Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 569, March, 1863
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 569, March, 1863

Author: Various

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 93, NO. 569, MARCH, 1863 ***

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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. DLXIX.      MARCH 1863.      Vol. XCIII.

CONTENTS.

Caxtoniana.—Part XIV., | 267
No. XIX.—Motive Power (concluded)
Mrs Clifford’s Marriage.—Part I., | 284
An English Village—in French, | 301
Lord Mackenzie’s Roman Law, | 314
The Peripatetic Politician—in Florence, | 321
The Frank in Scotland, | 330
Kinglake’s Invasion of the Crimea, | 355
The Opening of the Session, | 384

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. DLXIX.      MARCH 1863.      Vol. XCIII

CAXTONIANA:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.

By the Author of ‘The Caxton Family.’

PART XIV.

NO. XIX.—MOTIVE POWER (concluded).

The next day the atmosphere was much cooler, refreshed by a heavy shower that had fallen at dawn; and when, not long after noon, Percival and I, mounted on ponies bred in the neighbouring forests, were riding through the narrow lanes towards the house we had agreed to visit, we did not feel the heat oppressive. It was a long excursion; we rode slowly, and the distance was about sixteen miles.

We arrived at last at a little hamlet remote from the highroads. The cottages, though old-fashioned, were singularly neat and trim—flower-plots before them, and small gardens for kitchen use behind. A very ancient church, with its parsonage, backed the broad village-green; and opposite the green stood one of those small quaint manor-houses which satisfied the pride of our squires two hundred years ago. On a wide garden-lawn in front were old yew-trees cut into fantastic figures of pyramids and obelisks and birds and animals; beyond the lawn, on a levelled platform immediately before the house, was a small garden, with a sundial, and a summer-house or pavilion of the date of William III., when buildings of that kind, for a short time, became the fashionable appendage to country-houses, frequently decorated inside with musical trophies, as if built for a music-room; but, I suspect, more generally devoted to wine and pipes by the host and his male friends. At the rear of the house stretched an ample range of farm-buildings in very good repair and order, the whole situated on the side of a hill, sufficiently high to command an extensive prospect, bounded at the farthest distance by the sea, yet not so high as to lose the screen of hills, crested by young plantations of fir and larch; while their midmost slopes were, in part, still abandoned to sheep-walks; in part, brought (evidently of late) into cultivation; and farther down, amid the richer pastures that dipped into the valley, goodly herds of cattle indolently grazed or drowsily reposed.

We dismounted at the white garden-gate. A man ran out from the farmyard and took our ponies; evidently a familiar acquaintance of Tracey’s, for he said heartily, “that he was glad to see his honour looking so well,” and volunteered a promise that the ponies should be well rubbed down, and fed. “Master was at home; we should find him in the orchard swinging Miss Lucy.”

So, instead of entering the house, Tracey, who knew all its ways, took me round to the other side, and we came into one of those venerable orchards which carry the thought back to the early day when the orchard was, in truth, the garden.

A child’s musical laugh guided us through the lines of heavy-laden apple-trees to the spot where the once famous prizeman—the once brilliant political thinker—was now content to gratify the instinctive desire tentare aërias vias—in the pastime of an infant.

He was so absorbed in his occupation that he did not hear or observe us till we were close at his side. Then, after carefully arresting the swing, and tenderly taking out the little girl, he shook hands with Percival; and when the ceremony of mutual introduction was briefly concluded, extended the same courtesy to myself.

Gray was a man in the full force of middle life, with a complexion that seemed to have been originally fair and delicate, but had become bronzed and hardened by habitual exposure to morning breezes and noonday suns. He had a clear bright blue eye, and a countenance that only failed of being handsome by that length and straightness of line between nostril and upper lip, which is said by physiognomists to be significant of firmness and decision. The whole expression of his face, though frank and manly, was, however, rather sweet than harsh; and he had one of those rare voices which almost in themselves secure success to a public speaker—distinct and clear, even in its lowest tone, as a silvery bell.

I think much of a man’s nature is shown by the way in which he shakes hands. I doubt if any worldly student of Chesterfieldian manners can ever acquire the art of that everyday salutation, if it be not inborn in the kindness, loyalty, and warmth of his native disposition. I have known many a great man who lays himself out to be popular, who can school his smile to fascinating sweetness, his voice to persuasive melody, but who chills or steels your heart against him the moment he shakes hands with you.

But there is a cordial clasp which shows warmth of impulse, unhesitating truth, and even power of character—a clasp which recalls the classic trust in the “faith of the right hand.”

And the clasp of Hastings Gray’s hand at once propitiated me in his favour. While he and I exchanged the few words with which acquaintance commences, Percival had replaced Miss Lucy in the swing, and had taken the father’s post. Lucy, before disappointed at the cessation of her amusement, felt now that she was receiving a compliment, which she must not abuse too far; so she very soon, of her own accord, unselfishly asked to be let down, and we all walked back towards the house.

“You will dine with us, I hope,” said Gray. “I know when you come at this hour, Sir Percival, that you always meditate giving us that pleasure.” (Turning to me,) “It is now half-past three, we dine at four o’clock, and that early hour gives you time to rest, and ride back in the cool of the evening.”

“My dear Gray,” answered Percival, “I accept your invitation for myself and my friend. I foresaw you would ask us, and left word at home that we were not to be waited for. Where is Mrs Gray?”

“I suspect that she is about some of those household matters which interest a farmer’s wife. Lucy, run and tell your mamma that these gentlemen will dine with us.”

Lucy scampered off.

“The fact is,” said Tracey, “that we have a problem to submit to you. You know how frequently I come to you for a hint when something puzzles me. But we can defer that knotty subject till we adjourn, as usual, to wine and fruit in your summer-house. Your eldest boy is at home for the holidays?”

“Not at home, though it is his holidays. He is now fifteen, and he and a school friend of his are travelling on foot into Cornwall. Nothing, I think, fits boys better for life than those hardy excursions in which they must depend on themselves, shift for themselves, think for themselves.”

“I daresay you are right,” said Tracey; “the earlier each of us human beings forms himself into an individual God’s creature, distinct from the servum pecus, the better chance he has of acquiring originality of mind and dignity of character. And your other children?”

“Oh, my two younger boys I teach at home, and one little girl—I play with.” Here addressing me, Gray asked “If I farmed?”

“Yes,” said I, “but very much as les Rois Fainéants reigned. My bailiff is my Maire du Palais. I hope, therefore, that our friend Sir Percival will not wound my feelings as a lover of Nature by accusing me of wooing her for the sake of her turnips.”

“Ah!” said Gray, smiling, “Sir Percival, I know, holds to the doctrine that the only pure love of Nature is the æsthetic; and looks upon the intimate connection which the husbandman forms with her as a cold-blooded mariage de convenance.”

“I confess,” answered Percival, “that I agree with the great German philosopher, that the love of Nature is pure in proportion as the delight in her companionship is unmixed with any idea of the gain she can give us. But a pure love may be a very sterile affection; and a mariage de convenance may be prolific in very fine offspring. I concede to you, therefore, that the world is bettered by the practical uses to which Nature has been put by those who wooed her for the sake of her dower: and I no more commend to the imitation of others my abstract æsthetic affection for her abstract æsthetic beauty, than I would commend Petrarch’s poetical passion for Laura to the general adoption of lovers. I give you, then, gentlemen farmers, full permission to woo Nature for the sake of her turnips. Our mutton is all the better for it.”

“And that is no small consideration,” said Gray. “If I had gazed on my sheep-walks with the divine æsthetic eye, and without one forethought of the profit they might bring me, I should not already have converted 200 out of the 1000 acres I possess into land that would let at 30s. per acre, where formerly it let at 5s. But, with all submission to the great German philosopher, I don’t think I love Nature the less because of the benefits with which she repays the pains I have taken to conciliate her favour. If, thanks to her, I can give a better education to my boys, and secure a modest provision for my girl, is it the property of gratitude to destroy or to increase affection? But you see, sir, there is this difference between Sir Percival and myself:—He has had no motive in improving Nature for her positive uses, and therefore he has been contented with giving her a prettier robe. He loves her as a grand seigneur loves his mistress. I love her as a man loves the helpmate who assists his toils. According as in rural life my mind could find not repose, but occupation—according as that occupation was compatible with such prudent regard to fortune as a man owes to the children he brings into the world—my choice of life would be a right or a wrong one. In short, I find in the cultivation of Nature my business as well as my pleasure. I have a motive for the business which does not diminish my taste for the pleasure.”

Tracey and I exchanged looks. So, then, here was a motive for activity. But why was the motive towards activity in pursuits requiring so little of the intellect for which Gray had been characterised, and so little of the knowledge which his youth had acquired, so much stronger than the motive towards a career which proffered an incalculably larger scope for his powers? Here, there was no want of energy—here, there had been no philosophical disdain of ambition—here, no great wealth leaving no stimulant to desires—no niggard poverty paralysing the sinews of hope. The choice of retirement had been made in the full vigour of a life trained from boyhood to the exercises that discipline the wrestlers for renown.

While I was thus musing, Gray led the way towards the farmyard, and on reaching it said to me,—

“Since you do farm, if only by deputy, I must show you the sheep with which I hope to win the first prize at our agricultural show in September.”

“So you still care for prizes?” said I: “the love of fame is not dead within your breast.”

“Certainly not; ‘Pride attends us still.’ I am very proud of the prizes I have already won; last year for my wurzel—the year before, for the cow I bred on my own pastures.”

We crossed the farmyard, and arrived at the covered sheep-pens. I thought I had never seen finer sheep than those which Gray showed me with visible triumph. Then we two conversed with much animation upon the pros and cons in favour of stall-feeding versus free grazing, while Tracey amused himself, first in trying to conciliate a great dog, luckily for him chained up in the adjoining yard, and next, in favouring the escape of a mouse who had incautiously quitted the barn, and ventured within reach of a motherly hen, who seemed to regard it as a monster intent on her chicks.

Reaching the house, Gray conducted us up a flight of oak stairs—picturesque in its homely old-fashioned way—with wide landing-place, adorned by a blue china jar, filled with pot-pourri, and by a tall clock (one of Tompion’s, now rare), in walnut-wood case; consigning us each to a separate chamber, to refresh ourselves by those simple ablutions, with which, even in rustic retirements, civilised Englishmen preface the hospitable rites of Ceres and Bacchus.

The room in which I found myself was one of those never seen out of England, and only there in unpretending country-houses which have escaped the innovating tastes of fashion. A bedstead of the time of George I., with mahogany fluted columns and panels at the bedhead, dark and polished, decorated by huge watch-pockets of some great-grandmother’s embroidery, white spotless curtains, the walls in panel, also painted white, and covered in part with framed engravings a century old. A large high screen, separating the washstand from the rest of the room, made lively by old caricatures and prints, doubtless the handiwork of female hands long stilled. A sweet, not strong, odour of dried lavender escaped from a chest of drawers, polished as bright as the bedstead. The small lattice-paned window opened to the fresh air; the woodbine framing it all round from without; amongst the woodbine the low hum of bees. A room for early sleep and cheerful rising with the eastern sun, which the window faced.

Tracey came into my room while I was still looking out of the casement, gazing on the little gardenplot without, bright with stocks and pinks and heartsease, and said, “Well, you see £600 a-year can suffice to arrest a clever man’s ambition.”

“I suspect,” answered I, “that the ambition is not arrested but turned aside to the object of doubling the £600 a-year. Neither ambition nor the desire of gain is dead in that farmyard.”

“We shall cross-question our host after dinner,” answered Tracey; “meanwhile let me conduct you to the dining-room. A pretty place this, in its way, is it not?”

“Very,” said I, with enthusiasm. “Could you not live as happily here as in your own brilliant villa?”

“No, not quite, but still happily.”

“Why not quite?”

“First, because there is nothing within or without the house which one could attempt to improve, unless by destroying the whole character of what is so good in its way; secondly, where could I put my Claudes and Turners? where my statues? where, oh where, my books? where, in short, the furniture of Man’s mind?”

I made no answer, for the dinner-bell rang loud, and we went down at once into the dining-room—a quaint room, scarcely touched since the date of William III. A high and heavy dado of dark oak, the rest of the walls in Dutch stamped leather, still bright and fresh; a high mantelpiece, also of oak, with a very indifferent picture of still life let into the upper panel; arched recesses on either side, receptacles for china and tall drinking-glasses; heavy chairs, with crests inlaid on their ponderous backs, and faded needlework on their ample seats;—all, however, speaking of comfort and home, and solid though unassuming prosperity. Gray had changed his rude morning dress, and introduced me to his wife with an evident husbandlike pride. Mrs Gray was still very pretty; in her youth she must have been prettier even than Clara Thornhill, and though very plainly dressed, still it was the dress of a gentlewoman. There was intelligence, but soft timid intelligence, in her dark hazel eyes and broad candid forehead. I soon saw, however, that she was painfully shy, and not at all willing to take her share in the expense of conversation. But with Tracey she was more at her ease than with a stranger, and I thanked him inwardly for coming to my relief, as I was vainly endeavouring to extract from her lips more than a murmured monosyllable.

The dinner, however, passed off very pleasantly. Simple old English fare—plenty of it—excellent of its kind. Tracey was the chief talker, and made himself so entertaining, that at last even Mrs Gray’s shyness wore away, and I discovered that she had a well-informed graceful mind, constitutionally cheerful, as was evidenced by the blithe music of her low but happy laugh.

The dinner over, we adjourned, as Percival had proposed, to the summer-house. There we found the table spread with fruits and wine, of which last the port was superb; no better could be dragged from the bins of a college, or blush on the board of a prelate. Mrs Gray, however, deserted us, but we now and then caught sight of her in the garden without, playing gaily with her children—two fine little boys, and Lucy, who seemed to have her own way with them all, as she ought—the youngest child, the only girl—justifiably papa’s pet, for she was the one most like her mother.

“Gray,” said Tracey, “my friend and I have had some philosophical disputes, which we cannot decide to our own satisfaction, on the reasons why some men do so much more in life than other men, without having any apparent intellectual advantage over those who are contented to be obscure. We have both hit on a clue to the cause, in what we call motive power. But what this motive power really is, and why it should fail in some men and be so strong in others, is matter of perplexity, at least to me, and I fancy my friend himself is not much more enlightened therein than I am. So we have both come here to hear what you have to say—you, who certainly had motive enough for ambitious purposes when you swept away so many academical prizes—when you rushed into speech and into print, and cast your bold eye on St Stephen’s. And now, what has become of that motive power? Is it all put into prizes for root-crops and sheep?”

“As to myself,” answered Gray, passing the wine, “I can give very clear explanations. I am of a gentleman’s family, but the son of a very poor curate. Luckily for me, we lived close by an excellent grammar-school, at which I obtained a free admission. From the first day I entered, I knew that my poor father, bent on making me a scholar, counted on my exertions not only for my own livelihood, but for a provision for my mother should she survive him. Here was motive enough to supply motive power. I succeeded in competition with rivals at school, and success added to the strength of the motive power. Our county member, on whose estate I was born, took a kindly interest in me, and gave me leave, when I quitted school, as head boy, to come daily to his house and share the studies of his son, who was being prepared for the university by a private tutor, eminent as a scholar and admirable as a teacher. Thus I went up to college not only full of hope (in itself a motive power, though, of itself, an unsafe one), but of a hope so sustained that it became resolution, by the knowledge that to maintain me at the university my parents were almost literally starving themselves. This suffices to explain whatever energy and application I devoted to my academical career. At last I obtained my fellowship; the income of that I shared with my parents; but if I died before them the income would die also—a fresh motive power towards a struggle for fortune in the Great World. I took up politics, I confess it very frankly, as a profession rather than a creed; it was the shortest road to fame, and, with prudence, perhaps to pecuniary competence. If I succeeded in Parliament I might obtain a living for my father, or some public situation for myself not dependent on the fluctuations of party. A very high political ambition was denied me by the penury of circumstance. A man must have good means of his own who aspires to rank among party chiefs. I knew I was but a political adventurer, that I could only be so considered; and had it not been for my private motive power, I should have been ashamed of my public one. As it was, my scholarly pride was secretly chafed at the thought that I was carrying into the affairs of state the greed of trade. Suddenly, most unexpectedly, this estate was bequeathed to me. You large proprietors will smile when I say that we had always regarded the Grays of Oakden Hall with venerating pride; they were the head of our branch of the clan. My father had seen this place in his boyhood; the remembrance of it dwelt on his mind as the unequivocal witness of his dignity as a gentleman born. He came from the same stock as the Grays of Oakden, who had lived on the land for more than three centuries, entitled to call themselves squires. The relationship was very distant, still it existed. But a dream that so great a place as Oakden Hall, with its 1000 acres, should ever pass to his son—no, my father thought it much more likely that his son might be prime minister! John Gray of Oakden had never taken the least notice of us, except that, when I won the Pitt scholarship, he sent me a fine turkey, labelled ‘From John Gray, Esq. of Oakden.’ This present I acknowledged, but John Gray never answered my letter. Just at that time, however, as appears by the date, he re-made his will, and placed me as remainder-man in case of the deaths, without issue, of two nearer relations, both nephews. These young men died unmarried—the one of rheumatic fever, a few months before old Gray’s decease; the other, two weeks after it; poor fellow, he was thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. So, unexpectedly, I came into this property. Soon afterwards I married. The possession of land is a great tranquilliser to a restless spirit, and a happy marriage is as sedative as potent. Poverty is a spur to action. Great wealth, on the other hand, not unnaturally tends to the desire of display, and in free countries often to the rivalry for political power. The golden mean is proverbially the condition most favourable to content, and content is the antidote to ambition. Mine was the golden mean! Other influences of pride and affection contributed to keep me still. Of pride; for was I not really a greater man here, upon my ancestral acres and my few yearly hundreds, than as a political aspirant, who must commence his career by being a political dependant? How rich I felt here! how poor I should be in London! How inevitably, in the daily expenses of a metropolitan life, and in the costs of elections (should I rise beyond being a mere nominee), I must become needy and involved! So much for the influence of pride. Now for the influence of affection; my dear wife had never been out of these rural shades among which she was born. She is of a nature singularly timid, sensitive, and retiring. The idea of that society to which a political career would have led me terrified her. I loved her the better for desiring no companionship but mine. In fine, my desires halted at once on these turfs; the Attraction of the Earth, of which I had a share, prevailed; the motive power stopped here.”

“You have never regretted your choice?” said Tracey.

“Certainly not; I congratulate myself on it more and more every year. For, after all, here I have ample occupation and a creditable career. I have improved my fortune, instead of wasting it. I have a fixed, acknowledged, instead of an unsettled, equivocal position. I am an authority on many rural subjects of interest besides those of husbandry. I am an active magistrate; and, as I know a little of the law, I am the habitual arbiter upon all the disputes in the neighbourhood. I employ here with satisfaction, and not without some dignity, the energies which, in the great world, would have bought any reputation I might have gained at the price of habitual pain and frequent mortification.”

“Then,” said I, “you do not think that a saying of Dr Arnold’s, which I quoted to Tracey as no less applicable to men than to boys, is altogether a true one—viz., that the difference between boys, as regards the power of acquiring distinction, is not so much in talent as in energy; you retain the energies that once raised you to public distinction, but you no longer apply them to the same object.”

“I believe that Dr Arnold, if he be quoted correctly, spoke only half the truth. One difference between boy and boy or man and man, no doubt, is energy; but for great achievements or fame there must be also application—viz., every energy concentred on one definite point, and disciplined to strain towards it by patient habit. My energy, such as it is, would not have brought my sheep-walks into profitable cultivation if the energy had not been accompanied with devoted application to the business. And it is astonishing how, when the energy is constantly applied towards one settled aim—astonishing, I say—how invention is kindled out of it. Thus, in many a quiet solitary morning’s walk round my farm, some new idea, some hint of improvement or contrivance, occurs to me; this I ponder and meditate upon till it takes the shape of experiment. I presume that it is so with poet, artist, orator, or statesman. His mind is habituated to apply itself to definite subjects of observation and reflection, and out of this habitual musing thereon, involuntarily spring the happy originalities of thinking which are called his ‘inspirations.’”

“One word more,” said I. “Do you consider, then, that which makes a man devote himself to fame or ambition is a motive power of which he himself is conscious?”

“No; not always. I imagine that most men entering on some career are originally impelled towards it by a motive which, at the time, they seldom take the trouble to analyse or even to detect. They would at once see what that motive was if early in the career it was withdrawn. In a majority of cases it is the res angusta, yet not poverty in itself, but a poverty disproportioned to the birth, or station, or tastes, or intellectual culture of the aspirant. Thus, the peasant or operative rarely feels in his poverty a motive power towards distinction out of his craft; but the younger son of a gentleman does feel that motive power. And hence a very large proportion of those who in various ways have gained fame, have been the cadets of a gentleman’s family, or the sons of poor clergymen, sometimes of farmers and tradesmen, who have given them an education beyond the average of their class. Other motive powers towards fame have been sometimes in ambition, sometimes in love; sometimes in a great sorrow, from which a strong mind sought to wrest itself; sometimes even in things that would appear frivolous to a philosopher. I knew a young man, of no great talents, but of keen vanity and great resolution and force of character, who, as a child, had been impressed with envy of the red ribbon which his uncle wore as Knight of the Bath. From his infancy he determined some day or other to win a red ribbon for himself. He did so at last, and in trying to do so became famous.

“In great commercial communities a distinction is given to successful trade, so that the motive power of youthful talent nourished in such societies is mostly concentred on gain, not through avarice, but through the love of approbation or esteem. Thus, it is noticeable that our great manufacturing towns, where energy and application abound, have not contributed their proportionate quota of men distinguished in arts or sciences (except the mechanical), or polite letters, or the learned professions. In rural districts, on the contrary, the desire of gain is not associated with the desire of honour and distinction, and therefore, in them, the youth early coveting fame strives for it in other channels than those of gain. But whatever the original motive power, if it has led to a continuous habit of the mind, and is not withdrawn before that habit becomes a second nature, the habit will continue after the motive power has either wholly ceased or become very faint, as the famous scribbling Spanish cardinal is said, in popular legends, to have continued to write on after he himself was dead. Thus, a man who has acquired the obstinate habit of labouring for the public originally from an enthusiastic estimate of the value of public applause, may, later, conceive a great contempt for the public, and, in sincere cynicism, become wholly indifferent to its praise or its censure, and yet, like Swift, go on as long as the brain can retain faithful impressions and perform its normal functions, writing for the public he so disdains. Thus many a statesman, wearied and worn, satisfied of the hollowness of political ambition, and no longer enjoying its rewards, sighing for retirement and repose, nevertheless continues to wear his harness. Habit has tyrannised over all his actions; break the habit, and the thread of his life snaps with it!

“Lastly, however, I am by no means sure that there is not in some few natures an inborn irresistible activity, a constitutional attraction between the one mind and the human species, which requires no special, separate motive power from without to set it into those movements which, perforce, lead to fame. I mean those men to whom we at once accord the faculty which escapes all satisfactory metaphysical definition—Ingenium;—viz., the inborn spirit which we call genius.

“And in these natures, whatever the motive power that in the first instance urged them on, if at any stage, however early, that motive power be withdrawn, some other one will speedily replace it. Through them Providence mysteriously acts on the whole world, and their genius while on earth is one of Its most visible ministrants. But genius is the exceptional phenomenon in human nature; and in examining the ordinary laws that influence human minds we have no measurement and no scales for portents.”

“There is, however,” said Tracey, “one motive power towards careers of public utility which you have not mentioned, but the thought of which often haunts me in rebuke of my own inertness,—I mean, quite apart from any object of vanity or ambition, the sense of our own duty to mankind; and hence the devotion to public uses of whatever talents have been given to us—not to hide under a bushel.”

“I do not think,” answered Gray, “that when a man feels he is doing good in his own way he need reproach himself that he is not doing good in some other way to which he is not urged by special duty, and from which he is repelled by constitutional temperament. I do not, for instance, see that because you have a very large fortune you are morally obliged to keep correspondent establishments, and adopt a mode of life hostile to your tastes; you sufficiently discharge the duties of wealth if the fair proportion of your income go to objects of well-considered benevolence and purposes not unproductive to the community. Nor can I think that I, who possess but a very moderate fortune, am morally called upon to strive for its increase in the many good speculations which life in a capital may offer to an eager mind, provided always that I do nevertheless remember that I have children, to whose future provision and wellbeing some modest augmentations of my fortune would be desirable. In improving my land for their benefit, I may say also that I add, however trivially, to the wealth of the country. Let me hope that the trite saying is true, that ‘he who makes two blades of corn grow where one grew before,’ is a benefactor to his race. So with mental wealth: surely it is permitted to us to invest and expend it within that sphere most suited to those idiosyncrasies, the adherence to which constitutes our moral health. I do not, with the philosopher, condemn the man who, irresistibly impelled towards the pursuit of honours and power, persuades himself that he is toiling for the public good when he is but gratifying his personal ambition;—probably he is a better man thus acting in conformity with his own nature, than he would be if placed beyond all temptation in Plato’s cave. Nor, on the other hand, can I think that a man of the highest faculties and the largest attainments, who has arrived at a sincere disdain of power or honours, would be a better man if he were tyrannically forced to pursue the objects from which his temperament recoils, upon the plea that he was thus promoting the public welfare. No doubt, in every city, town, street, and lane, there are bustling, officious, restless persons, who thrust themselves into public concerns, with a loud declaration that they are animated only by the desire of public good; they mistake their fidgetiness for philanthropy. Not a bubble company can be started, but what it is with a programme that its direct object is the public benefit, and the ten per cent promised to the shareholders is but a secondary consideration. Who believes in the sincerity of that announcement? In fine, according both to religion and to philosophy, virtue is the highest end of man’s endeavour; but virtue is wholly independent of the popular shout or the lictor’s fasces. Virtue is the same, whether with or without the laurel crown or the curule chair. Honours do not sully it, but obscurity does not degrade. He who is truthful, just, merciful, and kindly, does his duty to his race, and fulfils his great end in creation, no matter whether the rays of his life are not visibly beheld beyond the walls of his household, or whether they strike the ends of the earth; for every human soul is a world complete and integral, storing its own ultimate uses and destinies within itself; viewed only for a brief while, in its rising on the gaze of earth; pressing onward in its orbit amidst the infinite, when, snatched from our eyes, we say, ‘It has passed away!’ And as every star, however small it seem to us from the distance at which it shines, contributes to the health of our atmosphere, so every soul, pure and bright in itself, however far from our dwelling, however unremarked by our vision, contributes to the wellbeing of the social system in which it moves, and, in its privacy, is part and parcel of the public weal.”

Shading my face with my hand, I remained some moments musing after Gray’s voice had ceased. Then looking up, I saw so pleased and grateful a smile upon Percival Tracey’s countenance, that I checked the reply by which I had intended to submit a view of the subject in discussion somewhat different from that which Gray had taken from the Portico of the Stoics. Why should I attempt to mar whatever satisfaction Percival’s reason or conscience had found in our host’s argument? His tree of life was too firmly set for the bias of its stem to swerve in any new direction towards light and air. Let it continue to rejoice in such light and such air as was vouchsafed to the site on which it had taken root. Evening, too, now drew in, and we had a long ride before us. A little while after, we had bid adieu to Oakden Hall, and were once more threading our way through the green and solitary lanes.

We conversed but little for the first five or six miles. I was revolving what I had heard, and considering how each man’s reasoning moulds itself into excuse or applause for the course of life which he adopts. Percival’s mind was employed in other thoughts, as became clear when he thus spoke:—

“Do you think, my dear friend, that you could spare me a week or two longer? It would be a charity to me if you could, for I expect, after to-morrow, to lose my young artist, and, alas! also the Thornhills.”

“How! The Thornhills? So soon!”

“I count on receiving to-morrow the formal announcement of Henry’s promotion and exchange into the regiment he so desires to enter, with the orders to join it abroad at once. Clara, I know, will not stay here; she will be with her husband till he sails, and after his departure will take her abode with his widowed mother. I shall miss them much. But Thornhill feels that he is wasting his life here; and so—well—I have acted for the best. With respect to the artist, this morning I received a letter from my old friend Lord ——. He is going into Italy next week; he wishes for some views of Italian scenery for a villa he has lately bought, and will take Bourke with him, on my recommendation, leaving him ultimately at Rome. Lord ——‘s friendship and countenance will be of immense advantage to the young painter, and obtain him many orders. I have to break it to Bourke this evening, and he will, no doubt, quit me to-morrow to take leave of his family. For myself, as I always feel somewhat melancholy in remaining on the same spot after friends depart from it, I propose going to Bellevue, where I have a small yacht. It is glorious weather for sea excursions. Come with me, my dear friend! The fresh breezes will do you good; and we shall have leisure for talk on all the subjects which both of us love to explore and guess at.”

No proposition could be more alluring to me. My recent intercourse with Tracey had renewed all the affection and interest with which he had inspired my youth. My health and spirits had been already sensibly improved by my brief holiday, and an excursion at sea had been the special advice of my medical attendant. I hesitated a moment. Nothing called me back to London except public business, and, in that, I foresaw but the bare chance of a motion in Parliament which stood on the papers for the next day; but my letters had assured me that this motion was generally expected to be withdrawn or postponed.

So I accepted the invitation gladly, provided nothing unforeseen should interfere with it.

Pleased by my cordial assent, Tracey’s talk now flowed forth with genial animation. He described his villa overhanging the sea, with its covered walks to the solitary beach—the many objects of interest and landscapes of picturesque beauty within reach of easy rides, on days in which the yacht might not tempt us. I listened with the delight of a schoolboy, to whom some good-natured kinsman paints the luxuries of a home at which he invites the schoolboy to spend the vacation.

By little and little our conversation glided back to our young past, and thence to those dreams, nourished ever by the young;—love and romance, and home brightened by warmer beams than glow in the smile of sober friendship. How the talk took this direction I know not; perhaps by unconscious association, as the moon rose above the forest-hills, with the love-star by her side. And, thus conversing, Tracey for the first time alluded to that single passion which had vexed the smooth river of his life—and which, thanks to Lady Gertrude, was already, though vaguely, known to me.

“It was,” said he, “just such a summer night as this, and, though in a foreign country, amidst scenes of which these woodland hills remind me, that the world seemed to me to have changed into a Fairyland; and, looking into my heart, I said to myself, ‘This, then, is—love.’ And a little while after, on such a night, and under such a moon, and amidst such hills and groves, the world seemed blighted into a desert—life to be evermore without hope or object; and, looking again into my heart, I said, ‘This, then, is love denied!’”

“Alas!” answered I, “there are few men in whose lives there is not some secret memoir of an affection thwarted; but rarely indeed does an affection thwarted leave a permanent influence on the after-destinies of a man’s life. On that question I meditate an essay, which, if ever printed, I will send to you.”

I said this, wishing to draw him on, and expecting him to contradict my assertion as to the enduring influence of a disappointed love. He mused a moment or so in silence, and then said, “Well, perhaps so; an unhappy love may not permanently affect our after-destinies, still it colours our after-thoughts. It is strange that I should have only seen, throughout my long and various existence, one woman whom I could have wooed as my wife—one woman in whose presence I felt as if I were born for her and she for me.”

“May I ask you what was her peculiar charm in your eyes; or, if you permit me to ask, can you explain it?”

“No doubt,” answered Tracey, “much must be ascribed to the character of her beauty, which realised the type I had formed to myself from boyhood of womanly loveliness in form and face, and much also to a mind with which a man, however cultivated, could hold equal commune. But to me her predominating attraction was in a simple, unassuming nobleness of sentiment—a truthful, loyal, devoted, self-sacrificing nature. In her society I felt myself purified, exalted, as if in the presence of an angel. But enough of this. I am resigned to my loss, and have long since hung my votive tablet in the shrine of ‘Time the Consoler.’”

“Forgive me if I am intrusive; but did she know that you loved her?”

“I cannot say; probably most women discover if they are loved; but I rejoice to think that I never told her so.”

“Would she have rejected you if you had?”

“Yes, unhesitatingly; her word was plighted to another. And though she would not, for the man to whom she had betrothed herself, have left her father alone in poverty and exile, she would never have married any one else.”

“You believe, then, that she loved your rival with a heart that could not change?”

Tracey did not immediately reply. At last he said, “I believe this—that when scarcely out of girlhood, she considered herself engaged to be one man’s wife, or for ever single. And if, in the course of time, and in length of absence, she could have detected in her heart the growth of a single thought unfaithful to her troth, she would have plucked it forth and cast it from her as firmly as if already a wedded wife, with her husband’s honour in her charge. She was one of those women with whom man’s trust is for ever safe, and to whom a love at variance with plighted troth is an impossibility. So, she lives in my thoughts still, as I saw her last, five-and-twenty years ago, unalterable in her youth and beauty. And I have been as true to her hallowed remembrance as she was true to her maiden vows. May I never see her again on earth! Her or her likeness I may find amidst the stars.” “No,” he added, in a lighter and cheerier tone—“No; I do not think that my actual destinies, my ways of life here below, have been affected by her loss. Had I won her, I can scarcely conceive that I should have become more tempted to ambition or less enamoured of home. Still, whatever leaves so deep a furrow in a man’s heart cannot be meant in vain. Where the ploughshare cuts, there the seed is sown, and there later the corn will spring. In a word, I believe that everything of moment which befalls us in this life—which occasions us some great sorrow—for which, in this life, we see not the uses—has, nevertheless, its definite object, and that that object will be visible on the other side of the grave. It may seem but a barren grief in the history of a life—it may prove a fruitful joy in the history of a soul. For if nothing in this world is accident, surely all that which affects the only creature upon earth to whom immortality is announced, must have a distinct and definite purpose, often not developed till immortality begins.”

Here we had entered on the wide spaces of the park. The deer and the kine were asleep on the silvered grass, or under the shade of the quiet trees. Now, as we cleared a beech-grove, we saw the lights gleaming from the windows of the house, and the moon, at her full, resting still over the peaceful housetop! Truly had Percival said, “That there are trains of thought set in motion by the stars which are dormant in the glare of the sun”—truly had he said, too, “That without such thoughts man’s thinking is incomplete.”

We gained the house, and, entering the library, it was pleasant to see how instinctively all rose to gather round the master. They had missed Percival’s bright presence the whole day.

Some little time afterwards, when, seated next to Lady Gertrude, I was talking to her of the Grays, I observed Tracey take aside the Painter, and retire with him into the adjoining colonnade. They were not long absent. When they returned, Bourke’s face, usually serious, was joyous and elated. In a few moments, with all his Irish warmth of heart, he burst forth with the announcement of the new obligations he owed to Sir Percival Tracey. “I have always said,” exclaimed he, “that, give me an opening and I will find or make my way. I have the opening now; you shall see!” We all poured our congratulations upon the young enthusiast, except Henry Thornhill, and his brow was shaded and his lip quivered. Clara, watching him, curbed her own friendly words to the artist, and, drawing to her husband’s side, placed her hand tenderly on his shoulder. “Pish! do leave me alone,” muttered the ungracious churl.

“See,” whispered Percival to me, “what a brute that fine young fellow would become if we insisted on making him happy our own way, and saving him from the chance of being shot!”

Therewith rising, he gently led away Clara, to whose soft eyes tears had rushed; and looking back to Henry, whose head was bended over a volume of ‘The Wellington Despatches,’ said in his ear, half-fondly, half-reproachfully, “Poor young fool! how bitterly you will repent every word, every look of unkindness to her, when—when she is no more at your side to pardon you!”

That night it was long before I slept. I pleased myself with what is now grown to me a rare amusement—viz., the laying out plans for the morrow. This holiday, with Tracey all to myself; this summer sail on the seas; this interval of golden idlesse, refined by intercourse with so serene an intelligence, and on subjects so little broached in the world of cities, fascinated my imagination; and I revolved a hundred questions it would be delightful to raise, a hundred problems it would be impossible to solve. Though my life has been a busy one, I believe that constitutionally I am one of the most indolent men alive. To lie on the grass in summer noons under breathless trees, to glide over smooth waters, and watch the still shadows on tranquil shores, is happiness to me. I need then no books—then, no companion. But if to that happiness in the mere luxury of repose, I may add another happiness of a higher nature, it is in converse with some one friend, upon subjects remote from the practical work-day world,—subjects akin less to our active thoughts than to our dreamlike reveries,—subjects conjectural, speculative, fantastic, embracing not positive opinions—for opinions are things combative and disputatious—but rather those queries and guesses which start up from the farthest border-land of our reason, and lose themselves in air as we attempt to chase and seize them.

And perhaps this sort of talk, which leads to no conclusions clear enough for the uses of wisdom, is the more alluring to me, because it is very seldom to be indulged. I carefully separate from the business of life all which belong to the visionary realm of speculative conjecture. From the world of action I hold it imperatively safe to banish the ideas which exhibit the cloud-land of metaphysical doubts and mystical beliefs. In the actual world let me see by the same broad sun that gives light to all men; it is only in the world of reverie that I amuse myself with the sport of the dark lantern, letting its ray shoot before me into the gloom, and caring not if, in its illusive light, the thorn-tree in my path take the aspect of a ghost. I shall notice the thorn-tree all the better, distinguish more clearly its shape, when I pass by it the next day under the sun, for the impression it made on my fancy seen first by the gleam of the dark lantern. Now, Tracey is one of the very few highly-educated men it has been my lot to know, with whom one can safely mount in rudderless balloons, drifting wind-tossed after those ideas which are the phantoms of Reverie, and wander, ghost-like, out of castles in the air. And my mind found a playfellow in his, where, in other men’s minds, as richly cultured, it found only companions or competitors in task-work.

Towards dawn, I fell asleep, and dreamt that I was a child once more, gathering bluebells and chasing dragonflies amidst murmuring water-reeds. The next day I came down late; all had done breakfast. The Painter was already gone; the Librarian had retired into his den. Henry Thornhill was walking by himself to and fro, in front of the window, with folded arms and downcast brow. Percival was seated apart, writing letters. Clara was at work, stealing every now and then a mournful glance towards Henry. Lady Gertrude, punctiliously keeping her place by the tea-urn, filled my cup, and pointed to a heap of letters formidably ranged before my plate. I glanced anxiously and rapidly over these unwelcomed epistles. Thank heaven, nothing to take me back to London! My political correspondent informed me, by a hasty line, that the dreaded motion which stood first on the parliamentary paper for that day would in all probability be postponed, agreeably to the request of the Government. The mover of it had not, however, given a positive answer; no doubt he would do so in the course of the night (last night); and there was little doubt that, as a professed supporter of the Government, he would yield to the request that had been made to him.

So, after I had finished my abstemious breakfast, I took Percival aside and told him that I considered myself free to prolong my stay, and asked him, in a whisper, if he had yet received the official letter he expected, announcing young Thornhill’s exchange and promotion.

“Yes,” said he, “and I only waited for you to announce its contents to poor Henry; for I wish you to tell me whether you think the news will make him as happy as yesterday he thought it would.”

Tracey and I then went out, and joined Henry in his walk. The young man turned round on us an impatient countenance.

“So we have lost Bourke,” said Tracey. “I hope he will return to England with the reputation he goes forth to seek.”

“Ay,” said Henry, “Bourke is a lucky dog to have found, in one who is not related to him, so warm and so true a friend.”

“Every dog, lucky or unlucky, has his day,” said Percival, gravely.

“Every dog except a house-dog,” returned Henry. “A house-dog is thought only fit for a chain and a kennel.”

“Ah, happy if his happiness he knew!” replied Tracey. “But I own that liberty compensates for the loss of a warm litter and a good dinner. Away from the kennel and off with the chain! Read this letter, and accept my congratulations—Major Thornhill!”

The young man started; the colour rushed to his cheeks; he glanced hastily over the letter held out to him; dropped it; caught his kinsman’s hand, and pressing it to his heart, exclaimed, “Oh, sir, thanks, thanks! So then, all the while I was accusing you of obstructing my career you were quietly promoting it! How can you forgive me my petulance, my ingratitude?”

“Tut,” said Percival, kindly, “the best-tempered man is sometimes cross in his cups; and nothing, perhaps, more irritates a young brain than to get drunk on the love of glory.”

At the word glory the soldier’s crest rose, his eye flashed fire, his whole aspect changed, it became lofty and noble. Suddenly his eye caught sight of Clara, who had stepped out of the window, and stood gazing on him. His head drooped, tears rushed to his eyes, and with a quivering, broken voice, he muttered, “Poor Clara—my wife, my darling! Oh, Sir Percival, truly you said how bitterly I should repent every unkind word and look. Ah, they will haunt me!”

“Put aside regrets now. Go and break the news to your wife: support, comfort her; you alone can. I have not dared to tell her.”

Henry sighed and went, no longer joyous, but with slow step and paling cheek, to the place where Clara stood. We saw him bend over the hand she held out to him, kiss it humbly, and then passing his arm round her waist, he drew her away into the farther recesses of the garden, and both disappeared from our eyes.

“No,” said I, “he is not happy; like us all, he finds that things coveted have no longer the same charm when they are things possessed. Clara is avenged already. But you have done wisely. Let him succeed or let him fail, you have removed from Clara her only rival. If you had debarred him from honour you would have estranged him from love. Now you have bound him to Clara for life. She has ceased to be an obstacle to his dreams, and henceforth she herself will be the dream which his waking life will sigh to regain.”

“Heaven grant he may come back, with both his legs and both his arms; and, perhaps, with a bit of ribbon, or five shillings’ worth of silver on his breast,” said Percival, trying hard to be lively. “Of all my kinsmen, I think I like him the best. He is rough as the east wind, but honest as the day. Heigho! they will both leave us in an hour or two. Clara’s voice is so sweet; I wonder when she will sing again! What a blank the place will seem without those two young faces! As soon as they are gone, we two will be off. Aunt Gertrude does not like Bellevue, and will pay a visit for a few days to a cousin of hers on the other side of the county. I must send on before to let the housekeeper at Bellevue prepare for our coming. Meanwhile, pardon me if I leave you—perhaps you have letters to write; if so, despatch them.”

I was in no humour for writing letters, but when Percival left me I strolled from the house into the garden, and, reclining there on a bench opposite one of the fountains, enjoyed the calm beauty of the summer morning. Time slipped by. Every now and then I caught sight of Henry and Clara among the lilacs in one of the distant walks, his arm still round her waist, her head leaning on his shoulder. At length they went into the house, doubtless to prepare for their departure.

I thought of the wild folly with which youth casts away the substance of happiness to seize at the shadow which breaks on the wave that mirrors it; wiser and happier surely the tranquil choice of Gray, though with gifts and faculties far beyond those of the young man who mistook the desire of fame for the power to win it. And then my thoughts settling back on myself, I became conscious of a certain melancholy. How poor and niggard compared with my early hopes had been my ultimate results! How questioned, grudged, and litigated, my right of title to every inch of ground that my thought had discovered or my toils had cultivated! What motive power in me had, from boyhood to the verge of age, urged me on “to scorn delight and love laborious days?” Whatever the motive power once had been, I could no longer trace it. If vanity—of which, doubtless, in youth I had my human share—I had long since grown rather too callous than too sensitive to that love of approbation in which vanity consists. I was stung by no penury of fortune, influenced by no feverish thirst for a name that should outlive my grave, fooled by no hope of the rewards which goad on ambition. I had reached the age when Hope weighs her anchor and steers forth so far that her amplest sail seems but a silvery speck on the last line of the horizon. Certainly I flattered myself that my purposes linked my toils to some slight service to mankind; that in graver efforts I was asserting opinions in the value of which to human interests I sincerely believed, and in lighter aims venting thoughts and releasing fancies which might add to the culture of the world—not, indeed, fruitful harvests, but at least some lowly flowers. But though such intent might be within my mind, could I tell how far I unconsciously exaggerated its earnestness—still less could I tell how far the intent was dignified by success? “Have I done aught for which mankind would be the worse were it swept into nothingness to-morrow?”—is a question which many a grand and fertile genius may, in its true humility, address mournfully to itself. It is but a negative praise, though it has been recorded as a high one, to leave

“No line which, dying, we would wish to blot.”

If that be all, as well leave no line at all. He has written in vain who does not bequeath lines that, if blotted, would be a loss to that treasure-house of mind which is the everlasting possession of the world. Who, yet living, can even presume to guess if he shall do this? Not till at least a century after his brain and his hand are dust can even critics begin to form a rational conjecture of an author’s or a statesman’s uses to his kind. Was it, then, as Gray had implied, merely the force of habit which kept me in movement? if so, was it a habit worth all the sacrifice it cost? Thus meditating, I forgot that if all men reasoned thus and acted according to such reasoning, the earth would have no intermediate human dwellers between the hewers and diggers, and the idlers, born to consume the fruits which they do not plant. Farewell, then, to all the embellishments and splendours by which civilised man breathes his mind and his soul into nature. For it is not only the genius of rarest intellects which adorns and aggrandises social states, but the aspirations and the efforts of thousands and millions, all towards the advance and uplifting and beautifying of the integral, universal state, by the energies native to each. Where would be the world fit for Traceys and Grays to dwell in, if all men philosophised like the Traceys and the Grays? Where all the gracious arts, all the generous rivalries of mind, that deck and animate the bright calm of peace? Where all the devotion, heroism, self-sacrifice in a common cause, that exalt humanity even amidst the rage and deformities of war, if, throughout well-ordered, close-welded states, there ran not electrically, from breast to breast, that love of honour which is a part of man’s sense of beauty, or that instinct towards utility which, even more than the genius too exceptional to be classed amongst the normal regulations of social law, creates the marvels of mortal progress? Not, however, I say, did I then address to myself these healthful and manly questions. I felt only that I repined, and looked with mournful and wearied eyes along an agitated, painful, laborious past. Rousing myself with an effort from these embittered contemplations, the charm of the external nature insensibly refreshed and gladdened me. I inhaled the balm of an air sweet with flowers, felt the joy of the summer sun, from which all life around seemed drawing visible happiness, and said to myself gaily, “At least to-day is mine—this blissful sunlit day—

‘Nimium breves
Flores amænæ ferre jube rosæ,
Dum res et ætas et sororum,
Fila trium patiuntur atra!’”

So murmuring, I rose as from a dream, and saw before me a strange figure—a figure, uncouth, sinister, ominous as the evil genius that startled Brutus on the eve of Philippi. I knew by an unmistakable instinct that that figure was an evil genius.

“Do you want me? Who and what are you?” I asked, falteringly.

“Please your honour, I come express from the N—— Station. A telegram.”

I opened the scrap of paper extended to me, and read these words,—

“O—— positively brings on his motion. Announced it last night too late for post. Division certain—probably before dinner. Every vote wanted. Come directly.”

Said the Express with a cruel glee, as I dropped the paper, “Sir, the station-master also received a telegram to send over a fly. I have brought one; only just in time to catch the half-past twelve o’clock; no other train till six. You had best be quick, sir.”

No help for it. I hurried back to the house, bade my servant follow by the next train with my portmanteau—no moments left to wait for packing; found Tracey in his quiet study—put the telegram into his hands. “You see my excuse—adieu.”

“Does this motion, then, interest you so much? Do you mean to speak on it?”

“No, but it must not be carried. Every vote against it is of consequence. Besides, I have promised to vote, and cannot stay away with honour.”

“Honour! That settles it. I must go to Bellevue alone; or shall I take Caleb and make him teach me Hebrew? But surely you will join me to-morrow, or the next day?”

“Yes, if I can. But heavens!” (glancing at the clock)—“not half an hour to reach the station—six miles off. Kindest regards to Lady Gertrude—poor Clara—Henry—and all. Heaven bless you!”

I am in the fly—I am off. I gain the station just in time for the train—arrive at the House of Commons in more than time as to a vote, for the debate not only lasted all that night, but was adjourned till the next week, and lasted the greater part of that, when it was withdrawn, and—no vote at all!

But I could not then return to Tracey. Every man accustomed to business in London knows how, once there, hour after hour, arises a something that will not allow him to depart. When at length freed, I knew Tracey would no longer need my companionship—his Swedish philosopher was then with him. They were deep in scientific mysteries, on which, as I could throw no light, I should be but a profane intruder. Besides, I was then summoned to my own country place, and had there to receive my own guests, long pre-engaged. So passed the rest of the summer; in the autumn I went abroad, and have never visited the Castle of Indolence since those golden days. In truth I resisted a frequent and a haunting desire to do so. I felt that a second and a longer sojourn in that serene but relaxing atmosphere might unnerve me for the work which I had imposed on myself, and sought to persuade my tempted conscience was an inexorable duty. Experience had taught me that in the sight of that intellectual repose, so calm and so dreamily happy, my mind became unsettled, and nourished seeds that might ripen to discontent of the lot I had chosen for myself. So then, sicut meus est mos, I seize a consolation for the loss of enjoyments that I may not act anew by living them over again, in fancy and remembrance: I give to my record the title of “Motive Power,” though it contains much episodical to that thesis, and though it rather sports around the subject so indicated than subjects it to strict analysis. But I here take for myself the excuse I have elsewhere made for Montaigne, in his loose observance of the connection between the matter and the titles of his essays.

I must leave it to the reader to blame or acquit me for having admitted so many lengthy descriptions, so many digressive turns and shifts of thought and sentiment, through which, as through a labyrinth, he winds his way, with steps often checked and often retrogressive, still, sooner or later, creeping on to the heart of the maze. There I leave him to find the way out. Labyrinths have no interest if we give the clue to them.

MRS CLIFFORD’S MARRIAGE.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.—THE LADIES’ OPINION.

“You don’t mean to say she’s going to be married—not Mary? I don’t believe a word of it. She was too fond of her poor husband who put such trust in her. No, no, child—don’t tell such nonsense to me.”

So said old Miss Harwood when the dreadful intelligence was first communicated to her. The two old sisters, who were both charitable old souls, and liked to think the best of everybody, were equally distressed about this piece of village scandal. “I don’t say anything about her poor husband—he was a fool to trust so much to a woman of her age,” said Miss Amelia; “but in my opinion Mary Clifford has sense to know when she’s well off.” The very idea made the sisters angry: a woman with five thousand a-year, with five fine children, with the handsomest house and most perfect little establishment within twenty miles of Summerhayes; a widow, with nobody to cross or contradict her, with her own way and will to her heart’s content—young enough to be still admired and paid attention to, and old enough to indulge in those female pleasures without any harm coming of it; to think of a woman in such exceptionally blessed circumstances stooping her head under the yoke, and yielding a second time to the subjection of marriage, was more than either of the Miss Harwoods could believe.

“But I believe it’s quite true—indeed, I know it’s quite true,” said the curate’s little wife. “Mr Spencer heard it first from the Miss Summerhayes, who did not know what to think—their own brother, you know; and yet they couldn’t forget that poor dear Mr Clifford was their cousin; and then they are neither of them married themselves, poor dears, which makes them harder upon her.”

“We have never been married,” said Miss Amelia; “I don’t see what difference that makes. It is amusing to see the airs you little creatures give yourselves on the strength of being married. I suppose you think it’s all right—it’s a compliment to her first husband, eh? and shows she was happy with him?—that’s what the men say when they take a second wife; that’s how you would do I suppose, if——”

“Oh, Miss Amelia, don’t be so cruel,” cried the little wife. “I should die. Do you think I could ever endure to live without Julius? I don’t understand what people’s hearts are made of that can do such things: but then,” added the little woman, wiping her bright eyes, “Mr Clifford was not like my husband. He was very good, I daresay, and all that—but he wasn’t ——. Well, I don’t think he was a taking man. He used to sit such a long time after dinner. He used to——it’s very wicked to be unkind to the dead—but he wasn’t the sort of man a woman could break her heart for, you know.”

“I should like to know who is,” said Miss Amelia. “He left her everything, without making provision for one of the children. He gave her the entire power, like a fool, at her age. He did not deserve anything better; but it appears to me that Mary Clifford has the sense to know when she’s well off.”

“Well, well!” said old Miss Harwood, “I couldn’t have believed it, but now as you go on discussing, I daresay it’ll turn out true. When a thing comes so far as to be discussed, it’s going to happen. I’ve always found it so. Well, well! love has gone out of fashion nowadays. When I was a girl things were different. We did not talk about it half so much, nor read novels. But we had the right feelings. I daresay she will just be as affectionate to Tom Summerhayes as she was to her poor dear husband. Oh, my dear, it’s very sad—I think it’s very sad—five fine children, and she can’t be content with that. It’ll turn out badly, dear, and that you’ll see.”

“He’ll swindle her out of all her money,” said Miss Amelia.

“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things,” cried the curate’s little wife, getting up hastily. “I am sure I hope they’ll be happy—that is, as happy as they can be,” she added, with a touch of candid disapproval. “I must run away to baby now; the poor dear children!—I must say I am sorry for them—to have another man brought in in their poor papa’s place; but oh, I must run away, else I shall be saying cruel things too.”

The two Miss Harwoods discussed this interesting subject largely after Mrs Spencer had gone. The Summerhayes people had been, on the whole, wonderfully merciful to Mrs Clifford during her five years’ solitary reign at Fontanel. She had been an affectionate wife—she was a good mother—she had worn the weeds of her widowhood seriously, and had not plunged into any indiscreet gaieties when she took them off; while, at the same time, she had emerged sufficiently from her seclusion to restore Fontanel to its old position as one of the pleasantest houses in the county. What could woman do more? Tom Summerhayes was her husband’s cousin; he had been brought up to the law, and naturally understood affairs in general better than she did. Everybody knew that he was an idle fellow. After old Mr Summerhayes died, everybody quite expected that Tom would settle down in the old manor, and live an agreeable useless life, instead of toiling himself to death in hopes of one day being Lord Chancellor—a very unlikely chance at the best; and events came about exactly as everybody had predicted. At the same time, the entire neighbourhood allowed that Tom had exerted himself quite beyond all precedent on behalf of his cousin’s widow. Poor Mary Clifford had a great deal too much on her hands, he was always saying. It was a selfish sort of kindness to crush down a poor little woman under all that weight of wealth and responsibility; and so, at last, here was what had come of it. The Miss Harwoods sat and talked it all over that cold day in the drawing-room of Woodbine Cottage, which had one window looking to the village-green, and another, a large, round, bright bow-window, opening to the garden. The fire was more agreeable than the garden that day. Miss Harwood sat knitting in her easy-chair, while Miss Amelia occupied herself in ticketing all that miscellaneous basket of articles destined for the bazaar of ladies’ work to be held in Summerhayes in February; but work advanced slowly under the influence of such an inducement to talk. The old ladies, as may be supposed, came to a sudden pause and looked confused and guilty when the door opened and the Miss Summerhayes were announced. Perhaps the new visitors might even have heard something of the conversation which was going on with so much animation. Certainly it came to a most abrupt conclusion, and the Miss Harwoods looked consciously into each other’s faces when the ladies of the manor-house came to the door.

These ladies were no longer young, but they were far from having reached the venerable certainty of old-maidenhood which possessed the atmosphere of Woodbine Cottage. They were still in the fidgety unsettled stage of unweddedness—women who had fallen out of their occupation, and were subject to little tempers and vapours, not from real ill-humour or sourness, but simply by reason of the vacancy and unsatisfaction of their lives. The Miss Summerhayes often enough did not know what to do with themselves; and being unphilosophical, as women naturally are, they set down this restless condition of mind, not to the account of human nature generally, and of female impatience in particular, but to their own single and unwedded condition—a matter which still seemed capable of remedy; so that the fact must be admitted, that Miss Laura and Miss Lydia were sometimes a little flighty and uncertain in their temper; sometimes a little harsh in their judgments; and, in short, in most matters, betrayed a certain unsettledness and impatience in their minds, as people generally do, in every condition of existence, when they are discontented with their lot. The chances are that nothing would have pleased them better than to have plunged into an immediate discussion of all the circumstances of this strange piece of news with which Summerhayes was ringing; but the position was complicated by the fact that they were accompanied by little Louisa Clifford, who was old enough to understand all that was said, and quick enough to guess at any allusion which might be made to her mother, however skilfully veiled; so that, on the whole, the situation was as difficult a one for the four ladies, burning to speak but yet incapable of utterance, as can well be conceived.

“Oh, how far on you are,” cried Miss Laura; “I have not got in half the work that has been promised to me; but you always are first with everything—first in gardening, first in working, first in——”

“All the news, I am sure,” said Miss Lydia; “we, of course, never hear anything till it has happened. Provoking! Loo, shouldn’t you like to go to Miss Harwood’s maid, and ask her to show you the chickens? She has a perfect genius for poultry, though she is such a little thing; and Miss Amelia has such loves of dorkings. We shan’t be leaving for half an hour; now go, there’s a dear!”

“Thank you, cousin Lydia, I’d rather look at the things for the bazaar,” returned Loo, lifting a pair of acute suspicious eyes; a pale-faced little creature, sharp-witted and vigilant, instinctively conscious why her amusement was thus carefully provided for—Loo did not choose to go.

“Such a nuisance!” said Miss Laura; “I say we are just far enough off at the manor to be out of reach of everything except the bores and the troubles. You always think of us when you have stupid visitors, but you keep all that’s exciting to yourselves. Loo, darling! the Miss Harwoods’ violets are always out earlier than any one else’s. I have such a passion for violets! Do run out, dear, and see if you can find one for me yonder under the hedge.”

“I will ask mamma to send you some to-morrow, cousin Laura,” said the determined little Loo.

“Did you ever hear anything like it?” said Miss Lydia, in a half whisper. “Loo!”

“Loo will carry this basket up-stairs for me to my room,” said Miss Harwood, “and ask Harriet to show you the things in my cupboard, dear. All the prettiest things are there, and such a very grand cushion that I mean to make your mamma buy. Tell Harriet to show you everything; there’s a darling! That is a very bright little girl, my dears,” said the old lady, when Loo withdrew, reluctant but dutiful. “I hope nothing will ever be done to crush her spirit. I suppose you must have both come to tell us it’s not true.”

“Oh, you mean about my brother and Mary Clifford,” cried out both sisters in a breath. “Oh, Miss Harwood, did you ever hear of such a thing! Did you ever know anything so dreadful! Tom, that might have married anybody!” cried Miss Lydia; “and Mary Clifford, that was so inconsolable, and pretended to have broken her heart!” cried the younger sister. They were both in a flutter of eagerness, neither permitting the other to speak.

“Oh dear, dear, it does come so hard upon us,” said Miss Laura, “we that have always had such a prejudice against second marriages; and a cousin’s widow—it’s almost like a brother; and if poor Harry could rise from his grave, what would he say!” concluded Miss Lydia, who took up the strain without any intervals of punctuation. “I begin to think it’s all true the gentlemen say about women’s inconstancy; that is, your common style of women,” ran on the elder without any pause; “and poor dear Tom, who might have married any one,” cried the younger, out of breath.

“Then I perceive,” said Miss Amelia Harwood, “it’s true? Well, I don’t see much harm, for my part, if they have everything properly settled first. Poor Harry was all very well, I daresay, but he was a great fool not to provide for his children. Your brother said so at the time; but I did think, for my part, that Mary Clifford had the sense to know when she was well off.”

“Oh, she shows that,” cried Lydia Summerhayes, with a little toss of her head; “widows are so designing; they know the ways of men, and how to manage them, very differently from any of us—if we could stoop to such a thing, which of course, we wouldn’t. Oh yes, Mary Clifford knows very well what she’s about. I am sure I have told Tom he was her honorary secretary for many a day. I thought she was just making use of him to serve her own purpose; I never thought how far her wiles went. If it had been her lawyer, or the curate, or any humble person; but Tom! He might have done so much better,” said Laura, chiming in at some imperceptible point, so that it was impossible to tell where one voice ended and the other began.

“Well, I must say I am disappointed in Mary Clifford,” said Miss Harwood, “she was always such an affectionate creature. That’s why it is, I daresay. These affectionate people can’t do without an object; but her five children——”

“Ah! yes, her five children,” exclaimed the Miss Summerhayes; “only imagine dear Tom making such a marriage! Why, Charley Clifford has been at Eton ever so long; he is fifteen. And dear Tom is quite a young man, and might have married anybody,” said the last of the two, taking up the chorus: “it is too dreadful to think of it—such a cutting blow to us.”

“I can’t see how it is so very bad for you,” said Miss Amelia Harwood; “of course they will live at Fontanel, and you will still keep the manor-house. I think it’s rather a good thing for you for my part. Hush! there’s the child again—clever little thing—she knows quite well what we’ve been talking of. My dear, I hope Harriet showed you all the things—and isn’t that a pretty cushion? Tell your mamma I mean to make her buy it, as she is the richest lady I know.”

“Are you going, my dears?” said the elder old lady. “I am sorry you have so little time to stay—I hope you will find things arrange themselves comfortably, and that everybody will be happy. Don’t get excited—it’s astonishing how everything settles down. You want to speak to me, Loo,” said Miss Harwood, starting a little when she had just reseated herself in her easy-chair after dismissing her visitors. “Certainly, dear; I suppose you have set your little heart on one of the pretty pincushions up-stairs.”

“No, indeed, nothing of the sort—I hope I know better than to care for such trumpery,” said Loo, with an angry glow on her little pale face. “I stopped behind to say, that whatever mamma pleases to do, we mean to stand by her,” cried poor Mary Clifford’s only champion. “I’m not sure whether I shall like it or not for myself—but we have made up our minds to stand by mamma, and so we will, as long as we live; and she shall do what she likes!” cried the little heroine. Two big tears were in those brown eyes, which looked twice as bright and as big through those great dew-drops which Loo would not for the world have allowed to fall. She opened her eyelids wider and wider to re-absorb the untimely tears, and looked full, with childish defiance, in Miss Harwood’s face.

“Loo, you are a dear!” said prompt Miss Amelia, kissing the child; “you shall have the prettiest pincushion in all my basket.” The little girl vanished suddenly after this speech, half in indignation at the promise, half because the tears would not be disposed of otherwise, and it was necessary to rush outside to conceal their dropping. “Ah! Amelia,” said kind old Miss Harwood, “I’m sorry for poor Mary in my heart—but I’d rather have that child’s love than Tom Summerhayes.”

“Poor Mary! for my part, I have no patience with her,” said the practical Miss Amelia; “a woman come to her time of life ought to have the sense to know when she’s well off.”

Such was the character of the comments made upon Mrs Clifford’s marriage when it was first talked of, in Woodbine Cottage, and generally among all the female portion of society as it existed in Summerhayes.

CHAPTER II.—WHAT THE GENTLEMEN SAID.

The Rector of Summerhayes was the Miss Harwoods’ brother, much younger however, unmarried, and rather a fine man in his way. He had a little dinner, as it happened, the same evening. His table only held six, Mr Harwood said. The rectory was an old-fashioned house, and the dining-room would have quite admitted a table which could dine twenty—but such were not the Rector’s inclinations. There are enough men in the neighbourhood of Summerhayes to make it very possible to vary your parties pleasantly when you have a table that only holds six, whereas with a large number you can only have the same people over and over again; and Mr Harwood did not like to be bored. He had a friend with him from town, as he always had on such occasions. He had his curate, and young Chesterfield from Dalton, and Major Aldborough, and Dr Gossett; rather a village party—as he explained to Mr Temple, the stranger—but not bad company. The dinner was a very good one, like all the Rector’s little dinners, and was consumed with that judicious reticence in the way of talk, and wise suspension of wit, which is only practicable in a party composed of men. By means of this sensible quietness, the dinner was done full justice to, and the company expanded into full force over their wine. Then the conversation became animated. The Rector, it is true, indulged in ten minutes’ parish talk with the Doctor, while Mr Temple and Major Aldborough opened the first parallel of a political duel, and young Chesterfield discoursed on the last Meet to poor Mr Spencer, who, reduced into curate-hood and economy, still felt his mouth water over such forbidden pleasures. Then Mr Harwood himself introduced the subject which at that time reigned paramount over all other subjects at Summerhayes.

“So Tom Summerhayes is going to marry little Mrs Clifford,” said the Rector; “hadn’t you heard of it? Yes, these grapes are from Fontanel. She has a capital gardener, and her conservatories are the finest in the county. A very pleasant little house altogether, though there are some particulars about her table which one feels to be feeble. Her dinners are always a little defective since poor Clifford’s death—too mild, you know—too sweet—want the severer taste of a man.”

“Mrs Clifford—a pretty little woman with brown eyes?” said Mr Temple. “I’ve met her somewhere. So she gives dinners, does she? When I saw her she was in the recluse line. I suppose that didn’t last.”

“It lasted quite long enough,” said Dr Gossett; “nothing could be more proper, or more ladylike, or more satisfactory in every way. If I had a wife and were unluckily to die, I should wish her just to wear her weeds and so forth like Mrs Clifford—a charming woman; what should we do without her in the parish? but as for Tom Summerhayes——”

“He’s an ass,” growled the Major. “What’s he got to do burdening himself with other people’s children. Why, there’s five of ’em, sir! They’ll hate him like poison—they’ll think he’s in no end of conspiracies to shut them out of their fortune. By Jove! if he knew as much about other people’s children as I do. I’ve had two families consigned to me from India—as if I were a reformatory, or a schoolmaster, by Jove! She’s all very well, as women go; but I wouldn’t marry that family—no, not for twenty-five thousand a-year.”

“I confess I think it’s a pity,” said Mr Spencer, playing with the Fontanel grapes. The Curate perhaps was thinking in his heart that such delicate little souvenirs might have gone quite as appropriately to his own little ménage as to the Rector’s, who lacked for nothing. “It’s like going into life at second hand, you know. I shouldn’t like it, for my part. The children are a drawback, to be sure; but that’s not the greatest, to my mind; they are nice enough children.”

“Delightful children!” cried the Doctor, “little bricks! plucky little things! I don’t care for babies, though they’re partly my business. A family ready made would just suit me.”

“Well, it ain’t much in my line to say what a fellow ought or oughtn’t to do,” said young Chesterfield. “I’m not a marrying man myself. I don’t pretend to understand that sort of thing, you know. But Summerhayes ain’t a spoon, as everybody will allow. He knows what he’s doing. Last time I was at Fontanel, I couldn’t make out for the life of me what Mrs Clifford wanted with that new set of stables. She said they were preparing against Charley’s growing up. I thought somehow Summerhayes must have a hand in it, and it’s plain enough now.”

“Well, he has done a great deal for her,” said the Rector; “he’s been a sort of unpaid steward at Fontanel. I daresay she didn’t know how to reward him otherwise. I believe that’s the handiest way of making it up to a man in a lady’s fancy. It’s a dangerous kind of business to go on long; but I don’t know that there’s anything to find fault with. She’s pretty and he’s not young;—well, not exactly a young fellow, I mean,” said the Rector, with a half apology. “I daresay they’ll do very well together. If poor Clifford had only made a sensible will—but for that nobody would have had any right to talk.”

“And what was poor Clifford’s will?” asked the stranger, with a polite yawn; “men don’t generally study their wife’s convenience in a second marriage, in that document; has the defunct been harder upon this lively lady than most husbands, or what’s wrong about his will?”

“Deuced fool, sir,” cried the Major; “left her every farthing he had in the world, without settling a penny on those deuced children, or binding her up anyhow; left her at thirty or so, I suppose, with every penny he had in her hands. Never heard of such an ass. Of course that’s what Summerhayes means, but I can tell him it won’t be a bed of roses. They’ll hate him like poison, these brats will—they’ll make parties against him—they’ll serve him so that he’ll be sick of his life. I know the whole business. He’s well enough off now, with his old father’s savings, and the manor-house, and nothing to do; but he’ll be a wretched man, mark my words, if he marries Fontanel with five children in it. It’s the maddest thing he ever did in his life.”

“The poor lady doesn’t seem to count for much,” said Mr Temple. “She’s a pretty nobody, I suppose.”

Upon which vehement disclaimers rose from all the convives. “No, she was a charming woman,” Gossett said. “A dear, kind-hearted, good little soul,” said the Rector. “Very well as women go,” the Major admitted; while the two young men added warmer, but equally vague commendations. “Yet none of you imagine she is being married for herself,” said the solitary individual who did not belong to Summerhayes, with a little laugh at the perturbation he had caused. But nobody saw the fun of it: they went on with the discussion, ignoring Mr Temple.

“When a woman is in Mrs Clifford’s position,” said the Doctor, “it is nonsense to talk of her being married. She is active, she is no longer passive in such a business. She’s richer, she’s gooder, she’s handsomer, she’s better off every way than Tom Summerhayes. How she ever came to fancy him is the wonder to me.”

“Deuced nonsense,” said the Major; “why didn’t he marry off his sisters and set up snug for himself? He’s old enough to know better, that fellow is. There’s young Chesterfield there, he’s at the time of life to make a fool of himself; but Summerhayes must be, let me see——”

“Don’t let us go into chronology,” said the Rector. “Poor little Mary, I hope she’ll be happy all the same. I married her to poor Clifford, and I daresay I’ll have this little business to do as well. I wish she had a brother, or an uncle, or some one to take that piece of duty off my hands. I think I will have one of my attacks, and go off to Malvern, and leave it, Spencer, to you.”

“I wish she had an uncle or a brother for more than that,” said the Doctor; “it ought to be seen to—the settlement and all that should be looked well into. I hope she’ll have her wits about her. Not that I mean to ascribe any mean motives to Tom Summerhayes; but still when there’s five children to be considered——”

“They’ll kill him, sir,” said the Major, with energy. “He’ll not enjoy her money for long, mark my words; they’ll kill him in a year. I have only got this to say, sir,” continued the warrior, turning round upon Mr Temple, who had ventured a remark not bearing on the present subject to the Curate, “if this income-tax is going to be kept up without any compensation, I’ll emigrate—it’s the only thing that remains for honest Englishmen. After a life spent in the service of my country, I’ll be driven to a colony, sir, in my old age. It’s more than the country can bear, and what’s better, it’s more than the country will bear. We’ll have a revolution, by Jove! that’s what will come of all this taxing and paying; it’s not to be borne, sir, in a land that calls itself free.”

Whereupon politics came into possession of the elders of the party, and young Chesterfield resumed that tantalising account of the Meet which made the poor Curate sigh.

Poor Mrs Clifford! she had but scant sympathy in those innumerable discussions, male and female, of which she was at present the subject, all in and about Summerhayes.

CHAPTER III.—WHAT THE CHILDREN HAD TO SAY.

Meanwhile little Loo, with another pair of big tears in her brown eyes, had been driven home in the wintry twilight over the frosty road, which rang to every stamp of her ponies’ heels in a way which would have excited the little thing into positive enjoyment of the exhilarating sounds and sensations of rapid motion, had things been as usual. As it was, she sat wrapped up in a fur cloak, with her little veil over her face, watching the great trees glide past in the darkening, and turning her wistful looks now and then to the young winterly moon, which had strayed like a lost child into the midst of a whole covey of clouds, still crimsoned with reflections from the sunset. Loo’s little heart ached so, and she was so steadfastly determined not to admit that it was aching, that she was almost glad to feel how chill her little feet were getting, and how benumbed the hand which was outside of the fur cloak. She kept her little stiff fingers exposed to the frosty breeze all the same, and was rather glad of that sensation of misery which gave her a little excuse to herself for feeling unhappy. As the tinges of crimson stole out of the clouds, and the sky grew so wistfully, coldly clear around the moon, Fontanel came in sight, with lights in all its windows, twinkling through the trees in the long avenue, now one gleam, now another, as the little carriage drove on. There first of all was the great nursery window blazing with firelight, where Loo meant to hold a little committee as soon as she got in, and where she could so well picture “all of them” in all their different occupations, populating all the corners of the familiar room. A little further on it was the window of mamma’s room, which lightened brightly out behind the bare branches of the great chestnut tree. What would the house be without mamma? the little girl asked herself, and the great blobs of hot dew in her eyes fell upon her cold fingers. “Aren’t you well, Miss Loo?” asked the old groom who drove her, and Loo made him a very sharp answer in the irritation of her troubled little heart. She ran into the light and comfort of the house with a perverse, childish misery which she did not understand. She would not let old William take her cloak from her, but threw it down, and stumbled over it, and stamped her little foot, and could have cried. Poor little Loo! she was sick at heart, and did not know what it meant. Instead of going to her mother, as she usually did, she hastened up to the nursery where “all of them” were in a highly riotous condition at the moment, and where the darkness of her little face was unnoted by all but nurse, who took off her boots and warmed her feet, and did away with the only physical reason Loo dared to pretend to as an excuse for looking wretched. It was not very easy to look wretched in that room. By the side of the fire where a great log blazed was Harry, aged ten, with a great book clasped in his arms, and his cheeks and hair equally scorched and crimsoned with near vicinity to the flame. Little Mary, and Alf, the baby, were playing at the other end of the room. Alf was six, though he was the baby; but Mrs Clifford was the kind of woman to love a pet, and the little fellow’s indignant manhood was still smothered in long curls and lace tuckers. He avenged himself by exercising the most odious tyranny over his next little sister, who was Baby’s slave. All this little company Loo looked round upon with mysterious looks. She herself was twelve, little and pale, with nothing particular about her but her eyes, and her temper, which had already made itself, unfortunately, felt through the house. She sat maturing her plans till she heard the clock strike, and saw that it would shortly be time to go to her mother in her dressing-room, as the Fontanel children always did before dinner. She immediately bestirred herself to her task.

“Nurse,” said Loo, “will you take these things down to mamma’s dressing-room, please, and tell her we will all come presently; and if you wish to go down-stairs, you may. I will take care of the children, and take them down to mamma.”

“Thank you, Miss Loo; but there’s nobody to be at dinner but Mr Summerhayes and Mademoiselle, and you’re all to go down,” said Nurse; “you’re too little to have the charge of Master Alf, and you’ve all got to be dressed, dears, for dessert.”

“Then you can come up when I ring. I want the children by themselves,” said little Loo, with her imperious air. “You can go away.”

“You’re a deal too forward for such a little thing. I’ll speak to your ma, Miss, I will,” said the offended nurse. “At least I would if it was any good; but as long as Missis encourages her like this;—oh children dear, there’s changed times coming! You won’t have the upper hand always; it’s a comfort to a poor servant anyhow, whatever it may be to other folks. I’m going, Miss Loo; and you’ll come up directly the very minute you leave your ma to be dressed.”

Loo watched her to the door, and, skipping off her chair, closed it behind the dethroned guardian of the nursery. “Now, children, come here, I want to speak to you all,” said the little princess. “Mary, don’t be as great a baby as Alf; you are eight—you are almost a woman. Alf, come here and stand by me like a gentleman. Harry——”

But Harry was not so easily roused. He had been lectured so long about scorching his face that he was now proof to all appeals. He had to be hunted up out of his corner, and the book skilfully tilted up and thrown out of his arms, which operation surprised Loo into a momentary laugh, of which she was much ashamed. “Harry!” she cried, with redoubled severity, “it is no nonsense I am going to talk of—it is something very serious. Oh, children!” exclaimed the elder sister, as Alf jumped upon Harry’s back, and the two had a harmless scuffle in continuation of that assault which had roused Harry. “Oh, children!” cried Loo, who had laughed in spite of herself, now bursting into quick tears of impatience and vexation. “You play and play and think of nothing else—and you won’t let me talk to you of what’s going to happen to mamma.”

“What is it?” cried Harry, opening a pair of great bright eyes, and coming hastily to his sister’s side. Alf asked “What is it?” too, and placed himself on the other hand. As for Mary, she was frightened and stood a little apart, ready to rush off to her mother, or to ring for Nurse, or to do anything else that the exigency might demand.

“Do you remember what mamma said to us when we were in the dining-room on Sunday after dinner, when Tom—I mean when Mr Summerhayes was there—when he kissed us all?” said Loo, with a little red spot suddenly glowing out upon one indignant little cheek.

“She said he was going to be a father to us,” said Harry, rather stolidly.

“And we didn’t know what it meant,” said little Mary, breaking in eagerly, “but Nurse told me afterwards. It means that mamma is going to be married to cousin Tom. Oh, won’t it be queer? Shall we have to call him papa, Loo? I shall never recollect, I am sure.”

Loo gazed with eyes growing larger and larger in the face of her insensible sister. Then seeing Mary’s arm on the top of the great nursery fender, Loo, we are sorry to say, was so far betrayed by her resentment as to thrust little Mary violently away with a sob of passion. They all looked at her with wondering eyes.

“Oh, you stupid, stupid children!” cried the poor little heroine, “don’t you know mamma, though she is so pretty, is not a young lady like other people that are going to be married; don’t you know people talk about it, and laugh at her, and say she is foolish? I have heard them do it!” cried Loo. “I heard them in Summerhayes to-day talking and scolding about our mamma. She knows best what to do—better than all of them. She will never be unkind to us, or stop loving us. Oh, only think if she knew that people said such things—it would kill her! I heard them, and I thought I should have died. And now, children,” said Loo, solemnly, “what we’ve got to do is to go down to mamma, not jumping or making a noise like great babies, but quiet and serious; and to tell her that she is to do what she thinks best, and never mind what people say; and that we—we,” sobbed the little girl, vainly trying to preserve her composure, as she brought out word after word with a gush of tears—“we’ll stand by her and trust in her, and never believe anything. That is what we must go and say.”

After she had finished her speech Loo fell into a little passion of crying, in which she partly lost the slight murmurs and remonstrances of her calmer and wondering audience; but passion as usual carried the day. When Mrs Clifford’s bell rang the children went down-stairs, looking rather scared, in a kind of procession, Loo coming last with Alf, who had to be held tightly by the hand lest he should break out into gambols, and destroy all the solemnity of the proceeding. Mrs Clifford was sitting by the fire when they went in, in an attitude of thought. The candles were not lighted, and it was very easy to suppose that mamma herself looked sad, and was quite in a state of mind to be thus addressed. Harry and Mary, rather ashamed of themselves, were already carrying on a quiet scuffle at the door when Loo came up to them. “You go first, Harry”—“No, you,” they were saying to each other. “Oh, you stupid, stupid children, you have no feeling!” cried Loo, bitterly, as she swept past them. Mrs Clifford looked up with a smile, and held out her hand, which she expected to be grasped immediately by a crowd of little fingers, but the mother’s looks were dreamy to-night, and some one else was before her children in her thoughts. She was startled when she felt Loo’s little cold hand put into hers, and woke up and pushed her chair back from the fire to look at the little things who stood huddled together before her. “What is the matter?” said Mrs Clifford.

“Oh, mamma, mamma,” cried Loo; her poor little voice grew shrill, notwithstanding all her efforts. She had to make a pause, and to preserve her dignity had to let Alf go, who immediately went off to ride on the arm of the sofa, and compromise the seriousness of the scene. “Oh, mamma, dear,” said Loo, feeling that no time was to be lost, “we have come to say that we will never believe anything; that we know you love us, and will always love us—and—and—we believe in you; oh, mamma, we believe in you, and we will always stand by you, if everybody in the world were on the other side.”

Here Loo fell, choking with tears and passion, on her mother’s footstool, and laid her poor little head, which ached with cold and crying, on Mrs Clifford’s lap. The mother’s eyes had woke up out of all their dreaming. Perhaps it was as well the candles were not lighted. That cheek which the widow screened with her hand was as crimson and as hot as Harry’s had been reading over the fire. She was glad Loo’s keen eyes were hidden upon her lap; she blushed, poor tender woman as she was, before her children. The little woman-daughter was dreadful to her mother at the moment—a little female judge, endued with all the awfulness of nature, shaming the new love in her mature heart.

“What does this all mean, children?” said Mrs Clifford, trying to be a little angry, to conceal the shock she had received.

“Oh, please mamma, it’s Loo,” cried Mary, frightened. “She made us come; it was one of her passions.”

“No, it was not one of her passions,” said Harry, who was Loo’s champion; “it was to tell mamma we would always stand by her; and so I will,” cried the boy on his own account, kindling up, “if there were any robbers or anything—for I’m the eldest son when Charley’s at school.”

Loo heard this where she lay, with her head on her mother’s lap; she was incapable of speech or motion almost, but she could not but groan with impatience over the stupidity of the children; and Alf was riding loudly on the arm of the sofa, shouting to his imaginary horse. Loo gathered herself up with a blush upon her cheeks; it did not enter into her head to imagine that her mother blushed much more hotly and violently when the little face unfolded itself slowly out of her lap.

“Hush! Loo, don’t say any more,” said Mrs Clifford; then with a little effort the mother put her arm round the child and drew her close. “I understand what you mean—but you must not say any more,” she said; then she stooped down her hot cheek upon that wet one of poor Loo’s. “We shall all be very happy, I hope,” said Mrs Clifford in the dark, in her little daughter’s ear. “I am doing it—for—for all your sakes, dear. He will stand by you and me, and all of us, Loo. I hope we shall be—very happy—happier even than we are now,” said Mrs Clifford, with a faint little tremble in her voice and quiver at her heart. When she had kissed Loo, and the child had gone away to compose herself, poor Mary, the mother, sat for a long time looking into the fire with a terrible misgiving upon her—“happier even than we are now.” Ah! just then she had been so happy—all well in the prosperous, plentiful house; not an ache or a trouble that she knew of among all her children; not a single look of love dimmed to her yet by her resolution; and the new love, sweet as any girl’s dream, restoring to her firmament all the transitory delicious lights of youth. Somehow that prospect darkened under a strange cloud of alarm and shame when the mother felt her cheeks flush at the look of her woman-child. “I am doing it for—all their sakes,” she tried to say to herself; but her innocence grew like guilt as she felt in her heart that this pretence was not true.

CHAPTER IV.—HER OWN THOUGHTS.

Mrs Clifford had not much time to think that night, and the impression went off her when she was in her lover’s company—which was very nearly always; for, long before this had been thought of, Tom Summerhayes had been the soul of everything at Fontanel. She had come so gradually to consult him about everything—to take his counsel upon small and great that happened—that it seemed only natural now that he should belong to her; but after Loo’s little scene a variety of annoyances came upon Mary—indications of the world’s opinion—evidences that it did not seem so natural to other people as to herself. Even Charley’s schoolboy letter was rather dreadful to his mother. The boy bestowed his approbation upon her match, and was to stand by her, too, in Loo’s very vein; and the mother felt more humbled by thus obtaining the consent of her children than she would have been by the sacrifice of all she had in the world. Still it never came into her head to give up her marriage—never, perhaps, till a day or two before, when things were much too far advanced for any drawing back, and when she sat alone by her fire, with her desk open before her, late at night when all the household were asleep. In her desk were various little matters which had been treasures to Mary Clifford. She took them out with trembling hands—a withered flower, given to her, oh, so long ago, when she was little more than a child, and preserved with girlish romance; a little ring made of hair, which she had worn in her days of betrothal; a little faded drawing, made by herself at the same period, of her early lover; and last and most important of all, some letters—not many, but very tender—the love-letters of her youth. How she had cried over them many a sad day after her Harry died; how she had gradually forgotten them again and left them in their safe concealment; how of late she had rather avoided the place where they were, and shrank from touching the little desk that contained them; and now, at last, upon the eve of her second wedding, here they were all spread out before her, to be disposed of somehow. Mary’s treasures! she had heard them called so—had called them so herself. What were they now?

Poor, little, soft, tender-hearted woman! There was no passion in her. She was in love with all her heart, but it was affectionately, not passionately, or else she never could have opened that desk. She took out the flower, and cried, and looked at it; then, with a hasty impulse, put it softly on the fire, and watched it blaze into sudden ashes, and cried again, and felt guilty to her heart. “I was such a child,” she said to herself in her tears, and took a kind of melancholy comfort from thinking how young she had been when she was first a bride. Then she looked at her own drawing, which was not the least like him, and thought with a compunction of her Harry. Poor Harry! All this bright house, all these dear children, were his as well as hers; but he was put away in the family vault, poor fellow, and nothing was henceforward to belong to him in this living world—not even the name he had given her, not her thoughts, not any of her heart. She cried over that too like the rest. She put up the ring in a little parcel for Loo—she laid aside the portrait for little Harry. She tried to indemnify him by making over all those little mementoes, which it troubled her to look at, to his children. Then she took up the bundle of yellow letters and timidly opened one of them, and read a few sentences. There she read of the young love that was never to die, never to know change. Poor Mary put them away again with a sob almost of terror, and hastily locked up the desk, and resolved to put it away somewhere out of sight. She could not examine any further into those “treasures” which had become ghosts. She drew her chair to the fire, and shivered in her thoughts. She was a simple-minded woman, not wise, but moved by every wind of feeling. It came to her mind just then to recollect how, in her first widowhood, she had taken comfort from the thought that Harry was near and saw her tears for him, and knew how faithful her poor heart was. Now that thought was too much for Mary’s strength. She gave a cry of helpless terror when it occurred to her. Alas, for that immortality of union which comforts the heart of grief! What if Harry met her at the very gates of heaven when she got there, and claimed her, she who was going to be another man’s bride? Sitting alone in the night, with all the household asleep, and such thoughts for companions, it was not wonderful if a panic seized upon Mrs Clifford’s heart. Poor Harry, who had loved her so well, appeared like a pursuing spectre to the soft little woman. If it was true that she belonged to him for ever and ever, how could she dare to love Tom Summerhayes? and if she did not belong to him for ever and ever—he who had loved her to the end, and had never done anything to forfeit her affection—what was the hereafter, the heaven where love, it appeared, could not be immortal? These fancies wrung poor Mary’s heart. She did not know any answer to make to them. The question put by the Sadducees nohow answered her case. She who blushed before her children, how could she ever look Harry in the face? She felt herself an infidel, trembling and crying over that everlastingness which had once given her such consolation. That Harry could ever cease to love her, nature contradicted as impossible. He was in heaven, far off, unseen, fixed in solemn unchangeableness in all the elevation of love and grief he died in, never to alter; and she?—— Step by step unconsciously that elevation of grief and love had died away from her in the changing human days, and now here she sat weeping, trembling, thinking with awe of Harry, wondering how he would claim her hereafter, how she could dare name his name when she was another man’s wife. Poor little trembling soul! She stole away to bed when she could bear it no longer, and sought refuge in sleep with the tears still in her eyes, some grand and desperate resolution of making a sacrifice of herself being in her mind, as was natural. She had troubled dreams, and woke up quite unrefreshed in the morning, which was very unlucky that day of all others, because the lawyers were coming, and all her business affairs were to be settled before her marriage. However, Mrs Clifford could not remember at her first waking what it was which had thrown such a cloud upon her; and when her thoughts of the previous night did return to her mind, they were neither so intolerable nor so urgent as they had been. In the daylight, somehow, those gates of heaven, at which Harry might be standing to claim her, looked a very far way off to the bride of Tom Summerhayes—there was no such immediate certainty of Harry’s existence anyhow, or of the kind of interest he might take in her proceedings; and the philosophy of the question did not recur to her mind with those puzzling and hopeless speculations. She was a great deal more content to accept the present and to postpone the future—to let hereafter take care of itself—than she had been at night. She put away the desk with Harry’s letters in a dark vacant upper shelf of a bookcase in her own dressing-room; there, where she could not even see it, it would no longer witness against her. It was a sunny morning, and the children came in all fresh and rosy to say their prayers, and there was a note from Mr Summerhayes on the breakfast-table, naming the hour at which the law people were to arrive. Mrs Clifford had recovered her colour and her spirits before they came; she was a little agitated, and looked very pretty in the commotion of her heart. Hers was a position very peculiar and interesting, as Mr Gateshead himself, the old family solicitor, suggested, as he read over the deed she was to sign. He was perfectly pleased with the arrangements altogether, and said that Mr Summerhayes had behaved most honourably and in the most gentlemanly way. It was very clear that his motives were not mercenary. The deed Mrs Clifford had to sign was one by which Fontanel and all its dependencies was settled upon her eldest son, she retaining the life-interest in it which her husband had meant her to have. Mr Summerhayes, who had been brought up for the bar, had himself advised Mr Gateshead in the drawing up of this important document. The new bridegroom was anxiously solicitous that the children should be portioned and the property distributed exactly as the family agent, who knew poor Clifford’s mind, would have advised him to settle it; and the deed was irrevocable and framed in the most careful manner, so that no ingenuity of the law could make it assailable hereafter. It was so rigid in all its provisions that poor Mary wavered a little over it. She thought it scarcely fair that he should be shut out entirely from every interest in all this wealth, which, at the present moment, belonged absolutely to herself. It was Mr Summerhayes himself who put, with a certain gentle force, the pen into her hands, and pointed exactly to the spot where she was to sign. “I have you, Mary,” he said in her ear, as he leant over her to keep the parchment steady; and Mary Clifford signed away all her power and secured her children’s rights, with “a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye,” feeling to her heart the delicious flattery. What she possessed was nothing to him—he had her, and a kingdom could not make him happier. So said the tone of his whisper, the glance of his eye, and the echo of her heart. This living Love which stood by her side, securing so carefully that Harry Clifford’s wealth should go to Harry Clifford’s heirs, and seeking only herself for its own, completely swallowed up poor Clifford’s ghost, if that forlorn spirit might by chance be cognisant of what was passing. Mary remembered no more her qualms and misgivings; and the prospect before her—now that the very children had got used to it, had ceased either to oppose or to stand by her, and had fallen into natural excitement about the approaching festivities, the guests who were to be at Fontanel, the new dresses, the great event about to happen—looked as bright as the glowing day.

CHAPTER V.—THE MARRIAGE.

Fontanel received a considerable party of guests for the marriage. Miss Laura and Miss Lydia, who were to be at the head of affairs while the new Mrs Summerhayes was absent on her wedding tour, arrived two days before, that they might get into the ways of the place, and know what was required of them, which was not very much, for Mary was but a languid housekeeper. Then there were two aunts, an uncle, and some cousins of Mrs Clifford, none of whom in the least approved of the match, though decorum and curiosity and kindness prompted them to countenance poor Mary in her foolishness, notwithstanding their general surprise, like Miss Harwood, that she had not the sense to know when she was well off. Then there was Charley from Eton, who had grown so much lately, that his mother blushed more than ever when he kissed her and said something kind about her marriage. These were not pleasant days for poor Mrs Clifford. She knew in her heart that nobody particularly approved of her, not even Tom’s sisters—that people were saying it was just what was to be expected, and that a woman left at her age with so much property in her hands was sure to make a fool of herself. She knew that the ladies when they got together had little conversations over her—that one wondered why she could not make herself happy with these dear children, and another with this fine place—and that a third mused what poor Mr Clifford would have said could he have known. Poor Mary was very thankful when the day dawned on her wedding-morning—she was glad, as brides seldom are, of the arrival of the fated moment which was to place things beyond the reach of censure or criticism, and relieve her from her purgatory. The Rector of Summerhayes had not been called on to do that piece of duty. The bridegroom luckily had a friend whose privilege it was; and still more luckily there was a little old disused church within the grounds of Fontanel in which the ceremony was to be performed, without the necessity of encountering the gaze and remarks of the village. It was not intended to be a pretty wedding or to put on those colours of joy which become the espousals of youth. Mingled and complicated, as are the thoughts of middle age, were the feelings of the two who stood side by side before the bare rural altar. The bridegroom was slight and tall in figure, with a careless languid air, through which occasionally a little gleam of excitement sparkled. If you watched him closely you could see that his mind was no way absorbed in the ceremonial of his marriage. The quick sudden glance here and there under his eyelids, of those cold but clear grey eyes, turned inquiringly to everything within his range. He read in the looks of the clergyman, even while he pronounced the nuptial blessing, what his opinion was of the entire transaction. He penetrated the mask of propriety in which the bride’s relations concealed their feelings—he investigated with oft-repeated momentary glances the face of Charley, who stood in his Etonian certainty of manhood, premature but not precocious, near his mother’s side. Mr Summerhayes even scanned, when all was over, the downcast countenance of Loo, who stood behind, watching with stout endurance, and resolute not to cry during the entire ceremony. What was the meaning which lay in those quick furtive darts of the bridegroom’s eye it was impossible to say; his closest friend could not have elucidated this strange secret by-play, of which nobody in the company was conscious, except, perhaps, one child; but one thing it proved at any rate, that his heart at this special moment was not engrossed, to the exclusion of everything else, by his bride.

Mary was much less mistress of herself. She cried quietly under her veil as she stood and listened to the familiar words. She repeated those that fell to her with a little shiver. In her heart she could not but feel what a terrible act she was completing as she vowed her love and obedience over again, and separated her future from her past. But Mary, with her downcast eyes, was insensible to everybody’s opinion at that moment. Had she been standing in a wilderness she could not have felt more isolated. She was conscious only of her new husband by her side—of an indistinct figure before her—of God above and around, a kind of awful shadow looking on. Mr Summerhayes was aware of her tears, and they moved him so that his colour heightened involuntarily, and he pressed her hand with a warning pressure when it came to that part of the ceremony. But Mary herself was not aware that she was crying till she felt this touch of remonstrance, which startled her back into consciousness. Such was this marriage, at which, as at other marriages, people looked on with various shades of sympathy and criticism, and which, with all its concealed terrors and outward rejoicing, was the free act of hearts uncoerced and acting only at their own pleasure—a free act, suggested by no third party, unless, perhaps, it might happen to be a certain grim inflexible Fate who, if the reins are but yielded to her for a moment, pursues her victim through a throng of inevitable consequences. But perhaps, when a woman is being married like Mary Clifford, it is a kind of comfort to her to feel as if she could not help herself, rather than to know that she is entering all these new dangers voluntarily, and in obedience to nobody’s will but her own.

“Well, I am sure, I wish them every comfort in life,” said Miss Harwood, as she stood leaning on her brother’s arm at the hall door of Fontanel, watching the carriage drive off which contained the happy pair. “She can’t feel much like a bride, poor thing, leaving all these children behind her. I am sure I wish her every happiness. I hope she’ll never live to repent it,” said Miss Harwood, with a sigh.

“Don’t be spiteful,” said the Rector. “This is not a time for such ill-omened wishes. It’s a very suitable match, and I wish them joy.”

“Oh, Mr Harwood,” said Miss Laura, taking up her position at the Rector’s other side, thus effecting a natural separation from Mary’s relations, who were comparing sentiments a little apart from the Summerhayes party—“a suitable match! when dear Tom is well known to represent the oldest family in the county, and might have married anybody—not to say a word against dear Mary, who is our sister now, and such a sweet creature. But oh, Mr Harwood,” cried Miss Lydia, who had interposed, as usual, “to talk of a suitable match!”

“There are no suitable matches nowadays. I don’t believe in ’em, by Jove!” said Major Aldborough, who, with eyes slightly reddened by champagne, was watching the carriage just then disappearing down the avenue.

“But there might be, Major,” said Miss Lydia, so softly that her sister could not take up the meek remark.

The Major only answered “By Jove!” under his breath. He was startled by the close vicinity—the gentle look—the mild suggestion. He moved a little away in a momentary panic. There was never any telling, as he said to himself, what these women might mean.

“It is so strange to be left in charge of the house,” said Miss Laura, “it gives one such a funny feeling. I don’t know how in the world we shall do with all the responsibility; but dear Mary insisted upon it, you know—though I am sure Mrs Tansey would have been much more suitable for the head of the table than one of us, who are so inexperienced,” cried Miss Lydia; “but dear Mary thought it best for the children’s sake. I hope, dear Mrs Tansey, you don’t mind being our guest,” proceeded the sisterly duet; “dear Mary thought it of such importance that the children should get used to us—though they know us perfectly well, still things are all so different; though otherwise, of course, she would so much have preferred you.”

“Oh, pray, don’t think it necessary to apologise for my niece to me, Miss Summerhayes,” said the offended aunt. “Mary has consulted her own inclinations, and so long as she is happy, that is all we can possibly want of her. I think she is quite right to make friends, if she can, in her new family. She knows she can always calculate upon us if she ever wants any service,” added the bride’s relation, with a slight heightening of colour and the ghost of a curtsy. The Miss Summerhayes were not unequal to the emergency.

“We all know how much poor dear Mary is liked among her own friends,” cried Miss Lydia. “Your dear girls were so fond of her last year when they spent such a long time at Fontanel; and dear Mary has such a taste in presents,” said Miss Laura, coming in so eagerly that she began out of breath. “We have gone shopping with her often when she was buying her little souvenirs. I hope you don’t think it will make any difference now she is married again. She is so affectionate; but as for wanting services from anybody, that is very unlikely,” resumed the elder sister, “now she has dear Tom. Dear Tom is so very devoted,” said Miss Laura, breaking in headlong. “You would think she was only eighteen to see all the attention he pays her. It is quite sweet to see them, like two turtle-doves.”

Such being the conversation that succeeded immediately upon the departure of the bridal pair, it is not to be supposed that the dinner-table was spread with a very joyful feast, or that the evening was spent in much happiness. Mary’s relations, who had up to this time felt themselves much at ease at Fontanel, kept greatly by themselves during the remainder of the wedding-day. Their occasional minglings with the Summerhayes party called forth bursts of smart dialogue, more exciting than amiable, and the opposing sides contended much for the notice of Loo and the other children, when they came down-stairs in their new dresses after dinner. It made little Loo’s heart sick to feel herself enfolded in the embraces of Miss Lydia and Laura on one side, and then to be talked to and admonished by Aunt Tansey on the other, who hoped she would be a good girl, and a great comfort to her poor mother. The children could not tell what to make of the aspect of affairs. Mamma gone, who was the sun and centre of the domestic world, and already a new rule and vague possibilities of change in the startled house. Down-stairs among the servants, though the means of merry-making were plentiful, this threatening cloud was even more apparent. A new master, known to like “his own way,” was an alarming shadow impending over the little community hitherto mildly and liberally governed by the mistress, whom her servants could scarcely forgive for the step she had taken. “With five lovely children and every blessin’ as this world could afford,” as the housekeeper said, shaking her troubled head. The new husband by no means ranked among the blessings of Providence to the mistress of Fontanel in anybody’s judgment, and nowhere was Mary’s rash act resented more warmly than in the servants’ hall.

“But, Loo,” said Etonian Charley, next morning, when Aunt Tansey and all her belongings had left Fontanel, and everything had fallen under the restless sway of the Miss Summerhayes, “I’m not going to put up with all this. You said we were to stand up for mamma; you mean we are only to pretend to stand up for mamma, you little humbug. Now that’s not my meaning,” said the heir of Fontanel. “I’m not going to make-believe that I think she’s done right, when I don’t. I am going to swallow cousin Tom right out,” cried the boy, not without a little flush on his face. “It’s a little awkward, to be sure, to know what to call him—but look here, Loo—I mean to stand by my mother without any humbug. I mean to think she’s done the very best for us all, and for herself too; and if she don’t think the same when she comes back, I’ll try to make her; and if you look black, as you’re looking, you are not the little brick I took you for, and I won’t have anything more to do with you, Loo.”

“Oh, Charley, I am not half so good as you are,” cried the admiring little sister, looking up to him with tearful eyes. Charley’s resolution acted like a charm upon the house in general; and so, with a gradually improving temper, though much pressed and fretted by Miss Laura and Miss Lydia, the nursery and the servants’ hall, and all the dependencies of Fontanel, waited for the advent of the new master and the return of Mrs Summerhayes.

AN ENGLISH VILLAGE—IN FRENCH.[1]

The old pictures of village life in England will hardly suit for these modern times. The pleasant little social circle which either existed, or more often was imagined to exist, as in Miss Austen’s charming fictions, in the large well-to-do country village, is to be found there no longer. No one condescends in these days to live in the country, unless he can either do so, or affect to do so, more or less en grand seigneur. A change has passed over ‘Our Village,’ even since Mary Russell Mitford so admirably sketched it. The half-pay naval lieutenant or army captain (if any such survive) has retired into the back street of a cheap watering-place, not to the improvement either of his position or his happiness. The village surgeon is no longer an oracle; railways have brought “the first advice” (at any rate, in the county town) within the reach of almost all his patients; and he has either disappeared altogether, or, if he still exists as the “Union Doctor,” badly paid and little respected, he is seldom now a gentleman. Village lawyers—happily or unhappily—are become things unknown: and as for any gentleman’s family of independent but moderate means condescending to that kind of rural seclusion, it is unheard of. If there is any educated resident in any country village not fixed there by some local interest or occupation, he is apt to have something suspicious about his character or antecedents—to be a refugee from his lawful creditors, or his lawful wife, or something of that sort.

So that English village life now resolves itself mainly into that of the parson; for the squire, even if he be resident, scarcely forms part of the same social circle. And as to the rest, between the university graduate, of more or less refinement and education, and the opulent farmer such as he is at present, there lies a gulf which no fancy can exaggerate, and which the best intentions on both sides fail to bridge over. Where village spires stand thick together, where the majority of the rectors or vicars are men of the same way of thinking, and where it is the fashion of the country to be social, there is a good deal of pleasant intercourse, no doubt, between the parsons’ families, and as much “society,” in the real if not in the conventional sense, as is needful to keep the higher elements of humanity from stagnating; but where parishes spread far and wide over a poor or thinly-populated district, or, worse still, where religious sectarianism reckons its clergy into “High” and “Low,” and the Rector of A. shakes his head and lifts his eyebrows when any allusion is made to the Vicar of B.—there, the man whose lot has been cast in a country parsonage had need have abundant resources within himself, and be supremely indifferent to the stir of human interests without. He will, in many cases, have almost as far to ride in search of a congenial neighbour as though he were in the bush of Australia; he will find something like the solitude of the old monastery, without the chance of its peace and quietness.

Not that such a life is dull or uninteresting, by any means, unless in the unfortunate case of the man finding no interest in his duties. One of this world’s many compensations is, that the busy man, be he what else he may, is never dull, and seldom discontented. So it is, almost always, in the country parsonage; without claiming any high standard of zeal or self-devotion for its occupants, there is probably at least as much quiet enjoyment, and as little idle melancholy or fretful discontent, to be found among them, as among any other class of educated men.

Still, it is a life which it would be very difficult for a foreigner to appreciate or understand. The relation of the English country rector to his villagers is totally unlike that of the Lutheran or Roman Catholic priest. Not claiming—or at least not being in a position to maintain—anything like the amount of spiritual authority which is exercised by the pastor under both these other systems, he wields, in point of fact, an amount of influence superior to either. He cannot command the servile and terrified obedience in externals which is often paid by the Irish and Italian peasant to his spiritual guide; but he holds a moral power over his parishioners—even over those who professedly decline his ministrations—of the extent of which neither he nor they are always conscious, but to the reality of which the enemies of the Established Church in England are beginning to awake.

The reading world has perhaps been rather over-supplied, of late years, with novelettes in which the village parson, with some of the very white or very black sheep of his flock, have been made to walk and talk more or less naturally for their amusement and edification; but the sight of a little French book on the subject struck us as something new. It is very desirable that our good friends across the Channel should know something about our ways of going on at home; and that not only in the public life of large towns, or on the highways of travel and commerce, but in our country villages and rural districts. But French attempts at English domestic sketches have not, on the whole, been successful. It is, indeed, most difficult for a foreign visitor to draw pictures of society in any country which would pass muster under the critical examination of a native. We took up this ‘Vie de Village en Angleterre’ with some notion of being amused by so familiar a subject treated by a Frenchman; but we soon found we were in very safe hands. The writer knows us well, and describes us admirably, very much as we are; the foreign element is just strong enough to be occasionally amusing, but never in any way ridiculous; and we should be as much surprised at the correctness of the writer’s observation as charmed with the candour and good taste of the little volume, if we had not heard it credibly whispered that, although written for French readers (and in undeniable French), it may be claimed as the production of an English pen.

Whatever may be the secret of the authorship, the little book will repay the reader of either nation. It is written in the person of a political refugee, who, armed with one or two good introductions, comes to pass a period of exile in England. While previously travelling in Switzerland, he has made acquaintance with a Mr Norris, an energetic country parson of the modern “muscular” type. He it is who persuades the wanderer to study in detail, by personal observation, that “inner life” of England which, he has already learnt to believe, and rightly, forms and shapes, more than anything else, her national and political character. Hitherto, as he confesses to his new acquaintance, the coldness and reserve of such English as he has met with have rather frightened him; yet he has always admired in them that solidarité—which we will not attempt to translate. The hostility between the labouring classes in France and those above them has always appeared to him the great knot of political difficulties in that country—a source of more danger to real liberty and security than any other national evil.

He determines, therefore, to see and study this domestic character of England for himself—“not in her political institutions, which we Frenchmen have been too much accused of wishing to copy, but in that social life which may very possibly explain the secret of her strength and her liberty.”—(P. 22.)

It was not his first visit to London; and, arriving in the month of March, he finds the climate as bad, and the great city as dingy and dirty, as ever. He does not appear to have noticed our painful efforts to consume our own smoke, or our ambitious designs in modern street architecture. On the other hand, he mercifully ignores—if he saw it—our Great Exhibition. The crowded gin-palaces, and the state of the Haymarket by night, disgust him, as well they might; and he escapes from the murky Babylon, as soon as he has taken a few lessons to improve his colloquial English, to pay the promised visit to his friend Mr Norris at his parsonage at Kingsford; stopping on his way to deliver a letter of introduction to an English countess, an old friend of his family, who has a seat close to Lynmere, a sort of pet village, where the ornamented cottages form a portion of the park scenery.

In his walk from the station, he makes the acquaintance of a “Madame Jones,” whose cottage, with its wooden paling and scarlet geraniums, abutting on the pleasant common, has its door invitingly open. He pauses to admire the little English picture as he passes by. Good Mrs Jones observes him, and begs him to walk in; partly, we must hope (and we trust all foreign readers will believe), out of genuine English hospitality—though we doubt if all village dames in Surrey would take kindly to a Frenchman on the tramp—partly, it must be confessed, with the British female’s natural eye to business. “Perhaps Monsieur was looking out for a ‘petit logement?’” For Mrs Jones has two rooms to let; and even a foreigner’s money, paid punctually, is not to be despised. Monsieur was looking out for nothing of the kind, but he takes the rooms forthwith; and indeed any modest-minded gentleman, French or English, who wanted country board and lodging on a breezy common in Surrey, could not have done better. Here is what our traveller gets for twenty-two shillings a-week; we only hope it will stop the mouths of all foreigners who rail at the dearness of English living, when they read here the terms on which a petit logement may be found in a pleasant situation in the home counties—two rooms, “fresh and clean,” comfortably furnished (with a picture of the Queen and a pot of musk into the bargain), and board as follows:—

“For breakfast she gave me tea with good milk, excellent bread-and-butter, accompanied either by a rasher of broiled bacon or fresh eggs. For dinner there were often ‘ragouts avec force oignons’ (Irish stew?), boiled mutton, or sometimes a beef-steak ‘très-dur,’ potatoes and boiled cabbage, with a glass of good beer and a bit of cheese. No dessert, but occasionally a pudding. On Sundays, roast-beef and plum-pudding were apparently the rule without exception, for they never failed to appear. The tea in the evening was much the same as the breakfast. If I had wished for supper, I might have had cold meat, bread, a lettuce, and a glass of beer.”

If Mrs Jones be not as entirely fictitious as Mrs Harris, and would enclose us a few cards, we think we could undertake that her lodgings (with a countess and a pet village, too, close by) should not be untenanted for a week in summertime. We feel sure, however, that the good lady is not a creature of mere imagination: when we read the description of her, we recall her as an old acquaintance, though we cannot remember her address:—

“As for this good woman’s personal appearance, she had nothing attractive about her except her scrupulous cleanliness. Her age belonged to that mysterious epoch comprised between forty and sixty. She had an intelligent countenance; but what was most marked about her was a slightly military air, and a black silk bonnet which, planted on the top of her head, tilted forward over her face, and usually concealed half of it. The two strings were carefully pinned back over the brim, and the ends fluttered on each side the bonnet, like the plume of a chasseur de Vincennes. That bonnet, she never left it off for a moment; and my indiscreet imagination went so far as to speculate what could possibly become of it at night.... Though I had begged her to consider herself absolute mistress in all domestic matters—and though, moreover, I should have found considerable difficulty in ordering my own dinner—she never failed to come in every morning at breakfast-time ‘for orders,’ as she called it. It was a little ruse of hers to secure a moment for the active exercise of her somewhat gossiping tongue. I was enabled to endure the torrent of words of which good Mrs Jones disburdened herself on such occasions the more philosophically, inasmuch as she was nowise exacting in the matter of an answer, and now and then gave me some interesting bits of information.”

The contrast which follows is drawn from a shrewd observation of national characteristics on both sides of the Channel:—

“This respectable dame possessed in a high degree the good qualities and the defects of her class of Englishwomen. In France, the manners of women of her order are full of expansion and sympathy; and a small farmer’s wife, however ignorant she may be, will always find means to interest you in her affairs, and to enter into yours. In England, on the contrary, with all her gossiping upon trifling subjects, she will maintain the strictest reserve, so far as you are concerned, upon matters of any importance. She serves you much better than a Frenchwoman would, because she looks upon you in the light of a master—a guest whose rank and character she makes the most of, because that rank and character raise her in her own estimation; but it is only in some very exceptional case that she will talk to you about anything which touches her personally, or that she will venture to confess that she is thinking about your concerns—that would be, in her eyes, a breach of proper respect.

“This is the peculiar feature in the relations between the different classes of society in England. Society there is profoundly aristocratic; there is no tradesman, be he ever so professed a Radical, who does not become a greater man in his own eyes by receiving the most commonplace act of courtesy from a lord; no servant who does not feel an additional satisfaction in waiting on a master whose manners have a touch of haughtiness, because such manners strike him as a mark of superiority. It is just as Rousseau says: ‘Clara consoles herself for being thought less of than Julia, from the consideration that, without Julia, she would be thought even less of than she is.’ The singular feature is, that this kind of humility, which would seem revolting to us in France, is met with in England amongst precisely those persons who are remarkable for their moral qualities and for their self-respect. It is because in them this deference becomes a sort of courtesy, a social tact, of which only a gentleman can understand all the niceties—which, besides, implies in their case nothing like servility—the respect paid to superiors in rank is kept within the limits of the respect due to themselves. This peculiarity in English manners struck me the more forcibly, because it offers such a remarkable contrast to what goes on among ourselves.”

There follows, at some length, a truthful and well-written exposition of the healthful influence exercised upon a nation by an aristocracy like that of England—which we must not stop to quote. ‘Revenons‘—as the author writes, asking pardon for so long a digression—‘Revenons à Madame Jones.’

That excellent landlady is careful not only of the diet and other creature-comforts of her new lodger, but of his moral and religious wellbeing also. A week of wet weather—which the foreign visitor finds sufficiently triste—is succeeded by a lovely Sunday morning. The Frenchman sallies out after breakfast for a morning walk, with his book under his arm—we are sorry to say it was a ‘Tacitus’—with the intention, we are left to suppose, of worshipping nature on the common. But Mrs Jones, though totally innocent as to her lodger’s heretical intentions, takes care to lead him in the way that he should go.

“‘Church is at eleven,’ Mrs Jones called out to me, not doubting for an instant that I should go there. I went out; she followed me close, locked all the doors, and, stopping for a moment at the cottage next door to call for a neighbour, continued her way. I was taking another path, but was very soon arrested by the hurried approach of Mrs Jones, who, fancying I had mistaken my way, came after me to show me the road to church. Such perseverance on her part made it evident that I should risk the loss of her good opinion if I did not profit by her instructions; so I walked down the hill with her by a road which wound between broad verges of green turf overshadowed by lofty trees.”

Thus fairly captured and led to church in triumph, his behaviour there was on the whole very decorous. The impression likely to be made on the mind of an intelligent and well-disposed foreigner by the simple and yet impressive service in a well-ordered village church is very nicely described. It is true that Mrs Jones’s prisoner, according to his own account, mingles with the very proper reflections natural to such a place “those inspired by the volume of Tacitus which he held open before him for decency’s sake” (and which, we fear, must have imposed itself upon the good lady as a French prayer-book); a little touch which, whether written by a Frenchman or not, and whether meant for truth or satire, is very French indeed. He finds time also to notice the features of the building itself, and its arrangements. The “tribune” in the gallery where the Countess performs her devotions, and the high enclosure with drawn curtains—“a sort of petit salon”—which protects the family of Mr Mason, the squire, from the more vulgar worshippers, do not strike the visitor, we rejoice to say, as happy illustrations of the aristocratic feeling in Englishmen; and it is evidently with a quiet satisfaction that he learns subsequently that “puséisme” is trying to do away with such distinctions.

An invitation to dinner from the Countess gives him at once the entrée to the best society in Lynmere and its neighbourhood. He finds his first English dinner-party a very dull affair; but he was surely peculiarly unfortunate in his company, if we are to take his account of the after-dinner conversation amongst the gentlemen: “At the end of a short time, two of the guests were asleep, and I would willingly have followed their example.” The remarks which follow, however, touch with more truth upon one of the defects in our social intercourse:—

“These dinners of ceremony (and there are scarcely any other kind of entertainments in the country amongst the higher classes) take place between neighbours, usually about twice in the year: scarcely any one except the clergyman enjoys the privilege of being received with less of etiquette. It follows that it is very possible to pass one’s life for ten years in the same spot, without having any really intimate association with any one of one’s neighbours. There are very few English people who do not regret it. Yet such is the despotism of custom, that it is rare to find any family which dreams of freeing itself from the trammels of this etiquette.”

Here and there, of late, the links of this social despotism, under which we have groaned so long, show symptoms of giving way. The advance of fashion has done good service in one respect, that the modern service à la Russe, adopted in all good houses, has struck a decisive blow at the old English heavy dinner; and just as the fashion has long died out of pressing one’s guests to eat more than they wish, so the fashion is coming in of not thinking it necessary to put upon the table three times more than can by any possibility be eaten. When small dinners become “the thing” even amongst the great people, there is hope that their lesser imitators will follow the example. And whenever the mistresses of small families will learn that good and careful cookery is quite as cheap as bad, and much more wholesome, and will condescend to go back not only to their great-grandmothers’ hoops, but to their household receipt-books, they may venture to invite their personal friends without compunction to a pleasant family-dinner, to the great furtherance of real sociability, and get rid for ever of those annual or biennial festivals which are a burden to the weary souls of guests and entertainers.

The foreign visitor becomes, in a very short time, established on a footing of intimacy with the family of Mr Mason, a magistrate and landed proprietor residing in the parish, in whose household Mrs Jones has formerly lived as nurse. The introduction through the Countess on the one part, and on the other the warm eulogies of good Mrs Jones (who is never tired of sounding the praises of her old master and the young ladies whom she has brought up), may serve in some degree to explain the somewhat rapid adoption of “Monsieur” as a family friend into the thrice-guarded circle of an English household. On his part, indeed, we soon discover quite a sufficient attraction. There is a pale pensive sentimental “Miss Mary,” quite the sort of young lady, we should say, to take the fancy of a romantic Frenchman in exile; but as she does not happen to take ours especially, we confess to have found no particular interest in this new version of ‘Love in a Village,’ and shall leave our younger readers to enjoy the romance of the little book for themselves, without forestalling, even by a single hint, its course or its conclusion. So far as relates to Monsieur himself, we repeat, we can quite understand how readily he responded to the warm adoption of his new English friends.

“Mr Mason consulted me about his son’s studies, Mrs Mason confided to me her anxieties as the mother of a family; and Mary—whose ardent and poetic soul felt the need of an intellectual sympathy which failed her in her own family—threw into her conversation with me an openness and vivacity which surprised her relatives.”

Nothing of the sort surprises us. What we were rather surprised at was, that Mr Mason père, a grave county dignitary and practical man of business, should have taken to his bosom, in this ardent and gushing fashion, the most agreeable, most intellectual, and most amiable foreigner that ever lived. At first we thought it a mistake—a patent defect and improbability in an otherwise sensible and natural book. The author’s casual attempt to account for it by the fact that Mr Mason was fond of billiards and of backgammon, and found in his new acquaintance an idle man generally ready to play a game, does not in the least harmonise with the usual character and habits of country gentlemen past sixty, or of Mr Mason in particular. But when we read that this excellent individual, like so many others of his class, has gone largely into turnips—and that his French visitor, wishing to know all about English country life, and knowing that such a life is nothing without turnips, determined, amongst his other travelling studies, to study an English model farm, and, when his host proposed a visit to that beloved establishment, accepted the invitation with “empressement,” and listened for hours to bucolic talk with “un grand interest,”—then we no longer wonder for an instant at the eternal friendship which the English member of the “Royal Agricultural” suddenly and silently vowed to his guest. Long and painful experience of visits paid to these excellent people in the country—reminiscences of the inevitable walk over ploughed fields—the plunging into long dark galleries where unfortunate beasts were immured for life to be turned into beef, a process which should be mercifully hidden from the eyes of every good Christian—the yawns unsuccessfully stifled—the remarks answered at random—the senseless questions desperately volunteered out of politeness on the visitor’s part, betraying the depth of his incapacity and ignorance;—these must rise before many a reader’s mind as well as our own, and make them feel what a treasure the scientific agriculturist had found in the inquiring Frenchman, who walked and talked and listened, not only without a complaint or a yawn, but positively because he liked it. Enterprising foreigners have been said to have tried to make their way into English country society, before now, through the introduction of the hunting-field, not always with success; perhaps they may be inclined to take a hint from this little book, and, in quiet family cases, try the turnips.

The visits to Mr Mason’s farm-cottages give the traveller the opportunity of drawing a contrast between the habits and aspirations of agricultural labourers in the two countries:—

“That passion for becoming proprietors, so widely spread in our own country districts, is unknown, and probably will long continue so, amongst the agricultural classes in England. The example of Ireland [it might have been added, of Wales], where the land has been very much subdivided, and where the population which maintains itself on it has become excessive, has strengthened the opinion amongst large landed proprietors in England as to the evil effects of small holdings. I think I scarcely exaggerate when I say that certainly, in the southern counties of England, a peasant possessing an acre of land would be a rarity. Probably it is to this impossibility of becoming small proprietors that we must attribute the taste which the labouring classes in England show for ornamenting their houses. If a working man has saved any money, he will employ it in buying a set of furniture, and making his cottage look gay; whereas, in France, he would have laid it aside in the hope of acquiring a bit of land; so that nothing can be more different than the wretched cabins of our own rural districts and the cottage of an English labourer, with its many little appliances of comfort and even luxury. In general the English peasant lives much less sparingly, and spends upon his meal twice as much as the French: it is true that the climate requires a more substantial style of diet.”

These observations would have been more strictly true if they had been made a few years ago. Within that time the passion for property has sprung up not only amongst those who call themselves “operatives” (journeymen weavers, shoemakers, &c.), but even, to a certain extent, amongst farm-labourers. Recent alterations in the laws of partnership have encouraged what are called “co-operative societies,” who not only open “stores” for the sale of all the necessaries of life, on the joint-stock principle of division of profits, but build cottages which, by certain arrangements, may become the property of the tenant. A whole village has just been built in Yorkshire, on this principle of the tenants becoming eventually the landlords. Not only this, but the same desire for independence—an excellent feeling in itself—is leading the same class to purchase cottage property whenever it comes into the market. If this ambition to become a purchaser were confined to a desire upon every man’s part to feel himself absolute master of the home he lived in, then, whatever large proprietors or able political economists might have to say, it would be an object which would deserve the very highest respect. But, unfortunately, the feeling is not altogether that of desiring to live in peace under one’s own vine and fig-tree: it is the wish to have a tenement to let out to others. It is comparatively seldom that a small piece of land, suited to the sum at such a purchaser’s command, is thrown into the market. Cottages, on the other hand, are continually advertised for sale; the working-man, eager to secure his bit of real property, gives for them a sum far beyond their value—a sum which the capitalist or large proprietor will not give; and in order to make his purchase pay, he either proceeds at once to divide a comfortable dwelling into two, or raises the rent upon his more needy tenant. The evil consequences are twofold; the neighbouring landowner, who ought to have the cottages for his own labourers, who would keep them in good repair, and let them at moderate rents, has been driven out of the market; and either a lower class of tenant, continually changing and being “sold up,” is introduced; or the honest labourer is compelled to pay to this new landlord of his own class a rent out of all proportion to the accommodation supplied him.

It is to be hoped that this growing evil (for evil it is) may be met by the increased liberality of landed proprietors in building good and sufficient cottages for the labourers on their own estates. In the case of the humbler artisans, in towns especially, one does not see the remedy except in the questionable shape of legislative restrictions.

But we have almost forgotten our foreign exile’s travelling acquaintance, Mr Norris, the hearty and genial English clergyman at whose invitation he first set himself to study English life. Before finally taking up his quarters at Lynmere, he has paid the promised visit to his friend in his parsonage at Kingsford; “a pretty Gothic chateau,” furnished with the taste of a gentleman and a scholar; a residence whose somewhat luxurious belongings, its ample library, and the well-chosen prints which grace its walls, when contrasted in the writer’s mind with the humble abode of the French village curé, give rise to reflections “not wholly to the disadvantage of the latter.” We, on the other hand, must warn any foreign reader who may draw the contrast for himself, that Kingsford Parsonage is a very exceptional case indeed. Mr Norris is discovered, somewhat to his French visitor’s surprise, clad in “a strange costume of white flannel,” not altogether sacerdotal; “Je suis habillé en cricketer,” is the parson’s explanation. The fact is, he has just been playing cricket with his pupils, half-a-dozen young men in preparation for the Universities. The simple and orderly habits of the household, the breakfast at eight, the dinner at one, the kindly intercourse between the tutor and his pupils, and the prosperity of a well-ordered village under an energetic pastor, are well described, and will give our French neighbours a very fair idea of such a life. A little, a very little “triste,” our visitor finds it, this English rural life, with its rich green meadows and grey sky, and slowly-winding river, half hidden by its banks. One needs, he considers, in order to find happiness in such scenes, a hearty love for simple nature, and a heart “warmed with the sentiment of duty fulfilled;” in short, he is of Dr Johnson’s opinion, though he puts it into much more complimentary language—that “those who are fond of the country are fit to live in the country.”

But if we cannot allow our French friends to imagine that all English country clergymen have their lot cast in the pleasant places of Kingsford and Lynmere, still less, we fear, must they consider them (or their wives) such wonderful economists as, like Mr Norris, to maintain all the quiet elegancies of a gentleman’s establishment in a handsome Gothic chateau (and to travel in Switzerland besides), upon an ecclesiastical income scarcely exceeding, after all necessary deductions, two hundred pounds a-year. True, Mr Norris takes pupils and writes for reviews—highly respectable vocations, and profitable enough in some hands, but scarcely open to the majority of his brethren, and not safe to be depended upon, as a supplementary income, by young clergymen on small preferments who may feel no vocation for celibacy. Mr Norris, indeed, is peculiarly favoured in many respects as regards money matters; for he has been fortunate enough to have enjoyed an exhibition at Oxford in days when the word “exhibition” (as we are informed in a note) meant “a gratuitous admission to the University.” Here we are certainly stepping out of the ground of real English life, where the writer has so pleasantly guided us, into a highly imaginative state of things. It would have been a noble boast, indeed, for us to have made to foreigners, if it could have been made truly, that Oxford, out of her splendid endowments, offered, even occasionally, “gratuitous admissions” to poor and deserving scholars. It was what the best of her founders and benefactors intended and desired—what they thought they had secured for ever by the most stringent and solemn enactments; but what, unhappily, the calm wisdom of the University itself has been as far from carrying out as the busy sweeping of a Reform Commission.

The foreign visitor is naturally very much impressed by an English cricket-match. The puzzled admiration which possesses him on the occasion of his “assisting” at a “fête du cricket” is very amusingly expressed. Throughout all his honest admiration of the English character, there peeps out a confession that this one peculiar habit of the animal is what he has failed to account for or comprehend. He tries to philosophise on the thing; and, like other philosophical inquirers when they get hold of facts which puzzle them, he feels bound to present his readers with a theory of cause and effect which is evidently as unsatisfactory to himself as to them. He falls back for an explanation on that tendency to “solidarity” in the English temperament which he has admired before.

“The explanation of the great popularity of the game of cricket is that, being always a challenge between two rival bodies, it produces emulation and excites that spirit of party which, say what we will, is one of the essential stimulants of public life, since in order to identify one’s self with one’s party one must make a sacrifice to a certain extent of one’s individuality. The game of cricket requires eleven persons on each side, and each of the players feels that he is consolidated (solidaire) with his comrades, in defeat as well as in victory.... That which makes the charm of the game is, above all, the solidarity which exists between the players.”

This is a very pretty theory, but scarcely the true one. In the public-school matches, no doubt, and in some matches between neighbouring villages, the esprit de corps goes for much; but, as a rule, we fear the cricketer is a much more selfish animal. His ambition is above all things to make a good score, and to appear in ‘Bell’s Life’ with a double figure to his name. Just as the hunting man, so that he himself can get “a good place,” cares exceedingly little for the general result of the day’s sport; so the batsman at Lord’s, so long as he makes a good innings, or the bowler so long as he “takes wickets” enough to make a respectable figure on the score, thinks extremely little, we are sorry to say, of “solidarity.” Whether the match is won or lost is of as little comparative importance as whether the fox is killed or gets away. We notice the difference, because it is a great pity it should be so. The Frenchman’s principle is by far the finer one; and the gradual increase of this intense self-interest in the cricket-field is going far to nullify the other good effects of the game as a national amusement. One reason why the matches between the public schools are watched with such interest by all spectators is, that the boys do really feel and show that identification of one’s self with one’s party which the author so much respects; the Harrow captain is really much more anxious that Harrow should beat Eton, than that he himself should get a higher score than Jones or Thompson of his own eleven; and the enthusiastic chairing of the hero of the day is not, as he knows, a personal ovation to the player, as to a mere exhibition of personal skill, but to his having maintained the honour of the school.

Our national ardour for this game seems always incomprehensible to a Frenchman. There is a little trashy, conceited book now before us, in which a French writer, professing to enlighten his countrymen upon English life, dismisses this mysterious amusement in a definition, the point and elegance of which it would be a pity to spoil by translation—“un exercice consistant à se fatiguer et à donner d’autant plus de plaisir qu’il avait fait répandre d’autant plus de sueur.”[2] He is careful, at the same time, to suggest that even cricket is probably borrowed from his own nation—the “jeu de paume” of the days of the Grand Monarque. But the inability of so shrewd and intelligent an observer, as the foreign spectator with whom we have to do at present, to comprehend the real points of the game, is an additional testimony to its entirely English character. The Etonian’s mamma, who, as he relates with a sort of quiet wonder, sat for five hours on two days successively on a bench under a hot sun, to watch the match between her son’s eleven and Harrow, would have given a much better account of the game. The admiring visitor does not pretend, as he observes, to go into the details of a game which has thirty-eight rules; but he endeavours to give his French readers some general idea of the thing, which may suffice for unprofessional lookers-on. It is unnecessary to say that the idea is very general indeed. The “consecrated” ground on which the “barrières” are erected, and where the “courses” take place, are a thoroughly French version of the affair. The “ten fieldsmen precipitating themselves in pursuit of the ball when struck” would be ludicrous enough to a cricketer’s imagination, if the thought of the probable consequences were not too horrible. Even such headlong zeal on the part of two fieldsmen only, with their eye on the same ball, has resulted, before now, in a collision entailing the loss of half-a-dozen front teeth and other disfigurements. It was unnecessary to exaggerate the perils of a game which, as our author observes, has its dangers; and if the fieldsmen at Lynmere conducted themselves after this headlong fashion when he was watching them, we can quite understand his surprise that, when the day concludes with the inevitable English dinner, men who had spent the whole day “in running, striking, and receiving blows from the ball to the bruising of their limbs” (and precipitating themselves against each other) should still show themselves disposed to drink toasts and make speeches for the rest of the evening. The conversation which he has with the parish schoolmaster, an enthusiastic cricketer, is good in its way:—

“‘I hope you have enjoyed the day?’ said he to me. ‘You have had an opportunity of seeing what cricket is. It’s a noble game, is it not?’

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is a fine exercise; and I think highly of those amusements which bring all classes together under the influence of a common feeling.’

“‘It is not only that,’ replied the excellent man: ‘but nothing moralises men like cricket.’

“‘How?’ said I, rather astonished to hear him take such high ground.

“‘Look here,’ he replied; ‘a good cricketer is bound to be sober and not frequent the public-house, to accustom himself to obey, to exercise restraint upon himself; besides, he is obliged to have a great deal of patience, a great deal of activity; and to receive those blows of the ball without shrinking, requires, I assure you, some degree of courage.’”

We suspect that these remarks belong of right at least as much to the French philosopher as to the English national schoolmaster; but they bring forward in an amusing way the tendency of one-ideaed philanthropists, which the author elsewhere notices, to attribute to their own favourite hobby the only possible moral regeneration of society:

“Every Englishman who is enthusiastic in any particular cause never fails to see in that the greatness and the glory of his country; and in this he is quite serious. In this way I have heard the game of cricket held up to admiration as one of the noblest institutions of England, an institution which insures to the country not only an athletic, but an orderly and moral population. I have seen the time when the same honour was ascribed to horse-racing; but since this sport has crossed the Channel, and it has been found by experience that it does not always preserve a country from revolutions and coups d’état, it has lost something of its prestige in England.”

There is always some moral panacea in the course of advertisement, like a quack medicine, to cure all diseases: mechanics’ institutes, cheap literature, itinerant lecturers, monster music-classes, have all had their turn; and just at present the ‘Saturday Review’ seems to consider that the salvation of England depends upon the revival of prize-fighting.

We cannot follow the writer into all the details of village institutions and village politics, which are sketched with excellent taste and great correctness. It will be quite worth while for the foreigner who wants to get a fair notion of what goes on here in the country—or indeed for the English reader who likes to see what he knows already put into a pleasant form, all the more amusing because the familiar terms look odd in French—to go with our French friend to the annual dinner of “Le Club des Odd-Fellows,” with its accompaniment “de speechs, de hurrahs, et de toasts”—without which, he observes, no English festival can take place; to accompany him in his “Visite au Workhouse,” subscribe with him to the “Club de Charbon,” or, better still, sit with him in the village Sunday-school, even if we cannot take the special interest which he did (for his own private reasons) in “le classe de Miss Mary.” Very pleasant is the picture—not overdrawn, though certainly taken in its most sunshiny aspect—of the charitable intercourse in a well-ordered country village between rich and poor. One form, indeed, there is of modern educational philanthropy which the writer notices, of the success of which we confess to have our doubts. The good ladies of Lynmere set up an “Ecole managère”—a school of domestic management, we suppose we may call it—where the village girls were to learn cooking and other good works. Now a school of cookery, admirable as it is in theory—the amount of ignorance on that subject throughout every county in England being blacker than ever was figured in educational maps—presents considerable difficulties in actual working. To learn to cook, it is necessary to have food upon which to practise. Final success, in that art as in others, can only be the result of a series of experimental failures. And here was the grand stumbling-block which presented itself, in the case of a cooking-school set up with the very best intentions, under distinguished patronage, in a country village within our own knowledge. Some half-dozen girls, who had left school and were candidates for domestic service, were caught and committed to the care and instruction of an experienced matron; not without some murmuring on the part of village mothers, who considered such apprenticeship a waste of time,—all girls, in their opinion, being born cooks. From this culinary college the neighbouring families were to be in course of time supplied with graduates. Great were the expectations formed by the managers, and by the credulous portion of the public. There were to be no more tough beef-steaks, no more grumbling masters and scolding mistresses, no more indigestion. But this admirable undertaking split upon a rock which its originators had not foreseen. It had been proposed that the village families should in turn send dishes to be operated upon by the pupils; but the English village mind is not given to experiments, culinary or other, and preferred boiling its mutton one day and eating it cold the next. Then the bachelor curate, who had a semi-official connection with the new establishment, reading prayers there as “chaplain and visitor,” who was presumed to have a healthy appetite, and was known to have complained of the eternal mutton-chops provided by his landlady, was requested to undergo a series of little dinners cooked for him gratis. The bashful Oxonian found it impossible to resist the lady patronesses’ invitation, and consented—for the good of the institution. But it ended in the loss to the parish of a very excellent working parson. For a few weeks, the experimental ragouts and curries sent in to his lodgings had at least the advantage of being a change: but as the presiding matron gradually struck out a bolder line, and fed him with the more ambitious efforts of her scholars, it became too much even for clerical patience, and he resigned his cure. Out of delicacy to the ladies’ committee, he gave out that it was “the Dissenters;” but all his intimate friends knew that it was the cooking-school.

The Rector of Lynmere is a Mr Leslie—a clergyman of the refined and intellectual type, intended, probably, as an artistic contrast to Mr Norris in his cricket flannels. He is, we are expressly told, “an aristocrat”—indeed, a nephew of the Countess aforesaid. He is reserved, nervous, and diffident, although earnest and single-hearted. The vulgar insolence of the Baptists at the vestry-meetings is gall and wormwood to him; and he suffers scarcely less under the fussy interference of a Madam Woodlands, one of the parish notables, of Low-Church views and energetic benevolence, who patronises the church and the rector, and holds him virtually responsible for all the petty offences and indecorums which disturb the propriety of the village. This lady is very slightly sketched, but the outline can be filled up from many a parish clergyman’s mental notebook. We do not wonder that Mr Leslie, with his shrinking sensibilities, had as great a horror of her as of Mr Say, the Nonconformist agitator, who led the attack at the church-rate meetings. Only we would remark, that if the author thinks that the unfitness of the Rector of Lynmere to contend with a body of political Dissenters, or his want of tact in dealing with so very excellent and troublesome a parishioner as Mrs Woodlands, is at all explained by his being “an aristocrat,” he is encouraging them in a very common and very unfortunate mistake. It is true that it is not pleasant for a man of cultivated mind and refined tastes, be he priest or layman, to be brought into contact with opponents whose nature and feelings, and the manner in which they express those feelings, are rude and vulgar; but if he possess, in addition to his refinement and cultivation, good sound sense, a moderate amount of tact, and, above all, good temper, he will find, in the fact of his being “a gentleman,” an immense weight of advantage over his antagonists. We remember to have seen protests, in the writings of a modern school of English Churchmen, against what they are pleased to term “the gentleman heresy;” representing it as dangerous to the best interests of both priests and people, that the former should attempt to combine with their sacred office the manners, the habits, and the social position of the gentleman. Without entering here into the serious question whether a special clerical caste, as it were, standing between the lower ranks and the higher of the laity, distinct from both, and having its separate habits and position, is a desirable institution to recommend; without discussing the other equally important question, whether the aristocracy of a Christian nation have not also their religious needs, and whether these also have not a right to be consulted, and whether they will bear to be handed over to a priesthood which, if not plebeian itself, is to have at least no common interests or feelings with the higher classes—a question, this latter, to which history will give us a pretty decided answer;—it is quite enough to say that the working-classes themselves would be the foremost to demand—if the case were put before them fairly—that the ministers of religion should be “gentlemen” in every sense of the word. They will listen, no doubt, with gaping mouths and open ears, to a flow of rhodomontade declamation from an uneducated preacher: an inspired tinker will fill a chapel or a village-green, while the quiet rector goes through the service to a half-empty church. But inspired tinkers are rare in any age; and it is not excitement or declamation which go to form the really religious life of England. This—which we must not be supposed to confine within the limits of any Church establishment—depends for its support on sources that lie deeper and quieter than these. In trouble, in sickness, in temptation, these things miserably fail. And the dealing of “a gentleman” with these cases—a gentleman in manners, in thoughts, in feeling, in respect for the feelings of others—is as distinct in kind and in effect, as the firm but delicate handling of the educated surgeon (who goes to the bottom of the matter nevertheless) differs from the well-meant but bungling axe-and-cautery system of our forefathers. The poor understand this well. They know a gentleman, and respect him; and they will excuse in their parish minister the absence of some other very desirable qualities sooner than this. The structure of English society must change—its gentry must forfeit their character as a body, as they never have done yet—before this feeling can change. When you officer your regiments from any other class than their natural superiors, then you may begin to officer your national Church with a plebeian clergy.

There is another point connected with the legitimate influence of the higher classes on which the writer speaks, we fear, either from a theory of what ought to be, or from some very exceptional cases:—

“The offices of magistrate, of poor-law guardian, or even of churchwarden, are so many modes of honourable employment offered to those who feel in themselves some capacity for business and some wish to be useful. It will be understood that a considerable number of gentlemen of independent income, retired tradesmen, and officers not employed on service, having thus before them the prospect of a useful and active life, gather round an English village, instead of remaining buried in the great towns, as too often is the case in our own country.”

We fear the foreign reader will be mistaken if he understands anything of the sort. The county magistracy offers, without doubt, a position both honourable and useful; but it is seldom open to the classes mentioned. We do not say that the offices of parish guardian and churchwarden are highly attractive objects of ambition; but we do think that in good hands they might become very different from what they are; immense benefit would result in every way to many country parishes, if men of the class whom the writer represents as filling them would more often be induced to do so, instead of avoiding them as troublesome and ungrateful offices, and leaving them to be claimed by the demagogues and busybodies of the district. It may not be pleasant for a gentleman to put himself in competition for an office of this kind; but it may be his duty to do so. The reproach which the writer addresses to the higher classes in France is only too applicable to those in England also:—

“If all those whose education, whose intelligence, whose habits of more elevated life, give them that authority which constitutes a true aristocracy, would but make use of their high position to exercise an influence for good upon public matters—if only the honest and sensible party in our country would shake off its apathy and fulfil all the duties of citizens—our institutions would have a life and power which at present are too often wanting.”

True words for the conservative spirit both in the English Church and in the English nation to lay to heart; for, so long as education and refinement are too nice to stain themselves with the public dust of the arena, they have no right to complain if candidates, less able but less scrupulous, parade themselves as victors.

If our neighbours over the water read (as we hope many of them will) these little sketches of an English village, drawn in their own language, if not by one of themselves, yet by one who is evidently no stranger to their national sympathies, and who writes manifestly with the kindest feelings towards both, it is well, perhaps, that they should bear in mind that it is a picture purposely taken under a sunny aspect. Rural England is not all Arcadia. All English landladies, even in the country, are not Mrs Joneses, nor are all English families as hospitable as the Masons. There are villages where there is no “Miss Mary” to teach the children or to talk sentiment. There are less fascinating “strangers’ guides” which could take him into the public-houses and the dancing-rooms as well as to rural fêtes and lectures, and show him what goes on there. But while we are far from claiming to be judged by our bright side only, we are glad that foreigners should see our bright side sometimes. It has not been too often painted in French colours; and we trust they will give the present artist’s work a fair hanging in their National Gallery.

LORD MACKENZIE’S ROMAN LAW.[3]

It has sometimes been suspected that, in the noble delineation of the Roman character ascribed to Anchises in the sixth book of the ‘Æneid,’ Virgil was induced, by unworthy motives, to depreciate unduly the oratory of his countrymen as compared with that of the Greeks; and undoubtedly the inferiority of Cicero to Demosthenes, as a mere forensic pleader, is not so clear or decided as to demand imperatively from a Latin poet the admission there unreservedly made by the blunt and almost prosaic expression, “Orabunt causas melius.” Possibly, however, it was the poet’s true object, by yielding the most liberal concessions on other points, to enforce the more strongly his emphatic assertion, not merely of the superiority of the Romans in the arts of ordinary government, but of their exclusive or peculiar possession of the powers and faculties fitted for attaining and preserving a mighty empire. It is certain that he has justly and vividly described the great characteristic of that people, and the chief source and secret of their influence in the history of the world, when he makes the patriarch exclaim,—

“Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;

Hæ tibi erunt artes.”

In aid of the high moral and intellectual qualities which led to their success as the conquerors and rulers of the world, it is most material to notice the structure and genius of the language in which the Roman people expressed and embodied their political, legislative, and judicial determinations. Every national language is more or less the reflex of the national mind; and in no instance is this correspondence more conspicuous than in the case we are now considering.

The Latin language is inferior to the Greek in subtlety and refinement of expression, and is therefore far less adapted for metaphysical speculation or poetical grace—for analysing the nicer diversities of thought, or distinguishing the minuter shades of passion; but in the enunciation of ethical truths and of judicial maxims, it possesses a clearness, force, and majesty, to which no other form of speech can approach. The great foundations of law are good morals and good sense, and these, however simple and plain in their elements, are not mean or common things. On the contrary, they are susceptible of the greatest dignity of expression when embodied in words; and the language in which their principles shall be clothed may be of the utmost importance in rendering them both more portable in the memory and more impressive on the heart. The Roman jurists of the later period of the Republic were not careless students of the Greek philosophy; but they used it in their juridical writings with a wise discretion, and in special reference to the object of law, which is to lay down the broad rules of human conduct and personal rights in a form easily understood, and capable of being easily followed and faithfully observed by the mass of mankind.

The unequalled talent of the Roman people for political organisation is evinced by the manner in which the imperial authority was maintained, after the personal character of the nominal sovereigns had degenerated to the very lowest point of profligacy and imbecility. Our Teutonic ancestors had the wisdom to appreciate and adopt much of the machinery which they thus found in operation; and the municipal governments, as well as the judicial constitutions of Europe, are at this day influenced by the models which were thus left. The Popedom itself, on whose probable endurance for the future it would be hazardous to speculate, but whose marvellous ascendancy in time past is beyond dispute, was little else than an adaptation of the imperial organisation to ecclesiastical objects. But the influence of the Roman law on other nations was pre-eminently seen in the wide adoption of its general scheme, as well as of its special rules and maxims. Even the law of England—of all European systems perhaps the least indebted to the civil law—is deeply imbued with the Roman spirit in some of the most important departments of jurisprudence; and where the authority of the Roman law cannot claim a submissive allegiance, it is yet listened to as the best manifestation of the Recta Ratio that can anywhere be found. The vast experience of human transactions, and the endless complexities of social relations, which the Roman empire presented, afforded the best materials for maturing a science which was cultivated for noble objects by minds of the highest order, and embodied in propositions of unrivalled power and precision.

Independently of its influence on individual municipal systems, the Roman law deserves to be carefully studied, as affording the easiest transition, and the best introduction, from classical and philosophical pursuits to the technical rules and scientific principles of general jurisprudence. From Aristotle’s Ethics, or from Cicero De Officiis, the passage is plain and the ascent gentle to the Institutes of Gaius and Justinian; and these, again, are the best preparation for the perusal of Blackstone or Erskine. It ought, indeed, to be considered as a great privilege of the law-student that his path lies for so great a portion of its early way through a region which has been rendered so pleasing and attractive by the labours of the eminent men whom we have now named, and who combine so much charm of style and correctness of taste with so much practical wisdom and useful philosophy.

Hitherto, we think, there has been a great, or rather an utter, want in this country of any good Institute of the civil law, that could safely and efficiently guide the student in his early labours, or assist him in his more advanced progress. The elegant and admirable summary given by Gibbon in his History, cannot, without much comment and expansion, be made a book of instruction; but we feel assured that this want which we have noticed is supplied by the work now before us. Lord Mackenzie’s book, though bearing the popular and modest title of ‘Studies in Roman Law,’ is truly an Institute, or didactic Exposition, of that system, where its elements and leading principles are laid down and illustrated as fully as a student could require, while a reference is made at every step to texts and authorities, which will enable him to extend and confirm his views by a full examination of original sources. The enunciation of the legal principles is everywhere given with great brevity, but with remarkable clearness and precision, and in a manner equally pleasing and unpretending. The comparison which is at the same time presented between the Roman system and the laws of France, England, and Scotland, add greatly to the attraction as well as to the usefulness of the work.

At the risk of appearing to resemble the man in Hierocles who carried a brick about with him as a sample of his house, we shall here offer a few extracts in illustration of the character of the work and its style of execution, premising that the passages we have selected have reference to topics more of a popular than of a scientific kind.

The interest attaching at present to questions of international law, and to the rights of belligerents, will recommend the passages on those subjects which here follow:—

“If all the states of Europe were to concur in framing a general code of international law, which should be binding on them all, and form themselves into a confederacy to enforce it, this might be regarded as a positive law of nations for Europe. But nothing of this sort has ever been attempted. The nearest approach to such international legislation is the general regulations introduced into treaties by the great Powers of Europe, which are binding on the contracting parties, but not on the states that decline to accede to them.

“To settle disputes between nations on the principles of justice, rather than leave them to the blind arbitrament of war, is the primary object of the European law of nations. When war has broken out, it regulates the rights and duties of belligerents, and the conduct of neutrals.

“As the weak side of the law of nations is the want of a supreme executive power to enforce it, small states are exposed to great disadvantages in disputes with their more powerful neighbours. But the modern political system of Europe for the preservation of the balance of power forms a strong barrier against unjust aggression. When the power of one great state can be balanced, or kept in check, by that of another, the independence of smaller states is in some degree secured against both; for neither of the great Powers will allow its rival to add to its strength by the conquest of the smaller states....

“By the declaration of 16th April 1856, the Congress of Paris, held after the Crimean war, adopted four principles of international law. 1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers the enemy’s merchandise, with the exception of contraband of war. 3. Neutral merchandise, with the exception of contraband of war, is not liable to seizure under an enemy’s flag. 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, must be maintained by a force really sufficient to prevent approach to an enemy’s coast. This declaration was signed by the plenipotentiaries of the seven Powers who attended the Congress, and it was accepted by nearly all the states of the world. But the United States of America, Spain, and Mexico, refused their assent, because they objected to the abolition of privateering. So far as these Powers are concerned, therefore, privateering—that is, the employment of private cruisers commissioned by the state—still remains a perfectly legitimate mode of warfare. Britain and the other Powers who acceded to the declaration, are bound to discontinue the practice in hostilities with each other. But if we should have the misfortune to go to war with the United States, we should not be bound to abstain from privateering, unless the United States should enter into a similar and corresponding engagement with us....

“The freedom of commerce, to which neutral states are entitled, does not extend to contraband of war; but, according to the principles laid down in the declaration of Paris of April 1856, it may now be said that ‘a ship at sea is part of the soil of the country to which it belongs,’ with the single exception implied in the right of a belligerent to search for contraband. What constitutes contraband is not precisely settled; the limits are not absolutely the same for all Powers, and variations occur in particular treaties; but, speaking generally, belligerents have a right to treat as contraband, and to capture, all munitions of war and other articles directly auxiliary to warlike purposes. The neutral carrier engages in a contraband trade when he conveys official despatches from a person in the service of the enemy to the enemy’s possessions; but it has been decided that it is not illegal for a neutral vessel to carry despatches from the enemy to his Ambassador or his Consul in a neutral country. The penalty of carrying contraband is confiscation of the illegal cargo, and sometimes condemnation of the ship itself.

“The affair of the Trent, West Indian mail, gave rise to an important question of maritime law deeply affecting the rights of neutrals. In November 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the American war-steamer San Jacinto, after firing a roundshot and a shell, boarded the English mail-packet Trent, in Old Bahama Channel, on its passage from Havannah to Southampton, and carried off by force Messrs Mason and Slidell, two Commissioners from the Confederate States, who were taken on board as passengers bound for England. The Commissioners were conveyed to America, and committed to prison; but, after a formal requisition by Britain, declaring the capture to be illegal, they were surrendered by the Federal Government.

“The seizure of the Commissioners was attempted to be justified by American writers on two grounds: 1st, That the Commissioners were contraband of war, and that in carrying them the Trent was liable to condemnation for having committed a breach of neutrality; 2d, That, at all events, Captain Wilkes was entitled to seize the Commissioners either as enemies or rebels. Both these propositions are plainly untenable....

“In an able despatch by the French. Government to the Cabinet of Washington, M. Thouvenel declared that the seizure of the Commissioners in a neutral ship, trading from a neutral port to a neutral port, was not only contrary to the law of nations, but a direct contravention of the principles which the United States had up to that time invariably avowed and acted upon. Russia, Austria, and Prussia officially intimated their concurrence in that opinion.

“To argue the matter on the legal points in opposition to the disinterested and well-reasoned despatch of the French Minister was a hopeless task. In an elaborate state-paper, Mr Seward, the American Secretary of State, professed to rest the surrender of the Commissioners upon a mere technicality—that there had been no formal condemnation of the Trent by a prize-court; but, apart from this point of form, the seizure was indefensible on the merits as a flagrant violation of the law of nations; and if the principle was not so frankly acknowledged by Mr Seward as it ought to have been, some allowance must be made for a statesman who was trammelled by the report of his colleague, Mr Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, approving of Captain Wilkes’s conduct, and still more by the necessity of adopting a policy directly contrary to the whole current of popular opinion in the Northern States.”

The law of marriage and of divorce is very fully treated by Lord Mackenzie, and the peculiarities of the different European systems are well pointed out. The subject, however, is too extensive and important to admit of being incidentally noticed; and we shall confine our extracts here to a single passage describing a Roman form of cohabitation less honourable than matrimony, and such as we trust is never likely, to be legalised among ourselves:—

“Under Augustus, concubinage—the permanent cohabitation of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman—was authorised by law. The man who had a lawful wife could not take a concubine; neither was any man permitted to take as a concubine the wife of another man, or to have more than one concubine at the same time. A breach of these regulations was always condemned, and fell under the head of stuprum. In later times the concubine was called amica. Between persons of unequal rank concubinage was not uncommon; and sometimes it was resorted to by widowers who had already lawful children and did not wish to contract another legal marriage, as in the cases of Vespasian, Antoninus Pius, and M. Aurelius.

“As regards the father, the children born in concubinage were not under his power, and were not entitled to succeed as children by a legal marriage; but they had an acknowledged father, and could demand support from him, besides exercising other rights. As regards the mother, their rights of succession were as extensive as those of her lawful children.

“Under the Christian emperors concubinage was not favoured; but it subsisted as a legal institution in the time of Justinian. At last Leo the Philosopher, Emperor of the East, in a.d. 887, abrogated the laws which permitted concubinage, as being contrary to religion and public decency. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘should you prefer a muddy pool, when you can drink at a purer fountain?’ The existence of this custom, however, was long prolonged in the West among the Franks, Lombards, and Germans; and it is notorious that the clergy for some time gave themselves up to it without restraint.”

The practice of adoption prevailing in ancient Rome is well known, but an account of it as it is retained in the French law may be thought curious:—

“In France the usage of adoption was lost after the first race of kings: it disappeared, not only in the customary provinces, but also in the provinces governed by the written law. Re-established in 1792, adoption is now sanctioned by the Civil Code. Adoption, however, is only permitted to persons of either sex above the age of fifty, having neither children nor other lawful descendants, and being at least fifteen years older than the individual adopted. No married person can adopt without the consent of the other spouse. The privilege can only be exercised in favour of one who has been an object of the adopter’s care for at least six years during minority, or of one who has saved the life of the adopter in battle, from fire, or from drowning. In the latter case the only restriction respecting the age of the parties is, that the adopter shall be older than the adopted, and shall have attained his majority. In no case can adoption take place before the majority of the person proposed to be adopted.

“The form of adoption consists of a declaration of consent by the parties before a justice of the peace for the place where the adopter resides, after which the transaction requires to be approved of by the tribunal of first instance. After adoption, the adopted person retains all his rights as a member of his natural family. He acquires no right of succession to the property of any relation of the adopter; but in regard to the property of the adopter himself, he has precisely the same rights as a child born in marriage, even although there should be other children born in marriage after his adoption. The adopted takes the name of the adopter in addition to his own. No marriage can take place between the adopter and the adopted, or his descendants, and in certain other cases specified.

“The practice of adoption, which is better suited to some states of society than to others, still prevails among Eastern nations. It has never been recognised as a legal institution in England or Scotland.”

In ancient Rome, as at one time in Modern Athens, there was a practice of throwing or emptying things out of window not without danger or damage to the passer-by. This was the law on that point:—

“If anything was thrown from the windows of a house near a public thoroughfare, so as to injure any one by its fall, the inhabitant or occupier was, by the Roman law, bound to repair the damage, though it might be done without his knowledge by his family or servants, or even by a stranger. This affords an illustration of liability arising quasi ex delicto.

“In like manner, when damage was done to any person by a slave or an animal, the owner might in certain circumstances be liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without his knowledge and against his will; but in such a case, if no fault was directly imputable to the owner, he was entitled to free himself from all responsibility by abandoning the offending slave or animal to the person injured, which was called noxæ dare. Though these noxal actions are not classed by Justinian under the title of obligations quasi ex delicto, yet, in principle, they evidently fall within that category.

“All animals feræ naturæ, such as lions, tigers, bears, and the like, must be kept in a secure place to prevent them from doing mischief; but the same vigilance is not required in the case of animals mansuetæ naturæ, the presumption being, that no harm will arise in leaving them at large, unless they are known to be vicious or dangerous. So, where a foxhound destroyed eighteen sheep belonging to a farmer, it was decided by the House of Lords in an appeal from Scotland, that the owner of the dog was not liable for the loss, there being no evidence necessarily showing either knowledge of the vicious propensities of the dog or want of due care in keeping him; and it was observed that, both according to the English and the Scotch law, ‘the culpa or negligence of the owner is the foundation on which the right of action against him rests.’”

The subject of succession is treated by Lord Mackenzie in a very ample and satisfactory discussion. In particular, the chapter on ‘Intestate Succession in France, England, and Scotland’ will be found highly useful to the international jurist. Lord Mackenzie has not failed to observe here the striking peculiarity of the Scotch law, by which, with some qualifications very recently introduced, intestate succession, whether in real or personal estate, goes entirely to the agnates or paternal relations, and not at all to cognates or those on the mother’s side. This was the law of the Twelve Tables, but it was wholly altered in process of time, and, under Justinian’s enactments, paternal and maternal relations were equally favoured. In retaining the old distinction, the law of Scotland seems now to stand alone. The peculiarity may perhaps be explained by the strong feelings of family connection or clanship which so long prevailed in Scotland, and which bound together the descendants of the same paternal ancestor by so many common interests. But it is certainly singular that it should have continued to the present day with such slender modifications; and it is no small anomaly that, while a man may succeed to any of his maternal relations, none of his maternal relations can in general succeed to him, even in property which he may have inherited from the mother’s side.

The portion of the work devoted to actions and procedure introduces a clear light into a subject extremely technical, and often made very obscure by the mode in which it is treated. We have only room for a short extract as to the remedium miserabile of Cessio Bonorum:—

“The cessio bonorum has been adopted in France as well as in Scotland. By the ancient law of France, every debtor who sought the benefit of cessio was obliged by the sentence to wear in public a green bonnet (bonnet vert) furnished by his creditors, under the penalty of being imprisoned if he was found without it. According to Pothier, this was intended as a warning to all citizens to conduct their affairs with prudence, so as to avoid the risk of exposing themselves to such ignominy; but he explains that in his time, though the condition was inserted in the sentence, it was seldom acted on in practice, except at Bordeaux, where it is said to have been rigidly enforced.

“Formerly, a custom somewhat similar prevailed in Scotland. Every debtor who obtained the benefit of cessio was appointed to wear ‘the dyvour’s habit,’ which was a coat or upper garment, half yellow and half brown, with a cap of the same colours. In modern times this usage was discontinued. ‘According to the state of public feeling, it would be held a disgrace to the administration of justice. It would shock the innocent; it would render the guilty miserably profligate.’ For a considerable time it had become the practice in the judgment to dispense with the dyvour’s habit, and by the statute of Will. IV. it is utterly abolished.”

The work concludes with a very agreeable chapter on the Roman bar, from which we shall borrow a couple of passages. A certain portion of time was generally allowed to advocates for their speeches, but which varied before different judges and at different periods.

“A clepsydra was used in the tribunals for measuring time by water, similar in principle to the modern sand-glass. When the judge consented to prolong the period assigned for discussion, he was said to give water—dare aquam. ‘As for myself,’ says Pliny, ‘whenever I sit upon the bench (which is much oftener than I appear at the bar), I always give the advocates as much water as they require; for I look upon it as the height of presumption to pretend to guess before a cause is heard what time it will require, and to set limits to an affair before one is acquainted with its extent, especially as the first and most sacred duty of a judge is patience, which, indeed, is itself a very considerable part of justice. But the advocate will say many things that are useless. Granted. Yet is it not better to hear too much than not to hear enough? Besides, how can you know that the things are useless till you have heard them?’

“Marcus Aurelius, we are told, was in the habit of giving a large measure of water to the advocates, and even permitting them to speak as long as they pleased.

“By a constitution of Valentinian and Valens, A.D. 368, advocates were authorised to speak as long as they wished, upon condition that they should not abuse this liberty in order to swell the amount of their fees.”

The history of Roman practice, and, in particular, of the Cincian Law on the subject of advocates’ fees, is ably condensed; and the law of France and Scotland on the subject is thus stated:—

“In France, ancient laws and decisions, as well as the opinions of the doctors, allowed an action to advocates to recover their fees; but according to the later jurisprudence of the Parliament of Paris, and the actual discipline of the bar now in force, no advocate was or is permitted to institute such an action. In like manner barristers in England are held to exercise a profession of an honorary character, ‘and cannot, therefore, maintain an action for remuneration for what they have done, unless the employer has expressly agreed to pay them.’ Upon this point the authorities in the law of Scotland are not very precise. Lord Bankton says, ‘Though action be competent for such gratification, advocates who regard their character abhor such judicial claims, and keep in their mind the notable saying of Ulpian upon the like occasion, Quœdam enim tametsi honeste accipiantur, inhoneste tamen petuntur.’ But it is maintained by others, whose opinion is entitled to great weight, that no action lies for such fees—the presumption, in the absence of an express paction, being, that the advocate has ‘either been satisfied, or agreed to serve gratis.’”

What the law of England is on this most important question will probably be definitively settled in a cause célèbre now depending. We do not conceal our earnest hope that the principles laid down in the recent judgment of Chief-Justice Erle will never be departed from.

We close this notice by strongly recommending Lord Mackenzie’s book to the notice both of the student and the practising jurist, to each of whom we think it indispensable.

THE PERIPATETIC POLITICIAN—IN FLORENCE.

There is a mysterious power in this nineteenth century before which we all bow down and worship. Emperors have grown powerful by its support, and kings that know not how to please it become the laughing-stock of Europe. The highest are not beyond its reach, the lowest are not beneath its notice. The Secretary of State spreads lengthy despatches as peace-offerings at its shrine, and the parish beadle is careful not to put his hat on awry lest he fall beneath its censure. The idol has innumerable votaries; but its high priests, the exponents of its law, are the great authors and statesmen of the day. And they have a hard taskmaster to serve: they must do the pleasure of their lord before he has signified his wishes—they must anticipate his thoughts and be beforehand with his commands; obsequiousness and obedience alone will not suffice them; they may sacrifice every friend and every principle for his sake, and nevertheless disgrace and proscription await them, unless they can know their master’s mind before it is known to himself.

Public Opinion is the unknown master to whom all submit; listening anxiously but vainly for his commands, not knowing how or where to study his humour. There are Houses of Parliament, newspapers, clubs, mechanic’s institutes, pot-houses, prayer meetings—but which of all these speak public opinion? A weekly gathering of articles from daily papers is not public opinion. Opinion after dinner is not public. It is evidently necessary to apply some means specially adapted to the place and the time in order to discover the mood of public opinion. In Syracuse, Dionysius constructed an ear for the purpose; unfortunately this invention has been lost.

In London, it is popularly said that the only means to ascertain public opinion is to take a seat in the omnibus for the day and drive continually up and down.

In Florence, public opinion walks,—it cannot afford to drive. The people must be studied on foot. The reader will therefore have already understood that the title of this paper was chosen from necessity and not for the sake of the alliteration; that in order to catch a glimpse of Italian affairs as seen through Tuscan spectacles—in order to enter for the moment into the jealousies, the grievances, and the vanities of the provincial town of Florence—there is no resource but that of treating the question peripatetically—that is, of walking the streets.

This course is the more natural because in Florence the streets are—thanks to the high price of manure—remarkably clean. Accordingly the people live in the street; there they are to be met at an early hour lounging along talking or smoking, wrapped in cloaks that take an extra twist with every degree of cold. The street is their assembly-room; it is frequented by men of all sorts, as will be at once seen by a moment’s scrutiny of the stream of people creeping slowly along over the pavement.

There is the commercial dandy who affects a felt hat with mandarin button on the crown, a knobby stick, and a would-be English shooting-jacket. Behind him is the sober professional man, in a French great-coat which has wandered from Paris, making room for newer fashions. There, too, is the priest of portly figure and wasted garments, which show at once his devotion to the inner man, and his neglect of the outer world, walking along with a blessing on his lips and a green cotton umbrella under his arm. By his side is the peasant come to town for the day, cart-whip in hand, and a long coarse cloak trailing from his shoulders, embroidered behind with flowers in green silk. Every stitch will show character in one way or another. Italians wear green flowers where Spaniards would have crosses in black braid.

And who is there among all this crowd who would trouble his thoughts about Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers? Look at yonder corner-wall where there is a sheet of paper prominently pasted on a black board: one solitary passenger gives it a passing glance: that is the telegram just received, announcing the formation of the new Ministry. But farther on there are collected a little company of people, whose animated and intent looks show something really interesting to be going on: it is that two or three young men are practising in chorus a snatch out of the last street-ballad. Farther on the respective merits of different ballet-dancers are under discussion, and some of the company are pronouncing the stage-manager unfit for his post. In the whole crowd there is not one word, nor even a passing thought, bestowed on the Government which is going on at Turin. So universal is the carelessness with regard to the current affairs of the day, that, as a general rule, if a man be heard to speak about politics, or in any way show himself conversant with public affairs, it may at once be concluded, more especially if he speak in a disagreeable voice, that that man is a Piedmontese.[4]

In vain do loud-voiced criers hawk prints representing the murder of the Gignoli family by the Austrians in 1859; they offer them at half-price, at quarter-price, but find no purchasers. Even the photograph of the bullet extracted from Garibaldi’s foot has ceased to draw people to the shop-window.

Leaving the street for the moment, and turning the corner of the great Piazza, we find under the colonnade, opposite the picture gallery, an anxious crowd of people, eager and pushing. That is the entrance to the ‘Monte di Pieta,’ or municipal pawnbroking establishment (for private pawnbroking is illicit in Florence). There is a long table before the door, and on it are spread silver watches, coral bracelets, and other trinkets. Articles that have lain unredeemed are being sold at auction. The sale is well attended, but purchasers will not compete. There is much examination and very little bidding. This same scene has occurred regularly at stated intervals for the last several centuries.

In the time of the Medicis, public policy and private benevolence became copartners in founding a self-supporting pawnbroking shop on a large scale, to be kept under the supervision of Government. To a people who, whenever they begin to be pinched in circumstances, try to economise but never attempt to work, and exert themselves rather to save than to make money, it is no small object to have a public pawnbroking establishment where money is allowed at a fixed scale. If a Florentine have a bracelet too much, and bread too little, he has but to give the bracelet in pawn to the Government. In the same way, if he be troubled with a child too many, he proceeds to the infant asylum, rings the bell, and in the cradle which forthwith opens, he deposits the child for the Government to feed. Under the Governments which have prevailed in Tuscany for the last three hundred years, this is precisely the kind of political institution which the Florentines have learnt to value and appreciate.

The proper supervision of the pawnbroking shop, the maintenance of the foundling asylums and the hospitals (with which Florence is, in proportion, better provided than London), the grant made to the opera—these and other such questions are the matters of government in which a Florentine takes interest. To politics, in an Englishman’s sense of the word, they pay little or no attention. In the election of representatives to the Chambers at Turin the people appear to take little or no part. For instance: M. Peruzzi, the present Minister for the Interior, is one of the representatives of Florence. On accepting office he was of course obliged to appeal to his constituents. The seat was contested. On the day appointed for the election I had occasion to ask my way to the place where it was being held: several respectable citizens did not know that any election was to take place whatever. At last one man, better informed than the rest, had heard something about an election that week, but did not know where the elections were held. The election proved invalid for want of the legal complement of voters—namely, one-half the whole number. This is the general result of elections in Tuscany on the first trial. The second election is valid, provided only the same number of voters are present as attended the first. This is fortunate, otherwise it might occur that there would be a lack of representatives from Tuscany in the Parliament at Turin.

The fact is, and it needs repetition, the Florentines do not care about politics. They have accepted the revolution that was made for them, and on the whole are well contented with the change; at least we ought in justice to ascribe their general listlessness in political affairs to contentment and not to indifference.

To inquire, however, more exactly into the thoughts of those amongst the Florentines who do think about politics, it will be as well to obtain at once rest and information by sitting down for a few moments in the tobacconist’s shop, which may be called the centre of the political world. To begin with, the tobacconist is always himself by profession a finished politician, and he, moreover, enjoys the confidence of several distinguished friends, who keep him accurately informed of every word that passes in the Cabinets of Europe. The general burden of his conversation, which is a fair type of the talk at shops and second-rate cafés, is as follows:—The Pope-king is the father of all mischief; and how should it be otherwise? are not priests and kings always the promoters of every evil? and this man is a combination of both. Then follows a complaint against the Emperor Napoleon and his creatures, the Ministers at Turin, who, like true Piedmontese, are in secret jealous of the greatness of Italy, and treacherously keep in pay reactionary employés in lieu of filling the offices, as they should, with enterprising liberals. This sentiment meets with loud and general applause, and the company, waxing warm on this topic, forthwith launch into various prophecies as to the immediate future. French wars, Polish revolutions, Austrian bankruptcies, are all considered, and it is weighed what each might do for Italy. What the Italians themselves might do is a less frequent theme.

The Government, however, is blamed for its neglect of Garibaldi, which is only of a piece with its conduct in leaving the active and patriotic liberals of the country without employment while they are pensioning the reactionists—an opinion which usually serves as alpha and omega in the discussions of the Florentine liberals on the conduct of the Government.

Having exhausted this topic, our friend the politico-tobacconist resumes his seat, taking his scaldino (an earthenware vessel shaped like a basket, and filled with hot ashes) on his lap for the comfort of his fingers, and proceeds to draw the attention of visitors to various piles of newspapers, the sale of which is part of his trade. And as Florence produces, for a country town, a very respectable number of papers (some dozen daily papers, not to count two tri-weekly papers and other periodicals), which, moreover, have something of a national, or rather of a provincial character, it will be worth while to look over them before leaving the tobacconist’s shop. It is not every paper that will be found: for instance, the three retrograde papers will not be forthcoming. These have so extremely small a circulation that it is very difficult to hunt them up. It is only by favour, for instance, that a copy of the ‘Contemporaneo’ can be got, for, there being no public demand, there is no sale; a limited number of copies only are distributed among subscribers.

The newspapers to be found on the counter are all liberal, but of various shades of “colour,” as the Italians name party opinions.

The ‘Gazzetta del Popolo,’ which is strictly constitutional, has still the largest circulation of any (it prints about 3000 copies daily), though not half what it had. Its decline has been owing partly to general competition, partly to its having embraced the defence of the late Ratazzi Ministry, which unpopular course is said to have cost it in a few months nearly one-fourth of its circulation; partly, perhaps, to its sustaining the Piedmontese, who have not of late been growing in the favour of the Tuscans.

The other papers are all more “advanced,” that is, more opposed to Government. Among these the ‘Censor’ ranks first. This is a thoroughly Tuscan paper, and full of quaint, provincial expressions. In party politics it is red—a colour which evidently finds most favour in the eyes of the poorer citizens; for recently it lost no less than a fourth of its circulation by raising its price from three to five cents, that is, from about a farthing and a half to a halfpenny. In its columns, though not there only, may be seen a catalogue of indictments against the Piedmontese. The Tuscans voted annexation to Italy, it is said—not to Piedmont. With Rome unity, without it none. Does the unity of Italy mean the domination of Turin? Are we to accept from the most barbarous portion of Italy laws which are sent down to us written in a jargon which cannot even be called Italian? Tuscany is being fleeced by men so greedy of every little gain, that they supply all the royal offices with paper made only in Piedmont, in order that Piedmontese paper-mills may reap the benefit.

It speaks well for the Piedmontese that, with so much desire to find fault with them, these are the most serious charges brought forward.

In the Ratazzi Ministry the papers lost the most fruitful theme of declamation. The caricatures against this Minister were endless, representing him in every stage of official existence, from the time when he climbs the high ministerial bench by the aid of a little finger stretched out from Paris, to the moment when he is shown hiding his head under the folds of the Emperor’s train.

What is said against the Italian Government, however, is not said in praise of the Grand-duke’s rule. On the contrary, the Opposition papers—those at least that have any circulation—all lean rather towards the “party of action,” or the extreme Liberals. The most prominent paper of this description in Florence is the ‘New Europe,’ which is republican, and makes no mystery of its principles.

Indeed, the press is so outspoken, and is allowed such latitude, that it is difficult to understand for what purpose the Government maintains a censorship. Nevertheless, such is the case. It is not a very effective one. Every paper is bound to be laid before the Reggio procurator twenty-four hours before it is published; but that official is so little able to peruse them all within the specified time, that it has frequently happened that a paper has been sequestrated when it was a day old, and had been already read and forgotten. The right of sequestration, however, has been used pretty freely. The ‘Censor’ was sequestrated more than sixty times in the course of last year, and the ‘New Europe’ has been treated even more severely: on one occasion it was sequestrated for three days running.

It is, however, high time to turn from the ideal to the material world; that is, to leave the tobacconist and his newspapers, and dive into the recesses of some very dirty and narrow little lanes where the market is being held, in order to see whether the prices given and the business done prove any decline in the prosperity of Florence since the days of the Grand-duke.

Passing by the mountains of vegetables piled up ornamentally against the huge stones of the Strozzi Palace, the reader must pick his way carefully amidst the accumulated masses of cabbage-stalks, children, and other dirt beneath, avoiding at the same time the carcasses that hang out from the butchers’ stalls on either side, from poles projecting far into the passage, and stooping every now and then to avoid the festoons of sausages which hang down from above, garland-fashion, just low enough to come in contact with the nose of an average-sized mortal. If by strictly observing the above precautions he can make his way despite all these obstacles, he will on turning the next corner arrive safely in front of an old woman and a boy presiding over sundry emblems of purgatory in the shape of huge frying-pans fixed over charcoal fires. The boy is ladling a mass of tiny dainties out of a seething black liquid, which have an appearance as of whitebait being fished out of the Thames. It is, however, only an appearance; for these are nothing more than small cakes of chestnut-flour, by name “sommomoli,” fried in oil, from which they emerge copper-coloured, sweet, nourishing, and tasteless, costing half a centesimo, or the twentieth part of a penny, a-piece. The old woman is in person superintending a still larger frying-pan, in which are frizzling square cut cakes, resembling Yorkshire pudding, sometimes interspersed with small slices of meat. These, by name “ignochchi,” consist of nothing less than Indian corn savoured with hogs-lard. A penny (ten centesimi) will purchase ten of them—a larger quantity than most English, or any Italian stomach would find it convenient to dispose of at one sitting. A step farther on slices will be offered to the passer-by off a huge flat cake the colour of gingerbread, also made of chestnut-flour, and so satisfying that it would puzzle even an Eton lollypop-eater to consume a penny’s worth. There are yet other delicacies, one especially tempting, a kind of black-pudding or rather black wafer. It consists of a spoonful of hog’s blood fried in oil, and then turned out of the pan on to a plate, seasoned with scraped cheese, and devoured hot, at a halfpenny a-piece.

With street goodies at these rates, whatever rise there may have been in prices, it is impossible to believe that they are of a nature to press to any extent upon the people at large. But take the staples of the market; look into the baker’s shop; weigh the loaves sold over the counter, and the price of the best wheaten bread will prove to be fifteen centesimi (a penny halfpenny a-pound)—not to mention the sacks of maize-flour, of rice, and of millet on the threshold.

Nevertheless the Florentine market shows a general rise in prices, probably attributable in part to the increased facility for sending the products of Tuscany, this garden of Italy, into the adjacent provinces, in part, although indirectly, to increased taxation, by which is meant not merely Government taxation, but the municipal rates, which have considerably increased in Florence; for the corporation of the town, in common with many other municipalities and commonalties, are availing themselves of their greater freedom of action under the new Government to carry out numberless improvements, which it was difficult to execute before on account of the lengthy representations which were required to be laid before the Grand-ducal Government.

The increase of taxation consequently is very considerable. The “tassa prediale,” or property-tax, for instance, has been increasing in Florence since 1859 at the rate of about one per cent every year, and in some commonalties it is even higher. There are men in Florence who are now paying in taxes (local rates and all included) exactly four times what they paid in the Grand-duke’s day. It is true that this increase is not so oppressive as it would appear, because the taxation of Tuscany used to be extremely light, being under fourteen shillings per head compared with the population. Still the cheerfulness with which this increase has been borne is a hopeful sign of the general willingness of the people to support the Italian Government. No impatience even has been shown at the rapidly augmenting taxes, and this single fact deserves to be set against a multitude of complaints on smaller matters.

Taxation, however, probably enters for very little in the rise of market prices. The reason of this increase is to be sought in local causes. For instance, there have been several successive bad seasons for olives. This year the yield is better, and the price is falling. Wine is still very high, owing to the grape disease. Meat is nearly double what it was some years since, owing, it is said, chiefly to a drought last summer.

The rise in prices, however, has been counterbalanced, so far as the working population are concerned, by a rise in wages, which has been on the average from a Tuscan lire to a Sardinian franc, or about 20 per cent.

On the whole, comparing the rise in prices with that in wages, the real pay of the labourer would seem to have slightly improved. So far, therefore, as the people’s stomachs are concerned, the comparison is not unfavourable to the new Government. To persons residing at Florence on fixed incomes, however, the increase in both instances is unfavourable, and they not unnaturally regard that which is inconvenient to themselves as ruinous to the country.

The loss of the custom of the Court and its train, upon which so much stress has been laid, so far from having affected Tuscany, has not even really affected Florence. The amount taken on account of the “octroi” at the gates of Florence shows the consumption to be on the increase.

We may therefore leave the market with the conviction that there is no material pressure at work to cause discontent. Some tradesmen really have suffered from the absence of the Court, as the jewellers and milliners for instance; but trade generally has not felt the difference.

Continuing, however, our walk in search of public opinion, we come, in a street not far distant, to a real cause of complaint; and in Tuscany, where there is a cause, there will be no want of complaint. There are a couple of soldiers standing sentry before a large door, and all around knots of countrymen talking together in anxious expectation, or not talking, but silently taking leave.

The conscription is a grievance. It is the only act of the new Government which is generally felt to be a hardship, and sometimes murmured against as an injustice. Rather more than one in every five of the youths who this year attain the age of twenty-one are being drawn for the army. This is the proportion of those taken from their homes and sent to the depots of different regiments, for all are liable to military service under one category or another. Being inscribed and left at home, however, is no great hardship: it is the separation from home which is dreaded, and therefore the numbers of the first category in the conscription which have alone to be considered. This heavy conscription is something new to the Tuscans. In the palmy days of Grand-ducal Government, before 1848, exemption from military service could be obtained for something less than £4 English; after the Austrian occupation, the conscription having grown severer, the cost of exemption was about doubled; but now it amounts to a sum which none but the wealthy can possibly pay.

The young conscripts, however, become rapidly imbued with the professional pride of their older comrades; and it often happens that lads, who have parted from their home in tears, astonish their quiet parents a few weeks after with letters full of enthusiasm for the Italian army. Enthusiasm on any subject is a rare virtue in Tuscany; and if a military life for six years could infuse into the rising generation some energy and some habits of discipline, the army would prove a more important means of education than all the new schools which are to be introduced.

But how is it that throughout this perambulation of the town of Florence we have not come across a single sign of that touching affection for the late Grand-duke which has been so vividly and so often described in England?

The truth is, that although there is a good deal of discontent with the present Government, there is no regret for the last.

Of all the weak sentiments which exist in Tuscan breasts, loyalty towards the late Grand-duke is certainly the very weakest.

In order, however, that the reader may catch a glimpse of the “Codini” (or “party of the tail,” as the following of the late Grand-duke are called) before they are all numbered among the antiquities of Italy, it will be advisable to take one turn on the banks of the Arno in the “Cascine,” the fashionable walk, or “the world,” of the Florentines.

It is sunset, and the evening chill is making itself felt—in fact, to lay aside all romance about the Italian climate, it is very cold. The upper five hundred come out at dew-fall, when everybody else goes in, apparently for no better reason than because everybody else does go in. There are Russians driving in handsome droschkes, and Americans in livery-stable barouches of an unwieldy magnificence. But our business is not with these; the native gentility of Florence is just arriving—ladies in closely-shut broughams, and young gentlemen, some in open carriages, half dog-carts half phaetons; others, less fortunate, in open fiacres.

They drive down to the end of the Cascine, where old beggar women attend upon them with “scaldine” to warm their fingers over. There men and women alight and promenade at a foot’s pace, despite the cold, after which they all drive home again.

And what can they have been about all day before they came to the Cascine? The masters and mistresses have been sitting in their respective rooms, drawing such warmth as they might from a stove most economically furnished with wood; the servants have been sitting in the antechamber, holding their four extremities over the hot ashes in the “brasero,” a metal vessel something like an English stewpan on a large scale; for the Italian palaces are cold: the architect may have done well, but the mason and the carpenter have been negligent. The walls are joined at any angle except a right one; the windows do not close; the floors are diversified by sundry undulations, so that a space is left beneath the door, through which light zephyrs play over the ill-carpeted floor. Perhaps the lady of the house has been sitting in state to receive her friends; for every Florentine lady is solemnly announced as “at home” to all her friends one day in the week, so as to keep them out of the house all the other six.

This is the married life in the palace. The life of the young men, the bachelor life of Florence, is not a bit more active. In a word, the life of a Florentine in easy circumstances is a prolonged lounge. It is not that they loiter away their time for a few weeks, or for a few months—for “a season,” in short—that is done all the world over; but the Florentines do nothing but loiter. The most active portion of their lives is that now before us,—the life during the carnival. The carnival over, the rest of the year is spent in recruiting finances and health for the next winter.

Lest the reader should treat this description as exaggerated or unduly severe, it will be best to let the Florentines themselves describe their own manner of living, and give, word for word, the rules laid down in a Florentine paper[5] for any young gentleman who wishes to live in holiness, peace, and happiness (sic).

“On waking in the morning, take a cup of coffee in bed; and if you have a servant to pour it out, mind that she be a young and pretty one.

“Then light a cigar (but not of native tobacco; it is too bad), or, better still, take a whiff of a pipe.

“Clear your ideas by smoking, and, little by little, have yourself dressed by the person who undressed you the night before.

“After writing a meaningless letter, or reading a chapter out of a novel, go out, weather permitting.

“Should you meet a priest, a hunchback, or a white horse, return straightway, or a misfortune may befall you.

“After a short turn, get back to breakfast, and, this over, bid the driver put to and whip up for the Cascine.

“There go from one carriage to the other, and talk scandal to each lady against all the rest: this to kill time till dinner.

“Eat enough, and drink more; and should some wretch come to trouble your digestion by begging his bread, tell him a man should work.

“At night, go to the theatre, the club, or into society. At the theatre, should there be a new piece, hiss it; this will give you the reputation of a connoisseur; should there be an opera, try to learn an air that you may sing at the next party; should there be a ballet, endeavour to play Mæcenas to some dancer, according to the custom of the century.

“One day over, begin the next in the same way, and so on to the end.”

This, in sober earnest, is the life of a Florentine noble; except that, if rich enough, he spends all his superfluous energy and wealth in occasional visits to Paris. If unusually clever, he will become a good singer, or a judge of art—not of pictures and statues, probably, but of antique pots and pans. Otherwise he has no pursuit whatever, and his sole occupation is to persuade himself that he is an Adonis, and his friends that he is as fortunate as Endymion.

Such is the stuff which the Codini nobles are made of, and so let them drive home in peace. These are not the manner of men to make counter revolutions. Brought up as boys by a priest, within the four walls of a palace, they have never had an opportunity of gaining any experience of life beyond that afforded by the café, the theatre, and the Court, and they feel alarmed and annoyed to find growing up around them a state of things in which men will have to rank according as they can make themselves honoured by the people, and not according to the smile they may catch at Court. To this must be added, with some, a genuine personal feeling towards the late Grand-duke, but these are very few; they are limited for the most part to the courtiers, or “the antechamber” of the Court that has passed away, and even with them it is no more than a feeling of patronising friendship—nothing resembling the loyalty of an Englishman towards his sovereign. But most of the regret expressed for the late Grand-duke is nothing more than ill-disguised disappointment at being no longer able to cut a figure at Court and rub shoulders with royalty; and this is a form of politics not altogether unknown among our good countrymen at Florence.

It is cruel of reactionary writers and orators in other countries to draw down ridicule on the harmless and peaceful gentlemen who form the small band of Codini at Florence, by endeavouring to magnify them into a counter-revolutionary party.

The Codini at Florence would wish for the Austrians: they have a faint and lingering hope of a Parisian Court at Florence, under Prince Napoleon; but they do not even pretend that they would move a finger in any cause.

There are men in Tuscany, and even gentlemen, who will work and form themselves, let us hope, on the stamp of Baron Ricasoli; but these are not to be found among the clique of the Codini at Florence.

The intelligence and energy of the country is for Italy, and nearly all the great names of Florence—the names of republican celebrity, to their honour be it said—are to be found in the ranks of the national party. It is true their name is at present all that they can give to forward the cause.

Let us hope, however, that the ideas of ambition, and the wider field for competition which the new system offers, may awake in the children now growing up in Florence an energy which has been unknown to their fathers for many and many a generation. Then, perhaps, a walk in the streets of Florence thirty years hence will no longer show us electors who will not step a hundred yards out of the way in order to attend an election. The Florentines may, at their own pleasure, by taking a part in their own government and the government of Italy, virtually terminate that Piedmontese tutelage against which they fret, and without which they are not yet fit to carry out a constitutional system.

Florence, Feb. 2, 1863.

THE FRANK IN SCOTLAND.[6]

For the benefit of the reader who may not have time and inclination to work his way through two thick volumes of research—for the benefit also of him who might be inclined to that adventurous task, but desires beforehand to have some notion of the tenor and character of the work before he invests in it his time and patience—we gave, in our November Number, a sketch of what we thought the prominent features of the doings of our countrymen in France, during the long period when Scotland was alienated from England. We now propose to take up the other side of the reciprocity. The two sketches will necessarily be distinct in character, as the material facts to which they refer were distinct. France was, as we have seen, the centre round which what remained of the civilisation of the old world lingered; and, along with much wretchedness among the common people, she was of all the states of Europe that which contained the largest abundance of the raw material of wealth, and consequently of the elements by which men of enterprise could raise themselves to affluence and station. Scotland was on the outskirts of those lands in which the new civilisation of the northern nations was slowly and coldly ripening to a still distant maturity. These two countries, so unlike, were knit into a close alliance, by a common danger inducing them to adopt a common policy. But, being fundamentally unlike, their close intercourse naturally tended, by close contact and comparison, to bring out the specialties of their dissimilarity.

And in nothing is this dissimilarity more conspicuous than when we look at the method and the object of the Scots’ sojourn in France, and compare them with those which characterised the few Frenchmen who came to us. The ruling feature in the former side of the reciprocity is, the profuseness with which our countrymen domesticated themselves in the land of their ancient allies, and infused new blood into theirs. There was little to attract the Frenchman to pitch his tent with us. As soon almost would he have thought of seeking his fortunes in Lapland or Iceland. Here, therefore, we have less to do with the fortunes of individual adventurers than with the national policy of the French towards Scotland, and those who casually came among us for the purpose of giving it effect. Our country had in fact been in a great measure cleared of French names before our intercourse with France began, and they never reappeared, except casually and in connection with some special political movement. The Norman French who had migrated from England over the border having, as we have seen, rendered themselves offensive by helping their own Norman King to enslave Scotland, were driven away in considerable numbers at the conclusion of the war of independence; and afterwards the French, though they kept up the policy of a close alliance with us, and gave a hearty reception to our own adventurers, found nothing to tempt them to reciprocate hospitalities. Hence the present sketch is not likely to afford any such genial history of national hospitality and successful adventure as the paper devoted to the conduct of our countrymen in France.

The policy of our alliance against England as the common enemy had become a thing of pretty old standing; many a Scot had sought his fortune in France; and names familiar to us now on shop-signs and in street-directories had been found among the dead at Poictiers, before we have authentic account of any Frenchmen having ventured across the sea to visit the sterile territory of their allies. Froissart makes a story out of the failure of the first attempt to send a French ambassador here. The person selected for the duty was the Lord of Bournazel or Bournaseau, whose genealogy is disentangled by M. Michel in a learned note. He was accredited by Charles V. in the year 1379, and was commanded to keep such state as might become the representative of his august master. Bournazel set off to embark at Sluys, and then had to wait fifteen days for a favourable wind. The ambassador thought there was no better way of beguiling the time than a recitation among the Plat Dutch of the splendours which he was bound in the way of public duty to exhibit in the sphere of his mission. Accordingly, “during this time he lived magnificently; and gold and silver plate were in such profusion in his apartments as if he had been a prince. He had also music to announce his dinner, and caused to be carried before him a sword in a scabbard richly blazoned with his arms in gold and silver. His servants paid well for everything. Many of the townspeople were much astonished at the great state this knight lived in at home, which he also maintained when he went abroad.” This premature display of his diplomatic glories brought him into a difficulty highly characteristic of one of the political specialties of France at that period. It was the time when the nobles of the blood-royal were arrogating to themselves alone certain prerogatives and ceremonials distinguishing them from the rest of the territorial aristocracy, however high these might be. The Duke of Bretagne and the Count of Flanders, who were near at hand, took umbrage at the grand doings of Bournazel, and sent for him through the bailiff of Sluys. That officer, after the manner of executive functionaries who find themselves sufficiently backed, made his mission as offensive as possible, and, tapping Bournazel on the shoulder, intimated that he was wanted. The great men had intended only to rebuke him for playing a part above his commission, but the indiscretion of their messenger gave Bournazel a hold which he kept and used sagaciously. When he found the princes who had sent for him lounging at a window looking into the gardens, he fell on his knees and acknowledged himself the prisoner of the Count of Flanders. To take prisoner an ambassador, and the ambassador of a crowned king, the feudal lord of the captor, was one of the heaviest of offences, both against the law of nations and the spirit of chivalry. The Earl was not the less enraged that he felt himself caught; and after retorting with, “How, rascal, do you dare to call yourself my prisoner when I have only sent to speak with you?” he composed himself to the delivery of the rebuke he had been preparing in this fashion: “It is by such talkers and jesters of the Parliament of Paris and of the king’s chamber as you, that the kingdom is governed; and you manage the king as you please, to do good or evil according to your wills: there is not a prince of the blood, however great he may be, if he incur your hatred, who will be listened to; but such fellows shall yet be hanged until the gibbets be full of them.” Bournazel carried this pleasant announcement and the whole transaction to the throne, and the king took his part, saying to those around, “He has kept his ground well: I would not for twenty thousand francs it had not so happened.” The embassy to Scotland was thus for the time frustrated. It was said that there were English cruisers at hand to intercept the ambassador, and that he himself had no great heart for a sojourn in the wild unknown northern land. Possibly the fifteen days’ lording it at Sluys may have broken in rather inconveniently on his outfit; but the most likely cause of the defeat of the first French embassy to our shores was, the necessity felt by Bournazel to right himself at once at court, and turn the flank of his formidable enemies; and Froissart says, the Earl of Flanders lay under the royal displeasure for having, in his vain vaunting, defeated so important a project as the mission to the Scots.

A few years afterwards our country received a visit, less august, it is true, than the intended embassy, but far more interesting. In 1384, negotiations were exchanged near the town of Boulogne for a permanent peace between England and France. The French demanded concessions of territory which could not be yielded, and a permanent peace, founded on a final settlement of pending claims, was impossible. A truce even was at that time, however, a very important conclusion to conflict; it sometimes lasted for years, being in reality a peace under protest that each party reserved certain claims to be kept in view when war should again break out. Such a truce was adjusted between England on the one side and France on the other—conditional on the accession of her allies Spain and Scotland. France kept faith magnanimously, in ever refusing to negotiate a separate peace or truce for herself; but, as the way is with the more powerful of two partners, she was apt to take for granted that Scotland would go with her, and that the affair was virtually finished by her own accession to terms.

It happened that in this instance the Duke of Burgundy took in hand to deal with Scotland. He had, however, just at that moment, a rather important piece of business, deeply interesting to himself, on hand. By the death of the Earl of Flanders he succeeded to that fair domain—an event which vastly influenced the subsequent fate of Europe. So busy was he in adjusting the affairs of his succession, that it was said he entirely overlooked the small matter of the notification of the truce to Scotland. Meanwhile, there was a body of men-at-arms in the French service at Sluys thrown out of employment by the truce with England, and, like other workmen in a like position, desirous of a job. They knew that the truce had not yet penetrated to Scotland, and thought a journey thither, long and dangerous as it was, might be a promising speculation. There were about thirty of them, and Froissart gives a head-roll of those whose names he remembered, beginning with Sir Geoffry de Charny, Sir John de Plaissy, Sir Hugh de Boulon, and so on. They dared not attempt, in face of the English warships, to land at a southern harbour, but reached the small seaport called by Froissart Monstres, and not unaptly supposed by certain sage commentators to be Montrose, since they rode on to Dundee and thence to Perth. They were received with a deal of rough hospitality, and much commended for the knightly spirit that induced them to cross the wide ocean to try their lances against the common enemy of England. Two of them were selected to pass onto Edinburgh, and explain their purpose at the court of Holyrood. Here they met two of their countrymen on a mission which boded no good to their enterprise. These were ambassadors from France, come at last to notify the truce. It was at once accepted by the peaceable King Robert, but the Scots lords around him were grieved in heart at the prospect that these fine fellows should come so far and return without having any sport of that highly flavoured kind which the border wars afforded. The truce they held had been adjusted not by Scotland but by France; and here, as if to contradict its sanction, were Frenchmen themselves offering to treat it as naught. There was, however, a far stronger reason for overlooking it. Just before it was completed, but when it was known to be inevitable, the Earls of Northumberland and Nottingham suddenly and secretly drew together two thousand men-at-arms and six thousand bowmen, with which they broke into Scotland, and swept the country as far as Edinburgh with more than the usual ferocity of a border raid; for they made it to the Scots as if the devil had come among them, having great wrath, for he knew that his time was short. It was said, even, that the French ambassadors sent to Scotland to announce the truce had been detained in London to allow time for this raid coming off effectively. “To say the truth,” says Froissart, mildly censorious, “the lords of England who had been at the conference at Bolinghen, had not acted very honourably when they had consented to order their men to march to Scotland and burn the country, knowing that a truce would speedily be concluded: and the best excuse they could make was, that it was the French and not they who were to signify such truce to the Scots.” Smarting from this inroad, the Scots lords, and especially the Douglases and others on the border, were in no humour to coincide with their peaceful King. They desired to talk the matter over with the representatives of the adventurers in some quiet place; and, for reasons which were doubtless sufficient to themselves, they selected for this purpose the church of St Giles in Edinburgh. The conference was highly satisfactory to the adventurers, who spurred back to Perth to impart the secret intelligence that though the king had accepted the truce, the lords were no party to it, but would immediately prepare an expedition to avenge Nottingham and Northumberland’s raid. This was joyful intelligence, though in its character rather surprising to followers of the French court. A force was rapidly collected, and in a very few days the adventurers were called to join it in the Douglases’ lands.

So far Froissart. This affair is not, at least to our knowledge, mentioned in detail by any of our own annalists writing before the publication of his Chronicles. Everything, however, is there set forth so minutely, and with so distinct and accurate a reference to actual conditions in all the details, that few things in history can be less open to doubt. Here, however, we come to a statement inviting question, when he says that the force collected so suddenly by the Scots lords contained fifteen thousand mounted men; nor can we be quite reconciled to the statement though their steeds were the small mountain horses called hackneys. The force, however, was sufficient for its work. It found the English border trusting to the truce, and as little prepared for invasion as Nottingham and Northumberland had found Scotland. The first object was the land of the Percies, which the Scots, in the laconic language of the chronicler, “pillaged and burnt.” And so they went onwards; and where peasants had been peacefully tilling the land or tending their cattle amid the comforts of rude industry, there the desolating host passed, the crops were trampled down—their owners left dead in the ashes of their smoking huts—and a few widows and children, fleeing for safety and food, was all of animal life left upon the scene. The part, indeed, taken in it by his countrymen was exactly after Froissart’s own heart, since they were not carrying out any of the political movements of the day, nor were they even actuated by an ambition of conquest, but were led by the sheer fun of the thing and the knightly spirit of adventure to partake in this wild raid. To the Scots it was a substantial affair, for they came back heavy-handed, with droves and flocks driven before them—possibly some of them recovered their own.

The king had nothing to say in his vindication touching this little affair, save that it had occurred without his permission, or even knowledge. The Scots lords were not the only persons who broke that truce. It included the Duke of Burgundy and his enemies, the Low Country towns; yet his feudatory, the Lord Destournay, taking advantage of the defenceless condition of Oudenarde during peace, took it by a clever stratagem. The Duke of Burgundy, when appealed to, advised Destournay to abandon his capture; but Destournay was wilful: he had conquered the city, and the city was his—so there was no help for it, since the communities were not strong enough to enforce their rights, and Burgundy would only demand them on paper. What occasioned the raid of the Scots and French to be passed over was, however, that the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, who had the chief authority over the English councils, as well as the command over the available force, was taken up with his own schemes on the crown of Castile, and not inclined to find work for the military force of the country elsewhere. The truce, therefore, was cordially ratified; bygones were counted bygones; and the French adventurers bade a kindly farewell to their brethren-in-arms, and crossed the seas homewards.

Driven from their course, and landing at the Brille, they narrowly escaped hanging at the hands of the boorish cultivators of the swamp; and after adventures which would make good raw materials for several novels, they reached Paris.

There they explained to their own court how they found that the great enemy of France had, at the opposite extremity of his dominions, a nest of fighting fiends, who wanted only their help in munitions of war to enable them to rush on the vital parts of his dominions with all the fell ferocity of men falling on their bitterest feudal enemy. Thus could France, having under consideration the cost and peril of gallying an invading army across the Straits, by money and management, do far more damage to the enemy than any French invading expedition was likely to accomplish.

In an hour which did not prove propitious to France, a resolution was adopted to invade England at both ends. Even before the truce was at an end, the forges of Henault and Picardy were hard at work making battle-axes; and all along the coast, from Harfleur to Sluys, there was busy baking of biscuits and purveyance of provender. Early in spring an expedition of a thousand men-at-arms, with their followers, put to sea under John of Vienne, the Admiral of France, and arrived at Leith, making a voyage which must have been signally prosperous, if we may judge by the insignificance of the chief casualty on record concerning it. In those days, as in the present, it appears that adventurous young gentlemen on shipboard were apt to attempt feats for which their land training did not adapt them—in nautical phrase, “to swing on all top ropes.” A hopeful youth chose to perform such a feat in his armour, and with the most natural of all results. “The knight was young and active, and, to show his agility, he mounted aloft by the ropes of his ship, completely armed; but his feet slipping he fell into the sea, and the weight of his armour, which sank him instantly, deprived him of any assistance, for the ship was soon at a distance from the place where he had fallen.”

The expedition soon found itself to be a mistake. In fact, to send fighting men to Scotland was just to supply the country with that commodity in which it superabounded. The great problem was how to find food for the stalwart sons of the soil, and arms to put in their hands when fighting was necessary. A percentage of the cost and labour of the expedition, spent in sending money or munitions of war, would have done better service. The scene before the adventurers was in lamentable contrast to all that custom had made familiar to them. There were none of the comfortable chateaux, the abundant markets, the carpets, down beds, and rich hangings which gladdened their expeditions to the Low Countries, whether they went as friends or foes. Nor was the same place for them in Scotland, which the Scots so readily found in France, where a docile submissive peasantry only wanted vigorous and adventurous masters. “The lords and their men,” says Froissart, “lodged themselves as well as they could in Edinburgh, and those who could not lodge there were quartered in the different villages thereabout. Edinburgh, notwithstanding that it is the residence of the king, and is the Paris of Scotland, is not such a town as Tournay and Valenciennes, for there are not in the whole town four thousand houses. Several of the French lords were therefore obliged to take up their lodgings in the neighbouring villages, and at Dunfermline, Kelso, Dunbar, Dalkeith, and in other towns.” When they had exhausted the provender brought with them, these children of luxury had to endure the miseries of sordid living, and even the pinch of hunger. They tried to console themselves with the reflection that they had, at all events, an opportunity of experiencing a phase of life which their parents had endeavoured theoretically to impress upon them, in precepts to be thankful to the Deity for the good things which they enjoyed, but which might not always be theirs in a transitory world. They had been warned by the first little band of adventurers that Scotland was not rich; yet the intense poverty of the country whence so many daring adventurers had gone over to ruffle it with the flower of European chivalry, astonished and appalled them. Of the extreme and special nature of the poverty of Scotland, the great war against the English invaders was the cause. It has been estimated, indeed, by those devoted to such questions, that Scotland did not recover fully from the ruin caused by that conflict until the Union made her secure against her ambitious neighbour. It was the crisis referred to in that pathetic ditty, the earliest specimen of our lyrical poetry, when

“Away was sonse of ale and bread,
Of wine and wax, of gaming and glee;
Our gold was changed into lead;
Cryst borne into virginity.
Succour poor Scotland and remede,
That stad is in perplexity.”

It is not sufficiently known how much wealth and prosperity existed in Scotland before King Edward trod its soil. Berwick, the chief commercial port, had commerce with half the world, and bade fair to rival Ghent, Rotterdam, and the other great mercantile cities of the Low Country. Antiquarians have lately pointed to a sad and significant testimony to the change of times. Of the ecclesiastical remains of Scotland, the finest are either in the Norman, or the early English which preceded the Edwards. These are the buildings of a noted and munificent people; they rival the corresponding establishments in England, and are in the same style as the work of nations having common interests and sympathies—indeed the same architects seem to have worked in both countries. At the time when the Gothic architecture of England merged into the type called the Second Pointed, there ceased to be corresponding specimens in Scotland. A long period, indeed, elapses which has handed down to us no vestiges of church architecture in Scotland, or only a few too trifling to possess any distinctive character. When works of Gothic art begin again to arise with the reviving wealth of the people, they are no longer of the English type, but follow that flamboyant style which had been adopted by the ecclesiastical builders of the country with which Scotland had most concern—her steady patron and protector, France.[7]

The poverty of the Scots proceeded from a cause of which they need not have been ashamed; yet, with the reserve and pride ever peculiar to them, they hated that it should be seen by their allies, and when these showed any indications of contempt or derision, the natives were stung to madness. Froissart renders very picturesquely the common talk about the strangers, thus:—“What devil has brought them here? or, who has sent for them? Cannot we carry on our wars with England without their assistance? We shall never do any good as long as they are with us. Let them be told to go back again, for we are sufficient in Scotland to fight our own battles, and need not their aid. We neither understand their language nor they ours, so that we cannot converse together. They will very soon cut up and destroy all we have in this country, and will do more harm if we allow them to remain among us than the English could in battle. If the English do burn our houses, what great matter is it to us? We can rebuild them at little cost, for we require only three days to do so, so that we but have five or six poles, with boughs to cover them.”

The French knights, accustomed to abject submission among their own peasantry, were loth to comprehend the fierce independence of the Scots common people, and were ever irritating them into bloody reprisals. A short sentence of Froissart’s conveys a world of meaning on this specialty: “Besides, whenever their servants went out to forage, they were indeed permitted to load their horses with as much as they could pack up and carry, but they were waylaid on their return, and villanously beaten, robbed, and sometimes slain, insomuch that no varlet dare go out foraging for fear of death. In one month the French lost upwards of a hundred varlets; for when three or four went out foraging, not one returned, in such a hideous manner were they treated.” As we have seen, a not unusual incident of purveying in France was, that the husbandman was hung up by the heels and roasted before his own fire until he disgorged his property. The Scots peasantry had a decided prejudice against such a process, and, being accustomed to defend themselves from all oppression, resisted even that of their allies, to the extreme astonishment and wrath of those magnificent gentlemen. There is a sweet unconsciousness in Froissart’s indignant denunciation of the robbing of the purveyors, which meant the pillaged peasantry recovering their own goods. But the chronicler was of a thorough knightly nature, and deemed the peasantry of a country good for nothing but to be used up. Hence, in his wrath, he says: “In Scotland you will never find a man of worth; they are like savages, who wish not to be acquainted with any one, and are too envious of the good fortune of others, and suspicious of losing anything themselves, for their country is very poor. When the English make inroads thither, as they have very frequently done, they order their provisions, if they wish to live, to follow close at their backs; for nothing is to be had in that country without great difficulty. There is neither iron to shoe horses, nor leather to make harness, saddles, or bridles; all these things come ready made from Flanders by sea; and should these fail, there is none to be had in the country.” What a magnificent contrast to such a picture is the present relative condition of Scotland and the Low Countries! and yet these have not suffered any awful reverse of fortune—they have merely abided in stagnant respectability.

It must be remembered, in estimating the chronicler’s pungent remarks upon our poor ancestors, that he was not only a worshipper of rank and wealth, but thoroughly English in his partialities, magnifying the feats in arms of the great enemies of his own country. The records of the Scots Parliament of 1395 curiously confirm the inference from his narrative, that the French were oppressive purveyors, and otherwise unobservant of the people’s rights. An indenture, as it is termed—the terms of a sort of compact with the strangers—appears among the records, conspicuous among their other Latin and vernacular contents as being set forth in French, in courtesy, of course, to the strangers. It expressly lays down that no goods of any kind shall be taken by force, under pain of death, and none shall be received without being duly paid for—the dealers having free access to come and go. There are regulations, too, for suppressing broils by competent authority, and especially for settling questions between persons of unequal degrees; a remedy for the French practice, which left the settlement entirely with the superior. This document is one of many showing that, in Scotland, there were arrangements for protecting the personal freedom of the humbler classes, and their rights of property, the fulness of which is little known, because the like did not exist in other countries, and those who have written philosophical treatises on the feudal system, or on the progress of Europe from barbarism to civilisation, have generally lumped all the countries of Europe together. The sense of personal freedom seems to have been rather stronger in Scotland than in England; it was such as evidently to astound the French knights. At the end of the affair, Froissart expresses this surprise in his usual simple and expressive way. After a second or third complaint of the unreasonable condition that his countrymen should pay for the victuals they consumed, he goes on, “The Scots said the French had done them more mischief than the English;” and when asked in what manner, they replied, “By riding through the corn, oats, and barley on their march, which they trod under foot, not condescending to follow the roads, for which damage they would have a recompense before they left Scotland, and they should neither find vessel nor mariner who would dare to put to sea without their permission.”

Of the military events in the short war following the arrival of the French, an outline will be found in the ordinary histories; but it was attended by some conditions which curiously bring out the specialties of the two nations so oddly allied. One propitiatory gift the strangers had brought with them, which was far more highly appreciated than their own presence; this was a thousand stand of accoutrements for men-at-arms. They were of the highest excellence, being selected out of the store kept in the Castle of Beauté for the use of the Parisians. When these were distributed among the Scots knights, who were but poorly equipped, the chronicler, as if he had been speaking of the prizes at a Christmas-tree, tells how those who were successful and got them were greatly delighted. The Scots did their part in their own way: they brought together thirty thousand men, a force that drained the country of its available manhood. But England had at that time nothing to divert her arms elsewhere, and the policy adopted was to send northwards a force sufficient to crush Scotland for ever. It consisted of seven thousand mounted men-at-arms, and sixty thousand bow and bill men—a force from three to four times as large as the armies that gained the memorable English victories in France. Of these, Agincourt was still to come off, but Crecy and Poictiers were over, along with many other affairs that might have taught the French a lesson. The Scots, too, had suffered two great defeats—Neville’s Cross and Halidon Hill—since their great national triumph. The impression made on each country by their experiences brought out their distinct national characteristics. The French knights were all ardour and impatience; they clamoured to be at the enemy without ascertaining the amount or character of his force. The wretched internal wars of their own country had taught them to look on the battle-field as the arena of reason in personal conflict, rather than the great tribunal in which the fate of nations was to be decided, and communities come forth freed or enslaved.

To the Scots, on the other hand, the affair was one of national life or death, and they would run no risks for distinction’s sake. Picturesque accounts have often been repeated of a scene where Douglas, or some other Scots leader, brought the Admiral to an elevated spot whence he could see and estimate the mighty host of England; but the most picturesque of all the accounts is the original by Froissart, of which the others are parodies. The point in national tactics brought out by this incident is the singular recklessness with which the French must have been accustomed to do battle. In total ignorance of the force he was to oppose, and not seeking to know aught concerning it, the Frenchman’s voice was still for war. When made to see with his own eyes what he had to encounter, he was as reluctant as his companions to risk the issue of a battle, but not so fertile in expedients for carrying on the war effectively without one. The policy adopted was to clear the country before the English army as it advanced, and carry everything portable and valuable within the recesses of the mountain-ranges, whither the inhabitants not fit for military service went with their effects. A desert being thus opened for the progress of the invaders, they were left to wander in it unmolested while the Scots army went in the opposite direction, and crossed the Border southwards. Thus the English army found Scotland empty—the Scots army found England full. The one wore itself out in a fruitless march, part of it straggling, it was said, as far as Aberdeen, and returned thinned and starving, while the other was only embarrassed by the burden of its plunder. Much destruction there was, doubtless, on both sides, but it fell heaviest where there was most to destroy, and gratified at last in some measure the French, who “said among themselves they had burned in the bishoprics of Durham and Carlisle more than the value of all the towns in the kingdom of Scotland.” But havoc does not make wealth, and whether or not the Scots knew better from experience how to profit by such opportunities, the French, when they returned northward, were starving. Their object now was to get out of the country as fast as they could. Froissart, with a touch of dry humour, explains that their allies had no objection to speed the exit of the poorer knights, but resolved to hold the richer and more respectable in a sort of pawn for the damage which the expedition had inflicted on the common people. The Admiral asked his good friends the Lords Douglas and Moray to put a stop to these demands; but these good knights were unable to accommodate their brethren in this little matter, and the Admiral was obliged to give effectual pledges from his Government for the payment of the creditors. There is something in all this that seems utterly unchivalrous and even ungenerous; but it had been well for France had Froissart been able to tell a like story of her peasantry. It merely shows us that our countrymen of that day were of those who “knew their rights, and, knowing, dared maintain them;” and was but a demonstration on a humbler, and, if you will, more sordid shape, of the same spirit that had swept away the Anglo-Norman invaders. The very first act which their chronicler records concerning his knightly friends, after he has exhausted his wrath against the hard and mercenary Scot, is thoroughly suggestive. Some of the knights tried other fields of adventure, “but the greater number returned to France, and were so poor they knew not how to remount themselves, especially those from Burgundy, Champagne, Bar, and Lorraine, who seized the labouring horses wherever they found them in the fields,” so impatient were they to regain their freedom of action.

So ended this affair, with the aspect of evil auspices for the alliance. The adventurers returned “cursing Scotland, and the hour they had set foot there. They said they had never suffered so much in any expedition, and wished the King of France would make a truce with the English for two or three years, and then march to Scotland and utterly destroy it; for never had they seen such wicked people, nor such ignorant hypocrites and traitors.” But the impulsive denunciation of the disappointed adventurers was signally obliterated in the history of the next half-century. Ere many more years had passed over them, that day of awful trial was coming when France had to lean on the strong arm of her early ally; and, in fact, some of the denouncers lived to see adventurers from the sordid land of their contempt and hatred commanding the armies of France, and owning her broad lordships. It was, in fact, just after the return of Vienne’s expedition, that the remarkable absorption of Scotsmen into the aristocracy of France, referred to in our preceding paper, began to set in.

This episode of the French expedition to Scotland, small though its place is in the annals of Europe, yet merits the consideration of the thoughtful historian, in affording a significant example of the real causes of the misery and degradation of France at that time, and the wonderful victories of the English kings. Chivalry, courage, the love of enterprise, high spirit in all forms, abounded to superfluity among the knightly orders, but received no solid support from below. The mounted steel-clad knights of the period, in the highest physical condition, afraid of nothing on the earth or beyond it, and burning for triumph and fame, could perform miraculous feats of strength and daring; but all passed off in wasted effort and vain rivalry, when there was wanting the bold peasantry, who, with their buff jerkins, and their bills and bows, or short Scottish spears, were the real force by which realms were held or gained.

The next affair in which M. Michel notes his countrymen as present among us, was a very peculiar and exceptional one, with features only too like those which were such a scandal to the social condition of France. It was that great battle or tournament on the North Inch of Perth, where opposite Highland factions, called the clan Quhele and clan Chattan, were pitted against each other, thirty to thirty—an affair, the darker colours of which are lighted up by the eccentric movements of the Gow Chrom, or bandy-legged smith of Perth, who took the place of a defaulter in one of the ranks, to prevent the spectacle of the day from being spoilt. That such a contest should have been organised to take place in the presence of the king and court, under solemnities and regulations like some important ordeal, has driven historical speculators to discover what deep policy for the pacification or subjugation of the Highlands lay behind it. The feature that gives it a place in M. Michel’s book, is the briefest possible notification by one of the chroniclers, that a large number of Frenchmen and other strangers were present at the spectacle. This draws us back from the mysterious arcana of political intrigue to find a mere showy pageant, got up to enliven the hours of idle mirth—an act, in short, of royal hospitality—a show cunningly adapted to the tastes of the age, yet having withal the freshness of originality, being a renaissance kind of combination of the gladiatorial conflict of the Roman circus with the tournament of chivalry. The Highlanders were, in fact, the human raw material which a king of Scots could in that day employ, so far as their nature suited, for the use or the amusement of his guests. Them, and them only among his subjects, could he use as the Empire used the Transalpine barbarian—“butchered to make a Roman holiday.” The treatment of the Celt is the blot in that period of our history. Never in later times has the Red Indian or Australian native been more the hunted wild beast to the emigrant settler, than the Highlander was to his neighbour the Lowlander. True, he was not easily got at, and, when reached, he was found to have tusks. They were a people never permitted to be at rest from external assault; yet such was their nature that, instead of being pressed by a common cause into compact union, they were divided into communities that hated each other almost more bitterly than the common enemy. This internal animosity has suggested that the king wanted two factions to exterminate each other as it were symbolically, and accept the result of a combat between two bodies of chosen champions, as if there had been an actual stricken field, with all the able-bodied men on both sides engaged in it. It was quite safe to calculate that when the representatives of the two contending factions were set face to face on the green sward, they would fly at each other’s throats, and afford in an abundant manner to the audience whatever delectation might arise from an intensely bloody struggle. But, on the other hand, to expect the Highlanders to be fools enough to accept this sort of symbolical extinction of their quarrel was too preposterous a deduction for any practical statesman. They had no notion of leaving important issues to the event of single combat, or any of the other preposterous rules of chivalry, but slew their enemies where they could, and preferred doing so secretly, and without risk to themselves, when that was practicable.

As we read on the history of the two countries, France and Scotland, we shall find the national friendship which had arisen in their common adversity gradually and almost insensibly changing its character. The strong current of migration from Scotland which had set in during the latter period of the hundred years’ war stopped almost abruptly. Scotsmen were still hired as soldiers—sometimes got other appointments—and, generally speaking, were received with hospitality; but in Louis XI.’s reign, the time had passed when they were accepted in the mass as a valuable contribution to the aristocracy of France, and forthwith invested with titles and domains. The families that had thus settled down remembered the traditions of their origin, but had no concern with Scotland, and were thoroughly French, nationally and socially. France, too, was aggregating into a compact nationality, to which her sons could attach themselves with some thrill of patriotic pride. She made a great stride onward both in nationality and prosperity during the reign of that hard, greedy, penurious, crafty, superstitious hypocrite, Louis XI. By a sort of slow corroding process he ate out, bit by bit, the powers and tyrannies that lay between his own and the people. Blood, even the nearest, was to him nowise thicker than water, so he did not, like his predecessors, let royal relations pick up what territorial feudatories dropped; he took all to himself, and, taking it to himself, it became that French empire which was to be inherited by Francis I., Louis XIV., and even the Napoleons; for he seems to have had the principal hand in jointing and fitting in the subordinate machinery of that centralisation which proved compact enough in its details to be put together again after the smash of the Revolution, and which has proved itself as yet the only system under which France can flourish.

Scotland was, at the same time, rising under a faint sunshine of prosperity—a sort of reflection of that enjoyed by France. The connection of the poor with the rich country was becoming ever more close, but at the same time it was acquiring an unwholesome character. The two could not fuse into each other as England and Scotland did; and, for all the pride of the Scots, and their strong hold over France, as the advanced-guard mounted upon England, the connection could not but lapse into a sort of clientage—the great nation being the patron, the small nation the dependant. Whether for good or evil, France infused into Scotland her own institutions, which, being those of the Roman Empire, as practised throughout the Christian nations of the Continent, made Scotsmen free of those elements of social communion, that amitas gentium, from which England excluded herself in sulky pride. This is visible, or rather audible, at the present day, in the Greek and Latin of the Scotsmen of the old school, who can make themselves understood all over the world; while the English pronunciation, differing from that of the nations which have preserved the chief deposits of the classic languages in their own, must as assuredly differ from the way in which these were originally spoken. The Englishman disdained the universal Justinian jurisprudence, and would be a law unto himself, which he called, with an affectation of humility, “The Common Law.” It is full, no doubt, of patches taken out of the ‘Corpus Juris,’ but, far from their source being acknowledged, the civilians are never spoken of by the common lawyers but to be railed at and denounced; and when great draughts on the Roman system were found absolutely necessary to keep the machine of justice in motion, these were entirely elbowed out of the way by common law, and had to form themselves into a separate machinery of their own, called Equity. Scotland, on the other hand, received implicitly from her leader in civilisation the great body of the civil law, as collected and arranged by the most laborious of all labouring editors, Denis Godefroi. We brought over also an exact facsimile of the French system of public prosecution for crime, from the great state officer at the head of the system to the Procureurs du Roi. It is still in full practice and eminently useful; but it is an arrangement that, to be entirely beneficial, needs to be surrounded by constitutional safeguards; and though there has been much pressure of late to establish it in England, one cannot be surprised that it was looked askance at while the great struggles for fixing the constitution were in progress.

The practice of the long-forgotten States-General of France was an object of rather anxious inquiry at the reassembling of that body in 1789, after they had been some four centuries and a half in a state of adjournment or dissolution. The investigations thus occasioned brought out many peculiarities which were in practical observance in Scotland down to the Union. All the world has read of that awful crisis arising out of the question whether the Estates should vote collectively or separately. Had the question remained within the bounds of reason and regulation, instead of being virtually at the issue of the sword, much instructive precedent would have been obtained for its settlement by an examination of the proceedings of that Parliament of Scotland which adjusted the Union—an exciting matter also, yet, to the credit of our country, discussed with perfect order, and obedience to rules of practice which, derived from the custom of the old States-General of France, were rendered pliant and adaptable by such a long series of practical adaptations as the country of their nativity was not permitted to witness.

There was a very distinct adaptation of another French institution of later origin, when the Court of Session was established in 1533. Before that, the king’s justices administered the law somewhat as in England, but there was an appeal to Parliament; and as that body did its judicial work by committees, these became virtually the supreme courts of the realm. If the reader wants to have assurance that there is something really sound in this information, by receiving it in the current coin of its appropriate technicalities, let him commit to memory that the chief standing committee was named that of the Domini auditorii ad querelas. When he uses that term, nobody will question the accuracy of what he says. The Court of Session, established to supersede this kind of tribunal, was exactly a French parliament—a body exercising appellate judicial functions, along with a few others of a legislative character—few in this country, but in France sufficiently extensive to render the assembling of the proper Parliament of the land and the States-General unnecessary for all regal purposes.

In other institutions—the universities, for instance—we find not merely the influence of French example, but an absolute importation of the whole French structure and discipline. The University of King’s College in Aberdeen was constructed on the model of the great University of Paris. Its founder, Bishop Elphinston, had taught there for many years; so had its first principal, Hector Boece, the most garrulous and credulous of historians. The transition from the Paris to the Aberdeen of that day, must have been a descent not to be estimated by the present relative condition of the two places; and one cannot be surprised to find Hector saying that he was seduced northwards by gifts and promises. It is probable that we would find fewer actual living remnants of the old institution in Paris itself than in the northern imitation. There may be yet found the offices of regent and censor, for the qualities of which one must search in the mighty folios of Bullæus. There survives the division into nations—the type of the unlimited hospitality of the university as a place where people of all nations assembled to drink at the fountain of knowledge. There also the youth who flashes forth, for the first time, in his scarlet plumage, is called a bejeant, not conscious, perhaps, that the term was used to the first-session students of the French universities hundreds of years ago, and that it is derived by the learned from bec jaune, or yellow nib. If the reader is of a sentimentally domestic turn, he may find in the term the conception of an alma mater, shielding the innocent brood from surrounding dangers; and if he be knowing and sarcastic, he may suppose it to refer to a rawness and amenability to be trotted out, expressed in the present day by the synonymous freshman and greenhorn.

There is a still more distinct stamp of a French type, in the architecture of our country, so entirely separate from the English style, in the flamboyant Gothic of the churches, and the rocket-topped turrets of the castles; but on this specialty we shall not here enlarge, having, in some measure, examined it several years ago.[8] It was not likely that all these, with many other practices, should be imported into the nation, however gradually, without the people having a consciousness that they were foreign. They were not established without the aid of men, showing, by their air and ways, that they and their practices were alike alien. He, however, who gave the first flagrant offence, in that way, to the national feeling, was a descendant of one of the emigrant Scots of the fifteenth century, and by blood and rank closely allied to the Scottish throne, although every inch a Frenchman.

To watch in history the action and counteraction of opposing forces which have developed some grand result, yet by a slight and not improbable impulse the other way might have borne towards an opposite conclusion equally momentous, is an interesting task, with something in it of the excitement of the chase. In pursuing the traces which bring Scotland back to her English kindred, and saved her from a permanent annexation to France, the arrival of John Duke of Albany in Scotland, in 1515, is a critical turning-point. Already had the seed of the union with England been planted when James IV. got for a wife the daughter of Henry VII. Under the portrait of this sagacious king, Bacon wrote the mysterious motto—Cor regis inscrutabile. It would serve pleasantly to lighten up and relieve a hard and selfish reputation, if one could figure him, in the depths of his own heart, assuring himself of having entered in the books of fate a stroke of policy that at some date, however distant, was destined to appease the long bloody contest of two rival nations, and unite them into a compact and mighty empire. The prospects of such a consummation were at first anything but encouraging. The old love broke in counteracting the prudential policy; and, indeed, never did besotted lover abandon himself to wilder folly than James IV., when, at the bidding of Anne of France as the lady of his chivalrous worship, he resolved to be her true knight, and take three steps into English ground. When a chivalrous freak, backed by a few political irritations scarce less important, strewed the moor of Flodden with the flower of the land, it was time for Scotland to think over the rationality of this distant alliance, which deepened and perpetuated her feud with her close neighbour of kindred blood. Well for him, the good, easy, frank, chivalrous monarch, that he was buried in the ruin he had made, and saw not the misery of a desolated nation. Of the totally alien object for which all the mischief had been done, there was immediate evidence in various shapes. One curious little item of it is brought out by certain researches of M. Michel, which have also a significant bearing on the conflict between the secular and the papal power in the disposal of benefices. The Pope, Julius II., was anxious to gain over to his interest Mathew Lang, bishop of Gorz, and secretary to the Emperor Maximilian, who was called to Rome and blessed by the vision of a cardinal’s hat, and the papal influence in the first high promotion that might open. The archbishopric of Bourges became vacant. The chapter elected one of our old friends of the Scots emigrant families, Guillaume de Monypeny, brother of the Lord of Concressault; but the King, Louis XII., at first stood out for Brillac, bishop of Orleans, resisted by the chapter. The bishop of Gorz then came forward with a force sufficient to sweep away both candidates. He was favoured of the Pope: his own master, Maximilian, desired for his secretary this foreign benefice, which would cost himself nothing; and Louis found somehow that the bishop was as much his own humble servant as the Emperor’s. No effect of causes sufficient seemed in this world more assured than that Mathew Lang, bishop of Gorz, should also be archbishop of Bourges; but the fortune of war rendered it before his collation less important to have the bishop of Gorz in the archiepiscopate than another person. The King laid his hand again on the chapter, and required them to postulate one whose name and condition must have seemed somewhat strange to them—Andrew Forman, bishop of Moray, in the north of Scotland. There are reasons for all things. Forman was ambassador from Scotland to France, and thus had opportunities of private communication with James IV. and Louis XII. This latter, in a letter to the Chapter of Bourges, explains his signal obligations to Forman for having seconded the allurements of the Queen, and instigated the King of Scots to make war against England, explaining how icelui, Roy d’Escosse s’est ouvertement declaré vouloir tenir nostre party et faire la guerre actuellement contre le Roy d’Angleterre. Lest the chapter should doubt the accuracy of this statement of the services performed to France by Forman, the King sent them le double des lectres que le dict Roy d’Escosse nous a escriptes et aussi de la defiance q’il a fait au dict Roy d’Angleterre. The King pleaded hard with the chapter to postulate Forman, representing that they could not find a better means of securing his own countenance and protection. The Scotsman backed this royal appeal by a persuasive letter, which he signed Andrè, Arcevesque de Bourges et Evesque de Morray. Influence was brought to bear on the Pope himself, and he declared his leaning in favour of Forman. The members of the chapter, who had been knocked about past endurance in the affair of the archbishopric from first to last, threatened resistance and martyrdom; but the pressure of the powers combined against them brought them to reason, and Forman entered Bourges in archiepiscopal triumph. But the ups and downs of the affair were as yet by no means at an end. That great pontiff, who never forgot that the head of the Church was a temporal prince, Leo X., had just ascended the throne, and found that it would be convenient to have this archbishopric of Bourges for his nephew, Cardinal Abo. By good luck the see of St Andrews, the primacy of Scotland, was then vacant, and was given as an equivalent for the French dignity. Such a promotion was a symbolically appropriate reward for the services of Forman; his predecessor fell at Flodden, and thus, in his services to the King of France, he had made a vacancy for himself. He had for some time in his pocket, afraid to show it, the Pope’s bull appointing him Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland. This was a direct act of interference contrary to law and custom, since the function of the Pope was only to collate or confirm, as ecclesiastical superior, the choice made by the local authorities. These had their favourite for the appointment, Prior Hepburn, who showed his earnestness in his own cause by taking and holding the Castle of St Andrews. A contest of mingled ecclesiastical and civil elements, too complex to be disentangled, followed; but in the end Forman triumphed, having on his side the efforts of the King of France and his servant Albany, with the Pope’s sense of justice. The rewards of this highly endowed divine were the measure alike of his services to France and of his injuries to Scotland. He held, by the way, in commendam, a benefice in England; and as he had a good deal of diplomatic business with Henry VIII., it may not uncharitably be supposed that he sought to feather his hat with English as well as French plumage. It was in the midst of these affairs, which were bringing out the dangerous and disastrous elements in the French alliance, that Albany arrived.

Albany’s father, the younger brother of James III., had lived long in France, got great lordships there, and thoroughly assimilated himself to the Continental system. He married Anne de la Tour, daughter of the Count of Auvergne and Boulogne, of a half princely family, which became afterwards conspicuous by producing Marshal Turenne, and at a later period the eccentric grenadier, Latour d’Auvergne, who, in homage to republican principles, would not leave the subaltern ranks in Napoleon’s army, and became more conspicuous by remaining there than many who escaped from that level to acquire wealth and power. The sister of Anne de la Tour married Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino. From this connection Albany was the uncle of Catherine de Medici, the renowned Queen of France, and, in fact, was the nearest relative, who, as folks used to say in this country, “gave her away” to Henry II. On this occasion he got a cardinal’s hat for Philip de la Chambre, his mother’s son by a second marriage. He lived thoroughly in the midst of the Continental royalties of the day, and had the sort of repute among them that may be acquired by a man of great influence and connection, whose capacity has never been tried by any piece of critical business—a repute that comes to persons in a certain position by a sort of process of gravitation. Brave he seems to have been, like all his race, and he sometimes held even important commands. He accompanied his friend, Francis I., in his unfortunate raid into Italy in 1525, and was fortunately and honourably clear of that bad business, the battle of Pavia, by being then in command of a detachment sent against Naples.

There are men who, when they shift their place and function, can assimilate themselves to the changed conditions around them—who can find themselves surrounded by unwonted customs and ways, and yet accept the condition that the men who follow these are pursuing the normal condition of their being, and must be left to do so in peace, otherwise harm will come of it; and in this faculty consists the instinct which enables men to govern races alien to their own. Albany did not possess it. He appears to have been ignorant of the language of Scotland, and to have thought or rather felt that, wherever he was, all should be the same as in the midst of Italian and French courtiers; and if it were not so, something was wrong, and should be put right. It was then the commencement of a very luxurious age in France—an age of rich and showy costumes, of curls, perfumes, cosmetics, and pet spaniels—and Albany was the leader of fashion in all such things. It is needless to say how powerfully all this contrasted with rough Scotland—what a shocking set of barbarians he found himself thrown among—how contemptible to the rugged Scots nobles was the effeminate Oriental luxury of the little court he imported from Paris, shifted northwards as some wealthy luxurious sportsman takes a detachment from his stable, kennel, and servants’ hall, to a bothy in the Highlands.

He arrived, however, in a sort of sunshine. At that calamitous moment the nearest relation of the infant king, a practised statesman, was heartily welcome. He brought a small rather brilliant fleet with him, which was dignified by his high office as Admiral of France; he brought also some money and valuable trifles, which were not inacceptable. Wood, in his ‘Peerage,’ tells us that “The peers and chiefs crowded to his presence: his exotic elegance of manners, his condescension, affability, and courtesy of demeanour, won all hearts.” If so, these were not long retained. He came, indeed, just before some tangible object was wanted against which to direct the first sulky feelings of the country towards France; and he served the purpose exactly, for his own handiwork was the cause of that feeling. In a new treaty between France and England, in which he bore a great if not the chief part, Scotland was for the first time treated as a needy and troublesome hanger-on of France. Instead of the old courtesy, which made Scotland, nominally at least, an independent party to the treaty, it was made directly by France, but Scotland was comprehended in it, with a warning that if there were any of the old raids across the Border, giving trouble as they had so often done, the Scots should forfeit their part in the treaty. This patronage during good behaviour roused the old pride, and was one of many symptoms that Albany had come to them less as the representative of their own independent line of kings, than as the administrator of a distant province of the French empire. The humiliation was all the more bitter from the deep resentments that burned in the people’s hearts after the defeat of Flodden, and it was with difficulty that the Estates brought themselves to say that, though Scotland believed herself able single-handed to avenge her losses, yet, out of respect for the old friendship of France, the country would consent to peace with England.

Setting to work after the manner of one possessed of the same supreme authority as the King of France, Albany began his government with an air of rigour, insomuch that the common historians speak of him as having resolved to suppress the turbulent spirit of the age, and assert the supremacy of law and order. He thus incurred the reputation of a grasping tyrant. The infant brother of the king died suddenly; his mother said Albany had poisoned the child, and people shuddered for his brother, now standing alone between the Regent and the throne, and talked ominously of the manner in which Richard III. of England was popularly believed to have achieved the crown by murdering his nephews. It is from this period that we may date the rise of a really English party in Scotland—a party who feared the designs of the French, and who thought that, after having for two hundred years maintained her independence, Scotland might with fair honour be combined with the country nearest to her and likest in blood, should the succession to both fall to one prince, and that it would be judicious to adjust the royal alliances in such a manner as to bring that to pass. Such thoughts were in the mean time somewhat counteracted by the lightheaded doings of her who was the nation’s present tie to England—the Queen-Dowager—whose grotesque and flagrant love-affairs are an amusing episode, especially to those who love the flavour of ancient scandal; while all gracious thoughts that turned themselves towards England were met in the teeth by the insults and injuries which her savage brother, Henry VIII., continued to pile upon the country.

Up to this point it does not happen to us to have noted instances of offices of emolument in Scotland given to Frenchmen, and the fuss made about one instance of the kind leads to the supposition that they must have been rare. Dunbar the poet, who was in priest’s orders, was exceedingly clamorous in prose and in verse—in the serious and in the comic vein—for preferment. Perhaps he was the kind of person whom it is as difficult to prefer in the Church as it was to make either Swift or Sydney Smith a bishop. His indignation was greatly roused by the appointment of a foreigner whom he deemed beset by his own special failings, but in far greater intensity, to the abbacy of Tungland; and he committed his griefs to a satirical poem, called ‘The fenyet Freir of Tungland.’ The object of this poem has been set down by historians as an Italian, but M. Michel indicates him as a countryman of his own, by the name of Jean Damien. He is called a charlatan, quack, and mountebank, and might, perhaps, with equal accuracy, be called a devotee of natural science, who speculated ingeniously and experimented boldly. He was in search of the philosopher’s stone, and believed himself to be so close on its discovery that he ventured to embark the money of King James IV., and such other persons as participated in his own faith, in the adventure to realise the discovery, and saturate all the partners in riches indefinite. This was a speculation of a kind in which many men of that age indulged; and they were men not differing from others except in their scientific attainments, adventurous propensities, and sanguine temperaments. The class still exists among us, though dealing rather in iron than gold; as if we had in the history of speculation, from the alchemists down to Capel Court, something that has been prophesied in that beautiful mythological sequence liked so much at all schools, beginning—

“Aurea prima sata est ætas, quæ vindice nullo

Sponte sua sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.”

It might be a fair question whether the stranger’s science is so obsolete as the style of literature in which he is attacked, since Dunbar’s satirical poem, among other minor indications of a character unsuited to the higher offices in the Christian ministry, insinuates that the adventurer committed several murders; and although, the charge is made in a sort of rough jocularity, the force of it does not by any means rest on its absurdity and incredibility. He was accused of a mad project for extracting gold from the Wanlockhead Hills, in Dumfriesshire, which cannot be utterly scorned in the present day, since gold has actually been extracted from them, though, the process has not returned twenty shillings to the pound. This curious creature completed his absurdities by the construction of a pair of wings, with which he was to take a delightful aerial excursion to his native country. He proved his sincerity by starting in full feather from Stirling Castle. In such affairs it is, as Madame du Deffaud said about that walk taken by St Denis round Paris with his own head for a burden, le premier pas qui coute. The poor adventurer tumbled at once, and was picked up with a broken thigh-bone. Such is the only Frenchman who became conspicuous before Albany’s time as holding rank and office in Scotland.

Albany had not long rubbed on with the Scots Estates when he found that he really must go to Paris, and as there seems to have been no business concerning Scotland that he could transact there, an uncontrollable yearning to be once more in his own gay world is the only motive we can find for his trip. The Estates of Scotland were in a surly humour, and not much inclined to allow him his holidays. They appointed a council of regency to act for him. He, however, as if he knew nothing about the constitutional arrangements in Scotland, appointed a sort of representative, who cannot have known more about the condition and constitution of Scotland than his constituent, though he had been one of the illustrious guests present at the marriage of James IV. He was called by Pitscottie ‘Monsieur Tilliebattie,’ but his full name was Antoine d’Arces de la Bastie, and he had been nicknamed or distinguished, as the case might be, as the Chevalier Blanc, or White Knight, like the celebrated Joannes Corvinus, the Knight of Wallachia, whose son became king of Hungary. M. Michel calls him the “chivalresque et brillant La Bastie, chez qui le guerrier et l’homme d’état etaient encore supérieurs au champion des tournois.” He was a sort of fanatic for the old principle of chivalry, then beginning to disappear before the breath of free inquiry, and the active useful pursuits it was inspiring. M. Michel quotes from a contemporary writer, who describes him as perambulating Spain, Portugal, England, and France, and proclaiming himself ready to meet all comers of sufficient rank, not merely to break a lance in chivalrous courtesy, but à combattre à l’outrance—an affair which even at that time was too important to be entered on as a frolic, or to pass an idle hour, but really required some serious justification. No one, it is said, accepted the challenge but the cousin of James IV. of Scotland, who is said to have been conquered, but not killed, as from the nature of the challenge he should have been; but this story seems to be a mistake by the contemporary, and M. Michel merely quotes it without committing himself.

Such was the person left by the regent as his representative, though apparently with no specific office or powers acknowledged by the constitution of Scotland. Research might perhaps afford new light to clear up the affair, but at present the only acknowledgment of his existence, bearing anything like an official character, are entries in the Scots treasurer’s accounts referred to by M. Michel, one of them authorising a payment of fifteen shillings to a messenger to the warden of the middle march, “with my lord governor’s letters delivered by Monsr. Labawte;” another payment to his servant for summoning certain barons and gentlemen to repair to Edinburgh; and a payment of twenty shillings, for a service of more import, is thus entered:—“Item, deliverit be Monsieur Lawbawtez to Johne Langlandis, letters of our sovereign lords to summon and warn all the thieves and broken men out of Tweeddale and Eskdale in their own country—quhilk letters were proclaimed at market-cross of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Jedwood.”

This proclamation seems to have been the deadly insult which sealed his fate. The borders had hardly yet lost their character of an independent district, which might have merged into something like a German margravate. There had been always some family holding a preponderating and almost regal power there. At this time it was the Homes or Humes, a rough set, with their hands deeply dipped in blood, who little dreamed that their name would be known all over Europe by the fame of a fat philosopher sitting writing in a peaceful library with a goosequill, and totally innocent of the death of a fellow-being. It was one of Albany’s rigorous measures to get the leaders of this clan “untopped,” to use one of Queen Elizabeth’s amiable pleasantries. This was a thing to be avenged; and since La Bastie was taking on himself the responsibilities of Albany, it was thought as well that he should not evade this portion of them. To lure him within their reach, a sort of mock fight was got up by the borderers in the shape of the siege of one of their peel towers. Away went La Bastie in all his bravery, dreaming, simple soul, as if he were in Picardy or Tourain, that the mere name of royalty would at once secure peace and submission. His eye, practised in scenes of danger, at once saw murder in the gaze of those he had ventured among, and he set spurs to his good horse, hoping to reach his headquarters in the strong castle of Dunbar. The poor fellow, however, ignorant of the country, and entirely unaided, was overtaken in a bog. It is said that he tried cajoling, threats, and appeals to honour and chivalrous feeling. As well speak to a herd of hungry wolves as to those grim ministers of vengeance! The Laird of Wedderburn, a Home, enjoyed the distinction of riding with the Frenchman’s head, tied by its perfumed tresses at his saddle-bow, into the town of Dunse, where the trophy was nailed to the market-cross. As old Pitscottie has it, “his enemies came upon him, and slew and murdered him very unhonestly, and cutted off his head, and carried it with them; and it was said that he had long hair platt over his neck, whilk David Home of Wedderburn twust to his saddle-bow, and keeped it.”

This affair brought Scotland into difficulties both with England and France. Henry VIII. professed himself displeased that a French adventurer should have been set up as ruler in his nephew’s kingdom, and Francis I., who had just mounted the throne of France, demanded vengeance on the murderers of his distinguished subject, with whose chivalrous spirit he had a congenial sympathy. There is an exceedingly curious and suggestive correspondence between France and Scotland at the commencement of M. Teulet’s papers, which has been aptly compared to the papers that have been returned to Parliament by our Indian Government on the negotiations with some wily Affghan or Scinde chief, in which reparation is demanded for outrages on a British subject. There is much fussy desire to comply with the demands of the great power, but ever a difficulty, real or pretended, in getting anything done; and probably it often is in the East, as it then was in Scotland, that the difficulty in punishing a set of powerful culprits has a better foundation in their power of self-defence than the government is inclined to acknowledge. Evil days, however, for a time clouded the rising sun of France. The battle of Pavia seemed to set her prostrate for the time; and when Scotland, having then many inducements the other way, was reminded of the old alliance, she answered the appeal with her old zeal.

This article does not aspire to the dignity of history. It has dealt chiefly with the under current, as it were, of the events connected with the doings of the French in Scotland—the secondary incidents, which show how the two nations got on together in their familiar intercourse. Their intercourse, however, now developes itself in large historical features, to which it is thought fitting to offer, in conclusion, a general reference, merely hinting at their connection with the preceding details. Ostensibly, and as matter of state policy, the old alliance was so strong that it seemed as if Scotland were drifting under the lee of France to be a mere colony or dependency of that grand empire—though there were influences at work which, in reality, utterly defeated this expected consummation. There was a brilliant wedding when James V. went to bring home Madeleine of France; and was so honoured that, according to the documents given by M. Teulet, the officers charged with the traditions of state precedents grumbled about this prince of a northern island, who knew no civilised language, receiving honours which had heretofore been deemed sacred to the royal blood of France. The national policy that held by this marriage would have had but a frail tenure, for poor Madeleine soon drooped and died. She had said, as a girl, that she wanted to be a queen, be the realm she ruled what it might; and so she had a brief experience—this word seems preferable to enjoyment—of the throne of cold uncomfortable Scotland. There was speedily another wedding, bearing in the direction of the French alliance, for that was still uppermost with the governing powers, whatever it might be with the English and Protestant party daily acquiring strength among the district leaders, nobles or lairds. It may have seemed to these, that when the queen was no longer a daughter of France, but a young lady, the child of one feudatory and the widow of another, with no better claim to share the throne than her beautiful face, there was no further danger from France. But the young queen was a Guise—one of that wonderful race who seemed advancing onwards, not only to the supreme command of France, but to something still greater, for they have been known in their boasting to speak of their house being directly descended from Charlemagne. When the daughter was Queen of France, and the mother ruled Scotland, the time for the final annexation seemed close at hand; but, in reality, the climax had been reached, and the French interest was near to its downfall. While the queen-mother was taking possession of the feudal strongholds, and placing all the high offices of state in the hands of Frenchmen—D’Oysells, de Rubays, Villemores, and the like—in France the proper method of governing Scotland was considered in council as a matter of French policy; and the question was discussed whether Scotland should have the honour of belonging to the crown of France, or should be a provision for a younger son of the house of Valois.

Those busy politicians, called the Lords of the Congregation, knew these things, and were stimulated to exertion accordingly. Hence came it to pass that the Reformation was so sudden an event in Scotland. On the morning of the 1st of August 1560 the people of Scotland awakened under the spiritual dominion of the Pope—ere evening his hierarchy was abolished, and to own it was criminal. The work of that day was not a deliberative act of legislation, but the announcement of the triumph of a party. After a long deadly contest the English party had gained a complete and final victory. It almost enhanced the triumph over French principles that the Acts of this Parliament never received the royal assent. Legislation without the intervention of the crown, was flat rebellion in the eyes of France, and not very reconcilable even with English decorum. It was owing to this specialty that, when Queen Mary engaged to support the religion established by law in Scotland, she was suspected, and not without reason, of stowing away, among the secrets of her heart, the consideration likely to be some day available, that Protestantism, not having the sanction of the crown, was not the religion established by law. If we were to enter with any fulness on this great passage in history, and to view it through the rich new light poured upon it by the documents collected by M. Teulet, we would require more room than the quite sufficient space which this article occupies. We have opportunity only for this brief reference to them, as the winding-up and conclusion of that interesting episode in history—the old alliance between France and Scotland.

Before parting, let us say a word on the personal character and other merits of the volumes which have led us on this occasion to look into the connection of our ancestors with the French, and have furnished us with the greater portion of the material for our two articles. To see two men of learning, research, and various special abilities, devoting what must be no inconsiderable portion of a life’s labour to the connection of our country with the great French empire, is interesting and pleasant, to say the least of it. We are a nation disposed to court the light; we are never afraid of the effect that revelations of our antecedents may have; we are sure of coming well out in all inquiries into our history and connections; and the present elucidation has not stripped a leaf from the national laurels—indeed, we take it to have only removed some of the dust that covered them, and revealed their real freshness and brightness. To the labourers in such a task we should feel that we owe a debt of kindly gratitude, and this should not the less impress us that the work has been done by citizens of that great old European central power which befriended the poor children of our soil in the days of their poverty and danger. New interests and attachments, more suitable to the position of Scotland on the map of Europe, and to the origin of her people, afterwards arose. When centuries of cruel wrong and alienation and wrath had passed away, she became reconciled to that great relation which, let us suppose, in the usual misunderstanding which creates the quarrels in the romances, had treated her as an alien enemy. But while the reconciliation has been long consolidated, and has proved as natural a national adjustment as the restoration of an exiled child is a natural family adjustment, there is still a pleasing sentiment in recalling the friends found in the wide world when kindred were unkind; and the hospitable doors opened to our wandering countrymen, among those who stood at the head of European civilisation in the middle ages, must ever remain a memorable record of the generosity of the patrons, and of the merits of those who so well requited their generosity by faithful and powerful services. To the volumes which contain the record of this attachment something more is due than the mere recognition of their literary merits—they deserve at the hands of our countrymen an affectionate recognition as national memorials. The quantity of curious and interesting matter contained in them, but for the special zeal of the two men who have thus come forward, might have remained still buried under archæological rubbish—might have remained so for ever, even until oblivion overtook them. It is surely right to hope that the zeal and labour embarked by the adventurers will not be thrown away; and that our countrymen will take to the volumes, both of M. Michel and of M. Teulet, as works which it is becoming for them to possess and read as patriotic Scotsmen. If readers have found any interest in the casual glimpses of their contents supplied by the present sketch, they may be assured of finding much more matter of the same kind should they undertake an investigation of the volumes themselves.

Setting before one on the library table the two volumes of M. Michel, and the five of M. Teulet, is a good deal like receiving one guest in full court costume, prepared to meet distinguished company, while another comes to you in his lounging home vestment of serge, with slippers and smoking-cap, as if he had just stepped across the way from the scene of his laborious researches. In the collections in this country of some men who have given themselves to works illustrated by fine engravings, the Book of the Ceremonial of the Coronation of Louis XV. is conspicuous, not only by its finely engraved plates, but by the instruction they afford as representations of the costume and ways of the great hierarchy of state officers which clustered round the throne of the Bourbons before the great smash came. Among the most conspicuous of these are the Scots Guards, then no longer our countrymen, though the title was retained. The outfit must have appeared signally beautiful and chivalrous amid the ponderous state habiliments which the eighteenth century saw accumulate and fall to pieces. It is evidently a traditional type of the court or company dress of the man-at-arms of the fifteenth century—a sufficient amount of steel to betoken the warrior, richly damasked or inlaid with precious metals—a superfluity of lace and embroidered cloth of silk or velvet. Altogether, a more superbly and chivalrously accoutred person than your Scottish Guard it is difficult to idealise; and in the original engraving there is about him, both in countenance and attitude, the air of one devoted in enthusiasm and solemn sense of responsibility, to the duty wherewith he is intrusted. With a good eye to the appropriate, M. Michel—it is his own suggestion, we take it, not the binder’s—has transferred this striking figure to the outside of this book, where it glitters in gold on the true-blue background, which also relieves the lion, the thistle, and the fleur-de-lys. A glimpse we have just had at a quarto and illustrated copy of the book in the hands of a fortunate collector, wherein is a full engraved copy of the plate of the Scots Guard, along with many other appropriate artistical decorations; but in this shape the book is not put, so far as we are aware, at the disposal of the public; and any account of it is, in a manner, a digression into something like private affairs. Reverting to the common published impression of M. Michel’s book, let it suffice to say that it is well filled with blazons of the armorial achievements of our countrymen, assuredly valuable to workers in heraldry and genealogy, and interesting to those descendants of the stay-at-home portions of the several families which established themselves so comfortably and handsomely in the territory of our ancient ally.

Looking apart from matters of national interest to the literary nature of M. Michel’s volumes, we find in them specialties which we know will be deemed signally meritorious; but of the merits to be found in them we have some difficulty in speaking, since they are literary virtues of a kind rather out of the way of our appreciation—beyond it, if the reader prefers that way of expressing what is meant. There is throughout these two volumes the testimony to an extent of dreary reading and searching which would stimulate compassion, were it not that he who would be the victim, were that the proper feeling in which he should be approached, evidently exults and glories, and is really happy, in the conditions which those who know no better would set down as his hardships. There are some who, when they run the eye over arrêts and other formal documents, over pedigrees, local chronicles telling trifles, title-deeds, and such-like documents, carry with them a general impression of the political or social lesson taught by them, and discard from recollection all the details from which any such impression has been derived. M. Michel is of another kind; he has that sort of fondness for his work which induces him to show you it in all stages, from the rude block to the finished piece of art, so far as it is finished. You are entered in all the secrets of his workshop—you participate in all his disappointments and difficulties as well as his successes. The research which has had no available result is still reported, in order that you may see how useless it has been. We repeat that we have not much sympathy with this kind of literature, yet would not desire to speak profanely of it, since we know that some consider it the only perfect method of writing books on subjects connected with history or archæology. The “citation of authorities,” in fact, is deemed, in this department of intellectual labour, something equivalent to records of experiments in natural science, and to demonstrations in geometrical science. Our own sympathy being with the exhibition rather of results than of the means of reaching them, we have not, unfortunately, that high respect for footnotes filled with accurate transcripts of book-titles, which is due to the high authorities by whom the practice has been long sanctioned. We can afford it, however, the sort of distant unsympathising admiration which people bestow on accomplishments for which they have no turn or sympathy—as for those of the juggler, the acrobat, and the accountant. M. Michel’s way of citing the books he refers to is indeed, to all appearance, a miracle of perfection in this kind of work. Sometimes he is at the trouble of denoting where the passage stands in more than one, or even in every, edition of the work. He gives chapter or section as well as page and volume. In old books counted not by the page but the leaf, he will tell you which side he desires you to look at, right or left; and where, as is the way in some densely printed old folios, in addition to the arrangement of the pages by numeration, divisions on each page are separated by the letters A B C, he tells you which of these letters stands sentry on the paragraph he refers to. There is, at all events, a very meritorious kind of literary honesty in all this, and however disinclined to follow it, no one has a right to object to it.

And, after all, a man who has gone through so much hard forbidding reading as M. Michel has, is surely entitled to let us know something about the dreary wastes and rugged wildernesses through which he has sojourned—all for the purpose of laying before his readers these two gay attractive-looking volumes. Towards his foreign reading, we in the general instance lift the hat of respect, acknowledging its high merits, on the principle of the omne ignotum pro magnifico. Upon the diligent manner in which he has, in our own less luxuriant field of inquiry among Scots authorities, turned over every stone to see what is under it, we can speak with more distinct assurance. Take one instance. The young Earl of Haddington, the son of that crafty old statesman called Tam o’ the Cowgate, who scraped together a fortune in public office under James VI., was studying in France, when he met and fell in love with the beautiful Mademoiselle De Chatillon, grand-daughter of the Admiral Coligny. When only nineteen years old he went back to France, married her, and brought her home. He died within a year, however, and the countess, a rich beautiful widow, returned to her friends. She was, of course, beset by admirers, and in reference to these, M. Michel has turned up a curious passage in ‘Les Histoirettes de Fallemant des Réaux,’ which, if true, shows the persevering zeal with which our queen, Henrietta Maria, seized every opportunity to promote the cause of her religion. The countess, being Huguenot, and of a very Huguenot family, the queen was eager that she should be married to a Roman Catholic, and selected the son of her friend Lady Arundel. The dominion over her affections was, however, held by “un jeune Ecossois nommé Esbron, neveu du Colonel Esbron.” The name is French for the chevalier Hepburn, one of the most renowned soldiers in the French service in the early part of the seventeenth century. The mamma Chatillon was dead against either connection. She got a fright by hearing that her daughter had been carried off to the Fenêbres, or the services of Easter-week which inaugurate Good-Friday; she consequently gave her a maternal box on the ear, carried her off, and, to keep her out of harm’s way, forthwith married her to the Count de la Suze, tout borgne, tout ivrogne et tout indetté qu’il étoit. M. Michel’s purpose is not with this desirable husband, nor with his wife after she ceases to be connected with Scotland, but with the young Hepburn who comes casually across the scene. Following in his track entirely, the next quarter where, after appearing in the ‘Histoirettes,’ he turns up, is Durie’s ‘Decisions of the Court of Session.’ This is by no means one of the books which every well-informed man is presumed to know. So toughly is it stuffed with the technicalities and involutions of old Scots law, and so confused and involved is every sentence of it by the natural haziness of its author, that probably no living English writer would dare to meddle with it. No Scotsman would, unless he be lawyer—nor, indeed, would any lawyer, unless of a very old school—welcome the appearance of the grim folio. In citing from it the decision of Hepburn contra Hepburn, 14th March 1639, even the courageous M. Michel subjoins: “Si j’ai bien compris le text de cet arrêt conçu dans un langue particulière.” This peculiar arrêt begins as follows:—“The brethren and sisters of umquhile Colonel Sir John Hepburn having submitted all questions and rights which they might pretend to the goods, gear, and means of the said umquhile Sir John, to the laird Wauchton and some other friends, wherein the submitters were bound and did refer to the said friends to determine what proportion of the said goods should be given to George Hepburn, the son of the eldest brother to the said Sir John, which George was then in France at the time of the making of the said submission and bond, and did not subscribe the same, nor none taking the burden for him; upon the which submission, the said friends had given their decreet arbitral. The living brethren and sisters of the said Sir John being confirmed executors to him, pursues one Beaton, factor in Paris, for payment of 20,000 pounds addebted by him to the said umquhile Sir John, who, suspending upon double poinding,” &c.

Perhaps we have said enough to exemplify the dauntless nature of M. Michel’s researches. It is impossible to withhold admiration from such achievements, and we know that, in some quarters, such are deemed the highest to which the human intellect can aspire. But we confess that, to our taste, the results of M. Teulet’s labours are more acceptable. True, he does not profess to give the world an original book. He comes forward as the transcriber and editor of certain documents; but in the gathering of these documents from different quarters, through all the difficulties of various languages and alphabets, in their arrangement so as to bring out momentous historical truths in their due series, and in the helps he has afforded to those who consult his volumes, he has shown a skill and scholarship which deserve to be ranked with the higher attainments of science. We had formerly an opportunity of paying our small tribute to M. Teulet’s merits when we referred to his supplemental volume to Labanoff’s Correspondence of Queen Mary.[9] Among not the least valued of the contents of our book-shelves, are six octavo volumes containing the correspondence of La Mothe Fénélon, and the other French ambassadors to England and Scotland during the latter years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, for which the world is indebted to M. Teulet’s researches. The immediate merit of the book, the title of which is referred to at the beginning of this article, is, that it is now at the command of the public. It is indeed a reprint, with some additions, of the papers—at least all that are worth having—which were previously an exclusive luxury of the Bannatyne Club, having been printed in three quarto volumes, as a gift to their brethren, by certain liberal members of the Club. These papers go into the special affairs of this country as connected with France and Spain from the beginning of our disputes with our old ally down to the accession of James VI. In the hands of the first historian who has the fortune to make ample use of them, these documents will disperse the secluded and parochial atmosphere that hangs about the history of Scotland, and show how the fate of Europe in general turned upon the pivot of the destinies of our country. It is here that, along with many minor secrets, we have revealed to us the narrow escape made by the cause of Protestantism, when the project on the cards was the union of the widowed Queen Mary to the heir of Spain, and the political combinations still centring round the interests and the fate of the Queen of Scots, which led to the more signal and renowned escape realised in the defeat of the Armada.

KINGLAKE’S INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.[10]

Seven years ago, when the war with Russia was about to end—was, in fact, already virtually ended—and when the war-fever of the English had been abated by copious blood-letting, and by the absence of further stimulant to hostility since Sebastopol had ceased to resist, people were already talking about the future history of the strife. It seemed to be agreed that the public, which had so eagerly swallowed all the information it could get, and snapped at all the opinions which floated so thickly on the stream of current history, was for the present glutted with the subject, and that to offer it any more Crimean information, however cunningly dressed, would be like fishing with a May-fly for a July trout. On the other hand, the subject seemed to be essentially one of contemporary importance. It had not the elements which gave lasting interest to the Peninsular war. It had developed no great reputations in which the nation could for the future undoubtingly confide. It had left us victorious over no great conqueror. Its memorials were not such as we should choose to dwell on; for though the nation was very proud of the early triumphs of the Alma and Inkermann, still the later course of the struggle had been, though successful in its end, yet disastrous and gloomy in its progress, and had left, partly through the more brilliant share which our allies took in the final action, but principally through the forebodings of our own press, a sense of comparative failure. Mr Kinglake comes upon the stage at a fortunate time. The weariness of the subject, once felt, has disappeared, while the strong contemporary interest in the actors remains. That interest is national in the sense of being fixed, not on a few great objects, but on a great number of inferior objects connected with the war. It is not so much patriotic as domestic. The graves of Cathcart’s Hill, the trenches filled with dead, the burial-grounds of Scutari, have a strong though softened hold on innumerable hearts. Everywhere in England—in remote parishes, in small communities, in humble households—remembrance of the great features of the struggle is kept alive by the presence of those who survived it. A strong conviction that French manœuvring was not entirely directed against the enemy, and that a fair scrutiny would leave us more reason for self-satisfaction than at first appeared, has long been afloat. And a succession of great conflicts in which we have been strongly interested has schooled us in military doctrines, and has rendered us better able to appreciate the operations of armies than we were either at the beginning or the end of the Crimean war.

If the time for the history is happily chosen, so is the historian. Few men who have written so little have so established their reputation as Mr Kinglake. His ‘Eothen,’ immensely popular at first, has settled into an English classic. It is full of interest, full of remarkably vivid descriptions, full of original writing; and though the style does not reject effects which a very pure taste would condemn, yet it possesses the eminent merits of vigour, condensation, and richness. In the fulness of the fame thus earned, Mr Kinglake accompanied the army to the Crimea. The scenes of the war consequently possessed for him a reality which no reading, no imagination, no second-hand description can impart. He had seen the Euxine covered with the vast flotilla of the Allies. He had set foot on the hostile coast at the same time as the combined armies. He had accompanied them in their compact advance, when their columns seemed but spots and patches in the vast circle of sea and plain. His own eyes had beheld the battle of the Alma, and the signs of death and suffering that remained next day to mark the phases of the struggle. And when afterwards he came to record the incidents of the war, though no individual observation could embrace all the details, there was always present with him the invaluable power which personal knowledge confers, to define, to affirm, or to reject. And as it was soon understood that he intended to write the history of the war, he, in his double capacity of approved author and actual spectator, became almost, as a matter of course, the depositary of a vast amount of information connected with the subject, oral and documentary, private and official. He had a large acquaintance with the political as well as the military actors in the drama. Few men, then, could have had so free access as he to the materials of which the history must be wrought.

Moreover, he had shown in his former work that he possessed another qualification for his task. History cannot be written at a heat. Patient inquiry, long meditation, the fortitude necessary for the abandonment of convenient conclusions too hastily come to, are all indispensable to success. But with this pursuit of the necessary details, unity of effect, as numberless failures have shown, is almost incompatible. Now, Mr Kinglake had given remarkable proof that he could bestow a microscopic attention on particulars without sacrifice of breadth. It is generally believed that he spent nine years in bringing the single volume of ‘Eothen’ up to the standard of his own fastidious taste. The sarcastic advice of Pope to an aspiring author—“Keep your piece nine years”—had been literally accepted, but with a result very different from that which the adviser anticipated. Instead of becoming dissatisfied with a work looked at after a long interval and with changed feelings, Mr Kinglake proved that he could not only “strike the second heat”—the process which Ben Jonson says is so necessary for the forging of ideas into happy forms of expression—but that he could bring his thoughts again and again to the intellectual smithy to be recast and shaped without finding the fire extinct. Here, then, was evidence of a quality most valuable to one who must long and patiently grope amid masses of evidence and details, sometimes conflicting, often worthless, and yet retain freshly the power of throwing the selected results into a form clear, harmonious, and striking.

We have thus broadly stated some of Mr Kinglake’s eminent qualifications for his task, and a detailed notice of his work will necessarily include others. And it is easy to believe that he might have selected a variety of subjects, his execution of which would have insured unqualified praise. But for the present task, as might have been seen before he commenced it, his fitness was marred by one circumstance. His political course had proved that his animosity towards the French Emperor amounted to a passion, or, as those who did not care to pick their words might say, a mania. It might be guessed beforehand, therefore, that the Emperor would scarcely meet with fair play at his hands. And considering the share taken by that personage in the events which Mr Kinglake had undertaken to record, to misrepresent his policy or his doings would be to distort the history. Any one who entertained such a misgiving must have found it strengthened when, on glancing over the table of contents, he perceived that nearly a quarter of the first volume, amidst what purports to be a record of the “transactions that brought on the war,” is occupied with an account of the coup d’état which substituted an empire for a republic in France. On reading the volume his suspicions would inevitably be converted into certainty. More than that, indeed, for he would find that his anticipations were far exceeded by a satire so studied, so polished, so remorseless, and withal so diabolically entertaining, that we know not where in modern literature to seek such another philippic. Had Mr Kinglake contrived in this chapter to have completely relieved his feelings and have been contented with flaying the Emperor and thus have done with him, leaving him to get through the rest of the book as naturally and comfortably as he could be expected to do without his skin, we might consider it as an episode which we should have been at liberty to set apart from the main purpose of the work. But like King Charles I., whom David Copperfield’s friend, Mr Dick, never could keep out of his memorial, this diabolical caricature of despotism haunts the narrative at every turn. The canvass is spread, the palette is laid, the artist is at his easel full of his subject—all the great personages of the time are to figure there, and great incidents are to form the background. The spectator is at first charmed with the progress of the design; but presently, amidst the nobly-drawn portraits, there is a sketch of a monarch with cloven feet appearing beneath his robes, and a tail curling under his throne; and whereas the rest of the picture is in true perspective, all that relates to this figure has a separate horizon and point of sight. The result is as if Gilray in his bitterest mood had got into Sir Joshua’s studio and persuaded him to let their fancies mingle in one incongruous work.

We have thus stated our one point of difference with the author of these fascinating volumes. With this exception we have little to do but to praise—and indeed, as a piece of writing, we have nothing to do but to praise the work from beginning to end. How materials in many respects so unpromising could be made so interesting, is marvellous. Many a reader who remembers what a tangled skein of politics it was that led to the war—many a soldier who has a confused recollection of a jumble of Holy Places, and the Four Powers, and Vienna Conferences, and who would be glad to know what it was he was fighting about, now that it is all over—will take up these volumes as a duty, and will be surprised to find that the narrative approached in so resolute a frame of mind, is more easy to read and more difficult to lay down than the most popular of the popular novels.

The dispute about the Holy Places, though not in itself in any appreciable degree the cause of the war, was the introduction to the events that led to hostilities. There is something almost ludicrous, something more befitting the times of Philip Augustus and of Cœur de Lion than those of Louis Napoleon and Lord Palmerston, in the idea of great European potentates appearing as the backers of two denominations of monks, who were quarrelling about the key of a church-door in Palestine. Nevertheless, the Czar, as the chief of a people whose passions were strongly aroused by the dispute, had a real and legitimate interest in the matter. To suppose that the President of the French Republic, or any section of the people over whom he presided, really cared whether the Greek or the Latin Church had the custody of this important key, would be absurd. But the President it was who opened the question by advocating the claims of the Latins. His object in doing so is by no means clear. Mr Kinglake accounts for it by saying, “The French President, in cold blood, and under no new motive for action, took up the forgotten cause of the Latin Church of Jerusalem, and began to apply it as a wedge for sundering the peace of the world.” Now, that Louis Napoleon was desirous of disturbing the peace of the world, is Mr Kinglake’s argument throughout. It is to his book what the wrath of Achilles is to the ‘Iliad;’ and he tells us that the reason for this truculent desire was to prop up the French Empire. But that reason, though it may plausibly explain the acts of the French Emperor, does not account in the least for the acts of the French President. We presume Mr Kinglake hardly wishes us to infer that Louis Napoleon sowed the seeds of war during his Presidency, as provision for the possible necessities of a possible Empire. Yet the historian’s theory would seem to demand the inference.

The poor Sultan, meanwhile, who might well exclaim ‘A plague o’ both your Churches!’ was the unwilling arbiter of this dispute between his Christian subjects, and was urged by the great champion on each side to decide in favour of his protégé. Who might have the key, or whether there was any key at all, or any sanctuary at all, or any Greek or Latin Church, was to this hapless potentate a matter of profound indifference. The French envoy put on the strongest pressure, and the Sultan inclined to the side of the Latins; the Russian minister thereupon squeezed from him a concession to their adversaries; and between the two he managed, as might be expected, to disgust both sects, and to anger the Czar without satisfying the Emperor. The displeasure of Nicholas was extreme, and he prepared to support his further arguments by marching a large army towards the Turkish frontier. And the first use of this force was to give momentum to the mission of Prince Mentschikoff, who was sent to Constantinople as the organ of his Imperial master’s displeasure. The selection of the envoy showed that the Czar wished to take the most direct and violent course to the fulfilment of his aim; for the Prince’s diplomacy was of that simple kind—the only kind he seemed capable of employing—which regards threats as the best means of persuasion.

These strong measures were the first indications that war was possibly impending. And as they appeared to spring from the religious fervour of the Czar, which had been roused to this pitch by the gratuitous intermeddling of Napoleon in the question of the Holy Places, it would at first seem as if it were indeed the French ruler who had first blown the coal which presently caused such a conflagration. But in the interval between the decision of the Sultan about the churches, and the appearance of Mentschikoff at Constantinople, Nicholas had held with Sir Hamilton Seymour the remarkable conversations which explain the real designs cloaked by the religious question. In these interviews he uttered his famous parable of “the sick man,” representing that the Turkish Empire was dying, and might fall to pieces any day, and proposing that the event should be provided for by an immediate arrangement for dividing the fragments. Provided he had the concurrence of England, the Czar would not, he said, care what any other Powers might do or say in the matter.

Here then was a foregone conclusion plainly revealed. The religious ire of the Czar, the movement of his troops, the mission of Mentschikoff, were all to be instruments for hastening the dissolution of the sick man, and appropriating his domains. It was no new idea; for Nicholas was but following the traditionary policy of his house. And if it could be believed that his expectations of the speedy collapse of the Turkish Empire were real, it would be unjust to blame him for wishing to profit by the event. We are too apt to judge of the policy of other Governments by the interests of England, and to condemn as unprincipled what is opposed to our advantage. Nevertheless, to a ruler of Russia, no object can appear more legitimate than the possession of that free outlet to the world, which alone is wanting to remove the spell that paralyses her gigantic energies. Looking from the shores of the Euxine, she is but mocked by the vision of naval glories and of commercial prosperity; but let her extend her limits to the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and no dreams of greatness can be too splendid for her to realise. But there is no proof that the Czar’s anticipations respecting Turkey were grounded on anything more solid than his strong desire to render them true. In fact, the forecast of the Czar is much the same as that of Mohammed Damoor, as described in ‘Eothen:’ who, having prophesied that the Jews of Damascus would be despoiled on a particular day, took steps to verify his prediction by first exciting and then heading the mob of plunderers.

The reply of England to his overtures satisfied him that he could not hope for her complicity in his design upon Turkey. Had it been otherwise, the sick man would, no doubt, have been so cared for that, sick or well, there would soon have been an end of him. But the Czar perceived he must for the present forego his desire for the vineyard of Naboth. Yet there were several reasons why he should still draw what profit he could from the present opportunity. He had a pretext—an indifferent one it is true, but still it was more convenient to use it than to look for another. He had been at the trouble of military preparations, and was naturally desirous that they should not be barren of result. And, in the matter of Montenegro, Turkey had just succumbed to him so readily on a threat of war, that it seemed very unlikely he should ever find her in a better frame of mind for his purpose. Therefore, though the sick man was reprieved, yet he was not to go scot-free; and Mentschikoff was charged, while ostensibly urging the Sultan to reconsider the question of the Holy Places, to keep in reserve a demand of much deeper significance.

Scornful in demeanour and imperious in language, Mentschikoff entered Constantinople more like the bearer of a gage of defiance than a messenger of peace. His deportment startled the Divan out of its habitual calm; and the British Chargé d’Affaires, at the instance of the Turkish Ministers, requested our Admiral at Malta to move his squadron into the Levant. This demand was not complied with; but the French fleet was ordered to Salamis. And this movement is condemned by Mr Kinglake as most impolitic; for it happened, he says, at a time when “the anger of the Emperor Nicholas had grown cool,” and it “gave deep umbrage to Russia.” From which he means us to infer that Louis Napoleon, following his deep design of fanning the flame of discord when it should seem to languish, was so timing the advance of his fleet as to neutralise the pacific influences which had begun to have their sway.

Now what are the circumstances of the case? The French Emperor knew nothing of the conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, which did not transpire till long afterwards. Neither he nor the British Government were aware of the Czar’s real demands. Ostensibly the matter of controversy was still the original question between him and the Czar concerning the Holy Places. And while one of the disputants, France, had urged her views in the ordinary way by the mouth of her ambassador, her opponent was preparing to coerce the arbiter by a menacing mission backed by an army and a fleet. The army already touched the frontier, the fleet was prepared to sail for the Bosphorus. Will anybody except Mr Kinglake blame the French Emperor for sending his fleet to Salamis? or say that he was bound, before taking such a step, to consider whether it might not give deep umbrage to Russia?

Mentschikoff then proceeded to urge his demands. These were, that, in addition to the concessions required respecting the Holy Places, the Sultan should, by treaty with the Czar, engage to confirm the Christian subjects of the Porte in certain privileges and immunities. Though the Sultan was very willing to confirm them in these privileges, he was by no means willing to bind himself by treaty with the Czar to do so; for by so doing he would give the Czar a right, as a party to the treaty, to see that it was fulfilled; and hence those who were to benefit by the privileges would naturally regard most, not him who granted them, but him who could compel their observance. In fact, it was virtually conferring on the Czar the protectorate of the Sultan’s Christian subjects.

It was while the Turkish Ministers were in the deepest embarrassment between the consequences of listening to such a proposition on the one hand, and the fear of offending the Czar by refusing to entertain it on the other, that Lord Stratford appeared on the scene. The coming of the British Ambassador, and the diplomatic duel that ensued between him and Mentschikoff, where predominant influence in the Sultan’s counsels was to be the prize of the victor, forms one of the most brilliant passages in this brilliant book. The mere presence of the Ambassador of England restores the Sultan and his Ministers to complete self-possession. When Mentschikoff blusters, they refresh themselves by a view of Lord Stratford’s commanding aspect; when the Russian menaces war, they are comforted by a hint from the Englishman respecting the English squadron. Of such dramatic excellence is this portion of the story, that the enthralled reader forgets to inquire how it was that in a dispute between France and Russia respecting the subjects of Turkey, the Ambassador of England should be the foremost champion. But we see him throughout as the power that moves the Mussulman puppets, and from whose calm opposition the menaces of Mentschikoff recoil harmless; and we see in distant St Petersburg the great Czar himself lashed to fury at feeling himself foiled by one whom he has long, we are told, considered as a personal foe. We cannot but feel proud in these circumstances of the position of our representative, though it would be difficult to say, perhaps, what advantage besides this feeling of pride we, as a nation, derived from it. But it is clear that, while the Czar was dreaming, as of something possible to be realised by a great display of power, of a protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte, here was a British protectorate of the most absolute character already established over the Porte and its subjects, Christian and Mussulman; and we might almost infer that nothing further was requisite on Lord Stratford’s part but to humour Mohammedan prejudices by submitting to a few insignificant religious rites, in order to qualify him for at once taking his place as Chief of the Ottoman Empire, and the true Commander of the Faithful.

In the diplomatic encounter, Mentschikoff had no more chance than the fiend in a moral tale of diablerie, who urges weak man to sign his soul away after the good angel has come to the rescue. Baffled at all points, he departs with all the diplomatic train, muttering vengeance. And here ends the first act of the drama, when the pretexts of the Czar have vanished, and he shows his true design. The next begins with the crossing of the Pruth by the Russian forces, in order to secure the material guarantee of the Danubian provinces. But the menacing position of Russia was not the only change in the situation. England, who in the earlier dispute had no more interest than the other Western Powers in opposing Russia, had in the progress of the controversy made herself so prominent that she was, in the judgment of Lord Clarendon, bound to defend the provinces of the Sultan against an unprovoked attack by Russia. That she had laid herself under this obligation was entirely owing to the lofty part which Lord Stratford had played in the drama. On the other hand, had Lord Stratford not been so ready and conspicuous in his championship, the Divan, feeling itself unsupported, might have yielded to the demands of Russia.

For a great part of the narrative, then, the principal positions have been occupied by England, Russia, and Turkey; and the interest imparted to scenes which, from an ordinary hand, would have been eminently tedious, is wonderful. But at this juncture, King Charles I., who has long been impending, can no longer be kept out of the memorial. The iniquitous machinations of the French Emperor are brought into the foreground. The occasion for enlarging on them is that which we shall presently state. But first we must say that it is from no wish to dilate on what we think the blemish of the book that we expatiate on this theme. It is because it is mixed up with all the main parts of a work which we are bound to treat as an authentic history. But it happens that, for a reason to be noted hereafter, we can, without injury to the texture, separate this portion from the rest; and we therefore propose to follow this thread of the narrative to its end, and so, having done with it, to be at liberty, for the rest of these volumes, to approve no less warmly than we admire.

Austria naturally felt considerable interest in the movements of a formidable neighbour, whose troops were now winding round her frontier, who, by overrunning Turkey, would enclose some of her provinces, and who, at the next step in advance, would control the Lower Danube. She therefore, in conjunction with Prussia, made common cause with the Western Powers, so far as to offer a strong remonstrance against the occupation of the Danubian provinces, and to join in their efforts to preserve peace. Mr Kinglake contends that this kind of pacific pressure would have secured its object, and that if it had not, Austria would have joined France and England in having recourse to sterner measures. But he says that, without waiting for the result of this joint coercion, England was persuaded to join France in a separate course of action, which, without necessity, involved us in a war desired only by the French Emperor. “In order to see how it came to be possible,” says the historian, “that the vast interests of Europe should be set aside in favour of mere personal objects, it will presently be necessary to contract the field of vision, and, going back to the winter of 1851, to glance at the operations of a small knot of middle-aged men who were pushing their fortunes in Paris.”

And here is interpolated—for as an interpolation we regard it—that curious episode which has for its subject the coup d’état and the establishment of the second French Empire. Standing apart from the purpose of the book, its isolation gives it peculiar distinctness. But its inherent character is such that it needs no art or accident to bring it into strongest relief. It is a singularly clever and singularly acrimonious attack upon the foremost statesman and most powerful potentate of these times. And it makes demands on our credulity which are too heavy for anything short of absolute proof to maintain. For we are asked to believe that a set of men with no more character or consideration than Falstaff and his associates, were able to call on the French nation to stand and deliver, and that the nation thereupon submitted to be knocked down, to have its throat cut, and to be plundered by these minions of the moon. Now, does anybody think that diadems, such as that of France, are to be stolen from a shelf by any cutpurse who wants to put them in his pocket? Or does anybody think that a mere cutpurse, having succeeded in the theft, could so have worn his stolen diadem as to enhance its splendour and renown? That which made the Empire possible, and that which maintains it now, was the conviction that the choice of the nation lay between it and Red Republicanism. And to establish, in any degree, his case, Mr Kinglake should have proved that no such conviction existed. But if it be true that France found in the Empire a refuge from anarchy, then reasonable men will not be ready to scrutinise, in too severe a spirit, the means taken to consolidate the throne. Granted that the army, the instrument employed by the President, disgraced itself by an indiscriminate and unprovoked slaughter—that the opposition of political adversaries was silenced in a very arbitrary fashion—that a foreign war would probably be necessary for the security of the new dynasty,—yet will it be said that a result which has tranquillised France, which has developed her resources and exalted her reputation, leaves in the establishment of the Empire nothing except what the world must regret and condemn? And looking at the portrait which Mr Kinglake has drawn, with so bold and incisive a touch, of this potentate of wooden face, base soul, and feeble resolve, who turns green in moments of danger—who, with the aid of swindlers and bravoes, has yoked France to his chariot, and drives it in a career of blood with the great Powers of Europe bound to its wheels—we ask, not only is it brilliant as a work of art, but is it like the original? We do not profess to believe that the Empire is the perfection of government. We do not maintain that Louis Napoleon is a model of virtue and disinterested policy. But if his place in Europe were suddenly vacant, will Mr Kinglake tell us how it would be better filled, or what precious things might not be thrown into the gulf before it could be closed? And if no answer can be given to the question, we may well doubt the expediency of contributing to bring so important a personage and so powerful an ally into contempt.

“After the 2d December in the year 1851,” says Mr Kinglake, in concluding the portion of his work relating to the coup d’état, “the foreign policy of France was used for a prop to prop the throne which Morny and his friends had built up.... Therefore, although I have dwelt awhile upon a singular passage in the domestic history of France, I have not digressed.” Now, even if he could prove the necessities of the French Empire to have been the main motive of the part England took in the war, we should still dispute this. No doubt it is the business of the historian of an important series of events to trace them to their sources, and the more clearly he can show the connection hidden from ordinary minds, the more sagacious and ingenious he will appear. But if there were no limit to this, the history of any event might spread to an extent altogether boundless; and therefore, to justify digression, it is necessary for the historian to show that the incidents which led to the result had a necessary and not an accidental influence in procuring it. For instance, in the case of a popular uprising against a despotism or a superstition, it would be expected that the historian should trace all the successive steps by which the national feelings were roused from suffering to resistance, because those steps led inevitably and naturally to that particular result, and not to any other. In such a case history is performing her proper function of explaining, for the guidance of posterity, the obscure process by which certain conditions produce certain effects. But where a war has been caused by the caprice and unreasoning anger of a potentate, it is beside the purpose to trace up to his very cradle the effect of early mismanagement or neglect in rendering him passionate or capricious, for no political lesson can be taught where results cannot be calculated. In such a case it will be sufficient to state the fact, that the war originated in the irascible temper and unaccountable impulse of one who had the power to give his anger such tremendous vent. It would be absurd to pause in the history, and to introduce his biography, merely to prove that it is a bad thing when great power is lodged in the hands of a person who is the slave of violent caprice. And in the present instance, if it had been stated in two sentences that the conditions under which the French Empire had started into existence were such as to render a foreign war, or a commanding position in Europe, necessary to its stability, the statement would have fully satisfied the requirements of history, and would have received general assent.

However, having considered it necessary to prove this proposition by a separate history of the transition which France underwent from a republic to an empire, Mr Kinglake undertakes to show how we were dragged into war by this necessitous Emperor. He asserts many times that the operations of the French and English fleets caused the war.

“The English Government,” he says, “consented to engage in naval movements which affected—nay governed—the war.” And again, “The French Emperor had no sooner engaged the English Government in a separate understanding, than he began to insist upon the necessity of using the naval power of France and England in the way which he proposed—a way bitterly offensive to Russia. Having at length succeeded in forcing this measure upon England, he after a while pressed upon her another movement of the fleets still more hostile than the first, and again he succeeded in bringing the English Government to yield to him. Again, and still once again, he did the like, always in the end bringing England to adopt his hostile measures; and he never desisted from this course of action, until at last it had effected a virtual rupture between the Czar and the Western Powers.”

And in this way throughout these transactions the Emperor plays a part much the same as that which Satan took in the scenes in Paradise; and at every turn we see him moving deviously, quite serpentine in craft and baseness, or squatting toad-like at the ear of the slumbering British Government, till now, at the Ithuriel touch of history, he starts up in his true form of malignant demon.

The various items of the present charge against him are collected by Mr Kinglake in a compendious form:—

“Not yet as part of this narrative, but by way of anticipation, and in order to gather into one page the grounds of the statement just made, the following instances are given of the way in which the English Government was, from time to time, driven to join with the French Emperor in making a quarrelsome use of the two fleets:—On the 13th of July 1853, the French Emperor, through his Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the English Government that if the occupation of the Principalities continued, the French fleet could not longer remain at Besica Bay. On the 19th of August he declared it to be absolutely necessary that the combined fleets should enter the Dardanelles, and he pressed the English Government to adopt a resolution to this effect. On the 21st of September he insisted that the English Government, at the same moment as the French, should immediately order up the combined squadrons to Constantinople. On the 15th of December he pressed the English Government to agree that the Allied fleets should enter the Euxine, take possession of it, and interdict the passage of every Russian vessel. It will be seen that, with more or less reluctance and after more or less delay, these demands were always acceded to by England: and the course thus taken by the maritime Powers was fatal to the pending negotiations; for, besides that in the way already shown the Czar’s wholesome fears were converted into bursts of rage, the Turks at the same time were deriving a dangerous encouragement from the sight of the French and English war-flags; and the result was, that the negotiators, with all their skill and all their patience, were never able to frame a Note in the exact words which would allay the anger of Nicholas, without encountering a steadfast resistance on the part of the Sultan.”

We have only, then, to take in their turn the items thus enumerated to ascertain the justice of the charge. The first of the naval movements was the advance of the fleets to Besica Bay. This made the Czar very angry. But it was in itself a perfectly lawful operation, and quite consistent with friendliness and desire for peace. It by no means balanced the aggressive advance of the Czar into the Principalities and the orders to the Sebastopol fleet. Moreover, however irritating to Nicholas, he condoned it, for we find him long afterwards accepting the Vienna Note framed by the four Powers, the acceptance of which by Turkey would have settled the dispute. That it was not accepted by Turkey was due entirely to Lord Stratford and the Turkish Ministers. “The French Emperor,” says Mr Kinglake, “did nothing whatever to thwart the restoration of tranquillity.” It is evident, then, that the movements of the fleets thus far had produced no effect which was not completely neutralised, and that the Emperor’s desire for war did not prevent him from contributing to the general effort for peace.

The next movement of the fleets was into the Dardanelles. The Sultan was engaged by treaty to forbid the entrance of the fleets of any Power so long as he should be at peace. What, then, were the reasons for entering the Straits? Were they purely provocative? Now, we find that the demand for war on the part of the Turkish people had at this time become so urgent, that the Ambassadors to the Porte regarded it as almost irresistible. The French Ambassador viewed it, Mr Kinglake says, “with sincere alarm.” He wrote a despatch to his Government, imparting to it what we must admit to have been also “sincere alarm,” for there is no evidence or insinuation of the contrary; and that alarm being shared by our Government, the fleets were ordered to enter the Dardanelles that they might be ready, if wanted, to support the Turkish Government against the belligerent wishes of its own subjects.

But another important circumstance had occurred before the entry of the fleets. In invading the Principalities, the Czar had announced that this was not meant as an act of war. And the Sultan’s hold on these provinces was of such an anomalous kind that his advisers held him to be at liberty to construe the invasion as an act of war, or not, at his own pleasure. He had now given notice to the Czar that unless the Russian troops should quit the Principalities in fifteen days he would declare war. Fourteen of the fifteen days had elapsed when the fleets entered. Except for observing the strict letter of the treaty, it was not of the least importance whether they entered a day sooner or later. Yet Mr Kinglake tells us the Czar was very indignant at the violation of the treaty, and he laments that another day was not suffered to elapse before the movement. Now, considering all the circumstances—that the fleets had already been for a long time at the disposal of the Ambassadors, who might summon them to Constantinople whenever they judged necessary, and that the Czar knew it—that war steamers had already been called up to the Bosphorus by both the Ambassadors, French and English, and the treaty thus broken as completely as by the passage of a hundred fleets—that the Czar had himself, by the invasion of the Principalities, deprived himself of the right to complain of the violation of the treaty—that fifteen days’ notice of a declaration of war had been given, and that the full term must have expired before the fleets could arrive at Constantinople—considering all this, the provocation is reduced to such an infinitesimal quantity, that it is barely worth a passing mention. There is no evidence whatever that the prospects of peace were in any way affected by the advance of the fleets. Yet a hasty reader of Mr Kinglake’s narrative might easily imagine that it produced the direst consequences. “When the tidings of this hostile measure,” he says, “reached St Petersburg, they put an end for the time to all prospect of peace.” And again—

“The Czar received tidings of the hostile decision of the maritime Powers in a spirit which, this time at least, was almost justified by the provocation given. In retaliation for what he would naturally look upon as a bitter affront, and even as a breach of treaty, he determined, it would seem, to have vengeance at sea whilst vengeance at sea was still possible; and it was under the spur of the anger thus kindled that orders for active operations were given to the fleet at Sebastopol. The vengeance he meditated he could only wreak upon the body of the Turks, for the great offenders of the West were beyond the bounds of his power.”

Would not the reader imagine from this that the attack of Sinope had been proved by full evidence to be the immediate result of the exasperation of the Czar at the advance of the combined fleets? But Mr Kinglake acquaints us in a note with the real grounds on which he makes this confident assertion:—

“This conclusion is drawn from dates. The hostile resolution of the Western Powers was known to the Czar a little before the 14th of October, and about the middle of the following month the Black Sea fleet was at sea. If allowance be made for distance and preparation, it will be seen that the sequence of one event upon the other is close enough to warrant the statement contained in the text. In the absence, however, of any knowledge to the contrary, it is fair to suppose that the Czar remembered his promise, and did not sanction any actual attack upon the enemy unless his commanders should be previously apprised that the Turks had commenced active warfare.”

We read this note with surprise. It proves that Mr Kinglake can, when in hot pursuit of the foe, step to a conclusion over grounds where few can follow. The fleets entered the Dardanelles on the 22d October. The attack of Sinope took place on the 30th November. The Turks and Russians had been at war for six weeks; and though the Russian Minister had announced in a circular some time before, that the Czar, in hopes still of a peaceful solution, would remain on the defensive as long as his dignity and interests would allow, yet, as Mr Kinglake himself says, “After the issue of the circular, the Government of St Petersburg had received intelligence not only that active warfare was going on in the valley of the Lower Danube, but that the Turks had seized the Russian fort of St Nicholas on the eastern coast of the Euxine, and were attacking Russia upon her Armenian frontier;” and he fully absolves the Czar from any breach of faith in this matter. Yet he would gravely have us believe that the attack of the ships of one Power upon those of another with which it is at open war requires explanation, and that the most natural explanation possible is to be found in attributing it to a slow retaliation for an imaginary injury inflicted by two other Powers. It is as if we should be told that, in the early rounds of a celebrated pugilistic encounter, Mr Sayers had hit Mr Heenan very hard in the eye, not because they were fighting, but because one of the bystanders had previously trodden on the champion’s coat.

As the reader will probably decline to follow Mr Kinglake over his slender bridge of inference, we must look beyond Sinope for the naval movement instigated by the French Emperor and turning the scale in favour of war; and, as only one remains to be accounted for, we have not far to look. The next orders sent to the fleets were intended to obviate another disaster and disgrace such as that of Sinope. They provided that Russian ships met with in the Euxine should be requested, and, if necessary, constrained, to return to Sebastopol. This, Mr Kinglake terms “a harsh and insulting course of action.” He says the English Cabinet during their deliberations “were made acquainted with the will of the French Emperor; ... the pressure of the French Emperor was the cogent motive which governed the result; ... the result was that now, for the second time, France dictated to England the use that she should make of her fleet, and by this time, perhaps, submission had become more easy than it was at first.” But Lord Clarendon has been quoted by Mr Kinglake as saying, months before, that it had become the duty of England to defend Turkey. According to Mr Kinglake, when independent Powers are acting together, to propose is to dictate, and to acquiesce is to submit. To make a suggestion is imperious, and to adopt it is ignominious. But what kind of an alliance would this be? or how would concert be possible under such circumstances? The proposal of the French Emperor was so offered as to show that he was thoroughly convinced of its expediency. If he was so convinced, he was right so to offer it. And why did the English Ministry adopt it? Because the English people more than kept pace with the wishes of the Emperor. “A huge obstacle,” says the historian, “to the maintenance of peace in Europe was raised up by the temper of the English people; ... the English desired war.” It is strange doctrine then, that an English Ministry which, by assenting to the proposition of an ally, expresses the temper of the English people, thereby submits to foreign dictation.

But the strangest part of the French part of the story is behind. We have seen how Mr Kinglake traces from the first the devious wiles of the French Emperor—how it was his craft that first made the question of the Holy Places important—how his “subtle and dangerous counsels” hurried England into war, and all because war was necessary to the stability of his throne. The complicated texture of his intrigue is followed and traced with immense patience and ingenuity; and yet, when the work is complete, and his imperial victim stands fully detected and exposed as the incendiary of Europe, the detective suddenly destroys his own finely-spun web at a blow. England was the tool of the French Emperor, but the French Emperor was the tool of a still more astute and potent personage. “When the Czar began to encroach upon the Sultan, there was nothing that could so completely meet Lord Palmerston’s every wish as an alliance between the two Western Powers, which should toss France headlong into the English policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire.... As he (Lord Palmerston) from the first had willed it, so moved the two great nations of the West.” The elaborated structure of French intrigue falls, and our gay perennial Premier is discovered smiling amid the ruins. Thus Punch murders his wife and infant, hangs the executioner, and shines as the dexterous and successful villain, till, at the close of the piece, Mr Codlin, the real wire-puller, draws aside the curtain and appears at the bottom of the show, while the great criminal and his victims revert to their proper condition of sawdust and tinsel.

The terms of the alliance between France and England are surely not difficult to understand. The policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire was, as Mr Kinglake says, “an English policy.” The object for which the Governments of France and England were actively united was an English object. Naturally we inquire what inducement the Emperor had then to form the alliance? Mr Kinglake furnishes us with the correct response. It seemed, he says, to the Emperor “that, by offering to thrust France into an English policy, he might purchase for himself an alliance with the Queen, and win for his new throne a sanction of more lasting worth than Morny’s well-warranted return of his eight millions of approving Frenchmen. Above all, if he could be united with England, he might be able to enter upon that conspicuous action in Europe which was needful for his safety at home, and might do this without bringing upon himself any war of a dangerous kind.” The advantages of the alliance were to be reciprocal. The Emperor was to gain in position and reputation, in return for aiding with his fleets and armies the attainment of an English object. Mutual interest and mutual compromise were the basis of this, as of most alliances. We had not to accuse the Emperor of any breach of faith in executing his part of the compact. Being already, as Lord Clarendon said, committed to the defence of Turkey, it made a vast difference to us whether we should enter on a war with Russia alone, or should be aided by the immense power of France. And it was only fair that the Emperor should be allowed to occupy, in the transactions which ensued, that position, the attainment of which was his grand object in seeking the alliance. Yet Mr Kinglake blames this necessitous potentate because he did not sacrifice his position and himself to our interests—because he did not chivalrously place his army and navy at our service for the promotion of English policy, and remain quietly in the background, with his generous feelings for his reward; and he blames our own Government for making those compromises which alone could render the alliance possible.

And here, we rejoice to say, our serious differences with Mr Kinglake end. After so much entertainment and instruction as we have derived from his book, it seems almost ungrateful to make to it so many exceptions. But if we have occupied much of our space thus, he must remember that it takes longer to argue than to acquiesce. Moreover, it is partly owing to his own excellences that we have been able to find matter for dispute. Many a writer would have so muddled his facts and his prejudices that we should have found it hard to do more than suspect the presence of error in the cloudy medium. But his style is so clear, so precise, that the reasoning everywhere shines through, and a fallacy or an inconsistency has no more chance of escaping detection than a gold fish in a crystal aquarium. And besides, Mr Kinglake himself most honestly and liberally furnishes us with the facts, and even the inferences, necessary to rectify his theory. Thus the effect, in his history, of his hostility to the Emperor is not that of a false proportion in a rule of three, which extends and vitiates the whole process. It is only like a series of erroneous items introduced in a sum in addition, which may be separated and deducted, leaving the total right.

The course of the transactions that led to the war may then be traced as clearly as diplomacy, dealing with many great interests and many unseen motives, generally permits. The squabble about the Holy Places was not the origin but only the pretext of the dispute with Turkey. The conversations with Sir Hamilton Seymour and the mission of Mentschikoff prove that the Czar was already seeking to dislocate the fabric of the Turkish Empire, and only took that lever because it lay readiest to his hand. “A crowd of monks,” says Mr Kinglake, in his picturesque way, “with bare foreheads, stood quarrelling for a key at the sunny gates of a church in Palestine, but beyond and above, towering high in the misty North, men saw the ambition of the Czars.” But the real design could not long be hidden by the pretext. And the execution of that design would be subversive of that balance which it was the duty and interest of the other Powers to maintain. It was for the Czar, then, to choose a time for his project when he might find each of the other Powers restrained by some counteracting motive from opposing his ambition. Looking over Europe, he thought that he perceived the favourable moment. Austria, the Power most interested from her contiguity, and from the importance to her of free use of the great waterway of Southern Germany, if she had much reason to resist, had also much reason to acquiesce. She still felt too keenly, financially and politically, the effects of the heavy blows dealt her in 1848–9 to be ready or willing for war. She was under a huge debt of gratitude to Nicholas, who, in the hour of her direst necessity, had advanced to save her, without condition and without reward. He possessed, too, a great personal ascendancy over the young Emperor of Austria. And, lastly, at this time Austria had a hostile altercation with Turkey, which would render it more than ever difficult for her to take part with the Sultan.

It might be calculated that Prussia would follow the lead of Austria. Her interests were the same in kind, but far less in degree. Once satisfied that full guarantees for the freedom of the Danube would be given, she would no longer have special interest in the subject.

As to France, there seemed to be no special reason why she should interfere. And if she should interfere, the Czar’s sentiments towards the new Empire were such as would rather lead him to disdainful defiance than conciliation.

At first he anticipated no difficulty in persuading the English Government to join in his designs. Finding, however, by the rejection of his overtures, that he could not hope for the support of England, he probably postponed the extreme measures of aggression. But, for the reasons we have stated in a former paragraph, he was unwilling to let the opportunity pass totally unimproved; and hence the demands of Mentschikoff for granting the protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey to the Czar.

It was Lord Stratford’s share in the diplomatic contest that ensued, which first gave England prominence in the dispute. And whether the part he took was in accordance with instructions from his Government, or was due to the influence of his personal character, the result was to assure England that the predominance of her Ambassador in the councils of the Porte, whatever advantage it might confer, carried with it grave responsibility. When Mentschikoff withdrew in anger from the scene, England was, in the opinion of her own Ministers, committed to the defence of Turkey.

We have seen that the Czar’s original design was made dependent on the concurrence of England. When he found that this was unattainable, the design was modified. He now found that even in this modified form England would not only not concur, but would oppose it. Why then did he persist? It was because he did not believe that the opposition of England would go the length of war.

Lord Aberdeen, the English Premier, besides being the personal friend of Nicholas, and therefore disposed to view Russian policy with comparative indulgence, was the open and professed friend of peace at any price. He had that horror of war which in a statesman is an unpardonable and fatal weakness. And in this particular he was believed only to represent the feeling of the English people. The Czar, in common with most of the world, was convinced that they were entirely absorbed in the pursuit of commerce. He took the Exhibition of 1851 for the national confession of faith. He believed that England had no god but gold, and that Mr Cobden was her prophet.

This fallacy Mr Kinglake exposes in his happiest style:—

“All England had been brought to the opinion that it was a wickedness to incur war without necessity or justice; but when the leading spirits of the Peace Party had the happiness of beholding this wholesome result, they were far from stopping short. They went on to make light of the very principles by which peace is best maintained, and although they were conscientious men, meaning to say and do what was right, yet, being unacquainted with the causes which bring about the fall of empires, they deliberately inculcated that habit of setting comfort against honour which historians call ‘corruption.’ They made it plain, as they imagined, that no war which was not engaged in for the actual defence of the country could ever be right; but even there they took no rest, for they went on and on, and still on, until their foremost thinker reached the conclusion that, in the event of an attack upon our shores, the invaders ought to be received with such an effusion of hospitality and brotherly love as could not fail to disarm them of their enmity, and convert the once dangerous Zouave into the valued friend of the family. Then, with great merriment, the whole English people turned round, and although they might still be willing to go to the brink of other precipices, they refused to go further towards that one. The doctrine had struck no root. It was ill suited to the race to whom it was addressed. The male cheered it, and forgot it until there came a time for testing it, and then discarded it; and the woman, from the very first, with her true and simple instinct, was quick to understand its value. She would subscribe, if her husband required it, to have the doctrine taught to charity children, but she would not suffer it to be taught to her own boy. So it proved barren.”

Caustic as this is, it is only too indulgent to the Peace Party. Not that it is of special importance now to crush what is already so depressed and abased as to have lost its power of mischief. The course of the leaders of the party has been such that they could not continue to enjoy any large measure of popularity, except upon the anomalous condition that a great number of Englishmen should join in hating England. For years past no petulant despotism, no drunken republic, could shake its coarse fist in the face of this country, without finding its warmest supporters in those men of the olive branch, who were never weary of urging us to offer both cheeks to the smiter. Their mode of interference in a quarrel is like that of the affectionate friends, who, if a man were attacked, would cling round him and hamper him, reviling him for his pugnacity, while his adversary ran him through the body. Long fallen from their position as oracles, they lie at the base of their tall pedestals, and “none so poor as do them reverence.” But, in granting them honesty of purpose, Mr Kinglake falls, we think, into the now common error of pushing candour to excess. A man’s mistakes are honest when he is led into them by motives irrespective of his interests. The fanatic who sacrifices his own advantage along with that of other people cannot be accused of baseness. But these men had a direct interest in preaching the doctrine of the necessity of national poltroonery. The substitution of a purely commercial policy for that which the nation had hitherto followed, was intimately blended with their own personal advantage. The motive, therefore, that inspired the error renders it inexcusable.

Blind, then, to consequences, the Czar continued his course of aggression. He marched his troops into the Principalities. Thereupon, no longer opposed only by England, he finds himself met by the concerted action of the four great Powers. And the question of interest at this particular stage is, Whether the primary object of defending Turkey was to be best attained by the action of the four Powers, or by the increased decision in action of England and France. Now it is to be observed, that the Czar knew long before he occupied the Principalities that Austria would resist the step. Yet the united remonstrance of the four Powers had failed to induce him to abandon it. And it also failed afterwards to induce him to retract it. Through remonstrance, opposition, and the earlier stages of the war, he continued to hold the provinces. It becomes then a question, when we are considering the statement that the peaceful pressure of the four Powers would have attained our object in the most desirable way, whether a course of action so slow was consistent with our engagement to defend Turkey. It is a matter at least open to doubt.

But granting that either the slow action of Austria, or the more decisive policy of France, would have equally availed, if adopted by common consent, was that unanimity possible? Austria had many reasons for limiting her interference to diplomatic pressure. Moreover, her ground of complaint against Russia was the occupation of the Principalities, not the threatening of Turkey. Should Russia adopt some other method of coercing Turkey, such as sending her fleet into the Bosphorus, and withdrawing her troops from the provinces, the interest of Austria in the dispute would almost vanish, while that of the Western Powers would increase. And how would it suit France to adopt the course of Austria, and to aim at a settlement by united action? The French Emperor’s great inducement in joining in the dispute at all was the prospect of increased reputation. And when the figure representing the credit to be gained by joint diplomatic coercion came to be divided by four, would the quotient satisfy his expectations? It is not too much to say that England was compelled to choose between France and Austria, since it was unlikely they would long continue in a common course. And as the action of England in a war with Russia must be principally through her fleet, it became of immense importance that the French navy should act with us rather than be neutral or hostile. In such circumstances, then, it is by no means clear that we did wrong in holding with France.

From this period, then, it becomes apparent that, if Russia should persist in aggression, war was inevitable. And Russia did persist in aggression. And if it be considered as established that the Czar was led so to persist by a conviction that England would not resort to war—which is the general and probably correct opinion—we do not see how it can be denied that a course of action which must undeceive him would be the most likely to cause him to desist; and that the naval movements that ensued were only such as would convince him of our intention without driving him to extremity. It is plain that the two theories—one of which is that the pacific disposition of our Government allowed us to drift into war, and the other that our menacing action irritated the Czar beyond control, and therefore caused the war—are incompatible.

The fleets then moved to the entrance of the Dardanelles; and, while the Czar was recovering from the anger produced by that step, the representatives of the four Powers in conference at Vienna produced their Note, a mediatory document which would, it was hoped, settle all difficulties. It was readily accepted by Russia, the reason for which became apparent when it was offered to Turkey; for the Turkish Government at once rejected it, on the ground that it might be so interpreted as to secure to the Czar the protectorate he aimed at. They proposed alterations, with the concurrence of the mediatory Powers, which the Czar in his turn rejected; and the Sultan thereupon declared that, if the provinces were not evacuated in fifteen days, Turkey would be at war with Russia. The fleets moved through the Dardanelles. The next step was the attack on the Turkish squadron at Sinope by the Russian admiral. The English people were now thoroughly roused. They were indignant, not so much at the breach of faith imputed to the Czar in making the attack, as at the ruthless destruction and slaughter of the Turkish force by its far more powerful enemy. The attack, too, had taken place almost under the guns of the combined fleets, and it was evident that, if their presence at Constantinople meant anything, and if we really were engaged to defend Turkey, the repetition of such a disaster to our ally must be prevented. A measure to this effect, but by no means strong enough to express the feeling of England, was adopted; the combined fleets were ordered by their respective governments to keep the peace by force, if necessary, in the Euxine. But as there had been as yet no actual collision between their forces and those of the Czar, a door to peace was still left open. Of this he did not choose to avail himself, but declared war against France and England on the 11th April 1854.

Such is an outline of the successive events preceding the war which, unpromising as such a record of futile diplomacy may seem, Mr Kinglake has wrought into one of the most brilliant of historical pictures. ‘Eothen’ itself is not more entertaining, more rich in colour, more happy in quaint and humorous turns of expression; while, from the false effects that are sometimes seen in the earlier work, the present narrative is entirely free. The style is indeed a model of ease, strength, clearness, and simplicity. Nor has labour been spared; and the reader who has so often been expected by historians to be already familiar with political and diplomatic lore, and has been left to repair his deficiencies as he may, will be grateful to Mr Kinglake for some of the elementary instruction which he has conveyed in such a delightful form, as, for instance, the chapter on “the usage which forms the safeguard of Europe.” And remembering what animation and vigour personal feeling, even when so strongly biased, cannot fail to infuse, and seeing that, in the present case, it has not prevented the writer from fully stating the facts and deductions which most contradict his favourite theories, we cease to lament the absence of that judicial calmness which would have deprived his history of half its charm.

The first glowing scenes now shift to one still more splendid. Diplomacy has played out its part; its subtlest essays seem but mere babble to the ear that is listening for the impending clang of arms. Statesmen and ambassadors gather up their futile documents, and retire to the side scenes, to make way for the sterner disputants who throng the stage.

If Mr Kinglake was unsparing in his denunciations of French intrigue, he is no less bold and outspoken in criticising the military merits of our allies. But we no longer find the same reasons for dissenting from his conclusions. Many, no doubt, will say that it would have been politic to suppress some of those revelations which will jar most on the sensitive ears of our neighbours. But, if history is to be written at all, it must be written with all the truth attainable. History, which conceals and glosses, is but historical romance. Moreover, a plain English statement was wanting to redress the balance between us and the French. It must not be forgotten that the example of writing a narrative apportioning to both parties in the alliance the sum of glory gained was set in France, and that a share, ridiculously small, was awarded to the English. We remonstrated at the time, in these pages, against the unfairness and impolicy of allowing such a book as De Bazancourt’s to go forth to the world with the seeming sanction of the Emperor, at a time when the war was yet unfinished. A man of no reputation or ability to justify the selection had been accredited to the French generals in the Crimea. Furnished thus with information, which might be presumed to be reliable, he produced a narrative in which the entire credit for the planning and execution of the successful operations of the war was assigned to the French with impudent mendacity. As might naturally be expected from a nation that believes in Thiers, his account was accepted by the French as veritable history. In England it was but little read. Contemptible as a composition, its representations of facts were not such as to give it a claim to which nothing else entitled it. But, so far as it was read here, it gave just offence. That the Emperor did not disapprove is shown by the fact that the same valuable chronicler was taken to Italy as historiographer of the war in 1859, when another compound of bombastic glorification and misrepresentation was given to the world under imperial auspices. No Englishman or candid Frenchman who reads the account of the Crimean Campaign by the Baron De Bazancourt will deny that it was incumbent on us to tell our own tale; and we rejoice that it is told by one who, with such remarkable faculty for charming an audience and imparting to it his own impressions, trusts, nevertheless, to facts and proofs derived from the documents intrusted to him, for supporting his claim for justice.

The long European peace had left the armies of the Great Powers with little except a traditional knowledge of civilised war. It is true that part of the English army had seen service in India; a large portion of the French troops had made campaigns in Algeria; and the Russians had for years carried on a desultory warfare in Circassia. But none of these theatres of operations had been of a kind to serve as schools of training for encounters with a disciplined foe. Nor had they developed amidst the officers that high talent for superior commands to which either country could turn with confidence. Accordingly, the English fell back upon their traditions of the old wars of Wellington, as embodied in his friend Lord Raglan. Whether he was likely to make a great general or not, it was impossible for anybody to say, for his career had not been such as to offer any field for the display of the talents requisite in a commander. Sixty-six is not perhaps the most favourable age for a first essay in any walk in life. But it was known that he was accustomed to military business; that his conciliatory and courteous manners would be of great service in an allied army, and that his rank and dignity would ensure the respect necessary for the maintenance of our proper position in the alliance; while, if he had not commanded armies himself, he had been intimate with him whom we regarded as the commander without a peer. The French had no available relics of the wars of the First Empire; and if any such had existed, there were other claimants to be considered, namely, those soldiers of fortune to whom the Emperor was under obligations for their share in the coup d’état. The claims of St Arnaud surpassed all others. He was a frothy, vainglorious, gallant man, who had never shown capacity for any operation more considerable than a raid against the Arabs. His published letters breathe a high ambition and spirit of enterprise, but do not reveal any rare military quality. Lord Russell himself could not be more ready to take the lead in any description of onerous undertaking. But his self-confidence seems to have had no deeper root than vanity; for, whereas his letters to his relations are full of the great part he is playing, or means to play, neither his acts, nor the official records of his doings as Commander of the French army, corroborate the views of his own pre-eminence which he imparted to his family. Mr Kinglake drily accounts for the selection of this commander by saying that he was ambitious of leading the enterprise, and that “the French Emperor took him at his word, consenting, as was very natural, that his dangerous, insatiate friend, should have a command which would take him into the country of the Lower Danube.” If it is by this intended we should infer that the wily potentate expected the climate to disagree with him, the anticipation was fulfilled; for a frame already weakened by long disease broke up entirely under the assault of the fever of Varna. The Russians possessed a fine old remnant of antiquity in Prince Paskiewitch, which was furbished up, and did very well till, meeting with a mischance before Silistria, at the outset of the war, he vanished, and the effort to supply his place with a creditable general was not successful. As regards military talent, then, it would not seem that either belligerent possessed an advantage which would preclude Fortune from exercising her proverbial function of favouring the brave.

While the English and French troops were on the way to Turkey, the Russians had opened an offensive campaign. The method of doing this was prescribed to them by the features of the theatre of war. The Danube, flowing round Wallachia, turns northward and meets the Pruth, so as to include between the two rivers and the sea a narrow strip; the part of which, north of the Danube, is a Russian province, Bessarabia, and that south of the Danube a Turkish province, the Dobrudja. Should the Russians seek to pass into Turkey through Wallachia, they would lend a flank to an attack from Austria, if she were to carry her hostility to the point of war, and their troops would be very critically placed between Austrian and Turkish foes. But by advancing along the strip the Russians passed at once from Russian to Turkish territory; while the Danube covered their right flank from Austria. Still, in order to proceed beyond the Dobrudja in the direction of the Balkan, and thence towards Constantinople, as they had done with such signal success in 1829, it was indispensable that they should begin by taking Silistria—and more than ever indispensable now that the Allies had command of the Euxine. Accordingly, the opening of the campaign was marked by the siege of Silistria by the Russians.

Although it soon appeared that Silistria was bravely defended, it was not expected that the fortress could hold out long. And therefore, in anticipation of such decisive movements as those of 1829, the first intention of the Allies was to fortify Gallipoli, thus securing the Dardanelles as a channel of supply, and the Chersonese peninsula as a secure base from whence to operate in Turkey. But it soon appeared that Russia was stumbling at the first obstacle. Gallipoli, therefore, ceased to be of present importance; and the next idea was to transport the armies to that point from whence they could most speedily meet the enemy. And that point was evidently Varna.

Mr Kinglake chronicles two facts relating to this period, not hitherto published, and the knowledge of both of which he probably derived (certainly of one) from Lord Raglan’s papers. The first is the project of St Arnaud to obtain command of the Turkish forces. How this was defeated is recorded in one of Mr Kinglake’s most characteristic passages, where the lively, pushing, aspiring Marshal finds his confidence in his own scheme suddenly evaporating before the grave dignified courtesy of Lord Stratford, and the mildly implied disapproval of Lord Raglan. The other is, that, after the embarkation was agreed on, St Arnaud suddenly announced, that he should move his army by land to the south of the Balkan; and that, according to his plan, the English should take the left of the proposed strategical line, and therefore be farthest from their supplies coming from sea. This scheme, also, he relinquished; but the fact is notable, first, as showing the propensity to take what advantage he could at the expense of his ally; and secondly, as correcting the view of his own predominance and superior earnestness for action, conveyed in his private correspondence and in De Bazancourt’s narrative.

The armies landed at Varna, and a campaign in Bulgaria was expected. “My plan is,” quoth St Arnaud, “to save the fortress, and to push the Russians into the Danube.” He tells his brother in Paris, that the operation of moving to aid Silistria will be hazardous, for the Russians may come down on his right and rear, seize the road of Varna and Pravadi, and cut him off from the sea. “But, be easy,” he says consolingly, “I have taken my precautions against the manœuvre, and I will defeat it.” Not difficult to defeat, one might think, since the enemy who should attempt it must be commanded by a lunatic. However, while the Allies were still waiting in vain for the means of transport to take the field, their difficulties and projects were ended by an unlooked for incident. The Russians, finding the outermost barrier of Turkey impregnable, raised the siege, and withdrew across the Danube. The immense amount of military reputation which they thereby lost was placed with interest to the credit of the Turks. But the position in which the Allied Generals found themselves, thus hurrying to save a fortress which saved itself, and left without an enemy, was extremely bewildering. St Arnaud seems characteristically to have imagined that the Russians were frightened by his reputation into retreat. “They fly me,” he says, while lamenting the loss of a triumph for himself and his army, which he had contemplated as certain. Not only the Generals but their Governments were embarrassed and mortified at being thus baulked. The Emperor’s object could not be attained by mere success without glory. The British people, already impatient of delays, the causes of which, though inevitable, they could not understand, were clamorous for action. Nor did they content themselves with insisting that something should be done. They indicated the line of action. Urged, as Mr Kinglake contends, by the press, they shouted with one voice for an attack on Sebastopol, and this measure the Government enjoined Lord Raglan to execute. The French Government did not urge St Arnaud to propose the step; but, if the English were willing for it, he was not at liberty to withhold his consent. Two questions occur here: was the Government right in thus ordering the commander of the army to take a step to which his own judgment might be opposed? and was the step thus indicated a wise one?

Now, Mr Kinglake seems to think, that if the Government was justified in controlling its General, it was only because its army was acting in concert with that of another power, and was dependent on the aid of the fleets.

“In common circumstances, and especially where the whole of the troops to be engaged are under one commander, it cannot be right for any Sovereign or any Minister to address such instructions as these to a General on a distant shore; for the General who is to be intrusted with the sole command of a great expedition must be, of all mankind, the best able to judge of its military prudence, and to give him orders thus cogent is to dispense with his counsel.”

We, on the other hand, think that the selection of the territory which is to be the scene of operations, should always rest with the Government, and for this reason, that the selection must depend even more on political than on military considerations. Suppose, for instance, that the Allied generals had desired to follow the enemy over the Danube, it is evident that it would be of vast importance in the campaign that would follow, whether Austria should be friendly, or neutral, or hostile. But which she would be was a matter of which the Generals could only be informed through their Governments, who must possess the best information attainable on the subject. And again, the effect of the invasion of the Crimea on Austrian counsels, on Russian designs, and on English and French interests, were all political considerations, to be decided by the Governments, and not by the Generals. But, the territory fixed on, the manner of operating therein should be left to the Commander—and this the British Government did.

With regard to the other question, Mr Kinglake appears to think that, after the Russians had evacuated the Principalities (as they did immediately on re-crossing the Danube), there was no further ground for continuing the war, and that a naval blockade would have forced her to conclude peace. But to have forced her to make peace, returning to the statu quo, would by no means have answered our ends, for it would have left her to repeat the aggression on a more favourable opportunity, with the advantage of better understanding the conditions of success. That she would have consented at that time to give any pledge for the security of Turkey, is incredible, if we consider the course taken by her diplomatists at the conferences in the following year, when she had suffered so severely. But to capture Sebastopol and its fleet, would give us the security we wanted, and the pressure of the blockade might then be depended on for ending the war. The question then, in our judgment, resolves itself into this: Was there a reasonable hope of at once succeeding in the object of the invasion; and was common foresight exercised in providing for the possibility of failure?

Events have answered the last question. Due provision was not made for the possibility of a first failure. The country was aghast at the position in which the army found itself; and we think that, in making the statement we are about to quote, Mr Kinglake is recording a state of opinion, which, though perfectly just, and always maintained to be just in these pages, both during and after the war, had no existence at the time he speaks of.

“Those who thought more warily than the multitude foresaw that the enterprise might take time; but they also perceived that even this result would not be one of unmixed evil; for if Russia should commit herself to a lengthened conflict in the neighbourhood of Sebastopol, she would be put to a great trial, and would see her wealth and strength ruinously consumed by the mere stress of the distance between the military centre of the empire and the south-westernmost angle of the Crimea.”

All this is true; so true that Russia would have done well to leave Sebastopol to its fate, rather than make those efforts to maintain it which were so ruinous. Moreover the Crimea is, from its geographical circumstances, always the most favourable point of Russian territory for the operations of an enemy who commands the sea. Its form of an extended peninsula renders it vulnerable at many points; it does not afford the means of supplying the force necessary for its defence; and the supplies and reinforcements, having to pass through a region that is always a desert and sometimes a swamp, must be despatched with vast expense and loss. The conditions of the theatre of operations selected were then all in our favour; it only remained to provide adequately for the chances of war, to render the enterprise judicious.

But there was no thought except of speedy success. Beyond a triumphant landing, battle, and assault, no man looked. It was a piece of national gambling where an army was staked upon the turn of the cards; inexcusable, therefore, even had the chances been still more in our favour.

Still the chances in our favour were great. The Russian force in the Crimea was inferior in numbers. Sebastopol might have been captured with the co-operation of the fleets. That co-operation was a main element of success. We were deprived of it by Mentschikoff’s stroke of sinking his ships, so as to block the harbour and exclude the fleets. Was this a step, the possibility of which the Government of a great maritime nation ought to have omitted from its calculations? It was not difficult—it was even obvious—to anticipate that a fleet otherwise useless might thus be turned to account.

That the invasion was politically a fortunate step, we have no doubt. All the sufferings, all the losses, all the expense, and all the discontent at home, could not prevent the course of affairs from turning ultimately to our advantage, because the distresses of the enemy were far greater. Russia at the end of the war was absolutely prostrate, while England was only beginning to handle her vast and increasing resources. But this, as it was never contemplated, is beside the purpose of estimating the wisdom of the people and the Government who committed the armies to the enterprise. The Government is obnoxious to the charge of not providing for a contingency that ought to have been foreseen, by furnishing the means for sustained operations. And the Government might, in great measure, exonerate itself at the expense of the nation. For years before, no Member of Parliament could have proposed an increase on the estimates in order to render the army an efficient engine of war, without being covered with obloquy. At that time, what troops we had were barely tolerated by the people. Considering all things, we cannot think the step wise. But we are very strongly of opinion that, as a means of coercing Russia, it was fortunate.

Many conferences between the Allied Generals took place at Varna, and on the voyage. No pictures can differ more widely than those of the attitude of St Arnaud on these occasions, as drawn on the one hand by himself and De Bazancourt, on the other by Mr Kinglake. In his own letters, and in the veracious French Chronicle, he is the moving spirit of the enterprise—he “dominates the discussion”—he infuses life into everybody—nothing checks him except the slowness of the English. He is feared by the Russians, admired by the British, adored by the French. Mr Kinglake, on the contrary, represents him as being in council without decision and without weight; glad to solve his own difficulties by deferring to Lord Raglan; forming plans merely to abandon them; and painfully conscious that he has not the hold on the respect of his own army necessary to enforce his authority. He had become strongly impressed with the idea that a landing would be best effected at the mouth of the Katcha. It would be nearer Sebastopol. The position on the Alma would thus be avoided; and the march over plains, where it might be difficult to find water, would be unnecessary. On the other hand a reconnoissance made by Lord Raglan and Sir John Burgoyne, with the French Generals, showed that the mouth of the valley was narrow, that the troops as they landed would be exposed to a flanking fire from guns which would be, by their position, secure from the counter-fire of the ships, and that the enterprise might be opposed by the whole Russian army. These objections seemed to Lord Raglan so strong that he decided on landing at Old Fort. The result showed the correctness of the decision, for the landing was unopposed, and the single action of the Alma cleared the way to Sebastopol. Nevertheless, St Arnaud, writing to his brother after the landing, contends that he was right. “Observe, brother,” he says, “I have a military instinct which never deceives me, and the English have not made war since 1815.”

Mr Kinglake’s account of the disembarkation which he witnessed, of the delay caused by the mysterious shifting, by the French, of the buoy that was to mark the spot for the operation—of the different modes of treating the villagers practised by the English and by the French troops, and of the march towards the Alma, are described with the particularity and vivacity which might be expected from so keen an observer, and so skilful a narrator. He rightly describes the movement as being of the nature of that proper to movable columns. It was, in fact, like the march of a convoy, where the escort was vast, and the conditions favourable. The conditions were favourable, because the open nature of the country permitted the waggons, instead of straggling along a great extent of road, on any part of which they might be attacked, to move in compact order near the entire army. But we quite agree with him in thinking that the Russian leader showed great incapacity and culpable want of enterprise in suffering the march to proceed unmolested. The country was particularly favourable to cavalry, in which arm he was greatly superior. By incessantly threatening the left flank he would have compelled us to show front in that direction, and the whole army would have been obliged to halt, under penalty of witnessing the defeat of a separated portion. We could not have closed with the force thus menacing us, because the effort to do so would have withdrawn us from our proper direction, and from the sea, and because, also, the enemy could always retire under cover of his cavalry, to a new position on our flank. If Mentschikoff could have felt secure of being able to file into position behind the Alma, in time to oppose us there, he might have employed his whole army in this menacing movement. He made only one effort of the kind, that on the Bulganak, where a skirmish took place; but the demonstration was feeble, not supported, and of no avail as a check, because the army had always designed to halt there for the night. Nevertheless, the precautions taken by Lord Raglan, in throwing back the left flank, before bivouacking, to meet a possible attack of the kind, and the consequent delay in resuming the march next morning, show how much was to be apprehended from such a mode of harassing us as was open to a skilful leader.

The ground on which the battle of the Alma was fought is not difficult to understand. The plain over which the Allies advanced slopes gently downward for a mile. At the bottom of the slope is a bank, and below the bank a flat valley, three or four hundred yards wide, in which flows the Alma. If, then, a person turning his back to the sea, at the mouth of the river, moves up the Allies’ bank, he has on his right, across the valley, for the first mile, a steep cliff, as if part of the coast-line had turned back along the course of the river. The cliff then begins to resolve itself into broken heights, still steep, but not impracticable. These continue for nearly two more miles, when, the heights receding still farther, the slope to the river becomes more gentle, and undulates in knolls, the general character of the ground, however, being an upper and lower line of heights, with an intermediate plateau. The ground continues of this nature far up the stream. Everywhere the last summits formed the edge of a plain which could not be seen from the Allies’ side of the stream.

The Russian cavalry prevented reconnoissances which would have given some assurance of the manner in which Mentschikoff occupied the position. In the absence of these, maps and plans, and a distant view, coupled with a rough estimate of the enemy’s force, were all that could be relied on. With such data as these afforded, Marshal St Arnaud came to confer with Lord Raglan the night before the battle; and we must say that we think Mr Kinglake is rather hard upon the Marshal in his description of the interview. He seems to think there was something presumptuous in the fact of his coming with a prepared plan, bringing with him, too, a rough sketch of it drawn on paper. Now, that such a conference was highly necessary between two commanders about to fight a battle in concert, nobody will deny. And it is a very good thing, on such occasions, to have a plan constructed on the probabilities, because it serves as a basis for discussion. The Marshal’s plan was founded on the conjecture, that, as the plain at the top of the cliff could be swept by the guns of the ships, a space would be left near the sea unoccupied by the Russians. Into that space he proposed to push two divisions (Bosquet and the Turks), by two roads that led to it up the cliff. The remaining divisions were to advance against the Russian front; and he calculated that they would occupy so much of that front that the movement of the British, forming the left of the Allies, would be against the right flank of the enemy.

Such was the plan that the Marshal brought to discuss with Lord Raglan. But it seems that if he came with the hope of getting any suggestions or ideas in exchange, he was disappointed. “Without either combating or accepting the suggestion addressed to him, he simply assured the Marshal that he might rely upon the vigorous co-operation of the British army. The French plan seems to have made little impression on Lord Raglan’s mind. He foresaw, perhaps, that the ingenuity of the evening would be brought to nothingness by the teachings of the morrow.” And when they came next day into presence of the enemy, Mr Kinglake says: “If Lord Raglan had not already rejected the French plan of a flank attack by our forces, it would now have fallen to the ground. It had never made any impression on his mind.” In a note he says: “It became a plan simply preposterous as soon as it was apparent that St Arnaud would not confront any part of the Russian army except their left wing; for to make two flank movements, one against the enemy’s left, and the other against his right, and to do this without having any force wherewith to confront the enemy’s centre, would have been a plan requiring no comment to show its absurdity.”

Now Lord Raglan’s part in the interview is meant, as recorded, to show to his advantage. Yet we cannot think that this way of conducting conferences can be considered as displaying talent. Anybody can appear to conceal an opinion—even if he hasn’t got one. The Marshal might, according to this account, justly feel himself aggrieved—first, for having no notice taken of his plan; and, secondly, for having no grounds afforded for acting in concert with his ally in the coming battle. Nor do we think the plan absurd in principle, though it was erroneous in details. If to turn one flank of an enemy is an advantage, to turn both flanks will, in general, increase the advantage: whether it is practicable depends on the relative length of the opposing lines. Now the Russians had 39,000 men; the Allies had 63,000. And the English order of battle enables our line to cover more ground than equal numbers of the enemy. Therefore, after forming on an equal front, there would still be at least 12,000 men disposable for the turning of each flank; and 12,000 men on your flank is a serious matter. We say then that the plan, which was, of course, a suggestion, to be modified according to circumstances, was not in itself absurd in principle.

The Marshal, therefore, with Lord Raglan’s concurrence, as the French say—but, according to Mr Kinglake, with such expectations as he might have derived from the foregoing not very explicit interview—proceeded to execute his part of the plan by making his right column pass close to the sea. This was an error, for it was founded on a false assumption; he supposed the Russian left to be nearer the sea than it really was. He could not ascertain the truth, because, as is not uncommon in battles, he could not make a close reconnoissance, and the plain behind the cliff, being invisible from below, might contain an unknown number of Russians. A computation of the forces visible would not give certain means of judging of this point, because troops had been joining Mentschikoff from various parts—a large detachment had come in that morning.

The consequence, then, of this error was that more of the French line than had been expected overlapped the Russians—so much so that those on the extreme right never joined in the action. Moreover, they were on a narrower front than their numbers warranted; for though three divisions were in front, and two following them, yet the three in front formed two lines. If the two in rear are to be considered as a reserve, it was twice as large as is common. Thus the English only completed the front necessary to correspond with the Russian front without overlapping it, and their attack, therefore, was almost entirely a direct attack. The right French column was thrown away. The next to it only engaged in a distant artillery fire: even the third and fourth found themselves opposed to a force inadequate to their numbers. As Mr Kinglake well observes, if all the army had been of one nation, the direct attack would not have been made till that on the flank had already shaken the enemy’s line. But circumstances rendered it difficult to hold back the English divisions. The French did nothing to be proud of in the battle. We perfectly agree with Mr Kinglake that the official accounts and that of De Bazancourt are mere bombastic inventions. We know that they were opposed by numbers small in proportion to their own. That some of their divisions showed but little elan and made small progress, was evident during the battle. And with regard to their losses, which St Arnaud places at 1200, we do not deny that they may have lost that number of men that day; but if they did, the cholera must have been unusually severe on the 20th September, for there were no signs of such mortality on the battle-field.

The English then advanced, because the French demanded support, and because it might not have been judicious to remain longer inactive when our allies were engaged. Our divisions therefore advanced across the river. In doing so their order was broken by several causes. First, the vineyards and enclosures between the troops and the river; then the river itself; and lastly, the fact that the divisions in deploying had, by mistaking distance, considerably overlapped. It is evident that if an inferior army about to be attacked in position could choose how the attack should be made, it would desire that a great part of the enemy’s force should be directed where it would be useless, and that the remainder should make a direct advance. This was what the Allies did. But though there was no great generalship, the soldiership of the English was admirable. The divisional, brigade, and regimental officers took advantage of a sheltering rim of ground on the opposite bank to restore some degree of order in the broken ranks, and then led them straight up the slope in the teeth of the Russian guns. Torn by cannon-shot at close range, and by a hail of musketry from the numerous infantry—for here Mentschikoff had placed his heaviest masses—they nevertheless went on in a line which, if irregular, was still irresistible, drove the Russians back, and captured a gun. Then, being without support, having lost heavily, and being assailed by fresh reserves, the front line gave way and retreated down the hill. But by this time the Duke of Cambridge’s division was across the stream and moving up. The broken masses passed through the ranks, which closed and advanced solidly, with the same success as the first line, and the success was more enduring. English guns, hitherto opposed to the Russian artillery, were now brought across the stream—they were set free to do so partly by the progress of the French on the flank, partly by the action of two guns that Lord Raglan had brought across the stream in the space between the armies, and which, taking the Russian line in reverse, caused it to fall back. The English divisions thus maintained themselves—the heavy columns that advanced against them were repulsed partly by artillery, partly by the fire of the line—the Russians fell back slowly to the top of the heights, and retreated along the plain, pursued by the fire of our horse-artillery. The English batteries then advanced. When they reached the plateau the enemy’s masses were already at some distance, moving towards Sebastopol. The French on the right were coming up so deliberately that it was evident they had no thought of molesting the enemy’s retreat, and on a proposition being made to them to join in a pursuit they declined it.

Whether it was or was not owing to the cause to which Mr Kinglake attributes it—namely, to the fact that the French leaders, selected as they almost all were for their share in the coup d’état, were men in whom the troops had no confidence—it is certain that the reputation of the French army was not augmented by this action. The report of St Arnaud paints their valour and skill in the most brilliant colours. He does not scruple largely to exaggerate the numbers of the enemy. There were, according to him, 40,000 Russian bayonets, 6000 cavalry, and 180 guns opposed to the Allies. The true numbers were, according to Mr Kinglake, 36,000 infantry, 3400 cavalry, and 108 guns. The advantages of the Russians consisted in their strong position, their superiority in cavalry, and their 14 heavy guns. The movement of the French was ineffective, partly from misdirection, partly from their slowness to close with the enemy. To the English, therefore, fell a task as difficult as that which would have fallen to them in ordinary cases had the Russians been equal in strength to the Allies—and the battle of the Alma is eminently an English victory.

It is evident that if the general of an inferior army can oppose one great mass of his enemy with a small number of his troops, and is thus at liberty to meet the remainder on equal terms, he has gained a great point in his favour; and this Mentschikoff did. Yet we perfectly agree with Mr Kinglake that Mentschikoff showed no talent, and did no justice to his troops. As we have seen, he allowed the march to be unmolested. He made no use of the time at his disposal to strengthen his position artificially. Mr Kinglake rightly asserts this in contradiction to official and other authorities. Fords might have been rendered impracticable, roads obstructed, field-works thrown up, and the advancing troops would thus have been detained under the heavy fire of the defenders, till on closing, if they should succeed in closing, it would be with numbers too much diminished for success. But there were no intrenchments nor obstacles worth mentioning on the field. And we regret to observe that Mr Kinglake, though he explains in a note that he knows the term to be inapplicable, and that he only follows an established precedent, talks of the position of the Russian battery as “the Great Redoubt.” We regret it, because the impression conveyed is false to those who do not know the truth, and irrelevant to those who do. The only work was a bank of earth not a yard high, which partially covered the Russian guns of position, and which was probably intended as much for preventing them from running down the hill as for anything else. There were no embrasures, for, as the guns looked over the bank, none were necessary; it had not even the additional impediment of a ditch in front, the earth which formed it being taken from spaces dug between the guns. It was no more like a “Great Redoubt,” than it was like the Great Wall of China. And this being the case, all such expressions as “storming” are quite inapplicable.

It is evident that, if an army superior in numbers wishes to bring its superiority to bear, it must outflank the enemy on one or both sides. Which flank, then, would it have been best in the present case to turn? The French turned the left. There was the natural temptation of advancing over ground where the turning columns were protected by the fire of the fleet. But they moved against an imaginary foe, and a large part of the force might have been as well on board ship for all the effect it had on the action. Moreover, though the turning movement was completed, yet it had none of its legitimate effects, for the Russians left only two guns and no prisoners. It is clear then that none of the advantages to be expected from a successful attack in flank followed here.

Now suppose—as there are but two flanks to an enemy, and no great things had been done by turning one—that the manœuvre had been effected against the other. The Allies would have moved away from the sea up the river. The road next the sea was closed to the Russians by the ships’ broadsides. Opposite the next road, that by which Bosquet led his second brigade, the Turks might have been left. The right of the French would then have been where the right of the English really was, that is, in the village of Bourliouk. And the English would have stretched so far beyond the enemy’s right, that at least three divisions would have been available for turning that flank. To the Russians, seeing this, only certain alternatives would be possible: either to try to thrust themselves between us and the sea—in which case the cliff would have restricted them to the one road guarded by the Turks, and where any part of their force that made the attempt would be lost if it should fail, as it certainly would fail; or, secondly, an extension of their already sufficiently extended line till its length corresponded with that of the Allies, by which extension it would be fatally weakened; or, thirdly, a movement of the entire army to the right, which would have uncovered the Sebastopol road, and was therefore not to be thought of. Therefore the Russians must have stood to fight on the ground they occupied, throwing back their right wing to meet the threatened attack on their flank. The Allied artillery should then have been massed—one portion to oppose the great battery, one to pour a storm of shot on the right wing, the object of attack; and the horse-artillery and one or two batteries, after flanking the advance from their own side of the river, should have been held ready to follow the flanking columns of attack as soon as they should be established on the other bank. The advance, instead of being in echelon from the right, would be in echelon from the left—the Light Division, followed by the First and Fourth, would make the turning movement and attack the right wing—the remaining English divisions would advance upon the centre, and upon the angle formed by the centre and right; and, as soon as the Russian line fronting the river should be shaken by the front and flank attack and the reverse fire, the French divisions advancing would find their share of the task easy. Two results would have followed, both important—the first, that the position would have been carried with much less loss of life—secondly, that the losses of the Russians would have been far greater. For it is to be observed that, by turning the left of the Russians, and interposing between them and the sea, they were driven back along their proper line of retreat; whereas, had the right been turned, the English left wing, pushing obliquely across the enemy’s rear, would have reached the Sebastopol road on the top of the plateau, and the result of that would have been to drive the beaten troops towards the sea, and to enclose all that part of the Russian left which should be last to retreat between our line and the cliffs, thus capturing many prisoners. And as the enemy were superior in cavalry, the English left must have carefully guarded itself, during its advance, from the Russian horse, first, by our artillery on our own side of the river, and afterwards by guns following in support, by battalions on the left echeloned in squares, and by our own cavalry. Many reasons, then, induce us to consider the French attack a mistake. And the more complete turning movement which Mr Kinglake seems, as if by authority, to ascribe to Marshal Pelissier, as what he would have done—namely, “to avoid all encounter with the enemy on his chosen stronghold by taking ample ground to their left, and boldly marching round him”—would have been objectionable, inasmuch as it would have left no option of retreating on Eupatoria, in case the attack should prove unsuccessful; and no plan can be sound that does not provide for the contingency of defeat.

Mr Kinglake modestly declines to give an opinion on the question of what plan might have been better. But he need not have scrupled to do so, as he deals extremely well with the technicalities of military art. His account of the manœuvres preceding and during the battle is remarkably clear. His discussion as to the respective merits of lines and columns shows that he thoroughly appreciates the philosophy of the subject. But it is not so much to the credit of his estimate of what constitutes generalship, that he implies so great approval of Lord Raglan’s solitary ride beyond the enemy’s front, and of his continued occupation of the knoll there throughout the stress of the battle. Of course it would be a great advantage to a general in every action to be able to see exactly what was passing in rear of the enemy’s line. But it would be an advantage only as it would give him the means of directing his own troops with greater certainty. To see the enemy’s rear, at the expense of losing the control of his own army, would be quite the reverse of an advantage. And imagine the state of things if two opposing generals in a battle should be absorbed in their efforts to pass, like two pawns at chess, behind the opposing lines. If it had appeared to the general that an opportunity existed for wedging a part of his force within a weak spot of the enemy’s line, staff officers might have been sent to ascertain the fact, while the guns and their escort required to effect the manœuvre might have been brought from the reserve, or the nearest available division, and posted in readiness to advance. We know that during this excursion of Lord Raglan the English divisions were confused for want of a controlling power to direct them. The action of the English artillery was without unity, at a time when a concentrated fire against the hill on which the attack was to be made would have had a most important influence on the result. Mr Kinglake tells us that Lord Raglan from his knoll witnessed the first advance of the troops of our first line, and saw that they would not be able to hold their ground because they were not supported; but adds, that he did not attempt to apply a remedy, because no order sent by him could possibly arrive in time to be of service. Surely this of itself might have convinced Mr Kinglake that the general’s place was elsewhere. And we will add, that, at the close of the struggle, our successful troops did not receive that impulsion which none but the supreme directing authority can give, and which was necessary to push the victory home.

But though we do not think the occasions for praising Lord Raglan are always judiciously chosen, we thoroughly agree in Mr Kinglake’s estimate of the character of that kind excellent gentleman and gallant soldier. His tact, temper, and bearing were all of a kind calculated to be of eminent service in an allied command, and secured to him at once the attachment of his own army and the respect of the French.

Mr Kinglake has scarcely accomplished half of that task which is so weighty, but which his qualities as a narrator have made to seem so light. And it is because so many events yet remain to receive his impress, that we would venture to remind him how the French army in the Crimea, though it did not by its first achievements enhance its reputation, yet performed many great and gallant actions. The aid which Bosquet brought us at Inkermann, though long in coming, was effectual. The part of the French in that battle, infantry and artillery, was highly honourable. They often maintained terrible conflicts in the trenches, where both sides fought well, but where the French were victors. Their arrangements for receiving the attack on the Tchernaya were such that the assailant never had a chance of penetrating their lines. And their terrible losses in the final assault prove the magnitude of the obstacles they encountered, and the ardour with which they overcame them. But while we do not forget this, neither can we regret that thus far Mr Kinglake has sought to redress the balance of history, by awarding to our army its share of credit. Reputation is the breath of its nostrils, and our allies have appeared but too desirous to monopolise what was gained in this war.

And we also venture to observe that Mr Kinglake’s enemies—and he has scattered in these volumes dragon’s teeth enough to produce a plentiful crop—may find occasion to say that in praising his friends he is equally uncompromising as in censuring his foes. Small traits of character receive undue prominence, small merits, undue laudation; as, for instance, when the way in which the Highland Brigade was made to drink at the Bulganak is praised as if it were a stroke of military genius, and where a paragraph is devoted to describing how its commander pronounced the not very remarkable words, “Forward, 42d!” and when it is further added, “‘As a steed that knows his rider,’ the great heart of the battalion bounded proudly to his touch,” Mr Kinglake lets himself slip into a style much beneath his own. But what no enemy can deny is the extraordinary animation, clearness, sustained interest, and dramatic as well as descriptive excellence of the work. A vast field for these qualities yet remains—the flank march, the commencement of the siege, the hurricane, the action of Balaklava (fine soil for dragon’s teeth), the battle of Inkermann, the long calamities and glories of the trenches, the death of the Czar, and of the English commander, the final assault, and the destruction of the stronghold—into all these scenes we shall follow Mr Kinglake, confident of seeing them treated by a great artist.

As a concluding remark, we will say that we think no history of this war can be complete which does not devote a chapter to the discussion of the causes which made the British army of 1854 so different, in all except fighting power, from the British army of 1814, as a machine of war. The long peace, the growth of the commercial spirit, the Peace Party, the administration of the army by the Duke of Wellington, and the influence of the long-continued public demand for economy, must all be taken into account before the breaking down of that machine, as to be recorded hereafter, can be fairly and fully accounted for, and a true comparison drawn between our military system and that of the French.

THE OPENING OF THE SESSION.

The Session has commenced under circumstances so unfavourable to the Ministry that even their most sanguine friends are dejected. The omens are unmistakably against them, and the auspices are corroborated by the more palpable evidence of hard facts. The Session was barely a week old when the first division took place, and left the Ministry in a minority. It was a Government question, but the Opposition motion, brought forward by Mr Peacocke, was carried by the large majority of 113 to 73. This was a bad beginning; and, unenlightened by the result, the Ministry have since then exposed themselves to, and undergone, two similar defeats. The events of the same week out-of-doors brought them a worse and less avoidable disaster. Two elections went against them. We certainly do not claim the Cambridge election as any great triumph of Conservative principles, but it was a blow to the Ministry. Lord Palmerston’s reputation is deservedly great, and in not a few elections the Ministerial candidate has escaped defeat by proclaiming himself simply a Palmerstonian, and asserting that the Premier was as good a Conservative as any member of the Opposition. The ex-member for Cambridge, Mr Steuart, although returned as a Conservative, subsequently became a “Palmerstonian;” but no sooner did his constituents obtain an opportunity of showing their sentiments by their votes, than they declared in favour of a Conservative who avowed himself an opponent of Lord Palmerston. This, we say, may be called a trifle, but it is a straw which shows which way the wind is blowing. The other electoral contest—at Devonport—was a very different affair. In former elections for that borough the Liberals had won the day. Moreover, owing to the large Government dockyards, the constituency of Devonport is peculiarly amenable to Ministerial influence. In spite of all this, the Ministerial candidate, although strenuously backed by the whole influence of the Admiralty, and himself a Grey to boot, has been defeated, and one of the most stanch of Conservatives, and a thorough party-man, Mr Ferrand, has been elected by a majority of thirty. This is a triumph for the Opposition too remarkable to be explained away. The Government has been defeated in its own dockyard. Driven to candour by the very magnitude of the disaster, a Ministerial journal[11] says:—“It is a surprising innovation. Constituencies like Devonport, where the Government is a great employer of labourers having votes, have hitherto been considered almost as nomination boroughs.” Even the Whigs have got sick of “innovations” now, finding they will no longer go down with the public; but such an innovation as that accomplished by the constituency of Devonport must cut them to the heart. If they can no longer get their candidates returned even in Government pocket boroughs, what are they to do? In Ireland a Government appointment went a-begging for a year, because no Whig member would risk the new election that must follow his acceptance of it. It would seem that the Government are now in the same sad predicament on both sides of the Irish Channel.

Obviously the “Conservative reaction” has entered upon a new phase. The country is resolved to have not only a Conservative policy, but a Conservative Ministry. At first, when it was seen that the Whig Ministry abandoned its mischievous attempts to degrade the franchise, many constituencies contented themselves with electing men of Conservative tendencies, even though they gave a general support to the Government. But this feeling is dying away; neutrality is being abandoned for active opposition. The change is doubtless due to more causes than one. But the chief influence in producing the change is a love of fair-play. This is peculiarly the case in regard to the English constituencies, where public opinion is more calm and better balanced on political questions than it is in the sister kingdoms. There is a striking difference, we may remark, in the modes of political feeling and action which characterise the three great sections of the United Kingdom. Party-spirit and religious zeal (which, though generally, are not always coincident forces) predominate in Ireland. In Scotland, although the ecclesiastical spirit is very strong, the peculiar characteristic of the people in politics is their attachment to ideas pure and simple: they are the great theorists and innovators, and will go all lengths in the logical application of their principles. Fortunately the English constituencies are admirable ballast, and keep straight the vessel of the State. They care little for “ideas,” but a great deal for good and safe government: they are businesslike and matter-of-fact, and, above all things, are lovers of fair-play. In many an English constituency the representation, by mutual agreement, is divided between the rival parties. A Whig and a Tory are returned together, or two Tories and a Whig, or one Tory and two Whigs; and in some boroughs, where there is a great landed proprietor who owns nearly the whole area of the borough, the duke or other magnate is allowed to name one member and the majority of the constituency the other. This is a businesslike compromise which aptly illustrates English character. Every one knows that property must have a great influence, whether wielded by a territorial magnate or by a millowner; but in assigning one seat to the magnate, the constituency is, by a well-understood agreement, left free to choose its own man for the other, without any interference on the part of the magnate’s influence. In the other case (which generally occurs in counties), where the representation is divided, equally or unequally, between the rival political parties, the same spirit of compromise is apparent. It saves many contested elections, and it is likewise a virtual adoption of the principle of the representation of minorities. Scotchmen would do none of these things: a divided representation would seem to them as good as none. As long as any party in a Scotch constituency has a majority, however small, it will insist upon carrying its own men. The spirit of compromise which distinguishes English constituencies arises partly from their love of fair-play, partly from the fact that they are not such fervid politicians as the Scotch, and deal with politics not as an affair of immutable principles or scientific deduction, but as an ordinary business matter, which they decide by striking a balance of the miscellaneous considerations which affect them. Now, that balance is turning every day more strongly against the Liberals. The Scotch may think it best to have Liberals in office even though they carry out a Conservative policy. But Englishmen don’t like this. In the first place, it is not fair. Each side should have its innings, and the Whigs have confessedly played out their game. Office has its sweets, and John Bull thinks that it is more than time that the Tories should get their turn of the good things. A man cannot live upon politics any more than upon love; and although to the leading statesmen on both sides the emoluments of office are as nothing, the tenure of political power by one party or the other makes a material difference to each. John Bull understands this. Moreover, if the retention of office by the Liberals is not fair, it is also not manly or honest. John Bull, like old George III., does not like “Scotch metaphysics.” He does not appreciate the casuistical reasoning by which it may be shown that a Ministry which took office to do one thing, may stay in office to do the opposite. Since the Whigs have given up their principles, he thinks they should also give up their places. Doubtless too, if he takes any interest in the morals of Whiggery (which we greatly doubt, seeing they are so purely speculative), he must come to the conclusion that the principles of the party are rotting so fast on the Treasury seats that it is high time to give them an airing in the bracing atmosphere of the Opposition benches.

The country now sees that, if it had known the truth four years ago, the present Ministry would never have been in existence. The Whigs and Radicals overthrew the Conservative Government in 1859 by means of false statements and false professions. It took some time before the real state of the case could be demonstrated, but gradually it was made plain by the conduct of the Liberals themselves. Slowly but steadily the truth has dawned upon the constituencies: they feel that they were duped by the present occupants of office, and they are now conscious also that they did injustice to the Conservatives. The Whig chiefs who, before they got into office, deemed Parliamentary Reform a matter of such urgency that they promised to hold a special session in November in order to pass a Reform Bill, first delayed to fulfil their promise, and then threw up the matter altogether. The excuse which they plead is, that they found Parliament unfavourable to any further tampering with the constitution. But if Parliament was right, they themselves were condemned; if it were wrong, why did they not dissolve, and appeal to the country? Had they been in earnest, they would have dissolved: but they knew that a dissolution would have been followed by the election of a Parliament still more hostile to them and to their measure. And therefore they chose rather to remain self-condemned, and to be pointed at with the finger of scorn, by the one party as recreants, by the other as impostors, rather than save their honour at least by the sacrifice of office. This tells against them now. The revulsion of public feeling was not, and could not be, immediate—for the duplicity and insincerity of the Ministry only revealed itself by degrees; but it was certain from the first, and has now become overwhelming. The Ministry have come to be regarded with contempt, and every new election is taken advantage of by the constituencies to give expression to their censure. But this is not the whole of the change which the last four years have wrought on the public mind. Alongside of the consciousness of the sins and demerits of the present Ministry, there has arisen the conviction that the principles of the Conservative party are the right ones for the country. The constituencies now feel not only that the present Ministry is a bad one, but that its predecessor was a good one. They have become sensible that, if any Reform Bill were needed at all, the Bill brought forward by Mr Disraeli was the one that best deserved to be adopted. They are now conscious that if any change at all were requisite in the matter of Church-rates, Mr Walpole’s Bill was well deserving of support, and that the measure of total abolition to which the present Ministry have pledged themselves is wholly out of the question. Finally, and for a good while past, the country has come to see that, led away by the misrepresentations of the Whigs, it did gross injustice to the foreign policy of the Conservative Government. We do not know by what fatality it was that Lord Malmesbury’s despatches on the Italian question were not published until too late to affect the division on the vote of want of confidence in June 1859. Had they been published earlier, we believe the issue of that division would have been different. Every one may remember (or may see for himself by referring to the file) the effect which the publication of those despatches produced on the ‘Times,’ and how the leading journal, thus enlightened as to the facts, frankly, and without any reservation, admitted that Lord Malmesbury had been right throughout. And certainly no one can forget how Lord John Russell, when taking farewell of the House of Commons, took occasion—or rather made occasion—to say that he approved of the policy of his predecessor, and that (which is more than his colleagues could say) he had been of that opinion from the beginning. The impression, originated and studiously fostered by Lord Palmerston and his followers, that the Conservatives are unfriendly to the cause of freedom and independence in Italy, is totally unfounded. They have certainly mistrusted the disinterestedness of the policy of the French Emperor, and have cautioned the Italian Government against seeking to reach the height of its ambition by machinations which would only redound to its own disadvantage: and on both of these points the Italians themselves must now be convinced that the warnings and advices of the Conservative statesmen were wellfounded. At all events, taught by a bitter experience, the Italian Government is now following the very course which the Conservatives recommended. We may add a word on our own part. The Magazine will certainly be admitted to be as sound an exponent of Conservatism as is to be found either in or out of Parliament, and we can refer to our own pages to demonstrate how heartily we have sympathised with the Italian cause, wherever it was not marred by such secret traffickings with the French Government, as the Italians themselves now regret and condemn; or by violations of law which, though natural to times of revolution, may be condoned, but cannot be approved.

The Ministerial programme for the present Session contains another confession of errors on the part of the Government, and a fresh proof of the wisdom of the opinions of the Conservative party. Destitute, as usual, of the capacity to originate measures of useful legislation, the Budget is to be brought forward early, to cover the prospective barrenness of the Session. And what is the feature of this year’s Budget, upon which the Ministry rely to cover their flagrant incapacity in other matters of administration? It is a reduction of the naval and military estimates! It is the adoption of the very course so earnestly advocated last year by the Opposition, and so strenuously resisted by the Government. Hardly eight months have elapsed since Lord Palmerston and his colleagues confidently and haughtily maintained that no reduction could be made upon the large sums voted for the support of the national armaments, without destroying the influence and safety of the country. Mr Disraeli, during last Session, argued strongly in favour of making such a reduction, on the ground that so heavy an expenditure was uncalled for, and was in reality damaging to our military power, by trenching so deeply upon the financial resources of the State. Again and again he pressed these views upon the Government—it was his constant theme all through last Session; but the Government refused to accept the warnings, and resolutely maintained that no reduction could be made. What, then, are we to think of them now? In what respect is the attitude of the times more favourable for a reduction now than it was eight months ago? In so far as there has been any change, the change has been clearly for the worse. There has been a revolution in Greece, of the issues of which as yet we have hardly seen the beginning. Servia has been arming, by the secret assistance of Russia; and the Danubian Principalities, and northern provinces of Turkey generally, are in a more unquiet state than they have been for years. And now we have a revolution in Poland, which is throwing all Central Europe into agitation, and furnishing fresh opportunities for the intrigues or intervention of other Powers. So far, then, as there has been any change in the situation since last summer, the change, we repeat, has been for the worse. Nothing could demonstrate more strikingly than this the consciousness of the Government that they were wrong last Session, and that the Conservatives were right. It is a new triumph for the Conservative party—a fresh condemnation of themselves by the Ministry. The trump card with which the Ministry are to lead off this Session has been stolen from the hands of the Opposition.

It is high time, indeed, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer were retrenching his expenditure; for, weak as the Administration has been in other respects, the management of the finances has been peculiarly disastrous. Although the present Ministry took office with a surplus, which they owed to their predecessors, in the two succeeding years (1860–2) in which Mr Gladstone had the exclusive direction of the finances, his mismanagement accumulated a deficit of four millions sterling. Nor is this all. For in the same period Mr Gladstone anticipated the revenue of the country to the extent of £3,200,000,—namely, £2,000,000 anticipated upon the income-tax, and upwards of £1,200,000 upon the malt-credit. This enormous deficit—seven and a half millions sterling—was, moreover, accumulated during a period when the national Exchequer enjoyed windfalls such as very rarely come to the aid of a Minister of Finance. The falling-in of the terminable annuities has reduced the charges on the National Debt to the extent of £2,000,000; and there was also the unexpected repayment of a portion of the Spanish loan. Mr Gladstone, therefore, has enough to do with the surplus which he will obtain by the proposed reduction of the expenditure. He has first to restore the Exchequer balances to their proper amount, by repaying the £2,684,000 which he abstracted from them to meet his exigencies between March 1860 and March 1862. He has likewise to get rid of the addition to the National Debt which he created, to the extent of £461,000. And, finally, he has to cease his forestalments of the revenue. When he has done these things, where will be his surplus? Mr Gladstone, in former times, used to denounce the slightest forestalment of the yearly revenue as a flagrant “violation of political morality;” and there is no question that such a procedure can only be excused under exceptional circumstances and to a very small amount. The House of Commons, therefore, as watchful guardians of the public revenue, will surely call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to restore matters to their normal condition before he does anything else. The same must be done in regard to the Exchequer balances. And if it be not an equally pressing necessity to pay off the £461,000 of new debt, surely Mr Gladstone, who aspires to the reputation of a great Finance Minister, will be ashamed to leave unpaid off a portion of the national obligations which will hereafter be known as “Gladstone’s Debt.” Unfortunately, when we think of 1853–4, we must allow that this is not the only portion of the National Debt which may be thus designated.

Most financiers, and all sound ones, in such circumstances, would devote the surplus of revenue which might accrue to redressing the adverse balance of former years. But Mr Gladstone belongs to a new school. He leaves the balances to come right as they may, or bequeaths them as an embarrassment to his successor; while he goes on in his seemingly endless process of devising financial alterations, which always leave him deeper in the mire. He loves to carry every inch of canvass—he crowds all sail as he drives his financial pinnace through strange waters; but he has shipped so many seas that the Exchequer has become waterlogged. He had better bale out the water before he goes any further. But this is precisely what he will not do. He must have a “sensation” budget. He must reduce some branches of the revenue and experiment with more. Already he lifts up a corner of the curtain to give us a glimpse of the grand tableau of jugglery which he has in store for us; and in due time the House will be wheedled and overwhelmed by the suave rhetoric of the great financial juggler. Possibly, however, the country will think that it has had too much of this already. It thinks of the cheap paper and cheap wines, and cannot see anything in these changes to atone for a deficit of seven millions and a half. Mr Gladstone’s abolition of the paper-duties was done not only at a wrong time, but in a wrong way. He not only landed himself in a deficit, but he landed the papermakers in a dilemma. He struck off the excise-duty on the one hand and the import-duty on paper on the other, and called it “free trade;” but while making free trade in the manufactured article, he ought to have taken care that there should be free trade likewise in the raw material. Several Continental countries send their paper, untaxed, to compete in the English markets with the produce of our own paper-mills, while at the same time they place a prohibitory duty on the export to our shores of rags. Our papermakers do not object to fair competition, but they object to be subjected by legislative enactment to so serious a disadvantage. If the crop of cotton in America were to fall off in extent (as it has done during this civil war), and the Americans, when peace is restored, were to place (as they have talked of doing) a prohibitory duty upon the export of cotton, while we did not retaliate by placing an import-duty on the manufactured article from their ports, what would our manufacturers think of this sort of “free trade?” Why, such a state of matters would produce a calamity in our manufacturing districts equal to that under which we are now suffering, and ruin the cotton industry in this country permanently. Yet this is the condition of affairs which Mr Gladstone voluntarily chooses to impose upon our paper manufacture, in deference to the clamour and exhortations of his Radical friends. What has become of the touching picture which the eloquent financier portrayed of paper-mills springing up all over the country,—when every hamlet was to have its little factory, engaging the surplus labour of the lads and lasses; and every glen that had a streamlet was to be made musical with the noise of a paper-mill? We have not heard of any such results—we have not heard of any extension at all of the manufacture; and as for Mr Gladstone’s arcadian dreams of paper-making, while foreign Governments act towards us in the way they do, he surely cannot possibly hope for their realisation—unless, indeed, he expects the whole country to go to rags under his financial mismanagement.

The other basis upon which Mr Gladstone founds his reputation as a great financier, and as an ample compensation for his past annual deficits, is his reduction of the duties upon French wines. We readily admit that these wines have been poured into this country in greatly increased quantities during the last eighteen months; but will this continue? And what is the advantage we derive from the change? “Gladstone’s wines” has become a current name for these beverages, but it is certainly not a “household word.” Any one who confesses, with rueful face, that he has made acquaintance with these wines, never fails to explain that it was at another man’s table, or at some villanous restaurant’s,—never at his own. No decanter will circulate if its contents are known to have been favoured by the legislation of Mr Gladstone. People have become wary and suspicious at dinner-parties now; and a Paterfamilias may be heard giving the caution which old Squire Hazeldean gave to his son when about to dine with Dr Riccabocca, “Whatever you take, Frank, don’t touch his wines!” Those “cheap wines” have been tried—or, at least, if tried, have been condemned and discarded at every respectable dinner-table. They don’t suit the middle classes; that is an incontrovertible fact. We are not less sure they are equally ill suited to the tastes and requirements of the working-classes. They have hitherto been tried largely as a novelty; but they do not improve on acquaintance, even if we could forget the much better use which Mr Gladstone could have made of his opportunities. Depend upon it, Nature knows better than any Chancellor of the Exchequer how to provide for our bodily wants, and supplies the essential wants of each people from the products of their own country. Let our working-classes get good beer at its natural price, and it will be infinitely better for their health, and more to their taste, than giving them cheap foreign wines, whose thinness and acidity are not suited for our climate, and which cannot compete with beer as nourishers and supporters of the bodily strength. When we remember, on the one hand, that seven and a half millions sterling have been lost to the country in Mr Gladstone’s financial experiments; and, on the other, how much better would have been a reduction on the duties of tea, sugar, and beer, it will be admitted that he could hardly have wasted so much money with less benefit to the community. Abundance of acid wines and plenty of paper—it is a curious prescription for Mr Gladstone to found his reputation upon.

But Mr Gladstone is resolved to proceed in his eccentric course. His crotchet this year is to cheapen tobacco. Three and a half years ago (in November 1859) Mr Bright delivered two orations at public meetings in favour of the abolition of the duties on tea, sugar, and tobacco, and the substitution therefor of an enormous income-tax. But Mr Bright thought that the tea and sugar duties were more deserving of reduction than the duty on tobacco, whereas Mr Gladstone gives a preference to tobacco. How is this to be accounted for? On the surface it appears a new piece of financial eccentricity; and in every view of the matter the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we should think, will find no small difficulty in obtaining the consent of Parliament to his proposal. There can be no question that tea, sugar, and beer have each and all prior claims upon the favour of Parliament, if the wellbeing of the community is to be consulted. But Mr Gladstone, in the speech which he made when introducing his proposal, propounded the extraordinary doctrine that a Chancellor of the Exchequer (and of course the Government which must approve his acts) has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the community. His only duty, says Mr Gladstone, is to get as much money as possible out of the taxed commodities. Judged by this rule, Mr Gladstone has certainly been a most unsuccessful Minister. We cannot, indeed, accept this view of a Minister’s obligations to the country; but, even if it were accepted, it would not furnish any justification of Mr Gladstone’s proposal. He says that the present duty upon tobacco is so high that smuggling is carried on to a large extent, and cannot be prevented by the Custom-house officers. This would be a good argument for abolishing the duty or reducing it to a trifling amount, but it is totally inapplicable to the case when he proposes to leave a tax of five shillings a-pound on manufactured tobacco, which is more than equal to the price of the best manufactured tobacco, freight included. The smuggler would still make a profit of more than a hundred per cent on the value of the commodity; and does any one believe that smuggling would cease, or even be sensibly diminished, when the premium upon smuggling is so great, and when (as Mr Gladstone states) the facilities of evasion are so plentiful? If Mr Gladstone were honest in the plea upon which he rests his proposal for this reduction of customs-duty, he would be labouring under a great delusion. But we take another view of the matter. It seems to us that his real object is secretly to carry out Mr Bright’s scheme of finance, and with great craft he begins with the duties on tobacco, where his operations are least likely to excite suspicion, but which, if accomplished, will render the subsequent steps of the scheme not only easy but inevitable. There may be little to find fault with in the present proposal considered by itself; but what is its bearing in regard to our financial system? Reduce the duty on tobacco, and what other customs-duty can be maintained? Mr Gladstone was never more eloquent and plausible than when proposing to reduce the duty on foreign wines; now he is playing the same artful game in regard to tobacco. Can Parliament be any longer blind to the course to which he is committing it? Honest financiers, who could afford to make a reduction of taxation, would begin with tea, sugar, and beer, as the duties on these can be remitted with the greatest advantage to the community; while those on luxuries, such as foreign wines and tobacco, could be maintained without inconvenience or complaint. But just for this very reason Mr Gladstone, who aims at accomplishing Mr Bright’s scheme of taxation, begins at the other end—knowing well that if he can reduce the taxes on tobacco as well as on foreign wines, the abolition of the other customs-duties will follow as a natural consequence. A reduction to the extent of one-half the duties on luxuries cannot be balanced save by totally abolishing the duties on the necessaries of life. We have a strong conviction that this is his game; for the good reason that upon no other supposition is his conduct intelligible. Mr Gladstone is not a fool; he must have an adequate motive for this seemingly crotchety course; and we believe we have named it. Let the House of Commons look to it, before they are led too far into the toils to be able to recede.

Plausible in the extreme, and ever seeking to conciliate or overreach his audience by all the arts of rhetoric and casuistry, Mr Gladstone changes his arguments and mode of dealing with the House almost every year, as may best suit his plans. Financial principles he has none—save the great one which he conceals. All arguments are fair, he thinks—all professions of opinion justifiable, in order that he may carry his point, and lead the House step by step unwittingly towards his goal. We need not allude to the rhetorical craft by which, in 1860, when he wished to gain the assent of the House to an increase of the income-tax, he maintained that there was a deficit of twelve millions; whereas, in the following year, when the balance was worse by 2½ millions, but when he eagerly desired to obtain the abolition of the paper-duties, he boldly represented that there was a surplus. At one time he represents that the proper way to proceed with a Budget is by a multiplicity of separate bills; at another time (when it suits his purpose better) in the form of a single bill. But his disregard of financial principles, or rather his alternate adoption and repudiation of principles the most opposite, is a still more glaring offence. In the case of the French Treaty, he was wholly in favour of Reciprocity; in the case of the Paper-duties, he represented that it was right for us to abolish them without any attempt at obtaining reciprocity, and although some countries actually prohibited the export of the raw material of the manufacture! He reduced the duty on French wines on the ground that the reduction would benefit the morals of the working-classes, by enabling them to drink light wines instead of strong spirits; he now justifies his proposed reduction of the duty on tobacco on the very opposite principle—to wit, that a Chancellor of the Exchequer has nothing whatever to do with the morals or wellbeing of the people. His dogma for the hour is, that his only duty is to make the taxes as profitable as possible. We have shown that it is very doubtful if his present proposal will have that effect; but, in any case, how would his new dogma accord with his policy in the last two years in wholly abolishing the duties on paper and other commodities? He is the most dangerous Minister that has ever been intrusted with the management of the British finances. He has not only involved the country in an accumulation of deficits, but he has had the art to persuade Parliament to do this with its eyes open; while at the same time he leads it onward, with its eyes carefully bandaged, towards the goal of democratic finance—which of late years has become the cynosure of his policy, and which he knows would at once become unattainable if his real purpose were avowed.

Now that we are to have a surplus—in consequence of the Ministry at length adopting the views of the Opposition—the first duty which devolves upon the House of Commons is to retrieve the financial mistakes of the past, and to rid us of its burdens. What the Conservative leaders advocated last session was not reduction of taxation, but retrenchment of expenditure. The Government had incurred a deficit of £7,500,000 in two years, and the first thing to be thought of was, to reduce the expenditure, in order that the deficit might be cleared off. Let Mr Gladstone do this—let him clear off the serious deficits in his previous years of office; and then—but not till then—ought he to propound new reductions of the revenue. But such a businesslike proceeding would not make a sensation budget; it would not surround the Ministry with that bright gleam of popularity which is to retrieve their position, and carry them through another session of barrenness and humiliation. In all probability Mr Gladstone’s proposal is to ignore the past deficits, and devote the whole of his prospective surplus to the reduction of taxation. By a reduction of taxes the country is to be bribed into forgetfulness of the past, and rendered placable to the appeal for respite on the part of a falling Ministry. It is not to be expected that Mr Gladstone will confine his favours to tobacco: he must support his great remission of duty on this luxury by minor reductions on articles of more usefulness. While striking four shillings a-pound off tobacco, he will strike a few pence or farthings off the price of tea and sugar. In fact, he will probably, in his usual way, give a trifling sop all round, in order that he may be allowed to carry his great point in the reduction of the duties on tobacco. The House will do much better to abolish, or greatly reduce, the duties on hops and beer. Surely it is intolerable that foreign luxuries, like tobacco and French wines, should receive the favours of the Legislature, while the produce of our own soil and industry, constituting a healthy element of the national food, should be subjected to heavy taxation. This is a matter which affects urban constituencies as well as the agricultural interest. Put it to the vote in any town or county in the land, whether they will have five shillings a-pound struck off the duty on tobacco, or get the fiscal burdens removed from beer, and there cannot be a doubt that the whole suffrages would be given in favour of beer, and against tobacco. Therefore if Mr Gladstone—as is most likely—be resolved once more to play an ad captandum game, we trust the House of Commons will be on the alert to see that any possible reductions of taxation are effected on articles which enter largely into the food of the people, and not wasted—with what ulterior object, we need not repeat—upon an enormous remission on the duties on tobacco and cigars. But it still more behoves the House to see that Mr Gladstone’s previous deficits are cleared off. Mr Gladstone must put the finances in the condition in which they were when he took office. We do not presume he will venture to continue his practice of forestalling the revenue payments; but he has to refund the two millions which he abstracted from the balances in the Exchequer in the two years subsequent to March 1860, and he has also to pay off about half a million sterling which has been added to the National Debt during his present term of office. Let him do these things first; and then we will see how much he has to spare for promoting the introduction of cigars for the million! Let us clear off our past deficits, before, under the leadership of this financial sophist, we plunge into others that we know not of.

The past month has furnished a most singular proof of the want of sagacity which has characterised the commercial policy of the Whigs since 1847. On coming into office at that time, their only thought was, how to rival Sir R. Peel in his highly popular reforms of the tariff. Unable to equal him in administrative sagacity, they simply travestied his policy by carrying it to excess. They abolished or reduced customs-duties, and totally relinquished the Navigation Laws, without a thought of how the country would fare in its future commercial relations with other countries. Again and again they were warned that they were rashly and foolishly relinquishing a valuable vantage-ground without even attempting to obtain those advantages for our commerce which other countries would be willing to cede in return. What has been the consequence? The ‘Magazine’ has so often in former years predicted what would be the result, that we need not now go over the old ground. Fortunately the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs has told the tale of Ministerial failure so well, that his speech on Feb. 17, in answer to Mr Fitzgerald, completely substantiates the correctness of our old predictions. We print it here as furnishing ample matter for reflection to politicians on both sides of the House:—

“When the hon. member for Rochdale went to Paris to negotiate the French treaty, the first thing he was asked was, What had he to offer? If he had gone to Paris with his hands empty, it was not probable that he would have succeeded in obtaining the concessions which the French Government made to him. Fortunately, however, the hon. gentleman had much to offer. There were heavy duties on wine and other articles of French produce and manufactures, and in consideration of a reduction in those duties the French Government consented to various changes in their tariff which had proved very beneficial not only to this country but to France. It was necessary to bear in mind that in our domestic legislation we differed from France. We at once gave the whole world the benefit of the concessions which had been made to our ally. France, on the other hand, withheld from others the privileges she had conceded to us, and thus retained in her hands the means of bargaining with other Powers for mutual commercial concessions. When one nation sought any favour from another nation, there were various grounds on which the request might be based. An appeal might be made to the generosity of the other Power, but it was doubtful whether that would have much effect; or an appeal might be made to a treaty which gave the applicant the privileges of the most favoured nation, and a claim advanced for certain privileges which had been granted to another State. Therefore it was, above all things, desirable that when one had no concessions to offer in return for the advantages sought, some other Power, which possessed the means of bargaining, should commence the negotiations. That was the reason why France had been allowed to precede us in the present instance, and every concession which was made to her gave us a right to claim the same. If we had taken the initiative, the Italian Government would very naturally have said, ‘You have nothing to give us in exchange for what we give you, and if we freely concede your demands we shall be placed in a bad position in making terms with France.’ So far from Her Majesty’s Government not having endeavoured to make treaties of commerce with other nations, the fact was that there was scarcely a Power in Europe with whom negotiations had not been opened during the last year or two. The Belgian Government were asked to make a treaty of commerce with us, as they had done with France; and it was pointed out to them that it would be an unfriendly act, having entered into a treaty with France, to refuse to negotiate one with England. They replied by asking what we could give to them in return, and they suggested that if they gave to us what they had given to France, we [having nothing of our own to offer them] should consent to capitalise the Scheldt dues. Now, the capitalisation of the Scheldt dues had nothing whatever to do with a treaty of commerce, and our Government [nota bene, having nothing to bargain with!] at once refused to admit the principle of purchasing a treaty. [And yet, in the very year previous, they had “purchased” the treaty with France!]... The House was aware that last year the French Government were negotiating a treaty with Prussia and the Zollverein. As soon as that fact became known, our Government applied to Prussia and the Zollverein to make with us a similar treaty of commerce. The reply was precisely the same we received from Belgium—that negotiations could not be entered into with us until those in progress with France were concluded. France, it was said in effect, can give us an equivalent. You can give us none.”

During the present month the conflict of parties in the Legislature will be suspended as far as the business of the country will allow. The nation and its representatives will have little taste for polemical discussion during the month that is to witness the joyous event of the marriage of the heir-apparent to the throne. The country will be in jubilee, and London will be absorbed in the fêtes and royal ceremonial attendant upon the nuptials. The good wishes of all flow out to the young Prince and his Danish bride. The hopes of the nation centre in him. The hearty greetings of the people await him on this happy occasion. He has proved himself worthy of the esteem which he so fully enjoys. Since the days of the Black Prince, no heir to the throne has given so many happy auguries of his future. Unlike the peerless son of Edward III., we trust that he will be spared “long to reign over us,” after the evil hour for us when his royal mother shall exchange her earthly crown for a better one. Before the royal pageantries and popular illuminations begin, and the acclamations of the first nation in the world arise to greet him and his beautiful bride, we tender them our sympathies, our congratulations, and our best wishes for their happiness. The union promises to be a happy one for the royal pair. It is a present happiness, and we trust it will be a lasting comfort, to our beloved Queen. It is the first gleam of returning sunshine to her heart after the darkness of sorrow and bereavement which so suddenly settled down upon her fifteen months ago. We know no drawback upon the general joy. Even in a political point of view this alliance is fortunate, and desirable above any other that could be formed. The country is thrice happy to know that this is a union of hearts as well as of hands, and that the bride-elect possesses in an eminent degree those advantages of person, charms of manner, and piety and amiability of character, which captivate affection and secure domestic happiness. While as a good princess and queen she will win our hearts, it is an additional pleasure to feel that, as a Scandinavian Princess, she will rivet an old and national alliance, and draw into closer bonds the kindred races of the North.

Though there will be a temporary truce, we fear the conduct of the Government, whether as represented by Mr Gladstone or by Lord Russell, will not be such as the Conservative Opposition can approve. Even apart from its acts, the position of the Ministry is so unnatural, and its reputation so tarnished and discredited, that it cannot possibly hope for a much longer respite. Every week its position is becoming more untenable. In vain do its friends endeavour to frame apologies for its defeats and pleas for its existence. In vain does the leading journal at one time claim as a merit for the Premier that he has “no principles;” in vain does it, at another, seek to intimidate electors by declaring that “unprincipled constituencies make unscrupulous Governments.” We should have thought that “unprincipled constituencies” were the very ones to support a Premier with no “principles.” However, as the subsequent election at Totnes showed, the threat was no idle word: and Government influence and the most tyrannical pressure were employed to coerce the free action of that constituency. But this course also has failed. At Totnes the Government simply escaped defeat: Liberals were returned as Liberals had been before. But at Devonport, another pocket borough of the Ministry, the Government was defeated, and for the first time for several elections a Conservative headed the poll. Ministerial tyranny had been carried too far. It succeeded in the first instance, but would not be brooked in the second. The “unscrupulous Government” has received a check in the corrupt exercise of its powers which it can never forget. It was at once a triumph for Conservatism and for the principle of freedom of election. We do not wonder that Mr Ferrand, when he took his seat in the House, should be received with hearty acclamations from the Conservatives, who crowded the Opposition benches to do him honour. The Conservative party is now stronger by eleven votes—counting twenty-two on a division—since June 1859, when the united Whigs and Radicals succeeded in overthrowing Lord Derby’s Government by a majority of only thirteen.

It is amusing to see the subterfuges by which the Whigs seek to conceal their discomfiture. Feeling themselves going downhill very fast, disintegrating, expiring, they cry out that “there are no parties nowadays.” Some of them even go the length of saying that there are “no principles;” the correctness of which statement we shall not dispute as regards themselves. They should know best; and, indeed, as all their old principles are dead and gone, dismissed into the limbo of vanities, we do not see how they can have any left. It is certainly suspicious that the Whigs should have innocently discovered that the age of party is past, at the very time that the Tory party has regained its old ascendancy in the Legislature. Plain people will not be at a loss to assign a reason. The Whigs as a party are extinct, and, like Chesterfield and Tyrawley, “they don’t wish it to be known.” The only thing that can keep the Whigs alive in the imagination of the public, is to show that party is dead. Happily the country has only to look at the Opposition side of the House to see that the Tory party is alive, and exuberant in strength and hope. It is fortunate for the interests of the State that they are so. The main attack upon the bulwarks of the Constitution has been decisively repulsed—the legions of “Reform” have been scattered in such hopeless rout that their leaders have thrown away their standards and disavow their cause. But the fight still goes on against another front of the Constitution, which, until lately, was but ill defended. This combat, so interesting and important, is itself a test of party; and seldom have the organisation and discipline of party been more strikingly displayed than in this keen warfare. Party dead! No, truly. “An opinion has been industriously promulgated of late,” justly observes a contemporary,[12] “that party distinctions have ceased in public life, and that there are no contested principles between the two great political connections of the State. Yet simultaneous with the propagation of this doctrine has been the most systematic and successful assault in Parliament upon the Church of England that it has encountered since 1640.” Repulsed from the political front of the Constitution, the waves of combat still dash furiously against our religious institutions. It is time that the Conservatives should overthrow the enemies of the Constitution in this quarter also by a decisive victory. It will be their crowning triumph. In truth there is no other beyond it. When they have terminated this combat, the Conservative triumph is complete in the Legislature, as it already is in the country. The Church is part and parcel of the British Constitution; and very heartily do we approve of our ecclesiastical contemporary’s exhortations to Churchmen to look after their special interests. The Church is a party question, like any other; and in the intense competition of a constitutional country, the Church must organise its press, like the other institutions of the land.

There is a good time coming sure enough, and the cause of its coming is easily understood. The Conservative party are superior alike in sincerity and in statesmanlike ability to the party which has so long prided itself in the advocacy of organic changes. Moreover, they represent the normal feeling of Englishmen. Conservatism is the distinguishing feature of the British character. The public of this country has no love for those theoretic ideals of government, those paper-constitutions, which have so often fascinated and brought misery upon other nations. The reign of Innovation is ever short-lived with us; and the supremacy of the party who represent that principle must be equally transitory. The Whig party, who became champions of innovation in order to regain the power which they had lost, now find that their old vantage-ground has slipped from under them. They have had their day as rough-hewers of the Constitution, and now give place again to the more masterly artists who know how to chisel the marble while preserving the lineaments of the noble design. This natural decline of the Reform party has been rendered more inevitable by the very efforts they have made to maintain themselves in power. Everything portends the speedy ascendancy of the Conservative party in Parliament; and the leaders of the party are the very men to lend to such a cause the lustre of personal renown. Derby, Malmesbury, Disraeli, Bulwer Lytton, Pakington, Walpole, Stanley, Cairns, Whiteside, are names of which any party and any cause might be proud. They have the advantage of years, too, on their side; for, compared with their rivals, they are all in the vigour of life, and in the prime of states-manhood. The tide of public opinion has long been rising in their favour, and they have not long to wait. They are strong, and therefore are calm; they are patriotic, and will not imitate the factious tactics of their rivals. But their final success is at hand; and their triumph will be all the more glorious, inasmuch as it promises to partake less of the character of a party-victory, than of an ovation offered to them by the whole enlightened classes of the community.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

1. ‘La Vie de Village en Angleterre; ou, Souvenirs d’un Exile.’ Paris: Didier. 1862.

2. ‘Vie Moderne en Angleterre.’ Par Hector Malot.

3. ‘Studies in Roman Law; with Comparative Views of the Laws of France, England, and Scotland.’ By Lord Mackenzie, one of the Judges of the Court of Session in Scotland. W. Blackwood & Sons. 1862.

4. I should add that, since writing the above, one day my eye was attracted by the unusual number of people (there were nine) reading one of the royal decrees just promulgated and placarded on the wall: it concerned the uniform of subordinate officials.

5. The ‘Chiacchiera’ of 3d January.

6. ‘Relations Politiques de la France et de l’Espagne avec l’Ecosse au xvie Siècle—Papiers d’état, Pièces, et Documents inedits ou peu connus, tirés des Bibliothêques et des Archives de France. Publiés par Alexandre Teulet, Archiviste aux Archives de l’Empire.’ Nouvelle edition, 5 vols. Paris: Renouard. Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate.

‘Les Ecossais en France—Les Français en Ecosse.’ Par Francisque Michel, Correspondant de l’Institut de France, &c. &c. 2 vols. London: Trübner & Co.

7. See the cessation of church-building in Scotland brought out in a well-known article in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for July 1849, on the Churches and Abbeys of Scotland, understood to be from the pen of Mr Joseph Robertson.

8. See the article on ‘Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,’ in the Magazine for August 1850.

9. Article, ‘The French on Queen Mary,’ Magazine for November 1859.

10. ‘The Invasion of the Crimea: Its Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan.’ By Alexander William Kinglake. 2d Edition. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London.

11. The ‘Daily News.’

12. ‘Church and State Review,’ art. ‘Practical Politics.’

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page | Changed from | Changed to
279 | were not long absent. Whey they | were not long absent. When they
320 | a cause celèbre now depending. We | a cause célèbre now depending. We
372 | the coup d’êtat. The claims of St | the coup d’état. The claims of St

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

- 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. 93, NO. 569, MARCH, 1863 ***

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Table of Contents

- BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. DLXIX. MARCH 1863. Vol. XCIII.

- CONTENTS.

- CAXTONIANA: A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.

- PART XIV.

- NO. XIX.—MOTIVE POWER (concluded).

- MRS CLIFFORD’S MARRIAGE.

- PART I.

- CHAPTER I.—THE LADIES’ OPINION.

- CHAPTER II.—WHAT THE GENTLEMEN SAID.

- CHAPTER III.—WHAT THE CHILDREN HAD TO SAY.

- CHAPTER IV.—HER OWN THOUGHTS.

- CHAPTER V.—THE MARRIAGE.

- AN ENGLISH VILLAGE—IN FRENCH.[1]
- LORD MACKENZIE’S ROMAN LAW.[3]
- THE PERIPATETIC POLITICIAN—IN FLORENCE.
- THE FRANK IN SCOTLAND.[6]
- KINGLAKE’S INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.[10]
- THE OPENING OF THE SESSION.
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE