The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 75, No. 461, March, 1854 by Various

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 75, No. 461, March, 1854 by Various

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 75, NO. 461, MARCH, 1854 BY VARIOUS ***

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BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCLXI.      MARCH, 1854.      VOL. LXXV.

CONTENTS.

D   ISRAELI: A BIOGRAPHY,

255

T   HE QUIET HEART.—PART IV.,

268

T   HE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE PROTECTORATE IN TURKEY,

285

T   HE TWO ARNOLDS,

303

C   OUNT SIGISMUND’S WILL,

315

N   EWS FROM THE FARM,

329

A   LEXANDER SMITH’S POEMS,

345

T   HE EPIDEMICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES,

352

T   HE SONG OF METRODORUS,

367

T   HE NEW REFORM BILL,

369

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET,

AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON;

To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCLXI.      MARCH, 1854.      VOL. LXXV.

DISRAELI: A BIOGRAPHY.[1]

Compliments are of various kinds. It is not always necessary that they should assume a laudatory form—they may be conveyed quite as powerfully through the medium of abuse. Some men there are whose eulogy is in itself a disgrace. Few would have cared to see their characters upheld in the columns of the Age or the Satirist—fewer still would like to hear a panegyric on their morals delivered from a hustings by the lips of Mr Reynolds. If we had to choose between total obscurity, and a reputation founded only upon the testimony of Mr Cobden, we should not, for one moment, hesitate to embrace the first alternative. To be designated in the polite circle of a sporting tavern as a “nobby cove,” or a “real swell,” is not, according to our ideas, a high object of ambition; and we should feel somewhat dubious of the real character of the individual whose praise was in the mouths of all the cabmen.

On the contrary, there can be no doubt that abuse proceeding from certain quarters is in itself a considerable recommendation, and may even be matter of pride to the party who is made the subject of it. The just Aristides never experienced a thrill of more agreeable complacency than when, at the request of the illiterate Athenian, he wrote his own name on the ostracising shell. We may rely upon it that Coriolanus felt far more gratified than incensed when the howling and hooting of the plebeians enabled him to deliver his stinging diatribe, and to express the intensity of his scorn. Virgil regarded the low ribaldry of Mævius as a direct acknowledgment of his literary accomplishments; and Cicero in one of his speeches expresses himself as being under obligations to a notorious blackguard, who had selected him as the object of his attacks.

Mr Disraeli, we think, lies under similar obligations, though the author of the book before us is simply an ineffable blockhead. Mean, however, as are his abilities, he has certainly contrived to strike out a literary novelty; though it may be doubted whether his example, if followed by men of average intellect, would tend to the improvement or increase the delights of society. In the pages of a review or the columns of a magazine, considerable freedom is used in discussing the merits of eminent living literary or political characters. Such criticisms or sketches are, no doubt, often tinted with party colours—are sometimes rather severe—but are rarely, if ever, scurrilous. But we do not remember any instance parallel to this, where a writer has selected for his subject an eminent living character, and has proceeded with deliberate, though most dull malignity, to rake up every particular of his life which he dared to touch upon, to gather every scrap which he either has or is supposed to have written from the years of his nonage upwards, and then to lay before the public, under the title of a biography, a ponderous volume of no fewer than 646 pages. Should this example be followed, and the practice become general, it appears to us that there will be strong necessity for revising the law of libel. We have grave doubts whether, under any circumstances, one man is entitled to take so gross a liberty with another. If each of us were to sit down and compile biographies of his living neighbours, this would be no world to live in. Either there would be an enormous increase of actions for defamation, or the cudgel, horse-whip, and pistol, would be brought into immediate requisition. Let us, however, concede that party animosity, personal antipathy, or private hatred may, either singly or collectively, be held to justify the perpetration of such an outrage—let us suppose that there is such an accumulation of black bile and venom in the interior of the unhappy human reptile that he must either give vent to it or be suffocated—he is at least bound to put his name on the title-page, so that the world may know what manner of man the deliberate accuser is. For aught we are told to the contrary, this volume may have been written by Jack Ketch or one of his subordinate assistants. Evidently it is not written by one who possesses the ordinary feelings of a gentleman, though it is possible that he may move in good society, bear a respectable name, and be regarded by veteran red-tapists as a young man of considerable promise. He is the counterpart of Randal Leslie in My Novel—cold, selfish, and malignant, without a spark of enthusiasm or a generous thought in his whole composition. Envy is the grand passion of his mind; and, in this case, hatred co-operates with envy. The object of this book is to run down Mr Disraeli on all points; to exhibit him as an impostor in politics, a quack in literature, a Maw-worm in religion, and a hypocrite in morals. We defy any one to peruse twenty pages of the work without being convinced that such was the intention of the author of Disraeli, a Biography; and yet the skulking creature has not courage enough to show himself openly. He even tries to assume a disguise so as to deceive those who might otherwise have traced him to his hole. “Conscious,” says the cockatrice, “of no motive but the public good, with little to hope or fear from any political party, strongly attached to principles, but indulgent to mere opinions, neither Whig nor Tory, but a respecter both of the sincere Conservative and the sincere Liberal, I have no dread of the partisan’s malice.” Mercy on us! who can this very mysterious person be? “No motive but the public good!”—“little to hope or fear from any political party!”—“neither Whig nor Tory!”—what sort of a politician is this? He butters Mr Gladstone, he butters Lord John Russell, he butters Lord Palmerston, he butters Mr Hume—his benevolence to every one except Mr Disraeli is quite marvellous—but more especially doth he laud and magnify the men who are now in power. “One of the humblest individuals of this great empire has thought it necessary to enter his protest against this new system of morality, which threatens to become generally prevalent!” Humility!—morality!—Brave words, Mr Randal Leslie—but it really was not worth while to add such hypocrisy to your other sins. We know you a great deal better than you suppose; and your own past history, insignificant though you are, has been too politically profligate to escape reprobation. You say you are neither Whig nor Tory, and, for once in your life, you speak the truth. But you were a Tory, and you became a Whig, and you are now a placeman; and you would hold that place of yours as readily under Mr Cobden as under Lord Aberdeen. You were once a Peelite, but you had not even the decency to wait for the fortunes of your chiefs. You lusted after office, and took the bribe the instant it was tendered by the Whigs; and in consequence you are universally looked upon and distrusted as the most venal, selfish, and unprincipled young man of your generation. It would indeed be absurd in you to entertain any “dread of the partisan’s malice.” You have placed yourself in such a position that you may defy malice of any kind. Your career, though obscure, has been so contemptible that your bitterest enemy could not make you seem worse than you were. It must, however, be allowed that you have materially added to your infamy by the present publication.

We have thought it our duty, at the outset, to make these stringent remarks, not because this writer has selected Mr Disraeli as the object of his attack, but because we altogether disapprove of, and abominate, this style of literary warfare. It is, thank heaven, as yet uncommon among us; and the best way of preventing its occurrence is to make an example of the caitiff who has introduced it. The idea, however, is not altogether original. It was engendered in Holywell Street; from which Paphian locality, as we are given to understand, various works, professing to be “Private Histories,” and “Secret Memoirs” of eminent living characters, were formerly issued; and this writer, being no doubt familiar with that sort of literature, has thought proper to extend the range of his license. We have, all of us, a decided interest in maintaining the respectability of controversy. A public career does indeed render men very amenable to criticism and comment; and it hardly can be said that there is anything unfair in contrasting public professions and public acts. A statesman, or even a less distinguished politician, must be prepared to hear his former opinions set against those which he now enunciates, and he may even consider it his duty elaborately to vindicate the change. But to compile biographies of living men—mixing up, as in this case, their mere literary effusions with their political lives, and attempting, by distortion and base inuendo, to render them contemptible in the eyes of the public—is an outrage on common decency, and must excite universal scorn and disgust.

The moral perceptions of the man who could write a book like this must, of course, be very weak; nevertheless, it is evident that even his conscience gave him an occasional twinge, by way of reminding him of the extreme dastardliness of his conduct. He could not but be aware that no honourable or chivalrous opponent of Mr Disraeli could read this tissue of malignity without experiencing a sensation of loathing; and, therefore, he has attempted, at the very outset, to vindicate himself, by representing Mr Disraeli as entitled to no quarter or courtesy, on account of his addiction to personality and satire. It may be as well to take down his own words, because we shall presently have occasion to make a few observations connected with this charge.

“I admit fully that, if any man be entirely destitute of all claim to indulgence, it is the subject of this biography. Personality is his mighty weapon, which he has used like a gladiator whose only object is, at all events, to inflict a deadly wound upon his adversary, and not like a chivalrous knight, who will at any risk obey the laws of the tournament. Mr Disraeli has been a true political Ishmael. His hand has been raised against every one. He has even run amuck, like the wild Indian.

“Who can answer a political novel? Libels the most scandalous may be insinuated, the best and wisest men may be represented as odious, the purest intentions and most devoted patriotism may be maligned, under the outline of a fictitious character. The personal satirist is truly the pest of society, and any method might be considered justifiable by which he could be hunted down. It would, therefore, seem only a kind of justice to mete out to Mr Disraeli the same measure which he has meted out to others. As he has ever used the dagger and the bowl, why, it may be asked, should not the deadly chalice be presented back to him, and enforced by the same pointed weapon? This may be unanswerable; yet I hold that no generous man would encounter an ungenerous one with his own malice.”

Why not, Randal? If what you say regarding Mr Disraeli be true, you are perfectly entitled to encounter him with his own weapons. You complain of his having written political novels, in which certain characters, whom you regard as sublime and pure, are represented in a different light. Well, then, do you write a novel of the same kind, showing up Mr Disraeli under a fictitious name, and we shall review it with all the pleasure in the world. If it is clever, sparkling, and original, you shall not want laudation. But you know very well that you could as soon swim the Hellespont as compose two readable chapters of a novel—that you have not enough of invention to devise a plot, or of imagination to shadow forth a character; and, therefore, you are pleased to assume the magnanimous, and to drivel about the dagger and the bowl. No one who reads your book will believe that you would abstain from the use of any weapon which you could wield against Mr Disraeli—(how should he, when you glide before us as a masked assassin?)—but he will be at no loss to divine the reason why you decline an encounter of wit. We are perfectly sincere when we say that your intense dulness ought in some measure to be accepted as an extenuation for your malevolence, for you have not art enough to disguise or conceal the hatred which is rankling in your breast.

But let us examine a little more narrowly into the charge preferred against Mr Disraeli. It is said that personality is his weapon, which he has used like a gladiator; and we understand the averment to be that both his political speeches and his literary works display this tendency. In considering this matter, it will be proper to separate the two characters, and look first to the politician, and afterwards to the novelist.

We shall at once admit that, in the House of Commons, Mr Disraeli is feared as an antagonist. He possesses vast power of satire, a ready wit, and has a thorough confidence and reliance in his own resources. He has besides an intense contempt for that kind of cant in which it formerly was the fashion to indulge—for the solemn airs of pompous mediocrity, and for the official jargon and conventional hypocrisies of the Treasury bench. When, in 1846, the late Sir Robert Peel abandoned the cause of that party of which he was the accredited leader, he naturally became the object of unsparing criticism and attack. But his offence was a very grave one. It fully justified the taunt of Mr Disraeli, which this writer affects to consider as remarkably offensive, that, “like the Turkish admiral who, during the war in the Levant, had steered his fleet into the port of the enemy, Sir Robert Peel had undertaken to fight for this cause, and now assumed the right of following his own judgment.” The comparison was certainly not a flattering one to the Prime Minister; but it had this recommendation that it was strictly apposite, and that no man could gainsay it. It is the height of absurdity to maintain that personality could be, or ought to have been, excluded from the discussions and debates that followed. Why, it was Sir Robert Peel himself who, by his extraordinary change of policy, made this a personal question, and brought it to a direct issue between the betrayer and the betrayed. Are we really to be told at the present day that measures alone should be discussed in the Houses of Parliament, and that all commentary on the conduct and previous career of statesmen ought to be avoided? Are we to be allowed no latitude of reference to former speeches—no allusion to former protestations? Ought tergiversation to be permitted to pass without notice or censure—ought duplicity to escape exposure? If not, we boldly ask in what respect Mr Disraeli has sinned so grievously as to merit the reproach of this Tartuffe? It may be said, indeed, that he pushed his resentment of the unparalleled betrayal too far; and we daresay, now that years have intervened, he may himself regret the occasional acrimony of his remarks. That is the natural feeling of every generous-minded man who has been compelled to take an active share in public discussion; for it is impossible to restrain at all times the excited passions, and sometimes the hour for calm retrospection does not arrive, until the occasion of the original offence has passed into matter of history. Mr Macaulay, in the preface to the collected edition of his speeches, says with reference to this very point: “I should not willingly have revived, in the quiet times in which we are so happy as to live, the memory of those fierce contentions in which so many years of my public life were passed. Many expressions which, when society was convulsed by political dissension, and when the foundations of government were shaking, were heard by an excited audience with sympathy and applause, may, now that the passions of all parties have subsided, be thought intemperate and acrimonious. It was especially painful to me to find myself under the necessity of recalling to my own recollection, and to the recollection of others, the keen encounters which took place between the late Sir Robert Peel and myself.” So it will ever be with the generous and high-spirited; but it does not follow therefrom that the attacks were not deserved. Of course such cold toads as Mr Randal Leslie cannot be expected to understand or appreciate the feeling either of indignation or of regret. Having no sympathy but for self, and possessing no clear discernment of the difference between right and wrong, between candour and duplicity—having been trained from their boyhood upwards to believe that falsehood, trickery, and deceit, are component and necessary qualities of statesmanship—they, naturally enough, stand aghast at the audacity which tore the veil from organised hypocrisies, and hate the exposer with a hatred more enduring than the love of woman. Hence this cant about personality, which they talk of as if it were a new element in political discussion. Now, the fact is, that no political discussion ever was conducted, or ever will be conducted, without personality. You cannot separate the idea from the man, the argument from him who uses it. The first orator of antiquity, Demosthenes, was personal to a degree never yet paralleled, as every one who has read his Philippics must allow. In this he was imitated by Cicero, whose stinging invectives, as witness the speeches against Catiline and Verres, have commanded the admiration of the world. Chatham’s first speech in the House of Commons was a purely personal one, no doubt provoked by his antagonist, but almost witheringly severe. Canning and Brougham dealt largely both in satire and personality—indeed, it would hardly be possible to find a speech of the latter orator free from a strong infusion of that quality which the moral Randal deplores. In our own time no great question has been discussed without personality; and for this reason, that it would be impossible to discuss it otherwise. No doubt personality may sometimes be carried greatly too far. When Lord John Russell taunted Lord George Bentinck with his former addiction to the turf, intending to convey thereby an unworthy inuendo, he committed a serious fault, because he violated gentlemanly decorum. When the late Sir Robert Peel accused Mr Cobden of a desire to have him assassinated, he was not only ultra-personal, but outrageously and unpardonably unjust. When the same statesman could find no better answer to Mr Disraeli, than a charge that the latter had at one time been willing to hold office under him, he was, besides being directly personal, guilty of a breach of confidence. We are aware it is the fashion among the present Ministry to protest against personalities. Let us ask whether it was his administrative talent or his practice in personal warfare that elevated Mr Bernal Osborne to the post of Secretary to the Admiralty? Ministers are far from objecting to a Spartacus, when they know they may reckon on his assistance—it is only when a keen weapon is flashing on the other side that they think it necessary to make an outcry. Party warfare we cannot expect to see an end of; but, in the name of common sense, let us at least eschew humbug. The House of Commons is, even now, a queer assembly, and Lord John Russell may make it worse; still, let us believe that the members collectively entertain that ordinary sense of propriety that they will not permit anything to be uttered within the walls of St Stephens, which calls for direct reprobation, without immediate challenge, and without censure, if an apology is not made for the intemperance. One of the principal duties of the Speaker is to repress and check the use of unparliamentary language. If any accusation, not falling under that restriction, is preferred, the members of the House are the judges of its propriety, and may be expected, in the aggregate, to enforce the rules which govern the conduct of gentlemen. It is, therefore, most gross impertinence in Mr Randal Leslie to challenge what Parliament has not challenged. Mr Disraeli’s present position, as the leader of the largest independent, and most influential section of the House of Commons, is the best answer to the insinuations of this contemptible little snake, who, we apprehend, will not receive, from his political superiors, the meed of gratitude which he expected for his present unfortunate attempt. It is the misfortune of your Randal Leslies, that they never can, even by blundering, stumble on the right path. Set them to defend in writing some particular line of policy, and the first six pages of their lucubrations will convince the impartial reader that they are advocating something unsound or untrue, by dint of their unnecessary affectation of candour. Set them to attack an opponent, and they fail; because they cannot descry the points upon which he is really vulnerable, and because they think indiscriminate abuse is more effective than artistic criticism, of which latter branch of accomplishment they are wholly incapable. This lad has not even the talent to malign with plausibility. He calls Mr Disraeli “a true political Ishmael.” What does the blockhead mean? Does he not know that the individual whom he denominates Ishmael, is at this moment at the head of the most powerful separate party in the British House of Commons?

In justice to the leading members of the Coalition Cabinet, we shall state our opinion, (not altogether unfortified by certain rumours which have reached us), that they were unaware of this singularly silly attempt, on the part of one of their subordinates, to attack an eminent character in opposition, until the fool launched it from the press before a disgusted public. Ill-judging Randal Leslie conceived that his work would make a grand political sensation; so, after the manner of his kind, he kept his secret to himself, and worked like a perfect galley-slave, or like a thorough scavenger, at his vocation. Whatever Mr Disraeli had said or written on politics, or any subject trenching upon politics, from the period of his first publication down to his last parliamentary speech, Randal had read and noted; and the poor knave at last concluded that he had a good case to lay before the public. And what does his political case, by his own account, amount to? Simply this: That Mr Disraeli, from his very earliest years, has detested and denounced the tenets of the Whig party; and that he has always supported the cause of the people—not in the democratic, but in the real and truthful sense of the word—against the villanies of organised oppression, and the rapacity of manufacturing domination. But these things belong rather to his literary than to his political character. Randal thought he had made a great hit in bringing them forward. He must have been very much amazed when an elder and more sagacious colleague explained to him that, instead of throwing dirt upon the object of his enmity, he had unconsciously been passing upon him a high encomium, such as any statesman might be proud of for his panegyric; and that his work, if generally read, would greatly tend to sap the faith in present political combinations. After all, how stand the facts? Ten years ago Mr Disraeli, a member of the Tory party, but not then greatly distinguished as a politician, nor possessing that influence which hereditary rank and high connection give to others, had the sagacity to discern that Sir Robert Peel was not a safe leader, and the courage to make the avowal. Randal quotes his language in 1844. “He had always acknowledged that he was a party man. It was the duty of a member of the House of Commons to be a party man. He, however, would only follow a leader who was prepared to lead.” No doubt the lips of many a Tadpole and Taper curled with derision at this audacious declaration of contempt for constituted authority, on the part of a young man, the tenor of whose speeches they could not rightly understand. He professed himself to be a Tory, but he often uttered sentiments which seemed to them strongly to savour of Radicalism. He did not scruple to avow his sympathy with the labouring classes, his desire to see them elevated and protected, and his wish for the adoption of a more genial, considerate, and paternal course of legislation. He traced the agitation for the Charter to the establishment of the supremacy of a middle-class government in the country; and boldly announced his opinion that this monarchy of the middle classes might one day shake our institutions and endanger the throne. In particular he denounced centralisation—a great and growing evil, to which he attributed much of the existing discontent. Such views were of course unintelligible to the Tadpoles and Tapers—men who considered statesmanship a science only in so far as it could insure ascendancy to their party, and places to themselves. There were then a good many veteran Tadpoles and Tapers; and Sir Robert Peel was doing his best to educate a new generation of them to supply inevitable vacancies. Naturally enough they regarded Mr Disraeli as a pure visionary; but there were others upon whom his argument and example were not lost. Young men began to consider whether, after all, they were doing their duty by blindly submitting themselves to party domination, as rigid and exacting as the most autocratic rule. They were desired, under very severe penalties for rising politicians, not to venture to think for themselves, but to do as the minister ordered. They were not to take up their time in unravelling social questions—if they wanted mental exercise, let them serve on a railway committee. There might be, and doubtless was, a cry of distress and a wailing from without—but the minister would see to that, settle everything by an increase of the police force, or perhaps a coercion bill; and the Treasury whip would give them due notice when they were expected to vote. In short, young members of Parliament were then treated exactly as if they had been children, incapable of forming an opinion; and they were told, in almost as many words, that if they did not choose to submit themselves to this dictation, the doors of the Treasury would remain closed against them for ever. The effect of this insolence—for we can give it no other name—was that a considerable portion of the young aristocracy rebelled. They would not submit to such preposterous tyranny, and they cared not a rush for any of the Ministerial threats. They saw that, in the country, there was distress—that discontent and disaffection were very rife—and that, in the very heart of England, a large body of the working population were absolutely in a state of bondage. They could not find it in their hearts to greet, with exultation, the announcement of increased exports, whilst every year the condition of the producers seemed to be becoming worse. Looking to the state, they saw two great parties under autocratic chiefs, bidding against each other for popularity—that is, power—and for office to their respective staffs, without any real regard for the interest or improvement of the masses. That was not a spectacle likely to find favour in the eyes of a young, ardent, and generous-minded man; and accordingly from that time we may date the formation of another party, still on the increase, and rapidly augmenting, which, rejecting what was bad in the old Toryism, but maintaining its better principle—resolute to preserve the constitution, but cordially sympathising with the people—is preparing to encounter, and will encounter with success, the cold-blooded democracy of Manchester, which would destroy everything that is venerable, noble, or dear to England, and establish on the ruins a serfdom of Labour, with Capital as the inexorable tyrant. We do not say that Mr Disraeli is to be regarded as the founder of that party. Young men professing conservative opinions were beginning about that time to think independently for themselves, and to doubt the authenticity and soundness of tradition. The young Whigs, who were kept in much better order by their seniors, stuck by their old political breviary; but the young Tories would not. They were ready, if occasion required, to maintain to the death the Monarchy, the House of Peers, and the Church; but they could not, for the lives of them, understand that it was not their duty to investigate, and if possible improve, the condition of the working-classes. On the contrary, they regarded that as a distinct moral duty, in which they were resolved to persevere, notwithstanding the advice of their own political Gallios, or the example of their opponents who were always ready, when the people asked for relief, to tender them a stone. Mr Disraeli, however, has this credit, that he was the first, in the House of Commons, to free himself from a debasing domination, and to assert his absolute independence of the minister in thought and deed. Of course he was never forgiven by the autocrat, nor will he be forgiven by the men who still swear by their idol. But he went on undauntedly, never fearing to say his thought; and barely two years had elapsed before the great bulk of the Tory party—the Tapers and Tadpoles excepted—had acknowledged the justness of his estimate as to the trustworthiness of their former chief, and ranged themselves in opposition to the late Sir Robert Peel.

It is not our intention to pronounce a panegyric upon Mr Disraeli. We see no occasion for doing so, and we doubt if he would care to hear one. But we confess that the impudence of this young whipper-snapper has somewhat roused our bile. He reminds us of a wretched curtailed messan whom we once saw introduced into a drawing-room. The creature, which, in mercy to the future canine breed, ought to have been drowned in the days of its puppydom, went sniffing about at the furniture, thrusting its odious nose everywhere, and at last committed sacrilege by lifting its leg against a magnificent china jar. Of course Nemesis was speedy. We had the satisfaction of kicking the cur from the upper landing to the lobby, by a single pedal application; and, beyond the hint gathered from a dolorous howl, have no cognizance of its after fate. Mr Disraeli’s present position in the House of Commons is the best possible answer to “one of the humblest”—for which, read, meanest—“individuals of this great empire.”

Randal, however, does not confine himself to a review of Mr Disraeli’s political career. He must needs—though of all men the most unfitted for the task, for he has no more notion of literature than a Hottentot—attempt to criticise him as an author. Here he evidently thinks that he can make out a strong case; and accordingly he goes over, seriatim, the whole of the publications to which Mr Disraeli has set his name, and one or two others which were not so authenticated. At first sight it is not easy to understand why he should have given himself so much trouble. Mr Disraeli’s earliest novel, Vivian Grey, was written when the author was about the age of two-and-twenty, and, no doubt, to the critical eye, it has many faults. But so have the early productions of every master—not only in language, but in painting and all other branches of art,—yet we forgive them all for the unmistakable traces of real genius which are displayed. That early novel of Mr Disraeli, though produced so far back as 1826, has never been forgotten. It took its place at once as a decided work of genius; and, as such, continued to be read before the author became a political character or celebrity. And so it was, even in larger measure, with his next work, Contarini Fleming. Now, it is of some importance to ask, why these books were popular? They certainly could not recommend themselves to the old, as elaborate compositions, for they showed a lack of worldly experience, and sometimes bordered on extravagance. But they recommended themselves to the young, because they were brimful of a youthful spirit; because they expressed, better perhaps than ever had been done before, the daring, recklessness, and utter exuberance of youth; and because even older men recognised in them the distinct image of passions which they had once entertained, but from which they were divorced for ever. Poor pitiful Randal, who even in his boyhood does not seem to have experienced a single generous impulse, thinks that in these juvenile pictures he can identify the future politician. He says, “It is impossible, in perusing the book, not to connect Mr Disraeli with Contarini Fleming;” and he then goes on gravely to argue that many of the positions in the romance are objectionable. Because Mr Disraeli makes his leading character talk extravagantly when in love—as what boy under such circumstances does not talk extravagantly?—we are asked to believe that the author is habitually addicted to fustian! Because Contarini Fleming is represented at the head of a band of reckless collegians, who, inspired by the “Robbers” of Schiller, betake themselves to the woods, Randal politely insinuates that Mr Disraeli was intended by nature for a bandit! He might just as well tell us that Miss Jane Porter was intended for a Scottish chief! Such absolute trash as this is really below contempt; nor would we have noticed it at all except to show the animus of this singularly paltry critic. We shall make no further allusion to his commentary on the early novels, beyond remarking, that he crawls over every page of Venetia and Henrietta Temple, in the hope to leave upon them traces of his ugly slime.

It is, however, against the political novels that Mr Randal Leslie chooses principally to inveigh. That he regards them as heterodox in doctrine is not to be wondered at—that he cannot discriminate between the sportive and the real is the result of his own narrow powers of comprehension. But his chief cry, as we have remarked before, is against personality, and he thus favours us with his ideas: “All men must execrate the midnight stabber. And a midnight stabber is a man who, in a work of fiction, endeavours to make a fictitious character stand for a real one, and attributes to it any vices he pleases. Nothing can be more unfair; nothing can be more reprehensible. Against such a system of attack even the virtues of a Socrates are no protection,” &c. We see no occasion for dragging Socrates into the discussion. Those twin sons of Sophroniscus, Tadpole and Taper, are quite sufficient for our purpose in discussing this point of literary personality. We are therefore given to understand by Mr Leslie, that it is utterly unjustifiable to display, in a work of fiction, any character corresponding to a real one. That, certainly, is a broad enough proposition. According to this view, Virgil was a midnight stabber, because it is notorious that the characters in the Eneid were intended to represent eminent personages of Rome; and all of them were not flatteringly portrayed—as, for instance, Drances, who stands for Cicero. Spenser was a midnight stabber, in respect of Duessa, intended for Mary Queen of Scots. Shakespeare was a midnight stabber, in respect of Justice Shallow, the eidolon of Sir Thomas Lucy. Dryden was an irreclaimable bravo; witness his Absalom and Achitophel. We are afraid that even Pope must wear the badge of the poniard. Very few of our deceased, and scarce one of our living novelists, can escape the charge of satire and personality. If a man is writing about things of the present day, he must, perforce, take his characters from the men who move around him, else he will produce no true picture. Both Dickens and Thackeray draw from life, and their sketches are easily recognisable. There are certain characters in Mr Warren’s Ten Thousand A-Year, which we apprehend nobody can mistake. In depicting, for example, the House of Commons, would it be correct to paint that assembly, not as it is, but as what it might be, if a total change were made in its members? If a literary man has occasion, in a work of fiction, to sketch the Treasury Bench, must he necessarily leave out the principal figures which give interest to that Elysian locality? But is it really true that Mr Disraeli has been so excessively licentious in his personality? Tadpoles he has drawn, no doubt, and Tapers; but there are at least two dozen gentlemen who have equal right to appropriate those designations to themselves. He has given us two perfect types of a narrow-minded class, but the class itself is numerous. The originals of Coningsby and Millbank, if there were any such, are not likely to complain of their treatment; and positively the only objectionable instance of personality which we can remember as occurring in Mr Disraeli’s political novels, is the character of Rigby. It is quite possible that Mr Disraeli might, if he chose, give a satisfactory explanation of this departure from decorum; for we are not of the number of those who profess, like Mr Randal Leslie, to think that it is unlawful to retaliate with the same weapon which has been used in assault. But the truth is, we care very little about the matter. Let us grant that this one character of Rigby is objectionable—does that justify this outrageous howl about perpetual personalities? Where are the personalities in Sybil and Tancred? We may be very dull, but we really cannot find them; and yet we have perused both works more than once with great pleasure. Who are the leading political characters whom Mr Disraeli is said to have sketched for the purpose of misrepresenting their motives? Has he given us in his novels a sketch of Wellington, of Peel, of Brougham, of Lord John Russell, of Sir James Graham, of O’Connell, of Cobden, or of Hume? We never heard that alleged; and yet we are told that his novels are full of outrageous political libels! Why, if he had intended to be politically personal, he could not by possibility have avoided introducing some of these men, under feigned names, seeing that they have all played a conspicuous part in the great drama of public life. He might, we think, have introduced them, had he so pleased, without any breach of propriety; but it is enough, in dealing with Mr Randal Leslie, to remark that he has not done so, and consequently the whole elaborate structure of hypocrisy falls to the ground.

It may be said that it was not worth our while to waste powder and shot upon a jackdaw; nor, in all probability, should we have done so, were this the sole chatterer of his species. But the splendid abilities and political success of Mr Disraeli have created for him a host of enemies, who seem determined, at all hazards, to run him down, and whose attacks are not only malignant, but unintermitting. Some of these may be regarded simply as the ebullitions of envy—the mutterings of discontent against success. The feeling which prompts such attacks is anything but commendable; but we are inclined to draw a distinction between that class of writers, and another, whose enmity to Mr Disraeli may be traced to more personal motives. The former may, perhaps, have no absolute dislike to the man whom they are endeavouring to decry. They assail him because he has risen so much and so swiftly above their social level; and if he were to experience a reverse, their feeling towards him would probably change. Theirs is just the sentiment of vulgar radicalism—that which stimulates demagogues to attack the Church and the aristocracy. Men of the literary profession are very liable to such influences, more especially when one of their number passes into another sphere of distinction. So long as Mr Disraeli confined himself to literary pursuits, he might be regarded and dealt with as one of themselves: it was his political career, and his accession to office as a Cabinet Minister, which made the gap between him and the literary multitude. It is much to be regretted, for the sake of literature itself, that any such demonstrations of jealousy should be exhibited, but we fear there is no remedy for it. Other times, besides our own, furnish us with examples in abundance of this kind of unworthy detraction, which, however, may not be tinged with absolute personal malice.

The author of this volume has nothing in common with the writers to whom we have just alluded. In the first place, he has no pretensions whatever to be considered as a literary man. His style is bald and bad; he is wholly unpractised in criticism; and he commits the egregious blunder of dealing in indiscriminate abuse. Notwithstanding all our admiration for Mr Disraeli, we are bound to admit that some of his novels afford ample scope for criticism; and that a witty and competent reviewer could easily, and with perfect fairness, write an amusing article on the subject. More than one excellent imitation of Mr Disraeli’s peculiar style has appeared in the periodicals; and we have no doubt that even the author of Coningsby enjoyed a hearty laugh over the facetious parodies of Punch. There is no kind of malice in the preparation or issuing of squibs like these. We should all of us become a great deal too dull and solemn without them; and they contribute to the public amusement without giving annoyance to any one. But Randal Leslie is such an absolute bungler that he is not contented with selecting the weak points in Mr Disraeli’s works, but tries to depreciate those very excellencies and beauties which have elevated him in the eyes of the public. He cannot bear to think that Mr Disraeli should have credit for having written even a single interesting chapter, and therefore he keeps battering at the fabric of his fame, like a billy-goat butting at a wall. Had Mr Randal Leslie possessed a little more real knowledge of the world, or had his conceit been but one degree less than it is, he would have paused before entering the literary and critical arena. He can talk glibly enough about gladiators—was he not aware that a certain degree of training is required, before a literary man becomes used to the practice of his art? Apparently not; for anything so utterly contemptible, in the shape of criticism, it never was our fortune to peruse. We conclude, therefore, that whatever may have been the nature of the other “private griefs” which stimulated this wretched onslaught on Mr Disraeli, literary jealousy was not among the number. The frog may wish to emulate the dimensions of the ox; but not even Esop has ventured to represent it as emulous of the caroling of the lark.

We have no hesitation in stating our belief, that a certain party in the State, to whom Mr Disraeli is peculiarly obnoxious, has addressed itself deliberately to the task, through its organs, of running him down. The Whigs, of course, regard him with no favour, for he has always been their determined opponent; but we have no reason whatever to suppose that their hostility would be carried so far as to induce them to join in so very unworthy a conspiracy. But to the Peelites he has given mortal umbrage. They cannot forget that he was the man who first challenged the despotic authority of their chief in the House of Commons, and set an example of independence in thought and action to others of the Tory party. They cannot forget the conflicts in which he was personally engaged with their leader; and they cannot forgive him for the havoc which he made in the ranks of the pseudo-Conservatives. If he and others had chosen to stifle their convictions, to lay aside all considerations of honour and consistency, to submit to mysterious but imperative dictation, and to become the passive tools of an autocratic minister, the Conservatives might still have been in power, and the red-tapists in possession of their offices. Not one of the latter class but feels himself personally injured. The Tapers and Tadpoles had been so long accustomed to the advent of quarter-day, that they regarded their places almost in the light of patrimonial possessions; and bitter indeed was their hatred of the man who had assisted to eject them from their Goshen. Besides this, their vanity, of which they were not without a large share, was sorely wounded by the manner in which they were exhibited to the public view, and more so by the intense relish with which the sketches were received. Mr Disraeli never made so happy a hit as in his portraiture of these small, bustling, self-sufficient, and narrow-minded officials, with their ridiculous notions about party watchwords, political combinations, backstairs influence, and so forth; nor was there ever a more terse or felicitous description of the then existing Government, than that which he has put into the mouth of Taper:—“A sound Conservative government—I understand: Tory men and Whig measures.” These things belong to the past. They are, however, intelligible reasons for the rancour which the remnants of the Peel party, even when allied with the Whigs in power, exhibit towards Mr Disraeli; and nothing since has occurred to mitigate the acerbity of that feeling. But there are weighty considerations applicable to the future. The Aberdeen Cabinet is composed of such heterogeneous materials that it cannot be expected to hold long together. Even now there is dissension within it; and, but for the expectation of an immediate and inveterate war, which renders the idea of a change of government distasteful to every one, men would consider it as doomed. In fact, the alliance has never been other than a hollow one, and there is no real cordiality or confidence among the chiefs. The Whigs are already looking in the direction of the Radicals; the Peelites would very gladly gain the confidence of the country gentlemen. They believe it not impossible even yet, by making certain sacrifices and concessions, to reconstruct the Conservative party; but Mr Disraeli is the obstacle, and their hatred of him is even greater than their love of office. They would, in 1852, have opened a negotiation, provided he had been excluded; and they entertain the same views in 1854. It is evident that Lord Aberdeen cannot long remain as Premier. He is anything but personally popular; he is now well advanced in years; and his conduct in the Eastern question has not raised him in the estimation of the country. But then, failing him, who is to be the leader of the Peelites in the House of Lords? Not certainly the Duke of Newcastle, who has neither temper nor ability for that duty; and they have no one else to put forward. Gladly would they serve under Lord Derby; but the same Cabinet cannot hold Mr Disraeli and Mr Gladstone.

Let them do their worst. It is not by publications of this kind, or unscrupulous newspaper invectives, that they will accomplish their object. Even the critic who has taken this book as a text for his commentary in the Times, is constrained to acknowledge that the author has sate down “to accumulate upon the head of his living victim all the dislike, malevolence, and disgust he can get together in 650 octavo pages.” We must say that it never was our lot to peruse a more extraordinary article than that which we now refer to. The critic does not even think it necessary to affect that he cares for public morality. He dislikes the Protectionists, whose general ability he doubts, as much as he abhors their tenets; and he thinks that Mr Disraeli ought to have left their camp in 1848, immediately after the death of Lord George Bentinck. We confess that we were at first a good deal startled at this proposition, inasmuch as the course of conduct which is here indicated would have laid Mr Disraeli open to such charges of perfidy as no honourable man could endure; but, on looking a little further, we began to see the drift of these observations. There are two detachments of mischief-makers at work—the object of the one being to disgust the Tory party with Mr Disraeli; that of the other being to disgust Mr Disraeli with his party. We think it right, out of sheer regard for ethics, to quote a sentence or two from the critical article in the Times:—

“For weeks,” says the critic, referring to the position of Mr Disraeli in 1848, “did he suffer mortification, insult, and ingratitude from the Protectionist party, with Lord Derby at its head; such as must have roused a nobler soul to self-respect, and stung it with a consciousness of intolerable wrong. What if, at that period of consummate baseness and unblushing insolence, Mr Disraeli had stood apart from the conspirators, and taken an independent place in the arena which he had already made his own! Does he believe that the good-will of his countrymen would have been wanting to him at that trying hour, and that the sympathies of Whig and Tory would not have sustained him in the crisis? He will never recover the consequences of the fault then committed. He stooped low as the ground to conquer, and he failed. He might have vanquished nobly, and held his head erect. By consenting to act with men who did not hesitate to let him feel how much they despised him, he has, indeed, tasted the sweets of office, and for a season held the reins of power. But where is he now? Where might he have been, had he proudly taken his seat in 1848, aloof from the false allies who had no belief in his earnestness, no satisfaction in his company, and who hurled their contempt in his teeth?”

It requires more than one perusal before the full meaning of this passage can be comprehended. The critic first informs us, with a most suspicious degree of circumstantiality as to details, that, after the death of Lord George Bentinck, there was some indisposition to intrust the leadership of the Protectionist party in the House of Commons to Mr Disraeli, and then argues that he ought to have left them at once and for ever! Beautiful, indeed, are the notions of morality and honour which are here inculcated!

But how comes the writer in the Times to be so intimately acquainted with the secret councils of the Protectionist party, whom in the aggregate he sneers at, terms “conspirators,” and accuses of “consummate baseness and unblushing insolence?” What does he know, more than other determined supporters of Sir Robert Peel, of what was passing in the opposite camp? He tells us, speaking of 1845, that “in England the injustice of the Corn Laws is felt at every hearth. Sir Robert Peel seizes the opportunity to repair some of the errors of his former life, and to establish his name for ever in the grateful recollection of his countrymen.” The man who wrote these words never could have had any trafficking with the Protectionists; he must have abhorred them throughout; and yet the curious thing is, that he knows, or pretends to know, a great deal more about them than an enemy could possibly have done. For example, he says, in reference to the alleged unwillingness, on the part of the Protectionists, to be led by Mr Disraeli, that “almost in as many words Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, condescended to convey the intelligence to the gifted subaltern, and to inform him that, notwithstanding the transcendent services he had rendered, he had not respectability enough for the place of honour he had earned.” This is either false or true. If false, it is the most unblushing fiction we ever remember to have met with; if true, we should like very much to know how the writer came by his information.

Not less remarkable is the intimate knowledge which the critic affects of Mr Disraeli’s private character. That he dislikes him is very evident. He describes him as “Genius without Conscience;” says “he has not a bad heart—he has no heart at all;” that he “will stand before posterity as the great political infidel of his age, as one who believed in nothing but himself;” and a great deal to the same purpose. He denounces him as inconsistent; and yet, in the same breath, blames him for not having abandoned his party on the impulse of a sudden pique. If Iago were alive and a critic, we should expect from him just such an article as that which appeared in the Times.

We end as we began. In this wicked and envious little world of ours, no man of any note can hope to escape without abuse, which may be formidable or not, according to the quarter from which it comes, and the motives which called it forth. If more than the share commonly set apart for public men has fallen upon Mr Disraeli, he may comfort himself with the reflection that there is but one feeling on the part of the public with regard to the conduct of his assailants; and we are greatly mistaken if, by this time, the author of the Literary and Political Biography does not wish, in his secret heart, that he had never addressed himself to his dirty task. As for other attacks, he is certainly liable to these, both as a party leader and as an ex-minister. No one knows better than Mr Disraeli that enmities may sometimes arise from peculiar causes. Of this, indeed, he has given us, in one of his earlier fictions, a very apt illustration, when he makes Ixion say: “I remember we had a confounded poet at Larissa, who proved my family lived before the Deluge, and asked me for a pension. I refused him, and then he wrote an epigram asserting that I sprang from the veritable stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha at the repeopling of the earth, and retained all the properties of my ancestors!”

THE QUIET HEART.

PART IV.—CHAPTER XVIII.

“Eh, Menie, are you sure yon’s London?”

So asked little July Home standing under the shadow of the elm-trees, and looking out upon the sea of city smoke, with great St Paul’s looming through its dimness. July did not quite understand how she could be said to be near London, so long as she stood upon the green sod, and saw above her the kindly sky. “There’s no very mony houses hereaway,” said the innocent July; “there’s mair in Dumfries, Menie—and this is just a fine green park, and here’s trees—are you sure yon’s London?”

“Yes, it’s London.” Very differently they looked at it;—the one with the marvelling eyes of a child, ready to believe all wonders of that mysterious place, supreme among the nations, which was rather a superb individual personage from among the Arabian genii than a collection of human streets and houses, full of the usual weaknesses of humankind; the other with the dreamy gaze of a woman, pondering in her heart over the scene of her fate.

“And Randall’s yonder, and Johnnie Lithgow?” said July. “I would just like to ken where; Menie, you’ve been down yonder in the town—where will Johnnie and our Randall be? Mrs Wellwood down in Kirklands bade me ask Randall if he knew a cousin of hers, Peter Scott, that lives in London; but nobody could ken a’ the folk, Menie, in such a muckle town.”

“My dear Miss July, muckle is an ugly word,” said Miss Annie Laurie, “and you must observe how nicely your brother and his friend speak—quite marvellous for self-educated young men—and even Menie here is very well. You must not say muckle, my love.”

“It was because I meant to say very big,” said July with a great blush, holding down her head and speaking in a whisper. July had thrown many a wandering glance already at Miss Annie, speculating whether to call her the old lady or the young lady, and listening with reverential curiosity to all she said; for July thought “She—the lady,” was very kind to call her my dear and my love so soon, and to kiss her when she went away wearied, on her first evening at Heathbank, to rest; though July could never be sure about Miss Annie, and marvelled much that Menie Laurie should dare to call any one in such ringlets and such gowns, aunt.

“You will soon learn better, my dear little girl,” said the gracious Miss Annie, “and you must just be content to continue a little girl while you are here, and take a lesson now and then, you know; and above all, my darling, you must take care not to fall in love with this young man whom you speak of so familiarly. He must not be Johnnie any more, but only Mr Lithgow, your brother’s friend and ours—for I cannot have both my young ladies falling in love.”

“Me!” July’s light little frame trembled all over, her soft hair fell down upon her neck. “It never will stay up,” murmured July, with eager deprecation, as Miss Annie’s eye fell upon the silky uncurled locks; but it was only shamefacedness and embarrassment which made July notice the descent of her hair—for July was trembling with a little thrill of fear and wonder and curiosity. Was it possible, then, that little July had come to sufficient years to be capable of falling in love?—and, in spite of herself, July thought again upon Johnnie Lithgow, and marvelled innocently, though with a blush, whether he “minded” her as she minded him.

But July could not understand the strange abstraction which had fallen upon her friend—the dreamy eye, the vacant look, the long intervals of silence. Menie Laurie of Burnside had known nothing of all this new-come gravity, and July’s wistful look had already begun to follow those wandering eyes of hers—to follow them away through the daylight, and into the dark, wondering—wondering—what it was that Menie sought to see.

Jenny is busied in the remote regions of the kitchen at this present moment, delivering a lecture, very sharp, and marked with some excitement, to Miss Annie Laurie’s kitchen maid, who is by no means an ornamental person, and for that and many other reasons is a perpetual grief to Miss Annie’s heart—so Jenny is happily spared the provocation of beholding the new visitor who has entered the portals of Heathbank. For a portentous shawl, heavy as a thundercloud, a gown lurid as the lightning escaping from under its shade, and a new bonnet grim with gentility, are making their way round the little lawn, concealing from expectant eyes the slight person and small well-formed head, with its short matted crop of curls, which distinguish Johnnie Lithgow. Johnnie, good fellow, does not think his sister the most suitable visitor in the world to the Laurie household; but Johnnie would not, for more wealth than he can reckon, put slight upon his sister even in idea—so Miss Annie Laurie’s Maria announces Miss Panton at the door of Miss Annie Laurie’s drawing-room, and Nelly, where she failed to come as a servant, is introduced as a guest.

“Thank’ye, mem,” said Nelly. “I like London very weel so far as I’ve seen it—but it’s a muckle place, I dinna doubt, no to be lookit through in a day—and I’m aye fleyed to lose mysel in thae weary streets; but you see I didna come here ance errand to see the town, but rather came with an object, mem—and now I’m to bide on to take care of Johnnie. My mother down-by at hame has had mony thochts about him being left his lane, with naebody but himself to care about in a strange place—and it’s sure to be a comfort to her me stopping with Johnnie, for she kens I’m a weel-meaning person, whatever folk do to me; and I would be real thankful if ye could recommend me to a shop for good linen, for I have a’ his shirts to mend. To be sure, he has plenty of siller—but he’s turning the maist extravagant lad I ever saw.”

“Good soul! and you have come to do all those kind things for him,” said Miss Annie Laurie: “it is so delightful to me to find these fine homely natural feelings in operation—so primitive and unsophisticated. I can’t tell you what pleasure I have in watching the natural action of a kind heart.”

“I am much obliged to ye, mem,” said Nelly, wavering on her seat with a half intention of rising to acknowledge with a curtsey this complimentary declaration. “I was aye kent for a weel-meaning lass, though I have my faults—but I’m sure Johnnie ought to ken how weel he can depend on me.”

July Home was standing by the window—standing very timid and demure, pretending to look out, but in reality lost in conjectures concerning Johnnie Lithgow, whose image had never left her mind since Miss Annie took the pains to advise her not to think of him. July, innocent heart, would never have thought of him had this warning been withheld; but the fascination and thrill of conscious danger filled July’s mind with one continual recollection of his presence, though she did not dare to turn round frankly and own herself his old acquaintance. With a slight tremble in her little figure, July stands by the window, and July’s silky hair already begins to droop out of the braid in which she had confined it with so much care. A silk gown—the first and only one of its race belonging to July—has been put on in honour of this, her first day at Heathbank; and July, to tell the truth, is somewhat fluttered on account of it, and is a little afraid of herself and the unaccustomed splendour of her dress.

Menie Laurie, a good way apart, sits on a stool at her mother’s feet, looking round upon all those faces—from July’s innocent tremble of shy pleasure, to Johnnie Lithgow’s wellpleased recognition of his childish friend. There is something touching in the contrast when you turn to Menie Laurie, looking up, with all these new-awakened thoughts in her eyes, into her mother’s face. For dutiful and loving as Menie has always been, you can tell by a glance that she never clung before as she clings now—that never in her most trustful childish times was she so humble in her helplessness as her tender woman’s love is to-day. Deprecating, anxious, full of so many wistful beseeching ways—do you think the mother does not know why it is that Menie’s silent devotion thus pleads and kneels and clings to her very feet?

And there is a shadow on Mrs Laurie’s brow—a certain something glittering under Mrs Laurie’s eyelid. No, she needs no interpreter—and the mother hears Menie’s prayer, “Will you like him—will you try to like him?” sounding in her heart, and resolves that she will indeed try to like him for Menie’s sake.

“Mr Home, of course, will come to see us to-night,” said the sprightly Miss Annie. “My dear Mrs Laurie, how can I sufficiently thank you for bringing such a delightful circle of young people to Heathbank? It quite renews my heart again. You can’t think how soon one gets worn out and weary in this commonplace London world: but so fresh—so full of young spirits and life—I assure you, Mr Lithgow, yourself, and your friend, and my sweet girls here, are quite like a spring to me.”

Johnnie, bowing a response, gradually drew near the window. You will begin to think there is something very simply pretty and graceful in this little figure standing here within shadow of the curtain, the evening sun just missing it as it steals timidly into the shade. And this brown hair, so silky soft, has slidden down at last upon July’s shoulder, and the breath comes something fast on July’s small full nether lip, and a little changeful flush of colour hovers about, coming and going upon July’s face. Listen—for now a sweet little timid voice, fragrant with the low-spoken Border-speech, softened out of all its harshness, steals upon Johnnie Lithgow’s ear. He knows what the words are, for he draws very near to listen—but we, a little farther off, hear nothing but the voice—a very unassured, shy, girlish voice; and July casts a furtive look around her, to see if it is not possible to get Menie Laurie to whisper her answer to; but when she does trust the air with these few words of hers, July feels less afraid.

Johnnie Lithgow!—no doubt it is the same Johnnie Lithgow who carried her through the wood, half a mile about, to see the sunset from the Resting Stane—but whether this can be the Mr Lithgow who is very clever and a great writer, July is puzzled to know. For he begins to ask so kindly about the old homely Kirkland people—he “minds” every nook and corner so well, and has such a joyous recollection of all the Hogmanays and Hallowe’ens—the boyish pranks and frolics, the boyish friends. July, simple and perplexed, thinks within herself that Randall never did so, and doubts whether Johnnie Lithgow can be clever, after all.

CHAPTER XIX.

“And July, little girl—you are glad to see Menie Laurie again?”

But July makes a long pause—July is always timid of speaking to her brother.

“Menie is not Menie now,” said July thoughtfully. “She never looks like what she used to look at Burnside.”

“What has changed her?” At last Randall began to look interested.

Another long pause, and then July startled him with a burst of tears. “She never looks like what she used to look at Burnside,” repeated Menie’s little friend, with timid sobs, “but aye thinks, thinks, and has trouble in her face night and day.”

The brother and sister were in the room alone. Randall turned round with impatience. “What a foolish little creature you are, July. Menie does not cry like you for every little matter; Menie has nothing to trouble her.”

“It’s no me, Randall,” said little July, meekly. “If I cry, I just canna help it, and it’s nae matter; but, oh, I wish you would speak to Menie—for something’s vexing her.”

“I am sure you will excuse me for leaving you so long,” said the sprightly voice of Miss Annie Laurie, entering the room. “What! crying, July darling? Have we not used her well, Mr Home?—but my poor friend Mrs Laurie has just got a very unpleasant letter, and I have been sitting with her to comfort her.”

Randall made no reply, unless the smile of indifference which came to his lips, the careless turning away of his head, might be supposed to answer; for Randall did not think it necessary to pretend any interest in Mrs Laurie.

But just then he caught a momentary glimpse of some one stealing across the farthest corner of the lawn, behind a group of shrubs. Randall could not mistake the figure; and it seemed to pause there, where it was completely hidden, except to the keen eye which had watched it thither, and still saw a flutter of drapery through the leaves.

“Mem, if you please, Miss Menie’s out,” said Jenny, entering suddenly, “and the mistress sent me with word that she wasna very weel hersel, and would keep up the stair if you’ve nae objections. As I said, ‘I trow no, you would have nae objections’—no to say there’s company in the house to be a divert—and the mistress is far frae weel.”

“But, Jenny, you must tell my darling Menie to come in,” said Miss Annie. “I cannot want her, you know; and I am sure she cannot know who is here, or she would never bid you say she was out. Tell her I want her, Jenny.”

“Mem, I have told you,” said Jenny, somewhat fiercely, “if she was ane given to leasing-making she would have to get another lass to gang her errands than Jenny, and I canna tell whatfor Miss Menie should heed, or do aught but her ain pleasure, for ony company that’s here ’enow. I’m no fit mysel, an auld lass like me, to gang away after Miss Menie’s licht fit; but she’s out-by, puir bairn—and it’s little onybody kens Jenny that would blame me wi’ a lee.”

She had reached the door before Randall could prevail with himself to follow her; but at last he did hurry after Jenny, making a hasty apology as he went. Randall had by no means paid to Jenny the respect to which she held herself entitled: her quick sense had either heard his step behind, or surmised that he would follow her; and Jenny, in a violent fuff, strongly suppressing herself, but quivering all over with the effort it cost her, turned sharp round upon him, and came to a dead pause facing him, as he closed the door.

“Where is Miss Menie Laurie? I wish to see her,” said Randall. Randall did not choose to be familiar even now.

“Miss Menie Laurie takes her ain will commonly,” said Jenny, making a satirical curtsey. “She’s been used wi’t this lang while; and she hasna done what Jenny bade her this mony a weary day. Atweel, if she had, some things wouldna have been to undo that are—and mony an hour’s wark and hour’s peace the haill house micht ha’e gotten, if she had aye had the sense to advise with the like of me; but she’s young, and she takes her ain gate. Poor thing! she’ll have to do somebody else’s will soon enough if there’s nae deliverance; whatfor should I grudge her her ain the noo?”

“What do you mean? I want to see Menie,” exclaimed Randall, with considerable haste and eagerness. “Do you mean to say she does not want to see me? I have never been avoided before. What does she mean?”

“Ay, my lad, that’s right,” said Jenny; “think of yoursel just, like a man, afore ye gie a kindly thought to her, and her in trouble. It’s like you a’; it’s like the haill race and lineage of ye, father and son. No that I’m meaning ony ill to auld Crofthill; but nae doubt he’s a man like the lave.”

Randall lifted his hand impatiently, waving her away.

“I wouldna wonder!” cried Jenny. “I wouldna wonder—no me. She’s owre mony about that like her, has she?—it’ll be my turn to gang my ways, and no trouble the maister. You would like to get her, now she’s in her flower; you would like to take her up and carry her away, and put her in a cage, like a puir bit singing-burdie, to be a pleasure to you. What are you courting my bairn for? It’s a’ for your ain delight and pleasure, because ye canna help but be glad at the sight of her, a darling as she is; because ye would like to get her to yoursel, like a piece of land; because she would be something to you to be maister and lord of, to make ye the mair esteemed in ither folks’ een, and happier for yoursel. Man, I’ve carried her miles o’ gate in thae very arms of mine. I’ve watched her grow year to year, till there’s no ane like her in a’ the countryside. Is’t for mysel?—she canna be Jenny’s wife—she canna be Jenny’s ain born bairn? But Jenny would put down her neck under the darling’s foot, if it was to give her pleasure—and here’s a strange lad comes that would set away me.”

But Jenny’s vehemence was touched with such depth of higher feeling as to exalt it entirely out of the region of the “fuff.” With a hasty and trembling hand she dashed away some tears out of her eyes. “I’m no to make a fule of mysel afore him,” muttered Jenny, drawing a hard breath through her dilated nostrils.

Randall, with some passion, and much scorn in his face, had drawn back a little to listen. Now he took up his hat hurriedly.

“If you are done, you will let me pass, perhaps,” he said angrily. “This is absurd, you know—let me pass. I warn you I will not quarrel with Menie for all the old women in the world.”

“If it’s me, you’re welcome to ca’ me names,” said Jenny, fiercely. “I daur ye to say a word of the mistress—on your peril. Miss Menie pleases to be her lane. I tell you Miss Menie’s out-by; and I would like to ken what call ony mortal has to disturb the poor lassie in her distress, when she wants to keep it to hersel. He doesna hear me—he’s gane the very way she gaed,” said Jenny, softening, as he burst past her out of sight. “I’ll no say I think ony waur of him for that; but waes me, waes me—what’s to come out o’t a’, but dismay and distress to my puir bairn?”

Distress and dismay—it is not hard to see them both in Menie Laurie’s face, so pale and full of thought, as she leans upon the wall here among the wet leaves, looking out. Yes, she is looking out, fixedly and long, but not upon the misty far-away London, not upon the pleasant slope of green, the retired and quiet houses, the whispering neighbour trees. Something has brought the dreamy distant future, the unknown country, bright and far away—brought it close upon her, laid it at her feet. Her own living breath this moment stirs the atmosphere of this still unaccomplished world; her foot is stayed upon its threshold. No more vague fears—no more mere clouds upon the joyous firmament—but close before her, dark and tangible, the crisis and decision—the turning-point of heart and hope. Before her wistful eyes lie two clear paths, winding before her into the evening sky. Two; but the spectre of a third comes in upon her—a life distraught and barren of all comfort—a fate irrevocable, not to be changed or softened; and Menie’s heart is deadly sick in her poor breast, and faints for fear. Alas for Menie Laurie’s quiet heart!

She was sad yesterday. Yesterday she saw a cloudy sword, suspended in the skies, wavering and threatening above her unguarded head; to-day she looks no longer at this imaginative menace. From another unfeared quarter there has fallen a real blow.

CHAPTER XX.

With the heat and flush of excitement upon his face, Randall Home made his way across the glistening lawn, and through the wet shrubs—for there had been rain—to that corner of the garden where he had seen Menie disappear. Impatiently his foot rung upon the gravel path, and crushed the fallen branches: something of an angry glow was in his eye, and heated and passionate was the colour on his cheek.

“You are here, Menie!” he exclaimed. “I think you might have had sufficient respect for me, to do what you could to prevent this last passage of arms.”

“Respect!” Menie looked at him with doubtful apprehension. She thought the distress of her mind must have dulled and blunted her nerves; and repeated the word vacantly, scarcely knowing what it meant.

“I said respect. Is it so presumptuous an idea?” said Randall, with his cold sarcastic smile.

But Menie made no answer. Drawing back with a timid frightened motion, which did not belong to her natural character, she stood so very pale, and chill, and tearful, that you could have found nowhere a more complete and emphatic contrast than she made to her betrothed. The one so full of strength and vigour, stout independence and glowing resentment—the other with all her life gone out of her, as it seemed, quenched and subdued in her tears.

“You have avoided me in the house—you will not speak to me now,” said Randall. “Menie, Menie, what does this mean?”

For Menie had not been able to conceal from him that she was weeping.

“It is no matter, Randall,” said Menie; “it is no matter.”

Randall grew more and more excited. “What is the matter? Have you ceased to trust me, Menie? What do you mean?”

“I mean nothing to make you angry—I never did,” said Menie, sadly. “I’m not very old yet, but I never grieved anybody, of my own will, all my days. Ill never came long ago; or, if it came, nobody ever blamed it on me. I wish you would not mind me,” she said, looking up suddenly. “I came out here, because my mind was not fit to speak to anybody—because I wanted to complain to myself where nobody should hear of my unthankfulness. I would not have said a word to anybody—not a word. There was no harm in thinking within my own heart.”

“There is harm in hiding your thoughts from me,” said Randall. “Come, Menie, you are not to cheat me of my rights. I was angry—forgive me; but I am not angry now. Menie, my poor sorrowful girl, what ails you? Has something happened? Menie, you must tell me.”

“It is just you I must not tell,” said Menie, under her breath. Then she wavered a moment, as if the wind swayed her light figure, and held her in hesitating uncertainty; and then, with a sudden effort, she stood firm, apart from the wall she had been leaning on, and apart, too, from Randall’s extended arm.

“Yes, I will tell you,” said Menie, seriously. “You mind what happened a year ago, Randall; you mind what we did and what we said then—‘For ever and for ever.’”

Randall took her hand tenderly into his own, “for ever and for ever.” It was the words of their troth-plight.

“I will keep it in my heart,” said poor Menie. “I will never change in that, but keep it night and day in my heart. Randall, we are far apart already. I have a little world you do not choose to share: you are entering a greater world, where I can never have any place. God speed you, and God go with you, Randall Home. You will be a great man: you will prosper and increase; and what would you do with poor Southland Menie, who cannot help you in your race? Randall, we will be good friends: we will part now, and say farewell.”

Abrupt as her speech was Menie’s manner of speaking. She had to hurry over these disjointed words, lest her sobs should overtake and choke her utterance ere they were done.

Randall shook his head with displeased impatience. “This is mere folly, Menie. What does it mean? Cannot you tell me simply and frankly what is the matter, without such a preface as this? But indeed I know very well what it means. It means that I am to yield something—to undertake something—to reconcile myself to some necessity or other, distasteful to me. But why commence so tragically?—the threat should come at the end, not at the beginning.”

“I make no threat,” said Menie, growing colder and colder, more and more upright and rigid; “I mean to say nothing that can make you angry. Already I have been very unhappy. I dare not venture, with our changed fortunes, to make a lifelong trial—I dare not.”

“Your changed fortunes!” interrupted Randall. “Are your fortunes to-day different from what they were yesterday?”

Menie paused. “It is only a very poor pride which would conceal it from you,” she said at length. “Yes, they are different. Yesterday we had enough for all we needed—to-day we have not anything. You will see how entirely our circumstances are changed; and I hope you will see too, Randall, without giving either of us the pain of mentioning them, all the reasons which make it prudent for us, without prolonging the conflict longer, to say good-by. Good-by; I can ask nothing of you but to forget me, Randall.”

And Menie held out her hand, but could not lift her eyes. Her voice had sunk very low, and a slight shiver of extreme self-constraint passed over her—her head drooped lower and lower on her breast—her fingers played vacantly with the glistening leaves; and when he did not take it, her hand gradually dropped and fell by her side.

There was a moment’s silence—no answer—no response—no remonstrance. Perhaps, after all, the poor perverse heart had hoped to be overwhelmed with love which would take no denial: as it was, standing before him motionless, a great faintness came upon Menie. She could vaguely see the path at her feet, the trees on either hand. “I had better go, then,” she said, very low and softly; and the light had faded suddenly upon Menie’s sight into a strange ringing twilight, full of floating motes and darkness—and those few paces across the lawn filled all her mind like a life journey, so full of difficulty they seemed, so weak was she.

Go quickly, Menie—quickly, ere those growing shadows darken into a blind unguided night—swiftly, ere these faltering feet grow powerless, and refuse to obey the imperative eager will. To reach home—to reach home—home, such a one as it is, lies only half a dozen steps away; press forward, Menie—are those years or hours that pass in the journey? But the hiding-place and shelter is almost gained.

When suddenly this hand which he would not take is grasped in his vigorous hold—suddenly this violent tremble makes Menie feel how he supports her, and how she leans on him. “I am going home,” said Menie, faintly. Still he made no answer, but held her strongly, wilfully; not resisting, but unaware of her efforts to escape.

“I have wherewith to work for you, Menie,” said the man’s voice in her ear. “What are your changed fortunes to me? If you were a princess, I would receive you less joyfully, for you would have less need of me. Menie, Menie, why have you tried yourself so sorely—and why should this be a cause of separating us? I wanted only you.”

And Menie’s pride had failed her. She hid her face in her hands, and cried, “My mother, my mother!” in a passion of tears.

“Your mother, your mother? But you have a duty to me,” said Randall, more coldly. “Your mother must not bid you give me up: you have no right to obey. Ah! I see; I am dull and stupid; forgive me, Menie. You mean that your mother’s fortunes are changed. She has the more need of a son then; and my May Marion knows well, that to be her mother is enough for me—you understand me, Menie. This does not change our attachment, does not change our plans, our prospects in the slightest degree. It may make it more imperative that your mother should live with us, but you will think that no misfortune. Well, are we to have no more heroics now—nothing tragical—but only a little good sense and patience on all sides, and my Menie what she always is? Come, look up and tell me.”

“I meant nothing heroic—nothing. What I said was not false, Randall,” said Menie, looking up with some fire. “If you think it was unreal, that I did not mean it—”

“If you do not mean it now, is not that enough?” said Randall, smiling. “Let us talk of something less weighty. July says you do not look as you used to do; has this been weighing on your mind, Menie? But, indeed, you have not told me what the misfortune is.”

“We knew it only to-day,” said Menie. Menie spoke very low, and was very much saddened and humbled, quite unable to make any defence against Randall’s lordly manner of setting her emotion aside. “My father’s successors were young men, and the price they paid for entering on his practice was my mother’s annuity. But now they are both gone; one died two years ago, the other only last week—and he has died very poor, and in debt, the lawyer writes; so that there is neither hope nor chance of having anything from those he leaves behind. So we have no longer an income; nothing now but my mother’s liferent in Burnside.”

Menie Laurie did not know what poverty was. It was not any apprehension of this which drew from her eyes those few large tears.

“Well, that will be enough for your mother,” said Randall. It was impossible for Menie to say a word or make an objection, so completely had he put her aside, and taken it for granted that his will should decide all. “Or if it was not enough, what then? Provision for the future lies with me—and you need not fear for me, Menie. I am not quarrelsome. You need not look so deprecating and frightened: you will find no disappointment in me.”

Was Menie reassured? It was not easy to tell; for very new to Menie Laurie was this trembling humility of tone and look—this faltering and wavering—as if she knew not to which side to turn. But Randall began to speak, as he knew how, of her own self, and of their betrothing, “for ever and for ever;” and the time these words were said came back upon her with new power. Her mind was not satisfied, her heart was not convinced, and very trembling and insecure now was her secret response to Randall’s declaration that she should find no disappointment in him; but her heart was young, and all unwilling to give up its blithe existence. Instinctively she fled from her own pain, and accepted the returning hope and pleasantness. Bright pictures rose before Menie, of a future household harmonious and full of peace—of the new love growing greater, fuller, day by day—the old love sacred and strong, as when it stood alone. Why did she fear? why did a lurking terror in her heart cry No, no! with a sob and pang? After all, this was no vain impracticable hope; many a one had realised it—it was right and true for ever under the skies; and Menie put her hand upon the arm of her betrothed, and closed her eyes for a moment with a softening sense of relief and comfort, and gentle tears under the lids. Let him lead forward; who can tell the precious stores of love, and tenderness, and supreme regard that wait him as his guerdon? Let him lead forward—on to those bright visionary days—in to this peaceful home.

CHAPTER XXI.

Perhaps next to the pleasure of doing all for those we love best, the joy of receiving all ranks highest. With her heart elate, Menie went in again to the house she had left so sadly—went in again, looking up to Randall, rejoicing in the thought that from him every daily gift—all that lay in the future—should henceforth come. And if it were well to be Menie’s mother—chief over one child’s heart which could but love—how much greater joy to be Randall’s mother, high in the reverent thought of such a mind as his! Now there remained but one difficulty—to bring the mother and the son lovingly together—to let no misconception, no false understanding blind the one’s sight of the other—to clear away all evil judgment of the past—to show each how worthy of esteem and high appreciation the other was. She thought so in her own simple soul, poor heart! Through her own great affection she looked at both—to either of them she would have yielded without a murmur her own little prides and resentments; and the light of her eyes suffused them with a circle of mingling radiance; and sweet was the fellowship and kindness, pure the love and good offices, harmonious and noble the life of home and every day, which blossomed out of Menie Laurie’s heart and fancy, in the reaction of her hopeless grief.

Mrs Laurie sits very thoughtful and still by the window. Menie’s mother, in her undisturbed and quiet life, had never found out before how proud she was. Now she feels it in her nervous shrinking from speech of her misfortune—in the involuntary haughtiness with which she starts and recoils from sympathy. Without a word of comment or lamentation, the mere bare facts, and nothing more, she has communicated to Miss Annie; and Mrs Laurie had much difficulty in restraining outward evidence of the burst of indignant impatience with which, in her heart, she received Miss Annie’s effusive pity and real kindness. Miss Annie, thinking it best not to trouble her kinswoman in the present mood of her mind, has very discreetly carried her pity to some one who will receive it better, and waits till “poor dear Mrs Laurie” shall recover her composure; while even July, repelled by the absorbed look, and indeed by an abrupt short answer, too, withdraws, and hangs about the other end of the room, like a little shadow, ever and anon gliding across the window with her noiseless step, and her stream of falling hair.

Mrs Laurie’s face is full of thought—what is she to do? But, harder far than that, what is Menie to do?—Menie, who vows never to leave her—who will not permit her to meet the chill fellowship of poverty alone. A little earthen-floored Dumfriesshire cottage, with its kailyard and its one apartment, is not a very pleasant anticipation to Mrs Laurie herself, who has lived the most part of her life, and had her share of the gifts of fortune; but what will it be to Menie, whose life has to be made yet, and whose noontide and prime must all be influenced by such a cloud upon her dawning day? The mother’s brow is knitted with heavy thought—the mother’s heart is pondering with strong anxiety. Herself must suffer largely from this change of fortune, but she cannot see herself for Menie—Menie: what is Menie to do?

Will it be better to see her married to Randall Home, and then to go away solitary to the cothouse in Kirklands, to spend out this weary life—these lingering days? But Mrs Laurie’s heart swells at the thought. Perhaps it will be best; perhaps it is what we must make up our mind to, and even urge upon her; but alas and alas! how heavily the words, the very thought, rings in to Mrs Laurie’s heart.

And now here they are coming, their youth upon them like a mantle and a crown—coming, but not with downcast looks; not despondent, nor afraid, nor touched at all with the heaviness which bows down the mother’s spirit to the very dust. Menie will go, then. Close your eyes, mother, from the light; try to think you are glad; try to rejoice that she will be content to part from you. It is “for her good”—is there anything you would not do “for her good,” mother? It has come to the decision now; and look how she comes with her hand upon his arm, her eyes turning to his, her heart elate. She will be his wife, then—his Menie first, and not her mother’s; but have we not schooled our mind to be content?

Yes, she is coming, poor heart! coming with her new hope glorious in her eyes; coming to bring the son to his mother; coming herself with such a great embracing love as is indeed enough of its own might and strength to unite them for ever; and Menie thinks that now she cannot fail.

And now they are seated all of them about the window, July venturing forward to join the party; and as nothing better can be done, there commences an indifferent conversation, as far removed as possible from the real subject of their thoughts. There sits Mrs Laurie, sick with her heavy musings, believing that she now stands alone, that her dearest child has made up her mind to forsake her, and that in solitude and meagre poverty she will have to wait for slow-coming age and death. Here is Randall, looking for once out of himself, with a real will and anxiety to soften, by every means in his power, the misfortunes of Menie’s mother, and rousing himself withal to the joy of carrying Menie home—to the sterner necessity of doing a man’s work to provide for her, and for the new household; and all the wonder you can summon—no small portion in those days—flutters about the same subject, little July Home; and you think in your heart if you but could, what marvellous things you would do for Menie Laurie, and Menie Laurie’s mother; while Menie herself, with a wistful new-grown habit of observation, reads everybody’s face, and knows not whether to be most afraid of the obstinate gloom upon her mother’s brow, or exultant in the delicate attention, the sudden respectfulness and regard, of Randall’s bearing. But this little company, all so earnestly engrossed—all surrounding a matter of the vitallest importance to each—turn aside to talk of Miss Annie Laurie’s toys—Miss Annie Laurie’s party—and only when they divide and separate dare speak of what lies at their heart.

And Mrs Laurie is something hard to be conciliated. Mrs Laurie is much inclined to resent this softening of manner as half an insult to her change of fortune. Patience, Menie! though your mother rebuffs him, he bears it nobly. The cloud will not lighten upon her brow—cannot lighten—for you do not know how heavily this wistful look of yours, this very anxiety to please her—and all your transparent wiles and artifices—your suppressed and trembling hope, strikes upon your mother’s heart. “She will go away—she will leave me.” Your mother says so, Menie, within herself; and it is so hard, so very hard, to persuade the unwilling content with that sad argument, “It is for her good.” Now, draw your breath softly lest she hear how your heart beats, for Randall has asked her to go to the garden with him, to speak of this; and Mrs Laurie rises with a sort of desolate stateliness—rises—accepts his offered arm, and turns away—poor Menie! with an averted face, and without a glance at you.

And now there follows a heavy time—a little space of curious restless suspense. Wandering from window to window, from table to table; striking a few notes on the ever-open piano; opening a book now, taking up a piece of work then, Menie strays about, in an excitement of anxiety which she can neither suppress nor conceal. Will they be friends? such friends—such loving friends as they might be, being as they are in Menie’s regard so noble and generous both? Will they join heartily and cordially? will they clasp hands upon a kindly bargain? But Menie shrinks, and closes her eyes—she dares not look upon the alternative.

“Menie, will you not sit down?” Little July Home follows Menie with her eyes almost as wistfully as Menie follows Randall and her mother. There is no answer, for Menie is so fully occupied that the little timid voice fails to break through the trance of intense abstraction in which her heart is separated from this present scene. “Menie!” Speak louder, little girl: Menie cannot hear you, for other voices speaking in her heart.

So July steals across the room with her noiseless step, and has her arm twined through Menie’s before she is aware. “Come and sit down—what are they speaking about, Menie? Do you no hear me? Oh, Menie, is it our Randall?—is it his blame?”

July is so near crying that she must be answered. “Nobody is to blame; there is no harm,” said Menie, quickly, leading her back to her seat—quickly with an imperative hush and haste, which throws July back into timid silence, and sets all her faculties astir to listen, too. But there comes no sound into this quiet room—not even the footsteps which have passed out of hearing upon the garden path, nor so much as an echo of the voices which Menie knows to be engaged in converse which must decide her fate. But this restless and visible solicitude will not do; it is best to take up her work resolutely, and sit down with her intent face turned towards the window, from which at least the first glance of them may be seen as they return.

No,—no need to start and blush and tremble; this step, ringing light upon the path, is not the stately step of Randall—not our mother’s sober tread. “It’s no them, Menie—it’s just Miss Laurie,” whispers little startled July from the corner of the window. So long away—so long away—and Menie cannot tell whether it is a good or evil omen—but still they do not come.

“My sweet children, are you here alone?” said Miss Annie, setting down her little basket. “Menie, love, I have just surprised your mamma and Mr Randall, looking very wise, I assure you; you ought to be quite thankful that you are too young to share such deliberations. July, dear, you must come and have your lesson; but I cannot teach you to play that favourite tune; oh no, it would be quite improper—though he has very good taste, has he not, darling? But somebody will say I have designs upon Mr Lithgow, if I always play his favourite tune.”

So saying, Miss Annie sat down before the piano, and began to sing, “For bonnie Annie Laurie I’ll lay down my head and dee.” Poor Johnnie Lithgow had no idea, when he praised the pretty little graceful melody and delicate verses, that he was paying a compliment to the lady of Heathbank.

And July, with a blush, and a little timid eagerness, stole away to Miss Annie’s side. July had never before touched any instrument except Menie Laurie’s old piano at Burnside, and with a good deal of awe had submitted to Miss Annie’s lessons. It did seem a very delightful prospect to be able to play this favourite tune, though July would have thought very little of it, but for Miss Annie’s constant warnings. Thanks to these, however, and thanks to his own kindly half-shy regards, Johnnie Lithgow’s favourite tunes, favourite books, favourite things and places, began to grow of great interest to little July Home. She thought it was very foolish to remember them all, and blushed in secret when Johnnie Lithgow’s name came into her mind as an authority; but nevertheless, in spite of shame and blushing, a great authority Johnnie Lithgow had grown, and July stood by the piano, eager and afraid, longing very much to be as accomplished as Miss Annie, to be able to play his favourite tune.

While Menie Laurie still sits by the window, intent and silent, hearing nothing of song or music, but only aware of a hum of inarticulate voices, which her heart longs and strains to understand, but cannot hear.

CHAPTER XXII.

The music is over, the lesson concluded, and July sits timidly before the piano, striking faint notes with one finger, and marvelling greatly how it is possible to extract anything like an intelligible strain from this waste of unknown chords. Miss Annie is about in the room once more, giving dainty touches to its somewhat defective arrangement—throwing down a book here, and there altering an ornament. Patience, Menie Laurie! many another one before you has sat in resolute outward calm, with a heart all a-throb and trembling, even as yours is. Patience; though it is hard to bear the rustling of Miss Annie’s dress—the faint discords of July’s music. It must have been one time or another, this most momentous interview—all will be over when it is over. Patience, we must wait.

But it is a strange piece of provocation on Miss Annie’s part, that she should choose this time and no other for looking over that little heap of Menie’s drawings upon the table. Menie is not ambitious as an artist—few ideas or romances are in these little works of hers; they are only some faces—not very well executed—the faces of those two or three people whom Menie calls her own.

“Come and show them to me, my love.” Menie must not disobey, though her first impulse is to spring out of the low opened window, and rush away somewhere out of reach of all interruption till this long suspense is done. But Menie does not rush away; she only rises slowly—comes to Miss Annie’s side—feels the pressure of Miss Annie’s embracing arm round her—and turns over the drawings; strangely aware of every line in them, yet all the while in a maze of abstraction, listening for their return.

Here is Menie’s mother—and here again another, and yet another, sketch of her; and this is Randall Home.

“Do you know, I think they are very like,” said Miss Annie: “you must do my portrait, Menie, darling—you must indeed. I shall take no denial; you shall do me in my white muslin, among my flowers; and we will put Mr Home’s sweet book on the table, and open it at that scene—that scene, you know, I pointed out to you the other day. I know what inspired him when he wrote that. Come, my love, it will divert you from thinking of this trouble—your mamma should not have told you—shall we begin now? But Menie, dear, don’t you think you have put a strange look in this face of Mr Randall? It is like him—but I would not choose you to do me with such an expression as that.”

Half wild with her suspense, Menie by this time scarcely heard the words that rang into her ears, scarcely saw the face she looked upon; but suddenly, as Miss Annie spoke, a new light seemed to burst upon this picture, and there before her, looking into her eyes, with the smile of cold supervision which she always feared to see, with the incipient curl of contempt upon his lip—the pride of self-estimation in his eye—was Randall’s face, glowing with contradiction to all her sudden hopes. Her own work, and she has never had any will to look at him in this aspect; but the little picture blazes out upon her like a sudden enlightenment. Here is another one, done by the loving hand of memory a year ago; but, alas! there is no enchantment to bring back this ideal glory, this glow of genial love and life that makes it bright—a face of the imagination, taking all its wealth of expression from the heart which suffused these well-remembered features with a radiance of its own; but the reality looks out on Menie darkly; the face of a man not to be moved by womanish influences—not to be changed by a burst of strong emotion—not to be softened, mellowed, won, by any tenderness—a heart that can love, indeed, but never can forget itself; a mind sufficient for its own rule, a soul which knows no generous abandon, which holds its own will and manner firm and strong above all other earthly things. This is the face which looks on Menie Laurie out of her own picture, startling her heart, half distraught with fond hopes and dreams into the chill daylight again—full awake.

“I will make portraits,” said Menie, hastily, in a flood of sudden bitterness, “when we go away, when we go home—I can do it—this shall be my trade.”

And Menie closed the little portfolio abruptly, and went back to her seat without another word; went back with the blood tingling through her veins, with all her pride and all her strength astir; with a vague impetuous excitement about her—an impulse of defiance. So long—so long: what keeps them abroad lingering among these glistening trees?—perhaps because they are afraid to tell her that her fate is sealed; and, starting to her feet, the thought is strong on Menie to go forth and meet them, to bid them have no fear for her, to tell them her delusion is gone for ever, and that there is no more light remaining under the skies.

Hush! there are footsteps on the path. Who are these that come together, leaning, the elder on the younger, the mother on the son! With such a grace this lofty head stoops to our mother; with such a kindly glance she lifts her eyes to him; and they are busy still with the consultation which has occupied so long a time. While she stands arrested, looking at them as they draw near—growing aware of their full amity and union—a shiver of great emotion comes upon Menie—then, or ever she is conscious, a burst of tears. In another moment all her sudden enlightenment is gone, quenched out of her eyes, out of her heart—and Menie puts the tears away with a faltering hand, and stands still to meet them in a quiet tremor of joy, the same loving Menie as of old.

“My bairn!” Mrs Laurie says nothing more as she draws her daughter close to her, and puts her lips softly to Menie’s brow. It is the seal of the new bond. The mother and the son have been brought together; the past is gone for ever like a dream of the night; and into the blessed daylight, full of the peaceful rays God sends us out of heaven, we open our eyes as to another life. Peace and sweet harmony to Menie Laurie’s heart!

Put away the picture; lay it by where no one again shall believe its slander true; put away this false-reporting face; put away the strange clear-sightedness which came upon us like a curse. No need to inquire how much was false—it is past, and we begin anew.

CHAPTER XXIII.

“Yes, Menie, I am quite satisfied.” It is Mrs Laurie herself who volunteers this declaration, while Menie, on the little stool at her feet, looks up wistfully, eager to hear, but not venturing to ask what her conversation with Randall was. “We said a great many things, my dear—a great deal about you, Menie, and something about our circumstances too. The rent of Burnside will be a sufficient income for me. I took it kind of Randall to say so, for it shows that he knew I would not be dependent; and as for you, Menie, I fancy you will be very well and comfortable, according to what he says. So you will have to prepare, my dear—to prepare for your new life.”

Menie hid her face in her mother’s lap. Prepare—not the bridal garments, the household supplies—something more momentous, and of greater delicacy—the mind and the heart; and if this must always be something solemn and important, whatever the circumstances, how much more so to Menie, whose path had been crossed already by such a spectre? She sat there, her eyes covered with her hands, her head bowing down upon her mother’s knee; but the heavy doubt had flown from her, leaving nothing but lighter cloudy shadows—maidenly fears and tremblings—in her way. Few hearts were more honest than Menie’s, few more wistfully desirous of doing well; and now it is with no serious anticipations of evil, but only with the natural thrill and tremor, the natural excitement of so great an epoch drawing close at hand, that Menie’s fingers close with a startled pressure on her mother’s hand, as she is bidden prepare.

What is this that has befallen little July Home? There never were such throngs of unaccountable blushes, such a suffusion of simple surprise. Something is on her lips perpetually, which she does not venture to speak—some rare piece of intelligence, which July cannot but marvel at herself in silent wonder, and which she trembles to think Menie and “a’body else” will marvel at still more. Withdrawing silently into dark corners, sitting there doing nothing, in long fits of reverie, quite unusual with July; coming forward so conscious and guilty, when called upon; and now, at this earliest opportunity, throwing her arms round Menie Laurie’s neck, and hiding her little flushed and agitated face upon Menie’s shoulder. What has befallen July Home?

“Do you think it’s a’ true, Menie? He wouldna say what he didna mean; but I think it’s for our Randall’s sake—it canna be for me!”

For July has not the faintest idea, as she lets this soft silken hair of hers fall down on her cheek without an effort to restrain it, that Johnnie Lithgow would not barter one smile upon that trembling child’s lip of hers for all the Randalls in the world.

“He says he’ll go to the Hill, and tell them a’ at hame,” said July. “Eh, Menie, what will they say? And he’s to tell Randall first of all. I wish I was away, no to see Randall, Menie; he’ll just laugh, and think it’s no true—for I see mysel it canna be for me!”

“It is for you, July; you must not think anything else; there is nobody in the world like you to Johnnie Lithgow.” And slowly July’s head is raised—a bright shy look of wonder gradually growing into conviction, a sudden waking of higher thought and deeper feeling in the open simple face; a sudden flush of crimson—the woman’s blush—and July withdrew herself from her friend’s embrace, and stole a little apart into the shadow, and wept a few tears. Was it true? For her, and not for another! But it is a long time before this grand discovery can look a truth and real, to July’s humble eyes.

But, nevertheless, it is very true. Randall’s little sister, Menie’s child-friend, the little July of Crofthill, has suddenly been startled into womanhood by this unexpected voice. After a severer fashion than has ever confined it before, July hastily fastens up her silky hair, hastily wipes off all traces of the tears upon her cheek, and is composed and calm, after a sweet shy manner of composure, lifting up her little gentle head with a newborn pride, eager to bring no discredit on her wooer’s choice. And already July objects to be laughed at, and feels a slight offence when she is treated as a child—not for herself, but for him, whom now she does not quite care to have called Johnnie Lithgow, but is covetous of respect and honour for, as she never was for Randall, though secretly in her own heart July still doubts of his genius, and cannot choose but think Randall must be cleverer than his less assuming friend.

And in this singular little company, where all these feelings are astir, it is hardly possible to preserve equanimity of manners. Miss Annie herself, the lady of the house, sits at her little work-table, in great delight, running over now and then in little outbursts of enthusiasm, discoursing of Mr Home’s sweet book, of Mr Lithgow’s charming articles, and occasionally making a demonstration of joy and sympathy in the happiness of her darling girls, which throws Menie—Menie, always conscious of Randall’s eye upon her, the eye of a lover, it is true, but something critical withal—into grave and painful embarrassment, and covers July’s stooping face with blushes. Mrs Laurie, busy with her work, does what she can to keep the conversation “sensible,” but with no great success. The younger portion of the company are too completely occupied, all of them, to think of ordinary intercourse. Miss Annie’s room was never so bright, never so rich with youthful hopes and interests before. Look at them, so full of individual character, unconscious as they are of any observation—though Nelly Panton, very grim in the stiff coat armour of her new assumed gentility, sits at the table sternly upright, watching them all askance, with vigilant unloving eye.

Lithgow, good fellow, sits by Miss Annie. Though he laughs now and then, he still does not scorn the natural goodness, the natural tenderness of heart, which make their appearance under these habitual affectations—the juvenile tricks and levities of her unreverent age. Poor Miss Annie Laurie has been content to resign the reverence, in a vain attempt at equality; but Lithgow, who is no critic by nature, remembers gratefully her true kindness, and smiles only as little as possible at the fictitious youthfulness which Miss Annie herself has come to believe in. So he sits and bears with her, her little follies and weaknesses, and, in his unconscious humility, is magnanimous, and does honour to his manhood. Within reach of his kindly eye, July bends her head over her work, glancing up now and then furtively to see who is looking at him—to see, in the second place, who is noticing or laughing at her; and July, with all her innocent heart, is grateful to Miss Annie. So many kind things she says—and in July’s guileless apprehension they are all so true.

Graver, but not less happy, Menie Laurie pursues her occupation by July’s side, rarely looking up at all, pondering in her own heart the many weighty things that are to come, with her tremor of fear, her joy of deliverance scarcely yet quieted, and all her heart and all her mind engaged—in dreams no longer, but in sober thought; sober thought—thoughts of great devotion, of lifelong love and service, of something nobler than the common life. Very serious are these ponderings, coming down to common labours, the course of every day; and Menie does not know the nature of her dreamings—they look to her so real, so sober, and so true—and would scorn your warning, if you told her that not the wildest story of Arabian genii was more romance than those, her sober plans and thoughts.

Apart, and watching all, stands Randall Home. There is love in his eye—you cannot doubt it—love, and the impulse of protection, the strong appropriating grasp. There is something more. Look how his head rises in the dimmer background above the table and the lights, above the little company assembled there. With something like laughter, his eye turns upon July—upon July’s wooer, his own friend—kindly, yet with a sense of superiority, an involuntary elevation of himself above them both. And this glance upon Miss Annie is mere scorn, nothing higher; and his eye has scarcely had time to recover itself, when its look falls, bright and softened, upon his betrothed; a look of love—question it not, simple Menie—but it is calm, superior, above you still.

CHAPTER XXIV.

“They tell me it’s a haill month since it was a’ settled, but I hear naething of the house or the plenishing, and no a word of what Jenny’s to do. If they’re no wanting me, I’m no wanting them—ne’er a bit. It’s aye the way guid service is rewarded; and whatfor should there be ony odds with Jenny? I might have kent that muckle, if I had regarded counsel, or thought of my ainsel; but aye Jenny’s foremost thought was of them, for a’ such an ill body as she is now.”

And a tear was in Jenny’s eye, as she smoothed down the folds of Menie’s dress—Menie’s finest dress, her own present, which Menie was to wear to-night. And Menie’s ornaments are all laid out carefully upon the table, everything she is likely to need, before Jenny’s lingering step leaves the room. “I canna weel tell, for my pairt, what like life’ll be without her,” muttered Jenny, as she went away. “I reckon no very muckle worth the minding about; but I’m no gaun to burden onybody that doesna want me—no, if I should never hae anither hour’s comfort a’ my days.”

And slowly, with many a backward glance and pause, Jenny withdrew. Neglect is always hard to bear. Jenny believed herself to be left out of their calculations—forgotten of those to whom she had devoted so many years of her life; and Jenny, though she tried to be angry, could not manage it, but felt her indignant eyes startled with strange tears. It made a singular cloud upon her face this unusual emotion; the native impatience only struggled through it fitfully in angry glimpses, though Jenny was furious at herself for feeling so desolate, and very fain would have thrown off her discomfort in a fuff—but far past the region of the fuff was this her new-come solitude of heart. Her friends were dead or scattered, her life was all bound up in her mistress and her mistress’s child, and it was no small trial for Jenny to find herself thus cast off and thrown aside.

The next who enters this room has a little heat about her, a certain atmosphere of annoyance and displeasure. “I will be a burden”—unawares the same words steal over Mrs Laurie’s lip, but the sound of her voice checks her. Two or three steps back and forward through the room, a long pause before the window, and then her brow is cleared. You can see the shadows gradually melting away, as clouds melt from the sky, and in another moment she has left the room, to resume her place down stairs.

This vacant room—nothing can you learn from its calm good order, its windows open to the sun, its undisturbed and home-like quiet, of what passes within its walls. There is Menie’s little Bible on the table; it is here where Menie brings her doubts and troubles, to resolve them, if they may be resolved. But there is no whisper here to tell you what happens to Menie, when, as has already chanced, some trouble comes upon her which it is not easy to put away. Hush! This time the door opens slowly, gravely—this time it is a footstep very sober, something languid, which comes in; and Menie Laurie puts up her hand to her forehead, as if a pain was there; but not a word says Menie Laurie’s reverie—not a word. If she is sad, or if she is merry, there is no way to know. She goes about her toilette like a piece of business, and gives no sign.

But this month has passed almost like age upon Menie Laurie’s face. You can see that grave thoughts are common now, everyday guests and friends in her sobered life, and that she has begun to part with her romances of joy and noble life—has begun to realise more truly what manner of future it is which lies before her. Nothing evil, perhaps—little hardship in it; no great share of labour, of poverty, or care—but no longer the grand ideal life, the dream of youthful souls.

And now she stands before the window, wearing Jenny’s gown. It is only to look out if any one is visible upon the road—but there is no passenger yet approaching Heathbank, and Menie goes calmly down stairs. As it happens, the drawing-room is quite vacant of all but Nelly Panton, who sits prim by the wall in one corner. Nelly is not an invited guest, but has come as a volunteer, in right of her brother’s invitation, and Miss Annie shows her sense of the intrusion by leaving her alone.

“Na, I’m no gaun to bide very lang in London,” said Nelly. “Ye see, Miss Menie, you’re an auld friend. I’m no so blate, but I may tell you. I didna come up here ance errand for my ain pleasure, but mostly to see Johnnie, and to try if I couldna get ony word of a very decent lad, ane Peter Drumlie, that belangs about our countryside. We were great friends, him and me, and then we had an outcast—you’ll ken by yoursel—but we’ve made it up again since I came to London, and I’m gaun hame to get my providing, and comfort my mother a wee while, afore I leave her athegither. It’s a real duty comforting folk’s mother, Miss Menie. I’m sure I wouldna forget that for a’ the lads in the world.”

“And where are you to live, Nelly?” Nelly’s moralising scarcely called for an answer.

“We havena just made up our minds; they say ae marriage aye makes mair,” said Nelly, with a grim smile. “Miss Menie, you’ve set us a’ agaun.”

Perhaps Menie did not care to be classed with Nelly Panton. “July Home will be a very young wife,” she said; “I think your brother should be very happy with her, Nelly.”

“I wouldna wonder,” said Nelly, shortly; “but you see, Miss Menie, our Johnnie’s a well-doing lad, and micht ha’e looked higher, meaning nae offence to you; though nae doubt it’s true what Randall Home said when he was speaking about this. ‘Lithgow,’ says he (for he ca’s Johnnie by his last name—it’s a kind o’ fashion hereaway), ‘if you get naething with your wife, I will take care to see you’re no cumbered with onybody but hersel;’ which nae doubt is a great comfort, seeing there micht ha’e been a haill troop of friends, now that Johnnie’s getting up in the world.”

“What was that Randall Home said?” Menie asked the question in a very clear distinct tone, cold and steady and unfaltering—“What do you say he said?—tell me again.”

“He said, Johnnie wouldna be troubled with nane of her friends,” said Nelly; “though he has her to keep, a bit wee silly thing, that can do naething in a house—and nae doubt a maid to keep to her forby—that he wouldna have ony of her friends a burden on him; and a very wise thing to say, and a great comfort. I aye said he was a sensible lad, Randall Home. Eh, preserve me!”

For Randall Home stands before her, his eyes glowing on her with haughty rage. He has heard it, every single deliberate word, and Randall is no coward—he comes in person to answer for what he has said.

Rise, Menie Laurie! Slowly they gather over us, these kind shadows of the coming night; no one can see the momentary faltering which inclines you to throw yourself down there upon the very ground, and weep your heart out. Rise; it is you who are stately now.

“This is true?”

She is so sure of it, that there needs no other form of question, and Menie lays her hand upon the table to support herself, and stands firmly before him waiting for his answer. Why is it that now, at this moment, when she should be most strong, the passing wind brings to her, as in mockery, an echo of whispering mingled voices—the timid happiness of July Home? But Menie draws up her light figure, draws herself apart from the touch of her companions, and stands, as she fancies she must do henceforth, all her life, alone.

“This is true?”

“I would disdain myself if I tried to escape by any subterfuge,” said Randall, proudly; “I might answer that I never said the words this woman attributes to me; but that I do not need to tell you. I would not deceive you, Menie. I never can deny what I have given expression to; and you are right—it is true.”

And Randall thinks he hears a voice, wavering somewhere, far off, and distant like an echo—not coming from these pale lips which move and form the words, but falling out upon the air—faint, yet distinct, not to be mistaken. “I am glad you have told me. I thank you for making no difficulty about it: this is very well.”

“Menie! you are not moved by this gossip’s story? This that I said has no effect on you? Menie! Is a woman like this to make a breach between you and me?”

In stolid malice, Nelly Panton sits still, and listens with a certain melancholy enjoyment of the mischief she has made, protesting, under her breath, that “she meant nae ill; she aye did a’thing for the best;” while Randall, forgetful of his own acknowledgment, repeats again and again his indignant remonstrance, “a woman like this!”

“No, she has no such power,” said Menie firmly—“no such power. Pardon me—I am wanted to-night. My strength is not my own to be wasted now; we can conclude this matter another time.”

Before he could say a word, the door had closed upon her. There was a bustle without, a glimmer of coming lights upon the wall. In a few minutes the room was lighted up, the lady of the house in her presiding place—and Randall started with angry pride from the place where he stood, by the side of Nelly Panton, whose gloomy unrelieved figure suddenly stood out in bold relief upon the brightened wall.

Another time! Menie Laurie has not gone to ponder upon what this other conference shall be—she is not by her own window—she is not out of doors—she has gone to no such refuge. Where she never went before, into the heart of Miss Annie’s preparations—into the bustle of Miss Annie’s hospitality—shunning even Jenny, far more shunning her mother, and waiting only till the room is full enough, to give her a chance of escaping every familiar eye. This is the first device of Menie’s mazed, bewildered mind. These many days she has lived in hourly expectation of some such blow; but it stuns her when it comes.

Forlorn! forlorn! wondering if it is possible to hide this misery from every eye—pondering plans and schemes of concealment, trying to invent—do not wonder, it is a natural impulse—some generous lie. But Menie’s nature, more truthful than her will, fails in the effort. The time goes on, the lingering moments swell into an hour. Music is in her ears, and smiling faces glide before her and about her, till she feels this dreadful pressure at her heart no longer tolerable, and bursts away in a sudden passion, craving to be alone.

Another heart, restless by reason of a gnawing unhappiness, wanders out and in of these unlighted chambers—oftenest coming back to this one, where the treasures of its life rest night by night. This wandering shadow is not a graceful one—these pattering, hasty footsteps have nothing in them of the softened lingering tread of meditation. No, poor Jenny, little of sentiment or grace embellishes your melancholy—yet it is hard to find any poem so full of pathos as a desolate heart, even such a one as beats in your homely breast to-night.

Softly—the room is not vacant now, as it was when you last entered here. Some one stands by the window, stooping forward to look at the stars; and while you linger by the door, a low cry, half a sigh, half a moan, breaks the silence faintly—not the same voice which just now bore its part so well below;—not the same, for that voice came from the lips only—this is out of the heart.

“Bairn, you’re no weel—they’ve a’ wearied you,” said Jenny, stealing upon her in the darkness: “lie down and sleep; it’s nae matter for the like of me, but when you sigh, it breaks folk’s hearts.”

The familiar voice surprised the watcher into a sudden burst of childish tears. All the woman failed in this great trial. “Oh, Jenny, dinna tell my mother!” Menie Laurie was capable of no other thought.

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE PROTECTORATE IN TURKEY.

Before many weeks shall have gone over, perhaps while these sheets are passing through the press, we shall be able to judge of the accuracy of Lord Ellenborough’s opinion, as expressed in the House of Lords on the 6th February, that we are on the eve of one of the most formidable wars that ever this country was engaged in. Yes; within a short period from the present date much will be known; the Russian problem will be near its solution. The mystery of that force, which is said to be irresistible, and of those resources said to be inexhaustible, will be laid bare to the world. We shall know if all that we have been told of that vast power which has kept Europe in awe, is real; if the colossal idol which all have gazed on with a feeling that cannot be accurately described, does not stand on feet of clay. We confess that recent events have somewhat weakened the general faith in the overwhelming strength of Russia, and people begin to have some doubt whether the world has not been imposed upon. With her vast territorial extent, including nearly one-seventh part of the terrestrial portion of the globe and one twenty-seventh of its entire surface, and her varied population, comprising nearly one-ninth of the human race, she has spoken as if she could domineer over all Europe; and until the Pruth was passed, and the Danube became once more the theatre of battle, mankind seemed, if not entirely to admit, at least unwilling to dispute the claim. The combats of Oltenitza and Citale have, we suspect, disturbed that belief. Foreign and all but hostile flags have, within the last few weeks, floated almost within sight of Sebastopol; the squadrons of England and France have swept the hitherto unapproachable Euxine, from the Thracian Bosphorus to Batoun, and from Batoun back to Beicos Bay, and her fleet has not ventured to cross their path. Should Austria, listening to her evil genius, prove false to her own interests, we believe that the anticipations of the noble Lord referred to will be realised. Should she consult her own safety, and make common cause with those whose warlike preparations are not for aggression, but defence, we still incline to the opinion that hostilities may be limited to their original theatre—to be temporarily arrested, if not closed, by diplomatic intervention. The unsuccessful issue, at least to the date at which we write, of Count Orloff’s mission, gives us some hope that such will be the case; but a very short time will enable us to judge whether the advance of a corps d’armée to the Servian frontier is to aid Russian aggression, or to act, if necessary, against it.

An aggressive spirit has invariably marked the policy of Russia from the time of Peter the Great. Long harassed by internal enemies, and sometimes struggling for existence, she at length was freed from the dangers which had menaced her from abroad. By a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, the moment when her government became constituted, and began to enjoy its liberty of action, the neighbouring states, from the Baltic to the Caspian, entered into their period of weakness. The wild ambition and the mad enterprise of Charles XII. occasioned the decline of Sweden. The chivalrous monarch, the conqueror of Narva, the vanquished of Pultova, perished in the ditch of Frederickshall. Peter triumphed over his most formidable enemy; and, if he did not from that moment begin his aggression in the Ottoman territory, he was at all events no longer embarrassed by the dangerous diversions in the north. There still, however, remained an obstacle to his designs on those magnificent possessions of the Osmanlis, which have at all times possessed the fatal privilege of attracting the cupidity of the northern barbarian. There still remained Poland; but her anarchy, her internal convulsions, inseparable from her anomalous institutions, proved to be no less profitable to the Muscovite than the madness of the Scandinavian hero; and from the day of her dismemberment, Turkey became the permanent object of the ambition which, even as we write, threatens to convulse Europe.

It rarely happens that up to the close of a long war the original cause of quarrel continues the same. The first dissension disappears as war progresses, and, in the numerous complications which hostilities give rise to, the belligerents themselves either forget, or do not assign the same importance to the question which originally arrayed them in arms against each other. Though the war between Russia and Turkey has not yet a remote date, and though hostilities have not yet been formally declared between Russia and the Western Powers, notwithstanding the recall of their respective ambassadors, we still fear that the public is beginning to lose sight of the primary grounds of quarrel between the Czar and the Sultan, and which has led to the present state of things. The pretext put forward by Russia for intervention in the Ottoman empire is her desire to “protect” the ten millions of Christians of the Greek Church who are subjects of the Porte; these ten millions professing the same faith as the subjects of the Emperor of Russia, and living under the tyrannous rule of an infidel government. We admit the plausibility of that claim, and we are aware how easily the generous sympathies of a Christian people can be roused in favour of such a cause. We can appreciate the feelings of those who are persuaded that the moment has at length arrived when the Cross shall be planted on the mosques of Stamboul, and the orthodox believer take the place of the Mussulman. The claim to a Protectorate over ten millions of suffering Greeks in the European territory of the Sultan has been described as a cover, under which Russia aims at the possession of Constantinople, and, in fact, at the extension of her dominion from the Carpathian to the Danube, and from the Danube to the Sea of Marmora; but the Czar has solemnly and repeatedly declared that he had no such ambition, and that the sole motive which actuated him was to protect a population who professed the self-same religion as himself, he being the visible head of the Eastern Church, and recognised as such by the Eastern or Greek Christians; and the refusal of the Porte to grant that Protectorate is the primary cause of the war. Without examining whether any, or what conditions would justify a foreign government in imposing its protection on the subjects of an independent state, we may be permitted to say something of the nature of the religion whose champion the Czar professes to be; of the alleged homogeneity of the Eastern and Russian Churches, for on this the whole question turns; and of the advantages likely to accrue to the Greeks from Russian protection.

Among the many errors likely to be dissipated by the minute discussion which the Eastern question has undergone in the public press of this and other countries, not the least is that which has reference to the Emperor of Russia as the natural Protector of the Christian communities of the East. The hardihood with which this claim has been constantly put forward, and the silent acquiescence with which it seems to have been admitted by those who should know better, have imposed upon the world. Even now, they who resist the formal establishment of the influence of Russia over the internal affairs of Turkey, do so more by reason of the political consequences of that usurpation to the rest of Europe, than with the thought of disputing the abstract right of the head of the “Orthodox Faith” to the Protectorate he lays claim to. These pretensions, like many others we could mention, will not stand the test of examination. We do not learn, on any satisfactory evidence, that the Christian populations of the Ottoman empire have, during the last ten months, received with sympathy or encouragement the prospect of Russian protection; nor have they, so far as we know, exhibited any very earnest longing for the introduction of the knout as an element of government. The population of independent Greece may, and, we have no doubt, do, indulge in the harmless dream of a new Byzantine empire to be raised on the ruins of that which Mahomet II. won from their fathers; and they would doubtless rejoice that the domination of the Osmanlis were put an end to by Russia, or any other power, on condition of being their successors, as they were their predecessors. We believe that to this sort of revolution the aspirations of the Greeks are limited. But that people dispute the claim of the Czar to the Pontificate of the “Orthodox Faith,” and reject the idea of a temporal submission to him. The Greek Church, however, does not constitute the only Christian community of the Ottoman empire. Other congregations are to be found there, subjects also of the Porte, and who have not less claim to the protection of the various states of Europe, when protection is needed; but who still less desire that Russia should be their sole protector.

The points of difference between the Greek and Latin Churches are familiar to the world. But it may not be so generally known that, while the Russian branch of the former professes to preserve the Byzantine dogmas as its basis, the condition of its hierarchy, and the mechanism of its discipline, have become so altered with the lapse of years, that, at the present day, there exists no identity in this respect that would justify the head of the Russian Church in his pretensions to a temporal or spiritual protectorate over that church whose administrator and head is the Patriarch of Constantinople. Besides the difference of language, which is not without its importance—the one speaking Greek, the other Sclavonic—the Church of Constantinople still boasts that she has preserved her Patriarch, who is independent of secular interference in spirituals, while no such privilege belongs to Russia. A serious difference, too, exists between the Russian and Greek Churches (and one which would create new schisms and new convulsions) on the important question of baptism. Converts are admitted into the pale of the former from other communities, when they have been already baptized, without the obligation of again receiving the sacrament; while the Church of Constantinople makes the repetition of the sacrament indispensable in similar cases. The difference of church government is of the greatest importance: the Greeks have never admitted that the Holy Synod of St Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, represents in any sense the spiritual authority which he forcibly overthrew. The substitution of the chief of the state for it was never pretended to be otherwise than for political purposes, and as a means of realising the ambitious and aggressive designs of the Czar; and, while we do not deny the success it has met with, we believe that, since that event, the Russian clergy, as a body, has become the most ignorant and the most servile of any ecclesiastical corporation that now exists. The edict of Peter the Great admits the merely temporal object he had in view. “A spiritual authority,” it states, “which is represented by a corporation, or college, will never excite in the nation so much agitation and effervescence as a single chief of the ecclesiastical order. The lower classes of the people are incapable of comprehending the difference between the spiritual and secular authority. When they witness the extraordinary respect and honour which encompass a supreme pontiff, their admiration and wonder are so excited, that they look upon the chief of the Church as a second sovereign, whose dignity is equal, or even superior, to that of the monarch himself; and they are disposed to attach to the ecclesiastical rank a character of power superior to the other. Now, as it is incontestable that the common people indulge in such reflections, what, we ask, would be the case if the unjust disputes of an arbitrary clergy were added to light up a conflagration?” At the time this edict was issued, the Russian Church had already lost its patriarch. Full twenty years had elapsed since that event; and if ever the mitre of a prelate rivalled the diadem of an emperor, it was not in the reign of Peter that such an instance was to be found. No serious antagonism of the kind did or could exist in Russia; and the real object of the abolition of the patriarchate was, to combine with the absolutism of the sovereign the prestige of spiritual supremacy—that the Czar might not only say, with Louis XIV., “The State! I am the State;” but also, “The Church! I am the Church.”

The Holy Synod of St Petersburg is, it is true, composed of some of the highest dignitaries of the Russian Church, (taken from the monastic order); but these are appointed by the secular authority; are presided over by a layman who represents the Czar, and whose veto can suspend, or even annul, the most solemn resolutions of the Synod, even when unanimously adopted. The person who occupied for years, and who, we believe, still occupies the important post of President of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, which regulates and decides on all matters concerning the discipline and administration of the Church of Russia, is a general of cavalry—General Protuson! The body thus controlled by a military chief, may be increased in numbers, or reduced, according to the pleasure of the Czar; but those who ordinarily constitute that Ecclesiastical Board are the metropolitan of St Petersburg, the archbishops, a bishop, the Emperor’s confessor, an archimandrite (one degree lower than a bishop), the chaplain-general of the naval and military forces, and an arch-priest. But, whatever be the rank, the learning, or the piety of the Synod, one thing must be well understood by them;—they must never dare to express an opinion, or give utterance to a thought, in opposition to the Czar. The edicts of the Synod bear the imperial impress; they are invariably headed with this formula, “By the most high will, command, and conformably to the sublime wishes of his Majesty, &c. &c.” If it be alleged that the authority of the Holy Synod, with its bearded, booted, and sabred president, relates merely to the temporal administration of the Church, and that should a question of dogma arise recourse would be had to an Œcumenical Council, composed of all the churches of the Oriental rite, we reply that the superintendence of the Synod is not confined to points of mere administration or discipline. The canonisation of a saint, for instance, is not a matter of mere administration. When a subject is proposed for that distinction—and the Russian Hagiology is more scandalously filled than the Roman in the worst times of the Papacy—it is the Synod, that is, the Emperor, who decides on the claims to worship of the unknown candidate, whose remains may have been previously sanctified by the gross superstition of a barbarous peasantry. It is true that, in consequence of some notorious criminals having, not many years ago, been added to the list of orthodox saints, the Emperor, since the discovery of this, has manifested considerable repugnance to exercising this important part of his pontifical functions. He has, on recent occasions, refused his fiat of canonisation. A few years ago, some human bones were dug up on the banks of a stream in the government of Kazan, which, for some reason or other, were supposed to possess miraculous powers. A cunning speculator thought it a regular godsend; and petitions were forthwith sent to St Petersburg claiming divine honours for the unknown. The petitions were repeatedly rejected, but as often pressed on the Emperor. His Pontifical Majesty, who was assured, on high authority, that the claims of the present candidate were quite as well founded as those of many in the Hagiology, at last consented to issue his order of canonisation, but roundly swore that he would not grant another saintship as long as he lived. Yet it is not doubted that the opportunity offered by the present “holy war” of continuing the sacred list will be made use of unsparingly.

In other Churches the sacerdotal character is indelible; it is conferred by the ecclesiastical authority, and whether by the imposition of hands, or any other formality, cannot be destroyed even where the party is suspended from his sacred functions, or prohibited altogether from performing them. But neither suspension, nor degradation, can be considered as a matter of mere administration, or ordinary discipline; and the Emperor’s military representative has it in his power to decide on the degradation of any clergyman, and to completely efface the sacerdotal character acquired by ordination.

But, supposing the improbable event of an Œcumenical Council, in which the various Churches of the East should enter as component parts, in what manner, we may be permitted to ask, would the Russians claim to be represented? Would the Patriarch of Constantinople, or those of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, who are under his spiritual jurisdiction, and who pronounce the Muscovite Church as, if not heretical, at least schismatical, submit to be presided over by an aide-de-camp of the Czar; or would they recognise, in favour of his Majesty, the quality of impeccability, or infallibility, which they refuse to the head of the Latin Church?

With that complete dependence in spiritual as in temporal government on the chief of the State, and that debasing servitude of the Russian Church, may be compared with advantage the immunities and privileges of the Church of Constantinople even under the Mussulman government. Its Patriarch is the chief of the Greek communities, the president of their Synod, and the sovereign judge, without interference on the part of the Sultan’s authority, of all civil and religious matters relating to these communities which may be brought before it. The Patriarch, and the twelve metropolitans who, under his presidency, compose the Synod, or Grand Council of the Greek nation, are exempt from the Haratch, or personal impost. The imposts the Greek nation pays to the government are apportioned, not by the Mussulman authorities, but by its own archbishops and bishops. Those prelates are de officio members of the municipal councils, by the same right as the Turkish governors and muftis. The cadis and governors are bound to see to the execution of the decisions or judgments of the bishops, in all that relates to their dioceses respectively; and to enforce the payment of the contributions which constitute the ecclesiastical revenues. The clergy of the Greek Church receive from each family of their own communion an annual contribution, for the decent maintenance of public worship. They celebrate marriages, pronounce divorces, draw up wills, and from all these acts derive a considerable revenue; and, in certain cases, they are authorised to receive legacies bequeathed for pious objects. For every judgment pronounced by their tribunals, the Patriarch and metropolitans are entitled to a duty on the value of the property in litigation, of ten per cent. They have the power of sentencing to fine, to imprisonment, to corporal punishment, and to exile, independently of the spiritual power they possess, and which they not rarely exercise, of excommunication. The Patriarch and the prelates are paid a fixed contribution by the priests to whom the higher functions of the ministry are confided; and these, in turn, receive a proportional amount from the clergy under their immediate superintendence. The incomes of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, of the thirty-two archbishops, and the one hundred and forty bishops of the Ottoman empire, are paid out of these public contributions.

These immunities present, as we have said, a striking contrast with the condition of the orthodox Church in Russia. A Church so endowed, and with powers over the millions who belong to its communion, would naturally tempt an ambitious sovereign to become its master under the name of Protector. We discard completely any inquiry into the relative merits of the two communities; but we think it must be evident to any impartial mind, that the protectorate of the Czar, in his character of head of the orthodox faith, would make him the supreme ruler over the Ottoman empire in Europe.

We do not mean to allege that the immunities of the Christian population have been faithfully respected by the pashas, the cadis, or other agents of the Porte. We admit that most of what has been said of the intolerance and the corruption of Turkish officials is true, and that acts of oppression and cruelty have been perpetrated, which call for the severest reprehension, and require the interference of the Christian governments of Europe. But what we dispute is, the exclusive right of the Emperor of Russia to such intervention or to such protectorate.

The Church of Constantinople regards that of St Petersburg as schismatical, however nearly they approach in some respects; and so far from acknowledging a right of Protectorate, either in the Synod or the Emperor, she claims over her younger and erring sister all that superiority which is imparted by primogeniture. She would reject the claim of Russia to supremacy, and refuse to be administered by a servile Synod, with a nominee of the Czar for President. To submit to that Protectorate would be to admit foreign authority; that admission would involve the loss of her Patriarch, the evidence of her independence; and to this conviction may be traced the indifference of the Greek population to Russian influence, and the co-operation its clergy has given to the Porte.

But, scattered amid the immense population which are subject to the Sultan, may be found communions not belonging to the Confession of Photius as adopted by the Eastern Churches, and still less to the schismatical branch of it which is known as the Russian Church. These communions have no relation, affinity, or in fact anything whatever in common with the Synod of St Petersburg, or the Czar, whom they regard as a spiritual usurper, and the creed he professes as all but heretical. The Eutychian Armenians amount to no less than 2,400,000 persons, of whom nearly 80,000 are actually united to the Latin Church; but, whatever be the difference in dogma or ceremonial between them, they unite in opposition to the Synod of St Petersburg, and in submission to the Porte. There are moreover, upwards of a million of Roman Catholics and united Greeks—that is, Greeks who admit the supremacy of the Pope, while observing their own ceremonial, and who, it will not be questioned, have an equal right to protection, where protection is requisite. We can easily understand the interference of the European powers on behalf of those communities among whom are to be found persons of the same religious belief as themselves; but we cannot understand on what grounds an exclusive claim is put forward by a power which can have no sympathy with them, and which has destroyed the most important link that connected the Church of St Petersburg with that of the Patriarch. The possession of Constantinople by the Russians would, we are convinced, be followed by the destruction of the independence of the Eastern Church, the substitution of some Russian general or admiral, Prince Menschikoff perhaps, or Prince Gortschakoff, or whoever may happen to be the favourite of the day, for the venerable Patriarch; and by the most cruel persecution, not perhaps so much from religious intolerance, as for the same reasons assigned by Peter the Great for his abolition of the patriarchal dignity. The treatment of the united Greeks of the Russian empire, the Catholics of Poland and of the Muscovite provinces, is sufficient to show to those who, now at all events, live tranquilly under the rule of the Sultan, what they have to expect from the tolerance, the equity, or the mercy of such a Russian Protector. One-fourth of the Latin population ruled over by the Czar is made up of various religious sects and forms of worship—Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Mahometanism, Judaism, Lamaism, Schamaism, &c. In theory these different persuasions have a right to toleration; but in practice the case is different. The jealousy of the Czars, and their determination to reduce all that comes within their grasp to the same dead level of servitude, cannot endure a difference of any kind, religious or political; and pretexts are never wanting for persecutions, which have been compared to those of the worst days of the Roman emperors. The Baltic provinces, Lithuania and Poland, testify to the truth of these allegations. It appears clear, then, that the Christian communities of the Ottoman empire do not require the protection or domination of Russia, which would crush all alike.

We beg to point out another, and a material error into which the generality of people have fallen with reference to the Christian population of Turkey in Europe. The oppression of a Christian people by a misbelieving despotism is sufficient, of itself, to enlist the sympathies of a civilised and tolerant nation; and the fact of that oppression being practised by a small minority over a multitude composing three-fourths of the population of the Ottoman empire in Europe, is denounced as a monstrous anomaly; and the public indignation has been roused at the idea of scarcely three millions and a half of Turks grinding to the dust more than ten millions of Christians. We execrate religious oppression as much as any one can do; and whether the persecuted be numerous or few, one or one thousand, the crime is, in principle, the same. But we can show that, in the present instance, the aggravating circumstance of so great a difference in numbers does not exist. Those who speak of ten millions of Greek Christians being oppressed by three millions of Turks, forget, or may not be aware, that Moldavia and Wallachia, known as the Danubian Principalities, and now “protected” to the utmost by synods of another kind from that of St Petersburg—by military tribunals, and martial law—contain a population of above four millions, all of whom, with the exception of about fifty thousand Hungarian Catholics, are members of the Greek, though not of the Russo-Greek Church. Now, the Moldo-Wallachians are, in their domestic administration, independent of the Porte, the tie which attaches them to it—the payment of a comparatively small tribute—being of the slenderest kind. The Principalities are governed by their own princes or hospodars, formerly named for life, and, since the convention of 1849 between Russia and the Porte, for seven years; they are selected from among their own boyards, and receive investiture only from the Sultan. The Moldo-Wallachian army is recruited from the Moldo-Wallachian population, and is organised on the Russian plan, with Russian staff-officers. In neither of the three provinces is there a Turkish garrison, nor a Turkish authority of any kind, nor a single Turkish soldier; there is consequently no Turkish oppression or persecution. Servia, with a population of about a million, mostly Christians of the Greek communion, is equally independent of the Porte. The Turks have, it is true, a garrison in Belgrade, limited, by treaty with Austria, to a certain force; and Belgrade itself is the residence of a Pasha; but, beyond this trifling military occupation, the acknowledgment, as a matter of form, of the supremacy of the Sultan, and a small tribute in money, nothing else is left them. And, as in the case of the Danubian provinces, the internal government is entirely in the hands of the Servians themselves. The liberal institutions established in Servia by Prince Milosch Obrenowitsch, were not disturbed or interfered with by the Porte, to which they gave no umbrage, but were overthrown by Russian intrigue. In Servia no oppression, no persecution, is or can be practised by the Turks, who are powerless. Thus, we have about five millions of population to be deducted from the ten millions said to be mercilessly oppressed, outraged, and persecuted by Mussulman bigotry;—and also said to be eager for the religious Protectorate of Russia.

The Danubian Principalities were formerly governed by princes called waywodes, who were appointed by the Sultan. Those waywodes, it is true, exercised every species of oppression; but our readers will perhaps be surprised when they learn that these provincial tyrants were not Mussulmans: they were Christians, and Christians of the same communion as the people whom they ruled over; and they were selected because they were Christians, to administer Christian dependencies. The waywodes were Fanariote Greeks, and denizens of Constantinople. We do not deny that the Turkish government were bound to see that their provinces were properly administered; but they were powerless to repress these abuses, as they were powerless to repress the abuses in the Turkish Pashalicks.

The influence of Russia for a long time, and particularly for the last twenty-five years, has been paramount in the Danubian Principalities. We have shown that the Moldo-Wallachians, with a slight exception, prefer the Greek rite; but there is no evidence that they have any religious sympathies with the Church of which the Emperor of Russia is the head. The Moldo-Wallachians also regard the Russian dogmas as schismatic, and recognise only the religious supremacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople. In Paris there is a Russian chapel for the use of the Russian embassy, the residents of that nation, and the few subjects of Independent Greece who may think it proper, or useful, to attend Russian worship. The Moldo-Wallachians who also reside in the French capital have been often pressed to attend that chapel, with a view, no doubt, to establish in the eyes of the world a homogeneity which in reality does not exist. As a proof of the antipathy between the two communions, we quote a passage from a discourse delivered on the occasion of the opening of a temporary place of worship for the Moldo-Wallachians by the Archimandrite Suagoano. To those who still believe that there exists the bond of a common faith between the Church of Constantinople and that of St Petersburg, and that the Moldo-Wallachians, or the Greeks of the Ottoman empire, desire a Russian Protectorate, we recommend the perusal of the following, which was pronounced to a numerous congregation in the beginning of January last. “When we expressed a desire,” said the archimandrite, “to found a chapel of our own rite, we were told that a Russian chapel already existed in Paris, and we were asked why the Roumains (Moldo-Wallachians) do not frequent it? What! Roumains to frequent a Russian place of worship! Is it then forgotten that they can never enter its walls, and that the Wallachians who die in Paris, forbid, at their very last hour, that their bodies should be borne to a Muscovite chapel, and declare that the presence of a Russian priest would be an insult to their tomb. Whence comes this irreconcilable hatred? That hatred is perpetuated by the difference of language. The Russian tongue is Sclavonic; ours is Latin. Is there in fact a single Roumain who understands the language of the Muscovites? That hatred is just; for is not Russia our mortal enemy? Has she not closed up our schools, and debarred us from all instruction, in order to sink our people into the depths of barbarism, and to reduce them the more easily to servitude? On that hatred I pronounce a blessing; for the Russian Church is a schism which the Roumains reject; because the Russian Church has separated from the great Eastern Church; because the Russian Church does not recognise as its head the Patriarch of Constantinople; because it does not receive the Holy Unction of Byzantium; because it has constituted itself into a Synod of which the Czar is the despot; and because that Synod, in obedience to his orders, has changed its worship, has fabricated an unction which it terms holy, has suppressed or changed the fast days, and the Lents as established by our bishops; because it has canonised Sclavonians who are apocryphal saints, such as Vladimir, Olga, and so many others whose names are unknown to us; because the rite of Confession, which was instituted to ameliorate and save the penitent, has become, by the servility of the Muscovite clergy, an instrument for spies for the benefit of the Czar; in fine, because that Synod has violated the law, and that its reforms are arbitrary, and are made to further the objects of despotism. These acts of impiety being so notorious, and those truths so known, who shall now maintain that the Russian Church is not schismatic? Our Councils reject it; our canons forbid us to recognise it; our Church disavows it; and all who hold to the faith, and whom she recognises for her children, are bound to respect her decision, and to consider the Russian rite as a schismatic rite. Such are the motives which prevent the Roumains from attending the Russian chapel in Paris!” This address was received with enthusiasm by the assemblage. Letters of felicitation have been received by the archimandrite from his unhappy brethren of the Principalities, who are driven with the bayonet to the churches to chant Te Deum for Russian victories; and, impoverished as they are, the prelates and priests of Wallachia send their mites to Paris, to aid in the construction of a true Greek church.[2]

It would be unjust to charge any religious community with the responsibility of the crimes or vices of individual members. The police offices and law courts in our own country occasionally disclose cases of moral depravity among members of the clerical profession; but these cases are few, we are happy to say, in comparison with the number of pious and learned men that compose the body. Nor do we pronounce a sweeping anathema on the Russo-Greek Church, because, with the exception of, as we are informed, a few of the superior dignitaries, no ecclesiastical corporation can produce more examples of gross ignorance and vicious habits. The degradation, the miserable condition of the mass of the Russian clergy, the pittance they receive from the State, being insufficient to keep body and soul together, and the almost total want of instruction, are, no doubt, the cause of this state of things. Marriage is a primary and indispensable condition for the priesthood; and the death of the wife, unless where a special exemption is accorded by the Synod or the Emperor, involves not merely the loss of his sacerdotal functions, but completely annuls the priestly character. The widowed priest returns to a lay condition from that moment; he may become a field labourer, or a valet; a quay porter, or a groom; a mechanic, or a soldier of the army of Caucasus; but his functions at the altar cease then, and for ever. The irregularities which in Russia, as elsewhere, prevailed in the monastic establishments, afforded a pretext to that rude reformer, Peter the Great, for abolishing the greater number of them. Their immense wealth, the gifts of the piety or the superstition of past ages, was a temptation which the inexorable despot could not resist; and having once acquired a taste for plunder, he appropriated not only monastic property, whilst abolishing monasteries, but filled the imperial treasury with the confiscated wealth of the secular clergy. What Peter left undone Catherine II. completed. During the reign of that Princess, whose own frailties might have taught her sympathy for human weaknesses, the whole of the remaining immovable property of the Church was seized. The correspondent and friend of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists filled with joy the hearts of the philosophers of Paris, by the appropriation of the resources of superstition, which she devoted to the realisation of her ambitious projects, or to recompense richly the services of her numerous favourites. Miserable pittances were allotted to the functionaries to whom that great wealth had belonged; but the distractions of love and war too often interfered with the payment of even those pittances. In Moscow, St Petersburg, and some other large cities, there are still, perhaps, a few benefices which afford a decent subsistence to the holders; but the stipends, even when augmented by the casuel, the chance and voluntary contribution paid by individuals for special masses, and certain small perquisites for funerals, &c., are insufficient to maintain, in anything approaching to comfort, a single, much less a married clergyman. There appears to be some difference of opinion among the best authorities on the exact stipends received by the higher clergy. The income of the senior metropolitan, the first dignitary of the orthodox church, including all sources of revenue, has never been estimated at more than from £600 to £700 per annum; that of the other metropolitans, at about £160; of an archbishop, £120; of a bishop, £80; of an archimandrite, the next in rank after a bishop, from £40 to £50. The wooden hut inhabited by a parish priest is not superior to that of the poorest of his parishioners, and the spot of land attached is cultivated by his own hands. The destitute condition of the inferior clergy has many times been brought under the notice of the government, and commissioners have been named to examine into the complaints, but without producing any result.

Under such circumstances, it is not extraordinary that the clergy should become degraded in the eyes of the people, and be regarded, when not in the performance of their sacred functions, as objects of derision and contempt. With starvation at home, they are forced to seek in the houses of others what their own cannot supply; to satisfy the most pressing wants of nature, they submit to scoff and insult; and wherever feasting is going on, the priest is found an unbidden, and in most instances an unwelcome guest. This state of life leads to vagrant, idle, and dissolute habits, and it is declared, on what appears to be competent authority, that intemperance is the general characteristic of the lower clergy of Russia. Intemperance easily leads to other vices. According to official reports laid before the Synod, there were, in the single year 1836, 208 ecclesiastics degraded for infamous crimes, and 1985 for crimes or offences less grave. In that year the clergy comprised 102,456 members;—the number degraded and sentenced by the tribunals was therefore about two per cent. In 1839, the number of priests condemned by the tribunal was one out of twenty; and during the three years from 1836 to 1839 inclusive, the cases were 15,443, or one-sixth of the whole. A good deal of scandal, as well there might be, was occasioned by the reports of the Synod, and that body received a hint to be more discreet in exposing to the sneers of the heterodox the state of the orthodox church. It attempted, in a subsequent report, to explain away or palliate those disorders. “If such things,” says the Synodical Report of 1837, “cannot be entirely avoided by reason of the vast extent of the empire; of the want of seminaries, attendance at which has been only recently obligatory; of the little instruction received by the clergy, who in this respect are, as it were, in a state of infancy—so much so, that one old barbarism has not yet disappeared—nevertheless, the same clergy has exhibited rich examples of ancient piety and severity of morals.” Dr Pinkerton assures us that there are to be found among the families of the parochial clergy, a degree of culture and good manners peculiar to themselves. If we can rely on accounts more recent, and quite as good, these are but rare exceptions; and we fear that matters are pretty much the same as when Coxe was in Russia, and many of the parish priests were so ignorant as to be unable to read, even in their own language, the gospel they were commissioned to preach. M. de Haxthausen, whose testimony is entitled to great respect, says, “Ecclesiastics of merit are rare in the country. The greater number of the old popes are ignorant, brutal, without any instruction, and exclusively given up to their personal interests. In the performance of religious ceremonies, and in the dispensation of the sacraments, they have often no other object in view than to obtain presents. They have no care about the spiritual welfare of their flocks, and impart neither consolation nor instruction to them.” This ignorance, added to relaxed morals, accounts for their want of influence with the people, who are in the habit of treating them with the most contemptuous familiarity. The lower classes have special sarcasms and insulting proverbs applicable to their popes.

The higher ranks of the Russian clergy are principally, we believe exclusively, taken from the Tschernoi Duhovenstvo, or black clergy—monks who live in convents, and pass their lives in the practice of religious observances. Their superiority to the secular clergy is in all respects considerable, and whatever of instruction exists among the priesthood must be sought for in the retreats of the Basilians—the only order of monks, we believe, in Russia. They live, however, apart from the people; they have no direct intercourse with them; they are ignorant, or regardless, of their material or moral wants; and for them they feel no sympathy or affection. It must not be supposed that this superiority over the parochial or secular clergy, in station or morals, implies independence, separately or collectively. Their dependence on the government differs not in the least from that of the most ignorant village pope, or of the meanest serf. The high functionaries and dignitaries of the Church are, as we have already observed, taken from the monastic body; and as the Synod, or, which is all the same, the Emperor, can deprive an ecclesiastic of his functions, and degrade him to a lay condition, the metropolitan archbishop, or bishop, who cares to keep his mitre, has no other choice than to be the docile and zealous agent of the Autocrat. Since the time of Peter the Great, the whole body of the Russian clergy, from the highest to the lowest, have lain grovelling in the dust at the feet of every tyrant with the title of Czar or Czarina; and no other corporation in the world that we have any knowledge of, lay or clerical, equals it in hopeless servitude. Taught from their infancy to regard the Czar as the sole dispenser of good and evil, and firmly believing that every people on the earth trembles at his name, they scarcely make any distinction between him and the Deity; and in their public and private devotions their adoration is divided, perhaps not equally, between God and the Emperor. Those names are mingled together in the first lessons they learn, and their awe of the mortal ruler is more intense than their love for the Creator. Those ideas are transmitted by the priests to their children; and as the ranks of the clerical body are filled up almost exclusively from the families of the popes, ignorance and slavishness become as traditional and as hereditary as the office for which they are indispensable. The jealous fears of the Autocrat prevent grafting on the old stock, and he suffers no innovation of any kind to animate that torpid mass of bondage.

In alluding to the social degradation of the Russian clergy, it is but fair to admit that there are certain privileges attached to that body which are not accorded to the rest of his Imperial Majesty’s subjects. The Czar, out of his mere motion, and by special favour, the value of which is no doubt properly appreciated by the persons interested, has made a difference in the punishments inflicted on laymen and on clergymen. The Russian priest is not liable to be scourged to death by the knout; nor to be beaten to a jelly by a club, like the other members of the orthodox faith. Yet this privilege, we fear, is more specious than real. It does not survive the sacerdotal character; and as this may be suspended or annihilated at the pleasure of the Synod, or at the death of the popess, the exemption from the knout and the baten is an extremely uncertain privilege. The rule of the Russian Church, which makes the priestly character, indelible in other communions, to depend on so frail a tenure as the life of the partner, is most curious, and must perpetuate those vices which we have already noticed. The pastor who loses his wife must at once abandon his sacred functions, and set himself to some other pursuit, if he be still in the force of health and manhood; if he be aged or infirm, his lot is hard indeed. When the sacerdotal office is forfeited by some very grave offence, hard labour for life, or the distractions of a campaign in the Caucasus in one of the condemned regiments, with glimpses of the knout, form the hopeless future of the unhappy wretch who, but a few months before, was dispensing the sacraments at the altar. We may add, that the wives and widows of the priests, and their young children, enjoy, by a pious dispensation of the head of the Church of Russia, an exemption from the knout. The children, moreover, are exempt from the payment of imposts and military enlistment.

The sects that have started into life since the seventeenth century are comprised by the established or official church of Russia in the sweeping designation of roskolnicki, or schismatical; but the term is rejected with indignation by the parties to whom it is applied. They refuse, as a base and groundless calumny, the term schismatical, and claim for their own special qualification that of Starowertzi, or Ancient believers. They have also, no less than their predecessors, been the object of the severity of the government. Every opportunity has been laid hold of to crush them; and in the revolt of the Strelitz, not only were ruinous fines imposed on them, but many of their leaders were imprisoned, exiled, hanged, or poniarded, by order of Peter I. Severity being of no avail, milder measures were resorted to. A compromise was proposed in the reign of Catherine II., and after a show of examination, several of their less objectionable doctrines were allowed to pass muster as orthodox, and the variations in their liturgy received, on condition that their priests submitted to receive orders from the prelates of the Synod. As an additional inducement, they were promised that ordination should be conferred according to the sectarian, and not the established rite; that their usages should be respected, and no interference take place in the education of their clergy. But so great was the animosity that no concession could win, no kindness soften them, and the experiment of gaining over this stray flock to the fold failed totally. At an earlier period Starowertzi convents were erected in the deep recesses of the forests in the northern provinces of Russia. These convents were soon demolished, and their prelates and abbots banished, or otherwise removed. Yet for many years their religious necessities were supplied by priests ordained by the Starowertzi bishops; and, since their death, pastors are recruited from the many seceders from the orthodox church. In spite of the difficulties the sect has to contend with, and the incessant vigilance and rigour of the authorities, it possesses a mysterious influence, which is said to be felt even in the councils of the empire. It is believed that no important reform is ever attempted, no change in the internal administration of the country takes effect, until the opinions of the chiefs of this formidable party are ascertained, and the impression likely to be made upon the mass of their followers. In all social relations, in all matters connected with everyday life and business, it is affirmed that the Starowertzi are trustworthy and honourable. They are not habitually mendacious or deceitful, like the more civilised classes of his Imperial Majesty’s subjects; and the more closely the lower orders resemble the Starowertzi the better they are. In education they are also superior to the mass of the Russians. Among them there are few who have not learned to read and write, though even in the acquisition of this elementary instruction their religious prejudices prevail. They make use only of the Sclavonic dialect, the modern Russian being regarded as heretical. They are familiar with the Bible, and commit some portions of it to memory, which they recite with what the French would term onction; neither are they despicable opponents to encounter on the field of theological controversy. One of the principal seats of Starowertzism was in the midst of those vast and dismal swamps which extend towards the Frozen Ocean, on the European side of the great Oural chain, and on the banks of the river which discharges its waters into the Caspian; in the government of Saratoff, more than four hundred miles to the south-east of Moscow; and among the Cossack tribes that wander near the Volga and the Terek, close to the military line which extends in front of the Caucasus, are to be found numerous disciples. But for many years the great centre of Starowertzism was on the Irghis. On its banks four great monasteries once rose, and their inmates found a never-failing supply from the deserters of the army, and the fugitives from the wilderness and the knout of Siberia. Priests of the official church, excited by fanaticism or degraded for their vices, and monks expelled from their convents, were received with open arms as welcome converts. Their numbers increased so rapidly as to give serious alarm to the governors, and in 1838 a razzia was proclaimed against these religious fortresses. Strong bodies of troops were sent against them; the convents were pillaged, and then given to the flames, and the inmates were either sent to the army, or driven into the impenetrable wilds of Siberia. The doctrines of the sect have chiefly spread in the rural districts, and among the lower classes of tradesmen. In the convents for females (for Starowertzism has also its nuns), the only occupation consists in multiplying copies of their liturgy, for no religious work is allowed to be printed. The Starowertzi divide the inhabitants of the earth into three great classes—the Slaves, by them termed Slovaise, or Speakers; the Nemtzi, or Mutes, whom they regard as little above heathens; and all the Orientals are, without distinction, called by the general designation of Mussulmans. The rite of baptism is performed by immersion—they admit the validity of no other; but in no case do they recognise it when administered by the orthodox Russian, and all converts must be rebaptised before admission. It is a curious fact, almost incredible, were we not assured of its exactness on good authority, that though their spiritual directors belong mostly to the scum of the Russian clergy—degraded priests or monks—the Starowertzi are the least immoral of all the sects into which the orthodox church has been broken up.

The sect which more closely approximates in fundamentals to the established church is that which terms itself the Blagosslowenni (the Blessed); and so slight is the difference between them, that in the official nomenclature they are designated as the Jedinowertzi, or the Uniform Believers. In essential points of doctrine the difference is not great, in some almost imperceptible, though the ceremonial varies notably from that which is recognised by the Holy Synod. They make the sign of the cross in a different manner from the orthodox. They denounce the shaving the beard as a sin of the greatest enormity. Some other peculiarities are worth noting: they repeat the name of Jesus in three distinct parts; walk in procession in their places of worship from right to left, and, taking their ground on the text of Scripture which says that that which enters at the mouth is not sinful, but that which issues from it, they denounce the practice of smoking as a crime. There is another point, which we fear would be unpopular among our fellow-subjects in Ireland: the Blessed attribute a diabolical origin to that useful root the potato, and, what we believe has been strenuously maintained, though in a different spirit, by some Irish antiquarian, they pretend to prove that the potato was actually the fruit with which Eve was easily seduced by the wily serpent, and which our first mother persuaded her confiding husband to partake of. This sect reprobates the reforms attempted by Peter I., and they are not to this day reconciled to the Emperor Nicholas for not wearing the costume, and bearing the title of the Belvi Tzar, or the White Czar.

The Starrobriadtzi, or the Observers of the ancient rite, are an offshoot of the Starowertzi, but are still more exclusive and intolerant, and much more hostile to the official church. The scum of the orthodox priesthood are sure to find a welcome with them, and the more degraded they are the better. Every candidate for admission must formally recant his previous heresy—for such they term the orthodox dogma.

The most numerous of all these sects is one which is termed the Bespopertchine (Without priests). They not only reject ordination as conferred by the orthodox bishop, but dispense altogether with clergy as a distinct body. The sect is subdivided into several fractions, each known by the name of its founder, such as the Philipperes, the Theodosians, the Abakounians, &c., &c. They anticipate a general conversion of the reprobates,—that is, all who are not of their sect, whether Christian or Infidel—by reason or by force; and believe that the time is at hand when the errors of Nicon, the Luther of the Russo-Greek church, will be solemnly abjured by Russia; that a regenerated order of ecclesiastical superintendents will come from the East, when their own sect, the only true church of God, will reign triumphant wherever the name of Russia is heard. The reign of Antichrist began with Nicon; it still subsists, and will endure until the advent of the Lord, who is to smite the unbelievers, and scatter the darkness that envelopes the earth. Though a regularly ordained priesthood is not recognised, yet a sort of religious organisation is admitted by the Philippon section of it. Instead of the popes of the orthodox church, they have a class of men whom they term Stariki, or Elders, and who are selected from a number of candidates. The ceremony of installation consists in a few words of prayer, and the accolade in the presence of the congregation. The elders, who are distinguished by a particular costume, have no regular stipend, but subsist entirely on alms. In case of misconduct, they are not only deprived of their office, but expelled altogether from the community. The Philippons retain the rite of confession; but the avowal of their sins is made, not to a living man, but to an image, which acts by way of conductor to the pardon which is sent down from heaven. An elder, however, stands by as a witness of the confession and forgiveness; and while the long story of offences, mortal or venial, is unfolded, his duty consists in crying out at regular intervals, “May your sins be forgiven!” The simple exclamation, in the presence of three witnesses, that a man takes a woman to wife, is the only ceremony required for marriage, nor is it indispensable that the elder should be present. The portion of the Bible translated by Saint Cyril is the only part of it they retain. Their doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost is the same as that of the Greek Church. They believe that the souls of the dead are sunk in a profound lethargy from the moment they quit the body until the general judgment, to which they will be summoned by the archangel’s trumpet. On that awful day the souls of the wicked only are to resume their bodies, and pass into eternal fire. Their fasts, which comprise a third of the year, are of the strictest. They rigorously abstain from malt liquors; and though, on certain specified occasions, wine is permitted, yet the moderate draught must be administered from the hand of one of their own sect. In the matter of oaths they are quite as rigid as the Society of Friends. They are distinguished by no family name, but only by that received at their birth. Their differences are all settled before a tribunal composed of an elder and two or three of the sect, who must, however, be fathers of families; and from this decision there is seldom an appeal. Between husband and wife a complete community of goods exists, and the surviving partner inherits all.

The Theodosians do not much differ from the Philippons. Their women, however, have a separate place of worship from the men, where the service is celebrated by ancient maidens, called Christova Neviestu, or the Betrothed of Christ. The Theodosians have a large hospital in the city of Moscow, with two magnificent churches. The former affords accommodation for more than a thousand patients. Communism has penetrated into all these sects. Among the subdivisions of the great sect of the Starowertzi marriage is not regarded as a bond which lasts for life, or which can only be severed by divorce. A man and woman agree to live together for one or more years, as it may suit their convenience. They separate on the expiry of their contract, and become free to receive a similar offer from any one else, while the issue of such temporary marriages belongs to the public, without any special notice from the parents.

The Douchobertzi, or Wrestlers in Spirit, are, like the Malakani, or Drinkers of Milk, divided into seven fractions, and are remarkable for their hostility to the official church. Their doctrines consist of the leading points of the old heresies, and they constitute a theological system more developed, though not more uniform, than any of the previous sects. Some of their doctrines are so vague, and so inconsistent, that what is regarded as fundamental in one district, or even in one village, is considered as corrupt or as unimportant in another not perhaps a league off. Different from the Starowertzi, who strictly adhere to traditional observances, they are incessantly making innovations in the fundamental doctrines of the orthodox church. The Starowertzi are particularly scrupulous about form and ceremonial; the Douchobertzi, on the contrary, reject all forms of worship, and spiritualise the church. The influence of these spiritualists is not yet felt to any considerable extent in Russia. Though offshoots of the Malakani, or Milk Drinkers, these two sects hate each other most cordially.

The use of milk preparations during Lent, and on days of rigid abstinence, explains the name by which the Malakani are known to their adversaries, but the designation by which they describe themselves is Istinie Christiane, or True Christians. They are of modern date, and first became known in the middle of the last century, when they appeared in the government of Tambon. They soon spread into neighbouring governments, and their most successful proselytism has been among the peasantry. Three large villages in the Taurida are entirely peopled by this sect. Like the Latin Church, they admit seven sacraments, but they receive them only in spirit. As with them the “church” is merely a spiritual assemblage of believers, they have no temples for the celebration of divine worship. Images they do not tolerate, and swearing on any account, or in any form, is severely interdicted. One of their leading doctrines is, that with them alone Jesus Christ will reign on the earth. A precursor of that spiritual millennium, who assumed to be the prophet Elias, appeared in 1833. He exhorted the Malakani to prepare, by rigid fasting and mortification, for the advent of the Saviour, which would take place in two years. A brother fanatic or accomplice, under the biblical appellation of Enoch, went on a similar mission, to announce the tidings to the barbarians of western Europe. When the duty of the original impostor, whose real name was Beloireor, was accomplished, he announced his approaching return to heaven in a chariot. Thousands of the Malakani assembled to witness the ascent of the prophet, who presented himself to the kneeling multitude clothed in flowing robes of white and blue, and seated in a car drawn by white steeds. The new Elias rose, spread out his arms, and waved them up and down, as a bird his wings when preparing to mount into the sky. He bounded from his chariot, but instead of soaring gracefully to the clouds, fell heavily and awkwardly in the mire, and killed a woman who stood by clinging to the wheels. The multitude had fasted, prayed, wept, and watched, and their imaginations had become excited to the highest pitch. Enraged at the disappointment, or convinced of the imposture of the prophet, they rose against him, and would have slain him, had he not contrived to escape the first burst of their fury. He was afterwards caught, and, with more judgment than could be expected from them, they contented themselves with handing him over to the tribunals to pay the penalties of imposture. He endured a long imprisonment; but neither his disgrace nor the fear of the knout prevented him from predicting to the last day of his existence the near advent of the millennium. His persistence conciliated former, and obtained him new disciples. They became more numerous after his death; but the scene of their labours was changed; they were forced to emigrate to Georgia, where they still carry on their propagandism.

It is a curious fact that, when Napoleon invaded Russia, the great captain was regarded by the Malakani as “the Lion of the Valley of Josaphat,” whose mission was to overthrow the “false emperor,” and restore to power the “White Czar.” A numerous deputation from the government of Tambon, preceded by heralds clothed in white, was sent forth to meet him. Their privilege did not protect them. Napoleon, or his marshals, had no great sympathy with fanatics; they were considered as prisoners of war: one only escaped, the others were never heard of again.

The Douchobertzi are the illuminati of Russia, and the term applied to them by the common people is Yarmacon, or Free Masons. Though this sect really dates from the middle of the eighteenth century, it affects to trace its origin to a very remote period, claiming as its founders the youths who were flung into the furnace by order of Nebuchadnezzar. The corruption and fall of the soul of man, long previous to the creation of the material world, forms the basis of their faith. The “Son of God” means the universal spirit of humanity; and the assumption of the form of man was in order that each individual member of mankind might also possess the attributes of the Son of God. The Douchobertzi admit that in the person of Christ the world has been saved; but the Christ whose death is recorded in Holy Writ was not the real Redeemer; it was not He who made atonement for man; that belongs only to the ideal Christ. Forms of worship, and, of course, temples, are rejected by them. Each member of the sect is himself a temple, where the “Eternal” loves to be glorified, and man is at once temple, priest, and victim; or, in other words, the heart is the altar, the will the offering, and the spirit of man the pontiff. They are all equal in the sight of God, and they admit the supremacy of no creature on the earth. The more rigorous of the Douchobertzi carry their severity of morals to an extreme, and with them the most innocent and most necessary recreations are heinous crimes. But the majority pass to the other extreme, and strange stories are told of the orgies practised in secret under the guise of devotional exercises. The Douchobertzi, like other fanatics, expect the triumph of their own sect over the world. Even now the fulness of time is nigh at hand; and when the awful moment comes, they will rise in their accumulated and resistless force, and spread terror over the earth. Their chief will be the only potentate who shall reign in unbounded power, and all mankind will gather round the footsteps of his throne, bow their heads to the dust, veil their eyes before the glory that flashes fiercely from his brow, and proclaim his boundless power and his reign without end. But this triumph must be preceded by a season of trial and sorrow. Their Czar must previously undertake a mighty struggle against all misbelievers. It will be terrible, but brief; the Douchobertzi shall, of course, win the victory, and, in the person of their chief, mount the throne of the world to reign for ever and for ever! The Russian authorities have repeatedly attempted to crush a sect whose tendencies are so menacing; but the task is difficult against a body who have no acknowledged leader, no priesthood, and no place of worship. Among the few puritans who take no pains to conceal their doctrines, they have to a certain extent succeeded. One of the most eminent of them was a man named Kaponstin, who was reverenced as a divinity. In consequence of some dissensions with the Malakani, to whom he originally belonged, he separated from them, preached new and still more extravagant doctrines. Numerous proselytes quitted with him their old villages, and took up their abode in the Taurida. There they founded nine villages, which a few years ago contained a population of nine thousand souls, professing the more rigid doctrines of the Douchobertzi. Kaponstin had been a sub-officer in the imperial guard, was of studious habits, and of the most scrupulous exactness in the performance of his military duties. His fanaticism came on him all of a sudden. One day, in the guardroom, he stood up among the soldiers, whom he had previously won over to his doctrine, and summoned them to fall down on the ground and adore him, as he was the Christ—a command which most of them instantly obeyed. Kaponstin was degraded from his rank, and committed to prison; but on its being found that he was totally unfitted for a military life, he was released, and he at once resumed his preachings. Kaponstin taught that the Divine soul of Christ had, from the beginning of the world, dwelt in a succession of men, who alone were, each in turn, the true heads of the church. As mankind degenerated, and became unworthy of the sacred deposit, false popes usurped the dignity and attributes of the Son of God. The Douchobertzi were now the sole and true guardians of the treasure which especially dwelt in him as the incarnation of the sect. His followers believed him at his word, and fell down and worshipped him. Kaponstin again attracted the attention of the authorities, and was again thrown into prison. A large sum of money, the produce of the contributions of hundreds of thousands, was offered as a bribe to the gaoler—and when did a Russian functionary refuse a bribe? He regained his liberty, fled to the forests, was once more hunted down, but baffled the vengeance of his pursuers. He shut himself up in a cavern in the remote districts of the Taurida, and under the vigilant eye of his followers, by none of whom his secret was revealed, passed there the remaining years of his life, preaching, believed, and adored. His retreat the police did not or would not discover; when he died is known only to a few. The mantle of Kaponstin was assumed by his son, who proved himself unworthy of wearing it. At the age of fifteen he was received by his father’s disciples as his true successor, and the Christ of the Douchobertzi. At his installation the grand council of the sect assembled, and the first resolution adopted was that ten concubines should be allotted to their youthful prophet, Hilarion Kaponstin. He did not merit the reverence paid him, nor did he inherit a particle of the intellect or the courage of his father. From the day of his installation he gave himself up to the most debasing sensuality. The father had instituted a council, composed of forty members, twelve of whom represented the apostles. This council took advantage of the incapacity of its boy-prophet, and from being merely a legislative, assumed the functions of an executive power, which it exercised most tyrannically. It soon became the scourge of the community. As the members of the council were only divine by reflection, it was no crime to shake off its usurped authority, and the sect rose in rebellion. The tyrants were seized, tried in secret conclave, and sentence of death pronounced against them, for usurpation and cruelty. A lonely isle near the mouth of the Malotschua was selected for the execution, and there they suffered the last penalty. There, also, during the two years which followed that event, more than five hundred members of the sect were put to death, suspected of having revealed the secrets of its orgies. They were drowned in the stream, or perished by the halter or the knife; at all events, they disappeared, and were never more heard of. These doings, even in that remote district, could not long be kept secret. The police bestirred themselves; the isle where so many deeds of murder had taken place was visited, and closely searched; and numerous bodies that had apparently been buried alive, carcasses strangled or hacked to pieces, and mutilated limbs, were found in abundance. Some years were spent in the inquiry, and the issue was, that at the close of 1839 the government ordered the complete expulsion of the Douchobertzi of the Malotschua. Many withered and perished amid the snows of the Caucasus. Their nominal chief, Hilarion Kaponstin, died in 1841, at Achaltisk, in Georgia, leaving behind him two infants, in whom the Douchobertzi still hope to see their Christ revived.

Those we have sketched are but a few specimens of the long catalogue of sects who disavow the dogmas of the Church of St Petersburg, and denounce its Holy Synod. There are others that work in obscurity, but with perseverance, and gradually, but steadily, sap its foundations. Most of those doctrines lead to the complete disruption of all moral bonds, and the dissolution of society; and sensuality, plunder, and cruelty seem to pervade the gloomy reveries in which the Russian peasant indulges. We have reason to believe that the stirring of that dangerous spirit which aims at the overthrow of all authority, has given serious uneasiness to the Russian government; and that the conspiracies which have more than once been found to exist in the army, are traceable to that dark and stern fanaticism! Education, of course, is the remedy for the evil. In Russia, however, the maxim of Bacon is reversed, and there ignorance, not knowledge, is believed to be power. If education once teach the Russian serf to regard the Czar as less than the Deity, how long would that despotism endure?

Such, then, is the “orthodoxy” which the Czar would extend over southern Europe, whose doctrines and whose unity he would impose on Greece; and such the religious protectorate with which the Greek Christians, the subjects of the Porte, are menaced. Those pretensions have no foundation, no justification, in civil or religious law; they are not based on the laws of any civilised community. The orthodox Church of Russia is but the erring offspring of the Church of Constantinople; and she is branded on the forehead by that Church with schism. It was from the Church of Constantinople that, down to the fifteenth century, she received her patriarchs, who never advanced pretensions to equality with the Byzantine pontiffs. What they might have attained to, it is now useless to inquire, for the link which bound that Church to her parent was, as we have shown, severed for ever by Peter the Great. By the same right as the Czar, the sovereign of France might claim a protectorate over the Catholics of Belgium or Northern Germany; or call upon the Autocrat himself to render an account of the Poles, or others of his Catholic subjects. Russia has no claim to eminence in piety, in learning, in antiquity, in superior morality, or in extent of privilege. Her Church has been for years forced to maintain a separate struggle against sects more or less hostile to her Synod, and to her temporal authority. Each prelate, each dignitary of her establishment, is, with respect to the Czar, precisely what the meanest serf is to his lord, and the mass of her priests are sunk in ignorance. The question of the Holy Shrines is invariably the mask assumed by Russia to cover her designs in the East. The right on which the nations of the West claim to protect the Cross from the Infidel dates from the Crusades. Among the hosts which the enthusiasm and eloquence of the Hermit sent forth to do battle with the Mussulman, and to liberate from the cruel yoke of the misbelievers the land which witnessed the mystery of the Redemption, the name of Russia is not to be found. These barbarians had then their necks bowed under the rule of the Tartars; they were then crowding to the tents of the Khans, kissing the hoofs of their masters’ horses, or presenting, as slaves, the draught of mares’ milk, too happy if permitted to lick from the dust the drops that fell from the bowl.

Perhaps we ought to offer an apology for the length of this paper. But we were desirous of showing, first, that the homogeneity of the Russian and Eastern Churches, on which the Czar lays his strongest claim to the protectorate he demands, has no foundation in fact, and that the Christian communities on which he would impose his protection deny the orthodoxy of his faith, and regard him as the usurper of spiritual power; second, that the doctrines of the Synod of St Petersburg are denounced by Russians themselves, and the establishment opposed by a formidable sectarianism, and that that Church is itself rather in a condition to require protection against its internal enemies than to afford it to others; third, that even supposing the Russian and Eastern Churches to be identical, the protectorate in question would, in consequence of the temporal privileges preserved by the Patriarch of Constantinople, as already noticed, be the positive introduction of a dangerous foreign influence in the domestic administration of the Ottoman empire, and that the Sultan would thereby become the vassal of the Czar; fourth, that as there are numerous Christian subjects of the Sublime Porte who do not belong to the Greek communion, their protector, where protection is needed, cannot be the Czar; and, fifth, that the semi-independent Moldo-Wallachians also disavow the doctrines of the Russian Church, and reject her protection.

We do not pretend to speak with enthusiasm of the Ottomans, but it must be admitted, that what has occurred since the commencement of the present quarrel is not to their disadvantage. Unlike the Czar, the Sultan has made no appeal to the mere fanaticism of his people, nor has he attempted to arouse the fierceness of religious hatred against the Giaour, which he might have done. His appeal has been to their feeling of nationality—such an appeal as every government would make in similar circumstances. Nor are the events which have taken place on the Danube likely to inspire the world with contempt for Ottoman valour and patriotism. If left alone to struggle with their powerful adversary, the Turks must succumb; but in the present campaign they have, at all events, proved themselves to be good soldiers.

The momentous question of a general war is, at the moment we write these lines, trembling in the balance; and the decision is with Austria. But whatever be the phase into which the great Eastern question is about to enter, we have one decided opinion on the policy of Russia. It is thus explained, not by a hostile or a foreign writer, but by a Russian historian, the eloquent Karamsin, in the following brief sentences: “The object and the character of our military policy has invariably been, to seek to be at peace with everybody, and to make conquests without war; always keeping ourselves on the defensive, placing no faith in the friendship of those whose interests do not accord with our own, and losing no opportunity of injuring them, without ostensibly breaking our treaties with them.”

THE TWO ARNOLDS.[3]

Nature, it would seem, has fortunately provided against the simultaneous development of kindred genius and intellect amongst human families. Such, at least, is the general rule, and it is a beneficent one. For if a sudden frenzy were to seize the whole clans of Brown, or Smith, or Campbell, or Thomson—were the divine afflatus breathed at once upon the host, more numerous than that of Sennacherib, of the inheritors of the above names, undoubtedly such a confusion would ensue as has not been witnessed since the day of the downfall of Babel. Passing over three of these great divisions of the human race, as located in the British Islands, let us confine our illustration simply to the sons of Diarmid. Without estimating the number of Campbells who are scattered over the face of the earth, we have reason to believe that in Argyllshire alone there are fifty thousand of that name. Out of each fifty, at least twenty are Colins. If, then, a poetical epidemic, only half as contagious as the measles, were to visit our western county, we should behold the spectacle of a thousand Colin Campbells rushing frantically, and with a far cry towards Lochow, and simultaneously twangling on the clairshach. Fame, in the form of a Druidess, might announce, from the summit of Kilchurn Castle, the name of the one competitor who was entitled to the wreath; but twice five hundred Colins would press forward at the call, and the question of poetic superiority could only be decided by the dirk. Fortunately, as we have already observed, nature provides against such a contingency. Glancing over the cosmopolitan directory, she usually takes care that no two living bards shall bear precisely the same appellation; and if, sometimes, she seems to permit an unusual monopoly of some kind of talent in the same family or sept, we almost never find that the baptismal appellations correspond. Thus, in the days of James I., there were no less than three poetical Fletchers—John, the dramatist; Phineas, the author of the Purple Island; and Giles, the brother of Phineas. Also there were two Beaumonts—Francis, the ally of the greater Fletcher, and Sir John, his brother. In our own time, the poetic mantle seems to have fallen extensively on the shoulders of the Tennysons. Besides Prince Alfred, whom we all honour and admire, and to whom more than three-fourths of our young versifiers pay homage by slavishly imitating his style, there was Charles, whose volume, published about the same time as the firstling of his brother, was deemed by competent judges to exhibit remarkable promise; and within the last few months, another Tennyson—Frederick—has bounded like a grasshopper into the ring, and is now piping away as clearly as any cicala. And here, side by side, amidst the mass of minstrelsy which cumbers our table, lie two volumes, on the title-page of each of which is inscribed the creditable name of Arnold.

We have not for a considerable time held much communing with the rising race of poets, and we shall at once proceed to state the reason why. Even as thousands of astronomers are nightly sweeping the heavens with their telescopes, in the hope of discovering some new star or wandering comet, so of late years have shoals of small critics been watching for the advent of some grand poetical genius. These gentlemen, who could not, if their lives depended on it, elaborate a single stanza, have a kind of insane idea that they may win immortal fame by being the first to perceive and hail the appearance of the coming bard. Accordingly, scarce a week elapses without a shout being raised at the birth of a thin octavo. “Apollodorus, or the Seraph of Gehenna, a Dramatic Mystery, by John Tunks,” appears; and we are straightway told, on the authority of Mr Guffaw, the celebrated critic, that:—“It is a work more colossal in its mould than the undefined structures of the now mouldering Persepolis. Tunks may not, like Byron, possess the hypochondriacal brilliancy of a blasted firework, or pour forth his floods of radiant spume with the intensity of an artificial volcano. He does not pretend to the spontaneous combustion of our young friend Gander Rednag (who, by the way, has omitted to send us his last volume), though we almost think that he possesses a diviner share of the poet’s ennobling lunacy. He does not dive so sheer as the author of Festus into the bosom of far unintelligibility, plummet-deep beyond the range of comprehension, or the shuddering gaze of the immortals. He may not be endowed with the naked eagle-eye of Gideon Stoupie, the bard of Kirriemuir, whose works we last week noticed, and whose grand alcoholic enthusiasm shouts ha, ha, to the mutchkin, as loudly as the call of the trumpet that summons Behemoth from his lair. He may not, like the young Mactavish, to whose rising talent we have also borne testimony, be able to swathe his real meaning in the Titanic obscurity of the parti-coloured Ossianic mysticism. He may not, like Shakespeare, &c. &c.” And then, having occupied many columns in telling us whom Mr Tunks does not resemble, the gifted Guffaw concludes by an assurance that Tunks is Tunks, and that his genius is at this moment flaring over the universe, like the meteor-standard of the Andes!

Desirous, from the bottom of our heart, to do all proper justice to Tunks, we lay down this furious eulogium, and turn to the volume. We find, as we had anticipated, that poor Tunks is quite guiltless of having written a single line of what can, by any stretch of conscience, be denominated poetry—that the passages which Guffaw describes as being so ineffably grand, are either sheer nonsense or exaggerated conceits—and that a very excellent young man, who might have gained a competency by following his paternal trade, is in imminent peril of being rendered an idiot for life by the folly of an unscrupulous scribbler. Would it be right, under those circumstances, to tell Tunks our mind, and explain to him the vanity of his ways? If we were to do so, the poor lad would probably not believe us; for he has drunk to the dregs the poisoned chalice of Guffaw, and is ready, like another Homer, to beg for bread and make minstrelsy through innumerable cities. If we cannot hope to reclaim him, it would be useless cruelty to hurt his feelings, especially as Tunks is doing no harm to any one beyond himself. So we regard him much as one regards a butterfly towards the close of autumn, with the wish that the season of his enjoyment might be prolonged, but with the certainty that the long nights and frosty evenings are drawing nigh. Little, indeed, do the tribe of the Guffaws care for the mischief they are doing.

Or take another case. Let us suppose the appearance on the literary stage of a young man really endowed with poetic sensibility—one whose powers are yet little developed, but who certainly gives promise, conditionally on proper culture, of attaining decided eminence. Before we know anything about him, he is somehow or other committed to the grasp of the Guffaws. They do not praise—they idolise him. All the instances of youthful genius are dragged forth to be debased at his feet. He is told, in as many words, that Pope was a goose, Chatterton a charlatan, Kirke White a weakling, and Keats a driveller, compared with him,—at any rate, that the early effusions of those poets are not fit to be spoken of in the same breath with what he has written at a similar age. There are no bounds to the credulity of a poet of one-and-twenty. He accepts the laudation of those sons of Issachar as gospel, and, consequently, is rather surprised that a louder blast has not been blown through the trumpet of fame. His eulogists are so far from admitting that he has any faults, that they hold him up as a pattern, thereby exciting his vanity to such an extent that an honest exposition of his faults would appear to him a gross and malignant outrage. It is really very difficult to know what to do in such cases. On the one hand, it is a pity, without an effort, to allow a likely lad to be flyblown and spoiled by the buzzing blue-bottles of literature; on the other, it is impossible to avoid seeing that the mischief has been so far done, that any remedy likely to be effectual must cause serious pain. To tie up a Guffaw to the stake, and to inflict upon him condign punishment—a resolution which we intend to carry into effect some fine morning—would be far less painful to us than the task or duty of wounding the sensitiveness of a youth who may possibly be destined to be a poet.

Setting, for the present, the Guffaws, or literary Choctaws, aside, we have a word to say to a very different class of critics, or rather commentators; and we desire to do this in the utmost spirit of kindness. Whether Aristotle, who could no more have perpetrated a poem than have performed the leger-de-main of the Wizard of the North, was justified in writing his “Poetics,” we cannot exactly say. More than one of his treatises upon subjects with which he hardly could have been practically conversant, are still quoted in the schools; but we suspect that his authority—paramount, almost, during the middle ages, because there were then no other guides, and because he found his way into Western Europe chiefly through the medium of the Moors—is fast waning, and in matters of taste ought not now to be implicitly received. Aristotle, however, was a great man, far greater than Dr Johnson. The latter compiled a Dictionary; Aristotle, by his own efforts, aspired to make, and did make, a sort of Encyclopædia. But he composed several of his treatises, not because he conceived that he was the person best qualified to be the exponent of the subject, but because no one really qualified had attempted before him to expound it. We have seen, and perused with real sorrow, a recent treatise upon “Poetics,” which we cannot do otherwise, conscientiously, than condemn. The author is no doubt entitled to praise on account of his metaphysical ability, which we devoutly trust he may be able to turn to some useful purpose; but as to poetry, its forms, development, machinery, or application, he is really as ignorant as a horse. It is perfectly frightful to see the calmness with which one of these young students of metaphysics sits down to explain the principles of poetry, and the self-satisfied air with which he enunciates the results of his wonderful discoveries. Far be it from us, when “our young men dream dreams,” to rouse them rudely from their slumber; but we hold it good service to give them a friendly shake when we observe them writhing under the pressure of Ephialtes.

It is one thing to descant upon poetry, and another to compose it. After long meditation on the subject, we have arrived at the conclusion that very little benefit indeed is to be derived from the perusal of treatises, and that the only proper studies for a young poet are the book of nature, and the works of the greatest masters. To that opinion, we are glad to observe, one of our Arnolds seriously inclines. Matthew—whom we shall take up first, because he is an old acquaintance—has written an elaborate preface, in which he complains of the bewildering tone of the criticism of the present day. He remarks with perfect justice, that the ceaseless babbling about art has done an incalculable deal of harm, by drawing the attention of young composers from the study and contemplation of their subjects, and leading them to squander their powers upon isolated passages. There is much truth in the observations contained in the following extract, albeit it is in direct opposition to the daily practice of the Guffaws:—

“We can hardly, at the present day, understand what Menander meant when he told a man who inquired as to the progress of his comedy, that he had finished it, not having yet written a single line, because he had constructed the action of it in his mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the merit of his piece depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen as he went along. We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions,—to the language about the action, not to the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think the term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine writing, and with a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, they permit him to leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided that he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of his neglecting to gratify these there is little danger; he needs rather to be warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; he needs rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to everything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellencies to develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his personal peculiarities—most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds in effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in nature.”

It would be well for the literature of the age if sound criticism of this description were more common. Mr Arnold is undoubtedly correct in holding that the first duty of the poet, after selecting his subject, is to take pains to fashion it symmetrically, and that any kind of ornament which tends to divert the attention from the subject is positively injurious to the poem. This view, however, is a great deal too refined for the comprehension of the Guffaws. They show you a hideous misshapen image, with diamonds for eyes, rubies stuck into the nostrils, and pearls inserted in place of teeth, and ask you to admire it! Admire what? Not the image certainly, for anything more clumsy and absurd it is impossible to imagine: if it is meant that we are to admire the jewels, we are ready to do so, as soon as they are properly disposed, and made the ornaments of a stately figure. The necklace which would beseem the bosom of Juno, and send lustre even to the queen of the immortals, cannot give anything but additional hideousness to the wrinkled folds of an Erichtho. Mr Arnold, who has inherited his father’s admiration for ancient literature, makes out the best case we remember to have seen, in vindication of the Greek drama. It is as follows:—

“For what reason was the Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a range of subjects? Because there are so few actions which unite in themselves, in the highest degree, the conditions of excellence; and it was not thought that on any but an excellent subject could an excellent poem be constructed. A few actions, therefore, eminently adapted for tragedy, maintained almost exclusive possession of the Greek tragic stage; their significance appeared inexhaustible; they were as permanent problems, perpetually offered to the genius of every fresh poet. This too is the reason of what appears to us moderns a certain baldness of expression in Greek tragedy; of the triviality with which we often reproach the remarks of the chorus, where it takes place in the dialogue; that the action itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon, was to stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract the spectator’s attention from this; that the tone of the parts was to be perpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect of the whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded, stood, before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the spectator’s mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly seen, at the end of a long and dark vista: then came the Poet, embodying outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown in: stroke upon stroke the drama proceeded; the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the rivetted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of immortal beauty.”

This is indeed criticism worth listening to, and the style of it is not less admirable than the matter. We do not, however, entirely go along with Mr Arnold in his decided preference for the antique drama. We never arise from the study of Greek tragedy without the impression that it is deficient in richness and flexibility. This, we think, is to be attributed in a great measure to its form, which is not natural; the members of the chorus being neither altogether actors, nor altogether disinterested spectators. They are interlopers between the audience and the actors, and detract from the interest of the latter by requiring and receiving explanation. That at least is our feeling after the perusal of Greek tragedy, but it by no means follows that the same impression was produced on the minds of a Greek audience. We agree with Professor Blackie that the grand works of the Attic three are to be regarded rather as operas than as tragedies, according to our modern acceptance of the term—that they were framed purposely for musical accompaniment and effect—and that, failing these, it is impossible for us to form an adequate estimate of their power in exciting sympathy or awakening emotion. “The man,” says the translator of Æschylus, “must certainly be strangely blinded by early classical prepossessions, if he fails to feel that, as a whole, a Greek tragedy, when set against the English composition of the same name, is exceedingly narrow in its conception, meagre in its furniture, monotonous in its character, unskilful in its execution, and not seldom feeble in its effect.” Most true—and for this reason, that the writer of English tragedy seeks no other vehicle of thought or idea than language; so that, except for scenic display, his play will give as much pleasure to, and produce nearly the same effect upon the mind, if read silently in the closet, as if brought upon the stage. It is not necessary, in order to appreciate Shakespeare, that we should have seen his dramas represented in the pomp and magnificence of the theatre. Whereas the Greek artist had to deal with the more complex material of words and music. Take away the latter, and you frustrate half his design; because he did not mean the words of the chorus to be studied as poems—he meant them to be heard with the full accompaniment of music. Those who are in the habit of frequenting the modern opera will readily understand our position. What can be finer than Norma, as represented on the stage, when Grisi or Caradori assumes the part of the prophetess, imprecates vengeance on the perfidious Pollio, and implores the forgiveness of the father? Higher tragedy than that can hardly be conceived—the effect upon the audience of the combined music and action is as powerful as though they had been listening to the greatest masterpiece of Shakespeare. But take the libretto of Norma—divest yourself of the musical association—study it in the closet—and we answer for it that no exercise of imagination on your part will enable you to endure it. And why is this? Simply because it was constructed as an opera, and because, by withdrawing the music, you destroy more than half the charm.

In dramatic compositions, where language alone can be employed as the vehicle of thought or sentiment, it is absolutely necessary that the expression should be bolder, the style more vivid, and the range of illustration larger than is requisite in the other kind where music is brought in aid of language, or rather where language is employed to assist the force of music. It seems therefore preposterous and contrary to reason, to expect that we should take as much delight or derive as high intellectual gratification from the bare perusal of a Greek skeleton play, as must have been felt by an Attic audience who witnessed its representation as a gorgeous national opera. It is even a greater artistical mistake to suppose that we should copy it implicitly. Alfieri indeed did so; but it is impossible to read one of his plays without experiencing a most chilly sensation. We entirely concur with what Mr Arnold has said regarding the importance of subject, symmetry, and design; but we differ from him as to the propriety of adhering to the nakedness of the Greeks. Let him compare—so far as that can be done with due allowance for the difference being narrative and dramatic poetry—the style of his early favourite Homer with that of Sophocles, and we think he will understand our meaning.

We confess to have been so much pleased with Mr Matthew Arnold’s preface, that we turned to his poetical performances with no slight degree of expectation. As we have already hinted, he is an old acquaintance, for we reviewed him in the Magazine some four or five years ago, when he appeared in the suspicious character of a Strayed Reveller. We then pointed out what we thought to be his faults, warned him as strongly as we could against his imitative tendencies, and, we hope, did justice to the genius which he evidently possessed and occasionally exhibited. Certainly we did not indulge in ecstasies; but we believed him capable of producing, through culture and study, something greatly superior to his early attempts, and we did not hesitate to say so. Since then, we are given to understand that he has published another volume of poems, which it was not our fortune to see; and the present is, with some additions, a collection of those poems which he considers to be his best, and which were contained in his earlier volumes. It is a hopeful sign of Mr M. Arnold that he is amenable to criticism. More than one of the poems which we noticed as absolutely bad, are omitted from the present collection; and therefore we are entitled to believe that, on mature consideration, he has assented to the propriety of our judgment. This is a good feature; for poets generally seem possessed with a tenfold share of stubbornness, and, like mothers, who always lavish their affections upon the most rickety of their offspring, are prompt to defend their worst effusions with almost superhuman pertinacity. It is because we feel a decided interest in Mr Arnold’s ultimate success that we again approach his poetry. We cannot conscientiously congratulate him on a present triumph—we cannot even say that he has improved upon his earliest effort; for the “Forsaken Merman,” which we noticed years ago, in terms of high commendation, is still the one gem of his collection; but we think that he may improve, and must improve, if he will only abandon all imitation, whether ancient or modern—identify himself with his situation—trust to natural impulse—and give art-theories to the winds. What he has to do is to follow the example of Menander, as quoted by himself. Let him, by all manner of means, be deliberate in the formation of his plan—let him fix what he is going to do, before he does anything—but let him not forget (what we fear he now forgets or does not know), that, in execution, the artist must beat on his own anvil, sweat at his own fire, and ply at his own forge. The poem of a master should bear as distinct and unmistakable marks of the hand that produced it, as a picture of Titian or Velasquez, a statue of Phidias, an altar-rail of Quentin Matsys, or a goblet of Benvenuto Cellini. Heaven only knows how many thousands of imitators have followed in the wake of these and other great original artists; but who cares for the imitations? No one, unless they are so good that they can be palmed off on purchasers under cover of the mighty names. Admit them to be imitations, and the merest tyro will hesitate to bid for them. It does seem to us that men of letters are slower than any other description of artists in perceiving the baneful effects of imitation. They do not appear to see this obvious truth, that, unless they can transcend their model, they are deliberately courting an inferior place. If they can transcend it, then of course they have won the day, but it must be by departing from, not by adhering to, the peculiarities of the model.

In so far as Mr Matthew Arnold is concerned, we do not intend these remarks to be applicable to his Greek choric imitations. We spoke of these before, and are willing to take them as classical experiments. Goethe, in his old age, was rather fond of this kind of amusement; and it came gracefully from the octogenarian, who, having won his fame as a Teuton, might in his latter days be allowed to indulge in any Hellenic exercitations. And as old age is privileged, so is extreme youth. The young student, with his head and imagination full of Sophocles and classical theories, even though he may push the latter beyond the verge of extravagance, is always an interesting object to the more experienced man of letters. Enthusiasm is never to be despised. It is the sign of a high and ardent spirit, and ought not to be met with the drenching operation of the bucket. But Mr M. Arnold is now considerably past his teens. He is before the public for the third time, and he still parades these Greek imitations, as if he were confident of their worth and power as English poems. So be it. We have nothing in regard to them to add to what we said before, except that a much higher artist than Mr M. Arnold must appear, before the British public will be convinced that such hobbling and unrhymed versification ought to supersede our own beautifully intoned and indigenous system of prosody.

Of the new poems contained in this collection, the most ambitious is entitled “Sohrab and Rustum, an Episode.” We like episodes, because they have the advantage of being short, and, moreover, if well constructed, are as symmetrical as poems of greater pretension. The story is a simple one, and yet contains in itself the elements of power. Sohrab, the son of the great Persian hero Rustum, by a princess of Koordistan, has never seen his father, but, like Telemachus, is in search of him. Being with the Tartar army during a campaign against the Persians, he conceives the idea of challenging the bravest champion of that host to single combat, in the hope that, if he is victor, Rustum may hear of and acknowledge him. If slain—

“Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.”

The challenge is given; but Sohrab was already known far and wide as a handy lad with the scimitar, and a powerful hurler of the spear; therefore the Persians, with their usual want of pluck, were exceedingly unwilling to encounter him. We subjoin Mr Arnold’s account of the panic:—

“But as a troop of pedlars from Cabool

Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,

That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow,

Winding so high, that, as they mount, they pass

Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,

Choked by the air; and scarce can they themselves

Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries—

In single file they move, and stop their breath,

For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows—

So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

And to Ferood his brother chiefs come up

To counsel: Gudurz and Zoarrah came,

And Feraburz, who rul’d the Persian host

Second, and was the uncle of the king.”

Not one of these fellows with the jaw-breaking names could muster courage to come forth, like Goliath, against the dauntless David of the Tartars. Gudurz, however, bethinks him that Rustum had arrived in the camp the evening before, and of course he was the very man for the occasion; so he visits him immediately after breakfast. All heroes feed, or ought to feed, voraciously; and judging from appearances, Rustum was qualified to compete at a game of knife and fork with Achilles.

“And Gudurz entered Rustum’s tent, and found

Rustum: his morning meal was done, but still

The table stood beside him, charged with food;

A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread,

And dark-green melons.”

Possibly from the effects of repletion, Rustum for some time refuses to accept the championship, but is at last taunted into action and takes the field, but determines to fight unknown. We ought to mention here that Rustum, so far from suspecting his relationship with Sohrab, is unaware that he has any son at all. We must draw on Mr Arnold’s verse for the exordium to the combat.

“Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight,

Which in a queen’s secluded garden throws

Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,

By midnight, to a bubbling fountain’s sound—

So slender Sohrab seem’d, so softly rear’d.

And a deep pity entered Rustum’s soul

As he beheld him coming; and he stood,

And beckoned to him with his hand, and said:—

‘O thou young man, the air of heaven is soft,

And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold.

Heaven’s air is better than the dead cold grave.

Behold me: I am vast, and clad in iron,

And tried; and I have stood on many a field

Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe:

Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.

O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death?

Be govern’d: quit the Tartar host, and come

To Irun; and be as my son to me,

And fight beneath my banner till I die.

There are no youths in Irun brave as thou.’

“So he spoke mildly: Sohrab heard his voice,

The mighty voice of Rustum; and he saw

His giant figure planted on the sand,

Sole, like some single tower, which a chief

Has builded on the waste in former years

Against the robbers; and he saw that head,

Streak’d with its first grey hairs: hope fill’d his soul;

And he ran forwards, and embrac’d his knees,

And clasp’d his hand within his own and said:—

‘Oh, by thy father’s head! by thine own soul!

Art thou not Rustum? speak! art thou not he?’

“But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth,

And turn’d away, and spoke to his own soul:—

‘Ah me! I muse what this young fox may mean.

False, wily, boastful are these Tartar boys.

For if I now confess this thing he asks,

And hide it not, but say—Rustum is here—

He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes,

But he will find some pretext not to fight,

And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts—

A belt or sword perhaps—and go his way.

And on a feast-day in Afrasiab’s hall,

In Samarcand, he will arise and cry—

“I challenged once, when the two armies camp’d

Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords

To cope with me in single fight: but they

Shrank; only Rustum dared: then he and I

Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.”

So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud.

Then were the chiefs of Irun shamed through me.’

“And then he turn’d, and sternly spake aloud:—

‘Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus

Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call’d

By challenge forth: make good thy vaunt, or yield.

Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight?

Rash boy, men look on Rustum’s face and flee.’”

Then follows the combat, Homerically intermingled with a great deal of talk between the champions, until Sohrab falls mortally wounded by his father’s spear. Then come the explanations, and Rustum knows that he has slain his son.

“And with a heavy groan, Rustum replied:—

‘Oh that its waves were flowing over me!

Oh that I saw its grains of yellow silt

Roll tumbling on the current o’er my head!’

“And with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:

‘Desire not that, my father; we must live.

For some are born to do great deeds, and live,

As some are born to be obscured, and die.

Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,

And reap a second glory in thine age.

Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.

But come: thou seest this great host of men

Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these:

Let me entreat for them: what have they done?

They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star.

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.

But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,

But carry me with thee to Seistan,

And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,

Thou, and the snow-hair’d Zal, and all thy friends.

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,

And heap a stately mound above my bones,

And plant a far-seen pillar over all:

That so the passing horsemen on the waste

May see my tomb a great way off, and say—

Sohrab, the mighty Rustum’s son, lies there,

Whom his great father did in ignorance kill—

And I be not forgotten in my grave.’

And with a mournful voice Rustum replied:—

‘Fear not; as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,

So shall it be: for I will burn my tents,

And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,

And carry thee away to Seistan,

And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,

With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.

And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,

And heap a stately mound above thy bones,

And plant a far-seen pillar over all;

And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.

And I will spare thy host: yea, let them go:

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.

What should I do with slaying any more?’”

Real poetry, we are sorry to say, is now so scarce among us, that we cannot afford to dismiss any promising aspirant with a sneer. From the foregoing extracts it will be seen that Mr M. Arnold, in opposition to the tenets of that school of bardlings so copiously beslavered by Guffaw, has adopted, in this poem, a simple and even severe method of expression. He is now writing after Homer—not, indeed, slavishly, but on the Homeric principle; and the question now arises, whether or not he has succeeded. Our opinion is that this poem is highly creditable as an attempt in the right direction—that it is infinitely superior to the turgid trash with which we have been, of late years, inundated—but that it has not merit enough to confer lasting distinction on the author. Mr Arnold, we are aware, has been told the reverse; and as the sugared cup is always more palatable than that which contains an ingredient of bitter, he may possibly be inclined to prefer sweet panegyric to sincere though wholesome criticism. But we are not writing for him alone; we are attending to the poetical reputation of the age. In this composition, as it appears to us, Mr Arnold again suffers through imitation. He is writing, with deliberate intention, Homerically—that is, he has been keeping Homer in his eye, instead of rivetting it on his subject. Now this is a great mistake. The peculiar manner of a poet depends upon the age in which he lives. There is an enormous gap in world-history between “the blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle,” and Mr Matthew Arnold, who dates from “Fox How, Ambleside,” A.D. 1853; and it is a sheer impossibility that the two can naturally express themselves alike. What was nature in the one, is affectation in the other. Homer expressed himself simply, because he was addressing a simple audience; and also because his hearty, noble, and grand organisation made him superior to rhetorical conceits or affectation. Arnold also expresses himself simply; but he does so, not from native impulse or inspiration, but because he is aware of Homer’s charm. But he frustrates his own intention by deliberately copying Homer, and making his readers painfully aware of it. A true, or at all events a very accomplished poet, would not have committed this error. Let any man, of really cultivated taste in poetry, read the “Hyperion” of Keats, and the “Morte D’Arthur” of Tennyson—both of them splendid poems, and distinguished by severe simplicity of language—and then compare them with this effusion of Mr Arnold. We cannot for one moment doubt the verdict. Keats and Tennyson saw the principle, but they kept themselves away from imitation, gave their genius full play, and achieved magnificent results. Mr Arnold, recognising the principle, cannot divert his eye from the model, adopts the peculiarities of that, and fails. In fact, imitation is his curse. We said so more than four years ago, and we now repeat it. So strong is his tendency that way, that he cannot, within the limits of a composition of moderate length, confine himself to the imitation of a single renowned poet, but makes patchwork by copying the peculiarities, even though they are acknowledged blemishes, of another. Thus we find, nearly at the commencement of the poem which we are now discussing, the following passage:—

“The sun, by this, had risen, and clear’d the fog

From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands:

And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed

Into the open plain; so Haman bade;

Haman, who next to Peran Wisa ruled

The host, and still was in his lusty prime.

From their black tents long files of horse they stream’d:

As when, some grey November morn, the files,

In marching order spread, of long-neck’d cranes,

Stream over Casbin, and the southern slopes

Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries,

Or some from Caspian reed-bed, southward bound

For the warm Persian sea-board: so they stream’d.

The Tartars of the Oxus, the king’s guard,

First, with black sheepskin caps, and with long spears;

Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come

And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares.

Next the more temperate Toorkmans of the south,

The Tukas, and the lances of Salore,

And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands;

Light men, and on light steeds, who only drink

The acrid milk of camels and their wells.”

The description—or catalogue—is twice as long as the foregoing extract, but we cannot afford to multiply quotations. The student of Milton will readily recognise the source of this inspiration, and will regret that those very passages, which every sound judge (if he be not an arrant pedant or a schoolmaster) would wish to be excised from the pages of the “Paradise Lost,” should have been selected for imitation by a young modern poet.

Further, Mr Arnold errs in being unnecessarily minute. Here again he may plead the Homeric example; but we reply, as before, that Arnold is not Homer. That style of description, which Delille happily characterises as “peindre les ongles,” is not only tedious but puerile, and sometimes has a ludicrous effect. Take, for example, the following detailed account of the toilet of an old Tartar gentleman:—

“So said he, and dropp’d Sohrab’s hand, and left

His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay,

And o’er his chilly limbs his woollen coat

He pass’d, and tied his sandals on his feet,

And threw a white cloak round him, and he took

In his right hand a ruler’s staff, no sword;

And on his head he placed his sheepskin cap,

Black, glossy, curl’d, the fleece of Kara-Kul;

And raised the curtain of his tent, and call’d

His herald to his side, and went abroad.”

Now, supposing that Mr Arnold had to describe the uprising of a modern, would he consider it necessary to favour us with a description of the emergence from the blankets, the deposition of the nightcap, the wrestle into the nether integuments, the shaving-jug, the razor, and all the rest of it? We beg to assure him that this passage, so far from being vigorous, is pure slip-slop; and we are convinced that, on reflection, he will admit the justice of the stricture. For example; how infinitely more terse and satisfactory is the one line which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of poor Ophelia—

“Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes!”

What the mischief do we care for the texture of the stockings, or the peculiar method of investiture? Is it necessary to enter into details regarding the boots, and to specify whether they were Wellingtons or Bluchers? That there are, in this episode, some fine, and one or two noble passages, we are very glad to acknowledge, but it is by no means perfect as a whole. Indeed, even if the bulk of it had been faultless, the termination would have spoiled it as a poem; for Mr Arnold has been induced, through some extraordinary hallucination, to destroy the effect of the catastrophe, by superadding a needless piece of description. We sincerely regret this; because the catastrophe, when it does come (and it ought to have arrived sooner) is very fine; and no artist could have desired a better termination than the picture of Rustum watching by his dead son—

“And night came down over the solemn waste,

And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,

And darken’d all; and a cold fog, with night,

Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,

As of a great assembly loosed, and fires

Began to twinkle through the fog: for now

Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal:

The Persians took it on the open sands

Southward; the Tartars by the river marge,

And Rustum and his son were left alone.”

Here the poem ought to have ended; but Mr Arnold wishes to try his hand at that very ancient and hackneyed subject, the description of the course of a river; and, the Oxus being conveniently near, he embarks on a voyage for the Arab Sea.

“But the majestic river floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,

Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,

Rejoicing, through the hush’d Chorasmian waste,

Under the solitary moon: he flow’d

Right for the Polar star, past Orgunjè,

Brimming, and bright, and huge: there sands begin

To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,

And split his currents; that for many a league

The shorn and parcell’d Oxus strains along

Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles—

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had

In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,

A foil’d circuitous wanderer:—till at last

The long’d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide

His luminous home of waters opens, bright

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath’d stars

Emerge, and shine upon the Arab Sea.”

Not at all bad as a piece of versification, but utterly to be condemned in the place where it is introduced.

In spite of one or two beautiful passages—the best being the description of the children at play in the third part—we cannot enthusiastically admire the poem of “Tristram and Iseult.” It is sickly, feverish, and withal terribly disjointed—affording no trace of that symmetry of design, the lack of which in modern poetry Mr Arnold has very justly deplored. Neither can we say much for the “Church of Brou,” in which, by the way, Mr Arnold has attempted an elaborate description of a painted window, very dull of tint, indeed, when we compare it with the gorgeous masterpiece in “The Eve of St Agnes.” On the whole, we are disappointed with this volume, because we really think that Mr M. Arnold might have done much better. That he has the power is quite evident; that many of the poetical views he enunciates are sound, we have already acknowledged; but, somehow or other, he neither exerts the power continuously, nor adheres in practice to his views. We have a strong impression that he composes too coldly and phlegmatically, and without allowing the proper scope to his imagination. That is always a bad method. The inspiration of the poet is not by any means a mere figure of speech; it must be realised, if great effects are to be produced. Verses—ay, and good verses too—may be written to almost any extent, without the composer experiencing anything like a thrill of emotion; but verses so produced are not of the nature of true poetry. Grand harmonies suggest and develop themselves only when the mind is in an exalted state; and at such times the poet cares nothing for the rules of art. If he stops to consider these, he instantaneously loses the inspiration.

We cannot, as yet, congratulate Mr M. Arnold on high success; but we augur well of him for the future, and shall be delighted to pay him a more decided and satisfactory tribute whenever he will allow us to do so. Come we now to the second Arnold—Edwin, of University College, Oxford.

Judging from external evidence, we should say that Edwin is some years younger than Matthew, and he is fortunately, as yet, altogether free from poetical theories. Song comes to him as naturally as it does to the bird on the bough. He cannot help expressing his thick-thronging and always graceful fancies in verse; and he frequently does so with the true minstrel spirit. That he should be occasionally a little extravagant is to be expected. All very young poets are so, and we like them the better for it; for why should they affect the solemn airs and sententious pomposity of their seniors? Edwin Arnold is just now in the very parterre of poesy—culling flowers with a liberal hand, and binding them into a nosegay fit for the acceptance of his lady-love. Our pen would prove faithless to our fingers should we attempt to disentangle that pretty posy, which early genius lays at the feet of beauty. Why should we review his poems, after the manner of the cold critics, carping at what is enthusiastic, and triumphing over errors, from which older brethren of the lyre are by no means exempt? If he chooses, in imitation of “Burleigh Hall,” to renew the story of the Falcon-Feast, long since told by Boccaccio, and from him dramatised by Barry Cornwall, why should we point to faults which, in a year or so, he will discover of his own accord? Never again, we are certain, will he, in a love story, libel his hero and his heroine as he has done in four lines of that ballad—

“So for one who loved him never

Slew he what had loved him well:

Giannetta, silent ever,

Feasted till the sunlight fell;”

—thereby implying that the owner of the falcon was a brute, and his mistress a deliberate gourmande, gloating over the trail! The story, even as told by the Florentine, has always seemed to us hideously unnatural. The man who could sacrifice, in cold blood, a dumb creature that loved him, would not hesitate, under temptation, to lay a sacrilegious hand on the weazand of his father; and we pray Mr Edwin Arnold to consider what kind of sympathy we should feel for Ulysses, if his first act, on his return to Ithaca, had been to drive his falchion into the heart of old Argus, who, for so many years, had been lying neglected at the gate, pining for his master’s return. Let us rather give a specimen or so of the better style of our youthful poet. We begin with the first poem.

“Oh! was there ever tale of human love

Which was not also tale of human tears?

Died not sweet Desdemona? Sorrowed not

Fair, patient Imogene? and she whose name

Lives among lovers, Sappho silver-voiced,

Was not the wailing of her passionate lyre

Ended for ever in the dull, deaf sea?

Must it be thus? Oh! must the cup that holds

The sweetest vintage of the vine of life

Taste bitter at the dregs? Is there no story,

No legend, no love-passage, which shall veil

Even as the bow which God hath bent in heaven

O’er the sad waste of mortal histories,

Promising respite to the rain of tears?”

A very pretty commencement to a pretty poem; the subject of which, however, must be considered as rather ticklish. It is curious that Edwin, as well as Matthew, has tried his hand at the painted window, which we wish he had not done, as the plagiary from Keats is evident:—

“They sleep: the spangled night is melting off,

And still they sleep: the holy moon looks in,

In at the painted window-panes, and flings

Ruby, blue, purple, emerald, amethyst,

Crystal and orange colours on their limbs;

And round her face a glory of white light,

As one that sins not; on the tapestries

Gold lights are flashing like the wings of angels,

Bringing these two hearts to be single-hearted.”

O Edwin! what could tempt you to charge your pallet with so many colours? Don’t you see how ill they assort together, giving the impression of a mashed rainbow?—and how dreadfully out of place are the flashing gold lights! They should be “lying,” Edwin, not “flashing;” for the holy moon is looking in, and all within the chamber should be repose. Pray you observe the exquisite toning of Keats in that passage with which you are already familiar, but the extreme beauty of which you do not yet thoroughly comprehend.

“Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,

As down she knelt for Heaven’s grace and boon;

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory, like a saint:

She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,

Save wings, for heaven.—”

Keats gives the colours in which an angel should be painted—yours, Mr Edwin, are too tawdry even for the coat of Harlequin.

So many of these poems come under the general title of “Occasional,” that we have some difficulty in finding a proper one for extract. Our favourite, on the whole, is “Quentin Matsys,” and from it we select a specimen.

“She was a painter’s daughter,—bold for love

He told his earnest suit, and prayed her hand

In words that his full heart made eloquence.

Silent the father heard; there as he sate

In jewelled silks, and velvets furbelow’d,

With works of mighty masters on the wall,

And all his art’s appliances about him,

A stern smile curled his pale patrician lip,

And cold and slow the cruel sentence came:

‘A painter’s daughter may not wed a smith;

Paint me like this and these, and thou shalt have her.’

Died then his love? Listen! The maiden wept

Such pearly tears, that in his bursting heart

Grew up strange hopes. Alas! to few is given

The magic skill that burns in life-like hues,

A speaking lip, an eye that beams and loves,

A moving majesty like nature’s own,

Save that this may not die: it is a gift

Higher and holier than a common man

May dare to reach at; oh! by what right, then,

Dared he to dream of it? by what right! Love’s!—

The love that lifts a peasant to a king,

The love that knows no doubting! Well he knew—

Too well for his fond hopes—that brawny arms

Guide not the pencil, and that smithy strokes

Fix not the fancies of a painter’s mind;

But still for that. To gaze into the eyes

That sparkled all for him was inspiration

Better than painter’s best: long days and nights

He strove as only lovers strive; at last

The passport to the haven of his hopes

Came in a touch, as if some angel hand

Had dipt his brush in life; and as the form

His fancy pictured, slowly—slowly grew,

And woke into broad being, then at last

He knew that he had won his golden prize—

That she was his for ever.

Antwerp’s bells

Rung out right merrily one sunny day;

Blue kirtles, and bright hose, and brighter faces,

Rhenish and sack, dancing and songs were there,

Feasting and music, and mad revelry,

And all to keep the wedding:—cavaliers

And highborn ladies stood to see them pass,

He, Quentin Matsys, and his blooming bride!”

Well then, after having given these extracts, we may be asked whether we think that Mr Edwin Arnold is really and truly a poet? Look, our dear sir, we beseech you, at that splendid gamecock—how glossy in his plumage, how quick in his eye, how massive in his neck, and how powerful in his limbs! There he walks, proud as the sultan at the head of his seraglio, the pride of his master’s heart, the terror of every recreant dunghill within a circle of a couple of miles. Some few months ago he was a mere chicken, whom you might have devoured with parsley-sauce without experiencing a pang of remorse. Before that he lay in an egg-shell. Now, had you looked either on the egg or on the chicken, you could not have stated with propriety that either was a gamecock—and yet there undeniably goes the finest ginger-pile in the parish. So is it with Mr Edwin Arnold. He may not be entitled yet to the high and sacred name of a poet—for he is still exercising himself in verse, and has not attained the possession of a distinguishing style of his own; but he shows excellent symptoms of breeding, and we doubt not will, in due time, advance a valid claim to the laurels. This, moreover, is to be said in his favour, that he is not treading in the footsteps of the “intense” school, and that he always writes intelligibly—a virtue which we observe a good many modern poets hold utterly in derision. Let him go on in his vocation, cultivating his taste, improving his judgment, observing nature, and eschewing gaudy ornament—and he may hope to win a name which shall be reverenced, when those of the utterers of fustian and balderdash, dear to the heart of Guffaw, are either wholly forgotten, or remembered only with ridicule.

COUNT SIGISMUND’S WILL.

The theatrical season in Paris, now at its height, has not yet been marked by the production of any particularly successful pieces. At about this time last year, the clever comedy of Lady Tartuffe afforded agreeable occupation to the critics, and abundant amusement to the town. At the Gymnase, the Fils de Famille, of which two versions have since been produced upon the London stage, and Philiberte, a sparkling three-act comedy in verse, full of wit, but rather Régence in its tone and style, nightly filled the house with select and gratified audiences. L’Honneur et l’Argent, M. Ponsard’s respectable and proper, but, in our opinion, wearisome play, had a triumphant run at the Odeon; whilst, at the Vaudeville, the Lady with the Camelias, who, objectionable though she was in some respects, was certainly, as far as talent went, immeasurably superior to her various imitators and successors, drew all Paris to her seductive boudoir. This winter no play of decided merit and importance has been produced at any theatre. In more than one instance, attempts have been made to proclaim the success of a piece immense, when in reality it was most moderate; and, at the Gymnase, Diane de Lys has really had a considerable run; but this has been owing to extraneous circumstances, and to the excellence of the acting, much more than to any intrinsic merits of the play, which derived a sort of scandalous interest from a generally-credited report that the author, Alexander Dumas the younger, had merely dramatised an adventure of his own—altering, however, the catastrophe; for the play closes with the death of the lover, shot by the offended husband. Rumour went so far as to point to a foreign lady of rank as the original of the Duchess Diana, and the playwright was blamed for his indiscretion. Whether there were grounds for such censure, or whether the tale was a mere ingenious invention, industriously circulated by the author’s friends to give a spurious popularity to a rather amusing but very worthless piece, it is hard to decide—the one case being quite as probable as the other. The Gymnase, however, boasts of its Diana as a signal triumph—which she may be to its treasury, although in other respects she does the theatre no great credit, beyond displaying an excellent cast and admirable acting. That agreeable theatre needs something to console it for the loss of its most valuable and accomplished comedian, Bressant, summoned by the higher powers from the scene of his numerous triumphs to the classic boards of the Française. There he had the good taste to make his first appearance in a play of Molière’s in preference to the less sterling class of comedy with which he is more familiar; and, both by his acting, and by the enthusiastic greeting he met from a crowded house, he at once proved himself a valuable accession to the talent and popularity of the first French theatre. That establishment just now has greater need of good new plays than of good new actors. It is unfortunate in its authors, and the drama droops under the imperial régime. Alexander Dumas—whose outrageous vanity and fanfaronades, daily displayed in the columns of the new journal, the Mousquetaire, which he owns and edits, have lately made him the laughingstock of Paris,—after writing two five-act historical plays in about as many days each, and having them both accepted by the committee, but prohibited before performance—probably because the authorities did not think the most important theatre in France a fit stage for such mountebank feats of rapid writing—has been fain to console himself (supposing his egregious self-conceit not to have set him above all need of consolation) by the cordial reception of a one-act comedy called Romulus, which has both humour and character. He has boasted of this little success almost as much as of the merits of his two great failures, the interdicted plays; has published the piece (the idea of which is derived from a passage in one of Auguste La Fontaine’s tales) in the feuilleton of his paper, where he also printed monstrous stories about his having written it in some wonderfully short space of time. But this clever silly man has made himself such a reputation as a Munchausen that none now believe him; and, moreover, it is very well known in Paris that the piece in question was planned, and in great part written, by an accomplished French actor, much esteemed in England, to whose cultivated taste and extensive reading some of the best dramatists of the day have on various occasions been indebted for advice and assistance, which they have not all been so slow as Mr Dumas to acknowledge.

The expectations of many persons, conversant with the relative merits of the principal living writers for the French stage, were lately raised high by the announcement of a five-act comedy from the united pens of two of the most successful of these, Messrs Emile Augier and Jules Sandeau. Both of these gentlemen have distinguished themselves as dramatists, although M. Sandeau is perhaps best known as the author of some very clever and agreeable novels. Indeed, since the regretted decease of Charles de Bernard, few have been more successful in that branch of literature. His style is that in which modern French writers have best succeeded—the roman de mœurs, or novel of society, whose attraction and interest depend rather upon accurate delineation and delicate satire of the habits, follies, and foibles of the time, than in startling situations and complicated intrigues. The late Charles de Bernard, to whose charming talent we some years ago devoted an article, and whose collected works have just received the well-deserved honour of posthumous republication, was an adept in the style, and was also one of the most inventive writers of his day. Most of his novels and tales display, in addition to a refined and extensive knowledge of French society and character, much ingenuity of plot and originality of incident. Of the same school, Jules Sandeau has more pathos and sentiment, less originality and wit. Like that of most novelists who are also dramatists, his dialogue is terse, spirited, and life-like, although less pointed and sparkling than that of the author of Gerfaut. Occasionally he reminds us of that clever whimsical writer, Alphonse Karr, but of Karr in his happiest moods, when he abjures triviality, and produces such novels as Genevieve and La Famille Alain. One of the favourite stock-pieces at the Comédie Française, Mademoiselle de la Seiglière, is by Sandeau, founded on his own novel of the same name. Another of his tales, La Chasse au Roman, he dramatised conjointly with Augier, and the piece brought out the other day, La Pierre de Touche—The Touchstone—is also founded on a novel by Sandeau, entitled Un Héritage. How is it, many have asked, that, with an excellent subject—that of a highly popular romance—to work upon, M. Sandeau and the witty and experienced author of Gabrielle, Philiberte, and other justly successful plays, have produced a comedy which has been more or less hissed every night of its performance, and which, instead of awakening the sympathies or exciting the admiration of the public, has produced an impression so manifestly unfavourable, that the authors deemed it necessary to publish a letter in explanation and vindication—a letter the publishers of the play have reproduced in the form of a preface? Before replying to this question, or sketching the plot of the play, we will give a slight outline of the novel on which it is founded. Our readers will hardly have forgotten another of M. Sandeau’s novels, Sacs et Parchemins, of which we some time ago gave an account.[4] Those who have read, with the amused interest it could hardly fail to excite, M. Sandeau’s account of the vaulting ambition of the retired draper Levrault, and of the desperate and ludicrous expedients of the ruined Viscount de Montflanquin, in his French Wolf’s Crag, will not be unwilling to follow the same writer upon German ground, to the ancient castle of Hildesheim, and into the humble abode of Franz Müller, the musician of Munich. We will briefly glance at the spirited and characteristic opening chapters of Un Héritage.

It was a great day for Master Gottlieb Kaufmann, notary in the little German town of Mühlstadt. Count Sigismund Hildesheim was just dead, and his will was to be opened in presence of his assembled relatives. Gottlieb, attired in suitable sables, the silver buckles of his shoes replaced by others of burnished steel, fidgetted to and fro between his study and his office, his office and his drawing-room, scolding his clerks, sending away clients, and watching the clock, whose lazy hands, he thought, crept more slowly than usual round the dial. Noon was the hour fixed for the reading of the will, and as yet it was but nine. It was an anxious morning for the worthy notary. The very pig-tail that dangled from his nape quivered with impatience. The cause of his excitement was his doubt whether the heir to the castle and fine estate of Hildesheim would continue to employ him. There were other notaries at Mühlstadt, and all were eager to secure so rich a client. Master Gottlieb had spared no pains to retain the lucrative employment. His drawing-room chairs, stripped of the cases that usually protected them from the pranks of the flies, were drawn round a table spread with an old scarlet velvet cover; near this table, another chair, elevated upon a temporary platform, seemed to preside over the absent assembly. From time to time, Master Gottlieb seated himself in it, studied his gestures and attitude, and contemplated his reflection in a glass, endeavouring to combine regret and obsequiousness in the expression of his habitually jovial physiognomy. His face was to do double duty—to deplore the departed and offer his services to the survivors. Further to propitiate the clients he desired to secure, Master Gottlieb—himself of a convivial turn, fond of a cool bottle and a merry catch—had prepared, in an adjoining room, an elegant collation. On a cloth of dazzling whiteness were temptingly displayed cold meats, fragrant fruits, and antique flasks, dim with venerable dust. The notary had spared nothing worthily to honour the memory and regale the heirs of the departed Count.

Count Sigismund Hildesheim had passed, almost from his youth upwards, for an oddity, an original, slightly crazed, and only just sane enough to be intrusted with the guidance of himself and his affairs. In reality he was none of those things, but a misfortune in early life, acting upon a singularly sensitive and impressionable nature, had decided his whole destiny. As a youth, at the university of Heidelberg, he shunned the society of the students, and, of an evening, instead of devoting himself to beer, tobacco, roaring songs and political theories, he loved to walk out and watch the sunset from the summit of the beautiful hills that enclose the valley of the Neckar. Returning home, on a May night, from one of these solitary rambles, his attention was arrested, as he passed through the outskirts of the town, by a fresh and melodious voice, proceeding from a window decked and entwined with flowers. The song was one of those wild and plaintive ditties, often of great antiquity, heard in remote mountain districts, seldom written, but orally transmitted from generation to generation. Surprised and charmed, Sigismund paused and listened; then he cast a curious glance into the room. A young girl was seated at a piano, and by the light of a lamp he distinguished her to be of great beauty. Thenceforward, every evening, on his return from his walks, the pensive student lingered at that window. He was seldom disappointed; most evenings the young girl was at her piano; and the song that at first had fascinated him was evidently her favourite. At last—how this came about it is immaterial to inquire—instead of pausing at the window, Sigismund went in at the door, and became a constant visitor to Michaële and her mother.

The dwelling of the widow and her child was humble, but elegant in its poverty. War, which had robbed them of a husband and father, had left them but a scanty pension for their support. Sigismund was as much attracted by the mother’s kind and graceful manners as he had been enchanted by the daughter’s bright eyes and sweet voice. He had lost his own mother when an infant; his father’s harsh and haughty character had repelled his affection. He found a home, congenial to his tastes and sympathies, in the secluded cottage in Heidelberg’s suburbs, and there he and Michaële formed plans of future happiness undisturbed by fear of obstacles to their union. But Michaële’s mother, who at first partook their hopes, could not repress forebodings of evil when she remembered that Sigismund was the heir of an ancient and wealthy family. Her fears proved too well founded. When Sigismund, on quitting the university, spoke to his father of his projects, he encountered an insurmountable opposition, and was compelled to postpone them. As often as he could escape from Hildesheim he hurried to Heidelberg, to pass a few days of mingled grief and joy. Michaële never complained; she had always smiles and loving words to welcome Sigismund, but in his absence and in secret she pined away. At last his father died. A week after his funeral the young count was at Heidelberg. It was too late. Michaële was given up by the physicians; three days afterwards she breathed her last. More than once, during those three days of cruel anguish, the dying girl made Sigismund play the melody that had been the origin of their acquaintance, and which they both passionately loved. Often, in happier times, they had sung it together, with joy and gratitude in their hearts. It was an air that Michaële had learned when a child, in the mountains of the Tyrol. It had fixed itself indelibly in her memory, and when she died, in Sigismund’s arms, the sweet melody was hovering on her lips.

There is something rather German than French in the strain of the early chapters of Un Héritage, but they are a mere prologue to the book, and are unheeded by the dramatist. After the death of his betrothed, Count Sigismund abandoned himself to the most passionate and despairing grief. He remained at Heidelberg with Michaële’s mother, who would not quit the spot where she had dwelt with her daughter. She did not long survive her bereavement. Sigismund followed her to the grave, and returned to Hildesheim, where he lived in complete retirement, avoiding intercourse with his neighbours. He would not be consoled, and lived alone with his sorrow. When this became calmer, he opened his piano and would have played the Tyrolese air he and his departed love had so often repeated. But in vain did he rack his memory and try every note of the instrument. The melody had fled, and would not return. It had departed with the soul of her from whom he had learned it. His long paroxysm of grief had utterly driven it from his recollection.

What does M. Sandeau now, but send his melancholy hero forth, a pilgrim over hill and dale, in quest of the lost melody so inextricably intertwined with the memory of her he had so tenderly and deeply loved. After innumerable efforts to seize the fugitive sounds, after bursts of impatience, anger, almost of frenzy, the enthusiastic Sigismund departed, wandering in search of an old song. The idea is fantastical; it may be deemed far-fetched; but it certainly is not unpoetical.

“He set out for the Tyrol; on the summit of the mountains, in the depths of the valleys, he listened to the songs of the shepherds: no voice repeated the air Michaële sung. After traversing Switzerland and Italy he returned to Germany, and his gentle, touching monomania then assumed a new form. He travelled on foot, like a poor student, listening to every fresh young voice that met his ear as he passed through the villages; in cities, on the public squares, when he saw a crowd gathered round a band of itinerant singers, he joined it, and stirred not from the place until the alfresco minstrels had exhausted their musical store. Whilst thus persisting in the pursuit of this Tyrolese air, which fled before him as did Ithaca from Ulysses, it will easily be understood that he paid little attention to the management of his estate. Before commencing his travels, which had lasted several years, he had installed in his castle two old cousins of his mother, Hedwige and Ulrica von Stolzenfels.”

Hereabouts M. Sandeau shelves sentiment and the pathetic, and strikes into a vein akin to satire, in which, as he showed us in Sacs et Parchemins, and some others of his books, he is by no means less happy. The two old Stolzenfels are a capital sketch. In the whole course of their lives, prolonged to a period it would be ungallant to guess at, they had had but one affection—for a scamp of a nephew, who had ruined them, but whom they still idolised, although hopeless of his conversion to better courses. For this handsome, reckless officer, whose innumerable follies were redeemed, in their partial eyes, by his good looks and prepossessing manners, they had emptied their purses, sold their diamonds, and left themselves with an income barely sufficient for their support. They would not have given a copper to a beggar; for Captain Frederick they would have stripped themselves of their last dollar, and have deemed themselves more than repaid by a visit from him in his fulldress of captain of hussars. When Sigismund offered them apartments in his castle, they gladly accepted them, at first merely as a comfortable home free of cost; but when they observed his absence of mind and his total neglect of his affairs, they formed other projects. By nature and habit haughty and sour to everybody but their beloved hussar, they forced themselves to be gentle and humble with Sigismund. Under pretence of watching over his interests, they gradually assumed the whole management of his house, and soon it might have been supposed that he was the guest and that they were his hostesses. When he set out upon his rambles, Frederick, who was in garrison in a neighbouring town, installed himself at the castle and disposed of everything as though it had been his patrimony, keeping horses, dogs, and huntsmen continually on their legs. The servants, accustomed to obey the two old ladies, and seeing that they obeyed their nephew, obeyed him likewise. Meanwhile Hedwige and Ulrica built castles in the air for their darling; or, it should rather be said, they grasped in imagination the one already built on the broad domain of Hildesheim. Sigismund, they were convinced, could not live long, leading the strange, wandering, unhappy life he did. Why should he not leave part of his property to Frederick? Why not all? How could it be better bestowed? The hussar, to do him justice, entered into none of their schemes. He drank Sigismund’s wine, thinned his preserves, knocked up his horses, and cared for little besides. When Sigismund came home for a few days, the captain made no change in his habits, and the count, for his part, in no way interfered with them.

To the infinite consternation of the old maids, there one day arrived at the castle a distant relative of Sigismund’s father, of whom they had heard nothing for many years, and whom they sincerely trusted had departed for a better world. Had a thunderbolt dropped into their aprons they could hardly have been more thunderstruck. Major Bildmann, who had always been rather a loose character, had just lost his last ducat at the gaming-table. In this extremity, Dorothy, his wife, could think of nothing better than to have recourse to Count Sigismund. She was careful not to speak to him of her husband’s irregularities, and concocted a little romance about faithless trustees and insolvent bankers, which Sigismund implicitly believed. He was touched by the tale of her misfortunes.

“My mother’s two cousins,” he said, after listening in silence, “occupy the right wing of the castle; come and install yourself with the major in the left wing. There will still be plenty of room for me.”

Dorothy took him at his word. A week afterwards she returned with Major Bildmann, and with little Isaac, an abominable brat whom she had forgotten to mention. This mattered not. Sigismund had again quitted the castle in pursuit of his chimera.

The consternation of a pair of magpies, disturbed in the plucking of a pigeon by the sudden swoop of a leash of sparrow-hawks, may give some idea of the feelings of Ulrica and Hedwige at this intrusion upon their territory. There was deadly hatred between the right wing and the left. When Sigismund returned home he did not observe this. The two maiden ladies certainly insinuated that the Bildmanns were no better than they should be; and the Bildmanns scrupled not to declare that the Stolzenfels were no great things; but Sigismund, whilst they spoke, was thinking of his Tyrolese air, and when they paused, he thanked them for having made his house the asylum of every domestic virtue.

Leaving the inmates of Hildesheim to their dissensions and illusions, and passing over a few chapters, we seek a contrast in an humble dwelling in Bavaria’s art-loving capital. It is the abode of Franz Müller, the musician, Edith his wife, and Spiegel their friend. Franz and Spiegel had been brought up together, and had passed the flower of their youth in poverty, working and hoping. Franz studied music, Spiegel was passionately fond of painting; art and friendship scared discouragement from their doors. For the space of three years they wandered on foot, knapsack on shoulder and staff in hand, through Germany and the Tyrol, stopping wherever the beauty of the country tempted them, and purveying, each in his own manner, for the wants of the community. Sometimes Spiegel painted a few portraits, at others Müller gave lessons in singing or on the piano; or when they arrived in a town on the eve of a great festival, he offered to play the church organ at the next day’s solemnity. Art and liberty was their motto. In the course of their wandering existence they visited the most beautiful valleys, the most picturesque mountains, opulent cities, splendid picture galleries, and amassed a treasure of reminiscences for future fireside conversation. They resolved never to marry, lest domestic cares should interfere with their enthusiastic pursuit of art. Spiegel kept his word, but Franz, in a little Tyrolese town, saw and loved Edith. In vain did the painter draw an alarming picture of the inconveniences of matrimony; Franz married, and thenceforward his friend deemed him lost to art. It was reserved for the gentle Edith to convince Spiegel of the contrary, and to tame his somewhat wild and vagabond nature. When first the newly-married pair settled at Munich, he seldom went to see them, but gradually his visits became more frequent, until one day, he hardly knew how, he found himself dwelling under their roof. In a small house Müller had taken, he had reserved a bedroom and studio for his friend. In that modest abode, situated outside Munich, between a front court whose walls disappeared under a drapery of vines and a little garden crowded with sweet flowers, happy years flew by. Happy, but not prosperous. At first Spiegel had painted pictures, with two or three of which he was tolerably satisfied, whilst Franz pronounced them masterpieces. But they found no purchasers, and the artist, once so ambitious, cheerfully resigned his hopes of fame, and gave drawing lessons. Müller had composed sonatas and a symphony; they were as unsuccessful as Spiegel’s pictures. Vanquished by the innumerable barriers that interpose between a poor and unknown musician and the public, he, too, submitted to give lessons. With strict economy they managed to live, but they laid by nothing; and Müller was often uneasy when he thought of the future, and of the two beautiful children Edith had born him.

“One evening, during Spiegel’s absence from Munich, Franz came home with a more care-laden brow than usual, and Edith sat down to the piano and sang a favourite air, which had more than once dispelled his momentary melancholy. The window was open, and her voice, fresh, pure, and sonorous, was audible outside the house. Franz listened, his gloom gradually softening into reverie, whilst Herman and Margaret rolled upon the carpet like kittens at play. That young woman, whose fair hair fell in abundant tresses upon her bare shoulders—those two fine children, joyously gambolling—the dreamer, whose hand sustained his thoughtful brow, composed a charming picture. Suddenly a stranger appeared, and paused upon the threshold of the apartment. He had entered so gently, that none had heard his steps or now observed his presence. Edith continued her song; the intruder listened motionless, and in apparent ecstasy, whilst silent tears coursed down his pale cheeks prematurely furrowed by pain or sorrow.”

At the stranger’s entreaty, Edith again and again repeated the song, which was from her native Tyrol. He listened with deep emotion. By ordinary persons he might have been deemed mad or intrusive, and received accordingly; but he had had the good fortune to fall amongst artists. He passed the evening with them, conversing as kindly and familiarly as though they had been old friends. He found means to draw out Franz, to make him speak of himself, his hopes and wishes, his discouragements and disappointments, his long-cherished desire for fame, his uneasiness about the prospects of his children. Then he asked him to play a piece of his own composition. Müller played one of his best sonatas, to which the stranger listened with the attention of a judge who will not lightly decide. The piece played out, he seemed thoughtful, but said nothing. Poor Müller, who had expected applause, consoled himself by thinking that the eccentric stranger did not understand music. Instead of praising the fine composition he had just heard, the unbidden guest, so kindly welcomed, turned to Edith and asked her for a copy of the Tyrolese air. She had never seen it noted, she said, and doubted that it ever had been, but Franz would note it for him. “Most willingly” was the reply of the good-tempered artist, who could not repress a smile at the ill success of his own performance. In a very few minutes he had covered a sheet of music-paper with spots and scratches. Edith graciously offered it to the stranger. He seized it with an expression of grateful joy, glanced hastily over it, pressed Edith’s hand to his lips, cast an affectionate glance at the children, and left the house, as he had entered it, swift and noiseless as a shadow. He had not mentioned his name; his kind hosts had not inquired it; they never saw him again.

On a certain evening, Count Sigismund returned to Hildesheim Castle, after one of his long absences, his countenance lighted up with a mysterious joy. He spoke to no one, put aside the servants who crowded round him, and shut himself up in his apartment. Soon his piano was heard resounding under his fingers; he at last had found the air he so long had sought. But he did not long enjoy his victory. He had worn himself out in pursuit of his mania. One morning, subsequent to a night during great part of which the piano had been continually heard, a servant entered his room. Sigismund was still seated at the instrument, one hand resting on the keys, the other hanging by his side, his eyes closed, his mouth half open and smiling. He seemed to sleep, but he was dead.

There were present at the reading of Count Sigismund von Hildesheim’s last will and testament the two ladies Stolzenfels; Major Bildmann, a brokendown gambler of braggadocio air and vinous aspect; his wife Dorothy, whose thin pale lips, and sharp, hooked nose, gave her no small resemblance to a bird of prey; and their son Isaac, a horrible urchin with the profile of a frog and a head of scrubby white hair, who, having been ordered by his mother to behave decorously and look sorrowful, had given his features a sulky twist, which considerably augmented their naturally evil expression. The opposed camps of Bildmann and Stolzenfels observed each other with dislike and distrust. After some waiting, the gallop of a horse was heard, and Captain Frederick entered, whip in hand, and his boots covered with dust. All who were interested being thus assembled, Master Gottlieb broke the seals of the will, which the count had deposited in his keeping a month before his death. Divested of customary formalities and of preliminary compliments to the family, the contents of the document were in substance as follows:—

“My mother’s two cousins, Hedwige and Ulrica von Stolzenfels, have at all times shown me the most disinterested affection. To leave me more leisure and liberty, they have kindly taken the management of my house, and have superintended, with unceasing zeal and activity, that of my estates. Frederick, by his youth and gaiety, has enlivened my dwelling. To him I am indebted for the only cheerful moments I for many years have known. Since their establishment under my roof, the Stolzenfels have proved themselves my affectionate and devoted friends; their conduct has excited my admiration and respect, and I desire they should know that I duly appreciate it.”

About this time Hedwige and Ulrica seemed to grow several inches taller, and cast a triumphant glance at the major and Dorothy. As to Frederick, who, since the reading began, had been sketching with the point of his horse-whip, upon the dusty surface of one of his boots, a likeness of Master Gottlieb, he gave the last touch to his work, and commenced upon the other foot the portrait of Isaac. The notary continued.

“The straightforward frankness and integrity of Major Bildmann have been, I here declare, a great consolation to me, after the deceptions of all kinds that I experienced in my youth. Mrs Bildmann has vied with my mother’s cousins in zeal and devotedness. The complete absence of all self-interested views has given a noble and affecting character to their rivalry. In return for so much attention and care, they neither asked nor expected other reward than my affection. The Bildmanns have an equal right with the Stolzenfels to my gratitude.”

This became puzzling. A division of the property was the most natural inference. Master Gottlieb, dubious where to seek the rising sun, smiled benignly on all around. Urged by the impatient hussar, he resumed the reading of the will.

“At Munich, at No 9, in the street of the Armourers, lives a young musician, Franz Müller by name. He has hitherto contrived, by hard work, by giving lessons, to support his wife and children, who tenderly love him. But Müller is no ordinary musician; and his genius, to develop itself, needs but leisure. It is to him, Franz Müller, residing at Munich, at No 9, in the street of the Armourers, that I bequeath my entire property.”

It is highly improbable that Master Gottlieb’s peaceable parlour had ever before been the scene of such an uproar as this paragraph of the will occasioned. The major, Dorothy, and the two old maids, were for attacking the document on the ground of the testator’s insanity; but Frederick, who could not restrain his laughter at this eccentric close to an eccentric life, firmly opposed this, and the bullying major quailed before his resolute tone and mien. Franz Müller not being present, Master Gottlieb no longer troubled himself to smile on anybody; but, in an authoritative tone, called attention to the closing passages of the will.

“Desiring,” the singular document proceeded, “to insure, after my death, the welfare of my farmers and servants, which I feel that I have neglected too much during my life, I make it a condition of my bequest that Franz Müller shall inhabit the castle for nine months of every year, and dismiss none of my people. As to my dear relatives, the Stolzenfels and the Bildmanns, nothing is to be changed in their manner of life, and they are to inhabit the castle as heretofore. Wishing to insure their independence, it is my will that Müller shall annually pay to Ulrica von Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Hedwige von Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Frederick von Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Major Bildmann two thousand florins, with reversion, in case of his death, to Dorothy Bildmann. And that he should take from his first year’s revenue a sum of ten thousand florins, the interest on which is to be allowed to accumulate until the majority of Isaac, to whom interest and capital are then to be paid over.

“I give to Frederick von Stolzenfels the free use of my horses and dogs, with right of chase over my estates.

“I annex to the present will a Tyrolese air; I desire that it may be engraved on my tomb and serve as my epitaph.”

After listening to this strange document, which they declared worthy to have proceeded from a lunatic asylum, the ladies had no appetite for Master Gottlieb’s collation. The major would gladly have tried the contents of the cobwebbed bottles, but his wife dragged him away. Frederick sprang upon his horse and galloped off, taking with him upon his boots the portraits of Isaac and the notary. This functionary, finding himself deserted by his guests, called in his head clerk to help him to drink the health of the absent legatee.

Poor, well-meaning, simple-minded Count Sigismund would have turned in his grave had he known all the mischief and unhappiness, envy, hatred, and discord, of which his extraordinary will sowed the seed and gave the signal. The journey from Munich to Hildesheim was, for Franz and Edith, a series of enchanting dreams. There was but one drawback to their joy; Spiegel had refused to accompany them. “No more drudgery, no more lessons!” Müller had enthusiastically exclaimed, when a letter from Master Gottlieb, expressing a hope of the continuance of the Hildesheim patronage, and enclosing a copy of the will, tied with blue ribbons, confirmed the intimation of good fortune he had already gleaned from a newspaper paragraph. “The world belongs to us; we are kings of the earth! You shall paint pictures, I will compose symphonies and operas; we will fill Germany with our fame.” And he formed innumerable projects. Their life thenceforward was to be a fairy scene, a delightful and perpetual alternation of refined enjoyments and artistic toil. Edith partook her husband’s enthusiasm; Spiegel at first said nothing, and when he did speak he gave his friends to understand that he could not share their prosperity. He did not like new faces; he preferred the cottage at Munich to the abode of a castle, and was proof against all entreaties. Franz and Edith secretly resolved to buy the little house as a gift to their friend. In nine months they would return to see him, and perhaps, when they again set out for Hildesheim, he would consent to accompany them. Whilst preparing for departure, and burning useless papers, Franz laid his hand upon the only symphony he had found time to write. Carefully turning over its leaves, with a disdainful air, he was about to toss it into the fire, when Spiegel seized his arm and rescued the composition.

Müller had written to the Hildesheim steward to announce his arrival, and to forbid all pomp, ceremony, and public rejoicings on the occasion. He thought his instructions too literally carried out, when, upon reaching, some hours after nightfall, the huge gates of the castle, all decorated with stags’ horns, boars’ tusks, and wolves’ heads, he found no servant to receive him, not a light on the walls or in the windows, not a torch in the gloomy avenues of the park. After the postilion had cracked his whip and wound his horn for the better part of half an hour, a glimmering light appeared, a clanking of keys was heard, and the gates, slowly opening, disclosed the sour visage of Wurm the steward, muttering maledictions on the untimely visitors. Upon learning who they were, and at the rather sharp injunction of Müller, who was exasperated at the delay, he made what haste he could to awaken the servants, and ushered his new master and mistress into their apartments—immense rooms, nearly bare of furniture; for, even during Sigismund’s lifetime, the Stolzenfels and Bildmann, taking advantage of his frequent absence of mind, and from the castle, had stripped that part of the edifice he had reserved for his own use. Edith mentally contrasted the vast gloomy halls with her snug abode at Munich, and thought it would have been but kind had the ladies Stolzenfels and Mrs Bildmann been there to receive her. But a night’s rest, a brilliant morning, and the view of the immense lawns and rich foliage of the park, effaced the first unpleasant impression, and, having previously sent to know when they could be received, she and her husband presented themselves in the apartments of Hedwige and Ulrica. On their entrance, the two old ladies, who were seated in the embrasure of a window, half rose from their seats, resumed them almost immediately, and pointed to chairs with a gesture rather disdainful than polite. Poor Edith, who, in the innocence of her heart, had expected smiling countenance and a friendly welcome, felt herself frozen by their vinegar aspect. She turned red, then pale, and knew not what to say. Müller, without noticing the ladies’ looks, recited a little speech he had prepared for the occasion, expressive of his gratitude to Count Sigismund for having bequeathed him, in addition to his estates, his amiable family. He begged and insisted that they would change nothing in their mode of life, &c. &c. Why should they change anything? was Ulrica’s sharp and haughty reply; the count had left them by his will what he had given them in his lifetime; they had their rights and asked nothing beyond them. Hedwige pitched it in rather a lower key. Their tastes were very simple. They had sought neither applause nor luxury at Hildesheim. Count Sigismund had always put his carriage and horses at their disposal. Müller hoped they would continue to make use of them. They were lovers of solitude, Hedwige continued, of silence and meditation. With Count Sigismund’s consent they had planted a quickset hedge round a little corner of the park—not more than two or three acres. It would pain them, she confessed, to give up this little enclosure, whither they repaired to indulge their evening reveries. Franz eagerly assured them that none should disturb them in their retreat. Having obtained these assurances, and repelled, with chilling stiffness, Edith’s warm-hearted advances, the amiable spinsters relapsed into silence, which all their visitors’ efforts were insufficient to induce them to break, until the upset of a table of old china, occasioned by the gambols of Herman and a black cat, effectually roused them from their assumed apathy. The Müllers beat a retreat and went to call on Major Bildmann and his wife, whom they surprised in the midst of a domestic squabble—a circumstance of itself sufficient, had others been wanting, to secure them a surly reception. Franz’s mild and gentle bearing encouraged the major to assume his most impertinent tone, whilst his falcon-faced spouse ventured offensive inuendoes as to the real motives of Count Sigismund’s will—inuendoes whose purport was utterly unsuspected by the pure-hearted Müllers. Here, too, there was an enclosure in the case, where the major cultivated the flowers his dear Dorothy preferred, and where the infant Isaac loved to disport himself. As an old soldier, Major Bildmann added, he loved the chase, which was the image of war. The count had allowed him the range of his preserves. Müller eagerly confirmed him in all his privileges. On quitting the Bildmann wing he found Wurm waiting for him to pass the servants in review. He made them an affecting little speech, by which they seemed very little affected. Then Wurm named them. There were Mrs Bildmann’s waitingmaid and the major’s valet, the servants of the ladies Stolzenfels, the cooks of the right and left wings, Isaac’s nurse, Major Bildmann’s butler, Captain Frederick’s grooms and huntsmen, &c. &c. Müller inquired for his own servants—those that had been Count Sigismund’s. They were all before him. The two wings had swallowed up the body. Wurm felt secretly surprised at a musician’s needing servants when the count had done without them. Müller dryly informed him that Count Sigismund’s servants were his, and that he made him responsible for their attention to his service. He said nothing to Edith of this strange scene, and tried to dissipate the painful impressions she had brought away from their two visits, by praising the major’s military frankness and the aristocratic bearing of the sisters. But he was at a loss to explain why the apartments of the Stolzenfels and Bildmanns were richly and sumptuously furnished and decorated, whilst those the owners of the castle occupied exhibited little beside bare walls. Meanwhile the right and left wings, between whom there had been a sort of hollow alliance since the reading of the will, assembled in conclave. Never was there such a voiding of venom. The self-same idea had occurred to all these disappointed and charitable relations. Edith’s beauty at once explained the count’s frequent absence from home and his unjust will. She was the syren that had led him astray. Little Margaret was his very image. It was a crying shame, a burning scandal. The old maids clasped their hands and rolled their eyes. Ulrica was for attacking the will on the ground of immoral influence and captivation. The major had always been of the same opinion, but Frederick would not agree, and nothing should induce the major to fight a member of his family. The fact was, notwithstanding his Bobadil airs, Major Bildmann had very little fancy for fighting with anybody. The council broke up, all its members declaring they would quit the castle sullied by the presence of these adventurers—all fully resolved to remain and to wait the course of events.

We must compress into a few lines the leading incidents of the second half of Un Héritage. Müller had not been a month at the castle, when great annoyances succeeded to the petty disagreeables he had encountered on his first arrival. Master Wolfgang the Hildesheim lawyer was his evil genius. There was a certain lawsuit, that had already lasted through three generations, in which, as Count Sigismund’s heir, he found himself entangled. The whole matter in dispute was but half an acre of land, which Müller would gladly have abandoned, but Wolfgang proved to him, as clear as day, the impropriety of so doing, the disrespect to the memory of the late count, and so forth—and, the most cogent argument of all, he exhibited to him the sum total of the costs he would have to pay if he admitted himself vanquished. It was an alarming figure, and ready money was not abundant with Müller, whom the Stolzenfels and Bildmanns dunned for their first year’s annuity and for the legacy to little Isaac; who had to pay for extensive repairs of the castle, for the costly mausoleum which, in the first effusion of his gratitude, he had ordered for Count Sigismund, and various other charges. So the lawsuit went on—the delight of Master Wolfgang, and a daily drain upon Müller’s purse. The harvest was bad, the farmers asked for time, and grumbled when worse terms than their own were proposed to them. Careless Count Sigismund had spoiled all around him by letting them do as they liked, and Müller’s greater activity and vigilance, and his attempts to check fraud and peculation, speedily earned him the ill-will of the whole neighbourhood. Gentle-hearted Edith, anxious to expend a portion of her sudden wealth in improving the condition of the poor, was soon disgusted by their ingratitude, and was utterly at a loss to understand the chilling looks, ironical smiles, and mysterious whisperings of which she was the object whenever she went beyond the limits of her own park, to which she soon confined herself. Her servants showed no sense of the kindness with which she treated them; they, too, had adopted and spread the vile rumours first set abroad by the malice of the two vixen spinsters and of the Bildmanns, with respect to the count’s real motives for bequeathing his estates to the Müllers. Fortunately it was impossible for Edith, who was purity itself, ever to suspect the real cause of the ill-will shown to her. Captain Frederick, when his regimental duties permitted him to visit the castle, discovered at a first interview, with a rake’s usual clear-sightedness in such matters, the utter falseness of the injurious reports in circulation. He became a constant visitor to the Müllers, and was in fact their only friend and resource in the solitude in which they lived; for the neighbouring squires, the hobereaus of the country around, had not returned Müller’s visits, nor taken any notice of him beyond attacking him at law; some upon a question of water-power, which he had innocently diminished by winding a stream that ran through his grounds, others for damage done to their fields, by the trespasses of the Hildesheim hounds, followed by Captain Frederick and his huntsmen. Nor was this all—there was discord yet nearer home: Müller’s children, having trespassed upon the Bildmanns’ private garden, were brutally ejected by the major, whom Müller angrily reproached. The major bullied and insisted upon satisfaction, which Franz, exasperated by a long series of annoyances, was perfectly willing to give him, and a duel would have ensued had not the major, when he saw that the musician, as he contemptuously called him, meant to fight, sent an apology. It was accepted, but next day Müller ordered his three gardeners to root up and clear away the hedges of the Stolzenfels and Bildmann enclosures. The knaves remonstrated and finally refused, and, when dismissed, they refused to go, alleging that the late count’s will deprived Müller of the power of sending them away. More work for the lawyers. Müller sent for labourers, and the hedges disappeared. Notices of action from the ladies Stolzenfels and Major Bildmann. The villain Wolfgang chuckled and rubbed his hands, upon which he had now six lawsuits for Müller’s account. In the count’s crack-brained will, drawn up by himself, without legal advice, the letter was everywhere at variance with the spirit. Müller’s apartment was encumbered with law papers; he could not sit down to his piano, to seek oblivion of his cares in his beloved art, without being interrupted by Wolfgang’s parchment physiognomy. As for composition, it was out of the question: he had no time for it, nor was his harassed mind attuned to harmony. He became morose and fanciful, jealous of the hussar’s attention to Edith, who, for her part, grieved to see her husband so changed, and sighed for the cottage at Munich, where Spiegel, meanwhile, had worked hard, had sold some pictures, had paid the rent that Franz, in the midst of his troubles, had forgotten to remit to him, and had purchased, with the fruits of his own toil and talent, the little dwelling of which, when their prosperity first burst upon them, the Müllers had planned to make him a present. The contrast was striking between anticipation and realisation.

No schoolboy ever more eagerly longed for “breaking-up” day, than did Müller for the termination of his nine month’s compulsory abode at Hildesheim. It came at last, and he and Edith and their children were free to quit the scene of strife and weariness, and to return to Munich and to Spiegel. On making up the accounts of the year, Müller found that, out of the whole princely revenue of the estates, he had but a thousand florins left. He had lived little better than at Munich (much less happily), and had committed no extravagance; annuities, legacies, repairs, monument, did not account for half the sum expended; all the rest had gone in law expenses. There remained about enough to pay travelling charges to Munich. Müller sent for Wolfgang, forbade him to begin any new lawsuit in his absence, and departed. He found a warm welcome at the cottage. Spiegel received his friends with open arms, and three happy months passed rapidly away. Upon the last day, when Edith and Franz were looking ruefully forward to their return to Hildesheim’s grandeur and countless disagreeables, Spiegel insisted upon their accompanying him to the performance of a new symphony, concerning which the musical world of Munich was in a state of considerable excitement. The piece, it was mysteriously related, was from the pen of a deceased composer, was of remarkable originality and beauty, and had been casually discovered amongst a mass of old papers. The concert-room was crowded. At the first bars of the music, Müller thought he recognised familiar sounds, and presently every doubt was dissipated. It was his own composition—the despised symphony he had been about to destroy, but which Spiegel had rescued. The audience, at the close of each part, were rapturous in their applause. When the finale had been played, the composer’s name was called for with acclamations. The leader of the orchestra advanced, and proclaimed that of Franz Müller.

A few days later, Master Gottlieb the notary received a letter from the lord of Hildesheim. “According to the stipulations of the will,” Müller wrote, “I am bound to inhabit the castle of Hildesheim for nine months in the year. I remain at Munich and forfeit my right to the property.” Forthwith began a monster lawsuit, one of the finest Master Wolfgang had known in the whole course of his experience. It was between the Bildmanns and the Stolzenfels. It lasted ten years. The major and Dorothy died before it was decided, Isaac fell from a tree, when stealing fruit, and broke his neck. The Stolzenfels triumphed. The hussar redoubled his extravagance. The estate, already encumbered with law expenses, was sold to pay his debts. Ulrica and Hedwige died in poverty.

It ought surely not to have been difficult for practised dramatists to construct a pleasant and piquant comedy out of the leading idea and plentiful incidents of this amusing novel, which is by no means the less to be esteemed because it boldly deviates from the long-established routine, which demands a marriage as the wind-up of every book of the class. It is much more common in France than in England for play-writers to seek their subjects in novels of the day, and it is then customary, often indispensable, to take great liberties both with plot and characters, and sometimes to retain little besides the main idea of the book. Upon that idea there is of course no prohibition against improving, but authors who vary it for the worse, manifestly do themselves a double injury, because the public, familiar with the merits of the book, are disgusted to find it deteriorated in the play. They look for something better, not worse, in the second elaboration of the subject, and certainly they have a right to do so, and to be dissatisfied when the contrary is the case. In the present instance, a most unpleasant play has been based upon a good novel. In Emile Augier, M. Sandeau has taken to himself a dangerous collaborateur. He should have dramatised Un Héritage unassisted—as he dramatised, with such happy results, his novel of Mademoiselle de la Seiglière. That is a most successful instance of the French style of adaptation to the stage. There, too, as in the present case, great liberties have been taken. In two out of the four acts, scarcely anything is to be traced of the novel, which has as tragical an ending as the comedy has a cheerful and pleasant one. But the whole tenor of the play was genial and sympathetic. In the Pierre de Touche, as the present comedy is called, the reverse is the case, and no wonder that its cynical and exaggerated strain jarred on the feelings of the usually quiet audience at the Française, and elicited hisses rarely heard within those decorous walls, where silence and empty benches are the only tokens the public usually give of its disapprobation. From our acquaintance with M. Sandeau’s writings, we do not think that he would of himself have perpetrated such a repulsive picture of human nature as he has produced in combination with M. Augier. They have obliterated or distorted most of the best features of the novel. In Un Héritage, the character of Franz Müller is at once pleasing and natural. He is not represented as perfect—he has his failings and weaknesses like any other mortal, and they are exhibited in the book, although we have not, in the outline we have traced of it, had occasion to give them prominence. But his heart is sound to the last. Wealth may momentarily bewilder, but it does not pervert him. He is true to his affections, and has the sense and courage to accept honourable toil as preferable to a fortune embittered by anxiety and dissension. The reader cannot help respecting him, and feeling pained at his countless vexations and annoyances. No such sympathy is possible with the Franz of the play, who is the most contemptible of mortals. A more unpleasant character was probably never introduced into any book, and it is untrue to nature, for it has not a single redeeming point. The authors have personified and concentrated in it the essences of heartlessness, selfishness, and of the most paltry kind of pride. Somewhat indolent, and with a latent spark of envy in his nature, the needy artist, converted into a millionaire, suddenly displays his evil instincts. Their growth is as supernaturally rapid as that of noxious weeds in a tropical swamp. The play opens in the cottage at Munich. Edith, Franz’s cousin, is not yet married to him. An orphan, she had been brought up by his father, at whose death Franz took charge of her. She was then a child, and Franz and Spiegel hardly perceived that she had become a woman until they were reminded of it by the passion with which she inspired both of them. Spiegel, a noble character, generously sacrifices to his friend’s happiness his own unsuspected love. Edith (the names are changed in the play, but we retain them to avoid confusion) is affianced to her cousin, and on the eve of marriage. Just then comes the fortune. The authors have substituted for the Bildmanns and Stolzenfels an elderly spendthrift baron and an intriguing margravine and her pretty daughter. The love passages in the life of the deceased count are cancelled, and he is represented as an eccentric old gentleman, passionately fond of music, and cherishing a great contempt for his very distant relations, to whom he leaves only a moderate annuity. They have scarcely become acquainted with Franz when they discern the weak points in his character and conspire to profit by them. Treated with cutting contempt, as a mere parvenu, by the haughty nobility of Bavaria, Franz’s pride boils over, and he consents to be adopted by the baron and converted into the Chevalier de Berghausen, at the immoderate price of the payment of the old roué nobleman’s debts. He finds Spiegel a wearisome Mentor; to his diseased vision Edith appears awkward contrasted with the courtly dames he now encounters. Their marriage is postponed from week to week, by reason of the journeys and other steps necessary to establish Franz in the ranks of the nobility of the land. Titled, and with armorial bearings that date from the crusades, how much more fitting an alliance, the baron perfidiously suggests, would be that of the margravine, who graciously condescends to intimate her possible acceptance of him as a son-in-law. We are shown the gangrene of selfishness and vanity daily spreading its corruption through his soul. He quarrels with his honest, generous friend, slights his affianced bride, and finally falls completely into the clutches of the intriguers who beset him. His very dog, poor faithful Spark, (his dog and Spiegel’s)—which, as the painter, with tears in his eyes and a cheek pale with anger and honest indignation, passionately reminds him—had slept on his feet and been his comfort and companion in adversity—is killed by his order because he did not appreciate the difference between castle and cottage, but took his ease upon the dainty satin sofas at Hildesheim as upon the rush mat at Munich. Edith, compelled to despise the man she had loved, preserves her womanly dignity, and breaks off the projected marriage just as the last glimmer of honour and affection are on the point of being extinguished in her cousin’s bosom by the dictates of a despicable vanity. The curtain falls, leaving him in the hands of his hollow friends, and allowing the spectator to foresee the union of Edith and Spiegel. Not one kindly touch of natural feeling redeems Franz’s faithlessness to his friend, and to his love his ingratitude—for he would many a day have been hungry, if not houseless, but for the generous toil of Spiegel, who had devoted himself to the drudgery of teaching, that Franz might have leisure to mature the genius for which his partial friend gave him exaggerated credit—his false pride and his ridiculous vanity. He is left rich, but miserable. That which he has wilfully lost can be dispelled neither by the enjoyments wealth procures, nor by the false friends who hang on him but to plunder him. In their vindication, the authors insist on “the terrible morality” of their denouement. We admit it, but do not the less persist in the opinion that their play, although by no means devoid of wit and talent, leaves a most painful and disagreeable impression upon the mind. It presents the paradoxical and complicated phenomenon of a comedy which has been censured by press and public and yet continues to be performed; which draws tolerably numerous audiences, and is invariably received with symptoms of disapprobation.

NEWS FROM THE FARM.[5]

“The Ayrshire Ploughman,” glorious Burns, tells us that the muse of his country found him, as Elijah did Elisha, at the plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over him. Grateful Caledonia sent her inspired child to an excise office! and in the discriminating patronage the wits of Grub Street found material for interminable sneers. Did the Southerns, however, reward the author of the “Farmer’s Boy,” and indicate their appreciation of the many fine passages that grace his “News from the Farm,” by a wiser or more generous patronage? The minister of the day (Lord Sidmouth, if we remember rightly) did bestow upon the poet some most paltry and ungenial office; but alas! poor Bloomfield died neglected in the straits of penury, and under the clouds of dejection. It had been better indeed, in every way, could it have been so arranged that the marvellous Robin should have been allowed to sing his lyrics

——“in glory and in joy,

Following his plough upon the mountain side,”

and that Bloomfield had been permitted to indite more “News from the Farm” amid the pleasant rural scenes that nursed his pastoral muse. But the patronage of genius has never been successful. Unusual peril seems the heritage of high gifts, and to minister rightly to such a man as Burns or Bloomfield is no easy task. It is not so with ordinary men, whose intellectual and imaginative powers harmonise with the common duties of their station, and raise no splendid incongruities to be subdued and regulated. But it is not with inspired ploughmen that our country gentlemen and tenant-farmers are called upon to deal, but with men of common clay—with the brawny peasants who till their fields and tend their herds, and whose toil has turned the sterile North into a garden of Ceres. Have our agricultural labourers been neglected—have their physical wellbeing and their moral and educational training been overlooked and left uncared for, while the classes above them and around them have had their comforts and privileges, moral and social, infinitely multiplied? This were indeed sad “news from the farm;” but although this were unhappily proved to be true, we are not then prepared to pronounce sweeping censure upon the parties apparently most nearly implicated in the degradation of our rural population. Many, very many, of the owners and occupants of the soil, we know, are deeply alive to the duties which they owe to the labouring poor who live under them, and discharge them to the best of their ability, although not, it may be, to the extent their benevolent wishes would desire. The question that may be raised on such a subject is not, Have our rural labourers been left stationary while the classes above them have all been elevated in their social condition? but rather, Are they worse off, and do they enjoy fewer advantages, than those in the same class of life—the industrious poor who inhabit our large cities and manufacturing towns and villages? Is the ploughman in his bothy unfurnished with table or chair, and the peasant in his “clay-built biggin,” damp and smoky though it be, more miserably accommodated with the comforts and conveniences of life than the haggard sons of toil, who are doomed to burrow in the murky lanes and blind alleys of our teeming seats of merchandise? Does the brawny arm and ruddy complexion of the ploughman bespeak deficient food or raiment, and manifest such dubious symptoms of health as the pinched countenance and pallid complexion of the attenuated artisans who live in “populous city pent?” Yes, responds promptly the inhabitant of the city; but that robust health is not due to the miserable bothy and the mud cabin, but to the pure air of the country, and the breezy gales of incense-breathing morn, and the healthful toil of the open field, which are the unchartered boons of a gracious Heaven, and in no respect the gifts of the lords of the soil. In the rejoinder of Mr Urbanus there is no doubt substantial truth; but that very rejoinder, perhaps, contains an explanation of the neglect pointed at. The robust health of the peasant has not admonished the country gentleman of duty neglected, and no emaciated frame and loopholed raggedness have appealed to his sympathies and rebuked his indifference. The opulent inhabitants of our cities have been addressed in a different strain, and the deadly typhus and the inscrutable plague of Asia have been the stern preachers to which they have been doomed to listen. If they have led the van in reformatory and sanitary measures for improving the social condition of the industrious poor, it is not very evident that their philanthropy has been quite spontaneous, or that it has been altogether uninfluenced by considerations suggested by a regard to their own personal safety and selfish interest. Those who may be disposed to range the country against the town, or curious to strike the balance of merit in the field of philanthropic enterprise betwixt our merchant princes and our country gentlemen, may prosecute such inquiries as have been indicated if they please; but for ourselves, we have no taste for such unprofitable investigation, and would rather lend a helping hand to a most interesting movement that has been lately originated towards improving the social condition of our agricultural labourers—a most loyal and peaceful race, forming, upon the whole, the best-conditioned part of the industrious classes of the kingdom.

Thanks to the Rev. Harry Stuart, of Oathlaw, if not for having originated the movement, for having at least given it a most unquestionable impetus, and for indicating the direction which it ought to take. We have read his Agricultural Labourers, &c., with remarkable interest and pleasure—a pleasure very different, and we believe much higher, than the most elaborate writing of the most brilliant pamphleteer could have given us. Mr Stuart, indeed, has nothing of the littérateur about him, and his style is the very reverse of artistic. He tells us that his appeal has been “got up in great haste,” but we scarcely think it could have been better had more time been devoted to its composition. It had been no improvement, in our estimation, had his Essay been tricked out in rhetorical embroidery, and been embellished with well-poised and finely-polished periods. We are quite sick of the flash and sparkle of the journalists, of their stilted eloquence and startling antithesis. The editor of every country newspaper writes nowadays as grandly as Macaulay, and apes to the very life “the long-resounding march and energy divine” of Burke and Bolingbroke. It is really a relief in these times to be spoken to in plain, natural, homespun English. When an honest gentleman has anything of importance to communicate, for ourselves we are very well pleased that he should use the vernacular, and address us in simple Anglo-Saxon. This is exactly what Mr Stuart has done. He writes from a full heart, and is manifestly so possessed with his theme that he has had no time to think of the belles-lettres and the art rhetorical. The minister of Oathlaw is peradventure no popular orator, and has never probably paraded himself on the platform, and his name is in all likelihood unknown to the sermon-fanciers of Edinburgh, but nevertheless he is quite a pastor to our taste. Living without pride amongst his people, going from house to house, knowing well the trials of every household, a patient listener to the homely annals of the poor, catechising the young, exhorting the unruly, helping the aged to trim their lamps and gird up their loins, we can understand how well and how quietly this worthy clergyman discharges the duties of the pastorate, reaping a nobler guerdon in the love of those amongst whom he lives and labours than ever the noisy trump of fame blew into ambition’s greedy ear. We rejoice to think that there are many such pastors in our country parishes, who, with their families, constitute sympathetic links of kindly communication betwixt the rich and the poor, and from whom, as from centres of civilisation, are shed on all around the gentle lights of literary refinement and Christian charity. These are the men who form the strength of our Established Church, and not her doctors and dignitaries; and, indeed, over our retired rural parishes it is evident that nothing but an endowed resident parochial clergy can permanently exert the beneficent influence of the pastoral office.

The origin of Mr Stuart’s address he states as follows: He became a member of the Forfarshire Agricultural Association upon the understanding, that the improvement of the social condition of the agricultural labourers was to be one of the objects to which the Association should direct its attention. Such seems to have been the intention of the society, or at least its committee were so ready to welcome the idea, that they forthwith asked Mr Stuart to address them upon the subject, and he did so accordingly. His auditors were so pleased, and, it may be, so instructed, that they requested the author to publish his address; and under the auspices of the Forfarshire Association it has been given to the world.

We have often thought that each of our counties has a distinct character of its own, and is distinguished by features peculiar to itself. While the Forfarshire coast has its populous towns, the seats of mercantile enterprise, and of thriving manufactures, the county has likewise been long eminent for its agriculture. By the symmetry and beauty of his Angusshire “doddies,” Hugh Watson of Keillor has made the county famous for its cattle. In Forfarshire, Henry Stephens practised the art which he has so admirably illustrated in his book. The son of a small farmer in this county, while a student at college, invented and elaborated, without aid or patronage, in a rude workshop, that reaper which American ambition has now so covered with fame. Forfarshire gentlemen, although non-resident, are not disposed to forget the claims of their native county, and by means of “the Angusshire Society” they annually distribute among its schools numerous prizes, thus countenancing the cause of education throughout the county, stimulating its ingenious youth to exertion, and animating its teachers in their honourable toil. And now the Forfarshire Agricultural Society, under the mild appeals of the Pastor of Oathlaw, have led the way in organising an association for raising the social condition of the agricultural labourers of the kingdom. So all hail to old Angus!—and may her proprietors, pastors, and tenant-farmers long be eminent in their spheres of duty, and cordially unite in the field of benevolent enterprise.

Mr Stuart’s pamphlet has been extensively read by landed proprietors and the better classes of our farmers. We wish it were universally so by these parties; and we wish, too, it were read and inwardly digested by the factors and agents to whom our large proprietors have committed the conduct of their business, and the care of their properties, and the welfare of those who cultivate them. It is impossible to read the speeches of the most interesting meeting held here on the 10th January last, and presided over by his Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, without feeling that Mr Stuart’s pamphlet has literally proved “news from the farm” to very many of the owners and occupiers of the soil—the very parties who ought to know best the habits and discomforts of our agricultural labourers. It is very remarkable, indeed, that the Duke of Buccleuch seems accurately informed upon the subject; that he has personally inspected the dwellings of the agricultural labourers on his estate; and that he has personally issued instructions regarding the improvement of their cottages. Considering the territorial extent of his Grace’s estates, and the varied and momentous interests that claim and receive his Grace’s attention, his conduct and example, as well as his benevolent and patriotic words, will carry a severer reproof to those landowners who shall hereafter continue indifferent to the comfort and welfare of the labourers, than the most biting speech of the most pungent pamphleteer. Why, it may be asked, has Mr Stuart been left to make such a discovery? Why did the tenant-farmers, who are daily witnessing with their own eyes the discomforts of the agricultural labourers, who are most deeply interested in their physical and moral condition, and to whom Providence has more immediately committed the care of their interests—why did they not complain, and call for some amelioration of an evil so discreditable? But the fact is, that such men as Messrs Watson, Finnie, Cowie, and many others we might name, have never ceased to avail themselves of every opportunity of directing attention to the condition of our agricultural labourers, but they have heretofore, for the most part, addressed themselves to unprepared and reluctant audiences. Moreover, for many years our tenant-farmers have been struggling with such difficulties of their own, as have left them little time or inclination for devising expedients for improving the condition of their labourers. And it is likewise to be remembered that many of the farmers are themselves so little elevated above the peasantry in point of education and habits and domestic tastes, that it would be idle to expect that they should see any necessity for elevating the condition of the agricultural labourers.

This class of tenants must consider the present movement as fantastic, and absurd, and uncalled for, and they will prove, we fear, the greatest obstructives in the way of its success. So that if the truth is to be spoken, many proprietors would require first to improve the habits and elevate the character of their tenantry, before they attempt to elevate the social condition of their agricultural labourers. The nearer the tenant approaches the labourer in point of education and social habits, the more careless and indifferent is the former to the comforts of the latter, and the less inclined to ameliorate his condition. We think it by no means an impossible thing that there are not a few farmers throughout Scotland who are looking upon the present movement in behalf of our rural labourers not only as savouring of idle sentimentalism, but who are contemplating it with a jealous eye, as an attempt of the proprietors to place the condition of the servant upon the same platform with that of the master. There is, indeed, a class of small farmers, highly estimable and worthy, and quite fit, in respect of capital, for their position, who cultivate their possessions by means of their own families, aided by perhaps one or two servant-lads. In these cases the servants live truly as members of the family, and are treated as such; and this is the farm-service which, above all others, virtuous and thoughtful parents desire for their children.

The tenant-farmers are, probably, likewise prepared to rebut any charge of indifference brought against them, by stating that they have found so great difficulty in getting proper house-accommodation for their own families, and suitable and enlarged farm-buildings to enable them satisfactorily to carry on the business of the farm, and to meet the requirements of an improved husbandry, that the idea of asking a better style of cottages for their labourers would have been Utopian. The farmer, too, has but a temporary interest in the land, and but a temporary connection with the agricultural labourers upon his farm; and with more immediate wants and difficulties of his own to contend with, to suppose that he should expostulate with a reluctant proprietor, and set himself devotedly to improve and remodel the houses of his labourers, is to expect from him an extent of philanthropic enthusiasm quite uncommon, and, therefore, quite unreasonable. The landowner occupies a very different position—but, however inexplicable it may seem, he has not hitherto had his attention directed to the cottages of the labouring poor upon his estate. This confession of previous ignorance was ingenuously made by the speakers at the Edinburgh meeting, and we believe that they did not misrepresent the information upon the subject that had hitherto generally prevailed among the landed proprietors of Scotland. Lord Kinnaird, at a meeting of the “Dundee Model Lodging-House Association,” on 13th January, expressed himself as follows: “Until he had read that pamphlet (Mr Stuart’s), he had had no right idea of the bothies on his estate. Thinking such a matter was an arrangement purely between the farmer and his labourers, he had not visited them till lately; but having now done so, he felt they were a reproach to him, and must be improved.” And yet Lord Kinnaird resides for the most part upon his estate—he takes an anxious and most kindly interest in the moral, educational, and physical wellbeing of the people who live upon it,—and having such an acknowledgment from a nobleman so benevolent and active, the irresistible inference is, that other proprietors in his position are not only ignorant of the bothies, but of the condition of the cottages upon their properties.

It appears from Mr Stuart, that the parochial clergy, the body to which he belongs, have for many years had their attention anxiously directed towards the case of the agricultural labourers. He tells us that the synods of Perth, Stirling, Aberdeen, and Angus and Mearns have instituted inquiries regarding their condition—these inquiries being chiefly intended, as might have been expected, to ascertain the moral, religious, and educational state of our labourers, although the effects of the bothy system and of feeing-markets upon the social condition of servants are likewise investigated. Through the courtesy of a clerical correspondent, we have before us reports from twenty-seven parishes in Morayshire, in answer to a series of questions circulated by the synod of Moray in 1848, as well as a copy of the Elgin Courant, April 1848, containing a very full discussion by that ecclesiastical court on the moral and social condition of the agricultural labourers of that province. The synod of Angus and Mearns instituted an investigation of the same kind some fifteen years ago, and a most elaborate report, based upon the information collected, was drawn up. Measures were suggested for elevating the condition of the farm-servants; and in some counties pastoral addresses were read from the pulpits of the Established Church upon the subject. It appears, however, that this agitation of the question by the Church met with no countenance or encouragement from the laity. We know, indeed, that Sir John Stuart Forbes, and two or three other proprietors, took then an interest in the inquiry, and were alive to its importance—but, generally speaking, the proprietors and farmers seem to have been quite unprepared to take up the subject.

It is very curious, nevertheless, to observe that the very evils pointed out by Mr Stuart in his pamphlet, and the very remedies suggested by him, are all embraced and expounded in the reports of the ecclesiastical courts now before us.[6] It is a remarkable instance, apparently, of the well-known mental phenomenon, that the mind previously must have undergone some preparation for the reception of the truth, before the truth can suitably affect it. Mr Stuart has had the sagacity, or good fortune, to fix upon the opportune moment for making his appeal, and to find a benevolently disposed auditory. He has done what his brethren, in synods assembled, could not do. He has effectually hit the nail upon the head—and we hope he will reiterate the blow again and again, until he sees the objects of his benevolent wishes in some good measure obtained.

It appears to us that on such a subject as the present every thing approaching to exaggeration should be most anxiously avoided. There is a danger, now that the attention and interest of the public have been so awakened, that overdrawn pictures of the degraded condition of our Scottish peasantry will be indulged in; and this is all the more likely, as proving acceptable to the democratic classes, and as reflecting disgrace on the character of landed proprietors. In point of fact, we believe that it is unquestionable that our rural population, both in respect of their sanitary and moral condition, occupy a position very superior to that of the manufacturing classes of our towns. By the census of 1841, for every two deaths in agricultural districts there were more than three in our towns; and in towns exclusively manufacturing, such as Leeds and Birmingham, there were seven deaths for every two in agricultural localities. Glasgow is the only Scottish town where the statistics of mortality are noted, and there ten would die out of a population of three hundred, while out of the same number in agricultural counties there would be only three deaths. In the matter of moral statistics by the same census the commitments in manufacturing districts, compared with agricultural, were as five to one. We believe the statistics of drunkenness would report likewise in favour of the superior sobriety of our rural population, so that our agricultural labourers, it seems, are truly more healthy, more sober, more virtuous, at least in the eye of the criminal law, than those of the labouring classes in our towns. We believe that the agricultural labourers are better fed and better clothed, and, in many aspects of the case, as well housed as the labouring classes in our large towns and cities. In this fashion, if he pleases, the landowner may evade all appeals to his benevolence, and may scornfully reject all reproachful insinuations of having neglected the condition of the labouring poor upon his estates. He may well inquire how far he has contributed to raise the poor on his estate to a higher social condition in respect of health and sobriety, when contrasted with the poor of our towns; and if this has not been so much the necessary result of their circumstances and manner of life, that a very slender portion of the merit can be appropriated by him. The opulent inhabitants of our cities are not bound by any especial tie of social duty to the degraded and dissipated poor of the cities. They are not their tenants, nor are they engaged in their employment. Though living in close proximity with them, the rich are, for the most part, profoundly ignorant of the condition of their poorer fellow-citizens, who breathe the mephitic exhalations of unventilated lanes, and whose homes are but dismal cellars, into which the meridian sun, struggling through dense masses of hovering vapour, fails to transmit anything stronger than a murky twilight.

If the country gentleman can persuade himself that he holds no nearer relationship to the tenantry and labourers upon his estate, than the wealthy citizen does to the industrious poor who live within the same municipal bounds, but who otherwise are totally unconnected with them, it would be unreasonable to expect from such a one those expressions of regret which have fallen so gracefully from the lips of others, or that he will find any difficulty in escaping all appeals addressed to him, not only as he is not conscious of having overlooked any duty, but because he is prepared to deny that he has any duty to discharge in the matter. Or if the country gentleman can take up the very elevated position which a certain school of economists have of late been expounding and pressing upon his attention, then he will have reached a region so pure, and so superterrestrial as to be infinitely raised above all vulgar care about the comfort and welfare of those who till the glebe and tend the herds of that “dim spot which men call earth.” According to this high philosophy, the landowner is taught to look upon his land as a mere article of commerce, and that the great question with him ought to be to discover how, with the least possible outlay, he can raise from it the greatest possible revenue. To examine into the condition of the cottages upon the estate—to build new ones, and to improve the old—to do this personally, or, as that may be impossible, to order it to be done by some competent and responsible party—all this seems out of his department as the owner of the land and the recipient of the rent. If the farmer is content that his labourers should live in miserable hovels, where their physical energies must be debilitated, and where the decencies of their moral condition must suffer wrong, where their fitness for their daily toil is being impaired by the discomforts of their homes, and where, from the same cause, the period in the ploughman’s life of complete capability for his work must infallibly be abridged, what signifies all this to the landowner? His political economy saves him from all compunction. If the thews and sinews of the ploughman, by such treatment, become prematurely useless, it matters not—the wheels and pinions can be replaced, and other thews and sinews will be found to work the work. It is a devout hallucination upon the part of Mr Stuart to fancy that he can persuade such a landowner as this, that, on mere pecuniary grounds, it would prove a wise economy in him to build new cottages and to remodel the old, and to improve and add to the bothy accommodation. Mr Stuart’s argument on such a subject would necessarily be largely leavened with moral considerations, which the economics of the landlord did not embrace, and the mere money-profit looms dubiously in the distance. Mr Stuart would have no chance with such a stern philosopher as this, who could demonstrate by an irrefragable arithmetic that he could do the thing cheaper! We are sorry to think that any such party should be in the position of a landed proprietor. ’Tis a pity such a man had not had his money invested in the Three per Cents, or in a street of three-storeyed tenements suitable to accommodate the middle classes of society, who would take care of themselves, and, peradventure, of the laird likewise. We know no situation in human life so enviable as that of a country gentleman. His privileges are manifold, and his appropriate recreations and pleasures exquisite. His peculiar duties are indeed very responsible, but they are deeply interesting and delightful. Surely a country gentleman is knit by dearer and more sacred ties to the people that live upon his estate, and that cultivate his fields, than the rich man of the city to the poor artisan, to whom he is united by the accident of his living in the neighbouring street. Nay, we hope that no country gentleman would care to be thought actuated by no warmer or kindlier feelings towards the pendiclers and poor cottagers that dwell on his estate, than the potent noblesse of the cotton-mills can reasonably be expected to be towards the shadowy troops of sallow girls that, like so many animal automata, ply their nimble fingers o’er the power-looms and spinning-jennies of their tall-chimneyed temples. If the accursed commercial element is henceforth to be the sole ruling motive in the management of landed property, the country gentleman will speedily sink to the level of a commercial gentleman. The charms of his position will die away—the honours now so spontaneously rendered to him will be withheld—and the ancestral influence of his house and name will become the poet’s dream. We have contrasted the condition of the labouring poor in the country with that of the labouring poor in the town, but there can be no just comparison betwixt the position of a landed proprietor, and the duties which it entails towards the agricultural labourers on his property, and the position of a mill-spinner towards the people whom he employs; and we should be sorry if any landowner should seek in this way to vindicate his subsequent neglect of the duties which Providence has manifestly laid upon him. If our landed proprietors are not imbued with some just sense of the responsibilities of their station, and actuated by some steadfast determination to practise self-denial in other matters, that they may improve the condition of the industrious poor upon their properties, we despair utterly of any permanent practical good resulting from the present movement. If our farmers are, as a body, not prepared at present heartily to enter upon the work of reformation, we have to thank one class of politicians who have for years been industriously indoctrinating the farmer with the dogma that his business, in its highest phase, was just the manufacture of certain agricultural products from the soil. The farmer long listened in wonder to the lecturer, not knowing well what the high-sounding philosophy might mean. But he at last embraced the doctrine, and he now, we fear, too often entertains the feelings which the doctrine was so likely to engender. As a manufacturer, the farmer cannot for his life see that he has any more concernment than any other manufacturer with the condition, character, and habits of his operatives. For a year he hires them, and they go, and he sees them no more. The root of the evil Mr Stuart correctly traces up to the altered feelings and conduct of proprietors and tenants towards their dependants.

Mr Stuart, in speaking of our agricultural labourers, “as things were” some sixty years ago, adverts to a period when the servants lived in family with their masters—when the master sat patriarchally at the head of his table, surrounded by his children and domestics, and when all knelt at the same family altar to offer up the evening prayer. The social characteristics of the people of that day were excellent; but their creature comforts were few, and their agriculture wretched. It was the era of run-rig, of outfield and infield—the former being scourged as the common foe—while on the latter our agricultural sires practised high farming. During the summer the men were half idle, and in the winter they were wholly so, saving that occasionally in the forenoon that venerable implement the flail, wielded by a lusty arm, might be heard dropping its minute-guns on the barn-floor. The women wrought the work in summer, and plied the wheel in winter. We are old enough to remember the spinning-wheel, and are disposed to echo the sentiment of the poet—

“Grief, thou hast lost an ever-ready friend,

Now that the cottage spinning-wheel is mute;

And care a comforter that best could suit

Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend.”

Mr Stuart reverts to this bygone age in a strain of tenderness; but he faithfully depicts its grievous physical disadvantages as they were experienced by the poor. There is a dash of romance in Mr Stuart’s genial nature, and he has interwoven his narrative with some quaint old-world reminiscences; but his excellent sense conducts him always to the sound conclusion. He does not idly sigh for that which has passed away; and he sees that the habits of a former age, if they could be recalled, would not suit the taste of the present generation, nor meet the exigencies of the existing agriculture. In certain districts of Aberdeenshire and elsewhere, the farm-servants may be said yet to live in the family—that is, they get their food in the kitchen, and by the kitchen-fire they sit in the winter evenings until they retire to their beds, which are generally in the stable. But the master and his family are meanwhile in the parlour. The master’s restraining presence is not in the kitchen; and upon the testimony alike of farmers and of clergymen, now lying upon our table, the results of the system are so deplorable, that bothies are asked for and preferred as the least of two evils.

In portraying the progress of agricultural improvement, Mr Stuart discovers the origin of the bothy and bondager systems. The throwing two or three farms into one, and the gradual decay of the cot-houses, and the aversion of the proprietor to build new ones, from a mistaken economy, originated both modes of accommodating farm-servants. But if such were the causes of the evil, its cure is self-evident. We have only to retrace our steps, and we will recover the position which we have abandoned. It took, however, half a century to develop the evil, and not in a day can we hope to see the remedy accomplished. In building more cottages, then, you take the sure way of mitigating the evils of both systems; and by proceeding in this work, if you do not ultimately exterminate the evil, you will so circumscribe and diminish it that it must become all but innocuous. The practice of enlarging farms has gone far enough, but if the expense of their subdivision were not intolerable, we would not in this item undo what we have done. There can be no doubt that our large farmers have been the great improvers; not only have they led the way in improving the cultivation of the soil and the stock of the country, but they have been the parties who have introduced to public notice the new manures, and the new and better implements of husbandry, and to them we now look as indispensable and powerful auxiliaries in elevating the social condition of the labourers. On the large farm, all that is wanted is a proportionate increase of cottages to accommodate the staff of agricultural servants, with a few houses on the outskirts of the farm for jobbers and day-labourers, whose assistance, with that of their families, may be got at a busy season on the farm.

At all times, and in all places, and by all sorts of people, the bothy is condemned. Mr Stuart condemns it, and laments the evils which it originates, and the habits which it induces, and the immoralities which it cherishes; but we are sorry to think that he writes so hopelessly about the possibility of its extinction. We would have been better pleased had he pronounced its doom, and had he proclaimed against it, in unmistakable accents, a war of extermination, gradual but sure, and inexorable. It merits nothing but hearty and unhesitating condemnation. We are well acquainted with bothy economics, and we never knew but one that was even decently conducted. Mr Stuart seems to think the evil necessary and irremovable, and that the only thing left to the philanthropist is to mitigate its horrors. But why so? The bothy system is partial and local. There are large provinces of the kingdom where it is totally unknown. We have the ocular demonstration, then, that it is not indispensable. But Mr Stuart says, that in escaping Charybdis, you sail the good ship Agriculture straight into the boiling quicksand of Syrtis—that, the bothy abandoned, you irretrievably encounter the evils of the bondager system. We are humbly of opinion, however, that our excellent friend somewhat overstates the evils of this latter system. There are inconveniences and disadvantages connected with it, but these are not for a moment to be compared with the discomforts, and with the temptations to nocturnal rambling and loose living, with which the bothy system is so beset. The bondager system does not affect young ploughman lads in the slightest degree; it is limited to young women, and to them the system is the same as domestic service in the farmer’s house, when field-work is associated with that service. But Mr Stuart seems to confound the bondager with the cottage system, while in reality they have no necessary connection. There are two bugbears in the way of abolishing the bothy—the one the landlords, and the other the tenants. The landlord is alarmed at the expense of building the necessary cottages. This will be got over. The tenant is alarmed at the expense of maintaining the ploughman in the cottage when built—a most remarkable mistake. But so it is that, be-north the Forth, many farmers, from long habit, and from ignorance of the cottage system as it exists in the Border counties, have become so wedded to the bothy, that in accomplishing its abolition we expect more resistance from them than from landlords. The model bothy, in mere material accommodation, will effect nothing unless it has separate apartments, furnished with fire and light, and other necessary appliances; and if it be so, where will be its superior economy to either landlord or tenant, when contrasted with the expense of a separate cottage? Abrogate the bothy system entirely, for otherwise moralists may lament in vain, and parents bewail the ruined virtue of their children.

Considering apparently the system too firmly rooted to admit of eradication, Mr Stuart strenuously inculcates the instant improvement of the bothy accommodation. But if he succeeds, will he not have stereotyped the bothy as a permanent part of the economy and constitution of the farm; and what, then, has been achieved? The physical discomforts of the bothy will have in a good measure disappeared, but the place is not disinfected of the moral contagion which the system communicates. Let half-a-dozen of ploughman lads be associated in a bothy, and however tidy and snug and commodious the apartments, yet when their age and circumstances are remembered—when it is considered that they are without a head, to control, counsel, and direct them, that each is his own master—we confess that to us it seems chimerical to expect that any desirable measure of decency, or sobriety, or order, will prevail within the walls of the bothy. It is in vain to tell a well-disposed lad that he can escape the pollution of a wicked associate in the bothy, by retiring to his own apartment. How can he sit there on a winter evening (winter is the season when bothy wickedness takes its swing), unaccommodated as it is either with fire or light? We fear, therefore, that the “model bothy” even would not arrest or extinguish the moral mischief that emanates from this system. It is remarkable that the speakers at the Edinburgh meetings do not say that they contemplate the improvement of the bothy system. Their resolution to encourage the multiplication of suitable cottages for the labourers on the farm, they saw, involved in due time the extinction of the bothy system. Moreover, we fancy that neither the Duke of Buccleuch nor the Marquis of Tweeddale has a single bothy upon their estates, unless one for the journeymen gardeners in the vicinity of their residences. Once erect a sufficiency of cottages, and the unmarried lads will find a sister, or aunt, or some female relative to keep house for them. Having such an object before them, they will be taught habits of economy, and will save money, that they may be ready to furnish a cottage. Once in it, they have a home and property, and will become attached to their situation. The bothy turns ploughmen into nomads, and gives them restless, undomestic, and migratory habits. Erect a sufficiency of cottages, and the bothy will die a natural death. No proprietor or tenant will erect or maintain a bothy for a solitary ploughman, who happens to have no female friend who can cook his food and keep his cottage. Infallibly he will find other accommodation. The boy, to whom the bothy is a very school of corruption, ought to live in family with the master, and it should be the master’s duty to watch over his morals, and to aid in some manner in his education. If he is a parent, let him say how he would like his own boy, when he leaves the paternal roof, to be neglected, tempted, corrupted.

Mr Stuart quotes from Mr Laing’s book on Norway a description of the Norwegian borststue or bothy, which is commodious and comfortable, and well supplied with all conveniences; and then he asks, “Now, I would hold such to be a model bothy; and cannot the farming in Scotland afford to give what it affords to give in Norway?” No doubt of it, provided you demonstrate that the bothy is indispensable; but to that premise we demur. Mr Laing communicates nothing to us of the moral effects of the borststue, which would be modified by the social habits of the people, and by the degree of kindly intercourse subsisting between master and servant. But in fact the example of Norway, neither in the matter of cottages nor bothies, is truly applicable to our country. In Norway the cottage is a loghouse, and costs nothing but the nails and the window-glass, while every Norwegian knows enough of loghouse-carpentry to erect a cottage for himself. With regard to the borststue, there is a necessity for it in Norway that does not exist here. The outdoor farm-work, which meets with but partial interruptions in our climate, is at an absolute standstill in Norway for six months of the year, from the severity of a protracted winter. The result is, that the outdoor work must be accomplished during a few weeks in spring, and of course a more numerous staff of servants must be maintained than with us; for, from the military and passport system prevailing in Norway, it is impossible to summon in an additional supply of workers to suit the emergency. The tenant-farmer is thus more dependent on the agricultural labourers; and we believe that there prevails in Norway more of that friendly interchange of sympathy and of kindness between master and servant than now unhappily characterises our social condition, which, nevertheless, sweetens all toil, and turns aside the poisoned arrow of temptation, and plucks the sting from suffering, whether experienced in Scottish bothy or Norwegian borststue. For ourselves, we have only one prescription for the bothy system, and that is, raze it. The system is too pregnant with all moral evil to be temporised with. We cannot consent to any parley, to negotiate for delay, and to write protocols anent its possible improvement. We are almost certain that the minister of Oathlaw agrees with us, but that he has thought it prudent to soften his voice when speaking of the bothy, in the fear that it would alarm his auditors at the revolutionary extent of his demands. But now that he has caught the ear of the noble and the good of the land, and awakened in generous hearts so magnanimous a response, let the lute become a trumpet in his hand, and let him blow a blast so loud and clear as shall scatter this disgrace of Scottish agriculture to the winds of heaven.

Most earnestly do we press upon our readers that our Scottish peasantry, and agricultural labourers, and common ploughmen, are highly deserving of consideration and kindness, and of every attempt that can be made to increase their comforts and to ameliorate their moral and social condition. There is an incredible and most criminal ignorance not only among the higher, but among the middle classes of society, regarding at once the habits and hardships of this important class of the community. The newspaper paragraphist, in his select vocabulary, describes the ploughman as a clown, a clodpole, a lout. That smart draper, with the exquisitely-tied cravat and his inimitably arranged hair, all redolent of musk, smiles complacently when he sees John the hind rolling along the pavement on his huge hobnailed boots, and considers him the very impersonation of stolidity. John’s dress is appropriate, however, to his calling, and to see the draper in pumps and silk stockings floundering through a new-ploughed field, or picking his steps daintily through a feeding-byre, where the musk must yield to the ammonia, would, we fancy, be a phenomenon not less provocative of laughter. Nothing is so ridiculous as the very prevalent idea that our Scottish agricultural labourers are a stupid race. They are shrewd, sagacious, and intelligent about their own business; and because they are so, they are continually being drafted away to England and Ireland. The employments of a common ploughman are various, and of a nature calculated to cultivate his powers of observation and of thought. Mr Stephens, after describing the extent of observation, of judgment, and of patience, required in a good ploughman, adds—“To be so accomplished implies the possession of talent of no mean order.”—Book of the Farm, vol. i. p. 163. Talent necessary for a ploughman! exclaims the incredulous and amazed citizen, and fancies that the author must speak ironically. Nay; he never wrote soberer truth in his lifetime, and in your ignorance you wonder.

There is another reason why not only the comforts, but why the moral and intellectual powers of the agricultural labourer should be cared for. The common ploughman has committed to his trust property which, on a very moderate computation, may be valued at £100. This property, of a nature so likely to receive injury from carelessness and inattention, is daily in his hands, and under his charge, and at his mercy. We need scarcely add, too, how deeply he may in other respects injure his employer, as, for instance, by the imperfect ploughing or careless sowing of a field. To what common servant, in any sphere of life, is property so valuable so exclusively intrusted? It is plain that a party so confided in, as a ploughman must be, ought not to have his sense of responsibility and of moral obligation blunted and impaired by barbarous neglect. Hitherto our agricultural labourers have not occupied themselves with discussing “the rights of labour and the duties of capital.” But if landlords and tenants are resolved to consider the whole management of land as a mere matter of commerce, we cannot see why these operatives should not be led to philosophise as well as others. The labourer may apply in all equity that principle to his own case which the landlord and tenant are severally applying to theirs. The severance between employer and employed has of late been developed to an extent never before witnessed in any age, and it threatens, at this moment, to throw a terrific chasm athwart the whole structure of society. Not only among mill-masters and men, but among many other classes very differently circumstanced, have we witnessed combination and counter-combination, and their disastrous consequences. A slight agrarian grumbling might possibly do good; and, from all that we can learn, there is a sulky discontent slumbering in many an honest fellow’s bosom, that could easily be fanned, by a skilful experimenter, into a visible flame. It will be better, in every respect, to anticipate and ward off the evil. Its causes and its cure have been well expounded by Mr Stuart. But if our agricultural labourers are too patient sufferers to complain, too sensible to imbibe the pestilent doctrines of Messrs Newton and Cowel, and too wide apart to have it in their power to combine, whether for good or for evil—and if, on these accounts, there is no ground for alarm, is it wise, is it kind of you, to take advantage of their peaceful dispositions, and of their powerlessness to unite in proclaiming their wrongs, and in vindicating their rights? There is a remedy within the reach of many of them, and of which they are silently availing themselves. They can emigrate. They are doing so quietly, determinedly. They are not absolutely astricti glebæ. The canker of neglect is eating away the ties that bind them to their Fatherland. Multitudes of the best of them have gone, and thousands would follow if they had the means. Emigration, if it proceeds unchecked, will render “strikes” unnecessary, even if we are inclined to consider such things as visionary and impossible among an agricultural population.

They who have not read Mr Stuart’s appeal, may conclude, from the professed object of that Association to which his appeal has conducted, that he has inculcated nothing more than the improvement of existing cottages, and the building of many new ones more commodious and comfortable. His philanthropy, however, is more comprehensive. With an excursive pen he reviews the whole moral, educational, and social characteristics of the agricultural labourer’s condition, and sketches the remedies for its various evils. When, therefore, Mr Stuart merely proposed at the meeting of the 10th January, as the main feature of the proposed Association, the establishment of an office in Edinburgh for the reception of plans and models, and improved fittings and furnishings for cottages, accessible to all inquirers, it seemed to us, retaining as we did a delightful reminiscence of his pamphlet, a most impotent conclusion. He appeared to have descended from the high moral arena into the mortar-tub, and we were in terror lest some journalist, in a slashing leader, should cover his scheme with inextinguishable burlesque. It seemed likewise a mystery to us how there could be such extreme difficulty in erecting a commodious and comfortable cottage, as that an office in our metropolis should be required for the exhibition of right models. It might have looked that, instead of a labourer’s cottage, it was a medieval temple of most intricate composite that was required, and for the conception of which the genius of Scottish architecture was unequal without the aid of unusual patronage. We feared, too, that the Association might be described by some malignant pen as a company of Scottish proprietors resolving to raise the marketable value of their estates by adding to the buildings thereupon. Such silly caricatures might perhaps have been anticipated, and in fact some small sneers were dropped by one or two of the Radical newspapers; but the admirable tone of the speeches at the meeting, when the Association was formed, seemed for the time to have stayed the old hatred of the democratic press towards our landed proprietors. That our readers may understand correctly the intentions and views of “The Association for promoting improvement in the dwellings and domestic condition of agricultural labourers in Scotland,” we recommend to their perusal the report of the committee now published, and which we hope may be widely circulated. The noblemen and country gentlemen composing the Association have combined, not for the purpose of raising their rentals, but for the purpose of improving the domestic condition of the agricultural labourers, by improving their dwellings. They have united together for the purpose of directing attention to the subject, and of encouraging and aiding others in removing an evil which they candidly confess they have hitherto overlooked and neglected. The evil is of long standing and of gigantic dimensions, and it has been felt that the benevolent zeal and efforts of individuals required to be concentred into the potent agency of one national association, to effect its abatement and to work out its final extinction. In the matter of house accommodation for our agricultural labourers, while on many estates a very great deal has been done to improve it, yet very generally over the kingdom it is a notorious fact that no improvement in their dwellings has taken place for the last half-century. One article of furniture in the cottages of our Scottish peasantry has excited the indignation of all but those who repose their weary limbs on it—we refer to the box-bed. The medical faculty time immemorial have denounced it as a very “fever case.” Mr Stuart and his reverend brethren have lamented the stifling insalubrity of the formidable structure. Fine ladies and gentlemen have wondered at the stupid attachment of the Scottish peasant to a dormitory so barbarous. The Duke of Buccleuch has solved the riddle. He tells us, that when he ordered the box-bed to be taken out of the cottage down came the roof! And thus that which has been the stay and support of many a tottering tenement has been most ignorantly condemned. Nor is this all. So very damp and cold are too many of the cottages, that in order to exclude these evils in some measure by night, the box-bed is indispensable during eight months of the year; and we predict that unless comfortable cottages, rightly roofed, lathed, and floored are erected, the box-bed will prove stronger than Mr Stuart, and will retain its hold on the affections of the labourer, upholding at once its own position and the roof of the dwelling that affects to shelter it from the elements. That there is likewise a lack of cottages in our agricultural districts is unquestionable. They have been allowed to decay and disappear, from economical considerations entirely delusive, to an extent extremely prejudicial. The diminished population of our rural parishes proves the fact; and if any one will contrast the census papers of 1841 with those of 1851, which exhibit the number of the inhabited houses in the several counties of Scotland, they will find a demonstration that may probably startle them. The Association takes it for granted that an improved domestic condition will follow in the wake of improved dwellings being given to the poor, and no thoughtful and observing person will doubt this. It has been beautifully said, “Between physical and moral delicacy a connection has been observed, which, though founded by the imagination, is far from being imaginary. Howard and others have remarked it. It is an antidote against sloth, and keeps alive the idea of decent restraint and the habit of circumspection. Moral purity and physical are spoken of in the same language; scarce can you inculcate or command the one, but some share of approbation reflects itself upon the other. In minds in which the least germ of Christianity has been planted, this association can scarce fail of having taken root: scarce a page of Scripture but recalls it.” It is of the very essence of every good system to develop the virtues necessary to its success; and to the humanising influence of a comfortable and commodious cottage, old habits of filthiness and sloth would gradually yield, and would every day become a lessening evil. Such cottages would secure at once the services of the best class of workmen, and thus a mercenary self-interest would find it to its advantage to follow where benevolence had led the way. The influence of example upon the rich, and the influence of superior house-accommodation upon the social condition of the poor, must be gradual. This has been duly contemplated.

It is scarcely necessary, we fancy, to expound this part of the case. It is now pretty generally understood. If, however, any of our readers have not considered this subject, or continue to entertain some lingering doubts regarding the effects of improved house-accommodation upon the social, sanitary, and moral condition of the people, we most anxiously recommend to their perusal Dr Southwood Smith’s “Results of Sanitary Improvement, illustrated by the operation of the metropolitan societies for improving the dwellings of the industrious classes, &c.” The pamphlet costs twopence, and it may take a quarter of an hour to read it; but never, we believe, were statistics ever given to the world so surprising and so encouraging,—matter at once so suggestive of deep thought, and so animating to the aspirations of practical philanthropy. Lord Shaftesbury is at present circulating this most pregnant epitome of the effects of sanitary improvement among the parochial boards of Scotland. It is a most seasonable missive—vindicating the speculations of Mr Stuart, and placing on the basis of demonstration the certainty of the effect of the intended operations of the Duke of Buccleuch’s association. The pecuniary element will be thought our main difficulty, but we are quite satisfied that the tendency is to exaggerate it. Be it remembered that we want no cottages ornées, and (with your leave, Mr Stuart) no model bothies, but merely warm, dry, convenient houses for honest ploughmen to live in. Let wealthy proprietors, if they please, adorn their estates with picturesque villas, crowned with projecting roofs and ornamental chimneys; but the Association over which the Duke of Buccleuch presides does not desire a single sixpence to be spent which will not contribute to the comfort of the cottage. The reformatory change may proceed by degrees, and in no one year need the outlay be serious; but on this part of the subject we refer our readers to the views of Sir Ralph Anstruther, as contained in his speech on the 10th January, and more fully explained in his letter (Courant, January 20th). While the Association professes, in the mean time (and we think wisely and judiciously), to limit its attention to the improvement of the dwellings of agricultural labourers, and thereby to raise their domestic condition, it seems evident that the basis of its operations may be easily extended, and that the benevolent object in view will almost naturally widen that basis. That object is to ameliorate the domestic condition of the labourer; but if other causes as well as that of improved house-accommodation will contribute towards the wished-for amelioration, these, it may be expected, in due time will come to be embraced within the benevolent range of its fostering influence. To prevent misapprehension and remove ignorance, we would respectfully suggest the propriety of the Association instituting a statistical inquiry into the physical, moral, and educational condition of the agricultural labourers of the kingdom. Such statistics would form a valuable supplement to the agricultural statistics collected under the instruction of Mr Hall Maxwell. Information seems necessary to enable the Association rightly to exercise its influence, even in improving the dwellings of the poor. In some parts of the west of Scotland a sort of mud cottage is raised at an expense of £3! and a fit model for one county may be utterly unfit for another. All requisite information we believe could be obtained, by addressing a schedule of inquiry to the parochial clergy, who are manifestly ready to lend their aid. In any event, our landed proprietors cannot well afford to have more “news from the farm” thrust upon them by the spontaneous exertions of volunteer philanthropists. The public, indeed, seem to have been infinitely surprised that our landed proprietors should have been so ignorant of the condition of the dwellings and of the circumstances of the people upon their estates; and the inference is, that there must have been something grievously wrong in the management of their affairs. No man, of course, can expect that the proprietor of a large landed estate should know minutely the condition of every cottage on it, and the discomforts of its poor inhabitant. But the ignorance confessed goes greatly beyond this. It was surely the more immediate duty of the tenant-farmer to have protected his dependants, and to have represented their disadvantages to the proprietor. And what has the factor been doing in the mean time? General Lindsay, at the meeting of the 10th January, in a speech overflowing with admirable feeling, said, that “the factor was afraid of increasing his expenditure.” Quite right; but why was he not afraid, too, of misrepresenting the kindly feelings of his constituent towards the industrious poor upon his estate—of concealing from him knowledge which, if he wished to do his duty, it was indispensable for him to possess—of alienating from him and his house the love and veneration of his people—of rendering his privileges odious now, and of imperilling his position on any coming convulsion of the commonwealth? We have not only now the evil of non-resident proprietors, but, in many cases, the evil of non-resident factors. The door of communication betwixt landlord and tenant is thus effectually shut up; and the poor cottager, who was wont to have access even to “his honour,” finds things so altered that an audience with the factor is become impossible. The accountant is as ignorant as his constituent “of the dwellings and domestic condition of the agricultural labourers,” and thus there is a complete abnegation of all the peculiar duties and responsibilities which Providence has manifestly laid on the owners of land. It is impossible to deny, on the other hand, that very many of the tenant-farmers, imitating the manners of their betters, have become sadly neglectful of the duties which they owe their dependants. To give as little and get as much as he can, is now, in too many cases, the short and simple rubric of that code which guides the landlord in his contract with the tenant. The tenant extends the principle, and looks upon the labour of his ploughman as a mere purchaseable article, that supplements the deficiency of machinery, and is necessary to guide the muscular energies of the horse. With the ploughman, however, the sale of his labour is the sale of himself—the devotion of his sentient nature, with feelings, affections, sympathies, as lively as those of his master, and with a pride and self-esteem as sensitive to unkindness and wrong. It was in every respect seemly that the present movement should originate with the proprietors, for the house-accommodation must plainly be given by them; but now that they have intimated, in so kind words, their good wishes and benevolent intentions, we hope the farmers will consider whether expressions of “repentance” for the past are not due from them as well as from others, and whether works “meet for repentance” should not instantly be undertaken by them. Because the landlord has made his “confession,” it is conceivable that the tenant may now fancy that nothing remains but that he should make a clamorous onset on the laird for more cottages. We hope he will not be unreasonable, but will perceive that he must put his own shoulder to the work, and be prepared to make some sacrifices, and to practice some self-denial. We fear that some of the tenantry require to be instructed, stimulated, and watched in discharging that part of the duty which falls to them in promoting the desired reformation. We are quite of the opinion of the Duke of Buccleuch, that more cottages should not be let with the farm than the number necessary to accommodate the servants requisite for the work of the farm. The other cottagers should rent their holdings immediately from the landlord.

We know no class of workmen who have so few holidays, and so few opportunities for rational recreation, as our ploughmen. They may have the right to go to some annual feeing-market, and out of this solitary feast the poor fellows try naturally to extract as much pleasure as they can, turning the day into a carnival of many-coloured evil. All other classes of workpeople have their occasional holiday—their trip by an excursion-train—the Saturday afternoon, in a slack season, to see friends and kindred; but no such pleasures fall to the ploughman’s lot. In the winter, indeed, he is on “short time,” but what is done to make his evening hours pleasant, profitable, instructive? In the agricultural world we shall certainly have no “lock-out,” and perhaps no “strike,” but it may be wise, at least, to anticipate possible contingencies by acts of kindness and of well-considered indulgence. The yawning gulf betwixt the high and the low of the land is the most ominous evil of these times, and should be bridged over by sympathetic communication whilst it can. The wintry neglect of his superiors is worse to be borne by the labourer than the cold of his miserable cottage. Let us listen to Mr Stuart on an evil which seems to have entered like iron into his kindly soul. Addressing landlords, he says—

“Let their visits and their smile be frequently seen in the house of the poorest cottar, although he be but a hired labourer; for not fifty years ago, that same man would have been a crofter, or a small farmer, waiting on ‘his honour,’ and welcomed by ‘his honour,’ with his rent or his bondage. That he is not so now, is owing more to ‘his honour’s’ change of customs for his own profit, than to the cottar’s own fault, or to the profit of the cottar’s own social position and feelings. Let there be some upmaking, then, for this change, so far as such things can be made up for, not in the shape of money, but in that which his forefathers valued much more than money, and which he will value as highly again, if ‘his honour’ will only but give him time and means whereby he may recover his self-esteem and his proper training; and one of the most powerful and most valued of all these means would, in a little time, be ‘his honour’s’ friendly visits to his humble dwelling.”

Now that the Scottish people know that the Duke of Buccleuch finds time to inquire personally into the condition of the peasantry on his estates, no proprietor, however ancient his lineage and proud his name, will be excused who fails to go and do likewise, or who fails at least to acquaint himself with the condition of the labourers who cultivate his fields. Personal inquiry we would recommend, although it should not lead to the rendering of one cottage more comfortable than it was before. We recommend it for the proprietor’s own behoof. “The most certain softeners of a man’s moral skin, and sweeteners of his blood, are, I am sure, domestic intercourse in a happy marriage, and intercourse with the poor,” writes Arnold; and, as if he had felt the virtue flowing out of such intercourse, he repeats the thought thus in another place, “Prayer, and kindly intercourse with the poor, are the two great safeguards of spiritual life.” One-half the world does not know how the other half lives, and one-half of the bitternesses of human life arises from our not understanding one another. Little do the great ones of the earth know how much they lose by avoiding kindly acquaintance with poor and humble neighbours.

We know of no public meeting that has taken place in our time, where the speeches delivered possessed a higher moral value than those that fell from the speakers at the meeting of the 10th January last. The turbulent, disrupted, and gloomy condition of the manufacturing classes, rendered them admirably seasonable. They have shed a benignant influence over the agricultural community. They have awakened hopes that were growing faint, and fine old Scottish feelings that were dying out, and have proved a healing anodyne to a wound that was rankling in many a bosom. The opening speech of the noble chairman we have read more than once, and ever with renewed delight. Many an honest labourer has read it too, with glistening eye and joyful heart, and its perusal has prepared him for fighting more heroically the battle of his life. Some of the sentiments of the noble Duke we cannot withhold from our columns:—

“He thought it would not be disputed that, generally speaking, throughout Scotland, the habitations of these labourers were very defective, especially in those accommodations for comfort and delicacy. In former days the farm-servant was accommodated in the farmer’s house, where he took his meals, and so was under the moral control of his employers. But now the farm-labourer was put into a bothy, generally a most wretched place to live in, and often the worst building on the farm. He could not blink the question involved in the subject. They had not come there to bandy compliments to one another, but to speak the truth. It might be said to him and those who came there to find fault with the present system: You ought to come with clean hands, and be able to say that all the bothies on your estate were such as they ought to be. He confessed with shame that he could show as bad specimens on his property as could be found in Scotland. He would not conceal it that the condition of many of the cottages on his estate was as bad as could be. How this state of things had arisen it was not difficult to see.... He examined a number of their cottages himself, and found many of them quite in a falling-down state. In one of them, when he took a box-bed out of it, down came the roof. Such things would be found not so very uncommon if these cottages were looked into. Then what an evil effect such houses had upon the moral feelings of those who occupied them! Many of the persons who lived in them were highly educated, and it might well be conceived that a person of refinement living in a place fit for a pig would be discontented, as well as unhappy. How could they expect, when they saw men, women, and children all living and sleeping in one apartment, that they could be otherwise than demoralised? Could they wonder that all their delicacy of feeling was destroyed? Mothers had said to him, how could they bring up their daughters with respectability when there was not that separation of rooms which there ought to be? Then there was a great disinclination on the part of the tenantry to the landlord taking these cottages into his hand. They said they must have every single thing under their own control. It was all very well for them to say that as regarded the lodgment of their domestic and special farm-servants, but it did not follow that it was absolutely necessary that all the cottages of the agricultural labourers should belong to the farmer. He did not think that it was right that the farm-labourer should be bound down to work for one man only. But the person who really benefited by the landlord taking the cottage into his own hands was the farm-labourer himself; and he had seen the moral effect produced by providing better houses for this class of labourers, in a quarter where thieving and poaching had formerly been the disgrace of the people; but since their houses were improved, there was a great and beneficial reformation in these respects. It was really gratifying to see the change which took place in the feelings of these people towards their landlord, when they knew he was taking an interest in their welfare. Here, when he passed, they showed they regarded him as their friend, and were not filled with unpleasant suspicions about him.”

The gems in the ducal coronet never emitted a tenderer or more fascinating ray than when its noble owner entered the lowly cottage on his mission of kindness, and since the preceding sentiments were spoken, we believe that from many a Scottish heart the fervent prayer has been sent to heaven’s gate, that “the good Buccleuch” may long be spared to his country.

ALEXANDER SMITH’S POEMS.[7]

Some time ago a volume of poems appeared, over which there arose a great roar of critical battle, like the conflict over the dead Valerius, when “Titus pulled him by the foot, and Aulus by the head.” Many hailed the author as a true poet, and prophesied his coming greatness; others fastened on obvious defects, and moused the book like Snug the joiner tearing Thisbe’s mantle in his character of lion. Now that the hubbub has subsided, our still small voice may be heard.

The poet in question has at once deprecated and defied criticism in a sonnet, (p. 232).

“There have been vast displays of critic wit

O’er those who vainly flutter feeble wings,

Nor rise an inch ’bove ground,—weak poetlings!

And on them to the death men’s brows are knit.

Ye men! ye critics! seems’t so very fit

They on a storm of Laughter should be blown

O’er the world’s edge to Limbo? Be it known,

Ye men! ye critics! that beneath the sun

The chiefest woe is this,—when all alone,

And strong as life, a soul’s great currents run

Poesy-ward, like rivers to the sea,

But never reach’t. Critic, let that soul moan

In its own hell, without a kick from thee.

Kind Death, kiss gently, ease this weary one!”

Alexander Smith is partly right and partly wrong. It is true that, throned in his judicial chair, the critic, more intent on displaying his own powers than on doing justice to his subject, is apt to drop the mild and equal scales, and brandish the trenchant glittering sword. He ought to say in his heart, Peradventure there shall be found ten fine lines in this book—I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.

But, on the other hand, there is a class to which forbearance would be misapplied and criminal. It would too much resemble our prison discipline, where Mr William Sykes, after a long course of outrages on humanity, is shut up in a palace, treated like a prodigal son, and presently converted to Christianity. An absurd monomaniac, who, like Joanna Southcote, mistaking a dropsical disorder for the divine afflatus, and demanding worship on no better grounds than the greatness of his own blown conceit, may, by mere force of impudent pretension, induce a host of ignorant followers to have faith in him, ought to be exposed and ridiculed. Not savagely, perhaps, for the first offence; the pantaloons should be loosed with a paternal hand, and the scourge mildly applied. If he still persists in misdoing, it should be laid on till the blood comes.

But Alexander Smith is far from coming under the latter denomination. A writer, especially a young writer, should be judged by his best; and there is enough excellence in the volume to cover many more sins than it contains, though they are numerous. And while it is a mistake to suppose that a fine poetic soul, however sensitive, will “let itself be snuffed out by an article,” yet there have been instances where undue severity has defrauded a writer of his just fame for many a long year; and though the critic, in the end, has been compelled to render up the mesne profits of applause, yet that is small consolation for the sense of wrong, and the deprivation of merited influence and reputation.

While foreign writers sketch us as the most matter-of-fact and pudding-eating of peoples—while we pique ourselves on sturdy John Bullism, and cheerfully accept the portrait of an absurd old gentleman in a black coat, and a broad-brimmed hat and gaiters, with his hands in his well-filled breeches pockets, as a just impersonation of the genius of the nation, it is an obvious fact that a poet never had such a certainty of being appreciated in England as now. Fit audience is no longer few. Let him sound as high a note as he can for the life of him, he will yet find echoes enough to constitute fame. There are homes in England almost as common as hothouses, where fine criticism is nightly conversation—where appreciators, as true as any who review in newspapers, hail a good and great writer as a personal friend. Here may be found all the elements necessary for the recognition of merit and the detection of imposture. Sturdy good sense refuses to believe in gaudy pretension; keen logic exposes emptiness; enthusiastic youth glows at the high thought, the splendid image; and the soft feminine nature responds, with ready tears and unsuppressed sighings, to all legitimate appeals to the heart.

With such tribunals more plentiful than county courts, a man is no longer justified in decrying fame, or appealing for justice to posterity. It must be an untoward accident, indeed, that cheats an author of his due, when so many are eager to exchange praise for his fine gold. The demand for excellence in authorship exceeds the supply; and there are plenty of keen readers who, having traversed the realms of English poesy, yet thirst for fresh fields and pastures new. Therefore, if an ardent spirit finds the world deaf to his utterances, let him search uncomplainingly for the fault in his own mind, and never rashly conclude that for his fondly believed-in powers of thought and expression there is, as yet, no sympathetic public. Especially in poetry is the appetite of the time unsatisfied; mediocrity, which should be inadmissible, is indulgently received, and the poets of established reputation are on every shelf. Editions of Shakespeare appear in perplexing numbers, and the rusty armour in which a champion for his text appears, is contended for as if it were the heaven-forged panoply of Achilles.

Mr Smith leaves his feelings on the subject of fame open to doubt. One might almost fancy him a poet who, having desired fame too ardently in his hot youth, had discovered its emptiness in riper age. A sonnet is devoted to the depreciation of fame; whereas Walter, in the Life-drama, is more than enthusiastic to achieve it. We have no doubt the ardent wishes which Mr Smith expresses through his hero are genuine, and that the philosophy of the sonnet is a philosophy he only fancies he has acquired. Combativeness may inspire the soldier to achievement, rivalry the statesman; both may be, in some measure, indifferent to other fame than the applause of their contemporaries. But it is in vain for the poet to express indifference to the opinion of the world and of posterity. Why has he written, except that thoughts bearing his impress may sound in the ears of the future, and that the echoes they arouse may convey to him, in his silent resting-place, tidings of the cheerful day, assuring him of a tenure in the earth he loved, and a lasting position among the race who were his brothers? What would not man do to secure remembrance after death? For this Erostratus burnt Diana’s temple; for this the Pyramids were built, and built in vain; for this kings have destroyed nations; for this the care-worn money-getter gives his life to the founding of a wealthy name; and if a man may gain it more effectually by the simple publishing of thoughts, whose conception was to him a pleasure, let him be thankful that what all so ardently desire was granted to him on such easy terms, and that he may continue to be a real presence on this earth, when most of his contemporaries are as though they had never been.

Taking it for granted, then, that when a young poet publishes a work wherein the hero expresses an ardent desire for fame, the poet is himself speaking through the character, it will be interesting to see how he proposes to achieve it. Mr Smith tells us, through his hero, that his plan for immortalising himself is “to set this age to music.” That, he says, is the great work before the poet now.

To set this age to music!—’tis a phrase we have heard before of late years. Never was an age so intent upon self-glorification as this. Like the American nation, it spends half its time looking in the glass; and, like it, always with the same loudly-expressed approbation of what the mirror reveals. It has long been its habit to talk its own praises, and now they must be sung. When polkas were first introduced, many familiar sounds were parodied, to give character to tunes of the new measure. Among these was the Railway-polka, in which the noise of the wheels and the clatter of machinery were admirably imitated; while a startling reality was given to the whole, by the occasional hoarse scream of the engine. Now, we fear that the effort of a poet to set the age to music would result in something resembling the railway polka—something more creditable as a work of ingenuity than of art, and embodying more appeals to the sense than to the heart or the imagination. To him who stands apart from the rush and roar, the many voices of the age convey a mingled sound that would scarcely seem musical even to the dreaming ear of a poet.

We see the spirit of the middle ages—the spirit of religious intolerance and superstitious faith—of deepest earnestness, and of bigotry springing out of that earnestness—reflected in Dante’s page. Spenser shows us the days of the plume and the spear, when the beams of chivalry yet gilded the earth, when the motto of noble youth was—God and my lady. Another phase of the same era—the era of romantic discovery and adventure, when there were yet fairies on the green, and enchanted isles in the ocean—reappears in the works of Shakespeare. Pope has fixed for ever the time of courtliness, of external polish and artificial graces—the time when woman was no more divine—when Una had degenerated into Chloe—when love had given place to intrigue, devotion to foppery, faith to reasoning; yet a pleasant and graceful time. And it is no wonder that the poet, now, feeling that he too possesses “the vision and the faculty divine,” should long to leave his name, not drifting over space, but anchored firmly on the times he lived in.

But none of these old poets went to work with the deliberate intention of setting his age to music. Where that, so far as we can see the meaning of the phrase, has been done, it is because the poet lived so much among the characteristic men and scenes of his age, that his mind, more impressionable and more true in its impressions than others, was imbued with its spirit, and moulded to its forms; so that, whatever his mind transmitted was coloured by those hues, and swayed by those outlines. The poet did not hunt about for the characteristics of his age, and then deliberately embody them: he chose a congenial theme when it offered itself, and it, unconsciously to him, became a picture of a phase of the time. When our age, too, is set to music, if ever, it will be in this way.

If ever—For ages of the world, as worthy of note perchance as this, and more rich in materials for poetry, have passed away without being set to music. Every great change of society, and of mankind’s opinions, does not necessarily call for a poet to sing it. It may be more suitably reproduced through some other medium than verse—in newspapers, for instance, or in advertising vans. Of course, no man in his senses would say a word against this age of ours; he could expect nothing less than to be immediately bonneted, like an injudicious elector who has hissed the popular candidate; yet we would have liked Alexander Smith to indicate the direction in which he intends to seek his materials. Does he see anything heroic in an ardent desire to secure ease and comfort at the cost of many old and once respectable superstitions, such as honour and duty? Can he throw over the cotton trade “the light that never was on sea or shore?” Or, is popular oratory distinguished by “thoughts that breathe and words that burn?” Will the railway station and the electric telegraph figure picturesquely in the poet’s dream? Yet, when the age is set to music, these chords will be not the most subdued in the composition. Mr Macaulay said about as much as could be said for the spirit of the age, when he drew a contrast in popular prose between the present and the past. Had he tried the subject in poetry, he would have found the task much less congenial than when he sung so manfully “how well Horatius kept the bridge, in the brave days of old.”

Alexander Smith has one characteristic in common with Tennyson, the author of Festus, and some other poets of the time. All seem to have great power in the regions of the dreary. Their gaiety is spasmodic; when they smile, ’tis like Patience on a monument, as if Grief were sitting opposite. If this is their way of setting the age to music, ’tis, if most musical, yet most melancholy. Tennyson, who possesses the power of conveying the sentiment of dreariness beyond most poets that ever lived, generally selects some suitable subject for the exercise of it, such as Mariana in the Moated Grange; but Mr Smith’s hero, and Festus, are miserable from choice, and revel in their unaccountable woe, like the character in Peacock’s novel, whose notion of making himself agreeable consists in saying, “Let us all be unhappy together.” Not thus, O Alexander! sounds the keynote of the genial soul of a great poet.

Our author’s notion of what constitutes a crushing affliction is altogether peculiar. A particular friend of his hero, after becoming quite blasphemous because he wanted “to let loose some music on the world,” and couldn’t (p. 137), commits suicide on a mountain, though whether by rope, razor, or prussic acid, we are not informed. However, being deranged, he no doubt received Christian burial. And Mr Smith, speaking for himself in the sonnet already quoted, says that—

“Beneath the sun

The chiefest woe is this—When all alone,

And strong as life, a soul’s great currents run

Poesy-ward, like rivers to the sea,

But never reach it.”

The chiefest woe!—the chiefest, Alexander! Neither Job nor Jeremiah have enrolled it among human afflictions. Is there no starvation, nor pain, nor death in the world? Is the income-tax repealed? We appeal from Alexander in travail of a sonnet, with small hope of safe delivery, to Alexander in the toothache, and we are confident he will change his opinion. Let him look at Hogarth’s “Distressed Poet,” and see what it is that moves his sympathy there. Not the perplexity of the poor poet himself—that raises only an irreverent smile—but the poor good pretty wife raising her household eyes meekly and wonderingly to the loud milkwoman, their inexorable creditor—the piece of meat that was to form their scanty dinner, abstracted by the felonious starveling of a cur,—these touch on deeper woes than the head-scratching distress of the unproductive poet.

To return to Mr Smith’s idea of setting the age to music. The first requisite clearly is, that the musician shall be pre-eminently a man of the age. It is at once evident that oldfashioned people, with any lingering remnants of the heroic or dark ages about their ideas, would be quite out of place here. None but liberals and progressionists need apply. These are so plentiful that there will be no difficulty in finding a great number who embody the most prominent characteristics of the time. Having got the man of the age, a tremendous difficulty occurs. We are very much afraid there will not only be nothing poetical in the cast of his ideas, but that he will be the embodiment of everything that is prosaic. Call to mind, O Alexander! the qualities essential to a poet—at the same time, picture to yourself a Man of the Age—and then fancy what kind of music you will extract from him. Set the age to music, quotha! Set the Stocks to music.

Having thus signally failed to point out how the thing is to be done, we will tell Alexander how it will not be done. Not by uttering unmeaning complaints against Fate and Heaven, and other names of similar purport which we will not set down here, like a dog baying the moon. Not by uttering profane rant, which, as it would not have been justified by the mad despair of a Lear or an Othello, is horribly nonsensical in the mouth of a young gentleman who ought to have taken a blue pill because his liver was out of order. Not by pouring forth floods of images and conceits which afford no perception of the idea their author would convey. Not by making the moon and the sea appear in such a variety of ridiculous characters that we shall never again stroll by moonlight on the shore without seeing something comical in the aspect of the deep and the heavenly bodies. Not by——But we have just lighted on a passage which proves that Mr Smith knows what is right as well as anybody can tell him:—

“Yet one word more—

Strive for the poet’s crown, but ne’er forget

How poor are fancy’s blooms to thoughtful fruits.”

And again—

“Poet he was not in the larger sense—

He could write pearls, but he could never write

A poem round and perfect as a star.”

That is the point. Not to dismiss images unprotected on the world, like Mr Winkle’s shots—which, we are informed, were “unfortunate foundlings cast loose upon society, and billeted nowhere”—but to mature a worthy leading idea, waiting, watching, fostering it till it is full-grown and symmetrical in its growth; and from which the lesser ideas and images shall spring as naturally, necessarily, and with as excellent effect of adornment, as leaves from the tree.

Whether Alexander can do this, yet remains to be proved. Some of the requisites he possesses in a high degree. Force, picturesqueness of conception, and musical expression, all of which he has displayed, will do great things when giving utterance to a theme well chosen and well designed; but at present they only tell us, like a harp swept by the wind, of the melodies slumbering in the chords. Such is the Æolian character of the Life-drama—fitful, wild, melancholy, often suggestive of something exquisitely sweet and graceful, but faint, fugitive, and incoherent. When our poet sounds a strain worthy of the instrument, our pæans shall accompany and swell the chorus of applause.

The sonnets, as conveying tangible ideas, and such as excite interest and sympathy, have greatly exalted our opinion of the poet’s powers. They have not been much quoted as yet by any of his discerning admirers, perhaps because there is little or nothing in them but what a plain man may understand, and they contain few allusions to the ocean or any of the planets. But here is one showing a fine picture—a picture that appeals to the imagination and the heart. It is at once manly and pathetic, representing a friendless, but independent and aspiring genius:—

“Joy, like a stream, flows through the Christmas streets,

But I am sitting in my silent room—

Sitting all silent in congenial gloom.

To-night, while half the world the other greets

With smiles, and grasping hands, and drinks, and meats,

I sit and muse on my poetic doom.

Like the dim scent within a budded rose,

A joy is folded in my heart; and when

I think on poets nurtured ’mong the throes,

And by the lowly hearths of common men—

Think of their works, some song, some swelling ode

With gorgeous music glowing to a close,

Deep-muffled as the dead-march of a god—

My heart is burning to be one of those.”

As Mercutio says, “Is not this better, now, than groaning? Now art thou sensible—now art thou Romeo.” We hope he will be “one of those,” and think he may. Only he must believe that, however fine and rare the poetic faculties he has evinced, they cannot produce anything for posterity of themselves, but must build on a foundation of thought and art.

We are afraid, though we have not descended to verbal criticism, but have only indicated essential faults, that Alexander will think we have treated his book in an irreverent spirit; but, nevertheless, it is a truly paternal one. Even in such mood did we deal, of late, with our own beloved first-born, heir of his mother’s charms and his father’s virtues—a fine, clever fellow, in whom his parents take immense pride, though we judiciously conceal it for fear of increasing the conceit which is already somewhat conspicuous in his bearing. We rather think he had been led astray by the example of that young scoundrel, Jones, who threatened to hang himself if his mother didn’t give him five-and-twenty shillings to pay his score at the pastry-cook’s, and so terrified the poor lady into compliance. However that may be, our offspring, George, being denied, of late, some unreasonable requests, straightway went into sulky heroics—spoke of himself as an outcast—stalked about with a gloomy air in dark corners of the shrubbery with his arms folded—smiled about twice a-day, in a withering and savage manner, though his natural disposition is cheerful and inclined to fun—and begged to decline to hold any further intercourse with his relatives. He kept up the brooding and injured character with great consistency (except that he always came regularly to meals, and eat them with his customary appetite, which is a very fine and healthy one), and was encouraged in it by his grandmother, who, between ourselves, reader, is a rather silly old woman, much given in her youth to maudlin sentimentalism, and Werterism, and bad forms of Byronism. She would take him aside, pat his head, kiss his cheek, and call him her poor dear boy, and slip money into his pocket, which he neither thanked her for, nor offered to refuse; and he became more firmly persuaded than ever, that he was one of the most ill-used young heroes that ever existed. This we were sorry to see—like Mrs Quickly, we cannot abide swaggerers—and we bethought ourselves of a remedy. Some parents would have got in a rage and thrashed him—but he is a plucky young fellow, and this would only have caused him to consider himself a martyr; others would have mildly reasoned with him—but this would have given his fault too important and serious an air, so we treated him to a little irony and ridicule—caustic, not contemptuous, and more comical than spiteful. Just before beginning this course of treatment, we happened to overhear him making love, in the library, to Charlotte Jones (sister of the before-mentioned admirer of confectionary), a great, fat, lymphatic girl, who was spending a few days with his sisters, and who has no more sentiment or passion in her than so much calipee. However, he seemed to have quite enough for both, and poured forth his romantic devotion with a fervid fluency which I suspect must be the result of practice—for the young scamp is precocious, and conceived his first passion, at the age of nine, for a fine young woman of four-and-twenty. Charlotte, working away the while at a great cabbage-rose, not unlike herself, which she is embroidering in worsted, listened to his raptures with a lethargic calmness contrasting strongly with the impassioned air of the youth, who was no doubt ready, like Walter, Mr Smith’s hero, for the consideration of a kiss (if the placid object of his affections would have consented to such an impropriety), to “take Death at a flying leap”—which is undoubtedly the most astonishing instance of agility on record since the cow jumped over the moon to the tune of “Hi, diddle, diddle.” Our entrance, just as he had got on his knees, and was going to take her hand, somewhat disconcerted him; and we turned the incident to such advantage, that our very first jest at him in the presence of the family caused him (the boy has a fine sense of humour) to retire precipitately from the room, for fear he should compromise his dignity by exploding in laughter. He strove to preserve his gloomy demeanour for a day or two; but finding it of no effect to maintain a stern scowl on his forehead, while his mouth expanded in an unwilling grin, he gave up the attempt; and now greets any allusion to his former tragedy airs with as hearty a laugh as anybody.

Our impression is very strong that Mr Smith is not himself satisfied with his work, and that the undiscriminating applause he has met with in some quarters will not deceive him. He must know that the ornaments of the Life-drama are out of all proportion to the framework, and that the latter is too loosely put together to float far down the crowded stream of time. He has a strong leaning to mysticism, a common vice of the times, and should therefore exclude carefully all ideas which he cannot render clear to himself, and all expressions which fail to convey his meaning clearly to others. He should remember that, though a fine image may be welcomed for its own sake, yet, as a rule, similes and images are only admissible as illustrations, and if they do not render the parent thought more clear, they render it more cloudy. His great want is a proper root-idea, and intelligible theme which shall command the sympathies of other minds: these obtained, he will shake his faults like dewdrops from his mane; and he will find that his tropes, thus disciplined, will not only obtain double force from their fitness, but will also be intrinsically finer than the random growths of accident. It is true that Mr Smith, through his spokesman, Walter, mentions a plan for a poem, his “loved and chosen theme,” (p. 38). He says,

“I will begin in the oldest—Far in God,

When all the ages, and all suns and worlds,

And souls of men and angels lay in Him,

Like unborn forests in an acorn cup.”

A prospect, the mere sketch of which fills us with concern. If we thought he would listen, we would say—No, Mr Smith; don’t begin in the oldest—leave the “dead eternities” alone, and don’t let your “first chorus,” on any account, be “the shouting of the morning stars.” Rather begin, as you propose to end, with “silence,” than in this melancholy way. Let your thoughts be based on the unalterable emotions of the heart, not on the wild driftings of the fancy. Observe all that strongly appeals to the feelings of others and of yourself—let art assist you to select and to combine—your warm imagination will give life to the conception, and your powers of fancy and language will vividly express it. Don’t set down any odd conceit that may strike you about the relation of the sea and the stars, and the moon; but when you conceive an image which, besides being fine in itself, shall bear essential, not accidental, relation to some part of your theme, put it by till your main subject, in its natural expansion, affords it a fitting place.

Following this course, we trust that Alexander will prove worthy of the many illustrious scions of the house of Smith who have distinguished themselves since Adam, and maintain its precedence over the houses of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Sydney the Reverend—Horace and James of the Rejected Addresses—and William, of the modest and too obscure dramas (noticed by us before), might well become prouder of the patronymic to which they have already lent lustre, when Alexander, mellowed by time, and taught by thought and experience, shall have produced his next and riper work.

THE EPIDEMICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.[8]

This extremely interesting work of Dr Hecker’s consists of three several treatises, or historical sketches, published at different times, and here collected in a single volume. They are translated and published under the direction of the Sydenham Society—a society which has been the means of introducing to the medical profession, and to the English reader, some of the most eminent works of German physicians and physiologists. It is seldom, indeed, that their publications are of the popular and amusing description of the one we have selected for notice; but, speaking of them as a series, they are of that high philosophic character which must render them acceptable to every man of liberal education. How far they are accessible to the public at large we have not the means of knowing, nor whether the purchase of any single volume is a practicable matter to a non-subscriber; but, at all events, means, we think, ought to be taken to place the whole series on the shelves of every public library.

The great plague of the fourteenth century, called in Germany The Black Death, from the dark spots of fatal omen which appeared on the bodies of its victims; the Dancing Mania, which afterwards broke out both in Germany and Italy; and the Sweating Sickness, which had its origin in England, but extended itself also widely upon the Continent—these form the three subjects of Dr Hecker’s book. The dancing mania, known in Germany as St John’s or St Vitus’s Dance, and in Italy as the poison of the Tarantula or Tarantism, will be most likely to present us with novel and curious facts, and we shall be tempted to linger longest upon this topic. Readers of all kinds, whether of Thucydides, or Boccaccio, or Defoe, are familiar with the phenomena and events which characterise a plague, and which bear a great resemblance to each other in all periods of history. We shall, therefore, refrain from dwelling at any length upon the well-known terrors of the Great Mortality or the Black Death.

Yet the subject is one of undying interest. The Great Plague is, in this respect, like the Great Revolution of France; you may read fifty histories of it, and pronounce it to be a topic thoroughly worn out and exhausted; and yet when the fifty-first history is put into your hands, the chance is that you will be led on, and will read to the very last page with almost undiminished interest. The charm is alike in both cases. It is that our humanity is seen in its moments of great, if not glorious excitement—of plenary inspiration of some kind, though it be of an evil spirit—seen in moments when all its passions, good and bad, and the bad chiefly, stand out revealed in full unfettered strength. And the history, in both cases, is of perpetual value and significance to us. Plagues, as our own generation can testify, are no more eradicated or banished from the cities of mankind than political revolutions. They read a lesson to us which, terrible as it is, we are still slow in learning.

We are often haunted with the dread of over-population. This fear may perhaps be encountered by another of a quite opposite description, when we read that in the fourteenth century one quarter at least of the population of the Old World was swept away in the short space of four years! Such is the calculation which Dr Hecker makes, on the best sources of information within his reach. If such devastating plagues arise, as our author thinks, from great physical causes over which man has no control, from an atmospheric poison not traceable to his ignorance or vice, and which no advancement in science can prevent or expel, there is indeed room for an undefined dread of periodical depopulations, putting to the rout all human calculations and all human forethought. But on this point we have our doubts.

“An inquiry into the causes of the Black Death,” says our author, “will not be without important results in the study of the plagues which have visited the world, although it cannot advance beyond generalisation without entering upon a field hitherto uncultivated, and, to this hour, entirely unknown. Mighty revolutions in the organism of the earth, of which we have credible information, had preceded it. From China to the Atlantic the foundations of the earth were shaken—throughout Asia and Europe the atmosphere was in commotion, and endangered, by its baneful influence, both vegetable and animal life.” When, however, Dr Hecker proceeds to specify the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and other terrific events which shook the foundations of the earth from China to the Atlantic, we do not find that the enumeration at all bears out this general description. A large proportion of such disastrous phenomena as he has been able to collect relate to China; and although the plague should be proved to have travelled from the East, it is not traced, as an identical disease, so far eastward as to China, and therefore is but vaguely connected with the great droughts and violent rains which afflicted that region of the earth. Nearer at home, in Europe, we have mention made of “frequent thunderstorms,” and an eruption of Ætna, but thunderstorms and a volcanic eruption have not, on other occasions, given rise to a plague; not to add, that if the atmosphere of Europe was tainted from causes of this kind, springing from its own soil and its own climate, it would be quite superfluous to trace the disease to the East at all. We should merely say that a similar disease broke out in different countries at the same time, demonstrating some quite cosmical or universal cause. The most important fact which is mentioned here, as proving some wide atmospheric derangement, is the “thick stinking mist seen to advance from the East and spread itself over Italy.” But Dr Hecker himself adds, that at such a time natural occurrences would be transformed or exaggerated into miracles; and we are quite sure that any really extraordinary event, occurring simultaneously with the plague, would, without further inquiry, be described as the cause of it. An unusual mist, just as a comet or any unusual meteor, appearing at the time, would be charged with the calamity.

On so obscure a subject we have no desire to advance any dogmatic opinion. There are facts connected with this and other great epidemics which, to men of cautious research, have seemed to point to some widespreading poison, some subtle, deleterious matter diffused through the air, or some abnormal condition of the atmosphere itself. Such there may be, acting either as immediate or predisposing cause of the disease. But to our apprehension, all plagues and pestilences have been bred from two well-known and sufficient causes—famine and filth. Scanty and unwholesome diet first disorders and debilitates the frame, fevers ensue, the foul atmosphere of crowded unventilated dwellings becomes impregnated by breathings that have passed through putrid lungs; and thus the disease, especially in a hot climate, attains to that malignity that the stricken wretch, move him where you will, becomes the centre of infection to all around him, and from his pestiferous dwelling there creeps a poison which invades even the most salubrious portion of the town; which, stealing through the garden-gate and over the flower-beds, enters even into the very palace itself. Doubtless other causes may co-operate, as unusual rains and fogs; the fact that a murrain amongst cattle sometimes accompanies or precedes a plague, indicates local causes of this description; but the true source of the disease lies in the city man has built, in his improvidence or injustice, his ignorance or his sloth.

It is thus that Dr Hecker speaks of the manner in which the disease may be propagated, so far as the agency of man is concerned:—we do not seem to want any quite cosmical influence.

“Thus much from authentic sources of the nature of the Black Death. The descriptions which have been communicated contain, with a few unimportant exceptions, all the symptoms of the Oriental plague, which have been observed in more modern times. No doubt can obtain on this point. The facts are placed clearly before our eyes. We must, however, bear in mind that this violent disease does not always appear in the same form; and that, while the essence of the poison which it produces, and which is separated so abundantly from the body of the patient, remains unchanged, it is proteoform in its varieties, from the almost imperceptible vesicle, unaccompanied by fever, which exists for some time before it extends its poison inwardly, and then excites fevers and buboes, to the fatal form in which carbuncular inflammations fall upon the most important viscera.

“Such was the form which the plague assumed in the fourteenth century, for the accompanying chest affection, which appeared in all the countries whereof we have received any account, cannot, on a comparison with similar and familiar symptoms, be considered as any other than the inflammation in the lungs of modern medicine, a disease which at present only appears sporadically, and owing to a putrid decomposition of the fluids is probably combined with hemorrhages from the vessels of the lungs. Now as every carbuncle, whether it be cutaneous or internal, generates in abundance the matter of contagion which has given rise to it, so therefore must the breaths of the affected have been poisonous in this plague, and on this account its power of contagion wonderfully increased; wherefore the opinion appears incontrovertible that, owing to the accumulated numbers of the diseased, not only individual chambers and houses, but whole cities, were infected; which, moreover, in the middle ages, were, with few exceptions, narrowly built, kept in a filthy state, and surrounded with stagnant ditches. Flight was in consequence of no avail to the timid; for some, though they had sedulously avoided all communication with the diseased and the suspected, yet their clothes were saturated with the pestifierous atmosphere, and every inspiration imparted to them the seeds of the destructive malady which, in the greater number of cases, germinated with but too much fertility. Add to which the usual propagation of the plague through clothes, beds, and a thousand other things to which the pestilential poison adheres,—a propagation which, from want of caution, must have been infinitely multiplied; and since articles of this kind, removed from the access of air, not only retain the matter of contagion for an indefinite period, but also increase its activity, and engender it like a living being, frightful ill consequences followed for many years after the first fury of the pestilence was passed.”

It may be worth noticing that Dr Hecker, or his translator, uses the terms contagion and infection indiscriminately; nor is the question entered into whether the disease is capable of being propagated by mere contact, without inhaling the morbific matter, or becoming inoculated with it through some puncture in the skin. Dr Hecker nowhere gives countenance to such a supposition. The poison would hardly penetrate by mere touch through a sound and healthy skin. Such a belief, however, was likely enough to prevail at a time when we are told that “even the eyes of the patient were considered as sources of contagion, which had the power of acting at a distance, whether on account of their unwonted lustre or the distortion which they always suffer in plague, or whether in conformity with an ancient notion, according to which the sight was considered as the bearer of a demoniacal enchantment.”

Avignon is here mentioned as the first city in which the plague broke out in Europe. We have a report of it from a contemporary physician, Guy de Chauliac, a courageous man, it seems, who “vindicated the honour of medicine by bidding defiance to danger, boldly and constantly assisting the affected, and disdaining the excuse of his colleagues, who held the Arabian notion, that medical aid was unavailing, and that the contagion justified flight.” The plague appeared twice in Avignon, first in the year 1348, and twelve years later, in 1360, “when it returned from Germany.” On the first occasion it raged chiefly amongst the poor; on the second more amongst the higher classes, destroying a great many children, whom it had formerly spared, and but few women. We presume that on the second occasion the plague was re-introduced at once amongst the merchant class of the city, and this would account for fewer women falling victims to it, because men of this class could take precautions for the safety of their wives and daughters. But why a greater number of children should have died, when the women were comparatively spared, is what we will make no attempt to explain.

How fatal it proved at Florence, Boccaccio has recorded. It is from him we learn with certainty that other animals besides man were capable of being infected by the disease—a fact of no little interest in the history of the plague. He mentions that he himself saw two hogs, on the rags of a person who had died of plague, after staggering about for a short time, fall down dead as if they had taken poison. A multitude of dogs, cats, fowls, and other domesticated animals, were, he tells us, fellow-sufferers with man.

In Germany the mortality was not so great as in Italy, but the disease assumed the same character. In France, it is said, many were struck as if by lightning, and died on the spot—and this more frequently among the young and strong than the old. Throughout England the disease spread with great rapidity, men dying in some cases immediately, in others within twelve hours, or at latest in two days. Here, as elsewhere, the inflammatory boils and buboes were recognised at once as prognosticating a fatal issue. It first broke out in the county of Dorset. Few places seem to have escaped; and the mortality was so great that contemporary annalists have reported (with what degree of accuracy we cannot say) that throughout the whole land not more than a tenth part of the inhabitants had survived.

The north of Europe did not escape, nor did all the snows of Russia protect her from this invasion. In Norway the disease broke out in a frightful manner. Nor was the sea a refuge; sailors found no safety in their ships; vessels were seen driving about on the ocean and drifting on the shore, whose crews had perished to the last man.

It is a terrible history, this of a plague. Nevertheless, if we were capable of surveying such events from an elevated position, where past and future were revealed to our view, and the whole scheme of creation unfolded to our knowledge, we should doubtless discover that even plagues and pestilences play their parts for the welfare and advancement of the human race. Nor are we without some glimpses of their utility. Viewing the matter, in the first place, in a quite physiological light, let us suppose that disease has been generated in a great city, that debilitated parents give birth to feeble offspring, that the fever, or whatever it may be, is wasting the strength of whole classes of the population, is it not better that such disease should attain a power and virulence that will enable it to sweep off at once a whole infected generation, men, women, and children, leaving the population to be replaced by the healthier who would survive? would not this be better than to allow the disease to perpetuate itself indefinitely, and thus to continue to multiply from an infected stock? The poison passes on, and searches out other neighbourhoods where the like terrible remedy is needed. Ay, but it passes, you say, into cities and districts where no such curative process, no such restoration of the breed, was called for. But it is always thus with the great laws of nature, or of Providence. Thus far, and no farther! is said to the pestilence as well as to the ocean; but the line along the beach is not kept or measured with that petty precision which a land-surveyor would assuredly have suggested. Man’s greatness arises in part from this struggle with an external nature, which threatens from time to time to overwhelm him. There is, according to his measurement of things, a dreadful surplus of power and activity, both in the organic and the inorganic world. Nowhere are the forces of nature exactly graduated to suit his taste or convenience. Happily not. Man would sink into the tameness and insipidity of an Arcadian shepherd, or the sheep he feeds and fondles, if every wind that blew were exactly tempered to his own susceptibility.

But the moral effects of plague and pestilence—what good thing can be said of them? A general dissoluteness, an unblushing villany, for the most part prevails: a few instances of heroic virtue brighten out above the corrupted mass. Well, is it nothing, then, that from time to time our nature should be fully revealed to us in its utmost strength for good or for evil? A very hideous revelation it may sometimes be, but not the less salutary on this account. The mask of hypocrisy is torn off a whole city; in one moment is revealed to a whole people what its morality, what its piety is worth. Of the island of Cyprus, we are told, that an earthquake shook its foundations, and was accompanied by so frightful a hurricane that the inhabitants, who had slain their Mahometan slaves in order that they might not themselves be subjected by them, fled in dismay in all directions. Who had slain their Mahometan slaves! Their Christianity had brought them thus far on the road of moral culture! At Lübeck, the Venice of the North, the wealthy merchants were not, in this extremity, unmindful of the safety of their souls; they spent their last strength in carrying their treasures to monasteries and churches. Useless for all other purposes, their gold would now purchase heaven. To such intelligent views of Christianity had they attained! But the treasure had no longer any charm for the monks; it might be infected; and even with them the thirst for gold was in abeyance. They shut their gates upon it; yet still it was cast to them over the convent walls. “People would not brook an impediment to the last pious work to which they were driven by despair.”

Did all desert their post, or belie their professions? No; far from it. Amongst other instances, take that of the Sisters of Charity at the Hotel Dieu. “Though they lost their lives evidently from contagion, and their numbers were several times renewed, there was still no want of fresh candidates, who, strangers to the unchristian fear of death, piously devoted themselves to their holy calling.”

But how cruel had their fears made the base multitude of Christendom! They rose against the Jews. They sought an enemy. The wells were poisoned; the Jews had poisoned them. Sordid natures invariably strive to lose the sense of their own calamity in a vindictive passion against some supposed author of it. For this reason it is, that, whatever the nature of the public distress may be, they always fasten it upon some human antagonist, whom they can have the luxury of hating and reviling. If they cannot cure, they can at least revenge themselves.

“The noble and the mean fearlessly bound themselves by an oath to extirpate the Jews by fire and sword, and to snatch them from their protectors, of whom the number was so small, that throughout all Germany but few places can be mentioned where these unfortunate people were not regarded as outlaws, and martyred and burnt. Solemn summonses were issued from Berne, to the towns of Basle, Freyburg, and Strasburg, to pursue the Jews as prisoners. The burgomasters and senators, indeed, opposed this requisition; but in Basle the populace obliged them to bind themselves by an oath to burn the Jews, and to forbid persons of that community from entering their city for the space of two hundred years. Upon this all the Jews in Basle, whose number could not be inconsiderable, were enclosed in a wooden building, constructed for the purpose, and burnt together with it, upon the mere outcry of the people, without sentence or trial, which indeed would have availed them nothing. Soon after the same thing took place at Freyburg. A regular diet was held at Bennefeeld, in Alsace, where the bishops, lords, and barons, as also deputies of the counties and towns, consulted how they should proceed with regard to the Jews: and when the deputies of Strasburg—not, indeed, the bishop of this town, who proved himself a violent fanatic—spoke in favour of the persecuted, as nothing criminal was substantiated against them, a great outcry was raised, and it was vehemently asked why, if so, they had covered their wells and removed their buckets?” [The wells were not used in the mere suspicion that they were poisoned, and then the covering of them up became a proof with these reasoners that they had been poisoned]. “A sanguinary decree was resolved upon, of which the populace, who obeyed here the call of the nobles and superior clergy, became but the too willing executioners. Wherever the Jews were not burnt they were at least banished, and so being compelled to wander about, they fell into the hands of the country people, who without humanity, and regardless of all laws, persecuted them with fire and sword. At Spires the Jews, driven to despair, assembled in their own habitations, which they set on fire, and thus consumed themselves with their families.”

The atrocities, in short, that were committed against this unhappy people were innumerable. At Strasburg 2000 men were burnt in their own burial-ground. At Mayence, 12,000 are said to have been put to a cruel death. At Eslingen the whole Jewish community burned themselves in their own synagogue. Those whom the Christians saved they insisted upon baptising! And, as fanaticism begets fanaticism, Jewish mothers were seen throwing their children on the pile, to prevent their being baptised, and then precipitating themselves into the flames. From many of the accused the rack extorted a confession of guilt; and as some Christians also were sentenced to death for poisoning the wells, Dr Hecker suggests that it is not improbable the very belief in the prevalence of the crime had induced some men of morbid imagination really to commit it. When a faith in witchcraft, he observes, was prevalent, many an old woman was tempted to mutter spells against her neighbour. The false accusation had ended in producing, if not the crime itself, yet the criminal intention.

When we remember what took place in England under the reign of one Titus Oates, we shall not conclude that these terrible hallucinations of the public mind are proofs of any very peculiar condition of barbarism. Then, as at the later epoch to which we have alluded, a very marvellous plot was devised and thoroughly credited. All the Jews throughout Christendom were under the control and government of certain superiors at Toledo—a secret and mysterious council of Rabbis—from whom they received their commands. These prepared the poison with their own hands, from spiders, owls, and other venomous animals, and distributed it in little bags, with injunctions where it was to be thrown. Dr Hecker gives us, in an appendix, an official account of the “Confessions made on the 15th September, in the year of our Lord 1348, in the castle of Chillon, by the Jews arrested in Neustadt on the charge of poisoning the wells, springs, and other places, also food, &c., with the design of destroying and extirpating all Christians.” These confessions were, of course, produced by the rack, or by the threat of torture, and the manifest inutility of any defence or denial. Nor must it be forgotten, that the official report was drawn up after the whole of the Jews at Neustadt had been burnt on this very charge. Amongst these confessions is one of Balaviginus, a Jewish physician, arrested at Chillon “in consequence of being found in the neighbourhood.” He was put for a short time upon the rack, and, after being taken down, “confessed, after much hesitation, that, about ten weeks before, the Rabbi Jacob of Toledo sent him, by a Jewish boy, some poison in the mummy of an egg: it was a powder sewed up in a thin leathern pouch, accompanied by a letter, commanding him, on penalty of excommunication, and by his required obedience to the law, to throw the poison into the larger and more frequented wells of Thonon.” Similar letters had been sent to other Jews. All Jews, indeed, were under the necessity of obeying these injunctions. He, Balaviginus, had done so; he had thrown the poison into several wells. It was a powder half red and half black. Red and black spots were produced by the plague; it was right that this poison should partake of these two colours.

Conveyed over the lake from Chillon to Clarens to point out the well into which he had thrown the powder, Balaviginus, “on being conducted to the spot, and having seen the well, acknowledged that to be the place, saying, ‘This is the well into which I put the poison.’ The well was examined in his presence, and the linen cloth in which the poison had been wrapped was found. He acknowledged this to be the linen which had contained the poison; he described it as being of two colours—red and black.” We follow in imagination this Jewish physician. Taken from the rack to his cell, he repeats whatever absurdity his unrelenting persecutors put into his mouth. Rabbi Jacob of Toledo—mummy of an egg—what you will. Conducted to the well—yes, this was the well; shown the very rag—yes, this was the rag;—and the powder? yes, it was red and black. What scorn and bitterness must have mingled with the agony of the Jewish physician!

Amidst all this we hear the scourge and miserable chant of the Flagellants, stirring up the people to fresh persecutions, and infecting their minds with a superstition as terrible as the vice it pretended to expiate. This was not, indeed, their first appearance in Europe; nor did the Flagellants do more, at the commencement, than exaggerate the sort of piety their own church had taught them. Happily, as their fanaticism rose, they put themselves in opposition to the hierarchy, and were thus the sooner dispersed. In their spiritual exultation they presumed to reform or to dispense with the priesthood. They found themselves, therefore, in their turn subjected to grave denunciations, and pronounced to be one cause of the wrath of Heaven.

All this time what were the physicians doing? In the history of the plague, written by a physician, the topic, we may be sure, is not forgotten. But the information we glean is of a very scanty, unsatisfactory character. As to the origin of the plague—“A grand conjunction of the three superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, in the sign of Aquarius, which took place, according to Guy de Chauliac, on the 24th March 1345, was generally received as its principal cause. In fixing the day, this physician, who was deeply versed in astrology, did not agree with others; wherefore there arose various disputations of weight in that age, but of none in ours.” The medical faculty of Paris pronounced the same opinion. Being commissioned to report on the causes and the remedies of this Great Mortality, they commence thus: “It is known that in India, and the vicinity of the Great Sea, the constellations which emulated the rays of the sun, and the warmth of the heavenly fire, exerted their power especially against that sea, and struggled violently with its waters.” Hence vapours and corrupted fogs; hence no wholesome rain, or hail, or snow, or dew, could refresh the earth. But notwithstanding this learning, quite peculiar to the age, they were not more at fault than other learned bodies have been in later times, in the practical remedies they suggested against the disease. They were not entirely occupied in fixing the day when Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, had combated the sun over the great Indian Ocean. “They did,” as Dr Hecker says, “what human intellect could do in the actual condition of the healing art; and their knowledge of the disease was by no means despicable.” When fevers have attained to that malignancy that they take the name of plagues, they have escaped, we suspect, from the control of the physician;—just as when fires take the name of conflagrations, you must devote all your efforts to the saving of what is yet unconsumed, and checking the extension of the flames.

Amongst the consequences of the plague, Dr Hecker notices that the church acquired treasures and large properties in land, even to a greater extent than after the Crusades; and that, on the subsidence of the calamity, many entered the priesthood, or flocked to the monasteries, who had no other motive than to participate in this wealth. He adds, also, that,—

“After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity in women was everywhere remarkable—a grand phenomenon, which, from its occurrence after every destructive pestilence, proves to conviction, if any occurrence can do so, the prevalence of a higher power in the direction of general organic life. Marriages were, almost without exception, prolific, and double and treble births were more frequent than at other times; under which head we should remember the strange remark, that after the ‘great mortality’ the children were said to have got fewer teeth than before; at which contemporaries were mightily shocked, and even later writers have felt surprise.

“If we examine the grounds of this oft-repeated assertion, we shall find that they were astonished to see children cut twenty, or at most twenty-two teeth, under the supposition that a greater number had formerly fallen to their share. Some writers of authority, as, for example, the physician Savonarola, at Ferrara, who probably looked for twenty-eight teeth in children, published their opinions on this subject. Others copied from them without seeing for themselves, as often happens in other matters which are equally evident; and thus the world believed in a miracle of an imperfection in the human body, which had been caused by the Black Plague.”

That a fresh impetus would be given to population seems to us quite sufficiently accounted for, without calling into aid any “higher power in the direction of general organic life.” Men and women would marry early; and the very fact of their having survived the plague would, in general, prove that they were healthy subjects, or had been well and temperately brought up. There would be the same impetus to population that an extensive emigration would cause, and an emigration that had carried away most of the sick and the feeble. The belief that double and treble births were more frequent than at other times, may perhaps be explained in the same manner as the belief that there were fewer teeth than before in the human head. No accurate observations had been at all made upon the subject.

We come next in order to The Dancing Mania—an epidemic of a quite different character. Not, indeed, as the name might imply, that the convulsive dance was a very slight affliction—it was felt to be quite otherwise; but because it belongs to that class of nervous maladies in which there is great room for mental or psychical influence. Such disorders spring up in a certain condition of the body, but the form they assume will depend on social circumstances, or the ideas current at the time. And thus Dr Hecker finds no difficulty in arranging the Convulsionnaires of France, or the early Methodists of England and Wales, in the same category as the maniacal dancers of Germany. It was in all the cases a physical tendency of a similar character, brought out under the influence of different ideas.

Dr Hecker mentions a case which, from the simplicity of the facts, would form a good introduction to others of a more complicated character. In the year 1787, at a cotton-manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl put a mouse into the bosom of another girl, who had a great dread of mice. It threw her into a fit, and the fit continued, with the most violent convulsions, for twenty-four hours. On the following day three other girls were seized in the same way; on the day after six more. A report was now spread that a strange disease had been introduced into the factory by a bag of cotton opened in the house. Others who had not even seen the infected, but only heard of their convulsions, were seized with the same fits. In three days, the number of the sufferers had reached to twenty-four. The symptoms were, a sense of great anxiety, strangulation, and very strong convulsions, which lasted from one to twenty-four hours, and of so violent a nature that it required four or five persons to prevent the patients from tearing their hair, and dashing their heads against the floor and walls. Dr St Clare was sent for from Preston. Dr St Clare deserves to have his name remembered. The ingenious man took with him a portable electrical machine. The electric shock cured all his patients without an exception. When this was known, and the belief could no longer hold its ground that the plague had been brought in by the cotton bag, no fresh person was affected.

If we substitute for the cotton bag a belief in some demoniacal influence, compelling people to dance against their will, we have the dancing mania of Germany. Unhappily there was no St Clare at hand, with his electrical machine, to give a favourable shock to body and mind at once, and thus disperse the malady before it gathered an overpowering strength by the very numbers of the infected.

“The effects of the Black Death,” writes Dr Hecker (whose account of the disorder we cannot do better than give, with some abridgments), “had not yet subsided, when a strange delusion arose in Germany. It was a convulsion which in the most extraordinary manner infuriated the human frame, and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for more than two centuries, since which time it has never reappeared. It was called the Dance of St John, or of St Vitus, on account of the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterised, and which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild dance, and screaming and foaming with fury, all the appearance of persons possessed. It did not remain confined to particular localities, but was propagated by the sight of the sufferers, like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already prepared for its reception by the prevailing opinions of the times.

“So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and women were seen at Aix-la-Chapelle, who had come out of Germany, and who, united by one common delusion, exhibited to the public, both in the streets and in the churches, the following strange spectacle. They formed circles hand in hand, and, appearing to have lost all control over their senses, continued dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours together, in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed in clothes, bound tightly round their waists, upon which they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings; but the bystanders frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping or trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing, they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits, whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high. Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open, and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected in their imaginations.”

The disease spread itself in two directions. It extended from Aix-la-Chapelle through the towns of the Netherlands, and also through the Rhenish towns. In Liege, Utrecht, and many other towns of Belgium, the dancers appeared with garlands in their hair, and their waists already girt with a cloth or bandage, that they might receive immediate relief on the attack of the tympany. It seems that the crowd around were often more ready to administer relief by kicks and blows than by drawing this bandage tight. The most opposite feelings seem to have been excited in the multitude by these exhibitions. Sometimes an idle and vicious mob would take advantage of them, and they became the occasion of much riot and debauchery. More frequently, however, the demoniacal origin of the disease, of which few men doubted, led to its being regarded with astonishment and horror. Religious processions were instituted on its account, masses and hymns were sung, and the whole power of the priesthood was called in to exorcise the evil spirit. The malady rose to its greatest height in some of the towns on the Rhine. At Cologne the number of the possessed amounted to more than five hundred, whilst at Metz the streets are said to have been filled (numbering women and children together) with eleven hundred dancers. Even those idle vagabonds who, for their own purposes, imitated their convulsive movements, assisted to spread the disorder; for in these maladies the susceptible are infected quite as easily by the imitation as by the reality.

The physicians stood aloof. Acknowledged as a demoniacal possession, they left the treatment of the disease entirely to the priesthood; and their exorcisms were not without avail. But it was necessary to this species of remedy that the patients should have faith in the church and its holy ministers. Without faith there would certainly, in such a case, be no cure; and, unhappily, the report had been spread by some irreverend schismatics that the disorder itself was owing—to what will our readers suppose?—to an imperfect baptism—to the baptism of children by the hands of unchaste priests. Where this notion prevailed, the exorcism, we need not say, was unavailing.

The malady first bore the name of St John’s Dance, afterwards that of St Vitus’s. This second name it took from the mere circumstance that St Vitus was the saint appealed to for its cure. A legend had been framed with a curious disregard—even for a legend—of all history and chronology, in which St Vitus, who suffered martyrdom, as the church records, under the Emperor Domitian, is described as praying, just before he bent his neck to the sword, that he might protect from the Dancing Mania all those who should solemnise the day of his commemoration, and fast upon its eve. The prayer was granted; a voice from heaven was heard saying, “Vitus, thy prayer is accepted.” He became, of course, the patron saint of those afflicted with the dancing plague. But the name under which it first appeared, of St John’s Dance, receives from Dr Hecker an explanation which points out to us a probable origin of the disease itself, or of the peculiar form which it assumed.

“The connection,” he says, “which John the Baptist had with the dancing mania of the fourteenth century, was of a totally different character. He was originally far from being a protecting saint to those who were attacked, or one who would be likely to give them relief from a malady considered as the work of the devil. On the contrary, the manner in which he was worshipped afforded an important and very evident cause for its development. From the remotest period, perhaps even so far back as the fourth century, St John’s day was solemnised with all sorts of strange and rude customs, of which the original mystical meaning was variously disfigured among different nations by superadded relics of heathenism. Thus the Germans transferred to the festival of St John’s day an ancient heathen usage—the kindling of the ‘hodfyr,’ which was forbidden them by St Boniface; and the belief subsists even to the present day, that people and animals that have leaped through these flames, or their smoke, are protected for a whole year from fevers and other diseases, as if by a kind of baptism by fire. Bacchanalian dances, which have originated from similar causes among all the rude nations of the earth, and the wild extravagancies of a heated imagination, were the constant accompaniments of this half-heathen, half-christian festival.”

In a note at a subsequent page Dr Hecker cites some curious passages to show what in the middle ages took place at “St John’s fires.” Bones, horns, and other rubbish were heaped together to be consumed in smoke, while persons of all ages danced round the flames as if they had been possessed. Others seized burning flambeaus, and made a circuit of the fields, in the supposition that they thereby screened them from danger; while others again turned a cartwheel, to represent the retrograde movement of the sun. The last circumstance takes back the imagination to the old primitive worship of the sun; and perhaps the very fires of St John might date their history from those kindled in honour of Baal or Moloch. Dr Hecker suggests that mingling with these heathen traditions or customs a remembrance of the history of St John’s death—that dance which occasioned his decapitation—might also have had its share in determining the peculiar manner in which this saint’s day should be observed. However that may be, as we find that the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle appeared with St John’s name in their mouths, the conjecture is very probable that the wild revels of St John’s day had given rise, if not to the disease, yet to the type or form in which it appeared.

At a subsequent period, indeed, when the disorder had assumed, if we may so speak, a more settled aspect, the name of St John was no otherwise associated with it than the name of St Vitus. People danced upon his festival to obtain a cure. And these periodical dances, while they relieved the patients, assisted also to perpetuate the malady. Throughout the whole of June, we are told, prior to the festival of St John, many men felt a disquietude and restlessness which they were unable to overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious; wandered about in an unsettled state, being tormented with twitching pains, which seized them suddenly in different parts; they eagerly expected the eve of St John’s day, in the confident hope that, by dancing at the altars of this saint, they would be freed from all their sufferings. Nor were they disappointed. By dancing and raving for three hours to the utmost scope of their desires, they obtained peace for the rest of the year. For a long time, however, we hear of cases which assumed the most terrific form. Speaking of a period which embraced the close of the fifteenth century, Dr Hecker says:—

“The St Vitus’s dance attacked people of all stations, especially those who led a sedentary life, such as shoemakers and tailors; but even the most robust peasants abandoned their labours in the fields, as if they were possessed by evil spirits; and thus those affected were seen assembling indiscriminately, from time to time, at certain appointed places, and, unless prevented by the lookers-on, continuing to dance without intermission, until their very last breath was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour so completely deprived them of their senses, that many of them dashed their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings, or rushed headlong into rapid rivers, where they found a watery grave. Roaring and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so that, by the high leaps they were tempted to take, their strength might be exhausted.”

Music, however, was a still better resource. It excited, but it hastened forward the paroxysm, and doubtless reduced it to some measure and rhythm. The magistrates even hired musicians for the purpose of carrying the dancers the more rapidly through the attack, and directed that athletic men should be sent among them, in order to complete their exhaustion. A marvellous story is related on the authority of one Felix Plater: Several powerful men being commissioned to dance with a girl who had the dancing mania till she had recovered from her disorder, they successively relieved each other, and danced on for the space of four weeks! at the end of which time the patient fell down exhausted, was carried to an hospital, and there recovered. She had never once undressed, was entirely regardless of the pain of her lacerated feet, and had merely sat down occasionally to take some nourishment or to slumber, and even then “the hopping movement of her body continued.”

Happily, however, this mania grew more rare every year, so that in the beginning of the seventeenth century we may be said to be losing sight of it in Germany. Nor shall we follow out its history further in that country, because the same disorder, under a different form, made its appearance in Italy, and we must by no means neglect to notice the dancing mania which was so universally attributed to the bite of the tarantula. Whatever part the festival of St John the Baptist performed in Germany, as an exciter of the disease, that part was still more clearly performed in Italy by the popular belief in the venom of a spider.

We shall not go back with Dr Hecker into the fears or superstitions of classical times as to the bite of certain spiders or lizards; we must keep more strictly to our text; we must start from the period when men’s minds were still open to pain and alarm on account of the frequent return of the plague.

“The bite of venomous spiders, or rather the unreasonable fear of its consequences, excited at such a juncture, though it could not have done so at an earlier period, a violent nervous disorder, which, like St Vitus’s dance in Germany, spread by sympathy, increasing in severity as it took a wider range, and still further extending its ravages from its long continuance. Thus, from the middle of the fourteenth century, the furies of The Dance brandished their scourge over afflicted mortals; and music, for which the inhabitants of Italy now probably for the first time manifested susceptibility and talent, became capable of exciting ecstatic attacks in those affected, and thus furnished the magical means of exorcising their melancholy.”

Does the learned doctor insinuate that the Italians owed their natural taste for music to this invasion of Tarantism?

“At the close of the fifteenth century we find that Tarantism had spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia, and that the fear of being bitten by venomous spiders had increased. Nothing short of death itself was expected from the wound which these insects inflicted; and if those who were bitten escaped with their lives, they were said to be pining away in a desponding state of lassitude. Many became weak-sighted or hard of hearing; some lost the power of speech; and all were insensible to ordinary causes of excitement. Nothing but the flute or the cithern afforded them relief. At the sound of these instruments they awoke as if by enchantment, opened their eyes, and moving slowly at first, according to the measure of the music, were, as the time quickened, gradually hurried on to the most passionate dance. It was generally observable that country people, who were rude and ignorant of music, evinced on these occasions an unusual degree of grace, as if they had been well practised in elegant movements of the body; for it is a peculiarity in nervous disorders of this kind that the organs of motion are in an altered condition, and are completely under the control of the overstrained spirits.”

This increased agility and grace of movement is by no means to be discredited by the reader. It is a symptom which distinguishes one class of epileptic patients. Some have attributed it to an over-excitement of the cerebellum. However that may be, there are greater wonders than this contained in our most sober and trustworthy books on the disorders of the nervous system. We continue the account:—

“Cities and villages alike resounded throughout the summer season with the notes of fifes, clarinets, and Turkish drums; and patients were everywhere to be met with who looked to dancing as their only remedy. Alexander ab Alexandro, who gives this account, saw a young man in a remote village who was seized with a violent attack of Tarantism. He listened with eagerness and a fixed stare to the sound of a drum, and his graceful movements gradually became more and more violent, until his dancing was converted into a succession of frantic leaps, which required the utmost exertion of his whole strength. In the midst of this overstrained exertion of mind and body the music suddenly ceased, and he immediately fell powerless to the ground, where he lay senseless and motionless until its magical effect again aroused him to a renewal of his impassioned performances.”

We have put the expression “mind and body” in italics, because we may as well take this opportunity to observe, that although convulsions of this kind are excited, and assume a certain form on account of the predominance of some idea, yet, when once called forth, they are almost entirely mechanical in their nature. Mere animal excitability—what is called the reflex action, or other automatic movements quite as little associated with the immediate operations of “mind”—carry on the rest of the process. And it is some consolation to think that the appearance of pain and distress which marks convulsive disorders of all descriptions, is, for the most part, illusory. The premonitory symptoms may be very distressing, but the condition of the patient, when the fit is on, is that of insensibility to pain.

The general conviction was, that by music and dancing the poison of the tarantula was distributed over the whole body, and expelled through the skin; but, unfortunately, it was also believed that if the slightest vestige of it remained behind the disorder would break out again. Thus there was no confidence excited in a perfect cure. Men who had danced themselves well one summer watched the next summer for the returning symptoms, and found in themselves what they looked for. Thus—

“The number of those affected by it increased beyond belief, for whoever had actually been, or even fancied that he had been once bitten by a poisonous spider or scorpion, made his appearance annually whenever the merry notes of the Tarantella resounded. Inquisitive females joined the throng and caught the disease—not indeed from the poison of the spider, but from the mental poison which they eagerly received through the eye; and thus the cure of the Tarantati gradually became established as a regular festival of the populace.”

It was customary for whole bands of musicians to traverse Italy during the summer months, and the cure of the disordered was undertaken on a grand scale. This season of dancing and music was called “The women’s little carnival,” for it was women more especially who conducted the arrangements. It was they, too, it seems, who paid the musicians their fee. The music itself received its due share of study and attention. There were different kinds of the Tarantella (as the curative melody was called) suited to every variety of the ailment.

One very curious circumstance connected with this disease must not pass unnoticed—the passion excited by certain colours. Amongst the Germans, those afflicted by St Vitus’s dance were enraged by any garment of the colour of red. Amongst the Italians, on the contrary, red colours were generally liked. Some preferred one colour, some another, but the devotion to the chosen colour was one of the most extraordinary symptoms which the disease manifested in Italy. The colour that pleased the patient he was enamoured of; the colour that displeased excited his utmost fury.

“Some preferred yellow, others were enraptured with green; and eyewitnesses describe this rage for colours as so extraordinary that they can scarcely find words with which to express their astonishment. No sooner did the patients obtain a sight of their favourite colour than they rushed like infuriated animals towards the object, devoured it with their eager looks, kissed and caressed it in every possible way, and, gradually resigning themselves to softer sensations, adopted the languishing expression of enamoured lovers, and embraced the handkerchief, or whatever article it might be which was presented to them, with the most intense ardour, while the tears streamed from their eyes as if they were completely overwhelmed by the inebriating impression on their senses.

“The dancing fits of a certain Capuchin friar in Tarentum excited so much curiosity that Cardinal Cajetano proceeded to the monastery that he might see with his own eyes what was going on. As soon as the monk, who was in the midst of his dance, perceived the spiritual prince clothed in his red garments, he no longer listened to the tarantella of the musicians, but with strange gestures endeavoured to approach the cardinal, as if he wished to count the very threads of his scarlet robe, and to allay his intense longing by its odour. The interference of the spectators, and his own respect, prevented his touching it, and thus, the irritation of his senses not being appeased, he fell into a state of such anguish and disquietude that he presently sunk down in a swoon, from which he did not recover until the cardinal compassionately gave him his cape. This he immediately seized in the greatest ecstasy, and pressed, now to his breast, now to his forehead and cheeks, and then again commenced his dance as if in the frenzy of a love fit.”

Another curious symptom, which was probably connected with this passion for colour, was an ardent longing for the sea. These over-susceptible people were attracted irresistibly to the boundless expanse of the blue ocean, and lost themselves in its contemplation. Some were carried so far by this vague passionate longing as to cast themselves into the waves.

The persuasion of the inevitable and fatal consequences of being bitten by the tarantula was so general that it exercised a dominion over the strongest minds. Men who in their sober moments considered the disorder as a species of nervous affection depending on the imagination, were themselves brought under the influence of this imagination, and suffered from the disorder at the approach of the dreaded tarantula. A very striking anecdote of this kind is told of the Bishop of Foligno. Quite sceptical as to the venom of the insect, he allowed himself to be bitten by a tarantula. But he had not measured the strength of his own imagination, however well he had estimated the real malignancy of the spider. The bishop fell ill, nor was there any cure for him but the music and the dance. Many reverend old gentlemen, it is said, to whom this remedy appeared highly derogatory, only exaggerated their symptoms by delaying to have recourse to what, after all, was found to be the true and sole specific.

But even popular errors are not eternal. This of Tarantism continued, our author tells us, throughout the whole of the seventeenth century, but gradually declined till it became limited to single cases. “It may therefore be not unreasonably maintained,” he concludes, “that the Tarantism of modern times bears nearly the same relation to the original malady as the St Vitus’s dance which still exists, and certainly has all along existed, bears, in certain cases, to the original dancing mania of the dancers of St John.”

In a subsequent chapter, our author informs us that a disease of a similar character existed in Abyssinia, or still exists, for the authority he quotes is that of an English surgeon who resided nine years in Abyssinia, from 1810 to the year 1819. We cannot pretend to say that we have ever seen the book, which the learned German has, however, not permitted to escape him—we have never seen the Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, written by himself; but, judging by the extract here given, Nathaniel Pearce must be a person worth knowing, he writes with so much candour and simplicity. The disease is called in Abyssinia the Tigretier, because it occurs most frequently in the Tigrè country. The first remedy resorted to is the introduction of a learned Dofter, “who reads the Gospel of St John, and drenches the patient with cold water daily.” If this does not answer, then the relations hire a band of trumpeters, drummers, and fifers, and buy a quantity of liquor; all the young men and women of the place assemble at the patient’s house, and she (for it is generally a woman), arrayed in all the finery and trinkets that can be borrowed from the neighbours, is excited by the music to dance, day after day if necessary, till she drops down from utter exhaustion. The disease is attended with a great emaciation; and the doctor says “he was almost alarmed to see one nearly a skeleton move with such strength.” He then proceeds to recount his own domestic calamity in a strain of the most commendable candour:—

“I could not have ventured to write this from hearsay, nor could I conceive it possible until I was obliged to put this remedy in practice upon my own wife, who was seized with the same disorder. I at first thought that a whip would be of some service, and one day attempted a few strokes when unnoticed by any person, we being by ourselves, and I having a strong suspicion that this ailment sprang from the weak minds of women, who were encouraged in it for the sake of the grandeur, rich dress, and music which accompany the cure. But how much was I surprised, the moment I struck a light blow, thinking to do good, to find that she became like a corpse; and even the joints of her fingers became so stiff that I could not straighten them. Indeed, I really thought that she was dead, and immediately made it known to the people in the house that she had fainted, but did not tell them the cause; upon which they immediately brought music, which I had for many days denied them, and which soon revived her; and I then left the house to her relations, to cure her at my expense. One day I went privately with a companion to see my wife dance, and kept at a short distance, as I was ashamed to go near the crowd. In looking steadfastly upon her, while dancing or jumping, more like a deer than a human being, I said that it certainly was not my wife; at which my companion burst into a fit of laughter, from which he could scarcely refrain all the way home.”

The capability of sustaining the most violent exercise, for a long time together, and on very little food, is not one of the least perplexities attendant upon these nervous or epileptic diseases. The partial suspension of sensation and volition, by sparing the brain, may have something to do with it. But into scientific perplexities of this kind we cannot now enter. One plain and homely caution is derivable from all these histories. Good sense is a great preservative of health. Do not voluntarily make a fool of yourself, or your folly may become in turn the master of your reason. Epilepsy has been brought on by the simulation of epilepsy. We doubt not that a man might dance to his own shadow, and talk to it, as it danced before him on the wall, till he drove himself into a complete frenzy. A sect in America thought fit to introduce certain grimaces, laughing, weeping, and the like, into their public service. It was not long before their grimaces, in some of their numbers, became involuntary; the muscles of the face had escaped the control of the will. A decided tongue-mania was exhibited a short time amongst the Irvingites. Happily, in the present state of society, men’s minds are called off into so many directions, that a predominant idea of this kind has little chance of establishing itself in that tyrannous manner which we have seen possible in the middle ages. But it is better not to play with edged tools. If people will stand round a table, fixing their minds on one idea—that a certain mysterious influence will pass through their fingers to move the table—they will lose, for a time, the voluntary command over their own fingers, which will exert themselves without any volition or consciousness on their part. They are entering, in fact, into that state which, in the olden time, was considered a demoniacal possession; so that, speaking from this point of view, one may truly say that “Satan does turn the table,” but it is by entering into the table-turner. When we have been asked whether there is anything in mesmerism, we have always answered—a great deal more than you ought, without medical advice, to make trial of. Nor do we at all admire the performance of the so-called electro-biologist. Experiments in the interest of science are permissible; but is it fit that any one should practise the art of inducing a temporary state of idiocy in persons of weak or susceptible nerves, for the purpose of collecting a crowd, and passing round the hat?

The subject of the third treatise of Dr Hecker is the Sweating Sickness. This third part is more miscellaneous than its predecessors, and we have no space to do justice to its varied and sometimes disputable matter. Dr Hecker describes the sweating sickness as a legacy left us by the civil wars of York and Lancaster. It first developed itself in Richmond’s army, which had been collected from abroad, over-fatigued by long marches in a very damp season, and probably ill supplied with rations. Its rapid extension through the cities he attributes to the intemperance of the English, to their overfeeding, and the want of cleanliness in their houses. Gluttony, and the filth of the rush-covered floors, he detects even amongst the wealthiest of the land. For a minute description of the disease, and the Doctor’s investigation into the nature of it, we must refer to the book itself.

On the physicians, and the manner in which they addressed themselves to the encounter of this strange calamity, there is a passage which it may be instructive to peruse:—

“The physicians could do little or nothing for the people in this extremity. They are nowhere alluded to throughout this epidemic, and even those who might have come forward to succour their fellow-citizen, had fallen into the errors of Galen, and their dialectic minds sank under this appalling phenomenon. This holds good even of the famous Thomas Linacre, subsequently physician in ordinary to two monarchs, and founder of the College of Physicians in 1518. In the prime of his youth he had been an eyewitness of the events at Oxford, and survived even the second and third eruption of the sweating sickness; but in none of his writings do we find a single word respecting this disease, which is of such permanent importance. In fact, the restorers of the medical science of ancient Greece, who were followed by all the most enlightened men in Europe, with the single exception of Linacre, occupied themselves rather with the ancient terms of art than with actual observation, and in their critical researches overlooked the important events that were passing before their eyes. This reminds us of the later Greek physicians, who for four hundred years paid no attention to the smallpox, because they could find no description of it in the immortal works of Galen!”

Who shall say, in reading such passages, that the New Philosophy of Bacon, which reads now like old common-sense, was not sadly wanted, if the learned physician, while feeling his patient’s pulse, could see only with the eyes of Galen? In the fourteenth century we see the physician busied with his astrology, and laboriously fixing the day when Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, did battle with the sun over the great Indian Ocean; in the sixteenth we find him, with quite dialectic mind, absorbed in the study of his classical authorities; at the present time we may truly say that there are no inquiries conducted with a more philosophical spirit, or with greater zeal and energy, than those which relate to the human frame, its functions and its diseases. The extreme complexity of the subject renders our progress slow. And yet progress can hardly be said to have been slow. Let any one take up that admirable little manual on The Nervous System, by Dr Herbert Mayo, and compare it with any work a hundred years old: it is a new science; and that not only from the new facts which a Robert Bell and a Marshall Hall, and other distinguished men in France and Germany, have added to our knowledge, but from the fine spirit of philosophical inquiry which presides over the whole. We have not only left astrology behind, we have not only left behind the undue reverence to classical authority, but we have thrown aside that dislike and depreciation of physiology which the metaphysician had done his part to encourage, and have entered, as with a fresh eye and a beating heart, upon the study of the wonders of the human frame.

THE SONG OF METRODORUS.

Παντοίην βιότοιο τάμοις τρίβον. εἰν ἀγορῇ μέυ

κύδεα καὶ πινυταὶ πρήξιες. ἐυ δὲ δόμοις

ἄμπανμ’. ἐν δ’ἀγροῖς Φύσιος χάρις. ἐν δὲ ζαλάσση

κέρδος. ἐπὶ ξείνης, ἢν μὲν ἔχης τι, κλέος.

ν δ’ ἀπορὴς, μόνος οἶδας. ἔχεις γάμον; οἶκος ἄριστος

ἔσσεται. οὐ γαμέεις; ζης ἔτ’ ἐλαφρότερον.

τέκνα πόζος. ἄφροντις ἄπαμς βίος. αἱ νεότητες

ῥωμαλέαι. πολιαὶ δ’ ἔμπαλιν εὐσεβέες.

οὐκ ἄρα τῶν δισσῶν ἑνὸς αἵρεσις, ἢ τὸ γενέζαι

μηδέποτ’, ἢ τὸ ζανειν. πάντα γὰρ ἐσζλὰ βίῳ.

Metrodorus was a rare old blade,

His wine he drank, his prayers he said,

And did his duty duly;

But with grave affairs of Church and State

He never fretted his smooth pate,

For he said, and he said full truly,

If a man about and about will go,

To mend all matters high and low,

He’ll find no rest full surely.

In his chair of ease a thorn will grow,

The gall will in his bladder flow,

Thick seeds of sorrow he will sow,

And make his dearest friend a foe,

And go to the grave prematurely.

One day he sate beside the fire,

With all things square to his desire

—A wintry day, when Boreas blew

Through the piping hills with a halloo—

Just after dinner, when the wine

On the tip of his nose was glowing fine.

A pleasant vapour ’fore him floats,

The logs are blazing brightly,

And in his brain the happy thoughts

Begin to move full lightly.

He never wrote a verse before,

Though now he counted good threescore,

And scarcely knew what poets meant,

When in their high conceited bent

They talked of inspiration.

But now his soul a fancy stirred;

He trilled and chirped like any bird;

His bright imagination

Poured forth a pleasant flowing verse,

Which, if you please, I will rehearse

For gentle meditation.

’Twas Greek of course, but by the skill

Made English, of my classic quill,

As good, or better, if you will,

In this my free translation.

1.

They may rail at this world, and say that the devil

Rules o’er it, usurping the mace of the Lord;

In my soul I detest all such impious cavil,

While I sit as a guest at life’s bountiful board.

I was young; I am old, and my temples are hoary,

On Time’s rocking tide I have gallantly oared;

This wisdom I learned, ’tis the sum of my story,

With blessings God’s earth like a garner is stored.

2.

You blame your condition; by Jove I was never

So placed that I could not with pride be a man;

At rest or afloat on life’s far-sounding river,

Content was my watchword, enjoyment my plan.

Where busy men bustle, to elbow and jostle

What sport! then at home how delightful repose!

What comfort and pleasure your body to measure

At large in the elbow-chair, toasting your toes!

3.

A soldier? how gallant through smoke and through thunder

To ride like the lightning, when Jupiter roars;

A farmer? to gaze on the green leafy wonder

Of April how sweet, and to think on the stores

Of golden-sheaved autumn!—to dash through the billow

Is dear to the merchant who carries his gains;

How sweet to the poet on green grassy pillow,

To lie when spring zephyrs are fanning his brains!

4.

When you find a good wife, Nature urges to marry;

But art thou a bachelor, never complain;

Less sail you display, but less burden you carry,

And over yourself like a king you may reign.

’Tis pleasant to hear children prattling around you,

Thank Heaven you’ve arrows enough for your bow;

But if you love quiet, they’ll only confound you,

So if now you have none—may it ever be so!

5.

Art young? then rejoice in thy youth,—give the pinion

Of passion free play—love and hate like a man;

And gather around thee a mighty dominion

Of venturous thoughts, like the crest-waving van

Of a conquering host. Art old? reputation

And honour shall find thee and pleasures serene,

And a power like to Jove’s, when the fate of the nation

Shall wait on thy word in the hall of the queen.

6.

Blow hot or blow cold, with hearty endeavour

Still witch out a virtue from all that you see;

Use well what you get, giving thanks to the Giver,

And think everything good in its place and degree.

I’ve told you my thoughts, and I think you’re my debtor,

And if you don’t think so, I wish you were dead;

The sooner you rot on a dunghill the better,

You’re not worth the straw that they shake for your bed.

THE NEW REFORM BILL.

We feel compelled to address ourselves to an ungracious and disagreeable task. At this moment but one thought ought to be encouraged throughout the British empire—that of encountering and beating back the new and formidable aggressor on the liberties of Europe. We shall not enter now upon the history of past transactions. We shall not stop to inquire whether the Ministry acted foolishly or not in allowing themselves, in spite of repeated warnings and most pregnant instances, to be deceived, cajoled, and outwitted by the agents of Russian diplomacy. It is enough for us that the war has, to all intents and purposes, begun—that we are sending forth our armaments and making our preparations for such a struggle as has not been known during the lifetime of the present generation—and that we have, directly, the most colossal force in Europe to cope with, to which possibly may be united a central power of the Continent, with an army at its disposal more than twice as numerous as our own.

Gladly do we hail the spirit which at present animates the nation. It assures us that we have not degenerated during the long period of peace which we have enjoyed. It shows that we are still alive to our dignity as a people, to our duty as the enemies of outrage and aggression—that we have heart enough and will enough, at any sacrifice, to maintain our high position—and that the love of Mammon has not so occupied our souls as to render us insensible to the part which we are bound to take, as the freest state and most advanced community in Europe. We deny, on the part of the people of Great Britain, that they have either been rash or headstrong in this matter; they have submitted, with remarkable patience, to negotiations protracted beyond hope, and with advantage to the enemy; and, so far from being precipitate or impetuous towards war, they have urged nothing upon the Ministry until, after unparalleled vacillation, the latter have been compelled to see that no other course was open to them but a final rupture with Russia.

This session of Parliament began as leisurely and lazily as though there were no combustible elements visible in Europe—as though there had been no aggression—as though no severe blow had been struck by Russia at Turkey, almost in the presence of and in defiance of our fleet. Had we been at peace with all the world, Ministers could not have shown less symptoms of excitement. The meeting of Parliament was postponed to the last day; possibly on account of negotiations still pending, after Wallachia and Moldavia had been occupied by the Russian troops—after engagements had taken place upon the Danube—and after a Turkish fleet had been assailed and annihilated within the Turkish harbour of Sinope. Negotiation is long-lived. The Premier has even now such faith in protocols that he professes to believe the peace of Europe maybe preserved—an opinion, the gallantry of which cannot be questioned, inasmuch as he stands alone; and for which he will certainly be entitled to immortal credit, if the Czar chooses to yield and withdraw after all that has taken place. But with Lord Aberdeen’s opinions or convictions we have nothing, at the present moment, to do. We think that, considering the important nature of the crisis, and the vastness of the interests at stake, it was the duty of Ministers to have advised an earlier meeting of Parliament, so that the natural anxiety of the nation might not be prolonged, nor any feeling of distrust engendered. Such a step would at all events have been satisfactory to the public, as an implied assurance that it was intended to obliterate, by a decided course of action, the memory of the apathetic indifference and vacillating policy of the latter half of the bygone year.

Pass we from that, however, to the actual meeting of Parliament. No sooner were the members assembled, and, as it were, shaken into their places, than Lord John Russell, a Cabinet Minister, announced that it was his intention to move for leave to bring in a bill for amending the representation of the country; and, notwithstanding the urgent dissuasions both of friend and foe, grounded upon the exceeding impolicy, under present circumstances, of forcing on a measure for which there has been no call or necessity, he, on the evening of the 13th February, proceeded to develop his scheme.

Now, it is perfectly true that, in the course of last session, Lord John Russell, and, if we mistake not, Lord Aberdeen, stated that it was the intention of Ministers to bring forward some measure of the kind. It is true also that the former seems resolved, with characteristic obstinacy, to effect some great change in the representation, and that his resolution is not of yesterday’s date; for in 1852, just two years ago, he obtained leave to bring in a bill for the same object, but with provisions and machinery entirely different from this. It is not our intention in the present paper to compare the two schemes propounded by this consistent statesman for amending the representation. Whether, however, the present bill is insisted on or not, we certainly shall take an opportunity of instituting such a comparison, were it merely for the purpose of exposing, beyond the possibility of refutation or defence, the reckless, inconsistent, and almost crazy tamperings of the noble Lord with the fabric of our constitution. We shall not judge him by any other test than his own words and his own measures. He must either admit—and we shall challenge his warmest adherent or advocate to deny this—that he regards the British constitution as something that may be altered and adjusted to suit special circumstances and party ends; or that, in 1852, he, then First Minister of the Crown, introduced, with culpable want of consideration, a measure, the details of which he now repudiates. It has been the fashion, on the strength of a flippant saying of the late Sydney Smith, to talk of Lord John Russell as a man adequate, in his own conceit, to the conduct of any affair or enterprise, and rigidly and unalterably wedded to his own opinions. We cannot give him even that dubious credit now. He either committed a gross blunder in his former bill, which is no slight imputation upon the judgment of a Prime Minister, or he is acting just now under the direct dictation of others. Nothing has occurred, during the last two years, to make the Reform Bill of 1854 totally and entirely different, not only in details, but in principle, from that which was proposed in 1852; and yet the new measure is utterly inconsistent with the older one. We all remember that, in 1852, Lord John failed to engage the public support—can it be that he is now playing the bad and unpatriotic game of which he was formerly suspected—that he is bidding for popularity and party power, irrespective altogether of the true interests of the country?

That comparison, however, we shall reserve for a future article. We have said already that it was intimated last session, on the part of the Ministry, that a bill for amending the representation would be introduced. The question now is, whether it is for the advantage of the country that such a resolution should be adhered to. That Ministers ought to keep faith with the public is a proposition which we shall never question. If it can be shown that the public, in any proper sense of the term, has become aware of the existence of a grievance, and has demanded a remedy or relief; and if, therefore, Ministers, toward the end of a session, have admitted the justness of the demand, but have been necessitated to postpone the remedy, they are certainly, under ordinary circumstances, bound to come forward and redeem their pledge. But, even in such a case as that which we have supposed, when non-fulfilment of the pledge would naturally create dissatisfaction, circumstances may arise to justify Ministers in declining, on public grounds, to pursue a line of action which otherwise they would willingly adopt. The present is not even a case of that kind. There was no demand at all upon the part of the nation for any immediate measure of reform of representation; and although, beyond all question, there are serious points yet to be settled—for example, the relative representation of Scotland as compared with England—Ministers were not urged to undertake any specific measure, and the responsibility of having done so must rest entirely on themselves.

But we ask, in the name of common sense, is this a time to breed dissension in the country? Set aside such matters as this, which are not clamoured for in any way, and there is absolutely no party feeling among us. All that has been absorbed in the national and British feeling; and we are now sending forth our navy and our army—parting with our sons and our brothers—not knowing whether they may again return to us, but believing that they have gone to support a just cause, and knowing that, in the worst event, they will be mourned by more than ourselves. We shall be called upon, and we are ready, one and all, to submit to increased taxation, and to perform the part which our fathers performed when the integrity of the land was threatened. But is it the part of Ministers, now, at the very opening of the campaign, to do all in their power to excite angry feelings among us, to awake party jealousies, and to rouse antagonism between town and country?

In England, the proposed disfranchisement of nineteen boroughs, returning twenty-nine members, and the reduction of thirty-three others, now returning two, to one member each, will, beyond all question, excite a vast deal of animosity and discussion. We are not by any means so bigotted or besotted in our admiration of the present system as to deny that a plausible argument maybe maintained in favour of much of this disfranchisement and reduction; for the old Reform Act was eminently a party measure, and dealt tenderly with existing interests whenever these belonged to the Whigs. But when we look to the simple facts, that our system and arrangements for the distribution of the franchise, such as they are, stood the triumphant test of 1848, when every other state in Europe was rocking before the whirlwind of revolution—and that no clamour has been heard for their alteration—we humbly venture to think that this is not the time for any extensive experiment. Nor are we by any means convinced that the suppression of small constituencies in favour of larger ones which are already represented, would be a practical improvement. We would much rather see large existing constituencies subdivided, so that no elector should be allowed to vote for more than one member. This might very easily be effected. Edinburgh, for example, would still return two members, but these would be elected by two distinct bodies of voters in different wards. In like manner, where there are two or more members for a county, these should be returned by separate votes in three departments or districts of parishes, which, indeed, would be simply an extension of the system now followed in the larger English counties. This would at once supersede the necessity of having recourse to such ridiculous and fantastic devices as “the representation of minorities,” which is contemplated by the present bill, and which is grossly unfair, inasmuch as its operation is only practicable in the case of constituencies returning three members. From what we have seen of their working, we are not at all enamoured of large constituencies. They have at present more power than they are entitled to; for we maintain it to be contrary to the just principle of representation that any elector should have more than one representative. If the other system, which Lord John Russell practically advocates, is a good one, why should not the three Ridings of Yorkshire be united, so that electors in the county might vote for six representatives? It is just as easy to divide a town as a county. The machinery is already supplied by the municipal arrangements; and if that system were to be adopted—and we earnestly recommend it for consideration—we should hear nothing more of the tyranny of majorities. Until some such plan, founded on principle and recommended by reason, is matured, we oppose the disfranchisement of any of the boroughs. But let us again revert to the time which has been selected for propounding these sweeping changes.

We have been told, in ridiculously pompous language, that Great Britain will present a magnificent spectacle to the world, if, while engaging in a deadly struggle with the most colossal power of Europe, she applies herself, at the same time, to the remodelment of her own constitution. With all deference to the speaker, we never listened to more atrocious nonsense. What should we think of the sanity of the man who, at the very moment when his house was attacked from without, should set fire to it within, for the purpose of exhibiting the “sublime spectacle” of simultaneous external defence and internal extinguishment? Of course we should consider him as mad, clap a blister on his head, and have him instantly conveyed to bedlam. And yet that is, just now, the precise language of Ministers. We really are surprised that any of them should have the audacity to hazard such an argument; if, indeed, that can be called an argument which is no better than a preposterous hyperbole. They know, perfectly well, that this measure of theirs cannot be persevered in without exciting very general dissatisfaction in various parts of the country—that it must necessarily lead to protracted discussion, and a strong demonstration of party feeling in both Houses of Parliament; that if they are unsuccessful in carrying it through, they will have weakened their own influence at a time when it is most desirable that the hands of Government should be strengthened; and that if, on the contrary, they are successful, an immediate dissolution of Parliament, and new general election, must take place. These are the obvious and inevitable consequences, if they persist in their present course; and we hesitate not to say that faction, in its worst spirit, could devise no more dangerous scheme for disturbing the unanimity of the country. “But,” say some of the Whig and Liberal journals, “it is obvious that the present move is a mere indication of what may take place hereafter. Lord John Russell has no serious intention of pushing through this bill at the present time, nor would his colleagues permit him to do so—this is merely to be regarded as the fulfilment of his pledge, and in due time it will be withdrawn.” If we are to take that as the true interpretation of the business—if we are to suppose that this measure has been introduced as a sham, without serious intentions of carrying it into execution, the sooner Lord John Russell retires from public life the better for his own reputation. Sham bills, we are aware, are not novelties. Of late years we have seen, with infinite sorrow and disgust, this species of deception practised upon the public, but never at such a time and under such circumstances as now. It is no valid excuse to say that this is the mere redemption of a pledge, and that Lord John Russell could not act otherwise with honour. What is Lord John Russell, that considerations personal to him should be allowed to disturb the unanimity of the British people at such a crisis; or that his gratuitous pledges and random promises should interfere with the public weal? If such a step, in such a juncture, had been taken by a Tory instead of a Whig minister, the offence would not have been allowed, even on the first night, to pass without a storm of reprobation. Lord John himself would have risen, with an unblushing front, and a total disregard of antecedents, to prove from Whig tradition that any attempt to divide the country, at the moment when it was collecting its energies for action, was a crime worthy of impeachment. Mr Macaulay would have been hurried from his books at the Albany to explain, in sonorous language, what course would have been taken by the Roman senate, in regard to any one who might have proposed, when the Gauls were at the gate, to undermine the Roman constitution; and the Tarpeian rock would, doubtless, have been suggested as the proper punishment. Sir James Graham would have started up to protest that this was not the time for “pottering” over constitutions, or revising constituencies, and have insulted the parent of the bill with the imperious airs of a Commodore Trunnion. Sir Charles Wood—but we shall not pursue the imaginary case further, because the name we have last cited is suggestive of a counting-out. What we mean to convey is, that the political changes contemplated by this bill, without reference to minor details, such as lowering of the franchise, &c., are so serious, that the Ministry, if they really intend, or intended, to carry them through, could not, by possibility, have selected a worse or more injudicious time; and that they are, by persevering, abusing the confidence of the country. If, on the contrary, this measure is to be regarded as a sham, or merely tentatory, then we say that the country has excellent reason for feeling indignant and disgusted that, under present circumstances, such a hoax should be practised upon it.

Lord John Russell is unfortunate in his experiences. By accident rather than by choice—for he was then no eminent political character—his was the hand to open the floodgates more than twenty years ago. He heard the roaring of the pent-up waters, pouring down as if in jubilee, and his soul was big with triumph. Since then, he has heard nothing of the kind; but still his memory lingers on the far-off Niagara roll, and he wishes, before he dies, to have the sound repeated. Hence he is perpetually prowling about the locks of the constitution, devising schemes for another flood, just as the schoolboy, who has assisted at the sluicing of one dam, is energetic for a repetition of the experiment, regardless altogether of the havoc he may be making below. His Nemesis—as it is the fashion now to call it—has been more decided and humiliating than that of any public man of our age. He has sunk from a Premier to a subordinate, under the command of a chief to whom, for the better part of his life, he was diametrically opposed in politics. He was not even allowed to remain long as a recognised subordinate. He descended to the rank of an attaché, in which situation he now remains. He has affected partial retirement from politics, but, at best, he is only half a Cincinnatus. We do not know accurately what were the farming capabilities of the conqueror of the Volsci; but we know, accurately enough, what are the literary achievements of Lord John Russell. We regret, very sincerely, that he has not been able to establish for himself a name in letters; because, if he had done so, we might have hoped to get rid of him as a politician. But that remorseless public, upon whose fiat all authors and editors are dependent, stood in the way; and decreasing sales bore a lamentable evidence to the noble Lord’s decreasing literary popularity. In order, if possible, to redeem his reputation, he touched, with doubtful gallantry, the shield of the most aged antagonist in the lists; and the result was that, like the Admiral Guarinos in the Spanish ballad, the old warrior—though in bad case and wretchedly battered armour—spurred out, and overthrew him in a canter. Nettled at this discomfiture, he comes back to politics; and—availing himself of his position, which the Premier cannot well gainsay, inasmuch as he has no sure hold on the affections of the leading Whigs, who would pitch him over, if an opportunity were afforded, as freely as ever hencoop was given to the waves—he propounds a project of further reform, for which, we doubt not, he is frightfully objurgated by some of his associates in the Cabinet. But, let them say their worst, he knows that he is still in power—that he can threaten them, in one way or another, with active opposition—and therefore they are constrained to let him appear as the author of a new Reform Bill; and although in their hearts they curse his recklessness, they dare not, in as many words, repudiate his false position. Such are the national advantages and inevitable results of that species of combination known as a “Coalition Ministry.”

Let us now see what changes are to be made in the electoral body. These are various and complicated, but we shall state them in order; and first, as to the new qualifications. The following are to be entitled to enrolment, either in town or country:—

1.

All persons having salaries of £100 a-year, derived from public or private employment, provided they are paid by the half-year or quarter.

2.

All persons in receipt of £10 a-year, derived from dividends from property, either in the Funds, or in bank for East India Company’s stock.

3.

All persons paying income or assessed taxes to the yearly income of 40s.

4.

All graduates of any university in the United Kingdom.

5.

All persons who, for three years, have had a deposit of £50 in a savings’ bank.

So there is an end at once of property and occupancy as the basis of the electoral franchise. If you have five sons, and wish to qualify them for voting, you have simply to deposit £50 in name of each in a savings’ bank, and in three years’ time they will be placed on the register. And remark this, that, once on the register, there they abide for ever; for Lord John distinctly tells us, “we make the register of votes final.” So that, on the day after your son is placed on the roll, you may reclaim your money with interest! Happy graduates of universities! They are entitled to the franchise in virtue of the magical letters appended to their names; and they may flit about from place to place, the adornment of twenty registers, because the register is to be final. Take out a game-certificate, and you may not only shoot partridges for the year, but may vote at elections in perpetuity! Any person who wears hair-powder, keeps a terrier, and has a crest engraved on his seal, for which valuable privileges he pays £2, 8s. 8d. of assessed taxes, is henceforward a voter! We are not joking. Such are absolutely the provisions of this precious Reform Bill, the result, as we are told, of the deliberate and collective wisdom of the Ministry!

Faintly, and like a dream, the recollection of the beautiful old Whig moral sentiments steals upon our memory. We remember the touching pictures, limned some twenty years ago, of the industrious man working his way to the rank of the ten-pounders, in order to attain the glorious privilege of the franchise. We were told then that it was most desirable to have a distinct property qualification, in order that men might exert themselves to attain it, and by their exertions stimulate others in the like course of frugality and perseverance. Is that to be the case in future? Certainly not. Every common carrier who pays for his van £2, 6s. 8d. yearly, as the tax on an implement of trade, is to be as politically powerful as the acred squire, or the manufacturer who gives employment to thousands—every horse-dealer, dog-breaker, and tavern-keeper may vote in virtue of the assessed taxes—every clerk in a shop who has £100 a-year, and every warehouseman, who has either saved or succeeded to £50—are to be entitled to vote either in town or county. We said, long ago, when the Whigs were lauding their earlier measure as a grand incentive to industry, and as a splendidly devised scheme for stimulating deserving operatives, that before many years were over the same party would attempt to lower the qualification, so as to embrace all who were likely to forward and promote their designs. Our prophecy is now demonstrated to be true. We showed that, after the first successful attempt, there never can be an end of swamping, or, at all events, of proposals to swamp. The ten-pound householders, then in the full enjoyment of their monopoly, did not seem to believe us. Somehow or other they had been impressed with the idea that the Whigs were the devoted friends of the “middle classes”—that they had a firm faith in what was termed “shopocracy”—and that they never would attempt to supplant the power which they had created. And, certainly, the ten-pounders have done nothing to merit this treatment at the hands of the Whigs. They have clung to them, especially in the large towns, with a fidelity which we cannot but respect, and, in spite of occasional scurvy treatment, have shown themselves the most zealous of partisans. But the time has now arrived when their ascendancy is to give way. Respectability is no longer the fashion. If the ten-pounders, indeed, had been able to give the Whigs a large majority in Parliament, and to have insured their continuance in power, matters might have been different. There would then have been no occasion for lowering the franchise; because the Whigs, ever since they have been a party (which is now an old story), have never taken a single step except as means towards an end; and they would not, but for party necessity, have attempted to swamp their friends. But the old Reform Bill, though devised especially for the purpose of securing to the Whigs an unlimited range of power, did not succeed in its object. It was based essentially upon property, and, by degrees, property and Conservatism came to a common understanding. The Whigs lost ground every year: partly because their champions were either effete or insincere; partly because they were foolish enough to presume on their new ascendancy, and to insult the rooted Protestantism of the country; and partly, because they showed themselves in their arrangements grasping, greedy, and nepotical, to a degree never yet paralleled even in a corrupted state. They wanted to make, and did in fact make, with scarce an exception, the Cabinet a mere family Junta. They married and forwarded marriages on the strength of political connexion, and jobbed out public employment accordingly. Grey, Russell, and Elliot, were the three names preferred; and Heaven only knows what amount of perquisites was absorbed by the scions of these illustrious races. Such things cannot be done in a corner, so secretly as to escape observation. The popular ire was roused at such an exhibition of awful selfishness, and the Whigs declined in character. Had Sir Robert Peel not been the Minister and type of expediency, he might have gained an easy and lasting victory over them; but unfortunately, both for the party which he then led and for himself, he had a weak perception of principle. The two rivals sate, on opposite sides of the table, watching each other at the game of popularity, but never for a moment reflecting that, in any event, Great Britain had to pay the loss. The game, though it had continued a great deal too long, was somewhat abruptly terminated. Those who had supported the Baronet while he played fair, withdrew their confidence; and the noble lord was left in possession of the field. Did he maintain it? By no means. He juggled and traversed until every one was weary of him, and at last he was ejected. The election of 1852 showed that parties were very nearly balanced; so nearly indeed that, but for the union of the Peelites with the Whigs, Lord Derby would have had a majority in the House of Commons. This state of things may be embarrassing to politicians, but it does not justify a violent change in the Constitution. However desirable majorities may be to either party, an attempt to obtain ascendancy by means of legislative enactment and tampering with the franchise, is so very reprehensible that it amounts almost to a crime.

But we must not lose sight of the bill by indulging in remarks upon the past. Its object is to swamp the present class of voters by a wholesale admission of others who have not been able to raise themselves to the enviable level which is the limit of the existing qualification. The bill is ingeniously devised. Let it pass, and every tradesman will consider himself sure of three or four votes which he can direct. Because, of course, the clerk, with £100 a-year, dares not vote against his master; and, even if he is entitled, after dismissal, to remain on the register, the mere privilege of voting, perhaps once in seven years, will be a poor compensation for the immediate loss of employment. Can you call a clerk or book-keeper, with a bare £100 a-year, independent? To do so is a mere perversion of terms. He is more liable even than the operative to the influence of his employer, inasmuch as the nature of his employment is more precarious. We heard a great deal last year about Government influence being used among the persons employed in the dockyards, and it was gravely proposed by some of the leading Whig journals, that all such should be disfranchised, as they could not be expected to vote independently. But a Government official, however zealous and unscrupulous he may be, is amenable to public opinion and public censure, and cannot exercise the same stringent means of compulsion which are open to the tradesman or the attorney.

Then as to bribery: the tendency of lowering the franchise must be to increase that to a very great extent. In many places, even under the present system, votes are bought and sold; but if this bill is carried into effect, the corruption will become enormous. Experience has shown us, very clearly, that there is a large class in this country by whom votes are considered in the light of marketable commodities, and this bill seems specially framed for the purpose of adding to their numbers. The possession of £50 in a savings-bank is by no means a guarantee that the depositor will be inaccessible to the influences of a bribe. But besides the other changes which we have discussed, it is proposed that residence of two years and a-half in a house rated at £6 in a municipal borough shall confer the right of voting, and that previous payment of rates and taxes is to be no longer required! Can any one for a moment doubt that the consequence of this will be to render constituencies venal to an extent never yet known in this country? If even under the present system it is found that bribery prevails, will not the offence become much more rank and general when you enfranchise a class peculiarly liable from their position to such influences? And remember this, that candidates or their agents are not always, nor indeed in the majority of cases, the tempters. Enough has been revealed to show us that, in a very large number of the English towns, there exist regularly organised clubs or societies of voters, who force their terms upon candidates. These fine patriots do not concern themselves much with party politics. They do not object to one man because he is a Tory, or to another because he is a Whig. Pledges as to future conduct are not at all in their line: they much prefer the immediate tender of a crisp bank-note or of a few shining sovereigns. They have their agents and their office-bearers, and must be bought in the lump. Let this bill pass, and there will hardly be an urban constituency in this kingdom without such a club. Is that a state of things to be envied? Is it fair to the honest and upright voter that he should be swamped by organised rascality, and that his privilege should be rendered of no avail? We can hardly express ourselves too strongly on this subject, for the provocation is very great. The Whig party, for years past, have affected to mourn over the corruption of the constituencies, and yet here is their accredited leader bringing in a bill which must necessarily have the effect of increasing that corruption tenfold!

But we have not yet quite done. Lord John Russell proposes to give 46 new members to the English counties; but then the county constituency is not to remain as before. Occupiers, not proprietors, of £10 a-year are to have votes in counties; and it is by no means contemplated that the house occupied by the voter should be of that value. “We propose,” said Lord John Russell, “with respect to the county right of voting, that—with the exception of a dwelling-house, which may be of any value, provided the voter lives in it—in all other cases the building must be of the value of £5 a-year. Supposing there is a house and land, the house may be rated at £1 or £2 a-year, provided the voter resides in it; but if the qualification is made out by any other building—a cattle-shed or any other building of that kind—then we propose this check, that such building shall be of the value of £5 a-year. This, then, is the franchise we propose to give in counties for the future; and the House will see that it has a very considerable bearing upon the question of the increase of number of members which I have stated we propose. Out of the whole number I have mentioned I shall propose that 46 members shall be given to counties; but as these counties will hereafter include the £10 householders, it is obvious that the constituency will be less of a special character. It does seem to me that all the endeavours made to run down the agricultural interest, or to run down the manufacturing interest, are totally foolish and absurd, and that there can be no better system of representation than that which takes into consideration the whole of the great interests of the country, which contribute to its glory and prosperity.” We have thought it right to insert these paragraphs, because they contain a doctrine quite new to statesmen, and one which has hitherto been unbroached. There is certainly a little obscurity in the language, but not enough to conceal the true nature of the sentiment. What Lord John Russell means to say is this:—It is absurd any longer to maintain the special character of constituencies—absurd to make distinctions between agriculture, manufactures, or any branch of industry—absurd to frame your system so that one member shall represent agriculture, another commerce, and another manufactures, because you should in every case combine the whole of the great interests of the country. Carry that doctrine into effect, and the distinction between counties and towns ceases altogether. But how can you bring it fairly into effect? In the towns which have the privilege of returning members, agriculture is not, and cannot be, represented at all. The urban voters are all engaged in other pursuits, and they send to the House of Commons members to represent that branch of industry which is their staple. From the towns, therefore, the territorial interest, which is in reality the greatest and most enduring in England, never can be adequately represented. You may, however, easily enough, swamp the agricultural interest in the counties, and that by the method which Lord John Russell proposes, namely, of admitting to the county-roll ten-pound occupiers from the towns, which do not send a representative to Parliament. It has often been remarked, as a special defect in the Act of 1832, that it allowed in many cases the votes of small proprietors in villages and towns to swamp the votes of the agriculturists; and in several counties in Scotland this is notoriously the case. The manufacturing towns in Forfarshire, in Roxburghshire, and in Fife, furnish so many votes, that the landed interest is entirely unrepresented; and as new seats of manufacture are laid down, the evil is always progressive. There can be no doubt that in the instances which we have referred to, the landed interest is incomparably greater than all the others; and yet, in so far as representation goes, it has virtually no voice at all. It has been proposed, more than once—and the scheme carries reason with it—that these anomalies should be removed by the attachment of the unrepresented boroughs to the nearest ones which have representation; thus increasing and consolidating a class of voters who have a distinct common interest. If this were done, and the counties freed from an incubus, there might be no objection to the lowering of the agricultural tenant’s qualification, so that the man who paid £20 of yearly rent might be entitled to admission to the roll. But Lord John Russell takes exactly the opposite view. He wants to swamp the country constituencies altogether, and he proposes to effect that by letting in every man from the villages who pays £10 of rent! He himself admits that by this arrangement, persons occupying houses not rated at more than £1 or £2 a-year—in fact, mere hovels—may become county voters, and this he considers a fitting method of combining “the whole of the great interests of the country!” And yet, mark his inconsistency. By the same bill which proposes this amalgamation of interests in the counties, it is provided that University representation shall be extended, and that special members shall be allotted to the English Inns of Court. Surely there cannot be a more direct recognition of separate and exclusive interests than this; and yet, in counties, the agricultural interest is to be put down.

We have not the least fear that the law will be so altered; but that such proposals should emanate from a Ministry, is, we think, a disgraceful and a lamentable fact. They are no doubt entitled to have their opinion. They may think, though on what grounds we cannot divine, that it is good policy not to maintain any balance in the constitution, and that the franchise in town and country should be made the same. They may consider it advisable that small manufacturing towns, too unimportant to return members of themselves, should be allowed to furnish the majority of county voters, and that, virtually, the land should cease to have any representatives. If they think so, it is much to be regretted that they do not say so openly, so that we might have the opportunity of doing battle in a fair field. But this measure of theirs is intended to be deceptive, and convey a false impression that they are dealing impartially with all classes. In the first place, they take from the smaller boroughs no fewer than 66 members. Their principle is, that no borough having less than 300 electors, or less than 5000 inhabitants, ought to return a member; and that no borough having less than 500 electors, or less than 10,000 inhabitants, should return two members. Let us, for the sake of argument, admit the justice of this proposition. Does it therefore follow that it was wise to disfranchise such boroughs? That is by no means a necessary consequence. If the constituency is at present too small, extend it by all means. Wherever practicable, join these boroughs together; where that cannot be done, take an increased constituency from the nearest unrepresented town, until you reach the magic number which is to be the minimum of representation. Bring in fresh blood, which it is quite easy to do, without exciting the clamour and dissatisfaction which the abolition or curtailment of a privilege long enjoyed is sure to create. It cannot be denied that there is plenty of material at hand. There is also Parliamentary precedent and usage; for in Scotland, at the present moment, groups of small burghs return a single member, and some of these burghs are infinitesimally small. We have them so low, in point of voters, as 12, 14, and 22. Yet they are not disfranchised. They share their peculiar privilege along with others, making in the aggregate very respectable constituencies. Surely such an arrangement as that would be preferable to the Government proposition, which does wanton violence to constituencies against which no accusation has been made. We fear, however, that the disfranchisement of the smaller boroughs was considered an indispensable preliminary to the grand attack upon the counties.

Having thus secured the disposal of sixty-six seats, the Government come forward with an immense show of liberality, and offer forty-six of these to the counties. But then it is only on condition that the counties will allow themselves to be swamped. Nine large towns are each to have an additional member; there are to be five new borough seats; the Inns of Court are to have two, and the London University one member; the remaining three seats are to be given to Scotland.

This brings us to a point which we are absolutely bound to notice, because it serves as a further illustration of the impropriety and folly of bringing forward such a bill at such a time. If the Emperor Nicholas had the direction of our internal affairs, he could not have devised a more notable plan for fomenting dissension among us; and it is but right to show that this measure, if pushed on, must excite an angry feeling in the country. We, who are opposing any change in the electoral franchise at the present time, mainly because we think it an unhappy and dangerous juncture for making experiments, cannot be blamed if we state our own views of what is really required when the proper time shall arrive for making a readjustment of the representation. We do not wish, by any means, to argue the question at present: we state it simply to show the extent of the disagreement which may arise, if this measure is to be prosecuted just now.

Independent of the wholesale disfranchisement of English boroughs, which must necessarily excite great disgust and dissatisfaction, we take leave to tell Lord John Russell, and the other members of the Cabinet, that this bill of theirs is not likely to meet with any favour in the eyes of the Scottish people. The question of adequate representation has been mooted, discussed, and is now thoroughly understood by us; and we are determined, in the event of a change, to insist that our rights shall be recognised and allowed. This new bill, proposing to give us three additional members, whereas in respect either of population or of taxation we are entitled to twenty, cannot be satisfactory. It is not only right, but necessary, that our English friends should know the feeling in Scotland. We are not represented on the same scale or in the same manner as England is, and we complain of the inequality. We ask a common standard and a just proportion. Now, it does not appear that, by the present bill, the existing anomalies are to be removed, although, by the disfranchisement of so many boroughs, it would have been easy to have given Scotland her just share of members. If there be any reason why Scotland should have fewer proportional representatives than England, let it be boldly stated. If there is no reason at all, then let justice be done to us. We do not wish at present to go into details—indeed, that would be premature, until the new Scottish Reform Bill is before us; but as it is quite plain that the aggregate number of the House of Commons is not to be augmented, and as Lord John Russell proposes to give only three additional members to Scotland, we are perfectly entitled to enter our emphatic protest against a measure which has no solid principle for its foundation. The first point for consideration, in a redistribution of the representation such as is now contemplated, was undoubtedly the number of members which England, Scotland, and Ireland are entitled respectively to return. Lord John Russell either does not see the principle, or he refuses to acknowledge it. Now, this is a matter which will cause much excitement, and create not a little angry feeling in Scotland; and it is as well that our English friends should be made aware of it. We are, of course, anxious for a proper increase of national representatives, and we are perfectly aware that we cannot attain that object without a general measure for altering and abolishing constituencies. But this measure, while it is sure to create a turmoil in England, hardly professes to benefit us at all, and avoids the principle for which the Scottish people are contending. Any arrangements which may be made as to the future distribution of the representation, ought to be well weighed, considered, and matured; for this country will not submit to the confusion of a new reform bill once in every three or four years. This measure seems to us to be utterly deficient in these respects, and to be so loosely conceived as to give some colour to the prevalent opinion that it furnished an agreeable relaxation to the noble Lord between the intervals of his more serious editorial labours.

In Scotland, therefore, the bill will be considered highly objectionable, as evading the only popular demand from that portion of Great Britain. Beyond an increase of numbers, we have no desire for any change—Whigs, Tories, and Radicals, being for once agreed.

But we are not so unreasonable as to wish to fight that battle now. We earnestly deprecate anything like internal discord, for we have other battles to fight, and the people of Great Britain ought now, if ever, to be cordially united in sentiment. Therefore, although we think that we are not altogether fairly treated, and that we have not only a strong case, but an absolute right to claim redress, we shall not be guilty of the lamentable folly of urging our claims for increased representation at such a time. We believe that to be the general feeling of the people of Scotland; but then their forbearance is entirely contingent upon the course which the Government may pursue in respect to this measure. There may be, and probably will be, agitation hereafter; but there need be none now, at least on the score of representation, if the Ministry will but tacitly acknowledge their error, and remove this source of dissension.

There are several other points in this bill which are not only open to comment, but, as we think, decidedly objectionable. We shall merely refer to two of these. The first is, the preposterous notion of giving a member to minorities. The more we consider this plan, the more egregiously absurd does it appear. Why, in the name of all that is rational, should minorities be represented? And if that question can be answered satisfactorily, there is still another beyond it:—Why should only a limited number of constituencies be put in possession of such a privilege? But it may be worth while to suppose the new system in operation.

Manchester, under the new bill, will have three members. At present it has two, and these two are Liberals. On the hypothesis of Lord John Russell, though that by no means follows as a matter of course, the third, or minority member, will be a Conservative. What does that amount to but the cancelling, on any great political occasion, of two of the members for Manchester? The Conservative pairs off with one of the Liberals, or they go into the opposite lobby, which is exactly the same thing, and the opinions of Cottonopolis are only represented and enforced on a division, by a single member! We suspect that the present electorate of Manchester is much too shrewd and far-sighted to accept any arrangement of the kind; and that they would much prefer having two members whose votes tell on each division, to having nominally three, but, in reality, only one. Suppose that a minority member dies during a session of Parliament, or accepts the Chiltern Hundreds, how is his place to be supplied? Is there to be an election with three candidates in the field, and is the lowest to be proclaimed the victor? If not, what becomes of Lord John Russell’s “principle?” Then observe that, setting aside its absurdity, this crotchet would establish a new relation between representatives and represented. At present, the choice of the majority is recognised by all, and in matters of business there is free communication between the electors and the member, irrespective altogether of their party tendencies. This is a great privilege, and a great advantage. It has done much to soften acerbity, and, in some instances, has reconciled powerful parties to acquiesce in the return of a good and energetic member, albeit he might support a different policy from that to which they were inclined. But now the majority is to have its members, and the minority is to have its member, and the House is to be divided against itself. We seriously aver that we do not remember to have ever heard of a proposal more singularly silly, or more utterly absurd; and if this really be, as we are told, the keystone of the New Reform Bill, we may be allowed to express a hope that Lord John Russell will, for the future, desist from all architectural experiments.

We have barely space or time to advert to one other portion of this Bill—namely, that whereby it is proposed that members accepting office under the Crown should not vacate their seats. So far from being inclined to approve of that proposition, we condemn it utterly. The existing rule is a safeguard, and a most valuable one, against profligacy in high places, and ought not, by any means, to be abolished. It is rather amusing to see that Lord John Russell has been compelled to reflect upon his own measure of 1832, in order to make a rational excuse for his new proposal. He says—“In those times, when a seat could always be found for any person for whom it was required, Ministers suffered little inconvenience from the Act of Anne; but when the principle of popular representation was introduced into all our elections, the statute created difficulties which were hardly compensated by the advantage of having new elections.” What difficulties? There were no difficulties of any kind. If an honest man, with a clear conscience, who was the choice of a constituency, accepted office, he was sure to be returned again, and almost always without opposition; if, on the contrary, his conscience was not quite clear, he had to undergo a wholesome ordeal. But perhaps we owe this proposal to the clause about the minority members, since it is plain that an unfortunate senator in that position need not go down to his constituency unless, as we have already said, provision is made for his being returned, in virtue of his being lowest on the poll.

Whether the Ministry collectively have acted wisely or not in allowing this measure to be brought forward, we cannot say. They may have reasons which are not apparent to us. They may, for example, wish to allow Lord John Russell to expose himself, preparatory to some new arrangement. He is evidently a dangerous member of the Cabinet; for, while the Prime Minister is maintaining that there is still a chance of avoiding war with Russia, it is intolerable that a subordinate should use language of the most unguarded and opprobrious nature in respect to the Emperor. It is just a repetition of the offence of which both Sir James Graham and Sir Charles Wood were guilty in respect of Louis Napoleon; and although, in this case, the commentary may be just enough, we cannot but deplore such exhibitions on the part of Ministers. But if the Ministry intend seriously to proceed with this bill, at the present time, we shall be compelled to draw upon the noble lord, for terms sufficiently severe to express our indignation at their conduct.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

1. The Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, M.P.: a Literary and Political Biography, addressed to the New Generation. Bentley, London. 1854.

2. The following general order, published in the Wallachian Moniteur (the Russian Official journal), about the end of January last, shows the sort of protection which the Principalities enjoy, and the manner in which the Moldo-Wallachians are taught to love their protectors:—“Ordered, 1st, That all men from the age of eighteen to forty years, married or unmarried, and whatever their profession may be, are required by the generals, colonels, or commanders of corps to do service for the Russian army; 2d, That horses, waggons, oxen or other beasts of burden, may be required for the same service; and, 3d, That all boats, barks, or floats, now on the Danube, are seized from the present moment, for the service of the Russian army. This decree is applicable to all Wallachian subjects—those who attempt to evade its execution shall be tried by court-martial.”

3. Poems. By MATTHEW ARNOLD. A New Edition. London: Longmans. 1853.

Poems, Narrative and Lyrical. By EDWIN ARNOLD, of University College, Oxford. Oxford: Francis Macpherson. 1853.

4. “Cash and Pedigree,” in Blackwood’s Magazine, No. CCCCXIV., for April 1850.

5. Agricultural Labourers as they were, are, and ought to be, in their Social Condition. By the Rev. HARRY STUART, A.M., Minister of Oathlaw.

6. The following excerpts from the reports of the clergy of Morayshire indicate how entirely they anticipated the views of Mr Stuart, and how much they were alive to the necessity of such a movement as that which Mr Stuart has been instrumental in originating. “I would add,” writes one clergyman, “that as the moral condition of frail beings such as we are is often powerfully affected by circumstances of comparatively trifling amount, if masters attended a little to the physical comforts of their servants, by providing them with fire and light, &c., (when they live in bothies), by means of a female servant, having their room in readiness when they leave off work, instead of allowing them to go to a bothy, cold and comfortless, they would be less induced to resort to ardent spirits, or to wander from home in search of company and comfort.” Another reverend respondent says: “The greatest desideratum in respect of this class, and which would tend more than any other temporal means to their improvement, is the adoption by the landed proprietors and by agricultural societies of the plan of rewarding servants of long-established good character, by affording them facilities for becoming occupiers of small farms themselves.”

7. Poems by Alexander Smith. 12mo. David Bogue, London.

8. The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, from the German of J. F. C. HECKER, M.D., translated by B. G. BABINGTON, M.D., F.R.S.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

2. Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 75, NO. 461, MARCH, 1854 BY VARIOUS ***

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Table of Contents

BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCCLXI. MARCH, 1854. Vol. LXXV.

CONTENTS.

DISRAELI: A BIOGRAPHY.[1]

THE QUIET HEART.

PART IV.—CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE PROTECTORATE IN TURKEY.

THE TWO ARNOLDS.[3]

COUNT SIGISMUND’S WILL.

NEWS FROM THE FARM.[5]

ALEXANDER SMITH’S POEMS.[7]

THE EPIDEMICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.[8]

THE SONG OF METRODORUS.

THE NEW REFORM BILL.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE