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No. 343, May 1844, by Various

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844

Author: Various

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BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCXLIII. MAY, 1844. VOL. LV.

Transcriber's notes: Minor typos have been corrected. Table of contents has been generated for HTML version. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the articles.

Contents

IMPRISONMENT AND TRANSPORTATION.

[Pg 533]

NO. 1.

THE INCREASE OF CRIME.

Among the many causes of anxiety which the present state of society in the British empire must occasion to every thoughtful or reflecting mind—one of the most extraordinary and alarming is, the constant and uninterrupted increase of crime. The Liberals shut their eyes to this, because it affords a sad illustration of the effect of their favourite theories, which for a quarter of a century have been, under the direction of his Majesty's Ministry or his Majesty's Opposition, in almost ceaseless operation. The selfish and inconsiderate (and they form the vast majority of men) give themselves no sort of trouble about the matter: they care not though their neighbours are murdered or robbed, plundered or swindled, so as they escape unscathed themselves; and without either thinking on the subject, or suggesting one remedy for its evils, interfere only, with stentorian lungs, to resist any project to arrest them having the remotest tendency to terminate in an assessment. Their principle is to take of civilisation only its fruits, and steadily to withstand the concomitant evils; and the simple way by which they think this is to be effected—is quietly, and without saying a word, to reap the benefit of manufacturing industry in the doubling or tripling of their incomes; but to roar out like madmen if the smallest per centage is proposed to be laid on them, to arrest or mitigate the evils which that industry brings in its train. Government meanwhile, albeit fully aware of the danger, is not sufficiently strong to do any thing to avert it; its own majority is paralysed by the inherent selfishness of mankind; and nothing but some great and stunning public calamity can, it is universally felt, awaken the country to a sense of the evils growing out of its greatness, but threatening in the end to endanger its existence. Thus nothing is done, or at least nothing effectual is done, to avert the dangers: every one shuts his eyes to them, or opens them only to take measures to avert an assessment; and meanwhile crime advances with the steps of a giant, sweeping whole classes of society into its vortex, and threatening to spread corruption and vice, in an incredible manner, through the densest and most dangerous classes of the community.

Authentic and irrefragable evidence of the magnitude of this danger exists in the statistical tables of committals which have now, for a very considerable time, been prepared in all parts of the British empire. Since the year 1805, when regular tables of commitments first began to be kept in England, commitments have increased sixfold: they have swelled from five to thirty-one thousand. During the same period [Pg 534] population has advanced about sixty per cent: in other words, detected crime has advanced FOUR TIMES AS FAST AS THE NUMBERS OF THE PEOPLE. Unwilling as we are to load our pages with statistical tables—which, attractive to the thinking few, are repulsive to the unthinking many—we must yet request our readers to cast their eyes to the bottom of the pages, where these appalling truths are demonstrated by the parliamentary returns. In Scotland and Ireland the returns of commitments have not been kept, until within the last twenty years, with such accuracy as can be relied on; but they exhibit an increase still more alarming. Ireland, as might be expected, exhibits a growth of crime which has fully kept pace with that of England during the same period: but Scotland exhibits a change which fairly outstrips all the others in the race of iniquity. In 1803, Lord Advocate Hope said in Parliament, that more crime was tried at one Quarter Sessions at Manchester than over all Scotland in a whole year; and the proceedings of the criminal courts to the north of the Tweed, at that period, amply demonstrated the truth of his assertion. In the year 1805, eighty-nine criminals were brought before the whole tribunals, supreme and inferior, in Scotland; but in the year 1842, the committals for serious offences were nearly four thousand—in other words, serious crime, in less than forty years, had augmented in Scotland above THIRTY-SIX FOLD. During the same period population has advanced about fifty per cent, viz. from 1,800,000 to 2,660,000; so that in moral, staid, and religious Scotland, serious crime, during the last forty years, has risen TWENTY-FIVE TIMES as fast as the number of the people.[1]

Overlooked as this prodigious change has been, as all things are which arise gradually in this country, it has yet attracted, as well it might, the astonishment of writers on the Continent. Nine yeas ago, M. Moreau observed, speaking of the increase of crime in Scotland—"In the year 1805, the criminal commitments in Scotland were eighty-nine: they are now 2864—that is, they have increased in thirty years thirty-fold. It would appear that Scotland, in becoming a manufacturing state, has in a great degree lost the virtue and simplicity of character by which she was formerly distinguished."[2]

What renders this prodigious increase of crime in so short a period, [Pg 535] in all parts of the British Empire, in a peculiar manner extraordinary and alarming, is, that it has taken place at the very time when unheard-of efforts were made, in every part of the country, for the moral and religious instruction of the people. We are very far indeed from saying that enough has been done in this way: no one is better aware that the vast debt, which the prosperous wealth of Britain owes in this respect to its suffering indigence, is still in great part undischarged, and that till it is taken up and put on a proper footing by the state, it never can be completely liquidated;—still, more has been done to discharge it during the last thirty years, than in the whole previous centuries which have elapsed since the Reformation. The churches of England and Scotland, during that period, have improved to an astonishing degree in vigour and efficiency: new life, a warmer spirit, a holier ambition, has been breathed into the Establishment; the dissenters of all denominations have vied with them in zeal and effort; churches and chapels have been built and opened in every direction; and though they have by no means, in the manufacturing districts, kept pace with the increase of population, yet they have advanced with a rapidity hitherto unheard of in British history. The laity of all denominations have made extraordinary efforts to promote the cause of education. In this great and good work, persons of all descriptions have, though from very different motives, laboured together; but much remains to be done. We well know how many tens and hundreds of thousands, in the manufacturing districts, are now wandering in worse than heathen darkness in the midst of a Christian land;—we well know what insurmountable obstacles mere voluntary zeal and exertion meet with in the most praiseworthy efforts, from the selfish resistance of property and the reckless dissipation of indigence. But still, no one acquainted with the subject can deny, that during the last thirty years, incomparably more has been done to promote education among the poor than in the preceding three centuries. Yet this period of anxious solicitude, awakened fear, and general effort to stem, by all the known methods, the deluge of profligacy and depravity with which the country has been flooded, has been characterized by an increase of crime, and a general loosening of morals among the labouring classes, hitherto unprecedented in the country—certainly not equaled during the same period in any other European state, and, so far as we know, without an example in the previous history of mankind.

Struck with astonishment at this extraordinary and painful phenomenon, and wholly at a loss to explain it on any of the principles to which they have been accustomed to give credit, the Liberals have generally endeavoured to deny its existence. They say that the returns of commitments do not afford a correct measure of the crime that really exists in the country; that a police force is now more generally established, and is incomparably more vigilant than heretofore; that crimes are classified in a different way from what they formerly were; and that though the figures do not err, yet the results to which they point are not the real ones. There is some truth in these observations. It is true that a police force is more extensively established, and is more efficient than it formerly was;—it is true that crimes are now differently classified, and enter different columns, and appear in different returns from what they formerly did;—it is true that there are specialties in the case;—but it is not true that those specialties tend to make the returns of crime appear greater than the reality; on the contrary, they all tend the other way. They show that the returns as now constructed, and the police force as it at present exists, do not by any means exhibit the growth of crime in its true colours; that it is in reality incomparably greater than these returns or this agency has brought to light; and that, great as the evil appears from an examination of the Parliamentary returns, it is in truth far more colossal and alarming.

How is a police force established in any part of Great Britain? If we except the metropolis, where the vast concourse from all parts of the empire unavoidably forced upon government, fourteen years ago, the establishment of a central police, since found to be attended with such [Pg 536] admirable effects, it is every where set on foot by the voluntary act of the inhabitants, or a certain portion of them, in a peculiar manner cognizant of the necessity which exists for such an addition to the means of public defence. In boroughs, it is generally the magistrates, elected by a suffrage little superior to household suffrage, who introduce such a measure. In counties, it can only be proposed by the justices of peace in England, or commissioners of supply in Scotland—both of which bodies are thoroughly imbued with, and fairly represent, the general voice of the community. In all cases, whether in the metropolis or in the provinces, a police imposes an immediate and heavy burden on all householders. In London £40,000 a-year is given by government to aid in the support of the police; but the whole remainder of the cost, amounting to four times as much, falls on the ratepayers. In the provinces the whole cost of every police force falls on the householders; and our readers need not be told how heavy it sometimes is, and how universally it is every where complained of.

Now, if there is any one peculiarity more than another by which this generation is distinguished, it is aversion to assessment. People may differ in other respects as to the designation by which the age should be characterized; but we believe all will agree that it is a tax-hating age. What did this nation first do on being liberated from danger by the battle of Waterloo? Throw off the income-tax. What alone induced them to submit to it again on the modified scale of three per cent? The disasters in Affghanistan; the perils of our Indian empire; the rocking of Britain to its foundation. When therefore, in such a country and in such an age, we see numerous bodies of men—popularly elected in some cases, in all swayed by the popular voice—concurring, in a great many places, in the taxation of themselves for the establishment of a police, we may rely upon it that some very general and grinding sense of necessity has been at work to produce the effect. Nothing but this could overcome, in men really and practically invested in this particular with the power of self-government, the universal and almost invincible repugnance to assessments. Rely upon it, for every crime which is brought to light, and made the subject of commitment and trial by the institution of a police force, ten previously existed, undetected and unpunished, before men were driven to the flebile remedium, the ultimum malum, of taxing themselves for the establishment of a force to repress them.

To illustrate the strength of this resistance, and the important bearing it has upon the present question, we shall refer only to two instances—one in England, and one in Scotland. It is well known what a scene of confusion and disorder South Wales has for years past been. The bloodshed at Merthyr-Tydvil, the strikes in Glamorganshire, the attack on Newport, and the Rebecca riots, had for a series of years fixed the attention of all parts of the empire upon this, as one of the most inflammable and dangerous portions of the community. Nor did these disorders appear surprising to those who were practically acquainted with the state of the country, overrun as it is in many places by vast iron-works, which have brought together a great and reckless population, and inhabited in all by a discontented and ill-instructed peasantry. Population had advanced with unexampled rapidity—having increased, from 1831 to 1841, thirty-six and a tenth per cent in Monmouthshire; the greatest increase during the same period of any county in the British empire.[3] Here then, if anywhere, it might have been expected that a general feeling of insecurity, the sense of an overbearing necessity, would have overcome the general repugnance of men towards local assessment, and led to the establishment of a police force in all the counties of South Wales, on a scale adequate to the magnitude of the danger with which they were threatened. Was it so? Had the counties taken the requisite steps to avoid the calamity? Quite the reverse; the aversion to a police assessment was so strong, that nothing whatever had been done. Glamorganshire had only established one on a small scale, [Pg 537] after repeated and earnest efforts on the part of its able and public-spirited lord-lieutenant, the Marquis of Bute; and the Rebecca riots surprised the adjoining counties without any preparation whatever. And even after those disgraceful disorders had continued several weeks, and rendered South Wales the scandal of the empire, and the astonishment of Europe; still the repugnance to assessment was such, that it was only after a severe struggle, and by no small exertions, that it was at length carried; and the public-spirited member for the county, who to his infinite credit brought forward the measure, stated at the county meeting on the subject, that he was aware he endangered his seat by so doing!

The Scotch have shown themselves not a whit behind their southern compatriots in repugnance to a police assessment. In Lanarkshire, as it is well known, the iron and coal trades have made unexampled progress during the last ten years. Its population, in consequence, has enormously increased; having risen from 316,000 to 434,000 in ten years, from 1831 to 1841—an increase of thirty-six per cent in that short time—the next to Monmouthshire of the whole empire. Crime had, of course, enormously increased. In 1835, the committals for serious offences were 401: in 1842, they had risen to 696—being an increase of seventy-five per cent in seven years.[4] Serious crime, therefore, so far as detected, was doubling in ten years, while population was doubling in thirty—in other words, detected crime was increasing three times as fast as the numbers of the people. Disturbances, as a matter of course, of a very serious nature had arisen. In 1837, the great cotton-spinners' conspiracy, which led to the memorable trial, had kept above twenty thousand persons in Lanarkshire, for four months, in a state of compulsory destitution. In 1842, the colliers' strike threw a still greater number into a state of idleness for five months, which led to a general system of plunder, and forcible seizure of the farmers' produce in the fields; only repressed, with infinite difficulty, by the introduction of a large military force, aided by the yeomanry of the county, who were on permanent duty for six weeks, and the establishment for a few months, by subscription, of a powerful police. In October 1842, twenty policemen, who had some prisoners in charge for combination offences, were assaulted by a furious mob of two thousand persons on the streets of Airdrie, in the centre of the mining district of the county, the house in which they had taken refuge set on fire, and the prisoners by main force rescued from the hands of the law.[5] These facts were known to the whole county, and the terror which, in consequence, pervaded the agricultural inhabitants of the mining districts was so great, that in a petition to government praying for protection, they stated—that they would be better if law were altogether abolished, and every man were allowed to defend himself by fire-arms, than they were now; for that, if they used lethal weapons in defence of their property, they ran the risk of being transported for culpable homicide—if they did not, they were certain of being plundered by the combined workmen. And what did the county do to arrest this disgraceful and perilous system of outrage and plunder? Why, in the full knowledge of all these facts, they passed a solemn resolution at Lanark, on 30th April 1843, that they never would again, on any occasion, or under any circumstances of necessity whatever, sanction the employment of any police or defensive force raised at their expense.

We do not suppose that the inhabitants of South Wales or the banks of the Clyde are particularly short-sighted or selfish, or more inclined to resist assessment for objects of public utility or necessity than those of other parts of the empire. On the contrary, we know that they are in a remarkable degree the reverse; and that in no part of the world are undertakings in public improvement or charity entered into with more alacrity, and supported with more liberality. We suppose the Scotch and [Pg 538] Welsh are what other men are—neither better nor worse. We adduce these facts, not as tending to fasten any peculiar charge on them, but as indicating the general character of human nature, and the universal repugnance to taxation, which, when men are really and practically, and not in form only, invested with the power of self-government, appears the moment that any proposition of subjecting them to assessment for the purpose of local defence and protection, even under the most aggravating circumstances, is brought forward. How great, then, must have been the mass of experienced, but undetected and unpunished, crime which pervades the state, when this all but invincible repugnance has been generally overcome, and men in so many cities and counties have been induced to submit to the certainty of the visit of the tax-gatherer, rather than the chance of a visit from the thief or the burglar!

And for decisive evidence that the new establishment of a police force is not, by the crimes which it is the means of binging to light, the cause of the prodigious increase of crime of late years in the British empire, we refer to the contemporary examples of two other countries, in which a police force on a far more extensive scale has been established, and has been found the means of effecting a signal diminution of crime and commitment. In Hindostan, as is well known, a most extensive and admirably organized system of police has been found absolutely indispensable to repress the endless robberies of which its fertile plains had long been the theatre; and the force employed, permanently or occasionally, in this way amounts to a hundred and sixty thousand! The consequence has been a diminution of crime and commitments, during the last forty years, fully as remarkable as this simultaneous increase in the British islands. The official reports which have been compiled in India by the British authorities, exhibit of late years the pleasing prospect of a decrease of serious crime to a third or fourth part of its former amount.[6]

Look at France during the same period. That there is in that great country a numerous and well-organized police force, will not probably be denied by those who know any thing, either of its present circumstances by observation, or its past from history. Unlike Great Britain, it is universally established and raised, not by separate acts of Parliament, local effort, and contribution, but by a general assessment, under the name of "Centimes Additionels," yet varying in particular districts, according to the necessity and amount of the defensive force, but, in all, imposed by the authority and levied by the officers of government. And what has been the result? Is it that crime, from being generally brought to light, evinces the same steady and alarming increase which is conspicuous in all parts of the British islands? Quite the reverse: criminal law and a powerful system of police appear there in their true light, as checking and deterring from crime. Population is advancing steadily though slowly in that country, crime is stationary or declining;[7] and while the most powerful and efficient police in Europe [Pg 539] only bring to light about 7000 serious criminals annually out of 34,000,000 souls—that is, 1 in 6700—in Great Britain, out of a population, including England and Scotland, of 18,000,000 in round numbers, there were in 1842 no less than 34,800 persons charged with serious crimes before the criminal tribunals, or 1 in 514—in other words, serious crime is fourteen times as prevalent in Great Britain as it is in France. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate the deplorable fallacy of those who ascribe the present extraordinary frequency and uninterrupted growth of crime in this country, as attested by the criminal returns, to the vigilance of the police in bringing it to light.

In truth, so far from its being the case that crime is now better looked after, and therefore more frequently brought to light than formerly, and that it is that which swells our criminal returns, the fact is directly the reverse. So weak, feeble, and disjointed, are the efforts of our various multiform and unconnected police establishments over the country generally,[8] that we assert, without the fear of contradiction by any person practically acquainted with the subject, that the amount of undetected and unpunished crime is rapidly on the increase, and is now greater than it was in any former period. We would recommend any person who doubts this statement, to go to any of the criminal establishments in the country, and compare the list of informations of serious crimes lodged with those of offenders committed; he will find the latter are scarcely ever so much as a third of the former. These facts do not appear in the criminal returns, because they are not called for; and the police-officers are in no hurry to publish facts which proclaim the insufficiency of the means of repressing crime at their disposal. But occasionally, and under the pressure of immediate danger, or a strong sense of duty on the part of the public functionaries, they do come out. For example, it was stated by Mr Millar, the head of the Glasgow police, (a most able and active officer,) in a letter read at the county meeting of Lanarkshire on 21st January 1843, on the subject of a police for the rural district of that and the adjoining counties, that in the three months immediately preceding that date, ninety-one cases of theft, chiefly by housebreaking, had been reported at the Glasgow police-office, committed in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, but beyond the police bounds; and that from his own information, and that of the other officers of his establishment, this number, great as it was, was not a third of the crimes of that description which had actually been committed during that period. On the other hand, it was stated by the sheriff of the county at the same meeting, that in only fourteen of these ninety-one cases had any trace whatever been got of the delinquents. In other words, the number of instances in which any clue was obtained to the criminals was only fourteen out of 273, or one in twenty nearly. And yet this miserable driblet of one in twenty, exhibits in the criminal returns for Lanarkshire an increase of 75 per cent in seven years, or a duplication in ten. This instance, to which hundreds of others might be added from all parts of the country, shows how extreme is the illusion of those who lay the flattering unction to their souls, that serious crime is not now more prevalent than it was formerly, but only better brought to light.

In truth, it has long been known, that in consequence of the relaxation of the severity of our criminal code, and the astonishing increase of serious crimes which cannot be passed over, a vast number of criminals are now disposed of in the police courts, and never appear in the criminal returns at all, who, twenty years ago, were deemed felons of the very highest class, and visited often with death, always with transportation. It was stated in parliament as a subject of complaint against the Lancashire magistrates, that during the insurrection of 1842 in that county, nearly ten thousand persons were imprisoned, and let go after a short confinement, without ever being brought to trial. During [Pg 540] the disturbances in the same year, in Lanarkshire and many other counties of Scotland, (especially Ayrshire, Fife, and Mid-Lothian,) the accumulation of prisoners was so great, that not only were none detained for trial but those against whom the evidence was altogether conclusive; but that great numbers were remitted for trial before the summary tribunals, and escaped with a month or two of imprisonment, who had committed capital crimes, and a few years before would infallibly have been transported for fourteen years. We are getting on so fast, that nothing is more common now than to see hardened criminals, both in England and Scotland, disposed of by the police magistrates, and for capital crimes receive a few months imprisonment. Their names and crimes never appear in the returns at all. There is no fault attached to any one for this seeming laxity. The thing is unavoidable. If the class of cases were all sent to the higher tribunals which formerly were considered privative to them, the judges, were they twice as numerous as they are, would sit in the criminal courts from one year's end to another, and the jails would still be choked up with untried criminals, numbers of whom would linger for years in confinement.

The Liberal party, in the beginning of the present century, were unanimous in imputing the vast increase of crime to the defects of our criminal law. The nominal severity of that system, it was said, and said justly, with its uncertain punishments and frequent opportunities of escape, afforded in fact a bounty on the commission of crime. Injured parties declined to give information for fear of being bound over to prosecute; witnesses were reluctant to give evidence, judges caught at legal quibbles, juries violated their oaths, in order to save the accused from a punishment which all felt was disproportioned to the offence; and thus the great object of criminal jurisprudence, certainty of punishment, was entirely defeated. There was much truth in these observations, but much fallacy in the hope that their removal would effect any reduction in the number of offences. The object sought for was carried. Humane principles were triumphant. The labours of Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh, aided by the cautious wisdom and experienced ability of Sir R. Peel, produced a total revolution in our criminal jurisprudence. The old stain has been removed: we need no longer fear a comparison With the laws of Draco. For the last fifteen years so many offences, formerly capital, have had that dreadful penalty removed, that the law in Great Britain, as now practically administered, is probably the mildest in Europe. Death is scarce ever inflicted except for murder; in cases of housebreaking, even when attended with personal violence, it is never thought of. The executions in Great Britain now range from twenty-five to thirty-five only a-year, instead of a hundred and fifty or two hundred, which they formerly were. And what has been the result? Has the promised and expected diminution of crime taken place, in consequence of the increased certainty of punishment, and the almost total removal of all reasonable or conscientious scruples at being concerned in a prosecution? Quite the reverse. The whole prophecies and anticipations of the Liberal school have been falsified by the result. Crime, so far from declining, has signally increased; and its progress has never been so rapid as during the last fifteen years, when the lenity of its administration has been at its maximum. An inspection of the returns of serious crimes already given, will completely demonstrate this.

Next, it was said, that education would lay the axe to the root of crime; that ignorance was the parent of vice; and, by diffusing the school-master, you would extinguish the greater part of the wickedness which afflicted society; that the providing of cheap, innocent, and elevating amusements for the leisure hours of the working-classes, would prove the best antidote to their degrading propensities; and that then, and then only, would crime really be arrested, when the lamp of knowledge burned in every mechanic's workshop, in every peasant's cottage. The idea was plausible, it was seducing, it was amiable; and held forth the prospect of general improvement of morals from the enlarged culture of mind. The present generation is generally, it may almost be said universally, imbued with these opinions; and the efforts [Pg 541] accordingly made for the instruction of the working-classes during the last twenty-five years, have been unprecedented in any former period of our history. What have been the results? Has crime declined in proportion to the spread of education? Are the best instructed classes the least vicious? Has eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge diminished the power of the Tempter? So far from it, the consequences, hitherto at least, have been melancholy and foreboding in the extreme.

The criminal returns of Great Britain and Ireland for the last twenty years, demonstrate that the uneducated criminals are about a third of the whole: in other words, the educated criminals are to the uneducated as two to one.[9] In Scotland, the educated criminals, are about four times the uneducated; in England, just double; in Ireland, they are nearly equal. Nay, what is still more remarkable, while the number of uneducated criminals, especially in Scotland, is yearly diminishing, that of educated ones is yearly increasing.[10] In France, the criminal returns have for long demonstrated that the amount of crime, in all the eighty-four departments of the monarchy, is just in proportion to the number of educated persons which each contains; a fact the more remarkable, as three-fifths of the whole inhabitants of the country have received no education whatever.[11] Of the criminals actually brought before the Courts of Assize, which correspond to our Old Bailey and Circuit Courts, it appears that about four-sevenths are educated, and three-sevenths destitute of any instruction; which gives a greater proportion of criminals to the educated than the uneducated class, as three-fifths of the people are wholly uninstructed.[12] But what is most [Pg 542] marvellous of all, the criminal returns of Prussia, the most universally educated country in Europe, where the duty of teaching the young is enforced by law upon parents of every description, and entire ignorance is wholly unknown, the proportion of criminals to the entire population is TWELVE TIMES greater than in France, where education of any sort has only been imparted to two-fifths of the community.[13] These facts are startling—they run adverse to many preconceived ideas—they overturn many favourite theories; but they are not the less facts, and it is by facts alone that correct conclusions are to be drawn in regard to human affairs. In America too, it appears from the criminal returns, many of which, in particular towns and states, are quoted in Buckingham's Travels, that the educated criminals are to the uneducated often as three, generally as two, to one. These facts completely settle the question; although, probably, the whole present generation must descend to their graves before the truth on the subject is generally acknowledged.

But to any one who reflects on the principles of human nature, and the moving powers by which it is impelled, whether towards virtue or vice, such a result must appear not only intelligible but unavoidable. It is our desires which are our tempters. All the statistical returns prove that the great majority of educated persons, generally at least three-fourths of the whole, have received an imperfect education. They have just got knowledge enough to incur its dangers; they have not got enough either to experience its utility or share in its elevation. Their desires are inflamed, their imaginations excited, their cravings multiplied by what they read; but neither their understandings strengthened, their habits improved, nor their hearts purified. The great bulk of mankind at all times, and especially in all manufacturing communities, can only receive an imperfect education. It is not in the age of twelve hours' labour at factories, and of the employment of children without restraint in coal and iron mines, that any thing approaching to a thorough education can be imparted to the working classes, at least in the manufacturing districts. The conclusion to be drawn from this is, not that education is hopeless and should be abandoned, in relation to the great bulk of men—for we every day, in detached instances, have proof of its immense and blessed influence; the conclusion is, that it is by the active, not the intellectual powers, the desires, not the understanding, that the great majority of men are governed; that it is the vast addition civilisation and commerce make to the wants and passions of men, which constitutes the real cause of its demoralizing influence; and that these dangers never will be obviated till means are discovered of combating sin with its own weapons, and by desires as extensively felt as its passions. We must fight it, not only with the armour of reason, but the fire of imagination. It is by enlisting the desires on the side of virtue and order, that we can alone generally influence mankind.

It is astonishing how many ways men will turn before they can be brought to admit the simple truth unfolded in the book of Jeremiah and enforced in every page of the gospel, that the heart is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Driven from the chimeras of mild punishment and general education as antidotes against the antagonist power of sin, philanthropists have at last taken refuge in the infallible effects of solitary confinement. Punishment, it was said, is the real demoralizer of society; it is our jails which are the hotbeds and nurseries of crime. Reform them—separate the hardened criminal from the apprentice to crime—let solitary confinement teach [Pg 543] its impressive lessons, and confer its regular habits; and vice, with all its concomitant evils, will disappear from the land. At the same time a great impression was made on the legislature by a graphic, and, in some respects, just description of the suffering in the penal colonies of New South Wales; and the result has been a general adoption, over the whole empire, of the system of long imprisonment instead of transportation, to an extent previously unknown since the system of forced convict-labour in the colonies was introduced. All persons practically acquainted with the subject were aware of the result in which their experiment would terminate, and the fearful multiplication of irreclaimable criminals to which it would lead in the heart of the empire. But unfortunately the persons practically acquainted with the subject had scarcely a voice in the legislature—the current ran strong in favour of lengthened imprisonment, and the abolition, except in very bad cases, of transportation. The judges gave ample scope to the new system, and it received in every point of view a fair experiment. Highway robbers, housebreakers, and habitual thieves, received, in great numbers of cases, sentences of imprisonment, instead of transportation for life or fourteen years. The jails at the same time were every where improved; a general system of prison discipline was adopted and enforced; and solitary confinement, with hard labour, became almost universal. And what has been the result? Why, that it has been now demonstrated by experience, that even the longest imprisonments, and the best system of prison discipline, have no effect, or scarce any, in reclaiming offenders; and that the only effect of the new system has been, to crowd the jails with convicts and the streets with thieves; to load the counties with assessments and the calendars with prisoners; to starve New South Wales for want of compulsory labour, and oppress Great Britain by the redundance of hardened idleness. We speak of a matter the subject of universal notoriety: ample proof of it will be furnished in a future Number.

But, what is most alarming of all, it has now been completely demonstrated, that we are not to look even to the general spread of religious instruction for any immediate or even rapid diminution of crime, or amelioration of the habits of the labouring classes. We say immediate or rapid, because none can be more sensible than we are, that it is thus alone that crime in the end is to be arrested, and that the efforts now making in this respect in all parts of the British empire, are laying the only foundation whereon in future times the superstructure of a moral and orderly society are to be laid. But, as every system must be tested by its fruits, and these fruits in the present forced and artificial state of society are so rapidly brought forth—it is worse than useless to go on encouraging expectations of an early reformation of society from the extension of church establishments, the zeal of dissenters, or the efforts of clerical instructors. Depend upon it, half a century must elapse before these praiseworthy and philanthropic efforts produce any general effect on the frame of society. We shall be fortunate indeed, if in a whole century the existing evils are in any material degree lessened, and society has gone on so long without one of those terrible convulsions, like the French Revolution, which at once destroy the prospects of the present generation and the hopes of the next.

The reason is, that degraded and sensual men have an instinctive aversion to religious truth, and a still greater distaste for religious restraint. The carnal man is at war with God. When will this great truth, so loudly proclaimed in every page of the gospel, be practically acknowledged and acted upon? To those who are acquainted with the anatomy of crime, and who see exemplified in real life the courses of the wicked, its truth becomes not only evident, but of overwhelming importance. The strength of the world consists in its pleasures and enjoyments. It is the vehemence of the desire for these pleasures and enjoyments, which constitutes the fearful force of its temptations. The whole progress of society, the whole efforts of man, the whole accumulations of wealth are directed, in its later stages, to augment [Pg 544] these desires. Necessities in a large portion of society being provided for, pleasures only are thought of. Civilisation increases them, for it augments enjoyment: commerce, for it multiplies the wealth by which it is purchased: ingenuity, for it adds to the instruments of luxury: knowledge, for it spreads an ardent, and often exaggerated picture of its gratifications. The whole efforts of man in civilized life are directed to the increase of human enjoyment, the incitement of human desire. Need we wonder, then, if religion, which prescribes an abstinence from the pleasures of sin, which enjoins continence to the sensual, sobriety to the drunkard, reflection to the unheeding, gentleness to the irascible, restraint to the voluptuous, probity to the avaricious, punishment to the profligate, meets in such an age with very few votaries? Some, doubtless, will always be found, who, disgusted with the profligacy with which they are surrounded, are led only the more rapidly to a life of rectitude and duty by such vice; but how many are they amidst the crowd of sensual and unreflecting? Perhaps one in twenty. The great mass pass quietly by on the other side; they do not say there is no God, but they live altogether without God in the world. In vain are efforts made to reclaim the vicious, to bring up their children in the way they should go, in the hope that when they are old they will not desert it. The grown-up will not go to church; in manufacturing towns they will not even put on Sunday's clothes, but revel in intoxication or sloth in their working-dresses all the Lord's day; except when softened by misfortune, or roused by calamity, they will not listen, even at home, to the voice of religious counsel. Children may learn their catechism, and repeat their responses at school; but when they become men and women, will they resist the temptations by which they are surrounded? Numerous congregations are often suddenly formed by the planting of an eloquent and earnest divine into a densely peopled and neglected locality; but where does the congregation in general come from? Go into the thinned or deserted churches or chapels in its vicinity, and you will find you have only transferred the serious and Christian community from one place of worship to another.

Nor let it be said that these dangers affect only a limited portion of the community, and that, provided only society holds together, and property is upon the whole secure, it is of little consequence to the great bulk of the nation whether its criminals are doubling or tripling every ten years, whether its convicts are hanged, imprisoned, or transported. Doubtless that is the view taken by the majority of men, and which ever makes them resist so strenuously any measures calculated to arrest the general evils by a forced contribution from all classes of the state. But is such a view of so very serious a matter either justified by reason, or warranted by a durable regard to self-interest? Considered in reference only to immediate advantage, and with a view to avert the much-dreaded evil of an assessment, is it expedient to allow crime to go on increasing at the fearful rate which it has done in this country during the last forty years? Can we regard without disquietude the appalling facts demonstrated by the Parliamentary returns of population and commitments—that the people are augmenting three times as fast in the manufacturing as the agricultural districts—that detected and punished crime is multiplying in the former three times as fast as the people—and crime really committed three times as much as that which is brought to light? What can be expected from a state in which crime, in the manufacturing districts, is thus increasing TWENTY-SEVEN TIMES as fast as mankind in the rural? From what sources does this overflowing stream of recklessness, profligacy, and misery, which overflows our workhouses and fills our jails, mainly spring, but from this prodigious and unrestrained increase of crime and depravity among the working classes in the manufacturing districts? Must not such a state of things lead to a constant augmentation of poor-rates, county rates, and jail assessments? And how short-sighted is the policy which [Pg 545] allows these oppressive burdens to go on constantly increasing, merely from terror of incurring additional expense in striving to arrest them, and hopes to avoid danger, like the partridge, by putting its head in the bush, and ceasing to look it in the face?

But most of all, in a public and political view, is this extraordinary increase of crime in our manufacturing districts, a subject of serious and anxious consideration to all classes in the state. It is in vain to seek to conceal, it is folly to attempt to deny, that in the dense masses of the manufacturers the real danger of Great Britain is to be found. Though not amounting, upon the whole, to more than a tenth part of the nation, they are incomparably the most alarming from their close proximity to each other, the fierce passions which the revolutionary press has long nourished among them, and the perfect organization which, under the direction Of the leaders of their trades' unions, they have long attained. The insurrection in the manufacturing districts of England, and violent strikes in Scotland in 1842, may warn us of the danger of such an outbreak, especially when combined, as the next will almost certainly be, with a general rebellion of the Irish Repealers. Infinite local mischief, incredible destruction of life and property, would inevitably follow any serious and general insurrection among them; even though crushed, as in the end it certainly would be, by an united effort of the other classes in the state. But is the shock to credit, the destruction of capital, the breaking of the bread of hundreds of thousands, nothing in a national point of view? And what can augment the dangers of such local insurrections so much as the acknowledged fact, that crime is making unprecedented progress amongst them; that so general have the causes of dissoluteness become, that whole masses are brought up in depraved and reckless habits, on the verge of, if not actually committing crime; and that "les classes dangereuses" are daily receiving additional accessions on the depraved, the dissolute, and abandoned from all the other ranks in the state.

Let us therefore no longer deceive ourselves, or attempt to deceive others. Crime is making extraordinary and unprecedented progress amongst us; it is advancing with a rapidity unparalleled in any other European state: if not arrested, it will come to render the country unbearable; and will terminate in multiplying to such an extent "les classes dangereuses," as they have been well denominated by the French, as, on the first serious political convulsion, may come to endanger the state. It has advanced with undeviating and fearful rapidity through all the successive delusions which have been trusted to in the country to check its progress. With equal ease it has cast aside the visions of Sir Samuel Romilly and the advocates of lenient punishment—the dreams of Lord Brougham and the supporters of general education—the theories of the Archbishop of Dublin and the enemies of transportation—the hopes of Lord John Russell and the partizans of improved prison discipline at home. Even the blessed arm of the gospel has hitherto failed in checking its advance amongst us; and it nowhere appears in more appalling colours than in the districts where the greatest and most strenuous efforts have been made for the moral and religious instruction of the people. "Nous avons donnés à penser," as the French say. Ample subject for serious reflection has been furnished to our readers till a future occasion, when the cause of this general failure, and the means requisite for the diminution of crime, will be considered.

[Pg 546]

RHINE AND RHINELANDERS

"On the Rhine, I am never more than twenty years old!" says the Countess Ida Hahn Hahn, in her Erinnerungen. "There only do I feel myself quite at home. Whether arriving from the Baltic or the Guadalquivir, I have always a recurrence of the same nameless home-feeling, which renders me at once happy and tranquil. O, the Rhine! the Rhine! What are other rivers—your Seine, and Garonne, and Tagus—compared with him? But small and secondary streams beside the mighty Rhine. There are certain rivers which represent nations, and ideas, and periods of history—the Scamander for instance, bringing to our thoughts the days of Grecian heroism; when men fought with gods, and in so doing seemed to wrest from them a portion of their supernatural strength and beauty—the Nile, the priestly Nile, mysterious as a dogma, but rich in blessings as the agency of a divine spirit; concealed in its source, but manifest in its operation—then the Jordan, the stream of revelation, on whose banks is heard the rushing of the wings of the dove, while a voice, other than that of man, murmurs over the waters—and the Tiber, a small and muddy stream, but the gigantic and sparkling reflex of Rome's immortal turrets. But the Rhine, that heroic river, which nations never cross without buckling on their armour for the fight; and yet, on whose banks life is so free, so safe, and so delightful. Hark to the clatter of wine-cups, the echoes of music, the whispered legends, and the clash of weapons! while the old river flows on so cheerily, murmuring as he goes words of encouragement to his children.

It would be difficult better to illustrate German veneration and affection for the Rhine, than by the above passages from one of the most intellectual female writers of the day—a writer whose works will bear comparison with those of George Sand for genius and masculine vigour of style, (exempt, however, from much that is objectionable in the French-woman;) while for elegance, taste, and a fine feeling for art and poetry, they may be placed on the same line with those of our own "Ennuyée." What the Countess Hahn Hahn feels and expresses with all the fervour of a poetical imagination—the sort of exhilarating and exulting love for the most classical stream of modern story—is felt in a greater or less degree by all intellectual classes of Germans. Their veneration for the old river that waters one of the sunniest and fairest districts of the Vaterland, is profound; their admiration of the natural beauties, and of the vestiges of days gone by, that abound upon its banks, unceasing. German patriotism is comprehensive: it hails as one country all the wide lands in which the Teuton tongue is spoken; and in nearly all those lands is the Rhine thought and talked of with an admiration amounting to enthusiasm. By a contradiction, however, of not unfrequent occurrence, the people who seem least capable of sharing this feeling, are those who ought to be most under its influence—the inhabitants of the Rhine-country itself. The well known and often quoted passage of Jean Jacques, applied by him to the dwellers on the shores of Lake Leman, is equally applicable to the denizens of the Rhineland. "Je dirois volontiers à ceux qui ont du goût et sont sensibles—allez à Vevey, visitez le pays, examinez les sites, promenez vous sur le lac; et dites si la nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une Claire, et pour un St Preux; mais—— ne les y cherchez pas." In like manner we would say—Visit the Rhine, not as most tourists do, by rushing in a steam-boat from Rotterdam or Cologne to Basle or Baden, but [Pg 547] deliberately, on shore as well as on the water, climbing the mountains and strolling through the valleys, seeking out the innumerable and enchanting points of view, and contemplating them by sunset and sunrise, in the broad glare of noon and by the subdued evening light; and then say whether such a country is not worthy of different inhabitants from the mongrel race, part German, part Flemish, part French, which it now possesses—a population which, when it has consumed its five or six heavy meals, smoked a dozen or two pipes, and slept its long sleep of repletion, considers it has done its duty to God and man, and troubles itself little with such intangible matters as poetical reveries or mental cultivation.

But we are running away from our subject, and losing sight of the intention we had in commencing this paper, which was, to hook ourselves on to the dexter arm of that indefatigable rambler, M. Alexander Dumas, and accompany him in an excursion up the Rhine. He thinks proper to proceed thither by way of Belgium, and we must conform to his arrangements. In due time we shall return to our Rhenish friends.

M. Dumas's earliest care, on arriving at Brussels, was to deliver to King Leopold a letter of recommendation with which he had provided himself for that monarch; and he hastened to the palace, where he obtained admission, he tells us, more easily than he could have done at Paris at the house of a second-rate banker. We were not aware that the French bureaucratie of the day were of such difficult access, and would strongly advise them, since it is so, to take pattern by his Belgian majesty; who in this instance, however, was not at Brussels at all, but at his country palace of Lacken, whither M. Dumas proceeds. Here he is immediately ushered into the king's presence.

"After a quarter of an hour's conversation," says our traveller, "which his Majesty was pleased to put at once upon a footing of familiar chat, I became convinced that I was speaking with the most philosophical king who had ever existed, not excepting Frederick the Great."

We congratulate M. Dumas sincerely upon the exquisite keenness of perception which enabled him to make this discovery, and from so decided an opinion in the course of a quarter of an hour's familiar chat. At the same time we cannot repress a fear, that he is apt to be a little dazzled by the sparkling halo that surrounds a diadem. This we do not say so much with reference to the King of the Belgians, who may be a very philosophical, as he has proved himself to be a very judicious sovereign; but it has struck us more than once, during the perusal of M. Dumas's wanderings in various lands, that he exhibits a slight, an inconceivably small, tendency to tuft-hunting, hardly consistent with his ultra-liberal principles, and difficult to reconcile with the cynical tone that he habitually adopts in speaking of most existing governments and institutions. To say the truth, we have conceived a great affection for our friend Alexander, and feel every disposition to glide lightly over his faults and exalt his virtues; to treat him tenderly, in short, even as one we love. We do not expect perfection from him, although we are anxious to believe that he approaches as near to that angelic state as it is given to a child of clay to do. We would pardon his recording in some detail the gracious words spoken to him by the King of this, and the Prince of that—showing how he was treated on a footing of perfect equality and familiarity by the mighty ones of the earth—how they caressed and complimented him, and wore out the boots of their aides-de-camp and chamberlains by sending after him—and how they told him to "Venez me demander à diner," or in other words, to go and take a chop with them whenever he could make it convenient. At all these interesting and carefully recorded incidents we should indulgently smile, were they narrated by any one but our much-esteemed Alexander—the confirmed democrat, the political Utopian, the declared disciple of the subversive school, the worthy representative, when he gets upon the chapter of politics, of that recently discovered zoological curiosity, the tigre-singe. It is the inconsistency of the thing that strikes and afflicts us.

Of M. Dumas's very ultra views on political subjects, we have abundant [Pg 548] proof in the section headed "Waterloo," which is an amusing specimen of the rabid style. The tone is pretty much the same as that of the most violent of the French democratic and anti-English journals. We should like to extract it all, but it is too lengthy, and we must content ourselves with the last ten lines. Here they are, breathing saltpetre and bayonets:—

As this rather high-flown passage might not be generally intelligible to our readers, we will put it into plain English. It will then run thus:—

It is strange to see a man of undoubted talent, and who ought to be amongst the enlightened ones of his country and his age, indulging in such absurd visions and insane prophecies. Rhapsodies of this kind would be merely laughable, were it not for the weight which they unquestionably have with the younger and less reflecting classes of Frenchmen, especially when proceeding from a writer of M. Dumas's abilities and reputation. It is by this style of writing, which abounds in French periodical literature, and in the works of some, fortunately a minority, of the clever littérateurs of the day, that the attacks of war fever, to which France is subject, are aggravated, if not frequently brought on.

We do not intend following M. Dumas step by step through Belgium, to which country he devotes a volume. We prefer passing at once to the Rhine, which he ascends from Cologne to Strasburg, making continual pauses, and enlivening the description of what he sees by agreeable and spirited versions of what he has read and heard. Much of what he tells us has been already printed in the numerous tours and guide-books, which, in conjunction with steam-boats and railways, have familiarized most Englishmen with the Rhine and its legends. It acquires a fresh charm, however, from the present narrator's agreeable and pointed style, and from his calling in the aid of his imagination to supply any little deficiencies; rounding and filling up stories that would otherwise be angular and incomplete. He also gives some agreeable caricatures, if caricatures they may be called, of certain German eccentricities. Yet we should have thought that so keen an observer of men and manners, might have made more than he has done of the peculiarities of German society and habits; but unfortunately M. Dumas appears to understand little, if any, of the language, and this has doubtless been a great hindrance to him, and has prevented him from making his book as characteristic as his Italian sketches. Nevertheless he is piquant enough in some places. We will give his droll account of his entrance into Rhenish Prussia. After being robbed by the innkeeper at Liege, he gets into the Aix-la-Chapelle diligence; and, on reading the printed ticket that has been given to him at the coach-office, finds that he has the fourth seat, and that he is forbidden to change places with his neighbours, even by mutual consent.

[Pg 549]

"This military sort of strictness, still more than the abominable jargon of the postilion, made me aware that I was about to enter the dominions of King Frederick William. As I had a corner of the coach, the tyranny of his Prussian majesty was tolerably endurable, and I soon fell fast asleep. About three in the morning, just as day was breaking, I awoke, and found that the diligence was standing still. I at first thought there was an accident, and put my head out of the window to see what was the matter. No accident had happened; no other coach was near—the road was excellent. We were alone and motionless. I took my ticket out of my pocket, read it from one end to the other, and having satisfied myself that it was not forbidden to speak in the diligence, I asked my neighbour if we had been standing there long.

"'About twenty minutes,' was the answer.

"'And pray,' continued I, 'can you tell me what we are doing here?'

"'We are waiting.'

"'Ah! we are waiting. And for what?'

"'For the time.'

"'What time?'

"'The time at which we are allowed to arrive.'

"'There is a time fixed for arriving, then?'

"'Every thing is fixed in Prussia.'

"'And if we arrived before the time?'

"'The conductor would be punished.'

"'And if after?'

"'He would also be punished.'

"'Ah! that is very well arranged.'

"'Every thing is well arranged in Prussia.'

"I bowed assentingly. Not for worlds would I have contradicted a gentleman possessed of such an exalted opinion of his country and its institutions, and who answered my questions so courteously and laconically. My acquiescence appeared to gratify him. I felt encouraged, and continued my enquiries.

"'Pardon me, sir, but at what hour ought the diligence to arrive at Aix-la-Chapelle?'

"'At twenty-five minutes to five.'

"'But if the conductor's watch were slow?'

"'His watch can never be slow.'

"'Indeed! And why so?'

"'Opposite to where he sits, and under lock and key, there is a watch which is regulated before starting by the clock at the coach-office. The conductor knows at what hour he should pass through each town and village on his route, and he makes the postilions hurry or slacken their pace accordingly, so as to arrive at Aix-la-Chapelle exactly at the right time.'

"'But with those precautions, how is it that we are obliged to wait upon the road?'

"'The conductor has doubtless followed your example, and slept, and the postilions have taken advantage of that to go quicker.'

"'Well, since we have still some time to remain here, I will get out and stretch my legs a little.'

"'It is not allowed to get out of the diligence in Prussia.'

"'Indeed! That is very agreeable. I wished particularly to look at that castle on the other side of the road.'

"'That is Emmaburg. It is the scene of the famous legend of Eginhard and Emma.'

"'Really! Be so obliging as to change places with me for a moment, that I may look at it through the window.'

"'I should be most happy, sir; but in Prussia it is not allowed to change places.'

"'True, true! How could I forget it? I beg your pardon, sir.'

"'These tamned Frenchmans, they do noting but shatter and talk!' said a fat German sitting opposite to me, opening his mouth for the first time since we had left Liege, but still keeping his eyes shut.

"'You were saying, sir——?' said I, not particularly gratified by the remark.

"'I say noting—I shleep.'

"'Shleep as much as you like, but try not to dream aloud, eh? Or, if you dream, dream in your mother tongue.'

"The German began to snore.

"'Postilion, vorwarts!' shouted the conductor.

"We were off at a gallop. I put my head out of the window to try to get a view of the ruins, but it was vain; they had disappeared behind an angle of the road. At [Pg 550] twenty-five minutes to five, not a second later or earlier, we drove into the coach-yard at Aix-la-Chapelle."

At Cologne M. Dumas pauses, and fills a hundred pages with the cathedral, and the legend attaching to it. Most of our readers are probably aware that the above-named church was commenced by an architect whose name has been forgotten, and who procured the design for the building from Satan himself, upon the usual condition of giving a promissory note for his soul. A certain Father Clement, however, a very knowing priest, of whom the arch-tempter stood in almost as great awe as he had ever done of St Dunstan of nose-pulling celebrity, came to the assistance of the builder, and put him up to a stratagem, by which he avoided signing away his spiritual part, although he still obtained possession of the plan for the cathedral. Satan confessed himself outwitted, but prophesied that the building should never be finished, and that its builder's name should not go down to posterity. The latter part of the prediction has been accomplished; but as the present King of Prussia has declared his intention of finishing the work that has been so magnificently begun, it seems probable Beelzebub may prove mistaken in one portion of his prophecy.

Cologne being a large city, somewhat Frenchified in its ways, M. Dumas manages pretty well as regards eating and drinking; but, as he ascends the river, matters get worse. He arrives at Bonn at the hour of the one o'clock meal, called the first dinner, and we find him expatiating on the subject of German appetites and feeding.

This is really only a moderate exaggeration on the part of M. Dumas. Five meals a-day, three of them solid, meat-devouring, wine-bibbing feeds, are the regular allowance of every well-conditioned, well-to-do, comfortable Rhinelander. We do not consider Frenchmen small eaters, whatever they may consider themselves—if they eat little of each dish, they eat of a vast number; but for examples of positive voracity, commend us to a German table-d'hôte. A coachful of French commis voyageurs, assembled, after a ten hours' fast, round the luxurious profusion and delicacies of a Languedocian dinner, would appear mere babes and sucklings in the eating way, compared to a party of Germans at their one o'clock feed. The difference is nearly as great as between the Lady Amine eating rice with a bodkin, and the same fair one battening ghoulishly upon the cold meat in the cemetery. Nothing can equal the persevering industry with which a German crams himself at a public table, where, having to pay a fixed sum for his dinner, he always seems desirous to get as much as he can for his money. The obligato bowl of soup is followed by sundry huge slices of boiled beef, sufficient of themselves for an ordinary man's dinner, but by no means sufficing for a German's; then come fowl and meat, fish, puddings and creams, and meat again; sweet, sour, and greasy—greasy, sweet, and sour, alternating and following one another in inextricable and interminable confusion. Every body eats of every thing largely and voraciously, and the short pauses between the appearance of the dishes are filled up by nibblings at such salutary and digestible extremets as raw hams and herrings, pickled cucumbers, and pickled grapes! German cookery is famous for odd mixtures. M. Dumas is rather amusing on this head.

The master of the hotel, who is an intelligent personage, now makes his appearance, and M. Dumas at last finds that, by ordering a dinner à la Française, he can get something eatable. Encouraged by this success, he ventures, when bedtime comes, to petition for a bed in which a Frenchman can sleep. This requires a little explanation, which will be best given in his own words.

The villages of Winnebourg and Metternich near Coblentz, the former the birthplace, the latter the property, of Prince Metternich, lead M. Dumas into a little digression on the subject of the celebrated diplomatist. The family name, we are informed, was originally Metter, but received the addition of the last syllable in the following manner:—

That night at supper the emperor said, talking of the regiment in question—"They all fled, but Metter nicht." Every body knows that "nicht" is the German for not. The family adopted the additional syllable, and hence the origin of the name of Metternich.

M. de Metternich, it appears, is a great collector of autographs, and of course his position has facilitated the gratification of this taste. His collection is rich in royal, imperial, and princely letters; nor is there any lack of odes from German poets, and sonnets from Italian improvisatori. One day, however, it occurred to him that, now the public press had become a power in many countries, he ought to have the autographs of a few journalists, in order to complete his collection; and as in Italy and Germany, thanks to the censorship, there are plenty of journals but no journalists, he was obliged to send to France. Amongst others, M. Jules Janin (one of the editors of the Journal des Debats) received a most polite request for an autograph from the rival of M. de Talleyrand. Janin immediately took up his pen, and wrote as follows:—

A month afterwards there arrived at Paris the twenty-four bottles of wine, of which Janin, with a confidence that the prince no doubt knew how to appreciate, had acknowledged receipt beforehand. M. de Metternich has preserved Janin's witty autograph with the greatest care. I doubt very much if Janin has preserved M. de Metternich's wine.

M. Dumas finds some compensation for the badness of German beds in the excellence of German roads. His soundest sleep is always obtained in the diligence. He takes a nap from Mayence to Frankfort; but on entering the latter city is shaken out of his slumbers by an Austrian soldier, who demands his passport. In consequence of an incident that had lately occurred, the soldiery were particularly on the alert with regard to passports. M. Dumas relates the anecdote in his usual pointed and effective manner.

Mannheim, the scene of Kotzebue's death, and his assassin's execution, could hardly fail to detain M. Dumas. At Frankfort he applies to a friend for an introduction to some person likely to give him details concerning Kotzebue and Sand, and his friend procures him a letter addressed to Mr Widemann, surgeon, Heidelberg. He has no letter for any body at Mannheim, and after visiting Kotzebue's house, leaves that town to proceed to Heidelberg. Just outside Mannheim he causes the postilion to stop, while he contemplates the place of the mad student's execution, which goes by the name of "Sand's Himmelfahrtwiese," or the meadow of Sand's ascension to heaven. It is a green meadow intersected by a rivulet, and situated within a few hundred yards of the town. While gazing at this field, and trying to conjecture the exact spot where the scaffold had stood, a stranger approaches of whom our traveller makes an enquiry. They fall into conversation, and the newcomer proves to be the governor of the prison in which Sand had been confined. Delighted at this rencontre, M. Dumas turns back and stops a day or two longer at Mannheim, copying some letters of Sand's, and collecting materials which fill several chapters of his book. He learns from his new friend that the Mr Widemann at Heidelberg, for whom he has a letter, is not only a surgeon but also the public executioner, although as yet his services have not been called into request in the latter capacity. It was his father who decapitated Sand. The Heidelberg executioner is noble by right of descent. The origin of his family's nobility is given by M. Dumas as follows:—

Truly a most fantastical history, and one which leaves us in some doubt whether it be a genuine legend of Heidelberg, or one of M. Dumas's dreams in the diligence after dining upon pig and cherry sauce. At any rate, if not true it is ben trovato.

Heidelberg, whither M. Dumas next proceeds, is to our mind one of the pleasantest places near the Rhine, from which river it is now, thanks to the railroad, within half an hour's journey. The country around is delightful, and the town itself, owing to its possessing an university, and to the vast number of strangers who visit and pass through it during the summer months, is far more lively than most small German towns. The kind of liveliness, however, caused by the presence of seven or eight hundred students, is not always of the most agreeable character. It has been the fashion in England to talk and write a vast deal about German universities; and sundry well filled, or at least bulky tomes have been devoted to accounts of the students' mode of life, their duels and drinkings, and peculiarities of all kinds. Friend Howitt favoured us a year or two ago with a corpulent volume—translated in part from the MSS. of some studiosus emeritus—a sort of life in Heidelberg, entering into great detail concerning university doings, and with illustrations of a very sportive description; wherein mustached and bespurred cavaliers are slashing at each other with broad swords, or cantering over the country mounted upon gallant steeds, and looking something between Dick Turpins and field-marshals in muftee. 'Tis a sad thing to have too much imagination—it tempts a man to mislead his neighbours; and no one who has read friend William's picturesque descriptions of Student Leben, but would feel grievously disappointed when he came to investigate the subject for himself. Nothing can be more puerile and absurd, and in many instances disgusting, than the habitual pastimes and amusements of the students; or at least of that large majority of them who attend no lectures and study, nothing that they can possibly avoid, but look upon their residence at the university as three or four years to be devoted to smoking, beer-drinking, and scratching one another's faces in duels. These duels, by the by, are pieces of the most intense humbug that can be imagined. They take place now in the large room of the inn at Ziegelhausen, a village on the banks of the Neckar, about two miles from Heidelberg, and are fought with straight swords, square but sharp at the extremity, and having guards as big as a soup-plate.

Before the fight begins, the combatants don their defensive arms, consisting of a strong and broad-brimmed hat protecting the head and eyes, an immense leathern breastplate defending the chest and stomach, a padded case, also of leather, which shields the arm from wrist to shoulder, and an impenetrable cravat which protects the neck up to the [Pg 555] ears. The nose, and a bit of each cheek, is all that can be possibly wounded. Thus equipped the heroes set to work, slashing away at each other, (it is forbidden to thrust,) shaving off pieces of their padded armour, and looking exceeding fierce and valiant the while; until, after a greater or less time, according as the combatants are equal in skill or not, one of them gets a scratch across the nose, or small eyelet hole in the cheek, which terminates this caricature of a duel. Since "young Germany" finds amusement in so harmless a practice, it might very well be allowed them; provided they afterwards, like good boys, took their books and learned their lessons. But such a proceeding would be by no means consistent with the Burschen-Freiheit—the academic freedom of which these hopeful youths make their boast. To celebrate the valour of the victory, and show sympathy with the sufferings of the vanquished—whose wound is by this time dressed with an inch of sticking plaster—the party repairs to a tavern to breakfast; and there the morning is killed over beer and Rhine wine till one o'clock, by which time some of them are usually more than half tipsy. They then repair to the table-d'hôte, dine, drink more, and finally stagger home to sleep off their libations. We have more than once, in German university towns, seen students reeling-drunk at four in the afternoon.

About seven in the evening, the kneipes or drinking-houses begin to fill. In all of these there are rooms set apart for the different clubs of students to assemble in; and in those sanctuaries they put on the caps and colours of their communities, which they have of late years been forbidden to wear in public. On the ribands which they wear round their necks, are inscribed the date of their various duels. A barrel of beer is now broached, pipes are loaded and lighted, and they sit the whole evening, sotting, smoking, and singing songs about the Rhine, liberty, and fatherland, with ear-splitting and interminable choruses of Viva lera lera. A German student's song generally consists of couplets of two lines, with a chorus that lasts a quarter of an hour.

The quantity of beer consumed by some of these heroes is almost incredible. They become actually bloated with it. One of the most important and respected persons at a German university is the Beer King, who ought to be able to drink, not any given quantity, but an unlimited one; to be perpetually drinking, in short. M. Dumas tells us, that the reigning monarch of malt at Heidelberg is able to absorb twelve schoppens of beer, or six of wine, while the clock strikes twelve. A Heidelberg schoppen is very nearly an English bottle. This is rather hard to swallow, M. Dumas. Either the drinker is very fast, or the clock very slow. We can vouch, however, for the scarcely less astonishing fact, of there being drinkers at the universities who will imbibe twenty-five bottles of beer at a sitting. The German beer is, of course, not of a very intoxicating nature.

From beer to tobacco the transition is natural enough; and we cannot conclude our gossip about the Rhine without a word or two as to the frightful abuse made by the Germans of the Indian weed. We are not of the number of those who condemn the moderate use of tobacco, but, on the contrary, know right well how to appreciate its soothing and cheering effects; but the difference is wide between a limited enjoyment of the habit, and the stupefying, besotting excess to which it is carried by the Germans. The dirty way, too, in which they smoke, renders the custom as annoying to those who live amongst them, as it must be unwholesome and detrimental to themselves. It is possible to smoke much, and yet cleanly: take the Spaniard for instance—unquestionably a great smoker; yet the difference between smoking on the Rhine or Elbe, and on the Manzanares or Ebro, is immense—the one the gluttony and abuse, the other the refinement of the practice. While Don Español, with his fragrant puro, or straw or paper covered cigarrito, smoketh cleanly, spitteth not, uses his tobacco, as he uses most things, like a gentleman; the werther Deutscher takes his huge pipe, rarely cleaned and with the essence of tobacco oozing from every joint, and filling it [Pg 556] from a bag, or rather sack, of coarse and vile-smelling tobacco, puffs forth volumes of smoke, expectorating ad nauseam at intervals of a minute or less. No considerations of place or person hinder him from indulging in his favourite pastime. In steam-boats, in diligences, in the public walks and promenades, into the dining-rooms of hotels, every where does the pipe intrude itself; carried as habitually as a walking-cane; and even when not in actual use, emitting the most evil odour from the bowl and tube, saturated as they are with tobacco juice.

However unpleasant all this may be to foreigners, especially to English ladies accustomed to the more cleanly habits of their own countrymen, the German dames are perfectly reconciled to it. Had we to draw a picture of domestic felicity on the Rhine, we would sketch it thus:—a summer evening—a flower garden—a table with tea or coffee—a dozen chairs occupied by persons of both sexes—the women big-feeted, blue-eyed, placid creatures, knitting stockings—the men heavy and awkward, each with a monstrous signet-ring on the dirty forefinger of his right hand, smoking unceasingly, and puffing the vapour into the faces of their better halves, who heed it not, and occasionally may even be seen replenishing with their own delicate digits the enormous porcelain or meerschaum bowls of the pipes. If you doubt the accuracy of our description, reader, go and judge for yourself. The distance is short, and summer is at hand. Put yourself on board a steamboat, whisk over to Ostend or Antwerp, and thence rail and rattle it down to the Rhine. You shall not be three days on German soil without encountering a score such groups as the one we have just sketched.

THE MONSTER-MISERY OF LITERATURE.

BY A MOUSE BORN OF THE MOUNTAIN.

Be under no apprehension, gentle public, that you are about to be kept in suspense touching the moral of our argumentation, as too often in the pamphlets addressed in Johnsonian English to Thompsonian understandings, wherein a pennyworth of matter is set forth by a monstrous quantity of phrase. We mean to speak to the point; we mean to enlighten your understanding as by the smiting of a lucifer-match. Refrain, therefore, from running your eye impatiently along the page, as you are doing at this moment, in hopes of discovering, italicized, the secret of the enigma; for we have no intention of keeping you another moment ignorant that the monster-misery of literature is—guess! Which of you hath hit it? The monster-misery of literature is—The Circulating Library!

In this devout conviction, devote we to the infernal gods the memory of the Athenian republic—the first keeper of a circulating library. Every tyro is aware that this Sams or Ebers of antiquity lent out to Ptolemy of Egypt, for a first-rate subscription of fifteen talents, the works of Euripides, Eschylus, and Sophocles; thereby affording a precedent for the abominable practice, fatal to bookmakers and booksellers, which has converted the waters of Castalia into their present disgraceful puddle!

Every scribbler of the day who has a Perryian pen in hand, is pleased to exercise it on the decline of the drama; one of the legitimate targets of penny-a-liners. But how inadequately are the goose quills, and ostrich quills, phoenix quills, and roc quills, of the few standard critics of the age, directed towards the monstrous abuse of public patience which will render the Victorian age the sad antithesis of the Elizabethan, in the literary history of the land! Content so long as they can get a new work, tale quale, as a peg whereon to hang the rusty garments of their erudition, not a straw care they for the miserable decline and fall of the great empire of letters; an empire overrun by what Goths—what Huns—what Vandals!—by the iniquitous and [Pg 557] barbarous hosts of circulating libraries!

It has been agreed for some centuries past, that the only modern Mæcenas is the publisher. The days of patrons are past; and the author is forced to look for the reward of his labour to the man who, by selling the greatest number of copies to the public, can bestow the greatest number of pounds upon his pains. In order to augment this amount, the bibliopole naturally consults the taste of his customers; and nearly the sole remaining customers of the modern bookseller are—the circulating libraries. For what man in his senses who, for an annual mulct of half-a-dozen sovereigns, commands the whole range of modern literature, would waste his substance in loading his house with books of doubtful interest? Who that, by a message of his servant into Bond Street, procures the last new novel cut and dry, instead of wet from the press, and demanding the labour of the paper-knife, would proceed to the extremity of a purchase? And the result is, that Messrs Folio and Duodecimo, in order to procure satisfactory orders from the circulating libraries of the multitudinous cities of this deluded empire, issue orders to their helots, Mr Scribblescrawl and Mrs Wiredrawn, requiring them to produce per annum so many sets of three volumes, adapted to the atmosphere wherein they are fated to flourish.

It is an avowed fact, that the publishers of the day will purchase the copyrights of only such works as "the libraries will take;" which libraries, besotted by the mystic charm of three volumes, immutable as the sacred triad of the Graces or Destinies, would negative without a division such a work as the "Vicar of Wakefield" were it now to undergo probation. "Robinson Crusoe" or "Paul and Virginia" would be returned unread to their authors, with a civil note of "extremely sorry to decline," &c. "The Man of Feeling" would be made to feel his insignificance. "Thinks I to Myself" might think in vain; and the "Cottagers of Glenburnie" retain their rural obscurity. So much for the measure of the maw of the circulating library. Of its taste and palate it is difficult to speak with moderation; for those of Caffraria or Otaheite might be put to the blush.

The result, however, of this fatal ascendancy is, that not a publisher who has the fear of the Gazette before his eyes, presumes to hazard a guinea on speculations in the belles-lettres. Poetry is seldom, if ever, published except at the cost of the poet; and the foreman of one of the leading London houses is deputed to apprize aspiring rhymesters, that "his firm considers poetry a mild species of insanity"—Anglice, that it does not suit the appetite of the circulating library! For behold! this despot of bookmakers must have length, breadth, and thickness, to fill the book boxes dispatched to its subscribers in the country, as well as satisfy in town the demands of its charming subscriber, Lady Sylvester Daggerwood, and all her daughters.

It happens that the said Lady Sylvester does not like Travels, unless "nice little ladylike books of travels," such as the Quarterly informed us last year, in a fit of fribbledom, were worthy the neat little crowquills of lady-authors. Nor will she hear of Memoirs, unless light, sparkling, and scandalous, as nearly resembling those of Grammont as decency will allow. Essays she abominates; nor can she exactly understand the use of quartoes, unless, as Swift describes the merit of

to serve for flattening between the leaves her rumpled embroidery or netting!

Now you are simply and respectfully asked, beloved public, what must be the feelings of a man of genius, or of any sensible scholarly individual, when, after devoting years of his life to a work of standard excellence—a work such as in France would obtain him access to the Academy, or in Russia or Prussia a pension and an order of merit—he is told by the publisher, who in Great Britain supplies the place of these fountains of honour and reward, that "the public of the present day has no taste for serious reading;" for Messrs Folio and Duodecimo cannot, of course, afford to regard a few dons of the universities, or a few county bookclubs, parsonically presided, as representatives of the public! What [Pg 558] the disappointed man, thus enlightened, must think of "glorious Apollo" when he goes to bed that night, we should be sorry to conjecture!

"The public of the present day"—Ang. the subscribers to the circulating libraries—constitute, to his cultivated mind, a world unknown. The public he has been wasting his life to address, is such a public as was addressed by Addison, by Swift, by Steele, or by the greater writers of the days of Elizabeth. "Bless his fine wits," we could laugh at his misconception, were we not rather inclined to cry! In instances easy to be cited, (but that there were miching malecho in the deed,) insult has been added to injury, and the anguish depicted in the face of the mortified man of letters been assuaged by friendly advice to "try his hand at something more saleable—something in the style of Harrison Ainsworth or Peter Priggins!"

O ye Athenians! to what base uses have we come, by the influence of your malpractices of old!

But all this is far from the blackest side of the picture. You have seen only the fortunes of the rejected of the circulating libraries; wait till you have studied the fate of their favourites—victims whom, like the pet-dogs of children, the publishers force to stand on their hind-legs, and be bedizened in their finery; or pet pussy-cats, whom they fondle into wearing spectacles and feeding on macaroones, instead of pursuing their avocations as honest mousers. The favourite author of the circulating libraries has a great deal to envy in the treadmill!

In the days when there existed a reading, in place of a skimming public—in the days when circulating libraries were not—the writer who followed his own devices in the choice of the subject, plot, title, treatment, and extent of his book, and made his labour a labour of love, had some chance of being cherished as the favourite of the fireside; installed on the shelf, and taken down, like Goldsmith or Defoe or Bunyan, for an hour's gossip; cried over by the young girl of the family, diverting the holiday of the schoolboy, and exercising the eyesight of the good old grandmother. But how is this ever to be achieved nowadays? Who will be ever thumbed over and spelled over as these have been?

"Invent another Vicar or another Crusoe," say the critics, "and you will see."

We should not see! No bookseller would publish them, because "no circulating library would take them;" for these bibliopoles know to a page what will be taken. Several of them have got, and several others have had, the conduct of a circulating library on their hands; and so far from venturing to present a single-volumed or double-volumed work to their subscribers, they would insist upon the dilution of the genius of Oliver or Daniel into the adequate number of pages ere they risked paper and print. O public! O dear, ingenuous public! Think how you might have ceased to delight in even the cosmogony-man, if his part had been a hundred times rehearsed in your ears; or what the matchless Lady Blarney and the incomparable Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs (I love, as old Primrose says, to repeat the whole name) might have become, as the "light conversationists" of three octavo volumes! Shakspeare was forced to kill Mercutio early in the play, lest Mercutio should kill him. We feel a devout conviction that Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs would have burked Goldsmith!

And then the incomparable Robinson! Conceive the interlarding of a funny Mrs Friday to eke out the matter, with a comical king of the Cannibal islands "to lighten the story"—according to circulating library demand! Unhappy Defoe! thy standing in the pillory had been as nothing compared with such a condemnation!

We beseech you, therefore, deluded public, when assured by critical misleadment that such writers no longer exist, do, as you are often requested to do by letters in the newspapers—from parties remanded by the police-offices for some hanging matter—"suspend your judgment," or you will deserve credit for very little. We promise you that there are giants on the earth in these days, ay, and famous giants of their cubits! But when a giant is made to drivel, his drivelings are very little better than those of a pigmy. And we swear to you, (under [Pg 559] correction from the parish vestry, which is entitled to half-a-crown an oath,) that the circulating libraries would make a driveler of Seneca! Under the circulating library tyranny, Johnson himself would have been forced to break up his long words into smaller pieces, to supply due volume for three volumes.

Above all, we have no hesitation in declaring that the circulating libraries are indictable for manslaughter, in the matter of the death of Scott. They killed him, body and soul! In better times, when books were bought, not hired, the sale of the first half dozen of his mighty novels would have sufficed both the public and the author for thrice as many years. They would have been purchased by all people of good condition, as the works of Richardson were purchased, and read, and conned, and got by heart. But behold! the circulating libraries "wanted novelty." It suited them better to invest their capital in half a dozen new and trashy books—such as extend their catalogue from No. 2470 to 2500—instead of half a dozen copies of the one sterling work, which increases their stock in trade and diminishes their stock in consols, but leaves the catalogue, which is the advertisement of their perfections, halting at No. 2470.

Now, as it happened that the same boss of constructiveness which has endowed our language with such a world of creations from the pen of Scott, betrayed him also into inventiveness per force of brick and mortar—just as the same bent of genius which created the Castle of Otranto, created also that other colossus of lath and plaster, Strawberry Hill—the author of the Scotch novels was fain to sacrifice to the evil genius of the times; and behold! as the assiduous slave of the circulating libraries, he extinguished one of the greatest spirits of Great Britain. But for the hateful factory system of the twice three volumes per annum, he would have been still alive among us—happy and happy-making, in a green old age—watching over the maturity of his grandchildren, and waited upon by the worship of the land.

Therefore again we say, as we said a short time ago,—O ye Athenians! what have ye not to answer for in the consequence of your malpractices of old!

The only great success of the day in works of fiction, (for the laurels of Bulwer have been spindled among the rest by the factitious atmosphere of the circulating libraries), is that of Boz. And we attribute, in a great measure, the enormous circulation of his early works, to their having set at defiance the paralysing influence of the monster-misery. Shilling numbers were as the dragon's teeth. They rose up like armed men, and slew the circulating librarians. People were forced to buy them if they wanted to read them; and they were bought. Those who desired to read "Night and Morning," were not forced to purchase it, and it was not bought; and the circulation of the two works consequently remains as 2000 to 35,000 copies.

The state and prospects of authors, however, concerns you less, dear public, than the state and prospects of literature. You are a contemplative body of men, and can see into a millstone as far as most nations. You make leagues and anti-leagues for the sake of your morsel of bread; and teach the million to sing to your own tune; and, weary of keeping your heads above water, tunnel your way below it; nor will you allow the suffering shirtmakers of your metropolis to be put upon, nor Don Carlos, nor Queen Pomaré, nor any other victim of oppression. You applauded Alice Lowe, and shook hands with Courvoisier at the gallows; and it is clear you stand no nonsense, and bear no malice.

Be so good, therefore, as seriously to consider what sort of figure you will cut in the eyes of posterity, if this kind of thing is suffered to go on.

There is not one publisher in the three kingdoms (we throw down the gauntlet) who would give an adequate sum of money for any new historical work. There is not one publisher in the three kingdoms who would give even a moderate sum for a poem. We state the case liberally; for our conviction is, that they would refuse one poor half-crown. So much for the prospects; for, without a premium production is null.

[Pg 560]

As regards the state of literature, take out your pencils, (you all carry pencils, to calculate either the long odds or the odds on 'Change,) and make out a list of the works published during the last five years, likely to be known, even by name, a hundred years hence! It is some comfort to feel, that by sight they cannot be known—that few of them will survive to disgrace us—that the circulating libraries possess the one merit of wear and tear for the destruction of their filthy generation, like Saturn of old; for it would grieve us to think of even the trunks of the two thousandth century being lined with what lines the brains of our contemporaries. So that in the year of grace two thousand and forty-four, we shall have the Lady Blarney of Kilburn Square (the Grosvenor Square of that epoch,) enquiring of the Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs of Croydon Place (the Belgium Square)—"My dear soul, what could those poor people do to amuse themselves? They had positively no books! After Scott's time till the middle of the nineteenth century not a single novelist; after the death of Byron, not a poet! I believe there was an historian of the name of Hallam, not much heard of; and the other day, at a book-stall, I picked up an odd volume of an odd writer named Carlyle. But it is really curious to consider how utterly the belles-lettres were in abeyance."

To which, of course, Miss C. W. A. S.—(even Dr Panurge could not get through the whole name again!)—"My dear love! they had Blackwood's Magazine, which, like the Koran after the burning of the Alexandrian library, supplied the place of ten millions of volumes!"

But, alas! some Burchell may be sitting by, to exclaim "fudge!" Some groper into archives will bring forth one of those never-to-be-sufficiently-abominated catalogues of Bond and other streets, showing that, on a moderate calculation, twenty books were published per diem, which, at the end of three months, possessed the value of so many bushels of oyster-shells!

And then, pray, what will you have to say for yourselves, O public! from your tombs in Westminster Abbey or your catacombs at Kensal Green? Which among you will dare come forward, with blue lights in his hand and accompanied by a trombone, like the ghost of Ninus in Semiramide, and say—"We warned these people to write for immortality. We told them it was their duty to stick in a few oaks for posterity, as well as their Canada poplars and Scotch firs. It was not our fault that they chose to grow nothing but underwood. It was the fault of the circulating libraries, which, instead of allowing the milk of human genius to set for cream, diluted it with malice prepense, and drenched us with milk and water even to loathing!"

No, dear public! you will put your hand in your breeches' pocket like a crocodile, as you do now, and say nothing. Yon are fully aware how much of the fault is your own; but you are stultified and hardened to shame. With the disgrace of your National Gallery, and National Regency Buildings, and Pimlico Palace, and all your other vulgarisms and trivialities on your shoulders, you bully your way out of your disgrace of duncehood, like Mike Lambourne on forgetting his part in the Kenilworth pageant. "For your part, you can do very well without book-learning. You've got Shakspeare, and if with that a nation can't face the literature of Europe, the deuce is in it! With Cocker's arithmetic and Shakspeare, any public that knows what it's about, may snap its fingers at the world!"

Such, such are the demoralizing results of the ascendancy of the circulating libraries! Such is the monster-misery of literature!

Again, therefore, we say, confound those fifteen talents! What have ye not to answer for, O ye Athenians! in the consequences of your malpractices of old!

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

[Pg 561]

PART XI.

Shakspeare

Our procession had more than the usual object of those dreadful displays: it was at once an act of revenge and an act of policy. During the period while the gates of the convent shut out the living world from us, a desperate struggle had been going on between the two ruling factions. In this contest for life and death, the more furious, of course, triumphed; such is the history of rabble revolution in all ages. The Girondist with his eloquence naturally fell before the Jacobin with his libel; the Girondist, affecting a deference for law, was trampled by the Jacobin, who valued nothing but force; the tongue and the pen were extinguished by the dagger; and this day was the consummation. A debate in the Convention, of singular talent and unexampled ferocity, had finished by the impeachment of the principal Girondists. Justice here knew nothing of the "law's delay;" and the fallen orators now headed our melancholy line, bound, bareheaded, half naked, and more than half dead with weariness, shame, and the sense of ruin;—there could scarcely be more in the blow which put an end to all their perturbations on this side of the grave.

We had frequent halts, and I had full leisure to gaze around; for, rapidly as the guillotine performed its terrible task, our procession had been extended by some additional victims from every prison which we passed; and we passed so many that I began to think the city one vast dungeon. What strange curiosity is it that could collect such myriads to look upon us? Every street was crowded with a living mass; every casement was filled; every roof presented a line of eyes straining for a glance below. Instead of the crowd of a populous city, I could have believed that I saw the population of a kingdom poured in and compressed into the narrow streets through which we wound our slow way. From time to time a shout arose, as some conspicuous member of the Convention made his appearance in the vehicle of death: then execrations, scoffs, and insults, of every bitterness, were poured upon the unfortunate being; who seldom attempted to retaliate, or make any other return but a gesture of despair, or a supplication to be suffered to die in peace. Yet all was not cruelty nor insensibility. I saw instances, where friends, bold enough to brave the vengeance of the government, rushed forward to take a last grasp of the hand that must so soon be cold; and my heart was wrung by partings between still dearer objects and the condemned;—wives rushing forward through the multitude; children held up to their father's arms; beautiful and graceful young women, forcing their wild way through the line of troops, to take a last look, and exchange a last word, with those whom they would have rejoicingly followed to the tomb.

Our progress lasted half the day, and the sun was already near its setting, when the waggon in which I sat turned into the Place de Grève. But I must, I dare, describe no more. I shall not say what I saw in that general receptacle of the day of horror—the range of low biers which lay surrounding the scaffold, now the last resting-place of men who had but a few hours before flourished in the full possession of every faculty of our being; and, still more, with all those faculties in the full ardour of public life—with brilliant ambition to stimulate, with [Pg 562] prospects of boundless power to reward, and with that most exhilarating and tempting spell of human existence, popular acclamation, resounding in their ears. I had known some of them, I had seen then all; and now I saw those highly gifted, vigorously practised, and fiery-souled men, shaken down in an instant like a shock of corn; swept to death as if they were but so many weeds; extinguished in a moment, and in another moment flung aside, a heap of clay, to make room for other dead. And this was Republicanism—this the reign of knowledge, the triumph of freedom, the glory of political regeneration! Even in that most trying moment, when I saw the waggon, in which I remained the last survivor but one, give up my unfortunate companion to the executioner, my parting words to him, as I shook his cold hand, were—"Better the forest and the savage than republicanism! Doubly cursed be murder, when it takes the name of freedom!"

I then resolved to see and hear no more; gave a brief and still a fond recollection to England; and, committing my spirit to a still higher care, I bowed my forehead on my hands, like one laying down his head for the final blow!

But while I was still thus absorbed I heard a sudden shout, the trampling of cavalry, and the sound of trumpets. I again raised my eyes. A strong body of French troopers, covered with the dust of the high-road, and evidently exhausted by a long journey, were passing along the quai which bordered the scene of execution. In the midst of these squadrons were seen Austrian standards surmounted by the tricolor, and evidently carried as trophies. The rumour now ran quickly through the spectators, that Flanders had been entered, that the enemy had been routed, and that a column of Austrian prisoners was passing through the streets, of which those squadrons formed the escort.

What could now detain the multitude? The public curiosity would probably have defied grape-shot; with one burst they poured from the square. When the populace went, why should the National Guard stay behind?—were they not as much entitled to satisfy their curiosity? Three-fourths of the guard instantly piled their muskets, leaving them in care of their less zealous or more lazy fellow warriors, and ran after the multitude. The executioners were like other men; equally touched by their "country's glory," and fond of a spectacle. They dropped by twos and threes quietly from the sides of the scaffold, and made their way to the quai. In the mean time I was left disregarded; but I was still fettered, or I should have jumped from the waggon, and taken my chance for escape. All had evidently come to a full stop, and even that horrible machine, above my head, had ceased to clank and crush; for what is a spectacle in France without an audience? The chief headsman, with two or three of his assistants, true to their post, alone remained—waiting for the return of the people; yet even they cast many a lingering glance towards the pageant, whose plumes, flags, and kettledrums, passing across the entrance of the square, made their patriotism more difficult from minute to minute. At length the trumpets died away, and, to my renewed despondency, I saw the crowd again thicken towards me and the few remaining vehicles, which that day, now sinking into twilight, was to empty of their victims.

But I was again respited. While I awaited the summons to mount the fatal steps, a party of dragoons rode into the square, seized every waggon without a moment's delay, and ordered the whole to be driven out for the reception of a column of wounded, both French and Austrians; who, having been brought to the city gates, now waited the means of transport to the great military hospital at Vincennes.

In this country of expedients, the first suggestion is always the best. The colonel of dragoons in charge of the column, had applied to the government for the means of carriage; they referred him to the municipality, who referred him to the staff of the National Guard; who referred him to the subprefect; who referred him to his subordinate functionaries; who knew nothing on the subject; until the colonel, indignant at the impertinences of office, accidentally heard that the requisite conveyances were to be seen in front of the Hotel de Ville. Regarding it as the natural right of the soldier to be first served in [Pg 563] all cases, he sent off a squadron at full speed to make his seizure. Nothing could be more complete. The affair was settled at once. The remonstrances of the civil officers against our being thus withdrawn from their grasp, were answered by bursts of laughter at their impudence, and blows with the flat of the sabre for their presumption; for, next to the open reprobation of the army for the civic cruelties, was their scorn of the civic functionaries. The National Guard made some feeble display of resistance, but soon showed that they had no wish to try their bayonets against those expert handlers of the sword; and the event was, that the whole train of fifty or sixty waggons, of which about a tenth remained full, were hurried away at full gallop down to the Boulevard, leaving the scaffold a sinecure. At the barrier a new arrangement took place; the wounded were piled into the carriages along with us, and the whole were marched under escort to the grand depot of the garrison of Paris.

I had seen Vincennes before, and under trying circumstances; its frowning physiognomy had not been altered, nor, as a prison, was it more congenial to my feelings than before. Yet, on hearing the hollow tread of our horses' feet over its drawbridge, and seeing myself actually within its massive walls, I experienced a feeling of satisfaction which I had never expected to enjoy within bolts and bars. In this world contrast is every thing. I had been so fevered with alternate peril and escape, so sick of doubt, and so perplexed with the thousand miseries of flight; that, to find myself secure from casualty for the next twenty-four hours, and relieved from the trouble of thinking for myself, or thinking of any thing, was a relief which amounted almost to a pleasure. I never laid myself down to sleep with greater thankfulness, than when, stretched on the wooden guard-bed of the barrack-room, where the whole crowd of prisoners were packed together, I listened to the beat of the night-drum and the changing of the guard. They told me that, for once at least, I might sleep without a police-officer, to bid me, like Master Barnardine, "arise and be hanged."

Time in a garrison is the most lingering of all conceivable things, except time in a prison. I had it, loaded with the double weight. There was no resource to be found in the fractured and bandaged portion of human nature round me. The Austrians were brave boors, who spoke nothing but Styrian or Carinthian, or some border dialect, which nothing but barbarism had ever heard of, and which nothing but Austrian organs could have ever pronounced. The French recruits were from provinces which had their own "beloved patois," and which, to the Parisian, held nearly the same rank of civilized respect as the Kingdom of Ashantee. Besides, it was to be remembered, that all round me was a scene of suffering—the dismal epilogue of a field of battle; or rather the dropping of the curtain on the royal stage, when the glitter and the noise were gone by, and the actors reduced from their pomps and vanities, and sent home to the shivering necessities of poor human existence.

Life to me was now as stagnant as the ditch round the fortress; all feeling was as languid as the heavy air of our casemates. The mind lost all curiosity relative to the external world; and, beyond the casual knowledge which dropped, with all official mystery, from the lips of our worthy governor, and which told us that the war still continued, and that the armies of the Republic were "invincible beyond all power of human resistance;" we could not have been much more separated from sympathy, even with the capital itself, if we had been transported to one of the belts of Jupiter.

But a new alarm now seized me. The extreme indifference with which I had begun to regard all things, at length struck the eye of one of the military surgeons, who had been sent from Paris in consequence of the influx of prisoners. He seemed to take some interest in my consumptive visage and lack-lustre eye; asked me whether "some of my family had not died early in life," and offered to dictate my pursuits and regimen. The French are by nature a kindly people, with this one proviso, that, though every Frenchman on earth is more or less a persifleur, you must [Pg 564] never practise the art upon himself. M. Rossignol Perigord Pantoufle would have been an incomparable subject for the exercise, for he was eccentricity from top to toe. But the state of my spirits prevented my taking any share in the burlesque which too frequently befell this worthy person; and he attached himself to me as a sort of refuge from the sly, but stinging, persecution of his fellow-officers. When the hen-wife plucks the goose's bosom it makes her nestle more closely to her goslings. It was the calamity of my friend Pantoufle to be born with what the novelists call a "too feeling heart;" he was always in love with some one or another, and always jilted. But misfortune was thrown away upon him; he was still a complete sensitive plant, shivering and shrinking at every new touch: a dish of blancmange could not have shaken with a slighter impulse, nor a shape of jelly more easily dissolved. He was now past fifty; and, never much indebted to nature in his youth, time, the foe to beauty, had been more than a foe to the doctor. I never recollect to have seen a figure or physiognomy less fitted to disturb the female soul. But he made me the confidant of his woes; and if I did not, like Desdemona, "to him seriously incline," at least I never laughed, amusing as were his agonies, and diverting as was his despair. I had either the presence of mind, or the feebleness of pulse, to look and listen;—the art has succeeded in higher places than prisons.

Yet all was not sentimentality with him. He was an honest and high-spirited man in the main. He questioned me—and no question could then be a bolder one at the time—in what manner he could best serve me. My answer was immediate—"Find out the commercial house of Elnathan, and tell the head of the family that I am here." The service was done, and I received for answer, on my friend's return from his ride to the Rue Vivienne—"That the firm kept no account with any person of my name; and that they had no desire to have any further application on the subject." The doctor, too, had been received with such gathering of black brows, and such murmurs between indignation and astonishment; that if Rabbi Elnathan had not been deemed altogether beneath the vengeance of "an officer in the service of the Republic," the consequence would have been a proposal to choose his own time to be run through the body in the Champs Elysées.

It was late when my ambassador had returned, and I had begun to feel some alarm for his peril by other than the shafts of Cupid in the rashness of exposing him to the jealous eye of his government, or perhaps to the denunciation of the Jewish firm, who, to screen themselves, might hasten with the intelligence to the first police-office. And I had an uneasy walk of a couple of hours, gazing from the ramparts, for every movement in the direction of the capital. The night was calm, and the glow of the lamps in the streets strikingly marked their outline; when on a sudden the sky was filled with flame of every colour, shot up in all directions, the cannon round the barriers began to roar, and Montmartre was in a perpetual blaze. It was plain that some extraordinary event had occurred; but whether this were the fall of the triumvirate or of their enemies, a new revolution or a new monarch, was beyond our knowledge; we were all hermetically sealed up in Vincennes; and if Paris had been buried in its own catacombs at the moment, the news would have been doled out to us only in the segments which suited the dignity of the governor.

But Pantoufle for once was popular in the fortress. If he had brought nothing to raise my spirits, his tidings threw the garrison into ecstasy. The Republic "had gained a great victory," whose value was enhanced by the previous disasters of the campaign. The favourite of the French armies, too, had gained that victory. This was another feature of the rejoicing. Dumourier was one of the people; "no noble, no aristocrat, no son of landed wealth, no lord of forests and feeder on privileges." He had been a simple captain of engineers; he was now conqueror of those Austrian provinces on which France had cast an eager eye for centuries. That prize, which all the monarchs of France, with all their titled marshals, had never been able to seize, "the Republic, [Pg 565] with a republican army and a republican general, had won in the first month of her first invasion."

The garrison, of course, had its fireworks, its salute from the ramparts, and its feu de joie. But, in the midst of the festivity, I observed Pantoufle's countenance loaded with some mighty secret. He broke it to me with the air of a man revealing a conspiracy. Taking me on one side, while the ramparts were blazing with blue-lights, and every man, woman, and child of the garrison were chattering, huzzaing, and waltzing round us; he communicated to me the solemn fact, that his heart had been pierced again. This execution had been done while he was waiting in Elnathan's counting-house: a young Rachel or Rebecca had accidentally glanced across his sight, with such inimitable eyes, that his fate was decided for life. The world was valueless without her; and my particular advice was requested as to the way in which he was to make his approaches. I advised a sonnet. He smiled, and acknowledged that he had anticipated my advice, and had spent an hour of that twilight, dear to love and the muses, during which he had kept me in all the discomforts of suspense, devoting all the energies of his soul to the composition of a song to the beauties of the irresistible Israelite. Boileau has told the world, that a poet once insisted on his listening to an ode of his composition, while they were kneeling together at high mass. Our situation might not be quite as solemn, but the doctor was quite as pressing; and seated on the corner of a bastion, while the guns were roaring above our heads, I listened to an effusion in the most established style of sexagenarian poetry.

I listened without a laugh, and won the eternal gratitude of the writer. Nothing could be clearer than that, whatever the effusion might owe to the inspiration of Cupid, Apollo had no share in its charm. On my part, it would probably have been an act of the truest friendship, to have bid him burn his tablets, forswear poetry for ever, and regard himself as forbidden the temptations of the maids of Parnassus. But I should have broken his heart. I took the simpler but more effectual cure—I bade him find out this idol, and marry her. Before I forget him and his sorrows, let me mention, that he took my advice, and that, on my return to the Continent some years after, I found the poet transferred into the benedict, with a pretty wife at his side, and a circle of lively children at his knee—an active, thriving, and rational member of the community. I always quote the doctor, for the superiority of the soothing system. The vinegar of criticism would have festered the wounds of his vanity; the art of (must I call it) flattery healed them. It left a scar, I acknowledge; for the doctor still wrote verses, and still had a lurking propensity for climbing the slippery slope of poetic renown. But the realities of life are fortunate correctives to this passion, and, like Piron, luckily

But on this night our "intercourse of souls" was interrupted by one of those painful evidences of the renewal of hostilities which shows war in its truest aspect. A long column of vehicles, which we had seen moving for some time across the plain, and whose movement, by the torches of the escort, looked from the ramparts like the trailing of an immense phosphoric serpent, approached the gates. The announcement was soon made that it was a large detachment of prisoners and wounded, who had arrived from the desperate but decisive battle in Flanders. All the medical officers of the garrison were immediately in requisition; and the sights which I saw, even when standing at the gate, as the carts and cars rolled over the drawbridge, were sufficient to startle feelings more used to such terrible demonstrations of the folly or the frenzy of the world. But this was no time to indulge indolent sensibilities. Of course, I have no desire to enter into the startling details of that [Pg 566] spectacle. But mastering myself so far, as to volunteer my attendance for the time in the hospital, the thought often occurred to me, that there could be no better lesson for the love of conquest than a walk through a military hospital after the first battle.

This anxious service lasted during the greater part of the night; for the wounded amounted to little less than a thousand, both French and foreign. But as I was returning to my mattress, I recollected the countenance of a prisoner standing at the door of one of the chambers set apart for officers of the higher rank. The man put his hand to his shako, and addressed me in German;—he was one of the squadron of Hulans whom I had commanded in the Prussian retreat, and who had rejoined his regiment after the skirmish with the French dragoons. He expressed great delight in finding that I was a survivor. But "on whom was he now in attendance?" "On Major-General Count Varnhorst." He told me that the general had volunteered to join the Austrian army in the Netherlands, and taking the Hulan with him, had been wounded in covering the retreat, been found on the field, and was now in the hands of the surgeons in that chamber!

I pass briefly over this scene. I found my brave friend apparently at the point of death; he had been wounded by the sabre, trampled under horses' hoofs, and crushed in every imaginable way, in the course of the desperate defence which he made against an overwhelming force of the enemy's cavalry. The officers of the escort were loud in reports of his almost frantic gallantry; but he was now so exhausted by the length of the march as to be almost insensible: he knew no one; and his case, after a day or two, was pronounced beyond all cure. It was then that I obtained permission to watch over him, and at least provide that he should not be disturbed in his closing hours. Care is often more than science, and care succeeded in this instance, against all the ominous looks of the medical staff. I so much delighted Pantoufle, by having thus overthrown the authority of a pragmatical confrère, who had been peculiarly stern in his prognostics; that he made the proposal to me of joining him in the chances of his profession. "I shall fix myself in Paris," said he; "fame will be the inevitable consequence, and fortune will follow; here you shall be my successor." I fought off the prospect as well as I could, and pleaded my want of professional knowledge. His countenance, at the words, would have been an incomparable study of mingled burlesque and scorn. He instanced a whole crowd of leading men, whom he unceremoniously designated as having made fortunes, not by knowledge, but simply by its absence. "Their ignorance," said he, "gives them effrontery, and effrontery is the grand secret of fame. You are an Englishman and a philosopher,"—the latter expression uttered with a curl of the lip and an elevation of the brow, which evidently translated the word, a fool. "You take things circuitously, while success lies in the straight line; thus you fail, we triumph."

I admitted the rapidity of his countrymen.

"In France," said he, or rather exclaimed, "two things conduct to renown; and but two—to stop at nothing, and never to admit ignorance in any thing; in medicine, to cure or kill without delay; in surgery, to operate at all risks. If the patient dies, there are fifty reasons for it; if the surgeon hesitates, the public will allow of but one. Politics are not within my line, and the subject is just now a delicate one; but you see that the secret of renown is, to run on the edge of the scaffold. In soldiership the principle is the same—always to fight, whenever you can find any body to fight with; you will deserve to be famous, or deserve to be guillotined.'

"Perhaps both," I remarked.

"Nothing more probable. But still something is done; inaction does nothing. Look at Dumourier; he has had no more necessity for fighting this battle, than for jumping from the parapet of Notre-Dame. But he has fought, he has conquered; and, instead of throwing himself from the parapet of Notre-Dame, which he probably would have done in the next fortnight's ennui in Paris, all Paris is placarded with his bulletins."

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"But he might have been beaten; he might have been ruined, or brought to trial for rashness; or to an Austrian prison, like La Fayette."

"Of course he might. But the question is of the fact—let prophets deal with the future. He has beaten the Austrians; he has conquered Flanders; he has made himself the first man of France by the act, for which, if he had been an Austrian general, he would have been brought to a court-martial, his victory pronounced contrary to rule, his bravery a breach of etiquette, and the rest of his days, if he was not shot on the ramparts of Vienna, spent in a dungeon in Prague. Take my advice; dash at every thing; risk is the grand talent—adventure, the philosopher's stone. So, listen to me; you shall be admitted to the Hotel Dieu as an élève; become my assistant, and make your fortune."

I stared at this sudden explosion of the doctor's rhetoric; but I should have remembered, that he was under the double inspiration of new-born love and reluctant rhyme.

Varnhorst at length attempted to walk as far as the ramparts, and I was enjoying the pride of being able to exhibit my patient to the garrison; when, just as we were issuing from the long and chill corridors into the fresh air and sunshine, I observed the commandant coming towards me with a peculiar air of gravity, attended by several of his officers. Bowing to Varnhorst with military etiquette, he took him aside and communicated to him a few words, which made his pale countenance look paler still. "My friend is brave," was the Prussian's reply, turning a glance to where I stood. "I have seen him in the field. I am satisfied that, wherever he is, he will do his duty."

The commandant now walked up to me, and with an air of embarrassment put a sealed letter into my hands. It was from the minister of foreign affairs, and was marked secret and immediate. I opened it, and I shall not say with what feelings I saw—an order for my attendance at the office of the minister, signed Robespierre.

If the grim majesty of death had put his signature in person to this order, it would not have borne a more mortal aspect. It was a pang! yet the pang did not continue long. Inevitable things are not the hardest to be borne. At all events, there was no time for pondering on the subject. The carriage which had brought the order and the government huissier, was at the gate. Varnhorst gave me one grasp of his honest hand as I left him; the commandant wished me "good fortune." I hurried into the carriage, and we flew on the road to Paris.

On reaching the barrier, we turned off to the quarter of the Luxembourg, and stopped at the gate of a moderate-sized house, where my conductor and I entered. I was shown into a small and simple room; where I found a man advanced in years, and of a striking aspect. He said not a word; I had no inclination to speak. The one or two hesitating syllables which I addressed to him were answered only by a bow and a look, as if he did not understand the language; and I awaited the approach of the terror of France, the horror of Europe, during half an hour, which seemed to me interminable. The door at last opened, a valet came in, and the name of "Robespierre" thrilled through every fibre; but, instead of the frowning giant to which my fancy had involuntarily attached the name, I saw a slight figure, highly dressed, and even with the air of a fop on the stage. Holding a perfumed handkerchief in one hand, which he waved towards his face like one indulging in the fragrance, and a diamond snuff-box in the other, he advanced with a sliding step; and after a sallow smile to me, and a solemn bow to the old man, congratulated himself on the "honour of the acquaintance, which he had been indebted to his friend Elnathan for making, in my person." I was all astonishment: I had come in expectation of receiving my death-warrant—I had a reception like an ambassador. I now perplexed myself with the idea, that I had been mistaken for some stranger in the foreign diplomacy; but I was instantly set right by his pronouncing my name, and making some allusions to "the influence of my family in the British Parliament."

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Yet, I was still in the tiger's den, and I expected to feel the talons. I was happily disappointed; the claw was sheathed in velvet. A slight refection was brought in by an embroidered domestic, and it was evidently the wish of this tremendous demagogue to appear the man of refinement, at least in my instance.

"My friend Elnathan," said he, "has informed me that you wish to return to England?"

This was pronounced in the meekest tone of interrogatory; and, with eyes scarcely raised to either of us, he awaited my confirmation of his idea.

It was given unhesitatingly; and my glance at the countenance of the old man was answered by another, which told me that I saw the correspondent of my friend Mordecai.

"The circumstances are simply these," said the dictator in the same delicate tone; "the government has occasion to arrange some matters of importance with the British cabinet. The successes of the Republic have raised jealousies, which it is for the advantage of human nature that we should reconcile if possible. France and England are the only free countries: their hostility can only be injurious to freedom."

He paused, and his cold grey eye, after traversing the floor, was slowly raised to me.

I admitted my perfect agreement in the opinion, that "wherever national conflict could be avoided, it was the business of all rational men to maintain peace." I saw a grim smile pass over his sallow features, probably at having found another dupe. Elnathan sat in profound silence, without a muscle moved.

Robespierre, rising, took from a portfolio a letter, and put it into the Jew's hand. He now had got over that strange embarrassment with which his habitual nervousness had marked his first address, and spoke largely, and with a considerable expression of authority.

"The English government," said he, "have expressed some unnecessary uneasiness at the progress of opinion in Europe. The late victory, which has decided the fate of the Austrian Netherlands, will probably increase that uneasiness. Communications through the usual channels are slow, imperfect, and open to espionage on all sides. I have, therefore, applied to my friend Elnathan to point out some individual in whom he has perfect confidence, and through whom the communication can be made. He has named you."

Elnathan, with his huge hands clasped on his breast, and his bushy brows drawn deep over his eyes, bent forward with almost oriental affirmation.

"When will you be ready to set out for Calais?"

"This moment," was my willing answer.

"No, we are not quite prepared." He walked for a while about the room, pondering on the subject; then, turning to Elnathan, he directed the Jew to get ready some papers connected with the financial dealings which his English brethren were then beginning to carry on extensively throughout Europe. Those were to be arranged by next day, and for those I must wait.

"You shall be under the care of Elnathan," said the master of my fate. "He will obtain your passports from the Foreign Office, and you will leave Paris to-morrow evening at furthest. We must avoid all suspicion, Elnathan," said he, turning to the Jew. "Paris is a hot-bed of spies. Apropos, where do you propose to spend the evening?"

My mind glanced at Vincennes, and his eye, cold as it was, caught my startled conception.

"No, your return to-night to the fortress would only set all the tongues of Paris in motion to-morrow. You must be seen in public to-night, at the opera, the theatre, or where you will. You must figure as an Englishman travelling at his pleasure and his leisure—a Milor."

"Madame Roland gives a soiree to-night," humbly interposed the Jew.

"Ha!—that is the best of all. You must go there. You will be seen by all the world. Elnathan will introduce you to the 'philosophic lady' of the circle." He then resumed his pacing round the room. I could observe the vulpine expression of his visage, the twitching of his hands, the keen sidelong look of a man living in perpetual alarm.

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We prepared to take our leave; but he now suddenly resumed the petit-maître, flourished his perfumed handkerchief again, gave a passing smile at the mirror, and offered me the honours of his snuff-box with the affectation of the stage. But, as we reached the door of the apartment, he made a long, single stride, which brought him up close to me. "Remember, sir," said he, in a stern voice, wholly unlike the past—"You have it in charge from me to inform the government of your country of the actual feeling of France. It is true that there are madmen among us—Brissotins, Girondists, and other enthusiasts—who talk of war. I tell you that they are madmen, and that I will have no war.—There may be conspirators, who think to shake the existing régime of the republic, and look to war as the means of raising themselves on its ruins.—I tell you, and you may tell your cabinet, that they will not accomplish their objects here; and that, if they accomplish them, it will be the fault and the folly alone of England. Impress those truths on the minds of your countrymen: the Republic desires no war; her principle is peace, her purpose is peace, her prosperity is peace. There will be, there shall be, there can be, no war." He folded his arms, and stood like a pillar till we withdrew.

I happened to ascertain shortly afterwards, that on this very day Robespierre had presided at a council which has sent off orders to Dumourier to open the Scheldt, the notorious and direct preliminary to war with England. Such is the sincerity of diplomacy!

I remained during the rest of the day with Elnathan. His hotel was splendid, and all that surrounded him gave the impression of great opulence; but it was obvious that he lived like a man in a gunpowder magazine. He had several sons and daughters, whom, in the terrors of the time, he had contrived to send among his connexions in Germany; and he now lived alone, his wife having been dead for some years. All his wealth could not console him for the anxiety of his position; and doubtless he would have perished long before, in the general massacre of the opulent, except for the circumstance of being the chief channel of moneyed communication between the government and Germany. In the course of our lonely but most recherché dinner, he explained to me slightly the means of my recent preservation. The police-officer had acquainted him with my being the bearer of a letter from Mordecai. The intelligence reached him just in time to save me, by a daring claim of my person as an agent of the English ministry. He had then lost sight of me, and began to think that I had perished; when the application of my friend the doctor told him where I was to be found. The message of the head of the Republic, requiring a confidential bearer of documents, struck him as affording an opportunity of my liberation; and though the palpable absurdity of my worthy friend Pantoufle prevented any communication with him, no time was lost in proposing my name to authority.

"And now," said my entertainer, after drinking my safe arrival in a bumper of imperial tokay, "En avance, for Madame Roland."

We drove to a splendid mansion in the Rue de la Revolution. The street in front was crowded with equipages, and it was with some difficulty that we could make our way through the long and stately suite of rooms. The house had belonged to the Austrian ambassador; and on the declaration of war it had been taken possession of by the Republic without ceremony.

I observed to Elnathan, that "to judge from the pomp of the furniture, republicanism was not republican every where."

"Nowhere but in the streets, or the prisons," was his reply in a whisper. "Since the Austrian left it, the whole hotel has been furnished anew at the most profuse expense, which I had the honour of supplying. Roland is a great personage, an honest nobody, a mill-horse at the wheel of office. He is probably drudging over his desk at this moment; but Madame is of another mould. "La voilà!" He turned suddenly, and made a profound bow to a very showy female, who had advanced from a group for the purpose of receiving the Jew and the stranger. I had now, for the [Pg 570] first time, the honour of seeing this remarkable personage. Her figure was certainly striking, and her physiognomy conveyed a great deal of her character for intelligence and decision. She had evidently dressed herself on the model of the classique; and though not handsome enough for a Venus, nor light enough for a nymph, she might have made a tolerable Minerva. She had probably some thoughts of the kind; for before we had time to make our bows, she threw herself into an attitude of the Galerie des Antiques, and, with her eyes fixed profoundly on the ground, awaited our incense. But when this part was played, the idol condescended to become human, and she spoke with that torrent of language which her clever countrywomen have at unrivaled command. She was "delighted, charmed, enchanted, to make my acquaintance. She had owed many marks of friendship to M. Elnathan; but this surpassed them all—she admired the English—they were always the friends of liberty—France was now beginning a race in the arena of freedom. The rivalry was brilliant, the prize was inestimable." I could only bow. Again, "she was enraptured to see an Englishman; the countryman of Milton and Wilkes, of Charles Fox and William Tell—she had been lately studying English history, and had wept floods of tears over the execution of William III.—Enfin, she hoped that Shakspeare, 'ce beau, ce superbe Shakspeare,' was in good health, and meant to give the world many, many more charming tragedies."

She had now discharged her first volley, and she wheeled back upon a group of members of the Convention, grim and sullen-looking sages, with wild hair hanging over their shoulders, and the genuine Carmagnole physiognomy. With those men she was evidently plunged in vehement discussion, and her whole volume of politics was flung at their heads with as little mercy as her literary stores had been poured upon me.

But the crowd pressed towards another object of curiosity, and I followed it, under the guidance of my Asmodeus, to a music room, splendidly fitted up, and filled with the most select orchestra of the capital. But it was an amateur that was there to attract all eyes and ears. "Madame de Fontenai," whispered the Jew, as he glanced towards a woman of a remarkably expressive countenance and statue-like form, half sitting, half reposing, on a sofa—surrounded by a group soliciting her for a "few notes, a suspiration, a soupçon"—of, as Elnathan observed, "one of the most delicious voices which had ever crossed the Pyrenees," and the Jew had all the habitual connoisseurship of his nation. At last the siren consented, and a harp was brought and placed before her, with the same homage which might have attended an offering to the Queen of Cyprus, in her own island, three thousand years ago; and rather letting her hand drop among the strings, than striking them, and rather breathing out her feelings, than performing any music of mortal composition, she sang one of the fantastic, but deep, reveries of passion of "the sweet south."

[Pg 571]

The song closed in a burst of plaudits, as general and marked as if they had been given to a prima donna in a theater, and she received them as if she was in a theatre.

"You should be presented to Madame de Fontenai," was my guide's suggestion. "She is our reigning célébrité at present, as Madame Roland is our publicité. You see we are nice in our distinctions.—I shall probably to-night show you another, a very handsome creature indeed, without half the talents of either, but with more admirers than both; who has obtained the title of our felicité."

"I shall be delighted to be made known to her, but give me the carte du pays. Who or what is she?"

"The daughter of Cabarus, the Spanish ambassador here some years ago. She is now a widow, rich, giving the most recherché suppers, followed by all the world, and, as she declares, persecuted by M. Tallien; who, as perseverance is nine-tenths of success in every thing, will probably succeed in making her Madame Tallien."

I had now the honor of being presented, and was received with very flattering attention. This I probably owed to the Jew, who seemed to have the key to every one's smiles, as he had to most of their escrutoires. She was certainly a person of most distinguished appearance. Not handsome, so far as beauty depends on feature; for she had the olive tinge of her country, Spain, and she had the not Spanish "petit nez retroussé." She required distance for fascination. But her figure was fine, and never was any costume more studied to exhibit it in all its graces. Accustomed as I had become to foreign life, I must acknowledge that I was a little surprised at the unhesitatingly classical development of her form;—arms naked to the shoulder, or clasped only with golden serpents; a robe à la Diane, and succinct as ever huntress wore; silver sandals, a jeweled cestus, and a tunic of white satin deeply embroidered with gold, depending simply to the knee! But when she placed me on the sofa beside her, and entered into conversation, every thing was forgotten but her incomparable elegance of manner. She had singular brilliancy of eye; it almost spoke, it perpetually flashed, and it filled up the pauses when she ceased to speak, with a meaning absolutely mental. Her language was animated and intelligent; sometimes in a tone of gentle and touching confidence, which made the hearer almost think that he was looking at her soul through her vivid countenance. Before a few minutes had elapsed, I could fully comprehend her title to the renown of the most captivating conversationist of Paris.

As I at length relinquished this enviable and envied position, to give way to the crowd who brought their tribute to the fateuil, or rather the shrine, of this dazzling woman—"You have still," said my companion, "to see another of our sovereigns; for, as we have a triumvirate in the Tuileries, the world of taste is ruled by three rivals; and they are curiously characteristic of the classes from which they have sprung. The lady of the mansion, you must have perceived to be republican in every sense of the word—clever undoubtedly, but as undoubtedly bourgeoise; intelligent in no slight degree, but too much in earnest for elegance; perpetually taking the lead on those desperate subjects, in which women can only be, and ought to be, smatterers; and all this to the infinite [Pg 572] amusement of her hearers, and the unbounded terror of her meek and very helpless husband."

I remarked, "that she had, at least, the important merit of giving very splendid entertainments."

"Yes, and of also possessing as honest a heart as she possesses a rash brain. She is kind, generous, and even rational, where she has not a revolution to make or to ruin. But, suffer her to touch on politics, and you might as well bring a lunatic into the full moon."

"But that singular being, to whom we have just been listening, and whose song I shall hear to-night in my dreams—can she be a politician, a republican? I have never seen a countenance more likely to be contemptuous of the canaille!"

"You are perfectly in the right. She has a sphere of her own, which has no more to do with our world than if she lived in the evening-star. She exists simply to enjoy homage, and to reward it, as you have seen, by a song or a smile; yet she has been on the verge of the scaffold. Some of our most powerful political characters are contending for her influence, her fortune, or her hand; and whether the contest will end in raising M. Tallien to the head of the Republic, or extinguishing him within the week, is a question which chance alone can decide.—She may yet be a queen."

"She seems fitter to be a Circe, or a Calypso. Or if a queen, she would be a Cleopatra."

"No," said Elnathan, with the only laugh which I had seen on his solemn visage during the night. "She has known too much of courts to endure royalty. She reigns as the widow of M. de Fontenai. If Tallien falls, she will have the power of choosing from all his successors. When old age comes at last, and conquests are hopeless, she will turn devote, fly to her native Spain, abjure the face of man, spend her money on wax-dolls and cockle-shells; and after being worshipped by the multitude as a saint, and panegyrized by the monks as a miracle, will die with her face turned to Paris after all, as good Mussulmen send their last breath in the direction of Mecca."

We now plunged into the centre of a circle of men in military costume, full of the war, and criticising Dumourier's campaign with the utmost severity. As I listened; with some surprise at the multiplicity of errors which the most successful general of France had contrived to squeeze into a single month of operations, I observed a man, of a pale thin visage, like one suffering from ill health or excessive mental toil, but of a singularly intellectual expression; standing at a slight distance from the group of tacticians with a quiet smile.

"Let me have the honour of presenting M. Marston to the minister at war," was my introduction to the celebrated Carnot; with whom Elnathan seemed to be on peculiar terms of intimacy. The minister entered at once, and good-humouredly, into conversation.

"You must not think our favourite general," said he, "altogether the military novice which those gentlemen of the National Guard have decided him to be. I feel an additional interest in the question, because I had a little official battle to fight to place him at the head of the army of Flanders. But I saw that he had military talent, and that, with a republic, cancels all sins."

I made some passing remark on the idleness of disputing the ability of an officer who answered cavils by conquest, observing, that the only rational altar raised by the Romans, a people of warriors, was to "Good Fortune."

"Ah yes, you think, in the Choiseul style, that the first question to be asked in choosing a general was, 'is he lucky?' I must own, notwithstanding, that our city warriors have been of the opinion"—and a slight movement curled his lip—"that General Dumourier has fought his battle against principle. But they do not perceive, that there lies the very merit for which the Republic must uphold him. His troops were in an exhausted country; they had but provisions for two days. He must fight at once or retreat. Another general might have retreated; and made his apology by the state of his haversacks. Dumourier took the other alternative: he fought; and the general who fights is the only general who gains victories."

One of the tacticians at whom he had indulged in a sneer, Santerre, the commandant of the city horse, a huge and heavy hero with enormous [Pg 573] jackboots and a clattering sabre, now strode up to us, and pronounced that the campaign had been hitherto "against all rule."

"You mistake, my good friend," said the now half-angry minister—"you mistake acting above rule for acting against rule. Our war is new, our force is new, our position is new; and we must meet the struggle by new means every where. Follow the routine, and all is lost. Invent, act, hazard, strike, and we shall triumph as Dumourier has done—France is surrounded with enemies. To conquer, we must astonish. If we wait to be attacked, we must feel the weakness of defence—the spirit of the French soldier is attack. Within the frontier he is a bird in a cage; beyond it he is a bird in the air. Why has France always triumphed in the beginning of a war? because she has always invaded. The French soldier must march, he must fight, he must feel that he hazards every thing, before he rises to that pitch of daring, that ardour, that elan, by which he gains every thing. Let him, like the Greek, burn his ships behind him, and from that moment he is invincible."

I listened with speechless interest to this development of the principles on which the great war of Europe was to be sustained. The speaker uttered his oracular sentences with a glow, which left his hearers almost as breathless as himself. I could imagine that I saw before me the living genius of French victory.

While we were standing, silenced by this burst; an incident occurred, as if to give demonstration to his theory; an aide-de-camp entered the room, bringing despatches from the army of Flanders. He had but just arrived in Paris, and not finding the war-minister at his bureau, had followed him here. Of course, the strongest conceivable curiosity existed; but not a syllable was to be learned from the official mystery of the aide-de-camp. He made his advance to the minister, deposited the despatch in his hands, and then drew up his stately figure, impervious to all questioning. Carnot retired to an alcove to read the missive, and in the mean time the general anxiety was an absolute fever. The dance ceased, the tables of loto and faro were deserted, the whole business of life was broken up, and five hundred of the handsomest, the most brilliant, and the best dressed of the earth, were standing on tiptoe in an agony of suspense. It would have justified a counter-revolution.

At length Carnot, probably wholly forgetting the scene of suffering which he had left behind, came forward with the important despatch open in his hand. When he read the date, and pronounced the words "Headquarters, Brussels," all was known, and all was rapture. The French deserve good news beyond all other people of the globe, for none ever enjoy it so much. I thought that they would have embraced the little minister to death; no living man certainly was ever nearer being pressed into Elysium. Absolute shouts of Vive la Republique! and plaudits from innumerable pairs of the most delicate hands, echoed through the whole suite of salons. Madame, the lady of the mansion, made a set speech to him, at the conclusion of which she rushed on him with open arms, and kissed him on both cheeks, "Au nom de la Republique." Even the ethereal Madame de Fontenai condescended so far to stoop to human feelings, as to move from her couch, advance, drooping her fine eyes, and, with her hand on her bosom, like a sultana bend her magnificent head in silent homage before him. I watched the pantomime of this matchless creature, with a full acknowledgment of its beauty. A single word would have impaired it; but she did not utter a syllable. On retiring, she slowly raised her expressive countenance, fixing her eyes above, as if she thanked some visionary protector of France for this crowning triumph; and then, with hands clasped, and step by step, sank back into the crowd.

Supper was announced, and we were led into a new suite of rooms, filled with all the luxuries and hospitalities of a most sumptuous entertainment. Carnot, now doubly popular, was surrounded by the élite of name and beauty. But, whether from the politeness with which even the Republicans of former rank were desirous of distinguishing themselves [Pg 574] from the roturier, or for the purpose of making his opinions known in that country which had been always the great tribunal of European opinion, and always will be; he made me sit down at his side.

He now talked largely of continental interest, and continually reverted to the advantages of a closer alliance of England with France. "The two countries," said he, "are made for combination; combined, they could conquer the globe; France for the empire of the land, England for the empire of the sea. Nature has divided between them the sceptre of the world."

I observed that, when the conquest was achieved, the victors, like Augustus and Antony, might quarrel at last.

"Well, then, even if they did, the combat would finish in a day what it would have taken centuries of the tardy wars of old times to decide. Six hours at Pharsalia settled the civil wars of Rome, and pacified the world for five hundred years."

"But which side would be content to be the beaten one?" I asked.

"Neither," replied a restless, but remarkably broad-foreheaded and deep-browed personage at the opposite side of the table. "The combat would be eternal, or must end in mutual ruin. An universal empire would be beyond the government of man by law, or his control by the sword. I prefer enlightening the people until they shall want no control."

"But will they buy your lamp?" said Carnot, with a smile.

"At least they have done so pretty extensively, if I am to believe the public. It was but this day, that I received a notice that there had been sent forth the hundred thousandth copy of my 'Qu'est ce que le Tiers Etat.'"

"That was not a lamp, but a firebrand," said a hollow voice at a distance down the table; which reminded me of the extraordinary orator whom I had heard in the Jacobin Club. Carnot looked round to discover this strange accuser, and added, in a loud and stern tone—

"Whether lamp or firebrand, I pronounce to all good Frenchmen that it was a great gift to France. It was the grammar of a new language, the language of liberty! It was the sound of a trumpet, the trumpet of revolution! Still M. de Siêyes," said he, turning to the author of this celebrated performance, "all things have their time, and yours is not yet come. I cannot give up the soldier. I am for no tardy movement, when the country is in peril; the field must be cleared before it can be cultivated. You must sweep war from your gates, and faction from your streets, before you can sit down to teach a people. Even then the task is not easy. To know nothing, or to know something badly, are two kinds of ignorance which will always tempt the majority of mankind."

"Is there not a third kind of ignorance more dangerous still—that of knowing more than one ought to know?" interposed another speaker, whose countenance had already struck me as one of the most problematical that I had ever seen. His composed yet keen physiognomy, strongly reminded me of the portraits of the Italian Conclave—some of the cardinals of Giorgione and Titian; at once subtle and dignified.

Carnot smiled, and said to me in a low tone, "That is a touch at Siêyes. Those two men never meet without a fencing-match. One of them has been a bishop, and cannot forgive the loss of his mitre. Siêyes has been nothing, but intends to be more than a bishop yet—if he can. Talleyrand and he hate each other with the hatred of rival beauties."

It was evident that Siêyes was stung, though I could not tell how. I saw his powerful countenance flush to the forehead. But he merely said—"Pray, Monsieur, what is a vizard?"

All eyes were now directed to the combatants, and a faint laugh ran round the table. But there was not the slightest appearance of perturbation in the manner or look of his antagonist, as he answered—

"Monsieur, I shall have the honour to inform you. A vizard is a contrivance for concealment, whether in silk and pasteboard or in an inflexible visage—whether in a woman who wants to disguise her features, or in a man who wants to hide his heart—whether in a [Pg 575] masquerader or an assassin. For example, when I hear a hypocrite talk of his honesty, an intriguer of his conscience, a renegade of his candour, and a pensioner of his patriotism, I do not require to look at him—I say at once, that man wears a vizard." He paused a moment. "This," said he, "is the vizard in public life. In private, it is the impartiality of authors to their own performances, the justice of partizans, the originality of plagiaries, and the principle of pamphleteers."

This daring delivery of sentiment hit so many, that it could be resented by none; for no one could have assailed it without making himself responsible to the charge. Silence fell upon the table. However, lapses of this order are not fatal in France, and the topic of the war was too recent not to press still. Various anecdotes of the gallantry of the troops were detailed, and the conversation was once more led by the minister. "These instances of heroism," said he, "show us the spirit which war, and war alone, can kindle in a people. In peace, the lower qualities take the lead; in war, the higher—intrepidity, perseverance, talent, and contempt of difficulties. The man must then be shown—deception can have no place there. All the stronger qualities of our nature are called into exercise; the mind grows muscular like the frame; the spirit glows with the blood; a nobler career of eminence spreads before the nation, cheered by rewards, at once of a more splendid rank, and distributed on a loftier principle. We shall no more have a Pompadour, or a Du Barry, giving governments and marshals' batons. The character of the nation will become, like its swords, at once bright, sharp, and solid; the reign of corruption is gone already, the reign of dupery cannot long survive. France will set an example which the world will be proud to imitate, or must be forced to follow."

"You remind me, Monsieur le Ministre, of the Spartans, who, when they returned from beating the enemy, found their slaves in possession of their households. You conquer Prussians and Austrians on the frontier, and leave monks at home. But, as long as you spare the spiders, you must not complain of cobwebs. Crush intriguers, an you will put an end to intrigue," said the bold ex-bishop.

"The man insults the Republic who charges her citizens with intrigue," was the whispered, and very formidable, menace of Siêyes. "Monsieur, you have yet to learn what is a constitution."

The Abbé had incurred some ridicule by his readiness in proposing constitutions. His antagonist, like a hornet, instantly fixed his sting upon the naked spot.

"No, Monsieur, I perfectly know what is a modern constitution—it is the credit of a charlatan—it is the stock of a political pedlar, made only for sale to simpletons—it is an umbrella, to be taken down when it rains—it is a surtout in summer, and nakedness in winter. It is, in short, a contrivance, to make a reputation for a sciolist, and to govern mankind on the principles of a reverie."

"This is the language of faction," exclaimed Siêyes, indignantly rising.

"Pardon me," said his imperturbable antagonist; "the language of faction is the language of quacks to dupes; it is the language learned in the clubs and taught in the streets—the language which takes it for granted, that the hearer is as destitute of brains, as the speaker is of principle." All eyes were turned on the parties.

But his hearer simply said, yet with a glance of fire—

"Monseigneur, you should remember, that you are not in our diocese, haranguing your chaplains. You forget also, that in France the age of quackery is over. There are no more dupes—have you your passports ready?"

This produced not even a sneer on the marble countenance of the adversary.

"Monsieur de Siêyes," was the ready reply, "let me not hear you talk of despair. Quackery will never be at an end in France. The true quack is a polypus; cut him into a thousand pieces, he only grows the faster;—he is a fungus, give him only a stone to cling to, and he covers it;—he is the viper, even while he hides in his hole, he is only preparing to bite in the sunshine; and when all the world think him [Pg 576] frozen for life, he is only concocting venom for his summer exploits. Quacks will live, as long as there are dupes—as leeches will live, as long as there are asses' heels to hang on." He then rose, making a profound bow, with "Bon soir, Monsieur l'Abbé—never fear—dupes will be eternal."

This produced some confusion and consternation among the friends of Siêyes. But a new scene of the night was announced, and all flowed towards the private theatre.

I was yet to see more of this daring talker; but I was not surprised to hear next day, that he had left Paris at midnight, and was gone, no one knew whither. The capital might have been hazardous for him. Siêyes was probably above revenge; but there were those who would have readily taken the part upon themselves, and a cidevant bishop would have made a showy victim. How he escaped even so far, is among the wonders of a life of wonder. I afterwards saw the fugitive, at the head of European councils, a prince and a prime minister; the restorer of the dynasty under which he fell, the overthrower of the dynasty under which he rose; bearing a charmed life, and passing among the havoc of factions, and even escaping from the wrecks of empire, more like an impalpable spirit than a man.

But the change of his style was scarcely less remarkable than the change of his fortunes. He was then no longer the hot and heady satirist; he had become the sly and subtle scorner. No man said so many cutting things, yet so few of which any one could take advantage: he anatomized human character without the appearance of inflicting a wound; he had all the pungency of wit without its peril, and reigned supreme by a terror which every one pretended not to feel. The change, after all, was only one of weapons; in the first period it was the knife, in the second the razor—and perhaps the latter was the more deadly of the two.

The theatre was fitted up with the taste of a people more essentially theatrical than any other in the world. For not merely the eye, but the tongue, is theatrical; and not merely the stage, but every portion of private life. Every sentiment, every sound, is theatrical; and the stage itself is the only natural thing in the country, from Calais to Bayonne.

As we took our seats in the little gilded box, which was made only for two; though probably for tête-à-têtes of a more romantic order than ours, Elnathan observed to me, "You will now see two of the most remarkable artistes in France—Talma, beyond all comparison our first actor; and another, an amateur, whom I think altogether one of the finest women in existence. You may pronounce, that she ought to be younger for perfection; but there is beauty in the fruit as well as in the flower, and not the less beautiful though it is of a different kind. But you shall see."

The curtain now drew up, and we saw the commencement of the little drame of Paul et Virginie. St Pierre's charming story has since been worn out on all the boards of Europe; but it was then new to the stage, and the audience gazed and listened, smiled and wept, with all the freshness of delicious novelty. All the earlier portions of the performance were what we have since so repeatedly seen them; we had the scenery of the Mauritius, painted with habitual French skill, the luxuriant vegetation, the rosy sky, and the deep purple of the ocean. The negro-dances were exhibited, by ballerine from the opera; and all was in suspense for the appearance of the two stars of the night. Paul's entré was received with unbounded plaudits; he was so simply dressed, and looked so completely the young wanderer of the groves, that I could not conceive him to be the grand pillar of tragedy in France. He was incomparably the handsome peasant of the tropics; yet, as his part advanced, I could discover in his deep eye and powerful tone, the actor capable of reaching the heights of dramatic passion. He was scarcely above the middle size, with features whose magic consisted in neither their strength nor beauty, but in their flexibility. I had never seen a countenance so capable of change, and in which the change was so instantaneous and so total. From the most sportive openness, a word threw it into the most indignant storm, or the most incurable despair. [Pg 577] From wild joy, it was suddenly clouded with a weight of sorrow that "refused to be comforted." His accents were singularly sweet, yet clear; and, like his change of countenance, capable of the most rapid change from cheerfulness to the agonies of a breaking heart. His charm was reality; the power to carry away the audience with him into the scene of the moment. I had not been five minutes looking at him, when I was as completely in the Mauritius, as if I had been basking in its golden sunshine, and imbibing the breeze from fair palms.

But his fascination and ours was complete when Virginie appeared. Nothing could be less artificial than her costume; the simple dress of Bengalese blue cloth, a few cowrie shells round her neck, and a shell comb fastening up the braids of profusion of raven hair. She came floating rather than walking down the mountain path; and her first few words, when Paul rushed forward and knelt to kiss her feet, and the half playful, half fond air with which she repelled him, seemed to me the most exquisite of all performances. I observed, too, that her style had more nature in it than that of Talma. I had till then forgotten that he was an actor; but, placed beside her, I could have almost instinctively pronounced that Paul was a Frenchman and Virginie a Creole. I whispered the remark to Elnathan, who answered, "that I was right in point of fact; for the representative of Virginie, though not a native of the Mauritius, was of tropical birth, the widow of a French noble, who had married her in the colonies and who had been one of the victims of the Revolution."

"And yet an amateur actress?"

"Yes; but we never ask such questions in France. Every body does the same. You should see one of our 'bals à la victime,' in which the express qualification for a ticket is having lost a relative by the guillotine."

"But who is this charming woman?"

"A woman of birth and fortune, of charming talents, and supposed at this moment to exercise the highest influence with the most influential personage of the government;—even the bewitching Madame de Fontenai has given way to her supremacy."

I observed, "That though neither could compete with English beauty in point of features, there was a singular fascination in both—their countenances seemed remarkably connected with the play of their minds.

"There is still a distinction," said Elnathan, after a long and calm look through his lorgnette—in the style of that inspection which an artist might give to a picture of acknowledged renown; or perhaps which a Mahometan dealer might fix on an importation from Circassia; "but one which," said he, dropping his glass, "I find it difficult to define."

"You have already," said I, "given Madame Roland her place at the head of Republicans, let us suppose Madame de Fontenai the fine and fastidious aristocrat. While this lovely being's elegance of manner, and mixture of grace and dignity, would make an admirable figure at the head of a French court, if such a thing were not now beyond all possibility."

"Are you aware," said the Jew, with sudden seriousness, "that a prediction, or at least some extraordinary conjecture on the subject, has gone the round of the circles. The tale is, that while she was still a girl in the West Indies, one of the negro dispensers of fortune, an Obi woman, pronounced that she should ascend a throne. I must, however, add the finale to qualify it—that she should die in an hospital."

"The scale," said I, "goes down too suddenly in that case: she had better remain the beautiful and happy creature that she is. Yet a being formed in this expressive mould was not meant either to live or die like the rest of the world."

"True, in other countries," said Elnathan, with a glance round, as if a huissier was at his elbow; "but here the affair is different—or rather, the course of nature is the scaffold. That beautiful woman has lately had the narrowest escape from the Revolutionary committee; and I can tell you that it is utterly impossible to know what to-morrow may bring even to her. She is too lovely not to be an object of rivalry; and a word may be death."

Such was my first sight of Josephine de Beauharnais.

[Pg 578]

This charming performance proceeded with infinite interest. But it differed from the course which I have since seen it take. The scene next showed Virginie in France. She was in the midst of all the animation of Parisian life—no longer the simple and exquisite child of nature, but the conscious beauty; still in all the bloom of girlhood, but exhibiting the graces of the woman of fashion. Surrounded by the admiration and adulation of the glittering world, she had given herself up to its influence, until her early feelings were beginning to fade away. The scene opened with a ball. Virginie, dressed in the perfection of Parisian taste, was floating down the dance, radiant with jewels and joy, the very image of delight, when her eye dropped upon the figure of a stranger, standing in a recess of the superb apartment, with arms folded, a moody brow, and a burning gaze fixed upon her. A pang shot through her heart. In her exquisite acting, a single gesture, a single glance, showed that all the recollections of her native isle had returned. She was the child of nature and of sensibility once more. She tottered from the dance, tremblingly approached the stranger, and fell at his feet. That stranger was Paul; and Talma, in his finest tragedy, never displayed more profound emotion, nor produced more enthusiastic applause, than when he raised her up, and with one look, and one word, "Virginie,"—forgot all and forgave all.

But we were spared the catastrophe, which would certainly have been an ill return for the profusion of sighs and tears which the fair spectators gave to the performance. The ruling genius of the night, the minister's wife, officially inspired to do honour to the triumphs of the State, had employed the talents of her decorateurs actively during our stay at the supper-table; and when the curtain rose for the third act, instead of "a stormy sea and the horrors of shipwreck," according to the stage directions, we saw a stage Olympus, in which the whole élite of the Celestials escorted a formidable Bellona-like figure, the cuirassed and helmed Republic, in triumphal procession, to an altar covered with laurels and flaming with incense, inscribed "à la Liberté." Some stanzas, more remarkable for their patriotism than their poetry, were chanted by Minerva, Juno, and the rest of the Olympians, in honour of the "jour magnifique de victoire, Jemappes." A train of figurantes, the monarchies of Europe, came forward, dancing and depositing their crowns and sceptres at the foot of the altar, (a sign, at least, tolerably significant;) the whole concluding with an exhibition of the bust of Dumourier, on which Madame laid a chaplet of laurel, accompanied with a speech in the highest republican style—bust, speech, and Madame, being all alike received with true Gallic rapture.

On that night, to have doubted the "irresistible, universal, and perpetual" triumph of the Republic, would have been high-treason to taste, to hospitality, and the ladies; and for that night our belief was unbounded. All had made up their minds that a new era of human felicity had arrived; that "all the world was a stage," in the most dancing and delightful sense of the words; and that feasting and fêtes were to form the staple of life for every future age. We were to live in a rosebud world. I heard around me in a thousand whispers, from some of the softest politicians that ever wore a smile, the assurance, that France was to become a political Arcadia, or rather an original paradise, in which toil and sorrow had no permission to be seen. In short, the world, from that time forth, was to be changed; despotism was extinguished; man was regenerated; balls and suppers were to be the only rivalry of nations; Paris was, of course, to lead France; France, of course, to lead the globe;—all was to be beauty, bonhommie, and bonbons! And, under the shade of the triumphant tricolor, all nations were to waltz, make epigrams, and embrace for ever!

INDIAN AFFAIRS—GWALIOR.

[Pg 579]

The painful interest with which the arrival of every Indian mail was looked for in England during the continuance of the Affghan war with its alternations of delusive triumphs and bloody reverses, has now almost wholly died away: the public mind, long accustomed to sup full of the horrors of the Khoord-Cabul pass, and the atrocities of the "arch-fiend" Akhbar Khan, has subsided into apathy, and hears with indifference of the occasional defeat and dethronement of rajahs and nawabs with unpronounceable names—an employment which seem to be popularly considered in this country the ordinary duty of the servants of the Company. Yet the intelligence received during the last year from our eastern empire, whether viewed in connexion with past events, or with reference to those which are now "casting their shadows before," might furnish abundant matter for speculation, both from the "moving incidents by field" which have marked its course, and the portents which have appeared in the political horizon. In Affghanistan all things seem gradually returning to the same state in which the British invasion found them. The sons of Shah Shoojah have proved unable to retain the royal authority, which they attempted to grasp on the retirement of the invaders; and Dost Mahommed, released from captivity, (as we expressed in Feb. 1843 the hope that he would be,) once more rules in Cabul—there destined, we trust, to end his days in honour after his unmerited misfortunes—and has shown every disposition to cultivate a good understanding with the government in India. Akhbar Khan is again established in his former government of Jellalabad; and it is said that he meditates availing himself of the present distracted state of the Sikh kingdom, to make an attempt for the recovery of the Peshawar—the refusal of his father to confirm which, by a formal cession to Runjeet Singh, was one of the causes, it will be remembered, of the Affghan war. There are rumours of wars, moreover, in Transoxiana, where the King of Bokhara has subdued the Uzbek kingdom of Kokan or Ferghana, (once the patrimony of the famous Baber,) and is said to meditate extending his conquests across the Hindoo-Koosh into Northern Affghanistan—a measure which might possibly bring him within reason of British vengeance for the wrongs of the two ill-fated envoys, Stoddart and Conolly, who, even if the rumours of their murder should prove unfounded, have been detained for years, in violation of the rights of nations, in hopeless and lingering bondage.[15] The Barukzye sirdars have repossessed themselves of Candahar, whence they are believed to be plotting with the dispossessed Ameer of Meerpoor in Scinde against the British; while at Herat, the very fons et origo mali, the sons of Shah Kamran have been expelled after their father's death, by the wily vizier Yar Mohammed, who has strengthened himself in his usurpation by becoming a voluntary vassal of Persia! Thus has the Shah acquired, without a blow, the city which became famous throughout the world by its resistance to his arms; and the preservation of which, as a bulwark against the designs of Russia, was the primary object which led the British standards, in an evil hour, across the Indus. Such has been the result of all the deep-laid schemes of Lord Auckland's policy, and the equivalent obtained for the thousands of lives, and millions of treasure, lavished in support of them;—failure so complete, that but for the ruins of desolated cities, and the deep furrows of slaughter and devastation, left visible through the length and breadth of the land, the whole might be regarded as a dream, from which the country had awakened, after the [Pg 580] lapse of five years, to take up the thread of events as they were left at the end of 1838. But the connexion of our eastern empire with trans-Indian politics has also fortunately subsided once more to its former level; and, satisfied with this brief summary, we shall turn to the consideration of those points in which our own interests are more nearly implicated.

Our anticipations last year, as to the ultimate fate of Scinde and its rulers, have been verified almost to the letter. The Ameers (to borrow a phrase of Napoleon's germane to the matter) "have ceased to reign," and their territory has formally, as it already was virtually, incorporated with the Anglo-Indian empire. In our Number for February 1843, we gave some account of the curious process of political alchemy by which a dormant claim for tribute, on the part of Shah Shoojah, had been transmuted into an active assertion of British supremacy over the Indus and its navigation, and the appropriation of the port of Kurrachee at the mouth, and the fortified post of Sukkur on the higher part of the stream, of the river. To this arrangement the Ameers, from the first, submitted with a bad grace, which it was easy to foresee would lead, according to established rule in such cases in India, to the forfeiture of their dominions. And such has been the case; but the transfer has not been effected without an unexpected degree of resistance, in which the heroism of Sir Charles Napier, and the handful of troops under his command, against fearful numerical odds, alone prevented the repetition, on a smaller scale, of the Affghan tragedy. The proximate cause of the rupture was the refusal of the Ameers to permit the clearing away of their shikargahs, or hunting-grounds, which were guarded with a rigid jealousy, paralleled only by the forest laws of William the Conqueror, and extended for many miles along the banks of the Indus, in a broad belt of impenetrable jungle, at once impeding the navigation by preventing the tracking of boats, and presenting dangerous facilities for ambush. To these cherished game-preserves the Ameers clung with a desperate pertinacity, which might have moved the sympathy of an English sportsman—"admitting" (says the Bombay Times) "that we might strip them of their territory, occupy Hydrabad, or seize their persons without difficulty; but maintaining that they will never consent to become parties to the act of degradation we insist upon, or give their enemies the pretext for charging them with having made over to us by treaty, on any consideration whatever, the most valued portion of their territory." A force under Sir Charles Napier was at length moved from Sukkur towards Hydrabad, with a view of intimidating them into submission; and on February 14, 1843, they affixed their seals to the draught of an agreement for giving up the shikargahs. But this apparent concession was only a veil for premeditated treachery. On the 15th, the Residency at Hydrabad was attacked by 8000 men with six guns, headed by one of the Ameers; and the resident, Major Outram, after defending himself with only 100 men for four hours, forced his way through the host of his assailants, and reached Sir Charles Napier's camp. The Ameers now took the field with a force estimated at 22,000 men; but were attacked on the 17th at Meeanee, a town near the Indus above Hydrabad, by 2800 British and Sepoys, and completely routed after a desperate conflict, in which the personal prowess of the British general, and his officers, was called into display in a manner for which few opportunities occur in modern warfare. The effect of the victory was decisive: the Ameers surrendered themselves prisoners of war, and were shortly afterwards sent to Bombay; the British flag was hoisted at Hydrabad; and a proclamation of the Governor-general was published at Agra, March 5, declaring the annexation to our empire of "the country on both sides of the Indus from Sukkur to the sea."

The subjugation of the new province was not yet, however, complete, as another Talpoor chief, Ameer Shere Mohammed of Meerpoor, still remained in arms; and a second sanguinary engagement was fought, March 24, in the neighbourhood of Hydrabad, in which 20,000 Beloochees were again [Pg 581] overthrown, with great slaughter, by 6000 Sepoy and English troops. The town of Meerpoor and the important fortress of Oomerkote, on the borders of the Desert, were shortly after taken; and Shere Mohammed, defeated in several partial encounters, and finding it impossible to keep the field in Scinde after the loss of his strongholds, retired with the remainder of his followers up the Bolan Pass towards Candahar; and is believed, as mentioned above, to be soliciting the aid of the Barukzye chiefs of that city. It is not impossible that he may erelong give us more trouble, as he will be assured of support from all the Affghan and Belooch tribes in his rear, who would gladly embrace the opportunity of striking a covert blow against the Feringhis; while the fidelity of the only Belooch chief who still retains his possessions in Scinde, Ali Moorad of Khyrpoor, is said to be at least doubtful. For the present, however, the British may be considered to be in undisturbed military possession of Scinde; and commerce is beginning to revive on the Indus, under the protection of the armed steamers which navigate it. But the great drawback to the value of this new acquisition is the extreme unhealthiness of the climate from the great heat, combined with the malaria generated by the vast alluvial deposits of the river; the effects of which have been so deleterious, that of 9870 men, the total force of the Bombay troops under Sir Charles Napier's command, not fewer than 2890, at the date of the January letters, were unfit for duty from sickness; and apprehensions were even entertained of a design on the part of the sirdars of Candahar, in conjunction with Shere Mohammed, to take advantage of the weakness of the garrison of Shikarpoor from disease, to plunder the town by a sudden foray. There is, indeed, a Hindostani proverb on this point, expressed in tolerably forcible language—"If Scinde had previously existed, why should Allah have created hell?" and so strong is this feeling among the sepoys, that of the Bengal and Madras regiments lately ordered to relieve those returning from Scinde, one (the Bengal 64th) absolutely refused to march, and has been sent down to Benares to await an investigation; and formidable symptoms of mutiny have appeared in several others. The Bombay troops, however, who are proud of the conquest effected by their own arms, are so far from sharing in this reluctance, that one regiment has even volunteered for the service; and a report is prevalent, that it is in contemplation to increase the strength of the Bombay army by raising twelve or fourteen new regiments—so as to enable them to hold Scinde without too much weakening the home establishment, or drawing troops from the other presidencies.

The court of Lahore has lately been the scene of a tragedy, or rather succession of tragedies, in which "kings, queens, and knaves," were disposed of in a style less resembling any thing recorded in matter-of-fact history than the last scene in the immortal drama of Tom Thumb—a resemblance increased by the revival, in several instances, of personages whose deaths had been reported in the last batch of murders. It appears that the Maharajah, Shere Singh, had at length become jealous of the unbounded influence exercised by his all-powerful minister, Rajah Dhian Singh, who had not only assumed the control of the revenue, but had more than once reproached the sovereign, when all the chiefs were present in full durbar, with his habitual drunkenness and debauchery. A quarrel ensued, and Dhian Singh retired from court to the hereditary possessions of his family among the mountains, where he could set Shere Singh at defiance; but an apparent reconciliation was effected, and in July he returned to Lahore, and made his submission. His efforts were, however, now secretly bent to the organization of a conspiracy against the life of the Maharajah, in which the Fakir Azeer-ed-deen, a personage who had enjoyed great influence under Runjeet, and many of the principal sirdars, were implicated; and on Sept. 15th Shere Singh was shot dead on the parade-ground by Ajeet Singh, a young military chief who had been fixed upon for the assassin. The murder of the king was followed by that of the Koonwur, or heir-apparent, Pertab Singh, with all the women and children in their zenanas, even to an infant born the night before; [Pg 582] while Dhuleep Singh, a boy ten years old, and a putative son of Runjeet, was brought out of the palace and placed on the throne. But Dhian Singh was not destined to reap the fruits of his sanguinary treason. In his first interview with Ajeet after the massacre, he was stabbed by the hand of his accomplice; who was cut off in his turn the following day, with many of the sirdars of his party, by Heera Singh, the son of Dhian, who was commander-in-chief of the army, and had immediately entered the city with his troops to avenge the death of his father.[16] Heera Singh now assumed the office of vizier, leaving the title of king to the puppet Dhuleep, in whose name he has since administered the government, with the assistance of his father's elder brother Goolab Singh, a powerful hill chief, who came to Lahore in November with 20,000 of his own troops, to keep the mutinous soldiers of the regular regiments in order. Meanwhile disorder and confusion reigns throughout the Punjab, which is traversed in all directions by plundering bands of Akalees, (a sort of Sikh fanatics,) and deserters or disbanded soldiers from the army; while General Ventura and the other European officers have consulted their own safety by quitting the country; and the remainder of the vast treasures amassed by Runjeet, are lavished by Heera Singh in securing the support of the soldiery to sustain him in his perilous elevation. He is said to have sent off to the mountain strongholds of his family the famous koh-i-noor diamond, with great part of the royal treasure; and it was so generally supposed that he meditated ridding himself of the pageant king Dhuleep, in order to assume in his own person the ensigns of royalty, that the uncles of the young prince had made an attempt (which was, however, discovered and frustrated) to carry him off from Lahore, and place him under British protection. A strong party also exists in favour of Kashmeer Singh, who is said to be an illegitimate son of Runjeet; and there were prevalent rumours that dissensions had broken out between Heera Singh and his uncle; and, though every care was said to be taken to prevent intelligence from Lahore reaching the British, there can be little doubt that the country is now on the eve of another revolution. It is obvious that this state of things can end only in British intervention, whether rendered necessary for the security of our own provinces, or called in by one of the contending parties—which, in either case, must lead either to the Punjab being taken wholly into our own hands, or occupied and coerced (like the Nizam's country) by a subsidiary force, under British officers, supporting on the throne a sovereign bound by treaty to our interests. An army has been assembled on the Sutlej to watch the progress of events; but the Sikhs have hitherto cautiously abstained from giving any pretext for our interference; and, as long as their disorders are confined within their own frontier, such an act would bear the aspect of wanton aggression. But though the appropriation of the Punjab, in whatever form effected, cannot be long delayed, "the pear" (to use a Napoleonic phrase) "is not yet ripe;" and as we intend to return to the subject at no distant period, we shall dismiss it for the present; while we turn to the consideration of the recent occurrences at Gwalior—events of which the full import is little understood in England, but which involve no less consequences than the virtual subjugation of the last native state in India which retained the semblance of an independent monarchy, and which, scarce forty years since, encountered the British forces on equal terms at once in Hindostan and the Dekkan.

The fortunes of the mighty house of Sindiah were founded by Ranajee, who was a menial servant early in the last century in the household of the Peshwah, Bajee Rao; and is said to have first attracted his master's notice by the care with which he was found clasping to his breast, during his sleep, the slippers which had been left in his charge. He [Pg 583] subsequently distinguished himself under the Peshwah in the famous campaigns of 1737-8 against the Mogul emperor, Mohammed Shah: and on the cession of Malwa to the Mahrattas in 1743, he received the government of that province as a jaghir or fief, which he transmitted at his death to his son Mahdajee. The life of this daring and politic chief would be almost identical with the history, during the same period, of Central and Upper India, in which he attained such a degree of authority as had not been held by any prince since Aurungzeeb; but we can here only briefly trace his career through the labyrinth of war and negotiation. In the disastrous defeat of Paniput, (1761,) where the united forces of the Mahratta confederacy were almost annihilated by the Affghans under Ahmed Shah Doorauni, he received a wound which rendered him lame for life; but he soon resumed his designs on Hindostan, and in 1771 became master for a time of Delhi and the person of the Mogul emperor, Shah Alim. In the war with the English which followed, he conciliated the esteem of the cabinet of Calcutta, by his generosity to the troops who submitted at the disgraceful convention of Worgaom, in January 1779: and at the peace of Salbye, in 1782, his independence was expressly recognised by the British government, with which he treated as mediator and plenipotentiary for the Peshwah and the whole Mahratta nation. He had now, by the aid of a Piedmontese soldier of fortune, named De Boigne, succeeded in organizing a disciplined force of infantry and artillery, directed principally by European officers, with which no native power was able to cope; and in 1785, after defeating Gholam-Khadir the Rohilla, once more possessed himself of Delhi and its titular sovereign, who became his pensioner and prisoner, while Sindiah exercised in his name supreme sway from the Ganges to the Gulf of Camboy, and from Candeish to the Sutlej. In 1790 he entered the Dekkan, and was with difficulty prevented by Nana Furnavees, the able minister of the youthful Peshwah, Madhoo Rao, from usurping the guardianship of that prince, which would have given him the same ascendancy in the Dekkan as he already held in Hindostan. But though thus at the summit of power and prosperity, he constantly affected the humility befitting the lowly origin of his house; and when at the court of Poonah in 1791, placed himself below the hereditary nobles of the Mahratta empire, with a bundle of slippers in his hand, saying, "This is my place, and my duty, as it was my father's." In the words of Sir John Malcolm, (Central India, i. 122,) "he was the nominal slave, but the rigid master, of the unfortunate Shah Alim; the pretended friend, but the designing rival, of the house of Holkar; the professed inferior in matters of form, the real superior and oppressor, of the Rajpoot princes of Central India; and the proclaimed soldier, but actual plunderer, of the family of the Peshwah."

Mahdajee Sindiah died at Poonah in 1794, in the fifty-second year of his age; and, leaving no issue, bequeathed his extensive dominions to his nephew and adopted son, Dowlut Rao Sindiah. The prince at his accession found himself master of an army of seventy-five disciplined battalions, mostly commanded by French officers, and forming an effective force of 45,000 men, with 300 well-equipped guns, and a vast host of irregular cavalry, armed and appointed in the native fashion; and his territories included the so-deemed impregnable fortress of Gwalior, as well as Ahmednuggur, Aurungabad, Broach, and other strong places of minor note. His influence was paramount at the court of Poonah; and while by the possession of Cuttack, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, he interrupted the communication by land between Calcutta and Madras, his frontier on the Nerbudda pressed, on the north, the then narrow limits of the Bombay presidency, which as surrounded on all other sides by the states of his Mahratta confederates. A prince holding this commanding position seemed qualified to become the arbiter of India; but Dowlut Rao, though deficient neither in military capacity nor talent for government, was only fourteen at the death of his predecessor; and his inexperience made him a tool in the hands of an unprincipled minister, [Pg 584] Shirzee Rao Ghatka, who directed all his efforts to undermine, by force or intrigue, the ascendency of the upright and patriotic Nana Furnavees at Poonah. The young Peshwah, Madhoo Rao, had perished in 1795 by a fall from the roof of his palace; and the reign of his successor, Bajee Rao, was a constant scene of confusion and bloodshed; till, after the death of Nana in 1800, he fell completely under the control of Sindiah, who thus became the virtual head of the Mahratta confederacy. But in an attempt to crush the rising power of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, the united forces of Sirdiah and the Peshwah received a complete defeat near Poonah, in Oct. 1802;—and Bajee Rao, driven from his capital, sought shelter from the British, with whom he concluded, in December of the same year, the famous treaty of Bassein, by which he bound himself, as the price of his restoration to his dominions, to conform to the English political system, and admit a subsidiary force for the protection of his states.

These stipulations amounted, in fact, to the sacrifice of Mahratta independence; and the war, which from that moment became inevitable, broke out early in the following year. Sindiah, who had not been consulted on the treaty of Bassein, from the first refused to be bound by its conditions; and after some fruitless attempts at negotiation, took the field (July 1803) in conjunction with Rhagojee Bonsla, the Rajah of Berar, against the Peshwah and the English. The five months' campaign which followed, rivaled Napoleon's Prussian warfare of 1806, in the rapidity with which a great military power was struck down, by (in the words of Alison) "an uninterrupted series of victories, which conducted our eastern empire to the proud pre-eminence which it has ever since retained." Perron, who on the return of De Boigne in 1796 to Europe, had succeeded him in the government of Hindostan, and the command of Sindiah's regular troops in that quarter, was defeated by Lake at Allighur, (Aug. 29,) and soon after quitted India and returned to his native country; and a second decisive victory under the walls of Delhi, (Sept. 11,) opened the gates of the ancient Mogul capital to the British, and released the blind old emperor, Shah Alim, from the long thraldom in which he had been held by the French and Mahrattas. Agra, with all the arsenals and military stores, was taken Oct. 17; and the desperate conflict of Laswarree, (Nov. 1,) consummated the triumphs of Lake by the almost total annihilation of Sindiah's regulars—seventeen battalions of whom, with all their artillery, were either destroyed or taken on the field of battle. The whole of Sindiah's possessions in Hindostan thus fell into the power of the British—whose successes in the Dekkan were not less signal and rapid. On the 23d Sept., the combined army of 50,000 men, commanded in person by Sindiah and the Rajah of Berar, including 10,000 regular infantry and 30,000 horse, with upwards of 100 guns, was attacked at Assye by 4500 British and Sepoys under General Wellesley—and the glorious event of that marvellous action at once effectually broke the power of the confederates, and for ever established the fame of Wellington.[17] A last appeal to arms at Argaom, (Nov. 28,) was attended with no better fortune to the Mahrattas; [Pg 585] and Sindiah and his ally were compelled to sue for peace, which was concluded with the latter on the 17th, and with the former on the 30th December. By this treaty the imperial cities of Delhi and Agra, with the protectorate of the Mogul emperor, and the whole of the Dooab, or territory between the Jumna and Ganges, were ceded to the British; who also acquired Cuttack on the eastern coast, and Broach on the western, with Aurungabad, Ahmednuggur, and extensive territories in the Dekkan. Sindiah, moreover, agreed to receive a British resident at his court—an office first filled by Major, afterwards Sir John Malcolm—and engaged to conform in his foreign policy to the views of the British government; ceding, at the same time, certain districts for the maintenance of a subsidiary force, which, however, was not to be encamped on his territories.

During the contest with Holkar and the Bhurtpore rajah in the following year, Sindiah showed strong symptoms of hostility to the British, and had even put his troops in motion with the view of relieving Bhurtpore; but the speedy termination of the war saved him from committing himself by any overt act; and a new treaty was signed, Nov. 1805, in confirmation of the former, with an express stipulation that the perfidious Ghatka should be excluded from his councils. He never afterwards broke with the British government; and though he was known to have maintained a correspondence with Nepaul during the war of 1815, he observed a prudent neutrality in the great Mahratta and Pindarree war of 1817-18, which terminated in the total overthrow of all the other Mahratta princes. This catastrophe left him the only sovereign in India possessed of any degree of substantial independence, and with a territory which, after all the cessions, was still of great extent, though much scattered and intersected by the possessions of Holkar and other rulers; so that, as Bishop Heber describes it in 1825, "not even Swabia or the Palatinate can offer a more checkered picture of interlaced sovereignties than Maywar and indeed all Malwa.... Scarcely any two villages belong to the sane sovereign." His frontier extended on the north to the Chumbul, and on the south reached Boorhanpoor and the Taptee, almost enveloping the remaining dominions of Holkar, and bordering westward on the Guikwar's country near Baroda.

The whole superficies comprehended, in a very irregular shape, about 40,000 square miles, with a revenue supposed to exceed £2,000,000; and the army kept on foot (independent of garrisons and the British contingent) amounted to 20,000 regular infantry, with from 15,000 to 20,000 horse, and a park of 300 guns. The maintenance of this large military establishment was a grievous burden to the country, and frequently involved him in great pecuniary embarrassment; but to the end of his life it continued to be his chief care. Gwalior, where the headquarters had been fixed since 1810, became the royal residence; and the bushkur, or camp, as it was called, gradually swelled into a great city. The condition of his states in the latter years of his reign, is thus characterized by the amiable prelate already quoted:—"Sindiah is himself a man by no means deficient in talents or good intentions, but his extensive and scattered territories have never been under any regular system of control; and his Mahratta nobles, though they too are described as a better race than the Rajpoots, are robbers almost by profession, and only suppose themselves to thrive when they are living at the expense of their neighbours. Still, from his well-disciplined army and numerous artillery, his government has a stability which secures peace, at least to the districts under his own eye; and as the Pindarrees feared to provoke him, and even professed to be his subjects, his country has retained its wealth and prosperity to a greater degree than most other parts of Central India."

Dowlut Rao died at Gwalior, March 21, 1827, leaving no male issue; and with him expired the direct line of Ranajee Sindiah: but he had previously empowered his widow, the Baiza Baee, (a daughter of the notorious Ghatka,) in conformity with a practice sanctioned by the Hindoo law, to adopt a son and successor for him, after his decease, [Pg 586] from the other branches of the Sindiah family. Her choice fell on a youth eleven years of age, named Mookt Rao, then in a humble rank of life, who was eighth in descent from the grandfather of Ranajee; and he was accordingly installed, June 18, by the title of Jankojee Sindiah, in the presence of the British Resident and the chiefs of the army, espousing at the same time a granddaughter of his predecessor. The regency was left, in pursuance of the last injunctions of Dowlut Rao, in the hands of the Baiza Baee, whose administration was marked by much prudence and ability; but the young Maharajah speedily became so impatient of the state of tutelage in which he found himself retained, that Lord William Bentinck, then governor-general, found it expedient to visit Gwalior as a mediator, in December 1832, in order to reconcile him to the control of his benefactress, in whom the government for life was considered to have been vested by the will of her late husband.[18] The remonstrances of the governor-general produced, however, but little effect. On the 10th of July 1833, a revolt, fomented by the young prince, broke out among the soldiery, whose pay had imprudently been suffered to fall into arrear; and the Baiza Baee, after a fruitless attempt at resistance, was compelled to quit the Gwalior territory. The British authorities, though they had previously shown themselves favourable to her cause, declined any direct interference on her behalf; and after remaining for some time on the frontier with a body of troops which had continued faithful to her, in the hope of recovering her power by a counter-revolution, she eventually fixed her residence at Benares, leaving her ungrateful protégé in undisturbed possession of the government. This was administered in the manner which might have been expected from a youth suddenly raised from poverty to a throne, and destitute even of the modicum of education usually bestowed on Hindoos of rank. The revenues of the state were wasted by the Maharajah in low debauchery, while the administration was left almost wholly in the hands of his maternal uncle, who bore the title of Mama-Sahib; but his influence was far from adequate to repress the feuds of the refractory nobles, and the mutinies of the turbulent and ill-paid troops, who frequently made the capital a scene of violence and bloodshed. The relations with the cabinet of Calcutta continued, however, friendly; and Lord Auckland, when on his return on his famous tour to the Upper Provinces, paid a visit to Gwalior in January 1840, and was received with great pomp by the Maharajah. But the frame of Jankojee Sindiah was prematurely undermined by his excesses; and he died childless, February 7, 1843, not having completed his twenty-seventh year.

The ceremony of adopting a posthumous heir, which had taken place at the death of Dowlut Rao, was now repeated; and a boy nine years old, the nearest kinsman of the deceased sovereign, was placed on the musnud, under the name of Jeeahjee Rao Sindiah, by the Maha-rane Baee, or queen-dowager; who, though herself only twelve years of age, assumed the regency in conjunction with the Mama-Sahib. But little permanence could be expected in a state so constituted from the government of a child, and a man without adherents or influence, though they were recognized as regents by the British authorities:—and the catastrophe was hastened by an imprudent investigation, which the Mama-Sahib instituted, into the peculations of the Daola-Khasjee, the minister of the late Maharajah. The deficit is said to have amounted to not less than three crores of rupees, (L3,000,000,) which had probably been employed in corrupting the troops; and on the night of July 16, a general mutiny broke out. The Resident, finding all interference unavailing, quitted Gwalior with the Mama-Sahib, and repaired to Dholpoor near the frontier:—while the whole sovereign power was usurped by the Khasjee, who had succeeded in [Pg 587] bringing over the young Baee to his interests, and who even sent troops and artillery to the banks of the Chumbul, to dispute, if necessary, the passage of the English. The cabinet of Calcutta now, however, considered, that the attitude of hostility which had been assumed, as well as the expulsion of a minister who was in some measure under British guarantee, justified a departure from the principle of non-intervention which had hitherto been invariably acted upon with regard to the internal affairs of the state of Gwalior. A considerable force, under the title of an army of exercise, was assembled at Agra, where the commander-in-chief, Sir Hugh Gough, arrived Oct. 21, and was joined, Dec. 11, by the governor-general himself, who appears to have regarded the settlement of the once-mighty realm of Sindiah as a "dignus vindice divo nodus" requiring his immediate presence. The Gwalior durbar, meanwhile, presented a scene of mingled tumult and panic—some of the officers having formed a party hostile to the usurping Khasjee, while the mutinous soldiery loudly clamored against submission; and letters were dispatched to the Rajpoot and Boondela chiefs, soliciting their aid to repel the threatened invasion of the Feringhis. At a council held Dec. 7, the most warlike sentiments prevailed; and some of the military leaders proposed that the British should be suffered to pass the Chumbul and besiege Gwalior, while the Mahrattas, getting round their rear, were to pour down on Agra and Delhi, and raise the Hindoo population! But the news of the governor-general's arrival struck them with consternation, and vakeels were sent to Agra, to learn on what terms a pacification might yet be effected. The envoys had an audience of the governor-general on the 13th; but the march of the troops had commenced the day before, and was not countermanded even on the surrender of the Khasjee, who was brought in chains to Dholpoor on the 17th—the military chiefs opposed to him having persuaded or compelled the Baee to give him up—and he was immediately sent off as a state-prisoner to Agra.

The army meanwhile, had entered the Gwalior territory, and a proclamation was issued, declaring that it appeared "not as an enemy, but as a friend to the Maharajah, bound by treaty to protect his highness's person, and to maintain his sovereign authority against all who are disobedient and disturbers of the peace." The insurgent chiefs, who appear to have confidently expected that the British would withdraw as soon as the Khasjee was given up, now made fresh attempts at negotiation; and matters were apparently so far arranged, that preparations were made for the reception of the Baee, in camp, on the 28th. But it was soon evident that these overtures had been made only for the sake of gaining time; and after a halt of five days, which had been actively employed by the Mahrattas, the troops resumed their advance upon Gwalior, accompanied by the governor-general in person. On the 29th of December, the two divisions under the commander-in-chief and General Grey, moving on separate lines of march, found the enemy drawn up in well-chosen positions at Maharajpoor and Punniar, and prepared to resist their progress. The British and Sepoy effective strength was about 14,000 men, with forty guns, and a small body of cavalry: the Mahratta infantry was nearly equal in number; but they had 3000 horse, and all the advantages of a strong position, on heights protected in front by difficult ravines, and defended by a hundred pieces of excellently served artillery. The conflict appears to have been the severest which had been seen in India since Laswarree and Assye. The Mahrattas, (as described in the official accounts of Sir Hugh Gough, who admits that he "had not done justice to the gallantry of his opponents,") after their intrenchments and batteries had been carried by the bayonet, with severe loss to the assailants, "received the shock without flinching; and fought, sword in hand, with the most determined courage." But they were at last driven from their ground, with great carnage, by the superior prowess of the Anglo-Indian troops, whose double victory was dearly purchased by the loss of more than 1000 killed and wounded, including an unusual proportion of officers. All resistance was now at an end: Gwalior, the Gibraltar of the East, was entered [Pg 588] without opposition; and a treaty was concluded, Jan. 10, ratified by the governor-general and the restored regent, "for securing the future tranquillity of the common frontier of the two states, establishing the just authority of the Maharajah's government, and providing for the proper exercise of that authority during his highness's minority." The defeated army was to be in great part disbanded, and an additional contingent force levied, of seven regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, with twenty guns—a proportionate extent of territory, we presume, being ceded for its maintenance, as usual in such cases: exchanges were further made of certain frontier districts, for the mutual convenience of the two contracting powers; and last, not least, the expenses of the campaign were to be disbursed forthwith from the Gwalior treasury. Every thing being thus settled satisfactorily, at least to one party, the troops were to retire, without loss of time, within the British frontier, leaving the internal administration in the hands of the Mama-Sahib and the Baee; and the governor-general was to set out from Gwalior on the 17th of January, on his return to Calcutta. Thus the expedition, both in a diplomatic and military point of view, was crowned with complete success. We must now proceed to examine it in its political bearings.

The proclamation of British supremacy over India by the Marquis of Hastings, after the conclusion, in 1818, of the war with the Mahrattas and Pindarrees, amounted to an assumption on the part of the Company of the same position relative to the native powers, as had been held by the monarchs of the house of Timoor—who, from the conquest of Delhi by Baber, adopted the title of Padishah or emperor, as lords-paramount of India, and lost no opportunity of enforcing the imperial rights, thus asserted, against the other Hindoo and Moslem princes among whom the country was divided; till after a century and a half of incessant aggressive warfare, Aurungzeeb succeeded in uniting under his rule the whole of Hindostan and the Dekkan, from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin. Less than half that period sufficed for the establishment of the Anglo-Indian empire on a far firmer basis than that of the Moguls had ever attained; and if the same claim of indefeasible suzerainté, which was set forward by their Moslem predecessors, had been openly advanced and avowed as a principle, as it has long been acted upon de facto, it would have been at once far more candid, and far more intelligible to the natives, than the course which has been pursued, of grounding every aggression on some pretended infraction of a compulsory treaty. The recent case of Gwalior affords a strong illustration of the point which we are endeavouring to establish, as the relations of that state with the supreme government have hitherto been different from those of the Indian sovereignties in general.[19] While the other native princes (with the exception only of the Rajpoot chiefs of Bikaneer, Jesulmeer, &c., who lay beyond what might till lately be considered the British boundary) had surrendered the military possession of their territories, almost entirely, to subsidiary corps under the control of the Company, the dynasty of Sindiah alone (though British influence had been more sensibly exercised under the feeble rule of Jankojee than during the life of Dowlut Rao) still preserved its domestic independence almost untouched, and kept on foot a powerful army, besides the contingent[20] which it was bound by treaty to maintain—the only other mark of dependence being the obligation not to contract alliances hostile to British interests. If we are to regard the late transactions in this point of view, it will be difficult to justify the invasion of an independent and friendly state on no other ground than our disapprobation of a change of ministry, accompanied, though it may have [Pg 589] been, with the tumult and violence which are the usual concomitants of an Asiatic revolution. But if the Company (as we conceive to be the practical aspect of the question) are held to be at the present day the recognized, as well as the de facto, representatives of the Mogul monarchs, there can be no doubt that, on the death of Jankojee Sindiah, his dominions might fairly have been annexed to the Anglo-Indian empire as a lapsed fief which had reverted to the suzerain by the failure of heirs—a rule which would have been equally applicable to the case of the rival Mahratta house of Holkar, the male line of which also became extinct last year, and was replaced on the musnud of Indore by a boy seven years old, a adopted son of Hurry Rao Holkar. From the death of Dowlut Rao Sindiah, indeed, the Gwalior state had presented a scene of anarchy and misgovernment, to which allusion is made in the proclamation of the governor-general;[21] and which, from the impunity it afforded to the remnant of the Pindarrees and other marauders, and the consequent insecurity of life and property both in the interior and on the frontier, was intolerable alike to its neighbours and to its own subjects. Under these circumstances, the acquiescence of the cabinet of Calcutta in a second adoption of a child, to fill the throne of a kingdom already brought to the verge of ruin by the vices and incapacity of the former occupant, can be regarded in no other light than as an injudicious stretch of forbearance, injurious to our own interests, and uncalled for by those of the state thus subjected to a continuance of misrule; and it is to be regretted, that our late victories have not been followed up by the formal occupation of the country, and the establishment of the order and strong government to which it has long been a stranger. No other result can be anticipated from the half measures which have been adopted, than the creation of a state of confusion and resistance to authority, similar to that which prevails in the distracted kingdom of Oude—ending inevitably, though perhaps at the expense of a fresh contest, in its incorporation with the dominions of the Company. Meanwhile, (as observed in the Times of March 8th,) "we have roused the passions of the Mahrattas against their sovereign and against ourselves; but we have not taken that opportunity which the moment of victory gave us, of effectuating a government essentially strong and beneficial to the governed. The time therefore, we may expect, will come, when a second interference will be demanded, both by the recollection of our present conquest and the incompleteness of its consequences; and we shall be doomed to find, that we have won two hard-fought battles merely to enforce the necessity of a third."

The late campaign, short as it has fortunately been, becomes important, if viewed with reference to a subject to which we have more than once before alluded,[22] but which cannot be too often or too prominently brought before the British public, who should never be suffered to lose sight of the great truth, that it is by our military power alone that we hold our Indian empire. It is evident from all the circumstances, not less than from the candid confession of Sir Hugh Gough himself, that the determined resistance opposed by the Gwalior troops, (whom of late years it has been the fashion in the Indian army to speak of as "Sindiah's rabble,") and the discipline and valour shown in the defence of their positions, were wholly unexpected by their assailants. But the prowess [Pg 590] and unflinching resolution displayed at Maharajpoor and Punniar, under all the disadvantages of a desperate cause and inefficient commanders, were worthy of the troops of De Boigne and Perron in their best days, and amply prove that the Mahrattas of the present day have not degenerated from their fathers, whose conduct at Assye won the praise of the great Duke himself.[23] The defeat of British force in a pitched battle on the soil of India, would be a calamity of which no man could calculate the consequences; yet such a result would not have been impossible, if the contempt of our commanders for the enemy had brought them to the encounter with inadequate numbers; and the rulers of India have reason to congratulate themselves that this underrated force remained quiescent during our Affghan disasters, when intrigue and difficulties were at their height among both Hindoos and Moslems, and every disposable regiment was engaged beyond the Indus, in a warfare, of the speedy termination of which there then appeared little prospect; while the Moslems, both of the north and south, in Rohilcund and the Dekkan, were on the verge of insurrection, the Rajah of Sattarah, the representative of the former head of that great Mahratta confederacy, of which Sindiah was then the only member retaining any degree of independence, was busied in conspiracies, the absurdity of the proposed means for which was not[24] (as some of his advocates in England attempted to maintain) a proof of their non-existence. Had the old Mahratta spirit been then alive in the breast of the degenerate successor of Dowlut Rao, the appearance in the field of 20,000 troops with a considerable share of discipline, and a numerous and excellent artillery, might at once have given the signal, and formed a nucleus, for a rising which would have comprehended almost every man who could bear arms, and would have shaken to the centre, if not overthrown utterly, the mighty fabric of our Eastern empire. It is true that the indolent and sensual character of Jankojee Sindiah gave no grounds for apprehension at the time; and the period of danger has now passed away; nor is it probable that the Gwalior army, even if left at its present strength, can ever again be in a situation to give trouble to our government. But it is not less true, that when our difficulties were greatest, a disciplined force did exist, in a position the most central in India, which might have turned the quivering beam, if it had been thrown into the scale against us in the moment of extreme peril.[25]

It is, therefore, with far different feelings from those expressed by some of the newspaper scribes, both in India and England, that we heard the declaration ascribed to the present governor-general, on his arrival in India, "that the army should be his first care;"[26] and have witnessed the spirit in which it has since been acted upon. "India," [Pg 591] again to quote his own words on a late public occasion, "was won by the sword;" yet the military spirit of the army, on which the preservation of our empire depends, had been damped, and its efficiency wofully impaired, by the injudicious reductions introduced by Lord William Bentinck and persevered in by his successor; and the reverses and losses of the Affghan war, following close in the train of these ill-advised measures, had produced a disaffection for the service, and deterioration in the morale of the sepoys, from which evil auguries were drawn by those best acquainted with the peculiar temperament of the native soldiery.[27] The efforts of Lord Ellenborough have been from the first directed to remove this unfavourable impression of neglect from the minds of the troops; and the heroism displayed by the sepoys under his own eye, in the late desperate encounters before Gwalior, must have brought home to his mind the gratifying conviction that his efforts had not been in vain. We noticed with satisfaction last year, the well-deserved honours and rewards distributed to the corps, by whose exploits the transient cloud thrown over our arms in Affghanistan had been cleared away; and the same course has been worthily followed up in the decorations cast from the captured Mahratta cannon, and conferred, without distinction of officers or men, British or Sepoys, on the victors of Maharajpoor and Punniar; as well as in the triumphal monuments to be erected by Bombay for the victories in Scinde, and at Calcutta for those before Gwalior. But while we render full justice to the valour, patience, and fidelity of the sepoy infantry, now deservedly rewarded by participation in those honours from which they have been too long excluded, the truth remains unchanged of that of which Lake, and many others since Lake of those who best knew India, have in vain striven to impress the conviction on the authorities at home—the paramount importance of a large intermixture of British troops. "I am convinced that, without King's troops, very little is to be expected ... there ought always to be at least one European battalion to four native ones: this I think necessary." And again, in his despatch to the Marquis Wellesley, the day after the arduous conflict at Laswarree—"The action of yesterday has convinced me how impossible it is to do any thing without British troops; and of them there ought to be a very great proportion." It is true that the regulation lately promulgated by the Duke of Wellington, that the heavy cavalry regiments shall in future take their turn of Indian service, will in some measure remedy the evil in that branch where it is most felt; and will at once increase their military strength in India, and diminish the length of absence of the different corps from Europe. The misconduct of the native regular cavalry, indeed, on more than one occasion during the late Affghan war, has shown that they are not much to be depended upon when resolutely encountered. They are ill at ease in the European saddles, and have no confidence in the regulation swords when opposed to the trenchant edge of the native tulwars; while, on the other hand, the laurels earned by Skinner's, Hearsay's, and other well-known corps of irregular horse, might almost have induced the military authorities in India to follow the example of the Mahrattas, who never attempted to extend to their cavalry the European discipline which they bestowed on their infantry. The sepoy infantry has ever been sans peur et sans reproche; yet, though some of the most distinguished regiments of the Bengal army were in the field before Gwalior, the honour of storming the death-dealing batteries of Maharajpoor, was reserved for the same gallant corps which led the way to victory under Clive at Plassey—her Majesty's 39th—and [Pg 592] which has now once more proved its title to the proud motto emblazoned on its standards, Primus in Indis! The words of Lord Lake, (to refer to him once more,) in his account of the battle of Delhi, might have been adopted without variation by Lord Ellenborough in describing the late actions. "The sepoys have behaved excessively well; but from my observations on this day, as well as every other, it is impossible to do great things in a gallant and quick style without Europeans;" and we trust that, whenever the time shall arrive for the return of the present governor-general to Europe, he will not fail to avail himself of the weight which his personal experience will give him in the councils of the nation, to enforce the adoption of a measure which, sooner or later, will inevitably become one of absolute necessity.

No former governor-general of India entered on his office—at all times the most arduous under the British crown—under such unfavourable auspices, and with such a complicated accumulation of difficulties to combat, as Lord Ellenborough; few, if any, of his predecessors have had their actions, their motives, and even their words, exposed to such an unsparing measure of malicious animadversion and wilful misconstruction; yet none have passed so triumphantly through the ordeal of experience. Many of his measures may now be judged of by their fruits; and those of the Calcutta press who were loudest in their cavils, compelled to admit the success which has attended them, are reduced to aim their censures at the alleged magniloquence of the governor-general's proclamations; which, it should always be remembered in England, are addressed to a population accustomed to consider the bombast of a Persian secretary as the ne plus ultra of human composition, and which are not, therefore, to be judged by the European standard of taste. Much of the hostility directed against Lord Ellenborough, is, moreover, owing to his resolute emancipation of himself from the bureaucracy of secretaries and members of council, who had been accustomed to exercise control as "viceroys over" his predecessors, and who were dismayed at encountering a man whose previously acquired knowledge of the country which he came to govern, enabled him to dispense with the assistance and dictation of this red-tape camarilla. Loud were the complaints of these gentry at what they called the despotism of the new governor-general, on finding themselves excluded from that participation in state secrets in which they had long reveled, in a country where so much advantage may be derived from knowing beforehand what is coming at headquarters. But much of the success of Lord Ellenborough's government may be attributed to the secrecy with which his measures were thus conceived, and the promptitude with which his personal activity and decision enabled him to carry them into effect—success of which the merit is thus due to himself alone, and to the liberty of action which he obtained by shaking off at once the etiquettes which had hitherto trammeled the Indian government. In July 1842 we ventured to pronounce, that "on the course of Lord Ellenborough's government will mainly depend the question of the future stability, or gradual decline, of our Anglo-Indian empire; and if, at the conclusion of his viceroyalty, he has only so far succeeded as to restore our foreign and domestic relations to the same state in which they stood ten years since, he will merit to be handed down to posterity by the side of Clive and Hastings." The task has been nobly undertaken and gallantly carried through; and though time alone can show how far the present improved aspect of Indian affairs may be destined to permanency, Lord Ellenborough is at least justly entitled to the merit of having wrought the change, as far as it rests with one man to do so, by the firm and fearless energy with which he addressed himself to the enterprise.

THE FREETHINKER.

[Pg 593]

Chaucer.

It was in the year 18— that I completed my professional education in England, and decided upon spending in Paris the two years which had still to elapse, before my engagement with my guardians would require me to present myself for examination and approval at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The medical schools and hospitals of Paris were then, as now, famous for their men of science, and for the useful discoveries which clinical instruction—bedside ingenuity and industry—is morally certain to carry along with it. Whatever may be said of the French practitioners as a body—and my professional brethren, I know, bring against them, as a national reproach, the charge of inefficiency in the treatment of disease, (remarkable for acuteness and truth as their diagnosis is allowed to be)—still I think it will not be denied, that chiefly to the Parisian physicians, and to the untiring energy of particular individuals amongst them, whom it would not be difficult to name, are we indebted at this moment for some of the most important knowledge that we possess—knowledge, be it understood, derived altogether from investigations diligently pursued at the patient's bedside, and obtained with the greatest judgment, difficulty, and pains. As I write, the honourable and European reputation of Louis occurs to my mind—an instance of universal acknowledgment rendered to genius and talents wholly or principally devoted to the alleviation of human suffering, and to the acquisition of wisdom in the form and by the method to which I have adverted.

A mere attempt to refer to the many and various obligations which the continental professors of medicine have laid upon mankind during the last half century, would fill a book. They were well known and spoken of in my youth, and the names of many learned foreigners were at that period associated in my bosom with sentiments of awe and veneration. It was some time after I had once resolved to go abroad, before I fixed upon Paris as my destination. Langanbeck, the greatest operator of his day, the Liston of Germany, was performing miracles in Hanover. Tiedemann, a less nimble operator, but a far more learned surgeon, had already made the medical schools of Heidelberg famous by his lectures and still valued publications; whilst the lamented and deeply penetrating Stromeyer—the tutor and friend of our own amiable and early-lost Edward Turner—had established himself already in Göttingen, and drawn around him a band of enthusiastic students who have since done honour to their teacher, and in their turn become eminent amongst the first chemists of the day. With such and similar temptations from many quarters, it was not easy to arrive at a steady determination. I had hardly thought of Paris, when—as it often happens—a thing of a moment relieved me from difficulty and doubt, and helped me at once to a decision. A letter one morning by the post induced me to set out for the giddiest and yet most fascinating of European cities. James M'Linnie—who, by the way, died only the other day of dysentery at Hong-Kong, a few hours after landing with the troops upon that luckless island—was an old hospital acquaintance, and, like me, cutting and hewing his way to fame and fortune. He had distinguished himself at Guy's, and quitted that school with every reasonable prospect of success in his profession. He had not only passed [Pg 594] muster before the high and mighty court of examiners, but had received on the occasion the personal warm congratulations of Abernethy and Sir Astley Cooper; the former of whom, indeed, before he asked M'Linnie a question, gave him confidence in his peculiar way, by requesting him "not to be a frightened fool, for Mr. Abernethy was not the brute the world was pleased to make him out;" and after a stiff and rough examination shook the student heartily by the hand, and pronounced him "not an ass, like all the world, but a sensible shrewd fellow, who, instead of muddling his head with books, had passed his days, very properly, where real life was only to be met with"—videlicet, in the dead-house.

James M'Linnie was, at the time of which I speak, himself in Paris, and enthusiastic in his devotion to the indefatigable and highly-gifted teachers amongst whom he lived. He wrote to me, in the letter to which I have above adverted—the first I received from him after his departure from England—in the most glowing terms respecting them; and conjured me by the love I bore our glorious profession—by my ardent aspirations after fame, and by the strong desire which, he believed, I entertained with himself and the majority of men, to serve and benefit my fellow-creatures—not to waste my precious hours in England, but to join him instantly "in the finest field of operations that the world presented." "We are pigmies in London," he continued in his own ardent fashion—"boys, children, infants—they are giants here. Such anatomists! such physicians! Fancy one of our first men, C—— for instance, standing for nearly one hour at the bedside of a labouring man, and tracing the fellow's history step by step, patiently and searchingly, in order to arrive at the small beginnings of disease, its earliest indications, and first causes. I saw it done yesterday by one to whom C—— could not hold a candle—a man whose reputation is continental—whose practice does not leave him a moment in the day for personal recreation—who is loaded with honours and distinctions. The students listen to him as to an oracle; and with cause. He leaps to no conclusions—his sterling mind satisfies itself with nothing but truth, and is content to labour after mere glimpses and intimations, which it secures for future comparison and study. Remind me when you come out—for come out you must—of the story of the baker. I will tell it you then in full. It is a capital instance of the professor's acuteness and ability. A patient came into the hospital a month ago; his case puzzled every one; nothing could be done for him, and he was about to be discharged. The professor saw him, visited him regularly for a week—watched him—noted every trifling symptom—prescribed for him;—in vain. The man did not rally—and the professor could not say what ailed him. One morning the latter came to the patient's bedside, and said, 'You tell me, mon enfant, that you have been a porter. Were you never in any other occupation?' 'Yes,' groaned the poor fellow; 'I drove a cabriolet for a year or two'—— 'Go on,' said the professor encouragingly. 'And then,' continued the man, 'and then I was at a boot-maker's; afterwards at a saddler's—and at last a porter.' 'You have never worked at any other trade?' 'Never, sir.' 'Think again—be quite sure.' 'No—never, sir.' Have you never been a baker?' 'Oh yes, sir—that was twenty years ago—and only for a few months; but I was so ill at the oven that I was obliged to give it up.' 'That will do, mon enfant—don't tire yourself, try and go to sleep.' In the lecture-room afterwards, the professor addressed the students thus: 'Gentlemen—once in the course of my practice, I have met with the case of the porter, and only once. It is now eighteen years since. The patient was a baker—and I examined the subject after death. This man will die.' The lecturer then proceeded to describe minutely and lucidly the seat of the disease, its nature, and best treatment. He told them what might be done by way of alleviation, and directed them to look for such and such appearances after death. The man lingered for a few days, and then departed. At the post mortem, the professor was found to be correct in every particular. What say you to this by way of memory and quick intelligence?" The letter went on to speak of the facility of procuring [Pg 595] subjects—as cheap and plentiful, to use M'Linnie's phrase, "as herrings in England;" of the daily exhibition in the dissecting room of disease of all kinds, in all stages; of the enthusiastic natures of both teachers and pupils; of the earnest and inspiring character of hospital practice; and at last, wound up its flattering history with a peroration, that extinguished in an instant every spark of hesitation that lingered in my mind. In less than a fortnight after M'Linnie's summons, I was one of a mixed party in a diligence and eight, galloping over the high-road to Paris, at the rate of five statute miles an hour.

I had taken care to carry abroad with me an introduction to one influential member of the profession. I say one, because I refused, with deliberation, to encumber myself, as Doctor Johnson has it, with more help than was actually necessary to my well-doing. A travelling student, with a key to the confidence of one man of power and kindred spirit, has all that he can desire for every professional purpose. If his happiness depend upon social enjoyments, and he must needs journey with a messenger's bag, or be utterly miserable, let him by all means save his travelling expenses, and visit his natural acquaintances. My letter of credit was obtained from my friend H——, who at the time filled the anatomical chair at Guy's, and to whom I am grateful for more acts of real kindness than he is willing to allow. To this letter of credit, and to the acquaintance formed by its means, the reader is indebted for the curious history I am about to relate. That the former was likely to lead to something original and unusual, I certainly suspected when H—— placed the document in my hands, with his last words of caution and advice. I could hardly dream of half that was to follow.

"Pray, take care of yourself, Mr Walpole," said my good friend; "you are going to a very dangerous and seductive city, and you will require all your firmness and good principles to save you from the force of evil example. Don't be led away—don't be led away—that is all I beg of you."

"I shall be careful, sir."

"You will see in the medical students of Paris a different set of men to that which you have been accustomed to mix with here. There are some fine fellows amongst them—hard-working, bold, enterprising young men; but they are a strange body taken as a while. Don't cotton too quickly with any one of them."

"Very well, sir."

"I am afraid you will find many highly improper notions prevalent amongst them—immoral, shocking, disgraceful. Pray, don't assume the manners of a Frenchman, Mr Walpole—much less his vices. There are very few medical students in Paris who do not lead, I am sorry to say, a very disreputable life; and make it a boast to live in open shame. You must not learn to approve of conduct in Paris which you would have no hesitation in pronouncing criminal in London."[28]

"Certainly not, sir."

"And let me, as a friend, entreat you, my dear sir, at no time to forget that you are a Christian and a Protestant gentleman. Be sober and rational, and, if there be any truth in religion at all, do not make a mockery of it, by converting the Lord's day into a monstrous Saturnalia. Here is your letter."

I took the document, bowed, and read the superscription. It was addressed to Baron F——, chief surgeon at the Hotel Dieu, &c. &c. &c.

"I introduce you, Mr Walpole," continued the anatomist, "to one of the most extraordinary men in Europe—and, what is more to the purpose, to one of the best. Warmer benevolence, a more eager anxiety to relieve and benefit his fellow-mortals, never burned in the heart of man. He is, unquestionably, incontestably the first surgeon of the day; as a man of [Pg 596] science he is appealed to by the whole learned world—his practice is enormous, and the fortune he has amassed by his unwearied industry and perseverance immense; especially considered in reference to the career of the most successful surgeons in Paris, who, if I mistake not, have lived and died comparatively poor. Looked up to, however, as he is by the learned and the great, you will, I think, when you know him, agree with me in regarding his kindness to the helpless—his earnest solicitude for the disabled poor who come under his care—his unremitting attention to their complaints and wants—as constituting the worthy baron's chief excellance. We are old friends; and for my sake I am sure he will receive you well, and afford you all the assistance and information in his power. He will put you on your mettle; and you must be no lie-a-bed if you would profit by his instruction. At six in the morning you will find him daily at his post in the hospital; and, whilst sluggards are turning in their beds, he has prescribed for a hundred sick, and put them in spirits for the day by his words of tenderness and support."

"Did you study under the baron?" I enquired.

"I attended his lectures some years ago with the greatest advantage. I never in my life was more struck by the amount of knowledge possessed by one man. I attached myself to the professor, and he was pleased to admit me to his friendship. I have lately been surprised to hear his manners pronounced rough and even brutal, and his temper morose. For my own part—and I watched him closely—I saw nothing but gentleness, and an active disposition to do good at all times. The poor women and children in the hospital loved him as a father, and I have seen their pale cheeks flush, and dull eyes glisten as he approached their beds. This, I thought, bespoke any thing but roughness and brutality in the surgeon. What say you?"

"It would seem so."

"Well—I have written the baron a long letter concerning myself and my own pursuits, believing that it will serve your interests better than a mere formal letter of introduction. He will, I am sure, be pleased to see you. Remember, Mr Walpole, an opportunity like the present may never occur to you again. Be wise, and make the most of it."

Thus spoke my friend, and thus I received from him my credentials. My only object in Paris was the ostensible one for which I came; and accordingly, therefore, having secured a comfortable home with Madame Bichat, a worthy motherly person residing in the "Rue Richelieu, vis-à-vis le Palais Royal"—and having spent one long and gossiping evening with my ancient chum M'Linnie—I buckled at once to my work. Postponing all recreation and amusement until the time should arrive which would make them lawful and give them zest, I left my lodgings the second morning after my appearance in Paris, and made my way straight to the dwelling-house of my future patron. It was eleven o'clock, the hour at which the baron usually returned from the Hotel Dieu; five hours, viz. from six till eleven A.M., being, as M'Linnie assured me, the time allotted daily to the poor by the conscientious and distinguished practitioner.

The baron was a bachelor, and he lived in first-rate style; that is to say, he had magnificent apartments, in which it was his delight to collect occasionally the united wit and learning of the capital, and a handsome table for his friends at all times; for his hospitality was unbounded. And yet his own daily habits were as simple and primitive as might be. When at home, he passed his hours in the library, and slept in the small bedroom adjoining it. The latter, like all dormitories in France, was without a carpet, and altogether no better furnished than a private ward in an English hospital. There was a small iron bedstead just large enough for a middle-sized bachelor in one corner—a washing apparatus in another—and a table and two chairs at some distance from both. The naked and even uncomfortable aspect of this apartment had an absolutely chilling effect upon me, as I passed through it on my way to the great man himself; for, strange to say, the only road to the library was through this melancholy chamber. Great men as well as small have their "whims and oddities." The baron was reported to have taken pains [Pg 597] to make, what appeared to me, a very incommodious arrangement. A door which had conducted to the library upon the other side of it had been removed, and the aperture in which it had stood blocked up, whilst the wall on this side had been cut away in order to effect an entrance. And what was the reason assigned for so much unnecessary labour? The baron had risen from nothing—had spent his early days in poverty and even misery; and he wished to perpetuate the remembrance of his early struggles, lest he should grow proud in prosperity, and forgetful of his duties. The frequent sight of the few articles of furniture which had been his whole stock twenty years before, was likely more than any thing else to keep the past vividly before his eyes, and he placed them therefore, to use his own words as attributed to him by my informant, "between the flattery of the dazzling world without, and the silence of his chamber of study and meditation." They no doubt answered their object, in rendering the possessor at times low-spirited, since they were certainly likely to have that effect even upon a stranger. On the day of my introduction, however, I had little time for observation. My name had been announced, and I passed rapidly on to the sanctum sanctorum.

There is an aristocracy of mind as well as an aristocracy of wealth and social station; and, unless you be a soulless Radical, you cannot approach a distinguished member of the order without a glow of loyal homage, as honourable to its object as it is grateful to your own self-respect. I entered the library of the far-famed professor with a reverend step; he was seated at a large table, which was literally covered with books, brochures, and letters opened and sealed. He was dressed very plainly, wearing over a suit of mourning a dark coloured dressing-gown, which hung loosely about him. He was, without exception, the finest man I had ever seen, and I stopped involuntarily to look at and admire him. As he sat, I judged him to be upwards of six feet in height—(I afterwards learned that he stood six feet two,)—he was stout and well-proportioned—his chest broad and magnificent—his frame altogether muscular and sinewy. The face was full of authority and command—every feature handsome, including even the well drawn lip, in which there seemed to lurk scorn enough to wither you, if roused. The brow was full, prominent, and overhanging—the eye small, blue, and beaming with benevolence. Nature was mischievous when she brought that eye and lip in company for life. A noble forehead, made venerable by the grey hairs above it—grey, although the baron was hardly in the vale of years—completed the picture which presented itself to my eye, and which I noted in detail in less time than I have drawn it here—imperfectly enough. The baron, who had received my letter of introduction on the preceding day, rose to welcome me. His first enquiries were concerning my friend H——, the next were in reference to my own plans—and he had much to say of the different professors of London, with whose works and merits he appeared thoroughly acquainted. I remained an hour with him; and, some time before we parted, I felt myself quite at home with my new acquaintance. During the conversation that took place upon this memorable morning, the name of Z—— occurred. The baron praised him highly: "his attainments as a surgeon," he said, "were very great;" and, in other respects, he looked upon him as one of the most original and wisest men of the age. It will be remembered by my professional readers that Z——, although esteemed in England one of her first surgeons, acquired an unenviable notoriety through the publication of certain physiological lectures, in which the doctrines of materialism and infidelity were supported, it must be allowed, with all the eloquence and power of a first-rate mind. With my own settled views of Christianity, early inculcated by a beloved mother—now, alas! no more—I could not but regard the highly gifted Z—— as an enemy to his species, who had unhappily abused the talents which Providence had given him for a better purpose. Such being the case, it was with some pain and great surprise that I listened to the encomiums from the lips of the [Pg 598] baron; and I ventured to hint that the speaker had, in all probability, not heard of the infamous publication which had given so much sorrow and alarm to all well-governed minds in England.

"Le voilà!" said the baron in reply, taking up a book from the table—"The noblest work of the age! Free from prejudice and bigotry of every kind—I found my opinion of the man upon this book. Had he done nothing else, he would have immortalized his name. Philosophy and Science have hitherto borne him out in all his theories—will continue to bear him out, and eventually compel posterity to regard him as nothing short of the prophet and seer of nature. You may rely upon it, Z—— has, by the very force of intellect, arrived at conclusions which the discoveries of centuries will duly make good and establish."

I speak the simple truth when I aver, that these words of the baron gave me infinite distress, and for a moment deprived me of speech. I hardly knew what to say or do. At first I suspected that I had made some unaccountable mistake, and brought my letter to the wrong individual. H——, who was almost a Puritan in religious matters, could ever have spoken of his friend in such favourable terms, if he had been aware of the views which he so unscrupulously supported. A little reflection, however, convinced me that a mistake was impossible. There is nothing in this world more embarrassing than to sit in the presence of a superior, and be compelled to listen to statements which you feel to be false, and yet know not how with propriety to repel. My own youth, and the baron's profound learning and attainments, were barriers to the free expression of my thoughts; and yet I was ashamed to remain silent, and, as it were, a consenting party to the utterance of sentiments which I abhorred.

"I cannot hope," I managed to say at last, "that science will ultimately uphold his arguments, and prevent our relying as strongly as ever on our old foundations."

"And why?" replied the baron quickly. "Why should we always be timid and blind followers of the blind? Is it a test of wisdom to believe what is opposed to reason upon the partial evidence of doubtful witnesses? Is it weakness to engage all the faculties of the mind in the investigation of the laws by which this universe is governed? And if the perception of such immutable add eternal laws crushes and brings to nothing the fables of men whom you are pleased to call writers by inspiration, are we to reject them because our mothers and fathers, who were babes and sucklings at the breast of knowledge, were ignorant of their existence?"

"Newton, sir," I ventured to answer, "made great discoveries, and he revered these fables."

"Bah! Newton directed his gaze upwards into a mighty and stupendous region, and he was awe-stricken—as who shall not be?—by what he there beheld. He worshipped the unseen power, so does this man; he believed in Revelation, so does he; but with him—it is the revelation which is made in that wondrous firmament above, and in the earth beneath, and in the glories that surround us. What knowledge had Newton of geology? what of chemistry? what of the facts which they have brought to light?"

"Little perhaps—yet"——

"My good friend," continued the surgeon, interrupting me. "In the days of your grand philosophe—would that he were alive now!—there were no physical phenomena to reduce an ancient system of cosmogony to a mere absurdity—no palpable evidences of the existence of this earth thousands of years prior to its formation—you perceive?"

"I hear you, sir," I answered, gaining courage; "but I should, indeed, be sorry to adopt your views."

"Of course you would!" said the baron, curling his inauspicious lip, and giving expression to a feeling that looked very like one of contempt or ridicule. "You come from the land of melancholy and bile—where your holidays are fasts, and your day of rest is one of unmitigated toil. You would be sorry to forego, no doubt, the prospect of everlasting torture and eternal condemnation. Mr Z—— is too far advanced for you, I am afraid."

[Pg 599]

At this moment there was a knock at the door leading into the bed-chamber. The servant-man of the baron presented himself, and announced a patient.

"Admit him," said the surgeon, and at the same time I rose to depart.

"Adieu!" said the baron with another unpleasant smile; "we shall be very good friends notwithstanding your piety. I shall look after you. Remember six o'clock to-morrow morning at the Hotel Dieu. Be punctual, and do you hear, Mr Walpole, think of me in your prayers."

This last expression, accompanied as it was by a very significant look, amounted to a positive insult, and I quitted the library and house of the baron, fully resolved never to set foot in either of them again. What an extraordinary delusion did poor H——labour under, in respect of the character of his friend! Here was a Mentor to form the opinions and regulate the conduct of a young gentleman stepping into life! Great as were his talents and acquirements, and much as I might lose by neglecting to cultivate his friendship, I resigned gladly every advantage rather than purchase the greatest, with the sacrifice of the principles which had been so anxiously implanted in my bosom, even from my cradle. I was hurt and vexed at the result of my interview. Every thing had promised so well at first. I had been won by the appearance of the baron, I had been charmed with his discourse, and gratified by the terms in which he spoke of my future studies, and the help he hoped to afford me in the prosecution of them. Why had this unfortunate Mr Z——, and his still more unfortunate book, turned up to discompose the pleasant vision? But for the mention of his name, and the introduction of his book, I might have remained for ever in ignorance of the atheistical opinions which, in my estimation, derogated materially from the grace which otherwise adorned the teacher's cultivated mind. It is impossible for communion and hearty fellowship to subsist between individuals, whose notions on life's most important point lie "far as the poles asunder." I did not expect, desire, or propose to seek that they should.

In the evening I joined M'Linnie at his lodgings, and gave him an account of the meeting.—He laughed at me for my scruples.

"I knew all about it," said Mac, "but hardly thought it worth while to let you know it. H—— was quite right, too: the baron is not the man to-day that he was a dozen years ago. He is a rank infidel now; he makes no secret of the thing, but boasts of it right and left: it is his great fault. He is an inconsistent fellow. If any one talks about religion, no matter how proper and fitting the time, he is down upon him at once with a sneer and a joke; and yet he drags in his own opinions by the neck, at all seasons, on all occasions, and expects you to say amen to every syllable he utters."

"He must be very weak," said I.

"Must he?—very well. Then wait till you see him cut for calculus, or perform for hernia. Sit with him at the bedside, and hear him at his lectures. If you think him weak then, you shall be good enough to tell me what you call strong.

"But his principles"——

"Are certainly not in accordance with the Thirty-nine Articles; but the baron does not profess to teach theology—nor did I come here to take his creed. So long as he is orthodox in surgery, I make no complaint against him. I have my own views; and if they are relaxed and out of order now and then, why, the parson is the man to apply to, and not the baron. I must say one requires a dose of steel now and then, to keep right and tight in this bewitching capital."

There was worldly wisdom in the remarks of M'Linnie; and before I quitted him I was satisfied of the propriety of paying every attention to the professional instruction of the surgeon, without committing myself, by visiting him as a friend, to an approval of his detestable principles; and accordingly, at two minutes to six o'clock, I presented myself at the hospital on the following morning. Many students were already in attendance, and precisely at six o'clock the baron himself appeared. He bowed to the students as a body and honoured me with a particular notice.

"Eh bien, jeune Chrêtien!" he said, shaking me by the hand, "have you [Pg 600] prayed for my reformation? It is very remiss of you if you have not done so. You know I made you yesterday my father confessor."

There was immediately a general laugh from the students—medical students being, it should be known, the most unblushing parasites on record.

These words were spoken under the low portico of the building which forms, with its long ascent of steps, one side of the square in which the Cathedral of Notre Dame has its principal entrance, and is certainly not one of the least interesting adjuncts of that magnificent edifice. We passed without further speech through the range of buildings within, the professor in our van, and in a minute or two found ourselves in a spacious, clean, and well-filled ward.

The surgeon took his seat at the foot of the first bed in the sick chamber, and the students crowded eagerly around him, evidently anxious not to lose a syllable that should fall from his lips. I shall never forget the lesson of that morning. The judgment, the penetration, the unflinching collectedness, and consummate skill of the surgeon, compelled my warmest admiration. I forgot our ground of disagreement in the transcendent ability that I beheld. His heart, and mind, and soul, were given up to his profession, and his success was adequate to the price paid for its purchase. The baron was, however, a mass of contradiction. I discovered this before we had been an hour in the ward. It was clear that he had risen by the sheer strength of great natural genius, and that he was lamentably wanting in all the agreeable qualities which spring from early cultivation and sound training. He was violent, sudden, and irregular in his temper and mode of speaking—when his temper and speech were directed against any but his patients. He had no regard to the feelings of men of his own rank; and his language towards them was rather emphatic, than delicate or well chosen. In his progress round the ward, he came to the bed of a man suffering from a diseased leg. He removed the bandage from the part, and asked, "what fool had tied it up so clumsily;" the fool, as he well knew, being the house surgeon at his side. Again, another practitioner at the hospital had recommended a particular treatment in a particular case. This gentleman, the baron's colleague, was referred to as—"a child who had yet to learn the alphabet of surgery—who would have been laughed at, twenty years ago, had he prescribed such antiquated nostrums—a weak child—a mere baby, gentlemen."——"How much," I exclaimed mentally, time after time, "must this man have altered since H—— parted with him as his respected friend!" And yet in some regards he was not altered at all. There was the same consideration for the poor sufferers—the same attention to their many complaints and wants—the same tenderness and kind disposition to humour and pacify them, which H—— had dwelt upon with so much commendation. There was no hurrying from case to case—no sign of impatience at the reiterated unmeaning queries of the patients—no coarse jest at their expense—not a syllable that could wound the susceptibility of the most sensitive. Did one poor fellow betray an anxiety to take up as little of the baron's time as possible, and, speaking hurriedly, almost exhaust his little stock of feeble breath, it was absolutely touching to mark the happy mode in which the surgeon put the flurried one at ease. Had these creatures, paupers as they were, been rich and noble—had they, strangers as they were, been brothers every one, he could not have evinced a tenderer interest on their behalf—a stronger disposition to do them service. In spite of myself, I loved the baron for his condescending to these men of low estate.

It will not be necessary to dwell upon the proceedings of the place: I could extract from my note-book pages that would delight the medical reader, necessarily dry and tedious to the uninitiated. Suffice it to say, that many hours were spent in the surgical wards by this indefatigable surgeon: every individual case received his best attention, and was prescribed for as carefully as though a noble fee waited upon each. The ceremony being at an end, I was about to retire, agreeably surprised and gratified with all that I had seen.

"Arrêtez donc," said the baron, noticing my movement, and touching me upon the arm. "You are not fatigued?"

[Pg 601]

"Not in the least," I answered.

"Come with me, then."

The baron, full of life and spirits, and with the air of a man whose day's work was only about to commence, bowed to the students, and tripped quickly down stairs. I followed as commanded, and the next moment I was in the baron's cabriolet, driving with that gentleman rapidly through the streets of Paris.

"Have you courage?" enquired the baron suddenly.

"For what, sir?" I replied.

"To see an operation."

"I have been present at many, sir," said I—"some bad enough, too; and, I confess, I have been less womanish and weak beholding them than I felt this morning, witnessing your kindness to those poor creatures."

"Ah, poor creatures, indeed!" repeated the baron in a softer tone than any I had heard him use. "The poor need kindness, Mr Walpole. It is all we can do for them. God help them! it is little of that they get. Poverty is a frightful thing, sir."

There were two circumstances that especially struck me in the delivery of this short speech. One was, that the eyes of an intrepid operator filled with tears whilst he adverted to a very commonplace subject; the other, that a confirmed atheist was inconsistent enough to invoke the Deity whose very existence he denied.

We drove on, and arrived at the hotel of one of the richest and most influential noblemen of France. The cabriolet stopped, and the gates of the hotel were thrown open at the same instant. A lackey, in the hall of the mansion, was already waiting for the baron, and we were bowed with much ceremony up the gilded staircase; we reached at last a sumptuously furnished chamber, where we found three gentlemen in earnest conversation. They were silent upon our entrance, and advanced, one and all, with great cordiality to greet the baron. The latter returned their salute with a distant and haughty politeness, which I thought very unbecoming.

"We were thinking"—— began one of the party.

"How is the patient?" asked the baron, suddenly interrupting him.

The other shook his head despondingly, and the baron, as it were instinctively, unlocked a case of instruments, which he had brought into the room with him from his cabriolet.

"The inflammation has not subsided, then?"

"No."

"All the symptoms as before?"

"All."

"Let us see him."

The gentleman and the baron opened a door and passed into another room. As the door closed after them, I heard a loud and dismal groan. One of the two remaining gentlemen then asked me if I had been long in Paris.

I told him.

"Ah, you haven't seen the new opera, then?" said he—just as we should say, when put to it for conversation—What frightful, or what beautiful weather this is! Before I could reply, there was another fearful groan from the adjoining room, but my new acquaintance proceeded without noticing it.

"You have nothing like our Académie in London, I believe?"

I was about to vindicate the Italian Opera, when the two surgeons again appeared. The baron in a few words said, that there was nothing to be done but to operate, and at once, if the life of the patient were to be spared at all. The three practitioners—for such they were—bowed in acquiescence, and the baron prepared his instruments.

It is the fashion to speak of medical men slightingly, if not reproachfully; to accuse them of practising solemn impositions, and of being, at the best, but so many legalized charlatans. It is especially the mode of speaking amongst those who will give "the doctor" no rest, and are not satisfied until they make that functionary the most constant visitor at their abodes. No one would have dared to breathe one syllable of disrespect against the surgeon's sacred office, who could have seen as I did, the operation which the baron performed this day. It has been done successfully three times within the memory of man; twice by himself, who first attempted it. It was grand to mark his calm and intellectual face—to see the hand—armed with the knife that cut for life or death—firm and unshaken as the mind that urged, the eye that [Pg 602] followed, its unerring course. I could understand the worship that was paid to this incomparable master, by all that knew his power. Within five minutes by the clock, and in the sight of men whose breathless admiration made them oblivious of the throes of the poor sufferer, the process was completed, and the endangered life restored. The baron left the fainting invalid, retired for a few seconds, and prescribed. He returned and felt his pulse—and then, turning to the man with whom he had first spoken, said—

"Should any thing arise, sir, you will acquaint me with it."

"Unquestionably. He will do well?"

"No doubt of it. Good-morning."

"Good-morning, baron," said the gentleman obsequiously. "His excellency bore it wonderfully."

"Pretty well for an excellency. We don't notice these things in paupers—Now, Mr Walpole."

And thereupon the baron turned upon his heels with such manifest disdain, that he lost half the credit which he had gained by his previous performance.

We sat for some time silent in the cabriolet. I was bursting to praise the baron, and yet fearful to speak, lest I should be insulted for my pains. At last, I became so excited that I could hold out no longer.

"Baron," said I, "I beg your pardon—it was the grandest thing I ever saw."

"I have seen a grander," said the surgeon frowning, and pursing those unhappy lips of his again, "much grander, Mr Walpole. I have seen a nobleman rolling in riches, flattered by his dogs, renowned for his Christian piety, refusing the supplications of a poor boy, who asked only for a few coins to carry him through a cold and killing winter. The refusal might have been the lad's death—but he was refused. It was, as you say, a grand thing, but the lad has had his revenge to-day."

The baron drove to his own home. At his request I entered his library with him. He placed some books in my hand, which he believed would be of service to me; and, as we parted, he said kindly—

"Don't mind my rough ways, Mr Walpole; I was educated in a rough school. I shall be glad to see you often. I have been disturbed. The father of that man, whose life, I verily believe, I have saved this day, hunted me many years ago from his door when I begged from him—condescended to beg from him—alms which his meanest servant would not have missed, and which I wanted, to save me from absolute starvation. I have never forgotten or forgiven him for the act—but I have had my revenge. The great man's son owes his life to the beggar after all. A good revenge, n'est ce pas?"

I was very much disposed to consider the baron subject to fits of temporary derangement; but I was wise enough to do nothing more than nod my head in answer to this appeal, leaving my questioner to interpret the action as he in his madness might think proper.

There was a hearty shake of the hand, another general invitation to his house, and a particular invitation to the hospital, where, as the baron very reasonably observed, "All the knowledge that could serve a man in after life was hoarded up"—and then I made my bow and took my departure.

Three months passed like so many days, in the midst of occupation at once the most inspiriting and satisfactory; and during the whole of that period, I am bound to acknowledge the treatment of the baron towards me to have been most generous and kind. In spite of my own resolutions, I had attached myself to the professor by a feeling of gratitude, which it was not easy to extinguish or control. His wish to advance me in the knowledge and understanding of my profession was so earnest, the pains he took to communicate the most important results of his own hard-earned experience so untiring, that, had I not felt a heavy debt of obligation, I must have been a senseless undeserving wretch indeed. The baron was manifestly well-disposed towards me, and in spite (it might have been with so strange a character, by very reason) of our religious differences, he lost no opportunity of bringing me to his side, and of loading me whilst there with precious gifts. I attended the professor at the hospital, at the houses of his patients, in his own private study. [Pg 603] He was flattering enough to say that he liked to have me about him—that he was pleased with my straightforward character—and with the earnestness with which I worked. I trust it was not his good opinion alone that induced me, in opposition to my first resolution, by degrees to associate with the baron, until at length we became intimate and almost inseparable friends. I would not acknowledge this to my own conscience, which happily never suffered me to violate a principle, or yield an inch of righteous ground. The baron persevered in his attacks upon our sacred religion. I, grown bolder by long familiar acquaintance, acted as firmly upon the defensive: and I must do myself the justice to assert, that the soundness of fair argument suffered no injury from the light weapons of wit and ridicule which my friend had ever at command.

It was a fine morning in the early spring, and I sat with the baron as usual in his library. On this occasion I was helping him in the completion of a series of plates, which he was about to publish, in connexion with a work on cancer—a book that has since made a great sensation upon the Continent. The engraver had worked from the professor's preparations under the eye of the latter; but a few slight inaccuracies had crept into the drawings, and the baron employed me in the detection of them. We were both fully occupied; I with the engravings; he with his lecture of the day—and we were both very silent, when we heard a loud ringing of the porter's bell. The baron at the same time looked at his watch, and resumed his pen. A note was then brought to him by his servant. It was read, and an answer given.

"Say I will be there at four o'clock."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the servant, "but the prince's chasseur who gave me the note, desired me to add that the prince wished to see you immediately."

"Very well, sir," answered the baron haughtily. "He has delivered his master's message—do you deliver mine. I am busy, very busy—and cannot see the prince till four o'clock. That is the answer."

The servant knew his master, and left the room immediately.

"These insufferable nobles!" exclaimed the baron; "they imagine that mankind was invented for their pleasure and amusement—to be their footballs. Does this man think we have nothing better to do than to humour his fancies, and attend to every ailment that waits upon his gross appetite. He makes a god of his belly, is punished for his idolatry, and then whines by the hour to his doctor."

"Is he not ill, then?" I enquired.

"He may be—but that is no reason why my students are to be neglected for a prince. He must come in his turn, with all the rest. I allow no distinctions in my practice. Suffering is suffering—the pain of the peasant is as acute as the smart of the king. Proceed with the drawings, Mr Walpole."

In less than a quarter of an hour, there was a fresh disturbance. The servant knocked softly at the door, and entered timidly.

"Here is a dirty woman at the gate, sir," began the man. "I have told her that you were engaged and couldn't speak to her, but she would not move until I had brought you this letter. She is a dirty creature, sir."

"Well, you have said that once before," answered the baron taking the note—if a soiled strip of paper, with blots, erasures, and illegible characters may deserve that title. The baron endeavoured to read it; but failing, requested François to show the poor woman up.

She appeared, and justified the repetition of François. She was indeed very far from being clean; she had scarcely a rag upon her back—and seemed, in every way, much distressed.

"Now, my good woman," said the professor very tenderly, "tell me what it is you want, as quickly as you are able to do it, and I will help you if it be in my power."

The woman, bursting into tears, proceeded to say that "she resided in the Quartier St Jacques—that her husband was a water-carrier."

[Pg 604]

"A what?" asked the professor quickly, as if he had missed the word.

"A water-carrier, sir."

"Go on."

That he had come from Auvergne—had fallen into a dreadful state of disease through want of nourishment and fuel during the winter—that he was now lying without a crust of bread or a particle of fire—and that she was sure he must die, leaving her and her children to be thrown into the world. She filled up her short narrative with many harrowing details, and finished by imploring the surgeon to come and save her husband if he could. "We will pay you, sir, all that we are able—if he gets to work again: and if he shouldn't, God, I am sure, will not listen to your prayers the less because you have helped the unfortunate and the poor."

Before the woman had told her story, the cheeks of the baron were as pale as her own—his eyes scarcely less moist. He had put his hand to his pocket, and when the woman ceased—he drew it out again, and presented her with a crown-piece.

"Go home," said he "with that. Buy bread and fuel. I will be at your lodging this afternoon."

The woman was about to exclaim.

"Not a syllable!" said her benefactor, preventing her. "If you thank me, I will do nothing for you. Go your ways now. I cannot accompany you—for you see I am very busy; but before the day is out, I will prescribe for your goodman.—Good-by to you—good-by."

The woman went away without another word.

Before she reached the bottom of the stairs, the baron spoke.

"Mr Walpole—pray be kind enough to call her back!"

She came.

"You must not think me harsh now," proceeded the baron, by way of apology, "I did not wish to be so. I shall do all I can for you, and your husband will no doubt be soon quite well again. There, keep your spirits up, and go home and cheer the good fellow. I shall see you by-and-by—Adieu, ma chère."

The professor continued his lecture; but not for five minutes before he appeared to be very uneasy at his work. He put his pen down, and sat for a time full of thought; then he rose and paced the room, and then took up his pen again; at last, he started from his chair and pulled the bell.

"François," said he to the servant, "let the cabriolet be here immediately. Yes," he continued, as if speaking to himself, "it will be better to go at once; the man may be seriously ill. His life may be in danger. It can be done in an hour—there is plenty of time still for the lecture. We must go and see this poor fellow, Mr Walpole," added the professor, addressing me. "Come, you shall give me your opinion of the case."

And the lecture and the engravings were neglected, and we dashed through the streets towards the Quartier St Jacques, with every chance of breaking our own necks as well as that of the spirited animal that flew before the whip of the excited practitioner.

"Well," said I to myself as we alighted, "it may be, Monsieur le Baron, as you state it, 'the pain of the peasant is as acute as the smart of a king.' It is, however, very certain that you do not hold to the converse of the proposition."

The water-carrier was in truth alarmingly ill, and he was not likely to remain so much longer, if left to himself; for it was already the eleventh hour with him. He was living in a filthy hole—lying on a bed of straw, without the commonest necessaries of life. The man had become diseased through want and confinement—that cause and origin of half the complaints to which the human frame is subject; lack of wholesome food and pure air. The baron perceived instantly that nothing could be done for the unhappy fellow in his present abode, and he therefore insisted upon his being removed at once to a maison de santé.

"I can't walk," said the man gruffly.

"No, but you can be carried in a coach, I suppose," replied the baron in a similar tone, "if I wish it." "Let him be dressed," he continued, turning to the wife. "I will send a coach for him in half an hour—and [Pg 605] take charge of him until he is better. That will buy you some bread for the present," and he gave another crown and hastened away. In the afternoon the baron attended the patient again at the maison de santé. He ordered him a bath, and prescribed medicines. For a month he visited him daily; and he did not quit him until he was convalescent. Nor then—for upon the day of the poor fellow's discharge, he presented him with a horse and water-cart, and a purse containing five louis-d'or.

"Take care of the money," said the charitable donor, "do not be extravagant. If you are ill—come to me always."

The water-carrier—a bluff, sturdy fellow in his way—would have thanked the baron could he have kept quiet; but he stood roaring like a child, perfectly overcome with the kindness he had received. It was some months afterwards that François announced two visitors. When they appeared, I recognised my old acquaintance the water-carrier, grown hale and hearty, accompanied by a stranger, of the same condition in life as himself, and looking very ill.

"Ah, mon ami!" exclaimed the baron, shaking him by the hand, "how does the world use you?"

"Look at me," answered the carrier—"just look at me."

"Ay, ay," said the baron. "Flesh enough upon you now! Who is your friend?"

"Ah, it's about him I came! He is very ill, isn't he? He is a water-carrier, too. He was going to another doctor, but I wouldn't allow it. No, no—that wouldn't have been the thing after all you have done for me. I hope I know better. He is very bad, and hasn't got a sixpence in the world."

I could not help smiling, at this original display of gratitude—and the baron laughed outright; his heart grew glad within him as he answered, pressing the honest carrier's hardy hand—

"Right—right—quite right! Mon enfant, bring them all to me!"

M'Linnie, who was not honoured by the baron's confidence, seemed to be well acquainted with his peculiarities. I mentioned to him his extraordinary treatment of the water-carriers, and attributed it all, without hesitation, to downright insanity.

"Not that exactly," said Mac. "It is caprice, and the inconsistency of human nature. He is strongly attached to all Auvergnats, and to water-carriers in particular. His predilection that way is well known in Paris. Perhaps his father was a water-carrier—or his first love a girl from Auvergne. Who can tell what gave rise to the partiality in a mind that is full of bias and contradiction!"

Contradiction indeed! I had remarked enough, and yet nothing at all in comparison with that which was to follow. Up to the present time I had been only puzzled and amused by the frolics and irregularities of the baron. I had yet to be staggered and confounded by the most palpable and barefaced act of inconsistency that ever lunatic conceived and executed. The winter and spring had passed, and summer came, placing our time more at our disposal. Summer is the dissector's long vacation. I permitted myself to take recreation, and to seek amusement in the many public resorts of this interesting capital. One morning I attended the baron at the hospital, and returned with him to his abode. We sat together for an hour, and I distinctly remember that on this occasion the unbeliever was even more witty than usual on the subject which he was ever ready to introduce, with, I am sorry to say, no better object than that of turning it into ridicule and contempt. I left him, irritated and annoyed at his behaviour, and tried to forget it in the crowds of people who were thronging the gay streets on one of the gayest mornings of the year. I hardly know why I directed my steps towards the Place St Sulpice, or why, having reached it, I lingered, gazing at the church which has its site there. I had a better reason for quitting it with precipitation; for whilst I stood musing, I became suddenly aware of the presence of my friend the baron. He did not see me, and I was not anxious to begin de novo the disagreeable discussion of the morning. As I turned away from the church, however, I looked instinctively back, [Pg 606] and was much surprised to behold the baron glancing very suspiciously about him, and appearing most anxious to avoid public observation. I was mentally debating whether such was really the fact, or whether the idea was suggested by my own clandestine movement, when to my unaffected astonishment the baron put an end to all doubt by making one rapid march towards the church, and then rushing in—looking neither to the right nor left—behind nor before him. This was truly too extraordinary a circumstance to witness without further enquiry. I immediately retraced my steps, and followed the atheist into the house, where surely he could have no lawful business to transact. If my surprise had been great without the sacred edifice, what was it within, and at that particular portion of it known by the designation of the Chapel of the Virgin Mary, at which I beheld, questioning my own senses, my unaccountable friend, this exceedingly erratic baron—upon his knees—in solemn prayer! Yes, kneeling in low humility, and praying audibly, with a devotion and an awful earnestness that could not be surpassed. He remained upon his knees, and he persevered in his prayers until the conclusion of the service, and then he bestowed his alms—performing all things with an expression of countenance and gravity of demeanour, such as I knew him to wear only at the table upon which he had achieved the most celebrated of his surgical victories.

"Mad, mad!" I exclaimed aloud, "nothing short of it." Why, such glaring wholesale hypocrisy had not been committed since Satan first introduced the vice into Paradise. What atrocity, what barefaced blasphemy! It was the part of a Christian and a friend to attribute the extravagant proceedings of the baron to absolute insanity, and to nothing else; and I did so accordingly, alarmed for the safety of the unfortunate professor, and marvelling what unheard-of act would next be perpetrated, rendering it incumbent upon society to lock the lunatic up for life. Why, his lips were hardly relieved of the pollution which had fallen from them in my presence; and could he in his senses, with his reason not unhinged, dare to offend his Maker doubly by the mockery of such prayers as he could offer up! What was his motive—what his end? That he was anxious for concealment was evident. Had he courted observation, I might have supposed him actuated by some far-sighted scheme of policy; and yet his rash and straightforward temperament rendered him incapable of any stratagem whatever. No, no—look at the thing as I would, there was no accounting for this most perplexing anomaly except on the ground of mental infirmity. Alas, poor baron!

When the service was at an end, I took up a position in the street near the church, in order to observe the next movement of the devotee, quite prepared for any thing that might happen. I was disappointed. The baron, looking very cheerful and very happy, made his appearance from the temple which he had so recently profaned, and walked steadily and quietly away. I followed him, and in the excitement of the moment was about to approach and accost him, when he suddenly turned into a narrow lane, and I lost sight of him.

Before I saw the baron again, I had made up my mind to keep my own counsel, and to give him no hint of my having discovered and watched him. The reasons for silence were twofold. First, I hoped, by keeping my eye upon the professor, to learn more of his character than I yet knew; and, in the second place, I did not wish to be regarded as a spy by an individual of violent passions, whom I could not conscientiously consider responsible for his actions.

It so happened that, on the evening of this very day, the baron held a conversazione in his rooms, to which the first people of Paris, both in rank and talent, were invited. I, who had the entrée, was present of course, and I was likewise amongst the first of the arrivals. With me, the chief physician of the Hotel Dieu entered the salon.

The surgeon and the physician shook hands; and, after a word or two, the latter asked abruptly—

"By the way, baron, what were you doing at St Sulpice this morning? I saw you quitting the church."

[Pg 607]

"Oh!" said the baron, without changing colour or moving a muscle, although I blushed at his side to my very forehead; "Oh! a sick priest, placed under my care by the Duchess d'Angoulême—nothing more."

"Well, I could hardly believe that you had turned saint—that is the truth."

"Not yet—not yet!" added the baron, laughing out. "This is to be the saint," he continued, tapping me on the shoulders. "St Walpole! That will look very fine in the calendar! However, my friend, if they attempt to canonize you whilst I live, I'll act the part of devil's advocate, and contest your right of admission, if it is only to punish you for your opposition to me in this world. So take care of yourself, and read up your divinity."

And with these words the unmitigated hypocrite, chuckling at my apparent confusion, advanced to the door, and welcomed his crowding visitors.

Upon the following day I repaired to St Sulpice—but I did not see the baron. I went again and again, with no better success. For a week I attended the service daily—still no baron. Afterwards I went twice a-week. At the end of two months I contented myself with one visit weekly—still no baron. I did not like to give up the watch. I could not tell why I felt sure of meeting with him again; yet so I felt, and I was curious to know how far he carried his madness, and what object he proposed to himself in the prosecution and indulgence of his monomania. Three months elapsed, and I was at length paid for my perseverance. For a second time I saw the baron enter the church—assist devoutly at the celebration of mass at the chapel of the Virgin Mary—repeat his prayers, and offer up his alms. There was the same solemnity of bearing during the ceremony, the same cheerful self-possession at its completion. A more methodical madness there could not be! I was determined this time not to lose sight of my gentleman, without obtaining at least a clue to his extraordinary behaviour. As soon as the service as over, he prepared for his departure. Before he could quit the church, however, I crossed it unperceived by him, and walked straight up to the sacristan.

"Who is that gentleman?" I asked, pointing to the surgeon.

"Monsieur F——," he answered readily enough—so readily, that I hardly knew what to ask next. "A regular attendant, sir," the sacristan continued, in an impressive tone of approbation.

"Indeed!" said I.

"Ay. I have been here twelve years next Easter, and four times regularly every year has monsieur come to hear this mass."

"It is very strange!" I said, speaking to myself.

"Not at all," said the sacristan. "It is very natural, seeing that he is himself the founder of it!"

Worse and worse! The inconsistency of the reviler of things sacred, was becoming more barefaced and unpardonable. "Let him taunt me again!" I exclaimed, walking homeward; "let him mock me for my weak and childish notions, as he calls them, and attempt to be facetious at the expense of all that is holy, and good, and consolatory in life. Let him attempt it, and I will annihilate him with a word!" When, however, I grew more collected, I began to understand how, by such proceeding, I might shoot very wide of my mark, and give my friend an advantage after all. He had explained his presence at the church to his colleague by attributing it to a visit paid to a sick priest there. He should have no opportunity to prevaricate if I once challenged him. Now, he might have the effrontery to deny what I had seen with my own eyes, and could swear to. By lying in wait for him again, and accosting him whilst he was in the very act of perpetrating his solemn farce, I should deprive him of all power of evasion and escape. And so I determined it should be.

In the meanwhile I kept my own counsel, and we went on as usual. I learned from the sacristan when the baron was next expected at the mass, and, until that day, did not present myself again at the Place St Sulpice. Before that time arrived, there arose a touching incident, [Pg 608] which, as leading to important consequences, deserves especial notice.

It was growing late one evening of this same summer—the surgeon was fatigued with the labours of the day—I was on the point of leaving him—he of retiring to rest, when François announced a stranger. An old man appeared. He was short, and very thin; his cheeks were pale—his hair hoary. Benignity beamed in his countenance, on which traces of suffering lingered, not wholly effaced by piety and resignation. There was an air of sweetness and repose about the venerable stranger, that at the first sight gained your respect, if not regard. When he entered the apartment he bowed with ceremony—and then waited timidly for countenance from the baron.

"What is the matter with you?" asked the surgeon roughly.

"Allow me to be seated," said the stranger, drawing his breath with difficulty, and speaking with a weak and tremulous voice. "I am very tired."

The baron, as if rebuked, rose instantly, and gave his visitor a chair.

"I am very old," continued the latter, "and my poor legs are weary."

"What ails you?"

"Permit me," said the stranger. "I am the priest of a small village very far from Paris."

"Humph!" ejaculated the surgeon.

"Two years ago I had a swelling in my neck, which the doctor of our village thought of no importance; but it burst at last, and for a long time I was kept to my bed a useless idle man. With four parishes and no assistant; there lay a heavy weight upon my conscience—but God is good, sir"——

"Show me your throat!" exclaimed the baron, interrupting him.

"And my people, too," proceeded the old man, preparing to obey the surgeon's command—"my people were very considerate and kind. When I got a little better, they offered, in order to lighten my labours, to come to one church every Sunday. But it was not fair, sir. They are working men, and have much to do, and Sunday is their only day of rest. It was not right that so many should resign their comfort for the sake of one; and I could not bear to think of it."

All this was uttered with such perfect natural simplicity, that it was impossible not to feel at once great interest in the statement of the speaker. My attention was riveted. Not so the baron's, who answered with more impatience than he had ever used towards the water-carriers—

"Come to the point, sir."

"I was coming, sir," replied the old priest mildly; "I trust I don't fatigue you. Whilst I was in doubt as to what it was best to do, a friend strongly recommended me to come to Paris, and to consult you. It was a thing to consider, sir. A long journey, and a great expense! We have many poor in our district, and it is not lawful to cast away money that rightfully belongs to them. But, when I became reduced as you see me, I could not regard the money as thrown away on such an errand; and so I came. I arrived only an hour ago, and have not delayed an instant."

The surgeon, affecting not to listen to the plaintive recital of the priest, proceeded very carefully to examine his disease. It was an alarming one; indeed, of so aggravated a character, that it was astonishing to see the sufferer alive after all that he must have undergone in its progress.

"This disease must kill you," said the baron—brutally, I thought, considering the present condition of the man, his distance from home, friends, and all the natural ties that render calamity less frightful and insupportable. I would gladly have said a word to soften the pain which the baron had inflicted; but it would have been officious, and might have given offence.

The old priest, however, expressed no anxiety or regret upon hearing the verdict pronounced against him. With a firm and quiet hand he replaced the bandages, and he then drew a coarse bag from his pocket, from which he extracted a five franc piece.

"This is," he said calmly, "a very trifling fee, indeed, for the opinion of so celebrated a surgeon; but, as I have told you, sir, the necessities of my poor are great. I cannot afford to spend more upon this worthless carcass. I an very grateful to you for your candour, sir. [Pg 609] It will be my own fault now, if I die unprepared."

"It is the profession of a priest," said the baron, "to affect stoicism. You do not feel it."

"I do not, sir," replied the man respectfully. "I did not hear the awful truth you just now told me as a stoic would. Pardon me for saying, that it might have been communicated less harshly and abruptly to a weak old man; I do not wish to speak offensively."

The baron blushed for shame.

"I am a human being, sir," continued the priest, "and must feel as other men. Death is a terrible abyss between earth and heaven; but the land is not the less lovely beyond it."

"You speak as you were taught?" said the baron.

"Yes."

"And as you teach?"

"Yes."

"And you profess to feel all this?"

"I profess to be a humble minister of Christ—imperfect enough, Heaven knows, sir! I ask your pardon for complaining at your words. They did not shock me very much. How should they, when I came expecting them? Farewell, sir; I will return to Auvergne, and die in the midst of my people."

"Stay!" exclaimed the baron, touched and softened by the one magical word. "Come back! I admire your calmness—I respect your powers of endurance. Can you trust them to the end?"

"I am frail, and very weak, sir," replied the priest. "I would bear much to save my life. I do not wish to die. I have many things unfinished yet."

"Listen to me. There is but one means of saving you; and mark—that perhaps may fail—a long, painful, and, it may be, unsuccessful operation. Are you prepared to run the risk?"

"Is there a chance, sir?"

"Yes—but a remote one. Were I the priest of Auvergne I would take that chance."

"It is enough, sir," said the old man. "Let it be done. I will undergo it, with the help of God, as their pastor should, for the sake of my dear children in Auvergne."

The baron sat at his desk, and wrote a few lines—

"Present this note," said he, "at the Salle St Agnes in the Hotel Dieu. Go at once. The sisters there will take care that you want for nothing. Take rest for a day or two, and I will see what afterwards may be done for you."

The priest thanked the baron many times for his kindness—bowed respectfully, and retired. The free-thinking surgeon sat for a few minutes after his departure, silent and thoughtful.

"Happy man!" he exclaimed at last, sighing as the words escaped him.

"Happy, sir?" said I enquiringly.

"Yes! happy, Mr Walpole. False and fabulous as the system is on which he builds, is he not to be envied for the faith that buoys him up so well through the great sea of trouble, as your poet justly calls this pitiable world! Could one purchase this all-powerful faith, what price would be too dear for such an acquisition? Who would not give all that he possesses here to grasp that hope and anchor?"

"And yet, sir, you might have it. The gift is freely offered, and you spurn it."

"No such thing!" replied the surgeon hastily. "I may not have it. This weak yet amiable priest is content to take for granted what every rational mind rejects without fair proofs. He receives as a postulate that which I must have demonstrated. I try to solve the problem, and the first links of the argument lead to an absurdity."

"The weak man, then, has reason to be thankful?" said I.

"Ay, ay! I grant you that. He cannot tell how much!"

"How differently, sir, do things appear to different men! The very endurance of this old man, founded as it is upon his faith, is to me proof sufficient of the truth and heavenly origin of that faith."

"You talk, Mr Walpole, like a schoolboy, who knows nothing of religion out of his catechism—and nothing of the world beyond his school walls. If the ability to bear calamity with fortitude shall decide the [Pg 610] genuineness of the creed, there is your North American Indian or Hindoo nearer to truth and heaven than the Christian. So much for your 'proof sufficient' as you term it."

This discussion, like all the rest, for all useful purposes ended as it began, leaving us both just where it had found us—our tempers rather than our views suffering in the conflict. Two or three times I was tempted to rattle out a volley of indignation at his amazing and unparalleled effrontery, and of calling him to account for his turpitude; but my better judgment withheld me, bidding me reserve my blows until they should fall unerringly and fatally upon his defenceless head.

In the meanwhile the good old priest carried his mild and resigned spirit with him into the hospital. He was received with kindness, and treated with especial care, chiefly on account of the recommendation of the baron, who was interested in the unfortunate pastor to a greater extent than he cared to acknowledge. The day for the operation—postponed from time to time—at length arrived. It was performed. The process was long and painful, but the patient never uttered a complaint: his cries were wrung from him in the extremity of torture and physical helplessness. The result was successful. One knew not which to admire most—the Christian magnanimity of the patient, or the triumphant skill of the operator: both were perfect. When the anxious scene was over, the surgeon shook the priest by the hand tenderly and encouragingly, and with his handkerchief wiped the sweat-drops from his aged brow. He saw him afterwards carefully removed to his bed, and for half an hour watched at his side, until, exhausted, the sufferer fell to sleep. During the slow recovery of the invalid, his bed was the first visited by the surgeon in his daily rounds. He lingered there long after his services were needed, and listened with the deepest attention to the accounts which the priest gave of his mode of life, and of the condition of his dear flock, far away in Auvergne. When at length the convalescent man was able to quit his bed, the baron, to the surprise of all who knew him, would take him by the arm, and give him his support, as the enfeebled creature walked slowly up and down the ward. It was the feeling act of an affectionate son. Then the surgeon made eager enquiries, which the priest as eagerly answered; and they grew as friendly as though they had been well acquainted from their infancy. Weeks passed away; the priest was at last discharged, cured; and, with prayers mingling with tears of gratitude, he took leave of his benefactor, and returned in joy to his native village.

It was exactly a week after his departure, that the day arrived upon which the sacristan led me to expect a meeting with the baron at the church of Saint Sulpice. Resolved to confront this incarnation of contradiction at the very scene of his unseemly vagaries, I did not fail to be punctual. As I entered the street, I espied the baron a few yards before me, walking briskly towards the entrance of the sacred building. I followed him. He hurried into the church, and took his accustomed place. I kept close upon him; and, with a fluttering heart, seated myself at his side. My cheek burned with nervous agitation, but I did not look towards my adversary. His eye, however, was upon me. I felt it, and was sensible of his steady, long, and, as it seemed, passionless gaze. He did not move, or betray any symptom of surprise. As on the previous occasions, he proceeded solemnly to prayer; and when the ceremony was completed, he, as usual, offered up his alms. As the service drew to its close, my own anxiety became intense, and my situation almost insupportable. He rose—I did the same;—he walked leisurely away—I, giddy with excitement reeled after him. I was not to be shaken from my purpose, and I accosted him on the church's threshold.

"Baron!" I exclaimed.

"Mr Walpole!" he replied, perfectly unmoved.

"I am surprised to see you here, sir."

"You are not," answered the baron, still most placidly; "you came expressly to meet me; you have been here twice before. Why do you desire to hide that fact? Can a Christian, Mr Walpole, play the hypocrite as well as other men?"

[Pg 611]

"I cannot understand you," I said, bewildered by his imperturbable coolness; "you laugh at religion—you mock me for respecting it, and yet you come here for prayer. You do not believe in God, and you assist devoutly at mass!"

"It is a lovely morning, Mr Walpole—we have half an hour to spare—give me your arm!"

Perfectly puzzled and confounded by the collected manner of the baron, I placed my arm mechanically in his, and suffered him to conduct me whethersoever he would. We walked in silence for some distance, passed into the meanest quarter of the city, and reached a miserable and squalid street. The baron pointed to the most wretched house in the lane, and bade me direct my eye especially to its sixth story.

"Mark it well," said he, "you see a window there to which a line is fixed with recently washed linen?"

"I do," I answered.

"In the room—the small close hole to which that window hardly brings air and light, I passed months of my life. The mass at which you have three times watched me, is connected with it, and with occurrences that had their rise there. I was the occupant of that garret—it seems but yesterday since I wanted bread there."

The surgeon was unmanned. He kept his eye upon the melancholy window until emotion blinded it, and permitted him to see no longer. He stood transfixed for a second or two, and then spoke quickly.

"Mr Walpole, poverty is horrible! I have courage for any extremity but that. Pain I have borne—shrieks and moans I have listened to unmoved, whilst I stood by labouring to remove them; but when I recall the moments in which I have languished for a crust of bread, and known mankind to be my enemy—as though, being poor, I was a felon—all hearts steeled against me—All hearts, did I say?" added the speaker suddenly checking himself—"I lie; had it been so, I should not have been here to tell the tale."

The baron paused, and then resumed.

"High as the rank is, Mr Walpole, to which I have attained; brilliant as my career has been, and I acknowledge my success with gratitude—believe me, there is not a famished wretch who crawls through the sinks of this overgrown metropolis, that suffers more than I have suffered, has bitterer hours than I have undergone. In this city of splendour and corruption, at whose extremes are experienced the most exquisite enjoyment and the most crushing and bitter endurance, I have passed through trials which have before now overborne and killed the stoutest hearts, and would have annihilated mine, but for the unselfish love of him whose business took me to the church this day. Misery, in all its aggravated forms, has been mine. Want of money—of necessary clothing—hunger—thirst; such things have been familiar to me. In that room, and in the depth of the hard winter, I have for hours given warmth to my benumbed fingers with the breath which absolute want enabled me to draw only with difficulty and pain."

"Is it possible!" I involuntarily exclaimed.

"You believe that human strength is unequal to such demands. It is natural to think so; and yet I speak the truth. My parents, Mr Walpole, humble and poor, but good and loving, sent me to Paris with all the money they could afford for my education. I was ambitious, and deemed it more than enough for my purpose. When half my time was spent here, unhappily for me both father and mother were carried off by a malignant fever. It was heavy blow, and threatened my destruction; threatened it, however, but for a moment. I had determined to arrive at eminence; and when does the determination give way in the breast of him who feels and knows his power equal to his aim? I had a brother, to whom I wrote, telling him of my situation, and asking him for the loan of a few louis-d'or until my studies were completed, when I promised to repay the debt with interest. He sent me the quarter of the sum for which I had begged, with a long cold letter of remonstrance, bidding me give up my profession, and apply myself to the humbler pursuits of my family. I returned to my brother both money and letter, and the day on which I did [Pg 612] so saw me without a meal. I had not a farthing in the world. Had not a woman who lodged in a room below given me a crust of bread, I must have committed crime to assuage the cries of nature. How I existed for days, I no longer remember. But I remember well hearing of a rich nobleman, renowned for his wealth and piety, and for all the virtues which the world confers upon the possessor of vast estates. In a moment of enthusiasm and mistaken reliance, I sat down and penned a petition to this great personage. I spoke as an intellectual man to an intellectual man; as one working his difficult way through obscurity and trouble to usefulness and honour—and requiring only a few crumbs from the rich man's table to be at ease, and happy at his toil. I begged in abject humility for those crumbs, and received a lying and cold-blooded excuse instead of them. I crouched at his gate with a spirit worn by anxiety and apprehension, and his slaves hunted me away from it. You have passed through that same gate with me; you were witness of my triumph at the bedside of his child!"

"You mean his excellency—the operation?"

"I do."

"How little the rich," said I, "know of the misery, the privations, endured by those who in poverty acquire the knowledge that is to benefit mankind so largely. How ignorant are they of their trials!"

"If you would know of the ignorance, the folly, and the vice of the rich," proceeded the baron, always at home upon this his favourite subject, "you must listen to an endless tale. Ever willing and eager to detract from the merits of the man of science, and to attribute to him the assumption of powers beyond human grasp—and ever striving to drag down the results of his long and patient study to the level of their own brutish ignorance—they are made the sport, the tools, and playthings of every charlatan and trickster, as they should be. You shall be satisfied, Mr Walpole, when you see the men who treat you with scorn and contumely, pulled like puppets by a wire, and made to dance to any tune the piper listeth. Hope nothing from the rich."

"And from the poor, sir?"

"Every thing," said the baron, almost solemnly. "From their hearts shall spring the gratitude that will cheer you in your course, and solace you in your gloom. Fame, and the grateful attachment of my humble friends, have furnished me with a victory which the gold of the king could not purchase. But we forget Saint Sulpice. I am not a hypocrite, as you judge me, Mr Walpole. Be witness yourself if my presence there this day has proved me one. Refused and cast away by this nobleman, I had nothing to do but to dispose for a trifle of a few articles of linen which were still in my possession. I sold them for a song, and believing failure to be impossible, still struggled on. In that room I dwelt, living for days upon nothing richer than bread and water, and regarding my little money with the agony of a miser, as every demand diminished the small store. From morn till night I laboured. I almost passed my life amongst the dead. Well was it for me, as it proved, that my necessities drove me to the dead-house to forget hunger, and obtain eleemosynary warmth. Dismissed at dusk from this temporary home, I returned to the garret for my crust, and carried the book which I had borrowed to the common passage of the house, from whose dim lamp I received the glimmer that served me to read, and to sustain the incensed ambitious spirit that would not quell within me. The days glanced by quicker than the lightning. I could not read enough; I could not acquire knowledge sufficient, in that brief interval of days, between the acquisition of my little wealth and the spending of my last farthing. The miserable moment came. I was literally penniless, and without the means of realizing any thing. For a week I retained possession of my room through the charity of my landlord, and I was furnished with two loaves by a good fellow who lived in the same house, and who proffered his assistance so kindly, so generously, and well, that I received his benefaction only that I might not give him pain by a refusal. The second week of charity had already begun, when, entering my cold and hapless room in my return from the hospital, I was detained at the door by [Pg 613] hearing my name pronounced in a loud and angry tone. I listened with a sickening earnestness and recognized the voice of my landlord and that of the good neighbour in high discussion. Something had been said which much offended the latter; for the words which I caught from him were those of remonstrance and reproach.

"'For shame, for shame!' said he, 'you have children of your own, and they may need a friend one day. Think of them before you do so hard a thing.'

"'I do think of them,' replied the landlord sharply; 'and, that they mayn't starve, I must keep my matters straight.'

"'Give him another week or two. You will not feel it. I'll undertake to keep him. It isn't much, Heaven knows! that I can do for him; but at a pinch, man should make shift for man. Say you'll do it!'

"'I have told you he must go. I do not say one thing and mean another.'

"'Yes, you do, Lagarde,' continued the persevering lodger. 'You say your prayers daily and tell Heaven how thankful you are for all it does for you. Now, that you cannot mean, if you turn a helpless brother from your doors, who must die of want if you and I desert him. Come, think again of it. Recollect how the poor lad works—how he is striving and striving day after day. He will do well at last, and pay us back for all.'

"There was no doubt as to the individual—the subject of this argument. He stood listening to his doom, and far, far more grateful to the good creature who pleaded his cause than distressed by the obstinacy which pronounced his banishment. I was not kept long in suspense. I retreated to my den, and sat down in gloomy despair. A loud knock at the door roused me, and the indignant pride which possessed me melted at once into humility and love when I beheld the faithful Sebastian—my sympathizing neighbour.

"'You are to go,' he said bluntly; 'you are to leave this house to-morrow.'

"'I know it,' I answered; 'I am prepared to go this instant.'

"'And whither?'

"'Into the street,' said I; 'any where—it matters not.'

"'Oh yes! it matters much,' replied my visitor; 'it would not matter to me, or to your landlord. We are but day-labourers, whom nobody would miss. You have great things before you: you will do, if you are not crushed on the way. I am sure of it, and you shall not be deserted.'

"'What do you mean?' I asked.

"'Listen to me. Don't be offended. I am a poor man, and an ignorant one; but I respect learning, and feel for the distressed. You leave this house to-morrow; so do I. You seem to have no friends; I am friendless too. I am a foundling. I never knew either father or mother. I am a water-carrier, and I come from Auvergne. That is my history. Why should we not seek a lodging together? You don't regret leaving this place; no more do I. I won't disturb you. You shall study as long as you like, and have me to talk to when you are tired: that is—if it is quite agreeable, and you won't be ashamed of me.'

"'You know,' said I, 'that I am in a state of beggary.'

"'I know,' he answered, 'that you are not flush of capital just now; but I have a little in my pocket, and can work for more. If you are not too proud to borrow a trifle from me now, I sha'n't be too proud to have it back again when you get rich. Don't let me prate, for I am rough and unhandy at it; but give me your hand like an honest man, and say, "Sebastian, I will do as you wish me.'"

"My heart glowed with a streaming fire, and I grasped the extended palm of my preserver. 'Sebastian,' I exclaimed, 'I will do as you wish me. I will do more. I will make you independent. I will slave to make you happy. It can be done—I feel it can—and you may trust me.'

"'You'll do your best, I know,' he answered; 'and you'll do wonders, or I am much mistaken.'

"Upon the following morning we wandered through the city, and before nightfall obtained shelter. To this unselfish creature, and to the sacrifices which he made for me, I owe every thing. We had been together but a few days when he drew from me a statement of my position and [Pg 614] future prospects—drew it with a delicacy and tenderness that looked lovely indeed from beneath his ragged robes. Now this poor fellow, like me—like all of us—had his ambition, and a darling object in the far distance to attain. He had for months stinted himself of many comforts, that he might add weekly to a sum which he had saved for the purchase of a horse and water-cart. He was already master of a few hundred francs; and his earnings, small as they were, permitted him to keep up the hope which had supported him through many hardships. No sooner, however, did he gather from my words the extent of my necessities, than he determined to forego the dearest wish of his life in order to secure my advancement and success. I remonstrated with him; but I might as well have spoken to stone. He would not suffer me to speak; but threatened, if I refused him, to throw his bag of savings without delay into the Seine. I ceased to oppose him, accepted his noble offer, and vowed to devote myself from that time forward to the raising up of my deliverer. The money of Sebastian supplied me with books, enabled me to pass my examinations. Be sure I did not slacken in my exertions. Idleness was fraud while the sweat from the brow of the water-carrier poured so freely for my sake. I revered him as a father, not before I had myself become the object of his affections—the recipient of the love which he had never been conscious of before, foundling that he was, and without another human tie! He grew proud of me, prouder and prouder every day—I must be well dressed—I must want for nothing; no, though he himself wanted all things. He was assured of my future eminence, and this was enough for him; and my spirit well responded to his own. I knew my capacity; I felt my strength. I was aware of the ability that floated in the world, and did not fear to bring my own amongst it. What could a mind undertake from which mine would shrink? What application could be demanded to which I was not equal—prepared—eager to submit? Where lay my difficulty? I saw none: or if I did for an instant, it was exterminated before the imperious resolution I had formed to exalt and enrich my beloved and loving benefactor. Tender as a parent to me, this incomparable man was at the same time diligent and attentive as a domestic. He would permit me to do nothing to impede the easy and natural course of study. He shamed me by his affectionate assiduity, but silenced me ever by referring to the Future, when he looked, he confessed, for a repayment for all his care and love. What could I say of do in answer to this appeal? What but reiterate the vow which I had taken, never to desert him, and to fight my way upwards that he might share the glory he had earned. A day arrived when I was compelled for a time to leave him; for I had been received as interne at the Hotel Dieu. It was hard parting, especially for the poor water-carrier, who dreaded losing sight of me for ever. I gave him an assurance of my constancy; and consoled him by the information that another and last examination yet awaited me, for which a certain sum of money would be required. He promised to have it ready by the hour, and conjured me to take all care of myself—and to learn to love religion; for I must tell you, Sebastian was a pious man—a conscientious Christian.

"Once at the hospital, I sought profitable employment, and obtained it. In the course of a few months I had earned a sum—dearer, more valuable to me than all I have since acquired. It was insignificant in itself, but it purchased for my Sebastian his long wished-for treasure—the horse and water-cart. I took it to him; and when I approached him, I had not a word to say, for my grateful heart was in my throat strangling my utterance. He threw his arms about my neck, cried, laughed, thanked, scolded, blessed, and reproached me, all in the wildness and delirium of his delight. 'Why did you do it?' said he, 'oh it was kind and loving in you!—very kind and foolish—and wrong, and generous, and extravagant—dear, good, naughty boy! I am very angry with you; but I love you for it dearly. How you are getting on! I knew you would. I said so from the first. You will do wonders—you will be rich at last. You want no man's help—you have done it all yourself.'

[Pg 615]

"'No, Sebastian!' I exclaimed, 'you have done it for me.'

"'Don't deceive me—don't flatter me,' he answered. 'I have been able to do very little for you—not half what I wished. You would have been great without me. I have looked upon you, and loved you as my own boy, and all that was selfishness.'

"We dined and spent the evening of the day together. Life has had no hours like those before or since. They were real, fresh, substantial—such as youth remembers vividly when death and suffering have shaken the foundations of the world, and covered the past with mistiness and cloud. The excitement of the time, or the privations of former years—or I know not what—threw the good Sebastian shortly after this day upon a bed of sickness. He never rose from it again. He was not rewarded as he should have been for all his sacrifices—for all the love he had expended upon his grateful foster-child. He did not live to witness my success—he did not see the completion of the work he had begun. In spite of all my efforts to save his precious life, he sank, and drew his latest breath in these devoted arms. I lost more than a father."

The baron paused, his lips were borne down by a tremulous motion: he took my arm, and urged me gently from the spot. We walked for some distance in silence. Collecting himself again, he proceeded:—

"Sebastian, as I have told you, was a pious man. In truth, his faith was boundless. He worshipped and adored the Virgin Mary as he would have loved his own natural mother, had he known her. He was aware of my unbelief, and had often spoken to me on the subject as a father might, in accents of entreaty and regret. Whilst he was ill he gave me all the money he had, and earnestly requested me to spare nothing to secure for him the consolations of the Church. I obeyed him. I caused masses to be said for him. I procured for him the visits of his priest. I left nothing undone to give him peace and joy. Would it not have been monstrous had I acted otherwise? He was morbidly anxious for the future: he, righteous man, who was as pure in spirit, as guileless, as an infant! I alone followed him to the grave; and after I had seen his sacred dust consigned to earth, I crawled home with a heart almost broken with its grief. I hid myself in my room for the day; and before I quitted it again, devised a mode of testifying my gratitude to the departed—one most acceptable to his wishes, had he lived to express them. I remembered that he had neither friend nor relation—that I lived his representative. He had spoken during his illness of the masses which are said for the repose of the souls of the dead—spoken of them with a solemn belief as to their efficacy and power. His gentle humanity forbade his imposing upon me as a duty that which I might not easily perform. My course was clear. I saved money sufficient for the purpose, and then I founded the masses which are celebrated four times yearly in the church of Saint Sulpice. The fulfilment of his pious desire, is the only offering I can make to the memory of my dear foster-father. Upon the days on which the masses are said I attend, and in his name repeat the prayers that are required. This is all that a man with my opinions can undertake; and this is no hypocrisy, nor can the Omniscient—if that great spirit of nature be indeed capable of human passions—feel anger at the act, when I solemnly declare that all I have on earth—and more than I could wish of earthly happiness—I would this instant barter for the meek inviolable faith of Jean Sebastian."

The words were spoken at the door of the baron's residence, which we had already reached. My hand was in that of the speaker. He had taken it in the act of wishing me farewell. I grasped his palm affectionately, and answered—

"Why then, my friend, should you not possess this enviable blessing?"

"Because I cannot struggle against conviction: because faith is not subject to the will: because I know too little and too much: because I cannot grasp a shadow, or palpably discern by day an evanescent, albeit a lovely, dream of night. These are my reasons. Let us dismiss the subject."

And the subject was dismissed never to be taken up again. From this time forward, our theological disputations ceased. The baron forbore his [Pg 616] wit, and the good Cause was spared my feeble advocacy. Whether the baron suspected that, after all, there might be inconsistency in continuing to laugh at all religion whilst he persevered in visiting the church, or whether the seeds of a new and better growth of things began already to take root within him, I cannot take upon me to decide. To my relief and comfort, the solemn argument was never again profaned by ribaldry and unbecoming mirth; and, to my unfeigned delight, the teacher and the pupil were without one let or hinderance to their perfect sympathy and friendship.

A year has elapsed since, in the manner shown, I received the key to so many of the baron's seeming inconsistencies—when, as we were passing one morning into the Salle St Agnes at the Hotel Dieu, we were surprised to find, standing at the door of the ward—the venerable and humble minister of Auvergne. His face brightened at the approach of the baron, and he bowed respectfully in greeting him.

"What brings you here again, old friend?" enquired the surgeon; "no relapse, I trust?"

"Gratitude," replied the priest. A large basket was on his arm—his shoes were covered with dust—he had journeyed far on foot. "It is a year since I left this roof with my life restored to me, under God's blessing, by you. I could not let the anniversary slip away without paying you a visit, and bringing you a trifling present. It is scarcely worth your acceptance—but it is the best my grateful heart can offer, and I though you would receive it kindly. A few chickens from the poultry-yard, and a little fruit from the orchard."

The baron received the gift with a better grace than I had seen him accept a much handsomer fee. He invited the priest to his house, detained him there for some hours, and dismissed him with many presents for the poor amongst his flock at Auvergne.

And thus stood matters when the last stroke of my two years was sounded, and I was summoned home. I left the baron, need I say, with real regret; he was not pleased at my departure. I engaged to write to him, and to pay another visit to Paris as soon as my affairs permitted me. I have never trode French soil since; I never saw the baron afterwards. My curiosity, however, did not suffer me to be in ignorance of my friend's proceedings; and what I have now to add is gathered from a communication, received shortly after the baron's death, from his faithful and attached François.

For seven years the priest came annually with his gifts to the Hotel Dieu, and on each occasion was the baron's visitor; at first for a day or two, but afterwards for a week—and then longer still. During the second visitation, it was discovered that the minister was related distantly to the baron's former friend Sebastian. As soon as this was known, the surgeon offered the good man a home and an annuity. The former he modestly declined: the latter he accepted, distributing it in alms amongst the needy who abounded in his parish. The surgeon and the priest became great friends and frequent correspondents. The temper of the baron altered. He grew less morose—less violent—less self-indulgent—less bigoted. He reconciled a proper respect for the rich with a feeling regard for the poor. He became the pupil of the simple priest, and profited by his instruction and example. Seven years after my departure from Paris, the baron fell ill—and the priest of Auvergne, summoned to his bedside, ministered there, and gave his blessing to a meek, obedient child. He died, and the priest, shedding tears of sorrow and of joy commingled, closed his glassy eyes. What passed between them in his latest moments may not be repeated. François heard but a sentence as he knelt at his master's pillow. It was amongst the last he uttered.

"François, love the Auvergnats: they have saved your poor master—body and soul!"

That body was borne to the grave by the students of the Hotel Dieu—the greyheaded priest following in the train; and the soul—Heaven in its infinite mercy hath surely not forgotten.

THE SNOW.

[Pg 617]

BY DELTA.

LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS.

[Pg 620]

My father intended me for the church; but as it did not seem likely that any body intended a church for me, I considered, from my earliest youth, that all the education he gave me was thrown away. My tutors were probably of the same opinion, and did not bestow much care on a person who had no chance of being a bishop; and finally, the head of St John's, in the most open and independent manner imaginable, wrote a letter to my anxious parent, putting an end to any hopes he might have entertained of my being senior wrangler, or even the wooden spoon, by informing him that he considered I was qualified—if I devoted my energies entirely to the subject—to plant cabbages; but with regard to Euclid, it was quite out of the question. Whether I might have arrived at any eminence in the praiseworthy pursuit alluded to by the learned Head, I do not know, as horticulture never was my taste; but his observations on the subject of Euclid were undeniably correct. I never got up to the asses' bridge, and certainly could not have passed it if I had; so, in a very disconsolate frame of mind, I took leave of the university after two terms' residence, and returned to Rayleigh Court—an old dilapidated manor-house, which had been in possession of our family even since it began to fall into disrepair; which, judging from the crooked walls and tottering chimneys, must have been some time in the reign of the Plantagenets. I was an only son, and my father spoiled me—not, as only sons are usually spoiled, by too much indulgence, but by the most persevering and incessant system of bullying that ever made a poor mortal miserable. He first cowed and terrified me into nervousness, and called me a coward; then he thrashed and threatened me into stupidity, and called me a fool: so that at eighteen there are few young persons of these degenerate days who have so humble and true an opinion of themselves, as I had had dinned into me from my earliest years.

I slunk about the old court-yard of the house, or lay behind stacks in the farm-yard, or sat whole days in a deserted attic, and never went willingly near my father—the only other inhabitant of the mansion—and was never enquired after by him. If I saw him, I trembled—if I heard his voice, I felt inclined to fly to the other end of the house; and at last, if I heard any one else speak a little louder than ordinary, I was fain to betake me to some distant room, or even hide in a tangled plantation called the Wilderness, at the other end of the park. The house was immensely large, or rather the property was immensely small; farm after farm had been sold by great-grandfathers and grandfathers; but as they had not the sense to pull down a side of the mansion for every estate they parted with, it had at last grown an encumbrance. There was a residence fit for a man of ten thousand a-year, and a rental of about eight hundred—the helmet of Otranto on the head of Sir Geoffrey Hudson.

If I could have been a bishop, or even a dean, and laid by four or five thousand a-year—such were my father's views of me, and of ecclesiastical preferment—I might buy back some of the ancient land and repair the house, and that was the reason he determined I should go into the church; for it is to be observed, that fathers have extraordinary eyes when directed to the future fortunes of their sons. They seem to have no power of seeing small curacy-houses filled with twelve children, and butchers and bakers walking down the avenue in a melancholy and despairing manner at Christmas time; but have pertinaciously before their sight a superb mansion in James's Square, with a steady old coach and two fat horses at the door; or a fine old turreted palace at Lambeth, with five or six chaplains contesting the honour of the last lick of the plate. Not a glimpse can they discover of the cold rides—miserable scenes among the dying, the idle, the dissolute—hope deferred—strength decaying—the proud man's contumely, the rich vulgarian's scorn—struggle, struggle! toil and trouble! Blessings, say [Pg 621] I, on the outspoken head of St John's, and the impenetrability of Euclid, that kept a blue coat on my back, and disappointed my father's expectation of seeing me Lord Bishop of Durham. I should have been chaplain to a poor-house to a certainty, and have envied my parishioners; but I doubt very much, in the mean time, if the chaplain of a poor-house would have envied me, imprisoned and pauperized in Rayleigh Court.

Luckily there were books—whole shelves of them—loaded with rich morocco bindings, and pecks enough of dust (if distributed through the month of March) to have ransomed all the Pharaohs. I passed over the Dugdales, and even the Gwyllins, in despair; and lay whole days on the floor, surrounded by Faery Queens and other anti-utilitarian publications, sometimes fancying myself a Red-Cross knight—though considerably at a loss to devise a substitute for the heavenly Una. But by some strange caprice of fortune, a hoard was opened to me in one of the lower shelves, beside the oriel window, which was more valuable than Potosi and Golconda—a complete set of the Waverley Novels: there they were—all included—from the great original to Castle Dangerous. As my father's retiring habits prevented me from knowing a human being in the neighbourhood, I made up to my heart's content for the want of living friends, by forming the most enthusiastic attachments to Dandie Dinmont, and Henry Morton, and Jonathan Oldbuck; not forgetting the excessive love I entertained for Rose Bradwardine, Di Vernon, and a few others; so that altogether, I think I may say, that no young man of my age was ever blessed with such a large and enchanting circle of "friends and sweethearts." In the mean time the external world was moving on, troubling itself, in all likelihood, as little about me as I did about it. We had a newspaper once a-week; but I never saw it. I knew that our gracious sovereign lady, Queen Victoria, had just succeeded to our gracious sovereign lord, King William—but to that great and important fact in constitutional history my knowledge of temporary politics was limited. What did I care about Peels or Melbournes, when I could enter the council-chamber of Louis the Eleventh, or pass a pleasant morning with Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle? My father lay—like a snake surrounded by fire—in the centre of what had once been his family estate; with purchasers gathering closer and closer round, till, like the snake of the above similitude, he was inclined to sting himself to death to avoid the increasing horror of his situation. From strange muttered growls and deep imprecations when we met, I gathered that the last fagot had been lighted, in the shape of a proposition by some Eastern nabob, that he should sell the remaining portion of the land. He, Rayleigh of Rayleigh Court—to sell to a stranger the park, the fields, the house! He would have died first. And the reason for wishing to buy, which was assigned by the intending purchaser, was worst of all; that he had already made himself owner of every other farm which had once belonged to the Rayleigh manors, and desired the family mansion to make the estate complete—and his name was Jeeks—Jeeks of Rayleigh Court! My father would have shot him if he had come within his reach; but as Mr Jeeks kept at a respectable distance, the over-charge of indignation was poured forth upon me; and the opinion, so obligingly given of my abilities and probable success in life by the Master of St John's, was never for an hour forgotten. It was very evident that there was no hope of family restoration to be founded on so profound a blockhead—an ass that could not get into the church—that moped and wandered about the woods—that trembled when he was spoken to; and so far from pushing his way in the world, and acquiring a fortune by running off with an heiress, had not courage enough to look a milkmaid in the face. I kept out of his sight more than ever, and read Ivanhoe for the fifteenth time. Oh, Friar Tuck! Oh, Brian de Bois Guilbert! What did I care for Mr Jeeks and his offers for Rayleigh Court?

I was now twenty years of age, with the figure of a grenadier and the courage of a boarding-school girl; and every day my father's indignation seemed to increase, when he saw such a fund of marketable qualities [Pg 622] lying useless—my quietness and decorum would have done for the church; my height and broad shoulders would have qualified me for Gretna Green. But such a chicken-hearted fellow, he well knew, would sooner die than mention a postchaise; and so the old gentleman, having ceased for some years to express his contempt for me with the aid of his walking stick, and a profusion of epithets unheard of in Johnson's Dictionary, took now to the easier method of a dignified and unbroken silence. It was a charming change, and I was as happy as Robinson Crusoe in the desert island before Friday made his appearance. One day in June—"it was the poet's leafy month of June"—I took my way, as was my Wont, through the park to the Wilderness. The shadows of the broad thick-foliaged oaks lay in gigantic masses on the smooth turf, (of which the gardeners were a few relics of the former herds of deer, in the shape of wide-antlered stags and dappled roes;) all the sights and sounds of summer beauty were united in that solitary greensward; and for the first time in my life I felt a regret pass over me that the grandeur of my family had decayed, and a faint fluttering became perceptible to me, round my heart, of a wish to restore our fortunes. But the intense appreciation of my own deficiencies in which I had been educated, soon dispelled any pleasing illusions that the self-love of twenty years of age might have excited; and I fell into the opposite extreme, and rejoiced to think that in me the family tree would lose its last branch, and that the old house would crumble into actual ruins, instead of holding forth the false appearances of solidity and strength which led to the expectation that it was still capable of repair. I felt like Wilfred of Ivanhoe, when he resolved to leave his home for ever; and if there had been any crusade going on in 1838, and an Isaac of York willing to furnish me with horse and harness, I should have been very glad to try my chance against the Saracens, and prove myself a true Red Cross knight; for even at that time, I felt assured that against any body but my father I could hold up my head like a man; or on any subject but my stupidity—(which I was willing to concede, as it came guaranteed under the hand and seal of the master of a college)—I could have maintained my ground with the courage of a Front-de-Boeuf. I took a bolder step and manlier bearing as I passed along in the sunshine, and saw defined on the grass before me the shadow of a gigantic being, elongated in the slanting rays to about twelve feet high, with limbs and shoulders certainly a little attenuated by the same solar deception, but still not quite such thread-papers as I have since seen do duty in ball-rooms, to the evident satisfaction of then possessors. The Wilderness was reached at last: and here I must premise that the aristocratic appearances of bucks and roes entirely ceased; for the said Wilderness was appropriated to the feeding of certain animals of unpoetic figures, and even prosaic names, but which, when well cooked and duly supplied with a condiment of beans, furnish by no means a contemptible dinner to a hungry sportsman. The man who despises beans and bacon is uniformly a puppy. I will, therefore, now venture on the vulgar word, and say the Wilderness was used for feeding swine, and all the long days the frisky quadrupeds went wiggling their curly tails, and snorting among the oak-trees, with enormous satisfaction. On reaching the centre of this umbrageous feeding-ground, I was surprised to see my usual place of meditation occupied by a stranger. It was a young girl, exhausted apparently by the heat of the day, resting on the mossy turf and leaning against the trunk of a fine old tree. Her bonnet was on the ground beside her; her hair was gently moved to and fro by the wandering breeze; and on her lap lay a work-basket, which she had evidently laid down to give herself more entirely to repose. She was sound asleep, and I need scarcely say, as my experience of the fair sex was extremely limited, that she was the most captivating specimen I had ever seen; but shyness and awkwardness overcame my desire to make her acquaintance. I looked at her for a moment, saw the finely cut features, the beautifully complexioned cheeks, the smiling lips and graceful figure, and turned away angry at myself, at the same time that I could not summon courage to address her. [Pg 623] Before I had gone far I heard a dreadful scream a little to my right, and in an agony of terror a fair-haired young child, of six or seven years old, rushed towards the sleeper, pursued apparently by one of the largest of the grunting flock. It was evidently only in the excessive buoyancy of its porcine spirits that it caracolled, and snuffed, and galloped in such an imposing manner; but the terror of the little flyer was as sincere as if it had been a royal Bengal tiger. In a moment I sprang forward, gave the huge animal a kick with all my might, in a spot which must have materially improved the tenderness of the ham—and took the almost fainting child in my arms. The sleeper started up, and was no little astonished to behold the feat I performed. I muttered a few confused words, and tried in vain to still the terrors of my young charge; but in a few minutes our united efforts had the desired effect, and the elder sister thanked me for my chivalrous interference, and said she would never forget my kindness.

"It's nothing at all," I said—"I almost wish it had been a bonassus, and I had had a rifle."

"Oh! a pig, I assure you, is quite enough for us: isn't it, Amy?" Amy seemed to consider a pig a great deal too much, and looked round in alarm every time she heard a rustle among the branches.

"It would have enabled me," I said, "to be really useful—like the master of Ravenswood, I added, when he shot the wild bull."

"But you wouldn't surely wish to see Amy and me in real danger, merely to have the glory of delivering us from it. That would be too selfish."

"Not selfish if I was certain of saving you; and, besides, it would be such an excellent introduction."

"But we have already told you, that we are as much indebted for your interference as if you had put a whole herd of furious cattle to death. For my part, I am perfectly satisfied with the introduction as it is."

"Then we may consider ourselves friends?" I enquired, gradually becoming less embarrassed by the manner of the unknown.

"Certainly—I tell you we shall never forget your gallant interference. It is strange we never met with such an adventure before; for Amy and I come very often here."

"Indeed?—It is certainly very strange that I have never seen you before; for I am here almost every day."

"Why, if you keep your eyes constantly on the ground, you have no great chance of seeing any thing but the grass. We have seen you often."

"And you know my name, of course?"

"Henry Rayleigh, of Rayleigh Court. Oh! we know all about you."

"And I—I am ashamed to say, I have not the same advantage with regard to your style and title—I feel sure it must be a beautiful name."

"You had better guess."

"Flora? Edith? Rebecca?"

"We must go home now," said the little one.

"Isabella? Brenda? Minna?"

"No—you will never find it out."

"Then you will surely tell me."

"Oh no!—that would spoil the romance of our acquaintance."

"And am I never to find out who you are?"

"Probably not, if you bury yourself in the woods all your life. I have been your neighbour for half a year, and you have never seen me."

"My eyes must have been blinded; but I will bury myself no more. Do tell me your name, and where you live, for I am very ill qualified to be a discoverer."

"I shall certainly not destroy the charm of mystery. Let it be enough that you know me by sight. The name is of no consequence—but if you really wish to know it"——

"I do indeed."

"Call me Lucy Ashton, and that will remind you of the service you did me to-day. In the mean time do not follow us. I should wish this meeting kept a secret—come, Amy."

And so saying, and taking her sister by the hand, she walked rapidly away, leaving me with the pleasing expression which is commonly [Pg 624] attributed to a stuck pig, gazing at her graceful motion, and half inclined to consider the whole interview a delusion of the fancy, or at least a dream.

Lucy Ashton!—a charming idea!—and I the master of Ravenswood! My neighbour for half a year—and often in the Wilderness! Then of course she will come often here again. I will find out who she is. I will sit no longer in the deep recess of an old pew at church, which is hidden from all the rest of the congregation. I will even go down and call on the clergyman. He must surely have observed the most beautiful girl in the world. He can't have been such a mole as I have been. I will find out all about her; and astonish her next time we meet, by telling her the result of my enquiries.

On these exploratory thoughts intent, I took my homeward way. The old turrets of the house rose before me, more distressingly symptomatic of poverty and decay than ever. I crossed the noble quadrangle, which was overgrown with grass, and betook myself to the great dark-wainscoted old library, utterly disgusted at the folly or extravagance of my ancestors, in having reduced me to such a condition. I began to think that my father was not so much to blame in lamenting our fallen state as before;—and that night I fell asleep, wondering if Lucy Ashton's father was a governor of the Bank of England, or if she was as poor and portionless a being as myself.

CHAPTER II.

Next day I walked down to the parsonage. It was in Rayleigh village, and the living had once belonged to our family, but among the diminishing possessions was the first to be disposed of. It was held by Mr Dobble, to whom I was hardly known except by sight—and the reverend gentleman was no little astonished when my name was announced. He was a little short man, about fifty years of age, very polite and very talkative; but who seemed always to recollect something or other in the middle of a speech, and end on quite a different subject from what he had begun.

"My dear sir," he began, "I am truly glad to see you. By the by, I don't think I have ever seen you in the parsonage before."

"I have lived very retired—we never move from home—my father sees no company."

"Ah, very true—the more's the pity! I shall always be delighted if you will come in at any time. By the by, are you fond of fishing?"

"Yes, I sometimes fish."

"Your father keeps you a great deal too much boxed up for a young man of your time of life. You should be forming a stock of friends just now, to last you your lifetime. By the by, are you a judge of wine?"

"No, I never taste it."

"No?—for I was going to observe that a young man should act like a young housekeeper—lay in his friends as the other does his cellar; and always keep up the stock—particularly pleasant men and port-wine. They improve"——

"My stock is certainly very limited," I said.

"You should enlarge it at once. By the by, there are a great many new residents in this parish since I was inducted."

"So I believe."

"Ah, just so!—never called on them, of course—By the by, will you have any lunch?"

"No, I thank you. I have never called on any of the new-comers. I don't even know their names."

"That's odd! But it isn't of so much consequence now, for they are all getting bought out. By the by, would you like to see the repairs in the chancel?"

"No, I thank you. Are they getting bought out?"

"Not a doubt of it. All the old farms and manor-houses, which had been converted into comfortable modern dwelling-houses by the different proprietors, are nearly all in one owner's hands again—as they used to [Pg 625] be, in ancient times, in your ancestors' hands. The whole estate nearly is reunited, and the purchaser is restoring things as much as he can to their ancient condition. He gave Mr Juffles thirty thousand pounds for the Grange about six months ago; and all the Juffles family is to be off in six weeks. By the by, you are not acquainted with the Juffleses?—they haven't been here more than five years."

"No, I don't know them—are they a numerous family?"

"Sons and daughters by the dozen. By the by, weren't you at college for some time?"

"Yes, for a few terms. How many sons has Mr Juffles?"

"Seven or eight—John, Thomas, Abraham, Alexander, George, Hookey, and another; but whether his name is Richard or Robert I don't recollect. By the by, was it Oxford or Cambridge?"

"And the daughters?" I said, not attending to his question—"he has many daughters, you said, as well as sons."

"Oh, seven or eight of them too—Susan, Martha, Elizabeth, a younger one, I don't recollect her name, Anne, Sophia, and some little ones. By the by, the Indian mail is very interesting—have you seen the news?"

"No, I never see a newspaper. Is there a young lady among Mr Juffles's family of the pretty name of Amy?"

"Amy?—Amy?—'pon my word I don't recollect. And yet I think I do. I think I have heard the governess call one of the children Amy. By the by, we have had charming weather of late."

"Charming. How old is the governess?"

"A young person—too young, I should say, for such a charge; seventeen, perhaps."

"And you are sure you have heard her call one of them Amy?"

"Yes, I think I may say I am sure. By the by, the French seem very unsteady. I admire Louis Philippe."

"Is the governess pretty?"

"I should say so—yes, I should say decidedly pretty. By the by, he seems inclined to dismiss M. Thiers."

"Blue eyes, beautiful mouth, sweet smile, and musical voice?"

"Who, my good sir?—Louis Philippe and M. Thiers? By the by, weren't you asking me about Mr Juffles's——? Ah! now I recollect. The governess—yes, she has blue eyes, and sings beautifully."

"And walks out with Amy?"

"Of course. By the by, do you hunt?"

"No, I have no horse. And how old are Mr Juffles's other daughters?"

"All ages, from twenty-three downwards. By the by"——

"Is there one about seventeen?"

"Yes, I should say the pretty one—I forget her name, Elizabeth, I think—was just about that age. You should be introduced. But, by the by, it would be of little use. They leave the Grange in a few weeks, if indeed they are not gone already; for they were to be ready at a day's notice, and I haven't seen them since Sunday week. By the by, Russia seems very discontented. Do you think they meditate an invasion?"

"I never read politics. Are any of the other neighbours about to remove also?"

"Oh yes! Mr Poggs, the rich West Indian who bought Hartley Mead, that used to be a part of your park a hundred years ago, and fitted up the Gothic cottage at such an immense expense. He's bought out—fifteen thousand pounds for two hundred acres, and he is to remove next Michaelmas. By the by, which style of architecture do you prefer?"

"I know nothing of the subject. Has Mr Poggs a family?"

"Two daughters, but I scarcely know them. Old Poggs is half a dissenter. By the by"——

"How old are the daughters?"

"'Pon my word, my young friend, you would do for an inquisitor."

"I have a very particular reason for asking these questions."

"Ah I see!" said Mr Dobble, "young men will be curious about their neighbours' children. By the by, have you seen the Bishop of London's charge?"

"No, I see nothing new. How old are Mr Poggs's daughters?"

"One, the eldest, a tall handsome girl, I should say about seventeen; the other six or seven."

[Pg 626]

"Do you know the younger one's name?"

"No, I don't think I ever heard it. Do you know the young ladies?"

"I have told you already, that I have not the happiness of knowing any of the neighbours;—and I regret very much to hear that they are going away before I have had the opportunity of making their acquaintance."

"Oh no, not all! They are not all going. Mr Jeeks himself will be constantly resident. By the by, are you fond of shooting?"

"Has he any family?"

"A son—yes, I know he has a son, but I am not sure of any daughters. In fact, between ourselves, I don't think he has any daughters,—and it is no great loss it they were any thing like the son. No, I know he has no daughters. By the by, he talks of coming home from college this month."

"How old is the son?"

"About one or two and twenty. Very stupid or very idle, I am afraid. He can't take his degree."

I got up to go away. I felt that the object of my mission was unattained.

"Don't go, my dear sir; don't go. 'Pon my word I did not mean any thing in what I said. He may be very clever, and very admirable in every respect, though he does not take his degree. By the by, did you see Brougham's speech on the poor-law? He should be called the poor-lawyer par excellence, as the French say. You'll call on me soon again, I hope. By the by, are you fond of tulips? I have a beautiful bed just in bloom."

O Poggs!—O Juffles!—O nameless governess! which of you all was Lucy Ashton?—I waited all that day in the Wilderness, but nobody came. The long shadows began to point eastward; the pigs were all driven in; the world was left to silence and to me; and I walked slowly and disconsolately home.

On getting inside the great door of the court-yard, I heard voices—loud, angry voices. I recognized my father's tones, and was about to go round by the inner wall, when, hurrying rapidly towards me, I saw three persons—my father was one of them. The elder of the others was a man about sixty years of age—brown, almost black in the complexion, with nankin trousers a world too large for his long legs; an immense broad-brimmed straw-hat on his head, and a large gold-headed cane in his hand. The other was a little sharp-eyed, thin-featured man, about my own age, but with the appearance of twenty times the shrewdness I could ever muster—one of the prematurely sagacious youths who seem as if they had been born attorneys, and are on the look-out for sharp practice.

"I have already told you, sir, that your intrusion is insulting," said my father: "relieve me of your presence."

"Jist as you like, that's matter of course," said the old man; "but the time will come when you'll repent this here unpoliteness. I never see sich a thing from a real gentleman to another in all my born days."

"It's because he ain't master of the philosophy of good manners," squeaked the younger.

"Why, what in hearth," continued the senior, "is there to be angry about? I want to buy your land—it ain't any sich enormous property ater all—and offer you about three times the vallyation of a respectable surveyor; what's that to set up your back about? Come now, there's a good gentleman, think better over it. The money is all ready at the bank."

"Do you wish to drive me to violent measures—to throw you into the river?" asked my father in a voice of concentrated passion that made me feel very uncomfortable.

"By no manner of means—by no means whatsomever."

"As to that," interposed the shrill voice of the youth, "two can play at that game; but it ain't philosophical to talk of sich matters—father makes you a fair offer."

"And I make you another," I said; "namely, one minute's time to leave this house. If you are found one instant beyond the minute, by Heaven, you and your father make but one step from this spot into the centre of the brook!"

"Oh! ha! who are you, sir?" the youth began, but paused when he saw some [Pg 627]

convulsive twitching taking possession of my hands; and an expression far removed from either philosophy or politeness spreading around my eyes.

"This here is young Rayleigh," said the old man, "and p'r'aps he'll be more open to reason and twenty-seven thousand five hundred pounds."

"Thirty seconds are elapsed," I said, going forward to the young man; "you have but thirty more." My hand advanced, but, luckily before the thirty seconds were exhausted, the door had closed on the hateful presence, and my father held out his hand.

"Thank you, Henry—I am obliged to you, Henry," he said; and I had never heard him call me by my name since the memorable character bestowed on me by the head of St John's. He looked me all over, as he spoke, from head to foot: he seemed surprised and pleased at the result of his survey.

"They are vulgar people," he said, "and have irritated me past endurance by their insulting offers. They have never ventured to present themselves here till now; and, from the reception we have given them, I hardly think they will repeat their visit."

"I am sorry, sir, you allowed them to chafe you."

"I will not do so in future. You will be beside me, Henry; the father and son together can offer a bold face to the world in spite of these crumbling walls. We can despise the dross of that vile Croesus, and keep the Rayleigh mansion-house in the Rayleigh name."

"Who is he?"

"The possessor of every other portion of the estate but this; his name is Jeeks, and the young fellow is his son—his only child, I believe—very rich, and very disgusting. Let us think of them no more."

That evening we had a long and confidential talk; and I perceived that, though he had finally given up all intention of getting me into the church, in the hopes of patching up the holes in the old roof with a mitre, he had fully made up his mind on the subject of a widow. I rejoiced that Mrs Coutts was already disposed of. He talked a long time of jointures, three per cents, India stock; and I—O youth! O hope!—I mused all the time on the beautiful eyes and sweet smiles of my unknown enchantress, and made pious resolutions to betake myself, like some ancient anchorite, to the Wilderness, for the purpose of worship and meditation.

CHAPTER III.

Lucy Ashton was under the tree—Amy, like a sensible child, busily employed at a little distance gathering flowers; the sun shining, the bees humming, the birds chirruping.

"You made me wretched all yesterday," I said.

"Indeed! had the worthy Caleb no device to cheer the young master's solitude?"

"Impossible, even for Caleb's ingenuity, to supply the want of society as he contrives to hide the absence of silver plate. Ah, why did you not come?"

"I don't recollect having promised to expose poor Amy again to the assaults of a wild boar."

"Or yourself to the conversation of a person like me."

"Oh! I have told you, over and over again, I am delighted to have seen you; and I like your conversation amazingly: you are very different indeed from what I expected."

"In Heaven's name, what did you expect?" I said. "Who ever spoke of me to you, that knew me?"

"Nobody that knew you; but you are a good deal spoken of, notwithstanding. I was curious to see if they were correct."

"And what did they say? I will endeavour to correct them if they are mistaken."

"They said you and your father moped so continually in the old house, that you had grown (like Quasimodo) to have a resemblance to brick and mortar yourselves. I expect to see you like a gable-end, with a couple of mullioned windows for eyes, and a mouth. I was astonished to see you so nearly human."

[Pg 628]

"Ah! you will humanize me still more if you laugh at me as you do; do take pity on me, and don't let me settle down into a wall."

"With all my heart, for I have no turn for architecture; and, by all the descriptions I hear of the old court, you don't seem to be Palladios."

"There may be other reasons besides a want of skill and inclination," I said, with a sad feeling of the anti-architectural condition of our exchequer.

"Oh! you mean poverty. Then, why don't you sell the old place?"

"It would kill my father to think of it."

"But it would not have so dreadful an effect on you? I know you could get it sold if you like."

"An old impudent fellow of the name of Jeeks wishes to force us into a sale. I will see him and all his race at the bottom of the Red Sea first."

"Would you sell it then?" she said.

"No—but, fair Lucy Ashton, why do you ask?"

"Because if you parted with one brick of the old house, one blade of grass of the old park, one leaf of one old tree in the old wood, our acquaintance would end as rapidly as it began."

"Then it shall suffer no decay," I said, and took her hand, which she held out to me with honest warmth; "and now let me find out, if I can, who it is that gives me such admirable advice. I called on Mr Dobble yesterday."

"He told you a great many things, by the by, did he?" she said.

"You know him, I see, and he knows you." As I said this, I looked with the air of a man who has discovered a portentous secret; but she bore my look with the same celestial open smile as ever.

"What a happy man he must be in knowing so first-rate a parishioner. Did he boast much of our acquaintance?"

"He seemed to know more of your brothers and sisters," I said.

"Oh, which of them did he like best? How many did he say I had?"

This was a puzzler; for I was quite undecided whether to consider her a daughter of the house of Juffles with fourteen children, or Poggs with only two.

"Amy seemed a great favourite," I replied.

"But, my brothers—what did he say of my brothers?"

"He said—but perhaps it was in confidence—so I will not mention all he told me. He spoke highly of the whole family of Mr Poggs."

"And very properly too. We are all pleasant people in this neighbourhood; and, indeed, I wonder he can make any distinction in the degrees of amiability between the Poggses, Juffleses, Higginsons, Jeekses, Wilcoxes, and all the late and present occupiers of the Rayleigh estates."

"Higginsons? Wilcoxes? he never mentioned them; but as to the Jeekses, pray don't speak of those detestable wretches. I hope you despise young Jeeks as heartily as I do."

"Not quite, perhaps."

"No?" I looked at her. Gracious powers! is it possible this beautiful creature can be so blinded by the fortune of the wretched animal, as to look upon him without disgust. "Are you intimate with him?" I enquired.

"Oh yes! we are all very social down here; no ceremony between neighbours. He is a great sportsman."

"Oh, then, it must be your brothers that are his friends, not you!"

"I certainly don't go out shooting with him—in fact, I have no time. I am engaged educating Amy so many hours, that I could not practise enough to be able to hit a bonassus, like a celebrated marksman of my acquaintance; far less a partridge."

"And you educate Amy? and yet you have brothers? and don't despise young Jeeks? and know every body?"

"And like them all," she added.

"All equally?" I enquired.

"With a difference, as a body may say."

"And Amy is your sister?"

"We call ourselves so."

"Then, by Heavens, you are Miss Poggs!"

"Well, is that any thing to swear about? There have been Misses Poggs in the world before, I suppose."

"But you talked of educating her; devoting your time to her."

[Pg 629]

"So I do."

"Then you are the governess in Mr Juffles' family."

"Why not? You don't think worse of a person for being able to give a little information to a little girl of seven years old, do you?"

"Think worse of her? Ah, Lucy Ashton! I could not think worse of you, if you were able to teach the Head of a college."

"You could not think worse of me? Do you mean worse of me than you think already? In that case I must retire."

"No, no; don't go! I have not found out yet who you are."

"I thought you had found out I was two. You can't surely be wrong in both."

"I suspect I am. You spoke of your brothers. Now, I make a guess you have seven. I could tell you their names."

"You mistake your rôle, or rather confuse it. You are the master of Ravenswood, not Frank Osbaldistone. I am not Di Vernon."

"You are a puzzle; an Urganda the unknown."

"That means that you are the Bel Tenebroso. You will perhaps be disenchanted soon."

"Only if you leave the country."

"Why, won't you have the Poggses, Jeekses, Juffleses, though I find another situation? you can make their acquaintance whenever you please. You will be re-enchanted again, I assure you."

"By Heavens, I believe you are making a fool of me all this time! You are the third Miss Juffles yourself."

"Swearing again? What would Mr Dobble say, by the by? I never denied that I was either the third or fourth Miss Juffles. Are you happy now?" she said with a smile.

"I can't be any thing else so near to Lucy Ashton."

"Oh, cry you mercy; you are back again at Wolf's Crag! And I assure you, I like you better in the character of its inhabitant than as the Inquisitor-general and particular too—which you have acted all to-day. Let there be a truce between us in question and answer, and all will be delightful. We have hitherto been like Mrs Marcet's chemistry, all whys and becauses."

The truce was signed, and an hour passed away, composed of sixty minutes of enjoyment, as if it had all been one second; and I felt that there was only one woman in the whole world that could ever keep me from being wretched; and that was a beautiful young girl in a straw bonnet—name, parentage, and every thing about her, totally unknown.

At the end of the time she took Amy's hand and left me. I did not follow her—I had promised I would not; but I had exacted a promise in return, that she would meet me again. And so she did again and again. I never asked who she was; I did not even care to know. Five weeks passed on, and I was as irrecoverably in love as if I had known she was a duchess, with fortune enough to buy back the whole estate.

All this time my father was very kind in his manner; and was constantly dwelling on the advantages of a wealthy match. My heart bled for him when I reflected how bitter would be his disappointment when he found out the dreadful truth, that every woman in existence was hateful to me except one poor penniless girl; at the best, one of fourteen children, and perhaps a governess without a sou. But I would not destroy his dreams before there was occasion—and sat silent and unresisting, as he poured forth his matrimonial schemes for my aggrandizement.

But Lucy at last was unpunctual in her visits to the Wilderness. One day I had waited from an early hour, and had strained my eyes to catch the first glimpse of her glorious figure as she tripped among the trees. I had at last sat down beneath the accustomed oak, and was fancying all manner of reasons for her not making her appearance, when all of a sudden I heard a rustle at my side, and, starting up, saw before me the pragmatical visage of young Mr Jeeks.

"Servant, sir," he squeaked in his shrill unmusical tones, "Oho! this is the philosophy of it—is it?"

"What do you mean, sir, and what do you want here? Are you aware that this forms as yet no part of your father's land."

"It will soon, p'r'aps—but I want just to say a few words. I hope not to lose my temper, as I unfortunately did last time I dropped in to see [Pg 630] you and your governor; for why should gentlemen quarrel? It ain't philosophic."

"I should think what gentlemen do, whether they quarrel or not, is a matter in which you can have no personal experience. Say on, sir."

"I am just agoing to begin; and I only hope I shall not get exasperated, and misbehave myself, as I certainly feel I did the last time we had a talk."

"Go on; I don't think you'll get exasperated, whatever else may happen to you."

"You think, p'r'aps, that your goings on, young Mr Rayleigh, ar'n't known; but they are though."

"In what respect, sir? What do you allude to?"

"Petticoats—that's what I allude to; and I come just to give you a friendly warning, that the seven young Juffleses are all six feet high."

"Your information is totally undesired."

"I know it is—it's uncommon unpleasant information; and, if I was you, I would give up the chase. She's certainly a very pretty girl is Betsy Juffles—but not fit for you or me, you know. She has no blood."

"As I don't know whom you allude to, of course I can give you no answer; but, as you seem to be giving me advice, I will favour you with a very decided piece of it in return; which is, to hold your tongue on any subject connected with me, or the consequences to yourself will be such as you will hardly like."

"Thank ye for your friendliness—I am rather fond of advice than otherwise, though it's certainly one of the things that it's more blessed to give than to receive; and I will just give you a hint that may do you good—Betsy's a very good-natured girl, but fickle—very."

"Indeed!"

"Oh yes!—she is indeed—she made great advances to me once; but I rather checked her. A very clever girl too—and speaks French; but she has no philosophy. She went to the last assizes, and fell in with some dragoon officers at a ball. She's all for the redcoats now, or at least was till lately—but since then she"——

Here the little animal winked.

"Oh!" I said, willing to hear what the creature would say.

"I have scarcely spoke to her for a long time; but I hear some of her proceedings," he continued.

"You do?—from whom, pray?"

"Why, it can't be supposed I never hear Amy talking about how often she goes out with Betsy. I'm very much against Amy seeing her at all. Her steady stupid sister would be a far safer companion than such a wild sort of girl as Betsy Juffles."

"You say she once made advances to you," I said, with a horrid suspicion at my heart that I had been an egregious fool.

"Didn't she? You should have seen her looks. She always sat a little behind her mother's chair, so as to be out of the old lady's eye, and did cast such preternatural glances across the room to me, and smiled, and smirked, and sidled, and shook her curls—it was wonderful to behold, but she had no philosophy, and I looked cold"——

"And chilled her?"

"Exactly. I could have tumbled her into the railway, and been off to Gretna, by only holding up my finger—but I wouldn't. She bore it pretty well, considering the disappointment; and first consoled herself by flirting at a ball with a set of ensigns and cornets, and then took to you."

"To me? I don't understand you, Mr Jeeks."

"You do!"

"You are an insolent jackanapes"——

"I'm not—come, I am trying to keep my temper; but p'r'aps you think Betsy a good speck? Bah! she'll not have five hundred pounds; and your bumptious old governor won't buy back many of the old acres with a dribble like that."

This time I did not give him a minute's grace: my hand was on his collar in a moment; I shook him till his teeth rattled audibly, like dice in a box; I kicked him, pushed him, and, as the gratification grew with what it fed on, at one dread reckoning I paid off the horror I experienced from his account of the girl I had worshipped, and his insolent mention of my father. I took a fiendish delight in prolonging his agonies. [Pg 631] Another minute's indulgence in the punishment would have raised the tiger that lies sleeping, but always awakable, in every man's heart, and I might have killed him outright; but luckily we got near the boundary hedge. It was of strong old thorns, very thick and high, and very wide at top. I seized my victim with both hands, and swung him on to the summit of the hedge, where, after wriggling a short time in every variety of ridiculous contortions, and squeaking as he sank deeper and deeper among the thorns, he threw himself by a great effort to the other side, and rolled into the ditch.

Some people seem to take naturally to a thrashing, as others do the small-pox. In a few minutes I perceived him emerge from the ditch and walk—though rather stiffly—across the field. "Thank Heaven," I said, "if I have been a dupe I am not a murderer!"

CHAPTER IV.

Next day I waited again—and the next, and the next; and no Lucy Ashton, or rather no Betsy Juffles, came. The next day was Friday—my birthday. I had much to do; my father was resolved to celebrate the great event by a solemn dinner tête-à-tête, during which he was to communicate his final decision with respect to my future pursuits. I hurried to the Wilderness in the morning—no success—and in despair betook myself once more to Mr Dobble. That gentleman's dovetailed observations were by no means elucidatory on the point I came to clear up. He did not know the names of all the members of any of the families—he had never heard of any persons of the name of Higginson or Wilcox—he knew nothing of the colour of people's eyes—and did not recollect whether any one member of his flock had red hair or black. How difficult to take the commonest observations in the cold northern latitude of forty-five! But one thing at last I discovered; the Juffleses were to leave on the following day—the Poggses had been gone since Tuesday.

"By the by," he said, after this information; "you are much indebted to your cousin, young Jeeks—I never knew till lately he had the honour to be a relation."

"I never knew it, sir; and certainly make no claim."

"But you ought, my good sir, after the service he did you on Monday"——

"What service, sir? I am not aware of any."

"Indeed? That's most extraordinary! I understood he interfered, and saved you from a personal assault."

"He?"

"Yes! And he certainly bears marks of his efforts on your behalf. By the by, the Ministry seems tottering."

"I thought you said, Mr Dobble, this Mr Jeeks pretends to be my relation. Did he ever tell you by what means, or in what degree?

"Yes; but I am no herald. Some old lady long ago married a person who had a daughter, who had another daughter, who had a son who is the father of old Mr Jeeks, who made an immense fortune at Canton. Opium, I am afraid—more opium than tea."

"It does not seem alarmingly near, at all events; and I beg to assure you that the interference he talks of on my behalf, was of such a nature, that it is of my gratitude he bears the emblems which he attributes to his friendly zeal."

I hurried from the parsonage. I had not an hour to spare; but an irresistible attraction drew me to the wood—and there, in the rural seat, was Lucy Ashton once more! She saw some change in my countenance, and spoke in a different tone from what I had ever heard her before.

"I am afraid I have been very imprudent, Mr Rayleigh, in carrying on our acquaintance so long; but I am come to bid you farewell—probably for ever!"

I looked at the moistening eyes of the fair speaker—but steeled my heart against her arts.

[Pg 632]

"You have tried to break me in to the loss of your society by degrees; you have not come here for three days."

"I was busy—disagreeable things occurred at home—I had no opportunity. But it is better as it is—we must now part, and I hope you will forget me"——

"Forget you! That is impossible. But I shall try to find methods of enduring the separation."

"I trust you will—I did not mean to part from you in unkindness: your voice is altered—your eyes are changed"——

"Because I am Edgar Ravenswood no longer; nor you Lucy Ashton. You made me know, for the first time in my life, what it was to have a true and absorbing attachment. I worshipped you with the fervour of a boy—I loved you with the sincerity of a man. You played me off for the gratification of your paltry triumph over affections that were too valuable to be wasted on a flirt. I have heard of the assize ball—I have heard of young Jeeks—I have unmasked you, and you are Betsy Juffles."

A glance—bright and sparkling, but instantly subdued—appeared for a moment in her eyes, which now swam in tears.

"Be it so, then. If I were to stay longer in this part of the world, I might perhaps try to set myself right in your eyes; but as it is"——she paused, and sighed.

"You go then soon?"

"I go to-morrow."

There could no longer be a doubt. Mr Dobble had told me the Juffleses removed on Saturday. I saw what a consummate actress I was opposed to, and hardened my heart more and more. We had come by this time to the gate into the field; I held it open for her as she passed, but said not a word: I then rushed back to the place we had so often met, threw myself on the ground, and cursed Poggses, Jeekses, and Juffleses, with as much earnest devotion as my father himself could have required.

But in the midst of all these maledictions rose up every now and then a doubt—was she Betsy Juffles?—was she a flirt?—had she ogled young Jeeks?—had she made a fool of me?—or was she indeed the bright pure captivating Lucy Ashton I had known, the clever, the warm-hearted, the good? Oh, if she was, and I had cast her off, and made myself a cold iron-hearted brute, at the whisper of a wretch like Jeeks! I made a vow that, if I found he had deceived me, I would finish the sacrifice commenced on Monday, and tear him limb from limb. That night and many nights—a month, a quarter of a year—passed in earnest consultations with my father. I read, but no longer the Waverley Novels: I attended to the farm—I was busy—useful; I felt I could get over Euclid if I chose, but I hated him and all his propositions. The winter came: I worked hard; I had found my deficiencies in conversation with my fascinating deceiver—and the more my mind enlarged, the more it dwelt on the thousand charms of thought and expression that had passed unheeded at the time. I could recall every look, every smile, every tone; and when the early leaves began to bud, when the grass was green again, and the snow had disappeared from the highest hills, I had made up my mind that without Betsy Juffles, flirt or no flirt, life was not worth having; and I resolved to find her out, wherever she was, and tell her so. Mr Dobble informed me that Mr Juffles resided in a bow-windowed villa near Bushy Park, called Verbena Lodge; and thither I determined to go. My father wished me to go to London to make arrangements for beginning the study of the law, and in the early weeks of March I found myself in the great city; but though I saw St Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and the Temple and the Tower, with my bodily eyes, my thoughts dwelt for ever on the bow-windowed villa near Bushy Park. I left the smoke, the noise, and all chances of the wealth of modern Rome, behind me, and installed myself in a comfortable lodging at Hampton Wick. I became one of the rangers of Bushy Park, without the queen's signature to my appointment. I passed and repassed Verbena Lodge, but saw nobody at the windows; I meditated even on the expediency of making my way into the house, on pretence of a message from Mr Dobble; when——once upon a time in the [Pg 633] merry month of May, beneath a stately tree, musing and alone, I say, in the heart of Bushy Park, the unmistakable figure—the unmistakable face of Lucy Ashton, radiant, smiling, beautiful as of old.

"I thought you wouldn't forget me quite," she said, and held out her hand.

"I was an ass—a fool!" I began.

"But you have grown wiser now?" she enquired.

"Yes, wise enough to despise balls, Jeekses, officers—and throw myself at once and for ever at the feet of Lucy Ashton."

"What will Betsy Juffles say?"

"I hope she'll say yes."

"Well, perhaps I may answer for her—I don't see what right she has to object to any thing that pleases me."

"She's a charming girl, and I hope you will be guided by her in every thing."

"Such as?"—she asked with a smile that made us feel we had never quarreled, never parted, but were at home in the Wilderness. I need not tell the answer. I had got quit of my bashfulness on the subject of Gretna Green and postchaises with a vengeance; and then and there I suggested a trip to that delectable region, and scorned all the objections she attempted to make about our respective fathers, and family quarrels, and all the chimeras that disappear before the breath of true love like mists before the sun. We met every day for a week, and I so surprisingly improved in eloquence, that I should certainly have forced my way to the woolsack if I had employed one half of it at the bar. At all events, I succeeded in my object with Lucy Ashton so far, that she agreed to accept me for better or worse; and then, for the first time, it occurred to me, I ought to make my father acquainted with the great step I intended to take in prosecution of my legal studies.

"Ah, Edgar, don't write letters! half an hour's conversation will explain every thing better than twenty reams of paper. Go down to Rayleigh, and tell him all."

"All what? you forget I have nothing to tell."

"Tell him you are resolved to marry a girl who will make you happy."

"And your family?" I said; "he can't endure the very name of Juffles."

"Say nothing about them. Ask leave for me to go down and see him: I feel sure he will like me, and forgive you all."

I resolved to obey; and with infinite regret tore myself away, and seated myself in the railway carriage. I was only to be absent two days; but two days in such circumstances are a century. The bell rang, the train began imperceptibly to move, when two tardy passengers jumped into the coach; and in the first I recognised my friend, young Mr Jeeks. If I had had it in my power, I would have left the carriage; for I was in no frame of mind to be pestered by a popinjay.

"Goodness me! how odd!" he said; "Quite a family party this is. My cousin Mr Rayleigh, Mr Shookers—Mr Shookers, my cousin Mr Rayleigh. It's quite pleasant to be among one's relations."

The other man, answering to the name of Mr Shookers, bowed at this introduction, and showed his teeth and a large portion of the gums in the amplitude of his smile. He was a short stout man, with a very broad face, which was still further distended by a forest of red whiskers on each cheek. I took no notice of his salutation, but looked as indignantly as I could at the insufferable Jeeks.

"You don't seem very friendly, which is highly against the rules or philosophy," he continued; "but p'r'aps you don't know much of your own genealogical tree. My friend Shookers has studied heraldry, and knows very well how nearly related we are."

"Did you address any of your observations to me, sir?"

"Didn't I? to be sure I did. There was a certain Arabella Rayleigh in Temp. Geo. Prim., that means in the time of George I. or II., I forget which—but it is ages ago—that married Martin Hicks, and had a daughter, who married in Temp. of another of the Geos John Smith, and had a daughter; which married James Brown, and had a daughter; which married grandfather, Thomas Jeeks, in Temp. Geo. Tert.—which makes us cousins; and that's the reason why father thinks it so hard your old [Pg 634] governor won't part with the rest of the lands. Isn't it too bad, Mr Shookers?"

"It seems very unfriendly in old Rayleigh to keep such a hold on the property, when Mr Jeeks is willing to buy him off."

"Are you aware, sir, in whose presence you allow yourself such vulgar and insulting language? I am Mr Rayleigh's son."

"Well, and I'm his cousin," interposed young Jeek; "and it's rather hard if a man can't stand a word or two about his relations. I don't care what Shookers may say about my cousin. I have too much philosophy to care."

Mr Shookers, however, took the hint, and made no further observation on the subject. I looked out of the window, and endeavoured to abstract my thoughts from the conversation of my companions; but it was impossible. I kept my looks turned to the window; but I soon began to listen with all my ears.

"You'll find it uncommon hot at Singapore," said Mr Jeeks. "It's always the dog-days there; but all the Juffleses can stand fire like reg'lar bricks, as they are."

"I like it," replied Mr Shookers; "and I am very much obligated to your father."

"He's a trump, is the old fellow—he's out of business himself—wound all up at Canton; but his interest will do great things for you at Singapore."

"Oh! I consider my fortune made; and I am sure we shall both be grateful to him till the end of time."

"Ah, you're a lucky chap to get such a girl persuaded to go with you so far! But I always said Betsy had all the pluck of the family."

I half looked round—and Mr Jeeks favoured me with a wink, which implied that he would keep the secret of my acquaintance with the Juffles's family a secret from his friend.

"She's full of spirit," replied Mr Shookers.

"And so clever, too," added Mr Jeeks; "so sentimental and all that. No end of walks in woods. I wonder she hasn't tired poor Amy to death. She's taken to it as bad as ever lately again, and takes no end of rambles in Bushy Park. You're a lucky fellow, Shookers; for I'm sure she's thinking of you all the time she's pacing up and down among the trees."

"She had better take as much as she can of the trees," answered the lover; "there's no great temptation to ramble in Singapore. She won't have much more of it, for we must sail in the next ship."

"I always said Betsy Juffles would make a good marriage after all—though she's such a comical girl, I shouldn't be surprised if she carried on her jokes to the very last, and pretended to care about some of her old admirers even now."

"She's very welcome," said Mr Shookers; "it's reg'lar good fun seeing her trot out a spoony. How she makes us laugh, to be sure!"

The two gentlemen seemed so overcome with the facetiousness of their recollections, that they broke into a laugh that lasted nearly a mile.

I felt somewhat in the situation of Scrub. "Could they be laughing at me? Was I again the victim of a consummate actress?"

"Old Juffles comes it handsome, I hope?" said Mr Jeeks.

"I'm perfectly satisfied at all events," replied his friend. "He gives me a trifle on the wedding-day, and makes a good settlement besides."

"When is the wedding?"

"It is fixed for this day month, the fourteenth of May. We embark on the next day, and drop down to Gravesend. Aren't you asked to attend?"

"Oh, we're all coming—governor and all! I don't see why my cousin opposite should not get an invite too. But he has been looking out of the window so hard, he hasn't heard a word of what we've said. Oh, of course not!"

"If you would like to come to it, sir," said Mr Shookers, who sat on the same side with me, vis-à-vis with his friend, "I shall be very glad; and I feel sure I can answer for Betsy too, sir."

"Don't be too sure of that," interrupted Mr Jeeks. "It takes a deal of philosophy to do things of the kind."

"You seem to be asking me to some meeting, sir. May I beg you to [Pg 635] understand, once for all, that I have nothing whatever to say to this most contemptible poltroon, Mr Jeeks, nor to any of his friends."

"I was going to ask you to my marriage, sir; and if you had been a gentleman, or behaved as such"——

I felt my hands clutching with an irrepressible desire to seize Mr Shookers by the throat; but I had no time. Before he had an opportunity to complete his speech, a sound, as of an avalanche and earthquake, all in one, was heard—a shock, as of contending thunderbolts, shook the train, and the last thing I saw was the head and body of Mr Jeeks propelled, with the force and velocity of a rocket, against the expansive countenance of Mr Shookers. My own forehead was dashed against the opposite side, and I was insensible. There had been a collision between two trains. I recollect no more.

CHAPTER V.

When I recovered my consciousness, I was in my own room at Rayleigh Court. I looked round, and gradually a recollection of all that had happened dawned upon me. I thought of my journey down—the conversation between Mr Jeeks and Shookers—the new light that had been thrown on the behaviour of the once cherished, but now, for the second time, detested Lucy Ashton; and I turned round on the bed, and wished to relapse into insensibility for ever. A light step at the side of the couch attracted my notice. "Thank God," I heard a voice say, "my boy will live!" It was my father. I turned round, and opened my eyes. He took my hand, and looked at me a long, long time, with an expression of interest and affection that I had not seen for many years.

"You are better, Henry, but don't exert yourself to speak. The slightest effort may be fatal; therefore, for my sake, for all our sakes, be quiet."

He sat down, and put his finger on his lips.

"In a day or two, now that your health has taken a favourable turn, you will be able to able as many questions as you choose. In the mean time be perfectly composed, and all will be well."

My father was in mourning.

"You are dressed in black," I whispered.

"We have lost a relation," he answered, "a distant relation; and we must pay him the compliment of a black coat—but hush! my dear boy; if you utter another word I must leave the room."

Under the care and uninterrupted attentions of my father, I rapidly got well. In a week I could sit up; in a fortnight I moved into the library. The sun was clear and warm. I sat at the open window, and looked out upon the park, and beyond it to the tops of the trees in the Wilderness. It gave me a blow that I could scarcely bear. I rose up and tottered to the sofa. The weekly newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and the first paragraph that met my eyes was this—"Married at Verbena Lodge, on Wednesday last, Alfred Shookers, Esq. of Singapore, to Elizabeth, third daughter of Jeremiah Juffles, Esq., late of Ryleigh Grange."

I thought I had banished her from my heart for ever; but the suddenness of the announcement was too much for me. The paper fell from my hand, and I fainted.

"Poor boy, the change is too much for him!" I heard my father say. "He must not leave his room again till he is stronger."

I soon returned to my senses, and by a great effort recovered my spirits at the same time. I laughed and talked, and listened well pleased to my father's glowing picture of the possibility of our retrieving our fortunes by a marriage. I promised him I would sacrifice myself on the hymeneal altar for the good of my family; that I would marry the ugliest, oldest widow he could fix on; that I was anxious to be a benedict on favourable terms; and at all my protestations my father laughed aloud, and patted me on the shoulder. I could not believe it was [Pg 636] the same man who had snubbed and bullied me all my life. All of a sudden he looked at his watch.

"Excuse me, my dear boy," he said, "I have engaged to dine with poor Jeeks at five o'clock."

"With whom?" I asked, shuddering at the sound of the name.

"With our neighbour, poor Jeeks," he said. "He has had a terrible dispensation, and is very much softened and improved."

"What dispensation?"

"Ah! I forgot: I was not to let you know. His poor son! he never recovered the accident. Two or three of Mr Shookers's teeth fastened in his head. He has been dead these five weeks: a most promising young man."

I was amazingly shocked at the intelligence.

"Is it for him we are in mourning?" I enquired.

My father nodded.

"Then he was our cousin, after all?"

"There certainly seems to have been a relationship in the Temp. of some of the Geos., as he called it. At all events the acknowledgment of it does not cost much, and poor old Jeeks is delighted. Good-by. Take care of yourself."

And so saying, he left me to my cogitations.

When once a favourable crisis, as it is called, takes place, the amendment in the health of a man of twenty-two is very speedy. I was aided also by seeing my father in such spirits. From day to day I picked up strength, and at the end of a week I felt I could venture out.

It was June again—the poet's leafy month of June—the anniversary of the very day on which I had so heroically enacted the part of the Master of Ravenswood against the pigs. I sauntered through the park; a fate was upon me; and I directed my steps, by some secret impulse against which I struggled in vain, to the Wilderness. "I may as well see the spot where I was so deluded," I thought, and recognized every object—alas! with what different feelings—as I drew near the trysting-tree.

"It was there," thought, "I saw Amy for the first time, as she was flying for protection; it was there I rushed forward to save her; it was there, under the oak"——As I directed my eyes to the spot, my heart leaped as if I had seen a spirit; for there, on the identical turf, with a work-basket on her lap, sat Lucy Ashton, or rather Mrs Shookers.

"So you've come at last!" she said. "Well, better late than never. Here's your seat all ready. I have expected you a long time."

"Are you a woman, or a fiend in human shape?" I began.

"Oh! a fiend by all means, if you like; but what has kept you all this time from Bushy Park? I am afraid your father won't give his consent; you would have come to me sooner if he had. But come, sit down and tell me all."

So saying, she went on with her knitting. She was lovelier than ever. She was dressed in a black silk gown, and wore a long black mantilla over her head. I had never heard any thing so musical as her voice, nor seen any thing so beautiful as her smile.

"I shall certainly not be your dupe any longer," I said; "and, believe me, the coquetry that might be captivating in Miss Elizabeth Juffles, is simply disgusting in Mrs Shookers of Singapore."

"Had not you better send out your opinion by the next India mail? Betsy has sailed by this time, and will just get out in time to receive your letter."

"Then, if you are not Betsy Juffles, tell me, in Heaven's name, who and what you are?"

"I'm a young girl of nineteen, who promised once to accept the hand of a young gentleman of the name of Rayleigh, who told me a hundred times he did not care about my family—that it was myself only he cared for: and he even went down to tell his father of the resolution he had taken, without making enquiry as to either my birth, parentage, or education. A wild young man he was, and rather changeable; for sometimes he would have made sonnets to my eyebrows, if he had had the gift of verse; sometimes he would have stabbed me to the heart, if he had had a dagger; sometimes I was his adorable Lucy Ashton; then his tantalizing Miss [Pg 637] Poggs; then his hated Betsy; whereas, all the time, I was nothing but the selfsame anonymous but fascinating creature, who under all these names, and in spite of all these variations in his humour, loved him very truly, and has no doubt whatever of being his wife."

"You!—it would be safer to marry an incarnate demon!"

"Ah, safer perhaps; but not so respectable! Come, do sit down; what's the use of ceremony among friends and neighbours? Has your father consented to the match?"

"Do you think I asked him?"

"Why not? you don't like Gretna Green better, do you?"

"By no means—my intentions are changed."

"But you forget that I am neither Betsy Juffles nor Miss Poggs; I am nothing but Lucy Ashton."

"I wish you had never been any thing else," I said, beginning to soften; for who could resist such a voice and such eyes?

"Well, I tell you I am not changed—will that not satisfy you? Imagine that all that has passed since we parted here is a dream; that Verbena Lodge has no existence, and that Mr Dobble is an ass! Won't you sit down beside me, Edgar?"

I threw myself upon the turf, and she went on.

"I grant I have been a little capricious, Edgar, but there were reasons for it, believe me."

"What reason could there be for all these mysteries?"

"Why, in the first place, it was very amusing; in the next place, you did not know your own mind; in the next place, it was romantic; in the next place, I wanted to try you if your love was really sincere."

"And you found it wanting," I said in a tone of self-reproach.

"Not a bit," she replied, with a look that showed she knew my heart a great deal better than I did myself.

"At this moment I believe your affection for me rises triumphant above the horrors of Betsy Juffles or Miss Poggs; and so I think I shall reward you at last with an open explanation of who I am."

"No, dearest Lucy Ashton!" I said, taking her hand, "not before I swear that it is yourself only I care for—that I love you more than words can tell."

"Then you'll marry the gal of course," said a voice; and at the same moment the head of old Mr Jeeks was popped round from the other side of the tree. I sprang to my feet in a moment; and beside Mr Jeeks, scarcely able to restrain his laughter, stood my father.

"Matters have certainly gone too far," he said in his usual grave and sombre tones, "for either party to recede."

"Nobody wants it, I'm sure," replied old Jeeks.

"And I have no wish of the kind," returned my father.

"Then, if the young ones are agreed, I don't see what there is to forbid the bans," remarked Mr Jeeks.

"The sooner the better," returned the other; while, in a state of intense wonder, I looked at the speakers.

"What is the meaning of all this?" I asked Lucy Ashton, who had returned very sedulously to her knitting.

"The truth is this, Henry," said my father; "my friend and relative, Mr Jeeks, having lost his only son, has determined on making his eldest daughter Harriet, the young lady before you, the heiress of his house. By marrying her to you, the object of his ambition—the reunion, namely, of the divided portions of our ancestral estate—is gained; and as it appears you have no personal objection to the fair Harriet herself, I don't see why the addition of the Rayleigh manors should make her disagreeable."

A month settled every thing to the satisfaction of all parties. Mr Jeeks has settled himself in London; my father resides in Hartley Mead; and every day my wife and I go over to see the progress of the alterations and improvements we are making in the old house, which we are restoring to its original grandeur under the superintendence of Mr Barry.

IRELAND.—THE LANDLORD AND TENANT QUESTION.[29]

[Pg 638]

Unfortunately for the cause of truth, and the welfare of that country, Ireland has lately become the stock in trade of every political writer: "monster pamphlets" and "monster paragraphs" succeed each other with astonishing rapidity—all alike remarkable for the "monstrous" assertions they contain, and for the "monstrous" ignorance they display of the subject on which they profess to enlighten us.

English tourists, Scotch agents, and German adventurers, flock like birds of prey, and swarm over the devoted country. They go there, not for the purpose of enquiring into the real state of things, or the real causes of the admitted misery of the people; but in order to write what will be most productive to themselves—not with the philanthropic or patriotic motive of endeavouring to elucidate a subject of so much importance; but with the determination to compile as many pages as they can, in as short a given period as possible. They draw the most absurd caricatures; and, pandering to the prevailing public opinion, they relate only what tends to strengthen it in its errors, and to misdirect and mislead those who consult them for information, or rely on them as authorities. Their numerous errors are detected and pointed out by the newspapers, according as they tell against the political interests of their respective parties. There is but one topic on which they are all agreed—that is, in their unanimous and unsparing abuse of the Irish landlords; and, however much they may be condemned as disentitled to belief on other subjects, on this their assertions are taken, by all parties, as authorities "true as holy writ."

It requires no witch to tell us that Ireland is in a condition in which she ought not to be; but it does require some industry, and an intimate knowledge of the habits and character of the people, to assign this state of things to the proper causes. In their love for the marvellous, most writers on Ireland have overlooked facts; they have not condescended to enquire into particulars, or to use that unquestionable information which is actually in existence. We therefore propose to supply this omission, and to state the case of the landlord and tenant question as it really is; and, although many acts of oppression and harshness may have been perpetrated by individuals, we trust we shall be able to show, from authentic documents, that nothing can be more unjust than the exaggerated charges brought against the present Irish landlords as regards the exorbitance of their rents, and nothing more fallacious than to attribute the misery of the people to the want of tenure, or due security in the occupation of their lands. The last census, taken by the police under the direction of government, gives us the actual rental of Ireland as returned by the occupiers themselves. This information is therefore derived from a source on which little doubt can be thrown; and although we may justly suspect (from the desire of the Irish peasant to make the most of his miseries) that the rent may have been in many instances exaggerated, we may rest perfectly assured that in no instance was it underrated. Founded on the results of this enquiry, a very useful and instructive sheet (entitled Ireland at a Glance) has been compiled and published, in which, amongst other statistical information, the average rent of land in each county is given, and on the correctness of which we may safely rely. Had the conduct of the Irish aristocracy, some forty or fifty years ago, attracted but a small portion of the public attention that has latterly been bestowed upon it, no doubt great good would have been effected. Then, unquestionably, the landlord could do almost any thing; then, no doubt, he could with impunity set the law at defiance. The Catholic, degraded as he was, durst not complain; but the establishment of the petty sessions courts, and the agitation which preceded emancipation, altered the matter altogether. The Catholic [Pg 639] Association employed active and intelligent attorneys. Those men were everywhere: the petty sessions courts were regularly attended by them; for the slightest transgression of the law the magistrate was hauled up; and the poor man was shown that he had only to bring his case fairly before the tribunals to obtain justice. While the Association existed, he was fully protected at its expense: by the time it was dissolved, he had acquired a thorough knowledge of his own rights; and he had ready agents in the country attorneys, who were always at hand, and always but too happy, for their own interest, to undertake any cause in which they anticipated success. This, so far as the administration of justice was concerned, the publicity of their proceedings, and the unwillingness of men to expose themselves to actions for the misconduct of some members of their body, effectually checked magisterial delinquency: where any violation of the law did occur, there could be no doubt as to the punishment.

Had the conduct of the Irish proprietors (in their character of landlords) been taken to task at the same period, no question they were deeply to be condemned. Then, and always before, the practice of the landlord was—to lease large tracts at an easy rent to the most solvent person he could find, or to set in copartnership, (that is, by creating a joint tenancy in all the inhabitants of any particular town-land, making the rich accountable for the debt of the poor.) His only object was to secure his income; so that was accomplished, he cared little for the welfare of the inhabitants, or the cultivation of the estate. The peace came—prices fell,—the middlemen not occupying, were in most cases unable to pay their rents when they could not enforce them from those in possession, whom they had ruined by their extortion; the consequence was, they were too happy to abandon their interests, and leave the landlord to deal with the paupers they had created. In a few years after the peace, the middleman system had ceased to exist; the owner of the soil, coming into immediate contact with the tenantry, saw the monstrous injustice and the destructive tendencies of the copartnership plan—and it was discontinued. Yet such is the passion for legislation, that both systems are now about to be disinterred, to be taken from the oblivion to which their own iniquities long since consigned them, and to be set up in the preamble of an act of Parliament, in order that Mr Sharman Crawfurd may have the opportunity of again prostrating them by legislative enactments. We are certain that, for the last ten years, no instance can be shown in which any landlord set, or any tenant took, land on determinable leases, for the purpose of subletting; or any single instance in which the landlords practised, or permitted, the copartnership system on their estates; and yet the public time is to be wasted, and the public attention to be occupied, by the introduction of laws to restrain practices which are no longer in operation. It is true, some of those leases where the middleman held on very easy terms, and was able to pay the rent himself during the great depression, are still in existence; but they are daily dropping out: and it is the treatment of those properties, when they come upon the owners' hands, that has latterly attracted so much attention. From 1818, a total revolution in the management of land took place in Ireland: the proprietors became in most instances the managers of their own estates; and, as each year advanced, the necessity of attending strictly to their duties became more manifest to them. From 1830 to 1843, more was done, and is still continuing to be done, in improving or in endeavouring to improve, the condition of the people, than was ever done before. The large owners of land employed Scotch stewards to instruct their tenantry in the most improved system of husbandry; and their neighbours profited by the example. Green-cropping increased in a most astonishing degree; agricultural societies were formed in almost every county; and the country was advancing steadily and rapidly in the march of prosperity, when the baneful agitation again started into existence. To disconnect the peasantry from the landlords, [Pg 640] who could not be induced to join in the senseless and mischievous cry for Repeal, now became the object of the agitators: the most unjust charges were made against the gentry; and even their exertions to promote the growth of turnips, or to teach the people the proper mode of cultivation, were turned into ridicule and treated with contempt, in the public speeches of some of the Roman Catholic bishops. The floodgates of abuse were thrown open; the most incredible acts of violence and atrocity were imputed to them; generalities were dealt in—except in a few instances, in which it was fondly believed the facts would have borne out the assertions. But when investigation fully exonerated the accused from the charges brought against them, still the agitators persevered: the accusations being general, it was not the duty of any individual to contradict them. From their frequent reassertion, the English press accorded them credit; the English newspapers became the advocates of those they believed to be oppressed; no story was too ridiculous to obtain insertion; anonymous correspondents heaped obloquy on the best and most pains-taking landlords; while any attempt at their vindication was sure to be discountenanced—a tyrannical act of one man was seized on, and blazoned forth as proof positive of the guilt of all.

The conduct of the Irish landlords was assailed just at the time when it was commencing to become meritorious; and they were almost literally deprived (by public opinion) of all control, just at the period when (for the first time) they were exercising the influence which their position ought to give them, for the benefit and the advantage of the people.

From the manner in which the laws regulating the connexion between landlord and tenant in Ireland are spoken of, and from the frequent demands made for their alteration and improvement, one would naturally suppose that they differed essentially from those which regulate the connexion between the same parties in this country. Yet such is not the fact: so far as the law goes, it is the same on both sides the Channel. By law, the Irish landlord can only eject a tenant holding by lease after he owes a year's rent; and then the tenant has six months for redemption. He can only put out a tenant-at-will by giving him six months' notice, (the six months to expire on or before the day on which the tenancy commenced;) and afterwards by ejecting him, if he refuse to give up possession. He can only distrain after the rent becomes due. Those powers the law also gives to the English landlord: so far as legislative enactments go, the landlords of both countries stand precisely in the same position. But the English proprietor can do much which the Irish one durst not attempt: he may prevent the fences on his estate from being torn down, or the trees and hedge-rows he has planted from being cut: he may prevent his land from being damaged by bad husbandry, or a succession of the same crops being taken from it until it is rendered useless;—all this he may do by enforcing his covenants, and no one blames him. An Irish landlord may put the most stringent clauses in his leases; but he cannot use the power which their enforcement would give him: public opinion, (always in favour of the delinquent,) and the dread of the assassin, restrain him. The late Mr Hall let a farm in fine condition: the tenant, contrary to his engagements, tore up the land, burned it, and set it in con-acre. The unfortunate gentleman endeavoured to prevent this violation of an agreement. He went to the ground and threatened to put his covenant in force; and, for doing so, he was murdered in the open day in the presence of numbers of people: the assassins were allowed quietly to walk off; and it was only when one of the hired murderers, tempted by a large reward, peached on his accomplices in crime, that any of them were brought to justice.

There is an act of Parliament in force in Ireland for the prevention of burning land, which imposes heavy penalties; yet it cannot stop this mischievous practice—and why? Because, by having recourse to it, the tenant (until he quite exhausts the soil) can raise better crops with more ease to himself; it is a much less troublesome process than that of [Pg 641] collecting manure from the scourings of his ditches or his moor land, or burning lime; and it enables him to spend the winter months in idleness and amusement, when he ought to be providing for his next year's crops. If an English tenant cannot meet his engagements, he surrenders his land as a matter of course: if an Irish tenant be turned out, even after owing many years' rent, he considers himself an ill-used man, (and so do his neighbours too;) and no man complains so loudly of the extortion of his landlord as he who pays no rent at all. The Irish landlord has the advantage of being able to bring his ejectment at the courts of quarter-sessions, and at less expense than it can be done in this country, provided the rent be under £50 a-year. But this may be considered, and with justice, of equal benefit to the tenant: if he redeem within the six months allowed by law, the costs the landlord can put upon him will only amount to £2, 10s; whereas, with the superior courts, it would be at least £14. Yet some of the patriotic Irish journals have required, as an improvement in the law, that ejectment at quarter-sessions should be abolished, and that the landlord should, in every case, be sent to the superior courts for redress. To make such an alteration in the law would be unjust towards the landlord—as it would compel him to expend a large sum in regaining possession of his land, in addition to the loss of his rent, (if he had a pauper to deal with;) and it would be injurious to the interests of the tenant, as t would give a tyrannical and oppressive landlord the power of overwhelming the poor but honest man, who only wanted time to redeem, by the load of law-costs he would be enabled to put upon him.

Having shown that the law gives the Irish landlord no power incompatible with justice, or unnecessary for the due maintenance of his rights—in fact that, in respect of it, he is much more restricted than the mercantile man—we are at a loss to see how the law can be altered, and at the same time the rights of property be preserved. It may be said, the Irish tenant has no claim at the termination of his lease for any improvements he may have effected; neither has the English tenant, if he possess a lease. Although, in point of fact, so far as the small Irish farmer is concerned, this is quite an ideal grievance; for he never makes any improvement, or if he does, and pays his rent, he is never disturbed—still an amendment in the law in this respect, may stimulate to industry, and may be effected with advantage to all parties. Against the gentlemen farmers, injustice of this kind may sometimes be perpetrated, and therefore legislation on the subject would be of use; but the poor man who meets his engagements, is never, unless under extraordinary circumstances, removed; and where such is the case, he is almost invariably amply remunerated. Solitary instances of contrary conduct pursued towards him, may no doubt be adduced; but they are too few in any way to account for the present state of dissatisfaction so universally prevalent.

The Irish landlord, then, has no power which he can legally employ for the oppression of his tenant, which is not possessed by all other British landlords. If he violate the law, of course the legal tribunals will afford redress. And are we to be told that that redress would not be sought for; that the wardens and priests, the leading agitators, or the people themselves, would not report their sufferings; and that the power, and influence, and money of the Association, would not be used in their defence?

The outcry raised by Mr O'Connell and his supporters against the landlords, on account of the number of persons "turned out, and left to die by the road-side,"[30] will, we have no doubt, turn out (if possible) to be more unfounded than even his other assertions. The present Commission has ample powers to ascertain this fact at least: and we will venture to assert, that not one instance of starvation will have been proven before it; and that out of the hundreds of thousands who were reported to have been mercilessly turned adrift to perish at the [Pg 642] backs of ditches, forty-nine fiftieths will be found well and hearty, and in the occupation of those lands from which they were said to have been expelled. That ejectment-processes were served, and decrees obtained, which, if followed up and enforced, would have put many persons out of possession, we do not deny; but nine-tenths of those are compromised by the payment of part of the rent before the day of trial comes on, and of the decrees obtained, the great majority are never put in execution. Accurate information on this point can easily be obtained from the sheriffs and clerks of the peace for the different counties; those officers have been amongst the first witnesses examined before Lord Devon. We would only ask the public to suspend its judgment, and those well-meaning but mistaken individuals, who, though they reject Mr O'Connell and the priests as authorities on most other subjects, take their assertions on this as proven facts, to reserve their indignation and wrath until the result of this testimony can be known. Ejectment-processes are the most effective and the cheapest means by which the landlord can enforce the payment of the rent due, and as such they are generally had recourse to: before they can be acted on, at least three months must have elapsed after the year's rent (which is the least sum they can be issued for) has become due.

Perhaps nothing has contributed more to foment, certainly nothing has assisted more to continue, the agrarian disturbances in Ireland, than the statements, made so flippantly by journalists and pamphleteers, of the great excess of rent exacted in Ireland over that paid by the English tenantry. Those writers have invariably assumed the truth of the assertions made in this particular; yet nothing can be further from the fact.

There is no statistical account of England recently published, that we can discover, which would give us any correct idea of the present average rent of land in this country;[31] but we think, from all the information we have been able to acquire, by enquiries directed to competent and well-informed persons, that it cannot be set down at less than 25s. an acre. From the last Irish census we learn, that Ireland contains 20,399,608 statute acres, and that the estimated rental is L12,715,478—yielding a trifle over 12s. as the average rent.[32] When it is taken into consideration that the English tenant pays tithes—which, in many localities, amount to more than the entire average rent produced by Irish ground; that he pays the poor-rates, and that he is heavily taxed with turnpikes and other local assessments: and [Pg 643] that the Irish tenant pays no tithe, and only half the poor-rates; that no turnpikes exist, except solitary ones in the neighbourhood of cities or very large towns; that, in fact, the only tax he pays is the county cess, varying in different counties from tenpence to one and sixpence the acre half-yearly; and that this assessment is being considerably reduced by the new grand-jury enactments, under which the towns and gentlemen's houses are valued and taxed;—when, we say, all those things are taken into consideration, and besides, that the land in Ireland is naturally better and more productive than the English soil, we think we have satisfactorily disposed of one grave charge against the Irish landlords; and that we have shown that it cannot be the exorbitance of the pecuniary burdens under which he groans, that causes the vast difference between the social condition of the Irish and the English occupier.

It will no doubt be said—"Ah, but the English tenant is housed, and his farm kept in repair, by the landlord, while the Irishman is obliged to do all this himself!" This is true; but certainly the outlay of the Irish tenant on his farm, makes but a small addition to his other engagements. Gates and fences he has, comparatively speaking, none; and, if they be erected for him, they are soon suffered to go to ruin. He requires few outhouses; for in the poor and disturbed districts (and it is those which we are now attending to) he uses his domicile as a receptacle for his pig and his cow, as a matter of choice; we say as a matter of choice—for, if he had the inclination, all writers admit he has abundance of unoccupied time to construct habitations for them. Now, though it is a just cause of regret that we do not see better homesteads and better fences in Ireland, still we cannot admit that the tenant's being obliged to keep such as exist in repair, can be any great hardship in a pecuniary point of view, as he lays out scarcely any thing on them: he does not even expend his own labour on their improvement; and his time, which might be profitably occupied in this way, is wasted in useless idleness, in swelling the train, or cheering the ferocious sentiments, of some mercenary agitator.

Having shown, as correctly as it is possible to do, the relative amount of rents paid in England and in Ireland, let us compare the amount of rents paid in each of the Irish provinces. For this purpose we shall take a maritime and an inland county from each.

It is well known that the quality of the land in the north of Ireland is far inferior to that in either of the other provinces: yet we see, in the maritime counties, that the rich and fertile lands of Clare and Wexford are let much cheaper than the northern counties; and that Mayo, inhabited by unquestionably the poorest and most miserable population in Ireland, is rented at nearly half the amount paid by the independent yeomanry of Down; while, amongst the inland counties, the splendid plains of Roscommon, and the productive lands of Longford, yield less income than the cold and, comparatively speaking, sterile soil of Tyrone. Now, it is not too much (indeed it is under the mark) to say, that two acres in any of those counties we have quoted, in Leinster, Munster, or Connaught, will feed more cattle, and grow more corn, than three acres in either of the northern ones; and yet the tenantry in the north, who pay those comparatively high rents, are contented, and the landlords are considered good.[34] Those statements are founded not [Pg 644] on our own opinions, but on incontrovertible facts; and, after having read them, we would ask any dispassionate man if the disturbed condition of the west and south of Ireland can be, with any justice, attributed to the rents imposed by the landlords. In the north, where the highest rents are charged, the people are well housed and well clothed, the ground well tilled, and the rents as well paid as in any part of England. Here, if a tenant wishes to dispose of his right in even a tenancy-at-will, he gets some ten or twelve years' purchase for it; and the answers to Lord Devon's enquiries were, in many instances, that the interference of the commission was not required. While in the south and west, from whence the loudest complaints against the landowners proceed; where the peasant exists in rags, and the gentlemen in a state of semi-starvation; where the people are idle, and their ground untilled; where squalid misery offends the eye and merciless murders shock the feelings; where the terror of the assassin supersedes the power of the landlord, and protects the tenant against all law; there, in the counties so overwhelmed with poverty and debased by crime, the lands are held on terms (the relative value being taken into consideration) by the half easier than in the prosperous and peaceable province of Ulster.

Dublin, Limerick, Meath, and Tipperary, do average a trifle more than the northern counties; but the one is the metropolitan county, and the quality of the land in the others is so superior to any in England or Ireland, that even at the small advance of two shillings an acre, they may justly be considered as more cheaply rented than any other counties.

To understand a people properly, their national character must be attentively studied; and this can only be done by a long residence and a close connexion with them. We cannot therefore be much surprised, that those who undertake to write on a country which they have never seen, or to prescribe remedies for the defects in the social condition of a people amongst whom they have never resided, should be led into grievous mistakes, and that they should be unsafe guides to direct the enquiries of others. Employment, hard work, large wages, and good living, form the objects of the Englishman and the Scotchman's ardent desire; while coarse food, bad lodging, and half clothing, are quite agreeable to the Irishman, if they be combined with independence—in other words, if by using them he may avoid labour, and enjoy those amusements to which he is passionately addicted, and in which he indulges unrestrainedly. We firmly believe, that if a choice of roast beef and loaf bread, accompanied by the labour necessary to earn them, were offered to "Pat" at home, or potatoes and milk, with liberty to frequent the horse-races, cock-fights, and dances, in his neighbourhood, he would unhesitatingly accept the latter. This may seem strange to an Englishman; but there is no accounting for taste. That the potato is coarse food, cannot be doubted; that it is wholesome, is abundantly proved by the stalwart men who subsist on it, and by the ruddy health of the chubby, merry urchins who have, perhaps, never tasted any thing else. Pity it is that the former should be so negligent of, or so indifferent to, their own advantage; or that the latter should have been (until lately) suffered to grow up in that ignorance which almost secures a continuance in the same courses which proved the bane and misfortune of their fathers. No peasant in Europe devotes so much of his time to amusement as does the Irishman. Go to the places of public amusement, or to the fairs and markets, in the busiest and most hurried seasons, and how many thousands will you see, who have no earthly business there but to meet their friends, to laugh and to chat, and (before Father Mathew reformed them) to drink and to fight!

To suppose, as some influential writers here do, that there is no alternative between the possession of land and absolute starvation, is one of those imaginary fictions often conjured up by those who wish to indulge in what they believe to be powerful, and wish to be pathetic, appeals to the feelings; but it betrays great ignorance of the subject on which they propound their opinions. The condition of the rural labourer, constantly employed by the gentleman or wealthy farmer, is [Pg 645] generally much superior to that of the small landholder. Those men are bound by agreements which they must fulfill—they work continually; and although their wages are in some instances nominally very low, and in all much lower than we could wish, still their allowances—in house-rent, grazing, and con-acre—enable them not only to live comfortably, but sometimes to amass considerable sums of money. You always see good pigs, and very often more than two good cows, at their doors. It may not be amiss to say, that, in all instances, they get the feeding of those cows for a rent varying from one guinea per year, when the nominal wages are low, to three shillings a-year, when tenpence a-day is given; thus, at the very highest price, getting for three shillings that accommodation for which Mr Cobden charges his workman twelve pounds! Yet the great object of those men is to get land and become farmers, although they almost invariably suffer by the change. They were before compelled to work to meet their engagements; having become their own masters, they in very many instances neglect their business, and devote the time which ought to be employed in the cultivation of their farms, to the discussion of politics and to the attendance on popular assemblies.

To say that the Irish are unemployed, not from inclination, but from necessity, is absurd;[35] this may sometimes be the case in the towns where the worst class of agricultural labourers reside—men who will not be employed while others can be had. A stranger meets able-bodied men walking about; he is told, and he sees, that there are no resident gentry in the neighbourhood to afford them work; he compassionates their condition; concocts a paragraph, and imputes the misery he witnesses to absenteeism. Let them accompany the idler to his home, and inspect his farm: he will find, out of a holding of from three to four Irish acres, perhaps an acre on which there was no attempt made at all to raise a crop, independent of untilled headlands, amounting to at least fifth of the ground under cultivation in each field. Why does he not employ himself on this land? If he has a lease, there can be no excuse; but even supposing him but tenant-at-will, it can in this instance be no justification. The land unused is not waste land, requiring an expenditure of labour and money, for which he might afterwards reap no advantage from the cupidity of his landlord. This is no such land: it is good, sound, arable land—perhaps the very best he has; and waste, purely and solely for the want of expending on it the labour necessary to prepare it for crop. He pays for it—yet he won't work it: he complains of want of employment, and he walks about with plenty to engage him beneficially for his own interests at home: he takes [Pg 646] con-acre, for which he pays high, while he could raise his food on his own farm, if he only took the trouble of collecting manure, or devoting his time to its improvement.

Adjoining mountains and bogs, where the poorest class of the population generally reside, and where there is abundance of ground attached rent-free to each farm, and capable of being rendered profitable at a very little expense—in fact, without any other outlay than the labour required to open drains, and level it—we see scarcely any efforts made at improvement. A Scotchman, or an Englishman, would consider the possession of the land rent-free for three or five years, according to the difficulty of the undertaking, as a sufficient recompense for his trouble; although his time is much more valuable, on account of the higher rate of wages paid him. But an Irishman will consider a twenty-one years' lease as too short a tenure, to justify him in expending the time which he wastes gossiping with his neighbours, or sunning himself at the backs of the ditches, in the profitable employment of adding to what ought to be, if he had industry, his already too small holding. Here is a case in which we conceive legislation might operate much good. If every man who reclaimed ground which did not before pay rent, was guaranteed its possession by law for ten years after the first crop, at a nominal rent of one shilling the acre, it might be an inducement to the tenant to labour: it could be no loss to the landlord, as, if still left in a state of nature it would be useless to him, and after the expiration of the time guaranteed the tenant as remuneration for his trouble, the benefit would be his exclusively. In the case of a tenant-at-will, an arrangement could easily be effected, by which the tenant, if removed from the farm before the expiration of the stipulated term, might receive a just and reasonable compensation for the improvements which he had effected, or an allowance for the loss of the crops which, had he remained, he would still have been entitled to: and thus, without any government outlay, encouragement would be given for the reclamation of that part of the Irish waste lands which would be worth the trouble or expense of cultivation.

We are gravely told, in well-rounded and high-sounding sentences, that "in Ireland famine urges men to take land at any price—they must have it or die;" and that, "when a piece of ground falls out of lease, it becomes a bone of contention amongst some twenty or thirty miserable competitors, who outbid each other, to the great delight and profit of the ruthless and exulting landlord, and to their own utter ruin." If any one takes time to reflect on what he reads in every day's newspaper, he must at once perceive that this statement can have no foundation in fact; if a landlord remove a tenant for non-payment of rent, he finds it difficult to get another to succeed him, (in the disturbed districts it is almost impossible to get any man to do so.) Such is the dread of taking land, from the occupation of which others have been expelled, even on account of owing the most unreasonable arrears, that farms frequently remain waste for years, without any person daring to bid for them. Now if public opinion, and the dread of the punishment which is sure to follow, operate so powerfully in favour of the really blamable person, as to keep his land untenanted, how much more influence will they possess in restraining any man from seeking to obtain the land of another, if that other be unobjectionable in character, solvent in circumstances, and still in possession? Such a thing is never heard of. The landlord, if he were bad enough, might try to induce men to act so; but he could not effect it. If death pursue the man who undertakes to rent unoccupied ground, as in most instances it does, how much more certain would it be to overtake him whose conduct was the means of driving from his home a solvent and industrious person? If a landlord distrain for rent, he can find no bidders for the crops or cattle; how much more difficult will it be for him to obtain bidders for land? We have frequently heard the bad cultivation of the land in Ireland attributed to the constant shifting of the tenantry: we are quite convinced the result of the enquiry now instituted will show how [Pg 647] unfounded this supposition is, and that the shifting or removal of the tenants, will be found to be a matter of much more rare occurrence in Ireland than in England. That scarcity and want are periodically experienced in Ireland, is but too true. Those visitations (which, thank God, are not frequent) arise from the failure of the potato crops, and generally occur in those districts most densely populated, and consequently worst tilled; in fact, they are greatly to be attributed to the neglect of the people themselves; who will not take the trouble of using those precautions against rot, which ought always to be adopted on a moist soil or in a mountainous country: but to talk of persons dying in Ireland of starvation is absurd, and bespeaks an utter ignorance of the national character. There are poor-houses; and besides, in Ireland, the hungry man may enter without hesitation, and share without apology in the meal of his more wealthy neighbour; and lodging, humble though it be, is never denied to the houseless or the destitute. Those who accuse Irishmen, of any class or party, of hard-heartedness or inhumanity, had better look at home. In their country we never hear of verdicts of "death from starvation" being returned by coroners' juries; or of the weak and the unfortunate being compelled to seek for shelter in the hollows of decayed trees, or to sleep like brute beasts in the open parks, exposed to the cold and the inclemency of winter. The gentry may neglect their duties in other respects: as regards the performance of charitable acts, they are faultless; the middleman may be exacting—but he is hospitable; and the men who make those groundless charges, would be not a little astonished did they see the multitudes that are still fed (poor-laws notwithstanding) at the big House of the Irish gentleman. We have said that failures of the crops, and scarcity, occur much more frequently in the densely populated parts of the country than in any others, and that those failures arise in a great measure from the neglect of the people themselves. Parts of Mayo, Galway, and Donegal, are the localities most subject to those visitations. In those counties the most miserable class of the peasantry exist; and nothing, we think, can prove more conclusively, that their misfortunes and their wretchedness cannot with justice be attributed to the misconduct of their landlords, but rather to their own, than the undisputed fact, that in those districts in which the people are worst off, the land is set at the lowest rent; and that where the greatest quantity of waste land is unreclaimed, and where that which is under cultivation is worst managed and least attended to, there, invariably, is to be found the greatest amount of unemployed labourers. It may be said they know no better mode of cultivation than what they practise. They do; those are the very men who go, and have from their youth been in the habit of going, to England and Scotland, where they see the benefits arising from a good system of agriculture. They fully appreciate, but won't practise it. The truth is—and this is one of the great sources of Irish misery—that by the constant agitation of which (under one shape or another) he is almost always the victim, the Irish peasant is induced to consider himself as the worst treated of God's creatures; by it he is kept in a continual state of dependence on anticipated events, which leads him to expect the amelioration of his condition by means of political convulsions, rather than by patient and persevering industry.

We need scarcely say how much the sympathy expressed for his situation, and the abuse heaped on his landlord, tend to confirm the Irish peasant in his bad habits. Articles from the English press, and not extracts from the gospel, form the texts of the sermons which are delivered for his instruction: the object of the preacher is not to remove his prejudices, or to eradicate his faults; but to excite his animosities, and to extract his shillings: when peace and mercy are inculcated, it is not because they are commanded, but because they may be expedient.

In those parts in which there are no resident gentry to employ them, to set them an example, and to enforce a respect for the laws, the peasantry indulge in idleness, and engage in politics. They work at home [Pg 648] only when it suits their convenience or inclination, and from others they can only procure work (at prices for which they will work) in the harvest and spring. In summer, after they have planted their crops, and made their turf, and set the milk of their cow, (if they have one,) they shut up their houses, send their wives and their families to beg, and betake themselves to England or Scotland to reap the harvest. There, until of late years, they earned the almost incredible sums of £16, sometimes of £20—latterly, competition and other causes have reduced the amount to, on the average, between £4 and £5. Out of this, on their return, they pay the rent of the con-acre which they have taken, while a third of their own holding is waste. With the balance and their oats they pay the landlord, in those cases in which he is so fortunate as to get any rent; and having secured an abundance of potatoes, they sit down to enjoy themselves for the winter. During the night they play cards for geese, turkeys, and herrings; attend dances, where they are enrolled and sworn into secret societies; and devote some hours to the wrecking of the houses, or the castigation of the persons, of those who are obnoxious to them. In the daytime, you find them at the places of public resort or amusement, or lazily and listlessly strolling about those miserable abodes—in whose floors you frequently find stepping-stones to carry you from the entrance to the space occupied by the fire, and before whose doors are those stagnant pools and heaps of filth, so disgusting to every traveller. Could they not remove those? Is it the landlord's fault that they don't? Does he wish their houses to be in such a condition, or encourage them to keep their own persons and those of their children in such a state of dirt and nastiness? Not at all. He does his best to prevail on them to adopt a different system; but his interference in their domestic matters is always looked on as an unjustifiable intrusion; in short, as a sort of minor grievance, and a petty act of oppression. Perhaps it is to be attributed to their poverty? Water, at least, is cheap and abundant in Ireland.

Such is a true and accurate account of the "tenor of those men's lives" and habits; and it is a continuance of this state of things that those who attack the Irish landlords so indiscriminately are, in reality, advocating.

Now, let us suppose that a tract of two thousand acres, set perhaps by the grandfather of the preset owner, and inhabited by a class of tenantry such as we have described, comes on a landlord's hands. It has been let and relet—tied up in settlements—and, until the termination of the lease, there may have been three or four intermediate landlords between the occupant and the proprietor. The present possessor comes to deal with an estate, ruined and almost worthless from mismanagement, over which he could exercise no control, and peopled by a pauper and surplus tenantry, for whose creation he is in noways accountable. This is exactly the condition of those estates, and the position of those landlords, whose treatment and whose acts have been latterly so much commented on. And we will now ask those who blame others so much, candidly to tell us what they would advise to be done—what, if placed in such a situation, they would do themselves. They will, no doubt, at once say, "Remove some, give them the means of going to the colonies, and make the rest comfortable." Why, that is exactly what the landlords have been endeavouring to do, and for which they have been denounced. This is just what Lord Lorton, Colonel Windham, and others, did; and for doing which they were designated "miscreants." If the tenantry were removed, even to better their own condition, the dues of the priest, and the physical force at the command of the agitator, would be lessened—and this would never answer. "Well, then, if this mode of management be not popular, leave all on the land, build them comfortable houses, and insist on a proper mode of cultivation. In Belgium and France men live on smaller portions of land in comfort, why should they not in Ireland? Lay out money in affording them employment, pay them for [Pg 649] draining and sewering—the benefit will be ultimately yours." The answer is obvious. It would require more money than the property is worth to build good houses for all; and, if built, they would soon go to ruin from the habits of the people. If they possessed the land in fee, the occupants, from their numbers, could not exist upon it. The landlord cannot make them emulate the Belgian or the Frenchman in industry. The produce of the orchards he may plant will be stolen, and the trees broken and destroyed, to obtain the fruit. They will not exert themselves to raise many things which are sources of profit to the poor man in this and other countries; or if they did, they would have no market—they would obtain no price for them. And why? Because their own misconduct prevents the establishment of any manufactures, or the outlay of any money amongst them. Who will carry his machinery to a country where—though he may be a good master and a kind friend, though he may give occupation to hundreds and diffuse wealth among thousands—his spindles may be stopped at the beck of a priest, and his machinery left to rust at the dictate of Mr O'Connell. Independent men do not wish to lose all self-control—to sacrifice all right of private judgment; and he who dares to assert his own opinions, or to defy the behests of the "Liberator," has no business to betake himself to Ireland. As to giving employment in sewering and draining—which would benefit the estate—it is not every man who can afford to set his land at a cheap rate, and afterwards to expend his income for the immediate benefit of the occupier. But even this has been attempted. Lord Lansdowne tried to accomplish it on his Irish estate; but the steward he sent to superintend the work was noticed to quit, and driven out of the country, by the very persons for whose benefit those improvements were planned—by the very men who were to be paid for their execution. Under such circumstances as we have stated, in many instances the fear of death compels the landlord to abandon all idea of improvement. He must submit to sacrifice his rent, because those in possession can't or won't pay him; and, if he removes them, he can find no one to succeed them: and, in addition to his other consolations, he has the pleasure of seeing himself described as a monster more ruthless than any Russian despot; while some hut, the erection of which he dared not have prevented, is described, perhaps sketched and stuck in a book, as an incontrovertible proof of the miserable condition to which his rapacity and neglect have reduced his unhappy dependents.

No direct legislation can affect the social condition of Ireland; before you can hope to benefit the country, you must establish tranquillity, and inspire the peasantry with a due respect for the law, and a just estimate of the rights of private property. The question is—by what means are those things to be accomplished? You may give land at a lower price than it now brings, but you will not thereby cause any perceptible change in the habits of the people. They may be wealthier, but they will not be cleanlier. Their rents may be better paid, but the peasant will still live on the potato. The filthy cabin will exist, and the cow and the pig will feed at the same board, and occupy the same apartment as the owner, until you elevate the moral and social feelings of the man, and teach him to require as a necessary what he now looks on as a superfluous luxury.

Much of the poverty of the Irish peasantry has been attributed to the con-acre system. But if this system were not found, by the persons who practise it, to be more beneficial, and less laborious, than raising crops from their own land, it would not be persevered in. In those counties in which con-acres are scarce, the cry is, that the people are starved, because they can't have them. Where they are abundant, they are impoverished by the prices they pay for them. The Terryalt system, in the south, originated in the gentlemen farmers refusing to break up their land, and in the people assembling in mobs, digging the ground, thereby rendering it unfit for pasture, and compelling the owners to let [Pg 650] it for potatoes. It may be said, how could they avoid doing this? They had no land to raise potatoes on, and they must have them or die. This is not the case. The only persons who could be so circumstanced are the day-labourers; and to them it must, personally, be a matter of indifference what land was, or was not broken: for, by their agreements, those gentlemen and farmers who employ them, are bound to provide them with potato land; consequently they would not risk their lives to procure what was already guaranteed them. Those agrarian disturbances originated with small farmers, whose own farms were not half cultivated; or tradesmen, who would not have been so anxious to procure con-acres, if they did not find them in general a much cheaper mode of procuring their staple commodity than by having recourse to the markets. The first use a servant boy or girl makes of their earnings, is to plant con-acres, not for subsistence, but for sale. Half an acre of potatoes is generally the foundation of the fortune. The rent paid for potato ground has been enormously magnified. Mr Wiggins sets it down at £12 per acre. It may let for this price (the plantation acre) in the immediate vicinity of Dublin, Belfast, or some other large cities; where, from the contiguity of the market, the produce of a good acre will be worth from £40 to £60, according to the rate of prices. But, in the rural districts, such a price is never heard of; and it is only by the prices in those districts that the condition of the people can be affected. From £5 to £7 and £8 will be found the usual prices; and we should be glad to know what English farmer would give upwards of one acre three roods of his best land, well tilled and highly manured, at such a price, the renter only holding it for one crop, and paying no taxes whatever. The average produce per acre of good con-acre will be, at least, twenty tons of eating or marketable potatoes, independent of a large quantity fit for seed, and for the feeding of pigs; the value of those latter will greatly over-pay the expense of seed, planting, and digging. And taking the price at 1s. per 112 lbs., the renter will have £20 worth of potatoes for £8; a clear profit of £12 on the acre. It, of course, occasionally does occur, that from failure of the seed, rot, or other casualties, the crop may not be worth the rent; in this case an abatement, sufficient to satisfy him, is made to the holder, or it is left on the landlord's hands. Potatoes being a perishable crop, and a species of food which cannot be preserved beyond a season, their price fluctuates more than that of any other kind of provisions. Last year the price in this "country of famine" was 4d. for 112 lbs.; in general the prices vary from 1s. (seldom less) to 2s., and sometimes 3s., the 112 lbs.

In Ireland, good con-acres are looked on by the peasantry as a certain source of wealth; here they are considered as a main cause of their poverty. Who are the best judges—the people who use, or those who read about them? But whatever may be the merit or demerit of the con-acre system, (and we are none of its advocates,) it is unjust to charge its practice on the landlords. They have nothing whatever to do with it; it is a mode of dealing between one class of tenantry and another. The assertion in the "Cry from Ireland," that the peasant gives his manure, and pays 18s. an acre besides, is too ridiculous to require confutation.

But suppose the rents in Ireland were exorbitant, who would be to blame?—the landlords who accepted them, or the people who swore to their extraordinary moderation? Let us look to the registry courts:—[36]

At that time it was Mr O'Connell's object to attain political power, by proving the lands were set at a cheap rate; now it is his object to obtain popularity, by declaring that they are set at a rate far too dear. Which of his assertions are we to believe?

It may be said that only a few, comparatively speaking, of the landholders registered their votes; and that, from the value of the holdings of a few, it would be unfair to draw a conclusion as to the terms on which the land was held by the bulk of the people. This objection could only be urged by a person unacquainted with Ireland; for any man who attended the quarter-sessions there, must know that, if all the persons for whom the priests and liberal clubs served notice, and whose qualifications they were prepared to support, had come forward to claim and establish their rights to the franchise, the number on the register would have been quite as great as (if it did not exceed) that of the old forty-shilling freeholders. If the claims of those who did apply, and who, although rejected, were most vigorously sustained by the agitators, had been substantiated, the constituency would have been quite as numerous as the most ardent patriot could desire.

From whatever causes the wretched condition of Ireland may arise, want of tenure cannot be included amongst them; for if length of tenure secured prosperity, Ireland should have been prosperous indeed. In no country were such long leases heretofore given: from three lives and thirty-one years to three lives and sixty-one years, were the terms usually granted; and at this moment there are many leases still in existence, in all parts of the country, made towards the close of the last century, and held directly from the owners. And although the lands held under these are at a rent very much below even the present depressed value, and of course greatly under what they would have fetched in the time of the war, still we do not find their possessors generally comfortable or independent; but, on the contrary, they are in most instances in a worse condition than those tenants whose rent has varied with the times, and been influenced by the rise or fall in the value of agricultural produce. Seeing, then, that men placed in the most favourable circumstances, both as regards the moderation of their rents and the length of their tenures, are generally more wretched in the appearance of their dwellings, and more neglectful of the cultivation of their farms, than those at the mercy of landlords, represented to be the most tyrannical on earth—we must seek the cause of the degraded state of the people elsewhere than at the door of the owners of the soil. Until within the last few years, (and those are the years in which the landlords have most exerted themselves, and in which the tenantry, who would be influenced by them, have most improved,) leases of at least [Pg 652] twenty-one years, and one life, were always given, which not unfrequently prolonged the tenure to sixty or seventy years. And nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose that the refusal to grant leases, latterly practised by some Irish landlords, has been the cause of any hardship or suffering to the people. The contrary is the fact; and no men know this better than those who so loudly exclaim against the practice. It is a great mistake to imagine that leases are in no instance granted: the truth is, that they are still very generally given; and that in a great majority of those instances where they are withheld, they are so withheld, not with the intention of taking advantage of the tenant's improvements, or depriving him of his political rights, (as the English people are led to believe,) but for the purpose of compelling him to improve and to live comfortably, in spite of his own predilections. On the best managed estates in Ireland, and those where green-cropping has been most generally brought into operation, there are no leases; yet on those properties the tenantry are invariably the most independent and contented. On the estates of the Earl of Gosford, and other proprietors in the north, under the able superintendence of Mr Blacker, (whose conduct is the theme of universal approbation,) no leases are given until the tenant shows, by his industry and his exertions, that he deserves one; and then, after he has for some years cultivated his farm in a proper manner, and is taught to estimate the value of an improved system, he gets his lease as the reward of his industry, without the slightest advance in his rent. From the bad feelings implanted in the minds of the peasantry, they generally prefer living in comparative misery, and allowing their land to remain in a state of nature, whether they have leases or not, rather than make any improvements which might tend to the landlords' ultimate advantage, even though these improvements would produce immediate benefit to themselves; and this bad feeling is actually supported by the undisguised enmity, which unfortunately, of late years, subsists between the gentry and the priests. We are far from saying that acts of oppression and injustice may not sometimes be perpetrated by landlords and agents. Amongst so numerous a body, there must be bad men: and if an instance, lately mentioned by Mr O'Connell, be true—namely, that of an agent who set a farm occupied by an industrious and well-behaved tenantry, who owed no rent, to an extensive grazier, at a rent of four pounds a year less than the resident tenants offered to secure—we must at once admit that nothing could be more heartless or cruel. But then we are bound in justice to state, that the agent so accused was the bosom friend of the great agitator himself, and a leading member of the Repeal Association, which has constituted itself the protector, par excellence, of the Irish people. May we not fairly suppose that, when Mr O'Connell denounces his friends, he would not hesitate to drag his political opponents to the bar of public opinion; and that the paucity of facts which he is able to adduce against the landed gentry, is a proof that they have not neglected the duties of their station, in so flagrant a manner as his wholesale denunciations would lead us to expect?

How can we be surprised at Irish absenteeism? Can we expect that any man who can avoid it, will willingly expose the lives of himself and his family, by taking up his residence amongst the "Thugs" of Tipperary? If an absentee comes to reside personally to superintend the improvement of his property, and takes part of his own estate to make a demesne and build a mansion, he must dispossess someone—and, like Lord Norbury, he is shot. Should he escape his fate, his motives are misrepresented, and his anxious endeavours to give occupation and employment to the people, are converted into the worst crimes; because they can only be carried into effect by changing the condition of men from pauper and idle tenants to that of regularly worked and well paid labourers. And what object can he have, in risking death in the cause of those who suffer themselves to be so misdirected and misled? Local influence he can have none—that will be monopolized by the priest; political importance he [Pg 653] cannot expect, in a country where the representation is placed exclusively in the hands of the Roman Catholic bishops.[37]

Mr Waller resided, and employed the labourers in his neighbourhood; but he took a part of his own land into his own hands—he ejected tenants who were unable or unwilling to pay their rents, and he gave them compensation, and to such as remained employment. What of that? He dared to occupy his own property, and for this he suffered years of persecution. His own expenditure, and his wife's charities, were no protection; and at length, while enjoying the comforts of his home, he and the amiable and unoffending females of his family, were cruelly butchered on his own hearth: and though, in the conflict, their assailants must have been wounded and marked, they have not as yet been discovered. May we not ask why is this? How comes it that, in a Christian country, murder is tolerated, nay openly approved? that the assassin is protected and concealed, instead of being delivered up, and made amenable to the offended laws of his country?[38] Can the ministers of that religion professed by the vast majority of the people, have faithfully discharged their sacred obligations, if men be found, professing the religion of Christ and understanding its precepts, willing to enrol themselves as the hired bravoes of a "Black Sheep Society," and to butcher their neighbours for a petty reward? The Roman Catholic religion condemns murder as strongly as the Protestant religion; yet how happens it, that a whole community professing that faith winks at the crimes of the guilty? This total demoralization we look on as the worst feature of the case. There are, and always must be, bad men in every society; but how the great mass of the people could be brought to tolerate the commission of crimes amongst them, which cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance, is more than we can comprehend. Had the priests devoted that time which they spent in exciting the passions and misleading the judgment of their flocks, in the inculcation of the divine precept of brotherly love—had they exercised that influence which they undoubtedly possess in calming the passions and enlightening the minds of their people—the condition of their country would now be widely different from what it is; and surely their bishops might have been better employed in remedying the neglect of their subordinates, than in attending political meetings, and delivering postprandial orations, savouring more of the braggart boastings of a drunken drumboy, than of the deliberate opinions of a dignified ecclesiastic. In their zeal as politicians, the Roman Catholic clergy have forgotten their duties as priests; and they are now beginning to get a foretaste of the consequences: they became mob leaders at elections and popular meetings—they rode the whirlwind, "can they direct the storm?" The ruffian tasting blood in beating the electors, soon undertook business on his own account. The step from savage assault to actual murder, is but ideal. The man who encouraged, or connived at, the lesser crime, could scarcely expect to prevent the perpetration of the greater and the "boy" who commenced by applying "gentle force" to a reluctant voter, became in the fulness of his crimes the avowed assassin. The priest used him as "the bully"—he may repudiate, but he dare not denounce, him as "the murderer."

In the late debate, two publications on the state of Ireland were recommended to special attention; the one, "A Cry from Ireland," by Lord John Russell—the other, Mr Wiggins's book, by the Marquis of Normanby. The first we should scarcely have noticed, (the noble lord mentioned it with so much diffidence,) but for the impression it seems subsequently [Pg 654] to have made on the mind of Sir R. Peel; but when we found a noble ex-lord-lieutenant recommending, as trustworthy and instructive, a book written on a subject which engrosses much of the public attention, we felt it our duty at once to apply to his "fountain of knowledge."

We cannot say that we have "read with attention" the whole of this whimsical production: few there are, we believe, who could command patience enough to wade through such a mass of contradictory absurdity; but we have selected such parts as we could find at all bearing on the subject Mr Wiggins professes to write upon; and we shall transcribe some few passages, if not for the benefit, at least for the amusement, of our readers; merely premising, that this gentleman gives us no data on which to found our opinions, and no guarantee for the truth of his statements but his own assertion. First, as regards the amount of rent charged in the north and south, Mr Wiggins says—

We refer to our previous statements, founded on unquestionable authority, to show how perfectly erroneous this "view of the case" is. The direct contrary is the fact; land is set for at least one third more in the Protestant and peaceable north, than in the Roman Catholic and turbulent south. As a specimen of our author's style when he becomes jocose, and of his veracity when he describes the conduct of Irish landlords, we give a graphic sketch, representing the mode of letting land in the sister country—

£4 the acre!!! this certainly beats any thing we ever heard of before; and until now we thought it a service of danger for any man to bid for another's holding, or even to take an unoccupied one; but Mr Wiggins has made many discoveries which are new to us, and not the least extraordinary is, that "Lycurgus gave laws to the Athenians."!!!

One of the great panaceas of Lord Normanby's protégé is, that the land should be "set at full rents, on sensible leases"—which he proceeds to describe as leases for not less than twenty-one years. We have heard of many longer leases than those of twenty-one years, we never heard of any shorter being granted; and as the usual course is also to add a life—which may, and not unfrequently does, prolong the tenure to sixty or seventy years—we think that, if "sensible" leases had any effect, Ireland would have been long since contented.

Lord Normanby is reported to have stated as facts, on the authority of Mr Wiggins, "that in Ireland, where the saleable produce of a farm was £150, the share of the landlord in rent was £100; while on the other hand, in England, if the produce was £300, the share of the landlord was still £100." Mr Wiggins, in his "able work," also shows, that in the shape of county cess the charge was nearly double in Ireland what it was in England. It is difficult to form any accurate idea of the relative amount of the county cess paid in Ireland, and of the local taxes in [Pg 655] England, as in both countries they vary in each different locality. In Ireland, the exact amount of county cess levied in each barony, can be easily ascertained by reference to the respective county books; but in England, as the local taxation is in a great measure put on by vestry, it would be an arduous task to strike an average.

In Ireland, the county cess varies in every barony, according to the amount of public works executed in each, or according to the state of crime in each district. In peaceable counties, and those which do not border on the Shannon, the county cess will vary from tenpence to one shilling an acre, half-yearly; while in disturbed districts, and in those counties adjoining the Shannon, it will amount to much more. In the first, because of the large sums obliged to be levied off them, as compensation to those whose cattle were maliciously houghed, or whose houses were burned; and in the latter, because of the great boon (the grant to improve the river) bestowed on Ireland by that government of which Lord Normanby was a prominent member. In the former case, those who pay highly have only themselves to blame; if they were well conducted, and discouraged the commission of crime, as all well-disposed men ought to do, they would not have to bear those additional burdens. In the latter, the grand-juries have no control; they must assess to repay the principal of the money advanced to them, and discharge the interest. Here we may be permitted to remark, that we believe, since publicity was given to their adjudications on fiscal matters, there is quite as little jobbing in Ireland as in this country. As a proof of the disposition of the gentry to reduce the expenditure to the lowest possible amount, we will state, what every gentleman serving on grand-juries in Ireland must be cognisant of—namely, that not more than one-third of the presentments approved of by the rate-payers, are ever passed by the grand-juries; and yet road sessions, at which the principal rate-payers have power to vote, were instituted to check the extravagance of the proprietors.

The difficulty in ascertaining the proportion of the produce of the soil taken as rent by the landlords in either country, exists principally as regards the large holdings; because in England a great proportion of the farms are under tillage, while in Ireland, if not the whole, by far the greater part of all the extensive farms are under grass; and the profits of the grazier vary so much, that it is hard to form any correct estimate of the proportion of the produce taken by the landlord as rent, and that left to the tenant as interest for the money employed in the purchase of stock. But in the smaller class of holdings, we can have no difficulty in coming pretty near the truth; and as it is the grievances of the class of men by whom those small farms are held which require examination, the amount taken from them as rent, and left to then as remuneration for their labours, is what is most requisite to be ascertained. Let us, then, take a farm of twelve Irish acres, at 30s. an acre.

According to the Irish mode of cultivating, it will be cropped and stocked as follows:—

This is but a rough calculation, and an underrated one as regards the profits of the tenant; but it serves our purpose sufficiently, and shows that, instead of taking two-thirds of the produce, the landlord takes not one-fourth—much less than the amount assumed to be taken in England. But when we consider the additional imposts which the English [Pg 656] farmer has to pay in tithes, poor-rates, turnpikes, &c., we must at once perceive how very much less the Irish tenant is charged in comparison to what he is subject to. But if the farm, stocked and cropped as we have above described it, (and it is the usual mode,) were cultivated as it ought to be—if, instead of having one-half under natural pasture, it were tilled after the Scotch or English system, and one-half or two-thirds of what is now comparatively unproductive pasture, were under green crops—we need not say how much the saleable produce would be increased; and consequently, how much the tenant's profits would be augmented. Yet surely that it is not so cultivated, is not the landlord's fault. If he has given a lease, he has no control further than to exact his rent; if he supply instruction, it may not be received; if he set a good example, it may not be followed. If the tenant will not consult his own interests, the landlord is not to be held as responsible for the consequences of his neglect. The fair way to calculate in this particular would be, not to take the saleable produce at what it is, raised under a deficient system and negligent cultivation; but at what it might be, if the tenant had but industry, and would but do his duty.

In an article on the Irish fisheries, in the Quarterly Review for September last, (page 475,) we find it stated, that "the agricultural produce of Ireland was, in 1832, estimated at £36,000,000 per annum, issuing out of 14,603,473 acres of land—a return nearly one-half less than that rendered by an equal number of English acres; and this with five labourers employed in Ireland, where two only are required in England." The rental of Ireland is ascertained to be above £12,000,000; and thus we see that in fact the Irish landlord only receives the one-third of the saleable produce, raised by his slothful and negligent tenant, as rent. Let the produce be made equal to that of England, (and with common industry this might be made to exceed it,) and the share of the produce extracted as rent would only be about one-sixth. Yet Lord Normanby "burkes" this correct information, and clutches on the vague and unfounded assertions of Mr Wiggins, merely for the purpose of damaging the character of a body of men, who had already been sufficiently injured by the consequences of his misgovernment.

We shall briefly advert to a few more of the items in the catalogue of Irish tenants' grievances.

In Ireland the saleable produce consists almost generally of oats, butter, potatoes, and pigs; for which there is a ready market in every village and town. As those markets are very seldom more than four or five miles apart; and as, moreover, horse-hire and human labour are at least fifty per cent cheaper in Ireland than in England—we are at a loss to discover how "the cost of preparing, and taking to market," can be fifteen per cent more in the cheaper than in the dearer country.

Mr Wiggins makes one statement founded on truth, and we willingly give Lord Normanby the benefit of it. "In England, labour is effectual, and men skilful: in Ireland, three men are required for one in England." And we would respectfully ask his lordship who is to be blamed for this. Is it the landowner?—who, though he nominally pay less, in reality pays more wages than the Englishman for the cultivation of a given quantity of ground, and who would, if he could, for his own sake remedy the evil. Or does the blame lie at the door of Lord Normanby's own protégés, the priests and agitators?—those men who held the reins of power, and the keys of prisons, during his administration; and who, by their pestilent conduct, have raised the minds of the peasantry from their natural occupation, and taught them to hope for affluence and independence from other sources than industry and employment. Those labourers, when working on task in England or Scotland, are found to be quite equal to English or Scotch labourers: why are they not so when at home? Lord Normanby's "unquestionable authority" is so very contradictory in his assertions, that, had he not received the sanction of his lordship's [Pg 657] approbation, his own conflicting statements must have effectually destroyed his credibility, but for the encomiums passed on it. In one passage he condemns the landlords for the exorbitance of their rents; while in the next he makes it a matter of pride and gratification that he has himself, during his management, raised the rental of the property under his control at least one-third—while the adjoining estate is much more favourably circumstanced, and much more cheaply let, though by no means so prosperous.

When a nobleman, so long and so intimately connected with the country whose interests are under discussion, as Lord Normanby was with Ireland, and who, from the position which he occupied and the opportunities which he possessed, ought to be particularly well informed on the question at issue, solemnly assures us, from his place in Parliament, and in a debate which he himself has originated, that the landlord and tenant question is one on which the most profound ignorance exists in this country, and that there never was a government which had so little local knowledge as the present, and which, consequently, was so ill fitted to legislate on the subject—when he laments other men's ignorance, and glorifies himself on his own particular knowledge—when, we say, a nobleman so circumstanced as the Marquis of Normanby, does all this, and at the same time recommends a guide, by whom the ignorant may be enlightened and the blind led, we are bound to believe that he has accurately ascertained the trustworthiness of the person under whose guidance he now would place us; and that he has maturely considered, and carefully proved, the correctness of those statements on which he would found legislation, by the test of his own experience. We are bound to believe (and we do) that the noble lord is firmly convinced of the accuracy of Mr Wiggins's views and principles, because they are exactly similar to those on which, during his government, he always acted. During his rule, the cause of the mob was every thing, and the cause of the gentry was nothing. Can we, then, be surprised at the state in which we find Ireland, and the difficulty experienced in hitting off the measures requisite for the emergency—when we see "the most beloved and popular viceroy that ever administered the government," and the one "who was said, beyond all others, to be best acquainted with the wants and wishes of that country," so profoundly ignorant of its most simple statistics—simple, it is true, but still bearing most importantly on a great and momentous question?

We fear that, in his viceregal "progresses," the noble marquis was too much excited by the hearty cheers which greeted him, and too much engaged by the brilliant eyes that beamed upon him, to attend to the more ostensible and more serious duties of his office; and that he devoted the time which, if properly employed, might have enabled him to arrive at the truth, in chucking the chins and patting the heads of the pretty frail ones, to whom he addressed valedictory admonitions as he released them from those dungeons to which the over-strict laws of their country had (no doubt unjustly) consigned them.

In the observations which we shall make on the pamphlet entitled "A Cry from Ireland," we wish to be distinctly understood—we do not undertake the task of showing up its glaring and wilful falsehoods for the purpose of exculpating Mr Shee, the principal person whose conduct is arraigned in it. He is openly, and boldly assailed; and if he be either unable or unwilling to defend his character, he is unworthy of sympathy or support. We undertake this duty, from higher and more important motives than the exculpation of any individual. The conduct of the Irish gentry is assailed through Mr Shee; and we wish to show that no landlord, however ill inclined he may be, could practise such legal tyranny as is imputed to this man. The administration of justice has been impugned—we wish to show how unjustly; and this we shall be able to do, even from the statements made by this wholesale libeller himself. The conduct of the government has been vilified, because they are accused of supplying Mr Shee with a police force, under whose protection, and by whose assistance, he is said to perpetrate the most glaring felonies in the open day—we leave the defence of their participation in Mr Shee's [Pg 658] enormities to her Majesty's ministers, when they are called to account, as no doubt they will be, for allowing a force, paid for the protection of her Majesty's subjects, to be employed as the author of this pamphlet states them to be, in the following instance:—

Here we have it asserted that an undoubted and most audacious felony has been committed, and that the police force not only protected the aggressors, but actually assisted in the perpetration of the crime. Surely this is a case in which immediate punishment must have followed, if an appeal lad been made to the law. It admitted of no excuse. A man, without a shadow of right, destroys and carries of the materials of another man's house. The police force not only do not prevent, but they assist him. There is a stipendiary magistrate, but he does not interfere; a petty sessions court, but no recourse is had to it; and, strange to say, there is Daniel O'Connell, to whom every thing is known, and he is silent; the two Messrs Butler, the members for the county, and they are mute; Lord J. Russell assails the conduct of the ministry towards Ireland—here was a case more flagrant than any he brought forward; he knows it, for he recommends the book in which it is stated—he dares not bring it forward, for no doubt he enquired, and found it was untrue. To have it refuted, would not answer his purposes or those of O'Connell, his ally. He recommends the book as an authority to those who wish to see how the Irish are treated by their landlords; and, receiving his sanction, it gets into circulation, and obtaius belief for, others in addition to the many calumnies already propagated against the Irish gentry. The author tells us—

And right clumsily has he performed the duty assigned to him. Had his cunning been equal to his malignity, he would have acted with more prudence. He would not have recklessly asserted in one place what his own admissions refute in another. He would not have charged the most talented, distinguished, and impartial law-officers of the crown with having strained the law to protect a delinquent because he was a [Pg 659] Protestant—and afterwards shown that the conduct of this man was condemned by those very persons accused of partiality towards him; and that his illegal acts were punished by those very tribunals to which (he asserts) no poor man need think of applying for redress. He, however, does his best to cover those glaring inconsistencies. He breaks the thread of his narrative, and intersperses his stories in such a manner, that a casual reader, who has not time or inclination to examine or compare them, may easily be deceived and misled. For the purpose of showing the reliance to be placed on Lord John Russell's authority, we shall take up one case, (that of Patrick Ring,) and follow it out to its conclusion.

From this statement it would appear that this Mr Shee distrained illegally, that the tenant sought the protection of the law, and that he obtained damages to the amount of £12. This may appear an inconsiderable sum; but when it is considered that an officer entitled a "replevinger," resides in almost every town, that the stock or implements were not removed from the premises, and that Ring, if he exerted himself, could not be deprived of their use for a second day—we must admit it was a fair remuneration for his trouble. Well—but this Mr Shee, with the knowledge of his former misconduct, and its punishment before him, again seizes: and this time he commits a felony, as well as an illegal act; for he carries off the tenant's manure, and appropriates it to his own use, without going through any legal form whatever. The tenant obtained justice before; but now (with a still stronger case) he refuses to bring his action, which, in the quarter-sessions court, would have cost him 2s. 6d. He is quite aware of his rights, for he defended them successfully before; yet for some reason or another, studiously concealed, he now remains inactive.[40]

Is every person so silly as to believe that this Mr Shee, who was more than once successfully prosecuted for assaults and illegal acts, would not again be brought to justice for such a serious breach of the law as that of forcibly carrying off another man's property. The criminal prosecution would only have cost one shilling; and can we believe he would a third time subject himself to an action for illegal distress, with the rent-days specified in the lease well known to him?

But all the assertions of this paid maligner sink into insignificance compared with what follows. We know not which to be most amazed at—the recklessness, or the stupid ignorance of the man.

Here it is stated, in the first place, that from the summer assizes 1842, to the same period in 1843, Ring was nine times proceeded against by ejectment. Now the landlord could only proceed by ejectment in the quarter-sessions' court, or in the superior courts. The quarter-sessions' courts are held but four times in the year, namely, in January, April, July, and October. The sessions were only held three times within the period during which Ring is said to have been nine times sued by ejectment; and consequently, if Mr Shee were even inclined, it would be impossible for him to have proceeded more than three times against him in the sessions court. But if he instituted his suit in the superior courts, (if defence were taken, as clearly was the case,) he could only have proceeded twice, "for the ejectment served at November should be tried at the spring assizes, and the one served subsequently at the summer assizes;" and the production of any process from the superior courts, or the proof that such was had recourse to, would effectually bar the landlord from proceeding in the inferior courts. He could not proceed in both at the same time; and thus we see that it would be impossible for any landlord, however oppressive, to have proceeded by ejectment more than three times within the period in which this veracious compiler of grievances positively asserts Shee proceeded nine times. Next, he says, "the crop of 1842 was sold seven different times," and "altogether he had twenty auctions of sale before midsummer of 1843." Now, any proceeding by distress, pending the progress of the ejectment, would have vitiated it and upset it; for the law does not allow two different modes of proceeding for the same debt at the same time; and in no courts is such scrupulous regard paid to the rights of the tenant as in the quarter-sessions courts. But no decree can be granted in ejectment cases until a clear year's rent shall have been proved to be due; and yet we find this man, Patrick Ring, who, it is asserted, owed no arrears of rent up to 1842, and the sale of whose crops and stock paid his rent up to autumn 1842, evicted in summer 1843, when only half a year's rent could have accrued due; and this, too, by a Roman Catholic assistant barrister, (Mr O'Gorman,) a judge above any suspicion, and who, if we are to believe the statement contained in Ring's own letter, was not at all partial to his persecutor.

To show how tyrannically men may act with impunity, (if they be landlords,) he quotes the case of O'Driscoll, who struck a boy with his horsewhip; yet he is obliged to admit, that for doing so he was fined L3 by his brother magistrates, and dismissed from the commission of the peace by the lord-chancellor. To create the desired degree of prejudice against the Irish landlords, it is necessary to impugn the administration of justice; for people here would naturally enough say, when they read of such atrocities, "why don't those men so injured have recourse to the law?" Therefore it must be shown (at any risk) that the law is no impediment in the way of a tyrannical landlord. The falsehoods may not be immediately detected; and in the mean time the object may be achieved. Accordingly we find that a landlord can thus summarily dispose [Pg 662] of an obnoxious tenant. This Mr Shee was fired at: our author has his doubts—although it appears, by his own account of the trial, that slugs were lodged in his hand, and that his hat was perforated—and he adds—

We suppose we need scarcely point out the absurdity of such a statement as this. Some magistrate must have committed this man; the jailer could not receive him without a committal, nor set him at large [Pg 663] [42] without a discharge; although, from the account given, the inference may be easily drawn that, on his own will, Shee had thrown Ring into prison. If falsely imprisoned, he had his action against the magistrate who committed him. The committal, which the jailer holds for his own security, would discover the person who had acted so illegally. If any man acted as Shee is said to have done in this instance, the law is not to be blamed—for it forbids such conduct: the government officers who permitted it to be violated, are the really guilty parties. And here again we may ask—why were not the government called on to explain the conduct of their officials, by Lord John Russell, who read and recommended the book to the attention of Sir Robert Peel? But in addition to the necessity of having Ring thrown into jail, to exhibit the power of the landlords, it was necessary, for our author's purposes, that he should be put out of the way, in order to account for an apology given by the editor of a local newspaper to this Mr Shee.

The juries of the county Dublin are certainly the most independent, and least likely to be prejudiced in favour of a landlord, that can be found. They are in a great measure composed of wealthy merchants, who reside in the neighbourhood of the city; and every one knows that a judge's summons would have procured the attendance of Ring at the trial; but it was necessary to find an excuse for this abject apology.

We cannot, in the present instance, impute the conduct of this truth-telling authority to ignorance; we must attribute it to his wish to make the British public believe that all those civil bill processes were at the suit of landlords against tenants—to the desire or the necessity he felt himself under of sacrificing all principle to the objects for the accomplishment of which he was employed. He must know that nineteen-twentieths of those civil bills are actions for debts brought by shopkeepers against their customers, or by one peasant against another—for money lent, or for the price of provisions sold them: he must know (if he knows any thing) that perhaps not fifty, out of the whole 4318, are for rent; and that, where rent is at all sued for by process, it is only in cases where the landlord takes the tenant's I O U, in order to give him more time for what was long since due. The landlord can at any time distrain for his rent; what object, then, would he have in incurring expense, and encountering delay, to procure a decree, which, when obtained, would only restrict his former power? All this does he know; and yet he quotes the number of processes issued by the most litigious people on earth against each other, as a proof of the tyranny of the landlords, and as the fruitful source of poverty and crime.

We have to apologise for the length of our remarks on those two productions. The one contains, we doubt not, the sincere opinions of a well-meaning, but very silly gentleman; while the other bears upon its unprincipled statements the stamp of premeditated dishonesty. Yet it is upon authorities such as these that the Irish gentry are to be condemned, and their estates confiscated; upon authorities such as these that the interests of men, whose greatest crime is attachment to British connexion, are to be sacrificed to greedy agitators, and a ferocious and idle people. Sir Robert Peel may, perhaps, without danger, give an extension of the franchise—the corporations are all, with one solitary exception, (Belfast,) as revolutionary as they can be made; and the Roman Catholic bishops may not be able to obtain political ascendancy over any more counties than those already subject to their sway; but we would call on him to pause and consider well before he disgusts the best friends of England, by lending attention to the unfounded statements of revolutionary priests, promulgated by mercenary writers; or the legislative quackeries of a disappointed, dishonest, and despicable faction.

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.

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