    _country of the Hindus_.
+
+    [6] Journal of a Residence of Two Years and a Half in
+    Great Britain, by Jehangeer Nowrojee and Hirjeebhoy
+    Merwanjee of Bombay, Naval Architects. London: 1841.
+
+Of Kerim Khan himself, the writer of his narrative, and of his motives
+for daring the perils of the _kala-pani_, (or black water, the Hindi
+name for the ocean,) on a visit to Franguestan, we have little
+information beyond what can be gathered from the MS. itself. There can
+be no doubt, however, that he was a Mussulman gentleman of rank and
+consideration, and of information far superior to that of his
+countrymen in general; nor does it appear that he was driven, like
+Mirza Abu-Talib, by political misfortune, to seek in strange climes
+the security which his native land denied him. His narrative commences
+abruptly:--"On the 21st of Ramazan, in the year of the Hejra 1255,"
+(Dec. 1, A.D. 1839,) "between four and five in the afternoon, I took
+leave of the imperial city of Delhi, and proceeded to our boat, which
+was at anchor near the Derya Ganj." The voyage down the Jumna, to its
+junction with the Ganges at Allahabad, a distance of not more than 550
+miles by land, but which the endless windings of the stream increase
+to 2010 by water, presents few incidents worthy of notice: but our
+traveller observes _par parenthese_, that "though it is said that the
+sources of this river have not been discovered, I have heard from
+those who have crossed the Himalaya from China, that it rises in that
+country on the other side of the mountains, and, forcing its way
+through them, arrives at Bighamber. They say that gold is found there
+in large quantities, and the reason they assign is this--the
+philosopher's stone is found in that country, and whatever touches it
+becomes gold, but the stone itself can never be found!" Near Muttra he
+encountered the splendid cortege of Lord Auckland, then returning to
+Calcutta after his famous interview with Runjeet Singh at Lahore, with
+such a _suwarree_ as must have recalled the pomp and _sultanut_ for
+which the memory of Warren Hastings is even yet celebrated among the
+natives of India: "his staff and escort, with the civil and military
+officers of government in attendance on him, amounted to about 4000
+persons, besides 300 elephants and 800 camels." The noble buildings of
+Akbarabad or Agra, the capital and residence of Akbar and Shalijehan,
+the mightiest and most magnificent of the Mogul emperors, detained the
+traveller for a day; and he notices with deserved eulogium the
+splendid mausoleum of Shalijehan and his queen, known as the
+Taj-Mahal. There is nothing that can be compared with it, and those
+who have visited the farthest parts of the globe, have seen nothing
+like it.[7] At Allahabad he launched on the broad stream of the
+Ganges; and after passing through part of the territory of _Awadh_ or
+Oude, the insecurity of life and property in which is strongly
+contrasted with the rigid police in the Company's dominions, arrived
+in due time at the holy city of Benares, the centre of Hindoo and
+Brahminical sanctity.
+
+    [7] Many of our readers must have seen the beautiful
+    ivory model of this far-famed edifice, lately exhibited
+    in Regent Street, and now, we believe, in the Cambridge
+    University museum. It is fortunate that so faithful a
+    miniature transcript of the beauties of the Taj is in
+    existence, since the original is doomed, as we are
+    informed, to inevitable ruin at no distant period, from
+    the ravages of the white ants on the woodwork.
+
+The shrines of Benares, with their swarms of sacred monkeys and
+Brahminy bulls, were objects of little interest to our Moslem
+wayfarer, who on the contrary recounts with visible satisfaction the
+destruction of several of these _But Khanas_, or idol-temples, by the
+intolerable bigotry of Aurungzib, and the erection of mosques on their
+sites. Among the objects of attraction in the environs of the city, he
+particularly notices a famous footprint[8] upon stone, called the
+_Kadmsherif_, or holy mark, deposited in a mosque near the serai of
+Aurungabad, and said to have been brought from Mekka by Sheik Mohammed
+Ali Hazin, whom the translator of his interesting autobiography
+(published in 1830 by the Oriental Society) has made known to the
+British public, up to the period when the tyranny of Nadir Shah drove
+him from Persia. "Here, during his lifetime, he used to go sometimes
+on a Thursday, and give alms to the poor in the name of God. He was a
+very learned and accomplished man; and his writings, both in prose and
+verse, were equal to those of Zahiri and Naziri. When he first came to
+India, he resided for some years at Delhi; but having had some dispute
+with the poet-laureate of the Emperor Mohammed Shah, he found himself
+under the necessity of retiring to Benares, where he lived in great
+privacy. As he was a stranger in the country, was engaged in no
+calling or profession, and received no allowance from the Emperor, it
+was never known whence, or how, he was supplied with the means of
+keeping up the establishment he did, which consisted of some hundred
+servants, palanquins, horses, &c. It is said that when the Nawab
+Shujah-ed-dowlah projected his attack on the English in Bengal, he
+consulted the Sheik on the subject, who strongly dissuaded him from
+the undertaking. He died shortly after the battle of Buxar in 1180,"
+(A.D. 1766.) The battle of Buxar was fought Oct. 23, 1764; but that
+Sheik Ali Hazin died somewhere about this time, seems more probable
+than that his life was extended (as stated by Sir Gore Ouseley) till
+1779; since he describes himself at the conclusion of his memoirs in
+1742, when only in his 53d year, as "leading the dullest course of
+existence in the dullest of all dull countries, and disabled by his
+increasing infirmities from any active exertion of either body or
+mind"--a state of things scarcely promising a prolongation of life to
+the age of ninety.
+
+    [8] These sacred footmarks are more numerous among the
+    Buddhists than the Moslems--the most celebrated is that
+    on the summit of Adam's Peak, in Ceylon.
+
+Resuming his voyage from Benares, the Khan notices with wonder the
+apparition of the steamers plying between Calcutta and Allahabad,
+several of which he met on his course, and regarded with the
+astonishment natural in one who had never before seen a ship impelled,
+apparently by smoke, against wind and tide:--"I need hardly say how
+intensely I watched every movement of this extraordinary, and to me
+incomprehensible machine, which in its passage created such a vast
+commotion in the waters, that my poor little _budjrow_ (pinnace) felt
+its effects for the space of full two _hos_," (nearly four miles.) The
+picturesque situation of the city of Azimabad or Patna,[9] extending
+for several miles along the right bank of the Ganges, with the villas
+and beautiful gardens of the resident English interspersed among the
+houses, is described in terms of high admiration; and the mosques,
+some of which were as old as the time of the Patan emperors, are not
+forgotten by our Moslem traveller in his enumeration of the marvels of
+the city. A few days' more boating brought him to Rajmahal; "on one
+side of which," says he, "the country is called Bengal, and on the
+other _Poorb_, or the East"--a name from which the independent dynasty
+of Moslem kings, who once ruled in Bengal, assumed the appellation of
+_Poorby-Shaby_. He was now among the rice-fields, the extent and
+luxuriance of which surprised him: "There are a great variety of
+sorts, and if a man were to take a grain of each sort he might soon
+fill a _lota_ (water-pot) with them--so innumerable are the different
+kinds. The cultivators who have measured the largest species, have
+declared them to exceed the length of fifty cubits; but I have never
+seen any of this length, though others may have." He now entered the
+Bhagirutti, or branch of the Ganges leading to Calcutta, and which
+bears in the lower part of its course the better known name of the
+Hoogly--while the main stream to the left is again subdivided into
+innumerable ramifications, the greater part of which lose themselves
+among the vast marshes of the Sunderbunds; but he complains, that
+"though by this branch large vessels and steamers pass up and down to
+and from the Presidency, the route is very bad, from the extensive
+jungles on both banks, which are haunted by Thugs and _Decoits_,
+(river pirates:)--indeed I have heard and read, that the shores of the
+Ganges have been infested by freebooters, pirates, and thieves of all
+sorts, from time immemorial." He escaped unharmed, however, through
+these manifold perils; and passing Murshidabad, the ancient capital of
+Bengal, and other places of less note, his remarks upon which we shall
+not stay to quote, reached the ghauts of Calcutta in safety.
+
+    [9] Most of the principal cities of India, in addition
+    to the ancient name by which they are popularly known,
+    have another imposed by the Moslems:--thus Agra is
+    Akbarabad, _the residence of Akbar_--Delhi,
+    Shahjehanabad; and Patna, Azimabad. In some instances,
+    as Dowlutabad in the Dekkan, the Hindu name of which is
+    Deogiri, the Mohammedan appellation has superseded the
+    ancient name; but, generally speaking, the latter is
+    that in common use.
+
+A place so often described as the "City of Palaces," presents little
+that is novel in the narrative of the khan; but he does full justice
+to the splendour of the architecture, which he says "exceeds that of
+_China or Ispahan_--a superiority which arises from the immense sums
+which every governor-general has laid out upon public works, and in
+improving and adorning the city: the Marquis Wellesley, in particular,
+expended lakhs of rupees in this way." The account which he gives,
+however, from a Mahommedan writer, of the disputes with the Mogul
+government which led to the transference of the British factory and
+commerce from its original seat at Hoogly to _Kali-kata_,[10] or
+Calcutta, differs considerably from that given by the British
+historians, if we are to suppose the events here alluded to (the date
+of which the khan does not mention) to be those which occurred in 1686
+and 1687, when Charnock defended the factory at Hoogly against the
+Imperial deputy, Shaista Khan. Our traveller's version of these
+occurrences is, that the factories of the English, which were then
+established on the Ghol Ghaut at Hoogly, having been overthrown by an
+earthquake, "Mr Charnock, the head officer of the factory, purchasing
+a garden called Banarasi, had the trees cut down, and commenced a new
+building. But while it was in progress, the principal Mogul merchants
+and inhabitants laid a complaint before Meer Nasir, the _foujdar_,
+(chief of police,) that their houses and harems would be overlooked,
+and great scandal occasioned, if the strangers should be allowed to
+erect such lofty buildings in the midst of the city.[11] The complaint
+was referred by the foujdar to the nawab, who forthwith issued orders
+for the discontinuance of the works, which were accordingly abandoned.
+The Company's agent, though highly offended at this arbitrary
+proceeding, was unable to resist it, having only one ship and a few
+sepoys; and, in spite of the efforts of the foujdar to dissuade him,
+he embarked with all his goods, and set sail for the peninsula," (qu.
+Indjeli?) "having first set fire to such houses as were near the
+river. At this time, however, the Emperor Aurungzib was in the
+Carnatic, beleaguered by the Mahrattas, who had cut off all supplies
+from his camp; and the Company's agent in that country, hearing of
+this, sent a large quantity of grain, which had been recently imported
+for their own use, for the relief of the army. Having thus gained the
+favour and protection of the Asylum of the World, the English were not
+only permitted to build factories in various parts of the country, but
+were exempted from the duties formerly laid on their goods. Charnock
+returned to Bengal with the emperor's firman; and the nawab, seeing
+how matters stood, withdrew his opposition to the erection of the
+factory at Hoogly. The English, however, preferred another situation,
+and chose Calcutta, where a building was soon erected, the same which
+is now called the old fort." This account, which is in fact more
+favourable to the English than that given by their own writers, is the
+only notice of these transactions we have ever found from a Mahommedan
+author; for so small was the importance attached by the Moguls to
+these obscure squabbles with a few Frank merchants, that even the
+historian Khafi-Khan, who acted as the emperor's representative for
+settling the differences which broke out about the same time in
+Bombay, makes no allusion to the simultaneous rupture in Bengal.
+
+    [10] "So called from _Kali_, the Hindu goddess, and
+    _kata_, laughter; because human victims were formerly
+    here sacrificed to her."
+
+    [11] From the sanctity attached by Oriental ideas to the
+    privacy of the harem, it is a high crime and
+    misdemeanour, punishable by law in all Moslem countries,
+    to erect buildings overlooking the residence of a
+    neighbour. At Constantinople, there is an officer called
+    the Minar Aga, or superintendent of edifices, whose
+    especial duty it is to prevent this.
+
+Our author, like Bishop Heber,[12] and other travellers on the same
+route, is struck by the contrast between the robust and well-fed
+peasantry of Hindustan Proper, and the puny rice-eaters of Bengal;
+"who eat fish, boiled rice, bitter oil; and an infinite variety of
+vegetables; but of wheaten or barley bread, and of pulse, they know
+not the taste, nor of mutton, fowl, or _ghee_, (clarified butter.) The
+author of the _Riaz-es-Selatin_, is indeed of opinion that such food
+does not suit their constitutions, and would make them ill if they
+were to eat it"--an invaluable doctrine to establish in dieting a
+pauper population! "As to their dress, they have barely enough to
+cover them--only a piece of cloth, called a _dhoti_, wrapped round
+their loins, while their head-dress consists of a dirty rag rolled two
+or three times round the temples, and leaving the crown bare. But the
+natives of Hindustan, and even their descendants to the second and
+third generation, always wear the _jamah_, or long muslin robe, out of
+doors, though in the house they adopt the Bengali custom. The author
+of the _Kholasat-al Tow[=a]rikh_, (an historical work,) says that both
+men and women formerly went naked; and no doubt he is right, for they
+can hardly be said to do otherwise now." Such are the peasants of
+Bengal--a race differing from the natives of Hindustan in language,
+manners, food, dress, and personal appearance; but who, from their
+vicinity to the seat of the English Supreme Government, have served as
+models for the descriptions given by many superficial travellers, as
+applying to all the natives of British India, without distinction! The
+horrible Hindu custom of immersing the sick, when considered past
+recovery, in the Ganges, and holding their lower limbs under water
+till they expire,[13] excites, as may be expected, the disgust of the
+khan; but the reason which he assigns for it, "the belief of these
+people, that if a man die in his own house, he would cause the death
+of every member of the family by assuming the form of a _bhut_ or evil
+spirit," is new to us, and appears to be analogous to the
+superstitious dread entertained by the Greeks and Sclavonians, of a
+corpse reanimated into a _Vroucolochas_, or vampire. "But if a man
+escapes from their hands, and recovers after this treatment, he is
+shunned by every one; and there are many villages in Bengal, called
+_villages of the dead_, inhabited by men who have thus escaped death;
+they are considered dead to society, and no other persons will dwell
+in the same villages."
+
+    [12] "Almost immediately on leaving Allahabad," (on his
+    way from Calcutta to the Upper Provinces,) "I was struck
+    with the appearance of the men, as tall and muscular as
+    the largest stature of Europeans; and with the fields of
+    _wheat_, almost the only cultivation."--Heber's Journal,
+    vol. iii. "Some of our boatmen passing through a field
+    of Indian corn, plucked two or three ears, certainly not
+    enough to constitute a theft, or even a trespass. Two of
+    the men, however, who were watching, ran after them, not
+    as the Bengalis would have done, to complain with joined
+    hands, but with stout bamboos, prepared to do themselves
+    justice _par voye de faict_. The men saved themselves by
+    swimming off to the boat; but my servants called out to
+    them--'Ah! dandee folk, beware, you are now in
+    Hindustan; the people here know well how to fight, and
+    are not afraid.'"
+
+    [13] "I told his (Pertab Chund's) father, that it was
+    wrong to keep him where he then was, and he told me to
+    take him down to the river. He was lifted up on his
+    bedding; his speech was not very distinct at that time,
+    but sufficiently so to call on the name of his T'hakoor,
+    (spiritual guide,) which he did as desired; he then
+    began to shiver, and complained of being very cold. I
+    was one of those who went with the rajah to the river
+    side. Jago Mohun Dobee pressed his legs under the water,
+    and kept them so; and about 10 p.m. his soul quitted the
+    body. When he died, his knees were under water, but the
+    rest of his body above." Evidence of Radha Sircar and
+    Sham Chum Baboo, before the Mofussil Court of Hoogly,
+    September 1838, in the enquiry on the impostor
+    Kistololl, who personated the deceased Pertab.
+
+The stay of the khan in Calcutta was prolonged for more than a month,
+during which time he rented a house from a native proprietor in the
+quarter of Kolitolla. While removing his effects from his boat to
+this residence, he became involved in a dispute with the police, in
+consequence of the violation by his servants, through ignorance, of
+the regulation which forbids persons from the Upper Provinces to enter
+the city armed; but this unintentional infringement of orders was
+easily explained and arranged by the intervention of an European
+friend, and the arms, of which the police had taken possession, were
+restored. While engaged in preparing for his voyage, the khan made the
+best use of his time in visiting the public buildings, and other
+objects of interest, among which he particularly notices the _minar_
+or column erected in the _maidan_, (square,) near the viceregal palace
+of the Nawab Governor-General Bahadur, by a subscription among the
+officers of the army, native as well as English, to the memory of the
+late Sir David Ochterlony; but rates it, with truth, as greatly
+inferior, both in dimensions and beauty, to the famous pillar of the
+Kootb-Minar near Delhi. The colossal fortifications of Fort-William
+are also duly commemorated; "they resemble an embankment externally,
+but when viewed from within are exceedingly high--no foe could
+penetrate within them, much less reach the treasures and magazines in
+the interior." Our traveller also visited the English courts of
+justice, in the proceedings of which he seems to have taken great
+interest, and was apparently treated with much hospitality by many of
+the European functionaries and other residents, by whom he was
+furnished with numerous letters of introduction, as well as receiving
+much information respecting the manners and customs of _Ingilistan_,
+or England. The choice of a ship, and the selection of sea-stock, were
+of course matters of grave consideration, and the more so from the
+peculiar unfitness of the habits and religious scruples of an Indian
+Moslem for the privations unavoidable at sea; but a passage was at
+last taken for the khan and his two servants on board the Edinburgh of
+1400 tons, and it being agreed that he should find his own provisions,
+to obviate all mistakes on the score of forbidden food, and the
+captain promising moreover that his comforts should be carefully
+attended to, this weighty negotiation was at length concluded. It is
+due to the khan to say, that whether from being better equipped, or
+from being endued with more philosophy and forbearance than his
+compatriot, Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, (to whom we have above referred,) he
+seems to have reconciled himself to the hardships of the _kala-pani_,
+or ocean, with an exceedingly good grace; and we find none of the
+complaints which fill the pages of the Mirza against the impurity of
+his food, the impossibility of performing his ablutions in appointed
+time and manner, and sundry other abominations by which he was so
+grievously afflicted, that at a time of danger to the vessel, "though
+many of the passengers were much alarmed, I, for my own part, was so
+weary of life that I was perfectly indifferent to my fate." Abu-Talib,
+however, sailed in an ill-regulated Danish ship; and in summing up the
+horrors of the sea, he strongly recommends his countrymen, if
+compelled to brave its miseries, to embark in none but an English
+vessel.
+
+During the last days of the khan's sojourn in Calcutta, he witnessed
+the splendid celebration of the rites of the Mohurrum, when the
+slaughter of the brother Imams, Hassan and Hussein, the martyred
+grandsons of the Prophet, is lamented by all sects of the faithful,
+but more especially by the _Rafedhis_ or Sheahs, the followers of Ali,
+"of whom there are many in Calcutta, though they are less numerous
+than the orthodox sect or Sunnis, from whom they are distinguished, at
+this season, by wearing black as mourning. At the _Baitak-Khana_ (a
+quarter of Calcutta) we witnessed the splendid procession of the
+_Taziya_,[14] with the banners and flags flying, and the wailers
+beating their breasts."... "It is the custom here, at this season, for
+all the natch-girls (dancers) to sit in the streets of the
+Chandnibazar, under canopies decorated with wreaths and flowers in
+the most fantastic manner, and sell sweetmeats, cardamums, betelnuts,
+&c., upon stalls, displaying their charms to the passers-by. I took a
+turn here one evening with five others, and found crowds of people
+collected, both strangers and residents: nor do they ordinarily
+disperse till long after midnight." On the second day after his visit
+to this scene of gaiety, he received notice that the ship was ready
+for sea; and on the 8th of Mohurrum 1256, (March 13, 1840,) he
+accordingly embarked with his baggage and servants on board the
+Edinburgh, which was towed in seven days, by a steamer, down the river
+to Saugor; and the pilot quitting her the next day at the floating
+light. "I now found myself," (says the khan,) "for the first time in
+my life, in the great ocean, where nothing was to be seen around but
+sky and water."
+
+    [14] _Taziya_, literally _grief_, is an ornamental
+    shrine erected in Moslem houses during the Mohurrum, and
+    intended to represent the mausoleum of Hassan and
+    Hussein, at Kerbelah in Persia. On the 10th and last day
+    of the mourning, the taziyas are carried in procession
+    to the outside of the city, and finally deposited with
+    funeral rites in the burying-grounds.--See _Mrs Meer
+    Hassan Ali's_ Observations on the Mussulmans of India.
+    Letter I.
+
+The account of a voyage at sea, as given by an Oriental, is usually
+the most deplorable of narratives--filled with exaggerated fears, the
+horrors of sea-sickness, and endless lamentations of the evil fate of
+the writer, in being exposed to such a complication of miseries. Of
+the wailing of Mirza Abu-Talib we have already given a specimen: and
+the Persian princes, even in the luxurious comfort of an English
+Mediterranean steamer, seem to have fared but little better, in their
+own estimation at least, than the Mirza in his dirty and disorderly
+Danish merchantman. "Our bones cried, 'Alas! for this evil there is no
+remedy.' We were vomiting all the time, and thus afflicted with
+incurable evils, in the midst of a sea which appears without end, the
+state of my health bad, the sufferings of my brothers very great, and
+no hope of being saved, we became most miserable." Such is the naive
+exposition of his woes, by H. R. H. Najaf Kooli Mirza; but Kerim Khan
+appears, both physically and morally, to have been made of different
+metal. Ere he had been two days on board we find him remarking--"I had
+by this time made some acquaintance among the passengers, and began to
+find my situation less irksome and lonely;" shortly afterwards
+adding--"The annoyances inseparable from this situation were relieved,
+in some measure, by the music and dancing going on every day except
+Sundays, owing to the numerous party of passengers, both gentlemen and
+ladies, whom we had on board--seeing which, a man forgets his griefs
+and troubles in the general mirth around him." So popular, indeed,
+does the khan appear already to have become, that the captain, finding
+that he had hitherto abstained from the use of his pipe, that great
+ingredient in Oriental comfort, from an idea that smoking was
+prohibited on board, "instantly sent for my hookah, had it properly
+prepared for me, and insisted on my not relinquishing this luxury, the
+privation of which he knew would occasion me considerable
+inconvenience." In other respects, also, he seems to have been not
+less happily constituted; for though he says that "the rolling and
+rocking of the ship, when it entered the _dark waters_ or open sea,
+completely upset my two companions, who became extremely sick"--his
+remarks on the incidents of the voyage, and the novel phenomena which
+presented themselves to his view, are never interrupted by any of
+those pathetic lamentations on the instability of the human stomach,
+which form so important and doleful an episode in the relations of
+most landsmen, of whatever creed or nation.
+
+The commencement of the voyage was prosperous; and the ship ran to the
+south before a fair wind, interrupted only by a few days of partial
+calm, till it reached the latitude of Ceylon, where the appearance of
+the flying fish excited the special wonder of the khan, who was by
+this time beginning, under the tuition of his fellow passengers, to
+make some progress in the English language, and had even attempted to
+fathom some of the mysteries of the science of navigation; "but though
+I took the sextant which the captain handed me, and held it precisely
+as he had done, I could make nothing of it." The regular performance
+of the Church service on Sundays, and the cessation on that day from
+the ordinary amusements, is specially noticed on several occasions,
+and probably made a deeper impression on the mind of our Moslem
+friend, from the popular belief current in India that the _Feringhis_
+are men _of no caste_, without religious faith or ceremonies--a belief
+which the conduct and demeanour of the Anglo-Indians in past times
+tended, in too many instances, to confirm. Off the southern extremity
+of Ceylon, the ship was again becalmed for several days; but the
+tedium of this interval was relieved, not only by the ordinary sea
+incidents of the capture of a shark and the appearance of a whale,
+(the zoological distinctions between which and the true fishes are
+stated by the khan with great correctness,) but by the occurrence of a
+mutiny on board an English vessel in company, which was fortunately
+quelled by the exertions of the captain of the Edinburgh.
+
+"The spicy gales of Ceylon," blowing off the coast to the distance, as
+stated, of fifty miles, (an extremely moderate range when compared
+with the accounts of some other travellers,) at last brought on their
+wings the grateful announcement of the termination of the calm; but
+before quitting the vicinity of this famous island, (more celebrated
+in eastern story under the name of Serendib,) the khan gives some
+notices of the legends connected with its history, which show a more
+extended acquaintance with Hindu literature than the Moslems in India
+in general take the trouble of acquiring. Among the rest he alludes to
+the epic of the Ramayuna, and the bridge built by Rama (or as he calls
+him, Rajah Ram Chunder) for the passage of the monkey army and their
+redoubled general, Huniman, from the Indian continent into the island,
+in order to deliver from captivity Seeta, the wife of the hero. The
+wind still continuing favourable, the ship quickly passed the equator,
+and the pole-star was no longer visible--"a proof of the earth's
+sphericity which I was glad to have had an opportunity of seeing;" and
+they left, at a short distance to the right, the islands of Mauritius
+and Bourbon, "which are not far from the great island of Madagascar,
+where the faithful turn their faces to the north when they pray, as
+they turn them to the west in India," the _kiblah_, or point of
+direction, being in both cases the kaaba, or temple of Mekka. They
+were now approaching the latitude of the Cape; and our voyager was
+astonished by the countless multitudes of sea-birds which surrounded
+the ship, and particularly by the giant bulk of the albatrosses,
+"which I was told remained day and night on the ocean, repairing to
+the coast of Africa only at the period of incubation." The Cape of
+Storms, however, as it was originally named by Vasco de Gama, did not
+fail on this occasion to keep up its established character for bad
+weather. A severe gale set in from the east, which speedily increased
+to a storm. A sailor fell from "the third stage of the mainmast," (the
+main topgallant yard,) and was killed on the deck; and as the
+inhospitable shores of Africa were close under their lee, the ship
+appears for some time to have been in considerable danger. But in this
+(to him) novel scene of peril, the khan manifests a degree of
+self-possession, strongly contrasting with the timidity of the royal
+grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, the expression of whose fears during a
+gale is absolutely ludicrous. "We were so miserable that we gave up
+all hope; we gave up our souls, and began to beseech God for
+forgiveness; while the wind continued increasing, and all the waves of
+the western sea rose up in mountains, with never-ceasing noise, till
+they reached the planets." Even after the violence of the hurricane
+had in some measure abated, the sea continued to run so high that the
+ports were kept closed for several days. "At last, however, they were
+opened for the purpose of ventilating the interior; and the band,
+which had been silent for some days, began to play again." The
+appearance of a water-spout on the same afternoon is thus
+described:--"An object became visible in the distance, in the form of
+a minaret, and every one on board crowded on deck to look at it. On
+asking what it was, I was told that what appeared to be a minaret was
+only water, which was drawn up towards the heavens by the force of the
+wind, and when this ceased would fall again into the sea, and was what
+we should call a whirlwind. This is sometimes extremely dangerous to
+vessels, since, if it reaches them, it is so powerful as to draw them
+out of the sea in the same manner as it draws up the water; in
+consequence of which many ships have been lost when they have been
+overtaken by this wonderful phenomenon."
+
+The storm was succeeded by a calm, which detained the ship for two
+days within sight of the lofty mountains near the Cape. "It was
+bitterly cold, for the seasons are here reversed, and instead of
+summer, as we should have expected, it was now the depth of winter.
+At length, however, (on the 69th day after our leaving Calcutta,) a
+strong breeze sprung up, which enabled us to set all sail, and carried
+us away from this table-land." The run from the Cape to St Helena
+seems to have been barren of incident, except an accidental encounter
+with a vessel in distress, which proved to be a slaver which had been
+captured by an English cruiser, and had sustained serious damage in
+the late storm while proceeding to the Cape with a prize crew. On
+approaching St Helena, the captain "gave orders for the ship to be
+painted, both inside and out, that the people of the island might not
+say we came in a dirty ship; and as we neared the land, a white flag
+was hoisted to apprise those on shore that there was no one ill on
+board. In cases of sickness a yellow flag is displayed, and then no
+one is permitted to land from the ship for fear of contagion. The
+island is about twenty-six miles in circuit, and is constantly
+enveloped in fog and mist. It is said to have been formerly a volcano,
+but has now ceased to smoke. The vegetation is luxuriant, but few of
+the flowers are fragrant. I recognised some, however, both flowers and
+fruits, which seemed similar to those of India. I took the opportunity
+of landing with the captain to see the town, which is small, but
+extremely well fortified, the cannon being so numerous that one might
+suppose the whole island one immense iron-foundery. It is populous,
+the inhabitants being chiefly Jews and English; but as it was Sunday,
+and all the shops were shut, it had a dull appearance. After surveying
+the town, I ascended a hill in the country, leading to the tomb of
+Napoleon Bonaparte, which is on an elevated spot, four miles from the
+town.
+
+"This celebrated personage was a native of Corsica; and enjoying a
+fortunate horoscope, he entered the French army, and speedily rose to
+the rank of general; and afterwards, with the consent of the people
+and the soldiery, made himself emperor. After this he conquered
+several kingdoms, and the fame of his prowess and his victories filled
+all the European world. When he invaded Russia, he defeated the
+Muscovites in several great battles, and took their capital; but, in
+consequence of the intensity of the cold, several thousands of his
+army both men and horses, perished miserably. This catastrophe obliged
+him to return to France, where he undertook the conquest of another
+country. At this time George III. reigned in England; and having
+collected all the disposable forces of his kingdom, appointed Lord
+Wellington (the same general who was employed in the war against
+Tippoo Sultan in Mysore) to command them, and sent him to combat the
+French Emperor. He entered Spain, and forced the Emperor's brother,
+Yusuf, (Joseph,) who was king of that country, to fly--till after a
+variety of battles and incidents, too numerous to particularize, the
+two hostile armies met at a place called by the English Waterloo,
+where a bloody battle was fought, as famous as that of P[=a]sh[=a]n,
+between Sohrab and the hero Rustan: and Napoleon was overthrown and
+made prisoner. He was then sent, though in a manner suitable to his
+rank, to this island of St Helena, where, after a few years, he
+finished his earthly career. His tomb is much visited by all who touch
+at the island, and has become a _durgah_ (shrine) for innumerable
+visitors from Europe. There are persons appointed to take care of it,
+who give to strangers, in consideration of a small present, the leaves
+and flowers of the trees which grow round the tomb. No other Emperor
+of the Europeans was ever so honoured as to have had his tomb made a
+shrine and place of pilgrimage: nor was ever one so great a conqueror,
+or so renowned for his valour and victories."
+
+The remainder of the voyage from St Helena to England was apparently
+marked by no incident worthy of mention, as the khan notices only the
+reappearance of the pole-star on their crossing the line, and
+re-entering the northern hemisphere, and their reaching once more the
+latitude of Delhi, "which we now passed many thousand miles to our
+right; after which nothing of importance occurred till we reached the
+British Channel, when we saw the Scilly Isles in the distance, and
+about noon caught a glimpse of the Lizard Point, and the south coast
+of England, together with the lighthouse: the country of the French
+lay on our right at the distance of about eighty miles. I was given
+to understand that the whole distance from St Helena to London, by the
+ship's reckoning, was 6328 miles, and 16,528 from Calcutta." In the
+Downs the pilot came on board, from whom they received the news of the
+attempt recently made by Oxford on the life of the Queen; and here the
+captain, anxious to lose no time in reaching London, quitted the
+vessel as it entered the Thames, "the sources of which famous river, I
+was informed, were near a place called Cirencester, eighty-eight miles
+from London, in the _zillah_ (county) of Gloucester." The ship was now
+taken in tow by a couple of steam-tugs, and passing Woolwich, "where
+are the war-ships and _top-khana_ (arsenal) of the English Padishah,
+at length reached Blackwall, where we anchored."
+
+"I now (continues the khan) returned thanks to God for having
+brought me safe through the wide ocean to this extraordinary
+country--bethinking myself of the answer once made by a man who had
+undertaken a voyage, on being asked by his friends what he had seen
+most wonderful--'The greatest wonder I have seen is seeing myself
+alive on land!'" The troubles of the khan, however, were far from
+being ended by his arrival on _terra firma_: for apparently from
+some mistake or inadvertence, (the cause of which does not very
+clearly appear,) on the part of the friends whom he had expected to
+meet him, he found himself, on landing at Blackwall and proceeding
+by the railway to London, left alone by the person who had thus far
+been his guide, in apartments near Cornhill, almost wholly
+unacquainted with the English language, separated from his baggage
+and servants, who were still on board the Edinburgh, and with no one
+in his company but another Hindustani, as little versed as himself
+in the ways and speech of Franguestan. In this "considerable
+unhandsome fix," as it would be called on the other side of the
+Atlantic, the perplexities of the khan are related with such
+inimitable naivete and good-humour, that we cannot do better than
+give the account of them in his own words. "As I could neither ask
+for any thing, nor answer any question put to me, I passed the whole
+night without a morsel of food or a drop of water: till in the
+morning, feeling hungry, I requested my companion to go to some
+bazar and buy some fruit. He replied that it would be impossible for
+him either to find his way to a bazar through the crowds of people,
+or to find his way back again--as all the houses were so much alike.
+I then told him to go straight on in the street we were in, turning
+neither to the right nor the left till he met with some shop where
+we might get what we wanted: and, in order to direct him to the
+place on his return, I agreed to lean half out of the window, so
+that he could not fail to see me. No sooner, however, did he sally
+forth, than the people, men, women, and children, began to stare at
+him on all sides, as if he had dropped from the moon; some stopped
+and gazed, and numbers followed him as if he had been a criminal
+about being led to execution. Nor was I in a more enviable position:
+the people soon caught sight of me with my head and shoulders out of
+the window; and in a few minutes a mob had collected opposite the
+door. What was I to do? If I withdrew myself, my friend on returning
+would have no mark to find the house, while, if I remained where I
+was, the curiosity of the crowd would certainly increase. I kept my
+post, however, while every one that passed stopped and gazed like
+the rest, till there was actually no room for vehicles to pass; and
+in this unpleasant situation I remained fully an hour, when seeing
+my friend returning, I went down and opened the door for him. He
+told me he had gone straight on, till he came to a fruit-shop, at
+the corner of another street, when he went in, and laying two
+shillings on the counter, said in Oordu, (the polished dialect of
+Hindustani,) 'Give me some fruit.' The shopman, not understanding
+him, spoke to him in English; to which he replied again in Oordu, 'I
+want some fruit!' pointing at the same time to the money, to signify
+that he wanted two shillings' worth of fruit. The man, however,
+continued confounded; and my friend at last, not knowing of what
+sort the fruits were, whether sour or sweet, bitter or otherwise,
+ventured, after much hesitation and fruitless attempts to
+communicate with the shopman by signs and gestures, to take up four
+apples, and then made his retreat in the best manner he could,
+followed, as here, by the rabble. I at last caught a glimpse of him,
+as I have mentioned, and let him in; and we sat down together, and
+breakfasted on these four apples, my friend taking two of them, and
+I the others."
+
+It must be admitted that our khan's first meal in England, and the
+concomitant circumstances, were not calculated to impress him with a
+very high idea, either of the comforts of the country or the
+politeness of the inhabitants; but the unruffled philosophy with which
+he submitted to these untoward privations was, ere-long, rewarded by
+the arrival of the East India agent to whose care he had been
+recommended, and who, after putting him in the way of getting his
+servants and luggage on shore from the vessel, took him out in a
+carriage to show him the metropolis. "It was, indeed, wonderful in
+every point of view, whether I regarded the immense population, the
+dresses and faces of the men and women, the multitudes of houses,
+churches, &c., and the innumerable carriages running in streets paved
+with stone and wood, (the width and openness of which seem to expand
+the heart,) and confining themselves to the middle of the road,
+without overturning any of the foot-passengers." The cathedral of St
+Paul's is described with great minuteness of detail, and the expense
+of its erection stated at seventy-three lakhs of rupees, (about
+L.750,000;) "but I have heard that if a similar edifice were erected
+in the present day, it would cost four times as much, as the cost of
+every thing has increased in at least that proportion."
+
+The difficulties of the khan, from his ignorance of the language, and
+Moslem scruples at partaking of food not dressed by his own people,
+were not yet, however, at an end. For though, on returning to his
+lodging in the evening, he found that his friend had succeeded in
+procuring from the ship a dish of _kichiri_, (an Indian mess, composed
+of rice and _ghee_, or clarified butter,) his inability to communicate
+with his landlady still occasioned him considerable perplexity.
+"Having ventured to take some pickles, which I saw on the sideboard,
+and finding them palatable, I sent for the landlady, and tried to
+explain to her by signs, pointing to the bottles, that I wanted
+something like what they contained. Alas, for my ignorance! She
+thought I wished them taken out of the room, and so walked off with
+them, leaving me in the utmost astonishment. How was I to get it back
+again? it was the only thing I had to relish my _kichiri_. I had,
+therefore, recourse to this expedient--I got an apple and pared it,
+putting the parings in a bottle with water; and showing this to the
+landlady, intimated, by signs, that I wanted something like it to eat
+with my rice. She asked many questions in English, and talked a great
+deal, from which I inferred that she had at last discovered my
+meaning, but five minutes had hardly elapsed when she re-appeared,
+bearing in her hand a bottle of water, filled with apple-parings cut
+in the nicest manner imaginable! This she placed on the table in the
+most respectful manner, and then retired!"
+
+The good lady, however, conceiving that her guest was in danger of
+perishing with hunger, was benevolently importunate with him to
+partake of some nourishment, or at least of some tea and toast, "since
+it is the custom in this country for every one to eat five times
+a-day, and some among the wealthy are not satisfied even with this!"
+The arrival of an English acquaintance, who explained to the landlady
+the religious prejudices of her lodger, in some measure relieved him
+from his embarrassment; but he was again totally disconcerted, by
+finding it impossible, after a long search, to procure any _ghee_--an
+ingredient indispensable in the composition of every national dish of
+India, whether Moslem or Hindu. "How shall I express my astonishment
+at this extraordinary ignorance? What! do they not know what _ghee_
+is? Wonderful! This was a piece of news I never expected--that what
+abounds in every little wretched village in India, could not be
+purchased in this great city!" How this unforeseen deficiency was
+supplied does not appear; but probably the khan's never-failing
+philosophy enabled him to bear even this unparalleled privation with
+equanimity, as we hear no further complaints on the subject. He did
+not remain, however, many days in those quarters, finding that the
+incessant noise of the vehicles passing day and night deprived him of
+sleep; and, by the advice of his friends, he took a small house in St
+John's Wood, where he was at once at a distance from the intolerable
+clamour of the streets, and at liberty to live after the fashion of
+his own country.
+
+The first place of public resort to which he directed his steps,
+appears to have been the Pantheon bazar in Oxford Street, whither the
+familiar name perhaps attracted him--"for the term _bazar_ is in use
+also among the people of this country;" but he does not appear to have
+been particularly struck by any thing he saw there, except the
+richness and variety of the wares. On the contrary, he complains of
+the want of fragrance in the flowers in the conservatory, particularly
+the roses, as compared with those of his native land--"there was _one_
+plantain-tree which seemed to be regarded as a sort of wonder, though
+thousands grow in our gardens without any sort of culture." The
+presence of the female attendants at the stalls, a sight completely at
+variance with Asiatic ideas, is also noticed with marked
+disapprobation--"Most of them were young and handsome, and seemed
+perfect adepts in the art of selling their various wares; but I could
+not help reflecting, on seeing so many fine young women engaged in
+this degrading occupation, on the ease and comfort enjoyed by our
+females, compared to the drudgery and servile employment to which the
+sex are subjected in this country. Notwithstanding all the English say
+of the superior condition of their women, it is quite evident, from
+all I have seen since my arrival, that their social state is far below
+that of our females." This sentiment is often repeated in the course
+of the narrative, and any one who has read, in the curious work of Mrs
+Meer Hassan Ali, quoted above, an account of the strict domestic
+seclusion in which Moslem females having any pretensions to rank, or
+even respectability, are constantly retained in India, will not be
+surprised at the frequent expression of repugnance, whenever the
+writer sees women engaged in any public or out-of-doors occupation--a
+custom so abhorrent to Oriental, and, above all, to Indian ideas.
+
+We next find the khan in the Zoological Gardens, his matter-of-fact
+description of which affords an amusing contrast with that of those
+veracious scions of Persian royalty, who luxuriate in "elephant birds
+just like an elephant, but without the proboscis, and with wings
+fifteen yards long"--"an elephant twenty-four feet high, with a trunk
+forty feet long;" and who assure us that "the monkeys act like human
+beings, and play at chess with those who visit the gardens. On this
+day a Jew happened to be at this place, and went to play a game with
+the monkey. The monkey beat, and began to laugh loudly, all the people
+standing round him; and the Jew, exceedingly abashed, was obliged to
+leave the place." The khan, in common with ourselves, and the
+generality of visitors to the Regent's Park, was not fortunate enough
+to witness any of the wondrous feats which gladdened the royal eyes of
+the Shahzadehs--though he saw some of the apes, meaning the
+orang-outan, "drink tea and coffee, sit on chairs, and eat their food
+like human beings." * * *
+
+"There is no island or kingdom," (he continues,) "which has not
+contributed its specimens of the animal kingdom to these gardens: from
+the elephant and rhinoceros, to the fly and the mosquito, all are to
+be seen here"--but not even the giraffes, strange as their appearance
+must have been to him, attract any particular notice; though the sight
+of the exotics in the garden draws from him a repetition of his old
+complaint, relative to the want of fragrance in the flowers as
+compared with those produced under the genial sun of India. The
+ceremony of the prorogation of Parliament by the Queen in person was
+now at hand, and the khan determined to be present at this imposing
+scene. But as he takes this opportunity to introduce his observations
+and opinions on the laws and customs of this country, we shall
+postpone to our next Number the discussion of these weighty subjects.
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRTEENTH.
+
+A TALE OF DOOM.
+
+
+It was on a sultry July evening that a joyous party of young men were
+assembled in the principal room of a wine house, outside the Potsdam
+gate of Berlin. One of their number, a Saxon painter, by name Carl
+Solling, was about to take his departure for Italy. His place was
+taken in the Halle mail, his luggage sent to the office, and the coach
+was to call for him at midnight at the tavern, whither a number of his
+most intimate friends had accompanied him, to drink a parting glass of
+Rhenish wine to his prosperous journey.
+
+Supper was over, and some magnificent melons, and peaches, and plates
+of caviare, and other incentives to drinking, placed upon the table; a
+row of empty bottles already graced the sideboard, while full ones of
+that venerable cobweb-mantle appearance, so dear to the toper, were
+forthcoming as rapidly as the thirstiest throats could desire. The
+conviviality was at its height, and numerous toasts had been given,
+among which the health of the traveller, the prosperity of the art
+which he cultivated, and of the land of poetry and song to which he
+was proceeding, had not been forgotten. Indeed, it was becoming
+difficult to find any thing to toast, but the thirst of the party was
+still unquenched, and apparently unquenchable.
+
+Suddenly a young man started up, in dress and appearance the very
+model of a German student--in short frock coat and loose sacklike
+trousers, long curling hair hanging over his shoulders, pointed beard
+and mustache, and the scars of one or two sabre cuts on his handsome
+animated countenance.
+
+"You want a toast, my friends!" cried he. "An excuse to drink, as
+though drinking needed an excuse when the wine is good. I will give
+you one, and a right worthy one too. Our noble selves here assembled;
+all, so many as we are!" And he glanced round the table, counting the
+number of the guests. "One, two, three, four--thirteen. We are
+Thirteen. _Es lebe die Dreizehn!_"
+
+He raised his glass, in which the golden liquor flashed and sparkled,
+and set it down, drained to the last drop.
+
+"_Thirteen!_" exclaimed a pale-faced, dark-eyed youth named Raphael,
+starting from his seat, and in his turn counting the company. "'Tis
+true. My friends, ill luck will attend us. We are Thirteen, seated at
+a round table."
+
+There was evidently an unpleasant impression made upon the guests by
+this announcement. The toast-giver threw a scornful glance around
+him--
+
+"What!" cried he, "are we believers in such nursery tales and old
+wives' superstitions? Pshaw! The charm shall soon be broken. Halls!
+Franz! Winebutt! Thieving innkeeper! Rascally corkdrawer! where are
+you hidden? Come forth! Appear!"
+
+Thus invoked, there toddled into the room the master of the tavern--a
+round-bellied, short-legged individual, whose rosy gills and
+Bacchus-like appearance proved his devotion to the jolly god whose
+high-priest he was.
+
+"Sit down here!" cried the mad student, forcing him into a chair; "and
+now, Raphael and gentlemen all, be pleased to shorten your faces
+again, and drink your wine as if one with a three after it were an
+unknown combination of numerals."
+
+The conversation now took a direction naturally given to it by what
+had just occurred, and the origin and causes of the popular prejudice
+against the number Thirteen were discussed.
+
+"It cannot be denied that there is something mysterious in the
+connection and combination of numbers," observed a student in
+philosophy; "and Pythagoras was right enough when he sought the
+foundation of all human knowledge in the even and uneven. All over the
+world the idea of something complete and perfect is associated with
+even numbers, and of something imperfect and defective with uneven
+ones. The ancients, too, considered even numbers of good omen, and
+uneven ones as unpropitious."
+
+"It is really a pity," cried the mad student, "that you philosophers
+should not be allowed to invert and re-arrange history in the manner
+you deem fitting. You would soon torture the crooked stream of time
+into a straight line. I should like to know from what authors you
+derive your very original ideas in favour of even numbers. As far as
+my reading goes, I find that number three was considered a sacred and
+a fortunate number by nearly all the sects of antiquity, not excepting
+the Pythagoreans. And the early Romans had such a respect for the
+uneven numbers, that they never allowed a flock of sheep to be of any
+number divisible by two."
+
+The philosopher did not seem immediately prepared with a reply to this
+attack.
+
+"You are all of you looking too far back for the origin of the curse
+that attends the number Thirteen," interposed Raphael. "Think only of
+the Lord's Supper, which is rather nearer to our time than Pythagoras
+and the Roman shepherds. It is since then that Thirteen has been a
+stigmatized and fatal number. Judas Iscariot was the Thirteenth at
+that sacred table and believe me it is no childish superstition that
+makes men shun so unblest a number."
+
+"Here is Solling, who has not given his opinion yet," cried another of
+the party, "and yet I am sure he has something to say on the subject.
+How now, Carl, what ails thee, man? Why so sad and silent?"
+
+The painter who, at the commencement of the evening, had entered
+frankly and willingly into the joyous humour of his friends, had
+become totally changed since the commencement of this discussion on
+the number _Thirteen_. He sat silent and thoughtful in his chair, and
+left his glass untasted before him, while his thoughts were evidently
+occupied by some unpleasant subject. His companions pressed him for
+the cause of this change, and after for some time evading their
+questions, he at last confessed that the turn the conversation had
+taken had brought painful recollections to his mind.
+
+"It is a matter I love not to speak about," said he; "but it is no
+secret, and least of all could I have any wish to conceal it from you,
+my good and kind friends. We have yet an hour before the arrival of
+the mail, and if you are disposed to listen, I will relate to you the
+strange incidents, the recollection of which has saddened me."
+
+The painter's offer was eagerly accepted; the young men drew their
+chairs round the table, and Solling commenced as follows:--
+
+"I am a native of the small town of Geyer, in Saxony, of the tin mines
+of which place my father was inspector. I was the twelfth child of my
+parents and half an hour after I saw the light my mother give birth to
+a Thirteenth, also a boy. Death, however, was busy in this numerous
+family. Several had died while yet infants, and there now survive only
+three besides myself, and perhaps my twin brother.
+
+"The latter, who was christened Bernard, gave indications at a very
+early age of an eccentric and violent disposition. Precocious in
+growth and strength, wild as a young foal, headstrong and passionate,
+full of spiteful tricks and breakneck pranks, he was the terror of the
+family and the neighbours. In spite of his unamiable qualities, he was
+the pet of his father, who pardoned or laughed at all his mischief,
+and the consequence was, that he became an object of fear and hatred
+to his brothers and sisters. Our hatred, however, was unjust; for
+Bernard's heart was good, and he would have gone through fire and
+water for any of us. But he was rough and violent in whatever he did,
+and we dreaded the fits of affection he sometimes took for us, almost
+as much as his less amiable humours.
+
+"As far back as I can remember, Bernard received not only from his
+brothers, but also from all our playfellows, the nickname of the
+Thirteenth, in allusion, of course, to his being my mother's
+thirteenth child. At first this offended him grievously, and many were
+the sound thrashings he inflicted in his endeavours to get rid of the
+obnoxious title. Finally he succeeded, but scarcely had he done so
+when, from some strange perversity of character, he adopted as an
+honourable distinction the very name he had taken such pains to
+suppress.
+
+"We were playing one Sunday afternoon in the large court of our house;
+several of the neighbours' children were there, and it chanced that we
+were exactly twelve in number. We had wooden swords, and were having
+a sort of tournament, from which, however, we had managed to exclude
+Bernard, who, in such games, was accustomed to hit rather too hard.
+Suddenly he bounded over a wall, and fell amongst us like a
+thunderbolt. He had painted his face in red and black stripes, and
+made himself a pair of wings out of an old leathern apron; and thus
+equipped and armed with the largest broomstick he had been able to
+find, he showered his blows around him, driving us right and left, and
+shouting out, 'Room, room for the mad Thirteenth!'
+
+"Soon after this incident my father died. Bernard, who had been his
+favourite, was as violent in his grief as he had already shown himself
+to be in every thing else. He wept and screamed like a mad creature,
+tore his hair, bit his hands till they bled, and struck his head
+against the wall; raved and flew at every body who came near him, and
+was obliged to be shut up when his father's coffin was carried out of
+the house, or he would inevitably have done himself or somebody else a
+mischief.
+
+"My mother had an unmarried brother in the town of Marienberg, a
+wealthy man, and who was Bernard's godfather. On learning my father's
+death he came to Geyer, and invited his sister and her children to go
+and take up their abode with him. But the worthy man little knew the
+plague he was receiving into his house in the person of his godson.
+Himself of a mild, quiet disposition, he was greatly scandalized by
+the wild pranks of his nephew, and made vain attempts to restrain him
+within some bounds; but by so doing he became the aversion of my
+brother, who showed his dislike in every possible way. He gave him
+nicknames, broke his china cups and saucers, by which the old
+gentleman set great store, splashed his white silk stockings with mud
+as he went to church, put the house clock an hour forward or back, and
+tormented his kind godfather in every way he could devise.
+
+"Bernard had not forgotten his title of the Thirteenth; but it was
+probable he would soon have got tired of it, for it was not his custom
+to adhere long to any thing, had not my uncle, who was a little
+superstitious, strictly forbidden him to adopt it. This opposition was
+all that was wanting to make my brother bring forward the unlucky
+number upon every possible occasion. When any body mentioned the
+number twelve before him, or called any thing the twelfth, Bernard
+would immediately cry out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'
+
+"No matter when it was, or before whom; time, place, and persons were
+to him alike indifferent. For instance, one Sunday in church, when the
+clergyman in the course of the service said, 'Let us sing a portion of
+such a psalm, beginning at the twelfth verse,' Bernard immediately
+screamed out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'
+
+"This was a grievous scandal to my uncle, and Bernard was called that
+evening before a tribunal, composed of his godfather, my mother, and
+the old clergyman whom he had so gracelessly interrupted, and who was
+also teacher of Latin and theology at the school to which Bernard and
+I went. But all their reproaches and remonstrances were lost upon my
+brother, who had evidently much difficulty to keep himself from
+laughing in their faces. My mother wept, my uncle paced the room in
+great perplexity, and the worthy old dominie clasped his hands
+together, and exclaimed, 'My child! I fear me, God's chastisement will
+be needed to amend you.' The event proved that he was right.
+
+"It was on the Friday before Christmas-day, and we were assembled in
+school. The near approach of the holidays had made the boys somewhat
+turbulent, and the poor old dominie had had much to suffer during the
+whole day from their tricks and unruliness. My brother, of course, had
+contributed largely to the disorder, much to the delight of his bosom
+friend and companion, the only son of the master. This boy, whose name
+was Albert, was a blue-eyed, fair haired lad, gentle as a girl.
+Bernard had conceived a violent friendship for him, and had taken him
+under his protection. Albert's father, as may be supposed, was little
+pleased at this intimacy, but yet, out of consideration for my uncle,
+he did not entirely forbid it; and the more so as he perceived that
+his son in no respect imitated his wild playmate, but contented
+himself with admiring him beyond all created beings, and repaying with
+the warmest affection Bernard's watchful and jealous guardianship.
+
+"On the afternoon in question, my brother surpassed himself in wayward
+conceits and mischievous tricks, to the infinite delight of Albert,
+who rocked with laughter at each new prank. The good dominie, who was
+indulgence itself, was instructing us in Bible history, and had to
+interrupt himself every moment to repress the unruliness of his
+pupils, and especially of Bernard.
+
+"It seemed pre-ordained that the lesson should be an unlucky one.
+Every thing concurred to make it so. Our instructor had occasion to
+speak of the twelve tribes of Israel, of the twelve patriarchs, of the
+twelve gates of the holy city. Each of these served as a cue to my
+brother, who immediately shouted out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!' and
+each time Albert threw himself back shrieking with laughter, thus
+encouraging Bernard to give full scope to his mad humour. The poor
+dominie remonstrated, menaced, supplicated, but all in vain. I saw the
+blood rising into his pale face, and at last his bald head, in spite
+of the powder which sprinkled it, became red all over. He contained
+himself, however, and proceeded to the account of the Lord's Supper.
+He began, 'And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve
+apostles with him.'
+
+"'And I am the Thirteenth!' yelled Bernard.
+
+"Scarcely were the words uttered, when a Bible flew across the school,
+the noise of a blow, and a cry of anguish followed, and the old man
+fell senseless to the ground. The heavy Bible, the corners of which
+were bound with silver, and that he had hurled in a moment of
+uncontrollable passion at my brother, had missed its mark, and struck
+his own son on the head. Albert lay bleeding on the floor, while
+Bernard hung over him like one beside himself, weeping, and kissing
+his wounds.
+
+"The boys ran, one and all, out of the school-room, shrieking for
+assistance. Our cries soon brought the servants to the spot, who, on
+learning what had happened, hastened with us back to the school, and
+lifted up the old master, who was still lying on the ground near his
+desk. He had been struck with apoplexy, and survived but a few hours.
+Albert was wounded in two places, one of the sharp corners of the
+Bible having cut open his forehead, while another had injured his left
+eye. After much suffering he recovered, but the sight of the eye was
+gone.
+
+"Bernard, however, had disappeared. When we re-entered the
+school-room, a window which looked into the playground was open, and
+there were marks of footsteps on the snow without. A short distance
+further were traces of blood, where the fugitive had apparently washed
+his face and hands in the snow. We have never seen him since that
+day."
+
+The painter paused, and his friends remained some moments silent,
+musing on the tragical history they had heard.
+
+"And do you know nothing whatever of your brother's fate?" enquired
+Raphael at last.
+
+"Next to nothing. My uncle caused enquiries to be made in every
+direction, but without success. Once only a neighbour at Marienberg,
+who had been travelling on the Bohemian frontier, told us that he had
+met at a village inn a wandering clarinet-player, who bore so strong a
+resemblance to my brother that he accosted him by his name. The
+musician seemed confused, and muttering some unintelligible reply,
+left the house in haste. What renders it probable that this was
+Bernard is, that he had a great natural talent for music, and at the
+time he left home, had already attained considerable proficiency on
+the clarinet."
+
+"How old was your brother when he so strangely disappeared?" asked one
+of the party.
+
+"Fifteen, but he looked at least two years older, for he was stout and
+manly in person beyond his age."
+
+At this moment the rattling of wheels, and sound of a postilion's
+horn, was heard. The Halle mail drove up to the door, the guard
+bawling out for his passenger. The young painter took a hasty leave of
+his friends, and sprang into the vehicle, which the next instant
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+There was an overplus of travellers by the mail that night, and the
+carriage in which Solling had got, was not the mail itself, but a
+caleche, holding four persons, which was used as a sort of
+supplement, and followed close to the other carriage. Two of the
+places were occupied by a Jew horse-dealer and a sergeant of hussars,
+who were engaged in an animated, and to them most interesting
+conversation, on the subject of horse-flesh, to which the painter paid
+little attention; but leaning back in his corner, remained absorbed in
+the painful reflections which the incidents he had been narrating had
+called up in his mind. In spite of his brother's eccentricities, he
+was truly attached to him; and although eight years had elapsed since
+his disappearance, he had not yet given up hopes of finding him, if
+still alive. The enquiries that he and his uncle had unceasingly made
+after their lost relative, had put them, about three years previous to
+this time, upon the trace of a clarinet-player who had been seen at
+Venice and Trieste, and went by the name of Voltojo. This might have
+been a name adopted by Bernard, as being nearly the Italian equivalent
+of Geyer, or hawk, the name of his native town; and Solling was not
+without a faint hope, that in the course of his journey to Rome he
+might obtain some tidings of his brother.
+
+He was roused from his reverie by the postilion shouting out to the
+guard of the mail, which was just before them on the road, to know
+when they were to take up the passenger who was to occupy the
+remaining seat in the caleche.
+
+"Where will the Thirteenth meet us?" asked the man.
+
+"At the inn at Schoneber," replied the guard.
+
+_The Thirteenth!_ The word made the painter's blood run cold. The
+horse-dealer and the sergeant, who had begun to doze in their
+respective corners, were also disturbed by the ill-omened sound.
+
+"The Thirteenth! The Thirteenth!" muttered the Jew in his beard, still
+half asleep. "God forbid! Let's have no thirteenth!"
+
+A company of travelling comedians, who occupied the mail, took up the
+word. "The Thirteenth is coming," said one.
+
+"Somebody will die," cried another.
+
+"Or we shall be upset and break our necks," exclaimed a third.
+
+"No Thirteenth!" cried they all in chorus. "Drive on! drive on! he
+sha'n't get in!"
+
+This was addressed to the postilion, who just then pulled up at the
+door of a village inn, and giving a blast with his horn, shouted
+loudly for his remaining passenger to appear.
+
+The door of the public-house opened, and a tall figure, with a small
+knap-sack on his shoulder and a knotty stick in his hand, stepped out
+and approached the mail. But when he heard the cries of the comedians,
+who were still protesting against the admission of a Thirteenth
+traveller, he started suddenly back, swinging his cudgel in the air.
+
+"To the devil with you all, vagabonds that ye are!" vociferated he.
+"Drive on, postilion, with your cage of monkeys. I shall walk."
+
+At the sound of the stranger's voice, Solling sprang up in the
+carriage and seized the handle of the door. But as he did so, a strong
+arm grasped him by the collar, and pulled him back into his seat. At
+the same moment the carriage drove on.
+
+"The man is drunk," said the sergeant, who had misinterpreted his
+fellow-passenger's intentions. "It is not worth while dirtying your
+hands, and perhaps getting an ugly blow, in a scuffle with such a
+fellow."
+
+"Stop, postilion, stop!" shouted Solling. But the postilion either did
+not or would not hear, and some time elapsed before the painter could
+persuade his well-meaning companion of his peaceable intentions. At
+length he did so, and the carriage, which had meanwhile been going at
+full speed, was stopped.
+
+"You will leave my luggage at the first post-house," said Solling,
+jumping out and beginning to retrace his steps to the village, which
+they had now left some distance behind them.
+
+The night was pitch-dark, so dark that the painter was compelled to
+feel his way, and guide himself by the line of trees that bordered the
+road. He reached the village without meeting a living creature, and
+strode down the narrow street amid the baying of the dogs, disturbed
+by his footfall at that silent hour of the night. The inn door was
+shut, but there was a light glimmering in one of the casements. He
+knocked several times without any body answering. At length a woman's
+head was put out of an upper window.
+
+"Go your ways," cried a shrill voice, "and don't come disturbing
+honest folk at this time o' night. Do you think we have nought to do
+but to open the door for such raff as you? Be off with you, you
+vagabond, and blow your clarinet elsewhere."
+
+"You are mistaken, madam," said Solling; "I am no vagabond, but a
+passenger by the Halle mail, and"--
+
+"What brings you here, then?" interrupted the virago; "the Halle mail
+is far enough off by this."
+
+"My good madam," replied the painter in his softest tone, "for God's
+sake tell me who and where is the person who was waiting for the mail
+at your hotel."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed the hostess, considerably mollified by the _madam_
+and the _hotel_. "The mad Italian musician, the clarinet fellow? Why,
+I took you for him at first, and wondered what brought him back, for
+he started as soon as the mail left the door. He'd have done better to
+have got into it, with a dark night and a long road before him. Ha!
+ha! He's mad, to be sure."
+
+"His name! His name!" cried Solling, impatiently.
+
+"His name? How can I recollect his outlandish name? Fol--Vol----"
+
+"Voltojo!" cried the painter.
+
+"Voltojo! yes, that's it. Ha! ha! What a name!"
+
+"It is he!" cried Solling, and without another word dashed off full
+speed along the road he had just come. He kept in the middle of the
+causeway, straining his eyes to see into the darkness on either side
+of him, and wondering how it was he had not met the object of his
+search as he came to the village. He ran on, occasionally taking trees
+and fingerposts for men, and cursing his ill luck when he saw his
+mistake. The sweat poured down his face in streams, and his knees
+began to knock together with fatigue. Suddenly he struck his foot
+against a stone lying in the road, and fell, cutting his forehead
+severely upon some pebbles. The sharp pain drew a cry from him, and a
+man who had been lying on the grass at the roadside, sprang up and
+hastened to his assistance. At that moment a flash of summer lightning
+lit up the road.
+
+"Bernard! Bernard!" cried the painter, throwing his arms round the
+stranger's neck. It was his brother.
+
+Bernard started back with a cry of horror.
+
+"Albert!" he exclaimed in a hollow voice, "Cannot your spirit rest? Do
+you rise from the grave to persecute me?"
+
+"In God's name, my dear brother, what mean you? I am Carl--Carl, your
+twin brother."
+
+"Carl? No! Albert! I see that horrid wound on your brow. It still
+bleeds!"
+
+The painter grasped his brother's hand.
+
+"I am flesh and blood," said he, "and no spirit. Albert still lives."
+
+"He lives!" exclaimed Bernard, and clasped his brother in his arms.
+
+Explanations followed, and the brothers took the road to Berlin. When
+the painter had replied to Bernard's questions concerning their
+family, he in his turn begged his brother to relate his adventures
+since they parted, and above all to give his reasons for remaining so
+long severed from his friends and home.
+
+"Although I fully believed Albert killed by the blow he received,"
+replied Bernard, "it was no fear of punishment for my indirect share
+in his death, that induced me to fly. But when I saw the father
+senseless on the ground, and the son expiring before my eyes, I felt
+as if I was accursed, as if the brand of Cain were on my brow, and
+that it was my fate to roam through the world an isolated and
+wretched being. When you all ran out of the school to fetch
+assistance, it seemed to me as though each chair and bench and table
+in the room received the power of speech, and yelled and bellowed in
+my ears the fatal number which has been the cause of all my
+misfortunes--'Thirteen! Thirteen! Thou art the Thirteenth, the
+Accursed One!'
+
+"I fled, and since that day no rest or peace has been mine. Like my
+shadow has this unholy number clung to me. Wherever I went, in all the
+many lands I have wandered through, I carried with me the curse of my
+birth. At every turn it met me, aggravating my numerous hardships,
+embittering my rare moments of joy. If I entered a room where a
+cheerful party was assembled, all rose and shrunk from me as from one
+plague-tainted. They were twelve--I was the Thirteenth. If I sat down
+at a dinner-table, my neighbour left his chair, and the others would
+say, 'He fears to sit by you. You are the Thirteenth.' If I slept at
+an inn--there were sure to be twelve persons sleeping there; my bed
+was the Thirteenth, or my room would be number Thirteen, and I was
+told that the former landlord had shot or hung himself in it.
+
+"At length I left Germany, in the vain hope that the spell would not
+extend beyond the land of my birth. I took ship at Trieste for Venice.
+Scarcely were we out of port when a violent storm arose, and we were
+driven rapidly towards a rocky and dangerous coast. The steersman
+counted the seamen and passengers, and crossed himself. We were
+_thirteen_.
+
+"Lots were drawn who should be sacrificed for the salvation of the
+others. I drew number thirteen, and they put me ashore on a barren
+rock, where I passed a day and night half dead with cold and drenched
+with sea water. At length an Illyrian fisherman espied me, and took me
+off in his boat.
+
+"It is unnecessary to relate to you in detail my wanderings during the
+last eight years, or if I do, it shall be at some future time. My
+clarinet enables me to live in the humble manner I have always done.
+You remember, probably, that I had some skill in it, which I have
+since much improved. When travelling, my music was generally taken as
+payment for my bed and supper at the petty hostelries at which I put
+up; and when I came to a large town, I remained a few days, and
+usually gained more than my expenses.
+
+"About a year since, I made some stay at Copenhagen, and at last,
+getting wearied of that city, I put myself on board a ship, without
+enquiring whither it was bound. It took me to Stralsund.
+
+"The day of my arrival, there was a shooting-match in the suburb
+beyond the Knieper, and I hastened thither with my clarinet. It was a
+sort of fair, and I wandered from one booth to the other, playing the
+joyous mountain melodies which I had not once played since my
+departure from Marienberg. God knows what brought them into my head
+again; but it did my heart good to play them, and a feeling came over
+me, that I should like once more to have a home, and to leave the
+weary rambling life I had so long led.
+
+"I had great success that day, and the people thronged to hear the
+wandering Italian musician. Many were the jugs of beer and glasses of
+wine offered to me, and my plate was soon full of shillings. As I left
+off playing, an old greyheaded man pressed through the crowd, and
+gazed earnestly at me. His eyes filled with tears, and he was
+evidently much moved.
+
+"'What a likeness!' he exclaimed. 'He is the very picture of my
+Amadeus. I could fancy he had risen out of the sea. The same features,
+the sane voice and manner.'
+
+"He came up to me and took my hand. 'If you do not fear a high
+staircase,' said he with a kindly smile, 'come and visit me. I live on
+the tower of St Nicholas's Church. Your clarinet will sound well in
+the free fresh air, and you will find those there who will gladly
+listen.' So saying, he left me.
+
+"The old man's name was Elias Kranhelm, better known in Stralsund as
+the old Swede; he was the town musician, and had the care of the bells
+of St Nicholas. The next day was Sunday, and I hastened to visit him.
+His kind manner had touched me, unaccustomed as I was to kindness or
+sympathy from the strangers amongst whom I always lived. When I was
+halfway up the stairs leading to the tower, the organ began to play
+below me, and I recognised a psalm tune which we used often to sing
+for our old schoolmaster at Marienberg. I stopped a moment to listen,
+and thoughts of rest and home again came over me.
+
+"I was met at the tower door by old Kranhelm, in his Sunday suit of
+black; large silver buckles at his knees and shoes, and a round black
+velvet cap over his long white hair. His clear grey eyes smiled so
+kindly upon me, his voice was so mild, and his greeting so cordial,
+that I thought I had never seen a more pleasing old man. He welcomed
+me as though I had been an old friend, and without further preface,
+asked me if I should like to become his substitute, and perform the
+duties for which his great age had begun to unfit him. His only son,
+on whom he had reckoned to take his place, had left him some time
+previously, to become a sailor on board a Norwegian ship, and had been
+drowned in his very first voyage. It was my extraordinary likeness to
+this son that had made him notice me; and the good, simple-hearted old
+man seemed to think that resemblance a sufficient guarantee against
+any risk in admitting a perfect stranger into his house and intimacy.
+
+"'My post is a profitable one,' said he; 'and, in consideration of my
+long services, the worshipful burgomaster has given me leave to seek
+an assistant, now that I am getting too old for my office. Consider
+then, my son, if the offer suits you. You please me, and I mean you
+well. But here comes my Elizabeth, who will soon learn to like you if
+you are a good lad.'
+
+"As he spoke, a young girl entered the room, with a psalm-book in her
+hand, and attired in an old-fashioned dress, which was not able,
+however, to conceal the elegance of her figure, and the charms of her
+blooming countenance.
+
+"'How think you, Elizabeth?' said her father. 'Is he not as like our
+poor Amadeus as one egg is to another?'
+
+"'I do not see the likeness, my dear father,' replied Elizabeth,
+looking timidly at me, and then casting down her eyes, and blushing.
+
+"I accepted the old man's offer with joy, and took up my dwelling in
+the other turret of the church tower. My occupation was to keep the
+clock wound up, to play the evening hymn on the balcony of the tower,
+and to strike the hours upon the great bell with a heavy hammer.
+
+"I soon felt the good effect of repose, and of the happy, tranquil
+life I now led; my spirits improved, and I began to forget the curse
+which hung over me--to forget, in short, that I was the unlucky
+Thirteenth. Old Kranhelm's liking for me increased rapidly, and, in
+less than three months, I was Elizabeth's accepted lover. Time flew
+on; the wedding-day was fixed, and the bridal-chamber prepared.
+
+"It was on Friday evening, exactly eight days ago, that I went out
+with Elizabeth, and walked down to the port to look at a large Swedish
+ship that had just arrived. The passengers were landing, and one
+amongst them immediately attracted our attention.
+
+"This was a tall, lean, raw-boned woman, apparently about forty years
+of age, who held in her hand a long, smooth staff, which she waved
+about her, nodding her head, and muttering, as she went, in some
+strange, unintelligible dialect. Her dress consisted of a huge black
+fur cloak, and a cape of the same colour fringed with red. Her whole
+manner and appearance were so strange, that a crowd assembled round
+her as soon as she set foot on shore.
+
+"'Hallo! comrade,' cried one of the sailors of the vessel that had
+brought her, to a boatman who was passing. 'Hallo! comrade, do you
+want a job? Here's a witch to take to Hiddensee.'
+
+"We asked the sailor what he meant; and he told us that this strange
+woman was a Lapland witch, who every year, in the dog-days, made a
+journey to the island of Hiddensee, to gather an herb which only grew
+there, and was essential in her incantations.
+
+"Meantime, the witch was calling for a boat, but no one understood her
+language, or else they did not choose to come. My unfortunate
+propensity to all that is supernatural or fantastic impelled me, with
+irresistible force, towards her. In vain Elizabeth held me back. I
+pushed my way through the crowd, until we found ourselves close to the
+Lapland woman, who measured us from head to foot with her bright and
+glittering eyes. Slipping a florin into her hand, I gave her to
+understand, as well as I could, that we wished to have our fortunes
+told. She took my hand, and, after examining it, made a sign that she
+either could or would tell me nothing. She then took the hand of
+Elizabeth, who hung upon my arm, trembling like an aspen leaf, and
+gazing intently upon it, muttered a few words in broken Swedish. I did
+not understand them, but Elizabeth did, and, starting back, drew me
+hastily out of the crowd.
+
+"'What did she say?' enquired I, as soon as we were clear of the
+throng.
+
+"Elizabeth seemed much agitated, and had evidently to make a strong
+effort before she could reply.
+
+"'Nothing,' answered she, at last; 'nothing, at least, worth
+repeating. And yet 'tis strange; it tallies exactly with a prediction
+made to my mother when I was an infant, that I should one day be in
+peril from the number Thirteen. This strange woman cautioned me
+against the same number, and bade me beware of you, for that you were
+the Thirteenth!'
+
+"Had the earth opened under my feet, or the lightning from heaven
+fallen on my head, I could not have felt a greater shock than was
+communicated to me by these words. I know not what I said in reply, or
+how I got home. Elizabeth, doubtless, observed my agitation, but she
+made no remark on it. I felt her arm tremble upon mine as we walked
+along, and by a furtive glance at her face saw that she was pale as
+death. Not a word passed between us during our walk back to the tower,
+on reaching which she shut herself up in her room. I pleaded a severe
+headach and wish to lie down; and, begging the old man to strike the
+hours for me, retired to my chamber.
+
+"It would be impossible to give an idea of the agony of mind I
+suffered during that evening. I thought at times I was going mad, and
+there were moments when I felt disposed to put an end to my existence
+by a leap from the tower window. Again, then, this curse that hung
+over me was in full force. Again had that fatal number raised itself
+before me like an iron wall, interposed between me and all earthly
+happiness. Wearied out at length by the storm within me, I fell
+asleep.
+
+"As may be supposed, I was followed in my troubled slumbers by the
+recollection of my misery. Each hour that struck awoke me out of the
+most hideous dreams to a scarce less hideous reality. When midnight
+came, and the hammer clanged upon the great bell, a strange fancy took
+possession of my mind that it would this night strike Thirteen, and
+that at the thirteenth stroke the clock, the tower, the city, and the
+whole world, would crumble into atoms. Again I fell asleep and dreamt.
+I thought that my head was changed into a mighty bronze bell, and that
+I hung in the tower and heard the clock beside me strike Thirteen.
+Then came the old schoolmaster, who yet, at the same time, had the
+features of Elizabeth's father; and, as he drew near me, I saw that
+the hammer he held in his hand was no hammer, but a large silver-bound
+Bible. In my despair I made frightful efforts to cry out and to tell
+him that I was no bell, but a man, and that he should not strike me;
+but my voice refused its service and my tongue clove to my palate. The
+greyhaired old man came up to me, and struck thirteen times on my
+forehead, till my brains gushed out at my eyes.
+
+"By daybreak the next morning I was two leagues from Stralsund, having
+left a few hurried ill-written lines in my room, pleading I know not
+what urgent family affairs, and a dislike to leave-taking, as excuses
+for my sudden departure. Over field and meadow, through rivers and
+forests, on I went, as though hell were at my heels, flying from my
+destiny. But the further I got from Stralsund the more did I regret
+all I left there--my beautiful and affectionate mistress, her
+kind-hearted father, the peaceful happy life I led on the top of the
+old tower. The vow I had made to fly from the haunts of men, and seek
+in some desert the repose which my evil fate denied me among my
+fellows, that vow became daily more difficult to keep. And yet I went
+on, dreading to depart from my determination, lest I should encounter
+some of those bitter deceptions and cruel disappointments that had
+hitherto been my lot in life. Shame, too, at the manner in which I had
+left the tower, withheld me, or else I think I should already be on my
+road back to Stralsund. But now I have met you, brother, and that my
+mind is relieved by the knowledge that I have not, even indirectly,
+Albert's death to reproach myself with, I must hasten to my Elizabeth
+to relieve her anxiety, and dry the tears which I am well assured each
+moment of my absence causes her to shed. Come with me, dearest Carl,
+and you shall see her, my beautiful Elizabeth, and her good old
+father, and the tower and the bell. Ho! the bell, the jolly old bell!"
+
+The painter looked kindly but anxiously in his brother's face. There
+was a mildness in his manner that startled him, accustomed as he had
+been to his eccentricities when a boy.
+
+"You are tired, brother," said he. "You need repose after the emotions
+and fatigues of the last week. I, too, shall not be sorry to sleep.
+Let us to bed for a few hours, and then we will have post-horses and
+be off to Stralsund."
+
+"I have no need of rest," replied Bernard, "and each moment seems to
+me an eternity till I can again clasp my Elizabeth to my heart. Let us
+delay, then, as little as may be."
+
+As he spoke they entered the gates of Berlin. The sun was risen, and
+the hotels and taverns were beginning to open their doors. Seeing
+Bernard's anxiety to depart, the painter abandoned his intention of
+taking some repose, and after hasty breakfast, a post-chaise was
+brought to the door, and the brothers stepping in, were whirled off on
+their road northwards.
+
+The sun was about to set when the travellers came in sight of the
+spires of Stralsund, among which the church of St Nicholas reared its
+double-headed tower. Bernard had enlivened the journey by his wild
+sallies, and merry but extravagant humour. Now, however, that the goal
+was almost reached, he became silent and anxious. The hours appeared
+to go too slowly for him, and his restlessness was extreme.
+
+"Faster! postilion," cried Carl, observing his brother's impatience.
+"Faster! You shall be paid double."
+
+The man flogged his horses till they flew rather than galloped over
+the broad level road. Suddenly, however, a strap broke, and the
+postilion got off his seat to tie it up. Through the stillness of the
+evening, no longer broken by the rattle of the wheels and clatter of
+the horses' feet, a clock was heard striking the hour. Another
+repeated it, and a third, of deeper tone than the two preceding ones,
+took up the chime. Bernard started to his feet, and leaned so far out
+of the carriage that his brother seized hold of him, expecting him to
+lose his balance and fall out.
+
+"It is she!" exclaimed Bernard. "'Tis the bell of St Nicholas. Listen,
+Carl--my Elizabeth calls me. She strikes the bell. I come, dearest, I
+come!"
+
+And with these words he sprang out of the carriage, and set off at
+full speed towards the town, leaving his brother thunderstruck at his
+mad impatience and vehemence.
+
+Running at the top of his speed, Bernard soon reached the city gate,
+and proceeded rapidly through the streets in the direction of St
+Nicholas's church. It seemed to him as though he had been absent for
+years instead of a few days, and he felt quite surprised at finding no
+change in the city since his departure. All was as he had left it; all
+conspired to lull him into security. An old fruitwoman, of whom he had
+bought cherries the very day of his last walk with Elizabeth, was in
+her usual place, and, as he passed, extolled the beauty of her fruit,
+and asked him to buy. A large rose-tree, at the door of a
+silversmith's shop, which Elizabeth had often admired, was still in
+full bloom; through the window of a house in the market-place, he saw
+a young girl, Elizabeth's dearest friend, dressing her hair at a
+looking-glass, and as he passed the churchyard, the old dumb sexton,
+who appeared to be hunting about for a place for a grave, nodded his
+head in mute recognition.
+
+Bernard opened the tower door, and darted up the staircase. He was not
+far from the top when he heard the voices of two men above him. They
+were resting on one of the landing-places of the ladderlike stairs.
+
+"It is a singular case, doctor," said one; "a strange and
+incomprehensible case. It is evidently a disease more of the mind than
+the body."
+
+"Yes," replied the other, by his voice apparently an old man. "If we
+could only get a clue to the cause, any thing to go upon, something
+might be done, but at present it is a perfect riddle."
+
+Bernard heard no more, for the men continued their ascent.
+
+"The old father must be ill," said he to himself; but as he said it a
+feeling of dread and anxiety, a presentiment of evil, came over him,
+and he stood for a few moments unable to proceed. The door at the top
+of the stairs was now opened, and shut with evident care to avoid
+noise. "The old man must be very ill," said Bernard, as if trying to
+persuade himself of it. He reached the door, and his hand shook as he
+laid it upon the latch. At length he lifted it, and entered the room.
+It was empty; but, just then, the door of Elizabeth's chamber opened,
+and old Kranhelm stepped out. On beholding Bernard, he started back as
+though he had seen a ghost. He said a word or two in a low voice to
+somebody in the inner room, and then shutting the door, bolted it,
+and placed his back against it, as if to prevent Bernard from going
+in.
+
+"Begone!" cried he in a tremulous voice; "in the name of God, begone!
+thou evil spirit of my house;" and he stretched out his arms towards
+Bernard as though to prohibit his approach. No longer master of
+himself, the young man sprang towards him, and, grasping his arm,
+thundered in his ear the question--
+
+"Where is my Elizabeth?"
+
+The words rang through the old tower, and the confused murmuring of
+voices in the inner room was heard. Bernard listened, and thought he
+distinguished the voice of Elizabeth repeating, in tones of agony, the
+fatal number.
+
+One of the physicians knocked, and begged to be let out. The old
+tower-keeper opened the door cautiously, and, when the doctor had
+passed through, carefully shut and barred it. But during the moment
+that it had remained open, Bernard heard too plainly what his ears had
+at first been unwilling to believe.
+
+"Is that the man?" demanded the physician hastily. "In God's name, be
+silent. You will kill the patient. She recognized your voice, and fell
+immediately into the most fearful paroxysm. She has got back again to
+the infernal number with which her delirium began, and she shrieks it
+out perpetually. It is a frightful relapse. Begone! young man; yet
+stay--I will go with you. You can, doubtless, give us a key to this
+mystery."
+
+The old physician took Bernard's arm to lead him away; but at that
+very moment there was a shrill scream from the next room, and
+Elizabeth's voice was heard calling upon Bernard by name. The
+unfortunate young man could not restrain himself. Shaking off the
+grasp of the physician, he pushed old Kranhelm aside, tore back the
+bolts, and flung open the door. There lay Elizabeth on her deathbed,
+her arms stretched out towards him, her mild countenance ashy pale and
+frightfully distorted, her soft blue eyes straining from their orbits.
+She made a violent effort to speak, but death was too near at hand;
+the sound died away upon her lips, and her uplifted arms dropped
+powerless upon the bed; her head fell back--a convulsive shudder came
+over her: she was dead. Her unhappy lover fell senseless to the
+ground.
+
+When Bernard awoke out of a long and deathlike swoon, it was night,
+and all around him was still and dark. He was lying on the stone floor
+outside Kranhelm's dwelling. The physicians had removed him thither;
+and, being occupied with the old tower-keeper and his daughter, they
+had thought no more about him. On first recovering sensation, he had
+but an indistinct idea of where he was, or what had happened. By
+degrees his senses returned to a certain extent--he knew that
+something horrible had occurred, but without remembering exactly what
+it was.
+
+He felt about him, and touched a railing. It was the balustrade round
+the open turret where hung the great bell. He was lying under the bell
+itself, and, as he gazed up into its brazen throat, the recollection
+of the frightful dream which had persecuted him the night before his
+flight from Stralsund came vividly to his mind; he appeared to himself
+to be still dreaming, and yet his visions were mixed up with the
+realities of his everyday occupations.
+
+He had just stepped out, he thought, to strike the hour on the bell,
+and rising with some difficulty from the hard couch which had
+stiffened his limbs, he sought about for the hammer. He made no effort
+to shake off the sort of dreaming semi-consciousness which seemed to
+prevent him from feeling the horror and anguish of reality.
+
+"Thirteen strokes," thought he; "thirteen strokes, and at the
+Thirteenth the tower will fall, the city crumble to dust, the world be
+at an end." Such had been his dream, and the moment of its
+accomplishment was come.
+
+He found the hammer, and struck with all his force upon the bell. He
+repeated the blow; twelve times he struck, and each stroke rang with
+deafening violence through his brain; but at the Thirteenth, as he
+raised his arms high above his head, and leaning back against the
+railing, threw his whole strength and energy into the blow, the frail
+balustrade gave way under his weight, and he fell headlong from the
+tower. The last stroke tolled out, sad and hollow as a funereal knell,
+and the sound mingled with the death-cry of the luckless Thirteenth!
+
+
+
+
+REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.[15]
+
+    [15] Reminiscences of Syria. By Colonel E. Napier.
+
+
+Galloping, gossiping, flirting and fighting, feasting and starving,
+but always in high spirits and the best possible humour, Colonel
+Napier might answer an advertisement for "A Pleasant Companion in a
+Post-chaise," without the slightest chance of rejection. But it is
+difficult to imagine so dashing a traveller, boxed up in a civilized
+conveyance, rolling quietly along a macadamized road, with a diversity
+of milestones and an occasional turnpike gate, the only incidents by
+the way--no wild Maronite glimpsing at him over the hedge; no
+black-eyed houri peeping over the balustrades of the caravanserai,
+(called by vulgar men the Bricklayers' Arms)--no Saices to help John
+Hostler to change horses; but dulness, uniformity, and most tiresome
+and unromantic safety. England, we are sorry to confess it, is not the
+land of stirring adventures or hair-breadth 'scapes--a railway coach
+occasionally blows up; a blind leader occasionally bolts into a ditch;
+a wheel comes occasionally into dangerous collision with one of
+Pickford's vans; but these are the utmost that can be hoped for in the
+way of peril, and other excitement there is positively none. We have
+treated life as the mathematician did Paradise Lost--we have struck
+out all its similes--obliterated its flights--expunged its glorious
+visions--we have made it prose. But fortunately for us--for Colonel
+Napier--for the reading public--there is a land where mathematicians
+are unknown, and where poetry continues to flourish in the full vigour
+of cimeters and turbans--the region of the sun--
+
+    "The first of Eastern lands he shines upon."
+
+It was in this very beautiful, but rather overdone portion of earth's
+surface, that the adventures occurred of which we are now to give some
+account; and as probably most of our readers have heard the name of
+Syria pretty often of late, we need not display much geographical
+erudition in pointing out where it lies. It would be pleasant to us if
+we could atone for brevity in this respect, by illuminating the reader
+on the causes that have brought Syria so prominently forward; but on
+this point we confess, with shame and confusion of face, that we know
+no more than Lord Ponsonby or M. Thiers. The truth seems to be, that
+some time, about two or three years ago, five or six people in
+influential stations went mad, and our Secretary for Foreign Affairs
+took the infection. He showed his teeth and raised his "birse," and
+barked in a most audacious manner, till the French kennel answered the
+challenge; an old dog in Egypt cocked his tail at the same time, and
+the world began to be afraid that hydrophobia would be universal. All
+parties were delighted to let the rival yelpers fight it out on so
+distant a field as Syria; and in that country of heat and dryness, of
+poverty, anarchy, cruelty, and superstition, there was a skrimmage
+that kept all Christendom on the tenter-hooks for half-a-year; and
+this we believe to be the policy of the Syrian campaign. Better for
+all parties concerned, that a few thousand turbaned and malignant
+Turks or Egyptians should bite the dust, than that there should be
+another Austerlitz or Waterloo. So the signal was accordingly given,
+and the work began.
+
+Wherever there is any fighting it is not to be doubted that the
+English hurra will be heard--and an apparition had been seen in the
+smoke of battle, which had sorely puzzled the wisest of the
+soothsayers of Egypt to explain. It was of a being apparently human,
+but dressed as if to represent Mars and Neptune at the same time,
+charging along the tops of houses, with the jolly cocked-hat of a
+captain of a British man-of-war on the point of his sword, and a
+variety of exclamations in his mouth, more complimentary to the
+enemy's speed than his courage. The muftis, we have said, were sorely
+puzzled, and at last set it down as an infallible truth that he must
+be none other than Old Harry, whereas there was not a sailor in the
+fleet that did not know that it was none other than Old Charley. And
+this identical Old Charley, in a style of communication almost as
+rapid as his military evolutions, had indited the following epistle to
+the author of the volumes before us:--
+
+    "Headquarters of the Army of Lebanon.--Djouni,
+        Sept. 1840.
+
+    "My dear Edward--I have hoisted my broad pendant on
+    Mount Lebanon, and mean to advance against the Egyptians
+    with a considerable force under my command; you may be
+    of use here; therefore go to Sir John M'Donald, and ask
+    him to get leave for you to join me without delay.
+
+        "Your affectionate father,
+            CHARLES NAPIER."
+
+And the dutiful son, who seems to have no inconsiderable portion of
+the paternal penchant for broken heads and other similar
+divertisements, in three weeks from the receipt of the letter found
+himself on board the Hydra, and rapidly approaching the classic shores
+of Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais; the scenes of scriptural records and deeds
+of chivalry--Palestine--the Holy Land. But the broad pendant in the
+mean time had been pulled down on Mount Lebanon, and once more
+fluttered to the sea breezes on board the Powerful. Sir Charles Smith
+had assumed the command of the land forces, and whether from
+ill-humour at finding half the work done during his absence by the
+amphibious commodore, or from some other cause, his reception of the
+author was, at first, far from cordial. Instead of being useful, as he
+had hoped, he found the sturdy old general blind to the value of his
+accession; and when the Powerful sailed he found himself without
+quarters appointed him, or even an invitation to join the officers'
+mess. But with the usual good-luck of people who bear disappointments
+well, all turned out for the best, as will be seen by the following
+extract:
+
+    "I had, on board the Powerful, a few days before, formed
+    the acquaintance of a young Syrian of the name of
+    Assaade el Khyat, who, brought up at one of our
+    universities, was at heart a true Englishman, spoke
+    fluently our own and several other European and Eastern
+    languages, and whom I found, on the whole, a sensible,
+    well-informed young man, and a most agreeable companion.
+    As I was sitting alone, after a solitary dinner, (in the
+    miserable hotel at Beyrout,) musing in a brown study
+    over a bottle of red Cyprus wine, my new acquaintance
+    was ushered into the apartment; I made no secret to him
+    of my extremely uncomfortable position, when he, with
+    great kindness and liberality, overcoming the usual
+    prejudices of his country, offered me an asylum in his
+    own family, which offer I most gladly accepted, and was
+    accordingly the next morning comfortably installed in my
+    new quarters, whereof I will endeavour to give the
+    reader a slight description.
+
+    "The house of which I had just so unexpectedly become an
+    inmate, was situated in one of the most retired and out
+    of the way parts of the town, (and it was not before
+    considerable time had elapsed, and then with difficulty,
+    that I became acquainted with the labyrinth of narrow
+    lanes, alleys, and dark passages which it was requisite
+    to thread in order to arrive at this desired haven,) the
+    property of a young man of the name of Giorgio Habbit
+    Jummal--brother-in-law of my friend Assaade, to whom one
+    of his sisters was married, and whom, as he spoke
+    Italian with fluency and ease, I at once engaged as my
+    dragoman or interpreter.
+
+    "By a strange coincidence, I, under the roof of Giorgio,
+    for the first time became acquainted with Mr Hunter, the
+    author of the _Expedition to Syria_, who, placed in
+    similar circumstances with myself, was likewise an
+    inmate of the same house, and of whom, as we were
+    subsequently much known together during our residence in
+    this country, I shall after have occasion to mention: at
+    present I will take the liberty of borrowing from his
+    amusing narrative the following account of the inmates
+    of our new domicile. 'We lived in the house of a
+    respectable Syrian family, that of Habbit Jummal, or
+    interpreted, the esteemed camel-driver. Our landlord,
+    Giorgius, the head of this family, was a young man
+    hardly out of his teens; and having some competency, and
+    being moreover _un beau garcon_, did not follow either
+    his ancestral, or any other avocation. The harem, or
+    woman's portion of the house, was composed of his
+    mother, a fair widow of forty, and her two daughters,
+    both Eastern beauties of their kind, Sarah and Nasarah
+    (meaning Victory or Victoria;) the first, a laughing
+    black eyed houri, with mischief in every dimple in her
+    pretty face; the other, a more portly damsel, of a
+    melancholy but not less pleasing expression. There were
+    besides these, three younger children with equally
+    poetic names, (Nassif, Iskunder, and Furkha,) and
+    included in the _coterie_ was a good-humoured negress,
+    the general handmaid, whose original cognomen of Saade,
+    was lost in the apposite soubriquet of
+    Snowball.'--Although the greater part of the
+    inhabitants of Beyrout are Christians, generally
+    speaking, of the Greek Church, to which persuasion
+    likewise belonged the family of our host Giorgio; still
+    in this land of bigotry and oppression--to such an
+    extent is carried suspicion and jealousy, and so far
+    have Mahommedan prejudices in this respect been adopted,
+    that all the women (those of the peasantry alone
+    excepted) lead nearly as secluded a life as the Osmanli
+    ladies of Constantinople or Smyrna. On venturing abroad,
+    which they seldom do, unless when the knessi or humaum
+    (church or bath) are the limits of their excursions,
+    they are so closely shrouded in the izar, or long white
+    garment, which, coming over the head and hiding the
+    face, falls in numerous folds to the ground, as to be
+    scarcely recognizable by their nearest friends or
+    relations. To allow, therefore, two unknown and
+    friendless strangers to become familiar inmates of an
+    Eastern family, exposing wives, daughters, and sisters,
+    to their unhallowed gaze, was a favour and mark of
+    confidence on the part of Assaade which we duly
+    appreciated, nor ever abused; it was, however, a
+    privilege to which no other stranger in the place was
+    admitted, and affording, as it did, such opportunities
+    of acquiring the Arabic language, I eagerly embraced it
+    without any feeling of regret at the inhospitality to
+    which I was originally indebted for my admission behind
+    the scenes of Oriental life.
+
+    "The bare, gloomy, and massive stone walls of the
+    exterior of our habitation had not prepared us for the
+    comforts we found inside; and as for the first time we
+    followed Giorgio and his brother-in-law up the rude and
+    narrow stone staircase, which appeared to be scarped out
+    of the very thickness of the wall--an open sesame from
+    the former causing a strong iron studded door to fly
+    back on its hinges, disclosed a handsome patis or court
+    paved with black and white marble, along the sides of
+    which were luxuriantly growing, and imparting a cooling
+    freshness to the scene, the perfumed orange-tree,
+    bearing at the same time both fruit and blossoms, and
+    flanked by green myrtles and flowering geraniums; whilst
+    an apartment opening on this garden terrace, and which
+    appeared from the carpets and cushions scattered around
+    the still smoking narghilis, (or water-pipe, in which is
+    smoked the tumbic or Persian tobacco,) and other sundry
+    traces of female industry, to be appropriated as the
+    common sitting-room of the family, was on our entrance
+    precipitately deserted by all its occupants, save one
+    fine-looking matronly lady, whom Giorgio introduced as
+    his mother; and while she was welcoming us with many
+    'F[=a]dd[=a]lls,' and politely repeating, _Anna mugsond
+    shoufuk_, (be seated, I am delighted to see you,) with
+    innumerable other euphonious phrases, as we afterwards
+    found high-flown Eastern compliments, but which at the
+    time were sadly wasted on our Frankish ignorance, he,
+    following the fair fugitives, soon brought back in each
+    hand the blushing deserters, who have already been
+    introduced to the reader as Mesdemoiselles Sarah and
+    Nasarah. Pipes, narghilis, sherbet, and coffee followed
+    in quick succession; the young negress, Saade, acting as
+    Hebe on the occasion; and the ladies, at first timid as
+    gazelles of the desert, soon, like those pretty
+    creatures when reclaimed from the wilderness, became
+    quite domesticated, acquired confidence, and freely
+    joined in the conversation, which was with volubility
+    carried on through the medium of Giorgio and Assaade;
+    and ere an hour had elapsed, we were all on the friendly
+    and easy footing of old acquaintances; when, taking
+    leave for the time, we hastened to make the necessary
+    arrangements for the conveyance of our goods and
+    chattels to the capital billets we had had the good
+    fortune to stumble on."
+
+The colonel made good use of his opportunity, and, by a diligent
+perusal of Miss Sarah's eyes, and an attentive study of Miss Nasarah's
+dimple, managed to acquire a smattering of Arabic in a far shorter
+time than would have been required in the most assiduous turning over
+of dictionaries and grammars. But our school-boy days can't last for
+ever--and, ere a fortnight elapsed, an order arrived from England for
+the hopeful scholar to be placed on the returns of the Syrian army,
+and to draw his field allowance, rations, and forage, as assistant
+adjutant-general of the British force. Dictionaries and eyes, grammars
+and dimples, were now exchanged for less pleasing pursuits. Fifteen
+thousand troops were by this time assembled at Beyrout, and rumour
+kept perpetually blowing the charge against Ibrahim Pasha, who was
+still encamped at Zachli, with an army much superior to that of the
+allies. Booted and spurred--with a long sword, saddle, bridle, and all
+the other paraphernalia so captivating to an ancient fair, as recorded
+in one of the lays of Old England by some forgotten Macaulay of former
+times--the colonel is intent on some doughty deed, and already in
+imagination sees captive Egyptians following his triumphal car. When
+all of a sudden, the sad news gets spread abroad that the old
+commodore has concluded a convention with Mehemet Ali, and that all
+the pomp and circumstance of glorious war is at an end. One only
+chance remained, and that was, that as all the big-wigs protested with
+all their might against the convention; and the fleet, in the midst of
+protestation and repudiations of all sorts and kinds, was forced by a
+severe gale to up anchor and run for Marmorice Bay, Ibrahim Pasha
+might perhaps be tempted to protest also in a still more unpleasant
+manner, and pay a visit to Beyrout in the absence of the navy. The
+very thoughts of it, however the English auxiliaries may have felt on
+the subject, gave an attack of fever to the unfortunate inhabitants,
+who devoutly prayed for a speedy fall of _tubbish_, (or snow,) by
+which his dreaded approach might be impeded. "Had such a movement on
+his part taken place at this critical moment, it is not improbable
+that it might have proved successful; as amid the variety of religious
+and conflicting interests, by which the people of Beyrout were
+influenced, Ibrahim had no doubt many friends in the town; and it is
+certain that he was moreover regularly made acquainted with every
+occurrence which took place, through the medium, as was supposed, of
+French agency and espionage."
+
+Ibrahim, however, had had enough of red coats and blue jackets, and
+left the people of Beyrout to themselves--an example which was
+followed by the author, who, being foiled in his expectations of
+riding down the Egyptians on the noble Arab left to him by the
+commodore, determined to put that fiery animal (the Arab) to its paces
+in scouring the country in all directions. It is not often that an
+assistant adjutant-general sets out on a tour in search of the
+picturesque; but in this instance the search was completely
+successful. Rock, ravine, precipice, and dell--running waters and
+waving woods, come as naturally to his pen as returns of effective
+force and other professional details; and, whatever the writing of
+them may be, we are prepared to contend that the reading of them is
+infinitely pleasanter. But as travellers and poets have of late left
+few mountains or molehills unsung in Palestine, we prefer extracting a
+picturesque account of a venerable abbess, who threw the light of
+Christian goodness over that benighted land about a century ago, and
+must have impressed the heathens in the neighbourhood with an exalted
+notion of the virtues of a nunnery:--
+
+    "Hendia was a Maronite girl, possessing extraordinary
+    personal charms, who, in 1755, first brought herself
+    into notice by her pretended piety and attention to her
+    religious duties, till at last she was by this simple
+    and credulous people considered almost in the light of a
+    saint or prophetess. When she had thus established a
+    reputation for sanctity, she next thought of becoming
+    the head and chief of an extensive establishment of
+    monks and nuns, to receive whom, with the aid of large
+    contributions raised among her credulous admirers and
+    followers, she erected two spacious stone buildings,
+    which soon became filled with proselytes of both sexes.
+    The patriarch of Lebanon was named the director of this
+    establishment, and for twenty years Hendia reigned with
+    unbounded sway over the little community--performing
+    miracles, uttering prophecies, and giving other tokens
+    of being in the performance of a divine mission; and
+    though it was remarked that many deaths yearly occurred
+    among the nuns, the circumstance was generally
+    attributed to disease incident to the insalubrity of the
+    situation. At last, chance brought to light the cause of
+    this very great mortality, and disclosed all the secret
+    horrors which had so long remained covered by the veil
+    of mystery in this abode of monastic abominations. A
+    traveller, on his way from Damascus to the coast,
+    happened to arrive one fine summer night at a late hour
+    before the convent gates, which he found closed, and not
+    wishing to disturb its inmates, who had apparently
+    retired to rest, he spread his travelling rug under some
+    neighbouring trees, and laid himself down to sleep. His
+    slumbers were, however, shortly disturbed by a number of
+    persons, who, issuing from the convent, appeared to be
+    clandestinely bearing away what seemed to be a heavy
+    bundle. Prompted by curiosity, he cautiously followed
+    the party, who, after going a short distance, deposited
+    their burden, and commenced digging a deep hole, into
+    which having placed and covered with earth what was
+    evidently a dead body, they immediately took their
+    departure. Astonished, and rather dismayed, at an
+    occurrence of so mysterious a nature, the traveller lost
+    no time in mounting his mule, and on arriving at Beyrout
+    made known the extraordinary occurrence to which he had
+    been witness the night before. This account reached the
+    ears of a merchant who happened to have two daughters
+    undergoing their noviciate at El Kourket, and reports
+    had lately reached him of the illness of one of his
+    children; this, together with the numerous deaths which
+    had lately taken place at the convent, coupled with the
+    traveller's narrative, excited in his mind the most
+    serious apprehensions. He gave information on the
+    subject, and laid a complaint before the Grand Prince at
+    Dahr-el-Kamar, and, accompanied by his informant and a
+    troop of horsemen furnished by the Emir, hastened to the
+    spot of the alleged mysterious burial, when to his
+    horror, on opening the newly made grave, he discovered
+    it to contain the corpse of his youngest daughter!
+    Frantic at this sight, he desired instant admission, in
+    order to ascertain the safety of her sister. On this
+    being refused, the gates were forced open, and the
+    unfortunate girl was found closely confined in a
+    dungeon, on the point of death, but retaining still
+    strength enough to disclose horrors which led to an
+    investigation, implicating the patriarch, the abbess,
+    and several priests. This transaction, which happened in
+    1776, was submitted for the decision of the Papal See;
+    when it appeared that the pretended prophetess had, by
+    means of many ingenious mechanical devices, thus long
+    imposed on public credulity, whilst in the retirement of
+    the cloister the most licentious and profligate
+    occurrences nightly took place; and that when any
+    unfortunate nun gave offence, either by refusing to be
+    sacrificed at the shrine of infamy, or that it became
+    desirable to get rid of her, in order to appropriate for
+    the convent the amount of her property, she was immured
+    in a dungeon, left to perish by a lingering and
+    miserable death, and then privately buried in the night.
+    In consequence of these shocking discoveries, the
+    patriarch was deposed--the priests, his accomplices,
+    were severely punished, and the high priestess of this
+    temple of cruelty and debauchery was immured in
+    confinement, and survived for many years to repent of
+    all the atrocities she had previously committed."
+
+We should like to know the colonel's authority for this circumstantial
+account. It bears at present a startling resemblance to the confession
+of Maria Monk, and the villanies recorded of the nunnery at Montreal;
+and we will hope in the mean time, that the devil, even in the shape
+of a lady abbess, is not quite so black as he is painted. The present
+abbess of El Kourket is already as black as need be, for we are told
+she is an Ethiopian negress.
+
+The war carried on in Syria after the decisive battle of Boharsef,
+seems to have been on the model of those recorded by Major Sturgeon,
+and to have consisted of marching and counter-marching, without any
+definite object, except, perhaps, the somewhat Universal-Peace-Society
+one of getting out of the enemy's way. General Jochmus, we guess from
+his name, was a Scotch schoolmaster, with a Latin termination--there
+being no mistaking the Jock--and in his religious tenets we feel sure
+he was a Quaker. The English officers attached to the staff had
+immense difficulty in bringing the troops (if they deserve to be
+called so) to the scratch; and we trust that, in all future
+commentaries on the Art of War, the method adopted by Commodore
+Napier, of throwing stones at his gallant army to force them forward,
+will not be forgotten. The author before us had no sinecure, and after
+the news of Ibrahim's retreat, galloped hither and thither, like the
+wild huntsman of a German story, to discover by what route the
+vanquished lion was growling his way to his den. With a hundred
+irregular horse, furnished him by Osman Aga, he set out on a foray
+beyond Jordan; and we do not wonder his two friends, Captain Lane, a
+Prussian edition of Don Quixote, and Mr Hunter, who has written an
+excellent account of his expedition to Syria, besides his old Beyrout
+friend Giorgio, volunteered to accompany him.
+
+    "My motley troop, apparently composed of every tribe
+    from the Caspian to the Red Sea, displayed no less
+    variety in arms and accoutrements than in their personal
+    appearance, varying from the sturdy-looking Kourd,
+    mounted on his strong powerful steed, to the swarthy,
+    spare, and sinewy Arab, with his long reed-like spear,
+    his head encircled with the Kefiah, or thick rope of
+    twisted camels' hair; whilst the flowing 'abbage' waved
+    gracefully down the shining flanks of the high-mettled
+    steed of the desert. In short, such an assemblage of
+    cut-throat looking ruffians was probably never before
+    seen; and whilst the Prussian military eye of old Lane
+    glanced down our wide-spread and irregular line, I could
+    see a curl of contempt on his grey mustaches, though his
+    weather-beaten countenance maintained all the gravity of
+    Frederick the Great. The troop appeared to be divided
+    into two distinct parties--one Arab, the other Turkish;
+    and, on directing the two chiefs to call the 'roll' of
+    their respective forces, I found that many were absent
+    without leave, and the party which should have amounted
+    to a hundred cavaliers only mustered between seventy and
+    eighty. However, on the assurance that the rest would
+    speedily follow--as there was no time to spare, after
+    making them a short harangue, in which I promised
+    abundance of _nehub_ (plunder) whenever we came across
+    the enemy, to which they responded by a wild yell of
+    approbation--I gave the signal to move off, which was
+    instantly obeyed, amidst joyous shouts, the brandishing
+    of spears, and promiscuous discharge of fire-arms.
+    Having thus got them under weigh, the next difficulty I
+    experienced was to keep them together. I tried to form a
+    rearguard to bring up the stragglers, but the guard
+    would not remain behind, nor the stragglers keep up with
+    the main body; and I soon, finding that something more
+    persuasive than mere words was requisite to maintain
+    them in order, took the first opportunity of getting a
+    stout cudgel, with which I soundly belaboured all those
+    whom I found guilty of thus disobeying my commands. The
+    Eastern does not understand the _suaviter in
+    modo_;--behave to him like a human being, he fancies you
+    fear him, and he sets you at defiance--kick him and cuff
+    him, treat him like a dog, and he crouches at your feet,
+    the humble slave of your slightest wishes."
+
+Discipline of so perfect a nature must have inspired the gallant
+colonel with the strongest hopes of success in case of an onslaught on
+the forces of Ibrahim Pasha, and in all probability his efforts, with
+those of Captain Lane, Hunter, and Giorgio, might have produced
+something like a skrimmage when they came near the tents of the
+Egyptians; but it would seem that the cudgels wielded by the Musree
+commanders were either not so strong or not so well applied, for on
+the first appearance of the hostile squadron, the heroes of Nezib
+evaporated as if by magic, but not before a similar feat of
+legerdemain had been performed by the rabble rout of Turks and Arabs;
+and on looking round, to inspire his followers with a speech after the
+manner of Thucydides, the colonel discovered the last of his escort
+disappearing at full speed on the other side of the plain, and the
+Europeans were left alone in their glory. As they had nobody to
+attack, (the enemy continuing still in a state of evaporation,) every
+thing ended well; and, if the trumpeter had not been among the
+fugitives, there might have been a triumphal blow performed although
+no blow had been struck. We do not believe in the courage of the
+Arabs. No amount of kicking and cuffing could cow a nation's spirit
+that had once been brave; and we therefore consider it the greatest
+marvel in history how the Arabians managed at one time to conquer half
+the world. They must have been very different fellows from the
+chicken-hearted children of the desert recorded in these volumes. One
+thing only is certain, that they have left their anti-fighting
+propensities to their mongrel descendants in Spain; for a series of
+_actions_--that is, jinking and skulking, and running up and down,
+hiding themselves as if they were the personages of a writ--more
+distinctly Arabian than the late campaign which ended in the overthrow
+of Espartero, could not have been performed under the shadows of Mount
+Ebal. All the nobility that we are so fond of picturing to ourselves
+in the deeds and thoughts of Saladin, has gone over to the horse. The
+wild steed retains its fire, though the miserable horseman would do
+for a Madrileno _aide-de-camp_. And yet this is the way they are
+treated:--
+
+    "It was a matter of surprise to us, how our horses stood
+    without injury all the exposure, severe work, and often
+    short commons, to which they were constantly subjected.
+    When we came to a place where barley was to be procured,
+    the grooms carried away as much as they could; when none
+    was to be had, we gave our nags peas and _tibbin_,
+    (chopped straw, the only forage used in the East,) or
+    any thing we could lay hands on; they had little or no
+    grooming, and frequently the saddles were not even
+    removed from their backs. But I believe that nothing
+    save the high mettle of the desert blood would carry an
+    animal through all this toil and privation; and as to
+    the much-extolled kindness of the Arab towards his
+    horse, although it may be the case in the far deserts of
+    the Hedged and Hedjar, I can avow that I never saw these
+    noble animals treated with more inhuman neglect than I
+    witnessed in the whole of my wanderings through Syria."
+
+The dreariness of a ride through the desolate plains and rugged rocks
+of Palestine, was diversified with startling adventures; and the fact
+of several of the powers of Europe and many of the tribes of Asia
+having chosen that sterile region for their battle-place, gave rise to
+some very odd coincidences. People from all the ends of the earth, who
+were lounging away their existence some three or four months before,
+without any anticipation of treading in the footsteps of the
+crusaders--some smoking strong tobacco in the coffeehouses of Berlin,
+or leaning gracefully (like the Chinese Admiral Kwang) against the
+pillars of the Junior United Service Club in London--or driving a
+heavy curricle in the Prado at Vienna--or reading powerfully for
+honours at the Great Go at Oxford--or climbing Albanian hills--or
+reclining in the silken recesses of a harem at Constantinople--all
+were thrown together in such unexpected groups, and found themselves
+so curiously banded together, that the tame realities of an ordinary
+campaign were thrown completely into the shade. The following
+introduces us to another member of the foray, whose character seems to
+have been such a combination of the gallant soldier and light-hearted
+troubadour, that we read of his after fate, in dying of the plague at
+Damascus, with great regret:--
+
+    "My troop had not yet cleared a difficult pass close to
+    the khan, running between an abrupt face of the hill and
+    the river, when the advanced guard came back at full
+    speed with the announcement that a body of the enemy's
+    infantry was near at hand. Closely jammed in a narrow
+    defile, between inaccessible cliffs and the precipitous
+    banks of the Jordan, with nothing but cavalry at my
+    disposal, I was placed in rather a disagreeable
+    position. There remained, however, no alternative but to
+    put spurs to our horses, push forward through the pass,
+    deploy on the level ground beyond it, and then trust to
+    the chances of war. Having explained these intentions to
+    the Sheikh and Aga, we lost no time in carrying them
+    into effect; and on taking extended order after clearing
+    the pass, saw immediately in front of us what we took to
+    be an advanced guard of the enemy, consisting of some
+    twenty or thirty soldiers, whom their white
+    foustanellis" (the foustanellis is that part of the
+    Albanian costume corresponding with the highland kilt)
+    "and tall active forms immediately marked as Arnouts, or
+    Albanians. Seeing, probably, that we had now the
+    advantage of the ground, they hastily retired,
+    recrossing a ravine which intersected the path, and
+    extending in capital light infantry style, were soon
+    sheltered behind the stones and rocks on the opposite
+    bank, over the brow of which nought was to be seen but
+    the protruding muzzles and long shining barrels of their
+    firelocks. All this was the work of a few seconds, and
+    passed in a much briefer space of time than it has taken
+    to relate. I had now the greatest difficulty in keeping
+    Mahommed Aga and his men from charging up to enemies
+    who, from their present position, could have picked them
+    easily off with perfect safety to themselves; and riding
+    rapidly forward with Captain Lane, to see if we could by
+    some means turn their flank, a few horsemen at this
+    moment suddenly appeared over the swell on the opposite
+    side of the ravine, the foremost of whom, whilst making
+    many friendly signals, galloped across the intervening
+    space, hailing us a friend, and at the same time waving
+    his hand, to prevent his own people from opening their
+    fire. Lane and myself were not backward in returning
+    this greeting; and on approaching we beheld a handsome
+    young man, dressed in the showy Austrian uniform, with a
+    black Tartar sheepskin cap on his head, who, coming up,
+    accosted us in French, and with all the frankness of a
+    soldier, introduced himself as Count Szechinge, a
+    captain of Austrian dragoons, then on his way from
+    Tiberias with a party composed of one or two Turkish
+    lancers, about twenty-five Albanian deserters, his
+    German servant, dragoman, and suite, to raise troops in
+    the Adjelloun hills--a mission very similar to the one I
+    was myself employed on at Naplouse."
+
+An acquaintance begun under such circumstances grows into friendship
+with amazing rapidity; and many are the joyous hours the foragers
+spend together, in spite of intolerable weather and storms of sleet
+and snow, which bear a far greater resemblance to the climate of
+Lochaber than to that of Syria, "land of roses." Reinforced with the
+count and his companions, Colonel Napier pushes on--gets into the
+vicinity of Ibrahim--his rabble rout turn tail, in case of being
+swallowed alive by the ferocious pasha, whose reputation for cruelty
+and all manner of iniquities seems well deserved, and having
+ascertained the movements of that formidable ruffian, he returned to
+Naplouse to take the command of 1500 half-tamed, undisciplined
+savages, with whom to oppose his retreat. Luckily, the ratification of
+the convention come in the nick of time; for it is very evident that
+the best cudgels that were ever cut in "the classic woods of
+Hawthornden," could not have awakened a spark of military ardour in
+the wretched riff-raff assemblage appointed for this service--and of
+all the abortive efforts at generalship we have ever read of, the
+attempt of the Turkish commanders was infinitely the worse--no
+foresight in providing for difficulties--no valour in fighting their
+way out of them; but, to compensate for these trifling deficiencies, a
+plentiful supply of pride and cruelty, with a due admixture of
+dishonesty. We heartily join, with Colonel Napier, in wondering where
+the deuce the "integrity of the Ottoman empire" is to be found, as,
+beyond all doubt, not a particle of it exists in any of its subjects.
+The pashas of Egypt, bad as they undoubtedly are, have redeeming
+points about them, which the Hassans, and Izzets, and Reschids of the
+Turks have no conception of; and, lively and sparkling as the gallant
+colonel's narrative is, we confess it leaves a sadder impression on
+our minds of the hopelessness and the degeneracy of the Moslems, than
+any book we have met with. Turk and Egyptian should equally be whipped
+back into the desert, and the fairest portions of the world be won
+over to civilization, wealth, and happiness. The present volumes close
+at the end of January 1841, and perhaps they are among the best
+results of the campaign. We shall be glad to see the proceedings at
+Alexandria sketched off in the same pleasant style.
+
+
+
+
+THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.--_Herod._ iii. 124-126.
+
+
+    "Oh! go not forth, my father dear--oh! I go not forth to-day,
+    And trust not thou that Satrap dark, for he fawns but to betray;
+    His courteous smiles are treacherous wiles, his foul designs to hide;
+    Then go not forth, my father dear--in thy own fair towers abide."
+
+    "Now, say not so, dear daughter mine--I pray thee, say not so!
+    Where glory calls, a monarch's feet should never fear to go;
+    And safe to-day will be my way through proud Magnesia's halls,
+    As if I stood 'mid my bowmen good beneath my Samian walls.
+
+    "The Satrap is my friend, sweet child--my trusty friend is he--
+    The ruddy gold his coffers hold he shares it all with me;
+    No more amid these clustering isles alone shall be my sway,
+    But Hellas wide, from side to side, thy empire shall obey!
+
+    "And of all the maids of Hellas, though they be rich and fair,
+    With the daughter of Polycrates, oh! who shall then compare?
+    Then dry thy tears--no idle fears should damp our joy to-day--
+    And let me see thee smile once more before I haste away!"
+
+    "Oh! false would be the smile, my sire, that I should wear this morn,
+    For of all my country's daughters I shall soon be most forlorn;
+    I know, I know,--ah, thought of woe!--I ne'er shall see again
+    My father's ship come sailing home across the Icarian main.
+
+    "Each gifted seer, with words of fear, forbids thee to depart,
+    And their warning strains an echo find in every faithful heart;
+    A maiden weak, e'en I must speak--ye gods, assist me now!
+    The characters of doom and death are graven on thy brow!
+
+    "Last night, my sire, a vision dire thy daughter's eyes did see,
+    Suspended in mid air there hung a form resembling thee;
+    Nay, frown not thus, my father dear; my tale will soon be done--
+    Methought that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the sun!"
+
+    "My child, my child, thy fancies wild I may not stay to hear.
+    A friend goes forth to meet a friend--then wherefore should'st
+        thou fear?
+    Though moonstruck seers with idle fears beguile a maiden weak,
+    They cannot stay thy father's hand, or blanch thy father's cheek.
+
+    "Let cowards keep within their holds, and on peril fear to run!
+    Such shame," quoth he, "is not for me, fair Fortune's favourite son!"
+    Yet still the maiden did repeat her melancholy strain--
+    "I ne'er shall see my father's fleet come sailing home again!"
+
+    The monarch call'd his seamen good, they muster'd on the shore,
+    Waved in the gale the snow-white sail, and dash'd the sparkling oar;
+    But by the flood that maiden stood--loud rose her piteous cry--
+    "Oh! go not forth, my dear, dear sire--oh, go not forth to die!"
+
+    A frown was on that monarch's brow, and he said as he turn'd away,
+    "Full soon shall Samos' lord return to Samos' lovely bay;
+    But thou shalt aye a maiden lone within my courts abide--
+    No chief of fame shall ever claim my daughter for his bride!
+
+    "A long, long maidenhood to thee thy prophet tongue hath given--"
+    "Oh would, my sire," that maid replied, "such were the will of Heaven!
+    Though I a loveless maiden lone must evermore remain,
+    Still let me hear that voice so dear in my native isle again!"
+
+    'Twas all in vain that warning strain--the king has crost the tide--
+    But never more off Samos shore his bark was seen to ride!
+    The Satrap false his life has ta'en, that monarch bold and free,
+    And his limbs are black'ning in the blast, nail'd to the gallows-tree!
+
+    That night the rain came down apace, and wash'd each gory stain,
+    But the sun's bright ray, the next noonday, glared fiercely on the
+        slain;
+    And the oozing gore began once more from his wounded sides to run;
+    Good-sooth, that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the Sun!
+
+
+
+
+MODERN PAINTERS.[16]
+
+    [16] Modern Painters--their Superiority in the Art of
+    Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters, &c. &c.
+    By a Graduate of Oxford.
+
+
+We read this title with some pain, not doubting but that our modern
+landscape painters were severely handled in an ironical satire; and we
+determined to defend them. "Their superiority to _all_ the ancient
+masters"--that was too hard a hit to come from any but an enemy! We
+must measure our man--a graduate of Oxford! The "scholar armed,"
+without doubt. He comes, too, vauntingly up to us, with his contempt
+for us and all critics that ever were, or will be; we are all little
+Davids in the eye of this Goliath. Nevertheless, we will put a pebble
+in our sling. We saw this contempt of us, in dipping at hap-hazard
+into the volume. But what was our astonishment to find, upon looking
+further, that we had altogether mistaken the intent of the author, and
+that we should probably have not one Goliath, but many, to encounter;
+while our own particular friends, to whom we might look for help,
+were, alas! all dead men. We found that there were not "giants" in
+those days, but in these days--that the author, in his most
+superlative praise, is not ironical at all, but a most serious
+panegyrist, who never laughs, but does sometimes make his readers
+laugh, when they see his very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the
+"old masters"--not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a
+laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there
+is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that
+he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This
+contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," in
+the next page he enlarges the scope of his enmity; "speaking generally
+of the old masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator
+Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers (in his
+landscapes,) P. Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van Somethings and
+Back Somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have
+libelled the sea." Self-convicted of malice, he has not the slightest
+suspicion of his ignorance; whereas he _knows_ nothing of these
+masters whom he maligns. Still is he ready to be their general
+accuser--has not the slightest respect for the accumulated opinions of
+the best judges for these two or three hundred years--he puts them by
+with the wave of his hand, very like the unfortunate gentleman in an
+establishment of "unsound opinions," who gravely said--"The world and
+I differed in opinion--I was right, the world wrong; but they were too
+many for me, and put me here." We daresay that, in such establishments
+may be found many similar opinions to those our author promulgates,
+though, as yet, none of our respectable publishers have been convicted
+of a congenial folly. We said, that he suspects not his ignorance of
+the masters he maligns. Let it not hence be inferred that it is the
+work of an ignorant man. He is only ignorant with a prejudice. We will
+not say that it is not the work of a man who thinks, who has been
+habituated to a sort of scholastic reasoning, which he brings to bear,
+with no little parade and display, upon technicalities and
+distinctions. He can tutor _secundum artem_, lacking only, in the
+first point, that he has not tutored himself. With all his
+arrangements and distinctions laid down, as the very grammar of art,
+he confuses himself with his "truths," forgetting that, in matters of
+art, truths of fact must be referable to truths of mind. It is not
+what things in all respects really are, but what they appear, and how
+they are convertible by the mind into what they are not in many ways,
+respects, and degrees, that we have to consider, before we can venture
+to draw rules from any truths whatever. For art is something besides
+nature; and taste and feeling are first--precede practical art; and
+though greatly enhanced by that practical cultivation, might exist
+without it--nay, often do; and true taste always walks a step in
+advance of what has been done, and ever desires to do, and from
+itself, more than it sees. We discover, therefore, a fallacy in the
+very proposal of his undertaking, when he says that he is prepared "to
+advance nothing which does not, at least in his own conviction, _rest
+on surer ground than mere feeling or taste_." Notwithstanding,
+however, that our graduate of Oxford puts his "demonstrations" upon an
+equality with "the demonstrations of Euclid," and "thinks it proper
+for the public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has
+been devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art,"
+and that he is "a graduate of Oxford;" we do not look upon him as a
+bit the better judge for all that, seeing that many have practised it
+too fondly and too ignorantly all their lives, and that Claude, and
+Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin must, according to him, have been in this
+predicament, and more especially do we decline from bowing down at his
+dictation, when we find him advocating _any_ "_surer ground than
+feeling or taste_." Now, considering that thus, _in initio_, he sets
+aside feeling and taste, the reader will not be astonished to find a
+very substantial reason given for his contempt of the afore-mentioned
+old masters; it is, he says, "because I look with the most devoted
+veneration upon Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, that I do not
+distrust the principles which induce me to look with contempt," &c. We
+do not exactly see how these great men, who were not landscape
+painters, can very well be compared with those who were, but from some
+general principles of art, in which the world have not as yet found
+any very extraordinary difference. But we do humbly suggest, that
+Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, are in their practice, and
+principles, if you please, quite as unlike Messrs David Cox, Copley
+Fielding, J. D. Harding, Clarkson Stanfield, and Turner--the very men
+whom our author brings forward as the excellent of the earth, in
+opposition _to all_ old masters whatever, excepting only Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, to whom nevertheless, by a perverse
+pertinacity of their respective geniuses, they bear no resemblance
+whatever--as they are to Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin. We do
+not by any means intend to speak disrespectfully of these our English
+artists, but we must either mistrust those principles which cause them
+to stand in opposition to the great Italians, or to conceive that our
+author has really discovered no such differing principles, and which
+possibly may not exist at all. Nor will we think so meanly of the
+taste, the good feeling, and the good sense of these men, as to
+believe that they think themselves at all flattered by any admiration
+founded on such an irrational contempt. They well know that Michael
+Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, have been admired, together with
+Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin, and they do not themselves
+desire to be put upon a separate list. The author concludes his
+introduction with a very bad reason for his partiality to modern
+masters, and it is put in most ambitious language, very readily
+learned in the "Fudge School,"--a style of language with which our
+author is very apt to indulge himself; but the argument it so
+ostentatiously clothes, and which we hesitate not to call a bad one,
+is nothing more than this, (if we understand it,)--that the dead are
+dead, and cannot hear our praise; that the living are living, and
+therefore our love is not lost; in short, as a _non-sequitur_, "that
+if honour be for the dead, gratitude can only be for the living." This
+might have been simply said; but we are taken to the grave--with "He
+who has once stood beside the grave," &c. &c.; we have "wild
+love--keen sorrow--pleasure to pulseless hearts--debt to the heart--to
+be discharged to the dust--the garland--the tombstone--the crowned
+brow--the ashes and the spirit--heaven-toned voices and heaven-lighted
+lamps--the learning--sweetness by silence--and light by decay;" all
+which, we conceive, might have been very excusable in a young curate's
+sermon during his first year of probation, and might have won for him
+more nosegays and favours than golden opinions, but which we here feel
+inclined to put our pen across, as so we remember many similarly
+ambitious passages to have been served, before we were graduate of
+Oxford, with the insignificant signification from the pen of our
+informator of _nihil ad rem_. As the author threatens the public with
+another, or more volumes, we venture to throw out a recommendation,
+that at least one volume may serve the purpose and do the real work of
+two, if he will check this propensity to unnecessary redundancy. His
+numerous passages of this kind are for the most part extremely
+unintelligible; and when we have unraveled the several coatings, we
+too often find the ribs of the mummy are not human. We think it right
+to object, in this place, to an affectation in phraseology offensive
+to those who think seriously of breaking the third commandment--he
+scarcely speaks of mountains without taking the sacred name in vain;
+there is likewise a constant repetition of expressions of very
+doubtful meaning in the first use, for the most part quite devoid of
+meaning in their application. One of these is "palpitating." Light is
+"palpitating," darkness is "palpitating"--every conceivable thing is
+"palpitating." We must, however, in justice say, that by far the best
+part of the book, the laying down rules and the elucidating
+principles, is clearly and expressively written. In this part of the
+work there is greater expansion than the student will generally find
+in books on art. Not that we are aware of the advancement of any thing
+new; but the admitted maxims of art are, as it were, grammatically
+analysed, and in a manner to assist the beginner in thinking upon art.
+To those who have already _thought_, this very studied analysis and
+arrangement will be tedious enough.
+
+In the "Definition of Greatness in Art," we find--"If I say that the
+greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator
+the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definition which
+will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is
+capable of conveying." Now, there are great ideas which are so
+conflicting as to annul the force of each other. This is not enough;
+there must be a congruity of great ideas--nay, in some instances, we
+can conceive one idea to be so great, as in a work of art not to admit
+of the juxtaposition of others. This is the principle upon which the
+sonnet is built, and the sonnet illustrates the picture not unaptly.
+"Ideas of Power" are great ideas--not always are ideas of beauty
+great; yet is there a tempering the one with the other, which it is
+the special province of art to attain, and that for its highest and
+most moral purposes. In his "Ideas of Power," he distinguishes the
+term "excellent" from the terms "beautiful," "useful," "good," &c.;
+thus--"And we shall always, in future, use the word excellent, as
+signifying that the thing to which it is applied required a great
+power for its production." Is not this doubtful? Does it not limit the
+perception of excellence to artists who can alone from their practice,
+and, as it were, measurement of powers with their difficulties, learn
+and feel its existence in the sense to which it is limited. The
+inference would be, that none but artists can be critics, as none but
+artists can perceive excellence, and we think in more than one place
+some such assertion is made. This is startling--"Power is never
+wasted; whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in
+proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of
+perceiving this exertion, and approaching this dignity, is the faculty
+of perceiving excellence." "It is this faculty in which men, even of
+the most cultivated taste, must always be wanting, unless they have
+added practice to reflection; because none can estimate the power
+manifested in victory, unless they have personally measured the
+strength to be overcome." For the word strength use difficulty, and we
+should say that, to the unpractised, the difficulties must always
+appear greatest. He gives, as illustration, "Titian's flesh tint;" it
+may be possible that, by some felicitous invention, some new
+technicality of his art, Titian might have produced this excellence,
+and to him there would have been no such great measurement of the
+difficulty or strength to be overcome; while the admirer of the work,
+ignorant of the happy means, fancies the exertion of powers which were
+not exerted. In his chapter on "Ideas of Imitation," he imagines that
+Fuseli and Coleridge falsely apply the term imitation, making "a
+distinction between imitation and copying, representing the first as
+the legitimate function of art--the latter as its corruption." Yet we
+think he comes pretty much to the same conclusion. In like manner, he
+seems to disagree with Burke in a passage which he quotes, but in
+reality he agrees with him; for surely the "power of the imitation" is
+but a power of the "jugglery," to be sensible of which, if we
+understand him, is necessary to our sense of imitation. "When the
+object," says Burke, "represented in poetry or painting is such as we
+could have no desire of seeing in the reality, then we may be sure
+that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the power of
+_imitation_." "We may," says our author, "be sure of the contrary; for
+if the object be undesirable in itself, the closer the imitation the
+less will be the pleasure." Certainly not; for Burke of course
+implied, and included in his sense of imitation, that it should be
+consistent with a knowledge in the spectator, that a certain trick of
+art was put upon him. And our author says the same--"Whenever the work
+is seen to resemble something which we know it is not, we receive what
+I call an idea of imitation." Again--"Now, two things are requisite to
+our complete and most pleasurable perception of this: first, that the
+resemblance be so perfect as to amount to deception; secondly, that
+there be some means of proving at the same moment that it _is_ a
+deception." He justly considers "the pleasures resulting from
+imitation the most contemptible that can be received from art." He
+thus happily illustrates his meaning--"We may consider tears as a
+result of agony or of art, whichever we please, but not of both at the
+same moment. If we are surprised by them as an attainment of the one,
+it is impossible we can be moved by them as a sign of the other." This
+will explain why we are pleased with the exact imitation of the
+dewdrop on the peach, and why we are disgusted with the Magdalen's
+tears by Vanderwerf; and we further draw this inevitable conclusion,
+of very important consequence to artists, who have very erroneous
+notions upon the subject, that this sort of imitation, which, by the
+deception of its name, should be most like, is actually less like
+nature, because it takes from nature its impression by substituting a
+sense of the jugglery. This chapter on ideas of imitation is good and
+useful. We think, in the after part of his work, wherein is much
+criticism on pictures by the old masters and by moderns, our author
+must have lost the remembrance of what he has so well said on his
+ideas of imitation; and in the following chapter on "Ideas of Truth."
+"The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement,
+either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature." The reader will
+readily see how "ideas of truth" differ from "ideas of imitation." The
+latter relating only to material objects, the former taking in the
+conceptions of the mind--may be conveyed by signs or symbols,
+"themselves no image nor likeness of any thing." "An idea of truth
+exists in the statement of _one_ attribute of any thing; but an idea
+of imitation only in the resemblance of as many attributes as we are
+usually cognizant of in its real presence." Hence it follows that
+ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation; for, as we
+before said, ideas of imitation remove the impression by an
+ever-present sense of the deception or falsehood. This is put very
+conclusively--"so that the moment ideas of truth are grouped together,
+so as to give rise to an idea of imitation, they change their very
+nature--lose their essence as ideas of truth--and are corrupted and
+degraded, so as to share in the treachery of what they have produced.
+Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the foundation, and ideas of
+imitation the distinction, of all art. We shall be better able to
+appreciate their relative dignity after the investigation which we
+propose of functions of the former; but we may as well now express the
+conclusion to which we shall then be led--that no picture can be good
+which deceives by its imitation; for the very reason that nothing can
+be beautiful which is not true." This is perhaps rather too
+indiscriminate. It has been shown that ideas of imitation do give
+pleasure; by them, too, objects of beauty may be represented. We
+should not say that a picture by Gerard Dow or Van Eyck; even with the
+down on the peach and the dew on the leaf, were not good pictures.
+They are good if they please. It is true, they ought to do more, and
+even that in a higher degree; they cannot be works of greatness--and
+greatness was probably meant in the word good. In his chapter on
+"Ideas of Beauty," he considers that we derive, naturally and
+instinctively, pleasure from the contemplation of certain material
+objects; for which no other reason can be given than that it is our
+instinct--the will of our Maker--we enjoy them "instinctively and
+necessarily, as we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose."
+But we have instinctively aversion as well as desire; though he admits
+this, he seems to lose sight of it in the following--"And it would
+appear that we are intended by the Deity to be constantly under their
+influence, (ideas of beauty;) because there is not one single object
+in nature which is not capable of conveying them," &c. We are not
+satisfied; if the instinctive desire be the index to what is
+beautiful, so must the instinctive aversion be the index to its
+opposite. We have an instinctive dislike to many reptiles, to many
+beasts--as apes. These _may_ have in them some beauty; we only object
+to the author's want of clearness. If there be no ugliness there is no
+beauty, for every thing has its opposite; so that we think he has not
+yet discovered and clearly put before us what beauty consists in. He
+shows how it happens that we do admire it instinctively; but that does
+not tell us what it is, and possibly, after all that has been said
+about it, it yet remains to be told. Nor are we satisfied with his
+definition of taste--"Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the
+greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are
+attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection." This
+will not do; for taste will take material sources, unattractive in
+themselves, and by combination, or for their contrast, receive
+pleasure from them. All literature and all art show this. That taste,
+like life itself, is instinctive in its origin and first motion, we
+doubt not; but what it is by and in its cultivation, and in its
+application to art, is a thing not to be altogether so cursorily
+discussed and dismissed. The distinction is laid down between taste
+and judgment--judgment being the action of the intellect; taste "the
+instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another
+without any obvious reason," except that it is proper to human nature
+in its perfection so to do. But leaving this discussion of this
+original taste, taste in art is surely, as it is a thing cultivated,
+that for which a reason can be given, and in some measure, therefore,
+the result of judgment. For by the cultivation of taste we are
+actually led to love, admire, and desire many things of which we have
+no instinctive love at all; so that the taste for them arises from the
+intellect and the moral sense--our judgment. He proceeds to "Ideas of
+Relation," by which he means "to express all those sources of
+pleasure, which involve and require at the instant of their
+perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers." As this is to
+be more easily comprehended by an illustration, we have one in an
+incident of one of Turner's pictures, and, considering the object, it
+is surprising the author did not find one more important; but he
+herein shows that, in his eyes, every stroke of the brush by Mr Turner
+is important--indeed, is a considerable addition to our national
+wealth. In the picture of the "Building of Carthage," the foreground
+is occupied by a group of children sailing toy-boats, which he thinks
+to be an "exquisite choice of incident expressive of the ruling
+passion." He, with a whimsical extravagance in praise of Turner,
+which, commencing here, runs throughout all the rest of the volume,
+says--"Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is
+epic poetry of the highest order." Epic poetry of the highest order!
+Ungrateful will be our future epic poets if they do not learn from
+this--if such is done by boys sailing toy-boats, surely boys flying a
+kite will illustrate far better the great astronomical knowledge of
+our days. But he is rather unfortunate in this bit of criticism; for
+he compares this incident with one of Claude's, which we, however,
+think a far better and more poetical incident. "Claude, in subjects of
+_the same kind_," (not, by the by, a very fair statement,) "commonly
+introduces people carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and
+dwells, with infantine delight, on the lustre of the leather and the
+ornaments of the iron. The intellect can have no occupation here, we
+must look to the imitation or to nothing." As to the "_infantine
+delight_," we presume it is rather with the boys and their toy-boats;
+but let us look a little into these trunks--no, we may not--there is
+something more in them than our graduate imagines--the very iron
+locks and precious leather mean to tell you there is something still
+more precious within, worth all the cost of freightage; and you see, a
+little off, the great argosie that has brought the riches; and we
+humbly think that the ruling passion of a people whose "princes were
+merchants, and whose merchants princes," as happily expressed by the
+said "red trunks" as the rise of Carthage by the boys and boats; and
+in the fervour of this bit of "exquisite" epic choice, probably Claude
+did look with delight on the locks and the leather; and, whenever we
+look upon that picture again, we shall be ready to join in the
+delight, and say, in spite of our graduate's "contempt," there is
+nothing like leather. If the boys and boats express the beginning, the
+red trunks express the thing done--merchandise "brought home to every
+man's door;" so that the one serves for an "idea of relation," quite
+as well as the other. And here ends section the first.
+
+The study of ideas of imitation are thrown out of the consideration of
+ideas of power, as unworthy the pursuit of an artist, whose purpose is
+not to deceive, and because they are only the result of a particular
+association of ideas of truth. "There are two modes in which we receive
+the conception of power; one, the most just, when by a perfect
+knowledge of the difficulty to be overcome, and the means employed, we
+form a right estimate of the faculties exerted; the other, when without
+possessing such intimate and accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a
+sensation of power in visible action. If these two modes of receiving
+the impression agree in the result, and if the sensation be equal to
+the estimate, we receive the utmost possible idea of power. But this is
+the case perhaps with the works of only one man out of the whole circle
+of the fathers of art, of him to whom we have just referred--Michael
+Angelo. In others the estimate and the sensation are constantly
+unequal, and often contradictory." There is a distinction between the
+sensation of power and the intellectual perception of it. A slight
+sketch will give the sensation; the greater power is in the completion,
+not so manifest, but of which there is a more intellectual cognizance.
+He instances the drawings of Frederick Tayler for sensations of power,
+considering the apparent means; and those of John Lewis for more
+complete ideas of power, in reference to the greater difficulties
+overcome, and the more complicated means employed. We think him
+unfortunate in his selection, as the subjects of these artists are not
+such as, of themselves, justly to receive ideas of power, therefore not
+the best to illustrate them. He proceeds to "ideas of power, as they
+are dependent on execution." There are six legitimate sources of
+pleasure in execution--truth, simplicity, mystery, inadequacy,
+decision, velocity. "Decision" we should think involved in "truth;" as
+so involved, not necessarily different from velocity. Mystery and
+inadequacy require explanation. "Nature is always mysterious and secret
+in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most
+inexplicable." Execution, therefore, should be "incomprehensible."
+"Inadequacy" can hardly, we think, be said to be a quality of
+execution, as it has only reference to means employed. Insufficient
+means, according to him, give ideas of power. We otherwise
+conclude--namely, that if the inadequacy of the means is shown, we
+receive ideas of weakness. "Ars est celare artem"--so is it to conceal
+the means. Strangeness in execution, not a legitimate source of
+pleasure, is illustrated by the execution of a bull's head by Rubens,
+and of the same by Berghem. Of the six qualities of execution, the
+three first are the greatest, the three last the most attractive. He
+considers Berghem and Salvator to have carried their fondness for these
+lowest qualities to a vice. We can scarcely agree with him, as their
+execution seems most appropriate to the character of their subjects--to
+arise, in fact, out of their "ideas of truth." There is appended a good
+note on the execution of the "drawing-master," that, under the title of
+boldness, will admit of no touch less than the tenth of an inch broad,
+and on the tricks of engravers' handling.
+
+Our graduate dismisses the "sublime" in about two pages; in fact, he
+considers sublimity not to be a specific term, nor "descriptive of the
+effect of a particular class of ideas;" but as he immediately asserts
+that it is "greatness of any kind," and "the effect of greatness upon
+the feelings," we should have expected to have heard a little more
+about what constitutes this "greatness," this "sublime," which
+"elevates the mind," something more than that "Burke's theory of the
+nature of the sublime is incorrect." The sublime not being "distinct
+from what is beautiful," he confines his subject to "ideas of truth,
+beauty, and relation," and by these he proposes to test all artists.
+Truth of facts and truth of thoughts are here considered; the first
+necessary, but the latter the highest: we should say that it is the
+latter which alone constitutes art, and that here art begins where
+nature ends. Facts are the foundation necessary to the superstructure;
+the foundation of which must be there, though unseen, unnoticed in
+contemplation of the noble edifice. Very great stress is laid upon
+"the exceeding importance of truth;" which none will question,
+reminding us of the commencement of Bacon's essay, "What is truth?
+said laughing Pilate, and would not wait for an answer." "Nothing,"
+says our author, "can atone for the want of truth, not the most
+brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling
+(supposing that feeling _could_ be pure and false at the same time,)
+not the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of
+intellect, can make amends for the want of truth." Now, there is much
+parade in all this, surely truth, as such in reference to art, is _in_
+the brilliancy of imagination, _in_ the playfulness, without which is
+no fancy, _in_ the feeling, and _in_ the very exaltation of a
+conception; and intellect has no _grasp_ that does not grasp a truth.
+When he speaks of nature as "immeasurably superior to all that the
+human mind can conceive," and professes to "pay no regard whatsoever
+to what may be thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative," and to
+"look only for truth, bare, clear downright statement of facts," he
+seems to forget what nature is, as adopted by, as taken into art; it
+is not only external nature, but external nature in conjunction with
+the human mind. Nor does he, in fact, adhere in the subsequent part of
+his work to this his declaration; for he loses it in his "fervour of
+imagination," when he actually examines the works of "the great living
+painter, who is, I believe, imagined by the majority of the public to
+paint more falsehood and less fact than any other known master." Here
+our author jumps at once into his monomania--his adoration of the
+works of Turner, which he examines largely and microscopically, as it
+suits his whim, and imagines all the while he is describing and
+examining nature; and not unfrequently he tells you, that nature and
+Turner are the same, and that he "invites the same ceaseless study as
+the works of nature herself." This is "coming it pretty strong." We
+confess we are with the majority--not that we wish to depreciate
+Turner. He is, or has been, unquestionably, a man of genius, and that
+is a great admission. He has, perhaps, done in art what never has been
+done before. He has illuminated "Views," if not with local, with a
+splendid truth. His views of towns are the finest; he led the way to
+this walk of art, and is far superior to all in it. We speak of his
+works collectively. Some of his earlier, more imaginative, were
+unquestionably poetical, though not, perhaps, of a very high
+character. We believe he has been better acquainted with many of the
+truths of nature, particularly those which came within the compass of
+his line of views, than any other artist, ancient or modern; but we
+believe he has neglected others, and some important ones too, and to
+which the old masters paid the greatest attention, and devoted the
+utmost study. We have spoken frequently, unhesitatingly, of the late
+extraordinary productions of his pencil, as altogether unworthy his
+real genius; it is in these we see, with the majority of the public,
+"more falsehood and less fact" than in any other known master--a
+defiance of the "known truths" in drawing, colour, and composition,
+for which we can only account upon the supposition, that his eye
+misrepresents to him the work of his hands. We see, in the almost
+adoration of his few admirers, that if it be difficult, and not always
+dependent, on merit to attain to eminence in the world's estimation,
+it is nearly as difficult altogether to fall from it; and that nothing
+the artist can do, though they be the veriest "aegri somnia," will
+separate from him habitual followers, who, with a zeal in proportion
+to the extravagances he may perpetrate, will lose their relish for,
+and depreciate the great masters, whose very principles he seems
+capriciously in his age to set aside, and they will from followers
+become his worshippers, and in pertinacity exact entire compliance,
+and assent to every, the silliest, dictation of their monomania. We
+subjoin a specimen of this kind of worship, which will be found fully
+to justify our observations, and which, considering it speaks of
+mortal man, is somewhat blaspheming Divine attributes; we know not
+really whether we should pity the condition of the author, or
+reprehend the passage. After speaking of other modern painters, who
+are so superior to the old, he says: "and Turner--glorious in
+conception--unfathomable in knowledge--solitary in power--with the
+elements waiting upon his will, and the night and the morning obedient
+to his call, sent as a prophet of God to reveal to men the mysteries
+of his universe, standing, like the great angel of the Apocalypse,
+clothed with a cloud, and with a rainbow upon his head, and with the
+sun and stars given into his hand." Little as we are disposed to laugh
+at any such aberrations, we must, to remove from our minds the
+greater, the more serious offence, indulge in a small degree of
+justifiable ridicule; and ask what will sculptor or painter make of
+this description, should the reluctant public be convinced by the
+"graduate," and in their penitential reverence order statue or
+painting of Mr Turner for the Temple of Fame, which it is presumed
+Parliament, in their artistic zeal, mean to erect? How will they
+venture to represent Mr Turner looking like an angel--in that dress
+which would make any man look like a fool--his cloud nightcap tied
+with rainbow riband round his head, calling to night and morning, and
+little caring which comes, making "ducks and drakes" of the sun and
+the stars, put into his hand for that purpose? We will only suggest
+one addition, as it completes the grand idea, and is in some degree
+characteristic of Mr Turner's peculiar execution, that, with the sun
+and stars, there should be delivered into his hand a comet, whose tail
+should serve him for a brush, and supply itself with colour. We do not
+see, however, why the moon should have been omitted; sun, moon, and
+stars, generally go together. Is the author as jealous as the
+"majority of the public" may be suspicious of her influence? And let
+not the reader believe that Mr Turner is thus called a prophet in mere
+joke, or a fashion of words--his prophetic power is advanced in
+another passage, wherein it is asserted that Mr Turner not only tells
+us in his works what nature has done in hers, but what she will do.
+"In fact," says our author, "the great quality about Mr Turner's
+drawings, which more especially proves their transcendant truth, is
+the capability they afford us of reasoning on past and future
+phenomena." The book teems with extravagant bombastic praise like
+this. Mr Turner is more than the Magnus Apollo. Yet other English
+artists are brought forward, immediately preceding the above
+panegyric; we know not if we do them justice, by noticing what is said
+of them. There is a curious description of David Cos lying on the
+ground "to possess his spirit in humility and peace," of Copley
+Fielding, as an aeronaut, "casting his whole soul into space." We
+really cannot follow him, "exulting like the wild deer in the motion
+of the swift mists," and "flying with the wild wind and sifted spray
+along the white driving desolate sea, with the passion for nature's
+freedom burning in his heart;" for such a chase and such a heart-burn
+must have a frightful termination, unless it be mere nightmare. We see
+"J. D. Harding, brilliant and vigorous," &c., "following with his
+quick, keen dash the sunlight into the crannies of the rocks, and the
+wind into the tangling of the grass, and the bright colour into the
+fall of the sea-foam--various, universal in his aim;" after which very
+fatiguing pursuit, we are happy to find him "under the shade of some
+spreading elm;" yet his heart is oak--and he is "English, all English
+at his heart." But Mr Clarkson Stanfield is a man of men--"firm, and
+fearless, and unerring in his knowledge--stern and decisive in his
+truth--perfect and certain in composition--shunning nothing,
+concealing nothing, and falsifying nothing--never affected, never
+morbid, never failing--conscious of his strength, but never
+ostentatious of it--acquainted with every line and hue of the deep
+sea--chiseling his waves with unhesitating knowledge of every curve of
+their anatomy, and every moment of their motion--building his
+mountains rock by rock, with wind in every fissure, and weight in
+every stone--and modeling the masses of his sky with the strength of
+tempest in their every fold." It is curious--yet a searcher after
+nature's truths ought to know, as he is here told, that waves may be
+anatomized, and must be _chiseled_, and that mountains are and ought
+to be _built_ up rock by rock, as a wall brick by brick; no easy task
+considering that there is a disagreeable "wind in every fissure, and
+weight in every stone"--and that the aerial sky, incapable to touch,
+must be "modeled in masses." All this is given after an equally
+extravagant abuse of Claude, of Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. He finds
+fault with Claude, because his sea does not "upset the flower-pots on
+the wall," forgetting that they are put there because the sea could
+not--with Salvator, for his "contemptible fragment of splintery crag,
+which an Alpine snow-wreath" (which would have no business there)
+"would smother in its first swell, with a stunted bush or two growing
+out of it, and a Dudley or Halifax-like volume of smoke for a
+sky"--with Poussin, for that he treats foliage (whereof "every bough
+is a revelation!") as "a black round mass of impenetrable paint,
+diverging into feathers instead of leaves, and supported on a stick
+instead of a trunk." A page or two from this, our author sadly abuses
+poor Canaletti, as far as we can see, for not painting a tumbled-down
+wall, which perhaps, in his day, was not in a ruinous state at all; it
+is a curious passage--and shows how much may be made out of a wall.
+Pyramus's chink was nothing to this--behold a specimen of "fine
+writing!" "Well: take the next house. We remember that too; it was
+mouldering inch by inch into the canal, and the bricks had fallen away
+from its shattered marble shafts, and left them white and
+skeleton-like, yet with their fretwork of cold flowers wreathed about
+them still, untouched by time; and through the rents of the wall
+behind them there used to come long sunbeams gleamed by the weeds
+through which they pierced, which flitted, and fell one by one round
+those grey and quiet shafts, catching here a leaf and there a leaf,
+and gliding over the illumined edges and delicate fissures until they
+sank into the deep dark hollow between the marble blocks of the sunk
+foundation, lighting every other moment one isolated emerald lamp on
+the crest of the intermittent waves, when the wild sea-weeds and
+crimson lichens drifted and crawled with their thousand colours and
+fine branches over its decay, and the black, clogging, accumulated
+limpets hung in ropy clusters from the dripping and tinkling stone.
+What has Canaletti given us for this?" Alas, neither a _crawling_
+lichen, nor _clogging_ limpets, nor a _tinkling_ stone, but "one
+square, red mass, composed of--let me count--five-and-fifty--no,
+six-and-fifty--no, I was right at first, five-and-fifty bricks," &c.
+The picture, if it be painted by the graduate, must be a curiosity--we
+can make neither head nor tail of his words. But let us find another
+strange specimen--where he compares his own observations of nature
+with Poussin and Turner. Every one must remember a very pretty little
+picture of no great consequence by Gaspar Poussin--a view of some
+buildings of a town said to be Aricia, the modern La Riccia--just take
+it for what it is intended to be, a quiet, modest, agreeable
+scene--very true and sweetly painted. How unfit to be compared with an
+ambitious description of a combination of views from Rome to the Alban
+Mount, for that is the range of the description, though, perhaps, the
+description is taken from a poetical view of one of Turner's
+incomprehensibles, which may account for the conclusion, "Tell me who
+is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" Now, though Poussin never intended
+to be like this, let us see the graduate's description of it. We know
+the little town; it received us as well as our author, having left
+Rome to visit it.
+
+    "Egressum magna me accepit Aricia Roma."
+
+Our author, however, doubts if it be the place, though he
+unhesitatingly abuses Poussin, as if he had fully intended to have
+painted nothing else than what was seen by the travelling graduate.
+"At any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty
+bushes, of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of
+leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque
+brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and
+discover in one place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature
+have been cool and grey beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and
+which, therefore, being moreover completely in shade, is consistently
+and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick
+red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The foreground is a
+piece of road, which, in order to make allowance for its greater
+nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed,
+for the quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage roads, is
+given in a very cool green-grey, and the truthful colouring of the
+picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with
+a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown." We need not say how
+unlike is this description of the picture. We pass on to--"Not long
+ago, I was slowly _descending_ this very bit of carriage road, the
+first turn after you leave Albano;--it had been wild weather when I
+left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in
+sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of
+sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its
+arches like the bridge of Chaos. But as I _climbed_ the long slope of
+the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble
+outline of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex
+grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper
+sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in
+deep, palpitating azure, half aether half dew. The noonday sun came
+slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of
+entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the
+wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with
+rain. I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration. Purple, and
+crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the
+rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every
+separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it
+turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then
+an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas
+arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with
+the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and _silver_
+flakes of _orange_ spray tossed into the air around them, breaking
+over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and
+kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every
+glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in
+sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet
+lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark
+rock--dark though flushed with scarlet lichen--casting their quiet
+shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them
+filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over
+all--the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the _sacred_ clouds
+that have no _darkness_, and only exist to illumine, were seen in
+fathomless intervals between the solemn and _orbed_ repose of the
+stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding
+lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the
+blaze of the sea." In verity, this is no "Campana Supellex." It is a
+riddle! Is he going up or down hill--or both at once? No human being
+can tell. He did not like the "sulphur and treacle" of "our Scotch
+connoisseurs;" but what colours has he not added here to his
+sulphur--colours, too, that we fear for the "idea of truth" cannot
+coexist! And how, in the name of optics, could it be possible for any
+painter to take in all this, with the "_fathomless intervals_," into
+an angle of vision of forty-five degrees? It is quite superfluous to
+ask "who is likest this, Turner or Poussin?" There immediately follows
+a remark upon another picture in the National Gallery, the "Mercury
+and Woodman," by Salvator Rosa, than which nothing can be more untrue
+to the original. He asserts that Salvator painted the distant
+mountains, "throughout, without one instant of variation. But what is
+its colour? _Pure_ sky-blue, without one grain of grey, or any
+modifying hue whatsoever;--the same brush which had just given the
+bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part of the
+pallette, and the whole mountain throw in with unmitigated
+ultramarine." Now the fact is, that the picture has, in this part,
+been so injured, that it is hard to say what colour is under the dirty
+brown-asphaltum hue and texture that covers it. It is certainly not
+blue now, not "pure blue"--unless pictures change like the cameleon.
+We know the picture well, and have seen another of the same subject,
+where the mountains have variety, and yet are blue. We believe a great
+sum was given for this picture--far more than its condition justifies.
+We must return--we left the graduate discussing ideas of truth. There
+is a chapter to show that the truth of nature is not to be discerned
+by the uneducated senses. As we do not perceive all sounds that enter
+the ear, so do we not perceive all that is cognizable by the eye--we
+have, that is, a power of nullifying an impression; that this habit is
+so common, that from the abstraction of their minds to other subjects,
+there are probably persons who never saw any thing beautiful.
+Sensibility to the power of beauty is required--and to see rightly,
+there should be a perfect state of moral feeling. Even when we think
+we see with our eyes, our perception is often the result of memory, of
+previous knowledge; and it is in this way he accounts for the mistake
+painters and others make with respect to Italian skies. What will Mr
+Uwin and his followers in blue say to this, alas--Italian skies are
+not blue? "How many people are misled by what has been said and sung
+of the serenity of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more blue
+than the skies of the north, and think that they see them so; whereas
+the sky of Italy is far more dull and grey in colour than the skies of
+the north, and is distinguished only by its intense repose of light."
+Benevenuto Cellini speaks of the mist of Italy. "Repose of light" is
+rather a novelty--he is fond of it. But then Turner paints with pure
+white--for ourselves we are with the generality of mankind who prefer
+the "repose" of shade. "Ask a connoisseur, who has scampered over all
+Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to
+one that he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism
+on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid"--and why not? The
+chances are ninety to one that the merits of not a single picture
+shall depend upon this knowledge, and yet the pictures shall be good
+and the connoisseur right. One man sees what another does not see in
+portraits. Undoubtedly; but how any one is to find in a portrait the
+following, we are at a loss to conceive. "The third has caught the
+trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty, when all hypocrisy
+and all habit, and all petty and passing emotion--the _ice, and the
+bank, and the foam of the immortal river--were shivered and broken,
+and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward strength_," _&c._ How
+can a man with a pen in his hand let such stuff as this drop from his
+fingers' ends?
+
+In the chapter "on the relative importance of truths," there is a
+little needless display of logic--needless, for we find, after all, he
+does not dispute "the kind of truths proper to be represented by the
+painter or sculptor," though he combats the maxim that general truths
+are preferable to particular. His examples are quite out of art,
+whether one be spoken of as a man or as Sir Isaac Newton. Even
+logically speaking, Sir Isaac Newton may be the _whole_ of the
+subject, and as such a whole might require a generality. There may be
+many particulars that are best sunk. So, in a picture made up of many
+parts, it should have a generality totally independent of the
+particularities of the parts, which must be so represented as not to
+interfere with that general idea, and which may be altogether in the
+mind of the artist. This little discussion seems to arise from a sort
+of quibble on the word important. Sir Joshua and others, who abet the
+generality maxim, mean no more than that it is of importance to a
+picture that it contain, fully expressed, one general idea, with which
+no parts are to interfere, but that the parts will interfere if each
+part be represented with its most particular truth--and that,
+therefore, drapery should be drapery merely, not silk or satin, where
+high truths of the subject are to be impressed.
+
+"Colour is a secondary truth, therefore less important than form."
+"He, therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of
+colour, has neglected a greater truth for a less one." It is true
+with regard to any individual object--but we doubt if it be always so
+in picture. The character of the picture may not at all depend upon
+form--nay, it is possible that the painter may wish to draw away the
+mind altogether from the beauty, and even correctness of form, his
+subject being effect and colour, that shall be predominant, and to
+which form shall be quite subservient, and little more of it than
+such as chiaro-scuro shall give; and in such a case colour is the
+more important truth, because in it lies the sentiment of the
+picture. The mystery of Rembrandt would vanish were beauty of form
+introduced in many of his pictures. We remember a picture, the most
+impressive picture perhaps ever painted, and that by a modern too,
+Danby's "Opening of the Sixth Seal." Now, though there are fine parts
+in this picture, the real power of the picture is in its colour--it
+is awful. We are no enemy to modern painters; we think this a work of
+the highest genius--and as such, should be most proud to see it
+deposited in our National Gallery. We further say, that in some
+respects it carries the art beyond the old practice. But, then, we
+may say it is a new subject. "It is not certain whether any two
+people see the same colours in things." Though that does not affect
+the question of the importance of colour, for it must imply a defect
+in the individuals, for undoubtedly there is such a thing as nature's
+harmony of colour; yet it may be admitted, that things are not always
+known by their colour; nay, that the actual local colour of objects
+is mainly altered by effects of light, and we are accustomed to see
+the same things, _quoad_ colour, variously presented to us--and the
+inference that we think artists may draw from this fact is, that
+there will be allowed them a great licence in all cases of colour,
+and that naturalness may be preserved without exactness--and here
+will lie the value of a true theory of the harmony of colours, and
+the application of colouring to pictures, most suitable to the
+intended impression, not the most appropriate to the objects. We have
+often laid some stress upon this in the pages of _Maga_--and we think
+it has been too much omitted in the consideration of artists. Every
+one knows what is called a Claude glass. We see nature through a
+coloured medium--yet we do not doubt that we are looking at
+nature--at trees, at water, at skies--nay, we admire the colour--see
+its harmony and many beauties--yet we know them to be, if we may use
+the term, misrepresented. While speaking of the Claude glass, it will
+not be amiss to notice a peculiarity. It shows a picture--when the
+unaided eye will not; it heightens illumination--brings out the most
+delicate lights, scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and gives
+greater power to the shades, yet preserves their delicacy. It seems
+to annihilate all those rays of light, which, as it were, intercept
+the picture--that come between the eye and the object. But to return
+to colour--we say that it must, in the midst of its license, preserve
+its naturalness--which it will do if it have a meaning in itself. But
+when we are called upon to question what is the meaning of this or
+that colour, how does its effect agree with the subject? why is it
+outrageously yellow or white, or blue or red, or a jumble of all
+these?--which are questions, we confess, that we and the public have
+often asked, with regard to Turner's late pictures--we do not
+acknowledge a naturalness--the license has been abused--not "sumpta
+pudenter." It is not because the vividness of "a blade of grass or a
+scarlet flower" shall be beyond the power of pigment, that a general
+glare and obtrusion of such colours throughout a picture can be
+justified. We are astonished that any man with eyes should see the
+unnaturalness in colour of Salvator and Titian, and not see it in
+Turner's recent pictures, where it is offensive because more glaring.
+Those masters sacrificed, if it be a sacrifice, something to
+repose--repose is _the_ thing to be sacrificed according to the
+notions of too many of our modern schools. It is likewise singular,
+after all the falsehoods which he asserts the old masters to have
+painted, that he should speak of "imitation"--as their whole aim,
+their sole intention to deceive; and yet he describes their pictures
+as unlike nature in the detail and in the general as can be,
+strangely missing their object--deception. We fear the truths,
+particulars of which occupy the remainder of the volume--of earth,
+water, skies, &c.--are very minute truths, which, whether true or
+false, are of very little importance to art, unless it be to those
+branches of art which may treat the whole of each particular truth
+as the whole of a subject, a line of art that may produce a multitude
+of works, like certain scenes of dramatic effect, surprising to see
+once, but are soon powerless--can we hope to say of such, "decies
+repetita placebunt?" They will be the fascinations of the view
+schools, nay, may even delight the geologist and the herbalist, but
+utterly disgust the imaginative. This kind of "knowledge" is not
+"power" in art. We want not to see water anatomized; the Alps may be
+tomahawked and scalped by geologists, yet may they be sorry painters.
+And we can point to the general admiration of the world, learned and
+unlearned, that a "contemptible fragment of a splintery crag" has
+been found to answer all the purposes of an impression of the
+greatness of nature, her free, great, and awful forms, and that
+depth, shades, power of chiaro-scuro, are found in nature to be
+strongest in objects of no very great magnitude; for our vision
+requires nearness, and we want not the knowledge that a mountain is
+20,000 feet high, to be convinced that it is quite large enough to
+crush man and all his works; and that they, who, in their terror of a
+greater pressure, would call upon the mountains to cover them, and
+the holes of rocks to hide them, would think very little of the
+measurement of the mountains, or how the caverns of the earth are
+made. Greatness and sublimity are quite other things.
+
+We shall not very systematically carry our views, therefore, into the
+detail of these truths, but shall just pick here and there a passage
+or so, that may strike us either for its utility or its absurdity.
+
+With regard to truth of tone, he observes--that "the finely-toned
+pictures of the old masters are some of the notes of nature played two
+or three octaves below her key, the dark objects in the middle
+distance having precisely the same relation to the light of the sky
+which they have in nature, but the light being necessarily infinitely
+lowered, and the mass of the shadow deepened in the same degree. I
+have often been struck, when looking at a camera-obscura on a dark
+day, with the exact resemblance the image bore to one of the finest
+pictures of the old masters." We only ask if, when looking at the
+picture in the camera, he did not still recognize nature--and then, if
+it was beautiful, we might ask him if it was not _true_; and then when
+he asserts our highest light being white paper, and that not white
+enough for the light of nature--we would ask if, in the camera, he did
+not see the picture on white paper--and if the whiteness of paper be
+not the exact whiteness of nature, or white as ordinary nature? But
+there is a quality in the light of nature that mere whiteness will not
+give, and which, in fact, is scarcely ever seen in nature merely in
+what is quite white; we mean brilliancy--that glaze, as it were,
+between the object and the eye which makes it not so much light as
+bright. Now this quality of light was thought by the old masters to be
+the most important one of light, extending to the half tones and even
+in the shadows, where there is still light; and this by art and
+lowering the tone they were able to give, so that we see not the value
+of the praise when he says--
+
+"Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle.
+He boldly takes pure white--and justly, for it is the sign of the most
+intense sunbeams--for his highest light, and lamp-black for his
+deepest shade," &c. Now, if white be the sign of the most intense
+sunbeams, it is as we never wish to see them; what under a tropical
+sun may be white is not quite white with us; and we always find it
+disagreeable in proportion as it approaches to pure white. We never
+saw yet in nature a sky or a cloud pure white; so that here certainly
+is one of the "fallacies," we will not call them falsehoods. But as
+far as we can judge of nature's ideas of light and colour, it is her
+object to tone them down, and to give us very little, if any, of this
+raw white, and we would not say that the old masters did not follow
+her method of doing it. But we will say, that the object of art, at
+any rate, is to make all things look agreeable; and that human eyes
+cannot bear without pain those raw whites and too searching lights;
+and that nature has given to them an ever present power of glazing
+down and reducing them, when she added to the eye the sieve, our
+eyelashes, through which we look, which we employ for this purpose,
+and desire not to be dragged at any time--"Sub curru nimium propinqui
+solis."
+
+After this praise of white, one does not expect--"I think nature
+mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues;" but this is said
+merely in aversion to purple. "I think the first approach to
+viciousness of colour in any master, is commonly indicated chiefly by
+a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow." "I am equally
+certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colourists
+of the present day, by the foundation of all his tones being black,
+yellow, and intermediate greys, while the tendency of our common
+glare-seekers is invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples."
+
+    "Silent nymph, with curious eye,
+    Who the _purple_ evening lie,"
+
+saith Dyer, in his landscape of "Grongar Hill." The "glare-seekers" is
+curious enough, when we remember the graduate's description of
+landscapes, (of course Turner's,) and his excursions; but we think we
+have seen many purples in Turner, and that opposed to his flaming red
+in sunsets. He prefers warmth where most people feel cold--this is not
+surprising; but as to picture "is it true?" "My own feelings would
+guide me rather to the warm greys of such pictures as the
+'Snow-Storm,' or the glowing scarlet and gold of the 'Napoleon' and
+the 'Slave Ship.'" The two latter must be well remembered by all
+Exhibition visitors; they were the strangest things imaginable in
+colour as in every particle that should be art or nature. There is a
+whimsical quotation from Wordsworth, the "keenest-eyed," page 145. His
+object is to show the strength of shadow--how "the shadows on the
+trunk of the tree become darker and more conspicuous than any part of
+the boughs or limbs;" so, for this strength and blackness, we have--
+
+                      "At the root
+    Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
+    And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
+    Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,
+    Traced _faintly_ in the greensward."
+
+"Of the truth of space," he says that "in a real landscape, we can see
+the whole of what would be called the middle distance and distance
+together, with facility and clearness; but while we do so, we can see
+nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and indistinct arrangement of
+lines and colours; and that if, on the contrary, we look at any
+foreground object, so as to receive a distinct impression of it, the
+distance and middle distance become all disorder and mystery. And
+therefore, if in a painting our foreground is any thing, our distance
+must be nothing, and _vice versa_." "Now, to this fact and principle,
+no landscape painter of the old school, as far as I remember, ever
+paid the slightest attention. Finishing their foregrounds clearly and
+sharply, and with vigorous impression on the eye, giving even the
+leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge and shape, they
+proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what they could
+see of its details," &c. But he had blamed Claude for not having given
+the exactness and distinct shape and colour of leaves in foreground.
+The fact is, the picture should be as a piece of nature framed in.
+Within that frame, we should not see distinctly the foreground and
+distance at the same instant: but, as we have stated, the eye and mind
+are rapid, the one to see, the other to combine; and as a horse let
+loose into a field, runs to the extremity of it and around it, the
+first thing he does--so do we range over every part of the picture,
+but with wondrous rapidity, before our impression of the whole is
+perfect. We must not, therefore, slur over any thing; the difficulty
+in art is to give the necessary, and so made necessary, detail of
+foreground unostentatiously--to paint nothing, that which is to tell
+as nothing, but so as it shall satisfy upon examination; and we think
+so the old masters did paint the foregrounds, particularly Gaspar
+Poussin--so Titian, so Domenichino, and all of any merit. But this is
+merely an introduction, not to a palliation of, but the approbation
+and praise of a glaring defect in Turner. "Turner introduced a new era
+in landscape art, by showing that the foreground might be sunk for the
+distance, and that it was possible to express immediate proximity to
+the spectator, without giving any thing like completeness to the forms
+of the near objects." We are now, therefore, prepared for an absurd
+"justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures," thus
+contemptuously, with regard to all but himself, accounted for. "And
+now we see the reason for the singular, and, to the ignorant in art,
+the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert
+that there is any reason whatsoever for _bad_ drawing, (though in
+landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but there is both reason and
+necessity for that want of drawing which gives even the nearest
+figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and
+four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally
+impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding
+from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the
+distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and
+features of near figures than Turner gives." Yet what wonderful detail
+has he required from Canaletti and others?--But is there any reason
+why we should have "_pink_ spots?"--is there any reason why Turner's
+foreground figures should resemble penny German dolls?--and for the
+reason we have above given, there ought to be reason why the figures
+should be made out, at least as they are in a camera-obscura. We here
+speak of nature, of "truth," and with him ask, it may be all very
+well--but "is it true?" But we have another fault to find with
+Turner's figures; they are often bad in intention. What can be more
+absurd and incongruous, for instance, than in a picture of "elemental
+war"--a sea-coast--than to put a child and its nurse in foreground,
+the child crying because it has lost its hoop, or some such thing? It
+is according to his truth of space, that distances should have every
+"hair's-breadth" filled up, all its "infinity," with infinities of
+objects, but that whatever is near, if figures, may be "pink spots,"
+and "four dashes of the brush." While with Poussin--"masses which
+result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and painful;" and
+he thinks Poussin has but "meaningless tricks of clever
+execution"--forgetting that all art is but a trick--yet one of those
+tricks worth knowing, and yet which how few have acquired! Surely our
+author is not well acquainted with Hobbima's works; that painter had
+not a niggling execution. "A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is
+more truly expressive of the infinity of foliage, than the niggling of
+Hobbima could have rendered his canvass, if he had worked on it till
+doomsday." Our author seems to have studied skies, such as they are in
+Turner or in nature. He talks of them with no inconsiderable swagger
+of observation, while the old masters had no observation at
+all;--"their blunt and feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature;
+and their untaught imaginations were not likely to originate it in
+study." What is the _it_, will be asked--we believe it to be a
+"cirrus," and that a cirrus is the subject of a chapter to itself.
+This beard of the sky, however, instead of growing below, is quite
+above, "never formed below an elevation of at least 15,000 feet, are
+motionless, multitudinous lines of delicate vapour, with which the
+blue of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several
+days of fine weather. They are more commonly known as 'mare's tails.'"
+Having found this "mare's nest," he delights in it. It is the glory of
+modern masters. He becomes inflated, and lifts himself 15,000 feet
+above the level of the understanding of all old masters, and, as we
+think, of most modern readers, as thus:--"One alone has taken notice
+of the neglected upper sky; it is his peculiar and favourite field; he
+has watched its every modification, and given its every phase and
+feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has followed its passions
+and its changes, and has brought down and laid open to the world
+another apocalypse of heaven." Very well, considering that the cirrus
+never touches even the highest mountains of Europe, to follow its
+phase (query faces) and feature 15,000 feet high, and given pink dots,
+four pink dots for the faces and features of human beings within
+fifteen feet of his brush. We will not say whether the old masters
+painted this cirrus or not. We believe they painted what they and we
+see, at least so much as suited their pictures--but as they were not,
+generally speaking, exclusively sky-painters, but painters of subjects
+to which the skies were subordinate, they may be fairly held excused
+for this their lack of ballooning after the "cirrus;" and we thank
+them that they were not "glare-seekers," "threading" their way, with
+it before them, "among the then transparent clouds, while all around
+the sun is unshadowed fire." We lose him altogether in the "central
+cloud region," where he helps nature pretty considerably as she "melts
+even the unoccupied azure into palpitating shades," and hopelessly
+turns the corner of common observation, and escapes among the "fifty
+aisles penetrating through angelic chapels to the shechinah of the
+blue." We must expect him to descend a little vain of his exploit, and
+so he does--and wonders not that the form and colour of Turner should
+be misunderstood, for "they require for the full perception of their
+meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as not one in a
+thousand possesses, or can bestow." The inference is, that the
+graduate has graduated a successful phaeton, driving Mr Turner's
+chariot through all the signs of the zodiac. So he sends all artists,
+ancient and modern, to Mr Turner's country, as "a magnificent
+statement, all truth"--that is, "impetuous clouds, twisted rain,
+flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and oppressed
+cattle"--yes, more, it wants repose, and there it is--"High and far
+above the dark volumes of the swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left,
+through their opening, the quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the
+highest cirrus, resting in the repose of the deep sky;" and there they
+are, "delicate, soft, passing vapours," and there is "the exquisite
+depth and _palpitating_ tenderness of the blue with which they are
+islanded." Thus _islanded in tenderness_, what wonder is it if Ixion
+embraced a cloud? Let not the modern lover of nature entertain such a
+thought; "Bright Ph[oe]bus" is no minor canon to smile complacently on
+the matter; he has a jealousy in him, and won't let any be in a
+melting mood with the clouds but himself; he tears aside your
+curtains, and steam-like rags of capricious vapour--"the mouldering
+sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you,
+and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and
+rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more,
+dyeing all the air about it with blood." This is no fanciful
+description, but among the comparative views of nature's and of
+Turner's skies, as seen, and verified upon his affidavit, by a
+graduate of Oxford; who may have an indisposition to boast of his
+exclusive privilege.
+
+    "+Aerobato kai periphrono ton helion.+"
+
+Accordingly, in "the effects of light rendered by modern art," our
+author is very particular indeed. His extraordinary knowledge of the
+sun's position, to a hair's-breadth in Mr Turner's pictures, and
+minute of the day, is quite surprising. He gives a table of two pages
+and a-half, of position and moment, "morning, noon, and afternoon,"
+"evening and night." In more than one instance, he is so close, as
+"five minutes before sunset."
+
+Having settled the matter of the sky, our author takes the earth in
+hand, and tosses it about like a Titan. "The spirit of the hills is
+action, that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to be
+found every variety of motion and of rest, from the inactive plain,
+sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks
+which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with clouds drifting
+like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to
+heaven saying, 'I live for ever.'" We learn, too, a wonderful power in
+the excited earth, far beyond that which other "naturalists" describe
+of the lobster, who only, _ad libitum_, casts off a claw or so. "But
+there is this difference between the action of the earth and that of a
+living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and
+tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh
+altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the
+bones of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of
+its anatomy, which in the plains lie buried under five-and-twenty
+thousand feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which
+spring up in the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging
+their garment of earth away from them on each side." If the gentle
+sketcher should happily escape a cuff from these cast-off clothes
+flung by excited earth from her extremities, he may be satisfied with
+repose in the lap of mother earth, who must be considerably fat and
+cushioned, though some may entertain a fear of being overlaid. What is
+the artist to do with an earth like this, body and bones? When he sits
+down to sketch some placid landscape, is he to think of poor nature
+with her bones sticking out from twenty-five thousand feet of her
+solid flesh! Mother of Gargantia--thou wert but a dwarf! Salvator Rosa
+could not paint rock; Gaspar Poussin could not paint rock. A rock, in
+short, is such a thing as nobody ought to paint, or can paint but
+Turner; and all that, after his description of rock, we believe; but
+were not prepared to learn that "the foreground of the 'Napoleon' in
+last year's Academy," is "one of the most exquisite pieces of rock
+truth ever put on canvass." In fact, we really, in ignorance to be
+ashamed of, did not know there was any rock there at all. We only
+remember Napoleon and his cocked-hat--now, this is extraordinary; for
+as _we_ only or chiefly remember the cocked-hat, so he sees the said
+cocked-hat in Salvator's rocks, where we never saw such a thing,
+though "he has succeeded in covering his foregrounds with forms which
+approximate to those of drapery, of ribands, of _crushed cocked-hats_,
+of locks of hair, of waves, of leaves, or any thing, in short,
+flexible or tough, but which, of course, are not only unlike, but
+directly contrary to the forms which nature has impressed on rocks."
+And the nature of rocks he must know, having the "Napoleon" before
+him. "In the 'Napoleon' I can illustrate by no better example, for I
+can reason as well from this as I could with my foot on the native
+rock." What rocks of Salvator's, besides the No. 220 of the Dulwich
+gallery, he has seen, we cannot pretend to say; we have, within these
+few days, seen one, and could not discover the "commas," the "Chinese
+for rocks," nor Sanscrit for rocks, but did read the language of
+nature, without the necessity of any writing under--"This is a rock."
+Poor Claude, he knew nothing of perspective, and his efforts
+"invariably ended in reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and
+making it look perpendicular;" but in one instance Claude luckily hits
+upon "a little bit of accidental truth;" he is circumstantial in its
+locality--"the little piece of ground above the cattle, between the
+head of the brown cow and the tail of the white one, is well
+articulated, just where it turns into shade."
+
+After the entire failure of all artists that ever lived before Turner
+in land and skies, we are prepared to find that they had not the least
+idea of water. When they thought they painted water, in fact, they
+were like "those happier children, sliding on dry ground," and had not
+the chance of wetting a foot. Water, too, is a thing to be anatomized,
+a sort of rib-fluidity. The moving, transparent water, in shallow and
+in depth, of Vandervelde and Backhuysen, is not the least like water;
+they are men who "libelled the sea." Many of our moderns--Stanfield in
+particular--seem naturally web-footed; but the real Triton of the sea,
+as he was Titan of the earth, is Turner. To our own eyes, in this
+respect, he stands indebted to the engraver; for we do not remember a
+single sea-piece by Turner, in water-colour or oil, in which the water
+is _liquid_. What it is like, in the picture of the Slave-ship, which
+is considered one of his very finest productions, we defy any one to
+tell. We are led to guess it is meant for water, by the strange fish
+that take their pastime. A year or two ago were exhibited two
+sea-pieces, of nearly equal size, at the British Institution, by
+Vandervelde and Turner. It was certainly one of Turner's best; but how
+inferior was the water and the sky to the water and sky in
+Vandervelde! In Turner they were both rocky. We say not this to the
+disparagement of Turner's genius. He had not studied these elements as
+did Vandervelde. The two painters ought not to be compared together;
+and we humbly think that any man who should pronounce of Vandervelde
+and Backhuysen, that they "libelled the sea," convicts himself of a
+wondrous lack of taste and feeling. Of their works he thus speaks--"As
+it is, I believe there is scarcely such another instance to be found
+in the history of man, of the epidemic aberration of mind into which
+multitudes fall by infection, as is furnished by the value set upon
+the works of these men." Of water, he says--"Nothing can hinder water
+from being a reflecting medium but dry dust or filth of some kind on
+its surface. Dirty water, if the foul matter be dissolved or suspended
+in the liquid, reflects just as clearly and sharply as pure water,
+only the image is coloured by the hue of the mixed matter, and becomes
+comparatively brown or dark." We entirely deny this, from constant
+observation. Within this week we have been studying a stream, which
+has alternated in its clearness and muddiness. We found the
+reflection not only less clear in the latter case, but instead of
+brown and dark, to have lost its brownness, and to have become
+lighter. To understand the "curves" of water being beyond the reach of
+most who are not graduates of Oxford; and painters and admirers of old
+masters being people without sense, at least in comparison with the
+graduate, he thus disposes of his learned difficulty:--"This is a
+point, however, on which it is impossible to argue without going into
+high mathematics, and even then the nature of particular curves, as
+given by the brush, would be scarcely demonstrable; and I am the less
+disposed to take much trouble about it, because I think that the
+persons who are really fond of these works are almost beyond the reach
+of argument." The celebrated Mrs Partington once endeavoured, at
+Sidmouth, to dispose of these "curves," and failed; and we suspect a
+stronger reason than the incapacity of his readers for our author's
+thus disposing of the subject. We believe the world would not give a
+pin's head for all the seas that ever might be painted upon these
+mathematical curves; and that, in painting, even a graduate's "high
+mathematics" are but a very low affair. But let us enliven the reader
+with something really high--and here is, in very high-flown prose,
+part of a description of a waterfall; and it will tell him a secret,
+that in the midst of these fine falls, nature keeps a furnace and
+steam-engine continually at work, and having the fire at hand, sends
+up rockets--if you doubt--read:--"And how all the hollows of that foam
+burn with green fire, like so much _shattering chrysoprase_; and how,
+ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray
+leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind,
+and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through
+the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue
+of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky
+through white rain-cloud, while the shuddering iris stoops in
+tremulous stillness over all, fading and flashing alternately through
+the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among
+the thick golden leaves, which toss to and fro in sympathy with the
+wild water, their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of
+loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again
+upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away." "Satque superque
+satis"--we cannot go on. There is nothing like calling things by their
+contraries--it is truly startling. Whenever you speak of water, treat
+it as fire--of fire, _vice versa_, as water; and be sure to send them
+all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look
+into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find
+to come from +chrysos+ gold, and +prason+ a leek, and means a precious
+stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine"--the
+reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine. But there
+is a discovery--"I believe, when you have stood by this for half an
+hour, you will have discovered that there is something more in nature
+than has been given by Ruysdael." You will indeed--if this be nature!
+But, alas, what have we not to undergo--to discover what water is, and
+to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that
+he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo
+any thing. Ariel was nothing in his ubiquity to him, though he put a
+span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for
+the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the
+opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have,
+cannot face it. To hold by a mast or rock, and watch it, is a
+prolonged endurance of drowning, which few people have courage to go
+through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons in
+nature." Very few people, indeed, and those few "involuntary
+experimentalists."
+
+We are glad to get on dry land again, "brown furze or any thing"--and
+here we must question one of his truths of vegetation: he asserts,
+that the stems of all trees, the "ordinary trees of Europe, do not
+taper, but grow up or out, in undiminished thickness, till they throw
+out branch and bud, and then go off again to the next of equal
+thickness." We have carefully examined many trees this last week, and
+find it is not the case; in almost all, the bulging at the bottom,
+nearest the root, is manifest. There is an early association in our
+minds, that the birch for instance is remarkably tapering in its
+twigs. We would rather refer our "sworn measurer" to the factor than
+the painter, and we very much question whether his "top and top" will
+meet the market. We are satisfied the fact is not as he states it, and
+surely nature works not by such measure rule. We suspect, for nature
+we should here read Turner, for his trees, certainly, are strange
+things; it is true, he generally shirks them. We do not remember one
+picture that has a good, true, _bona fide_, conspicuous tree in it.
+The reader will not be surprised to learn that the worst painter of
+trees was Gaspar Poussin! and that the perfection of trees is to be
+found in Turner's "Marley," where most people will think the trees
+look more like brooms than trees. The chapter on "the Truth of Turner"
+concludes with a quotation--we presume the extract from a letter from
+Mr Turner to the author. If so, Mr Turner has somewhat caught the
+author's style, and tells very simple truths in a very fine manner,
+thus:--"I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make
+_them_ tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this,
+and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the
+night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read
+this, and interpret this, and let us feel together." We must pause.
+Really we do not see the slightest necessity of an interpretation
+here. It is a simple fact. He cannot extract "sunbeams" from
+cucumbers--from the east, we should say. The only riddle seems to be,
+that they should, in one instance, remember together, and in the
+other, feel together; only we guess that, being night-gloom, people
+naturally feel about them in the dark. But he proceeds--"And if you
+have not that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not
+the sun in your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words
+may awaken, though they be indistinct and swift, leave me." We must
+pause again; here _is_ a riddle: what can be the meaning of having the
+sun in one's spirit?--is it any thing like having the moon in one's
+head? We give it up. The passion in the heart we suppose to be dead
+asleep, and the words and voice harsh and grating, and so it is
+awakened. But what that if, or if not, has to do with "leave me," we
+cannot conjecture; but this we do venture to conjecture, that to
+expect our graduate ever to _leave_ Mr Turner is one of the most
+hopeless of all Mr Turner's "Fallacies of Hope." But the writer
+proceeds with a _for_--that appears, nevertheless, a pretty
+considerable _non-sequitur_. "For I will give you no patient mockery,
+no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am and whom I
+serve." Here the graduate is treated as a servant, and the writer of
+the letter assumes the Pythian, the truly oracular vein. "Let other
+servants imitate the voice and the gesture of their master while they
+forget his message. Hear that message from me, but remember that the
+teaching of Divine Truth must still be a mystery." "Like master like
+man." Both are in the "Cambyses' vein."
+
+We do not think that landscape painters will either gain or lose much
+by the publication of this volume, unless it be some mortification to
+be so sillily lauded as some of our very respectable painters are. We
+do not think that the pictorial world, either in taste or practice,
+will be Turnerized by this palpably fulsome, nonsensical praise. In
+this our graduate is _semper idem_, and to keep up his idolatry to the
+sticking-point, terminates the volume with a prayer, and begs all the
+people of England to join in it--a prayer to Mr Turner!
+
+
+
+
+A ROYAL SALUTE.
+
+
+"Should you like to be a queen, Christina?"
+
+This question was addressed by an old man, whose head was bent
+carefully over a chess-board, to a young lady who was apparently
+rather tired of the lesson she had taken in that interesting game.
+
+"Queen of hearts, do you mean?" answered the girl, patting with the
+greatest appearance of fondness a dreadfully ugly little dog that lay
+in her lap.
+
+"Queen of hearts," replied the minister, with a smile; "you are that
+already, my dear. But have you no other ambition?" he added, tapping
+sagaciously the lid of a magnificently ornamented snuff-box, on which
+was depicted one of the ugliest monarchs that ever puzzled a
+court-painter to make him human.
+
+"Why should my ambition go further?" said Christina. "I have more
+subjects already than I know how to govern."
+
+"No doubt--no doubt--I knew very well that you could not avoid having
+subjects; but I hope and trust you have had too much sense to receive
+their allegiance."
+
+The old man was proud of carrying on the metaphor so well, and of
+asking the question so delicately. It was quite evident he had been in
+the diplomatic line.
+
+"How can I help it?" enquired the young beauty, passing her hand over
+the back of the disgusting little pet, which showed its teeth in a
+very uncouth fashion whenever the paternal voice was raised a little
+too high. "But, I assure you, I pay no attention to allegiance, which
+I consider my right. There is but one person's homage I care for"----
+
+The brow of the Prime Minister of Sweden grew very black, and his face
+had something of the benign expression of the growling pug on his
+daughter's knee.
+
+"Who is that person, Christina?"
+
+But Christina looked at her father with an alarmed glance, which she
+shortly after converted into a smile, and went on in her pleasing
+occupation of smoothing the raven down of her favourite, but did not
+say a word.
+
+The father, who seemed to be no great judge of pantomime, repeated his
+question.
+
+"Who is that person, Christina?"
+
+Christina disdained hypocrisy, and, moreover, was immensely spoiled.
+
+"Who _should_ it be, but your gallant nephew, Adolphus Hesse, dear
+father?"
+
+"You haven't had the impudence, I hope, to engage yourself to that
+boy?"
+
+"Boy--why he is twenty-one! He is my oldest friend--we learned all our
+lessons together. I can't recollect the time we were not engaged, it
+is so long since we loved each other!"
+
+"Nonsense! You were brought up together by his mother; it is nothing
+but sisterly affection."
+
+"Not at all--not at all!" cried Christina; "it would make me quite
+miserable if Adolphus were my brother."
+
+"It is all you must think him, nevertheless. He has no fortune; he has
+nothing but his commission; and my generosity is"----
+
+"Immense, my dear father; inexhaustible! And then Adolphus is so
+brave--so magnanimous; and, upon my word, when I saw how much he liked
+me, and heard him speak so much more delightfully than any body else,
+I never thought of asking if he was rich; and you know you love him
+yourself, dear father."
+
+Christina neglected the pug in her lap for a moment, and laid her hand
+coaxingly on the old man's shoulder.
+
+"But not enough to make him my heir," said the Count, gruffly.
+Christina renewed her attentions to the dog.
+
+"He would be your heir notwithstanding," she said, "if I were to die."
+
+There was something in the tone of her voice, or the idea suggested of
+her death, that softened the old man. He looked for a long time at the
+young and beautiful face of his child; and the shade of uneasiness her
+words had raised, disappeared from his brow.
+
+"There is nothing but life there," he said, gently tapping her on the
+forehead; "and therefore I must marry you, my girl!"
+
+"And you will make us the happiest couple in the world. Adolphus will
+be so grateful," said Christina, her bright eyes sparkling through
+tears.
+
+"Who the devil said a word about Adolphus?" said the father, looking
+angrily at Christina; but he added immediately in a softer tone, when
+he saw the real emotion of his daughter--"Poor girl, you have been
+sadly spoiled! You have had too much of your own way, and now you ask
+me to do what is impossible. Be a reasonable girl, there's a darling!
+and your aunt will present you at court. You will see such grand
+things--you will know our gallant young King--only be reasonable!"
+
+"The rude monster!" cried Christina, starting up as if tired of the
+conversation. "I have no wish to know him. They say he hates women."
+
+"A calumny, my dear girl; he is very fond of _one_ at all events."
+
+"Is she pretty?"
+
+"And mischievous as yourself."
+
+"As I?" enquired Christina, and fell into a long reverie, while the
+Count smiled as if he had made an excellent hit.
+
+"But I have never seen him, papa," she said, awakening all of a
+sudden.
+
+"He may have seen you though; and he says"----
+
+"Oh, what does he say? Do tell me what the King says?"
+
+"Poh! What do you want to know about what a rude monster says--that
+hates women?" answered the father with another smile of satisfaction.
+
+"But he is a king, papa! What does he say? I am quite anxious to
+know."
+
+But the minister of state had gained his object; he had excited
+curiosity, and determined not to gratify it. At last he said, as he
+rose to quit the apartment--"Let us turn the conversation, Christina;
+we have nothing to do with kings, and must content ourselves with
+humbler subjects. An officer will sup with us to-night, whom I wish
+you very much to please. He has influence with the King; and if you
+have any regard for my interest you will receive him well. I intend
+him for your husband."
+
+"I won't have him!" cried Christina, running after her father as he
+left the room. "I won't have him! If I don't marry Adolphus, I won't
+marry at all!"
+
+"Heaven grant it, sweet cousin!" said Adolphus Hesse in _propria
+persona_, emerging from behind the window-curtains, where, by some
+miraculous concatenation of events, he had found himself ensconced for
+the last hour. "'Tis delightful to act the spy, and hear an advocate
+so persuasive as you have been, Christina--but the cause is
+desperate."
+
+"Who told you, sir, the cause was desperate?" said Christina,
+pretending to look offended. "The battle is half gained--my father's
+anger disappears in a moment. Now, dear Adolphus, don't sigh--don't
+cross your arms--don't look up to the sky with that heroic frown--I
+can't bear to groan and be dismal--I want to be gay--to have a
+ball--to----We shall have _such_ a ball the day of our wedding,
+Adolphus!"
+
+"Your hopes deceive you, dearest Christina. I know your father better
+than you do. Ah!" he added, gazing sadly on the beautiful features of
+the young girl who looked on him so brightly, "you will never be able
+to resist the brilliant offer that will be made you in exchange for
+one faithful, loving heart."
+
+"Indeed!" replied Christina, feeling her eyes filling with tears, but
+endeavouring at the same time to conceal her emotion under an
+affectation of anger, "your opinion of me is not very flattering; and
+it is not in very good taste, methinks, to play the despairing lover,
+especially after the conversation you so honourably overheard."
+
+"Dry that tear, dear girl!" said Adolphus, "I will believe any thing
+you like."
+
+"Why do you make me cry then? Is it only to have the pleasure of
+telling me to dry my tears? Or did you think you had some rival; some
+splendid cavalier that it was impossible to resist--Count Ericson, for
+instance?"
+
+"Oh! as to Ericson I am not at all uneasy. I know you hate him; and
+besides he is not much richer than myself; but, dear Christina"----
+
+"Well--go on," said the girl, mocking the lugubrious tone of her
+cousin--"what are you sighing again for?"
+
+"Your father is going to bring you a new lover this evening, and poor
+Adolphus will be forgotten."
+
+"You deserve it for all your ridiculous suspicions: but you are my
+cousin, and I forgive you this once." She looked at him with so sunny
+a smile, and so clear and open-hearted a countenance, that it was
+impossible to entertain a doubt.
+
+"You love me really, then?" he said--"truly--faithfully?"
+
+"I have told you so a hundred times," replied his cousin. "I am
+astonished you are not tired of hearing the same thing over and over
+again."
+
+"'Tis so sweet, so new a thing for me," said Adolphus, "and I could
+listen to it for ever."
+
+"Well, then, we love each other--that's very clear," said Christina,
+with the solemnity of the foreman of a jury delivering a verdict on
+the clearest evidence; "but since my father won't let us marry, we
+must wait--that is almost as clear as the other."
+
+"And if he never consents?" enquired Adolphus.
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Christina, to whom such an idea seemed never to
+have occurred, "can it be possible he will _never_ consent?"
+
+"I fear it is too possible," replied Adolphus, and the shadow fell on
+his face again.
+
+"Well," said Christina, after a minute's pause, as if she had come to
+a resolution, "we must always stay as we are. Happiness is never
+increased by an act of disobedience."
+
+"I think as you do," said the young soldier, admiring her all the more
+for the death-blow to his hopes; "and are you happy, quite happy,
+Christina?"
+
+"What a question! Don't I see you every day? Isn't every body kind to
+me? Is there any thing I want?"
+
+A different answer would have pleased the lover more. He looked at her
+for some time in silence--at last, in an altered tone, he said--
+
+"I congratulate you on your prudence, Christina."
+
+"I cannot break my father's heart."
+
+"No, but mine, Christina!"
+
+"Adolphus," said the young beauty solemnly, "if I cannot be your wife
+with the consent of my father, I never will marry another. This is all
+you can ask; all I can promise."
+
+Filial affection was not quite so strong in Adolphus as in his cousin,
+and his face was by no means brightened on hearing this declaration.
+It was so uncommonly proper that it seemed nearly bordering on the
+cold and heartless. He tried to hate her; he walked up and down the
+room at a tremendous pace, stopping every now and then to take another
+glance at the tyrant who had pronounced his doom, and looked as
+beautiful as ever. He found it impossible to hate _her_, though we
+shall not enquire what were his sentiments towards her worthy
+progenitor, Count Ericson, the unknown lover, and even the young
+heroic King; for the sagacious reader must now be informed that this
+wonderful lovers' quarrel took place in the reign of Charles XII. Our
+fear is that he disliked all four. Christina found it very difficult
+to preserve the gravity essential to a heroine's appearance when she
+saw the long strides and bent brows of her lover. A smile was ready,
+on the slightest provocation, to make a dimple in her beautiful cheek,
+and all the biting she bestowed on her lips only made them redder and
+rosier. Adolphus had no inclination to smile, and could not believe
+that any body could see the least temptation to indulge in such a
+ridiculous occupation on such a momentous occasion. He was a regular
+lover, as Mr Weller would say, and no mistake. He saw in his fair
+cousin only a treasure of inestimable price, guarded by two monsters
+that made his approaches hopeless--avarice and ambition. How
+differently those two young people viewed the same event! Christina,
+knowing her power over her father, and unluckily not knowing that
+fathers (even though they are prime ministers, and are as
+courtier-like as Polonius) have flinty hearts when their interests are
+concerned, saw nothing in the present state of affairs to despair
+about; and in fact, as we have said already, was nearly committing the
+unpardonable crime of laughing at the grimaces of her cousin. He, poor
+fellow, knew the world a little better, and perceived in a moment that
+the new lover whom the ambitious father was going to present to his
+daughter, was some favourite of the king; and he was well aware, that
+any one backed by that impetuous monarch, was in a fair way to
+success. The king had seen Christina too--and though despising love
+himself, was in the habit of rewarding his favourite officers with the
+hand of the beauties or heiresses of his court; and when, as in this
+instance, the lady chosen was both--how could he doubt that the king
+had already resolved that she should be the bride of some lucky rival,
+against whose claims it would be impossible to contend? And Christina
+standing all the while before him, scarcely able to restrain a laugh!
+He was only twenty-one--and not half so steady as his grandfather
+would probably have shown himself in the same circumstances, and being
+unable to vent his rage on any body else, he poured it all forth upon
+himself.
+
+"What a fool I have been!--an ass--a dolt--to have been so blinded!
+But I see now--I deserve all I have got! To have been so deceived by
+an absurd fit of love--that has lasted all my life, too! But no!--I
+shall not repay my uncle's kindness to me by robbing him of his only
+child. I shall go at once to my regiment--I may be lucky enough to get
+into the way of a cannon--you will think kindly of me when I am gone,
+though you are so unk"----
+
+The word died away upon his lips. Large tears filled Christina's eyes,
+and all her inclination to smile had disappeared. There was something
+either in his looks or the tone of his voice, or the thought of his
+being killed, that banished all her gaiety; and in a few minutes the
+quarrel was made up--the tears dried in the usual manner--vows
+made--hands joined--and resolutions passed and carried with the utmost
+unanimity, that no power on earth should keep them from being married.
+And a very good resolution it was. The only pity was, that it was not
+very likely to be carried into effect. A father, an unknown lover, and
+a king, all joined against a poor boy and girl. The odds are very much
+against Adolphus and Christina.
+
+Now let us examine the real state of affairs as dispassionately as we
+can. The Count Gyllenborg was ambitious, as became a courtier with an
+only daughter who was acknowledged on all sides to be the most
+beautiful girl in Sweden; and as he was aware of the full value of red
+lips and sparkling eyes in the commerce of life, he was determined to
+make the most of these perishable commodities while they were at their
+best, and the particular make and colour of them were in fashion. The
+Count was rich--and with amply sufficient brains, according to the
+dictum of one of his predecessors, to govern a kingdom; but he was not
+warlike; and Charles, who had lately taken the power into his own
+hands, knew nothing of mankind further than that they were made to be
+drawn up in opposite lines, and make holes in each other as
+scientifically as they could. Count Gyllenborg had a decided objection
+to being made a receptacle for lead bullets or steel swords; and was
+by no means anxious to murder a single Russian or German, for the sake
+of the honour of the thing, or for the good of his country. His power
+resting only on his adroitness in civil affairs, was therefore not on
+the surest foundation; and a prop to it was accordingly wanted. Such a
+prop had never been seen before, with such sunny looks, and such a
+happy musical laugh. The looks and the laugh between them, converted
+the atmosphere of Stockholm into the climate of Italy; and the
+politician, almost without knowing it, began to be thawed into a
+father. But the fear of a rival in the King's favour--some gallant
+soldier--and dozens of them were reported every week--made him resolve
+once more to bring his daughter's beauties into play. The king had
+seen her, and, in his boorish way, had expressed his admiration; and
+Gyllenborg felt assured, that if he should marry his daughter
+according to the King's wishes, his influence would be greater than
+ever; and, in fact, that the premiership would be his for life.
+
+Great preparations accordingly were made for the reception of the
+powerful stranger, the announcement of whose appearance at supper had
+spread such dismay in the hearts of the two lovers. Christina knew
+almost instinctively her father's plan, and determined to counteract
+it. She felt sure that the officer for whom she was destined, and whom
+she had been ordered to receive so particularly, was one of the new
+favourites of the warlike king; some leader of a forlorn-hope, created
+colonel on the field of battle; some young general fresh from some
+heroic achievement, that had endeared him to his chief; but whoever it
+was, she was resolved to show him that the crown of Sweden was a very
+limited monarchy in regard to its female subjects, and that she would
+have nobody for her husband--neither count, nor colonel, nor
+general--but only her cousin Adolphus, lieutenant in the Dalecarlian
+hussars. Notwithstanding this resolution, it is astonishing what a
+time she stayed before the glass--how often she tried different
+coloured roses in her hair--how carefully she fitted on her new
+Parisian robes, and, in short, did every thing in her power to look
+her very best. What did all this arise from? She wished to show this
+young favourite, whoever he might be, that she was really as beautiful
+as people had told him; she wished to convince him that her smile was
+as sweet, her teeth as white, her eyes as captivating, her figure as
+superb, as he had heard them described--and then she wished to show
+him that all these--smiles--eyes--teeth--figure, were given, along
+with the heart that made them truly valuable, to another! and that
+other no favourite of a king--nor even of a minister, but only of a
+young girl of eighteen.
+
+Radiant with beauty, and conscious of the sensation she was certain to
+create, she entered the magnificent apartment where supper was
+prepared--a supper splendid and costly enough to have satisfied a
+whole army of epicures, though only intended for her father, the
+stranger, and herself; and if you, oh reader! had been there, you
+would have thought Christina lovely enough to have excited the
+admiration of a whole court instead of an old man--and that, too, her
+father--and a young one, and that none other, to Christina's infinite
+disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had
+already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He
+was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had
+furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since
+she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different
+from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than
+at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What
+can papa mean by asking such a horrid being to his house? I am certain
+I shall laugh outright if I look again at his silly grey eyes and long
+yellow hair, as ragged as a pony's mane."
+
+Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if
+possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And
+in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness
+of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure--large-boned and
+stiff-backed--that now stood before her--with a nose so absurdly
+aquiline that it would have done for a caricature--coarse-skinned
+cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly
+frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed.
+And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by
+the higher powers for her husband--was this night to be treated as her
+accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day
+with her father--settling all the preliminaries of course--for the last
+six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the
+triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him--that
+is, in the affirmative.
+
+But thoughts of affirmatives and negatives did not seem to enter
+Count Ericson's head--his grammatical education having probably been
+neglected. He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger may be supposed to
+cast insinuating looks upon a lamb, and made every now and then an
+attempt to conceal either his awkwardness, or satisfaction, or both,
+in immense fits of laughter, which formed the accompaniment of all
+the remarks--and they were nearly as heavy as himself--with which he
+favoured the company. Christina, on her part, if she had given way
+to the dictates of her indignation, would have also favoured the
+company with a few remarks, that in all probability would have put a
+stop to the laughter of the lover, and choked her old father by
+making a fish-bone stick in his throat. She was angry for twenty
+reasons, one of them was having wasted a moment over her toilette to
+receive such a visitor as Count Ericson; another was her father
+having dared to offer her hand to such an uncouth wooer and
+intolerable bore; and the principal one of all, was his having
+rejected his own nephew--undoubtedly the handsomest of Dalecarlian
+hussars--in favour of such a vulgar, ugly individual. The subject of
+these flattering considerations seemed to feel at last that he ought
+to say something to the young beauty, on whose pouting lip had
+gathered something which was very different indeed from a smile, and
+yet nearly as captivating. He accordingly turned his large light
+eyes from his plate for a moment, and with a mouth still filled with
+a leg and wing of a capercailzie, enquired--
+
+"What do you think of Alexander the Great, madam?"
+
+This was too much. Even her rage disappeared, and she burst into a
+loud laugh at the serious face of the querist.
+
+"I never think of Alexander the Great at all," she said. "I only
+recollect, that when I was reading his history, I could hardly make
+out whether he was most of a fool or a madman."
+
+Ericson swallowed the leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any
+further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of
+the most prodigious courage the world had ever seen.
+
+"If he had been as prodigiously wise," replied Christina, "as he was
+prodigiously courageous, he would have learned to govern himself
+before he attempted to govern the world."
+
+Ericson blushed from chin to forehead with vexation, and answered in
+an offended tone--
+
+"How can a woman enter into the fever of noble thoughts that impels a
+brave man to rush into the midst of dangers, and leads him to despise
+life and all its petty enjoyments to gain undying fame?"
+
+"No, indeed," she replied, "I have no fever, and have no sympathy with
+destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame, I should try to gain it by
+gathering round me the blessings of all who saw me! Yes, father," she
+went on, paying no regard to the signs and winks of the agonized Count
+Gyllenborg, "I would rather that countless thousands should live to
+bless me, than that they should die in heaping curses on my name!
+Men-killers--though you dignify them with the name of heroes--are
+atrocious. Let us speak of them, my lord, no more, unless to pray
+heaven to rid the earth of such monsters."
+
+A feather of the smallest of birds would have knocked down the Prime
+Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson appeared, from his stupefied
+look, to have gone through the process already--the difficulty was to
+lift him up again.
+
+"Come, Count," cried the Minister, filling up Ericson's glass with
+champagne, "to Alexander's glory!"
+
+"With all my heart," cried Ericson, moistening his rage with the
+delicious sparkler. "Come, fair savage," he added, addressing
+Christina, and touching her glass with such force that it fell in a
+thousand pieces on the table--"to Alexander's glory!"
+
+"I have no wish to drink to such a toast," replied Christina, more
+offended than ever; "I can't endure those scourges of human kind who
+hide the skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe."
+
+"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to
+begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst
+from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly
+thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she
+know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog.
+She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a
+hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"
+
+The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not
+in Sweden--nor probably in Denmark either--and the cunning old
+minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on
+the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually
+touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of
+the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little
+goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion
+on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I
+believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a
+good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if
+you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an
+infinite obligation on both of us."
+
+Saying this, he lifted with his own ministerial fingers a small table
+from a corner of the room, and placed it in front of the youthful
+couple, with the men all ready laid out. Ericson's eyes sparkled at
+the sight of his favourite game; and he determined to display his
+utmost skill, and teach his antagonist a few secrets of the art of
+(mimic) war. But determinations, as has been remarked by several
+sages, past and present, are sometimes vain. Nothing, one would think,
+could be so likely to restore a man's self-possession as a quiet game
+of chess--an occupation as efficacious in soothing the savage breast
+as music itself. But Ericson seemed still agitated from the
+contradictions he had encountered from the free-spoken Christina, and
+threw a little more politeness into his manner than he had hitherto
+vouchsafed to show, when he invited her to be his adversary in a game.
+
+"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously, holding up one of the fair
+fingers to which his attention had been so particularly called, and
+implying by the question, if you get angry when I only refuse your
+toast, won't you eat me if I am the winner at chess? "But, if I beat
+you?" she said.
+
+"That will not be the only occasion on which you will have triumphed
+over me, you--you"----He seemed greatly at a loss for a word, and
+concluded his speech with--"beauty!" This expression, which was, no
+doubt, intended for the most complimentary he could find, was
+accompanied with a look of admiration so long, so broad, and so
+impudent, that she blushed, and a squeeze of her hand so hard, so
+rough, and so continued, that she screamed. She threw a glance of
+inexpressible disdain on the insolent wooer, and looked for protection
+to her father; but that venerable individual was at that moment so
+sound asleep on one of the sofas at the other end of the room, that no
+noise whatever could have awakened him. Ericson seemed totally unmoved
+by all the contempt she could express in her looks, and probably
+thought he was in a thriving condition, from the fact (somewhat
+unusual) of his being looked at at all. She lost her temper
+altogether. She covered her cheek, which was flushed with anger, with
+the little hand that was reddened with pain, and resolved to play her
+worst to spite her ill-mannered antagonist. But all her attempts at
+bad play were useless. The board shook beneath the immense hands of
+Ericson, who was in a tremendous state of agitation, and hardly knew
+the pieces. He pushed then hither and thither--made his knights slide
+along with the episcopal propriety of bishops, and made his bishops
+caracole across the squares with the unseemly elasticity of knights.
+His game got into such confusion, that Christina could not avoid
+winning, and at last--enjoying the victory she had determined not to
+win--she cried out, with a voice of triumph, "Check to the king by the
+queen."
+
+"Cruel girl!" exclaimed the Count, dashing his hand among the pieces
+with an energy that scattered them all upon the floor. "Haven't you
+been anxious to make the king your prisoner?"
+
+"But there is nothing to hinder him from saving himself," answered
+Christina, looking round once more to her father, who, however,
+pursued his slumber with the utmost assiduity and had apparently a
+very agreeable dream, for a smile was evident at the corners of his
+mouth. "It is impossible to place the board as it was," she continued,
+trying to gather up the pieces, and place castles, knights, and pawns
+in their proper position again.
+
+"Don't try it--don't try it," cried Ericson, losing all command of
+himself, and pushing the board away from him, till it spun over with
+all its men on the carpet. "The game is over--you have given me check,
+and mated me!" And in a moment, as if ashamed of the influence
+exercised over him by so very unwarlike an individual as a little girl
+of eighteen, he hurried from the room, stumbling over his enormous
+sword, which got, somehow or other, between his legs, and cursing his
+awkwardness and the absurd excess of admiration which caused it.
+
+"That man will surely never come here again," said Christina to her
+father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the
+chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his
+rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had
+been the most fascinating of men.
+
+"Not come here again!" chuckled the father. "That's all you know about
+it. He is dying with impatience to return, and is angry with himself
+for having wasted the two precious hours of your society in the way he
+did. He never had two such happy hours in his life."
+
+"Happy! is that what he calls happiness?" answered Christina, opening
+her eyes in amazement. "I don't know what his notions may be--but
+mine----oh, father!" she cried, emboldened by the smile she saw on the
+old man's countenance, "you are only trying me; say you are only
+proving my constancy, by persuading me that such a being as that has
+any wish to please me. He is more in love with Alexander the Great
+than with me; and he is quite right, for he has a far better chance of
+a return."
+
+"An enthusiasm excusable, my dear, in a young warrior of twenty years
+of age, whose savage ambition it will be your delightful task to tame.
+He is in a terrible state of agitation--a most flattering thing, let
+me tell you, to a young gipsy like you--and you must humour him a
+little, and not break out quite so fiercely, you minx; and yet you
+managed very well, too. A fine fellow, Ericson, though a little wild;
+rich, powerful, nobly born--what can you wish for better?"
+
+"My cousin," answered Christina, with a bluntness that astonished the
+advocate of Ericson's claims; "my cousin Adolphus, and no other. He is
+braver than this savage; and as to nobility, he is as nobly born as my
+own right honourable papa, and that is high enough for me."
+
+"Go, go," said the courtier, a little puzzled by the openness of his
+daughter's confession, and kissing her forehead at the same time; "go
+to bed, my girl, and pray for your father's advancement."
+
+Christina, like a dutiful child, prayed as she was told for her
+father's success and happiness, and then added a petition of her own,
+shorter, perhaps, but quite as sincere, for her cousin Adolphus. If
+she added one for herself, it was a work of supererogation, for she
+felt that in praying for the happiness of her lover, she was not
+unmindful of her own.
+
+For some days after the supper recorded above, she was too happy
+tormenting the very object of all these aspirations, to trouble her
+head about the awkward and ill-mannered protege of her father, whom
+she hated with as much cordiality as the most jealous of rivals could
+desire. But of course she was extremely careful to let no glimpse of
+this unchristian feeling towards Count Ericson be perceptible to the
+person who would have rejoiced in it so much. In fact, she carried her
+philanthropy to such a pitch, that she never mentioned any of the bad
+qualities of her new admirer, and Adolphus very naturally concluded
+that she felt as she spoke on the interesting subject. So, all of a
+sudden, Adolphus, who was prouder than Christina, perhaps because he
+was poorer, would not condescend to be made a fool of, as he
+magnanimously thought it, any longer. He had the immense satisfaction
+of staying away from the house for nearly half a week, and then, when
+he did pay a visit, he was almost as cold as the formal piece of
+diplomacy in the bag-wig and ruffles whom he called his uncle; and a
+great deal stiffer than the beautiful piece of pique, in silk gown and
+white satin corset, whom he called his cousin. Christina was dismayed
+at the sudden change--Adolphus never spoke to her, seldom looked at
+her, and evidently left the coast clear--so she thought--for the rich
+and powerful rival her father had so strongly supported. After much
+thinking, some sulkiness, and a good many fits of crying, Christina
+resolved, as the best way of recovering her own peace of mind, and the
+love of her cousin Adolphus, to put an end in a very decided manner to
+the pretensions of the Count. One day, accordingly, she watched her
+opportunity, and followed with anxious eyes her father's retreat from
+the room, under pretence of some important despatches to be sent off.
+She found herself alone with the object of her dislike--and only
+waited for a beginning to the conversation, that she might astonish
+his weak mind with the severity of her invectives. In fact, she had
+determined, according to the vulgar phrase, to tell him a bit of her
+mind--and a very small bit of it, she was well aware, would be
+sufficient to satisfy Count Ericson of the condition of all the rest.
+But the lover was in a contemplative mood, and stood as silent as a
+milestone, and looking almost as animated and profound. She sighed,
+she coughed, she drops her handkerchief. All wouldn't do--the
+milestone took no notice--Christina at last grew angry, and could
+contain herself no longer.
+
+"I dreamt of you last night," she said by way of a beginning. "I hope
+in future you will leave my sleep undisturbed by your presumptuous
+presence. It is bad enough to be forced to see you when one is awake."
+
+"And I, also, had a dream," replied Ericson, starting from his
+reverie, confused and only having heard the first part of the somewhat
+fierce attack. "I dreamt that you looked at me with a smile, a long,
+long look, so sweet, so winning. It was a happy dream!"
+
+"It was a false one," she said, with tremendous bitterness. "I know
+better where to direct my smiles, whether I am awake or asleep."
+
+"And how did I appear to you?" asked the Count, presenting a splendid
+specimen in his astonished look of the state of mind called "the
+dumfoundered" by some learned philosophers, and by others "the
+flabbergasted."
+
+"You appeared to me like the nightmare! frightful and unsupportable as
+you do to me now," was the answer, accompanied with the look and
+manner that showed she was a judge of nightmares, and thought him a
+very unfavourable specimen of the animal.
+
+"Ill-natured little tyrant!" cried Ericson, rushing to her, "teach me
+how you would have me love you, and I will do everything you ask!" In
+a moment he had seized her in his arms, and imprinted a kiss of
+prodigious violence on her cheek, which was redder than fire with rage
+and surprise!
+
+But the assault did not go unpunished. The might of Samson woke in
+that insulted bosom, and lent such incredible weight to the blow that
+fell on the aggressor's ear, that it took him a long time to believe
+that the thump proceeded from the beautiful little hand he had so
+often admired; or, in short, from any thing but a twenty-four pounder.
+He rubbed the wounded organ with astonishing assiduity for some time.
+At last he said, in a very calm and measured voice,
+
+"Your father has deceived me, young lady. He led me to believe you did
+not receive my visits with indifference."
+
+"My father knows nothing about things of that kind," replied
+Christina, still flaming with indignation, "or he never would have let
+such an ill-mannered monster into his house. But he was right in
+saying I did not receive your visits with indifference; your visits,
+Count Ericson, can never be indifferent to me, and"----
+
+What more she would have said, it is impossible to discover, for she
+was interrupted by the sudden entrance of her cousin, who only heard
+her last words, and started back at what he considered so open a
+declaration of her attachment.
+
+"Who are you, sir?" asked Ericson in an angry tone, and with such an
+assumption of superiority, that Christina's hand tingled to give him a
+mark of regard on his other ear.
+
+"A soldier," answered Adolphus, drawing his sword from its sheath and
+instead of directing it against his rival, laying it haughtily on the
+table. "A soldier who has bled for his country, and would be happy,"
+he added, "to die for it."
+
+"Say you so?" said Ericson, "then we are friends." He held out his
+hand.
+
+"We are rivals," replied Adolphus, drawing back.
+
+"Christina loves you, then?" enquired the Count.
+
+"She has told me so; and I was foolish enough to believe her. It is
+now your turn to trust to the truth of a heartless woman.--She has
+told you you are not an object of indifference to her, and I resign my
+pretensions in your favour."
+
+"In whose favour?" cried Christina, trembling; while tears sprang to
+her eyes.
+
+"The King's!" replied Adolphus, retiring sorrowfully.
+
+Christina sank on a seat, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Stay," cried Charles the Twelfth in a voice of thunder; "stay, I
+command you."
+
+The young man obeyed; biting his lip to conceal his emotion, till the
+blood came.
+
+"I have seen you," said the King, "but not in this house."
+
+"It was shut against me by my uncle when you were expected," said
+Adolphus.
+
+"And yet I have seen you somewhere. What is your name?"
+
+"Adolphus Hesse; the son of a brave officer who died fighting for you,
+and leaving me his misfortunes and the tears of his widow."
+
+"Who told you I was not Count Ericson?"
+
+"My eyes. I know you well."
+
+"And I recollect you also," said Charles, advancing to the young man
+with a manner very different from that which characterized him in his
+intercourse with the softer sex. "Where did you get that scar on the
+left temple?"
+
+"At Nerva, sire, where we tamed the pride of the Russians."
+
+"True, true!" cried Charles, his nostrils dilated as if he snuffed up
+the carnage of the battle. "You need but this as your passport," he
+continued, placing his finger on the wound, "to ask me any favour, ay,
+even to measure swords with you, as I daresay you would be delighted
+to do in so noble a quarrel as the present; for on the day of that
+glorious fight, I learned, like you, the duty of a soldier, and the
+true dignity of a brave man. By the balls that rattled about our heads
+so playfully, give me your hand, brother, for we were baptized
+together in fire!"
+
+Charles appeared to Christina, at this time, quite a different man
+addressing his fellow soldier, from what he had done upsetting the
+chess-board. Curiosity had dried her eyes, and she lost not a word of
+the conversation. The King turned to her with a smile.
+
+"By my sword, Christina! I am but a poor wooer; one movement of your
+hand," and he touched his ear playfully as he spoke, "has banished all
+the silly thoughts that in a most traitorous manner had taken my heart
+prisoner. Speak, then, as forcibly as you act. Do you love this brave
+soldier?"
+
+"Yes, sire."
+
+"Who hinders the marriage?"
+
+"The courtship of Count Ericson, with which my father perpetually
+threatens me."
+
+"O ho!" thought Charles, "I see how it is. The King must console
+himself with the kiss, and pass the blow on the ear to the minister.
+Christina," he added aloud, "your father refuses to give you to the
+man you love; but he'll do it now, for _it is my will_. You'll
+confess, I am sure that if I was your nightmare as a lover, I am not
+your enemy as king."
+
+"I confess it on my knees;" replied the humble beauty, taking her
+place beside her cousin, who knelt to his sovereign. While Charles
+joined the hands of the youthful pair, he imprinted a kiss on the fair
+brow of Christina; the last he ever bestowed on woman.
+
+"Your Majesty pardons me then?" enquired the trembling girl. "If I had
+known it was the King, I would not have hit so hard."
+
+That same evening Count Gyllenborg signed a contract of marriage, to
+which the name of Count Ericson was not appended, though it was
+witnessed by Charles the Twelfth; and in a few days afterwards, the
+old politician presided at the wedding dinner, and, by royal command,
+did the honours so nobly, and appeared so well pleased on the
+occasion, that nobody suspected that he had ever had higher dreams of
+ambition than to see his daughter happy; and if such had been his
+object, all Sweden knew that in bestowing her on her cousin he was
+eminently successful.
+
+
+
+
+PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+If Alexander and Archimedes, evoked from their long sleep, were to
+contemplate, with minds calmed by removal from contemporaneous
+interests, the state of mankind in the present year, with what
+different feelings would they regard the influence of their respective
+lives upon the existing human world of 1843! The Macedonian would find
+the empire which it was the labour of his life to aggrandize,
+frittered into parcels, modeled, remodeled, subjected to various
+dynasties; Turks, Greeks, Russians, still contending for portions of
+the territory which he had conjoined only to be dismembered; he would
+find in these little or no trace of his ever having existed; he would
+find that the unity of his vast political power had been severed
+before his body was yet entombed, and his prediction, that his funeral
+obsequies would be performed with bloody hands, verily fulfilled. In
+parts of the world which his living grasp had not seized, he would
+also see little to remind him of his past existence. Would not
+mortification darken the brow of the resuscitated conqueror on
+discovering, that when his name was mentioned in historic annals, it
+was less as a polar star to guide, than as a beacon to be avoided?
+
+What would the Syracusan see in this present epoch to remind him of
+himself? Would he see the man of 212 B.C., at all connected with the
+men of 1843 A.D.? Yes. In Prussia, Austria, France, England, America,
+in every city of every civilized nation, he would find the lever, the
+pulley, the mirror, the specific gravimeter, the geometric
+demonstration; he would trace the influence of his mind in the
+power-loom, the steam-engine, in the building of the Royal Exchange,
+in the Great Britain steam-ship; he would find an application of his
+well-known invention, the subject of a patent, an important auxiliary
+to navigation. Alexander _was_ a hero; Archimedes _is_ one.
+
+Are we guilty of exaggeration in this contrast of the hero of War with
+him of Science? We think not. It may undoubtedly be argued that
+Alexander's life was productive of ultimate good, that he did much to
+open Asia to European civilization; but would that consideration serve
+to soothe the gloomy Shade? To what does it amount but to the
+assertion that out of evil cometh good? It was through no aim of his
+mind that this resulted, nor are mankind indebted to him personally
+for a collateral effect of his existence.
+
+As an instance of men of a more modern era, let us take Napoleon
+Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and James Watt of Greenock, civil
+engineer.
+
+The former applied the energies of a sagacious and comprehensive
+intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his
+more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The
+former was and is, _par excellence_, a hero of history--we should
+scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name
+of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his name to occupy so
+prominent a position? He has been the cause, mediate or immediate, of
+sacrificing the lives of two millions of men.[17]
+
+    [17] From a rough calculation taken from the returns of
+    those left dead on the fields of battle in which
+    Napoleon commanded, from Montenotte to Waterloo, we make
+    the amount 1,811,500; and if we add those who died
+    subsequently of their wounds in the petty skirmishes,
+    the losses in which are not reported, and in the naval
+    fights, of which, though Napoleon was not present, he
+    was the cause, the number given in the text will be far
+    under the mark. A picture of the fathers, mothers,
+    wives, children, and relatives of these victims,
+    receiving the news of their death, would give a lively
+    idea of the benefits conferred upon the world by
+    Napoleon.
+
+Has the obscure Watt done nothing to merit a page in the records of
+mankind? Walk ten miles in any manufacturing district, enter any
+coal-mine, examine the bank of England, travel by the Great Western
+railway, or navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean, the Indian or the
+Atlantic Ocean--in each and all of these, that giant slave, the
+steam-engine, will be seen, an ever-living testimony to the services
+rendered to mankind by its subjugator.
+
+Attachment to a favourite pursuit is undoubtedly calculated to bias
+the judgment; but, however liable may be the obscure votary of science
+to override his hobby, Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of England,
+in ascribing to scientific discoverers a higher merit than to
+legislators, emperors, or patriots, cannot be open to the charge of
+egoistic partiality. What, then, says this illustrious witness?--"The
+introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most
+excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of
+antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred
+only heroical honours upon those who deserve well in civil affairs,
+such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deliverers of their
+country. And whoever rightly considers it, will find this a judicious
+custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend to
+all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats
+of men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few
+ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time.
+Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force
+and perturbation; whilst inventions spread their advantage without
+doing injury or causing disturbance."[18]
+
+    [18] Nov. Org. Aph. 29.
+
+The opinion of a man who had reached the highest point to which a
+civilian could aspire, cannot, when he estimates the honours of the
+Chancellor as inferior to those of the natural philosopher, be
+ascribed to misjudging enthusiasm or personal disappointment. Without,
+however, seeking, for the sake of antithetic contrast, to underrate
+the importance of political services, civil or military, or to
+exaggerate those of the man of science, few, we think, will be
+disposed to deny that, although the one may be temporarily more urgent
+and necessary to the well-being of an existing race, yet that the
+benefits of the other are more lasting and universal. If, then, the
+influence on mankind of the secluded inventor be more extensive and
+durable than that of the active politician--if there be any truth in
+the opinion of Bacon, that the greatest political changes are wrought
+by the peaceful under-current of science; why is it that those who
+occupy the highest place as permanent benefactors of mankind, are,
+during their lifetime, neglected and comparatively unknown;--that they
+obtain neither the tangible advantages of pecuniary emolument, nor the
+more suitable, but less lucrative, honours of grateful homage? It is
+the common cry to exclaim against the neglect of science in the
+present day. Alas! history does not show us that our predecessors were
+more just to their scientific contemporaries. The evil is to a great
+extent remediless, the complaint to some extent irrational, and
+unworthy the dignity of the cause. The labourer in the field of
+science works not for the present, but for succeeding generations; he
+plants oaks for posterity, and must not look for the gratitude of
+contemporaries. Men will remunerate less, and be less grateful for,
+prospective than for present good--for benefits secured to their
+posterity than to themselves; the realization of the advantages is so
+distant, that the amount of discount is coextensive with the debt: it
+is only as the applications of science become more immediate, that the
+cultivators of science can reasonably expect an adequate reward or
+appreciation.
+
+Even when practically applied, we too frequently see that the original
+discoveries of the physical philosopher are but little valued by those
+who make a daily, a most extensive, and a most lucrative use of their
+results. Men _talk_ of "a million;" how few have ever _counted_ one!
+Men walk along the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill; how few think
+of the multiplied passions and powers which flit by them on their
+way--of the separate world which surrounds each passer-by--of the
+separate history, external and internal, of each--each possessing
+feelings, motives of action, characters, differing from the others, as
+the stamp of nature on his brow differs from his fellows! Thus, also,
+men's ears ring with the advancement of science, men's beards wag
+with repetition of the novel powers which have been educed from
+material nature; and if, in our daily traffic, we traverse without
+attention countless sands of thought, how much more, in our hackneyed
+talk of science, do we neglect the debt we owe to thought--thought,
+not the mere normal impulse of humanity, but the carefully elaborated
+lucubration of minds, of which the term _thinking_ is emphatically
+predicable! Names which are met with but once in the annals of
+science, and there, dimly seen as a star of the least magnitude, have
+perhaps earned that remote and obscure corner by painful self-denial,
+by unwearied toil! And yet not only these, but others who have added
+to diligence high mental acumen or profundity, whose wells of thought
+are, compared with those of the general mass, unfathomable, earn but a
+careless, occasional notice--are known but to few of those who daily
+reap the harvest which they have sown, and who even boast of seeing
+further than they did, as the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant can
+see further than the giant. The first step of the unthinking is to
+deny the possibility of a given discovery, the next is to assert that
+any one could have foreseen such discovery.
+
+There are, however, points of higher import than gain or glory to
+which the philosopher must ever look, and the absence of which must be
+a source of bitter disappointment and ground of just complaint. The
+most important of these is, that, by national neglect, the _cause_ of
+science is injured, her progress retarded. Not only is she not
+honoured, she is dishonoured; and in no civilized nation is this
+contempt of physical science carried to a greater extent than in
+England, the country of commerce and of manufactures.
+
+In this country, should a father observe in his gifted son a tendency
+to physical philosophy, he anxiously endeavours to dissuade him from
+this career, knowing that not only will it tend to no worldly
+aggrandizement, but that it will have the inevitable effect of
+lowering his position in what is called, and justly called, good
+society--the society of the most highly educated classes. At one of
+our universities, physical science is utterly neglected; at the other,
+only certain branches of it are cultivated. There are, it is true,
+university professors of each branch of physics, some of whom are able
+to collect a moderate number of pupils; others are obliged to carry
+with them an assistant, to whom alone they lecture, as Dean Swift
+preached to his clerk. But what part of the regular academic education
+does the study of Natural Philosophy occupy? It forms no necessary
+part of the examinations for degrees; no credit is attached to those
+who excel in its pursuit; no prizes, no fellowships, no university
+distinction, conferred upon its most successful votaries. On the
+contrary, physical, or at all events experimental, science is tabooed;
+it is written down "snobbish," and its being so considered has much
+influence in making it so: the necessity of manipulation is a sad
+drawback to the gentlemanliness of a pursuit. Bacon rebuked this
+fastidiousness, but in vain. "We will, moreover, show those who, in
+love with contemplation, regard our frequent mention of experiments as
+something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the
+attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the
+construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same
+principles, and are brought to perfection in a similar manner."[19]
+
+    [19] Impetus Philosophici, p. 681.
+
+Unfortunately, the fact of experimental science being rejected by the
+educated classes and thrown in a great measure upon the artizans of a
+country, has conducted, among other evils, to one of a most
+detrimental character; viz. the want of accuracy in scientific
+language, and consequently the want of accuracy in ideas. Perfection
+in language, as in every thing else, is not to be attained, and
+doubtless there are few of the most highly educated who would not, in
+many cases, assign different meanings to the same word; but if some
+confusion on this subject is unavoidable, how much is that confusion
+increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs
+written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may
+be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that
+accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of
+style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas!
+Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the
+writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them
+any definite meaning, or attach one different from that which the
+authors intended to convey; whence arises a want of reciprocal
+intelligence, a want of unity of thought and purpose. Another defect
+arising from the circumstance that persons of a high order of
+education have not been generally the cultivators of experimental
+science in this country, is, that the path is thereby rendered more
+accessible to empiricism. Science, beautiful in herself, has thence a
+class of deformed disciples, who succeed in entangling their false
+pretensions with the claims of true merit. So much dust is puffed into
+the eyes of the public, that it can hardly distinguish between works
+of durable importance and the ephemeral productions of empirics; and
+those who would otherwise disdain the notoriety acquired by
+advertisement, end in adopting the system as the only means to avoid
+the mortification of seeing their own ideas appropriated and uttered
+in another form and in another's name.[20]
+
+    [20] In any thing we have above said, we trust it is
+    unnecessary to disclaim the slightest intention of
+    discouraging those whose want of conventional advantages
+    only renders their merit more conspicuous; we find fault
+    not with the uneducated for cultivating science, but
+    with the educated for neglecting it.
+
+While the evils to which science is exposed by the necessarily
+unfashionable character of experimental manipulation are neither few
+nor trivial, there are still evils which arise from the directly
+opposite cause--from excess of intellectual cultivation; as is shown
+in the exclusive love of mathematics by a great number of
+philosophers. Minds which, left to themselves, might have eliminated
+the most valuable results, have, dazzled by the lustre cast by fashion
+upon abstract mathematical speculations, lost themselves in a mazy
+labyrinth of transcendentals. The fashion of mathematics has ruined
+many who might be most useful experimentalists; but who, wishing to
+take a higher flight, seek to attain distinction in mathematical
+analysis, and having acquired a certain celebrity for experimental
+research, dissipate, in simple equations, the fame they had acquired
+in a field equally productive, but not so select. Like Claude, who in
+his later years said, "Buy my figures, and I will give you my
+landscapes for nothing;" they fall in love with their own weakness,
+and estimate their merit by the labour they have undergone, not by the
+results they have deduced. M. Comte expresses himself well on this
+subject. "Mathematicians, too frequently taking the means for the end,
+have embarrassed Natural Philosophy with a crowd of analytical
+labours, founded upon hypotheses extremely hazardous, or even upon
+conceptions purely visionary; and consequently sober-minded people can
+see in them really nothing more than simple mathematical exercises, of
+which the abstract value is sometimes very striking, without their
+influence, in the slightest degree, accelerating the natural progress
+of Physics."[21]
+
+    [21] Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 409.
+
+The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have,
+like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in
+number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized
+SOCIETIES, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much
+good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out
+their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries
+of similar branches of study--they do good by the more attainable
+communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will
+not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by
+the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to
+the public the fruits of their labour--they give an _esprit de corps_,
+which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral
+discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the
+collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus
+accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would
+have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their
+institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the
+other hand, they do harm, by becoming the channels of selfish
+speculation, their honorary offices being used as stepping-stones to
+lucrative ones, thereby causing their influential members to please
+the givers of "situations," and to publish the trash of the
+impertinently ambitious, the _Titmice of the Credulous Societies_! The
+ultra-ridiculous parade with which they have decked fair science,
+giving her a vest of unmeaning hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing her
+to the finger of scorn, is another prominent and unsightly feature of
+such societies; they do harm by the cliquerie which they generate,
+collecting little knots of little men, no individual of whom can stand
+his own ground, but a group of whom, by leaning hard together, can,
+and do, exercise a most pernicious influence; seeking petty gain and
+class celebrity, they exert their joint-stock brains to convert
+science into pounds, shillings, and pence; and, when they have managed
+to poke one foot upon the ladder of notoriety, use the other to kick
+furiously at the poor aspirants who attempt to follow them.
+
+It has been frequently and strenuously urged, that these societies, or
+some of them, should be supported by government, and not dependent
+upon the subscriptions of their members. The arguments in favour of
+such a measure are, that by thus being accessible only to merit, and
+not depending upon money, their position would be more honourable and
+advantageous to the progress of science. With regard to such societies
+generally, this proposition is incapable of realization; every year
+sees a new society of this description; to annex many of these to
+government, would involve difficulties which, in the present state of
+politics, would be insurmountable. Who, for instance, would pay taxes
+for them? Another, and more reasonable, proposition is, that the
+government should establish and support one academy as a head and
+front of the others, accessible only to men of high distinction, who
+would be thus constituted the oligarchs of science. Of the advantage
+of this we have some doubts. Politics are already too much mixed up
+with all government appointments in England: their influence is at
+present scarcely felt in science, and we would not willingly risk an
+introduction so fraught with danger. The want of such an academy
+certainly lessens the English in the eyes of the continental _savans_;
+but could not such a one be organized, and perhaps endowed, by
+government, without any permanent connexion with it?
+
+If we compare the proceedings, undoubtedly dignified and decorous, of
+our Royal Society with those of the French Academy, we fear the
+balance will be found to be in favour of the latter. At Somerset
+House, after the list of donations and abstract of former proceedings,
+a paper, or a portion of a paper, is read upon some abstruse
+scientific subject, and the meeting is adjourned in solemn silence, no
+observation can be made upon it, no question asked, or explanation
+given. The public is excluded,[22] and the greater part of the members
+generally exclude themselves, very few having resolution enough to
+leave a comfortable dinner-table to bear the solemn formalities of
+such an evening. The paper is next committed, it is not known to whom,
+reported on in private, and either published, or deposited in the
+_archives of the Society_, according to the judgment of the unknown
+irresponsible parties to whom it is committed. Let us now look at the
+proceedings of the French Academy; it is open to the public, and the
+public take so great an interest in it, that to secure a seat an early
+attendance is always requisite. Every scientific point of daily and
+passing interest is brought before it--comments, such as occur at the
+time, are made upon various points by the secretary, or any other
+member who likes to make an observation--the more elaborate memoirs
+are read by the authors themselves, and if any _quaere_ or suggestion
+occurs to a member present, he has an opportunity of being answered.
+The memoir is then committed to parties whose names are publicly
+mentioned, who bring out their report in public, which report is read
+in public, and may be answered by the author if he object to it.
+Lastly, the whole proceedings are printed and published verbatim, and
+circulated at the next weekly meeting, while, in the mean time, the
+public press notices them freely. That, with all these advantages, the
+French Academy is not free from faults, we are far from asserting;
+that there is as much unseen man[oe]uvring and petty tyranny in this
+as in most other institutions, is far from improbable;[23] but the
+effect upon the public, and the zest and vitality which its
+proceedings give to science, are undeniable, and it is also undeniable
+that we have no scientific institution approaching to it in interest
+or value.
+
+    [22] Each Fellow can, indeed, by express permission of
+    the Society, take with him two friends.
+
+    [23] An anonymous author, who has attracted some
+    attention in France, in commenting on the rejection of
+    Victor Hugo, and the election of a physician, says--that
+    nothing could be more natural or proper, as the senility
+    and feebleness of the Academie made it more in want of a
+    physician than a poet.
+
+The present perpetual secretary of the Academy, Arago, with much of
+prejudice, much of egotism, has talents most plastic, an energy of
+character, an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity of expression,
+which alone give to the sittings of the French Academy a peculiar and
+surpassing interest, but which, in the English Society, would be
+entirely lost.
+
+In quitting, for the present, the subject of scientific societies, we
+must advert to a consequence of the increased number of candidates for
+scientific distinction of late years; of which increase the number of
+these societies may be regarded as an exponent. This increase,
+although on the whole both a cause and a consequence of the
+advancement of science, yet has in some respects lowered the high
+character of her cultivators by the competition it has necessarily
+engendered. Books tell us that the cultivation of science must elevate
+and expand the mind, by keeping it apart from the jangling of worldly
+interests. This dogma has its false as well as its true side, more
+especially when in this, as in every other field of human activity,
+the number of competitors is rapidly increasing; great watchfulness is
+requisite to resist temptations which beset the aspirant to success on
+this arena, more perhaps than in any other. The difficulty which the
+most honest find to avoid treading in the footsteps of others--the
+different aspect in which the same phenomena present themselves to
+different minds--the unwillingness which the mind experiences in
+renouncing published but erroneous opinions--are points of human
+weakness which, not to mislead, must be watched with assiduous care.
+Again, the ease with which plagiarism is committed from the number of
+roads by which the same point may be reached, is a great temptation to
+the waverer, and a great trial of temper to the victim. The disputants
+on the arenae of law, politics, or other pursuits, the ostensible aim
+of which is worldly aggrandizement, however animated in debate,
+unsparing in satire, reckless in their invective and recrimination,
+seldom fail in their private intercourse to throw off the armour of
+professional antagonism, and to extend to each other the ungloved hand
+of social cordiality. On the other hand, it is too frequent a
+spectacle in scientific circles to behold a careful wording of public
+controversy, a gentle, apologetic phraseology, a correspondence never
+going beyond the "retort courteous," or "quip modest," while there
+exists an under-current of the bitterest personal jealousy, the
+outward philosopher being strangely at variance with the inward man.
+
+Among the various circumstances which influence the progress of
+physical science in this country, one of the most prominent is the
+_Patent_ law--a law in its intention beneficent; but whether the
+practical working of it be useful, either to science or its
+cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt. Of the greater number of
+patents enrolled in that depot of practical science, Chancery Lane, by
+far the majority are beneficial only to the revenue; and on the
+question of public economy, whether or not the price paid by
+miscalculating ingenuity is a fair and politic source of revenue, we
+shall not enter; but on the reasons which lead so many to be dupes of
+their own self-esteem, a few words may not be misspent. The chief
+reason why a vast number of patents are unsuccessful, is, that it
+takes a long time (longer generally than fourteen years, the
+statutable limit of patent grants) to make the workmen of a country
+familiar with a new manufacture. A party, therefore, who proposes
+patenting an invention, and who sits down and calculates the value of
+the material, the time necessary for its manufacture, and other
+essential data; comparing these with the price at which it can be sold
+to obtain a remunerative profit, seldom takes into consideration the
+time necessary, first, to accustom the journeymen workers to its
+construction, and secondly, to make known to the public its real
+value. In the present universal competition, puffing is carried on to
+such an extent, that, to give a fair chance of success, not only must
+the first expense of a patent be incurred--no inconsiderable one
+either, even supposing the patentee fortunate enough to escape
+litigation--but a large sum of money must be invested in
+advertisements, with little immediate return; hence it is that the
+most valuable patents, viewed in relation to their scientific
+importance, their ultimate public benefit, and the merits of their
+inventors, are seldom the most lucrative, while a patent inkstand, a
+boot-heel, a shaving case, or a button, become rapidly a source of no
+inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial to inventors? Is it an
+encouragement of science, or a proper object of legislative provision,
+that the improver of the most trivial mechanical application should be
+carefully protected, while those who open the hidden sources of
+myriads of patents, are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating
+themselves? We seriously incline to think that, as the matter at
+present stands, an entire erasure from the statute-books of patent
+provision would be of service to science, and perhaps to the
+community; each tradesman would depend for success upon his own
+activity, and the perfection he could give his manufacture, and the
+scientific searcher after experimental truths would not find his path
+barred by prohibitions from speculative empirics.
+
+According to the present patent laws, it is more than questionable
+whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue
+his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the
+threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional
+England instead of despotic Russia, it is doubtful if he could work
+out his discovery of the electrotype--we say _doubtful_; for, as far
+as we can learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the
+mere use of a patent, not for sale or a lucrative object, is such a
+use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a
+patentee's rights. It appears to be settled, that a previous
+experimental and unpublished use by one party, does not prevent
+another subsequent inventor of the same process from patenting it;
+and, by parity of reasoning, we should say, that if a party have the
+advantage of patenting an invention which can be found to have been
+previously used, but not for sale, he should not have the additional
+privilege of prohibiting the same party, or others, from proceeding
+with their experiments. There are, however, not wanting arguments for
+the other view. The practice of a patented invention, for one's own
+benefit or pleasure, deprives the patentee of a possible source of
+profit; for it cannot be said that the party experimenting, if
+prohibited, might not apply for a license to the patentee. Take, for
+instance, the notorious and justly censured patent of Daguerre.
+Supposing, for argument's sake, this patent to be valid, can a private
+individual, under the existing patent laws, take photographic views or
+portraits for his own amusement, or in pursuance of scientific
+investigations? If he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful path of
+physics to be shut up for fourteen years; or if he can, then is the
+licensee, a purchaser for value, to be excluded from very many sources
+of pecuniary emolument? To us, the injury to the public, in this and
+similar cases, appears of incomparably greater consequence than that
+to the individual; but what the authorities at Westminster Hall may
+say is another question. Even could the patent laws be so modified,
+that the benefits derived from them could fall upon those scientific
+discoverers most justly entitled, we are still doubtful as to their
+utility, or whether they would contribute to the advancement of
+science, which is the point of view in which we here principally
+regard them. It would scarcely add to the dignity of philosophy, or
+to the reverence due to its votaries, to see them running with their
+various inventions to the patent office, and afterwards spending their
+time in the courts of law, defending their several claims. They would
+thus entirely lose the respect due to them from their contemporaries
+and posterity, and waste, in pecuniary speculation, time which might
+be more advantageously, and without doubt more agreeably, employed. If
+parties look to money as their reward, they have no right to look for
+fame; to those who sell the produce of their brains, the public owes
+no debt.
+
+We have observed recently a strong tendency in men of no mean
+scientific pretensions to patent the results of their labours. We
+blame them not: it is a matter of free election on their part, but we
+cannot praise them. A writer in a recent number of the _Edinburgh
+Review_, has the following remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's
+patented invention of the Calotype. "Nor does the fate of the Calotype
+redeem the treatment of her sister art, (the Daguerreotype.) The Royal
+Society, the philosophical organ of the nation, has refused to publish
+its processes in her transactions. * * * No representatives of the
+people unanimously recommended a national reward. * * * It gives us
+great pleasure to learn, that though none of his (Mr Talbot's)
+photographical discoveries adorn the transactions of the Royal
+Society, yet the president and the council have adjudged him the
+Rumford medals for the last biennial period."[24]
+
+    [24] _Edin. Rev._ No. 159.
+
+The notion of a "national reward" for the Calotype scarcely requires a
+remark. If, after a discovery is once made and published, every
+subsequent new process in the same art is to be nationally rewarded,
+the income-tax must be at least quadrupled. The complaint, however,
+against the Royal Society, is not altogether groundless. True it is
+that the first paper of Mr Talbot did not contain an account of the
+processes employed by him, and therefore should not have been even
+read to the Society; but the paper on the Calotype did contain such
+description, and we see no reason why a society for the advancement of
+knowledge should not give publicity to a valuable process, though made
+the subject of a patent--but it certainly should not bestow an
+honorary reward upon an inventor who has withheld from the Royal
+Society and the public the practice of the invention whose processes
+he communicates. Mr Talbot had a perfect right to patent his
+invention, but has on that account no claim in respect of the same
+invention to an honorary reward. The Royal Society did not publish his
+paper, but awarded him a medal. In our opinion, they should have
+published his paper and not awarded him a medal.
+
+Regarded as to her national encouragement of science, there are some
+features in which England differs not from other countries; there are
+others in which she may be strikingly contrasted with them; and, with
+all our love for her, we fear she will suffer by the contrast. A
+learned writer of the present day, has the following passage in
+reference to the state of science in England as contrasted with other
+countries:--"When the proud science of England pines in obscurity,
+blighted by the absence of the royal favour and the nation's sympathy;
+when her chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured, how can it sustain the
+conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign
+lands?"[25]
+
+    [25] Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 35.
+
+This, to be sure, is somewhat "_tumultuous_." We do not, however, cite
+it as a specimen of composition, but as an expression of a very
+prevalent feeling; the opinion involved in the concluding _quaere_ is
+open to doubt--England does sustain the conflict, if any conflict
+there be to sustain; but we are bound to admit, that in no country are
+the soldiers of _science militant_ less honoured or rewarded. It is no
+uncommon remark, that despotic governments are the most favourable to
+the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general
+truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a
+republican or constitutional government, politics are the
+all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme
+of conversation;--in purely despotic states, such discussions are
+prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few
+restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of
+absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may
+divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as
+existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality
+of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in
+the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are
+rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most
+prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so
+gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual
+energies of a people.
+
+We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also
+transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the
+present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have
+influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient
+thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of
+our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate
+and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a
+promoter of physical science.
+
+In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to
+place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied
+mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the
+independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results;
+researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate,
+instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally
+estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than
+any other European nation; the aesthetical power which enables them to
+seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception
+and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators.
+The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have
+undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding
+the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of
+the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional--too much
+_selon les regles_; there are too many minutiae; the reader is tempted
+to exclaim with Jacques--"I think of as many matters as he; but I give
+Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." Their accuracy frequently
+degenerates into affectation and parade. We have now before us a paper
+in the _Annales de Chimie_, containing some chemical researches, in
+which, though the difference of each experiment in a small number, put
+together for average, amounts to several units, the weights are given
+to the fifth place of decimals. England, which we should place next,
+is by no means exempt from these trappings of science. Many English
+scientific papers seem written as if with the resolute purpose of
+filling a certain number of pages, and many of their writers seem to
+think a _paper per annum_, good or bad, necessary to indicate their
+philosophical existence. They write, not because they have made a
+discovery, but because their period of hybernation has expired. Still,
+in England, there is a strong vein of original thought. Competition,
+if it lead to puffing and quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions;
+and, in England, competition has done its worst and its best; in
+original chemical discovery, England has latterly been unrivalled.
+
+Next to England we should place Sweden and Denmark--for their
+population they have done much, and done it well; then Italy--in Italy
+science is well organized, and the rulers of her petty states seem to
+feel a proper emulation in promoting scientific merit--in which
+laudable rivalry the Archduke of Tuscany deserves honourable mention;
+America and Russia come next--the former state is zealous, ready at
+practical application, and promises much for the future, but as yet
+has not done enough in original research to entitle her to be placed
+in the van. Russia at present possesses few, if any, native
+philosophers--her discoverers and discoveries are all imported; but
+the emperor's zeal and _patronage_ (a word which we scarcely like to
+apply to science) is doing much to organize her forces, and the
+mercenary troops may impart vigour, and induce discipline into the
+national body. In this short enumeration, we have considered each
+country, not according to the number of its very eminent men; for
+though far from denying the right which each undoubtedly possesses to
+shine by the reflected lustre of her stars, yet in looking, as it
+were, from an external point, it is more just to regard the general
+character of each people than to classify them according as they may
+happen to be the birthplace of those
+
+    "To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."
+
+A misunderstanding of the proper use of theory is among the prevalent
+scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of
+considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with
+physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This
+contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance
+of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of
+Mr Carlyle:--"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form,
+is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words: we call that fire
+of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about
+it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it?
+Whence comes it? Where goes it?"[26]
+
+    [26] Carlyle on Hero Worship.
+
+However the experienced philosopher may be convinced that _in
+themselves_ theories are nothing--that they are but collations of
+phenomena under a generic formula, which is useful only inasmuch as it
+groups these phenomena; yet it is difficult to see how, without these
+imperfect generalizations, any mind can retain the endless variety of
+facts and relations which every branch of science presents; still
+less, how these can be taught, learned, reasoned upon, or used. How
+could the facts of geology be recollected, or how, indeed, could they
+constitute a science without reference to some real or supposed bond
+of union, some aqueous or igneous theory? How could two chemists
+converse on chemistry without the use of the term affinity, and the
+theoretical conception it involves? How could a name be applied, or a
+nomenclature adopted, without that imperfect, or more or less perfect
+grouping of facts, which involves theory? As far as we can recollect,
+all the alterations of nomenclature which have been introduced, or
+attempted, proceed upon some alteration of theory.
+
+If not theory but hypothesis be objected to--not the imperfect
+generalization of phenomena, but a gratuitous assumption for the sake
+of collating them, this, although ground which should be trodden more
+cautiously, appears in certain cases unavoidable; in fact, is scarcely
+separable from theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly" about the two
+_fluids_ of electricity, we should not now possess many of the
+discoveries with which this science is enriched, although we do not,
+and probably never shall, know what electricity is.
+
+On the other hand, among professed physical philosophers, the great
+abuse of theories and hypotheses is, that their promulgators soon
+regard them, not as aids to science, to be changed if occasion should
+require, but as absolute natural truths; they look to that as an end,
+which is in fact but a means; their theories become part of their
+mental constitution, idiosyncrasies; and they themselves become
+partizans of a faction, and cease to be inductive philosophers.
+
+Another injury to science, in a great measure peculiar to the present
+day, arises from the number of speculations which are ushered into the
+world to account for the same phenomena; every one, like Sir Andrew
+Aguecheek, when he wished to cudgel a Puritan, has for his opinion "no
+exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science
+immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their
+career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of
+their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena,
+enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a
+comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with
+theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good--they do not
+always end with experiment.
+
+As, in the promulgation of theories, every aspirant is anxious to
+propound different news, so, in nomenclature, there is a strong
+tendency to promiscuous coining. The great commentator on the laws of
+England, Sir William Blackstone, observes, "As to the impression, the
+stamping of coin is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown, * * *
+the king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate foreign coin, and
+make it current here."[27]
+
+    [27] Commentaries, vol. i. p. 277.
+
+As coinage of money is the undoubted prerogative of the crown; so
+generally coinage of words has been the undoubted prerogative of the
+kings of science--those to whom mankind have bent as to unquestionable
+authority. But even these royal dignitaries have generally been
+sparing in the exercise of this prerogative, and used it only on rare
+occasions and when absolutely necessary, either from the discovery of
+new things requiring new names, or upon entire revolutions of theory.
+
+                        "Si forte necesse est
+    Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
+    Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegis
+    Continget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."
+
+But now there is no "pudor" in the matter. Every man has his own mint;
+and although their several coins do not pass current very generally,
+yet they are taken here and there by a few disciples, and throw some
+standard money out of the market. The want of consideration evinced in
+these novel vocabularies is remarkable. Whewell, whose scientific
+position and dialectic turn of mind may fairly qualify him to be a
+word-maker, seems peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as an instance,
+"_idiopts_," an uncomfortable word, barely necessary, as the persons
+to whom it applies are comparatively rare, and will scarcely thank the
+Master of Trinity College for approximating them in name to a more
+numerous and more unfortunate class--the word _physicists_, where four
+sibilant consonants fizz like a squib. In these, and we might add many
+from other sources, euphony is wantonly disregarded; by other authors
+of smaller calibre, classical associations are curiously violated. We
+may take, as an instance, _platinode_, Spanish-American joined to
+ancient Greek. In chemistry there is a profusion of new coin. Sulphate
+of ammonia--oxi-sulphion of ammonium--sulphat-oxide of ammonium--three
+names for one substance. This mania is by no means common to England.
+In Liebig's Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we have the following
+passage:--"It should be remarked that some chemists designate
+artificial camphor by the name of hydrochlorate of camphor. Deville
+calls it bihydrochlorate of terebene, and Souberaine and Capelaine
+call it hydrochlorate of pencylene."
+
+So generally does this prevail, that in chemical treatises the names
+of substances are frequently given with a tail of synonymes. Numerous
+words might be cited which are names for non-existences--mere
+hypothetic groupings; and yet so rapidly are these increasing, that it
+seems not impossible, in process of time, there will be more names for
+things that are not than for things that are. If this work go on, the
+scientific public must elect a censor whose fiat shall be final;
+otherwise, as every small philosopher is encouraged or tolerated in
+framing _ad libitum_ a nomenclature of his own, the inevitable effect
+will be, that no man will be able to understand his brother, and a
+confusion of tongues will ensue, to be likened only to that which
+occasioned the memorable dispersion at Babel.
+
+Many of the defects to which we have alluded in the course of this
+paper, time alone can remedy. In spite of all drawbacks, the progress
+of science has been vast and rapidly increasing; the very rapidity of
+its progress brings with it difficulties. So many points, once
+considered impossible, have been proved possible, that to some minds
+the suggestion of impossibility seems an argument in favour of
+possibility. Because steam-travelling was once laughed at as visionary,
+aerial navigation is to be regarded as practicable--perhaps, indeed, it
+_will_ be so, give but the time _proportionably_ requisite to master
+its difficulties, as there was given to steam. What proportion this
+should be we will not venture to predict. There can be little doubt
+that the most effectual way to induce a more accurate public
+discrimination of scientific efforts is to turn somewhat more in that
+direction the current of national education. Prizes at the universities
+for efficiency in the physics of light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
+or chemistry, could, we conceive, do no harm. Why should not similar
+honours be conferred on those students who advance the progress of an
+infant science, as on those who work out with facility the formulae of
+an exact one; and why should not acquirements in either, rank equally
+high with the critical knowledge of the _digamma_ or the _a priori_
+philosophy of Aristotle? Is not Bacon's Novum Organon as much entitled
+to be made a standard book for the schools as Aldrich's logic?
+Venerating English universities, we approve not the inconsiderate
+outcries against systematic and time-honoured educational discipline;
+but it would increase our love for these seminaries of sound learning,
+could we more frequently see such men as Davy emanate from Oxford,
+instead of from the pneumatic institution of Bristol.
+
+Provided science be kept separate from political excitement, we should
+like to see an English Academy, constituted of men having fair claims
+to scientific distinction, and not "deserving of that honour because
+they are attached to science."
+
+It is unnecessary here to touch upon the details of such an Academy.
+The proposition is by no means new. On the contrary, we believe a wish
+for some such change pretty generally exists. Iteration is sometimes
+more useful than originality. The more frequently the point is brought
+before the public, the more probable is it that steps will be taken by
+those who are qualified to move in such a matter. The more the present
+defective state of our scientific organization is commented on, the
+more likely is it to be remedied; for the patency of error is ever a
+sure prelude to its extirpation.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONICLES OF PARIS.
+
+THE RUE ST DENIS.
+
+
+One of the longest, the narrowest, the highest, the darkest, and the
+dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the
+Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north,
+it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a
+gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest
+barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide,
+straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of
+Sainct-Denys-en-France. This was, from time immemorial, the state-road
+for the monarchs of France to make their formal entries into, and exits
+from, their capital--whether they came from their coronation at Rheims,
+or went to their last resting-place beneath the tall spire of St Denis.
+This has always been the line by which travellers from the northern
+provinces have entered the good city of Paris; and for many a long year
+its echoes have never had rest from the cracking of the postilion's
+whip, the roll of the heavy diligence, and the perpetual jumbling of
+carts and waggons. It is, as it has ever been, one of the main arteries
+of the capital; and nowhere does the restless tide of Parisian life run
+more rapidly or more constantly than over its well-worn stones. In the
+pages of the venerable historians of the French capital, and in ancient
+maps, it is always called "_La Grande Rue de Sainct Denys_," being, no
+doubt, at one time the _ne plus ultra_ of all that was considered wide
+and commodious. Now its appellation is curtailed into the _Rue St
+D'nis_, and it is avoided by the polite inhabitants of Paris as
+containing nothing but the _bourgeoisie_ and the _canaille_. Once it was
+the Regent Street of Paris--a sort of Rue de la Paix--lounged along by
+the gallants of the days of Henri IV., and not unvisited by the
+red-heeled marquises of the Regent d'Orleans's time; now it sees nothing
+more _recherche_ than the cap of the grisette or the poissarde, as the
+case may be, nor any thing more august than the casquette of the
+_commis-voyageur_, or the indescribable shako and equipments of the
+National Guard. As its frequenters have been changed in character, so
+have its houses and public buildings; they have lost much of the
+picturesque appearance they possessed a hundred years ago--they are
+forced every year more and more into line, like a regiment of stone and
+mortar. Instead of showing their projecting, high-peaked gables to the
+street, they have now turned their fronts, as more polite; the roofs are
+accommodated with the luxury of pipes, and the midnight sound of "_Gare
+l'eau!_" which used to make the late-returning passenger start with all
+agility from beneath the opened window to avoid the odoriferous shower,
+is now but seldom heard. A Liliputian footway, some two feet wide, is
+laid down in flags at either side; the oscillating lamp, that used to
+hang on a rotten cord thrown across the roadway from house to house, and
+made darkness visible, has given place to the genius of gas--_enfin, la
+Revolution a passe par la_; and the Rue de St Denis is now a ghost only
+of what it was. Still it retains sufficient peculiarities of dimensions
+and outline to show that it is a child of the middle ages; and, like so
+many other children of the same kind, it contributes to make its mother
+Paris, as compared with the modern-built capitals of Europe, a town of
+former days. Long may it retain these oddities of appearance--long may
+it remain narrow, dark, and dirty; we rejoice that such streets still
+exist--they do one's eye good, if not one's nose. There is more of
+colour, of light and shade, of picturesque, fantastic outline, in a
+hundred yards of the Rue St Denis, than in all the line from Piccadilly
+to Whitechapel; a painter can pick up more food for his easel in this
+queer, old street--an antiquarian can find there more tales and crusts
+for his noddle, than in all Regent Street and Portland Place. We love a
+ramshackle place like this; it does one good to get out of the
+associations of the present century, and to retrograde a bit; it is
+pleasant to see how people used to pig together in ancient days, without
+any of the mathematical formalities of the present day; it keeps one's
+eye in tone to look back at works of the middle ages; and we may learn
+the more justly to criticize what we see arising about us, by refreshing
+our recollections of the mouldering past. Paris is a glorious place for
+things of this kind. Thank the stars, it never got burned out of its old
+clothes, as London did. Newfangled streets and quarters of every age
+have been added to it, but there still remains a mediaeval nucleus--there
+is still an "old Paris"--a gloomy, filthy, old town, irregular and
+inconvenient as any town ever was yet; and a walk of twenty minutes will
+take you from the elegant uniformity of the Rue de Rivoli into the
+original chaos of buildings--into the Quartier des Halles and into the
+Rue St Denis. How often have we hurried down them on a cold winter's
+day--say the 31st of December--to buy bons-bons in the Rue des Lombards,
+once the abode of bankers, now the paradise of _confiseurs_, against the
+coming morrow--the grand day of visits and cadeaux--braving the snow
+some three feet deep in the midst of the street--or, if there happened
+to be no snow, the mud a foot and a half, splashing through it with our
+last new pair of boots from Legrand's, and the last _pantalon_ from
+Blondel's--for cabriolet or omnibus, none might pass that way; and
+there, amid onion-smelling crowds, in a long, low shop, with lamps
+lighted at two o'clock, have consummated our purchase, and floundered
+back triumphant! Away, ye gay, seducing vanities of the Palais Royal or
+the Boulevards; your light is too garish for our sober eyes--the sugar
+of your comfitures is too chalky for our discriminating tooth! Our
+appropriate latitude is that of the Quartier St Denis! One thing,
+however, we must confess, we never did in the Rue St Denis--we never
+dined there! _Oh non! il ne faut pas faire ca!_ 'Tis the headquarters of
+all the sausage-dealers, the _charcutiers_, and the _rotisseurs_ of
+Paris. Genuine meat and drink there is none; cats hold the murderous
+neighbourhood in traditional abhorrence, and the ruddiest wine of
+Burgundy would turn pale were the aqueous reputation of the street
+whispered near its cellar-door. Thank Heaven, we have a gastronomic
+instinct that saved us from acts of suicidal rashness! When in Paris,
+gentle reader, we always dine at the Trois Freres Provencaux; the little
+room in blue, remember--time, six P.M.; potage a la Julienne--bifteck au
+vin de Champagne--poulet a la Marengo--Chambertin, and St Peray rose.
+The next time you visit the Palais-Royal, turn in there, and dine with
+us--we shall be delighted to see you!
+
+There are few gaping Englishmen who have been on the other side of the
+Channel but have found their way along the Boulevards to the Porte St
+Denis, and have stared first of all at that dingy monument of
+Ludovican pride, and then have stared down the Rue St Denis, and then
+have stared up the Rue du Faubourg St Denis; but very few are ever
+tempted to turn either to the right hand or to the left, and so they
+generally poke on to the Porte St Martin, or stroll back to the
+Madeleine, and rarely make acquaintance with the Dionysian mysteries
+of Paris. For the benefit, therefore, of such travellers as go to the
+French capital with their eyes in their pockets, and of such as stay
+at home and travel by their fireside, but still can relish the
+recollections and associations of olden times, we are going to rake
+together some of the many odd notes that pertain to the history of
+this street and its immediate vicinity.
+
+The readiest way into the Rue St Denis from the Isle de la Cite, the
+centre of Paris, has always been over the Pont-au-Change. This bridge,
+now the widest over the Seine, was once a narrow, ill-contrived
+structure of wood, covered with a row of houses on either side, that
+formed a dark and dirty street, so that you might pass through it a
+hundred times without once suspecting that you were crossing a river.
+These houses, built of stone and wood, overhung the edges of the
+bridge, and afforded their inhabitants an unsafe abode between the sky
+and the water. At times the river would rise in one of its periodical
+furies, and sweep away a pier or two with the superincumbent houses;
+at others the wooden supporters of the structure would catch fire by
+some untoward event, and the inhabitants had the choice of being fried
+or drowned, along with their penates and their supellectile property.
+Such a catastrophe happened in the reign of Louis XIII., when this and
+another wooden bridge, situated, oddly enough, close by its side, were
+set on fire by a squib, which some _gamins de Paris_ were letting off
+on his Majesty's highway; and in less than three hours 140 houses had
+disappeared. It was Louis VII., in the twelfth century, who gave it
+the name it has since borne; for he ordered all the money-changers of
+Paris to come and live on this bridge--no very secure place for
+keeping the precious metals; and about two hundred years ago the
+money-changers, fifty-four in number, occupied the houses on one side,
+while fifty goldsmiths lived in those on the other. In the open
+roadway between, was held a kind of market or fair for bird-sellers,
+who were allowed to keep their standings on the curious tenure of
+letting off two hundred dozens of small birds whenever a new king
+should pass over this bridge, on his solemn entry into the capital.
+The birds fluttered and whistled on these occasions, the _gamins_
+clapped their hands and shouted, the good citizens cried "Noel!" and
+"Vive le Roy!" and the courtiers were delighted at the joyous
+spectacle. Whether the birds flew away ready roasted to the royal
+table, history is silent; but it would have been a sensible
+improvement of this part of the triumphal ceremony, and we recommend
+it to the serious notice of all occupiers of the French throne.
+
+On arriving at the northern end of the bridge, the passenger had on
+his right a covered gallery of shops, stretching up the river side to
+the Pont Notre Dame, and called the Quai de Gesvres; here was a
+fashionable promenade for the beaux of Paris, for it was filled with
+the stalls of pretty milliners, like one of our bazars, and boasted of
+an occasional bookseller's shop or two, where the tender ballads of
+Ronsard, or the broad jokes of Rabelais, might be purchased and read
+for a few livres. To the left was a narrow street, known by the
+curious appellation of _Trop-va-qui-dure_, the etymology of which has
+puzzled the brains of all Parisian antiquaries; while just beyond it,
+and still by the river side, was the _Vieille Vallee de Misere_--words
+indicative of the opinion entertained of so _ineligible_ a residence.
+In front frowned, in all the grim stiffness of a feudal fortress, the
+_Grand Chastelet_, once the northern defence of Paris against the
+Normans and the English, but at last changed into the headquarters of
+the police--the Bow Street of the French capital. Two large towers,
+with conical tops over a portcullised gateway, admitted the prisoners
+into a small square court, round which were ranged the offices of the
+lieutenant of police, and the chambers of the law-officers of the
+crown. Part of the building served as a prison for the vulgar crew of
+offenders--a kind of Newgate, or Tolbooth; another was used as, and
+was called, the Morgue, where the dead bodies found in the Seine were
+often carried; there was a room in it called Caesar's chamber, where
+the good citizens of Paris firmly believed that the great Julius once
+sat as provost of Paris, in a red robe and flowing wig; and there was
+many an out-of-the-way nook and corner full of dust and parchments,
+and rats and spiders. The lawyers of the Chastelet thought no small
+beer of themselves, it seems; for they claimed the right of walking in
+processions before the members of the Parliament, and immediately
+after the corporation of the capital. The unlucky wight who might
+chance to be put in durance vile within these walls, was commonly well
+trounced and fined ere he was allowed to depart; and next to the
+dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet used to be looked on with
+peculiar horror. At the Revolution it was one of the first feudal
+buildings demolished--not a stone of the old pile remains; the
+Pont-au-Change had long before had its wooden piers changed for noble
+stone ones, and on the site where this fortress stood is now the Place
+de Chatelet, with a Napoleonic monument in the midst--a column
+inscribed with names of bloody battle-fields, on its summit a golden
+wing-expanding Victory, and at its base four little impudent dolphins,
+snorting out water into the buckets of the Porteurs d'Eau.
+
+Behind the Chastelet stood the _Grande Boucherie_--the Leadenhall
+market of Paris an hundred years ago; and near it, up a dirty street
+or two, was one of the finest churches of the capital, dedicated to St
+Jacques. The lofty tower of this latter edifice (its body perished
+when the Boucherie and the Chastelet disappeared) still rises in
+gloomy majesty above all the surrounding buildings. It is as high as
+those of Notre Dame; and from its upper corners, enormous
+_gargouilles_--those fantastic water-spouts of the middle ages--gape
+with wide-stretched jaws, but no longer send down the washings of the
+roof on the innocent passengers. Hereabouts lived Nicholas Flamel, the
+old usurer, who made money so fast that it was said he used to sup
+nightly with his Satanic majesty, and who thereupon built part of the
+church to save his bacon. He was of opinion that it was well to have
+the "_mens sana in corpore sano_"--that it was no joke to be burnt;
+and so he stuck close to the church, taking care that himself and his
+wife, Pernelle, should have a comfortable resting-place for their
+bones within the walls of St Jacques. When this was a fashionable
+quarter of Paris, the court doctor and accoucheur did not disdain to
+reside in it; for Jean Fernel, the medical attendant of Catharine de
+Medicis, lived and died within the shade of this old tower. He was a
+fortunate fellow, a sort of Astley Cooper or Clarke in his way, and
+Catharine used to give him 10,000 crowns, or something like L.6000,
+every time she favoured France with an addition to the royal family.
+He and numerous other worthies mouldered into dust within the
+precincts of St Jacques; but their remains have long since been
+scattered to the winds; and where the church once stood is now an
+ignoble market for old clothes; the abode of Jews and thieves.
+
+After passing round the Grand Chastelet, and crossing the
+market-place, you might enter the Rue St Denis, the great street of
+Paris in the time of the good King Henry, and you might walk along
+under shelter of its houses, projecting story above story, till they
+nearly met at top, for more than a mile. Before it was paved, the
+roadway was an intolerable quagmire, winter and summer; and, after
+stones had been put down, there murmured along the middle a black
+gurgling stream, charged with all the outpourings and filth of
+unnumbered houses. Over, or through this, according as the fluid was
+low or high, you had to make your way, if you wanted to cross the
+street and greet a friend; if you lived in the street and wished to
+converse with your opposite neighbour, you had only to mount to the
+garret story, open the lattice window, and literally shake hands with
+him, so near did the gables approach. The fronts of the houses were
+ornamented with every device which the skilful carpenters of former
+times could invent: the beam-ends were sculptured into queer little
+crouching figures of monkeys or angels, and all sorts of _diableries_
+decorated the cornices that ran beneath the windows; there were no
+panes of glass, such as we boast of in these degenerate times, but
+narrow latticed lights to let in the day, and the wind, and the cold;
+while the roofs were covered commonly with shingles, or, in the houses
+of the wealthy, with sheets of lead. Between each gable came forth a
+long water-spout, and poured down a deluge into the gutter beneath;
+each gable-top was peaked into a fantastic spiry point or flower, and
+the chimneys congregated into goodly companies amidst the roofs,
+removed from the vulgar gaze or fastidious jests of the people below.
+So large were the fireplaces in those rooms that could own them, and
+so ample were the chimney flues, that smoky houses were unheard of:
+the staircases, it is true, enjoyed only a dubious ray, that served to
+prevent you from breaking your neck in a rapid descent; but the
+apartments were generally of commodious dimensions, and the tenements
+possessed many substantial comforts.
+
+Once out of doors, you might proceed in all weather fearless of rain;
+the projecting upper stories sheltered completely the sides of the
+street, and a stout cloth cloak was all that was needed to save either
+sex from the inclemency of the seasons. At frequent intervals there
+opened into the main street, side streets, and _ruelles_ or alleys,
+which showed in comparison like Gulliver in Brobdignag: up some of
+these ways a single horseman might be able to go; but along
+others--and some of them remain to the present day--two stout citizens
+could never have walked arm-in-arm. They looked like enormous cracks
+between a couple of buildings, rather than as ways made for the
+convenience of locomotion: they were pervious, perhaps, to donkeys,
+but not to the loaded packhorse--the great street was intended for
+that animal--coaches did not exist, and the long narrow carts of the
+French peasantry, whenever they came into the city, did not occupy
+much more space than the bags or packs of the universal carrier. To
+many of these streets the most eccentric appellations were given;
+there was the _Rue des Mauvaises Paroles_--people of ears polite had
+no business to go near it; the _Rue Tire Chappe_--a spot where those
+who objected to be plucked by the vests, or to have their clothes
+pulled off their backs by importunate accosters, need not present
+themselves; another in this quarter was called the _Rue Tire-boudin_.
+Marie Stuart, when Queen of France, was riding, it is said, through it
+one day, and struck, perhaps, by the looks of its inhabitants, asked
+what the street was called. The original appellation was so indecent
+that an officer of her guards, with courtly presence of mind, veiled
+it under its present title. One was known as the _Rue Brise-miche_,
+and the cleanliness of its inhabitants might instantly be judged of: a
+fifth was the _Rue Trousse-vache_, and one of the shops in it was
+adorned with an enormous sign of a red cow, with her tail sticking up
+in the air and her head reared in rampant sauciness. A notorious
+gambler, Thibault-au-de, well known for his skill in loading dice,
+gave his name to one of these narrow veins of the town: Aubry, a
+wealthy butcher, is still immortalized in another: and the _Rue du
+Petit Hurleur_ probably commemorated some wicked youngster, whose
+shouts were a greater nuisance to the neighbours than those of any of
+his companions.
+
+A wider kind of street was the _Rue de la Ferronerie_, opening into
+the Rue St Denis, below the Church of the Innocents: it was the abode
+of all the tinkers and smiths of Paris, and had not Henri IV. been in
+a particular hurry that day, when he was posting off to old Sully in
+the Rue St Antoine, he had never gone this way, and Ravaillac,
+probably, had never been able to lean into the carriage and stab the
+king. Just over the spot where the murder was committed, the placid
+bust of the king still gazes on the busy scene beneath. The _Rue de la
+Grande Truanderie_, which was above the Innocents, must have been the
+rendez-vous of all the thieves and beggars of Paris, if there be any
+thing in a name: the old chronicles of the city relate, indeed, that
+it took a long time to respectabilize its neighbourhood; and they add
+that the herds of rogues and impostors who once lived in it took
+refuge, after their ejection, in the famous _Cour des Miracles_, a
+little higher up the Rue St Denis. We must not venture into this, the
+choicest preserve of Victor Hugo, whose graphic description of its
+wonders in his _Notre Dame_ needs hardly to be alluded to; but we may
+add, that there were several abodes of the same kind, all
+communicating with the Rue St Denis, and all equally infamous in their
+day, though now tenanted only by quiet button-makers and
+furniture-dealers. The real _Puits d'Amour_ stood at the corner of the
+Rue de la Grande Truanderie, and took its name in sad truth from a
+crossing of true love. In the days of Philip Augustus, more than six
+hundred years ago, a beautiful young lady of the court, Agnes
+Hellebik, whose father held an important post under the king, was
+inveigled into the toils of love. The object of her affections,
+whether of noble birth or not, made her but a sorry return for her
+confidence: he loved her a while, and her dreams of happiness were
+realized; but by degrees his passion cooled, and at length he
+abandoned her. Stung with indignation, and broken-hearted at this
+thwarting of her soul's desire, the unfortunate young creature fled
+from her father's house, and betaking herself on a dark and stormy
+night to the brink of the well, commended her spirit to her Maker, and
+ended her troubles beneath its waters. The name of the _Puits d'Amour_
+was then given to the well; and no young maiden ever dared to draw
+water from it after sunset, for fear of the spirit that dwelt
+unquietly within. The tradition was always current in people's mouths;
+and three centuries after, a young man of the neighbourhood, who had
+been jilted and mocked by an inconstant mistress, determined to bear
+his ills no longer, so he rushed to the _Puits_, and took the fatal
+leap. The result was not what he anticipated: he did not, it is true,
+jump into a courtly assembly of knights and gallants, but he could not
+find water enough in it to drown him; while his mistress, on hearing
+of the mishap, hastened to the well with a cord, and promising to
+compensate him for his former woes, drew him with her fair hands
+safely into the upper regions. An inscription, in Gothic letters, was
+then placed over the well:--
+
+    "L'amour m'a refaict
+    En 1525 tout-a-faict."
+
+The fate of Agnes Hellebik was far preferable to that of another young
+girl who lived in this quarter, indeed in the Rue Thibault-au-de.
+Agnes du Rochier was the only daughter of one of the wealthiest
+merchants of Paris, and was admired by all the neighbourhood for her
+beauty and virtue. In 1403 her father died, leaving her the sole
+possessor of his wealth, and rumour immediately disposed of her hand
+to all the young gallants of the quarter; but whether it was that
+grief for the loss of her parent had turned her head, or that the
+gloomy fanaticism of that time had worked with too fatal effect on her
+pure and inexperienced imagination, she took not only marriage and the
+male sex into utter abomination, but resolved to quit the world for
+ever, and to make herself a perpetual prisoner for religion's sake.
+She determined, in short, to become what was then called a recluse,
+and as such to pass the remainder of her days in a narrow cell built
+within the wall of a church. On the 5th of October, accordingly, when
+the cell, only a few feet square, was finished in the wall of the
+church of St Opportune, Agnes entered her final abode, and the
+ceremony of her reclusion began. The walls and pillars of the sacred
+edifice had been hung with tapestry and costly cloths, tapers burned
+on every altar, the clergy of the capital and the several religious
+communities thronged the church. The Bishop of Paris, attended by his
+chaplains and the canons of Notre Dame, entered the choir, and
+celebrated a pontifical mass: he then approached the opening of the
+cell, sprinkled it with holy water, and after the poor young thing had
+bidden adieu to her friends and relations, ordered the masons to fill
+up the aperture. This was done as strongly as stone and mortar could
+make it; nor was any opening left, save only a small loophole through
+which Agnes might hear the offices of the church, and receive the
+aliments given her by the charitable. She was eighteen years old when
+she entered this living tomb, and she continued within it _eighty_
+years, till death terminated her sufferings! Alas, for mistaken piety!
+Her wealth, which she gave to the church, and her own personal
+exertions during so long a life, might have made her a blessing to all
+that quarter of the city, instead of remaining an useless object of
+compassion to the few, and of idle wonder to the many.
+
+Another entombment, almost as bad, occurred in the Rue St Denis, only
+five or six years ago. The cess-pools of modern Parisian houses are
+generally deep chambers, and sometimes wells, cut in the limestone
+rock on which the city stands: and in the absence of a good method of
+drainage, are cleaned out only once in every two or three years,
+according to their size. Meanwhile, they continue to receive all the
+filth of the building. One night, a large cess-pool had been emptied,
+and the aperture, which was in the common passage of the house on the
+ground floor, had been left open till the inspector appointed by the
+police should come round and see that the work had been properly
+executed. He came early in the morning, enquired carelessly of the
+porter if all was right, and ordered the stone covering to be fastened
+down. This was done amid the usual noise and talking of the workmen;
+and they went their way. That same afternoon, one of the lodgers in
+the house, a young man, was missed: days after days elapsed, and
+nothing was heard of him: his friends conjectured that he had drowned
+himself, but the tables of the Morgue never bore his body: and their
+despair was only equalled by their astonishment at the absence of
+every clue to his fate. On a particular evening, however, about three
+weeks after his disappearance, the porter was sitting at the door of
+his lodge, and the house as well as the street was unusually quiet,
+when he heard a faint groan somewhere beneath his feet. After a short
+interval he heard another; and being superstitious, got up, put his
+chair within the lodge, shut the door, and set about his work. At
+night he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, and going out with
+her into the passage, they had not stood there long before again a
+groan was heard. The good woman crossed herself and fell on her knees;
+but her husband, suspecting now that all was not right, and thinking
+that an attempt at infanticide had been made, by throwing a child's
+body down one of the passages leading to the cess-pool, (no uncommon
+occurrence in Paris,) resolved to call in the police. He did so
+without loss of time, the heavy stone covering was removed, and one of
+the attendants stooping down and lowering a lantern, as long as the
+stench would permit him, saw at the bottom, and at a considerable
+depth, something like a human form leaning against the side of the
+receptacle. Ropes and ladders were now immediately procured; two men
+went down, and in a few minutes brought up a body--it was that of the
+unfortunate young man who had been so long missing! Life was not quite
+extinct, for some motion of the limbs was perceptible, there was even
+one last low groan, but then all animation ceased for ever. The
+appearance of the body was most dreadful; the face was a livid green
+colour, the trunk looked like that of a man drowned, and kept long
+beneath the water, all brown and green--one of the feet had completely
+disappeared--the other was nearly half decomposed and gone; the hands
+were dreadfully lacerated, and told of a desperate struggle to escape:
+worms were crawling about; all was putrid and loathsome. How did this
+unfortunate young man come into so dreadful a position? was the
+question that immediately occurred; and the only answer that could be
+given was, that on the night of the cess-pool being emptied, the
+porter remembered this young man coming home very late, or rather
+early in the morning. He himself had forgotten to warn him of the
+aperture being uncovered, indeed he supposed that it would have been
+sufficiently seen by the lights left burning at its edge;--these had
+probably been blown out by the wind, and the young man had thus fallen
+in. That life should have been supported so long under such
+circumstances, seems almost incredible: but it is no less curious than
+true; for the porter was tried before the Correctional Tribunal for
+inadvertent homicide, the facts were adduced in evidence, and
+carelessness having been proved, he was sentenced to imprisonment for
+several weeks, and to a heavy fine.
+
+Of churches and religious establishments, there were plenty in and
+about the Rue St Denis. Besides the great church of St Jacques,
+mentioned before, there were in the street itself the churches of the
+Holy Sepulchre, of St Leu, and St Gilles; of the Innocents; of the
+Saviour; and of St Jacques de l'Hopital: while of conventual
+institutions, there were the Hospitals of St Catharine; of the Holy
+Trinity; of the Filles de St Magloire; of the Filles Dieu; of the
+Community of St Chaumont; of the S[oe]urs de Charite; and of the great
+monastery of St Lazare. The fronts, or other considerable portions of
+those buildings, were all visible in the street, and added greatly to
+its antiquated appearance. The long irregular lines of gable roofs on
+either side, converging from points high above the spectator's head,
+until they met or crossed in a dim perspective, near the horizon, were
+broken here and there by the pointed front, or the tapering spire of a
+church or convent. A solemn gateway protruded itself at intervals into
+the street, and, with its flanking turrets and buttresses, gave broad
+masses of shade in perpendicular lines, strongly contrasted with the
+horizontal or diagonal patches of dark colour caused by the houses. At
+early morn and eve, a shrill tinkling of bells warned the neighbours
+of the sacred duties of many a secluded penitent, or admonished them
+that it was time to send up their own orisons to God. Before mid-day
+had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a
+_bourdon_, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens
+to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom
+the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to
+some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with
+often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at the side, with
+white-robed chanting acolyths, and reverend priests, in long line
+behind, came forth to take its way to some holy edifice. The zealous
+citizens would suspend their avocations for a while, would repeat a
+reverential prayer as the holy men went by, and then return to the
+absorbing calls of business, not unbenefited by the recollections just
+awakened in their minds. On the eves and on the mornings of holy
+festivals, business was totally suspended; the bells, great and small,
+rang forth their silvery sounds; the churches were crowded, the
+chapels glittered with blazing lights; the prayers of the priests and
+people rose with the incense before the high altar; the solemn organ
+swelled its full tones responsive to the loud-voiced choir; the
+curates thundered from the pulpits, to the edification of charitable
+congregations; and after all had been prostrated in solemn adoration
+of the Divine presence, the citizens would pour out into the street,
+and repair, some to their homes, some to the Palace of the Tournelles,
+with its towers and gardens guarded by the Bastille; others to the
+Louvre or to the Pre-aux-clercs, and the fields by the river side;
+others would stroll up the hill of Montmartre; and some in boats would
+brave the dangers of the Seine! On other and sadder occasions, the
+inhabitants of the Rue St Denis would quit their houses in earnestly
+talking groups, and would adjourn to the open space in front of the
+Halles. Here, on the top of an octagonal tower, some twenty feet high,
+and covered with a conical spire, between the openings of pointed
+arches, might be seen criminals with their heads and hands protruding
+through the wooden collar of the pillory. The guard of the provost, or
+the lieutenant of police, would keep off the noisy throng below, and
+the goodwives would discuss among themselves the enormities of the
+coin-clipper, the cut-purse, the incendiary, or the unjust dealer, who
+were exposed on those occasions for their delinquencies; while the
+offenders themselves, would--a few of them--hang down their heads, and
+close their eyes in the unsufferable agony of shame; but by far the
+greater number would shout forth words of bold defiance or indecent
+ribaldry, would protrude the mocking tongue, or spit forth curses with
+dire volubility. Then would rise the shouts of _gamins_, then would
+come the thick volley of eggs, fish-heads, butcher's-offal, and all
+the garbage of the market, aimed unerringly by many a strenuous arm at
+the heads of the culprits; and then the soldiers with their
+pertuisanes would make quick work among the legs of the retreating
+crowd, and the jailers would apply the ready lash to the backs of the
+hardened criminals aloft; and thus, the hour's exhibition ended, and
+the "king's justice" satisfied, away would the criminals be led, some
+on a hurdle to Montfaucon, and there hung on its ample gibbet, amid
+the rattling bones of other wretches; some would be hurried back to
+the Chastelet, or other prisons; and others would be sent off to work,
+chained to the oars of the royal galleys.
+
+This was a common amusement of the idlers of this quarter: but the
+passions of the mob, if they needed stronger excitement, had to find a
+scene of horrid gratification on the Place de Greve, opposite the
+Hotel de Ville, where at rare intervals a heretic would be burnt, a
+murderer hung, or a traitor quartered; but this spot of bloody memory
+lies far from the Rue St Denis, and we are not now called upon to
+reveal its terrible recollections: let us turn back to our good old
+street.
+
+One of the most curious objects in it was the Church of the Innocents,
+with its adjoining cemetery, once the main place of interment for all
+the capital. The church lay at the north-eastern end of what is now
+the Marche des Innocents, and against it was erected the fountain
+which now adorns the middle of the market, and which was the work of
+the celebrated sculptor, Jean Goujon, and his colleague, the
+architect, Pierre Lescot. The former is said to have been seated at
+it, giving some last touches to one of the tall and graceful nymphs
+that adorn its high arched sides, on the day of the Massacre of St
+Bartholomew, when he was killed by a random shot from a Catholic
+zealot. The simple inscription which it still bears, FONTIUM NYMPHIS,
+is in better taste than that of any other among the numerous fountains
+of the French capital. The church itself (of which not the slightest
+vestige now remains) was not a good specimen of mediaeval architecture,
+although it was large and richly endowed. It was founded by Philip
+Augustus, when he ordered the Jews to be expelled from his dominions,
+and seized on their estates--one of the most nefarious actions
+committed by a monarch of France. The absurd accusation, that the Jews
+used periodically to crucify and torture Christian children, was one
+of the most plausible pretexts employed by the rapacious king on this
+occasion; and, as a kind of testimonial that such had been his excuse,
+he founded this church; dedicated it to the Holy Innocents; and
+transferred hither the remains of a boy, named Richard, said to have
+been sacrificed at Pontoise by some unfortunate Jews, who expiated the
+pretended crime by the most horrible torments. St Richard's remains,
+(for he was canonized,) worked numerous miracles in the Church of the
+Innocents, or rather in the churchyard, where a tomb was erected over
+them; and so great was their reputation, that tradition says, the
+English, on evacuating Paris in the 15th century, carried off with
+them all but the little saint's head. Certain it is, that nothing but
+the head remained amongst the relics of this parish; and equally
+certain is it, that no Christian innocents have been sacrificed by
+those "circumcised dogs" either before or since, whether in France or
+England, or any other part of the world. It remained for the dishonest
+credulity of the present century, to witness the disgraceful spectacle
+of a French consul at Damascus, assisting at the torturing of some
+Jewish merchants under a similar accusation, and assuring his
+government of his belief in the confessions extorted by these inhuman
+means; and of many a party journal in Paris accrediting and re-echoing
+the tale. Had not British humanity intervened in aid of British
+policy, France had made this visionary accusation the ground of an
+armed intervention in Syria. The false accusers of the Jews of
+Damascus have indeed been punished; but the French consul, the Count
+de Ratti-Menton, has since been rewarded by his government with a high
+promotion in the diplomatic department!
+
+Once more, "a truce to digression," let us see what the ancient
+cemetery of the Innocents was like. Round an irregular four-sided
+space, about five hundred feet by two, ran a low cloister-like
+building, called Les Charniers, or the Charnel Houses. It had
+originally been a cloister surrounding the churchyard; but, so
+convenient had this place of sepulture been found, from its situation
+in the heart of Paris, that the remains of mortality increased in most
+rapid proportion within its precincts, and it was continually found
+necessary to transfer the bones of long-interred, and long-forgotten
+bodies, to the shelter of the cloisters. Here, then, they were piled
+up in close order--the bones below and the skulls above; they reached
+in later times to the very rafters of these spacious cloisters all
+round, and heaps of skulls and bones lay in unseemly groups on the
+grass in the midst of the graveyard. At one corner of the church was a
+small grated window, where a recluse, like her of St Opportune, had
+worn away forty-six years of her life, after one year's confinement as
+a preparatory experiment; and within the church was a splendid brass
+tomb, commemorating this refinement of the monastic virtues. At
+various spots about the cemetery, were erected obelisks and crosses of
+different dates, while against the walls of the church and cloister
+were affixed, in motley and untidy confusion, unnumbered tablets and
+other memorials of the dead. The suppression of this cemetery, just at
+the commencement of the Revolution, was a real benefit to the capital;
+and when the contents of the yard and its charnel-houses were removed
+to the catacombs south of the city, it was calculated that the remains
+of two millions of human beings rattled down the deep shafts of the
+stone pits to their second interment. In place of the cemetery, we now
+find the wooden stalls of the Covent Garden of Paris; low, dirty,
+unpainted, ill-built, badly-drained, stinking, and noisy; and their
+tenants are not better than themselves. Like their neighbours, the
+famous Poissardes, the Dames de la Halle as they are styled, are the
+quintessence of all that is disgusting in Paris. Covent Garden is
+worth a thousand of such markets, and Pere la Chaise is an admirable
+substitute for the Cemetery of the Innocents.
+
+High up in the Rue de Faubourg St Denis, which is only a continuation
+of the main street, just as Knightsbridge is of Piccadilly, stand the
+remains of the great convent and _maladrerie_ of St Lazarus. In this
+religious house, all persons attacked with leprosy were received in
+former days, and either kept for life, if incurable, or else
+maintained until they were freed from that loathsome disease. From
+what cause we know not, (except that the House of St Lazarus was the
+nearest of any religious establishment to the walls of the capital,)
+the kings of France always made a stay of three days within its walls
+on their solemn inauguratory entrance into Paris, and their bodies
+always lay in state here before they were conveyed to the Abbey Church
+of St Denis. There was no lack of stiff ceremonial on these occasions;
+and, doubtless, the good fathers of the convent did not receive all
+the court within their walls without rubbing a little gold off the
+rich habits of the nobles. The king, on arriving at the Convent of St
+Lazare, proceeded to a part of the house allotted for this purpose,
+and called _Le Logis du Roy_, where, in a chamber of state, he took
+his seat beneath a canopy, surrounded by the princes of the
+blood-royal. The chancellor of France stood behind his majesty, to
+furnish him with replies to the different deputations that used to
+come with congratulatory addresses, and the receptions then commenced.
+They used to last from seven in the morning, without intermission,
+till four or five in the afternoon; there were the lawyers of the
+Chastelet, the Court of Aids, the Court of Accounts, and the
+Parliament, to say nothing of the city authorities and other
+constituted bodies. The addresses were no short unmeaning things, like
+those uttered in our poor cold times, but good long-winded harangues,
+some in French, some in Latin, and they went on, one after the other,
+for three days consecutively. On the third day, when the royal
+patience must have been wellnigh exhausted, and the chancellor's
+talents at reply worn tolerably threadbare, the king would rise, and
+mounting on horseback, would proceed to the cathedral church of Notre
+Dame, down the Rue St Denis. One of the best recorded of these royal
+entries is that of Louis XI. On this occasion, the king, setting out
+from a suburban residence in the Faubourg St Honore, got along the
+northern side of Paris to the Convent of St Lazare; and thence, after
+the delay and the harangues of the three days--the real original
+glorious three days of the French monarchy--proceeded to the Porte St
+Denis. Here a herald met the monarch, and after the keys of the city
+had been presented by the provost, with long speeches and replies, the
+former officer introduced to his majesty five young ladies, all richly
+clad, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, their housings bearing
+the arms of the city of Paris. Each young damsel represented an
+allegorical personage, and the initials of the names of their
+characters made up the word _Paris_. They each harangued the king, and
+their speeches, says an old chronicle, seemed "very agreeable" to the
+royal ears. Around the king, as he rode through the gateway, were the
+princes and highest nobles of the land--the Dukes of Orleans,
+Burgundy, Bourbon, and Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest son of
+the Duke of Burgundy; the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul, Dunois, and
+others; with, as a chronicle of the time relates, "autres comtes,
+barons, chevaliers, capitaines, et force noblesse, en tres bel ordre
+et posture." All of these were mounted on horses of price, richly
+caparisoned, and covered with the finest housings; some were of cloth
+of gold furred with sable, others were of velvet or damask furred with
+ermine; all were enriched with precious stones, and to many were
+attached bells of silver gilt, with other "enjolivements." Over the
+gateway was a large ship, the armorial bearing of the city, and within
+it were a number of allegorical personages, with one who represented
+Louis XI. himself; in the street immediately within the gate was a
+party of savages and satyrs, who executed a mock-fight in honour of
+the approach of royalty. A little lower down came forth a troop of
+young women representing syrens; an old chronicle calls them,
+"Plusieurs belles filles accoustrees en syrenes, nues, lesquelles, en
+faisant voir leur beau sein, chantoient de petits motets de bergeres
+fort doux et charmans." Near where these damsels stood was a fountain
+which had pipes running with milk, wine, and hypocras; at the side of
+the Church of the Holy Trinity was a _tableau-vivant_ of the Passion
+of our Saviour, including a crucified Christ and two thieves,
+represented, as the chronicle states, "par personnages sans parler." A
+little further on was a hunting party, with dogs and a hind, making a
+tremendous noise with hautboys and _cors-de-chasse_. The butchers on
+the open place near the Chastelet, had raised some lofty scaffolds,
+and on them had erected a representation of the Bastille or Chateau of
+Dieppe. Just as the king passed by, a desperate combat was going on
+between the French besieging this chateau and the English holding
+garrison within; "the latter," adds the chronicle, "having been taken
+prisoners, had all their throats cut." Before the gate of the
+Chastelet, there were the personifications of several illustrious
+heroes; and on the Pont-au-Change, which was carpeted below, hung with
+arms at the sides, and canopied above for the occasion, stood the
+fowlers with their two hundred dozens of birds, ready to fly them as
+soon as the royal charger should stamp on the first stone. Such was a
+royal entry in those days of iron rule.
+
+Before Louis XI.'s father, Charles VII., had any reasonable prospect
+of reigning in Paris as king, the English troops had to be driven out
+of the capital; and when the French forces had scaled the walls, and
+entered the city, A.D. 1436, the 1500 Englishmen who defended the
+place, had but little mercy shown them. Seeing that the game was lost,
+Sir H. Willoughby, captain of Paris, shut himself up with a part of
+the troops in the Bastille, accompanied by the Bishop of Therouenne,
+and Morhier, the provost of the city. The people rose to the cry of
+"Sainct Denys, Vive le noble Roy de France!" The constable of France,
+the Duke de Richemont, and the Bastard of Orleans, led them on; those
+troops that had been shut out of the Bastille, tried to make their way
+up the Rue St Denis, to the northern gateway, and so to escape on the
+road to Beauvais and England but the inhabitants stretched chains
+across the street, and men, women, and children, showered down upon
+them from the windows, chairs, tables, logs of wood, stones, and even
+boiling water; while others rushed in from behind and from the side
+streets, with arms in their hands, and the massacre of all the English
+fugitives ensued. A short time after, Sir H. Willoughby, and the
+garrison of the Bastille, not receiving succours from the commanders
+of the English forces, surrendered the fortress, and were allowed to
+retire to Rouen. As they marched out of Paris, the Bishop of
+Therouenne accompanied them, and the populace followed the troops,
+shouting out at the Bishop--"The fox! the fox!"--and at the English,
+"The tail! the tail!"
+
+Another departure of a foreign garrison from Paris, took place in
+1594, and this time in peaceable array, by the Rue St Denis. When
+Henry IV. had obtained possession of his capital, there remained in it
+a considerable body of Spanish troops, who had been sent into France
+to aid the chiefs of the League, and they were under the command of
+the Duke de Feria. The reaction in the minds of the Parisians, after
+the misery of their siege, had been too sudden and too complete, to
+give the Spaniards any hope of holding out against the king; a
+capitulation was therefore agreed upon, the foreign forces were
+allowed to march out with the honours of war, and they were escorted
+with their baggage as far as the frontier. The king and his principal
+officers took post within the rooms over the Porte St Denis--then a
+square turreted building, with a pointed and portcullised gate and
+drawbridge beneath--to see the troops march out, and he stationed
+himself at the window looking down the street. First came some
+companies of Neapolitan infantry, with drums beating, standards
+flying, arms on their shoulders, but without having their matches
+lighted. Then came the Spanish Guards, in the midst of whom were the
+Duke de Feria, Don Diego d'Ibara, and Don Juan Baptista Taxis, all
+mounted on spirited Spanish chargers; while behind them marched the
+battalions of the Lansquenets, and the Walloons. As each company came
+up to the gateway, the soldiers, marching by fours, raised their eyes
+to the king, took off their headpieces, and bowed; the officers did
+the same, and Henry returned the salutation with the greatest
+courtesy. He was particular in showing this politeness, in the most
+marked manner, to the Duke de Feria and his noble companions, and when
+they were within hearing, cried out aloud, "Recommend me to your
+master, but never show your faces here again!" Some of the more
+obnoxious members of the League were allowed to retire with the
+Spaniards; and in the evening, bonfires were lighted in all the
+streets, and the _Te Deum_ was sung on all the public places. The
+mediaeval glory of the Porte St Denis vanished in the time of Louis
+XIV., where he unfortified the city, which one of his successors has
+taken such pains again to imprison within stone walls, and the present
+triumphal arch was erected upon its site. This modern edifice, it is
+well known, served for the entrance of Charles X. from Rheims, and,
+shortly after, for a post whence the trumpery patriots of 1830
+contrived to annoy some of the cavalry who were fighting in the cause
+of the legitimacy and the true liberties of France. Many a barricade
+and many a skirmish has the Rue St Denis since witnessed!
+
+All the churches have disappeared from the Rue St Denis except that of
+St Leu and St Gilles, a small building of the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries: all the convents have been rased to the ground
+except that of St Lazare. To this a far different destination has been
+given from what it formerly enjoyed: it is now the great female prison
+of the capital; and within its walls all the bread required for the
+prisons of Paris is baked, all the linen is made and mended. The
+prison consists of three distinct portions: one allotted for carrying
+on the bread and linen departments: a second for the detention of
+female criminals before conviction, or for short terms of
+imprisonment; and in this various light manufactures, such as the
+making of baskets, straw-plait, and the red phosphorus-match boxes,
+are carried on: the third is an hospital and house of detention for
+the prostitutes of the capital. We were once taken all through this
+immense establishment by the governor, who had the kindness to
+accompany us, and to explain every thing in person--a favour not often
+granted to foreigners--and a strong impression did the scenes we then
+saw leave. In the first two departments every thing was gloomy,
+orderly, and quiet: the prisoners were much fewer than we had
+expected--not above two hundred--many of them, however, were mere
+children; but the matrons were good kind of women and the work of
+reformation was going on rapidly to counteract the effects of early
+crime. In the third, though equal strictness of conduct on the part of
+the superiors prevailed, the behaviour of the inmates subjected to
+control was far different. The great majority had been confined there
+as hospital patients, not as offenders against the law, and they were
+divided into wards, according to their sanatory condition. Here they
+were very numerous; and a melancholy thing it was to see hundreds of
+wretched creatures wandering about their spacious rooms, or sitting up
+in their beds, with haggard looks, dishevelled hair, hardly any
+clothing, and a sort of reckless gaiety in their manner that spoke
+volumes as to their real condition. The _regime_ of this
+prison-hospital is found, however, to be on the whole most salutary:
+the seeds of good are sown with a few; the public health, as well as
+the public morals, has been notably improved; and from the time when a
+young painter employed in the prison was decoyed into this portion of
+it and killed within a few hours, the occurrence of deeds of violence
+within its walls has been very rare.
+
+From the top of the Faubourg St Denis, all through the suburb of La
+Chapelle, the long line of modern habitations extends, without
+offering any points of historical interest. It is, indeed, a very
+commonplace, everyday kind of road, which hardly any Englishman that
+has jumbled along in the Messageries Royales can fail of recollecting.
+Nothing poetical, nothing romantic, was ever known to take place
+between the Barriere de St Denis and the town where the abbey stands.
+We know, however, of an odd occurrence upon this ground, towards the
+end of the thirteenth century, (we were not alive then, gentle
+reader,) strikingly illustrative of the superstition of the times. In
+1274, the church of St Gervais, in Paris, was broken into one night by
+some sacrilegious dog, who ran off with the golden pix, containing the
+consecrated wafer or host. Not thinking himself safe within the city,
+away he went for St Denis--got without the city walls in safety, and
+made off as fast as he could for the abbatial town. Before arriving
+there, he thought he would have a look at the contents of the precious
+vessel, when, on his opening the lid, out jumped the holy wafer, up it
+flew into the air over his head, and there it kept dodging about, and
+bobbing up and down, behind the affrightened thief, and following him
+wherever he went. He rushed into the town of St Denis, but there was
+the wafer coming after him, and just above his head; whichever way he
+turned, there was the flying wafer. It was now broad daylight, and
+some of the inhabitants perceived the miracle. This was immediately
+reported by them to the abbot of the monastery. The holy father and
+his monks sallied forth; all saw the wafer as plain as they saw each
+others' shaven crowns. The man was immediately arrested; the pix was
+found on him, and the abbot, as a feudal seigneur, having the right of
+life and death within his own fief, had him hung up to the nearest
+tree within five minutes. The abbot then sent word to the Bishop of
+Paris of what had occurred; and the prelate, attended by the curates
+and clergy of the capital, went to St Denis to witness the miracle.
+But wonders were not to cease; there they found the abbot and monks
+looking up into the air; there was the wafer sticking up somewhere
+under the sun, and none of them could devise how they were to get it
+down again. The monks began singing canticles and litanies; the
+Parisian clergy did the same; still the wafer would not move a hair's
+breadth. At last they resolved to adjourn to the Abbey Church; and so
+they formed themselves into procession, and stepped forwards. The
+monks had reached the abbey door, the bishop and his clergy were
+following behind, and the clergy of St Gervais were just under the
+spot where the wafer was suspended, when, _presto_, down it popped
+into the hands of the little red-nosed curate. "Its mine!" cried the
+curate: "I'll have it!" shouted the bishop: "I wish you may get it,"
+roared the abbot--and a regular scramble took place. But the little
+curate held his prize fast; his vicars stuck to him like good men and
+true; and they carried off their prize triumphant. The bishop and the
+abbot drew up a solemn memorial and covenant on the spot, whereby the
+wafer was legally consigned to its original consecrator and owner, the
+curate of St Gervais; and it was agreed that every 1st of September,
+the day of the miracle, a solemn office and procession of the Holy
+Sacrament should be celebrated within his church. The reverend father
+Du Breul, the grave historian of Paris, adds: "L'histoire du dit
+miracle est naifvement depeinte en une vitre de la chapelle Sainct
+Pierre d'icelle eglise, ou sont aussi quelques vers Francois,
+contenans partie d'icelle histoire."
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+
+In days of old it was the remark of more than one philosopher, that,
+if it were possible to exhibit virtue in a personal form, and clothed
+with attributes of sense, all men would unite in homage to her
+supremacy. The same thing is true of other abstractions, and
+especially of the powers which work by social change. Could these
+powers be revealed to us in any symbolic incarnation--were it possible
+that, but for one hour, the steadfast march of their tendencies, their
+promises, and their shadowy menaces, could be made apprehensible to
+the bodily eye--we should be startled, and oftentimes appalled, at the
+grandeur of the apparition. In particular, we may say that the advance
+of civilization, as it is carried forward for ever on the movement
+continually accelerated of England and France, were it less stealthy
+and inaudible than it is, would fix, in every stage, the attention of
+the inattentive and the anxieties of the careless. Like the fabulous
+music of the spheres, once allowed to break sonorously upon the human
+ear, it would render us deaf to all other sounds. Heard or not heard,
+however, marked or not marked, the rate of our advance is more and
+more portentous. Old things are passing away. Every year carries us
+round some obstructing angle, laying open suddenly before us vast
+reaches of fresh prospect, and bringing within our horizon new
+agencies by which civilization is henceforth to work, and new
+difficulties against which it is to work; other forces for
+co-operation, other resistances for trial. Meantime the velocity of
+these silent changes is incredibly aided by the revolutions, both
+moral and scientific, in the machinery of nations; revolutions by
+which knowledge is interchanged, power propagated, and the methods of
+communication multiplied. And the vast aerial arches by which these
+revolutions mount continually to the common zenith of Christendom, so
+as to force themselves equally upon the greatest of nations and the
+humblest, express the aspiring destiny by which, already and
+irresistibly, they are coming round upon all other tribes and families
+of men, however distant in position, or alien by system and
+organization. The nations of the planet, like ships of war
+man[oe]uvring prelusively to some great engagement, are silently
+taking up their positions, as it were, for future action and reaction,
+reciprocally for doing and suffering. And, in this ceaseless work of
+preparation or of noiseless combination, France and England are seen
+for ever in the van. Whether for evil or for good, they _must_ be in
+advance. And if it were possible to see the relative positions of all
+Christendom, its several divisions, expressed as if on the monuments
+of Persepolis by endless evolutions of cities in procession or of
+armies advancing, we should be awakened to the full solemnity of our
+duties by seeing two symbols flying aloft for ever in the head of
+nations--two recognizances for hope or for fear--the roses of England
+and the lilies of France.
+
+Reflections such as these furnish matter for triumphal gratulation,
+but also for great depression: and in the enormity of our joint
+responsibilities, we French and English have reason to forget the
+grandeur of our separate stations. It is fit that we should keep alive
+these feelings, and continually refresh them, by watching the
+everlasting motions of society, by sweeping the moral heavens for ever
+with our glasses in vigilant detection of new phenomena, and by
+calling to a solemn audit, from time to time, the national acts which
+are undertaken, or the counsels which in high places are avowed.
+
+Amongst these acts and these counsels none justify a more anxious
+attention than such as come forward in the senate. It is true that
+great revolutions may brood over us for a long period without
+awakening any murmur or echo in Parliament; of which we have an
+instance in Puseyism, which is a power of more ominous capacities than
+the gentleness of its motions would lead men to suspect, and is well
+fitted (as hereafter we may show) to effect a volcanic explosion--such
+as may rend the Church of England by schisms more extensive and
+shattering than those which have recently afflicted the Church of
+Scotland. Generally, however, Parliament becomes, sooner or later, a
+mirror to the leading phenomena of the times. These phenomena, to be
+valued thoroughly, must be viewed, indeed, from different stations and
+angles. But one of these aspects is that which they assume under the
+legislative revision of the people. It is more than ever requisite
+that each session of Parliament should be searched and reviewed in the
+capital features of its legislation. Hereafter we may attempt this
+duty more elaborately. For the present we shall confine ourselves to a
+hasty survey of some few principal measures in the late session which
+seem important to our social progress.
+
+We shall commence our review by the fewest possible words on the
+paramount nuisance of the day--viz. the corn-law agitation. This is
+that question which all men have ceased to think sufferable. This is
+that "mammoth" nuisance of our times by which "the gaiety of nations
+is eclipsed." We are thankful that its "damnable iterations" have now
+placed it beyond the limits of public toleration. No man hearkens to
+such debates any longer--no man reads the reports of such debates: it
+is become criminal to quote them; and recent examples of torpor beyond
+all torpor, on occasion of Cobden meetings amongst the inflammable
+sections of our population, have shown--that not the poorest of the
+poor are any longer to be duped, or to be roused out of apathy, by
+this intolerable fraud. Full of "gifts and lies" is the false fleeting
+Association of these Lancashire Cottoneers. But its gifts are too
+windy, and its lies are too ponderous. To the Association is "given a
+mouth speaking great things and blasphemies;" and out of this mouth
+issues "fire," it is true, against all that is excellent in the land,
+but also "smoke"--as the consummation of its overtures. During many
+reigns of the Caesars, a race of swindlers infested the Roman court,
+technically known as "sellers of smoke," and often punished under that
+name. They sold, for weighty considerations of gold, castles in the
+air, imaginary benefices, ideal reversions; and, in short, contracted
+wholesale or retail for the punctual delivery of unadulterated
+moonshine. Such a dealer, such a contractor, is the Anti-Corn-Law
+Association; and for such it has always been known amongst intelligent
+men. But its character has now diffused itself among the illiterate:
+and we believe it to be the simple truth at this moment, that every
+working man, whose attention has at any time been drawn to the
+question, is now ready to take his stand upon the following
+answer:--"We, that is our order, Mr Cobden, are not very strong in
+faith. Our faith in the Association is limited. So much, however, by
+all that reaches us, we are disposed to believe--viz. that ultimately
+you might succeed in reducing the price of a loaf, by three parts in
+forty-eight, which is one sixteenth; with what loss to our own landed
+order, and with what risk to the national security in times of war or
+famine, is no separate concern of ours. On the other hand, Mr Cobden,
+in _your_ order there are said to be knaves in ambush; and we take it,
+that the upshot of the change will be this: We shall save three
+farthings in a shilling's worth of flour; and the _honest_ men of your
+order--whom candour forbid that we should reckon at only twenty-five
+per cent on the whole--will diminish our wages simply by that same
+three farthings in a shilling; but the knaves (we are given to
+understand) will take an excuse out of that trivial change to deduct
+four, five, or six farthings; they will improve the occasion in
+evangelical proportions--some sixty-fold, some seventy, and some a
+hundred."
+
+This is the settled _practical_ faith of those hard-working men, who
+care not to waste their little leisure upon the theory of the
+corn-laws. It is this practical result only which concerns _us_; for
+as to the speculative logic of the case, as a question for economists,
+we, who have so often discussed it in this journal, (which journal, we
+take it upon us to say, has, from time to time, put forward or
+reviewed every conceivable argument on the corn question,) must really
+decline to re-enter the arena, and _actum agere_, upon any occasion
+ministered by Mr Cobden. Very frankly, we disdain to do so; and now,
+upon quitting the subject, we will briefly state why.
+
+Mr Cobden, as we hear and believe, is a decent man--that is to say,
+upon any ground not connected with politics; equal to six out of any
+ten manufacturers you will meet in the Queen's high road--whilst of
+the other four not more than three will be found conspicuously his
+superiors. He is certainly, in the senate, not what Lancashire rustics
+mean by a _hammil sconce_;[28] or, according to a saying often in the
+mouth of our French emigrant friends in former times, he "could not
+have invented the gun-powder, though perhaps he might have invented
+the hair-powder." Still, upon the whole, we repeat, that Mr Cobden is
+a decent man, wherever he is not very indecent. Is he therefore a
+decent man on this question of the corn-laws? So far from it, that we
+now challenge attention to one remarkable fact. All the world knows
+how much he has talked upon this particular topic; how he has
+itinerated on its behalf; how he has perspired under its business. Is
+there a fortunate county in England which has yet escaped his
+harangues? Does that happy province exist which has not reverberated
+his yells? Doubtless, not--and yet mark this: Not yet, not up to the
+present hour, (September 20, 1843,) has Mr Cobden delivered one
+argument properly and specially applicable to the corn question. He
+has uttered many things offensively upon the aristocracy; he has
+libelled the lawgivers; he has insulted the farmers; he has exhausted
+the artillery of _political_ abuse: but where is the _economic_
+artillery which he promised us, and which, (strange to say!) from the
+very dulness of his theme making it a natural impossibility to read
+him, most people are willing to suppose that he has, after one fashion
+or other, actually discharged. The Corn-League benefits by its own
+stupidity. Not being read, every leaguer has credit for having uttered
+the objections which, as yet, he never did utter. Hence comes the
+popular impression, that from Mr Cobden have emanated arguments, of
+some quality or other, against the existing system. True, there are
+arguments in plenty on the other side, and pretty notorious arguments;
+but, _pendente lite_, and until these opposite pleas are brought
+forward, it is supposed that the Cobden pleas have a brief provisional
+existence--they are good for the moment. Not at all. We repeat that,
+as to economic pleas, none of any kind, good or bad, have been placed
+on the record by any orator of that faction; whilst all other pleas,
+keen and personal as they may appear, are wholly irrelevant to any
+real point at issue. In illustration of what we say, one (and very
+much the most searching) of Mr Cobden's questions to the farmers, was
+this--"Was not the object," he demanded, "was not the very purpose of
+all corn-laws alike--simply to keep up the price of grain? Well; had
+the English corn-laws accomplished that object? Had they succeeded in
+that purpose? Notoriously they had not; confessedly they had failed;
+and every farmer in the corn districts would avouch that often he had
+been brought to the brink of ruin by prices ruinously low." Now, we
+pause not to ask, why, if the law already makes the prices of corn
+ruinously low, any association can be needed to make it lower? What we
+wish to fix attention upon, is this assumption of Mr Cobden's, many
+times repeated, that the known object and office of our corn-law,
+under all its modifications, has been to elevate the price of our
+corn; to sustain it at a price to which naturally it could not have
+ascended. Many sound speculators on this question we know to have been
+seriously perplexed by this assertion of Mr Cobden's; and others, we
+have heard, not generally disposed to view that gentleman's doctrines
+with favour, who insist upon it, that, in mere candour, we must grant
+this particular postulate. "Really," say they, "_that_ cannot be
+refused him; the law _was_ for the purpose he assigns; its final cause
+_was_, as he tells us, to keep up artificially the price of our
+domestic corn-markets. So far he is right. But his error commences in
+treating this design as an unfair one, and, secondly, in denying that
+it has been successful. It _has_ succeeded; and it ought to have
+succeeded. The protection sought for our agriculture was no more than
+it merited; and that protection has been faithfully realized."
+
+    [28] A _hammil sconce_, or light of the hamlet, is the
+    picturesque expression in secluded parts of Lancashire
+    for the local wise man, or village counsellor.
+
+We, however, vehemently deny Mr Cobden's postulate _in toto_. He is
+wrong, not merely as others are wrong in the principle of refusing
+this protection, not merely on the question of fact as to the reality
+of this protection, (to enter upon which points would be to adopt that
+hateful discussion which we have abjured;) but, above all, he is wrong
+in assigning to corn-laws, as their end and purpose, an absolute
+design of sustaining prices. To raise prices is an occasional means of
+the corn-laws, and no end at all. In one word, what _is_ the end of
+the corn-laws? It is, and ever has been, to equalize the prospects of
+the farmer from year to year, with the view, and generally with the
+effect, of drawing into the agricultural service of the nation, as
+nearly as possible, the same amount of land at one time as at another.
+This is the end; and this end is paramount. But the means to that end
+must lie, according to the accidents of the case, alternately through
+moderate increase of price, or moderate diminution of price. The
+besetting oversight, in this instance, is the neglect of the one great
+peculiarity affecting the manufacture of corn--viz. its inevitable
+oscillation as to quantity, consequently as to price, under the
+variations of the seasons. People talk, and encourage mobs to think,
+that Parliaments cause, and that Parliaments could heal if they
+pleased, the evil of fluctuation in grain. Alas! the evil is as
+ancient as the weather, and, like the disease of poverty, will cleave
+to society for ever. And the way in which a corn-law--that is, a
+restraint upon the free importation of corn--affects the case, is
+this:--Relieving the domestic farmer from that part of his anxiety
+which points to the competition of foreigners, it confines it to the
+one natural and indefeasible uncertainty lying in the contingencies of
+the weather. Releasing him from all jealousy of man, it throws him, in
+singleness of purpose, upon an effort which cannot be disappointed,
+except by a power to which, habitually, he bows and resigns himself.
+Secure, therefore, from all superfluous anxieties, the farmer enjoys,
+from year to year, a pretty equal encouragement in distributing the
+employments of his land. If, through the dispensations of Providence,
+the quantity of his return falls short, he knows that some rude
+indemnification will arise in the higher price. If, in the opposite
+direction, he fears a low price, it comforts him to know that this
+cannot arise for any length of time but through some commensurate
+excess in quantity. This, like other severities of a natural or
+general system, will not, and cannot, go beyond a bearable limit. The
+high price compensates grossly the defect of quantity; the overflowing
+quantity in turn compensates grossly the low price. And thus it
+happens that, upon any cycle of ten years, taken when you will, the
+manufacture of grain will turn out to have been moderately profitable.
+Now, on the other hand, under a system of free importation, whenever a
+redundant crop in England coincides (as often it does) with a similar
+redundancy in Poland, the discouragement cannot but become immoderate.
+An excess of one-seventh will cause a fall of price by three-sevenths.
+But the simultaneous excess on the Continent may raise the one-seventh
+to two-sevenths, and in a much greater proportion will these depress
+the price. The evil will then be enormous; the discouragement will be
+ruinous; much capital, much land, will be withdrawn from the culture
+of grain; and, supposing a two years' succession of such excessive
+crops, (which effect is more common than a single year's excess,) the
+result, for the third year, will be seen in a preternatural
+deficiency; for, by the supposition, the number of acres applied to
+corn is now very much less than usual, under the unusual
+discouragement; and according to the common oscillations of the season
+according to those irregularities that, in effect, are often found to
+be regular--this third year succeeding to redundant years may be
+expected to turn out a year of scarcity. Here, then, in the absence of
+a corn-law, comes a double deficiency--a deficiency of acres applied,
+from jealousy of foreign competition, and upon each separate acre a
+deficiency of crop, from the nature of the weather. What will be the
+consequence? A price ruinously high; higher beyond comparison than
+could ever have arisen under a temperate restriction of competition;
+that is, in other words, under a British corn-law.
+
+Many other cases might be presented to the reader, and especially
+under the action of a doctrine repeatedly pressed in this journal,
+but steadily neglected elsewhere--viz. the "_devolution_" of foreign
+agriculture upon lower qualities of land, (and consequently its
+_permanent_ exaltation in price,) in case of any certain demand on
+account of England. But this one illustration is sufficient. Here we
+see that, under a free trade in corn, and _in consequence_ of a free
+trade, ruinous enhancements of price would arise--such in magnitude as
+never could have arisen under a wise limitation of foreign
+competition. And further, we see that under our present system no
+enhancement is, or could be, _absolutely_ injurious; it might be so
+_relatively_--it might be so in relation to the poor consumer; but in
+the mean time, that guinea which might be lost to the consumer would
+be gained to the farmer. Now, in the case supposed, under a free corn
+trade the rise is commensurate to the previous injury sustained by the
+farmer; and much of the extra bonus reaped goes to a foreign interest.
+What we insist upon, however, is this one fact, that alternately the
+British corn-laws have raised the price of grain and have sunk it;
+they have raised the price in the case where else there would have
+been a ruinous depreciation--ruinous to the prospects of succeeding
+years; they have sunk it under the natural and usual oscillations of
+weather to be looked for in these succeeding years. And each way their
+action has been most moderate. For let not the reader forget, that on
+the system of a sliding-scale, this action cannot be otherwise than
+moderate. Does the price rise? Does it threaten to rise higher?
+Instantly the very evil redresses itself. As the evil, _i.e._ the
+price, increases, in that exact proportion does it open the gate to
+relief; for exactly so does the duty fall. Does the price fall
+ruinously?--(in which case it is true that the _instant_ sufferer is
+the farmer; but through him, as all but the short-sighted must see,
+the consumer will become the reversionary sufferer)--immediately the
+duty rises, and forbids an accessary evil from abroad to aggravate the
+evil at home. So gentle and so equable is the play of those weights
+which regulate our whole machinery, whilst the late correction applied
+even here by Sir Robert Peel, has made this gentle action still
+gentler; so that neither of the two parties--consumers who to live
+must buy, growers who to live must sell--can, by possibility, feel an
+incipient pressure before it is already tending to relieve itself. It
+is the very perfection of art to make a malady produce its own
+medicine--an evil its own relief. But that which here we insist on,
+is, that it never _was_ the object of our own corn-laws to increase
+the price of corn; secondly, that the real object was a condition of
+equipoise which abstractedly is quite unconnected with either rise of
+price or fall of price; and thirdly, that, as a matter of fact, our
+corn-laws have as often reacted to lower the price, as directly they
+have operated to raise it; whilst eventually, and traced through
+succeeding years, equally the raising and the lowering have
+co-operated to that steady temperature (or nearest approximation to it
+allowed by nature) which is best suited to a _comprehensive_ system of
+interests. Accursed is that man who, in speaking upon so great a
+question, will seek, or will consent, to detach the economic
+considerations of that question from the higher political
+considerations at issue. Accursed is that man who will forget the
+noble yeomanry we have formed through an agriculture chiefly domestic,
+were it even true that so mighty a benefit had been purchased by some
+pecuniary loss. But this it is which we are now denying. We affirm
+peremptorily, and as a fact kept out of sight only by the neglect of
+pursuing the case through a succession of years under the _natural_
+fluctuation of seasons, that, upon the series of the last seventy
+years, viewed as a whole, we have paid less for our corn by means of
+the corn-laws, than we should have done in the absence of such laws.
+It was, says Mr Cobden, the purpose of such laws to make corn dear; it
+is, says he, the effect, to make it cheap. Yes, in the last clause his
+very malice drove him into the truth. Speaking to farmers, he found it
+requisite to assert that they had been injured; and as he knew of no
+injury to them other than a low price, _that_ he postulated at the
+cost of his own logic, and quite forgetting that if the farmer had
+lost, the consumer must have gained in that very ratio. Rather than
+not assert a failure _quoad_ the intention of the corn-laws, he
+actually asserts a national benefit _quoad_ the result. And, in a
+rapture of malice to the lawgivers, he throws away for ever, at one
+victorious sling, the total principles of an opposition to the
+law.[29]
+
+    [29] Those who fancy a possible evasion of the case
+    supposed above, by saying, that if a failure, extensive
+    as to England, should coincide with a failure extensive
+    as to Poland, remedies might be found in importing from
+    many other countries combined, forget one objection,
+    which is decisive--these supplementary countries must be
+    many, and they must be distant. For no country could
+    singly supply a defect of great extent, unless it were a
+    defect annually and regularly anticipated. A surplus
+    never designed as a fixed surplus for England, but
+    called for only now and then, could never be more than
+    small. Therefore the surplus, which could not be yielded
+    by one country, must be yielded by many. In that
+    proportion increase the probabilities that a number will
+    have no surplus. And, secondly, from the widening
+    distances, in that proportion increases the extent of
+    shipping required. But now, even from Mr Porter, a most
+    prejudiced writer on this question, and not capable of
+    impartiality in speaking upon any measure which he
+    supposes hostile to the principle of free trade, the
+    reader may learn how certainly any great _hiatus_ in our
+    domestic growth of corn is placed beyond all hope of
+    relief. For how is this grain, this relief, to be
+    brought? In ships, you reply. Ay, but in what ships? Do
+    you imagine that an extra navy can lie rotting in docks,
+    and an extra fifty thousand of sailors can be held in
+    reserve, and borne upon the books of some colossal
+    establishment, waiting for the casual seventh, ninth, or
+    twelfth year in which they may be wanted--kept and paid
+    against an "_in case_," like the extra supper, so called
+    by Louis XIV., which waited all night on the chance that
+    it might be wanted? _That_, you say, is impossible. It
+    is so; and yet without such a reserve, all the navies of
+    Europe would not suffice to make up such a failure of
+    our home crops as is likely enough to follow redundant
+    years under the system of unlimited competition.--See
+    PORTER.
+
+But enough, and more than enough, of THE nuisance. It will be
+expected, however, that we should notice two collateral points, both
+wearing an air of the marvellous, which have grown out of the nuisance
+during the recent session. One is the relaxation of our laws with
+respect to Canadian corn; a matter of no great importance in itself,
+but furnishing some reasons for astonishment in regard to the
+disproportioned opposition which it has excited. Undoubtedly the
+astonishment is well justified, if we view the measure for what it was
+really designed by the minister--viz. as a momentary measure, suited
+merely to the _current_ circumstances of our relation to Canada. Long
+before any evil can arise from it, through changes in these
+circumstances, the law will have been modified. Else, and having,
+regard to the remote contingencies of the case (possible or probable)
+rather than to its instant certainties, we are disposed to think, that
+the irritation which this little anomalous law has roused amongst some
+of the landholders, is not quite so unaccountable, or so
+disproportionate, as the public have been taught to imagine. True it
+is, that for the present, _lis est de paupere regno_. Any surplus of
+grain which, at this moment, Canada could furnish, must be quite as
+powerless upon our home markets, as the cattle, living or salted which
+have been imported under the tariff in 1842 and 1843. But the fears of
+Canada potentially, were not therefore unreasonable, because the
+actual Canada is not in a condition for instantly using her new
+privileges. Corn, that hitherto had not been grown, both may be grown,
+and certainly will be grown, as soon as the new motive for growing it,
+the new encouragement, becomes operatively known. Corn, again, that
+from local difficulties did not find its way to eastern markets, will
+do so by continual accessions, swelling gradually into a powerful
+stream, as the many improvements of the land and water communication,
+now contemplated, or already undertaken, come into play. Another fear
+connects itself with possible evasions of the law by the United
+States. Cross an imaginary frontier line, and _that_ will become
+Canadian which was not Canadian by its origin. We are told, indeed,
+that merely by its bulk, grain will always present an obstacle to any
+extensive system of smuggling. But obstacles are not impossibilities.
+And these obstacles, it must be remembered, are not founded in the
+vigilance of revenue officers, but simply in the cost; an element of
+difficulty which is continually liable to change. So that upon the
+whole, and as applying to the reversions of the case, rather than to
+its present phenomena, undoubtedly there _are_ dangers a-head to our
+own landed interest from that quarter of the horizon. For the present,
+it should be enough to say, that these dangers are yet remote. And
+perhaps it _would_ have been enough under other circumstances. But it
+is the tendency of the bill which suggests alarm. All changes in our
+day tend to the consummation of free trade: and this measure,
+travelling in that direction, reasonably becomes suspicious by its
+principle, though innocent enough by its immediate operation.
+
+The other point connected with the corn question is personal. Among
+the many motions and notices growing out of the dispute, which we hold
+it a matter of duty to neglect, was one brought forward by Lord John
+Russell. Upon what principle, or with what object? Strange to say, he
+refused to explain. That it must be some modification applied to a
+fixed duty, every body knew; but of what nature Lord John declined to
+tell us, until he should reach a committee which he had no chance of
+obtaining. This affair, which surprised every body, is of little
+importance as regards the particular subject of the motion. But in a
+more general relation, it is worthy of attention. No man interested in
+the character and efficiency of Parliament, can fail to wish that
+there may always exist a strong opposition, vigilant, bold,
+unflinching, full of partizanship, if you will, but uniformly
+suspending the partizanship at the summons of paramount national
+interests, and acting harmoniously upon some systematic plan. How
+little the present unorganized opposition answers to this description,
+it is unnecessary to say. The nation is ashamed of a body so
+determinately below its functions. But Lord John Russell is
+individually superior to his party. He is a man of sense, of
+information, and of known official experience. Now, if he, so
+notoriously the wise man of "her Majesty's Opposition," is capable of
+descending to harlequin caprices of this extreme order, the nation
+sees with pain, that a constitutional function of control is extinct
+in our present senate, and that her Majesty's Ministers must now be
+looked to as their own controllers. With the levity of a child, Lord
+John makes a motion, which, if adopted, would have landed him in
+defeat; but through utter want of judgment and concert with his party,
+he does not get far enough to be defeated: he does not succeed in
+obtaining the prostration for which he man[oe]uvres; but is saved from
+a final exposure of his little statesmanship by universal mockery of
+his miserable partizanship. Alas for the times in which Burke and Fox
+wielded the forces of Parliamentary opposition, and redoubled the
+energies of Government by the energies of their enlightened
+resistance!
+
+In quitting the subject of the corn agitation, (obstinately pursued
+through the session,) we may remark--and we do so with pain--that all
+laws whatsoever, strong or lax, upon this question are to be regarded
+as provisional. The temper of society being what it is, some small
+gang of cotton-dealers, moved by the rankest self-interest, finding
+themselves suffered to agitate almost without opposition, and the
+ancient landed interest of the country, if not silenced, being silent,
+it is felt by all parties that no law, in whatever direction, upon
+this great problem, can have a chance of permanence. The natural
+revenge which we may promise ourselves is--that the lunacies of the
+free-trader, when acted upon, as too surely they will be, may prove
+equally fugitive. Meantime, it is not by provisional acts, or acts of
+sudden emergency, that we estimate the service of a senate. It is the
+solemn and deliberate laws, those which are calculated for the wear
+and tear of centuries, which hold up a mirror to the legislative
+spirit of the times.
+
+Of laws bearing this character, if we except the inaugural essays at
+improving the law of libel, and at founding a system of national
+education, of which the latter has failed for the present in a way
+fitted to cause some despondency, the last session offers us no
+conspicuous example, beyond the one act of Lord Aberdeen for healing
+and tranquillizing the wounds of the Scottish church. Self-inflicted
+these wounds undeniably were; but they were not the less severe on
+that account, nor was the contagion of spontaneous martyrdom on that
+account the less likely to spread. In reality, the late astonishing
+schism in the Scottish church (astonishing because abrupt) is, in one
+respect, without precedent. Every body has heard of persecutions that
+were courted; but in such a case, at least, the spirit of persecution
+must have had a local existence, and to some extent must have uttered
+menaces--or how should those menaces have been defied? Now, the
+"persecutions," before which a large section of the Scottish church
+has fallen by an act of spontaneous martyrdom, were not merely
+needlessly defied, but were originally self-created; they were evoked,
+like phantoms and shadows, by the martyrs themselves, out of blank
+negations. Without provocation _ab extra_, without warning on their
+own part, suddenly they place themselves in an attitude of desperate
+defiance to the known law of the land. The law firmly and tranquilly
+vindicates itself; the whole series of appeals is threaded; the
+original judgment, as a matter of course, is finally re-affirmed--and
+this is the persecution insinuated; whilst the necessity of complying
+with that decision, which does not express any novelty even to the
+extent of a new law, but simply the ordinary enforcement of an old
+one, is the kind of martyrdom resulting. The least evil of this
+fantastic martyrdom, is the exit from the pastoral office of so many
+persons trained, by education and habit, to the effectual performance
+of the pastoral duties. That loss--though not without signal
+difficulty, from the abruptness of the summons--will be supplied. But
+there is a greater evil which cannot be healed--the breach of unity in
+the church. The scandal, the offence, the occasion of unhappy
+constructions upon the doctrinal soundness of the church, which have
+been thus ministered to the fickle amongst her own children--to the
+malicious amongst her enemies, are such as centuries do not easily
+furnish, and centuries do not remove. In all Christian churches alike,
+the conscientiousness which is the earliest product of heartfelt
+religion, has suggested this principle, that schism, for any cause, is
+a perilous approach to sin; and that, unless in behalf of the
+weightiest interests or of capital truths, it is inevitably criminal.
+And in connexion with this consideration, there arise two scruples to
+all intelligent men upon this crisis in the Scottish church, and they
+are scruples which at this moment, we are satisfied, must harass the
+minds of the best men amongst the seceders--viz. First, whether the
+new points contended for, waiving all controversy upon their abstract
+doctrinal truth, are really such, in _practical_ virtue, that it could
+be worth purchasing them at the cost of schism? Secondly, supposing a
+good man to have decided this question in the affirmative for a young
+society of Christians, for a church in its infancy, which, as yet,
+might not have much to lose in credit or authentic influence--whether
+the same free license of rupture and final secession _could_ belong to
+an ancient church, which had received eminent proofs of Divine favour
+through a long course of spiritual prosperity almost unexampled?
+Indeed, this last question might suggest another paramount to the
+other two--viz. not whether the points at issue were weighty enough to
+justify schism and hostile separation, but whether those points could
+even be safe as mere speculative _credenda_, which, through so long a
+period of trial, and by so memorable a harvest of national services,
+had been shown to be unnecessary?
+
+Very sure we are, that no eminent servant of the Scottish church could
+abandon, without anguish of mind, the multitude of means and channels,
+that great machinery for dispensing living truths, which the power and
+piety of the Scottish nation have matured through three centuries of
+pure Christianity militant. Solemn must have been the appeal, and
+searching, which would force its way to the conscience on occasion of
+taking the last step in so sad an _exodus_ from the Jerusalem of his
+fathers. Anger and irritation can do much to harden the obduracy of
+any party conviction, especially whilst in the centre of fiery
+partisans. But sorrow, in such a case, is a sentiment of deeper
+vitality than anger; and this sorrow for the result will co-operate
+with the original scruples on the casuistry of the questions, to
+reproduce the demur and the struggle many times over, in consciences
+of tender sensibility.
+
+Exactly for men in this state of painful collision with their own
+higher nature, is Lord Aberdeen's bill likely to furnish the bias
+which can give rest to their agitations, and firmness to their
+resolutions. The bill, according to some, is too early, and, according
+to others, too late. Why too early? Because, say they, it makes
+concessions to the church, which as yet are not proved to be called
+for. These concessions travel on the very line pursued by the
+seceders, and must give encouragement to that spirit of religious
+movement which it has been found absolutely requisite to rebuke by
+acts of the legislature. Why, on the other hand, is Lord Aberdeen's
+bill too late? Because, three years ago, it would, or it might, have
+prevented the secession. But is this true? Could this bill have
+prevented the secession? We believe not. Lord Aberdeen, undoubtedly,
+himself supposes that it might. But, granting that this were true,
+whose fault is it that a three years' delay has intercepted so happy a
+result? Lord Aberdeen assures us that the earlier success of the bill
+was defeated entirely by the resistance of the Government at that
+period, and chiefly by the personal resistance of Lord Melbourne. Let
+that minister be held responsible, if any ground has been lost that
+could have been peacefully pre-occupied against the schism. This,
+however, seems to us a chimera. For what is it that the bill concedes?
+Undoubtedly it restrains and modifies the right of patronage. It
+grants a larger discretion to the ecclesiastical courts than had
+formerly been exercised by the usage. Some contend, that in doing so
+the bill absolutely alters the law as it stood heretofore, and ought,
+therefore, to be viewed as enactory; whilst others maintain that is
+simply a declaratory bill, not altering the law at all, but merely
+expressing, in fuller or in clearer terms, what had always been law,
+though silently departed from by the usage, which, from the time of
+Queen Anne, had allowed a determinate preponderance to the rights of
+property in the person of the patron. Those, indeed, who take the
+former view, contending that it enacts a new principle of law, very
+much circumscribing the old right of patronage, insist upon it that
+the bill virtually revokes the decision of the Lords in the
+Auchterarder case. Technically and formally speaking, this is not
+true; for the presbytery, or other church court, is now tied up to a
+course of proceeding which at Auchterarder was violently evaded. The
+court cannot now peremptorily challenge the nominee in the arbitrary
+mode adopted in that instance. An examination must be instituted
+within certain prescribed limits. But undoubtedly the contingent power
+of the church court, in the case of the nominee not meeting the
+examination satisfactorily, is much larger now, under the new bill,
+than it was under the old practice; so that either this practice must
+formerly have swerved from the letter of the law, or else the new law,
+differing from the old, is really more than declaratory. Yet, however
+this may be, it is clear that the jurisdiction of the church in the
+matter of patronage, however ample it may seem as finally ascertained
+or created by the new bill, falls far within the extravagant outline
+marked out by the seceders. We argue, therefore, that it could not
+have prevented their secession even as regards that part of their
+pretensions; whilst, as regards the monstrous claim to decide in the
+last resort what shall be civil and what spiritual--that is, in a
+question of clashing jurisdiction, to settle on their own behalf where
+shall fall the boundary line--it may be supposed that Lord Aberdeen
+would no more countenance their claim in any point of practice, than
+all rational legislators would countenance it as a theory. How,
+therefore, could this bill have prevented the rent in the church, so
+far as it has yet extended? On the other hand, though apparently
+powerless for that effect, it is well calculated to prevent a second
+secession. Those who are at all disposed to follow the first seceders,
+stand in this situation. By the very act of adhering to the
+Establishment when the _ultra_ party went out, they made it abundantly
+manifest that they do not go to the same extreme in their
+requisitions. But, upon any principle which falls short of that
+extreme being at all applicable to this church question, it is certain
+that Lord Aberdeen's measure will be found to satisfy their wishes;
+for that measure, if it errs at all, errs by conceding too much rather
+than too little. It sustains all objections to a candidate on their
+own merit, without reference to the quarter from which they arise, so
+long as they are relevant to the proper qualifications of a parish
+clergyman. It gives effect to every argument that can reasonably be
+urged against a nominee--either generally, on the ground of his moral
+conduct, his orthodoxy, and his intellectual attainments; or
+specially, in relation to his fitness for any local varieties of the
+situation. A Presbyterian church has always been regarded as, in some
+degree, leaning to a republican character, but a republic may be
+either aristocratic or democratic: now, Lord Aberdeen has favoured the
+democratic tendency of the age by making the probationary examination
+of the candidate as much of a popular examination, and as open to the
+impression of objections arising with the body of the people, as could
+be done with any decent regard either to the rights yet recognised in
+the patron, or, still more, to the professional dignity of the
+clerical order.
+
+Upon the whole, therefore, we look upon Lord Aberdeen as a national
+benefactor, who has not only turned aside a current running headlong
+into a revolution, but in doing this exemplary service, has contrived
+to adjust the temperament very equitably between, 1st, the individual
+nominee, having often his livelihood at stake; 2dly, the patron,
+exercising a right of property interwoven with our social system, and
+not liable to any usurpation which would not speedily extend itself to
+other modes of property; 3dly, the church, considered as the trustee
+or responsible guardian of orthodoxy and sound learning; 4thly, the
+same church considered as a professional body, and, therefore, as
+interested in upholding the dignity of each individual clergyman, and
+his immunity from frivolous cavils, however much against him they are
+interested in detecting his insufficiency; and, 5thly, the body of the
+congregation, as undoubtedly entitled to have the qualifications of
+their future pastor rigorously investigated. All these separate
+claims, embodied in five distinct parties, Lord Aberdeen has
+delicately balanced and fixed in a temperate equipoise by the
+machinery of his bill. Whilst, if we enquire for the probable effects
+of this bill upon the interests of pure and spiritual religion, the
+promise seems every way satisfactory. The Jacobinical and precipitous
+assaults of the Non-intrusionists upon the rights of property are
+summarily put down. A great danger is surmounted. For if the rights of
+patrons were to be arbitrarily trampled under foot on a pretence of
+consulting for the service of religion; on the next day, with the same
+unprincipled levity, another party might have trampled on the
+patrimonial rights of hereditary descent, on primogeniture, or any
+institution whatever, opposed to the democratic fanaticism of our age.
+No patron can now thrust an incompetent or a vicious person upon the
+religious ministrations of the land. It must be through their own
+defect of energy, if any parish is henceforth burdened with an
+incumbent reasonably obnoxious. It must be the fault of the presbytery
+or other church court, if the orthodox standards of the church are not
+maintained in their purity. It must be through his own fault, or his
+own grievous defects, if any qualified candidate for the church
+ministry is henceforth vexatiously rejected. It must be through some
+scandalous oversight in the selection of presentees, if any patron is
+defeated of his right to present.
+
+Contrast with these great services the menaces and the tendencies of
+the Non-Intrusionists, on the assumption that they had kept their
+footing in the church. It may be that, during this generation, from
+the soundness of the individual partisans, the orthodox standards of
+the church would have been maintained as to doctrine. But all the
+other parties interested in the church, except the church herself, as
+a depositary of truth, would have been crushed at one blow. This is
+apparent, except only with regard to the congregation of each parish.
+That body, it may be thought, could not but have benefited by the
+change; for the very motive and the pretence of the movement arose on
+their behalf. But mark how names disguise facts, and to what extent a
+virtual hostility may lurk under an apparent protection. Lord
+Aberdeen, because he limits the right of the congregation, is supposed
+to destroy it; but in the mean time he secures to every parish in
+Scotland a true and effectual influence, so far as that body ought to
+have it, (that is, _negatively_,) upon the choice of its pastor. On
+the other hand, the whole storm of the Non-intrusionists was pointed
+at those who refused to make the choice of a pastor altogether
+popular. It was the people, considered as a congregation, who ought
+to appoint the teacher by whom they were to be edified. So far, the
+party of seceders come forward as martyrs to their democratic
+principles. And they drew a colourable sanction to their democracy
+from the great names of Calvin, Zuinglius, and John Knox. Unhappily
+for them, Sir William Hamilton has shown, by quotations the most
+express and absolute from these great authorities, that no such
+democratic appeal as the Non-intrusionists have presumed, was ever
+contemplated for an instant by any one amongst the founders of the
+Reformed churches. That Calvin, whose jealousy was so inexorable
+towards princes and the sons of princes--that John Knox, who never
+"feared the face of man that was born of woman"--were these great
+Christian champions likely to have flinched from installing a popular
+tribunal, had they believed it eligible for modern times, or warranted
+by ancient times? In the learning of the question, therefore,
+Non-intrusionists showed themselves grossly wrong. Meantime it is
+fancied that at least they were generously democratic, and that they
+manifested their disinterested love of justice by creating a popular
+control that must have operated chiefly against their own clerical
+order. What! is that indeed so? Now, finally, take another instance
+how names belie facts. The people _were_ to choose their ministers;
+the council for election of the pastor _was_ to be a popular council
+abstracted from the congregation: but how? but under what conditions?
+but by whom abstracted? Behold the subtle design:--This pretended
+congregation was a small faction; this counterfeit "people" was the
+petty gathering of COMMUNICANTS; and the communicants were in effect
+within the appointment of the clergyman. They formed indirectly a
+secret committee of the clergy. So that briefly, Lord Aberdeen, whilst
+restraining the popular courts, gives to them a true popular
+authority; and the Non-intrusionists, whilst seeming to set up a
+democratic idol, do in fact, by dexterous ventriloquism, throw their
+own all-potential voice into its passive organs.
+
+We may seem to owe some apology to our readers for the space which we
+have allowed to this great moral _emeute_ in Scotland. But we hardly
+think so ourselves. For in our own island, and in our own times,
+nothing has been witnessed so nearly bordering on a revolution.
+Indeed, it is painful to hear Dr Chalmers, since the secession,
+speaking of the Scottish aristocracy in a tone of scornful hatred, not
+surpassed by the most Jacobinical language of the French Revolution in
+the year 1792. And, if this movement had not been checked by
+Parliament, and subsequently by the executive Government, in its
+comprehensive provision for the future, by the measure we have been
+reviewing, we cannot doubt that the contagion of the shock would have
+spread immediately to England, which part of the island has been long
+prepared and manured, as we might say, for corresponding struggles, by
+the continued conspiracy against church-rates. In both cases, an
+attack on church property, once allowed to prosper or to gain any
+stationary footing, would have led to a final breach in the life and
+serviceable integrity of the church.
+
+Of the Factory bill, we are sorry that we are hardly entitled to
+speak. In the loss of the educational clauses, that bill lost all
+which could entitle it to a separate notice; and, where the Government
+itself desponds as to any future hope of succeeding, private parties
+may have leave to despair. One gleam of comfort, however, has shone
+out since the adjournment of Parliament. The only party to the bitter
+resistance under which this measure failed, whom we can sincerely
+compliment with full honesty of purpose--viz. the Wesleyan
+Methodists--have since expressed (about the middle of September)
+sentiments very like compunction and deep sorrow for the course they
+felt it right to pursue. They are fully aware of the malignity towards
+the Church of England, which governed all other parties to the
+opposition excepting themselves; and in the sorrowful result of that
+opposition, which has terminated in denying all extension of education
+to the labouring youth of the nation, they have learned (like the
+conscientious men that they are) to suspect the wisdom and the
+ultimate principle of the opposition itself. Fortunately, they are a
+most powerful body; to express regret for what they have done, and
+hesitation at the casuistry of those motives which reconciled them to
+their act at the moment is possibly but the next step to some change
+in their counsels; in which case this single body, in alliance with
+the Church of England, would be able to carry the great measure which
+has been crushed for the present by so unexampled a resistance. Much
+remains to be said, both upon the introductory statements of Lord
+Ashley, with which (in spite of our respect for that nobleman) we do
+not coincide, and still more upon the extensive changes, and the
+_principles_ of change, which must be brought to bear upon a national
+system of education, before it can operate with that large effect of
+benefit which so many anticipate from its adoption. But this is ample
+matter for a separate discussion.
+
+Lastly, let us notice the Irish Arms' bill; which, amongst the
+measures framed to meet the momentary exigence of the times, stands
+foremost in importance. This is one of those fugitive and casual
+precautions, which, by intense seasonableness, takes its rank amongst
+the permanent means of pacification. Bridling the instant spirit of
+uproar, carrying the Irish nation over that transitional state of
+temptation, which, being once gone by, cannot, we believe, be renewed
+for generations, this, with other acts in the same temper, will face
+whatever peril still lingers in the sullen rear of Mr O'Connell's
+dying efforts. For that gentleman, personally, we believe him to be
+nearly extinct. Two months ago we expressed our conviction, so much
+the stronger in itself for having been adopted after some hesitation,
+that Sir Robert Peel had taken the true course for eventually and
+finally disarming him. We are thankful that we have now nothing to
+recant. Progress has been made in that interval towards that
+consummation, quite equal to any thing we could have expected in so
+short a lapse of weeks. Mr O'Connell is now showing the strongest
+symptoms of distress, and of conscious approach to the condition of
+"check to the king." Of these symptoms we will indicate one or two. In
+January 1843, he declared solemnly that an Irish Parliament should
+instal itself at Dublin before the year closed. Early in May, he
+promised that on the anniversary of that day the great change should
+be solemnized. On a later day in May, he proclaimed that the event
+would come off (according to a known nautical mode of advertising the
+time of sailing) not upon a settled day of that month but "in all May"
+of 1844. Here the matter rested until August 12, when again he shifted
+his day to the corresponding day of 1844. But September arrived, and
+then "before those shoes were old" in which he had made his promise,
+he declares by letter, to some correspondent, that he must have
+_forty-three months_ for working out his plan. Anther symptom, yet
+more significant, is this: and strange to say it has been overlooked
+by the daily press. Originally he had advertised some pretended
+Parliament of 300 Irishmen, to which admission was to be had for each
+member by a fee of L.100. And several journals are now telling him
+that, under the Convention Act, he and his Parliament will be arrested
+on the day of assembling. Not at all. They do not attend to his
+harlequin motions. Already he has declared that this assembly, which
+was to have been a Parliament, is only to be a conciliatory committee,
+an old association under some new name, for deliberating on means
+_tending to_ a Parliament in some future year, as yet not even
+suggested.
+
+May we not say, after such facts, that the game is up? The agitation
+may continue, and it may propagate itself. But for any interest of Mr
+O'Connell's, it is now passing out of his hands.
+
+In the joy with which we survey that winding up of the affair, we can
+afford to forget the infamous display of faction during the discussion
+of the Arms' bill. Any thing like it, in pettiness of malignity, has
+not been witnessed during this century: any thing like it, in
+impotence of effect, probably will not be witnessed again during our
+times. Thirteen divisions in one night--all without hope, and without
+even a verbal gain! This conduct the nation will not forget at the
+next election. But in the mean time the peaceful friends of this yet
+peaceful empire rejoice to know, that without war, without rigour,
+without an effort that could disturb or agitate--by mere silent
+precautions, and the sublime magnanimity of simply fixing upon the
+guilty conspirator one steadfast eye of vigilant preparation, the
+conspiracy itself is melting into air, and the relics of it which
+remain will soon become fearful only to him who has evoked it.
+
+The game, therefore, is up, if we speak of the purposes originally
+contemplated. This appears equally from the circumstances of the case
+without needing the commentary of Mr O'Connell, and from the acts no
+less than the words of that conspirator. True it is--and this is the
+one thing to be feared--that the agitation, though extinct for the
+ends of its author, may propagate itself through the maddening
+passions of the people, now perhaps uncontrollably excited. Tumults
+may arise, at the moment when further excitement is impossible, simply
+through that which is already in operation. But that stage of
+rebellion is open at every turn to the coercion of the law: and it is
+not such a phasis of conspiracy that Mr O'Connell wishes to face, or
+_can_ face. Speaking, therefore, of the _real_ objects pursued in this
+memorable agitation, we cannot but think that as the roll of possible
+meetings is drawing nearer to exhaustion, as all other arts fail, and
+mere _written_ addresses are renewed, (wanting the inflammatory
+contagion of personal meetings, and not accessible to a scattered
+peasantry;) but above all, as the day of instant action is once again
+adjourned to a period both remote and indefinite, the agitation must
+be drooping, and virtually we may repeat that the game is up. But the
+last moves have been unusually interesting. Not unlike the fascination
+exercised over birds by the eye of the rattlesnake, has been the
+impression upon Mr O'Connell from the fixed attention turned upon him
+by Government. What they _did_ was silent and unostentatious; more,
+however, than perhaps the public is aware of in the way of preparation
+for an outbreak. But the capital resource of their policy was, to make
+Mr O'Connell deeply sensible that they were watching him. The eye that
+watched over Waterloo was upon him: for six months that eagle glance
+has searched him and nailed him: and the result, as it is now
+revealing itself, may at length be expressed in the two lines of
+Wordsworth otherwise applied--
+
+    "The vacillating bondsman of the Pope
+    Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."
+
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Minor typographic errors have been corrected. Please note there is
+some archaic spelling, which has been retained as printed. There are a
+few snippets of Greek; this has been transliterated and is surrounded
+by + signs. There are also a few instances of the letter a with macron
+(straight line) over it. These are indicated by [=a]. The few oe
+ligatures have not been retained in this version.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No.
+CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV., by Various
+
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