CHAPTER II.

"There is so hot a summer in my bosom, That all my bowels crumble up to dust; I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen Upon a parchment; and against this fire Do I shrink up." SHAKSPEARE.

"Ambition is a great man's madness, That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt With the wild noise of prattling visitants, Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure." WEBSTER.

In a room belonging to the lower apartments of the old palace of the Louvre, reclined, in one of the large but incommodious chairs of the time, a young man, whose pale, haggard face, and prematurely furrowed brow, betrayed deep suffering both from moral and physical causes. The thick lids of his heavy dark eyes closed over them with languor, as if he no longer possessed the force to open them; whilst his pale thin lips were distorted as if with pain. His whole air bore the stamp of exhaustion of mind and body.

The dress of this personage was dark and of an extreme plainness and simplicity, in times when the fashion of attire demanded so much display--it bore somewhat the appearance of a hunting costume. The room, on the contrary, betrayed a strange mixture of great richness and luxury with much confusion and disorder. The hangings of the doors were of the finest stuffs, and embroidered with gold and jewellery; tapestry of price covered the walls. A raised curtain of heavy and costly tissue discovered a small oratory, in which were visible a crucifix and other religious ornaments of great value. But in the midst of this display of wealth and greatness, were to be seen the most incongruous objects. Beneath a bench in a corner of the room was littered straw, on which lay several young puppies; in other choice nooks slept two or three great hounds. Hunting horns were hung against the tapestry, or lay scattered on the floor; an arquebuss rested against the oratory door-stall--the instrument of death beside the retreat of religious aspiration. Upon a standing desk, in the middle of the room, lay a book, the coloured designs of which showed that it treated of the "noble science of venerye," whilst around its pages hung the beads of a chaplet. Against the wall of the room opposite the reclining young man, stood one of the heavy chests used at that period for seats, as much as depositories of clothes and other objects; but the occupant of this seat was a strange one. It was a large ape, the light brown colour of whose hair bordered so much upon the green as to give the animal, in certain lights, a perfectly verdant aspect. It sat "moping and mowing" in sulky loneliness, as if its grimaces were intended to caricature the expression of pain which crossed the young man's face--a strange distorted mirror of that suffering form.

After a time the young man moved uneasily, as if he had in vain sought in sleep some repose from the torment of mind and body, and snapped his fingers. His hounds came obedient to his call; but, after patting them for a moment on the head, he again drove them from him with all the pettish ill-temper of ennui, and rose, feebly and with difficulty, from his chair. He moved languidly to the open book, looked at it for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. Again he took up one of the hunting horns and applied it to his lips; but the breath which he could fetch from his chest produced no sound but a sort of low melancholy whine from the instrument; and he flung it down. Then dealing a blow at the head of the grinning ape, who first dived to avoid it, and then snapped at its master's fingers, he returned wearily to his chair, and sunk into it with a deep groan, which told of many things--regret--bitter ennui--physical pain and mental anguish. The tears rose for a moment to his heavy languid eyes, but he checked their influence with a sneer of his thin upper-lip; then calling "Congo," to his ape, he made the animal approach and took it on his knees; and the two--the man and the beast--grinned at each other in bitter mockery.

In this occupation of the most grotesque despair, the young man was disturbed by another personage, who, raising the tapestry over a concealed door, entered silently and unannounced.

"My Mother!" murmured the sufferer, in a tone of impatience, as he became aware of the presence of this person; and turning away his head, he began to occupy himself in caressing his ape.

"How goes it with you, Charles? Do you feel stronger now?" said the mother, in a soft voice of the fondest cajolery, as she advanced with noiseless, gliding steps.

The son gave no reply, and continued to play with the animal upon his knee, whilst a dark frown knitted his brow.

"What say the doctors to your state to-day, my son?" resumed the female soothingly. As she approached still nearer, the ape, with a movement of that instinctive hate often observable in animals towards persons who do not like them, sprang at her with a savage grin, that displayed its sharp teeth, and would have bitten her hand had she not started back in haste. Her cold physiognomy expressed, however, neither anger nor alarm, as she quietly remarked to her son--

"Remove that horrid animal, Charles: see how savage he is?"

"And why should I remove Congo, mother?" rejoined Charles, with a sneer upon his lip; "he is the only friend you have left me."

"Sickness makes you forgetful and unjust, my son," replied the Mother.

"Yes, the only friend you have left me," pursued the son bitterly, "except my poor dogs. Have you not so acted in my name, that you have left me not one kindred soul to love me; that in the whole wide kingdom of France, there remains not a voice, much less a heart, to bless its miserable king?"

"If you say that you have no friends," responded the Queen-mother, "you may speak more truly than you would. For they are but false friends; and real enemies, who have instilled into your mind the evil thoughts of a mother, who has worked only for your glory and your good."

"No, not one," continued the young King, unheeding her, but dismissing at the same time the ape from his knee with a blow that sent him screaming and mouthing to his accustomed seat upon the chest. "Not one! Where is Perotte, my poor old nurse? She loved me--she was a real mother to me. She! And where is she now? Did not that deed of horror, to which you counselled me, to which you urged me almost by force--that order, which, on the fatal night of St Bartholomew, gave signal for the massacre of all her co-religionists, drive her from my side? Did she not curse me--me, who at your instigation caused the blood of her friends and kindred to be shed--and leave me, her nursling, her boy, her Charlot, whom she loved till then, with that curse upon her lips? And do they not say that her horror of him who has sucked her milk, and lain upon her bosom, and of his damning deed, has frenzied her brain, and rendered her witless? Poor woman!" And the miserable King buried his haggard face between his hands.

"She was a wretched Huguenot, and no fitting companion and confidant for a Catholic and a king," said the Queen, in a tone of mildness, which contrasted strangely with the harshness of her words. "You should return thanks to all the blessed Saints, that she has willingly renounced that influence about your person, which could tend only to endanger the salvation of your soul."

"My soul! Ay! who has destroyed it?" muttered Charles in a hollow tone.

The Queen-mother remained silent, but an unusual fire, in which trouble was mixed with scorn and anger, shot from her eyes.

"And have you not contrived to keep Henry of Navarre, my honest Henry, from my presence?" pursued the young King, after a pause, lifting up his heavy head from between his hands. "He was the only being you had left me still to love me; for my brothers hate me, both Anjou and Alencon--both wish me dead, and would wear my crown. And who was it, and for her own purposes, curdled the blood of the Valois in their veins until it rankled into a poison that might have befitted the Atrides of the tragedies of old? Henry of Navarre was the only creature that loved me still, and your policy and intrigues, madam, keep him from me, and so watch and harass his very steps in my own palace of the Louvre, where he is my guest, that never can I see him alone, or speak to him in confidence. He, too, deserts and neglects me now; and I am alone--alone, madam, with courtiers and creatures, who hate me too, it may be--alone, as a wretched orphan beggar by the way-side."

"My policy, as well as what you choose to call my intrigues, my son," rejoined the Queen, "have ever been directed to your interests and welfare. You are aware that Henry of Navarre has conspired against the peace of our realm, against your crown, may-be against your life. Would you condemn that care which would prevent the renewal of such misdeeds, when your own sister--when his wife--leagues herself in secret with your enemies!"

"Ay! Margaret too!" muttered Charles with bitterness. "Was the list of the Atrides not yet complete?"

"The dictates of my love and affection, of my solicitude for my son, and for his weal--such have been the main-springs of my intrigues," pursued the mother in a cajoling tone.

"The intrigues of the house of Medicis!" murmured the King, with a mocking laugh.

"What would you have me to do more, my son?" continued the Queen-mother.

"Nothing," replied Charles, "nothing but leave me--leave me, as others have done, to die alone!"

"My son, I will leave you shortly, and if it so please our Blessed Virgin, to a little repose, and a better frame of mind," said Catherine of Medicis. "But I came to speak to you of matters of weight, and of such deep importance that they brook no delay."

"I am unfitted for all matters of state--my head is weary, my limbs ache, my heart burns with a torturing fire--I cannot listen to you now, madam," pursued the King languidly; and then, seeing that his mother still stood motionless by his side, he added with more energy--"Am I then no more a king, madam, that, at my own command, I cannot even be left to _die_ in peace?"

"It is of your health, your safety, your life, that I would speak," continued Catherine of Medicis, unmoved. "The physicians have sought in vain to discover the real sources of the cruel malady that devours you; but there is no reason to doubt of your recovery, when the cause shall be known and removed."

"And you, madam, should know, it would appear, better than my physicians the hidden origin of my sufferings!" said Charles, in a tone in which might be remarked traces of the bitterest irony. "Is it not so?" and he looked upon his mother with a deadly look of suspicion and mistrust.

The Queen-mother started slightly at these words; but, after a moment, she answered in her usual bland tone of voice--

"It is my solicitude upon this subject that now brings me hither."

"I thank you for your solicitude," replied the King, with the same marked manner; "and so, doubtless, does my brother Anjou: you love him well, madam, and he is the successor of his childish brother."

In spite of the command over herself habitually exercised by Catherine of Medicis, her pale brow grew paler still, and she slightly compressed her lips, to prevent their quivering, upon hearing the horrible insinuation conveyed in these words. The suspicions prevalent at the time, that the Queen-mother had employed the aid of a slow poison to rid herself of a son who resisted her authority, in order to make room upon the throne for another whom she loved, had reached her ears, and, guilty or guiltless, she could not but perceive that her own son himself was not devoid of these suspicions. After the struggle of a moment with herself, however, during which the drops of perspiration stood upon her pale temples, she resumed----

"I love my children all; and I would save your life, Charles. My ever-watchful affection for you, my son, has discovered the existence of a hellish plot against your life."

"More plots, more blood!--what next, madam?" interrupted, with a groan, the unhappy King.

"What the art of the physician could not discover," pursued his mother, "I have discovered. The strange nature of this unknown malady--these pains, this sleeplessness, this agony of mind and body, without a cause, excited my suspicions; and now I have the proofs in my own hands. My son, my poor son! you have been the victim of the foulest witchcraft and sorcery of your enemies."

"Enemies abroad! enemies at home!" cried Charles, turning himself uneasily in his chair. "Did I not say so, madam?"

"But the vile sorcerer has been discovered by the blessed intervention of the saints," continued Catherine; "and let him be once seized, tried, and executed for his abominable crime, your torments, my son, will cease for ever. You will live to be well, strong, happy."

"Happy!" echoed the young King with bitterness; "happy! no, there the sorcery has gone too far for remedy." He then added after a pause, "And what is this plot? who is this sorcerer of whom you speak?"

"Trouble not yourself with these details, my son; they are but of minor import," replied Catherine. "You are weak and exhausted. The horrid tale would too much move your mind. Leave every thing in my hands, and I will rid you of your enemies."

"No, no. There has been enough of ill," resumed her son. "That he should be left in peace is all the miserable King now needs."

"But your life, my son. The safety of the realm depends upon the extermination of the works of the powers of darkness. Would you, a Catholic Prince, allow the evil-doer of the works of Satan to roam about at will, and injure others as he would have destroyed his king?" pursued the Queen-mother.

"Well, we will speak more of this at another opportunity. Leave me now, madam, for I am very weak both in mind and body; and I thank you for your zeal and care."

"My son, I cannot leave you," persisted Catherine, "until you shall have signed this paper." She produced from the species of reticule suspended at her side a parchment already covered with writing. "It confers upon me full power to treat in this affair, and bring the offender to condign punishment. You shall have no trouble in this matter; and through your mother's care, your enemies shall be purged from the earth, and you yourself once more free, and strong and able shortly to resume the helm of state, to mount your horse, to cheer on your hounds. Come, my son, sign this paper."

"Leave me--leave me in peace," again answered Charles. "I am sick at heart, and I would do no ill even to my bitterest enemy, be he only an obscure sorcerer, who has combined with the prince of darkness himself to work my death."

"My son--it cannot be," said Catherine, perseveringly--for she was aware that by persisting alone could she weary her son to do at last her will. "Sign this order for prosecuting immediately the trial of the sorcerer. It is a duty you owe to your country, for which you should live, as much as to yourself. Come!" and, taking him by the arm, she attempted to raise him from his chair.

"Must I ever be thus tormented, even in my hours of suffering?" said the King with impatience. "Well, be it so, madam. Work your will, and leave me to my repose."

He rose wearily from his chair, and going to a table on which were placed materials for writing, hastily signed the paper laid before him by his mother; and then, fetching a deep respiration of relief, like a school-boy after the performance of some painful task, he flung himself on to the chest beside the ape, and, turning his back to his mother, began to make his peace with the sulky animal.

Catherine of Medicis permitted a cold smile of satisfaction to wander over her face; and after greeting again her son, who paid her no more heed than might be expressed by an impatient shrug of the shoulders, indicative of his desire to be left in peace, again lifted the hangings, and passed through the concealed door. The suffering King, whose days of life were already numbered, and fast approaching their utmost span, although his years were still so few, remained again alone with his agony and his ennui.

Behind the door by which the Queen-mother had left her son's apartment was a narrow stone corridor, communicating with a small winding staircase, by which she mounted to her own suite of rooms upon the first floor; but, when she had gained the summit, avoiding the secret entrance opening into her own chamber, she proceeded along one of the many hidden passages by which she was accustomed to gain not only those wings of the palace inhabited by her different children, but almost every other part of the building, unseen and unannounced. Stopping at last before a narrow door, forming a part of the stone-work of the corridor, she pulled it towards her, and again lifting up a tapestry hanging, entered, silently and stealthily, a small room, which appeared a sort of inner cabinet to a larger apartment. She was about to pass through it, when some papers scattered upon a table caught her eye, and moving towards them with her usual cat-like step, she began turning them over with the noiseless adroitness of one accustomed to such an employment. Presently, however, she threw them down, as if she had not found in them, at once, what she sought, or was fearful of betraying her presence to the persons whose voices might be heard murmuring in the adjoining room; and, advancing with inaudible tread, she paused to listen for a minute. The persons, however, spoke low; and finding that her _espionage_ profited nothing to her, the royal spy passed on and entered the apartment.

In a chair, turning his back to her, sat a young man at a table, upon which papers and maps were mixed with jewellery, articles of dress, feathers and laces. A pair of newly-fashioned large gilt spurs lay upon a manuscript which appeared to contain a list of names; a naked rapier, the hilt of which was of curious device and workmanship, was carelessly thrust through a paper covered with notes of music. The whole formed a strange mixture, indicative at once of pre-occupation and listless _insouciance_, of grave employment and utter frivolity. Before this seated personage stood another, who appeared to be speaking to him earnestly and in low tones. At the sight of Catherine, as she advanced, however, the latter person exclaimed quickly,

"My lord duke, her majesty the Queen-mother!"

The other person rose hastily, and in some alarm, from his chair; whilst his companion took this opportunity to increase the confusion upon the table, by pushing one or two other papers beneath some of the articles of amusement or dress.

Without any appearance of remarking the embarrassment that was pictured upon the young man's face, Catherine advanced to accept his troubled greeting with a mild smile of tenderness, and said--

"Alencon, my son, I have a few matters of private business, upon which I would confer with you--and alone."

The increasing embarrassment upon the face of the young Duke must have been visible to any eye but that which did not choose to see it. After a moment's hesitation, however, in which the habit of obeying implicitly his mother's authority seemed to subdue his desire to avoid a conference with her, he turned and said unwillingly to his companion,

"Leave us, La Mole."

The Duke's favourite cast a glance of encouragement and caution upon his master; and bowing to the Queen-mother, who returned his homage with her kindest and most re-assuring smile of courtesy and benevolence, and an affable wave of the hand, he left the apartment.

Catherine took the seat from which her son had risen; and leaving him standing before her in an attitude which ill-repressed trouble combined with natural awkwardness of manner to render peculiarly ungainly, she seemed to study for a time, and with satisfaction, his confusion and constraint. But then, begging him to be seated near her, she commenced speaking to him of various matters, of his own pleasures and amusements, of the newest dress, of the fetes interrupted by the King's illness, of the effect which this illness, and the supposed danger of Charles, had produced upon the jarring parties in the state; of the audacity of the Huguenots, who now first began, since the massacre of St Bartholomew's day, again to raise their heads, and cause fresh disquietude to the government. And thus proceeding step by step to the point at which she desired to arrive, the wily Queen-mother resembled the cat, which creeps slowly onwards, until it springs at last with one bound upon its victim.

"Alas!" she said, with an air of profound sorrow, "so quickly do treachery and ingratitude grow up around us, that we no longer can discern who are our friends and who our enemies. We bestow favours; but it is as if we gave food to the dog, who bites our fingers as he takes it. We cherish a friend; and it is an adder we nurse in our bosoms. That young man who left us but just now, the Count La Mole--he cannot hear us surely;"--the Duke of Alencon assured her, with ill-concealed agitation, that his favourite was out of ear-shot--"that young man--La Mole!--you love him well, I know, my son; and you know not that it is a traitor you have taken to your heart."

"La Mole--a traitor! how? impossible!" stammered the young Duke.

"Your generous and candid heart comprehends not treachery in those it loves," pursued his mother; "but I have, unhappily, the proofs in my own power. Philip de la Mole conspires against your brother's crown."

The Duke of Alencon grew deadly pale; and he seemed to support himself with difficulty; but he stammered with faltering tongue,

"Conspires? how? for whom? Surely, madam, you are most grossly misinformed?"

"Unhappily, my son," pursued Catherine--"and my heart bleeds to say it--I have it no longer in my power to doubt."

"Madam, it is false," stammered again the young Duke, rising hastily from his chair, with an air of assurance which he did not feel. "This is some calumny."

"Sit down, my son, and listen to me for a while," said the Queen-mother with a bland, quiet smile. "I speak not unadvisedly. Be not so moved."

Alencon again sat down unwillingly, subdued by the calm superiority of his mother's manner.

"You think this Philip de la Mole," she continued, "attached solely to your interests, for you have showered upon him many and great favours; and your unsuspecting nature has been deceived. Listen to me, I pray you. Should our poor Henry never return from Poland, it would be yours to mount the throne of France upon the death of Charles. Nay, look not so uneasy. Such a thought, if it had crossed your mind, is an honest and a just one. How should I blame it? And now, how acts this Philip de la Mole--this man whom you have advanced, protected, loved almost as a brother? Regardless of all truth or honour, regardless of his master's fortunes, he conspires with friends and enemies, with Catholic and Huguenot, to place Henry of Navarre upon the throne!"

"La Mole conspires for Henry of Navarre! Impossible!" cried the Duke.

"Alas! my son, it is too truly as I say," pursued the Queen-mother; "the discoveries that have been made reveal most clearly the whole base scheme. Know you not that this upstart courtier has dared to love your sister Margaret, and that the foolish woman returns his presumptuous passion? It is she who has connived with her ambitious lover to see a real crown encircle her own brow. She has encouraged Philip de la Mole to conspire with her husband of Navarre, to grasp the throne of France upon the death of Charles. You are ignorant of this, my son; your honourable mind can entertain no such baseness. I am well aware that, had you been capable of harbouring a thought of treachery towards your elder brother--and I well know that you are not--believe me, the wily Philip de la Mole had rendered you his dupe, and blinded you to the true end of his artful and black designs."

"Philip a traitor!" exclaimed the young Duke aghast.

"A traitor to his king, his country, and to you, my son--to you, who have loved him but too well," repeated the Queen-mother.

"And it was for this purpose that he"--commenced the weak Duke of Alencon. But then, checking the words he was about to utter, he added, clenching his hands together--"Oh! double, double traitor!"

"I knew that you would receive the revelation of this truth with horror," pursued Catherine. "It is the attribute of your generous nature so to do; and I would have spared you the bitter pang of knowing that you have lavished so much affection upon a villain. But as orders will be immediately given for his arrest, it was necessary you should know his crime, and make no opposition to the seizure of one dependent so closely upon your person."

More, much more, did the artful Queen-mother say to turn her weak and credulous son to her will, and when she had convinced him of the certain treachery of his favourite, she rose to leave him, with the words--

"The guards will be here anon. Avoid him until then. Leave your apartment; speak to him not; or, if he cross your path, smile on him kindly, thus--and let him never read upon your face the thought that lurks within, 'Thou art a traitor.'"

Alencon promised obedience to his mother's injunctions.

"I have cut off thy right hand, my foolish son," muttered Catherine to herself as she departed by the secret door. "Thou art too powerless to act alone, and I fear thee now no longer. Margaret must still be dealt with; and thou, Henry of Navarre, if thou aspirest to the regency, the struggle is between thee and Catherine. Then will be seen whose star shines with the brightest lustre!"

When Philip de la Mole returned to his master's presence, he found the Duke pacing up and down the chamber in evident agitation; and the only reply given to his words was a smile of so false and constrained a nature, that it almost resembled a grin of mockery.

The Duke of Alencon was as incapable of continued dissimulation, as he was incapable of firmness of purpose; and when La Mole again approached him, he frowned sulkily, and, turning his back upon his favourite, was about to quit the room.

"Shall I accompany my lord duke?" said La Mole, with his usual careless demeanour, although he saw the storm gathering, and guessed immediately from what quarter the wind had blown, but not the awful violence of the hurricane.

"No--I want no traitors to dog my footsteps," replied Alencon, unable any longer to restrain himself, in spite of his mother's instructions.

"There are no traitors here," replied his favourite proudly. "I could have judged, my lord, that the Queen-mother had been with you, had I not seen her enter your apartment. Yes--there has been treachery on foot, it seems, but not where you would say. Speak boldly, my lord, and truly. Of what does she accuse me?"

"Traitor! double traitor!" exclaimed the Duke, bursting into a fit of childish wrath, "who hast led me on with false pretences of a Crown--who hast made _me_--thy master and thy prince--the dupe of thy base stratagems; who hast blinded me, and gulled me, whilst thy real design was the interest of another!"

"Proceed, my lord duke," said La Mole calmly. "Of what other does my lord duke speak?"

"Of Henry of Navarre, for whom you have conspired at Margaret's instigation," replied Alencon, walking uneasily up and down the room, and not venturing to look upon his accused favourite, as if he himself had been the criminal, and not the accuser.

"Ah! thither flies the bolt, does it?" said La Mole, with score. "But it strikes not, my lord. If I may claim your lordship's attention to these papers for a short space of time, I should need no other answer to this strange accusation, so strangely thrown out against me." And he produced from his person several documents concealed about it, and laid them before the Duke, who had now again thrown himself into his chair. "This letter from Conde--this from La Breche--these from others of the Protestant party. Cast your eyes over them? Of whom do they speak? Is it of Henry of Navarre? Or is it of the Duke of Alencon? Whom do they look to as their chief and future King?"

"Philip, forgive me--I have wronged you," said the vacillating Duke, as he turned over these documents from members of the conspiracy that had been formed in his own favour. "But, gracious Virgin!--I now remember my mother knows all--she is fearfully incensed against you. She spoke of your arrest."

"Already!" exclaimed La Mole. "Then it is time to act! I would not that it had been so soon. But Charles is suffering--he can no longer wield the sceptre. Call out the guard at once. Summon your fiends. Seize on the Louvre."

"No--no--it is too late," replied the Duke; "my mother knows all, I tell you. No matter whether for me or for another, but you have dared to attack the rights of my brother of Anjou--and that is a crime she never will forgive."

"Then act at once," continued his favourite, with energy. "We have bold hearts and ready arms. Before to-night the Regency shall be yours; at Charles's death the Crown."

"No, no--La Mole--impossible--I cannot--will not," said Alencon in despair.

"Monseigneur!" cried La Mole, with a scorn he could not suppress.

"You must fly, Philip--you must fly!" resumed his master.

"No--since you will not act, I will remain and meet my fate!"

"Fly, fly, I tell you! You would compromise me, were you to remain," repeated the Duke. "Every moment endangers our safety."

"If such be your command," replied La Mole coldly, "rather than sacrifice a little of your honour, I will fly."

"They will be here shortly," continued Alencon hurriedly. "Here, take this cloak--this jewelled hat. They are well known to be mine. Wrap the cloak about you. Disguise your height--your gait. They will take you for me. The corridors are obscure--you may cross the outer court undiscovered--and once in safety, you will join our friends. Away--away!"

La Mole obeyed his master's bidding, but without the least appearance of haste or fear.

"And I would have made that man a king!" he murmured to himself, as, dressed in the Duke's cloak and hat, he plunged into the tortuous and gloomy corridors of the Louvre. "That man a king! Ambition made me mad. Ay! worse than mad--a fool!"

The Duke of Alencon watched anxiously from his window, which dominated the outer court of the Louvre, for the appearance of that form, enveloped in his cloak; and when he saw La Mole pass unchallenged the gate leading without, he turned away from the window with an exclamation of satisfaction.

A minute afterwards the agents of the Queen-mother entered his apartment.

THE SCOTTISH HARVEST.

The approach of winter is always a serious time. When the fields are cleared, and the produce of our harvest has been gathered into the yard and the barn, we begin to hold a general count and reckoning with the earth, and to calculate what amount of augmented riches we have drawn from the bosom of the soil. When the investigation proves satisfactory, the result is but slightly recorded. Our ancestors, with just piety and gratitude, were accustomed to set apart whole days for thanksgiving to the Almighty Being who had blessed the labours of the year; we--to our shame be it said--have departed from the reverent usage. We take a good season as if it were no more than our appointed due--a bad one comes upon us with all the terrors of a panic.

But there are seasons frequently occurring which vary between the one and the other extreme; and these are they which give rise to the most discussion. It is unfortunately the tactics, if not the interest, of one great party in the nation, to magnify every season of scarcity into a famine for the purpose of promoting their own cherished theories. A bad August and an indifferent September are subjects of intense interest to your thorough-paced corn-law repealer; not that we believe the man has an absolute abstract joy in the prospect of coming scarcity--we acquit him of that--but he sees, or thinks he sees, a combination of events which, erelong, must realize his darling theory, and his sagacity, as a speculative politician, is at stake. Therefore, he is always ready, upon the slightest apprehension of failure, to demand, with most turbulent threat, the immediate opening of the ports, in the hope that, once opened, they may never be closed again.

Our original intention was not to discuss the corn-law question in the present article. We took up the pen for the simple purpose of showing that, so far as Scotland is concerned, a most unnecessary alarm has been raised with regard to the produce of the harvest; and we have not the slightest doubt that the same exaggeration has been extended to the sister country. Of course, if we can prove this, it will follow as a matter of deduction, that no especial necessity exists for opening the ports at present; and we shall further strengthen our position by reference to the prices of bonded grain. We shall not, however, conclude, without a word or two regarding the mischievous theories which, if put into execution, would place this country at the mercy of a foreign power; and we entreat the attention of our readers the more, because already our prospective position has become the subject of intense interest on the Continent.

It is a question of such immense importance, that we have thought it our duty to consult with one of the best-informed persons on the subject of practical agriculture in Scotland, or, indeed, in the United Kingdom. Our authority for the following facts, as to the results of the harvest in the North, is Mr Stephens, the author of _The Book of the Farm_. His opinions, and the results of his observation, have kindly been communicated to us in letters, written during the first fortnight in November; and we do not think that we can confer upon the public a greater service than by laying extracts from these before them. They may tend, if duly weighed and considered, to relieve the apprehensions of those who have taken alarm at the very commencement of the cry. Our conviction is, that the alarm is not only premature but unreasonable, and that the grain-produce of this year is rather above than below the ordinary average. We shall consider the potato question separately: in the meantime let us hear Mr Stephens on the subject of the quantity of the harvest.

QUANTITY OF GRAIN-CROP.

"I am quite satisfied in my own mind, from observation and information, that a greater quantity of grain convertible into bread has been derived from this harvest than from the last. Both oats and barley are a heavy crop; indeed oats are the bulkiest crop I ever remember to have seen in the higher districts of this country. The straw is not only long, but is strong in the reed, and thick in the ground; and notwithstanding all the rain, both barley and oats were much less laid than might have been expected. In regard to wheat, all the good soils have yielded well--the inferior but indifferently. There is a much greater diversity in the wheat than in barley and oats. The straw of wheat is long, and it is also strong; but still it was more laid than either oats or barley, and wherever it was laid the crop will be very deficient. As to the colour of all sorts of grain, it is much brighter than the farmers had anticipated, and there is no sprouted grain this year.

Let me relate a few instances of be yield of the crop. I must premise that the results I am about to give are derived from the best cultivated districts, and that no returns of yield have yet been had from the upper and later districts. At the same time I have no reason to suppose that these, when received, will prove in any way contradictory. In East Lothian two fields of wheat have been tried, in not the best soil; and the one has yielded 4-1/2, and the other very nearly 5 quarters, per Scotch acre. Before being cut, the first one was estimated at 2-1/2, and the second at 4-1/2 quarters. The grain in both cases is good.

In Mid-Lothian, one farmer assures himself, from trials, that he will reap 8 quarters of wheat per Scotch acre of good quality. And another says, that, altogether, he never had so great a crop since he was a farmer.

In West Lothian, two farmers have thrashed some wheat, and the yield is 8 quarters per Scotch acre, of good quality.

In the best district of Roxburghshire the wheat will yield well; while a large field of wheat, in Berwickshire, that was early laid on account of the weakness of the straw, which was too much forced by the high condition of the soil, will scarcely pay the cost of reaping. This, however, is but a single isolated instance, for a farmer in the same county has put in 73 ordinary-sized stacks, whereas his usual number is about 60.

In the east of Forfarshire, the harvest is represented to me as being glorious; while in the west, there has not been a better crop of every thing for many years. The accounts from Northumberland, from two or three of my friends who farm there extensively, confirm the preceding statements, in regard to the bulk and general yield of the corn crop.

I may also mention, that the samples of wheat, and oats, and barley, presented at the Highland and Agricultural Society's Show at Dumfries, along with the grain in the straw, were really admirable.

With all these attestations from so many parts of the country, that are known to be good corn districts, I cannot doubt that the crop is a good one on good soils."

* * * * *

So much for the quantity, which, after all, is the main consideration. The above account certainly gives no indications of famine, or even scarcity. It contains the general character of the weight of the harvest in the principal corn-growing districts of Scotland, and we have no reason whatever to suppose that worse fortune has attended the results of the husbandry in England. The next consideration is the

QUALITY OF THE CROP

"Not the entire crop, but most of it, is inferior in quality to that of last year. The barley and oats are both plump and heavy, but there is a slight roughness about them; and yet the weights in some cases of both are extraordinary. Potato oats were shown at Dumfries 48lb per bushel--3lb above the ordinary weight. Barley has been presented in the Edinburgh market every week as heavy as 56lb per quarter--about 3lb more than the ordinary weight. All the samples of wheat I have seen in Leith in the hands of an eminent corn-merchant, weighed from 60lb to 63lb per bushel, and it has been as high as 66lb in the Edinburgh market. I also saw samples of Essex wheat above 60lb, as well as good wheat from Lincolnshire.

Now such weights could not be indicated by grain at the end of a wet harvest, unless it were of good quality.

The quality is much diversified, especially in wheat; some of it not weighing above 48lb per bushel. The winnowings from all the grains will be proportionally large; although, in the case of barley and oats, had every pickle attained maturity, the crop would probably have exceeded the extraordinary one of 1815. But though heavy winnowings entail decided loss to the farmer, yet human beings will not be the greatest sufferers by them; the loss will chiefly fall on the poor work-horses, as they will be made to eat the light instead of the good corn, which latter will be reserved for human food. The light oats will no doubt be given to horses in larger quantities than good corn, and the light barley will be boiled for them in mashes probably every night.

The beans are a heavy crop in _straw_ every where; and bean-straw, when well won, is as good for horses in winter as hay; while in certain districts, such as on the Border, the beans will also be good.

With all these facts before me, I cannot make myself believe that we are to experience any thing approaching to the privation of famine, so far as the grain crop is concerned."

* * * * *

Our practical experience in these matters is so limited, that we feel diffident in adding any thing to these remarks of Mr Stephens. We may, however, be permitted to express a doubt whether the average quality of the crop has yet been satisfactorily ascertained. It is well known that the farmer rarely brings his best wheat into the earliest market, because it is his interest to thrash out that part of the crop which may have sustained a partial damage, as soon as possible; and in these circumstances it usually follows, that the worst wheat is first exposed for sale. In like manner he wishes to dispose of his inferior barley first. In regard to oats, the inferior portions find consumption at home by the horses. In ordinary seasons, any wheat or barley that may have shown symptoms of heating in the stacks are first presented at market; but in this season, when there is no heated grain--thanks to the low temperature and the precautions used in stacking--the high prices have tempted the farmers to thrash both wheat and barley earlier than usual, in order to meet the demands for rent and wages at Martinmas--a term which, owing to the lateness of the season, followed close on the termination of the harvest. This peculiarity of the season may, perhaps, account for the large supplies of wheat presented for some weeks past at Mark Lane--to the extent, we understand, of from 30,000 to 40,000 quarters more than last year at the same period. It is more than probable that the largest proportion of the land in fallow has been sown with old wheat, as it was early ascertained that the harvest would be unusually late. There is always more bare fallow in England than in Scotland, and the old wheat having been thus disposed of, the earlier portion of the new grain was brought to market, and not appropriated for its usual purpose. We must, however, conclude, that the crop--at all events the wheat--is inferior to that of former years. This has generally been attributed to the wetness of the season, in which view our correspondent does not altogether concur; and we are glad to observe that on one important matter--namely, the fitness of this year's grain for seed--his opinions are decidedly favourable.

CAUSE OF INFERIOR QUALITY OF WHEAT.

"I am of opinion, that the inferiority of the wheat in poor lands, both as regards quantity and quality, has not arisen from the wetness of the season, but from the _very low degree of temperature_ which prevailed at the blooming season in the end of June, and which prevented the pollen coming to maturity, and therefore interfered with the proper fecundation of the plant. I observed that, during all that time, the rain did not fall in so large quantities as afterwards, but the thermometer averaged so low as from 48 deg. to 52 deg., even during the day, and there was a sad want of sunshine. And it is an ascertained fact, that wheat will _not fecundate at all_ in a temperature which does not exceed 45 deg., accompanied with a gloomy atmosphere. This theory of the influence of a low temperature also accounts for the quantity of _light_ wheat this year; for the side of the ear that was exposed to the cold breeze which blew constantly from the north-east during the period of blooming, would experience a more chilly atmosphere than the other side, which was comparatively sheltered, and therefore its fecundation would be most interfered with.

I may mention a peculiar characteristic of this year, if we take into consideration the wetness of the season; which is, that scarcely a sprouted ear of corn is to be found any where, notwithstanding that the crop was laid in many instances. This immunity from an evil which never fails to render grain, so affected, useless for human food, has no doubt been secured by the _low temperature of the season_. It was an observed fact, that immediately after the falls of rain, whether great or moderate, a firm, drying, cool breeze always sprang up, which quickly dried the standing and won the cut corn at the same time; and the consequence has been, that the entire crop has been secured in the stack-yard in a safe state. All the kinds of grain, therefore, may be regarded as being in a _sound_ state; and, on that account, even the lighter grains will be quite fit for seed next year."

* * * * *

The point on which the nation at large is principally interested, is, of course, the price of bread. It is quite evident that the cost of manufactured flour ought, in all cases, to remain in just proportion with the value of the raw material. Unfortunately that proportion is not always maintained. The baker is a middleman between the farmer and the public, between the producing and the consuming classes. Amongst those who follow that very necessary trade, there exists a combination which is not regulated by law; and the consequence is, that, whenever a scarcity is threatened, the bakers raise the price of the loaf at pleasure, and on no fixed principle corresponding with the price of corn. Few persons are aware at what rate the quartern loaf _ought to be sold_ when wheat is respectively at 50s., 60s., or 70s. per quarter: they are, however, painfully sensitive when they are subjected to an arbitrary rise of bread and their natural conclusion is, that they are taxed on account of the dearness of the grain. The number of those who buy grain or who study its fluctuations, is very small; but every one uses bread, and the monthly account of the baker is a sure memento of its price. Let us see how the middle functionary has behaved.

WHY IS BREAD SO DEAR?

"The price of bread is very high already, and is not likely to fall; and the reason a baker would assign for this is the high price of wheat--a very plausible reason, and to which most people would too good-naturedly assent; but examine the particulars of the case, and the reason adduced will be found based on a fallacy. During all the last year, the aggregate average price of wheat never exceeded 56s. a quarter, and in that time the price of the 4lb loaf was 5-1/2d.; at least I paid no more for it with ready money. The highest mark that wheat has yet attained in this market, is 88s. per quarter, and it is notorious that this market has, for the present year, been the dearest throughout the kingdom. As 10s. a quarter makes a difference of 1d. in the 4lb loaf, the loaf, according to this scale--which, be it remarked, is of the bakers' own selection--should be at 8-1/2d. when the wheat is at 88s. Can you, nevertheless, believe that, _whilst the present price of bread_ is 8-1/2d. _the loaf_ is made wholly of wheat which cost the bakers 88s. the quarter? The bakers tell you they always buy the best wheat, and yet, though they are the largest buyers in the wheat market, the aggregate average of the kingdom did not exceed 58s. 6d. on the 8th November. The truth is, the bakers are trying to make the most they can; and they are not to blame, provided their gains were not imputed to the farmers. But we all know, that when bread gets inordinately high in price, clamour is raised against _dear wheat_--that is, against the farmer--and this again is made the pretext for _a free trade in corn_; whilst the _high price secured to the baker by the privilege of his trade_ is left unblamed and unscathed."

* * * * *

Had the Court of Session thought proper to retain in observance the powers to which it succeeded after the abolition of the Privy Council, and which for some time it executed, we certainly should have applied to their Lordships for an Act of Sederunt to regulate the proceedings of Master Bakers. But, as centralisation has not even spared us an humble Secretary, we must leave our complaint for consideration in a higher quarter. Our correspondent, however, is rather too charitable in assuming that the bakers are not to blame. We cannot, for the life of us, understand why they are permitted to augment the price of bread, the great commodity of life, at this enormous ratio, in consequence of the rise of corn. Surely some enactment should be framed, by which the price of the loaf should be kept in strict correspondence with the average price of grain, and some salutary check put upon a monopoly, which, we are convinced, has often afforded a false argument against the agricultural interests of the country.

Such we believe to be the true state of the grain crop throughout the kingdom generally. How, from such a state of things, any valid argument can be raised for opening the ports at this time, we are totally at a loss to conceive. The only serious feature connected with the present harvest, is the partial failure of the potato crop, to which we shall presently refer. But, so far as regards corn, we maintain that there is no real ground for alarm; and further, there is this important consideration connected with the late harvest, which should not be ungratefully disregarded, that two months of the grain season have already passed, and the new crop remains comparatively untouched, so that it will have to supply only ten months' consumption instead of twelve: and should the next harvest be an early one, which we have reason to expect after this late one, the time bearing on the present crop will be still more shortened. Nor should the fact be overlooked, that two months' consumption is equal to 2,000,000 quarters of wheat--an amount which would form a very considerable item in a crop which had proved to be actually deficient.

But as there has been a movement already in some parts of Scotland, though solely from professed repealers, towards memorialising government for open ports on the ground of special necessity, we shall consider that question for a little; and, in doing so, shall blend the observations of our able correspondent with our own.

Such a step, we think, at the present moment, would be attended with mischief in more ways than one. There can be no pretext of a famine at present, immediately after harvest; and the natural course of events in operation is this, that the dear prices are inducing a stream of corn from every producing quarter towards Britain. In such circumstances, if you raise a cry of famine, and suspend the corn-laws, that stream of supply will at once be stopped. The importers will naturally suspend their trade, because they will then speculate, not on the rate of the import duty, which will be absolutely abolished by the suspension, but on the rise of price in the market of this country. They will therefore, as a matter of course--gain being their only object--withhold their supplies, until the prices shall have, through panic, attained a famine price here; and then they will realize their profit when they conceive they can gain no more. In the course of things at present, the price of fine wheat is so high, that a handsome surplus would remain to foreigners, though they paid the import duty. Remove that duty, and the foreigner will immediately add its amount to the price of his own wheat. The price of wheat would then be as high to the consumer as when the duty remained to be paid; while the amount of duty would go into the pockets of the foreigner, instead of into our own exchequer. At present, the finest foreign wheat is 62s. in bond--remove the present duty of 14s., and that wheat will freely give _in the market_ 80s. the quarter.

It is, therefore, clear that such an expedient as that of suspending the corn-laws merely to include the bonded wheat to be entered for home consumption, would, in no degree, benefit the consumer. The quantity of wheat at present in bond does not exceed half-a-million of quarters--the greatest part of which did not cost the importer 30s. per quarter. At least we can vouch for this, that early last summer, when the crop looked luxuriant, 5000 quarters of wheat in bond were actually offered in the Edinburgh market for 26s., and were sold for that sum, and allowed to remain in bond. It still remains in bond, and could now realise 62s. Here, then, is a realisable profit of 36s. per quarter, and yet the holder will not take it, in the expectation of a higher.

We cannot think that Sir Robert Peel would sanction a measure so clearly and palpably unwise, for the sake of liberating only half a million quarters of wheat, which is the calculated consumption of a fortnight. But the late frequent meetings of the Privy Council have afforded an admirable opportunity for the alarmists to declaim upon coming famine. Matters, they say, must be looking serious indeed, when both Cabinet and Council are repeatedly called together; and they jump at the conclusion, that suspension of the corn-law is the active subject of debate. We pretend to no special knowledge of what is passing behind the political curtain; but a far more rational conjecture as to the nature of those deliberations may be found in the state of the potato crop, and the question, whether any succedaneum can be found for it. Perhaps it would be advisable to allow Indian corn, or maize, to come in duty-free; if not as food for people, it would feed horses, pigs, or poultry, and would make a diversion in favour of the consumption of corn to a certain extent; and such a relaxation could be made without interfering with the _corn_-laws, for maize is not regarded as corn, but stands in the same position as rice and millet. We might try this experiment with the maize, as the Dutch have already forestalled the rice market.

If the state of the harvest is such as we conscientiously believe it to be, there can be no special reason--but rather, as we have shown, the reverse--for suspending the action of the corn-laws at this particular juncture. If the enactment of that measure was founded on the principle of affording protection to the farmer, why interfere with these laws at a time when any apprehension of a famine is entirely visionary? And since there is a large quantity of food in the country, the present prices are certainly not attributable to a deficiency in the crop, and are, after all, little more than remunerative to the farmers who are raisers of corn alone. The present rents could not possibly be paid from the profits of the growth of corn. It is the high price of live stock which keeps up the value of the land. The aggregate average price of wheat throughout the kingdom is only 58s. 6d., upon which no rational argument can be founded for the suspension of the laws of the country. Besides the working of the corn-laws will in its natural course effect all that is desirable; at any rate it does not prevent the introduction of foreign grain into the market. The present state of the grain-market presents an apparent anomaly--that is, it affords a high and a low price for the same commodity, namely wheat; but this difference is no more than might have been anticipated from the peculiar condition of the wheat crop, which yields good and inferior samples at the same time. It can be no matter of surprise that fine wheat should realise good prices, or that inferior wheat should only draw low prices. The high price will remunerate those who have the good fortune to reap a crop of wheat of good quality, and the low prices of the inferior wheat will have the effect of keeping the aggregate average price at a medium figure, and, by maintaining a high duty, will prevent the influx of inferior grain to compete with our own inferior grain in the home market. The law thus really affords protection to those who are in need of it--namely, to such farmers as have reaped an inferior crop of wheat; while those foreigners who have fine wheat in bond, or a surplus which they may send to this country, can afford to pay a high duty on receiving a high price for their superior article. Taking such a state of things into consideration, we cannot conceive a measure more wise in its operation, inasmuch as it accommodates itself to the peculiar circumstances of the times, than the present form of the corn-law.

Were that law allowed to operate as the legislature intended, it would bring grain into this country whenever a supply was actually necessary; but we cannot shut our eyes to the mischievous effects which unfounded rumours of its suspension have already produced in the foreign market. Owing to these reports, propagated by the newspapers, the holders of wheat abroad have raised the price to 56s. a quarter, free on board; and as the same rumours have advanced the freight to 6s. a quarter, wheat cannot _now_ be landed here in bond under 66s. The suspension of the corn-law would tend to confirm the panic abroad, and would therefore increase the difficulties of our corn-merchants, in making purchases of wheat for this market. It seems to us very strange that sensible men of business should be so credulous as to believe every idle rumour that is broached in the newspapers, so evidently for party purposes; for the current report of the immediate suspension of the corn-law originated in the papers avowedly inimical to the Ministry. The character of the League is well known. That body has never permitted truth to be an obstacle in the way of its attempts.

So much for corn and the corn-laws. But there is a more serious question beyond this, and that is the state of the potatoes. If we are to believe the journals, more especially those which are attached to the cause of the League, the affection has spread, and is spreading to a most disastrous extent. Supposing these accounts to be true, we say, advisedly, that it will be impossible to find a substitute for the potato among the vegetable productions of the world; for neither wheat nor maize can be used, like it, with the simplest culinary preparation. There can be no doubt that in some places this affection is very prevalent, and that a considerable part of the crop in certain soils has been rendered unfit for ordinary domestic use. It is understood that the Lord-Advocate of Scotland has issued a circular to the parish clergymen throughout the kingdom, requesting answers to certain queries on this important subject. The information thus obtained will no doubt be classified, so that the government will immediately arrive at a true estimate of the extent of damage incurred.

In the mean time we have caused enquiry to be made for ourselves, and the result, in so far as regards Scotland, is much more favourable than we had expected, considering the extent of the first alarm. We have seen accounts _from every quarter of the kingdom_, and the following report may therefore be relied on as strictly consistent with fact.

It appears, on investigation, that no traces whatever of the complaint have yet been found in the northern half of Scotland. The crop in the upper parts of Forfarshire and Perthshire is quite untainted, and so across the island. When we consider what a vast stretch of country extends to the north of Montrose, the point beyond which, as our informants say, this singular affection has not penetrated, we shall have great reason to be thankful for such a providential immunity. Our chief anxiety, when we first heard of the probable failure, was for the Highlands, where potato plant furnishes so common and so necessary an article of food. We know by former experience what bitter privation is felt during a bad season in the far glens and lonely western islands; and most rejoiced are we to find, that for this winter there is little likelihood of a repetition of the same calamity. Argyleshire, however, except in its northern parishes has not escaped so well. We have reason to believe that the potatoes in that district have suffered very materially, but to what extent is not yet accurately ascertained.

In the Lowlands the accounts are more conflicting; but it is remarkable that almost every farmer confesses now, that his first apprehensions were greatly worse than the reality. On examination, it turns out that many fields which were considered so tainted as to be useless, are very slightly affected: it is thus apparent that undue precipitation has been used in pronouncing upon the general character of the crop from a few isolated samples. Some districts appear to have escaped altogether; and from a considerable number we have seen reports of a decided abatement in the disease.

In short, keeping in view all the information we have been able to collect, the following seems to be the true state of the case:--The crop throughout Scotland has been a very large one, but one-half of it is affected to a greater or less degree. About a fourth or a fifth of this half crop is so slightly damaged, that the unusual amount of produce will more than compensate the injury. The remainder is certainly worse. Of this, however, a considerable proportion has been converted into starch--an expedient which was early recommended in many quarters, wisely adopted by the prudent, and may yet be extensively increased. An affected potato, unless its juices were thoroughly fermented, and decomposition commenced, will yield quite as good starch as the healthy root, and all this may be considered as saved. Potato starch or farina, when mixed with flour, makes a wholesome and palatable bread. In some districts the doubtful potatoes are given to the cattle in quantities, and are considered excellent feeding. This also is a material saving.

The spread of the complaint, or rather the appearance of its worst symptoms, seems to depend very much on the mode of management adopted after the potatoes are raised. A friend of ours in Mid-Lothian, who has paid much attention to agriculture, has saved nearly the whole of his crop, by careful attention to the dryness of the roots when heaped, by keeping these heaps small and frequently turned, and, above all, by judicious ventilation _through them_. A neighbouring farmer, who had an immense crop, but who did not avail him of any of these precautions, has suffered most severely.

One letter which we have received is of great importance, as it details the means by which an affected crop has been preserved. We think it our duty to make the following extract, premising that the writer is an eminent practical farmer in the south of Scotland:--"I had this year a large crop of potatoes, but my fields, like those of my neighbours, did not escape the epidemic. On its first appearance, I directed my serious attention to the means of preserving the crop. Though inclined to impute the complaint to a deeper cause than the wetness of the season, I conceived that damp would, as a matter of course, increase any tendency to decay, and I took my measures accordingly. Having raised my potatoes, I caused all the sound ones, which seemed free from spot and blemish, to be carefully picked by the hand; and, having selected a dry situation in an adjoining field, I desired them to be heaped there in quantities, none of which exceeded a couple of bolls. The method of pitting them was this:--On a dry foundation we placed a layer of potatoes, which we covered with sandy mould, though I don't doubt straw would do as well; above that, another layer, also covered; and so on, keeping the potatoes as separate from each other as possible. We then thatched and covered them over as usual with straw, leaving ventilators on the top. I have had them opened since, and there is no trace whatever of any decay, which I attribute to the above precautions, as others in the neighbourhood, whose potatoes grew in exactly similar soil, have lost great part of their crop by heaping them in huge masses. Ventilation, you may depend upon it, is a great preservative. I have, I think, arrested the complaint even in affected potatoes, by laying them out (not heaping them) on a dry floor, in a covered place where there is a strong current of air. They are not spoiling _now_; and when the unsound parts are cut out, we find them quite wholesome and fit for use. I am of opinion, therefore, that by using due caution, the progress of the complaint, so far as it has gone, may in most cases be effectually checked."

We are, therefore, almost certain, that when the damaged portion is deducted from the whole amount of the crop, there still remains an ample store of good potatoes for the consumption of the whole population--that is, if the potatoes were distributed equally through the markets. This, however, cannot be done, and, therefore, there are some places where this vegetable will be dear and scarce. The farmer who has a large crop of sound potatoes, and who does not reside in an exporting part of the country, will naturally enough use his superfluity for his cattle; and this cannot be prevented. We hope, however, that the habitual thrift of our countrymen will cause them to abstain, as much as possible, from wasting their extra stock in this manner, more especially as there is abundance of other kinds of fodder. They will command a high price as an esculent, and perhaps a higher, if they are preserved for the purposes of seed. Exportation also should be carried on cautiously; but we repeat, that the general tenor of our information is so far satisfactory, that it exhibits nothing more than a partial affection of the crop in the southern districts, and the majority of those are compensated by a good provision of corn.

In addition to these statistics, obtained from many and various sources, we have been favoured with the opinion of Mr Stephens, which we now subjoin:--

THE POTATO ROT.

"This affection I do not regard as a disease--but simply as a rottenness in the tuber, superinduced by the combination of a low temperature with excessive moisture, during the growing season of that sort of root, when it is most liable to be affected on account of its succulent texture.[39] A friend informs me that he remembers the same kind of rottenness seizing the potato crop of the country in the late and wet season of 1799; and, as a consequence, the seed potato for the following crop fetched as high a price as 26s. the boll of 5 cwt.[40] I am inclined to believe, however, that the effects of this rot are much exaggerated. It is, in the first place, said to be poisonous; and yet pigs, to my certain knowledge, have been fed on spoiled potatoes alone, on purpose, with impunity. There is little outcry made against rot in the dry soils of Perthshire and Forfarshire, and these are the two most extensive districts from which potatoes are shipped for London. There are farmers in various parts of the country who warrant the soundness of the potatoes they supply their customers. The accounts of the potato crop from the Highland districts are most favourable. I believe the fact will turn out to be this, that, like corn, the potatoes will not only be a good, but a great crop, in all the _true potato soils_--that is, in deep dry soils on a dry subsoil, whether naturally so, or made so by draining--and that in all the heavy soils, whether rich or poor, they are rotting.

A short time will put an end to all conjecture on the state of the potato crop, and afford us facts upon which we shall be able to reason and judge aright."

* * * * *

As the question of seed is always a most important one, whenever a new disease or partial affection of so staple a product is discovered, it may not be useless to note down Mr Stephens' ideas, in regard to the supposed destruction of the vegetative principle in part of the affected crop--

SEED POTATOES.

"I would feel no apprehension in employing such affected potatoes for seed, next spring, as shall be preserved till that time; because I believe it to be the case that the low temperature enfeebled the vegetative powers of the plant so much as to disable it from throwing off the large quantity of moisture that was presented to it; and I therefore conclude that any rot superinduced by such causes cannot possess a character which is hereditary. There seems no reason, therefore, why the complaint should be propagated in future, in circumstances favourable to vegetation; and this opinion is the more likely to be true, that it is not inconsistent with the idea of the disease of former years having arisen from a degenerate state of the potato plant, since low temperature and excessive moisture were more likely to affect a plant in a state of degeneracy than when its vitality remains unimpaired.

There is no doubt that this affection of the potato is general, and it is quite possible that it may yet spread. This, however, is a question which cannot yet be solved, and certainly, so far as we know, the Highlands, and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, have hitherto escaped. The portion of the crop as yet actually rendered unfit for human food, does not perhaps exceed one-fourth in parts of the country whence potatoes are exported; and could the affection be stopped from spreading further than this, there would still be a sufficiency of potatoes for the consumption of _human beings_, as the crop is acknowledged to be a large one in the best districts. Much, however, depends upon our ability to arrest the affection, or its cessation from other causes.

It is known that rotten potatoes, like rotten turnips, when left in heaps in contact with sound ones, will cause the latter to rot. Aware of this fact, farmers have, this last year, caused the potatoes in the heaps, as soon as the lifting of the crop was over, to be individually examined, and placed the sound ones in narrow, low pits, mixed with some desiccating substance, and covered with straw and earth. When the pits were opened for examination, the rot was found to have spread very much, in consequence of the dampness and heat which was so diffused throughout the pits. This is an effect that might have been anticipated. Had the precaution been used of taking up the crop in small quantities at a time, or of spreading the potatoes on the ground when the weather was fair, or in sheds when wet--and of allowing them to be exposed to the air until they had became tolerably firm and dry; and had the sound potatoes been then selected by hand, piled together, and afterwards put into smaller pits, it is probable that a much less proportion of any crop that was taken up would have been lost. Such a plan, no doubt, would have caused a protracted potato harvest, but the loss of time at that period, in performing the necessary work of selection, is a small consideration compared with an extensive injury to the crop. It is no doubt desirable to have the potato land ploughed for wheat as soon as possible after the potatoes have been removed; but there is no more urgency in ploughing potato than in ploughing turnip land for wheat; and, at any rate, it is better to delay the ploughing of the potato land for a few days, than run the risk of losing a whole crop of so excellent an esculent.

I may here mention an experiment in regard to the potato, which shows that a larger crop has been received by planting the sets in autumn than in spring. Those who have tried this system on a large scale say, that the increase is in the ratio of 111 to 80 bolls per acre. If this is near the truth, it would indicate, that the sets may safely be entrusted to lie in the ground all winter upon the dung; and could we be assured of their safety there in all cases, the potatoes of this year, selected in the manner above described, might be used as seed this winter and preserved as such, in the ground, in a safer state than even in the small pits. Such an experiment may be tried this winter, in dry weather, without much risk of losing the future crop; for if, on examination in spring, it should be found that all the sets have rotted in the drills, there would be plenty of time to replant the crop, in its proper season, with the sets that had survived till that time, by the means of preservation used.

I have heard of farmers in this neighbourhood who are planting their potato crop in this favourable weather; and it does seem very probable that, as each set is placed at a considerable distance from the other, and in circumstances to resist frost--namely, amongst plenty of dung and earth--the entire number may escape putrefaction."

* * * * *

No doubt, if the potato crop shall prove to be very generally affected, the price of corn will rise yet farther, and may be for a long time maintained. But this is a very different thing from a scarcity of that article, which we believe is merely visionary. We must be fed with corn if we cannot get the potato in its usual plenty; and it is the certainty, or rather the expectation, of this, which has raised the price of the former. In the course of last month (October) we met with an admirable article on this subject, in the columns of _Bell's Weekly Messenger_, which we do not hesitate to adopt, as clear in its views, hopeful in its tone, and strictly rational in its argument.

THE RISING PRICE OF WHEAT AND FLOUR.

"What we predicted in one of our recent papers is daily becoming realised to an extent which is now exciting general attention, and, with some classes of the people, has already produced great alarm and anxiety for the future. We stated at that time, that though the return of fine weather, about the middle of last month, had saved the harvest, and given us a crop much more than had been anticipated, still there were causes in operation which would keep up the prices of wheat and flour; and that, at least for many weeks to come wheat would not fall in the British Market.

"It should be borne in mind that the getting in of the harvest is very closely followed by the wheat seed-time, and that two causes are then always operative to maintain and raise the price of wheat. There is, first, a large call on the stock in hand for seed wheat; and, secondly, the farmers are too busy to carry their corn into market, and accordingly the market is ill supplied. A third cause is also in operation to produce the same effect--that of an unreasonable alarm always resulting from an ill-supplied market.

"It would seem astonishing and even incredible to men who argue only theoretically, that though year after year the same uniform causes operate, and produce exactly the same effects, yet that this aspect of the market should continue to delude and mislead the public mind, but so it is in the corn-market, and with the British public in general; for though they see through a long succession of years that wheat and flour invariably rise in the market immediately after harvest and during seed-time, and though they ought to understand that this rise is produced by the quantity required for seed, and by the busy occupation of the farmers, they still perversely attribute it to another cause, existing only in their own apprehensions, namely, that the recent harvest has been deficient, and that the market is ill supplied because there is an insufficient stock with which to supply it.

"As it is the inflexible rule of our paper to apply itself on the instant to correct all popular errors and to dissipate all unreasonable panics, we feel ourselves called upon to say, that the present rise in the price of corn results only from the very serious failure of the potato crop in many of our own counties, and still more materially in Belgium and other foreign kingdoms. From the mere circumstance of their numbers only, to say nothing of their habits and necessities, an immense quantity of this food is required for the sustenance of many millions of the community; and when the crop fails to such an extensive degree as it has done in the present case, this vast numerical proportion of every state must necessarily be chiefly maintained from the stock of corn. If the potato crop fail at home, the poor are directly thrown upon the corn-market, and the price of corn must necessarily rise in proportion to the increased demand. Where the potato crop has failed abroad, the supply of foreign corn must necessarily be directed to that quarter, and therefore less corn will be imported into the British market.

"Now, it is the expectation of this result, which, together with the wheat seed-time and the full occupation of the farmers, is producing the present rise in the British corn-market, and these causes will probably continue to operate for some time longer.

"In some parts of the country, such as our northern and eastern counties, we understand the current judgment to be, that though the harvest has produced more bushels than in an average year, the weight per bushel is less than last year, and that the deficiency of the quality brings the produce down in such districts to less than an average crop. But if we set against this the happier result of the wheat harvest in our southern and western counties, we must still retain our former opinion, that there is at least no present ground for any thing like a panic, either amongst the public in general or amongst the farmers themselves. The public as yet have no cause to dread any thing like that very serious scarcity which some of our papers have announced, and the farmers themselves have no cause to apprehend such a sudden and extraordinary state of the market, as would involve them in the general suffering of the community."

We shall now close our remarks on the subject of the Scottish Harvest. In thus limiting our remarks to the harvest in Scotland, we have been actuated by no narrow spirit of nationality, but have judged it right, in treating a subject of such importance, to confine ourselves to that portion of the United Kingdom in which we possessed means of obtaining information which positively could be relied upon. Indeed, were it not for the paramount importance of the question, which will soon be founded on as a topic for political discussion, we should hardly have addressed ourselves to the task. But we have noticed, with great disgust, the efforts of the League to influence, at this particular crisis, the public mind, by gross misrepresentations of our position and prospects; and, being convinced that a more dangerous and designing faction never yet thrust themselves into public notice, we have thought it right, in the first instance, to collect and to classify our facts. This done, we have yet a word or two in store for the members of the mountebank coalition.

No evil is unmixed with good. The murmurs of the alarmists at home, unfounded as we believe them to be, have brought out, more clearly than we could have hoped for, the state of foreign feeling with regard to British enterprise, and the prospects of future supply upon which this country must depend, should the sliding-scale be abrogated and all import duties abolished. The most infatuated Leaguer will hardly deny, that if the corn-law had ceased to exist three years ago, and a great part of our poorer soils had in consequence been removed from tillage, our present position with regard to food must have been infinitely worse. In fact, we should then have presented the unhappy spectacle of a great industrial community incapable of rearing food for its population at home, and solely dependent for a supply on foreign states; and that, too, in a year when the harvests throughout Europe, and even in America, have suffered. And here, by the way, before going further, let us remark, that the advocates of the League never seem to have contemplated, at all events they have never grappled with, the notorious fact, that the effects of most unpropitious seasons are felt far beyond the confines of the British isles. This year, indeed, we were the last to suffer; and the memory of the youngest of us, who has attained the age of reason, will furnish him with examples of far severer seasons than that which has just gone by. What, then, is to be done, should the proportion of the land in tillage be reduced below the mark which, in an average year, could supply our population with food--if, at the same time, a famine were to occur abroad, and deprive the continental agriculturists of their surplus store of corn? The answer is a short one--_Our people must necessarily_ STARVE. The manufacturers would be the first to feel the appalling misery of their situation, and the men whom they would have to thank for the severest and most lingering death, are the chosen apostles of the League!

Is this an overdrawn picture? Let us see. France at this moment is convinced that we are on the verge of a state of famine. Almost all the French journalists, believing what they probably wish for, and misled by the repealing howl, and faint-hearted predictions of the coward, assume that our home stock of provision is not sufficient to last us for the ensuing winter. That is just the situation to which we should be reduced _every_ year, if Messrs Cobden, Bright, and Company had their will. What, then, says our neighbour, and now most magnanimous ally? Is he willing--for they allege they have a superfluity--to supply us in this time of hypothetical distress--to act the part of the good Samaritan, and pour, not wine and oil, but corn into our wounds? Is he about to take the noblest revenge upon a former adversary, by showing himself, in the moment of need, a benefactor instead of a foe? Oh, my Lord Ashley! you and others, whose spirit is more timid than becomes your blood, had better look, ere you give up the mainstay of your country's prosperity--ere you surrender the cause of the agriculturist--to the _animus_ that is now manifested abroad. We have reason to bless Heaven that it has been thus early shown, before, by mean and miserable concession to the clamours of a selfish interest, we have placed Britain for the first time absolutely at the mercy of a foreign power. Scarce a journal in France that does not tell you--loudly--boldly--exultingly--what treatment we may expect from their hands. "At last," they say, "we have got this perfidious Albion in our power. Nature has done for us, in her cycle, what for centuries the force of our arms and concentrated rancour could not achieve. The English newspapers in every column teem with the tidings of failure. The crop of corn is bad beyond any former experience. It cannot suffice to feed one half of the population. The potato crop also, which is the sole subsistence of Ireland, is thoroughly ruined. Scarce a minute fraction of it can be used for the purposes of human food. The British Cabinet are earnestly deliberating on the propriety of opening the ports. The public, almost to a man, are demanding the adoption of that measure--and doubtless erelong they will be opened.

"What, then, are we to do? Are we to be guilty of the egregious folly of supplying our huge and overgrown rival, at the moment when we have the opportunity to strike a blow at the very centre of her system, and that without having recourse to the slightest belligerent measures? Are we, at the commencement of her impending misery, to reciprocate with England--that England which arrested us in the midst of our career of conquest, swept our navies from the seas, baffled our bravest armies, and led away our Emperor captive? The man who can entertain such an idea--be he who he may--is a traitor to the honour of his country. Let England open her ports if she will, and as she must, but let us at the self-same moment be prepared to CLOSE our own. Let not one grain of corn, if possible, be exported from France. We have plenty, and to spare. Our hardy peasantry can pass the winter in comfort; whilst, on the opposite side of the Channel, we shall have the satisfaction of beholding our haughty enemy convulsed, and wallowing like a stranded Leviathan on the shore! We pity the brave Irish, but we shall not help them. To do so would be, in fact, to exonerate Britain of her greatest and primary burden."

This is the language which the French journalists are using at the present moment. Let no Englishman delude himself into the belief that it does not express the true sentiments of the nation. We know something of the men whose vocation it is to compound these patriotic articles. They are fostered under the pernicious system which converts the penny-a-liner into that anomalous hybrid, a Peer of France--which make it almost a necessary qualification to become a statesman, that the aspirant has been a successful scribbler in the public journals. And this, forsooth, they call the genuine aristocracy of talent! Their whole aim is to be popular, even at the expense of truth. They are pandars to the weakness of a nation for their own individual advancement. They have no stake in the country save the grey goose-quill they dishonour; and yet they affect to lead the opinions of the people, and--to the discredit of the French intellect be it recorded--they do in a great measure lead them. In short, it is a ruffian press, and we know well by what means France has been ruffianized. The war party--as it calls itself--is strong, and has been reared up by the unremitting exertions of these felons of society, who, for the sake of a cheer to tickle their own despicable vanity, would not hesitate for a moment, if they had the power, to wrap Europe again in the flames of universal war. Such will, doubtless, one day be the result of this unbridled license. The demon is not yet exorcised from France, and the horrors of the Revolution may be acted over again, with such additional refinements of brutality as foregone experience shall suggest. Meantime, we say to our own domestic shrinkers--Is this a season, when such a spirit is abroad, to make ourselves dependent for subsistence--which is life--upon the chance of a foreign supply?

Yes, gentlemen journalists of France--whether you be peers or not--you have spoken out a little too early. The blindest of us now can see you in your genuine character and colours. But rest satisfied; the day of retribution, as you impiously dare to term it, has not yet arrived. Britain does not want your corn, and not for it will she abandon an iota of her system.

There can be no doubt, that the news of a famine here would be received in France with more joy than the tidings of a second Marengo. The mere expectation of it has already intoxicated the press; and, accordingly, they have begun to speculate upon the probable conduct of other foreign powers, in the event of our ports being opened. Belgium, they are delighted to find, is in so bad a situation, in so far as regards its crop, that the august King Leopold has thought proper to issue a public declaration, that his own royal mouth shall for the next year remain innocent of the flavour of a single potato. This looks well. Belgium, it is hoped, is not overabundant in wheat; but, even if she were, Belgium owes much to France, and--a meaning asterisk covers and conveys the remaining part of the inuendo. Swampy Holland, they say, can do Britain no good--nay, have not the cautious Dutch been beforehand with Britain, and forestalled, by previous purchase, the calculated supply of rice? Well done, Batavian merchant! In this instance, at least, you are playing the game for France.

Then they have high hopes from the ZOLLVEREIN. That combination has evidently to dread the rivalry of British manufacture, and its managers are too shrewd to lose this glorious opportunity of barricado. There are, therefore, hopes that Germany, utterly forgetting the days of subsidies, will shut her ports for export, and also prevent the descent of Polish corn. If not, winter is near at hand, and the mouths of the rivers may be frozen before a supply can be sent to the starving British. Another delightful prospect for young and regenerated France!

Also, mysterious rumours are afloat with regard to the policy of the Autocrat. It is said, he too is going to shut up--whether from hatred to Britain, or paternal anxiety for the welfare of his subjects, does not appear. Yet there is not a Parisian scribe of them all but derives his information direct from the secret cabinet of Nicholas. Then there is America--have we not rumours of war there? How much depends upon the result of the speech which President Polk shall deliver! _He_ knows well by this time that England is threatened with famine--and will he be fool enough to submit to a compromise, when by simple embargo he might enforce his country's claims? So that altogether, in the opinion of the French, we are like to have the worst of it, and may be sheerly starved into any kind of submission.

No thanks to Cobden and Co. that this is not our case at present. The abolition of the corn-duty would be immediately followed by the abandonment of a large part of the soil now under tillage. Every year we should learn to depend more and more upon foreign supply, and give up a further portion of our own agricultural toil. Place us in that position, and let a bad season, which shall affect not only us, but the Continent, come round, and the dreams of France will be realized. Gentlemen of England--you that are wavering from your former faith--will you refuse the lesson afforded you, by this premature exultation on the part of our dangerous neighbour? Do you not see what weight France evidently attaches to the repeal of our protection duties--how anxiously she is watching--how earnestly she is praying for it? If you will not believe your friends, will you not take warning from an enemy? Would you hold it chivalry, if you saw an antagonist before you armed at all points, and confident of further assistance, to throw away your defensive armour, and leave yourselves exposed to his attacks? And yet, is not this precisely what will be done if you abandon the principles of protection?

Are you afraid of that word, PROTECTION? Shame upon you, if you are! No doubt it has been most scandalously misrepresented by the cotton-mongering orators, but it is a great word, and a wise word, if truly and thoroughly understood. It does not mean that corn shall be grown in this country for _your_ benefit or that of any exclusive class--were it so, protection would be a wrong--but it means, that at all times there shall be maintained in the country an amount of food, reared within itself, sufficient for the sustenance of the nation, in case that war, or some other external cause, should shut up all other sources. And this, which is in fact protection for the nation--a just and wise security against famine, in which the poor and the rich are equally interested--is perverted by the chimney-stalk proprietors into a positive national grievance. Why, the question lies in a nutshell. Corn will not be grown in this country unless you give it an adequate market. Admit foreign corn, and you not only put a stop to agricultural improvement in reclaiming waste land, by means of which production may be carried to an indefinite degree, but you also throw a vast quantity of the land at present productive out of bearing. Suppose, then, that next year, all protection being abolished, the quantity of grain raised in the country is but equal to half the demand of the population; foreign corn, of course, must come in to supply the deficiency. We shall not enlarge upon the first argument which must occur to every thinking person--the argument being, that in such a state of things, the foreigner, whoever he may be, with whom we are dealing, has it in his power to demand and exact any price he pleases for his corn. What say the Cobdenites in answer to this? "Oh, then, we shall charge the foreigner a corresponding price for our cottons and our calicoes!" No, gentlemen--that will not do. We have no doubt this idea _has_ entered into your calculations, and that you hope, through a scarcity of home-grown corn, to realize an augmented profit on your produce--in short, to be the only gainers in a time of general distress. But there is a flaw in your reasoning, too palpable to be overlooked. The foreigner _can do without calico_, but the British nation CANNOT _do without bread_. The wants of the stomach are paramount--nothing can enter into competition with them. The German, Pole, or Frenchman, may, for a season, wear a ragged coat, or an inferior shirt, or even dispense with the latter garment, if it so pleases him; and yet suffer comparatively nothing. But what are our population to do, if bread is not procurable except at the enormous prices which, when you abolish protection, you entitle the foreigner to charge? Have you the heart to respond, in the only imaginable answer--it is a mere monosyllable--STARVE?

But suppose that, for the first two years or so, we went on swimmingly--that there were good and plentiful seasons abroad, and that corn flowed into our market abundantly from all quarters of the world. Suppose that bread became cheaper than we ever knew it before, that our manufactures were readily and greedily taken, and that we had realised the manufacturing Eden, which the disciples of Devil's-dust have predicted, as the immediate consequence of our abandoning all manner of restrictions. How will this state of unbounded prosperity affect the land? For every five shillings of fall in the price of the quarter of wheat, fresh districts will be abandoned by the plough. The farmer will be unable to work them at a profit, and so he will cease to grow grain. He may put steers upon them; or they may be covered with little fancy villas, or Owenite parallelograms, to suit the taste of the modern philosopher, and accomodate the additional population who are to assist in the prospective crops of calico. The cheaper corn then is, the smaller will become our home-producing surface. The chaw-bacon will be driven to the railroads, where there is already a tolerable demand for him. The flail will be silent in the barn, and the song of the reaper in the fields.

Let us suppose this to last for a few years, during which Lord John Russell--the Whigs having, in the meantime, got rid of all graduating scruples and come back to power--has taken an opportunity of enriching the peerage by elevating the redoubted Cobden to its ranks. But a change suddenly passes across the spirit of our dream. At once, and like a thunderbolt--without warning or presage--comes a famine or a war. We care not which of them is taken as an illustration. Both are calamities, unfortunately, well known in this country; and we hardly can expect that many years shall pass over our heads without the occurrence of one or other of them. Let us take the evil of man's creating--war. The Channel is filled with French shipping, and all along the coast, from Cape Ushant to Elsinore, the ports are rigidly shut. Mean time American cruisers are scouring the Atlantic, chasing our merchantmen, and embarassing communication with the colonies. Also, there is war in the Mediterranean. We have fifty, nay, a hundred points to watch with our vessels--a hundred isolated interests to maintain, and these demand an immense and yet a divided force. Convoys cannot be spared without loss of territory, and then--what becomes of us at home?

Most miserable is the prospect; and yet it does appear, if we are mad enough to abandon protection, perfectly inevitable. With but a portion of our land in tillage--an augmented population--no stored corn--no means of recalling for two years at the soonest, even if we could spare seed, and that is questionable, the dormant energies of the earth!--Can you fancy, my Lord Ashley, or you, converted Mr Escott, what Britain would be then? We will tell you. Not perhaps a prey--for we will not even imagine such degradation--but a bargainer and compounder with an inferior power or powers, whom she might have bearded for centuries with impunity, had not some selfish traitors been wicked enough to demand, and some infatuated statesmen foolish enough to grant, the abrogation of that protection which is her sole security for pre-eminence. What are all the cotton bales of Manchester in comparison with such considerations as these? O Devil's-dust--Devil's-dust! Have we really declined so far, that _you_ are to be the Sinon to bring us to this sorry pass? Is the poisoned breath of the casuist to destroy the prosperity of those--

"Quos neque Tydides, nec Larissaeus Achilles, Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinae!"

It may be so--for a small shard-beetle can upset a massive candle-stick; and it will be so assuredly, if the protective principle is abandoned. The first duty of a nation is to rear food for its inhabitants from the bosom of its own soil, and woe must follow if it relies for daily sustenance upon another. We can now form a fair estimate of the probable continuance of the supply, from the premature exultation exhibited in the foreign journals, and we shall be worse than fools if we do not avail ourselves of the lesson.

[Footnote 39: "Not that I think there was more rain in the _earlier part of summer_ than the potato crop could absorb, for it is known to require a large supply of moisture in its growing state, in order to acquire a full development of all its parts. It was observable, however, that the rain increased as the season advanced, and after the potato plant had reached its full development. It is, therefore, probable that the increased moisture, which was not then wanted by the plant, would become excessive; and this moisture, along with the low temperature, may have produced such chemical change in the sap as to facilitate the putrefaction of the entire plant. As to the theories with respect to the presence of a fungus, or of insects, in the plant, I consider these as a mere exponent of the tendency to a state of putrefaction; such being the usual accompaniments of all vegetable and animal decay."]

[Footnote 40: "I remember the wet seasons of 1816 and 1817. There was then no rot in the potato; but, during the whole of those rainy seasons, we had not the _continued cold_ weather which we have this year experienced."]

INDEX TO VOL. LVIII.

Account of a Visit to the Volcano of Kirauea, in the Island of Owhyhee, 591.

Agriculture round Lucca, 619.

Alas, for her! from the Russian of Pushkin, 141.

Alpine scenery, sketches of, 704.

American war, causes which fostered the, 721.

Andes, description of the, 555.

Andre Chenier, from the Russian of Pushkin, 154.

Anti-corn-law League, strictures on the, 780.

Apparitions, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.

Armfelt, Count, 59.

Arndt, notices of, 332, 333.

Art, causes of the absence of taste for, 414.

Avernus, lake, 489.

Bacon, political essays of, 389.

Baiae, 488.

Barclay de Tolly, from the Russian of Pushkin, 40.

Baron von Stein, 328.

Barri, Madame du, 730, 733.

Bazars of Constantinople, the, 688.

Beaumont, Sir George, 258, 262.

Bell's Messenger, extract from, on the prices of grain, 779.

Betterton's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.

Bettina, sketch of the life, &c., of, 357.

Biographical sketch of Frank Abney Hastings, 496.

Black Shawl, the, from Pushkin, 37.

Blanc, Mont, on the scenery of, 707.

Blenheim, battle of, 18.

Boas, Edward, sketches of Sweden, &c. by, 56.

Bossuet's Universal History, characteristics of, 390.

Bottetort, Lord, anecdote of, 724.

Bowles, W. L., on the Dunciad, 251.

Boyhood, a reminiscence of, by Delta, 408.

Brabant, conquest of, by Marlborough, 665.

Bread, causes of the present dearness of, 772.

Bremer, Miss, the Swedish novelist, 62.

Brentford election, the, 725.

Brienz, scenery of the lake of, 705.

British critics, North's specimens of the, --No. VI.--Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114. --No. VI.--MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229. --No. VIII.--Supplement to the same, 366.

Bulwer's Last of the Barons, remarks on, 350, 353.

Burtin on Pictures, review of, 413.

Capital punishment, on, 131.

Carlist war, sketches of the, 210.

Caserta, palace of, 491. --silk manufactory, 492.

Caucasus, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 34.

Celibacy of the clergy, effects of the, in France, 187.

Chamouni, valley of, 707.

Chatham, Lord, 717.

Chaucer, Dryden on, 114.

Chimborazo, ascent of, by Humboldt, 547.

Choiseul, the Duc de, 730, 732.

Churchill, critique on, 372.

Churchill, see Marlborough.

Clairvoyance, remarks on, 736.

Clarke, Dr, extracts from, 555.

Clarke's Life of James II., notice of, 4.

Cloud, the, and the Mountain, a reminiscence of Switzerland, 704.

Clytha house, &c., 477.

Col de Balme, pass of the, 707.

Colebrook, Sir George, extracts from the memoirs of, 716, 719.

Colour in painting, remarks on, 419.

Confessions of an English opium-eater, sequel to the, Part II., 43.

Constable the painter, sketch of the life, &c., of, 257.

Constantinople, Three Years in, 688.

Convicts at Norfolk Island, management, &c. of, 138.

Cooper, characteristics of, as a novelist, 355.

Copenhagen, description of, 68.

Corali, by J. D., 495.

Corn-laws, proposed suspension of the, 773. --effects of the abolition of, 780.

Cornwallis, Earl, administration of Ireland by, 731.

Corporations of Constantinople, the, 696.

Corsica, conquest of, by the French, 728.

Coventry, Lady, 726.

Coxe's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.

Dalarna or Dalecarlia, sketches of, 64.

D'Alembert, character of Montesquieu by, 395.

Dalin, Olof von, 62.

Danes, national character of the, 69.

David the Telynwr; or, the Daughter's trial--a tale of Wales, by Joseph Downs, 96.

Days of the Fronde, the, 596.

Dearness of bread, causes of the present, 772.

De Burtin on pictures, 413.

Delta, a reminiscence of boyhood by, 408.

Dendermonde, capture of, by Marlborough, 668.

Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough, review of, --No. I. 1. --No. II. 649.

Domestic manners of the Turks, the, 688.

Downes, Joseph--David the Telynwr, a tale of Wales, by, 96.

Drama, state of the, 178.

Dreams, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.

Drinking, prevalence of, in the 19th century, 726.

Dryden on Chaucer, 114. --his MacFlecnoe, 232, 366.

Dumas' Margaret of Valois, extracts from, 312. --extracts from his Days of the Fronde, 596.

Dunciad, the, critique on, 234, 366.

Dunning the solicitor-general, character of, 722.

Dutch school of painting, the, 426.

Dutem's life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.

Echo, from the Russian of Pushkin, 145.

Education, state of, in Turkey, 692. --remarks on the system of, at the English Universities, 542.

Edward, Duke of York, character of, 719.

Egyptian market at Constantinople, the, 700.

English landscape painting, on, 257.

English Opium-eater, a sequel to the confessions of the, Part II. 43.

Epitaphs in Wales, 484.

Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, the, 392. --its characteristics, 397.

Eugene, Prince, 14, 669.

Eusebius, letter to, on omens, dreams, appearances, &c., 735.

Failure of the potato crop, extent, &c. of the, 775.

Feast of Peter the First, the, from Pushkin, 142.

Fersen, Count, murder of, 61.

Few passages concerning omens, dreams, appearances, &c., in a letter to Eusebius, 735.

Few words for Bettina, a, 357.

Fisher, Archdeacon, 260.

Flemish school of painting, the, 426.

Flour, on the rising price of, 779.

Flygare, Emily, the Swedish novelist, 62.

France under Louis XIV., 12. --prevalent feeling in, towards England, 781.

French school of painting, the, 427. --Noblesse, character of the, 733.

Garden of the Villa Reale, the, 486.

General, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 41.

German school of painting, the, 427.

Gleig's life of Marlborough, notice of, 4.

Glenmutchkin railway, the --How we got it up, and how we got out of it, 453.

Gloucester the Duke of, character of, 719.

Goethe and Bettina, the correspondence of, 358.

Goethe's Torquato Tasso, translations from, 87.

Gotha canal, the, 68.

Grafton, the Duke of, Walpole's character of, 718.

Grain crop, quantity, &c., of the, in Scotland, 769. --and its quality, 770.

Grandeur et decadence des Romains, Montesquieu's, characteristics, &c. of, 391, 401.

Grand general junction and indefinite extension railway rhapsody, 614.

Greek Revolution, sketches of the, 496.

Griesbach, fall of the, 707.

Guamos of South America, the, 554.

Guilds of Constantinople, the, 696.

Gunning, the Misses, 726.

Gustavus Vasa, notices of, 66.

Hahn-Hahn, the Countess, 71.

Hakem the slave, a tale extracted from the history of Poland. --Chapter I., 560. --Chap. II., 561. --Chap. III., 563. --Chap. IV., 565. --Chap. V., 567.

Hamilton, the Duchess of, 726.

Handel, character of the music of, 573.

Harvest, the Scottish, 769. --quantity of the grain crop, ib. --and its quality, 770. --cause of the inferiority of the wheat, 771. --and of the dearness of bread, 772. --state of the potato crop, 775. --potatoes for seed, 778. --rising price of wheat and flour, 780. --affords no argument for abolition of the corn-laws, 781.

Hastings, Frank Abney, biographical sketch of, 496.

Haydn, character of, 573.

Heber, Bishop, description of the Himalayas by, 557.

Hemp, culture of, in Italy, 620.

Hints for doctors, 630.

Historical romance, the, 341.

Hogarth, Churchill's epistle to, criticised, 377.

Holme's Life of Mozart, review of, 572.

Horace Leicester, a sketch, 197.

Hornes' Chaucer Modernized, remarks on, 115.

House-hunting in Wales, 74. --a sequel to, 474.

How we got up the Glenmutchkin railway, and how we got out of it, 453.

Humboldt, 541. --character of his mind, 545. --his early life, 546. --sketch of his travels, 547. --list of his works, 548. --extracts from these, 549.

I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, from Pushkin, 149.

Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn, 71.

Imprisonment as a punishment, 131.

Improvisatore, the, 626.

Inferior quality of wheat, cause of the, 771.

Insects common at Lucca, 623.

Italian school of painting, the, 425.

Italy, sketches of Lucca, 617. --agriculture round Lucca, 619. --sagena, 620. --lupins, ib. --hemp, ib. --trees, 622. --oaks, ib. --insects, 623. --ants, 624. --shooting fish, 625. --owls, 626. --the improvisatore, ib. --tables-d'hotes, Mr Snapley, 628. --hints for doctors, 630. --private music-party, 631.

J. D., a meditation by, 494. --on the old year, 495. --Corali, ib. --a mother to her deserted child, 752. --summer noontide, ib. --to Clara, 753. --seclusion, ib.

James II., notices of, 7.

James's Philip Augustus, remarks on, 353.

Jesuitism in France, 185. --sources of its power, 186.

Jones, Sir William, character of Dunning, by, 723.

Johnson on the Dunciad, 236.

Kames, Lord, on the Dunciad, 253.

Kavanagh's Science of Languages, review of, 467.

Kirauca, account of a visit to the volcano of, 591.

Knorring, the Baroness, 62.

Land, tenure of, in Turkey, 693.

Landscape painting in England, 257.

Languages, Kavanagh's Science of, reviewed, 467.

Last hours of a reign, a tale in two parts. --Part I., Chapter 1, 754. --Chapter 2, 761.

Law, administration of, in Turkey, 699.

Law studies, Warren's Introduction to, reviewed, 300.

Lay of Starkather, the, 571.

Lay of the wise Oleg, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 146.

Ledyard's Life of Marlborough, notice of, 3.

Leman, lake, scenery of, 706.

Leslie's Life of John Constable, review of, 257.

Letter from London, by a railway witness, 173.

Letter to Eusebius, on omens, dreams, appearances, &c., 735.

Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu, the, 391.

Libraries at Constantinople, the, 690.

Lipscomb's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 114.

Llanos of South America, the, 551.

Llansaintfraed lodge and church, 476.

Llantony abbey, 485.

Llanvair Kilgiden church, &c., 483.

London, letter from, by a railway witness, 173.

Louis XIV., notices of, 6, 12.

Louis XV., character, &c., of, 714, 730, 733.

Lowell, J. Russell, remarks on his strictures on Pope, 368.

Lucca, sketches of; 617. --agriculture round, 619.

Lucrine lake, the, 489.

Lupins, culture of, in Italy, 620.

MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229. --a supplement to, 366.

Machiavel as a historian, 389.

Maconochie, Captain, on the management of transported criminals, review of, 129.

Madonna, the, from Pushkin, 152.

Maeler, lake, 58.

Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266.

Mahon's England, remarks on, 2.

Manner and Matter, a tale, Chapter I., 431. --Chapter II., 435.

Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, remarks on, 356.

Margaret of Valois, from the French of Dumas, 312.

Marlborough, No. I, 1. --Various lives of him, 3. --His parentage and early career, 5. --Is created Lord Churchill, 7. --His conduct at the Revolution, 8. --Further honours conferred on him, 9. --His disgrace in 1691, and mystery attending it, ib. --Is restored to favour, 10. --Appointed commander in the Netherlands, 11. --His first successes, 14. --Defeats the French at Blenheim, 19. --His subsequent campaign, and causes which thwarted his success, 27. No. II., 649. --Plans for the campaign of 1705, 650. --Marches into Flanders, 652. --Defeats Villeroi, 653. --Thwarted by the inactivity of the Dutch, 654. --Victory of Ramilies, 661. --Subsequent operations, 664.

Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman.--Part XVIII., 157. --Part XIX., 272. --Part XX. and last, 439.

Meditation, a, by J. D., 494.

Memoirs of a Statesman. _See_ Marston.

Menin, siege and capture of, by Marlborough, 667.

Mesmerism, remarks on, 736.

Metternich, Stein's opinion of, 337.

Michelet's Priests, Women, and Families, review of, 185.

Mob, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 36.

Modern novels, characteristics of, 342.

Monmouthshire, scrambles in, 474.

Mont Blanc, scenery of, 707.

Montesquieu, 389. --Compared with Tacitus, Machiavel, and Bacon, ib. --Sketch of his early life, 390. --Publication and character of his Lettres Persanes, 391. --Of the Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, ib. --And of the Esprit des Loix, and the defence of it, 392, 393. --His private life and character, and anecdotes of him, 394. --His death, 395. --Unpublished papers left by him, 396. --Characteristics of his works, and extracts from them, 397. --Causes which led to their comparative neglect, 398.

More, Hannah, anecdotes of, 723.

Mother, a, to her deserted child, by J. D., 752.

Motion, from the Russian of Pushkin, 149.

Mountain and the Cloud, the; a Reminiscence of Switzerland, 704.

Mozart, 573. --Sketches of his life, 575. --Extracts from his letters, &c., 578. --Characteristics of his music, 590.

Murillo as a painter, 420.

Murray, Sir George, the Marlborough Despatches edited by, reviewed --No. I., 1. --No. II., 649.

My college friends, No. II.--Horace Leicester, 197.

Nantiglo ironworks, 485.

Naples, see Neapolitan.

Napoleon, from the Russian of Pushkin, 39.

National gallery, want of a, in Great Britain, 413.

Natural history, Waterton's essays on, second series, reviewed, 289.

Neapolitan sketches.--garden of the Villa Reale, 486. --Servi de Pena, ib. --San Carlo, 487. --Pozzuoli, 488. --Baiae, ib. --Lucrine and Avernus lakes, 489. --Procida, 490. --palace of Caserta, 491. --silk manufactory, 492. --The snake-tamer, 490.

Newcastle, Duke of, character of, 730.

Norfolk Island, management of convicts at, 138.

North's specimens of the British critics. --No. VI. Supplement to Dryden on Chaucer, 114. --No. VII. MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad, 229. --No. VIII. Supplement to the same, 366.

Northern lights, 56.

Nyberg, Fru, a Swedish poetess, 57.

Oaks in Italy, 622.

Oberland, scenery of the, 707, 710.

Oleg, lay of, from Pushkin, 146.

Omens, &c., letter to Eusebius on, 735.

On the Old Year, by J. D., 495.

Opening the ports, on the, 773.

Opium-eater, sequel to the Confessions of an, part II., 43.

Orinoco, description of the rapids of the, 550.

Oscar, crown-prince of Sweden, 59.

Ostend, capture of by Marlborough, 666.

Overkirk, General, notices of, 653, 654, 656, 662, 664.

Owls in Italy, 626.

Painting and pictures, remarks on, 413. --characteristics of the various schools of, 424.

Palace of Caserta, the, 491.

Pampas of South America, the, 550.

Paoli, the Corsican patriot, 731.

Phipps, Mr, character, &c., of, 727.

Pictures, De Burtin on, 413. --choice of subjects for, 417. --colouring, &c., ib.

Poetry --Specimens of the lyrics of Pushkin, translated by T. B. Shaw. --No. I., 28. --No. II., 140. --Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by B. Simmons, 266. --A reminiscence of boyhood, by Delta, 408. --A meditation, by J. D., 494. --On the old year, by the same, 495. --Corali, by the same, ib. --The lay of Starkather, 571. --The Grand General Junction and Indefinite Extension Railway rhapsody, 614. --The second Pandora, 711. --A mother to her deserted child, by J. D., 752. --Summer noontide, ib. --to Clara, 753. --seclusion, ib.

Pompadour, Madame de, 732.

Pope's version of Chaucer, remarks on, 119. --Dunciad, remarks on, 234. --Strictures on Lowell's criticism of him, 368.

Potato crop, state of the, throughout Scotland, 776. --saving of them for seed, 780.

Pozzuoli, 488.

Presentiment, from the Russian of Pushkin, 152.

Priests, Women, and Families, review of Michelet's work on, 185.

Printing establishments in Constantinople, 691.

Private music-party, a, 631.

Prophecy of Famine, Churchill's, remarks on, 380.

Procida, 490.

Punishment, remarks on, 129. --its objects, ib. --various modes of, 131. --on capital, and a proposed substitute for it, ib.

Pushkin, the Russian poet. No. II. Specimen of his lyrics, translated by T. B. Shaw. Introductory remarks, 28. --October 19th, 1825, 31. --The Caucasus, 34. --To * * *, 35. --The mob, 36. --The black shawl, 37. --The rose, 38. --Napoleon, 39. --The storm, 40. --The general, 41. --No. III. Introduction, 140. --Alas, for her! 141. --The feast of Peter the First, 142. --Town of starving, town of splendour, 143. --To the sea, 144. --Echo, 145. --The lay of the wise Oleg, 146. --Remembrance, 149. --I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, ib. --Motion, ib. --To the slanderers of Russia, 150. --Presentiment, 152. --The Madonna, ib. --Andre Chenier, 154.

Quietists, effects of the doctrines of the, in France, 190.

Raffaele's Transfiguration, remarks on, 418. --his St Cecilia, 422.

Ragland Castle, description of, 476.

Railway rhapsody, the grand general junction and indefinite extension, 614.

Railway witness in London, letter from a, 173.

Railways and railway speculation, on, 633.

Ramilies, battle of, 661.

Reformation by punishment, on, 129.

Reign of George III., Walpole's memoirs of the, 713.

Religion, state of, during the eighteenth century, 714.

Remembrance, from the Russian of Pushkin, 149.

Reminiscence of boyhood, a, by Delta, 409.

Reminiscence of Switzerland, a, 704.

Reviews. --Despatches of the Duke of Marlborough. No. I., 1. --No. II., 649. --Maconochie and Zschokke on punishment and reformation of criminals, 129. --Michelet's priests, women, and families, 185. --Leslie's life of Constable, the painter, 257. --Waterton's essays on natural history, second series, 289. --Warren's introduction to law studies, 300. --Kavanagh's science of languages, 467. --Holmes' life of Mozart, 572. --White's three years in Constantinople, 688. --Walpole's memoirs of the reign of George III., 713.

Richelieu, Marshal, 730.

Ritterhaus at Stockholm, the, 59.

Romance, the historical, 341.

Rose, the, from the Russian of Pushkin, 38.

Russia, to the slanderers of, from Pushkin, 150.

Sagena, culture of, at Lucca, 620.

Saltza, Count, 68.

San Carlo, 487.

Sandwich, Lord, anecdote of, 724.

Schools of painting, characteristics of the, 424.

Science of languages, Kavanagh's, review of, 467.

Scott's historical romances, remarks on, 345.

Scottish harvest, the, 769. --quantity and quality of the grain crop, ib., 770. --cause of the inferior quality of the wheat, 771. --and of the high price of bread, 772. --state of the potato crop, 775.

Scrambles in Monmouthshire, a sequel to house-hunting in Wales, 474.

Sea, to the, from Pushkin, 144.

Secker, Archbishop, character of, 728.

Seclusion, by J. D., 752.

Second Pandora, the, 711.

Seed potatoes, saving of, 778.

Servi de Pena, 486.

Shaw, T. B., specimens of the lyrics of Pushkin, by, 28, 140.

Shooting fish in Italy, 625.

Silk manufactory of Caserta, the, 492.

Simmons, B., Mahmood the Ghaznavide, by, 266.

Sketches of Italy. Lucca, 617. --agriculture round Lucca, 619. --sagena, 620. --lupines, ib. --hemp, ib. --trees and oaks, 622. --insects, 623. --ants, 624. --shooting fish, 625. --owls, 626. --the improvisatore, ib. --tables-d'hotes--Mr Snapley, 628. --hints for doctors, 630. --private music-party, 631.

Smith, Sydney, on modern sermons, 714.

Smollet's England, remarks on, 2.

Snake-tamer, the, 493.

Snapley, Mr, 628.

Solitary imprisonment, effects of, 139.

Stampe, the Countess, 69.

Starkather, the lay of, 571.

Staubbach, fall of the, 706.

Stein, the Baron von, career of, 328.

Stephens, Mr, letters from, on the results of the harvest, 769.

Stockholm, description of, 59.

Storm, the, from Pushkin, 40.

Stralsund, sketch of, 56.

Struensee, Count, 729.

Student of Salamanca, the. Part I., 521.