CHAPTER XIV.

Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy entered, there was something singularly different from that stateliness of port common to the austere legislator. The very tone of his voice was different. It was as if the statesman--the man of business--had vanished; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler, who, nodding languidly to his visitor, said, "Levy, what money can I have for a year?"

"The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, that last election was the very devil. You cannot go on thus much longer."

"My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow." And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though his lip curled.

"I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile, bear £5000 more."

"A hard pull on it. You had really better sell."

"I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley Egerton is done up--his property is for sale.'"

"It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may be yet!"

"Be yet! How?"

Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors--thick and impervious, as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that, with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of three nations, that might give as each a hundred thousand pounds. We would go shares."

"Levy," said Egerton coldly, though a deep blush overspread his face, "you are a scoundrel; that is your look-out. I interfere with no man's tastes and conscience. I don't intend to be a scoundrel myself. I have told you that long ago."

The Baron laughed, without evincing the least displeasure.

"Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimentary, but you shall have the money. But yet, would it not be better," added Levy, with emphasis, "to borrow it, without interest, of your friend L'Estrange?"

Egerton started as if stung.

"You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed, passionately. "I accept pecuniary favours from Lord L'Estrange! I!"

"Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not think so ill now of that little act in your life which--"

"Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!"

He stopped, and paced the room, muttering in broken sentences, "To blush before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!"

Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned abruptly.

"Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure--"you hate me--why, I know not. I have never injured you--never avenged the inexpiable wrong you did me."

"Wrong!--you a man of the world! Wrong! Call it so if you will, then," he added shrinkingly, for Audley's brow grew terrible. "But have I not atoned it? Would you ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my management--my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been--perhaps a beggar?"

"What shall I be now if I live? _Then_ I should not have been a beggar; poor perhaps in money, but rich--rich in all that now leaves my life bankrupt. Gold has not thriven with me; how should it? And this fortune--it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he has the right to despise me!"

"Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? As to hating you--pooh! You snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still, there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want the £5000?"

"Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready when required."

"Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?"

"None."

"I will take my leave, then. By the by, what do you suppose the Hazeldean rental is worth--net?"

"I don't know, nor care. You have no designs upon _that_, too?"

"Well, I like keeping up family connections. Mr Frank seems a liberal young gentleman."

Before Egerton could answer, the Baron had glided to the door, and, nodding pleasantly, vanished with that nod.

Egerton remained, standing on his solitary hearth. A drear, single man's room it was, from wall to wall, despite its fretted ceilings and official pomp of Bramah escritoires and red boxes. Drear and cheerless--no trace of woman's habitation--no vestige of intruding, happy children. There stood the austere man alone. And then with a deep sigh he muttered, "Thank heaven, not for long--it will not last long."

Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm had shot through it.

"So--I must shun all emotion!" said he, shaking his head gently.

In five minutes more, Audley Egerton was in the streets, his mien erect, and his step firm as ever.

"That man is made of bronze," said a leader of the Opposition to a friend as they rode past the minister. "What would I give for his nerves!"

JOHNSTON'S NOTES ON NORTH AMERICA.

_Notes on North America, Agricultural, Social, and Economical._ By JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.R.SS.L. and E., &c. Two Vols. post 8vo. William Blackwood & Sons.

Professor Johnston had three objects in view in his visit to the New World. His high reputation as an agricultural chemist had induced the Agricultural Society of New York to request him to give a course of lectures at Albany upon the connection of chemical and geological science with that of the cultivation of land. He had also been commissioned by the Government of New Brunswick to examine and report on the agricultural capabilities of that province. And besides these public duties, he was impelled by a strong desire to study the actual position of the art of husbandry in the fertile regions of the West, and the influence which its progress is likely to exert upon British agriculture.

Our shrewd brother Jonathan, however brilliant his achievements have been in other arts, has not hitherto earned any great reputation as a scientific farmer. Nature has been so bountiful to him, that, with "fresh fields and pastures new" ever before him, he has hitherto had no need to resort to the toilsome processes and anxious expedients--"_curis acuens mortalia corda_"--of our Old World systems of agriculture. On the newer lands of the Union, at least, the rotations followed, the waste of manures, and the general contempt of all method and economy, are such as would break the heart of a Haddingtonshire "grieve," and in a couple of seasons convert his trim acres into a howling wilderness. What would our respected friend Mr Caird say to a course of cropping like the following, which, though given by Professor Johnston as a specimen of New Brunswick farming, is the usual method followed on most of the new soils of North America?--

"He cuts down the wood and burns it, then takes a crop of potatoes, followed by one of wheat, with grass seeds. _Nine successive crops of hay follow in as many years_; after which the stumps are taken up, the land is ploughed, a crop of wheat is taken; it is then manured for the first time, or limed, and laid down again for a similar succession of crops of hay. This treatment is hard enough; but the unskilful man, after burning and spreading the ashes, takes two or three more crops of grain, leaves it to sow itself with grass, then cuts hay as long as it bears a crop which is worth cutting--after all which he either stumps and ploughs it, or leaves it to run again into the wilderness state."--(_Johnston_, vol. i. p. 104.)

Such a system seems, at first sight, to argue a barbarous ignorance of the very first elements of agriculture; and yet, as Professor Johnston remarks, "we English farmers and teachers of agricultural science, with all our skill, should probably, in the same circumstances, do just the same, so long as land was plenty, labour scarce and dear, and markets few and distant." Let no one suppose that our wide-awake kinsman does not know perfectly well what he is about. His apparently rude agricultural practice is regulated by a maxim which some of our _Mechists_ at home would do well to bear in mind--that high farming is bad farming if it is not remunerative. He knows that to manure his land would be to insure the lodging and destruction of his crops, and he therefore leaves his straw to wither in the fields, and lives on in blessed ignorance of the virtues and cost of guano. To plough deep furrows in a virgin soil, saturated with organic matter, would be an idle waste of labour; and the primitive Triptolemus of Michigan scatters the seed upon the surface--or, raising a little mould on the point of a hoe, drops in a few grains of maize, covers them over, and heeds them no more till the golden pyramids are ripe for the knife. The first three crops, thus easily obtained, generally repay to the settler in the wilderness the expense of felling the timber, burning, and cultivating. If he then abandon it, he is at least no loser; but for eight or ten years the soil will still continue to produce crops of natural hay; and then, having extracted from it all that its spontaneous fertility will yield, he sells his possession for what it may bring, and moves off westward to repeat the same exhaustive process on a fresh portion of the forest, leaving to his successor the task of reinvigorating the severely tested powers of the soil by rest and restoratives.

This locust-like progress of the American settler--ever on the move to new lands, and leaving comparative barrenness in his track--must evidently place the case of America beyond the sphere of those ordinary laws of political economy which are applicable in European countries; and Professor Johnston seems to consider the fact of the incessant exhaustion and abandonment of lands as the chief key to a right understanding of the peculiar economical position of the United States. The owner of land in the older and more populous States, who has not learnt to apply a restorative system of culture, derives little benefit from the comparative advantage of situation, while the inhabitants of the towns and villages around him are fed with the surplus spontaneous produce of the far off clearings in Ohio or Missouri. But these in their turn become worn out--and as cultivation travels on westward, the chief centres of agricultural production are gradually receding farther and farther from the chief centres of population and consumption; and this increasing distance, and consequent cost of transport, is every year enhancing the price of grain in the busy and crowded marts of the West--ever filling up with the incessant stream of immigration from Europe. Such is Mr Johnston's view of the present normal condition of the Union in regard to the sustenance of her people; and he makes it the ground-work, as we shall presently see, of certain rather doubtful inferences, of some importance in their bearing on the agriculture of this country. One consequence, however, of any material increase in the price of food in the Eastern States of the Union is very obvious--the proprietor of land in these districts will gradually be enabled to apply, with profit to his exhausted soil, the artificial aids and costlier system of culture followed in Britain. Already this result is apparent in Professor Johnston's account of the energetic spirit of agricultural improvement which is rapidly spreading over most of the New England States. In the keen, restless, and enterprising New Englander, our Old Country farmers will undoubtedly find a more formidable competitor, for the honour of the first place in agricultural advancement, than any they have yet met on this side of the Atlantic. We have seen this year what his invention can produce in mechanical contrivances for economising the labour of the field; and, that he is not indifferent to the aids which science can afford him, is sufficiently proved by the occasion of that visit to America of which Professor Johnston has here given so pleasant and instructive a record. The invitation was not more creditable to the character of the Professor, than to the discernment of the zealous and patriotic men who thus showed how correctly they apprehend the true method of improving their fine country. His engagement was fulfilled during the sitting of the State Legislature at Albany in January 1850, when the hall of the Assembly was given up to him as a lecture-room; the leading members of the Assembly and of the State Agricultural Society were among his auditors, and the greatest public interest was evinced in the important subjects of his prelections.

It is apparent, from many passages of the _Notes_, that the author has listened too confidingly to the flattering tale--the "_canor mulcendas natus ad aures_" of the syren of Free Trade. He seems to be gifted with a strong natural faith, and a patriotic confidence in what British enterprise, and especially British agriculture, can achieve in the way of surmounting difficulties. It is not perhaps to be wondered at that one, whose professional pursuits naturally lead him to place a high value upon the aids which science has in store for the agriculturist, should encourage the farmer to think lightly of his present difficulties, and keep up his spirits with the hope of some paulo-post-future prosperity. It must be allowed that the farmer, poor fellow, has not wanted abundance of kind friends to comfort him in his adversity. Generally, however, their consolations--like those of the sympathetic Mrs Gamp--have been rather indefinite--vague moralisings upon his calamity, as if it were some inevitable stroke of Providence, to be bowed to in silent resignation, and hazy anticipations of good luck awaiting him. Others, again--who have professed the greatest friendship for him, and, like the Knight of Netherby, have come down to hearten up the broken-down man by imparting to him some plan of theirs, as sheep-pasturage or the like, for setting him on his legs again--are mentally taking an inventory of his remaining chattels, and calculating when to send the sheriff's officer. But Professor Johnston belongs to neither of these classes of comforters. His opinion, we know, is at least disinterested, and he brings it before us in the shape of a distinct proposition--viz., that the wheat-exporting capabilities of the United States are not so great as have generally been supposed, and that, as they must diminish rather than increase in future, the prospect of competition with American produce need cause no alarm to the British farmer.

This opinion, coming from such an authority, claims a deliberate examination; and the more so that, in the dearth of other gratulatory topics, it has been eagerly laid hold of by the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Economist_, and other Free-Trade organs, and vaunted as a complete proof that protective duties are quite unnecessary.

The reasons which Professor Johnston assigns for believing that the _present_ wheat-exporting powers of the United States have been exaggerated, may be passed over with very little comment. The Board of Trade returns leave no room for doubt as to the quantity that has actually reached this country, and it is therefore unnecessary for us to follow him through his hypothetical estimate of the exportable grain, grounded on what they _ought_ to have had to spare for us. We may remark, however, that the data on which his calculations proceed are far from satisfactory. He shows that all the _wheat_ produced in the United States, as given in the estimates of the Patent Office, is inadequate to afford the eight bushels which in England we reckon to be requisite for the annual supply of each inhabitant--the population of the Union being about twenty-one millions, and the produce of wheat one hundred and twenty-seven millions of bushels. He does not overlook altogether the fact that wheat is not in America, as it is with us, almost the sole cereal food of the people; and he admits that a considerable allowance must be made for the consumption of Indian corn instead of wheat. But how much?--That is the question. The compilers of the State Papers at Washington estimate that Indian corn, buckwheat, and other grain, form so large a proportion of the food of the people, that they require only _three_ bushels of wheat per head; and no doubt they have good grounds for this calculation. Professor Johnston, however, without indicating any reason whatever for his assumption, has set down the consumption of each individual at _five_ bushels per annum; and thus, by a stroke of his pen, he reduces the average exportable surplus of the Union to _only_ three millions of quarters.

As to what may be expected in future--Professor Johnston anticipates the gradual diminution of the supply, from the circumstance, already adverted to, of the progressive exhaustion of the newer lands of the Union, and the rapid increase of population in the old. If several of the Western States, he argues, have even already ceased to raise enough wheat for the supply of their present inhabitants, and are compelled to draw largely on the produce of the remote States of Illinois, Ohio, &c.--and if the productive power of these new lands is annually becoming less, the virgin soils more distant, and the transport of subsistence more difficult--if this is the state of matters now, what will it be in 1860, when immigration and natural increase will probably have raised the population of the Union to some thirty-four millions? "It is very safe," he concludes, "to say that in 1860 their wheat-exporting capability will have become so small as to give our British farmers very little cause for apprehension." It may perchance occur to these gentlemen, that the consolation Professor Johnston here offers them is not very cheering after all; and as long as they see the provision stores in every market town piled up with the interloping flour barrels of New York, and their own waggons returning home with their loads unsold, it is not to be wondered at if they are not greatly exhilarated with the prospect of what may possibly happen nine years hence. And slender as is the hope deferred here held out to them, it rests, we fear, on very questionable grounds.

Professor Johnston's opinion is founded on two suppositions: 1st, That the exhaustion of the Western States, on which he dwells so much, is proceeding so rapidly as already to affect the markets of the eastern districts; 2d, That these older districts will be unable to increase the quantity of produce raised within their own boundaries, without so adding to its cost as to prevent its being profitably exported.

As to the first supposition, it may be conceded that, in the course of time, a period must necessarily come when the spontaneous fertility of the newer-settled States will cease to yield grain with the same bountiful abundance it has done hitherto. But, when may that period be expected to arrive?--to what extent has exhaustion already taken place?--and what is the rate of its progress? For a reply, we have only to point to that vast territory, bounded by the lakes on the north and Ohio on the south, comprising the five States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin--a territory eight times the size of England and Wales, with a population about equal to that of Scotland, containing 180,000,000 acres of arable land, a large portion of which is of surprising fertility--and ask whether it is possible to believe that it has already reached the turning point of its wheat-productiveness,[1] or can by any possibility do so for centuries to come? Why, the extent of land advertised in these five States for sale, (which forms only a fraction of what still remains in the hands of government,) is greater by a fourth than the whole area of England; and of the territory that has been actually sold, it is estimated that five-sevenths is still unreclaimed from the wilderness. Then look at the means of transport provided for conveying the overflowing abundance of those rich alluvial regions to the markets of the East, by way of the two great outlets--the lakes on the north, and the Mississippi on the south. The cost of such transport is no doubt considerable; the conveyance of a quarter of wheat from the centre of Illinois to Boston, by New Orleans, averages about 16s. 6d. But, nevertheless, so trifling is the original cost of production, that immense quantities of corn do annually reach the eastern seaboard by this route, a considerable portion of which is re-shipped to Liverpool, and sold there at prices greatly below its cost of production in this country. The annexed table[2] shows the remarkable fact, that, of the whole quantity of grain exported from the United States in the five years 1842-6, twelve-thirteenths of the wheat, about one-half of the flour, and a large proportion of the Indian corn, came from the two ports of New York and Philadelphia alone. Now, as we know that these large supplies were not grown within the confines of the Eastern States, and _must_ have been brought from the westward, the inference is obvious that the two causes insisted on by Professor Johnston--the distance of the virgin soils, and the expense of transport--are as yet inoperative; or at least that they have not prevented the transmission of grain to the east in such vast quantities, as not only to meet the wants of all the population of that part of the Union, but to afford an average surplus for exportation to other countries equivalent to the annual maintenance of a million and a half of men. We need only mention one other fact, which seems in itself a sufficient refutation of the theory Professor Johnston has taken up. The causes which he thinks are so soon to dry up the supplies now derived from the West are of no recent or sudden emergence. The process of exhaustion on the new lands, and the rapid population of the old, has been going on for many years. If, then, these causes are so influential as he imagines, their effects should at least be apparent in a gradual increase of the prices of bread-stuffs in the Eastern States. Now, no such effect is to be found. On the contrary, we find that, during the last twenty years, the price of wheat, as well as of maize, in the chief marts of the east, has been _steadily diminishing, instead of increasing_. We extract from the returns published by the Board of Trade the annexed comparison[3] of the prices of wheat flour at New York, during two periods, from which it appears that, in the very State where the results of Professor Johnston's hypothesis ought to have been most manifest, the experience of twenty years shows a reduction of price instead of an enhancement, notwithstanding that the latter period in the comparison embraces the years of the potato failure. An examination of similar returns from Baltimore and New Orleans establishes the same fact, namely, that the tendency of prices for twenty years past is _not upwards, but downwards_--a fact quite irreconcilable with the supposed rapid exhaustion of the wheat soils of the interior.

[1] The estimated produce of wheat in these five States in the year 1847 was 38,400,000 bushels.

[2] Quantity of bread-stuffs exported from the whole of the United States, and from the ports of New York and Philadelphia, in the years 1842-46 inclusive:--

| Wheat | Flour | Indian Corn | Indian Corn | (bushels.) |(barrels.) | (bushels.) |(Meal barrels.) |------------+-----------+-------------+--------------- United States, | 2,691,711 | 7,048,356 | 4,764,450 | 1,199,255 |------------+-----------+-------------+--------------- New York, | 1,985,900 | 2,610,944 | 2,443,733 | 242,294 Philadelphia, | 474,788 | 1,055,382 | 677,530 | 565,682 |------------+-----------+-------------+--------------- Total of both ports, | 2,460,688 | 3,666,326 | 3,121,263 | 807,976

[3] Comparative statement of the prices, per barrel, of best wheat flour at New York, (taken from the _Monthly Averages_) in 1829-33, and 1844-48:--

FIRST PERIOD.

1829, Dr. 6.23 1830, 5.02 1831, 5.84 1832, 5.70 1833, 5.70 ---- Average of five years, 5.69

SECOND PERIOD.

1844, Dr. 4.60 1845, 5.00 1846, 5.16 1847, 6.77 1848, 5.83 ---- Average of five years, 5.47

It is much to be regretted that Professor Johnston was unable to extend his tour to these granary States of the West. It would have been satisfactory to have had from him an estimate of their capabilities founded on actual survey and personal observation, instead of indirect inference. We are quite ready to admit, that many of the accounts of those regions which have reached us, drawn up to suit the purposes of speculators in land, are of very dubious authenticity, and, like the stage-coach in which Mr Dickens travelled to Buffalo, have "a pretty loud smell of varnish." But, on the other hand, we cannot discredit the official data supplied by the State papers--without at least stronger grounds than those inferences from general geological structure which Professor Johnston has adduced to disprove the alleged fertility of the State of Michigan. There can, of course, be no more valuable criterion of the natural agricultural value of a country than is afforded by its geology--provided the survey be sufficiently extensive and accurate. But it is difficult to follow those enthusiasts in the science, whom we occasionally find drawing the most startling deductions from very narrow data--and prophesying the future history of the territory, and even the character of its inhabitants, from a glance at the bowels of the earth, as the Roman augur foretold the fate of empires from the entrails of his chickens.

We find, for example, a writer of high standing in America accounting for a remarkable diminution in the amount of _bastardy_ in Pennsylvania, some thirty years ago, by the fact--that the settlers at that time _had got off the cold clays and on to the limestone_! A Scottish geologist, with more apparent reason perhaps, has founded an argument for an extensive emigration of the Highlanders on the prevalence of the primitive rocks in the north and west of Scotland. It is only from a complete and systematic survey that we can venture to predicate anything with certainty of the future agricultural powers of a country; and, in the absence of such trustworthy data, we must be content to estimate the future wheat-productiveness of Michigan, as well as of the other States we have named along with it, from what we know of their present fertility, and of the vast extent that is still uncleared.

As to New York and the other old-settled States of the Union, which we are told do not now produce enough for their own consumption, are we to take it for granted that they are always to continue stationary, and to make no effort to keep pace with the growing demands of an increasing population? Professor Johnston, we observe in one passage, has qualified his opinion as to the prospective dearth of grain by this curious condition--"_Provided no change takes place in their agricultural system._" But what shadow of a reason can be given for supposing it will not take place? The area of New York State is only one-twelfth less than that of England, and is, at least, no way inferior as to climate or quality of soil. As far as material means go, it is quite capable of maintaining, under an improved culture, at least four times its present population of three millions. The only question is as to the will and ability of her people to develop these means; and on this point Professor Johnston's own work is full of multiplied proofs of the zealous and intelligent spirit of improvement which is extending rapidly all over the North-Eastern States. We find the central government of the Confederation occupied in organising the plan of an Agricultural Bureau on a scale worthy of a great and enlightened nation--a work that contrasts in a very marked way with the studious neglect which such subjects meet with from the government of this country.[4] We find the several State legislatures anxiously encouraging every species of improvement--that of New York, in particular, devoting large grants to the support of exhibitions; preparing to found an Agricultural College; distributing widely and gratuitously the annual public reports on the state of agriculture; and, finally, sending to Europe for a celebrated chemist to assist in maturing their plans, and sitting--senators and great officers of state--at the feet of a British Gamaliel, laying down the law to them on the true principles of the all-important science of agriculture. Nor are the owners of the land asleep. It is a strong indication of their growing desire for information, that seven or eight agricultural periodicals are published in the State of New York alone. Professor Johnston found no less than fifty copies of such papers taken regularly in a small town in Connecticut of some two thousand inhabitants; and he had occasion to observe, in his intercourse with the farmers of New York, their general acquaintance with the geology of their country, and its relation to the management of their lands. Their implement-makers, who had already taught us the use of the horse-rake, the cradle-scythe, and the improved churn, have recently outstripped us by the invention, or at least the great improvement, of the reaping-machine, the advantages of which are so appreciated in the country of its origin that at Chicago 1500 of M'Cormick's machines were ordered in one year. In short, the proverbial energy, perseverance, and sagacity that distinguish our Yankee friends, seem now to be all directed towards effecting a change of system in the management of land; and the true question is, not whether the hitherto laggard progress of American agriculture is to be quickened in future, but whether we shall be able to keep pace with it.

[4] Vol. ii. p. 389.

But then Professor Johnston tells us that improvement is expensive, and that every process for reviving the dormant powers of the soil, and preserving their activity, must necessarily be attended with an addition to the price of the produce, which will thus prevent its coming into competition with that of England. This view rests upon a fallacy, which we are sure the author must have drawn from his reading in political economy, and not from his experience as an agriculturist. It is an off-shoot from the rent-theory, (the pestilent root of so much error and confusion,) which, however, we shall not notice at present, further than by affirming, in direct contradiction to it, that improvements do _not_ necessarily, nor generally, involve an increase of price. Even those which require the greatest outlay--even a complete system of arterial drainage all over the State of New York, instead of adding to the cost of wheat, may very probably reduce it, as it has certainly done in this country. But most of the improvements readily available in the Eastern States involve scarcely any expenditure at all. The most obvious and effectual is to save and apply the manure, which is now wasted or thrown away; and when that proves insufficient, abundant supplies of mineral manures are easily procurable. On the exhausted wheat-lands of Virginia, a single dressing of lime or marl generally doubles the first crop. Deposits of gypsum, and of the valuable mineral phosphate of lime, seem to be abundant both in New York and New Jersey. Again, in the former State, where the common practice is to plough to a depth of _not more than four inches_, the simple expedient of putting in the plough a few inches deeper would of itself add one-half to the return of wheat over a very large district.

On the whole, so far from seeing any reason to anticipate, with Professor Johnston, a material reduction in the quantity of our wheat imports from the States, we look rather to see it increased; and, at all events, we have no hesitation in saying, that to encourage our English farmers to expect a cessation of competition from that quarter is to deceive them with very groundless hopes.

We have already dwelt at considerable length on this topic, both because of the prominent place it occupies in Professor Johnston's volumes, and of the notice which his speculations upon it have attracted in this country.

It has been mentioned that a large proportion--probably not less than one-half--of the cereal food consumed in the States consists of maize and buckwheat. Mr Johnston always alludes to this fact, as if the use of these grains were a matter of compulsion--as if the Americans resorted to them from being unable to afford wheaten bread. Now, according to the information we have from other sources, the truth is just the reverse of this. We are told that in the Eastern and Central States, as well as on the West frontier and among the slave population, the various preparations of Indian corn are becoming more relished every year; and that the extension of its cultivation is to be attributed, not to the failure of the wheat crops, but to a growing preference for it as an article of food. In a less degree the use both of oats and buckwheat seems to be spreading in the States, as well as in our own colonies of New Brunswick and Canada East; and one can scarcely wonder at the taste for the latter grain, after reading the appetising descriptions our author gives of the crisp hot cakes, with their savoury adjuncts of maple-honey, which so often formed his breakfast during his wanderings. The general use of these three kinds of grain--maize, oats, and buckwheat--has somehow come to be considered by political economists as indicative of a low degree of social advancement. And yet we know that, in the countries suited to their growth, a given area of ground cultivated with any of them will return a greater quantity of nutritious food, at a smaller expense and with less risk of failure, than if it were cropped with wheat. We are told that the great objection to them is, that their culture _is too easy_. Professor Johnston touches upon this notion in some remarks he makes on the disadvantage of buckwheat as a staple article of food. The objections to it, he tells us, consist in the ease with which it can be raised, the rapidity of its growth, and the small quantity of seed it requires: it induces, he says, like the potato, an indolent, slovenly, and exhausting culture; and "it is the prelude of evil, when a kind of food that requires little exertion to obtain it becomes the staple support of a people."[5] It may be noticed in passing, that, in point of fact, the results alleged are at least not universal; for, in regard to this very grain, we find its cultivation prevalent in some of the best-managed districts of the hard-working, provident, and intelligent Belgians. But taking the axiom as it stands, we cannot help suspecting that there is some fallacy lurking at the bottom of it. Misled by what we have observed of the Irishman and his potato diet, we have confounded the _cum hoc_ with the _propter hoc_, and come to regard an easily-raised food as _the cause_ of that indolence of which it is only the frequent indication. It were otherwise a most inexplicable contrariety between the physical and the moral laws which govern this world, that in every country there should be a penalty of social wretchedness and degradation attached to the use of that particular food which its climate and soil are best suited to produce. Can it be supposed that the blessings of nature are only a moral snare for us, and that, while she has given to the American the maize plant--oats to the Scotch Highlander--rice to the Hindoo--the banana to the inhabitant of Brazil--a regard for their social well-being requires each of them to renounce these gifts, and to spend their labour in extorting from the unwilling soil some less congenial kind of subsistence? Virgil has warned the husbandman--

"Pater ipse colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit."

But it were surely a dire aggravation of the difficulties of his task if his most plentiful harvest were also the most injurious to his advancement and true happiness. We cannot now, however, examine the grounds of a doctrine so paradoxical, and have adverted to it only to remark that it seems destined to meet with a most direct practical refutation in North America, where we find the habitual use of what we choose to consider the coarser grains associated with the highest intelligence and the most rapid development of social progress. There can be no doubt that the nature of the food generally used in any nation must exert an important influence on its prosperity; but it is difficult to understand how that prosperity should be promoted by the universal use of that variety which costs most labour. At all events, it is certainly a subject of very interesting inquiry, in reference to the increasing consumption among ourselves of wheat--the dearest and most precarious species of grain, much of it imported from other countries--and its gradual abandonment in North America, what effect these opposite courses may have on the future destinies of the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race.

[5] Vol. i. p. 80.

Leaving this as a problem for political economists, let us now follow him in his visit to the British side of the St Lawrence. His brief three weeks' survey of the Canadas did not, of course, enable him to form any very intimate acquaintance with the condition of these provinces; and he prudently abstains from pronouncing any judgment upon the vexed topics of Canadian politics. His presence at the great exhibition, at Kingston, of the Agricultural Society of Upper Canada, gave him a good opportunity of estimating the progress that has been made in practical agriculture. The stock, as well as the implements, there brought forward in competition for the various premiums, amounting in all to £1000, gave most satisfactory indications of improvement; while the large attendance, and the interest taken in the proceedings, sufficiently showed that the inhabitants of the Upper Province are now awake to the necessity of agricultural improvement as the main source of their future prosperity. In a country where eighty per cent of the whole population are directly engaged in the cultivation of the soil, the land interest is, or ought to be, predominant. But the bitter animosity of political parties, and the abortive attempts of government to soothe and reconcile them, have hitherto stood much in the way of any combined effort towards the encouragement of improved cultivation. The art of husbandry is not likely to thrive in a country where every man is bent on proving himself a Cincinnatus. Of late, however, public spirit has shown symptoms of taking a more wholesome direction; and, notwithstanding occasional ministerial crises and political explosions, which we on this side the water are sometimes puzzled to understand, all parties in the province seem now fully aware that the development of the vast resources of their fertile soil is the only road to permanent prosperity. The encouragement of local competitions, the provision for systematic instruction in agriculture in the colleges--which Professor Johnston tells us is in progress--and the introduction of elementary lessons in the art as a regular branch of common school learning, are all steps in the right direction. It is precisely in such a community as that of Canada that the last-mentioned kind of instruction is really of essential benefit. From the last census of Upper Canada, it appears that there are sixty thousand owners of land in the province, and only ten thousand labourers without land. The great majority of the boys in the ordinary schools will become proprietors, and, at the same time, cultivators; and, in such circumstances, it is of the utmost importance that the youth should acquire betimes a competent knowledge of the principles on which his future practice is, or ought to be, founded--such knowledge as will, at least, enable him to, shake off the traditional prejudices and slovenly habits which his father may have imported with him from Harris or the County Kerry.

The querulous and depreciatory tone which our Canadian fellow-subjects are apt to employ in speaking of their country, and its prospects, is remarked by Professor Johnston as contrasting oddly with the unqualified adulation of everything--from the national constitution to the navy button--which one constantly hears from his republican neighbour. One consequence of this habit is, the existence of a prevalent but very mistaken notion that, in the march of social advancement, Canada has been completely distanced by the United States. Professor Johnston has been at some pains to demonstrate, and we think most successfully, that this impression is entirely erroneous. Indeed, if we only recollect the history of Canada for the last fifteen years--the disunion of her own people, and the reckless commercial experiments to which she has been subjected by the home government, the rapid strides in improvement--of the Upper Province especially--are almost marvellous. As a corroboration of what Professor Johnston has said on the subject, we have thrown together in the subjoined table, collected from the Government returns, some of the most striking and decisive evidences of the recent progress of Upper Canada. In certain particulars, no doubt, she is outstripped by some of those districts of the States to which from time to time extraordinary migrations of their unsettled and nomadic population have been directed. But putting such exceptional cases out of view, the inhabitants of Canada need fear no comparison with the Union in all the chief elements of national advancement.

PROGRESS OF UPPER CANADA,--1837-47.

| | |Increase | |Increase | 1837. | 1842. |per cent.| 1847. |per cent. |-----------+-----------+---------+-----------+--------- | | | | | Population, | 396,721 | 486,055 | 22 | 723,332 | 48 Number of cultivated| | | | | acres assessed for | | | | | local taxes, | 4,736,268 | 5,548,357 | 17 | 6,477,338 | 16 Number of houses | | | | | assessed | | | | | for ditto, | 22,057 | 31,638 | 43 | 42,937 | 35 Value of property | | | | | assessed, |£4,431,098 |£6,913,341 | 56 |£8,567,001 | 23 Number of carriages | | | | | kept for pleasure, | 1,627 | 2,188 | 34 | 4,685 | 114 Number of | | | | | elementary | | | | | schools, | -- | 927 | -- | 2,464 | 165 Number of scholars | | | | | in ditto, | -- | 29,961 | -- | 80,461 | 170 Number of cattle, | -- | 504,963 | -- | 565,848 | 12 Number of horses, | -- | 113,675 | -- | 151,389 | 33 Number of sheep, | -- | 575,730 | -- | 833,869 | 45

In looking at the great sources of wealth possessed by these provinces, our attention is at once arrested by the growing importance of the St Lawrence as an outlet to the produce, not only of the Canadas, but of a vast area of the States territory. With the exception, perhaps, of the Mississippi, no river in the world opens up so grand a highway for the industry of man as the St Lawrence, with the chain of vast lakes and innumerable rivers that unite with it in the two thousand miles of its majestic progress to the ocean. Never was there an enterprise more worthy of a great nation than that of surmounting the obstacles to its navigation, and completing the channels of connection with its tributary waters; and nobly have the people of Canada executed it. Taking into account the infancy of their country, and the amount of its population and revenue, it is not too much to say, with Mr Johnston, that their exertions to secure water-communication have been greater than those of any part of the Union, or any country of Europe. The improvements on the St Lawrence itself, and the canals connected with it, have already cost the colony two millions and a quarter sterling, in addition to the expenditure of £800,000 by the home government on the construction of the Rideau Canal. The results of this liberal but judicious outlay are already showing themselves, not only by the rapidly-increasing Canadian traffic on the St Lawrence, but by its drawing into it, year after year, a larger share of the commerce of the States. That the influx of trade from the south must ere long vastly exceed its present amount, is evident from a consideration of the gigantic projects already completed, or in course of construction, for effecting an access between the lakes and the fertile regions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, &c., already spoken of, and thus saving the longer and costlier transit by the Mississippi. One of the Reports of the State of New York thus speaks of them:--

"Three great canals, (one of them longer than the Erie Canal,) embracing in their aggregate length about one thousand miles, are to connect the Ohio with Lake Erie; while another deep and capacious channel, excavated for nearly thirty miles through solid rock, unites Lake Michigan with the navigable waters of the Illinois. In addition to these broad avenues of trade, they are constructing lines of railroads not less than fifteen hundred miles in extent, in order to reach with more case and speed the lakes through which they seek a conveyance to the seaboard. The circumstance, moreover, is particularly important, that the public works of each of these great communities are arranged on a harmonious plan, each having a main line, supported and enriched by lateral and tributary branches, thereby bringing the industry of their people into prompt and profitable action; while the systems themselves are again united, on a grander scale, with Lake Erie as its common centre."

The various streams of the trade from the interior being thus collected in the lakes--which form, as it were, the heart of the system--there are two great channels for its redistribution and dispersion through the markets of the world. These are the St Lawrence, and the Erie Canal with the Hudson; and the vital question as regards the prosperity of Canada is, by which of these outlets will the concentrated traffic of the lakes find its way to the ocean? Mr Johnston has devoted considerable attention to this subject, and assigns two good reasons for believing that the St Lawrence is destined immensely to increase the share which it has already secured. In the first place, the American artery is already surcharged and choked up;--notwithstanding all the efforts that have been made to expedite the traffic on the Erie Canal, it has been found wholly inadequate to accommodate the immense trade pouring in from the west; and, secondly, the route of the St Lawrence, besides being the more expeditious, is now found to be the cheaper one. In a document issued by the Executive Council of Upper Canada, it is mentioned that the Great Ohio Railway Company, having occasion to import about 11,000 tons of railway iron from England, made special inquiries as to the relative cost of transport by the St Lawrence and New York routes, the result of which was the preference of the former, the saving on the inland transport alone being 11,000 dollars. There seems good reason to expect that a considerable portion of the Mississippi trade may be diverted into the Canadian channel; but putting this out of view altogether, it is certain that the navigation of this glorious river is every year becoming of greater importance to the United States, as well as to Britain: let us hope that it is destined ever to bear on its broad breast the blessings of peace and mutual prosperity to both nations.

After a rapid glance at Lower Canada, Professor Johnston crossed the St Lawrence, in order to complete the survey of New Brunswick, which, before leaving England, he had been commissioned to make for the Government of the colony. We have had no opportunity of seeing the official Report, in which he has published the detailed results of his observations; but the valuable information collected in these volumes has strongly confirmed our previous impression, that the resources and importance of this fine colony have never yet been sufficiently appreciated at home. With an area as nearly as possible equal to that of Scotland, it possesses a much larger surface available for agriculture. The climate is healthy and invigorating; it is traversed by numerous navigable rivers; its rocks contain considerable mineral wealth; and the fisheries on its coasts are inexhaustible. Imperfectly developed as its resources are, the trade from the two ports of St John's and St Andrew's alone, exceeds that of the whole of the three adjoining States of the Union--Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire--although its inhabitants do not number one-sixth of the population of these States. As to the fertility of the soil, Professor Johnston, by a comparison of authentic returns, shows that the productive power of the land already cultivated in the province considerably exceeds the averages of New York, of Ohio, and of Upper Canada--countries which have hitherto been considered more favoured both in soil and climate. By classifying the soils in the several districts, he has estimated that the available land, after deducting a reserve for fuel, is capable of maintaining in abundance a population of 4,200,000; while its present number little exceeds 200,000. In all the course of his travels, he met with but a few rare instances in which the agricultural settlers did not express their contentment with their circumstances; and although it seems still questionable whether farming on a large scale, by the employment of hired labour, can be made remunerative, the universal opinion of the experienced persons he consulted testified that, with ordinary prudence and industry, the poorest settler, who confines his attention to the clearing and cultivation of land, is sure of attaining a comfortable independence.

The question naturally occurs--How is it that, with all these natural advantages and encouragements to colonisation, and with its proximity to our shores, so very small a proportion--not more than one in sixty or seventy of the emigrants from Great Britain--make New Brunswick their destination? Professor Johnston, while he maintains that, taking population into account, New Brunswick is in this respect no worse off than Canada, adverts to several causes of a special nature which may have retarded its settlement. But the truth is, that the question above started leads us directly to another of far greater compass and importance--What is the reason that all our colonies taken together absorb so small a proportion of our emigrants compared with the United States? What is the nature of the inducements that annually impel so large a number of our countrymen to forfeit the character of British subjects, and prefer a domicile among those who are aliens in laws, interests, and system of government?

We hardly know how to venture upon anything connected with the ominous subject of emigration, at a moment when the crowds leaving our shores, at the rate of nearly a thousand every day, are such as to startle the most apathetic observer, and shake the faith of the most dogmatic economist in the truth of his speculations. This is not the place to inquire what strangely compulsive cause it may be that has all at once swelled the ordinary stream of emigration into a headlong torrent.[6] Mayhap it is neither distant, nor doubtful, nor unforetold. But whatever it may be, there stands the fact--which we can neither undo, nor, for aught that can be seen at present, prevent its annual recurrence in future, or say how and when the waves are to be stayed. "When the Exe runs up the streets of Tiverton," says a certain noble prophet--whose vaticinations, however, have not been very felicitous hitherto--"then, and not till then, may we expect to see the reversal of the free-import system;" and then, and not till then, we take leave to add, may we hope to see the ebbing of that tide of British capital and British strength which is now flowing strongly and steadily into the bay of New York.

[6] Total number of registered emigrants for the twenty-one years from 1825 to 1845 inclusive 1,349,476----Average, 64,260 Do. do. _for the five years_ 1846 _to_ 1850 inclusive, 1,216,557----Average, 243,311

PROPORTION OF BRITISH EMIGRATION TO THE COLONIES AND TO THE UNITED STATES, 1846-50 INCLUSIVE.

| | | | | | | Quarter | | Destination. | 1846. | 1847. | 1848. | 1849. | 1850. | ending Sept | | | | | | | | 30, 1851. | | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------------+ | | | | | | | | | United States | 45.1 | 31.8 | 57.3 | 73.3 | 79.4 | 80.5 | | British America | 33.4 | 42.5 | 12.5 | 13.9 | 11.7 | 10.8 | | All other places | 21.5 | 25.7 | 30.2 | 12.8 | 8.9 | 8.7 | | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------------+ | Total | 100. | 100. | 100. | 100. | 100. | 100. |

The accompanying abstract, from the returns of the Emigration Commissioners, exhibits two most remarkable results:--1st, The proportion of emigration to British America and other destinations is gradually falling off; 2d, That to the United States is steadily and rapidly increasing, so that they now receive four out of every five emigrants who leave our shores. Is this distribution to be regarded as a matter of indifference in a political point of view? Are we to understand that it is no concern to us who remain behind, whether the labour and capital of those who leave us shall go to fill up the vacuum of our own colonial empire, or to carry new accessions of wealth and power to those in whose prosperity (to put the matter mildly) we have only a secondary interest? This question the consistent Free-Trader is bound to answer unhesitatingly in the affirmative. In his cosmopolitan philosophy, the interests of one country are no more to be considered than those of any other. The theory of absolute freedom of exchange expunges altogether the idea of nationalism, and regards man, not as a member of this or that community, but as the denizen of a great universal republic. Local and historical associations--ties of kindred and of birth--are only so many obstructions in the way of human progress; and an Englishman is nothing more than the subject of certain animal wants and instincts, the gratification of which he must be left to seek wherever he finds the materials most abundant. Such is Free Trade in its true scope and ultimate tendency. What shall be said, then, of the consistency or sincerity of those pseudo-apostles of the doctrine, who, having been the most active in promoting that nibbling and piecemeal legislation which they choose to call freedom of trade--who have been loudest in proclaiming a universal commercial fraternity, and in denouncing colonies as a wasteful encumbrance--are now the first to take alarm at the natural and inevitable result of their own measures, and to call out for a better regulation of emigration; in other words, for legislative interference with the free action of those of our countrymen who, being thrust out of employment in the land of their birth, are so literally following out the great maxim of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest?

The text is a tempting one, but we must refrain from wandering further from the subject with which we started--namely, the inducements which lead so many of our emigrants to select the United States as their future home. One of the prevalent causes has been very well stated by Professor Johnston--that which we may call the capillary attraction of former emigration:--

"A letter from a connection or acquaintance determines the choice of a place to go to, and, without further inquiry, the emigrant starts. Thus for a while, emigration to a given point, once begun, goes on progressively by a sort of innate force. Those who go before urge those who follow by hasty and inaccurate representations; so that, the more numerous the settlers from a particular district, the more numerous also the invitations for others to follow, till the fever of emigration subsides. In other words, in proportion as the home-born settlers in one of these countries increases, will the number of home-born emigrants to that country increase--_but for a time only, if the place have real disadvantages_."--(Vol. ii, p. 204.)

It is vain to shut our eyes to the fact that the government of the United States offers to the emigrant many real, substantial, and peculiar advantages. The first and most important aid that can be given to the intending settler is a complete and accurate survey of the country; and this has been accomplished by the States government at great expense, but in so perfect a manner that a purchaser has no difficulty in at once pointing out, on the official plan, any lot he may have selected in the most remote corner of the wilderness. The next point of importance to him is simplicity of conveyance and security of title; and so effectual and satisfactory is the American system that litigation in original land-titles is almost unknown. Then as to the weighty consideration of price--which perhaps ought to have been first mentioned--the uniform and very low rate in the States of 5s. 3d. an acre saves infinite trouble, disputation, and jealousy. Such are some of the temptations held out to the intending purchaser of land; and it must be confessed that, in each particular, they present a striking contrast to the difficulties he has to meet in some of the British colonies--the arbitrary changes of system, the vexatious delays, and the comparatively exorbitant charges--which must appear to the settler as if they had been contrived on purpose to discourage him. When we add to these the prospects of ready employment in the States held out to other classes of emigrants, and the stringent laws lately made for their protection, both on the passage and on their arrival, we cannot be at a loss to see that the direction which emigration has lately taken is not the result of chance or caprice, but of a deliberate comparison of advantages, which the most ignorant can easily understand and appreciate.

The main object of Professor Johnston's visit being of a scientific character, his remarks on the general topics of manners and politics occur only incidentally; but it is impossible for any traveller to keep clear of such subjects in writing of a country, the peculiarities of which are pressed upon his notice at every hour of the day, and at every corner of the street. Rabelais tells us of a certain island, explored by the mighty Pantagruel, whose inhabitants lived wholly upon _wind_--that is, being interpreted, on flattery; and the visitor of the States who finds himself, as it were, pinned to the wall, and compelled to yield up his admiration at discretion, may be sometimes tempted to believe that he has made a similar discovery, and that the flatulent diet of compliment is somehow congenial to an American appetite. Professor Johnston seems to have had his candour or his eulogistic powers sometimes severely tested, if we may guess from his quiet hint, that "it is unpleasant to a stranger to be always called on to admire and praise what he sees in a foreign country; and it is a part of the perversity of human nature to withhold, upon urgent request, what, if unasked, would have been freely and spontaneously given." He is of course prepared for the reception which any work, aiming at mere impartiality, is sure to meet with among Transatlantic critics; and it will, therefore, not surprise him to find that the above peccant sentence has been already pounced upon by them as proving _malice prepense_, and as affording a significant key to all his observations on the institutions of the States.

The following extract explains the origin of two of those euphonious party designations in which our neighbours delight, and which may perchance have puzzled some of our readers:--

"In England, to be a _democrat_ still implies a position at the very front of the movement party, and a desire to hasten forward political changes, irrespective of season or expediency. But among the American democrats there is a Conservative and a Radical party. The former, who desire to restrain 'the amazing violence of the popular spirit,' are nicknamed by their democratic adversaries the '_Old Hunkers_;' the latter, who profess to have in their hearts 'sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,' are stigmatised as '_Barnburners_.' The _New York Tribune_, in reference to the origin of the names themselves, says that the name 'Hunkers' was intended to indicate that those on whom it was conferred had an appetite for a large 'hunk' of the spoils; though we never could discover that they were peculiar in _that_. On the other hand, the 'Barnburners' were so named in allusion to the story of an old Dutchman who relieved himself of rats by burning his barns, which they infested, just like exterminating all banks and corporations, to root out the abuses connected therewith."--(Vol. i. p. 218.)

Equally mysterious is the term "log-rolling," though the thing itself is not altogether unknown in legislatures nearer home.

"When the trees are felled and trimmed, rolling the logs to the rivers or streams down which they are to be floated, as soon as the spring freshets set in, remains to be done. This being the hardest work of all, the men of several camps will unite, giving their conjoined strength to the first party on Monday, to the second on Tuesday, and so on. A like system in parliamentary matters is called 'log-rolling.' You and your friends help me in my railroad bill, and I and my friends help you with your bank charter; or sometimes the Whigs and Democrats, when nearly balanced, will get up a party log-rolling, agreeing that the one shall be allowed to carry through a certain measure without much opposition, provided a similar concession is granted to the other."--(Vol. ii. p. 297.)

The _Notes_ convey to us the strong impression that Professor Johnston's visit to the West has operated as a wholesome corrective of a certain tendency in his political opinions. He seems to have left home with a warm admiration of American institutions generally, which, like Slender's love, "it pleased heaven to diminish on further acquaintance." At all events, he could not avoid being struck with some of the many perplexities and anomalies that result from referring everything directly to the popular voice. In England, whatever dissensions may arise about the enactment of law, all are agreed in a sensitive jealousy as to the purity of its administration. The most rampant Radical among us looks upon justice as far too sacred a thing to be hazarded in the rude chance-medley of popular election. The keenest partisan feels that, in the lofty and unswerving integrity of our judges, he possesses a substantial security and blessing, for the loss of which no place, power, or parliamentary triumph, could compensate. To one accustomed to regard with veneration the dignified independence of the judicial office in Great Britain, nothing will appear more harshly repugnant to sound policy than the system, lately introduced into some of the New England States, of appointing all judges, high and low, by the votes of the electors of the district over which they are to preside, and for a limited term of years.

"It was deservedly considered a great triumph when the appointment of judges for life liberated the English bench from the influence of the Crown, and when public opinion became strong enough to enforce the selection of the most learned in the law for the highest judicial offices. Now, passing over the objection which some will strongly urge, that the popular electors are not the best judges of the qualifications of those who aspire to the bench, and that the most popular legal demagogue may expect to obtain from them the highest legal appointment, it may be reasonably asked whether popular influence in seasons of excitement, and on questions of great moment, may not bias the minds of judges whose appointment is in the hands of the people?--whether the fear of a coming election may not deter them from unpopular decisions? The influence of a popular majority may here as profoundly pollute the fountains of justice as the influence of the Crown ever did among us at home."--(Vol. i. p. 150.)

At first sight, it seems quite unaccountable that an enlightened people should ever have devised or sanctioned a system which so obviously exposes the bench to the risk of corruption; and one is at a loss to reconcile a reverence for the law with an ordinance that subjects her minister to the ordeal of canvassing and cajoling all and sundry--perhaps the very men who may next day be in the dock before him. But the root of the anomaly is not hard to find. Into the purest of republics ambition and cupidity--the love of office and the love of dollars--will force their way. But then, under that form of constition, situations of trust and emolument are necessarily few in comparison to the number of candidates for them. The offices in the civil departments of the United States governments are not numerous. The navy employs altogether some five hundred officers above the rank of midshipman--exactly the number of our post-captains; and the whole army of the Confederation, rank and file, musicians and artificers included, is very little over ten thousand men. There is little temptation to enter the medical profession, in which learning and experience go for nothing, and a Brodie is precisely on a level with a "Doctor Bokanky;"--nor the Church, in which the pastor is hired by the twelvemonth, and is thought handsomely paid with a wage of £100 a-year. What field, then, remains for the aspiring spirit but the law?--and what wonder if the sixteen thousand attorneys, who, we are told, find a living in the States, and take a leading part in the management of all public business, should vote "the higher honours of the profession" far too few to be retained as perpetual incumbencies? Hence has sprung the device of popular election to, and rotation in, the sweets of office, which, by "passing it round," and giving everyone a chance, is designed to render it as generally available as possible. The constitution of the judiciary is not uniform, but varies in almost every different state. In New York, the Judges of Appeals, as well as those of the Supreme and Circuit Courts, are elected by the people at large, and for a term of eight years, each leaving office in rotation. In New Jersey they are appointed for six years by the governor and senate; in Vermont, annually by the legislature. In Connecticut nearly the same system prevails as that in Vermont; while in Massachusetts the judges retain office "during good behaviour." The salaries are not less various, in some States the remuneration of judges of supreme courts being £500 a-year, which is about the highest rate; and in others so low as £180. There are no retiring allowances in any case; and as they are thus liable to be thrown out of office at an uncertain period, or compelled to vacate it after a short term of years, it can scarcely be expected that such remuneration will secure the highest grade of legal acquirements, either for the bench itself, or for the inferior offices of attorney-generalships and chief-clerkships, which are all held by the same lax tenure of popular favour. Even if the system has "worked well," as it is said to have done by American writers, during the four or five years it has been in operation in New York--even if it be true that the lawyers of the Empire State have, by avoiding the snares thrown in their way, given proof individually of the probity of Cato, and of a constancy worthy of Socrates, we still say that the State does wrong in putting their virtues to such a test. Mr Johnston supplies us with an example of the temptation it holds out to a dangerous pliancy of principle. Most of our readers must be aware of the existence of an active and noisy party in the States, who, under the name of "Anti-renters," are seeking to free themselves from payment of certain reserved _rents_, or _feu-duties_, as they would be termed in Scotland, which form the stipulated condition of land tenure in a certain district.

"The question has caused much excitement and considerable disturbance in the State. It has been agitated in the legislature and in the courts of law, and the supposed opinion in regard to it of candidates for legal appointments, is said to have formed an element which weighed with many in determining which candidate they would support. During the last canvass for the office of attorney-general, I met with the following advertisement in the public journals of the State:--

"'I have repeatedly been applied to by individuals to know my opinions with regard to the manorial titles, and what course I intend to pursue, if elected, in relation to suits commenced, and to be commenced, under the joint resolution of the Senate and Assembly. I have uniformly replied to these inquiries, that I regard the manor titles as a public curse which ought not to exist in a free government, and that if they can be broken up and invalidated by law, it will give me great pleasure; and I shall prosecute the pending suits with as much vigour and industry as I possess, and will commence others, if, on examination, I shall be satisfied there is the least chance of success. I regard these prosecutions as a matter of public duty, and, in this instance, duty squares with my inclination and wishes. 'L. S. CHATFIELD.'

"Mr Chatfield," adds Professor Johnston, "_is now attorney-general_; and I was informed that the known opinions of certain of the old judges on this exciting question was one of the understood reasons why they were not re-elected by popular suffrage, when, according to the new constitution, their term of office had expired."--(Vol. ii. p. 291.)

Here, then, we see the highest law officer of the State openly "bidding" for office--truckling to faction--and indecently condescending to enact the part of a "soft-sawderer." That term, we presume, is the proper American equivalent for the stinging _soubriquet_ with which Persius stigmatises some Chatfield--some supple attorney-general of his day--

"PALPO, quem ducit _hiantem_ Cretata ambitio."

When persons of the highest official position scruple not thus undisguisedly to trim their course according to the "_popularis aura_," one can scarcely help suspecting a want of firmness of principle and genuine independence among the classes below them. De Tocqueville's observations have taught us to doubt whether the tree of liberty that grows under the shadow of a tyrant majority can ever attain a healthy stability, however vigorous it may appear externally. No one questions that the Americans enjoy, under their institutions, very many of the blessings of a liberal and cheaply-administered government. You have perfect liberty of speech and action, so far as the government is concerned. The avowal of one's opinion is not followed, as in Italy, or in the rival republic of France, by a hint that your passport is ready, or by the polite attendance on you, wherever you go, of a mysterious gentleman in black; but you feel yourself, nevertheless, perpetually "_en surveillance_," and constrained either to sail with the stream, or to adopt a reserve and reticence which, to an Englishman, is almost as irksome as the knowledge that there is a spy sitting at the same dinner-table with him.

The spirit of Professor Johnston's strictures on such anomalies will, of course, insure his being set down by his democratic friends in America as an unmitigated "old hunker;" and he certainly shows no great liking for practical republicanism. But to find fault with our neighbours' arrangements, and to be contented with our own, are two very different things; and, accordingly, our author takes many opportunities, as he goes along, of showing that he is quite aware of the innumerable rents in our own old battered tea-kettle of a constitution, and of the infinite tinkering it will take to make it hold water.

We should have held him unworthy of the character of a true Briton if he had omitted the occasion of a grumble at our system of taxation, though, of course, we differ with him entirely in the view he takes of the evil. After an elaborate comparison of the taxation in the United States with that of Great Britain, he sums up all with the following somewhat sententious apophthegm:--

"The great contrast between the two sections of the Anglo-Saxon race on the opposite sides of the Atlantic is this--_On the one side the masses rule and property pays; on the other side property rules and the masses pay_."--(Vol. ii. 254.)

The sentence sounds remarkably terse and epigrammatic. Most of such brilliant and highly-condensed crystals of wisdom, however, will be found on analysis to contain, along with some exaggerated truth, a considerable residuum of nonsense; and this specimen before us, we apprehend, forms no exception. Even if the fact so broadly asserted were indisputable, we should still be inclined to doubt, after what the author has himself told us, whether the "rule of the masses" is always an unmixed blessing to a community. He has seen enough of it to know at least that the preponderance of popular sway is not incompatible with much social restraint--with prejudice and narrow-mindedness--with what _he_ considers a false commercial principle--with a disregard of public faith, and of the rights of other nations; and lastly, with a contempt of the rights of humanity itself, and a legalised traffic in our fellow men. But, if we understand him rightly, he does not so much defend the abstract excellence of the democratic principle as advocate a nearer approach, on our part, to the American model of taxation. In the States, he says, property pays--in England the masses pay;--that is, if we strip the proposition of its antithetical obscurity, the owners of property pay less here than they do in America--not only _absolutely_ less, but less in proportion to the whole amount of taxation. The calculations on which he founds this assertion are too long and involved to be quoted at length, but we will endeavour to abridge them so as to enable the reader to judge of their accuracy.

The taxes in the United States are of three classes: 1st,--the _national_ taxes, amounting to about six millions a-year, which are raised chiefly by customs duties on imports; 2d,--the _state_ taxes; 3d,--the _local_ taxes, for the service of the several counties, cities, and townships. These two last classes are levied chiefly in the form of an equal rate assessed upon the estimated value of all property, real and personal.

In order to compare the incidence of the public burdens upon property in the two countries, Professor Johnston selects the case of New York State, in which the total taxable property (personal as well as real) in 1849 was 666,000,000 of dollars, and the amount of rates levied for state and local taxes 5,500,000 dollars, or about 4/5 per cent on the gross valuation. Turning then to Great Britain, (excluding Ireland,) he sets down the fee simple value of the real property alone in estates above £150 a-year, as rated to the income-tax, at £2,382,000,000.

"Four-fifths of a per cent (the rate levied in New York) on this sum would realise £19,000,000 sterling; and were _all_ property, real and _personal_, in this island below £150 a-year, and the amount of property in Ireland rated in a similar way, and fairly collected, our entire revenue of £50,000,000 would probably be obtained as the revenue of the State of New York now is, by this one property tax only."--(Vol. ii. p. 257.)

And he thus concludes that, as regards the _absolute_ amount of taxation, property in Britain escapes for a smaller payment than that in America.

Now, it must be remarked, on this branch of the comparison, that before we can form any opinion as to its soundness, it is essential that we should know on what principles the valuation of property is conducted in New York. The whole question depends upon this. If the system of valuation is different in the two countries, there are no materials on which to build a conclusion. We know what discrepancies may arise out of the mode of valuation, from the fact that, while the annual value of _all_ real property in England and Wales was assessed for the poor-rate, in 1841, at about £62,500,000, _a portion_ of it only--that over £150 a-year--was valued two years afterwards, for the income-tax, at nearly £86,000,000. We observe that Professor Johnston has arrived at the amount of real property in Britain, by assuming the fee-simple value to be twenty-seven years' purchase of the income. But in New York, he tells us, the value of income is calculated at _only sixteen and a half years'_ purchase. The terms of the comparison are, therefore, manifestly faulty. And mark how this affects the result. The real income of Great Britain, capitalised at sixteen and a half years' purchase, would amount to only £1,447,000,000, and, if taxed at the same rate as in New York, would yield, instead of £19,000,000 only, £11,500,000, which, as it happens, _is three millions less than it actually pays_, as may be plainly seen from the undernoted statement:--

DIRECT AND LOCAL TAXATION OF REAL PROPERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN.

1. Land Tax, £1,164,000 2. Poor and County Rate, (England,) 6,847,205 3. Highway Rate, " 1,169,891 4. Church Rate, " 506,812 5. Proportion of Stamp Duties on deeds affecting real property, 1,200,000 6. Proportion of Legacy Duty affecting do., 300,000 7. Property Tax, 2,600,000 8. Poor Rate, (Scotland,) £577,000--say on real property, 500,000 9. Statute Labour, (Scotland,) 81,226 ---------- Total, £14,369,134

_Note._--The first six items are taken from the Report of the House of Lords on burdens affecting land, and some of them are below the present amounts. The items affecting Scotland are obviously defective.

To this extent at least, then, we are justified in correcting Professor Johnston's calculations, and in affirming with certainty that the owner of _real property in Britain surrenders a larger portion of his wealth for the public service than in New York_, or any other State of the Union. Whether the same can be said of the British owner of _personal_ property is another question, which we shall come to by-and-by.

So much for the _absolute_ comparison. But then Professor Johnston aims also at proving, that while the rich man is better off here, the poor man is worse--that the "masses" (_i. e._, we presume, those who are dependent on the wages of labour) pay a larger share of the public burdens than the same "masses" do in America. And this, he thinks, is demonstrated by the fact, that the customs duties of America amount to only a dollar a-head of the whole population, whereas in Great Britain they are _three_ dollars--three times heavier. Now, we venture to affirm that, as a contrast between the position of the labouring man on this side of the Atlantic, and that of his brother on the other, this statement is quite a nest of fallacies. In the first place, it proceeds on the assumption (a very common but erroneous one among our Free-Trade authorities) that it is the labouring class who pay the bulk of the taxes drawn in the shape of customs. As this error, however, may be held to affect both sides of the comparison equally, we have next to notice that, admitting it to be the case, the fact of the customs being three dollars a-head in this country, and only one in the States, only shows that the English labourer pays _absolutely_ more than the Yankee, which no one ever doubted. It amounts only to this--that in an old country which has to uphold numerous public institutions unknown in America, and with a public debt to provide for of some £800,000,000 sterling, the burden of this, as well as of all other branches of taxation, is heavier than in the youthful republic, with a national debt of only £13,000,000. In order to draw a fair parallel between the cases as regards the poorer classes of both countries, we must put the question in a different way, and inquire, what proportion does the amount of customs (assumed as representing the poor man's share of taxation) bear _to the whole public burdens_ in the two countries respectively? The contrasted account would then show the matter in a very different aspect from that in which Professor Johnston has represented it, and would stand thus:--

| GREAT BRITAIN. | UNITED STATES. | | | | | National taxes, £50,000,000 | National taxes, £6,000,000 | | Local ditto,[7] 14,000,000 | Local ditto,[8] 5,680,000 | | ----------- | ----------- | | Total, £64,000,000 | Total, £11,680,000 | | Whereof the poor man's | Whereof the poor man's | | share, or customs, is £20,000,000 | share, or customs, is £6,000,000 | | or 32½ per cent. | or 52 per cent. | | | |

[7] We give this amount as it is usually estimated, although it is certainly far below the truth.

[8] _The American Almanac_ for 1851.

Even if we were to throw into the scale a large portion of the excise duties levied in Britain, which Professor Johnston may be entitled to claim as a peculiar burden on "the masses"--at least as much as the customs--it would still be apparent, that, if such payments are to be taken as a fair criterion, _the people's burdens are not relatively heavier here than in America_. We shall only add further on this subject, that while many of the less opulent class of our fellow-citizens have undoubted real grievances to complain of, and while writers, with worse intentions than Professor Johnston, are ever ready to exaggerate them, and to foster discontent, it becomes one of his high character to guard against allowing a somewhat undisciplined taste for statistics to betray him into rash general allegations, calculated to produce error and irritation.

The parallel he has drawn, however, is very instructive on one point, although he has failed to notice it. He has taken some pains to prove that, tried by the American standard, our poor men pay too much, and our owners of real property too little, in both which conclusions we have shown his grounds to be fallacious; but he takes no notice of a far more obvious anomaly, the glaring injustice of which is every day attracting more public comment--the comparative _immunity of the owners of personal property_ in this country. The local taxation of the States, it has been seen, is levied by an equal assessment on property _of all kinds_; and although, from the character of a great part of the country, the real property much exceeds the movable in amount, the rate upon both is a uniform one. No description of possessions is favoured with an invidious exemption. We will take the assessment of one State as an example, and copy the following "Items of the valuation of the taxable property for the State of Iowa, according to the assessor's returns for 1849." They are as follows:--

"Acres of land--Improvements on land--Town lots and improvements--_Capital employed in merchandise_--Mills, manufactories, distilleries, carding machines and tan-yards, _with the stock employed_--Horses, cattle, sheep, &c.--Pleasure carriages, watches, pianofortes--_Capital stocks and profits in any company incorporated or unincorporated_--Property in boats and vessels--Gold and silver coin, and bank-notes in actual possession--_Claims for money, or other consideration--Annuities--Amount of notes, mortgages, &c. All other personal property over 100 dollars._"

All these descriptions of property contribute alike, dollar for dollar, towards the expenses of the State, which--be it remarked--embrace not only the general charges for interest of debt, and for the support of the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments, but include also payments for prisons, asylums, the militia, the public roads, and several other branches of expenditure, which in this country are saddled either upon real property or upon the land alone. Let any one look at the items of the above list printed in italics, and say what portion of such wealth passes through the national exchequer, or goes to uphold the public institutions, of Great Britain. The whole annual incomes above £50 a-year in Great Britain are estimated, on the best attainable data,[9] to amount to upwards of £352,000,000 sterling, of which the taxed real income is £86,000,000, or one-fourth part only. Is there any one with a conscience so elastic as to maintain that the owners of the other three-fourths contribute fairly to the support of the State, in proportion to the revenue they enjoy under its protection? From the investigations of Mr Smee, to whom we have referred, it appears that while the number of those who pay the direct taxes is about five hundred thousand, _there are upwards of one million eight hundred thousand persons in Great Britain enjoying incomes of above £50 a-year, who do not contribute one farthing to them_. What is this but a system of iniquitous exemption of the one class, and of virtual confiscation as to the other? But the whole subject occupies far too prominent a place in the public mind to be treated thus incidentally. For the present then we leave it, thoroughly persuaded that, under a form of government which acknowledges no distinctions between classes and interests, so shameless a violation of the plainest principles of equity cannot long be permitted to continue, and cordially joining in the wish that no object of less momentous interest--no schemes of impracticable retrenchment--no wily bait of extended suffrage--no flourishing of the old red rag of reform, may be suffered to distract the attention of the public, from the one great paramount practical reform--A READJUSTMENT OF TAXATION.

[9] See Mr Smee's pamphlet on the Income-Tax.

We owe an apology to Professor Johnston for having deviated somewhat from the ordinary course of a review. His work has already been so much and so flatteringly noticed, that to have limited ourselves to mere abridgment and quotation from the _Notes_ would have led us over the same ground that has been already exhausted by other critics. We have therefore preferred discussing some of the questions of greatest public interest which his observations have suggested; and if, on some of these, we have been led to dissent from his opinions, we have done so in no unfriendly spirit, which indeed would have been impossible in judging of an author whose own views are always expressed with perfect candour and moderation. There can be no doubt that, under the unpretending title which he has chosen to adopt, he has contrived to bring together a larger mass of varied and valuable information on the present condition of North America than is to be found in any work yet published.

THE ANSAYRII.

_The Ansayrii (or Assassins;) with Travels in the Further East._ By the Hon. FREDERIC WALPOLE, R.N., Author of _Four Years in the Pacific_. London: Bentley, 1851.

Hail to the bright East, with all its mysteries, its mighty past, its pregnant future, its inexhaustible sources of airiest amusement and most solemn interest! We welcome with pleasure the original and truly Oriental book before us. It harmonises rather with the poetic than the historic character of Eastern lands; but in its wild and dreamy narrative there are to be found vivid and faithful pictures, such as those that lighted up the charmed reveries of DeQuincey. For the present we will lay aside the critic's task: we will postpone all such considerations, and invite the reader to accompany us in a rapid tour over the varied regions which Mr Walpole has recalled to our memory and imagination. Let us turn for a little from the "world that is too much with us," and, ranging away from chilly mists and gloomy skies, sun our fancy in the lands where Paradise was planted.

Egypt and Palestine appear familiar to us all; they are of common interest to the whole Christian world--classic lands to every old villager who can read his Bible, as well as to the profound scholar. In them, sacred and profane history are so intimately blended that the latter assumes almost the authenticity of the former. Herodotus and his followers have actually a people still in the flesh (if flesh the mummy may be called) to refer to: subterranean Egypt is still inhabited by the undecayed bodies of the very men who associated with the Israelites, and forms that were beautiful and loved three thousand years ago. Imperishable as their old inhabitants, their temples and their monuments still stand above them, and will there remain unparalleled, until their long-buried architects shall rise again.

Passing on to Palestine, we find, memories and associations still stronger and more striking; for here nature is invested with the sentiment that in Egypt is awakened by art. Palestine belongs not to time only, but to eternity; with which, by types and illustrations, its earthly history is so beautifully blended and aggrandised. Its literature is inspired truth, its annals are prophecies fulfilled, and the very face of the land itself vindicates the beauty it _once_ wore, through all the sorrow and desolation that have fallen on it since. Owing to the metaphorical style of Oriental composition, every object in nature was used to illustrate or impress by its analogy; and hence not only the holy mountains, the sacred rivers, and the battle plains have memories for us, but the very "hyssop on the wall," the blasted fig-tree, the cedar, the "high rock in the thirsty land;" every vale, and hill, and lake, and city, is consecrated by some association with the men who spoke the words of God--with the time that witnessed His presence in the flesh.

The remorseless Jews were swept from the Promised Land, as their ancestor was from Eden, for the irreparable sin; and the sword of the Roman waved over the ruined walls of Jerusalem, forbidding all return. The Saracen and the Crusader succeeding, add another element of interest--an English association--to long-tried and suffering Judea. The Crusaders were rather a warlike emigration than invasion; they were the angry overflow of discontented Europe, which sought to vent its spleen and dogmas upon the Infidel. Their ebbing tide bore back to us the arts and sciences and chivalry of Arabia; and thus Palestine became the channel for all our best temporal acquirements, as it had long since furnished us with our eternal hope.

All this, and more--much more--invests Syria with undying and exhaustless interest to the student and the traveller; but we will not linger on such impressions now. We have a lighter task to fulfil, though we are about to visit the land of Nimrod, of Abraham's nativity, and of the empire of Semiramis. The pleasant company in which we travel will speed us on; and, in the old troubadour fashion, lay and legend will beguile the way. But before we enter fairly on our pilgrimage to "Ur of the Chaldees" and the tomb of Nineveh, we shall pause to make some practical observations on the route which, in its present aspect, may be new to some of our readers.

EGYPT MAY SOON BE REACHED IN TEN DAYS.[10] This is almost incredible; still more so, when we add that it may be accomplished without fatigue, hardship, or self-denial. The traveller even now embarks at Southampton in one of the Oriental Company's magnificent steamers, and finds himself landed at Alexandria in fifteen days, having visited Gibraltar and Malta, besides having travelled three thousand miles in as much comfort as he would have enjoyed at Brighton, with far more advantage to his health and spirits, and but trifling additional expense. For our own parts, we believe that, before long, sea voyages, instead of sea shores, will be resorted to, not only by the invalid, but by the epicurean and the idler. The floating hotels of our ocean steamers afford as comfortable quarters as any of their more stationary rivals, with the additional advantage of presenting a change of air and of scenery every morning that the "lodger" rises.

[10] By the leviathan steamers now building for the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company. They are calculated to make from sixteen to eighteen miles an hour, which would reduce the sea-going part of the voyage to eight days two hours.

The autumn--the later the _better_--is the _best_ period for visiting Egypt. October is, on the whole, the best month for beginning the ascent of the Nile. We will suppose the traveller landed at Alexandria: he achieves the lions of that suddenly-created city (except Aboukir Bay) in a few hours, and is ready to start for Cairo in the mail steamer, with the India-bound passengers who accompanied him from England. The country in which he now finds himself, by so sudden a transition, is full of apparent paradoxes; amongst others, he may be surprised to find that the canal on which he travels to Atfeh winds considerably, though no engineering obstacles whatever oppose themselves to a straight course. The reason of this sinuosity was thus explained to us by Mehemet Ali himself:--"You ask why my canal is not straight: Ya, Wallah! it is owing to a bit of bigotry. The dog who made it was a true Believer, and something more. He said to himself, 'Ya, Seedee, thou art about to make what Giaours call a canal, and Giaours in their impiety make such things straight. Now, a canal is made after the fashion of a river--(Allah pardon us for imitating his works!)--and all rivers wind: Allah forbid that my canal should be better than His river; it shall wind too.'"

And so it does.

Landed at Cairo, the traveller of the present day will find a steamer once a fortnight ready to take him up to the first cataract and back again, as fast as Young Rapid, or any other son of a tailor, could desire. But even the rational tourist will be tempted to send on his Kandjiah, (the old-fashioned Nile boat,) well found and provisioned, a fortnight or three weeks before him, and overtake her in the steamer. The Kandjiah voyage up stream is often wearisome, downward never--as in the descent you are borne softly along at from three to six miles an hour, even when you sleep. From the first cataract to the second is only about two hundred miles, and occupies about three weeks; but to those who can find pleasure in what is most wild and dreamy and unearthly in scenery and art, the desert view from Mount Abousir, the temples of Guerf, Hassan, and Ipsamboul, are worth all the rest of the Nile voyage, except Thebes and exquisite Philæ.[11] Returned to Alexandria, as we will suppose, in March, the traveller will be quite early enough for Syria, whose winter (considering the tented life he is compelled to lead) is not to be despised. A steamer transports him to Beyrout in thirty hours; and there our true travel begins.[12]

[11] The mere physical pleasure of the upper voyage has been thus described--"No words can convey an idea of the beauty and delightfulness of tropical weather, at least while any breeze from the north is blowing. There is a pleasure in the very act of breathing--a voluptuous consciousness that existence is a blessed thing: the pulse beats high, but calmly; the eye feels expanded; the chest heaves pleasureably, as if air was a delicious draught to thirsty lungs; and the mind takes its colouring and character from sensation. No thought of melancholy ever darkens over us--no painful sense of isolation or of loneliness, as day after day we pass on through silent deserts, upon the silent and solemn river. One seems, as it were, removed into another state of existence; and all the strifes and struggles of that from which we have emerged seem to fade, softened into indistinctness. This is what Homer and Alfred Tennyson knew that the lotus-eaters felt when they tasted of the mysterious tree of this country, and became weary of their wanderings:--

'----To him the gushing of the wave Far, far away, did seem to mourn and rave On alien shores: and, if his fellow spake, His voice was thin, as voices from the grave! And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake, And music in his ears his beating heart did make.'

If the day, with all the tyranny of its sunshine and its innumerable insects, be enjoyable in the tropics, the night is still more so. The stars shine out with diamond brilliancy, and appear as large as if seen through a telescope. Their changing colours, the wake of light they cast upon the water, the distinctness of the milky way, and the splendour, above all, of the evening star, give one the impression of being under a different firmament from that to which we have been accustomed; then the cool delicious airs, with all the strange and stilly sounds they bear from the desert and the forest; the delicate scents they scatter, and the languid breathings with which they make our large white sails appear to pant, as they heave and languish softly over the water."--(_The Crescent and the Cross_, vol. i. p. 210.)

[12] The journey from Cairo across the desert by Suez, or at least thence by Gaza or Sinai to Jerusalem, is performed in the same manner as it was in the days when Eothen, Dr Robinson, and Lord Castlereagh described it. The only difference occurs in the route between Cairo and Suez, which is now performed on wheels in about twelve hours, and, in the course of eighteen months, is expected to be easily accomplished in two hours and a half by railway.

Thus, (omitting the somewhat important episode of Egypt,) we find ourselves transported, in little more than a fortnight, from the murky fogs and leafless trees of England, to the delicious temperature and tropical verdure that surrounds the most beautiful town of the Levant. As every improvement in steam-navigation lessens its distance from Christendom, Beyrout increases and expands. Nor must we omit an honest tribute to the iron but even-handed justice of Ibrahim Pasha, which first rendered it safely accessible to Europeans. Before his conquest of Syria, the Frank was wont to skulk anxiously through the town, exposed to insult and unpunished violence: without the walls, the robber enjoyed as much impunity as the bigot did within; and, between both, Beyrout became, or continued to be, a miserable village. Its environs were wild wastes, where the gipsy alone ventured to pitch his tent, and the wild dog prowled. Now, pleasant gardens and picturesque kiosks, or summer-houses, replace the wilderness; the town expands, grows clean, doubles its population, and welcomes a crowd of shipping to its port. A more delightful residence, as a refuge from winter, can scarcely be conceived. An infinite variety of excursions may be made from hence; and every time the traveller mounts his horse, whether he be historically, picturesquely, controversially, botanically, or geologically given, he may return to his flat-roofed home with some valuable acquisition to his note-book. The views are everywhere magnificent, and the warm breezes from the bluest of oceans are tempered by the snowy neighbourhood of the loveliest of mountains.

Five roads of leading interest (besides many a cheering byway among the hills) branch out from the walls of Beyrout. Damascus is about eighteen hours off; Jerusalem six days; Djouni, the romantic residence and burial-place of Lady Hester Stanhope, ten hours; Baalbec, the flower of all Eastern ruins, eighteen hours, and Latakia, whither _we_ are bound, five days. These distances may be accomplished in less time; they are here given at the calculation of a walking pace, as the roads, or rather paths, are for the most part steep and difficult; and the baggage-horses, at all events, can seldom advance more rapidly. One word more of dry detail, and we shall put ourselves _en route_ for the mountains of the Ansayrii and the further East. Notwithstanding the advance of civilisation at Beyrout, where a European consulocracy has established a more than European equality of privileges between Turks and Christians, the interior of the country is daily becoming more dangerous to travel in. Eight years ago, when the stern rule of Ibrahim Pasha had still left its beneficent traces, the writer of this article wandered over the length and breadth of the land, attended by a single servant and a muleteer. Since our Government, for inscrutable reasons, has restored Syria to the embroilment of its native factions, all security for the traveller, and indeed for the native, has ceased. To reach Jerusalem, or even Damascus, in safety, a considerable escort is now necessary; though the Vale of Baalbec may still be reached in less warlike fashion from Latakia or Tripoli, if the traveller is endowed with liberality, courage, and courtesy--the leading virtues of his profession.

Before we proceed on our travels, let us introduce our guide. Mr Walpole is a young naval officer, and there is in most of his narrative a dashing impetuous style, which savours of his profession. In this there is a certain charm, imparting as it does an air of frank and fearless confidence in his reader's quick perception and favourable construction. There is in his writings what we would also hope is professional--a chivalrous feeling and generous sentiment, that is never obscured by a sordid thought or unworthy imputation. As he sees clearly, of course he also sees faults in men, and minds, and manners; but such discoveries are made in a tone of regret rather than of triumph; or thrown off in a strain of good-humoured satire that could not offend even its objects. His descriptive powers are graphic, and often very vivid; his humour is very original, being generally tinged with melancholy, in such sort as that of a philanthropic Jacques might be: finally, he does not fear to display a profound and manly reverence for holy things and sacred places. On the other hand, to set against all these high merits, we must confess that many faults afford some drawback to his book. It is often incoherent, and deficient in arrangement. The first volume is rather the groundwork than the accomplishment of what an author with Mr Walpole's powers and material should have effected. Most of these faults, however, may find their excuse in the circumstances under which they were composed. They smack of the tent, the boat, and the bivouac, as old wine does of the _borachio_. Whatever they may be, this work is one that will be widely read; and wherever it is read with appreciation, it will direct the interest not only to its subject, but its author: his individuality, unostentatiously and unconsciously, is impressed on every page; and his genius, however erratic, is unquestionable.

The cockpit, and even the gun-room of a man-of-war, are little favourable to intellectual effort, or the habit or the love of learning which it can alone accomplish. We can therefore make greater allowances for errors in composition, and concede greater credit for the attainments in languages and general knowledge which our young author has achieved. This is perhaps still more striking in a work written by Mr Walpole three years ago, entitled _Four Years in the Pacific_, which, though written in a midshipman's berth, abounds in passages of beauty, and in his peculiar and original humour. Having said so much in his praise and dispraise, and only premising, in addition, that he speaks Arabic and Turkish, so as to interpret for himself the quaint unusual thoughts of the people among whom he lives, we enter upon a survey of what he saw.

We have unwillingly passed over the whole of our author's outward voyage, which is graphically, and almost dramatically, described. We shall only refer to one or two passages respecting the Levant. The following sentence may dispel some fanciful visions of the sunny climate of Stamboul:--

"Snow, 'thick and deep' enveloped the city; cupola, dome, and cypress were burdened with icicles; above, was an angry winter sky with a keenly piercing wind.... English fires and English coals were the best things we saw--we were actually blockaded by the weather.... At length we embarked: the crew were shovelling the deep snow-drift off the deck, so we rushed below into a cabin whose bulkheads were beautifully varnished, sofas perfect, skylights closed, the whole atmosphere tobacco. We were off, gliding past the Seraglio Point, which was swathed in snow, and looking like a man in summer clothes caught in a wintry storm.... Masses animate and inanimate encumbered the deck; the former for the most part consisting of the Sultan's subjects; among the latter our baggage, which was thrown into the general heap, and kicked about until it found quiet in the hold.... The numbers thus congregated were principally pilgrims, on their way to Jerusalem and to the Jordan; though others, on more worldly journey bent, were mingled with the rest. Each family had taken a spot on the deck, and there, piled over with coverings, and surrounded with their goods, they remained during the voyage: one side of the after-deck was alone kept clear for the first-class passengers, and even this was often invaded by others, who wisely remarked that _we_ had cabins below.

"Each family forms a scene in itself; and an epitome of life in the East is found by a glance around. Four merchants, on their return from a trading tour, have bivouacked between the skylights; and they sing and are sick; call _kief_[13] and smoke, with true Moslem indifference. On the starboard quarter, our notions of Eastern domesticity are sadly put out, for there a Moslem husband is mercilessly bullied by a shrill-voiced Houri. It is curious to observe her perseverance in covering her face, even during the agonies of sea-sickness. Their black servant has taken us into the number of licensed ones, and her veil now hangs over her neck like a loosened neck-cloth.

[13] _Kief_: a word difficult to translate, but expressing perfect abandonment to repose; a _dolce far niente_ which only Orientals can thoroughly achieve.

"On the other side, a Greek family in three generations lies along the deck, fortified by a stout man-servant across their legs, whose attentions to the girls during his own heart-rending ailments is very pretty. The huge grandmother was set on fire and smouldered away most stoically, until her foot began to burn, when, while others put her out, she sank blubbering to sleep again. The pretty granddaughters find the long prostration more irksome; but send their flashing eyes about with careless movement, and so the mass goes on. Here one appears to be offering up _nazam_, but nearer inspection shows that his shoe is only receiving the offering to the heaving waves....

"Our steamer had passed sad hours of toil, and pitched and tossed us all out of temper before we entered the calm waters to leeward of Rhodes, and at last, passing the low points covered with detached houses and windmills, we shot round in front of the harbour. Our view of the intervening coast had been too vague to form a judgment upon it; but here and there a peak towered up above the mists, all else being veiled by the cloudy sky.... No place it has ever been my fortune to visit, more, by its appearance, justifies its character than Rhodes. Around the harbour's shore, one continued line of high castellated wall, unbroken save by flanking towers or frowning portals; from the wave on either side, dovetailed to the rock, rise the knightly buildings; and as the eye reaches round, no dissonant work mars the effect, save that one lofty palm rears its tropic head--but it adds to, rather than lessens, the effect. Above the walls, a mosque with its domed roof or minaret appears; and the fragile building speaks, how truly! in its contrast to the massive walls and ponderous works of former rulers, that the battle is not always to the strong."

In speaking of the sister island-fortress, Malta, our author remarks (in a former page) the immediate contrast presented by these luxurious arsenals:--

"The Eastern reclines on the cushioned divan, the embodiment of repose; the softest carpets, the freshest flowers, surround him--soft women attend the slightest motion of his eye--all breathes of indolence, abandonment, and ease; yet his girdle bristles with arms--his gates are locked and guarded. So at Malta, the bower is a bastion, the saloon a casemate, the serenade the call of martial music, the draperies war-flags, the ornaments shot in ready proximity."

Proceeding to Tarsus, we pass on to Alexandretta, "a wretched collection of hovels. The harbour is splendid; the ruins of the old, the skeleton of the new town, standing on the beach. Behind it, in every direction, stretches a fetid and swampy plain, which only requires drainage to be rendered fertile and wholesome." This is the seaport of Aleppo, on the road to which lies the town of Beilau, and the village of Mortawan, where Pagan rites, especially those of Venus, are still said to be maintained. But again we reimbark--

"Again the vessel cuts the wave. The mountains become a feeble bleached outline, save Cassius on the north, who frowns on his unrecorded fame. Yes, noble hill! though not so high as Strabo tells, though not lofty and imposing; though dark thy path now--unnoticed, solitary. There blazed up the last effort of the flame of pagan civilisation: there Julian the Great--whatever other title men may bestow upon him--offered his solemn sacrifice to Jupiter the Avenger, previous to his last campaign, when the eagles were to wave over Mesopotamia.

"The Sabbath dawned fresh, unclouded, and beautiful, as we anchored in the pretty little port of Latakia, the ancient Laodicea. The town of Latakia, built by Seleucus Nicator, in honour of his mother, is comprehended in the Pashalic of Saida, or Beyrout. It stands on a spur of the Ansayrii Mountains. About half a mile inland, the spur falls into the sea, and forms Cape Zairet; the town stands on its southern slope, and is joined, by gardens and a port, to the sea. The port is small and well sheltered; but time, Turks, and ruins, are filling it up. The buildings on the shore, having their backs to the sea, present the appearance of a fortification. On a reef of rock that shelters the harbour stands a pile of building of different eras. It seems to be castle, mosque, and church. Along the beach lie hundreds of shafts of columns, and many are built into the walls, of whose remains you catch a glimpse on the southern side."

Here we must pause, though our traveller proceeds to Beyrout, of which he gives a charming account, which our limits forbid us to quote. We reserve our space for more novel scenes, and must pass over a chapter on Damascus, which is rich in legends and graphic pictures. Thence, _en route_ to Homs, by the way of the desert, eastward of the Anti-Lebanon, we have a sketch that is too characteristic of Eastern travel to pass over:--

"North, south and east, dead plain; west, a low range of hills, and beyond, the fair Anti-Lebanon in all its snowy beauty. Desert all around us, but no dreary waste. Here and there were loose stones and rocks; the rest a carpet of green, fresh, dewy grass, filled with every hue of wild-flowers--the poppy in its gorgeous red, the hyacinth, the simple daisy and others, thick as they could struggle up, all freshened with a breeze heavy with the scents of thyme. The lark sent forth its thrill of joy in welcome to the coming day; before us the pennon of the spearmen gleamed as they wound along the plain. We passed the site of an Arab encampment strewn with fire-blackened stones, bones, and well picked carcasses. Storks and painted quails sauntered slowly away at our approach, or perched and looked as if they questioned our right to pass. At eight o'clock halted at a khan called Hasiah also. The population consisting of robust, wild-looking fellows; and very pretty women poured out to sell hard-boiled eggs, leban, bread, and milk: they were all Mussulmans....

"We were soon disturbed by a multitude of sick, which recalled to one's mind how in this land, of old, the same style of faces, probably in the same costumes, crowded to Him who healed. The lame, carried by the healthy; feeble mothers with sickly babes; hale men showing wounds long self-healed; others with or without complaints."

Arrived at Homs, we have--

"Fish for dinner, from the Lake of Kades, whose blue waters we saw in the distance to-day. The Lebanon opens behind that lake, and you may pass to the sea, on the plain, without a hill. This plain, but rarely visited, is among the most interesting portions of Syria, containing numerous convents, castles, and ruins, and its people are still but little known. Maszyad, the principal seat of the sect called Ismayly: the Ansayrii also, and Koords, besides Turks, Christians, and gipsys, may be found among its varied population. The ancient castle of El Hoshn, supposed, by the lions over its gates, to have been built by the Count of Thoulouse, is well worth a visit. The Orontes, taking its rise in a rock, from whence it gushes just west of the Tel of Khroumee,--(true bearing from Homs from south 60° 32' east,)--flows through the Lake of Kades, and passes about 2° to the west of Homs: it is called Nahr El Aazzy, or "the rebel river," some say because of its running north, while all the other rivers run south; more probably, however, on account of its rapidity and strength of current. It is an historical stream; on its banks were altars, and the country it waters is almost unmatched for beauty--

'Oh, sacred stream! whose dust Is the fragments of the altars of idolatry.'"

It was at Homs--the ancient Emessa--that Zenobia was brought as a captive into the presence of Aurelian.

"Why did she not there fall? why add the remaining lustreless years to her else glorious life? why, in the words of Gibbon, sink insensibly into the Roman matron? Zenobia fat, dowdy, and contented--profanation! Zimmerman, however, invests the close of her career with graceful philosophy: at Tivoli, in happy tranquillity, she fed the greatness of her soul with the noble images of Homer, and the exalted precepts of Plato; supported the adversity of her fortunes with fortitude and resignation, and learnt that the anxieties attendant on ambition are happily exchanged for the enjoyments of ease and the comforts of philosophy."

From Homs we reach Aleppo in four days.

"It was a spring morning, and a gentle keenness, wafted from snow-clad mountains, rendered the climate delightful. The town lay beneath me, and each terrace, court, serai, and leewan lay open to my view. I saw Aleppo was built in a hollow, from which ran plains north and west, surrounded by mountains. To the north, Djebel Ma Hash and his range, untouched by the soft smiles of the young spring, lay deep in the snow; the flat connected grass-grown roofs and well-watered sparkling courts, with their carefully-tended trees, relieving the glare of the houses, while all around the town lay belted in its garden. The scene was pretty and pleasing; here and there the forests of tomb-stones, the perfect minaret, the Eastern dome swelling up from the mob of flat roofs,--these formed a sight that told I was in the East, in the cradle of mankind--the home of history."...

"And here, though sorely pressed for time, we must stop for a picnic, which E---- and myself were told it would be right to give. We provided carpets, nargillehs, horse-loads of sundries, cushions, a cargo of lettuces; and thus equipped, we sallied out, a very numerous party. The first thing to select was a garden, a point on which our own choice, and not the owner's will, seemed alone to be consulted. Let not the reader fancy an Eastern garden is what a warm Western fancy would paint it--wild with luxuriant but weedless verdure, heavy with the scent of roses and jessamine, thrilling with the songs of the bulbul and the nightingale, where fair women with plaited tresses touch the soulful lute in graceful attitudes. No; it is a piece of ground enclosed by high walls, varying in size. A wretched gate, invariably badly made, probably ruined, admits you to the interior. Some enclose a house with two or three rooms--windowless, white-washed places. Before this is a reservoir of dirty, stagnant water, turned up from a neighbouring well by an apparatus as rude as it is ungainly and laborious: this is used to irrigate the ground, which therefore is alternately mud and dust. Fruit trees or mulberries are planted in rows, and the ground beneath, being ploughed up, is productive of vegetables or corn. One or two trees, for ornament, may be planted in the first row, but nothing more; and weeds, uncut, undestroyed, spring up in every direction. Such, without exaggeration, is the _Bistan zareff quiess!_--the Lovely Garden.

"We selected one that belonged to the Mollah. Oh, true believer! in thy pot we boiled a ham; on thy divan we ate the forbidden beast; thy gardener, for base reward, assisting to cook--who knows, but also to eat the same? We chose a spot shaded by a noble walnut tree, and spread carpets and cushions. Fire was lighted, nargillehs bubbled, and kief began."

On the 2d of May we start for the Euphrates, and follow for some time nearly the route recommended by Colonel Chesney for the great Indian railway to Bussora, on the Persian Gulph. The distance is little more than 800 miles--scarcely thirty steam-winged hours--the level surpassingly uniform. Truly those who desire to find either solitude, or what our author calls _kief_, in the East, must repair thither quickly, for the iron of the engineer has already entered into its soul. Already the blue and white rivers of the Nile are more easily attainable than were the Tiber and the Po to our grandfathers. Beyrout and Latakia will soon be fashionable watering-places; Baalbec as well known as Melrose Abbey; and the excavated ruins of Nimroud will come under the range of "return tickets." The grim Arab will look out from any quiet spot that the all-searching Cockney may have spared him; and he will gaze with wonder on the awful processions of the "devil-goaded" tourists, as they rush with magic speed across his wilderness--only to retrace their steps. The Turk, at the utmost bounds of the Othman Empire, will marvel at this new freak of _kismet_ (destiny;) with a sigh he will abandon his beloved _bockra_ (the "to-morrow" in which he loves to live;) and commending himself to Islam, or resignation in its most trying form, he will "jump in" like the mere Giaours, and be hurled along with the rest across the desert behind the Afreet stoker.

But at present the wilderness knows nothing of all this, and we have before us the scenery of other days as Abram beheld it. We now cross the Chalus River, and enter upon a series of vast plains, varied by mysterious _tels_ or mounds, rising up from the level surface like bubbles on a pool. On, or among these, the ever restless Turkomans pitch their tents, and welcome the traveller kindly to their wandering homes. On the third day from Aleppo we reach Aintab, on the river Sadschur, "which, fresh and young, danced brightly on, as if eager to join the Euphrates and see the wide world beyond."

"At Aintab, among other visitors was Doctor Smith, an American missionary. He was a well-bred, sensible man, a clever linguist, and, from all I ever heard, an earnest and zealous servant of his heavenly Master. His mission already shows results which must indeed be a source of peace to his heart, and proves that some are allowed even in this world to reap the fruits of their toil for the Lord. In that very town, whence a few years ago he was insulted and abused, a faithful flock now join in humble prayers to God; and surely they pray for him, the instrument of their salvation. I was much pleased at the plain unexaggerating way in which he told the history of his mission.... The good work has progressed, and he now has from one hundred and fifty to three hundred pupils in his school, many the children of non-converted parents. And in this year's enrolment--great glory to our ambassador at Constantinople!--the Protestants are enrolled as a separate religious community: the males are two hundred and odd here.

"All sects recognised by the Porte are enrolled separately, as their taxes, &c., are apportioned by their own heads (chiefs.)"

Many of the Armenians here have been converted to the Church of England, and this has proved to be a most advantageous change for their women.

"They are now emancipated from the bondage they have so long been held in--I do not mean personal bondage, for perhaps there is less of it in the East than in the West--but their whole moral position has undergone a vast change. The man is now first taught that the woman is his best friend; his firmest, truest companion; his equal in the social scale, as God made her--a help meet for him, not a mere piece of household furniture. The woman is also taught to reverence the man as her head; thus imparting that beautiful lesson, 'He for God only, she for God through him.' She is also taught perhaps a harder lesson, a more painful task--to relinquish all her costly ornaments, when such may be more usefully employed in trade and traffic; to consider necessaries more beautiful than costly clothes or embroidered suits. Gradually she is allowed to unite with the man in prayers, which is permitted by no other sect in the East, women always having a portion of the church set apart for them, and the Moslems praying at different times. May it please Him who gives and dispenses all things, to prosper this and all other good and holy works!... On leaving Aintab, we passed over the hills that environ the town, and entered a pretty valley, through which the Sadschur river accompanies us. Here, at a small village called Naringa, we chose a pretty spot under some trees, and pitched our tents. The horses browsed at our door, the stream jumped by before us as we took our evening's repose. And repose it is to sit thus at the close of a day of travel, to enjoy the view of the lovely regions given man to dwell in; to see the various changes time, circumstances, and religion have wrought in the family of Adam, or, as the Arabs say, in the Beni Adam. It was a lovely evening; and as I reclined apart from my more gregarious fellow-travellers, I felt

'That the night was filled with music, And the cares that infested the day Had folded their tents, like the Arab, And as silently stolen away.'"

From Naringa our route lies eastward over low undulated hills, still marked by frequent _tels_, generally surmounted by a village. "Are these mounds natural, or does man still fondly cling to the ruined home of his fathers?" Crossing the river Kirsan, we arrive at Nezeeb, lying among vineyards and plantations of figs, pistachios, and olives, interspersed with fields of wheat. At this village the Sultan's forces, 70,000 strong, were defeated by Ibrahim Pasha with 45,000 men--a bootless victory, soon neutralised by a few lines from our "Foreign Office." On the 6th day after leaving Aleppo, we find ourselves on the Euphrates, the _Mourad Shai_, or "Water of desire."[14]

[14] The Moslems being water-drinkers, are as curious about their streams as _bons vivans_ are about their cellars. One of the Caliphs sent to weigh all the waters in his wide kingdom, and found that of the Euphrates was the lightest.

"In all its majesty, it glides beneath our gaze. It is needless to tell the history of this river, renowned in the earliest traditions. Watering the Paradise of earth, it has been mingled with the fables of heaven; the Lord gave it in his covenants unto Abram; Moses, inspired, preached it in his sermon to the people. In its waters are bound the four angels, and, at the emptying of the sixth vial, its waters will dry up, that the 'way of the kings of the East may be prepared.' In every age it has formed a prominent feature in the diorama of history, flashing with sunshine, or sluggish and turbid with blood; and here, on its bank, its name unchanged, all now is solitude and quiet.

"Descending amidst wide burial-grounds, where here and there a _kubbé_ sheltered some clay more revered than the rest, we reached its shores, and patiently took up our quarters beneath the shade of a tree, till a boat should arrive to carry us over. The redoubt, Fort William, as it was called, of the Euphrates expedition still remains. In ancient times four shallows existed where there were bridges over the Euphrates: the northernmost at Samosata, now unused; Rum Kalaat, further south, being the route frequented; Bir, the khan and eastern bank of which is called Zeugma, or the Bridge, to this day; and the fourth at Thapsacus, the modern Thapsaish, where Cyrus, Alexander, and Crassus passed into Mesopotamia. The Arabs now generally pass here, or else by fords known only to themselves. Julian crossed at a place called Menbidjy, which was probably abreast of Hierapolis.

"But what avails to recount individual cases?--the whole land is history. Near us is Racca, once the favourite residence of Aaron the Just. Here he delighted to spend his leisure--

'Entranced with that place and time, So worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.'"

We cross the Euphrates to the town of Bir, and proceed still eastward, along a flat desert, strewn with a small-bladed scanty grass, aromatic flowers, and wormwood. "One small gleam, like a polished shield or a dark sward, is all we see of the mighty river that flows around us. Every hour of the day changes the aspect of the desert: now it is wild and gloomy, as scudding clouds pass over the sun; now smiling with maiden sweetness, as the sun shines out again." Often we pass by the tented homes of the desert tribes, with their flocks and herds tended by busy maidens, now screaming wildly after their restless charge--now singing songs as wild, but sweeter far. Then comes sunset with its massed clouds of purple, blue, and gold; the air is full of bleatings as the flocks all tamely follow their shepherds home. On the tenth day after leaving Aleppo, we descend into a plain covered with some dusty olive-trees: we come to a hill with a low wall, and a castle on its summit. "And this is the Ur of the Chaldees, the Edessa of the Romans, the Orfa of the Arabs. Here God spake to Abram." From this city, very fruitful in legends, we reach Haran in six hours; travelling over a plain strewn with _tels_ and encampments of the Koords.

"Perhaps by this very route Abraham of old and those with him travelled; nor is it extravagance to say, the family we now meet may exhibit the exact appearance that the patriarchs did four thousand years ago--the tents and pots piled on the camels; the young children in one saddle-bag balancing the kids in the other; the matron astride on the ass; the maid following modestly behind; the boys now here, now there; the patriarch himself on his useful mare, following and directing the march. As we pass, he lays his hand on his heart, and says, 'Peace be with you; where are you going?--Depart in peace.'"

Haran appears to be, without doubt, the ancient city of Nahor, where Laban lived, and where Jacob served for Leah and Rachel. Here, too, is Rebekah's well, and here our traveller beheld the very counterpart of the scene that Eleazar saw when he sought a bride for his master's son. By this time our author had so far identified himself with the desert tribes, their language, their interests, their enjoyment of the desert life, and their love of horses, that he seems to feel, and almost to speak, in the Arab style. We have never seen that interesting people so happily described and so vividly illustrated. If we had not so much before us still to investigate, we would gladly dwell upon the desert journey from Haran to Tel Bagdad, and on the raft voyage thence down the Tigris to Mosul. One graphic sketch of an Arab sheik must serve for many: his characteristic speech contains volumes of his people's history.

"The young sheik was not, probably, more than seventeen or eighteen years of age; handsome, but with that peculiarly girlish effeminate appearance I have before mentioned as so frequently found among the younger aristocracy of the desert, and so strangely belied by their character and deeds. He now held my horse, and, apologising for his father's temporary absence, welcomed us. The tent was large and well made. We remained here smoking and drinking coffee till the sheik Dahhal arrived. He was fully dressed in silk--a fine figure of a man with light clear eyes. Wounds, received long ago, have incapacitated him from the free use of his hands, but report says he can still grasp the rich dagger at his girdle with a fatal strength when passion urges him. Though every feeling was subdued, there showed through all his mildness the baffled tiger, whose vengeance would be fearful--he resembled a netted animal, vainly with all its cunning seeking to break the meshes that encompassed him on all sides.

"He received us with a hospitality that seemed natural; his words were more sonorous, grand, and flowing than those of any Arab I had before seen. They reminded me of the pleasure I had felt in South America in listening to the language of a true Spaniard, heard amidst the harsh gutturals of a provincial jargon; strings of highflown compliments, uttered with an open, noble mien, that, while it must please those to whom it is used, seems but a worthy condescension in him.

'He was a man of war and woes; Yet on his lineaments ye cannot trace, While gentleness her milder radiance throws Along that aged venerable face, The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.'

"If report speaks true, never did there breathe a truer son of Hagar than Sheik Dahhal. During his whole life his hand has been against every man, and every man's against him. Gaining his social position with his dagger, he openly endeavoured to enlarge it by every exercise of force or fraud. The whole frontier of Mardin, Nisibis, Mosul, Bagdad, &c., are his deadly enemies, made so by his acts. It must be sad in declining years to see the wreck of a youth thus spent; already the punishment and repayment are hard at hand.

"Successful violence brings temporary rewards--power, rule, dominion; but for this he has bartered honour, fame, youth, conscience: every stake, every ruse, has been used, and he gains but defeat, disgrace, and contempt. It must be hard, very hard, for the proud man to live on thus. I pitied him, and could feel for him as he fondled his young son, a lovely little naked savage, who lay crouching at his side. He had two or three other children, all strikingly handsome....

"We were ultimately obliged to refuse his escort. 'It is well,' said he, 'whether you go or stay, all Dahhal has, all his enemies have left him, is yours.' We asked him if he saw any change in the Arab since he remembered: he looked quietly round at his tents, at his camels now crowded round them, the flocks lowing to their homes; his dress, his arms, and then said, 'No: since the time of the Prophets--since time was, we are unchanged; perhaps poorer, perhaps less hospitable in consequence; but otherwise unchanged.' He made a very just remark afterwards: 'Our habits are the only ones adapted to the country we live in; they cannot change unless we change our country: no other life can be lived here.'"

Our travellers, sending their horses and servants along the banks of the Tigris, themselves embarked on board a raft composed of inflated skins; and their voyage, after many incidents, terminated in the following scene:--

"At last the pious true-believing eye of the boatman detected the minarets of Mosul over the low land on the right. On our left was a large temporary village, built of dried grass, roughly and coarsely framed; low peaked mountains ahead broke the steel line of the sky. No sooner did our boatman detect the minarets, than he continued his prayers, confiding the oars to one of the servants. Poor fellow! it was sad work; for the raft, as if in revenge for the way he had pulled her about, kept pertinaciously turning, and as it bore his Mecca--turned front to the north, east, or west--he had to stop his pious invocations, that otherwise would have been wafted to some useless bourne; and then, as in the swing she turned him to the black stone, he had to hurry on, like sportsmen anxious for some passing game. Often he rose, but seemed not satisfied, and again he knelt, and bowing prayed his Caaba-directing prayers. This man had not prayed before during the voyage.

"At last, over the land appeared a mud fort hardly distinguishable from the hill; before it a white-washed dome, a few straggling buildings--it was Mosul. Presently an angle is turned, and the broken ruinous wall of an Eastern town lies before us."

Mosul is only sixteen days' journey from Aleppo. Although now invested with a lasting interest by its connection with Mr Layard's magnificent discoveries, it is one of the least attractive cities of the East. Its neighbourhood, with the grand exception of buried Nineveh, and some curious naphtha springs, is equally devoid of interest. The huge mound called Koyunjik, "coverer of cities," lies on the opposite side of the Tigris, about two miles from the river. Tel Nimroud, where the first successful excavations were made, is about eighteen miles lower down. It will be remembered that Mr Rich, a merchant of Bagdad, first directed attention to these subterranean treasures nearly twenty years ago: M. Botta, more recently, made some energetic attempts to discover them; but it remained for our gallant countryman, Mr Layard, to render his name illustrious by unveiling the mysteries of ages, and restoring to light the wonders of the ancient capital of the Assyrians. His renown, and still more his success itself, must be its own reward; but we fear that in all other respects the nation is still deeply in his debt. The capricious liberalities of our Government with respect to art are very singular; the financial dispositions of the British Museum are still more difficult to explain. The former does not hesitate to bestow £2500 on transporting a pillar from the sea-shore of Egypt to London, while it only places at Mr Layard's disposal £3000 for the excavation of Nineveh and its surrounding suburbs, eighteen miles in extent--together with the support and pay of a numerous staff of artists and others during eighteen months. On the other hand, the trustees of the British Museum, knowing themselves already to be deeply in Mr Layard's debt, refuse to further his great efforts, except by the paltry (and refused) pittance of £12 a-month; and, at the same time, they furnish Colonel Rawlinson with the sum of £2000 to proceed with excavations at Koyunjik, (three hundred miles from his residence,) and at Susa, which is one-third of the distance. In the approaching session of Parliament, we hope that Mr Layard's services to England and to art will be more generously appreciated than they have hitherto been; and that, at all events, we shall not be left to labour under the disgrace of pecuniary debt to that enterprising gentleman.

We have now reached our traveller's goal, and must make brief work of his returning tour, in order to spare some columns to the consideration of the Ansayrii, the most important matter in the work.

After a residence of some weeks at Mosul, and at the several neighbouring excavations, Mr Walpole accompanied Mr Layard in a tour through the fastnesses of Koordistan: and here we must find space for one or two glimpses at those unknown regions, and the life that awaits the traveller there.

Before we begin to ascend the hill country, we look back:

"On either side, the mountain falls away with jut and crag almost perpendicularly to the plain; at the foot, hills rise above hills in irregular and petulant ranges, like a stormy sea when the wind is gone, and nothing save its memory remains, lashing the waves with restless motion. Westward lies the vast plain, its surface broken by the mounds of imperial cities long passed away.

"One moment the eye rests on the Tigris as it glides its vast volume by; then, out upon the plain, the desert broken by the range of Singar, again on to distance where earth and air mingle imperceptibly together. To the south, over a varied land, is Mosul, the white glare of its mosque glistening in the sun; to the south and east, a sea of hills, wave after wave, low and irregular. The Zab, forcing its way, takes a tortuous course to its companion; farther on, they join their waters, and run together to the vast worlds of the south. Beyond are Arbela and the Obeid. Kara Chout and its crags shut out the view, passing many a spot graven on the pages of the younger world.

"What a blank in history is there around those vast cities, now brought to light! A few vague traditions, a few names whose fabulous actions throw discredit on their existence, are all that research has discovered. Even the nations following after these we know but dimly--tradition, garlanded by poetry, our only guide.

'Belshazzar's grave is made, His kingdom passed away; He in the balance weighed, Is light and worthless clay. The shroud his robe of state; His canopy the stone; The Mede is at his gate, The Persian on his throne.'

"Fancy conjures up to the south a small and compact body of Greeks: around them, at a distance, like vultures round a struggling carcase, hover bands of cavalry. Now, as a gap opens, they rush on; now, as the ranks close up, they melt away, shooting arrows as they fly, vengeful in their cowardice--it is the retreat of Xenophon and his gallant band. They encamp at Nimroud--as in his yesterday, so in our to-day, a mound smothering its own renown.

"Northward again comes a mighty band: with careful haste they cross the rivers, and with confident step traverse the plain south. On the south-east plain, a legion of nations, golden, glittering, yet timorous, await their approach. Alexander, the hero, scatters dismay: assured of conquest ere he met the foe, he esteems the pursuit the only difficulty. On the one side, Asia musters her nations--Indians, Syrians, Albanians, and Bactrians--the hardiest population of her empire. Elephants and war-chariots are of no avail: the result was fore-written, and Darius foremost flies along the plain.

"Faint, afar, we can see in the north-west Lucullus; and the arms of Rome float over the walls of Nisibis, (B.C. 68.) We may almost see the glorious array of Julian; hear him subduing his mortal pain; hear him pronounce, with well-modulated tones, one of the finest orations the world can record. We may see the timid Jovian skulking in his purple from the field he dared not defend in his armour. But again rise up the legions and the Labarum: Heraclius throws aside his lethargy; the earth drinks deep of gore, and Khosroo[15] is vanquished under our eyes.

[15] He was subsequently murdered, A. D. 62.

"The white and the black banners now gleam upon the field; the crescent flaunts on either side. One God, one faith--they fight for nought. Hell for the coward, paradise for the brave. Abou Moslem and Merwan. The earth, on the spot which had last drunk the red life-blood of Greek and Persian, now slakes its fill. Merwan flies with wondrous steps, but the avenger follows fast. He first loses his army on the Tigris; himself dies on the banks of the Nile: there perished the rule of the Ommiades.

"The hordes of Timour now approach: their war-song ought to be the chorus of the spirits of destiny in _Manfred_--

'Our hands contain the hearts of men, Our footsteps are their graves; We only give to take again The spirits of our slaves.'

"What a different aspect must this plain have presented when those sun-burnt mysterious mounds were living, teeming, sinning cities; irrigated, cultivated, protected, safe; fruitful and productive! And these were barbarous times; and now, in this our day, peace-congresses, civilisation, one vast federal union, liberty, equality;--a few villages fortified as castles, a population flying without a hope of even a death-spot in peace--fearful alike of robbers and rulers, robbed alike by protectors and enemies, planting the harvest they may not reap; a government seizing what the roving Arabs choose to leave; law known but as oppression; authority a license to plunder; government a resident extortioner.

"Too long have we lingered on the scene. Again the plain is naked, bare, and lifeless; the sun hovers on the horizon--he gilds the desert, licks the river; the desert breaks his glorious disc. Slowly, like the light troops covering a retreat, he collects his rays; with fondness lights up each hill; warms with his smile, lighting with unnumbered tints each peak and crag of hold desert-throned Singar. Reluctantly he hovers for a moment on the horizon's verge, large, fearful, red; then

'The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark.'

"Near the convent is a dripping well; a rough path leads us to it, and its entrance is shaded by a gigantic tree. The water is very cold and sweet; the moisture shed a coolness around, that made an exquisite retreat. Near it is a cave which in days of persecution sheltered securely many of the poor fugitive Christians. The destruction of most of the convents about these mountains and on this plain is imputed to Tamerlane; but in our own time Sheik Mattie was attacked by the Koords; its fathers were slain, beaten, and dispersed; and the dust of long ages of bishops scattered to the winds. They still show in the church the tombs of Mar Halveus and Abou Faraf, which they say escaped the observation of the destroyer. The inscription of one we were able to decipher; but another resisted even the efforts of the scholar then resident at the convent. We in vain tried many learned men, but the inscription defies all investigation.

'Chaldea's seers are good, But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood, Untold and mystic still.'

"We now made straight for Sheik Mattie, whose green gorge we could discover high up the face of the mountain. The plain was a succession of low hills all brown with the summer; here and there a Koord village with its cultivated fields, cucumbers, and cool melons. The villages west of the river are nearly all Christian, but on to-day's ride we passed two Koordish ones. At one we halted, and regaled ourselves and horses on the fruit they pressed on us.

"The old sheik came out, followed by two men with felts; these were spread in the cool, and we made kief. He begged the loan of Zea, (my Albanian greyhound,) whom he praised beyond measure for his extreme beauty, to kill hares. To hear him talk, his complaints of game, of fields, hares destroyed, &c., I could have believed myself once more in England, but that he closed each sentence with "It is God's will; His will be done," and such like holy words. His long, wide, graceful robes also brought one back to the East, to poetry and to romance."

And here we find less happy accidents in a traveller's life, which must not pass unremembered.

"At first, one of the greatest privations I experienced in Eastern travel, and one that half did away with the pleasure derived from it, was the want of privacy; and one can fully understand (as probably centuries have produced but little change in their habits) the expression in the Bible, of our Saviour retiring apart to pray; for, in the East, privacy is a word unknown. Families live in one room; men, women, sons, daughters, sons' wives, &c., and may be said never to be alone. This at first annoyed me, but habit is second nature. As soon as the traveller arrives he has visits; all the world crowd to see him; the thousand nameless things one likes to do after a tedious hot journey must be done in public. Before you are up they are there; meals, all, there they are; and there is nothing for it but to proceed just as if the privacy was complete....

"FRIDAY, 12th--I rose as well as usual: on one side of the tent lay the Doctor, dead beat; under one flap which constitutes a separate room, Abdallah perfectly insensible: the cook lay behind on a heap of horse-cloths, equally stricken. I sat down to write in the air: finding the flies annoyed me, I read, fell asleep, and remember nothing save a great sensation of pain and weariness for two days. It seemed as if a noise awoke me; it was early morning, and Mr Layard stood before me. Poor fellow! he had learned how to treat the fever by bitter, almost fatal, personal experience; and now he dosed us and starved us, till all but Abdallah were out of danger, at all events.

"It is curious how soon people of warm climates,--or, in fact, I may say,--all uneducated people, succumb to sickness. Hardy fellows, apparently as strong as iron: when attacked they lie down, wrap a coat or cloak around them, and resign themselves to suffer. It would seem that the mind is alone able to rise superior to disease: their minds, uncultivated, by disuse weak, or in perfect alliance with the body, cease to exist when its companion falls. In intellectual man the mind is the last to succumb: long after the poor weak body has yielded, the mind holds out like a well-garrisoned citadel: it refuses all surrender, and, though the town is taken, fights bravely till the last."

And now one glimpse at Koordistan and the beautiful and mysterious Lake Van, which lies hidden in its deepest recesses.

"We now journeyed on through strange regions, where Frank had never wandered. We saw the Koords as they are best seen, free in their own magnificent mountains;--not "the ass," as the Turk calls him, "of the plains." Mahomet Pasha, son of the little standard-bearer, and Pasha of Mosul was requested to provide for its defence by the consuls, and to attempt by better rule the civilisation of the Arabs. He replied:--

'Erkekler Densige Allar genisig Kurytar Donsig Devekler Yoolarsig.'

"'What can I do with people whose men have no religion, whose women are without drawers, their horses without bits, and their camels without halters?'

"Thus we wandered over many miles, plains spreading between their fat mountains, splendid in their grandeur; now amidst pleasant valleys anon over giant passes--

----'Dim retreat, For fear and melancholy meet; Where rocks were rudely heaped and rent, As by a spirit turbulent; Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, And everything unreconciled.'

"My health after this gradually got worse: repeated attacks of fever, brought on probably by my own carelessness, weakened me so much that I could scarcely keep up with the party. Riding was an agony, and, by the carelessness of my servant, my horses were ruined. One evening an Abyssinian, one of my attendants, went so far as to present a pistol at my head. My poor dear dog, too, was lost, which perhaps afflicted me more than most ills which could happen to myself. At last we passed over a ridge, and Lake Van lay before us. We had, perhaps, been the first Europeans who had performed the journey. The last and only other of which we have any record was poor Professor Schultz, who was murdered by order of Khan Mahmoud for the baggage he unfortunately displayed. The Khan received him kindly, entertained him with hospitality, and despatched him on his road with a guard who had their instructions to murder him on the way. He was an accurate and capable traveller, a native of Hesse, and travelling for the French government.

"The morning of the 3d of August saw us passing up a most lovely valley, the Vale of Sweet Waters. We had encamped in it the night before. Leaving its pretty verdure, we mounted a long range of sun-burnt hills covered with sun-dried grass and _immortelles_, whose immortality must have been sorely tried on that sun-exposed place. Achieving a pass, we gained our view of Van. The scene was worthy of Stanfield in his best mood. Before us, on the north-east, brown, quaintly-shaped hills, variegated with many tints, filled the view of the far horizon. From this a plain led to the lake; around it were noble mountains, snow and cloud clad--their beauty enhanced by the supervening water. Saphan Dagh, with a wreath of mist and cap of spotless snow, seen across the sea was imposing--I might say, perfect.

"The plain on the eastern coast spread out broad and fair: here verdant meadows, there masses of fruit-laden trees; while between the mass wandered the mountain streams, hastening on to their homes in the fair bosom of the lake. Van itself swept round its castle, which stands on a curious rock that rises abruptly from the plain; but the lake, indeed, was the queen of the view--blue as the far depth of ocean, yet unlike the ocean--so soft, so sweet, so calm was its surface. On its near coast, bounded by silver sands, soft and brilliant; while its far west formed the foot of Nimrod Dagh, on whose lofty crest are said to be a lake and a castle....

"The waters of the lake have lately been analysed, so the curious substance found floating on its surface, and used as soap, will be accounted for: it is sold in the bazaars. At present there are but three small boats or launches on the lake, and even these can hardly find trade enough to remunerate them. Their principal occupation is carrying passengers to the towns on the coast."

Mr Layard remained at Lake Van in order to copy some inscriptions; but Mr Walpole was induced to penetrate northward as far as Patnos, where no European had yet been seen. Here his enterprise was rewarded by the view of some magnificent scenery, and the more important discovery of some cuneiform, and many ancient Armenian inscriptions. These were forwarded by our traveller to Mr Layard, and will doubtless appear in his forthcoming work.[16] But we must now leave Koordistan, recommending the perusal of Mr Walpole's chapter on the Christians of Lake Van, and their beautiful and mysterious inland sea, to all who love to picture to themselves strange lands and wild adventure. We return by way of Erzeroum, Trebizond, the shores of the Black Sea, and Sansoun, to Constantinople; thence to Latakia; and here we find ourselves within view of the mountains of the mysterious Ansayrii and Ismaylis.

[16] We must here notice the generosity with which Mr Walpole forbears to enlarge upon any subject in which he might anticipate the works of other travellers. For this reason he passes lightly over this interesting tour in the mountains of Koordistan, and only (to our regret) alludes _en passant_ to a tribe of _pastoral_ Jews, whom he and Mr Layard met on these mountains, following the spring (as the snows receding left fresh herbage for their flocks) up the mountains. When we consider how rarely pastoral Jews are met with, and that this was the very land wherein the lost ten tribes disappeared, and, moreover, that the elders of these people spoke the Chaldean tongue, we are much disappointed to hear no more of them.

In the title of this work is revived a subject of very ancient interest. The Ansayrii, or Nassairi, or Assassins, are a singularly surviving relic of the followers of the Old Man of the Mountain, so celebrated in the history of the Crusades.[17] Historians have fallen into a great mistake in supposing this Order to have been a hereditary dynasty, or to have embraced a nation. Originally it was simply an Order, like that of the Templars. Like them the members wore white garments set off with crimson, typifying innocence and blood. The policy of both was to obtain possession of strong places, and by terror to keep the surrounding nations in subjection. The Assassins succeeded in this object so far as to dictate their will to several Sultans, many Viziers, and innumerable minor authorities. When the Sultan of the Seljuks sent an ambassador to the Old Man of the Mountain, demanding his submission, the following well-known circumstance took place:--"The chief said to one of his followers, 'Stab thyself!' To another he said, 'Throw thyself from the battlements!' Before he had ceased to speak his disciples had obeyed him, and lay dead, not only willing but eager martyrs to their faith. The chief then turning to the envoy, said, 'Take what thou hast seen for thine answer. I am obeyed by seventy thousand such men as these.'" The founder of this terrible sect was Hassan Ben Sahab. He was a "Dai," or master-missionary, from the Secret Lodge established at Cairo, (about 1004 A.D.), in order to sap and overthrow the Caliphat of Abbas, and establish that of the Fatimites. Hassan gave promise of greatness in his youth, became a favourite of the Melekshah, was banished from court by the intrigues of a rival, and took refuge at Ispahan. Here he became initiated in the voluptuous and atheistical doctrines of the Ismailis, and was sent to Egypt, to the Caliph Mostansur, as a preacher and promulgator of that atrocious creed. He was banished from the Egyptian court also, and cast ashore in Syria. After a variety of adventures in the course of his travels from Aleppo through Persia, he at length obtained possession of the fortress of Alamūt,[18] near Khaswin. Here he remained for the remainder of his life, never leaving the castle, and only twice moving from his own apartment to the terrace during a period of thirty-eight years. Here he perfected, in mystery and deep seclusion, his diabolical doctrines, and soon sent "Dais," or missionaries, of his own into all lands. The secret society of which he was the head contained several grades, embracing the initiated, the aspirant, and the devoted--mere executioners or tools of higher intelligences.[19] The grand-master was called Sidna (Sidney) "our lord;" and more commonly Sheik el Djebel, the Sheik or Old Man of the Mountain, because the Order always possessed themselves of the castles in mountainous regions in Irak, Kuhistan, and Syria. The Old Man, robed in white, resided always in the mountain fort of Alamūt. There he maintained himself against all the power of the Sultan, until at length the daggers of his Fedavie, or devoted followers, freed him from his most active enemies, and appalled the others into quiescence. Alamūt was now called "the abode of Fortune," and all the neighbouring strongholds submitted to the Ancient of the Mountain. The Assassins were proscribed in all civilised communities, and the dagger and the sword found constant work on their own professors. The Assassins, however, like the Indian Thugs, depraved all societies, in all sorts of disguises. At one time the courtiers of a Caliph being solemnly invoked, with a promise of pardon and impunity, five chamberlains stepped forward, and each showed the dagger, which only waited an order from the Old Man to plunge into the heart of any human being it could reach. By such agency Hassan kept entire empires in a state of revolution and carnage. From his remote fortress he made his influence felt and feared to the extreme confines of Khorassan and Syria. And thence, too, he propagated the still more infernal engines of his authority, his catechisms of atheism and licentiousness--"Nothing is true; all things are permitted to the initiated." Such was the foundation of his creed.

[17] The mystery relating to this community is so great that the laborious Müller, in his twenty-four books, has not attempted to penetrate it. And Gibbon, notwithstanding his acknowledged pleasure in painting scenes of blood, has treated the Order of Assassins very superficially. Marco Polo is, as usual, the most entertaining of authorities, as far as he goes; but it remained for Joseph Von Hammer to explore the faint vestiges of their strange story with vast and patient research. He has thrown together the results of his labours in a small volume, of great interest.

[18] The Vulture's Nest.

[19] Dais, Refik, and Fedavie.

This villain died tranquilly in his bed, having survived to the age of ninety. His spiritual and temporal power was continued with various vicissitudes through a long succession of impostors, the dagger still maintaining its mysterious and inevitable agency. The list of the best, and some of the most powerful, of Oriental potentates who perished by it, swells, as the history of the Order proceeds, to an incredible extent. During all this time the fundamental maxim of the creed, which separates the secret doctrines of the initiated from the public tenets of the people, was preserved. These last were (and now are, according to Mr Walpole) held to the strictest injunctions of Mahometanism. The East did not detect the motive power of the Assassins' chief: they only saw the poniard strike those who had offended the envoy of the invisible Imam, who was soon to arrive in power and glory, and to assert his dominion over earth. In the Crusades, the hand of the Assassins is traced in the fate of Raymond of Tripoli--perhaps in that of the Marquis of Montferrat--and in many meaner instances. At that period the numbers of people openly professing the creed is stated by William of Tyre at sixty thousand; and by James, Bishop of Alla, at forty thousand. At this day Mr Walpole estimates the number of the Ansayrii at forty thousand fighting men, including Ismaylis. These numbers are to be understood, however, in former times, as well as in the present, to comprise the whole sect, and not merely the executioners, who always formed a very small proportion, and are now probably extinct. The Old Man is no longer recognised, so far as can be ascertained, among the mountains, (where, as usual in other parts of Syria, the patriarchal form prevails;) and the strange creed that their ancestors held, together with a singular recklessness of life, alone remains to mark their descent. Concerning this creed we are referred by Mr Walpole to some discoveries which he intends to publish in a future volume. We must confess to considerable disappointment in the meagre information that is here afforded to us on the subject, especially after our expectations have been raised by such a preface as the following:--

"Alone, without means, without powers to buy or bribe, I have penetrated a secret, the enigma of ages--have dared alone to venture where none have been--where the government, with five hundred soldiers, could not follow; and, better than all, I have gained esteem among the race condemned as savages, and feared as robbers and ASSASSINS."

Nevertheless, our author has told us a good deal that is new and interesting about the Ansayrii, as will be seen from our extracts.

The Ismaylis, concerning whose woman-worship and peculiar habits such strange stories have been whispered, live among the southern mountains of the Ansayrii. They amount only to five thousand souls, and appear to be a different tribe, (probably Arab,) grafted upon them, and gradually, by superior vigour, possessing themselves of the strongest places in the mountains. These people hold a creed quite distinct from the Ansayrii, among whom they dwell; and the extraordinary prayer, or address used by them seems fully to bear out the long-questioned assertion of their aphrodisial worship.

Marco Polo[20] was the first to furnish some curious accounts of the Ansayrii, and of the discipline and catechism of the Fedavie: we hope that Mr Walpole, in his promised volume, will add to the many vindications which that brave old traveller has received from time to time. But at the sack of Alamūt, in 1257, all the Assassins' books (except the Koran) were burned as impious; and all that now remains of their doctrines must be traditional. We have dwelt thus long on the Ansayrii in order to display the interest that belongs to that secluded and mysterious people, and the importance of any novel intelligence respecting them. Before we proceed to illustrate their country from Mr Walpole's volumes, we must find space for some account of the manner in which the initiation of the Assassins is said to have been performed. The two great strongholds of the Order were the castle of Alamūt in Irak, and that of Massiat near Latakia in the Lebanon. These fortresses, stern and impregnable in themselves, are said to have been surrounded with exquisite gardens, enclosed from all vulgar gaze by walls of immense height. These gardens were filled with the most delicate flowers and delicious fruits. Streams flowed, and fountains sparkled brightly, through the grateful gloom of luxuriant foliage. Bowers of roses, and porcelain-paved kiosks, and carpets from the richest looms of Persia, invited to repose the senses heavy with luxury. Circassian girls, bright as the houris of Paradise, served the happy guests with golden goblets of Schiraz wine, and glances yet more intoxicating. The music of harps, and women's sweetest voices, sent fascination through the ear as well as eyes. Everything breathed rapture and sensuality, intensified by seclusion and deep calm. The youth, where energy and courage seemed to qualify him for the office of _fedavie_, was invited to the table of the grand-master, (at Irak,) or the grand-prior, (at Massiat.) He was there intoxicated with the maddening, yet delightful _hashishe_. In his insensible state he was transported to the garden, which, he was told, was Paradise, and which he was too ready to take for the scene of eternal delight, as he revelled in all the pleasure that Eastern voluptuousness could devise. He was there lulled into sleep once more, and then transported back to the grand-master's side. As he awoke, numbers of uninitiated youths were admitted to hear his account of the Paradise which the power of the Old Man had permitted him to taste. And thus tools were found and formed for the execution of the wildest projects. That glimpse of Paradise for ever haunted the inflamed imagination of the novices, and any death appeared welcome that could restore them to such joys.

[20] _De Regionibus Orient._, lib. i. c. 28.

Such is the theory of this singular people, as maintained by Von Hammer, which it remains for future discoveries--now that Mr Walpole has opened the way for them--to vindicate or refute. There are also some remnants of the Persian tribes of this people, an account of which, by Mr Badger, we are informed, is soon to appear: the Syrians scarcely know of their existence. The Syrian Ansayrii amount, as we have said, including Ismaylis, to about forty thousand souls: they have always preserved their seclusion inviolate; setting at nought the various tyrannies that have harassed the neighbouring states, denying the authority of the Sultan, and blaspheming the Prophet, while they outwardly conform to his rites. They occupy the northernmost range of the Lebanon, from Tortosa and Latakia, as far as Adana.

Notwithstanding Von Hammer's elaborate and ingenious theory, many (amongst whom is our author) have seemed disposed to treat the whole story of the Assassins, and the Old Man of the Mountain himself, as myths. It was, they say, the sort of romance that the Crusaders would have lent a ready ear to, and that their troubadours would have made the most of. They deny the existence of the powerful hill fortresses surrounded by the intoxicating gardens; they point to the renowned Syrian castle of El Massiat, whose ruins occupy a space of only one hundred yards square, and in whose vaulted stables there is an inscription purporting that the castle was "the work of Roostan the Mameluke."

Mr Walpole, however, does not enter into any controversy respecting this strange people. Of the little that he has confided in his present two volumes to the public, the following extracts must be taken as an instalment:--

"The Ansayrii nation--for such it is--being capable of mustering forty thousand warriors able to bear arms, is divided into two classes--sheiks and people; the sheiks again into two--Sheiks or Chiefs of Religion, Sheik el Maalem, and the temporal Sheiks, or Sheiks of Government; these being generally called Sheik el Zullom, or Sheiks of Oppression. These latter, though some of them are of good families, are not so generally: having gained favour with government, they have received the appointment. Others there are, however, whose families have held it for many generations--such as Shemseen Sultan, Sheik Succor, &c. The sheiks of religion are held as almost infallible, and the people pay them the greatest respect. With regard to the succession, there seems to be no fixed rule: the elder brother has, however, rule over the rest; but then I have seen the son the head of the family while the father was living.

"The sheik of religion enjoys great privileges: as a boy he is taught to read and write; he is marked from his fellows from very earliest childhood, by a white handkerchief round his head. Early as his sense will admit, he is initiated into the principles of his faith: in this he is schooled and perfected. Early he is taught that death, martyrdom, is a glorious reward; and that, sooner than divulge one word of his creed, he is to suffer the case in which his soul is enshrined to be mangled or tortured in any way. Frequent instances have been known where they have defied the Turks, who have threatened them with death if they would not divulge, saying, 'Try me; cut my heart out, and see if anything is within there.' During his manhood he is strictly to conform to his faith: this forbids him not only eating certain things at any time, but eating at all with any but chiefs of religion; or eating anything purchased with unclean money;--and the higher sheiks carry this to such an extent that they will only eat of the produce of their own grounds; they will not even touch water, except such as they deem pure and clean. Then the sheik must exercise the most unbounded hospitality; and, after death, the people will build him a tomb, (a square place, with a dome on the top,) and he will be revered as a saint.

"The lower classes are initiated into the principles of their religion, but not into its more mystical or higher parts: they are taught to obey their chiefs without question, without hesitation, and to give to them abundantly at feasts and religious ceremonies: above all, even the uninitiated is to die a thousand deaths sooner than betray his faith.

"In their houses, which, as I have before said, are poor, dirty, and wretched, they place two small windows over the door. This is in order that, if a birth and death occur at the same moment, the coming and the parting spirit may not meet. In rooms dedicated to hospitality several square holes are left, so that each spirit may come or depart without meeting another.

"Like the Mahometans, they practise the rite of circumcision, performing it at various ages, according to the precocity of the child. The ceremony is celebrated, as among the Turks, with feasting and music. This, they say, is not a necessary rite, but a custom derived from ancient times, and they should be Christians if they did not do it. This is the same among the Mahometans, who are not enjoined by their prophet to do so, but received the rite from of old.[21]

[21] We do not yet know if any ceremony exists at the naming of the child.

"When a candidate is pronounced ready for initiation, his tarboosh is removed, and a white cloth wrapped round his head. He is then conducted into the presence of the sheiks of religion. The chief proceeds to deliver a lecture, cautioning him against ever divulging their great and solemn secret. 'If you are under the sword, the rope, or the torture, die, and smile--you are blessed.' He then kisses the earth three times before the chief, who continues telling him the articles of their faith. On rising, he teaches him a sign, and delivers three words to him. This completes the first lesson.

"At death, the body is washed with warm soap and water, wrapped in white cloths, and laid in the tomb. Each person takes a handful of earth, which is placed on the body; then upright stones, one at the feet, one at the head, one in the middle, are placed. The one in the middle is necessary. They have the blood-feud--the Huck el Dum. In war, blood is not reckoned; but if one man kills another of a different tribe, all the tribe of the slayer pay an equal sum to the tribe of the slain--generally one thousand six hundred piastres, (L.15.)

"In marriage, a certain price is agreed on. One portion goes to the father, another to supply dress and things necessary for the maiden. This will vary much, according to the wealth of the bridegroom and the beauty or rank of the bride. It is generally from two hundred to seven hundred or a thousand piastres (L.1, 15s. 6d. to L.9, 10s.) Sometimes a mare, a cow, or a donkey, merely, is given for her. The bridegroom has then to solicit the consent of the _hirce_, or owner of the bride's village, who will generally extort five hundred piastres, or more, before he will give a permission of marriage.

"The price being settled, and security given for its payment, the friends of the bridegroom mount on the top of the house armed with sticks. The girl's friends pass her in hastily to avoid their blows. The bridegroom enters, and beats her with a stick or back of a sword, so that she cries: these cries must be heard without. All then retire, and the marriage is concluded.

"They are allowed four wives. The marriage ceremony is simple, and divorce not permitted. If one of these four wives die, they are permitted to take another. Generally, they have little affection for their wives--treating them rather as useful cattle than as rational creatures. They never teach women the smallest portion of their faith. They are jealously excluded from all religious ceremonies; and, in fact, are utterly denied creed, prayers, or soul. Many here have told me that the women themselves believe in this; and do not, as one would fancy, murmur at such an exclusive belief.

"The Ansayrii are honest in their dealings, and none can accuse them of repudiation or denying a sum they owe.... They regard Mahomet el Hamyd as the prophet of God, and thus use the Mussulman confession--'La illa ill Allah, Mahomet el Hamyd, Resoul e nebbi Allah;' but they omit all this when before Mahometans, saying merely, 'There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God.' Otherwise, they say, 'There is no God but Ali, and Mahomet el Hamyd, the Beloved, is the prophet of God.'

"I do not intend here to enter into their belief more fully; but it is a most confused medley--a unity, a trinity, a deity. 'These are five; these five are three; these three are two; these two, these three, these five--one.'

"They believe in the transmigration of souls. Those who in this life do well, are hospitable, and follow their faith, become stars; the souls of others return to the earth, and become Ansayrii again, until, purified, they fly to rest. The souls of bad men become Jews, Christians, and Turks; while the souls of those who believe not, become pigs and other beasts. One eve, sitting with a dear old man, a high sheik--his boys were round him--I said, 'Speak: where are the sons of your youth? these are the children of your old age.'--'My son,' he said, looking up, 'is there: nightly he smiles on me, and invites me to come.'

"They pray five times a day, saying several prayers each time, turning this way or that, having no keblah. If a Christian or Turk sees them at their devotions, the prayers are of no avail. At their feasts, they pray in a room closed and guarded from the sight or ingress of the uninitiated.

"This will give a general outline of the faith and customs of the Ansayrii. My intercourse with them was on the most friendly footing, and daily a little was added to my stock of information. Let me, however, warn the traveller against entering into argument with them, or avowing, through the dragoman, any knowledge of their creed. They are as ready and prompt to avenge as they are generous and hospitable to protect. To destroy one who deceives them on this point is an imperative duty; and I firmly believe they would do it though you took shelter on the divan of the Sultan. For myself, the risk is passed: I have gone through the ordeal, and owe my life several times to perfect accident."

To this long extract we shall only add, that a good deal of additional light is indirectly thrown upon this singular people throughout the whole of the third volume of Mr Walpole's work. It is the best written, as well as the most important, of the series; it abounds in humour, anecdote, originality, and in no small degree of curious research.

And now, it only remains for us to bid our entertaining fellow-traveller heartily farewell. Although, especially in the first volume, we have felt disposed to quarrel with his style occasionally, we have found his good-humour, his thoughtful sentiment, and his reckless wit, at last irresistible. His very imperfections often prove his fidelity, and his apparent contradictions his innate truthfulness. We commend to him a little more study of the art of composition, and a good deal more care; but we shall consider ourselves fortunate when we meet with another author of as many faults, if they are atoned for by as many merits.

THE CHAMPIONS OF THE RAIL.

_A History of the English Railway: its Social Relations and Revelations._ By JOHN FRANCIS. 2 vols. London.

A good many years ago, a late correspondent and writer in this Magazine, Dr M'Nish of Glasgow, published a work entitled _The Anatomy of Drunkenness_. The book was an excellent one: most perfect in its portraiture of the different phenomena which accompany and succeed a debauch; and in the hands of a regular tee-totaller, it was undeniably worth some reams of vapid sermons. The preacher, who never, we are bound to believe, had experienced the vinous or spirituous excitement in his own person, was enabled from it to hold forth, with all the unction of reality, to his terrified audience, upon the awful effects of intemperance. Old ladies, who rarely in their lives had transgressed beyond a second glass of weak negus at some belated party, when whist or commerce had been suggested to while away the weary hours, listened to the warnings of the gifted apostle of temperance, and hied them home in the tremendous conviction that they had only escaped, by the merest miracle, the horrors of _delirium tremens_. Dyspeptic gentlemen were rendered wretched, as they reflected that, for years past, they had been accustomed to wash down their evening Finnan haddock, or moderate board of oysters, with a pint of Younger's prime ale, or, mayhap, a screeching tumbler. The enormity of their offence became visible to their eyes, and they incontinently conceived amendment.

But we doubt very much whether the _Anatomy_ would have been pleasant reading to a gentleman who overnight had imbibed "not wisely but too well." How could he bear to be told, not only of the sensations of the previous evening, minutely traced through the gradations of each consecutive decanter, but of the state of thirst and unnatural discomfort to which he was presently a victim? Would it relieve his headach to assure him that, after swallowing three bottles of claret, most men are apt to be out of sorts? Could he, the sufferer, derive any assuagement of his pains by knowing--if he did not know it already--that unlimited brandy and water, however agreeable during consumption, was clearly prejudicial to the nerves? Sermons may come too soon. The sufferer ought to be allowed at least a day or two to recover, before his offence is laid before him in all its huge deformity. Give him time to be ashamed of himself. A man's own conscience is his best accuser; and, unless the vice be absolutely inherent, or totally beyond the hope of remedy, his own misery will be more likely to effect a cure than any amount of philosophical dissertations upon its nature.

These thoughts have been irresistibly suggested to us by a perusal of the two ponderous tomes of Mr Francis, entitled, _A History of the English Railway: its Social Relations and Revelations_. A more unfortunate kind of apocalypse could hardly have been hazarded at the present time. Most people are tolerably well aware, without the aid of Mr Francis, of the changes in social relations which have been worked by the British railway; and as for revelations, a good many would give a trifle to have these entirely suppressed. We have not yet arrived at the time when the history of the "'45" of this century can be calmly or dispassionately written. Too many of us, still remanent here, have burned our fingers, and too many of our kith and kin have been sent to exile, in consequence of that notable enterprise. Since the standard was last unfurled in the vale of Glenmutchkin, a considerable number of the population have been bitten by the sod, if they did not literally bite it. That system of turning over turfs, by the aid of silver spades and mahogany wheelbarrows, was more fatal to the peace of families than the accumulation of any number of Celtic bagpipers whatever. It was a grand interment of capital. Who has forgotten the misery of those times, when letters of railway calls arrived punctually once a quarter? Two pound ten per share might be a moderate instalment; but if you were the unfortunate holder of a hundred shares, you had better have been boarded with a vampire. Repudiation, though a clear Christian duty to yourself and your family, was utterly impossible. It mattered not that the majority of the original committeemen and directors had bolted; you, the subscriber, were tied to the stake. The work was begun, the contracts opened, and money must be had at all hazards and sacrifices. You found yourself in the pitiable situation of an involuntary philanthropist. Threescore hulking Irish navvies were daily fed, liquored, and lodged at your expense. Your dwindling resources were torn from you, to make the fortunes of engineers and contractors. So long as you had a penny, or a convertible equivalent, you were forced to surrender it. Your case was precisely similar to that of the Jew incarcerated in the vaults beneath the royal treasury of King John. One by one all your teeth were drawn. If you managed to survive the extraction of the last grinder, and to behold the opening of the line, your position was not one whit improved. Dividend of course there was none. That awful and mysterious item of charge, "working expenses," engulfed nearly the whole revenue. What was over went to pay interest on preference debentures. That gallant body of men, the directors, laid before you, with the utmost candour, a state of the affairs of the company; from which it appeared that they had exceeded their borrowing powers by perhaps a brace of millions, and had raised the money by interposing their own individual security. These obligations you were, of course, expected to redeem; and an appeal was made to your finer feelings, urging you to consent to a further issue of stock!

It is no great consolation to the men who have suffered more woes from the railways, than fell to the lot of the much-enduring Ulysses from the relentless anger of the deities, to know that they have rendered perfect a vast chain of internal communication throughout the country. We doubt whether the Israelites, who built them, took any especial pride in surveying the pile of the pyramids. The gentleman in embarrassed circumstances, who is pondering over the memory of his perished capital, is not likely to feel his heart expand with enthusiasm at the thought that through his agency, and that of his fellows, thousands of bagmen are daily being whirled along the rails with the velocity of lightning. He may even be pardoned if, in the sadness and despondency of his soul, he should seriously ask himself what, after all, is the use of this confounded hurry? Is a man's life prolonged because he can get along at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour? Is existence to be measured by locomotion? In that case Chifney, who passed the best part of his life in the saddle, ought to have been considered as a rival to Methuselah, and a stoker on the Great Western lives in one week far longer than the venerable Parr! Is enjoyment multiplied? That, too, will admit of a serious doubt. In a railway carriage you have no fair view of the fresh aspect of nature: you dash through the landscape--supposing that there is one--before its leading features are impressed upon your mind. There is no time for details, or even for reflection. You must accommodate your thought to your pace, otherwise you are left behind, and see nothing whatever for at least a couple of stations. But for the most part your way lies between embankments and cuttings, representing either sections of whinstone, or bare banks of turf, dotted over with brown patches, where the engine has effected arson. Even furze will not willingly flourish in such an uncomfortable locality. Then you roar through tunnels, the passage of which makes your flesh creep--for you cannot divest yourself of a horrid idea that you may possibly be encountered in the centre of the darkness by an opposing engine, and be pounded into paste by the shock of that terrific tilt; or that a keystone of the arch may give way, and the whole train be buried in the centre of the excavated mountain. Sensual gratification there is none. If you do not condescend to the iniquity of carrying sandwiches along with you--in which case your habiliments are certain to be grievously defiled with buttered crumbs--you are driven by the pangs of sheer hunger into the refreshment-room at some station, and find yourself at the bar of an inferior gin-palace. Very bad is the pork-pie, for which you are charged an exorbitant ransom. Call ye this sherry, my masters? If it be so, commend us for the future to Bucellas. The oranges look well outside, but the moment you have penetrated the rind, you find that they have been boiled and are fozy. Do not indulge in the vain hope that you may venture on a glass of anything hot. Hot enough you will find it with a vengeance; for, the instant that you receive the rummer, the bell is sure to ring, and you must either scald your throat by gulping down two mouthfuls of mahogany-water raised to a temperature which would melt solder, or consign the prepaid potion to the leisure of the attendant Hebe. Smoking is strictly prohibited. Even if you are alone in a carriage, you cannot indulge in that luxury without rendering yourself liable to a fine; and, if your appetite should overcome your prudence, and you should venture to set the law at defiance, before you have inhaled two whiffs, a railway guard appears as if by magic at the window--for those fellows have the scent of the vulture, and can race along the foot-boards as nimbly as a cat along a gutter--and you are ordered to abandon your Havanna. Under such circumstances, literature is a poor resource. You read the _Times_ twice over, advertisements and all, and then sink into a feverish slumber, from which you are awakened by a demand from a ruffian in blue livery, with a glazed leather belt across his shoulder, for the exhibition of your ticket. Talk of the inconvenience of passports abroad! The Continental system is paradisaical compared with ours. At length, after fingering your watch with an insane desire to accelerate its movement, you run into the ribs of something, which resembles the skeleton of a whale--the train stops--and you know that your journey is at an end. You select your luggage, after having undergone the scrutiny of a member of the police force, who evidently thinks that he has seen you before under circumstances of considerable peculiarity, ensconce yourself in a cab, and drive off, being favoured at the gate of the station by a shower of diminutive pamphlets, purporting to be poetical tributes to the merits of Messrs Moses and Hyams. You have done the distance in twelve hours, but pleasure you have had none.

Mr Francis, who is gifted with no more imagination than an ordinary tortoise, though he asserts the superiority of the hare, begins his book with an exceedingly stupid dissertation upon the difficulties of ancient travel. Broken bridges, impassable quagmires, and ferocious highwaymen constitute leading features in his picture; and, as you read him, you marvel, between your fits of yawning, what manner of men our ancestors must have been to brave so many dangers. Sheer drivel all of it! The old roads were uncommonly good, and the bridges kept in splendid repair from the time they were built by the Romans. Who ever heard of a quagmire on a turnpike? As for a casual encounter with Turpin, Duval, or any other of the minions of the moon, we are decidedly of opinion that such incidents must have added much to the excitement of the journey. A stout fellow, well mounted, usually carried about him both pops and a cutlass, and, if he was cool and collected, might very easily square accounts with the most ardent clerk of St Nicholas. Does Mr Francis really suppose that the author of _Jack Sheppard_ likes railway travelling? Not he. Dearer to his soul is a prancing prad upon Hounslow Heath than all the engines that ever whistled along a line. Mount him upon Black Bess, arm him with a brace of barkers, and in the twinkling of an eye there would be daylight through the carcase of the Golden Farmer. Is adventure nothing? Had the road no joys? Are we to consider the whole universe worthless, except those black dots which in the maps represent cities? Was nature made in vain, in order that men might hasten from town to town, at the tail of a shrieking engine, regardless of all the glorious scenery which intervenes? To our taste, the old mode of travelling--nay, the oldest--was infinitely superior to the present sickening system. You rose by times in the morning; took a substantial breakfast of beef and ale--none of your miserable slops--and mounted your horse between your saddle-bags, in time to hear the lark carolling on his earliest flight to heaven. Your way ran through dingle and thicket, along the banks of rivers, skirting magnificent parks, rich in the possession of primeval oaks, under which the deer lay tranquilly and still. You entered a village, stopped at the door of the public-house, and cooled your brow in the foam of the wholesome home-brewed. You dined at mid-day, in some town where the execrable inventions of Arkwright and Watt were unknown; where you encountered only honest, healthy, rosy-cheeked Christians, who went regularly once a-week to church, and identified the devil with the first dissenter--instead of meeting gangs of hollow-eyed lean mechanics, talking radicalism, and discussing the fundamental points of the Charter. You moved through merry England as a man ought to do, who is both content with his own lot and can enjoy the happiness of others. As you saw the sun rising, so you saw him set. The clouds reddened in the west--you heard the sweet carol of the thrush from the coppice, and lingered to catch the melody. The shades of evening grew deeper. The glow-worms lit their tiny lanterns on the bank, the owl flitted past with noiseless wing, the village candles began to appear in the distance; and as you dismounted at the door of your humble inn, and surrendered your weary beast to the hands of the careful hostler, you felt that you were the richer by a day spent in the fresh air and gladsome sunshine, and made happy by all the sounds and sights which are dear to the heart of man.

But this was solitary travelling, and might not suit every one. Well--if you were a little fellow, deficient in pluck, and sorely afraid of robbers, you might have company for the asking. At every large inn on the road there were at least a dozen travellers who, for the sake of security, agreed to journey in company. Was that no fun? Have you anything like it in your modern railways? Just compare your own experiences of a rocket-flight along the Great Western with Chaucer's delineation of his Canterbury pilgrimage, and you will see what you have lost. Nice sort of tales you would elicit either from that beetle-browed Bradford Free-Trader, evidently a dealer in devil's-dust, who is your _vis-à-vis_ in the railway carriage; or from that singular specimen of a nun who is ogling you deliberately on the left! Can you associate the story of Palamon and Arcite--can you connect anything which is noble, lofty, inspiriting, humane, or gentle, with a journey made in an express train? If not, so much the worse for the present times. Doubtless you may hear something about Thompson or Bright, but we may be excused if we prefer the mention of the earlier heroes. Also, you may pick up information touching the price of calicoes, or the value of stocks, or the amount of exports of cotton twist--and we wish you much good of all that you get. But, O dear, is that travelling? Would you like to go from London to Ispahan in such company? How long do you think you could stand it? And yet this is the improved system of locomotion for which we are told to be thankful, and in honour of which such weariful volumes as those of Mr Francis are written.

"But, mercy on us!" we hear Mr Francis or some of his backers exclaim--"is it nothing that commercial gentlemen can now make four trips a-day between Manchester and Liverpool, and do a stroke of business on each occasion?" We reply, that it would be better for the said commercial gentlemen, both here and hereafter, if they would content themselves with a more moderate pursuit of Mammon. Happiness in this life does not depend upon the amount of sales effected. The assistant in the London grocer's shop, who daily ties up a thousand packages of tea and sugar, is not greatly to be envied beyond his brother in the country, who twists the twine around fifty. We have an intense respect for work while kept within wholesome limits; but we cannot regard the man whose sole pursuit is grubbing after gold as otherwise than an ignominious slave. The railways are in one sense excellent things. You can get from point to point, if necessity requires it, much sooner than before, at less cost, and perhaps with less inconvenience. But there the advantage ends. There is no pleasure in them; and, compared with former methods of locomotion, they are decidedly less healthy and less instructive. We decry them not. We only wish to stop the babbling of the blockheads who would have us to believe that, until the steam-engine was invented, this earth was an unendurable waste, a wilderness of barbarians, and an unfit residence for civilised and enlightened man. Would the genius either of Shakspeare or Newton have been greater had they known of the rails? Would the splendour of the reign of Elizabeth have been heightened had Stephenson then existed?

The admiration of Mr Francis for the railway system is so intense as to be purely ludicrous. He considers every man connected with its development--whether as engineer, contractor, or director--as a positive public hero; and this work of his seems intended as a kind of Iliad, to chronicle their several achievements. Since we last met, Mr Francis has been hard at work upon his style. Formerly he went along, pleasantly enough, without any great effort: now he is not satisfied unless he can eclipse Mr Macaulay. He has read the _History of England_ to some purpose. Fascinated by the brilliancy of the sketches which the accomplished historian has drawn of the statesmen of the age of William of Orange, Mr Francis thinks he will not do justice to his subject unless he adopts a similar mode of handling. Unfortunately he has no statesmen to celebrate. But he can do quite as well. There are surveyors and contractors by the score, whose portraits in his eyes are just as interesting. Accordingly, we have a repetition of the old scene in the play. A voice without is heard calling, "Francis!" To which summons Francis incontinently replieth, "Anon, anon, sir!" and then--"Enter Poins, Peto, Gadshill, and the rest." No loftier apparition ever comes upon the stage; but we are warned that, in surveying these, we look upon individuals destined in all coming time to occupy a lofty niche in British history. Thus, to quote at random from the index, we have the following entries--"Richard Creed ... his services and character." "Who may this Mr Richard Creed be?" says the unconscious reader; "we never heard of him before!" "Fool!" quoth Francis, "he was THE SECRETARY OF THE LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM LINE! 'On his honesty and integrity,' said Mr Glyn on one occasion emphatically, 'I pin my faith, and you may pin yours also!'" And he adds, referring to an occasion which must have been exceedingly gratifying to the feelings of the recipient--"The testimonial to this gentleman, in 1844, was worthy the munificence of the givers. It is not often that a cheque for two thousand one hundred guineas accompanies an expression of opinion, or that the rich man's praise fructifies into a service of plate." As we contemplate our unadorned sideboard, we acknowledge the truth of this remark; still, we hesitate to exalt Mr Creed to the rank of a hero. Then we light on "Undertakings of Thomas Brassey.... Anecdote concerning him." Mr Brassey is a contractor, eminent no doubt; but so, in his own age, must have been the Roman gentleman who undertook the construction of the Cloaca Maxima, though his name has unfortunately perished. Then appears "Henry Booth.... His services." We trust they were properly acknowledged. Then, "Personal sketches of Mr Locke and Mr Chaplin." We are greatly edified by the _silhouettes_. "Personal sketch of Samuel Morton Peto." We shall try, if possible, not to forget him. Much as Mr Francis has done to perpetuate the memory of these great men, it is plain that his powers have been cramped with the space of two thick octavo volumes. In order to make his Iliad perfect, we ought to have had a catalogue of the chiefs of the navvies. But we must rest satisfied with the acute remark of Herder, that "the burden of the song is infinite, but the powers of the human voice are finite." Mr Francis has done what he can. Creed and Brassey--Brunel and Locke--Chaplin, Peto, and Vignolles, live within his inspired volumes; and we beg to congratulate them on account of that assured immortalisation. They are the salt of the earth. The compilers of traffic-tables have disappeared--the old standing witnesses before committees of the House of Commons are dumb--the young engineering gentlemen, who could do anything they pleased in the way of levelling mountains, are amusing themselves in California or elsewhere--even the mighty counsel, the holders of a hundred briefs, for which, for the most part, they rendered but indifferent service, are unsung. But the others live. In the British Valhalla they are assured of an adequate niche, thanks to Mr Francis, who, as Captain Dangerfield says, is ready to stake his reputation that they are the only men worthy of record in such an enlightened age as our own.

No--we are wrong. The man of all others to be deeply venerated is "George Carr Glyn, Esq., Chairman of the London and North-Western Railway," to whom these volumes are respectfully dedicated. Of Mr Glyn's career as a statesman we know absolutely nothing. We are not even aware to what section of politicians he belongs, so utter is our ignorance of his fame. As we read the pages of Francis, and encountered the continual eulogiums heaped upon this gentleman, we felt remarkably uncomfortable. We could not divest ourselves of the notion that we had been asleep for some quarter of a century, and had therefore missed the opportunity of witnessing the appearance of a new and most brilliant star in the political horizon. About Mr Glyn, Francis has no manner of doubt. He is not only the most sagacious, but the most clever personage extant, for every purpose which can smooth railway difficulties. He is the Ulysses of his line, and can rap Thersites on the sconce, if that cynical fiend should insist upon an awkward question. We really and unaffectedly ask pardon of Mr Glyn, if we mistake him through his eulogist. We have no other means of knowing him; and therefore he must settle the correctness of the following sketch with Mr Francis, who appears as the voluntary artist. If the drawing is to the mind of Mr Glyn, and if it meets his ideas of ethics, we have nothing in the world to say against it, having no interest whatever in the line over which he presides. Hear Francis: "The proper place to see Mr Glyn is as chairman in that noble room, where, with an earnest multitude around him, with the representative of every class and caste before him--with Jew and Gentile ready to carp at and criticise his statements--he yet moves them at his pleasure, and leads them at his will. And perhaps the ascendency of one man over many is seldom _more agreeably seen_ than when, standing before a huge expectant audience, he enlivens the platitudes of one with some light epigrammatic touch, answers another with a clear tabular statement, _or replies to a third with some fallacy so like a fact_ that the recipient sits contentedly down, about as wise as he was before." This is, to say the least of it, an equivocal sort of panegyric. We all know what is implied by the term "fallacies" in railway matters, and some of us have suffered in consequence. According to our view, this interchange of fallacies between directors and shareholders is a custom by no means laudable, or to be held in especial repute. In pure matters of business, the less frequently fallacies are resorted to, the better. They are apt, in the long run, to find their way into the balance-sheet--until, as we have seen in some notorious instances, the assumed fact of a clear balance, to be applied by way of dividend, turns out also to be a fallacy. In the case before us, we are willing to believe that Mr Francis is altogether mistaken, and that the statements of Mr Glyn, made in his official capacity, which appeared to the blundering reporter to be fallacies, were in reality stern truths. But what sort of estimate must we form of Mr Francis' moral perception, when we find him selecting such a trait as the subject of especial commendation? He has, however, like most other great men, large sympathies. He does battle in behalf of Mr Hudson with considerable energy; though, after all, taking his conclusions as legitimate, his defence simply resolves itself into this--that Mr Hudson's conduct was not more blamable than that of others. So be it. We never joined in the wholesale censure directed against the quondam railway monarch, because we knew that the whole tone of the morals of society had been poisoned by the villanous system engendered by railway speculation; and because we saw that many of his accusers, if their own conduct had been sifted, might have been arraigned equally with him at the bar of public opinion. Therefore we have no desire to interfere with the operations of Mr Francis, when he appears with his pot of whitewash. Nay, we wish that the implement were more roomy than it is, and the contents of less questionable purity--for assuredly he has a large surface of wall to cover, if he sets himself seriously to the task of obliterating the traces of past iniquity.

The reader, however, must not suppose that Mr Francis sees nothing to condemn, or that he has not at command thunderbolts of wrath to launch at the heads of offenders. According to him, the most painful feature of the railway system was the rapacity of the owners of the soil in driving hard bargains for their land. As this is a charge which has often been made by men more competent to form an opinion upon any subject than the gentleman whose work we are now reviewing, we shall condescend to notice it. Let us premise however, that, in this matter, the howl is distinctly traceable to the harpies who inveigled the public to join their nefarious schemes, and to advance their capital on the assurance of enormous dividends.

After referring to the negotiations made with landowners by the promoters of the London and Birmingham line, Mr Francis comments as follows:--

"These things are written with pain, for they display a low tone of moral feeling in that class which, by virtue of inheritance, of birth, and blood, should possess a high and chivalrous sense of honour. The writer is far from wishing to blame those who honestly opposed the rail. The conscientious feeling which prompts a man, even in an unwise action, if mistaken, is at least respectable. There is much to palliate the honest opposition of the landowner. Scenes and spots which are replete with associations of great men and great deeds cannot be pecuniarily paid for. Sites which bear memories more selfish, yet not less real, have no market value. Homes in which boyhood, manhood, and age have been passed, carry recollections which are almost hallowed. Such places cannot be bought and sold; nor are the various prejudices which cling to the country to be overlooked. If the nobleman disliked the destruction of his fine old English park, the yeoman deplored the desecration of his homestead. The one bore its splendid remembrances, the other its affectionate recollections. If the peer hallowed the former for the sake of its royal visits, the farmer cherished the latter for the sake of those who had tilled the land before him. There are fancy spots in this our beautiful England which it would pain the most indifferent to destroy; what then must be the feelings of those who have lived, and only wish to die there?

"It is the trafficker in sympathies, it is the dealer in haunts and homes, at whom the finger of scorn should be pointed. It is the trader in touching recollections, only to be soothed by gold, that should be denounced. It is the peer who made the historic memories of his mansion a plea for replenishing an impoverished estate; it is the farmer who made the sacred associations of home an excuse for receiving treble its value; it is the country gentleman who made his opposition the lever by which he procured the money from the proprietors' pockets, who should be shamed. And a double portion of ignominy must rest upon these, when it is remembered that the money thus immorally obtained is a constant tax on the pleasures of the artisan, on the work of the manufacturer, and on the wages of the railway official."

Mr Francis, it is evident, is fighting hard for his service of plate; but we doubt much whether he will get it. He evidently considers the foregoing passage as a specimen of splendid writing. He is mistaken. It is nothing better than unadulterated drivel. Let us try to extricate, if we can, his argument from this heap of verbiage.

He admits that associations ought to be respected, but he denies that they ought to have been paid for. What does he mean by this? By whom were the said associations to be respected? By the projectors of the railway companies? Hardly: for those very sympathising gentlemen were precisely the persons who insisted upon running their rails right through park and cottage, and who would have prostrated without remorse the Temple of Jerusalem or the Coliseum, had either edifice stood in their way. What, then, was the value of that respect? Precisely the worth of the tear which stood in the eye of the tender-hearted surveyor. What was the operation of that respect? Not to spare, but if possible to destroy.

In a word, Mr Francis maintains that the railway companies ought to have had their own way in everything, and to have got possession of the land at the lowest conceivable prices. He thinks that, because gentlemen whose property was threatened with invasion, whose privacy it was purposed to destroy, and whose homes were to be rendered untenantable, demanded a high price from the joint-stock trading companies, as an equivalent for the surrender of such privileges, they manifested a "low tone of moral feeling." In fact, so far as we can gather from his language, he puts no value whatever, in a pecuniary sense, upon the associations which he admits to be entitled to respect; and hardly any, if any, upon the score of amenity. He is anything but an Evelyn. An oak, in his eyes, is merely a piece of standing timber to be measured, valued, and paid for according to the current price in the dockyards. The land--no matter of what kind--is to be estimated according to the amount of its yearly return, and handed over without farther question to the enterprising company which demands it. Perhaps Mr Francis may remember a certain passage in sacred history, narrating the particulars of a proposed transfer of ground--the parties being King Ahab on the one hand, and Naboth the Jezreelite on the other? If not, we recommend it to his attention, assuring him that he will find it to contain a very important lesson touching the rights of property. His present argument, if it is worth anything, would go far to vindicate Ahab. He wanted the other man's vineyard because it lay contiguous to his house, and he offered to give him in exchange a better vineyard for it, or an equivalent in money. According to the view maintained by Mr Francis, Naboth was not justified in refusing the offer.

But let us look into this matter a little more closely. On the one hand there is the owner of a property which has been transmitted through a long line of ancestors, and which is now to be intersected and cut up by a projected line of railway. On the other hand there is the company, which cannot progress a step until they have possession of the land. Now let us see what is the nature, and what are the objects of this company. It will not do for Mr Francis or any one else to babble about public advantages, arising from more direct communication between cities or towns of importance. Public advantage may be taken for granted as a result, but upon pure considerations of public advantage no railway whatever was undertaken. It is the commercial speculation of a private company. No man ever took a share in any railway from motives of disinterested philanthropy. He took them because he expected to make a profit by them, to hold them as a safe investment, or finally to sell them for a larger sum than he paid. A condition, and the main one, of the existence of the railway is the possession of the land, and at this point proprietors and speculators join issue. The former do not want the railway. Their wish is to preserve their property undissevered, and to be spared from the spectacle of engines roaring by at all hours of the day and night close to the bottom of the lawn. They very naturally think it a monstrous hardship that the rights of private property should be invaded by private individuals, even though acting upon an incorporated semblance, who are simply seeking their own profit; and they argue that, if the railway was required for public purposes, the government was the proper party to have undertaken its construction. But as, under the existing law, they are liable to be dragged, session after session, into a ruinous expense to oppose the demands of the capitalists, they wisely determine to make the best arrangement they can, and at all events to secure a full remuneration for the sacrifice. So the Squire, finding that the law is so conceived and modified that any one individual who is possessed of landed property may be compelled to surrender it at the demand of a hundred leagued capitalists, makes a virtue of necessity, and demands a sum corresponding in some degree to the extent of the extorted sacrifice: whereupon the promoters of the railway instantly raise such a howl that you would think somebody was trying to rob _them_, or to take _their_ property by force--the case being notoriously the reverse.

Undoubtedly the Squire demands more from the railway company, as compensation for his land, than he could calculate on receiving from a neighbouring proprietor at an ordinary sale. And on what principle, in the majority of cases, does he base his calculation of value? Strictly upon that adopted by the projectors of the line. For instance, a prospectus of a railway is put out, announcing that, after the most careful consideration of district traffic, &c., the clear dividend, after clearing all expenses, must be fifteen per cent per annum to the proprietors. That is the statement of the projectors. Well, then, if such are the prospects of the concern, is it unreasonable that the land, which must be taken for its construction, and which is, in fact, to form the railway, should be valued, less on account of its productiveness, than on account of its adaptation for the peculiar purpose for which it is required? Why is an acre in the centre of a town a hundred times more valuable than an acre in a rural district? Simply because it is required for building, and the value of the land rises in just correspondence to the demand. The subsequent failure or diminution of the railway dividends cannot be made a just article of dittay against the landed proprietors. Fifteen per cent, or ten, as the case might be, was the amount of dividend which the promoters undertook to prove, to the satisfaction of Parliament and the public, as their reasonable expectation. It was part of their case always, and very often the most important part; and if they chose so to commit themselves, they were bound to pay accordingly. Just conceive a body of men addressing an urban proprietor of land, upon which no houses were yet built, in the following terms:--"Sir, we perceive you have an acre and a half of land which would be very convenient for our purpose. We propose to build a street of houses upon it, and a hotel, from the rents of which we expect to draw fifteen per cent yearly. At present your land yields you little or nothing, and therefore we wish you to dispose of it at its present value. Let us say that just now it is worth to you five pounds a-year: we shall buy it from you at five-and-twenty years' purchase!" We leave to the imagination of the reader the exact terms in which the proprietor would assuredly reply to the propounders of this reasonable request. And yet, where is the difference between the cases? The railway projector tells the landed proprietor that he desires to have his property for the purpose of securing fifteen per cent for his own money: the landed proprietor tells him that he may have the property at a rate corresponding to the advantage which he anticipates. Can anything be fairer? If Mr Francis understood even the simplest elements of political economy--an amount of mental comprehension of which we believe him to be wholly incapable--he ought to know that demand and supply are the leading conditions of price. If there is only one salmon in the London market, it will sell, as it has done before now, at the rate of a-guinea per pound, and it would be obviously unfair to charge the fishmonger with being actuated by "a low tone of moral feeling." He coerces no customer: he simply states his price, and if no one chooses to buy, no one has a right to complain. Our friend Francis seems to labour under the hallucination that everything required for a railway ought to be furnished at prime cost. That the promoters expect fifteen percent is nothing. Nay, even the free-trading rule of selling in the dearest and buying in the cheapest market is to be suspended for their behoof. The seller is to have no option: he must be cheap to them, else he is a moral monster. If, however, the judicious panegyrist of Mr Carr Glyn does not carry his principles quite so far, he lays himself open to the charge of most monstrous inconsistency. During the prevalence of the railway mania, all commodities requisite for their construction rose greatly in value. From iron to railway sleepers--in wood, metal, and everything connected with the making of the lines--there was an enormous enhancement of price. And why? On account of the demand. Was the soil on which that iron and wood was to be laid--the absolute foundation of the railway itself--to be paid for at a meaner rate? Mr Francis seems to think so; and we cannot help honouring him for the candid expression of his opinions, even while we regret the conglomeration of ideas which gave them birth. We are afraid that he has been talked over by some of his acute acquaintances. It is the fashion at railway meetings to attribute all disasters to some other cause than the mismanagement of the directors; and we daresay that Mr Francis has been fully indoctrinated with such opinions. It is not agreeable to meet shareholders with a confession of dwindled dividend. But when imperious circumstances render such a course inevitable, it is convenient to be prepared with some "fallacy" which may help to account for the fact, and to stifle too curious investigation. The readiest scapegoat is the landowner. All accounting with him is past and gone, yet he still can be made to bear the blame for a vast amount of reckless prodigality. He is not there to speak for himself--he has no connection with the company. Therefore, whenever failure must be acknowledged, the onus is cast upon him. Railway orators and railway writers alike conceal the real cause of the disaster, and combine to cast discredit and aspersion upon the gentry of England.

The truth is, that the system of railway management in this country has been, from the beginning to the end, decidedly bad. Each line, as it came into existence, was fostered by quackery and falsehood. The most extravagant representations were used to secure the adhesion of shareholders, and to procure the public support. Rival lines fought each other before the committees with a desperation worthy of the cats of Kilkenny, and enormous expenses and law charges were incurred at the very commencement. No economy whatever was used in the engineering, and no check placed on the engineers. In those days, indeed, an engineer of established reputation was a kind of demigod, whose doctrine, or, at all events, whose charges, it was sinful to challenge. But engineers have their ambition. They like viaducts which will be talked of and admired as splendid achievements of mechanical skill; and the most virtuous of the tribe cannot resist the temptation of a tunnel. Such tastes are natural, but they are fearfully expensive in their indulgence, as the shareholders know to their cost. The remuneration of these gentlemen was monstrous. In the course of a few years most of them realised large fortunes, which is more than can be said for the majority of the men who paid them. So was it with the contractors. Mr Francis tells us of many, "who, beginning life as navigators, have become contractors; who, having saved money, have become 'gangers,' realised capital and formed contracts, first for thousands, and then for hundreds of thousands. These are almost a caste by themselves. They make fortunes, and purchase landed estates. Many a fine property has passed from some improvident possessor to a railway labourer; and some of the most beautiful country seats in England belong to men who trundled the barrow, who delved with the spade, who smote with the pick-axe, and blasted the rock." With such statements before us, it is not difficult to see how the money went. Alas for the shareholders! Poor geese! they little thought how many were to have a pluck at their pinions.

Industry, we freely admit, ought to have its reward; but rewards such as these are beyond the reach of pure industry, as we used formerly to understand the term. These revelations may, however, be of use as indicating the direction in which a great part of the money has gone. We accept them as such, and as illustrations of that profound economy which was practised by the different boards of railway direction throughout the kingdom. Mr Francis, in his laudatory sketches of his favourite heroes, usually takes care to tell us that they are "sprung from the ranks of the people." Of course they are. Where else were they to spring from? Does Mr Francis suppose it to be a popular article of belief that they emerged from the bowels of a steam-engine? What he means, however, is plain enough. Judging from the whole tenor of his book, we take him to be one of those jaundiced persons who, without any intelligible reason beyond class prejudice, are filled with bile and rancour against the aristocracy, and who worship at the shrine of money. He grudges every farthing that the railway companies were compelled to pay for land; he bows down in reverence before the princely fortunes of the contractors. Every man to his own taste. We cannot truthfully assert that we admire the selection of his idols.

But what is this? We have just lighted upon a passage which compels us, in spite of ourselves, to suspect that our Francis is, at least, a bit of a repudiator, and that he would regard with no unfavourable eye another pluck at the shareholders. Here it is:--

"The assertion that land and compensation on the line to which Mr Robert Stephenson was engineer, which was estimated at £250,000, amounted to £750,000, appears to call for some additional remark; _and the question which is now proposed is, how far the right is with the railroads to demand, and the passengers to pay an increased fare, in consequence of bargains which, unjust in principle, ought never to have been allowed?_ It is now a historic fact that every line in England has cost more than it ought. That in some--where, too, the directors were business men--large sums were improperly paid for land, for compensation, for consequential damages, for fancy prospects, and other unjust demands under various names. These sums being immorally obtained, _is it right that the public should pay the interest on them_? Is it just that the working man should forego his trifling luxury to meet them? Is it fair that the artisan should be deprived of his occasional trip, or that the frequenter of the rail should pay an additional tax?"

Is it fair that anybody should pay anything at all for travelling on the railways? That is the question which must finally be considered, if Mr Francis' preliminary questions are to be entertained. Because some part of the capital of the shareholders may have been needlessly expended, they ought in this view to receive a less amount of interest for the remainder! The silliness of the above passage is so supreme--the ignorance which it displays of the first rules of law and equity, regarding property, is so profound, that it is hardly worth while exposing it. It betrays an obliquity of intellect of which we had not previously suspected even Mr Francis. Pray observe the exquisite serenity with which this important personage opens his case: "The question which is now proposed!" Proposed--and for whose consideration? Not surely for that of the Legislature, for the Legislature has already pronounced judgment. Are the public to take the matter in hand, and decide on the tables of rates? It would seem so. In that case, we might indeed calculate upon travelling cheap, provided the rails were not shut up. But the whole of his remarks are as practically absurd as they are mischievous in doctrine. What right has Jack, Tom, or Harry to question the cost of his conveyance? Are there not, in all conscience, competing lines enough, independent altogether of Parliamentary regulations, to secure the public against being overcharged on the railways? On what authority does Mr Francis assume that a single acre of the land was paid for at an unjust rate? Mr Robert Stephenson's estimate, we take it, has not the authority of gospel. No engineer's estimate has. Their margin is always a large one; and it almost never happens that, when the works are completed, their actual cost is found to correspond with the hypothetical calculation. But the truth is, that the value paid for the land taken by railways is the only item of expense which cannot be justly challenged. The reason is plain. A railway company has in the first instance to prove the preamble of its bill--that is, it must show to the satisfaction of the Legislature that the construction of the work will be attended with public and local advantages. The settlement of the money question, regarding the value of the land, is reserved for the legal tribunals of the country. To complain of the verdicts given is to impugn the course of justice, and to cast discredit on the system of jury trial. Very wisely was it determined that such questions should be so adjudicated, because no reasonable ground of complaint can be left to either party. The decision as to the value of the land, and the amount of compensation which is due, is taken from the hands both of Ahab and Naboth, and their respective engineers and valuators, and intrusted to neutral parties, whose duty it is to see fair play between them.

We have done with this book. It has greatly disappointed us in every respect. As a repertory of facts, or as a history of the railways, it is ill-arranged, meagre, and stupid; and the sketches which it contains are so absurdly conceived, and so clumsily executed, that they entirely fail to enliven the general dulness of the volumes. At the very point which might have been rendered most interesting in the hands of an able and well-instructed writer--the period of the great mania--Mr Francis fails. His pen is not adequate to the task of depicting the rapid occurrences of the day, or the fearful whirl which then agitated the public mind. In short, he is insufferably prosy throughout the first four acts of his drama, and makes a lamentable break-down at the catastrophe. His work will fail to please any portion of the public, except the heroes whose praises he has sung. He has given them sugar, indeed; but, after all, it is a sanded article. We hope they will combine to buy up the edition, and thus fulfil the prophecy of Shakspeare--"Nay, but hark you, Francis: for the sugar thou gavest me--'twas a pennyworth, was't not?" "O Lord, sir! I would it had been two." "I will give thee for it a thousand pound: ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it." "Anon, anon, sir!"

INDEX TO VOL. LXX.

Abdallah, a dragoman, sketch of, 448 _et seq._

Aborigines, general characteristics of, 416.

Abrantes, the marquis of, 354.

Achmet Bascha, a campaign in Taka under, 251 _et seq._

Achmet Effendi, sketch of, 453.

Acre, sketches at, 459.

Administration, system of, in Russia, 164 ET SEQ.

Adolphe the clairvoyant, performances of, 70.

Africa, recent travels in, 251.

Agricultural depression, amount of, in Ireland, 136 --reaction of it on other classes of the community, 303.

Agricultural interest, experienced results of free trade to the, 133 --Lord John Russell on its state, 489.

Agricultural Relief Associations, proceedings and demands of the, 616.

Agriculture, Huskisson on protection to, 632 --state of, &c. in the United States, 699 _et seq._ --relations of geology to, 703 --improvements in, in New York, &c., 704 --its state, &c., in Canada, 707.

Agriculturists, effects of the depression of the, on the home trade, 109 --lowering of the wages of the, 496.

Albany, Professor Johnston's Lectures in, 700.

Alchemy, origin of chemistry with, &c., 564.

Aleppo, town of, 725.

Alexandretta, town of, 463, 724.

Alexandria, a voyage from, to Syria, 451.

Alexis the clairvoyant, 77.

Ali-Beg, the pass of, 100.

Amadeus I. of Savoy, 414.

American lakes, the, 708, 709.

American slavery, on, 385.

Americans in California, character, &c. of the, 478.

Amiens, sketches at, 199.

ANSAYRII, THE, 719 --their tenets, numbers, &c., 733.

Apes, shooting of, at Hassela, 270.

Arab Scheik, an, 728.

Arable culture, expense of, 1790, 1803, and 1813, 620.

Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, the, 319.

Arches, the triumphal, of Paris, 320.

Arkwright, sir R., origin of the discoveries of, 566.

Army, the French, feeling in, toward Louis Napoleon, 547.

ARNABOLL, THE RAID OF, chap. I., 220 --chap. II., 225 --chap. III., 230 --chap. IV., 236.

Artesian well, the, at Paris, 317.

Aspre, general d', notices of, during the campaign in Italy, 29 ET SEQ. PASSIM --his march on Verona, 442.

ASSASSINS or Ansayrii, the, 719 --their tenets, &c., 733.

Atbara river, the, 257 _et seq. passim_.

Atoi, a New Zealand chief, 417.

Auber's opera of Zerline, on, 311.

Aumale, the duke d', the duke of Orleans on, 555.

Australia, character of the aborigines of, 416 --a voyage to California from, 471.

Austria, sketches of the war between her and Piedmont, 25 _et seq._ --her intervention in the Papal States in 1830, 432 --her long possession of Lombardy and acquisition of Venice, 433 --her administration of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, 434.

AUSTRIAN AIDE-DE-CAMP, the campaigns of an, 25.

AUTUMN POLITICS, 607.

Bacon, Friar, the prophecy of, 562.

Bagdad, sketches of, 97.

Ballet-dancing, Fanny Lewald on, 217.

Baranken, fur called, 172.

Bassora, a voyage to, 96.

Bears, the, in the Jardin des Plantes, 314 --sketches of, in North America, 672, 677.

Beautiful, Ruskin's theory of the, examined, 333.

Belgian Revolution, Stahr on the, 544.

Benares, sketches by Madame Pfeiffer at, 93.

Berchthold, count, fellow-traveller of Madame Pfeiffer, 87 _et seq. passim_.

Bethmeria, village of, in Lebanon, 456.

Beyrout, sketches at, 454, 721.

Blane, Louis, account of, by Fanny Lewald, 214.

Bombay, a voyage from Bassora to, 96.

BOROUGHS, DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE, 296.

Boroughs, apparent secession of the, from the free-trade cause, 299.

Boulevard of Paris, the, 200.

Boulogne, difficulties of the invasion of England from, 197 --sketches in, 198.

Bradford, present state of manufactures at, 643.

Brazil, sketches in the interior of, 87.

Bread-stuffs, the exports of, from the United States, 702.

Brett, Messrs, the inventors of the submarine telegraph, 567.

Bribery, parliamentary, on, 303.

Bright, John, on the reduction of wages, 634.

British empire, statistics regarding population of the, 1801 to 1851, 127.

British shipping, influence of free trade on, 138.

Browne, sir Thomas, testimony of, concerning witchcraft, 81.

Buckwheat, use of, in North America, 705.

Buffon, superintendence of the Jardin des Plantes by, 315.

Buonaparte, Napoleon, restoration of the Jardin des Plantes by, 315 --the monument to, in the Hôtel des Invalides, 317 --measures of, regarding the drama, 324.

Buonaparte, Napoleon, son of Jerome, 206.

Burdon, captain, British resident at Kottah, 94.

Burke, E., proposal by, to gild the dome of St Paul's, 316.

Burning forest, a, in Brazil, 88.

Cagliostro, supposed mesmeric power of, 77.

Cairo, sketches of life, &c. at, 449.

California, sketches in, 470 _et seq._

Camino theatre, the, at St Petersburg, 168.

CAMPAIGN IN TAKA, a, 251.

CAMPAIGNS OF AN AUSTRIAN AIDE-DE-CAMP, the, 25.

Canadas, sketches by Professor Johnston in the, 706 --statistics of their progress, 708.

Cancrin, finance minister of Russia, 166.

Cannibalism of New Zealand, the, 415.

Caravan journey to Mossul, a, 98.

Cards, playing, consumption of, in Russia, 169.

Carey's Harmony of Interests, &c., extracts from, 640.

Carlists, fall of the, in Spain, 356.

Carré, Michel, French translation of Goethe's Faust by, 556.

Carrousel, the arch of the, 320.

Cash payments, influence of the suspension of, 619 --and that of their resumption, 622.

Catamount, adventure with a, 677.

Cavalry, the Russian, 165.

Caxton, Pisistratus, My Novel by, --Part XI. Book VI. chapters I. to XII. 1 --Part XII. Book VI. chapters XIII. to XXV. 173 --Part XIII. Book VII. chapters I. to XV. 275 --Part XIV. Book VII. chapters XVI. to XXII. 392 --Part XV. Book VIII. chapters I. to VI. 573 --Part XVI. Book VIII. chapters VII. to XIV. 681.

CENSUS AND FREE TRADE, the, 123.

CHAMPIONS OF THE RAIL, the, 739.

Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, sketches of, 30 _et seq. passim_ --his conduct with regard to Lombardy, 437 --hostilities begun by him, 440 --sketch of his previous career, 442 --the campaign under him, 444 --his last defeat, abdication, and death, 446.

Chartum, the town of, 251.

Cheapness, examination of the question of, 638.

Chemistry, alchemy the parent of, 564.

Cherbourg, the harbour of, 197.

China, sketches in, by Madame Pfeiffer, 92.

Chinese junk, voyage in a, 93.

Church, Mr Phelps on the, 388.

Churches, Ruskin on, 327.

"Claims of Labour," remarks on the, 380.

Clairvoyance, examination of the claims of, 70 _et seq._

Clam, General Count, 33.

Clergy, influence of free trade on the, 500.

Clouds, Ruskin on, 330.

Coal gas, how first discovered, 569.

Colonisation, two sonnets, 606.

Column, on the, as the monument, 319.

"Companions of my solitude," review of, 386.

Concorde, the Place and Pont de la, in Paris, 202, 203, 312.

CONGRESS AND THE AGAPEDOME, the, chap. I. 359 --chap. II. 365 --chap. III. 370 --chap. IV. 375.

Conjurors, Indian, 94.

"Conquerors of the New World, the," remarks on, 380.

Conscription, the, in France, 323.

Constable the painter, the trees of, 332.

Constantinople, winter aspect of, 723.

Constituencies, large, the _Times_ on, 301.

Continent, revolutionary tendencies the, and their causes, 431.

Cook, Captain, on the cannibalism of New Zealand, 416.

Corn laws, causes which brought about the repeal of the, 115 --separation between landlord and tenant induced by their repeal, 610 --circumstances which originated them. &c., 621 --Huskisson in favour of the, 632 --effects of their repeal on prices, 637.

Cornu, Madame, letters of Louis Napoleon to, 547.

Costazza, defeat of Charles Albert at, 445.

Cotton manufacture, wheat used for starch in the, 497.

Counties, decrease of population in, 1841 to 1851, 129.

Country, immigration of population into the towns from the, 307.

Country districts, first failure of population in the, 125.

Crime, increase of, under the free-trade system, 139 --increase of it in the towns, 307.

Croats, the troops called, 443.

Crusades, increase of population during the, 124.

CRYSTAL PALACE, VOLTAIRE IN THE, 142.

Currency reform, necessity for, 111.

Currency system, the new, the monetary crisis due to, 132 --relation of it to the free-trade question, 618.

Custine, M. de, his book on Russia, 160.

Cuvier, superintendence of the Jardin des Plantes by, 316.

Daun, Marshal, the victory of, at Kolin, 26.

DAY-DREAMS OF AN EXILE. Longings --I. To ----, 465 --II. Where summer is, 467 --III. Earth is the realm of death, 469 --IV. Stand by the ocean, _ib._ --V. Sigh thou not for a happier lot, 604 --VI. To ----, 605 --VII. Oft in a night of April, _ib._ --VIII. Dream on, 606 --IX. Colonisation, two sonnets, _ib._

Defalla, an African chief, 259.

Delta, The Lament of Selim, by, 103 --his death, and sketch of his life, &c., 249.

Dembinski, General, in the Hungarian war, 37.

Depression, the present, its universality, 630.

Derby, the Earl of, on protection, 613.

Digby, Sir Kenelm, supposed acquaintance of, with mesmerism, 77.

DIGGINGS, A VOICE FROM THE, 470.

DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE BOROUGHS, the, 296.

Disraeli, Mr, new policy proposed by, against free trade, 612 _et seq. passim_.

Domestic tyranny, Mr Helps on, 381.

Doubleday, Mr, on the effects of Peel's currency system, 622.

DOWNWARD TENDENCIES, 106.

Drama, sketch of the rise and history of the, in France, 323 --its present state there, 324.

"Dream on, ye souls who slumber here," 606.

Druses, sketches of the, 456.

Dumas, Alexander, sketches of, by Professor Stahr, and account of the duke of Orleans by him, 547, 554.

Dunshunner, A. R., letter to R. M'Corkindale by--"Downward tendencies," 106.

Dunstan the monk, on the character of, 513.

Duprat, M., speech of, on the National Guard, 207.

Durando, general, defence of Vicenza, by, 35.

Earle, Mr, account of cannibalism in New Zealand by, 417.

"Earth is the realm of death, who reigns," 469.

East, interest of the, 719.

Eastlake's Good Samaritan, on, 212.

Eating-houses in San Francisco, 472.

Edinburgh Review, the, on protection, 306.

Education, Mr Helps on, 383.

Edwin the Fair, review of, 513.

Egypt, interest of, 719 --sketches in, 720 _et seq._

Electric telegraph, laying down of the, from England to France, 568.

Elliotson, Dr, Phreno-mesmeric exhibition by, 74.

Elora, visit to, by Madame Pfeiffer, 95.

Emigration, increase of, from Great Britain, 113 --rapidity of it in a declining state, 126 --amounts of it from Great Britain, 1841 to 1850, 128 _note_ --amount of it from Ireland, 131 --influence of free trade on it, 139, 503 --the _Times_ on the increased, 626 --encouragements to, to the United States, 710, 711.

Employers, on the relation between, and employed, 381.

Employment, influence of, on population, 123.

England and France, laying down of the submarine electric telegraph between, 568.

English travellers, contrast between, and French, 447 --follies, &c. of, 454 --how regarded in the East, 461.

Esperon, Dr, 453.

"Essays written in intervals of business," remarks on, 380.

Etoile, the Arc de l', 319.

Euphrates, the, 727.

Europe, the advances of population in, 123 --tendencies to revolution in, 431.

Eve of the Conquest, Taylor's, remarks on, 520.

Exhibition of paintings, Fanny Lewald on the, 211.

Exile, day-dreams of an, see Day-dreams.

EXPERIMENT, the, 488.

Exports, increase of, under free trade, 140.

Eye, alleged power of charm in the, 79.

Farmers, loss at present sustaining by the, 492 --their right to relief, 614, 615. See also Agriculturists.

Faucher, M., speech of, in the Legislative Assembly, 207.

Faust, French translation of, the, 556.

Finances, influence of free trade on the, 137.

Financial system, relations of the, to the free-trade question, 618.

Flour, falling price of, in New York, 703.

Folkstone, sketches of, 197.

Foreign shipping, influence of free trade on, 138.

Foreign trade, state of, &c., 645.

Forest life, sketches of, in Maine, &c., 670 _et seq._

Forests of Brazil, the, 88, 89.

Fountains of the Place de la Concorde, the, 314.

France, the protective policy of, 117 --increase of population in, during the war, 124, 125 --increased facilities of communication with, 195 --the revolutions of, and their influences, 431 --the intervention of, in Rome, 438 --the importation of flour into Great Britain from, 489 _note_ --sketches of the present state of, by Professor Stahr, 545 --belief in, as to Napoleon being still alive, 549 --laying down of the submarine telegraph from England to, 568.

FRANCIS' HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH RAILWAY reviewed, 739.

Frederick the Great, his defeat at Kolin, 26.

FREE TRADE, THE CENSUS AND, 123.

Free trade, the experienced results of, 108 _et seq._ --contrast between its results and those of protection, 116 --influence of it on trading profits, 137 --influence of it on shipping, 138 --its influence on crime, emigration, and poor-rates, 139 --and on exports and imports, 140 --general summary of its results, 141 --general reaction against it, 245 --declarations from the boroughs against it, 299 --the experiment of, 488 --influence of it on the income, &c., of the clergy, 500 --continued depression under it, 609 --reaction against it, 613 --address to the shopkeepers on its effects on them, 629 _et seq._ --universality of the depression from it, 630 --its progress from the time of Huskisson, 632 --prices of corn under it, 637.

Free-traders, preponderance of, among the Scottish representatives, 297 --present views of, regarding the smaller boroughs, 305.

Freedom, Protestantism essential to, 447.

French in Tahiti, the, 90.

French army, feeling in, toward Louis Napoleon, 546.

French opera, the, at Paris, 310.

French railroads, on, 199.

French theatres, Stahr on the, 557.

French travellers, contrast between, and English, 447.

"Friends in council," notice of, 382.

Funds, danger of the, 112.

Furs, prices of, in Russia, 171.

Gaming and gaming-houses in San Francisco, 473.

Gand, Dr, 253, 254.

Garcia, Madame, reception of, in St Petersburg, 168.

Gas, how first discovered, 569.

Gaufridy, Louis, the case of, 76.

Gaza, the Lazaretto at, 453.

Geology, relations of, to agriculture, 703.

Georgey, General, 36.

GERMAN AUTHORESS, London diary of a, 209.

GERMAN LETTERS FROM PARIS, 543.

German literature, non-appreciation of, in France, 556.

German professors, former and present characters of, 543.

German women, Fanny Lewald on, 216.

Gibelin, the Count de, case of, 82.

Gibili tobacco, 462.

GIBRALTAR, A LEGEND OF, Chap. I. 522 --Chap. II. 529 --Chap. III. 532 --Chap. IV. 535 --Chap. V. 539.

GIBRALTAR, A TALE OF THE SIEGE OF, 648.

Glasgow, increase of population in, 1841 to 1851, 129 --1811 to 1851, 131 --immigrations of Irish into, _ib._

Glastonbury waters, alleged cure by the, 81.

Goethe's Faust, French translation of, 556.

Goito, engagement at, 443.

Gold diggings in California, sketches in the, 470 _et seq._

Gos Rajeb, an African town, 259.

Grahame, Sir James, position of, and his party, 118 --his conduct towards his tenantry, 499.

Grain, importations of, into Ireland, 134 --fall in the prices of, in Scotland, 491.

GREAT BRITAIN, TO THE SHOPKEEPERS OF, 629.

Great Britain, increase of population in, during the war, 124 --statistics regarding her population, 1801 to 1851, 127 _et seq._ --immigration of Irish into, 131 --aversion to revolution among the middle classes of, 297 --recent foreign works on, 209 --contrast between, and the Continent, as regards revolution, 431 --comparative pressure of taxation in, and in the United States, 715.

Greatrakes, Valentine, the cures of, 81.

Greenwich fair, Fanny Lewald on, 212.

Greg, Mr, on the reduction of wages, 634 --on the competition to which our manufactures are exposed, 639.

Gregory XVI., death of, 432.

Gunpowder, new mode of discharging, 570.

H. G. K., Day-dreams of an exile, by, Nos. I. to IV. 465 --Nos. V. to IX. 604.

Haddendas, African tribe of the, 261 _et seq. passim_ --a visit to them, 264.

Hallengas, the, an Arab tribe, 268, 272.

Hamilton, Mr, British resident at Indore, 95.

Harles' "Career in the Commons," notice of, 120.

Harris' Ethiopia, remarks on, 251.

Harvey, James, on free trade and its results, 644, 645.

Hassan, the founder of the Assassins, 733.

Heke, the New Zealand chief, 427.

HELPS, MR, THE ESSAYS OF, 379.

HELSHAM, CAPTAIN, note on the case of, 122.

Henry V., Stahr on, 557.

High farming, inefficiency of, to counteract the agricultural depression, 491.

Highlands, present state of the, and its causes, 308.

Home trade, falling off in the, 108 --effects of free trade on the, 645.

Horn, Cape, a voyage round, 90.

Hortense, Queen, mother of Louis Napoleon, 547.

Hôtel des Invalides, the, 316.

Human responsibility, relations of mesmerism to, 81.

Hungary, sketches of the war in, 35 _et seq._

Huskisson, effects of the commercial system begun by, 308 --strictures on his statue at Lloyds', 211 --his character, and commencement of the free-trade system under him, 632.

Hussars, the Hungarian, 38.

Imitation, Ruskin on, 331.

Immorality, increase of, in the towns, 307.

Imports, increase of, under free trade, 140.

Income-tax returns, falling off in the, 137.

India, sketches by Madame Pfeiffer in, 93.

Indians of Brazil, the, 89.

Indore, sketches at, 95.

Industry, relations of, to population, 123.

Infidelity, influence of, on Continental revolution, 431.

Interests, harmony of, Carey on, 640.

Invalides, the Hôtel des, 316.

Invention, the progress of, 563.

Ionic column, Ruskin on the, 327.

Ireland, diminution of the population of, 123 --decrease of its population since 1846, 128 --increase of the population in the towns and its diminution in the counties, 129 --the alleged influence of the potato failure on the population, 131, 132 --diminution of cultivation in, 489, _note_. --proofs of agricultural depression in, 497.

Irish, immigration of the, into Great Britain, 131.

Isaac Comnenus, the drama of, reviewed, 517.

Ismaylis, the sect of the, 735.

Italian insurrection, sketches of the, 25 _et seq._

Italian opera, the, in St Petersburg, 168.

ITALIAN REVOLUTION, the, 431.

Italy, the war between Austria and Sardinia in, 29 _et seq._ --its disunited state, 434 --character of the Austrian administration in, _ib. et seq._

Jacobleff, a Russian, anecdotes of, 170.

Jardin des Plantes, sketches in the, 314.

Jellachich, baron, operations of, during the Hungarian insurrection, 39 --sketch of his career, 444.

JERRMANN'S PICTURES FROM ST PETERSBURG, review of, 154.

JEW'S LEGACY, the, a tale of the siege of Gibraltar, chap. I. 648 --chap. II. 653 --chap. III. 656 --chap. IV. 659 --chap. V. 663.

JOHNSTON'S NOTES ON NORTH AMERICA, 699.

Joinville, the prince de, character of, 555.

Judicial system, the, of the United States, 713.

Justice, the administration of, in St Petersburg, 162 _et seq._

Kassela, the African mountain of, 270.

Kent, the scenery of, 196.

King, Mr, report by, on the gold diggings of California, 477.

Kiss, general, 43.

Kleber, general, skeleton of the murderer of, 316.

Kleinmichael, general, reconstruction of the winter palace at St Petersburg by, 159.

Knaresborough election, the, 245, 246.

Kohl, misstatements of, regarding Russia, 171.

Kolin, an incident of the battle of, 26.

Kurdistan, journey of madame Pfeiffer through, 99.

Labourers, the agricultural, loss which will fall on, from free trade, 492.

Labouring classes, on the condition of the dwellings of the, 381.

LAMENT OF SELIM, the, 103.

Lanarkshire, increase of population in, 1841 to 1851, 129.

Landlord and tenant, separation induced by free trade between, 610.

Landlords, proportion of loss from free trade to be sustained by the, 492 --their conduct as regards their tenantry, 612.

Latachia, sketches at, 462, 724.

Latour's dragoons, Austrian regiment called, 26.

Law, proposed change in the mode of administering, 386, 387.

Lazaretto at Gaza, the, 453.

Lebanon, sketches in, 455.

LEGEND OF GIBRALTAR, a, chap. I. 522 --chap. II. 529 --chap. III. 532 --chap. IV. 535 --chap. V. 539.

Legislative assembly, the present, of France, 202 --sketch of a debate in it, 205.

Legislative interference, on, as applied to sanitary measures, 381.

Leicester, depressed state of, 644.

Leitzendorf, colonel, death of, 31.

LEVANTINE RAMBLES, 447.

LEWALD'S DIARY IN ENGLAND, review of, 209.

Liberal policy, experienced results of, in the Peninsula, 349.

Liberals, preponderance of the, in Scotland, 297.

Liberals, the Portuguese, division among the, &c., 352.

LIFE AMONG THE LOGGERS, 669.

Limerick Examiner, the, on emigration from Ireland, 134.

Liszt the pianist, reception of, at St Petersburg, 169.

Littledale, Messrs, on the manufacturing depression, 609.

Lodging-house, a, in San Francisco, 473.

LOGGERS, LIFE AMONG THE, 669.

Logrolling, origin of the phrase, 712.

Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, the Austrian administration of the, 435.

Lombardy, the insurrection of, against Austria, 26 _et seq._, 433 --the government of it by Austria, 435.

London, the shopkeepers of, effects of free trade on, 111 --increase of population in, 1841 to 1851, 129.

LONDON DIARY OF A GERMAN AUTHORESS, the, 209.

Louis XIII., foundation of the Jardin des Plantes by, 315.

Louis Napoleon, improvement of the passport system by, 196 --Stahr's picture of him, 545 --anecdotes, &c. of him, 547 --causes of his election, 548.

Louis Philippe, improvement of the Boulevard of Paris under him, 202 --the final act of his dethronement, 204 --Stahr's sketches, &c. of him, 548 _et seq. passim_, 550 _et seq._

Luxor, the obelisk of, at Paris, 312.

M'Corkindale, R., letter from A. R. Dunshunner to --Downward tendencies, 106.

Madeleine, church of the, at Paris, 312.

Magic, the secrets of, 564.

Maine, sketches among the wood-cutters of, 669 _et seq._

Maize, extensive use of, in the United States, 705.

Malthus, the views of, on population, 123.

Mammiani, the Roman demagogue, 437, 438.

Mantua, the Austrian possession of, 433.

Manufactures, British, their rise during the war, 633 --their state under free trade, 643.

Manufacturers, depressed state of the, 108.

Manufacturing districts, distress and depression in the, 305, 609.

Manufacturing towns, check to the population in the, 130, 131.

Maria, Donna, position of, in Portugal, 349.

Maronites, sketches of the, 455.

Martineau, Miss, testimony of, regarding mesmerism, 75 --atheistical work by her, 76, _note_.

MASTER THIEF, the, a Norse popular tale, 595.

Mazarin, encouragement of the drama by, in France, 323.

Mazzini, proceedings of, in Rome, 438.

Mechanics, the poetry of, 567.

Mechi, Mr, his high farming system, 491.

Medusa's head, the, in connection with mesmerism, 77.

Mehmet Pasha of Acre, sketches of, 459 _et seq._

Mesmer, the alleged powers, &c. of, 82.

MESMERISM, WHAT IS IT? 70 --postscript, 83.

Metallic tractors, cure by, 79.

Metropolitan representatives, character of the, 300 --the _Times_ on them, 301.

Middle classes, their aversion to revolution in Great Britain, 297.

Miguel, Don, Whig policy toward, and its results, 349 --his dethronement, 350 --party still adhering to him, 351 _et seq. passim_.

Miguelites, strength of the party of, in Portugal, 352.

Milan, the duchy of, the Austrian possession of, 433.

Milan, city of. Radetsky's retreat from it, 440 --its aspect after the suppression of the insurrection, 35.

Military service, term of, in Russia, 155.

Millais, painting by, 212.

Milton on emigration, 503.

Ministry, uncertain position of the, 110.

Mitkenab, visit to village of, 264.

"Modern Painters," review of, 326.

MODERN STATE TRIALS --Note on Part III. --Captain Helsham --Duelling 122.

Mohammed Din, an Arab chief, 261 _et seq. passim_.

MOIR, THE LATE D. M., 249.

Molesworth, Mr, account of cannibalism in New Zealand, by, 418.

Monetary Crisis, the, its alleged influence on population, 132.

Montanara, battle of, 33.

Montemolin, the Count de, 356.

Montpensier, the duke de --his character, 555.

Monuments of London, Fanny Lewald on the, 210.

Moor, action at, in the Hungarian war, 37.

Moose-deer, adventure with a, 679.

Morgan, lady, sketch of, by Lewald, 218.

Morroqueimado, Swiss settlement of, in Brazil, 88.

Mossul, a caravan journey to, 98.

Mosul, town of, 729.

Mulgrave, the earl of, defeat of, at Scarborough, 245.

Mulot, M., the engineer of the great Artesian well at Paris, 317.

Muntz, Mr, on the reduction of wages by free trade, 634.

Music, passion for, in St Petersburg, 168.

MY NOVEL; or, Varieties in English Life, by Pisistratus Caxton.